Showing results by publisher "Orion Publishing Group" in All Categories

Podgy Bottom is in trouble. All over town cars are being shrunk to the size of a matchbox in the blink of an eye; a giant purple bunny rabbit is running riot and a strange-looking broomstick is causing chaos and calamity.... Sounds like a case for Wings & Co, the famous fairy detective agency! Can Emily, Budget, and Fidget put a stop to this magical mischief before it's too late?

February, 1926. The city of London is tense in the days leading up to The General Strike. Evelyn Gifford, (protagonist of The Crimson Rooms) has now qualified as a solicitor - and is one of the first women to do so - but her life remains full of conflict. Embroiled in two new cases, Evelyn finds herself encountering both sides of the strike.

The brightest mind meets the darkest killer...1887. When James Murray, a young Scottish doctor fascinated by the workings of the criminal mind, travels to the vibrant city of Turin, it is to study with Cesare Lombroso, the world-renowned criminologist. But just hours after his introduction to Lombroso, the discovery of a horrifically mutilated body in the nearby Piazza Statuto, and a note that appears to implicate the celebrated criminologist himself, changes everything.

In the not-so-distant future, the forecasted 'death of print' has become a reality. Bookstores, libraries, newspapers, and magazines are a thing of the past, as we spend our time glued to handheld devices called Memes that not only keep us in constant communication but have become so intuitive as to hail us taxis before we leave our offices, order takeout at the first growl of a hungry stomach, and even create and sell language itself in a marketplace called the Word Exchange.

Two women; two different worlds. Emma is a struggling mother who has put everything on hold. Nina is sophisticated and independent - entirely in control. When the pair meet, Nina generously draws Emma into her life. But this isn't the first time the women's paths have crossed. Nina remembers Emma and she remembers what Emma did. But what exactly does Nina want from her And how far will she go in pursuit of it?

One of our finest narrative historians, and journalist for the Sunday Times and Literary Review, Lawrence James, has written a genuinely new biography of Winston Churchill, set within a fully detailed historical context, but solely focusing on his relationship with the British Empire. As a young army officer in the late 19th century, Churchill's first experience of the Empire was serving in conflicts in India, South Africa and the Sudan.

Charlotte Alton has put her old life behind her. The life where she bought and sold information, unearthing secrets buried too deep for anyone else to find, or fabricating new identities for people who need their histories erased. But now she has been offered one more job. To get a hit-man into an experimental new prison and take out someone who according to the records isn't there at all. It's impossible. A suicide mission. And quite possibly a set-up. So why can't she say no?

Russia, 1920: Kolya has deserted his Red Army unit and returns home to bury his brother and reunite with his wife and sons. But he finds the village silent and empty. The men have been massacred in the forest. The women and children have disappeared. In this remote, rural community the folk tales mothers tell their children by candlelight take on powerful significance and the terrifying legend of The Deathless One begins to feel very real. Kolya sets out on a journey through dense, haunting forests and across vast plains as bitter winter sets in, in the desperate hope he will find his family.

Lady Bette, the 14-year-old heiress to the vast Northumberland estates, becomes the victim of a plot by her grandmother, the Countess Howard, to marry her to the dissident fortune-hunter Thomas Thynn, a man three times her age with an evil reputation. Revolted by her new husband, Lady Bette flees to Holland. Within weeks, Thynn is gunned down in the street by three hired assassins. Who is behind the contract killing? Is it the Swedish Count Coningsmark, young and glamorous with blond hair down to his waist?

How do you know where you belong? In June 1988, Elizabeth Kelly's parents think she belongs at home in Ireland. Her boyfriend is certain of it. Unwilling to settle down just yet, she decides to spend the summer in Boston with her college friends. But the next four months change all of them, especially Elizabeth. Quiet and dutiful at home, she surprises herself and everyone else by falling for Danny Esposito, a restless charmer with a troublesome family.

Reminiscent of One Day meets Nicholas Sparks, That Part Was True is a bittersweet debut about falling in love and risking it all. When Eve Petworth writes to Jackson Cooper to praise a scene in one of his books, they discover a mutual love of cookery and food. As their letters criss-cross the ocean that lies between them, friendship and then romance blossom despite Jackson's colourful love life and Eve's tense relationship with her soon-to-be-married daughter.

Ghost Moth will transport you to two hot summers, 20 years apart. Northern Ireland, 1949. Katherine must choose between George Bedford - solid, reliable, devoted George - and Tom McKinley, who makes her feel alive. The reverberations of that summer - of the passions that were spilled, the lies that were told and the bargains that were made - still clamour to be heard in 1969. Northern Ireland has become a tinderbox but tragedy also lurks closer to home.

Larkswood House. The very name suggests birdsong, peace and elegance. It is home to the Hamilton children - Edward, Cynthia and Harriet - who enjoy the freedom and excitement of privilege. But in the glorious summer of 1896, with absent parents and a departed governess, disaster strikes the family, leaving it cruelly divided. More than forty years later, on the eve of the Second World War, Louisa Hamilton, newly presented at court but struck down with glandular fever, is sent to Larkswood to recuperate.

In the five years since her young husband's death, Celia Cassill has retreated from view. She has moved from one New York neighbourhood to another but she has not moved on. The owner of a small apartment building, she has chosen tenants who will not intrude upon her grief. Privacy is the byword; self-containment the aim. Everything will change when a new tenant, Hope, moves in upstairs. Intoxicating and dangerous, Hope is on the run from a failed marriage and in thrall to a seductive, sinister man.

A young soldier, a captive princess, witches, wolves and Death walk hand in hand in Costa Award winner Sally Gardner's exquisitely written new novel inspired by the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, The Tinderbox. Otto Hundebiss is tired of war, but when he defies Death he walks a dangerous path. A half beast half man gives him shoes and dice which will lead him deep into a web of dark magic and mystery. He meets the beautiful Safire - pure of heart and spirit, the scheming Mistress Jabber and the terrifying Lady of the Nail.

Duncan Claymore could have it all. He's one of the country's up and coming young jockeys and this season his sights are set on getting right to the top. He has the talent and the tenacity, but he also has his demons, and it's these that threaten to overthrow his burning ambition. Duncan was taught everything he knows by his father, Charlie, a former trainer whose career and reputation were destroyed when a series of bitter rivalries got out of hand. It ruined him and Charlie hasn't been able to set foot on a racecourse since.

Prize-winning author Marcus Sedgwick explores obsession, trust and coincidence in this gripping thriller. Sixteen-year-old Laureth Peak's mission to find her missing father. A mission made all the more difficult by one fact: Laureth Peak is blind. Laureth's father is a writer. For years he's been trying, and failing, to write a novel about coincidence. His wife thinks he's obsessed. Laureth thinks he's on the verge of a breakdown.

Internationally best-selling historian Antonia Fraser's new book brilliantly evokes one year of pre-Victorian political and social history - the passing of the Great Reform Bill of 1832. For our inconclusive times, there is an attractive resonance with 1832, with its "rotten boroughs" of Old Sarum and the disappearing village of Dunwich, and its lines of most resistance to reform.

A timeless bedtime story from Francesca Simon, read by Lenny Henry. This download includes dramatised and undramatised versions of the story. A little boy getting ready for bed looks up at the moon and wonders whether it can speak English as it shines all over the world. He tells the moon about his day - it's not lonely falling asleep when you share your day's adventures with the moon.

It is on a golfing trip to France that Hector Chetwode-Talbot, Eck to his friends, first meets Charlie Summers, a fly-by-night entrepreneur whose latest scheme is to import Japanese dog food into the UK. Soon Charlie lands on Eck's doorstep with his suitcase, intent on staying and relaunching his dog food business in the area. But with the financial crash looming, Eck begins to ask himself if they are so very different....