category: Fiction

Psychological thriller about a mother who must confront a sudden and terrifying change in her daughter after the abrupt death of their babysitter, asking the question: what lengths will a mother go to to protect her daughter. THE SERVANT (Apple) meets the THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE.

Charlotte’s daughter Stella is sensitive and brilliant, perhaps even a genius, but a recent change in her behaviour has alarmed her parents.

Following the sudden death of Stella’s babysitter, Blanka, the once disruptive and anti-social child has become docile and agreeable. But what’s unsettling is that she has begun to mirror Blanka’s personality, from Blanka’s repetitive phrases to her accent, to fierce cravings for Armenian meat stew after being raised a vegetarian…She’s even started to walk like Blanka, and dress like her too.

Charlotte is pregnant with her second child and depleted and sick with the pregnancy, and she’s convinced that Blanka herself is somehow responsible for Stella’s transformation. But how could Blanka, dead, still be entwined in their lives? Has Blanka’s spirit somehow possessed Stella? Has Stella become Blanka? And would this explain why Blanka’s mother seems to be the only one Stella actually likes and trusts?

As Charlotte becomes increasingly obsessed, she is sure that only she can save her daughter…even though it’s soon clear that her husband believes this is all in Charlotte’s head.

 

About Helena Echlin:

Helena has written for numerous publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Guardian and The Times. She taught at Stanford University for eight years and has recently returned to the UK, where she now teaches fiction writing for Oxford University’s Department of Continuing Education. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and two children.

YOU BETWEEN THE LINES is the brand new contemporary romance novel by debut American author, Katie Naymon and selected as a February add-on pick for Book of the Month.

Centred around a will-they-won’t they relationship, the novel is full of tension, stolen glances and undeniable chemistry – and a protagonist who goes on a journey from being desperate to please others to finding her own way, and embracing her uniqueness. It also features some brilliant original poetry in the same tone and style of The Tortured Poets Society, and is perfect for (the many!) fans of Taylor Swift.

Poet-at-heart Leigh Simon’s high-powered ad agency job has left her sobbing in the bathroom and dreading Monday mornings. Burnout is imminent, so after learning of her parents’ separation, Leigh’s therapist urges her to do something just for herself for once: get an MFA and become the writer she’s always dreamed of being––the kind that writes pop culture-inspired free verse, not manifestos for diapers.

No one’s more surprised than Leigh when a prestigious program in North Carolina accepts her. A former sorority girl, Leigh’s the first to admit she knows more about the lyrics of Taylor Swift than T.S. Eliot, and she’s never been able to shake the “all-style-no-substance” feedback her high school crush shared in their workshop when she was 17. Bad enough that her tattooed, New Yorker tote bag-carrying classmates have read all the right authors and been published in the country’s leading literary journals, Leigh’s insecurities become all too real when Will, that same high school crush-turned-nemesis, shows up at orientation as a another first-year in the program…only now, he’s William and exactly the kind of writer Leigh hates, complete with his casual-academic menswear and tattered Moleskine.

Leigh’s determined to prove herself—and William—wrong by landing the program’s career-jumpstarting fellowship. But Will’s dead-set on it, too, and in a small cohort, they can’t keep apart for long. When Will submits an intimate poem (that’s maybe, probably, definitely about Leigh) to workshop, they’re both forced to realize there’s more to the other than what’s on the page. And what’s between the lines may be even more interesting.

Set against the natural beauty of north-east Wales, a quietly devastating portrait of a farming family; their experience of love and war, addiction and recovery, and the tug of missed opportunities and lost love.

It is autumn 2004 and in a farmhouse on the hills outside Llandudno, a family endures the agonizing wait for their son to return from Iraq.

His decision to join up has left them reeling, yet there are other pressing concerns to be met at home: the working of the farmland that has been theirs for generations and what to do with their troubled younger son.

Catrin’s childhood sweetheart comes back to their small town, giving the boys’ doting mother a glimpse into the life she could have had. And John, their father, falls once more into his gambling habit, even as the farm sits on the brink of bankruptcy. Meanwhile, no one quite knows why Harri joined the army and the truth behind his decision to leave when he did.

With one son away in a distant war and the farm under financial strain, will either family or farmstead survive?

As each member of the family grasps at their own tenuous lifeline, they drift further from one another – until, on a cold winter evening, there is a fateful knock at the door.

It is summer, and Sebastian is in treatment following a breakdown that has left him with a fragile hold on reality and a persistent hunger to connect with the mother who abandoned him as a child.

His therapist, Martin, is also facing challenges, including his adopted daughter Olivia’s tenuous relationship with her biological mother – a predicament that makes Sebastian’s struggle feel uncannily close to her own. Olivia is producing a radio series on natural disasters, which itself seems to be running parallel to the events unfolding in her personal life, as her best friend Lucy faces a grave diagnosis and her husband, Francis, pursues his mission of rewilding the world.

Over the course of the next year their fates collide in outrageous and poignant ways, as each of their destinies is revealed in a marvellous new light.

Written with Edward St Aubyn’s trademark wit and inimitable style, Parallel Lines is a novel about connection, love and the cascading consequences of our choices. It is a vibrant, moving celebration of the life of the spirit and the life of the mind from one of our most irresistible storytellers.

It’s not dust she’s looking for.
It’s dirt.

Esmie is meant to be invisible. Just a cleaner with a foreign accent that no one quite has time to place, and a uniform of leggings and a duster that allows her to explore the homes of the wealthy Woodlands gated community, unnoticed.

Which is exactly what she wants. Because Esmie isn’t really a cleaner.

One of the residents of Woodlands has ruined her life. And when she finds out who, she’s going to make them pay . . .

Mary Watson is from Cape Town and now lives on the west coast of Ireland. She’s worked as an art museum guide, library assistant, theatre duty manager, and an actor in children’s musicals. She has a PhD from the University of Cape Town where she taught for many years. She won the Caine Prize and the Philida Award, and her YA novels have been nominated for the Irish Book Awards and the Carnegie Medal. The Cleaner is her worldwide adult debut.

A heart-thumping thriller packed with exciting twists. ― Daily Mail

The Cleaner is a masterclass in tension. Plotted like an intricate spider’s web, I was glued to the page for the entirety. ― Jennie Godfrey, Sunday TImes bestselling author of The List of Suspicious Things

Revenge is a dish best served up spotless…The relentless attention to detail is wonderfully claustrophobic. ― Sunday Independent

A sinister page-turner…that takes readers on a psychological journey. ― Irish Sunday Times

Domestic noir at its finest. ― i Paper

A modern fairy tale – beautiful, dark, visceral, truly spellbinding. ― Sunday Times and Irish Times No. 1 bestselling author Andrea Mara

Tense from the first page, the pressure builds inexorably. A multifaceted tale of secrets, obsessions and betrayals. ― Sam Lloyd, bestselling author of The Memory Wood

The Cleaner is a richly textured thriller that veritably hums with menace. Taut, twisty and beautifully atmospheric, it pairs a gripping plot with dark, intricate themes. Class, privilege, wealth and entitlement are all put on trial in this immersive tale of betrayal and revenge. ― Kia Abdullah, author of Waterstones Thriller of the Month Those People Next Door

The Cleaner is utterly gripping, dark and gothic – a brilliant tale of jealousy, envy and betrayal with one hell of a twist. I devoured it. A tour de force and the arrival of a brilliant new voice in adult fiction. ― Edel Coffey, author of An Post Crime Fiction Book of the Year Breaking Point

In The Cleaner, Mary Watson creates an immersive, twisty, character-driven web of family secrets and lies that builds to an ending you won’t see coming. ― Fiona McPhillips, author of When We Were Silent

 

Claire O’Connor’s life has been on hold since she broke up with Tom Morton and moved from cosmopolitan London back home to the rugged west of Ireland to care for her dying father. Now, a couple of years later, Claire learns that Tom has moved nearby for work. She must decide if he has come for her or for himself, and unravel what went wrong in their past.

Living in her childhood home brings its own challenges. While she tries to maintain a normal life – obsessing over the internet and trad wives, going to work, and minding her own business – Tom’s return stirs up old memories and the stories trapped within the walls of the old house that looms nearby.

As the violence of the past collides with the mundane reality of Claire’s everyday life, she must confront whether she can escape her history or if she is destined to be immobilized by it forever.

Elaine Feeney is an acclaimed novelist and poet from the west of Ireland. Her debut novel, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award, and won the Kate O’Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. How to Build a Boat was also shortlisted for Irish

The year is 1920. The place is a remote farmhouse in Provence, home to the reclusive painter Edouard Tartuffe and his niece, Ettie. Into this strange, silent house walks Joseph: a young journalist hoping to write an article about Tartuffe. But the more he entangles himself in the peculiar household, the more Joseph’s curiosity grows…

Ettie cooks and cleans for her uncle. She prepares his studio, scrubs his paintbrushes, and creates the perfect environment for him to work. She has never gone further than the local village. She is sharp-eyed and watchful. But beneath her cool exterior, Joseph senses something simmering. Ettie, Joseph and Tartuffe circle each other throughout the hot, crackling summer, until finally they collide.

Lucy is a graduate of both the Faber Academy and the London Library Emerging Writers Programme. She began writing The Artist while living in France, and currently splits her time between London and Amsterdam. The Artist has been listed for the BPA First Novel Award, the Yeovil Literary Prize, the Page Turner Awards, the Fiction Factory First Chapter Competition, and was a Finalist in the Spotlight First Novel Award and the Moniack Mhor Emerging Writer Award. Lucy herself has synaesthesia and uses this to play with ways of translating images into words. She has a BA in English Literature and a Masters in World Literatures from the University of Oxford.

After a career spent being overlooked, Midge McClure has finally reached her police retirement. During the farewells she is gifted a weekend away in a haunted house, the idea of which fills her with dread not least because she will be leaving her beloved Bridie – her partner of twenty years.

The excursion group consist of a grieving couple, a has-been pop star, and an up-and-coming podcaster who aims to capture every second of their weekend away. Finding themselves snowed in together, with no access to the outside world, the group are soon horrified to discover a dead body, and they come to the realisation they have a murderer amongst them. It is up to a reluctant Midge to use all of her skills to solve the mysteries of the past, in order to find the killer of the present…

Emma Mason is a former Detective Conswith Oxford CID. She now lives in Dorset with her husband, children and parents. She writes and works as a design consultant, creating virtual reality training for the Ministry of Defence. Murder Most Haunted is her debut novel.