Island Fiction

Anna St. James is having a great summer. Frostfall Island is hosting a massive romance reader event, complete with big-name authors, cover models, enthusiastic readers, and best of all, ice cream sundaes. Anna’s sister, Cora, and their eccentric housemate, Opal, are anxious to attend so they can meet their favorite authors. Anna decides to tag along to see what all the excitement is about. And excitement is definitely not lacking. When one of the most popular authors winds up dead, it is up to Anna to find out which of her many enemies was pushed far enough to commit murder.

A Modest Proposal is a satirical essay by Jonathan Swift written in 1729. It's a social commentary on British society's treatment of the poor. Saying more than this would be a spoiler! Please enjoy this unabridged and crisply narrated rendition of Swift's greatest work.

Passionate about conservation and fleeing an argument with her mother, newly qualified London vet Charlotte Walker has taken up a fellowship on the tiny South Atlantic island of Tuga de Oro to study the endangered gold coin tortoises in the jungle interior. She can claim the best of reasons for this year in paradise—What better motivation than to save a species?—but the reality is more complex. For Charlotte has secretly come to believe that she has her own connection to this remote and eccentric community, and she is finally determined to solve the mystery that has dominated her life.

Detectives Macleod and McGrath join a bizarre cast of characters at a remote country estate on the Isle of Harris, where fantasy and horror are the order of the day. But when regular accidents happen, Macleod sees a killer at work and needs to uncover what links the dead. Hampered by a snowstorm that has closed off the outside world, he must rely on Hope McGrath before they become one of the victims.

Deputy Tessa Black gave up her career as a detective with the Seattle PD and returned to the Pacific Northwest island she calls home to care for her ailing mother. Tessa thinks her mother’s illness is the worst thing she’ll face - until she responds to a routine call in the state park and discovers a local man harpooned to a sign. As the murder investigation unfolds, it becomes clear that the victim harbored secrets. Together with her FBI agent best friend, Cate, and park ranger Logan Wilde, Tessa must connect the pieces before the murderer strikes again.

Emily Flanagan has been living her dreams the last four years as a professional cheerleader for the Los Angeles Vipers, thousands of miles away from her tiny hometown of Summersweet Island, Virginia. She's got the world at the tips of her pom-poms...until she tells her boss to shove those pom-poms where the sun doesn't shine.

Ten strangers, recruited by an edgy new reality show and marooned on an abandoned island overrun by wildlife. One dies in a horrible accident. Nine realize they are all past survivors, alive only because they've beaten incredible odds once before. One by one, their hidden secrets are revealed. Eight discover they are trapped. Caught in a game so deadly that the most terrifying experiences of their lives were only its qualifying round, they must now face the greatest danger on the island... each other.

Frank and Joe are two teenage brothers who hope to follow in the footsteps of their father, a famous private detective. The Hardy Boys are joined by two friends, Chet and Biff, for a winter campout in a cabin on a remote island in Barmet Bay. But there seem to be others interested in the cabin, and a secret that it might hold. A sinister stranger orders them off the island, and when the boys don't comply, their food supplies are stolen.

When no-nonsense, down-to-earth Maddie Wilcox is offered the chance to work on a luxury yacht for the summer, she can’t say no. Yes she’ll be waiting on the posh guests. But island-hopping around the Adriatic sea will more than make up for it—especially when Nick, her best friend Nina’s brother, is one of them. Sparks fly when they meet on board, and Maddie can’t believe self-entitled jerk Nick is really related to Nina. But in a secret, picture-perfect cove, away from the real world, Maddie and Nick discover they might have more in common than they realise.

Jody, Ari and Carla have won golden tickets to the summer’s hottest music festival, which promises to be full of glamour, mystique and lots of freebies. But, arriving on the sun-drenched shores of a private Greek island among influencers and celebrities, the trio are dismayed to find the small festival site far from the beacon of music, art and ‘immersive experiences’ they were promised. Disappointed but not deterred, they vow to make the most of the trip.

Things in the Middle Florida Keys aren’t as idyllic as they seem. If one looks closely, there’s a layer of dirt just below the surface. The butt-ugly kind of dirt that’s hard to get off. Things move slowly in the Keys—locals call it island time—but there are some for whom it seems that time is at a standstill; whose clocks revolve only around the tides, fish migrations, and the rising and setting of the sun and moon. Jesse McDermitt remembers the Keys the way he’d first found them as a young man.

In 1071 AD, Emperor Romanus Diogenes has rekindled the guttering flame of Byzantium. Yet in the eastern borderlands, two vital strongholds hang in the balance. Manzikert and Chliat must be won to secure the empire's fragile frontiers and vanquish the would-be usurpers who covet the imperial throne. But Sultan Alp Arslan and his vast Seljuk armies look to those twin fortress-towns also, resolute on seizing them first.

Claire Hendricks can see ghosts, but she can't see herself having a fun vacation. Yet when her new friends/found family, Basher and Alex, insist, Claire and her dead BFF, Sophie, pack themselves off to a remote Irish island. This tempest-tossed isle is indeed full of noises: not only is the hotel where the gang is staying double booked with a posh private party, the island's crumbling old fort is being fought over by rival ghost pirates. In death, as in life, they're vying over a legendary stash of loot, supposedly hidden somewhere on the island or in the surrounding rough seas.

Tiffany Sturgil steals the spotlight as her new boutique Naughty & Nice opens in downtown Gansett—right in time for the annual spring Race Week festivities. Finally divorced and ready for a new beginning, Tiffany wonders if sexy police chief Blaine Taylor thinks of her as often as she thinks of him since their explosive encounter last fall. Back then, he directed her to call him the second she was officially divorced, but the opening of her store and her unconventional ad campaign have put the island's lingerie queen at odds with the town's top cop.

Spring 1946: Best friends Vera Frankel and Edith Ban arrive in Naples. Refugees from Hungary, they managed to escape from a train headed for Auschwitz and spent the rest of the war hiding on an Austrian farm. Now, the two young women are starting new lives abroad. Armed with a letter of recommendation from an American officer, Vera finds work at the United States embassy where she falls in love with Captain Anton Wight. But as Vera and Edith grapple with the aftermath of the war, so too does Anton, and when he suddenly disappears, Vera is forced to change course.

Alice McDermott's masterful new novel is a vivd portrait of an American family caught at the crossroads of the tumultuous middle decades of the 20th century. Witty, compassionate, and wry, After This evokes the social, political, and spiritual upheavals of its time through the experiences of a working-class couple, John and Mary Keane, their four children, and the changes radiating through their Catholic community on Long Island.

Ember's defiance has always been a frustration to the rest of her island community. But even she didn't expect to be selected as the next sacrifice, years before another is due. She can't help but wonder if it relates to the strange new ability that's just begun to stir within her. She doesn't intend to go down without a fight—in fact, the chance to confront the monster demanding sacrifices is a more welcome path than the marriage her parents had arranged to a local farmer.

When Jill Morgan left Tempest Island after high school, she didn’t know what she wanted to do the rest of her life. The only thing she’d ever loved was writing fiction, but that was a pursuit with no financial guarantees. So she did the responsible thing and got her college degree, then a job that provided a good living, and she wrote in her free time. She never expected to become a bestseller, but her books—written under a pseudonym—brought her millions of happy readers. And a stalker.

Fong and Maya created Scum Island as a virtual sanctuary—a world where players could escape, explore, and form unbreakable bonds. But their peace shatters with a cryptic message: “Ready for the next round?” Now, their beloved island has been corrupted, and an unseen enemy threatens everything they’ve built....

DI Macleod heads for the Black Isle as winter sets in to unravel the mystery of two lovers in a burned out bothy. With his feisty partner DC McGrath, he must unravel the connection between a family living under a cultish cloud and a radio station whose staff are being permanently retired. In the dark of winter, can Macleod shine a light on the shadowy relationships driving a killer to their murderous tasks?