British Literature

In this comprehensive anthology, former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion has gathered together exceptional poems from the 14th century through to the present day, creating an extraordinary poetic journey for the listener. From the love poems of Shelley and Keats to the grim war elegies of Owen and Sassoon, there is a poem here for every sentiment, each with something different to offer.

Alison Willetts has survived a stroke, deliberately induced by a skilful manipulation of pressure points on the head and neck. She can see, hear and feel, but she is completely unable to move or communicate. In leaving Alison Willetts alive, the police believe the killer's made his first mistake. Then DI Tom Thorne discovers the horrifying truth: it isn't Alison who is the mistake, it's the three women already dead. Thorne must find a killer whose agenda is disturbingly unique, and Alison, the one person who holds the key to the killer's identity, is unable to say anything....

In 1767, 11-year-old Nicholas Young stowed away on Captain James Cook's "Endeavour". Cook's three-year mission was secret: he was charged by the British Navy to search for a lost continent, believed to be located between the southern tip of South America and New Zealand. Young's journal charts the voyage and with every port of call a new adventure awaits. This is the story of a great voyage of discovery seen through the eyes of a boy who was actually there.

In a windswept British seaside town, single mum Alice Lake finds a man sitting on the beach outside her house. He has no name and no idea how he got there. Against her better judgment, she invites him inside. Meanwhile, in a suburb of London, 21-year-old Lily Monrose has only been married for three weeks. When her husband fails to come home from work one night, she is left alone in a place where she knows no one and with the police telling her that her husband never existed.

SPIDER MOUTHDI FRED FAIRSERVICE has just returned from holiday when he’s confronted with several mysterious deaths; the mutilated dead body of a junkie, the apparent suicide of a housewife, and the murder of a cannibal, kicks off the strangest investigation of his dark and brutal career. But the strangest element of the case is the connection to the deaths of several old men and women who are found with spiders placed in their mouths.

When a detested viscount is found murdered by the banks of the Thames and Charlie Hastings becomes the prime suspect, Barnaby and Penelope Adair join forces with Stokes to discover the real story behind the unexpected killing. Charlie Hastings is astonished to find himself accused of murdering Viscount Sedbury. Admittedly, Charlie had two heated altercations with Sedbury in the hours preceding the man’s death, but as Charlie is quick to point out to Stokes—and to Barnaby and Penelope—there are a multitude of others in the ton who will be delighted to learn of Sedbury’s demise.

A beautiful socialite is dead. Roy Grace’s leading suspect, her husband, was sixty miles away when she died, but all other evidence points to him. Has someone stolen his identity or is he simply a very clever liar? Grace’s investigation, and his budding new relationship, are derailed after a reported sighting of his wife, Sandy, who has been missing for nine years. Grace desperately tries to cast light on the truth in both cases as his emotional turmoil – and the body count – grows . . .

The remains of a 17th-century witch, an MP found hanging above a five-pointed star and three girls with powers beyond anyone's control. As DI Tanner and DS Evans endeavour to make plans for their big day, the chance discovery of Norfolk's last known witch, tried and hanged by Norfolk’s infamous Witchfinder General, sparks a chain of the most horrific events, none of which Tanner seems able to prevent.

Young, ardent Dorothea Brooke defies her sister by wedding the much older Reverend Edward Casaubon, blindly hoping to assist in his scholarly pursuits. Tertius Lydgate, a progressive doctor, new and unwelcome in provincial Middlemarch, is charmed into marriage with the selfish and shallow Rosamond Vincy, a disastrous mismatch of his own. Soon blatant stubbornness, unruly jealousy, blind idealism, and calculated blackmail threaten to upend the Midlands village and lay waste to happy endings.

When the body of an old man is found lying in the ruins of St Benet’s Abbey, his throat cut, a knife resting in his open hand, DI John Tanner and DC Jenny Evans are given no choice but to accept a ruling of death by misadventure. But when the body goes missing from its tomb, after a priest is found nailed to a cross, and another impaled on a stake, everything begins to point back to the murder of a teenage girl, thrown from the top of a church tower, some 43 years before.

As a professional bridesmaid, Sophie is hired by London brides to be their right-hand woman, posing as a friend but working behind the scenes to help plan the perfect wedding and ensure their big day goes off without a hitch. When she’s hired by Lady Victoria Swann - a former model and “It Girl" of 1970’s London; now the Marchioness of Meade - for the society wedding of the year, it should be a chance for Sophie to prove just how talented she is.

Normally dead bodies in a graveyard are buried - but not this one. When a woman is found strangled in a North London cemetery with an old newspaper clipping clutched in her hand, Inspector Witherspoon is surprised to find that he and the victim have crossed paths before. Alice Robinson was a respectable widow who ran a quiet Islington lodging house. None of her lodgers have any apparent motive to murder their landlady.

DCI Lesley Clarke thinks she’s close to solving her predecessor’s murder. But when the body of a police officer connected to the crime turns up in the abandoned village of Tyneham, the case steps up a gear. And when someone she's close to is threatened by the killer, Lesley’s quest for the truth becomes even more urgent. Can Lesley convince her senior officers of the truth, keep her team on track and protect her family?

1792, England: Lord Francis and Lady Ottilia Fanshawe are on their way home when their coach comes to a sudden stop. A woman is standing in the middle of the road - covered in blood. The woman refuses to speak but on further investigation they find the body of a man hidden in the woods. Ottilia insists on bringing the woman home to find out what occurred. But the more she finds out the more complicated the case becomes....

A body caught on the end of a mast, another skewered by a rhond hook, and a chain of evidence Tanner simply cannot accept. As a twisting gale howls its way over Barton Broad, DS Jenny Evans joins a handsome old friend to help rescue the crew of an overturned boat. But when they discover a body, snagged on the end of the mast, one murder soon follows another, leaving DI John Tanner facing a race against time, desperate to prove that the most obvious suspect isn’t who everyone seems to think it is.

When Harry Falcon, a wealthy boatyard owner and decorated World War Two veteran, is found drowned in his bath, DI John Tanner and DC Jenny Evans start by questioning his two sons, each with a motive for wanting him dead. But when the elder son is found with his head smashed in under a toppled yacht, and the younger son has been talking to a local property developer, one who’d spent months trying to buy the yard from his father, the investigation soon leads them towards a dark and dangerous secret, one which nobody can quite believe.

Tea maven Theodosia Browning and her tea sommelier Drayton Conneley are guests at a bird hunt styled in the precise manner of an English shooting party. Which means elevenses (sloe gin fizzes), gun loaders, the drawing of pegs, fine-looking bird dogs, and shooting costumes of tweed, herringbone, and suede. But as gunshots explode like a riff of Black Cat firecrackers, another shot sounds too close for comfort to Theodosia and Drayton. Intrigued but worried, Theodosia wanders into the neighbor's lavender field where she discovers their host, Reginald Doyle, bleeding to death.

Elinor Noel—Nory for short—is quite content running her secondhand bookshop in London. Forever torn between her working-class upbringing and her classmates’ extravagant lifestyles at the posh private school she attended on scholarship, Nory has finally figured out how to keep both at equal distance. So when two of her oldest friends invite their whole gang to spend the time leading up to their wedding together at the castle near their old school, Nory must prepare herself for an emotionally complicated few days.

Philip Brampton understands that fortune is against him. He tries gallantly to bury his distress and support his lonely beloved, even after she starts pursuing an arrogant buffoon. Stiffening her spine in a world that refuses to acknowledge her value, Eleanor attempts to navigate the impossible situation without quashing her desires. And though his shy nature abhors a scene, Philip braces himself for a confrontation with her cruel patriarch. Do these childhood sweethearts have any hope of achieving lasting happiness?

I had a plan: Sign a contract, and board a plane to Ibiza. The anonymous deal would salvage the smoldering wreckage of my life. It would not involve billionaire Harrison King, the reason I need saving in the first place. He’s as beautiful as he is cruel. A British business titan who makes a living getting what he wants. The man flies private. Dates supermodels. But the crisp accent and cocky smirk don’t fool me. He’s a gentleman on the outside, a savage beneath. Dangerous, rough, and brutal.