Blackmailed into marriage…by Christmas! Genealogist Lydia Carter-Wilson is horrified by the debts her father has run up in her name. Then magnate Raul Valdez approaches her with an outrageous proposition. If she helps him claim his inheritance, he’ll pay off her debts and save her tarnished reputation. But there’s a catch. If she fails, she will marry Raul on Christmas Eve! No matter their instant and electrifying attraction, Lydia knows Raul’s proposal amounts to blackmail. Yet faced with an impossible choice – risking ruin or becoming Raul’s bartered bride – Lydia finds she cannot resist her desire to make a deal with the dark-hearted billionaire…!

He needs a miracle… A favourite to win at this year's rodeo championship, cowboy Toly Clayton should be flying high. Instead, he's been handed the worst kind of Christmas gift―a diagnosis that could spell an early end to his rodeo career. Hiding his secret proves harder than Toly thinks…especially from stunningly sexy Nikki Dobson. The twin sister of Toly's emotionally unpredictable partner, Nikki is completely and totally off-limits. Yet attraction still simmers, and the line between ‘friends’ and ‘more than friends’ is fading fast. With secrets piling up around him, Toly's career, friendships and even his heart are on the line. But sometimes it takes a champion to create a Christmas miracle.

Imagine a sisterhood – across all creeds and cultures. An unspoken agreement that we, as women, will support and encourage one another. That we will remember we don't know what struggles each of us may be facing elsewhere in our lives and so we will assume that each of us is doing our best… So begins WE: an inspiring, empowering and provocative manifesto for change. Change which we can all effect, one woman at a time. Change which provides a crucial and timely antidote to the 'have-it-all' Superwoman culture and instead focusses on what will make each and every one of us happier and more free. Change which provides an answer to the nagging sense of 'is that it?' that almost all of us can succumb to when we wake in the dead of night. Written by actress Gillian Anderson and journalist Jennifer Nadel – two friends who for the last decade have stumbled along together, learning, failing, crying, laughing and trying again – WE is a not a theoretical treatise but instead a rallying cry to create a life that has greater meaning and purpose. Combining tools which are practical, psychological and spiritual, it is both a process and a vision for a more fulfilling way of living. And a truly inspiring vision of a happier, more emotionally rewarding future we can all create together…

A Christmas dream come true When handsome paediatrician Lucas Brodie walked out on his wife Freya at Christmas, he left her heart and hopes for a family shattered. This year, nurse Freya is determined to put the pain behind her by volunteering on a trip to take sick children to Lapland. But then she discovers Lucas is coming too! As they begin to fall in love, again, Lucas wonders – could he give her a family after all? Can he put his past behind him? Perhaps an unexpected pregnancy could be the Christmas miracle to make Freya’s dreams come true…

Kidnapped decades ago, Azim al Bahjat stuns the Kingdom of Alazar with his sudden return. To secure his position, the ruthless royal must claim the woman who was always intended to be his–even if sheltered yet beguiling Johara Behwar resists… No matter how secretly thrilling she finds the flashes of heat beneath Azim's icy exterior, Johara's every instinct is to run. But Azim will not be denied, and as he shows his virgin bride how intoxicating their wedding night could be, Johara soon finds herself enticed to surrender to the sultan!

Paul Sterry is author of Complete British Wildlife, which has sold over half a million copies, as well as numerous other titles in the successful Collins Complete Photoguide series, including Complete British Birds and Complete British Wild Flowers. He owns the photo library Nature Photographers.

Paula Byrne is the author the bestselling biographies ‘Perdita’, ‘Mad World’, ‘The Real Jane Austen’, ‘Belle’ and ‘Kick’. She is founder and chief executive of ReLit, the Bibliotherapy Foundation, a charity devoted to the mental health benefits of reading. She is married to Sir Jonathan Bate and lives in Oxford.

When Milly (aka actress Nicola Millbank of Mount Pleasant, Mr. Selfridge and Silent Witness) moved to London aged 18 to become an actress she had to learn to fend for herself and that included improving her cooking skills. With a love for home-cooked dishes, she wanted to make them her own but a bit fresher, lighter and more exciting. So followed a 10-year full-blown love affair with home cooking that became her food blog MILLY COOKBOOK.

Dan Hancox is a native Londoner who writes about music, politics, gentrification, social exclusion, protest and the margins of urban life, chiefly for the Guardian, but also the New York Times, Vice, The Fader, Dazed & Confused and XXL. He is the author of The Village Against the World (Verso).

Painstakingly restored from Tolkien’s manuscripts and presented for the first time as a continuous and standalone story, the epic tale of Beren and Lúthien will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, Dwarves and Orcs and the rich landscape and creatures unique to Tolkien’s Middle-earth. The tale of Beren and Lúthien was, or became, an essential element in the evolution of The Silmarillion, the myths and legends of the First Age of the World conceived by J.R.R. Tolkien. Returning from France and the battle of the Somme at the end of 1916, he wrote the tale in the following year. Essential to the story, and never changed, is the fate that shadowed the love of Beren and Lúthien: for Beren was a mortal man, but Lúthien was an immortal Elf. Her father, a great Elvish lord, in deep opposition to Beren, imposed on him an impossible task that he must perform before he might wed Lúthien. This is the kernel of the legend; and it leads to the supremely heroic attempt of Beren and Lúthien together to rob the greatest of all evil beings, Melkor, called Morgoth, the Black Enemy, of a Silmaril. In this book Christopher Tolkien has attempted to extract the story of Beren and Lúthien from the comprehensive work in which it was embedded; but that story was itself changing as it developed new associations within the larger history. To show something of the process whereby this legend of Middle-earth evolved over the years, he has told the story in his father's own words by giving, first, its original form, and then passages in prose and verse from later texts that illustrate the narrative as it changed. Presented together for the first time, they reveal aspects of the story, both in event and in narrative immediacy, that were afterwards lost.

“You have the luck of Croesus on stilts (as my Auntie Vi would have said) if you’ve had the sort of career, ups and downs, warts and all that I have in that wondrous little corner of show business called musical theatre.” One of the most successful and distinguished artists of our time, Andrew Lloyd Webber has reigned over the musical theatre world for nearly five decades. The winner of numerous awards, including multiple Tonys and an Oscar, Lloyd Webber has enchanted millions worldwide with his music and numerous hit shows, including Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera―Broadway’s longest running show―and most recently, School of Rock. In Unmasked, written in his own inimitable, quirky voice, the revered, award-winning composer takes stock of his achievements, the twists of fate and circumstance which brought him both success and disappointment, and the passions that inspire and sustain him. The son of a music professor and a piano teacher, Lloyd Webber reveals his artistic influences, from his idols Rodgers and Hammerstein and the perfection of South Pacific’s ‘Some Enchanted Evening,’ to the pop and rock music of the 1960s and Puccini’s Tosca, to P. G. Wodehouse and T. S. Eliot. Lloyd Webber recalls his bohemian London youth, reminiscing about the happiest place of his childhood, his homemade Harrington Pavilion―a make-believe world of musical theatre in which he created his earliest entertainments. A record of several exciting and turbulent decades of British and American musical theatre and the transformation of popular music itself, Unmasked is ultimately a chronicle of artistic creation. Lloyd Webber looks back at the development of some of his most famous works and illuminates his collaborations with luminaries such as Tim Rice, Robert Stigwood, Harold Prince, Cameron Mackintosh, and Trevor Nunn. Taking us behind the scenes of his productions, Lloyd Webber reveals fascinating details about each show, including the rich cast of characters involved with making them, and the creative and logistical challenges and artistic political battles that ensued. Lloyd Webber shares his recollections of the works that have become cultural touchstones for generations of fans: writings songs for a school production that would become his first hit, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; finding the coterie of performers for his classic rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar; developing his first mega-hit, Evita, which would win seven Tonys Awards, including Best Musical; staking his reputation and fortune on the groundbreaking Cats; and making history with the dazzling The Phantom of the Opera. Reflecting a life that included many passions (from architecture to Turkish Swimming Cats), full of witty and revealing anecdotes, and featuring cameo appearances by numerous celebrities―Elaine Paige, Sarah Brightman, David Frost, Julie Covington, Judi Dench, Richard Branson, A.R. Rahman, Mandy Patinkin, Patti LuPone, Richard Rodgers, Norman Jewison, Milos Forman, Plácido Domingo, Barbra Streisand, Michael Crawford, Gillian Lynne, Betty Buckley, and more―Unmasked at last reveals the true face of the extraordinary man beneath the storied legend.

Roy Porter is Professor of the Social History of Medicine at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. He is the editor of the Fontana History of Science series, and the author of over sixty-five books, including the acclaimed bestseller ‘London: A Social History’. His book on the history of madness in England, ‘Mind Forg’d Manacles’, won the Leo Gershoy Prize.

What pushed Blunt, Burgess, Cairncross, Maclean and Philby into Soviet hands? With access to recently released papers and other neglected documents, this sharp analysis of the intelligence world examines how and why these men and others betrayed their country and what this cost Britain and its allies. Enemies Within is a new history of the influence of Moscow on Britain told through the stories of those who chose to spy for the Soviet Union. It also challenges entrenched assumptions about abused trust, corruption and Establishment cover-ups that began with the Cambridge Five and the disappearance of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean on the night boat to Saint-Malo in 1951. In a book that is as intellectually thrilling as it is entertaining and illuminating, Richard Davenport-Hines traces the bonds between individuals, networks and organisations over generations to offer a study of character, both individual and institutional. At its core lie the operative traits of boarding schools, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Intelligence Division, Foreign Office, MI5, MI6 and Moscow Centre. Davenport-Hines tells many stories of espionage, counter-espionage and treachery. With its vast cope, ambition and scholarship, Enemies Within charts how the undermining of authority, the rejection of expertise and the suspicion of educational advantages began, and how these have transformed the social and political temper of modern Britain.

Rachel Allen was brought up in Dublin and at the age of eighteen left to study at the prestigious Ballymaloe Cookery School. Today, she not only teaches at the school, she also writes regular features for national publications, presents highly acclaimed television programmes which have been broadcast internationally. She is the winner of the 2012 Irish Book Award for Best Non-Fiction for Easy Meals.

Born and bred in the Bronx, Chris Bianco is a second generation New York Italian. He established a pizzeria in Arizona after taking the first flight to a city he liked the sound of. Pizzeria Bianco was born, inside the back corner of a local grocery store, and has had queues around the block since.In 2005 Chris opened Pane Bianco, serving foccacia breads and sandwiches, then his Italian Restaurant.Chris’ food meccas have attracted fans from around the world and in 2011 he joined forces with Jamie Oliver to open Union Jacks in the UK. He is a James Beard award-winning chef, has appeared on TV shows as diverse as Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart, and now lives between London and Pheonix.

A brilliant study of a brilliant woman' LUCY WORSLEY History has forgotten Caroline of Ansbach, yet in her lifetime she was compared frequently to Elizabeth I and considered by some as ‘the cleverest queen consort Britain ever had’. The intellectual superior of her buffoonish husband George II, Caroline is credited with hastening the Enlightenment to Britain through her sponsorship of red-hot debates about science, religion, philosophy and the nature of the universe. Encouraged by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, she championed inoculation; inspired by her friends Leibniz and Samuel Clarke, she mugged up on Newtonian physics; she embraced a salon culture which promoted developments in music, literature and garden design; she was a regular theatre-goer who loved the opera, gambling and dancing. Her intimates marvelled at the breadth of her interests. She was, said Lord Egmont, ‘curious in everything’. Caroline acted as Regent four times while her husband returned to Hanover, and during those periods she possessed authority over all domestic matters. No subsequent royal woman has exercised power on such a scale. So why has history forgotten this extraordinary queen? In this magnificent biography, the first for over seventy years, Matthew Dennison seeks to reverse this neglect. The First Iron Lady uncovers the complexities of Caroline’s multifaceted life: the child of a minor German princeling who, through intelligence, determination and a dash of sex appeal, rose to occupy one of the great positions of the world and did so with distinction, élan and a degree of cynical realism. It is a remarkable portrait of an eighteenth-century woman of great political astuteness and ambition, a radical icon of female power.

A classic Golden Age crime novel, and one of the first to feature a serial killer. Investigating the disappearance of a vicar’s daughter in London, the popular novelist and amateur detective Roger Sheringham is shocked to discover that the girl is already dead, found hanging from a screw by her own silk stocking. Reports of similar deaths across the capital strengthen his conviction that this is no suicide cult but the work of a homicidal maniac out for vengeance – a desperate situation requiring desperate measures. Having established Roger Sheringham as a brilliant but headstrong young sleuth who frequently made mistakes, trusted the wrong people and imbibed considerable liquid refreshment, Anthony Berkeley took his controversial character into much darker territory with The Silk Stocking Murders, a sensational novel about gruesome serial killings by an apparent psychopath bent on targeting vulnerable young women.

One of the earliest psychological crime novels, back in print after more than 80 years. Mrs Bentley has been arrested for murder. The evidence is overwhelming: arsenic she extracted from fly papers was in her husband’s medicine, his food and his lemonade, and her crimes are being plastered across the newspapers. Even her lawyers believe she is guilty. But Roger Sheringham, the brilliant but outspoken young novelist, is convinced that there is ‘too much evidence’ against Mrs Bentley and sets out to prove her innocence. Credited as the book that first introduced psychology to the detective novel, The Wychford Poisoning Case was based on a notorious real-life murder inquiry. Written by Anthony Berkeley, a founder of the celebrated Detection Club who also found fame under the pen-name ‘Francis Iles’, the story saw the return of Roger Sheringham, the Golden Age’s breeziest – and booziest – detective.

Tom Jackson started putting old postcards on Twitter in 2016. He lives in South London. @pastpostcard

The heart-warming story of one little dog’s big adventure, and the lives he changes along the way. This Christmas, anything could happen… When their pet corgi goes missing on a trip to London, the Walker family search everywhere. But Henry has ended up in the one place they never think to look… Henry has been mistaken for a royal corgi by the Queen’s Guard, and found himself in a very different sort of family home. In no time, Henry is getting the royal treatment in Buckingham Palace, from velvet thrones to a personal chef. If this is a dog’s life, he doesn’t mind it one bit. But as Christmas spirit fills the palace, Henry knows he must somehow get back to the Walkers. Because true family is for life, not just for Christmas… The feel-good Christmas story to read on your holidays, perfect for fans of Debbie Johnson and Erin Green.

From doctor...to daddy? Neurosurgeon Wes Van Allen is used to being at the top of his game, so when an accident puts him in a wheelchair he pushes himself to the limit to regain his strength - he just needs a physical therapist who can keep up! Enter Mary Harris, whose sweet kisses he's never forgotten! She'll help Wes achieve his dream if he helps her achieve hers - a baby! Captivated by Mary's sunny optimism, does Wes dare hope for the ultimate miracle - a family, with Mary by his side?