Caroline Kington
A Summerstoke Affair

In the village of Summerstoke, as autumn beckons, it seems the fireworks party is not the only thing set to go with a bang. Juliet Peters, soap star, publicity junkie and all-round flirt, and Isabelle Garnett, ex­artist, neglected housewife and mother of two, seem to have nothing in common. But when both women end up trying to build a new life in the country, they soon discover there are no such things as secrets in village life. Their husbands seem to be on a collision course too. Add to the mix a wildchild teenager, a reformed casanova, an unscrupulous couple and four eccentric ladies, and you've got a recipe for trouble.

Colleen McCullough
Antony and Cleopatra

Brutus and Cassius are dead at Philippi, leaving two men to inherit the world. One is twenty-year-old Octavian, whose brilliance, subtlety and political cunning give the lie to his small, sickly appearance. The other is Mark Antony, a man in his prime - proven on the battlefields of war, politics and love. At first glance, it seems no contest: Antony is the clear winner. But in Alexandria sits Egypt's queen, Cleopatra, mourning the death of Julius Caesar, yet utterly focused on attaining world power for her only son, Caesarion. In order to achieve this, she must seduce and hold in thrall either Octavian or Antony.

Barbara Nadel
Pretty Dead Things

When Emine Aksu, flamboyant wife of an Istanbul style guru, suddenly goes missing, Inspector <;:etin Ikmen's investigation leads him into her colourful past. For Emine was a hippie when she was younger, who enjoyed the liberated lifestyle that swept across the city when the western Europeans flooded into Istanbul in the sixties. According to her husband, Emine never really left behind the free love pleasures she discovered back then and he suspects she was visiting an old friend at the time of her disappearance. Meanwhile, Inspector Mehmet Suleyman is called to a scene at the art deco Camondo Stairs in the old banking district of Karakoy. The skeleton of a woman has been discovered in one of the large plant containers. Could these two incidents be linked?