In the Winner Stands Alone, Paulo Coelho has returned to the important themes of Eleven Minutes and The Zahir. He offers a novel full of suspense, a mirror image of the world we live in, where our commitment to luxury and success at any cost prevents us from hearing what the heart actually desires. Coelho takes us to the Cannes Film Festival, where the so-called Superclass gathers - those who have made it in the dream maker's world of fashion and film. Money, power and fame are at stake - things for which most people are prepared to do anything, whatever the cost.

At this modern vanity fair we meet Igor, a Russian millionaire; Middle Eastern fashion czar Hamid; American actress Gabriela, eager to land a lead role; ambitious criminal detective Savoy, hoping to resolve the case of his life; and Jasmine, a woman on the brink of a successful modeling career.

Under the streets of London, there's a place most people could never even dream of. A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, knights in armour and pale girls in black velvet. This is the city of the people who have fallen between cracks.

Richard Mayhew, a young businessman, is going to find out more than enough about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his workday existence and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and utterly bizarre. And a strange destiny awaits him down here, beneath his native city: neverwhere.

A hot summer's day
A crowded motorway
A split second that changes everything.

Jonathan, the charismatic surgeon returning from a liaison with his mistress, Abi. His wife thinks he's somewhere else.

Georgia, the young actress on her way to audition for the part that could make her career; and Linda, her agent, dynamic, ambitious - but lonely after a failed marriage.

Toby, the bridegroom with a dark secret on the way to his wedding, with his best friend, Barney.

Mary, traveling to airport to meet his first love, whom she hasn't seen in over fifty years; William, the farmer who watches the drama unfold across the hill.; and Emma, the engaging young surgeon at the nearest hospital.

One heartbeat in time, and all their lives are transformed. Worlds are torn apart, mysteries are created, love affairs ended - and ignited. But is it for the worst, or could it be for the best?

Seventeen - year - old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller's life was turned upside down when her parents divorced and her father moved to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains alienated from her parents, particularly her father... until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she and her brother spent the summer with him. Resentful and rebellious, Ronnie rejects her father's attempts to reach out to her and threatens to return to New York before the summer's end. But soon Ronnie meets Will, the last person she thought she'd ever be attracted to, and finds herself falling for him, opening herself up to the greatest happiness - and - pain that she has ever known.