How cosy I made it sound. How easy. Sam and Ella both looked at me for a moment, their faces a mixture of apprehension and wistfulness. I smiled back at them indulgently, feeling so pleased with myself. Now, I look back and I want to grab my old self by the shoulders and shake, hard. I want to slap the smug smile off my face. I wasn’t just complacent; I was blind.Jane Berry has always dreamed of moving to the country. When she uproots her family and takes them to live in a...

The gripping new psychological drama from the author of Richard and Judy Book Club selection This Perfect WorldAs a teenager, Rachel lived through the death of a friend, and discovered that even the most enchanted of lives can be easily shattered.When tragedy strikes her own life as an adult, and she loses her unborn child, Rachel ought to turn to her husband for support. But in trying to protect one another, she and Andrew end up further apart than ever and Rachel finds he...

A Richard and Judy Book Club selection.Heddy Partridge was never my friend. I have to start with that.Heddy Partridge was never my friend because I was pretty, popular, clever and blonde and my friends were pretty, popular, clever and generally blonde, too.Heddy Partridge was none of these things.Laura Hamley is the woman who has everything: a loving and successful husband, two beautiful children, an expensive home...

Jane Berry has always dreamed of moving to the country. When she uproots her family and takes them to live in a rural paradise, at first it all seems perfect. But when her marriage comes under pressure the dream starts to fall apart and Jane finds her life spiralling out of control. Then one night a line is crossed that threatens to ruin her and her family forever.

As a teenager, Rachel lived through the death of a friend, and discovered that even the most enchanted of lives can be shattered. When faced with tragedy in her adult life, Rachel ought to turn to her husband for support; but instead they end up further apart than ever. Lonely and resentful, Rachel is drawn into a destructive affair. But betrayal comes at a high price…The gripping new psychological drama from the author of Richard and Judy Book Club selection This Perfect World

Laura Hamley has everything: a loving and successful husband, two children and an expensive home. But then she receives a phone call from the mother of a girl Laura bullied at school. As Laura is drawn into the past, she is forced to face the consequences of her cruelty. But, as her secrets are revealed, so too is an even more devastating truth...

A gripping psychological suspense readA family near breaking point hire a nanny with secrets of her own in this gripping novel from an exciting talent.Cupboards were sticky from spilt jam and honey, and the oven smoked when you turned it on because of the fat that had built up over the years. Agatha would never, ever let her future home end up like this. She would never leave it every day like Ruth did. She would never put her trust in stranger...

The Wayland family - Lara and Marcus and their three children - leave England to spend a long, hot summer in Trout Island, Upstate New York. Lara, still reeling from an abortion that Marcus insisted on, hopes the summer away from home will give her time to learn to love her husband again.A chance meeting at a party reacquaints the family with Marcus's old actor friend, Stephen, with whom Lara once had an affair. Lara feels herself drawn towards Stephen and they pick up their secret...

Peg always felt a little blurred, a little lacking in definition. Her mother died when she was six, her father simply disappeared, and she was brought up by her grandparents and her obese, bedridden aunt. But, despite all this, she never developed the habit of asking questions.At least, not until she met Loz, her straight-talking, psychotherapeutically literate girlfriend, who urges her to confront her demons.But as the skeletons come tumbling out of the family closet and t...

A Richard and Judy recommendation for the 2012 Summer Book Club, this is a brilliant Gothic novel in the vein of Daphne du Maurier.A chance encounter: When Sarah meets dark, brooding Alex, she grasps his offer of a new life miles away from her own. They've both recently escaped broken relationships, and need to start again. Why not do it together?A perfect life: But when Sarah gets to the tiny village of Burrington Stoke, s...

One winter’s afternoon, Sonia, 43, married and respectable, answers the door to fifteen-year-old Jez. He’s come to borrow some music. Sonia invites him in and soon decides that she isn't going to let him leave. As Sonia's desire to keep Jez hidden and protected from the outside world becomes all the more overpowering, she is haunted by memories of an intense teenage relationship, which gradually reveal a terrifying truth.

Moving and suspenseful, Lisa Ballantyne’s The Guilty One is a psychological thriller about the darkness in each of us. It explores how we are all tied to our pasts, and what it means to be guilty.Solicitor Daniel Hunter is called to defend 11-year-old Sebastian who has been charged with the murder of a young boy on a London playground. While examining Sebastian’s life in order to save it, Daniel can’t help but be transported to his own difficult youth spent in foster care—...