Here’s this week’s list of new fiction titles. These are titles appearing in hardback/paperback for the first time. In some cases the ebook might already be available. All titles are based on the listings found in The Bookseller, so I’m not working from a list of all titles being published.
Just a reminder I don’t see any advance copies, my choices are based on the blurb, gut instinct and what takes my fancy at the time.
(NB This post features Affiliate links from which I earn a small commission on qualifying purchases)
Index
Historical (I tend to take this as pre 1960’s ie not in my lifetime!)
Crime, Thriller & Mystery
Desert Star by Michael Connelly
SOME CRIMES YOU CAN’T FORGET.
Detective Renée Ballard is given the chance of a lifetime: revive the LAPD’s cold case unit and find justice for the families of the forgotten. The only catch is they must first crack the unsolved murder of the sister of the city councilman who is sponsoring the department – or lose everything…
OTHERS YOU CAN’T FORGIVE.
Harry Bosch is top of the list of investigators Ballard wants to recruit. The former homicide detective is a living legend – but for how long? Because Bosch has his own agenda: a crime that has haunted him for years – the murder of a whole family, buried out in the desert – which he vowed to close.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU KNEW WHO DID IT?
With the killer still out there and evidence elusive – Bosch is on a collision course with a choice he hoped never to make…
Are You Awake by Claire McGowan
With two young children, Mary hasn’t slept in what feels like years. For his part, Tim never feels safe enough to sleep. And so one hot, exhausting night, the two strangers meet while seeking solace in a nearby park. There, they witness something horrific: a violent attack in the window of a neighbouring house.
Bonded by what they’ve seen, Tim and Mary are desperate to find answers. And when they see news reports of a missing woman who was last seen walking alone not far from them, the pair are convinced it’s her they saw being attacked—no matter what the police say.
But with her marriage under strain and the police on their tail, Mary begins to doubt her own mind…and Tim’s. And as the pair are drawn into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, the culprit appears to be even closer to home than they thought. Have they got it all wrong, or is something even more sinister going on?
Italian Rules by Tom Benjamin
When Hollywood comes to Bologna, La Dolce Vita turns sweet murder…
A famous Hollywood director arrives in Bologna to remake a cult film and the city’s renown cinema archive decides to mark the occasion with a screening of the original, only to discover it has disappeared.
After English detective Daniel Leicester follows the trail of Love Upon a Razorblade to an apparent murder-suicide, he begins to suspect there may be more at stake than missing negatives – could the film contain a clue to one of the city’s most enduring mysteries? Together with a star from the forthcoming remake, Daniel moves from the glamour of Venice Lido to the depths of Bologna’s secret tunnel system as a sinister network closes in and he learns some people are ready to kill for the ultimate director’s cut.
The Buried by Sharon Bolton
AN OLD ENEMY IS LAID TO REST . . . AND A NEW CRIME IS DISCOVERED
Florence Lovelady, the most senior serving policewoman in Britain, visits convicted serial killer Larry Glassbrook in prison. Larry is coming to the end of his life but has one last task for Florence: to learn the identity of the remains discovered at children’s home Black Moss Manor. The town Florence escaped narrowly with her life still holds many secrets. Will she finally learn the truth? Or will time run out for her first?
You Are Next by Arne Dahl
A detective under arrest. A killer running free. A dark and gripping thriller set in the Stockholm Archipelago, from an international bestseller and Scandicrime star.
Detective Inspector Sam Berger’s life has been turned upside down. He is suspected of a murder and his partner, Secret Service agent, Molly Blom, is in a coma.
Meanwhile, a terrorist attempt is threatening Stockholm and a wanted murderer is on the loose. Berger escapes to the Stockholm Archipelago while he waits for orders from the Swedish Security Service’s chief executive.
But is he the solution or is he part of the problem?
A Killer Christmas at Honeychurch Hall by Hannah Dennison
Following the butler’s death and the cook’s retirement, the ever-gullible Lady Lavinia replaces them with a power couple who are determined to thrust the crumbling estate into the 21st century. The Dowager Countess reluctantly agrees to hold a big-ticket Christmas gala and silent auction with a mystery celebrity flying in from Monaco as the guest of honour.
Needless to say the newcomers’ make a few enemies in their quest to change the status quo and when one body is discovered in the Victorian stumpery and a second, in the ha-ha, it seems that their high-flying past is catching up with them.
Meanwhile, Kat is dealing with the theft of a valuable doll that had been earmarked for the auction. When it turns out that all the ticket money has vanished and there never was a celebrity guest, it’s up to Kat to save the day and bring the cold-blooded killer to justice.
Walk Me Home by Sebastian Fitzek
The Walk Me Home telephone helpline service has proved indispensable. Staffed by volunteers, it provides a reassuring voice at the end of the phone, helping to protect lone women as they walk home at night.
Jules has only been working for Walk Me Home for a short time and has never had to deal with a truly life-threatening situation. But that all changes one Saturday night when Klara calls.
The young woman is terrified. She thinks she is being followed by a man. A man from her past. A man who drew a date in blood on her bedroom wall. And that day dawns in less than two hours…
For Klara – and Jules – the stakes have never been higher. Will either of them ever make it home again?
Canticle Creek by Adrian Hyland
Canticle Creek is a twisty crime thriller set in small town Australia.
When Adam Lawson’s wrecked car is found a kilometre from Daisy Baker’s body, the whole town assumes it’s an open and shut case. But Jesse Redpath isn’t from Canticle Creek. Where she comes from, the truth often hides in plain sight, but only if you know where to look. When Jesse starts to ask awkward questions, she uncovers a town full of contradictions and a cast of characters with dark pasts, secrets to hide and even more to lose.
As the temperature soars, and the ground bakes, the wilderness surrounding Canticle Creek becomes a powderkeg waiting to explode. All it needs is one spark.
The Politician by Tim Sullivan
A ransacked room. A dead politician. A burglary gone wrong – or a staged murder?
THE DETECTIVE
DS George Cross loves puzzles – he’s good at them – and he immediately spots one when he begins investigating the death of former mayor Peggy Frampton. It looks like a burglary that went horribly wrong to most but George can see what others can’t – that this was murder.
THE PUZZLE
After her political career ended, Peggy became a controversial blogger whose forthright opinions attracted a battalion of online trolls. And then there’s her family: an unfaithful husband and a gambling-addicted son. With yet more enemies in her past, the potential suspects are unending.
THE SUSPECTS
Cross must unpick the never-ending list of seedy connections to find her killer – but the sheer number of suspects is clouding his usually impeccable logic. He’s a relentlessly methodical detective, but no case can last forever. And politics can be a dangerous game – especially for people who don’t know the rules . . .
When She Fell by Karen Cole
Avery is an obscure author whose recent disappearance is eerily similar to the death of a character in her latest thriller. Last seen walking the cliffs at Bosigran, it is suspected she fell, although her body has still not been found.
When Alex, an ambitious young journalist, receives a copy of Avery’s book in the post, she becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her.
Alex travels to Cornwall to research Avery’s death for an article and discovers that the writer’s life mirrored her book in more ways than one. She increasingly suspects that all is not as it seems. One question in particular keeps playing on her mind, did Avery jump was she pushed?
The Hiker by MJ Ford
In the wilderness, it’s kill or be killed…
MISSING
When Gemma Kline is reported missing after setting off on a solo hike in the remote Pennines, her sister, Sarah, is dumbfounded. How can someone disappear without a trace?
PRESUMED
Travelling to the isolated town where Gemma was last seen, Sarah discovers it’s not the first time a young woman has vanished from the hills in mysterious circumstances. As she digs deeper, it quickly becomes apparent that neither disappearance is what it first seems – especially when unwelcoming locals share chilling tales about what’s really lurking on the moors…
MURDERED
Whatever has happened to her sister, one thing is clear: this town has secrets someone would kill to keep. But even on the fells, nothing stays buried forever…
Sudden Death by Rachel Lynch
Scores are dead or injured. But who was the killer’s true target?
On a misty morning in the Lake District, two men depart by helicopter from a private estate. Below, they see the stunning views of Wast Water, with Scafell Pike ahead, where fell runners are competing atop England’s highest mountain. It’s at this moment that the pilots lose control, and crash into the mountain top. Runners and bystanders are caught in the devastation.
This is the scene that greets DI Kelly Porter. She attempts to coordinate the rescue efforts, though it’s clear many won’t make it, including occupants of the helicopter. Three are dead, and the fourth is badly injured. When it emerges that the survivor is none other than the Right Honourable Lord Donald Reilly, and the person who chartered the flight was notorious billionaire Bartholomew Kennedy-Craig, the media frenzy is intense. Reilly is high up in government, and his contact with the magnate provokes speculation.
When it is learned that the helicopter had been tampered with, Kelly and her team can’t afford to make a single mistake. Who was the intended victim, and why? With the scrutiny of the government, the public and the press on her, just how confident can she be that the trail of evidence is leading her to the right conclusion?
A Murder at Balmoral by Chris McGeorge
King Eric is dead. And when the motive is succession, murder is a family affair…
During a violent snowstorm, the Royal Family gather at the Castle for a traditional Christmas together. Amid rumours that he plans to name a new successor, King Eric stands to make his traditional after-dinner speech. He sips from a glass of his favourite whisky- and drops dead.
The king has been poisoned, and only one of the royals could have done the deed. Trapped by the raging blizzard, it is up to Eric’s beloved head chef, Jonathan Alleyne, to play detective and get to the bottom of this heinous crime.
Jon is determined to expose the truth, even if it puts him in grave danger, and threatens to shake the entire monarchy to its core…
The Will by Rebecca Reid
The Mordaunts aren’t like most families . . .
For one, their family home is Roxborough Hall – a magnificent, centuries-old mansion in the Norfolk countryside. For another, the house isn’t passed down from parent to child – but rather to the family member deemed most worthy.
Cecily Mordaunt is dead. On the evening of her funeral, her family will gather for dinner and each will be given a letter, revealing who is the next custodian of Roxborough Hall.
The house is a burden, a millstone, a full-time job . . . but they all want it. And some are willing do anything to get it.
One family. Eight letters. Who will get what they deserve?
The Shadows of Rutherford House by CE Rose
Darkness lies at the heart of this family…
In 1959 Milly starts her new life as a housemaid at Rutherford House, working for the aristocratic Rutherford-Percy clan. Entranced by her new mistress, Vivienne, she becomes deeply embroiled in the household and the keeper of dark secrets the family conceals beneath the mansion’s grand exterior.
In the present day, Christie is working as a psychiatric nurse when she meets troubled patient Lillian Percy, Vivienne’s granddaughter and heiress to Rutherford House. They soon bond over the loss of their mothers
– Lillian’s died when she was a child; Christie’s mysteriously disappeared over twenty years ago – and Christie finds herself increasingly fascinated by
Lillian’s family and their imposing ancestral home.
As Christie learns more about the Rutherford-Percys, she finds a shocking clue that could help her uncover what happened to her own mother. Desperate for answers, Christie puts her job, her family and even her very life on the line. But how much of the truth does she really want to know?
General/Contemporary Fiction
They’re Going to Love You by Meg Howrey
Carlisle Martin dreams of becoming a professional ballet dancer like her mother Isabel. She only gets to see her father Robert, and his brilliant but troubled partner James, for a few precious weeks a year when she visits their enchanted apartment in Greenwich Village. James educates her in all that he holds dear in life: literature, music, and most of all, dance. As the years go by, Carlisle is desperate to be asked to stay permanently, even as AIDS brings devastation to their community. Instead, a passionate love affair creates a rift between them, with devastating consequences that reverberate for decades to come. Nineteen years later, Carlisle receives a phone call which unravels the fateful events of her life . . .
They’re Going to Love You is a gripping and gorgeously written novel of heartbreaking intensity. With psychological precision and a masterfully revealed secret at its heart, it asks what it takes to be an artist, and the price of forgiveness, of ambition, and of love.
Finding Happiness at Penvennan Cove by Linn B Halton
Kerra Shaw‘s happiness should be complete when the love of her life moves into her cottage. But there is trouble in her beloved Penvennan Cove and Kerra knows she won’t be able to enjoy her new start with Ross until she’s put things right.
Two struggling businesses threaten to change the beach at Penvennan Cove forever. The Lark and Lantern, an inn at the heart of the community, is struggling and a corporate chain is trying to redevelop the site. Meanwhile, The Salvager’s Yard nearby is becoming an eyesore that brings down the area.
Kerra knows she can find the perfect solution, but with her eyes on the community, will Kerra miss the tensions in her own life? Can Kerra find her own happy ending, or could putting others first cost her what she deserves most?
The Family String by Denise Picton
Meet Dorcas, a spirited 12-year-old struggling to contain her irrepressible humour and naughty streak in a family of Christadelphians in 1960s Adelaide. She is her mother’s least favourite child and always at the bottom of the order on the family’s string of beads that she and her younger siblings Ruthy and Caleb reorder according to their mother’s ever-changing moods.
Dorcas, an aspiring vet, dreams of having a dog, or failing that, a guinea pig named Thruppence. Ruthy wants to attend writing school, and Caleb wants to play footy with the local team. But Christadelphians aren’t allowed to be ‘of the world’ and when their older brother Daniel is exiled to door knock and spread the good word in New South Wales after being caught making out with Esther Dawlish at youth camp, each try their hardest to suppress their dreams for a bigger life. But for a girl like Dorcas, dreams have a habit of surfacing at the most inopportune moments, and as she strives to be the daughter her mother desires, a chain of mishaps lead to a tragedy no one could have foreseen.
The Family String is a superb coming of age story that explores a fraught mother-daughter dynamic, and the secrets adults keep from their children. It is about resilience, and the loves that sustain us when our most essential bonds are tested, and how to find the way back through hope and forgiveness.
Have You Got Anything Stronger? by Imogen Allen
Have You Got Anything Stronger? is a sharp and furiously funny novel about being married with two children and having a husband whose tits are bigger than yours.
Follow a year in the life of four good friends as they navigate husbands, lovers, children, careers (what’s left of them) and question their harassed realities. Why did they get married? Do they like their children? Does lemon in your vodka tonic count as one of your five a day? Will they ever get a bloody break?
For fans of Why Mummy Drinks and Bridget Jones’s Diary, this book will resonate with women who, between running late for playdates, meetings and Ocado deliveries, have realised that the hamster wheel never stops turning, and it may be too late to crash out.
The Christmas Wish by Lindsey Kelk
Newly single lawyer Gwen Baker is hoping that a family Christmas – countryside, a mountain of food and festive films –
will salve the sting of her career hanging by a thread and her heart being trampled on. Because everyone else has their life sorted: even Dev, her boy-next-door crush, is now a tall, dark and handsome stranger with a fiancée. She can’t help wishing her future was clearer.
Then Gwen wakes up to discover it’s Christmas day all over again. Like Groundhog Day but with turkey. And family arguments. On repeat.
As she figures out how to escape her own particular Christmas hell, Dev is the one bright spot. He might be all grown-up but underneath he’s just as kind and funny as she remembers.
Maybe, just maybe, her heart can be mended after all.
But how do you fall in love with someone who can’t remember you from one day to the next?
The Sh!te Before Christmas by Serena Terry
Christmas time, toddler meltdowns, teenage angst, marriage problems and WINE.
This year, the perfect Christmas is going to take a miracle…
Twas the sh!te before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring except for … mum!
Like every mum, Tara wants a perfect Christmas for her family – but no-one else is lifting a finger and she’s losing her elf-ing mind. From the kids behaving badly (vaping! Potty training! The Nativity!), to a distracted husband acting very out of character, the last straw is Tara’s glamorous, feckless, boundary-less mother moving herself back in for the holidays.
Can Tara pull off the holly jolly Christmas of her dreams? Will she deck the halls and not her family? Or is this a Christmas catastrophe waiting to happen?
All is Bright by RaeAnne Thayne
A Christmas to Remember
When architect Sage McKnight is asked to renovate a house for former baseball player Mason Tucker it is the job of her career. Mason, a famous recluse after a life changing accident, needs his house adapted and Sage is determined to create the perfect home. Not only that but a production company wants to film her work – a dream come true.
However, Mason is stubborn, ignoring Sage’s expertise and insisting on being involved in every detail of the renovation. And the final straw, he refuses to allow any filming in his home.
Sage’s optimism is the complete opposite of Mason, and soon neither can agree on anything. It will take a Christmas miracle for these two opposites to find peace, but that may be just what they find…
The Christmas Holiday by Philippa Ashley
Krystle didn’t have a normal childhood and longed for warm family Christmases with presents under the tree. Now she makes sure everyone else has the perfect Christmas she never had, bringing beautiful decorations to cheer as many people as possible.
With her festive business booming, she decides to celebrate by renting a secluded house in the Lakes, with a plan to make this the ultimate yuletide getaway.
But fate immediately throws a spanner in the works in the form of a broken-down car, a flooded river and Max; a man who despises Christmas.
Krystle becomes determined to show Max the joys of the holiday. She won’t take no for an answer.
Can she melt Max’s Grinch-like heart? And can he show her that life doesn’t need to go to plan to take you somewhere magical…
Snow Falls Over Starry Cove by Nancy Barone
This Christmas escape to Cornwall with a sweet and uplifting romance, perfect for fans of Jo Thomas, Sue Moorcroft and Holly Martin!
Emmie Weaver has it all – a handsome fiancé and students who love her. So why does she feel so lost?
When Emmie’s estranged grandfather dies, leaving her a barge in Starry Cove, it’s a welcome chance to hit pause. But as soon as she arrives in the Cornish village, it’s clear this won’t be the relaxing break she was expecting. Her grandmother wants nothing to do with her and Jago Moon, a handsome yet hostile town bad boy, is inexplicably determined to not let her boat touch water.
Christmas is fast approaching and so is her wedding date. Can Emmie stay long enough to see snow fall over Starry Cove? And will finding out about her past help her decide her future?
Meet Me Under the Mistletoe by Jenny Bayliss
A winter wedding of school friends should be the highlight of Nory Noel’s festive calendar. But that group has long since drifted apart, and Nory is dreading the lavish, week-long affair. Still, she supposes, being the only single person means she gets a king-size bed in the idyllic castle venue all to herself.
As the champagne flows, the years roll back and soon the air is alive with old sparks and old tensions. Desperate for a moment of peace, Nory escapes and crashes into Isaac, the castle’s gardener – and her former school rival.
Nory and Isaac have more in common these days than they could ever have imagined. But as she steals more time away to spend with him, Isaac reveals an astonishing secret about his past. Nory is in a unique position to help right this wrong – but uncovering the truth might mean pushing Isaac away once more . . .
The Christmas Castle in Scotland by Julie Caplin
Izzy McBride had never in a million years expected to inherit an actual castle from her great uncle Bill but here she was, in the run up to Christmas, Monarch of her own Glen – a very rundown glen in need of a lot of TLC if her dream of turning it into a boutique bed and breakfast was to come true.
But when Izzy’s eccentric mother rents a room to enigmatic thriller author Ross Adair and the Scottish snow starts to settle like the frosting on a Christmas cake, it’s a race to get the castle ready before they’re all snowed in for the holidays.
Christmas Eve at Cranberry Cross by Kate Forster
No one loves Christmas more than editorial assistant Eve Pilkins.
But when her boss hits her with a huge deadline on Christmas Day, it looks like Eve’s favourite time of the year might be cancelled. Armed with as much enthusiasm as she can muster, she travels to the coldest part of England, tasked with ensuring brooding author Edward Priest finishes his latest novel on time.
The festive spirit at Cranberry Cross is as dark as the house itself; without a fairy light in sight, it looks like only a Christmas miracle can save this one. Will Eve be up to the task?
A Letter to Remember by Lorraine Fouchet
Would you run away to find out where you’ve come from?
Twenty-five-year-old Chiara has always wished she knew her father, thought to have died in a tragic accident before she was born.
When she learns by chance that her biological father could in fact be a Frenchman living on the island of Groix, Chiara sets off for the summer of a lifetime, leaving behind only three letters in her wake.
Finding companions in Urielle, a young mother looking to get away from Paris, and Gabin, an attractive writer reluctant to discuss his past, Chiara becomes bewitched by the island and its community.
Under the guise of a letter carrier, Chiara slowly uncovers the secrets of her family, but can she find herself – and love – along the way?
The Cornish Cream Tea Bookshop by Cressida McLaughlin
Ollie Spencer has started a new life in the idyllic Cornish seaside town of Port Karadow. Throwing herself into her job at the town’s bookshop, A New Chapter, is one way to make friends. The shop is glitzing up for first Christmas and Ollie hopes her inspired ideas will give the shop the edge it needs to dazzle the town.
But far from being the Sugar Plum fairy the place needs, Ollie is fast becoming its Christmas pudding. With the bookshop’s success at stake, Ollie turns to twinkly-eyed café owner Max for help. Can he help Ollie to turn the page, and put the sparkle back into her Cornish dream?
A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy & Sierra Simone
When Bee Hobbes takes the lead in a squeaky-clean romantic Christmas movie, there are only three rules:
1. Don’t get involved with anyone on set.
2. Don’t tell anyone what you do for a living.
3. Definitely don’t get involved with anyone on set.
3b. Seriously.
Now, she’s filming in Christmas Notch, a small town with Christmas trees and festive tunes all year round.
But Bee’s got a secret identity to hide, and it’s not family-friendly. And her co-star, Nolan Shaw, an ex-boyband member infamous for his own x-rated antics, not only knows it, but is secretly her biggest fan.
When things start to heat up on set, Bee and Nolan must keep this steamy affair under wraps, or risk ruining everything . . .
Historical
Dawnlands by Philippa Gregory
The spellbinding Fairmile series continues as the fiercely independent Alinor and her family find themselves entangled in palace intrigue, political upheaval, and life-changing secrets in seventeenth-century England.
It is 1685, England is on the brink of a renewed civil war against the Stuart kings and many families are bitterly divided. Ned Ferryman cannot persuade his sister Alinor that he is right to return from America with his Pokanoket servant Rowan to join the rebel army. Instead, Alinor has been coaxed by the manipulative Livia to save the queen from the coming siege. The rewards are life-changing: the family could return to their beloved Tidelands, and Alinor could rule where she was once lower than a servant.
Alinor’s son, Rob, is determined to stay clear of the war, but when he and his nephew set out to free Ned from execution for treason and Rowan from a convict deportation to Barbados, they find themselves enmeshed in the creation of an imposter Prince of Wales – a surrogate baby to the queen.
From the last battle in the desolate Somerset Levels to the hidden caves on the slave island of Barbados, this third volume of an epic story follows a family from one end of the empire to another, to find a new dawn in a world which is opening up before them with greater rewards and dangers than ever before.
One Woman’s War by Christine Wells
From the author of Sisters of the Resistance comes the story of WWII British Naval Intelligence officer Victoire Bennett, the real-life inspiration for the James Bond character Miss Moneypenny, whose international covert operation is put in jeopardy when a volatile socialite and Austrian double agent threatens to expose the mission to German High Command.
World War II London: When Victoire “Paddy” Bennett first walks into the Admiralty’s Room 39, home to the Intelligence Division, all the bright and lively young woman expects is a secretarial position to the charismatic Commander Ian Fleming. But soon her job is so much more, and when Fleming proposes a daring plot to deceive the Germans about Allied invasion plans he requests the newlywed Paddy’s help. She jumps at the chance to work as an agent in the field, even after the operation begins to affect her marriage. But could doing her duty for King and country come at too great a cost?
Socialite Friedl Stöttinger is a beautiful Austrian double agent determined to survive in wartime England, which means working for MI-5, investigating fifth column activity among the British elite at parties and nightclubs. But Friedl has a secret—some years before, she agreed to work for German Intelligence and spy on the British.
When her handler at MI-5 proposes that she work with Serbian agent, Duško Popov, Friedl falls hopelessly in love with the dashing spy. And when her intelligence work becomes fraught with danger, she must choose whether to remain loyal to the British and risk torture and execution by the Nazis, or betray thousands of men to their deaths.
Soon, the lives of these two extraordinarily brave women will collide, as each travels down a road of deception and danger leading to one of the greatest battles of World War II.
The Elopement by Tracy Rees
A wealthy heiress . . .
1897. Rowena Blythe is wealthy, entitled and beautiful. As her twenty-fourth birthday approaches, she’s expected to marry – and to marry well.
An unsuitable match . . .
Her parents commission a portrait of Rowena to help cement her reputation as a great society beauty. However, Bartek, the artist’s young assistant, is unlike any man Rowena has met before – wild, romantic and Bohemian. While society at large awaits the announcement of Rowena’s engagement, it is Bartek who captures Rowena’s heart along with her likeness.
A scandal in society . . .
Rowena knows her parents would never approve of Bartek, who in their eyes is nothing but a penniless foreigner. As her feelings grow, she has no-one to turn to. Dare she risk everything for love?
The American Adventuress by CW Gortner
The story of Jennie Jerome Churchill, mother of Winston, a New York born heiress who always lived life on her own terms.
Daughter of New York financier Leonard Jerome, Jennie was born into wealth—and scandal. Upon her parents’ separation, her mother took Jennie and her sisters to Paris, where Mrs. Jerome was determined to marry her daughters into the most elite families. The glamorous city became their tumultuous finishing school until it fell to revolt.
Fleeing to Queen Victoria’s England, Jennie soon caught the eye of aristocrat Randolph Spencer-Churchill, son of the Duke of Marlborough, one of Britain’s loftiest peers. It was love at first sight, their unconventional marriage driven by mutual ambition and the birth of two sons. Undeterred by premature widowhood or society’s rigid expectations, Jennie brashly carried on a lifelong intimate friendship with Edward, Prince of Wales—a notorious bon vivant—and had two later marriages to younger men. When her son Winston launched his brilliant political career, Jennie guided him to success, his most vocal and valuable supporter.
By turns scandalous, tragic, and exciting, Jennie Jerome lived an unconventional life full of defiance—one that enshrined her as an American adventuress.
So that’s all for this week.
Happy Reading!
Jill's Book Cafe 
The Family String is now on my TBR–thank you! The Sh!te doesn’t seem to be available in the USA…maybe next year.
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You’re welcome, hope the other one becomes available soon x
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