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In its northern fastness Britannia – despite all the benefits of the Pax Romana, with its technology and brutally rationalist philosophy – has kept its mysterious secrets, hidden deep in the wild forests that still cover much of the land.

As the Empire gathers its forces, three young people hold the future in their hands: the Roman Viti, now known as Coll, Angus the mechanic-turned-revolutionary and Mirana the student, now in touch with strange powers.

And as the cold, rational imperatives of Rome meet the wild magic of an older world, the Empire’s dominion will at last be challenged.

The Burning Forest: the triumphant conclusion to the magical epic A Land Fit for Heroes.

Bright the sun burning,
Night will come turning,
Mothwings go spinning,
End and beginning,
Eye of the star,
Where Old Gods are.

Players, take your places!
The Land itself calls Game!

The Presences mean something different to each of Jubal’s colonists. In some, these towering crystals inspire awe, in others fear. A small band must break through the long silence between humanity and the Presences to strike a new alliance – and bring about the end of a tyrannical dynasty.

Sheri S. Tepper’s world has the depths of galaxies. Her characters come alive like stars burning in the black of space. The tale she tells will leave you astounded.

It lay in the grass, tiny and white and burning. He stooped, put out his fingers. And then there was nothing. Nothing but darkness and oblivion. A split second demolition of the world of Richard Avery.
From a damp February afternoon in Kensington Gardens, Avery is precipitated into a world of apparent unreason. A world in which his intelligence is tested by computers, and which he is finally left on a strange tropical island with three companions, and a strong human desire to survive.

But then the mystery deepens: for there are two moons in the sky, and the rabbits have six legs, and there is a physically satisfying reason for the entire situation.

The only survivor plucked from a world where life has been burned out from horizon to horizon, Rat Korga is a very unusual human. On his own world he was subjected to Radical Anxiety Termination-a synapse-jamming technique banned on many planets.

Now the officials of the Web must find a new world for him. Their first choice is the planet Velm: a world on which humans co-exist uneasily with the trisauian evelmi – and also the world of Marq Dyeth, for whom Korga is calculated to be the perfect erotic object, to about seven decimal places . . .

BURNING SKY is a collection of twenty-seven short stories by award-winning author Rachel Pollack. These stories – many of which have remained almost wholly unknown until now – reflect the author’s interests in unorthodox sexuality and subjectivity of experience, as well her wry sense of humor and impressive imagination.

Thirty billion people from throughout Earth’s history have been resurrected along the great an winding waterways of Riverworld. Most began life anew – accepting without question the sustenance provided by their mysterious benefactors. But a rebellious handful burned to challenge the unseen masters who controlled their fate

Now, these adventures of Riverworld have penetrated the great tower which rises from the amazing planet’s north polar seas – and within it is the mighty computer which controls the resurrection of billions of human beings. It is inside this giant tower that Sir Richard Burton, Alice Liddell Hargreaves, Peter Frigate and Li Po meet their greatest challenge – and their deadliest foe.

The incredible secret behind the Riverworld is about to be unveiled . . .

Fifteen billion years from now, Earth is a dying planet, its skies darkened by the ashes of burned-out galaxies, its molten core long cooled. The sunless planet is nearing the day of final gravitational collapse in the surrounding galaxy. Mutations and evolution have led to a great disparity of life-forms, while civilization has resorted to the primitive.
Young Deyv of the Turtle Tribe knew nothing of his world’s history or its fate. He lived only to track down the wretched Yawtl who had stolen his precious Soul Egg. Joined by other victims of the same thief – the feisty Vana and the plant-man Sloosh – the group sets off across a nightmare landscape of monster-haunted jungle and wetland. Their search leads them ultimately to the jeweled wasteland of the Shemibob, an ageless being from another star who knows Earth’s end is near and holds the only key to escape.

Emerging from the burned remains of their old home, the ancient, elegant Scarabae ready themselves for a new life of seduction and feasting, until little Ruth ignites a blaze of chaos through the streets of London that threatens them all.

This is book two in the Blood Opera series.

Keston Ochiltree’s visit home had been short and disastrous. His newborn nephew had proved to be one of the Hopeless Ones and had only served to remind him of the present plight of mankind. Keston knew that the decision he was being called on to make might mean a new start for humanity or the end of their underwater civilization.

Each day found more Hopeless Ones being born: pitiful creatures with webbed hands and feet. More important, the inhuman Zammu were pressing their attack in a fierce struggle between species. Most important, the silver sky was lowering. The shimmering sky-level would soon shrink until they had all burned in the gaseous beyond.

So Keston’s decision might mean everything. Should he stay in the Emperor’s shark-cavalry to fight the Zammu? Or should he join Professor Lansing in an illegal attempt to find what lay beyond the silver sky?

Brilliant government scientist Richard Seaton discovers a remarkable faster-than-light fuel that will power his interstellar spaceship, The Skylark.
His ruthless rival, Marc DuQuesne, and the sinister World Steel Corporation will do anything to get their hands on the fuel.

When they kidnap Seaton’s fiancee and friends, they unleash a furious pursuit and ignite a burning desire for revenge that will propel The Skylark across the galaxy and back.

One moment Kenniston was strolling down the quiet street, lost in pleasant reverie. The next moment the sky split open!

It split wide open, and above them was a burn and a blaze of light – so swift, so violent, that the air itself seemed to have burst into flame. Then there was silence – awful, suffocating silence.

Kenniston felt the chill of premonition – a shapeless terror that grew into a thing too evil to be borne alone.

The sun shone brightly on this fateful morning, bringing to its planets warmth and life-giving rays. The brightness increased sharply as the morning grew older. The glare was blinding; the radiation not life-giving, but deadly. By mid-afternoon the brilliant, intense sun shone on barren space. It had blasted each of its four planets out of existence.

Someone had found a way to poison a star.

And someone had to be found who could prevent the takeover – or destruction – of the entire universe. Who? Johnny Kettrick, as improbable a hero there never was. Johnny Kettrick who was banned from the Cluster World for his not-too-honest dealings was sent back there with his three equally unholy partners to search out the Doomstar…to find the Doomstar before it burned out another world.

The Hon. Vernon Lethaby is a flamboyant, headline-seeking exhibitionist with extravagant tastes and an allowance that barely covers his racing debts. In an unlikely partnership with middle-aged Canadian adventurer Joe ‘Digger’ Henderson, he strikes out for the Highlands of Scotland to hunt for Prince Charlie’s treasure, which, according to legend, is interred on the isle of Erran.

But Lathaby doesn’t trust his partner, and has taken out insurance to cover him against being swindled. Enter Miles Bredon, who is sent by his employer to ensure than neither of them defrauds the Indescribable Insurance Company.

An unidentified body burned in a garage, maps, photographs and a missing key sustain this clever tale of financial skulduggery until the final pages.

Eve: mysterious, tantalizing, alluring, wanton. Deep within this desirable but strange girl burns the violent fire that could destroy a man.

Clive Thurston had swindled his way to fame. He thought he knew the ropes and women. Maybe he did. But he didn’t know Eve, otherwise he’d have realized that he was just another fly stumbling into the deadly web of a woman who was beautiful to look at, but lethal to love.

One October night in the middle of the twentieth century Detective Inspector John Cheviot got into a taxi, bound for New Scotland Yard. When he stepped out it was from a horse-drawn cab, the year was 1829, and a beautiful woman was beckoning him in front of Old Scotland Yard.

There were things Cheviot remembered but couldn’t use – like how to analyse fingerprints; and things he didn’t know that he could have used – like how advanced his romance with Lady Flora really was. And there wasn’t even time to learn, because in the midst of helping Robert Peel establish the respectability and competence of his new police force, Cheviot suddenly finds himself and his lady accused of cruel murder.

In a peaceful, residential section of Queens, Kitty Keeler’s young sons have gone missing. Both she and her husband say they have no idea where the children are. Then New York Police Department cop Joe Peters gets the call he’s been dreading. The bodies of two blond, blue-eyed boys have been found.
As Joe launches an investigation, he becomes dangerously drawn to the exquisite Kitty. With the evidence against her mounting and the world calling her a heartless killer, Joe vows to uncover the truth, no matter what the cost. But as violence begets violence, and his obsession with Kitty grows, Joe knows he’ll never rest until he finds the answer to the burning question: Did Kitty Keeler murder her own children?

Henrietta Cosgrove’s eightieth birthday luncheon had gone very well, her five stepchildren all gathered to celebrate in her lovely old thatched house. But then Henrietta dropped a bombshell.

To shore up her dwindling income, she proposed to sell two landscapes by a painter whose work had recently appreciated. That night the house burned down. When the pictures were found to be missing it looked as though the fire was intended to cover the theft. But what the fire uncovered was far more dramatic . . .

An escaped convict, a mysterious deserted house, and murder in the Lake District..
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club

The shades of night were falling fast when Arthur Crook drove the old Superb over the Lakeland Fells and into the valley, to stop at a mysterious house where, though a light burned in an upper window, no one answered the bell.

Here opens a double murder mystery in which Crook acts in the defence of a young prisoner on the run, whose guilt appears evident.

‘The usual gusto, racy prose, good plotting and up-to-the-minute social observation’ Sunday Times

When a yacht explodes in the Bahamas, apparently killing six people, Sam Boyleston, an attorney from Texas and the brother of one of the victims, is compelled to investigate the circumstances, as does Raoul Kelly, a newspaper reporter.

After the disaster the yacht’s burned captain was temporarily marooned on a small island, and soon it becomes apparent that one person is ruthlessly manipulating events. But for Boyleston and Kelly proving guilt appears impossible …

‘A major suspense novel’ New York Times

Boston landlady Harriet Sutton discovers a note about a conspiracy to murder someone – a note that must have come from one of her tenants.

When a tenant is murdered, she asks psychiatrist-sleuth Dr Basil Willing to investigate. Her son, a Vietnam veteran whom the police consider a victim of combat fatigue who may be capable of anything, is under suspicion. And as the mystery unfolds, Harriet Sutton tries desperately to prove them wrong.

The perfect Halloween novel!

‘Glaister has the uncomfortable knack of putting her finger on things we most fear, of exposing the darkness within’ Independent on Sunday

‘Before Gillian Flynn, there was Lesley Glaister’ Harper’s Bazaar

All Nell’s life, Olive Owen has lived next door but one. And all her life, Nell has hated her. Even at school Olive had sparkled indecently, turning heads. Nell has a son, her pleasure and her shame, though now she lives alone. Nell is sharp in all the places Olive is round.

When Wolfe moves into the house in between them, their quiet street is transformed. A lonely, spirited eight-year-old boy, he knocks on their doors at Halloween and invites them to his bonfire party. As the fireworks flare, he finds himself in the middle of an ancient conflict, grudges bared and burning with a fury he could never have imagined.

‘A perfect, black little tale’ Observer

The fifth book in the New York Times bestselling Longmire series, featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire

Wade Barsad locked his wife Mary’s horses in their barn and then burned it down. In return she shot him in the head six times – or so the story goes. Sheriff Walt Longmire doesn’t believe Mary’s confession, and he’s determined to dig deeper.

Posing as an insurance claims investigator, Walt goes undercover and soon discovers that the population of an entire town might have wanted Wade dead, including a beautiful Guatemalan bartender and a rancher with a taste for liquor but not so much for honesty . . .

‘A winning mystery with characters coming off the page’ Portland Oregonian

September is the worst month for heat in Southern California, and LAPD lieutenant Luis Mendoza is feeling the burn as the sweltering temperatures raise tempers and violence.

Heading the list is the bizarre murder of a young French girl – which eventually leads Mendoza to Paris. An old man smothered in his hospital bed; a polite holdup artist nicknamed Baby Face; a Hollywood matron who disappears while visiting a sick friend and the grisly murder of a family who has just moved from Wisconsin keep the skilful Mendoza and his force pounding the scorching pavements in a crime wave that, like the heat, offers no sign of relief.

‘A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times