Fiction - English

A chance encounter with a stranger, Priscilla Blunt, seems to offer Nina Crowther an escape from her problems. Middle-aged, struggling to recover from the shock of her husband divorcing her to marry a younger (and pregnant) woman, Nina happily falls in with Priscilla’s idea to house-sit for her while she and her husband visit South Africa. When the phone rings on her first night in the Blunts’ Berkshire manor house she expects it to be one of her duaghters, but when she lifts the receiver no-one speaks. All Nina hears is a shuddering sigh. As the calls persist Nina fears she has attracted an unwelcome suitor – or is it the man who is brutally murdering women in a nearby village? Or could it be one and the same person?

Harriet Turner knows all about journeys. After all, she’s arranged hundreds of them for the travel agency her family runs in the Australian coastal town of Merryn Bay. But when her work colleague and foster sister Lara disappears on the eve of a big overseas trip, Harriet finds herself in uncharted territory.
Left alone in England with a coachload of eccentric tourists on a themed tour of locations from the Willoughby TV detective series, Harriet has her hands full. But as the bus trundles through the picturesque Cornwall countryside, the tour becomes another kind of journey for her. She finds herself facing big questions about her family and her childhood; about her feelings for the guest of honour on the tour, star of Willoughby, Patrick Shawcross – and the biggest puzzle of all: what has happened to Lara?

Lance Bradley, idling his life away in the little Somerset town of Glastonbury, suddenly receives a call for help from the eccentric sister of his old friend Rupert Alder. Rupe appears to have vanished without trace. Reluctantly, Lance goes to London, to discover that Rupe’s employers want him tried for fraud. A Japanese businessman claims he has stolen a document of huge importance. And a private detective is demanding money for trying to trace, on Rupe’s behalf, an American called Townley, who was involved in a mysterious death at Wilderness Farm, near Glastonbury, back in 1963.

Perhaps several times in a lifetime, we come across a book with such a singular nature, it defies categorization. A book so provocative, it forces us to examine not only our personal values, but also our society’s values–the very way in which we live. A word-of-mouth phenomenon embraced by readers, booksellers, and critics alike, Into The Forest is that all-too-rare book. This extraordinary story of two sisters struggling to survive amid the collapse of technology and society is at once a classic tale of epic proportions–and a modern myth with a timely message.

The day the Jutland telegrams arrive in Portsea, the lives of three women change dramatically. Miriam Slattery, Beattie Forrest and Lily Forrest all find reserves of courage and hope beyond even their own dreams, as the war gives way to peace, they grab their futures with both hands.

The year is 1947, ten years after the famous zeppelin Hindenburg burst spectacularly into flames while landing in Lakehurst, New Jersey. The cause of the disaster is still a mystery. The airship was a symbol of world peace and German technological prowess and was carrying important American industrialists and high-ranking Nazi officers. The reasons to think the crash was something other than a horrible accident are manifold and contradictory. Birger Lund, a survivor, suspects sabotage.

Since childhood they had been inseparable friends: Lorn, Lewis, Ruth and Rachel. The close-knit island community of Rhanna had watched them grow, seeing each other through the bad times. But now they were grown and they faced a harsher world, and all the problems of love and loss for which their tranquil Hebridean childhood could not prepare them.

When her mentor, Connecticut governor Mike Parisi, is murdered, and her best friend Allyson is appointed as the new governor, Texas defense attorney Kara Galway, along with sexy Texas Ranger Sam Temple, must return to Connecticut and delve into a dangerous world of political corruption to catch a killer, especially when Allyson’s family is threatened.

The shadow of war hangs over the village of Marston, and Becky worries that her hot-headed son Billy will enlist the army. Her daughter Michelle is another cause for concern – since her illness she has withdrawn into herself, and Becky fears she will never be able to find real happyness. And Becky is not even aware of the great danger which looms on the horizon in the shape of her wicked brother -in-law Richard Worrel, who is determined to use his own son to destroy Beck’s family.

The East End, 1898 – business may be good at Arthur Milton’s Hackney bakery , but the atmosphere behind the counter is tense. For Agnes Handly cannot hide her hatred for Arhur’s young wife Ellen – a loating fuelled in part by the feelings she has long held for the baker himself.