Hodder & Stoughton The Last Enchantment Stewart Mary

Fifth century Britain is a country of chaos and division after the Roman withdrawal. This is the world of young Merlin, the illegitimate child of a South Wales princess who will not reveal to her son his father's true identity • Yet Merlin is an extraordinary child, aware at the earliest age that he possesses a great natural gift - the Sight. Against a background of invasion and imprisonment, wars and conquest, Merlin emerges into manhood, and accepts his dramatic role in the New Beginning - the coming of King Arthur

A moment's impulse leads Camilla to volunteer to drive the hire ear to Delphi. An impulse she quickly comes to regret. For not only are the (lusty roads through the olive-clad hills full of pitfalls both literal and metaphorical, but they also lead her into a nightmare of danger and intrigue

You don't need talent to join this group of actors. The ability to remember lines or stay awake throughout a performance is appreciated, but not essential. The only mandatory is a terminal diagnosis • But Adam Campbell is less than enthusiastic about this eccentric form of group therapy. He has under one year to live, and a heck of lot to get done. Like explaining mortality to his six-year-old daughter. And making amends with the woman who should have been his wife • The last thing Adam needs is a part in an amateur production of 'Shakespeare's Greatest Deaths'. But help and hope can be found where we least expect them. And perhaps camaraderie, and a shared purpose, will turn out to be the best medicine after all • As Shakespeare, didn't quite put it: Shuffling off this mortal coil is a drag; but it's no reason to stop living

A poignant ode to love and the memories that make a well-lived life, from the author of The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village • As the wife of retired ship’s doctor Dr Henry Parker, Evelyn is living out her twilight years aboard the Golden Sunset. Every night she dresses for dinner – gown, tiara, runners – and regales her fellow passengers with stories of a glamorous life travelling the world in luxury. The crew treat her with deference. And forbearance • But when Henry goes missing, Evelyn sets off to search every part of the grand ocean liner to find him – casino, nightclub and off-limits areas included • The misadventures, scandalous behavior and new friends that make up her search are all news to Evelyn, though. If only she could remember recent events as clearly as she can recall the first time she met Henry on a passage from England to Australia in 1953 and fell in love

A cold case for Captain Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido of the Hawks elite police unit - not what they were looking for. And a difficult case, too. The body of Johnson Johnson, ex-cop, has been found beside a railway line. He appears to have jumped from South Africa's - perhaps the world's - most luxurious train, and two suspicious characters seen with him have disappeared into thin air. The regular police have already failed to make progress and others are intent on muddying the waters • Meanwhile in Bordeaux, Daniel Darret is settled in a new life on a different continent. A quiet life. But his skills as an international hit-man are required one more time, and Daniel is given no choice in the matter. He must hunt again - his prey the corrupt president of his homeland

London, 1728. A young, well-dressed man is driven through streets of jeering onlookers to the gallows at Tyburn. They call him a murderer. But Tom Hawkins is innocent and somehow he has to prove it, before the rope squeezes the life out of him • It is, of course, all his own fault. He was happy settling down with Kitty Sparks. He should never have told the most dangerous criminal in London that he was bored and looking for adventure. He should never have offered to help, the king's mistress. And most of all, he should never have trusted the witty, calculating Queen Caroline. She has promised him a royal pardon if he holds his tongue but then again, there is nothing more silent than a hanged man

Beauty. Wealth. Success • She's got it all • And it all should've been mine • When Eleanor Hardwicke's beloved father dies, her world is further shattered by the discovery of a gut-wrenching secret: the man she's grieving isn't her biological dad • With her personal life spiraling, a desperate Eleanor seeks out the family she never knew she had, finding an infuriatingly enviable half-sister • Perfectly perfect Victoria has everything Eleanor could ever dream of. Loving childhood, luxury home, devoted husband. And this gets Eleanor thinking - aren't good sisters supposed to share?

The right cause can topple a kingdom • Once upon a time, the kingdoms of Wales were rife with magic and conflict - and eighteen-year-old Mererid 'Mer' is well-acquainted with both. As the last living water diviner, she can manipulate water with magic - a unique elemental power many would kill to possess • For years, Mer has been running from the prince who bound her into his service - and forced her to kill thousands with her magic. Now, all Mer truly wants is a safe, quiet life, far from power and politics • But then Mer's old handler - the king's spymaster - returns with a proposition: use her powers to bring down the very prince that abused them both

'Now she would spell love her own way...' • In 1879, a wealthy young woman elopes with an impoverished fisherman, leaving her family, who live on the volcanic island of Lanzarote, distraught. In 1968, 23-year-old Perdita West, secretary to the famous author Cora Gresham, visits Lanzarote, the strangest and most wild of the Canary Isles, on a research trip. They meet Cora's estranged son, Mike, and fall in love with the unusual, beautiful little island • While snorkeling, a landslide traps Perdita in an underwater cave. No one knows where she is, so she can't count on a rescue. And her efforts to save herself will reveal the solution to a century-old mystery • The Wind off the Small Isles is Mary Stewart's sweeping, romantic long-lost novella, finally being brought back to print in a beautiful, all new edition for the first time in more than four decades

Every phase since the advent of the industrial revolution - from the fate of the British Empire, to the global challenges from Germany, Japan and Russia, to America's emergence as a sole superpower, to the Arab Spring, to the long-term decline of economic growth that started with Japan and has now spread to Europe, to China's meteoric economy, to Brexit and the presidency of Donald Trump - can be explained better when we appreciate the meaning of demographic change across the world.The Human Tide is the first popular history book to redress the underestimated influence of population as a crucial factor in almost all of the major global shifts and events of the last two centuries - revealing how such events are connected by the invisible mutually catalysing forces of population

Athene Forster embraced the Sixties like few others. Nicknamed the Last Deb, she was spoiled, beautiful, and out of control. And within two years of her marriage, the rumours had begun again • Thirty-five years on, Suzanna Peacock finds refuge from her mother's shameful legacy in her shop, the Peacock Emporium. Within its magical walls she discovers not just friendship, and an escape from her troubled marriage, but the first real passion of her life • But the spectre of her mother still haunts Suzanna, setting in place a series of dramatic events. Only by confronting the past will she finally be able to face the future

Can a trip away lead you home? • After a bad break-up, eternal optimist Evie has moved to the small village of Willowbrook to finally pursue her dream of opening a craft shop. Unfortunately, with money worries and an ex-boyfriend determined to track her down, her fresh start isn’t going entirely to plan • Jake is also looking to escape his past. Haunted by the loss of his wife, he’s determined not to get close to anyone again – and the last thing he wants is to be celebrating this December • Hoping to avoid the festivities, Evie and Jake arrange to escape Christmas together as friends in Provence. But will the magic of the season change things between them? • And what happens if one of them starts to feel something more?