This month all our top books are from women writers. From romance to thrillers, there is something for everyone.
I See You by Clare Mackintosh
When Zoe Walker sees her photo in the classifieds section of a London newspaper, she is determined to find out why it's there. There's no explanation: just a grainy image, a website address and a phone number. She takes it home to her family, who are convinced it's just someone who looks like Zoe. But the next day the advert shows a photo of a different woman, and another the day after that.
Is it a mistake? A coincidence? Or is someone keeping track of every move they make . . .
Lie With Me by Sabine Durrant
It starts with a lie. The kind we've all told - to a former acquaintance we can't quite place but still, for some reason, feel the need to impress. The story of our life, embellished for the benefit of the happily married lawyer with the kids and the lovely home.
And the next thing you know, you're having dinner at their house, and accepting an invitation to join them on holiday - swept up in their perfect life, the kind you always dreamed of ...
Which turns out to be less than perfect. But by the time you're trapped and sweating in the relentless Greek sun, burning to escape the tension all around you - by the time you start to realise that, however painful the truth might be, it's the lies that cause the real damage ...
well, by then, it could just be too late.
The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke
Suburban Australia. Sweltering heat. Three bedroom blonde-brick. Family of five. Beat-up Ford Falcon. Vegemite on toast. Maxine Beneba Clarke's life is just like all the other Aussie kids on her street.
Except for this one, glaring, inescapably obvious thing.
The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders
The first in 'The Laetitia Rodd Mysteries', six Victorian detective novels featuring the razor-sharp, crime-solving widow of an archdeacon.
To The Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
From the author of The Snow Child. Lieutenant Colonel Allen Forrester receives the commission of a lifetime when he is charged to navigate Alaska's hitherto impassable Wolverine River, with only a small group of men. The Wolverine is the key to opening up Alaska, and its rich natural resources, to the outside world, but previous attempts have ended in tragedy.
Forrester leaves behing his young wife, Sophie, newly pregnant with the child he had never expected to have. Adventurous in spirit, Sophie does not relish the prospect of a year in a military barracks, while her husband carves out a path through the wilderness. What she does not anticipate is that their year apart will demand every ounce of courage and fortitude of her that it does of her husband.
Skylarking by Kate Mildenhall
Kate and Harriet are best friends, growing up together on an isolated Australian cape in the 1880s. As daughters of the lighthouse keepers, the two girls share everything until a fisherman, McPhail, arrives in their small community. When Kate witnesses the desire that flares between him and Harriet, she is torn by her feelings of envy and longing. But one moment in McPhail's hut will change the course of their lives forever.
Inspired by a true story, Skylarking is a debut novel about friendship, love and loss, one that questions what it is to remember and how tempting it can be to forget.
Modern Lovers by Emma Straub
Former college friends Elizabeth, Andrew and Zoe have watched one another marry, set up home and start families, all while trying to hold on to the identities of their youth. Now, two decades later, they live within shouting distance in the same Brooklyn neighbourhood and the trappings of the adult world seem to have arrived with ease.
But nothing ages them like suddenly having to pass the torch – of sexuality, independence and the ineffable alchemy of cool – to their own teen age offspring, and the summer that their children reach maturity (and start sleeping together), the fabric of the adult lives suddenly begins to unravel. The secrets and revelations that are finally let loose can never be reclaimed.
Miss You by Kate Eberlen
Tess and Gus are meant to be. They just haven't met properly yet. And perhaps they never will . . .
Today is the first day of the rest of your life is the motto on a plate in the kitchen at home, and Tess can't get it out of her head, even though she's in Florence for a final, idyllic holiday before university. Her life is about to change forever - but not in the way she expects.
Gus and his parents are also on holiday in Florence. Their lives have already changed suddenly and dramatically. Gus tries to be a dutiful son, but longs to escape and discover what sort of person he is going to be.
For one day, the paths of an eighteen-year-old girl and boy criss-cross before they each return to England.
Over the course of the next sixteen years, life and love will offer them very different challenges. Separated by distance and fate, there's no way the two of them are ever going to meet each other properly . . . or is there?
Break In Case of Emergencies by Jessica Winter
Jen has reached her early thirties and has all but abandoned a once-promising painting career when, spurred by the economic crisis, she takes a poorly defined job at a feminist nonprofit. The foundation's aim is to empower women, but staffers spend all their time devising acronyms for imaginary programs, ruthlessly undermining one another, and stroking the ego of their boss, the larger-than-life celebrity philanthropist Leora Infinitas.Jen's complicity in this passive-aggressive hellscape only intensifies her feelings of inferiority compared to her two best friends – one a wealthy attorney with a picture-perfect family, the other a passionately committed artist – and so does Jen's apparent inability to have a baby, a source of existential panic that begins to affect her marriage and her already precarious status at the office.Jessica Winter's ferociously intelligent debut novel is a wry satire that explores the difficulty of navigating friendships as they shift to accommodate marriage and family, and the unspoken tensions that can strain even the strongest bonds.
The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
From the bestselling author of Richard and Judy pick, In A Dark, Dark Wood.
This was meant to be the perfect trip.
The Northern Lights. A luxury press launch on a boutique cruise ship.
A chance for travel journalist Lo Blackwood to recover from a traumatic break-in that has left her on the verge of collapse, and to work out what she wants from her relationship.
Except things don’t go as planned.
Woken in the night by screams, Lo rushes to her window to see a body thrown overboard from the next door cabin. But the records show that no-one ever checked into that cabin, and no passengers are missing from the boat.
Exhausted, emotional and increasingly desperate, Lo has to face the fact that her sleep problems might be driving her mad or she is trapped on a boat with a murderer – and she is the sole witness ...
