Recent Books

None of This is True (September 2023)

By Lisa Jewell

September 15, 2023

Two women, two stories.  Which one do you trust?

Alix and Josie are two very different women whose lives become entangled when Josie persuades Alix to make a podcast about her.

Alix finds Josie strange and a bit unsettling.  But the story she tells is compelling, and Alix can’t resist the temptation to keep recording it.

She soon realises that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets.

But by then it’s too late.  Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life – and into her home.

And Alix must ask herself: who is Josie Fair?  And what has she done?

Lady MacBethad (September 2023) – Athenaeum Book Club 2024

By Isabelle Schuler

September 15, 2023

Daughter of an ousted king, descendant of ancient druids, as a child it is prophesied that one day Gruoch will be queen of Alba.

When she is betrothed to Duncan, heir elect, this appears to confirm the prophecy.  She leaves behind her home, her family and her close friend MacBethad, and travels to the royal seat at Scone to embrace her new position.

But nothing is as Gruoch anticipates.  Duncan’s court is filled with sly words and unfriendly faces, women desperate to usurp her position and others whose motives are shrouded in mystery.  As her coronation approaches, a deadly turn of events forces Grouch to flee Duncan and the capital, finding herself alone, vulnerable and at the mercy of an old enemy.  Her hope of becoming Queen all but lost, Gruoch does what she must to survive, vowing that one day she will fulfil her destiny and take up the future owed to her.

Whatever it takes.

Independence Square (September 2023)

By Martin Cruz Smith

September 15, 2023

Arkady Renko is back…

Renko has been confined to a desk job by his superiors to keep him out of the way.  Although he’s more disillusioned with policing and the general state of Russia than ever, he feels an odd sense of hope.  A rebellion is bubbling in the country, with new values butting heads against old-school regimes.  People want change and politician Leonid Lebedev could be the man to do it.

When Karina, a staunch supporter of Lebedev and member of his Forum, goes missing, Renko is asked by her father to find her.  Soon after his investigation begins, Alex, a close friend of Arkady’s son is found dead.  He was also a member of the Forum.

The night before his murder, Alex sent Arkady a cryptic message, simply containing three pictures of Russian writers.  The link between the pictures is there, if only Renko could see it.

But Arkady has just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and the physical and psychological effects of the disease are taking their toll.  This time, he must fight more than the impenetrable Russian regime to get answers…he will need to fight himself.

Expectant (September 2023)

By Vanda Symon

September 15, 2023

The shocking murder of a heavily pregnant woman throws the New Zealand city of Dunedin into a tailspin, and the devastating crime feels uncomfortably close to home for Detective Sam Shephard as she counts down the days to her own maternity leave.

Confined to a desk job in the department, Sam must find the missing link between this brutal crime and a string of cases involving mothers and children in the past.  As the pieces start to come together and the realisation dawns that the killer’s actions are escalating, drastic measures must be taken to prevent more tragedy.

For Sam the case becomes personal, when it becomes increasingly clear that she is no longer safe, and the clock is ticking…

The Bookbinder of Jericho (September 2023)

By Pip Williams

September 15, 2023

What is lost when knowledge is withheld?

In 1914, when the war draws the young men of Britian away to fight, it is the women who must keep the nation running.  Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho.  Peggy is intelligent, ambitious and dreams of going to Oxford University, but for most of her life she has been told her job is to bind the books, not read them.  Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has.  She is extraordinary but vulnerable.  Peggy needs to watch over her.

When refugees arrive from the devastated cities of Belgium, it sends ripples through the community and through the sisters’ lives.  Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can use her intellect and not just her hands, but as war and illness reshape her world, it is love, and the responsibility that comes with it, that threaten to hold her back.

Grave Expectations (August 2023)

By Alice Bell

August 29, 2023

Claire and Sophie aren’t your typical murder investigators…

When thirtysomething freelance medium Claire Hendricks is invited to an old university friend’s country pile to provide entertainment for a family party, her best friend Sophie tags along.  In fact, Sophie rarely leaves Claire’s side, because she’s been haunting her ever since she was murdered at the age of seventeen.

On arrival at The Cloisters, it quickly becomes clear that this family is hiding more than just the good china, as Claire realizes someone had recently met an untimely end at the house.

Teaming up with the least unbearable members of the Wellington-Forge family – depressive ex-cop Basher and teenage radical Alex – Claire and Sophie determine to figure out not just whodunnit, but who they killed, why and when.

Together they must race against incompetence to find the murderer – before the murderer finds them.

A Murder is Announced (August 2023)

By Agatha Christie

August 29, 2023

An ordinary village a shocking announcement

One morning the villagers of Chipping Cleghorn wake to find a strange notice in their papers:  A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30pm.

Suspecting this is just a joke they gather for some evening entertainment.

Then a gunshot is heard.

In desperation, the police turn to an old lady whose hobbies are gardening, gossiping – and solving murders.

After all, old ladies know better than anyone exactly what goes on in quiet English villages.

Dead Water (August 2023)

By Ann Cleeves

August 29, 2023

The Fifth Shetland Novel

A journalist working a story.  Now his murder is a headline…

When the body of a journalist is found in a traditional Shetland boat, Detective Inspecter Willow Reeves is drafted in to head up the investigation.

Jimmy Perez had been out of the loop, but his local knowledge is needed and he decides to help the inquiry.  Originally a Shetlander, the journalist had left the islands years before to make a name for himself in London, leaving a scandal in his wake.  He had few friends in Shetland, so why was he back?

When Willow and Jimmy dig deeper, they realize the journalist was chasing a story that many Shetlanders didn’t want to come to the surface.  One that must have been significant enough to kill him for…

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (August 2023) – Athenaeum Book Club 2024

By David Grann

August 29, 2023

From the international bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a mesmerising story of shipwreck, survival and savagery, culminating in a court-martial that revels a shocking truth.

On 28 January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil.  Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell.  They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, which had left England two years earlier on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain and had been wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia.  The men, after being marooned for months, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas.  They were greeted as heroes.

Six months later, another even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile.  This boat contained just three castaways and they told a very different story.  The thirty sailors who had landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers.  As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court-martial to determine who was telling the truth.  The stakes were life-and-death – for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behaviour at the extremes told by one of our greatest non-fiction writers.  As always with Grann’s work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.  Most powerfully, he unearths the deeper meanings of the events, showing it was not only the Wager’s captain and crew who were on trail – it was the very idea of empire.

Everyone Here Is Lying (August 2023)

By Shari Lapena

August 29, 2023

Welcome to Stanhope – a place for families.

William Wooler is a family man, on the surface.  But he’s been having an affair – an affair that ended horribly this afternoon at a motel up the road.  So when he returns to his house, devastated and angry to find his difficult nine-year-old daughter Avery unexpectedly home from school, William loses his temper.

Hours later, Avery’s family declares her missing.

Suddenly Stanhope doesn’t feel so safe.  And William isn’t the only one on his street who’s hiding a lie.  As witnesses come forward with information that may or not be true, Avery’s neighbours become increasingly unhinged.

Who took Avery Wooler?  Nothing will prepare you for the truth.