Publish Date: 2019
Season 9
October 2022 – December 2022
Great Circle
By Maggie Shipstead
Publish Date: 2021
Marian Graves is a daring aviator determined to be the first to fly around the world north-south over the poles. In 1950, near the end of her historic attempt, she vanishes in Antarctica. Hadley Baxter is a scandal-plagued movie star…
The Far Pavilions
By M. M. Kaye
Publish Date: 1978
This epic, sweeping romance tells the story of Ashton Pelham-Martyn, an English man brought up as a Hindu, and his undying love for Juli, an Indian princess. Inspired by Kaye’s childhood in India, her family’s experiences of military life and…
Mrs ‘Arris Goes to Paris
By Paul Gallico
Publish Date: 1958
Mrs Harris is a salt-of-the-earth London charlady who cheerfully cleans the houses of the rich. One day, when tidying Lady Dant's wardrobe, she comes across the most beautiful thing she has ever seen in her life - a Dior dress.…
Labyrinth
By Kate Mosse
Publish Date: 2005
Three secrets. Two women. One Grail ... July 1209: in Carcassonne a 17-year-old girl is given a mysterious book by her father which he claims contains the secret of the true Grail. Although Alais cannot understand the strange words and…
Season 8
October 2022 - December 2022
City Of Girls
By Elizabeth Gilbert
New York, 1940. Vivian, a young girl exiled by her parents, arrives in the big city with her sewing machine. At the Lily Playhouse, a rather disreputable yet charming Manhattan revue theatre, she makes a new family and learns to…
The Book Thief
By Markus Zusak
Publish Date: 2006
A novel described as 'unsettling, life-affirming, triumphant and tragic', The Book Thief is set in Nazi Germany and tells the story of nine-year-old Liesel and her love for books, books which she steals wherever she can find them. But when…
Dracula
By Bram Stoker
Publish Date: 1897
A tale which has fascinated readers for over a century and filled them with terror, Dracula is a masterpiece of Gothic fiction narrated through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. The mysterious Count Dracula, a vampire from Transylvania who survives…
The Whalebone Theatre
By Joanna Quinn
Publish Date: 2022
Despite her adverse circumstances, young Cristabel Seagrave has big dreams for her life and is determined to write her own story. When a whale washes up on the Dorset shore, she plants her flag, and the inanimate carcass becomes the…
Season 7
July 2022 - September 2022
Dark Tides
By Philippa Gregory
Publish Date: 2020
The second volume in the trilogy of The Fairmile Series, Dark Tides continues the sweeping saga of the Tidelands family. When two unexpected visitors show up at a shabby warehouse on the south side of the river Thames, Alinor…
Girl, Woman, Other
By Bernardine Evaristo
Publish Date: 2019 Awards: 2019 Booker Prize
‘A must-read about modern Britain and womanhood. This is an impressive, fierce novel about the lives of black British families, their struggles, pains, laughter, longings and loves. With a dazzling rhythm, Evaristo takes us on a journey of intergenerational stories,…
The Fair Botanists
By Sara Sheridan
Publish Date: 2021
It's the summer of 1822, and in Edinburgh botanists patiently await for the Agave Americana plant to flower in the newly-installed Botanic Garden. When newly widowed Elizabeth moves into the grand house bordering the Botanic Garden, she becomes interested…
Pride And Prejudice
By Jane Austen
Recommended by: Miranda Cowley Heller
Publish Date: 1813
While Mrs Bennet wishes nothing better for her daughters than the prospect of an advantageous marriage, her daughter Elizabeth thinks otherwise. When the wealthy and eligible bachelor Mr Bingley moves into the neighbourhood, he soon becomes attached to Elizabeth's…
Season 6
Jan 2022 – Feb 2022
Atonement
By Ian McEwan
Publish Date: 2007
It's the summer of 1935, and young Briony sees her older sister Cecilia plunge nearly naked into the fountain of their country house, while Robbie Turner, the housekeeper's son, is watching. From that moment, their lives will never be the…
The Paper Palace
By Miranda Cowley Heller
Publish Date: 2021
It's a glorious August morning, when Elle Bishop wakes up after a dinner party and heads for a swim in the freshwater pond below 'The Paper Palace' – the gently decaying summer camp in the back woods of Cape Cod…
Suite Française
By Irène Némirovsky
Publish Date: 2004
Set in 1940, the year France fell to Nazi occupation, Suite Francaise tells two stories, that of a group of Parisians fleeing the invasion and that of a small rural community under German occupation. But even in dire circumstances, Némirovsky…
The Kite Runner
By Khaled Hosseini
Publish Date: 2003
Amir is a young boy who likes running kites with Hassan, the son of his father's servant. But neither of the boys can foresee what is soon to happen, an event that will change their lives forever. Told against the…
Season 5
January 2022 - March 2022
My Brilliant Friend
By Elena Ferrante
Publish Date: 2011
'Rino’s mother is named Raffaella Cerullo, but everyone has always called her Lina. Not me ... To me, for more than sixty years, she’s been Lila.' Set in the 1950s, My Brilliant Friend is the first volume of the "Neapolitan…
The Queen’s Necklace
By Alexandre Dumas
Publish Date: 1849-1850
Inspired by the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, an incident which took place in the 1780s at the court of Louis XVI involving a precious diamond necklace and Marie Antoinette, The Queen's Necklace tells a tale of duplicity and deception,…
Hamnet
By Maggie O'Farrell
Publish Date: 2020 Awards: 2021 British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year, 2020 Waterstones Book of the Year, 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction
Inspired by Shakespeare's most famous play, Hamnet is the story of a boy whose life has been forgotten, but whose name has echoed throughout the centuries as one of the greatest plays ever written. Reimagining the life of Hamnet Shakespeare,…
Magpie Murders
By Anthony Horowitz
Publish Date: 2016
When editor Susan Ryeland receives the latest manuscript from Alan Conway, the celebrated author of mystery novels centred on the detective Atticus Pund, she does not realise that between the lines is hidden another story, one of greed, jealousy, ruthless…
Season 4
October 2021 - December 2021
Half Of A Yellow Sun
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Publish Date: 2006 Awards: 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction
Against the backdrop of the Biafran war to establish the independence of Nigeria, the lives of five people are dramatically upended, and their ideals and personal loyalties tested. The novel follows young Ugwu, the revolutionary professor Odenigbo, the beautiful Olanna,…
Left You Dead
By Peter James
Publish Date: 2021
The eighteen books of this series see Brighton-based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace investigate mysterious and puzzling crimes. A man haunted by his demons and by the disappearance of his own wife, Roy Grace "is a new, and very different detective...open-minded…
The Woman In White
By Wilkie Collins
Publish Date: 1859-1860
'On a moonlit road close to midnight, a touch on Walter Hartright’s arm sends him spinning. Next to him, materialised as if out of the air, is a woman dressed from head to toe in white.' Published in serialised form…
The Island
By Victoria Hislop
Publish Date: 2005 Awards: 2007 Galaxy British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year Award
The book follows Alexis on a journey to find out about her mother Sofia's past in Crete. Determined to visit the island, she sets off to Greece. Here, she meets Fotini, a friend of her mother's, who reveals to Alexis…
Season 3
July 2021 - September 2021
War Horse
By Michael Morpurgo
Publish Date: 1982
Joey is a young farm horse. In 1914, he is sold to the army and finds himself fighting alongside his officer on the Western Front. Amidst the horrors of the Great War on the frontline, his courage will be an…
The Light Years
By Elizabeth Jane Howard
Publish Date: 1990
Every summer, the Cazalet brothers spend two months in the family home in the Sussex countryside with their wives and children, and their unmarried sister Rachel. As they enjoy a seemingly idyllic sojourn, they can't manage to escape their troubles…
The Various Haunts Of Men
By Susan Hill
Publish Date: 2009
This book is the first instalment of the Simon Serrailler crime novels. Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler and policewoman Freya Graffham are investigating the disappearance of a woman on the hill in Lafferton. A pair of cufflinks and a mysterious note…
The Remains Of The Day
By Kazuo Ishiguro
Publish Date: 1989 Awards: 1989 Booker Prize for Fiction
Stevens is an English butler who spent his life to the service of the recently deceased Lord Darlington. Encouraged to take a well-earned vacation, he decides to visit Miss Kenton, the former housekeeper at Darlington Hall. During the journey, he…
Season 2
April 2021 - June 2021
The Red Notebook
By Antoine Laurain
Publish Date: 2015
One morning, on his way to work, bookseller Laurent Letellier notices an abandoned handbag on top of a bin. Compelled to return the bag to its rightful owner, he attempts to go to the police, but with no success. Upon…
A Gentleman In Moscow
By Amor Towles
Publish Date: 2016
Moscow, 1922. Count Alexander Rostov is escorted out of the Bolshevik tribunal held in the Kremlin and into the grand Metropol Hotel. An unrepentant aristocrat, he is sentenced to live the rest of his life on the sixth floor of…
Girl
By Edna O'Brien
Publish Date: 2019 Awards: 2020 Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year
Maryam is only a young girl when she is abducted by the Jihadis, finding herself married into Boko Haram. Inspired by the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping, her story is that of many girls, abruptly stripped of their innocence and forced to…
The Secret Commonwealth
By Philip Pullman
Publish Date: 2019
The second volume of Pullman's second trilogy The Book of Dust, this novel follows the protagonist, Lyra, in her second year as a student at Oxford. Pulled into a dark and mysterious world by her daemon, Pantalaimon, Lyra will find…
Season 10
A Suitable Boy
By Vikram Seth
Publish Date: 1993
Awards: 1994 Commonwealth Writers Prize
At its core, A Suitable Boy is a love story: the tale of Lata – and her mother’s – attempts to find her a suitable husband, through love or through exacting maternal appraisal. At the same time, it is the…
Love in the Time of Cholera
By Gabriel García Márquez
Publish Date: 1985
Fifty-one years, nine months and four days have passed since Fermina Daza rebuffed hopeless romantic Florentino Ariza's impassioned advances and married Dr Juvenal Urbino instead. During that half-century, Flornetino has fallen into the arms of many delighted women, but has…
Charlotte Gray
By Sebastian Faulks
Recommended by: Joanna Quinn
Publish Date: 1998
It's 1942 and Charlotte Gray, a young Scottish woman, is embarking on a dangerous journey to Occupied France, officially to run an errand for British special operations, but unofficially to look for her missing lover, an English airman. When she…
Season 1
January 2021 - March 2021
The Architect’s Apprentice
By Elif Shafak
Publish Date: 2013
Set in 16th century Istanbul, the novel follows the adventures of a boy of humble origins who arrives in the city with a wonderful gift for the sultan, a rare white elephant. On the back of his loyal companion, the…
Restless
By William Boyd
Publish Date: 2006
At the dawn of WW2, the young Eva, a Russian émigrée in Paris, is recruited to work for the British Secret Service. Under the guidance of her mentor, Lucas Romer, she transforms into the perfect spy, but all is not…
Where The Crawdads Sing
By Delia Owens
Publish Date: 2018 Awards: 2021 British Book of the Year: Page Turner Award
Set in the 1950s and '60s, the novel follows the adventures of the young Kya, who grew up isolated in the wild coastal marsh of North Carolina and finds herself accused of the murder of Chase Andrews, a local celebrity.…
The Mirror & The Light
By Hilary Mantel
Publish Date: 2020 Awards: 2021 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
This novel is the third and final instalment of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy, after Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012). The plot covers the last four years of Cromwell, minister at the court of Henry VIII, from…