A sparce week this week, so look out for next week’s bumper crop!
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
The Girl Who Left by Jenny Blackhurst
Twenty-five years ago, a local girl went missing. Now, another girl comes back…
When five-year-old Elsie Button was snatched from a garden in a sleepy town on the Welsh island of Anglesey, and a local man later confessed, it sent shockwaves through the tight-knit community. How could one of their own do such a thing? Especially when his own little girl was the same age – and the victim’s best friend.
Kathryn and her family left under the cloak of darkness one night, unable to bear the shame, and the anger of their neighbours. She hardly remembers that time. Now, she suffers the consequences of living under an assumed name, always looking over her shoulder. Her dad has not spoken a word to her since he went to prison. She is haunted by the question: why did he kill Elsie?
When another child is taken from the same garden, twenty-five years to the day of Elsie’s murder, Kathryn is determined that this time she’ll be on the right side. She’ll join the search and atone for her father’s deed, and maybe, just maybe, get the answers she wants. But she’s not prepared for the long memory of the locals, nor the risks of going back. Not everyone on the island wants the truth to come out, and they’ll go to extreme lengths to stop that from happening.
General/Contemporary Fiction
Dele Weds Destiny by Tomi Obaro
Zainab, Funmi and Enitan first meet at University in northern Nigeria, all learning how to become themselves. It’s an experience that binds the three very different women together. When Enitan moves to New York to elope with a white man, Zainab and Funmi are left behind, with drastically different fortunes.
Over the course of thirty years, their lives and friendships diverge and change. Enitan is separating from her husband, trying to understand her daughter Remi. Zainab finds herself the sole breadwinner for her husband and their four sons. And Funmi is living a life of confined luxury, as the wife of a successful, shady businessman.
But theirs is a friendship that can endure decades of distance. And in 2015, they are reunited for the first time for the wedding of Funmi’s daughter, Destiny.
Here they will reflect on their pasts, the things they loved and lost – but the present brings unexpected surprises too, because their daughters, Remi and Destiny, might just be as rebellious and open-hearted as they once were.
The Saint of Lost Things by Tish Delaney
I had dreams once, but never for anything as extravagant as happiness. Still, Auntie Bell and me have fresh cream cakes every Saturday. They’re sweet enough to take the edge off. I hope they’re enough to get me through being outed as a fraud. Turns out, I’m more my missing mother’s daughter than anyone first suspected.
There was a time when Lindy Morris escaped to London and walked along the Thames in the moonlight. When life was full and exciting.
Decades later, Lindy lives back with her Auntie Bell on the edge: on the edge of Donegal and on the edge of Granda Morris’s land. Granda Morris is a complicated man, a farmer who wanted sons but got two daughters: Auntie Bell and Lindy’s mother, who disappeared long ago.
Now, Lindy and Bell live the smallest of lives, in a cottage filled with unfulfilled dreams. But when the secrets they have kept for thirty years emerge, everything is rewritten. Will Lindy grasp who she is again?
The Sweet Remnants of Summer by Alexander McCall Smith
Isabel accepts an invitation to serve on the advisory committee of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, but soon finds herself swept up in an all-too-familiar dilemma. David is the grandson of a Scottish clan chief and is supportive of Scottish nationalism. But his fervent beliefs are threatening family harmony, especially because his sister Catriona’s socialist views put her at odds with her brother. When their mother, Laura, a fellow committee member, asks Isabel to intervene, she tries to demur. But always one for courteous resolutions to philosophical disagreements, Isabel can’t help but intercede.
In the meantime, Jamie, having criticized Isabel for getting involved in the affairs of others, does precisely that himself. Jamie is helping to select a new cellist for his ensemble, but he suspects that the conductor may be focused on something other than his favored candidate’s cello skills.
With so many factors complicating matters, Isabel and Jamie will have to muster all their tact and charm to ensure that comity is reached between all these fractious parties.
Braver by Deborah Jenkins
Hazel has never felt normal. Struggling with OCD and anxiety, she isolates herself from others and sticks to rigid routines in order to cope with everyday life. But when she forms an unlikely friendship with Virginia, a church minister, Hazel begins to venture outside her comfort zone.
Having rebuilt her own life after a traumatic loss, Virginia has become the backbone of her community, caring for those in need and mentoring disadvantaged young people. Yet a shock accusation threatens to unravel everything she has worked for.
Told with warmth, compassion and gentle humour, Braver is an uplifting story about the strength that can be drawn from friendship and community.
A Summer to Remember in Herring Bay by Angela Britnell
Essy Havers is good at finding things. Her company specialises in helping clients track down anything, from missing china pieces to rare vintage clothing. But now Essy has something more important to find: herself.
Essy has always been curious about her mother’s secret past and her Cornish roots. So, when the opportunity arises, she hops on a plane in Tennessee and ends up in Herring Bay in Cornwall; the village where her mother grew up.
But once there, she’s mystified by the reactions of the villagers when they realise who she is. Was Essy’s decision to visit Cornwall a mistake, or will it lead to a summer she’ll never forget?
So that’s all for this week.
Happy Reading!
Jill's Book Cafe 