Dazzlingly rich, lyrical and elegiac, Thomas Wolfe’s vibrant autobiographical first novel, Look Homeward, Angel, follows the story of Eugene Gant, the ninth and last child born to alcoholic Oliver and go-getting Eliza in the fictional town of Altemont, based on Wolfe’s hometown of Asheville, North Carolina. The novel recounts Eugene’s early life, up to his departure from home at the age of 19.

Self-absorbed Sir Willoughby Patterne seeks a bride. After being jilted by his first fiancée he settles on the spirited Clara Middleton; but she starts to realise that he only wants a mirror for himself and his opinions. As she becomes desperate to disengage, and he becomes desperate to hold on to her, so a series of farcical, labyrinthine misunderstandings ensues.

In our own time, when the dark threat of a dystopian world is not an alien or avoidable concept, The Last Man (1826) is revealed as a trailblazing novel. With a truly global view, Mary Shelley’s futuristic romain à clef–containing portraits of her husband Percy (Adrian), Lord Byron (Raymond) and several others–spearheaded the apocalyptic genre for an intimidated 19th-century readership that rejected her ‘diseased imagination’ and ‘polluted taste’.

First published in 1876, Wilkie Collins’s The Two Destinies follows the lives of childhood friends George and Mary. George is the son of a nobleman, while Mary is the daughter of the nobleman’s bailiff. As the friends grow older and closer, George’s father, determined to end their affair, dismisses the bailiff and moves George to America. Years later, George returns to his native Suffolk to track down his former love. Although she has long gone, he remains determined to find Mary at all costs. But are the two lovers destined to find each other again?

As I sit my beautiful blue-eyed boy Sam down on the bench outside the changing room, I’m certain today is going to be a better day. He can splash about with his pool toys without worrying about making too much noise, and I can take a break from tiptoeing around my husband Pete, who is becoming more distant every day.

When newly divorced Jude arrives in the small town of Lowbridge, she is soon drawn to widower Will, the father of her young daughter's best friend. But Will's past is shrouded in tragedy, with questions that no one knows the answer to – and after two tragedies tore his life apart in just a few short years, gossip and rumours abound about what really happened to the women he loved. As whispers of murder surround Will, Jude becomes determined to uncover the truth – and with her own father's tragic fate haunting her, she refuses to let another innocent man suffer.

Ambrose Chitterwick is in the lounge of the Piccadilly Palace Hotel, away from his overbearing aunt, to enjoy some afternoon refreshments when he witnesses a murder. It looks like suicide but he saw something being put into the lady’s coffee cup. He is Scotland Yard’s chief witness but he also conducts an investigation of his own. Despite his diffidence and self-deprecation, his sleuthing is not to be sniffed at. There are plenty of twists and turns in this journey to enjoy, especially with master narrator David Timson in the driving seat.

The isolated Monkshill Park boarding school seems a world away from the violence that has engulfed Europe. Yet its eerie ground have witnessed a murder. Annabel Warnock, a teacher with a checkered past, disappeared during the holidays. The teachers and girls assume she has left the school, but the truth is quite different. Her body is lying at the bottom of the Maiden’s Leap, along the dangerous and overgrown Gothic Walk. Annabel’s ghost is trapped at Monkshill, unable to move on whilst the mystery of hear death remains unsolved.

The war is nearly over, but the wounds are still fresh, and for​ the picturesque village of Larkwhistle in the New Forest, it’s a time of​ great change and great sorrow.  Jill Metcalfe receives the news of her brother Henry’s death from his friend, US Army Officer Jack Stafford.  Henry had been on a mission in France and had discovered some vital information, but it was information he was unable to give to Jack before he was killed at the rendezvous point.   Jack has come to the village in the hopes that Henry’s cryptic last note will lead to a clue to the traitor he was searching for.

In the New Mexico badlands, the skeleton of a woman is found—and the case is assigned to FBI Agent Corrie Swanson. The victim walked into the desert, shedding clothes as she went, and died in agony of heatstroke and thirst. Two rare artifacts are found clutched in her bony hands—lightning stones used by the ancient Chaco people to summon the gods. Is it suicide or… sacrifice?