On the Reading List | August 2016

Nora hasn't seen Clare for ten years. Not since the day Nora walked out of her old life and never looked back. Until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s hen party arrives. A weekend in a remote cottage - the perfect opportunity for Nora to reconnect with her best friend, to put the past behind her. But something goes wrong. Very wrong.And as secrets and lies unravel, out in the dark, dark wood the past will finally catch up with Nora.

Mist - Mary Fitzgerald -

Lark has been wandering the country for many years, with no real place to call home. Until she meets Matthew Williams, a Canadian who has inherited a run-down hill farm in North Wales. Young and enthusiastic, Matthew has no knowledge of farming and no experience of living in the countryside. Entranced by the beauty and wildness of the place, Lark agrees to help, and together they throw themselves into getting the farm back onto its feet. Until a terrible accident brings Matthew’s father over from Canada, and suddenly none of their lives will be the same.

The Fate of Mercy Alban - Wendy Webb - 

Grace Alban has spent more than twenty years avoiding her childhood home, the stately Alban House on the shores of Lake Superior, for reasons she would rather forget. But when her mother's unexpected death brings Grace and her teenage daughter back, she finds more is haunting the halls and passageways of Alban House than her own personal demons. Long-buried family secrets, a packet of old love letters, and a lost manuscript plunge Grace into a decades-old mystery about a scandalous party at Alban House, when a world-famous author took his own life and Grace's aunt disappeared without a trace. The night has been shrouded in secrecy by the powerful Alban family for all of these years. Her mother intended to tell the truth about that night to a reporter on the very day she died--could it have been murder? Or was she a victim of the supposed Alban curse? Grace soon realizes her family secrets tangle and twist as darkly as the mansion's secret passages. With the help of the disarmingly kind--and attractive--Reverend Matthew Parker, Grace must uncover the truth about her home and its curse before she and her daughter become the next victims.

The Misbegotten - Katherine Webb - 

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 Starling tries to expose the lies behind Bath's immaculate facades, others want only to forget, and will go to extreme lengths to do so. And the courage both Rachel and Starling need to bring these truths to light will come at a very high price...