Don't just see the sights―get to know the people.Who can afford not to understand the USA? Underneath the gleaming smile of American popular culture lies a rich and complex society that brims with contrasts and contradictions. It is a culture of rugged individualism, of go-getters, of high-tech high achievers. At the same time it is a deeply religious country with a quiet devotion to church and charitable works.This new edition of Culture Smart...

Scotland Yard is hunting the worst kind of serial killer—one with a sense of humor.When children's book author Oliver Swithin, reluctant creator of the notorious "Finsbury the Ferret," finds an old friend's body floating in a Trafalgar Square fountain, he can't convince the police to treat the death as a murder.But then more corpses turn up daily—on a tube station platform, in a botanical gardens hothouse, even in the middle of Piccadilly Circus—each murder...

"Filled with clever repartee, memorable characters, and an ending as satisfying as it is unexpected."— BooklistWhat holy terror spiked the sacraments with strychnine?When a teenage girl disappears from a north London suburb a few days before Christmas, Detective Sergeant Effie Strongitharm puts would-be cult leader and reputed exorcist Nigel Tapster on her list of people to be questioned.But when Effie witnesses Tapster's a...

If a blackmail letter drives a man to suicide, is the sender guilty of murder?"Yes," says Oliver Swithin, author of bestselling Finsbury the Ferret children's stories and amateur sleuth, who is on holiday in an ancient village.A midnight streak with his naked girlfriend—Scotland Yard's Effie Strongitham—abruptly ends in the discovery of a corpse. Retired radiobroadcaster Dennis Breedlove has hanged himself from the old gibbet. Evidence suggests blackmail ma...

Don't just see the sights―get to know the people.Who can afford not to understand the USA? Underneath the gleaming smile of American popular culture lies a rich and complex society that brims with contrasts and contradictions. It is a culture of rugged individualism, of go–getters, of high–tech high achievers. At the same time it is a deeply religious country with a quiet devotion to church and charitable works.This new edition of USA – Culture...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY RT BOOK REVIEWSIn this superbly accomplished Charlotte and Thomas Pitt adventure, Anne Perry takes us beneath the glittering surface of wealthy Victorian society into a nightmare world of fear and intimidation, where women are too often blamed for the violent attacks against them, and powerful men take what they want, leaving others to pay the price.The horrifying rape ...

The perfect Cornish holiday escape. A 3-book short story collection from Sunday Times bestseller, Fern Britton.THE STOLEN WEEKEND, Short StoryBest friends Penny Leighton and Helen Merrifield had swapped their hectic London lives for the leisurely pace of life in a pretty Cornish village. But they’re both in need of a respite from their Pendruggan men.The two women cook up a scheme to leave them behind and get back to London for a weekend of blissful indulgence. But y...

A short story by Lionel Shriver from the collection Reader, I Married Him: Stories inspired by Jane Eyre.In ‘The Self-Seeding Sycamore’, a widow wages war upon her neighbour’s garden, and makes a surprising discovery.Edited by Tracy Chevalier, the full collection, Reader I Married Him, brings together some of the finest and most creative voices in fiction today, to celebrate and salute the strength and lasting relevance of Charlotte Brontë’s game-changing novel and its belo...

A collection of short stories and poems with a twist

Nelly's monster sitting adventures are always full of surprises. Things just seem to get stickier and stickier when she monster sits for the Ultravores but it doesn't compare to how lost for words she is at the Rimes. And with even more fighting with Asti to add to the mix, her time with the Wattwatts is shocking to say the least!Nelly finds herself a little lost for words at the Rimes, and she'll need to find them fast if she's to save baby Shimma.

Oliver Twist is the classic tale of a poor orphan boy who runs away from an abusivemaster, only to fall in with thieves and robbers on the cruel streets of 19th-century London.Eventually Oliver discovers the truth about his past, and finds a true home.Adapted by Maggie Pearson from the original novel by Charles Dickens.A series of adaptations of well-known stories, designed to introduce young readersto the classics. Divided into short chapters and illus...

Retold for Learners of English by Rosalie KerrOh, how delightful it is to fall in love for the first time! How exciting to go to your first dance when you are a girl of eighteen! But life can also be hard and cruel, if you are young and inexperienced and travelling alone across Europe . . . or if you are a child from the wrong social class . . . or a singer without work and the rent to be paid.Set in Europe and New Zealand, these nine stories by Katherine Mansfield dig deep b...