Elizabeth Is Missing
By Emma Healey
MAUD IS FORGETFUL. She makes a cup of tea and doesn’t remember to drink it. She goes to the shops and forgets why she went. Sometimes her home is unrecognisable – or her daughter seems a total stranger. But there is one thing Maud is sure of – her friend Elizabeth is missing. The note in her pocket tells her so. And no matter who tells her to stop going on about it, to leave it alone, to shut up, Maud will get to the bottom of it. Because somewhere in her damaged mind lies the answer to an unsolved seventy-year-old mystery. One that everyone has forgotten about. Everyone, except Maud…
Necessary Lies
by Diane Chamberlain
AFTER LOSING HER parents, 15-year-old Ivy Hart is left to care for her grandmother, older sister and nephew as tenants on a small tobacco farm. As she struggles with her grandmother’s aging, her sister’s mental illness and her own epilepsy, she realises that they may need more help than she can give. When Jane Forrester takes a position as Grace County’s newest social worker, she doesn’t realise just how much her help is needed. She quickly becomes emotionally invested in her clients’ lives, causing tension with her boss and her new husband. But as Jane is drawn in by the Hart women, she begins to discover the secrets of the small farm – secrets much darker than she could have guessed. Soon she must decide whether to take drastic action to help them, or risk losing the battle against everything she believes is wrong. This is not one of our latest additions, but a book which I recently read and enjoyed.
Last One Home
by Debbie Macomber
TWELVE YEARS AGO, Cassie Carter chose the wrong man, and one fateful event drove three sisters apart.
Now, hoping to leave her past behind, Cassie has returned to Washington with her daughter. Though her sisters do not live too far away, she doesn’t expect to see them. Karen, the oldest, is a busy wife and mother, balancing her career with raising her two children. And Nicole, the youngest, is a stay-at-home mum whose husband indulges her every whim. But one day Cassie receives a letter from Karen offering the hope of a reconciliation. As Cassie open herself up to new possibilities – making amends with her sisters, finding love once more – she realises the power of compassion and the promise of a fresh start.
The Clippie Girls
by Margaret Dickinson
ROSE AND MYRTLE Sylvester look up to their older sister, Peggy. She is the sensible, reliable one in the household of women headed by their grandmother, Grace Booth, and their mother, Mary Sylvester. When war is declared in 1939 they must face the hardships together and huge changes in their lives are inevitable. For Rose, there is the chance to fulfil her dream of becoming a clippie on Sheffield’s trams like Peggy. But for Myrtle, the studious, clever one in the family, war may shatter her ambitions.
When the tram on which Peggy is a conductress is caught in a bomb blast, she bravely helps to rescue her passengers. One of them is a young soldier, Terry Price, and he and Peggy begin courting. They meet every time he can get leave but eventually Terry is posted abroad and she hears nothing from him. Worse still, Peggy must break the devastating news to her family that she is pregnant.
The shock waves that ripple through the family will affect each and every one of them – and life will never be the same again.