Make yours a blockbuster summer: From sweeping romance to a gripping Grisham thriller, they’re the hit books that’ll have you on the edge of your deckchair… and you can get them all FREE with the Mail

• Free e-book offer on this entire week with the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday
• Escape into another world with crime, thrillers, romantic fiction and more 

Whether you’ve got a holiday booked abroad or are just planning a staycation at home this summer, you can escape into another world with these brilliant free e-books, which we’re giving away in the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday for a whole week. 

The titles include crime, thrillers, romantic fiction and a rip-roaring, real-life story of SAS derring-do. 

Here’s our guide to your fabulous free reads – and don’t miss tomorrow’s paper to find out how to get your first e-book…

Whether you’ve got a holiday booked abroad or are just planning a staycation at home this summer, you can escape into another world with these brilliant free e-books, which we’re giving away in the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday for a whole week

Tomorrow 

IT STARTED WITH A SECRET

by Jill Mansell

When the owners run out of money, Lainey and her gay friend Kit lose their jobs at a beautiful but crumbling chateau in France’s Loire Valley.

Lainey also gets abandoned by her boyfriend when he declines her offer to move on together.

Instead, she decides to look for work with Kit. They see an advert for a dream housekeeping job at a beachfront home in Cornwall, but the employers specify that they’re looking for a couple. Lainey and Kit decide it’s worth pretending to be in a relationship for.

This page-turner is stuffed full of beautifully rounded secondary characters who you’ll root for alongside the main players. It’s an utterly engrossing rom-com that’s perfect for a lazy summer’s day

The home’s owner is 80-year-old Hollywood film star Sir Richard, a hard-drinking national treasure. 

He lives with his lovely daughter-in-law Majella, and a pack of children, dogs and cats who all need to be kept in order. 

It’s a dream gig, but as soon as they meet Seth, Sir Richard’s attractive grown-up grandson, Lainey wishes she hadn’t lied about her and Kit.

It’s not long before Seth falls for Lainey. But although he’s used to getting what he wants, he’s far too honourable to go after someone else’s girlfriend.

Yet, when Kit’s sexuality is revealed, it’s not long before the two of them are gazing into each other’s eyes on the beach. 

The path towards true love is famous for not running smoothly, however, and these two are no different.

This page-turner is stuffed full of beautifully rounded secondary characters who you’ll root for alongside the main players. 

It’s an utterly engrossing rom-com that’s perfect for a lazy summer’s day.

Sunday

THE GUARDIANS

by John Grisham

Quincy Miller has spent the past 22 years on Death Row, convicted of killing lawyer Keith Russo in a tiny Florida town. 

He has always maintained his innocence, but he had the misfortune to be one of the few black residents in a predominantly white community, which had an impact on the jury.

The principal evidence against Miller was a blood-spattered torch found in the boot of his car. He insisted it was planted, and, suspiciously, it disappeared from evidence before his trial began.

After being sentenced to life without parole, Miller launched appeal after appeal to no avail. But then he meets Cullum Post, a lawyer from an innocence organisation, who has helped to exonerate eight men over the past decade and is determined to see that Miller becomes the ninth.

But powerful people lay behind Russo’s murder. They have already killed one lawyer, and will not hesitate to kill another, as Post quickly starts to understand. 

Quincy Miller has spent the past 22 years on Death Row, convicted of killing lawyer Keith Russo in a tiny Florida town. He has always maintained his innocence, but he had the misfortune to be one of the few black residents in a predominantly white community

His fight for justice is exquisitely captured, as are the prejudices among some small towns in the southern U.S. states.

Inspired by the author’s own experiences on the board of directors of the Innocence Project – which has secured the exonerations of 375 people, including 21 on Death Row – it conveys every ounce of his anger at the corruption behind the law.

It’s his finest book in some years.

Monday 

THE WOMEN WHO RAN AWAY

by Sheila O’Flanagan

Stealing a sports car and taking it for a joyride abroad isn’t Deira’s style. Normally a responsible, law-abiding citizen, she has been driven to the edge of madness by the cruel way in which her long-term boyfriend Gavin dumped her.

On the way to the ferry from Ireland to France she thinks about the 13 years she has wasted being in love with the wrong man. 

This trip was booked before they broke up but Deira, who is approaching 40, decides to go anyway.

She has no idea how to get rid of the corrosive feelings of self-blame and shame, and is most bruised about the fact that Gavin left her because his new girlfriend was pregnant, when he refused to have a baby with her.

It’s a gripping, emotionally intelligent read set in highly evocative holiday locations

Grace is also en route to the ferry alone. Recently widowed after a 50-year marriage to a rather controlling man called Ken, she is following the clues of an anniversary treasure hunt around their favourite places. 

Ken put it together before his suicide, over which Grace feels guilt and anger.

Circumstances conspire to allow Deira and Grace to team up, and they share bits of their past and build a supportive friendship in the process. 

It’s a gripping, emotionally intelligent read set in highly evocative holiday locations.

Tuesday 

MR GANDY’S GRAND TOUR

by Alan Titchmarsh

Aged 55, Timothy Gandy is forced out of his career when the company he has worked for most of his adult life is taken over by a bigger firm. 

Tim is offered a less exciting role but decides to take early retirement instead.

After 30-plus years of a less than satisfying marriage he is horrified to find himself being sent out to do odd jobs for his children by his domineering wife. 

But when she dies of a heart attack, Tim realises he is free to follow his dreams of travelling the world at last.

Titchmarsh writes beautifully about the places his protagonist visits, making this a transporting travelogue as well as a poignant journey of self-discovery

However, Tim’s ungrateful and grasping son Oliver does not want his father to go away on any sort of Grand Tour, and suggests a short singles holiday instead, citing financial irresponsibility and the dangers of going away unaccompanied.

Supportive daughter Rosie and her partner Ace are disgusted by this and beg Tim to do whatever he wants with his money and his life.

Inspired by an 18th-century travel guide to Europe’s greatest cities, Tim decides to follow in the writer’s aristocratic footsteps.

Our protagonist expects art, culture, fabulous food and bucket-list-worthy sights — and he gets all of this and much more.

It’s a pleasure to accompany Tim on the greatest adventure of his adult life, as he makes up for lost time.

Titchmarsh writes beautifully about the places his protagonist visits, making this a transporting travelogue as well as a poignant journey of self-discovery.

Tim will come home a changed man, and it’s a joy to witness him realising that, wherever you go, happiness is an inside job.

Wednesday 

SAS BAND OF BROTHERS

by Damien Lewis

IF YOU like your yarns ripping and your heroes dedicated action men — tough, brave and capable of causing untold mayhem to the enemy — then this is the book for you.

Award-winning author Damien Lewis is a former war correspondent, so when it comes to conflict he knows what he’s talking about. 

This extraordinary story is as riveting and pacy as a thriller, with more twists and turns, too. The difference is that this story is true.

It is June 1944 and Captain Patrick Garstin MC is leading a covert SAS paratroop unit deep into enemy territory. 

Their job is to create chaos and prevent Hitler’s Panzer divisions from being rushed to the D-Day beaches in Normandy, which could force the Allies back into the sea.

It’s an astonishing story of the men’s courage and ingenuity that will leave you open-mouthed

The mission is agonisingly tense but wildly successful, and the unit’s heart-stoppingly daring rescue – one of the boldest of the entire war – is scarcely believable. Eventually, the exhausted soldiers make it back to Blighty.

But the tables would soon turn. On their next mission in the battle for occupied France, Garstin’s team fall victim to a shocking betrayal. 

Captured, imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo, they were taken to dark woodland to be executed on Hitler’s orders.

Miraculously, two men escape, and in the aftermath of the war, in a deep-cover operation backed by Churchill himself, the SAS determine to wreak vengeance on the Nazi war criminals who had murdered their comrades-in-arms.

It’s an astonishing story of the men’s courage and ingenuity that will leave you open-mouthed.

Thursday 

CARELESS LOVE

by Peter Robinson

This is the 25th outing for Robinson’s irascible DCI Alan Banks, who left the Metropolitan Police to settle in the Yorkshire Dales.

The years have not always been kind to him. 

He’s seen his marriage disintegrate, and his temper grow ever shorter, yet he remains a steadfast and honourable man determined to fight to the end for the underdog.

Here Banks is confronted with not one but two mysterious deaths. 

First, a student is deemed to have committed suicide when her body is found in an abandoned car on a lonely country road. 

This is vintage Banks — a dogged search for the truth among a countless tangle of lies. The story makes the reader long for more of its hero with every passing page

But it soon transpires that she did not own a car. Indeed, she did not even drive.

So who does the car belong to? There is no sign of a suicide note, leading Banks to conclude that her body must have been planted.

Then a man in his 60s is found dead in a gully in the wild moorland. He is wearing an expensive suit, but not carrying any identification. 

He seems to have died from injuries sustained during the fall, but what on earth was he doing there? 

Even more puzzling — there was no car left in the area. So how did he get there?

It emerges that he is a former private banker, who has amassed a considerable fortune. Could the two cases be linked and, if so, how?

This is vintage Banks — a dogged search for the truth among a countless tangle of lies. The story makes the reader long for more of its hero with every passing page.

Friday

THE PERFECT WIFE

by J. P. Delaney

Abbie wakes in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there. The man by her side explains that he’s her husband.

He’s a titan of the tech world, the founder of one of Silicon Valley’s most innovative start-ups. 

He tells Abbie she’s a gifted artist, a doting mother to their young son, and the perfect wife. Five years ago, she suffered a terrible accident.

Her return from the abyss is a miracle of science, a breakthrough in artificial intelligence.

There are echoes of 1972 satire The Stepford Wives, but Delaney’s book is so much more than that: a thrilling examination of what it is to be human

But as Abbie pieces together memories of her marriage, she begins to question her husband’s motives – and his version of events. 

Can she trust him when he says he wants them to be together for ever? And what really happened to her, half a decade ago?

Her struggle to find out the shocking truth is a grim education in the dangers of unchecked scientific advances.

There are echoes of 1972 satire The Stepford Wives, but Delaney’s book is so much more than that: a thrilling examination of what it is to be human. 

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