Recent Books

Forever Home (October 2022)

By Graham Norton

November 2, 2022

Carol is a divorced teacher living in a small Irish town, her only son now grown.  A second chance at love with the older Declan brings her unexpected connection and belonging, but sparks local speculation: what does a woman like her see in a man like him?  What happened to his wife who abandoned him all those years ago?

The gossip only serves to bring them closer, but when Declan becomes ill things start to fall apart.  His children are untrusting and cruel, and Carol is forced to leave their beloved home with its worn oak floors and elegant features and move back in with her parents.  Unwilling to see her daughter suffer, Carol’s mother vows to get to the bottom of things.  It seems there are secrets in Declan’s past, strange rumours that were never confronted, and suddenly the house they shared takes on a more sinister significance.

Compassionate, knowing and exquisitely tense, Graham Norton’s gripping and darkly comic novel looks beneath the surface of everyday life to reveal that dangerous place where hidden desires and forgotten fears lurk.

The Bullet that Missed (October 2022)

By Richard Osman

November 2, 2022

It is an ordinary Thursday and things should finally be returning to normal.

Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club is concerned.  A decade-old cold case leads them to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers.

Then, a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit.  Her mission?  Kill…or be killed.

As the cold case turns red hot, Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), while Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim chase down clues with help from old friends and new.  But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?

A Heart Full of Headstones (October 2022)

By Ian Rankin

November 2, 2022

John Rebus stands accused: on trial for a crime that could put him behind bars for the rest of his life.  Although it’s not the first time the legendary detective has taken the law into his own hands, it might be the last.

What drove a good man to cross the line?  Or have times changed, and the rules with them?

Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke faces Edinburgh’s most explosive case in years, as a corrupt cop goes missing after claiming to harbour secrets that could sink the city’s police force.

But in this investigation, it seems all roads lead to Rebus – and Clarke’s twin loyalties to the public and the police will be tested to their limit.

The Bookseller at the End of the World (October 2022)

By Ruth Shaw

November 2, 2022

Ruth Shaw runs two tiny bookshops in the remote village of Manapouri in Fiordland, in the deep south of New Zealand.

This rich memoir weaves together stories of the characters who visit her bookshops, musings about favourite books, and bittersweet stories from Ruth’s full and varied life.

She’s sailed through the Pacific for years, been held up by pirates, worked at Sydney’s Kings Cross with drug addicts and prostitutes, campaigned on numerous environmental issues, and worked the yacht Breaksea Girl with her husband Lance.

Underlining all her wanderings and adventures are some very deep losses and long-held pain.  Balancing that out is her beautiful love story with Lance, and her delightful sense of humour.

This will make you weep and make you laugh and make you want to read more books – and make you want to visit Ruth and her two wee bookshops.

The It Girl (October 2022)

By Ruth Ware

November 2, 2022

It was Hannah who found April’s body ten years ago.  It was Hannah who didn’t question what she saw that day.  Did her testimony put an innocent man in prison?

She needs to know the truth.

Even if it means questioning her own friends.  Even if it means putting her own life at risk.

Because if the killer wasn’t a stranger, could it be someone she knows?

People Person (September 2022)

By Candice Carty-Williams

September 19, 2022

If you could choose your family … you wouldn’t choose the Penningtons

Dimple Pennington knew of her half siblings, but she didn’t really know them.  Five people who don’t have anything in common except for faint memories of being driven through Brixton in their dad’s gold jeep, and some pretty complex abandonment issues.

Dimple has bigger things to think about.  She’s thirty, and her life isn’t really going anywhere.  An aspiring lifestyle influencer with a terrible and wayward boyfriend.  Dimple’s life has shrunk to the size of a phone screen.  And despite a small but loyal following, she’s never felt more alone.

That is, until a catastrophic event brings her half siblings, Nikisha, Danny, Lizzie and Prynce, crashing back into her life.  And when they’re all forced to reconnect with Cyril Pennington, the absent father they never really knew, things get even more complicated.

The Rising Tide (September 2022)

By Ann Cleeves

September 19, 2022

DCI Vera Stanhope returns in The Rising Tide, the tenth novel in the perennially popular series, from the number one bestseller Ann Cleeves.

Fifty years ago, a group of teenagers spent a weekend on Holy Island, forging a bond that has lasted a lifetime.  They still return every five years to celebrate their friendship, and remember the friend they lost to the rising waters of the causeway at the first reunion.

Now, when one to them is found hanged, Vera is called in.  Learning that the dead man had recently been fired after misconduct allegations, Vera knows she must discover what the friends are hiding, and whether the events of many years before could have led to murder then, and now …

But with the tide rising, secrets long-hidden are finding their way to the surface, and Vera and the team may find themselves in more danger than they could have believed possible …

Winter Time (September 2022)

By Laurence Fearnley

September 19, 2022

Having returned to the Mackenzie Country to deal with the unexpected death of his brother, Roland has more than enough on his plate.  He could do without the demands of a cantankerous neighbour, the complaints of his partner back in Australia and discovering that someone is impersonating him online, stirring up the locals against him.

Even the weather is hostile, rendering roads unpassable and his old home an icebox, the fire offering little comfort.  And yet, when cycling on the empty roads, cocooned in a snow-muffled landscape, he finds he can confront what he actually feels.

The Ink Black Heart (September 2022)

By Robert Galbraith

September 19, 2022

When frantic, dishevelled Edie Ledwell appears in the office begging to speak to her, private detective Robin Ellacott doesn’t know quite what to make of the situation.  The co-creator of a popular cartoon, The Ink Black Heart, Edie is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie.  Edie is desperate to uncover Anomie’s true identity.

Robin decides that the agency can’t help with this – and thinks nothing more of it until a few days later, when she reads the shocking news that Edie has been tasered and then murdered in Highgate cemetery, the location of  The Ink Black Heart.

Robin and her business partner Cormoran Strike become drawn into the quest to uncover Anomie’s true identity.  But with a complex web of online aliases, business interest and family conflicts to navigate, Strike and Robin find themselves embroiled in a case that stretches their powers of deduction to the limits – and which threatens them in new and horrifying ways …

It Ends With Us (September 2022)

By Colleen Hoover

September 19, 2022

Sometimes the one who loves you is the one who hurts you the most

Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants.  She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up – she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business.  So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, and maybe even a little arrogant.  He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily, but Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing.

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan – her first love and a link to the past she left behind.  He was her kindred spirit, her protector.  When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.