The Novel Cure might be our desert island book as the books Berthoud and Elderkin write about are conjured up so brilliantly, you almost don't need to actually follow through and read them – it's the perfect portable library of everything! Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin met as English Literature...

Set in winter where our characters continuously get trapped in small wayside inns due to falling snow, this is a perfect read for dark nights.  The Duke of Salford, a man used to getting his own way, meets his match in Phoebe Marlow, a ‘country dab of a girl’ who...

A depressed librarian heads to India in the hopes of finding solace after the mothers-and-babies group at his library pushes him into early retirement. Hilary Byrd takes refuge in Ooty, a hill station in South India. There he finds solace in life's simple pleasures, travelling by rickshaw around the small...

5 out of 5: Readable / compulsive / immersive / fun / historical fiction / crime / thriller / charismatic main characters Looking for a brilliantly immersive page-turner? Read on.  It’s 1634, and The Devil and the Dark Water begins on the island of Batavia, a Dutch trading colony, where the...