Book picks similar to
Shadows by Thorne Moore
amazon
favourites
gothic
disturbing-in-a-good-way
Amy Wingate's Journal
Marcia Willett - 1996
In the process, her life obligingly becomes eventful enough to provide some interesting reading. But it is the tantalising allusions to her past – so at odds with her appearance as the stereotyped retired schoolmistress – that intrigue, delight, and eventually reveal a woman of surprising qualities. Praise for Marcia Willett: ‘Poignantly told’ – Evening Herald Willa Marsh was born in Somerset and lives in a Georgian parsonage in Devon with her husband and two Newfoundlands. As Marcia Willett, she also writes well-reviewed novels published by Headline.
The Harder They Fall
Alex Smith - 2020
He’s the man governments call when they want somebody dead. His is a life of intimidation and brutality, of beatings and executions—including, ultimately, his own. Jack Softley’s life is a world away from his brother’s. A high school English teacher, devoted father, and all-round nice guy, Jack tries to stay as far from trouble as possible. But when he receives word that Ian has been murdered, he finds himself dragged into a storm of violence and danger. Because the same people who killed his brother want him dead too. Hunted by government agents and brutal assassins, Jack must discover the truth about Ian’s dark past if he wants to stay alive. But Ian isn’t the only Softley to have secrets. Jack hasn’t always been a teacher. He hasn’t always been a nice guy. And when push comes to shove, he doesn’t do things softly.
What We Carry With Us
Karen J. Hasley - 2017
By 1878, the town is prospering. Three daily railroad stops. Groceries, feed and grain, hardware, and leather goods readily available. Bank, doctor's office, café, and barber shop. Its own church and school, preacher and teacher. A civilized community with all the marks of progress. That's what the hard-working members of the Merchants' Association believe until the day New Hope's telegraph agent – young Eddie Barts – disappears, and suddenly life in New Hope changes. Widow Ruth Churchill, barber and owner of the town's finest boarding house, has lived and loved in New Hope for over a decade. She calls it home and its citizens friends. Five years after the death of her beloved husband, Ruth has managed to find peace and a kind of happiness. But with the disappearance of Eddie Barts, Ruth will find her world and her life turned upside down. Despite all the trappings of civilization, something – someone – evil is hiding in New Hope. For years, unknown to anyone but one relentless searcher, a wicked man of violence and deception has been living behind a mask of respectability. Before his mask is ripped off, Ruth will experience suspicion, doubt, danger, and fear. Her own life will be at risk. Her own heart, too. Because along with terror and grief comes love. They live side-by-side. When it's all over, New Hope, Nebraska, will never be the same. And neither will Ruth.
Meeting Mungo Thunk
Keith A. Pearson - 2018
Bathroom scales were not an appropriate gift for his fiancée’s birthday … apparently. Adam Maxwell isn’t a bad man—he’s just a man who doesn’t stop and think. Ever since he ate seven pickled gherkins for lunch at school, and subsequently shat himself during a maths lesson, Adam has been cursed by a lack of common sense. Now in his early thirties, that lack of common sense is about to throw Adam’s life into turmoil after one particularly ill-judged decision backfires … with disastrous consequences. After a rapid descent towards rock bottom, a strange little man by the name of Mungo Thunk then enters Adam’s life. However, not everything about Mungo Thunk is as it first seems. After insisting Adam can rediscover his common sense by agreeing to an unorthodox brand of therapy, the two set about dealing with the raft of challenges Adam has to face. Can Adam trust the mysterious stranger to fix his thinking and get his life back on track? Or will he come to rue the day he invited Mungo Thunk into his life?
Corpse Path Cottage
Margaret Scutt - 2020
And before long, one of the village's residents, Laura Grey, is mysteriously shot dead nearby. Mark's life begins to unravel before he is able to help the police solve the mystery of Laura Grey's death, uncovering in the process a tale of intrigue, bigamy and blackmail, and bringing into the open many secrets of the residents of God's Blessing, including Mark himself.
The Singles Table
Tasmina Perry - 2021
He’s handsome and charming, there’s a free bar and plenty of eligible women on the Singles Table – what could possibly go wrong?Sophie Wallis is less excited about the weekend ahead. The groom is her ex-boyfriend and every moment of the Big Day is a reminder of the tragic reason why their relationship ended and everything that has gone wrong with her life so far.But Adam and Sophie are about to go on a journey of self-discovery. Secrets start to leak out at the bridal shower, the stag night and at the wedding itself; secrets that make Adam and Sophie confront their past, and question everything they thought they knew about their lives.Brand new from Sunday Times bestseller Tasmina Perry, the Singles Table is a witty, wise and uplifting story about family, friendship and relationships - lost and found. An exploration of the reasons why we fall in – and out of - love, and how we find the people that make us truly happy.'No one can mix a deliciously classy cocktail of intrigue, passion and glamour like Tasmina Perry.' Hello Magazine
Find The Girl
Nic Roberts - 2021
A young woman who never made it home and a detective hell-bent on hiding her scars.Haunted by a vicious incident eighteen months ago, Detective Inspector Olivia Austin left the busy City of London Police to heal back in her home county of Cornwall.Working for the CID in touristy Newquay was supposed to ease her back into her job gently after a year and a half break, but when a young woman in the nearby fictional town of Peterly goes missing, and a gruesome package is delivered to her distraught parents, there’s a race against time to find her.Despite battling her own trauma, DI Austin doesn’t know if she’s dealing with a plain kidnapping or a murder case, but there's only one thing she’s determined on and that's to find the girl and bring her home.Dead or alive.
Shattered
Lisa Clark O'Neill - 2017
However, recently uncovered evidence proves that her father was wrongfully convicted. Reeling from this revelation, Lucy comes back to her hometown, both terrified and desperate to reconnect with the father whom she’d rejected. Trespassing at her childhood home, Lucy finds herself facing down the county sheriff, Ben Paulson, who is as intrigued by this prodigal daughter as he is horrified by the legal misconduct which resulted in her father’s conviction all those years ago. And when things start to happen to Lucy, things which suggest that someone may not want her back in Dahlonega, Ben realizes that this professionally problematic attraction is the least of their worries.
Shut Eye
Adam Baron - 1999
But who was the man filmed with Teddy as he left Heathrow? What secrets is he hiding? Ex-copper turned private investigator Billy Rucker joins the case on the exhortation of Teddy’s brother, a well-known MP. For Rucker it’s the start of a lonely trail through the city, clutching a grainy black and white photograph and a gnawing suspicion at the pit of his stomach. Until a chilling phone call in the night changes everything…
The Shape of Us
Drew Davies - 2018
Surprised at how many times your path crosses with that stranger you spotted on the other side of the street. Surprised at how lonely living in a busy city can feel. Surprised that falling in love – against all the odds – is just about possible. One day in London… Daisy is rushing to work when a stranger on a bicycle almost knocks her over – and then asks for her number. JoJo, a wife in her sixties, is trying desperately to win her beloved husband back from his mistress. Adam has recently lost his job and lies to his housemate about where he goes every day. Dylan, a teenage boy, lives with an illness which means he can’t leave his bedroom – but which hasn’t stopped him falling in love. These four total strangers – whose paths cross in the charming and crazy city of London – have one thing in common. They’re all looking for love and they’re totally hopeless at it. But that’s about to change. A hilarious, uplifting and heartfelt novel about love, life and finding happiness. If you’ve ever made a mistake, suffered a break-up, waited by your phone for it to ring or loved someone from afar, then The Shape of Us is for you.
Lark Song
Jane Bailey - 2018
But there are secrets afflicting Freya’s family, some more sinister than others, that could destroy their relationship before it has a chance to flourish.While Freya’s older children are less than welcoming, six-year-old Sophie helps Duncan find his place in the family—but even Sophie harbours fears that threaten to overshadow any chance of a new start. The past is hard to leave behind when pictures of Freya’s idolised late husband hang in every room, and the more Duncan tries to find the source of Sophie’s anxiety, the more he is convinced that Reuben was not the perfect husband and father Freya remembers.Tormented by concern and his own insecurity, Duncan begins an obsessive investigation into the dead man’s past. But when his good intentions lead him in too deep, he risks destroying everything he has built with Freya—and the whole family’s second chance at happiness.
Cursed: A Yorkshire Ghost Short Story (Yorkshire Ghost Series, #2)
Karen Perkins - 2014
This time no one is safe.A skeleton is dug up at the crossing of the ways on Hanging Moor, striking dread into the heart of Old Ma Ramsgill – the elderly matriarch of the village of Thruscross. And with good reason. The eighteenth-century witch, Jennet, has been woken.A spate of killings by a vicious black dog gives credence to her warnings and the community – in particular her family – realise they are in terrible danger.Drastic measures are needed to contain her, but with the imminent flooding of the valley to create a new reservoir, do they have the ability to stop her and break her curse?
Another Place to Die (Tom Morton #2)
Mark Hayden - 2016
Everyone is happy to take his money, drink in his bars and forget where it all came from, until Matt is found murdered next to a statue in the woods behind his manor house.DCI Tom Morton and DC Elaine Fraser are reunited to take on the case, which is too hot for the local police. Tom finds himself in an abandoned building with a team of misfits and facing a wall of silence.Inside the wall, Matt’s team manoeuvre for position. The king is dead: will it be his widow, his lawyer or his enforcer who is crowned in his place? Connor Holden knows it won’t be him – he just wants to keep his job and his life.Tom, taking the lead role for the first time in his career, struggles to find the truly guilty in an extended family where no one is innocent, and then he’s blindsided by the arrival of Lucy, a witness from another case – a witness he’d like to get a lot closer to.Mark Hayden’s latest crime novel is an absorbing, multi-layered exploration of tragedy, duty, family and the fight for survival on the other side of the law.
The Casebook of Inspector Blackstone
Sally Spencer - 2017
Yet to Inspector Sam Blackstone, the case is as puzzling as any he has ever come across. As his investigation proceeds, Blackstone finds himself entering the world of the aristocracy and tramping the dangerous streets of London's Little Russia, where English law and order are not welcome. So begins the illustrious career of the talented inspector, who earns the equal ire and respect of his superiors for his controversial tactics. Absorbing in their detailed depictions of the period, gripping in their ingenious plots, this trilogy of historical whodunnits is the perfect box set for any mystery-lover. Praise for Sally Spencer 'Spencer's finest hour: a tightly plotted puzzler with surprises at every turn' – Kirkus Reviews 'Spencer is an accomplished craftsman who serves up a good puzzle and deftly solves it with intelligence and insight' – Publishers Weekly Sally Spencer worked as a teacher both in England and Iran - where she witnessed the fall of the Shah. She now writes full time.
Lost and Found
Chloë Rayban - 2015
She is sent over from England to sell the house as quickly as possible. But when she gets there something about the place enchants Julia. For although La Mulatière is decrepit, enormous and unmanageable, it is a house with a hundred stories, and all of them are begging Julia to uncover them. Her father’s legacy turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Julia finds herself falling in love with the house, the villagers – and perhaps even her brooding, surly neighbour, Jacques. Even as she is drawn to Jacques she is warned away from him by those who think they know him better. And unresolved issues with her ex, Oliver, might wreak havoc on her idyllic hideaway… La Mulatière begins to yield its secrets one by one, and Julia pieces together the past even as she tries to fathom her own future. Tales of the house in the Revolution, of its aristocracy flung from riches to abject poverty, and of a mysterious and scandalous noblewoman, all come to light. But the echoes from the past will not be silent in the present, and Julia slowly begins to realise that her prying might have serious consequences for her own future… Is La Mulatière the cure for Julia’s heartbreak...or will the past ruin what might be her last chance of happiness? ‘Lost and Found’ is a beautiful, evocative romance rich with the history of France. Praise for Chloe Rayban: ‘A perfect blend of romance and self-discovery’ - Holy Kinsella, bestselling author of 'Uptown Girl' Chloe Rayban is the bestselling author of 13 books for teenagers, including Wild Child (Random House). She has been shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize twice and the Carnegie Medal. Her books have been translated into many different languages and are sold all over the world. She lives in London and France. 'Lost and Found' is her first adult novel. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.