British Literature

Ever since she drove her best friend's fiance to kill himself, Isabel Drew has been nicknamed Jezebel. She is domineering, arrogant, vain - and beautiful enough to get away with it. She is starring as a princess in a medieval pageant when her past catches up to her. On tiny slips of paper, threats appear, promising death to Isabel and those around her. Fearing she may be attacked, she invites the brilliant Inspector Cockrill to keep her safe after the performance.

C. S. Lewis's dazzling allegory about Heaven and Hell - and the chasm fixed between them - is one of his most brilliantly imaginative tales, where we discover that the gates of Hell are locked from the inside. In a dream, the narrator boards a bus on a drizzly afternoon in Hell and embarks on an incredible voyage to Heaven. Anyone in Hell is invited on board, and anyone may remain in Heaven if he or she so chooses. But do we really want to live in Heaven?

When local fisherman Horace Boller decided to row his boat out on the tidal backwash of the river one morning, he couldn't have meant to land a catch like this. What he ended up with was a body floating on the river's surface. And judging by the state of the corpse, the death was not a recent one. The strange thing is, the coroner report indicates that drowning was not the cause of death. It's up to the intrepid C. D. Sloan - and his markedly less intrepid assistant, Constable Crosby - to investigate.

The selection began with 35 girls. Now, with the group narrowed down to the Elite, the competition to win Prince Maxon's love is fiercer than ever. The closer America gets to the crown, the more she struggles to figure out where her heart truly lies. Each moment she spends with Maxon is like a fairy tale, filled with breathless, glittering romance. But whenever she sees her first love, Aspen, standing guard, she's swept up in longing for the life they'd planned to share.

In appearance Hercule Poirot hardly resembled an ancient Greek hero. Yet, reasoned the detective, like Hercules, he had been responsible for ridding society of some of its most unpleasant monsters. So, in the period leading up to his retirement, Poirot makes up his mind to accept just 12 more cases: his self-imposed "Labors". Each would go down in the annals of crime as a heroic feat of deduction.

It had been a typical New Year's Eve party. But as midnight approaches, Mr. Satterthwaite - a keen observer of human nature - senses that the real drama of the evening is yet to unfold. And so it proves when a mysterious stranger knocks on the door. Who is this Mr. Quin? Mr. Satterthwaite's new friend is an enigma. He seems to appear and disappear almost like a trick of the light. In fact, the only consistent thing about him is that his presence is always an omen - sometimes good, but sometimes deadly....

Marooned on a tropical island, alone in a world of uncharted possibilities, and devoid of adult supervision or rules, a group of British boys begins to forge a society with its own unique rules and rituals.

Two best-selling Agatha Christie novels in one great audiobook. The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Hercule Poirot solves his first case in the Agatha Christie novel that started it all. Who poisoned the wealthy Emily Inglethorp and how did the murderer penetrate and escape from her locked bedroom? The ABC Murders - Agatha Christie's beloved classic The ABC Murders sets Hercule Poirot on the trail of a serial killer, who is working his way through the alphabet and putting the whole country in a state of panic.

England, 1936. On a clear autumn day, Kitty and her mischievous spaniel Bertie take a drive to a nearby village. After a long walk in the rolling country hills and lunch in a pretty tearoom, what could be nicer than to buy a couple of bottles of local cider for her husband—and partner-in-crime solving—Matt? Instead, she finds a body in the orchard… Kitty is shocked to discover Titus Blake dead, crushed by his own cider press.

Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates were close friends at Oxford University, but now live very different lives. Forty-one-year-old Jane lives in the country, is married to a vicar, has a daughter she adores, and lives a very proper life in a very proper English parish. Prudence, a year shy of 30, lives in London, has an office job, and is self-sufficient and fiercely independent - until Jane decides her friend should be married. Jane has the perfect husband in mind for her former pupil: a widower named Fabian Driver.

Every girl needs a knight in shining armor.... When kitchen witch Gwen Young discovers the spirit of King Arthur in the suit of armor that stands in her cafe only an hour after finding a dead body in the library, she knows it's going to be a very strange day....

September 1888. A 29-year-old Arthur Conan Doyle practices medicine by day and writes at night. His first Sherlock Holmes story has only netted him 25 pounds. Embittered by the experience, he vows never to write another "crime story". Then a messenger arrives with a mysterious summons from former Prime Minister William Gladstone, asking him to come to London immediately. Once there, he is offered one month's employment to assist the Metropolitan Police as a "consultant" in their hunt for the serial killer soon to be known as Jack the Ripper.

Jo told him the phone call had been about a woman who wanted to have her husband declared dead. Smith thought for a moment and then said, 'Hmm. There must be a few million women in this country who feel like that. I take it her husband's been missing for a while and she's decided it's time to move on. In the absence of a body, which is always a nuisance, she wants Diver and Diver to confirm there's no proof he's alive. And I've told Jason a dozen times I'm not getting involved in anything matrimonial. I have enough trouble sorting out my own relationships.'

The tranquility of a luxury cruise along the Nile was shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway had been shot through the head. She was young, stylish, and beautiful. A girl who had everything . . . until she lost her life. Hercule Poirot recalled an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: “I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.” Yet under the searing heat of the Egyptian sun, nothing is ever quite what it seems.

Xar and Wish are on the final leg of their journey—first stop: the Mines of Unhappiness. Here, starvation is never far away for the magical creatures who toil in its horrible depths. Xar and Wish must escape and fast; Xar needs to take control of his ever-growing Witchstain, and Wish must achieve her destiny. But the Tazzelwurm is in their way, a grotesque monster who threatens to block every entrance. Time is not on their side, but the forests are calling them. Will their combined strength be enough for the biggest quest so far, to defeat the Kingwitch once and for all?

Quinn Maxwell. Student. Dork. And a woman in love with a guy who doesn't know she exists. Cooke Thompson. British. Hottie. Rugby star. Chick magnet. And a guy trying to FaceChat with his old mate Maxwell Quinn. Sure, it was a wrong number, but sometimes, wrong ends up being so, so right.

I'm writing this letter because it's highly doubtful I'll ever garner the courage to say this to your face. So, here goes. We're totally wrong for each other. You're the proper single mum with a good head on your shoulders. I'm just the carefree British doctor passing through town and temporarily living in your converted garage until I head back to England. But here's the thing... for some bloody reason, I can't stop thinking about you in very inappropriate ways.

When Royal Academy painting student Lucy Coover trips over a naked man passed out in an East End alley, she does the decent thing. She covers him up and fetches help. Trouble is, she can't banish his muscular form from her dreams as easily. Compelled to capture every detail, she creates a stunning portrait but is forced to sell it when the rent comes due. What could be worse than surrendering the very picture of your desire? Meeting the man himself.

Who hung the headmaster in the playground on the night of the school Halloween Party? Almost everyone in Heppleburn either hated or feared the viper-tongued Harold Medburn. Inspector Ramsay is convinced it was the headmaster’s enigmatic wife but Jack Robson, school governor and caretaker, is determined to prove her innocence. With the help of his restless daughter Patty, Jack digs into the secrets of Heppleburn, and uncovers a cesspit of lies, adultery, blackmail and madness.

Garth Marenghi - Frighternerman, Darkscribe, Doomsage - is back with volume two of his TerrorTome . . . Horror novelist Nick Steen is abducted and imprisoned at Nulltec, a shadowy technological research facility with excellent conference parking, concealed deep on the Stalkford Downs. There he is observed, tested and 'interfered with' (physically) by a team of scientific experts led by Dr Barbara Nullman, determined to probe and 'nullify' his escaping imagination . . .