Literature & Fiction

In her role at the council’s Unclaimed Heirs Unit, Linda Standish investigates the lives of those who’ve died alone and tracks down any living relatives. She’s been a friend to the friendless for the past thirty-three years. And now she’s looking forward to an early retirement. But before she hangs up her lanyard, Linda must take on one last case – that of Levi Norman Jones – a Welshman who’d made his home on a remote Scottish island for the past five years.

Inglaterra, 1914. O mundo está em guerra. O capitão Hastings, ferido e abalado, é convidado para ir à mansão Styles para se recuperar. Trata-se de uma grande e antiga casa de campo – propriedade da família de um velho amigo – e um refúgio perfeito. Pelo menos, à primeira vista. Mas, sob o calor escaldante do verão, os problemas vão aparecendo. Tensões latentes estão dividindo a família, e acabam chegando a um desfecho aterrador. Emily Inglethorp, a rica matriarca da família, é torpemente assassinada no meio da noite. E ninguém em Styles está acima de suspeita.

In the summer of 1980, astrophysics professor Joan Goodwin begins training to be an astronaut at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilots Hank Redmond and John Griffin; mission specialist Lydia Danes; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer. As the new astronauts prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined and begins to question everything she believes about her place in the observable universe.

Lizzie Young has always felt she was too much everything. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder at a young age, she's never fit in with her family, her friends, her community. Lizzie wants to be accepted and understood, but with few people in her corner, she's carried her burdens and her trauma on her own. Hugh Biggs has an old soul and the wisdom of someone far beyond his years. A young man with a sharp mind and a firm code of ethics, he sees something in Lizzie Young that he can't resist. He wants to be her everything and shoulder her burden. And Lizzie wants that too.

The boy Nero lives. His mother Agrippina has married her way to power, tangling the Emperor Claudius in her skirts. The emperor may have a son and heir of his own, but Agrippina sees no obstacles to her ambition. Rome is a path through a marsh, lit by torches. Those who walk it are always one step from disaster–and the road itself is treacherous, slippery with blood. Claudius may have the world at his feet, but he has Agrippina in his bed.

Cordelia would be happy to never set foot in Wilder Hoo House again. When Cordelia’s late ex-husband unexpectedly leaves the cottage in her name, she wonders if it is one last cruel joke from beyond the grave. Determined to quickly sell-up and burry the memories of her past forever, she begins to restore the crumbling beach house brick by brick. With the help of the locals Cordelia breathes new life into the home, but will she find a way to heal her heart too?

Santo Domingo de la Calzada, 1532. London, 1837. Boston, 2019. Three young women, their bodies planted in the same soil, their stories tangling like roots. One grows high, and one grows deep, and one grows wild. And all of them grow teeth.

England, 1914. Die Welt ist von Konflikten gezeichnet. Der verletzte Captain Hastings wird ins Anwesen Styles Court eingeladen, um sich von seinen körperlichen und seelischen Wunden zu erholen. Styles ist ein prachtvolles Landhaus und Heimat seines Kindheitsfreundes. Für Hastings ein Ort der Ruhe … glaubt er. Doch an den heißen Sommertagen braut sich etwas Finsteres zusammen.

The Wallace family's vacation to a luxury game reserve in Zimbabwe becomes a living nightmare in this heart-stopping psychological thriller from visionary writer/director Nyasha Hatendi. Starring Caleb McLaughlin (Stranger Things, The Deliverance), who delivers a gripping performance in his Audible debut, Sacrilege: Curse of the Mbirwi (mBeerwee) plunges listeners into a world where ancient spirits collide with inner wounds and family secrets are as deadly as the strange beasts that stalk the savanna.

It begins with Thomas, the son of a Suffolk tradesman. A brilliant boy sent to study at Oxford at the tender age of eleven. It ends with a disgraced Cardinal, cast from the King's side and estranged from those he loves. In her groundbreaking new novel, Alison Weir draws out the inner man for the first time and tells his story. It is one of a scholar, a lover and a father, a rival, a politician and a priest. A man who built an empire in England while leading a secret second life, who paid the highest price for his success.

As kids, outcasts Rebecca, Bobby, Spencer, and Ernie were inseparable friends in the idyllic town of Maple Grove. Three left to pursue lofty dreams—and achieved them. Only Ernie never left. When he falls into a coma, his three amigos feel an urgent need to return home. Don’t they remember people lapsing into comas back then? And those people always awoke…didn’t they?

The Emperor of Gladness follows a wayward young man in New England who, out of sheer chance, becomes the caretaker for an 82-year-old widow living with dementia. Hallmarks of Vuong's writing - formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness - are on full display in this masterful story of friendship and how much we’re willing to risk to possess one of life’s most treasured mercies: a second chance.

A single terrible mistake cost David Hawkins everything. His marriage. His relationship with his daughter—and his career in the SAS. Now Hawkins is a man on the downward slope of life. Banished from the Regiment, relegated to a desk job at one of Britain's biggest private defence contractors, haunted by the memories of the past. But when a talented young engineer dies in mysterious circumstances, Hawkins is sent down to Plymouth to investigate. Working alongside the company's new cyber-security expert, Alex Millar, Hawkins must find out who murdered the engineer—and why.

The Lost Apothecary meets Gothikana in this Victorian gothic romance of posion, passion, and dark secrets following a botanist who likes to poison unsavory men, but when her next target visits her apothecary, they discover their dark bond runs deeper than they imagined.

1435. Rouen. Jacquetta of Luxembourg is left a wealthy young widow when her husband, the Duke of Bedford, dies. Her only friend in the great household is Richard Woodville, the Duke’s squire, and it is not long before the two become lovers and marry in secret. The Woodvilles return to the Lancaster court, where Jacquetta becomes close friends with young King Henry VI’s new queen. But she can sense a growing threat from the people of England, and the danger of royal rivals.

Celebrated children’s author and illustrator Annie Blunt has had a dreadful year. Her husband was killed in a tragic accident, then one of her children’s books ignited a major scandal. Desperate for a fresh start, she moves with her young son Charlie to a charming small town in upstate New York where they can begin to heal. But Annie’s year is about to get worse. Bored and lonely in their isolated new surroundings, Charlie is thrilled when he finds a forgotten train set in a locked shed in the grounds of their new house.

August 1955: When Miss Darcy O’Sullivan, an orphaned English teacher from Boston, receives a letter finding out that her biological father passed away, she is surprised to find herself included in his will. There is only one condition. She must travel to Fairydale to attend his funeral. With the promise of a sizeable inheritance, Darcy decides to journey to the small coastal town that holds the secrets of her birth. But the moment she steps foot into Fairydale, things start to go amiss.

The President of the United States is up for re-election. Her husband is on trial for murder. Is the First Gentleman a killer? A pair of brilliant investigative journalists set out to answer that burning question about the football star-turned-political spouse.

The first mission to Europa – Jupiter's enigmatic moon – has landed, and humanity’s darkest fears are about to awaken. For years, mankind has speculated that this frozen world harbours a hidden ocean twice the size of all Earth’s oceans combined – an ocean potentially teeming with life. Driven by this tantalising mystery, they venture forth to unlock its secrets. But what they discover in the abyssal depths is far beyond anything they could have imagined.

Disappearing into London's bustling East End and holing up in a vacant flat, Milton becomes involved with his neighbour Sharon and her troubled son Elijah, who are caught in an increasingly bloody turf war between two rival gangs. Unable to ignore the threat, Milton sets about protecting mother and son, meeting violence with violence. But his involvement puts him in the sights of the government's next best killer, and before long Milton is not just fighting to save a family and a home—he's fighting to stay alive...

It is the 60s and, just out of school, Edith finds herself travelling to rural Italy. She has been sent by her mother with strict instructions: to see her sister, ballet dancer Lydia, through the final weeks of her pregnancy, help at the birth and then make a phone call which will seal this baby’s fate, and his mother’s. Decades later, happily divorced and newly energized, Edith is living a life of contentment and comfort in Ireland. When her best friend Maebh receives a call from an American man claiming to be her brother, Maebh must decide if she will meet him, and she asks Edith for help.

Steve thought he had left his troubled past behind. Living a quiet life with his wife and children, everything changes the night he rescues a baby from a burning house, becoming an unexpected national hero. But as the spotlight shines brighter, so does the scrutiny, and a shocking accusation is made – that Steve is the man responsible for an unsolved murder in Beachbrook years prior. As DS Willmott investigates the truth, Steve pleads his innocence.

It is a Tuesday evening in June when Ruth receives the phone call that all parents dread. Her daughter Daisy has been hit by a car during a deadly storm in Puerto Rico. How Ruth wishes she could tell Daisy she loves her. That she is sorry her own muddy feelings about Daisy's move to San Juan caused them to fight. What a waste of precious breath. Instinctively, it's her mother, Rafaela, Ruth wants to turn to. Rafaela whose own memories of growing up in Puerto Rico are becoming ever more vivid, as have her sudden flashes of forgetfulness.

Local pharmacist and pillar of the community, Idris Kalia, spends his days doling out methadone to the hundreds of addicts in his care. They trust Idris with their secrets, and so he knows more than his mild manner suggests. So when his childhood sweetheart, Sarah, doesn't turn up for her daily methadone dose, Idris is worried. Worried enough to go looking for her in the most deprived area of Leeds, alone. He finds Sarah, and the mess he stumbles on places Idris in the middle of a turf war between the two most powerful drug cartels in Yorkshire.

1820, and the marriage between wealthy widower Sir Edward Knatchbull and Jane Austen’s handsome, dutiful niece Fanny Knight is widely praised as being the most excellent match in the county. As Sir Edward’s wife, Fanny is expected to apply herself to the raising of his five children with the same dedication she has shown towards her siblings at Godmersham Park. In particular, she pays care to young Mary Knatchbull - the only girl of the family, and the apple of her strict father's eye.