Extracts

The Polydorus is a charming family-run hotel, located a short walk away from the lively town of Agios Nikolaos, one hour from Heraklion.

I killed my brother with a penny. Simple, benign, and perfectly believable.

The dust of mountain flowers lay thick on the air, like perfume or boiled varnish.

I am a white woman. I am standing beside a black woman. We are facing a group of white people seated in front of us. We are in their workplace and have been hired by their employer to lead them in a dialogue about race.

It is a surprisingly hot Easter Sunday when I begin writing this book.

Madison Locke’s heart lifted like the birdsong that woke her that morning – joyous, clamouring, excited.

If you’re going to do it, do it somewhere quiet, thought Beth Walters, watching her boss straighten his tie

Two by two, the girls from the Burgerweeshuis marched to Divine Service.

The shoes were a big mistake. Her toes had gone numb and every time a stiletto heel crunched on to the unforgiving surface of the pavement, it set her teeth on edge.

John’s hands gripped the wheel. Blood soaked his shirt. The man writhing next to him screamed and groaned through his ruined face.

It was Jenny’s death that killed my mother.

Mary Lawson was the first to die. Leaving Euston station shortly before 6.45 a.m, she made straight for her favourite breakfast stall.

On the morning Freya went into labour, she told no one.

It is strange to me that so many people like to listen to so many other people talk about the theatre.

The animals are dying. Soon we will be alone here.

On a damp Saturday, just last year, the sixties finally died in Berkeley.

The snow has fallen heavily, relentlessly, for two days now, and shows no sign of letting up.

Luxury rural retreat Ideal for families or groups (no hens or stags)

Astrid Strick had never liked Barbara Baker, not for a single day of their forty-year acquaintance...

Shula read his text message, and the air thinned around her. Why was he sending her this? It was exactly what they had agreed he must never do.

When Margery was ten, she fell in love with a beetle.

People have all sorts of ideas about what they’d do if it happened to them.

On the night that I was born, my father, Marinus, left our home while my mother was in labour and, over the eight hours that followed, slaughtered a dozen infant boys, the sons of our neighbours and friends, each one under the age of two years.

The man lay in darkness near the cliff’s edge, staring down through binoculars at the moonlit Snake River as it wound through the Idaho hills toward the dam.