New fiction books for February 2024
by Brandon King
Looking for a new book to read? Take a look at our latest fiction titles for February 2024.
We publish new recommendations every month. Browse our featured titles.
The Painter's Daughters, by Emily Howes
1759, Ipswich. Sisters Peggy and Molly Gainsborough are the best of friends and do everything together. They spy on their father as he paints, they rankle their mother as she manages the books, they tear barefoot through the muddy fields that surround their home. But there is another reason they are inseparable: from a young age, Molly has had a tendency to forget who she is, to fall into mental confusion, and Peggy knows instinctively that no one must find out.
When the family move to Bath, the sisters are thrown into the whirl of polite society, where the merits of marriage and codes of behaviour are crystal clear, and secrets much harder to keep. As Peggy goes to greater lengths to protect her sister from the threat of an asylum, she finds herself falling in love, and their precarious situation is soon thrown catastrophically off course.
Read our latest Meet the Author interview with Emily Howes.
Borrow The Painter's Daughters →
Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?, by Nicci French
When beautiful and vivacious Charlotte Salter fails to turn up to her husband Alec's 50th birthday party, her kids are worried, but Alec is not. As the days pass and there's still no word from Charlie, her daughter, Etty, and her sons, Niall, Paul and Ollie, all struggle to come to terms with her disappearance.
After years away, Etty returns home to the small East Anglian village where she grew up to help move her father into a care home. Now in his eighties, Alec has dementia and often mistakes his daughter for her mother. All the Salter children have spent decades running and hiding from their mother's disappearance. When their childhood friends, Greg and Morgen Ackerley, decide to do a podcast about Charlotte's disappearance, it seems like the town's buried secrets might finally come to light.
Join as at Bury St Edmunds Library on Wednesday 6 March for a special author event with bestselling thriller writing duo Nicci Gerrard and Sean French.
Borrow Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? →
An Ideal Husband, by Erica James
The Langfords are a perfectly happy family. Louisa and Kip, happily married for nearly 40 years, have raised their children and are now just settling into a new phase of life where they'll have more time for themselves. Everything seems perfect. But then, one Boxing Day after a lovely family Christmas, Kip tells Louisa that their marriage is over. It's not something Louisa saw coming. And what he tells her next is even more unexpected: he's fallen in love with their son's ex-girlfriend, Zoe, the woman who broke Angus' heart. So just like that, Louisa's marriage is over - and her new life can begin.
The Dream Home, by T.M. Logan
Adam and Jess move into a new house with their three young children: a rambling Victorian villa right at the very top of their price range. Before long Adam discovers a door hidden behind a fitted wardrobe, concealing a secret room. Inside, Adam discovers an array of forgotten items, among them a wallet, an antique watch and an old mobile phone. Jess thinks they should simply throw them away. But Adam resists. He is fascinated by these items and how they came to be inside the hidden room. But like the house, Adam has his secrets too. And soon he will find himself setting in motion a series of events that will place his family in terrible danger.
The Island Swimmer, by Lorraine Kelly
When Evie's father falls desperately ill, she finally returns to the family home on Orkney and the wild landscape she left as a teenager, swearing never to return. Not everyone is happy at her arrival, particularly her estranged sister Liv, their relationship broken after a childhood trauma. As Evie clears out her father's neglected house to prepare it for sale, lonely Evie finds herself drawn to a group of cold-water swimmers led by her old friend Freya, who find calmness beneath the waves. Together they help Evie face up to the mistakes in her past, unlocking a treasure of truths that will reverberate through the community, and shake her family to its core.
The Book of Love, by Kelly Link
Laura, Daniel and Mo disappeared without trace a year ago. They have long been presumed dead. Which they were. But now they are not. And it is up to the resurrected teenagers to discover what happened to them. Revived by Mr Anabin - the man they knew as their high school music teacher - they are offered a chance to return to the mortal realm if they can solve solve the mystery of their deaths, learn how to use the magic they now possess, and identify the mysterious fourth soul that crossed back over with them. But their return has upset a delicate balance that has held - just - for millennia.
Anna O, by Matthew Blake
Anna Ogilvy hasn't opened her eyes for four years. Not since that night at The Farm when she was found asleep with a kitchen knife in her hand, her clothes bloodstained, the bodies of her two best friends lying close. She'd committed the crime of the century - but nothing and no-one could wake her from the nightmare. Believers in her innocence call her Anna O. Believers in her guilt call her Sleeping Beauty. But no-one can take their eyes off the story.
Green Dot, by Madeleine Gray
Lucie Whitehouse Hera is in her mid-twenties, which seems young to everyone except people in their mid-twenties. Since leaving school, she has been trying to kick and scream into existence a life she cares about, but with little success so far. Until she meets Arthur. He works with her, he is older than her, he is also married. But in her soulless office - the large cold room she feels destined to spend her life in - he is a source of much-needed sustenance. And though Hera has previously dated women, she soon falls headlong into a workplace romance that will quickly consume her life.
The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder, by C.L. Miller
Freya Lockwood has avoided the quaint English village in which she grew up for the last 20 years. That is until news arrives that Arthur Crockleford, antiques dealer and Freya's estranged mentor, has died. When a letter from Arthur is delivered, sent just days before his death, and an ordinary pine chest concealing Arthur's journals are revealed, Freya finds herself sucked back into a life she'd sworn to leave behind. But beware, trust no-one. Your life depends on it.
Get your tickets for our fundraising author event with C.L. Miller at Thurston Library on Saturday 23 March as part of Suffolk Libraries Day.
Borrow The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder →
Everyone On This Train is a Suspect, by Benjamin Stevenson
When the Australian Mystery Writers' Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn't pan out.
But when one of us is murdered, six authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime. Or commit one...
But how do you catch a killer, when all your suspects know how to get away with murder?
Borrow Everyone On This Train is a Suspect →
End of Story, by A.J. Finn
'I'll be dead in three months. Come tell my story.' This is the chilling invitation from Sebastian Trapp, renowned mystery novelist, to his long-time correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. Welcomed into his lavish San Francisco mansion, Nicky begins to unravel Trapp's life story under the watchful eyes of his enigmatic wife and plainspoken daughter. But Sebastian Trapp is a mystery himself. And maybe - probably - a murderer. Two decades ago, his first wife and son vanished - the case never solved. Is the master of mystery playing a deadly game - and if so, who will be the loser? And when a body surfaces in the family's koi pond, they all realize the past isn't buried - it's waiting.
Jericho's Dead, by William Hussey
Former CID detective Scott Jericho is done with murder. Done with puzzles. Done with the dark rage that seems to haunt him. That is until a vicious serial killer targets someone close to him. Now Jericho is back, his thirst for justice remorseless. But time is running out. Fortune tellers and psychics are being slaughtered and everything points to a link with a live TV event due to be broadcast on Halloween night. But what is the significance of the macabre wax effigies found at every crime scene? Why is celebrity psychic Darrel Everwood convinced he will die in four days time? And is Jericho's lover Harry really involved in the murders? As a startling truth is revealed and an old enemy re-emerges, a murder beyond imagining is about to be come the media event of the century.