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"Lázár is an exquisite and masterly pronouncement that a gifted young writer walks among us" Patti Smith"A truly great writer steps onto the stage" Daniel Kehlmann"Propulsive, twisting and spell-binding. Lázár is a bold, intricate accomplishment" Lucy SteedsThe snow of the dying century still lay on the edge of the dark forest when Lajos von Lázár, the translucent child with water-blue eyes, first glimpsed the man he would believe to be his father for his whole life and beyond. The Lázárs have ruled their Hungarian lands for generations. In their ancient castle by the edge of a forest that compels all who enter it to madness, they succumb to every vice and live only to satiate their desires. But the old order is crumbling, and the days of the Habsburg Monarchy are numbered. When Lajos von Lázár inherits, they at last have a baron who can reignite the old splendours, but not even his abilities are proof against the ravages of war and occupation. It will fall to his children - a boy who talks to shadows and a girl who eschews her blue blood - to find a way to stand against oppression and take the first faltering steps towards freedom. A sweeping epic, taking the reader from the beginning of the twentieth century to the Hungarian National Uprising of 1956, Lázár would be a phenomenal achievement for a writer of any age. With its air of timeless wisdom, it reads like rediscovered classic, making it all the more remarkable that it was written when the author was just twenty-one years old. Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch

God. Hero. Idol. Monster. Murderer. The story of Hercules is one of the most famous ever told. But what if it's wrong? Locus and Nebula Award-winning author John Wiswell brings his gentle, human storytelling to the most infamous of stories and discovers the heart inside us all. Furious with Zeus for once again siring a child with a mortal woman, Hera finds herself redirecting all her fury at the baby himself, Heracles, an innocent named in her honour. As Heracles grows into a man - an unfathomably strong, loving man - he thanks Hera for all the blessings he feels she's seen fit to bestow upon him. In a moment of misdirected rage, however, Hera sends a fury to kill Heracles' family. Heracles sets out on an epic quest to discover the name of the god who set their murders in motion. Desperate to keep him busy until she can come up with a solution, Hera sets Heracles a series of tests, as impossible as they are deadly: the Nemean lion, the hydra, the Stymphalian birds, the Aegean stables . . . But Heracles' innate kindness, along with his determination to discover the identity of the god who cost him everything he loves, carries him through each task. As his legend grows, so does Hera's desperation. A novel of friendship, of found family, of kindness and of legend, this is the story of Hercules as it has never been told before.

Dr. Martens, the beloved British boot with its unmistakeable AirWair soles, is a symbol of subcultural style throughout the world, from punk to grunge, glam to goth. In this illustrated guide, style writer Hannah Kane explores Dr. Martens' colourful history of rebellious self-expression. From its origins as a modest workwear boot to its status as one of the most iconic brands in modern culture, who are the people behind the evolution of DMs? And what are the styles that have made it such a mark of attitude and empowerment?

'Some of the most beautiful prose being written in Ireland today' Irish TimesA Harper's most talked-about thriller novel 2025A Irish Times Book of the Year 2025A Critic Book of the Year 2025A Guardian Crime Book of the Year 2025Lorraine would say afterwards that she was smitten straight off with Paddy Farrell. You could tell that he was occupying the room in a different way, he found the spaces that fitted him. She was the kind of girl the papers called vivacious, always a bit of dazzle to her. Could she not see there was death about him? Could he not see there was death about her? Paddy worked the border, a place of road closures, hijackings, sudden death. Everything bootleg and tawdry, nobody is saying that the law is paid off but it is. This is strange terrain, unsolid, ghosted through. There's illicit cash coming across the border and Brendan's backstreet Bureau de Change is the place to launder it. Brendan knows the rogue lawyers, the nerve shot policemen, the alcoholic judges and he doesn't care about getting caught. For the Bureau crew getting caught is only the start of the game. Paddy and his associates were a ragged band and honourless and their worth to themselves was measured in thievery and fraud. But Lorraine was not a girl to be treated lightly. She's cast as a minx, a criminal's moll but she's bought a shotgun. And she's bought a grave.

A gripping new emotional saga from the author of A Sister's Dream. 1950: Seventeen-year-old Josephine Cliffe and her younger sister, Eliza, have the perfect lives, wanting for nothing in the huge house they live in with their parents in Sydney, Australia. But when her father's mining company falls apart, the family are left with nothing. They have no choice but to return to Durham, England, to live with their harsh, mean-spirited grandmother. Life in England isn't what Jo expects, and as bad luck continues to follow the Cliffe family, she'll need to rely on the local community if her family are to survive. But will Jo be able to find a new beginning in Durham? Or will she find a way to return to Australia for good? Sales Points711The fourth book in the Hilda House series, which also reads as a standalone. 2Elizabeth Gill has written over 40 historical sagas in her career, writing heartbreaking yet hopeful stories full of compassion3Emotional saga set in the 1950s with strong female characters, perfect for fans of Dilly Court and Rosie Goodwin4A Daughter's Hope has a strong Australian connection, with the main characters emigrating back to the UK from Sydney

The snow of the dying century still lay on the edge of the dark forest when Lajos von Lázár, the translucent child with water-blue eyes, first glimpsed the man he would believe to be his father for his whole life and beyond. Lajos von Lázár is brought into this world with the dawn of the new century, and his birth is both a miracle and a curse, his true patrimony a secret he will never know. The Lázárs have ruled their Hungarian lands for generations. In their ancient castle by the edge of a dark forest that compels all who enter it to madness, they succumb to every vice and live only to satiate their desires. But the old order is crumbling, and the days of the Hapsburg Monarchy are numbered. When Lajos inherits, they at last have a baron who can reignite the old splendours, but not even his abilities are proof against the ravages of war and occupation. It will fall to his children - a boy who talks to shadows and a girl who eschews her blue blood - to find a way to stand against oppression and take the first faltering steps towards freedom.

ONE OF FINANCIAL TIMES AND THE TIMES BEST FICTION BOOKS OF 2025'Blends a wholly convincing evocation of the period with a compelling narrative' The Times'After their riveting debut in Vienna, Fox and Fry are back in compelling fashion to navigate their way through a shadowy world of espionage and murder. Danger and secrecy lurk in every page of this classy novel' ALEX GERLIS, author of EVERY SPY A TRAITOR'An enthralling read' Financial Times'Suspenseful, romantic, atmospheric and clever . . . Thynne's storytelling is hugely enjoyable escapism' AMANDA CRAIG, author of THE THREE GRACES'Deeply researched but lightly told, this book had me on the edge of my seat. Absolutely cracking stuff' CLARE MULLEY, author of AGENT ZOFollowing an acclaimed debut outing, Harry Fox, an MI5 Watcher, now suspended, and his associate Stella Fry are reunited during Britain's darkest hour in this gripping espionage thriller. April 1940, and Britain is in turmoil. Chamberlain's government is faltering, and a German invasion may be only weeks away. A body, wearing the uniform of a Luftwaffe captain, is found in the grounds of Trent Park - a stately home and now a prison to house high level German POWs. Trent Park's true purpose, however, is intelligence, gathered covertly from prisoners by secret listeners. The morning after the discovery of the body, one of the listeners goes missing, along with a gun from the firing range. Horrified that this could blow the highly confidential operation wide open, the missing man must be tracked down. Cue Harry Fox, a former MI5 Watcher, now suspended. He is desperate to assist the war effort but he's over the conscription age. Then his former boss gets in touch with a job for him, to track down the missing man. But, he stipulates, it must also involve Harry's former associate, Stella Fry. Stella returns home from work in the blackout to find a crowd outside her flat. She is told that a young woman in the building has had a fatal accident. The dead woman is called Stella Fry. Outraged, Stella suspects that this is the work of her erstwhile friend, Harry Fox. But why on earth would he go to such lengths to contact her?

Full of glimpses into gleaming worlds and fairy tales with teeth, Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories is a collection of acclaimed and awarded work from Amal El-Mohtar. With confidence and style, El-Mohtar guides us through exquisitely told and sharply observed tales about life as it is, was, and could be. Like miscellany from other worlds, these stories are told in letters, diary entries, reference materials, folktales, and lyrical prose. Full of Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, and Hugo Award-winning and nominated stories, Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories includes 'Seasons of Glass and Iron', 'The Green Book', 'Madeleine', 'The Lonely Sea in the Sky', 'And Their Lips Rang with the Sun', 'The Truth About Owls', 'A Hollow Play', 'Anabasis', 'To Follow the Waves', 'John Hollowback and the Witch', 'Florilegia, or, Some Lies About Flowers', 'Pockets' and more.

'Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches': that was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva - stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that's why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales. In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay's most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances. As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay's manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch. Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.

A Granite Silence is an exploration - a journey through time to a particular house, in a particular street, Urquhart Road, Aberdeen in 1934, where eight-year-old Helen Priestly lives with her mother and father. Among this long, grey corridor of four-storey tenements, a daunting expanse of granite, working families are squashed together like pickled herrings in their narrow flats. Here are Helen's neighbours: the Topps, the Josses, the Mitchells, the Gordons, the Donalds, the Coulls and the Hunts. Returning home from school for her midday meal, Helen is sent by her mother Agnes to buy a loaf from the bakery at the end of the street. Agnes never sees her daughter alive again. Nina Allan explores the aftermath of Helen's disappearance, turning a probing eye to the close-knit neighbourhood - where everyone knows everyone, at least by sight - and with subtlety and sympathy, explores the intricate layers of truth and falsehood that can coexist in one moment of history. Full of echoes, allusions and eerie diversions, A Granite Silence is an investigation into a notorious true crime case, but also a stylish, imaginative inquiry into who gets to tell a story, how it is told, and why.

Stuntwoman Gabi hates being tied down. Stubborn and fiercely independent, she prides herself on never needing anyone's help. But after an accident at work, she moves to the small riverside town of Honeybridge to recover. Local hero Walker is the town's favourite firefighter. As strong as he is tall, he could have any woman he wants. He just can't stop thinking about Gabi. He's fire, she's ice, and sparks fly between them. Gabi doesn't want to settle down, wasn't looking for her happy ever after. But could Walker be someone worth staying for? Small-town romance? Firefighter romance? He falls first? Golden retrieverREADERS LOVE PIPPA NIXON'S SMALL-TOWN ROMANCE'Warm and spicy' ? 'What a great read . . . Beautiful, spicy love story' ? 'I absolutely loved this book!' ?

Samson Kolechko has been assigned a most perplexing case - though it is mostly perplexing because it's hard to understand why selling the meat of one's own pig constitutes a crime. But apparently it does, and at the insistence of the Chekist secret police officer assigned to "reinforce" the Lybid police station, Samson does his diligent - if diffident - best. Yet no sooner has he got started than his live-in fiancée Nadezhda is abducted by striking railway workers who object to the census she's carrying out. And when you factor in a mysterious thief in the police station itself, a deadly tram accident that may have been pre-meditated, and the potential reappearance of the culprit in the case of the silver bone, it's no wonder the "meat case" takes a back seat. But it is in the pursuit of that petty-fogging, seemingly mundane matter that Samson's fate lies - and Nadezhda's too, for the two are inextricably entwined. Translated from the Russian by Boris DraylukReviews for The Silver Bone - Longlisted for the International Booker Prize"Andrey Kurkov is often called Ukraine's greatest living writer, and it is a gift for crime fiction fans that he writes in this genre" New York Times"Wildly enjoyable . . . A glorious aural portrait of a city in dangerous flux . . . I finished The Silver Bone wishing to read more" Guardian

'This is absolutely first class' Stephen Fry'Simon Mason has created crime fiction's most entertaining double act in decades' Mick Herron'Move over Morse' Val McDermid'My favourite UK series' M W CravenOn a warm and pleasant evening in Oxford, gentle city of poets and scholars, rioters outside a hotel full of asylum seekers set a young refugee on fire. The city - the country - convulses in shock. Is this who we are? It's international news of the very worst kind, and the Chief Constable demands immediate and exemplary action in bringing the perpetrators to justice. The detectives leading the investigation fill him with misgivings, however: DIs Ryan and Ray Wilkins (no relation), Thames Valley's detective pantomime horse, one Oxford-educated, the other Oxford-trailer park. He doesn't understand why they work together. 'Do they even get on?' 'Somehow that doesn't seem necessary,' their Superintendent replies. Who burned the boy alive? Was it a far-right extremist? Was it an ordinary person who had simply gone along to watch and got caught up in the emotion? Could it even be one of the children who were there? Deploying a range of investigative skills, some standard, some unconventional and some frankly nuts, the Wilkinses do what they do: results with chaos. But when they discover that the victim was not an asylum seeker after all, or even a resident of the hotel, the whole investigation kicks into a completely different configuration. READERS ARE LOVING RYAN AND RAY:'Loved it, what a wonderful read' ?'Really, really enjoyed and was sorry to finish it' ?'Have really enjoyed the whole series' ?'If you like Slow Horses, either the books or the Apple series, this book is for you' ?'Set in present day Oxford, England, it is Morse times two' ?'Can't put these books down' ?'A real un-putdownable page turner . . . A tremendous read' ?

France's favourite country policeman investigates a suicide and gets involved in a tricky local issue in the latest adventure in this ever popular and bestselling mystery series. 'FRENCH TOURISM SHOULD RAISE A GLASS TO WALKER'S DORDOGNE MYSTERIES' Daily MailBruno Cour? es is chief of police of the lovely Dordogne town of St Denis with a remit that covers the beautiful valley of the river Vé? e. One autumn morning he comes across an abandoned car parked near a local beauty spot. Inside is a dead woman, Monique, an apparent suicide resulting from depression. But there are circumstances surrounding the death that raise Bruno's suspicions, particularly when disputes arise surrounding her Will. At the same time, Bruno makes the mistake of interfering in a local marital dispute. Deputy mayor Xavier has been playing away and finds himself evicted from the family home. Old controversies about deer culls take on new life and then a second campaign begins, stating that Bruno is less of a village copper and more of a secret policeman, whose main job is working for French intelligence. Some of the ammunition for this attack, Bruno learns, comes from Xavier, who sees this as a way to topple Bruno and the mayor and succeed to the mayor's job himself. Suddenly Bruno's shiny reputation is looking a little tarnished as he battles to save his name and answer the questions surrounding Monique's suicide.

*From the multi-million copy bestselling author of The Girl Before and Playing Nice, now major television series*'JP Delaney has a gift for the unputdownable story' MICK HERRONNew beginnings can be deadly . . . Kate and Matt Crowther are finally moving out of London, in search of a better life for their young family. Trade Cottage seems to be the house of their dreams - and they immediately hit it off with the sellers, Rosemary and Paul Finch, who brought up their own family there. When Kate and Matt move in, they're pleased to discover the Finches still very much in evidence: offering advice, introducing them to the local community, and becoming honorary grandparents to Will, 11, and Tilly, 9. But when the Finches take exception to Kate and Matt's renovations, relations with the neighbours sour, and Kate and Matt find themselves subjected to a vicious campaign of hate. But Kate isn't giving up her dream home without a fight. And it turns out Trade Cottage has secrets of its own to reveal - secrets that may endanger the very family Kate has moved there to protect . . . 'JP Delaney is King of Thrillers' FIONA CUMMINS'Twisty, unexpected and utterly convincing' DAILY MAILREADERS LOVE JP DELANEY'My favourite author!' ? 'The twists and turns are always unexpected' ? 'The master of spinning stories' ?'An all-time favourite of mine' ? 'Love this author's books, so clever!' ?

'A dirty little jewel of a novel' Julia Armfield'Malory Towers meets The Conjuring' Alice Slater'Gory, tender, sexy' Krystelle Bamford'Compulsively readable' Guardian In 1928, Emily Locke's final year at the isolated Briarley School for Girls is derailed when Violet, the school's brightest star (and a cunning beauty for whom Emily would do anything), falls to her death on her eighteenth birthday. Emily and her buttoned-up rival Evelyn are, for once, in agreement: Violet's death was no accident. There's an obvious culprit, the French schoolmistress with whom Violet was getting a little too close - they just need to prove it. Desperate for answers, Emily and her classmates turn to spiritualism, hoping for a glimpse of wisdom from the great beyond. To their shock, Violet's spirit appears, choosing pious Evelyn as her unlikely medium. And Violet has a warning for them: the danger has just begun. Something deadly is infecting Briarley. It starts with rotten food and curdled milk, but quickly grows more threatening. As the body count rises and students race to save themselves, Emily must confront the fatal forces poisoning the school. Emily's fight for survival forces her to reevaluate everything she knows: about Violet, Evelyn, Briarley, and, ultimately, herself. Avery Curran channels the indelible ambience and intrigue of the classic boarding school novel while turning the beloved genre on its head in this visceral, exuberant debut.