The festive season is in full swing - parties, champagne and Christmas crackers abound. You're having a breather at the hotel bar when a stunning young woman catches your eye. Could she really be interested in you? She flutters her eyelashes and takes your hand. Her Christmas party dress glitters with sequins. What you don't know is that your life is now in her hands - as she leads you up to her room there's only one thing that will determine whether you live or die. Are you a good person? Are you really?

It was meant to be Caitlin's perfect summer, but betrayed by her best friend and her boyfriend, she finds herself hitchhiking home alone, heartbroken, and penniless. When a smiling family pulls up on the roadside to help her on her way, she's relieved at first - they seem friendly, normal. And when they offer her a warm bed in their cottage for the night, she's grateful - it's not safe for young women travelling alone in the dark, and she's in no rush to get home, where she knows a grave secret is due to blow her family apart.

Alice Tandy has dreamed of her wedding since she was a little girl. The perfect venue, the perfect dress, the perfect groom. It’s all going exactly to plan. But then her whole world comes tumbling down. Just as she and her new husband, Ben, are cutting their wedding cake, three policemen storm in and arrest Ben. Alice looks on in horror, unable to comprehend what is happening. Did they say murder? The next day, Ben is released on bail, but for Alice, the nightmare is only just beginning.

It was surreal returning to work after a five-month enforced sabbatical following the suspicious death of my best friend Livvy at a work event. I was grateful for the time away to grieve and had slotted straight back in work but a surprise awaited my return. Amanda Dowd, Livvy’s replacement, was entrenched as my new flatmate in the company apartment. Something didn’t feel right, I felt on edge. But everyone seemed to love her. Even my ex-Jayden was blinded by her outgoing personality and model looks.When I began to receive calls, photos and presents supposedly from Livvy, I became spooked.

Two days ago, the Wilson family checked into the imposing, glass-fronted Lodge, surrounded by snow and perched perilously on the edge of a cliff looking out to a gray sea. Not everyone was looking forward to the family get-together. But mother-in-law Angela insisted the winter trip would help heal their rifts....

The Daughter. My father is innocent. He’s spent almost four years behind bars, but now he’s getting out. I gave up everything to be there for him, just like he was always there for me. The Girlfriend. As soon as I opened the paper that day and saw that picture of Sandy, I didn’t care about the story surrounding it. There’s no way he hurt that girl. Now he’s out, we’ll get married and I’ll finally get to meet his daughter.The Other Woman. No one knows what happened all those years ago, and the life I built depends on no one finding out.

Olivia Bender designs exquisite home interiors that satisfy the most demanding clients. But her own deepest desire can’t be fulfilled by marble counters or the perfect rug. She desperately wants to be a mother. Fertility treatments and IVF keep failing. And just when she feels she’s at her lowest point, the police deliver shocking news to Olivia and her husband, Park. DNA results show that the prime suspect in a murder investigation is Park’s son. Olivia is relieved, knowing this is a mistake. Despite their desire, the Benders don’t have any children. Then comes the confession.

For myself and Lauren, my 10-year-old daughter No 3 Beech Close was to be our refuge after two years of hell nursing my sick mother. In need of a fresh start and wanting to distance ourselves from the bad memories of my mother’s house we moved to Beech Close, a small cul-de-sac of six houses situated around a picture-perfect green. It seemed perfect but I had underestimated the secrets that this tightknit community shared. Within hours of moving in my next-door neighbour Valerie made it abundantly clear we were not welcome.

The perfect neighborhood can be the perfect place to hide… Who wouldn’t want to live in Brighton Hills? This exclusive community on the Oregon coast is the perfect mix of luxury and natural beauty. Stunning houses nestle beneath mighty Douglas firs, and lush backyards roll down to the lakefront. It’s the kind of place where neighbors look out for one another. Sometimes a little too closely…

Fresh out of prison, Jess Strickland has just six months’ probation to serve until she's free to get on with the life she left behind four years ago. With few options available, Jess takes a job at Bright’s, an industrial laundry company, alongside other ex-cons, all eager to keep their noses clean. Here she finds an ally in Karla, but soon learns her new boss, Terry, is not all he seems. Realising she’s no safer on the outside, Jess refuses to be a victim any longer. How far will she go to avoid going back to prison?

The day my path crossed with Simon Fox I thought I’d already lost everything, but then he almost ran me off the road with his flash car and belittling jibes. The men in my life had undermined me for too long. Enough was enough. Fuelled by alcohol and the desire to get even, I decided a spot of petty vandalism would make me feel a whole lot better. Wrong. Very wrong. I hadn’t realised that Simon Fox was not a man to be messed with.

When Callie rents a beach cottage in Whitstable, she doesn't expect for its owner to be glamorous influencer Vanessa Lowe. Vanessa has it all. A beautiful home, a loyal husband, three perfect children, and a growing number of adoring online fans. Callie has long admired her world from afar. But when Vanessa invites her in, the closer Callie looks, the more she suspects that there's more to Vanessa than meets the eye. So when Vanessa's son disappears, Callie must question everything she knows.

Twenty years ago, 11-year-olds Charlie Paige and Scott Ashby were murdered in the city of Bristol. A man was convicted of the brutal crime, but decades later, questions still linger. For his whole life, filmmaker Cody Swift has been haunted by the deaths of his childhood best friends. The loose ends of the police investigation consume him so much that he decides to return to Bristol in search of answers. Hoping to uncover new evidence and to encourage those who may be keeping long-buried secrets to speak up, Cody starts a podcast to record his findings.

It’s a simple enough favor. Jude hasn’t seen Liam in years, but when he shows up at her work asking for a favor, she finds she can’t refuse. All Jude has to do is pick Liam up at a country train station—without telling anyone. So what if she has to lie to her fiancé? Jude is still committed to him and their imminent wedding, even if she and Liam were in love once. She owes him.

UrbanMyth: It was lauded as an alternative to the performative, show-your-best-self platforms—an anonymous discussion board grouped by zip code. The residents of Manhattan’s exclusive Upper East Side disclosed it all, things they would never share with their friends or their spouses: secret bank accounts, steamy affairs, tidbits of juicy gossip. So when a “hacktivist” group breaks into the forum and exposes the real identity of each poster, the repercussions echo down Park Avenue with a force that none could have anticipated.

Elfreda Raughn will avoid pregnancy if it kills her, and one way or another, it will kill her. Though she's able to stomach the gruesome day-to-day duties, the reality of preserving the Order's magical bloodline horrifies her, but the Sisters of Aytrium have sworn to pay a price for the safety of their nation. Elfreda wants out, whatever the cost. So when a shadowy cabal approaches her with an offer of escape, she leaps at the opportunity. As their spy, she gains access to the highest reaches of the Order....

Elfland is an intimate, sensual novel of people—both human and Aetherial—caught between duty and desire. It is a story of families, and of Rose Fox, a woman born to magic but tormented by her place in her adopted world.Led by Auberon Fox, a group of Aetherials—call them the Fair Folk, if you will—live among us, indistinguishable from humans. Every seven years, on the Night of the Summer Stars, Lawrence Wilder, the Gatekeeper, throws open all gates to the Other World. But this time, something has gone wrong.

Warrior angels, vampire hunters, and angels gone bad heat up this altogether sizzling paranormal alternate universe. This anthology of novellas features Angels' Wolf, Angels' Judgment, Angels' Pawn, and the never-before-published Angels' Dance.

A diamond-hard, visionary new SF thriller. Nailed-down cyberpunk ala William Gibson for the 21st century meets the vivid dark futures of Al Reynolds in this extraordinary debut novel. With Earth abandoned, humanity resides on Station, an industrialised asteroid run by the sentient corporations of the Pantheon. Under their leadership a war has been raging against the Totality - ex-Pantheon AIs gone rogue.

You define life or it defines you. In Shawn Speakman’s case, it was both. Lacking health insurance and diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2011, Shawn quickly accrued a massive medical debt that he did not have the ability to pay. That’s when New York Times best-selling author Terry Brooks offered to donate a short story that Shawn could sell to help alleviate those bills—and suggested he ask the same of his other writer friends. Unfettered is the result: An anthology built in order to relieve that debt, featuring short stories by some of the best fantasy writers in the genre.

Christopher Golden's Ararat is the heart-pounding tale of an adventure that goes wrong - on a biblical scale. When an earthquake reveals a secret cave hidden inside Mount Ararat in Turkey, a daring, newly engaged couple are determined to be the first ones inside...and what they discover will change everything. The cave is actually a buried ancient ship that many quickly come to believe is Noah's Ark. When a team of scholars, archaeologists, and filmmakers make it inside the ark, they discover an elaborate coffin in its recesses.

Asher Todd comes to live with the mysterious Morwood family as a governess to their children. Asher knows little about being a governess but she is skilled in botany and herbcraft, and perhaps more than that. And she has secrets of her own, dark and terrible—and Morwood is a house that eats secrets. With a monstrous revenge in mind, Asher plans to make it choke. However, she becomes fond of her charges, of the people of the Tarn, and she begins to wonder if she will be able to execute her plan—and who will suffer most if she does.

Psychologist Loche Newirth becomes hunted when he sees a painting that opens a window onto the afterlife. An ancient order of men seeking to control the art pursue him across the world, through centuries, into madness, and beyond. The first part of Michael B. Koep's the Newirth Mythology The Invasion of Heaven is mystery, adventure, myth, betrayal, murder, and madness. Loche Newirth wonders if it was his fall: The 50-foot drop from the rocky cliff to the icy water below. Is this why he has been hallucinating?

Shady Grove inherited her father’s ability to call ghosts from the grave with his fiddle, but she also knows the fiddle’s tunes bring nothing but trouble and darkness. But when her brother is accused of murder, she can’t let the dead keep their secrets. In order to clear his name, she’s going to have to make those ghosts sing.

The bank is eroding. The barriers are thinning. And time is running out. The hourglass door has closed behind Dante, sending him back in time to hunt down Zo, Tony, and V. Although giving him up was the hardest test she ever faced, Abby knows that Dante is the only one who can stop the others from destroying time itself. But almost immediately, things start to change, and Abby’s worst fears are realized when Zo begins targeting her past specifically.