British Fiction

It's nearly Christmas in Oxford, and Detective Inspector Bridget Hart is enjoying a rare day off at Oxford's Christmas Market. A ghost tour seems like a fun way to round off the day. Until, that is, a brutal murder brings the evening to a tragic close. Torn between work and family commitments over the festive season, Bridget soon discovers that the ghost of Christmas past is reaching out to the present with fatal consequences.

For an instant the two trains ran together, side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth witnessed a murder. Helplessly, she stared out of her carriage window as a man remorselessly tightened his grip around a woman's throat. The body crumpled. Then the other train drew away. But who, apart from Miss Marple, would take her story seriously? After all, there were no suspects, no other witnesses...and no corpse. This title was previously published as What Mrs. McGrillicuddy Saw!

Bernard Samson is a spy on the run, forced to abandon his life and job and plunge into hiding. But in the murky, dangerous streets of Berlin, he knows where to hide. Wanted for an act of treachery he has not committed, he must not only escape the grasp of London Central, but get to the bottom of a tangled conspiracy that is about to change everything. In the thrilling penultimate installment of the Hook, Line, Sinker trilogy, Bernard's personal and professional life collide with devastating consequences.

It was supposed to be the perfect reunion: six university friends together again after twenty years. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted, a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with her college boyfriend, now husband. But that night her best friend makes an accusation so shocking that nothing will ever be the same again.

Miss Mildred Percy is a spinster. She does not dance, she has long stopped dreaming, and she certainly does not have adventures. That is, until her great uncle has the audacity to leave her an inheritance, one that includes a dragon’s egg. The egg—as eggs are wont to do—decides to hatch, and Miss Mildred Percy is suddenly thrust out of the role of “spinster and general wallflower” and into the unprecedented position of “spinster and keeper of dragons.” But England has not seen a dragon since…well, ever.

Ruth is a woman who believes in and despairs of the curative power of love. Her daughter, Eleanor, who is addicted to drugs, has just had a baby, Lily. Ruth adjusts herself in ways large and small to give to Eleanor what she thinks she may need—nourishment, distance, affection—but all her gifts fall short. After someone dies of an overdose in Eleanor's apartment, Ruth hands her daughter an envelope of cash and takes Lily home with her, and Lily, as she grows, proves a compensation for all of Ruth's past defeats and disappointment. Love without fear is a new feeling for her.

It was meant to be a harmless stag-night prank. But a few hours later, the groom has disappeared and his friends are dead. With only three days to the wedding, Roy Grace is contacted by the man’s distraught fiancée to unearth what happened on that fateful night. The one man who ought to know of the groom’s whereabouts is saying nothing. But then he has a lot more to gain than anyone realizes, for one man’s disaster is another man’s fortune.

There's nothing Ruth Galloway hates more than amateur archaeologists, but when a group of them stumble upon Bronze Age artifacts alongside a dead body, she finds herself thrust into their midst - and into the crosshairs of a string of murders circling ever closer.

When Caz steps onboard the exclusive cruise liner RMS Atlantica, it’s the start of a vacation of a lifetime with her new love, Pete. On their first night they explore the ship, eat, dance, make friends, but when Caz wakes the next morning, Pete is missing. And when she walks out into the corridor, all the cabin doors are open. To her horror, she soon realizes that the ship is completely empty. No passengers, no crew, nobody but her. The Atlantica is steaming into the mid-Atlantic and Caz is the only person on board. But that’s just the beginning.

A body is discovered deep in a cave beneath the Yorkshire Dales. Leading the investigation into the mysterious death are experienced DCI Jim Oldroyd and his partner DS Carter, a newcomer from London. The deceased is Dave Atkins, well known throughout the village but not well liked. While there is no shortage of suspects, the details of the crime leave Oldroyd and Carter stumped.

In the black days of a Shetland winter, torrential rain triggers a landslide that crosses the main road and sweeps down to the sea. At the burial of his old friend Magnus Tait, Jimmy Perez watches the flood of peaty water and mud smash through a croft house in its path. Everyone thinks the croft is uninhabited, but in the wreckage he finds the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress. Perez becomes obsessed with finding out her identity and what she was doing there.

The British Classics Collection: Volume One is a century-spanning collection of 24 classic works of fiction and poetry by British authors, read by a cast of incredible narrators including Stephen Fry, Joanne Froggatt, Jason Isaacs, Adjoa Andoh, and many more. Included here are stories by some of the greatest writers of all time, including Charles Dickens; Emily Brontë; Jane Austen; Thomas Hardy; George Eliot; D.H. Lawrence; George Orwell; and Mary Shelley, amongst a host of others.

Feisty, passionate Beatrice Steele has never fit the definition of a true lady, according to the strict code of conduct that reigns in Swampshire, her small English township—she is terrible at needlework, has absolutely no musical ability, and her artwork is so bad it frightens people. Nevertheless, she lives a perfectly agreeable life with her marriage-scheming mother, prankster father, and two younger sisters— beautiful Louisa and forgettable Mary. But she harbors a dark secret: She is obsessed with the true crime cases she reads about in the newspaper.

This book is an example of Alternative History. That, in essence, is asking what the future could be like. It suggests the US could have become a Dominion of America. Call this standard history with a twist, or even mythology in part. It is certainly historical material, told in fictional fashion.

Jemima Jago has moved back home to the enchanting Isles of Scilly. Ready for a fresh start in a quaint coastal village, she can be found in the stacks of Cornwall’s oldest library by day and stargazing in the cove at night. Jem finds the slower pace of life suits her perfectly, until she stumbles across a very curious crime.....

England 1921. Lady Elizabeth Gaskins is throwing a big party to celebrate her birthday. But when an odious guest gets killed and steals her thunder, her father, the Earl of Buxley, becomes a suspect. After all, he came to blows with the dead man in front of several witnesses. Determined to find out who murdered his childhood friend, Lord Buxley summons a detective from Scotland Yard. Not to be outdone, Lady Bess and her spunky cohorts, the oldest Dowager Countess and great aunts, embark on a hunt for the killer.

After being abducted and assaulted, a teenage girl somehow managed to escape from her captor. She is traumatized and needs to heal, but the police need her help to catch her assailant—information she clearly knows, but is unwilling to give. Without the girl’s assistance, DI Adam Fawley’s investigation is at a dead end. When another girl vanishes under the same circumstances, he recognizes a disturbing pattern—and a link to something long buried in his past.

Jane Halliwell once dreamed of a home of her own—but those dreams (and her dowry) died with her father. Now, she works as a governess, preparing her charge for a future no longer within her reach. When her employer is murdered during a house party, however, Jane is forced back into the world of the ton. But stepping in as hostess will require working with the same lord who once broke her girlish heart.

Young Dorothy is trapped in a life of poverty and heartache. Abandoned by a mother who never loved her, she is forced to live with grandparents who care even less for her than they do for their own bratty children. Dorothy must persevere and hold on to the distant memory of her loving father with only a tin of letters and a small toy soldier to remind her of her former life of wealth and privilege. Just when Dorothy thinks life has nothing left to offer, a letter arrives, inviting her to visit her father in London. Will this be the opportunity Dorothy has been waiting for?

Fiona, Sue, and Daisy, three retired ladies who volunteer at the local charity shop, Dogs Need Nice Homes, can’t believe their favorite customer is dead. Eighty-six-year-old Sarah Brown was found murdered in her hallway by her delivery man, a domino clutched in her hand—with a name scratched on it. When another person is found dead with a domino in their hand, and with the police making no progress, the ladies will need to help unmask a serial killer. At least they have Fiona’s scruffy-haired terrier cross to assist them.