The Stone Circle, by Elly Griffiths
Dr Ruth Galloway returns for the 11th in the series. This one needs no introduction. All I can do is suggest you join the waiting list. We will buy lots of copies.
âDCI Nelson has been receiving threatening letters telling him to âgo to the stone circle and rescue the innocent who is buried thereâ. He is shaken, not only because children are very much on his mind, with Michelleâs baby due to be born, but because although the letters are anonymous, they are somehow familiar. They read like the letters that first drew him into the case of The Crossing Places, and to Ruth. But the author of those letters is dead. Or are they?
âMeanwhile Ruth is working on a dig in the Saltmarsh - another henge, known by the archaeologists as the stone circle - trying not to think about the baby. Then bones are found on the site, and identified as those of Margaret Lacey, a twelve-year-old girl who disappeared thirty years ago. As the Margaret Lacey case progresses, more and more aspects of it begin to hark back to that first case of The Crossing Places.â
Late in the Day, by Tessa Hadley
The latest from recent Meet the Author interviewee Tessa Hadley. Weâre already growing a waiting list for this one. If you havenât read anything by Hadley, then you really should.
âAlexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been close friends since they first met in their twenties. Thirty years later Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia. Zach is dead.
âIn the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach was the sanest and kindest of them all, the irreplaceable one they couldnât afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine.
âBut instead of loss bringing them closer, the three of them find over the following months that it warps their relationships, as old entanglements and grievances rise from the past, and love and sorrow give way to anger and bitterness.â
If Only I Could Tell You, by Hannah Beckerman
âAudreyâs family has fallen apart. Her two grown-up daughters, Jess and Lily, are estranged, and her two teenage granddaughters have never been allowed to meet. A secret that echoes back thirty years has splintered the family in two, but is also the one thing keeping them connected.
â As tensions reach breaking point, the irrevocable choice that one of them made all those years ago is about to surface. After years of secrets and silence, how can one broken family find their way back to each other?â
If you like Jojo Moyes books then you will probably like this. Hannah Beckerman has written an absorbing tale of long buried family secrets with a major twist.
The Wych Elm, by Tana French
ââFor me it all goes back to that night, the dark corroded hinge between before and after, the slipped-in sheet of trick glass that tints everything on one side in its own murky colours and leaves everything on the other luminous and untouchable.â
âOne night changes everything for Toby. Heâs always led a charmed life - until a brutal attack leaves him damaged and traumatised, unsure even of the person he used to be. He seeks refuge at his familyâs ancestral home, the Ivy House, filled with memories of wild-strawberry summers and teenage parties with his cousins.
âBut not long after Tobyâs arrival, a discovery is made: a skull, tucked neatly inside the old wych elm in the garden. As detectives begin to close in, Toby is forced to examine everything he thought he knew about his family, his past, and himself.â
My sources tell me you will need to put your life on hold to finish this psychologically complex story. It is a long read at 528 pages but a consuming one.
An Anonymous Girl, by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
New title from the crime writing duo behind the hugely successful The Wife Between Us. A make-up artist takes up the offer of making some easy money by submitting to some psychological testing. She soon discovers that the mysterious Dr Shields has another agenda.
The Familiars, by Stacey Halls
Debut novel which takes the reader back to the Pendle Witch Trials of 1612.
âFleetwood Shuttleworth is 17 years old, married, and pregnant for the fourth time. But as the mistress at Gawthorpe Hall, she still has no living child, and her husband Richard is anxious for an heir. When Fleetwood finds a letter she isnât supposed to read from the doctor who delivered her third stillbirth, she is dealt the crushing blow that she will not survive another pregnancy.
âThen she crosses paths by chance with Alice Gray, a young midwife. Alice promises to help her give birth to a healthy baby, and to prove the physician wrong. As Alice is drawn into the witchcraft accusations that are sweeping the North-West, Fleetwood risks everything by trying to help her. But is there more to Alice than meets the eye?â
The Lost Man, by Jane Harper
The eagerly awaited new book from the bestselling author of The Dry and Force of Nature.
âTwo brothers meet at the remote fence line separating their cattle farms under the relenting sun of the remote outback. In an isolated part of Western Australia, they are each otherâs nearest neighbour, their homes three hoursâ drive apart. They are at the stockmanâs grave, a landmark so old that no one can remember who is buried there.
âBut today, the scant shadow it casts was the last hope for their middle brother, Cameron, who lies dead at their feet. Something had been on Camâs mind. Did he choose to walk to his death? Because if he didnât, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects.â
Widowsâ Revenge, by Lynda La Plante
The long-awaited sequel to Widows, which was made into a blockbuster film last year.
âAgainst all the odds, Dolly Rawlins and her gangland widows managed the impossible: a heist their husbands had failed to pull off - at the cost of their lives. But though they may be in the money, theyâre far from easy street. Shocked by her husbandâs betrayal, Dolly discovers Harry Rawlins isnât dead. He knows where the four women are and he wants them to pay.â
Dead Manâs Lane, by Kate Ellis
The 23rd DI Wesley Peterson mystery.
âStrangefields Farm has been notorious for its sinister history ever since artist Jackson Temples lured young women there to model for disturbing works of art. Some of those girls never left the house alive.
âNow, decades later, Strangefields is to be transformed into a holiday village, but the developerâs hopes of its dark history being forgotten are dashed when a skull is found on the site. And when a local florist is found murdered in an echo of Templesâ crimes, DI Wesley Peterson fears that a copy-cat killer is at large. Especially when another brutal murder in a nearby village appears to be linked. As Wesleyâs friend, archaeologist Dr Neil Watson, uncovers the secrets of Strangefieldsâ grisly past, it seems that an ancient tale of the dead returning to torment the living might not be as fantastical as it seems.â
Black Leopard, Red Wolf, by Marlon James
The first book from Marlon James since he won the Man Booker Prize with A Brief History of Seven Killings.
âTracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: âHe has a nose,â people say - as well as the eye of a wolf. Engaged to find a mysterious boy who has disappeared three years before, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a rag-tag group that comes together to search for the boy.
âFull of striking characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard, a witch and the giant-sized Ogo, this unlikely band follow the lost boyâs scent from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers, set upon by creatures intent on destroying them.
âAs he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And who is telling the truth, and who is lying?â
The Taking of Annie Thorne, by C. J. Tudor
The author of the bestselling The Chalk Man and former Meet the Author interviewee returns with her new novel. A man receives an anonymous e-mail from a sender who claims to know what happened to his sister Annie, who mysteriously disappeared, then re-appeared after 48 hours, without ever saying what had happened to her.