Showing results by author "Holt" in All Categories

Starting a new job is always stressful (especially when you don't particularly want one), but when Paul Carpenter arrives at the office of J. W. Wells he has no idea what trouble lies in store. Because he is about to discover that the apparently respectable establishment now paying his salary is in fact a front for a deeply sinister organisation that has a mighty peculiar agenda. It seems that half the time his bosses are away with the fairies. But they're not, of course. They're away with the goblins.

'A definite must for all fans of comic fantasy' - ENIGMA 'Wacky humour bubbles through the polished narrative ... Holt doesn't skimp on the flashes of brilliance' - SFX Ever been offered a promotion that seems too good to be true? You know - the sort they'd be insane to be offering to someone...

INTRODUCED BY HAZEL HOLT 'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' Richard Osman 'I'd sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen' Philip Larkin When Barbara Pym died in 1980, she left a considerable amount of unpublished material. This volume contains an early novel, Civil to Strangers, three...

New Evil. Same as the Old Evil but with better PR. Mordak isn't bad as far as goblin kings go, but when someone or something starts pumping gold into the human kingdoms, it puts his rule into serious jeopardy. Suddenly he's locked in an arms race with a species whose arms he once considered merely part of a healthy breakfast.

Brought to you by Penguin. The Hating Game meets Beach Read in this sexy and hilarious enemies-to-lovers romance! Rosie Maxwell has a plan: move to New York, get her creative writing degree from NYU, become a bestselling romance writer. But that plan is derailed when she ends up in class with...

Polly, an average, completely ordinary property lawyer, is convinced she's losing her mind. Someone keeps drinking her coffee. And talking to her clients. And doing her job. And when she goes to the dry cleaner's to pick up her dress for the party, it's not there. Not the dress - the dry cleaner's.And then there are the chickens who think they are people. Something strange is definitely going on - and it's going to take more than a magical ring to sort it out.

When the Supreme Being and his son decide that being supreme isn't for them anymore, it's inevitable that things get a bit of a shake-up. It soon becomes apparent that our new owners, the Venturi brothers, have a very different perspective on all sorts of things. Take Good and Evil, for example. For them it's an outdated concept that never worked particularly well in the first place.

With her dearest archenemy, Elizabeth Mapp-Flint, ousted from the Town Council, Lucia, twice-elected Mayor of Tilling, is strangely wearied of her mortal span. For she feels she has accomplished everything – what else is there for her to do? But Time, and Elizabeth Mapp-Flint, have events of catastrophic proportion in store. Lucia has hardly launched her project of The Tilling Tapestry when Elizabeth sweeps through Tilling society with her Monopoly Set, putting sewing, bridge and dinner parties to rout, wooing even the obedient Georgie to the delights of buying Vine Street and the Water Works.

A cursed cup… A prince haunted by whispers… And a choice that could doom every realm…For centuries, the Forest Realm of Lothive has known only peace. Beneath its endless canopy, the Cambrian elves live in quiet harmony, guarded by the immortal wanderer Elephanor and ruled by a king sworn to keep them safe. On the night of Elephanor's long-awaited return, that peace fractures.

A kingdom on the brink…A legend waiting to be reborn…And a choice that could change everything…Dwobble has spent years keeping his head down, working the docks of a quiet coastal town and ignoring the wild tales his grandfather once told. But when his injured father returns with grim news and an impossible request, he is pulled back into a world he thought he had left behind. What begins as a reluctant journey to care for his aging grandfather quickly becomes something far greater as a vanished king throws Danamor into turmoil and whispers of rebellion ripple through the Mountain Realm.

Kieron Dyer's memoir, Old Too Soon, Smart Too Late, is the first intimate and unsparing portrait of the failures and excesses of the generation of English footballers made rich beyond their wildest dreams by the post-1990 World Cup boom in the game and the explosion of the Premier League. It...

The classic guide to teaching children at home for a new generation of homeschooling parents In 2019, there were more than two million children being homeschooled. That number doubled during the pandemic and is now likely to continue increasing as more parents worry that school might not be the...

From prolific metal guitarist and songwriter for Exodus (and formerly Slayer) Gary Holt comes a deeply personal memoir of his "destruction-laden" life, along with a firsthand account of the genesis of the Thrash Metal scene, from its origins in the Bay Area to its world domination. As the...

A heart-warming tale of Armageddon from one of the funniest, most original voices in comic fiction today.... The third planet out from the star was blue, with green splodges. Dirt. Oh, the bomb thought. And then its courage, determination and nobility-of-spirit subroutines cut in, overriding everything else, adrenalizing its command functions and bypassing its cyberphrenetic nodes. Here goes, said the bomb to itself. Calibrate navigational pod. Engage primary thrusters. Ready auxiliary drive.

J.W. Wells seemed to be a respectable establishment, but the company now paying Paul Carpenter's salary is in fact a deeply sinister organisation with a mighty peculiar management team. Paul thought he was getting the hang of it (particularly when he fell head over heels for his colleague Sophie), but death is never far away when you work at J.W. Wells, unlike the stapler - that's always going AWOL. Our love-struck hero is about to discover that custard is definitely in the eye of the beholder. And that it really stings.

This enduring classic of educational thought offers teachers and parents deep, original insight into the nature of early learning. John Holt was the first to make clear that, for small children, "learning is as natural as breathing." In this delightful yet profound book, he looks at...

Monsters are roaming the streets of London. Of course, some monsters are scarier than others: Unicorns? No bother. Vampires? Big deal. Werewolves? Ho hum. Lawyers? … Aaargh! Duncan's boss doesn't think that he's cut out to be a lawyer. He isn’t a pack animal. He lacks the killer instinct. But when his best friend from school barges his way back into Duncan’s life, with a full supporting cast of lawyers, ex-wives, zombies and snow-white unicorns, it’s not long before things become distinctly unsettling.

Caroline Verlaine knows something is wrong. Her sister has gone missing, and no one can tell her why. The only option is to go where Roma was last seen—an estate with a deadly history. The Stacy family has lived off the Dover coast for generations, carefully navigating the treacherous quick sands nearby. But the sands aren't Caroline's biggest threat. Everyone here has a secret, especially the enigmatic young heir Napier Stacy. No matter where Caroline turns, the ground she walks is dangerous.

The doughnut is a thing of beauty, a circle of fried, doughy perfection - a source of comfort in trying times, perhaps. For Theo Bernstein it is far, far more. An accident at work lost Theo his job (and his work involved preventing a Very, Very Large Hadron Collider from blowing up, so he's unlikely to get it back). His wife has left him; he doesn't have any money; and news arrives that his good friend, Professor Pieter van Goyen, renowned physicist and Nobel laureate, has died.

It is 1939. War threatens Europe. Troops are stationed near Tilling and rationing leads to queues in the High Street and a distinct shortage of goods at Twemlow’s. But it must be admitted that the hostilities that occupy the attention of Lucia and Georgie are with Elizabeth Mapp-Flint, rather than with the enemy across the Channel. Faced with Elizabeth’s elevation to the head of Tilling Red Cross (complete with uniform) and Major Benjy’s leadership of the Home Guard, it seems that Lucia’s domination of the little Sussex town is under serious threat.