Mike Duffin

When Morris wakes one misty morning under the shadow of Dragon’s Ridge, the kind-hearted unicorn doesn’t feel well at all. As he sets out on a quest to find a fabled ‘Get Well Spell’, he discovers the need to fill his own cup back up so that he can continue to share love and kindness and look after others.

In this funny tale, inspired by both internet trolls and The Three Billy Goats Gruff, there is a terrifying troll that lives under a bridge. Unseen, he delights in shouting nasty things to passers-by. But when a d/Deaf bunny unwittingly faces up to him, he realises that it's not so fun to say nasty things to someone's face. Can Troll finally learn to love himself and others?

Did you know there is a place on Earth that's hardly been explored at all? A place with near-freezing temperatures, crushing water pressure and total darkness?

Discover a magnificent menagerie of monsters that lurk deep down in our oceans - from sharks that can live for 500 years, to fish with teeth so long they can't close their mouths.

Find out about anglerfish, giant squid, goblin sharks, coffinfish, barreleyes and many, many more amazing creatures in this stunningly illustrated book that will delight, surprise and inspire on every page.

Judy is a dog who lives on a ship called HMS Grasshopper. As the ship's mascot, Judy has many duties. She catches rats, watches out for soldiers who may fall overboard, and she listens out for danger. Judy loves her crew, and they love her.

She knows that she brings comfort to the men, making her job very important during these hard times. But when her soldiers are taken prisoner and she is separated from her beloved Frank, she must find the strength to keep going.

She is their only hope.

Blue Monster wants to play with Rabbit - but Rabbit is sleeping and doesn't want to play. SO... what should Blue Monster do?

Blue Monster does something you should NEVER do and then... he does it again and again!

Now he DEFINITELY has no one to play with! He feels sad, lonely and VERY guilty. But when Blue Monster opens his mouth and YAWNS... what a surprise!

Things may get better after all! If Blue Monster only says he's sorry...

Finn is in a horrible mood and doesn’t want to talk about it, but after some persuading, agrees to go for a hike with Grandpa. Throughout their forest walk, they see many different things: big, strong trees with networks of roots growing underneath, still water with schools of fish swimming below, and an expectant bird with eggs nestled under her. Grandpa explains that people also have hidden feelings beneath the surface, and despite appearances, may be feeling the same way you do.

In this comedic book exploring a forever childhood question about friendship, squirrel and a mushroom explore the forest through the seasons, show each other special trees, build snow mushrooms, share the good times and bad-which become good bad times alongside a friend.

Then spring arrives, and so does a new friend. And then another. This raises a profound question for an overthinking squirrel: should we have just one best friend?

After much drama, Squirrel doesn't find an answer-the friends keep coming-and he ends the book with at least three better best friends.

Commissario Brunetti's hopes of a refreshing family holiday in the mountains are once again dashed when a gruesome discovery is made in Marghera - a body so badly beaten the face is unrecognizable. Brunetti searches Venice for someone who can identify the dead man. But he is met with a wall of silence.

Then he receives a telephone call from a contact who promises some intriguing information. And before the night is out Brunetti is confronting yet another appalling and apparently senseless death...  Book 3 of series.

Surprised to find himself reborn as a golden-haired puppy after a tragically short life as a stray mutt, Bailey's search for his new life's meaning leads him into the loving arms of eight-year-old Ethan. But this life as a family pet is not the end of Bailey's journey. Reborn as a puppy yet again, Bailey wonders - will he ever find his purpose?

Munich, 1949: Amid the chaos of defeat, it's home to all the backstabbing intrigue that prospers in the aftermath of war. A place where a private eye can find a lot of not-quite-reputable work. It's work that fills Bernie with disgust but it also fills his sorely depleted wallet. Then a woman seeks him out. Her husband has disappeared. She's not looking to get him back, she just wants confirmation that he's dead. It's a simple enough job. But in post-war Germany, nothing is simple...A Bernie Gunther Mystery – book 4.

As the nation's oldest serving detectives, we know more about London than almost anyone. After all, we've been walking its streets and impulsively arresting its citizens for decades. Who better to take you through its less savoury side? We'll be chatting about odd buildings, odder characters, lost venues, forgotten disasters, confusing routes, dubious gossip, illicit pleasures and hidden pubs. We'll be making all sorts of odd connections and showing you why it's almost impossible to separate fact from fiction in London.

The Hon. Charlie Mortdecai is invited to Oxford to investigate the unusual death of a don who collided with an omnibus. Though her death appears accidental, one or two things don't add up - such as two pairs of thugs who'd been following her just before her death. Fourth book of the series, sequel to 'Something Nasty In The Woodshed' (10206)

The strange death of Charles Berney, savaged and trampled to death by a horse on a windswept stretch of moorland, came as he had apparently settled down with an attractive young wife and was concentrating on developing his business.

He may have argued with his wife at her birthday party the night before his death, but when he set off for a business meeting in London the following morning, no one expected him to end up murdered on the moor. How did he get there? 

The answer comes only after Gently has unravelled one of the most bizarre cases of his entire career

Sooz, a 13 yr old girl from Surrey has become the Dark Mistress of Dirk's other worldly kingdom, the Darklands. Thanks to the Ring of Power given to her by Dirk, his minions recognise her as their ruler. Sooz immediately sets about redecorating Dirk's Dark Tower to the taste of a young girl.

But Sooz has to face her toughest challenge when an army of fanatical paladins and orcs gather to march against her. Despite their centuries of hostility to each other, they prefer to form an alliance rather than accept Sooz's new regime.

And what of Dirk? He continues on slaving away at school, plotting ways to rescue Sooz. Eventually he is able to advise her on life in the Darklands and Sooz is able to hold back the fanatical paladins.

James has been a junior player at United for a long time. Everyone expects him to follow in his dad's footsteps and play for England one day. But James isn't so sure. He has something he wants to do even more than football. Something that means he would have to give up football. The problem is he doesn't want to disappoint his dad. At a tournament in London, where he is pitched against Arsenal and Chelsea players, James finally makes his mind up.

Since Ryan Flynn got into trouble for bullying, he's been determined to pull his socks up and be the best captain United's ever had. So when team-mate Craig causes problems on - and off - the pitch, Ryan knows he must get to the bottom of it or he'll lose a talented player. But Craig's worries are much bigger than Ryan realized - can he help Craig and stop him from being shown the red card?

When Hazel Bannock, billionaire oil tycoon, discovers her daughter has been kidnapped by Al Qaeda pirates just off the coast of Somalia, she uses all the power at her disposal to rescue her daughter - but politics and diplomacy fail her at every turn. Her only hope is her ex-military head of security, Hector Cross, an expert in surveillance, infiltration and combat. For all Hazel's connections and wealth, Cross is the one man who is offering to find her daughter. Hazel and Cross must work together to bring Cayla home, but neither of them realise that the kidnappers are not merely interested in ransom - what they have planned is far, far worse.

He's a professional shadow. A watcher who provides protection in potentially hostile situations. He works in the background, stays off the record. Often the people he's guarding have no idea he's there. Some people know him as Portman.When two British intelligence agents are despatched to negotiate the release of a group of western hostages in Somalia, veteran MI6 operator Tom Vane realises that something about this operation doesn't stack up. Unwilling to see two promising officers sacrificed in what he believes to be a suicide mission, he covertly hires deep cover specialist Marc Portman to protect them. Heading for the wild and lawless land on the Kenyan/Somali border, Portman soon realises that the British Intelligence Services have been double-crossed. Can he survive long enough to keep his charges alive and prevent a catastrophe?

Close protection specialist Marc Portman is used to finding himself in hostile situations. But none can be more unpredictable than troubled Ukraine, teetering on the brink of civil war.

When a US State Department official on a fact-finding mission to Ukraine is placed under house arrest, the CIA hire Portman (codename: Watchman) to get him safely out of the country. In that dangerous and volatile region, Portman will find himself up against local gangsters, Ukrainian Special Forces, professional snipers, pro-Russian separatists and power-crazed cops. What he cannot know however is that his most lethal enemy comes from his own side…

It starts with a stolen pocket watch that allegedly belonged to Heinrich Himmler. Hawk agrees to try and find it, but within days of poking his nose in the girl who stole it is murdered. He digs further, driven by a feeling that if he’d kept out of it the girl would still be alive. And as he digs he uncovers a far nastier crime than mere murder... Book 5 of the series.

Novice vet, Paul Mitchell, relates some of the hilarious escapades he experiences while working at Prospect House Veterinary Hospital. Throughout his adventures, Paul is loyally supported by Beryl, the elderly one-eyed receptionist, and Lucy, the junior nurse - together with whom he shares this merry-go-round of mayhem.

Samuel's not allowed to enter Shadow Forest. But what's to stop the forest from coming to him?

There's one thing every troll child dreads more than anything - and that's the Betterer, the evil troll in Shadow Forest who loves to punish his fellow trolls for their grubby and stupid habits in lots of horrible ways.

When one troll boy escapes the forest to be with his favourite human, Samuel Blink, the Betterer isn't happy. Until he realizes that the most useful thing to have in his Bettering Tower would be a real life human child. So he sets out on a quest into the human world to kidnap Samuel and the troll friend he's been hiding in his wardrobe...

Meet Rev. Adam Smallbone, recently promoted from a sleepy rural parish to funky, inner-city St Saviour's in Hackney. Out of his depth in his new, urban surroundings, he's doing the best he can, supported by his loving, but agnostic wife, Alex.

Despite our technological advances, the Arctic, the Antarctic and the highest mountains on earth, remain some of the most dangerous and unexplored areas of the world. Here Sir Ranulph reveals the chequered history of man's attempts to discover and understand these remote areas of the planet, from the early voyages of discovery of Cook, Shackleton and Franklin to his own extraordinary feats.

A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo. They work at home as freelance writers. They no longer have very much to say to one another until one day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen, and life suddenly seems to have more promise; they talk and share stories of the cat and its little ways. But then something happens that will change everything again...

Delayed in London, Ted Severson meets a woman at the airport bar. Over cocktails they tell each other rather more than they should, and a dark plan is hatched - but are either of them being serious. Could they actually go through with it and, if they did, what would be their chances of getting away with it?

The apocalypse comes in many forms, but none stranger than that of the chronic sleep deprivation that leads to mass psychosis. Paul, a writer, continues to sleep while his partner Tanya disintegrates before his eyes, and the new world swallows the old one whole.

Olivia Ronning hopes to follow in her father's footsteps and join the police force in Nordkoster after she completes her training. She has only one last hurdle to overcome - a challenge from her professor to pick a cold case and solve it. But little does she know the danger she faces and the ugly truths she risks uncovering.

Paul has a plan. He has a vision of a better future, and if it means exaggerating a few things here and there, no harm done. But he finds himself trapped among tensions and emotions he doesn't understand, and by the time he starts to realise that it's the lies that cause the real damage...well, by then, it might just be too late. Richard & Judy Bookclub.

Those who walk 'The Green Mile' do not return. At the end of that walk sits Cold Mountain penitentiary's electric chair. In 1932 the newest resident on death row is John Coffey, convicted of the brutal murder of two little girls. But nothing is as it seems with John Coffey, and around him unfolds a bizarre and horrifying story.

First published in 1944, Enemy Coast Ahead combines Guy Gibson's RAF career, including the famous Dambuster raid which he himself led, with the inside story of life in RAF Bomber Command and is still a riveting read for the immediacy and vibrancy of its writing. And yet, what has not been widely known is that the published edition of Enemy Coast Ahead was carefully cut by wartime censors. Now, Gibson's original manuscript, which was archived for almost 75 years, has been be brought to light. This uncut edition provides not only previously unpublished details of Gibson's career, but also reveals his true view of the course of the war, of the wartime population, of his pilots and crews and of Bomber Command tactics. Enemy Coast Ahead - Uncensored remains one of the outstanding accounts of WWII seen through the eyes of one of its most respected and controversial personalities, and allows the reader to know Gibson's own story through his own words.

When muffled thuds ring from the partially filled grave of a newly wed girl, an exhumation order is granted. Reporter Kate Hemingway sneaks into the small suburban churchyard when the coffin is opened, and the scene she witnesses is so horrific she can never forget it. As she starts work on the story, Kate finds herself caught up in a sinister and macabre cover-up.

In this tale of love, murder and obsession in the early days of recorded sound, Max and his younger cousin Rusty have a vision of launching the gramophone industry from a Covent Garden basement. But a renowned opera singer is brutally murdered in his hotel bed and they are thrust into the underworld of opium dens, brothels and extortion.

Matthieu Zela's body stopped ageing before the end of the eighteenth century. Starting in 1758, the story of his life takes us from the French Revolution to 1920s Hollywood, from the Great Exhibition to the Wall Street Crash, and by the end of the twentieth century, Matthieu has been an engineer, a rogue, a movie mogul, a soldier, a financier, a lover to many, a cable TV executive and much more besides.

World Cup-winning rugby legend Lawrence Dallaglio shares his favourite stories from his time at International rugby's greatest tournament. With razor-sharp wit and good humour he lets the reader behind the closed doors of the tournament, to see what happens on and off the pitch when the cameras aren't looking.

A bone-chilling tale, in which a never-before-published demonic ‘memoir’ penned in the year 1438, is discovered by an assistant who worked for the inventor of the printing press, Johannes Gutenberg. The demon has embedded himself in the very words of this tale of terror, turning the book itself into a dangerous object, laced with menace only too ready to break free and exert its power.