Twenty years ago Greg Dawe was a young man wielding a freshly dispensed adult library card, roaming the aisles of his local public library searching for something that might explain what this life thing was all about. Time and again he found himself gravitating to the ‘alternative’ section and there, tucked between UFO Abductions 101 and How to Levitate, was a book with an intriguing title and an enticing concept. It was a non-fiction, mind-technology book, a niche he’d never heard about before.

Greg tells us " From what I could make out, this little known but very real technology had enormous transformational potential for mankind. If only everyone would embrace this technology the world would surely be changed beyond all recognition. Failing that, it might make a pretty neat...

Elen Caldecott’s second novel for children began as an image in her imagination: a brown bear sitting on a chinz sofa. This was not the fluffy, cuddly, tea-party kind of bear, but a real grizzly with sharp claws, sitting in the middle of a real living room. The image wouldn’t go away, and so she set out to explain how the bear got there.

How Ali Ferguson Saved Houdini is the answer to that conundrum.

‘Hush!’ Gez held his finger up to his lips. ‘Not here. Not out in the open. Come on, follow me. I’ll tell you everything I know.’

Ali has just moved into Lever Tower – he and Mum are starting a new life. But there are secrets on the estate; there are strange goings-on at night. Not only have the foxes disappeared, but one of the neighbours has vanished too. When Mum...

Hope against Hope is a richly-plotted historical romance set between 1838 and 1848. Sisters Carrie and May Hope lose both home and livelihood when their Leeds pub is sold out from under them to make way for the coming of the railway. They head for Harrogate to find work and lodging in the spa town's burgeoning hotel trade. But they fall prey to fraudsters and predators but are also driven apart by misunderstanding, pride and a mutual sense of betrayal and resentment.

Alex Sinclair, a warm-spirited Scot, is a railway engineer. His childhood friend, Charles Hammond despises himself and his life. He is a physician, a profession for which he lacks both aptitude and enthusiasm. The futures of both men are bound up with those of the two sisters.

As time passes, the sisters...

When the British Science Association ran a poll asking the general public which science question they'd most like answered, they said 'what came before the Big Bang?' Brian wanted to bring out the fascinating truth behind this question and to show just how the Big Bang theory is just one of a range of ever more startling theories that cosmologists have for the origins of the universe.

From the earliest creation myths, through the eighteenth century astronomer William Herschel's realization that the Milky Way was one of many galaxies, to ongoing debates about black holes, this is an exploration of the origins of the universe and the many enigmas it poses.

The idea of a Big Bang doesn't so much answer questions as pose new ones. Brian challenges the concept of the Big Bang...