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.
(NB This post features Affiliate links from which I earn a small commission on qualifying purchases)
Index
Crime, Thriller and Mystery (includes Historical Crime/Mysteries)
General/Contemporary Fiction
Historical (I tend to take this as pre 1960’s ie not in my lifetime!)
Romance
Crime, Thriller & Mystery
A Case of Matricide by Graeme Macrae Burnet
Chief Inspector Gorski returns …
In the unremarkable French town of Saint-Louis, a mysterious stranger stalks the streets; an elderly woman believes her son is planning to do away with her; a prominent manufacturer drops dead. Between visits to the town’s hostelries, Chief Inspector Georges Gorski ponders the connections, if any, between these events, while all the time grappling with his own domestic and existential demons.
Graeme Macrae Burnet once again pierces the respectable bourgeois façade of small-town life in this, the concluding part of his trilogy of Gorski novels. He injects a wry humour into the tiniest of details and delves into the darkest recesses of his characters’ minds, but above all provides an entertaining, profound and moving read.
Your Best Friend by Julie Corbin
When Tess hears Lydia Green is moving back to the village, she is full of excitement.
As teenagers, Tess and Lydia were inseparable. Until the end of that last summer when Lydia suddenly moved away.
With the recent loss of her husband and two small children to care for, Tess could really use the support of her old best friend. It feels like a bright spot of light in such a difficult time. Like fate has brought Lydia back to her.
But when Tess sees Lydia for the first time in decades, in front of all the other mums at Saturday sport, Lydia pretends not to know her.
Tess can’t believe Lydia would lie to her face in front of the whole village, or that she seems to want nothing to do with her.
Is Lydia playing some kind of twisted game? Or did Tess not really know her best friend as well as she once thought…
Death Rites by Sarah Ward
A calculated killer. A town under threat. An unfinished pattern…
Archaeology professor Carla James is reeling following the death of her husband. Desperate for a change of scene, she takes a job at an elite New England college. On her first day, Carla is asked to represent the department at a murder site. She initially believes there is nothing notable about the scattered debris that surrounds the body, but there is more to the case than meets the eye.
This victim is just the latest in a series of unsolved deaths. Nothing obvious links them but Carla is convinced – there is a methodical killer operating in the shadows.
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General/Contemporary Fiction
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich
In Argus, North Dakota, a fraught wedding is taking place.
Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe. Gary thinks Kismet is the answer to all of his problems; Kismet can’t even imagine her future, let alone the kind of future Gary might offer. During a clumsy proposal, Kismet misses her chance to say ‘no’ and so the die is cast.
Hugo has been in love with Kismet for years. He has been her friend, confidante and occasionally her lover – and now she is marrying Gary, Hugo is determined to steal her back.
Meanwhile Kismet’s mother, Crystal, hauls sugar beets for Gary’s family, and on her nightly truck drives along the highway from the farm to the factories, she tunes in to the darkness of late-night radio, sees visions of guardian angels, and worries for the future – both her daughter’s and her own.
Starkly beautiful like the landscape it inhabits, The Mighty Red is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets. And as with every book this great modern master writes, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendour.
Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst
Dave Win is thirteen years old when he first goes to stay with the sponsors of his scholarship at a local boarding school. This weekend, with its games and challenges and surprising encounters, will open up heady new possibilities, even as it exposes him to their son Giles’ envy and violence.
As their lives unfold over the next half a century, the two boys’ careers will diverge dramatically: Dave, a gifted actor struggling with convention and discrimination, Giles an increasingly powerful and dangerous politician.
Our Evenings is Dave Win’s own account of his life as a schoolboy and student, his first love affairs, in London, and on the road with an experimental theatre company, and of a late-life affair, which transforms his sixties with a new sense of happiness and a perilous security.
Frankie by Jochen Gutsch
Narrated by Frankie the cat, this INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER is a story about grief, redemption and a laugh-out-loud tale of how our love for our (sometimes psychopathic) pets can keep us going through the hardest of times Frankie lives a very simple life. He didn’t ask to be a stray cat. But life isn’t so bad, with days spent wandering the village in search of something to eat. One day, everything changes. He happens across Richard. Richard isn’t doing so well. Grieving the loss of his partner, he’s decided he’s got nothing worth living for. He’s literally at the point of ending it all, when in pounces Frankie. It’s an unlikely partnership. . But it might be exactly what they both need . . . — Narrated by Frankie the cat, this INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER is a heart-warming story about grief and redemption. But it’s also a laugh-out-loud tale of how cats can be total psychopaths, how we love them anyway, and how that love can somehow keep us going through the hardest of times.
The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai
Tucked away down a Kyoto backstreet lies the extraordinary Kamogawa Diner. Running this unique establishment are a father-daughter duo who serve more than just mouth-watering feasts.
The pair have reinvented themselves as ‘food detectives’, offering a service that goes beyond traditional dining. Through their culinary sleuthing, they reconstruct beloved dishes from the memories of their customers, creating a connection to cherished moments from the past.
Among those who seek an appointment include: a one-hit wonder pop star, finally ready to leave Tokyo and give up on her singing career, wants to try the tempura that she ate to celebrate her only successful record and a budding Olympic swimmer who desires the bento lunch box that his estranged father used to make him. The Kamogawa Diner doesn’t just serve meals – it revives lost recipes and rekindles forgotten memories. It’s a doorway to the past through the miracle of delicious food.
Marigold Mind Laundry by Jungeun Yun
Welcome to the Marigold Mind Laundry where we wash away the stains from your heart.
After young Jieun accidentally misuses her powers, causing her beloved family to vanish, she lives a million restless lives in search of them.
Overnight, in the village of Marigold on top of a hill, she conjures up her Mind Laundry, where she cleanses painful experiences from the heart, transferring them into stains on a T-shirt and turning them into dazzling red petals.
We meet five wounded souls: a frustrated young filmmaker; a tortured social-media influencer; a distraught mother who has discovered her husband’s other family; a young woman two-timed by her lover, and Yeonghui, a victim of bullying, who works as a delivery man to escape his pain in routine.
After washing the pain and ironing their creases, Jieun discovers an astonishing revelation that will change her life.
In the Shadows of Love by Awais Khan
A life hiding her heartbreak. A message that will change her world.
To strangers that pass her on the streets of Lahore, Mona Ahmed lives a life to be envied. Married to wealthy businessman Bilal, with happily married children and living in a vast home with staff to attend to her every desire, she seems to want for nothing.
But behind the gilded exterior lies a past of secrets and heartbreak. While they may have weathered the storm of Mona’s infidelity, with Bilal embracing the child born out of that secret love affair, their marriage remains shaky.
While Mona’s heart is broken with memories of her lost soulmate, she hides her pain behind becoming the perfect wife, hosting glamorous, high-profile gatherings for the rest of Lahore’s high society, keeping up appearances for fear of inviting gossip.
Each day has the same slow, regular rhythm… until the first message arrives, and everything in Mona’s life changes in an instant. Will the secrets of Mona’s past threaten her future, her marriage and even her life?
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Historical
The Volcano Daughters by Gina Maria Balibera
Nine-year-old Graciela is raised in the shadow of El Salvador’s Izalco volcano, until the day she is taken to the capital city by the country’s fearsome – and fearsomely superstitious – dictator, who believes her to be a muse capable of foreseeing the future.
There, Graciela meets Consuelo, the sister she never knew existed. Consuelo is everything she is not – volatile, dreamy and teenaged – yet despite their differences, the sisters form an unlikely bond. When the dictator’s brutality is finally unleashed, El Salvador is forever changed. Graciela and Consuelo survive the massacre, but most of their community are not so lucky.
From San Salvador to Los Angeles, Paris to San Francisco, the sisters create a new future for themselves. But the story of those they left behind is not yet over. Their voices, once just a whimper, now shout louder than ever. Listen.
Edith Holler by Edward Carey
Edward Carey’s witty and entrancing story of a young woman trapped in a ramshackle English playhouse – and the mysterious figure who threatens its very survival.Norwich, 1901. Edith Holler spends her days among the eccentric denizens of the Holler Theatre, warned by her domineering father that the playhouse will literally tumble down if she should ever leave.
Fascinated by tales of the city she knows only from afar, young Edith decides to write a play of her own about Mawther Meg, a monstrous figure said to have used the blood of countless children to make the local delicacy, Beetle Spread. But when her father suddenly announces his engagement to a peculiar woman named Margaret Unthank, Edith scrambles to protect her father, the theatre, and her play – the one thing that’s truly hers – from the newcomer’s sinister designs.
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Romance
Best Hex Ever by Nadia El-Fassi
Dina Whitlock knows her way around a pastry recipe. As a skilled kitchen witch, she runs her very own London café, serving magic-infused pastries to her loyal customers. But only a select few friends know about her magical abilities or the hex that has plagued her love life. It’s hard to fall in love when your partner is guaranteed to have a string of bad luck.
Scott Mason is back from traveling the world and is excited to begin his new job as a curator at the British Museum. After leaving London to heal from a brutal breakup two years ago, Scott only now realizes how much he missed out on. Now that his best friend’s wedding is right around the corner, Scott is determined to be the most amazing best man ever, but he doesn’t expect to be bewitched by the maid of honour, who also happens to be the owner of his new favourite café and, perhaps more surprisingly, a witch.
After a weekend in the countryside full of peculiar hedge mazes, palm readings by candlelight, and a midnight Halloween ritual, there’s no denying the chemistry between them. But there’s just one problem: The hex still holds, and Dina knows that Scott is in danger.
Can Dina break the spell before it breaks both their hearts?
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So that’s all for this week.
Happy Reading!
