Books have always been a great source of escapism — but that’s been particularly true during 2020.
From epic adventures to swoon-worthy love stories, mysterious whodunnits to gripping thrillers, there’s a new journey to be had every time you pick up a new book.
And with a new year just around the corner, we thought there was no better time to take a look at some of the books that will be hitting shelves in 2021.
December 31
Five Minute Therapy by Sarah Crosby
Sarah Crosby is a humanistic integrative psychotherapist (HDip and MA) and Instagram sensation @TheMindGeek who, since 2018, has amassed a loyal following of over 370K thanks to her accessible and informative posts about mental health.
In her first book Five Minute Therapy, she shares insights from her practice to help readers consider, change and break patterns of behaviour and how to create healthier, more fulfilling ways of being. With concise yet powerful insight, inspirational encouragement and quick exercises, this book is your pocket therapist.
January
The Mask Falling by Samantha Shannon
Dreamwalker Paige Mahoney has eluded death again. Snatched from the jaws of captivity and consigned to a safe house in the Scion Citadel of Paris, she finds herself caught between those factions that seek Scion’s downfall and those who would kill to protect the Rephaim’s puppet empire.
The mysterious Domino Program has plans for Paige, but she has ambitions of her own in this new citadel. With Arcturus Mesarthim-her former enemy-at her side, she embarks on an adventure that will lead her from the catacombs of Paris to the glittering hallways of Versailles. Her risks promise high reward: the Parisian underworld could yield the means to escalate her rebellion to outright war. As Scion widens its bounds and the free world trembles in its shadow, Paige must fight her own memories after her ordeal at the hands of Scion. Meanwhile, she strives to understand her bond with Arcturus, which grows stronger by the day. But there are those who know the revolution began with them-and could end with them . . .
Asking for a Friend by Andi Osho
Forty-something Jemima’s life is on track – well, sort of. All she has to do is muster the courage to bat her niggly ex away for good. Twenty-something Meagan is in the midst of her five-phase plan and is nearly ready for phase three – a relationship. While thirty-something Simi has had more it’s not yous than any I dos.
Deciding it’s time to play the dating game by their own rules, they’re going to ditch the dating apps and ask people out in real life. The catch? They’re playing matchmaker and can only ask out potential dates for each other because the most important rule is that no woman gets left behind.
People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd
THE INFLUENCER. I need to be liked. It’s my job. My personal brand is built on honesty. Family, friendship, cheering other mothers on when things get tough. Doing it together – telling it like it really is – that’s what @the_Mamabare is all about.
THE HUSBAND. I just want a quiet life. Her adoring followers feel like they understand my wife. My wife certainly understands them. I know she is beautiful, smart, ambitious, charming. But she’s also a liar.
THE FOLLOWER. I want revenge. The filter’s about to drop. I’ve been watching you and your family very closely. You’ve ruined my life. Now I’m going to ruin yours.
The Charmed Wife by Olga Grushin
Cinderella married the man of her dreams – the perfect ending she deserved after diligently following all the fairy-tale rules. Yet now, two children and thirteen-and-a-half years later, things have gone badly wrong.
One night, she sneaks out of the palace to get help from the Witch who, for a price, offers love potions to disgruntled housewives. But as the old hag flings the last ingredients into the cauldron, Cinderella doesn’t ask for a love spell to win back her Prince Charming. Instead, she wants him dead.
We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan
1960s UGANDA. Hasan is struggling to run his family business following the sudden death of his wife. Just as he begins to see a way forward, a new regime seizes power, and a wave of rising prejudice threatens to sweep away everything he has built.
Present-day LONDON. Sameer, a young high-flying lawyer, senses an emptiness in what he thought was the life of his dreams. Called back to his family home by an unexpected tragedy, Sameer begins to find the missing pieces of himself not in his future plans, but in a past he never knew.
The Push by Ashley Audrain
Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had.But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter–she doesn’t behave like most children do. Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.
Then their son Sam is born–and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.
Girl A by Abigail Dean
Lex Gracie doesn’t want to think about her family. She doesn’t want to think about growing up in her parents’ House of Horrors. And she doesn’t want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped.
When her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can’t run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the House of Horrors into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her six siblings – and with the childhood they shared.
Ask No Questions by Claire Allan
Twenty-five years ago, on Halloween night, eight-year-old Kelly Doherty went missing while out trick or treating with friends. Her body was found three days later, floating face down, on the banks of the Creggan Reservoir by two of her young classmates.
It was a crime that rocked Derry to the core. Journalist Ingrid Devlin is investigating – but someone doesn’t want her to know the truth. As she digs further, Ingrid starts to realise that the Doherty family are not as they seem. But will she expose what really happened that night before it’s too late?
Naked: Ten Truths to Change Your Life by Caroline Foran
Caroline Foran is back with her unique brand of honest, practical and often laugh-out-loud advice and a one-stop guide to show us how by challenging unhelpful mental mindsets and behaviours, we can reduce feelings of worry and anxiety and create a fulfilling, calm and happier life.
From realising the power of your own vulnerability, to coming to terms with the fact that you’ll never really have it all figured out (and that’s good news!), to accepting that someone else’s success doesn’t take from yours, and why it’s so difficult to form new habits – as well as correcting your course when it comes to people pleasing – Caroline draws on research from the fields of behavioural neuroscience and psychology to give readers a series of game-changing, bull-sh*t-free truths – that will change your life.
The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell
Silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business afloat. Still recovering from a serious illness herself, making enough money to support her elderly mother and her orphaned nephew Cedric has never been easy, but then one of her clients is murdered shortly after sitting for Agnes, and then another, and another…
Desperately seeking an answer, Agnes approaches Pearl, a child spirit medium lodging in Bath with her older half-sister and her ailing father, hoping that if Pearl can make contact with those who died, they might reveal who killed them. But Agnes and Pearl quickly discover that instead they may have opened the door to something that they can never put back…
White Ivy by Susie Yang
Ivy Lin, a Chinese immigrant growing up in a low-income apartment complex outside Boston, is desperate to assimilate with her American peers. Her parents disapprove, berating her for her mediocre grades and what they see as her lazy, entitled attitude. But Ivy has a secret weapon, her grandmother Meifeng, from whom she learns to shoplift to get the things she needs to fit in. Ivy develops a taste for winning and for wealth.
As an adult, she reconnects with the blond-haired golden boy of a prominent political family, and thinks it’s fate. But just as Ivy is about to have everything she’s ever wanted, a ghost from her past resurfaces, threatening the almost-perfect life she’s worked so hard to build. Filled with surprising twists, and offering sharp insights into the immigrant experience, White Ivy is both a love triangle and a coming-of-age story – as well as a dark glimpse at what can happen when we yearn for success at any cost.
The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean
Her husband calls her Jane. That is not her name. She lives in a small farm cottage, surrounded by vast, open fields. Everywhere she looks, there is space. But she is trapped. No one knows how she got to the UK: no one knows she is there. Visitors rarely come to the farm; if they do, she is never seen.
Her husband records her every movement during the day. If he doesn’t like what he sees, she is punished. For a long time, escape seemed impossible. But now, something has changed. She has a reason to live and a reason to fight. Now, she is watching him, and waiting…
Hidden Lies by Rachel Ryan
All children have imaginary friends. It’s perfectly normal. But when Georgina’s young son Cody tells her about his ‘New Granny’, a mysterious friend from the park, the words send shivers down her spine. Georgina’s beloved mother died only months ago.
Her husband Bren is certain the woman is an invention, Cody’s way of grieving for his grandmother, but there’s something in the way Cody talks about his new friend that feels so real. Is someone out there, watching Georgina’s family from the shadows? Is Cody’s imaginary friend not so imaginary after all?
Rescue Me by Sarra Manning
After their first meeting at the rescue centre, both Margot and Will want to adopt Blossom so reluctantly agree to share custody. But Will’s obsession for micro-managing and clear-cut boundaries and Margot’s need to smother Blossom with affection, means that soon they have a very confused and badly behaved dog on their hands.
Can they put their differences aside to become successful “co- pawrents” and maybe even friends? And meanwhile, does Blossom have plans of her own?
The Art of Falling by Danielle McLaughlin
Nessa McCormack’s marriage is coming back together again after her husband’s affair. She is excited to be in charge of a retrospective art exhibit for one of Ireland’s most beloved and enigmatic artists, the late sculptor Robert Locke. But the arrival of two enigmatic outsiders imperils both her personal and professional worlds: A chance encounter with an old friend threatens to expose a betrayal Nessa thought she had long put behind her, and at work, an odd woman comes forward claiming to be the true creator of Robert Locke’s most famous work, The Chalk Sculpture.
As Nessa finds the past intruding on the present, she must decide whether she can continue to live a lie – or whether she’s ready to face the consequences once everything is out in the open. In this gripping debut, Danielle McLaughlin reveals profound truths about love, power, and the secrets that rule us.
Shiver by Allie Reynolds
When Milla is invited to a reunion in the French Alps resort that saw the peak of her snowboarding career, she drops everything to go. While she would rather forget the events of that winter, the invitation comes from Curtis, the one person she can’t seem to let go.
The five friends haven’t seen each other for ten years, since the disappearance of the beautiful and enigmatic Saskia. But when an icebreaker game turns menacing, they realise they don’t know who has really gathered them there and how far they will go to find the truth. In a deserted lodge high up a mountain, the secrets of the past are about to come to light.
The Survivors by Jane Harper
Kieran Elliott’s life changed forever on a single day when a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences. The guilt that haunts him still resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal town he once called home.
Kieran’s parents are struggling in a community which is bound, for better or worse, to the sea that is both a lifeline and a threat. Between them all is his absent brother Finn. When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge in the murder investigation that follows. A sunken wreck, a missing girl and questions that have never washed away…
Trust by Chris Hammer
On a bright sunny day in Port Silver, ex-journalist Martin Scarsden misses a call from his girlfriend Mandy. Checking his voicemail later, all he hears is her terrified scream before the phone cuts off. Back at the house, he finds a policeman unconscious on the floor, and Mandy gone.
So starts a twisting tale of intrigue and danger, as Martin probes the past of the woman he loves, a woman who has buried her former life deep. And for the first time, Mandy finds denial impossible, now the body of a man has been discovered – a man to whom she was engaged to marry. It’s time to face her demons once and for all; it’s time she learned how to trust.
February
Lightseekers by Femi Kayode
Three young students are brutally murdered in a Nigerian university town, their killings – and their killers – caught on social media. The world knows who murdered them; what no one knows is why. As the legal trial begins, investigative psychologist Philip Taiwo is contacted by the father of one of the boys, desperate for some answers to his son’s murder.
Philip is an expert in crowd behaviour and violence but travelling to the sleepy university town that bore witness to the killings, he soon feels dramatically out of his depth. Years spent first studying, then living in the US with his wife and children mean he is unfamiliar with many Nigerian customs and no one involved in the case seems willing to speak out. The more Philip digs, and the more people he meets with a connection to the case, the more he begins to realise that there is something very wrong concealed somewhere in this community.
Nick by Michael Farris Smith
Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby’s periphery, he was at the center of a very different story-one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I.
Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed firsthand, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. Instead, he embarks on a transcontinental redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance-doomed from the very beginning-to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans, rife with its own flavor of debauchery and violence.
Madam by Phoebe Wynne
For 150 years, above the Scottish cliffs, Caldonbrae Hall has sat as a beacon of excellence in the ancestral castle of Lord William Hope. A boarding school for girls, it promises a future where its pupils will emerge ‘resilient and ready to serve society’. Rose Christie, a 26-year-old Classics teacher, is the first new hire for the school in over a decade. At first, Rose feels overwhelmed in the face of this elite establishment, but soon after her arrival she begins to understand that she may have more to fear than her own ineptitude.
When Rose stumbles across the secret circumstances surrounding the abrupt departure of her predecessor – a woman whose ghost lingers over everything and who no one will discuss – she realises that there is much more to this institution than she has been led to believe. As she uncovers the darkness that beats at the heart of Caldonbrae, Rose becomes embroiled in a battle that will threaten her sanity as well as her safety…
Before I Saw You by Emily Houghton
Alfie Mack has been in hospital for months recovering from an accident. So when a new patient is put in the bed beside him, he’s eager for someone different to talk to. A new face on the ward is about as exciting as life gets for him right now.
But it’s clear he won’t be seeing a new face anytime soon. Alice Gunnersley has been badly burned and can’t look at herself yet, let alone allow anyone else see her. Keeping the curtain around her bed firmly closed, it doesn’t stop Alfie trying to be friends. And gradually, as he slowly brings Alice slowly out of her shell, might there even be potential for more?
The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin
Life is short – no one knows that better than seventeen year-old Lenni Petterssen. On the Terminal Ward, the nurses are offering their condolences already, but Lenni still has plenty of living to do. When she meets 83-year-old Margot Macrae, a fellow patient offering new friendship and enviable artistic skills, Lenni’s life begins to soar in ways she’d never imagined.
As their bond deepens, a world of stories opens up: of wartime love and loss, of misunderstanding and reconciliation, of courage, kindness and joy.
The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse
An imposing, isolated hotel, high up in the Swiss Alps, is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But she’s taken time off from her job as a detective, so when she receives an invitation out of the blue to celebrate her estranged brother’s recent engagement, she has no choice but to accept. Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge. Though it’s beautiful, something about the hotel, recently converted from an abandoned sanatorium, makes her nervous – as does her brother, Isaac.
And when they wake the following morning to discover his fiancée Laure has vanished without a trace, Elin’s unease grows. With the storm cutting off access to and from the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic. But no-one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And she’s the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they’re all in . . .
Last One at The Party by Bethany Clift
It’s December 2023 and the world as we know it has ended. The human race has been wiped out by a virus called 6DM (‘Six Days Maximum’ – the longest you’ve got before your body destroys itself). But somehow, in London, one woman is still alive.
A woman who has spent her whole life compromising what she wants, hiding how she feels and desperately trying to fit in. A woman who is entirely unprepared to face a future on her own. Now, with only an abandoned golden retriever for company, she must travel through burning cities, avoiding rotting corpses and ravenous rats on a final journey to discover if she really is the last surviving person on earth.
The Smash-Up by Ali Benjamin
Life for Ethan and Zo used to be simple. Ethan co-founded a lucrative media start-up, and Zo was well on her way to becoming a successful filmmaker. Then they moved to a rural community for a little more tranquility–or so they thought.
When newfound political activism transforms Zo into a barely recognizable ball of outrage and #MeToo allegations rock his old firm, Ethan finds himself a misfit in his own life. Enter a houseguest who is young, fun, and not at all concerned with the real world, and Ethan is abruptly forced to question everything: his past, his future, his marriage, and what he values most.
Insatiable by Daisy Buchanan
Stuck in a dead-end job, broken-hearted, broke and estranged from her best friend: Violet’s life is nothing like she thought it would be. She wants more – better friends, better sex, a better job – and she wants it now. So, when Lottie – who looks like the woman Violet wants to be when she grows up – offers Violet the chance to join her exciting start-up, she bites.
Only it soon becomes clear that Lottie and her husband Simon are not only inviting Violet into their company, they are also inviting her into their lives. Seduced by their townhouse, their expensive candles and their Friday-night sex parties, Violet cannot tear herself away from Lottie, Simon or their friends. But is this really the more Violet yearns for? Will it grant her the satisfaction she is so desperately seeking?
The Night Hawks by Elly Griffiths
The Night Hawks, a group of metal detectorists, are searching for buried treasure when they find a body on the beach in North Norfolk. At first Nelson thinks that the dead man might be an asylum seeker but he turns out to be a local boy, Jem Taylor, recently released from prison.
Ruth is more interested in the treasure, a hoard of Bronze Age weapons. Nelson at first thinks that Taylor’s death is accidental drowning, but a second death suggests murder.
Everything is Beautiful by Eleanor Ray
When Amy Ashton’s world came crashing down twelve years ago, she started a collection. It began as a box filled with memories of happier times – an ashtray to remind herself of the boy she loved, a china bird, an aquamarine bottle, a Tuscan red pot. The objects that some might throw away, but to Amy represent a life that could have been.
Because, if there’s one thing life has taught her, it’s easier to love things than people. Now that box of memories has turned into a house overflowing with all her precious things. Soon there will be no room for Amy at all. But when a new family move in next door with two young boys, Amy’s carefully managed life starts to unravel, leading her to question whether the future she thought she’d lost might still be there for the taking.
Black Widows by Cate Quinn
The only thing the three women had in common was their husband. And, as of this morning, that they’re each accused of his murder. Blake Nelson moved into a hidden stretch of land – a raw paradise in the wilds of Utah – where he lived with his three wives: Rachel, the chief wife, obedient and doting to a fault. Tina, the other wife, who’s everything Rachel isn’t. And Emily, the youngest wife, who knows almost nothing else.
When their husband is found dead under the desert sun, the questions pile up. What are these women to each other now that their husband is dead? Will the police uncover the secrets each woman has spent her life hiding? And is one of them capable of murder…?
We Are Not In The World by Conor O’Callaghan
Heartbroken after a long, painful love affair, a man takes a job driving a haulage lorry through France. Travelling with him is a secret passenger – his daughter: twentysomething, unkempt, off the rails.
With a week on the road together, man and girl must attempt to restore themselves and each other, and to repair a relationship that is at once fiercely loving and deeply scarred. As the pair journey down the motorways and through the service stations of France, a devastating picture reveals itself.
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists – he a photographer, she a dancer – trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.
At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential British debut of recent years.
Make Yourself At Home by Ciara Geraghty
When Marianne’s carefully constructed life and marriage fall apart, she is forced to return to her childhood home, a ramshackle seaside mansion perched high on a cliff by the Irish Sea. There she must rebuild her relationship with her mother, Rita, a flamboyant artist and recovering alcoholic who lives by her own rules.
Marianne left home when she was fifteen following a traumatic and tragic incident. She never planned to return, and now she has to face the fact that some plans don’t work out the way you wanted them to. But she might just discover that, sometimes, you have to come to terms with the story of your past before you can work out the shape of the future…
Who Took Eden Mulligan? by Sharon Dempsey
Those are the words of Iona Gardener, who stands bloodied and staring as she confesses to the murder of four people in a run-down cottage outside of Belfast. Outside the cottage, five old dolls are hanging from a tree. Inside the cottage, the words “WHO TOOK EDEN MULLIGAN?” are graffitied on the wall, connecting the murder scene with the famous cold case of Eden Mulligan, a mother-of-five who went missing during The Troubles.
But this case is different. Right from the start. Because no one in the community is willing to tell the truth, and the only thing DI Danny Stowe and forensic psychologist Rose Lainey can be certain of is that Iona Gardener’s confession is false….
Find You First by Linwood Barclay
Tech billionaire Miles has more money than he can ever spend, and everything he could dream of – except time. Now facing a terminal illness, Miles knows he must seize every minute to put his life in order. And that means taking a long hard look at his past. Somewhere out there, Miles has children. And they might be about to inherit both the good and bad from him – possibly his fortune, or possibly something more deadly.
So Miles decides to track down his missing children. But a vicious killer is one step ahead of him. One by one, people are vanishing. Not just disappearing, every trace of them is wiped. It’s a deadly race against time…
The Jigsaw Manby Nadine Matheson
When body parts start washing up along the banks of the river Thames, the Serial Crimes Unit is called to investigate, and it quickly becomes apparent to DI Henley that there isn’t just one victim. There are two. The murders are hauntingly familiar to Henley. The modus operandi matches that of Peter Olivier, the notorious Jigsaw Killer. But Olivier is already behind bars, and Henley was the one who put him there.
Olivier is the last person Henley wants to see but she needs his help. He might be their best chance to stop the copycat before more body parts start turning up. But when Olivier learns of the new murders, helping out Henley and the SCU is the last thing on his mind. All bets are off and the race is on to catch the killer before the body count rises. But who will get there first – Henley or the Jigsaw Killer?
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily Danforth
1902, Brookhants School for Girls: students Flo and Clara are madly in love with each other, as well as completely obsessed with The Story of Mary MacLane, the scandalous debut memoir by 19 year old MacLane. A few months later they are found dead in the woods, after a horrific wasp attack, the book lying next to their intertwined bodies. Within five years the school is closed. But not before three more people die on the property, each in a troubling way.
Over a hundred years later, Brookhants opens its doors once more, when a crew of young actresses arrive to film a high-profile movie about the rumoured Brookhants curse. And as past and present become grimly entangled, it’s soon impossible to tell quite where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins…
March
The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Committed follows the unnamed Sympathizer as he arrives in Paris in the early 1980s with his blood brother Bon. The pair try to overcome their pasts and ensure their futures by engaging in capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing.
Traumatized by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, Man, and struggling to assimilate into French culture, the Sympathizer finds Paris both seductive and disturbing.
As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals whom he meets at dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese “aunt,” he finds stimulation for his mind but also customers for his narcotic merchandise. But the new life he is making has perils he has not foreseen, whether the self-torture of addiction, the authoritarianism of a state locked in a colonial mindset, or the seeming paradox of how to reunite his two closest friends whose worldviews put them in absolute opposition. The Sympathizer will need all his wits, resourcefulness, and moral flexibility if he is to prevail.
Bright Burning Things by Lisa Harding
Being Tommy’s mother is too much for Sonya. Too much love, too much fear, too much longing for the cool wine she gulps from the bottle each night. Because Sonya is burning the fish fingers, and driving too fast, and swimming too far from the shore, and Tommy’s life is in her hands.
Once there was the thrill of a London stage, a glowing acting career, fast cars, handsome men. But now there are blackouts and bare cupboards, and her estranged father showing up uninvited. There is Mrs O’Malley spying from across the road. There is the risk of losing Tommy – forever.
Body of Stars by Laura Maylene Walter
Like every woman, Celeste Morton holds a map of the future in her skin, every mole and freckle a clue to unlocking what will come to pass. With puberty comes the changeling period – when her final marks will appear and her future is decided. Changelings are sought after commodities and abduction is rife as men seek to possess these futures for themselves.
Celeste’s marks have always been closely entwined with her brother, Miles. Her skin holds a future only he, as a gifted interpreter, can read and he has always considered his sister his practice ground. But when Celeste’s marks change she learns a devastating secret about her brother’s future that she must keep to herself – and Miles is keeping a secret of his own.
The Split by Laura Kay
Brutally dumped by her girlfriend, Ally is homeless, friendless and jobless. Wounded and betrayed, Ally has made off with the one thing she thinks might soothe the pain: Emily’s cat. After a long train journey she arrives home to her dad in Sheffield, ready to fold herself up in her duvet and remain on the sofa for the foreseeable. Her dad has other ideas.
A phone call later, and Ally is reunited with her first ever beard and friend of old, Jeremy. He too is broken-hearted and living at home again. In an inspired effort to hold each other up, the pair decide to sign up for the local half marathon in a bid to impress their exes with their commitment and athleticism. Given neither of them can run, they enlist the support of athletic, not to mention beautiful, Jo. But will she have them running for the hills… or will their ridiculous plan pay off…?
Good Eggs by Rebecca Hardiman
Meet the Gogartys; cantankerous gran Millie (whose eccentricities include a penchant for petty-theft and reckless driving); bitter downtrodden son Kevin (erstwhile journalist whose stay-at-home parenting is pushing him to the brink); and habitually moody, disaffected teenage daughter Aideen.
When Gran’s arrested yet again for shoplifting, Aideen’s rebelliousness has reached new heights and Kevin’s still not found work, he realises he needs to take action.
With the appointment of a home carer for his mother, his daughter sent away to boarding school to focus on her studies and more time for him to reboot his job-hunt, surely everything will work out just fine. But as the story unfolds – and in the way of all the best families – nothing goes according to plan and as the calm starts to descend into chaos we’re taken on a hilarious multiple-perspective roller-coaster ride that is as relatable as it is far-fetched.
The Favour by Laura Vaughn
When she was thirteen years old, Ada Howell lost not just her father, but the life she felt she was destined to lead. Now, at eighteen, Ada is given a second chance when her wealthy godmother gifts her with an extravagant art history trip to Italy. In the palazzos of Venice, the cathedrals of Florence and the villas of Rome, she finally finds herself among the kind of people she aspires to be: sophisticated, cultured, privileged.
Ada does everything in her power to prove she is one of them. And when a member of the group dies in suspicious circumstances, she seizes the opportunity to permanently bind herself to this gilded set. But everything hidden must eventually surface, and when it does, Ada discovers she’s been keeping a far darker secret than she could ever have imagined…
Win by Harlan Coben
On New York’s Upper West Side, a recluse is found murdered in his penthouse apartment, alongside two objects of note: a stolen Vermeer painting and a leather suitcase bearing the initials WHL3. For the first time in years, the authorities have a lead not only on Patricia’s kidnapping but also on another FBI cold case – with the suitcase and painting both pointing them towards one man.
Windsor Horne Lockwood III – or Win as his few friends call him – doesn’t know how his suitcase and his family’s stolen painting ended up in this dead man’s apartment. But he’s interested – especially when the FBI tell him that the man who kidnapped his cousin was also behind an act of domestic terrorism, and that he may still be at large. The two cases have baffled the FBI for decades. But Win has three things the FBI does not:: a personal connection to the case, a large fortune, and his own unique brand of justice …
Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka
Five killers find themselves on a bullet train from Tokyo competing for a suitcase full of money. Who will make it to the last station? Satoshi looks like an innocent schoolboy but he is really a viciously cunning psychopath. Kimura’s young son is in a coma thanks to him, and Kimura has tracked him onto the bullet train heading from Tokyo to Morioka to exact his revenge.
But Kimura soon discovers that they are not the only dangerous passengers onboard. Nanao, the self-proclaimed ‘unluckiest assassin in the world’, and the deadly partnership of Tangerine and Lemon are also travelling to Morioka. A suitcase full of money leads others to show their hands. Why are they all on the same train, and who will get off alive at the last station?
Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan
Love was the final consolation, would set ablaze the fields of my life in one go, leaving nothing behind. I thought of it as a force which would clean me and by its presence make me worthy of it. There was no religion in my life after early childhood, and a great faith in love was what I had cultivated instead. Oh, don’t laugh at me for this, for being a woman who says this to you. I hear myself speak.
Even now, even after all that took place between us, I can still feel how moved I am by him. Ciaran was that downy, darkening blond of a baby just leaving its infancy. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. None of it mattered in the end; what he looked like, who he was, the things he would do to me. To make a beautiful man love and live with me had seemed – obviously, intuitively – the entire point of life. My need was greater than reality, stronger than the truth, more savage than either of us would eventually bear. How could it be true that a woman like me could need a man’s love to feel like a person, to feel that I was worthy of life? And what would happen when I finally wore him down and took it?
Redder Days by Sue Rainsford
Twins Anna and Adam live in an abandoned commune in a volatile landscape where they prepare for the world-ending event they believe is imminent. Adam keeps watch by day, Anna by night. They meet at dawn and dusk.
Their only companion is Koan, the commune’s former leader who still exerts a malignant control over their daily rituals. But when one of the previous inhabitants returns, everything Anna and Adam thought they knew to be true is thrown into question
The Girl in the Walls by A.J. Gnuse
Elise knows every inch of the house. She knows which boards will creak. She knows where the gaps are in the walls. She knows which parts can take her in, hide her away. It’s home, after all. The home her parents made for her. And home is where you stay, no matter what.
Eddie calls the same house his home. Eddie is almost a teenager now. He must no longer believe in the girl he sometimes sees from the corner of his eye. He needs her to disappear. But when his older brother senses her, too, they are faced with a question: how do they get rid of someone they aren’t sure even exists? And, if they cast her out, what other threats might they invite in?
April
Watch Her Fall by Erin Kelly
Ava Kirilova has reached the very top of her profession. After years and years of hard graft, pain and sacrifice as part of the London Russian Ballet Company, allowing nothing else to distract her, she is finally the poster girl for Swan Lake.
Even Mr K – her father, and the intense, terrifying director of the company – can find no fault. Ava has pushed herself ahead of countless other talented, hardworking girls, and they are all watching her now. But there is someone who really wants to see Ava fall…
Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner
When Helen, finally pregnant after years of tragedy, attends her first antenatal class, she is expecting her loving architect husband to arrive soon after, along with her confident, charming brother Rory and his pregnant wife, the effortlessly beautiful Serena. What she is not expecting is Rachel.
Extroverted, brash, unsettling single mother-to-be Rachel, who just wants to be Helen’s friend. Who just wants to get know Helen and her friends and her family. Who just wants to know everything about them. Every little secret…
The Heartbreak Club by Eva Woods
Caroline’s heart broke when her husband took his own life. Josh’s heart broke when his wife was killed in an accident. And somehow, talking to a group of strangers once a week doesn’t seem to be helping either of them. Until Sylvia arrives. When she lost her own partner two years ago, she fell apart and had to put herself back together.
Most of all she wished for the help of someone who’d been through it already. And now she’s here to pass her handbook on to those who need it most. The problem is, following Sylvia’s rules means looking to the future. And Caroline and Josh each need some answers from their past before they can even think about that…
Listening Still by Anne Griffin
Jeanie Masterson has a gift: she can hear the last words of the dead. Passed down from generation to generation, this gift means she is able to make wrongs right, to give voice to unspoken love and dying regrets. She and her father have worked happily alongside each other for years, but now he’s unexpectedly announced that he wants to retire early and leave the business to her and her life is called into question.
Does she really want to be married to the embalmer, or does she want to be with her childhood sweetheart, off in London? Does she want to have children, and pass this gift on to them? And does she want to be stuck in this small town, or is there more of the world she wants to see – like the South of France, where she’s discovered a woman who shares her gift? Tied to her home by this unusual talent, she begins to question: what if what she’s always thought of as a gift is a curse?
Other Women by Cathy Kelly
Three women. Three secrets. Three tangled lives…Sid wears her independence like armour. So when she strikes up a rare connection with unlucky-in-love Finn, they are both determined to prove that men and women can just be friends. Can’t they?
Marin has the perfect home, attentive husband, two beloved children – and a secret addiction to designer clothes. She knows she has it all, so why can’t she stop comparing herself to other women? Bea believes that we all have one love story – and she’s had hers. Now her life centres around her son, Luke, and her support group of fierce single women. But there’s something that she can’t tell anyone…
The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary
Addie and her sister are about to embark on an epic road trip to a friend’s wedding in rural Scotland. The playlist is all planned and the snacks are packed. But, not long after setting off, a car slams into the back of theirs. The driver is none other than Addie’s ex, Dylan, who she’s avoided since their traumatic break-up two years earlier.
Dylan and his best mate are heading to the wedding too, and they’ve totalled their car, so Addie has no choice but to offer them a ride. The car is soon jam-packed full of luggage and secrets, and with four hundred miles ahead of them, Dylan and Addie can’t avoid confronting the very messy history of their relationship… Will they make it to the wedding on time? And, more importantly… is this really the end of the road for Addie and Dylan?
Tall Bones by Anna Bailey
When 17-year-old Abigail goes missing, her best friend Emma, driven by the guilt of leaving her alone at the Tall Bones party that night, sets out to find the truth about what happened. As the details unfold, fear and rage surface. Nobody is left unscathed. The festering secrets and longstanding resentment of Abigail’s family and the whole community of Whispering Ridge, Colorado begin to surface with devastating consequences.
Soon to emerge is Abi’s older brother Noah’s unworldly yet potentially dangerous love for the handsome Rat, a Romanian immigrant who recently entered town, the provenance of her 12-year-old brother Jude’s fragility – he walks with a stick because his father threw him down the stairs while their mother Dolly turned away. How culpable is Dolly, who married the bible-bashing Samuel on a whim, and now has a frozen heart and watches her children unravel? And overshadowing them an overpowering pastor who incites hatred, filling his congregation with tales of fire and brimstone.
The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird
Glasgow, 2025. Dr Amanda Maclean is called to treat a patient with flu-like symptoms. Within three hours he is dead. This is how it begins. The unknown virus sweeps through the hospital with deadly speed. The victims are all men.
Dr Maclean raises the alarm. But by the time the authorities listen to her, the virus has spread to every corner of the world. Threatening families. Governments. Countries. Can they find a cure before it’s too late? Can they stop the end of men?
The Promise by Emma Heatherington
One terrible moment changes everything for teenagers Kate and Noah. Brought together during the darkest of times, a spark of hope is ignited between them. A hand held in the darkness, a promise whispered.
But it’s another ten years before Noah and Kate meet again and their lives are now so different. The promise they made to each other on that fateful day still binds them, but they now have so much more to lose. Can they risk it all for a chance to be together…and will their love survive?
The Inverts by Crystal Jeans
Bettina and Bart have grown up as best friends, so surely they will end up together? After all, Bettina is young, rich, headstrong…. and gay. Bart is young, rich, charismatic… and also, definitely, gay. Any doubts are dispelled by, in short order: that ghastly kiss; a torrid encounter for Bettina in the school boiler-rooms; and an eye-opening Parisian visit for Bart.
Society will never stand for it. What else can they do but enter into a ‘lavender marriage’ and carry on indulging their true natures in secret? As the ’20s and ’30s whizz past in a haze of cigarettes, champagne and casual sex, Bart and Bettina have no idea that they are hurtling, via Hollywood and Egypt, Paris and London, towards tragedy and bloodshed…
Her Last Holiday by C. L. Taylor
Two years ago, Fran’s sister Jenna disappeared on a wellness retreat in Gozo that went terribly wrong. Tom Wade, the now infamous man behind Soul Shrink Retreats, has just been released from prison after serving his sentence for the deaths of 2 people. But he has never let on what happened to the third suspected victim: Jenna.
Determined to find out the truth, Fran books herself onto his upcoming retreat – the first since his release – and finds herself face to face with the man who might hold the key to her sister’s disappearance. The only question is, will she escape the retreat alive? Or does someone out there want Jenna’s secrets to stay hidden?
Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone
No. 36 Westeryk Road, an imposing flat-stone house on the outskirts of Edinburgh. A house of curving shadows and crumbling grandeur. But it’s what lies under the house that is extraordinary – Mirrorland. A vivid make-believe world that twin sisters Cat and El created as children. A place of escape, but from what?
Now in her thirties, Cat receives the shocking news that her sister has disappeared. Forced to return to Edinburgh, Cat finds herself irresistibly drawn back into Mirrorland. Because El has a plan. She’s left behind a treasure hunt that will unearth long- buried secrets…
The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn
When Ambrosia first arrives at prestigious college Wesleyan, she’s desperate to fit in. But Amb struggles to navigate the rules of this strange, elite world, filled with privileged ‘nice’ young women – until she meets the charismatic but troubled Sully, with whom she forms an obsessive friendship.
Intoxicated by Sully’s charm and determined to impress her, Amb finds herself drawn deep into her new best friend’s dangerous manipulations. But if she wants to play Sully at her own game, Amb has no idea just how devastating the consequences will be…
The Hard Crowd by Rachel Kushner
In her twenties Rachel Kushner went to Mexico in pursuit of her first love – motorbikes – to compete in the notorious and deadly race, Cabo 1000. As fellow racers died on the roadside, bikes were stolen and friends abandoned one another in the heat of the chase, she crashed at 80mph and miraculously survived; soon after, she decided to leave her controlling boyfriend and manoeuvred her way into a freer new life.
The Ends of the Earth by Abbie Greaves
Mary O’Connor has been keeping a vigil for her first love for the past seven years. Every evening without fail, Mary arrives at Ealing Broadway station and sets herself up among the commuters. In her hands Mary holds a sign which bears the words: ‘Come Home Jim.’
Call her mad, call her a nuisance, call her a drain on society – Mary isn’t going anywhere. That is, until an unexpected call turns her world on its head. In spite of all her efforts, Mary can no longer find the strength to hold herself together. She must finally face what happened all those years ago, and answer the question – where on earth is Jim?
The Summer Job by Lizzy Dent
Have you ever imagined running away from your life? Well Birdy Finch didn’t just imagine it. She did it. Which might’ve been an error. And the life she’s run into? Her best friend, Heather’s. The only problem is, she hasn’t told Heather. Actually there are a few other problems…
Can Birdy carry off a summer at a luxury Scottish hotel pretending to be her best friend (who incidentally is a world-class wine expert)? And can she stop herself from falling for the first man she’s ever actually liked (but who thinks she’s someone else)?
May
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.
But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train. Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.
The Summer We Were Friends by Fiona O’Brien
When an elderly American gentleman turns up in the sleepy seaside village of Derrybegs unable to remember his name or where he came from, the locals join together to try to help him.
But as visitors to the village arrive for the annual film festival, tensions mount. Will everyone be able to put aside their differences to help their new friend find his way back home?
The Perfect Lie by Jo Spain
Five years ago, Erin Kennedy moved to New York following a family tragedy. She now lives happily with her detective husband in the scenic seaside town of Newport, Long Island. When Erin answers the door to Danny’s police colleagues one morning, it’s the start of an ordinary day. But behind her, Danny walks to the window of their fourth-floor apartment and jumps to his death.
Eighteen months later, Erin is in court, charged with her husband’s murder. Over that year and a half, Erin has learned things about Danny she could never have imagined. She thought he was perfect. She thought their life was perfect. But it was all built on the perfect lie.
The Rules of Revelation by Lisa McInerney
Ireland’s having an identity crisis, rent’s through the roof, and Cork is producing a profligate number of poets. A band called Lord Urchin bursts onto the scene with an insufferable mission statement, and four strangers have their lives turned inside-out. Mel comes back to Cork from Brexit Britain, ill- equipped to deal with the resurgence of a family scandal.
Eleventh-hour revolutionary Maureen won’t stop until she’s rewritten her city’s history. Former sex worker Georgie is urged to tell her story by a journalist with her own agenda. And Karine prepares for her ex-boyfriend’s return, knowing that he’s going to warp all around him . . . and that she’s going to help him do it. This is a novel about art and its relationship to class and transgression, about trauma, gender, obsession and love. And about great nationalists, bad mothers, and a debut album that might drive the whole of Ireland mad.
Mother Mother by Annie MacManus
Mary McConnell grew up longing for information about the mother she never knew, who died suddenly when Mary was only a baby. Her brother Sean was barely old enough to remember, and their father numbed his pain with drink.
Now aged thirty-five, Mary has lived in the same house her whole life. She’s never left Belfast. She has a son, TJ, who’s about to turn eighteen, and is itching to see more of the world. One Saturday morning, TJ wakes up to find his mother gone. He doesn’t know where – or why – but he’s the only one who can help find her.
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Malibu: August, 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over-especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva.
The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the centre of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud-because it is long past time to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth. Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there. And Kit has a couple secrets of her own-including a guest she invited without consulting anyone. By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come bubbling to the surface.
Diving for Pearls by Jamie O’Connell
A young Irish man comes to stay with his sister, keen to erase his troubled past in the heat of the Dubai sun. A Russian sex worker has outsmarted the system so far – but will her luck run out? A Pakistani taxi driver dreams of a future for his daughters. An Emirate man hides the truth about who he really is. An Ethiopian maid tries to carve out a path of her own. From every corner of the globe, Dubai has made promises to them all.
Promises of gilded opportunities and bright new horizons, the chance to forget the past and protect long-held secrets. But Dubai breaks its promises, with deadly consequences. In a city of mirages, how do you find your way out?
The Killing Kind by Jane Casey
One rainy morning, Ingrid, a high-profile barrister, lends her brightly coloured umbrella to a colleague. Shortly afterwards, the colleague is run down on a busy London road. Was it an accident? Or murder?
Ingrid is devastated by her colleague’s death, but also terrified that she could have been the intended victim. And her mind instantly turns to John Webster – a man Ingrid initially defended against a charge of harassment, but who then began stalking Ingrid herself. Ingrid’s fears are confirmed when Webster follows her home one day – he has clearly decided to destroy her for good. But Webster claims he is protecting Ingrid. Who can Ingrid trust? What is real and what is she imagining? And will she escape with her life?
The Moon Over Kilmore Quay by Carmel Harrington
Living in Brooklyn, in a tight-knit Irish community, Bea O’Connor has it all – a loving family, great friends and a boyfriend she believes she could grow old with. So why does she feel so lost and unsure? Only a letter, written over a decade ago, can give her the answers she’s unknowingly looked for all her life.
Years earlier, with her sister Maeve by her side, Lucy Mernagh leaves her home in Ireland in search of adventure and the New York dream. But the busy streets of the Big Apple are a world away from the quiet village she grew up in, and the longing for home aches deep within her. Until she learns that opportunity lies around every street corner and just maybe this city – and one of its occupants – will steal her heart if she lets them…
Version Zero by David Yoon
Max is fortunate enough to be employed by Wren, the world’s most powerful social media company. He works in a sprawling campus made of glass on a project so secret he can tell no one about it. But one day he discovers something sinister going on beneath the surface of the company. A terrible secret that makes him rethink not only his work but also the true consequences of modern technology.
When Max is fired from Wren for asking the wrong questions, he joins up with his two best friends to form Version Zero, a top-secret group with a simple goal: break the internet and build something better and kinder in its place…
June
Sleepless by Romy Hausmann
It’s been years since Nadja Kulka was convicted of a cruel crime. After being released from prison, she’s wanted nothing more than to live a normal life: nice flat, steady job, even a few friends. But when one of those friends, Laura von Hoven – free-spirited beauty and wife of Nadja’s boss – kills her lover and begs Nadja for her help, Nadja can’t seem to be able to refuse.
The two women make for a remote house in the woods, the perfect place to bury a body. But their plan quickly falls apart and Nadja finds herself outplayed, a pawn in a bizarre game in which she is both the perfect victim and the perfect murderer . . .
The Murder of Graham Catton by Katie Lowe
Everyone says Graham Catton was the perfect husband, professor and father. So why would someone want to murder him? His wife, Hannah, tells the police that she remembers nothing from the night of the murder — and why would she lie?
Evidence against the accused, Mike Philips, is minimal and he protests his innocence throughout the trial. Why would they convict him? Journalist Anna Byers has overturned numerous prison sentences with her popular podcast CONVICTION and she believes the wrong man is behind bars. What will she do to help him?
The First Day of Spring by Nancy Tucker
Chrissie knows how to steal sweets from the shop without getting caught, the best hiding place for hide-and-seek, the perfect wall for handstands. Now she has a new secret. It gives her a fizzing, sherbet feeling in her belly. She doesn’t get to feel power like this at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer. As the fallout from the crime sweeps through her neighbourhood, Chrissie’s circumstances are illuminated – a hand-to-mouth existence where food is scarce and attention scarcer.
Fifteen years later, Julia is working in a fish and chip shop and trying to mother her five-year-old daughter, Molly. She is always worried – about affording food and school shoes, about what the other mothers think of her. Most of all she worries that the social services are about to take Molly away. That’s when the phone calls begin. Julia is too afraid to answer, because it’s clear the caller knows the truth. Julia wants to give Molly the childhood she was denied, and that means leaving Chrissie in the past. But Chrissie doesn’t want to be left behind.
Hostage by Clare Mackintosh
The atmosphere on board the inaugural non-stop flight from London to Sydney is electric. Numerous celebrities are rumoured to be among the passengers in business class and journalists will be waiting on the ground to greet the plane. Mina is one of a hand-picked team of flight attendants chosen for the landmark journey. She’s trying to focus on the task in hand, and not worry about her troubled five-year-old daughter back at home with her husband. Or the cataclysmic problems in her marriage.
But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination. Someone who needs Mina’s assistance and who knows exactly how to make her comply.
The Other Black Girl by by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only black girl at Wagner Books, so she is excited when Hazel starts working there. But a series of events cause Nella to become Public Enemy Number One and Hazel, the Office Darling.
And then the notes start to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW. When Nella begins to uncover the sinister forces at play, she risks losing much, much more than her career.
I Know What I Saw by Imran Mahmood
I saw it. He smothered her, pressing his hands on her face. The police don’t believe me, they say it’s impossible – but I know what I saw. This is Xander Shute: once a wealthy banker, now living on the streets. As he shelters for the night in an empty Mayfair flat, he hears its occupants returning home, and scrambles to hide as the couple argue.
Trapped in his hiding place, he soon finds himself witnessing a vicious murder. But who was the dead woman, who the police later tell him can’t have been there? And why is the man Xander saw her with evading justice? As Xander searches for answers, his memory of the crime comes under scrutiny, forcing him to confront his long-buried past and the stories he’s told about himself. How much he is willing to risk to understand the brutal truth?
This Eden by Ed O’Loughlin
Michael is out of his depth. The closest he ever came to working in tech was when he rode a delivery bike for a food app in Vancouver. Yet when his coder girlfriend dies, he is inexplicably headhunted by sinister tech mogul Campbell Fess, who transplants him to Silicon Valley.
There, a reluctant female spy named Aoife lures him into the hands of Towse, an enigmatic war-gamer, who tricks them both into joining his quest to save the world, and reality itself, from the deadliest weapon ever invented. Hunted by government agents and corporate goons, manipulated at every turn by the philosophising Towse, Aoife and Michael find themselves in an intercontinental chase which will take them from California to New York, from the forests of Uganda to Jerusalem, Gaza, Alexandria and Paris, and to a final showdown with the truth in Aoife’s native Ireland.
The Year of Lost and Found by Felicity Hayes-McCoy
Local librarian Hanna Casey is gathering material for an exhibition on Ireland’s War of Independence. But with an increasingly demanding mother, a boss who’s a ruthless self-publicist, and her own family story of love and revenge, Hanna’s personal life begins to conflict with her work at Lissbeg library.
Meanwhile, twenty-one-year-old Aideen, who’s just had her first baby, is convinced that she needs to find her own dad, whom she’s never known. When old wounds are opened in the little clifftop house left to Hanna by her Great Aunt Maggie, it become clear that history is never just about the past. And, as Aideen and Hanna discover, with help, as ever, from Fury O’Shea and The Divil, happiness is about choosing to live in the present.
The Husbands by Chandler Baker
Recently, Nora has started to feel that ‘having it all’ – a family, a soon-to-be-new house, a successful career in law – comes with a price, one her husband doesn’t seem to be paying quite so heavily. Then her house-hunting takes them to an affluent suburban neighbourhood and Nora’s eyes are opened to a new world.
One where women can have it all. One where the men actually pull their weight. But a wrongful death case involving one of the local residents draws Nora further into this perfect world and she begins to realise that the secret of ‘having it all’ is far more complicated than she could ever have imagined. In fact, it’s worth killing for…
Where The Grass Is Green by Lauren Weisberger
Sisters Peyton and Skye Marcus are different through and through – Peyton has a dream job as a news anchor on one of New York’s big breakfast shows, while Skye is a chilled, stay-at-home mum who has left NYC for the suburbs – even though the suburb in question is Scarsdale, home to Fifth Avenue boutiques and people who fly private.
But when the breaking news is suddenly about Peyton, rather than read by her, and her husband is arrested as part of a college admissions scandal, she and her daughter Max need a place to escape to. Just temporarily, while they fix the optics. Where better than a summer in Scarsdale, near Skye – whose own long-held dream project, to support NY city children, is looking shaky. Skye could do with some sisterly support. Until the shockwaves from Isaac Marcus’s arrest start to affect them all. But a sister is the one person who knows all your secrets – right?
