Top list: True stories

Finding Stevie is a dark and poignant true story that highlights the dangers lurking online.

When Stevie’s social worker tells Cathy, an experienced foster carer, that Stevie, 14, is gender fluid she isn’t sure what that term means and looks it up.

Stevie, together with his younger brother and sister, have been brought up by their grandparents as their mother is in prison. But the grandparents can no longer cope with Stevie’s behaviour so they place him in care.

Stevie is exploring his gender identity, and like many young people he spends time online. Cathy warns him about the dangers of talking to strangers online and advises him how to stay safe. When his younger siblings tell their grandmother that they have a secret they can’t tell, Cathy is worried. However, nothing could have prepared her for the truth when Stevie finally breaks down and confesses what he’s done.

Peabody and Emmy Award–winning journalist Jane Marie expands on her popular podcast The Dream to expose the scourge of multilevel marketing schemes and how they have profited off the evisceration of the American working class.

We’ve all heard of Amway, Mary Kay, Tupperware, and LuLaRoe, but few know the nefarious way they, and countless other multilevel marketing (MLM) companies, prey on desperate Americans struggling to make ends meet.

When factories close, stalwart industries shutter, and blue-collar opportunities evaporate, MLMs are there, ready to pounce on the crumbling American Dream. MLMs thrive in rural areas and on military bases, targeting women with promises of being their own boss and millions of dollars in easy income—even at the risk of their entire life savings. But the vast majority—99.7%—of those who join an MLM make no money or lose money, and wind up stuck with inventory they can’t sell to recoup their losses.

Selling the Dream “is an urgent and riveting exposé” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) that reveals how these companies—often owned by political and corporate elites, such as the DeVos and the Van Andel families—have made a windfall in profit off of the desperation of the American working class.

She thought she’d left her past behind.

She was wrong…

Despite a childhood in the care system, Anna Price has beaten the odds and built for herself the perfect life, complete with beautiful seaside home, devoted husband and a job she loves.

Then a policeman appears at Anna’s door: her estranged brother Henry is a wanted serial killer, and the police need Anna’s help to catch him before he strikes again.

When an envelope turns up on her doorstep, Anna suddenly finds herself caught in a sick game. One that she remembers all too well from childhood – one that, this time, she must win at all costs…

Readers are obsessing over The Serial Killer’s Sister!

‘Loved every second of this. Finished it in 36 hours. And the twist…Didn’t see that coming!’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘An excellent read with a fantastic jaw-dropping ending.’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Loved every bit of this book. I thought I knew exactly what was going on but oh how wrong I was…The story right until the very end is full of surprises.’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Alice Hunter is the queen of thrillers!’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘The twist at the end is so clever that I was left thinking about it for days after.’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Twists, turns, revenge, evil, family...so freaking good!!’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘WOW. This was such a page-turner, and I truly didn't expect that ending.’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘I devoured this book in just one sitting. This is an unputdownable, addictive and gripping read. Hunter has pulled me in and kept me captive until the very last page.’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘A true masterpiece, that ending just keeps on giving, with twist upon twist.’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘WOW WOW WOW. I could've read it in one sitting, but I had to restrain myself!’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog – now the subject of a new Disney+ docuseries – and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing.

Shari Franke’s childhood was a constant battle for survival. Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2.5 million subscribers. But a darker truth lurked beneath the surface – Ruby’s wholesome online persona masked a more tyrannical parenting style than anyone could have imagined.

As the family’s YouTube notoriety grew, so too did Ruby’s delusions of righteousness. Fueled by the sadistic influence of relationship coach Jodi Hildebrandt, together they implemented an inhumane and merciless disciplinary regime.

Ruby and Jodi were arrested in Utah in 2023 on multiple charges of aggravated child abuse. On that fateful day, Shari shared a photo online of a police car outside their home. Her caption had one word: 'Finally'.

For the first time, Shari will reveal the disturbing truth behind 8 Passengers and her family’s devastating involvement with Jodi Hildebrandt’s cultish life coaching program, 'ConneXions'. No stone is left unturned as Shari exposes the perils of influencer culture and shares for the first time her battle for truth and survival in the face of her mother’s cruelty.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Now an FX TV series streaming on DISNEY+

'Unquestionably one of the greatest literary achievements of the 21st century' Nick Hornby

From the author of Empire of Pain – a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.

One night in December 1972, Jean McConville, a mother of ten, was abducted from her home in Belfast and never seen alive again. Her disappearance would haunt her orphaned children, the perpetrators of this terrible crime and a whole society in Northern Ireland for decades.

In this powerful, scrupulously reported book, Patrick Radden Keefe offers not just a forensic account of a brutal crime but a vivid portrait of the world in which it happened. The tragedy of an entire country is captured in the spellbinding narrative of a handful of characters, presented in lyrical and unforgettable detail.

A poem by Seamus Heaney inspires the title: ‘Whatever You Say, Say Nothing’. By defying the culture of silence, Keefe illuminates how a close-knit society fractured; how people chose sides in a conflict and turned to violence; and how, when the shooting stopped, some ex-combatants came to look back in horror at the atrocities they had committed, while others continue to advocate violence even today.

Say Nothing deftly weaves the stories of Jean McConville and her family with those of Dolours Price, the first woman to join the IRA as a front-line soldier, who bombed the Old Bailey when barely out of her teens; Gerry Adams, who helped bring an end to the fighting, but denied his own IRA past; Brendan Hughes, a fearsome IRA commander who turned on Adams after the peace process and broke the IRA’s code of silence; and other indelible figures. By capturing the intrigue, the drama and the profound human cost of the Troubles, the book presents a searing chronicle of the lengths that people are willing to go to in pursuit of a political ideal, and the ways in which societies mend – or don’t – in the aftermath of a long and bloody conflict.

'The most explosive, mind-blowing business book I've ever read' – Bradley Hope, New York Times bestselling author of Billion Dollar Whale

'Jaw-dropping . . . well-told, well-structured and exquisitely reported' – Financial Times book review

Discover the unauthorized, unvarnished story of famed Wall Street hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio.

When Ray Dalio, billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, announced in October 2022 that he was stepping down from the company he founded forty-seven years ago, the news made headlines around the world. Dalio achieved worldwide fame thanks to a mystique of success cultivated in frequent media appearances, celebrity hobnobbing, and his bestselling book, Principles. In The Fund, Rob Copeland draws on hundreds of interviews with those inside and around the firm to reveal what really goes on with Dalio and his cohorts behind closed doors.

Tracing more than fifty years of Dalio's leadership, The Fund peels back the curtain to reveal a rarefied world of wealth and power, where former FBI director Jim Comey kisses Dalio's ring, recent Pennsylvania Senate candidate David McCormick sells out, and countless Bridgewater acolytes describe what it's like to work at this fascinating firm.

Dalio has stepped down from Bridgewater before; will the legacy of his Principles continue to chart the course of the firm? The Fund provides unique insight into the story of Dalio and Bridgewater, past, present and future.

'A taut, nonfiction thriller' – Bryan Burrough, bestselling author of Barbarians at the Gate

'Manages to both shock and entertain at the same time' – Philipp Meyer, bestselling author of American Rust and The Son

""With We Carry Their Bones, Erin Kimmerle continues to unearth the true story of the Dozier School, a tale more frightening than any fiction. In a corrupt world, her unflinching revelations are as close as we'll come to justice."" –Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer-Prize Winning author of The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad

Forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle investigates of the notorious Dozier Boys School—the true story behind the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Nickel Boys—and the contentious process to exhume the graves of the boys buried there in order to reunite them with their families.

The Arthur G. Dozier Boys School was a well-guarded secret in Florida for over a century, until reports of cruelty, abuse, and “mysterious” deaths shut the institution down in 2011. Established in 1900, the juvenile reform school accepted children as young as six years of age for crimes as harmless as truancy or trespassing. The boys sent there, many of whom were Black, were subject to brutal abuse, routinely hired out to local farmers by the school’s management as indentured labor, and died either at the school or attempting to escape its brutal conditions.

In the wake of the school’s shutdown, Erin Kimmerle, a leading forensic anthropologist, stepped in to locate the school’s graveyard to determine the number of graves and who was buried there, thus beginning the process of reuniting the boys with their families through forensic and DNA testing. The school’s poorly kept accounting suggested some thirty-one boys were buried in unmarked graves in a remote field on the school’s property. The real number was at least twice that. Kimmerle’s work did not go unnoticed; residents and local law enforcement threatened and harassed her team in their eagerness to control the truth she was uncovering—one she continues to investigate to this day.

We Carry Their Bones is a detailed account of Jim Crow America and an indictment of the reform school system as we know it. It’s also a fascinating dive into the science of forensic anthropology and an important retelling of the extraordinary efforts taken to bring these lost children home to their families—an endeavor that created a political firestorm and a dramatic reckoning with racism and shame in the legacy of America.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

In this “unmissable book” (The Guardian), an internationally renowned forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist demonstrates the remarkable human capacity for radical empathy, change, and redemption.

What drives someone to commit an act of terrible violence? Drawing from her thirty years of experience in providing therapy to people in prisons and secure hospitals who have committed serious offenses, Dr. Gwen Adshead provides fresh and surprising insights into violence and the mind. Through a collaboration with coauthor Eileen Horne, Dr. Adshead brings her extraordinary career to life in a series of unflinching portraits.

Alongside doctor and patient, we discover what human cruelty, ranging from serial homicide to stalking, arson or sexual offending, means to perpetrators, experiencing firsthand how minds can change when the people some might label as “evil” are able to take responsibility for their life stories and get to know their own minds. With outcomes ranging from hope to despair, from denial to recovery, these men and women are revealed in all their complexity and shared humanity. In this era of mass incarceration, deep cuts in mental health care and extreme social schisms, this book offers a persuasive argument for compassion over condemnation.

Moving, thought-provoking, and brilliantly told, The Devil You Know is a rare and timely book with the power to transform our ideas about cruelty and violence, and to radically expand the limits of empathy. “A welcome contribution to the literature of crime and rehabilitation” (Kirkus Reviews).

Few names in history evoke as much terror as Countess Elizabeth Báthory. A noblewoman of immense wealth and power in seventeenth-century Hungary, she was revered for her intelligence and influence. Yet behind the walls of her grand castle, a far darker story unfolded. Accused of torturing and murdering hundreds of young women, she became one of history’s most infamous figures. Some called her a monster. Others believed she was the victim of a political conspiracy.

Countess Elizabeth Báthory: The Blood Countess delves into the chilling legend and the historical truth. Was she truly a sadistic murderer, or was her downfall orchestrated by powerful rivals?

Through historical records, eyewitness accounts, and modern interpretations, this book unravels the mystery of the woman whose name became synonymous with horror.

Can I Let You Go? is the true story of Faye, a wonderful young woman who may never be able to parent her unborn child.

Faye is 24, pregnant, and has learning difficulties as a result of her mother’s alcoholism. Faye is gentle, childlike and vulnerable, and normally lives with her grandparents, both of whom have mobility problems. Cathy and her children welcome Faye into their home and hearts. The care plan is for Faye to stay with Cathy until after the birth when she will return home and the baby will go for adoption. Given that Faye never goes out alone it is something of a mystery how she ever became pregnant and Faye says it’s a secret.

To begin with Faye won’t acknowledge she is pregnant or talk about the changes in her body as she worries it will upset her grandparents, but after her social worker assures her she can talk to Cathy she opens up. However, this leads to Faye realizing just how much she will lose and she changes her mind and says she wants to keep her baby.

Is it possible Faye could learn enough to parent her child? Cathy believes it is, and Faye’s social worker is obliged to give Faye the chance.

THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

A Times, Spectator and Waterstones Book of the Year

'Shocking and moving' Guardian

'Top marks for its searing frankness, framed in wistfully beautiful prose’ The Times

At eight years of age, Charles Spencer was sent away to one of England's most England's most exclusive boarding schools. Here he reveals the strange secrets of the school, and the culture of cruelty and abuse he experienced in his five years there as pupil.

Spencer reflects on the misery, hopelessness and abandonment he felt aged eight, viscerally describing the intense pain of homesickness and the vicious brutality of a boys' school in the 1970s. All these years later, Spencer's bafflement at the teachers' motivations to inflict such cruelty on young children in palpable. As is his fury that, even if somehow he had spoken up, he'd never have been believed.

Charles Spencer's book 'A Very Private School' was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 11-03-2024.

Henri Charrière, called ""Papillon,"" for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, was convicted in Paris in 1931 of a murder he did not commit. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, he became obsessed with one goal: escape. After planning and executing a series of treacherous yet failed attempts over many years, he was eventually sent to the notorious prison, Devil's Island, a place from which no one had ever escaped . . . until Papillon. His flight to freedom remains one of the most incredible feats of human cunning, will, and endurance ever undertaken.

Charrière's astonishing autobiography, Papillon, was published in France to instant acclaim in 1968, more than twenty years after his final escape. Since then, it has become a treasured classic -- the gripping, shocking, ultimately uplifting odyssey of an innocent man who would not be defeated.

“Once you start reading, be prepared, because you won’t want to stop.” —Oprah Winfrey

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • New York Times bestselling author Lara Love Hardin recounts her slide from soccer mom to opioid addict to jailhouse shot caller and her unlikely comeback as a highly successful ghostwriter in this harrowing, hilarious, no-holds-barred memoir.

No one expects the police to knock on the door of the million-dollar two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady secret: she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors’ credit cards.

Lara is convicted of thirty-two felonies and becomes inmate S32179. She finds that jail is a class system with a power structure that is somewhere between an adolescent sleepover party and Lord of the Flies. Furniture is made from tampon boxes, and Snickers bars are currency. But Lara quickly learns the rules and brings love and healing to her fellow inmates as she climbs the social ladder and acquires the nickname “Mama Love,” showing that jailhouse politics aren’t that different from the PTA meetings she used to attend.

When she’s released, she reinvents herself as a ghostwriter. Now, she’s legally co-opting other people’s identities and getting to meet Oprah, meditate with the Dalai Lama, and have dinner with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But the shadow of her past follows her. Shame is a poison worse than heroin—there is no way to detox. Lara must learn how to forgive herself and others, navigate life as a felon on probation, and prove to herself that she is more good than bad, among other essential lessons.

The Many Lives of Mama Love is a heartbreaking and tender journey from shame to redemption, despite a system that makes it almost impossible for us to move beyond the worst thing we have ever done.

A riveting, must-listen story of true crime from the bestselling author of Secrets in the Cellar.

The devastating and powerful memoir from a French publisher who was abused by a famous writer from the age of thirteen

‘Dazzling’ New York Times

‘A gut-punch of a memoir with prose that cuts like a knife’ Kate Elizabeth Russell, author of My Dark Vanessa

Thirty years ago, Vanessa Springora was the teenage muse of one of France’s most celebrated writers, a footnote in the narrative of an influential man. At the end of 2019, as women around the world began to speak out, Springora, now in her forties and the director of one of France’s leading publishing houses, decided to reclaim her own story.

Consent is the story of her stolen adolescence. Devastating in its honesty, Springora’s painstaking memoir lays bare the cultural attitudes and circumstances that made it possible for a thirteen-year-old girl to become involved with a fifty-year-old man.

Drawing parallels between children’s fairy tales, French history and the author’s personal life, Consent offers intimate insights into the meaning of love and consent, the toll of trauma and the power of healing in women’s lives.

‘OMG THAT ENDING!!!!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader Review

Is murder in the blood?

In a sleepy Devon village, a woman is taken from the streets. Local vet Jenny is horrified. This kind of thing doesn’t happen here.

But it’s not the first time she’s been so close to a crime scene. The daughter of a prolific serial killer, she’s spent her whole life running from who she really is.

And the crime is harrowingly similar to those her father committed all those years ago…

But she’s not her father’s daughter.

Is she?

Readers are LOVING The Serial Killer’s Daughter!

‘A gripping, fast-paced plot that drew me in and propelled me on a twisty, white-knuckle ride. Utterly compelling with an ending that chilled me to the bone.’ Anne Wyn Clark

‘A tense, taut thriller…pulls you along with it right to the last page.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘I loved this book. Once I picked this novel up, I didn’t put it down.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘The twist at the end is so clever that I was left thinking about it for days after.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Such an addictive read!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘I was completely hooked, I even took it to the toilet with me!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Intense, gripping, twisty and unpredictable, I loved it.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Totally gripped from the first page to the last, suspicious of everyone and everything. A tense, faced paced thriller that will keep you up at night.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘A fast-paced book with a great storyline. I tore through the pages and thoroughly enjoyed it.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘The world could’ve ended when I was reading this book and I wouldn’t have noticed.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Brilliant book. So worth the read. Absolutely kept me rapt right to the end. I loved it.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Really pacey and suspenseful – I devoured it!’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Don't Go There explains for the first time how an odyssey by nine seasoned climbers, nine experienced member of the Ekaterinburg University Climbing Society, came to end in disaster.

'Brilliantly gripping' Sunday Times; 'Compelling' Daily Mail; 'Heart-rending' Sunday Telegraph; 'Excellent' The Times; 'Engrossing' Independent

The UK's only war crimes trial took place in 1999 and had its origins in the horrors of the Holocaust, but only now in The Ticket Collector from Belarus? can the full story be told.

The Ticket Collector from Belarus tells the remarkable story of two interwoven journeys. Ben-Zion Blustein and Andrei Sawoniuk were childhood friends in 1930s Domachevo, a holiday and health resort in what is now Belarus. During the events that followed the Nazi invasion in 1941, they became the bitterest of enemies. After the war, Ben-Zion made his way to Israel, and ‘Andrusha the bastard’ to England, where he found work as a British Rail ticket collector in London.

They next confronted each other in the Old Bailey, over half a century later, where one was the principal prosecution witness, and the other charged with a fraction of the number of murders he was alleged to have committed. There was no physical evidence, just one man’s word against another, leaving the jury with a series of agonising dilemmas: Could any witness statement be trusted so long after the event? Was Andrusha a brutal killer, a hapless pawn or a scapegoat? And were his furious protests a sign of guilt or the justified anger of an innocent old man?

Mike Anderson was gripped by the story, and so began his quest to find the truth about this astonishing case and the people at its heart. As he discovered, it was even more remarkable than he could ever have imagined.

'This is more than a richly detailed story about the hubris, corruption and incompetence that doomed Credit Suisse; it's a stark warning to all of us about what happens when we let bankers do what they like' - Oliver Bullough, bestselling author of Butler to the World

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For centuries, Swiss banks have served the globe's wealthiest individuals, employing a strict culture of anonymity and gaining massive wealth in the process. But when Credit Suisse collapsed, the veil of secrecy came down and the world was suddenly privy to the corruption, scandal and empty hubris that keep our biggest banks alive.

It was a 166-year-old bastion of Swiss banking, amongst the most important and influential financial institutions in the world – but a veneer of high-class service disguised a darker, dirtier reality. From its sterile Zurich headquarters, the bank catered to a clientele that included dictators, drug dealers and former Nazi officers, and helped fleece its own clients out of billions of dollars. This continued for decades, even as Credit Suisse continued to expand, acquiring smaller banks and granting its own executives lucrative bonus contracts.

Meltdown is the story of how the house of cards fell apart. Bloomberg investigative journalist and bestselling author of Pyramid of Lies Duncan Mavin takes readers inside the bank’s hushed marble corridors, detailing its secretive culture and the series of increasingly selfish decisions, made by a handful of men at the top, which ultimately led to disaster.

This is the fascinating history of one of the biggest financial institutions of our times - and a thrilling exposé of the wider financial services sector - which promises to give readers a shocking and brutally honest look into a previously-unknown world of greed, lies and unrelenting human ambition.

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"A riveting autopsy of how one of banking's titans gradually, then suddenly, crumbled under the weight of its own misdeeds" - Bradley Hope, New York Times bestselling author of Billion Dollar Whale and Blood and Oil

"This financial thriller of a book offers a tantalising glimpse into the rot at the heart of one of the world's most powerful banks" - Parmy Olson, bestselling author of We Are Anonymous and Supremacy

"We're used by now to bankers behaving badly, but Duncan Mavin takes it to another shocking, anger-inducing level. Credit Suisse stood for propriety, but he shows this to be a total fabrication" - Chris Blackhurst, former editor of The Independent and bestselling author of Too Big to Jail

"A gripping story of power, greed and panic, and a humbling reminder of the enormous cost of capitalism going awry" - Josie Cox, author of Women, Money and Power

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.

As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told “the best on the planet”?

Aged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea. She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her family.