Showing results by publisher "Sceptre" in Comedy & Humour

The hilarious, heartbreaking novel by the author of the international best seller A Man Called Ove. Granny has been telling fairy tales for as long as Elsa can remember. In the beginning they were only to make Elsa go to sleep, to get her to practise Granny's secret language, and a little because Granny is just about as nutty as a granny should be. But lately the stories have another dimension as well. Something Elsa can't quite put her finger on....

Recently dumped and stuck with the mortgage, artist Esther Ray wants to burn the world, but instead, she reluctantly accepts a scrapbooking job from the deliriously wealthy Naomi Duncan. The scrapbooks, a secret birthday gift for Naomi's husband Bryce, trace the Duncan's twenty-five-year marriage. As Esther binges true-crime podcasts and works through the near-two hundred-boxes of Duncan detritus, she finds herself infatuated with the gilded family - until, mid-project, Naomi dies suspiciously.

Angus Mooney is not happy—he's been murdered, cut off in the prime of his life. He feels humiliated—he's never even believed in an afterlife. (How wrong he'd been). He's confused—death has provided more questions than answers. And he desperately misses his audacious and fiery wife, Gracie, who's expecting their first child. The only upside is that Angus has found a way to see what his murderer is up to and how Gracie is faring. The downside: Gracie and his murderer are getting uncomfortably close, and a worldwide pandemic means the afterlife is about to get very crowded.

The venomous lumpsucker is the most intelligent fish on the planet. Or maybe it was the most intelligent fish on the planet. Because it might already be extinct. Nobody knows. And nobody cares. Except for two people. Mining executive Mark Halyard has a prison cell waiting for him if that fish has gone for good. And biologist Karin Resaint needs it for her own darker purposes. They don't trust each other, but they're left with no choice but to team up, pursuing the lumpsucker across the strange landscapes of near-future Europe. 

I've known Death a long time but now Death knows me. When their idyllic childhood is shattered by the sudden death of their parents, siblings Marty, Liz and Jules are sent to a bleak state boarding school. Once there, the orphans' lives change tracks: Marty throws himself into academic life; Liz is drawn to dark forms of escapism; and Jules transforms from a vivacious child to a withdrawn teenager.

One ordinary morning, Laurie's husband, Mark, vanishes, leaving behind his phone and wallet. For weeks, she tells no one, carrying on her job as a cleaner at the local university, visiting her tricky, dementia-suffering father and holing up in her tower-block flat with a bottle to hand. When she finally reports Mark as missing, the police are suspicious. Why did she take so long? Wasn't she worried? It turns out there are many more mysteries in Laurie's account of events, though not just because she glosses over the facts. 

He calls me into his office and closes the door...to promote me. He promotes me again and again. I am wild with ecstasy. Your boss gives you a pay rise, the hotshot producer recognises your talents, the pizza delivery guy hopes you've got a box set to watch with your extra-large pizza. Prepared to be satisfied...at last. Sometimes a plumber is just a plumber. Get what you really want this year with dozens of literary quickies to tantalise and titillate even the most world-weary feminist.

How good are people? Let me tell you, Dee: people are as good as the pair of eyes they believe is on them.... When Claudia Talwar is called to meet a mysterious visitor in the reception of her Manchester office block, she can't believe her eyes. It's Samson Glaze, former hippy turned internationally famous entrepreneur, and the 15-years-absent father figure of her youth. It doesn't take much for Samson to convince her to help find his son, Reggie Glaze, who's got into a bit of trouble....

Margo Millet's got money troubles. As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-Pro-Wrestler, she's always known she'd have to make it on her own. When she finds herself pregnant by her college professor - who is very keen not to be involved - she realizes she will need cash fast. At twenty, alone with a baby, what Margo lacks in options she makes up for in ingenuity, and soon she has a plan: she'll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, producing content and writing storylines unlike anything else out there.