Here’s my pick of forthcoming publications. 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. This harks back to my library days when the arrival of the biannual The Bookseller heralded a weekend of filling in reservation cards for my forthcoming reading.

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. Also in keeping with my support for the #RespectRomFic campaign I’ve added a Romance category. This might be hit and miss as to whether I categorise correctly but hope it helps.

(NB This post features Affiliate links from which I earn a small commission on qualifying purchases)

Index

Crime, Thriller and Mystery

General/Contemporay Fiction

Historical (I tend to take this as pre 1960’s – ie not in my lifetime!)

Romance

Crime, Thriller & Mystery

So Shall You Reap by Donna Leon

On a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice’s canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man’s presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city’s far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim. Curiously, he had been living in a garden house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor, in which Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim’s interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s.

As the investigation expands, Brunetti, Vianello, Commissario Griffoni, and Signorina Elettra each assemble pieces of a puzzle-random information about real estate and land use, books, university friendships-that appear to have little in common. Until Brunetti stumbles over something that transports him back to his own student days, causing him to reflect on lost ideals and the errors of youth, on Italian politics and history, and on the accidents that sometimes lead to revelation.

The Running Club by Ali Lowe

The rules of the running club are the same as they have always been: keep your breath steady, keep your mind sharp, record your laps! Only now there’s a new one: don’t get killed.

The wealthy community of Esperance is picture-perfect. Big houses, stunning views, beautiful people. A brand new running track for the local club to jog around in the evenings. From the outside, it looks like paradise.

But the women of the town know the truth: you can hide anything – from wrinkles to secrets from your past – if you have enough money.

You could even hide a murder.

The Loch by Fran Dorricott

Everyone in this town has a secret. But who holds the key to the loch…?

Twenty years ago, three young women disappeared, never to be found. The rumour to this day is that their bodies are still hidden deep within the murky Loch Aven.

When Eleanor, Clio and Michaela find themselves rained out of a camping trip in the Scottish countryside, they have no option but to book the mysterious house nestled on the banks of the lake. But little do they know that history has a way of repeating itself.

As secrets in the tightknit community begin to surface, and Michaela suddenly disappears, it becomes clear that something sinister is at play. And now it’s a race against time to unravel the mystery before the dark waters claim their next victim…

I Will Find You by Harlan Coben

David and Cheryl Burroughs are living the dream – married, a beautiful house in the suburbs, a three year old son named Matthew – when tragedy strikes one night in the worst possible way.

David awakes to find himself covered in blood, but not his own – his son’s. And while he knows he did not murder his son, the overwhelming evidence against him puts him behind bars indefinitely.

Five years into his imprisonment, Cheryl’s sister arrives – and drops a bombshell.

She’s come with a photograph that a friend took on vacation at a theme park. The boy in the background seems familiar – and even though David realizes it can’t be, he knows it is.

It’s Matthew, and he’s still alive.

David plans a harrowing escape from prison, determined to do what seems impossible – save his son, clear his own name, and discover the real story of what happened that devastating night.

What Have We Done by Alex Finlay

A stay-at-home mom, a has-been rock star, a reality-TV producer. Three disparate lives. One deadly secret.

The foster children of Savior House never knew the peace of a normal childhood. Raised in an institution, a group of four friends from the home have now grown and gone their separate ways. They haven’t seen one another since they left those abusive foster-home halls, until, twenty-five years later, they are reunited for a single, inescapable reason: someone is trying to kill them.

To save their lives, the group will have to revisit the nightmares of their childhoods and confront their past – a past that holds the key to everything.

You Can Run by Trevor Wood

It takes a village to save a child in this pulse-pounding standalone thriller from the acclaimed author of The Man on the Street.

It wasn’t her dad they were after.
It was her.

Ruby Winter is surprised when her reclusive father invites a stranger into their house. She eavesdrops on their conversation and is alarmed when she hears a fight break out. She dashes into the kitchen to save her dad but the stranger’s the one lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

Her dad urges her to pack a bag. They must quit their Northumbrian cottage and run. There isn’t time to explain why. But as they try to flee her dad is captured.
The only people who can help her are the villagers she has shunned her whole life. But, desperate to find her father and to work out who took him and why, she must seek their help.

But what if learning the truth means discovering the life she once knew was a lie?

The Company by JM Varese

London, 1870.

Lucy Braithwhite lives a privileged existence as heir to the fortune of Braithwhite & Company – the most successful purveyor of English luxury wallpapers the world over. The company’s formulas have been respected for nearly a century, but have always remained cloaked in mystery. No one has been able to explain the originality of design, or the brilliance of their colours, leaving many to wonder if the mysterious spell-like effect of their wallpapers is due simply to artistry, or something more sinister.

When Mr Luckhurst, the company’s manager, and the man who has acted as surrogate father to Lucy and her invalid brother John since they were children, suddenly dies, Lucy is shocked to discover that there is no succession plan in place. Who will ensure that the company and her family continue to thrive?

The answer soon arrives in the form of the young and alluring Julian Rivers, who, unbeknownst to Lucy and John, has been essential to the company’s operations for some time. At first, he seems like the answer to their prayers, but as Lucy begins piecing together Julian’s true intentions, and John begins seeing spectral visions in the house’s wallpaper, it becomes clear to Lucy that she must do everything within her power to oppose the diabolic forces that have risen up to destroy her family.

Back to Index

General/Contemporary Fiction

Juno Loves Legs by Karl Geary

Juno loves Legs. She’s loved him since their first encounter at school in Dublin, where she fought the playground bullies for him. He feels brave with her, she feels safe with him, and together they feel invincible, even if the world has other ideas.

The two find their way from the backstreets and city’s pubs to its underground parties and squats, where, on the verge of adulthood, they find a breathing space to begin their real lives. Only Legs’s might be taking him somewhere Juno can’t follow.

Set during the political and social unrest of the 1980s, as families struggled to survive and their children struggled to be free, this beautiful, vivid novel of childhood friendship is about being young, being hurt, being seen and, most of all, being loved.

Reservoir by Livi Michael

At the International Conference Centre in Geneva, Hannah Rossier, formerly Annie Price, comes face to face with Neville Weir, someone from her childhood whom she never expected, or wanted, to meet again. As Neville’s reasons for attending the conference become clear, the dark waters of Hannah’s past start to rise. Hannah is a psychotherapist, with a specialist interest in memory and how connections are made between past and present. She has reinvented herself successfully, moving from a small northern town in England to Lucerne, Switzerland, with her husband, Thibaut.

Nobody, not even Hannah, knows the full truth about herself. Her ‘memories’ consist of glimpses of the place where she played in childhood, known simply as ‘The Wild’. Over the three days of the conference she has to decide whether she can avoid Neville, or whether she should submit to an encounter with him and with her past. And in her keynote lecture about the neuroscience of memory, how much to conceal or reveal. But can her specialism save her from drowning?

Rootless by Krystle Zara Appiah

Teenagers Efe and Sam first meet in London in the 1990s.

Years later the best friends are married. Their love story couldn’t seem more perfect.

But Sam wants to start a family.

Efe wants to be free from children to focus on her dreams.

When an unplanned pregnancy forces them to confront their differences,
Efe and Sam must discover if what they really want is still each other…

A poignant, heart-breaking debut about a British-Ghanaian marriage in crisis, Rootless is a story of friendship, family, societal obligation and motherhood. But above all, it’s a story of love.

The Dog of the North by Elizabeth McKenzie

Penny Rush has problems. Freshly divorced from her mobile knife-sharpener husband, she has returned home to Santa Barbara to deal with her grandfather, who is being moved into a retirement home by his cruel second wife. Her grandmother, meanwhile, has been found in possession of a sinister sounding weapon called ‘the scintilltor’ and something even worse in her woodshed. Penny’s parents have been missing in the Australian outback for many years now, and so Penny must deal with this spiralling family crisis alone.

Enter The Dog of The North. The Dog of the North is a borrowed van, replete with yellow gingham curtains, wood panelling, a futon, a pinata, clunky brakes and difficult steering. It is also Penny’s getaway car from a failed marriage, a family in crisis and an uncertain future. This darkly, dryly comic novel follows Penny as she sets out in The Dog to find a way through the curveballs life has thrown at her and in doing so, find a way back to herself.

Cuddy by Benjamin Myers

Cuddy is a bold and experimental retelling of the story of the hermit St. Cuthbert, unofficial patron saint of the North of England.

Incorporating poetry, prose, play, diary and real historical accounts to create a novel like no other, Cuddy straddles historical eras – from the first Christian-slaying Viking invaders of the holy island of Lindisfarne in the 8th century to a contemporary England defined by class and austerity.

Along the way we meet brewers and masons, archers and academics, monks and labourers, their visionary voices and stories echoing through their ancestors and down the ages.

And all the while at the centre sits Durham Cathedral and the lives of those who live and work around this place of pilgrimage – their dreams, desires, connections and communities.

The Pink House by Catherine Alliott

Emma and Hugh have a dilemma. Hugh’s parents have divorced and neither wants the Pink House – the family home he grew up in and which holds so many memories.

If they take it on, they must also accept all that comes with it, including Hugh’s sister Sally, living in the garden cottage; playing host to their eldest son’s wedding; converting the barn into an art gallery for Emma’s new career . . . Whatever happened to the lazy rural idyll?

Then all Emma’s expectations are thrown into doubt when she runs into Rory McCloud – the one who got away so many years ago.

Suddenly, she’s wondering what might have been . . .

A big move can change so much, but for Emma could it change everything?

The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything by Kara Gnodde

Like circles of a Venn diagram, Mimi and Art Brotherton have always come as a pair. Devoted siblings, they’re bound together in their childhood home by the tragic death of their parents.

Art believes that people – including his sister – are incapable of making sensible decisions when it comes to love. That’s what algorithms are for.

Mimi knows that her brother is a mathematical genius. But she believes that maths isn’t the answer to everything. Not quite. Especially when it comes to love.

Still, when Mimi begins her search for a soulmate, Art’s insistence that she follow a strict mathematical plan seems reasonable. The arrival of Frank, however – a romantic stargazer who is definitely not algorithm-approved – challenges the siblings’ relationship to breaking point. As their equilibrium falters, Art’s mistrust of Frank grows, but so do Mimi’s feelings. Something about Frank doesn’t quite add up, and only Art can see it . . .

The Good News Gazette by Jessie Wells

Nine years ago, Zoe Taylor returned from London to the quiet hamlet of Westholme with her tail between her legs and a bun in the oven. Where once her job as a journalist saw her tearing off to Paris at a moment’s notice after a lead, now the single mum covers the local news desk. At least, she did…until she’s unceremoniously let go.

When Zoe invites her friends over to commiserate, wine and whining soon turns into something more… and before the night is out she’s plotted her next step: The Good News Gazette.

Now, as a developer threatens to force Westholme into the twenty-first century, Zoe’s good news movement finds her leading a covert campaign as a community crusader. She may have started The Good News Gazette as a way to save herself, but she might just be able to save Westholme in the process…

Back to Index

Historical

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

It was only because Gaunt knew he might die, that he could be so reckless as to kiss him.

In 1914, war feels far away to Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood. They’re too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle – an all-consuming infatuation with the dreamy, poetic Ellwood – not having a clue that his best friend is in love with him, always has been.

When Gaunt’s mother asks him to enlist in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks, he signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings. But Ellwood and their classmates soon follow him into the horrors of trenches. Though Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one another, their friends are dying in front of them, and at any moment they could be next.

An epic tale of the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.

The Walled Garden by Sarah Hardy

No one survives war unscathed. But even in the darkest days, seeds of hope can grow.

It is 1946 and in the village of Oakbourne the men are home from the war. Their bodies are healing but their psychological wounds run deep. Everyone is scarred – those who fought and those left behind.

Alice Rayne is married to Stephen, heir to crumbling Oakbourne Hall. Once a sweet, gentle man, he has returned a bitter and angry stranger, destroyed by what he has seen and done, tormented by secrets Alice can only guess at.

Lonely and increasingly afraid of the man her husband has become, Alice must try to pick up the pieces of her marriage and save Oakbourne Hall from total collapse. She begins with the walled garden and, as it starts to bear fruit, she finds herself drawn into a new, forbidden love.

The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane

In September 1883, a small town in the South Australian outback huddles under strange, vivid sunsets. Six-year-old Denny Wallace has gone missing during a dust storm, and the entire community is caught up in the search for him. As they scour the desert and mountains for the lost child, the residents of Fairly – newlyweds, landowners, farmers, mothers, artists, Indigenous trackers, cameleers, children, schoolteachers, widows, maids, policemen – confront their relationships with each other and with the ancient landscape they inhabit.

The colonial Australia of The Sun Walks Down is unfamiliar, multicultural, and noisy with opinions, arguments, longings and terrors. It’s haunted by many gods – the sun among them, rising and falling on each day in which Denny could be found, or lost forever.

Back to Index

Romance

Something Wild & Wonderful by Anita Kelly

Alexei Lebedev’s journey on the Pacific Crest Trail begins with saving a hot stranger from a snake. Alexei was prepared for rattlesnakes, blisters, and months of solitude. What he wasn’t prepared for is outgoing and charistmatic Ben Caravalho, and yet they keep running into each other. It might be coincidence. Then again, maybe there’s a reason the trail keeps bringing them together . . .

Ben has made his fair share of bad decisions, and almost all of them involved beautiful men, but there’s something about the gorgeous and quietly nerdy Alexei that he can’t just walk away from.

There are worse things than falling in love during the biggest adventure of your life, but when their paths start to diverge, Ben and Alexei begin to wonder if it’s possible to hold on to something this wild and wonderful.

Real Love by Rachel Lindsay

Reality-TV love may look tempting, but real love could change everything in the debut novel from the Bachelorette star and author of Miss Me with That.

Maya Johnson lives her life according to The Plan: to become the youngest-ever female director of her company, marry her college sweetheart, and build a fabulous life in Miami. Seeing as she’s almost near checking every last one of those items off her list, she doesn’t feel the need to go on the nationally beloved reality dating show Real Love. So when she’s offered the chance, she turns it down and tells the producers that her best friend, Delilah, should take part instead.

But as she watches Delilah become the lead, fall in love, and change her life, Maya begins to wonder if she’s as happy as she thought—she doesn’t have much in the way of a work-life balance, her relationship isn’t quite where she thinks it should be, and very little in her life is sparking joy.

When Maya’s free-spirited whirlwind of a little sister, Ella, blows into town for a surprise visit, Maya finds herself newly intrigued by Ella’s unrooted existence—and she’s equally intrigued by Ella’s gorgeous friend and fellow world traveler, Kai.

At a crossroads with both her professional and personal happiness, Maya will have to decide which path to choose: The Plan she’s worked so hard for, or something new entirely.

Strictly Friends by Frances Mensah Williams

One island paradise. One hell of a choice.

When Ruby Lamont’s young son Jake starts telling tall tales about the dad who walked out on them six years ago, she realises that, for her son’s sake, it’s time to find out the truth. It’s not that she wants Kenny back in her life—her best friend, charming commitment-phobe Griffin, has always been more of a father-figure to Jake—but if she can understand once and for all why Kenny broke her heart by leaving her, perhaps she and Jake can finally move on.

Their journey takes them to heart-shaped Sorrel Island, a Caribbean paradise that according to legend was created as an enchanted refuge for lovers. For no-nonsense Ruby, romance is the last thing on her mind. Spoiling for a fight, she confronts her runaway ex, but he’s a changed man, or so he claims. Just as Ruby’s starting to remember what she saw in Kenny, gorgeous American portrait artist Mac propositions her for a role as his muse, or more…and when Griffin shows up out of the blue, seemingly with more on his mind than friendly moral support, the tropical heat builds to an inferno.

With sparks of lust and jealousy flying in all directions, Ruby has to wonder whether the magic of Sorrel Island is more than just a legend. As the truth of Kenny’s departure—and Griffin’s arrival—spills out, she seems destined for another devastating heartbreak. Shaken out of her state of romantic limbo, Ruby must discover whether people really can change—or if paradise has been on her doorstep all along.

The Right Wavelength by Amber Crewe

Sometimes you need to find yourself before you’re ready to find The One.

From the outside, Lorna has everything sorted. A cool job in radio, a home to call her own, plenty of friends. And anyone would be happy to attend their school reunion if they’d had the kind of post-adolescent glow up she’s managed to pull off. Library Lorna is no more, and this new Lorna is 100%, definitely over her teenage crush on Finn, the most popular boy in school.

But on the inside, Lorna’s got to admit she is trying too hard. Everything is so much more difficult for her than it seems to be for everyone else. She’s sure something is wrong with her, she just needs to figure out what that is – and fast, now that Finn is back in her life and she’s finally got a chance of getting everything she’s ever dreamed of.

Back to Index

So that’s all for this week.

Happy Reading!