Ravishingly beautiful and emotionally incendiary, Tar Baby is Toni Morrison’s reinvention of the love story. Jadine Childs is a black fashion model with a white patron, a white boyfriend, and a coat made out of ninety perfect sealskins. Son is a black fugitive who embodies everything she loathes and desires.

Is who we are really only skin deep? In this searing, remonstrative book, Toni Morrison unravels race through the stories of those debased and dehumanised because of it. A young black girl longing for the blue eyes of white baby dolls spirals into inferiority and confusion. A friendship falls apart over a disputed memory. An ex-slave is haunted by a lonely, rebukeful ghost, bent on bringing their past home.

The unhappiness continued into the next generation, with the name Getty, as one journalist put it, ‘becoming synonymous for family dysfunction’. Getty’s once favourite grandson John Paul Getty III was kidnapped by the Italian mafia who cut off his ear to raise a ransom and, after a lifetime of drink and drugs, became a paraplegic. His granddaughter Aileen has AIDS. And the Getty family itself has been torn apart by litigation over their poisoned inheritance.

But did the disaster have to happen? John Pearson, who has specialized in biographies of families as varied as the Churchills, the British Royal Family, the Devonshires and the Krays, sets out to find the answer. The result, first published in 1995, is a fascinating saga of an extraordinary dynasty.

He traces much of the trouble to the bizarre character of the avaricious, sex-obsessed billionaire, J. Paul Getty himself – and demonstrates how much of his behaviour has been repeated in succeeding generations. He describes the famous kidnapping of his grandson in graphic detail, revealing how the old man’s attitude added considerably to the boy’s sufferings. And he shows how the family has coped with the latest modern scourges: drugs and AIDS.

When the handsome Adam Haines shows up at Kirby Fairchild’s ancestral home looking for a quiet place to paint, she’s more than skeptical. Yet as days and nights wear on, the attraction she feels for him builds, whether she wants it to or not.

Atop the rocky coast of Maine sits a magnificent family mansion that is home to a legend of long-lost emeralds and the Calhoun Sisters.

Headstrong Catherine Calhoun wasn’t going to let anyone take away the Towers, especially not ruthless hotel magnate Trent St James. He was too handsome, too arrogant; Trent seemed to think he could take over the building and Catherine!

Sasha Riggs is a reclusive artist, haunted by dreams and nightmares that she turns into extraordinary paintings. Her visions lead her to the Greek island of Corfu, where five others have been lured to seek the legendary fire star, part of an ancient prophecy. Sasha recognizes them, because she has drawn them: a magician, an archaeologist, a wanderer, a fighter, a loner. All on a quest. All with secrets.

Brianna Concannon is the kind of innkeeper who doesn’t mind the harsh winters of Ireland—and the empty bed-and-breakfast that comes with them. But this year, a famous American author needs a quiet place to stay while writing his next book.

She was the sexiest thing in a hard hat that architect Cody Johnson had ever seen, but structural engineer Abra Wilson also had a will as strong as a steel girder – and just about as flexible. But Cody had plans for Abra that not even this spirited beauty could resist…

Days after the encounter at the Swiss waterfall, Pinkerton detective agent Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York. Moriarty’s death has left an immediate, poisonous vacuum in the criminal underworld, and there is no shortage of candidates to take his place—including one particularly fiendish criminal mastermind.

The fourth in the bestselling Jane Tennison thrillers, MURDER MILE is set at the height of the ‘Winter of Discontent’. Can Jane Tennison uncover a serial killer? February, 1979, ‘The Winter of Discontent’. Economic chaos has led to widespread strikes across Britain. Jane Tennison, now a Detective Sergeant, has been posted to Peckham Criminal Investigation Department, one of London’s toughest areas.

The conned: an Oxford don, a revered society physician, a chic French art dealer, and a charming English lord. They have one thing in common. Overnight, each novice investor lost his life’s fortune to one man. The con: Harvey Metcalfe!!

A brilliant, self-made guru of deceit. A very dangerous individual. And now, a hunted man.

Her scream froze in her throat, locked there by terror. She had never seen death before, not unpampered, staring death. Midnight on an unspoilt Greek island. Returning from a peaceful moonlit swim, Morgan James has a shocking and frightening encounter. A dark, dangerous stranger threatens her with a knife, ordering her to keep quiet about his presence on the cliff-top. Mysteriously, he lets her go unharmed.

A young NASA doctor must combat a lethal microbe that is multiplying in the deadliest of environments—space—in this acclaimed blockbuster of medical suspense from Tess Gerritsen, bestselling author of Harvest, Life Support, and the Rizzoli and Isles series.

Working as a lifeguard at a luxurious Florida resort, Ned Kelly meets the woman of his dreams. It feels perfect in every way-except that she’s used to caviar and Manolo Blahniks, and he’s used to burgers and flip-flops. So when Ned’s cousin offers to cut him in on a fast break-and-enter job, he can’t turn it down. The risk is high, and the reward is even greater-$5 million.

Delilah knows it’s weird, but she can’t stop reading her favourite fairy tale. Other girls her age are dating and cheerleading. But then, other girls are popular.

She loves the comfort of the happy ending, and knowing there will be no surprises.

Until she gets the biggest surprise of all, when Prince Oliver looks out from the page and speaks to her.