Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs

Tensions between the fae and humans are coming to a head. And when coyote shapeshifter Mercy and her Alpha werewolf mate, Adam, are called upon to stop a rampaging troll, they find themselves with something that could be used to make the fae back down and forestall out-and-out war: a human child stolen long ago by the fae.

Defying the most powerful werewolf in the country, the humans, and the fae, Mercy, Adam, and their pack choose to protect the boy no matter what the cost. But who will protect them from a boy who is fire touched?

I love this series. The very best of urban fantasy - complex world-building, likeable characters and lots of action.

The Summer Before The War by Helen Simonson

East Sussex, 1914. It's the end of an idyllic summer and Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha in the pretty coastal town of Rye. Casting aside the recent sabre rattling over the Balkans, Agatha has more immediate concerns; she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master.

When Beatrice Nash arrives, it is clear she is significantly more free thinking and attractive than anyone believes a Latin teacher should be. For her part, mourning the death of her beloved father who has left her penniless, Beatrice simply wants to be left alone to pursue her teaching and writing.

But just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape, and the colourful characters that populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end. For despite Agatha's reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. Soon, everything will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war.

There are so many strands to the story - the class structure, the way in which women are viewed, homosexuality, the treatment of refugees but they are all woven together skilfully and in an understated way. It's a very clever, very enjoyable, quiet read. No action but a lot happens.

Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman

Call Me By Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blooms between seventeen-year-old Elio and his father's house guest Oliver during a restless summer on the Italian Riviera. 

Unrelenting currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire threaten to overwhelm the lovers who at first feign indifference to the charge between them. What grows from the depths of their souls is a romance of scarcely six weeks' duration, and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. 

For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing they both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.

Another WOW book.  A fairly simple story, no big twists, no big secrets revealed but so well written it grabbed and me and didn't let go.

And I'm not sure a 17 year old boy should be left alone with a peach!

The Girl In The Red Coat by Kate Hamer

Newly single mom Beth has one constant, gnawing worry: that her dreamy eight-year-old daughter, Carmel, who has a tendency to wander off, will one day go missing. And then one day, it happens: On a Saturday morning thick with fog, Beth takes Carmel to a local outdoor festival, they get separated in the crowd, and Carmel is gone. Shattered, Beth sets herself on the grim and lonely mission to find her daughter, keeping on relentlessly even as the authorities tell her that Carmel may be gone for good. Carmel, meanwhile, is on a strange and harrowing journey of her own--to a totally unexpected place that requires her to live by her wits, while trying desperately to keep in her head, at all times, a vision of her mother ...

I really enjoyed this book. Not a classic whodunnit, more a what will happen in the end.

The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins

EVERY DAY THE SAME
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

UNTIL TODAY
And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

The plot twists and turns, the narrator is unreliable and most of the characters unlikeable, but.... I couldn't put it down!

The ending was great. Very satisfying.

The Last Train by Sue Lawrence

At 7 p.m. on 28 December 1879, a violent storm batters the newly built rail bridge across the River Tay, close to the city of Dundee. Ann Craig is waiting for her husband, the owner of a large local jute mill, to return home. From her window Ann sees a shocking sight as the bridge collapses, and the lights of the train in which he is travelling plough down into the freezing river waters.

As Ann manages the grief and expectations of family and friends amid a town mourning its loved ones, doubt is cast on whether Robert was on the train after all. If not, where is he? And who is the mysterious woman who is first to be washed ashore? 

In 2015, Fiona Craig wakes to find that her partner Pete, an Australian restaurateur, has cleared the couple's bank account before abandoning his car at the local airport and disappearing. When the police discover his car is stolen, Fiona conducts her own investigation into Pete's background, slowly uncovering dark secrets and strange parallels with the events of 1879.

2 stories only very vaguely connected told in alternating chapters. Both storylines were good until the end when they both had very strange and out there twists that really weren't necessary.

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan

Jake Marlowe is the last werewolf. Now just over 200 years old, Jake has an insatiable appreciation for good scotch, books, and the pleasures of the flesh, with a voracious libido and a hunger for meat that drives him crazy each full moon. Although he is physically healthy, Jake has slipped into a deep existential crisis, considering taking his own life and ending a legend that has lived for thousands of years. But there are two dangerous groups--one new, one ancient--with reasons of their own for wanting Jake very much alive.

It took me a couple of tries to start this book, but once I did I loved it. I love the language. It is beautifully written, deftly plotted and extremely compelling....also a bit gory and sexy in an ick sort of way, (having sex with your new werewolf lover while lying in the remains of your victim).