Two little girls stand with their heads bowed in my living room. I’m told they’re my granddaughters. Daisy is nine, and Alice seven. Daisy is the spitting image of her mother. This is the first time I’ve met them since my daughter and I fell out after she married that waste of space, Vince. They’ve come to live with me because their mother — my daughter — was murdered. In her own home while they slept close by. I think Vince killed her. But the police can’t prove it. I’ve always known he was no good. He treated my daughter like dirt. I said he’d cheat on her — but she wouldn’t listen.

It’s the flight before Christmas and Molly just got an unexpected gift: a free first-class upgrade on her plane trip home for the holidays. Bring on the complimentary cocktails! But after one too many, she spills all her secrets to the hot guy seated next to her—only to wake up mortified when her buzz has worn off. At least she never has to see Liam again ... or so she thinks. When Molly arrives at Christmas House, the festive rental home that she and her family are sharing with her sister’s fiancé and his wealthy family, she discovers that Liam is one of the new in-laws. Oops.

How do trees live? Do they feel pain or have awareness of their surroundings? Research is now suggesting trees are capable of much more than we have ever known. In The Hidden Life of Trees, forester Peter Wohlleben puts groundbreaking scientific discoveries into a language everyone can relate to.

First published in 1843, it tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean and unpleasant man who dislikes people generally and Christmas especially. One Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come and given a glimpse of the many homes and lives which Scrooge has touched in his wretched life to date. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

After going to hell and back, Alex Roth has gained knowledge about the Traveller, Thameland’s cycle, and the hidden priests that serve Uldar’s will. Anticipating his identity being discovered sooner or later, he plans to make himself so famous and indispensable to Generasi that the priests would not even have a prayer of dragging him into the war’s frontlines. With newfound power, he and his companions seek to prove themselves once more in the Games of Roal, all the while Alex expands his business empire, grows stronger and researches his foes.

The complete unabridged audiobook of J.R.R Tolkien's The Silmarillion. The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien’s world. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of them such as Elrond and Galadriel took part.

Zara has always felt a little ordinary next to her spirited best friend Ivy. Even her dreams seem mundane: a boyfriend, marriage, children. Besides, who would pick her when they could choose Ivy? So when Zara meets Henry and there's an instant spark, she can't believe her luck. A wealthy CEO who wants to settle down? He's perfect...until Ivy insists he's too good to be true.

Jodi Picoult's poignant number one New York Times best-selling novels about family and love tackle hot-button issues head on. In The Storyteller, Sage Singer befriends Josef Weber, a beloved Little League coach and retired teacher. But then Josef asks Sage for a favor she never could have imagined - to kill him. After Josef reveals the heinous act he committed, Sage feels he may deserve that fate. But would his death be murder or justice?

A part of me wants to run away again. The memory of my death still haunts my dreams. But this is my home now. And I'll be damned if I give it up without a fight. I mean, all I have to do is learn how to navigate xianxia politics and train for battle while simultaneously running my farm and uncovering an ancient cataclysm that apparently destroyed the Azure Hills back in the day. Meanwhile, I'm about to be a father . . . Man, I'm kinda screwed, aren't I? At least I can call in the cavalry—ahem, poultry—to help.

Christmas is the single biggest annual event on the planet, a time for merry-making, over-indulgence, peace, goodwill, and the occasional family row. It’s as comfortable and familiar as a pair of old shoes and yet still glittery and exciting. But what do you really know about it? It’s stuffed full of traditions and rituals that most of us have been observing all our lives without having the slightest idea of where they come from.

Two astronomers have detected a strange, pulsing signal from deep space. Within hours, the US government goes into lockdown, restricting airspace and scrubbing scientific data. Was the signal an intercepted communication revealing alarming plans for an enemy’s military strike? Or has humanity at long last found proof of extraterrestrial life?

A victim of her mother’s Munchausen by proxy and child abuse survivor, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard’s unique and controversial case made headlines across the world. Now, she’s finally free to start living her life on her terms—and to tell her own story as only she can.

When Detective Kim Stone is woken before dawn because local journalist Tracy Frost wants to show her a message, she’s not impressed. But her blood turns cold when she reads the note. She has 36 hours to follow a trail set by an anonymous challenger. If she fails, people will die. Kim’s gut tells her this is no hoax. She summons her team, desperate to prevent what lies ahead. With minutes to spare, they solve the first cryptic clue. It leads to a box hidden deep in the woods, containing a second clue and a tape.

The Birling family are spending a happy evening celebrating the engagement of Sheila Birling to Gerald Croft - a marriage that will result in the merging of two successful local businesses. Yet, just when everything seems to be going so well, they receive a surprise visit from an Inspector Goole who is investigating the suicide of a young girl.

Although pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. This book offers a completely new paradigm and understanding of where our human experience comes from, allowing us to end our own suffering and create how we want to feel at any moment. Don't Believe Everything You Think is not about rewiring your brain, rewriting your past, or positive thinking. We cannot solve our problems with the same level of consciousness that created them. Tactics are temporary. An expansion of consciousness is permanent.

DS Rakesh Siyal is an idealist. Frustrated as an Edinburgh human rights lawyer, he joins the police, determined to solve the problems he sees with the criminal justice system from the inside, rather than out. His first day as a cop sees him sent down to Galashiels in the Scottish Borders, where he’s given a simple task – return a suspect to Glasgow to face justice.

After twenty years apart, Matthew and Helena have rekindled their college romance and are away in Iceland on their first holiday together. Swept up in the romance on a mountain hike, one moment they are taking the perfect photo, the next Helena is hanging from the cliff edge…

The Penryn family have always been eccentric—living in a dilapidated castle in the wilds of Cumbria with an orchid-mad father and a classicist mother who likes to re-enact Greek myths, who wouldn’t be? Well-heeled Londoner Althea Penryn doesn’t expect a divorce and job hunt over the Christmas holidays, but her husband claims he’s done and the prenup is solid. She packs up her reluctant teenage children and heads home to Casterglass Castle to confront the ghosts of her past—including the real one her mother claims lives in the old guard tower.

John Moffat stars as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in seven more BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations. The stories in this volume are: Evil Under the Sun, Sad Cypress, Murder in Mesopotamia, Lord Edgware Dies, Halloween Party, Murder on the Links and Five Little Pigs. Based on the original novels by Agatha Christie, these superb adaptations feature a cast of outstanding actors playing an array of likely suspects.

It is 1890, and in the days before Christmas, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson are visited at Baker Street by a new client. Eve Allerthorpe, eldest daughter of a grand but somewhat eccentric Yorkshire-based dynasty, is greatly distressed, as she believes she is being haunted by a demonic Christmas spirit. Her late mother told her terrifying tales of the sinister Black Thurrick, and Eve is sure that she has seen the creature from her bedroom window. What is more, she has begun to receive mysterious parcels of birch twigs, the Black Thurrick’s calling card.

On the night when Caitlin and Olivia's parents leave them to go to a dinner party both girls are full of excitement about being old enough to stay home alone. What they don't see is the figure watching them through the open window. Who, after the girls have fallen asleep, will turn the handle of the unlocked back door. When their parents return, they will find Olivia's bed empty. Their eldest daughter gone. Never to return. Until now. But is the woman who claims to be Olivia really all she seems? And is everything Caitlin said she saw that night really the whole truth?