There are some gorgeous books being published during October. Here are just a few that have caught my eye.
Published on the 8th of October, these eight stories by Angelina Brasacchio are set amid the rugged scenery and white sand beaches of the Italian South. But this is the Italy, not as seen by tourists, but of the inhabitants deeply rooted in the soil of Calabria. We are drawn into their everyday lives and particularly their relationships with ‘outsiders’ whether gypsies, American soldiers blown in by the winds of war, or refugees fleeing their homelands because of persecution or poverty.
On the morning of Thursday 29 June 1682, a magpie came rasping, rapping and tapping at the window of a prosperous Devon merchant. Frightened by its appearance, his servants and members of his family had, within a matter of hours, convinced themselves that the bird was an emissary of the devil sent by witches to destroy the fabric of their lives. As the result of these allegations, three women of Bideford came to be forever defined as witches. A Secretary of State brushed aside their case and condemned them to the gallows; to hang as the last group of women to be executed in England for the crime. Yet, the hatred of their neighbours endured. For Bideford, it was said, was a place of witches.
Though 'pretty much worn away' the belief in witchcraft still lingered on for more than a century after their deaths. In turn, ignored, reviled, and extinguished but never more than half-forgotten, it seems that the memory of these three women - and of their deeds and sufferings, both real and imagined – was transformed from canker to regret, and from regret into celebration in our own age. Indeed, their example was cited during the final Parliamentary debates, in 1951, that saw the last of the witchcraft acts repealed, and their names were chanted, as both inspiration and incantation, by the women beyond the wire at Greenham Common.
In this book, John Callow explores this remarkable reversal of fate, and the remarkable tale of the Bideford Witches.
In London, the Metropolitan Police set up a new Unsolved Murders Unit – a cold case squad – to catch the criminals nobody else can.
In Geneva, millionaire art collector Miles Faulkner – convicted of forgery and theft – was pronounced dead two months ago. So why is his unscrupulous lawyer still representing a dead client?
On a luxury liner en route to New York, the battle for power within a wealthy dynasty is about to turn to murder.
And at the heart of all three investigations are Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick, rising star of the Met, and ex-undercover operative Ross Hogan, brought in from the cold.
But can they catch the killers before it’s too late?
It started with a letter. It ended with a love story.
A chance encounter during the holiday season brings two people together as quickly as it tears them apart--until fate intervenes again (and again) in this romantic debut novel in the tradition of One Day in December.
Every December, Josie posts a letter from her home in London to the parents she lost on Christmas night many years ago. Each year, she writes the same three words: Missing you, always. But this year, her annual trip to the postbox is knocked off course by a bicycle collision with a handsome stranger--a stranger who will change the course of Josie's life.
Josie always thought she was the only one who avoided the Christmas season, but this year, Max has his own reasons for doing the same—and coincidence leads them to spending the holiday together. Aglow with new love, Josie thinks this might be the start of something special.
Only for Max to disappear without saying goodbye.
Over the course of the next year, Max and Josie will find that fate continues to bring them together in places they'd never expect. New York City. Edinburgh. The quiet English countryside. And it turns out, Max had every reason to leave and every reason to stay. But what does fate hold for Josie and Max as Christmas approaches again?
A devastating, romantic, life-affirming love story, Always, in December will stay with readers long after they've finished the last page.
One dinner party will destroy everything.
The night that throws a wrecking ball into Abby’s life starts out perfectly at first. There’s still a hint of summer sun in the purple-streaked sky. Abby and her best friend, Sienna, look on fondly as their two husbands laugh under the garden gazebo. None of them know it’s the last time they will be together again.
What starts out as just a little fun, has devastating consequences for the couples. Alone with Sienna’s husband, Greg, Abby finds him unexpectedly charming. And something happens that night that neither she nor Greg can take back.
Abby is desperate to tell her husband and Sienna the truth, but can’t risk Greg sharing what he knows about her. She has no choice but to keep quiet. Then Greg suddenly disappears.
Is her best friend’s husband simply running from his secrets? Or has someone decided they can’t risk that he may share theirs?
The most gripping and twisty psychological thriller you’ll read this year from #1 bestseller Kathryn Croft. Perfect for readers who loved Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train.
Orphaned at a young age and witness to her brother’s decline into addiction, Nora Martinez has every excuse to question the fairness of life. Instead, the openhearted librarian in the small Colorado community of Silver Ridge sees only promise. She holds on to the hope that she’ll be reunited with her missing brother and does what she can at the town library. It’s her home away from home, but it’s also a sanctuary for others who, like her brother, could use a second chance.
There’s Marlene, an elderly loner who believes that, apart from her husband, there’s little good left in the world; Jasmine, a troubled teen; Lewis, a homeless man with lost hope and one last wish; and Vlado, the security guard who loves a good book and, from afar, Nora.
As a winter storm buries Silver Ridge, this collection of lonely hearts takes shelter in the library. They’ll discover more about each other, and themselves, than they ever knew—and Nora will be forced to question her brother’s disappearance in ways she never could have imagined. No matter how stranded in life they feel, this fateful night could be the new beginning they didn’t think was possible.
Maria Branwell has spent 200 years in the shadow of her extraordinary children, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. Now the first biography of Mrs Brontë appears as a beautiful bicentenary paperback edition in October 2021, with a commissioned portrait of Maria at 38 based on the only two existing images in the Brontë Collection.
Sharon Wright’s critically-acclaimed biography reveals Maria’s fascinating life as a Regency gentlewoman who went looking for an adventure and found one. A sudden passion and whirlwind love affair led to the birth of the most gifted literary siblings the world has ever known. From a wealthy home in Penzance, Maria was a contemporary of Jane Austen and enjoyed the social status of a prominent family with secrets. So how did Maria fall for the penniless curate she called ‘My Dear Saucy Pat’ hundreds of miles from the home she loved? And what adventures lead lover Patrick Brontë to their fateful meeting in Yorkshire? What family scandals did Maria leave behind in Cornwall? How did wealthy and independent Miss Branwell of balmy Penzance adjust to life as Mrs Brontë in Yorkshire during the industrial revolution? And what was her enduring legacy in the lives of those world famous daughters and troubled son?
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