Barbara Taylor Bradford
Heirs of Ravenscar

As Edward Deravenel stands alone on the rocky Ravenscar beach he counts his blessings. The war to end all wars is over; he and his brothers have survived. Now he can build Deravenels, the family business empire, into all he has dreamed of. All seems golden for Edward, charismatic head of the family, with his beautiful wife and young children growing up in the family seat. Yet there is a thorn in his side - his reckless younger brother, George. George's gambling and unpaid debts are beginning to cause rumours and unease. And Edward realises that his brother is capable of blackmail and betrayal. The fortunes of the house of Deravenel suffer a terrible reversal as one disaster follows another, and tragedy strikes.

Alexander McCall Smith
The Careful Use Of Compliments

With the arrival of baby Charlie, not to mention a passionate relationship with his father jamie, Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, enters deeper and rougher waters. Late motherhood is not her only challenge. As she negotiates a truce with her furious niece Cat, and struggles for authority over her son, Isabel finds herself drawn into the story of a painter's mysterious death off the island of jura. Then Isabel's professional existence and that of her beloved Review come under attack from the suspiciously handsome Professor Dove.

Summer 1924. On the eve of a glittering society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again. Winter 1999. Grace Bradley, ninety-eight, one-time housemaid at Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghosts awaken and old memories begin to sneak back. And a shocking secret threatens to emerge, something history has forgotten but Grace never could....