Northside House Limited

What if the life you built isn't the life you're meant to live? Growing up in a small Yorkshire village, Vicki Anstey believed success followed a simple script: work hard, marry well, build a respectable life and stay the course. And for a long time, she did exactly that. But when the foundations of her marriage began to crack and the certainties she had relied upon started to dissolve, Vicki was forced to confront a question she had spent years avoiding, who was she, really, when she wasn't trying to manage everyone else's expectations? At forty, she walked away from the life she had built. What followed looked, from the outside, extraordinary: elite military selection as one of the first women to reach the final stages of SAS: Who Dares Wins, world-record ocean rows, ultramarathons across ice and desert. From the world of advertising to the barre studio she built from scratch, from divorce and betrayal to rowing unsupported across the Pacific Ocean. But the real challenge was never physical. It was internal. Other People Are Like the Weather is the story of one woman's journey from quiet conformity to radical self-reclamation, and the moment she realised that the hardest thing to overcome were not the conditions around her, but the patterns within. Candid, searching and fiercely honest, this memoir explores love, endurance, betrayal, friendship, ambition and the complicated business of becoming yourself. It is about the relationships that shape us, the seasons that test us, and the courage it takes to step out from someone else's climate and into your own. Because other people are like the weather. You can't control them. But you can choose how you live beneath their sky. Vicki Anstey is a double world-record holder, entrepreneur, and speaker specialising in courage, resilience, and performance under pressure. As a speaker, mentor and stress-resilience coach, she works with individuals and organisations to help them take meaningful action in the face of fear. This is her first book.

Widow Deborah Coles is suffering a crisis of conscience about moving on with her life. When her 15 year old son, Lewis, finds himself in trouble with the police, she has little choice but to turn to her father in law for support. Over the course of a weekend, career criminal, Francis Coles, proves an unorthodox educator, as he reveals the heartbreaking love story which has allowed their family to endure. Reminiscing on his youth in 1950's London, Francis's tale is one of Teddy Boy gang fights, rock n roll romance in the dancehalls and daring heists, as he and his two best friends descend into a vicious world of vendetta, revenge and murder. Lewis listens and learns about the high price of survival, about how the trio - whilst maturing towards the prospect of fatherhood - would have their morality tested, and be forced to meet ever increasing stakes in order to protect not only their endeavours but also their relationships. Deborah and Lewis will each inherit the family secrets, revelations which could reshape the way they look at love, loss and life.

When painter Lucy Lake meets Morten Andersen in Picasso's studio, the handsome Dane makes a poor impression. An arrogant philistine blind to Modern Art, whose scornful gaze makes her feel like a cheaply-dressed fool. But when she discovers his past - he came to Paris to escape memories of a disturbed first wife who recently killed herself - she softens, leading to a marriage where she will become his second 'difficult wife'. In her husband's dark, remote, rural house, she begins feeling the presence of the first wife circling ever closer, moving inside her. But is this ghostly possession or simply an undermined woman driven towards the brink of mental collapse? What price will she pay to save her sanity and her Cubist art? In this Gothic historical thriller, a talented young female artist must fight for survival in a world where men still rule.

In the aftermath of the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, Haydon Talbot is posted as MI6 Station Chief Khartoum, tasked with monitoring the mujahadeen fighters who have flocked to Sudan, welcomed by the radical Islamic regime. His CIA counterpart, Pete Monkton, introduces him to the Sheikh, a Saudi financier who worked alongside Monkton in Peshawar, and now claims to be a horse breeder. Monkton plans to use the Sheikh's Afghan-Arab connections to attack Imad Mughniyeh of Hezbollah, a priority target of the Agency. Haydon becomes convinced that Khartoum is becoming a crucible for dangerous extremist groups, and after terrorists attack a MI6-owned hotel, killing one of Haydon's agents, he learns that The Sheikh and his nascent group, Al Qaeda, are planning a major bombing operation in London. Unable to convince his sceptical bosses of the imminent danger, Haydon puts his career on the line in an attempt to thwart the bombers.