Simon & Schuster Hands Down Francis Felix

Miles Pussett is a former steeplechase jockey. Now he gets his adrenaline rush from riding down the Cresta Run, a three-quarter-mile Swiss ice chute, head first, reaching speeds of up to eighty miles per hour • Finding himself in St Moritz during the same weekend as White Turf, when high-class horseracing takes place on the frozen lake, he gets talked into helping out with the horses. It is against his better judgement. Seven years before, Miles left horseracing behind and swore he would never return • When he discovers something suspicious is going on in the races, something that may have a profound impact on his future life, Miles begins a search for answers. But someone is adamant to stop him - and they'll go to any lengths to do it

How the rewilding of eight acres of Norfolk marshland inspired a family and brought nature even closer to home • When writer Simon Barnes heard a Cetti's warbler sing out as he turned up to look at a house for sale, he knew immediately that he had found his new home. The fact that his garden backed onto an area of marshy land only increased the possibilities, but there was always the fear that it might end up in the wrong hands and be lost to development or intensive farming. His wife saw through the delicate negotiations for the purchase. Once they'd bought it, they began to manage it as a conservation area, working with the Wildlife Trust to ensure it became as appealing as possible to all species. For their son Eddie, who has Down's syndrome, it became a place of calm and inspiration

For fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Where The Crawdads Sing comes a moving story, inspired by real events, about how hope and love will prevail against all odds • 1921 • In the aftermath of war, everyone is searching for answers • Edie’s husband Francis never came home and was declared ‘missing, believed killed’. But when she receives a mysterious photograph of him in the post, hope flares and she begins to search • Harry photographs gravesites on the Western Front, hired by grieving families. Plagued by memories of his last conversation with Francis, he has never stopped searching for his brother • After years apart, their search brings them together. As they uncover the truth they are haunted by the past and their own complex feelings – towards Francis, and towards each other

From the author of The History of the World in 100 Animals, a BBC Radio Four Book of the Week, comes an inspirational new book that looks at the 100 plants that have had the greatest impact on humanity, stunningly illustrated throughout • As humans, we hold the planet in the palms of ours hands. But we still consume the energy of the sun in the form of food. The sun is available for consumption because of plants. Plants make food from the sun by the process of photosynthesis; nothing else in the world can do this. We eat plants, or we do so at second hand, by eating the eaters of plants • Plants give us food. Plants take in carbon dioxide and push out oxygen: they give us the air we breathe, direct the rain that falls and moderate the climate

A gripping and heartfelt story about overcoming the past and finding where you belong • Anna Wilson travels the world as a professional housesitter – stepping into other people’s lives - caring for their homes, pets and sometimes even neighbours. Living vicariously • But all Anna has ever really wanted is a home of her own – a proper one, filled with family and love and happy memories. If only she knew where to start • Growing up in foster care, she always envied her friends their secure and carefree lives, their certainty and confidence. And, while those same friends may have become her family of choice, Anna is still stuck in that nomadic cycle, looking for answers, trying to find the courage to put down roots and find a place to call home • Compelling, rich and evocative, Home is Anna’s journey to discovering that it isn’t where you settle down that matters, but the people you have around you when you do

The rules • 1. Listen carefully • 2. Do your research • 3. Trust no one • 4. Run for your life • Harriet Reed is newly engaged to Edward Holbeck, the heir to an extremely powerful American family • When Edward's father hands her a tape of a book he's been working on, she is desperate to listen • But as she presses play, it's clear that this isn't a novel. It's a confession to murder • Feeling isolated and confused, Harriet must work out if this is all part of a plan to test her loyalty. Or something far darker • Because this might be a game to the Holbeck family - but games can still be deadly • Ready or not, here they come

Bigger spaceships. Bigger explosions. Bigger planets. Bigger problems • It's been three years since Esa joined the ranks of the Justified after her rescue from the fanatical murderers the Pax. Together, Esa and her mentor Kamali travel from planet to planet, searching for children with supernatural abilities. It's hard work, but Esa has never felt more assured of her place in the universe • On a visit to a planet so remote that its inhabitants never learned that the Sect Wars ended over a hundred years ago, they learn that the Justified are not the only people searching for gifted children. There is a creature with unexpected powers who will stop at nothing to get its hands on the children that Esa and Kamali are trying to rescue • With their latest recruit in tow -- a young Wulf child named Sho -- Esa and Kamali will travel halfway across the galaxy in pursuit of answers

It’s usual, they say, for a young person coming to London for the first time to arrive with a head full of dreams. Well, Endurance Proudfoot did not. When she stepped off the coach from Sussex, on a warm and sticky afternoon in the summer of 1757, it never occurred to her that the city would be the place where she’d make her fortune; she was just very annoyed to be arriving there at all • Meet Endurance Proudfoot: clumsy as a carthorse, strong as an ox, with a tactless tongue and a face she’s sure only a mother could love. Durie wants one thing in life: to become a bonesetter like her father. It’s physically demanding work, requiring nerves of steel, and he’s adamant it’s not a job for a woman • Strong-willed and stubborn, Durie’s certain that in bonesetting, her big, usually clumsy hands have found their natural calling

Danger and dissent stalk the streets and taverns of Elizabethan England. The Queen’s chief spymaster, Francis Walsingham, and his team of agents must maintain the highest levels of vigilance to ward off Catholic plots and the ever-present threat of invasion. One operative in particular - a young Cambridge undergraduate of humble origins, controversial beliefs and literary genius who goes by the name of Kit Marlowe - is relentless in his pursuit of intelligence for the Crown. When he is killed outside an inn in Deptford, his mysterious death becomes the subject of rumours and suspicion that are never satisfactorily resolved • Years later, Thomas Phelippes, a former colleague of Marlowe’s and a man once much valued by Walsingham, finds himself imprisoned in the Tower

Stephanie Plum returns to hunt down a master cyber-criminal operating out of Trenton in the 28th book in the wildly popular series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich • When Stephanie Plum is woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of footsteps in her apartment, she wishes she didn’t keep her gun in the cookie jar in her kitchen. And when she finds out the intruder is fellow apprehension agent Diesel, six feet of hard muscle and bad attitude whom she hasn’t seen in more than two years, she still thinks the gun might come in handy • Turns out Diesel and Stephanie are on the trail of the same fugitive: Oswald Wednesday, an international computer hacker as brilliant as he is ruthless. Stephanie may not be the most technologically savvy sleuth, but she more than makes up for that with her dogged determination, her understanding of human nature, and her willingness to do just about anything to bring a fugitive to justice

In the summer of 1940, Britain stood perilously close to invasion. One by one, the nations of Europe had fallen to the unstoppable German Blitzkrieg, and Hitler’s sights were set on the English coast. And yet, following the success of the Battle of Britain, the promised invasion never came. The prospect of German jackboots landing on British soil retreated into the realm of collective nightmares. But the spectre of what might have been is one that has haunted us down the decades, finding expression in counterfactual history and outlandish fictions. What would a British occupation have looked like? • The answer lies closer to home than we think, in the experiences of the Channel Islanders – the only British people to bear the full brunt of German Occupation

A family secret, a mysterious legacy, and a journey that will change everything… • When Isla, a 65-year-old grandmother, is left nothing but an old painting in her mother’s will, while her sisters and aunt inherit the estate, she is devastated. Close to retirement, getting ready to live on her own terms, the last thing she expects at this time of her life is such turmoil. So, to find an explanation for her mother’s rejection, she embarks on a road-trip • But, right at the last moment, she’s forced to take her sullen – and, in her view, impossible – 14-year-old granddaughter Charlie with her. Cramped together in Isla’s car with her smelly old dog, these ill-assorted travelling companions set off to uncover some shattering and life-changing family truths at the same time as learning to love each other… • The Long Way Home is set in the UK and 1950s Paris where the story really begins, spanning four generations of women and the secrets that get passed down through them