Set in China, and ripped from today's headlines, comes a pulse-pounding debut that reinvents the spy thriller for the 21st century. A lone man, Peanut, escapes a labor camp in the dead of night, fleeing across the winter desert of north-west China. Two decades earlier, he was a spy for the British; now Peanut must disappear on Beijing's surveillance-blanketed streets. Desperate and ruthless, he reaches out to his one-time MI6 paymasters via crusading journalist Philip Mangan, offering military secrets in return for extraction. But the secrets prove more valuable than Peanut or Mangan could ever have known. . . and not only to the British.

Butterworth has a way with words. It's this capacity which makes his jet-black comedy such a fresh pleasure to hear and see.--Evening Standard

In a world of lies, one man wants the truth. Journalist Philip Mangan is trying to stay out of trouble in East Africa, his reputation and his life in tatters. But when he is caught in a terrorist attack in East Africa and a shadowy Chinese figure approaches him in the dead of night with information on the origins of the attack, Mangan is suddenly back in the eye of the storm. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away on a humid Hong Kong night, a key British Intelligence source is murdered minutes after meeting spy Trish Patterson. From Washington, D.C. to the hallowed halls of Oxford University and dusty African streets, a sinister power is stirring, one which will use Mangan and Patterson as pawns -- if they survive. Deeply steeped in tension and paranoia, Adam Brookes's second novel is a remarkable, groundbreaking spy thriller.

The daughter of an artist and a scientist, and your own interesting self, Millie. What more could you need? But Millie isn't sure that Tom, her mum's boyfriend, is right about that. A new town, a school project due, an enemy called Tayla, a boy with the initials RH and Tom himself.... It's all too much even for an interesting girl like Millie. But as her father says, change is needed, and sometimes it's the biggest changes that make us who we are.

A visit from a peculiar tree frog leads an ordinary house cat named Copper into the outside world where she finds the adventure she's always craved, meets creatures she never imagined, and cleans some pretty gross stuff off her fur . . . somehow. Her story includes funny nature facts and a fun bonus section about scientific names.

What is magic really for? As Maggie approaches her thirteenth birthday, she wants to believe that some kind of magic can stop the changes all around her. Her visit with her father and his new family at a lakeside cabin makes her wonder. Will he still love her as much, now that he has a new family, or will he love her baby half-sister more? Her father seems troubled and withdrawn and, while he insists nothing is wrong, she worries. Alone with her own secret thoughts, Maggie finds comfort in the beautiful blue heron she visits at the lake every morning. With each visit, she grows more attached to the bird, and she becomes aware that someone else is watching, too -- someone who's putting the bird in great danger. Through her determination to protect the bird, Maggie begins to understand the magic of change in her own life, and in the constantly changing world around her.

"Astonishing...With the intensity of a perfect balance between the mythic and the real, The Rain Heron keeps turning and twisting, taking you to unexpected places. A deeply emotional and satisfying read. Beautifully written." --Jeff VanderMeer, author of Borne. One of LitHub's Most Anticipated Books of 2021. A gripping novel of myth, environment, adventure, and an unlikely friendship, from an award-winning Australian author Ren lives alone on the remote frontier of a country devastated by a coup d'état. High on the forested slopes, she survives by hunting, farming, trading, and forgetting the contours of what was once a normal life. But her quiet stability is disrupted when an army unit, led by a young female soldier, comes to the mountains on government orders in search of a legendary creature called the rain heron—a mythical, dangerous, form-shifting bird with the ability to change the weather. Ren insists that the bird is simply a story, yet the soldier will not be deterred, forcing them both into a gruelling quest. Spellbinding and immersive, Robbie Arnott’s The Rain Heron is an astounding, mythical exploration of human resilience, female friendship, and humankind’s precarious relationship to nature. As Ren and the soldier hunt for the heron, a bond between them forms, and the painful details of Ren’s former life emerge—a life punctuated by loss, trauma, and a second, equally magical and dangerous creature. Slowly, Ren's and the soldier’s lives entwine, unravel, and ultimately erupt in a masterfully crafted ending in which both women are forced to confront their biggest fears—and regrets. Robbie Arnott, one of Australia’s most acclaimed young novelists, sews magic into reality with a steady, confident hand. Bubbling with rare imagination and ambition, The Rain Heron is an emotionally charged and dazzling novel, one that asks timely yet eternal questions about environment, friendship, nationality, and the myths that bind us.

When Connor O'Rourke proposes to his long-time on-again, off-again secret girlfriend, Jessica Dunn, and she says no, he gives her an ultimatum--marry him or their relationship is over.

Asks a series of questions about various birds, and provides the answers under lift-up flaps.

The thrilling third novel from multi-award-nominated author Adam Brookes is paranoid, tense spy fiction at its very finest. Meet Pearl Tao: an American girl with a lethal secret. Pearl longs for the life of a normal American teenager: summers at the pool, friends, backyard barbecues in the Washington DC suburbs. But she is different. Her gift for mathematics means overprotective parents and college sponsorship from a secretive technology corporation. And now, aged nineteen, she is beginning to understand what her parents intend for her. The terrifying role she is to play. Her only hope of escape lies with two sidelined and discredited spies: Trish Patterson and Philip Mangan. Finding out the truth about Pearl will be the biggest mission they'll ever undertake. "Authentic, taut and compelling. Brookes is the real deal." -- Charles Cumming