Deepest winter. An isolated island off the coast of Maine. A man. A woman. Puppets. (Yes, puppets . . .) And . . . A mysterious house looming over the sea . . . He's a reclusive writer whose imagination creates chilling horror novels. She's a down-on-her-luck actress reduced to staging kids' puppet shows. He knows a dozen ways to kill his characters with his bare hands. She knows a dozen ways to kill an audience with laughs. But she's not laughing...

It's 1946 and Juliet Ashton can't think what to write next. Out of the blue, she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - by chance, he's acquired a book that once belonged to her - and, spurred on by their mutual love of reading, they begin a correspondence. When Dawsey reveals that he is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, her curiosity is piqued and it's not long before she begins to hear from other members....

When Arthur Hayman, author of The Hayseed Chronicles, dies, a bizarre chain of events conspires to make his series of children's novels world-famous. But buried deep inside the books lie secrets that begin to shake Arthur's family - his son, Luke, reluctantly immortalized as the young hero; his daughter, Rachel, for whom the books are a hole through which her life has fallen; and his enigmatic wife, Martha, who knows that secrets are best kept well-hidden....

Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne and the writer Anthony Horowitz have been invited to a literary festival on the island of Aldernay to talk about their new book. Very soon they discover that dark forces are at work. Aldernay is in turmoil over a planned power line that will cut through it, desecrating a war cemetery and turning neighbour against neighbour. And the visiting authors seem to be harbouring any number of unpleasant secrets. When the...

Discover this year's most original mystery that will have you guessing until the very last page... SUNDAY TIMES CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH All murder mysteries follow a simple set of rules. Grant McAllister, an author of crime fiction and professor of mathematics, once sat down and worked them all out. But that was thirty years ago. Now he's living a life of seclusion on a quiet Mediterranean island - until Julia Hart, a sharp, ambitious editor, knocks...