Although December is almost here, it is still very autumnal in my part of the universe. Whilst the header photo is very wintry, I felt compelled to include it here as it is so beautiful.
It is a perfect time to snuggle up with a good book, and here are ten brand new releases which have caught my eye.
However, the eagle eyed amongst you will notice that their are no festive books included in this list. Fear not, I will be publishing a dedicated list later this week, so watch this space.
When sound designer Su, a divorced mother of one daughter, falls in love with Jeremy, a widowed father of two sons, they want to build a new life together. As neither of their houses in Worcester is big enough for a family of five, they decide to build a dream home in farmland outside the city.
For Su, it's an opportunity to heal the past wounds of betrayal and loss, while failed entrepreneur Jeremy sees a chance to finally impress his overbearing father. But with financial misjudgements, secret transgressions and lies creating cracks where this new family attempt to blend into one, will they ever be able to cement their 'happily ever after'?
A sharp, addictive psychological drama, The Sound of It explores the complexities of parenting in a blended family - especially when expectations are high, dreams are big, and the Internet is a very dangerous place indeed.
Greta Plank, resident librarian in the small, lakeside town of Larkspur, Wisconsin, prefers her rose-tinted glasses extra rosy, thank you very much. Ever since a family tragedy landed her in Larkspur, she’s kept a happy-or-bust outlook. But Greta’s cheery resolve takes a hit when she finds the town recluse dead at the base of the stairs leading from his deck to the lake. What she assumes is a terrible accident Greta soon learns is something more sinister, and to make matters worse, new-to-town Detective Mark McHenry cites her as not only his primary source for the case, but his top suspect.
To clear her name and return to life as she knew it before the murder, Greta decides to do some clue cataloging of her own. After all, she’s got her master’s degree in library science with an emphasis in research methodology…how hard could a criminal investigation be? With the help of her fellow librarians and her lawyer mom, Greta begins checking out the pages of the murder, uncovering details about the recluse’s rare book collection and Larkspur’s real estate market as she tries to understand why anyone would have authored his death.
But with friends and neighbors stacking up as both victims and suspects, Greta must cross-reference the facts and put a hold on her idyllic worldview if she wants to get the full story without paying the fine of her life.
Yaga lives deep in the Russian forest, tending to any that call upon her for her healing potions and vast wisdom.
She has been alone for centuries, with only her beloved animals for company. But, when Tsaritsa Anastasia, wife of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, shows up at Yaga’s cottage on the brink of death, Yaga is compelled to travel with her to Moscow to keep her safe.
However, the Russia Yaga sees as she makes her journey to the heart of the
country is one on the brink of chaos. Tsar Ivan – soon to become Ivan the Terrible – grows more volatile and tyrannical by the day, and Yaga believes the tsaritsa is being poisoned by an unknown enemy. But what Yaga cannot know is that Ivan is being manipulated by powers far older and more fearsome than anyone can imagine.
Set in sixteenth-century Russia, The Witch and the Tsar upends the stories we know of Baba Yaga as the bony-legged witch of Slavic fairy tales and the stuff of nightmares. For beyond the rumours of her iron nose, fangs for teeth, and house on chicken legs, is the story of a woman so wise and strong that she has to be cloaked in lies to hide her true power.
A spellbinding literary journey of murder, mayhem, blackmail and infamy.
A Hungarian Countess allegedly bathes in the blood of her victims; a pair of female pirates outfight the rest of the crew; a Roman Empress has several senators and members of her family killed so that she can fulfil her sexual desires. These are just four of the thirty-six Wicked Women of Yore who 'star' in these pages.
This book explores how women such as Ilsa Koch, the bestial Nazi concentration camp commander, Bonnie (of Bonnie and Clyde), 'Princess Caraboo' and Queen Isabella, the 'She-Wolf of France,' murdered, conned and blackmailed their way into history and infamy. The author also imagines the conversations they might have had, as he describes the scenes of their crimes.
D. Lawrence-Young has written over twenty historical novels. In this companion volume to his Villains of Yore, this book will open your eyes to the fact that the fairer sex was not always so fair in the past. From now on you will look at women, young and old, beautiful and ugly, in a completely new and different light.
Beatrice is good at pretending.
Insulated from societal mores by her glamorous mother and humble father, six-year-old Beatrice-barefoot in ratty overalls-tunes into animals, senses the unspoken, and thrives. But when tragedy penetrates their rural Vermont bubble, Beatrice is thrust into a world that tells her she has no place unless she hides her depth, pretties up, and falls in line. She complies.
Years later in San Francisco, incongruities in Beatrice's life abound. What's real is hidden. What's false is celebrated. She numbs and sidesteps and, despite inner warnings, artfully outruns thoughts of her family, the girl she once was, and the woman she pretends to be. But when a cascade of events steers her back to her childhood home, a discovery in a rundown barn quiets her. In the still point, she sees her crossroads: should she carry on the known path or step into uncertainty? Her future rests on her interpretation of change. Anxiety and loss. Or hope and renewal. She must decide who she is.
In beautiful, spare prose, The Wisdom of Winter explores the tenacity of misbeliefs, the magic in forgiveness, and the artistry of the natural world in healing the past.
The Charity Shop Detective Agency by Peter Boland
PUT THE KETTLE ON AND DISCOVER AN UTTERLY CHARMING NEW COZY MURDER MYSTERY SET IN A SLEEPY SEASIDE TOWN.
A serial killer is stalking the elderly of Southbourne. The only clue left behind is a domino in the hand of each victim — with a name scratched on the back.
Eighty-six-year-old Sarah Brown is found dead in her hallway one morning by her delivery man. She was stabbed in the back.
Fiona, Sue and Daisy, volunteers at the local charity shop, Dogs Need Nice Homes, can’t believe their favourite customer is dead. The ladies vow to bring the killer to justice.
With plenty of tea and cake along the way, and despite squabbles with their rivals, the Cats Alliance across the street, the Charity Shop Detective Agency is born.
Fans of The Thursday Murder Club, Janice Hallett, Simon Brett, Ian Moore and Sarah Yarwood-Lovett will adore this exciting new voice in cozy crime.
THE DETECTIVE
Level-headed Fiona has found a quiet sanctuary volunteering at the local charity shop, Dogs Need Nice Homes. And she’s found firm friendship with the strong-willed Partial Sue (she’s ever so partial to a cup of tea) and the kindly — and surprisingly tech-savvy — Daisy. Together, these ladies, with Simon Le Bon, Fiona’s scruffy haired terrier cross, investigate murders as the utterly charming Charity Shop Detective Agency.
As dawn breaks on a chilly morning in November 1940, a car is found ablaze in an abandoned builder's yard a stone's throw from the Regent's Canal in Camden Town, north London. In the burnt-out vehicle police find the charred remains of a body. The victim is Les Latham, a commercial traveller for the Barings confectionery company. He liked to be known as Lucky Les, but it seems his luck has finally run out. DI John Jago discovers among Latham's belongings a mysterious photograph and some suspicious-looking petrol ration books that set Jago off on a murky trail of deceit, corruption and murder.
From the author of The Pilot’s Daughter and The Final Hunt comes a thrilling, suspense-driven mystery set in World War II-era Seattle.
Seattle, 1942. News of the war is interrupted by the kidnapping of young Max Ellis, heir to the wealthiest banking family on the west coast. When the boy’s parents comply with the ransom demands, the kidnapper is found dead and Max remains missing.
For newlywed Vera Chandler, the story hits close to home—her husband Hugh is just six months into his job as the Ellis’s private pilot. Within days, Hugh is deployed to the Pacific as a navy pilot, while Vera’s flying instructor and best friend joins the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. Left alone, her parents’ words haunt her: If you really wanted to serve your country, you wouldn’t have dropped out of nursing school.
In an exchange for a favor Vera can’t refuse, she is pulled into the Ellis family affairs by the desperate mother of the missing child. The Ellis family, Vera learns firsthand, is as dangerous as they are rich. Soon, she is in a race to save the child’s life, and it could be the only way she can save her own.
Callie has a great life, living in a ten-acre home in the Adirondacks with her husband, Abel. Their son is away at college and Callie, a writer, is content living a relatively secluded life.
Then Abel skids off the road into an icy lake. No one heard anything. No one saw anything.
But Abel is left in a coma in a Vermont hospital.
Things seem bad but they’re about to get even worse.
Now Callie is getting calls from a woman who claims to know more about the accident.
Callie is skeptical, though a few things do line up, and she’s always wondered why her husband was where he was at the time of the accident.
Then every spouse’s worst nightmare: police tell Callie her husband is a suspect in the disappearance of two teenage girls.
Callie will do whatever it takes to clear his name. But is she really ready for the truth about her husband . . . ?
Her Husband’s Lies is a twisty and utterly addictive thriller that will keep you turning pages. You won’t see the ending coming . . . !
Candles are lit and their rich vanilla scent twists its way through the cabin. The table is set for a romantic anniversary dinner with fresh roses dropping crimson petals on crisp white linen. But the woman seated at the table is cold to the touch, and there’s blood trickling down her neck…
When Denton’s most loved TV presenter returns home to find his wife dead at the dining table, it shatters the close-knit community. Beautiful and absolutely besotted with each other, Beau and Claudia Collins were idolized for being the perfect couple. But the devastating scene Detective Josie Quinn finds in their remote hideaway has her asking what dark secrets lurk beneath the surface of this seemingly flawless marriage?
Beau is grief-stricken by the loss of his kind-hearted wife who gave so much to others as a therapist, but Josie needs to know the significance of the small wooden puzzle box found clutched in Claudia’s hand. A prop in a popular game Beau played with his viewers to test the strength of their relationships, is it a twisted calling card, or a challenge from the killer?
The broken body of one of Beau and Claudia’s assistants is found the next day, a matching little box left in the dirt beside her. It’s clear that if Beau doesn’t start telling the truth about the flaws in his marriage, those dearest to him will die.
Caught in a cat and mouse chase with disturbing revelations and a mounting body count at every turn, Josie and her team work night and day to keep Beau’s loved ones safe. What kind of calculating monster would do this? A faded newspaper article about a tragic accident is the break Josie desperately needs. But she may already be too late, an innocent child is in danger…
