Recommendations based on "The Muse"

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?

Valerie Wilson Wesley’s Tamara Hayle mystery series featuring Newark, New Jersey’s number one private investigator are loved for their smart, sexy protagonist who “has a way with a wisecrack that is positively lethal” (Washington Post). Now in Dying in the Dark, Hayle is entrenched in a sinister investigation that will demand her best detective work yet. Tamara Hayle’s past has come back to haunt her–literally. She’s been plagued by terrifying dreams about Celia Jones, an old friend whose walk on the wild side led her to a horrible death. Celia’s teenage son, Cecil, begs Tamara to find his mother’s killer . . . only to end up dead himself, stabbed through the heart. The search for Celia and her son’s killer pulls Tamara deep into her friend’s troubled love life, where everyone adored her but somebody held a murderous  grudge. There’s her bullying thug of an ex-husband; a handsome ex-lover who woos Tamara with charm and lies; and an angry, jealous woman who claims that Celia broke her heart. And those were just the obvious people with axes to grind. Despite her better judgment and the admonitions of the police department, Tamara refuses to back away from the mystery surrounding her old friend’s death and the tragedy that met her son. All clues lead to the past Tamara shared with Celia Jones, and Tamara fears that that past will threaten her own son. But she uncovers more than she bargained for–and unearths secrets someone would kill to keep in the shadows.

‘What a page turner!' Daisy Wood, author of The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris 'A delicious Art Deco novel with a delightfully acerbic heroine.' Marius Gabriel, author of The German Daughter

'Brooks writes with tremendous warmth, a natural knack for dialogue and such persuasive narrative skill that, travelling further into the cult's clutches, your brain feels insidiously sapped... It begs to be read; resists caricature; and has you fumbling, like its principal character, in a ragbag of knowledge, attempting to fend off that philosophical nonsense which marshmallows the brain' NEW STATESMAN When Lucy goes missing, her sister Carmen sets out to find her. The search leads Carmen into the closed world of an enigmatic religious cult and, in the week that follows. Carmen's induction into the society of ever-smiling, singing people with strangely vacant eyes leaves her raging, confused, exhausted and suspicious. Is this a dream of perfect love, or a sinister manipulation? Heavenly Deception is a remarkable and profoundly disturbing portrayal of fanaticism. 'A powerful study in psychic manipulation, and a well-aimed ana hard-hitting story' LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS 'The sinister mind-bending practised by the Moonies is a serious subject, and Miss Brooks writes about it with a compelling, crusading energy that makes for a convincing, disturbing and valuable novel' DAILY TELEGRAPH.

Elena Weaver, in her skimpy dresses and bright jewellery, exuded intelligence and sexuality. A student at St Stephen's College, Cambridge, she lived a life of casual but intense physical and emotional relationships, with scores to settle and targets to achieve. Until someone, lying in wait on the bank of the River Cam, where Elena went running every morning, bludgeoned the young woman to death. Called into the rarefied world of academia, Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner Barbara Havers find a tangled skein of love, obsession and desire -- a maelstrom of emotion that has claimed Elena Weaver's life.

When Joss, an adopted child, discovers that her real mother has left the beautiful family home, Belheddon Hall, to her, she is thrilled, until she discovers that the Hall is haunted by a presence which will not tolerate husbands or sons living in the house. When Joss Grant inherits the beautiful old house on the East Anglian coast, it is a dream come true. Eager to begin a new life there with her husband and son, she is also impatient to find out about her newly discovered family who lived there for generations. But Joss begins to hears echoing voices and senses an invisible presence, watching her from the shadows. Are they spirits from the past? Or is it her imagination? As she learns, with mounting horror, of the house's tragic history, her fears intensify, for she realizes that both her family and her own sanity are at the mercy of a violent and powerful energy which seems beyond anyone's control. Despite the threat to her own husband and son, Joss is unable to break free, and, in a last desperate attempt, conjures up the presence to deal with 'it' once and for all.

The Brand-new, Gripping Historical Novel From The Sunday Times Bestselling Author Of Lady Of Hay! ‘warmth, Depth, Mystery, Magic And The Supernatural ... Such A Beautiful Book!’ Bestselling Author Santa Montefiore

The Start Of A Thrilling New Second World War Mystery Series From The Number-one-bestselling And Multi-award-winning Author Of Murder Most Unladylike. 1940. Britain Is At War, And A Secret Arm Of The British Government Called The Ministry Of Unladylike Activity Is Training Up Spies. Enter May Wong: Courageous, Stubborn, And Desperate To Help End The War So That She Can Go Home To Hong Kong (and Leave Her Annoying School, Deepdean, Behind Forever). May Knows That She Would Make The Perfect Spy. After All, Grown-ups Always Underestimate Children Like Her. When May And Her Friend Eric Are Turned Away By The Ministry, They Take Matters Into Their Own Hands. Masquerading As Evacuees, They Travel To Elysium Hall, Home To The Wealthy Verey Family - Including Snobby, Dramatic Nuala. They Suspect That One Of The Vereys Is Passing Information To Germany. If They Can Prove It, The Ministry Will Have To Take Them On. But There Are More Secrets At Elysium Hall Than May Or Eric Could Ever Have Imagined. And Then Someone Is Murdered...

Radcliffe Emerson, the irascible husband of fellow archaeologist and Egyptologist Amelia Peabody, has earned the nickname "Father of Curses" -- and at Mazghunah he demonstrates why. Denied permission to dig at the pyramids of Dahshoor, he and Amelia are resigned to excavating mounds of rubble in the middle of nowhere. And there is nothing in this barren area worthy of their interest -- until an antiquities dealer is murdered in his own shop. A second sighting of a sinister stranger from the crime scene, a mysterious scrap of papyrus, and a missing mummy case have all whetted Amelia's curiosity. But when the Emersons start digging for answers in an ancient tomb, events take a darker and deadlier turn -- and there may be no surviving the very modern terrors their efforts reveal.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As Europe buckles under Nazi occupation, Maisie Dobbs investigates a possible murder that threatens devastating repercussions for Britain's war efforts in this latest installment in the New York Times bestselling mystery series. October 1941. While on a delivery, young Freddie Hackett, a message runner for a government office, witnesses an argument that ends in murder. Crouching in the doorway of a bombed-out house, Freddie waits until the coast is clear. But when he arrives at the delivery address, he’s shocked to come face to face with the killer. Dismissed by the police when he attempts to report the crime, Freddie goes in search of a woman he once met when delivering a message: Maisie Dobbs. While Maisie believes the boy and wants to help, she must maintain extreme caution: she’s working secretly for the Special Operations Executive, assessing candidates for crucial work with the French resistance. Her two worlds collide when she spots the killer in a place she least expects. She soon realizes she’s been pulled into the orbit of a man who has his own reasons to kill—reasons that go back to the last war. As Maisie becomes entangled in a power struggle between Britain’s intelligence efforts in France and the work of Free French agents operating across Europe, she must also contend with the lingering question of Freddie Hackett’s state of mind. What she uncovers could hold disastrous consequences for all involved in this compelling chapter of the “series that seems to get better with every entry” (Wall Street Journal).