Book picks similar to
Factory Girls by Michelle Gallen
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My Phantoms
Gwendoline Riley - 2021
An extrovert with few friends who has sought intimacy in the wrong places; a twice-divorced mother-of-two now living alone surrounded by her memories, Helen (known to her acquaintances as 'Hen') has always haunted her daughter. Now, as together they approach the end, Bridget looks back on their tumultuous relationship - the performances and small deceptions - and tries to reckon with the cruelties inflicted on both sides.With so little time left, can these two warring women find a bruised accord?
Know No Evil
Graeme Hampton - 2019
But when the body of young mother, Leanne Wyatt, is discovered in an East London park, the heat rises to boiling point for D.I. Matthew Denning. Under pressure to solve the case, and fast, he delves into Leanne’s history and finds that she was close to some dangerous individuals – could one of them have taken her life in an angry rage? But when another woman is found dead in similar circumstances, Denning is forced to consider that a killer stalks the capital’s streets.But when young, ambitious, D.S. Molly Fisher, discovers a horrifying link to these deaths and a killing spree in South London a decade ago –a terrifying summer where young women died at the hands of a psychopath the press dubbed ‘The Bermondsey Ripper’, the case is blown wide open. Anthony Ferguson is serving a life sentence for the crimes, so are these new deaths the result of a copycat killer - or did the police convict the wrong man? Whatever the case, Denning and Fisher need to stop a killer in his tracks – before he sets his sights on them.
Us Three
Ruth Jones - 2020
Meet Lana, Judith and Catrin. Best friends since primary school when they swore an oath on a Curly Wurly wrapper that they would always be there for each other, come what may.
After the trip of a lifetime, the three girls are closer than ever. But an unexpected turn of events shakes the foundation of their friendship to its core, leaving their future in doubt – there’s simply too much to forgive, let alone forget. An innocent childhood promise they once made now seems impossible to keep . . .
Packed with all the heart and empathy that made Ruth’s name as a screenwriter and now author, Us Three is a funny, moving and uplifting novel about life’s complications, the power of friendship and how it defines us all. Prepare to meet characters you’ll feel you’ve known all your life – prepare to meet Us Three.
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW
Praise for Ruth Jones:
‘Ruth Jones is excellent on human nature and why we make the mistakes we do. I felt for every character. Unputdownable.’Jojo Moyes, bestselling author of ME BEFORE YOU‘I love books about gnarly, messy relationships and this one kept me gripped from the beginning. A great read.’Jane Fallon, bestselling author of TELL ME A SECRET‘Easy to read and full of laughter - and truth’Daily Mail ‘Thought-provoking, compelling and ultimately redemptive’Sunday Express
The Silence
Daisy Pearce - 2020
She’s vulnerable. She’s just what Marco was looking for.Stella Wiseman was a child TV star, but there’s nothing glamorous about her life now. Alone in her thirties, she’s lost her parents and her friends and she’s stuck in a dead-end job. But just as she hits rock bottom she meets Marco, a charismatic older man who offers to get her back on her feet. He seems too good to be true.Is he?She appreciates the money he lavishes on her. And the pills. But are the pills just helping her sleep, or helping her avoid her problems?With Stella’s life still in freefall, Marco whisks her away to a secluded cottage where she is isolated from everyone except him. But the closer he pulls her, the worse she gets. He tells her it’s all in her head, and she just needs time away from the world.No longer sure what’s real and what’s not, Stella begins to question whether she was wrong to trust Marco. Was she wrong to trust herself? Is the one person she thought was fighting for her survival actually her biggest threat?
Living the Dream
M.J. Hardy - 2019
Hardy is an exciting new voice in the psychological thriller genre *** Have you ever wondered what it’s like to have it all? Four couples live a charmed life behind the security gates of an exclusive development. To everyone else, they have a dream life. Beautiful homes, designer clothes and more money than sense. Behind closed doors, the story is very different. Beauty is skin deep and when you scratch the surface the blood runs cold. Betrayal, dishonesty and lies are about to blow their worlds apart and not everyone will survive. Who is telling the truth and who is hiding a secret they would do anything to protect? Money doesn’t buy happiness; it buys a more expensive kind of trouble. When your friends are your enemies in disguise, expect things to get ugly.
Mrs. Saint and the Defectives
Julie Lawson Timmer - 2017
But Markie and Jesse are unable to escape the attention of their new neighbor Mrs. Saint, an irascible, elderly New European woman who takes it upon herself, along with her ragtag group of “defectives,” to identify and fix the flaws in those around her, whether they want her to or not.What Markie doesn’t realize is that Mrs. Saint has big plans for the divorcée’s broken spirit. Soon, the quirky yet endearing woman recruits Markie to join her eccentric community, a world where both hidden truths and hope unite them. But when Mrs. Saint’s own secrets threaten to unravel their fragile web of healing, it’s up to Markie to mend these wounds and usher in a new era for the “defectives”—one full of second chances and happiness.
The Seven Day Switch
Kelly Harms - 2021
What a difference a week makes in a heartfelt, laugh-out-loud novel by the Washington Post bestselling author of The Overdue Life of Amy Byler.Celeste Mason is the Pinterest stay-at-home supermom of other mothers’ nightmares. Despite her all-organic, SunButter-loving, free-range kids, her immaculate home, and her volunteering awards, she still has time to relax with a nice glass of pinot at the end of the day. The only thing that ruins it all is her workaholic, career-obsessed neighbor, who makes no secret of what she thinks of Celeste’s life choices every chance she gets.Wendy Charles is a celebrated productivity consultant, columnist, and speaker. On a minute-by-minute schedule, she makes the working-mom hustle look easy. She even spends at least one waking hour a day with her kids. She’s not apologizing for a thing. Especially to Celeste, who plays her superior parenting against Wendy whenever she can.Who do Celeste and Wendy think they are? They’re about to find out thanks to one freaky week. After a neighborhood potluck and too much sangria, they wake up—um, what?—in each other’s bodies. Everything Celeste and Wendy thought they knew about the “other kind of mom” is flipped upside down—along with their messy, complicated, maybe not so different lives.
Close to Home
Janet Gover - 2021
She's rarely left its comforting embrace. She knows everyone in it; in fact, she's related to most of them. All she wants is to keep her family safe and the town running exactly the way it always has. Her way. But when an exotic French artist comes to town, her hold begins to weaken...Lucienne Chevalier, once the toast of Europe, has come to Nyringa after a tragic loss to hang up her sequins and create a place for her circus family to rest between tours. With her is Simon, her grandson, recovering from an injury so damaging he can no longer perform. Lucienne fears he'll never embrace a new future. That is, until she notices the chemistry between him and the new schoolteacher... All they need is a push.Both grande dames think they know what's best, but with equal amounts of stubbornness on both sides, peace looks unlikely. Then a relationship between Alice's rebellious great-niece and a teenage acrobat sets the two communities on a collision course. But when the bakery starts making patisseries over lamingtons, the battle lines are truly drawn...A story of community and family. Of the love that brings them together ... and the fears that would tear them apart.
The Cleansing
J.A. Baker - 2019
Secrets buried deep...
When Ray moves to a new house in the village of Whitchurch, he leaves behind a relationship and a luxury apartment in search of a better life in the countryside.However, he soon realises that sleepy Whitchurch also has its own fair share of problems. Last year, a woman’s body was discovered in the woods nearby. The killer was never caught.Soon suspicious things start to happen. Threatening letters are sent, cars are vandalised and headstones are desecrated. But who is responsible for these acts and why?
As the tension in the village builds, Ray begins to feel the pressure. Someone is out to cause trouble and that someone might be closer to Ray than he ever imagined.
J.A. Baker is the bestselling author of multiple thrillers, including Undercurrent, The Uninvited, Her Dark Retreat and The Other Mother. The Cleansing is a gripping psychological thriller which will appeal to fans of authors like Shalini Boland, K.L. Slater and Rachel Abbott.
What She Never Told Me
Kate McQuaile - 2016
But I held one memory back, and it surfaces now, unbidden. I see a green postbox and a small hand stretching up to its oblong mouth. I am never sure whether that small hand is mine. But if not mine, whose?'Louise Redmond left Ireland for London before she was twenty. Now, more than two decades later, her heart already breaking from a failing marriage, she is summoned home. Her mother is on her deathbed, and it is Louise's last chance to learn the whereabouts of a father she never knew.Stubborn to the end, Marjorie refuses to fill in the pieces of her daughter's fragmented past. Then Louise unexpectedly finds a lead. A man called David Prescott . . . but is he really the father she's been trying to find? And who is the mysterious little girl who appears so often in her dreams? As each new piece of the puzzle leads to another question, Louise begins to suspect that the memories she most treasures could be a delicate web of lies.
An Invincible Summer
Mariah Stewart - 2021
Now, on the occasion of her fortieth high school reunion, she returns to her hometown on the Massachusetts coast, picking up right where she left off with dear friends Lydia and Emma. But seeing Brett Crawford again stirs other emotions. Once, they were the town’s golden couple destined for one another. He shared Maggie’s dreams—and eventually, a shattering secret that drove them apart.Buying her old family home and resettling in Wyndham Beach means a chance to start over for Maggie and her two daughters, but it also means facing her rekindled feelings for her first love and finally confronting—and embracing—the past in ways she never thought possible. Maggie won’t be alone. With her family and friends around her, she can weather this stormy turning point in her life and open her heart to the future. As for that dream shared and lost years ago? If Maggie can forgive herself, it still might come true.
Sisters at War
Clare Flynn - 2021
The pressures of war threaten to tear apart two sisters traumatised by their mother's murder by their father.With her new husband Will, a merchant seaman, deployed on dangerous Atlantic convoy missions, Hannah needs her younger sister Judith more than ever. But when Mussolini declares war on Britain, Judith's Italian sweetheart, Paolo is imprisoned as an enemy alien, and Judith's loyalties are divided.Each sister wants only to be with the man she loves but, as the war progresses, tensions between them boil over, and they face an impossible decision.A heart-wrenching page-turner about the everyday bravery of ordinary people during wartime. From heavily blitzed Liverpool to the terrors of the North Atlantic and the scorched plains of Australia, Sisters at War will bring tears to your eyes and joy to your heart.
The Norwegian Assassin
Hannah Byron - 2022
Her fiancé taken from her. Esther Weiss sees only one way to fight back.Life is good for Esther and her Jewish family until Hitler annexes their home country Austria. Her wedding to fiancé Carl Bernstein is postponed, and her family's entire life is uprooted.Thinking they’ll be safe in Oslo, the Weiss’s hope is short-lived when Norway is invaded in 1940 and the fascist Quisling Regime is put into place. Esther returns home one day to discover her entire family has been deported. Gone. Without a trace.Something snaps inside Esther. The soft-hearted, gentle girl is no longer. Her desire to fight the enemy becomes her only drive. She joins the Norwegian resistance movement and with her blond hair and light eyes, all it takes is a false passport to give Esther the freedom she needs. The freedom to kill. No German or Norwegian fascist is safe when she’s nearby.Destruction of those who took her family gives Esther a license to live, but it has also hardened her heart. Not even Tore Ringdal, her rock and protector in the Resistance movement, is able to break through the walls she’s placed around her heart.When all she loves is gone, and only hate remains, can the Norwegian Assassin reopen her heart and find love again?
End to End: John O'Groats, Broken Spokes and a Dog called Gretna
Alistair McGuinness - 2016
With no training, no plan, and no idea about the benefits of Lycra, the ride was destined for misadventure.But the men had a purpose, and despite the odds, they survived three countries, thirteen pub-crawls, two storms, and one memorable night in a youth hostel. These 'end-to-enders' also learnt a thing or two about broken spokes.890 miles and twenty years later, it's time to tell their story. For one of the riders, it's a story that changed his life.