Yvonne Clemenson

Amelia has a dream: toasting chestnuts by the fire with her husband Jack in their own cosy cottage. Their real life is another world, in a cramped one-bedroom flat. But when life takes a surprising turn, they are soon heading to the Kent countryside. As Amelia's ideas about love and family change, will her fireside dream finally come true?

Maria Kendall is a dream client - beautiful, impeccably mannered, graceful and extremely well dowered. In short, she doesn't seem to need the Tribbles' help at all. But then the sisters meet her parents and realise that they do have a problem on their hands - not with the perfect Maria, but with her overweening, gauche and socially over-ambitious parents!  Book 5 of series.

Anisha is all set to be a (reluctant) bridesmaid at Aunty Bindi's wedding... until a secret ransom note arrives. Bindi's groom has been kidnapped and will only be released IF THE WEDDING IS CALLED OFF! With best friend Milo, mischievous Granny Jas, a runaway lobster and some super skills of logic and observation, it's up to Anisha Mistry to find her uncle, before the big family wedding of the year becomes a big disaster. Book one in the series

Schoolgirl detectives Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are at Daisy's home for the holidays, and Daisy's mother is throwing a tea party for her birthday. Then one of their party falls seriously, mysteriously ill - and everything points to poison. The Detective Society must do everything they can to reveal the truth . . . no matter the consequences. Book two in the series

As the Germans advance on Paris in 1940, a young Jewish girl, Sylvie Vasseur, is sent by her father to rural Ireland to live with the Courtney family. He also sends his valuable art collection – including a portrait of Sylvie by the renowned Mateus, Girl on a Swing. Sylvia is seduced by the narcissistic elder son Nicholas Courtney when she is eighteen, but he abandons her when he discovers she is pregnant. To avoid the inevitable social stigma, Sylvie marries his brother Peter. In Dublin, she becomes involved in the art scene, achieving critical acclaim as a painter. Seventeen years later, Claire Howard, struggling art historian, is hired by the Courtney family to record Sylvie’s lifeworks. Fascinated by the artist and working with Sylvie’s son Sam, Claire travels between Dublin and Paris, eventually unravelling a labyrinth of deceit and lies that threaten to endanger her life.

Set in a world where words appear physically when people speak, Away With Words explores the importance of communication and being there for those we love. Gala and her dad, Jordi, have just moved from home in Cataluña to a town in Scotland, to live with Jordi's boyfriend Ryan. Gala doesn't speak much English, and feels lost, lonely and unable to be her usual funny self. Until she befriends Natalie, a girl with selective mutism. The two girls find their own ways to communicate, which includes collecting other people's discarded words. They use the words to write anonymous supportive poems for their classmates, but then someone begins leaving nasty messages using the same method - and the girls are blamed. Gala has finally started adapting to her new life in Scotland and is determined to find the culprit. Can she and Natalie show the school who they really are?

Bath's first annual music festival offers Charity the freedom to indulge her true passion and play the pianoforte to her heart's content. Her insufferably rude, though undeniably handsome, neighbour Baron Cadgwith, is in Bath to heal hidden wounds. The more he discovers about Charity, the more he finds her bothersome, vexing, and . . . inexplicably enchanting.

Berta is a young girl with an artistic soul growing up on a farm in the Swedish countryside at the beginning of the 20th century. Her father doesn’t understand her and her mother is dying. But Berta longs to be an artist and can’t stay on the farm forever.

Based on the life of Swedish artist Berta Hansson, this is the story of a young woman with the bravery to live her own truth and follow her own path, despite the protests of her father and society at the time.

Georgian London, 1763. At nineteen, Anne Jaccob meets Fub, the butcher's apprentice, and begins to imagine a life of passion with him. Unfortunately her parents have already chosen a more suitable husband for her. But Anne is a determined young woman; in the matter of pursuing her own happiness, she shows no fear or hesitation. Even if it means getting a little blood on her hands... X rated, contains graphic violence and explicit sex.

With titles like 'A Story of Stolen Salamis', 'Letters to a Frozen Pea Manufacturer', 'A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates', and 'Can't and Won't', the stories in this new collection illuminate particular moments in ordinary lives and find in them the humorous, the ironic and the surprising. Above all the stories revel in and grapple with the joys and constraints of language - achieving always the extraordinary, unmatched precision which makes Lydia Davis one of the greatest contemporary writers on the international stage.

Snuggle up by the fire with this delightful festive collection of short stories from six bestselling authors: Rita Bradshaw, Margaret Dickinson, Annie Murray, Diane Allen, Pam Weaver, and Mary Wood.

Chess prodigy Sophie Peshka inherited her love of the game from her grandmaster father. But now that he has been imprisoned in the dungeons of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg by powerful Empress Catherine the Great, Sophie must use all her strategic skill and cunning to help him escape. Part of Sophie's plan involves an incredible chess-playing automaton called the Clockwork Queen, but will the Queen be able to outwit the Empress in a game where the stakes are a matter of life and death?

From a very early age Cath Kidston loved to play shop, whether she was selling the contents of her mother's store cupboard back to her or her aunt's vegetables to passers-by, from a tray on the pavement. Almost half a century later Cath Kidston has become an internationally acclaimed household name and playing shop has become a serious game.

Captivated by books and stories, Rose dreams of a more fulfilled life, away from the confines of the Sunnyside Care Home where she works to support herself and her boyfriend. She hopes the situation will be short term. Charlotte Favell, an elderly resident, takes a strange, sinister interest in Rose, but offers an unexpected glimpse of enchantment. She has a mysterious and aged stack of letters about the Cottingley Fairies, the photographs made famous by Arthur Conan Doyle, but later dismissed as a hoax.

The author of the letters insists he has proof that the fairies exist; Rose is eager to learn more, but Charlotte only allows her to read on when she sees fit. Discovering she is unexpectedly pregnant, Rose feels another door to the future has slammed. The letters content grows more menacing, inexplicable events begin to occur inside her home, and Rose begins to entertain dark thoughts about her baby and its origins. Can this simply be depression? Or is something darker taking root?

An anthology of new writing on one of the defining issues of our time. Focusing on the fate of refugee children and young adults, it is aimed at children and adult readers alike, and features work from Michael Morpurgo, Eoin Colfer, Kit de Waal and Simon Armitage among many others.

Lily and Tom travel the county with Ma Hawker, enthralling crowds with their amazing collection of curios. Always on the lookout for new wonders, Lily is tricked into buying a worthless bag of rubbish. But hidden within is a special piece of scrimshaw. A young woman called Flora Meriweather is desperate to buy the scrimshaw, hoping it can help her solve a mystery surrounding her late mother. But someone else also wants to get his hands on the scrimshaw and ensure that secrets stay hidden in the past. Can the Curio Collectors help the truth come to light?

In July 1957, an inquest was opened into the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Mrs Bobbie Hullett. She died after months of apparent barbiturate abuse - the drugs prescribed to calm her nerves by her doctor, Dr John Bodkin Adams. The inquest brought to the surface years of whispered suspicion that had swept through the town.

The long war is over and Ingrid Barroy leaves the island that bears her name to search for the father of her child. Alexander, the Russian captive who survived the sinking of prisoner ship the Rigel made an attempt to cross the mountains to Sweden. Ingrid will follow in his footsteps, carrying her babe in arms, the child's dark eyes the only proof that she ever knew him. And before her journey's end she will be forced to ask herself how well she knows the man she is risking everything to find. The third novel in the Barrøy Trilogy Series.

Be amazed and astounded with a new fact every single day of the year with 365 fascinating facts on everything from animals and nature to science, space, the world and more.

Deryn’s father is the lighthouse keeper on Featherstone Island. When an emergency arises and her parents have to travel to the mainland, Deryn is left alone to keep watch over the lighthouse and finds herself in a terrible situation when the lamp runs out of oil during a wild storm. With time running out to rescue a fishing boat at sea, Deryn seeks help from an unusual source. A story of magic, myth and history.

There is much excitement at court as the famous painter Levina Teerlimc arrives to paint the Queen's portrait.

The Maids of Honour are recruited to help entertain the Queen during the sittings, and to pose for the painter whilst the Queen is busy. They love being in the studio but have to beware as deadly arsenic is used in one of the paints!

One of Lady Grace's fellow Maids of Honour, Carmina, begins to act rather strangely - she seems confused and always tired. Her family has recently been involved in a feud with another noble family after her father was killed in a jousting tournament - is it possible that Carmina is being poisoned?

Could the painter or her assistant be involved? Can Grace solve the mystery and discover the truth behind the strange happenings at Court?

Blessed with one of the richest and most distinctive voices in showbusiness, Elkie Brooks has been entertaining people around the world for the last five decades.

Her professional debut at age 15 began a career that has spanned most musical genres and collaborations with some of the finest musicians of their generation, making her a household name. Along the way she has recorded some of the most iconic songs in rock history.

But the road to stardom was never an easy journey. Along the way she has experienced hardships, and dealt with them with the same spirit, grit and determination that colours the emotional power of her singing.

In Finding My Voice, Elkie tells her remarkable story in her own unique voice, laying bare the nuts and bolts of stardom and her commitment to the great passion of her life music.

Since the publication of Cicely Mary Barker's first book in 1923, the Flower Fairies have been ethereal companions to generations of readers around the world. Her charming poetry and delicate illustrations have sparked the imaginations of children for over ninety years and continue to inspire a life-long love for fairies and all things magical.

Teenage Silvie and her parents are living in a hut in Northumberland as an exercise in experimental archaeology. Her father is obsessed with imagining and enacting the harshness of Iron Age life. Silvie is haunted by the story of a bog girl, a young woman sacrificed by those closest to her. The landscape both keeps and reveals the secrets of past violence and ritual as the summer builds to its harrowing climax.

Found abandoned in a bear cave as a baby, Yanka has always wondered about where she is from. When she starts looking for answers about who she really is, a journey far beyond one that she ever imagined begins: from icy rivers to smouldering mountains she meets an ever-growing herd of extraordinary friends along the way.

A stranger arrives at the seaside village of Trevay in need of a safe haven. The fact that he is a Hollywood heartthrob makes villagers Penny and Dorrie even more keen to help. But it’s not long before he’s helping some of the villagers find the answers to their own problems. In return, they find a place for him in their hearts. Quick Reads

In 1926, beginning with the death of a young man during the war, the story flashes back to his happy childhood shared with his cousin Helen Woodruffe. She describes how the war took them unawares, and records the impact on a generation of women torn between an old world which had been destroyed and a new world whose rules they had not yet learned.

The library is Hetty's very favourite place in school, and since falling out with her best friends Ali, Mei and Rocket she's been spending even more time there. So she's absolutely horrified when she learns that her head teacher is planning to close it down, claiming there aren't enough funds to keep the library going.

There's no way Hetty's going to sit back and let this happen. But can she repair her broken friendships and build support for her library campaign?

Let the Battle of the Books commence!

Thirteen-year-old Safiya and her family have been driven out of Syria by civil war. Safiya knows how lucky she is – lucky not to be living in a refugee camp, lucky to be alive.

As they struggle to rebuild their lives, Safiya realizes that her family has always been incomplete and with her own future in the balance, it's time to uncover the secrets that war has kept buried.

Exam stress? Friendship issues? Panic attacks?

How Not to Lose It will help you be the boss of all of this, and more.

It's not just your body that should be fit and healthy - your mind needs to be, too! How Not to Lose It is the go-to guide for achieving a balanced mind and strong emotional well-being. With immediate, heart of the matter advice and a chatty yet honest tone, Anna Williamson addresses all of the key issues affecting children today.

One overwhelmingly hot summer everything seems to be slowing down in the tiny Devon village where Alison lives. She feels that time has stopped just as she wants to enter the real world of adulthood. In fact, in the cruel heat of summer, time is creeping towards her, and closing in around the valley.

The world is full of stories. Some are as long as lizards, others so short that they never even make it to The End. But the invisible story is unlike any other story because no one has ever read it! It lives hidden in the darkest corner of the library, far from where the famous tales, written in gold letters, shine. One day, a blind reader approaches the story's trembling pages. This reader is unlike any reader the invisible story has ever encountered. And when she runs her fingertips over the book's white pages, it is astonished by what she finds...

Half vampire, half fairy, totally unique! Isadora Moon is special because she is different. She loves the night, bats, and the colour black, but she also loves the outdoors, using her magic wand, and the colour pink. When it's time for Isadora to start school she's not sure where she belongs - vampire school or fairy school?

It’s 1949, and the arrival of an Italian family sets tongues wagging in Leyton, an East Anglian farming community still recovering from the war. For seventeen-year-old Connie, however, the newcomers provide a tantalising glimpse of the wider world — a world beyond the gossip and petty concerns traded over the counter of Cleat’s Corner Store.

Lady Elinor of Hardford has fallen in love for the first time, with Dan, her cousin and knight-in-training. But her father has other plans. She must marry his friend, Sir William of Courtney - and he's nearly 50! Ellie must draw on all her skills to work out a solution to her dilemma. Can she change her father's mind? And will she ever get to marry Dan?

Struggling to cope with urban life, Frankie, a twenty-something artist, retreats to a rural bungalow that has been vacant since her grandmother’s death. Frankie turns her camera lens on the natural world and what emerges is a profound meditation of wilderness, art and individual experience, and a powerful exploration of human frailty.