WW1 is over. As a nurse at the front, Clementine has found and lost love, but has settled for middle class marriage. Vincent had half his face blown off, and wants more than life offers now. Drawn together by their shared experiences at the Front, they have a compulsive relationship, magnetic and parasitic, played out with blackmail and ending in disaster for one of them.

Winner of the Yorkshire Post Author of the Year Award:Lesley Glaister spins a couple's ordinary domestic problems into a riveting tale of psychological suspense Nadia is a sculptor driven by a single obsession: to conceive a child. Her husband, Simon, a geography professor, is on a quest to uncover new worlds beneath the earth's surface. Each consumed by private passions, the two live a blinkered coexistence, unable to see the bigger picture until it's too late. Simon's latest project, the exploration of an unmapped cave, is fraught with danger, taking him on a journey to plumb the most secret of places. Alone, Nadia is left to ponder her own interior mystery of being unable to bring a baby to term. When she learns that Simon has acted as a sperm donor to his former lover, who is now pregnant with his child, Nadia views it as the ultimate betrayal. With a cast of unforgettable characters, including an eccentric clairvoyant, and a...

This unconventional thriller probes the mysteries of art, celebrity stalking, and fatal obsession In a prestigious London gallery, a retrospective exhibition of Constance Benson's work is about to open. The main attraction will be the unveiling of her last painting. The portrait of her lover, eccentric visionary Patrick Mount, was completed right before he famously disappeared. Why has the reclusive artist kept her final masterwork hidden for thirty years? What happened to Mount? And why did Benson stop painting? Tony never met Patrick, having been born the day Patrick vanished. But he feels he knows the man—perhaps better than he knows himself. Tony has photographs, paintings, articles, and everything Patrick ever wrote. Now he wants what Patrick left unfinished in his memoir: the final phase of his Seven Steps to Bliss. And there's only one person standing in Tony's way. An addictive thriller that resonates with emotion, Sheer...

The past haunts the present as a woman struggles to liberate herself from her family's dark history This masterfully written novel plumbs the mysteries of the female psyche in a tale of buried family secrets and obsessive love. Zelda is getting ready for a date with her older lover, Foxy, whom she's sure is about to dump her, when the call comes. Zelda's father has hanged himself. His suicide brings back terrifying childhood memories of screams in the night. A POW in a Japanese prison camp during World War II, Ralph Dawkins was haunted by a nightmare: the guilty secret he harbored. Zelda's journey into the past brings back troubling questions that were never answered. Why did her father seem to prefer Vassily Pudilchuck, a friendless and disfigured neighborhood boy, to Zelda and her sister, Hazel? How did Vassily end up brutally assaulted? Zelda's own jealousies and bitter sibling rivalry have cast a long shadow across her present...

Something is buried deep in a northern English town in this novel of secrets, friendship, and long-simmering rivalries Former activists Olive and Arthur have been together for decades. They never married—they don't believe in it. Now obese, Olive is given to violent mood swings, while Arthur tenderly watches over her. Widowhood suits Nell, who has lived here for fifty years. She has her pension and her house but misses her husband, Jim. And now the bane of her existence—her ex-con son, Rodney—has come home. Between the adjoining houses, eight-year-old Wolfe lives with his family. Petra, his mother, who dreamed about a wolf while carrying him, is pregnant with her fourth child. Wolfe misses the commune where they used to live. He hates Halloween—and with good reason. The advent of trick or treat will set tempers flaring across this remote pocket of urban grit and stunted industrial growth. As Wolfe...

Two strangers who should never have met make an unusual connection in this dazzling novel by Lesley Glaister At sixteen, Lamb walked out on her life. It wasn't much to walk away from: Her parents were dead and she had no brothers or sisters—no one in the world who cared if she lived or died. Now she cleans houses and lives in the dusty cellar of an elderly widowed man, balancing on her high wire of loneliness. If she doesn't let anyone in, she can't fall. Then Doggo shows up. A fugitive on the run for committing a violent crime, he's accompanied by Gordon and Norma, two mutts who love him unconditionally. Doggo needs Lamb's help to stay off the radar. He also needs her in other ways—even after he learns the terrible secret she's been lugging around like a second skin. In Lamb, Doggo sees his chance for salvation. And in Doggo, Lamb just might find the acceptance and adoration she's been searching for. Part love story, part...

The last time Dodie sees her mother, Stella, she is wearing a red velvet dress from the 1970s - and is unusually animated. Soon after, Dodie's teenage brother Zak goes missing. The only trace of him is a cryptic postcard addressed from the Soul Life Centre in New York State. When Dodie returns to confront her mother about Zak, she finds her dead, her battle with depression finally over. As Dodie crosses the Atlantic in search of her brother, a parallel narrative tells the life of her mother in the 1970s. Eventually, the two stories collide in an exhilirating conclusion.

Nina Todd is not the sort of person you'd notice - and that's the way she likes it. She lives a quiet life: dull job, dependable boyfriend, no disruptions. When Nina meets Rupert in a hotel, it leads to an empty adulterous encounter that she'd rather forget. But it soon becomes clear that Rupert won't. Is it pure infatuation, or something more sinister? Who is Rupert, and what is the power he holds over her? And who is Nina Todd?

In Lesley Glaister's spellbinding outback thriller, a young couple's flight from a cold and dreary English winter traps them in a sunbaked nightmare For Cassie, the ad in the newspaper is a dream come true. Spending a year managing a farm in western Australia away from everything and everyone she and her commitment-phobic boyfriend, Graham, know could be exactly what he needs to realize it's time to think about getting married and starting a family. But their fantasy adventure isn't quite what Cassie imagined. Woolagong, an old sheep station, is on the remote fringes of the desert, where the weather is stifling hot all the time. And the outback is crawling with all manner of lethal creatures. There's no telephone, no radio, and no electricity—no contact with the outside world. Cassie and Graham send letters home but never receive any in return. And then there are the employers. Larry and his wife, Mara, live a very private life,...

Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the Betty Trask Award:Lesley Glaister's first novel is a twisty Gothic tale of familial terror and steadily mounting suspense In a decaying house in the marshy lowlands of England, four spinster sisters live in self-imposed isolation. For more than sixty years, Milly, Agatha, and the identical twins Ellen and Esther—"Ellenanesther"—have been trapped together, haunted by the specter of their dead father, whose evil reaches out from beyond the grave. Now nearing eighty, Milly reminisces over their shared history, reliving memories of domestic tranquility, strife, and young love thwarted in its prime. But the sisters are harboring secrets. Why is Milly always counting the knives? Did their mother really drown in the roaring waters under the dyke? And who is baby George, locked away in the cellar? As Honour Thy Father moves between past and present, the truth gradually emerges. It is...

After being cast out from his home village, Sevim wanders through the marshes, fatally wounded and waiting for death from hunger or cold. His dying mind plays tricks on him and he imagines shapes in the mist - fantastic creatures, monsters and spirits.One of these spirits seems more than just imaginary; it re-visits Sevim many times, talking to him, comforting him. It appears as a young boy, his name is Spall, and he is lonely. When he offers to save Sevim's life, there is a catch, because Spall is no normal ghost, he is called into being by the dying dreams of men. He is a Sin Eater. About Lesley Glaister Novelist Lesley Glaister was born in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England. She grew up in Suffolk, moving to Sheffield with her first husband, where she took a degree with the Open University. She was 'discovered' by the novelist Hilary Mantel when she attended a course given by the Arvon Foundation in 1989. Mantel was so impressed by her writing that she recommended her to her own literary a Novelist Lesley Glaister was born in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England. She grew up in Suffolk, moving to Sheffield with her first husband, where she took a degree with the Open University. She was 'discovered' by the novelist Hilary Mantel when she attended a course given by the Arvon Foundation in 1989. Mantel was so impressed by her writing that she recommended her to her own literary agent.Lesley Glaister's first novel, Honour Thy Father (1990), won both a Somerset Maugham Award and a Betty Trask Award. Her other novels include Trick or Treat (1991), Limestone and Clay (1993), for which she was awarded the Yorkshire Post Book Award (Yorkshire Author of the Year), Partial Eclipse (1994) and The Private Parts of Women (1996), Now You See Me (2001), the story of the unlikely relationship between Lamb, a former patient in a psychiatric ward, and Doggo, a fugitive on the run from the police, As Far as You Can Go (2004), a psychological drama, in which a young couple, Graham and Cassie, travel to a remote part of Australia to take up a caretaking job, only to be drawn into the dark secrets of their mysterious employers. Nina Todd Has Gone (2007) was another complex psychological thriller.Lesley Glaister lives with her husband in Edinburgh with frequent sojourns in Orkney. She has three sons and teaches Creative Writing at the University or St Andrews. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Little Egypt was once a well-to-do country house in the north of England. Now it's derelict and trapped on a small island of land between a railway, a dual carriageway and a superstore, and although it looks deserted it isn't. Nonagenarian twins, Isis and Osiris, still live in the home they were born in, and from which in the 1920s their obsessive Egyptologist parents left them to search for the fabled tomb of Herihor – a search from which they never returned. Isis and Osiris have stayed in the house, guarding a terrible secret, for all their long lives until chance meeting between Isis and young American anarchist Spike, sparks an unlikely friendship and proves a catalyst for change.

Set between 1989 and the downfall of Ceausescu, and 2013, The Squeeze travels between Edinburgh, Romania and Oslo and see this multi-award-winning and bestselling author at the height of her powers.Marta, a teenager trafficked from Romania in the early 1990s is forced to work as a prostitute in Edinburgh. Mats, a Norwegian businessman, who longs only to be a good husband and father, becomes involved with Marta and both their lives are wrenched - for good or ill - in new directions.Told in a splintered narrative style that allows glimpses into several points of view, The Squeeze explores the transactions that take place between men and women. Sex, money and the desire for love, are at its heart.

A lonely twelve-year-old fantasizes about escaping her dysfunctional family by digging a tunnel to the other side of the world Shy, lonely Jennifer Maybee lives with her weird, left-wing parents in a house where daily morning exercises are done in the buff and television is forbidden. She has few friends and spends most of her time alone. Her favorite book is Alice in Wonderland. A story about a distant ancestor who was transported to Australia on a convict ship for stealing a peacock sets her imagination humming, and soon Jennifer is digging a tunnel in her garden to burrow through to that exotic country. But a shocking revelation will shatter everything she believed about her parents—and herself. Desperate to escape her unhappy life, Jennifer makes a new friend, Brownyn Broom, whose father was murdered. But it's her encounter with a strange-eyed man in an abandoned church that sets Jennifer hurtling headlong into Alice's "topsy-turvy...

Little Egypt was once a well-to-do country house in the north of England. Now it’s derelict and trapped on a small island of land between a railway, a dual carriageway and a superstore, and although it looks deserted it isn’t. Nonagenarian twins, Isis and Osiris, still live in the home they were born in, and from which in the 1920s their obsessive Egyptologist parents left them to search for the fabled tomb of Herihor – a search from which they never returned. Isis and Osiris have stayed in the house, guarding a terrible secret, for all their long lives until chance meeting between Isis and young American anarchist Spike, sparks an unlikely friendship and proves a catalyst for change.