Headline Books

From the author of the number-one best-sellers The Women Who Ran Away and The Missing Wife. Delphine is at a wedding when the shocking news comes. Suddenly her life changes for ever. Delphine has worked hard for her success, and she knows she's got everything she wants. But not everyone agrees. Her opinionated family aren't convinced that living alone with no plans to 'settle down' could possibly make her truly happy, and no one appreciates it when she drops everything, day or night, whenever her boss Conrad calls. Yet Delphine wouldn't change a thing. And when Conrad makes her a surprise offer, it's clear that her hard work is going to pay off. A few short days later, Delphine's life is unrecognisable. The man who once broke her heart has suddenly reappeared, and a shocking tragedy turns her world on its head. Delphine must rethink everything that matters to her, and to those around her, and decide, once and for all, if love, family and a little compromise should come before career, security and independ

It is September 1939. Shortly after war is declared, Anthony Rhodes is sent to France, serving with the British Army. His days are filled with the minutiae and mundanities of Army life – friendships, billeting, administration – as the months of the ‘Phoney War’ quickly pass and the conflict seems a distant prospect. It is only in the spring of 1940 that the true situation becomes clear; the men are ordered to retreat to the coast and the beaches of Dunkirk, where they face a desperate and terrifying wait for evacuation.

'It has taken me several years of exploration, but I am at a place now where I see autism as neither an affliction nor a superpower. It's just the blueprint for who I am. There is no cure, but that's absolutely fine by me. To cure me of my autism would be to cure me of myself.' During the first thirty years of her life, comedy script writer Sara Gibbs had been labelled a lot of things - a cry baby, a scaredy cat, a spoiled brat, a weirdo, a show off - but more than anything else, she'd been called a Drama Queen. No one understood her behaviour, her meltdowns or her intense emotions. She felt like everyone else knew a social secret that she hadn't been let in on; as if life was a party she hadn't been invited to. Why was everything so damn hard? Little did Sara know that, at the age of thirty, she would be given one more label that would change her life's trajectory forever. That one day, sitting next to her husband in a clinical psychologist's office, she would learn that she had never been a drama queen, or

Football changes everything. It changes how we feel, how we think, how we behave. It turns us into someone else. You love your team first. It's tribal. Except I did love something else. I loved the idea of commentating on my team, on every team. I loved it even more than my team. I ditched the girl next door for the diva on the silver screen. Like all true romances, it was irrational and intoxicating, it was tangled and foolish, it became addictive and occasionally heart-breaking and it kept on changing. Two United goals inside two minutes changed it in 1999. A teenage Evertonian called Rooney twisted the plot in 2002. Three Liverpool goals in less than six minutes changed everything again in 2005. Hello, hello. Moments. Mere blinks of wide eyes. Football happens in heartbeats. Meeting those moments is my job. Seeing them, saying them, spelling out the difference they have just made. It's all I've ever wanted to do. Probably all I can do. Spending time in the company of the 'greats' of football like

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Perfection in short story form. So rarely is love expressed this richly, this vividly, or this artfully.' Candice Carty-Williams 'Beautifully written and full of joy. Bolu Babalola is a star.' Meg Cabot Bolu Babalola takes the most beautiful love stories from history and mythology and rewrites them with incredible new detail and vivacity in her debut collection. Focusing on the magical folktales of West Africa, Babalola also reimagines iconic Greek myths, ancient legends from the Middle East, and stories from countries that no longer exist in our world. A high-born Nigerian goddess feels beaten down and unappreciated by her gregarious lover and longs to be truly seen. A young businesswoman attempts to make a great leap in her company, and an even greater one in her love life. A powerful Ghanaian spokeswoman is forced to decide whether to uphold her family's politics, or to be true to her heart. Whether captured in the passion of love at first sight, or realising that self-l

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Perfection in short story form. So rarely is love expressed this richly, this vividly, or this artfully.' Candice Carty-Williams 'Beautifully written and full of joy. Bolu Babalola is a star.' Meg Cabot Bolu Babalola takes the most beautiful love stories from history and mythology and rewrites them with incredible new detail and vivacity in her debut collection. Focusing on the magical folktales of West Africa, Babalola also reimagines iconic Greek myths, ancient legends from the Middle East, and stories from countries that no longer exist in our world. A high-born Nigerian goddess feels beaten down and unappreciated by her gregarious lover and longs to be truly seen. A young businesswoman attempts to make a great leap in her company, and an even greater one in her love life. A powerful Ghanaian spokeswoman is forced to decide whether to uphold her family's politics, or to be true to her heart. Whether captured in the passion of love at first sight, or realising that self-

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Perfection in short story form. So rarely is love expressed this richly, this vividly, or this artfully.' Candice Carty-Williams 'Beautifully written and full of joy. Bolu Babalola is a star.' Meg Cabot Bolu Babalola takes the most beautiful love stories from history and mythology and rewrites them with incredible new detail and vivacity in her debut collection. Focusing on the magical folktales of West Africa, Babalola also reimagines iconic Greek myths, ancient legends from the Middle East, and stories from countries that no longer exist in our world. A high-born Nigerian goddess feels beaten down and unappreciated by her gregarious lover and longs to be truly seen. A young businesswoman attempts to make a great leap in her company, and an even greater one in her love life. A powerful Ghanaian spokeswoman is forced to decide whether to uphold her family's politics, or to be true to her heart. Whether captured in the passion of love at first sight, or realising that self-l

From the author of Pearl of Pit Lane, a dramatically powerful and romantic saga of tragedy and triumph. If you love Dilly Court and Rosie Goodwin, you'll love Glenda Young! You're a Dinsdale lass, Ruby. Nothing and no one keeps us lot down. A life of poverty in a cramped pit cottage is all that 17-year-old Ruby Dinsdale has known. Even with her father and younger brother working at the coal mine, money is tight. Her mother Mary is skilled at stretching what little they have, but the small contribution Ruby makes from her job at the local pub makes all the difference. So when Ruby is sacked, and Mary becomes pregnant again, the family's challenges are greater than ever. When charming Miner Gordon begins to court Ruby it seems as though happiness is on the horizon, until she uncovers a deeper betrayal than she could ever have imagined. But although the Dinsdales are materially poor, they are rich in love, friendship and determination - all qualities that they will draw on to get them through whatever lies

From award-winning comedian and writer Katy Wix comes Delicacy - a different kind of memoir from an astonishing new voice. Twenty-one snapshots of a life - some staccato, raw and shocking, some expansive, meditative and profound, underpinned with moments of startling humour that shatter the darkness - all beginning with a single memory. A memory of cake. The sickly royal icing marked the moment Katy found her voice. The madeira cake was the sun her group therapy sessions orbited. The 'missing cake' from a lost holiday has never let go. The Bara brith eaten in hospital after a life-altering car crash was as tough as the metal that hit her. The supermarket rock cake was where she 'practised wanting'. Shocking, raw, darkly funny and deeply humane, Katy Wix's exploration of trauma, grief, addiction, love, loss, memory and hope is truly unforgettable.

'An inspirational read celebrating the incredible young people who gave so much for this iconic British aircraft'. John Nichol, bestselling author of Spitfire: A Very British Love Story Despite the many films and television programmes over the decades since the end of the Second World War that portrays our allied heroes as grown-up men and women, the Battle of Britain was in the main actually fought and won by teenagers. The average age of an RAF fighter pilot was just twenty years old. Many of the men and women who designed and built their planes were even younger. Based on the hit BBC Radio podcast Spitfire: The People's Story, we use contemporary diaries and memoirs, many of them previously unpublished, to tell the story of the Spitfire through the voices of the teenagers who risked everything to design, build and fly her. This isn't a story of stiff-upper lips, stoical moustaches and aerial heroics; it's a story of love and loss, a story of young people tested to the very limits of their endurance. You

'An inspirational read celebrating the incredible young people who gave so much for this iconic British aircraft'. John Nichol, bestselling author of Spitfire: A Very British Love Story Despite the many films and television programmes over the decades since the end of the Second World War that portrays our allied heroes as grown-up men and women, the Battle of Britain was in the main actually fought and won by teenagers. The average age of an RAF fighter pilot was just twenty years old. Many of the men and women who designed and built their planes were even younger. Based on the hit BBC Radio podcast Spitfire: The People's Story, we use contemporary diaries and memoirs, many of them previously unpublished, to tell the story of the Spitfire through the voices of the teenagers who risked everything to design, build and fly her. This isn't a story of stiff-upper lips, stoical moustaches and aerial heroics; it's a story of love and loss, a story of young people tested to the very limits of their endurance. You

'Wonderful. Written with such a good heart, filled with joy and strength and optimism . . . inventive and fun but most importantly, true.' RUSSELL T. DAVIES 'I loved it! Really heart-warming and joyful, but also so poignant. I cannot recommend this book highly enough' LORRAINE KELLY 'A rollicking love story' IAN McKELLEN 'Albert is such an endearing character - flawed, funny and awkward, but completely relatable. A wonderfully warm story that completely drew me in' RUTH HOGAN IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO START YOUR LIFE'S BIG ADVENTURE . . . Albert Entwistle was a postman. It was one of the few things everyone knew about him. And it was one of the few things he was comfortable with people knowing. 64-year-old Albert Entwistle has been a postie in a quiet town in Northern England for all his life, living alone since the death of his mam 18 years ago. He keeps himself to himself. He always has. But he's just learned he'll be forced to retire at his next birthday. With no friends and nothing to look forward to,

A mesmerising retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Perfect for fans of Circe, The Song of Achilles, and The Silence of the Girls. As Princesses of Crete and daughters of the fearsome King Minos, Ariadne and her sister Phaedra grow up hearing the hoofbeats and bellows of the Minotaur echo from the Labyrinth beneath the palace. The Minotaur - Minos's greatest shame and Ariadne's brother - demands blood every year. When Theseus, Prince of Athens, arrives in Crete as a sacrifice to the beast, Ariadne falls in love with him. But helping Theseus kill the monster means betraying her family and country, and Ariadne knows only too well that in a world ruled by mercurial gods - drawing their attention can cost you everything. In a world where women are nothing more than the pawns of powerful men, will Ariadne's decision to betray Crete for Theseus ensure her happy ending? Or will she find herself sacrificed for her lover's ambition? Ariadne gives a voice to the forgotten women of one o

In a remote Chinese town - where the theft of a few chickens counts as a major crime - a young woman is found brutally murdered...with her heart, lungs and liver removed. Inspector Lu Fei, a weary cop who fled the city, suddenly finds himself under the intense scrutiny of the ruling party in Beijing. Determined to find her killer, Lu Fei must navigate a society where politics can be deadly, corruption is rife and the powerful are untouchable. As evidence connects the case to a string of unsolved murders, Lu must decide what he will risk in search of justice....

For listeners of Stephen Hawking, a fascinating account of the universe from the perspective of world-leading astrophysicist Heino Falcke, who took the first ever picture of a black hole. 10th April 2019. A global sensation. Heino Falcke, a man 'working at the boundaries of his discipline and therefore at the limits of the universe' had used a network of telescopes spanning the entire planet to take the first picture of a black hole. Light in the Darkness examines how mankind has always looked to the skies, mapping the journey from millennia ago when we turned our gaze to the heavens, to modern astrophysics. Heino Falcke and Jorg Romer entertainingly and compellingly chart the breakthrough research of Falcke's team, an unprecedented global community of international colleagues developing a telescope complex enough to look directly into a black hole - a hole where light vanishes, and time stops. What does this development mean? Is this the beginning of a new physics? What can we learn from this about God,

Alison Weir, historian and author of the Sunday Times best-selling Six Tudor Queens series, recounts the story of Henry VIII's last wife - Katharine Parr, the queen who survived him. A woman torn between love and duty. Two husbands dead, a boy and a sick man. And now Katharine is free to make her own choice. The ageing King's eye falls upon her. She cannot refuse him...or betray that she wanted another. She becomes the sixth wife - a queen and a friend. Henry loves and trusts her. But Katharine is hiding another secret in her heart, a deeply held faith that could see her burn.... Katharine Parr. Henry's final queen. Her story. Renowned, bestselling historian Alison Weir reveals a warm, clever woman of great fortitude who rose boldly to every turn her life took.

Set in the gorgeous, sprawling countryside of the Pacific Northwest, Eileen Garvin's The Music of Bees is about finding friendship in the most unlikely of places, and the families we choose for ourselves. Heartwarming, inspirational and redemptive, it is perfect for fans of The Language of Flowers and Rachel Joyce. After the sudden death of her husband, Alice Holtzman finds herself a social pariah. Unfashionable, middle-aged, childless and with only 120,000 honeybees for company. On the other side of town, Jake Stevenson and his enormous blue mohawk had a bright future in front of them studying music, all until an accident at a high school party leaves him with a broken spine. But when Alice crashes her pick-up truck, packed with thousands of restless honeybees, into Jake, knocking him from his wheelchair, it is the start of an unlikely of friendship that will pull both of them through the darkest stages of their grief. As these new friends begin to heal one another, Alice realises that Jake has a gift -

Drawing on remarkable and never-before-seen material, the extraordinary story of one of the most horrific and devastating encounters of the Second World War. Sunday, June 22nd, 1941: almost four million Nazi troops marched on Moscow, with a brutal scorched-earth tactic that saw millions of Soviet citizens massacred. A level of brutality paralleled only after the Soviet's triumphed at Stalingrad and took mindless revenge as they marched back into Berlin. Beginning with Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, to the appalling circumstances of the Fall of Berlin in April 1945 and told from the perspective of the people of Russia and Eastern Europe, Barbarossa is a heartrending story of tragedy, suffering and heroism. Stewart Binns draws on Russian archives to paint a uniquely intimate picture of the war from the Soviet side of this terrible conflict - presenting this dark moment in history in panoramic detail, matching sweeping accounts of tactical manoeuvres with harrowing

From a 2018 Wainwright Prize shortlisted author, THE CIRCLING SKY is part childhood memoir, blended with exquisite nature observation, and the story of one man's journey over a year to one of the UK's key natural habitats, the New Forest of Hampshire In the form of several journeys, beginning in January 2019, Neil Ansell returns for solitary walks to the New Forest in Hampshire, close to where he was born. With beautiful sightings and observations of birds, trees, butterflies, insects and landscape, this is also a reflective memoir on childhood, on the history of one of the most ancient and important natural habitats in the United Kingdom, and on the Gypsies who lived there for centuries - and were subsequently expelled to neighbouring cities. It is also part polemic on our collective and individual responsibility for the land and world in which we live, and how we care for it. As Neil Ansell concludes so eloquently, 'Evolution has no choice in what it does, but we do, as a species, if not always as indivi

Veteran climber Mark Synnott never planned on climbing Mount Everest, but a hundred-year mystery lured him into an expedition--and an awesome history of passionate adventure, chilling tragedy, and human aspiration unfolded. On June 8, 1924, George Mallory and "Sandy" Irvine set out to stand on the roof of the world, where no one had stood before. They were last seen eight hundred feet shy of Everest's summit. A century later, we still don't know whether they achieved their goal, decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay did, in 1953. Irvine carried a Kodak camera with him to record their attempt, but it, along with his body, had never been found. Did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit and take a photograph before they fell to their deaths? Mark Synnott made his own ascent up the infamous North Face along with a filmmaker using drone technology higher than any had previously flown. His goal: to find Irvine's body and the camera he carried that might have held a summit photo on its still-viable fi