Weidenfeld & Nicolson A Double Life Berry Flynn

A producer at the Belfast bureau of the BBC, Tessa is at work one day when the news of another IRA raid comes on the air. As the anchor requests the public's help in locating those responsible for this latest attack - a robbery at a gas station - Tessa's sister appears on the screen pulling a black mask over her face • The police believe Marian has joined the IRA, but Tessa knows this is impossible. But when the truth of what has happened to her sister reveals itself, Tessa will be forced to choose: between her ideals and her family

I took off my wedding ring - a gold band with half a line of 'Morning Song' by Sylvia Plath etched inside - and for weeks afterwards, my thumb would involuntarily reach across my palm for the warm bright circle that had gone. I didn't throw the ring into the long grass, like women do in the movies, but a feeling began bubbling up nevertheless, from my stomach to my throat: it could fling my arms out. I was free • A few years into her marriage and feeling societal pressure to surrender to domesticity, Joanna Biggs found herself longing for a different kind of existence. Was this all there was? She divorced without knowing what would come next • Newly untethered, Joanna returned to the free-spirited writers of her youth and was soon reading in a fever - desperately searching for evidence of lives that looked more like her own, for the messiness and freedom, for a possible blueprint for intellectual fulfillment

When Nora takes the train from London to visit her sister in the Oxfordshire countryside, she expects to find her waiting at the station, or at home cooking dinner. But when she walks into Rachel's familiar house, what she finds is entirely different: her sister has been the victim of a brutal murder • Stunned and adrift, Nora finds she can't return to her former life. An unsolved assault in the past has shaken her faith in the police, and she can't trust them to find her sister's killer. Haunted by the murder and the secrets that surround it, Nora is under the harrow: distressed and in danger. As Nora's fear turns to obsession, she becomes as unrecognisable as the sister her investigation uncovers • A riveting psychological thriller, Under the Harrow explores the fierce love between two sisters and the terrifying power of the past

Vera was painting the pony's hooves gold in the dining room; Janet said this was bad for him; poison would seep into his bloodstream • At the bottom of a great stone staircase, dressed in her mother's black lace evening dress, twisted in murderous death, lies Janet. So end the sixteen years of Janet's short life • A life spent in a draughty Scottish castle, where roses will not grow, and a jackdaw decides to live in the doll's house • A life peopled by prettier, smoother-haired siblings, a Nanny with a face like the North Sea and the peculiar, whisky-swigging Cousin Lila • A life where Janet is perpetually misunderstood - and must turn from people, to animals, to books, to her own wild and wonderful imagination

What is it like to be a brain surgeon? • How does it feel to hold someone's life in your hands, to cut through the stuff that creates thought, feeling and reason? • How do you live with the consequences when it all goes wrong? • Do No Harm offers an unforgettable insight into the highs and lows of a life dedicated to operating on the human brain, in all its exquisite complexity. With astonishing candour and compassion, Henry Marsh reveals the exhilarating drama of surgery, the chaos and confusion of a busy modern hospital, and above all the need for hope when faced with life's most agonising decisions

Jennifer Worth's bestselling memoirs of her time as a midwife have inspired and moved readers of all ages • Now, in In the Midst of Life she documents her experiences as a nurse and ward sister, treating patients who were nearing the end of their lives. Interspersed with these stories from Jennifer's post-midwife career are the histories of her patients, from the family divided by a decision nobody could bear to make, to the mother who comes to her son's adopted country and joins his family without being able to speak a word of English • In the Midst of Life also gives moving insights not just into Jennifer's life and career, but also of a period of time which seems very different to today's, fast-paced world

Cormac is a photographer. Approaching forty and still single, he suddenly finds himself 'the leftover man' • Through talent and charm, he has escaped small town life and a haunted family. But now his peers are all getting divorced, dying, or buying trampolines in the suburbs. Cormac is dating former students, staying out all night and receiving boilerplate rejection emails for his work, propped up by a constellation of the women and ex-lovers in his life • In the last weeks of the year, Cormac meets Caroline, an ambitious young dancer, and embarks on a miniature odyssey of intimacy. Simultaneously, he must take responsibility for his married brother, whose mid-life crisis forces them both to reckon with a death in the family that hangs over those left behind

This final book in Jennifer Worth's memories of her time as a midwife in London's East end brings her story full circle. As always there are heartbreaking stories such as the family devastated by tuberculosis and a ship's woman who 'serviced' the entire crew, as well as plenty of humour and warmth, such as the tale of two women who shared the same husband! Other stories cover backstreet abortions, the changing life of the docklands, infanticide, as well as the lives of the inhabitants of Nonnatus House • We discover what happens with the gauche debutant Chummy and her equally gauche policeman; will Sister Monica Joan continue her life of crime? Will Sister Evangelina ever crack a smile? And what of Jennifer herself? The book not only details the final years of the tenements but also of Jennifer's journey as she moves on from the close community of nuns, and her life takes a new path

A beautifully written love story set in 1960s Soho amid the revival of fascism • When twenty-year-old Vivien Epstein, a Jewish hairdresser from Manchester, moves to London to make a new start, she quickly finds herself swept up in a city buzzing with life, on the cusp of the Swinging Sixties. But beneath the surface, Vivien is desperate to find Jack Fox, a man she had a brief but intense romance with. Her search will lead her to confront the dark resurgence of fascism in London's East End, which has forced some in the Jewish community to take to the streets • Caught between life, death and a secret that could risk everything, can Vivien and Jack's love survive?

Written in the last year of Roth's life, this is the impassioned story of a young man's love affair with literature, and with his teacher. As Ira Stigman turns from his incestuous childhood affairs, he finds himself competing with his best friend for the attention of their literature professor. From Bondage is the the moving culmination of a great writer's life

As a child, Daniel Sempere discovered among the passageways of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books an extraordinary novel that would change the course of his life. Now a young man in the Barcelona of the late 1950s, Daniel runs the Sempere & Sons bookshop and enjoys a seemingly fulfilling life with his loving wife and son. Yet the mystery surrounding the death of his mother continues to plague his soul • Just when Daniel believes he is close to solving this enigma, a conspiracy more sinister than he could have imagined spreads its tentacles from the hellish Franco regime. That is when Alicia Gris appears, a soul born out of the nightmare of the war. She is the one who will lead Daniel to the edge of the abyss and reveal the secret history of his family, although at a terrifying price

When twenty-year-old Vivien Epstein, a Jewish hairdresser from Manchester, moves to London to make a new start, she quickly finds herself swept up in a city buzzing with life, on the cusp of the Swinging Sixties. But beneath the surface, Vivien is desperate to find Jack Fox, a man she had a brief but intense romance with. Her search will lead her to confront the dark resurgence of fascism in London's East End, which has forced some in the Jewish community to take to the streets • Caught between life, death and a secret that could risk everything, can Vivien and Jack's love survive?