Everyone has heard of the Gameshouse. But few know all its secrets . . . It is the place where fortunes can be made and lost though chess, backgammon - every game under the sun. But those whom fortune favours may be invited to compete in the higher league . . . where the games played are of politics and nations, of economics and kings. It is a contest where Capture the Castle involves real castles and where hide and seek takes place on the scale of a continent. Among those worthy of competing in the higher league, three unusually talented contestants play for the highest stakes of all . . .

Sooner or later, death visits everyone. Before that, they meet Charlie. Charlie meets everyone - but only once. Sometimes he is sent as a courtesy, sometimes as a warning. Either way, this is going to be the most important meeting of your life. The End of the Day is the stunning new story from Claire North, the voice behind the word-of-mouth bestseller The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.

1771: the Colony of North Carolina stands in an uneasy balance, with the rich, colonial aristocracy on one side and the struggling pioneers of the backcountry on the other. Between them stands Jamie Fraser, a man of honor, a man of worth. Exiled from his beloved Scotland, he is at last possessed of the land he has longed for. By his side his extraordinary wife, Claire, a woman out of time and out of place, blessed with the uneasy gift of the knowledge of what is to come. In the past, that knowledge has brought both danger and deliverance to Jamie and Claire. Now it could be a flickering torch that will light their way through the perilous years ahead - or might ignite a conflagration that will leave their lives in ashes.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES / PFD YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2017.Sooner or later, death visits everyone. Before that, they meet Charlie.Charlie meets everyone - but only once. Sometimes he is sent as a courtesy, sometimes as a warning. Either way, this is going to be the most important meeting of your life.The End of the Day is the stunning new story from Claire North, the voice behind the word-of-mouth bestseller The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. .

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES / PFD YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2017.Sooner or later, death visits everyone. Before that, they meet Charlie.Charlie meets everyone - but only once. Sometimes he is sent as a courtesy, sometimes as a warning. Either way, this is going to be the most important meeting of your life.The End of the Day is the stunning new story from Claire North, the voice behind the word-of-mouth bestseller The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. .

Welcome to Bascom, North Carolina, where it seems that everyone has a story to tell about the Waverley women. The house that s been in the family for generations, the walled garden that mysteriously blooms year round, the rumours of dangerous loves and tragic passions. Every Waverley woman is somehow touched by magic. Claire has always clung to the Waverleys roots, tending the enchanted soil in the family garden from which she makes her sought-after delicacies famed and feared for their curious effects. She has everything she thinks she needs until one day she waked to find a stranger has moved in next door and a tendril of ivy has crept into her garden... Claire s carefully tended life is about to run gloriously out of control.

Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising of 1745, and it took them twenty years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same. It is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser's Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible. Yet even in the North Carolina backcountry, the effects of war are being felt. Tensions in the Colonies are great and local feelings run hot enough to boil Hell's tea-kettle. Jamie knows loyalties among his own tenants are split and the war is on his doorstep. It's only a matter of time before the shooting starts. Not so far away, young William Ransom is still coming to terms with the discovery of his true father's identity - and thus his own. Lord John Grey also has reconciliations to make and dangers to meet . . . on his son's behalf, and his own. Meanwhile, the Southern Colonies blaze, and the Revolution creeps ever closer to Fraser's Ridge. And Claire, the physician, wonders how much of the blood to be spilt will belong to those she loves.

South Africa, 1884. William Abbey, an English doctor, watches white colonists lynch a Zulu child. As the boy dies, his mother curses William: wherever he goes, the shadow of her son will follow him. It will never stop, never rest. It can cross oceans and mountains. And if it catches him, the person he loves most in the world will die.. But to those in power, William's curse might be a blessing, and as the world slides towards war, William must decide what he's willing to sacrifice in order to survive. Moving, thought-provoking and utterly gripping, Claire North's extraordinary new novel proves again that she is one of the most original and innovative voices in modern fiction.

From one of the most imaginative writers of her generation comes an extraordinary vision of the future. Ven was once a holy man, a keeper of ancient archives. It was his duty to interpret archaic texts, sorting useful knowledge from the heretical ideas of the Burning Age - a time of excess and climate disaster. For in Ven's world, such material must be closely guarded, so that the ills that led to that cataclysmic era can never be repeated. But when the revolutionary Brotherhood approaches Ven, pressuring him to translate stolen writings that threaten everything he once held dear, his life will be turned upside down. Torn between friendship and faith, Ven must decide how far he's willing to go to save this new world, and how much he is willing to lose. Notes from the Burning Age is the remarkable and captivating new novel from the award-winning Claire North that puts dystopian fiction in a whole new light.

The triumphant seventh novel in the bestselling phenomenon that is the Outlander series. In the wake of a devastating fire in the mountains of North Carolina, Highlander Jamie Fraser and his English wife, Claire, find themselves homeless and without family, in the midst of the gathering storm of revolution. And thanks to his time-travelling wife's information, he knows what the coming spring of 1778 will bring. But then Jamie's illegitimate son, William, arrives in North Carolina, a young officer in King George's army. Jamie has sworn two things to himself: his son will never know his true paternity - and he himself will never face his son across the barrel of a gun. The Frasers' daughter and her family have returned safely through the standing stones that guard the passage through time and to Scotland. But something mysterious looms over their new home. Something whose secret may draw them back to what they fled from...

From one of the most original new voices in modern fiction comes a startling vision of a world where you can get away with anything . . . Theo Miller knows the value of human life - to the very last penny. Working in the Criminal Audit Office, he assesses each crime that crosses his desk and makes sure the correct debt to society is paid in full. But when his ex-lover is killed, it's different. This is one death he can't let become merely an entry on a balance sheet. Because when the richest in the world are getting away with murder, sometimes the numbers just don't add up.

Seventeen years ago, King Odysseus sailed to war with Troy, taking with him every man of fighting age from the isle of Ithaca. None of them has returned, and the women of Ithaca have been left behind to run the kingdom. Penelope was barely into womanhood when she wed Odysseus. While he lived, her position was secure. But now, years on, speculation is mounting that her husband is dead, and suitors are beginning to knock at her door. No one man is strong enough to claim Odysseus's empty throne - not yet. But as everyone waits for the balance of power to tip, Penelope knows that any choice she makes could plunge Ithaca into bloody civil war . . .

This is the story of Penelope of Ithaca, famed wife of Odysseus, as it has never been told before. Beyond Ithaca's shores, the whims of gods dictate the wars of men. But on the isle, it is the choices of the abandoned women - and their goddesses - that will change the course of the world. 'The greatest power we women can own is that which we take in secret.' Seventeen years ago, King Odysseus sailed to war with Troy, taking with him every man of fighting age from the isle of Ithaca. None of them has returned, and the women of Ithaca have been left behind to run the kingdom. Penelope was barely into womanhood when she wed Odysseus. While he lived, her position was secure. But now, years on, speculation is mounting that her husband is dead, and suitors are beginning to knock at her door. No one man is strong enough to claim Odysseus's empty throne - not yet. But as everyone waits for the balance of power to tip, Penelope knows that any choice she makes could plunge Ithaca into bloody civil war . . . From the multi award-winning Claire North comes a daring, exquisite and moving tale that breathes life into ancient myth, and tells of the women who stand defiant in a world ruled by ruthless men. It's time for the women of Ithaca to tell their tale . . .

He tried to take my life. Instead I took his. It was a long time ago. I remember it was dark, and I didn't see my killer until it was too late. As I died, my hand touched his. That's when the first switch took place. Suddenly, I was looking through the eyes of my killer, and I was watching myself die. Now switching is easy. I can jump from body to body, have any life, be anyone. Some people touch lives. Others take them. I do both.

From one of the most original new voices in modern fiction comes a startling vision of a world where you can get away with anything…Theo Miller knows the value of human life - to the very last penny.Working in the Criminal Audit Office, he assesses each crime that crosses his desk and makes sure the correct debt to society is paid in full.But when his ex-lover is killed, it’s different. This is one death he can’t let become merely an entry on a balance sheet.Because when the richest in the world are getting away with murder, sometimes the numbers just don’t add up.From the award-winning Claire North comes an electrifying and provocative new novel which will resonate with readers around the world.

Edgar Award Winner Dori Hillestad Butler gives us the tenth-and final!-title in her not-too-scary chapter book mystery series, The Haunted Library, in the form of a super special! It's almost Halloween, and Kaz and Claire are off to Seattle to visit Claire's cousins. They explore the local library...and find a ghost living there! The ghost's family has been missing, so Kaz and Claire decide to investigate. When they discover ghostly activity in the city's subterranean passages, they put their detective skills to work. Kaz and Claire are on the case!