Ace detective Laura Marlin returns in another gripping adventure mystery for World Book Day 2014, from award-winning author, Lauren St John. When a prize-winning essay earns Laura Marlin an invitation to a midnight picnic on mysterious Bodmin Moor she can hardly wait, especially since her best friend, Tariq, and husky, Skye, get to come too. But Bodmin is a place steeped in legend and as the fog descends it becomes hard to separate myth from reality. When a freak accident leaves the children alone, Laura has to use all her powers of deduction to outwit an enemy who may not even exist.
In the morning, Bram finds the bones of a murdered child. At noon, the murdered child begs for his help. And by nightfall, they have killed a man together and set off into the afterlife, where nothing is what it was, and death is only the beginning of punishment. An eerie story about the nature of death and the self, Midnight Picnic inhabits an American landscape made strange and unfamiliar. From the author of the cult novel Fires, Midnight Picnic is a haunting and disturbing experience.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A modern classic of true crime, set in a most beguiling Southern city—now in a 30th anniversary edition with a new afterword by the author “Elegant and wicked . . . might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime.”—The New York Times Book Review Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. In this sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative, John Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club; the turbulent young gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the “soul of pampered self-absorption”; the uproariously funny drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young people dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a sublime and seductive reading experience.
Winner of the Guild of Food Writers General Cookbook Award 2020 'A manual for living and a declaration of hope' Nigella Lawson 'A moving testimonial to the redemptive power of cooking. Generous, honest and uplifting' Diana Henry There are lots of ways to start a story, but this one begins with a chicken... When the world becomes overwhelming, Ella Risbridger focuses on the little things that bring her joy, like enjoying a glass of wine when cooking, FaceTiming with a friend whilst making bagels, and sharing recipes that are good for the soul. One night she found herself lying on her kitchen floor, wondering if she would ever get up – and it was the thought of a chicken, of roasting it, and of eating it, that got her to her feet and made her want to be alive. Midnight Chicken is a cookbook. Or, at least, you'll flick through these pages and find recipes so inviting that you will head straight for the kitchen: roast garlic and tomato soup, uplifting chilli-lemon spaghetti, charred leek lasagne, squash skillet pie, spicy fish finger sandwiches and burnt-butter brownies. It's the kind of cooking you can do a little bit drunk, that is probably better if you've got a bottle of wine open and a hunk of bread to mop up the sauce. But if you settle down and read it with a cup of tea (or a glass of that wine), you'll also discover that it's an annotated list of things worth living for – a manifesto of moments worth living for. This is a cookbook to make you fall in love with the world again. Featuring an entire chapter on storecupboard recipes. 'Risbridger is the most talented British debut writer in a generation' Sunday Times 'A big old massive heart exploding love story' The Times
For fans of portal fantasies like Jessica Townsend's Nevermoor, Colin Meloy's Wildwood, and The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, and unlike so many other fantasies that introduce readers to a world of enchantment and wonder, The Midnight Hour is one filled with beasts and monsters for readers looking to shine their flashlights under the covers. When strange late-night letters start arriving at home, Emily's parents set off to investigate. But when her parents disappear completely and Emily is left home alone to face the weird strangers that begin to appear at her door, she takes all of the clues at her disposal and makes for the place where the letters came from -- the mysterious Night Post. What she'll discover is the secret world of the Midnight Hour -- a Victorian London frozen in time, full of magic and monsters. Kept safe by an age-old agreement, the Night Folk have been exiled to a parallel world that can only be accessed by a selected few, including the mail carriers of the infamous Night Post that operate between the two worlds. Emily's parents are key players in keeping the Night Folk safe, but when the division of the two worlds is threatened, Emily must search for her parents while navigating this dark and unknown version of London. Armed only with a packed lunch, her very sleepy pocket hedgehog, and her infamously big argumentative mouth, she must escape bloodthirsty creatures of the night, figure out her own family secrets, and maybe just save the world. This is a frightening and enchanting story, a world built out of creatures from our worst fears who become relatable, fully formed characters unlike any we've seen as these strangers of parallel worlds band together to save the day.
Uproarious antics fill this genre-crossing collection of six stories from the beloved British naturalist and author of the Corfu Trilogy. The eccentric Durrell family sets off on an ill-fated excursion in “The Picnic” and embarks on a Greek cruise in “The Maiden Voyage.” Next, things take a turn for the diabolical when a solo Durrell runs into a former flame in “The Public School Education”—and then finds trouble of a different sort in “The Havoc of Havelock.” Finally, the typically jocular Durrell unexpectedly shifts to the macabre with the surprise cuisine of “The Michelin Man” and the spine-tingling horror of “The Entrance.” With his knack for describing his often outlandish, always entertaining adventures, Gerald Durrell serves up an engrossing blend of genres in this intriguing collection of stories. Including both fiction and nonfiction, The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium reveals the wide-ranging talents of the famed naturalist and memoirist. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Gerald Durrell including rare photos from the author’s estate.
Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a &“full empty,&” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he'll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems. First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years. This authoritative new translation corrects many errors and omissions and has been supplemented with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin and a new afterword by Boris Strugatsky explaining the strange history of the novel's publication in Russia.
For fans of The Maze Runner and The Fifth Wave, this debut YA novel from Hugo Award winner Will McIntosh pits four underprivileged teens against an evil billionaire in the race of a lifetime. No one knows where the brilliant-colored spheres came from. One day they were just there, hidden all over the earth like huge gemstones. Burn a pair and they make you a little better: an inch taller, skilled at math, better-looking. The rarer the sphere, the greater the improvement—and the more expensive the sphere. Sully is a sphere dealer at a flea market. It doesn’t pay much—Alex Holliday’s stores have muscled out most of the independent sellers—but it helps him and his mom make the rent. When Sully meets Hunter, a girl with a natural talent for finding spheres, the two start searching together. One day they find a Gold—a color no one has ever seen. There’s no question the Gold is priceless, but what does it actually do? None of them is aware of it yet, but the fate of the world rests on this little golden orb. Because all the world fights over the spheres, but no one knows where they come from, what their powers are, or why they’re here. PRAISE: “Burning Midnight is for (1) adrenaline junkies and gamers, (2) obsessive collectors, and (3) people who can’t get enough of crazy endings. I’m all of these things, and I loved it.” —Margaret Stohl, New York Times bestselling author of Black Widow: Forever Red and coauthor of the internationally bestselling Beautiful Creatures series
Take a trip to the small Texas town where only outsiders fit in with the first novel in #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris’ paranormal mystery series. Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and the Davy highway. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town. There’s a pawnshop with three residents. One is seen only at night. There’s a diner, but people stopping there tend not to linger. There’s a newcomer, Manfred Bernardo, who just wants to work hard and blend in. But Manfred has secrets of his own...
