Showing results by publisher "Isis Publishing Ltd" in All Categories

Lennox is a troubled teenager with no family. Ava is eight months pregnant and fleeing her abusive husband. Heather is a grieving mother and cancer sufferer. They don't know each other, but when a meteor streaks over Edinburgh, all three suffer instant, catastrophic strokes...only to wake up the following day in hospital, miraculously recovered. When news reaches them of an octopus-like creature washed up on the shore near where the meteor came to earth, Lennox senses that some extra-terrestrial force is at play.

After a long period of "resting", life is looking up for Charles Paris, who has been cast as the Ghost of Hamlet's Father and First Gravedigger in a new production of Hamlet. Ophelia is played by Katrina Selsey, who won the role through a television talent show. Hamlet himself is also played by a reality TV contestant, Jared Root - and the two young stars have rather different views than the more experienced members of the cast. But when the company reach the first staging post of their tour, matters get more serious, with one member of the company seriously injured in what appears to be an accident, and another dead....

When Effie Coulstoun drops dead on the floor of her bar in a small Spanish town mid-business meeting, her daughter Daniella feels it’s her duty to return for the funeral. But Daniella has been estranged from her mother for over 20 years. Daniella is soon confronted by a hostile group of expat misfits who, along with Effie, are involved in a multi-million-pound property scam. The expats are threatening to implicate Daniella to save themselves. A Spanish detective is investigating Effie’s death. He’s convinced Daniella knows more than she is telling.

From prehistoric cave paintings to the prints and etchings of Picasso, owls have captivated and inspired us for millennia. Whether they appear as ancient Athenian symbols of wisdom, ghostly harbingers of death, or the cuddly sidekicks of Harry Potter and Winnie the Pooh, these birds have continued to fascinate and disturb us in equal measure. Through revelatory new behavioural research, Jennifer Ackerman provides an intimate glimpse into these magnificent creatures' lives.

Motherhood is every woman's right and the natural outcome of a happy marriage. But what then when a normal and beautiful young woman is forced to recognise, after two years as the wife of a country parson in the north of England, that her marriage will never bring her the fulfilment she desperately needs? Grace Rouse is faced with this situation and, like many other women before her, she seeks to escape a mounting sense of frustration and despair by turning from the husband she has tried in vain to love to the comfort and release offered by another man.

Leningrad in 1952: a city recovering from war, where Andrei, a young doctor and Anna, a school teacher, are forging a life together. Summers at the dacha, preparations for the hospital ball, work and the care of 16-year-old Kolya fill their minds. They try hard to avoid coming to the attention of the authorities, but even so their happiness is precarious. Stalin is still in power, and the Ministry for State Security has new targets in its sights.

Duke Widukind, leader of the Saxon rebels, is sheltering in the North, beyond Karolus's reach. He hopes to persuade Bjarki Bloodhand - once a famous berserker, but now a father and family man - and his fierce sister the shield-maiden Tor, to join his revolt against tyranny. But Bjarki has eloped with Widukind's sister Edith, who was betrothed to Abbio the Crow. In revenge, Abbio uses seithr to strike at Bjarki - a powerful spell to drive him insane. Can Bjarki resist the long slide into madness?

Mona has almost everything: money, friends, social status...everything except for freedom. Languishing in her golden cage, she craves a sense of belonging. Desperate for emotional release, she turns to a friend who introduces her to a world of glitter, glamour, covert affairs and drugs. There she meets Ali, a physically and emotionally wounded man, years younger than her.

November 1940. Darkness descends, and another anxious night begins for those tasked with guarding the industrial heartland of London from enemy attack. As a policeman patrols the Royal Albert Dock, something catches his eye - a man is sprawled awkwardly across a nearby barge, a dagger lodged in his back. Detective Inspector John Jago of West Ham CID discovers the victim was a dock worker by day and a Home Guard volunteer by night - and there are things even his wife doesn't know about his past.

In the ghetto, the last 50,000 Jews await their fate, but, unlike those who preceded them to the death camps, these Jews are prepared to fight. Jan Kalisz, Kripo investigator and Resistance double-agent, has promised to supply them with weapons. But how will he fulfil his vow? The murder of a German officer appears to provide an opportunity.

Vivian Lestrange - celebrated author of the popular mystery novel The Charterhouse Case and total recluse - has apparently dropped off the face of the Earth. Reported missing by his secretary Eleanor, whom Inspector Bond suspects to be the author herself looking for publicity, it appears that crime is afoot when Lestrange's housekeeper is also found to have disappeared. Bond and Warner of Scotland Yard set to work to investigate a murder with no body and a potentially fictional victim.

Rosie Strange doesn't believe in ghosts or witches or magic. It's no surprise therefore that when she inherits the ramshackle Essex Witch Museum, her first thought is to take the money and run. Still, the museum exerts a curious pull over Rosie. There's the eccentric academic who bustles in to demand she help in a hunt for the bones of the notorious Ursula Cadence, a witch long since put to death. And there's curator Sam Stone, a man about whom Rosie can't decide if he's tiresomely annoying or extremely captivating.

Nicolas Picard is riding home from Exeter when he's attacked by a snarling wildcat. Yet, when the body is found, there are lacerations on his neck put there by a human hand. He is involved in a land dispute and his wife claims to be the benefactor on his behalf. Picard's mistress emerges to stake her claim then a third woman—wife of the deceased original owner of the land—comes forward. Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret have three human wildcats trying to tear out each other's throats.

Although she hadn't known Leonard Mallett well, Carole Seddon feels duty bound to attend her fellow committee member's funeral. As she suspected, the sermon is very predictable - not unlike Leonard himself. What she couldn't have predicted was that the deceased's daughter would use the occasion to publicly accuse her stepmother of murder. Did Heather Mallett really kill her husband? Deciding to get to the heart of the matter, Carole's neighbour Jude joins the new community choir - and discovers that amidst the clashing egos and petty resentments lurk some decidedly false notes.

Sally Urwin and her husband, Steve, own High House Farm in Northumberland, which they share with Mavis the sheepdog, one very fat pony and many, many sheep. Set in beautiful, wild landscape, and in use for generations, it's the perfect setting for Sally's (sometimes brutally) honest and charming account of farming life. From stock sales to lambing sheds, and out in the fields in snow and on hot summer days, A Farmer's Diary reveals the highs, lows and hard work involved in making a living from the land.

One thousand years ago: An Icelandic warrior returns from battle, bearing a ring cut from the right hand of his foe. Seventy years ago: An Oxford professor, working from a secret source, creates the 20th century’s most pervasive legend. The professor’s name? John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Six hours ago: An expert on Old Icelandic literature, Agnar Haraldsson, is murdered. Everything is connected, but to discover how, Detective Magnus Jonson must venture where the shadows lie….

Paris, 1899. Abigail Wilson has received an invitation from Professor Alphonse Flamand, a prominent French Professor of Archaeology, to join him on an archaeological dig in Egypt. Overjoyed to be presented with such an opportunity, Abigail and her husband, Daniel, travel to Paris to meet the professor at his office in the Louvre to discuss plans. However, when Abigail goes to the appointment, she finds Flamand dead with a knife in his chest. In a whirl of confusion and despite her pleas of innocence, Abigail is arrested.

Someone had once told Emma Molinero, the daughter of an itinerant carnival performer, that she was made for trouble. Her earliest memories were of life with a travelling show - part fair and part circus - that toured the shires at the dawn of the Victorian era. But at the age of seven she found herself an orphan who, in accordance with her Spanish father's dying wishes, must now leave the warm and friendly community to live with an unknown English grandmother far to the north in County Durham. With her she took the whips and knives used with such dexterity by her father for his act.

The horrific suicide of a successful Lithuanian entrepreneur shocks newly appointed Chief Constable Bob Skinner and his colleagues. Why would a man with everything to live for take his own life? As enquiries begin, a mystery girl, drugged and incoherent, is dumped in a health centre by a mysterious Galahad, who promptly disappears. Who is she, who is he, and where has he gone? Is it coincidence that most of the massage parlours in the city have suddenly closed overnight?

The second book of short stories featuring supernatural detective Jack Nightingale, who fights his battles in the shadows, in the grey areas where demons and monsters seek their prey, where one mistake can cost him his life - or worse. In this collection of nine short stories, Nightingale matches wits against haunted houses, serial killers back from the dead, disturbed spirits, demon dolls and monsters from hell.