Left on the Shelf

I am very excited to be bringing you an extract from The Maternal Element by Kate Nicholls. I love books which feature forgotten women and t...

PC Connor Chantree was afraid he'd already ruined everything and was about to be sent abruptly on his way... *** It has recently come to...

  A long long time ago, when I was a little chick, not even a chick but a pink and naked thing, a scar a scrap a scrape fallen on roots and ...

  With a sense of expectation and a tinge of dread, Marina Keeve opens up her email inbox and sips at the palliative flat white by her side....

  I have asked Eileen to refrain from humming. In order to read the article in the Scots Times, I require absolute peace and quiet. Now sile...

  Dear Diary Am I actually still alive? Would you tell me if I wasn't? I guess I am writing this, so I must be. Sort of. But you wouldn...

  Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope looked up from the teenager's scrawl. "It's got today's date. Chloe must have written i...

  The stars were hidden at my birth. There was no moon. A tempest rising in the west sent clouds that settled like a veil of black across th...

  Despite the years, her handwriting remains unchanged: big loops, rounded forms and circles for dots. I smile, then tut. She's put Sydn...

What elusive quality is it that propels people into the centre of things? My mother, Celia Paget, and her identical twin sister Mamaine seem...

  Four weeks ago, a man died. He fell - out in the wildest part of the grounds where the nettles are, where ivy and bindweed have climbed up...