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Emma's Anticipated Treasures

Emma’s Anticipated Treasures – June 2024

June is almost upon us and it’s another month jam-packed full of exciting new releases from some of my favourite authors and debuts I can’t wait to read.

Here are the 50 books I’m most anticipating:

The Burial Plot by Elizabeth Macneal

Published June 6th by Picador
Historical Fiction, Gothic Fiction, Thriller, Suspense, Historical Mystery, Historical Romance

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
From Elizabeth Macneal, the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Doll Factory, The Burial Plot is a spellbinding Gothic thriller about murder and manipulation.

London, 1839. With the cemeteries full and money to be made in death, tricksters Crawford and Bonnie survive on wicked schemes and ill-gotten coin. But one blistering evening, their fortunes flip. A man lies in a pool of blood at Bonnie’s feet and now she needs to disappear.

Crawford secures her a position as lady’s maid in a grand house on the Thames. As Bonnie comes to understand the family – the eccentric Mr Moncrieff, obsessively drawing mausoleums for his dead wife, and their peculiar daughter Cissie, scribbling imaginary love letters to herself – she begins to question what secrets are lying behind the house’s paper-thin walls and whether her own presence here was planned from the beginning.

Because Crawford is watching, and perhaps he is plotting his greatest trick yet . . .

Pre-order here*

Spoilt Creatures by Amy Twigg

Published June 6th by Tinder Press
Literary Fiction, Humorous Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
An Observer top ten best new novelist for 2024

A simmering debut, heady with the possibilities of language and the righteousness of female rage’
Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies
‘A modern-day Dionysian cult of women in the woods – haunting and exhilarating’
Jennifer Saint, author of Ariadne
______

They thought they knew everything about us. The kind of women we were.

It was a place for women. A remote farm tucked away in the Kent Downs. A safe space.

When Iris – newly single and living at home with her mother – meets the mysterious and beguiling Hazel, who lives in a women’s commune, she finds herself drawn into the possibility of a new start away from the world of men who have only let her down. Here, at Breach House, the women can be loud and dirty, live and eat abundantly, all while under the leadership of their gargantuan matriarch, Blythe.

But even among the women, there are power struggles, cruelty and transgressions that threaten their precarious way of life. When a group of men arrives on the farm, the commune’s existence is thrown into question, hurtling Iris and the other women towards an act of devastating violence.

Fierce and unapologetic, Spoilt Creatures is an intoxicating debut about transgression, sisterhood and the seductive nature of obsession. It pulls back the skin of patriarchal violence and examines the female rage that lurks beneath.

Pre-order here*

The King’s Witches by Kate Foster

Published June 6th by Mantle
Historical Fiction, Religious Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
The King’s Witches by Kate Foster is a compelling and beautiful historical novel that gives voices to the women at the heart of the real-life witch trials in sixteenth-century Scotland.

Women whisper secrets to each other; it is how we survive.

1589. Princess Anna of Denmark is betrothed to King James VI of Scotland. Before they can wed, Anna must pass the trial period: one year of marriage to prove herself worthy of being Scotland’s new Queen. Determined to fulfil her duties to King and country, Anna resolves to be the perfect royal bride. Until she meets Lord Henry . . .

By her side is Kirsten Sorenson, her loyal and pious lady-in-waiting. But, whilst tending to Anna’s every need, Kirsten has her own secret motives for the royal marriage to succeed . . .

Meanwhile, in North Berwick, young housemaid Jura practises the healing charms taught to her by her mother. When she realizes she is no longer safe, she escapes to Edinburgh, only to find herself caught up in the witchcraft mania that has gripped not just the capital, but the new queen …

Will Anna, Kirsten and Jura be able to save each other and, in doing so, save themselves?

Pre-order here*

Shadowstitch (Threadneedle 2) by Cari Thomas

Published June 6th by Harper Voyager
Fantasy Fiction, Romantic Fantasy, Horror Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Contemporary Fantasy

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Anna survived the attempt to bind her magic, but Anna and her coven aren’t free from danger yet.

Haunted by her aunt’s death, living in fear of her curse, and fated to love the one man she can never have, the last thing Anna needs is a witch hunt. Now she must conceal her magic once more or risk losing everything.

But when deadly hysteria strikes across the capital, and in her own school, the coven are left dangerously exposed. Delving deeper into the magical underworld of London, Anna and her twin sister Effie must find a way to work together to protect the coven.

But as the witch hunt intensifies and the hysteria spirals out of control, can Effie and Anna truly trust each other?

Pre-order here*

Bright I Burn by Molly Aitken

Published June 6th by Canongate
Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
In thirteenth-century Ireland, a woman with power is a woman to be feared.

When a young Alice Kyteler sees her mother wither under the constraints of family responsibilities, she vows that she won’t suffer the same fate. Soon Alice discovers she has a flair for making money, and builds a flourishing business. But as her wealth and stature grow, so too do the rumours about her private life. By the time she has moved on to her fourth husband, a blaze of local gossip and resentment culminates in an accusation that could prove fatal.

Inspired by the first recorded person in Ireland to have been condemned as a witch, Bright I Burn gives voice to a woman lost to history, who dared to carve her own space in a man’s world.

Pre-order here*

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

Published June 6th by HarperCollins UK
Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Crime Fiction, Fairy Tale, Coming-of-Age Story

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
WELCOME TO THE MANOR

THE PARTY’S ON FIRE

_______________________

**Book your place at the table … The brand new murder mystery thriller from the No.1 bestseller**

Midsummer, the Dorset coast

In the shadows of an ancient wood, guests gather for the opening weekend of The Manor: a beautiful new countryside retreat.

But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. And the candles have barely been lit for a solstice supper when the body is found.

It all began with a secret, fifteen years ago. Now the past has crashed the party. And it’ll end in murder at…

THE MIDNIGHT FEAST

Pre-order here*

The Chamber by Will Dean

Published June 6th by Hodder & Stoughton
Suspense, Thriller, Psychological Thriller

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
The master of intense suspense, Will Dean, is back! THE CHAMBER follows the success of Richard & Judy Book Club pick THE LAST PASSENGER.

HIGH PRESSURE OUTSIDE
On a boat heading out into the North Sea, Ellen Brooke steels herself to spend almost a month locked inside a hyperbaric chamber with five other divers. They are all being paid handsomely for this work – to be lowered each day inside a diving bell to the sea bed, taking it in turns to dive down and repair oil pipes that lie in the dark waters. It is a close knit team and it has to be: any error or loss of trust could be catastrophic.

EXTREME PRESSURE INSIDE
All is going to plan until one of the divers is found unresponsive in his bunk. He hadn’t left the chamber. It will take four more days of decompression, locked away together, before the hatch can be opened. Four more days of bare steel, intrusive thoughts, and the constant struggle not to give way to panic. Mind games, exhaustion, suspicion, and, most of all, pressure. And if someone does unlock the door, everyone dies…

And Then There Were None meets The Last Breath in this tense and suspenseful locked-room thriller from the author of the “astonishing” (Ian Rankin) The Last Passenger.

Pre-order here*

How To Solve Your Own Murder (Violet Hamilton Book 2) by Hannah Dolby

Published June 6th by Aria
Historical Fiction, Historical Romance, Woemen Sleuths

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Violet Hamilton is no ordinary lady.

She is a Lady Detective, who spends her time solving mysteries and unveiling scandals in the bustling seaside town of Hastings and St Leonards, a popular spot for the Victorian middle classes.

But when the body of a local woman is found on the beach, Violet’s efforts to investigate are blocked at every turn.

Is that because, as a woman, she can’t possibly be allowed to think or act for herself? Or is it because someone sinister has Violet in their sights?

Jane Austen meets Sherlock Holmes in this delightful mystery of manners that will steal your heart, and transport you to a world of seaside scandal and moonlit balls; dubious doctors and duplicitous crooked lords; adventurous escapades and stolen kisses.

Pre-order here*

The Bookshop Ladies by Faith Hogan

Published June 6th by Aria
Literary Fiction, Contemporary Romance, Family Saga

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Bestselling Irish writer, Faith Hogan, has created another gripping saga of friendship, betrayal and secrets in this story of a widow in search of answers to a shocking confession by her dying husband.

Joy Blackwood has no idea why her French art dealer husband has left a valuable painting to a woman called Robyn Tessier in Ballycove, a small town on the west coast of Ireland, but she is determined to find out.

She arrives in Ballycove to find that Robyn runs a rather chaotic and unprofitable bookshop. She is shy, suffering from unrequited love for dashing Kian, and badly in need of advice on how to make the bookshop successful.

As Joy becomes entangled in the daily dramas of Ballycove, uncovering the secrets behind her husband’s painting grows increasingly challenging. When she finally musters the courage to confront the truth, her revelation sends shockwaves through the tight-knit community she’s grown to love.

Pre-order here*

Scripted by Fearne Cotton

Published June 6th by Michael Joseph
Romance Novel, Contemporary Romance, Domestic Fiction, Coming-of-Age Story

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Jade Shaw has lost control of her life.

Pushed around by her warring family, and taken for granted by a boyfriend who’s more interested in his “brand” than their relationship, she knows that somewhere along the path to being an adult she’s lost her way.

The last place she expects to find answers is on the floor outside her flat. But there it is: a script. Containing
her name, and her boyfriend’s, and showing yet another excruciating argument in which he calls all the shots.
The weird thing is: this argument hasn’t happened yet.

The row becomes reality. Jade feels more frustrated than ever. Then more scripts appear; infuriating scenes in which Jade’s boss, mum, and bridezilla sister walk all over her.

The future is painfully familiar. But it’s not a future Jade likes.

Is it too late for her to re-write the script?

Pre-order here*

Welcome To Glorious Tuga by Francesca Segal

Published June 6th by Chatto & Windus
Romance Novel, Medical Romance, Contemporary Fiction, Humorous Fiction,

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
A magical novel, so uplifting, heartwarming, funny … Feels as if it was written specifically to give comfort’ MARIAN KEYES

Sail to the tropical paradise where secrets don’t stay hidden for long …

Zoologist Charlotte Walker has taken up a fellowship on the tiny, remote island of Tuga de Oro to study the endangered gold coin tortoises in the jungle interior. She can claim the best of reasons for this year in paradise – what better motivation than to save a species? – but the reality is more complex. For Charlotte has a secret that connects her to the island and has finally determined to solve the mystery …

A complete and vivid world to escape to, Welcome to Glorious Tuga celebrates a fictional island, and the warm-hearted families who live there. Enchanting, uplifting and very funny, this is a captivating novel about love, belonging, and what it really means to come home.

Pre-order here*

Sandwich by Catherine Newman

Published June 6th by Doubleday
Literary Fiction, Humorous Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Discover the joyful summer read from the bestselling author of WE ALL WANT IMPOSSIBLE THINGS, perfect for fans of Marian Keyes and Nora Ephron

____________

One week in Cape Cod. The perfect family holiday. What could possibly go wrong…?

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their rustic beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, its quirky furniture and mismatched pots and pans greeted like old friends.

Now, sandwiched between her children who are adult enough to be fun but still young enough to need her, and her parents who are alive and healthy, Rocky wants to preserve this golden moment forever. This one precious week when everything is in balance; everything is in flux.

But every family has its secrets and hers is no exception.

With her body in open revolt and surprises invading her peaceful haven, the perfectly balanced seesaw of Rocky’s life is tipping towards change…

Pre-order here*

Experienced by Kate Young

Published June 6th by Fourth Estate
Contemporary Romance, Romance Novel, Humorous Fiction, Lesbian Literature, Erotic Literature

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
‘Clever, sexy and joyful. I loved it’ BETH O’LEARY, AUTHOR OF THE FLATSHARE

‘A fizzing roller-coaster of a rom-com. The sexiest book you’ll read all year and the most heartening’ CAROLINE O’DONOGHUE, AUTHOR OF THE RACHEL INCIDENT

Bette loves Mei, but Bette and Mei are on a break, so Bette can catch-up on the decade of dating experiences she missed before she came out.

So Bette is (reluctantly) on a dating odyssey: a quest to have lots of casual sex with lots of hot women and come back to Mei more experienced and more certain about what she wants. And now she has new friend Ruth as her dating guide, she can’t possibly fail. It’s just three months, then she’ll be back with Mei.

It’s the perfect plan … isn’t it?

Pre-order here*

Going Home by Tom Lamont

Published June 6th by Sceptre
Literary Fiction, Contemporary Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
‘Meltingly warm’
OBSERVER, 10 BEST NEW NOVELISTS FOR 2024

Local boy Téo Erskine is back in the north London suburb of his youth, visiting his father – stubborn, selfish, complicated Vic. Things have changed for Téo: he’s got a steady job, a brand-new car and a London flat all concrete and glass, with a sliver of a river view.

Except, underneath the surface, not much has changed at all. He’s still the boy seeking his father’s approval; the young man playing late-night poker with his best friend, unreliable, infuriating Ben Mossam; the one still desperately in love with the enigmatic Lia Woods.

Lia’s life, on the other hand, has been transformed: now a single mum to two-year-old Joel, she doesn’t have time for anyone – not even herself.

When the unthinkable happens, Joel finds himself at the centre of an odd constellation of men – Téo, Vic, Ben – none of whom is fully equipped to look after him, but whose strange, tentative attempts at love might just be enough to offer him a new place to call home.

Pre-order here*

D is For Death by Harriet F. Townson

Published June 6th by Hodder & Stoughton
Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Contemporary Romance

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Meet Dora Wildwood: runaway bride, book lover, and aspiring detective.
Likes: solving crimes, peppermint creams, trousers and her own independence.
Dislikes: cracked book spines, tyrannical behaviour, beetroot.

1935. Dora’son the first train to London, having smuggled herself out of the house in the middle of the night to escape her impending marriage. But unluckily for her, Dora’s fiance is more persistent than most and follows.

As Dora alights at Paddington station, she is immediately forced to run from the loathsome Charles Silk-Butters. She ducks into the London Library to hide and it is there, surrounded by books, where she should feel most safe, that Dora Wildwood stumbles across her first dead body.

Having been thrown into the middle of a murder scene, it’s now impossible to walk away. Indeed, Dora’s certain she will prove an invaluable help to the gruff Detective Inspector Fox who swiftly arrives on the scene. For as everyone knows, it’s the woman in the room who always sees more than anyone else: and no one more so than Dora herself…

D is for Death heralds the launch of a brilliant historical crime series that marries the quality of Dorothy L. Sayers with the ingenuity of Janice Hallett – and in Dora Wildwood introduces a character with the spark and gusto of Enola Holmes and the detective skill of Miss Marple. It is the debut crime novel from bestselling author Harriet Evans, writing as Harriet F. Townson.

Pre-order here*

Knife River by Justine Champine

Published June 6th by Manilla Press
Suspense, Thriller, Literary Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Beautifully written and soaked with atmosphere, KNIFE RIVER is the debut novel of an exciting new voice in literary crime.

First, there were my mother’s bones . . .

A young woman returns home to the small, claustrophobic town of Knife River. When Jess was thirteen, her mother went for a walk and did not return – now, fifteen years later, bones have been discovered in the woods nearby.

Jess’s sister has remained in their childhood home – her life, their home and the town itself seemingly frozen in time. As days turn into weeks, Jess’s understanding of the past, her sister, and herself becomes more and more complicated – and the list of suspects responsible for her mother’s terrible fate more and more ominous . . .

‘A twisting, engrossing and beautiful mystery. Thrilling, yet also deeply moving, layered and powerful’
CHRIS WHITAKER

‘A delicious smoke curl of a novel: atmospheric, sharp, and skilled at twisting the reader’s guesses in unimaginable ways’
JODI PICOULT

Pre-order here*

The Wreckage of Us by Dan Malakin

Published June 6th by Viper Books
Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Psychological Thriller

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
It’s always the husband… Isn’t it?

Astrid Webb is missing. The police have found her car crashed near the woods, the driver’s door open, the seat spotted with blood. But there’s no sign of Astrid herself, a sick woman who rarely left her house, who surely couldn’t have left the scene of the accident without help.

Her husband Bryan is sure that she’s alive – after all, this isn’t the first time she’s vanished, only to reappear without explanation. But as the days pass, Bryan starts to look like a suspect in his wife’s disappearance, perhaps in her murder. Because Bryan isn’t telling the police the whole truth. Not about Astrid’s stalker, their broken-in back door, or the threatening messages she received. And it seems as if both Astrid and Bryan have something to hide.

Then a woman’s body is found in the woods, her face terribly disfigured. By staying silent, is Bryan protecting Astrid, or protecting himself?

From the bestselling author of The Regret and The Box, this heart-pounding thriller is perfect for readers of Harlan Coben, Mark Billingham and Alex North.

Pre-order here*

The Winner by Teddy Wayne

Published June 6th by The Borough Press
Suspense, Literary Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
A razor-sharp novel that skewers the life of the uber-rich in the vein of The White Lotus, with shades of The Talented Mr Ripley and The Graduate

Conor is a recent graduate from a law school no one has heard of. Without any job prospects and needing to support his chronically ill mother, he takes a summer job teaching tennis at the affluent gated community of Cutters Neck, Massachusetts. One of his first students is Catherine, a magnetic divorcée keen to hire him for more than advice on her serve. What begins as a transactional arrangement soon develops into an intoxicating sexual relationship.

Things become even more complicated when Conor encounters Emily, with whom he has his first taste of real intimacy. Against his better judgment, he soon finds himself living a double life that inevitably leads to disaster.

Conor knows how hard it is to win against those with money and power. In his fight for survival, he has to put emotion aside and play with only his wits – after all, in tennis, love means nothing.

Pre-order here*

I Want To Die But I Still Want To Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee

Published June 6th by Bloomsbury Publishing
Self-Help Book, Mental Health Biographies

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
The sequel to the Sunday Times and international-bestselling South Korean therapy memoir, translated by International Booker Prize-shortlisted Anton Hur

When Baek Sehee started recording her sessions with her psychiatrist, her hope was to create a reference for herself. She never imagined she would reach so many people, especially young people, with her reflections. I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki became a runaway bestseller in South Korea, Indonesia, and the U.S., and reached a community of readers who appreciated depression and anxiety being discussed with such intimacy.

Baek’s struggle with dysthymia continues in I Want to Die but I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki. And healing is a difficult process; the inner conflict she experiences in treatment becomes more complex, more challenging. With this second book, Baek Sehee reaches out to hold the hands of all those for whom grappling with everyday despair is part of a lifelong project, part of the journey.

Pre-order here*

Private Rites by Julia Armfield

Published June 11th by Fourth Estate
Psychological Fiction, Literary Fiction, Romantic Comedy, Lesbian Literature

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
From the bestselling author of Our Wives Under the Sea, a haunting novel of three sisters navigating queer love and faith at the end of the world.

There’s no way to bury a body in earth which is flooded

It is a fact consigned to history along with almost everything else

It’s been raining for a long time now, for so long that the lands have reshaped themselves. Old places have been lost. Arcane rituals and religions have crept back into practice.

Sisters Isla, Irene and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their estranged father dies. A famous architect revered for making the new world navigable, he had long cut himself off from public life. They find themselves uncertain of how to grieve his passing when everything around them seems to be ending anyway.

As the sisters come together to clear the grand glass house that is the pinnacle of his legacy, they begin to sense that the magnetic influence of their father lives on through it. Something sinister seems to be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always been unusually interested in their lives. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters have been chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperilled world.

Pre-order here*

Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

Published June 11th by Sphere
Romance Novel, Contemporary Romance, Humorous Fiction, Urban Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTIONS:
A forbidden, secret affair proves that all’s fair in love and science – from Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author Ali Hazelwood.

Rue Siebert might not have it all, but she has enough: a few friends she can always count on; the financial stability she yearned for as a kid; and a successful career as a biotech engineer at Kline, one of the most promising start-ups in the field of food science. Her world is stable, pleasant, and hard-fought. Until a hostile takeover and its offensively attractive front man threatens to bring it all crumbling down.

Eli Killgore and his business partners want Kline, period. Eli has his own reasons for pushing this deal through – and he’s a man who gets what he wants. With one burning exception: Rue. The woman he can’t stop thinking about. The woman who’s off-limits to him.

Torn between loyalty and an undeniable attraction, Rue and Eli throw caution out the lab and the boardroom windows. Their affair is secret, no-strings-attached, and has a built-in deadline: the day one of their companies will prevail. But the heart is risky business – one that plays for keeps.

Pre-order here*

Under Her Roof by A. A. Chaudhuri

Published June 13th by Hera
Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Romance Novel, Contemporary Romance, Lesbian Literature

BOOK DESCRIPTIONS:
It seems too good to be true…

When struggling writer Sebastian finds a room to let in a palatial Hampstead residence he cannot believe his luck. The rent is ridiculously cheap and he immediately feels a connection with his beautiful widowed landlady, Adriana.

It is.

Things take a dark turn when he finds out what happened to the last lodger. Could this be why the house is a fortress of security, and why Adriana seems so fragile? Adriana doesn’t want to talk about the death and sadness that seem to follow her wherever she goes and Sebastian has secrets of his own.

Now someone is watching their every move and there is nowhere to hide.

This house of light becomes a dark nightmare as the threat ramps up – what does the watcher want? And how far will they go to get it?

A gripping, twisty thriller perfect for fans of B.A. Paris, Shari Lapena and Lucy Foley. If you were hooked by Netflix series You or The Watcher then you will love this.

Pre-order here*

The Modern Faeries by Clare Pollard

Published June 13th by Fig Tree
Historical Fiction, Fairy Tales, Mythology

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
‘Elegant and decadent, vulgar and clever, enchanting and dark. The love child of Angela Carter and Anaïs Nin – the book I really really needed’ SARAH PERRY, author of The Essex Serpent

Why don’t they tell you it is the beautiful princess who becomes the evil queen; that they are just the same person at different points in their story?


Versailles, 1682: a city of the rich, a living fairy-tale, Louis XIV’s fever dream. It’s a place of opulence, beauty, and power. But strip back the lavish exterior of polite society, and you’ll find a dark undercurrent of sexual intrigue and vicious gossip. Nobody is safe here – no matter how highly born they are.

No one knows this better than Madame Marie d’Aulnoy. Each week, a rogue group of intellectuals gather at her Parisian home to debate, flirt and perform Contes de Fées – fairy tales – that challenge the status quo, at a salon that will change the course of literature forever. But while they weave tales of glass slippers, enchanted beasts and long-haired princesses, a wolf is lurking, who threatens to destroy the members of the salon one by one.

Brilliant and bawdy, romantic and provocative, The Modern Fairies is a dazzling novel inspired by real events, about the delights and dangers of storytelling in dark times.

Pre-order here*

When The Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker

Published June 13th by HarperVoyager
Fantasy Fiction, Romantic Fantasy, Fairy Tale, High Fantasy, Romance Novel, Paranormal Fantasy

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
☽ MAGIC. DRAGONS. ROMANCE. THE FANTASY PHENOMENON OF THE YEAR ☽

’An absolutely stunning fantasy world’ Raven Kennedy, author of international bestseller, The Plated Prisoner Series

‘A wild ride that thrills as much as it enchants … An instant classic’ Thea Guanzon, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Hurricane Wars
___________

He’s fire and brimstone.
I’m shattered ice …
I’ll gladly burn beneath him until the world comes crumbling down.

As an assassin for the rebellion, Raeve’s job is to complete orders and never get caught. When a rival bounty hunter shatters her world, Raeve finds herself captured by the Guild of Nobles – a group of powerful fae.

Crushed by the loss of his great love, dragon rider Kaan Vaegor took the head of a king and donned his melted crown. Now on a tireless quest to quell the never-ebbing ache in his chest, a clue lures him into the capital’s high-security prison where he stumbles upon the imprisoned Raeve …

Together, they seek truths that threaten to unravel everything they knew about their world – and each other.

Bestselling sensation When the Moon Hatched will transport you into a world filled with magic, dragons and a love that blazes through the ages…

Pre-order here*

Daughter of Calamity by Rosalie M. Lin

Published June 18th by Tor
Historical Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction, Fairy Tale, Dark Fantasy, Thriller, Urban Fantasy

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
An irresistibly dark, atmospheric reimagining of 1930s Shanghai filled with glamour, gods and gangsters. From Rosalie M. Lin, perfect for fans of S. A. Chakraborty and Fonda Lee.

‘I was utterly swept up . . . seductive, sprawling, full of malice’ – Kendare Blake, New York Times bestselling author of Three Dark Crowns

In Shanghai, danger wears many faces . . .

1932, Shanghai. By day, Jingwen delivers bones for her grandmother, the exclusive surgeon to the most formidable gang in the city. By night, she dances at the Paramount, a lavish cabaret club, competing ruthlessly to charm the wealthy patrons.

Then mysterious attackers start to target the club, stealing the faces of their victims – and selling them onto the powerful elite. Jingwen fears she could be next. To protect herself and her fellow performers, she has no choice but to delve deeper into the city’s glittering underworld.

In this treacherous realm of cut-throat businessmen, silver-limbed gangsters and vengeful gods, Jingwen soon learns that she must become something far stranger and more dangerous than she ever imagined, if she hopes to survive . . .

Pre-order here*

Redemption by Jack Jordan

Published June 20th by Simon & Schuster UK
Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Crime Fiction, Domestic Fiction, Gay Fiction, Adventure Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
THE LATEST PULSE-POUNDING THRILLER FROM THE MASTER OF THE MORAL DILEMMA AND SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER, JACK JORDAN.

Aaron Alexander has just been released from jail after serving eleven years for causing the death of Joshua Moore in a hit-and-run. Now a free man, all he wants to do is stay on the straight and narrow and leave his troubled past behind him.
But for Joshua’s mother Evelyn, eleven years in jail isn’t nearly enough. Consumed by grief and rage, she has been waiting for Aaron’s release, counting down the days until she can exact the revenge he deserves. And now that time has come.
But as Evelyn and her husband Tobias embark on a road trip to track Aaron down, they find themselves caught on two different sides of a gripping game of cat-and-mouse. Because Tobias knows what Evelyn is planning, and he will do anything to save her from herself.
Even if it means protecting the man who killed their son.

Locked in a collision course set in motion eleven years ago, Aaron, Evelyn and Tobias are about to find out whether the road they have chosen leads to redemption . . . or to retribution.

Pre-order here*

This Is Why We Lied (Will Trent Book 12) by Karin Slaughter

Published June 20th by Harper Collins UK
Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Police Procedural, Psychological Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
The incredible new thriller featuring Will Trent and Sara Linton from the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author!

One toxic family. Eight suspicious guests. Everyone is guilty. But who is a killer?

Welcome to the McAlpine Lodge: a secluded mountain getaway, it’s the height of escapist luxury living.

Except that everyone here is lying. Lying about their past. Lying to their family. Lying to themselves.

Then one night, Mercy McAlpine – until now the good daughter – threatens to expose everybody’s secrets. Just hours later, Mercy is dead.

In an area this remote, it’s easy to get away with murder. But Will Trent and Sara Linton – investigator and medical examiner for the GBI – are here on their honeymoon.

And now, with the killer poised to strike again, the holiday of a lifetime becomes a race against the clock…

Pre-order here*

The Witness by Alexandra Wilson

Published June 20th by Sphere
Suspense, Psychololgical Thriller, Legal Thriller, Political Thriller

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
The remarkable debut novel by prominent young mixed-race barrister Alexandra Wilson is a moving, twisty legal thriller for the 21st century.

SHE SAW IT ALL
BUT SHE CAN NEVER TELL


A young black man is arrested for murder. The case against him is strong – a mum and a teacher saw him standing over a body in a park, a knife still in hand.

But his up-and-coming barrister Rosa knows how people prejudge, but most of all, she suspects something is amiss. This boy comes from her neighbourhood. From a good family. So she begins to dig…

As Rosa discovers secret upon terrible secret, she moves closer to finding a testimony that could win the case – or bring the whole establishment down on her.

The Witness is a frightening thriller about how we judge guilt, about the strength of a young woman, and is the start of a groundbreaking new series.

Pre-order here*

Lucky Day by Beth Morrey

Published June 20th by Harper Collins UK
Humorous Fiction, Literary Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of SAVING MISSY, comes a fierce, joyful and uplifting novel about putting life on pause, pleasing yourself, and getting your own back. Whatever it takes.

CAN SHE SAY F*CK IT, JUST FOR ONE DAY?

After a morning that starts with a terrible migraine, an accidentally strong concoction of painkillers, and a bump on the head, Clover Hendry is not quite herself.

And as she walks out of work at 9.47am, for once Clover isn’t worrying about anything. She is taking some much-deserved me-time, and everyone else had better get out of her way.

As she crashes from once incident (a deliciously illicit swim) to the next (art theft), Clover is on a one-woman mission to do exactly as she pleases – consequences are for tomorrow!

It’s a day of joyful recklessness, but behind the chaos, a plan is afoot. Will her new-found freedom uncover long-buried secrets?

A euphoric, raging, galvanizing story about putting life on pause, pleasing yourself, and getting your own back – whatever it takes.

Pre-order here*

How To Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley

Published June 20th by Bantam Press
Humorous Fiction, Domestic Fiction, Urban Fiction, Literary Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Uplifting, heartwarming and joyful. Restored my faith in humankind‘ – Ruth Jones

When age makes you invisible, secrets are easier to hide

Daphne knows that age is just a number. She also knows that society no longer pays her any attention – something she’s happy to exploit to help her hide a somewhat chequered past.

But finding herself alone on her 70th birthday, with only her plants to talk to and neighbours to stalk online, she decides she needs some friends. Joining a Senior Citizen’s Social Club she’s horrified at the expectation she’ll spend her time enduring gentle crafting activities. Thankfully, the other members – including a failed actor addicted to shoplifting and a prolific yarn-bomber – agree.

After a tragic accident, the local council threaten to close the club – but they have underestimated the wrong group of pensioners…and with the help of a teenage dad and a geriatric, orphaned dog, the incongruous gang set out to prove it.

As long as their pasts don’t catch up with them first…

Pre-order here*

I Love You, I Love You, I Love You by Laura Dockrill

Published June 20th by HQ
Romance Novel, Contemporary Romance, Coming-of-Age Story

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
An epic story of love, loss and pining for fans of One Day.

It’s the year 2000. I’m fourteen. I’m trying really hard to be a grunger right now in a Foo Fighters t-shirt and a spiked choker. There were rumours that the world was going to end. It hadn’t as of yet but I still had reasons to believe that was true.

❤ ❤ ❤

Ella and Lowe are teenagers when they first meet in summer 2000. For her, it’s love at first sight. But it’s safest to love from afar, where the friendship zone is her safety net and she can’t get hurt.

Certain that the most beautiful boy she’s ever seen couldn’t possibly feel the same, Ella counts herself lucky to have him as her best friend. Over the next fifteen years they share everything: bottles of cider and cigarettes in the rain, gossip and laughter, grief and fear.

But every time Lowe kisses another girl, Ella feels her heart break just that little bit more. She’ll have to choose whether it’s enough to be just friends with the love of her life, or if she’s prepared to let the terrifying, beautiful, all-consuming truth come to light.

From a unique new voice in adult fiction, I Love You, I Love You, I Love You is a glorious nostalgia trip for anyone who has ever known the exquisite pain and pleasure of first love.

Pre-order here*

Maybe, Perhaps, Possibly by Joanna Glen

Published June 20th by The Borough Press
Contemporary Romance, Domestic Fiction, Coming-of-Age Story

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
From the Costa-shortlisted author of THE OTHER HALF OF AUGUSTA HOPE and ALL MY MOTHERS

The story of two people who have no idea how to fall in love…

On the tiny island of Rokesby, Addie helps her mother run a women’s retreat. Dreaming daily of escape, she consoles herself by swimming in the ocean that surrounds them.

On the neighbouring island, joined to Rokesby by a bridge at low tide, Sol has sought refuge at a wind-swept prayer house, grieving both his mother’s death and his father’s devastating betrayal. Alone and anxious, he takes comfort in birdwatching, books and the sounds of the sea.

Introverts with turbulent pasts and wary hearts, Sol and Addie are both drawn to nature far more than to people – until they catch sight of one another in the wild. Can they break free from past lessons in love to risk a better future together?

From the Costa-shortlisted author of THE OTHER HALF OF AUGUSTA HOPE and ALL MY MOTHERS, this is a beautifully observed and life-affirming novel about finding yourself, and then allowing someone else to find you.

Pre-order here*

The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby by Ellery Lloyd

Published June 20th by Pan Macmillan
Thriller, Suspense, Mystery, Crime Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Some women can’t be erased from history . . .

A story of love and madness, of obsession and revenge.

Paris, 1938: Runaway heiress Juliette Willoughby perishes, with her married lover, in an accidental studio fire alongside her Surrealist masterpiece, Self-Portrait as Sphinx.

Cambridge, 1991: Two art history students stumble across proof something sinister was at play in Juliette’s death, threatening to expose the long-buried secrets of the artist’s aristocratic family.

Dubai, now: An art dealer is accused of the brutal murder of his oldest friend – the last surviving member of the Willoughby dynasty.

Three suspicious deaths over the course of a century.

Is the key to unlocking them all hidden in Juliette Willoughby’s lost painting?

Pre-order here*

The Wrong Hands (Dectective Miller Book 2) by Mark Billingham

Published June 20th by Sphere
Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Crime Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
‘Had me laughing out loud one minute and emotional the next. I’m excited to have found a new favourite detective’ — CLAIRE DOUGLAS

This is one case Miller won’t want to open . . .

Unconventional Detective Declan Miller has a problem. Still desperate to solve the murder of his wife, a young man has just appeared on his doorstep with a briefcase . . . containing a pair of severed hands.

Miller knows this case is proof of a contract killing commissioned by local ne’er do well Wayne Cutler – a man he suspects might also be responsible for his wife’s death. Now Miller has leverage, but unfortunately he also has something that both Cutler and a villainous fast-food kingpin are desperate to get hold of.

Chuck in a Midsomer Murders-obsessed hitman, a psychotic welder and a woman driven over the edge by a wayward Crème Egg, and Miller is in a mess that even he might not be able to dance his way out of.

Pre-order here*

Murder Ballad by Lucy Ribchester

Published June 20th by Black & White Publishing
Mystery, Thriller, Historical Mystery, Historical Thriller, Women Sleuths

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Edinburgh, 1791. Isobel Duguid and her friend Clessidro are the stars of the Edinburgh Musical Society. Clessidro sings opera and Isobel sings famously dark Scottish ballads, despite her cavalier attitude to holding a tune. They roam the streets of Edinburgh, enjoying an opulent lifestyle.

One night a note arrives from the mysterious Mrs Abercorn, asking if Isobel’s most notorious song, The Fiddler’s Wrath, might be included in a book. It’s the tale of a prima donna who died of heartbreak after her husband committed murder and was sent to the gallows. Isobel is intrigued. But Mrs. Abercorn’s curiosity about the ballad is far more than a fickle interest. When Clessidro goes missing, Isobel is forced to confront her past and the truth about The Fiddler’s Wrath begins to emerge.

Using the geography of Edinburgh to guide us through the story, this dark tale becomes more complicated than anyone could have imagined and awakens the chilling retribution of a once buried secret.

Pre-order here*

The Silence in Between by Josie Ferguson

Published June 20th by Doubleday
Historical Fiction, Domestic Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
The gripping historical debut about a family separated by the Berlin wall – perfect for fans of All the Light We Cannot SeeIn Memoriam and Alone in Berlin

‘A tautly plotted, deeply involving novel that packs a real emotional punch … I can’t recommend this novel highly enough’ Laura Barnett, author of The Versions of Us
_____

Imagine waking up and a wall has divided your city in two. Imagine that on the other side is your child…


Lisette is in hospital with her baby boy. The doctors tell her to go home and get some rest, that he’ll be fine.

When she awakes, everything has changed. Because overnight, on 13 August 1961, the border between East and West Berlin has closed, slicing the city – and the world – in two.

Lisette is trapped in the east, while her newborn baby is unreachable in the west. With the streets in chaos and armed guards ordered to shoot anyone who tries to cross, her situation is desperate.

Lisette’s teenage daughter, Elly, has always struggled to understand the distance between herself and her mother. Both have lived for music, but while Elly hears notes surrounding every person she meets, for her mother – once a talented pianist – the music has gone silent.

Perhaps Elly can do something to bridge the gap between them. What begins as the flicker of an idea turns into a daring plan to escape East Berlin, find her baby brother, and bring him home….

Based on true stories, The Silence in Between is a page-turning, emotional epic that will stay with you long after you finish reading.

Pre-order here*

Boys Who Hurt (Forbidden Iceland Book 5) by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir xxx

Published June 20th by Orenda Books
Mystery, Thriller, Icelandic Noir, Hard-Boiled, Women Sleuths, Crime Fiction, Psychological Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTIONL
Fresh from maternity leave, Detective Elma finds herself confronted with a complex case, when a man is found murdered in a holiday cottage in the depths of the Icelandic countryside – the victim of a frenzied knife attack, with a shocking message scrawled on the wall above him.
 
At home with their baby daughter, Sævar is finding it hard to let go of work, until the chance discovery in a discarded box provides him with a distraction. Could the diary of a young boy, detailing the events of a long-ago summer have a bearing on Elma’s case?
 
Once again, the team at West Iceland CID have to contend with local secrets in the small town of Akranes, where someone has a vested interest in preventing the truth from coming to light. And Sævar has secrets of his own that threaten to destroy his and Elma’s newfound happiness.
 
Tense, twisty and shocking, Boys Who Hurt is the next, addictive instalment in the award-winning Forbidden Iceland series, as dark events from the past endanger everything…

Pre-order here

The House Sitter by Mira V. Shah

Published June 20th by Hodder & Stoughton
Psychological Thriller, Women Sleuths, Holiday Fiction,

BOOK DESCRIPTIONS:
THE PERFECT ESCAPE . . . OR THE PERFECT TRAP?

TWO WEEKS AGO
I woke up in a hotel room next to a dead man, with no memory of the night before.
Panicked, I cleared up any trace that I was there and fled.

ONE WEEK AGO
I was offered the perfect escape: the chance to housesit a gorgeous villa in a remote corner of Italy.
Desperate to get away, I jumped at the chance.

NOW
The owners have unexpectedly shown up at the house. The only problem?
They’re the family of the man I woke up next to, two weeks ago.

ONE OF THEM KNOWS MY SECRET.
AND THEY’VE COME TO FIND ME.

Pre-order here*

A Proper Mother by Isobel Shirlaw

Published June 20th by Point Blank
Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Domestic Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Sometimes it’s your own child you’re most afraid of…

‘I devoured this truly superb and extraordinary book… A must-read that will haunt
me for a long time!’ Kathryn Croft, author of The Girl With No Past

Ever since an ominous palm-reading on her honeymoon, Frankie has suspected that her youngest son, Michael, is different. From an early age he sees things no one else can. As he grows up – academically gifted, a musical prodigy and with an unshakeable religious faith – his mother can no longer deny there is something strange about him, or that it frightens her.  

It is only when Frankie learns Michael is sliding into drugs and violence that she realises she can’t keep ignoring the past. But by confronting her destructive marriage and her own responsibility for all that has gone wrong, she begins to see there is something darker at play. 

Pre-order here*

The Cautious Traveller’s Guide To The Wastelands by Sarah Brookes

Published June 20th by W&N
Historical Fiction, Historical Fantasy, Steampunk

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
A breathtaking historical fantasy set onboard the Great Trans-Siberian Express, perfect for fans of PiranesiBabelThe Night Circus and Jessie Burton

It is said there is a price that every passenger must pay. A price beyond the cost of a ticket.

It is the end of the nineteenth century and the world is awash with marvels. But there is nothing so marvellous as the Wastelands: a terrain of terrible miracles that lies between Beijing and Moscow.

Nothing touches the Wastelands except the Great Trans-Siberian Express: an impenetrable train built to carry cargo across continents, but which now transports anyone who dares.

Onto the platform steps a curious cast of characters: Marya, a grieving woman with a borrowed name; Weiwei, a famous child born on the train; and Henry Grey, a disgraced naturalist.

But there are whispers that the train isn’t safe. As secrets and stories begin to unravel, the passengers and crew must survive their journey together, even as something uncontrollable seems to be breaking in . . .

Pre-order here*

The Last Song of Penelope (The Songs of Penelope Book 3) by Claire North

Published June 20th by Orbit
Historical Fiction, Fairy Tale, Greek Mythology, Literary Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Following the critically acclaimed Ithaca and House of Odysseus comes the final novel in Claire North’s Songs of Penelope trilogy – an exquisite, gripping tale that breathes life into ancient myth. This is the story of Penelope of Ithaca, famed wife of Odysseus, as it has never been told before.

Many years ago, Odysseus sailed to war and never returned. For twenty years his wife Penelope and the women of Ithaca have guarded the isle against suitors and rival kings. But peace cannot be kept forever, and the balance of power is about to break . . .

A beggar has arrived at the Palace. Salt-crusted and ocean-battered, he is scorned by the suitors – but Penelope recognises in him something terrible: her husband, Odysseus, returned at last. Yet this Odysseus is no hero. By returning to the island in disguise, he is not merely plotting his revenge against the suitors – vengeance that will spark a civil war – but he’s testing the loyalty of his queen. Has she been faithful to him all these years? And how much blood is Odysseus willing to shed to be sure?

The song of Penelope is ending, and the song of Odysseus must ring through Ithaca’s halls. But first, Penelope must use all her cunning to win a war for the fate of the island and keep her family alive, whatever the cost …

Pre-order here*

A Curtain Twitcher’s Book of Murder by Gay Marris

Published June 20th by Bedford Square Publishers
Mystery, Thriller, Crime Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Set in London in 1968, A CURTAIN TWITCHER’S BOOK OF MURDER follows the lives of the inhabitants of a suburban London street. But this is no ordinary road.

“Ask anyone on Atbara Avenue how well they know their neighbours, and they’ll answer ‘well’. After all, they see each other across the vast distance afforded by close proximity, and that is probably for the best…”.

For the best, because Atbara Avenue is a street where, all too often, murder feels like the solution.

With a delicious cast of characters, dazzling plotting, and an utterly unique voice, Gay Marris’ first book is remarkably accomplished. If you’ve been longing for a fresh and compelling new voice in the world of crime fiction, your wait is over.

Pre-order here*

The Unforgettable Loretta, Darling by Katherine Blake

Published June 20th by Viking
Mystery, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Historical Romance, Crime Fiction, Romance Novel, Urban Fiction, Humorous Fiction, Coming-of-Age Story

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
You’re Loretta Darling now, welcome to your brand-new flipping life.

Dreams don’t come true for girls like Loretta but she won’t let that stop her. With her sights set on becoming a make-up artist to the stars, Loretta wangles her way from Lancashire to the bright lights of Golden Age Hollywood.

Only it turns out that Sunset Boulevard is less about dashing fellas and chilled martinis – more sticky floors and misbehaving men. The gift of the gab can only get her so far but she refuses to go quietly.

Hollywood has its secrets … and so does Loretta.

For a start, that’s not her real name, and much more than lipstick lurks inside her beauty case.

After all, revenge is a dish best served with a perfectly painted smile.

Pre-order here*

The Stranger’s Companion by Mary Horlock

Published June 20th by Baskerville
Gothic Thriller, Historical Mystery

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
‘A mesmerising historical mystery and tale of suppressed secrets set amid the raw beauty of 1920s and 30s Sark. A brilliantly evoked novel based on a fascinating real case. Delectable’ Anna Mazzola, author of The Book of Secrets

October 1933

With a population of five hundred souls, isolated Sark has a reputation for being ‘the island where nothing ever happens’. Until, one day, the neatly folded clothes of an unknown man and woman are discovered abandoned at a coastal beauty spot. As the search for the missing couple catches the attention of first the local and then national newspapers, Sark finds itself front-page news.

When young islander Phyllis Carey returns to Sark from England she throws herself into solving the mystery. As Phyll digs through swirls of gossip, ghost stories and dark rumours in search of the truth, she crosses paths with Everard Hyde, a surprise visitor from her past. As press coverage builds to fever pitch, long-suppressed secrets from Phyll’s and Everard’s shared, shadowy history begin to surface.

The Stranger’s Companion is a beguiling historical mystery inspired by a real-life crime, which remains unsolved to this day.

Pre-order here*

The Mask of Merryvale Manor by Pete Sherlock

Published June 20th by Fairlight Books
Historical Fiction, Mystery, Historical Thriller, Literary Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
‘We’re actually all rather terrible.’ 

On the cusp of the 1960s, when fourteen-year-old Ben moves into the ancestral home of his aunt and uncle, he is shocked by their wealth and glamour. Under the watchful eye of the Merryvale Mask, his sophisticated cousins teach him how to appreciate their languid opulence and draw him into the world of the elites. But five years later, when a woman’s body is found on the estate, his new life begins to crumble. 

As the family is placed at the centre of a murder investigation, Ben starts to see their manipulative power in a harsher light. Placed on a collision course with his family, Ben faces a dilemma: how far is he willing to go to fit into their world?

Pre-order here*

Under Your Spell by Laura Wood

Published June 20th by Simon & Schuster UK
Romance Novel, Contemporary Romance

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
‘I absolutely adored Under Your Spell the sweetest, sexiest, funniest romance. It was such a treat!’ Marian Keyes
‘So witty and smart. I am thoroughly under Laura Wood’s spell’Hannah Grace


She only wants three things. He isn’t one of them… 

Dumped by her cheating ex, fired from her dream job, about to lose her flat: Clementine Monroe is not having a good day. So when her sisters get her drunk and suggest reviving a childhood ritual called the breakup spell, she doesn’t see the harm in it.
 
But now Clemmie has accidentally ruined a funeral, had her first one-night stand, and she’s stuck with a new job she definitely doesn’t want – spending six weeks alone with the gorgeous and very-off-limits rock star, Theo Eliott. 
 
He’s the most famous man on the planet. Her life’s a disaster. When it comes to love, Clemmie is learning you should be careful what you wish for…

Pre-order here*

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller

Published June 20th by HQ
Satire, Political Ficiton, Southern Fiction, Dystopian

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
From the author of The Change, comes a novel about book banning and those brave enough to stand up against this censorship.

In Troy, Georgia, Lula Dean has decided to cleanse the town’s reading habits. All banned books have been removed from public spaces, and the townspeople are only allowed to read books Lula has deemed ‘appropriate’.

But a small group refuse to be told what they can and can’t read.

The revolution is coming …

Pre-order here*

Honey by Isabel Banta

Published June 25th by Zaffre
Contemporary Fiction, Coming-of-Age Story

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
I didn’t like to perform. I liked to be loved.

‘Like Daisy Jones soaked in Britney Spears’ Curious’ HOLLY BOURNE

It is 1997, and Amber Young has received a life-changing call. It’s a chance thousands of girls would die for: the opportunity to join a girl group and escape her small town. She quickly finds herself in the orbits of fellow rising stars Gwen Morris, a driven singer-dancer, and Wes Kingston, a member of the biggest boy band in the world.

As Amber embarks on her solo career and her fame intensifies, she increasingly finds herself reduced to a body, a voice, an object. Surrounded by the wrong kind of people and driven by a desire for recognition and success, for love and sex, for agency and connection, Amber comes of age at a time when the kaleidoscope of public opinion can distort everything, and one mistake can shatter a career.

Pre-order here*

The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase

Published June 27th by Michael Joseph
Historical Fiction, Mystery, Psychological Fiction, Domestic Fiction, Urban Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Notting Hill, London. One May evening, seventeen-year-old Maggie Parker’s mother walks out of their front door and doesn’t return . . .

With her little brother in tow, desperate to find her mother, Maggie is drawn into a labyrinthine world of antiques and shadowy figures. There she befriends someone else living on their wits. But can he help solve the mystery of her mother’s disappearance?

Twenty-one years later, in a Parisian apartment, Maggie’s phone rings and her hard-won grown-up life shatters. While in London, the new owner of the Parker’s old house is excavating the basement, unaware of what might lie beneath.

Sweeping from bustling London streets, the boulevards of Paris to an old English country house, The Midnight Hour is a thrilling, richly woven story about a golden family with a hidden past – and a woman trying to turn back the hands of time before it’s too late.

Pre-order here*

The Phoenix Ballroom by Ruth Hogan

Published June 27th by Corvus
Romance Novel, Magical Realism, Contemporary Fiction

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
‘Magical … uplifting … the Phoenix Ballroom feels like an old friend’ Anton Du Beke

‘Every page is a joy’ Pip Williams

When it’s time to face the music, all we can do is dance…


Recently widowed Venetia Hamilton Hargreaves is left with a huge house, a bank balance to match and an uneasy feeling that she’s been sleepwalking through the last fifty years. Determined to live fully again, she embraces life with an enthusiasm and purpose she’d forgotten she could muster.

Buying the dilapidated Phoenix Ballroom and with it a drop-in centre and spiritualist church could be seen as reckless, but Venetia’s generosity, courage and kindness provide a refuge for a touching cast of damaged and lonely people who find their chosen family. As their stories intertwine, long buried secrets are revealed, missed opportunities seized and lives are renewed as the Phoenix lives up to its name.

The Phoenix Ballroom is a story of hope and second chances across the generations.

Pre-order here*

********

Are any of these on your TBR? Let me know in the comments.

Categories
Emma's Anticipated Treasures Most Anticipated 2022

Emma’s Anticipated Treasures – May 2022

May is shaping up to be another fabulous month for new releases in 2022. There are a plethora of exciting new releases, including many debuts, and it was a hard challenge to get this list down to the twenty-nine on this list.

Here are the books on my list of Emma’s Anticipated Treasures for May:

The Book of Night by Holly Black

Published: May 3rd
Publisher: Del Rey
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy, Thriller, Supernatural Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
#1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black makes her stunning adult debut with Book of Night, a modern dark fantasy of shadowy thieves and secret societies.

Charlie Hall has never found a lock she couldn’t pick, a book she couldn’t steal, or a bad decision she wouldn’t make. She’s spent half her life working for gloamists, magicians who manipulate shadows to peer into locked rooms, strangle people in their beds, or worse. Gloamists guard their secrets greedily, creating an underground economy of grimoires. And to rob their fellow magicians, they need Charlie.

Now, she’s trying to distance herself from past mistakes, but going straight isn’t easy. Bartending at a dive, she’s still entirely too close to the corrupt underbelly of the Berkshires. Not to mention that her sister Posey is desperate for magic, and that her shadowless and possibly soulless boyfriend has been keeping secrets from her. When a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie descends back into a maelstrom of murder and lies. Determined to survive, she’s up against a cast of doppelgängers, mercurial billionaires, gloamists, and the people she loves best in the world – all trying to steal a secret that will allow them control of the shadow world and more.

Buy here*

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill

Published: May 3rd
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Genre: Fantasy Fiction, Coming-of-Age Story, Dystopian Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
In a world where girls and women are taught to be quiet, the dragons inside them are about to be set free …

In this timely and timeless speculative novel, set in 1950s America, Kelly Barnhill exposes a world that wants to keep girls and women small – and examines what happens when they rise up.

Alex Green is four years old when she first sees a dragon. In her next-door neighbour’s garden, in the spot where the old lady usually sits, is a huge dragon, an astonished expression on its face before it opens its wings and soars away across the rooftops.

And Alex doesn’t see the little old lady after that. No one mentions her. It’s as if she’s never existed.

Then Alex’s mother disappears, and reappears a week later, one quiet Tuesday, with no explanation whatsoever as to where she has been. But she is a ghostly shadow of her former self, and with scars across her body – wide, deep burns, as though she had been attacked by a monster who breathed fire.

Alex, growing from young girl to fiercely independent teenager, is desperate for answers, but doesn’t get any.

Whether anyone likes it or not, the Mass Dragoning is coming. And nothing will be the same after that. Everything is about to change, forever.

And when it does, this, too, will be unmentionable…

Buy here*

The Night They Vanished by Vanessa Savage

Published: May 5th
Publisher: Sphere
Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Crime Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
A family with a secret.
A past about to catch up with them.

At thirty, Hanna has finally decided she’s better off without her family. They hold her responsible for the incident that ruined their lives fourteen years ago and they’ve barely spoken since.

But then, whilst browsing a true crime website, she sees her family home listed as the site of a brutal murder. Number of victims: three. Date of crime: today. When the police investigate, they find no bodies, but the house is abandoned. Hanna’s family have disappeared.

To find them, Hanna will have to confront what happened all those years ago.

And the person determined to make her pay for it . . .

Buy here*

The Hiding Place by Simon Lelic

Published: May 5th
Publisher: Penguin
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Thriller

SYNOPSIS:
FOUR FRIENDS. ONE MURDER. A GAME THEY CAN’T ESCAPE

‘It was only a game.’

Until a boy went missing.

‘No one was meant to get hurt.’

But a body has been found.

‘Just some innocent fun.’

Except one of them is a killer.

Ready or not, here I come.

It’s time to play hide and seek again.

THE WHISPER MAN meets THE GUEST LIST in this gripping story; DI Fleet is up against some of the most powerful people in the country as he attempts to discover the truth about what happened on the day of the game…

Buy here*

The Schoolhouse by Sophie Ward

Published: May 5th
Publisher: Corsair
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Psychological Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
Isobel lives an isolated life in North London, working at a nearby library. She feels safe if she keeps to her routines and doesn’t let her thoughts stray too far into the past. But a newspaper photograph of a missing local schoolgirl and a letter from her old teacher are all it takes for her ordinary, careful armour to become overwhelmed and the trauma of what happened when she was a pupil at The Schoolhouse to return.

The Schoolhouse was different – one of the 1970s experimental schools that were a reaction to the formal methods of the past. The usual rules did not apply, and life there was a dark interplay of freedom and violence, adventure and fear. Only her teenage diary recorded what happened, but the truth is coming for her and everything she has tried to protect is put at risk.

Set between the past and the present, The Schoolhouse is a masterful and gripping novel about childhood, secrets and trust.

Buy here*

London, with Love by Sarra Manning

Published: May 5th
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance Novel, Humorous Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
London. Nine million people. Two hundred and seventy tube stations. Every day, thousands of chance encounters, first dates, goodbyes and happy ever afters.

And for twenty years it’s been where one man and one woman can never get their timing right.

Jennifer and Nick meet as teenagers and over the next two decades, they fall in and out of love with each other. Sometimes they start kissing. Sometimes they’re just friends. Sometimes they stop speaking, but they always find their way back to each other.

But after all this time, are they destined to be together or have they finally reached the end of the line?

Buy here*

The House with the Golden Door by Elodie Harper (The Wolf Den Trilogy Book 2)

Published: May 12th
Publisher: Apollo
Genre: Historical Fiction, Historical Romance, Romance Novel

SYNOPSIS:
‘Beautiful, moving, captivating… A brilliant sequel to The Wolf Den‘ Jennifer Saint

Freed from Pompeii’s brothel. Owned as a courtesan. Determined to have revenge. Her name is Amara. What will she risk for power?

Amara has escaped her life as a slave in Pompeii’s most notorious brothel. She now has a house, fine clothes, servants – but all of these are gifts from her patron, hers for as long as she keeps her place in his affections.

As she adjusts to this new life, Amara is still haunted by her past. At night she dreams of the wolf den, and the women she left behind. By day, she is pursued by her former slavemaster. In order to be truly free, she will need to be as ruthless as he is.

Amara knows she can draw strength from Venus, the goddess of love. Yet falling in love herself may prove to be her downfall.

The House with the Golden Door is the stunning second novel in Elodie Harper’s celebrated Wolf Den Trilogy, which reimagines the lives of women who have long been overlooked.

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A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting by Sophie Irwin

Published: May 12th
Publisher: Harper Collins UK
Genre: Historical Fiction, Historical Romance, Humorous Fiction, Coming-of-Age Story, Regency Romance

SYNOPSIS:
The season is about to begin – and there’s not a minute to lose…

Kitty Talbot needs a fortune.

Or rather, she needs a husband who has a fortune. This is 1818 after all, and only men have the privilege of seeking their own riches.

With just twelve weeks until Kitty and her sisters are made homeless, launching herself into London society is the only avenue open to her. And Kitty must use every ounce of cunning and ingenuity she possesses to climb the ranks.

The only one to see through her plans is the worldly Lord Radcliffe and he is determined to thwart her at any cost.

Can Kitty secure a fortune and save her sisters from poverty? There is not a day to lose and no one – not even a lord – will stand in her way…

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Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

Published: May 12th
Publisher: Michael Joseph
Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Time Travel Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
It’s every parent’s nightmare.

Your happy, funny, innocent son commits a terrible crime: murdering a complete stranger.

You don’t know who. You don’t know why. You only know your teenage boy is in custody and his future lost.

That night you fall asleep in despair. Until you wake . . .

. . . and it is yesterday.

Every morning you wake up a day earlier, another day before the murder. Another chance to stop it.

Somewhere in the past lie the answers, and you don’t have a choice but to find them . . .

Buy here*

Idol by Louise O’Neill

Published: May 12th
Publisher: Bantam Press
Genre: Urban Fiction, Erotic Literature, Coming-of-Age Story, Religious Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
‘Follow your heart and speak your truth.’

For Samantha Miller’s young fans – her ‘girls’ – she’s everything they want to be. She’s an oracle, telling them how to live their lives, how to be happy, how to find and honour their ‘truth’.

And her career is booming: she’s just hit three million followers, her new book Chaste has gone straight to the top of the bestseller lists and she’s appearing at sell-out events.

Determined to speak her truth and bare all to her adoring fans, she’s written an essay about her sexual awakening as a teenager, with her female best friend, Lisa. She’s never told a soul but now she’s telling the world. The essay goes viral.

But then – years since they last spoke – Lisa gets in touch to say that she doesn’t remember it that way at all. Her memory of that night is far darker. It’s Sam’s word against Lisa’s – so who gets to tell the story? Whose ‘truth’ is really a lie?

‘You put yourself on that pedestal, Samantha. You only have yourself to blame.’

Riveting, compulsive and bold, IDOL interrogates our relationship with our heroes and explores the world of online influencers, asking how well we can ever really know those whose carefully curated profiles we follow online. And it asks us to consider how two memories of the same event can differ, and how effortlessly we choose which stories to believe.

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That Green-Eyed Girl by Julie Owen Moylan

Published: May 12th
Publisher: Michael Joseph
Genre: Mystery, Historical Mystery, Romance Novel, Lesbian Literature, LGBTQ Literature

SYNOPSIS:
Pre-order this immersive, emotionally gripping novel about jealousy, loyalty, and the secrets we keep to protect those we love . . .

1955: In an apartment on the Lower East Side, school teachers Dovie and Gillian live as lodgers. Dancing behind closed curtains, mixing cocktails for two, they guard their private lives fiercely. Until someone guesses the truth . . .

1975: Twenty years later in the same apartment, Ava Winters is keeping her own secret. Her mother has become erratic, haunted by something Ava doesn’t understand – until one sweltering July morning, she disappears.

Soon after her mother’s departure, Ava receives a parcel. Addressed simply to ‘Apartment 3B’, it contains a photo of a woman with the word ‘LIAR’ scrawled across it. Ava does not know what it means or who sent it. But if she can find out then perhaps she’ll discover the answers she is seeking – and meet the woman at the heart of it all . . .

Buy here*

Cold Reckoning by Russ Thomas

Published: May 12th
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Genre: Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Noir Fiction, Gay Fiction, Domestic Fiction, Crime Series

SYNOPSIS:
THE DARKNESS FROM HIS PAST WILL FINALLY COME TO LIGHT

For sixteen years, DS Adam Tyler has been searching for answers to his father, Richard’s, death. Convinced it wasn’t suicide, he has been investigating the case in secret.

When a body is found in a frozen lake, linked to a cold case from 2002, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the death of his father – except Tyler knows Richard was investigating the same case shortly before he died. And Tyler doesn’t believe in coincidences.

As he throws himself into finding out what really happened that day, Tyler uncovers a string of botched investigations, mysterious disappearances and, ultimately, deep-seated police corruption. There are dangerous people who don’t want Tyler asking questions – and the truth always comes at a price.

This time, it could cost him everything.

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Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Published: May 12th
Publisher: Phoenix
Genre: Historical Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
‘Shot through with spirit and hope, it’s one hell of a book’ Stylist, Books You Can’t Miss in 2022

Montgomery, Alabama. 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference in her community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.

But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a tumbledown cabin, she’s surprised to find that her new patients are just eleven and thirteen years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black, and for those handling their welfare benefits, that’s reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her new responsibilities, she takes India and Erica into her heart and comes to care for their family as though they were her own. But one day she arrives at their door to discover the unthinkable has happened, and nothing will ever be the same.

Inspired by true events and a shocking chapter of American history, Take My Hand is a novel that will open your eyes and break your heart. An unforgettable story about love and courage, sisterhood and solidarity, it is also a timely and hopeful reminder that it only takes one person to change the world.

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The Pharmacist by Rachelle Atalla

Published: May 12th
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Dystopian Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
THE BUNKER IS DESIGNED TO KEEP THEM ALL SAFE.

In the end, very few people made it to the bunker. Now they wait there for the outside world to heal. Wolfe is one of the lucky ones. She’s safe and employed as the bunker’s pharmacist, doling out medicine under the watchful eye of their increasingly erratic and paranoid leader.

BUT IS IT THE PLACE OF GREATEST DANGER?

But when the leader starts to ask things of Wolfe, favours she can hardly say no to, it seems her luck is running out. Forming an unlikely alliance with the young Doctor Stirling, her troubled assistant Levitt, and Canavan – a tattooed giant of a man who’s purpose in the bunker is a mystery – Wolfe must navigate the powder keg of life underground where one misstep will light the fuse. The walls that keep her safe also have her trapped.

How much more is Wolfe willing to give to stay alive?

Beautifully written and utterly gripping, The Pharmacist will be a guaranteed conversation starter when it is published.

Buy here*

Thrown by Sara Cox

Published: May 12th
Publisher: Coronet
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
The wise and gloriously big-hearted debut novel from the much-loved broadcaster, Sara Cox

Becky: a single mum who prides herself on her independence. She knows from painful experience that men are trouble.
Louise: a loving husband, gorgeous kids. She ought to feel more grateful.
Jameela: all she’s ever done is work hard, and try her best. Why won’t life give her the one thing she really wants?
Sheila: the nest is empty, she dreams of escaping to the sun, but her husband seems so distracted.

The inhabitants of the Inventor’s Housing Estate keep themselves to themselves. There are the friendly ‘Hellos’ when commutes coincide and the odd cheeky eye roll when the wine bottles clank in number 7’s wheelie bin, but it’s not exactly Ramsay Street.

The dilapidated community centre is no longer the beating heart of the estate that Becky remembers from her childhood. So the new pottery class she’s helped set up feels like a fresh start. And not just for her.

The assorted neighbours come together to try out a new skill, under the watchful eye of their charismatic teacher, Sasha. And as the soft unremarkable lumps of clay are hesitantly, lovingly moulded into delicate vases and majestic pots, so too are the lives of four women. Concealed passions and heartaches are uncovered, relationships shattered and formed, and the possibility for transformation is revealed.

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Summer Fever by Kate Riordan

Published: May 12th
Publisher: Penguin
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Crime Fiction, Holiday Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
Two couples. One sweltering Italian villa . . .

Nick and Laura are the hosts:
pretending their marriage isn’t on the rocks.

Madison and Bastian are the guests:
neither is remotely who they claim to be.

Under the scorching Mediterranean sun
no secret is safe.
No betrayal goes unnoticed.

Two couples. But will either survive the summer . . .

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The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Published: May 12th
Publisher: Picador
Genre: Historical Fiction, Historical Romance, Domestic Fiction, LGBT Literature

SYNOPSIS:
Strasbourg, 1518. In the midst of a blisteringly hot summer, a lone woman begins to dance in the city square. She dances for days without pause or rest, and as she is joined by hundreds of others, the authorities declare an emergency. Musicians will be brought in to play the Devil out of these women.

Just beyond the city’s limits, pregnant Lisbet lives with her mother-in-law and husband, tending the bees that are their livelihood. And then, as the dancing plague gathers momentum, Lisbet’s sister-in-law Nethe returns from seven years’ penance in the mountains for a crime no one will name.

It is a secret that Lisbet is determined to uncover. As the city buckles under the beat of a thousand feet, she finds herself thrust into a dangerous web of deceit and clandestine passion, but she is dancing to a dangerous tune . . .

Set in an era of superstition, hysteria, and extraordinary change, and inspired by the true events of a doomed summer, The Dance Tree is an impassioned story of family secrets, forbidden love, and women pushed to the edge.

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Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Published: May 12th
Publisher: Penguin
Genre: Romance Novel, Contemporary Romance

SYNOPSIS:
Nora is a cut-throat literary agent at the top of her game. Her whole life is books.

Charlie is an editor with a gift for creating bestsellers. And he’s Nora’s work nemesis.

Nora has been through enough break-ups to know she’s the woman men date before they find their happy-ever-after. That’s why Nora’s sister has persuaded her to swap her desk in the city for a month’s holiday in Sunshine Falls, North Carolina. It’s a small town straight out of a romance novel, but instead of meeting sexy lumberjacks, handsome doctors or cute bartenders, Nora keeps bumping into…Charlie.

She’s no heroine. He’s no hero. So can they take a page out of an entirely different book?

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Blood Sugar by Sascha Rothchild

Published: May 12th
Publisher: Trapeze
Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Dark Comedy, Psychological Thriller

SYNOPSIS:
She’s accused of four murders. She’s only guilty of three…

When Ruby was a child growing up in Miami, she saw a boy from her school struggling against the ocean waves while his parents were preoccupied. Instead of helping him, Ruby dove under the water and held his ankle down until he drowned. She waited to feel guilty for it, but she never did.

And, as Ruby will argue in her senior thesis while studying psychology at Yale, guilt is sort of like eating ice cream while on a diet – if you’re already feeling bad, why not eat the whole carton? And so, the bodies start to stack up.

Twenty-five years later, Ruby’s in an interrogation room under suspicion of murder, being shown four photographs. Each is a person she once knew, now deceased. The line-up includes her husband Jason. She is responsible for three of the four deaths… but it might be the crime that she didn’t commit that will finally ensnare her.

From the Emmy nominated Executive Producer of The Bold Type, this darkly funny and compulsively page-turning novel is perfect for fans of Caroline Kepnes’ You and Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister the Serial Killer.

Buy here*

Adult Assembly Required by Abbi Waxman

Published: May 17th
Publisher: Headline Review
Genre: Humorous Fiction, Domestic Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
*FEATURING THE CHARACTERS YOU LOVED IN THE BOOKISH LIFE OF NINA HILL!*

From the author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill comes a story about friends who become our chosen family, proving that, even as adults, we all need help from time time. . . Perfect for fans of Marian Keyes and Nina Stibbe.

When Laura Costello arrives in downtown Los Angeles, her life has somewhat fallen apart.

Her apartment building has caught fire, her engagement to her high school sweetheart has been broken off, and she’s just been caught in a rare LA downpour and has no dry clothes.

But when she seeks shelter in Nina Hill‘s local neighbourhood bookshop, she finds herself introduced to the people who will become her new family. And as Laura becomes friends with NinaPolly and Impossibly Handsome Bob, things start to look up.

Proving that – even as adults – we all sometimes need a little help assembling and re-assembling our lives. . .

Buy here*

Hide by Kiersten White

Published: May 24th
Publisher: Del Rey
Genre: Thriller, Horror Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Suspense, Ghost Story, Paranormal Fantasy

SYNOPSIS:
A high-stakes hide-and-seek competition turns deadly in this dark supernatural thriller from New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White, perfect for fans of Stephen King and SQUID GAME.

The challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don’t get caught.

The prize: enough money to change everything.

Even though everyone is desperate to win – to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts – Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she’s an expert at that.

It’s the reason she’s alive, and her family isn’t.

But as the people around her begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive.

Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

Buy here*

Do No Harm by Jack Jordan

Published: May 26th
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Psychological Fiction, Police Procedural, Medical Thriller, Medical Fiction, Domestic Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
My child has been taken. And I’ve been given a choice…
Kill a patient on the operating table. Or never see my son again.

The man lies on the table in front of me.
As a surgeon, it’s my job to save him.
As a mother, I know I must kill him.
You might think that I’m a monster.
But there really is only one choice.
I must get away with murder.
Or I will never see my son again.

I’VE SAVED MANY LIVES.
WOULD YOU TRUST ME WITH YOURS?

DON’T MISS THE HEART-STOPPING THRILLER OF 2022
#DONOHARM

Buy here*

The Dark by Sharon Bolton

Published: May 26th
Publisher: Orion
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Police Procedural, Crime Series

SYNOPSIS:
ONCE, SHE SAVED HIS LIFE…
NOW, HE’LL TAKE HERS.

When a baby is snatched from its pram and cast into the river Thames, off-duty police officer Lacey Flint is there to prevent disaster. But who would want to hurt a child?

DCI Mark Joesbury has been expecting this. Monitoring a complex network of dark web sites, Joesbury and his team have spotted a new terrorist threat from the extremist, women-hating, group known as ‘incels’ or ‘involuntary celibates.’ Joesbury’s team are trying to infiltrate the ring of power at its core, but the dark web is built for anonymity, and the incel army is vast.

Pressure builds when the team learn the snatched child was just the first in a series of violent attacks designed to terrorise women. Worse, the leaders of the movement seem to have singled out Lacey as the embodiment of everything they hate, placing her in terrible danger…

Buy here*

Keep Her Sweet by Helen Fitzgerald

Published: May 26th
Publisher: Orenda Books
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
When a middle-aged couple downsizes to the countryside for an easier life, their two daughters become isolated, argumentative and violent … A chilling, vicious and darkly funny psychological thriller from bestselling author Helen FitzGerald.
________________________________________ 

Desperate to enjoy their empty nest, Penny and Andeep downsize to the countryside, to forage, upcycle and fall in love again, only to be joined by their two twenty-something daughters, Asha and Camille.

Living on top of each other in a tiny house, with no way to make money, tensions simmer, and as Penny and Andeep focus increasingly on themselves, the girls become isolated, argumentative and violent.

When Asha injures Camille, a family therapist is called in, but she shrugs off the escalating violence between the sisters as a classic case of sibling rivalry … and the stress of the family move.

But this is not sibling rivalry. The sisters are in far too deep for that.

This is a murder, just waiting to happen…

Chilling, vicious and darkly funny, Keep Her Sweet is not just a tense, sinister psychological thriller, but also a startling look at sister relationships and the bonds they share … or shatter.

Buy here

The Trial of Lotta Rae by Siobhan MacGowan

Published: May 26th
Publisher: Welbeck
Genre: Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Crime Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
Atmospheric historical novel set in 20th-century Suffragette London interweaving fact and fiction from a compelling new voice.

Lotta Rae is a young working-class woman who is viciously attacked by a wealthy gentleman. Lotta’s family are firm believers in justice, so Lotta makes the brave decision to testify in court against her attacker. The guardians of justice support her, or so it seems.

William Linden is a barrister about to lose everything. He is failing to live up to his father’s formidable reputation and if he loses one more case, how will he house, clothe and feed his wife and young son?

Both Lotta and William have decisions to make that will change the course of their lives and the lives of everyone around them for generations to come.

Notorious after her trial and unable to return to the life she had before her attack, Lotta’s quest for her own form of justice takes her from the streets of Spitalfields to a Soho brothel, into the heart of the Suffragette movement, to an unimaginable place. One she could never have foreseen.

Buy here*

The People on Platform 5 by Clare Pooley

Published: May 26th
Publisher: Bantam Press
Genre: Humorous Fiction, Urban Fiction, Lesbian Literature

SYNOPSIS:
Nobody speaks to strangers on the train. But what would happen if they did?

Every day at 8:05, Iona Iverson boards the train to go to work. Every day, she sees the same people and makes assumptions about them, even giving them nicknames. But they never speak. Obviously.

Then, one morning, Smart-but-Sexist-Surbiton chokes on a grape right in front of Iona. Suspiciously-Nice-New Malden steps up to help and saves his life, and this one event sparks a chain reaction.

With nothing in common but their commute, an eclectic group of people learn that their assumptions about each other don’t match reality. But when Iona’s life begins to fall apart, will her new friends be there when she needs them most?

Buy here*

You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

Published: May 26th
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Genre: Contemporary Literature, Contemporary Romance, Romance Novel, LGBTQ Literature

SYNOPSIS:
Luxuriate in this INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING novelist’s sizzling hot entrance into the world of romance…

‘Emezi is a dream of a writer. My heart soared and shook and panted.’ Bolu Babalola

It’s the opportunity of a lifetime:

Feyi is about to be given the chance to escape the City’s blistering heat for a dream island holiday: poolside cocktails, beach sunsets, and elaborate meals. And as the sun goes down on her old life our heroine also might just be ready to open her heart to someone new.

The only problem is, she’s falling for the one man she absolutely can’t have.

Buy here*

Reasons To Go Outside by Esme King

Published: May 26th
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Genre: Romance Novel, Contemporary Romance, Domestic Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
Pearl Winter hasn’t been outside in forty-three years.

Since she arrived on Dartmoor as a girl, an isolated family cottage has been her whole world. A place of safety. But now fifty-nine-year-old Pearl is utterly alone – except for the postman, the local crows, and memories of the summer of 1976.

Teenager Connor Matthews feels like a stranger in his own home.

Since his mother’s death he’s been adrift from his remaining family, troubled by the reality of moving on, and unable to see a future ahead. But when Connor begins a summer job as Pearl’s gardener, an unexpected friendship opens the door to a fresh start for them both. If only Pearl and Connor can take the first steps . . .

Buy here*

Vladimir by Julia May Jones

Published: May 26th
Publisher: Picador
Genre: Literary Fiction

SYNOPSIS:
A provocative, razor-sharp, and timely debut novel about a beloved English professor facing a slew of accusations against her professor husband by former students – a situation that becomes more complicated when she herself develops an obsession of her own . . .

When I was a child, I loved old men, and I could tell that they also loved me.

And so we meet our deliciously incisive narrator: a popular English professor whose husband, a charismatic professor at the same small liberal arts college, is under investigation for his inappropriate relationships with his former students. The couple have long had a mutual understanding when it comes to their extramarital pursuits, but with these new allegations, life has become far less comfortable for them both. And when our narrator becomes increasingly infatuated with Vladimir, a celebrated, married young novelist who’s just arrived on campus, their tinder-box world comes dangerously close to exploding.

With her bold, edgy, and uncommonly assured literary debut, Julia May Jonas takes us into charged territory, where the strictures of morality bump up against the impulses of the human heart. Propulsive, darkly funny, and surreptitiously moving, Vladimir maps the personal and political minefield of our current moment, exposing the messy contradictions of power and desire.

Buy here*

********

Are any of these on your tbr? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading Bibliophiles 😊 Emma xxxx

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Emma’s Anticipated Treasures – April 2020

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I am finally posting my most anticipated books being released in April. Sorry it is so late. As a lot of you know I haven’t been well and am only just getting back into reading and posting online.

2020 seems to be one great month after another, and April just proves this point. Let me know what you think of my choices and which ones you’re most looking forward to in the comments.

Strangers by C.L.Taylor
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Published: April 2nd, 2020
Publisher: Avon
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Noir Fiction, Psychological Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
Ursula, Gareth and Alice have never met before.

Ursula thinks she killed the love of her life.
Gareth’s been receiving strange postcards.
And Alice is being stalked.

None of them are used to relying on others – but when the three strangers’ lives unexpectedly collide, there’s only one thing for it: they have to stick together. Otherwise, one of them will die.

Three strangers, two secrets, one terrifying evening.

 

The Silent Treatment by Abbie Greaves
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Published: April 2nd, 2020
Publisher: Century
Genre: Psychological Fiction, Domestic Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
A lifetime of love. Six months of silence. One last chance.

Frank hasn’t spoken to his wife Maggie for six months.

For weeks they have lived under the same roof, slept in the same bed and eaten at the same table – all without words.

Maggie has plenty of ideas as to why her husband has gone quiet, but it will take another heartbreaking turn of events before Frank finally starts to unravel the secrets that have silenced him.

Is this where their story ends?
Or is it where it begins?

With characters that will capture your heart, THE SILENT TREATMENT celebrates the phenomenal power of love and the importance of leaving nothing unsaid.

 

The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley
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Published: April 2nd, 2020
Publisher: Bantam Press
Genre: Literary Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
Six strangers with one universal thing in common: their lives aren’t always what they make them out to be.

What would happen if they told the truth instead?

Julian Jessop is tired of hiding the deep loneliness he feels. So he begins The Authenticity Project – a small green notebook containing the truth about his life.

Leaving the notebook on a table in his friendly neighbourhood café, Julian never expects Monica, the owner, to track him down after finding it. Or that she’ll be inspired to write down her own story.

Little do they realize that such small acts of honesty hold the power to impact all those who discover the notebook and change their lives completely.

A story about connection, community, and the kindness of strangers.

 

We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker
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Published: April 2nd, 2020
Publisher: Zaffre
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Crime Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
‘You can’t save someone that doesn’t want to be saved . . .’

Thirty years ago, Vincent King became a killer.

Now, he’s been released from prison and is back in his hometown of Cape Haven, California. Not everyone is pleased to see him. Like Star Radley, his ex-girlfriend, and sister of the girl he killed.

Duchess Radley, Star’s thirteen-year-old daughter, is part-carer, part-protector to her younger brother, Robin – and to her deeply troubled mother. But in trying to protect Star, Duchess inadvertently sets off a chain of events that will have tragic consequences not only for her family, but also the whole town.

Murder, revenge, retribution.

How far can we run from the past when the past seems doomed to repeat itself?

 

The Secret Admirer by Carol Wyer (Detective Natalie Ward 6)
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Published: April 2nd, 2020
Publisher: Bookouture
Genre: Crime Fiction, Police Procedural, Thriller
SYNOPSIS:
‘I tried to talk to you today but you snubbed me and walked away. It wasn’t wise to give me the brush-off, Gemma. I can be a truly good friend but I also make the perfect enemy.’

Sasha’s eighteen-year-old daughter Gemma was all she had in the world. Sasha fell pregnant with Gemma when she was still at school, and the two are as close as sisters. So when Gemma’s burned and broken body is found, Sasha’s world ends. What kind of person would want her beautiful daughter dead?

Leading the case is Detective Natalie Ward, scarred by her own recent tragedy. When she finds a note in Gemma’s diary from ‘a secret admirer’, she moves quickly, determined to un-mask them. But interviews with Gemma’s devastated ex-boyfriend, and her charismatic teacher, who has been seen embracing his student far away from the classroom, don’t give Natalie the answers she’d hoped for…

And then the case takes a devastating, personal twist. CCTV footage reveals Natalie’s estranged husband David followed Gemma home every evening the week before she died.

Natalie is forced to put personal feelings aside and follow procedure, even though she can’t believe David could be guilty. But when Gemma’s housemate is found murdered, Natalie thinks the killer could still be at large. Is she right to trust her instincts about David and can she discover the truth before another precious life is taken?

 

Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins
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Published: April 2nd, 2020
Publisher: Quercus
Genre: Psychological Fiction, Suspense, Mystery, Domestic Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
When the eight-year-old daughter of an Oxford College Master vanishes in the middle of the night, police turn to the Scottish nanny, Dee, for answers.

As Dee looks back over her time in the Master’s Lodging – an eerie and ancient house – a picture of a high achieving but dysfunctional family emerges: Nick, the fiercely intelligent and powerful father; his beautiful Danish wife Mariah, pregnant with their child; and the lost little girl, Felicity, almost mute, seeing ghosts, grieving her dead mother.

But is Dee telling the whole story? Is her growing friendship with the eccentric house historian, Linklater, any cause for concern? And most of all, why is Felicity silent?

Roaming Oxford’s secret passages and hidden graveyards, Magpie Lane explores the true meaning of family – and what it is to be denied one.

 

The Switch by Beth O’Leary
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Published: April 16th, 2020
Publisher: Quercus
Genre: Fiction, Romance
SYNOPSIS:
Eileen is sick of being 79.
Leena’s tired of life in her twenties.
Maybe it’s time they swapped places…

When overachiever Leena Cotton is ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, she escapes to her grandmother Eileen’s house for some overdue rest. Eileen is newly single and about to turn eighty. She’d like a second chance at love, but her tiny Yorkshire village doesn’t offer many eligible gentlemen.

Once Leena learns of Eileen’s romantic predicament, she proposes a solution: a two-month swap. Eileen can live in London and look for love. Meanwhile Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire. But with gossiping neighbours and difficult family dynamics to navigate up north, and trendy London flatmates and online dating to contend with in the city, stepping into one another’s shoes proves more difficult than either of them expected.

Leena learns that a long-distance relationship isn’t as romantic as she hoped it would be, and then there is the annoyingly perfect – and distractingly handsome – school teacher, who keeps showing up to outdo her efforts to impress the local villagers. Back in London, Eileen is a huge hit with her new neighbours, but is her perfect match nearer home than she first thought?

 

I Am Dust by Louise Beech
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Published: April 16th, 2020
Publisher: Orenda
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Horror, Psychological Fiction, Fairytale
SYNOPSIS:
When iconic musical Dust is revived twenty years after the leading actress was murdered in her dressing room, a series of eerie events haunts the new cast, in a bewitching, beguiling, moving and terrifyingly dark psychological thriller…

 

The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
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Published: April 21st, 2020
Publisher: Tinder Press
Genre: Historical Fiction, Biographical Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
An extraordinary story set in the first century about a woman who finds her voice and her destiny, from the celebrated number one New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings

‘I am Ana. I was the wife of Jesus.’

In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman called Ana.

Ana is a rebellious young woman, a gifted writer with a curious, brilliant mind, who writes secret narratives about the neglected and silenced women around her. Raised in a wealthy family in Galilee, she is sheltered from the brutality of Rome’s occupation of Israel. Ana is expected to marry an elderly widower to further her father’s ambitions, a prospect that horrifies her. A chance encounter with the eighteen-year-old Jesus changes everything: his ideas and his passion are intoxicating.

Taking Ana on a journey she could never have imagined, The Book of Longings is a glorious evocation of a time and a place where astounding events unfolded, and of one woman’s fate when she fights to make her voice heard.

 

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
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Published: April 30th, 2020
Publisher: Picador
Genre: Mystery, Psychological Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
Vincent is the beautiful bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star glass-and-cedar palace on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. New York financier Jonathan Alkaitis owns the hotel. When he passes Vincent his card with a tip, it’s the beginning of their life together. That same day, a hooded figure scrawls a note on the windowed wall of the hotel: ‘Why don’t you swallow broken glass.’ Leon Prevant, a shipping executive for a company called Neptune-Avramidis, sees the note from the hotel bar and is shaken to his core. Thirteen years later Vincent mysteriously disappears from the deck of a Neptune-Avramidis ship.

Weaving together the lives of these characters, Emily St. John Mandel’s The Glass Hotel moves between the ship, the towers of Manhattan, and the wilderness of remote British Columbia, painting a breathtaking picture of greed and guilt, fantasy and delusion, art and the ghosts of our pasts.

 

The Split by Sharon Bolton
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Published: April 30th, 2020
Publisher: Orion
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Crime Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
 SHE’S GOT NOWHERE LEFT TO HIDE.

A year ago, in desperation, Felicity Lloyd signed up for a lengthy research trip to the remote island of South Georgia.

It was her only way to escape.

AND NOW HE’S COMING FOR HER.

Freddie Lloyd has served time for murder. Out at last, he’s on her trail.

And this time, he won’t stop until he finds her.

BECAUSE NO MATTER HOW FAR YOU RUN, SOME SECRETS WILL ALWAYS CATCH UP WITH YOU…

 

He Started It by Samantha Downing
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Published: April 30th, 2020
Publisher: Penguin UK
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Suspense
SYNOPSIS:
This is a story about three siblings. Like any family, sometimes they don’t get along.

It’s a story about a secret that they’ve all kept since they were children.

It’s a story about lying. A story about murder.

It’s a story where only one can win.

 

Q by Christina Dalcher
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Published: April 30th, 2020
Publisher: HQ
Genre: Dystopian Fiction, Thriller, Fantasy, Fairytale
SYNOPSIS:
Elena Fairchild is a teacher at one of the state’s new elite schools. Her daughters are exactly like her: beautiful, ambitious, and perfect. A good thing, since the recent mandate that’s swept the country is all about perfection.

Now everyone must undergo routine tests for their quotient, Q, and any children who don’t measure up are placed into new government schools. Instead, teachers can focus on the gifted.

Elena tells herself it’s not about eugenics, not really, but when one of her daughters scores lower than expected and is taken away, she intentionally fails her own test to go with her.

But what Elena discovers is far more terrifying than she ever imagined…

 

The Silence by Susan Allott
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Published: April 30th, 2020
Publisher: The Borough Press
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Fiction, Crime Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
It is 1997, and in a basement flat in Hackney Isla Green is awakened by a call in the middle of the night: her father, phoning from Sydney.

30 years ago, in the suffocating heat of summer 1967, the Greens’ next-door neighbour Mandy disappeared. At the time, it was thought she had gone to start a new life; but now Mandy’s family is trying to reconnect, and there is no trace of her. Isla’s father Joe was allegedly the last person to see her alive, and now he’s under suspicion of murder.

Reluctantly, Isla goes back to Australia for the first time in a decade. The return to Sydney will plunge her deep into the past, to a quiet street by the sea where two couples live side by side. Isla’s parents, Louisa and Joe, have recently emigrated from England ― a move that has left Louisa miserably homesick while Joe embraces this new life. Next door, Steve and Mandy are equally troubled. Mandy doesn’t want a baby, even though Steve ― a cop trying to hold it together under the pressures of the job ― is desperate to become a father.

The more Isla asks about the past, the more she learns: about both young couples and the secrets each marriage bore. Could her father be capable of doing something terrible? How much does her mother know? And is there another secret in this community, one which goes deeper into Australia’s colonial past, which has held them in a conspiracy of silence?

Deftly exploring the deterioration of relationships and the devastating truths we keep from those we love, The Silence is a stunning debut from a rising literary star.

 

Would Like To Meet by Rachel Winters
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Published: April 30th, 2020
Publisher: Trapeze
Genre: Romance, Humourous Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
Long-suffering assistant Evie Summers will lose her job unless she can convince her film agency’s biggest and most difficult client, Ezra Chester, to finish the script for a Hollywood romcom. The catch? He hasn’t started writing it.

Suffering from ‘writer’s block,’ he will only put pen to paper if singleton Evie can prove to him that you can fall in love like they do in the movies. Forget internet dating, Evie can only meet a man the way that Sally met Harry, or Hugh Grant meets anyone. Cue her entering into one ridiculous romcom scenario after another. But can life ever be like the movies?

Of course, real life is never that straightforward . . .