The Shadow Writer

Every writer has a story. Some are deadlier than others. Aspiring author Graye Templeton will do anything to escape the horrific childhood crime that haunts her. After a life lived in shadows, she's accepted a new job as protégé to Laura West, influential book blogger and wife of an acclaimed novelist. Laura's connections could make Graye's publishing dreams a reality. But there's more to Laura than meets the eye. Behind the veneer of a charmed life, Laura's marriage is collapsing. Her once-lauded husband is descending into alcoholism and ruin and bringing Laura nearer to the edge. As the two women form a bond that seems meant to be, long-buried secrets claw their way into the present, and the line between friendship and obsession begins to blur, forcing each to decide where her loyalties lie. Running from the past is a dangerous game, and the loser could end up dead.

The New York Times bestseller “The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero.” —Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice) “One gorgeous read.” —Stephen King Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

Ruth Ware meets Shari Lapena in this internationally bestselling psychological thriller about the inescapable pull of destiny and revenge. Norah Richter has recently moved from Berlin to Vienna, hoping to put her old life behind her. While walking to her new office one morning, Norah is approached by an elderly woman who utters these chilling words: On the eleventh of February, you will kill a man called Arthur Grimm ...With good reason. And of your own free will. Norah is unnerved — many years earlier, something terrible happened to her on February 11 — but she chooses to shrug off the encounter as mere coincidence, until a few days later when she meets a man named Arthur Grimm. Soon Norah begins to have a dreadful suspicion: Does she have a good reason to hate this man she’s never met? Could he be responsible for the tragic event in her past? And can Norah make sure that justice is done without committing murder?

Poet-boxer Sevigne Torrins struggle to find his place in the world as he experiences a series of professional and sexual misadventures that take him from his youth on the shores of Lake Superior, to trendy Toronto, to Egypt.

When talented young writer Nathan Zuckerman makes his pilgrimage to sit at the feet of his hero, the reclusive master of American Literature, E. I. Lonoff, he soon finds himself enmeshed in the great Jewish writer's domestic life, with all its complexity, artifice and drive for artistic truth. As Nathan sits in breathlessly awkward conversation with his idol, a glimpse of a dark-haired beauty through a closing doorway leaves him reeling. He soon learns that the entrancing vision is Amy Bellette, but her position in the Lonoff household - student? mistress? - remains tantalisingly unclear. Over a disturbed and confusing dinner, Nathan gleans snippets of Amy’s haunting Jewish background, and begins to draw his own fantastical conclusions...

“[A] stunning tale of academic fraud . . . shocking and compelling.”-The Washington Post Dave Tomar wrote term papers for a living. Technically, the papers were “study guides,” and the companies he wrote for-there are quite a few-are completely aboveboard and easily found with a quick web search. For as little as ten dollars a page, these paper mills provide a custom essay, written to the specifics of any course assignment. During Tomar's career as an academic surrogate, he wrote made-to-order papers for everything from introductory college courses to Ph.D. dissertations. There was never a shortage of demand for his services. The Shadow Scholar is the story of this dubious but all-too-common career. In turns shocking, absurd, and ultimately sobering, Tomar explores not merely his own misdeeds but the bureaucratic and cash-hungry colleges, lazy students, and even misguided parents who help make it all possible.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2020 A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, GUARDIAN, ELLE, TIME, SPECTATOR ‘DEVASTATING’ Marlon James, ‘BRILLIANT’ Salman Rushdie, ‘MAGNIFICENT’ Aminatta Forna, ‘WONDERFUL’ Laila Lalami, ‘UNFORGETTABLE’ The Times, ‘REMARKABLE’ New York Times Ethiopia, 1935. With the threat of Mussolini’s army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid. Her new employer, Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie’s army, rushes to mobilise his strongest men before the Italians invade. Hirut and the other women long to do more than care for the wounded and bury the dead. When Emperor Haile Selassie goes into exile and Ethiopia quickly loses hope, it is Hirut who offers a plan to maintain morale. She helps disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor and soon becomes his guard, inspiring other women to take up arms. But how could she have predicted her own personal war, still to come, as a prisoner of one of Italy’s most vicious officers? The Shadow King is a gorgeously crafted and unputdownable exploration of female power, and what it means to be a woman at war.

A deliciously gothic story of wishes and curses – a new dark fairy tale set against a Victorian backdrop full of lace and smoke. ‘Deliciously dark’ Woman Magazine