Stories by @emilycox

The Other Boleyn Girl

King Henry VIII of England and his wife Katherine of Aragon are having marital problems over the inability to produce a male heir. Henry summons the Boleyn family - parents Sir Thomas and Elizabeth, and their three children George, Anne , and Mary who are all approaching adulthood - to his court. The Boleyn's original plan is to have Anne, the headstrong and outspoken one of the daughters, be Henry's mistress. After initial misgivings, Anne pursues this liaison as a means for her eventually to marry into royalty on Henry's approval. However, Henry instead has his eyes on the more innocent Mary, despite her already being married to the equally innocent William Carey . Sir Thomas and the Duke of Norfolk, Lady Elizabeth's brother, do whatever they can to secure a position of privilege in the royal court by having the Boleyn children do whatever pleases the King, much to the dismay of Lady Elizabeth, who was born into nobility, but gave it up to marry Sir Thomas for love. Sir Thomas and the Duke's ultimate goal is for a Boleyn girl to produce a son with the King. Anne and Mary, based on their own personalities, take different paths, which sometimes places them at odds with Henry, with the people of England, with their family, and with each other.

The Thursday Murder Club

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders. But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Promising Young Women

Jane Peters is an adrift twenty-something by day, and a world-weary agony aunt by night. But when an office party goes too far, Jane dissolves into the high-stakes world of being the Other Woman: a role she has the right advice for, but not the smarts to follow through on. What starts out as a drunken mistake quickly unravels as Jane discovers that sex and power go hand-in-hand, and that it's hard to keep your head when you've become someone else's dirty little secret. And soon, her friendships, her sanity and even her life are put into jeopardy...

The Other Passenger

It all happens so quickly. One day you're living the dream, commuting to work by riverbus with your charismatic neighbour Kit in the seat beside you. The next, Kit hasn't turned up for the boat and his wife Melia has reported him missing. When you get off at your stop, the police are waiting. Another passenger saw you and Kit arguing on the boat home the night before and the police say that you had a reason to want him dead. You protest. You and Kit are friends - ask Melia, she'll vouch for you. And who exactly is this other passenger pointing the finger? What do they know about your lives? No, whatever danger followed you home last night, you are innocent, totally innocent.

Olive

OLIVE is many things. Independent. Adrift. Anxious. Loyal. Kind. She knows her own mind. And it’s ok that she’s still figuring it all out, navigating her world without a compass. But life comes with expectations, there are choices to be made and – sometimes – stereotypes to fulfil. So when her best friends’ lives branch away towards marriage and motherhood, leaving the path they’ve always followed together, she starts to question her choices – because life according to Olive looks a little bit different.

Second Life

She loves her husband. She's obsessed by a stranger. She's a devoted mother. She's prepared to lose everything. She knows what she's doing. She's out of control. She's innocent. She's guilty as sin. She's living two lives. She might lose both . . .

Watching You

You’re back home after four years working abroad, new husband in tow. You’re keen to find a place of your own. But for now you’re crashing in your big brother’s spare room. That’s when you meet the man next door. He’s the head teacher at the local school. Twice your age. Extraordinarily attractive. You find yourself watching him. All the time. But you never dreamed that your innocent crush might become a deadly obsession. Or that someone is watching you.

Ghosts

The first novel from the award-winning, bestselling author of Everything I Know About Love 32-year-old Nina Dean is a successful food writer with a loyal online following, but a life that is falling apart. When she uses dating apps for the first time, she becomes a victim of ghosting, and by the most beguiling of men. Her beloved dad is vanishing in slow motion into dementia, and she's starting to think about ageing and the gendered double-standard of the biological clock. On top of this she has to deal with her mother's desire for a mid-life makeover and the fact that all her friends seem to be slipping away from her... Dolly Alderton's debut novel is funny, tender and painfully relatable, filled with whip-smart observations about relationships and the way we live today.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

'Somebody's going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won't appear to be a murder and so the murderer won't be caught. Rectify that injustice and I'll show you the way out.' It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed. But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden - one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party - can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot. The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath...

The Guest List

‘Off the windswept Irish coast gather for the wedding of the year. Thirteen guests, one body’

Queenie by Candice Carty Williams

This debut novel centres round Queenie Jenkins, a 25 year old journalist who has recently gone on a break with her boyfriend but has began on a downwards spiral of self-sabotage due to unresolved feelings and traumas.