Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden sex worker, can offer the chance of redemption.

An impulsive word can start a war. A timely word can stop one. A simple act of friendship can change the course of history. Cliopher Mdang is the personal secretary of the Last Emperor of Astandalas, the Lord of Rising Stars, the Lord Magus of Zunidh, the Sun-on-Earth, the god. He has spent more time with the Emperor of Astandalas than any other person. He has never once touched his lord. He has never called him by name. He has never initiated a conversation. One day Cliopher invites the Sun-on-Earth home to the proverbially remote Vangavaye-ve for a holiday. The mere invitation could have seen Cliopher executed for blasphemy. The acceptance upends the world.

The protagonist, a young man naive enough to be blind to all clues about his own hidden history (and to the fact that his very existence is troubling to all manner of evildoers) narrates a story of uncommon beauty which not only brings readers face-to-face with dozens of piquantly drawn characters at all levels of 19th-century English society but re-creates with precision the tempestuous weather and gnarly landscape that has been a motif of the English novel since Wuthering Heights. The suspension of disbelief happens easily, as the reader is led through twisted family trees and plot lines. The quincunx of the title is a heraldic figure of five parts that appears at crucial points within the text (the number five recurs throughout the novel, which itself is divided into five parts, one for each of the family galaxies whose orbits the narrator is pulled into). Quintuple the length of the ordinary novel, this extraordinary tour de force also has five times the ordinary allotment of adventure, action and aplomb.

The Pope is dead. Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election. They are holy men. But they have ambition. And they have rivals. Over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.

Jasper Detchard is a disgraced British officer, now selling his blade to the highest bidder. Currently that's Michael Elphberg, half-brother to the King of Ruritania. Michael wants the throne for himself, and Jasper is one of the scoundrels he hires to help him take it. But when Michael makes his move, things don’t go entirely to plan—and the penalty for treason is death. Rupert of Hentzau is Michael's newest addition to his sinister band of henchmen. Charming, lethal, and intolerably handsome, Rupert is out for his own ends—which seem to include getting Jasper into bed. But Jasper needs to work out what Rupert’s really up to amid a maelstrom of plots, swordfights, scheming, impersonation, desire, betrayal, and murder. Nobody can be trusted. Everyone has a secret. And love is the worst mistake you can make. A retelling of the swashbuckling classic The Prisoner of Zenda from a very different point of view.

Maki und Midori waren in der Schulzeit unzertrennlich, schrieben sich Liebesbriefe und tauschten erste schüchterne Küsse aus. Doch zum Schulabschluss behauptete Midori, dass alles nur ein Spiel war und brach der über beide Ohren verliebten Maki das Herz. Zehn Jahre später laufen die beiden sich plötzlich wieder über den Weg. Midori ist kurz davor zu heiraten und erwartet ihr erstes Kind, doch glücklich ist sie nicht. Die beiden Frauen fühlen sich wieder zueinander hingezogen... Aber meint Midori es dieses Mal wirklich ernst oder will sie nur vor einer schwierigen Partnerschaft fliehen? Eine herzzerreißende Liebesgeschichte, die sich mit gesellschaftlichem Druck, Coming-Out im Erwachsenenalter und den großen Entscheidungen des Lebens auseinandersetzt.

Momo has been reunited with her lost love Midori, but they're still nowhere near a fairy-tale ending. With Midori tangled in a rocky engagement and Momo still pining for Midori, are the two women destined to be apart, or will fate find a way to bring them back to each other? While Midori tries to convince herself she's happy in her relationship with Tazune, Maki tries to convince herself she's happy not being in a relationship at all. But when Maki's friend Komari invites them to her seaside home, the three women find themselves questioning how to be true to what's in their own hearts, and encourage each other to reach out for their own versions of happiness. As Komari sees the shine that comes from Midori and Maki when they're together, it seems to light a path she might follow herself. Will Komari be able to show them what she sees? And if Midori and Maki see it, too, will it change how they look at the world--and each other?

Maki and Midori leave Shodoshima, but instead of returning home, the two women find themselves riding away to a remote corner of a train line. Maki knows they can’t hide forever, but she can’t quite figure out how to tell that to Midori. Meanwhile, Midori doesn’t know where she is in her life any more than she knows where she is on the map, but Tazune is trying to answer that second question—and if he does, it may force Midori to answer the first… The thought of running away was once a wistful dream for Maki and Midori, but when the two women wake up to find it a reality, they’ll have to decide if it was just what they needed to find their way home.

​A love story that came about due to Fight The Landlord. [1] Two eldest young masters who looked down on each other were forced into a blind date. Each discovered that the other was the immoral scoundrel who had poured cold water or thrown rotten tomatoes on him during a game of Fight The Landlord two days prior. Now what? Well, secure a partner first and figure the rest out later. ​ [1] Popular Chinese card game with an online app version.