Headline The Bad Fire Jardine Quintin

In the thrilling first novel in Quintin Jardine's acclaimed Scottish crime series, DCS Bob Skinner faces a twisted serial killer • As head of Edinburgh's CID, Detective Chief Superintendent Bob Skinner has seen it all... but even he is shocked by the savagely mutilated corpse discovered in a dark alleyway. The victim is identified as a successful young lawyer, and the motive for the brutal death remains a mystery. Then further seemingly random killings in the city begin to suggest a vicious serial killer is on the rampage. But when the lawyer's fiancee is also murdered, Skinner realises that someone is in deadly earnest

Louise Hart has endured a great deal of pain from her callous husband Paul, but one cold December night in 1959 she can take no more. She and her son Davey escape their Coventry high-rise flat and flee to Tanglewood, the dilapidated ivy-clad mansion where her mother Dolly runs an animal sanctuary. Miserable and frightened, Louise longs to turn her back on the past, and create a happy new life for Davey. But Paul is in trouble with men more dangerous than himself. Unable to pay his debts, he blackmails Louise and those who love her, keeping a shadowy presence in their lives. Even the arrival of Charlie Fox, a stranger who becomes a true friend, cannot guarantee that the future will be safe

The Thousand Lights Hotel is the gorgeous new novel from Emylia Hall, author of Richard and Judy Summer Pick THE BOOK OF SUMMERS. Set in idyllic Italy, it's the perfect holiday read, for fans of Louise Douglas and Hannah Richell • When Kit loses her mother in tragic circumstances, she feels drawn to finally connect with the father she has never met. That search brings her to the Thousand Lights Hotel, the perfect holiday escape perched upon a cliff on the island of Elba. Within this idyllic setting a devastating truth is brought to light: shaking the foundations upon which the hotel is built, and shattering the lives of the people within it • A heartbreaking story of loss, betrayal, and redemption, told with all the warmth and beauty of an Italian summer

The locals of the Cornish village of Polperran are grieving the sudden loss of Bea Kimbrel, a cornerstone of their small community • Now her reclusive, estranged daughter Alice has turned up, keen to tie up Bea's affairs and move on • But Alice receives a strange bequest from Bea - a collection of unfinished tasks to help out those in Polperran most in need • As each little act brings her closer to understanding her mother, it also begins to offer Alice the courage to open her clamped-shut heart. Perhaps Bea's project will finally unlock the powerful secrets both women have been keeping • The Kindness Project will draw you deep into the lives of two compelling women who should never have missed their chance to say goodbye. It will break your heart - and piece it back together again

Is a killer still on the loose? • The thirtieth gritty mystery in Quintin Jardine's bestselling BOB SKINNER series, not to be missed by readers of Ian Rankin and Peter May. Praise for Quintin Jardine's gripping novels: 'Well constructed, fast-paced, Jardine's narrative has many an ingenious twist and turn' Observer • When a murder investigation that's been closed for thirty years is suddenly re-opened, former Chief Constable Bob Skinner is quickly drawn into the action • The story of the Body in the Quarry was well-known around Edinburgh all those years ago: a popular priest found dead in a frozen quarry; a suspect with a clear motive charged; a guilty verdict. But with a journalist uncovering new evidence, the cold case has come back to haunt Skinner's old mentor Jimmy Proud - and only one man can help him

A powerful story of abuse, neglect and hope from this well-loved writer • When a mysterious fire kills her adoptive parents, Madeleine's worst fear comes true - she and her beloved brother Oliver are separated. Worse still, Maddie is blamed for starting the fire and, labelled a difficult child, she is sent to a children's home. Far from idyllic, and buried deep in the countryside, the home well conceals the misery of its young occupants. Subjected to a harsh regime of abuse and degradation, Maddie makes a brave attempt to escape. But her brief weeks of freedom are thwarted when she is caught and taken back to River House • Maddie clings to her determination to one day be reunited with Oli, and it is this which gives her the strength to endure what lies ahead

Liverpool, 1935. Monica and Joan Copperfield are firm friends. Monica dreams of a better life as a hairdresser - though her parents are suspicious of such a glamorous profession. Joan has her eye on a job at Crawford's biscuit factory, with cheap chocolate biscuits as an irresistible perk • When Monica catches the eye of her boss's son, she's flattered. But could he ever be serious about a back-street girl? Meanwhile Glaswegian Jim is keen on Joan - but she's grown up around a bad marriage, and is suspicious of romance. Yet Jim's kindness and sense of humour are hard to resist • Shocking secrets, lifelong friendships and the unbreakable spirit of a working-class community facing war are woven irresistibly together in Lyn Andrews' evocative novel

Set in seventeenth-century Iran, The Blood of Flowers is the powerful and haunting story of a young girl's journey from innocence to adulthood • The novel begins in the 1620s in a remote village where the narrator (whose name, in the Iranian storytelling tradition, we are never to know) lives with her mother and rug-maker father. On the sudden death of her father, our heroine and her mother fall upon hard times and are forced to travel to the bustling, beautiful, exotic city of Isfahan where relatives take them in • Everything is new: the grudging charity of her aunt, the encouragement of her uncle, one of the finest carpet-makers in the world, who begins to teach her his craft, the treacherous friendship of the daughter of rich neighbours. And there's an adventure ahead which will introduce her to the sensual side of life as well as to the cruelty of betrayal and rejection before she finds her way to contentment and possibly, even, to happiness, in a world full of contrasts and dangers

London, 1947: Besieged by a harsh winter, burdened by shortages and rationing, the people of post-war Britain are suffering despite their nation's recent victory. For Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin, embroiderers at the famed Mayfair fashion house of Norman Hartnell, a glimmer of brightness comes in the form of their unlikely friendship and being chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime honour: taking part in the creation of Princess Elizabeth's wedding gown • Toronto, 2016: Heather Mackenzie seeks to unravel the mystery of a legacy from her late grandmother. How did her beloved nan, who never spoke of her old life in Britain, come to possess the priceless embroideries that so closely resemble the motifs on the stunning gown worn by Queen Elizabeth II at her wedding almost seventy years before? And what was her nan's connection to the celebrated textile artist and Holocaust survivor Miriam Dassin? • With The Gown, Jennifer Robson takes us inside the workrooms where one of the most famous wedding gowns in history was created to tell a story of women whose lives are woven together by the pain of survival, the bonds of friendship, and the redemptive power of love

1919: Sir Edward Horner, the most celebrated artist of his day, destroys his world-famous painting, The Little Birds, shortly before his death. But why? • The new novel by Sunday Times bestseller Harriet Evans is the unputdownable tale of a family torn apart and the house they lived in. Harriet writes the most delicious, epic stories from the heart since Maeve Binchy and Kate Morton • Millions around the world once queued up to see the painting that captured a perfect moment: Horner's two children, John and Eliza, playing in the garden of their magical, mysterious Nightingale House, the family home he and his wife created deep in the heart of the English countryside • But such moments cannot last for ever • Almost a century later, Horner's great-granddaughter Juliet inherits Nightingale House, now weighed down with unspoken secrets

'You deserve more than this, Jess . . . You deserve to know the truth about the McNallys.' • When a newborn baby girl is found abandoned with nothing but a scarlet ribbon tied to her basket, Ada Davidson, housekeeper of the wealthy McNally family's home, the Uplands, takes her into her care. Sworn to secrecy about the baby's true identity, Ada names her Jess and brings her up as her own, giving Jess no reason to question where she came from • But when Ada passes away, grief-stricken Jess, now sixteen, is banished from the place she's always called home. With the scarlet ribbon the only connection to her past, will Jess ever find out where she really belongs? And will she uncover the truth about the ruthless McNallys?

At the close of the First World War, two sisters' battles are only just beginning • The Leaving of Liverpool is a poignant saga about the friendship between sisters, the threat of dangerous men and the promise of true love in post-World War I Liverpool • It is 1919. Liverpool has been devastated by World War I. But at last the war is over. Emily Parkinson goes back into service and enjoys the return to normality. But her sister Phoebe-Anne has ideas beyond her station. Working as a lady's maid, Phoebe-Ann hopes that one day she will be more than just a friend to her mistress's shell-shocked brother James Mercer • When Emily is brutally attacked, the sisters' lives come close to ruin. Phoebe-Ann is forced to leave the Mercer household and falls into the arms of notorious Jake Malone