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The autumn selected titles by the Richard & Judy Bookclub have been announced.
It’s hard to fault the great work that the R & J bookclub has done to promote reading, modern literature and bookclubs internationally. The book club, which is exclusively for WH Smith, has made bestsellers out of books over the course of it’s lifetime and this year’s selection looks promising.
The autumn offering sees three very established authors with titles selected: Kate Mosse, S K Tremayne and Anne Tyler.
Mosse, whose debut novel Labyrinth was picked for the first ever Richard and Judy Book Club in 2005 is chosen for her novel The Taxidermist’s Daughter. Anne Tyler’s novel A Spool of Blue Thread, which was shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction is also on the list, as is The Ice Twins by Tremayne. Other titles giving the pleasure of making this list of lists include:
The Well by Catherine Chanter, Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon, The Tea Planters Wife by Dinah Jefferies, The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson and Life After You, a debut memoir from blogger Lucie Brownlee.
Richard Madeley said: “Judy and I have spent many a happy hour this summer selecting the titles for this list. We continue to be amazed at just how many talented writers are out there.”
Judy Finnigan said: “We love to hear what people think about the titles we choose – that’s what the Book Club is all about – so please keep exchanging your own thoughts and reviews – and remember to listen to our podcast series to hear our exclusive interviews with the authors.”
The list is exclusive to WH Smith, which today also announced that I Let You Go by debut author Clare Mackintosh is the latest winning title of the readers’ vote for the summer 2015 selection.
Mackintosh said: “It has been such an honour to be part of the Richard and Judy Book Club this summer, and this is the icing on the cake. I’m thrilled to know that so many people have enjoyed my debut novel, and so grateful to everyone who voted for I Let You Go.”
Here’s some more information on each of the titles:
The Taxidermist’s Daughter by Kate Mosse
The clock strikes twelve. Beneath the wind and the remorseless tolling of the bell, no one can hear the scream …1912. A Sussex churchyard. Villagers gather on the night when the ghosts of those who will not survive the coming year are thought to walk. And in the shadows, a woman lies dead. As the flood waters rise, Connie Gifford is marooned in a decaying house with her increasingly tormented father. He drinks to escape the past, but an accident has robbed her of her most significant childhood memories. Until the disturbance at the church awakens fragments of those vanished years …
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
Delayed in London, Ted Severson meets a woman at the airport bar. Over cocktails they tell each other rather more than they should, and a dark plan is hatched – but are either of them being serious, could they actually go through with it and, if they did, what would be their chances of getting away with it?
Back in Boston, Ted’s wife Miranda is busy site managing the construction of their dream home, a beautiful house out on the Maine coastline. But what secrets is she carrying and to what lengths might she go to protect the vision she has of her deserved future?
A sublimely plotted novel of trust and betrayal, The Kind Worth Killing will keep you gripped and guessing late into the night.
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
‘It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon…’ This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she and Red fell in love that day in July 1959. The whole family on the porch, relaxed, half-listening as their mother tells the same tale they have heard so many times before. And yet this gathering is different.
The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jefferies
Dinah Jefferies’ unforgettable new novel, The Tea Planter’s Wife is a haunting, tender portrait of a woman forced to choose between her duty as a wife and her instinct as a mother…Nineteen-year-old Gwendolyn Hooper steps off a steamer in Ceylon full of optimism, eager to join her new husband. But the man who greets her at the tea plantation is not the same one she fell in love with in London.
The Ice Twins by S.K. Tremayne
A year after one of their identical twin daughters, Lydia, dies in an accident, Angus and Sarah Moorcraft move to the tiny Scottish island Angus inherited from his grandmother, hoping to put together the pieces of their shattered lives. But when their surviving daughter, Kirstie, claims they have mistaken her identity – that she, in fact, is Lydia – their world comes crashing down once again.
Life After You by Lucie Brownlee
At the impossibly young age of 37, as they were making love one night, Lucie Brownlee’s beloved husband Mark dropped dead. As Lucie tried to make sense of her new life – the one she never thought she would be living – she turned to writing to express her grief. Me After You is the stunning, irreverent and heartbreakingly honest result.
The Well by Catherine Chanter
When Ruth Ardingly and her family first drive up from London in their grime-encrusted car and view The Well, they are enchanted by a jewel of a place, a farm that appears to offer everything the family are searching for. An opportunity for Ruth. An escape for Mark. A home for their grandson Lucien. But The Well’s unique glory comes at a terrible price.
Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon
Berlin 1949. Alex Meier, a young Jewish writer, fled the Nazis for America before the war. But the politics of his youth have now put him in the crosshairs of the McCarthy witch-hunts. Faced with deportation and the loss of his family, he makes a desperate bargain with the fledgling CIA: he will earn his way back to America by acting as their agent in his native Berlin.
