Book of the month

Book of the month

Modern Fiction Book of the Month – Oct 2022

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him – and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church. Shortlisted for the 2022 Man Booker Prize!

Mystery Book of the Month – Oct 2022

November 1924. The Endeavour sets sail to New York with 2,000 passengers – and a killer – on board. Can you solve the murder before the ship docks and the killer walks free? A clever whodunnit, a golden age murder mystery set on a 1920s cruise liner. It has been described as ”Agatha Christie meets Titanic”. Tom Hindle’s debut novel was inspired by masters of the crime genre from Agatha Christie to Anthony Horowitz, and has been met with rave reviews.

Modern Fiction Book of the Month – Sept 2022

A faded list. Nine favourite stories. For two strangers, friendship is only a page away… When Mukesh Patel pops to the local library, he has no idea his life’s about to change. He meets Aleisha, a reluctant librarian and the keeper of a curious reading list – just a scrappy piece of paper with the names of 9 stories. It doesn’t seem anything special. Yet something tells her to keep it close… A fresh chance at life, at friendship, wasn’t on the cards for these lonely souls – but every story starts somewhere…

Mystery Book of the Month – Sept 2022

Can you crack the Twyford Code? Edith Twyford was once a world-famous children's author, but now her only legacy is the rumoured existence of the Twyford Code: a series of clues hidden in her books leading to... what? No one knows - but that hasn't stopped the speculation. The Twyford Code hides secrets some would do anything to possess. The race is on to solve the mystery of the century. Could you get there first?  

Modern Fiction Book of the Month – August 2022

In Burntcoat we meet a celebrated sculptor, looking at her life and immense studio from within the first national lockdown in the UK. Her crucible glows, bringing with it memories of her lover. This studio is where she brought Halit, the last person she saw before all the doors were shut. A presence from another culture, a whisper, a doorway into a new and feverish world. ”An electrifying story of passion, connection and transformation from ’a writer of show-stopping genius’” – Guardian.

Noir Book of the Month – August 2022

A small town in outback Australia wakes to an appalling crime. A local schoolteacher is found taped to a tree and stoned to death. Suspicion instantly falls on the refugees at the new detention centre on Cobb’s northern outskirts. Tensions are high, between whites and the local indigenous community, between immigrants and the townies, and Detective Sergeant George Manolis returns to his childhood hometown to investigate.

Modern Fiction Book of the Month – June 2022

One summer can change everything… Ruth and Hannah are sisters. Bonded by love and friendship, they are perplexingly different characters. Hannah is radiant, organised and hard working. Ruth is forever single and totally aimless. Together they are invincible. Every summer they go on a budget holiday together where they bicker, laugh, fight and make up. But this time is different. Something bad happens. And now everything is changed forever. –  This bittersweet love story is about needing someone else as much as they need you. It is an ode to our most powerful bonds, how they build us and break us, and how, when all seems lost, we can find joy in the most unexpected places. A Sunday Times bestseller.

Mystery Book of the Month – June 2022

There’s fowl play in Follet Valley! Richard is a middle-aged Englishman who runs a B&B in the fictional Val de Follet in the Loire Valley. Nothing ever happens to Richard, and really that’s the way he likes it. One day, however, one of his older guests disappears, leaving behind a bloody handprint on the wallpaper. Another guest, the enigmatic Valérie, persuades a reluctant Richard to join her in investigating the disappearance. Then things become really serious and someone murders Ava Gardner, one of his beloved hens. The disappearance of a guest is one thing, but you don’t mess with a fellow’s hens! – ’A tricksy whodunnit, and a really, really funny story’. 

Modern Fiction Book of the Month – May 2022

Hailed as Shafak’s best work yet, this is the story of two teenagers in Cyprus, one from the Greek and the other from the Turkish side who meet in secret in a taverna where a big fig tree grows. This tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually to their silent departures. It is there when war breaks out and the capital is reduced to rubble. Years later, a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. The tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited, and also to her family history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world. Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction! 

Noir Book of the Month – May 2022

”Be twice as good as men and four times as good as white men.” Jia Khan has always lived like this. Successful London lawyer Jia Khan is a long way from the Northern streets she knew as a child, where her father, Akbar Khan, led the Pakistani community and ran the local organised crime syndicate. Often his Jirga rule – the old way – was violent and bloody, but it was always justice of a kind. Now, with her father murdered, Jia must return to take his place. Justice needs to be restored, and Jia is about to discover that justice always comes at a cost.
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