Looking for something new to read? Browse our fiction picks for February! Includes books by Elly Griffiths, Nicci French, Stuart MacBride and many more.
Want more suggested books? Take a look at our recommendations.
The Killing Time
Elly Griffiths
Ali Dawson is a police detective who investigates cases so cold her team must travel to the distant past to solve them. But Ali and the team haven’t been allowed to time-travel ever since their technical expert, Jones, got stuck in Victorian London.
To distract herself from meaningless tasks, Ali looks into a present-day case – an apparent suicide of a young man who fell to his death. She believes the death is linked to a psychic medium called Barry Power, who convinced the boy he could fly. Ali goes to one of Power’s shows where he claims to be in contact with Jones.
When Ali notices that evening that her cat, Terry, has gone missing, she decides to go back in time just long enough to prevent Terry from escaping through his open cat flap. A dangerous plan which backfires, and she finds herself once more in Victorian London, where she meets Jones, as well as Power, and the darkly mysterious Cain Templeton with whom Ali has unfinished business.
What Happened That Night
Nicci French
After nearly thirty years in prison for the murder of his university friend Leo Bauer, Tyler Green is finally free.
Meeting up with the group of friends who were there the night that Leo died, Tyler is looking to reconnect – but he’s also looking for answers. When another friend is found dead that night, his new found freedom is put in jeopardy.
Detective Maud O’Connor is called to investigate – but can she discover the truth, or is Tyler Green never going to be free?
Nonesuch
Francis Spufford
It’s the summer of 1939. London is on the brink of catastrophic war, and everybody knows it.
On a final night of abandon, Iris Hawkins, an ambitious young financial secretary (and ‘not an entirely good girl’), pursues a one-night stand. Some people, if you make the mistake of sleeping with them, leave you with a rash, or regrets. It seems that sleeping with young Geoff, a technical whizz at the BBC’s nascent television unit, leaves you pursued by a creature from another world.
As Britain threatens to fall apart and the Nazi bombs descend, Iris finds herself stepping off the known world’s edge, into a reality where otherworldly powers lurk and act, where spirits can be called and enslaved, where time can be warped and rewound, and where a magical fascist is plotting her path back in time, gun in hand, in search of Churchill, to fire a shot that will end the war before it ever began. Naturally, only Iris can stop her.
The Barbecue at No.9
Jennie Godfrey
It’s the summer of 1985 and the residents of Delmont Close are preparing a neighbourhood barbecue to watch the biggest music event in history: Live Aid. A day like no other that will end having reached millions and changed the lives of all who attend.
House-proud Lydia Gordon, whose idols are Princess Di and Delia Smith, is determined to put on a show that will impress everyone – with her posh garden and state-of-the-art television and her sweet husband and two children, Hanna and David.
But as the guests flood into number nine, so do all of the secrets that have been kept in the close.
And The Corpse Wore Tartan
Stuart MacBride
The great and the not-so-good are gathered at Skirivour Castle Hotel, in the heart of the Highlands, for the wedding of the year – but they weren’t expecting Detective Sergeant Roberta Steel to crash their party. And get horribly, horribly drunk.
The whole valley’s been cut off by a massive thunderstorm and the phone lines are down, so when the father-of-the-bride’s body is discovered – decoratively impaled on a stag’s head in the hotel lobby – it’s up to DS Steel to find out whodunit. Which isn’t easy when you’ve got a monstrous hangover and only a world-weary sergeant and a halfwit police constable for backup.
With no witnesses and every wedding guest a suspect, Roberta will need to use every one of her little grey cells if she’s going to catch the killer and get out of there alive.
The Forever Home
Erica James
Once a grand country house, Hope Hall is now beautiful luxury apartments and when Cassie and Nina become new neighbours, they soon become firm friends. But as perfect as life in the Cambridgeshire countryside seems, both have heartaches of their own.
Cassie is blissfully in love with Ben, but shadows from her first marriage loom large, threatening her happiness. Nina, a widow, must confront a painful decision that will shatter her mother-in-law’s dreams. Into their lives comes Venetia, a lively 79-year-old with a penchant for secrets – one of which is close to her heart, concealed in her handbag.
As Venetia recalls her own bittersweet history with Hope Hall, the bonds between the three women are forged, revealing the strength found in friendship and the courage to confront the past.
Witch Trial
Harriet Tyce
Two teenage girls. One murdered classmate. And a modern-day witch trial that will divide the nation.
When 18-year-old Christian Shaw is found dead in an Edinburgh park, the city reels – and the shock only deepens when police charge her best friends, Eliza Lawson and Isobel Smyth, with her murder.
As social media explodes and headlines scream for justice, rumours of bullying spiral into something darker: whispers of rituals, obsession, and a teenage pact gone wrong. Matthew Phillips, a respected heart surgeon, is reluctantly called for jury duty on the case.
But as the trial unfolds – and the girls reveal a chilling defence no one saw coming – he begins to question everything: the motives, the evidence, even his own judgement. Who’s telling the truth? Who can be trusted? And what really happened to Christian Shaw?
Three Summers
Karen Swan
Tricase Porto, Puglia, Italy 1958: The summer of innocence. Amongst the lemon trees, Rafaella Parisi impatiently waits for the summer visitors to arrive in her small fishing village on the coast of Puglia. She may be dating Fon Gianelli, but there is one person she longs to see: Cosimo – son of the wealthy Franchetti family.
1959: The summer everything changed. After a devastating accident at the lavish Franchetti villa, Rafa makes a vow that changes the course of all their futures.
1961: The summer they met again.
And when Rafa and Cosi’s lives collide, Rafa must decide if she’s willing to risk the life she has built for the future she might have had.
A Cottage in the Country
Katie Fforde
Hattie finds other people their dream homes for a living. Surely she, of all people, has the connections and the knowledge to find her own forever home?
Instead, she baffles those closest to her by choosing to pack up and move every few months from one housesitting job to the next. Of course, that’s because she knows where she wants to live. It’s a beautiful house owned by a lovely old woman who’d simply love for Hattie to have it.
But nothing is ever that simple. There’s Clive who refuses to listen to his great-aunt’s wishes about her house. There’s Luke, Hattie’s oldest friend, who just wants to see her happy. And there’s Hattie herself. It might take a difficult client, an awkward teenager and a couple of dogs to help her see what really makes a house a home.
The Invitation
Veronica Henry
London, 1953: Clementine falls for handsome Alfie Arbutus over cocktails at the Savoy and knows that life will never be the same again. Especially when he invites her to visit the family home he will inherit one day, Foxwood Manor. Stella lost a part of her heart forever when Edwin Arbutus died. Their wartime love affair changed everything – but now she has her young son, Ted, to fight for.
Elizabeth hopes that throwing the glamorous Snow Ball at Foxwood will bring light back into its darkened walls, and into the eyes of her heartbroken husband, Michael, for the first time since they lost their eldest son. Yet as the gilded invitations are sent, the lives of all three women collide with unimaginable consequences – will the secrets of the past break the family apart, or bring them back together?