Recommended Reads for Adults
184159184X 
Hardback 
Year: 2012
Media class: Hardback
Publisher: Everyman
Resource type: Physical
Note: Monty Bodkin has returned to London from Hollywood, leaving Sandy Miller, his secretary there, heartbroken, because Monty loves English hockey international Gertrude Butterwick instead of her. Holding down a job for a year was the condition laid down by Gertrude's father before Monty and Gertrude could be married, a condition Monty has unexpectedly fulfilled by blackmailing Hollywood movie mogul Ivor Llewellyn. Back in England, he intends to claim his bride, but the path to true love never runs smooth, as Monty is about to find out.
000723001X 
Paperback 
Year: 2006
Language: English
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Harper
Resource type: Physical
Note: Wideacre Hall, set in the heart of the English countryside, is the ancestral home that Beatrice Lacey loves. But as a woman of the 18th century, she has no right of inheritance. Corrupted by a world that mistreats women, she sets out to corrupt others.
More editions/formats:
0099474360 
Paperback
Year: 2005
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Arrow
Resource type: Physical
Note: Lord Darracott is more irascible than ever, especially after the drowning of his eldest son. He is forced to send for the offspring of the uncle that the family never talk about - the weaver's brat. He is the heir apparent and Darracott is angry.
More editions/formats:
0241418895 
Paperback
Year: 2020
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Resource type: Physical
Note: When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly-named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire and damnation; their sons, lustful Seth and despairing
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0099468077 
Paperback
Year: 2004
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Arrow
Resource type: Physical
Note: When Elinor Rochdale steps into the wrong carriage she is swept up in a thrilling and dangerous adventure. Overnight the would-be governess becomes mistress of a ruined estate and partner in a secret conspiracy to save a family's name.
0655624309 
Audio book
Year: 2019
Media class: Audio book
Publisher: Bolinda/Audible audio
Resource type: Physical
Note: Read by Rosamund Pike. 10 discs
0749007192 
Paperback
Year: 2010
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Resource type: Physical
Note: When Mary Russell returns with her husband, the renowned Sherlock Holmes, home from abroad, her plans for peace and tranquillity are soon thwarted with the arrival of enigmatic painter Damian Adler. Adler, searching for his missing wife and child, leads them on a dangerous journey for answers.
1509870539 
Paperback
Year: 2019
Language: English
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Picador
Resource type: Physical
Note: 'The Master' is a portrait of a man who was elusive to both friends and family even as he remained astonishingly vibrant and alive in his art - a searching exploration of the mind before affairs of the heart.
0571258093 
Paperback
Year: 2010
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Resource type: Physical
184916195X 
Paperback
Year: 2010
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Quercus
Resource type: Physical
Note: Laura is content enough with her marriage, two children and part-time job. That is, until a lover from her past comes back into her life. Suddenly passion and excitement are rekindled, and she realises how stagnant her life has become. But how much happiness has she a right to expect? Unknown to Laura, many others in her Sussex village are living with their own unresolved inner dramas. None of them guesses at her crisis. Yet every decision they take has an impact on those around them.
1408867990 
Paperback
Year: 2016
Language: English
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Resource type: Physical
Note: Amory's first memory is of her father standing on his head. She has memories of him returning on leave during the First World War. But his absences, both actual and emotional, are what she chiefly remembers. It is her photographer uncle Greville who supplies the emotional bond she needs, and a camera, which unleashes a passion that irrevocably shapes her future.
1510023704 
Large print
Year: 2016
Language: English
Media class: Large print
Publisher: Clipper Large Print Books
Resource type: Physical
Note: Standard print edition originally published: London: Bloomsbury, 2015 Amory's first memory is of her father standing on his head. She has memories of him returning on leave during the First World War. But his absences, both actual and emotional, are what she chiefly remembers. It is her photographer uncle Greville who supplies the emotional bond she needs, and, when he gives her a camera and some rudimentary lessons in photography, unleashes a passion that will irrevocably shape her future. In this enthralling story of a life fully lived, William Boyd has created a sweeping panorama of some of the most defining moments of modern history, told through the camera lens of one unforgettable woman, Amory Clay.
1849908478 
Paperback
Year: 2014
Language: English
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: BBC Books
Resource type: Physical
Note: The arrival of the snobbish Mrs Emmeline Lucas (known as Lucia to her friends) to the small seaside town of Tilling causes waves as she threatens the queen bee of Tilling's social circle, Miss Elizabeth Mapp. Against a backdrop of genteel tea parties and bridge evenings a series of hilarious conflicts ensue between the two power-hungry women as they battle on the local stage to gain the ultimate place as first lady of Tilling society. Includes 'Queen Lucia', 'Miss Mapp' and 'Mapp and Lucia'.
0340921099 
Paperback
Year: 2007
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Resource type: Physical
Note: In 1552, fifteen years after Henry VIII's brutal reformation of the monasteries, Catholics in England still live in fear. When thirteen-year-old Celia da Bohun first meets Stephen Marsdon, a young Catholic priest, protestant Edward VI has been on the throne for five years. Reluctantly, Stephen agrees to be her teacher but as Celia grows older, her girlish adoration of him and his affection for her deepens into a passionate love that will not be extinguished - even by her violent death. 400 years later, history seems poised to repeat itself. Not long after the marriage of Richard Marsdon and his American wife Celia, something seems to go terribly wrong between them. It is only when Celia is forced to look deep in to the past that she has a chance to prevent another tragedy
0141033592 
Paperback
Year: 2007
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Fig Tree
Resource type: Physical
Note: Two sisters who are bound together by the death of a baby brother, know too much about each other and this knowledge could destroy their adult lives
1841591289 
Hardback
Year: 2004
Media class: Hardback
Publisher: Everyman
Resource type: Physical
Note: A complicated chain of events is set into motion after Mrs. Chavender takes a bite of breakfast ham, declares it inedible, and sets out to complain to Duf and Trotter, one of London's most exclusive merchants.
1844085538 
Paperback
Year: 2009
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Virago
Resource type: Physical
Recommended Crime and Thrillers
1785413031 
Large print 
Year: 2017
Media class: Large print
Publisher: Thorpe
Resource type: Physical
1407957511 
Audio book 
Year: 2015
Language: English
Media class: Audio book
Edition: Talking book ed.
Publisher: Isis
Resource type: Physical
Note: Read by Gordon Griffin. 7 CDs. 8 hrs
1847512763 
Paperback
Year: 2022
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Severn House Publishers Ltd
Resource type: Physical
Note: July 1934, a woman's torso is found in a trunk at Brighton railway station's left luggage office. Her identity is never established, her killer never caught. But someone is keeping a diary.
0749028629 
Paperback
Year: 2023
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Allison & Busby Limited
Resource type: Physical
Note: The murder of a promising footballer, son of Brighton's highest-ranking police officer, means Detective Superintendent Jo Howe has a complicated and sensitive case on her hands. The situation becomes yet more desperate following devastating blackmail threats. Howe can trust no one as she tracks the brutal killer in a city balanced on a knife edge of vigilante action and a police force riven with corruption.
XX00190811 
Paperback
Year: 2010
Language: English
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Resource type: Physical
Note: 'The Beekeeper's Apprentice' tells the story of Mary Russell, a young woman who in 1914, meets a retired beekeeper on the Sussex Downs. His name is Sherlock Homes, and he soon takes Mary on as his apprentice.
1780228449 
Paperback
Year: 2014
Language: English
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Phoenix
Resource type: Physical
Note: When a nun is found dead in Jemima Shore's own convent school, she can't resist the invitation to investigate. She soon discovers that the dead nun, Sister Miriam, was once Rosabelle Powerstock, heiress to one of the largest fortunes in Britain. Originally published: London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977
1786487411 
Paperback
Year: 2019
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Quercus
Resource type: Physical
Note: Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. As a literature teacher specialising in the gothic writer RM Holland, she teaches a short course on it every year. Then Clare's life and work collide tragically when one of her colleagues is found dead, a line from an RM Holland story by her body.
0749018267 
Paperback
Year: 2015
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Resource type: Physical
Note: Ethelred Tressider is a crime writer with problems. His latest novel is going nowhere, mid-life crisis is looming and he's burdened by the literary agent he probably deserves: Elsie Thirkettle, a diminuitive but determined individual who claims to enjoy neither the company of writers nor literature of any sort.
1529063019 
Paperback
Year: 2021
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Pan Books
Resource type: Physical
Note: After a stag night, the groom-to-be goes missing and four of his friends are dead. Detective Superintendent Grace is contacted by the missing man's fiancee, and discovers that the one man who ought to know his whereabouts is saying nothing - but he has more to gain out of the tragedy that anyone realises. Originally published: London: Macmillan, 2005.
0749015055 
Paperback
Year: 2014
Language: English
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Resource type: Physical
Note: The year is 1923 and Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell receive a visit from Dorothy Ruskin, an amateur archaeologist. She shows them a scrap of ancient writing that is supposedly Mary Magdalene's. Soon afterwards she is murdered - but why? Originally published: U.S.: St Martin's, 1996; London: HarperCollins, 1999
071235316X 
Paperback
Year: 2020
Media class: Paperback
Publisher: British Library Publishing
Resource type: Physical
Note: Death in White Pyjamas: A theatre-owner, a 'slightly sinister' producer, a burgeoning playwright and a cast of ego-driven actors have gathered at a country home to read through the promising script for Pigs in Porcelain. Before the production ever reaches the stage, one of their number is found murdered in the grounds wearing what mysteriously seems to be somebody else's white pyjamas. Enter Inspector Harting and Sergeant Dane to unravel this curious plot. Death Knows No Calendar: Investigating a deadly shooting with no shooter in a locked artist's studio, detective fiction enthusiast Major Tom Boddy has a long day ahead of him. With four colourful suspects to scrutinise, and not one but two 'impossible' elements of the crime to solve, this extremely rare and thoroughly entertaining mystery is long overdue its return to print.