In My Hands Today…

The Rose Garden – Susanna Kearsley

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When Eva’s film star sister Katrina dies, she leaves California and returns to Cornwall, where they spent their childhood summers, to scatter Katrina’s ashes and in doing so return her to the place where she belongs.

But Eva must also confront the ghosts from her own past, as well as those from a time long before her own. For the house where she so often stayed as a child is home not only to her old friends the Halletts but also to the people who had lived there in the eighteenth century.

When Eva finally accepts that she is able to slip between centuries and see and talk to the inhabitants from hundreds of years ago, she soon finds herself falling for Daniel Butler, a man who lived – and died – long before she herself was born. Eva begins to question her place in the present, and in laying her sister to rest, comes to realise that she too must decide where she really belongs, choosing between the life she knows and the past she feels so drawn towards.

In My Hands Today…

Last Seen in Lhasa: The story of an extraordinary friendship in modern Tibet – Claire Scobie

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Some go to Tibet seeking inspiration, others for adventure.

The award-winning journalist, Claire Scobie, found both when she left her ordinary life in London and went to the Himalayas in search of a rare red lily.

Her journey took her to Pemako, where few Westerners have set foot and where the myth of Shangri-la was born. It was here she became friends with Ani, an unusual Tibetan nun who was to change her life.

Through seven journeys in Tibet, Claire chronicles a rapidly changing world — where monks talk on mobiles and Lhasa’s sex industry thrives. But it is Ani, a penniless wanderer with a rich heart, who leaves an indelible impression. Together, in a culture where freedom of expression is forbidden, they risk arrest. And they forge an abiding friendship, based on intuition and deep respect.

In My Hands Today…

Her Royal Spyness – Rhys Bowen

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London 1932. Narrator Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, 34th in line to the throne, is flat broke. She bolted from Scotland — and engagement to Fishface (Prince Stiegfriend) — for London, where she has:

a) built a fire in the hearth

b) fallen for an absolutely unsuitable Irish peer

c) made a few quid housekeeping incognita, and

d) been summoned by the Queen to spy on her playboy son

When an arrogant Frenchman trying to swipe her family estate winds up dead in her bathtub, how can she clear her very long family name?

In My Hands Today…

Thus Was Adonis Murdered – Sarah Caudwell

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When her personal copy of the current Finance Act is found a few metres away from a body, young barrister Julia Larwood finds herself caught up in a complex fight against the Inland Revenue.

Set to have a vacation away from her home life and the tax man, Julia takes a trip with her art-loving boyfriend.

However, all is not what it seems. Could he, in fact, be an employee of the establishment she has been trying to escape from? And how did her romantic luxurious holiday end in murder?




In My Hands Today…

The Wangs vs. the World – Jade Chang

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Charles Wang is mad at America. A brash, lovable immigrant businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, he’s just been ruined by the financial crisis. Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so that he can go to China and attempt to reclaim his family’s ancestral lands—and his pride.

Charles pulls Andrew, his aspiring comedian son, and Grace, his style-obsessed daughter, out of schools he can no longer afford. Together with their stepmother, Barbra, they embark on a cross-country road trip from their foreclosed Bel-Air home to the upstate New York hideout of the eldest daughter, disgraced art world it-girl Saina. But with his son waylaid by a temptress in New Orleans, his wife ready to defect for a set of 1,000-thread-count sheets, and an epic smash-up in North Carolina, Charles may have to choose between the old world and the new, between keeping his family intact and finally fulfilling his dream of starting anew in China.