Charnwood

For people who both love and hate cats comes the tale of Alec Charlesworth, a librarian who finds himself suddenly alone: he's lost his job, his beloved wife has just died. Overcome by grief, he searches for clues about her disappearance in a file of interviews between a man called "Wiggy" and a cat, Roger. Who speaks to him. It takes a while for Alec to realize he's not gone mad from grief, that the cat is actually speaking to Wiggy . . . and that much of what we fear about cats is true. They do think they're smarter than humans, for one thing. And, well, it seems they are! What's more, they do have nine lives. Or at least this one does �" Roger's older than Methuselah, and his unblinking stare comes from the fact that he's seen it all. And he's got a tale to tell, a tale of shocking local history and dark forces that may link not only the death of Alec's wife, but also several other local deaths. But will the cat help Alec, or is he one of the dark forces? In the deft and comedic hands of mega-bestseller Lynne Truss, the story is as entertaining as it is addictive” (The Sunday Telegraph) �" an increasingly suspenseful and often hysterically funny adventure that will please cat lovers and haters alike. And afterwards, as one critic noted, “You may never look at a cat in quite the same way again” (The Daily Mail).

Takes up the story of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy a year after their wedding, when gossip and troublesome relations again cause them discomfort.

It seems a perfect afternoon in the Highlands. Standing at the door of the lochside castle that has been his family's home for generations, Charlie Stuart welcomes his guests to the annual summer drinks party. Conversation, laughter and the clinking of glasses soon fill the air as friends and neighbours come together to toast the laird's happiness and prosperity. But Charlie sees the truth behind the facade: the sacrifices made to safeguard the estate; the devastating losses that have haunted him for decades; the guilt that lies at the heart of it all. In a few hours, he knows, the perfect afternoon will come to an end. The past, with its dark secrets of love, death, loyalty and betrayal, is about to catch up with him. And it could finally tear his family apart ...

Thirty years ago, the Miners' Strike threatened to tear the country apart, turning neighbour against neighbour, husband against wife, father against son - enmities which smoulder still. Resnick, recently made up to inspector, and ambivalent at best about some police tactics, had run an information-gathering unit at the heart of the dispute. Now, the discovery of the body of a young woman who disappeared during the strike brings Resnick out of virtual retirement and back into the front line to assist in the investigation into her murder - forcing him to confront his past in what will assuredly be his last case.

Charlie Parker is a lost soul. Deprived of his private investigator's license and under scrutiny by the police, Parker takes a job in a Portland bar. But he uses his enforced retirement to begin a different kind of investigation: an examination of his own past and an inquiry into the death of his father, who took his own life after apparently shooting dead two unarmed teenagers. It's a search that will eventually lead Parker to question all that he believed about his beloved parents, and about himself. But there are other forces at work: a troubled young woman who is running from an unseen threat, one that has already taken the life of her boyfriend; and a journalist-turned-writer named Mickey Wallace, who is conducting an investigation of his own. And haunting the shadows, as they have done throughout Parker's life, are two figures: a man and a woman who seem driven to bring an end to Charlie Parker's existence ...

Glamorous aid worker Emma McCune refused to conform - her affairs and attitude made her famous in East Africa. She married a local warlord, who was deeply enmeshed in murder and rebellion. This is the story of her life and death.

Moscow and Southern Russia are the settings for the culmination of the rivalry between two secret agents, Tim Cranmer and Larry Pettifer, in a novel that reports on the persecution of the people of Chechenia___

"This is the story of Claire and Ben, who are perfectly in love - in fact, perfect in almost every way. Except one. They can't have a baby. It's also the story of Ben's best friend Romily, who, after years of watching Ben and Claire suffer, offers to have a baby for them. But being pregnant stirs up all sorts of feelings in Romily - feelings she'd rather keep buried, but can't. Suddenly this situation involves two mothers - and one baby who belongs to both of them, but whom only one of them can keep ..."--Publisher description.

"A resonant new novel about a father's efforts to rescue his young daughters by the critically-acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller A Land More Kind Than Home"--

He was no longer part of her life Madeleine's anguish when watching West Marriot race, and his refusal to give up the dangerous world of fast cars, had led to their painful divorce. She had managed to avoid the facts surrounding the spectacular crash that had critically injured her ex-husband until she was called on for her professional help as a physiotherapist. It seemed that West needed a reason to walk again. But Maddy wondered if she could treat him as just another client. Especially when it became evident that West was still interested in her....

Northanger Abbey is both a perfectly aimed literary parody and a withering satire of the commercial aspects of marriage among the English gentry at the turn of the nineteenth century. But most of all, it is the story of the initiation into life of its naïve but sweetly appealing heroine, Catherine Morland, a willing victim of the contemporary craze for Gothic literature who is determined to see herself as the heroine of a dark and thrilling romance. When Catherine is invited to Northanger Abbey, the grand though forbidding ancestral seat of her suitor, Henry Tilney, she finds herself embroiled in a real drama of misapprehension, mistreatment, and mortification, until common sense and humor—and a crucial clarification of Catherine’s financial status—puts all to right. Written in 1798 but not published until after Austen’s death in 1817, Northanger Abbey is characteristically clearheaded and strong, and infinitely subtle in its comedy.

Beatrice Kizza, a woman in flight from a homeland that condemned her for daring to love, flees to London. There, she shields her sorrow from the indifference of her adopted city, and navigates a night-time world of shift-work and bedsits. Howard Pink is a self-made millionaire who has risen from Petticoat Lane to the mansions of Kensington on a tide of determination and bluster. Yet self-doubt still snaps at his heels and his life is shadowed by the terrible loss that has shaken him to his foundations. Carol Hetherington, recently widowed, is living the quiet life in Wandsworth with her cat and The Jeremy Kyle Show for company. As she tries to come to terms with the absence her husband has left on the other side of the bed, she frets over her daughter's prospects and wonders if she'll ever be happy again. Esme Reade is a young journalist learning to muck-rake and doorstep in pursuit of the elusive scoop, even as she longs to find some greater meaning and leave her imprint on the world. Four strangers, each inhabitants of the same city, where the gulf between those who have too much and those who will never have enough is impossibly vast. But when the glass that separates Howard's and Beatrice's worlds is shattered by an inexcusable act, they discover that the capital has connected them in ways they could never have imagined. London. Beatrice Kizza fled Uganda, where homosexuality is illegal. Millionaire Howard Pink's life is shadowed by his daughter's disappearance a decade ago. Carol Hetherington, recently widowed, frets over her daughter's prospects and wonders if she'll ever be happy again. Journalist Esme Reade is in pursuit of the elusive scoop, even as she longs to find some greater meaning and leave her imprint on the world. Four strangers... until their worlds are shattered by an inexcusable act.

Heather Malone has made her home in Lake Henry for the last fourteen years. Known for her kind, gentle nature, she lives with Micah Smith, a widower, and his two young daughters. When the FBI takes her into custody on charges of flight to avoid prosecution, purportedly for a murder that took place in California, the local reaction is stunned disbelief. Yet, when those closest to her, including Micah, think back over the time they have known her, they realize that they have learned virtually nothing about her earlier life. Poppy Blake is Heather's closest friend. A lifelong resident of Lake Henry, Poppy is confined to a wheelchair, the result of a snowmobile accident nearly a dozen years prior that left her a paraplegic and killed her male companion. Since then, she has worked hard to rebuild her life. Currently, she runs a local telephone messaging service out of her specially equipped house on Lake Henry. Fiercely independent, Poppy refuses to let her physical limitations break her spirit. However, it is her guilt over past mistakes, more than her present disability, which is holding her back from pursuing a future that includes a husband and family. Writer Griffin Hughes originally traveled to Lake Henry to investigate a national news story involving Lily Blake, Poppy's older sister. What keeps him coming back is his attraction to Poppy. However, a chance comment made tohis brother, an FBI agent, provides the thread that leads the law to Heather. To redeem himself, Griffin is compelled to solve the mystery of Heather's past. Along the way, he becomes key to freeing Poppy from her own past and helping her see the possibilities of a richer future. Setting her story against the backdrop of a picturesque New England town during the maple syrup harvesting season, when the harshness of winter yields to the sweet promise of spring, and when the whole town is involved in the race to process the sap before the thaw sets in, Barbara Delinsky has written a tightly knit and compelling story that celebrates the values of community, friendship, and the redemptive power of love.

Lucy Lovejoy married her childhood sweetheart at 16, but since then she's lost a little more of herself with each passing year. Those looking from the outside think she's like any other wife and mother, but there is no warmth or love at the centre of Lucy's family - her children have watched their father belittle and take from their mother and are, much to her sadness, following in his footsteps. A grandmother, a wife and a mother, with her 40th birthday quickly approaching, Lucy discovers that her good-for-nothing husband is having an affair with her sister. This is a double-betrayal for Lucy and it shatters her. Sitting on a bench one day - she looks back at her life, she doesn't feel like she's done anything with it. So, mustering up all of her courage she decides to leave her family and the home she's devoted so many years to, she decides to go out into the world and start a new life. What will Lucy discover?

"In the center of historic Edinburgh, builders are preparing to convert a disused Victorian Gothic building into luxury flats. They are understandably surprised to find skeletal remains hidden in a high pinnacle that hasn't been touched by maintenance for years. But who do the bones belong to, and how did they get there? Could the eccentric British pastime of free climbing the outside of buildings play a role? Enter cold case detective Karen Pirie, who gets to work trying to establish the corpse's identity. And when it turns out that the bones may be from as far away as former Yugoslavia, Karen will need to dig deeper than she ever imagined into the tragic history of the Balkans: to war crimes and their consequences, and ultimately to the notion of what justice is and who serves it"--

When the body of a young woman is found in a suite at one of the most prestigious hotels in Manhattan, Assistant DA Alex Cooper and Detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace find themselves hunting for an elusive killer whose only signature is carving a carefully drawn symbol, which bears a striking resemblance to train tracks, into his victims' bodies. When a second body with the same bloody symbol is discovered in a deserted alleyway next to the Grand Central Terminal Building, Alex and Mike must contend with the station's expansive underground tunnels and century-old dark secrets to find a killer who appears to be cutting a deadly path straight to the heart of the city ...

"Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances--in their house, on the roadway, in the market. Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron has spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. So when he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, independent young woman, she is like a breath of fresh air. Unhesitatingly, he marries her, and they have a relatively happy, unremarkable marriage. But when a tree crashes into their house and Dorothy is killed, Aaron feels as though he has been erased forever. Only Dorothy's unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and to find some peace. Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family's vanity-publishing business, turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trials of life, that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye. A beautiful, subtle exploration of loss and recovery, pierced throughout with Anne Tyler's humor, wisdom, and always penetrating look at human foibles"--

"Born into a posh family, ten-year old Lizzie Vogel has lived a charmed life thus far, with a big sister who knows everything, a cute baby brother, and a full-time housekeeper who bakes jam tarts. But when, in 1970, Lizzie's father abandons her mother and packs his ex-family off to the tiny village of Flatstone, life for the Vogels veers catastrophically off-course. The new neighbors disapprove of divorcees and fatherless children, and Lizzie's theatrical mother provides constant grist for the gossip mill, letting the laundry pile up like Mount Sinai and spending her days drinking whiskey, popping pills and writing plays about how sad she is. Before long the family is shunned by village society. Deciding that only a "man at the helm" will restore order to their household, Lizzie and her sister take it upon themselves to secure a new husband for their mother. As the two girls make their way down a list of candidates that includes a charming con-artist, an idiotic vicar, and several married men, Lizzie confronts the downright craziness of grown-up love and learns that sometimes a family needs to veer catastrophically off-course in order to find true happiness"--

Puglia, Italy, 1921: Leandro returns home, now a rich man with a glamorous American wife. But how did he get so wealthy - and what haunts his outwardly exuberant wife? Boyd, a quiet English architect, is hired to build Leandro's dreams. But why is he so afraid of Leandro? Clare, Boyd's diffident wife, is summoned to Puglia with her stepson. At first desperate to leave, she soon finds a compelling reason to stay. Ettore, starving, poor and grieving for his lost fiancee, is too proud to ask his Uncle Leandro for help - until events conspire to force his hand. Tensions are high as poverty leads veterans of the Great War to the brink of rebellion. And under the burning sky, a reckless love and a violent enmity will bring brutal truths to light ...

"January, 1381. Guests of the Regent, John of Gaunt, Brother Athelstan and Sir John Cranston have been attending a mystery play performed by the Straw Men, Gaunt's personal acting troupe, when the evening's entertainment is rudely interrupted by the sudden, violent deaths of two of Gaunt's VIP guests, their severed heads left on stage. The Regent orders Athelstan to find out who committed such a heinous act, leading Athelstan to tackle his most baffling case yet"--Provided by publisher.