The secret of Villa Alba

Louise Douglas
1968, Sicily

Just months after a terrible earthquake has destroyed the mountain town of Gibellina, Enzo and his wife Irene Borgata are making their way back to the family home, Villa Alba del Ciliegio, on roads overlooked by the eerie backdrop of the flattened ghost town. When their car breaks down, Enzo leaves his young wife to go and get help, but when he returns there is no trace of Irene. No body, no sign of a struggle, nothing.

Present Day

TV showman and true crime aficionado Milo Conti is Italy’s darling, uncovering and solving historic crimes for his legion of fans. When he turns his attention to the story of the missing Irene Borgata, accusing her husband of her murder, Enzo’s daughter Maddi asks her childhood friend, retired detective Jane Cobain, for help to prove her father’s innocence. But the tale Jane discovers is murky: mafia meetings, infidelity, mistaken identity, grief and unshakable love. As the world slowly closes in on the claustrophobic Villa Alba del Ciliegio, and the house begins to reveal its secrets, will the Borgata family wish they’d never asked Jane to investigate? And what did happen to Enzo’s missing wife Irene?

The fake wife

Sharon Bolton
Olive Anderson is dining alone at a hotel when a glamourous stranger joins her table, pretending to be her wife. What starts as a thrilling game quickly turns into something dangerous. But as much as the fake wife has her secrets, Olive just might have more.

The secrets of Crestwell Hall

Alexandra Walsh
1605
Bess Throckmorton is well used to cunning plots and intrigues. With her husband Sir Walter Raleigh imprisoned in the Tower of London, and she and her family in a constant battle to outwit Robert Cecil, the most powerful man in the country who is determined to ruin her, Bess decides to retreat to her beloved home, Crestwell Hall. But there she is shocked to hear talk of a new plot to murder the king.

So, unbeknownst to their menfolk, the wives of the plotters begin to work together to try to stop the impending disaster.

Present Day

Isabella Lacey and her daughter, Emily, are excited to be starting a new life at her aunt’s home, Crestwell Hall in Wiltshire. During renovations, Isabella discovers an ancient bible that once belonged to Bess Throckmorton, and to her astonishment finds that it doubled as a diary. As Isabella reads Bess’s story, a new version of the Gunpowder Plot begins to emerge – told by the women.

When Emily’s life is suddenly in terrible danger, Isabella understands the relentless fear felt by Bess, hundreds of years ago. And as the fateful date of 5th November draws ever closer, Bess and the plotters’ wives beg their husbands to stop before a chain of events is set into action that can only end one way…

White Ash Ridge

S.R. White
During a broiling heatwave, the inner circle of a high-profile charity attend a critical meeting at White Ash Ridge, a small hotel nestled in the Australian wilderness. As the temperature rises, a body is found lying in the thick bush, bludgeoned to death.

One of the four remaining guests is a murderer – but who, and why, is a mystery.

Detective Dana Russo knows the national spotlight will be sharply focused on the case.
The charity was formed when the founders’ teenage son was killed after intervening in a vicious assault – sparking public outrage and a damning verdict on the police investigation.

But under huge pressure and with few clues – plus suspects who instinctively distrust the police – how can Dana unravel the truth?

How to kill a client

Joanna Jenkins
Everyone is going to say what a great guy and a great lawyer he was. He wasn’t. He was a prick … And a shithouse lawyer.’ Gavin Jones is dead at thirty-nine. As an in-house lawyer who controlled millions of dollars in fees per year, he was legal firm Howard Greene’s biggest client and wielded that power with manipulative contempt. But he saved his worst behaviour for women, at work and at home.

The partners of Howard Greene relied on his favour to fund their lavish lifestyles. If sycophantic admiration of the man was all it took to secure work from Gavin, that’s what they delivered. But no one liked Gavin. The list of those who suffered from his cruelty was long enough to include pretty much everyone who had contact with him. So who actually killed him?

The mysterious case of the Alperton Angels

Janice Hallett
Everyone knows the story of the Alperton Angels: the cult who brainwashed a teenage girl into believing her baby was the anti-Christ. When the girl came to her senses and called the police, the Angels committed suicide and mother and baby disappeared.

Now, true crime author Amanda Bailey is looking to revive her career by writing a book on the case. The Alperton baby has turned eighteen; finding them will be the scoop of the year. But rival author Oliver Menzies is just as smart, better connected, and also on the baby’s trail.

As Amanda and Oliver are forced to collaborate, they realize that the truth about the Angels is much darker and stranger than they’d ever imagined, and in pursuit of the story they risk becoming part of it.

Milking time

Rachael Treasure
Connie Mulligan, daughter of a fourth-generation Tasmanian dairy farmer, feels like she doesn’t belong. She’s out of sorts, and out of step – with her family, her community and her time, and it feels like nothing she does is right. But the story of how Connie Mulligan takes back control of her story and makes a life for herself will have you standing up and cheering. Earthy, funny, truthful and wise, this is Rachael Treasure at her emotional, heartfelt and feelgood best.

Her every fear

Peter Swanson
Growing up, Kate Priddy was always a bit neurotic, experiencing momentary bouts of anxiety that exploded into full-blown panic attacks after an ex-boyfriend kidnapped her and nearly ended her life. When Corbin Dell, a distant cousin in Boston, suggests the two temporarily swap apartments, Kate, an art student in London, agrees, hoping that time away in a new place will help her overcome the recent wreckage of her life.

Soon after her arrival at Corbin’s grand apartment on Beacon Hill, Kate makes a shocking discovery: his next-door neighbor, a young woman named Audrey Marshall, has been murdered. When the police question her about Corbin, a shaken Kate has few answers, and many questions of her own—curiosity that intensifies when she meets Alan Cherney, a handsome, quiet tenant who lives across the courtyard, in the apartment facing Audrey’s. Alan saw Corbin surreptitiously come and go from Audrey’s place, yet he’s denied knowing her. Then, Kate runs into a tearful man claiming to be the dead woman’s old boyfriend, who insists Corbin did the deed the night that he left for London.

When she reaches out to her cousin, he proclaims his innocence and calms her nerves–until she comes across disturbing objects hidden in the apartment and accidentally learns that Corbin is not where he says he is. Could Corbin be a killer? What about Alan? Kate finds herself drawn to this appealing man who seems so sincere, yet she isn’t sure. Jet-lagged and emotionally unstable, her imagination full of dark images caused by the terror of her past, Kate can barely trust herself, so how could she take the chance on a stranger she’s just met?

Mind games

Nora Roberts
As they do each June, the Foxes have driven the winding roads of Appalachia to drop off their children for a two-week stay at their grandmother’s. Here, twelve-year-old Thea can run free and breathe in the smells of pine and fresh bread and Grammie’s handmade candles. But as her parents head back to suburban Virginia, they have no idea they’re about to cross paths with a ticking time bomb.

Back in Kentucky, Thea and her grandmother Lucy both awaken from the same nightmare. And though the two have never discussed the special kind of sight they share, they know as soon as their tearful eyes meet that something terrible has happened.

The kids will be staying with Grammie now in Redbud Hollow, and thanks to Thea’s vision, their parents’ killer will spend his life in supermax. Over time, Thea will make friends, build a career, find love. But that ability to see into minds and souls still lurks within her, and though Grammie calls it a gift, it feels more like a curse―because the inmate who shattered her childhood has the same ability. Thea can hear his twisted thoughts and witness his evil acts from miles away. He knows it, and hungers for vengeance. A long, silent battle will be waged between them―and eventually bring them face to face, and head to head…

Territory

Judy Nunn
A priceless 16th century locket threads two riveting stories together in this saga set in and around Darwin, Australia’s ultimate frontier town. Commissioned by a Dutch noblewoman as a gift to present to her beloved on her arrival in the East Indies, the locket becomes a symbol of strength and inspiration for the woman as she struggles to survive the tragic wreck of the Batavia off the West Australian coast, and endure the hideous events that followed.

By the time the survivors were rescued from the small island on which they had sought shelter while their captain sailed away in the longboat for help, they were either speechless with horror or had been driven mad by the atrocities they had witnessed and been forced to commit by the bestial crew aflame with bloodlust. A young passenger resolves to escape and is given the locket as a good luck charm. It saves his life when he is discovered washed up on the mainland shore by a tribe of Aborigines, who take him in give him a new life.

This legendary story of disaster and depravity is told in alternating chapters with the story of the Galloway family, station owners, and the story of Darwin itself, from the day it was bombed by Japanese fighter planes during WW2 and nearly flattened, to that extraordinary Christmas Day in 1974 when Darwin was again devastated by ‘fury from the sky’: this time in the form of Cyclone Tracey.

Following the course of the locket and the fortunes of the Galloway clan, Judy Nunn tells a breathtaking story of disaster, courage and passion and that Top End spirit that never says die.

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