Imperfect Women by Araminta Hall

Three young women meet at university and remain life long friends.  

Nancy seems to have the perfect life.  She is married to Robert and they have one daughter.  Robert is a human rights lawyer, they are wealthy and seem to live the perfect life. 

Eleanor is single.  She has set up her own business running a charity after spending many years travelling overseas to offer aid. 

Mary is a housewife, she is married to Howard who is an academic and they have three children.  

Nancy is found murdered.  It appears that she may have been murdered by a lover which whom she has been having an affair for the last year, she had been trying to end the relationship but he was not letting her do this.  Only Eleanor knew about the affair but she does not know who the lover is.  She only has a first name to pass on to the police.  

Annie Stanley All At Sea by Sue Teddern

When Annie and Kate's father dies very suddenly and unexpectedly they are both upset, having lost their mother a few years earlier they are now orphaned.  After the funeral his partner Bev says she is thinking of spreading his ashes in the Tyrol where they had once holidayed together.  Annie is furious, this place means nothing to the sisters or their father.  Without giving too much thought to what she is doing she steals the ashes and then decides to take her father on a trip around the shipping forecast areas of the coast of Britain as this was something that had interested him and he always listened to the shipping forecasts on the radio.  She sets of to Scotland with the urn wrapped in her father's battered old tea towel with a picture of the shipping area map.  

As she is on her travels Annie meets up with some old friends that she has not seen for a very long time.  She also needs to make peace with both her sister and Bev.  The trip gives her an opportunity to reassess what she wants to do with her life.  

Coming Home to Brightwater Bay by Holly Hepburn

Successful author Merina Wilde is struggling with writers block.  The deadline for her next book is looming but it is not finished and her long term boyfriend has just dumped her.  Merry applies to be the writer in residence on one of the Orkney Islands for 6 months.  She hopes that the change will inspire her to start to write again. 

Merry quickly makes friends with people on the island and the stories they tell of past romances and the beautiful scenery all inspire her to write, but this time it is a romantic wartime novel rather than the book she is contracted to complete.  

There are also some very attractive single men on the island. 

A Country Escape by Katie Fforde

Having no close relatives Amy needs to find someone to whom she can leave her small farm.  She sends out 2 letters, one to Fran in London who is a very distant relative on her side of the family and one to Roy in Australia who is a distant relative of her deceased husband.  

Fran is the only one to respond and so is given the chance to manage the run down farm for a year and if she can make it pay she can inherit it from Amy.  Amy has moved to a residential home for 6 months and so Fran has free rein over the farm, but unfortunately she is afraid of cows.  The farm is losing money and so Fran needs to come up with ideas to diversify and starts making cheese.  Just as she is settling in and starts to love the farm Roy turns up and all he wants is to inherit the farm, sell it on as building land and go back to Australia with the money. 

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

Whilst searching through a box in the loft Cecilia finds a sealed envelope with the words 'For my wife Cecilia Fitzpatrick, to be opened only in the event of my death' on the front written by her husband.  At first she doesn't open it, but when she does she discovers John-Paul's hidden and most dreadful secret.  

Tess returns home to visit and take care of her mum who has broken an ankle.  This is just after her husband has admitted to being in love with Tess's cousin Felicity.  Tess needs to get away from them and to give herself space to think.  Tess enrols her son Liam into the local primary school, the same school she, Felicity and Cecilia had all attended.  Rachel, the school secretary, is the mother of Janie who was murdered 18 years ago and whose murderer has never been found.  

The story tells of the interaction between the Cecilia, Tess and Rachel as they all struggle to cope after finding out information that changes their lives. 

The epilogue explains what would have happened to different characters if certain events had or had not taken place.  

Little Teashop of Horrors by Jane Lovering

A new manager, Edmund Evershott, has been appointed to run Monkpark Hall on behalf of the Heritage Trust in Yorkshire.  The fate of the teashop run by Amy and best friend Jules is unclear.  Employees of the Hall can live in the cottages on the estate, but if the teashop has to close then Amy and her elderly Gran could be made homeless. 

Amy has lots of ideas to generate trade for the Hall which Edmund says is struggling.  Edmund uses her ideas and passes them off as his own.  When a small boy sees Amy on the stairs in her Edwardian outfit he thinks he has seen a ghost.  Edmund then exploits this and spreads the word that Monkpark Hall is haunted.  Although the Trust does not allow people into the house Edmund brings in ghost hunters in the evenings and enlists Amy's help.  She agrees as she believes that he is trying to save the Hall from closure. 

Blood on Her Hands by Stephen Edger

Woken in the night by banging on the front door, Ellie is shocked to find her 15 year old daughter Ruby on the doorstep with blood on her hands.  Ellie had believed that Ruby was upstairs asleep in bed but she had climbed out of her bedroom window to meet her boyfriend Jamie.  Ruby had fought off Jamie's advances in the local woods, she had pushed him, he had fallen and hit his head on a rock, she could not find a pulse.

Ellie heads to the woods to find Jamie but when she gets to the clearing she sees a bloody rock but Jamie is not there.  Jamie is reported as missing by his mother, who is Ellie's best friend, the police then want to talk to Ruby who may have been the last person to have seen him.  

Ruby's father is in prison and is soon due to be released.  Ellie is determined to protect Ruby at all costs.  

The Murder Mystery Book Club by Danielle Collins

The morning after a strange guest checks into Eva Stewart's bed and breakfast a dead body is found on the path outside.  The unknown man has been shot. 

Eva loves murder mystery books and runs a murder mystery book club one evening each week.  They are currently working their way through three Agatha Christie books.  The members of the book club get together to talk about the real murder on their doorstep.  They decide to do their own investigation into the murder and even split up into small groups to follow some of their suspects to see where they going and what they are really doing. 

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins

The body of Daniel Sutherland is found on his rented canal boat by Miriam who lives on the boat moored next to him.  Daniel is the nephew of Carol and her ex-husband Theo.  Miriam has a strained relationship with Theo as she has accused him of stealing her story to write one of his novels.  

Laura is arrested by the police as a suspect in the killing.  She has admitted that she was on the boat with Daniel the evening before his body was found, but she did not kill him.  She had lost her house key and so had broken a window to get back in and that is why her hand is cut and there is blood on her clothes.  Laura has befriended 80 year old widowed Irene who lives next door to Angela who is Carol's sister and Daniel's mother.  She regularly shops for Irene and keeps her company.  

Angela was found dead at the bottom of her stairs two weeks ago.  Carol, Miriam and Laura all have troubled pasts.  

Now You See Her by Heidi Perks

On the one and only day that Harriett has ever left her 4 year old daughter Alice with a friend, Alice goes missing.  Charlotte took her own children and Alice to the school fete.  The children were going on a jungle ride but Alice did not return.  The police are called when Alice can not be found.  Someone thought they had seen a strange men at the fete who was alone.

Charlotte is ostracised by her circle of friends, who are primarily the other school mums, they blame her for the disappearance and will not let their own children near to her. 

Harriett does not want to see Charlotte.  A police Family Liaison Officer spends a lot of time with Harriett and her husband Brian.  The FLO does not seem to pick up on the times that Brian answers questions for Harriett or that he is not passing on information to her.  Harriett has started to keep a secret book logging all the times that Brian says different things to her to prove that he is being coercive and manipulative. 

Love Blooms at Mermaids Point by Sarah Bennett

Alex Nelson decides to move to Mermaid Point.  His brother moved there a while ago to become the local GP and Alex wants to join him and buy the rundown bookshop which has come up for sale.  Following the end of his marriage Alex had written a book which had become a best seller, but it was not published under his own name and only his family know he is the author.  

Ivy Fisher had always been the carer for her mum.  Her mum has just died and Ivy now needs to grow her business and really wants to buy the local bookshop but Alex beats her to it.  

They work together to get the shop redecorated and back up and running and Ivy is given space at the back of the bookshop to renovate some of her items of furniture.  They start a relationship but Alex has not told Ivy the full truth about his marriage and the book.  

The Narrow Bed by Sophie Hannah

There is a serial killer who has been named 'Billy Dead Mates' as he is killing pairs of best friends.  So far he has killed a number of women and one man.  

Stand up comedian Kim Tribbeck hears about Billy on the news.  Each of his victims had been given a small white notebook shortly before they were murdered.  Kim had been given one of these books by an unknown man after one of her gigs a year ago.  She goes to the police with the book.  

Kim is a loner, she doesn't have a best friend and she is separated from her husband.  If she is a potential victim and is in danger then she doesn't fit with the pattern of the previous murders. 

Each Little Lie by Tom Bale

Seeing one of her neighbours drop his keys, Jen Cornish shouts after the car which has driven off but it does not stop.  Her dilemma is does she post the keys through the letterbox or keep hold of them?  If they are the only set then he won't get back in if she posts them.  Being short of time as she is on her way to work she makes a quick decision about what to do.  

She is then accused of a crime in her neighbour's house and there is evidence that she has been there, and she has the keys.  Jen suspects that she is being set up but does all she can to clear her name.  Both Jen and her son Charlie could be in danger.  

The Lemon Tree Cafe by Cathy Bramley

Refusing to do something she does not agree with, and sticking to her principles, workaholic Rosie Featherstone resigns from her job with a media PR company.  

She returns home and, after talking to Doreen and Juliet who work for her Nonna in The Lemon Tree Cafe, she realises that her 75 year old grandmother is struggling to run the cafe and so offers to help out for a few weeks until she can find another job.  

Rosie finds that the place is in much more of a mess than she expected.  Each time her Nonna leaves the cafe the three of them tackle another area to scrub clean and sort out.  Just as things are starting to look better they are faced with new competition from a large gardening company who plan to open up a cafe nearby. 

There are lots of cake recipes at the end of the book.  

A Cornish Summer at Pear Tree Farm by Angela Britnell

Pear Tree Farm has been turned into a campsite by Nessa Vivian.  She has given her caravans names of Beatle songs.  There are a few long-term residents but not many visitors.  The campsite isn't doing too well and she needs to look at ways to bring in extra business.  

Tregereth House next door has just been bought by ex-musician Ward Spencer.  His estate agent gave him the idea that he could open up a bed and breakfast.  This would also help his sister to get away from her unhappy marriage and give her a project to do.  

The two businesses could be too close together and be competition for each other.  

The Darkest Evening by Ann Cleeves

This is a Vera Stanhope story. 

Driving home late one snowy night Vera misses her turning and ends up on the wrong road.  She finds an abandoned car, the driver's door is open and there is a small child strapped into a car seat in the back.  Vera takes the child from the car and keeps driving until she reaches Brockburn which is the nearest house, and used to be the home of her father. 

Whilst she is at Brockburn a young woman is found dead outside in the snow.  Could this be the mother of the child she found?  The death turns out to be a brutal murder and Vera's team are called in to investigate.  

See How They Run by Tom Bale

In the middle of the night Harry and Alice French are woken by two masked men in their bedroom.  They are looking for a man named Edward Renshaw.  The men are convinced that Harry and Alice know something and they threaten to hurt their 8 week old daughter Evie.  They say they will be watching and the police should not be called.  

Harry and Alice try to pretend that nothing has happened but they are both very scared. 

Alice remembers a parcel which was incorrectly delivered and then collected from their house.  This could be the link to Renshaw.  Suddenly they are both on the run from gangsters and the police.  

Love Your Life by Sophie Kinsella

Ava attends a writing retreat in Italy.  Everyone has to remain anonymous and give themselves a new name and they are not allowed to talk about themselves.  There she meets Dutch.  He had booked to attend a different course but ended up joining the writers.  They are attracted to each other and even though they don't know anything about each other they start a relationship. 

On their return to England the relationship continues but as they find out more about each other they seem to become less and less compatible. 

You Are Not Alone by Sarah Pekkanen and Greer Hendricks

One morning on a subway platform Shay Miller sees a young woman jump to her death in front of a train.  Haunted by the memory, Shay decides to attend the memorial service of the unknown Amanda.  There she meets the sisters Cassandra and Jane Moore who were Amanda's friends.

The sisters are interested in Shay and she is pulled into their circle.  To Shay the successful Moore sisters have a very glamorous life, they help her when she is looking for another job and find her an apartment sitting role when she needs somewhere else to live.  At first Shay's life seems to be getting better and better.  But the Moore sisters are helping Shay as they want something from her and they always get what they want.  

An Escape to Provence by Sophie Claire

Daisy Jackson has unexpectedly inherited an old farm house as she is the last living relative who can be found of Jeanette.  Daisy had not even known of her existence.  Two years on and the renovation work on Le Mazet has not yet started.  Frustrated with the continued delays Daisy heads off to Provence to see the builder as he does not respond to her emails.  

The builder, Gabriel, had lived with Jeanette since the death of his family when he was a teenage boy and had expected to inherit the house himself but Jeanette's handwritten will could not be found. 

Gabriel is delaying the building work in the hope that Daisy will give up and sell the house.  In the meantime he is saving so that hopefully when that time comes he will have enough money to be able to buy back the house himself.