It’s the beginning of the month and time to look at this month’s offerings from Bookchoice. Described as “the digital book service in your pocket” Bookchoice select eight e-books and audiobooks  for £3.99 a month. Yes, you read that correctly £3.99 a month (payable annually in advance). Every month the Bookchoice team selects a range of titles  – from bestsellers and award-winners to the latest literary hits and sends them direct to your email inbox.  Where books are offered in e-book and audiobook format, the offer isn’t for one or the other – it’s for both!! I subscribed in January and here are the titles for this month.

E-book and Audio Titles

 All the Beautiful lies by Peter Swanson

In a sleepy village in Maine, a man falls from a cliff top to his death. His son, Harry Ackerson, has just graduated from college and has nobody left but his enigmatic stepmother, Alice. When the police inform Harry that they are treating the murder as suspicious, he decides to take matters into his own hands to find his father’s killer.

But when Alice claims she knows who was behind it, Harry begins searching for clues closer to home – and discovers far more than he bargained for…

An addictive, paranoia-inducing page-turner, All the Beautiful Lies is an endlessly suspenseful new novel by the bestselling author of The Kind Worth Killing.

 

The Marble Collector by Cecelia Ahern

Sabrina Boggs’s life, like most, is drab and ordered by routine. She longs for something to happen and break the cycle of monotony within which she has become trapped. But when, one day, something does happen and she chances upon a collection of her father’s old possessions, she begins to learn things she never knew about him.

With only 24 hours on the clock, she now finds herself with more questions – about her childhood and who her father was – than answers…

Witty, poignant and elegantly spun, The Marble Collector is a thought-provoking look at how well we truly know those we love.

 

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly 

In the 1940s, many women in the United States were offered jobs for the first time due to labour shortages in the war effort. Whilst many accepted employment in hospitals and munitions factories, a select few were hired to work at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory – a key part of NASA’s research programme.

This is the true story of four black women who, during a time of racial segregation in the United States, were employed by NASA as ‘human computers’. Their battle to overcome stereotypes for women and non-whites – and to propel the US to the forefront of the space race – is a story for the ages.

A remarkable and singular look into the decades-old struggle against race and gender inequality, Hidden Figures is an iconoclastic tribute to four unique women – and an iconic moment in American history.

 

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

When Frances and Bobbi meet Melissa and her handsome husband Nick, the world suddenly seems a more interesting place. Conversations about identity, politics, literature and sex begin to colour their emotional lives, and each grows addicted to the other in an all-consuming ménage-a-quatre.

Frances wants it all, at least in theory. But when she begins an affair with the married Nick, she quickly discovers the perils of living for the moment and is forced to confront the tangled mess that her reality has become. Capturing the energy, confusion and unpredictability of modern romance, Conversations with Friends is a hilarious and deeply felt love story for our times.

 

The Iron Chariot by Stein Riverton

In an unseasonably hot Scandinavian summer on a popular island resort, a man is found dead. When Asbjorn Krag, a famed detective from Kristiania turns up to investigate the murder, he seems – to the bemusement of the locals – to be more interested in lounging in the sun than finding the killer.

But when another man is murdered, Krag suddenly finds himself caught in a game of cat-and-mouse – and a mysterious iron chariot, heard but never seen, seems to be at the centre of it all…

A dark and brooding whodunnit with echoes of Agatha Christie, The Iron Chariot is a cornerstone of Scandinavian crime fiction that will keep you guessing until the last page.

 

In Secure by Andrew Pack

Real-life lawyer Andrew Pack spins an twisting tale of ten incarcerated teens in Saffron Park. This is where they send the worst of the worst. The last stop before the judicial system throws in the towel. A host of characters – violent, cunning, and angry – are all struggling to cope with imprisonment and each other.

However, they are about to learn that something even more dangerous is lurking. One boy, with his book of spells, is busy unlocking something sinister within the prison, something that has been locked up far longer than they have… and is even more desperate to get out.

 

E-book only titles

 

Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic

Ron is the hero of the Veteran’s Day parade; fresh returned from Vietnam, and paralysed from the chest down. A symbol for old commanders to point to, using Ron’s twisted body as reason to keep fighting.

But none of them have seen the battlefields, the veterans’ hospitals, the men with half their brains blown out awarded purple hearts like it mattered. Those are Ron’s memories, and he has to live with them.

Born on the Fourth of July is an unflinching account of trauma; the dark places it can drag you to, and the good you might claw back out.

 

I Remember Nelson Mandela (Anthology) by Vimla Naidoo and Sahm Venter 

Madiba was stoic, but his grin could be infectious.

Madiba was tough, but at the sight of a baby his face would light up, and he’d sing nursery rhymes.

Madiba was brave, but when his plane hit turbulence he would look down at his feet and say a quiet prayer.

I Remember Nelson Mandela is not a book about a distant titan of history. Told from the perspective of those who knew and loved him, it is the story of a complex, generous and incomparable human being.

Now more than one hundred people, from household staff to bodyguards to presidential advisors, have offered their poignant and often humorous insights into life behind the scenes with one of the most beloved political figures in history.

 

Audio Book only titles

 

Mother Land by Paul Theroux

This semi-autobiographical novel depicts life in a family of eight children – seven living and one dead – under a tyrannical matriarch called Mother. As the children age into adulthood, they constantly vye with each other for her favour which she bestows selectively and sparingly on all except Angela, who died in childbirth.

This heartbreaking yet hilarious account of growing up in a modern dysfunctional family explores what it is to be tied to your family, no matter how messed up they might be.

 

The Attachment by Ailsa Piper and Tony Doherty

With certain friends, you can talk about anything. You can tackle the big questions in life: about grief, faith, and which are the best liquorice allsorts.
For Ailsa Piper, an author, theatre director and confessed atheist, this turned out to be an 80-year-old priest living on the other side of the country. It was, to put it mildly, a surprising friendship.

But through their letters, the two built a treasured bond based on curiosity, humour and a gentle empathy for another person’s experience.

The Attachment pulses with life, and tackles the big questions of how we should be living it.

 

A pretty impressive selection for £3.99 I think. If you want to take a look at Bookchoice you can find them here.  I would like to make it clear that I have no affiliation with Bookchoice, I’m choosing to share this with you, purely because I think it’s a great subscription package.