As the nights draw in, the leaves fall and thoughts turn to snuggling up with a good book, look no further than your nearest Warwickshire Library for reading inspiration. This week, in our libraries, we’ve launched ‘Get Drawn Into A Story’ – a promotion highlighting books we think you’ll love this Autumn.
There are a mixture of titles you might have missed, in a variety of genres and staff in our libraries have also included some of their favourite books to give you a wide choice and get you hooked on your next favourite read.
You’ll also find titles on BorrowBox – whether you’re looking for an eAudio title to listen to during your commute or an eBook to download and carry with you on your phone via the BorrowBox app.
If you’re not yet a Warwickshire Libraries member, find out how to join for free here – you can join online or pop into one of our libraries to find out about all the things our libraries offer. To find out more about BorrowBox and our other digital library offers, visit our eLibrary page here.
To inspire your autumnal reading, here are just a few of the books in our ‘Get Drawn Into A Story’ collection and you can browse the full list on our Reading Ideas page here.
The Lost Lives of Frances Langley by Michelle Adams
Mirepoix, France. Summer 1981: In a village in southern France, Frances has fallen under Benoit’s romantic spell, and their summer of love finds her willing to do almost anything for the handsome art collector, even hiding a precious Klinkosch box for him, stolen by the Nazis decades before.
The Cotswolds, England. Summer 2022: Years later, Frances’s son, Harry, finds himself packing up the clutter and chaos of his late mother’s home. Little does he know that his mother had sent a letter to Tabitha – the lost love of his life, begging the pair to search for a priceless jewellery box, hidden somewhere in her cottage. Harry quickly dismisses the search, but as an art historian, Tabitha can’t risk the chance to recover something so valuable that was long thought to be lost. And so they embark on a journey of discovery, but soon find themselves searching for much more than a missing piece of art.
The Way Back To You by James Bailey
When Simon Brown reconnects online with his first love Sylvie – the French pen pal he never actually met – he is determined that this time things will be different. However, life isn’t so straight-forward at sixty as it was at sixteen. His daughter’s getting married, he’s got difficult guests staying at his B&B, and his larger-than-life school friend, Ian, has abruptly waltzed back into his life.
Adamant that he can’t let this second chance pass by, Simon sets off on a bike ride from Bristol to Bordeaux with Ian in tow, on the very same route they covered as teenagers in pursuit of love. But although they now have better bikes, more acceptable haircuts, and Google Maps, some things never change, and it soon becomes clear that this trip will have even more bumps in the road than the first. Is it ever too late to make up for past mistakes?
Death In Kabul by Alison Belsham
2003. Kabul has become a frontier city, Afghanistan’s fledgling democracy struggling with crime and corruption as NATO coalition troops, gangs and warlords jostle for control. A city where justice is an ideal and security means carrying a gun. When the body of a British serviceman is discovered in the city’s infamous tank graveyard, the Kabul Police reach out for support in their investigation.
Alasdair ‘Mac’ MacKenzie, formerly of the Metropolitan Police, is seconded to the team. Baz Khan, an Afghan-American investigative journalist, is in Kabul researching a story. Precious antiquities, priceless artefacts of the country’s rich history, are disappearing amid the chaos, never to be seen again. Baz is determined to uncover whoever is spiriting them away, to prevent her war-torn country being further denuded for profit. And she has a lead. The soldier’s death was no accident.
The Reason by Catherine Bennetto
If money wasn’t an issue, what would you do to make someone smile? Brooke’s life isn’t going to plan. Her career as an events planner has stalled, her parents won’t leave her alone and her daughter is desperately unhappy at school. But the reason for all this is no secret or mystery. Just under a year ago her husband died. But now Brooke does have a secret. Her husband’s death, the worst thing that ever happened to her, has made her unbelievably rich. Despite how low she feels she suddenly has the power to make her daughter’s life and the rest of the world a little brighter.
Triflers Need Not Apply by Camilla Bruce
Early in life Bella Sorensen discovers the world is made only for men. They own everything: jobs, property, wives. But Bella understands what few others do: where women are concerned, men are weak. A woman unhampered by scruples can take from them what she wants. And so Bella sets out to prove to the world that a woman can be just as ruthless, black-hearted and single-minded as any man.
Starting with her long suffering husband, Mads, Bella embarks on a killing spree the like of which has never been seen before nor since. And through it all her kind, older sister Nellie can only watch in horror as Bella’s schemes to enrich herself and cut down the male population come to a glorious, dreadful fruition.
The Haunting of Las Lagrimas by W M Cleese
Winter 1913. Ursula Kelp, a young English gardener, has come to Argentina to restore the gardens of Las Lágrimas. The long-abandoned estate lies deep in the Pampas, the vast empty grasslands of South America where the wind blows without end. Despite warnings from the locals of terrible things that once happened there and the evil that lingers, Ursula sets out to her new post full of hope.
Yet when she arrives, all is not as promised. The garden is an untameable wilderness, the staff hostile. Setting to work, Ursula is disturbed by the crunch of footsteps on empty gravel paths, while from the nearby forest comes the frenzied chop of an axe when no one is there. But it is only as she unlocks the secrets of the place that Ursula comes to understand the true horror she is facing.
For lurking in the trees – watching her, waiting for her – is a malevolent force that wants Las Lágrimas for itself.
For Your Own Good by Samantha Downing
Teddy Crutcher has just won Teacher of the Year at the prestigious Belmont Academy, home exclusively to the brightest and the best. He says his wife couldn’t be more proud – though no-one has seen her in a while. He’s deeply committed to improving his students. And well aware which ones need improving. And all he wants is for his colleagues – and the endlessly interfering parents – to stay out of his way.
Oddly, not everyone agrees that Teddy has their best interests at heart. But will that change when someone receives a lesson to die for?
In the garden, there were three flamingos. Not real flamingos, but real emblems, real gateways to a time when life was impossibly good. They were mascots, symbols of hope. Something for a boy to confide in. First, there were the flamingos. And then there were two families.
Sherry and Leslie and their daughters, Rae and Pauline – and Eve and her son Daniel. Sherry loves her husband, Leslie. She also loves Eve. It couldn’t have been a happier summer. But then Eve left and everything went grey. Now Daniel is all grown-up and broken. And when he turns up at Sherry’s door, it’s almost as if they’ve all come home again. But there’s still one missing. Where is Eve? And what, exactly, is her story?
The Shadow In The Glass by JJA Harwood
Once upon a time Ella had wished for more than her life as a lowly maid. Now forced to work hard under the unforgiving, lecherous gaze of the man she once called stepfather, Ella’s only refuge is in the books she reads by candlelight, secreted away in the library she isn’t permitted to enter.
One night, among her beloved books of far-off lands, Ella’s wishes are answered. At the stroke of midnight, a fairy godmother makes her an offer that will change her life: seven wishes, hers to make as she pleases. But each wish comes at a price and Ella must decide whether it’s one she’s willing to pay.
All Of You Every Single One by Beatrice Hitchman
When Julia flees her unhappy marriage for the handsome tailor Eve Perret, she expects her life from now on will be a challenge, not least because the year is 1911. They leave everything behind to settle in Vienna, but their happiness is increasingly diminished by Julia’s longing for a child.
Ada Bauer’s wealthy industrialist family have sent her to Dr Freud in the hope that he can fix her mutism and do so without a scandal. But help will soon come for Ada from an unexpected quarter and change many lives irrevocably. This is an epic novel about family, freedom and how true love might survive impossible odds.
Excellent Intentions by Richard Hull
Great Barwick’s least popular man is murdered on a train. Twelve jurors sit in court. Four suspects are identified – but which of them is on trial? This novel has all the makings of a classic murder mystery, but with a twist: as Attorney-General Anstruther Blayton leads the court through prosecution and defence, Inspector Fenby carries out his investigation.
All this occurs while the identity of the figure in the dock is kept tantalisingly out of reach.
On the day that Betty meets Guy, her life is changed forever. She never thought she’d see him again, but a few months later, realizes she has something of his that needs returning. So, she writes him a letter. It’s the perfect solution for Betty – it means she doesn’t need to tell Guy about what really happened that day, and the secret she’s been hiding.
For Guy, Betty’s letter arrives at his repair shop at the perfect time. His whole world has come crashing down around him and for the first time in a long time, he starts to feel hopeful. But can you really begin to fall in love with someone you’ve only met once?
Last Days in Cleaver Square by Patrick McGrath
It is 1975 and an old man, Francis McNulty, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, is beset with sightings in his garden of his old nemesis, General Franco. The general is in fact in Spain, on his deathbed, but Francis is deeply troubled, as is his daughter Gillian, who lives with him in Cleaver Square.
Francis’ account of his haunting is by turns witty, cantankerous and nostalgic. At times he drifts back to his days in Madrid, when he rescued a young girl from a burning building and brought her back to London with him. There are other, darker events from that time, involving an American surgeon called Doc Roscoe, and a brief, terrible act of betrayal. When Gillian announces her forthcoming marriage to a senior civil servant, Francis realises he has to adapt to new circumstances and confront his past once and for all.
Would you sign up to a medical trial if you didn’t know the possible side effects? It seems like the opportunity of a lifetime with a paid stay in the Canary Islands and all you have to do is take a pill every day.
First the headaches start and then the psychosis and when a body is found anyone could be the killer – even you.
The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley
How can you save a city that doesn’t exist? In 1963, in a Siberian gulag, former nuclear specialist Valery Kolkhanov has mastered what it takes to survive: the right connections to the guards for access to food and cigarettes, the right pair of warm boots to avoid frostbite, and the right attitude toward the small pleasures of life.
But on one ordinary day, all that changes: Valery’s university mentor steps in and sweeps Valery from the frozen prison camp to a mysterious unnamed town hidden within a forest so damaged it looks like the trees have rusted from within. Here, Valery is Dr. Kolkhanov once more, and he’s expected to serve out his prison term studying the effect of radiation on local animals. But as Valery begins his work, he is struck by the questions his research raises: what, exactly, is being hidden from the thousands who live in the town?
Meet Me In Another Life by Catriona Silvey
Thora and Santi have met before. Under the clocktower in central Cologne, with nothing but the stars above and their futures ahead. They will meet again. They don’t know it yet, but they’ll meet again: in numerous lives they will become friends, colleagues, lovers, enemies – meeting over and over for the first time, every time; each coming to know every version of the other. Only they can make sure it’s not for the last time.
But as they’re endlessly drawn together and the lines between their different lives begin to blur, they are faced with one question: why? They must discover the truth of their strange attachment before this, and all their lives, are lost forever.
In 1907, the revolutionary Joseph Djugashvili – who would later take the name Joseph Stalin – met with an old friend, a clerk at the Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire, for a glass of milk. Over talk of national pride, the spirit of the new century and Djugashvili’s poetry, they agreed the beginnings of a plan.
With the aid of the Outfit, Djugashvili’s hardened crew of “expropriators,” they would pull off the biggest, bloodiest and most daring robbery in Georgia’s history, and ruthlessly change the direction of the Bolshevik revolution forever…
The Good Left Undone by Adriana Trigiani
Proud grandmother Matelda Cabrelli always has something to say. But, as she faces the end of her life, she worries she’s failed to tell the stories that matter. Most of all, she finds herself needing to tell the tale of her mother Domenica’s two great loves.
First, Domenica’s childhood sweetheart: a boy from her own small coastal town of Viareggio. Second, a mysterious Captain: an infatuation forged in the midst of WW2, and the father Matelda never knew. Now, before her time runs out, it falls to Matelda to tell Domenica’s story. And for the Cabrelli women to unpack the mysteries, passions and tragedies that sent Domenica away from Italy – then brought her home again.
The Bingo Hall Detectives by Jonathan Whitelaw
There’s a killer on the loose in the Lake District, and the members of the Penrith Bingo Club have decided they’re the ones to catch the culprit. Jason Brazel is an out of work journalist who lives in Penrith with his family and mother-in-law, Amita. She knows everyone and everything that’s going on in this corner of the Lakes.
So when it’s discovered that Madeline Forbisher, one of Amita’s fellow regulars at the bingo club has died, found by the postman outside her crumbling country home close to Ullswater Lake, she senses immediately this is no accident. The trouble is, no one else seems to take her suspicions seriously. That is, until she enlists the help of her friends at the Penrith Bingo Club. Dismissed by many as eccentric, over the hill or out of touch, it turns out that it’s unlucky for some that these amateur sleuths are on the case.
Hopefully there will be something there to inspire your reading this Autumn and if not, why not pop in to your local Warwickshire Library and explore their shelves or visit BorrowBox for more great eBook and eAudio titles?
Happy reading!
Warwickshire Libraries 