The Last Day I Saw Her


Lucy Lawrie - 2016
    But they lost touch after Hattie's family suddenly moved away in mysterious circumstances.Janey's instincts tell her that she must finally find out what happened to Hattie, but life is already complicated enough: she’s struggling with motherhood, a custody battle over her toddler son Pip is looming, and she finds herself falling for intense art tutor Steve. And when writing appears on the walls of her flat and Pip starts playing with an invisible friend, Janey fears she's losing her mind. Is it really a good idea to go digging up the past? As dark secrets come to light, she can't be sure what's real any more - or who to trust…Moving and suspenseful, The Last Day I Saw Her is a richly emotive story of friendship lost and found, and how facing up to the past can help you find a better future.

One Last Summer at Hideaway Bay


Zoë Cook - 2016
    Perfect for fans of Nicholas Sparks and Jojo Moyes.Lucy, hi. It’s Tom. How are you? It’s been a while. I’ve been meaning to get in touch but it’s hard to know how to after so much time. I hear you’re doing really well up there. I knew you would be.You should come here, you know, back to Hideaway bay. Come and see everyone, see how little it’s all changed. Feel the sand between your toes, the Cornish sea breeze on your face. When the sun hits the surf in that way it does, it’s as magical as ever.That’s why I’m writing to you, actually. I want to get the gang back together again, one last time before…well…just one last time. You should come too. The four of us, a summer on the beach, like old times. We all want you here for it. I want you here for it. It’s been so long since I saw you.I still think about you.Tom

Country Plot


Cynthia Harrod-Eagles - 2012
    . . perfect chaos! - One lousy Monday, Jenna loses her gorgeous job, her even more gorgeous boyfriend, and her home. In an attempt to put aside her personal woes, Jenna goes to catalogue books for an elderly cousin, Kitty Everest, at her country mansion. Horrified to discover that Kitty may be forced to sell Holtby House, Jenna throws herself into a scheme to save it. But when an attempt is made on her life, Jenna finds herself in a race to save Holtby, Kitty – and herself.

Walden of Bermondsey


Peter Murphy - 2017
    But he soon finds himself struggling to keep the peace between three feisty fellow judges who have very different views about how to do their job, and about how Charlie should do his.And as if that's not enough, there's the endless battle against the 'Grey Smoothies', the humourless grey-suited civil servants who seem determined to drown Charlie in paperwork and strip the court of its last vestiges of civilisation.No hope of a quiet life then for Charlie, and there are times when his real job - trying the challenging criminal cases that come before him - actually seems like light relief.'No one writes with more wit, warmth and insight about the law and its practitioners than Peter Murphy. He has no equal since the great John 'Rumpole' Mortimer' - David Ambrose'Though his exasperation is sometimes palpable, what triumphs over everything is his sense of humour. And it is the humour that makes Walden of Bermondsey such a delightful read. Think of him as what Rumpole would be like if he ever became a judge, and you get some idea of his self-deprecating wit and indomitable stoicism. Add a dash of Henry Cecil for his situation and AP Herbert for the fun he has with the law, and you get a sense of his literary precedents' - Paul Magrath

The Best Thing that Never Happened to Me


Laura Tait - 2014
    But she decided ten years ago that love wasn't about mix tapes and seizing the moment - though she's not exactly sure it's about secret dates with your boss, either. But what if the feelings never really went away? Alex wants to make every moment of his new job count. It's a fresh start in a big city, and he's almost certain that moving to London has nothing to do with Holly. Almost. How do you know if it was meant to be... Or never meant to happen at all?

Asking for Trouble


Liz Young - 2012
    She does, however, have an imaginary boyfriend, Dominic, a little white lie designed to keep Sophy's mother off her back. Which is fine, until his presence is demanded at a family wedding. So does Sophy admit Dominic is a fantasy? Oh no. Sophy hires an escort. But when the distinctly delicious Josh Carmichael arrives on her doorstep, Sophy can tell things are going to get tricky. And the wedding is only the beginning...

Long Reach


Peter Cocks - 2011
    But he soon discovers something even more disturbing - that Steve had actually been working undercover for the police and was probably murdered in the line of duty.

A Parcel for Anna Browne


Miranda Dickinson - 2015
    Her day job as a receptionist in bustling London isn't exactly her dream, yet she has everything she wants. But someone thinks Anna Browne deserves more . . .When a parcel addressed to Anna Browne arrives, she has no idea who has sent it. Inside she finds a beautiful gift - one that is designed to be seen. And so begins a series of incredible deliveries, each one bringing Anna further out of the shadows and encouraging her to become the woman she was destined to be. As Anna grows in confidence, others begin to notice her - and her life starts to change.But who is sending the mysterious gifts, and why?

The Museum of You


Carys Bray - 2016
    She used to imagine she was the good kind, now she’s not sure. She’d like to ask Dad about it, but growing up in the saddest chapter of someone else’s story is difficult. She tries not to skate on the thin ice of his memories.Darren has done his best. He's studied his daughter like a seismologist on the lookout for waves and surrounded her with everything she might want - everything he can think of, at least - to be happy.What Clover wants is answers. This summer, she thinks she can find them in the second bedroom, which is full of her mother's belongings. Volume isn't important, what she is looking for is essence; the undiluted bits: a collection of things that will tell the full story of her mother, her father and who she is going to be.But what you find depends on what you're searching for.

Without You


Saskia Sarginson - 2014
    When 17-year-old Eva goes missing at sea, everyone presumes that she drowned. Her parents' relationship is falling apart, undermined by guilt and grief. But her younger sister, Faith, refuses to consider a life without Eva; she's determined to find her sister and bring her home alive. Close to the shore looms the shape of an island -- out of bounds, mysterious, and dotted with windowless concrete huts. What nobody knows is that inside one of the huts Eva is being held captive. That she is fighting to survive -- and return home. . .

A Long Way Down


Nick Hornby - 2005
    Meet Martin, JJ, Jess, and Maureen. Four people who come together on New Year's Eve: a former TV talk show host, a musician, a teenage girl, and a mother. Three are British, one is American. They encounter one another on the roof of Topper's House, a London destination famous as the last stop for those ready to end their lives. In four distinct and riveting first-person voices, Nick Hornby tells a story of four individuals confronting the limits of choice, circumstance, and their own mortality. This is a tale of connections made and missed, punishing regrets, and the grace of second chances. Intense, hilarious, provocative, and moving, A Long Way Down is a novel about suicide that is, surprisingly, full of life. What's your jumping-off point? MaureenWhy is it the biggest sin of all? All your life you're told that you'll be going to this marvelous place when you pass on. And the one thing you can do to get you there a bit quicker is something that stops you getting there at all. Oh, I can see that it's a kind of queue-jumping. But if someone jumps the queue at the post office, people tut. Or sometimes they say "Excuse me, I was here first." They don't say "You will be consumed by hellfire for all eternity." That would be a bit strong. MartinI'd spent the previous couple of months looking up suicides on the Internet, just out of curiosity. And nearly every single time, the coroner says the same thing: "He took his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed." And then you read the story about the poor bastard: His wife was sleeping with his best friend, he'd lost his job, his daughter had been killed in a road accident some months before . . . Hello, Mr. Coroner? I'm sorry, but there's no disturbed mental balance here, my friend. I'd say he got it just right. JessI was at a party downstairs. It was a shit party, full of all these ancient crusties sitting on the floor drinking cider and smoking huge spliffs and listening to weirdo space-out reggae. At midnight, one of them clapped sarcastically, and a couple of others laughed, and that was it-Happy New Year to you, too. You could have turned up to that party as the happiest person in London, and you'd still have wanted to jump off the roof by five past twelve. And I wasn't the happiest person in London anyway. Obviously. JJNew Year's Eve was a night for sentimental losers. It was my own stupid fault. Of course there'd be a low-rent crowd up there. I should have picked a classier date-like March 28, when Virginia Woolf took her walk into the river, or November 25 (Nick Drake). If anybody had been on the roof on either of those nights, the chances are they would have been like-minded souls, rather than hopeless f*ck-ups who had somehow persuaded themselves that the end of a calendar year is in any way significant.

Cook Happy, Cook Healthy


Fearne Cotton - 2016
    Even the naughty treats can have good stuff in them too! If you love cooking and baking and are happy, like me, to whittle away the hours with spatula in hand then hopefully you'll enjoy my ideas and recipes." - Fearne CottonFearne Cotton is one of our best-loved television and radio presenters. She is also a keen healthy baker and young, busy, working mum who has found some great ways to eat well and eat clean.Her first cookbook, Cook Happy, Cook Healthy, is full of easy, fast and healthy recipes for everything from breakfast and speedy suppers to baked treats. Delicious dishes include Quick Granola, Courgette Fritters with Herby Yoghurt Dip, Halloumi and Roasted Beetroot Salad, and Almond and Apricot Biscuits. With an eye to food bills and time-poor households, the ingredients are easy to buy and few in number, and the methods very simple.

The Cuckoo's Calling


Robert Galbraith - 2013
    Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.

Eleven


Mark Watson - 2010
    Xavier Ireland is a radio DJ who by night listens to the hopes, fears and regrets of sleepless Londoners and by day keeps himself very much to himself - until he is brought into the light by a one-of-a-kind cleaning lady and forced to confront his own biggest regret.

Saltwater


Jessica Andrews - 2019
    Growing up in the north east she wanted more. When others were thinking about the Nissan factory or call centres she was thinking about Pete Doherty, poetry and the possibilities London seemed to offer. University was the way out, her ticket to the promised land – where she’d become a shinier version of herself, where her nights would be gigs and parties and long exciting conversations about Judith Butler.But once she gets there Lucy can’t help feeling that the big city isn’t for her, and once again she is striving, only this time it’s for the right words, the right clothes, the right foods. No matter what she tries she’s not right. Until she is. In that last year of her degree the city opens up to her, she is saying the right things, doing the right things. Until her parents visit for her graduation and events show her that her life has always been about pretending and now she’s lost all sense of who she is and what she’s supposed to be doing.And so Lucy packs up her things and leaves again, this time for her dead Irish grandfather’s stone cottage in a remote part of Donegal. There, alone, she sets about piecing together her history hoping that in confronting where she came from she will know where she should be going. Saltwater is a novel about growing up, about class, about how where we come from shapes who we become, and about the aimless periods we all go through. And it’s about the north east, mothers and daughters, history and pre-destiny.