Recommendations based on "The Graceview Patient A Novel"

An alluring literary mystery full of secrets and lies, when an art teacher at a psychiatric hospital in 1960s England finds her life turned upside down by the arrival of a mysterious patient who has spent decades living in complete isolation with his elderly aunts in a decrepit Victorian house. Perfect for fans of Ann Patchett, Barbara Kingsolver, and Tessa Hadley.In all failed relationships there is a tipping point. It goes unnoticed at the time but can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park…The London suburb of Croydon,1964: Helen Hansford is unmarried and in her thirties. Something of a disappointment to her middle-class parents, she’s an art therapist at the Westbury Park psychiatric hospital, where she has been having a rebellious love affair with her colleague Gil, a dashing but married doctor.One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance at a derelict, vine-covered Victorian house a few miles up the road. There the police find a mute, thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, his hair and beard down to his waist. It appears he lives in the old house with his elderly, frail aunt, who expires as soon as she’s admitted to the hospital. No one knows why William has been shut away for decades, unseen by neighbors, with only his two now-deceased aunts for company. Westbury Park becomes his refuge.When it emerges that William is not only sane but a talented artist, Helen comes to see him as something of a personal project. But as she tries to solve the puzzle of the Hidden Man’s past, Helen’s own carefully constructed life of secrets begins to unravel...A gorgeously written and life-affirming novel about life’s delicate layers of experience and connection, Shy Creatures reveals all the different ways we can be confined...and liberated.

Dix Steele is back in town, and 'town' is post-war LA. His best friend Brub is on the force of the LAPD, and as the two meet in country clubs and beach bars, they discuss the latest case: a strangler is preying on young women in the dark. Dix listens with interest as Brub describes their top suspect, as yet unnamed. Dix loves the dark and women in equal measure, so he knows enough to watch his step, though when he meets the luscious Laurel Gray, something begins to crack. The American Dream is showing its seamy underside.

A spellbinding new novel blending horror, fantasy, romance and mystery - from the author of A Witch in Time and The Ladies of the Secret Circus[Bokinfo].

Scarlet and Ivy return to creepy Rookwood School for a third mystery adventure!Perfect for fans of MURDER MOST UNLADYLIKE.With their evil headmaster, Mr Bartholomew, safely out of the picture and kindly Mrs Knight in charge, it looks like life at Rookwood School is looking up. There's a ballet recital Scarlet is desperate to star in, and more clues to uncover about the twins' mother.But after their beloved ballet teacher Miss Finch suddenly disappears and strange Madame Zelda takes her place, freakish things start happening. Poison letters are circulating the school, and 'accidents' are plaguing the students. It seems that the girls are in danger once more…Is someone out for the ultimate revenge?

Trixie’s summer is going to be sooo boring with her two older brothers away at camp. But then a millionaire’s daughter moves into the next-door mansion, an old miser hides a fortune in his decrepit house, and a runaway kid starts hiding out in Sleepyside!

“Quinn evocatively balances the outward cheerfulness of the 1950s with historical observations exploring racism, misogyny, homophobia and political persecution in this sharply drawn, gripping novel.” - People Magazine The New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye and The Rose Code returns with a haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, DC, boardinghouse during the McCarthy era. Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman’s daughter Nora, who finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatrice, whose career has come to an end along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare. Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst? Capturing the paranoia of the McCarthy era and evoking the changing roles for women in postwar America, The Briar Club is an intimate and thrilling novel of secrets and loyalty put to the test. A beautiful, foil cover, first edition.

Evil exists. Evil walks the streets. And evil has spawned a diabolical new disciple in this white-knuckle thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.PECCAVIThe Latin word is scrawled in blood at the scene of a young woman’s brutal murder: I HAVE SINNED. It’s a chilling Christmas greeting for Boston medical examiner Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli, who swiftly link the victim to controversial celebrity psychiatrist Joyce O’Donnell–Jane’s professional nemesis and member of a sinister cabal called the Mephisto Club.On top of Beacon Hill, the club’s acolytes devote themselves to the analysis of evil: Can it be explained by science? Does it have a physical presence? Do demons walk the earth? Drawing on a wealth of dark historical data and mysterious religious symbolism, the Mephisto scholars aim to prove a startling theory: that Satan himself exists among us.With the grisly appearance of a corpse on their doorstep, it’s clear that someone–or something–is indeed prowling the city. The members of the club begin to fear the very subject of their study. Could this maniacal killer be one of their own–or have they inadvertently summoned an evil entity from the darkness?Delving deep into the most baffling and unusual case of their careers, Maura and Jane embark on a terrifying journey to the very heart of evil, where they encounter a malevolent foe more dangerous than any they have ever faced . . . one whose work is only just beginning.From the Hardcover edition.

Product Description In her second volume of short stories, which follows the hugely successful Encounters, Barbara Erskine has created a wide and vivid range of worlds and emotions, From love, romance, loneliness, grief, to betrayal, passion, adventure and compelling suspense. A biographer investigating a tragic death hears voices from the past drawing her towards the truth... A nineteenth-century parson's daughter is caught tip in the excitement and romance of a smuggling intrigue... A young boy from a deprived background finds his own haven in the wastelands of the inner city... A young woman, struggling to choose between love or her career, finds help from an unexpected source... Contemporary, historical, spooky, humorous, there are over thirty delightful stories, each one guaranteed to capture the reader's imagination, and all demonstrating Barbara Erskine's unique powers its a storyteller. From the Publisher Bestselling author of Lady of Hay'Vivid, romantic, and deliciously scary' - Living 'Barbara Erskine's storytelling talent is undeniable.' - The Times About the Author Barbara Erskine is the author of the internationally bestselling novel Lady of Hay, which was translated into seventeen languages and has sold over a million copies worldwide. This was followed by another bestseller, Kingdom of Shadows. Her third novel, Child of the Phoenix, was based on the story of one of her own ancestors, and provides a link between some of the characters from Lady of Hay and Kingdom of Shadows, again encapsulating the author's dual themes of the supernatural and of history. Midnight is a Lonely Place enjoyed the same international bestselling success of Lady of Hay and was shortlisted for the WH Smith Thumping Good Read Award of 1995, and was followed by her most recent bestselling novel, House of Echoes, which was shortlisted for the WH Smith Thumping Good Read Award of 1996. She has also published a second volume of short stones, Distant Voices. Barbara Erskine has a degree in mediaeval Scottish history from Edinburgh University. She and her family divide their time between the Welsh borders and their ancient, crumbling manor house, near the unspoiled coast of North Essex.

The big new novel by the bestselling author of WHISPERS IN THE SAND: a gripping tale of witchcraft and romance, past and present, as her modern-day characters are caught up in a battle that has been raging for hundreds of years. Across the peninsular the mist rolled in, its icy fingers curling up the cliffs. Inside their houses people stirred in their sleep and children cried in the dark. The parish of Manningtree and Mistley has a dark history. In 1644, with England in the grip of a Puritan government, Matthew Hopkins, Cromwell's Witchfinder General, tortured scores of women there, including Liza, the herbalist, whose cottage still stands in Mistley, and Sarah Paxman, the daughter of the manor. And today the spirits of Hopkins and his victims haunt the old shop in the High Street, they say. Emma Dickson has given up her high-flying career to live in Liza's cottage, but now she is being driven half-mad by visions of the past; of Sarah's battle to save herself and Liza from the Witchfinder. In despair, Emma turns to the local rector for help, but he, too, is in the grip of something inexplicable -- something which threatens Emma. And, as the feast of Halloween approaches, Emma is caught up in a struggle that has been raging for centuries, as old enemies reach out across the years for their revenge. Can she stop the forces unleashed from the past wreaking their devastation in the present?

With her student days behind her and her career well underway, Sue and Bill, now married, together try to run a little hospital in the New England hills that was presented to the community by the town's wealthiest citizen, Elias Todd. Sue is Superintendent of Nurses, and her old friend Kit is helping her along with many of her fellow students from her years of training.After all the exciting nursing adventures these two girls have shared together, one might think they would find their new work rather tame. It is anything but tame for Sue, however, with that irrepressible street urchin, Marianna, as a student nurse; with Jean Ditmarr, sophisticated New Yorker, thinking she could put something over on the young Superintendent; with Dr. Bill so busy being a good doctor that Sue feared for a while he might not prove such a good husband; and above all, with the mysterious disappearance of the hospital sheets! Sue Barton is at her best with all the excitement and fun that this nurse seems destined to find in her nursing profession. The authentic setting of rural hospital life is the perfect backdrop for another great Sue Barton story.