📖 Category
Novels and stories set against Madeira’s cliffs, levadas and lights.
Set in Madeira after WWI, a disillusioned ex-soldier tries to rescue his family’s failing wine business as the island fills with real figures of the era — an exiled emperor, Agatha Christie at Reid’s Hotel, George Bernard Shaw learning to tango — and a murder draws him in.
A love story spanning six centuries, opening in 1429 on a Madeira consumed by a fire that has blazed for seven years, as a peasant girl and a Jewish boy off a Portuguese ship meet — their thwarted love recurring across generations.
Robert Goddard’s bestselling debut. At a lush villa on Madeira, a disgraced historian is hired to investigate the mysterious 1910 downfall of a former British cabinet minister — a quest that uncovers secrets and deaths still haunting a family.
The seventh Julia Probyn mystery (reissued by Bloomsbury Reader). Recently widowed, Julia arrives on Madeira with her infant son and uncovers strange, sinister events that may hold a clue to her husband’s death — rich in the scenes of the island.
Set in 1811, a Quaker doctor leaves his London practice for Funchal hoping Madeira’s climate will cure his consumption — a vivid depiction, with nods to Dickens and Austen, of an island under military occupation and the people he meets.
A horse farrier who loses everything by standing on principle flees a vendetta and escapes to Madeira, finding work on a small farm reachable only by boat — and unexpected community and romance. A contemporary tale steeped in the island’s landscape.
An adventure novel set in late-19th-century Madeira, following a young peasant who rebels against a feudal landlord, conscription and militant priests, fighting for freedom alongside the woman he loves.
Tech journalist Karl Lustig travels to Madeira to lecture at the university and deliver military microchips — and stumbles onto a dangerous puzzle hidden in the chipset. A techno-thriller set largely on the island.
Botanist-sleuth Celia Grant flies to Madeira to settle her dead niece’s estate, and small anomalies draw her into a web of suspicious characters, missing children, stolen orchids and blackmail.
In the 1930s, told she is dying, Nancy Leigh Cameron leaves New York for the exclusive Sanfords hotel on flower-filled Madeira — not knowing that the man she comes to love is her father’s bitterest enemy.
Bookish heiress Eliza Thoroughgood takes her young cousin to the misty island of Madeira to recuperate — and the pair are taken captive aboard the ship of rogue captain Cyprian Dare. A historical romance set partly on Madeira and at sea.
A Jazz-Age romantic spy thriller set in the glittering waters off Madeira, by the creator of Fu Manchu — passion, deception and intrigue as a hunt unfolds for documents that could topple a royal house.
Nurse Phyllida Cresswell is stranded on Madeira when a job abroad goes wrong, and the dashing Dutchman Pieter van Sittardt comes to her rescue. A classic Harlequin/Mills & Boon romance set on the island.
Diane travels to Madeira to meet her pen friend for the first time and unexpectedly meets her friend’s imperious brother, the Duque de Valmardi. A vintage Mills & Boon romance set entirely on the island.
Newly widowed Ellen de Torre visits Madeira and finds her brother-in-law, Brazilian millionaire Addan de Torre, in her bed — he blames her for his brother’s death, but offers instead to show her the island. A Harlequin Presents romance.
Katherine Matthews marries Luis de Freitas believing he needs her money, only to discover — once living in his home on Madeira — that he had been deceiving her. A vintage Mills & Boon romance set on the island.
Fleeing scandal, Lady Tamina Braithwaite sails toward Madeira under an assumed name as secretary to the Earl of Daventry, and on the voyage the two grow attached as her deception unravels.
A romantic thriller set on Madeira, in which a woman in crisis visits her step-mother on the island seeking answers and becomes entangled with intriguing characters — written by Marjorie Eccles as Jennifer Hyde.
Wealthy, disabled Roberta Ellison settles on Madeira; when she is suddenly widowed, her half-sister arrives to help but brings problems that escalate into violence and murder. A classic British mystery reissued by The Murder Room.
On Madeira, Alec Methven is found dead, his last meal apparently shared with someone anxious to conceal the fact — and a second death follows. A classic mystery by an author who loved the island.
A Superintendent Ditteridge mystery whose trail leads to Madeira, where a man living comfortably as Gavin Chilmark hopes to remain free from any breath of suspicion. Reissued by The Murder Room.
A gothic sequel to The Meaning of Night, in which orphan Esperanza Gorst goes undercover as a lady’s maid — and her own origins trace back to Funchal, Madeira, where part of the narrative is set.
An elegant satirical fable following Johnny de Paria and his entourage as they flee Trinidad by ocean liner for England — docking at Madeira, where a richly comic set piece unfolds among the island’s society.
The acclaimed debut novel (in Portuguese) by Funchal journalist Helena Marques, set in late-19th-century Funchal — the Vaz de Lacerda family and its women across generations. Winner of the Portuguese Writers’ Association Grand Prize.
Helena Marques’s second novel (in Portuguese), continuing the search-for-roots theme of O Último Cais as two cousins travel in search of their family’s identity.
The collected poems of Funchal-born Herberto Helder (1930–2015), widely regarded as one of the greatest Portuguese poets of the late 20th century.
A hybrid prose-and-verse work in which the Funchal-born poet Herberto Helder speaks of his native island of Madeira and his European wanderings.
Herberto Helder’s principal book of prose fiction (first published 1963) — short narratives tracing a man’s steps around his own existence in poetically transcendent fragments.
A prize-winning poetry collection by Funchal-born poet José Agostinho Baptista, awarded the Portuguese PEN Club and APE poetry prizes in 2004.
A volume gathering much of the verse of Funchal-born poet José Agostinho Baptista, including earlier collections such as Morrer no Sul.
A novel by Funchal-born writer Ana Teresa Pereira on identity, memory and marriage — winner of the 2017 Oceanos Prize for Portuguese-language literature.
The English translation of the first Comissário Avila “Madeira-Krimi” — a young woman is found dead at the island’s elite golf club, and a detective hunts a killer among Madeira’s high society.
The first in the atmospheric German “Madeira-Krimi” series — melancholy Comissário Torres and a German crime writer investigate when a hiker is murdered with poisoned Madeira honey-cake.
The second Comissário Torres “Madeira-Krimi” — crime writer Laura Flemming returns to the island to write and is again drawn into a murder.
A German crime-series opener: Rodrigo “Figo” Figueira, once a celebrated detective in Germany, returns broken to his native Madeira and must solve his first case there.
The German original of the Comissário Avila series — the Funchal homicide chief’s first case (translated into English as “Madeira Grave”).
Comissário Avila’s second case: as an Atlantic storm bears down, the body of a tourist washes up in Funchal harbour.
The third Comissário Avila “Madeira-Krimi”, set again in Funchal and across the flower island.
A cosy “Madeira-Krimi”: Hamburg café owner Pauline Boysen plans a walking-and-snorkelling holiday on Madeira and stumbles into a murder along the levadas.
A young woman flees to her family’s lighthouse house on Madeira and, among old letters, uncovers the story of two sisters who loved the same man between the wars.
A historical saga: in 1914 a Bremen lung specialist takes up a post helping build a German hospital on Madeira, the “floating garden of the Atlantic”.
After a devastating loss, a Berlin journalist escapes to the flower island of Madeira, where a blind painter and a conservationist open new perspectives on life.
The German edition of Helena Marques’s prize-winning “O Último Cais” — a saga of bold women in 19th-century Madeira, based on her great-grandfather’s logbook.
A romance: after a painful break-up, sommelière Charlie starts over on her dream island of Madeira and clashes with her charming new boss at a vineyard.
A short German romance: successful writer Manuel returns to his native Madeira after fourteen years and reunites with Isabel, now an orchid gardener rooted in the island.
A German romance interweaving a woman’s new beginning with a historical thread about Empress Elisabeth of Austria’s stay on Madeira.
A German novella: in an airport lounge the narrator notices a woman whose movements stir memories — and on Madeira, in the same hotel, a gripping story unfolds.