‘Clutching her tea towel, Winnie hurried outside and down the garden path. There was a body—a person…a woman…lying on her back on the concrete of the parking area, hair splayed out’– A Death In The Afternoon [ About A Death in the Afternoon ] Summer 1948London swelters amid post-war reconstruction, while continued rationing and the…
‘Working on these lectures was not easy. On the way from their beginning to an end, private subject matter surfaced unexpectedly in my writing; we shall see whether I’ll come to regret it.’ – Judith Hermann, We’d Have Told Each Other Everything [ About We’d Have Told Each Other Everything ] On a dark night…
‘The story of a woman forced to rebuild her life after, in one explosive moment, her husband destroys everything they’ve built together’– Show Me Where It Hurts [ About Show Me Where It Hurts ] How do you survive the unsurvivable? Rachel lives with her husband Tom and their two children: it’s the ordinary family…
‘A powerful mother-and-daughter story, a profound exploration of human fragility, and of the haunting shadows of the past’ The Brittle Age [ About The Brittle Age ] In the 1990s, deep in the Maiella mountains of Central Italy, a brutal crime shattered the peace of the local community. Two young women were murdered, a third…
‘In the summer of 1980, a lonely boy is found murdered in the graveyard of his quiet fishing town. Forty years later, a writer finds himself forced to confront the one story he’s refused all his life to tell.‘– Writers Anonymous [ About Writers Anonymous ] Fighting off the boredom of lockdown, acclaimed author Jim…
‘This is a story of murder. This is a story of survival. But most of all, this is a story of love.‘– The Death of Us [ About The Death of Us ] It’s the story everyone wants to hear. That spring night in South London, when Isabel and Edward’s lives were torn apart. The…
‘Hanging beside the door is a painting of a wedding feast. The light is centred on the bride; the guests are banished to the shade. That is how it is when he looks at her: all others fade away.‘– Rembrandt’s Promise [ About Rembrandt’s Promise ] 1642. The Dutch Golden Age is underway,…
‘I was at the time in my life where I got to thinking more about people’s choices – how everything would be different if just the slightest decision changed…’– Confessions [ About Confessions ] It is late September in 2001 and the walls of New York are papered over with photos of the missing. Cora…
‘The world’s most beloved literary characters. The gilded opulence of the Roaring Twenties. A murder that scandalises high society. And a clever young woman of unusual persistence… Be ready to re-think the world of Gatsby.‘– The Gatsby Gambit [ About The Gatsby Gambit ] 1922: You are cordially invited to summer at the Gatsby Mansion in…
‘My mother was a cantankerous wagon. She was a pig-headed woman who never listened to a word of advice. She held everyone around her to impossibly high standards. She held herself to impossibly high standards. She was her own worst enemy, and mine. She disagreed with every word I said. She crossed me at every…