A brand-new hardback on the library’s New Stock table is very hard to resist and having picked up Claire Douglas’s The Family Friend over the Easter break, I found myself compelled to read on at lots of random intervals over the next week. Bedtimes got later and later. Imogen, the central character, finds she has inherited the splendid country house belonging to Dorothea Roe, a famous reclusive artist and one of her dead mother’s best friends. Once Imogen suspects Dorothea was murdered, dark secrets emerge and the reader is left wondering if Imogen’s own life is under threat. This writer really knows how to tell a tale, and she cleverly maintains the tension and keeps you guessing till the very last page.

I’m not surprised Claire Douglas is a bestselling writer and has sold over two million copies of her books in the UK alone. The Family Friend is the first Claire Douglas that I’ve read and won’t be my last.

[The library has a copy of The Family Friend plus three other titles by Claire Douglas]