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Ian Fleming

On 16 August 1952, Ian Fleming wrote to his wife, Ann, “My love, This is only a tiny letter to try out my new typewriter and to see if it will write golden words since it is made of gold.”

And he did write golden words: 14 bestselling James Bond books, and an equally energetic flow of letters to his wife, publisher, editors, fans, friends, and critics, charting 007’s progress with correspondence that ranged from badgering Jonathan Cape about his quota of free copies—a coin was tossed; Fleming lost—to apologising for having mistaken a certain brand of perfume and for equipping Bond with the wrong kind of gun.

Laura Thompson

The contrasting lives of the Mitford sisters – stylish, scandalous and tragic by turns – hold up a mirror to upper-class life before and after the Second World War.

The eldest was a razor-sharp novelist of upper-class manners; the second was loved by John Betjeman; the third was a fascist who married Oswald Mosley; the fourth idolized Hitler and shot herself in the head when Britain declared war on Germany; the fifth was a member of the American Communist Party; the sixth became Duchess of Devonshire.

They were the Mitford sisters: Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah. Born into country-house privilege, they became prominent as ‘bright young things’ in the high society of interwar London. Then, as the shadows crept over 1930s Europe, the stark – and very public – differences in their outlooks came to symbolise the political polarities of a dangerous decade. The intertwined stories of their lives – recounted in masterly fashion by Laura Thompson – hold up a revelatory mirror to upper-class English life before and after World War II.

 Kari Rosvall

Up until the age of 64, much of Kari Rosvall’s early life was shrouded in mystery. Then, one day, a letter arrived through the post . . .

In it was a small black-and-white photograph of Kari as a young baby, the first she had ever seen. Kari was to finally discover the dark secret of her conception: She was a Lebensborn child, part of Hitler’s ‘Spring of Life’ programme, which encouraged Nazi soldiers to have children with Scandinavian women in order to create an Aryan race.

And so began a journey back to her roots: to Norway where, at ten days old, she was taken from her mother, packed into a crate and sent to Germany to join the other Lebensborn children; to post-War Germany and her eventual rescue by the Red Cross from an attic, a tiny, neglected outcast of a dead regime.

Nowhere’s Child is a remarkable story of reconciliation, of forging new beginnings from a dark past and of the discovery of family later in life. Ultimately, it is the life-affirming account of what it really means to find a place called home.

Mahtob Mahmoody

The daughter at the center of the international bestseller and film Not Without My Daughter finishes the story that captivated the world: held hostage in Iran, escape over the mountains, growing up in fear of kidnapping, battling deadly disease, and leaning on the sustaining power God’s goodness.

Two decades ago, Not Without My Daughter (a global phenomenon made into a film starring Sally Field) told of the daring escape of an American mother and her six-year-old child from an abusive and fanatical Iranian husband and father. Now the daughter tells the whole story, not only of her imprisonment and escape but of life after fleeing Iran: living in fear of re-abduction, battling recurring nightmares and panic attacks, taking on an assumed name, surviving life-threatening illness—all under the menacing shadow of her father.

This is the story of an extraordinary young woman’s triumph over life-crushing trauma to build a life of peace and forgiveness. Moving from Michigan to Tehran, from Ankara to Paris, Mahtob reveals the profound resilience of a wounded soul healed by her faith in God’s goodness and his care and love for her.

Nathaniel Philbrick

In 1820, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage for whales. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was rammed and sunk by an 80-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of detail from archival and modern sources, including a long-lost account by the ship’s cabin boy. At once a literary companion and a riveting adventure tale, In the Heart of the Sea is a vital work of American history.

Mandy Magro

Nine years ago, Renee’s twin sister Scarlet went missing. In the threatening aftermath, seventeen-year-old Renee was forced out of her home at Wildwood Acres, leaving her family and her boyfriend behind. Although the case has long gone cold, every day Renee hopes the person responsible will be found. She has since made a new life for herself in the city but when fate intervenes, a family emergency forces her to face up to her fears and her painful memories. But can she go back to Wildwood Acres, the one place her heart yearns to be but where her life may be in grave danger?

Dylan Anderson has never quite got over the loss of his first love, Renee Wildwood, who left him without a word. He’s now a single father trying to make it on his own after the tragic death of his wife, and his cattle property is struggling financially. Against all odds he’s taking steps to get his life back on track, starting with a new job. But how will he feel when he finds Renee, the girl who stole his heart, is back at Wildwood Acres? Will he ever be able to forgive her?

David Baldacci

Will Robie is the government’s most professional, disciplined, and lethal assassin. He infiltrates the most hostile countries in the world, defeats our enemies’ advanced security measures, and eliminates threats before they ever reach our shores.
But now, his skills have left him. Sent overseas on a critical assignment, he fails, unable to pull the trigger. Absent his talents, Robie is a man without a mission, and without a purpose.
To recover what he has lost, Robie must confront what he has tried to forget for over twenty years: his own past.
THE GUILTY
Will Robie escaped his small Gulf Coast hometown of Cantrell, Mississippi after high school, severing all personal ties, and never looked back. Not once. Not until the unimaginable occurs. His father, Dan Robie, has been arrested and charged with murder.
Father and son haven’t spoken or seen each other since the day Robie left town. In that time, Dan Robie – a local attorney and pillar of the community-has been elected town judge. Despite this, most of Cantrell is aligned against Dan. His guilt is assumed. To make matters worse, Dan has refused to do anything to defend himself. When Robie tries to help, his father responds only with anger and defiance. Could Dan really be guilty?
With the equally formidable Jessica Reel at his side, Robie ignores his father’s wishes and begins his own desperate investigation into the case. But Robie is now a stranger to his hometown, an outsider, a man who has forsaken his past and his family. His attempts to save his father are met with distrust and skepticism . . . and violence.
Unlike the missions Robie undertook in the service of his country, where his target was clearly defined, digging into his father’s case only reveals more questions. Robie is drawn into the hidden underside of Cantrell, where he must face the unexpected and possibly deadly consequences of the long-ago choices made by father and son. And this time, there may be no escape for either of them.