Showing results by publisher "Hachette UK - Bookouture" in Small Town & Rural

When Detective Morgan Brookes is urgently called to her Aunt Ettie’s cottage, hidden in Covel Woods, she rushes to the scene. Panicked Ettie is shaken having discovered the chilling remains of a woman in the river, one skeletal hand reaching out from the deep water. The unknown woman was dressed to walk the rugged trails of the Lake District, so Morgan’s team assume she fell in the water and was taken by the current. But thin diagonal bruises on her neck suggest something far more sinister.

Maeve McKenna is on the verge of a breakdown. Having worked herself into the ground as a sought-after interior designer in London, she’s in desperate need of a vacation. Philomena Duffy is a little lonely. After losing her husband, their crumbling mansion, Willow House, feels awfully empty. With the rugged shores of Ireland calling, Maeve visits her aunt Philomena in Sandy Cove, where she once, as a teenager, kissed a wild, mysterious boy - a kiss she has never been able to forget.

Standing in the old farmhouse, Special Agent Nikki Hunt holds her breath as the smell of bleach overwhelms her. She can’t take her eyes off the blue baby toys scattered around the floor as her team examine the remains. A housekeeper and her three children disappeared from the property ten years ago. Do the bones belong to two of them? Did the other two survive? But before Nikki has a chance to investigate further, she receives a panicked call from the local sheriff begging for her help.

When Rosie inherits the café on Marigold Marina, following her husband’s tragic death, she is determined to pour her heart into his dream. But when Kit, the owner of a bookshop barge, starts to come by regularly, she finds it difficult to ignore his dark eyes, disheveled curls, and warm smile. And just as Rosie starts to hope, letting herself open her heart a second time, she discovers the shocking secret that the husband she loved for so many years kept hidden from her.

Ottilie Oakcroft never thought shed live in a place like Wordsworth Cottage. Nestled close to the river, her new home in the tiny village of Thimblebury means all her patients are just a stones throw from her front door. As they drop in for cups of tea and cosy chats she ignores all the jobs on her to-do list and gets to know her new neighbours.

When Casey’s dear friend Rosie passes away, her heart breaks in two; Rosie didn’t even tell her she was sick. And when a mysterious letter arrives from beyond the grave, describing the secluded island where Rosie spent every summer, Casey questions if she really knew her friend at all. With Casey’s hectic job ruling her life, and her marriage crumbling around her, she books a ticket to this beautiful Irish island to feel close to Rosie again, and find out what secrets she has hidden there.

Morgan tries to steady her trembling hands as she enters the abandoned tent in the shadow of the mountains. The woman once lay peacefully watching the stars in the glistening night sky. But she has been dead for some time… When a farmer reports an abandoned campsite in Rydal Falls, Detective Morgan Brookes hopes its occupants are just out enjoying the beautiful views nearby. But nothing can prepare her for the smell of death in the air, or what she finds as she crawls inside the wind-ravaged tent.

Arriving at High Wraith cottage, Detective Morgan Brookes joins her horrified team, who have found a woman’s body chained and dangling from the gnarled branch of an old oak tree. It’s a race against time to preserve any evidence as heavy rain destroys the scene, but they’ve already identified the victim as a woman who once tried to kill her own family. Twenty years ago, Margery Lancaster went to prison for poisoning her husband and infant son. They both survived, and Morgan must treat the pair as her first suspects.

Thunder rattles the windows of the deserted hotel. Morgan spots the young girl on the floor, her dark hair fanned out and covered in shattered glass. Lightning strikes, illuminating the blood on every surface. Following an emergency call in the middle of a fierce storm, Detective Morgan Brookes arrives at Keswick Manor, a crumbling, empty hotel in the Lake District, where she finds the dead body of a young woman. She recognises her bright blue eyes instantly.

Children run through the streets in their Halloween costumes, giggling happily, not noticing the blood on the house is real. A baby girl is tucked up asleep in her room. Her mother’s body lies motionless in the front yard, pink petals on the ground beside her… Arriving in the quiet community of Mulberry Creek, Special Agent Nikki Hunt is shocked that amongst the chaos of costumes and fake, silver spider webs, a new mother called Kiania Watson has lost her life. A blooming rare flower placed carefully in her cold, bound hands.

High up in the mountains of Clear Creek Forest, where mist clings to the pines, the bodies of Millie Woodward and Jolie Marin are discovered by their fading campfire. Could this be the work of the notorious Fawn Lake Killer? This forest was once his hunting ground. And Freya knows the tattered, red woolen scarf wound tightly around Jolie’s neck is hiding his chilling MO. Her throat has been cut.

After five years away from her hometown of Fawn Lake, Detective Freya Sinclair isn’t expecting a warm welcome from the people she’s sworn to protect. She became a detective to bring serial killers like her parents to justice, but the tight-knit North Carolinian community can’t see past her twisted roots. Minutes after stepping foot back home, the body of a dark-haired young girl is pulled from the river and Freya races to the scene.

Getting in his car was a mistake. But as the frigid air whipped through her thin coat, she felt too cold to say no. Now, snowflakes settle on her long dark lashes. Ice-cold and forever fifteen years old, she’ll never see her mother’s smile again… As the biggest snowstorm the Outer Banks has seen in decades ravages the coastline, Detective Casey White is called to an abandoned junk yard miles beyond the marshes. Teenager Jill Carter’s body is posed on her back, a look of terror frozen on her beautiful face.