Here’s my latest list of forthcoming new fiction titles. These are titles appearing in hardback/paperback for the first time. In some cases the ebook might already be available. All titles are based on the listings found in The Bookseller, so I’m not working from a list of all titles being published.
Just a reminder I don’t see any advance copies, my choices are based on the blurb, gut instinct and what takes my fancy at the time.
(NB This post features Affiliate links from which I earn a small commission on qualifying purchases)
Index
Historical (I tend to take this as pre 1960’s ie not in my lifetime!)
Crime, Thriller & Mystery
Dohany Street by Adam Lebor
Budapest’s dark history finally catches up with Detective Balthazar Kovacs in the final instalment in Adam LeBor’s Hungarian crime trilogy.
Budapest, January 2016. The Danube is grey and half-frozen, covered with ice, and the city seems to have gone into hibernation. But not for Detective Balthazar Kovacs. Elad Harari, a young Israeli historian, has disappeared. There’s no sign of violence but something feels very wrong.
Harari was working in the archives of the city’s Jewish Museum, investigating the fate of the assets of the Hungarian Jews murdered in the Holocaust. It’s clear that his research is setting off alarm bells at one of the country’s most powerful companies.
The more Balthazar digs into the case, the more he is certain that shadowy forces are in play. Someone wants Harrari out of the picture. And the pressure is building: Budapest is preparing for a major diplomatic visit – if Harari is not found it will be cancelled.
The threats against Balthazar soon turn to violence. It’s clear that if he is to find the historian he will have to go face-to-face with some very dangerous people – and confront the darkest era in Hungary’s past.
The Lost by Simon Beckett
A MISSING CHILD
Ten years ago, the disappearance of firearms police officer Jonah Colley’s young son almost destroyed him.
A GRUESOME DISCOVERY
A plea for help from an old friend leads Jonah to Slaughter Quay, and the discovery of four bodies. Brutally attacked and left for dead, he is the only survivor.
A SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH
Under suspicion himself, he uncovers a network of secrets and lies about the people he thought he knew – forcing him to question what really happened all those years ago…
Bruno’s Challenges by Martin Walker
A bumper collection of delightful stories featuring Bruno, Chief of Police and France’s favourite cop, all set in the beautiful Dordogne valley and the ravishing Perigord region of the south west. Here is a landscape of meandering rivers with medieval castles overlooking their banks, of lush hillsides and spreading vineyards, of delicious local wines and world renowned cuisine.
With titles like ‘The Chocolate War’; ‘The Birthday Lunch’; ‘Oystercatcher’; ‘A Market Tale’ and ‘Fifty Million Bubbles’, you may be sure that champagne and gastronomy will feature as well as cosy crime in ‘Dangerous Vacation’. Bruno strides through these tales, staying calm. settling local disputes and keeping safe his beloved town of St Denis.
Only on one occasion does he panic: in ‘Bruno’s Challenge’, his friend Ivan, proprietor and chef of the town’s popular eatery, suddenly collapses on the eve of a large anniversary dinner, and he asks Bruno to take over the restaurant. After a few protests followed by some deep breaths, the inimitable Bruno meets his challenge and saves the day.
A Question of Guilt by Jorn Lier Horst
A killer caught. A murder sentence served. But did they arrest the wrong man?
_______
In 1999, seventeen-year-old Tone Vaterland was killed on her way home from work.
The police – desperate for a quick conviction – sent her embittered ex-boyfriend, Danny Momrak, down for murder.
Her family was able to grieve. The public felt justice had been done. The streets were safe again.
But twenty years later, William Wisting receives an anonymous tip:
The wrong man was convicted.
The real murderer is still at large.
Now Wisting must find the sender and catch the real killer before they strike again.
And before the investigation puts his own life in danger . . .
The Quiet People by Paul Cleave
Cameron and Lisa Murdoch are successful New Zealand crime writers, happily married and topping bestseller lists worldwide. They have been on the promotional circuit for years, joking that no one knows how to get away with crime like they do. After all, they write about it for a living.
So when their challenging seven-year-old son Zach disappears, the police and the public naturally wonder if they have finally decided to prove what they have been saying all this time…
Are they trying to show how they can commit the perfect crime?
Don’t Speak by AJ Park
THE ONE MAN SHE THOUGHT SHE COULD TRUST…
When a teenage girl is found brutally murdered, DS Amelie Davis struggles to keep her own trauma from clouding the investigation. After suffering years of abuse at the hands of her father, Amelie has only ever trusted one man – her husband Edward.
BUT HE MIGHT BE THE MOST DANGEROUS OF ALL.
In the middle of the night, she receives a phone call from an unknown number. The voice at the other end asks:
DO YOU THINK YOU KNOW YOUR HUSBAND?
Suddenly, Amelie fears Edward is not the man she thought she knew. In fact, he might just be the killer she’s been hunting…
The Lost Girls by Heather Young
A stunning novel that examines the price of loyalty, the burden of regret, the meaning of salvation, and the sacrifices we make for those we love, told in the voices of two unforgettable women linked by a decades-old family mystery at a picturesque lake house.
In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family’s vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family – her father takes his own life, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child.
Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine. For Justine, the lake house offers freedom and stability – a way to escape her manipulative boyfriend and give her daughters the home she never had. But the long Minnesota winter is just beginning. The house is cold and dilapidated. The dark, silent lake is isolated and eerie. Her only neighbor is a strange old man who seems to know more about the summer of 1935 than he’s telling.
Soon Justine’s troubled oldest daughter becomes obsessed with Emily’s disappearance, her mother arrives to steal her inheritance, and the man she left launches a dangerous plan to get her back. In a house haunted by the sorrows of the women who came before her, Justine must overcome their tragic legacy if she hopes to save herself and her children.
Nanny Dearest by Flora Collins
Sue Keller is lost. When her father dies suddenly, she’s orphaned in her mid-twenties, her mother having died long ago. Then Sue meets Annie. It’s been twenty years, but Annie could never forget that face. She was Sue’s live-in nanny at their big house upstate, and she loved Sue like she was her own.
Craving comfort and connection, Sue is only too eager to welcome Annie back into her life. But as they grow close once more, Sue begins to uncover the truth about Annie’s unsettling time in the Keller household all those years ago, and the dark secrets that bind these women together.
Split between upstate New York in the nineties and present-day Manhattan, Nanny Dearest is a darkly addictive psychological thriller of power, privilege, secrets and obsession, which will keep readers turning the pages right up to the shocking end.
General/Contemporary Fiction
The Imperfect Art of Caring by Jessica Ryn
One small act can make a big difference
Violet Strong is strong by name but not by nature, or so she thinks. She listens but never talks about herself. She’s friendly but doesn’t have many real friends. She’s become good at keeping people at a distance ever since she left home at eighteen and never looked back.
But when Violet is forced to return home to care for her estranged mother, Glenys, she quickly finds out that life as a carer isn’t easy. Feeling overwhelmed, she’s forced to turn to the other local carers, including childhood friend, Adam, for help.
Although returning home still feels like a mistake, maybe it will help Violet right some wrongs. After all, she can’t keep running from her past forever, and in learning to look after others, perhaps Violet can start to finally love herself…
Historical
The Winemaker’s Wife by Kristin Harmel
East of Paris in the sun-drenched vineyards of northern France lies the glamorous champagne house Maison Chauveau. But as the Nazis march closer and the Resistance builds strength, it becomes clear the grand house is not all it seems.
1940: When young Ines married into the famed Chauveau family she dreamt of peace and luxury. But with German occupation comes a life of fear: for herself, for family and friends joining the Resistance and for Celine, the Jewish wife of their chief vintner. As tensions mount and loyalties are tested, Ines will be faced with a terrible choice.
2019: Liv Kent has lost everything: her job, her husband and the family she thought they were building. Alone and adrift she leaps at the chance to join her eccentric grandmother on a trip to Champagne. But it’s not long before past and present collide, and in a desperate search for the truth, Liv is led straight to the Maison Chauveau.
So that’s all for this week.
Happy Reading!
Jill's Book Cafe 