A Perfect Husband by Hilary Boyd
Hardback, 13th July 2017, £16.99
We really loved this. The characters are so vivid and it is so well written. A great book that you will not be able to put down.
What would it take for you to give up on the man you love, the man you thought was the perfect husband – until you discovered just how much he was hiding from you?
Lily and Freddy have a wonderful relationship: passionate and fun. Freddy taught her to love again after the death of her first husband. But then Freddy becomes tense, snappy and distracted. Is he having an affair? The truth turns out to be much worse…
Freddy is addicted to gambling. He owes hundreds of thousands of pounds to loan companies; he’s been helping himself to money from his own company, which has now gone bust; and worst of all, his wife’s money – given to him to invest – is gone. Devastated, Lily leaves him, and moves to stay with her sister in Oxford. There, among the dreaming spires, she will clear her head of Freddy and try to figure out how to move on.
But being away from Freddy is far harder than she’d thought. He promises to get help, but can he really ever be cured of his addiction? How can Lily trust him again – surely, after the heartache he’s caused her, she would be far better off walking away and starting again? The truth is, she is as addicted to Freddy as he is to gambling – and she’s not sure she even wants to be free.
A Perfect Husband is available here.
The Upstairs Room by Kate Murray-Browne
Published hardback 27th July
This is a brilliant, atmospheric thriller. Engaging until the very last page. Brilliant.
Eleanor, Richard and their two young daughters recently stretched themselves to the limit to buy their dream home, a four-bedroom Victorian townhouse in East London. But the cracks are already starting to show. Eleanor is unnerved by the eerie atmosphere in the house and becomes convinced it is making her ill. Whilst Richard remains preoccupied with Zoe, their mercurial twenty-seven-year-old lodger, Eleanor becomes determined to unravel the mystery of the house’s previous owners – including Emily, whose name is written hundreds of times on the walls of the upstairs room.
The Upstairs Room is available here.
An Almond For a Parrot by Wray Delaney
Published on 13th July
A bawdy and exciting historical read. Fun, naughty and full of intrigue.
‘I would like to make myself the heroine of this story – an innocent victim led astray. But alas sir, I would be lying…’
London, 1756: In Newgate prison, Tully Truegood awaits trial. Her fate hanging in the balance, she tells her life-story. It’s a tale that takes her from skivvy in the back streets of London, to conjuror’s assistant, to celebrated courtesan at her stepmother’s Fairy House, the notorious house of ill-repute where decadent excess is a must…
Tully was once the talk of the town. Now, with the best seats at Newgate already sold in anticipation of her execution, her only chance of survival is to get her story to the one person who can help her avoid the gallows.
She is Tully Truegood.
Orphan, whore, magician’s apprentice.
Murderer? Written by Sally Gardner writing as Wray Delaney
An Almond For a Parrot is available here.