Showing results by publisher "Quercus" in All Categories

A windowless shack in the woods. Lena's life and that of her two children follows the rules set by their captor, the father: meals, bathroom visits, study time are strictly scheduled and meticulously observed. He protects his family from the dangers lurking in the outside world and makes sure that his children will always have a mother to look after them. One day Lena manages to flee - but the nightmare continues. It seems as if her tormentor wants to get back what belongs to him....

Out of the blue, Susie Jones is contacted on social media by Anna, the girl she gave up for adoption fifteen years ago. But when they meet, Anna's home life sounds distinctly strange to Susie and her husband Gabe. And when Anna's adoptive parents seem to overreact to the fact she contacted them at all, Susie becomes convinced that Anna needs her help. But is Anna's own behaviour simply what you'd expect from someone recovering from a traumatic childhood? Or are there other secrets at play here - secrets Susie has also been hiding for the last 15 years?

Jess Bright, single mum and journalist, feels her life has stalled. So when she's offered a writing job in Paris for the summer, she leaps at the chance to go back to a city full of old memories and the promise of new opportunities. Her subject is the iconic artist Adelaide Fox, whose personal life has always been steeped in scandal and intrigue. Now approaching eighty, she's ready to tell her side of the story - and serve up some scalding-hot revenge in the process. Amidst a stormy working relationship, Jess and Adelaide must face up to their pasts.

Revered artist Kim Lord is about to unveil her most shocking show yet: Still Lives, a series of self-portraits in which she impersonates the female victims of America's most famous homicides, from Nicole Brown Simpson to the Black Dahlia. As celebrities and rich patrons pour into LA's Rocque Museum for the opening night, the attendees wait eagerly for Kim's arrival. All except Maggie Richter, museum editor and ex-girlfriend of Greg Shaw Ferguson, Kim's new boyfriend. But Kim never shows up to her party, and the crowd's impatience slowly turns to unease.

Evie Lang's life is in shambles. On the heels of losing her beloved aunt, she's unceremoniously fired from her poetry professorship. Lacking income and inspiration, she has no idea how to move forward - until hope arrives in the form of a surprising letter. Auntie Hảo has left her house in San Francisco to Evie. The catch? To inherit, she must go on a pre-arranged matchmaking tour in Việt Nam.

Everyone is born curious. But only some retain the habits of exploring, learning and discovering as they grow older. Which side of the 'curiosity divide' are you on? In Curious Ian Leslie makes a passionate case for the cultivation of our desire to know. Curious people tend to be smarter, more creative and more successful. But at the very moment when the rewards of curiosity have never been higher, it is misunderstood and undervalued, and increasingly practised only by a cognitive elite.

When Finn Hensen gets a call from his sister Jess to say their father has died, neither is heartbroken. Their parents divorced many years ago, after which their father, Jimmy, continued to live a bohemian lifestyle in sun-soaked Mallorca, while his family returned to the UK. Ownership of his home, a beautiful but dilapidated farmhouse in the mountains, now passes to Finn and his sister. The only problem is that Jimmy recently remarried for the third time, and his new wife is still living there. The pair agree that Finn should go to Mallorca and tactfully take possession of their inheritance.

Steve Range thinks his friend Randy is a corpse in a desert grave - until he reappears in an Al Qaeda video, spitting extremist hate and challenging Range and Blackstone Six to a desert battle that will settle a vicious blood feud. But Range's attention is drawn to a stray word slipped in to Randy's tirade, and he begins to wonder whether his old comrade-in-arms really has been turned by his captors. All he knows for sure is that he owes a debt to the man he left for dead.

Claire Wright likes to play other people. A struggling British actress, in New York without a green card, Claire needs work. She takes the only part she's offered: as a decoy for a firm of divorce lawyers, hired to entrap straying husbands, catching them on tape with their seductive propositions. The rules? Never hit on them directly. Make it clear you're available, but they have to proposition you, not the other way around. The firm is after evidence, not entrapment.

Judy, a beautiful liver and white English pointer, and the only animal POW of WWII, truly was a dog in a million. Whether she was dragging men to safety from the wreckage of a torpedoed ship, scavenging food to help feed the starving inmates of a hellish Japanese POW camp, or by her presence alone bringing inspiration and hope to men living through the 20th century's darkest days, she was cherished and adored by the British, Australian, American and other Allied servicemen who fought to survive alongside her.

Manifesting. Big Magic. The Law of Attraction. There's no denying that whatever you call it, using your mindset to bring your desires into reality is having a moment. But what if your life experiences so far have demonstrated the exact opposite? What does manifesting look like if you're not white, thin, traditionally pretty, or able bodied? Candice Brathwaite is here to tell you exactly what it looks like. Supported by her four pillars of Seeing, Believing, Doing and Being, Candice will guide you towards the life you deserve and show you that manifesting can be for everyone.

Bruno, Chief of Police in the charming French town of St Denis, is already busy with a case when the body of an undercover French Muslim cop is found in the woods, a man who called Bruno for help only hours earlier. But Bruno's sometime boss and rival, the Brigadier, doesn't see this investigation as a priority - there are bigger issues at stake. Bruno has other ideas. Meanwhile, a Muslim youth named Sami turns up at a French army base in Afghanistan hoping to get home to St Denis. One of Bruno's old army comrades helps to smuggle Sami back to France, but the FBI aren't far behind.

After the death of her father in a mining accident, Megan and her family had no choice but to move to the local workhouse. Separated from her mother and five siblings, young Megan must learn how to stand on her own two feet. But one day she meets a young boy who's stealing apples from the local market and together, they set out on a path to find a better life for themselves...

Six Four. The nightmare no parent could endure. The case no detective could solve. The twist no listener could predict. For five days in January 1989, the parents of a seven-year-old Tokyo schoolgirl sat and listened to the demands of their daughter's kidnapper. They would never learn his identity. They would never see their daughter again. For the 14 years that followed, the Japanese public listened to the police's apologies. They would never forget the botched investigation that became known as Six Four.

Camille Ashwood had always loved a plan. Her latest was her best yet. She was going to get married so she could secure her daughter's future, get her overbearing parents off her back, and finally start building her own life in small town Meadowlark, Wyoming. Easy, right? But when her groom doesn't show up to the wedding, Cam's life is turned upside down - she doesn't even have a place to live. That is, until she finds out the house she's loved since high school is available to rent. There's only one problem: the neighbour.

The new best-seller from the author of Zero Six Bravo. By 2007 Viktor Bout had become the world's foremost arms dealer. Known as the Merchant of Death, he was both public enemy number one to the global intelligence agencies and a ruthless criminal worth around $6 billion. For years Bout had eluded capture, meanwhile building up a labyrinthine network of airlines selling weapons to order to dictators, rebels, despots and terror groups worldwide.

In One-Way Ticket: Nine Lives and Two Wheels he describes a journey from driven teenage prodigy, travelling to races in the back of his dad's station wagon, to an obsessive determination to make it big in European racing - whatever the cost. He tells the story of his transformation from poacher to gamekeeper, detailing his painful decision to finally come clean about his own descent into doping - and to persuade others to do likewise - by providing more than enough shocking testimony to USADA (US Anti-Doping Agency) to explode the Armstrong myth.

Goth is an entertaining and engaging historical memoir of the genre of Goth music and culture, exploring creative giants like The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, Joy Division and many more great bands that offered a place of refuge for the misfits of the '80s and ever since. Authored by Lol Tolhurst, co-founder of The Cure, this book offers a fascinating deep dive into the movers and shakers of goth with stories and anecdotes from Tolhurst's personal memories as well as the musicians, magicians and artists who made it all happen.

On the day after Christmas, head of Department Q Detective Carl Mørck finds himself handcuffed in a police car headed for Copenhagen's Vestre prison. After 15 years, a violent case from his past has caught up with him. Charges of drug trafficking and murder threaten to destroy his life and career. But he is being framed. Someone has a million dollar bounty on his head to make sure he doesn't talk, putting him in grave danger among the prison's incarcerated criminals and corrupt officers. The question that remains is, why?

Brighton, 1951. Pantomime season takes a dark turn when two missing children are found dead under the snow, surrounded by sweets - a macabre, real-life Hansel and Gretel. DI Edgar Stephens, has plenty of leads to investigate. The missing girl, Annie, used to write plays and perform them with her friends. Once again Edgar enlists magician and ex-wartime comrade Max Mephisto's help in penetrating the shadowy theatrical world that seems to hold the key. But is this all just classic misdirection?