Anne de Courcy

Far from worrying about the onset of war, in the spring of 1938 the burning question on the French Riviera was whether one should curtsey to the Duchess of Windsor. Few of those who had settled there thought much about what was going on in the rest of Europe. It was a golden, glamorous life, far removed from politics or conflict.

Featuring a sparkling cast of artists, writers and historical figures including Winston Churchill, Daisy Fellowes, Salvador Dali, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Eileen Gray and Edith Wharton, with the enigmatic Coco Chanel at its heart, CHANEL’S RIVIERA is a captivating account of a period that saw some of the deepest extremes of luxury and terror in the whole of the twentieth century.

From Chanel’s first summer at her Roquebrune villa La Pausa (in the later years with her German lover) amid the glamour of the pre-war parties and casinos in Antibes, Nice and Cannes to the horrors of evacuation and the displacement of thousands of families during the Second World War, CHANEL’S RIVIERA explores the fascinating world of the Cote d’Azur elite in the 1930s and 1940s. Enriched with much original research, it is social history that brings the experiences of both rich and poor, protected and persecuted, to vivid life.

 Robert Macklin

The extraordinary survival story of Narcisse Pelletier, a young French cabin boy shipwrecked on Cape York in 1858.

In 1858, 14-year-old Narcisse Pelletier sailed from Marseilles in the French trader Saint-Paul. With a cargo of Bordeaux wine, they stopped in Bombay, then Hong Kong, and from there they set sail with more than 300 Chinese prospectors bound for the goldfields of Ballarat and Bendigo. Around the eastern tip of New Guinea, however, the ship became engulfed in fog, struck reefs and ran aground.

Scrambling aboard a longboat, the survivors undertook a perilous voyage, crossing almost 1000 kilometres of the Coral Sea before reaching the shores of the Daintree region in far north Queensland, where, abandoned by his shipmates and left for dead, Narcisse was rescued by the local Aboriginal people. For seventeen years he lived with them, growing to manhood and participating fully in their world – until in 1875 he was discovered by the crew of a pearling lugger and wrenched from his Aboriginal family. Taken back to his ‘real’ life in France, he became a lighthouse keeper, married and had another family, all the while dreaming of what he had left behind…

Drawing from firsthand interviews with Narcisse after his return to France and other contemporary accounts of exploration and survival, and documenting the spread of European settlement in Queensland and the brutal frontier wars that followed, Robert Macklin weaves an unforgettable tale of a young man caught between two cultures in a time of transformation and upheaval.

 David Barrie

In Incredible Journeys, award-winning author David Barrie takes us on a tour of the cutting-edge science of animal navigation, where breakthroughs are allowing scientists to unravel, for the first time, how animals as various as butterflies, birds, crustaceans, fish, reptiles and even people find their way.

Weaving interviews with leading experts on animal behaviour with the groundbreaking discoveries of Nobel-Prize winning neuroscientists, Barrie shines a light on the astounding skills of animals of every stripe.

• Dung beetles that steer by the light of the Milky Way.
• Ants and bees that navigate using patterns of light invisible to humans.
• Sea turtles, spiny lobsters and moths that find their way using the Earth’s magnetic field.
• Salmon that return to their birthplace by following their noses.
• Baleen whales that swim thousands of miles while holding a rock-steady course and birds that can locate their nests on a tiny island after crisscrossing an entire ocean.

There’s a stunning diversity of animal navigators out there, often using senses and skills we humans don’t have access to ourselves. For the first time, Incredible Journeys reveals the wonders of these animals in a whole new light.

 Carlos Ruiz Zafon

“A legend is a lie that has been whipped up to explain a universal truth.” The Labyrinth of the Spirits is the fourth and last of Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books series that began in 2001 with The Shadow of the Wind. The second book, The Angel’s Game, was a prequel and along with the third, The Prisoner of Heaven, filled in the characters met in the first and now they are brought to fruition in the fourth.

All the books center largely around Barcelona, the place of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. In case one needs a summary, in the last pages Zafon indulges in a cheeky metafictive publishers’ pitch that amounts to an apologia for the structure of the entire series, as his alter ego Julian Sempere, son of Daniel, the protagonist of the first book, explains exactly what has been happening all along.

Julian is charged with the task of writing the convoluted stories of the people caught up in the toils of Francoist oppression. But there is more to it than mere politics of the time: good and evil, fragility and resilience, innocence and pragmatism, are all here in continual clashing confrontation.

 Nicola Moriarty

Luke is the one. After everything she’s been through, Georgia knows she deserves someone like him, to make her feel loved. Safe.

The only problem is his ex-girlfriend. Luke says Cadence is having trouble accepting their break-up, but Georgia thinks there’s more to the story. She also has the feeling someone is watching her.

When everything starts to go wrong at work, at home, in her old friendships and her happy new relationship with Luke, Georgia starts to feel truly afraid.

Cadence wants what she has. What would she do to get it?

And can Georgia trust anyone at all?

Joy Dettman

After many tumultuous years spent grappling with the past, Jenny Hooper might have expected her latter years to be the best of her life, and they are – until tragedy strikes. Left floundering in a house full of memories, not all of them good, Jenny knows a reckoning is in order.

But it won’t be easy. History is beginning to repeat itself for Jenny’s adopted daughter, Trudy, who finds herself trapped in an abusive relationship. Jenny and her older daughter, Georgie, can only stand by and watch as Trudy’s life implodes.

Meanwhile, half a world away in the UK, Cara and her husband Morrie nurture a devastating secret that keeps them at arm’s length from Jenny.

But most of all, Jenny wants to renew contact with the beloved son she lost decades before when she was at her lowest ebb. Only that, and having the chance to tell him the truth about what happened, will give her peace. But is it too late?

Lousie Candlish

From the author of the international bestseller Our House, a new novel of twisty domestic suspense asks, “Could you hate your neighbor enough to plot to kill him?”

Lowland Way is the suburban dream. The houses are beautiful, the neighbors get along, and the kids play together on weekends.

But when Darren and Jodie move into the house on the corner, they donʼt follow the rules. They blast music at all hours, begin an unsightly renovation, and run a used-car business from their yard. It doesn’t take long for an all-out war to start brewing.

Then, early one Saturday, a horrific death shocks the street. As police search for witnesses, accusations start flying–and everyone has something to hide.

 Chris Carter

‘Every story one day comes to an end.’

As roommates, they met for the first time in college. Two of the brightest minds ever to graduate from Stamford Psychology University. As adversaries, they met again in Quantico, Virginia.

Robert Hunter had become the head of the LAPD’s Ultra Violent Crimes Unit. Lucien Folter had become the most prolific and dangerous serial killer the FBI had ever encountered. Now, after spending three and a half years locked in solitary confinement, Lucien has finally managed to break free. And he’s angry.

As ever, Carter’s background in criminal psychology is at the centre of his novel, which is all the more addictive and terrifying for it!

 Alex Michaelides

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him….

 Mike Maden (Jack Ryan Universe)

The final wish of a dying friend leads Jack Ryan, Jr. to the jungles of South America where an unexpected confrontation will have shocking international repercussions in this latest entry in the New York Times bestselling series.

Jack Ryan, Jr. has faced death before, but sitting at the bedside of a college friend who is wasting away from cancer is almost more than he can endure. When the man asks Jack to scatter his ashes on a beloved hillside in Chile, of course, the answer is yes.

The first hint of trouble comes when an ex-pat, former US Army Ranger tries to warn Jack off. Then a group of thugs break into his room, beat him, and warn him to leave. They don’t know Jack. He won’t be intimidated and he’s never turned his back on trouble. But just how much can one man do against an army?

Old enemies and new reveal themselves everywhere from the jungle to the halls of Congress. Only a ruthless hunter can take down these predators. Jack will need every skill he has to survive.