As we get close to Christmas there are fewer titles being published so this post is a round up to cover the next 3 weeks. As with the previous few posts I’ve looked beyond The Bookseller to pick up some additional titles.
The list is formed of titles appearing in hardback/paperback for the first time. In some cases the eBook might already be available. My listing is normally based on the monthly listing 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 fiction guide 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)
Historical (I tend to take this as pre 1960’s ie not in my lifetime!)
Crime, Thriller & Mystery
36 Hours by Angela Marsons
Kim clutches the note tightly as her pulse starts to race. You have 36 hours. If you follow the instructions, no one will get hurt…
When Detective Kim Stone is woken before dawn because local journalist Tracy Frost wants to show her a message, she’s not impressed. But her blood turns cold when she reads the note. She has 36 hours to follow a trail set by an anonymous challenger. If she fails, people will die.
Kim’s gut tells her this is no hoax. She summons her team, desperate to prevent what lies ahead. With minutes to spare, they solve the first cryptic clue. It leads to a box hidden deep in the woods, containing a second clue and a tape. As she listens to the recording of a heart-wrenching scream, Kim knows her enemy will go to any lengths to achieve his goals… and that she must draw on all her experience of evil men to understand what is driving him.
Refusing to blindly follow orders, Kim and the team turn the killer’s clues against him, using evidence buried deep in the tapes to find where he’s hiding his victim. But they are too late… And then, as the sun rises on the second day, someone else goes missing. This time, it’s a skilled surgeon, and if they don’t save her, an eight-year-old girl will die.
Exhausted and enraged, with her bosses watching every step she takes, Kim realises the only way to win is to break the rules. But with the clock ticking, can she find the twisted mind behind this murderous game before her time runs out?
The Vanilla Killer by Peter Boland
PUT THE KETTLE ON AND DISCOVER AN UTTERLY CHARMING MURDER MYSTERY SET IN A SLEEPY ENGLISH SEASIDE TOWN.
It’s a perfect summer’s day in Southbourne. And Partial Sue’s in one of her rare generous moods. She wants to treat all the ladies of the Dogs Need Nice Homes charity shop to supper.
But before the ladies can shut up shop and head to the chippie, the air is filled with the strains of ‘Greensleeves’. And a clapped-out old ice-cream van lurches into view. The gang can barely believe their eyes. Especially when they see who’s behind the wheel. Daisy’s daughter Bella.
Newly divorced Bella’s only just rid herself of her rotten husband. Now she’s landed herself in an even stickier situation. This banger may be stocked with sweet treats, but its freezer once held something much more sinister — the dead body of its former owner!
Everyone in the village knows the van’s sinister history. Except poor Bella. The culprit slipped away without a trace. But the village folk allsay it’s just a matter of time until the Vanilla Killer strikes again!
When Bella starts receiving poison pen letters, the ladies can’t help but worry. What if their beloved Bella’s next?
There’s only one thing for it, the ladies agree over a steaming pot of tea. They need to put the Vanilla Killer on ice . . . before anyone else dies.
General/Contemporary Fiction
The Magnificent Ruins by Nayantara Roy
Lila De is on the verge of a career breakthrough when she gets a call from her mother in Kolkata, informing her that she’s inherited her family’s sprawling estate-so she returns there after a decade of estrangement. Lila’s grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins still live on different floors of the house, and all of them resent her sudden inheritance. To make matters more complicated, her first boyfriend seeks her out when she arrives, and her star author-and occasional lover- is suddenly determined to make things serious.
As Lila come to terms with both past and present, suppressed family secrets emerge, culminating in a shocking act of violence. Lila has no choice but to finally address her family’s inherited custom of keeping everything under the surface.
Lights! Camera! Mayhem by Jodi Taylor
Jodi Taylor and the disaster magnets of St Mary’s return with a story of chaos and catastrophe, to wish you a very Merry Christmas.
Coming to a screen near you…
TEMPORA, THE TIME TRAVELLING TOURIST
Starring Astrid Gustafsson as Helen of Troy – ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’
With Dirk Thrust as Achilles – ‘demi god and hero’
And the Wooden Horse as Himself – ‘easily the least wooden performance from anyone participating in this particular travesty’ (Dr Maxwell)
Watch and weep as this epic tale unfolds…
It’s drama, darling! In this year’s festive tale, the nation’s favourite film producer, Calvin Cutter, returns to darken the doors of St Mary’s once again…
Historical
A Family at War by Rosie Clark
1940, Stretton Village, Cambridgeshire
The start of the war and the tragic loss of their beloved father marks the end of an era for the Searles family as their children embark on their adult lives
Eldest sister Frances is about to marry her childhood sweetheart. But with Marcus Danby now a fighter pilot, his fate hanging in the balance. Will he return from war for their happy ever after?
Meanwhile youngest daughter Emily is swept off her feet by a dashing young officer, but does she really know him?
Brother Daniel has joined up, but not before falling in love with a local kitchen girl Alice. Against the backdrop of war is there hope of a future for them?
And then there are those siblings left behind. Clay and Henry working the land in trying times, and Connor too young to serve, but suddenly abandoned by the family he counted on.
With only a gold-digging mother-in-law to advise them, these siblings are all in danger of making rash decisions that don’t bode well for their futures…
The Champagne Letters by Kate Macintosh
Reims, France, 1805: Barbe-Nicole Clicquot has just lost her beloved husband but is determined to pursue their dream of creating the premier champagne house in France, now named for her new identity as a widow: Veuve Clicquot. With the Russians poised to invade, competitors fighting for her customers, and the Napoleonic court politics complicating matters she must set herself apart quickly and permanently if she, and her business, are to survive.
In present day Chicago, broken from her divorce, Natalie Taylor runs away to Paris. In a book stall by the Seine, Natalie finds a collection of the Widow Clicquot’s published letters and uses them as inspiration to step out of her comfort zone and create a new, empowered life for herself. But when her Parisian escape takes a shocking and unexpected turn, she’s forced to make a choice. Should she accept her losses and return home, or fight for the future she’s only dreamed about? What would the widow do?
The Sunflower House by Adriana Allegri
Family secrets come to light as a young woman fights to save herself, and others, in a Nazi-run baby factory—a real-life Handmaid’s Tale—during World War II.
In a sleepy German village, Allina Strauss’s life seems idyllic: she works at her uncle’s bookshop, makes strudel with her aunt, and spends weekends with her friends and fiancé. But it’s 1939, Adolf Hitler is Chancellor, and Allina’s family hides a terrifying secret—her birth mother was Jewish, making her a Mischling.
One fateful night after losing everyone she loves, Allina is forced into service as a nurse at a state-run baby factory called Hochland Home. There, she becomes both witness and participant to the horrors of Heinrich Himmler’s ruthless eugenics program.
Romance
His Christmas List by TL Swan
The annual collection of reader favorite Christmas short stories by T L Swan including two brand new stories! Available for a limited short time, this holiday season.
This year’s edition of His Christmas List features the following stories:
You Wish
Brunetti
The Expert
The Christmas Angel
Mr. Prescott
The Bonus
Alaskan Jack
You Wish. (2024)
When Emma lost her purse en route to Aspen it causes more problems than she could ever imagine.
With no identification, no hotel, and no way of getting home, she’s forced to take a four hour car ride with a rude stranger that she met on the plane.
Handsome, sarcastic, and totally full of himself, this man is Emma’s worst nightmare.
When the weather closes in and they are forced to take an unexpected detour, a bad situation turns into a bad decision.
One that will change everything.
Falling For Brunetti. (2024)
Halle Morant has the world at her feet.
Great friends, a new life in Italy, and the job of her dreams.
That is until she sees Brunetti across a crowded club and he becomes the toxic star of her dreams.
She’s been warned not to get mixed up in the land of Ferrara and up until now it’s been relatively easy. He doesn’t even know she exists.
That is until she attends a speed dating night and comes face to face with her fantasy.
Two minutes was all it took for him to sink his teeth into her.
A smart girl would walk away.
But what Brunetti wants, Brunetti takes.…. And to hell with the consequences.
Alaskan Jack (2021)
When city girl, Holly, took a business trip to Alaska, she was unprepared.
Her assistant called in sick, she missed her flight, then had to drive for hours in the dead of night.
Add to that, a storm, a car accident, and a grumpy saviour, Jack.
When Holly is forced to spend the night in Jack’s log cabin.
She gets more than she bargained for.
Alaska, where the weather is wild, and so are the men.
The Christmas Angel (2022)
Zoe never thought she’d be grateful for a flat tyre but when a handsome policeman pulled over to help her… things changed.
Constable Dylan Andrews was every Christmas wish come true.
And when he offered to give her a private escort home, she knew she was in for one hell of a ride.
The Bonus (2023)
My name is Grace Porter, and I am the personal assistant to Gabriel Ferrara, CEO of Ferrara Media in New York.
It’s the perfect job, great pay, beautiful office, everything I ever dreamed of, if not for one small detail.
I am utterly and hopelessly in love with my boss.
The Expert (2023)
Elizabeth is in the middle of a nightmare. She has to go to a work conference that her ex is attending with his new wife.
When Kerry her assistant sneakily organizes a date for her for the weekend she’s beyond mortified.
Enter Thomas Stone.
Suave, handsome, and experienced. An expert in the field of dating.
He’s handsome and witty, utterly infuriating.
Then things go from bad to worse when they are forced to share a hotel room.
But sometimes things happen for a reason and maybe there’s more to Thomas than meets the eye.
Mr. Prescott (2023)
Alora’s Christmas is looking up, she’s booked into an exclusive resort in Switzerland to fulfil a bucket list fantasy.
The rules are no names, no personal details, and no contact after.
When she’s introduced to the enigmatic Mr. Doe she had no idea that he would turn her world on its head.
After forty eight hours with him, life will never be the same.
Beating Heart by Laura Pavlov
From the moment my son came into the world – my life changed. I’d found my purpose.
My heart beats for this kid every damn day, and life is good. But then Emerson Chadwick happens. Our town’s new paediatrician is gorgeous, brilliant, and complicated.
But I’m not looking for complications.
To make matters worse, she’s moved in next door, and she’s everywhere I turn.
I can’t stay away no matter how hard I try, but Emerson isn’t here to stay. And now my heart beats for her in a way I never expected.
Falling for the girl next door is a bad idea. Loving her…well, that’s as easy as breathing.
Love in Translation by Joss Wood
Is love the one language she can’t speak?
Up until a few months ago, Rheo Whitlock had it all. Stability, self-confidence and a safe job as an interpreter for the United Nations… It was the secure sort of existence she had always dreamed of. But ever since an unfortunate incident threw her career into a tailspin, she’s been struggling.
Rheo knows the perfect place to escape to: her grandmother’s secluded hideaway in the breathtaking town of Gilmartin.
Fletcher Wright lives for adrenaline, always chasing the next high. So when he learns he’ll have to share his rental accommodations with Rheo – a stranger, basically – he simply chalks it up to another challenge. It doesn’t hurt that there’s an immediate attraction between them.
Before long, they’re not just sharing a house and new experiences – they’re sharing a bed. But when it’s time for Fletcher to move on to the next adventure, he and Rheo will both have to decide – are they ready to take the biggest risk of all?
So that’s all for this week.
Happy Reading!
