Soft Apocalypse

An act of terrorism has unleashed anthrax on the city of Atlanta, killing hundreds of thousands.The young illustrator Finn Darby managed to survive the attack, whilst many of his friends weren't so lucky. But soon afterwards, Finn develops a disturbing affliction - when he starts to blurt things out in a strange voice beyond his control.Countless other residents of Atlanta are experiencing a similar bizarre problem. Either all of Atlanta is suffering from a total psychological breakdown, or else the dead are returning to possess the living . . .Moving, chilling and thoroughly gripping, Hitchers is a tale about a world in crisis - and about the dead not being ready to stay that way.

Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's calorie representative in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, he combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs long thought to be extinct. There he meets the windup girl - the beautiful and enigmatic Emiko - now abandoned to the slums. She is one of the New People, bred to suit the whims of the rich. Engineered as slaves, soldiers and toys, they are the new underclass in a chilling near future where oil has run out, calorie companies dominate nations and bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.And as Lake becomes increasingly obsessed with Emiko, conspiracies breed in the heat and political tensions threaten to spiral out of control. Businessmen and ministry officials, wealthy foreigners and landless refugees all have their own agendas. But no one anticipates the devastating influence of the Windup Girl.

A new short story from Mira Grant, the author of Feed. Every week five friends get together to play a game - a game they call the Apocalypse Game. It's a fun time with chips and beer and plotting the end of the world. Except this time, one of them is missing and the stakes are higher than ever before.

Marriage to a handsome Ghanaian architect has brought Eva far from the quiet English countryside. Alfred had made it sound heavenly but the hardship drained her of vitality and the foreign culture bewildered her. But Eva has her friends - Dahlia, Yelena and Margrit - all of them strangers in a foreign land, who rely on each other to fill the gaps left by distant relatives.When a sudden coup unnerves everyone, and Eva's relationship with Alfred begins to unravel, The Association of Foreign Spouses discover that there are dark sides to their lives and that they must scheme and deceive to protect themselves and their families.Set in Ghana in the turbulent eighties, The Association of Foreign Spouses is a story of a group of women who live in a land that at times defeats them, amongst people who often disappoint and baffle them. Yet through their trials and hardships, the women support each other, unified by their foreignness, as ultimately, they are wooed by this strange place that they come to call 'home'.

Fifteen-year-old Boaz is the new Zar, freshly ascended to his throne. In the turmoil following the old Zar's death, courtiers jostle and conspire to secure their positions - not least his scheming mother, the new Valide. It seems his only genuine friends are his late father's mad jester; Spur Lazar, head of Percheron's security; and a golden beauty - a new odalisque purchased in the foothills as a slave for the harem. But can a madman, a soldier and a concubine be trusted to keep him safe from the Byzantine manoeuvres of his father's ambitious entourage?Pleasure and politics collide in Fiona McIntosh's exotic new fantasy trilogy, set in the harem of the great Stone Palace of Percheron.