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The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Mary Ann Shaffer
It’s 1946. The war is over, and Juliet Ashton has writer’s block. But when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - a total stranger living halfway across the Channel, who has come across her name written in a second hand book - she enters into a correspondence with him, and in time with all the members of the extraordinary Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Through their letters, the society tells Juliet about life on the island, their love of books - and the long shadow cast by their time living under German occupation. Drawn into their irresistible world, Juliet sets sail for the island, changing her life forever. |
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The Woman In Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
This was meant to be the perfect trip. The northern lights. A press launch on a luxury cruise ship. A chance for travel journalist Lo Blackwood to recover from a traumatic break-in that has left her on the verge of collapse and to work out what she wants from her relationship.
Except things don't go as planned. Woken in the night by screams, Lo rushes to her window to see a body thrown overboard from the next-door cabin. But the records show that no one ever checked into that cabin, and no passengers are missing from the boat.
Exhausted, emotional and increasingly desperate, Lo has to face the fact that her sleep problems might be driving her mad, or she is trapped on a boat with a murderer - and she is the sole witness... |
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The Blue Fox by Sjon
On a stark Icelandic mountainside, the imposing Reverend Baldur Skuggason hunts an elusive blue vixen for her near-mythical pelt. The treacherous journey across snow and ice will push his physical and mental endurance to the limit.
In Baldur Skuggason's parish, a young woman with Down's Syndrome is buried. After being found shackled to the timbers of a shipwreck in 1868, she was rescued by the naturalist Fridrik B. Fridjonsson. Now he will open the package she always carried with her, hoping to solve the puzzle of her origins.
As the ice begins to melt, the mystery surrounding the trio's connected fates is unravelled in this spellbinding fable, an exquisite tale of metamorphosis by one of Iceland's most acclaimed writers. |
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The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan
The Longest Day is Cornelius Ryan’s unsurpassed account of D-day, a book that endures as a masterpiece of military history. In this compelling tale of courage and heroism, glory and tragedy, Ryan painstakingly re-creates the fateful hours that preceded and followed the massive invasion of Normandy to retell the story of an epic battle that would turn the tide against world fascism and free Europe from the grip of Nazi Germany.
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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
When nine-year-old Liesel arrives outside the boxlike house of her new foster parents at 33 Himmel Street, she refuses to get out of the car. Liesel has been separated from her parents, "Kommunists", forever, and at the burial of her little brother, she steals a gravedigger's instruction manual, which she can't read. It is the beginning of her illustrious career.
In the care of the Hubermans, Liesel befriends blond-haired Rudy Steiner, a neighbour obsessed with Jesse Owens, and the mayor's wife, who hides from despair in her library. Together, Liesel and Rudy steal books - from Nazi book-burning piles, from the mayor's library, from the rich people for whom her foster mother does the ironing. In time, they take in a Jewish boxer, Max, who reads with Liesel in the basement.
By 1943, the Allied bombs are falling, and the sirens begin to wail. Liesel shares her books in the air-raid shelters. But one day in the life of Himmel Street, the wail of the sirens comes too late. |
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A Vineyard in Andalusia by Maria Duenas
1861. A ruined silver-mine owner sets sail from Mexico City to seek his fortune in the New World.
Mauro Larrera has just four months to pay his creditors, or his bankruptcy will be revealed and his family’s honour will be in tatters. In magnificent Havana — home to beautiful women and dangerous men who deal in mysterious trades - he gambles what little he has left on what will become the greatest adventure of his life.
A Vineyard in Andalusia is a novel of glories and defeats; of silver mines, family secrets, vineyards, cellars, and splendid cities of faded grandeur; of unexpected passion, and love in the strangest of circumstances. |
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The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed...
On an autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman knocks at the door of a grand house in the wealthiest quarter of Amsterdam. She has come from the country to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt, but instead she is met by his sharp-tongued sister, Marin. Only later does Johannes appear and present her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. It is to be furnished by an elusive miniaturist, whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in unexpected ways. Nella is at first mystified by the closed world of the Brandt household, but as she uncovers its secrets she realizes the escalating dangers that await them all. Does the miniaturist hold their fate in her hands? And will she be the key to their salvation or the architect of their downfall? Beautiful, intoxicating and filled with heart-pounding suspense, The Miniaturist is a magnificent story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution, appearance and truth. |
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The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg
Returning to her hometown after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice-cold bath, it seems, at first, that she has taken her own life.
Erica conceives a memoir about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will help to overcome her writer's block as well as answer questions about their own past. While her interest grows to an obsession, local detective Patrik Hedstrom is following his own suspicions about the case. But it is only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about this small town with a deeply disturbing past… |
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A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe
It is October 1966 and William Lavery is having the night of his life at his first black-tie do. But, as the evening unfolds, news hits of a landslide at a coal mine. It has buried a school: Aberfan.
William decides he must act, so he stands and volunteers to attend. It will be his first job as an embalmer, and it will be one he never forgets.
His work that night will force him to think about the little boy he was and the losses he has worked so hard to forget. But compassion can have surprising consequences, because - as William discovers - giving so much to others can sometimes help us heal ourselves. |
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The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
On a beautifully restored barge on the Seine, Jean Perdu runs a bookshop - or, rather, a 'literary apothecary', for this bookseller possesses a rare gift for sensing which books will soothe the troubled souls of his customers. The only person he is unable to cure, it seems, is himself.
He has nursed a broken heart ever since the night, twenty-one years ago, when the love of his life fled Paris, leaving behind a handwritten letter that he has never dared to read. His memories and his love have been gathering dust - until now.
The arrival of an enigmatic new neighbour in his eccentric apartment building on Rue Montagnard inspires Jean to unlock his heart, unmoor the floating bookshop, and set off for Provence, in search of the past and his beloved. |
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All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorise it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure’s agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall.
In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialised tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure. |
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Lyra Belacqua lives half-wild and carefree among the scholars of Jordan College, with her daemon, Pantalaimon, always by her side.
But the arrival of her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, draws her to the heart of a terrible struggle - a struggle born of stolen children, witch clans and armoured bears. |
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Grand Canary by A.J Cronin
Destiny brings two lonely people together in this moving love story by A J Cronin, one of the master story-tellers of our time.
Dr Harvey Leith, brilliant research scientist, awakes from a drunken stupor to find himself aboard a liner bound for the romantic Canary Islands. His past life is in ruins, and his hopes for the future are shattered.
But he meets the lovely Mary Fielding on the ship, also looking for a new purpose in her life. It seems to her that they have met somewhere before, in some other place, and that they are meant for each other. There is only one problem – she is already married.
Dr Leith’s life becomes inextricably involved with those of the other passengers and he gradually begins to forget the bitterness of the past. In the sultry atmosphere of Grand Canary, he finds he has to conquer himself to achieve |
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Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie
When a number of leading scientists disappear without a trace, concern grows within the international intelligence community. Are they being kidnapped? Blackmailed? Brainwashed?
One woman appears to have the key to the mystery. Unfortunately, Olive Betteron now lies in a hospital bed, dying from injuries sustained in a Moroccan plane crash.
Meanwhile, in a Casablanca hotel room, Hilary Craven prepares to take her own life. But her suicide attempt is about to be interrupted by a man who will offer her an altogether more thrilling way to die. |
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The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern
For almost seventy years, people all over the world have fallen in love with Frank Capra’s classic Christmas movie It’s a Wonderful Life. But few of those fans know that Capra’s film was based on a short story by Philip Van Doren Stern, which came to Stern in a dream one night. |
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A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He isn't as young as he used to be. He drives a Saab. He points at people he doesn't like the look of. He is described by those around him as 'the neighbour from hell'. Every morning he makes his inspection rounds of the local streets. He moves bicycles and checks the contents of recycling bins, even though it's been years since he was fired as Chairman of the Residents' Association in a vicious 'coup d'état'.
But behind the surly pedant, there is a story and a sadness. And when on a November morning his new (foreign) neighbours in the terraced house opposite accidentally flatten Ove's letterbox, it sets off a comical and heart-warming tale of unexpected friendship which will change one man - and one community - from their very foundations.
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The Winterlings by Cristina Sanchez-Adrade
Two sisters return to the small parish of Tierra de Chá in Galicia after a long absence, to the former home of their grandfather, from which they fled when they were just children.
At Tierra de Chá, nothing and everything has changed: the people, the distant little house in the rain, the acrid smell of gorse, the flowers, the crops, the customs. Yet the return of the sisters disrupts the placid existence of the villagers, stirring up memories that are best left alone.
When news arrives that the famous American actress Ava Gardner will be shooting a movie in Spain and that lookalikes are wanted, the sisters have a chance to make their dreams come true. But the past is catching up with the present, and the family secrets that led to the Winterlings’ return won’t stay buried for long. |
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Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing.
But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute take a very unscientific view of equality. Forced to resign, she reluctantly signs on as the host of a cooking show, Supper at Six. But her revolutionary approach to cooking, fuelled by scientific and rational commentary, grabs the attention of a nation.
Soon, a legion of overlooked housewives find themselves daring to change the status quo. One molecule at a time. |
