Claire North

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her 'our little genius'. Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh. Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells.

Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent's head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are "threeps", robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden's Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real, and the crowds love it. Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.

Theo Miller knows the value of human life - to the very last penny. Working in the Criminal Audit Office, he assesses each crime that crosses his desk and makes sure the correct debt to society is paid in full. But when his ex-lover is killed, it's different. This is one death he can't let become merely an entry on a balance sheet. 

Harry August is on his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. 'I nearly missed you, Doctor August,' she says.

All Systems Red is the tense first science fiction adventure novella in Martha Wells' series The Murderbot Diaries. For fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, Ann Leckie's Imperial Raadch series, or Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self-discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans.

Charlie meets everyone - but only once. You might meet him in a hospital, in a war zone, or at the scene of traffic accident. Then again, you might meet him at the North Pole - Charlie gets everywhere. Sometimes he is sent as a courtesy, sometimes as a warning. Either way, this is going to be the most important meeting of your life. The End of the Day is the stunning new story from Richard and Judy Book Club author Claire North: the voice behind the word-of-mouth best-seller The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.

This is the way the world ends...for the last time. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

He tried to take my life. Instead I took his. It happened so long ago, I've forgotten the details. But he was desperate, hungry enough to kill. As I was dying, my hand touched his.That's when my first switch took place. I looked through the eyes of my killer just in time to see my own body die. Now switching is easy. I can jump from body to body, have any life, be anyone. All it takes is a touch.

Ryô Kihara, trente-deux ans, est condamné à la peine capitale. Il a déjà passé sept ans dans le couloir de la mort sans connaître la date de son exécution, comme le veut la loi japonaise. Bien qu'amnésique au moment du procès, il a reconnu sa culpabilité. Un matin, il entend les gardes venir chercher son voisin de cellule pour l'exécuter. Traumatisé par les hurlements, Kihara a soudain des flashes, comme si son amnésie se dissipait : il se revoit en train de gravir un escalier, dix ans plus tôt. Il décide d'écrire à son avocat.

DI Nikki Galena: A police detective with nothing left to lose, she's seen a girl die in her arms, and her daughter will never leave the hospital again. She's gotten tough on the criminals she believes did this to her. Too tough. And now she's been given one final warning: make it work with her new sergeant, DS Joseph Easter, or she's out.