The Marble Collector


Cecelia Ahern - 2015
    A discovered life.What if you only had one day to find out who you really were?When Sabrina Boggs stumbles upon a mysterious collection of her father’s possessions, she discovers a truth where she never knew there was a lie. The familiar man she grew up with is suddenly a stranger to her.An unexpected break in her monotonous daily routine leaves her just one day to unlock the secrets of the man she thought she knew. A day that unearths memories, stories and people she never knew existed. A day that changes her and those around her forever.The Marble Collector is a thought-provoking novel about how the most ordinary decisions we make can have the most extraordinary consequences for how we live our lives. And how sometimes it’s only by shining on a light on someone else, that you can truly understand yourself.

Brain Child


John Saul - 1985
    once home to a proud Spanish heritage... now a thriving modern community high in the California hills... where a boy named Alex is about to become the instrument of a terrible, undying vengeance.Alex needs a miracle... Alex Lonsdale was one of the most popular kids in La Paloma. Until the horrifying car accident. Until a brilliant doctor's medical miracle brought him back from the brink of death.Now Alex has come back... He seems the same. But in his eyes there is a terrible blankness. In his heart there is a coldness. And if his parents, his friends, his girlfriend could see inside his brain, if they could see his dreams, they would be terrified.Now the people must die... One hundred years ago in La Paloma a terrible deed was done; a cry for vengeance pierced the night. In dark and secret places in La Paloma that evil lives still, that vengeance waits.Waits for Alex Lonsdale.Waits for the... Brainchild.

Without Remorse


Tom Clancy - 1993
    When that past reaches out for her in a particularly horrifying fashion, he vows revenge and, assembling all of his old skills, sets out to track down the men responsible, before it can happen again.At the same time, the Pentagon is readying an operation to rescue a key group of prisoners in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp. One man, they find, knows the terrain around the camp better than anyone else they have: a certain former Navy SEAL named John Kelly.Kelly has his own mission. The Pentagon wants him for theirs. Attempting to juggle the two, Kelly (now code-named Mr. Clark) finds himself confronted by a vast array of enemies, both at home and abroad - men so skillful that the slightest misstep means death. And the fate of dozens of people, including Kelly himself, rests on his making sure that misstep never happens.Men aren't born dangerous. They grow dangerous. And the most dangerous of all, Kelly learns, are the ones you least expect...As Clancy takes us through the twists and turns of Without Remorse, he blends the exceptional realism and authenticity that are his hallmarks with intricate plotting, knife-edge suspense and a remarkable cast of characters.

My Dear I Wanted to Tell You


Louisa Young - 2011
    Just a few years later, romance and these differences erupt simultaneously with the war in Europe. In a fit of fury and boyish pride, Riley enlists in the army and finds himself involved in the transformative nightmare of the twentieth century.While Riley and his commanding officer, Peter Locke, fight for their country and their survival in the trenches of Flanders, Peter's lovely and naive wife, Julia, and his cousin Rose eagerly await his return. But the sullen, distant man who arrives home on leave is not the Peter they knew. Worried that her husband is slipping away, Julia is left alone with her fears when Rose joins the nursing corps to work with a pioneering plastic surgeon treating wounded and disfigured soldiers.Only eighteen at the outbreak of the war, Nadine and Riley want to make promises to each other—but how can they when their future is out of their hands? Youthful passion is on their side, but then their loyalty is tested by terrible injury, and even more so by the necessarily imperfect rehabilitation that follows.Moving among Ypres, London, and Paris, this emotionally rich and evocative novel is both a powerful exploration of the lasting effects of war on those who fight—and those who don't—and a poignant testament to the power of enduring love.

The Bell


Iris Murdoch - 1958
    A new bell, legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. Dora Greenfield, erring wife, returns to her husband. Michael Mead, leader of the community, is confronted by Nick Fawley, with whom he had disastrous homosexual relations, while the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved, whatever that may mean....Iris Murdoch's funny and sad novel has themes of religion, the fight between good and evil, and the terrible accidents of human frailty.

Remember Me


Derek Hansen - 2007
    A twelve-year-old boy writes an essay which inadvertently uncovers a secret from World War II: a secret of a boat adrift on a moonless night, and a treacherous act of kindness. His discovery unleashes a chain of events that rips a close community apart, turning neighbour against neighbour, friend against friend.The boy′s corner of the world has been spared the destruction that ravaged Europe and Asia, but beneath the surface bitter memories and old enmities run deep. The war is over but, as the boy discovers, it is far from done with.Remember Me compellingly evokes the hopes and hardships of the post-war world, and examines what can happen in a close, cosy community when the world comes knocking at the door ... and how redemption may lie in the most unlikely hands.

Mildred Pierce


James M. Cain - 1941
    She used those attributes to survive a divorce in 1940s America with two children and to claw her way out of poverty, becoming a successful businesswoman. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men and an unreasoning devotion to her monstrous daughter.Out of these elements, Cain created a novel (later made into a film noir classic) of acute social observation and devastating emotional violence—and a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable.

Never Victorious, Never Defeated


Taylor Caldwell - 1954
    Her theme is one welling from the heart-springs of American life - the story of the Interstate, a railroad founded in the latter days of Jackson's presidency, which grew through one hundred stormy, changeful years of our history into a vast enterprise; and the story of the extraordinary family with whom its fortunes were intertwined, the deWitts. It is 1866. In the small Pennsylvania city of Portersville, headquarters of the Interstate, old Aaron deWitt watches enigmatically as his two sons struggle for control of the railroad he founded.

Beautiful Exiles


Meg Waite Clayton - 2018
    Headstrong, accomplished journalist Martha Gellhorn is confident with words but less so with men when she meets disheveled literary titan Ernest Hemingway in a dive bar. Their friendship—forged over writing, talk, and family dinners—flourishes into something undeniable in Madrid while they’re covering the Spanish Civil War.Martha reveres him. The very married Hemingway is taken with Martha—her beauty, her ambition, and her fearless spirit. And as Hemingway tells her, the most powerful love stories are always set against the fury of war. The risks are so much greater. They’re made for each other.With their romance unfolding as they travel the globe, Martha establishes herself as one of the world’s foremost war correspondents, and Hemingway begins the novel that will win him the Nobel Prize for Literature. Beautiful Exiles is a stirring story of lovers and rivals, of the breathless attraction to power and fame, and of one woman—ahead of her time—claiming her own identity from the wreckage of love.

Intrusion


Mary McCluskey - 2016
    While Scott throws himself back into his law practice in Los Angeles, Kat is hesitant to rejoin the workplace and instead spends her days shell-shocked and confused, unable to focus.When an unwelcome face from Kat’s past in England emerges—the beautiful and imposing Sarah Cherrington—Kat’s marriage is thrown into a tailspin. Now wealthy beyond anything she could have imagined as a girl, Sarah appears to have everything she could need or want. But Sarah has an agenda and she wants one more thing. Soon Kat and Scott are caught up in her devious games and power plays.Against the backdrops of Southern California and Sussex, in spare and haunting prose, Mary McCluskey propels this domestic drama to its chilling conclusion.

A Certain Threat


Roger Burnage - 2012
    Grahame in this work. Merriman is plunged headlong into the world of espionage and when Grahame is seriously wounded it falls to Merriman to carry on the investigation.Young James Merriman must keep all his wits about him to foil these plans especially when his adversary is revealed to be an exceptional French agent Henri Moreau who hopes that by helping the Irish to throw off the English yoke, France will be able to use Irish ports from which to attack England.

Escape To London


Mary Jane Staples - 2007
    Anne von Korvacs watches in horror as Hitler's tanks roll through the streets of Vienna, amid crowds of cheering supporters. Her embittered ex-husband, now a fervent member of the Nazi cause, is among the cavalcade - he is burning with hatred for Anne, seeing her as a symbol of the old Austrian empire he once served. A chance encounter with a British journalist leaves Anne with a secret that must be smuggled out of the country, and Anne knows that she must forsake her beloved Vienna and with her children flee to Britain.In a thrilling journey that will separate sisters and brothers, parents and children, Anne and her family escape to freedom, to dream of a reunion in far-away London.Mary Jane Staples introduces a cast of gloriously warm characters in this wartime romantic adventure.

Fractured Persona


Harry Krebs - 2013
    A glimpse in a mirror and the evidence of a driver's license prove that Fornek is trapped in the body of warehouse worker Daniel Curtis. Terrified, he insists that he's Richard Fornek, but when faced with the prospect of admittance to a psychiatric hospital, he is forced to assume a new role to buy time to figure out what’s going on. Alone and confused, things go from bad to worse as he struggles to regain control of his life. A little romance, a little murder, and a whole lot of hair-raising suspense unfold as he scrambles to stay one step ahead of the mayhem.

The Trial of Elizabeth Cree


Peter Ackroyd - 1994
    A series of brutal murders has occurred, and, as Ackroyd leads us down London's dark streets, the sense of time and place becomes overwhelmingly immediate and real. We experience the sights and sounds of the English music halls, smell the smells of London slums, hear the hooves of horses on the cobblestone streets, and attend the trial of Elizabeth Cree, a woman accused of poisoning her husband but who may be the one person who knows the truth about the murders.

The Paris Key


Juliet Blackwell - 2015
    As a girl, Genevieve Martin spent the happiest summer of her life in Paris, learning the delicate art of locksmithing at her uncle's side. But since then, living back in the States, she has become more private, more subdued. She has been an observer of life rather than an active participant, holding herself back from those around her, including her soon-to-be-ex-husband. Paris never really left Genevieve, and, as her marriage crumbles, she finds herself faced with an incredible opportunity: return to the magical city of her youth to take over her late uncle's shop. But as she absorbs all that Parisian culture has to offer, she realizes the city also holds secrets about her family that could change her forever, and that locked doors can protect you or imprison you, depending on which side of them you stand.