Spydus Search Results - Item category 1: Reading group closed access

Murder before evensong / The Reverend Richard Coles.

Canon Daniel Clement is Rector of Champton. He has been there for eight years, arriving at the invitation of the patron and landowner, Bernard, Baron de Floures, of Champton House. Daniel's previous post was curate at a smart central London parish, where he got to know the de Floures family through his brother Theo, an up-and-coming actor and socialite. Audrey Clement, his widowed mother, lives with him at the Rectory on the estate. He has two dachshunds, Cosmo and Hilda. The story begins with Daniel announcing from the pulpit a plan to install a lavatory in church. This is long overdue, he thinks and so does Bernard de Floures, but the announcement goes down badly with the parish. Firm opposition comes from Mrs Harper and Mrs Dollinger of the Flower Guild, who are habitual opposers of change. There is opposition too from others who do not like the the thought of matters lavatorial in church.
Author: Coles, Richard, 1962-
Published: London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2022.
358 pages : map (black and white) ; 24 cm.
Canon Clement mystery
Average rating: (1 review)
10 reserves

83 copies

The maid / Nita Prose.

Molly the maid is all alone in the world. A nobody. She's used to being invisible in her job at the Regency Grand Hotel, plumping pillows and wiping away the grime, dust and secrets of the guests who pass through. She's just a maid - why should anyone take notice? But Molly is thrown into the spotlight when she discovers an infamous guest, Mr Black, very dead in his bed. This isn't a mess that can be easily cleaned up. And so Molly becomes embroiled in a hunt for the truth, learning who to trust as she navigates the secret underbelly of the Regency Grand Hotel.
Author: Prose, Nita
Published: London : HarperCollinsPublishers, 2022.
343 pages ; 24 cm
Average rating: (2 reviews)
1 reserve

75 copies

The leviathan / Rosie Andrews.

Norfolk, 1643. With civil war tearing England apart, reluctant soldier Thomas Treadwater is summoned home by his sister, who accuses a new servant of improper conduct with their widowed father. By the time Thomas returns home, his father is insensible, felled by a stroke, and their new servant is in prison, facing charges of witchcraft. Thomas prides himself on being a rational, modern man, but as he unravels the mystery of what has happened, he uncovers not a tale of superstition but something dark and ancient, linked to a shipwreck years before. Something has awoken, and now it will not rest.
Author: Andrews, Rosie
Published: London : Raven Books, 2022.
308 pages ; 24 cm
10 reserves

76 copies

A terrible kindness / Jo Browning Wroe.

Tonight nineteen-year-old William Lavery is dressed for success, his first black-tie do. It's the Midlands Chapter of the Institute of Embalmers Ladies' Night Dinner Dance, and William is taking Gloria in her sequined evening gown. He can barely believe his luck. But as the guests sip their drinks and smoke their post-dinner cigarettes a telegram delivers news of a tragedy. An event so terrible it will shake the nation. It is October 1966 and a landslide has buried an entire school: Aberfan. William decides he must act, so he volunteers to attend. It will be a choice that threatens his own happiness and forces him to think about the little boy he was and the losses he has worked so hard to bury.
Author: Browning-Wroe, Jo
Published: London : Faber, 2022.
vii, 381 pages ; 23 cm
Average rating: (4 reviews)
10 reserves

66 copies

The clockwork girl / Anna Mazzola.

Paris, 1750. In the midst of winter, as birds fall frozen from the sky, a new maid arrives at the home of a celebrated clockmaker and his clever, unworldly daughter. But rumours are stirring that Reinhart's uncanny mechanical creations - bejewelled birds, silver spiders - are more than mere automata. That they might defy the laws of nature, perhaps even at the expense of the living. But Madeleine is hiding a dark past, and a dangerous purpose - to discover the truth of the clockmaker's experiments and record his every move, in exchange for her own chance of freedom. Meanwhile, in the streets, children are quietly disappearing - and Madeleine comes to fear that she has stumbled upon a greater conspiracy. One which might reach to the heart of Versailles.
Author: Mazzola, Anna
Published: London : Orion, 2022.
362 pages ; 24 cm

82 copies

Violeta / Isabel Allende ; translated from the Spanish by Frances Riddle.

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses all and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling. In a letter to someone she loves above all others, Violeta recounts devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, times of both poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy.
Author: Allende, Isabel
Published: London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022.
320 pages ; 24 cm
14 reserves

72 copies

Pandora : a novel in three parts / written by Susan Stokes-Chapman.

London, 1799. Dora Blake is an aspiring jewellery artist who lives with her uncle in what used to be her parents' famed shop of antiquities. When a mysterious Greek vase is delivered, Dora is intrigued by her uncle's suspicious behaviour and enlists the help of Edward Lawrence, a young antiquarian scholar. Edward sees the ancient vase as key to unlocking his academic future. Dora sees it as a chance to restore the shop to its former glory, and to escape her nefarious uncle. But what Edward discovers about the vase has Dora questioning everything she has believed about her life, her family, and the world as she knows it. As Dora uncovers the truth she starts to realise that some mysteries are buried, and some doors are locked, for a reason.
Author: Stokes-Chapman, Susan, 1985-
Published: London : Harvill Secker, 2022.
407 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 24 cm
Average rating: (2 reviews)

84 copies

Love marriage / Monica Ali.

Yasmin Ghorami has a lot to be grateful for: a loving family, a fledgling career in medicine, and a charming, handsome fiancé, fellow doctor Joe Sangster. But as the wedding day draws closer and Yasmin's parents get to know Joe's firebrand feminist mother, both families must confront the unravelling of long-held secrets, lies and betrayals. As Yasmin dismantles her own assumptions about the people she holds most dear, she's also forced to ask herself what she really wants in a relationship and what a 'love marriage' actually means.
Author: Ali, Monica, 1967-
Published: London : Virago, 2022.
499 pages ; 24 cm
17 reserves

68 copies

The locked room / Elly Griffiths.

Ruth is in London clearing out her mother's belongings when she makes a surprising discovery: a photograph of her Norfolk cottage taken before Ruth lived there. Her mother always hated the cottage, so why does she have a picture of it? As she died three years ago, Ruth can't exactly ask her, and her father denies all knowledge of the picture. The only clue is written on the back of the photo: Dawn, 1969. Ruth returns to Norfolk determined to solve the mystery, but then Covid-19 rears its ugly head. Ruth and her daughter are locked down in their cottage. Happily the house next door is rented by a nice woman called Zoe, who they become friendly with while standing on their doorstep clapping for carers. Nelson, meanwhile, has no time to be bored. He's investigating a series of suicides that could be the work of a serial killer. It's only when he links them to an archaeological discovery that he thinks of Ruth.
Author: Griffiths, Elly
Published: London : Quercus, 2022.
375 pages ; 24 cm.
Dr Ruth Galloway mysteries
Average rating: (1 review)
1 reserve

73 copies

Take your breath away / Linwood Barclay.

It's always the husband, isn't it? One weekend, while Andrew Mason was on a fishing trip, his wife, Brie, vanished without a trace. Most people assumed Andy had got away with murder, but the police couldn't build a strong case against him. Now, six years later, Andy has put his life back together. He's sold the house he shared with Brie and moved away for a fresh start. When he hears his old house has been bulldozed and a new house built in its place, he's not bothered. He's settled with a new partner, Jayne, and life is good. But Andy's peaceful world is about to shatter.
Author: Barclay, Linwood
Published: London : HQ, 2022.
451 pages ; 24 cm
8 reserves

75 copies

The Twyford code / Janice Hallett.

It's time to solve the murder of the century. Forty years ago, Steven Smith found a copy of a famous children's book by disgraced author Edith Twyford, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. Wanting to know more, he took it to his English teacher Miss Isles, not realising the chain of events that he was setting in motion. Miss Isles became convinced that the book was the key to solving a puzzle, and that a message in secret code ran through all Twyford's novels. Then Miss Isles disappeared on a class field trip, and Steven's memory won't allow him to remember what happened. Now, out of prison after a long stretch, Steven decides to investigate the mystery that has haunted him for decades. Was Miss Isles murdered? Was she deluded? Or was she right about the code? And is it still in use today?
Author: Hallett, Janice
Published: London : Viper, 2022.
361 pages ; 24 cm
Average rating: (1 review)
16 reserves

80 copies

The Paris apartment / Lucy Foley.

Welcome to No.12 Rue des Amants. A beautiful old apartment block, far from the glittering lights of the Eiffel Tower and the bustling banks of the Seine. Where nothing goes unseen. And everyone has a story to unlock. Something terrible happened here last night. A mystery lies behind the door of apartment three. Only you - and the killer - hold the key.
Author: Foley, Lucy (Novelist)
Published: London : HarperCollinsPublishers, 2022.
410 pages ; 24 cm
Average rating: (4 reviews)

72 copies

The match / Harlan Coben.

As a young child, Wilde was found living a feral existence in the Ramapo mountains of New Jersey. He has grown up knowing nothing of his family, and even less about his own identity. He is known simply as Wilde, the boy from the woods. But when a match at an online ancestry database puts him on the trail of a close relative - the first family member he has ever known - he thinks he might be about to solve the mystery of who he really is. Only this relation disappears as quickly as he's resurfaced, having experienced an epic fall from grace that can only be described as a waking nightmare. Undaunted, Wilde continues his research on DNA websites where he becomes caught up in a community of doxxers, a secret group committed to exposing anonymous online trolls. Then one by one these doxxers start to die, and it soon becomes clear that a serial killer is targeting this secret community.
Author: Coben, Harlan, 1962-
Published: London : Century, 2022.
343 pages ; 24 cm
10 reserves

70 copies

French braid / Anne Tyler.

When the kids are grown and Mercy Garrett gradually moves herself out of the family home, everyone determines not to notice. Over at her studio, she wants space and silence. She won't allow any family clutter. Not even their cat, Desmond. Yet it is a clutter of untidy moments that forms the Garretts' family life over the decades, from giving a child a ride to a painstaking Easter lunch, a fateful train journey to an unexpected homecoming. And it all begins in 1959, with a family holiday to a cabin by a lake. It's the only one the Garretts will ever take, but its effects will ripple through the generations.
Author: Tyler, Anne
Published: London : Chatto & Windus, 2022.
244 pages ; 24 cm
4 reserves

85 copies

The curfew / T.M. Logan.

It begins with a small white lie. The kind of lie you might tell to keep your child out of trouble - especially when he begs you to confirm that he came home early last night and has been up in his room ever since. And so you back him up. You give him an alibi. Instead of telling the truth: that he actually crept in at 3 a.m., clothes streaked with mud and bruises on his face. Fear in his eyes and a plea in his voice you've not heard for a long time. Please, Dad. But sometimes a small white lie can be the most dangerous thing in the world. Because five teenagers went into the woods last night. And only four came out.
Author: Logan, T. M.
Published: London : Zaffre, 2022.
400 pages ; 24 cm
Average rating: (1 review)

72 copies

Mothers and daughters / Erica James.

Since the sudden death of her husband, Naomi has steadily rebuilt the life they shared in the village of Tilsham by the sea. Her eldest daughter, Martha, is sensible and determined - just like her father was - and very much in control of where her life is going. If she could just get pregnant with her husband, life would be perfect. Willow, the youngest, was always more sunny and easy-going, yet drifted through life, much to her father's frustration. But now, with charming new boyfriend, Rick, she has a very good reason to settle down. The three women are as close as can be. But there are things Naomi has kept from her daughters. Like the arrival of Ellis, a long-lost friend from way back, now bringing the fun and spark back into her life. And she's certainly never told them that her marriage to their father wasn't quite what it seemed.
Author: James, Erica, 1960-
Published: London : HQ, 2022.
439 pages ; 24 cm
Average rating: (1 review)
2 reserves

75 copies

Elektra / Jennifer Saint.

The House of Atreus is cursed. A bloodline tainted by a generational cycle of violence and vengeance. This is the story of three women, their fates inextricably tied to this curse, and the fickle nature of men and gods. Clytemnestra's hopes of averting the curse are dashed when her sister, Helen, is taken to Troy by the feckless Paris. Her husband raises a great army against them and determines to win, whatever the cost. Cassandra, Princess of Troy, is cursed by Apollo to see the future but never to be believed when she speaks of it. She is powerless in her knowledge that the city will fall. Elektra, the youngest daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, is horrified by the bloodletting of her kin. But can she escape the curse, or is her own destiny also bound by violence?
Author: Saint, Jennifer
Published: London : Wildfire, 2022.
341 pages ; 24 cm

82 copies

Lessons in chemistry / Bonnie Garmus.

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute take a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with - of all things - her mind. True chemistry results. But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later, Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America's most beloved cooking show Supper at Six.
Author: Garmus, Bonnie
Published: London : Doubleday, 2022.
390 pages ; 24 cm
Average rating: (10 reviews)
21 reserves

88 copies

People person / Candice Carty-Williams.

Dimple Pennington knew of her half siblings, but she didn't really know them. Five people who don't have anything in common except for faint memories of being driven through Brixton in their dad's gold jeep, and some pretty complex abandonment issues. Dimple has bigger things to think about. She's thirty, and her life isn't really going anywhere. An aspiring lifestyle influencer with a terrible and wayward boyfriend, Dimple's life has shrunk to the size of a phone screen. And despite a small but loyal following, she's never felt more alone in her life. That is, until a dramatic event brings her half siblings crashing back into her life.
Author: Carty-Williams, Candice, 1989-
Published: London : Trapeze, 2022.
354 pages ; 23 cm
Average rating: (2 reviews)

80 copies

Wrong place, wrong time / Gillian McAllister.

It's every parent's nightmare. Your happy, funny, innocent son commits a terrible crime: murdering a complete stranger. You don't know who. You don't know why. You only know your teenage boy is in custody and his future lost. That night you fall asleep in despair. Until you wake - and it is yesterday. Every morning you wake up a day earlier, another day before the murder. Another chance to stop it. Somewhere in the past lie the answers - and you don't have a choice but to find them.
Author: McAllister, Gillian
Published: UK : Michael Joseph, 2022.
401 pages ; 24 cm
Average rating: (3 reviews)

74 copies

You made a fool of death with your beauty / Akwaeke Emezi.

Feyi is about to be given the chance to escape the city's blistering heat for a dream island holiday: poolside cocktails, beach sunsets and elaborate meals. And as the sun goes down on her old life, our heroine also might just be ready to open her heart to someone new. The only problem is, she's falling for the one man she absolutely can't have.
Author: Emezi, Akwaeke
Published: London : Faber, 2022.
312 pages ; 23 cm
1 reserve

82 copies

The whalebone theatre / Joanna Quinn.

'Maudie, why are all the best characters men?' Maudie closes the book with a clllump. 'We haven't read all the books yet, Miss Cristabel. I can't believe that every story is the same.' Cristabel Seagrave has always wanted her life to be a story, but there are no girls in the books in her dusty family library. For an unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, there is no place at all for her in a traditional English manor. But from the day that a whale washes up on the beach at the Chilcombe estate in Dorset, and twelve-year-old Cristabel plants her flag and claims it as her own, she is determined to do things differently.
Author: Quinn, Joanna, 1976-
Published: London : Fig Tree, 2022.
x, 547 pages ; 24 cm
Average rating: (2 reviews)
17 reserves

76 copies

Godmersham Park / Gill Hornby.

January 1804. Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. At thirty-one years old, she has no previous experience of either teaching or fine country houses. But her mother has died and she desperately needs an independent income if she is to survive. For her new charge, twelve-year-old Fanny Austen, Anne's arrival is all novelty and excitement. But Anne is keenly aware that her new role is an awkward one - she is neither one of the servants nor one of the family, and to balance a position between the 'upstairs' and 'downstairs' members of the household is a diplomatic chess game. One wrong move may result in her instant dismissal. She has just begun to settle into her position when dashing Henry Austen and his younger sister Jane come to stay. Both take an immediate interest in the pretty, clever governess who quickly becomes drawn into the above stairs life of the Austen family.
Author: Hornby, Gill
Published: London : Century, 2022.
x, 421 pages ; 23 cm
Average rating: (1 review)
16 reserves

78 copies

The house of fortune / Jessie Burton.

In the golden city of Amsterdam, in 1705, Thea Brandt is turning eighteen, and she is ready to welcome adulthood with open arms. At the city's theatre, Walter, the love of her life, awaits her, but at home in the house on the Herengracht, all is not well - her father Otto and Aunt Nella argue endlessly, and the Brandt family are selling their furniture in order to eat. On Thea's birthday, also the day that her mother Marin died, the secrets from the past begin to overwhelm the present. Nella is desperate to save the family and maintain appearances, to find Thea a husband who will guarantee her future, and when they receive an invitation to Amsterdam's most exclusive ball, she is overjoyed - perhaps this will set their fortunes straight. And indeed, the ball does set things spinning: new figures enter their life, promising new futures. But their fates are still unclear.
Author: Burton, Jessie, 1982-
Published: London : Picador, 2022.
401 pages ; 23 cm
10 reserves

80 copies

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow / Gabrielle Zevin.

Two kids meet in a hospital gaming room in 1987. One is visiting her sister, the other is recovering from a car crash. The days and months are long there. Their love of video games becomes a shared world - of joy, escape and fierce competition. But all too soon that time is over, fades from view. When the pair spot each other eight years later in a crowded train station, they are catapulted back to that moment. The spark is immediate, and together they get to work on what they love - making games to delight, challenge and immerse players, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives. Their collaborations make them superstars.
Author: Zevin, Gabrielle
Published: London : Chatto & Windus, 2022.
401 pages ; 24 cm
Average rating: (1 review)
40 reserves

84 copies

The marriage portrait / Maggie O'Farrell.

Winter, 1561. Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara, is taken on an unexpected visit to a country villa by her husband, Alfonso. As they sit down to dinner it occurs to Lucrezia that Alfonso has a sinister purpose in bringing her here. He intends to kill her. Lucrezia is sixteen years old, and has led a sheltered life locked away inside Florence's grandest palazzo. Here, in this remote villa, she is entirely at the mercy of her increasingly erratic husband. What is Lucrezia to do with this sudden knowledge? What chance does she have against Alfonso, ruler of a province, and a trained soldier? How can she ensure her survival. 'The Marriage Portrait' is an unforgettable reimagining of the life of a young woman whose proximity to power places her in mortal danger.
Author: O'Farrell, Maggie, 1972-
Published: London : Tinder Press, 2022.
438 pages ; 24 cm
Average rating: (1 review)
38 reserves

79 copies

Carrie Soto is back / Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular. By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. And if you ask her, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father as her coach. But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player named Nicki Chan. At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the 'Battle-Axe' anyway. Even if her body doesn't move as fast as it did.
Author: Reid, Taylor Jenkins
Published: London : Hutchinson Heinemann, 2022.
369 pages ; 25 cm
Average rating: (2 reviews)

72 copies

Trust / Hernan Diaz.

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth - all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune?
Author: Díaz, Hernán, 1973-
Published: London : Picador, 2022.
402 pages ; 24 cm
9 reserves

73 copies

The twist of a knife / Anthony Horowitz.

'I've written three books and our deal is over'. That's what reluctant author Anthony Horowitz tells ex-detective Daniel Hawthorne in an awkward meeting. The truth is that Anthony has got other things on his mind. His new play, a thriller called 'Mindgame', is about to open at the famous Vaudeville theatre in Shoreditch. Not surprisingly, Hawthorne declines a ticket to the opening night. The play is not enjoyed by the critics. In particular, Sunday Times critic Harriet Throsby gives it a savage review, focusing particularly on the writing. The next day, Throsby is stabbed in the heart with an ornamental dagger which, it turns out, belongs to Anthony, and which has his fingerprints all over it.
Author: Horowitz, Anthony, 1955-
Published: London : Century, 2022.
373 pages ; 24 cm
Average rating: (1 review)
14 reserves

69 copies

Act of oblivion / Robert Harris.

1660. Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, Colonel William Goffe, cross the Atlantic. They are on the run and wanted for the murder of Charles I. Under the provisions of the Act of Oblivion, they have been found guilty in absentia of high treason. In London, Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council, is tasked with tracking down the fugitives. He'll stop at nothing until the two men are brought to justice. A reward hangs over their heads - for their capture, dead or alive.
Author: Harris, Robert, 1957-
Published: London : Hutchinson Heinemann, 2022.
xv, 463 pages : map (black and white) ; 24 cm
Average rating: (2 reviews)
8 reserves

78 copies