What do you want when no one is watching?
What do you want, when the lights are off?
What do you want, when you are anonymous?
When we talk about sex, we talk about womanhood and motherhood, infidelity and exploitation, consent and respect, fairness and egalitarianism, love and hate, pleasure and pain. And yet so many of us don't talk about it at all.
In this groundbreaking book, Gillian Anderson collects and introduces the anonymous sexual fantasies of women from around the world (along with her own anonymous submission). They are all extraordinary: full of desire, fear, intimacy, shame, satisfaction and, ultimately, liberation. From dreaming about someone off-limits to conjuring a scene with multiple partners, from sex that is gentle and tender to passionate and playful, from women who have never had sex to women who have had more sex than they can remember, these fantasies provide a window into the most secret part of our minds.
Want reveals how women feel about sex when they have the freedom to be totally themselves.
This is the story of a love triangle... of sorts.
'I so enjoyed Storybook Ending. It's the perfect balance of cosiness and originality – warm, comforting, with a hilarious mix-up at its heart that I couldn't wait to see unravel' Beth O'Leary, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Flatshare
April is lonely. Since her office issued a permanent work from home mandate, she's lost herself a little. So, in a bid to break out of the funk, she leaves an anonymous note inside a book for the hot guy at her neighbourhood bookstore.
Laura is a busy single mum. Thanks to the meddling hand of fate, she's the one who finds April's note, thinking it's from the guy who served her at the bookstore. A little flirtation with an attractive man who loves books might be just what she needs.
Meanwhile Westley, handsome but not so perceptive, is too distracted by a movie filming at the shop to notice either woman's furtive glances as they leave notes for each other amid the books in the stacks.
April and Laura's continued anonymous correspondence will shake all three of these characters out of their mundane routines, sparking a glimmer of hope that they might just get what they want: a storybook ending of their own.
An intricate web of miscommunication and serendipitous encounters, Storybook Ending is a playful tribute to romance, friendship and bookstores; and to the objects – from a forgotten slip of paper to someone's heart – left between the pages of books.
The stunning third book in the sexy, action-packed Crescent City series, following the global bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath.
Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate. Stranded in a strange new world, she's going to need all her wits about her to get home again. And that's no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust.
Hunt Athalar has found himself in some deep holes in his life, but this one might be the deepest of all. After a few brief months with everything he ever wanted, he's in the Asteri's dungeons again, stripped of his freedom and without a clue as to Bryce's fate. He's desperate to help her, but until he can escape the Asteri's leash, his hands are quite literally tied.
In this sexy, breathtaking sequel to the #1 bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath, Sarah J. Maas's Crescent City series reaches new heights as Bryce and Hunt's world is brought to the brink of collapse-with its future resting on their shoulders.
From one of our leading biographers and critics comes an exhilarating, landmark new look at Muriel Spark.
The word most commonly used to describe Muriel Spark is 'puzzling'. Spark was a puzzle, and so too are her books. She dealt in word games, tricks, and ciphers; her life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences and spooky events. Evelyn Waugh thought she was a saint, Bernard Levin said she was a witch, and she described herself as 'Muriel the Marvel with her X-ray eyes'. Following the clues, riddles, and instructions Spark planted for posterity in her biographies, fiction, autobiography and archives, Frances Wilson aims to crack her code.
Electric Spark explores not the celebrated Dame Muriel but the apprentice mage discovering her powers. We return to her early years when everything was piled on: divorce, madness, murder, espionage, poverty, skulduggery, blackmail, love affairs, revenge, and a major religious conversion. If this sounds like a novel by Muriel Spark it is because the experiences of the 1940s and 1950s became, alchemically reduced, the material of her art.
After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night cleaner shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Ever since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat over thirty years ago keeping busy has helped her cope. One night she meets Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium who sees everything, but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors – until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late...
Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.
My protector is gone, revealed to be a monster. But I remind myself that I am not a damsel. I'm no princess bound within a tower.
I am a shadow.
Vasalie Moran was once a dancer in King Illian's court – until he framed her for murder. Barely surviving her two years in the dungeons, she's suddenly called to face her King. He offers her a deal: become his spy at the month-long royal Gathering and he'll grant her freedom.
As Illian's orders grow bloody and dangerous, forcing her to harm and betray those around her, Vasalie discovers the monster she serves may be aligned with a bigger monster – one far closer to home. With her world threatened, Vasalie enlists the help of Illian's brother and greatest adversary, the King of the East.
As the rivalry between brothers escalates with Vasalie caught in the middle, the truth of her past comes to light. If she wants to survive, she must decide who to trust, who to fight for, and how much of her soul she's willing to damn in the process
A timely manifesto on how digital currencies will win the New Cold War and the struggle for geopolitical supremacy in the twenty-first century.
A New Cold War is underway. Whereas the first Cold War was dominated by the threat of nuclear conflict, the new front line is economic and financial, but still dominated by technology. Who controls its future will help decide the outcome of the geopolitical struggle between China and the US.
Since the end of the Second World War, the US dollar has been the global reserve currency, which has ensured American dominance of the world economy. But no longer. More than a hundred countries are developing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), digital equivalents to cash that will utterly transform how we do business at home and abroad.
China was the first country to recognise the potential of this new money. The West's media focused on the new currency's role in China's surveillance state, creating widespread concern about all CBDCs. But they have largely overlooked a more important aspect of its existence: as a tool through which to 'de-dollarise' the developing world at the speed of light. When China's President Xi Jinping officially launched the digital yuan in February 2022, he also agreed a pact of 'limitless co-operation' with Russia. Within days, Russia launched its war on Ukraine, secure in the knowledge it could bypass US sanctions.
Urgent, clear-eyed and groundbreaking, Smart Money shows us how CBDCs are going to impact all of our futures in ways that most of us have failed to even consider. If the West is to compete, it needs to act fast to develop its own global digital currencies that reflect the values of liberal democracies.
We know the benefits of eating your greens, or getting your 'five a day'. But what about the other ways that nature can help us lead healthier – and happier – lives?
In this revolutionary book, Professor Kathy Willis reveals the surprising science behind the natural world and how we can harness its benefits to improve our health: whether it's gardening with your bare hands to boost your gut microbiome; letting the scent of roses make you a calmer and safer driver; or tuning into birdsong to help reduce stress, and even pain.
With applications for everything from which way we walk to work to choosing where our kids go to school, Good Nature brings the latest scientific research into our homes and workplaces, showing us how we can have better, happier, healthier and longer lives.
India is the forgotten heart of the ancient world.
In the millennium and a half from c. 250 BC to 1200 AD, Indian art, religion, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the world – a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific.
Here, William Dalrymple draws from a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India's oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia. For the first time, he gives a name to this spread of Indian ideas that transformed the culture and technology of not only its ancient world, but of the world as we know it today.
Fourteen stories. Fourteen more poisons. Just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's all made-up ...
Agatha Christie is renowned for her captivating plots and creative ways of killing off ill-fated victims. And what better way to add intrigue to a story than poison? The surreptitious ways they can be administered and the characteristic symptoms they produce make these killer chemicals the ideal method of murder in a 'whodunit'. Christie perfected the use of poisons in her plots; her deft and varied use of toxic substances is one of her great strengths as a writer. But how is it that some compounds prove so fatal, and in such tiny amounts?
The follow up to Kathryn Harkup's best-selling A is for Arsenic, V is for Venom is a compelling exploration of Christie's use of poisons and her extensive chemical knowledge. Featuring fourteen more poisons from the works of Agatha Christie, this book investigates the science behind the deadly substances, the history of their use in real-life murder cases, and how feasible was it to obtain, administer and detect these poisons in Christie's time and today. Combining Christie's murder mysteries, chemical science and true crime, V is for Venom is a celebration of the use of science by the undisputed Queen of Crime.
In this unique synthesis of science and culture, former astrophysicist and writer Joanne Baker charts the global history of humanity's relationship with the cosmos. Starting with the nearby Moon before venturing through the solar system to the stars and beyond, she unveils a rich mosaic of stories and research that illuminate the significance of celestial bodies in our everyday lives.
It is a history that transcends borders and cultural traditions, taking us from Mesopotamian moon worship to the science fiction of H. G. Wells and the discovery of black holes. Driven by a personal quest to understand the universe as more than just an abstract mathematical realm, Baker also includes her own sparkling first-hand experiences – from watching a total solar eclipse in Idaho to visiting an ancient observatory in Samarkand.
Starwatchers invites readers on an extraordinary journey through space that interrogates the boundaries of our earthly existence and encourages us to reflect on how we project meaning onto the skies.
Summer, 1919: Constance Haverhill is forced to relinquish her beloved job – and cottage – at the estate she helped to run during the war.
Instead, she's sent as an old lady's companion to Hazelbourne-on-Sea, where she meets Poppy, a trouser-wearing local who runs a ladies' motorcycle (and, hopefully soon, flying) club, and Harris, her recalcitrant but handsome brother - a pilot wounded in battle - who warms in Constance's presence, among the other colourful inhabitants of this sunny pocket of high society.
But things are increasingly complicated. As the country prepares to celebrate peace, the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms gained during the war are being revoked.
In a timeless comedy of manners, with sharp humour, biting wit and a warm heart, Simonson captures the mood of a generation facing the seismic changes brought on by war.
No one knows better than Ian Palmer – Executive Butler – that social position is everything in the rose-strewn Cotswolds.
So when his boss, Tata Hawkins, flounces out of her (new-build) manor house after a row with husband Bryan, Ian is alarmed: for one thing, if Tata is on the social slide downwards, that means he is too; for another, he's lost his home and has nowhere to store his prized collection of vintage Gucci loafers; even worse, a vacuum among the Country Princess set has opened up for a new Queen Bee.
With the old-money Pennybacker-Hoare sisters plotting to rid 'their' county of Tata and her ilk, a bikini influencer on the prowl for a husband just like Mr. Hawkins, a glamorous American divorcee threatening to steal Tata's crown, and the heiress-next-door threatening to steal Ian, the Cotswolds are in chaos.
Can Ian restore Tata's country crown and reinstate her to the comforts of the Manor?
Could this be the moment they've both been waiting for?
Eve has always loved antiques.
She loves the way an item from the past can offer a glimpse of another world, of another time. It's why she painstakingly researches the stories behind every item in Rainy Day Antiques, her little Cambridge shop, to share with their new owners. It's her way of honouring the past and cherishing the present.
Adam is firmly focussed on the future.
He's only in town to sort his late grandfather's affairs. When he discovers that his grandfather hired Eve to manage his house clearance, he can only hope her methods don't delay his return to London.
What neither of them know is that Adam's grandfather chose Eve for a reason. It's finally the right place and the right time for the two of them to meet. But what did he have planned for them?
Have you ever jumped on a book? Perhaps not. Most people would think it was a rather unusual thing to do.
Ten-year-old Mayowa has always thought that her Grandpa Edward, who dyes his beard emerald green and jumps on books in private, is rather unusual too. Until one day she jumps on a book for herself, and uncovers a huge family secret .
Mayowa can book jump.
By jumping on a book, she can harness the emotions inside it and channel them directly into other people. And when the opportunity to use her power to save the lives of countless refugees presents itself, Mayowa wants to jump in with both feet.
But Mayowa and her grandpa aren't the only book jumpers in existence. And not everybody wants to use this power for good .
The first title in a dazzlingly imaginative adventure trilogy about one girl's power to change the world through the magic of book-jumping. Brimming with heart, Mayowa and the Sea of Words is a modern classic in the making. Perfect for everyone who knows the true power of a good book .
The bestselling South Korean phenomenon, To the Moon is a bittersweet tale of wealth and class, female friendship, and the promise of the future when good fortune seems to be just around the corner.
In Seoul, three young women meet while working mundane desk jobs at a confectionary manufacturer. They become fast friends, taking their conversations out of the group chat as they bond over their 'average' employee report cards, the incompetence of their male team leader and a mutual longing for financial freedom amid mediocre raises.
Eun-sang, the eldest of the group, is always looking for ways to earn extra money, but faces trouble at work after she opens a mini mart at her desk.
Jisong, the youngest, dreams of a perfect romance with her Taiwanese boyfriend and spends her low salary on trips to Taipei.
Meanwhile, Dahae searches endlessly for a better apartment – albeit one she can actually afford.
One day over lunch, Eun-sang announces a plan to make enough money to quit her job, by investing her life's savings in cryptocurrency. What's more, she thinks the others should join her. All they need to do, she says, is hold on tight and wait for the price to skyrocket . . . to the moon. But as the market begins to fluctuate and spiral out of their control, the fate of their friendships – and their futures – soon hangs in the balance.
1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory as the snow falls—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night.
1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near a different river. He is alive but still not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and tries to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts with messages he cannot understand.
So begins a narrative that spans four generations of connections and consequences that ignite and reignite as the century unfolds. In radiant moments of desire, comprehension, longing, and transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later.
Held is affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom, and compassion, a novel by a writer at the height of her powers.
This gift edition hardback, presented in a beautiful foiled cloth slipcase decorated with brand new line art by Jonny Duddle, is a perfect addition to any Harry Potter fan's collection.
The fourth book in the global phenomenon series that changed the world of books forever
'There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways … their magical prowess – their daring – their powers of deduction – and, of course, their ability to cope with danger.'
The Triwizard Tournament is to be held at Hogwarts. Only wizards who are over seventeen are allowed to enter – but that doesn't stop Harry dreaming that he will win the competition. Then at Hallowe'en, when the Goblet of Fire makes its selection, Harry is amazed to find his name is one of those that the magical cup picks out.
He will face death-defying tasks, dragons and Dark wizards, but with the help of his best friends, Ron and Hermione, he might just make it through – alive!
This gift edition hardback, presented in a beautiful foiled slipcase decorated with brand new line art by Jonny Duddle, will delight readers as they cheer Harry on through his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
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