An enchanting new novel from bestselling author and Richard and Judy runner-up Eva Rice

"Rice’s remarkable gift for creating singular characters in this memorable story underscores her presence as a fresh new voice in fiction."—Publishers Weekly Set in 1950s London, The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets centers around Penelope, the wide-eyed daughter of a legendary beauty, Talitha, who lost her husband to the war. Penelope, with her mother and brother, struggles to maintain their vast and crumbling ancestral home—while postwar London spins toward the next decade’s cultural revolution. Penelope wants nothing more than to fall in love, and when her new best friend, Charlotte, a free spirit in the young society set, drags Penelope into London with all of its grand parties, she sets in motion great change for them all. Charlotte’s mysterious and attractive brother Harry uses Penelope to make his American ex-girlfriend jealous, with unforeseen consequences, and a dashing, wealthy American movie producer arrives with what might be the key to Penelope’s—and her family’s—future happiness. Vibrant, witty, and filled with vivid historical detail, this is an utterly unique debut novel about a time and place just slipping into history.

Country girl Tara is whisked off to 1960s London to become a star; there she is dressed; she is shown off at Chelsea parties and photographed by the best. She meets songwriters, singers, designers, and records her song. And she falls in love - with two men. Behind the buzz and excitement of her success, broken friendships and the secretive marriages of her sister and her friend ensure that the past keeps on reappearing.

A Company of Swans is a sweeping tale of romance, freedom and the beauty of dance from award-winning author, Eva Ibbotson, with a new introduction by Joanna Nadin. Weekly ballet classes are Harriet Morton's only escape from her intolerably dull life. So when she is chosen to join a corps de ballet which is setting off on a tour of the Amazon, she leaps at the chance to run away for good. Performing in the grand opera houses is everything Harriet dreamed of, and falling in love with an aristocratic exile makes her new life complete. Swept away by it all, she is unaware that her father and intended fiancé have begun to track her down . . . 'I have binged on Eva Ibbotson . . . her elegantly written, witty and well-observed fables' Nigella Lawson, The Times Rediscover Eva Ibbotson, award-winning author of Journey to the River Sea, in her sweeping historical romances, including The Morning Gift, A Song For Summer and The Secret Countess, originally published as A Countess Below Stairs, Magic Flutes, originally published as The Reluctant Heiress, Madensky Square and A Company of Swans.

of older children, adults, and the family unit as a whole. These moral evaluations are, in turn, influenced by such external contingencies as popula tion demography, social and economic factors, subsistence strategies, house hold composition, and by cultural ideas concerning the nature of infancy and childhood, definitions of personhood, and beliefs about the soul and its immortality. MOTHER LOVE AND CHILD DEATH Of all the many factors that endanger the lives of young children, by far the most difficult to examine with any degree of dispassionate objectivity is the quality of parenting. Historians and social scientists, no less than the public at large, are influenced by old cultural myths about childhood inno cence and mother love as well as their opposites. The terrible power and significance attributed to maternal behavior (in particular) is a commonsense perception based on the observation that the human infant (specialized as it is for prematurity and prolonged dependency) simply cannot survive for very long without considerable maternal love and care. The infant's life depends, to a very great extent, on the good will of others, but most especially, of course, that of the mother. Consequently, it has been the fate of mothers throughout history to appear in strange and distorted forms. They may appear as larger than life or as invisible; as all-powerful and destructive; or as helpless and angelic. Myths of the maternal instinct compete, historically, witli -myths of a universal infanticidal impulse.

'Butterfly Sting' tells the story of two sisters who are quite different - one is spiky and difficult, the other a peacemaker and easy to love. One goes to Spain on holiday and brings back a Spanish boyfriend - the other falls for him.

The most comprehensive book ever written on leatherback sea turtles. Weighing as much as 2,000 pounds and reaching lengths of over seven feet, leatherback turtles are the world’s largest reptile. These unusual sea turtles have a thick, pliable shell that helps them to withstand great depths—they can swim more than one thousand meters below the surface in search of food. And what food source sustains these goliaths? Their diet consists almost exclusively of jellyfish, a meal they crisscross the oceans to find. Leatherbacks have been declining in recent decades, and some predict they will be gone by the end of this century. Why? Because of two primary factors: human redevelopment of nesting beaches and commercial fishing. There are only twenty-nine index beaches in the world where these turtles nest, and there is immense pressure to develop most of them into homes or resorts. At the same time, longline and gill net fisheries continue to overwhelm waters frequented by leatherbacks. In The Leatherback Turtle, James R. Spotila and Pilar Santidrián Tomillo bring together the world’s leading experts to produce a volume that reveals the biology of the leatherback while putting a spotlight on the conservation problems and solutions related to the species. The book leaves us with options: embark on the conservation strategy laid out within its pages and save one of nature’s most splendid creations, or watch yet another magnificent species disappear.

Lydia works in a museum, dragging kids round the Long Before Man tour. When she meets Felix she offers to manage his band for him. It is a wild journey from the beginning of a dream to making it happen as two souls are bonded by music.

Fully revised and expanded edition of this comprehensive and light-hearted A-Z of Enid Blyton characters to be published on Enid Blyton's birthday. Written with the full endorsement of The Enid Blyton Estate, the book will be beautifully presented with original illustrations and designed in a second colour. Noddy, Amelia Jane, Darrell Rivers, Moon Face... all the old favourites are here along with plenty of facts, details and insights into over a thousand of Blyton's most memorable and enduring characters. In this expanded edition, even more of Blyton's best-loved books are covered, including her Farm Stories and the Barney Stories. A fascinating and, at times, humorous look into the imagination of Britain's most well-loved storyteller.