BOOK CLUB – This week we’re reading …

If you’re a keen historical crime reader, get a copy of Daughters of Night … which is brilliant. Set in London in 1782, it’s the story of Caroline  ‘Caro’  Corsham, who, desperate for her politician husband to return home from France, is already in a state of anxiety when she finds a well-dressed woman mortally wounded in the bowers of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. The Bow Street constables are swift to act, until they discover that the deceased woman was a highly paid prostitute, at which point they cease to care entirely. But Caro has motives of her own for wanting to see justice done, and so sets out to solve the crime herself. Enlisting the help of thieftaker Peregrine Child, their inquiry delves into the hidden corners of Georgian society, a world of artifice, deception and secret lives. But with many gentlemen refusing to speak about their dealings with the dead woman, and Caro’s own reputation under threat, finding the killer will be harder, and more treacherous, than she can know.  From the pleasure palaces and gin-shops of Covent Garden to the elegant townhouses of Mayfair, Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s book follows Caro as she seeks justice for a murdered woman whom London society would rather forget.

A perfect marriage … Golden couple Annie and David Crayce have it all. A loving marriage, three beautiful children and a thriving family business. Life couldn’t be better. Until the unthinkable happens. A perfect crime? A piece of damning DNA evidence places David as the prime suspect of a murder committed twenty-years ago. Annie is sure her David is innocent. But if he isn’t guilty, then either his father or brother must be. As the police investigate the cold case, so does Annie. Trawling through her old diaries, she begins desperately looking for answers. But it all comes down to a few lost hours she can’t solve. And Annie begins to doubt the one person she thought she knew best … her husband. Susan Lewis’ The Lost Hours is packed with intrigue … a lovely, hefty, weekend read.

Flappy Entertains by Santa Montefiore is a fabulously fun, frothy read. Flappy Scott-Booth is the self-appointed queen bee of the picturesque Devon village of Badley Compton. She spends her days fussing over her gorgeous house and garden, and organising OTT events. Her husbands always on the golf course, her friends hang on to her every word and her life is a reflection of herself – impossibly perfect. That’s until Hedda Harvey-Smith and her husband Charles (don’t you just love the names!) move into the village. And their home is a grander vesion of Flappy’s. And the couple take over as king and queen of the social scene.  That simply will not do! Flappy is determined to show Hedda how things are done here in Badley Compton. But then she looks into Charles’s beautiful green eyes. And suddenly, her focus is elsewhere. She is only human, after all! Underneath her graceful exterior lies a passion nobody knew about, least of all Flappy herself.

  All from www.exclusivebooks.co.za