Headhunters
By Jo Nesbo
Published by Vintage
£6.99 less £1
Roger Brown is a corporate headhunter, and he’s a master of his profession. But one career simply can’t support his luxurious lifestyle and his wife’s fledgling art gallery. At an art opening one night he meets Clas Greve, who is not only the perfect candidate for a major CEO job, but also, perhaps, the answer to his financial woes. Greve just so happens to mention that he owns a priceless Peter Paul Rubens painting that’s been lost since World War II and Roger Brown just so happens to dabble in art theft. But when he breaks into Greve’s apartment, he finds more than just the painting. And Clas Greve may turn out to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to Roger Brown.

Welcome to Rosie Hopkins’ Sweet Chocolate Dream
By Jenny Colgan
Published by Sphere
£6.99 less £1
Were you a sherbet lemon or chocolate lime fan? Penny chews or hard boiled sweeties, you do get more for your money that way? The jangle of your pocket money, the rustle of the pink and green striped paper bag, Rosie Hopkins thinks leaving her busy London life, and her boyfriend Gerard, to sort out her elderly Aunt Lilian’s sweetshop in a small country village is going to be dull. Boy, is she wrong. Lilian Hopkins has spent her life running Lipton’s sweetshop, through wartime and family feuds. As she struggles with the idea that it might finally be time to settle up, she also wrestles with the secret history hidden behind the jars of beautifully coloured sweets. Welcome to Rosie Hopkins’ Sweet shop of Dreams, a novel, with recipes.

The Boy in the Dress
By David Walliams
Published by Harper Collins
£6.99 less £1.00
It’s a first novel aimed at children of nine and upwards, about a 12-year-old boy called Dennis who lives with his obese, junk food-guzzling dad and 14-year-old brother. Their mother walked out two years earlier and Dennis consoles himself by watching a TV chat show called Trisha, think Oprah, and reading Vogue. Mind you, he’s also the best football player in the school and has a crush on Lisa James, ‘the most beautiful girl in the school’.
So he’s straight.
One day Lisa persuades Dennis to wear drag and make-up into school, with devastating consequences, although it all works out in the end. It’s a great and comic tale, Walliams is a natural wit and good with words.

Against All Enemies
by Tom Clancy
Published by Penguin
£7.00 less £1.00
A terrorist bombing in Pakistan wipes out Max Moore’s entire CIA team. As the only survivor, the former Navy SEAL plunges deeper into the treacherous tribal lands to find the terrorist cell, but what he discovers there leads him to a much darker conspiracy in an unexpected part of the globe, the US/Mexico border. Here a drug war rages between the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels. The landscape is strewn with bodies, innocents and drug dealers alike, but is there an even deadlier enemy lurking in the background? Into this deadly brew, Moore leads a group of specially selected agents whose daring actions reveal shocking answers and uncover an unholy plan a strike against the very heart of America.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
By Deborah Moggach
Published by Vintage
£7.00 less £1.00
When Ravi Kapoor, an overworked London doctor, reaches the breaking point with his difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: “Can’t we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.” His prayer is seemingly answered when Ravi’s entrepreneurial cousin sets up a retirement home in India, hoping to re-create in Bangalore an elegant lost corner of England. Several retirees are enticed by the promise of indulgent living at a bargain price, but upon arriving, they are dismayed to find that restoration of the once sophisticated hotel has stalled, and that such amenities as water and electricity are infrequent. But what their new life lacks in luxury, they come to find, it’s plentiful in adventure, stunning beauty, and unexpected love.

The Descendants
By Kaui Hart Hemmings
Published by Vintage
7.00 less £1.00
Matt King, a Honolulu attorney, finds himself in deep water after his fun-loving wife, Joanie, falls into a coma following a boating accident. Left in sole charge of his two rebellious teenage daughters, he’s forced to wake up to all kinds of new realities, including the fact that his wife was having an affair. Convinced of the need to track down Joanie’s lover, he takes his girls on an idiosyncratic and deliciously tropical road trip.  An engaging comic debut about a middle-aged man’s attempts to navigate a far from scenic route home. As Matt acknowledges: “My Polynesian ancestors would be disappointed in me, in all of us.”

Before I Go To Sleep
By S J Watson
Published by Black Swan
£7.99 reduced to £6.99
After surviving what she believes was a car crash, Chrissie developed a form of amnesia which has left her able to store memories for only 24 hours. Every morning when she wakes she has forgotten the circumstances of her life and must relearn them from scratch: who her husband Ben is, where they live, whether or not they have children.

The novel takes the form of a journal she is encouraged to keep by a Dr Nash, who has, without Ben’s knowledge, taken an interest in her case. It becomes a lifeline to her past; though of course she has to be reminded every day that she is writing it, or she would never know it existed.

The journal helps Chrissie discover things she has forgotten – for example that she once published a novel. Ben has concealed this and other key facts from her. Why? Is he a saintly carer, feeding her a sanitised version of her life that will not upset her? Or is he manipulating her perception of a world which, without memory to help her decode it, seems to hide innumerable vast conspiracies?

Agent 6
By Tom Rob Smith
Published by Simon Schuster
£7.99 reduced to £6.99
Moscow, 1965. Former Secret Service agent Leo Demidov is forbidden to travel with his wife and daughters to New York as part of a ‘Peace Tour’, meant to foster better relations between the two Cold War enemies. Leo’s natural paranoia reaches its peak: Why have his family been selected? What is being planned? When Leo’s worst fears are realised and a tragic murder destroys everything he loves, he demands only one thing: that he is allowed to investigate and find the killer who has struck at the heart of his family. Crippled by grief, his request denied, Leo sees no other option than to take matters into his own hands, thousands of miles from the crime scene. In a surprising, thrilling story that spans decades and continents – from the back streets of 1960s New York to the mountains of Afghanistan in the 1980s – Leo will stop at nothing as he hunts the one person who knows the truth: Agent 6.

The Authors will tour and write about their matches this summer, playing against clubs such as Sir Tim Rice’s Heartaches, the House of Commons, an Eton College side, and Hogg’s former club, Barkby United. Highlight of the calendar will be a match at Lords against an Actors XI for the centenary of the original Authors fixture against the Publishers in 1912.

Before the season begins former Leicestershire and England player, Darren Maddy, a team-mate of Hogg’s when they attended Roundhill College together and played for the Leicestershire U19s, will put the Authors through their paces at an Edgbaston coaching session.

You can follow The Authors Cricket Club on Twitter @AuthorsCC

Nicholas Hogg was nominated for the IMPAC prize for his début novel Show Me the Sky. Winner of the New Writing Ventures award, his writing has also been broadcast by the BBC. He co-created the innovative Photo Stories project, exhibiting short fiction and photography in Saatchi & Saatchi and Foyles. His second novel, The Hummingbird and the Bear, was published in 2011. www.nicholashogg.com

Dead Mans Grip
By Peter James
Published by Pan
£7.99
Carly Mallory is driving; she’s tired and just a little distracted. She doesn’t see the boy on a bike until it’s too late. Three people caught up in a violent accident, one dead body lying cold in the morgue. Now, someone is taking revenge for the boy’s death. When the other drivers are found brutally murdered, Roy Grace and his team are called in to investigate; two gruesome deaths, with Carly clearly marked as the final target. Now, Grace must guard her from a killer blinded by revenge and psychotic rage. He wants to make her sorry, to make her pay, and he wont stop until the final splash of blood in the jigsaw has been spilled…

A Fathers Revenge
By Kitty Neale
Published by Avon
£7.99
A mother must fight to protect all she holds dear! A bad man can never come good! Thirteen years have passed since Kevin Dolby was sent to prison for robbery with violence. In the meantime, his ex wife Pearl Button has divorced him and remarried, determined to protect her son from knowing who his real father is. Then she hears two pieces of terrifying news – Kevin Dolby is up for parole and that her dear friend Bessie is gravely ill. Bessie has taken on Nora Dobbs, a young woman and she asks Pearl to take over her care when she dies. Pearl, thinking that Bessie will recover from her illness and live for many more years, agrees, but less than a week later, Bessie passes away. Pearl will now have to take over Nora’s care and plans to take her to Winchester. However, when Bessie’s will is read, she has left the shop and premises to Pearl, yet with a proviso. Pearl not only has to take over Nora’s care, she must do it in Battersea, moving into the shop and premises and living there for the rest of Nora’s natural life. Then, and only then, can she sell up. While Pearl is persuaded to move back to Battersea, Kevin is granted parole but desperate for money, approaches his parents. Once he gets what he wants Kevin intends to see his son, and nothing is going to stand in his way.

I Heart Vegas
By Lindsey Kelk
Published by Harper
£7.99
Angela Clark loves her life in New York. She a Brit who’s conquered the Big Apple. Unfortunately, she’s also a Brit who’s lost her job, and when, just a couple of weeks before Christmas, the immigration department gets wind of this, Angela needs to find a new job urgently, or a husband. She doesn’t think her boyfriend Alex will be keen. A girls’ weekend in Vegas with her best friend Jenny seems the perfect way to forget her troubles. From the minute they arrive Angela is swept up in a whirl of cocktails, outrageous outfits, late nights and brushes with the chapel of love. Rather than escaping trouble, Angela is up to her neck in it!. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas — right? With a bonus Angela’s Guide to Vegas – the ultimate city break guide!

Miracle on Regent Street
Ali Harris
Published by Simon & Schuster
£6.99 with £1.00 off
For the past two years, Evie Taylor has lived an invisible existence in London, a city she hoped would bring sparkle to her life. But all that is about to change. For winter has brought a flurry of snow and unexpected possibilities. Hidden away in the basement of Hardy’s, once London’s most elegant department store. Evie manages the stockroom of a shop whose glory days have long since passed. When Evie overhears that Hardy’s is at risk of being sold, she secretly hatches a plan. If she can reverse the store’s fortunes by 26th December, three weeks away, and transform it into a magical destination once again, she might just be able to save it. But she’s going to need every ounce of talent and determination she has. In fact, she’s going to need a miracle.

The Affair
Lee Child
Published by Bantam
Hardback £18.99 with £4.00 off
In 1997, Reacher’s orders are: go undercover, keep your distance, monitor the investigation. The local sheriff is Elizabeth Deveraux, a beautiful woman and an ex-Marine MP. She has all the skills she needs, but she’s making no progress. Why not? Is there a reason she doesn’t want the killer identified? And there’s constant pressure from the Pentagon, too. Shadowy figures from the world of politics want the killer unmasked, but only if he’s a civilian. Any other result would be a catastrophe. Reacher and Deveraux can’t get near the base. There’s a shadow force in the woods, enforcing a quarantine zone around the fence. But side by side they piece together the evidence, and their partnership becomes more than professional. Eventually the army’s official investigation produces a cast-iron prime suspect and so does Reacher’s undercover search. But Reacher’s answer is not the same as the army’s. If he keeps quiet, will he be able to live with himself? And if he speaks out, will the army be able to live with him?

Lego City Brickmaster
Created by Dorling Kindersley
Hardback £18.00 less £4.00 off
Become a LEGO Brickmaster.  ”LEGO City Brickmaster” promises hours of imaginative playtime and learning for your child. Watch as they find out all about building with the LEGO bricks provided, using them again and again to build nine exclusive LEGO City models. “LEGO City” is the best-selling series from LEGO, offering your child something more than a traditional action figure. If your child loves LEGO bricks, they’ll enjoy this book complete with 130 LEGO bricks and two exclusive minifigures. It’s an ideal book for LEGO fans of all ages.

I Don’t Know How She Does It
Allison Pearson
Vintage
£7.99
Hedge-fund manager, wife, and mother of two, Kate Reddy manages to juggle nine currencies in five time zones and keep in step with the Teletubbies. But when she finds herself awake at 1:37 a.m. in a panic over the need to produce a homemade pie for her daughter’s school, she has to admit her life has become unrecognizable. With panache, wisdom, and uproarious wit, I Don’t Know How She Does It brilliantly dramatizes the dilemma of every working mum.

The Ugly Sister
Jane Fallon
Penguin
£7.99
When it comes to genes life’s a lottery…As Abi would the first to know. She has spent her life in the shadow of her stunningly beautiful, glamorous older sister Cleo. Headhunted as model when she was sixteen, Cleo has been all but lost to Abi for the last twenty years, with only a fleeting visit or brief email to connect them. So when Abi is invited to spend the summer in Cleo’s large London home with her sister’s perfect family, she can’t bring herself to say no. Despite serious misgivings. Maybe Cleo is finally as keen as Abi to regain the closeness they shared in their youth? But Abi is in for a shock. Soon she is left caring for her two young, bored and very spoilt nieces and handsome, unhappy brother-in-law – while Cleo plainly has other things on her mind. As Abi moves into her sister’s life, a cuckoo in the nest, she wrestles with uncomfortable feelings. Could having beauty, wealth and fame lead to more unhappiness than not having them? Who in the family really is the ugly sister?

Empire of Silver
by Conn Iggulden
Published by Harper Collins
£7.99
The eagerly awaited 4th novel in the bestselling Conqueror series, continuing the life and adventures of the mighty Khan dynasty. Genghis Khan is dead, but his legend and his legacy live on. His son Ogedai has built a white city on a great plain and made a capital for the new nation. Now the armies have gathered to see which of Genghis’ sons has the strength to be khan. The Mongol empire has been at peace for two years, but whoever survives will face the formidable might of their great enemy, China’s Song dynasty. The great leader Tsubodai sweeps into the west: through Russia, over the Carpathian mountains and into Hungary. The Templar knights have been broken and there is no king or army to stop him reaching France. But at the moment of Tsubodai’s greatest triumph, as his furthest scouts reach the northern mountains of Italy, Tsubodai must make a decision that will change the course of history forever.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
by John le Carrié
Published by Penguin
£7.99
Smiley and his people are facing a remarkable challenge: a mole, a Soviet double agent, who has burrowed his way in and up to the highest level of British Intelligence. His treachery has already blown some of their vital operations and their best networks. The mole is one of their own kind. But which one?…

Heartstone
By C J Sansom
Published by Pan
£8.99
It’s Summer, 1545. England is at war. Henry VIII’s invasion of France has gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel. As the English fleet gathers at Portsmouth, the country raises the largest militia army it has ever seen. The King has debased the currency to pay for the war, and England is in the grip of soaring inflation and economic crisis. Meanwhile Matthew Shardlake is given an intriguing legal case by an old servant of Queen Catherine Parr. Asked to investigate claims of ‘monstrous wrongs’ committed against a young ward of the court, which have already involved one mysterious death, Shardlake and his assistant Barak journey to Portsmouth. Once arrived, Shardlake and Barak find themselves in a city preparing to become a war zone; and Shardlake takes the opportunity to also investigate the mysterious past of Ellen Fettipace, a young woman incarcerated in the Bedlam. The emerging mysteries around the young ward, and the events that destroyed Ellen’s family nineteen years before, involve Shardlake in reunions both with an old friend and an old enemy close to the throne. Events will converge on board one of the King’s great warships, primed for battle in Portsmouth harbour…