Showing results by publisher "Hodder & Stoughton" in Domestic Thrillers

Nicki, Lauren, Charlotte and Steffi have been friends since university. Now in their thirties, life is pulling them in different directions - but when Charlotte organises the baby shower of hell for pregnant Nicki, the girls are reunited. Under a sweltering hot summer day, tensions rise - and by the end of the evening, nothing will ever be the same. Someone started a fire at the house - and everyone's a suspect...

Roused by a single drop of blood, Rosie Daniels wakes up to the chilling realisation that her husband is going to kill her. And she takes flight - with his credit card. Alone in a strange city, Rosie begins to build a new life: she meets Bill Steiner and she finds an odd junk shop painting, Rose Madder, which strangely seems to want her as much as she wants it.

Amy has only ever known life in the Clearing. She knows what's expected of her. That is, until a new young girl joins the group. Freya has gone to great lengths to feel like a 'normal person'. In fact, if you saw her go about her day with her young son, you'd think she was an everyday mum. That is, until a young girl goes missing and someone from her past, someone she hasn't seen for a very long time, arrives in town.

Glasgow, 2019. Sharon has rushed home at the news her mother has been admitted to hospital. It's clear Senga's life is coming to an end. As Sharon gathers family and friends together to say goodbye, Senga, as always, does things in her own mysterious way. She instructs Sharon to find the red diary she kept in the 1970s and to read it. There's something Senga needs to talk about while she still has time. The journey into her mother's past is both shocking and surprising, forcing Sharon to re-evaluate her own childhood, her marriage and what she wants her own future to hold.

Five years ago, Laurel Lovejoy had it all. The high-powered city job, the loving husband, the perfect daughter. Now, she is 40 and alone, and working for a courier service. But she has discovered that being a delivery driver comes with a superpower: it makes her invisible. People accept her presence without question. They go about their lives, unaware of just how much she sees - how much she knows.

In rural Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine - a pressurised oxygen chamber that patients enter for 'dives', used as an alternative therapy for conditions including autism and infertility. But when the Miracle Submarine mysteriously explodes, killing two people, a dramatic murder trial upends the Yoos' small community.

A lifetime ago, a patient escaped Nazareth mental asylum. They covered their tracks carefully. Or so they thought. Thirty years ago, Marianne Smy committed a crime then fled from her home to leave the past behind. Or so she thought. Now, Marianne has been forced to return. Nazareth asylum has been converted to luxury flats, but its terrible hold on her is still strong. A successful academic, a loving mother and a loyal wife, she fears her secret being revealed and her world shattering. She is right to be scared.

Lucy and her husband do everything with their closest friends Cora and Scott. They've even bought a beach house together to enjoy summers with their kids. They're more than friends: they're family. When a colleague passes around photographs from her honeymoon in the Maldives, Lucy is shocked to see Scott in one of the pictures, his arm around another woman. Then news breaks that the woman from the photograph has mysteriously vanished. Why was Scott there and what is he hiding? As Lucy looks for answers, her whole life begins to unravel.

Tully and Rachel Aston are murderous when they discover their father has a new girlfriend. The fact that Heather is half his age isn't even the most shocking part. Stephen is still married to their mother, who is in a care facility with end-stage Alzheimer's disease. Announcing his plan to divorce and then remarry, the news of Stephen and Heather's engagement sets a chain a family implosion. With their mother unable to speak for herself, Tully and Rachel are determined to get to the truth about their family's secrets and what this new woman really wants.

Fern Castle works in her local library. She has dinner with her twin sister Rose three nights a week. And she avoids crowds, bright lights and loud noises as much as possible. Fern has a carefully structured life and disrupting her routine can be...dangerous. When Rose discovers that she cannot fall pregnant, Fern sees her chance to pay her sister back for everything Rose has done for her. Fern can have a baby for Rose. She just needs to find a father. Simple.

A year after her husband Zach's death, Lizzie goes to lay flowers where his fatal accident took place. As she makes her way along the motorway, she thinks about their life together. She wonders whether she has changed since Zach died. She wonders if she will ever feel whole again. At last she reaches the spot. And there, tied to a tree, is a bunch of lilies. The flowers are addressed to her husband. Someone has been there before her. Lizzie loved Zach. She really did. But she's starting to realise she didn't really know him. Or what he was capable of.

Alice knows her father is guilty of many things. He's guilty of abandoning her. He's guilty of being unfaithful to her mother. But is he guilty of murder? Now on Death Row, he has seven days to live. Some people want him released. Others will kill to keep him just where he is. Alice has only one chance to save him. But should she?

Newlyweds Sam Statler and Annie Potter are ready to begin their lives together in a small town in upstate New York. Whilst Annie spends most of her time alone, Sam, her therapist husband, works long hours in his home office, tending to the egos of his mostly female clientele. Little does Sam know that through a vent in the ceiling, every word of his sessions can be heard from the room upstairs. The pharmacist's wife, contemplating a divorce. The well-known painter whose boyfriend doesn't satisfy her in bed. Who could resist eavesdropping?

For women of Penny's generation, being on hand for elderly parents is just part of life. But for Penny, things have become a little more serious. When she receives a frantic phone call from her parents one night, with express instructions NOT to call the police, Penny rushes over at once. But they haven't had a fall. They haven't forgotten their computer passwords. They've killed someone. And his body is lying in the garden, right next to the rose bushes.

July, 1997. Matilda is killed in a tragic accident on the Dorset rocks, leaving her best friend Sophie alone, wracked with guilt. Decades later, Sophie is back for the first time since that terrible summer, to sell her family's old beach hut and bury the memories forever. But on clearing out the hut, she finds evidence that Matilda's death was no accident. What really happened the night she died? As Sophie edges closer to the truth, the past starts to close in on the present.

From the moment Lucy met her husband's mother, Diana, she was kept at arm's length. Diana was exquisitely polite and perfectly friendly, but Lucy knew that she was not what Diana envisioned. Even so, Lucy wanted so much to please her new mother-in-law. That was five years ago. Now, Diana has been found dead, a suicide note near her body. Diana claims that she no longer wanted to live because of a battle with cancer. But the autopsy finds no cancer.

Nicole had the perfect life, with her handsome surgeon husband Mark, their two young daughters and a beautiful big house. But everything changed when Mark suddenly left his job at the hospital six months ago. He's distant. Keeping secrets. And they are out of money. Then Nicole gets a strange message: There is a million euros in your bank account. All you need to do is drive a car. Yes, or no?

It starts with a lie. The kind we've all told - to a former acquaintance we can't quite place but still, for some reason, feel the need to impress. The story of our life, embellished for the benefit of the happily married lawyer with the kids and the lovely home. And the next thing you know, you're having dinner at their house and accepting an invitation to join them on holiday - swept up in their perfect life, the kind you always dreamed of.... Which turns out to be less than perfect.

For aspirational parents living in the beautiful coastal town of Pacific Pines, their hopes and dreams are pinned on the outcome of the Gala Day that St Ignatius Boys' School hosts every year. To be accepted into the prestigious institution, the boys must battle it out in rigorous rounds of both physical and mental testing - but it seems that some parents will stop at nothing to ensure their sons succeed. But after one boy is struck down in a hit and run, the scandals, secrets and lies that entangle three mothers threaten to unravel their seemingly perfect lives.

The wealthy community of Esperance is picture-perfect. Big houses, stunning views, beautiful people. A brand new running track for the local club to jog around in the evenings. From the outside, it looks like paradise. But the women of the town know the truth: you can hide anything—from wrinkles to secrets from your past—if you have enough money. You could even hide a murder.