Category: love
+ child abuse, childhood, family, fiction, friendship, lies, love, motherhood, review, secrets, thriller
A Safe Place by Stephanie Carty
What happens when your home becomes your prison? Twelve-year-old Cate has never left her village. She’s never had a friend. She’s never even hugged her mother. Imogen, Cate’s mum, spent her youth travelling the country with her father. He believed she had a gift and used her for his own gain. With her innocence snatched away, Imogen vowed to build an idyllic and safe … Read More A Safe Place by Stephanie Carty
+ Catholic Church, female friendship, fiction, friendship, Historical fiction, history, loss, love, review, secrets
Broken Madonna by Anna Lucia
Elena Ferrante meets Bernadette of Lourdes in a story of love, loss and belonging, spanning post WW2 Italy through to 90’s England Italy 1949At an orphanage in the poverty-stricken Apennine Mountains, 15-year-old Adelina has only one friend – enigmatic, fragile Elisabetta, 11. When Elisabetta claims to see the Madonna by the river, Adelina has doubts. But after Elisabetta appears to heal a traumatised young … Read More Broken Madonna by Anna Lucia
Anywhen by Beth Duke
Baezy is born in 2069, the centennial of the legendary Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Everything peace, love, and flower power is celebrated that year in a wave of nostalgia that takes over fashion, music, and the public’s imagination. She grows up listening to and loving the artists of that time, dreaming of witnessing everyone from Joan Baez to Santana in person. When presented … Read More Anywhen by Beth Duke
+ cosy mystery, crime fiction, dementia, family, fiction, love, revenge, review
Cemetery Lodge by Paula Hillman
Not all secrets remain buried forever…Archaeologist Cherie Hope makes a gruesome discovery in the grounds of a local cemetery. She’s desperate to know more, and wonders why caretaker Ash Black is being so guarded. Delving deeper, and liaising with the police, Cherie is drawn into a story that spans back fifty years. Entangled in a web of deceit, she soon uncovers a missing person, … Read More Cemetery Lodge by Paula Hillman
+ depression, female friendship, fiction, fifties, gay, gothic, grief, journal, loss, love, marriage, mental health, mental illness, murder, obsession, psychiatrist, psychologist, review, secrets
The Night Counsellor by L K Pang
When silence dawns, only dusk will break it. In the shadowy corridors of The Beaumont, a mental hospital haunted by its dark history as an asylum, a disturbing mystery unfolds when in 1953, a woman is found mute, naked, and drenched in blood on the outskirts of West Yorkshire. With no memory of her past and no one to claim her, she is dubbed … Read More The Night Counsellor by L K Pang
The House Of Fever by Polly Crosby
A gripping and Gothic new historical mystery. Can she unlock the secrets of The House of Fever? 1935, Hedoné House, a luxurious sanatorium for the creative elite dedicated to the groundbreaking treatment of tuberculosis. As the doctor’s new wife, Agnes Templeton has pledged her life to a house of fever. But Hedoné is no ordinary hospital. High society rubs shoulders with artists, poets and … Read More The House Of Fever by Polly Crosby
+ brothers, bullying, child abuse, childhood, dark humour, depression, fiction, journal, loss, love, mental illness, obsession, psychiatric hospital, psychiatrist, review, therapy
The Funeral Portrait by Vincent Viñas
Guy doesn’t smile easily. He could be described as fundamentally glum. Tallulah doesn’t die easily. She could be described as annoyingly immortal. What if you wanted to die but were unable to? Such is the case with Guy Edwards and Tallulah Leigh, who want to end their miserable lives for different reasons. The only problem is, she’s been stricken with an unexplained (and unwelcome) … Read More The Funeral Portrait by Vincent Viñas
+ art, female friendship, fiction, friendship, jealousy, journal, love, murder, obsession, relationships, review, rivalry, Scottish Highlands, secrets, thriller
The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins
When a small bone at the centre of a famous sculpture is revealed to be human, three people become intimately connected by the secrets and lies that put it there. Set on a Scottish tidal island connected to the mainland for just a few hours each day, and home to only one inhabitant, The Blue Hour asks questions of ambition, power, art and perception. … Read More The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins
+ 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, coming-of-age, fiction, literature, love, marriage, music, obsession, relationships, review, seventies, sisters, therapy
The Enlightenment Club by Chris West
It’s 1975. Bright, dissatisfied teenager Stella Tranter wants to learn about big things: philosophy, great art, love. Her quest leads her to the select ‘Enlightenment Cub’ and the charismatic Dr Stanislas Licht. And to trouble. Thrown out of college, she continues her search in London. Is she really cut out for being a part-time roadie for a punk band, fronted by her outrageous sister? … Read More The Enlightenment Club by Chris West
+ child abuse, childhood, family, fiction, friendship, grief, loss, love, motherhood, murder, photographs, review, secrets, thriller
The Foster Daughter by Sonya Bateman
My daughter was murdered by my husband. Now I have a new little girl to look after. I have no idea who she is. It’s been five years since my daughter was killed. It still hurts every day. I’ll never be over it but I am finally moving on with my life. It’s pitch black when I wake up. I hear a child screaming … Read More The Foster Daughter by Sonya Bateman
The Portrait Girl by Nicole Swengley
The Portrait Girl thrusts its bereaved and beleaguered heroine, jewellery designer Freya Wetherby, into an astonishing world of re-enacted Victorian art salons and the devious machinations of modern art theft.Seeking the identity of a miniature portrait found in her late mother’s belongings, Freya becomes enraptured not only by this mysterious young woman but also by the hypnotic personality of art collector Ralph Merrick and … Read More The Portrait Girl by Nicole Swengley
+ fiction, Ghost story, grief, haunting, loss, love, Magical realism, motherhood, mythology, review, Scotland, Scottish Highlands, supernatural, superstition
Ghost Story by Elisa Lodato
She came to write, but the island has its own story . . . Off the windswept coast of Scotland lies Finish Island, rugged and remote. Once a home, it now stands abandoned, a place of dark history and deep memory, a place that holds its stories close. Unable to write since her daughter’s death, it’s here that Seren comes to work, hoping that … Read More Ghost Story by Elisa Lodato
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