British Literature

Georgiana returned to Pemberley fresh from a highly successful London season, yet unmoved by any of the young men who lined up for introductions. Then, out of a terrible storm, there arrives a young French count with the face and address of an angel. Is this the one for which her heart has waited?

I never let anyone into my life, much less my heart. Teaching college students keeps me busy, and the occasional anonymous shag satisfies my urges. But then, a bonnie Scots lass walks into my world, and everything changes. I shouldn't be with Catriona MacTaggart. She awakens something in me that needs to stay buried. I should keep away, but I can't do it. Seducing her is a mistake. Living with her might be the worst disaster of all. The moment I saw Alex Thorne, I knew I wanted to be with him. No other man has ever made me feel so alive and so confused at the same time.

You are Dead is the 11th thrilling crime novel in Peter James' Roy Grace series, narrated by Daniel Weyman. They were marked for death. The last words Jamie Ball hears from his fiancée, Logan Somerville, are in a terrified mobile phone call. She has just driven into the underground car park beneath the block of flats where they live in Brighton. Then she screams and the phone goes dead.

It's with a heavy heart that Jane Austen takes up a new residence at Chawton Cottage in Hampshire. Secretly mourning the lost love of her life, she's stunned to learn that the late Lord Harold Trowbridge has made her heir to an extraordinary bequest: a Bengal chest filled with his diaries, letters, and most intimate correspondence. From these, Jane is expected to write a memoir of the Gentleman Rogue for posterity. But before she can put pen to paper on this labor of love, she discovers a corpse in the cellar of her new home.

All has been quiet in Liverpool, suspiciously quiet… So, when a frantic 999 call comes into Hale Street Police Station reporting a missing woman, it seems like there’s work to do. Except for DI Sheridan Holler there are questions. Why did Caroline Crow take her purse, suitcase and even tell friends she was going away? There’s no reason to suspect foul play…until a severed, burned hand is delivered to another address.

madness mad-nes n (14c): the quality or state of being mad: a: rage b: insanity c: extreme folly d: ecstasy, enthusiasm. And, added in the margins of the dictionary owned by James Tremont, the ninth duke of Parkerton, one additional definition: e: the state of finding oneself mistaken for a solicitor by a duke-hunting beauty who needs to be enthusiastically taught the true meaning of love.

DCI Kett is back, heading Norfolk Constabulary’s brand-new Extreme Crime Task Force. And it’s just in time. The body of a woman bound in thorns has been discovered in Norwich’s historic Cow Tower. In her mouth is a severed finger wrapped in a scrap of red cloth, and the first few lines of a fairy tale. “Once upon a time, a young maiden waited to be saved from a hideous monster.” The finger belongs to another missing woman, and if Kett, Porter and Savage want to find her alive they must follow a chain of blood-drenched riddles, each victim leading to the next.

Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels were some of the most celebrated works of fiction of the past decade. Ecstatic praise came from a wide range of admirers, from literary superstars such as Zadie Smith, Francine Prose, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Michael Chabon to pop-culture icons such as Anthony Bourdain and January Jones. Now St. Aubyn returns with a hilariously smart send-up of a certain major British literary award in this witty audiobook.

Melissa Craig is struggling with her new novel, so when the invitation arrives to visit a nearby country house for some writing time, she decides a bit of peace and quiet is just what she needs. The house is everything she could have hoped for, even if the staff do seem rather unsettled. She has barely unpacked when the owner of the house persuades Melissa to investigate some threatening notes he has received. But before she can do any digging, he is found murdered in his own orchard.

Tom Thorne has it all. In Nicola Tanner and Phil Hendricks, Thorne has good friends by his side. He finally has a love life worth a damn and is happy in the job to which he has devoted his life. He has everything to lose. Hunting the woman responsible for a series of grisly murders, Thorne has no way of knowing that he will be plunged into a nightmare from which he may never wake. And he'll do anything to keep it. Finally, Thorne's past has caught up with him and a ruinous secret is about to be revealed. If he wants to save himself and his friends, he must do the unthinkable.

London, 1940. Winnie Berry is at the heart of the community in her pub, The Battersea Tavern. Her door is always open to those in need of a cup of tea and sympathy. Winnie's abusive husband has left, and she finds herself foolishly falling in love with black-market trader Harry Hampton. But Harry is married, and Winnie soon finds herself tied up in his web of secrets. Meanwhile Winnie's son is back in London—not to visit his own child, but to charm the latest barmaid at the Battersea Tavern, which will lead to devastating consequences for the family.

Read by Juliet Stevenson and Simon Callow, A Literary Christmas is a seasonal anthology that collects together poems, short stories, and prose extracts by some of the greatest poets and writers in the English language. Like Charles Dickens’ ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, they are representative of times old and new - from John Donne’s Elizabethan hymn over the baby Jesus to Rudyard Kipling’s "Christmas in India", from Thomas Tusser counting the cost of a Tudor feast to Laurie Lee’s "Cider with Rosie".

When Dr Raymond Ferens moves to a practice at Milham in the Moor in north Devon, he and his wife are enchanted with the beautiful hilltop village lying so close to moor and sky. At first they see only its charm, but soon they begin to uncover its secrets - envy, hatred and malice. Everyone says that Sister Monica, warden of a children's home, is a saint - but is she? A few months after the Ferens' arrival her body is found drowned in the mill-race. Chief Inspector Macdonald faces one of his most difficult cases in a village determined not to betray its dark secrets to a stranger.

Thomas Mundy checks in to London's Wrexley Hotel, but he never checks out. The maid finds him on the floor of his room, bludgeoned to death by his own walking stick. Inspector Witherspoon is soon on the case and learns Mundy was an unlikely victim for such a violent crime. But Mrs. Jeffries and the household staff uncover that Mundy was less an amiable businessman and more a duplicitous con man with enemies on both sides of the Atlantic. Now Witherspoon and his staff must determine who on their lengthy list of suspects had the motive to put Mundy in the red.

There was only one reason Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan was prepared to let her boyfriend help out with an investigation into a car sales fraud - nothing bad could happen. But by now Kate should know that with Richard you have to expect the unexpected. With Richard behind bars, Kate must look after his eight-year-old son - who proves even more troublesome than his father. Kate finds herself dragged into a world of drug traffickers, child pornographers, fraudsters, and violent gangland enforcers in the most terrifying investigation of her career.

Lord Langley and Minerva, Lady Standon, began their faux engagement with three simple rules set down by the baron's all-too-proper (and utterly unlikely) bride-to-be....

Victorian England sets the stage for a passionate, unforgettable romance between a diplomat's daughter and a notorious mercenary who has targeted her father for assassination.

Virtual romance becomes a terrifying obsession in Peter James' tenth Roy Grace novel, Want You Dead.... Single girl, 29, smouldering redhead, love life that's crashed and burned. Seeks new flame to rekindle her fire. Fun, friendship and - who knows - maybe more? When Red Westwood meets handsome, charming and rich Bryce Laurent through an online dating agency, there is an instant attraction. But as their love blossoms, the truth about his past, and his dark side, begins to emerge.

1894. A well-respected academic is found dead in a gentlemen’s convenience cubicle at the British Museum, the stall locked from the inside. Professor Lance Pickering had been due to give a talk promoting the museum’s new 'Age of King Arthur' exhibition when he was stabbed repeatedly in the chest. Having forged a strong reputation working alongside the inimitable Inspector Abberline on the Jack the Ripper case, Daniel Wilson is called in to solve the mystery, and he brings his expertise and archaeologist Abigail Fenton with him.

Soldier, assassin, and special agent - Max McLean works for a highly secretive unit called The Unknown: a black ops team which delivers off-the-books justice on behalf of the British Government. When a straightforward operation to kill a terrorist commander goes badly wrong, Max finds himself framed for murder. Cut off from his base and cut loose by his Government handlers, he’s forced to go even deeper underground, propelled across Europe on a personal, high-stakes investigation to clear his name.