Sceptre

  • Going home

    £9.99

    Boy-made-good Téo Erskine is back in the north London suburb of his youth, visiting his father – stubborn, selfish, complicated Vic. Things have changed for Téo: he’s got a steady job, a brand-new car and a London flat all concrete and glass, with a sliver of a river view. Except, underneath the surface, not much has changed at all. He’s still the boy seeking his father’s approval; the young man playing late-night poker with his best friend, unreliable, infuriating Ben Mossam; the one still desperately in love with the enigmatic Lia. Lia’s life, on the other hand, has been transformed: now a single mum to two-year-old Joel, she doesn’t have time for anyone – not even herself.

  • The violet hour

    £18.99

    Thomas Haller has achieved the kind of fame that most artists only dream of: shows in London and New York, paintings sold for a fortune. The vision he presents to the world is one of an untouchable genius at the top of his game. It is also a lie. Who is the real Thomas Haller? His oldest friend and former dealer, Lorna, might once have known – before Thomas traded their early intimacy for international fame. Between his ruthless new dealer and a property mogul obsessed with his work, the appetite for Thomas and his art is all-consuming. On the eve of his latest show, the luminaries of the art world gather. But the sudden death of a young man has put everyone on edge, and a chain of events begins that will lead the friends back into the past, to confront who they have become.

  • The forbidden garden

    £25.00

    In the summer of 1941, German troops surrounded the Russian city of Leningrad – now St Petersburg – and began the longest blockade in recorded history. By the most conservative estimates, the siege would claim the lives of three-quarters of a million people. Most died of starvation. At the centre of the embattled city stood a converted palace that housed the greatest living plant library ever amassed – the world’s first seed bank. After attempts to evacuate the collection failed, and as supplies dwindled, the scientists responsible faced a terrible decision: should they distribute the specimens to the starving population, or preserve them in the hope that they held the key to ending global famine? ‘The Forbidden Garden’ tells the remarkable and moving story of the botanists who remained at the Plant Institute during the darkest days of the siege, risking their lives in the name of science.

  • The land in winter

    £20.00

    December 1962, a small village near Bristol. Eric and Irene and Bill and Rita. Two young couples living next to each other, the first in a beautiful cottage – suitable for a newly appointed local doctor – the second in a run-down, perennially under-heated farm. Despite their apparent differences, the two women (both pregnant) strike an easy friendship – a connection that comes as a respite from the surprising tediousness of married life, with its unfulfilled expectations, growing resentments and the ghosts of a recent past. But as one of the coldest winters on record grips England in a never-ending frost and as the country is enveloped in a thick, soft, unmoving layer of snow, the two couples find themselves cut off from the rest of the world. And without the small distractions of daily existence, suddenly old tensions and shocking new discoveries threaten to change the course of their lives forever.

  • Alexandria

    £14.99

    An original, authoritative and lively cultural history of the first modern city, from pre-Homeric times to the present day

  • Fire weather

    £12.99

    In May 2016, Fort McMurray, Alberta, the hub of Canada’s oil industry, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster turned entire neighbourhoods into firebombs and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration, John Vaillant reveals a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world.

  • The jaguar’s children

    £9.99

    Hector is trapped. The water truck, sealed to hide its human cargo, has broken down. The coyotes have taken all the passengers’ money for a mechanic and have not returned. Hector finds a name in his friend Cesar’s phone: Annimac. A name with an American number. He must reach her, both for rescue and to pass along the message Cesar has come so far to deliver. But are his messages going through? Over four days, as water and food run low, Hector tells how he came to this desperate place. His story takes us from Oaxaca – its rich culture, its rapid change – to the dangers of the border, exposing the tangled ties between Mexico and El Norte. And it reminds us of the power of storytelling and the power of hope, as Hector fights to ensure his message makes it out of the truck and into the world.

  • And so I roar

    £16.99

    When Tia accidentally overhears a whispered conversation between her mother – terminally ill and lying in a hospital bed in Port Harcourt, Nigeria – and her aunt, the repercussions will send her on a desperate quest to uncover a secret her mother has been hiding for nearly two decades. Back home in Lagos a few days later, Adunni, a plucky 14-year-old runaway, is lying awake in Tia’s guest room. Having escaped from her rural village in a desperate bid to seek a better future, she’s finally found refuge with Tia, who has helped her enroll in school. It’s always been Adunni’s dream to get an education, and she’s bursting with excitement. Suddenly, there’s a horrible knocking at the front gate. It’s only the beginning of a harrowing ordeal that will see Tia forced to make a terrible choice between protecting Adunni or finally learning the truth.

  • The ministry of time

    £16.99

    In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a job in a new government ministry gathering ‘expats’ from across history to test the limits of time-travel. Her role is to work as a ‘bridge’: living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as ‘1847’ – Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as ‘washing machine’, ‘Spotify’ and ‘the collapse of the British Empire’. With an appetite for discovery and a seven-a-day cigarette habit, he soon adjusts; and during a long, sultry summer he and his bridge move from awkwardness to genuine friendship, to something more. But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, they are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures.

  • You are here

    £20.00

    Marnie is stuck. Stuck working alone in her London flat, stuck battling the long afternoons and a life that increasingly feels like it’s passing her by. Michael is coming undone. Reeling from his wife’s departure, increasingly reclusive, taking himself on long, solitary walks across the moors and fells. When a persistent mutual friend and some very English weather conspire to bring them together, Marnie and Michael suddenly find themselves alone on the most epic of walks and on the precipice of a new friendship. But can it survive the journey?

  • Dead animals

    £16.99

    A young woman wakes after a house party with scratches and bruises – and a gap in her memory. As the violent truth comes back to her – a series of events she struggles to name – her anger grows. Solace comes in the form of enigmatic, captivating Helene, who knows what the man at the party did, has suffered at his hands too. An act of violence demands one in return and Helene is planning revenge. But who can afford to ask for justice, when the cost is murderously high?

  • The missing musk

    £12.99

    Bob Gilbert is a detective of the natural world. He’s motivated by the curious, everyday phenomena found in wild places and by what these stories tell us about our relationship with nature. Mixing history, memoir and nature writing, ‘The Missing Musk’ takes the reader on a journey of discovery, uncovering the truth behind mysteries and myths from across the natural world.