It’s a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen knew more about marriage than anyone else. (Never mind that she never got married herself…) It’s in the midst of the recession when Kate, a freelance journalist and self-professed Jane Austen addict, finds herself single, unemployed and soon-to-be homeless (not to mention about to turn 40). In desperation she accepts a writing assignment to prove a theory that in the toughest economic times a wealthy man is the only must-have accessory.

So, with just Jane Austen’s advice for company, she sets off to see if Mr Rich can ever become Mr Right. Her mission takes her to Palm Beach, St Moritz and London. Where, in keeping company with the elite, she meets billionaires, oil tycoons, and generally men who make Mr Darcy look like an amateur.

But will rubbing shoulders with men of good fortune ever actually lead her to love?

Set against the rolling backdrop of a century of British history from WWI to the ‘War on Terror’, this is an intimate family portrait captured in snapshots. First there is William, the factory lad who loses his life in Gallipoli, then his son Billy, a champion cyclist who survives the D-Day Landings on a military bicycle, followed by his crippled son Will who becomes an Oxford academic in the 1960s, and finally his daughter Billie, an artist in contemporary London. Just as the names – William, Billy, Will, Billie – echo down through the family, so too the legacy of choices made, chances lost, and secrets kept.

Rich in drama and sensuous in detail, The Picture Book is a beautifully crafted story about parents and children, about fate and repetition, and about the possibility of breaking free.

‘As they used to say in Ireland, the devil only comes into good things’. Narrated by Lilly Bere, “On Canaan’s Side” opens as she mourns the loss of her grandson, Bill. The story then goes back to the moment she was forced to flee Dublin, at the end of the First World War, and follows her life through into the new world of America, a world filled with both hope and danger.

At once epic and intimate, Lilly’s narrative unfurls as she tries to make sense of the sorrows and troubles of her life and of the people whose lives she has touched. Spanning nearly seven decades, it is a novel of memory, war, family-ties and love, which once again displays Sebastian Barry’s exquisite prose and gift for storytelling.

Once you’re in the business, there’s no going back…Eddie Savage is hiding out in the West Midlands after his near-fatal shooting during the Kelly affair. But while the physical wounds are fading, the emotional scars are taking longer to heal. And when Eddie finds himself heading for the south of Spain with an unlikely travelling companion, it is as if, by some magnetic force, he is being drawn back into the criminal underworld.

Tommy Kelly may be safely locked up back at home, but on the Costa del Sol the Kelly organization is still alive, and kicking. This is a gripping sequel to gritty urban thriller “Long Reach”.

After just a year of close, loving marriage, Ruth has been widowed. Her beloved husband, Ben, has been killed in a tragic accident and Ruth is left, suddenly and totally bereft. Unable to share her sorrow and grief with Ben’s family, who are dealing with their pain in their own way, Ruth becomes increasingly isolated, burying herself in her cottage in the countryside as the seasons change around her.

Only Ben’s young brother Jo, is able to reach out beyond his own grief, to offer Ruth the compassion which might reclaim her from her own devastating unhappiness. The result is a moving, lyrical exploration of love and loss, of grief and mourning, from a masterful writer.