Kristin Atherton

To Nicole and Jamie Maguire, their parents seem the ideal couple - a suburban double act, happily married for more than thirty years. So when Linda and Gerry announce that they've decided to separate, the news sends shockwaves through the siblings' lives, forcing them to confront their own expectations and desires.

Hardworking - and hard-drinking - Nicole pursues the ex she unceremoniously dumped six years ago, while people-pleasing Jamie fears he's sleepwalking into a marriage he doesn't actually want. But as the siblings grapple with the pressures of thirtysomething life, their parents struggle to protect the fragile façade of their own relationship, and the secrets they've both been keeping.

Set in 2018, Claire Powell's beautifully observed debut novel follows each member of the Maguire family over a tumultuous year of lunches, dinners and drinks, as old conflicts arise and relationships are re-evaluated.

From the outside, anyone would think that Lucy Palmer has it all: loving children, a dashing husband and a gorgeous home. But when her marriage to Michael comes to an abrupt and unexpected end, her life is turned upside down in a flash. As the truth of her marriage threatens to surface, Lucy seizes the opportunity to swap her house in London - and the stories it hides - for a rural escape to her parents' farmhouse in the Chilterns.

But Lucy gets more than she bargained for when she moves back to her childhood home. With her parents growing older disgracefully, she can hardly keep up with their social life - especially when it throws her into the path of an old flame. Coming face-to-face with her mistakes, Lucy is forced to confront the secrets she's been keeping from herself and those she loves. Is she ready to let someone in? Or will she leave the door to her past firmly closed . . .

Orphaned as a baby, nineteen-year-old Signa has been raised by a string of guardians, each more interested in her wealth than her well-being - and each has met an untimely end. Her remaining relatives are the elusive Hawthornes, an eccentric family living at Thorn Grove, an estate both glittering and gloomy.

Its patriarch mourns his late wife through wild parties, while his son grapples for control of the family's waning reputation and his daughter suffers from a mysterious illness. But when their mother's restless spirit appears claiming she was poisoned, Signa realizes that the family she depends on could be in grave danger, and enlists the help of a surly stable boy to hunt down the killer.

Signa's best chance of uncovering the murderer, though, is an alliance with Death himself, a fascinating, dangerous shadow who has never been far from her side. Though he's made her life a living hell, Death shows Signa that their growing connection may be more powerful - and more irresistible - than she ever dared imagine.

It isn't just Nanny who finds it difficult in France when Grace and her young son Sigi are finally able to join her dashing aristocratic husband Charles-Edouard after the war. For Grace is out of her depth among the fashionably dressed and immaculately coiffured French women, and shocked by their relentless gossiping and bedhopping. When she discovers her husband's tendency to lust after every pretty girl he sees, it looks like trouble. And things get even more complicated when little Sigi steps in . . .

SAND. A hostile world of burning sun.

Outlines of several once-busy cities shimmer on the horizon. Now empty of inhabitants, their buildings lie in ruins.

In the distance a group of people - a family - walk towards us.

Ahead lies shelter: a 'shuck' the family call home and which they know they must reach before the light fails, as to be out after dark is to invite danger and almost certain death.

To survive in this alien world of shifting sand, they must find an object hidden in or near water. But other families want it too. And they are willing to fight to the death to make it theirs.

It is beginning to rain in Fairfax County, Virginia when McKenzie Strathie wakes up. An ordinary teenage girl living an ordinary life - except that the previous night she found a sand-lizard in her bed, and now she's beginning to question everything around her, especially who she really is ...

Two very different worlds featuring a group of extraordinary characters driven to the very limit of their endurance in a place where only the strongest will survive.

When it's your job to save the day - where do you start? Librarian spy Irene has standards to maintain, especially while on probation. And absconding from a mission via a besieged building doesn't look good. But when her escape route home goes up in flames, what's a spy to do? However, it seems Gates back to the Library are malfunctioning across dozens of worlds. Worse still, her nemesis Alberich is responsible - and he plans to annihilate the Library itself. Irene and assistant Kai are posted to St Petersburg, to help combat this threat. Here Alberich emerges, as Irene tries to save her friend Vale and foil assassination attempts. Then one incredibly dangerous opportunity to save the Library emerges. Saving herself would be a bonus . . .

Cassandra Penelope Dankworth has always had more than her name to contend with. But today is a new low... This morning, Cassie's boyfriend breaks up with her. By lunchtime, she is fired from her PR job for not being a 'People Person'. This evening, her ex turns up as if nothing happened and Cassie is too relieved to ask questions. She's just glad her longest ever romantic relationship (4 months) is back on track.

Tomorrow, Cassie finds herself being dumped again. By lunchtime, she's being fired. When Cassie realises she is gifted - or perhaps cursed - with the power to travel back in time, she has a chance to do things differently. But will things keep going wrong for her when she has infinite chances to get them right?

Growing up in a small town, Sandy Paull dreams of something better. When she lands a job with one of London's leading theatrical agencies her dreams appear to be coming true, particularly when she meets Michael McCann, her handsome and dynamic boss.

Ellen Shelby, as a highly respected and successful agent, has Hollywood at her feet. But she is as insecure with relationships as she is confident with deals. And when she meets her British rival, Michael McCann, there is a powerful attraction between them that they are powerless to deny.

But Michelle, the woman Michael once loved and lost, still haunts his thoughts. And when a dramatic event pulls him back into the past, a nightmare of untenable proportions begins to close in on those he loves...

The formidable fox-hunting obsessed Lady Bobbin has put together a Christmas house party at Compton Bobbin, including her rebellious daughter Philadelphia, the girl's pompous suitor, a couple of children obsessed with newspaper death notices, and an aspiring writer whose deadly (in more ways than one) serious first novel has been acclaimed as the funniest book of the year, to his utter dismay. And then there is beautiful ex courtesan Amabelle Fortescue and her group of guests staying in a nearby cottage... As the house parties starts to unravel, so the jokes increase: this is Nancy Mitford's second novel and one of her earliest forays into the world of the Bright Young Things.

The Battle of Hastings and its aftermath nearly wiped out the leading families of Anglo-Saxon England - so what happened to the children this conflict left behind? Conquered offers a fresh take on the Norman Conquest by exploring the lives of those children, who found themselves uprooted by the dramatic events of 1066.

From sagas and saints' lives to chronicles and romances, Parker draws on a wide range of medieval sources to tell the stories of these young men and women and highlight the role they played in developing a new Anglo-Norman society. These tales - some reinterpreted and retold over the centuries, others carelessly forgotten over time - are ones of endurance, adaptation and vulnerability, and they all reveal a generation of young people who bravely navigated a changing world and shaped the country England was to become.

Formidable Miss Doggett fills her life by giving tea parties for young academics and acting as watchdog for the morals of North Oxford. Anthea, her great-niece, is in love with a dashing undergraduate with political ambitions. Of this, Miss Doggett thoroughly approves. However, Anthea's father, an Oxford don, is carrying on in the most unseemly fashion with a student - they have been spotted together at the British museum! But the only liaison Miss Doggett isn't aware of is taking place under her very own roof: the lodger has proposed to her paid companion Miss Morrow. She wouldn't approve of that at all.

It's Christmas 1846 and Haworth is in the grip of a freezing winter. Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë are rather losing interest in detecting until they hear of a shocking discovery: the bones of a child have been found interred within the walls of a local house, Top Withens Hall, home to the scandalous and brutish Bradshaw family.

When the sisters set off to find out more, they are confronted with an increasingly complex and sinister case, which leads them into the dark world of orphanages, and onto the trail of other lost, and likely murdered children. After another local boy goes missing, Charlotte, Emily and Anne vow to find him before it's too late.

Book 2 in the Brontë Mysteries.

In Kingsley Amis's Difficulties with Girls, Jenny Bunn and Patrick Standish have settled into London life with their troubled courtship long behind them. Patrick works in publishing and Jenny teaches sick children in a hospital. They have reached a certain level of maturity, or so they think. It is not long before they realize their respectability will be severely tested by seductive neighbours with a taste for whisky, the sexually confused Ted Valentine, and the literary set of Hampstead.

In this funny and provocative study of a young couple growing up, Amis shows us that the difficulty with marriage is that it's so hard to preserve, especially when Patrick and Jenny harbour deep yearnings for a different kind of life. Kingsley Amis's (1922-95) works take a humorous yet highly critical look at British society, especially in the period following the end of World War II.

A portrait of a radical age via the writers who gather around a publisher's dining table - from William Wordsworth to Mary Wollstonecraft

Once a week, in late eighteenth-century London, writers of contrasting politics and personalities gathered around a dining table. The veal and boiled vegetables on offer at 72 St Pauls Churchyard may have been unappetising but the company was convivial and the conversation was at once brilliant, unpredictable and profound. The host was Joseph Johnson, publisher and bookseller: a man at the heart of literary life.

Johnson was joined at dinner by a shifting constellation of extraordinary people who, during the period he was in business, remade the literary world. His guests included the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli, his chief engraver William Blake and scientists Joseph Priestley and Benjamin Franklin. William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge sat beside a group of remarkable women including the poet Anna Barbauld, the novelist Maria Edgeworth and, her voice ringing out above all others, the philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft.

Johnson's years as a maker of books, between 1760 and 1809, saw profound political, social, cultural and religious shifts in Britain and abroad. Several of his authors were involved in the struggles for reform: they pioneered revolutions in medical treatment and scientific enquiry; they proclaimed the rights of women and children; they charted the evolution of Britain's relationship first with America and then with Europe.

Number 72 was a refuge for these writers and by continuing to publish their work, Johnson made their voices heard even when external forces conspired to silence them. In this remarkable portrait of a revolutionary age, Daisy Hay captures a changing nation through the connected stories of the men and women who wrote it into being, and whose ideas still influence us today.

Chrissie knows how to steal sweets from the shop without getting caught, the best hiding place for hide-and-seek, the perfect wall for handstands. Now she has a new secret. It gives her a fizzing, sherbet feeling in her belly. She doesn't get to feel power like this at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer. Fifteen years later, Julia is trying to mother her five-year-old daughter, Molly. She is always worried - about affording food and school shoes, about what the other mothers think of her. Most of all she worries that the social services are about to take Molly away. That's when the phone calls begin, which Julia is too afraid to answer, because it's clear the caller knows the truth about what happened all those years ago. And it's time to face the truth: is forgiveness and redemption ever possible for someone who has killed?

A duke has been murdered. The lord of Thorn Grove has been framed. And Fate, the elusive brother of Death, has taken up residence in a sumptuous estate nearby. He's hellbent on revenge after Death took the life of the woman he loved many years ago... and now he's determined to have Signa for himself.

Signa and her cousin Blythe are certain that Fate can save Elijah Hawthorne from prison if they will entertain his presence. But the more time the girls spend with Fate, the more frightening their reality becomes as Signa exhibits dramatic new powers that link her to Fate's past.

With mysteries and danger around every corner, the cousins must decide if they can trust one another as they navigate their futures in high society, unravel the murders that haunt their family, and play Fate's unexpected games-all with their destinies hanging in the balance.

Book 2 in the Belladonna series.

Haworth 1847. Anne and Emily Brontë have had their books accepted for publication, while Charlotte's has been rejected everywhere, creating a strained atmosphere at the parsonage.

At the same time, a shocking court case has recently concluded, acquitting a workhouse master of murdering his wife by poison. Everyone thinks this famously odious and abusive man is guilty. However, he insists he is many bad things but not a murderer. When an attempt is made on his life, he believes it to be the same person who killed his wife and applies to the detecting sisters for their help.

Despite reservations, they decide that perhaps, as before, it is only they who can get to the truth and prove him innocent - or guilty - without a shadow of doubt.

Book 1 in the Brontë Mystery series.

By the sapphire blue waters of the French Riviera, a decades-long secret is about to be revealed...

Wayward Greek heiress, Ariana Theodosis, inherits the Hotel du Soleil as part of a mysterious legacy. Captivated by its faded glamour, she hopes it offers her the chance to start again.

Hotelier Gabriel du Lac's family have owned the hotel for decades - and he has no intention of giving it up for a beautiful stranger.

Madame du Lac has watched the rich and famous pass through the doors of the hotel for almost half a century, and she has kept its secrets too.

As the past finally catches up with them all, will this summer reveal a forgotten secret, and change their lives forever...?

In an increasingly polarized world, asking better questions in our daily and working lives is a radical shortcut to personal and professional success. It can create space for us to rethink our positions, find answers together, and even change our minds for the better. Drawing on the lessons of Socrates and other great thinkers, practical philosopher Elke Wiss lays out an essential toolkit to help you:

Transform debates into dialogues. Embrace your doubts like a true philosopher. Ditch your ego and become an active listener. Discover an open and curious Socratic attitude. Learn Sherlock Holmes's powers of observation. Open conversations up or dig down deeper with key question types. Explore thorny issues and avoid classic question pitfalls. Face your fear of asking and start connecting. The right questions can unlock the answers to anything - and help you know everything, without being a know-it-all.

In 1815, beneath the aegis of the Army of Occupation, Brussels is the gayest town in Europe. And the widow Lady Barbara Childe, renowned for being as outrageous as she is beautiful, is at the centre of all that is fashionable and light-hearted. When she meets Charles Audley, dashing aide-de-camp to the great Duke of Wellington himself, her joie de vivre knows no bounds - until the eve of the fateful Battle of Waterloo...

Svenja's beautiful, aloof grandmother Inge never spoke about the past. All her family knew was that she had grown up in a city that no longer exists on any map: Königsberg in East Prussia. But when Svenja impulsively visits this windswept Baltic city, something unlocks in Inge and, finally, she begins to tell her story. It begins in the secret jazz bars of Hitler's Berlin. It is a story of passionate first love, betrayal, terror, flight, starvation and violence.

As Svenja teases out the threads of her grandmother's life, retracing her steps all over Europe, she realises that there is suffering here on a scale that she had never dreamt of. And finally, she uncovers a desperately tragic secret that her grandmother has been keeping for sixty years.

When panic strikes, grab this audiobook. University of Cambridge mental health researcher Dr. Olivia Remes has spent the past decade uncovering the secrets to reducing anxiety, stress and panic. In this short, no-nonsense audiobook, Dr Olivia gives you 50 simple, science-based solutions to fight the moods that hold us all back. Targeting everything from overwhelm to indecision and anxiety to lack of motivation, these unexpected tips and tricks will help you relieve the pressure in the short term and experience long-term post-traumatic growth.

Fourteen days together. Fifteen years apart.
Their love story isn't over yet...

When Abbie met Oz they were young, idealistic students from different backgrounds, but their connection was unmistakable. Then Oz went home to Istanbul and life moved on.

Years later, Abbie and Oz meet again - a chance encounter that could change everything.

Despite leading very different lives, they find themselves drawn to eachother once more. But they have commitments, jobs and families that take priority - and too much time has passed... Hasn't it?

Jonathan the Magic Pony is a BRILLIANT magician. With one wave of his wand, he can make anything disappear. And then come back again. It's fool-proof. Failsafe. Always works. Except... when Jonathan magics away Sarah's bear, it doesn't come back! And every wave of his wand causes even more chaos, with: Sharks chasing ducks. Baboons with giant wooden spoons. Chimpanzees covered in fleas. But Sarah's bear is nowhere to be seen! Will it ever come back? And will Jonathan ever be a real magician?

For years, Lexi and Jake have played the same six lottery numbers with their friends, the Pearsons and the Heathcotes. Over dinner parties and summer barbecues they’ve laughed off their disappointment when they failed to win anything more than a tenner. But then, one night, there’s a rift in the group. Someone doesn’t tell the truth. And soon after, six numbers come up which change everything forever. Lexi and Jake have a ticket worth £18 million. And their friends are determined to claim a share of it...

A collection of original audio stories, counting down the days to Christmas! These new stories are especially written for the festive period, excellent listening for when you're decorating the tree, wrapping presents or making the Christmas pudding! This edition is filled with creative and engaging sound effects and is the perfect way to get little listeners excited for Santa's arrival! This audiobook is aimed at children aged 4+, for family listening and learning and development for young minds.

Get your passport and suitcase ready, because we are going on an adventure! This interactive adventure is written to help young children confidently learn new language skills, while having some fun along the way. During the course of this action-packed hour children will learn simple greetings, directions and range of helpful German phrases. They will have help from our expert guide and they will be learning some brilliant facts about Germany too!

The Salpêtrière asylum, 1885. All of Paris is in thrall to Doctor Charcot and his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad or hysterical, outcasts from society. But the truth is much more complicated - for these women are often simply inconvenient, unwanted wives or strong-willed daughters. Once a year a grand ball is held at the hospital. For the Parisian elite, the Mad Women's Ball is the highlight of the social season; for the women themselves, it is a rare moment of hope.

Geneviève is a senior nurse. After the childhood death of her sister, she has shunned religion and placed her faith in Doctor Charcot and his new science. But everything begins to change when she meets Eugénie, the 19-year-old daughter of a bourgeois family. Because Eugénie has a secret, and she needs Geneviève's help. Their fates will collide on the night of the Mad Women's Ball...

Alone in a forest with only a cat for company, this is the deeply moving true story of one little girl's remarkable survival in the shadow of the Holocaust.

Growing up in the Polish village of Tarnogrod on the fringes of a deep pine forest, gives Mala the happiest childhood she could have hoped for. But, as the German invasion begins, her beloved village becomes a ghetto and her family and friends reduced to starvation. She takes matters into her own hands, and bravely removes her yellow star, risking sneaking out to the surrounding villages to barter for food.

It is on her way back that she sees her loved ones rounded up for deportation, and receives a smuggled letter from her sister warning her to stay away. With only her cat, Malach, and the strength of the stories taught by her family, she walks away from everything she holds dear.

Malach becomes her family, her only respite from painful loneliness, a guide and reminder to stay hopeful even when faced with unfathomable darkness. With her guardian angel by her side, Mala finds a way to navigate the dangerous forests, outwit German soldiers and hostile villagers, and survive, against all odds.

I love being a Spice Girl, but what I am proudest of is being a mum. Even though I had all the real-life girl power of the actual Spice Girls on speed-dial, my incredible partner and my mum, I had so many worries and questions I couldn't always ask out loud. What I really, really wanted was one, easy-to-read, honest book that would give me support without judgement - that might even make me chuckle occasionally. 

So, I've written it for you! I've included all my stories about what that precious, exhausting first year was like for me, and I've also asked some brilliant experts for their help too, including a paediatric sleep consultant, a trusted NCT counsellor, a mindfulness coach, and no-less than five amazing midwives and doulas. I want you to feel like you've got this. Because guess what mama? You have!

Librarian-spy Irene is working undercover in an alternative London when her assistant Kai goes missing. She discovers he's been kidnapped by the fae faction and the repercussions could be fatal. Not just for Kai, but for whole worlds. Kai's dragon heritage means he has powerful allies, but also powerful enemies in the form of the fae. With this act of aggression, the fae are determined to trigger a war between their people - and the forces of order and chaos themselves. Irene's mission to save Kai and avert Armageddon will take her to a dark, alternate Venice where it's always Carnival. Here Irene will be forced to blackmail, fast talk, and fight. Or face death.

Medea longs for a different life. Since childhood, she has been separated from her sister, shunned by her mother, and persecuted and tormented by her brother and father. All because of a unique and dangerous talent: witchcraft.

But when a dashing young hero, Jason, arrives to claim the famed Golden Fleece that her father fiercely protects, Medea sees her opportunity for escape. Her offer to help Jason overcome the trials set by her father sets in motion a journey that will test every ounce of her strength, magic and loyalty; a journey that will see her battle monsters, dethrone kings and fall in love.

When faced with the ultimate betrayal, Medea is driven to an act of desperation so brutal it rips apart the lives of everyone involved...

In the heady summer of 1977, a naïve young woman called Calista sets out from Athens to venture into the wider world. On a Greek island that has been turned into a film set, she finds herself working for the famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder, about whom she knows almost nothing. But the time she spends in this glamorous, unfamiliar new life will change her for good. While Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself is living with the realisation that his star may be on the wane.

Rebuffed by Hollywood, he has financed his new film with German money, and when Calista follows him to Munich for the shooting of further scenes, she finds herself joining him on a journey of memory into the dark heart of his family history. 

1944: newly recruited SOE agent Elisabeth Shepherd is faced with an impossible mission: to parachute behind enemy lines into Nazi-occupied France and monitor the new long-range missiles the Germans are working on.

Her only advice? Trust absolutely no one. With danger lurking at every turn, one wrong move for Elisabeth could spell instant death.

2018: Betty is about to celebrate her 100th birthday. With her carer Tali at her side, she receives an invite from the Century Society to reminisce on the past.

Remembering a life shrouded in secrecy and danger, Betty remains tight-lipped. But when Tali finds a box filled with maps, letters and a gun hidden in Betty's cellar, it becomes clear that Betty's secrets are about to be uncovered . . .

Help Peter Rabbit count down to Christmas with a story and activity for each day of advent!

Peter Rabbit is very excited - it's nearly time for Christmas! He can't wait to eat mince pies, decorate a tree and open all his presents. Join Peter and all his friends every day in December as they count down to Christmas and have lots of fun adventures along the way.

Featuring 24 brand new stories and an activity to enjoy every day of Advent, this beautiful book makes the perfect Christmas gift and will become a festive tradition for Peter Rabbit fans young and old.

Olivia Alez is delighted about finally living a life away from the royal palace in the mountains that used to be her home, after the Kingdom of Alez decides it doesn't want a royal family any more. Now she can finally give up boring princess lessons and learn about real things, like volcanoes and the ocean and space! But Olivia is completely unprepared for the world that awaits her.

Thick, dark clouds hang low over the city, and the rivers that she so longed to see are choked with rubbish. And on top of it all, the weather just feels wrong. Olivia, horrified by what she sees, becomes determined to get to the bottom of Alez's dangerous weather patterns. With the help of some new friends Olivia sets out to solve the mystery and save Alez from climate destruction before it's too late....