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Sarah Jane Fearing, the sole offspring of a father who desperately wants a male heir, has grown up in the imposing mansion of one of England's most influential banking families. At the centre of Sarah's world stands her uncle Frank, the only relative who seems to have escaped the straitjacket of ponderous respectability. Frank's rebellions afford Sarah delight and hope, until his extravagant lifestyle leads him deeper into dept and into a disastrous marriage. Frank's wedding to a coldly ambitious woman produces the family's longed-for Male scion, but the parents fall to quarrels and then to murder.

On October 7, 1949, dark-haired starlet Jean Spangler kissed her five-year-old daughter good-bye and left for a night shoot at a Hollywood studio. "Wish me luck," she said as she crossed her fingers, winked, and walked away. She was never seen again. The only clues left behind: a purse with a broken strap found in a nearby park, a cryptic note, and rumors about mobster boyfriends and ill-fated romances with movie stars. Drawing on this true-life missing person case, Megan Abbott s "The Song Is You" tells the story of Gil "Hop" Hopkins, a smooth-talking Hollywood publicist whose career, despite his complicated personal life, is on the rise. It is 1951, two years after Jean Spangler s disappearance, and Hop finds himself unwillingly drawn into the still unsolved mystery by a friend of Jean who blames Hop for concealing details about Jean s whereabouts the night she vanished. Driven by guilt and fear of blackmail, Hop delves into the case himself, feverishly trying to stay one step ahead of an intrepid female reporter also chasing the story. Hop thought he d seen it all, but what he uncovers both tantalizes and horrifies him as he plunges deeper and deeper into Hollywood s substratum in his attempt to uncover the truth. In the tradition of James Ellroy s "The Black Dahlia" and Joyce Carol Oates s "Blonde, The Song Is You" conjures a heady brew of truth and speculation, of fact and pulp fiction, taking the reader on a dark tour of Tinseltown, from movie studios, gala premieres, and posh nightclubs to gangsters, blackmailing B-girls, and the darkest secrets that lie behind Hollywood s luminous facade. At the center of it all is Hop, a man torn between cutthroat ambition and his own best intentions.

A woman locked in her past and the fierce knight determined to set her free...Amanda Scott returns readers to the fourteenth century Scottish Borders, when men battled sword against sword and the hills echoed with the thunder of a thousand hooves.Unfit for marriage? Young, fair, yet mistrustful of men, Amalie Murray harbors a secret--one that could keep her single for life. At the coronation of the King of Scots, she overhears the plotting of a terrifying act...and virtually falls into the arms of Sir Garth Napier. Moved by her plight, Garth knows she now desperately needs protection--especially from her own stubbornness. Their unexpected passion and desire make Garth coax the truth out of Amalie, and make him more determined than ever to keep her safe. For though Amalie may be an "inappropriate bride," she's a woman he would gladly die for.

With dashing Scotland Yard detective at her side, Daisy Dalrymple is enjoying a splendid performance of Verdi's "Requiem" featuring her neighbour Muriel Westlea's celebrated sister, Bettina. The show comes to an abrupt end when what emerges from the star's gifted vocal chords is literally a dying gasp.

May 1940. Sergeant Jack Tanner has been posted to a training company on the south-east coast of England. But all is not well in the camp. The mysterious death of two Polish refugees leads Tanner to believe there has been foul play. When he and his corporal, Stan Sykes, are nearly killed, Tanner finds his suspicions directed at an old comrade from his early days in the army. As the Germans launch their Blitzkrieg in Europe, training is abandoned and the entire company are sent to join the battle to stop Hitler's drive across the Low Countries. Almost immediately, they are thrust into the thick of the action and cut off from the rest of the battalion.Trapped behind the enemy advance, Tanner must use all his ingenuity to get his men back to Allied lines. Soon enmeshed in the long withdrawal to the French coast, Tanner, Sykes and his new platoon commander, Lieutenant John Peploe, find themselves pitted against not only the die-hard Nazis of the SS 'Death's Head' Division but also the great panzer commander himself, General Rommel. Even then, in the chaos of retreat, Tanner must deal with the corrosive treachery bubbling within the company's ranks – and an enemy more deadly than the Germans – if he and his men are to have any hope of surviving the mayhem of Dunkirk...

In a hidden canyon of the Sierra Madres in Mexico, Zafiro Talavera is the caretaker of her grandfather's once-fearsome band of outlaws, and the task is not easy. She is constantly watching out for bounty hunters and other desperados searching for the loot her grandfather has hidden away. Equally daunting is coping with the eccentricities of the decrepit Talavera Gang. Zafiro's most fervent dream is of living in a normal town with a normal family. Then into her carefully guarded "fortress" comes a mysterious, wounded man known only as Sawyer. Has he come to steal her gold or her heart? She enlists Sawyer to teach her men to be the outlaws they once were so they can defend themselves against the evil bandit sworn to steal Zafiro away from them. Sawyer resists the task of teaching a drunk, a deafman, and a codger who believes himself to be St. Peter how to ride and shoot. But when the threat finally comes, Sawyer and the men rally, defeat the enemy and save Zafiro. Paisley is a master comedienne. This delightful story has characters that will make you laugh out loud and a love story that will give you goosebumbs.

The Jazz Age theater world of post World War I in London is the backdrop for this story of a girl from the country and her assorted friends who are determined to succeed as actresses.

When DCI Alan Banks arrived in Eastvale his life was every bit as much of a mess as it is now. Walking again the narrow alleys and backstreet of his mind, he remembers the seedy Soho nights of his last case-dubious businessmen in dodgy clubs, young girls on the game. And a killer on the loose. In addition to the brand-new novella that fills in the gaps in Banks's life before Yorkshire, Peter Robinson gives us ten more brilliant and electric stories that have never before been published in the UK.

The Song in the Green Thorn Tree follows Robert Burns progress from Ayrshire to the bright lights of Edinburgh and charts the start of his meteoric rise from ploughman to poet. From obscurity to fame and a future which promises to be very different from the poverty of rural Ayrshire.

Cora Cash has grown up in a world in which money unlocks every door. Her coming-out ball promises to be the most opulent of the gilded 1890s, a fitting debut for New York's 'princess'. Yet her fortune cannot buy her the one thing she craves - the freedom to choose her own destiny. For Cora's mother has her heart on a title for her daughter, and in England - where they are bound, to find Cora a husband - impoverished blue bloods are queuing up for introductions to American heiresses.

Palace intrigue, romance, and illicit affairs--Rebecca Dean has written a glorious novel that will sweep Philippa Gregory fans off their feet.Delia Chandler, an eighteen-year-old Southern girl, marries Viscount Ivor Conisborough just before World War II, becoming part of the Windsor court. It's every girl's dream come true. But Delia is jolted from her pleasant life when she realizes, after the birth of her two daughters, that Ivor chose her only to bear an heir to his estate. Shortly thereafter, she begins an affair with her husband's handsome, titled, and frequently scandalous best friend. When Conisborough is appointed as an adviser to King Fuad of Egypt, Delia exchanges one palace circle for another, far different one. While she sees Egypt as a place of exile, her two daughters regard Egypt as their home. Only when war comes to Cairo--and Delia finally reveals the secret she has kept for so long--can she begin to heal the divisions separating her from those she loves.Rebecca Dean's irresistible combination of real events and masterful storytelling will keep readers fascinated until the very last page.

Erica and Simon Dunmore have been happily married for fifteen years. The only thing that casts a shadow over Erica's happiness is her failure to have a baby and Simon realises he would do anything to provide her with the child she so desperately craves.

When a new doctor arrives in the backstreets of Leicester, the locals are outraged by his rudeness and hostility. One of the first to encounter his abruptness is young Aidy Nelson but when she gets a job as his secretary she gets to know him and realises that behind his gruff manner lurks a man with a sorrowful past and secrets to keep.

On any given day in London, all Charles Lenox, Victorian gentleman and armchair explorer, wants to do is relax in his private study with a cup of tea, a roaring fire and a good book. But when his lifelong friend Lady Jane asks for his help, Lenox cannot resist another chance to unravel a mystery, even if it means trudging through the snow to her townhouse next door. One of Jane's former servants, Prudence Smith, is dead - an apparent suicide. But Lenox suspects something far more sinister: murder, by a rare and deadly poison.

What would you do? When Deborah reluctantly helps her beloved husband, Neil, end his life and conceals the truth, she is charged with his murder. As the trial unfolds and her daughter Sophie testifies against her, Deborah, still reeling from grief, fights to defend her actions. Twelve jurors hold her fate in their hands - and if found guilty she will serve a life sentence. But is the assisted suicide of a person you love murder?