The Conception of Terror: Tales Inspired by M.R. James, Volume 1


M.R. JamesAlice Lowe - 2019
    R. James.Casting the Runes, adapted by Stephen GallagherWhen academic Jo Harrington (Anna Maxwell Martin) is sent a paper—The Truth of Alchemy, by Anton Karswell—for peer review, she pulls no punches. Jo writes that the paper has no place in a serious academic publication and that Karswell is a half-bright fool. When the editor writes a rejection note to Karswell, he inadvertently includes Jo’s entire email. Occultist Karswell (Reece Shearsmith) doesn’t take kindly to criticism.On the tube home with her partner Edward Dunning (Tom Burke), Jo spots a poster with her name on it. It reads: "In memory of Joanne Harrington, MLitt, PhD, died September eighteenth, three days were allowed." Is there anything that Edward can do to save Jo from this curse?Lost Hearts, adapted by A. K. BenedictTeenager Stephanie Elliot (Rosa Coduri) is taken to Aswarby House to be fostered by Mrs. Bunch (Susan Jameson). Stephanie strikes up a friendship with Ben (Bill Milner), the adopted son of charismatic community leader Mr. Abney (Jeff Rawle). He tells her that Mr. Abney is a good man—he even took in a child refugee last year, but she stole from him and ran away. Stephanie is troubled by voices and visions of a dead girl clutching at her chest, and when Ben disappears she begins to suspect that all is not right in Aswarby House.The Treasure of Abbot-Thomas, adapted by Jonathan BarnesWhen former Somerton school pupil Greg Parsbury (Robert Bathurst) meets history teacher Mika Chantry (Pearl Mackie) at a memorial service for schoolmaster Sam Abbot-Thomas, he begs for her help. Greg has been sent a postcard by the estate of the mysterious and charismatic Abbot-Thomas. On it is a strange inscription in Latin, which he believes to be an inaugural clue in a treasure hunt much like the elaborate treasure hunts Abbot-Thomas used to set back in the 1970s. There were rumors that Abbot-Thomas possessed a hidden fortune, and Parsbury and Chantry set out to find it.A View from a Hill, adapted by Mark MorrisComedian and podcaster Paul Fanshawe (Andy Nyman) and his wife, Sarah (Alice Lowe), visit the Cotswolds on holiday, trying to rebuild their lives after the death of their young son, Archie. While out walking, they spot a beautiful abbey across the valley on Gallows Hill, but when they reach it, they find the building is little more than rubble. While Sarah explores, Paul records commentary for his podcast. Sarah thinks she hears children’s laughter, but there’s no one there. Later that night, she listens to the recording and hears a child’s voice whisper, "Mummy." Sarah is convinced that Archie is trying to reach them and wants to return to the ruins. But something far worse is waiting for them on Gallows Hill.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North


Richard Flanagan - 2013
    At its heart is one day in a Japanese slave labour camp in August 1943. As the day builds to its horrific climax, Dorrigo Evans battles and fails in his quest to save the lives of his fellow POWs, a man is killed for no reason, and a love story unfolds.

Whisper Me This


Kerry Anne King - 2018
    The only thing Maisey’s sure she’s gotten right is her relationship with her twelve-year-old daughter, Elle…until a phone call blows apart the precarious balance of their lives. Maisey’s mother is in a coma, and her aging father faces charges of abuse and neglect.Back at her childhood home, Maisey must make a heartrending life-or-death decision. Her confused father has destroyed family records, including her mother’s final wishes. Searching for answers, Maisey uncovers one unspeakable secret after another when she stumbles upon a shattering truth: a twin sister named Marley.Maisey’s obsession with solving the mystery of her sister forces her to examine her darkest memories and triggers a custody battle with Elle’s father. Will Maisey’s love for her daughter be strong enough to break a cycle of abuse and create a new beginning for them all?

A Curve in the Road


Julianne MacLean - 2018
    She is a successful surgeon, is married to a handsome cardiologist, and has a model teenage son who is only months away from going off to college.But then one fateful night, everything changes. When a drunk driver hits her car, Abbie is rushed to the hospital. She survives, but the accident forces unimaginable secrets out into the open and plagues Abbie with nightmares so vivid that she starts to question her grip on reality. Her perfect life begins to crack, and those cracks threaten to shatter her world completely.The search for answers will test her strength in every way—as a wife, a career woman, and a mother—but it may also open the door for Abbie to move forward, beyond anger and heartbreak, to find out what she is truly made of. In learning to heal and trust again, she may just find new hope in the spaces left behind.

Everything We Keep


Kerry Lonsdale - 2016
    But when her fiancé, James Donato, vanishes in a boating accident, her well-baked future is swept out to sea. Instead of walking down the aisle on their wedding day, Aimee is at James’s funeral—a funeral that leaves her more unsettled than at peace.As Aimee struggles to reconstruct her life, she delves deeper into James’s disappearance. What she uncovers is an ocean of secrets that make her question everything about the life they built together. And just below the surface is a truth that may set Aimee free…or shatter her forever.

Magic Hour


Kristin Hannah - 2006
    Julia Cates was one of the country's preeminent child psychiatrists until a shocking tragedy ruined her career. Retreating to her small western Washington hometown, Julia meets an extraordinary six-year-old girl who has inexplicably emerged from the deep woods nearby—a child locked in a world of unimaginable fear and isolation. To Julia, nothing is more important than saving the girl she now calls Alice. But Julia will need help from others, including the sister she barely knows and a handsome doctor with secrets of his own. What follows will test the limits of Julia's faith and strength, as she struggles to find a home for Alice . . . and for herself.

The Art of Inheriting Secrets


Barbara O'Neal - 2018
    Raw with grief and reeling from the knowledge that her reserved mother hid something so momentous, Olivia leaves San Francisco and crosses the pond to unravel the mystery of a lifetime.One glance at the breathtaking Rosemere Priory and Olivia understands why the manor, magnificent even in disrepair, was the subject of her mother’s exquisite paintings. What she doesn’t understand is why her mother never mentioned it to her. As Olivia begins digging into her mother’s past, she discovers that the peeling wallpaper, debris-laden halls, and ceiling-high Elizabethan windows covered in lush green vines hide unimaginable secrets.Although personal problems and her life back home beckon, Olivia finds herself falling for the charming English village and its residents. But before she can decide what Rosemere’s and her own future hold, Olivia must first untangle the secrets of her past.

Season of Storms


Susanna Kearsley - 2001
    When Celia Sands arrives at a remote Italian villa to star in the first performance of a deceased playwright's masterpiece, she is instantly drawn to the mysteries surrounding the play -- and to her compelling, compassionate employer.

My One Month Marriage


Shari Low - 2020
    She walked up the aisle thinking that she was strolling to her happy ever after.One month later, her heart is in pieces, she’s returning the wedding gifts and there’s a husband-shaped space next to her in bed. He’s gone, after Zoe discovered a devastating secret.But Zoe has lost so much more than her marriage. Her three sisters are not only her siblings, they’re her best friends too.Now she’s discovered that one of them may have been the reason her husband betrayed her.She’s lost her happy ever after, but has she lost a sister too?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation


Ottessa Moshfegh - 2018
    But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.

A Mother's Confession


Kelly Rimmer - 2016
    Sometimes I actually miss him, but then in the very next breath I find that I hate him so much that I hope there is a hell, just so that he can be suffering like he left me here to suffer.' Olivia and David were the perfect couple with their whole lives in front of them. When beautiful baby daughter Zoe came along, their world seemed complete. But now David is dead and Olivia’s world is in pieces. While she is consumed with grief, her mother-in-law Ivy is also mourning the loss of her son. Both women are hiding secrets about the man they loved. Secrets that have put the family in danger. Something was very wrong in Olivia and David’s marriage. Can Olivia and Ivy break their silence and speak the truth? A mother should protect her child, whatever the cost…shouldn’t she? From the bestselling author of The Secret Daughter and Me Without You comes another emotionally gripping and gut-wrenching read about love, loss and the strength of a mother’s love. What everyone’s saying about Kelly Rimmer: ‘This was a refreshingly different read which I would put in the same vein as Diane Chamberlain but this was even better than some of Diane's latest releases. This is no girl meets boy and falls in love read but rather a heartbreaking, beautifully written story based on true facts… a thought provoking, emotional story not to be missed.’ Shaz’s Book Blog ‘I adored this novel. Absolutely, 100% adored it. Kelly Rimmer is a beautiful writer … The Secret Daughter packed such an emotional, powerful punch, one that I don't think I've felt before that I'll always associate with her novels from now on.’ Becca’s Books ‘Kelly Rimmer did an amazing job of telling such a heartbreaking tale. This story had me laughing, crying and hugging my daughter a wee tighter. I loved this story!’ Steph and Chris Book Reviews ‘This book had me on an emotional rollercoaster from the first words… a story that will stay with you long after you have finished the book.’ Ask a Bookworm ‘This was such a moving story, convincingly told. It is almost as though you are reading a memoir rather than a novel … a really compelling read and would definitely recommend it.’ Portobello Book Blog ‘Full of deep raw emotion and had me hooked until the end.' That Thing She Reads ‘warmed my heart to the very core, and then tore it out and stomped all over it …  an unforgettable tale that I couldn't recommend more.' GirlsLovetoRead.com  ‘I fell in love with this amazing book after the first sentence and would read it all over again. A wonderful mixture of emotions, real love, secrets, laughter and sadness.’ Sky’s Book Corner  ‘It’s been a while since I’ve read a book that made me ‘ugly cry.

A Scattered Life


Karen McQuestion - 2010
    She also acquires a new family: mother-in-law Audrey, disapproving and suspicious of Skyla’s nomadic past; father-in-law Walt, gruff but kind; and Thomas’s brothers, sofa-bound Jeffrey, and Dennis, who moved across the country seemingly to avoid the family. Skyla settles into marriage and motherhood, but quiet life in small-town Wisconsin can’t quell feelings of restlessness. Then into her life comes Madame Picard, the local psychic from the disreputable bookstore, Mystic Books, and new neighbor, Roxanne, whose goal in life is to have twelve kids even though she can’t manage the five she has. Despite her family’s objections, Skyla befriends Roxanne and gets a job at the bookstore, and life gets fuller and more complicated than she ever imagined. Exceptionally heartwarming and inevitably bittersweet, A Scattered Life is a story that will stay with the reader long after the last page is read.

The Apartment


Danielle Steel - 2016
    Claire finds the spacious loft apartment. But the aspiring shoe designer needs at least one roommate to manage the rent. She meets Abby, a writer trying to make it on her own, far from her successful family in L.A. Then Morgan joins them. She’s ambitious, with a serious finance job on Wall Street. Finally Sasha, a medical student. And so the sprawling space, with its exposed brick and rich natural light, becomes a home to friends about to embark on new exhilarating adventures.Their shared life in the apartment turns them into a family of beloved friends. But as unexpected opportunities and challenges alter the course of each of their lives, they face the bittersweet reality that in time, they will inevitably move away from the place where their dreams began . . .Danielle Steel is famous for her inspirational stories about family, love and life. Her novels will be enjoyed by readers of Penny Vincenzi, Jodi Picoult and Diane Chamberlain.

I Give my Marriage a Year


Holly Wainwright - 2020
    They share two kids, a mortgage, careers and plenty of history. Now, after a particularly fraught Christmas, Lou is ready to ask herself: is this marriage worth hanging on to?Every month for a year, Lou sets a different test for their relationship - from daily sex to brutal honesty - to help her decide if she should stay or go. Secrets are exposed, old wounds reopened and a true-to-life suburban love story unfolds.I Give My Marriage a Year paints a sharply accurate, often hilarious picture of a modern Australian marriage. Lou and Josh are a couple on the edge, and their efforts to bring their relationship back from the brink will resonate with anyone who has ever asked themselves: is this enough?Whose side will you take? Who deserves a second chance? And will Josh and Lou stay together or split for good?

Once in a Blue Moon


Eileen Goudge - 2009
    Without guidance from their neglectful mother, their only aid came from an unlikely source, a retired exotic dancer by the name of Miss Honi Love. When the girls’ mother was sent to prison, Miss Honi tried unsuccessfully to save them from being separated and sent into foster care.Thirty years later, Lindsay is still trying to reconnect with her sister. The owner of a bookstore in the sleepy California seaside town of Blue Moon Bay, she was lucky enough to have been adopted by a loving couple. Unbeknownst to her, Kerrie Ann has suffered a very different life. Bounced from one foster home to the next, she ran away as a teenager before becoming a drug-addicted single mother. Now, newly sober, Kerrie Ann is fighting to regain custody of the little girl who was taken from her.Neither sister’s expectations are met when they’re finally reunited. But as the two sisters engage in the fiercest battles of their lives, they are at last drawn together despite their differences, restoring belief in the unshakable bond of family.