Showing results by publisher "Hodder & Stoughton" in Literature & Fiction

As spring comes to Scotland and the hills burst into life, a dance is planned for September. The invitations summon home the group of people Violet Aird has cared for most in her long life. The oldest, strongest and wisest of them all, she sees Alexa, her vulnerable granddaughter, find love for the first time while the decision to send her little grandson away to school is driving parents Edmund and Virginia even further apart.

When V.I.'s close friend Lotty Herschel is approached by a man claiming to be a fellow Holocaust survivor, she's forced to recall a painful past she's tried desperately to forget. Coming to Lotty's aid, V.I. decides to investigate the mysterious stranger. But her findings lead to the exposure of something much darker involving an international conspiracy reaching all the way back to Nazi Europe - as well as a shocking truth which could potentially devastate her friend....

In the late August of AD 79, the inhabitants of Pompeii and Herculaneum are going about their normal business in the late summer heat. Two of them have a room share arrangement: Nonius, scrounger, thief and failed pimp works by night and sleeps by day; Larius, the fresco painter with dreams of artistic greatness, does the opposite. When just after midday the summit of Vesuvius disappears in a vast volcanic ash cloud, their lives will change forever.

Tom Hope is broken. Ever since his wife, Laura, died he hasn't been the same man and definitely not the same father. Luckily for Tom his mother-in-law, Linda, is around to pick up the pieces and look after his two struggling daughters, Evie and Lola. But Tom getting arrested on the first anniversary of his wife's death is the last straw for Linda. In a last bid attempt to make Tom reconnect with his daughters, she takes drastic action and leaves for Australia.

The world begins to suffer an escalating and sensational series of natural disasters, and two marine biologists begin to develop a theory that the cause lies in the oceans, where an entity know as the Yrr has developed a massive network of single-cell organisms. It is wreaking havoc in order to prevent humankind from destroying the Earth's ecological balance forever. The Americans, under the ruthless General Judith Lee, take a more pragmatic approach than the scientists, seeking to wipe out the being of the deep.

The eighth book in the Empire sequence takes Centurion Marcus Aquila and his Tungrian legion on a dangerous mission to the heart of the Parthian empire. With Rome no longer safe, Marcus and the Tungrians are ordered east, to the desolate borderlands where Rome and Parthia have vied for supremacy for centuries. Ordered to relieve the siege of an isolated fortress, their task is doomed to bloody failure unless they can turn the disaffected Third Legion into a fighting force capable of resisting the terrifying Parthian cataphracts.

Just as 29-year-old Ella loses her dream job after an unfortunate incident (it was just a bit of hot sauce, for goodness' sake - he totally overreacted!), her phone rings. Her aunt Gillian, who lives in a tiny mountain village, has had a fall and needs her help. Ella gives in to fate and agrees to go, looking forward to a few quiet weeks to work out what to do with her car crash of a life. But as soon as she gets there, she realises it's not going to be the idyllic break she had hoped for.

As a professional bridesmaid, Sophie is hired by brides to be their right-hand woman, posing as a friend but working behind the scenes to ensure their big day goes off without a hitch. From wrangling rowdy hen dos to navigating last minute portaloo cancellations and family dramas, there's no problem she can't solve. So when she's hired by an actual Marchioness to help plan the society wedding of the year, it should be a chance for Sophie to prove just how talented she is.

In a small New England town, in the early '60s, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. Then tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, the preacher curses God, mocking all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town. Jamie has demons of his own. In his mid-30s, he is living a nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll. Addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate, he sees Jacobs again....

A summer cruise should be just the ticket for a few weeks of luxury and relaxation—but for the passengers and crew of the Empress of the Ocean, the sights of the Mediterranean are nothing compared to the excitement on board. But as unlikely friendships are forged, feuds bubble in the laundry room, and everyone jostles for a seat at the captain's table, they might find all their plans going overboard.

The new Anna Jacobs saga continues the story of the younger sisters of Keara Michaels, the heroine of A Pennyworth of Sunshine, following their fortunes from 19th-century Ireland to the brave new world of Australia. In 1863 the authorities send Irish orphans Ismay and Mara to Australia against their will. Just when they thought it couldn't get any worse, on arrival they're separated from one another. While Ismay is forced to take a job as a maid miles away in the country, Mara must stay in the care of the Catholic mission.

Multi-millionaire Anthony Spencer is trapped in a coma and finds himself in a surreal world that reflects the skewed priorities of the life he's lived on Earth where he meets a stranger who turns out to be Jesus and a grandmother who is the Holy Spirit. Pleading for a second chance, he is sent back to Earth to redeem himself. There he must fight to put right the mess he's created, experiencing events through others' eyes before deciding how to use the miraculous gift he's been given. Before his illness he had set events in motion that he now needs to undo - but will he have the courage to make the right choice?

Germany 1939, and Christa Sommer boards the Kindertransport, unsure that she'll ever see her beloved mother and father again. Once in England she is taken in by elderly Mrs Pelling, who grows to love Christa as the daughter she never had. But in 1945 Mrs Pelling dies. While her will cannot be found, her money-grabbing niece appears out of the blue to claim her inheritance and turfs Christa out, with only a suitcase to her name. The prejudice against Germans still runs high in England, and Christa is unable to secure a job or a place to stay.

A brand-new, unabridged recording of Baroness Orczy's classic tale of adventure, read by Julian Rhind-Tutt. Paris, 1792. The Terror has begun. Every day, scores of the French nobility are delivered to the guillotine. Trapped in the capital, they have no way of escape. But rumours abound of a league of young English gentlemen who are risking their lives to spirit French aristocrats away to safety across the Channel. Led by a man known only as the 'Scarlet Pimpernel', they leave no trace behind them save a single note.

Written by Grazia magazine's Features Director, this is a novel about a woman who is trying, and so far failing, to conceive. A hugely funny, searingly honest comedy about what to expect when you're not expecting. Olivia and Felix are trying for a baby. They even moved to the suburbs in anticipation of their future family. But despite approaching her cycle and their sex life with military precision, there's still no sign of what felt like the sure next step, whilst friends' broods seem to be growing by the week.

When you haven't had sex in a long time, it feels like the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone. If you're living in Germany in the 1930s, it probably isn't. But that's no consolation to Egon Loeser, whose carnal misfortunes will push him from the experimental theatres of Berlin to the absinthe bars of Paris to the physics laboratories of Los Angeles, trying all the while to solve two mysteries: whether it was really a deal with Satan that claimed the life of his hero and why a guy like him can't get himself laid.

It was 1921 when Lord Peter Wimsey first encountered the Attenbury emeralds. The recovery of the magnificent gem in Lord Attenbury's most dazzling heirloom made headlines - and launched a shell-shocked young aristocrat on his career as a detective. Now it is 1951. A happily married Lord Peter has just shared the secrets of that mystery with his wife, the detective novelist Harriet Vane. Then the new young Lord Attenbury - grandson of Lord Peter's first client - seeks his help again, this time to prove who owns the gigantic emerald that Wimsey last saw in 1921.

"You're a firestarter honey.... just one big zippo lighter." A year ago, he was an upstanding instructor of English at Harrison State College. Now Andy is on the run with his daughter, a pigtailed girl named Charlie. A girl with an unimaginably terrifying gift. A gift which could be useful to corrupt authorities. Soon Charlie will be caught up in the menace of a fateful drug experiment and a sinister government ploy….

Terrorists have shot down a British helicopter in West Africa and taken the crew hostage. Their lives are on the line and the British government is refusing to negotiate. The pilot is Liam Shepherd, and only his father - Dan 'Spider' Shepherd of MI5 - can help. Shepherd and an SAS team fly out to the badlands of Mali to rescue the kidnapped Brits. But the mission takes Shepherd away from an investigation in a high security prison that is about to explode into violence. Hundreds of lives are at risk, and Shepherd is running out of time.

From the creator of Falco comes Falco: The New Generation, featuring her unforgettable heroine, Flavia Albia, in her third novel. In the blazing July heat of imperial Rome, Flavia Albia inspects a decomposing corpse. It has been discovered in lots to be auctioned by her family business, so she's determined to identify the dead man and learn how he met his gruesome end. The investigation will give her a chance to work with the magistrate, Manlius Faustus, the friend she sadly knows to be the last chaste man in Rome.