Gideon Frayne has spent his whole working life as a policeman in the village of Dark on Bodmin Moor. His first missing-child case is eating him alive. When his own boss sends in a psychic to help with the case, he's gutted - he's a level-headed copper who doesn't believe in such things, and he can't help but think that the arrival of clairvoyant Lee Tyack is a comment on his failure to find the little girl. But Lee is hard to hate, no matter how Gideon tries. At first Lee's insights into the case make no sense, but he seems to have a window straight into Gideon's heart.

Rob and Karan are a great couple, but they're tearing apart under the pressures of modern life. They both work as paramedics for the NHS, and just before Christmas, their plans for the future are in jeopardy. Rob knows he's on thin ice with the man he loves more than anyone else in the world, and he's at a loss to fix it. The job is getting tougher, and Karan, who's of Sikh descent, is facing violence on the streets in the wake of Britain's decision to leave the EU. Financial problems, hostile families on both sides.... Their troubles seem insoluble.

Once upon a time, there was a winter that wouldn't end. And all that stands between the people of White Meadows and starvation is a young man called Lance. Lance is 16 years old, and for all his courage and hunting skills, he's running out of fight. His family has been wiped out in a border raid, and he's drowning in loneliness. When strangers arrive at White Meadows, all Lance can think of is using his last strength to drive them away. But these men have come in peace, not to burn and destroy. Among them is a hot-headed, utterly charming prince-in-training named Arthur.

Marty Bell knows what it's like to be bullied. He was the shy, overweight kid at school, and those memories have helped turn him into an excellent teacher - though he's never spread his wings beyond the remote northern village where he grew up. The last thing he needs in his life is the reappearance of Devlin Surtees, leader of the gang who made his schooldays so tough. Dev is the glamorous village hero now, flying acrobatics planes and fighter jets for the RAF. He’s just as spellbinding, handsome and infuriating as Marty recalls.

Priddy's a lost soul in a part of Cornwall the tourists don't get to see. He's young, sweet-natured, and gorgeous, but that's not enough to achieve escape velocity from his deadbeat village and rotten family life. He's a drifter and a dreamer, and self-preservation isn't his strong suit. An accidental overdose of a nightclub drug leaves him fractured, hallucinating, with too many vital circuits fried to function in a tough world. When a friend offers him winter work in a lighthouse, he gratefully accepts.

Thomas Penrose is a village doctor in rural Cornwall. Popular with patients and friends alike, and handsome into the bargain, he lives in a romantic clifftop tower by the sea. It's a wonderful life - if only Dr. Tom could enjoy it. He's a veteran of the conflict in Afghanistan, fighting a lonely battle against alcoholism and PTSD. Determined not to inflict his troubles on anyone else, Tom keeps himself to himself. But fate has other ideas, and brings a handsome surfer crashing to his feet after a dreadful wipe-out on Porth Beach.

Mallory is on the run from his whole life. He's been working for an environmental activism group, but he's out of control, trying to wipe out the memories of a tough childhood in his efforts to save the planet. When an accident at sea costs the lives of his colleagues, he crash-lands back in his hometown in the far north of Scotland, lonely and at rock bottom. It's the last place on earth he expects to find comfort or friendship.

It's 1946, and the dust of World War Two has just begun to settle. When famous archaeologist Rufus Denby returns to London, his life and reputation are as devastated as the city around him. He's used to the most glamorous of excavations, but can't turn down the offer of a job in rural Sussex. It's a refuge, and the only means left to him of scraping a living. With nothing but his satchel and a mongrel dog he's rescued from a bomb site, he sets out to investigate an ancient church in the sleepy village of Droyton.

Shattered by his lover Jason's suicide, archaeologist Dan Logan is struggling to patch his life together again. He's desperately following up Jason's final obsession, a secret buried deep within the military zone on Salisbury Plain. Anything is better than facing the void of his grief. He's convinced he'll never love again. When unexpected help arrives in the form of a soldier named Summer Rayne, the last thing Dan could have predicted is the spark of attraction between them.

Davey Bell has been trying to live safely. He's struggled through a rough adolescence and has a decent job, a home of his own. He agrees to a meeting with his ex, even though Burdo got him into so much trouble in the past. But Burdo has plans, armed robbery among them. When Davey recoils from his efforts at blackmail, Burdo swears he'll track him down. There's something inhuman about Burdo's rage, and Davey panics and runs from him.

Hope brightens a bleak Edinburgh December. A man gets a second chance with his high school crush. A decade-long game of cat and mouse comes to a passionate conclusion. And Santa Claus drives a red muscle car. Heat up your holidays with this collection of four festive tales from some of the top talent in the male/male genre.

John Griffin and Michael South - agents in the renegade counterterrorism agency Last Line, and closer than brothers. It's a fast-lane life of danger and excitement. John loves every minute of it, but he's facing one big problem now: his feelings for Mike have flared up from friendship into a passion he can no longer hide. And Mike, although the bravest and best of partners, doesn't feel the same.

A cop and a recovering addict - no chance for romance there. Yet Vince, a street-hardened narcotics officer, is having to reassess his life. Six months ago, he hit rock-bottom. A bullet brought him down, and his beloved partner Jack betrayed him. Badly disabled and in constant pain, Vince is flying a desk these days, and it doesn't suit him at all. His world is looking grim when he meets Rowan Clyde, sole surviving witness to a vicious drugs-related killing.

Ellery Page, aspiring screenwriter, Scrabble champion, and guy with worst luck in the world when it comes to dating, is ready to make a change. So, when he learns he's inherited both a failing bookstore and a falling-down mansion in the quaint seaside village of Pirate's Cove on Buck Island, Rhode Island, it's full steam ahead!

For museum curator Andrew Allison, the sleepy little Maine village of Safehaven has always lived up to its name—until now. Fleeing an abusive relationship, Andy has returned to Safehaven for a few weeks while he figures out the future and helps elderly Uncle Cuthbert run his antiques shop. But when Andy arrives, he learns Uncle Cuthbert is in the hospital, critically injured, the victim of a late-night break-in. Worse, one of the first messages on the shop’s answering machine is from Marcus, Andy’s ex, demanding to know Andy’s whereabouts.

Gideon Frayne has spent his whole working life as a policeman in the village of Dark on Bodmin Moor. His first missing-child case is eating him alive. When his own boss sends in a psychic to help with the case, he's gutted - he's a level-headed copper who doesn't believe in such things, and he can't help but think that the arrival of clairvoyant Lee Tyack is a comment on his failure to find the little girl. But Lee is hard to hate, no matter how Gideon tries. At first Lee's insights into the case make no sense, but he seems to have a window straight into Gideon's heart.

Hope brightens a bleak Edinburgh December. A man gets a second chance with his high school crush. A decade-long game of cat and mouse comes to a passionate conclusion. And Santa Claus drives a red muscle car. Heat up your holidays with this collection of four festive tales from some of the top talent in the male/male genre.

The ugly truth. Nicholas Dismas is a Private Investigator, but like no other that has gone before him. He carries a secret to which not even he has the answer. Dismas is hired to find a missing baby. One that was taken away at birth... Or was it? His investigation takes him to a mysteriously located place called Perfect Rest, a nursing home for the elderly. Here Dismas will discover the dark secret of the Others. And in an astonishing and spectacular finale he will resolve the enigma of his own existence.

In the spring of 1914, a group of young students gather in an art studio for a life-drawing class. Paul Tarrant and Elinor Brooke are two components of a love triangle, and at the outset of the war, they turn to each other. After volunteering for the Red Cross, Paul must confront the fact that life, love, and art will never be the same for him.

Margot Lewis is a teacher at an exclusive high school in the English university town of Cambridge. In her spare time, she writes an advice column, "Dear Amy", for the local newspaper. When one of Margot's students, 15-year-old Katie, disappears, the school and the town fear the worst. And then Margot gets a "Dear Amy" letter unlike any of the ones she's received before. It's a desperate plea for rescue from a girl who says she is being held captive and in terrible danger - a girl called Bethan Avery, who was abducted from the local area 20 years ago and never found.

A hundred years ago, a man with a secret could travel a few hundred miles and give himself a new name and life story. No one would be any the wiser, as long as he didn’t give anyone a reason to start asking questions. These days, that’s not so easy, with everyone on social media and CCTV on every street corner. So Daniel Mackmain keeps his head down and keeps himself to himself. But now a girl has been murdered, and the Derbyshire police are taking a closer look at a loner who travels from place to place, picking up work as he goes.

The facts are public knowledge: five people have been murdered. Each has died from a blow to the head. And the media-dubbed Prince Charming killer has left a “calling card” with each victim. A single thornless rose. But there’s another fact...one that the police haven’t made public. Something no one, except the killer and the police, should know. But Gabriel Donner does - and he can’t figure out why. All he knows is that he’s begun hearing voices, sleepwalking and dreaming vividly of the murders...as they happen.

With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.

Alex Hyde is the leaders' leader. An executive coach par excellence, she's the person the great and the good turn to when the pressure gets too much; she can change the way they think, how they operate, she can turn around the very fortunes of their companies.

A vicar with a passion for nature, the Reverend Albert Canning leads a happy existence with his naive wife, Hester, in their sleepy Berkshire village in the year 1911. But as the English summer dawns, the Cannings' lives are forever changed by two new arrivals: Cat, their new maid, a disaffected, free-spirited young woman sent down from London after entanglements with the law; and Robin Durrant, a leading expert in the occult, enticed by tales of elemental beings in the water meadows nearby.

As the Indiana Jones of historical erotica, there is no document existing - or just rumored to exist - Adin Tredeger can't unearth. Why he would risk the biggest coup of his career to join the mile-high club is beyond him. But the disarming, dark-eyed man who somehow enters Adin's locked airplane washroom has him completely nude and coming apart. All without a whimper of protest.

Fegan has been a "hard man" - an IRA killer in Northern Ireland. Now that peace has come, he is being haunted day and night by 12 ghosts: a mother and infant, a schoolboy, a butcher, an RUC constable, and seven other of his innocent victims. In order to appease them, he's going to have to kill the men who gave him orders. As he's working his way down the list, he encounters a woman who may offer him redemption; she has borne a child to an RUC officer and is an outsider too.

On a fateful summer morning in 1986, two 11-year-old girls meet for the first time. By the end of the day, they will both be charged with murder. Twenty-five years later, journalist Kirsty Lindsay is reporting on a series of sickening attacks on young female tourists in a seaside vacation town when her investigation leads her to interview carnival cleaner Amber Gordon. For Kirsty and Amber, it's the first time they've seen each other since that dark day so many years ago.

Since the day her mother died, Jem has known about the numbers. Numbers that pop into her head when she looks into someone’s eyes. They’re dates, the numbers. Dates predicting with brute accuracy each person’s death. Burdened by such grim knowledge, Jem avoids relationships. Until she meets Spider, another outsider, and takes a chance. Maybe they can find happiness together, if only in the brief time that remains before his expiration date.

Marine biologist Susie Cooper traded her life in America for a dream job on the rugged Scottish coast. Now all she lacks is the right man to start a family with. After their first meeting, she knows sexy Detective Inspector Nick Archer isn't what she's looking for. He's the type of guy whose idea of commitment is staying the whole night. Nick has returned to St. Andrews for one reason only - to fulfill his vow to find his wife's killer.

Gideon Frayne has spent his whole working life as a policeman in the village of Dark on Bodmin Moor. His first missing-child case is eating him alive. When his own boss sends in a psychic to help with the case, he's gutted - he's a level-headed copper who doesn't believe in such things, and he can't help but think that the arrival of clairvoyant Lee Tyack is a comment on his failure to find the little girl. But Lee is hard to hate, no matter how Gideon tries. At first Lee's insights into the case make no sense, but he seems to have a window straight into Gideon's heart.

It's 1946, and the dust of World War Two has just begun to settle. When famous archaeologist Rufus Denby returns to London, his life and reputation are as devastated as the city around him. He's used to the most glamorous of excavations, but can't turn down the offer of a job in rural Sussex. It's a refuge, and the only means left to him of scraping a living. With nothing but his satchel and a mongrel dog he's rescued from a bomb site, he sets out to investigate an ancient church in the sleepy village of Droyton.

Gray Nolan's biggest problem in life was the torch he carried for his closeted coach. He was just another happy-go-lucky dude, a college student and hockey player, when his ordinary existence was interrupted, and he became a human trafficking statistic. He and seven other young men were taken aboard a luxurious yacht, where they were to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Gray was beaten, shattered, and almost defeated by the time his buyer stepped out of the shadows in a swirl of his own cigarette smoke.

Vaughn O'Keefe has been part owner of the Hog's Den for years. Privy to plenty of Disciples of the Road business, he's never been more ruffled as when a new recruit named "Smoke" walks through the door. Something about the man gets his blood pumping, but he knows to keep his preferences under wraps around the club. "Smoke" Callahan has done a couple of rehab stints and is finally clean, thanks to help from the Disciples. He's on the right path and isn't about to get sidetracked, no matter how much the guy who manages the bar gets beneath his skin.

Beau Hopper is good at good-byes. A minor-league hockey player, he goes where the league tells him. Former Marine Connor Casey's life revolves around his siblings. After Hurricane Harvey took their home and a car crash claimed their parents, Connor is determined to rebuild their house and their lives. When Beau learns Connor might lose custody of his siblings if he can't finish the rebuild in time, he volunteers to help in exchange for a place to stay, and it isn't long before he finds himself in Connor's bed.

In the hottest summer on record, Iron Lake reservoir is emptying, revealing secrets that were intended to stay hidden beneath the water. The tragic story of a missing man is a media sensation, and abruptly the writer and the cop falling in love is just a postscript to horrors neither could have imagined.

Detective Sergeant James Henderson's remarkable gut instincts have put him on a three-year fast track to becoming an inspector. But the advancement of his career has come at a cost. Gay, posh and eager to prove himself in the Metropolitan Police, James has allowed himself few chances for romance. But when the murder of barrister Maria Curzon-Whyte lands in his lap, all that changes. His investigation leads him to a circle of irresistibly charming men. And though he knows better, James finds himself enticed into their company.

Hotel-room-trashing tantrums? Check. Daddy issues galore? Check. Glitz, glamour and general debauchery? I wrote the f**king book. I’m a textbook bad boy rockstar cliche, and I’ve never claimed to be anything else. Hell, I own it. At least, I did, until he came along: Mr. Self-Righteous who acts more like a priest than a drummer. Now he’s my bodyguard and the guy in charge of making sure I don’t OD before the tour ends. Oh, right. I also have a crazy stalker who’s been obsessed with me since I was a kid. So that’s fun.

Not everything is roses, chocolates, and vibrators in Zara's life...until Talon, Hawks MC president, wants to claim her as his. Zara Edgingway is a 26-year-old secretary. She has a daughter who apparently knows it all and a best friend who could possibly have the mouth of Satan, but she's been with her through hell and back. Then there's the hunk-a-licious biker neighbor finally showing interest in her. If only she wasn't about to face her next obstacle in life, the one she ran from six years ago: her ex-husband.

We became famous overnight. One day, I was a twenty-four-year-old drummer slinging pizzas to make ends meet, and the next, I was a member of the most popular alternative band ever. Despite being world-famous, there was no connection in it. I'd lost touch with reality, with intimacy. I couldn't find a place to be normal. I'd lived my entire life straight-edged while watching obsession destroy my best friend. Obsession terrified me—that is until I met him.

When Caleb Chance walked out in Detroit five years ago, leaving his band, millions of his fans and his lover behind, Leo knew he could never forgive. Some things, no matter what the cause, are unforgivable. But Leo never expected Caleb to show up again, clean and sober and wanting to get their band, Star Shadow, back together. He definitely never expected to agree to Caleb's plan. He never expected to confront the love of his life again - or the disaster of his past, the hopelessness of his future, and every terrible thing he's been carrying inside him.