On Bee's Bookshelf

In the crumbling seaside town of Hawksbridge, Shona finds kinship with the eccentric Gifford family living illegally in a derelict building. Their stories of survival give her the courage to paint again-until she discovers a body wrapped in carpet, and everything starts to unravel. Richard knows her secrets. He's documented every shameful detail of her childhood, from the fire she set at fifteen to the deaths that followed.  Now he's weaponizing that knowledge, jeopardizing her relationships and her future. But Shona has learned something important from the misfits of sometimes the only way to break free is to embrace the darkness you've been running from. As New Year's Day dawns, Shona faces a choice that will define who she really is. Because some shadows can't be escaped-they can only be owned. "I have no idea what you intend to do, And then your shoulders slump, 'It's not worth it, is it, Shona? You're immune to slaps, cigarette burns, insults. ...

Welcome to Pay to Stay, Los Angeles’s premier minimum-security facility where the privileged serve time Friday to Monday only.  But this New Year’s weekend, seven inmates—including a driven campaign manager, a disgraced nurse, a party girl, and one mysterious male transfer—discover their abusive guard dead, wrapped in an ironic “Community Payback” vest. Now they must solve his murder before their cushy arrangement becomes a permanent stay in maximum security. As a storm rages outside and the power fails, alliances shift within. With police knocking at their door and an emotional support iguana named Nacho as their witness, these inmates hustle to collect evidence and plan a killer party—all while dodging suspicion. Because someone in this concrete block is a murderer. And everyone is a suspect. But as New Year’s Eve approaches and bodies pile up, these unlikely allies discover that in Pay to Stay, some debts can only be paid in blood. "Is this seriously happening? We're going ...

Hazel and Marc were paired together on revolutionary new reality TV show Love Synced, in which sophisticated AI matches hopeful lovers based on its perceptive algorithms. But when it came time to say I Do on camera, Hazel couldn't go through with it, leaving her perfect match at the altar, his family furious and the whole TV production in jeopardy. Now all she wants to do is fly home. Instead, she's trapped in a tiny isolated airport that's been ground to a halt amidst a massive snow storm... with her ex and his obnoxiously rich family sitting at the gate with her. But when they start turning up dead, a jilted lover is the least of Hazel's worries – there's a serial killer to catch first. I have come to have unreasonably high expectations from L.M. Chilton since the first time I was sent a copy of their work and they've never let me down. I'm happy to say, the streak continues. I Think We Should Kill Other People is a wickedly clever murder mystery; high con...

I’m a slut for mythology and the Odyssey saga has always been one of my favourites — but I’m also one of those people who thinks the women written into these stories, characters that have become timeless icons of literature, were never given the respect they deserve.  That’s why I adore Rosie Hewlett so much; she identifies the way that women read these stories, the way we recognise things in these characters that the men writing them couldn’t understand, the way we can see them as more than a wife, a witch — and she raises the voice we already heard. And seeing as she already killed it with one of my most loved women in ancient lit, Medea, I was so excited to read her reimagining of Penelope, a mighty, clever, fair queen who is written off as anything but the patient, loyal wife of Odysseus and the often forgotten 'rebellious handmaid' Melantho.  Immediately I was drawn in by the thoughtful, descriptive prose that set the tone, the time, the atmosphere so well with a heavy mi...

I'm excited to share a little sneak peek at an upcoming release from my favourites over at Orenda Books - The Bone Mother  will be released this July, following up from the magnificent Crow Moon:  Want to know more? 👇 Martha Strangeways has settled into a quiet life in Strathbran, after the horrific events that traumatised the village a year earlier. But all this is turned upside down when her friend at Glasgow CID, DI Derek Summers, calls on her to help with a disturbing case: a human ear, with an unusual Celtic earring, has been found next to a railway line in the Highlands. And when the body of a young woman wearing matching jewellery turns up at a landmark church shortly after, the mystery deepens. Why has she been laid out in a ritualistic fashion? Does her trek along the little-known Cailleach Way have anything to do with her death? And who is running the Facebook Group where she posted details of her journey to the shrine of the Bone Mother goddess? As Martha tries to ...

Best friends Benny and Joy host a beloved 'comedy survival' podcast, gleefully finding life-affirming humour in near-death experiences. When Benny arrives at Joy and her husband's home one morning to record, he finds shattered glass and an empty house. With Joy missing and the hours ticking by, not even their most devoted fans could guess the terrible secrets they have hidden from the world - and from each other. If Benny wants to find Joy in time, and clear his own name, he'll have to solve the highest stakes survival story yet. You know when a book tries to be too many things and it ends up just not doing any of them well? That didn't happen here. TSMSYL is a love story, mystery, crime drama - 368 pages of emotional distress with a beautiful result. We're introduced to our two leading characters on Day Zero before everything changed, switching perspective between Benny and Joy to give us a real rounded feeling of their lifelong relationship, seeing them as peo...

But his gamekeeper sees something different when he looks at me. Sir Clifford Chatterley turned me into a vampire to prove a theory — that feral creatures like me could be domesticated, civilised, and made acceptable for his aristocratic world. He keeps me chained and starved, drowning my hunger in silver and ash while he moulds me into the perfect Progeny wife. Oliver Mellors doesn't want to tame me. He wants to unleash me. In the dark woods beyond Wragby Hall, he teaches me to hunt. To feed. To feel. He shows me that the wildness my husband is trying to suppress isn't shameful — it's my power. Between the lord who wants to break me and the vampire who wants to free me, I discover a hunger that has nothing to do with blood. And everything to do with taking back what's mine. My body. My desire. My rage. You know the story. But you don’t know  my  story. “When I was human, they told me desire was a sin. Now I am a monster, I live to be sinful. I think maybe you do, too.”...