Looking for something new to read? Browse our fiction picks for May! All of these books and more are available to borrow for free with your library card.
Step into the thrill and intrigue of Tudor England in this book and witness the rise and fall of Cardinal Wolsey. It begins with Thomas, the son of a Suffolk tradesman. A brilliant boy sent to study at Oxford at the tender age of eleven. It ends with a disgraced Cardinal, cast from the King's side and estranged from those he loves.
On the evening of July 4th, Sylviane Rochas scatters her mother's ashes in New York and lets the changing wind blow her to the French seaside town of Marseille. For the first time in her life, Vianne holds the future in her own hands. Charming her way into a job as a waitress in a local bistrot, she knows that she is not here to stay - by the time her child is born in a few months' time, she must be gone. As she discovers the joy of cooking for the very first time, making recipes her own with the addition of bittersweet chocolate spices, she realises that it possesses its own magic in this town full of secrets. Yet Vianne will never forget her mother's warning: that there is danger in revealing the true desires of those around her - and she must flee these cobbled streets before it's too late.
Linda and Levi will never meet. But they're going to change each other's lives. In her role at the council's Unclaimed Heirs Unit, Linda Standish investigates the lives of those who've died alone and tracks down any living relatives. She's been a friend to the friendless for the past thirty-three years. And now she's looking forward to an early retirement. But before she hangs up her lanyard, Linda must take on one last case - that of Levi Norman Jones - a Welshman who'd made his home on a remote Scottish island for the past five years. What brought Levi here? And who did he leave behind? Obliged to travel (by hearse) with her arch nemesis Fergus Murray, and helped (and hindered) by the eccentric local residents, Linda searches for clues to a life now lost. And in the process unexpectedly makes new friends, and discovers things about herself she never knew.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Detective Stilwell has been 'exiled' to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found wrapped in plastic and weighed down at the bottom of the harbor. Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, he starts doggedly working the case. Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.
1820. Mary Dorothea Knatchbull is living under the sole charge of her widowed father, Sir Edward - a man of strict principles and high Christian values. But when her father marries Miss Fanny Knight of Godmersham Park, Mary's life is suddenly changed. Her new stepmother comes from a large, happy and sociable family and Fanny's sisters become Mary's first friends. Her aunt, Miss Cassandra Austen of Chawton, is especially kind. Her brothers are not only amusing, but handsome and charming. And as Mary Dorothea starts to bloom into a beautiful young woman, she forms an especial bond with one Mr Knight in particular. Soon, they are deeply in love and determined to marry. They expect no opposition. After all, each is from a good family and has known the other for some years. It promises to be the most perfect match. Who would want to stand in their way?
Convicted of murder at seventeen, infamous killer and true crime celebrity Orianna Negi has always maintained her innocence. Orianna has a blind spot over that fateful day: she can't remember what happened. Forensic psychologist Annie Ledet is tasked with unlocking the truth. Orianna grew up in Eden Falls, ruled by the insular Wyclerc dynasty and its ruthless patriarch, Amos. As their sessions progress, Annie reaches into Orianna's past to a shattering realisation. Scandal. Sex. Power. Race. And murder. Between guilt and innocence lies a fallen Eden.
It is the 60s and, just out of school, Edith finds herself travelling to rural Italy. She has been sent by her mother with strict instructions: to see her sister, ballet dancer Lydia, through the final weeks of her pregnancy, help at the birth and then make a phone call which will seal this baby's fate, and his mother's. Decades later, happily divorced and newly energised, Edith is living a life of contentment and comfort in Ireland. When her best friend Maebh receives a call from an American man claiming to be her brother, Maebh must decide if she will meet him, and she asks Edith for help. Ripeness is an extraordinary novel about familial love and the communities we create, about migration and new beginnings, and about what it is to have somewhere to belong.
One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai's relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.
They can't even agree on what to read, so how are they going to solve a murder? St. Tredock Book Club disagree on everything, from the books they read to the biscuits they eat. For book club organiser Nova Davies, who's new to the Cornish seaside village, the digestive vs. shortbread debate is just the start of her problems. Under Nova's watch, £10,000 is stolen from the much-loved community centre. When book club member Michael disappears and a dead body turns up at his house, it seems clear who the perpetrator is. But the book club has their own theories. Agatha Christie superfan Phyllis is determined to prove Michael's been framed, while romance fanatic Arthur believes there's a mystery woman involved, and teenage sci-fi reader Ash thinks dark forces are at play. Meanwhile, Nova's just trying to keep them out of trouble. Soon the book club becomes very busy indeed.
It's 2022, and Heron has just had the sort of visit to the doctor that turns a life upside down. He's an old man, stuck in the habits of a quiet life. Telling Maggie, his only daughter, and the person his life has revolved around for so long, seems impossible. Heron can't tell her about the diagnosis, and he can't tell her all the other things he's been keeping from her all these years either. It's 1982, and Dawn is a young mother - just beginning to adjust to life in her husband's house rather than her parents' - when Hazel breezes into her life like a torch in the dark. It's the kind of connection that's impossible to resist, and suddenly life is more complicated, and more joyful, than she ever expected. But Dawn has responsibilities, she has commitments: Dawn has Maggie. A Family Matter is at once heart-breaking and hopeful, asking how we might heal from the wounds of the past.
