The Lesley Glaister Collection Volume Three


Book Description

From “one of Britain’s finest novelists”: A tender and terrifying collection of novels about women on the brink of salvation and the edge of disaster (The Sunday Telegraph). Three seductive tales of psychological suspense from a writer who “penetrates the deepest corners of the female psyche” (The Mail on Sunday). The Private Parts of Women: Inis has run away from her husband and children—and the rest of her suburban life in London—and moved into a small flat in the inner city of Sheffield. Her neighbor is eighty-four-year-old Trixie Bell, a hymn-singing veteran of the Salvation Army. But beneath Trixie’s unassuming exterior lies a very different personality. Three very different personalities—one of which is homicidal. “A gripping read . . . from one of Britain’s finest novelists.” —The Sunday Telegraph Partial Eclipse: In solitary confinement, Jennifer knows she isn’t the first in her family to be convicted of a crime. Centuries earlier, the unmarried Peggy Maybee was arrested for trying to steal a peacock so she could give its beautiful feathers to her infant son, Samuel. As Jennifer and Peggy’s parallel lives unfold, long-held secrets are revealed, including the truth about the crime that ultimately landed Jennifer in prison. “Brilliant . . . seductive and assured.” —The Sunday Times Now You See Me: Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction With her parents dead, sixteen-year-old Lamb was alone in the world. Now she cleans houses and lives in an old widower’s cellar, balancing on her high wire of loneliness. If she doesn’t let anyone in, she can’t fall. Then Doggo shows up. A fugitive who committed a violent crime, he needs Lamb’s help to stay off the radar. He also needs her in other ways—even after he learns her terrible secret. “A beautiful bombshell of a story . . . it will break your heart.” —The Independent




The Lesley Glaister Collection Volume Two


Book Description

Three tales of psychological suspense from a British novelist who “along with Ruth Rendell, has almost cornered the market in horror stories” (The Times, London). According to the Independent on Sunday, Lesley Glaister “has the uncomfortable knack of putting her finger on the things we most fear.” In this spine-chilling anthology, the Somerset Maugham Award–winning novelist finds terror in a Japanese prison camp, a hotel lobby, and the Australian outback. Easy Peasy: Zelda is getting ready for a date when the call comes: Her father has hanged himself. His suicide brings back terrifying childhood memories of screams in the night. A POW in a Japanese prison camp during World War II, her father was haunted by nightmares and guilty secrets. Zelda’s journey into the past unearths troubling questions that must finally be answered. “Utterly satisfying . . . beautifully structured and almost painfully tender.” —The Sunday Telegraph Nina Todd Has Gone: While on a business trip, Nina meets a gorgeous man in her hotel lobby, and even before their tryst is over, she’s sorry she did it. The sooner she puts the sordid encounter behind her, the better. But Rupert isn’t who he seems to be. And he isn’t going away. He’s on a personal mission—one he’s been waiting years to fulfill. And it turns out Nina isn’t exactly who she seems to be either. “A first-rate psychological thriller . . . The game of cat-and-mouse between the protagonists is consistently absorbing.” —The Mail on Sunday As Far as You Can Go: For Cassie and Graham, the ad in the newspaper is a dream come true. Spending a year managing a farm in western Australia sounds like the perfect break from their hectic lives. But the weather in Wollongong is stifling hot and the outback is crawling with lethal creatures. And most unsettling of all, Cassie and Graham can’t shake the feeling that they’re being watched. “Chilling plausibility . . . A story whose message will linger long after the book is closed.” —The Scotsman




The Lesley Glaister Collection Volume One


Book Description

Three dark and mesmerizing novels from an award-winning writer with the “ability to pull terror and suspense from just about anywhere” (Kirkus Reviews). In Lesley Glaister’s world, the domestic and the bizarre walk hand-in-hand. This haunting collection is a testament to the visionary powers of “a natural storyteller who knows how to keep the reader turning the pages” (The Independent). Limestone and Clay: Nadia is a sculptor driven by a single obsession: to conceive a child. When she learns that her geographer husband has donated his sperm to his former lover, who is now pregnant with his child, it is the ultimate betrayal—and warrants the ultimate payback. “Terrifying . . . Glaister truffles her way down to the grim heart, where we find out what makes people tick like time-bombs.” —The Daily Telegraph Digging to Australia: Twelve-year-old Jennifer Maybee spends most of her time alone with her favorite book, Alice in Wonderland. But a revelation from her parents and an encounter with a strange-eyed man set her hurtling into a “topsy-turvy land” of sinister secrets not even Lewis Carroll could have imagined. “Dangerous secrets and sinister undertones power this uncommon coming-of-age tale. . . . Masterful.” —Publishers Weekly Honour Thy Father: In a decaying house in the lowlands of England, four spinster sisters live in self-imposed isolation. For more than sixty years, Milly, Agatha, and the identical twins Ellen and Esther—“Ellenanesther”—have been trapped together, haunted by the specter of their father. As eighty-year-old Milly reminisces, a gothic mystery takes shape: Why is Milly always counting the knives? How did their mother drown under the dyke? And who is baby George, locked away in the cellar? Honour Thy Father is the winner of the Somerset Maugham and Betty Trask Awards. “Eerie and satisfying—a horror story told with tenderness.” —The Sunday Times




As Far as You Can Go


Book Description

For a carefree British couple, the Aussie outback becomes a nightmare in this “erotic psychological thriller” from the award-winning author (The Independent). What better way to flee a dreary English winter than a temporary job tending a sheep farm in sunbaked western Australia? For Cassie, a teacher of organic gardening, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. For her commitment-phobic boyfriend, Graham, the arid red-rock landscapes could provide new inspiration for his painting. But the ramshackle sheering station of Woolagong is further from civilization than they anticipated. There is no radio, telephone, or electricity, and though they send letters home, they’ve yet to receive a response. Their only other companions are their peculiar employers, Larry and Mara, who stay sedated in a shed. As Cassie and Graham wonder why they came, everything warps in the stifling heat: their sense of direction, their sex drives, their feelings of safety, and their perception of right and wrong. For the both of them, leaving is no longer an option. Only escape. The Australian outback has been a source of psychological menace in such works as Walkabout, Wake in Fright, The Last Wave, and Wolf Creek. In As far as You Can Go, Somerset Maugham Award winner Lesley Glaister lends her talents to the untapped potentials of this “sun-baked hell . . . cranking up the tension in every possible way. The gripping result is guaranteed to make any flight to Oz go faster.” —The Guardian “Before Gillian Flynn, there was Lesley Glaister.” —Harper’s Bazaar




Easy Peasy


Book Description

A WWII vet’s suicide drives his daughter to uncover his troubled past in this “absorbing, poignant” novel from the award-winning author of Partial Eclipse (Publishers Weekly). Zelda Dawkins knows her older lover, Foxy, is going to leave her. As Zelda prays for something, anything, to prevent the inevitable, she receives a call from her mother. Zelda’s father, a World War II prisoner of war, has hanged himself. It’s not what Zelda wanted. It’s also not unexpected. Zelda comes from a family of unspoken things. Foxy is hers. But for Zelda, her father’s suicide is more than a wellspring for her grief, rage, and guilt. It was his final escape from the screaming nightmares that kept her awake when she was young—and the closely guarded secret he took to bed with him. It’s also stirring in Zelda memories and unanswered questions of her childhood: Why did her father seem to reject her in favor of a damaged neighborhood boy named Vassil? Why was he so taken with the boy’s mother, a prostitute? How did Vassil come to be so disfigured? And what happened to her father those five years in a Japanese prison camp? It’s time for Zelda to confront the past, its legacy of cruelty, and to unearth the secrets—her father’s and her own—that have a cast a shadow over her life. “A writer of addictive emotional thrillers—as if Ruth Rendell had got hold of an A. S. Byatt novel and stripped out the digressive bits.” —The Independent “Step into the world of family secrets, lies and whispers in the dark.” —The Sunday Telegraph




Blasted Things


Book Description

After the Great War, a nurse and a damaged soldier become dangerously entangled in this “sensitive, unsettling tale” by the author of A Particular Man (The Independent). Sometimes love hurts. Sometimes love kills . . . It’s 1920 and Britain is attempting to move on after World War I. Clementine, who was a nurse on the frontlines and suffered her own losses, is trying to settle back into her comfortable middle-class life as a doctor’s wife. But when she meets Vincent, a man so battered he must wear a mask to hide his scars, a perilous and magnetic attraction develops between them. As their passion erupts and takes a darker turn, it threatens to spell disaster. Will either of them ever recover from the lingering horrors of war? And can both of them walk away from their affair unscathed? “One of the most compelling novels I have read all year.” —Liz Jensen, author of The Uninvited Praise for Lesley Glaister “[Glaister] commands respect for writing novels which are not just dark and mysterious but also emotionally satisfying.” —The Times Literary Supplement “One of Britain’s finest novelists.” —The Sunday Telegraph




Nina Todd Has Gone


Book Description

The truth behind a one-night stand becomes just as terrifying as the consequences, “engrossing” (The Guardian). Nina Todd is a woman of unextraordinary looks, with a dependable boyfriend and a menial job in Sheffield. It’s what she’s craved for years—a completely normal life. Then, while on a business trip in Blackpool, she’s approached by a younger man in the Hotel Astoria. She should have said no, but he was too handsome, and too persuasive to let go. The only trouble is . . . now he won’t let her go. What can he possibly want with her? He doesn’t even know her real name. It wasn’t a random pick-up. Nina’s the one Rupert had been searching for. And he’s not giving up on her. Wherever she goes, Rupert will be there, too—gorgeous, irresistible, distracting, and determined to rip apart Nina’s newly ordered life. Now all she has to fear is her relationship and her job. She’ll never suspect there’s so much more. Nina doesn’t even know his real name. If she did, she’d run like hell. What begins as a fatal attraction takes a terrifying detour as the paths of two apparent strangers converge, in this psychological thriller from “the suspense writers’ suspense writer” (Harper’s Bazaar). “A gripping page-turner.” —Cosmopolitan “Horribly plausible and crisply executed.” —The Sunday Telegraph




The Private Parts of Women


Book Description

A handsome new cover edition of Lesley Glaister's compelling and disturbing novel




Honour Thy Father


Book Description

Four English sisters share a terrible family secret in this novel from “the suspense writers’ suspense writer” and author of Trick or Treat (Harper’s Bazaar). Winner of the Somerset Maugham and Betty Trask Awards In a decaying house along the marshy Fenlands of Eastern England, four sisters—Milly, Agatha, and identical, inseparable twins Ellen and Esther—have lived in self-imposed isolation for more than sixty years. Like good sisters, they bicker, go about their daily routines, and believe the bright myth they’ve created about their childhood. Sometimes Milly can recall a blessedly unexceptional youth of ordinary days, domestic tranquility, and young love. But what came after is so much more consuming, and so much harder to forget. So are the questions no one dares to answer out loud . . . Why does Milly still count the knives? What was the corruption their father warned them about? Was their mother really swallowed up by the roaring river? And why does no one sing to Baby George anymore, who’s locked away in the cellar? As a ceaseless rain lashes away at the house, the sisters prepare for a coming storm. With it comes the threat of steadily rising waters that will give up the secrets still holding them in thrall. “A fairytale gone gruesomely wrong”, Lesley Glaister’s debut novel was the recipient of the Somerset Maugham Award, for which she joined the likes of Angela Carter, Doris Lessing, Sarah Waters, and Ian McEwan (The Literary Review). An “eerily tragic and mesmerizing first novel” (Publishers Weekly), Honour Thy Father is “a true original” (The Sunday Times).




Partial Eclipse


Book Description

Jennifer is in prison for an undisclosed crime. Denied companionship, she escapes into her memory and imagination. Peggy Maybee, Jennifer's ancestor, was transported for stealing a peacock. This is all that is known about Peggy but Jennifer conjures a life for her aboard a convict ship bound for Botany Bay. A partial eclipse of the moon used by the captain as inspiration for a sermon triggers a mutiny and, amidst the chaos of brawling thieves, cut-throats, whores and crew, Peggy makes a bid for freedom ... 'Brilliant, seductive and assured' Nick Hornby