On the night of 22 December 1980, a plane crashes on the Franco-Swiss border and is engulfed in flames. 168 out of 169 passengers are killed instantly. The miraculous sole survivor is a three-month-old baby girl. Two families, one rich, the other poor, step forward to claim her, sparking an investigation that will last for almost two decades. Is she Lyse-Rose or Emilie? Eighteen years later, having failed to discover the truth, private detective Credule Grand-Duc plans to take his own life, but not before placing an account of his investigation in the girl's hands. But, as he sits at his desk about to pull the trigger, he uncovers a secret that changes everything - then is killed before he can breathe a word of it to anyone ...

NOW A SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER FROM THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TEA PLANTER'S WIFE Dinah Jefferies' stunning new novel is a gripping, unforgettable tale of a woman torn between two worlds... 1952, French Indochina. Since her mother's death, eighteen-year-old half-French, half-Vietnamese Nicole has been living in the shadow of her beautiful older sister, Sylvie. When Sylvie is handed control of the family silk business, Nicole is given an abandoned silk shop in the Vietnamese quarter of Hanoi. But the area is teeming with militant rebels who want to end French rule, by any means possible. For the first time, Nicole is awakened to the corruption of colonial rule - and her own family's involvement shocks her to the core... Tran, a notorious Vietnamese insurgent, seems to offer the perfect escape from her troubles, while Mark, a charming American trader, is the man she's always dreamed of. But who can she trust in this world where no one is what they seem? The Silk Merchant's Daughter is a captivating tale of dark secrets, sisterly rivalry and love against the odds, enchantingly set in colonial era Vietnam.

Adult fiction

Crime Fiction

Visit Bear, Fox, Rabbit, Pig and all their friends deep in the heart of Acorn Wood. Each rhyming story is a joy to read aloud and with lift-the-flap surprises on every spread these enchanting board books are sure to delight parents and toddlers alike.

Milly Johnson writes warm, funny and poignant novels about the universal issues of friendship, family, relationships, good food and that little bit of magic in life that sometimes visits the unsuspecting. A perennial Sunday Times top ten bestseller, every read guarantees love and laughter! When Lewis Harley has a health scare in his early forties, he takes it as a wake-up call. So he and his wife Charlotte leave behind life in the fast lane and Lewis opens the antique shop he has dreamed of. Bonnie Brookland was brought up in the antiques trade and now works for the man who bought out her father's business, but she isn't happy there. So when she walks into Lew's shop, she knows this is the place for her. As Bonnie and Lew start to work together, they soon realise that there is more to their relationship than either thought. But Bonnie is trapped in an unhappy marriage, and Lew and Charlotte have more problems than they care to admit. Each has secrets in their past which are about to be uncovered. Can they find the happiness they both deserve? 'A glorious, heartfelt novel' ROWAN COLEMAN Praise for Milly Johnson: 'Absolutely loved it. Milly's writing is like getting a big hug with just the right amount of bite underneath. I was rooting for Bonnie from the start' JANE FALLON, bestselling author of My Sweet Revenge 'Bursting with warmth and joie de vivre' JILL MANSELL 'Warm, optimistic and romantic' KATIE FFORDE '

Tweet! Tweet! Tweet! The birds are waking up.

Childrens Fiction

The seventh novel featuring Inspector John Rebus, available for the first time as an e-book and featuring an exclusive introduction by author Ian Rankin. Detective Inspector John Rebus understands that murder is usually very simple. Passion and greed are the most common motives, but when the bodies begin to pile up—two suicides, one murder, and the mysterious death of an inmate in one of Scotland's largest prisons—Rebus realizes that there's nothing simple about his latest case. What Rebus knows is that it all began with a petty embezzlement scheme. What he discovers is that beneath the killings a conspiracy is hidden, one that runs all the way to the top of the political ladder. And the cost of unraveling this complex web could be horrifyingly high. Everything he holds dear—his job, his life, even his young daughter—is at stake. Powerful men are telling Rebus to "let it take its course," but none of them will reveal just what it is. Rebus stubbornly decides to go forward with his investigation no matter what the cost may be. Men have died for whatever lies at the heart of this plot, and Rebus is determined that those who have set these events in motion will not escape the punishment they deserve.

Campaigns for moral reform were a recurrent and distinctive feature of public life in later Georgian and Victorian England. Anti-slavery, temperance, charity organisation, cruelty prevention, 'social purity' advocates, and more, all promoted their causes through mobilisation of citizen volunteer support. This 2004 book sets out to explore the world of these volunteer networks, their foci of concern, their patterns of recruitment, their methods of operation and the responses they aroused. In its exploration of this culture of self-consciously altruistic associational effort, the book provides a systematic survey of moral reform movements as a distinct tradition of citizen action over this period, as well as casting light on the formation of a middle-class culture torn, in this stage of economic and political nation-building, between acceptance of a market-organised society and unease about the cultural consequences of doing so. This is a revelatory book that is both compelling and accessible.