Born Evil
by Kimberley Chambers

June Dawson has come a long way from the rough East End background where she met, got pregnant by and eventually married charming, reckless Johnny Fuller. Now she lives in leafy Rainham, in a nice little cul-de-sac, with her ultra-respectable second husband and a lovely social life.

Then her world collapses when daughter Debbie announces that she is pregnant by her low-life, drug addict boyfriend, Billy McDaid. June feels as though she is being physically sucked back into the world of villains and thugs she thought she had escaped for ever.

But worse is to come. Much, much worse. The baby – doted on by his violent, feckless dad – grows into the child from hell: mean, sadistic and out of control. Suddenly the family is not just in crisis. It is in meltdown.

Confession
by Martin O'Brien

Chief Inspector Daniel Jacquot has been enjoying the quiet life in a peaceful Provencal village. A former rugby international, who once scored the winning try against England at Twickenham, Jacquot sports a trademark ponytail and loves food, wine - and one woman, artist Claudine. Now, however, he must leave her to go to Paris, where Marseilles Magistrate, Solange Bonnefoy's niece has been abducted. As the trail of violence and corruption leads Jacquot back to the ancient seaport, with its bloody history of slave trafficking, another utterly shocking and unexpected murder sets the investigation galloping in a wholly new direction and Jacquot has to go undercover.

Elsie and Mairi Go to War: Two Extraordinary Women on the Western Front
by Diane Atkinson

When they met at a motorcycle club in 1912, Elsie Knocker was a thirty year-old motorcycling divorcee dressed in bottle-green Dunhill leathers, and Mairi Chisholm was a brilliant eighteen-year old mechanic, living at home borrowing tools from her brother. Little did they know, theirs was to become one of the most extraordinary stories of the First World War.

In 1914, they roared off to London 'to do their bit', and within a month they were in the thick of things in Belgium driving ambulances to distant military hospitals. Frustrated by the number of men dying of shock in the back of their vehicles, they set up their own first-aid post on the front line in the village of Pervyse, near Ypres, risking their lives working under sniper fire and heavy bombardment for months at a time.

As news of their courage and expertise spread, the 'Angels of Pervyse' became celebrities, visited by journalists and photographers as well as royals and VIPs. Glamorous and influential, they were having the time of their lives, and for four years, Elsie and Mairi and stayed in Pervyse until they were nearly killed by arsenic gas in the spring of 1918. But returning home and adjusting to peacetime life was to prove even more challenging than the war itself.

For Love and Courage: The Letters of Lieutenant Colonel E.W. Hermon from the Western Front 1914 - 1917
by Edited by Anne Nason

Lt Colonel E.W. Hermon died in a hail of bullets on the 9th April 1917, the first day of the Battle of Arras, leading his men of the 24th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers into the attack. Like hundreds of thousands of others in the Great War, he gave his life for his King and country. He was shot through the heart, one bullet slicing through the papers in his top pocket, including the four-leaf clover his wife had given him for good luck. His final words to his Adjutant were 'Go on!' before he sank to his knees and died almost instantaneously. He was carried from the battlefield by his faithful soldier servant, Buxton, and now lies buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Roclincourt, three miles from Arras. This could have been the end of the story but he left a testament of his life and ideals in a unique and hitherto unknown and unpublished collection of long and detailed letters he wrote to his darling wife and his children, 'the Chugs'. Now, nearly a century after his death, he speaks to us of a past, less cynical life, where selflessness, honour, duty and courage were admired above all else. His own courage was officially recognised as he was mentioned in despatches three times and posthumously awarded the D.S.O.

The letters have been transcribed and edited by Hermon's granddaughter Anne Nason with the guidance and historical advice of James Holland, the distinguished historian and writer. Peter Caddick-Adams, who works alongside Richard Holmes at Cranfield University, believes the letters to be unique in their candour and context since Hermon was Battalion Commander and thus his letters were not censored.

For Love and Courage: The Letters of Lieutenant Colonel E.W. Hermon from the Western Front 1914 - 1917
by Edited by Anne Nason

Lt Colonel E.W. Hermon died in a hail of bullets on the 9th April 1917, the first day of the Battle of Arras, leading his men of the 24th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers into the attack. Like hundreds of thousands of others in the Great War, he gave his life for his King and country. He was shot through the heart, one bullet slicing through the papers in his top pocket, including the four-leaf clover his wife had given him for good luck. His final words to his Adjutant were 'Go on!' before he sank to his knees and died almost instantaneously. He was carried from the battlefield by his faithful soldier servant, Buxton, and now lies buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Roclincourt, three miles from Arras. This could have been the end of the story but he left a testament of his life and ideals in a unique and hitherto unknown and unpublished collection of long and detailed letters he wrote to his darling wife and his children, 'the Chugs'. Now, nearly a century after his death, he speaks to us of a past, less cynical life, where selflessness, honour, duty and courage were admired above all else. His own courage was officially recognised as he was mentioned in despatches three times and posthumously awarded the D.S.O.

The letters have been transcribed and edited by Hermon's granddaughter Anne Nason with the guidance and historical advice of James Holland, the distinguished historian and writer. Peter Caddick-Adams, who works alongside Richard Holmes at Cranfield University, believes the letters to be unique in their candour and context since Hermon was Battalion Commander and thus his letters were not censored.