Jack Taylor, traumatised, bitter and hurling from his last case, has resolved to give up the finding business. However, he owes the local hard man a debt of honour and it appears easy enough: find “the Angel of the Magdalen” — a woman who helped the unfortunates incarcerated in the infamous laundry. He is also hired by a whizz kid to prove that his father’s death was no accident. Jack treats both cases as relatively simple affairs. He becomes involved with a woman who might literally be the death of him, runs dangerously foul of the cops. He is finally clean and sober but the unfolding events will not only shake his sobriety but bring him as close to death as he could ever have imagined

Some are born with magic. Some without. Matteo, un-magical counselor to the mighty of Halruaa, has devoted his life to the truth — until he finds that he may have a hidden spark of magic after all. Now, with only a street waif for a companion, he's on the run from the mysterious Cabal. In the dismal Swamp of Akhlaur, Matteo will seek his own truth while battling a creature out of his nightmares. But something even worse is on his trail: a relentless persecutor of magic. The Magehound

A young man meets a woman and falls in love with her, despite her protestations that he will soon turn into "a maggot person" — a maggot-filled body topped by a still-functioning brain. Michael begins experiencing severe pains, and the young woman's prophecy begins to take hold

Abandoned by his wife and devastated by the death of his twelve-year old son, Eddy Bale becomes obsessed with the plight of terminally ill children and develops a plan to provide a last hurrah dream vacation for seven children who will never grow-up. Eddy and his four dysfunctional chaperones journey to the entertainment capital of America — Disney World. Once they arrive, a series of absurdities characteristic of an Elkin novel — including a freak snowstorm and a run-in with a vengeful Mickey Mouse — transform Eddy's idealistic wish into a fantastic nightmare

Another deliciously seasonal and heart-warming tale from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Twelve Days of Christmas and Chocolate Wishes. In the pretty Lancashire village of Middlemoss, Lizzy is on the verge of leaving her cheating husband, Tom, when tragedy strikes. Luckily she has welcome distraction in the Christmas Pudding Circle, a group of friends swapping seasonal recipes — as well as a rivalry with local cookery writer Nick over who will win Best Mince Pie at the village show… Meanwhile, the whole village is gearing up for the annual Boxing Day Mystery Play. But who will play Adam to Lizzy’s Eve? Could it be the handsome and charismatic soap actor Ritch, or could someone closer to home win her heart? Whatever happens, it promises to be a Christmas to remember! Previously published as Sweet Nothings, Trisha has extensively reworked the original novel with fabulous new extra material

How is one to start again after losing the one thing that speaks to your heart and fuels your passion? After a serious accident leaves Calliope Rose Collins unable to continue with the career that has owned her soul for most of her life, she returns to Foxtail Lake, Hollister House, and Great Aunt Gracie. After solving the murder of a local girl she begins writing freelance articles for the local newspaper. This turns into a full time career and a new passion and inner healing is found. In book 5 in the series, Callie is faced with a personal choice as she stumbles onto a new mystery while helping the town prepare for the best Halloween it has ever seen

After an exciting magical search, Dorothy and her friends present Princess Ozma with a surprise birthday cake

Magic takes many forms. The ancient Egyptians explained the night by suggesting that the goddess Nut swallowed the sun. The Vikings believed a rainbow was the gods’ bridge to earth. These are magical, extraordinary tales. But there is another kind of magic, and it lies in the exhilaration of discovering the real answers to these questions. It is the magic of reality – science. Packed with inspiring explanations of space, time and evolution, laced with humour and clever thought experiments, The Magic of Reality explores a stunningly wide range of natural phenomena. What is stuff made of? How old is the universe? What causes tsunamis? Who was the first man, or woman? This is a page-turning, inspirational detective story that not only mines all the sciences for its clues but primes the reader to think like a scientist too. Richard Dawkins elucidates the wonders of the natural world to all ages with his inimitable clarity and exuberance in a text that will enlighten and inform for generations to come

They had a secret power that would astound Jerry — who had sent them to ease his breaking heart

Put a little meow in their stockings this year with these all-new tales of Christmas and felines — from beloved bestselling authors! New York Times bestselling author Lora Leigh and top-selling authors Nalini Singh, Erin McCarthy, and Linda Winstead Jones have a special gift for readers this year: never-before published holiday stories featuring passionate romance, paranormal adventure, and a distinctly alluring feline touch. With four new stories — including one featuring Lora Leigh's genetically altered Feline Breeds — this is a collection packed with more surprises than Christmas morning, and more chills than the snowiest winter night

Quentin Coldwater should be happy. He escaped a miserable Brooklyn childhood, matriculated at a secret college for magic, and graduated to discover that Fillory—a fictional utopia—was actually real. But even as a Fillorian king, Quentin finds little peace. His old restlessness returns, and he longs for the thrills a heroic quest can bring. Accompanied by his oldest friend, Julia, Quentin sets off—only to somehow wind up back in the real world and not in Fillory, as they’d hoped. As the pair struggle to find their way back to their lost kingdom, Quentin is forced to rely on Julia’s illicitly learned sorcery as they face a sinister threat in a world very far from the beloved fantasy novels of their youth

Jam-packed with critical insights and historical context, this discussion of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia from Miller’s double perspectives-as the wide-eyed child who first read the books and an agnostic adult who revisits them-is intellectually inspiring but not always cohesive. Finding her distrust of Christianity undermined by her love of Lewis’s indisputably Christian-themed world, Salon.com cofounder and staff writer Miller seeks to “recapture [Narnia’s] old enchantment.” She replaces lost innocence with understanding, visiting Lewis’s home in England, reading his letters and books (which she quotes extensively) and interviewing readers and writers. Lengthy musings on Freudian analysis of sadomasochism, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Anglo-Saxon nationalism and taxonomies of genre share space with incisive and unapologetic criticism of Lewis’s treatment of race, gender and class. The heart of the book is in the first-person passages where Miller recalls longing to both be and befriend Lucy Pevensie and extols Narnia’s “shining wonders.” Her reluctant reconciliation with Lewis’s and Narnia’s imperfections never quite manages to be convincing, but anyone who has endured exile from Narnia will recognize and appreciate many aspects of her journey. (Dec. 3) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. In this powerful meditation on ‘the schism between childhood and adult reading,’ Miller recounts her tumultuous relationship with the favorite books of her youth, C. S. Lewis’s ‘Chronicles of Narnia.’ Filled from an early age with a distrust of the Catholic faith in which she was raised, Miller didn’t notice the Christian subtext, and when she learned of it, as a teen-ager, she felt ‘tricked, cheated.’ Combining memoir, criticism, and biography, Miller takes Lewis to task for his ‘betrayals,’ including the racial stereotyping and ‘litism that, she argues, inform the books. Yet her respect for Lewis’s talent remains; scrupulously placing him in his historical context, she crafts a nuanced portrait of the author as a sensitive curmudgeon and comes to the realization that ‘a perfect story is no more interesting or possible than a perfect human being.’ Copyright ©2008 The New Yorker

"Magic is always impossible," said the magician. "It begins with the impossible and ends with the impossible and is impossible in between. That is why it is magic." What if? Why not? Could it be? When a fortune-teller's tent appears in the market square of the city of Baltese, orphan Peter Augustus Duchenne knows the questions that he must ask: Does his sister still live? And if so, how can he find her? The fortune-teller's mysterious answer (An elephant! An elephant will lead you there!) sets off a chain of events so remarkable, so impossible, that you will hardly dare to believe it is true. With atmospheric illustrations by fine artist Yoko Tanaka, here is a dreamlike and captivating tale that could only be told by Kate DiCamillo. In this timeless fable, she evokes the largest of themes – hope and belonging, desire and compassion – with the lightness of a magician’s touch

In The Magician's Wife, Cain returns to his classic themes of lust and greed. Clay Lockwood, a business executive, falls in love with the irresistible Sally Alexis, wife of a professional magician

A thrilling and original coming-of-age novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world. Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart. At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price. Cover art by Didier Massard, Arbre en Automne

This year, like every other, the magicians of Imardin gather to purge the city of undesirables. Cloaked in the protection of their sorcery, they move with no fear of the vagrants and miscreants who despise them and their work—until one enraged girl, barely more than a child, hurls a stone at the hated invaders... and effortlessly penetrates their magical shield. What the Magicians’ Guild has long dreaded has finally come to pass. There is someone outside their ranks who possesses a raw power beyond imagining, an untrained mage who must be found and schooled before she destroys herself and her city with a force she cannot yet control

Digory and Polly discover a secret passage that links their houses, and are tricked into vanishing out of this world and into the World of Charn, where they wake up the evil Queen Jadis. There, they witness the creation of the Land of Narnia, as it is sung into being by the Great Lion, Aslan. English years: 1900 Narnian years: 1

The Magus (1966) is the first novel written (but second published) by British author John Fowles. It tells the story of Nicholas Urfe, a teacher on a small Greek island. Urfe finds himself embroiled in psychological illusions of a master trickster that become increasingly dark and serious. The novel was a bestseller, partly because it tapped successfully into—and then arguably helped to promote—the 1960s popular interest in psychoanalysis and mystical philosophy