Unmissable Books Jan-June 2019

Preface: When nine children are snatched from a nursery school in South London, their distressed parents have no idea if they will ever see them again. The community in the surrounding area in shock. How could this happen right under their noses? No one in the quiet suburban street saw anything – or at least that's what they're saying.

But DCI Anna Tate knows that nothing is impossible, and she also knows that time is quickly running out. It’s unclear if the kidnappers are desperate for money or set on revenge, but the ransom is going up by £1million daily. And they know that one little boy in particular is fighting for his life.

It’s one of the most disturbing cases DCI Anna Tate has ever worked on – not only because nine children are being held hostage, but because she’s pretty sure that someone close to them is lying…

Preface: Imagine you could erase your grief.

Imagine you could forget your pain.

Imagine you could hide a secret. Forever.

Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a letter arrives summoning him to begin an apprenticeship. He will work for a Bookbinder, a vocation that arouses fear, superstition and prejudice – but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.

He will learn to hand-craft beautiful volumes, and within each he will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, he can help. If there’s something you need to erase, he can assist. Your past will be stored safely in a book and you will never remember your secret, however terrible.

In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, row upon row of books – and memories – are meticulously stored and recorded.

Then one day Emmett makes an astonishing discovery: one of them has his name on it.

Preface: Detective Inspector Kieran Shaw's not interested in the infantry. Shaw likes the proper criminals, the ones who can plan things.

For two years he's been painstakingly building evidence against an organized network, the Eardsley Bluds. Operation Perseus is about to make its arrests.

So when a low-level Bluds member is stabbed to death on Gallowstree Lane, Shaw's priority is to protect his operation. An investigation into one of London's tit for tat killings can't be allowed to derail Perseus and let the master criminals go free.

But there's a witness to the murder, fifteen-year-old Ryan Kennedy. Already caught up in Perseus and with the Bluds, Ryan's got his own demons and his own ideas about what's important.

As loyalties collide and priorities clash, a chain of events is triggered that draws in Shaw's old adversary DI Sarah Collins and threatens everyone with a connection to Gallowstree Lane...

Preface: She was fast asleep on the back seat of the bus. Curled up, thumb in mouth. Four, maybe five years old.

I turned around. The last few passengers were shuffling away from me down the aisle to the doors. ‘Whose is this child?’ I called.

Nobody looked back.

December, 1940. As German bombs fall on Southampton, the city’s residents flee to the surrounding villages. In Upton village, amid the chaos, newly-married Ellen Parr finds a girl sleeping, unclaimed at the back of an empty bus. Little Pamela, it seems, is entirely alone.

Ellen has always believed she does not want children, but when she takes Pamela into her home the child cracks open the past Ellen thought she had escaped and the future she and her husband Selwyn had dreamed for themselves. As the war rages on, love grows where it was least expected, surprising them all. But with the end of the fighting comes the realization that Pamela was never theirs to keep…

A story of courage and kindness, hardship and friendship, We Must be Brave explores the fierce love we feel for our children and the astonishing power of that love to endure.

Preface: For me it all goes back to that night, the dark corroded hinge between before and after, the slipped-in sheet of trick glass that tints everything on one side in its own murky colours and leaves everything on the other luminous and untouchable.'

One night changes everything for Toby. He's always led a charmed life - until a brutal attack leaves him damaged and traumatised, unsure even of the person he used to be. He seeks refuge at his family's ancestral home, the Ivy House, filled with memories of wild-strawberry summers and teenage parties with his cousins.

But not long after Toby's arrival, a discovery is made: a skull, tucked neatly inside the old wych elm in the garden.

As detectives begin to close in, Toby is forced to examine everything he thought he knew about his family, his past, and himself.

Preface: 1686, ICELAND. AN ISOLATED, WINDSWEPT LAND HAUNTED BY WITCH TRIALS AND STEEPED IN THE ANCIENT SAGAS.

Betrothed unexpectedly to Jón Eiríksson, Rósa is sent to join her new husband in the remote village of Stykkishólmur. Here, the villagers are wary of outsiders.

But Rósa harbours her own suspicions. Her husband buried his first wife alone in the dead of night. He will not talk of it. Instead he gives her a small glass figurine. She does not know what it signifies.

The villagers mistrust them both. Dark threats are whispered. There is an evil here - Rósa can feel it. Is it her husband, the villagers - or the land itself?

Alone and far from home, Rósa sees the darkness coming. She fears she will be its next victim . . .

Preface: Sixteen years ago, Sylvie’s sister Persephone never came home. Out too late with the boyfriend she was forbidden to see, Persephone was missing for three days before her body was found—and years later, her murder remains unsolved.

In the present day, Sylvie returns home to care for her estranged mother, Annie, as she undergoes treatment for cancer. Prone to unexplained “Dark Days” even before Persephone’s death, Annie’s once-close bond with Sylvie dissolved in the weeks after their loss, making for an uncomfortable reunion all these years later. Worse, Persephone’s former boyfriend, Ben, is now a nurse at the cancer center where Annie is being treated. Sylvie’s always believed Ben was responsible for the murder—but she carries her own guilt about that night, guilt that traps her in the past while the world goes on around her.

As she navigates the complicated relationship with her mother, Sylvie begins to uncover the secrets that fill their house—and what really happened the night Persephone died. As it turns out, the truth will set you free, once you can bear to look at it.

Preface: They say I must be put to death for what happened to Madame, and they want me to confess. But how can I confess what I don't believe I've done?'

1826, and all of London is in a frenzy. Crowds gather at the gates of the Old Bailey to watch as Frannie Langton, maid to Mr and Mrs Benham, goes on trial for their murder. The testimonies against her are damning - slave, whore, seductress. And they may be the truth. But they are not the whole truth.

For the first time Frannie must tell her story. It begins with a girl learning to read on a plantation in Jamaica, and it ends in a grand house in London, where a beautiful woman waits to be freed.

But through her fevered confessions, one burning question haunts Frannie Langton: could she have murdered the only person she ever loved?

Preface: It's the day her father will be released from jail. Izzy English has every reason to feel conflicted - he's the man who gave her a childhood filled with happy memories. But he has also just served seventeen years for the murder of her mother.

Now, Izzy's father sends her a letter. He wants to talk, to defend himself against each piece of evidence from his trial. But should she give him the benefit of the doubt? Or is her father guilty as charged, and luring her into a trap?

Preface: If you leave a door half-open, soon you'll hear the whispers spoken...

Still devastated after the loss of his wife, Tom Kennedy and his young son Jake move to the sleepy village of Featherbank, looking for a fresh start.

But Featherbank has a dark past. Fifteen years ago a twisted serial killer abducted and murdered five young boys. Until he was finally caught, the killer was known as 'The Whisper Man'.

Of course, an old crime need not trouble Tom and Jake as they try to settle in to their new home. Except that now another boy has gone missing. And then Jake begins acting strangely.

He says he hears a whispering at his window...

Preface: Sylvia Penton has been hibernating for years, it's no wonder she's a little prickly...

Sylvia lives alone, dedicating herself to her job at the local university. On weekends, she helps out at a local hedgehog sanctuary because it gives her something to talk about on Mondays - and it makes people think she's nicer than she is.

Only Sylvia has a secret: she's been in love with her boss, Professor Lomax, for over a decade now, and she's sure he's just waiting for the right time to leave his wife. Meanwhile she stores every crumb of his affection and covertly makes trouble for anyone she feels gets in his way.

But when a bright new PhD candidate catches the Professor’s eye, Sylvia’s dreams of the fairy tale ending she has craved for so long, are soon in tatters, driving her to increasingly desperate measures and an uncertain future.

Sylvia might have been sleep walking through her life but things are about to change now she’s woken up…

Preface: When did she decide to die? Was it before midnight on Friday the 6th, because she couldn’t face another night or was it before dawn on Saturday the 7th because she couldn’t face another day?

Did she think about us? Did she think about her dog, Ted, or her cat, Puss, sleeping on Grandma Mary’s old sofa in the conservatory and who would be waiting for her to feed them in the morning? What about her horses in the stable? Did she think about them? Did she imagine Dad finding her? It would have to be Dad, after all. It couldn’t be anyone else.

Did she know what she was doing?

On a cold December day in 2013 Catherine Simpson received the phone call she had feared for years. Her little sister Tricia had been found dead in the farmhouse where she, Catherine and their sister Elizabeth were born – and where their family had lived for generations.

Tricia was 46 and had been stalked by depression all her life. Yet mental illness was a taboo subject within the family and although love was never lacking, there was a silence at its heart.

After Tricia died, Catherine found she had kept a lifetime of diaries. The words in them took her back to a past they had shared, but experienced so differently, and offered a thread to help explore the labyrinth of her sister’s suicide.

Preface: Me and Gul and Zia and Dawoud out on the roads of Logar, together, for the first time, hoping to get Budabash back home before nightfall

It is 2005 in Logar, Afghanistan, and twelve-year-old Marwand has returned from America with his family for the summer. He loses the tip of his finger to the village dog, Budabash, who then escapes. Marwand’s quest to find Budabash, over 99 nights, begins.

The resulting search is an exuberantly told adventure, one that takes Marwand and his cousins across Logar, through mazes, into floods and unexpected confrontations with American soldiers. Moving between celebrations and tragedies, Marwand must confront family secrets and his own identity as he returns to a home he’s missed for six years. Deeply humorous and surprisingly tender, 99 Nights in Logar is a vibrant exploration of the power of stories – the ones we tell each other, and the ones we find ourselves in.

Preface: They say you killed...

BUT WHAT IF THEY'RE WRONG?

Sixty seconds after she wakes from a coma, Maggie's world is torn apart.

The police tell her that her daughter Elspeth is dead. That she drowned when the car Maggie had been driving plunged into the river. Maggie remembers nothing.

When Maggie begs to see her husband Sean, the police tell her that he has disappeared. He was last seen on the day of her daughter's funeral.

What really happened that day at the river?

Where is Maggie's husband?

And why can't she shake the suspicion that somewhere, somehow, her daughter is still alive?

Preface: She heard their screams. She felt their fear.

Now she's their only hope...

Adam Brandt is a forensic psychologist, well used to dealing with the most damaged members of society.

But he's never met anyone like Kassie.

The teenager claims to have a terrible gift - with one look into your eyes, she can see when and how you will die.

Obviously, Adam knows Kassie must be insane. But then a serial killer hits the city. And only Kassie seems to know where he'll strike next.

Against all his intuition, Adam starts to believe her.

He just doesn't realise how deadly his faith might prove...

Preface: Use your voice to change the world!

Don’t just read about inspiring women: become one!

Launching in time for International Women’s Day 2019 – Speak Up! is the must-have empowering book to inspire a whole new generation of rebel girls.

Speaking up can be difficult, but did you know just how powerful your own voice can be?

Written by Laura Coryton, who led the international campaign against tampon tax, Speak Up! is a vital and timely book exploring what it means to stand up for what you believe in on both a public and personal level. Laura explores how to make sure your voice is heard as well as what happens when your voice is challenged by others. She tackles tricky subjects like feminism, consent, online bullying and self-confidence in a meaningful but accessible and entertaining way.

With a positive message about friendship, female empowerment and standing up for who you are, this is the perfect gift for girls aged 12+. Inspiring, warm and honest, this conversational and big-sisterly guide is the must-have girl power book of 2019.

Preface: ARE YOU WRESTLING WITH A PIG OF A PROBLEM?

Pig Wrestling is a simple story with a powerful message. Read it in under an hour, and you’ll be ready to tackle any type of sticky situation in work or life.

Meet a stressed Young Manager, whose teams are at each other’s throats. At his local coffee bar he shares his frustrations with his barista – who turns out to be more than he seems.

It’s the start of a journey into Pig Wrestling – a process that can be used to resolve any seemingly impossible problem. By reframing the issue we can all create change, whenever and wherever we need it most.

Developed out of the authors’ work in elite sports and business – including Manchester City, Olympic champion Jessica Ennis-Hill and the England Cricket team – this instantly memorable story will help you thrive in complex and messy times.

Preface: Where there is family, there is hope . . .

Vienna, 1939.

Nazi police seize Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholsterer and his son, Fritz, and send the pair to Buchenwald in Germany. There began an unimaginable ordeal that saw the pair beaten, starved and forced to build the very concentration camp they were held in.

When Gustav was set to be transferred to Auschwitz, a certain death sentence, his son refused to leave his side. Throughout the horrors they witnessed and the suffering they endured, there was one constant that kept them alive: the love between father and son.

Based on Gustav's secret diary and meticulous archive research, this book tells their incredible story for the first time - a story of courage and survival unparalleled in the history of the Holocaust.

The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz is a reminder of both the best and the worst of humanity, the strength of family ties, and the power of the human spirit.

Preface: A perfect town is hiding secrets.

Two teenagers are dead. Two murders unsolved. And a killer who claims to be coming back.

_____

Ellery's never been to Echo Ridge, but she's heard all about it.

It's where her aunt went missing at age sixteen, never to return.

Where a Homecoming Queen's murder five years ago made national news.

And where Ellery now has to live with a grandmother she barely knows, after her failed-actress mother lands in rehab.

_____

Malcolm grew up in the shadow of the Homecoming Queen's death.

His older brother was the prime suspect and left Echo Ridge in disgrace.

His mother's remarriage vaulted them to Echo Ridge's upper crust, but it could all change when mysterious threats around town hint that a killer plans to strike again.

And the return of Malcolm's brother doesn't help matters. But his return is just a coincidence... isn't it?

Ellery and Malcolm both know it's hard to let go when you don't have closure.

Then another girl disappears.

As they race to unravel what happened, they realise every secret has layers in Echo Ridge. The truth might be closer to home than either of them want to believe.

And somebody would kill to keep it hidden.

Preface: How many more unheard voices are out there just like me?

Cash Carraway is a single mum living in temporary accommodation.

She’s been moved around the system since she left home at sixteen.

She’s also been called a stain on society.

And she’s caught in a poverty trap.

Skint Estate is the hard-hitting debut memoir about impoverishment, loneliness and violence – set against a grim landscape of sink estates, police cells, refuges and peepshows.

Told frankly, but with a swaggerous eye roll and a smirk, Cash delves into the reality of family estrangement, mental illness, alcoholism and domestic violence in working-class Britain today. The reality of her circumstances take us on her isolated journey, as benefit cuts, lone parenting and zero contract hours force her to turn to food banks, refuges and temporary accommodation - and a feeling of displacement and seperation follows.

Despite the daily challenges and the difficult hurdles she must jump over to survive, Cash never loses sight of what's most important in life, as she also explores friendship, family and hope in the darkest of times.

Blunt, dignified and brutally revealing, Skint Estate takes Cash’s personal story and skilfully weaves it into a manifesto for change.

Preface: Seven-year-old Jocelyn loves her nanny more than her own mother.

When her nanny disappears one night, Jo never gets over the loss.

How could she vanish without saying goodbye?

Thirty years on, Jo is forced to return to her family home and confront her troubled relationship with her mother. When human remains are discovered in the grounds of the house, Jo begins to question everything.

Then an unexpected visitor knocks at the door and Jo’s world is destroyed again as, one by one, she discovers her childhood memories aren’t what they seemed.

What secrets was her nanny hiding – and what was she running away from? And can Jo trust what her mother tells her?

Sometimes the truth hurts so much you’d rather hear the lie.

Preface: On the night of the Winter Solstice in an ancient inn on the Thames, the locals are telling stories when the door bursts open and a badly injured man comes in with the corpse of a little girl in his arms.

Many hours later, the dead girl returns to life.

Afterwards everyone has many questions. Was it a miracle or magic? Who is the little girl? And how did she end up in the river?

Preface: I’m here to remember – all that I have been and all that I will never be again.’

At the bar of a grand hotel in a small Irish town sits 84-year-old Maurice Hannigan. He’s alone, as usual – though tonight is anything but. Pull up a stool and charge your glass, because Maurice is finally ready to tell his story.

Over the course of this evening, he will raise five toasts to the five people who have meant the most to him. Through these stories – of unspoken joy and regret, a secret tragedy kept hidden, a fierce love that never found its voice – the life of one man will be powerfully and poignantly laid bare.

Heart-breaking and heart-warming all at once, the voice of Maurice Hannigan will stay with you long after all is said.

Preface: Jon was on a conference in Switzerland when the world ended. Washington was hit first, then London and various other places around the world.

Jon is stranded at L’Hotel Sixieme in the middle of nowhere. He feels guilty because he didn’t reply to his wife Nadia’s message before it all happened and now, he may never get the chance to speak to her again.

Jon and the others have to learn to live with each and attempt the daily business of surviving with a bunch of people who are basically strangers.

Then a body of a young girl is found in one of the water towers on the roof and Jon realises that there may be a killer among them and decides to investigate.

Who can he trust? and how far will he go in his quest to find the killer?