Choice number one: live or die. One cold, crisp night, Jack Sommers was faced with a choice - live forever according to the ancient, magical rules of Gaia, or die. Jack chose to live, and in exchange, he became a Winter. Like the other Seasons, each year Jack must hunt and kill the one before him. Gaia's rules are pretty straightforward. Winter kills Autumn. Autumn kills Summer. Summer kills Spring. And Spring kills Winter. Which means that Jack kills...

Alone at Christmas, will she find somewhere to call home? No more than 18 years old, alone and heavily pregnant, Kathleen stumbles through the snow, desperate for somewhere to rest her weary head. As the Christmas bells chime around her, she glimpses a man through the haze, before collapsing into his arms. On a farm in the beautiful Kent countryside, Jessie and her family take Kathleen in as their own. But little do they know that there's a baby on...

Moonlight, starlight, the ethereal glow of snow in winter ... when you flick off a switch, other forms of light begin to reveal themselves. Artificial light is everywhere. Not only is it damaging to humans and to wildlife, disrupting our natural rhythms, but it obliterates the subtler lights that have guided us for millennia. In this beautiful exploration of the power of light, Matt Gaw ventures forth into darkness to find out exactly what we're missing....

One boy . . . One dragon . . . A world of adventure. When Eragon finds a polished stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy; perhaps it will buy his family meat for the winter. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon soon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself. Overnight his simple life is shattered and he is thrust into a perilous new world of destiny, magic and power....

Hamburg, 1947. A ruined city occupied by the British who bombed it, experiencing the coldest winter in living memory. Food is scarce; refugees and the homeless crowd into shantytowns and sheds. There is a killer on the loose, and all attempts to find him or her have failed. Plagued with worry about his missing son, Frank Stave is a career policeman with a tragedy in his past that is driving his determination to find the killer. With the help of his...

Spring 1690: Illegitimate and destitute and strikingly beautiful, Marta has survived the brutal Russian winter in her remote Baltic village. Sold by her family into household labour at the age of 15, Marta befriends a maid who kills herself after being repeatedly raped by their master. The next night, he comes for her. A world away, Russia?s new ruler, Peter the Great, passionate and iron-willed, has a vision for transforming the traditionalist Tsardom...

Some people's lives are entirely their own creations. James Rebanks' isn't. The first son of a shepherd, who was the first son of a shepherd himself, he and his family have lived and worked in and around the Lake District for generations. Their way of life is ordered by the seasons and the work they demand, and has been for hundreds of years. A Viking would understand the work they do: sending the sheep to the fells in the summer and making the hay;...

Three first dates and an art-world mystery - it's going to be a busy Christmas for Darcy. All I Want for Christmas is a cosy winter romance from Karen Swan, author of Christmas By Candlelight. Can she find love this Christmas? Christmas in Copenhagen is a magical time of year but Darcy Cotterell isn?t feeling festive. Newly single, again, she's not even going home for Christmas. Instead she will be spending her holiday finishing her art history PhD....