The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen aged 83 and a quarter years old by Hendrik Groen

This is a delightful book, and Hendrik Groen is a delightful if occasionally curmudgeonly diarist: a lovely book to dip into over a series of days, as his account of his year in his care home is told. He gives his account with charm and humour, which he needs to survive the stultifying routine and company there. However, you cannot keep a good man down for long, and Hendrik and his small band of friends find new ways to make life bearable. There is plenty to make the reader smile, and food for thought in the issues it raises about the practice and politics of the care for the elderly, in any country, as well as the practice of making the most of what you've got whe you've got it . The book is a tragicomic treat and I would love to hear more from the wonderful Hendrik Groen.

Lie With Me by Sabine Durrant

Such an unusual thriller, set in London where the past catches up with has-been author, Paul, and an Ionian island, where he joins a group of old friends for a reunion holiday in the sun.  Paul is something of a fantasist and freeloader, who has spent a dissolute youth and whose drink-drenched memories of ever more youthful conquests are somewhat sketchy.  He has been basking in precocious literary success for a long time, and nothing written since has found favour with his publisher.  But will the exploiter be exploited?  Or can he turn the tables once again?  And has he at last found love?  Sabine Durrant manages to create a character in Paul who is much more engaging than he should be, and has written him into a compelling, suspenseful and dramatic tale in well described settings.  A jolly good read.

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

This book is such a killer chiller thriller. Every parent's nightmare is the disappearance of their baby, so when this happens to Anne and Marco while they are visiting their next door neighbours with the baby alarm as their babysitter suddenly has to let them down, it is all too easy to identify with their distress, panic and pain when, on one of their half-hourly checks, little Cora has gone from her cot. At six months old, she cannot have removed herself, so what has happened? Clearly someone has taken her, but who, and why? So the waiting game begins, and so does the guilt, and so does the uncovering of secrets. Anne is forced to consider just who would take her baby and why, and who she can trust. The police are involved - will they solve the mystery and return the baby home? This tale is gripping and compulsive reading, with so many twists and turns that it keeps the reader guessing most enjoyably, right to the shocking end. An excellent grip lit read.

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

Another stonker of a story from Liane Moriarty. She has the gift of creating believable, familiar, three dimensional characters and of taking a situation and minutely dissecting it with almost forensic detail, weaving its precursors and impact on those characters into a compelling, entertaining and darkly humourous psychological thriller. She teases the reader with possibilities and enthrals as the tale unfolds. A brilliant book.

Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent,

A monster lurks within these pages, nesting in buried secrets, watching and waiting.  Who it is and what monstrous actions they will cause is cleverly woven into this tale of two Irish families and how their lives become connected across the class divide  Tense and unsettling, a story of Laurence's childhood evolves into a powerful psychological thriller as the monster claims its victims.  Grip lit at its best!

The Beauty of the End, by Debbie Howells

A moving and powerful story of Noah's relationship with Grace, from adolescence, when he, an unpopular and bullied outsider, is smitten and besotted by the goddess he perceives her to be, to an excavation of secrets in a search for the truth as a desperate situation unfolds. What has Grace been hiding and what has been haunting her? What is his old school friend, Matt's, role in this? This is a taut and intelligently crafted story, a psychological thriller to keep the reader guessing, and a compelling read.