Showing results by publisher "Quercus" in All Categories

Evie has just started her second year at University. She is young, beautiful and popular. She should be having the time of her life, except she has something to hide - a one-night-stand with her English professor, Simon. Not wanting any of his other students to be used in the same way, Evie reports their relationship to University HR. But hours later, Village Vixen, the student gossip blogger, is baying for blood. She's found out about the accusation and is firmly on Simon's side. 

Kate Sullivan has a beautiful home, a career that she loves and a handsome fiancé, Ben. When Becky, an old friend, reappears after 10 years, Kate is forced to confront her past. Old anxieties surface and threaten to derail her perfect life. Nonetheless, Kate invites Becky to move in with her and Ben, hoping to make amends with her former friend. But when their house guest starts behaving strangely, Kate worries that Becky hasn't forgotten or forgiven Kate's past mistakes.

When 30-year-old Nick loses his prestigious job at a city law firm, he is forced to grudgingly accept work as a Santa at a local Christmas grotto. There he meets five-year-old Alfie, and all Alfie wants for Christmas is for his mum to be happy again. She has been sad ever since his dad died three years ago. Moved by the boy's selfless wish, Nick arranges a date between Alfie's mum, Sarah, and his best friend, Matt.  

The newly discovered diary of Boris Alexander de Pfeffel Johnson, aged 13¼, provides a fascinating glimpse into how Boris, a lazy, bumptious and overweening child, comes to believe he should be Prime Minister. Along the way, we see him hone the techniques and persona that will one day hoodwink a nation. 

It is 1944 in war-battered London. Freya and Shona are identical twins, close despite their different characters. Freya is a newly qualified doctor treating the injured in an East End hospital, while Shona has been recruited by the SOE. The sisters are so physically alike that they can fool people into thinking that one is the other. It's a game they've played since childhood. But when Shona persuades her twin to swap roles to meet her Polish lover, he is angered at being tricked. 

It is 1943 on England's war-weary south coast, where the conflict seems never-ending. After the heartache of the previous year, Connie Baxter now appears to have everything a girl could want. There is Ace, a man who loves her. She enjoys an enviable lifestyle despite the deprivations of war. She has friends and a job she adores as an usherette at the Criterion cinema. But appearances can be deceptive, and Connie is struggling in more ways than one.

A warm and heartfelt WW2 saga of hope, love and female friendship, and how women pull together through good times and bad. Perfect for fans of Dilly Court and Nadine Dorries. In 1940s Hampshire the war is settling into its stride, bringing dark days for many. Eighteen-year-old Connie Baxter works as an usherette at the Criterion Picture House in Gosport. Here she meets Vera, a cleaner at the cinema, and her niece, Babs, who sells ice creams and dreams of being in the spotlight.

A young man has stopped breathing in a supermarket toilet. A pedestrian with a nasty head injury won't let the crew near him on a busy road. A newborn baby is worryingly silent. An addict urinates on the ambulance floor when denied a fix. This is the life of an ambulance paramedic. Jake Jones has worked in the UK ambulance service for 10 years: every day, he sees a dozen of the scenes we hope to see only once in a lifetime. 

America, 1960. In Washington, DC, John F. Kennedy has just been elected president. In Havana, Fidel Castro has been in office for a year, and with Cold War tensions rapidly heating up and the Soviets leading the space race, the thought of a Communist leader so close to home is already raising American blood pressure. Anti-communist fever is rampant in the USA, with a paranoid establishment seeing reds under every bed. Nevertheless, the decision to snuff out the threat of Castro by hiring Tom Jefferson, America's best assassin, to kill him comes from an unusual quarter: the Mafia.

Jenny Eclair, with her trademark humour, will share her experience of what can be a difficult time for many women, from the emotional side of life - missing the woman you were, the empty nest, mood swings - to the health aspects of the menopause, starring the hot flush and also periods (lack of), weight problems, insomnia and other issues. Upbeat and honest, Jenny shares her new-found hobbies, the joy of pets and how to make the best of the different but still-fabulous you.  

Behind the most famous movie ever made is a tale of love, magic and one incredible woman. Hollywood, 1938: As soon as she learns that M-G-M is adapting her late husband's masterpiece, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, for the screen, Maud Gage Baum sets about trying to visit the set. Nineteen years after Frank's passing, Maud is the only person who can help the producers stay true to the spirit of the book - because she's the only one left who knows its secrets....

They killed Robert Harland today, and they're going to kill the rest of you. This is the warning private investigator Paul Samson receives right after Joni Fremantle, the woman he has been guarding for a mysterious client, gives him the slip. No time to worry about that now: his life, and those of Denis Hisami, Anastasia Christakos and even the young Syrian Naji, is on the line. Samson is sure he knows why - to expose a company supplying funds to far-right groups across Europe is to paint a target on your own back.

Vogue magazine started, like so many great things do, in the spare room of someone's house. But unlike other such makeshift projects that flare up then fizzle away, Vogue burnt itself into our cultural consciousness. Today, 125 years later, Vogue spans 22 countries, has an international print readership upwards of 12 million and nets over 67 million monthly online users. Uncontested market leader for a century, it is one of the most recognisable brands in the world and a multi-million dollar money-making machine. It is not just a fashion magazine, it is the establishment. 

When Democratic Senator Bruce Jansen is elected president of the United States, it is a personal victory for Dorothy 'Dottie' Rogers. She has secured a job in the White House, has proved to her Republican father that she was right to support Jansen, and is proud to see the rise of an intelligent, inspiring leader who shares her ideals. But the triumph is short-lived: Jansen's pregnant wife is assassinated on election night, and the alleged mastermind behind the shooting is none other than Dottie's own father. 

On a Dublin city street, packed with afternoon Christmas shoppers, a young woman appears, naked, traumatised and bearing burn marks. Tom Reynolds, now chief superintendent, is no longer head of the murder squad. But when it transpires the woman escaped from a house fire started deliberately and that there are more victims, including a baby, Tom is sucked in. What begins as a straightforward case of arson, soon becomes something much more sinister. The people in that house never wanted to be there in the first place. Now more of them are missing.

When Claire Fontaine learns that her ex-husband, Simon, is marrying again, to a woman with a teenage daughter, her blood runs cold. She is sure that years ago Simon molested her own daughter and was responsible for her mysterious death. She can't let him get away with it a second time. Vandalism, harassment; whatever it takes, Claire will expose him. Simon doesn't know where Claire got this delusion from; her daughter's death was ruled a suicide, but she has always blamed herself - is she just lashing out?

No one would consider Judith Newman's domestic life normal. She and her husband keep separate apartments - his filled with twin grand pianos, as befits a former opera singer; hers packed with the clutter and chaos of twin adolescent boys conceived late in life. And one of those boys is Gus, her sweet, complicated, autistic 13-year-old. With honesty and humour, To Siri, with Love chronicles one year in the life of Gus and the family around him - a family with the same crazy ups and downs as any other.

When Inspector Akyl Borubaev of Bishkek Murder Squad arrives at the brutal murder scene of a young woman, all evidence hints at a sadistic serial killer on the hunt for more prey. But when the young woman's father turns out to be a leading government minister, the pressure is on Borubaev to solve the case not only quickly but also quietly, by any means possible. Until more bodies are found.

We uncovered the last of the bodies in the red hour before dusk, as the sun stained the snowcaps of the Tian Shan mountains the colour of dried blood and the spring air turned sharp and cold.... Inspector Akyl Borubaev of Bishkek Murder Squad has been exiled to the far corner of Kyrgystan, but death still haunts him at every turn. Borubaev soon finds himself caught up in a mysterious and gruesome new case: several children's bodies have been found buried together - all tagged with name bands.

Having resigned from Bishkek Murder Squad, Akyl Borubaev is a lone wolf with blood on his hands. Then the Minister of State Security promises Akyl his old life back...if Akyl finds his vanished mistress. The beautiful Natasha Sulonbekova has disappeared in Dubai with information that could destroy the Minister's career. But when Borubaev arrives in Dubai - straight into a scene of horrific carnage - he learns that what Natasha is carrying is worth far more than a damaged reputation.