Break From Nuala

It is autumn 1940, and Inspector de Silva and his wife Jane are looking forward to a well-earned holiday. But their hopes of a relaxing break in the picturesque city of Galle beside the Indian Ocean are dashed when death, mysterious illnesses, and a missing guest cast a gloomy shadow. As they're drawn into the investigation, the mystery deepens. Is there a villain amongst their fellow guests or further afield? The search for answers will lead them into great danger that has repercussions far beyond the island of Ceylon. Please note that this paperback edition of Break from Nuala includes Christmas in Nuala previously only published on Kindle Christmas in Nuala The little town of Nuala is full of Christmas good cheer, until murder overshadows the festivities. The mystery he needs to solve baffles Inspector de Silva. It's just as well he has his wife Jane to support him in his race to unmask the villain and save an endangered romance.

When Inspector Shanti de Silva moves with his English wife, Jane, to his new post in the sleepy hill town of Nuala he anticipates a more restful life than police work in the big city entails. However an arrogant plantation owner with a lonely wife, a crusading lawyer, and a death in suspicious circumstances present him with a riddle that he will need all his experience to solve. Set on the exotic island of Ceylon in the 1930s, Trouble in Nuala is an entertaining and relaxing mystery spiced with humour and a colourful cast of characters. Interview with the Author Q. There are so many murder mysteries around, what makes Trouble in Nuala stand out? A. To a great extent its setting in Ceylon, modern-day Sri Lanka, in the days when the island was still a British colony. Then, as now, the island was a fascinating place not just for its wonderful scenery and wildlife but also its mix of peoples who seem to have recovered extraordinarily well from the tragedies of their recent past. The majority are Sinhalese, who see themselves as the original owners of the island. They are followed by the Tamils who migrated over the centuries from Southern India. Add the legacy of the early Portuguese and Dutch settlers and you have a very rich culture. Although the story sits firmly in the mystery genre, at the time when it's set, colonialism also raised issues that my characters have to deal with and that provides an extra layer of interest. Q. What's your connection to the country? A. I've been lucky enough to visit and I fell in love with it straight away. My books are often inspired by my travels and as I'd been planning to write a new detective series for some time, it presented the perfect setting. Q. The mystery genre is usually very plot driven. When you wrote Trouble in Nuala did the characters or the plot come first? A. Shanti de Silva was inspired by various people I met on my travels around Sri Lanka and he took shape in my mind early on. He's pragmatic but principled with a mischievous sense of humour; at times impetuous and occasionally a rebel. As my plots develop though, I usually find that characters deepen and that was certainly the case here as Shanti de Silva and the other characters revealed themselves. Q. So what next? A. A second Inspector de Silva mystery is already well advanced and you can read a sample at the end of Trouble in Nuala. After that, there are plenty more adventures for de Silva queueing up to be written.

A thrilling story of love, family, and magic from “a born writer” (Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black). Birch and elder. Elm and oak. Ash and thorn. Your oath is sworn . . . Change is afoot in Havoc Wood. Vanessa moves out of the Way sisters’ childhood home. Charlie and Aron never seem to be on the same page anymore. Emz is fully engrossed in her job at Prickles nature reserve, and, in the midst of it all, Calum has gotten approval from Hettie Way to ask Anna to marry him. Owls hoot, bones break, and there are debts to be paid in Havoc Wood that may cost the Ways any happily ever afters . . . Breaking Bones, the second Witch Ways Whisper, is a prequel to the Witch Ways Series.

From one of Ireland's most talented journalists, an extraordinary fiction debut, compelling, colourful and romantic. Kathleen is a 49-year-old travel writer, an Irishwoman based in London who has not been back to Ireland since she was twenty. Her home is her office, her family and friends a few close colleagues. She has not experienced passion since she was young. When, over the course of a few weeks, the props of her life fall away one after another, it is to passion that she turns - not in her own life, but in the fragmentary account of a scandalous affair in 19th century rural Ireland, between the wife of a big Anglo-Irish landlord, and her servant. And so Kathleen is drawn back to Ireland, to see whether she can find out more...

'Gripping, poignant...I read it in one sitting' ROSAMUND LUPTON 'Brilliantly compulsive and with one hell of a twist!' CLAIRE DOUGLAS 'Makes you question everything you thought you knew' EMMA KAVANAGH Sixty seconds after she wakes from a coma, Maggie's world is torn apart. The police tell her that her daughter Elspeth is dead. That she drowned when the car Maggie had been driving plunged into the river. Maggie remembers nothing. When Maggie begs to see her husband Sean, the police tell her that he has disappeared. He was last seen on the day of her daughter's funeral. What really happened that day at the river? Where is Maggie's husband? And why can't she shake the suspicion that somewhere, somehow, her daughter is still alive? A page-turner for fans of Clare Mackintosh's I Let You Go and Lisa Jewell's Watching You, this gripping story will draw you in and shock you at every turn. WHAT AUTHORS AND READERS ARE SAYING: 'A clever, twisty plot that takes psychological mind games to a new level. Nuala Ellwood has done it again!' Jane Corry 'You will be up all night finishing this dark, haunting and complex thriller' Katherine S, Netgalley Reviewer 'Compelling and intriguing, right from the very first page' Sharon Bolton 'Nuala Ellwood has such a special way of writing that it draws you into the pages and you can't put it down' Emma L, Netgalley Reviewer 'A raw, shocking, and serpentine mystery that keeps you guessing until the very end' Nicolas Obregon, author of Blue Light Yokohama 'An accomplished and page-turning thriller...it's impossible to guess where it's going next' Nicholas Searle 'A stunning book. Compelling, unsettling and powerful this is a book that will stay with me for a long time' C. L. Taylor 'A must read for all thriller fans this book is a 5 star read' River S, Netgalley Reviewer 'Rivals The Girl on the Train (and beats it for style)' The Guardian 'Twisty and unpredictable. Kept me guessing until the end' Karen Cleveland, author of Need to Know 'This clever, multi- layered novel is simply stunning' Dinah Jefferies 'Wow! What a fantastic book that completely sucked me in. 5 stars' Angela G, Netgalley Reviewer 'A gripping rollercoaster ride of a thriller. Keeps you in there right to the last page' Christobel Kent 'A twisty psychological thriller. I raced through it in one sitting!' Lucy Atkins 'A dark, intense, multi-layered thriller that twists and turns until the last page' Tammy Cohen Memorable, jaw-dropping' Sunday Times 'Well-written ... an elegant, punchy thriller with a dark heart' Observer Thriller of the Month 'Full of really clever twists, this stylish thriller really grabs you' Sunday Mirror

She tells everyone her name is Clare Brown. She's twenty-seven years old. She's an only child. Her parents were killed in a car crash. She used to have a black cat called Ollie. None of these things are true. A decade ago, nine people were found dead at Black Valley Farm. The only suspect was never found. Clare has spent ten years living a lie, but a new podcast on the murders threatens to bring her carefully built life crashing down. Because someone else has listened to the podcast. Someone who knows Clare is lying, and who will stop at nothing to ensure the truth never comes to light. An absolutely unputdownable crime thriller. Perfect for fans of C. L. Taylor, Tim Weaver and T Orr. Munro.

No matter how far you run . . . He's never far behind 'Gripping, poignant' Rosamund Lupton 'Eerily haunting' Jane Corry 'I literally couldn't put it down' Emma Curtis __________________________________________ Lisa needs to disappear. And her friend's rambling old home in the wilds of Yorkshire seems like the perfect place. It's miles away from the closest town, and no one there knows her or her little boy, Joe. But when a woman from the local village comes to visit them, Lisa realizes that she and Joe aren't as safe as she thought. What secrets have Rowan Isle House - and her friend - kept hidden all these years? And what will Lisa have to do to survive, when her past finally catches up with her? **BUY THE SPELLBINDING THRILLER FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF DAY OF THE ACCIDENT AND MY SISTER'S BONES** __________________________________________ WHAT THEY'RE SAYING ABOUT NUALA ELLWOOD 'Creepy and deliciously atmospheric, this page-turner has it all - twists and turns and a powerful emotional punch' Teresa Driscoll 'What a great book! It's got everything a good thriller needs, a creepy old house, a remote location, some great complex characters and lots of perfectly timed twists and turns' Netgalley Reader 'Makes you question everything you thought you knew' Emma Kavanagh 'Brilliantly compulsive and with one hell of a twist!' Claire Douglas

Powerful, sensual, and hauntingly moving, The Choice is the captivating story of the Sheppard family caught in an unexpected crisis. Husband and wife, Tom and Nuala, are faced with harrowing decisions when Tom is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Their grown children, Rick and Jane, along with Tom's mother, Marian, are also deeply drawn into Tom's desperate situation. Each family member faces their own conflicts and prejudices as they struggle to come to terms with Tom's mortality. Tom's own pragmatic view of his illness forces his family to confront head-on one of today's most pressing and controversial issues. Choices are made and choices are asked to be made. By the novel's end the family finally understands there simply are no easy answers, as it falls to Nuala to make the most heartbreaking choice of all.