Hilary Spiers

When Lord Lucan walks into psychiatrist Hildegard Wolf's Paris office, there is one problem: she already has a patient who says he's Lucan, the fugitive murderer who bludgeoned his children's nanny in a botched attempt to kill his wife. As Dr Wolf sets about deciding which of her patients, if either, is the real Lucan, she finds herself in a fierce battle of wills and an exciting chase across Europe. For someone is deceiving someone, and it may be the good doctor, who, despite her unorthodox therapeutic method (she talks mainly about her own life), has a sinister past, too.

Alice Pickering and Ellen Walsh didn't want their husbands to die, but they did want to survive them for the cruise. It would be such fun, just the two of them on a boat, decently widowed at last. But the sea holds hidden perils for women of a certain age...

When a troubled young runaway arrives on Tom Ripley's French estate, he is drawn into a world he thought he'd left behind: a seedy underworld involving kidnapping plots, lies and deception. Ripley becomes the boy's protector as friendship develops between the young man with a guilty conscience and the older one with no conscience at all.

For May Smith, travelling with her husband and baby girl Ellen on the Titanic marks the start of a journey which is destined to take her from the back streets of Bolton to the land of opportunity: the United States. But when the 'unsinkable' Titanic hits an iceberg, May's dreams are instantly shattered. Rescued by the Carpathia, May makes a split-second decision which will change the lives of many.

This is the story of a rector's daughter who triumphed over unrequited love and family tragedy to take her place as one of the world's most popular writers.

A complete collection of stories set in the deep south of an America now long gone, from one of the most original and powerful American writers of the twentieth century. X rated, contains offensive language. Some people may find the language in this book, and attitudes related to race offensive.

As a favour, private detective Kate Brannigan agrees to track down a missing songwriter, Moira Pollock, a search that takes her into some of the seediest parts of Leeds and Bradford. But little does she realize that finding Moira is a prelude to murder…

London, 1941. Emmeline Lake dreams of becoming a War Correspondent – but after a rather unfortunate misunderstanding, she finds herself typing letters for renowned agony aunt, Henrietta Bird. Mrs Bird insists that letters containing any form of unpleasantness must go straight into the bin. But as Emmy reads the desperate pleas from women, she decides the only thing for it is to secretly write back . . .

It's Halloween and Thea is looking forward to a peaceful autumn after two disastrous housesitting incidents in which she became embroiled in murder and mayhem. But the bad luck that plagues her is never far away, and it it becomes apparent that even the cosy village of Cold Aston has its share of murder.

A dragon. A boy. A journey.

Firedrake, a brave young dragon, embarks on a magical journey to find the legendary place where silver dragons can live in peace for ever.

Along the way, he discovers extraordinary new friends and a courage he never knew he had. But the greatest enemy of all is never far behind - a heartless monster intent on destroying the last dragons on earth ...

Nicola’s problems began when she is finally told by her partner, Jonathan, ‘that we should part…’. She nips out to the off-licence to buy cigarettes and returns to find a stranger in her living room. The stranger looks like Jonathan, talks like Jonathan, yet Nicola did not recognise him as the man he was before. Jonathan had always been predictable, but now Nicola wondered where was the man she loved? How did he become such a mystery all of a sudden? Since when did a solicitor have hidden depths? Friends gather round, always ready to offer encouragement or insult her ex-husband, yet Nicola must face up to the adjustments of Life After Jonathan. It is not the experience of liberation, empowerment and excitement it is meant to be. Madeleine St John’s third novel is haunting and hilarious. St John is at her bittersweet best writing of the things women will do to hold on to love and the things men will do to escape it .

Every Eye is about a girl growing up to what could have been unhappiness but for her marriage to a carefree young(er) man. Her unsympathetic family have made her feel awkward about every aspect of life, and she has also felt like an outsider due to having a squint. But she manages to make a career by teaching the piano and then, on holiday in France, meets her soon-to-be husband. As she travels south by train to Ibiza with him she surveys her past life and unravels a mystery.

When Janet Frame's doctor suggested that she write about her traumatic experiences in mental institutions in order to free herself from them, the result was Faces in the Water, a powerful and poignant novel.

Istina Mavet descends through increasingly desolate wards, with the threat of leucotomy ever present. As she observes her fellow patients, long dismissed by hospital staff with humour and compassion, she reveals her original and questing mind. This riveting novel became an international classic, translated into nine languages, and has also been used as a medical school text.

They first met as children in 1940s London. Thirty years later, Marjorie, Chloe, and Grace make their way through an almost unrecognizable post-war society, coping with husbands, children, parents, and the messy business of life.

From wronged wives to nosy neighbours, from distant dads to new-found family, from secrets to lies, fresh starts to false endings - and everything in between...A collection of brilliant short stories from the best writers around.

When Fran uncovers a bone in the garden of Longbarrow House on the same afternoon that Leo breaks his leg, it is just the first in a series of strange and unsettling coincidences. Leo is left immobilised for the rest of the summer and Fran is roped in to keep him company, forced to listen to his foolish theories about the looming threat of war in Europe. Suddenly the garden she has loved all her life seems to hold threatening shadows of the future, and Fran starts to fear what she and Leo might find next ...

Pip Fitz-Amobi is not a detective anymore. The true-crime podcast about the murder case she and Ravi Singh solved together last year. has gone viral, yet Pip insists her investigating days are behind her. But she will have to break that promise when Jamie Reynolds goes missing and the police won’t do anything about it. But will she find him before it’s too late? Book two in the series.

Book 2 in series.

From caves in Pakistan to the underground tunnels of London's Piccadilly line, each of the stories collected here takes the reader into a very different world. Everyday triumphs and tragedies are briefly illuminated, the secret places of relationships laid bare – together these tales showcase the variety and vibrancy of the modern short story.

Edward is throwing a dinner party with Binny , his mistress. Aware that she has long been denied those small intimacies that his wife takes for granted, he wants to give her a chance to feel more involved in his life, to socialise with some of his friends (the discreet ones). Things are a little awkward to begin with, but everything seems to be going well until some uninvitedguests arrive, and it doesn't look like Edward is going to make it home on time. A gripping thriller based on the Balcombe Street siege.

Four members of the Coverdale family died in the space of fifteen minutes on St Valentine's Day. Eunice Parchman, the illiterate housekeeper, shot them down while they were watching television. Two weeks later she was arrested for the crime. But the tragedy neither began nor ended there...

When Kitty Peck took over Paradise - her grandmother's East End criminal empire - she was determined to transform the music halls into the jewels of Limehouse. But a new threat appears in the form of an eerily charismatic preacher on a crusade against 'wickedness and vice'. Can Kitty save Paradise from destruction, without losing any more of the people she loves? Book 4 of the 'Kitty Peck Mysteries'.

Nazi Germany is a dangerous place for a girl with a stammer - and although her father tries to keep her safe, Ingrid can't help feeling like she's let him down. But in the air, soaring high as she pilots her beloved glider planes, Ingrid is free and incredibly talented. When she gets the chance to fly in a propaganda tour alongside her hero, Germany's daring female test pilot Hanna Reitsch, Ingrid leaps at the chance. But through Hanna, she will learn some dangerous truths about Germany's secret missions and the plans that could change the course of the war to secure victory for the Nazi regime. When everything is at stake, Ingrid must decide where her loyalties lie …

From the moment she hears Lev's violin for the first time, Helena Attlee is captivated. She is told that it is an Italian instrument, named after its former Russian owner. Eager to discover all she can about its ancestry and the stories contained within its delicate wooden body, she sets out for Cremona, birthplace of the Italian violin. This is the beginning of a beguiling journey whose end she could never have anticipated.

Sylvia Blackwell, a young woman in her twenties, moves to East Mole, a quaint market town in middle England, to start a new job as a children's librarian. But the apparently pleasant town is not all it seems. Sylvia falls in love with an older man - and her connection to his precocious young daughter and her neighbours' son will change her life and put them, the library and her job under threat.

In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to Revolutionary Paris. Here they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation, and 'Little' transforms herself into the legendary Madame Tussaud.

It's the summer of 1965, and the streets of Queens, New York shimmer in a heatwave. One July morning, Ruth Malone wakes to find a bedroom window wide open and her two young children missing. After a desperate search, the police make a horrifying discovery.

Marnie appears to be charming and efficient. But inwardly she is a rebel against society and the law. She starts working for a small family firm and as Mark Rutland, the younger partner, forces his way into Marnie’s world he becomes desperate to understand her. Why is she so cynical, so uncaring? Why is she a thief and a liar? Who is the real Marnie? Mark sets a trap - but it is not only Marnie who is caught ...

Miss Harriet Brown, daughter of a Methodist minister, is the embodiment of propriety and Christian charity. The virtues Harriet possesses are far from fashionable but the Tribble sisters feel confident their new charge will attract a worthy vicar or two before the end of the season - if first they can vanquish confirmed rake and gambler Lord Charles Marsham who seems perversely determined to woo Harriet!  Book 6 of series.

Miss Ranskill goes on a cruise and is swept overboard; she lives for three years on a desert island before being rescued by a destroyer in 1943. When she returns to England it seems to her to have gone mad: she cannot buy clothes without 'coupons', her friends are only interested in 'war work', and yet she is considered uncivilised if she walks barefoot or is late for meals.

Having fled Rome and a stultifying marriage, Isabel Osmond is in London, brooding on the recent disclosure of her husband's shocking betrayal of her. Reawakened by the knowledge of having been grievously wronged, she determines to resume her youthful quest for freedom and independence.

A rich, intense and generous hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. This meticulous portrait of these two women is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship.

Book 1 in the Neapolitan series.

Luke is a comic-mad eleven-year old who shares a treehouse with his geeky older brother, Zack. Luke' s only mistake is to go for a wee right at the wrong time. While he's gone, an alien gives his undeserving, never-read-a-comic-in-his-life brother superpowers and then tells him to save the universe. Luke is massively annoyed about this, but when Zack is kidnapped by his arch-nemesis, Luke and his friends have only five days to find him and save the world...

Just weeks after giving birth, new mum Stephanie Henderson and her baby girl disappear. With husband Adam in despair, and the police investigation stalled, it's up to her sister Jess to find them. But when Adam starts to behave suspiciously, Jess starts to question what really happened. Following news of a tragic accident, she suspects the worst and, in turmoil, goes in search of answers. But Jess isn't prepared for what she uncovers . . . or for what happens next.

Shy, uncertain Miss Balfour is still finding her way after the sudden death of her domineering sister Belle, who - following a failed marriage many years ago - had returned home and made a career of brow-beating her meeker sibling (her memorable final words were ‘Don’t be a fool Dottie’). But Dorothea soon begins exploring her newfound freedom, observing and then becoming happily enmeshed in the doings of her neighbours, the widowed Mrs Lenox and her five unusual and charming children, with whom Belle had always forbidden contact.

Domestic challenges, romantic difficulties, and efforts to aid a painter’s abandoned family - all are facilitated by Dorothea’s calm intelligence. And before long she has drama of her own, from her spontaneous rescue of an endangered child to her encounter with Belle’s long-lost husband, from whom she learns some surprising secrets.

The killer's modus operandi is the same in each instance: strangulation, always with a guitar string, pulled tight from behind until life is taken. And though the murders are happening up and down the country, there is one other similarity that Inspector Wilkins can't help noticing. Each and every victim is a psychotherapist...

It starts with a plane crash. There are survivors: a teenage girl and her little brother. They are running from something. But what? Then the men arrive. They are hunting the girl and boy. And - and that's all we can tell you ...