Kate Riordan

Under the scorching French sun, a tense homecoming unearths a long-buried family secret in this deliciously propulsive beach read of a mother's greatest fear brought to life. Elodie was beautiful. Elodie was smart. Elodie was manipulative. Elodie is dead. When Sylvie Durand receives a letter calling her back to her crumbling family home in the South of France, she knows she has to go. In the middle of a sweltering 1990's summer marked by unusual fires across the countryside, she returns to La Reverie with her youngest daughter Emma in tow, ignoring the deep sense of dread she feels for this place she's long tried to forget. As memories of the events that shattered their family a decade earlier threaten to come to the surface, Sylvie struggles to shield Emma from the truth of what really happened all those years ago. In every corner of the house, Sylvie can't escape the specter of Elodie, her first child. Elodie, born amid the '68 Paris riots with one blue eye and one brown, and mysteriously dead by fourteen. Elodie, who reminded the small village of one those Manson girls. Elodie who knew exactly how to get what she wanted. As the fires creep towards the villa, it's clear to Sylvie that something isn't quite right at La Reverie... And there is a much greater threat closer to home. Rich in unforgettable characters, The Heatwave alternates between the past and present, grappling with what it means to love and fear a child in equal measure. It's an atmospheric and moving exploration of the bond between a mother and her daughters, and the lengths she will go to keep her children safe. With the lush landscape and nostalgia of a heady vacation read, Kate Riordan has woven a gripping page-turner with gorgeous prose that turns the idea of a summer novel on its head.

The Heatwave

Jane Austen

In the vein of Downton Abbey, Jane Austen's beloved but unfinished masterpiece-often considered her most modern and exciting novel-gets a spectacular second act in this tie-in to a major new limited television series. Written only months before Austen's death in 1817, Sanditon tells the story of the joyously impulsive, spirited and unconventional Charlotte Heywood and her spiky relationship with the humorous, charming (and slightly wild!) Sidney Parker. When a chance accident transports her from her rural hometown of Willingden to the would-be coastal resort of the eponymous title, it exposes Charlotte to the intrigues and dalliances of a seaside town on the make, and the characters whose fortunes depend on its commercial success. The twists and turns of the plot, which takes viewers from the West Indies to the rotting alleys of London, exposes the hidden agendas of each character and sees Charlotte discover herself... and ultimately find love.

Sanditon

For fans of Kate Mosse and Kate Morton comes a haunting novel about two women separated by decades but entwined by fate.When Alice Eveleigh arrives at Fiercombe Manor during the long, languid summer of 1933, she finds a house steeped in mystery and brimming with secrets. Sadness permeates its empty rooms and the isolated valley seems crowded with ghosts, none more alluring than Elizabeth Stanton whose only traces remain in a few tantalisingly blurred photographs. Why will no one speak of her? What happened a generation ago to make her vanish?As the sun beats down relentlessly, Alice becomes ever more determined to unearth the truth about the girl in the photograph - and stop her own life from becoming an eerie echo of Elizabeth's . . . Lifelong fans of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca will adore Kate Riordan's exquisite novel, The Girl in the Photograph.Praise for The Girl in the Photograph:'Full of slow-burning tension' Essentials'A sweeping saga of secrets and ghosts' Good Housekeeping'A well executed, brooding, creepy atmosphere' Sunday Mirror'A prickly story full of tension' Sunday ExpressKate Riordan is a writer and journalist. She started out as an editorial assistant at the Guardian, followed by a stint as deputy editor for the lifestyle section of Time Out. She now works freelance and lives in the Cotswolds, where she is currently working on her next novel.

The Girl in the Photograph

The Shadow Hour

A top ten Red Magazine book . . . ____________ Cornwall, 1940. In the hushed hours of deepest night a young woman is found washed up on the rocks. Was it a tragic accident? Or should the residents of Penhallow have been more careful about whom they invited in? In the midst of war three women arrive seeking safety at Penhallow Hall. Each is looking to escape her past. But one of them is not there by choice. As the threat of invasion mounts and the nightly blackouts feel longer and longer, tensions between the close-knit residents rise until dark secrets start to surface. And no one can predict what their neighbour is capable of . . . In a house full of strangers, who do you trust? ____________ 'A beautiful and intriguing page-turner. Cornwall springs to life in vivid colour' Dinah Jefferies, author of The Sapphire Widow 'Wonderfully atmospheric and utterly engrossing. I hardly moved until I had read the very last word' AJ Pearce, author of Dear Mrs Bird

A gripping story of secrets and lies for fans of The Beekeeper's Promise

The Stranger

Lorsque Sylvie Durand reçoit une lettre lui intimant de se rendre de toute urgence à La Rêverie, sa maison en Provence, elle comprend qu’elle n’a plus le choix. Au cœur d’un été étouffant, marqué par des incendies d’une violence inhabituelle, Sylvie retourne donc à La Rêverie avec Emma, sa fille cadette, dans ses bagages.Alors que les souvenirs des événements qui ont brisé leur famille une décennie plus tôt menacent de remonter à la surface, Sylvie tente à tout prix de dépasser le profond sentiment d’effroi que lui inspire cet endroit. Et surtout de cacher à Emma la vérité sur ce qu’il s’est réellement passé cet été-là. Mais, du moindre recoin de la maison, surgit le spectre d’Élodie. Son aînée, venue au monde dans la tourmente de Mai 68. Sa jolie fille aux yeux vairons, que les villageois du coin comparaient volontiers à une « Manson Girl ». Élodie qui obtenait toujours ce qu’elle voulait. Élodie, disparue tragiquement à quatorze ans.À mesure que le mercure grimpe et que les feux se rapprochent, Sylvie sent poindre une menace bien plus effrayante. Qui pourrait tout changer. Alternant brillamment entre passé et présent, Kate Riordan tisse un page-turner captivant qui renouvelle le genre du roman d’été et interroge l’évidence supposée du lien maternel. Traduit de l’anglais par Géraldine D’Amico et Laurence Videloup

L'été où Élodie

Summer Fever

THE IRRESISTIBLE NEW NOVEL FROM AUTHOR OF RICHARD & JUDY PICK THE HEATWAVE 'A sexy, sultry, immersive read' HARRIET TYCE 'Intimate, intense and utterly addictive' EMMA STONEX _________ Two couples. One sweltering Italian villa . . . Nick and Laura are the hosts: pretending their marriage isn't on the rocks. Madison and Bastian are the guests: neither is remotely who they claim to be. Under the scorching Mediterranean sun, no secret is safe. No betrayal goes unnoticed. Two couples. But will either survive the summer . . . _________ Praise for Kate Riordan: 'Sultry, atmospheric and unsettling - a book to lose yourself in' ERIN KELLY 'The best book I have read this year. Atmospheric, thrilling and completely unputdownable' 5***** Reader Review 'Had me absolutely gripped' LOUISE CANDLISH 'The only book you need this summer. Gripping, well-paced and full of thrills' 5***** Reader Review

When You're the Outsider, Who Do You Trust?

Stranger

1940 Cornwall, England. Penhallow Hall shelters a handful of Land Girls, sent to the coast to avoid the horrors of London's Blitz. But the beautiful, arrogant Diana Devlin, impatient with the sleepy village and its placid residents, can't resist the temptation to stir up long-buried secrets. When a young woman's body is found lying broken on the shore, the promised safety of the Hall is shattered. Was it simply a tragic accident, or did mischief end in murder?

A novelisation of ITV's lavish period drama, Sanditon, adapted for television by Emmy and BAFTA-Award winning writer Andrew Davies and based on Jane Austen's unfinished novel. When a chance accident transports Charlotte Heywood to the seaside town of Sanditon, her life changes forever. And when she meets the charming and slightly wild Sidney Parker, she finds herself caught up in a whirlwind of romance, betrayal and changing alliances - nobody in Sanditon is quite as they seem. Discover the world Jane Austen left behind and meet the characters brought to the page by Kate Riordan. Every coastal town has its secrets - but Sanditon has more than most!

Official ITV Tie-In Edition

In this haunting and richly imagined dual-narrative tale that echoes the eerie mystery of Rebecca and The Little Stranger, two women of very different eras are united by the secrets hidden within the walls of an English manor house. In 1933, naive twenty-two year-old Alice—pregnant and unmarried—is in disgrace. Her mother banishes her from London to secluded Fiercombe Manor in rural Gloucestershire, where she can hide under the watchful eye of her mother’s old friend, the housekeeper Mrs. Jelphs. The manor’s owners, the Stantons, live abroad, and with her cover story of a recently-deceased husband Alice can have her baby there before giving it up for adoption and returning home. But as Alice endures the long, hot summer at Fiercombe awaiting the baby’s birth, she senses that something is amiss with the house and its absentee owners. Thirty years earlier, pregnant Lady Elizabeth Stanton desperately hopes for the heir her husband desires. Tormented by the memory of what happened after the birth of her first child, a daughter, she grows increasingly terrified that history will repeat itself, with devastating consequences. After meeting Tom, the young scion of the Stanton family, Alice becomes determined to uncover the clan’s tragic past and exorcise the ghosts of this idyllic, isolated house. But nothing can prepare Alice for what she uncovers. Soon it is her turn to fear: can she escape the tragic fate of the other women who have lived in the Fiercombe valley . . .

Fiercombe Manor

Andrew Davies

For fans of Rachel Rhys' The Dangerous Crossing and Victoria Hislops's Cartes Postales from Greece, NOW AT THIS SPECIAL EBOOK PRICE It was in the shadow hours of deepest night that this tapestry of lies fell to rags . . . Harriet Jenner is just twenty-one when she walks through the gates of Fenix House. Reeling from a personal tragedy, she doesn't expect her new life as a governess to be easy. But she certainly does not foresee the spell Fenix House will cast. Almost fifty years later, Harriet's granddaughter Grace follows in her footsteps. For Grace, raised on Harriet's spellbinding stories, Fenix House is a fairy tale; a magical place suspended in time. But the now-faded grandeur of the mansion soon begins to reveal the holes in Harriet's story and Grace finds herself in a place of secrets and shadows. For Fenix House hides truths about her family, and everything that she once knew is about to change. Praise for The Shadow Hour 'I was immediately drawn in by this beautifully written tale. I loved the sense of intrigue and the air of mystery at Fenix House, and was itching for answers as the two narratives unfolded' Dinah Jefferies 'A perfect gothic, big-house mystery that kept me turning the pages' Katherine Webb 'It's wonderful - the dark suspense and evocative descriptions are perfect' Liz Fenwick 'We loved last year's The Girl in the Photograph and this latest atmospheric saga is just as thrilling' Essentials 'Intelligent, poignant, unexpected: highly recommended' Louise Candlish 'Beautifully written and utterly compelling, I loved this' Katie Fforde 'Gorgeously written - Kate's evocative storytelling held me rapt until the very end' Lucy Diamond 'Full of dark intrigue, rich description and haunting secrets, this kept me reading and reading! Beautifully written and compelling until the end. I adored it' Ella Harper

Secrets and lies in the 1930s in an atmospheric short story from the bestselling author of The Girl in the Photograph Marjorie knows that James has had affairs in the past but she believed him when he said it would never happen again. Then the old warning signs start to reappear. He stays late at work and seems distracted when he's at home. That doesn't stop her breath catching in her throat when she sees the letter inked into his diary. A red A - seemingly innocuous and yet devastating. Undeniable. She was a clever, independent and desirable woman once. Not someone's second best with a broken spirit. And as Marjorie looks at the red letter A - Amy? Angela? - she realises that it's time to rediscover herself and take back control of her life. This short story also includes an exclusive extract from Kate Riordan's new novel The Shadow Hour

The Red Letter

Nineteen twenty-two. Grace has been sent to the stately and crumbling Fenix House to follow in her grandmother's footsteps as a governess. But when she meets the house's inhabitants, people who she had only previously heard of in stories, the cracks in her grandmother's tale begin to show. Secrets appear to live in the house's very walls and everybody is resolutely protecting their own. Why has she been sent here? Why did her grandmother leave after just one summer? And as the past collides with the present, can Grace unravel these secrets and discover who her grandmother, and who she, really is?

Shadow Hour

Als Sylvie einen Brief erhält, der sie in das verlassene Anwesen ihrer Familie in der Provence zurückruft, weiß sie, dass sie gehen muss. Mitten in einem schwülen Sommer, der von Hitzewellen und Bränden auf dem Land geprägt ist, reist die alleinerziehende Mutter mit ihrer jüngsten Tochter Emma im Schlepptau nach »La Reverie«. Dabei wollte sie Emma doch unter allen Umständen von diesem Ort fernhalten ... Zurück im alten Zuhause kommen Erinnerungen hoch: Über dem Haus schwebt bedrohlich der Geist von Elodie, Sylvies erstem Kind. Elodie mit dem goldenen Haar. Elodie, die genau wusste, wie sie bekam, was sie wollte. Elodie, über deren Tod die Dorfbewohner immer noch tuscheln. Während die Brandherde sich der Villa nähern und Sylvie sich in den Gedanken an das, was Elodie im Sommer vor zehn Jahren zustieß, zu verlieren droht, gerät die Situation in La Reverie mehr und mehr außer Kontrolle ...Kate Riordan erzählt von einer Mutter, die gegen die Schatten ihrer Vergangenheit kämpft – um zu retten, was sie liebt: ›Das verborgene Zimmer‹ ist ein hochspannender Roman, der niemanden kalt lassen wird.

Kate Riordan

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