Christine Wells
Could she be the secret daughter of the Prince of Wales? In this dazzling novel by the author of Sisters of the Resistance, a young woman seeks to discover the truth about her mysterious past. Perfect for readers of Shana Abe, Bryn Turnbull, and Marie Benedict. Cleo Davenport has heard the murmured conversations that end abruptly the second she walks into a room. Told she was an orphan, she knows the rumor—that her father is none other than the Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne. And at her childhood home at Cairo’s Shepheard’s Hotel, where royals, rulers, and the wealthy live, they even called her “The Princess.”

But her life is turned upside down when she turns seventeen. Sent to London under the chaperonage of her very proper aunt, she’s told it’s time to learn manners and make her debut. But Cleo’s life can’t be confined to a ballroom. She longs for independence and a career as a jewelry designer for Cartier, but she cannot move forward until she finds out about her past. Determined to unlock the truth, Cleo travels from London, back to Cairo, and then Paris, where her investigations take a shocking turn into the world of the Parisian demi-monde, and a high-class courtesan whose scandalous affair with the young Prince of Wales threatened to bring down the British monarchy long before anyone had heard of Wallis Simpson.

Katherine Reay
Vienna, 1954

After losing everyone she loves in the final days of World War II, Ingrid Bauer agrees to a hasty marriage with a gentle Soviet embassy worker and follows him home to Moscow. But nothing deep within the Soviet Union’s totalitarian regime is what it seems, including her new husband, whom Ingrid suspects works for the KGB. Upon her daughter’s birth, Ingrid risks everything and reaches out in hope to the one country she understands and trusts–Britain, the country of her mother’s birth–and starts passing along intelligence to MI6, navigating a world of secrets and lies, light and shadow.

Washington, DC, 1980

Part of the Foreign Studies Initiative, Anya Kadinova finishes her degree at Georgetown University and boards her flight home to Moscow, leaving behind the man she loves and a country she’s grown to respect. Though raised by dedicated and loyal Soviet parents, Anya soon questions an increasingly oppressive and paranoid Soviet regime at the height of the Cold War. When the KGB murders her bestfriend, Anya picks sides and contacts the CIA. Working in a military research lab, Anya passes along Soviet military plans and schematics in an effort to end the 1980s arms race.

Jill mansell
One minute Lou is happily employed, with a perfect flat. The next, her home and job have gone. Suddenly she has to start over. The last thing Lou wants is to move to a tiny Cotswolds village. She certainly doesn’t intend to work for curmudgeonly eighty-year-old Edgar Allsopp. But Edgar is about to make her the kind of promise nobody could ignore. In return, she secretly vows to help him fall in love with life again.

Foxwell is also home to Remy, whose charm and charisma are proving hard to ignore. But Lou hasn’t recovered from the last time she fell for a charmer. She needs a distraction – and luckily one’s about to turn up.

Secrets never stay hidden for long in Foxwell, nor are promises always kept. And no one could guess what lies ahead…

Bernard Cornwell
Spain, 1812. Richard Sharpe, the most brilliant – but the most wayward – soldier in the British army, finds himself faced with an impossible task.

Two French armies march towards each other. If they meet, the British are lost. And only Sharpe – with just his cunning, his courage and a small band of rogues to rely on – stands in their way . . .

Steve Cavanagh
One dark evening on New York City’s Upper West Side, two strangers meet by chance. Over drinks, Amanda and Wendy realize they have much in common, especially loneliness and an intense desire for revenge against the men who destroyed their families. As they talk into the night, they come up with the perfect if you kill for me, I’ll kill for you.

In another part of the city, Ruth is home alone when the beautiful brownstone she shares with her husband, Scott, is invaded. She’s attacked by a man with piercing blue eyes, who disappears into the night. Will she ever be able to feel safe again while the blue-eyed stranger is out there?

Eileen Kramer
I am not old. I have just been here for a long time.’

Eileen Kramer has lived the most extraordinary life. Born just after Australia entered World War I, she embraced creativity and adventure from an early age. She danced and painted murals in Karachi, worked as an artist’s model in Paris and London, met Ella Fitzgerald and Groucho Marx, and learnt the twist from Louis Armstrong. In September 2013, aged 99, Eileen returned to Australia.

Now, at 108, she is penning her memoir, is as young at heart as ever, and still dancing.

Billy Connolly
Being a Rambling Man was what I always wanted to be, to live the way I damn well pleased. I’ve met the weirdest and most wonderful people who walk the Earth, seen the most bizarre and the most fantastic sights – and I’ve rarely come across something I couldn’t get a laugh at. I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad trip. Well, apart from in the 1970s, but that’s a whole other story . . .

When Billy set out from Glasgow as a young man he never looked back. He played his banjo on boats and trains, under trees, and on top of famous monuments. He danced naked in snow, wind and fire. He slept in bus stations, under bridges and on strangers’ floors. He travelled by foot, bike, ship, plane, sleigh – even piggy-backed – to get to his next destination.

Billy has wandered to every corner of the earth and believes that being a Rambling Man is about more than just travelling – it’s a state of mind. Rambling Men and Women are free spirits who live on their wits, are interested in people and endlessly curious about the world. They love to play music, make art or tell stories along the way but, above all, they have a longing in their heart for the open road.

Shanelle Dawson
Imagine living with the knowledge that your father had murdered your mother and lied to you your whole life, telling you she left because she didn’t love you anymore. How could a father do this to his children? How could a husband do this to a woman he at one time loved?

When she was four years old, Shanelle Dawson’s mother, Lynette, disappeared. On 8 January 1982, the woman who had been a loving, constant presence vanished without a trace. Four year old’s might not be able to articulate questions or understand a lot, but the ache of absence is very real. Year after year that ache persisted.

Shanelle’s father, Chris Dawson, claimed that his wife just needed to get away. This is what he told Lyn’s parents and siblings. This is what he told his daughters. But Lyn never returned home. Her side of the bed was immediately filled by Shanelle’s teenage babysitter, a former student of her father’s.

After thirty-six years of her father’s lies, a podcast called The Teacher’s Pet investigated her mother’s case. Sordid details about the father she loved became public. Whispers that he had murdered Lynette grew louder. The police refocused on the cold case. Then, Chris Dawson faced court. Forty years after she went missing, he was sentenced to twenty-four years in prison for the murder of Lynette.

Benjamin Stevenson
For fans of Richard Osman and Anthony Horowitz, a fiendishly fun locked room murder mystery from the author of the indie darling Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone —this time set on a train full of mystery writers, agents, editors, and fans.

Ernest Cunningham returns in a deliciously witty locked room (train) mystery.

When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.

James Patterson
Detective Michael Bennett finally returns to New York City—and to the most unsettling, horrific case of his career.
At last, Detective Michael Bennett and his family are coming home to New York City. Thanks to Bennett, the ruthless crime lord whose vengeful mission forced the Bennett family into hiding has been brought down for good.

Back in the city that never sleeps, Bennett takes over a chaotic Outreach Squad in Harlem, where he receives an unusual call: a man claims to have seen a group of well-dressed men holding a bizarre party in a condemned building. With no clear crime or evidence, Bennett dismisses the report. But when a charred body is found in that very same building, he is forced to take the demented caller seriously—and is drawn into an underground criminal world of terrifying depravity.