By Paul Braddon

Genre: Speculative Thriller, Grounded Sci-fi

Publisher: Sandstone Press

Publication Date: 2020

Fear makes her human - humans make her fear!

Evie, a bio-engineered human replica, lives in a Thames-side penthouse with her ‘husband’ Matthew and his servant, Daniels. A hugely valuable commodity, she has been kept secret from the world and spends her days pacing their rooftop garden, her life dull but safe.

When knowledge of her whereabouts is leaked, she is forced to leave the security of the apartment and everything she knows, and take her chances on the dangerous streets below. With the threat of capture ever present, she learns to be decisive and ruthless.

Along the way she rescues charismatic David, the only other humanoid like her, and Sola a ten-year-old pickpocket with whom she forms an instant bond. What greets her at her journey’s end is wholly unexpected. What is ‘the actuality’ and how can Evie make sense of her existence now?

The Actuality is a powerful, atmospheric speculative thriller set in a squalid, broken-down England a hundred years in the future in which technology has lurched forward then all but seized up. Evie is a brilliantly depicted character: AI but soulful, aware of her limitations but expanding her ‘consciousness’, experiencing the loneliness of being one of a kind and ultimately forcing us to question the essence of what it is to be human.

By James Gould-Bourn

UNDER OPTION with Lime Pictures

Genre: Up-lit, Comedy

Publisher: Trapeze (Orion) (UK), Scribner (Simon & Schuster) (US)

Publication Date: June 2020

Foreign Rights Sales: Germany, Italy, Chinese (Simplified), France, Serbia, Japan, Bulgaria

Danny has lost his wife, his job on a building site, and he is about to lose his home. Worst of all though, he’s losing his son, Will, who hasn’t spoken since his mum died 14 months earlier in a car crash. Danny doesn’t know how to reach him.

After seeing street performers in his local park apparently raking it in, he spends his last fiver on a vomit-ridden animal suit and becomes a dancing panda… until something unexpected happens that makes the humiliation of his terrible rhythm all worth it. When Danny sees Will being bullied, he runs over in the panda outfit to save his son, who in turn then opens up to him like he hasn’t for over a year. But Will doesn’t know it’s his dad in the suit, and Danny is too afraid to tell him the truth in case he spoils everything.

Keeping Mum is a sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes sad, always poignant and ultimately uplifting story of a father and son overcoming their grief in the most unlikely of circumstances.

By Amanda Mason

Genre: Domestic Horror/Psychological Thriller

Publisher: Bonnier Zaffre

The girls heard it first, the knocking inside the walls . . .

THEN

1976. Loo and her sister Bee live in a run-down cottage in the middle of nowhere, with their artistic parents and wild siblings. Their mother, Cathy, had hoped to escape to a simpler life; instead the family find themselves isolated and shunned by their neighbours. At the height of the stifling summer, unexplained noises and occurences in the house begin to disturb the family, until they intrude on every waking moment . . .

NOW

Loo, now Lucy, is called back to her childhood home. A group of strangers are looking to discover the truth about the house and the people who lived there. But is Lucy ready to confront what really happened all those years ago?

By Eliska Tanzer

Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir

Publisher: Mirror Books

This is the true story of Eliska Tanzer. Born into a Romani life, her family already outcasts, she has no future and no way out. Very early on, Eliska realises that the only way she will ever be happy is to leave the place and make her way in the world through an education. So she sets in motion a chain of events that will bring her to England and take her within inches of her dreams.

But the dusty road she must tread is fraught with challenges, and soon young Eliska has to face up to the brutalities of the world and her own struggle to stay alive.

This is her story. A story of remarkable will, determination and desire to become a better person. A story of a girl on the brink.

By Maria Kuzniar

Genre: YA Action & Adventure

Publisher: Penguin

Aleja whiles away her days in her family's dusty tavern in Seville, dreaming of distant lands and believing in the kind of magic that she's only ever read about in books. After all, she's always being told that girls can't be explorers.

But her life is changed forever when adventure comes for her in the form of a fabled vessel called the Ship of Shadows. Crewed by a band of ruthless women, with cabin walls dripping with secrets, the ship has sailed right out of a legend. And it wants Aleja.

Once on board its shadowy deck, she begins to realize that the sea holds more secrets than she ever could have imagined. The crew are desperately seeking something, and their path will take them through treacherous waters and force them to confront nightmare creatures and pitch-dark magic. It will take all of Aleja's strength and courage to gain the trust of her fellow pirates - and discover what they are risking everything to find.

By Jeremy Craddock

Genre: True Crime, Non-Fiction

Publisher: The History Press

10 Rillington Place meets Silent Witness, set in the Agatha Christie era and written with the verse and suspense of a crime thriller

In September 1935, Dr Buck Ruxton strangled his wife Isabella, whom he suspected of having an affair, in their Lancashire home while their three children slept in their beds close by. When the nanny, Mary Rogerson, disturbed him in the act, he killer her too.

To hide his crimes, he dismembered and chopped up the bodies, removing any distinguishing features, before he disposed of them in a number of bags in a ravine on the Scottish borders. When first discovered, it was unclear how many bodies the police were even dealing with. The world’s media went into a frenzy over the so-called ‘Jigsaw Murders’.

It took the genius of Professors Sydney Smith and John Glaister and their ground-breaking forensic techniques to piece together the identities of the bodies. And when the finger of suspicion finally pointed at Buck Ruxton, he acquired the services of the most famous lawyer in the land, Norman Birkett QC who, against all the odds, had successfully defended the accused of the Brighton Trunk Murder case the previous year. Would he succeed this time?

In The Jigsaw Murders, author and journalist Jeremy Craddock tells the whole story of these gruesome killings for the first time. He brings to life the main characters, from the enigmatic and charismatic Ruxton himself, to Isabella Ruxton and Mary Rogerson - until now only seen as anonymous victims of a cruel crime - to the police officers, lawyers and scientists involved in the investigation and trial in this landmark case which led to the birth of modern forensics.

by Claire McFall

UNDER OPTION with Legendary Entertainment

Genre: YA Fantasy, romance

Publisher: Templar Fiction

With more than two million copies sold worldwide, Ferryman is a cult sensation in China, staying in the top 10 bestseller chart for three years before securing a Hollywood movie deal in early 2018. Language rights to the Ferryman trilogy have been sold in 14 territories.

Three Book Series

Dylan has escaped a horrific train crash unscathed. Except she hasn't. The bleak landscape around her isn't Scotland. It's a wasteland haunted by wraiths searching for human souls. And the stranger waiting for her isn't an ordinary boy. Tristan is a Ferryman, tasked with transporting her soul safely to the afterlife, a journey he's made a thousand times before. Except this time, something's different. Torn between love and destiny, Dylan realises she can't let Tristan go, nor can she stay with him. Eventually, inevitably, the wraiths would capture her soul and she would be lost forever. Can true love overcome the boundaries of death?

by Claire McFall

UNDER OPTION with Legendary Entertainment

Genre: YA Fantasy, romance

Publisher: Templar Fiction

With more than two million copies sold worldwide, Ferryman is a cult sensation in China, staying in the top 10 bestseller chart for three years before securing a Hollywood movie deal in early 2018. Language rights to the Ferryman trilogy have been sold in 14 territories.

Three Book Series

Tristan and Dylan have escaped the afterlife. But fate never meant for them to live. Dylan should have been killed in a horrific train crash. Tristan should still be a Ferryman, an immortal. Now, living in bodies they have no right to inhabit, they discover they're connected by something stronger than love. Their souls are bound together. Alone, they'll die. When they broke through the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead they defied the laws of the supernatural world, and showed the way for others to escape. Now they must face the consequences. Can true love transcend destiny?

by Claire McFall

UNDER OPTION with Legendary Entertainment

Genre: YA Fantasy, romance

Publisher: Templar Fiction

With more than two million copies sold worldwide, Ferryman is a cult sensation in China, staying in the top 10 bestseller chart for three years before securing a Hollywood movie deal in early 2018. Language rights to the Ferryman trilogy have been sold in 14 territories.

Three Book Series

Tristan and Dylan have escaped death and conquered destiny. Finally, there is nothing to stop them from being together. But every action has a consequence, and their escape to the real world has caused an imbalance in the afterlife. It's owed two souls -- and it wants them back. When the world of the dead claims Dylan's parents to restore the balance, Dylan and Tristan are offered a terrible bargain: stay together and condemn innocent souls to death, or return to the wasteland to take their place and face separation. Forever. With no place left for them in the world of the living or the dead, will Dylan and Tristan make a heartrending sacrifice? The stunning final instalment of Dylan and Tristan's epic love story, Outcasts is the much-anticipated follow-up to the award-winning Ferryman, and heart-pounding sequel Trespassers.

By Lotte Jeffs

Genre: Non-Fiction

Publisher: Cassell (Octopus Books)

'Part memoir, part manual - this is the type of book every modern woman can take something from' Grazia

Learn to navigate the harshness of life with soft power. In her debut book, Lotte Jeffs weaves powerful life experience with practical advice and a psychological deep-dive into what truly constitutes an emotionally rich and meaningful existence. She speaks to everyone from agony aunts and archaeologists, to pop stars and novelists, to explore a diverse picture of what it is to truly live life well.

How to be a Gentlewoman will teach you how to slow down, lean out, recognize good relationships and let go of the bad, create a space you love, find your people and construct a happy and 'joined up' sense of yourself.

The gentle antidote to a brutal world.

Lotte Jeffs is a journalist who’s been published in the Independent, the Guardian, the Saturday Times, the Sunday Times, the Evening Standard, ES Magazine, High Life, ELLE and more. In 2016 Lotte won Writer of The Year at the Press and Publishing Association Awards and in 2017 was shortlisted for Columnist of the Year for her eponymous ELLE Magazine column Lotte’s Lexicon. Lotte has been a features writer and columnist for the past 15 years, with previous roles including Features Editor and Acting Deputy Editor of ES Magazine and Deputy Editor and Acting Editor in Chief of ELLE. Lotte is now Creative Director at global advertising agency Ogilvy and continues to write a column for the Evening Standard, in addition to writing for the national press and newspaper and magazine supplements.

by Sebastian de Castell

Genre: YA, Fantasy

Publisher: Hot Key Books (UK), Orbit/Hachette (US)

Foreign Rights Sales: Denmark, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Turkey

Nominated for the 2018 Carnegie Medal

MAGIC IS A CON GAME . . .

Kellen is moments away from facing his first mage's duel and the start of four trials that will make him a spellcaster. There's just one problem: his magic is gone.

As his sixteenth birthday approaches, Kellen falls back on his cunning in a bid to avoid total disgrace. But when a daring stranger arrives in town, she challenges Kellen to take a different path.

Ferius Parfax is one of the mysterious Argosi - a traveller who lives by her wits and the three decks of cards she carries. She's difficult and unpredictable, but she may be Kellen's only hope . . .

‘Magic with a Wild West flavour, served with flair.’ Financial Times

‘A bucket-load of tension is offset with humour, power struggles, lots of magic and some great characters. Fantasy junkies will devour with relish.’ Guardian

by Philip C. Quaintrell

UNDER OPTION

Genre: Fantasy Adventure Fiction

The Echoes of Fate, a prophesy uttered unto the world a thousand years ago, cannot be denied…

Mankind has lorded over the land of Illian for a thousand years, enjoying what was left to them by the elves, as if it were their birthright. A thousand years is a long time for an immortal race to see the error of their ways and realise a truth that has remained unsaid for a millennia - elves are superior! They are faster, stronger and connected to the magical world in a way that man could never grasp. Illian is their birthright. The six kingdoms of man are fractured, unallied and always clawing at each other’s doors for more power.
War is coming...

Thrown into the heart of this war is an Outlander of the wilds, an assassin, a ranger. Asher was born a thousand years ago, but he doesn’t remember. Forty years of brutal training and killing for money has beaten the earliest years of his life away, leaving his ties to the oldest of evils a mystery to all.

By Paul Cheston

Genre: True Crime, Non-Fiction

Publisher: John Blake Publishing (Bonnier Zaffre)

The heartbreaking true story of two families' thirty-year fight for justice for their murdered daughters

On 9 October 1986, Russell Bishop sexually assaulted and strangled nine-year-old Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway, in woods near Brighton. He did not answer for his crimes for over thirty years.

Bishop - a petty criminal known to both girls' families - was charged after his suspiciously close involvement in the search for the bodies. But a last-minute change of testimony from his then-girlfriend allowed him to go free, and the Babes in the Woods murders became one of Britain's most infamous cold cases.

In this first book on the case, veteran crime reporter Paul Cheston brings to life this thirty-year saga of murder, betrayal and injustice - before three decades of hurt led, at last, to healing, justice and hope for the parents of two murdered girls.

Written with the approval and cooperation of the Fellows family, The Babes in the Woods Murders sheds light once and for all on the awful truth behind what happened on 9 October 1986, and how the courtroom dramas that unfolded over a generation finally brought down one of Britain's most depraved killers.

by W.C. Ryan

Genre: Supernatural Thriller

Publisher: Zaffre (Bonnier Zaffre)

Short-listed for Irish Crime Awards / Crime Writing
Included in the 2018 Books of the Year list of the Sunday Express, Irish News and i-Newspaper.

'A gripping mystery with a classic feel: And Then There Were None meets The Silent Companions'

Winter 1917. As the First World War enters its most brutal phase, back home in England, everyone is seeking answers to the darkness that has seeped into their lives.

At Blackwater Abbey, on an island off the Devon coast, Lord Highmount has arranged a spiritualist gathering to contact his two sons who were lost in the conflict. But as his guests begin to arrive, it gradually becomes clear that each has something they would rather keep hidden. Then, when a storm descends on the island, the guests will find themselves trapped. Soon one of their number will die.

For Blackwater Abbey is haunted in more ways than one . . .

An unrelentingly gripping mystery packed with twists and turns, A House of Ghosts is the perfect chilling read this winter.

'Wonderfully written and a jolly good read' - Sunday Independent

'Spooks, spies and spectres are the order of the day in this rattling good read' - Sunday Express

'An intelligent, absorbing, exquisitely spooky mystery' - Irish Times’

by Peter Laws

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Publisher: Allison & Busby

Three Book Series

Foreign Rights Sales: Germany

Three times under the water: in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but then they must die. They’ll thank him for it one day because when they finally open their eyes they will see the glory of heaven…He kills because he cares.

Matt Hunter is a disgraced ex-vicar turned atheist. Now he’s a Professor of Sociology, writing a book debunking religious faith. He’s also an expert in religion and cults, who sometimes helps the Met with religiously-motivated crimes. When his architect wife, Wren, is invited to tender for a church renovation project in Hobbs Hill, Oxfordshire, the family decide to make a holiday of it. The village is idyllic, with a serene lake and beautiful waterfall. But Matt is instantly suspicious of the wooden crosses that hang in shop windows and homes. And what are the bizarre therapy sessions being run by the church on the hill? The holiday takes a darker turn, when he helps out with a search for a missing anorexic, teenage girl. When a second woman disappears, and then a third, Matt must draw on his theological knowledge to protect his family and catch a killer. But who keeps sending him pictures of the victims, even before the police know they’re missing?

Purged is the first novel in a gripping and unique crime thriller series about a man solving religious crime while wrestling with questions of his own abandoned faith.

‘Welcome to the future of crime chiller fiction – Purged is a spooky murder-em-up which comes on with massively unsettling supernatural elements that feel like James Herbert at his best… I haven’t been this creeped out by a novel since Let The Right One In‘ Darkmatters

by Peter Laws

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Publisher: Allison & Busby

Three Book Series

Foreign Rights Sales: Germany

Fifteen years ago, 29 Barley Street in Menham, South London, became notorious as the scene of alleged poltergeist activity and then as a crime scene when young Holly Wasson hanged herself.

The shadow cast by the unhuman figure that tormented Holly has never entirely left Menham, or the gang of friends who were so affected by the strange and tragic events. The shadow looms large in the present when one of the group dies in a horrific circumstances.

Matt Hunter, former minister and now professor of sociology, is called in to advise the police on the possible ritualistic elements of the death. He can’t help being drawn into the potent mix of prayer walkers, spiritualists and talk of demons at large in the town, and drawn into the question: have forces beyond the grave been unleashed, or is a flesh-and-blood killer at work?

‘It’s a crime story wound up in supernatural, nerve-jangling creepiness. Be warned, you’ll be peering under the bed before you switch out the light!’ - Peterborough Telegraph

by Peter Laws

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Publisher: Allison & Busby

Three Book Series

Foreign Rights Sales: Germany

During a communion service at a village church, the teenage son of a vicar brutally attacks his father with an axe. The horrified congregation watch the son esape and during a frantic police search rumours arise that the boy was involved in devil worship. Professor Matt Hunter, an atheist ex-minister and expert on religion, is brought in to advise, yet he quickly suspects the church attack may have a far more complex cause.

Meanwhile, a ten-year-old boy called Ever grows up in a small Christian cult. The group believe they are the only true humans left and that the world is filled with demons called Hollows, but they’re working on a bizarre ritual that will bring peace and paradise to the world. Soon, the worlds of Matt and Ever will collide in one awful, terrifying night where Matt is thrown into the frightening and murderous world of religious mania.

‘Dark and delicious with plenty of edge of the seat moments, twisty as you like and beautifully written and plotted.’ - Liz Loves Books blog

by RR Haywood

UNDER OPTION with Cavalry Media

Publisher: 47North

Genre: Sci-Fi Thriller

In 2061, a young scientist invents a time machine to fix a tragedy in his past. But his good intentions turn catastrophic when an early test reveals something unexpected: the end of the world.

A desperate plan is formed. Recruit three heroes, ordinary humans capable of extraordinary things, and change the future.

Safa Patel is an elite police officer, on duty when Downing Street comes under terrorist attack. As armed men storm through the breach, she dispatches them all.

'Mad' Harry Madden is a legend of the Second World War. Not only did he complete an impossible mission—to plant charges on a heavily defended submarine base—but he also escaped with his life.

Ben Ryder is just an insurance investigator. But as a young man he witnessed a gang assaulting a woman and her child. He went to their rescue, and killed all five.

Can these three heroes, extracted from their timelines at the point of death, save the world?

by RR Haywood

UNDER OPTION with Cavalry Media

Publisher: 47North

Genre: Sci-Fi Thriller

The team of heroes extracted from their timelines to stop the impending apocalypse didn’t think they needed a leader.

But they’ve got one anyway.

With their mission in tatters, Miri has been called in to steady the ship. And to focus them on their assignment: preventing the end of the world.

The problem is, the world doesn’t know it’s in danger. With governments pursuing them relentlessly, attempting to steal the time-travel device to use for their own ends, the heroes are on the run—fighting for survival in a world they’re supposed to save.

Meanwhile, Miri has motives of her own. And when the existence of a second device is discovered, the team’s mission and their lives are in mortal danger…

by RR Haywood

UNDER OPTION with Cavalry Media

Publisher: 47North

Genre: Sci-Fi Thriller

The end of the world has been avoided—for now. With Miri and her team of extracted heroes still on the run, Mother, the disgraced former head of the British Secret Service, has other ideas…

While Mother retreats to her bunker to plot her next move, Miri, Ben, Safa and Harry travel far into the future to ensure that they have prevented the apocalypse. But what they find just doesn’t make sense.

London in 2111 is on the brink of annihilation. What’s more, the timelines have been twisted. Folded in on each other. It’s hard to keep track of who is where. Or, more accurately, who is when.

The clock is ticking for them all. With nothing left to lose but life itself, our heroes must stop Mother—or die trying.

by Taylor Dolan

Publisher: Guppy Books

Genre: Children's comedy horror

Lexie Wilde was pretty sure she was supposed to be joining the Happy Hollow Camp for Joyful Boys and Girls for the summer. So why did her Grams just drop her off under a big ol' sign saying WELCOME TO CAMP CROAK? And is she really sharing a cabin with a werewolf, a skeleton, a fancy schmancy zombie and a baseball-hat-wearing ghost? Yep, looks like she is!

But after earning some rather unusual Ghoul Scout badges, Lexie becomes the best of friends with her new pals, and before long is one of the team. However, danger lurks as the wicked Euphemia Vile has plans of her own. And when their beloved camp counsellors succumb to an odd sleeping sickness, Lexie and her new friends become suspicious ... can they overcome the saccharine sweetness of their new Scoutmaster and save Camp Croak?

The first in a laugh-out-loud series for young readers, with hilarious integrated two-colour illustrations throughout.

by Rutendo Tavengerwei

Genre: YA, Drama

Publisher: Hot Key Books

A breathtaking teen novel set in Zimbabwe about freedom, inter-generational friendships and forgiving the past.

Fifteen-year-old Tumirai lives with his protective big brother, Mkoma in Harare, Zimbabwe. He's the first albino kid ever to have attended his school and constantly feels like an outsider.

When his brother is invited to go travelling for work, Tumirai goes to stay with their grandmother, Ambuya Thandie. She is scarred, in more ways than one, but her memory is a treasure trove - and her stories of Zimbabwe's war for independence are a long, long way from the history Tumirai has heard before.

by Rutendo Tavengerwei

Genre: YA, Drama

Publisher: Hot Key Books (UK), Soho Teen (US)

Foreign Rights Sales: Brazil

Nominated for the CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL 2019

Selected in the CILIP round-up of 2018 books championing diversity

A novel set in Zimbabwe about hope - and its power to heal a family, a friendship or even a nation.

For fifteen-year-old Shamiso, struggling with grief and bewilderment following her father's death, hope is nothing but a leap into darkness.

For Tanyaradzwa, whose life has been turned upside down by a cancer diagnosis, hope is the only reason to keep fighting.As the two of them form an unlikely friendship, Shamiso begins to confront her terrible fear of loss. In getting close to another person, particularly someone who's ill, isn't she just opening herself up to more pain? And underpinning it all - what did happen to her father, the night of that strange and implausible car crash?

Rutendo Tavengerwei's extraordinary debut takes an honest look at hope, and the grit and courage it can take to hang on to it.

‘A stunning debut from an unforgettable voice, as epic and full of hope as an African thunderstorm’ LAUREN ST JOHN

by Mel Darbon

Genre: YA

Publisher: Usborne Publishing

Foreign Rights Sales: Brazil, France

World Book Night choice for 2019
Sunday Times Culture Section YA Book of the Year
Book Trust Book of the Year
The Reading Zone Book of the Year
Longlisted for the Branford Boase Award 2019

‘They can't send you away. What will we do? We need us. I stop your angry, Jack. And you make me strong. You make me Rosie.’

Rosie loves Jack. Jack loves Rosie. So when they're separated, Rosie will do anything to find the boy who makes the sun shine in her head.

Even run away from home.

Even struggle across London and travel to Brighton, though the trains are cancelled and the snow is falling. Even though people might think a girl like Rosie could never survive on her own.

See the world through new eyes in this one-in-a-million story.

‘A story about the power of love and the importance of remembering that those with disabilities should not be defined by them.’ Mail on Sunday (YA Book of the Month, Sept. 2018)

‘An enthralling story of resolve and grit... a moving and uplifting novel.’ Imogen Russell Williams, The Guardian

by Louise Fein

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publication Date: May 2020

Publisher: Head of Zeus (UK), William Morrow (HarperCollins) (US)

Foreign Rights Sales: The Netherlands, Romania, Italy, Portugal

‘Hetty Heinrich is the dutiful daughter of a Liepzig newspaperman turned high ranking Nazi, keen to play her part in the glory of the new Thousand Year Reich. But when she encounters Walter, a friend from the past, dangerous feelings are stirred. Confused and conflicted, Hetty doesn’t know where to turn;someone is watching, and no one can be trusted. As the rising tide of anti-semitism threatens to engulf them, Hetty and Walter must take extreme action. Will the steady march of dark forces destroy Hetty’s world, or canlove ultimately triumph?

by Nuala Ellwood

UNDER OPTION with Bill Kenwright Limited

Genre: Pyschological Thriller

Publisher: Viking (Penguin)

If you can't trust your sister, then who can you trust?

Kate Rafter has spent her life running from her past. But when her mother dies, she's forced to return to Herne Bay - a place her sister Sally never left.

But something isn't right in the old family home. On her first night Kate is woken by terrifying screams. And then she sees a shadowy figure in the garden...

Who is crying for help?
What does it have to do with Kate's past?
And why does no one - not even her sister - believe her?

by A.J. Mackenzie

Genre: Historical Thriller

Publisher: Zaffre (Bonnier Zaffre)

Kent, 1796.

Shocked to discover a dying man on his doorstep - and lucky to avoid a bullet himself - Reverend Hardcastle finds himself entrusted with the victim's cryptic last words.

With smuggling rife on England's south-east coast, the obvious conclusion is that this was a falling out among thieves. But why is the leader of the local Customs service so reluctant to investigate?

Ably assisted by the ingenious Mrs Chaytor, Hardcastle sets out to solve the mystery for himself. But smugglers are not the only ones to lurk off the Kent coast, and the more he discovers, the more he realises he might have bitten off more than he can chew.

by A.J. Mackenzie

Genre: Historical Thriller

Publisher: Zaffre (Bonnier Zaffre)

On the frozen fields of Romney Marsh stands New Hall; silent, lifeless, deserted. In its grounds lies an unexpected Christmas offering: a corpse, frozen into the ice of a horse pond.

It falls to the Reverend Hardcastle, justice of the peace in St Mary in the Marsh, to investigate. But with the victim's identity unknown, no murder weapon and no known motive, it seems like an impossible task. Working along with his trusted friend, Amelia Chaytor, and new arrival Captain Edward Austen, Hardcastle soon discovers there is more to the mystery than there first appeared.

With the arrival of an American family torn apart by war and desperate to reclaim their ancestral home, a French spy returning to the scene of his crimes, ancient loyalties and new vengeance combine to make Hardcastle and Mrs Chaytor's attempts to discover the secret of New Hall all the more dangerous.

The Body in the Ice, with its unique cast of characters, captivating amateur sleuths and a bitter family feud at its heart, is a twisting tale that vividly brings to life eighteenth-century Kent and draws readers into its pages.

by A.J. Mackenzie

Genre: Historical Thriller

Publisher: Zaffre (Bonnier Zaffre)

Across the still, dark English Channel come the smugglers. But tonight they carry an unusual cargo: a coffin. Several miles inland, a respected banker holds a birthday party for his wife. Within days, one of the guests is found shot dead.

What links this apparently senseless killing to the smugglers lurking in the mists? Why has the local bank been buying and hoarding gold? And who was in the mysterious coffin?

Reverend Hardcastle and Mrs Chaytor find themselves drawn into the worlds of high finance and organised crime in this dramatic and dark Georgian mystery. With its unique cast of characters and captivating amateur sleuths, The Body in the Boat is a twisting tale that vividly brings to life eighteenth-century Kent and draws readers into its pages.

by Lysa Walder

UNDER OPTION with Wild Mercury

Genre: Non-Fiction

Publisher: John Blake (Bonnier Books)

These are the fascinating real life stories of heartbreak and hope, direct from the frontline. A teenage boy lies on the pavement, bleeding to death from a stab wound; a distraught mum watches, in mute shock, as her daughter suffers a terrifying fatal asthma attack; a young girl is gang raped and her stricken boyfriend takes an overdose; a disturbed young man flings himself in front of a speeding train at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve. Few people can imagine living in a world where such situations are part of everyday life. Yet for London Ambulance Paramedic Lysa Walder, these and thousands of other emergency call outs are part of a day's work: scenes of tragedy, loss and horror -- but also stories of triumph and humour, and all the results of an urgent 999 call to the biggest and busiest free ambulance service in the world. Lysa has been an A&E nurse and paramedic for over 15 years. Here, she tells the inside story behind the screaming sirens and flashing blue lights of the emergency services and reveals what it's really like to work in a job that frequently brings paramedic teams face-to-face with death -- and destiny.