Loeb and Sale bring the X-Men's outlaw heroes to London in the wake of the brutal slayings that may mark the return of the 19th-century serial killer, Jack the Ripper. Or could Wolverine or Gambit be the real killer.

By the award-winning and bestselling author of Journey to the River Sea, a novel that sings with characteristic Ibbotson warmth and wit.Eva Ibbotson's charming and warm-hearted tale, A Secret Countess was originally published as A Countess Below Stairs.Anna, a young countess, has lived in the glittering city of St Petersburg all her life in an ice-blue palace overlooking the River Neva. But when revolution tears Russia apart, her now-penniless family is forced to flee to England. Armed with an out-of-date book on housekeeping, Anna determines to become a housemaid and she finds work at the Earl of Westerholme's crumbling but magnificent mansion. The staff and the family are sure there is something not quite right about their new maid - but she soon wins them over with her warmth and dedication.Then the young Earl returns home from the war - and Anna falls hopelessly in love. But they can never be together: Rupert is engaged to the snobbish and awful Muriel - and anyway, Anna is only a servant. Or so everybody thinks . . .

Hidden away in an Oxford back street is a crumbling Georgian mansion, unknown to any but the few who possess a key to its unassuming front gate. Its owner is the mercurial, charismatic Mark Winters, whose rackety trust-fund upbringing has left him as troubled and unpredictable as he is wildly promiscuous. Mark gathers around him an impressionable group of students- glamorous Emmanuella, who always has a new boyfriend in tow; Franny and Simon, best friends and occasional lovers; musician Jess, whose calm exterior hides passionate depths. And James, already damaged by Oxford and looking for a group to belong to. For a time the group lives in a charmed world of learning and parties and love affairs. But university is no grounding for adult life, and when, years later, tragedy strikes they are entirely unprepared. Universal in its themes of ambition, desire and betrayal, this spellbinding novel reflects the truth that the lessons life teaches often come too late. 'The naïve sense of indestructibility possessed by a close-knit group of students is expertly balanced with the suspense of what threatens to unfold.' Sophie Morris Saturday Independent 'Naomi Alderman's second novel examines the warping effects of wealth.' Joanna Briscoe, Observer 'Alderman's premise is familiar - trust-funder going to the bad - but this is, nonetheless, a dark spell of a book, with brooding disenchantment at its heart.' Eithne Farry. Daily Mail 'As the novel progresses, we are forced to look at how people are driven by impulses they're not even aware of, and the most brutal lesson of all- that love doesn't come without pain or sacrifice.' Alastair Mabbott, The Herald 'The Lessons is sturdily plotted and hooks you in- it's a good read if not unique.' Alice Fisher, Observer 'Alderman packs a punch with her opening line', Lianne Kolirin , Daily Express 'The Lessons has more insight into human nature than Martin Amis's The Pregnant Widow , and is more intellectually sustained. This is a second novel from a young writer of huge talent, ambition and energy.' Amanda Craig, Independent 'No one writes about pain better than Alderman. Lose yourself in 278 pages and you enter another world.' Liz Hoggard, Evening Standard 'Naomi Alderman is, evidently, not afraid of ghosts. She courts them and flirts with them and defies them in her darkly seductive second novel, The Lessons .' Damian Barr, Independent on Sunday 'Beautifully written . . . satisfyingly complex exploration of the characters and their relationships.' Samira Shackle , New Statesman 'This is a remarkable novel, which portrays with uncomfortable accuracy the feted world of the Oxford undergraduate. It reminds me a great deal of Donna Tartt's The Secret History in that it has the same brooding sense of menace and the same lightening characterisation. Naomi is a supremely talented writer.' Joanne Harris, 'Witty, dark and compelling.' Charlotte Mendelson 'Wise, compassionate and heart-rending, a novel that conveys all the cruelty and pain of gilded youth.' Liz Jensen author of Chocolat Praise for Disobedience - 'Rich, fresh, fascinating. A wonderful novel' Sunday Times 'Sharp, funny and poignant' Hilary Mantel

The Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year 'An enthralling and wonderfully vivid novel from a master storyteller' Joseph O'Connor 'Kneale's medieval world is animated with a refreshing lightness of touch' Sunday Telegraph 1289. A rich farmer fears he'll go to hell for cheating his neighbors. His wife wants pilgrim badges to sew into her hat and show off at church. A poor, ragged villager is convinced his beloved cat is suffering in the fires of purgatory and must be rescued. A mother believes her son's dangerous illness is punishment for her own adultery and seeks forgiveness so he may be cured. A landlord is in trouble with the church after he punched an abbot on the nose. A sexually driven noblewoman seeks a divorce so she can marry her new young beau. These are among a ragtag band of pilgrims that sets off on the tough and dangerous journey from England to Rome, where they hope all their troubles and their prayers will be answered. Some in the group, however, have their own secret reasons for going. Others, while they might aspire to piety, succumb all too often to the sins of the flesh. A riveting, sweeping novel of medieval society and historic Englishness, Pilgrims illuminates the fallibility of humans, the absurdities and consolations of belief, and the very real violence at the heart of religious fervor.

For seven years Charles Dodgson, a painfully shy Oxford don, and Alice Liddell, the fascinating little girl who was the daughter of the dean of Christ Church, had a strange, intense relationship. Then suddenly, when she was eleven, Alice's family shut Dodgson out. The pages from Dodgson's diary that may have explained the rift have disappeared. What remains are the stories he told her, transformed into the brilliant, revolutionary classics, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and the pioneering photographs in which he captured her fleeting childhood. In a triumphant work of imagination, Katie Roiphe illuminates a luxuriously textured corner of Victorian society, with its affluence, social power-plays and politics, and the mysterious, difficult relationship Dodgson had with Alice, her family - and with himself. STILL SHE HAUNTS ME is an unforgettable novel about a singular, troubled man, from one of this century's most provocative young writers.

The novel centres on a colourful group of refugee Tibetans. One of the group's members, the charismatic (and slightly dubious) Rabbi Chod, recognises himself as the reincarnation of Moses, and various friends as reincarnations of key Biblical figures. Despite condemnation from both the mainstream Jewish and Tibetan communities, he declares his followers the true 'lost tribe of Israel', and defiantly opens up a synagogue in a pet shop. a family where suppression and dysfunction are common currency. Both of his parents are Tibetan Jews, followers of Rabbi Chod. His father owns a cafe called 'Hush Hush', so called because within the cafe, all forms of noise are forbidden. Any customer who speaks is instantly banned and a Polaroid photo of them is pinned to a cork board in case they should dare to return. way not into the future, but the past. He falls asleep each night only to wake up the day before. In this way, as he grows up his parents get younger. By the end of the book his parents are children - too young to manage by themselves - and the adult Monlam has to look after them. In this way he witnesses his own family history, quite literally living backwards into their lives.