Pre-order
1
of
1
The Family Friend
Brief Description
A gift beyond your wildest dreams might just turn out to be your worst nightmare... The nail-biting new thriller from the Sunday Times Number 1 bestselling author of The New Neighbours. When Imogen is told she's inherited a country mansion near Bath, she thinks it must...
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2800
Unit price
/
Unavailable
Pre-order
Releases
6th
October 2026
(Approx. Date)
Pre-order "The Family Friend" now to secure your copy from our first shipment
Found a better price? Request a price match
The Family Friend
$2800
Unit price
/
Unavailable
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
still learning, it may not be perfect - your
feedback is welcome!
Description
A gift beyond your wildest dreams might just turn out to be your worst nightmare... The nail-biting new thriller from the Sunday Times Number 1 bestselling author of The New Neighbours.
When Imogen is told she's inherited a country mansion near Bath, she thinks it must be a mistake. She last saw its owner, reclusive artist Dorothea Roe, sixteen years ago: a summer which changed her life forever.
Once Imogen and her partner Josh settle into the house, she dares to hope that this is the start of a new life. Yet Imogen can't stop wondering why a woman she barely knew would leave her everything.
And when she discovers a box with her name on it in the artist's abandoned studio, she's sure Dorothea was trying to send her a message before she died.
What if her death wasn't an accident? Could it be tangled in Imogen's own dark family history? And why is she feeling watched all of a sudden?
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781405978972
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 02 July 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 27.0mm
Width: 129.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 282g
Pages: 400
About the Author
Claire Douglas worked as a journalist for fifteen years, writing features for women's magazines and national newspapers, but had dreamed of being a novelist since the age of seven. She finally got her wish after winning the Marie Claire Debut Novel Award with her first novel, The Sisters. She is a Sunday Times bestseller and a frequent Richard & Judy Book Club pick. Her books have sold over two million copies in the UK alone. She lives in Bath with her husband and two children.
Also by Claire Douglas
View all-
The Wrong Sister
The Sunday Times bestseller - now in paperback The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas tells the gripping story of Tasha, who has always felt overshadowed by her older sister, Alice. While Alice is married to wealthy entrepreneur Kyle and boasts a high-flying career, Tasha finds herself living in a Bristol suburb with her childhood sweetheart and their three-year-old twins. Recognising...Paperback$2300Elsewhere:$2600Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Couple at No 9
It was the house of her dreams. Until the first body was found. A new emotionally dark and unsettling thriller from the Sunday Times bestseller. An inherited cottage. A body buried in the garden. And a secret spanning three generations. When Saffy's beloved grandmother, Rose, goes into a care home, Saffy learns that she has inherited her Cotswolds cottage. But...Paperback$2200Elsewhere:$2400Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Woman Who Lied
The gripping new novel from the author of the Sunday Times number 1 bestseller The Girls Who Disappeared. Emilia Ward is just an ordinary mum living happily in suburban London with her husband and two children. She's also a bestselling crime author. But when Emilia starts her tenth novel, life takes a disturbing turn—an incident straight out of one of...Paperback$2300Elsewhere:$2600Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The New Neighbours
You know your neighbours are plotting a crime but no one believes you... Dive into the gripping new thriller from The Sunday Times No.1 bestseller. Do you trust the couple next door? When Lena overhears a conversation between her next-door neighbours, she thinks she must have misheard. After all, the Morgans are a kind, retired couple who have moved to...Paperback$3800Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Wrong Sister
You've known her all your life... or have you? The bestselling paperback sensation moves into hardback. Tasha and her sister Alice couldn't be more different, but they'd trust each other with their life. So when Tasha and husband Aaron want a break, and Alice offers to stay in their home with the kids, Tasha knows they're in safe hands. But...Paperback$3500Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Family Friend
The gripping new thriller from the Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller. When Imogen is told she's inherited a country house near Bath, she thinks it must be a mistake. She last saw its owner, reclusive artist Dorothea Roe, sixteen years ago, during a tragic summer which changed her life forever. Now, with partner Josh in tow, it's a chance for...Paperback$3299Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The New Neighbours
You know your neighbours are plotting a crime but no one believes you . . . Dive into the gripping new thriller from The Sunday Times No.1 bestseller Lena overhears a conversation she shouldn't have. She's sure her new neighbours - the Morgans - are planning a crime. Her family say she's mistaken. They are a lovely, friendly couple. She...Paperback$2800Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Then She Vanishes
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Local Girl Missing and Do Not Disturb – a new thriller that tears at the heart while keeping it racing. One missing. One a murderer. One trying to find the truth. Flora has her whole life ahead of her – until the summer night she vanishes from her sleepy seaside town. Her sister...Paperback$2999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Last Seen Alive
She can run but she can't hide. Because someone knows her secret... Libby and James Hall can't believe their luck when the leaflet comes through the door. Swapping their tiny city flat for a beautiful house by the sea? Who would say no? But once they arrive at The Hideaway, Libby starts to get jittery and increasingly paranoid. She is...Paperback$2999Elsewhere:$3499Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Do Not Disturb
Claire's last two thrillers have been instant Sunday Times bestsellers. This will be the third. Kirsty's family have escaped London for the beautiful, remote Welsh mountains, leaving their dark past behind. Opening their guesthouse marks the start of the type of idyllic life some people would kill for. But their first guest isn't one they expected. Kirsty hasn't spoken to...Paperback$2999Elsewhere:$3499Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Girls Who Disappeared
The chilling new thriller from the bestselling author of The Couple at No. 9. Twenty years ago, Olivia Rutherford was driving three friends home when she crashed. When she regained consciousness, she was alone—her friends had vanished. Now, journalist Jenna Halliday visits the small town of Stafferbury to solve the mystery of the girls' disappearance. But Olivia won't speak. What...PaperbackSold Out
More from Crime & Thriller
View all-
New ReleaseEvery Lake
Scary stories are fun... until your life becomes one. When Alice was fifteen, her father killed Mia Heywood in their lakefront cottage before vanishing into the trees. At least that's what the locals think happened. Over a decade later, Alice has lost her job as a journalist, she's going through an expensive divorce and she desperately needs to sell the...Paperback$3299Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseIt Could Have Been Her
PREPARE TO BE HOOKED: The no. 1 Sunday Times and MULTI-million-copy bestselling author is back with a brand-new spine tingling thriller. It was the night she almost died. Jane Trevally, newly divorced and feeling a little lost, agrees to accompany a man she doesn't know to his house in the darkest corner of Hampstead Heath. She's offered a drink, goes in, and...Paperback$3000Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New Release26 Beauties
The twenty-sixth thrilling novel in the globally bestselling Women's Murder Club series. Beautiful young women are disappearing by the dozen. A celebration is cut short when a concerned father crashes Detective Inspector Lindsay Boxer's party. His daughter is missing - and she's not the only one. DI Lindsay Boxer has been tracking a chilling pattern: a Jane Doe washed ashore,...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseThe Secrets We Hide
The stunning new North Falls thriller by the bestselling author of We Are All Guilty Here 'Quite simply, Karin Slaughter is the best of us' Dervla McTiernan Welcome back to North Falls -- a small town with big secrets. The house at 1601 Iris Drive looks like any other in the quiet, residential street. But rumours are rife about the Vickery...Paperback$3099Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseThe Parkwood Murders
They came for an escape, but can they escape a killer? Detective Nicola Bridge returns in another gripping and immersive mystery For its loyal guests, Parkwood Holiday Village in west Dorset is a haven- woodland walks, a tranquil lake, service around the clock. Until, just after midsummer, a body is found floating in the swimming pool. Detective Nicola Bridge, exhausted...Paperback$3000Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Hope Rises
'BALDACCI IS STILL PEERLESS' - THE SUNDAY TIMES REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD . . . Walter Nash, working under the alias of Dillon Hope, is on the road to revenge after becoming an informant for the FBI against a global criminal operation headed up by Victoria Steers. Steers has ripped everything Nash held dear away from him....Paperback$3099Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New Release
Slash
A year after a brutal shootout left her lover dead, ex-police sergeant Honey Chalmers is a hot mess, drinking too much and eating too little, working casual gigs for a shady firm of private investigators — while holding conversations with a ghost. A desperate father asks her to investigate his missing son — a double-murder suspect last seen during the...Paperback$3200Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseA River Red With Blood
The players call it the Game, and its aim is simple: to abduct and kill a stranger without getting caught. They're very good at it. They've been playing it for a long time. And they can keep playing as long as everyone sticks to the rules: No Killing Close to Home and No Killing Outside the Game. But those rules...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Shadow Step
The new Detective Miller thriller from bestselling author Mark Billingham, full of tension, wit and incredible twists. The Shadow Step: One taken simultaneously by a pair of dancers facing the same direction, one of them behind and slightly shifted leftwards ('in the shadow') Typically, such a step perfectly demonstrates synchronized elegance. It showcases a couple in near telepathic harmony with...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableBackorderShips mid August -
New ReleaseBlue Lightning
Blue Lightning The fourth Shetland novel A remote island on lockdown. A killer on the loose . . . Shetland detective Jimmy Perez knows it will be a difficult homecoming when he returns to Fair Isle to introduce his fiancée to his parents. With the autumn storms raging, the island is cut off from the rest of the world. Then...Paperback$3000Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseRed Bones
Red Bones is the third Shetland novel featuring detective Jimmy Perez. Sometimes the dead won't stay buried... When a young archaeologist uncovers a set of human remains, the island settlers are intrigued. Is it an ancient find—or a more contemporary mystery? Then an elderly woman is shot in what appears to be a tragic accident in the middle of the...Paperback$3000Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseThe Last to Drown
Praise for Noelle W. Ihli: 'Hands down one of my favourite reads of the year' - FREIDA MCFADDEN 'A true classic in the genre' - LISA JEWELL 'A propulsive story that haunts and mesmerizes' - KARIN SLAUGHTER FIVE DAYS. TWENTY STRANGERS. NO PHONE SIGNAL. The rafting trip was supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime. But now that Kaia's...Paperback$3000Elsewhere:$3499Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today
Why buy from us?
Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!
Service & Delivery
Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.
Auckland Bookstore
We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.
Our Gifting Service
Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.
Crime & Thriller lists from the team
Explore our curated lists from our heroes to find your next read!
