Pre-order Victory for Ambridge, the brilliant new novel in The Archers series, coming in paperback in 2025. Celebrating the 70th anniversary of the beloved radio show, Ambridge at War takes readers back to before it all began . . . ‘Intriguing, comforting and endearingly familiar’ Katie Fforde It’s 1940 and war has broken out. It is midnight at the turn of the year, and Walter Gabriel speaks the same line that opened the very first radio episode – 'And a Happy New Year to you all!' For Ambridge, a village in the heart of the English countryside, this year will bring change in ways no one was expecting. From the Pargetters at Lower Loxley to the loving, hard-working Archer family at Brookfield Farm, the war will be hard for all of them. And the New Year brings the arrival of evacuees to Ambridge, shaking things up in the close-knit rural community. As the villagers embrace wartime spirit, the families that listeners have known and loved for generations face an uphill battle to keep their secrets hidden. Especially as someone is intent on revealing those secrets to the whole village . . .

‘Intriguing, comforting and endearingly familiar’ Katie Fforde ‘The BBC’s most downloaded radio show’ The Guardian ‘Incredible legacy’ ?The BBC ‘Longest running drama in the world’ The i News 'Wonderfully nostalgic and comforting' Culture Fly It's 1941 and the war rumbles on. Nowhere is immune to the effects of war, not even Ambridge. But in England's favourite village, something else is occupying the residents... When a prominent villager dies, the main beneficiary's name is a mystery, and no one knows who is set to inherit the estate, cottage and all. The name is hidden within a locked box and the villagers much uncover the password to find out the name of the beneficiary. So when five people are each sent a packet of seeds, the mystery deepens – could the seeds be part of a clue? And can they all work together to unlock the mystery and to discover who is set to inherit? This is the perfect read for all Archers fans.

June Spencer may well be best known as matriarch Peggy Archer (now Woolley), of one of the UK's best known and longest running soap operas, but aged 90 now, she'd seen and done a lot before (and since) joining the Archers 60 years ago. The only original member of the cast still in The Archers, June has worked in showbusiness since the age of 12, when she wrote and produced her own stage shows for her family. She grew up to become an after-dinner entertainer, finally making her way to radio, starring in classics such as Dick Barton and Children's Hour. Born back when milk was collected in a jug from the local store, June takes us back in time as she affectionately recalls the slower pace of childhood, life during the second world war, a that she hardly knew returning from Burma, and later, his decline due to Alzheimer's and the subsequent identical story line with her fictional husband. June also talks about 60 years of life with the Archers, telling all about characters, classic storylines and her own life, from playing Mary Queen of Scots and bringing up children, to meeting the Queen. Where Peggy is stern and doesn't see the funny side of things, June's endearing story is infused with humour and a joy of life.

Twelve leading academics from across the United Kingdom use storylines from BBC Radio 4's The Archers to examine life in rural Borsetshire, bringing their academic research to new audiences. The irreverent but thought-provoking contributions will have you laughing and thinking.

Single-mother Fran returns to her sleepy hometown to care for her dying father when a devastating bush fire breaks out. A heartbreaking, nail-biting disaster-noir thriller from the bestselling author of The Cry and Worst Case Scenario. 'Urgent, angry, absolutely terrifying, yet suffused with the humanity and humour you expect from a Helen Fitzgerald novel' Erin Kelly, author of Watch Her Fall 'Tantalisingly powerful' The Times ' Ash Mountain is the author at her masterly best ... I loved it!' Louise Candlish, author of The Heights ________________ Fran hates her hometown, and she thought she'd escaped. But her father is ill, and needs care. Her relationship is over, and she hates her dead-end job in the city, anyway. She returns home to nurse her dying father, her distant teenage daughter in tow for the weekends. There, in the sleepy town of Ash Mountain, childhood memories prick at her fragile self-esteem, she falls in love for the first time, and her demanding dad tests her patience, all in the unbearable heat of an Australian summer. As past friendships and rivalries are renewed, and new ones forged, Fran's tumultuous home life is the least of her worries, when old crimes rear their heads and a devastating bushfire ravages the town and all of its inhabitants... Simultaneously a warm, darkly funny portrait of small-town life – and a woman and a land in crisis – and a shocking and truly distressing account of a catastrophic event that changes things forever, Ash Mountain is a heart-breaking slice of domestic noir, and a disturbing disaster thriller that you will never forget... ________________ 'A new novel from Helen Fitzgerald is always a major event, and Ash Mountain is magnificent' Mark Billingham, author of Rabbit Hole 'There is plenty of human depravity in the plot but none of that is as terrifyingly overmastering as the fire' Literary Review 'Domestic life is rarely served up quite so dark as this – but that only makes you hungry for more' The Sun 'Dark, atmospheric and terrifying' Ambrose Parry, author of A Corruption of Blood 'Compelling' Independent Praise for Helen FitzGerald ***Worst Case Scenario was Shortlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2020*** 'The plotting is intricate and beautifully handled, and the narrative pace is absolutely breakneck ... a wonderful, energetic, hard-hitting and deeply funny novel' The Big Issue 'The main character is one of the most extraordinary you'll meet between the pages of a book' Ian Rankin, author of A Song for the Dark times 'A dark, comic masterpiece which manages to be both excruciatingly tense and laugh out loud funny at the same time' Mark Edwards, author of The House Guest 'The classic thriller gets a hell of a twist' Heat 'FitzGerald writes like a more focused Irvine Welsh or a less misogynist Philip Roth' Daily Telegraph 'Domestic life is rarely served up quite so dark as this – but that only makes you hungry for more' The Sun

Recently divorced actor Stephen C. McQueen (no relation, unfortunately) seems to have a knack for bad luck. But a failed marriage, a stalled career, a judgmental ex-wife, a distant daughter, a horrid little studio apartment in the far reaches of the London suburbs–all these pathetic elements seem to pale in the chiseled face of his newest tormentor: the Twelfth Sexiest Man in the World, Josh Harper. Josh is the star of Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know, a biographical play about Lord Byron–and Stephen is his understudy. Not only is Josh fantastically, infuriatingly good-looking, internationally renowned, and remarkably talented, he’s also frustratingly healthy. No matter how many all-night booze-and-coke benders Josh goes on, he always shows up at the stage door for his call like clockwork. Stephen doubts he’ll ever get his chance to slip on the puffy shirt and tight breeches of Byron and tread the boards in the role that would certainly be the break he’s always waited for. And just when Stephen’s sure he couldn’t resent Josh more, he meets Josh’s witty, restless American wife, Nora . . . and discovers he likes her a little too much. Another man might curse his luck at finding that his potential dream woman is a rival’s wife, but at this point, Stephen would expect nothing else. Caught between his stirring feelings for Nora, the demands of an insistent and secretive Josh, and his lifelong desire for a real career in show business, Stephen must make a terrible decision: Will it be the girl or the fame? A hapless, bumbling bloke in love, an arrogant megastar with a potpourri of addictions, a sexy married woman out of her element in the fast lane–David Nicholls brings them all together in this knockout romantic comedy.

Claire Keegan’s brilliant debut collection, Antarctica, was a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year, and earned her resounding accolades on both sides of the Atlantic. Now she has delivered her next, much-anticipated book, Walk the Blue Fields, an unforgettable array of quietly wrenching stories about despair and desire in the timeless world of modern-day Ireland. In the never-before-published story “The Long and Painful Death,” a writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll’s old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder, whose ulterior motives only emerge as the night progresses. In the title story, a priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage and, during the ceremony and the festivities that follow, battles his memories of a love affair with the bride that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life; later that night, he finds an unlikely answer in the magical healing powers of a seer. A masterful portrait of a country wrestling with its past and of individuals eking out their futures, Walk the Blue Fields is a breathtaking collection from one of Ireland’s greatest talents, and a resounding articulation of all the yearnings of the human heart.