Looking for something new to read? Browse our fiction picks for May! Includes books Eve Chase, Douglas Stuart, Alison Weir and many more.
Want more suggested books? Take a look at our recommendations.
The Secret Thread
Eve Chase
Mimi Mott, celebrated designer and famously private style icon, is auctioning off her legendary estate, intent on telling the true story of her life in objects. In London, her new assistant, Jo O’Mara, is determined to win Mimi’s trust.
But Jo carries a secret of her own, and time is running out to unpick the past before the auctioneer’s hammer falls.
Who is Mimi, really? A woman who rose from humble beginnings to build an interiors empire – but at what cost? What happened in that remote Wiltshire manor house where Mimi and her family worked during the summer of 1969? Who died the night of the glittering party that stole the headlines?
As the auction countdown begins, Jo is drawn into an intoxicating world of obsession, sisters and secrets – and must risk everything to unravel the truth, one thread at a time.
John of John
Douglas Stuart
Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry home to the island of Harris to find that not much has changed except for him.
In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal resumes his old life, caught between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, weaver, and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his Glaswegian grandmother Ella, who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for decades.
While Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, John is dismayed by his son’s long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As the seasons pass, everything is poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly entangled.
The Boleyn Secret
Alison Weir
At 12 years old, Kate Carey attends her aunt, Queen Anne Boleyn, to the scaffold. Horrified by what she witnesses, Kate is convinced that King Henry VIII has sent an innocent woman to a terrible death.
As the Boleyn’s fall from favour, Kate serves her now motherless cousin, the young Lady Elizabeth. Bound by Boleyn blood, the two girls are like sisters, until Kate marries for love – and leaves a jealous Elizabeth behind.
At court, Kate cannot ignore the sly looks thrown her way, nor the whispers behind her back. Only when her mother, Mary, lies dying, does she learn the life-shattering truth that the Boleyn’s have been hiding for years. It is a secret that will haunt Kate throughout her life, as her family flee into exile, only returning home when Elizabeth becomes queen.
But the bond between the Boleyn cousins will never be the same again.
The Calamity Club
Kathryn Stockett
Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Ever since her beloved mother failed to come home last Christmas Eve, she’s been one of the ‘unadoptable’ big girls at the town’s orphanage where she fights each day to keep her wits sharp and her spirit unbowed.
When she meets Birdie, a young woman set on confronting the socialite sister who believes she’s left her impoverished family behind, for the first time in a long while it seems someone else might care about Meg’s future.
But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie discovers her sister’s charmed life is balanced precariously upon a tapestry of lies. Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman haunted by loss who has been pushed to the brink with nothing left to lose. Drawn together by circumstance, they find unexpected kinship among a disreputable, determined band of women.
But in a town steeped in hypocrisy, even the smallest act of defiance can have consequences.
Blood, Rust and Steel
Stuart MacBride
Acting Detective Inspector Roberta Steel has never been shy, but she’s finally retiring. After thirty years of policing Aberdeen’s underbelly, she’s all set for her twilight years to feature gardening gloves, afternoon tea, crosswords puzzles, and shouting at the telly.
So, when a body turns up in a wheelie bin, it looks like an excellent way to round off her career and go out with a bang.
But the Northeast of Scotland isn’t finished with her yet: There’s a violent protest to stop; far-right populist politicians, and sketchy government spooks; a by-election; drugs, dogs, and baby-doll nighties; and a desperate ex-colleague, begging her for help.
With only her Queen Street Irregulars for backup, and the top brass desperate to get shot of her, these final few weeks might just be the death of her.
The Things We Never Say
Elizabeth Strout
Artie Dam is a man with a secret. He goes about his days teaching American history to high schoolers, correcting their casual ignorance, and lending a kind word to those who need it most.
He spends his free time sailing the beautiful Massachusetts Bay, or with his adult son and his wife of more than three decades – and as Artie does these things, he plans the event that will forever change the world he inhabits.
But when a startling accident awakens a new perspective in Artie, and he realizes that life has its own secret it’s been keeping from him – along with a lot more to say on the weighty matters of fate and freedom in his home and his country – he charts another course full of grief, hilarity and heart, to a place where the end marks the beginning.
The Given World
Melissa Harrison
In the ancient Welm Valley, something is shifting: the river is behaving oddly, while the arrival of spring, with its familiar rhythms, is shadowed by an undercurrent of unease.
A woman falls while out walking and hopes to be found before nightfall; a doctor realises, too late, that he has long underestimated his wife; across the village, people are plagued by the same vast and unsettling dream.
And alone in a converted priory, overlooking watermeadows unchanged for centuries, Clare Grey receives news which will force her to reconsider her family’s past and the fresh weight of her solitary existence.
Quite Ugly One Evening
Chris Brookmyre
Reporter Jack Parlabane thrives on chasing stories in unlikely places, and where could be less likely than a fan convention on a cruise liner celebrating a contentious Sixties TV series?
But unlike the media family exploiting their show’s renewed relevance, he’s not there to stoke controversy: he’s there to solve a murder.
Already in deep water with his employer, Jack desperately needs a win, and solving this decades-old mystery could be it. Problem is, he’s in the middle of the Atlantic, and someone onboard has already killed once to keep their secret.
And that’s not even the tricky part. No, the tricky part is definitely the dead body locked in a stateroom with him, covered in his blood. Now Jack has to solve two murders, otherwise the only way he’s getting off this ship is in handcuffs – or in a body bag.
Enough
Dawn French
‘I have brought you all down to the beach this morning to tell you something important. You see, the thing is, today is my last day alive.’
Etta is sixty-eight years old. Happy, healthy and an active participant in her world, she’s gathered her family together for an unforgettable weekend.
She’s got just one day. One day to tell her family her secret. One day to bring them back together. One day to put the finishing touches on her plan. One day to tell the world enough is enough.
Because this one day will rewrite Etta’s story.
The Midnight Train
Matt Haig
For Wilbur it was his time with Maggie, the love of his life. Their honeymoon in Venice. Before he threw it all away.
Years later, on the brink of his own death, a train arrives. It can take Wilbur back in time. To relive his most important moments. Soon he realises just how much he would have changed.
An adventure through time, The Midnight Train is a story of love and second chances, from the world of The Midnight Library.
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