This month’s book recommendations include a feminist retelling of French folklore, a mystery centred around the Brontë sisters, and a moving memoir about the rugby giant Rob Burrow.

Also, Julia Chapman will be joining Cindy at the Malton bookstore in April to discuss her much-loved cosy crime series, The Dales Detectives. More information can be found on the website or in-store, meanwhile here are some books to add to your March reading list.

The Diabolical Bones by Bella Ellis

Bella Ellis is the Brontë-esque pseudonym of the acclaimed Sunday Times best-selling author Rowan Coleman. After visiting the former home of the Brontë sisters, Rowan became a Brontë devotee and embarked on a lifelong love affair with Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, their lives, literature, and remarkable legacy. Bella returns with the second instalment of the Brontë Sisters Mystery series.

It is December 1845, and Haworth is in the grip of a chilling winter. Home to the brutish Bradshaw family, a spine-chilling scream can be heard at Top Withens Hall, followed by the discovery of bones from a child in the chimney of a room that has been closed since the death of Mary Bradshaw thirteen years ago. When they hear of the discovery, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne pause their literary endeavours and set out to investigate. They are confronted with an increasingly complex and sinister case, highlighting issues of discrimination, poverty, feminism, and exploitation of children for labour. Facing their most despicable adversary yet, the Brontës encounter dark omens and learn evil has set a murderous trap.

The Diabolical Bones is an intriguing gothic mystery that captures the authentic and individual personalities of the Brontë sisters with hints of inspiration for their acclaimed novels and indications of their life throughout. This book transports you to Victorian Yorkshire and immerses you in the lives of the Brontë family, seamlessly blending fact with fiction. Atmospheric, eerie, and distinct, The Diabolical Bones is perfect for those who enjoy gothic fiction, literary history and a good mystery with supernatural elements.

9781529389067

Hodder & Stoughton, 9.99

Paperback

Take Care: A Memory of Love, Family & Never Giving Up by Lindsey Burrow

Take Care is the profoundly moving and candid memoir of Lindsey Burrow, wife and carer of Leeds Rhinos legend Rob Burrow. Exploring personal sacrifice, resilience, and hope, Lindsey shares the daily challenges faced when caring for someone with motor neurone disease (MND) and documents her incredible fundraising achievements as she continues to raise awareness about the terminal disease.

In December 2019, the Burrow family’s lives were shattered when Rob was diagnosed with MND. With uncertainties and fear of the inevitable, Rob and his family had to quickly adapt to their new circumstances while maintaining the joys and normalities of life. Lindsey details how the couple met as teenagers, with funny anecdotes that embody Rob’s cheeky character, and their journey to parenthood while expressing the pride and anxiety of Rob’s exceptional rugby career. Rob’s impact is tangible, both on and off the rugby pitch, with the rugby giant’s personality shining throughout and the heartwarming bonds he formed with Kevin Sinfield and Barrie McDermott at the forefront. Lindsey’s courage is palpable, raising millions with Kevin to support MND sufferers, which helped form The Rob Burrow Centre, and highlighting the little support family carers receive.

Pledging not to shed any more tears, the determination to remain positive in times of hardship is admirable, with Rob’s final words epitomising the message in this memoir: ‘Every single day is precious. Don’t waste a moment. In a world full of adversity, we must still dare to dream.’

9781529941333

Cornerstone, 22.00

Hardback

The CIA Book Club by Charlie English

Charlie English, Former Head of International News at The Guardian, is the author of three internationally acclaimed nonfiction books. His new book details the secret book programme that distributed millions of books across the Iron Curtain from the 1950s until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

Newspapers, pamphlets, and books were transported by truck, yacht, balloon, and in travellers’ luggage, among other methods, to the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. Literature, including George Orwell’s 1984, was transported into Soviet-controlled countries to combat censorship and indoctrination by demonstrating the parallels between the Orwellian dystopia and Communism. Miroslaw Chojecki, an underground Polish publisher who endured beatings, force-feeding and exile, and George Minden, the mastermind behind the cause, who believed entertainment, culture, and diversity of thought could aid liberation in Eastern Europe, were just two of the many who sought to galvanise the people of Poland. However, there is also a concern highlighted by underground publishing regarding the West’s patronising tone and the risk that countries in the Eastern Bloc could become puppets of the West rather than independent countries with their own cause. Nevertheless, illicit literature pervaded Poland by the late 1980s and Soviet censorship collapsed.

This book offers a new and interesting addition to Cold War historiography, emphasising the powers words hold as a means of liberation and resistance.

9780008495121

HarperCollins Publishers, 25.00

Hardback

Death At The White Hart by Chris Chibnall

Chris Chibnall is a television writer and producer best known for creating the acclaimed television series Broadchurch. He is a BAFTA award-winning screenwriter, executive producer, and playwright who brings us his debut novel, Death At The White Hart, a suspenseful crime novel.

Home to two rustic pubs, a small playground, and an array of thatched cottages, Fleetcombe is an idyllic village in Dorset. Detective Nicola Bridge returns to the south coast from Liverpool, longing for a quieter life; the last thing she expects is for the picturesque village to become a murderous crime scene. Pub landlord of The White Hart, Jim Ternan, is found dead, his body tied to a chair on a desolate road, with stag antlers protruding from his head. Alongside her sidekick, Harry Ward, Nicola is not short of suspects in a village bursting with secrets that cascade after the death of the omniscient pub landlord. Someone knows what happened to Jim and brazenly drank within the same pub vicinity the evening he was murdered. As the complex layers unfold, Nicola and Harry must catch a killer hiding in plain sight before they kill again.

With compelling characters and an intriguing mystery, Death At The White Hart is a suspenseful debut novel from one of Britain’s most acclaimed storytellers.

9780241665763

Penguin Books Ltd, 16.99

Hardback

The House of Barbary by Isabelle Schuler

Isabelle Schuler is a Swiss-American actress, writer, and former bookseller. Her screenplay Queen Hereafter, a historical retelling set against the backdrop of medieval Scotland, was longlisted by the Thousand Films Screenwriting Competition, which she later adapted into her debut novel, Lady MacBethad. Similarly, The House of Barbary is a fierce, feminist retelling of the French Folklore, Bluebeard.

We follow Beatrice Barbary in seventeenth-century Switzerland as she embarks on life following the death of her father in 1653. Beatrice has lived a secluded life, hidden away from the public eye, convinced she faced derision and encouraged to pursue her macabre hobby of dissection. Her monotonous life is in disarray, however, when her father, a powerful Bern official, is brutally murdered in their own home. Everything she has ever known is dismantled after discovering she has been lied to her entire life. Left reeling, unprotected, and vulnerable, Beatrice is determined to investigate the truth behind her father’s gruesome end. She plunges into the mysteries and deceits, discovering the enigmatic group called The Order of St Eve, which have committed underground atrocities. Alongside Beatrice’s search for truth, we meet Johann Schor, a painter living in the Barbary Household, in 1639. Beatrice is just 8 years old when Johann is commissioned by Beatrice’s father, and through Johann we find out more about The Order of St Eve as he begins to suspect that not all is content with Jakob and his close unscrupulous associates.

After years of researching seventeenth-century Bern, Isabelle has created a story that is historically adjacent to the period and place. She has intertwined fact and fiction to bring us this Early Modern historical fiction of mystery and vengeance.

9781526647290

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 16.99

Hardback