Top list: True stories

‘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 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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.

Aged nine Joss came home from school to discover her father's suicide. She's never gotten over it.

This is the true story of Joss, 13 who is angry and out of control. At the age of nine, Joss finds her father’s dead body. He has committed suicide. Then her mother remarries and Joss bitterly resents her step-father who abuses her mentally and physically.

Cathy takes Joss under her wing but will she ever be able to get through to the warm-hearted girl she sees glimpses of underneath the vehement outbreaks of anger that dominate the house, and will Cathy be able to build up Joss’s trust so she can learn the full truth of the terrible situation?

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.

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).

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, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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.

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.

'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.

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.

The unforgettable true story of one Jewish orphan’s survival against impossible odds, and her lifelong quest for family, safety and a sense of belonging.

Elida Friedman was never supposed to have been born. In the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, Nazi law forbade Jewish women from giving birth. Yet despite the danger they faced, Dr. Jonah Friedman and his wife Tzila, choose to bring a daughter into the world – a little girl they name Elida, meaning non-birth in Hebrew.

To ensure her survival, the couple must smuggle their precious baby out of the ghetto into the arms of strangers. So begins a life of constant upheaval, with Elida changing families, countries, continents and even names, countless times. Surviving the war and the Holocaust that stole her parents, the young woman never gives up hope of finding a sense of family, and the chance to belong.

A moving, powerful chronicle of overcoming impossible odds, The Forbidden Daughter is the true story of one unforgettable girl and her will to survive.

“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.

'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.

The fifteenth fostering memoir by Cathy Glass.Danny was petrified and clung to me in desperation as I carried him to my car. Trapped in his own dark world, he couldn't understand why his parents no longer loved or wanted him, and were sending him away.

While Danny’s parents have everything they could wish for in material terms, they are unable to care for their only child. This is where Cathy comes in. On a cold dark evening Danny finds a place in her home where he can be himself; away from his parents’ impatience and frustration. Often in his own little world, six-year-old Danny finds it difficult to communicate, finding solace in his best friend and confidant George – his rabbit.Cathy quickly becomes aware of his obsessively meticulous behaviour in addition to his love of patterns, he sees them everywhere and creates them at any opportunity – in his play and also with his food. She realises that patience is the key to looking after Danny as well as her well-tried strategies for managing children’s behaviour.With his father refusing to cooperate, it becomes increasingly likely that Danny will be living with Cathy permanently until she gets an opportunity to speak her piece.

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

THE SUNDAY TIMES NO.2 BESTSELLER

Like A Streecat Named Bob before it, Finding Gobi is a truly heart-warming story for animal lovers worldwide…

In 2016, Dion Leonard, a seasoned ultramarathon runner, unexpectedly stumbled across a little stray dog while competing in a gruelling 155 mile race across the Gobi Desert. The lovable pup, who earned the name ‘Gobi’, proved that what she lacked in size, she more than made up for in heart, as she went step for step with Dion over the treacherous Tian Shan Mountains, managing to keep pace with him for nearly 80 miles.

As Dion witnessed the incredible determination of this small animal, he felt something change within himself. In the past he had always focused on winning and being the best, but his goal now was simply to make sure that his new friend was safe, nourished and hydrated. Although Dion did not finish first, he felt he had won something far greater and promised to bring Gobi back to the UK for good to become a new addition to his family. This was the start of a journey neither of them would ever forget with a roller coaster ride of drama, grief, heartbreak, joy and love that changed their lives forever.

Finding Gobi is the ultimate story of hope, of resilience and of friendship, proving once again, that dogs really are ‘man’s best friend.’

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.

You've read the shocking one-sided tale of international drug kingpin Owen Hanson in Rolling Stone, VICE, and the LA Times—but now he's ready to tell his side of the story.

A surfer kid from Redondo Beach, California, Owen Hanson was still in his twenties when he found himself the leader of a multi-million-dollar criminal empire. What began as an attempt to fit in with the rich kids at the University of Southern California soon grew into gambling and loan sharking, which then opened the door to drug trafficking and money laundering. Hanson wasn't just involved in this stuff—he excelled at it. Living the fast-paced lifestyle of the rich and famous, Hanson felt he was finally making his father proud, never mind the questionable ethics and obvious danger of it all. But with the cartel, a serious drug-abuse problem, and the pursuit of the FBI all threatening to overtake him, it wouldn't be long before his lifestyle caught up with him.

The California Kid follows Owen from his roots as a USC star athlete from a broken home, where his idolization of the rich and famous began, to his descent down a dangerous path where he would stop at nothing to earn the love and acceptance of his absent mother and the respect of his father. The story that follows is almost too wild to believe—but Owen bears the twenty-one-year sentence to prove it.