Evelyn Orange Arasay – remote Scottish island, wildlife haven, and home to Jenna’s ancestors. When she arrives to help out her great aunt in the bookshop, she’s running from her past and hiding from the world. What she isn’t expecting is to meet an attractive wildlife photographer even before she sets foot on the island.
But Jake too is using Arasay to escape from previous trauma. As Jenna embraces island life and becomes closer to Jake and his family, there are secrets lurking in the mists that could threaten their future happiness.
Alexander McCall Smith The new novel from the bestselling Alexander McCall Smith about Isabel Dalhousie–philosopher, moral sleuth, mother, wife–in which Isabel is called upon to help when a paternity question presents more than meets the eye.
Isabel finds herself befriended by Patricia, a single mother whose son, Basil, goes to school with Isabel’s son. Isabel discovers that Basil is the product of an affair Patricia had with a well-known Edinburgh organist, also named Basil, who was, rumor has it, initially reluctant to contribute financially to the child’s upkeep. Though Isabel doesn’t really like Patricia, she tries to be civil and supportive, but when she sees Patricia in the company of an unscrupulous man who may be a wanted criminal, her suspicions are aroused and she begins to investigate the paternity of Basil Jr.
When Isabel takes her suspicions to Basil Sr., she finds that, although he is paying child support and wishes he could have more of a relationship with Basil Jr., Patricia has no interest in Basil Sr. taking a more hands-on role in Basil Jr.’s parenting, even as she continues to accept his financial support. Should Isabel help someone who doesn’t want to be helped?
As Isabel navigates this ethically-complex situation, she is also dealing with her niece, Cat, who has taken up with a brawny and opinionated tattoo shop clerk? Isabel considers herself open-minded, but has Cat pushed it too far this time? As ever, Isabel must use her kindness and keen intelligence to determine the right course of action.
Dawn Knox 1940: A cold upbringing with parents who unfairly blame her for a family tragedy has robbed Jess of all self-worth and confidence.
Escaping to join the WAAF, she’s stationed at RAF Holsmere, until a seemingly unimportant competition leads to her recruitment into the secret world of code-breaking at Bletchley Park.
Love, however, eludes her: the men she chooses are totally unsuitable – until she meets Daniel. But there is so much which separates them. Can they ever find happiness together?
Beth Francis After the breakdown of her relationship with Justin, Amy moves out of town to a small village. In her cosy cottage, with her kind next-door neighbour Meg, she’s determined to make a fresh start. But there are complications in store.
Though Amy has sworn never to risk her heart again, she finds her friendship with Meg’s great-nephew Mike deepening into something more. Until Mike’s ex-girlfriend Emma reappears on the scene – and so does Justin…
Kirsty Ferry Another wonderful new story from Kirsty Ferry. Part of Kirsty’s Tempest Sisters series but they can all be read on their own.
This is Jessie’s story. Take a trip to the little bookshop by the sea …
Jessie Tempest has two main interests: reading books and selling books. Her little bookshop in the seaside town of Staithes is a cosy hideaway from the chilly Yorkshire wind, but it’s also Jessie’s sanctuary from the outside world. When writer Miles Fareham and his son Elijah arrive to stay in the holiday apartment above the shop, it’s a test for Jessie who has always felt clueless when it comes to kids. But as she learns the story of the single father and the inquisitive eight-year-old, Jessie realises that first impressions aren’t always the right ones – and, of course, you can never judge a book by its cover!
Peter Dawson The heart of the American West lives in Peter Dawson’s stories. His characters blaze a trail over the land of frontier dreams, across a country that was coming of age. From the attempt of an outlaw father to save the life of his son who has become an officer of the law, to a shotgun guard who is forced to choose between a seemingly impossible love and complicity in a stagecoach robbery, each of these seven stories embodies the dramatic struggles that made the American frontier so unique and its people the stuff of legends.
Max Brand An exciting collection of stories, centering around the Old West, features such unforgettable characters as Skinny, a young teen who can outsmart any man in the West; Sleeper, who is searching for the man who saved his life; and Snoozer Mell who desperately wants to reconciled with his son.
John Sanford An off-duty Coast Guardsman is fishing with his family in the Atlantic just off south Florida when he sees, and then calls in, some suspicious behavior in a nearby boat. It’s a snazzy craft, slick and outfitted with extra horsepower, and is zipping along until it slows to pick up a surfaced diver . . . a diver who was apparently alone, without his own boat, in the middle of the ocean.
None of it makes sense unless there’s something hinky going on, and his hunch is proven correct when all three Guardsmen who come out to investigate are shot and killed.
They’re federal officers killed on the job, which means the case is the FBI’s turf. When the FBI’s investigation stalls out, Lucas Davenport of the U.S. Marshals Service gets a call. The case turns even more lethal and Davenport needs to bring in every asset he can find, including a detective with a fundamentally criminal mind: Virgil Flowers.
Librarian’s note: as of 2021, there are 31 volumes in John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport “Prey” series and 13 in his “Virgil Flowers” series. The latest for each, “Ocean Prey,” was published in April 2021. It is part of the “Prey” series but Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers share the billing; it is considered the most recent in both series.
Jeffery Deaver Just hours after the harrowing events of The Goodbye Man, Colter Shaw is hot on the trail of a missing person whose disappearance he desperately hopes to explain: his own father.
Following the enigmatic clues his father left behind, Shaw explores one site after another, seeing clearly for the first time what strange business his father was up to–and what dangerous people he was working against. But when Shaw is caught by these same people, he’s rescued by an intruder: his own older brother Russell, from whom he’s been estranged for more than a decade.
After saving Shaw, Russell stays on, and the brothers–both very different and oddly similar–join forces to identify the family. This novel is a race against time to both find the family and to pursue leads to solve a decades-old mystery.
Nev March In 1892, Bombay is the center of British India. Nearby, Captain Jim Agnihotri lies in Poona military hospital recovering from a skirmish on the wild northern frontier, with little to do but re-read the tales of his idol, Sherlock Holmes, and browse the daily papers.
The case that catches Captain Jim’s attention is being called the crime of the century: Two women fell from the busy university’s clock tower in broad daylight. Moved by Adi, the widower of one of the victims — his certainty that his wife and sister did not commit suicide — Captain Jim approaches the Parsee family and is hired to investigate what happened that terrible afternoon.
But in a land of divided loyalties, asking questions is dangerous. Captain Jim’s investigation disturbs the shadows that seem to follow the Framji family and triggers an ominous chain of events. And when lively Lady Diana Framji joins the hunt for her sisters’ attackers, Captain Jim’s heart isn’t safe, either.
Based on a true story, and set against the vibrant backdrop of colonial India.
