• Book Recommendation – The Blackhouse |Carole Johnstone

    A richly atmospheric thriller set on an isolated Scottish island where nothing is as it seems and shocking twists lie around every corner. A remote village. A deadly secret. An outsider who knows the truth. Robert Reid moved his family to Scotland’s Outer Hebrides in the 1990s, driven by hope, craving safety and community, and hiding a terrible secret. But despite his best efforts to fit in, Robert is always seen as an outsider. And as the legendary and violent Hebridean storms rage around him, he begins to unravel, believing his fate on the remote island of Kilmeray cannot be escaped. For her entire life, Maggie MacKay has sensed something…

  • Book Recommendation – Fire With Fire | Candice Fox

    A pair of desperate parents. A man on the run. A rookie cop. Four people with everything on the line. What will be left in the ashes of the next 24 hours? Following their daughter's mysterious disappearance, Ryan and Elsie Delaney have taken the LAPD forensic lab hostage, and have given law enforcement an ultimatum: Find their daughter, Tilly, or they will destroy all the evidence they can find to other cold cases. Detective Charlie Hoskins has been undercover in a deadly motorcycle gang for five years. With his cover blown, he has no choice but to find Tilly himself, or lose everything he's worked for as the lab burns.…

  • Book Recommendation – The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell

    LONDON. June 2019: on the foreshore of the river Thames, a bag of bones is discovered. Human bones. DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene and quickly sends the bag for forensic examination. The bones are those of a young woman, killed by a blow to the head many years ago. Also inside the bag is a trail of clues which lead DCI Owusu back to a mansion in Chelsea where, nearly thirty years previously, three people lay dead in a kitchen, and a baby waited upstairs for someone to pick her up. The clues point forward too to a brother and sister in Chicago searching for the only…

  • Book Recommendation | Truly, Darkly, Deeply by Victoria Selman

    Truly, Darkly, Deeply by Victoria Selman Genre: Mystery & Thriller Published: July 2022, Quercus Books Swathi’s Rating: 4/5 Get it on Amazon Blurb: 12-year-old Sophie and her mother, Amelia-Rose, move to London from Massachusetts where they meet the charismatic Matty Melgren, who quickly becomes an intrinsic part of their lives. But as the relationship between the two adults fractures, a serial killer begins targeting young women with a striking resemblance to Amelia-Rose. When Matty is eventually sent down for multiple murders, questions remain as to his guilt — questions which ultimately destroy both women. Nearly twenty years later, Sophie receives a letter from Battlemouth Prison informing her Matty is dying…

  • Book Recommendation – Greenwich Park – Katherine Faulkner

    Helen has it all... Daniel is the perfect husband. Rory is the perfect brother. Serena is the perfect sister-in-law. And Rachel? Rachel is the perfect nightmare. When Helen, finally pregnant after years of tragedy, attends her first antenatal class, she is expecting her loving architect husband to arrive soon after, along with her confident, charming brother Rory and his pregnant wife, the effortlessly beautiful Serena. What she is not expecting is Rachel. Extroverted, brash, unsettling single mother-to-be Rachel, who just wants to be Helen's friend. Who just wants to get know Helen and her friends and her family. Who just wants to know everything about them. Every little secret… Masterfully…

  • Book Recommendation – Into The Dark by Fiona Cummins

    THE PLACE: Seawings, a beautiful Art Deco home overlooking the sweep of the bay in Midtown-on-Sea. THE CRIME: The gilded Holden family - Piper and Gray and their two teenage children, Riva and Artie - has vanished from the house without a trace. THE DETECTIVE: DS Saul Anguish, brilliant but with a dark past, treads the narrow line between light and shade. One late autumn morning, Piper’s best friend arrives at Seawings to discover an eerie scene – the kettle is still warm, all the family’s phones are charging on the worktop, the cars are in the garage. But the house is deserted. In fifteen-year-old Riva Holden’s bedroom, scrawled across…

  • Book Recommendation – The Guest Room – Rona Halshall

    Ever since Steph’s husband walked out after a thirty-year marriage, home hasn’t felt like a safe haven. Her daughter Bea thinks she’s imagining things. But Steph knows that the noises in the night, the open windows she knows she left closed, the strange smell in the kitchen – none of it feels right. Then her house is broken into, and a young man named Noah helps her fix the front window. He’s fallen on hard times and Steph impulsively offers him a place to stay. At least if he is there, she won’t be home alone. Before long Noah is living in Bea’s old bedroom, paying rent, and getting his…

  • Book Recommendation – Unmissing – Minka Kent

    A return from the past knocks a family dangerously off-balance in a novel of spiraling suspense by Washington Post and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Minka Kent. Merritt Coletto and her husband, Luca, have the life they dreamed of: a coastal home, a promising future, and a growing family. That dream ends with a late-night knock on the door. Weak, broken, and emaciated, it’s Luca’s first wife, Lydia. Missing for ten years, presumed dead, and very much alive, she has quite a story. Her kidnapping. A torturous confinement that should’ve ended with her dead. And finally, escape. Racked with guilt over the beautiful life they’ve built, Merritt and Luca agree…

  • Book Recommendation – Why She Left by Leah Mercer

    When I open the door and see her, my mind starts churning. Why are they here? What do they want? And why did my daughter leave in the first place? Am I finally, after all of these years, going to find out? I take a deep breath and usher them in… Ruth has spent every day of the last fifteen years wondering why her daughter Isobel left. Walking around the school to which she has given her life, every child she sees reminds her of her family’s bright future which vanished in an instant. So when Ruth opens the door to find Isobel and a teenage grandson she never knew…