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All In Your Head

Marcus Sedgwick

All In Your Head is about what happens when your doctor doesn't believe that you're ill. When they think you are imagining a serious ailment, or worse, faking it.

It's the story of the stigma that goes with invisible illness, and of the strange places that chronic illness takes you. It's the tale of bizarre treatments, and above all, the damage that's created through other peoples' doubts and indifference.

Yet, there is an epidemic of undiagnosed, hard-to-explain, and misunderstood illnesses in today's world, with new illnesses such as long-COVID steadily emerging. It is often up to individuals to drive their own search for recognition and a diagnosis, a task that can prove challenging due to establishment scepticism and disinterest.

With honesty, and at times, dark humour, All In Your Head - from multiple award-winning author Marcus Sedgwick - explores how four simple words can make you question your sense of reality.

Collins English Readers: Amazing Entrepreneurs and Business People Level 4

Fiona MacKenzie

The inspiring stories of 6 people who changed history.

Contents:
Henry J Heinz, the man who invented tomato ketchup
William Lever who made millions from soap
Michael Marks, founder of the Marks and Spencer stores
Henry Ford, who mass-produced cars and made them affordable
Coco Chanel, the businesswoman who changed fashion for women
Ray Kroc, the man who created the McDonald’s chain of restaurants

Collins English Readers: Amazing Aviators Level 2

Fiona MacKenzie

The inspiring stories of 5 people who changed history.

Contents:
Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, who helped humans to fly
Louis Blériot, the first person to cross the sea in an aeroplane
Charles Lindbergh, first to cross the Atlantic alone
Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly alone across the Atlantic
Amy Johnson, the British woman who broke flying records

Collins English Readers: Amazing Composers Level 2

Fiona MacKenzie

The inspiring stories of 6 people who changed history.

Contents:
Johann Sebastian Bach who wrote the Brandenburg Concertos
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the child genius
Giuseppe Verdi who wrote the operas Aida and La Traviata
Johann Strauss, ‘The Waltz King’
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky who wrote the ballet Swan Lake
Irving Berlin who wrote There’s No Business Like Show Business

Collins English Readers: Amazing Entrepreneurs and Business People Level 1

Fiona MacKenzie, Katerina Mestheneou

The inspiring stories of 6 people who changed history.

Contents:
Mayer Amschel Rothschild who started a bank which made his family rich
Cornelius Vanderbilt who became one of the richest people in the USA
W. K. Kellogg who started the world’s biggest cereal company
Elizabeth Arden who built the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics company
Walt Disney who started the famous entertainment company
Soichiro Honda who started the Honda motorbike and car company

Collins English Readers: Amazing Architects & Artists Level 2

Fiona MacKenzie

The inspiring stories of 5 people who changed history.

Contents:
Leonardo da Vinci who painted the Mona Lisa
Christopher Wren who rebuilt London
Antoni Gaudí who built the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona
Pablo Picasso, the famous Spanish painter
Frida Kahlo, the famous Mexican female artist

An Amiable Foe

Jennie Goutet

She’s determined to hold on to her family’s legacy. He’s determined to make it his own. But love has a way of upending even the best-laid plans…

Marianne Edgewood has only ever trusted one thing—Brindale Castle. The centuries-old estate is strong, unchanging, and the only true home she’s ever known. When a distant heir suddenly inherits the property, she refuses to give up her place within its walls. No matter what it takes, she must find a way to stay.

At last, Peregrine Osborne has everything he’s ever wanted—his uncle’s approval, the admiration of his London peers, and now, the deed to a magnificent castle in Kent. Restoring Brindale to its former glory should be his greatest triumph. If only its infuriatingly stubborn—and undeniably captivating—resident weren’t standing in his way.

As Perry embarks on ambitious renovations, Marianne resists at every turn, challenging his plans and unsettling his heart in ways he never expected. The more he fights for control of Brindale, the more he begins to question what—or who—truly makes a house a home.

A battle of wills soon turns into something far more precarious… a battle of hearts. And when Marianne and Perry are forced to choose between pride and passion, they must decide if winning the castle is truly worth losing each other.

A heartwarming, closed-door Regency romance filled with wit, charm, and slow-burning romance. Perfect for fans of clean and wholesome historical love stories.

A Sham Betrothal

Jennie Goutet

Paris, 1774. A daring bargain. An unexpected love. A choice that could ruin them both.

Sophie Twisden has always played by society’s rules, but when her grandmother falls ill, leaving her vulnerable to the insufferable advances of Sheldon Cholmsley, she must take drastic action. Desperate for escape, she strikes a bold deal with Basile Gervain—a charming yet enigmatic Frenchman—agreeing to a sham betrothal to preserve her reputation and secure her passage back to London.

But pretending to be engaged is far more dangerous than she anticipated. The more time she spends with Basile, the harder it is to remember that their arrangement is nothing more than a convenient ruse. His quiet strength, his kindness, and the way he truly sees her—all of it makes her long for something impossible.

Now, with the moment of their parting drawing near, Sophie must face the painful truth: she has fallen hopelessly in love with the man who never truly meant to keep her. Will she risk everything for a chance at real happiness? Or will she walk away, forever wondering what might have been?

A clean and heartfelt Georgian-era romance perfect for fans of sweet historical love stories with a dash of drama, longing, and swoon-worthy slow-burn romance.

The Hostage

A.F. Carter

In this new thriller from the author of critically acclaimed The Yards, a cop tracks the kidnapped teenage daughter of a wealthy developer in a American Rust Belt town.

A new Nissan plant is coming to the depressed Rust Belt town of Baxter, and Captain Delia Mariola has been busy cleaning up the crime-addled city ever since the deal was announced. But when Elizabeth, the fifteen-year-old daughter of the lead bidder on the construction project, suddenly disappears, and it becomes clear that a professional kidnapping ring may be responsible, Delia realizes that the factory's influx of cash could bring with it an entirely new sort of danger.

Though Elizabeth's abduction was well-planned and bore the mark of an experienced team, her captors could not have anticipated the quick and clever brilliance of the exceptionally smart teen. From the trunk of the car where she is held, Elizabeth devised a clever trick to get cryptic messages to those who love her. The only problem is that the messages might be too cryptic even for their recipients to decipher.

If Delia has any hope of bringing the girl home unharmed, she'll have to crack the code and discover the meaning behind each message. And unless she does it fast, there may be nobody left to save...

Tough, thrilling, and filled with memorable characters, The Hostage is a gritty mystery set in the same hardscrabble town as The Yards.

Golden Age Bibliomysteries

Otto Penzler

In these classic mystery tales, literature is a matter of life or death

Of crime fiction’s many sub-genres, none is so reflexive and so intriguing as the “bibliomystery”: stories that involve crimes set, somehow, in the world of books.

In Vincent Starrett’s “A Volume of Poe,” a bookseller is murdered; in Ellery Queen’s “The Adventure of the Three R’s,” the detective tracks the disappearance of a local Missouri author; and a killer stalks the stacks of the New York Public Library in Robert L. Blochman’s “Death Walks in Marble Halls.”

With fourteen tales of bibliophilic transgression from the Golden Age of the mystery genre (the decades between the two World Wars), this volume collects stories guaranteed to entertain, featuring work from well-remembered authors such as Cornell Woolrich and Anthony Boucher and from those that are lesser-known today, such as Carolyn Wells and James Gould Cozzens.

Edgar Award-winning anthologist, editor, bookseller, and mystery scholar Otto Penzler has focused extensively on the history of the bibliomystery, and his expertise shines in this enjoyable collection—both in the selection of stories, and in the informative and illuminating introductions that accompany each one.

The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2023

Amor Towles

Amor Towles selects the best mystery short stories of the year, including tales by Andrew Child, Jeffery Deaver, and T.C. Boyle.

In his introduction to this volume, guest editor Amor Towles pays tribute to the forgotten person of the mystery story―the cadaver. “Male or female, old or young, rich or poor,” he writes, “for over a hundred years the cadaver has been accommodating, gracious, and generally on time. There is no other figure in crime who has proven to be more reliable.”

Like the cadaver, this anthology series, now in its third year of publication, is also proving reliable, bringing to readers the finest mystery/crime/suspense stories of the year from a variety of sources including mystery and general interest magazines, anthologies, online publications, and literary periodicals.

Among the treasures collected herein are Jeffery Deaver’s “Dodge,” in which a chess match between a volatile woman and a U.S. marshal takes a surprise twist; “The Landscaper’s Wife,” a suspense-filled tale by Brendan DuBois that explodes all expectation; and Kerry Hammond’s “Strangers at a Table,” which offers a darkly witty homage to Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple.

The collection contains well-known authors such as T.C. Boyle and up-and-comers such as Jessi Lewis; it features tales with famous crime-fighters (Jack Reacher and Sherlock Holmes) and a bonus story from the annals of mystery history by Edith Wharton. In short, these pages promise something for every reader of crime fiction, no matter the particularities of his or her taste.

The Turquoise Shop

Frances Crane

In a small arts community in mid-century New Mexico, a wealthy patron is accused of murder

In a small, artsy New Mexico town, the arrival of a wealthy stranger from back East is enough to get folks talking. Even a few years after Mona Brandon landed in Santa Maria, the rumor mill still churns with tid-bits about her money, her influence, and — when a corpse is discovered in the nearby desert that may or may not be her husband — her secret and suspicious past.

From the counter at her local jewelry and art shop, Jean Holly has a front row seat for all this gossip and more, after her acquaintance with Pat Abbott, the detective investigating the apparent murder, turns romantic. With his deductive reasoning and her local knowledge combined, they have everything they need to discover whodunnit. But will they be able to put the pieces together and solve the mystery before the killer strikes again?

With characters and a setting inspired by Mabel Dodge Luhan and the Taos art colony, The Turquoise Shop is a delightful Golden Age mystery adorned with Southwestern historical detail. It is the first novel in the popular and long-running Pat and Jean Abbott series, which charmed mid-century audiences with over twenty-five installments and which was adapted for multiple radio programs in the 40s and 50s.