SUMMER READING 2018

Set against the backdrop of New Orleans, Detective Dave Robicheaux is fighting his demons to overcome his toughest case yet. Powerful mob boss Tony Nemo has a Civil War sword he'd like to give to Levon Broussard, a popular local author whose books have been adapted into major Hollywood films. The...

Irene Bobs loves fast driving. Her husband is the best car salesman in rural south eastern Australia. Together with Willie, their lanky navigator, they embark upon the Redex Trial, a brutal race around the continent, over roads no car will ever quite survive.

Lou Clark knows too many things. She knows how many miles lie between her new home in New York and her new boyfriend Sam in London. She knows her employer is a good man and she knows his wife is keeping a secret from him. What Lou doesn't know is she's about to meet someone who's going to turn he...

As the sun sits high in the sky over Cornwall, and the sea breeze brings a welcome relief to the residents of the seaside village of Trevay, a stranger arrives in need of a safe haven. The fact that the stranger is a Hollywood heartthrob makes villagers Penny and Dorrie even more keen to help. Th...

'London Rules' might not be written down, but everyone knows rule one. Cover your arse. Regent's Park's First Desk, Claude Whelan, is learning this the hard way. Tasked with protecting a beleaguered prime minister, he's facing attack from all directions himself: from the showboating MP who orches...

Life changes in an instant. On a family summer holiday in Cornwall in 1978, Nicholas and his brother Richard are jumping in the waves. Suddenly, Nicholas is out of his depth and he drowns. Richard and his other brothers don't attend the funeral, and incredibly the family return immediately to the...

The last person Alice Shipley expected to see since arriving in Tangier with her new husband was Lucy Mason. After the horrific accident at Bennington, the two friends - once inseparable roommates - haven't spoken in over a year. But Lucy is standing there, trying to make things right. Perhaps Al...

A sitting U.S. President is missing. In this book, President Bill Clinton partners with No. 1 bestselling author James Patterson in a powerful, one-of-a-kind thriller filled with the kind of insider details that only a President can know.

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity, and is scorned and rejected by her kin. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals for companionship, leading her to discover a power forbidden to the...

Rosemary has lived in Brixton all her life. But now everything she knows is changing - the library where she used to work has closed, the family fruit and veg shop has become a trendy bar, and her beloved husband George is gone. Kate has just moved and feels alone in a city that is too big for he...

What happens when we attempt to exchange the life we are given for something better? Can we transform the possibilities we are born into? 'A State of Freedom' prises open the central, defining events of our century - displacement and migration - but not as you imagine them. Five characters, in ve...

In a Victorian terraced house, in north-west London, two families have united in imperfect harmony. After five years of widowhood, Julia has fallen deeply, unexpectedly in love. James is everything she never knew she wanted - if only her beloved teenaged daughter, Gwen, didn't hate him so much. A...

If you could change the past, would you? 30 years ago, something terrible happened to Luna's mother. Something she's only prepared to reveal after her death. Now Luna and her sister have a chance to go back to their mother's birthplace and settle her affairs. But in Brooklyn they find more questi...

Brett and Kelly Courtney are the shining jewels in a New York-based reality TV show called Goal Diggers. One of the most popular shows on American national television, its fiercely competitive cast of five self-made women are defined by their success, beauty and ruthless drive to reach the top by...

She noticed him before anyone else. Arriving at his fourth school in six years, diplomat's son Osei Kokote knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day - so he's lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can't stand to witness this budding relation...

Greer Kadetsky is a shy college student when she meets the woman who will shape her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly persuasive and elegant, has been a pillar of the women's movement for decades, a figure who inspires others. Hearing Faith speak for the first time, in a crowded campus chapel, Greer ...

Kate Dowd's mother raised her to be a lady but she must put away her white gloves and pearls to help save her family's sheep farm in New South Wales. It is 1945, the war drags bitterly on and it feels like the rains will never come again. All the local, able-bodied young men, including the husban...

Sandy is in her fifties, and at a crossroads in her life: she's a teacher and respected by her pupils, but she feels she is being sidelined in favour of younger colleagues. So when her mother dies, leaving her a sealed envelope addressed to an unknown woman living in Naples, Sandy decides to head...

Robert Langdon, Harvard professor of symbology and religious iconology, arrives at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to attend the unveiling of a discovery that 'will change the face of science forever'. The evening's host is his friend and former student, Edmond Kirsch, a 40-year-old tech magnate who...

'London Rules' might not be written down, but everyone knows rule one. Cover your arse. Regent's Park's First Desk, Claude Whelan, is learning this the hard way. Tasked with protecting a beleaguered prime minister, he's facing attack from all directions himself: from the showboating MP who orches...

Husband and wife Ruairidh and Niamh Macfarlane co-own Ranish Tweed: a Hebridean company that weaves its own special variety of Harris cloth, which has become a sought-after brand in the world of high fashion. But when Niamh learns of Ruairidh's affair with Russian designer Irina Vetrov, then witn...

Chosen as must-read book of 2018 by the Guardian, Independent, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Express and Stylist In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity, and is scorned and rejected by her kin. Incre...

At 14, Turtle Alveston knows the use of every gun on her wall; that chaos is coming and only the strong will survive it; that her daddy loves her more than anything else in this world. And he'll do whatever it takes to keep her with him. She doesn't know why she feels so different from the other ...

Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old history teacher, but he's been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz-Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen it all. As long as he keeps changing his identity he can keep one step ahead of...

It was a cloudless summer day in the year 1900. Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three of the girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of Hanging R...

On St. Valentine's Day in 1900 a party of schoolgirls went on a picnic to Hanging Rock. Some were never to return.