This is award-winning novelist Hilary Mantel's uniquely unusual five-part autobiography.Opening with 'A Second Home', in which Mantel describes the death of her stepfather, Giving Up the Ghosts is a wry, shocking and beautifully-written memoir of childhood, ghosts (real and metaphorical), illness and family. Finally, at the memoir's conclusion, Mantel explains how a series of medical misunderstandings and neglect left her childless, and how the ghosts of the unborn have come to hau...

Eloise Hamilton is a Londoner born and bred, so it is a momentous day when she reluctantly agrees to uproot to Dartmouth, leaving behind her perfect world so her husband can finally live in his. There are compensations, however. On tap fresh air, a bigger home for her family, her mother-in-law Margaret will welcome her with open arms, and besides, she can still rely on best friend Sara to be her lifeline to London.Yet, both Margaret and Sara are facing their own difficulties. As Ma...

Jane Logan is six months pregnant and has moved to Berlin to live with her long-term lover, rich banker, Petra. The women's chic new apartment is in a trendy part of the city but Jane finds herself increasingly uneasy there. She conceives a dread of the derelict backhouse across the courtyard and begins to suspect something sinister is happening in the flat next door, where gynaecologist Alban Mann lives with his teenage daughter Anna. Petra believes her lover's pregnancy is affecting her ...

Clarissa is almost seventeen when the spell of her childhood is broken.It is 1914, the beginning of a blissful, golden summer—and the end ofan era. Deyning Park is in its heyday, the large country house filledwith the laughter and excitement of privileged youth preparing for aweekend party. When Clarissa meets Tom Cuthbert, home from universityand staying with his mother, the housekeeper, she is dazzled. Tom ishandsome and enigmatic; he is also an ...

A sweepingly epic and gloriously intimate commercial debut - a beautiful and haunting story of lost innocence and a powerful, enduring love. Clarissa is almost seventeen when the spell of her childhood is broken. It is 1914, the beginning of a blissful, golden summer - and the end of an era. Deyning Park is in its heyday, the large country house filled with the laughter and excitement of privileged youth preparing for a weekend party. When Clarissa meets Tom Cuthbert, home from university ...

When a mysterious countess arrives late in life to live in a large house on the outskirts of a beautiful Hampshire village, the local tongues start wagging. No one is more intrigued than Cecily Chadwick, idling away the long, hot summer of 1911 with nothing much to do. Cecily is deeply fascinated by the exotic elderly lady, and as she gets to know her, is riveted by the tales of her life on the continent. And when she meets Jack, the Countess's grandson, she realises that there is much mor...

1913: In a sprawling manor on the outskirts of London, three young women seek to fulfill their destinies and desires amidst the unspoken rules of society and the distant rumblings of war….Rowena BuxtonSir Philip Buxton raised three girls into beautiful and capable young women in a bohemian household that defied Edwardian tradition. Eldest sister Rowena was taught to value people, not wealth or status. But everything she believes will be tested when Sir Philip dies, and the ...

Snow had fallen in the night, and now the great house, standing at the head of the valley, seemed like a five-hundred-year old ship sailing in a white ocean…For the Cavendish family, Rutherford Park is much more than a place to call home. It is a way of life marked by rigid rules and lavish rewards, governed by unspoken desires…Lady of the house Octavia Cavendish lives like a bird in a gilded cage. With her family’s fortune, her husband, William, has made ...

In her page-turning bestseller SUDDENLY SINGLE Sheila O'Flanagan makes readers wonder just what they would do if Alix's situation happened to them... Not to be missed by readers of Liane Moriarty and Kathryn Hughes.What do you do when you find yourself suddenly single? Go suddenly suicidal? Suddenly sex-crazed? Or simply slump into self-pity? Alix Callaghan, who thought she was in control of her busy life, feels like doing all three when her long-term boyf...

Puglia, 1921. Leandro Cardetta, born into poverty, emigrated to America to make his fortune and has returned home to southern Italy a rich man, accompanied by his glamorous wife, Marcie, an ex-showgirl fighting middle age. Now Leandro has money enough to hire renowned English architect, Boyd Kinsgley, to renovate a crumbling palazzo into an Art Deco statement of wealth, and host Boyd's teenage son and his diffident young second wife, Clare, for one extraordinary summer.

Bath, 1821.Rachel Crofton escapes her unhappy employment as a governess by marrying a self-made businessman. But her new life soon takes an unexpected turn.Reclusive Jonathan Alleyn is a man tormented by the disappearance of his childhood sweetheart, Alice.Starling, foundling child and now servant, is convinced that Alice, the woman she loved as a sister, was stolen from her. Did Alice run away? Or did something altogether more sinister occur?As Sta...

Shortlisted for the Costa Book Award ¦ Longlisted for the Orange (Bailey's) PrizeWhen two police officers knock on Laura's door, her life changes forever.Her nine-year-old daughter Betty has been killed in a hit-and-run car accident. When the death is ruled an accident, Laura takes revenge into her own hands. But will her daughter's killer be brought to justice?Laura's loss and bereavement re-open old wounds and she is thrown back to the story of her passionate love ...