Showing results by publisher "Quercus" in Psychological

When Abby's doctor tells her she's two months pregnant, she doesn't believe him. She can't be - she hasn't had sex for over a year. But to her astonishment and dismay, multiple tests confirm it's true. Desperately searching for an explanation, Abby recalls New Year's Day - the terrible hangover, the hole in her memory where the night before should have been and the inexplicable sense of unease - and realises that this baby must have been conceived at her best friend Danny's NYE party.

Maddie and Ian's love story began with a chance encounter at a party, while she was a travel writer visiting her best friend, Jo. Now, almost two decades later, they are married with a beautiful son, Charlie, and living the perfect suburban life in middle America.

Kate Sullivan has a beautiful home, a career that she loves and a handsome fiancé, Ben. When Becky, an old friend, reappears after 10 years, Kate is forced to confront her past. Old anxieties surface and threaten to derail her perfect life. Nonetheless, Kate invites Becky to move in with her and Ben, hoping to make amends with her former friend. But when their house guest starts behaving strangely, Kate worries that Becky hasn't forgotten or forgiven Kate's past mistakes.

It's a crisp spring morning when Cass drops her husband, a respected lecturer, to the beach for his medically prescribed swim. While waiting for him, something catches her eye. A young woman runs towards her husband and embraces him—until he holds his hand over her face and she falls down on the stones, dead. In the backseat of the car, their seven-year-old son sits quietly. When her husband returns, he says nothing. Neither does Cass. Afraid to speak up in the immediate aftermath, Cass embarks on a solitary quest to unravel what has taken place.

It was a victimless crime.... Estate Agent Clara is struggling to make a sale. With her abusive ex-husband on the brink of finding where she's hiding, she needs to make a commission soon or lose her chance to escape. Boleskine House on the shores of Loch Ness has remained unsold for years, and Clara is sure that an 'innocent' fire will force the price down. But the perfect crime soon turns into the perfect nightmare: there was a witness, a stranger in the village, and he's not going to let Clara get away with it that easily....

She went missing decades ago. He is still looking for her... Julie Nowak has been missing since 7th September 2003. It broke her family. Only her father, Theo, doesn't give up on her. On the 20th anniversary of her disappearance, Theo is contacted by podcaster Liv. She's come across a new lead. But if Theo wants to find out the truth he must be quick before his progressing dementia smothers everything in darkness. Who has taken his daughter? Why does Julie's ex-boyfriend Daniel keep his mother's bedroom door locked, years after she passed away?

Connie Cross was a trusted pharmacy assistant when she was arrested for the gruesome murders of at least seven strangers. Now, she's serving a whole-life order for the shocking crimes she refuses to explain. Olivia Lang never forgot Connie, the awkward teenager from a south London estate she first met while working for the police. Twenty years later, Olivia is desperate to understand what made Connie turn into a murderer.

A thirteen-year-old girl disappears from a party at Carlsbad's Turtle Lake. Discovered on the trunk of a nearby cottonwood tree is the word, 'LIAR' graffitied in blood. Three teenagers went to the lake that night but only two came back. Later, they confess to murdering their friend. But did they really kill her? And if not, why say they did?

Berlin, 2017: several young girls have been disappearing for the past fourteen years. Red ribbons show the police the way to their bodies, but there's no trace of the killer. One evening, internationally renowned philosophy professor and anthropologist Walter Lesniak is arrested on the suspicion of the murders in the presence of his daughter, Ann. 'Professor Death' becomes the headline of the tabloid press and Lesniak himself refuses to cooperate with the police. Ann is certain this is all some kind of mistake. And she will prove it.

Alex Fokas, a young and ambitious journalist, is surprised when a book by an obscure author is sent to her in the post. Falling by Avery Lewis is a thriller about a woman who is murdered by being pushed off a cliff. Along with the book, Alex is sent a newspaper article about Avery's recent death by accidental drowning. She fell from the same cliff as the character in her book and her body still hasn't been found. Intrigued and disturbed, Alex travels to Cornwall to research the story for an article.

Amid the desolate wilderness of the Great Plains of Nebraska, a region so isolated you could drive for hours without seeing another human being, sits Hatchery House. Having served as a church, an asylum and an orphanage, Hatchery is now a treatment facility for orphaned or abandoned children with psychiatric disorders. Haunted by patients past and present, only the most vulnerable find a home within its walls. Dr Lorelei 'Lore' Webber, a former FBI psychiatrist, has almost grown used to the unorthodox methods used at Hatchery House.

Evie has just started her second year at University. She is young, beautiful and popular. She should be having the time of her life, except she has something to hide - a one-night-stand with her English professor, Simon. Not wanting any of his other students to be used in the same way, Evie reports their relationship to University HR. But hours later, Village Vixen, the student gossip blogger, is baying for blood. She's found out about the accusation and is firmly on Simon's side.

It is 1944 in war-battered London. Freya and Shona are identical twins, close despite their different characters. Freya is a newly qualified doctor treating the injured in an East End hospital, while Shona has been recruited by the SOE. The sisters are so physically alike that they can fool people into thinking that one is the other. It's a game they've played since childhood. But when Shona persuades her twin to swap roles to meet her Polish lover, he is angered at being tricked.

Carmen is happily married to Tom, a successful London lawyer and divorcé with three children. She is content to absorb the stresses of being a stepmother to teenagers and the stain of 'second wife'. She knows she'll always live in the shadow of another woman - not Tom's first wife, Laura, who is resolutely polite and determinedly respectable, but the lover who ended his first marriage: Zena. Zena, who was shockingly beautiful. Zena, who drowned swimming late one night.

Cat panics when she sees a photofit of a murder suspect flash up on the news. It looks exactly like her, and to make matters worse, the victim is her childhood best friend, Charlie. The following day, the police arrive at her doorstep to question her. She hadn't seen or spoken to Charlie in years, but could the secrets of their past finally be coming back to haunt her? Desperate to find out who gave the police her description and to protect her five-year-old son, Cat investigates. She knows she is innocent and will stop at nothing to prove it. But some secrets are best left buried....

When Leah was editor of her local paper, two teenage girls went missing. One, Hope, was middle-class and White, from a perfect nuclear family. The other, Tilly, was a Black girl from a council estate - and a habitual runaway. Leah made the decision to put Hope on the front page, and she was found the next day. Tilly got a small mention on page 18 and was never seen again. Sixteen years on Leah still blames herself for the consequences of her decision. And now strange things are happening to her.

When Claire Fontaine learns that her ex-husband, Simon, is marrying again, to a woman with a teenage daughter, her blood runs cold. She is sure that years ago Simon molested her own daughter and was responsible for her mysterious death. She can't let him get away with it a second time. Vandalism, harassment; whatever it takes, Claire will expose him. Simon doesn't know where Claire got this delusion from; her daughter's death was ruled a suicide, but she has always blamed herself - is she just lashing out?

Still haunted by the death of a colleague in a hit and run for which he blames himself, he pursues the case with a determination bordering on recklessness when he encourages her replacement, DS Emma Steel, to get close to a local gangster who knows more than he's letting on, thereby endangering Emma and causing dissent among his team. Jack is called in to investigate the disappearance of a young woman, Maria, and her son who appear to have vanished off the face of the earth. His boss tells him to focus on her ex-husband, but though the evidence points in his direction, Jack has his doubts.