The Cowgirl Nanny is the perfect heart-warming read, with characters who’ll live with me for a very long time.

Writing as Maisie Thomas, Susanna Bavin excels at creating incredibly well researched novels of female friendship during the Second World War, and this book is no exception.

If you read only one First World War saga this year – make it Wartime on Sanctuary Lane.

More absolute brilliance from one of my favourite authors.

If there’s a fifth main character in The Dubrovnik Book Club, it’s Knjizara Svih Nacija, the bookshop itself. It was named by my Croatian collaborator, Darko, and translates literally as The Bookshop Where All Are Welcome. Isn’t that lovely?

Like the Great War before it, the Second World War opened up women’s lives to work possibilities that would never have been possible in other circumstances.

My, but this book is good. It treads in so many places where angels would fear to, tripping across difficult and heart-breaking issues with just the right weight of feet.

I think every cozy mystery writer admires the skill in ‘And Then There were None’. I suppose too as writers we all fancy having a go at writing our own version of a murder set on an island, cut off from the world.

In The Broken Vow I was keen to show not only how soldiers were affected by trauma, but also the attitudes of people on the home front towards them.

Cass Grafton’s love for Cornwall shines through in her portrayal of the village, which is the perfect virtual West Country escape without going anywhere near the M5.