Recommendations based on "These Mortal Bodies"

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.

'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.

Two women, centuries apart. One endless nightmare tearing Wales apart – and only they can stop it.Sunday Times bestselling author Barbara Erskine returns to Hay in the year that marks the 30th anniversary of her sensational debut bestseller, Lady of Hay.Hay-On-Wye, 1400 – War is brewing in the Welsh borders, Catrin is on the brink of womanhood and falling in love for the first time. Her father is a soothsayer, playing a dangerous game playing on the mixed loyalties and furious rivalries between welsh princes and English lords. For two hundred years, the Welsh people have lain under the English yoke, dreaming of independence. And finally it looks as though the charismatic Owain Glyndwr may be the man legend tralks of. In the walls of Sleeper’s Castle, Catrin finds herself caught in the middle of a doomed war as she is called upon to foretell Wales’s destiny… And what she sees, is blood and war coming closer…Hay, 2015. Miranda has moved to Sleeper’s Castle to escape and grieve. Slowly she feels herself coming to life in the solitude of the mountains. But every time she closes her eyes her dreams become more vivid. And she makes a connection with a young girl, who’s screaming, who’s reaching out… who only Miranda can help. Is she losing herself to time?

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).

A summer house holds dark secrets—and a terrifying evil—in the New York Times bestselling author’s “compelling gothic mystery” (Publishers Weekly). Lily Dale, New York, is a sleepy, summer resort. A population of psychics and mediums lives within its gates. It is also the place where Julia Garrity and Kristin Shuttleworth formed a fast friendship—one broken only by death. On Halloween night fifteen years ago, Kristin saw something in a house on Summer Street that would haunt her until the end of her days. Since then, Julia has watched both Kristin and her mother fall prey to whomever—or whatever—lurks there. Now Kristin’s blind six-year-old daughter, Dulcie, has come to live in Lily Dale—at that very house on Summer Street. Appointing herself protector, Julia is determined to coax the secrets of the house out into the light, to discover what the little girl “sees” roaming its halls . . . before the murderous force residing there claims them both.

Wire in the blood: "Young girls are disappearing around the country. Everyone assumes they are teenage runaways, headed for the city and bright lights. They vanish without trace - society's disposable children. There is nothing to connect them to each other, let alone the killer whose charming manner hides a warped and sick mind. Nobody moves around inside the messy heads of serial killers like Dr. Tony Hill. Now heading up the recently founded National Profiling Task Force, he sets his team an exercise: they are given the details of thirty missing teenagers and ask to use their new techniques to discover whether there is a sinister link between any of the cases. Only one officer, Shaz Bowman, comes up with a concrete theory, but it is ridiculed by the rest of her group...until a killer murders and mutilates one of their number. Could Bowman's outrageous suspicion possibly be true?"

Despite the wishes of her overprotective fiancé, Sarah Booth Delaney can't give up her detective work, no matter how dangerous it becomes. It's too much a part of her. On this case, avoiding danger might be impossible—she's on the trail of a porn-star-turned-psychic operating from a haunted estate on the edge of town. Medium Sherry Cameron promises to reunite grieving family members with their dearly departed, but it seems vaguely suspicious that Sherry will only accept emotionally vulnerable and tremendously wealthy clients. Aging billionaire Marjorie Littlefield fits the profile perfectly—her daughter died in a tragic accident as a young girl, she's been estranged from her son for decades, and she's planning to leave her considerable inheritance to her cat.Convinced she's uncovered a scheme to separate a lonely woman from her fortune, Sarah Booth talks her way onto the estate as a maid, where she finds Marjorie and several other wealthy eccentrics ready to commune with the dead. Between chores, Sarah Booth explores the estate, mingles with the other staff...and finds a few dead bodies. But which guest or staff member might be the killer? Even Jitty, Sarah Booth's personal haint, won't tell until Sarah Booth has uncovered all of Sherry's well-kept secrets.With spooks and charlatans around every corner, Sarah Booth is the only PI in the southlands who can put an end to this elaborate scam in Bonefire of the Vanities, the charming twelfth entry in Carolyn Haines's sparkling series.

In Leaving Everything Most Loved by New York Times bestselling author Jacqueline Winspear, Maisie Dobbs investigates the murder of Indian immigrants in London. The year is 1933. Maisie Dobbs is contacted by an Indian gentleman who has come to England in the hopes of finding out who killed his sister two months ago. Scotland Yard failed to make any arrest in the case, and there is reason to believe they failed to conduct a thorough investigation. The case becomes even more challenging when another Indian woman is murdered just hours before a scheduled interview. Meanwhile, unfinished business from a previous case becomes a distraction, as does a new development in Maisie's personal life. Bringing a crucial chapter in the life and times of Maisie Dobbs to a close, Leaving Everything Most Loved marks a pivotal moment in this outstanding mystery series.

Heartwarming and nostalgic new Saga series from the author of Mother’s Day on Coronation Street. One ordinary street in Lancashire is getting ready for war, who knows what else is going on behind the net curtains?Vicky Parrot wanted more out of life than working all hours in her father’s Post Office. Her dreams were ruined when tragedy came calling, and now happiness seems impossible.The other townsfolk have their problems too. Sylvia Barker runs the haberdashery shop and she’s hiding more than a few secrets behind the bales of wool in the shop window. Her daughter Rosie wants more out of life than needles and cotton, but her headstrong ways are about to get her into trouble.Life goes on for the people of Greenhill, what they can’t know is that their world is about to change forever... Praise for Maggie Sullivan ‘A wonderfully nostalgic tale’ Choice Magazine

She bought this house to save her marriage. Unearthing its secrets might just claim her life. Gwen McDaniel’s life is broken. But she knows the perfect place to fix it. Cold Harbor, Maine, an idyllic small town with views of Acadia National Park, is where she used to vacation with her parents as a child. Here, she and Steven can start over, renovating their cliff-side fixer-upper while patching up their marriage. Soon, everything will be better. Except from the moment they arrive, Gwen sees and hears things, and it’s more than just the drafts and shadows that are part of any old house. Steven downplays her fears, warning her not to fixate on problems as she has in the past. But Gwen spent years as a homicide detective, and her instincts don’t lie. Something happened here. Proof comes when she rips up the attic’s carpet to discover a chilling message carved into the wood underneath. As Gwen delves into the history of the house and the Cold Harbor community, she begins to piece the fragments together. And gradually, a terrifying picture emerges: A missing girl. A house of horrors. And a dark, decades-old nightmare that is more haunting than Gwen ever imagined…