Winter, with its unsettling blend of the cosy and the sinister, has long been a popular time for gathering by the bright flame of a candle, or the warm crackling of a fire, and swapping stories of ghosts and strange happenings. Now eight bestselling, award-winning authors - master storytellers of the sinister and the macabre - bring this time-honoured tradition to vivid life in a spellbinding collection of new and original haunted tales. From a bustling Covent Garden Christmas market to the frosty moors of Yorkshire, from a country estate with a dreadful secret, to a London mansion where a beautiful girl lies frozen in death, these are stories to make your hair stand on end, send shivers down your spine and to serve as your indispensable companion to the long nights of winter. So curl up, light a candle, and fall under the spell of The Haunting Season . . . Featuring new and original tales from: Bridget Collins Sunday Times bestselling author of The Binding Imogen Hermes Gowar Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock Kiran Millwood Hargrave Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mercies Andrew Michael Hurley Sunday Times bestselling author of The Loney Jess Kidd International award-winning author of Things in Jars Elizabeth Macneal Sunday Times bestselling author of The Doll Factory Natasha Pulley Sunday Times bestselling author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street Laura Purcell Award-winning author of The Silent Companions

A thrilling book about the abounding queerness of the natural world that challenges our expectations of what is normal, beautiful, and possible.Growing up, Patricia Kaishian felt most at home in the swamps and culverts near her house in the Hudson Valley. A child who frequently felt out of place, too much of one thing or not enough of another, she found acceptance in these settings, among other amphibious beings. In snakes, snails, and, above all, fungi, she saw her own developing identities as a queer, neurodivergent person reflected back at her—and in them, too, she found a personal path to a life of science.In Forest Euphoria, Kaishian shows us this making of a scientist and introduces readers to the queerness, literal and otherwise, of all the life around us. Fungi, we learn, commonly have more than two biological sexes—and some as many as twenty-three thousand. Some intersex slugs mutually fire calcium carbonate “love darts” at each other during courtship. Glass eels are sexually undetermined until their last year of life, which stumped scientists once dubbed “the eel question.” Nature, Kaishian shows us, is filled with the unusual, the overlooked, and the marginalized—and they have lessons for us all.Wide-ranging, richly observant, and full of surprise, Forest Euphoria will open your eyes and change how you look at the world around you.

An expert on otters dives into their wild and wonderful world You’ve heard of a murder of crows and a pride of lions—but what about a romp of otters? In this informative and entertaining book, animal behaviorist Heide Island takes readers on an odyssey through otterdom, focusing on a family, or “romp,” of river otters that live near her home in Puget Sound while also weaving in research about otters around the globe. Tracking an otter nicknamed Patches and her three pups, Island observes as they hunt, play, and try to survive the various dangers in their environment. But the greatest danger they face isn’t predators or food-stealing scavengers. It’s humans. Because while they captivate our imagination with their intelligent and social behavior, these charming creatures, like so many species, face an uncertain future in an era of climate change and habitat destruction. And we can learn crucial lessons about nature and our relationship with it by studying their adaptability, diversity, and personality, from the adorable sea otters of Monterey Bay to the giant otters of the Amazon. Discover what otters have to teach us about the world we share in Romp!

Winner of the 2025 ARA Historical Novel PrizeShortlisted for the 2025 NiB Literary AwardBased on the true story of Tasma Walton’s ancestor, a powerful, heart-wrenching novel about maternal love that endures against pitiless odds. Kidnapped by sealers and enslaved far from her homeland, Nannertgarrook has a spirit that refuses to bow …From her idyllic life in sea country in Nerrm (Port Phillip Bay, Victoria), Nannertgarrook is abducted and taken to a slave market, leaving behind a husband, daughter and son. Pregnant when seized, she soon gives birth to another son, whom she raises with the children of her fellow captives.Nannertgarrook is separated not only from her Boonwurrung family, but from her birthright – the ceremonies she once was so joyously part of, the majestic whales who are her totem, the land and sky and sea country and its creatures. All these things she loves as deeply as she does her blood kin.But now, as her reality becomes profoundly different, she must keep that family and her old life alive in her mind. Their rich, pulsating elements sing to us through her beautiful voice, even while Nannertgarrook herself is subjected to the worst of humanity. This sweeping novel asks us to consider who, in colonial history, were the real savages, and what it truly means to be civilised.

Kneel like a prayer full of lynching This is my God-given white The voices of Tusiata Avia are infinite. She ranges from vulnerable to forbidding to celebratory with forms including pantoums, prayers and invocations. And in this electrifying new work, she gathers all the power of her voice to speak directly into histories of violence. Avia addresses James Cook in fury. She unravels the 2019 Christchurch massacre, walking us back to the beginning. She describes the contortions we make to avoid blame. And she locates the many voices that offer hope. The Savage Coloniser Book is a personal and political reckoning. As it holds history accountable, it rises in power.