Published April 10th, 2025 by Orenda Books Speculative Thriller, Medical Thriller, Dystopian Fiction
Today I’m finally sharing my review for this magnificent but terrifying thriller. Thank you Orenda Books for sending me a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.
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ABOUT THE BOOK:
The discovery of an injection that wards off ageing is hijacked by ruthless men who hunger for immortality, with catastrophic consequences. Two women race against time to stop them, before it’s too late … a chilling, prescient, high-stakes speculative thriller by the bestselling author of One.
‘Another triumph of speculative fiction by Eve Smith … a brilliant concept, skilfully executed and disturbingly believable’ Guy Morpuss
‘Had me hooked from the opening chapter, right through to the brilliantly shocking ending … We should all be reading Eve’s cautionary tales’ Philippa East
‘Eve Smith has done it again! Thrilling, provocative and downright scary, The Cure is a powerfully clever novel, and Smith an author at the top of her game’ Russ Thomas
‘With compulsive plotting, crackling dialogue and a third-act twist that took my breath away, it cements Smith’s position as the queen of the speculative crime thriller’ David Goodman
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Living forever can be lethal…
Ruth is a law-abiding elder, working out her national service, but she has secrets.
Her tireless research into the disease that killed her young daughter had an unexpected outcome: the discovery of a vaccine against old age. Just one jab a year reverses your biological clock, guaranteeing a long, healthy life.
But Ruth’s cure was hijacked by her colleague, Erik Grundleger, who hungers for immortality, and the SuperJuve – a premium upgrade – was created, driving human lifespan to a new high. The wealthy elite who take it are dubbed Supers, and the population begins to skyrocket.
Then, a perilous side-effect of the SuperJuve emerges, with catastrophic consequences, and as the planet is threatened, the population rebels, and laws are passed to restore order: life ends at 120. Supers are tracked down by Omnicide investigators like Mara, and executed…
Mara has her own reasons for hunting Supers, and she forms an unlikely alliance with Ruth to find Grundleger.
But Grundleger has been working on something even more radical and is one step ahead, with a deadly surprise in store for them both…
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MY REVIEW:
Imagine a world where we all live a long, healthy life free from the complications of ageing. No more dementia, heart diseases, chronic pain or other ageing related conditions. Just a long life in our prime. It sounds like paradise. But would it be?
An incredible discovery means that people now live to 120 thanks to an annual anti-ageing injection. In this dystopian future, 115-year-old Ruth is an elder quietly working her mandatory national service and anticipating her transition day. But behind the unassuming facade are dark secrets she has hidden for decades. Years ago while she was trying to find a cure for the devastating illness that killed her young daughter, Ruth made a discovery that changed the world and led to the creation of ReJuve, the annual anti-ageing injection now widely used. But Ruth’s research was hijacked by her partner Erik Grundleger, a ruthless man on a quest for immortality who used it to create SuperJuve, a once in a lifetime injection for the wealthy elite, nicknamed Supers, who want to live forever. But that injection was outlawed when it was discovered that it led to psychosis.
Mara is an investigator with Omnicide, a team who track down Supers and try to contain the catastrophic consequences of the side-effects. Known as The Blade, Mara has her own reasons for hunting Supers. And when an arrest leads to discovery that Grundleger, who has long been believed dead, may be alive, Mara forms an unlikely alliance with Ruth that leads the pair on a dangerous race against the clock to try and track down the man who started it all.
Eve Smith has done it again. It’s been two weeks since I finished this book and I’m still reeling. Outstanding, original, though-provoking and terrifying, The Cure, is a riveting thriller that also serves as a cautionary tale, showing how in the wrong hands, something wonderful can be turned into a nightmare. I’ve been a huge fan of Eve’s books ever since her fantastic debut and this is her best yet. Masterfully written, meticulously researched, fast-paced, and full of surprising twists, Eve spins a chillingly believable tale that wrenched me out of my own reality and into the one she created. She also makes you think, forcing me to ponder important questions that I’d never considered before as she examines the problems of an ageing population, dwindling resources, the dilemma of lifespan versus healthspan, social healthcare and privilege.
The two women at the centre of this story are fascinating characters and I loved reading them. They are very different but also quite similar, both of them being fierce and strong in their own way. Moving between narrators and timelines, we see their heart-rending backstories unfold and I was inspired by the way they have taken their pain and turned it into what motivates them in their chosen field. I enjoyed watching them learn to work together and get to know each other and would love to see them reprise their investigative duo in another book. And we can’t talk about the characters without talking about the villain, Erik Grundleger. Brilliantly written, this odious and reprehensible man made my skin crawl and made me angry every time he was on the page.
Addictive, clever, suspenseful and unsettling, Eve had me hooked from start to finish with this magnificent thriller. It’s one not to be missed and I can’t wait for whatever she writes next.
Rating: ✮✮✮✮✮
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Eve Smith writes speculative thrillers, mainly about the things that scare her. She attributes her love of all things dark and dystopian to a childhood watching Tales of the Unexpected and Edgar Allen Poe double bills.
Longlisted for the Not the Booker Prize and described by Waterstones as ‘an exciting new voice in crime fiction’, Eve’s debut novel, The Waiting Rooms, set in the aftermath of an antibiotic resistance crisis, was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize First Novel Award and was selected as a Book of the Month by Eric Brown in the Guardian, who compared her writing to Michael Crichton’s. It was followed by Off-Target, about a world where genetic engineering of children is routine, which was a Book of the Month in The Times. Her last thriller, One, set in a UK where a one-child policy is enforced, was a New Scientist pick and was longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association’s Best Novel Award.
Eve’s previous job at an environmental charity took her to research projects across Asia, Africa and the Americas, and she has an ongoing passion for wild creatures, wild science and far-flung places.
Welcome to my list of most anticipated April released. There are some exciting debuts, including The Eights, Mere, The Midnight King, A Line You Have Traced, and This Is Not A Game, and some new releases from authors I love including Nita Prose, Eve Smith, Essie Fox, Abigail Dean and Paige Toon.
Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoridou
Published April 1st by Wildfire Fairy Tale, Gothic Fiction, Horror Fiction
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Something terrible has happened.
In a mysterious apartment filled with ghosts, our unnamed narrator attempts to explain this to her child – how do I talk about this? she wonders.
The truth must become something beautiful. We must begin with a fairy tale.
And so she begins to construct a beautiful fairy tale for her child – one that begins with a strange baby boy whose nails grow too fast and whose skin smells of soil. As he grows from a boy into a man, a plague seems to follow him everywhere. Tragedy strikes in cycles – and wife after wife, death after death, plague after plague, every woman he touches becomes a ghost. These ghosts call out desperately to our narrator as she tries to explain, in the very real world, exactly what has happened to her.
And they all agree on one thing, an inescapable truth about this man, this powerful lord who has loved them and led them each to ruin:
If you leave, you die. But if you die, you stay.
A debut novel as emotionally poignant as it is fiercely smart, Sour Cherry is an arresting debut examining toxic masculinity through its chorus of women – deconstructing the idea of what makes someone a monster.
Published April 3rd by Gollancz Historical Fiction, Fairy Tale, Mythology, Greek Mythology, Science Ficiton, Gay Ficition
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A timely and timeless reimagining of the story of Dionysus, Greek God of ecstasy and madness, revelry and ruin, for readers of The Song of Achilles and Elektra.
Raised in a Greek legion, Phaidros has been taught to fight for the homeland he’s never seen and to follow his commander’s orders at all costs. But when he rescues a baby from a fire at Thebes’s palace, his commander’s orders cease to make sense: Phaidros is forced to abandon the blue-eyed boy at a temple, and to keep the baby’s existence a secret.
Years later, after a strange encounter that led to the death of his battalion, Phaidros has become a training master for young soldiers. He struggles with panic attacks and flashbacks, and he is not the only one: all around him, his fellow veterans are losing their minds.
Phaidros’s risk of madness is not his only problem: his life has become entangled with Thebes’s young crown prince, who wishes to escape the marriage his mother, the Queen, has chosen for him. When the prince vanishes, Phaidros is drawn into the search for him-a search that leads him to a blue-eyed witch named Dionysus, whose guidance is as wise as the events that surround him are strange. In Dionysus’s company, Phaidros witnesses sudden outbursts of riots and unrest, and everywhere Dionysus goes, rumors follow about a new god, one sired by Zeus but lost in a fire.
In The Hymn to Dionysus, bestselling author Natasha Pulley transports us to an ancient empire on the edge of ruin to tell an utterly captivating story about a man needing a god to remind him how to be a human.
Published April 3rd by Fig Tree Historical Fiction, Coming-of-Age Story
BOOK DESCRIPTION: They knew they were changing history. They didn’t know they would change each other.
Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms on Corridor Eight. They have come here from all walks of life, and they are thrown into an unlikely, life-affirming friendship.
Dora was never meant to go to university, but, after losing both her brother and her fiancé on the battlefield, has arrived in their place. Beatrice, politically-minded daughter of a famous suffragette, sees Oxford as a chance to make her own way – and her own friends – for the first time. Socialite Otto fills her room with extravagant luxuries but fears they won’t be enough to distract her from her memories of the war years. And quiet, clever, Marianne, the daughter of a village vicar, arrives bearing a secret she must hide from everyone – even The Eights – if she is to succeed.
But Oxford’s dreaming spires cast a dark shadow: in 1920, misogyny is still rife, influenza is still a threat, and the ghosts of the Great War are still very real indeed. And as the group navigate this tumultuous moment in time, their friendship will become more important than ever.
The Eights is a captivating debut novel about sisterhood, self-determination, courage, and what it means to come of age in a world that is forever changed.
Published April 3rd by Mantle Historical Fiction, Lesbian Literature, Historical Romance, Supernatural Fiction, Religious Ficiton, Medieval Romance
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Mere by Danielle Giles is a hypnotic historical novel about fear and survival, power and position, and a love that takes hold in the darkest of places.
Norfolk, 990 AD. Deep in the Fens, isolated by a vast and treacherous mere, an order of holy sisters make their home. Under the steely guidance of Abbess Sigeburg they follow God’s path, looking to their infirmarian, Hilda, to provide what comfort and cures she can.
But when the mere takes a young servant boy, Sigeburg’s grip falters and Hilda quickly realizes this place holds secrets darker and more unholy than she can fathom.
Then proud Sister Wulfrun, a recent arrival to the convent, has a vision: a curse is upon them and change must be brought. Is she saint or serpent? To Hilda, Wulfrun is a signal bolder and brighter than any fire set – one she cannot help but follow . . .
Published April 3rd by Bantam Press Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Coming-of-Age Story, Urban Fiction
BOOK DESCRIPTION: The Silent Patient meets The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo in this elegant and twisty debut thriller. _
When does the acting stop – and the deception begin?
Famous film star Lila Crayne is America’s Sweetheart: she’s generous and kind, gorgeous and magnetic. A golden girl. She and her fiancé, visionary filmmaker Kurt Royall, have settled into a stunning New York apartment, and are embarking on a new movie: a modern feminist adaptation of a classic twentieth-century novel.
To prepare for the leading role, Lila begins work with charming and accomplished therapist Jonah Gabriel to dig into the trauma of her past. Soon, Lila’s impeccably manicured life begins to unravel on the therapy couch – and Jonah is just the man to pick up the pieces. But everyone has a secret, no one is quite who they seem, and before long, careers, reputations and lives are in danger of being irrevocably destroyed . . .
Published April 3rd by Renegade Books Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Mashup Novel
BOOK DESCRIPTION: 1922: You are cordially invited to summer at the Gatsby Mansion in West Egg, with the most illustrious – and the deadliest – guest list.
Freshly twenty-one and sporting a daring new bob, Greta Gatsby – younger sister to the infamous Jay – is finally free of finishing school. An idyllic summer stretches ahead of her at the Gatsby Mansion, the jewel of West Egg.
But when Greta arrives at the secluded white-stone estate bathed in the late-afternoon light, she finds she isn’t the only visitor. Jay is hosting an intimate gathering of New York’s fashionable set: Daisy and Tom Buchanan, along with his brother Edgar, Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker.
That evening, the guests enjoy a candelabra-lit dinner party. That night, they dance to the lilt of the gramophone. The next morning, one of them is missing.
Murder has come to West Egg, the warm breeze tainted by scandal, betrayal and secrets. Turning sleuth isn’t how Greta meant to spend her summer – but what choice does she have when one of them could be next?
The gilded opulence of the Roaring Twenties. A murder that scandalises high society. And a clever young woman of unusual persistence… A deliciously unputdownable whodunnit perfect for fans of The Christie Affair and Miss Austen Investigates.
Published April 3rd by Picador Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Erotic Thriller, Drama
BOOK DESCRIPTION: This is a murder mystery. This is a story about love. Or is it? . . .
Fair Play is the puzzle-box story of two competing tales that brilliantly lay bare the real truth of life – the terrifying mystery of grief.
‘A treat – clever, confident, and always surprising’ – Paul Murray, author of THE BEE STING
Abigail and her brother Benjamin have always been close. To celebrate his birthday, Abigail hires a grand old house and gathers their friends together for a murder mystery party. As the night goes on, they drink too much and play games. Relationships are forged, consolidated or frayed. Someone kisses someone they shouldn’t, someone else’s heart is broken.
In the morning, everyone wakes up – except Benjamin.
Suddenly everything is not quite what it seems. An eminent detective arrives determined to find Benjamin’s killer. The house now has a butler, a gardener and a housekeeper. This is a locked-room mystery, and everyone is a suspect.
As Abigail attempts to fathom her brother’s unexpected death in a world that has been turned upside down, she begins to wonder whether perhaps the true mystery might have been his life . . .
Published April 3rd by Black & White Publishing Romance Novel, Magical Realism, Contemporary Romance
BOOK DESCRIPTION: At seven o’clock one Tuesday evening, in a perfectly ordinary tower block near Westminster, four strangers meet for the first time. They each have three things in common: all suffered a traumatic experience six months earlier; all exhibit a dogged inability to put it behind them; and all accepted an invitation to attend tonight’s counselling session with the unconventional Genevieve – a determined woman with an unusual theory to test.
But this isn’t a novel about psychotherapy or self-forgiveness. Because there is another reason these four people have been brought together. And when that perfectly ordinary tower block near Westminster turns out to be not quite so ordinary, all five are forced to make some unexpected – and, for some, impossible – decisions . . .
A novel about friendship, strength and love, The Seven O’Clock Club is a reminder that life can give you hope. Even in the darkest of spaces.
Published April 3rd by Tor Contemporary Fantasy, Dark Fantasy
BOOK DESCRIPTION: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six, Succession meets magic in Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake. This is the story of three siblings who, upon the death of their father, are forced to reckon with their long-festering rivalries, dangerous abilities and the crushing weight of all their unrealized adolescent potential.
Where there’s a will, there’s a war.
Thayer Wren, brilliant CEO of Wrenfare Magitech, is dead. As the ‘father of modern technology,’ he leaves an incredible legacy. But which of his three telepathically and electrokinetically gifted children could inherit the Wrenfare throne?
Meredith, head of her own profitable company, has recently cured mental illness. If only her journalist ex-boyfriend wasn’t set on exposing what she really is: a total fraud. Arthur, second-youngest congressman ever, wants to do everything right. Except his wife might be leaving, and he’s losing his re-election campaign. Heading Wrenfare could relaunch his sinking ship. Eilidh was a world-famous ballerina, until a life-altering injury. Gaining the company might finally validate her worth.
On the pipeline of gifted kid to clinically depressed adult, nobody wins. Yet as they gather to read his final words, which Wren will come out on top?
This is a compulsive contemporary fantasy of family, twisted love and dangerous secrets from a writer at the height of her powers.
Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura
Published April 3rd by Doubleday Mystery, Magical Realism
BOOK DESCRIPTION: THE UNFORGETTABLE MILLION-COPY JAPANESE BESTSELLER BY THE AUTHOR OF LONELY CASTLE IN THE MIRROR
Brimming with suspense and heartbreak, the million-copy Japanese fantasy mystery for fans of BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD and LONELY CASTLE IN THE MIRROR ______________
Is there anyone you wish to see?
So asks the smart young man, Ayumi, to his clients who have come to him for a reunion with the person who once changed their life.
But it is no ordinary reunion The people they ask to see have passed away.
Calling himself the go-between, Ayumi lays down strict rules around the meetings between the living and the dead: the deceased cannot have been summoned by anyone else; they may refuse; and they must meet under a full moon.
– Anxious Hirase asks to see the celebrity who showed her kindness at a critical moment; – An arrogant family man wants clarity about a will from his beloved mother; – After a bike accident, a school girl has a question for her former best friend; – A salary man wants to ask the only woman he ever loved what caused her to run away.
With each reunion, tantalizing clues are scattered for readers to piece together the emotional truth behind the go-between in this mesmeric and unputdownable tale of kindness, compassion and connection.
Published April 8th by Quercus Romance, Romantic Comedy, Melodrama, Tragicomedy, Drama
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Lost at sea . . . with your one-night stand
‘Feels like a brand new version of romance . . . I drowned happily in this book’ Jodi Picoult
‘I adored it, it was so romantic’ Marian Keyes
Lexi is looking for no-strings-attached fun with a stranger. She deserves one night for herself, doesn’t she?
Zeke is looking for love. But for one night with a woman like Lexi, he’ll break his rules . . .
Sparks fly at the pub, one passionate kiss leads to another and they end up stumbling home to the marina together.
The next morning, hungover and shaken by an amazing night, Lexi is more than ready for Zeke to leave. There’s just one small problem . . . the houseboat they stayed on has been swept out to sea.
As their supplies start to run dangerously low, and the waves pick up, Zeke and Lexi soon realise there’s much more on the line than their new relationship.
How long can they really survive on a drifting houseboat in the North Sea? Will search and rescue find them? And who will they be if they both make it back to dry land?
Swept Away is the epic new romance from the million-copy bestselling author of The Flatshare and The No-Show about your one-night stand becoming your one and only lifeline. Sharp, funny and breathtakingly intense, this standout novel is set to capture readers’ hearts next spring.
Published April 10th by Orenda Books Thriller, Speculative Thriller, Medical Thriller, Science Fiction, Alternative History
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Living forever can be lethal…
Ruth is a law-abiding elder, working out her national service, but she has secrets.
Her tireless research into the disease that killed her young daughter had an unexpected outcome: the discovery of a vaccine against old age. Just one jab a year reverses your biological clock, guaranteeing a long, healthy life.
But Ruth’s cure was hijacked by her colleague, Erik Grundleger, who hungers for immortality, and the SuperJuve – a premium upgrade – was created, driving human lifespan to a new high. The wealthy elite who take it are dubbed Supers, and the population begins to skyrocket.
Then, a perilous side-effect of the SuperJuve emerges, with catastrophic consequences, and as the planet is threatened, the population rebels, and laws are passed to restore order: life ends at 120. Supers are tracked down by Omnicide investigators like Mara, and executed…
Mara has her own reasons for hunting Supers, and she forms an unlikely alliance with Ruth to find Grundleger.
But Grundleger has been working on something even more radical and is one step ahead, with a deadly surprise in store for them both…
Published April 10th by Viper Books Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Thriller
BOOK DESCRIPTION: ‘This is a work of fiction. This is not a confession.’
Lucas Cole is a bestselling writer. He is also a father, a widower, and a beloved celebrity in his small town. He is an unassuming man - tall, thin and quietly friendly. Lucas Cole is also a serial killer.
Nathan Cole has known the truth about his father since he was ten years old. Too terrified to go to the police, he ran away from home as soon as he was able, carrying the guilt of leaving his sister behind. But when Lucas is found dead in a dingy motel room, Nathan returns to his childhood home for the first time in seventeen years. It’s there he finds The Midnight King, his father’s final unpublished manuscript, a fictionalised account of his hideous crimes, hidden in a box of trinkets taken from his victims. Trinkets that include a ribbon belonging to a missing eight-year-old girl who disappeared only days before his father’s death.
Now, Nathan must deal with the consequences of keeping his father’s secret. But it may not be as simple as finding a lost child. For The Midnight King holds Nathan’s secrets as well as Lucas’s, and he is not the only one searching for the truth…
Full of unexpected twists and heartrending turns, The Midnight King is a gripping thriller perfect for fans of Chris Whitaker, S.A. Cosby and Ian Rankin.
Published April 10th by Harper Collins UK Thriller, Suspense, Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Domestic Ficiton
BOOK DESCRIPTION: They raised me. Nurtured me. And lied about everything.
Sadie’s childhood has always been shrouded in mystery.
But there are three things she knows.
She was raised by two aunts.
She never knew her parents.
She is convinced she was stolen.
Cristy Ward, podcast host, is gripped by Sadie’s story. It’s perfect for her next true-crime investigation. Yet Sadie’s aunt claims it’s all a fantasy.
As the evidence begins to stack up, and the lies fall apart, they all could be in a lot more danger than they thought…
Published April 10th by Harper Collins UK Mystery, Thriller, Crime Ficiton, Women Sleuths, Crime Series
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A hidden treasure. A hotel heist. Only THE MAID can solve the mystery.
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Molly the maid is no stranger to secrets…
She sees everything behind closed doors at the Regency Grand hotel: wiping away the dust and grime of guests passing through.
But one secret lies much closer to home.
An old trinket – a faux Fabergé egg – is revealed to be a precious antique during an appraisal at the hotel, making Molly a rags-to-riches sensation. But no sooner has the egg shown its value than it’s stolen: vanishing without a trace.
Determined to crack the case of the missing Fabergé, Molly begins dusting for clues – uncovering a mystery that stretches deep into the past.
For in the pages of a long-forgotten diary, written by her late gran, lie the secrets that could unlock all others – and only Molly holds the key…
BOOK DESCRIPTION: MEET THE DETECTIVE DUO YOU’LL NEVER FORGET __________
89-year-old Margaret has lived on Garnon Crescent all her life, except for those few years she never talks about. She knows all the neighbours; their hopes, their heartbreaks.
Only recently, Margaret’s memory isn’t what it used to be. She is sure Barbara, her best friend and neighbour, told her something important. Something she was supposed to remember.
When Barbara is found dead, Margaret determines to recover her missing memory. She and her grandson James begin to investigate, but soon strange incidents occur in her home. Margaret’s daughter thinks her memory is getting worse, but Margaret knows somebody wants her out of the way.
Because Margaret holds the key to solving this crime. If only she could remember where she put it.
Published April 10th by Riverrun Historical Fiction, Crime Fiction, True Crime
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A Granite Silence is an exploration – a journey through time to a particular house, in a particular street, Urquhart Road, Aberdeen in 1934, where eight-year-old Helen Priestly lives with her mother and father.
Among this long, grey corridor of four-storey tenements, a daunting expanse of granite, working families are squashed together like pickled herrings in their narrow flats. Here are Helen’s neighbours: the Topps, the Josses, the Mitchells, the Gordons, the Donalds, the Coulls and the Hunts.
Returning home from school for her midday meal, Helen is sent by her mother Agnes to buy a loaf from the bakery at the end of the street. Agnes never sees her daughter alive again.
Nina Allan explores the aftermath of Helen’s disappearance, turning a probing eye to the close-knit neighbourhood – where everyone knows everyone, at least by sight – and with subtlety and sympathy, explores the intricate layers of truth and falsehood that can coexist in one moment of history.
Full of echoes, allusions and eerie diversions, A Granite Silence is an investigation into a notorious true crime case, but also a stylish, imaginative inquiry into who gets to tell a story, how it is told, and why.
Published April 10th by Magpie Science Ficiton, Time Travel Ficiton
BOOK DESCRIPTION: ‘We can fix what we have done. We can undo the mistakes our ancestors made. We can set right what has been done wrong… You are the first step.’
In a silverware shop, a young wife works alongside her husband. Amid growing political turmoil, Bea finds solace in the local marsh, where she is visited recurrently by a mysterious presence, logging each appearance carefully in a scarlet journal. In a time like now, Kay navigates friendship, queerness and the temporary job market, whilst contemplating the significance of her life in a world with such an uncertain future. At her grandmother’s house she finds an intriguing record of an angel’s visits. A hundred years into the future, outsiders have banded together to live off-grid away from a corrupt government and a city wracked by oppression and climate change. When Ess is chosen for a virgin mission, a journey into the past to save the present, she is guided only by a well-thumbed red notebook… Set against the shifting landscape of East London marshes and expanding over three centuries, this is the breathtaking, urgent story of three women separated by history but threaded together by unknown forces.
Published April 10th by Faber & Faber Literary Fiction
BOOK DESCRIPTION: It seems so odd to me now, how one can be so unsettled by the improbable. When we know that our entire existence is founded on freak occurrences and improbable coincidences. That we wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for these curious twists of fate.
The first volume of the poetic, page-turning masterpiece about one woman’s fall through the cracks of time.
Tara Selter has slipped out of time.
Every morning, she wakes up to the 18th of November. She no longer expects to wake up to the 19th of November, and she no longer remembers the 17th of November as if it were yesterday.
She comes to know the shape of the day like the back of her hand – the grey morning light in her Paris hotel; the moment a blackbird breaks into song; her husband’s surprise at seeing her return home unannounced. But for everyone around her, this day is lived for the first and only time. They do not remember the other 18ths of November, and they do not believe her when she tries to explain.
As Tara approaches her 365th 18th of November, she can’t shake the feeling that somewhere underneath the surface of this day, there’s a way to escape.
WINNER OF THE 2022 NORDIC COUNCIL LITERATURE PRIZE
The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight
Published April 10th by Quercus Domestic Fiction, Coming-of-Age Story
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Pen and Alice, childhood best friends from Toronto, are in their first year at the University of Edinburgh. Each has come to the city for her own reasons.
Pen knows her divorced parents back in Canada are hiding something from her. She believes she’ll find the answer here in Scotland, where an old friend of her father’s – now a famous writer known as Lord Lennox – lives. When she is invited to spend the weekend at Lennox’s centuries-old estate with his enveloping, fascinating family, Pen begins to unravel her parents’ secret, just as she’s falling in love for the first time . . .
Meanwhile Alice, an aspiring actor, sees university as her route to the West End and beyond. The star of this year’s theatre production, she’s making the most of the power she wields as an object of desire – until an affair with her tutor begins to slip from her control.
Witty, warm and wildly unputdownable, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is at once a love story and an irresistible mystery, a celebration of female friendship, and a study of how looking back can help us move forward.
Published April 10th by Fourth Estate Mystery, Suspense, Domestic Fiction, Humorous Fiction
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Maybe having a few enemies on the school run means you’re doing something right…
Florence knows all about failure. After a dismal end to her 2000s girlband career, she’s moping around West London, single, broke and unfulfilled. The only things she’s proud of are her increasingly elaborate nail art choices – and her ten-year-old son, Dylan.
But when Alfie Risby, Dylan’s bitter class rival and the child heir to a frozen foods empire, mysteriously vanishes on a school trip, Dylan becomes a prime suspect. Florence has to get her act together, find the missing boy and clear her son’s name or risk losing him forever. The only problem? She doesn’t have any detective skills, she’s not exactly popular at the school gates and she’s just found Alfie’s backpack hidden under Dylan’s bed…
All the Other Mothers Hate Me is an irresistibly witty novel about fitting in, starting over and the lengths we’ll go to for the people we love.
Published April 10th by Century Romance Novel, Contemporary Romance
BOOK DESCRPTION: Three days to fall in love. Six years to try to forget.
Ellie didn’t expect to fall in love while travelling in Europe. But she also didn’t expect to meet a man like Ash.
Three blistering days in Lisbon is all it takes to form an unforgettable connection – deep enough for them to plan to meet again in Madrid. But Ellie arrives late, and Ash is nowhere to be found.
Six years later, the memory of Ash and their time together still burns deeply in Ellie’s heart. She hopes that her dream job as a gardener on a grand estate in Wales will bring the fresh start she desperately needs.
But when Ash unexpectedly crashes back into her life, Ellie is forced to question if the universe has other plans…
Published April 10th by Picador Contemporary Fantasy, Magical Realism, Translated Fiction
BOOK DESCRIPTION: The must-have sequel to Sosuke Natsukawa’s bestselling The Cat Who Saved Books – an uplifting tale from Japan about a talking cat, a book-loving girl and the power of books to make a difference in the world.
Nanami sees nothing wrong with a library and cat combination. But a talking cat is a whole other story.
Nanami Kosaki loves reading. The local library is a home from home and books have become her best friends. When Nanami notices books disappearing from the library shelves, she’s particularly curious about a suspicious man in a grey suit whose furtive behaviour doesn’t feel right. Should she follow him to see what he’s up to?
When a talking tabby cat called Tiger appears to warn her about how dangerous that would be, together they’re brave enough to follow the frightening trail to find out where all the books have gone. Will Nanami and Tiger overcome the challenges of the adventure ahead?
Warm, wonderful and wise, The Cat Who Saved the Library is also a powerful lesson never to underestimate the value of great literature, and a reminder always to think for ourselves, no matter what our charismatic leaders might say.
Published April 17th by Picador Historical Fiction, Coming-of-Age Story, LGBT Literature
BOOK DESCRIPTION: From the author of The End We Start From, now a major film starring Jodie Comer, and taking inspiration from the influential Bloomsbury Group, Days of Light is a sweeping, gorgeous story for fans of Mothering Sunday and The Hours.
Easter Sunday, 1938. Ivy is nineteen and ready for her life to finally begin. In the idyllic Sussex countryside, her sprawling, bohemian family and their friends gather for lunch, awaiting the arrival of a longed-for guest.
It is a single, enchanted afternoon that ends in tragedy.
Days later, at a funeral, Ivy is kissed by the man she will marry, and grieves with the woman who will become the love of her life. And this is only the beginning . . .
Chronicling six pivotal days across six decades, Days of Light moves through the Second World War and the twentieth century on a radiant journey through a life lived in pursuit of love and in search of an answer.
Published April 17th by Doubleday Literary Fiction, Romantic Comedy, Drama, Family Saga
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Family is everything, even when it falls apart. Discover the brand-new novel from the multi-million-copy bestselling author.
There is a heatwave across Europe.
Goose and his three sisters gather at the family’s house by Lake Orta in Piedmont, Italy. Their father, a famous artist, has recently remarried a much younger woman and decamped to Italy to finish his masterpiece. Now he is dead and there is no sign of a painting.
Although the siblings have always been close, as they search for answers over that summer, the things they learn – about themselves, their father and their new stepmother – will drive them apart before they can come to any kind of understanding of what their father’s legacy truly is.
Extraordinarily compelling, at heart this is a novel about sibling relationships and those hairline cracks that can appear within a family: what what happens when they splinter, and what it would take to mend them.
Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, Through the Women Writter Out of It by Emily Hauser
Published April 17th by Doubleday History
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Did you love Madeline Miller’s Circe? Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls? Jennifer Saint’s Elektra? Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships?
But did you ever wonder who the real women behind the myths of the Trojan War were?
Now award-winning classicist and historian Emily Hauser takes readers on an epic journey to uncover the astonishing true story of the real women behind ancient Greece’s greatest legends – and the real heroes of those ancient epics, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
Because, contrary to perceptions built up over three millennia, ancient history is not all about men – and it’s not only men’s stories that deserve to be told . . .
In Mythica Emily Hauser tells, for the first time, the extraordinary stories of the real women behind some of the western world’s greatest legends. Following in their footsteps, digging into the history behind Homer’s epic poems, piecing together evidence from the original texts, recent astonishing archaeological finds and the latest DNA studies, she reveals who these women – queens, mothers, warriors, slaves – were, how they lived, and how history has (or has not – until now) remembered them.
A riveting new history of the Bronze Age Aegean and a journey through Homer’s epics charted entirely by women – from Helen of Troy, Briseis, Cassandra and Aphrodite to Circe, Athena, Hera, Calypso and Penelope – Mythica is a ground-breaking reassessment of the reality behind the often-mythologized women of Greece’s greatest epics, and of the ancient world itself as we learn ever more about it.
Published April 24th by Orenda Books Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller, Historical Mystery, Gothic Fiction, Biographical Fiction, Crime Fiction
BOOK DESCRIPTION: When the disgraced Lord Byron is associated with the deaths of women in Venice, he turns detective to unveil the killer and clear his name. A dazzling, riveting historical mystery by the author of the Sunday Times bestseller, The Fascination. –––––––
When fiction is fatal…
Living in exile in Venice, the disgraced Lord Byron revels in the freedoms of the city
But when he is associated with the deaths of local women, found with wounds to their throats, and then a novel called The Vampyre is published under his name, rumours begin to spread that Byron may be the murderer…
As events escalate and tensions rise – and his own life is endangered, as well as those he holds most dear – Byron is forced to play detective, to discover who is really behind these heinous crimes. Meanwhile, the scandals of his own infamous past come back to haunt him…
Rich in gothic atmosphere and drawing on real events and characters from Byron’s life, Dangerous is a riveting, dazzling historical thriller, as decadent, dark and seductive as the poet himself…
Published April 24th by HarperNorth Gothic Ficiton, Hisotrical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Ghost Story, Horror Ficiton, Nautical Fiction
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Each time the globe turns, murder strikes…
1597, London. When Beatrice’s husband returns from exploring the New World, he comes home with unexpected company: a mysterious woman, and an enormous painted globe.
As Hugh refuses to explain who their female guest is, Beatrice’s foreboding grows. The unwieldy globe now strikes her as sinister – a reminder of the world of secrets pervading her household.
Then one night, the great, hulking globe begins to turn of its own accord. Terrifying new illustrations appear on its face – and when untimely deaths ensue, Beatrice is convinced that the drawings are connected.
Desperate to prove that she is not paranoid, Beatrice risks everything to uncover the truth. What sinister force is behind these killings? What really happened on Hugh’s excursion to the Americas? Who is the strange woman who won’t leave her house? And on this otherworldly map of murders, who will be painted as the final victim?
Published April 24th by Doubleday Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Crime Fiction
BOOK DESCRIPTION: The gripping new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Tall Bones, the haunting bestseller and Book of the Month for the Guardian, Grazia and the Observer. _______
‘There’s nothing like it. The way the world gets real quiet when a gator’s nearby…And then the water, suddenly boiling as that black head surfaces and the ancient reptile erupts into the air hissing like a devil…’
The Labasques aren’t like other families.
Living in a shack out in the swamps, they scrape a living hunting down alligators just to get by. To the good people of Jacknife, Louisiana, they are trouble-makers, outcasts, the kind of people you wouldn’t want living on your doorstep.
So when Cutter Labasque is found face down in the muddy swamp, no one seems to care, not even her two rough-cut brothers. The only person who questions the official verdict of suicide is Cutter’s childhood friend, Loyal May, who has just returned home to care for her ageing mother.
Loyal left town at the age of 18, having betrayed everything she valued most. Now, there may be no way for her to find forgiveness, but there may be restitution…
Set against the haunting beauty of Southern Louisiana, Our Last Wild Days is a stunning, evocative novel about the ways in which we come to understand our place in the world.
Published April 24th by Century Mystery, Crime Fiction, Cozy Mystery, Humorous Fiction
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Two unlikely detectives. A killer cocktail of suspects.
A Gibson martini garnished with three silverskin onions is 77-year-old Mimi’s favourite cocktail. It is best served with a crossword puzzle, not as an apéritif at Jane Ireland’s extravagant auction party.
But given Mimi has been blackmailed into attending Jane’s event, at a grand old mansion on Mackinac Island (Michigan’s answer to The Hamptons), there are worse drinks she could spend an evening sinking.
Thankfully for her, she’s roped her granddaughter, Addie – who is escaping the heartache caused by her manipulative ex-fiancé – into accompanying her. While Addie spots celebrities and socialites in the manor’s labyrinth of dark rooms and Mimi wonders how to confess the real reason for her presence at the soiree, a scream pierces the air.
Jane is dead.
And when a second body turns up, Mimi and Addie soon become the unlikeliest of sleuths in a race to narrow down the suspects.
In a house that contains as many secrets as the people within it, it’s going to take more than a Gibson to survive the night…
Jessica and Linda have been best friends since the first day of school. Both girls are from very different broken homes – and beautiful, wilful Jessica has always ensured their survival.
Now eighteen, the two girls have come to Wilde – an elite university in the heart of Dublin, far away from their troubled childhoods. Jessica thrives immediately, and, with the faithful Linda at her side, finds herself at the heart of a new circle of friends.
But then Mark enters the picture. A philosophy student a few years older than them, he has strange and compelling ideas about self-discovery. When Linda and Mark start dating, Jessica is disturbed by the change in her friend – and how quickly she seems to have fallen under this abrasive, charismatic man’s control.
It turns out that Mark’s influence is not limited to Linda alone; and Jessica soon finds out that her whole group of friends are keeping secrets for him – culminating in a terrible tragedy that strikes at the end of their first year.
Years later, Jessica is still grappling with her guilt over what happened at Wilde. And when Mark resurfaces, she knows she owes it to herself – and Linda – to set the record straight once and for all.
Published April 24th by Simon & Schuster UK Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Science Fiction, Crime Series
BOOK DESCRIPTION: DCS Kat Frank and AIDE Lock are back in a cutting-edge new thriller.
The truth will always come out, but at what cost?
Fresh from successfully closing their first live case, the Future Policing Unit are called in to investigate when a headless, handless body is found on a Warwickshire farm. But as they work to identify the victim and their killer, the discovery of a second body begins to spark fears that The Aston Strangler is back. And as the stakes rise for the team, so do the tensions brewing within it.
When DCS Kat Frank is accused of putting the wrong man behind bars all those years ago, AIDE Lock – the world’s first AI Detective – pursues the truth about what happened with relentless logic. But Kat is determined to keep the past buried, and when she becomes the target of a shadowy figure looking for revenge, Lock is torn between his evidence-based algorithms and the judgement of his partner, with explosive results.
When everything hangs in the balance, it will all come down to just how much an AI machine can learn, and what happens when they do . . .
Published April 24th by Akan Books Literary Fiction, Psychological Fiction
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Tender, brutal, devastating, OVERSPILL is the debut novel from incredible new literary talent, Charlotte Paradise, perfect for fans of Sally Rooney and Coco Mellors
Sara is twenty-five. She has never used a tampon without having a panic attack.
She starts dating Miles. For three months, they don’t touch. Miles respects her boundaries, though he longs for them to melt away. Sara desires Miles, but she knows her body, or rather she knows it is an unknowable thing.
Sara wants to be in love, to find a person who allows her to be herself. Someone who is happy with everything she is and everything she isn’t. Miles hopes he won’t hurt her.
But how do you navigate a relationship for which there is no blueprint? How do you love someone when your body is not your own, and how do you reclaim it?
Published April 24th by Simon & Schuster UK Romance Novel, Contemporary Romance, Holiday Fiction
BOOK DESCRIPTION: The brilliantly escapist and gloriously romantic new summer read from million-copy Sunday Times bestselling author Heidi Swain!
Summer is in full swing when Daisy drives back into Wynmouth in her almost-clapped-out car, having left both her most recent job and the man her parents thought she was going to marry. Coming home could be just what she needs to move her life on.
At Wynbrook Manor, things are in disarray. Owner Algy isn’t getting any younger, and Daisy’s mum Janet, housekeeper at the manor, spends her days running around after him, while Daisy’s dad Robin, the gardener, has been let down by the person he had lined up to take care of the new cut-flower garden.
As Daisy tries to find her place at Wynbrook and in the village, she’s drawn to summer visitor Josh. But when he turns out to be not the person he appears to be, will the spark between them fizzle out? And with it, the chances of this turning into the best summer ever?
Today I’m sharing my list of thrillers I’m most anticipating this year. There’s so many good ones that it was hard to narrow them down!
The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave
BOOK DESCRIPTION: From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller and Reese’s Book Club Pick The Last Thing He Told Me comes a riveting mystery wrapped in an epic love story . . . _________
One beautiful Californian evening, a wealthy businessman falls to his death from his secluded cliff-top house onto the rocks below.
A tragic accident? Or murder?
Nora and her half-brother Sam suspect it may be the latter, and team up to uncover the truth of what really happened that night.
But their relationship has never been easy, and it is about to be tested to the limit as they start to question how well either of them really knew their elusive father.
Unravelling his mysterious past takes them back to a world they knew nothing about, to a tangled love affair and a web of relationships that other people would far rather stay buried…
Filled with passion, intrigue, lies, and dark, dark family secrets, The Night We Lost Him is a page turning mystery you won’t ever want to put down.
A Serial Killer’s Guide To Marriage by Asia Mackay
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A couple that kills together stays together. DISCOVER THE ADDICTIVE THRILLER READERS CAN’T STOP TALKING ABOUT
Hazel and Fox are an ordinary married couple with a baby. Except for one small thing: they’re ex-serial killers.
They had it all. An enviable London lifestyle, five-star travels, and plenty of bad men to kill. Not many power couples know how to get away with murder.
Then Hazel fell pregnant and they gave it all up for life in the suburbs; dinner parties instead of body disposal.
But recently Hazel has started to feel that itch again. When she kills someone behind Fox’s back and brings the police to their door, she must do anything she can to protect her family.
This could save their marriage – unless it kills them first.
Published January 14th by Wildfire Pre-order here*
****
The Last Days of Kira Mullan by Nicci French
BOOK DESCRIPTION: She thinks it was murder. But if she can’t trust herself, can anyone else?
Nancy North and her boyfriend Felix are making the move across London to Harlesden. A new flat, a new area, a new start. Because while Nancy is fine now, she wasn’t fine before. But settling into the new flat and meeting the new neighbours isn’t helped by Felix’s hovering concern. She is all right. She is sticking to her breathing exercises and doctor-prescribed help.
So, when their new neighbour Kira Mullan is found dead by suicide, Felix is understandably worried about Nancy’s frame of mind. But Nancy saw Kira the day before she died and she didn’t strike her as someone who was suicidal – she was upset and angry, yes, but was she upset and angry enough to take her own life?
Nancy is the only one convinced that there’s more to Kira’s death than has been discovered. But all the police and the neighbours see is a vulnerable woman who isn’t sure of what she saw, and might even be imagining things . . .
Is Nancy imagining things, or are there more questions that should be asked about the last days of Kira Mullan?
Published January 16th by Simon & Schuster UK Pre-order here*
****
Death in the Arctic by Tom Hindle
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A frozen wilderness.
A killer in the skies.
When aspiring travel writer Chloé Campbell is invited aboard a luxury airship flying to the North Pole, she thinks she’s bagged the opportunity of a lifetime.
But she hasn’t had long to admire the dazzling icy views before a fellow passenger is found dead in their cabin.
Trapped at the top of the world, the group agrees a tragic accident has occurred. But as the hours tick by, fear turns to doubt.
It seems everyone’s a suspect.
And it isn’t long before the passengers begin to turn on each other . . .
BOOK DESCRIPTION: It’s not dust she’s looking for. It’s dirt.
Esmie is supposed to be invisible. Just a cleaner with a foreign accent that no one quite has time to place. Her uniform of leggings and a duster allows her to explore the homes of the wealthy, unseen; an outsider creeping around the edges of privilege.
But as she sweeps through the exclusive Woodlands gated neighbourhood, cleaning is the last thing on her mind. Treading silently over the polished wooden floorboards and cloud-soft carpets, Esmie gathers up the mess of broken marriages, quiet deceptions and careless failures. She tucks away their fragments, keeping them safe. For now.
Because one of the residents took from her the person she loves most. She’s not here to clean; she’s here for revenge – and she’ll get it using the weapons her employers unwittingly handed her along with the keys to their homes: their own secrets…
This beautifully sinister, propulsive page-turner that explores themes of identity and privilege is perfect for fans of Harriet Tyce and Lisa Jewell.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A twisted Southern Gothic horror from Grady Hendrix, the New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House and The Final Girl Support Group.
‘I did an evil thing to be put in here, and I’m going to have to do an evil thing to get out.’
They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.
Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. There, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to keep her baby and escape to a commune. Zinnia, a budding musician who plans to marry her baby’s father. And Holly, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.
Every moment of their waking day is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid . . . and it’s usually paid in blood.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: In this mesmerising thriller from the bestselling author of Keep Her Secret, a family’s fresh start is just the beginning of their nightmare…
Ethan Dove’s family has moved to a new home in a safe community, and it’s exactly the fresh start they need. Not only is his marriage to Emma hanging by a thread, but his son, Dylan, and twelve-year-old daughter, Rose, deserve to have a happy childhood.
After Rose is bullied by the boys across the road, Ethan is relieved when the woman who lives next door steps in. Fiona Smith has come into their lives at just the right moment, and when she offers to look after Rose during the school holidays, Ethan and Emma can’t believe their luck.
Which is exactly what Fiona wants. Because, far from being the perfect neighbour, Fiona is the last person you should trust with your child. With a vicious plot for revenge, Fiona is happy to train Rose to be her accomplice, especially when she begins to suspect that Rose might not be as innocent as she appears…
The Psychopath Next Door is a gripping and twisted psychological suspense thriller set in the terrifying world of Mark Edwards’s bestselling The Magpies universe.
Published January 28th by Thomas & Mercer Pre-order here*
****
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.
Grady calls his wife as she’s driving home to share some exciting news. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by a cliff edge, the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there . . . but his wife has disappeared.
A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible: a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.
Wives think their husbands will change, but they don’t. Husbands think their wives won’t change, but they do.
Published January 30th by Pan Macmillan Pre-order here*
****
Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister
BOOK DESCRIPTION: It’s Camilla’s first day back at work, her daughter’s first day at nursery. But husband Luke is nowhere to be seen. The only trace of him is an unfinished note. Camilla tries to put it out of her mind; there must be a rational explanation. At work, there are welcomes back, and too many distractions.
Then it starts.
Breaking news: there’s a hostage situation developing in London. The police arrive: Luke is caught up in it.
But he isn’t a hostage. Luke – doting father, successful writer, enthusiastic runner and eternal optimist – is the gunman.
What Camilla does next is crucial. Because only she knows what the note he left behind says, and the clues it might hold . . .
Published January 30th by Michael Joseph Pre-order here*
****
I Bet You’d Look Good in a Coffin by Katy Brent
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Your favourite anti-heroine, Kitty Collins, is back! Expect more wit, sass, and, of course, murder…
***********
My name is Kitty Collins and I’m a serial killer.
I don’t want to kill. It’s just so hard to resist. Some men really, really deserve it.
Men like Blaze Bundy, an anonymous influencer spreading misogyny online. He’s making it very hard for me to control my murderous urges.
Meanwhile I’m in the South of France to watch my mother marry a man I’ve never met. I should be drinking cocktails and focusing on my tan, not plotting a murder.
But a woman’s work is never done. Surely one more teensy little kill wouldn’t hurt, would it?
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Robyn ‘Avril’ Managa was twelve when she witnessed her controlling and abusive father murder her mother. Put into care while her well-connected was father given a new identity in Witness Protection, Robyn has lived with the trauma of that day ever since.
Now in her twenties, Robyn has decided she wants a family reunion – so is killing people connected to her father’s case, leaving on their bodies the note: GIVE HIM TO ME.
Dr Kez Lanyon is called onto the case. But can Kez get into Robyn’s mind before she kills again? Or is she about to become Avril’s latest victim?
Profiler and therapist Kez Lanyon returns in a gripping new stand-alone novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Dorothy Koomson.
Published February 13th by Headline Pre-order here*
****
The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths
BOOK DESCRIPTION: SOME MURDERS CAN’T BE SOLVED IN JUST ONE LIFETIME.
Ali Dawson and her cold case team investigate crimes so old, they’re frozen – or so their inside joke goes. Most people don’t know that they travel back in time to complete their research.
The latest assignment sees Ali venture back farther than they have dared before: to 1850s London in order to clear the name of Cain Templeton, the eccentric great-grandfather of MP Isaac Templeton. Rumour has it that Cain was part of a sinister group called The Collectors; to become a member, you had to kill a woman…
Fearing for her safety in the middle of a freezing Victorian winter, Ali finds herself stuck in time, unable to make her way back to her life, her beloved colleagues, and her son, Finn, who suddenly finds himself in legal trouble in the present day.
Could the two cases be connected?
Set your clocks to February 2025 and get ready for an original, transportive and characterful new crime novel from no. 1 bestselling author Elly Griffiths. Perfect for those missing the Dr Ruth Galloway series and for any crime and historical fiction fans.
Published February 13th by Quercus Pre-order here*
****
Dirty Money by Charlotte Philby
BOOK DESCRIPTION: RAMONA CHANG
An investigative journalist turned private detective, Ramona’s final scoop left her with a target on her back. Now in hiding, she is living in a run-down flat in east London. But when her latest case looking into an upmarket escort agency takes a dark turn, she needs information only accessible to those in power . . .
DETECTIVE SERGEANT MADELEINE FARROW
A high-flying operative at a government agency, it’s the day of her fiftieth birthday when Madeleine finds out that she has been given the lead on an investigation into corruption on a global scale. But when she finds her case mysteriously blocked from the inside, she needs someone on the outside, capable of moving undetected . . .
As Ramona’s and Madeleine’s cases collide, can the unlikely allies find justice for multiple victims within the capital’s hotbed of lies and deception?
A gripping thrill-ride set against the gloss and grit of contemporary London, DIRTY MONEY introduces an unforgettable new detective duo created by critically acclaimed writer Charlotte Philby.
Published February 13th by Baskerville Pre-order here*
****
Other People’s Houses (DC Morgan, 3) by Clare Mackintosh
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Even on the most desirable street, there’s a dark side . . .
The Hill is the kind of place everyone wants to live: luxurious, exclusive and safe. But now someone is breaking and entering these Cheshire homes one by one, and DS Leo Brady suspects the burglar is looking for something, or someone, in particular.
Over the border in Wales, DC Ffion Morgan recovers the body of an estate agent from the lake. There’s no love lost between Ffion and estate agents, but who hated this one enough to want her dead – and why?
As their cases collide, Ffion and Leo discover people will pay a high price to keep their secrets behind closed doors . . .
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A headmistress is dead. The circumstances are suspicious. And as every parent knows, being on the school group chat can be murder…
As educators go, Claudia Stitchwell makes Miss Hannigan look like Miss Honey. But when the reviled headteacher drops dead in the school hall, a group of sceptical parents suspect the nut allergy explanation doesn’t add up – they believe someone wanted to teach Miss Stitchwell a lesson.
Only four people could have killed Stitchwell: Hattie, the adored school cook; Kiera, the hard-working teaching assistant; Clive, the loathed school bursar and Ben, the popular deputy head. All of them are liars… but only one is the murderer.
Piecing together evidence from the daily drama and drudgery of the parents’ group chat, local press, police reports, school newsletters, and good, old-fashioned gossip, the determined detective parents are doing their homework to crack the case.
Will you spot the clues? Can you deduce whodunnit? And for the love of all things holy, does anyone have this week’s spellings?
Published February 27th by Headline Pre-order here*
****
Small Fires by Ronnie Turner
BOOK DESCRIPTON: Suspected of murdering their parents, sisters Lily and Della flee to a strange, unnamed island in Scotland, and their arrival puts in motion a horrifying series of events… Literary suspense meets folk horror in 2025’s most original, mesmerising modern gothic masterpiece…
________________ Evil runs through this cursed island And these wicked sisters are about to make it burn…
When sisters Lily and Della Pedley are persecuted for the shocking murder of their parents, they flee from their home in Cornwall to a remote and unnamed island in Scotland – an island known for its strange happenings, but far away from the whispers and prying eyes of strangers.
Lily is terrified of what her sister will might do next, and she soon realises that they have arrived at a place where nothing is as it seems. A bitterness runs through the land like poison, and the stories told by the islanders seem to be far more than folklore.
Della settles in too easily, the island folk drawn to her strangeness, but Lily is plagued by odd and unsettling dreams, and as an annual festival draws nigh, she discovers that she has far more to fear than she could ever have imagined. Or does she…?
Chilling, atmospheric and utterly hypnotic, Small Fires is a contemporary gothic novel that examines possession, generational trauma, female rage, and the perilous bonds of family – an unsettling reminder that the stories we tell can be deadly…
Midsommar meets Midnight Mass in a folk horror, modern gothic masterpiece.
Published February 27th by Orenda Books Pre-order here
****
The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer
BOOK DESCRIPTION: From the exceptionally original mind of CWA Gold Dagger Award winner and Booker-longlisted author Belinda Bauer, a sweeping tale of obsession, greed, ambition, and a crime that has remained unsolved for a hundred years.
It was the greatest mystery never told . . .
1926. On the towering cliffs of Yorkshire, men are lowered on ropes to steal the eggs of the sea birds who nest there. The most beautiful are sold for large sums. But when small and hungry Celie Sheppard finds an ‘impossible’ red egg, it will forever alter the course of her life – and the lives of others.
100 years later in a remote cottage in Wales, Patrick Fort discovers his friend, Nick, and his mother tied up and robbed. The only thing missing: a carved case containing an incredible scarlet egg. Doggedly attempting to retrieve it, Patrick and Nick discover the cruel world of egg trafficking, and soon find themselves on the trail of a priceless collection of eggs lost to history. Until now.
A taut, wonderfully imagined novel brimming with skullduggery at every turn, The Impossible Thing is a blazing testament to Belinda Bauer’s status as one of our greatest living crime writers.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Three women. Three smouldering secrets. Who will make it out alive?
It’s 5 November, and a woman awakens to a nightmare. Bound and gagged, she lies trapped in the heart of a towering bonfire. As the smoke thickens, panic sets in – she’s moments away from being engulfed in flames. How did it come to this?
Rewind eleven months: Margot, a faded TV star, and her long-suffering friend Anna watch as glamorous Liv and her flawless family move into their street. The three women soon fabricate the perfect pretence of friendship, but each harbours her own deadly secret – and newcomer Liv senses something is terribly wrong beneath the polished exteriors.
As cracks widen in the veneer of perfection and lies escalate out of control, tension ignites. Bonfire Night is approaching and someone is set to burn…But who will it be?
Published March 4th by Thomas & Mercer Pre-order here*
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A Trial in Three Acts by Guy Morpuss
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A trial is rather like a play. We wear our costumes. We perform to the audience. And on a good day no-one gets murdered.
Six nights a week the cast of the smash-hit play Daughter of the Revolution performs to a sold-out audience. A thrilling story of forbidden marriage and a secret love child, the critics say it’ll run for years. That is until one night the third act ends not in applause but in death, when leading lady Alexandra Dyce is beheaded live on stage.
Every cast member has a motive, but it is the dead woman’s co-star – and ex-husband – Hollywood legend Leo Lusk who is charged with the crime. When defence barrister Charles Konig is brought in last minute, he knows this ought to be the case of a lifetime. But Charles would rather be on his holiday trekking up K2, and he isn’t interested in celebrities, especially ones that seem to be mysteriously trying to derail their own defence. But as he and his co-counsel New York lawyer Yara Ortiz sift through the evidence, it becomes clear that clues may lie in the play itself. And that Charles’s only chance of victory is to identify the real murderer…
A delightfully clever legal mystery with as many layers as an onion. Perfect for readers of Janice Hallett, Tom Hindle, Rob Rinder and Richard Osman.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: If you hurt me, I’ll hurt you. Not right away of course, because where’s the fun in that?
When an empty passenger plane mysteriously crashes in the Lake District, journalist Carly Atherton is determined to get to the truth of what happened – the love of her life was one of the two pilots on board.
But when she contacts the family of the other pilot, the conflicting memories of his wife and his sister draw her into a story far darker than she could possibly have imagined.
As Carly delves into the dynamics of a seemingly ordinary family, she realises that the bonds that shape us can also tear us apart – and that sometimes there are monsters living among us, hiding in plain sight…
Son (Kari Voss Mysteries Volume 1) by Johana Gustawasson and Thomas Enger
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Psychologist and expert on body language and memory, Kari Voss investigates the murder of two teenaged girls in the small Norwegian town of Son, as suspicion is cast on multiple suspects. A mesmerisingly dark, twisty start to a nerve-shattering new series by two of the world’s finest crime writers…
_________________
Everyone here is lying…
Expert on body language and memory, and consultant to the Oslo Police, psychologist Kari Voss sleepwalks through her days, and, by night, continues the devastating search for her young son, who disappeared on his birthday, seven years earlier.
Still grieving for her dead husband, and trying to pull together the pieces of her life, she is thrust into a shocking local investigation, when two teenage girls are violently murdered in a family summer home in the nearby village of Son.
When a friend of the victims is charged with the barbaric killings, it seems the case is closed, but Kari is not convinced. Using her skills and working on instinct, she conducts her own enquiries, leading her to multiple suspects, including people who knew the dead girls well…
With the help of Chief Constable Ramona Norum, she discovers that no one – including the victims – are what they seem. And that there is a dark secret at the heart of Son village that could have implications not just for her own son’s disappearance, but Kari’s own life, too…
Published March 13th by Orenda Books Pre-order here
****
Murder at Gull’s Nest (Nora Breen Investigates, Book 1) by Jess Kidd
BOOK DESCRIPTION: The first in a sparkling new 1950s seaside mystery series, featuring sharp-eyed former nun Nora Breen.
In a house like Gulls Nest, curiosity might prove fatal . . .
After thirty years in a convent, Nora Breen has thrown off her habit and set her sights on the seaside town of Gore-on-Sea. Her fellow sister Frieda has gone missing and it’s up to Nora to find her.
Nora’s only clue is that Frieda was last seen at Gulls Nest boarding House. So she travels down, takes a room and settles in to watch and listen. Over dubious – and sometimes downright inedible – dinners, Nora gathers evidence about the other lodgers and what they knew about Frieda.
At long last, Nora has found the perfect outlet for her powers of observation and, well, nosiness. When one of the lodgers is found dead, Nora decides she must find the murderer. Not least because she suspects the victim knew Frieda. Could solving this mystery help her to understand what has happened to her friend?
Published March 13th by Faber & Faber Pre-order here*
****
Everyone in the Group Chat Dies by L. M. Chilton
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Don’t miss the new laugh-out-loud thriller from L.M. Chilton, Everyone in the Group Chat Dies – a murder mystery that fuses the flatmate comedy of Friends with the serial-killer thrills of I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Kirby Cornell needs a break from everything: – Her crumbling flat in the sleepy town of Crowhurst (famous for its award-winning sausage rolls and a second-rate serial killer from the 90s). – Her dead-end job. – Her sleazy landlord. – Her slobbish housemates. – And, most of all, the terrible thing they all did.
Luckily, that hasn’t caught up with her just yet. Until a new message on their old group chat pops up:
Everyone in the group chat will die.
It’s the first text her ex-flatmate and social-media sleuth Esme has sent for ages, but that’s not the really weird thing.
The really weird thing is, Esme died twelve months ago.
Publihsed March 13th by Bloomsbury Publishing Pre-order here*
****
The Summer Guests (The Martini Club 2) by Tess Gerritsen
BOOK DESCRIPTION: INCLUDES A BONUS SHORT STORY BY LEE CHILD AND TESS GERRITSEN, STARRING JACK REACHER AND THE ENIGMATIC MAGGIE BIRD. . .
The Summer Guests is the exhilarating and gripping new thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author of The Spy Coast.
‘I love this new series . . . The Summer Guests is a cracker of a mystery! I couldn’t put it down.’ SHARI LAPENA
THE MARTINI CLUB ISN’T OPEN TO EVERYONE . . .
Maggie Bird’s ‘book group’ is an unusual one – a group of retired spies living an anonymous life in the seaside town of Purity. And this summer they plan little more than ‘reading’ (whilst sipping martinis), and some gentle birdwatching.
But trouble is just around the corner as the summer guests arrive.
For acting Police Chief Jo Thibodeau, summer brings its own problems – packed streets, bar brawls, petty theft. And now, a missing teenager down by the lake.
When their good friend becomes a prime suspect in the girl’s disappearance, Maggie and her Martini Club must put down their binoculars and roll up their sleeves. Leaving Jo to deal with not only a powerful family desperate for answers, but a meddlesome group of retirees.
Can Jo and the Martini Club find a way to work together, as they uncover one of the deadliest scandals their small town has ever seen?
How To Seal Your Own Fate (The Castle Knoll Files, 2) by Kristen Perrin
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Annie thought the murders were over. She was wrong.
It is autumn in Castle Knoll and Annie Adams is busy settling into her new home. She doesn’t find Gravesdown Hall particularly cosy, especially since she found two dead bodies there over the summer. What’s more, ever since she arrived in the village, Annie has had the creeping sense she’s being watched.
Lonely, and desperate for some company, Annie starts talking to a stranger she meets in the grounds of the estate. The striking old woman introduces herself as Peony Lane, the fortune-teller who predicted Great Aunt Frances’ murder all those years ago. And now she has a fortune to tell Annie.
Desperate not to fall into the same trap as Frances, Annie flees Peony Lane, refusing to hear any of her grim predictions. But she can’t outrun Peony for long, as hours later she finds her, dead on the floor of Gravesdown Hall, a ruby-hilted dagger plunged into her back.
But who killed the mysterious fortune teller and why? And can Frances’ library of evidence help Annie solve the case?
A Fortune Most Fatal (Miss Austen Investigates Book 2) by Jessica Bull
BOOK DESCRIPTION: ‘Exceptional – the Austen whodunnit I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for! I loved it’ SOPHIE IRWIN
“Who are you, Miss Austen, but a young lady of little experience and no consequence?”
Welcome to Kent, 1797. Following many years apart, Jane Austen is set to spend the summer with her estranged brother, Neddy. As heir to wealthy widow Mrs Knight’s fortune, it is imperative that Neddy stays in his benefactor’s good graces. The financial security of Jane’s entire family depend on him.
But upon arrival at Godmersham Park, Jane quickly realises Neddy is in dire need of her help. For a mysterious young woman currently resides with Mrs Knight – a stranger who threatens to swindle the inheritance for herself.
Jane must uncover who this imposter is, to protect the fortunes – and fate – of her family. But when her investigation takes a dark and dangerous turn, can she solve the mystery – and save herself?
Published March 27th by Michael Joseph Pre-order here*
****
The Death of Us by Abigail Dean
BOOK DESCRIPTION: It’s the story everyone wants to hear.
That spring night in South London, when Isabel and Edward’s lives were torn apart.
The night Isabel learned that the worst things wait, just outside the door.
The night Edward learned that he was powerless to stop them.
The night they never talk about.
When their attacker is caught, it’s finally time to tell the story of that night.
Not to the world. Or to the man who did it. But to each other.
This is a story of murder. This is a story of survival. But most of all, this is a story of love.
Published March 27th by Harper Fiction Pre-order here*
****
The Vipers by Katy Hays
BOOK DESCRIPTION: From the bestselling author of The Cloisters comes this electrifying thriller about an affluent family whose annual retreat to Italy is shattered when a decades-old murder resurfaces . . . think The Talented Mr Ripley meets Succession meets The White Lotus . . .
On the glittering island of Capri, anything can be a mirage. But one thing is true: there’s nothing deadlier than a family with everything to lose . . .
The world was shocked by playwright Sarah Lingate’s death thirty years ago at an opulent, white-washed villa on the island of Capri. Absolved of the crime, the Lingate family maintains that what happened that night was a tragic accident. And every July they return to Capri to prove it’s true.
This time, Helen Lingate – sole heir to the family fortune – has a plan. Tightly controlled by her father, she enlists the help of the family assistant, Lorna Moreno, to free herself from her family’s stranglehold on her life. And yet, behind closed doors, the legendary Lingate family unity is at breaking point. Upon arrival at the villa in Capri, an anonymous gift awaits them: the necklace Sarah was wearing the night she died.
In the aftermath, the paranoid, insular Lingates begin to unravel. As the investigation into her mother’s death is reopened, Helen begins to lose trust in everyone around her: her controlling father Richard, drug-addled aunt Naomi, aloof uncle Marcus, and even Lorna, whose past she realizes is frustratingly opaque. And as the family fractures, the long-hidden truth about that night and the secrets they’ve kept from one another boil to the surface – and they might not leave the island alive.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: The chance discovery of an injection that wards off age-related disease is hijacked by ruthless men who hunger for immortality, with catastrophic consequences. Two women race against time to stop them, before it’s too late … a chilling, prescient, high-stakes speculative thriller by the bestselling author of One. –––––
Living forever can be lethal…
Ruth is a law-abiding elder, working out her national service, but she has secrets.
Her tireless research into the disease that killed her young daughter had an unexpected outcome: the discovery of a vaccine against old age. Just one jab a year wards off age-related diseases, guaranteeing long, healthy life.
But Ruth’s cure was hijacked by her colleague, Erik Grundleger, and his elderly billionaire backer, who hunger for immortality, and SuperJuve – a premium upgrade – was created, driving human lifespan to a new high. The wealthy elite who take it are the Supers, and the population begins to rocket.
Then, a perilous side-effect of SuperJuve emerges, with catastrophic consequences, and as the planet is threatened, the population rebels, and laws are passed to restore order: life ends at 120. Supers are tracked down by Omnicide investigators like Mara, and executed.
Mara has her own reasons for hunting Supers, and she forms an unlikely alliance with Ruth to find Grundleger.
But Grundleger has been working on something even more radical and is one step ahead, with a deadly surprise in store for both of them…
Published April 10th by Orenda Books Pre-order here
****
The Maid’s Secret (Molly the Maid, 3) by Nita Prose
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A hidden treasure. A hotel heist. Only THE MAID can solve the mystery…
*THE SPARKLING NEW MYSTERY FROM THE NO.1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE MAID*
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Molly the maid is no stranger to secrets…
She sees everything behind closed doors at the Regency Grand hotel: wiping away the dust and grime of guests passing through.
But one secret lies much closer to home.
An old trinket – a faux Fabergé egg – is revealed to be a precious antique during an appraisal at the hotel, making Molly a rags-to-riches sensation. But no sooner has the egg shown its value than it’s stolen: vanishing without a trace.
Determined to crack the case of the missing Fabergé, Molly begins dusting for clues – uncovering a mystery that stretches deep into the past.
For in the pages of a long-forgotten diary, written by her late gran, lie the secrets that could unlock all others – and only Molly holds the key…
Published April 10th by Harper Fiction Pre-order here*
****
The Liar by Louise Jensen
BOOK DESCRIPTION: The nail-biting new thriller from Louise Jensen that’s impossible to put down…
The Abbotts’ new lodger Luke hasn’t told them much about himself, but they can’t expect to know everything about a stranger who’s just moved in.
But Luke keeps asking about their family photos and looking through their things. Why does he want to know everything about them? And why does daughter Jen think someone is watching her?
Then, suddenly, Mum Mel texts the family to say she needs a break. But Mel has never gone away alone before. And now it’s been days, and no one has heard from her.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: ‘There is nothing like it. The way the world gets real quiet when a gator’s nearby…And then the water, suddenly boiling as that black head surfaces and the ancient reptile erupts into the air hissing like a devil…The way the crack of the rifle seems to come from deep inside Cutter. The way she feels it in her throat; she knows she’s a good killer – and yet. She is stalling…’
The Labasques aren’t like other families. Living in a shack out in the swamps, they scrape a living hunting down alligators and other animals just to get by. To the good people of Jacknife, Louisiana, they are trouble-makers, outcasts, the kind of people you wouldn’t want living on your doorstep. So when Cutter Labasque is found face down in the muddy swamp, no one seems to care, not even her two rough-cut brothers. The only person who questions the official verdict of suicide is Cutter’s childhood friend, Loyal May, who has just returned home to care for her ageing mother. Loyal left town at the age of 18, having betrayed Cutter. Now there may be no way to find forgiveness, but there may be restitution…
BOOK DESCRIPTION: From the author of In the Blink of an Eye, the Sunday Times bestseller, winner of the CWA ILP John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year.
DCS Kat Frank and AIDE Lock are back in a cutting-edge new thriller.
The truth will always come out, but at what cost?
Fresh from successfully closing their first live case, the Future Policing Unit are called in to investigate when a headless, handless body is found on a Warwickshire farm. But as they work to identify the victim and their killer, the discovery of a second body begins to spark fears that The Aston Strangler is back. And as the stakes rise for the team, so do the tensions brewing within it.
When DCS Kat Frank is accused of putting the wrong man behind bars all those years ago, AIDE Lock – the world’s first AI Detective – pursues the truth about what happened with relentless logic. But Kat is determined to keep the past buried, and when she becomes the target of a shadowy figure looking for revenge, Lock is torn between his evidence-based algorithms and the judgement of his partner, with explosive results.
When everything hangs in the balance, it will all come down to just how much an AI machine can learn, and what happens when they do . . .
Publsihed April 24th by Simon & Schuster UK Pre-order here*
****
The Sunshine Man by Emma Stonex
BOOK DESCRIPTION: ‘The week I shot a man clean through the head began like any other . . .’
In January 1989, Birdie wakes to the news she’s been waiting eighteen years to hear. Jimmy Maguire, the man who killed her sister, has been freed from jail.
Birdie leaves for London with a gun and a plan: to find him and make him pay. But this is a story with two sides. For Birdie knew Jimmy a long time ago, in a life she’d sooner forget. Theirs is a past of broken bonds and friendships burned, and a terrible secret kept hidden in the shadows. Did Jimmy kill Birdie’s sister, or is he the only one she can really trust?
As Jimmy travels south to face his past he can sense that something is hunting him. Birdie lingers there in the darkness, watching, as the past and present hurtle toward each other . . .
Full of edge-of-your-seat suspense, The Sunshine Man by Emma Stonex is a breathtaking mystery about love and revenge, the many shades of justice and what it means to be free.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Don’t miss the new novel from Eleni Kyriacou, author of BBC Between the Covers pick The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou.
PLAY THEIR GAME Hollywood, 1953. Young actress Ginny Watkins is turning heads. Even the legendary – and married – actor Max Whitman can’t resist the allure of the hottest new starlet. He promises Ginny the world, in return for the right favour.
DO WHAT THEY SAY London, 1954. Stella Hope, once the most famous actress in Hollywood, has been ousted to Ealing Studios after her divorce from the powerful Max. Just as she accepts her fate, she receives a letter, blackmailing her for a mistake she made many years ago.
OR THEY’LL BURY YOU Two women on either side of stardom find themselves in the orbit of the same beguiling man. And one night, in the shadows of a glamorous Oscars afterparty, their lives are changed forever.
A Beautiful Way to Die delves into the decadence and depravity of the early film industry from Hollywood to London. Perfect for fans of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and films like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Babylon.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: ‘Why hadn’t she said to her daughter I love you beyond reason and none of this matters at all and every day that you breathe is a gift?’
Rafaela Acuña y Daubón remembers everything that matters: her beautiful childhood in San Juan, her marriage to Peter, uprooting their children, Ruth and Benny, to the American Midwest, and losing all sense of her place in the world. So she tells no one when her memory begins to slip.
Her daughter, in New York with a family of her own, wishes she could forget her muddy feelings about where she comes from – the same feelings which motivated her 22-year-old daughter Daisy to reconnect with their past.
Daisy, who has momentarily forgotten everything, hears the word critical in a hospital room in San Juan and remembers, all at once, the car that hurtled towards her, the terrible storm, and something else. What was it?
Now Ruth and Rafaela must return to the city where it all began, to gather by Daisy’s bedside and confront the twists of fate that have caused a growing rift in their family and led them to this moment.
Published May 13th by Tinder Press Pre-order here*
****
Let the Bad Times Roll by Alice Slater
BOOK DESCRIPTION: New Orleans: Then.
Alone in New Orleans, Selina is struggling to fit in. When a charismatic stranger invites her for a drink, she’s grateful for the company – but as their friendship grows, she can’t help but sense a darkness within her new friend. Who is Daniel, and what does he want from her?
London: Now.
Daniel is missing. No one has seen or heard from him in weeks. Beside herself with worry, his sister Caroline hosts an intimate gathering in her beautiful North London home so those closest to Daniel can come together and compare notes.
But all isn’t quite as it seems: Caroline has invited a stranger to the table, an accomplished psychic who claims to have met Daniel four thousand miles away in New Orleans.
As evening turns to night, the dark truth of what really happened in New Orleans begins to emerge…
Published May 15th by Hodder & Stoughton Pre-order here*
****
They Had It Coming by Nikki Smith
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Escape to Bali in this gripping new sunlounger thriller, for fans of Lucy Clarke and Ruth Ware.
‘THE NEW QUEEN OF THE GLAMOROUS DESTINATION THRILLER’ ELLERY LLOYD
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer . . .
Nate and Layla, Jude and Sophie. They’ve been a four for as long as they can remember: fancy dinners, dancing ’til dawn . . . Even living and working together.
So when Nate and Layla suddenly quit their lives and move to Bali, with its white sands and exotic beach clubs, Jude and Sophie are their first visitors. Anything to escape their life in London.
But as the two couples reunite, cracks begin to show.
Which is hardly surprising; they’ve been lying to each other for years.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: They can’t even agree on what to read, so how are they going to solve a murder?
Having recently moved from London to a small Cornish seaside village, Nova Davies started a book club at the local community center, but so far it’s a disaster. The five members disagree on everything, and to make matters worse, a significant sum of money is stolen during one of the meetings, putting the much-loved community center at risk.
Suspicion for the theft falls on book club member Michael, especially when he disappears and a dead body turns up at his house. But the book club has their own theories. Agatha Christie superfan Phyllis is determined to prove Michael’s been framed, while romance reader Arthur believes there’s a mystery woman involved, and teenage sci-fi fan Ash thinks dark forces are at play.
While trying to locate Michael, solve the murder and recover the stolen money, each of them has their own secrets to protect. But despite the danger closing in, they won’t rest until they’ve cracked the case and gotten everyone safe at home with a book, where they belong.
Published May 29th by Renegade Books Pre-order here*
****
A Sharp Scratch by Heather Darwent
BOOK DESCRIPTION: From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Things We Do To Our Friends, comes a timely, gripping novel about the dark underbelly of wellness culture
‘DARWENT HAS A GREAT CAREER AS A THRILLER WRITER AHEAD OF HER’ SUNDAY TIMES
We can fix you.
It’s a promise that Betsy has heard far too many times. From the child psychologist, from her husband, and from the wellness trends that scream at her from her screen.
So far, it’s been a lie.
But this time, she believes it. Because Betsy has been offered a place at Carn – a luxurious, unorthodox retreat, where healing really is possible. At Carn, she discovers that her imperfections make her unique, not weak. She isn’t broken, just special.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: One dead wife is tragic. Two looks like murder… ________
The school gates have never been so dangerous…
When newly divorced Jude arrives in the small town of Lowbridge, she is soon drawn to the enigmatic Will, father to her young daughter’s best friend.
But Will’s devastating past holds questions that nobody knows the answer to – and after two tragedies tore his life apart in just a few short years, gossip and rumours abound about what really happened to the women he loved.
Because whilst one dead wife is tragic, two starts to look like murder…
BOOK DESCRIPTION: First comes gossip … then comes revenge
When single mum Lola Martinez’s son, Luca, starts school, she feels that she’ll never fit in with the yummy mummies in the playground. Confident, married to wealthy men, with ample free time, they are everything she isn’t.
However, Lola is invited into the inner circle, surrounded by seemingly friendly people, even if Lola’s silence about her child’s father puzzles them. Despite herself, Lola quickly becomes involved in playground politics, making as many enemies as friends.
But then Lola is brutally murdered, her death rocking the close-knit community. As the police investigate the case, they discover that Lola was hiding many secrets – as are the mums in her new social circle. But who had the most reason to kill her? And who else might unwittingly hold the answers to what happened that night?
An addictive psychological thriller with an end twist that will make you gasp, for fans of Lisa Jewell, T.M. Logan and Frieda McFadden. If you loved Big Little Lies, you’ll adore this.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: One train. No stops. A deadly game of survival and revenge.
In 1942, six people destroyed Anna Matheson’s family. Twelve years later, she’s ready for retribution.
Under false pretenses, Anna has lured those responsible for her family’s downfall onto a luxury train from Philadelphia to Chicago, an overnight journey of fourteen hours. Her goal? Confront the people who’ve wronged her, get them to confess their crimes, and deliver them into the hands of authorities waiting at the end of the line. Justice will at last be served.
But Anna’s plan is quickly derailed by the murder of one of the passengers. As the train barrels through the night, it becomes clear that someone else on board is enacting their own form of revenge-and that they won’t stop until everyone else is dead.
With time running out before the train reaches its destination, Anna is forced to hunt the killer in their midst while protecting the people she hates the most. In order to destroy her enemies, she must first save them-even though it means putting her own life at risk.
Published June 12th by Hodder & Stoughton Pre-order here*
****
Kill Them With Kindness by Will Carver
BOOK DESCRIPTION: The ‘most original writer in Britain’ (Daily Express) returns with a mind-blowing, high-concept new thriller.
‘Laying bare our 21st-century weaknesses and dilemmas, Carver has created a highly original state-of-the-nation novel’ Literary Review ________
The threat of nuclear war is no longer scary. This is much worse. It’s invisible. It works quickly.
And it’s coming.
The scourge has already infected and killed half the population in China and it is heading towards the UK. There is no time to escape. The British government sees no way out other than to distribute ‘Dignity Pills’ to its citizens: One last night with family or loved ones before going to sleep forever … together. Because the contagion will kill you and the horrifying news footage shows that it will be better to go quietly.
Dr Haruto Ikeda, a Japanese scientist working at a Chinese research facility, wants to save the world. He has discovered a way to mutate a virus. Instead of making people sick, instead of causing death, it’s going to make them… nice.
Instead of attacking the lungs, it will work into the brain and increase the host’s ability to feel and show compassion. It will make people kind.
But governments don’t want a population in agreement. They want conflict and outrage and fear. Reasonable people are harder to control.
Ikeda’s quest is thoughtful and noble, and it just might work. Maybe humanity can be saved. Maybe it doesn’t have to be the end.
But kindness may also be the biggest killer of all…
Published June 19th by Orenda Books Pre-order here
****
We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Welcome to North Falls―a small town where everyone knows everyone. Or so they think.
Until the night of the fireworks. When two teenage girls vanish, and the town ignites.
For Officer Emmy Clifton, it’s personal. She turned away when her best friend’s daughter needed help―and now she must bring her home.
But as Emmy combs through the puzzle the girls left behind, she realizes she never really knew them. Nobody did.
Every teenage girl has secrets. But who would kill for them? And what else is the town hiding?
Published June 19th by Harper Fiction Pre-order here*
****
What Happens in the Dark by Kia Abdullah
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Don’t miss the brand-new gripping thriller and courtroom drama full of twists and turns that will keep you up at night!
* * * *
Lily and Safa were best friends growing up. Now, Lily is the nation’s favourite breakfast TV presenter and Safa, once a renowned journalist, is reeling from a recent fall from grace.
When news breaks about suspicious bruises on Lily’s body, Safa attempts to rekindle their old friendship. But Lily claims the bruises are nothing to worry about.
And then one night the police are called to Lily’s home. Lily is strangely calm – and a body lies dead at her feet.
Lily pleads not guilty, and then says nothing more. Driven by her desire to give a voice to all victims, Safa begins her own investigation into what happened that night.
But Safa is not prepared for what her quest for justice will uncover …
Into the Fire (Helen Grace Thriller, 13) by M. J. Arlidge
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Nowhere to hide. No-one to turn to. Nothing to lose.
Helen Grace is sure she made the right decision to quit the force. Until the day she looks out from her window to see a desperate young woman being beaten by two thugs.
Still a force to be reckoned with, Helen races into the night and strikes the men down. For a moment, it feels like she doesn’t need her badge to do good, but as she leads the girl to safety, she’s struck from behind, regaining consciousness just in time to see the victim being dragged into a white van.
Helen’s determined to find the woman and save her, but even begging her former colleagues to help gets her nowhere. It’s clear it’ll be up to her alone to make the rescue.
Taking matters into her own hands, Helen uncovers more women connected to the first who need her help. But fighting crime as a maverick is a dangerous game. One that could cost Helen her life, and the life of those she holds most dear…
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A stingingly brilliant new psychological thriller from the 5 million copy-bestselling author of Here to Stay and The Magpies
“I loved this brilliant, edgy, character driven thriller with a passion. So clever and fresh with a wild and incredibly satisfying twist at the end.” Lisa Jewell
******
Summer 1999. Will joins five other idealistic graduates working for an eccentric psychology professor. They’re going to launch a website to change online dating forever.
No-one expects it to end in tragedy.
Twenty-five years later, Will gets an invitation: a dinner party. A chance to see the old gang again.
But as soon as he arrives, something doesn’t seem right.
There’s an unexpected guest. The hosts are clearly keeping a secret. And on the way in, Will is sure he heard crying.
Everyone has something to hide about what really happened that summer.
But only one of them is willing to kill to find the truth…
Published July 17th by Michael Joseph Pre-order here*
****
Hidden Requests by Louise Candlish
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A gripping new thriller from the author of Our House, packed full of stunning twists!
One woman’s secret is another’s scandal…
It’s rare for a room in beautiful, iconic Columbia Mansions to be up for grabs and retiree Gwen is thrilled when its new occupant Pixie turns out to be the most delightful neighbour she could have wished for. Before long the two women have formed an unlikely age-gap friendship and Gwen is making herself useful to Pixie in all kinds of ways.
But when a crime comes to light Gwen’s protective instincts go into overdrive, igniting an appetite for revenge that none of the residents are prepared for.
The last thing they need in Columbia Mansions is a scandal.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: When Nina was just five years old, her family’s whole world was torn apart when her seventeen-year-old sister Tamara was found dead in the pool of their Cote d’Azur property. Nina’s evidence led to the conviction of their housekeeper’s daughter and occasional babysitter seventeen-year-old Josie for Tamara’s murder. But when new evidence emerges to suggest that Josie was innocent, Nina is forced to question the accuracy of her memories, her role in one of the most notorious cases of the past twenty years, and what actually happened to her sister on that hot summer day.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: It’s never too late to teach an old woman new murders…a razor-sharp, edge-of-your-seat new thriller from Sunday Times bestseller Samantha Downing, available to pre-order now!
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You’d never guess Lottie Jones had skeletons in her closet.
She’s lived in town for decades now. She’s getting older. She lives for the simple pleasures of weekly bingo games at church, and gossiping with her friends about their children’s love lives.
But when investigative journalist Plum Dixon shows up on her doorstep asking questions about Lottie’s past, and specifically about her connection to numerous unsolved murders, well, Lottie just can’t have that.
But getting away with murder is hard enough when you’re young. And when Lottie receives another annoying knock on the door, she realises this crime might just be the death of her…
Published August 28th by Michael Joseph Pre-order here*
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The Watcher by Helen Fields
BOOK DESCRIPTION: A face in the crowd. A killer in the shadows…
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On the dark streets of Edinburgh, a killer is waiting.
When a body is found, it is only the beginning. Soon there will be seven more.
In the city’s hospital, renowned surgeon Beth Waterfall is grieving.
Her beloved only daughter fell prey to a vicious stalker a year previously – and now he’s coming for her too.
Edinburgh’s police are desperate.
After one body comes another, and then another. The brutal deaths are all seemingly unconnected, and yet DS Lively and forensic profiler Dr Connie Woolwine know they are dealing with a serial killer – they just need to prove it.
But time is running out, and The Watcher is already set on making Beth Waterfall his next victim…
The million-copy international bestseller returns with a gripping serial killer thriller that will have you hooked from the first page to the very last.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Get ready for the sudden-death round…
Mal and Sue Eastwood were once the kindly landlords of a local village pub, The Case is Altered. They ran a weekly pub quiz and were well liked by their customers and colleagues alike, always happy to lend a helping hand. But now The Case stands empty, its windows boarded up. What could have happened to Mal and Sue?
Did The Case close because it was failing? Was it because of the body pulled from the nearby river? Or perhaps it had something to do with the quiz? It had always been a quiet affair, five teams of locals battling it out for a small prize pot. Until one day a mysterious new team of outsiders arrived, and started winning every round…
Only by sifting through the quiz sheets, the WhatsApps, and Mal and Sue’s hidden past may the truth be revealed. Someone’s not playing fair, so get the drinks in and see if you can get a perfect score.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: ‘I love an Erin Kelly book! The worlds she creates are so rich and alive’ JANE FALLON
St Cordula’s Convent, 1487. Sister Matilda is pregnant and has been banished from the convent: the only home she has ever known. Outside, the snow is swirling. She knows she will not survive a night on the Yorkshire moors. In despair, she climbs to the top of the Abbey and writes the words GOD FORGIVE ME in chalk on the wall, then throws herself down the stairs.
In 2024, life within St Cordula’s Boarding School is changing. The oldest convent school in England is about to merge with a local boys’ school and a new deputy head, Fiona Fox, has arrived. The only constant seems to be the building itself, the iconic school uniform – nun-like navy blue hooded capes – and the words GOD FORGIVE ME, re-painted every year first by nuns and then by schoolgirls who believe that the spirit of Sister Matilda will keep the school safe as long as her words are never allowed to fade from the wall.
Only once in the school’s history have the words disappeared, and when they did, students were afflicted by violent attacks of vertigo. Only three people know the full truth of what happened and the scandal that was hushed up.
Fiona has one week left to keep the news of the merger under wraps and then the deal is done – until another outbreak of vertigo drags the past into the light. Old superstitions rear their ugly heads, and the girls take it upon themselves to investigate the previous outbreak, putting the school – and themselves – in terrible danger …
Published September 4th by Hodder & Stoughton Pre-order here*
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59 Minutes by Holly Seddon
BOOK DESCRIPTION: If you knew you had fifty-nine minutes until everything and everyone you love would be lost forever, what would you do with that time?
It’s an ordinary evening. People are coming home from work, cooking dinner for their children, cuddling on sofas with their lovers. And then the message arrives, shattering everyone’s worlds:
Missiles are set to destroy England in fifty-nine minutes. Everyone should seek immediate shelter.
59 minutes follows the journey of three women trying to make it home to and protect their families. The journeys should be simple, but with a lost schoolchild seeking help, a teenage daughter suddenly going missing, and dangerous criminals on the prowl, there is peril at every corner.
59 Minutes is a gripping, thought-provoking and gut-wrenching thriller perfect for fans of WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME, THE CHAIN and Lisa Jewell.
2023 has been an amazing year for reading. I’ve read a total of 113 books and there were so many that stood out that it was difficult to get my list down to just thirty.
So, here’s my 30 favourite books I’ve read this year. You can find links to my reviews by clicking on the title. Read to the end to find out my overall favourite of the year.
This gothic thriller was a fantastic way to start out my reading year. Teddy Colne arrives in the small town of Rye hoping to leave his past behind him but discovers the past will always catch up to you in this dark, hypnotic and unnerving debut. Published January 19th, 2023 by Orenda Books. Buy here.
C. J. Tudor is back with another unmissable heart-pounding thriller. A group of students find themselves stranded in a snowstorm while a killer rages. The start of my review perfectly sums it up: “C. J. Tudor has done it again. Chilling, tense and twisty, this is one f****d-up rollercoaster ride that packs a punch from the first page.” Published January 19th, 2023 by Michael Joseph. Buy here*
Almost a year after reading, just thinking about this book makes me smile. It follows 43-year-old Ted who is happily married to his husband of twenty years, Giles. Or so he thinks until the day Giles announces he’s leaving him and shatters his whole world. Forced to reflect on not only his relationship, but his whole life, Ted decides that maybe now is the time to finally become who he was always meant to me. Joyful, heartwarming and uplifting, this fabulous story reminds us it is never too late to follow our dreams. Published January 19th, 2023 by Headline. Buy here*
Sassy and spirited, this feels like Jane Austen with a modern flare, following Kitty Talbot as she searches for a husband with a fortune to save her family. Perfect for fans of historical fiction and romance, this is a glorious debut. Published May 12th, 2022 by Harper Collins UK. Buy here*
Tokyo, many years in the future, and 17-year-old John, a tech prodigy, meets Neotina at a cafe late one night. The sparks are instant but both are hiding a secret that they are terrified of being discovered. Mesmerising, dreamlike and unforgettable, this is a masterpiece story for all of those who have never fit in. Published March 16th, 2023 by Orenda Books. Buy here.
This atmospheric Victorian gothic mystery was our March Squadpod Book Club pick. It follows newly widowed Margaret Lennox as she takes up her new position as governess at Hartwood Hall and discovers a place filled with dark secrets. A phenomenal debut by an author to watch. Published March 30th, 2023 by Michael Joseph. Buy here*
Catriona Ward did it again, scaring me silly and leaving my jaw on the floor. Best read blind, this is another original, terrifying and surprising thriller from one of the most unique voices in fiction. Published April 20th, 2023 by Viper Books. Buy here*
Jennifer Saint tells the heroic story of the only female Argonaut in this lush, atmospheric and enthralling novel, telling us the famous story of Jason and the Argonauts from a new persepective. Unmissable. Published April 13th, 2023 by Wildfire. Buy here*
The Squadpod Book Club pick for April was another deliciously dark debut. Death of a Bookseller tells the story of Roach, a bookseller, loner and true crime obsessive who becomes obsessed with social butterfly Laura when she starts working at the bookshop. Quirky, sinister and addictive, this grabbed me by the throat and didn’t let go until the last page. Utterly brilliant. Published April 27th, 2023 by Hodder & Stoughton. Buy here*
Polly Crosby shows why she’s one of my favourite authors with this mesmerising historical thriller. Vita and the Birds tells the story of two women whose lives are inextricably linked by decades-old secrets. Hauntingly atmoshpheric, luminous and unsettling, this story consumed me and was a contender for my book of the year. Published May 25th, 2023 by HQ. Buy here*
A deliciously dark slice of Victiorian gothic, this is a story about life’s outsiders and oddities. Filled with an eclectic cast of memorable characters, it tugged at my heart strings, made me rage and gave me hope. A gorgeous story that all historical fiction fans need to read. Published June 22nd, 2023 by Orenda Books. Buy here.
Jack Jordan is one of the best modern thriller writers and Conviction shows us why. Another unbearably tense and addictive thriller, it follows Barrister Neve Harper as she’s faced with an impossible choice: put an innocent man behind bars or everyone she loves will be killed. A nerve-shredding moral dilemma thriller, this is the kind of book you cancel plans to stay home reading. Published June 22nd, 2023 by Simon & Schuster UK. Buy here*
Set in a future where a catastophic climate emergency has left our world in chaos and the UK is now run by the Nazi-esque ONE Party. Everything is heavily monitored, there are consumption quotas in place. Kai Houghton, one of the ‘baby reapers’ in charge of enforcing the ONE Partie’s one child policy, recieves an alert that turns her world upside down and forces her to choose between her family and the policies she believes in. Thought-provoking, gripping and uncompromising, this is one of the best thrillers I’ve read this year. Published July 20th, 2023 by Orenda Books. Buy here.
I was lucky to be one of the first bloggers to read The Actor, a riveting thriller with a bigger Oscar night controversy than Will Smith and Chris Rock. This is going to be a huge hit when it’s released in 2024. Published January 18th, 2024 by Michael Joseph. Pre-order here*
Antoher Squadpod Book Club hit, The Good Daughter is the second novel from Laure van Rensburg and there’s no sign of sophmore syndrome in sight in this sensational thriller. It’s a story of cuts, indoctrination, dark secrets and trauma that sinks its claws into you at the start and doesn’t let go until it’s jaw-dropping finale. An absolute must-read. Published August 3rd, 2023 by Michael Joseph. Buy here*
This is one of the funniest books I’ve read in a long time. Sassy and unputdownable, it follows Dr. Miriam Price as she tries to solve her own murder from beyond the grave. It’s one of those books I knew I’d love from the first page and reading it was like a big warm hug. I can’t wait to read more from Maz Evans. Published August 3rd, 2023 by Headline. Buy here*
I read this with the Historical Fiction Book Club and what a joy it was. Endurance Proudfoot is an unusual girl with an unusual dream: she wants to be a bonesetter. But that isn’t a job for girls and Durie faces an uphill struggle to prove herself in a man’s world. Thank you Frances Quinn for introducing the world to this original and wonderful heroine. Published July 21st, 2022 by Simon & Schuster UK. Buy here*
This has been a great year for darkly funny books and amazing anti-heros. You’d Look Better As A Ghost is a deliciously unhinged and hilarious thriller about a hammer-wielding murderess who was the best serial killer I’ve read since Rhiannon from the Sweetpea sereis. One of my favourite books this year. Published September 21st, 2023 by Viper Books, Buy here*
Gorgeously gothic and eerie, this was my favourite Squadpod Book Club pick of the year. Emily Blackwood arrives at Castle Parras to begin a new comission cataloguing a collection of creatures for sale. The remote house is inhabited by a perculiar nonagerianan and haunted by the disappearance of a woman fifty years earlier. After she finds a hidden diary, Emily sets out to solve the mystery in its pages. Can she find out the truth before the darkness entraps her? A twisty puzzle that was also a contender for book of the year, this is a must for any gothic lover. Published June 22nd, 2023 by Michael Joseph. Buy here*
I was so mad at myself for letting this book languish on my shelves for so long. A unsettling and sinister story from the modern queen of gothic mysteries, I listened to this on audiobook and was completely enthralled as the lines between what is real, imaginary and supernatural were experly blurred. One of Ms. Purcell’s best books yet. Published September 19th, 2019 by Raven Books. Buy here*
This was book I wish I’d read sooner. Shamefully, it was my first time reading a book by Johana Gustawsson and I am an instant fan. She lives up to her title of ‘Queen of French Noir’ with this cunningly crafted gothic thirller. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Published September 15th, 2022 by Orenda Books. Buy here.
It’s been the year for gorgeous gothic fiction, and Fyneshade was the most huanting and disquieting of all. A story of betrayal, temptation and dark secrets, this is a story where the monsters not only lurk in the shadows, but inside your own mind. Marta is a wonderful protagonist who was nothing like I expected and everything I could have wanted. Filled with mystery and suspense, this is a bewitching novel you won’t want to put down. Published May 18th, 2023 by Viper Books. Buy here*
A haunted house story with a dash of fantasy, Starling House was gorgeously dark sotry filled with magic, monsters and mystery. Dreamlike and bewitching, this is a book that lives up to the hype. Published October 31st, 2023 by Tor. Buy here*
Paul Cleave just keeps getting better. Menacing and mind-blowing, I couldn’t put this book down. I loved that Cleave never did what we expected, giving me book whiplash from the many twists and turns.A must read for any thriller-lover. Published November 9th, 2023 by Orenda Books. Buy here.
The Wolf Den Trilogy comes to a bittersweet end in one of my most anticipated books of the year. Will Amara and her friends survive the eruption of Versuvius? You’ll have to read to find out. Published November 9th, 2023 by Head of Zeus. Buy here*
Will Carver delivers another original and deliciously diabolical thriller in this prequel to The Beresford. Just read it. You’ll thank me. Published November 9th, 2023 by Orenda Books. Buy here.
I’m ashamed that it has taken me until I’m almost 45 to read this classic, but the advantage of that is I got to read it in a buddy read with author Polly Crosby that was so much fun. I now get the hype. If you haven’t ever read this one, I suggest giving it a try. Published September 27th, 2018 by Chiltern Publishing. Buy here*
Anna O hasn’t opened her eyes since the night four years ago when her two best friends were found brutally murdered and she was discovered in a deep sleep. Anna is the only suspect but ever since the debate has raged: is she innocent or guilty? Doctor Benedict Prince is the man charged with waking her so the world can finally decide. This astonishing debut is best described as Sleeping Beauty meets The Silent Patient and is going to be the thriller everyone is talking about it 2024. This is one you don’t want to miss. Published February 1st, 2024 by Harper Collins UK. Pre-order here*
This heart-pounding thriller was my favourite audiobook this year. A gripping thriller filled with delicious anticipation and sucker-punch twists, it keeps you on your toes from start to finish. Just make sure you’ve got a lot of free time when you pick this up as you’ll not want to put it down until you’re finished. Published July 20th, 2023 by Century. Buy here*
It’s safe to say I’m a certified Johana Gustawsson fan after this year. A story of unsolved murder, dark secrets and Norse mythology, Yule Island is an addictive thriller with a jaw-dropping twist I’m still trying to recover from. A must read for fans of thrillers and gothic fiction, this was a sensational start to a new series. Published November 23rd, 2023 by Orenda Books. Buy here.
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So, what is my favourite book of 2023? Drumroll please….
It’s Fyneshade! This was a hard decision as so many books could have taken the title.
Have you read any of these books? What was your favourite read this year?
Published July 20th, 2023 by Orenda Books Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Dystopian Fiction, Science Fiction, Political Fiction
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this outstanding, thought-provoking thriller. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part, and to Karen at Orenda for the gifted copy of the book.
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SYNOPSIS:
A powerful, prescient, gripping speculative thriller: a woman’s job of enforcing climate-emergency Britain’s one-child policy is compromised when she discovers a personal link to an illegal sibling on the ministry hit-list, leading to a shocking discovery that changes everything…
‘A tightly paced plot set in an all-too imaginable future … a page-turning, thought-provoking read’ Jo Callaghan
‘Eve Smith is a master storyteller for our troubled times’ Simon Conway
‘A terrifying vision of a global climate emergency, a jaw-dropping government conspiracy and some truly devastating twists … one hell of a speculative thriller’ Tom Hindle
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One law. One child. Seven million crimes…
A cataclysmic climate emergency has spawned a one-child policy in the UK, ruthlessly enforced by a totalitarian regime. Compulsory abortion of ‘excess’ pregnancies and mandatory contraceptive implants are now the norm, and families must adhere to strict consumption quotas as the world descends into chaos.
Kai is a 25-year-old ‘baby reaper’, working for the Ministry of Population and Family Planning. If any of her assigned families attempt to exceed their child quota, she ensures they pay the price.
Until, one morning, she discovers that an illegal sibling on her Ministry hit-list is hers. And to protect her parents from severe penalties, she must secretly investigate before anyone else finds out.
Kai’s hunt for her forbidden sister unearths much more than a dark family secret. As she stumbles across a series of heinous crimes perpetrated by the people she trusted most, she makes a catastrophic discovery that could bring down the government … and tear her family apart.
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MY REVIEW:
One law. One child. Seven million crimes…
With a tagline like that, how could I resist picking up the latest speculative thriller by Eve Smith. Her debut, The Waiting Rooms, was one of my favourite books of 2021 and from that one sentence alone I knew I was in for a terrifying treat with this one. And I was right.
The story is set in a future where a catastrophic climate emergency has left our world in chaos. The UK is now run by the Nazi-esque ONE Party, who enforce a dictatorial regime. Everything is heavily monitored, there are consumption quotas in place, and there is a strict one-child policy that must be adhered to.
Kai Houghton works for the Ministry of Population and Family Planning as a ‘baby reaper’, one of those in charge of enforcing the one-child policy and imposing severe penalties such as forced abortions and imprisonment for anyone attempting to exceed their child quota. Then one day she receives an alert that turns her world upside down. When an illegal sibling is identified as hers, she begins a secret investigation in the hope of protecting her parents and her job. But Kai unearths more than she bargained for and is faced with a difficult choice: expose the heinous crimes she’s uncovered that could destroy the government, or keep her family together.
Powerful, gripping, and thought-provoking, I devoured this outstanding thriller, enrapt by the nightmarish future that sprang from Eve Smith’s imagination. From the start this is a world that feels both familiar and foreign. It is clear that life has been infiltrated by technology and data even more than today, slowly revealing more of the tyrannical rules and regulations and offering what feels like a terrifying glimpse of what could be our future if we continue to abuse our planet and strip away human rights.
Smith is a master storyteller, expertly merging complex moral dilemmas, social issues, dark secrets, and mystery, then weaving in compelling family drama that gives the story its beating heart. It is brilliantly written, tightly plotted and propulsive with a constant tempo of dread; the mercurial presence of ONE looming over every page. The unexpected twists left me blindsided and I found it impossible to put the book down, racing through it quickly with a desperate need for resolution. But would it be the one I hoped for?
Well written and memorable characters are a key part of a great book for me, and this book delivers. Kai is a fantastic protagonist. Smith makes the reader feel every emotion she does, leaving it impossible not to feel for her as her world is torn apart and everything she thought she knew crumbles into pieces. As she faces seemingly impossible choices that test her moral compass, you ask yourself what you would do in her shoes. Would I have the strength to do what’s right even if it means losing everything? Smith doesn’t shy away from the painful consequences of people’s actions while making the reader feel the character’s emotions and face the shades of grey that led to their decisions.
Atmospheric, chilling, and uncompromising, this is one of the best thrillers I’ve read this year. An absolute must-read.
Rating: ✮✮✮✮✮
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MEET THE AUTHOR:
Eve Smith writes speculative fiction, mainly about the things that scare her. She attributes her love of all things dark and dystopian to a childhood watching Tales of the Unexpected and black-and-white Edgar Allen Poe double bills. In this world of questionable facts, stats and news, she believes storytelling is more important than ever to engage people in real life issues.
Longlisted for the Not the Booker Prize and described by Waterstones as “an exciting new voice in crime fiction”, Eve’s debut novel The Waiting Rooms, set in the aftermath of an antibiotic resistance crisis, was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize First Novel Award and was selected as a Book of the Month by Eric Brown in The Guardian who compared her writing to Michael Crichton’s.
Eve’s previous job as COO of an environmental charity took her to research projects across Asia, Africa and the Americas, and she has an ongoing passion for wild creatures, wild science and far-flung places. When she’s not writing she’s racing across fields after her dog, trying to organise herself and her family, or off exploring somewhere new.
Just before head into July I’m sharing the books out next month that I’m most anticipating. There’s a whopping 45 books in this list, including some exciting debuts such as The Housekeepers, Talking At Night, The Revels, and My Husband, as well as some new releases from some of my must read authors such as The Song of Me and You by Mike Gayle, None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell,One by Eve Smith, The Whispers by Ashley Audrain, Eye For An Eye by M. J. Arlidge, and A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh.
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The Only One Left by Riley Sager
Published July 4th by Hodder & Stoughton Gothic Fiction, Suspense, Psychological Thriller
SYNOPSIS: Everyone believes that Lenora Hope is a mass murderer.
When the Hope family was massacred decades ago, she was the only one left after that tragic night.
Mute, paralysed and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora has never been able to tell her side of the story.
Until her new live-in caregiver Kit brings her a typewriter.
And with one working finger Lenora begins to type:
Published July 4th by Quercus Historical Fiction, LGBT Literature
SYNOPSIS: In Paris 1870, three wandering souls find themselves in a city set to descend into war.
‘Exquisite, relevant and immersive’ ANNA MAZZOLA
‘Hypnotically readable . . . Stef Penney is a mesmerising storyteller’ AMANDA CRAIG
Anne is a former patient from a women’s asylum trying to carve out a new life for herself in a world that doesn’t understand her. Newcomer Lawrence is desperate to develop his talent as a photographer and escape the restrictions of his puritanical upbringing. Ellis, an army surgeon, has lived through the trauma of one civil war and will do anything to avoid another bloodbath.
Each keeps company with the restless beasts of Paris’ Menagerie, where they meet, fight their demons, lose their hearts, and rebel in a city under siege.
A dazzling historical epic of love andsurvival, Stef Penney carries the reader captivated through war-torn Paris.
Published July 6th by Wildfire Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery
SYNOPSIS: ‘Flawless, lawless fun’ Kiran Millwood Hargrave, bestselling author of The Mercies
‘Prepare to grow hungrier for justice with every page you turn’ Nina de Gramont, bestselling author of The Christie Affair
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UPSTAIRS, MADAM IS PLANNING THE PARTY OF THE SEASON. DOWNSTAIRS, THE SERVANTS ARE PLOTTING THE HEIST OF THE CENTURY.
When Mrs King, housekeeper to the most illustrious home in Mayfair, is suddenly dismissed after years of loyal service, she knows just who to recruit to help her take revenge.
A black-market queen out to settle her scores. An actress desperate for a magnificent part. A seamstress dreaming of a better life. And Mrs King’s predecessor, who has been keeping the dark secrets of Park Lane far too long.
Mrs King has an audacious plan in mind, one that will reunite her women in the depths of the house on the night of a magnificent ball – and play out right under the noses of her former employers…
THEY COME FROM NOTHING. BUT THEY’LL LEAVE WITH EVERYTHING.
Published July 6th by Hodder & Stoughton Romance Novel, Domestic Fiction
SYNOPSIS: Mike Gayle: emotions you’ll never forget, stories you’ll want to share.
Helen and Ben parted as heartbroken 18-year-olds and went their very separate ways.
Twenty years later, mother-of-two-teenagers Helen is still in Manchester, a part-time primary teacher, stunned by the behaviour of her love-rat husband. In an old T shirt and scruffy jeans, she feels at the lowest point in her life.
And suddenly, impossibly, Ben is standing on her doorstep. Tired maybe, lonely even, but clearly still the world-famous, LA-based multi-millionaire rockstar he has become.
Can you ever go back?
For Helen and Ben, so much has happened in the years between. But just to sit in the kitchen for a while and talk – that would be nice.
Before the world comes crashing in.
Friendship, love, heartache and hope collide in this unforgettable emotional journey, from the author of Half A World Away.
Published July 6th by Chatto & Windus Historical Fiction, Literary Ficion, War Story
SYNOPSIS: The captivating new novel from the internationally-bestselling author of The Dictionary of Lost Words – A Reese’s Book Club Pick
‘Vivid and moving … I absolutely loved it!’ Ruth Hogan, author of The Keeper of Lost Things ‘Charming, original and beautifully researched’ Rachel Hore, author of A Beautiful Spy
‘Your job is to bind the books, not read them.’
When the men of Oxford University Press leave for the Western Front, Peggy, her twin sister Maude and their friends in the bookbindery must shoulder the burden at home. As Peggy moves between her narrowboat full of memories and the demands of the Press, her dreams of studying feel ever more remote. She must know her place, fold her pages and never stop to savour the precious words in front of her.
From volunteer nurses to refugees fleeing the horrors of occupation, the war brings women together from all walks of life, and with them some difficult choices for Peggy. New friends and lovers offer new opportunities, but they also make new demands – and Peggy must write her own story.
‘Afresh, exciting new voice in historical fiction’ Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife ‘A compelling homage to the transformational power of books‘ Daisy Wood, author of The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris
Published July 6th by Century Fantasty Fiction, Magical Realism, Contemporary Fantasy, Horror Fantasy, Thriller, Mystery
SYNOPSIS: Not all books should be opened.
A spellbinding, edge-of your seat thriller, Ink Blood Sister Scribe follows a family tasked with guarding a trove of magical but deadly books, and the shadowy organisation that will do anything to get them back . . . even murder.
‘Follow where this novel leads and you will be lost in a bewitching spell, a book of magic about books of magic, and the people who reel from reading them. Go beyond the magic and you’re left with a heartbreaking tale of family where truth blurs with lies, and blood isn’t thick enough. A bold, new novel from an extraordinary new voice.’ Marlon James, New York Times bestselling author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf ____________
Joanna Kalotay lives alone in the woods of Vermont, the sole protector of a collection of rare books; books that will allow someone to walk through walls or turn water into wine. Books of magic.
Her estranged older sister Esther moves between countries and jobs, constantly changing, never staying anywhere longer than a year, desperate to avoid the deadly magic that killed her mother. Currently working on a research base in Antarctica, she has found love and perhaps a sort of happiness.
But when she finds spots of blood on the mirrors in the research base, she knows someone is coming for her, and that Joanna and her collection are in danger.
If they are to survive, she and Joanna must unravel the secrets their parents kept hidden from them – secrets that span centuries and continents, and could cost them their lives …
Published July 6th by Tinder Press Contemporary Fiction
SYNOPSIS: ‘Sharp as a skewer about the devices and desires in many modern marriages. I loved it’ Amanda Craig ‘Charming, very touching and very funny. Taut and full of surprises’ Tessa Hadley
I shall explain about our marriage. We have a modern version of a long-distance relationship. We share a house, but live in different historical eras…
What happens in a relationship when your partner only has eyes for their new phone?
What happens when you lose a treasured possession – a hoard of love letters documenting a relationship that never really ended – and this loss becomes an obsession?
Speak to Me is the story of a woman’s quest, in a world ruled by screens and devices, for a conversation that will unlock who she once was, and what she really wants now. Keenly observed, tender and sharply funny, this is a book about all the ways we say, and don’t say, the things in our hearts.
Published July 6th by Headline Humorous Fiction, Literary Fiction
SYNOPSIS: FOURTEEN DAYS, THREE SISTERS AND THE MOTHER OF ALL LIES
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Reeva Mehta is thriving. Consumed in her career as one of London’s top divorce lawyers, she doesn’t bat an eyelid when her mum calls to tell her that her dad is dead. Because he’s been dead since she was five . . . hasn’t he?
If finding out her dad was alive – until last week – wasn’t bad enough, his last request was for his daughters to spend fourteen days in mourning at his house. Which means Reeva must spend a fortnight stuck with the people who betrayed her when she needed them the most – her sisters.
Navigating her absent Bollywood megastar mother, newly dead father and scheming sisters with only a temperamental boyfriend – and even more temperamental cat – by her side, it’s no wonder Reeva’s hair is falling out. Could confronting the truth help the Mehtas put aside their differences, or will attending a funeral be the death of this family?
A fresh, funny and oh-so-relatable novel about trying to be the grown up when your magnificently messy family seems set to sabotage everything. Get ready to laugh, cry and fall in love with this addictive read.
Published July 6th by HQ Contemporary Romance, Contemporary Fiction, LGBT Literature, Coming-of-Age Story
SYNOPSIS: She’s stayed quiet for too long. Now it’s time to speak her truth.
Until twenty-four hours ago, Mickey Hayward was living the life she’d always dreamed of:
– Working as a full-time writer for a trendy media company (tick) – In a committed, loving relationship (tick)
Now she’s fired, tossed aside for a younger, more ‘agreeable’ Black writer. Sick of always being overlooked and undervalued, she responds with an online letter detailing the racism she’s faced within the industry. But when it’s met with overwhelming silence, and her girlfriend suggests they go on a break, Mickey’s carefully crafted life starts to fall apart.
As Mickey flees to her hometown, the simplicity of her old life – and the arms of an old flame – are all too tempting. But her life in New York refuses to be forgotten. And when a media scandal turns Mickey’s post into a viral sensation, suddenly everyone wants to hear what she has to say.
It’s what Mickey’s always wanted – isn’t it?
Intimate, witty, and deeply sexy, Homebodies is a testament to those trying to be heard and loved in a world that refuses to make space for them.
Published July 6th byAtlantic Books Crime Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction
SYNOPSIS: ‘A gritty heartbreaker of a thriller… Part heartfelt coming-of-age tale, part brutal Irish noir, this is a spectacular read for Donna Tartt and Tana French fans’ Kirkus
In the seaside town of Kinlough, on Ireland’s west coast, three old friends are thrown together for the first time in years. They – Helen, Joe and Mush – were part of an original group of six inseparable teenagers in the summer of 2003, with motherless, reckless Kala Lanann as their group’s white-hot centre. Soon after that summer’s peak, Kala disappeared without a trace.
Now it’s fifteen years later: Helen has reluctantly returned to Ireland for her father’s wedding; Joe is a world-famous musician, newly back in town; and Mush has never left, too scared to venture beyond the counter of his mother’s café. But human remains have been discovered in the woods. Two more girls have gone missing. And as past and present begin to collide, the estranged friends are forced to confront their own complicity in the events that led to Kala’s disappearance, and to try to stop Kinlough’s violent patterns repeating themselves once again…
Against the backdrop of a town suffocating on its own secrets, in a story that builds from a smoulder to a stunning climax, Kala brilliantly examines the sometimes brutal costs of belonging, as well as the battle in the human heart between vengeance and forgiveness, despair and redemption.
You Can’t See Me (Forbidden Iceland 4) by Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir
Published July 6th by Orenda Books Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Psychological Fiction, Crime Fiction, Icelandic Noir, Holiday Fiction, Crime Series
SYNOPSIS: A wealthy Icelandic family is investigated and dark secrets are exposed when a body is found on the lava fields outside the hotel where they’ve gathered for a reunion … the chilling, gripping prequel to the addictive Forbidden Iceland series
The wealthy, powerful Snæberg clan has gathered for a family reunion at a futuristic hotel set amongst the dark lava flows of Iceland’s remote Snæfellsnes peninsula.
Petra Snæberg, a successful interior designer, is anxious about the event, and her troubled teenage daughter, Lea, whose social-media presence has attracted the wrong kind of followers. Ageing carpenter Tryggvi is an outsider, only tolerated because he’s the boyfriend of Petra’s aunt, but he’s struggling to avoid alcohol because he knows what happens when he drinks … Humble hotel employee, Irma, is excited to meet this rich and famous family and observe them at close quarters … perhaps too close…
As the weather deteriorates and the alcohol flows, one of the guests disappears, and it becomes clear that there is a prowler lurking in the dark.
But is the real danger inside … within the family itself?
Masterfully cranking up the suspense, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir draws us into an isolated, frozen setting, where nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted, as the dark secrets and painful pasts of the Snæberg family are uncovered … and the shocking truth revealed.
A Golden Age mystery for the 21st Century, with a shocking twist.
Published July 6th by Bantam Press Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Thriller
SYNOPSIS: Welcome to Stanhope – a safe neighbourhood. A place for families.
William Wooler is a family man, on the surface. But he’s been having an affair, an affair that ended horribly this afternoon at a motel up the road. So when he returns to his house, devastated and angry, to find his difficult nine-year-old daughter Avery unexpectedly home from school, William loses his temper.
Hours later, Avery’s family declares her missing.
Suddenly Stanhope doesn’t feel so safe. And William isn’t the only one on his street who’s hiding a lie. As witnesses come forward with information that may or may not be true, Avery’s neighbours become increasingly unhinged.
Published July 6th by Phoenix Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
SYNOPSIS: THERE IS POWER IN SILENCE
East Anglia, 1645. Martha Hallybread, a midwife, healer and servant, has lived for more than four decades in her beloved coastal village of Cleftwater. Everyone knows Martha, but no one has ever heard her speak.
One Autumn morning, the peaceful atmosphere of Cleftwater is shattered by a sinister arrival and Martha becomes a silent witness to a witch-hunt. As a trusted member of the community, she is enlisted to search the bodies of the accused women. But whilst Martha wants to help her friends, she also harbours a dark secret that could cost her own freedom. In desperation, she revives a wax witching doll that she inherited from her mother, in the hope that it will bring protection. But the doll’s true powers are unknowable, the tide is turning, and time is running out . . .
An immersive and deeply moving novel inspired by true events, The Witching Tide breathes new life into history whilst holding up a mirror to the world we live in now. A story of loyalty and betrayal, fear and obsession, the impact of misogyny and the power of resistance, it is a magnificent debut from a striking new literary voice.
Published July 6th by Michael Joseph Romance Novel, Contemporary Romance
SYNOPSIS: Will and Rosie meet as teenagers.
They’re opposites in every way. She overthinks everything; he is her twin brother’s wild and unpredictable friend. But over secret walks home and late-night phone calls, they become closer – destined to be one another’s great love story.
Until, one day, tragedy strikes, and their future together is shattered.
But as the years roll on, Will and Rosie can’t help but find their way back to each other. Time and again, they come close to rekindling what might have been.
What do you do when the one person you should forget is the one you just can’t let go?
Published July 6th by Electric Monkey Young Adult Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Romantic Mystery, Coming-of-Age Fiction
SYNOPSIS: Sex Education meets A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder in this darkly hilarious YA murder mystery by Comedy Women in Print Prize and Carnegie Medal nominated author, Kate Weston.
Fiercely funny, feminist and FUN! I bloody loved it’ M.A. KUZNIAR
There’s never a good time to find a dead body. But finding a dead body while you’re trying to kiss your crush?
Dead awkward.
All Kerry wants to do is stay at home with her rom-coms and strict retainer schedule. Instead, her BFF Annie has roped her into going to their first sixth-form party to investigate who’s cyberbullying Heather, the most popular girl in school.
On the cusp of kissing her dreamy crush, Scott, Kerry discovers the body of Heather’s second in command – suffocated with a menstrual cup. Within days, another student turns up dead, this time with a sanitary pad across the eyes. Now Annie and Kerry are officially on the case to stop the menstrual murderer . . . period.
Published July 6th by Pushkin Press Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Fiction
SYNOPSIS: A spellbinding, darkly poetic literary novel that plunges us into the inner life of America’s first female serial killer
‘This fascinating, off-kilter novel about a female serial killer is an unexpectedly thrilling read’ Karl Ove Knausgaard
Seventeen-year-old Brynhild is in a fever – she can’t quiet the screaming world inside her. When an intense affair ends brutally, she flees Norway for America at the end of the nineteenth century in search of a new life. Changing her name first to Bella, later to Belle, she is driven from any potential refuge by an unbearable tension that won’t let her keep still. As Belle seeks release in a series of men, her yearning for an all-consuming love erupts into violence.
In this breathtaking novel, Victoria Kielland imagines her way into the tumultuous inner life of the Norwegian woman who became Belle Gunness – America’s first known female serial killer. Written in prose of wild, visceral beauty, My Men is a radically empathetic and disquieting portrait of a woman capable of ecstatic love and gruesome cruelty.
Beyond the Story: 10 Year Record of BTS by BTS and Myeongseok Kang
Published July 9th by Pan Macmillan Music Biography
SYNOPSIS: THE FIRST EVER OFFICIAL BOOK― Published in celebration of BTS’s 10th Anniversary, stories that go beyond what you already know about BTS, including unreleased photos, QR codes of videos, and all album information.
After taking their first step into the world on June 13, 2013, BTS will celebrate the 10th anniversary of their debut in June 2023. They have risen to the peak as an iconic global artist and during this meaningful time, they look back on their footsteps in the first official book. In doing so, BTS nurtures the power to build brighter days and they choose to take another step on a road that no one has gone before.
BTS shares personal, behind-the-scenes stories of their journey so far through interviews and more than three years of in-depth coverage by Myeongseok Kang, who has written about K-pop and other Korean pop culture in various media. Presented chronologically in seven chapters from before the debut of BTS to the present, their vivid voices and opinions harmonize to tell a sincere, lively, and deep story. In individual interviews that have been conducted without a camera or makeup, they illuminate their musical journey from multiple angles and discuss its significance.
In addition, portrait photos that show BTS as individuals and artists open the book, and throughout there are concept photos, tracklists of all previous albums, and over 330 QR codes. As digital artists, BTS has been communicating with the world through the internet and this book allows readers to immediately access trailers, music videos, and more online to have a rich understanding of all the key moments in BTS history. Complete with a timeline of all major milestones, BEYOND THE STORY is a remarkable archive―truly everything about BTS in one volume.
Published July 11th by Headline Historical Fiction, Historical Romance
SYNOPSIS: As the bombs began to fall, the book club kept their hopes alive…
The most emotional, uplifting and captivating story of wartime London and the extraordinary power of books to shine a light and draw people together in the darkest of days, inspired by true events.
London, 1938. Bookseller Gertie Bingham is facing difficult times, having just lost her beloved husband, Harry, and with a lingering sadness at never having been able to have a child of her own. Struggling to face running the bookshop she and Harry opened together, Gertie is preparing to sell up and move away when she is asked if she would be willing to take in a young Jewish refugee from Germany. Gertie is unsure and when sullen teenager Hedy Fischer arrives, Gertie fears she has nothing left to give the troubled girl.
But when the German bombers come and the lights go out over London, Gertie and Hedy realise that joining forces will make them stronger, and that books have the power to bring young and old together and unite a community in need in its darkest hour…
*Annie Lyons was shortlisted for the RNA Contemporary Romantic Novel of the Year Award*
Published July 13th by Michael Joseph Literary Fiction
SYNOPSIS: There are two sides to every story – and every marriage in crisis . . .
Malcolm, bartender at the Half Moon, has always dreamed of owning a bar, and when his boss finally retires, he seizes his chance.
His wife, Jess, has devoted herself to her law career, but after years of trying for a baby, she’s struggling to accept the idea that motherhood might not be in her future. She finds herself slipping away from both her career and her marriage. The bar is Malcolm’s dream, and as she feels her youth start to fade, she wonders how to reshape her own life.
When a blizzard hits their upstate New York town on the same day that Malcolm learns some shocking news about Jess, and a regular at the bar goes missing, everyone is frozen in place for a single, pivotal week, forcing Malcolm and Jess to confront their uncertain future.
The Half Moon carefully explores a marriage in crisis, what it takes to make a life with another person, and the true meaning of family.
Published July 13th by Pan Macmillan Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Psyhological Fiction
SYNOPSIS: Sarah Hilary, Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year winner and author of Fragile, returns with Black Thorn, another compulsive psychological thriller that questions how much you know about the people who live next to you . . .
‘An astonishingly gifted writer’ Marian Keyes
Blackthorn Ashes was meant to be their forever home. For the first six families moving into the exclusive new housing development, it was a chance to live a peaceful life on the cliffs overlooking the Cornish sea, safe in the knowledge that it had been created just for them.
But six weeks later, paradise is lost. Six people are dead. And Blackthorn Ashes is left abandoned and unfinished, its dark shadows hiding all manner of secrets.
One of its surviving residents, Agnes Gale, is determined to find out the truth about what happened. Even if that truth is deadlier than she could have ever believed possible . . .
Published July 13th by Viking Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
SYNOPSIS: A rich, compassionate tale of four sisters and the love affair that fractures their family
Best friends and sisters, the four Padavano girls are seen as inseparable by everyone in their close-knit Italian-American neighbourhood. Julia, the eldest, is the ‘rocket’ of the family – she always has a destination in mind and clear plans for how to get there. Sylvie, the dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book, dreaming of the kind of love you only read about in literature. Cecelia and Emmeline, the twins, are the artist and the caregiver. From childhood, the four sisters complete each other.
When Julia falls in love with William Waters, a history student and college sports star, she’s delighted by the way her plans for adulthood are coming to fruition: a husband, a house, a family of her own. But when darkness from William’s past begins to block the light of his future, it is Sylvie, not Julia, who becomes his closest confidante – and the ensuing betrayal tears the sisters apart.
Heart-breaking and heart-mending, HELLO BEAUTIFUL paints a vivid portrait of the unique bond and devastating betrayals of sisterhood.
Published July 20th by Michael Joseph Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Literary Fiction
SYNOPSIS: The second novel from the author of THE PUSH, 2021’s most explosive Sunday Times bestseller!
‘Spellbinding, a shimmering, visceral ride through the dark side of family, of community, of womanhood and mothering.Nobody delves as deep into the guts of motherhood as Ashley Audrain, she really is in a league of her own’ Lisa Jewell
‘Deeply thrilling and provocative . . a truly masterful novel’ Nita Prose, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Maid
***
The whispers started long before the accident on Harlow Street . . .
Was it at the party, when Whitney screamed blue murder at her son?
Or after neighbour Blair started prowling Whitney’s house, uninvited?
Or once Rebecca and Ben’s childlessness finally puts a crack in their marriage?
But on the terrible night of the accident, the whispers grow louder, more insistent.
Neighbours gather round. Questions are asked. Secrets are spilled. And the gloss on everything begins to rub off. Everyone is drawn into the darkness.
Because there’s no smoke without fire. No friendship without envy. And no lie that does not conceal a devastating truth . . .
The Whispers is a darkly psychological portrait of couples in crisis and families in free fall.
Published July 20th by Century Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Psychological Fiction
SYNOPSIS: Celebrating her 45th birthday at her local pub, podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie is also celebrating her 45th birthday. They are, in fact birthday twins.
A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for Alix’s series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.
Alix agrees to a trial interview. Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep digging.
Slowly Alix starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life – and into her home.
Soon she begins to wonder who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?
Published July 20th by Orenda Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Science Fiction, Political Fiction, Dystopian Fiction
SYNOPSIS: A powerful, prescient speculative thriller: a woman’s job of enforcing climate-emergency Britain’s one-child policy is compromised when she discovers a personal link to an illegal sibling on the ministry hit-list, leading to a shocking discovery that changes everything…
One law. One child. Seven million crimes…
A cataclysmic climate emergency has spawned a one-child policy in the UK, ruthlessly enforced by a totalitarian regime. Compulsory abortion of ‘excess’ pregnancies and mandatory contraceptive implants are now the norm, and families must adhere to strict consumption quotas as the world descends into chaos.
Kai is a 25-year-old ‘baby reaper’, working for the Ministry of Population and Family Planning. If any of her assigned families attempt to exceed their child quota, she ensures they pay the price.
Until, one morning, she discovers that an illegal sibling on her Ministry hit-list is hers. And to protect her parents from severe penalties, she must secretly investigate before anyone else finds out.
Kai’s hunt for her forbidden sister unearths much more than a dark family secret. As she stumbles across a series of heinous crimes perpetrated by the people she trusted most, she makes a catastrophic discovery that could bring down the government … and tear her family apart.
Published July 20th by Orion Crime Fiction, Legal Thriller
SYNOPSIS: RIGHT OR WRONG? Only nine criminals in the UK have been granted lifelong anonymity. Their crimes so heinous that their identities are permanently changed for their own safety.
CRIMINAL OR VICTIM? Upon release, they’re given a second chance: new identities and new homes with new neighbours who have no idea. Because, by law, they cannot be named as who they are – or were…
REDEMPTION OR REVENGE? But what if someone started systematically exposing their true identities? Not to the press, or the public, but to the families of their victims.
A Game of Lies (DC Ffion Morgan 2) by Clare Mackintosh
Published July 20th by Sphere Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Psychological Thriller, Police Procedural, Crime Series
SYNOPSIS: They say the camera never lies. But on this show, you can’t trust anything you see.
Stranded in the Welsh mountains, seven reality show contestants have no idea what they’ve signed up for.
Each of these strangers has a secret. If another player can guess the truth, they won’t just be eliminated – they’ll be exposed live on air. The stakes are higher than they’d ever imagined, and they’re trapped.
The disappearance of a contestant wasn’t supposed to be part of the drama. Detective Ffion Morgan has to put aside what she’s watched on screen, and find out who these people really are – knowing she can’t trust any of them.
And when a murderer strikes, Ffion knows every one of her suspects has an alibi . . . and a secret worth killing for.
All Of Us Are Broken (Detective Saul Anguish 2) by Fiona Cummins
Published July 20th by Pan Macmillan Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Crime Fiction, Police Procedural, Crime Series
SYNOPSIS: The electrifying new crime novel from the award winning author, Fiona Cummins, author of Into the Dark and Rattle.
It’s been a long time since the Hardwicke family has been on holiday. But thirteen-year-old Galen has wanted to see the wild dolphins at Scotland’s Chanonry Point for as long as she can remember, and her mother Christine – a lone parent since her beloved husband left – is determined she gets her wish. But their serene trip is about to be interrupted.
When DC Saul Anguish is called to investigate the shooting of an ex-police officer in Midtown-on-Sea, Essex, he quickly discovers that this is the first in a string of killings by Missy and Fox, a damaged young couple hell-bent on infamy, their love story etched in blood. In pursuit, Saul follows their trail north.
The paths of the Hardwickes’ and the deadly couple are about to collide. When Saul and his forensic linguist partner, Blue, arrive on the scene, they witness the unthinkable: a mother forced to make an impossible choice.
Saul must uncover the truth about the couple. But can he find the strength to lay the ghosts of his past to rest before they break him?
Published July 20th by Zaffre Mystery, Suspense, Dark Comedy, Satire, Psychological Fiction, Romance Novel, Contemporary Romance
SYNOPSIS: WHEN IT COMES TO BAD MEN, THERE’S ONLY EVER ONE CHOICE . . .
‘I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a thriller this much’ – ERIN KELLY
Saffy has a secret. A secret that she is deeply ashamed of. It’s not the fact that she’s a serial killer in her free time. In fact, she’s quite proud of that. After all she’s only killing the bad men. She is making the world a better place.
No, her secret is far worse than that. Saffy has a messy, inexplicable, uncontrollable crush. So while she’s busy plotting her next murder, she also has the much harder task of figuring out how to get a boyfriend.
But if there’s one thing Saffy knows, it’s how to get her man . . .
Published July 20th by Penguin Fantasy Fiction, Greek Mythology, fFantasy Romance,Coming-of-Age Fantasy
SYNOPSIS: To hell with love, this goddess has other plans…
Thousands of years ago, the gods told a lie: how Persephone was a pawn in the politics of other gods. How Hades kidnapped Persephone to be his bride. How her mother, Demeter, was so distraught she caused the Earth to start dying.
The real story is much more interesting.
Persephone wasn’t taken to hell: she jumped. There was no way she was going to be married off to some smug god more in love with himself than her.
Now all she has to do is convince the Underworld’s annoyingly sexy, arrogant and frankly rude ruler, Hades, to fall in line with her plan. A plan that will shake Mount Olympus to its very core.
But consequences can be deadly, especially when you’re already in hell . . .
A fierce, fresh and enormously fun YA fantasy re-imagining from a growing TikTok superstar.
“Bring[s] to life timeless gods, the complex intimacy of family bonds, a fierce protagonist, and a passionate slow-burn romance.” Sue Lynn Tan, Sunday Times bestselling author of Daughter of the Moon Goddess.
Published July 20th by Fourth Estate Psychological Fiction, Literary Fiction, Political Fiction
SYNOPSIS: *SOON TO BE A MAJOR TV SERIES*
‘Topical, heartfelt, provocative and wise’ Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other
‘The perfect summer read: intelligent, funny, topical and impossible to put down’ Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
‘Phenomenal. Brilliantly written and incredibly clever’ Abi Daré, author of The Girl with the Louding Voice
From award-winning journalist and bestselling co-author of Slay in Your Lane, Yomi Adegoke, comes The List, a sensational, page-turning debut novel about secrets, lies and our lives online.
Ola Olajide, a high-profile journalist at Womxxxn magazine, is marrying the love of her life in one month’s time. Young, beautiful, successful – she and her fiancé Michael are the ‘couple goals’ of their social networks and seem to have it all.
That is, until one morning when they both wake up to the same message:
‘Oh my god, have you seen The List?’
It began as a crowdsourced collection of names and somehow morphed into an anonymous account posting allegations on social media. Ola would usually be the first to support such a list―she’d retweet it, call for the men to be fired, write article after article. Except this time, Michael’s name is on it.
Compulsively page-turning, wildly entertaining and piercing with fearless insight, The List is perfect for fans of Such A Fun Age, My Dark Vanessa and Magpie. The List by Yomi Adegoke is set to be the most hotly debated debut novel of 2023.
Published July 20th by HQ Historical Fiction, Gothic Fiction, Supernatural Fiction, Horror Fiction
SYNOPSIS: The stage is set and the witch-hunt is about to begin…
‘I am no witch. I have not sold my soul to the devil for powers. What I am has never openly been whispered of, yet it is enough that people would hang for it.’
England, 1645. After his half-brother dies, aspiring playwright Nicholas Pearce is apprenticed to Judge William Percival, an infamous former witch-hunter who is under pressure to resume his old profession.
In a country torn apart by civil war, with escalating tensions between Catholics and Protestants, Royalists and Roundheads, and rumours of witchcraft, Nicholas hides a secret: the dead sing. He hears their secrets, but will he find the courage to speak up to save innocent lives, even if it means putting himself in great danger?
A spellbinding debut novel perfect for fans of Stacey Halls, Laura Purcell and Bridget Collins.
Published July 20th by Michael Joseph Historical Fiction, Romance Novel, Historical Mystery
SYNOPSIS: ‘An incredibly vivid rendering of post-war London and the complicated lives of three woman whose fates intersect at a boarding house . . . emotional, immersive and utterly absorbing’ Jennifer Saint
‘Once again, Julie Owen Moylan has created a world that feels completely real and vivid. A hugely enjoyable book’ Jodie Chapman
When Edie Budd arrives at a shabby West London boarding house in October 1958, carrying nothing except a broken suitcase and an envelope full of cash, it’s clear she’s hiding a terrible secret. And she’s not the only one; the other women of 73 Dove Street have secrets of their own . . .
Tommie, who lives on the second floor, waits on the eccentric Mrs Vee by day. After dark, she harbours an addiction to seedy Soho nightlife – and a man she can’t quit.
Phyllis, 73 Dove Street’s formidable landlady, has set fire to her husband’s belongings after discovering a heart-breaking betrayal – yet her fierce bravado hides a past she doesn’t want to talk about.
At first, the three women keep to themselves. But as Edie’s past catches up with her, Tommie becomes caught in her web of lies – forcing her to make a decision that will change everything . . .
Published July 20th by Viking Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Holiday Fiction
SYNOPSIS: Six friends. The holiday of their dreams. One night that changed it all . . .
1989: The tunes are loud and the clothes are louder when a group of friends arrives in Mallorca for a post-graduation holiday of decadence and debauchery at a luxury villa.
A beach party marks the pinnacle of their fun, until it isn’t fun any longer. Because amidst the wild partying – sand flying from dancing feet and revellers leaping from yachts – an accident happens. Suddenly, the night of a lifetime becomes a living nightmare.
Now: The truth about that summer has been collectively buried. But someone knows what happened that night.
And they want the friends to pay for what they did.
Published July 20th by Bantam Press Mystery, Thriller, Crime Fiction
SYNOPSIS: Welcome to paradise. We hope you survive your stay…
‘It really is The Beach for a new generation – a hot contender for best travel thriller of 2023.’ Janice Hallett
‘The Dive turns paradise into a nightmare… and I loved every minute of it.’ Amy McCulloch
‘Utterly compelling.’ Lucy Clarke
Escape to paradise. Scuba diving instructor Cass leads her students out for their first dive off the beautiful coast of Koh Sang, Thailand’s world-famous party island. It’s supposed to be a life-changing experience, but things quickly spiral out of control…
Leave your secrets behind. By the time she gets back to the shore, one of her students is dead, another badly injured, and she knows that her idyllic life is about to be smashed to pieces on the rocks.
But don’t get lost for ever… Because this isn’t the first mysterious death on the island, and it won’t be the last. Someone is making sure that backpackers stay in paradise for ever – one murder at a time…
The Clearing (Rees &TannahillBook 2) by Simon Toyne
Published July 20th by Harper Collins UK Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Crime Fiction, Crime Series
SYNOPSIS: From the author of the Sanctus series comes a brilliant new serial killer thriller featuring forensic specialist Dr Laughton Rees and Detective Chief Inspector Tannahill Khan
‘The tension is almost unbearable… the ending is genuinely one of the most jaw-dropping ones I’ve read in a long time. Absolutely superb.’ M.W. Craven
Women are going missing Something deadly lurks in the forest around Cinderfield. Locals put the unusually high number of disappearances down to transients or runaways; some even blame the Cinderman, a figure of local legend rumoured to haunt the woods looking for unsuspecting victims.
Vanishing without a trace Forensic specialist Laughton Rees doesn’t believe in monsters. Already investigating the area’s history of missing women, news of the latest ‘runaway’ Maddie Friar brings her to Cinderfield to find out the truth.
No one’s talking But, from the gruff leader of an off-grid commune to the mysterious Earl who presides over the crumbling abbey in the heart of the forest, everyone in Cinderfield has something to hide
But what lies in the shadows? As Laughton searches for answers, with the help of DCI Tannahil Khan back in London, someone is watching – cataloguing her every move, prepared to do anything to keep their dark secrets from coming to light
Published July 20th by Quercus Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Domestic Fiction
SYNOPSIS: When Finn Hensen gets a call from his sister Jess to say their father has died, neither is heartbroken. Their parents divorced many years ago, after which their father, Jimmy, continued to live a bohemian lifestyle in sun-soaked Mallorca.
Ownership of his beautiful but dilapidated farmhouse in the mountains now passes to Finn and his sister. The only problem is that Jimmy recently remarried and his new wife, Ruensa, is still living there.
The pair agree that Finn should go to Mallorca and tactfully take possession of their inheritance. When he arrives, however, Finn is surprised to find that Finca Siquia has been completely transformed into a chic Mediterranean bolthole by Ruensa and her twenty-seven-year-old daughter, Roze. The Spanish police, meanwhile, are asking awkward questions about Jimmy’s death . . .
Are Ruensa and Roze the helpless victims of circumstance? Or will they stop at nothing to get Finca Siquia for themselves?
Published July 20th by HQ Contemporary Romance, Holiday Fiction, Humorous Fiction, Adventure Fiction, Coming-of-Age Story
SYNOPSIS: Escape to Italy this summer with The Little Italian Hotel, the uplifting new book from Phaedra Patrick, the bestselling author of The Library of Lost and Found.
‘The perfect book to read when you want to give your heart a holiday’ Sally Page, bestselling author of The Keeper of Stories
Ginny Splinter, acclaimed radio host and relationship expert, prides herself on knowing what’s best for others. So, she’s sure her husband, Adrian, will love the special trip to Italy she’s planned for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. But when Ginny presents the gift, he surprises her with his own very different plan: a divorce.
Beside herself with heartache, Ginny impulsively goes live on air to invite four heartbroken listeners to join her instead. From hiking the hills of Bologna to sharing a gondola in Venice and dancing until dawn, Ginny and her guests embark on a holiday of full of fun, hope and healing.
Sunny, tender and brimming with charm, The Little Italian Hotel explores love, the importance of friendship, and reclaiming the present moment – even if it means leaving the past behind.
You Were Always Mine by Christine Pride & Jo Piazza
Published July 20th by HQ Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction
SYNOPSIS: ‘Sits squarely at the tender intersection of race, class, and ethics – wrapped in beautiful prose and a killer plot that keeps you turning the pages’ JODI PICOULT
Is the truest family the one we’re born into, or the one we make for ourselves?
Cinnamon Haynes has fought hard for everything she has – her marriage, a stable job as a career counsellor, and home of her own. She’s overcome the difficult circumstances of her childhood to build this life, and yet, she can’t help but wonder . . . is this all there is?
Just nineteen years old, Daisy Dunlap has already faced her share of hardships, but she has big dreams for her future. A future which is threatened when she gets unexpectedly pregnant and, desperate and alone, she makes a drastic decision with devastating consequences.
When Cinnamon finds an abandoned baby in the park, she takes the newborn into her home, not realising the chain reaction this will set off. Cinnamon must deal with the shocking judgements from friends, strangers, even her own husband, about why a Black woman like her would take in this blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby, but all Cinnamon wants is to do right by this innocent child. Then, Cinnamon’s fragile hold over the baby is threatened and she must fight for the family she wants – even if that costs her everything she once held dear . . .
Published July 25th by Daphne Press Fantasty Fiction, High Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Romantic Fantasy, Horror Fantasy
SYNOPSIS: Enter a lush world inspired by the history and mythology of South America, where twisted family politics deceive, dark magics thrive, and fantastical creatures roam.
Reina is desperate.
Stuck living on the edges of society, her only salvation lies in an invitation from a grandmother she’s never known. But the journey is dangerous, and prayer can’t always avert disaster.
Attacked by creatures that stalk the region, Reina is on the verge of death until her grandmother, a dark sorceress, intervenes. Now dependent on the Doña’s magic for her life, Reina will do anything to earn―and keep―her favor. Even the bidding of an ancient god who whispers to her at night.
Eva Kesare is unwanted.
Illegitimate and of mixed heritage, Eva is her family’s shame. She tries her best to be perfect and to hide her oddities. But Eva is hiding a secret: magic calls to her.
Eva knows she should fight the temptation. Magic is the sign of the dark god, and using it is punishable by death. Yet, it’s hard to deny power when it has always been denied to you. Eva is walking a dangerous path, one that gets stranger every day. And, in the end, she’ll become something she never imagined.
Immortal Longings (Flesh and False Gods 1) by Chloe Gong
Published July 25th by Hodder & Stoughton High Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction, Fantasy Romance, Fantasy Series
SYNOPSIS: ‘Each page is fierce and filled with yearning – I loved it’ Andrea Stewart
The only way to win, is to survive.
Every year, thousands flock to San-Er, the dangerously dense capital twin cities of the kingdom of Talin, where the palace hosts a set of deadly games. Those confident in their ability to jump between bodies can enter a fight to the death – for the chance to win unimaginable riches.
Princess Calla Tuoleimi has been in hiding for five years, ever since she murdered her parents to free the people of Talin from her tyrannical family. Only one person stands in her way of finishing the job: her reclusive uncle King Kasa. However, she knows he always greets the victor of the games. If she wins, she will finally get the chance to kill him.
Enter Anton Makusa, whose childhood love has lain in a coma since they were both ousted from the palace. He’s deep in debt trying to keep her alive. Which means his last chance at saving her is entering the games and winning.
When Anton proposes an unexpected alliance with Calla, they quickly find their partnership spiraling into something all-consuming. But before the games close, Calla must decide what she’s playing for – her lover or her kingdom. For no matter what, only one of them can walk out alive . . .
#1 New York Times bestselling author Chloe Gong’s adult epic fantasy debut, inspired by Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, is a fiery collision of power plays, spilled blood, and romance amidst a set of deadly games.
Published July 25th by Dutton Historical Fiction, Greek Mythology, High Fantasy, War Story
SYNOPSIS: Four women. Four threads spinning on a single loom. Can they reweave the tapestry of fate? Troy is not just a legend born of myth and poetry, but a historical place where real people schemed and defended, loved and lost. Unlike other retellings, this novel explores the earlier days of the Trojan war, digging deep into the story of those trapped behind the city’s walls. This Troy is not a playground of gods and goddesses, but a political and physical battleground where ordinary people and strong, yet misunderstood women take center stage: Andromache is cast as the doting wife of Prince Hector, yet her Amazonian name means ‘battler of men.’ When her struggle to produce a male heir endangers Hector’s position as Troy’s future king, she must gather a band of outcasts and become the military commander she was born to be, while protecting the secret life growing within. Rhea is a war refugee and a horse whisperer who finally earns a place, and sense of belonging, in Hector’s stables. When the Greek hordes come banging at the city gates, Rhea must become an unlikely spy, while facing a forbidden love that will test all her loyalties. Helen is blamed by all for starting the Trojan War, but no one knows her real story. To escape her abusive husband and foil a plot to undermine Hector, Helen must risk everything and reveal her true face to the one who despises her most. Cassandra is tormented by the truth about Troy’s fate as she watches helplessly from her tower. All of Troy believes that her prophecies are those of a mad woman, but that is about to change.
The Weaver and the Witch Queen by Genevieve Gornichec
Published July 25th by Titan Fairy Tale, Hisotrical Fantasy, Romantic Fantasy
SYNOPSIS: Two stepsisters encounter the gods and giants of Norse mythology, as they face their intertwining destinies and an ominous prophecy in this powerful novel from the acclaimed author of The Witch’s Heart.
Oddny and Gunnhild meet as children, and they could not be more different. Oddny longs for a quiet, peaceful life. Gunnhild, on the other hand, burns for power, secretly longing to harness the magic that flows inside of her, and one day become queen. But after a visiting wise woman makes an ominous prophecy that involves them both, the girls take a blood oath to help each other always.
When Oddny’s mother is killed and her sister kidnapped by Viking raiders, she finds herself set adrift from the life she imagined. Gunnhild, who fled her home years ago to learn the ways of a witch, is on her way to her exalted destiny. When they find each other again, their bond will be tested in ways they could never had imagined in this rich novel of magic, history, and sworn sisterhood.
Published July 27th by Hutchinson Heinmann Psychological Thriller, Literary Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Domestic Fiction
SYNOPSIS: INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER PRIZE WINNER OF FRANCE’S FIRST NOVEL AWARD
‘One of the most daring, provocative, unnervingly intimate thrillers I’ve read in years. Few writers besides Ruth Rendell and Patricia Highsmith can evoke domestic unease with such sangfroid; fewer still can make it such delirious fun‘ A. J. Finn, #1 NYT bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
‘What a wonderfully tense, obsessive, enveloping novel – almost like a feminist, introspective spin on Fatal Attraction! Ventura’s deftly spun debut is a sharply observed dissection of marriage that will haunt you for days’ Virgina Feito
‘In this wry, psychologically complex debut, a meticulously manicured wife is obsessed with her husband. For the past 13 years, she’s made a science of meeting his needs, putting them before her own or even their children’s. Her love is a stranglehold; something’s gotta give. The winner of France’s First Novel Prize, this riveting emotional thriller requires serious willpower to not devour in a single sitting’ Oprah Daily
From the outside, she has an enviable life: a successful career, stunning looks, a beautiful house in the suburbs, two healthy children, and most importantly, an ideal husband. After fifteen years together, she is still besotted with him. But she’s never quite sure that her passion is reciprocated.
Determined to keep their relationship perfect, she meticulously prepares for every encounter they have, always taking care to make her actions seem effortless. She watches him attentively, charting every mistake and punishing him accordingly to help him improve. And she tests him – setting traps to make sure that he still loves her just as much as he did when they first met.
Until one day she realizes she may have gone too far . . .
With the surprise of Gone Girl, the bleakness of The Talented Mr Ripley and the sinister charm of the Netflix thriller You, My Husband is a bold and exhilarating story of passion and the dark secrets that lie beneath a seemingly healthy marriage.
Published July 27th by Michael Joseph Historical Fiction
SYNOPSIS: I’ll show you what a woman can do . . .
‘Artemisia’s life was extraordinary, and so is this book. I was swept away by lush, evocative prose. An unforgettable, moving and important story told with great skill and care’ JENNIFER SAINT
‘Outstanding. A powerful novel about women who are shamed and silenced, and how they learn to survive. A literary knockout’ ANNA MAZZOLA, author of The Clockwork Girl
‘An unforgettable book – visceral and lush and fierce. The last few pages left me gasping. An absolute triumph’ EVE CHASE
Rome 1611.
A jewel-bright place of change, with sumptuous new palaces and lavish wealth on display. A city where women are seen but not heard.
Artemisia Gentileschi dreams of becoming a great artist. Motherless, she grows up among a family of painters – men and boys. She knows she is more talented than her brothers, but she cannot choose her own future. She wants to experience the world, but she belongs to her father and will belong to a husband.
As Artemisia patiently goes from lesson to lesson, perfecting her craft, she also paints in private, recreating the women who inspire her, away from her father’s eyes.
Until a mysterious tutor enters her life. Tassi is a dashing figure, handsome and worldly, and for a moment he represents everything that a life of freedom might offer. But then the unthinkable happens.
In the eyes of her family, Artemisia should accept her fate. In the eyes of the law, she is the villain.
But Artemisia is a survivor. And this is her story to tell.
Published July 27th by Penguin Young Adult Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Romantic Mystery
SYNOPSIS: *Squid Game at an American High School – the twisty YA thriller that everyone will be talking about in 2023.* Twelve girls. Three rounds. One ultimate prize . . . for the last one left alive.
Edgewater Academy is a school for the very rich and very powerful.
Adina Walker is neither of those things. Alone and outcast, when she gets into a fight with a fellow student (and former friend), her scholarship to a top college is revoked, and her world falls apart.
Until she’s invited to The Finish.
Annual games for the brightest and the best, hosted by power-family The Remingtons, the winning prize for The Finish is everything Adina wants. This is her chance at the life she’s dreamed of.
Then the contestants start to die.
Love, revenge, pride – all are on the line. This isn’t a game any more . . .
Horrific and engrossing in equal measure, THEIR VICIOUS GAMES is also a thoughtful and clever commentary on race and class. Ace of Spades meetsThe Inheritance Games, this is a game you’ll want to see through to the finish.
Welcome to my list of Emma’s Anticipated Treasures for February. It’s another fantastic month with so many books I’ve been eagerly awaiting for a long time finally being published. There’s books from authors I’ve loved before like Marian Keyes, Beth Morrey, Eve Smith and Linwood Barclay, as well as some amazing debuts such as The Leviathan, The Hemlock Cure and The Embroidered Book.
It was hard to narrow down my list, but here are the 25 books I’m most anticipating that are released next month:
SYNOPSIS: SELECTED AS ONE OF THE OBSERVER’S 10 BEST DEBUT NOVELISTS OF 2022
A beguiling tale of superstition, myth and murder, perfect for fans of The Binding, The Essex Serpent and Once Upon a River.
SHE IS AWAKE…
Norfolk, 1643. With civil war tearing England apart, reluctant soldier Thomas Treadwater is summoned home by his sister, who accuses a new servant of improper conduct with their widowed father. By the time Thomas returns home, his father is insensible, felled by a stroke, and their new servant is in prison, facing charges of witchcraft.
Thomas prides himself on being a rational, modern man, but as he unravels the mystery of what has happened, he uncovers not a tale of superstition but something dark and ancient, linked to a shipwreck years before.
Something has awoken, and now it will not rest.
Richly researched, incredibly atmospheric, and deliciously unsettling, The Leviathan is set in England during a time of political and religious turbulence. It is a tale of family and loyalty, superstition and sacrifice, but most of all it is a spellbinding mystery and a story of impossible things.
Published: February 3rd Publisher: Harper Collins UK Genre: Humorous Fiction, Coming-of-Age Story
SYNOPSIS: A mother. A daughter. A secret waiting to be discovered.
For too long – since the sudden death of her mother as a teenager, since the birth of her daughter, Em, when she was just seventeen – Delphine has been unable to let go of the past, obsessed with protecting Em and clinging to a secret that could ruin everything. She’s been living life in safe shades of grey.
The day that Delphine finally stands up for herself is the day that changes everything.
Delphine begins to remember what it’s like to want more: rediscovering her singing voice, opening herself to friendship, and reviving not only her mother’s roots, but her mother’s memories. As her life begins to fill with colour, can she be brave for herself and for Em? And what would happen if she finally told the truth?
A big-hearted, hopeful novel about finding second chances – and taking them.
SYNOPSIS: An expansive epic spanning the turbulent decades of Korea’s fight for independence, perfect for fans of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko
Beasts take many shapes…
It is 1917, and Korea is yet to be divided into north and south. With the threat of famine looming, a young girl named Jade is sold by her family to Miss Silver’s courtesan school in cosmopolitan Pyongyang, an act of desperation that will cement her place in the lowest social status. But the city’s days as a haven are numbered.
Jade flees to Seoul where she forms a deep friendship with an orphan boy called JungHo, who scrapes together a living begging on the streets. As Jade becomes a sought-after performer with unexpected romantic prospects, JungHo is swept up in the revolutionary fight for independence. Soon Jade must decide between following her own ambitions, or risking everything for the one she loves.
From the perfumed chambers of the courtesan school to the glamorous cafes of a modernising Seoul, the unforgettable characters of Beasts of a Little Land unveil a world where friends become enemies and enemies become saviours, where heroes are persecuted and beasts take many shapes.
Published: February 3rd Publisher: Picador Genre: Historical Fiction
SYNOPSIS: 1836, Prussia. Hanne is nearly fifteen and the domestic world of womanhood is quickly closing in on her. A child of nature, she yearns instead for the rush of the river, the wind dancing around her. Hanne finds little comfort in the local girls and friendship doesn’t come easily, until she meets Thea and she finds in her a kindred spirit and finally, acceptance.
Hanne’s family are Old Lutherans, and in her small village hushed worship is done secretly – this is a community under threat. But when they are granted safe passage to Australia, the community rejoices: at last a place they can pray without fear, a permanent home. Freedom.
It’s a promise of freedom that will have devastating consequences for Hanne and Thea, but, on that long and brutal journey, their bond proves too strong for even nature to break . . .
From the bestselling author of Burial Rites and The Good People, Devotion is a stunning story of girlhood and friendship, faith and suspicion, and the impossible lengths we go to for the ones we love.
Published: February 3rd Publisher: Phoenix Genre: Crime Fiction, Psychological Fiction
SYNOPSIS: Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours.
He knows what he’s done, and now awaits the same fate he forced on those girls, years ago. Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood.
But this is not his story.
As the clock ticks down, three women uncover the history of a tragedy and the long shadow it casts. Lavender, Ansel’s mother, is a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation. Hazel, twin sister to his wife, is forced to watch helplessly as the relationship threatens to devour them all. And Saffy, the detective hot on his trail, is devoted to bringing bad men to justice but struggling to see her own life clearly.
This is the story of the women left behind.
Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes On An Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our cultural obsession with crime stories, and asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the minds of violent men.
SYNOPSIS: YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO STOP READING. BECAUSE YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENS NEXT . . . ________
When her husband Harry walks out after just six months, a girls’ weekend away with two friends seems like just what Sam needs.
But they aren’t even halfway to their destination when things start to go wrong: car trouble that just happens to leave them stranded in the town where Harry lives.
And that’s only the beginning.
Because there are three things Sam doesn’t yet know:
One of her friends is lying about what happened. One is lying about who she is. And one of them will never make it home . . .
SYNOPSIS: A missing woman. A husband suspected. The truth will … Take Your Breath Away
It’s always the husband, isn’t it?
One weekend, while Andrew Mason was on a fishing trip, his wife, Brie, vanished without a trace. Most people assumed Andy had got away with murder, but the police couldn’t build a strong case against him. For a while, Andy hit rock bottom – he drank too much, was abandoned by his friends, nearly lost his business and became a pariah in the place he had once called home.
Now, six years later, Andy has put his life back together. He’s sold the house he shared with Brie and moved away for a fresh start. When he hears his old house has been bulldozed and a new house built in its place, he’s not bothered. He’s settled with a new partner, Jayne, and life is good.
But Andy’s peaceful world is about to shatter. One day, a woman shows up at his old address, screaming, ‘Where’s my house? What’s happened to my house?’ And then, just as suddenly as she appeared, the woman – who bears a striking resemblance to Brie – is gone. The police are notified and old questions – and dark suspicions – resurface.
Could Brie really be alive after all these years? If so, where has she been? It soon becomes clear that Andy’s future, and the lives of those closest to him, depends on discovering what the hell is going on. The trick will be whether he can stay alive long enough to unearth the answers…
Published: February 3rd Publisher: Harper Collins UK Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Thriller
SYNOPSIS: She thought the murders had stopped. She was wrong.
Soon to be a major TV series, developed by Emma Stone
Chloe Davis’ father is a serial killer. He was convicted and jailed when she was twelve but the bodies of the girls were never found, seemingly lost in the surrounding Louisiana swamps. The case became notorious and Chloe’s family was destroyed.
His crimes stalk her like a shadow. Now Chloe has rebuilt her life. She’s a respected psychologist in Baton Rouge and has a loving fiancé. But she just can’t shake a tick-tick-tick of paranoia that, at any moment, it might all come crashing down.
As does something darker. It is the anniversary of her father’s crimes, and Chloe is about to see her worst fears come true – a girl she knows goes missing.
Published: February 3rd Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Genre: Psychological Fiction, Urban Fiction, Coming-of-Age Story
SYNOPSIS: CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF 2022 BY VOGUE AND ESQUIRE
A bitingly honest, darkly funny debut about love, sex, power and desire, by a major new British talent
Anna is struggling to afford life in London as she trains to be a singer. During the day, she vies to succeed against her course mates with their discreet but inexhaustible streams of cultural capital and money, and in the evening she sings jazz at a bar in the City to make ends meet.
It’s there that she meets Max, a financier fourteen years older than her. Over the course of one winter, Anna’s intoxication oscillates between her hard-won moments on stage, where she can zip herself into the skin of her characters, and nights spent with Max in his glass-walled flat overlooking the city.
But Anna’s fledgling career demands her undivided attention, and increasingly – whether he necessarily wills it or not – so does Max.
Published: February 3rd Publisher: Michael Joseph Genre: Historical Fiction, Contemporary Literature, Domestic Fiction, Saga, Coming-of-Age Story
SYNOPSIS: **A Grazia Instagram ‘IT’ book to watch out for**
________
‘We can’t go to the island, Bryon. We don’t really know what we’re getting into . . .’
Eleanor Bennett won’t let her own death get in the way of the truth. So when her estranged children – Byron and Benny – reunite for her funeral in California, they discover a puzzling inheritance.
First, a voice recording in which everything Byron and Benny ever knew about their family is upended. Their mother narrates a tumultuous story about a headstrong young woman who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder, a story which cuts right to the heart of the rift that’s separated Byron and Benny.
Second, a traditional Caribbean black cake made from a family recipe with a long history that Eleanor hopes will heal the wounds of the past. Can Byron and Benny fulfil their mother’s final request to ‘share the black cake when the time is right’?
Will Eleanor’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?
Published: February 3rd Publisher: Bantam Press Genre: Dark Fantasy, Contemporary Fantasy, Paranormal Fantasy, Fantasy Series
SYNOPSIS: And then there were three . . .
Three years ago, the sisters confronted their demon father in that strange other-world called Everwhere. It was a battle that ended in a devastating loss, and the scars they carry seem to have slowly pushed the sisters apart . . .
One sister, still raw with grief, is now a near recluse but determined to use her powers to resurrect what she has lost.
Another has made the journey to learn more of her family, her culture and her roots.
And another seems to have turned her back on what she is and opted to lead a more normal life.
But now the sisters are about to be brought together once more. Because when the clock strikes midnight, when October ticks into November, when autumn wilts into winter, when All Hallows’ Eve becomes All Saints’ Day, the sisters Grimm will turn twenty-one and reach the zenith of their powers.
And on this night, at this time, in this place called Everwhere, anything is possible . . .
SYNOPSIS: It is 1665 and the women of Eyam keep many secrets.
Isabel Frith, the village midwife, walks a dangerous line with her herbs and remedies. There are men in the village who speak of witchcraft, and Isabel has a past to hide. So she tells nobody her fears about Wulfric, the pious, reclusive apothecary.
Mae, Wulfric’s youngest daughter, dreads her father’s rage if he discovers what she keeps from him. Like her feelings for Rafe, Isabel’s ward, or that she studies from Wulfric’s forbidden books at night.
But others have secrets too. Secrets darker than any of them could have imagined.
When Mae makes a horrifying discovery, Isabel is the only person she can turn to. But helping Mae will place them both in unspeakable peril.
And meanwhile another danger is on its way from London. One that threatens to engulf them all . . .
Based on the real history of an English village during the Great Plague, The Hemlock Cure is an utterly beguiling tale of fear and ambition, betrayal, self-sacrifice and the unbreakable bond between two women.
Published: February 10th Publisher: Hutchinson Heinemann Genre: Literary Fiction
SYNOPSIS: Listen to my history. My adventures are worth hearing. I have lived many lifetimes and been loved by emperors, kings and thieves. I have survived kidnap and assault. Revolution and two world wars. But this is also a love story. And the story of what we will do for those we love.
In Leonardo da Vinci’s studio, bursting with genius imagination, towering commissions and needling patrons, as well as discontented muses, friends and rivals, sits the painting of the Mona Lisa. For five hundred tumultuous years, amid a whirlwind of power, money, intrigue, the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo is sought after and stolen.
Over the centuries, few could hear her voice, but now she is ready to tell her own story, in her own words – a tale of rivalry, murder and heartbreak. Weaving through the years, she takes us from the dazzling world of Florentine studios to the French courts at Fontainebleau and Versailles, and into the Twentieth Century.
I, Mona Lisa is a deliciously vivid, compulsive and illuminating story about the lost and forgotten women throughout history.
House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City 2) by Sarah J. Maas
Published: February 15th Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Genre: Fantasy Fiction, Romantic Fantasy, Paranormal Fantasy, High Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Fantasy Series
SYNOPSIS: Sequel to the #1 New York Times bestseller. Sarah J. Maas’s sexy, groundbreaking CRESCENT CITY series continues with this second installment.
Bryce Quinlan and Hunt Athalar have made a pact. As they process the events of the Spring they will keep things . platonic . until the Solstice. But can they resist when the crackling tension between them is enough to set the whole of Crescent City aflame?
And they are not out of danger yet. Dragged into a rebel movement they want no part of, Bryce, Hunt and their friends find themselves pitted against the terrifying Asteri – whose notice they must avoid at all costs. But as they learn more about the rebel cause, they face a choice: stay silent while others are oppressed, or fight. And they’ve never been very good at staying silent.
In this sexy, action-packed sequel to the #1 bestseller House of Earth and Blood, Sarah J. Maas weaves a captivating story of a world about to explode – and the people who will do anything to save it.
SYNOPSIS: When a one-night stand leads to a long-desired pregnancy, Susan will do anything to ensure her husband won’t find out … including the unthinkable. But when something horrendous is unleashed around the globe, her secret isn’t the only thing that is no longer safe…
––––––––––––––––––––––––
A longed-for baby An unthinkable decision A deadly mistake
In an all-too-possible near future, when genetic engineering has become the norm for humans, not just crops, parents are prepared to take incalculable risks to ensure that their babies are perfect … altering genes that may cause illness, and more…
Susan has been trying for a baby for years, and when an impulsive one-night stand makes her dream come true, she’ll do anything to keep her daughter and ensure her husband doesn’t find out … including the unthinkable. She believes her secret is safe. For now.
But as governments embark on a perilous genetic arms race and children around the globe start experiencing a host of distressing symptoms – even taking their own lives – something truly horrendous is unleashed. Because those children have only one thing in common, and people are starting to ask questions…
Bestselling author of The Waiting Rooms, Eve Smith returns with an authentic, startlingly thought-provoking, disturbing blockbuster of a thriller that provides a chilling glimpse of a future that’s just one modification away…
Published: February 17th Publisher: Harper Voyager Genre: Historical Fiction, Historical Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction, Fairy Tale, Romantic Fantasy, Coming-of-Age Story
SYNOPSIS: Brimming with romance, betrayal, and enchantment, The Embroidered Book reveals and reimagines a dazzling period of history as you have never seen it before.
‘Power is not something you are given. Power is something you take. When you are a woman, it is a little more difficult, that’s all’
1768. Charlotte, daughter of the Habsburg Empress, arrives in Naples to marry a man she has never met. Her sister Antoine is sent to France, and in the mirrored corridors of Versailles they rename her Marie Antoinette.
The sisters are alone, but they are not powerless. When they were only children, they discovered a book of spells – spells that work, with dark and unpredictable consequences.
In a time of vicious court politics, of discovery and dizzying change, they use the book to take control of their lives.
But every spell requires a sacrifice. And as love between the sisters turns to rivalry, they will send Europe spiralling into revolution.
Published: February 17th Publisher: Manilla Press Genre: Gothic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Historical Fantasy
SYNOPSIS: The luminous debut adult novel from the Waterstones Prize Winner, perfect for fans of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, The Essex Serpent and The Doll Factory
In an age defined by men, it will take something extraordinary to show four women who they truly are . . .
October 1840. A young woman staggers alone through a forest in Shropshire as a huge pair of impossible wings rip themselves from her shoulders.
Meanwhile, when rumours of a ‘fallen angel’ cause a frenzy across London, a surgeon desperate for fame and fortune finds himself in the grip of a dangerous obsession, one that will place the women he seeks in the most terrible danger . . .
THE GIFTS is the astonishing debut adult novel from the lauded author of BEARMOUTH. A gripping and ambitious book told through five different perspectives and set against the luminous backdrop of nineteenth century London, it explores science, nature and religion, enlightenment, the role of women in society and the dark danger of ambition.
Published: February 17th Publisher: Michael Joseph Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Adventure Fiction
SYNOPSIS: IT’S ICE COLD. YOU’RE MILES FROM HELP. AND ONE OF YOU WILL BE NEXT . . .
When struggling journalist Cecily Wong is invited to join an expedition to climb one of the world’s tallest mountains, it seems like the chance of a lifetime.
She doesn’t realise how deadly the climb will be.
As their small team starts to climb, things start to go wrong. There’s a theft. Then an accident. Then a mysterious note, pinned to her tent: there’s a murderer on the mountain.
The higher they get, the more dangerous the climb becomes, and the more they need to trust one another.
Published: February 17th Publisher: Michael Joseph Genre: Contemporary Romance, Domestic Ficiton
SYNOPSIS: Twenty-five years after the iconic, 1.5 million-copy bestseller Rachel’s Holiday burst into our lives, Rachel’s BACK!
Pre-order Marian Keyes’ hilarious, heart-warming sequel, Again, Rachel, NOW.
Back in the long ago nineties, Rachel Walsh was a mess.
But a spell in rehab transformed everything. Life became very good, very quickly. These days, Rachel has love, family, a great job as an addiction counsellor, she even gardens. Her only bad habit is a fondness for expensive trainers.
But with the sudden reappearance of a man she’d once loved, her life wobbles.
She’d thought she was settled. Fixed forever. Is she about to discover that no matter what our age, everything can change?
Published: February 17th Publisher: Headline Review Genre: Historical Fiction, Legal Story
SYNOPSIS: ‘I am not my husband. I am innocent. Do you believe me?’
The beautiful, enigmatic wife of a feared dictator stands trial for her late husband’s crimes against the people. The world will finally know the truth. But whose?
__________
WOMAN I learned early in life how to survive. A skill that became vital in my position.
WIFE I was given no power, yet I was expected to hold my own with the most powerful man in the country.
MOTHER OF THE NATION My people were my children. I stood between him and them.
I am not the person they say I am. I am not my husband. I am innocent. Do you believe me?
Visceral and thought provoking, haunting and heartbreaking, The Dictator’s Wife will hold you in its grip until its powerful conclusion and keep you turning the pages long into the night.
A Good Day to Die (Pretty Boy Thriller Bool 1) by Amen Alogne
Published: February 17th Publisher: Quercus Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Crime Series
SYNOPSIS: Meet Pretty Boy. Vengeance is on his mind.
His real name: Unknown
His code of conduct: Don’t be a pawn in someone else’s game. Never underestimate the enemy. Above all, survive. There is no glory in death.
His mission: It’s been ten years since Pretty Boy left the big city – today he’s back. No one knows why, but it’s clear that revenge is on his mind: he is determined to make the person responsible for his exile from the London scene finally pay. But his plans seem derailed when he takes possession of a bracelet, unaware that its original owner has set a high price for its safe return. Suddenly, the hunter becomes the hunted and Pretty Boy will have to find out if it is indeed a ‘good day to die’.
Jam-packed with action, an unforgettable cast of characters and peppered with dry humour, A Good Day to Die marks the arrival of a fresh and exciting new voice in thriller writing.
SYNOPSIS: Deep in the French countryside, inside the walls of a family chateau, a remarkable legacy awaits . . .
From the international bestselling author comes an escapist, glamorous tale spanning generations & sweeping from Burgundy to Greece and beyond . . .
ONE FAMILY THREE GENERATIONS SOME SECRETS NEVER DIE . . .
Elise would do anything to inherit Sainte Madeleine, the vineyard that’s been home to the Salignacs for generations. Only Laurent Senard, a distant cousin, is a rival for her heart – yet when a family rift sends her on a new and dangerous path, she risks losing them both . . .
Alexandre, Elise’s brother, can’t bear to see their capricious father put the vineyard – and Alex’s birthright – in jeopardy. He leaves to carve out his own fortune in the rich hills of Napa, California. But will turning his back on the chateau be his biggest mistake?
Laurent Senard’s love for Elise was planted at Sainte Madeleine long ago. But with the shadow of war sweeping over Europe, Laurent must leave France to fight. Through the years of longing, secrecy and tragedy that follow, he vows to find his way back – if only it isn’t too late . . .
Sweeping through the 1920s to WWII and beyond, this is the story of the Salignac family – the loves that bind them, the secrets that threaten to divide them, and the chateau that will always call them home.
Published: February 22nd Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Genre: Fantasy Fiction, Fairy Tale, Myth and Legend
SYNOPSIS: Don’t chase fate. Let fate chase you.
For generations, deadly storms have ravaged Mina’s homeland. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curse them with death and despair. To appease him, each year a maiden is thrown into the sea, in the hopes that one day the ‘true bride’ will be chosen and end the suffering.
Many believe Shim Cheong – Mina’s brother’s beloved – to be the legendary true bride. But on the night Cheong is sacrificed, Mina’s brother follows her, even knowing that to interfere is a death sentence. To save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water in Cheong’s stead.
Swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts, Mina finds the Sea God, trapped in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man and a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits, Mina sets out to wake him and bring an end to the storms once and for all.
But she doesn’t have much time: a human cannot live long in the land of the spirits. And there are those who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking . . .
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is a magical feminist retelling of a classic Korean legend, perfect for fans of Uprooted and Miyazaki’s SpiritedAway.
Published: February 22nd Publisher: Roaring Brook Press Genre: Historical Fiction, Young Adult Fiction
SYNOPSIS: From debut author Carolyn Tara O’Neil comes a thrilling alternate history set during the Russian Revolution.
Russia, 1918: With the execution of Tsar Nicholas, the empire crumbles and Russia is on the edge of civil war–the poor are devouring the rich. Anna, a bourgeois girl, narrowly escaped the massacre of her entire family in Yekaterinburg. Desperate to get away from the Bolsheviks, she offers a peasant girl a diamond to take her as far south as possible–not realizing that the girl is a communist herself. With her brother in desperate need of a doctor, Evgenia accepts Anna’s offer and suddenly finds herself on the wrong side of the war.
Anna is being hunted by the Bolsheviks, and now–regardless of her loyalties–Evgenia is too.
Daughters of a Dead Empire is a harrowing historical thriller about dangerous ideals, inequality, and the price we pay for change. An imaginative retelling of the Anastasia story.
A nightmare jolts Debs awake. She leaves the kids tucked up in their beds and goes downstairs. There’s a man in her kitchen, holding a knife. But it’s not an intruder. This is her husband Marc, the father of her children. A man she no longer recognises.
Once their differences were what drew them together, what turned them on. Him, the ex-army officer from a good family. Her, the fitness instructor who grew up over a pub. But now these differences grate to the point of drawing blood. Marc screams in his sleep. And Debs hardly knows the person she’s become, or why she lets him hurt her.
Neither of them is completely innocent. Neither is totally guilty. Marc is taller, stronger, and more vicious, haunted by a war he can’t forget. But he has no idea what Debs is capable of when her children’s lives are at stake…
A powerful exploration of a relationship built on passion, poisoned by secrets and violence. Perfect for readers of Blood Orange and Big Little Lies.
We aren’t even out of 2021 yet, but 2022 is overflowing with so many exciting books that I have had to create three lists to share the ones I’m most anticipating: Back Again, The Debuts and Next in Series.
I’m starting by sharing my list of books by authors I love or who have already had a book published, the ones who are back again – hence the title. There are a lot of books on this list, 47 in total even after narrowing it down as much as possible. And doing that was no simple task. It took me days!
So, without further ado, here are the books I’m most looking forward to being released in 2022:
The Unravelling by Polly Crosby
SYNOPSIS: A darkly beautiful dual-timeline novel with a captivating mystery, for fans of Diane Setterfield and Kiran Millwood Hargrave
When Tartelin Brown accepts a job with the reclusive Marianne Stourbridge, she finds herself on a wild island with a mysterious history.
Tartelin is tasked with hunting butterflies for Marianne’s research. But she quickly uncovers something far more intriguing than the curious creatures that inhabit the landscape.
Because the island and Marianne share a remarkable history, and what happened all those years ago has left its scars, and some terrible secrets.
As Tartelin pieces together Marianne’s connection to the island, she must confront her own reasons for being there. Can the two women finally face up to the painful memories that bind them so tightly to the past?
Atmospheric and deeply emotional, The Unravelling is the captivating novel from the author of The Illustrated Child.
SYNOPSIS: From the author of the modern classic A Little Life, a bold, brilliant novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment, about lovers, family, loss and the elusive promise of utopia.
‘To Paradise is a transcendent, visionary novel of stunning scope and depth. A novel so layered, so rich, so relevant, so full of the joys and terrors – the pure mystery – of human life, is not only rare, it’s revolutionary.’ – Michael Cunningham
In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist’s damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him – and solve the mystery of her husband’s disappearances.
These three sections are joined in an enthralling and ingenious symphony, as recurring notes and themes deepen and enrich one another: A townhouse in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village; illness, and treatments that come at a terrible cost; wealth and squalor; the weak and the strong; race; the definition of family, and of nationhood; the dangerous righteousness of the powerful, and of revolutionaries; the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise, and the gradual realization that it can’t exist. What unites not just the characters, but these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human: Fear. Love. Shame. Need. Loneliness.
To Paradise is a fin–de–siecle novel of marvellous literary effect, but above all it is a work of emotional genius. The great power of this remarkable novel is driven by Yanagihara’s understanding of the aching desire to protect those we love – partners, lovers, children, friends, family and even our fellow citizens – and the pain that ensues when we cannot.
SYNOPSIS: It’s time to solve the murder of the century…
Forty years ago, Steven Smith found a copy of a famous children’s book by disgraced author Edith Twyford, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. Wanting to know more, he took it to his English teacher Miss Iles, not realising the chain of events that he was setting in motion. Miss Iles became convinced that the book was the key to solving a puzzle, and that a message in secret code ran through all Twyford’s novels. Then Miss Iles disappeared on a class field trip, and Steven has no memory of what happened to her.
Now, out of prison after a long stretch, Steven decides to investigate the mystery that has haunted him for decades. Was Miss Iles murdered? Was she deluded? Or was she right about the code? And is it still in use today?
Desperate to recover his memories and find out what really happened to Miss Iles, Steven revisits the people and places of his childhood. But it soon becomes clear that Edith Twyford wasn’t just a writer of forgotten children’s stories. The Twyford Code has great power, and he isn’t the only one trying to solve it…
Perfect for fans of Richard Osman, Alex Pavesi and S.J. Bennett, The Twyford Code will keep you up puzzling late into the night.
SYNOPSIS: I still dream, every night, of Polneath on fire. Smoke unravelling from an upper window, and the terrace bathed in a hectic orange light . . . Now I see that the decision I made at Polneath was the only decision of my life. Everything marred in that one dark minute.
By day, Ivy Boscawen mourns the loss of her son Tim in the Great War. But by night she mourns another boy – one whose death decades ago haunts her still.
For Ivy is sure that there is more to what happened all those years ago: the fire at the Great House, and the terrible events that came after. A truth she must uncover, if she is ever to be free.
But once you open a door to the past, can you ever truly close it again?
From the award-winning author of The Witchfinder’s Sister comes a captivating story of burning secrets and buried shame, and of the loyalty and love that rises from the ashes.
SYNOPSIS: One extraordinary woman. One hundred years of history. One unforgettable story.
Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.
Through her father’s prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses all and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling.
In a letter to someone she loves above all others, Violeta recounts devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, times of both poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy, and a life shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics. Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humour will carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.
Published January 25th by Bloomsbury Publishing. Buy here*
The Couple at the Table by Sophie Hannah
SYNOPSIS: You’re on your honeymoon at an exclusive couples-only resort.
You receive a note warning you to ‘Beware of the couple at the table nearest to yours’. At dinner that night, five other couples are present, and none of their tables is any nearer or further away than any of the others. It’s as if someone has set the scene in order to make the warning note meaningless – but why would anyone do that?
You have no idea.
You also don’t know that you’re about to be murdered, or that once you’re dead, all the evidence will suggest that no one there that night could possibly have committed the crime.
So who might be trying to warn you? And who might be about to commit the perfect impossible murder?
Published January 27th by Hodder & Stoughton. Buy here*
Em and Me by Beth Morrey
SYNOPSIS: A mother. A daughter. A secret waiting to be discovered.
‘Glorious! A wonderful book, such a joy!’ Clare Pooley
For too long – since the sudden death of her mother as a teenager, since the birth of her daughter, Em, when she was just seventeen – Delphine has been unable to let go of the past, obsessed with protecting Em and clinging to a secret that could ruin everything. She’s been living life in safe shades of grey.
The day that Delphine finally stands up for herself is the day that changes everything.
Delphine begins to remember what it’s like to want more: rediscovering her singing voice, opening herself to friendship, and reviving not only her mother’s roots, but her mother’s memories. As her life begins to fill with colour, can she be brave for herself and for Em? And what would happen if she finally told the truth?
A big-hearted, hopeful novel about finding second chances – and taking them.
Published February 3rd by Harper Collins. Buy here*
The Hemlock Cure by Joanne Burn
SYNOPSIS: It is 1665 and the women of Eyam keep many secrets.
Isabel Frith, the village midwife, walks a dangerous line with her herbs and remedies. There are men in the village who speak of witchcraft, and Isabel has a past to hide. So she tells nobody her fears about Wulfric, the pious, reclusive apothecary.
Mae, Wulfric’s youngest daughter, dreads her father’s rage if he discovers what she keeps from him. Like her feelings for Rafe, Isabel’s ward, or that she studies from Wulfric’s forbidden books at night.
But others have secrets too. Secrets darker than any of them could have imagined.
When Mae makes a horrifying discovery, Isabel is the only person she can turn to. But helping Mae will place them both in unspeakable peril.
And meanwhile another danger is on its way from London. One that threatens to engulf them all . . .
Based on the real history of an English village during the Great Plague, The Hemlock Cure is an utterly beguiling tale of fear and ambition, betrayal, self-sacrifice and the unbreakable bond between two women.
SYNOPSIS: When a one-night stand leads to a long-desired pregnancy, Susan will do anything to ensure her husband won’t find out … including the unthinkable. But when something horrendous is unleashed around the globe, her secret isn’t the only thing that is no longer safe…
––––––––––––––––––––––––
A longed-for baby An unthinkable decision A deadly mistake
In an all-too-possible near future, when genetic engineering has become the norm for humans, not just crops, parents are prepared to take incalculable risks to ensure that their babies are perfect … altering genes that may cause illness, and more…
Susan has been trying for a baby for years, and when an impulsive one-night stand makes her dream come true, she’ll do anything to keep her daughter and ensure her husband doesn’t find out … including the unthinkable. She believes her secret is safe. For now.
But as governments embark on a perilous genetic arms race and children around the globe start experiencing a host of distressing symptoms – even taking their own lives – something truly horrendous is unleashed. Because those children have only one thing in common, and people are starting to ask questions…
Bestselling author of The Waiting Rooms, Eve Smith returns with an authentic, startlingly thought-provoking, disturbing blockbuster of a thriller that provides a chilling glimpse of a future that’s just one modification away…
SYNOPSIS: IT’S ICE COLD. YOU’RE MILES FROM HELP. AND ONE OF YOU WILL BE NEXT . . . Pre-order next year’s most gripping thriller now, and ensure you’re the first to read the book that everyone will be talking about
‘A high-altitude, high-stakes thriller that combines fascinating, authentic mountaineering experience with pure thriller entertainment. I loved it’ MATT HAIG, Sunday Times bestselling author of THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY ________
When struggling journalist Cecily Wong is invited to join an expedition to climb one of the world’s tallest mountains, it seems like the chance of a lifetime.
She doesn’t realise how deadly the climb will be.
As their small team starts to climb, things start to go wrong. There’s a theft. Then an accident. Then a mysterious note, pinned to her tent: there’s a murderer on the mountain.
The higher they get, the more dangerous the climb becomes, and the more they need to trust one another.
And that’s when Cecily finds the first body . . .
Published February 17th by Michael Joseph. Buy here*
The Gifts by Liz Hyder
SYNOPSIS: The luminous debut adult novel from the Waterstones Prize Winner, perfect for fans of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, The Essex Serpent and The Doll Factory
In an age defined by men, it will take something extraordinary to show four women who they truly are . . .
October 1840. A young woman staggers alone through a forest in Shropshire as a huge pair of impossible wings rip themselves from her shoulders.
Meanwhile, when rumours of a ‘fallen angel’ cause a frenzy across London, a surgeon desperate for fame and fortune finds himself in the grip of a dangerous obsession, one that will place the women he seeks in the most terrible danger . . .
THE GIFTS is the astonishing debut adult novel from the lauded author of BEARMOUTH. A gripping and ambitious book told through five different perspectives and set against the luminous backdrop of nineteenth century London, it explores science, nature and religion, enlightenment, the role of women in society and the dark danger of ambition.
Published February 17th by Manilla Press. Buy here*
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh
SYNOPSIS: Deadly storms. An ancient curse. Will her sacrifice save them all?
For generations, deadly storms have ravaged Mina’s homeland. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curse them with death and despair. To appease him, each year a maiden is thrown into the sea, in the hopes that one day the ‘true bride’ will be chosen and end the suffering.
Many believe Shim Cheong – Mina’s brother’s beloved – to be the legendary true bride. But on the night Cheong is sacrificed, Mina’s brother follows her, even knowing that to interfere is a death sentence. To save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water in Cheong’s stead.
Swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts, Mina finds the Sea God, trapped in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man and a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits, Mina sets out to wake him and bring an end to the storms once and for all.
But she doesn’t have much time: a human cannot live long in the land of the spirits. And there are those who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking . . .
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is a magical feminist retelling of a classic Korean legend, perfect for fans of Uprooted and Miyazaki’s SpiritedAway.
Published February 22nd by Hodder & Stoughton. Buy here*
Nasty Little Cuts by Tina Baker
SYNOPSIS: WHO WILL SURVIVE THE NIGHT?
A nightmare jolts Debs awake. She leaves the kids tucked up in their beds and goes downstairs. There’s a man in her kitchen, holding a knife. But it’s not an intruder. This is her husband Marc, the father of her children. A man she no longer recognises.
Once their differences were what drew them together, what turned them on. Him, the ex-army officer from a good family. Her, the fitness instructor who grew up over a pub. But now these differences grate to the point of drawing blood. Marc screams in his sleep. And Debs hardly knows the person she’s become, or why she lets him hurt her.
Neither of them is completely innocent. Neither is totally guilty. Marc is taller, stronger, and more vicious, haunted by a war he can’t forget. But he has no idea what Debs is capable of when her children’s lives are at stake…
A powerful exploration of a relationship built on passion, poisoned by secrets and violence. Perfect for readers of Blood Orange and Big Little Lies.
In the midst of an icy winter, as birds fall frozen from the sky, chambermaid Madeleine Chastel arrives at the home of the city’s celebrated clockmaker and his clever, unworldly daughter.
Madeleine is hiding a dark past, and a dangerous purpose: to discover the truth of the clockmaker’s experiments and record his every move, in exchange for her own chance of freedom.
For as children quietly vanish from the Parisian streets, rumours are swirling that the clockmaker’s intricate mechanical creations, bejewelled birds and silver spiders, are more than they seem.
And soon Madeleine fears that she has stumbled upon an even greater conspiracy. One which might reach to the very heart of Versailles…
A intoxicating story of obsession, illusion and the price of freedom.
SYNOPSIS: Part ghost story, part novel of suspense The Marsh House is the haunting second novel from the author of The Night of the Flood where two women, separated by decades, are drawn together by one, mysterious house on the North Norfolk coast.
December, 1962. Desperate to create a happy Christmas for her young daughter, Franny, after a disastrous year, Malorie rents a remote house on the Norfolk coast. But once there, the strained silence between them feels louder than ever. As Malorie digs for decorations in the attic, she comes across the notebooks of the teenaged Rosemary, who lived in the house thirty years before. Trapped inside by a blizzard, and with long days and nights ahead of her, Malorie begins to read. Though she knows she needs to focus on the present, she finds herself inexorably drawn into the past…
July, 1931. Rosemary lives in the Marsh House with her austere father, surrounded by unspoken truths and rumours. So when the glamorous Lafferty family move to the village, she succumbs easily to their charm. Dazzled by the beautiful Hilda and her dashing brother, Franklin, Rosemary fails to see the danger that lurks beneath their bright façades…
As Malorie reads Rosemary’s diary, past and present begin to merge in this moving story of mothers and daughters, family obligation and deeply buried secrets.
SYNOPSIS: You can’t escape the desert. You can’t escape Sundial.
Rob fears for her daughters. For Callie, who collects tiny bones and whispers to imaginary friends. For Annie, because she fears what Callie might do to her. Rob sees a darkness in Callie, one that reminds her of the family she left behind. She decides to take Callie back to her childhood home, to Sundial, deep in the Mojave Desert. And there she will have to make a terrible choice.
Callie is afraid of her mother. Rob has begun to look at her strangely. To tell her secrets about her past that both disturb and excite her. And Callie is beginning to wonder if only one of them will leave Sundial alive…
From the bestselling author of The Last House on Needless Street comes a stunning thriller exploring the toxicity of the mother-daughter bond, and the power of the past to twist the present.
SYNOPSIS: An immersive and compelling novel that explores the struggle by two women, divided across centuries, for control over their lives, set against a beautiful historical backdrop.
‘An echo of Daphne du Maurier’ Independent
Yorkshire, 1890. Having lost her father and brothers in tragic circumstances, Olwen Malkon is forced to leave her childhood home to live with her uncle’s family. In his chill vicarage, however, she fears that she is also losing her mind, as strange dreams take her into the life of Ælfwyn, a woman from a distant past whose fate is overshadowed by menace and betrayal.
In the grip of these afflictions, Olwen finds sympathy with the local doctor, John Osbourne, who is intrigued by her case. Suspecting darker undercurrents are at work, John comes into conflict with Olwen’s family, who dismiss her as a hysteric and, when he seeks to protect her, with the law.
As the dreams intensify, danger awaits them both. But when they begin to mirror reality, she and John start to suspect that it is these visions of the past which hold the answers . . .
Published March 17th by Hodder & Stoughton. Buy here*
First Born by Will Dean
SYNOPSIS: THE LAST THING A TWIN EXPECTS IS TO BE ALONE … Molly lives a quiet, contained life in London. Naturally risk averse, she gains comfort from security and structure. Every day the same.
Her identical twin Katie is her exact opposite: gregarious and spontaneous. They used to be inseparable, until Katie moved to New York a year ago. Molly still speaks to her daily without fail.
But when Molly learns that Katie has died suddenly in New York, she is thrown into unfamiliar territory. Katie is part of her DNA. As terrifying as it is, she must go there and find out what happened. As she tracks her twin’s last movements, cracks begin to emerge. Nothing is what it seems. And a web of deceit is closing around her.
Delivering the same intensity of pace and storytelling that made THE LAST THING TO BURN a word-of-mouth sensation, FIRST BORN will surprise, shock and enthral.
Published April 14th by Hodder & Stoughton. Buy here*
Into the Dark by Fiona Cummins
SYNOPSIS: Into the Dark is the new dark and gripping crime thriller from Fiona Cummins about revenge, greed, ambition and the true cost of friendship.
THE PLACE: Seawings, a beautiful Art Deco home overlooking the sweep of the bay in Midtown-on-Sea.
THE CRIME: The gilded Holden family – Piper and Gray and their two teenage children, Riva and Artie – has vanished from the house without a trace.
THE DETECTIVE: DS Saul Anguish, brilliant but with a dark past, treads the narrow line between light and shade.
One late autumn morning, Piper’s best friend arrives at Seawings to discover an eerie scene – the kettle is still warm, all the family’s phones are charging on the worktop, the cars are in the garage. But the house is deserted.
In fifteen-year-old Riva Holden’s bedroom, scrawled across the mirror in blood, are three words:
SYNOPSIS: An exciting and equally lyrical new retelling from Jennifer Saint, the Sunday Times bestselling author of ARIADNE ‘Saint’s immersive novel thrusts the reader straight into the heart of Greek mythology’ ipaper on Ariadne
The House of Atreus is cursed. A bloodline tainted by a generational cycle of violence and vengeance. This is the story of three women, their fates inextricably tied to this curse, and the fickle nature of men and gods.
Clytemnestra The sister of Helen, wife of Agamemnon – her hopes of averting the curse are dashed when her sister is taken to Troy by the feckless Paris. Her husband raises a great army against them and determines to win, whatever the cost.
Cassandra Princess of Troy, and cursed by Apollo to see the future but never to be believed when she speaks of it. She is powerless in her knowledge that the city will fall.
Elektra The youngest daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, Elektra is horrified by the bloodletting of her kin. But can she escape the curse, or is her own destiny also bound by violence?
SYNOPSIS: The funny, heart-breaking and uplifting new novel from the bestselling author of The Flatshare
Three women. Three dates. One missing man…
8.52 a.m. Siobhan is looking forward to her breakfast date with Joseph. She was surprised when he suggested it – she normally sees him late at night in her hotel room. Breakfast on Valentine’s Day surely means something … so where is he?
2.43 p.m. Miranda’s hoping that a Valentine’s Day lunch with Carter will be the perfect way to celebrate her new job. It’s a fresh start and a sign that her life is falling into place: she’s been dating Carter for five months now and things are getting serious. But why hasn’t he shown up?
6.30 p.m. Joseph Carter agreed to be Jane’s fake boyfriend at an engagement party. They’ve not known each other long but their friendship is fast becoming the brightest part of her new life in Winchester. Joseph promised to save Jane tonight. But he’s not here…
Meet Joseph Carter. That is, if you can find him.
The No-Show is the brilliantly funny, heart-breaking and joyful new novel from Beth O’Leary about dating, and waiting, and the ways love can find us. An utterly extraordinary tearjerker of a book, this is O’Leary’s most ambitious novel yet.
When half-sisters Kat, Flora and Lauren are unexpectedly summoned to Rock Point, the remote Cornish house where they spent their childhood summers, it is the first time they have been there together since their artist father painted them in the celebrated Girls and Birdcage.
Since then they have drifted apart into wildly different lives, each one determined to forget the fateful summer of twenty years ago.
But when they arrive at Rock Point it is clear they are not alone.
Someone is lurking in the shadows, watching their every move. Someone who remembers what they did, and has been waiting for their return.
As the events of that summer rise closer to the surface, will the three sisters escape unscathed for a second time? Or are some secrets too powerful to remain under lock and key?
An emotional mystery full of dark secrets and twists, transporting the reader to the rugged remote landscape of north Cornwall.
SYNOPSIS: From the author of This Lovely City comes a new historical murder mystery, this time set on board the Queen Mary
London, 1936
Lena Aldridge is wondering if life has passed her by. The dazzling theatre career she hoped for hasn’t worked out. Instead, she’s stuck singing in a sticky-floored basement club in Soho and her married lover has just left her. She has nothing to look forward to until a stranger offers her the chance of a lifetime: a starring role on Broadway and a first-class ticket on the Queen Mary bound for New York.
After a murder at the club, the timing couldn’t be better and Lena jumps at the chance to escape England. Until death follows her onto the ship and she realises that her greatest performance has already begun.
Because someone is making manoeuvres behind the scenes, and there’s only one thing on their mind…
MURDER
Miss Aldridge Regrets is the exquisite new novel from Louise Hare, the author of This Lovely City. A brilliant murder mystery, it also explores class, race and pre-WWII politics, and will leave readers reeling from the beauty and power of it.
SYNOPSIS: A dark house filled with darker secrets…
Winter 1954, and in a dilapidated apartment in Brooklyn, Sam Cooper realises that she has nothing left. Her mother is dead, she has no prospects, and she cannot afford the rent. But as she goes through her mother’s things, Sam finds a stack of hidden letters that reveal a family and an inheritance that she never knew she had, three thousand miles away in Yorkshire.
Begars Abbey is a crumbling pile, inhabited only by Sam’s crippled grandmother, Lady Cooper, a housekeeper and a handful of servants. Sam cannot understand why her mother kept its very existence a secret, but her diaries offer a glimpse of a young girl growing increasingly terrified. As is Sam herself.
Built on the foundations of an old convent, Begars moves and sings with the biting wind. Her grandmother cannot speak, and a shadowy woman moves along the corridors at night. For there are dark places in the hidden tunnels beneath Begars. And they will not give up their secrets easily…
Perfect for readers of Laura Purcell and Natasha Pulley, Begars Abbey will keep you up at night.
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.
SYNOPSIS: ‘Shot through with spirit and hope, it’s one hell of a book’ Stylist, Books You Can’t Miss in 2022
A nurse at the Family Planning Clinic in Montgomery Alabama, Civil Townsend is passionate about putting choice into women’s hands. She brings the option of birth control to their doorsteps, and with it the right to determine their own destinies. Or so she believes.
When she is assigned to administer birth control to two school-age Black girls, the Williams sisters, who live off an old unpaved road in a shack without running water, Civil can’t help but feel uneasy. She grows close to the family and becomes fiercely invested in their well-being. And then she makes a shocking discovery: the girls have been involuntarily sterilized. Civil is horrified that such a terrible mistake could have taken place, and vows to get to the bottom of it. She soon learns that this is no isolated event but a pattern, far more serious than she could ever have imagined, targeting poor Black women. Could her clinic be responsible? Had she and her fellow Black nurses been complicit? No matter how ugly, Civil is determined for the truth to be brought to light.
Based on true events, Take My Hand brims with hope, compassion, and the burning pursuit of justice.
SYNOPSIS: In Strasbourg, in the boiling hot summer of 1518, a plague strikes the women of the city. First it is just one – a lone figure, dancing in the main square – but she is joined by more and more and the city authorities declare an emergency. Musicians will be brought in. The devil will be danced 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. Her best friend Ida visits regularly and Lisbet is so looking forward to sharing life and motherhood with her. And then, just as the first woman begins to dance in the city, Lisbet’s sister-in-law Nethe returns from six years’ penance in the mountains for an unknown crime. No one – not even Ida – will tell Lisbet what Nethe did all those years ago, and Nethe herself will not speak a word about it.
It is the beginning of a few weeks that will change everything for Lisbet – her understanding of what it is to love and be loved, and her determination to survive at all costs for the baby she is carrying. Lisbet and Nethe and Ida soon find themselves pushing at the boundaries of their existence – but they’re dancing to a dangerous tune . . .
From Kiran Millwood Hargrave, the bestselling author of The Mercies, The Dance Tree is a heart-stopping story of family secrets, forbidden love and women pushed to the edge.
SYNOPSIS: My son has been taken. And I’ve been given a choice… Kill a patient on the operating table. Or never see him 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
Published May 26th by Simon and Schuster. Buy here*
Madwoman by Louisa Treger
SYNOPSIS: In 1887 young Nellie Bly sets out for New York and a career in journalism, determined to make her way as a serious reporter, whatever that may take.
But life in the city is tougher than she imagined. Down to her last dime and desperate to prove her worth, she comes up with a dangerous plan: to fake insanity and have herself committed to the asylum that looms on Blackwell’s Island. There, she will work undercover to document – and expose – the wretched conditions faced by the patients.
But when the asylum door swings shut behind her, she finds herself in a place of horrors, governed by a harshness and cruelty she could never have imagined. Cold, isolated and starving, her days of terror reawaken the traumatic events of her childhood. She entered the asylum of her own free will – but will she ever get out?
An extraordinary portrait of a woman way ahead of her time, Madwoman is the story of a quest for the truth that changed the world.
SYNOPSIS: He thinks it’s fate. She set the whole thing up.
Mara wants to believe in fate – she’s just never had a good reason to. Until now…
After a case of mistaken identity, and the appearance of Joe – a gorgeous Austrian cellist – Mara has the chance to set up her own destiny. But life is complicated… The lido where she works is under threat and her new housemate, Mike, proves to be more than she bargained for.
Will Mara manage to arrange her own happiness? And what if true love is closer to home than she thinks?
SYNOPSIS: There’s a darkness inside all of us and The Bay has a way of bringing it out. Everyone here has their secrets but we don’t go looking for them. Because sometimes it’s better not to know.
The waves are to die for at The Bay. It’s a paradise they would kill to keep. The Beach meets Point Break in the thriller of the summer by Allie Reynolds.
Kenna arrives in Sydney to surprise her best friend, shocked to hear she’s going to marry a guy she’s only just met. But Mikki and her fiancé Jack are about to head away on a trip, so Kenna finds herself tagging along for the ride.
Sorrow Bay is beautiful, wild and dangerous. A remote surfing spot with waves to die for, cut off from the rest of the world. Here Kenna meets the mysterious group of people who will do anything to keep their paradise a secret. Sky, Ryan, Clemente and Victor have come to ride the waves and disappear from life. How will they feel about Kenna turning up unannounced?
As Kenna gets drawn into their world, she sees the extremes they are prepared to go to for the next thrill. And everyone seems to be hiding something. What has her best friend got involved in and how can she get her away? But one thing is rapidly becoming clear about The Bay: nobody ever leaves.
SYNOPSIS: KEEP YOUR FAMILY SAFE. WHATEVER THE COST…
Jamie and Victoria are expecting their first baby.
With a few weeks to go, they head off for a final weekend break in a remote part of the North Pennines. The small and peaceful guesthouse is the ideal location to unwind together before becoming parents. Upon arrival, they are greeted by Barry and Fiona, the older couple who run the guesthouse. They cook them dinner and show them to their room before retreating to bed themselves.
The next morning, Jamie and Victoria wake to find the house deserted. Barry and Fiona are nowhere to be seen. All the doors are locked. Both their mobile phones and car keys have disappeared. Even though it’s a few weeks early, Victoria knows the contractions are starting.
The baby is coming, and there’s no way out.
Published June 23rd by Orion. Buy here*
The Guilty Couple by C.L. Taylor
SYNOPSIS: The Sunday Times and million copy bestseller returns with her most pulse-pounding, page-turning book yet.
Five years ago, Olivia Sutherland was wrongfully convicted of plotting to murder her husband.
Now she’s finally free, Olivia has three goals: repair her relationship with her teenage daughter, clear her name, and bring down her husband – the man who framed her.
Just how far is she willing to go to get what she wants? And how far will her husband go to stop her? Because his lies run deeper than Olivia could ever have imagined – and this time it’s not her freedom that’s in jeopardy, but her life…
SYNOPSIS: Inspired by a box of mementos found abandoned in a skip following a house clearance, The Museum of Ordinary People is a poignant, thought-provoking but ultimately uplifting story of memory and love, grief, loss and the things we leave behind. It is another brilliant novel from an author who seems to have the absolute knack of writing topical, engaging, heartwarming stories which really connect with readers.
Published July 7th by Hodder & Stoughton. Buy here*
My Other Husband by Dorothy Koomson
SYNOPSIS: What if your murderous fantasies start to come true?
Someone is trying to frame me for murder.
They’re hurting people in the ways I write about – and making sure I’m the prime suspect.
I think I know why.
But I can’t tell the police or even use my rock-solid alibi . . .
Because then I’d have to confess about my other husband.
A series of terrifying murders. A set of complex lies.
And a woman with no way to clear her name.
My Other Husband is the latest gripping thriller from the Queen of The Big Reveal.
SYNOPSIS: 12-year-old Sophie and her mother, Amelia-Rose, move to London from Massachusetts where they meet the charismatic Matty Melgren, who quickly becomes an intrinsic part of their lives. But as the relationship between the two adults fractures, a serial killer begins targeting young women with a striking resemblance to Amelia-Rose.
When Matty is eventually sent down for multiple murders, questions remain as to his guilt — questions which ultimately destroy both women. Nearly twenty years later, Sophie receives a letter from Battlemouth Prison informing her Matty is dying and wants to meet. It looks like Sophie might finally get the answers she craves. But will the truth set her free — or bury her deeper?
SYNOPSIS: Things We Do in the Dark is a brilliant new thriller from Jennifer Hillier, the award-winning author of the breakout novels Little Secrets and Jar of Hearts. Paris Peralta is suspected of killing her celebrity husband, and her long-hidden past now threatens to destroy her future.
When Paris Peralta is arrested in her own bathroom–covered in blood, holding a straight razor, her celebrity husband dead in the bathtub behind her–she knows she’ll be charged with murder. But as bad as this looks, it’s not what worries her the most. With the unwanted media attention now surrounding her, it’s only a matter of time before someone from her long hidden past recognizes her and destroys the new life she’s worked so hard to build, along with any chance of a future.
Twenty-five years earlier, Ruby Reyes, known as the Ice Queen, was convicted of a similar murder in a trial that riveted Canada in the early nineties. Reyes knows who Paris really is, and when she’s unexpectedly released from prison, she threatens to expose all of Paris’s secrets. Left with no other choice, Paris must finally confront the dark past she escaped, once and for all.
Because the only thing worse than a murder charge are two murder charges.
SYNOPSIS: Most are here to recharge and refresh. But someone’s here for revenge . . .
The addictive new thriller from the global bestselling author of The Sanatorium. ___________________________________
An eco-wellness retreat has opened on an island off the coast of Devon, promising rest and relaxation – but the island itself, known locally as Reaper’s Rock, has a dark past. Once the playground of a serial killer, it’s rumoured to be cursed. DS Elin Warner is called to the retreat when a young woman’s body is found on the rocks below the yoga pavilion, in what seems to be a tragic fall. But the victim wasn’t a guest – she wasn’t meant to be on the island at all.
When a man drowns in a diving incident the following day, Elin starts to suspect that there’s nothing accidental about these deaths. But why would someone target the retreat – and who else is in danger?
Elin must find the killer – before the island’s history starts to repeat itself . . .
SYNOPSIS: It’s usual, they say, for a young person coming to London for the first time to arrive with a head full of dreams. Well, Endurance Proudfoot did not. When she stepped off the coach from Sussex, on a warm and sticky afternoon in the summer of 1757, it never occurred to her that the city would be the place where she’d make her fortune; she was just very annoyed to be arriving there at all.
Meet Endurance Proudfoot, the bonesetter’s daughter: clumsy as a carthorse, with a tactless tongue and a face she’s sure only a mother could love. Durie only wants one thing in life – to follow her father and grandfather into the family business of bonesetting. It’s a physically demanding job, requiring strength, nerves of steel and discretion – and not the job for a woman.
But Durie isn’t like other women. She’s strong and stubborn and determined to get her own way. And she finds that she has a talent at bonesetting – her big hands and lack of grace have finally found their natural calling.
So, when she is banished to London with her sister, who is pretty, delicate and exactly the opposite to Durie in every way, Durie will not let it stop her realising her dreams. And while her sister will become one of the first ever Georgian celebrities, Durie will become England’s first and most celebrated female bonesetter. But what goes up must come down, and Durie’s elevated status may well become her undoing…
Published August 4th by Simon and Schuster. Buy here*
The Last Party by Clare Macintosh
SYNOPSIS: On New Year’s Eve, Rhys Lloyd has a house full of guests.
His lakeside holiday homes are a success, and he’s generously invited the village to drink champagne with their wealthy new neighbours. This will be the party to end all parties.
But not everyone is there to celebrate. By midnight, Rhys will be floating dead in the freezing waters of the lake.
On New Year’s Day, DC Ffion Morgan has a village full of suspects.
The tiny community is her home, so the suspects are her neighbours, friends and family – and Ffion has her own secrets to protect.
With a lie uncovered at every turn, soon the question isn’t who wanted Rhys dead . . . but who finally killed him.
In a village with this many secrets, a murder is just the beginning.
SYNOPSIS: Daisy Darker is an all-consuming tale of psychological suspense with a spectacular twist from the internationally bestselling author Alice Feeney Daisy Darker’s family were as dark as dark can be, when one of them died all of them lied and pretended not to see . . .
Daisy Darker is arriving at her grandmother’s house for her eightieth birthday. It is Halloween, and Seaglass – the crumbling Cornish house perched upon its own tiny private island – is at one with the granite rocks it sits on. The Darker family haven’t all been in the same place for over a decade, and when the tide comes in they’ll be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours. When the tide goes back out, nothing will ever be the same again, because one of them is a killer . . .
SYNOPSIS: From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a gripping tale of obsession, superstition and ambition, set against the atmospheric backdrop of Victorian London. Be careful what you wish for… it may just come true.
By the pricking of my thumbs…
At The Mercury Theatre in London’s West End, rumours are circulating of a curse.
It is said that the lead actress Lilith has made a pact with Melpomene, the tragic muse of Greek mythology, to become the greatest actress to ever grace the stage. Suspicious of Lilith, the jealous wife of the theatre owner sends dresser Jenny to spy on her, and desperate for the money to help her family, Jenny agrees.
What Jenny finds is a woman as astonishing in her performance as she is provocative in nature. On stage, it’s as though Lilith is possessed by the characters she plays, yet off stage she is as tragic as the Muse who inspires her, and Jenny, sorry for her, befriends the troubled actress. But when strange events begin to take place around the theatre, Jenny wonders if the rumours are true, and fears that when the Muse comes calling for payment, the cost will be too high.
SYNOPSIS: When Libby Nicholls arrives in London, broken-hearted and with her life in tatters, the first person she meets on the bus is elderly pensioner Frank. He tells her about the time in 1962 he met a girl on the number 88 bus with beautiful red hair just like her own. They made plans for a date at the National Gallery, but Frank lost the ticket with her number written on it. For the past sixty years, he’s ridden the same bus trying to find her.
Libby is inspired by the story and, with the help of an unlikely companion, she makes it her mission to help Frank’s search. As she begins to open her guarded heart to strangers and new connections, Libby’s tightly controlled world expands. But with Frank’s dementia progressing quickly, their chance of finding the girl on the number 88 bus is slipping away.
More than anything, Libby wants Frank to see his lost love one more time. But their quest also shows Libby just how important it is to embrace her own chances for happiness – before it’s too late.
A beautifully uplifting novel about how one chance meeting can change the course of your life
I can’t quite believe that 2020 is over! It’s been a strange year and I think we’re all hoping that 2021 brings better things and that we can soon get back to a new normal.
It was my second full year of blogging and once again I read more than I had even hoped to. I had set my Goodreads challenge at 120 and managed to read 177. That’s 27 more than in 2019.
As you can probably imagine, reading so many books made putting together my favourite twenty books of the year a difficult task. That last spot in particular had four other books that I really wanted to include and it was a real struggle to know which should make the final spot.
Here is my list in the order that I read the books:
The Last House On Needless Street by Catriona Ward
Out of the final twenty, sixteen are by new to me authors, nine of them debuts. I found that 2020 was a strong year in terms of fantastic debuts, with others such as The Phone Box at the Edge of the World, Pine, The Memory Wood, The Wreckage, The Holdout, If I Can’t Have You, Dear Child, The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon, Shiver, The Push and The Thursday Murder Club standing out in particular.
So what almost made it? Contenders for this list included Three Hours, Pine, The Memory Wood, In Five Years, The Phone Box at the Edge of the World, If I Could Say Goodbye, The Push, Strangers, Dear Child, The Ice Cream Girls, All My Lies Are True and The Thursday Murder Club.
My favourite book of the year was not a difficult choice. Though there were many that were good enough to take the title, What’s Left Of Me Is Yours is the standout book of the year for me. I can honestly say that I’ve thought about this stunning debut every day since I read it in April. Do yourself a favour and read it if you haven’t already. I’m just hoping it’s not too long before I can read another book by the talented Stephanie Scott.
Did we have any of the same favourites? What was your book of the year? Let me know in the comments.
Keep an eye out for a post tomorrow with the top 20 lists of some other bloggers and which 2020 book we recommend most of all.
*Thank you to the tagged publishers for my #gifted ARCs.
Another month has passed and we’re now half way through the year. It has flown so quickly. I just hope that the rest of the year isn’t as crazy as 2020 has been so far.
June has been a fantastic reading month for me. I read fourteen books, including my first ever audio book. It was almost fifteen books read but I didn’t quite finish Nine Elms. It was a big month for reading with others for me. I took part in a buddy read with my lovely friend Beth and three readalongs with the Tandem Collective, two of which are still going on.
You can read the reviews for all of the books except for Sadie by clicking on the title. My review for Sadie will be posted in the coming week.
My BOTM was a close call again but I have to give it to A Court of Thorns and Roses. I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did and it’s opened up a whole new genre for me. That’s one of the things I love about Bookstagram though, it brings books to your attention you’d never have considered reading otherwise and it’s helped me discover a wealth of books and authors I doubt I’d have ever read without it. The other books that deserve a special mention this month are The Phone Box at the Edge of the World, The Waiting Rooms, and The Miseducation of Evie Epworth. These three outstanding novels were all contenders for my book of the month and are candidates for being in my favourite books of the year so far.
In July I have a busy month full of blog tours that I’m so excited about . I’m also looking forward to seeing what books the rest of the year brings and will be posting some of the ones I’m looking forward to most in the next few weeks.
Thank you to all the tagged publishers for the gifted copies of the books.
Emma's Biblio Treasures 