France, 1916. Sophie Lefevre is ordered to serve the German officers who socialise in her hotel. When the new Kommandant sets eyes on Sophie's portrait - painted by her husband Edouard - a dangerous obsession is born. Almost a century later, Sophie's portrait hangs in the home of Liv Halston. A chance encounter reveals the painting's true worth - and its troubled history that is about to resurface and turn Liv's life upside down…

Sage Singer has a past that makes her want to hide from the world. But when she strikes up an unlikely friendship with Josef Weber, a quiet old man and respected pillar of the community, she feels that finally, she may have found someone she can open up to. Until Josef tells her the evil secret he's kept for sixty years…

Lou Clark knows a lot of things. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop, and she might not love her boyfriend Patrick. Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live, and now everything feels small and joyless. What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

'Tripitaka, can you go to the west for me – and for Buddha?' When the holy woman Guanyin asks the young Chinese monk Tripitaka to bring some holy writings back from India, he says 'yes'. But how can he travel across rivers, and fight terrible monsters and demons, on his long journey? He needs three strong helpers – Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy – to do that! But where do they come from? Do they always help? And can they bring the holy writings home again? Read this old Chinese story, and find o...

A dark tale of hubris, lust, and self-destruction … as told by a man who famously fell prey to those same impulses in his own life. Oscar Wilde wrote his original interpretation of the Biblical story of Salomé in French, and the play was so controversial that no theatre in England would produce it for nearly four decades.Includes a conversation with director Michael Hackett and Wilde scholar David Rodes.An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast production starring:Rosalind Ay...

Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective of them all. He sits in his room, and smokes his pipe. He listens, and watches, and thinks. He listens to the steps coming up the stairs; he watches the door opening - and he knows what question the stranger will ask. In these three of his best stories, Holmes has three visitors to the famous flat in Baker Street - visitors who bring their troubles to the only man in the world who can help them.

'He's an intelligent man. He was once rich and is now poor. His wife loved him once, but she doesn't love him now. And he's thirty or forty years old.' One look at an old hat, and Sherlock Holmes can tell you a lot about its owner. He sees - and thinks - a lot more than the people around him, and when a beautiful blue diamond disappears, Sherlock is the only man in London who can find it.

Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective the world has ever seen, and he knows it. As the famous bank-robber, John Clay, says to him, 'You think of everything, Mr Holmes. You're very clever.' People come to him with problems that no one, not even the police, can solve. Holmes sits, and thinks, and smokes his pipe, and in the end he finds the answer. In these plays, based on two of his stories, Holmes, helped by his old friend, Dr Watson, uses his great intelligence to solve two unusual an...

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and collector of butterflies.When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre, Oskar sets out to solve the mystery of a key he disovers in his father's closet. It is a search which leads him into the lives of strangers, through the five boroughs of New York, int...

Charlaine Harris has topped the bestseller charts and become a nationwide phenomenon. Now learn more about Sookie and her family, friends, enemies and adventures. Visit Bon Temps, the small Louisiana town that Sookie calls home. Examine all the branches of Sookie’s family tree, and eavesdrop of the private conversations between rival vampires Eric and Bill. Also, enjoy the compelling novella Small Town Wedding, in which Sookie accompanies Sam to his brother’s wedding in Texas, where happil...

Famous, beautiful and talented, Heike Gunn has the world at her feet. Then, one day, she simply vanishes. Jack Parlabane has lost everything. A call from an old friend offers a chance for redemption - but only if he can find out what happened to Heike. From Berlin to Barcelona, from the streets of Milan to remote Scottish islands, Parlabane must find out what happened before it's too late, all while the walls are closing in...

When Charlie Flint is sent a mysterious package of cuttings about a brutal murder, it instantly grabs her attention. The murder occurred in the grounds of her old Oxford college - a groom battered to death just hours after his wedding. As his bride and wedding guests sipped champagne, his alleged killers were slipping his bloodstained body into the river.Charlie doesn't know who sent the package, or why, yet she can't get the crime out of her head. But as she delves deeper, and ste...