The Richard & Judy Autumn Book Club Titles Announced

Richard and Judy hosted the very successful book club on Channel 4, when they moved on, the book club concept stayed with Channel 4 whilst they teamed up with W H Smith to launch their own, new club in 2010.


The Autumn Book Club contains ten titles, one title per week will be launched in W H Smith stores throughout the country.  The ten books chosen are:





Secrets of the Tides by Hannah Richell
"The Tides are a family with dark secrets.  Haunted by the events of one tragic day ten years ago, they are each, in their own way, struggling to move forwards with their lives.  Dora, the youngest daughter, lives in a ramshackle East End warehouse with her artist boyfriend Dan.  Dora is doing a good job of skating across the surface of her life - but when she discovers she is pregnant the news leaves her shaken and staring back at the darkness of a long-held guilt.  Returning to Clifftops, the rambling family house perched high on the Dorset coastline, Dora must confront her past.  Clifftops hasn't changed in years, and moving through it's rooms and gardens, Dora can still feel the echo of that terrible summer's day when life changed forever for the Tides.  As Dora begins her search for clues surrounding the events of that fateful day, she comes to realise that the path to redemption may rest with her troubled sister, Cassie.  If Dora can unlock the secrets Cassie swore she would take to her grave, just maybe she will have a shot at salvation.  But can long-held secrets ever really be forgiven?  And even if you do manage to forgive and forget. how do you ever allow yourself to truly love again?"

Between A Mother and her Child by Elizabeth Noble
"For Maggie and Bill it was love at first sight ..... One impulsive wedding later and with the arrival of three perfect children, Jake, Aly and Stan, the Barrett family seem to have it all.  Until the day their world stops turning.  When Jake dies suddenly, they're swept away on a tide of grief that fractures Maggie and Bill's marriage.  She and the children are left clinging to the wreckage of their family.  And they need help, because in her grief Maggie is in danger of losing Aly and Stan too.  Enter Kate, housekeeper, companion and shoulder to cry on.  She's here to pick up the pieces and fix what isn't completely broken.  But can Maggie trust Kate?  And why is Kate so keen to help?"


The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
"A bewitching tale of heartbreak and hope set in 1920s Alaska.  Jack and Mabel have staked everything on making a fresh start for themselves in a homestead at 'the world's edge' in the raw Alaskan wilderness.  But as the days grow shorter, Jack is losing his battle to clear the land, and Mabel can no longer contain her grief for the baby she lost many years before.  The evening the first snow falls, their mood unaccountably changes.  In a moment of tenderness, the pair are suprised to find themselves building a snowman - or rather a snowgirl - together.  The next morning, all traces of her have disappeared, and Jack can't quite shake the notion that he glimpsed a small figure - a child? - running through the spruce trees in the dawn light."

The Seamstress by Maria Duenas
"Spain, 1936, and the brink of Civil War.  Young, poor Sara Quiroga is swept up in a whirlwind romance with her wily lover Ramiro.  Fleeing Madrid together for Morocco, her love blinds her to his real failings.  Soon abandoned, left penniless and in debt to the authorities, she has to rely on the one skill she still possesses; sewing.  Taken under the wing of the bullish but caring housekeeper Candelaria, Sara is able to sew for the glamorous foreign English and German women in Tetouan.  Privy to their unbridled gossip, Sara becomes invaluable to the British Secret Service, a position that is filled with untold risk."


The Shoemaker's Wife by Adriana Trigiani
"Nestled high in the Italian Alps lies Vilminore, home to Ciro, a strapping mountain boy.  Close by lives Enza, a practical girl who longs only for a happy life for her family.  When the two meet as teenagers, it seems it could be the start of a life together .........  Then Ciro catches the local priest in a scandal and is sent to America as an apprentice to a shoe maker in Little Italy, leaving behind a bereft Enza.  Her family faces disaster and she, too, is forced to flee to America with her father to secure their future."



Fault Line by Robert Goddard
"A search for missing documents in an international mining company becomes a voyage into dangerous waters.   A dead friend, a lost lover and a clutch of mysteries from Jonathan Kellaway's youth in Cornwall and Italy in the late 1960s come back to haunt him when he is tasked with discovering why there is a gaping hole in his employer's records - and to tempt him with the hope  that he may at last learn the truth about the tragedies of those years.  It is a truth that has claimed several victims before.  If he pursues it hard and long enough, he may only add himself to the list.  But pursue it he will.  Because the truth, he comes to realise, is the secret that has consumed his life.  This time he will not stop ........ until he has found it."


The Guilty One by Lisa Ballantyne
"A little boy was found dead in a children's playground .......  Daniel Hunter has spent years defending lost causes as a solicitor in London.  But his life changes when he is introduced to Sebastian, an eleven-year-old accused of murdering an innocent young boy.  As he plunges into the muddy depths of Sebastian's troubled home life, Daniel thinks back to his own childhood in foster care - and to Minnie, the woman whose love saved him, until she, too, betrayed him so badly that he cut her out of his life.  But what crime did Minnie commit that made Daniel disregard her for fifteen years?  And will Daniel's identification with a child on trial for murder make him question everything he ever believed in?"


The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore
"In the winter of 1952, Isabel Carey moves to the East Riding of Yorkshire with her husband Philip, a GP.  With Philip spending long hours on call, Isabel finds herself isolated and lonely as she strives to adjust to the realities of married life.  Woken by intense cold one night, she discovers an old RAF greatcoat in the back of a cupboard.  Sleeping under it for warmth, she starts to dream.  And not long afterwards, while her husband is out, she is startled by a knock at her window.  Outside is a young RAF pilot, waiting to come in.  His name is Alec, and his powerful presence both disturbs and excites her.  Her initial alarm soon fades, and they begin an intense affair.  But nothing has prepared her for the truth about Alec's life, nor the impact it will have on hers ....."


Double Cross by Ben Macintyre
D-Day, 6 June 1944, the turning point of the Second World War, was a victory of arms.  But it was also a triumph for a different kind of operation: one of deceit, aimed at convincing the Nazis that Calais and Norway, not Normandy, were the targets of the 150,000-strong invasion force.  The deception involved every branch of Allied wartime intelligence: the Bletchley Park code-breakers, MI5, MI6, SOE, Scientific Intelligence, the FBI, and the French Resistance.  But at it's heart was the 'Double Cross System', a team of double agents controlled by the secret Twenty Committee, so named because Twenty in Roman numerals forms a double cross."


The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz
"THE GAME'S AFOOT........ It is November 1890 and London is gripped by a merciless winter.  Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are enjoying tea by the fire when an agitated gentleman arrives unannounced at 221b Baker Street.  He begs Holmes for help, telling the unnerving story of a scar-face man with piercing eyes who has stalked him in recent weeks.  Sherlock Holmes is back with all the nuance, pace and powers of deduction that make him the world's greatest and most celebrated detective."