Contemporary
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Census Jesse Ball When a widower receives notice from a doctor that he doesn’t have long left to live, he is struck by the question of who will care for his adult son—a son whom he fiercely loves, a boy with Down syndrome. With no recourse in mind, and with a desire to see the country on one last trip, the man signs up as a census taker for a mysterious governmental bureau and leaves town with his son. Traveling into the country, through towns named only by ascending letters of the alphabet, the man and his son encounter a wide range of human experience. While some townspeople welcome them into their homes, others who bear the physical brand of past censuses on their ribs are wary of their presence. When they press toward the edges of civilization, the landscape grows wilder, and the towns grow farther apart and more blighted by industrial decay. As they approach “Z,” the man must confront a series of questions: What is the purpose of the census? Is he complicit in its mission? And just how will he learn to say good-bye to his son? Mysterious and evocative, Census is a novel about free will, grief, the power of memory, and the ferocity of parental love, from one of our most captivating young writers. |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Girls Burn Brighter Shobha Rao When Poornima first meets Savitha, she feels something she thought she lost for good when her mother died: hope. Poornima’s father hires Savitha to work one of their sari looms, and the two girls are quickly drawn to one another. Savitha is even more impoverished than Poornima, but she is full of passion and energy. She shows Poornima how to find beauty in a bolt of indigo cloth, a bowl of yogurt rice and bananas, the warmth of friendship. Suddenly their Indian village doesn’t feel quite so claustrophobic, and Poornima begins to imagine a life beyond the arranged marriage her father is desperate to lock down for her. But when a devastating act of cruelty drives Savitha away, Poornima leaves behind everything she has ever known to find her friend again. Her journey takes her into the darkest corners of India’s underworld, on a harrowing cross-continental journey, and eventually to an apartment complex in Seattle. Alternating between the girls’ perspectives as they face relentless obstacles, Girls Burn Brighter introduces two heroines who never lose the hope that burns within them. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Anatomy of a Miracle Jonathan Miles Rendered paraplegic after a traumatic event four years ago, Cameron Harris has been living his new existence alongside his sister, Tanya, in their battered Biloxi, Mississippi neighborhood where only half the houses made it through Katrina. One stiflingly hot August afternoon, as Cameron sits waiting for Tanya during their daily run to the Biz-E-Bee convenience store, he suddenly and inexplicably rises up and out of his wheelchair. In the aftermath of this “miracle,” Cameron finds himself a celebrity at the center of a contentious debate about what’s taken place. And when scientists, journalists, and a Vatican investigator start digging, Cameron’s deepest secrets–the key to his injury, to his identity, and, in some eyes, to the nature of his recovery–become increasingly endangered. Was Cameron’s recovery a genuine miracle, or a medical breakthrough? And, finding himself transformed into a symbol, how can he hope to retain his humanity? Brilliantly written as closely observed journalistic reportage and filtered through a wide lens that encompasses the vibrant characters affected by Cameron’s story, Anatomy of a Miracle will be read, championed, and celebrated as a powerful story of our time, and the work of a true literary master. |
20th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Italian Teacher Tom Rachman Rome, 1955. The artists gather for a picture at a party in an ancient villa. Bear Bavinsky, creator of vast canvases, larger than life, is at the centre of the picture. His wife, Natalie, edges out of the shot. From the side of the room watches little Pinch – their son. At five years old he loves Bear almost as much as he fears him. After Bear abandons their family, Pinch will still worship him, striving to live up to the Bavinsky name; while Natalie, a ceramicist, cannot hope to be more than a forgotten muse. Trying to burn brightly in his father’s shadow, Pinch’s attempts flicker and die. Yet by the end of a career of twists and compromises, Pinch will enact an unexpected rebellion that will leave forever his mark upon the Bear Bavinsky legacy. |
Fantasy
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Legendary Warslinger: The Haunted City Ty’Ron W. C. Robinson II The deserts roam the western world as the green, lush land has consumed the eastern world. Follow Randolph Henrich, a Warslinger of the Heptad. A group of holy knights who protect those from the malevolent entities roaming within and without the worlds. On his journey toward the cryptic Haunted City, Henrich meets both allies and enemies who will make his journey one to remember. |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Shape of Water Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus It is 1962, and Elisa Esposito—mute her whole life, orphaned as a child—is struggling with her humdrum existence as a janitor working the graveyard shift at Baltimore’s Occam Aerospace Research Center. Were it not for Zelda, a protective coworker, and Giles, her loving neighbor, she doesn’t know how she’d make it through the day. Then, one fateful night, she sees something she was never meant to see, the Center’s most sensitive asset ever: an amphibious man, captured in the Amazon, to be studied for Cold War advancements. The creature is terrifying but also magnificent, capable of language and of understanding emotions…and Elisa can’t keep away. Using sign language, the two learn to communicate. Soon, affection turns into love, and the creature becomes Elisa’s sole reason to live. But outside forces are pressing in. Richard Strickland, the obsessed soldier who tracked the asset through the Amazon, wants nothing more than to dissect it before the Russians get a chance to steal it. Elisa has no choice but to risk everything to save her beloved. With the help of Zelda and Giles, Elisa hatches a plan to break out the creature. But Strickland is on to them. And the Russians are, indeed, coming. |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | High Voltage Karen Marie Morning There is no action without consequence… Dani O’Malley was nine years old when the delusional, sadistic Rowena transformed her into a ruthless killer. Years later, she’s tough, hardened, yet achingly vulnerable and fiercely compassionate, living alone by her own exacting code. Despite the scars on her body, driven by deeper ones carved into her soul, no one is more committed to protecting Dublin. By day, she ensures the safety of those she rescues, by night she hunts evil, dispensing justice swiftly and without mercy, determined to give those she cares for the peace she has never known. There is no power without price… When the Faerie Queen used the dangerously powerful Song of Making to heal the world from the damage done by the Hoar Frost King, catastrophic magic seeped deep into the earth, giving rise to horrifying, unforeseen consequences–and now deadly enemies plot in the darkness, preparing to enslave the human race and unleash an ancient reign of hell on Earth. There is no future without sacrifice… With the lethal, immortal Ryodan at her side, armed with the epic Sword of Light, Dani once again battles to save the world but her past comes back to haunt her with a vengeance, demanding an unspeakable price for the power she needs to save the human race and no one—not even Ryodan who’d move the very stars for her—can save her this time… |
8th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Tangled Lands Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S. Buckell Khaim, The Blue City, is the last remaining city in a crumbled empire that overly relied upon magic until it became toxic. It is run by a tyrant known as The Jolly Mayor and his devious right hand, the last archmage in the world. Together they try to collect all the magic for themselves so they can control the citizens of the city. But when their decadence reaches new heights and begins to destroy the environment, the people stage an uprising to stop them. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Child of a Mad God R.A. Salvatore As the Blood Moon rises high upon the mountain of the Usgar a demon hunts. But this is not the demon’s story. This is the story of a young woman, the daughter of a witch, born under the Blood Moon, how she finds herself alone in a tribe of vicious barbarians, and how she came to know the world. |
13th March | Amazon | The Armoured Saint Myke Cole In a world where any act of magic could open a portal to hell, the Order insures that no wizard will live to summon devils, and will kill as many innocent people as they must to prevent that greater horror. After witnessing a horrendous slaughter, the village girl Heloise opposes the Order, and risks bringing their wrath down on herself, her family, and her village. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Oathing Stone J.Z.N. McCauley After a year blissfully hidden together in a small village on Ireland’s lush green, Catherine and Bowen are ready to tie the knot. The joining of an ancient druid doctor and a woman blessed with druid magic from the sacred oak tree calls for nothing less than a traditional Celtic ceremony. For this, to connect them to their ancestors and the sacred place where they marry, a key item must be chosen for the ritual, the oathing stone. Their need for discretion allows for only a gathering of Catherine’s closest friends and family. But after the couple’s first night together, strange and sudden events unfold. Blood mingles with fire, and Catherine’s magic becomes unstable. Meanwhile, the mysterious Faerie Kings send a Fae spy to witness Catherine’s magic which disrupts not only her life but her best friend Bella’s when she becomes his sudden obsession. Just after Bella goes missing, it is up to Catherine to get her back, but it is only the beginning of their problems as she finds they’re embroiled in the middle of a Faerie civil war. |
22th March | Amazon | Waterstones | A Veil of Spears Bradley P Beaulieu Since the Night of Endless Swords, a bloody battle the Kings of Sharakhai narrowly won, the kings have been hounding the rebels known as the Moonless Host. Many have been forced to flee the city, including Çeda, who discovers that the King of Sloth is raising his army to challenge the other kings’ rule. When Çeda finds the remaining members of the Moonless Host, now known as the thirteenth tribe, she sees a tenuous existence. Çeda hatches a plan to return to Sharakhai and free the asirim, the kings’ powerful, immortal slaves. The kings, however, have sent their greatest tactician, the King of Swords, to bring Çeda to justice for her crimes. But the once-unified front of the kings is crumbling. The surviving kings vie quietly against one another, maneuvering for control over Sharakhai. Çeda hopes to use that to her advantage, but whom to trust? Any of them might betray her. As Çeda works to lift the shackles from the asirim and save the thirteenth tribe, the kings of Sharakhai, the scheming queen of Qaimir, the ruthless blood mage, Hamzakiir, and King of Swords all prepare for a grand clash that may decide the fate of all. |
22th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Celtic Myths & Tales: Epic Tales Misc The mythic invasions of Ireland, the mystical kingdoms, warriors, giants, creatures of the underworld and magic, these are the fantastic ingredients of Celtic legend. Because they told their own stories in the ancient way, by word-of-mouth, we understand the traditions of these proud people through the records of their mortal enemies, the Romans, but they still thrive, so bright and strong today. |
22th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Norse Myths & Tales: Epic Tales Misc Lively, stark and formidable, the imagery of Norse mythology storms through this classic collection. The fierce glory of Odin, Frey, Loki and their fellow gods of Asgard are featured here with all the great adventures, from Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, to the endings of Ragnarok. And from the fabled Bifrost to the forging of Thor’s hammer, each Viking legend is riven with a vitality that speaks to us still. The latest title in Flame Tree’s beautiful, comprehensive series of Gothic Fantasy titles, concentrates on the ancient, epic origins of modern fantasy |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Writing in the Stone Irving Finkel The landscape of this dark and powerful story is the ancient world of Assyria some 3000 years ago, a time when writing was in the world’s oldest script, cuneiform, and the domination of unseen forces firmly in the hands of the state’s leading Exorcist. In the capital, Nineveh, resides a deep and complex man, the power behind the King of the World. Faced with unforeseen disaster that threatens his authority, he emerges as a psychopathic killer. The author uses his familiarity with ancient writings preserved in the world’s museums to recreate a vanished world in which those who step from the shadows in ruthless violence to pursue ultimate control show themselves at the same time to be disconcertingly human. The tight prose and graphic illustrations make this a gripping and unusual tale not of this world, but at the same time weirdly familiar. |
Graphic Novels
1th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Battle Angel Alita Deluxe Edition 2 Yukito Kishiro In a dump in the lawless settlement of Scrapyard, far beneath the mysterious space city of Zalem, disgraced cyber-doctor Daisuke Ido makes a strange find: the detached head of a cyborg woman who has lost all her memories. He names her Alita and equips her with a powerful new body, the Berserker. While Alita remembers no details of her former life, a moment of desperation reawakens in her nerves the legendary school of martial arts known as Panzer Kunst. |
1th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Doctor Who, The Twelfth Doctor: Time Trials Vol 2, Wolves of Winter Richard Dinnick and Brian Williamson In Bill’s first comic adventure, the TARDIS crashes into the heart of a Viking camp! It seems that a terrifying alien force has taken hold over the icy kingdom. As the snow melts, the Doctor realises that he is about to face an unwelcome face from the past… |
1th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Freedom Hospital: A Syrian Story Hamid Sulaiman It is spring 2012 and 40,000 people have died since the start of the Syrian Arab Spring. In the wake of this, Yasmin has set up a clandestine hospital in the north of the country. The town that she lives in is controlled by Assad’s brutal regime, but is relatively stable. However, as the months pass, the situation becomes increasingly complex and violent. Told in stark, beautiful black-and-white imagery, Freedom Hospital illuminates a complicated situation with gut-wrenching detail and very dark humour. |
1th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Small Things Mel Tregonning On the cusp of having everything slip from his grasp, a young boy has to find a way to rebuild his sense of self. An ordinary boy in an ordinary world. With no words, only illustrations, Small Things tells the story of a boy who feels alone with worries but who learns that help is always close by. An extraordinary story, told simply and with breath taking beauty. |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Death To The Tsar Fabien Nury In Moscow, 1904, political tension is at a high. The Russian Empire is failing and the effects are falling on its people. Hungry and deeply impoverished, the living standards for the citizens is falling daily. They protest, calling on their Governor for help. Suddenly, the Governor’s soldiers launch an attack. People are murdered in the forecourt of the palace. Was this Governor Alexandrovitch’s plan or the result of a tragic miscommunication? The answer seems clear to the Russian people, with whispers of revolution in the streets. |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Fairy Godbrothers Ken Kristensen and M K Perker Magic awaits. . . at least that’s what Sean and Marcus’s dad always told them when they were children. Now adults, it seems that all of that magic is behind them. Marcus fills his days with sex, drugs, and rock and roll, while Sean focuses on growing their family owned ice cream shop into a worldwide brand. Suddenly, just moments before finalizing a deal to sell their shares in the family company to a multinational corporation, Sean and Marcus are inexplicably whisked away to a world of fairytales. But these aren’t the friendly fairytale characters Sean and Marcus remember from classic bedtime stories . . . this is the world as it was originally imagined by the Brothers Grimm―rife with beheadings, bestiality, and brothels. |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Photographic – the Life of Graciela Iturbide Isabel Quintero and Zeke Pena Graciela Iturbide was born in Mexico City in 1942, the oldest of 13 children. When tragedy struck Iturbide as a young mother, she turned to photography for solace and understanding. From then on Iturbide embarked on a photographic journey that has taken her throughout her native Mexico, from the Sonora Desert to Juchitán to Frida Kahlo’s bathroom, to the United States, India, and beyond. Photographic is a symbolic, poetic, and deeply personal graphic biography of this iconic photographer. Iturbide’s journey will excite readers of all ages as well as budding photographers, who will be inspired by her resolve, talent, and curiosity. |
12th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Lovecraft: The Myth of Cthulhu Esteban Maroto “The Nameless City” is considered the first story of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, detailing the discovery of an ancient city in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula built by an unnamed race of beings of reptilian appearance. In “The Festival” a man arrives at the sea town of Kingsport, Massachusetts during Christmas but finds a place eerily empty and centuries out of date. “The Call of Cthulhu” is perhaps Lovecraft’s most famous story, describing a man who after finding the notes of his grand-uncle is lead on a journey around the world in search of this mysterious and disturbing phenomenon. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Harley Quinn and Batman Ty Templeton Harley Quinn’s name has always been synonymous with The Joker. The wacky duo has wreaked havoc upon the streets of Gotham as the Clown Prince and Princess of Crime, and caused mayhem together while truly, deeply, madly in love. But when The Joker pushes Harley’s buttons, she rats him out to Batman himself! Before Batman can haul Harley off to Arkham Asylum, her best friend Poison Ivy swoops in and rescues her. Harley and Ivy soon begin a plot of their own against Batman. Harley just wants to have a little fun while she and Ivy scheme against Bats…but all-business Ivy isn’t having it. Harley sets out to prove that she’s more than Mistah J’s henchwoman and Ivy’s lackey. Can Harley make a name for herself and prove that she’s no one’s sidekick? |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | March of the Crabs Vol. 3 Arthur DePins Inhabiting the Gironde estuary, there is a race of crabs known for their strange defect: unable to evolve, they are condemned to spend their lives walking a single straight line. When Sunny, Boater, and Guitar, discovered a way to spur their biology and change directions, their bold moves broke the crabs into two clans: the rigid (who walk straight) and the turners (who change direction). Now, these two factions are prepared for battle as the other underwater creatures look on, ready to take a side. But the stunning rebellion comes in the crosshairs of another species on the brink of their own cataclysmic change of course . . . humanity. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Red Rising: Sons of Ares Pierce Brown In the future, when mankind has spread across the stars, the hierarchy of man is dictated by the color of one’s caste. The Golds rule all, but what will happen when one falls for a lowly Red? See how a forbidden love will set the course of events for the future and lead to the formation of the formidable Sons of Ares! |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Tomb Raider Library Edition Volume 1 Gail Simone Lara Croft is trying to piece her ordinary life back together after her ordeal in the Lost Kingdom of Yamatai. The other survivors of the Endurance are experiencing horrific visions as they try to put what happened behind them. Follow Lara’s story after the 2013 Tomb Raider game as she embarks on a new globetrotting adventure, discovering a dangerous organization that’s threatening her friends. Can she figure out what’s going on in time to save a life? |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Wormwood, Gentleman Corpse: Mr. Wormwood Goes to Washington Ben Templesmith Wormwood had been gone for some time. Too long, if you were to ask his old friends. So, when a special agent from the U.S. government asked for Wormwood’s help, they were determined to track him down, no matter what dimension he’d buggered off to. Now that he’s back, things are about to get political. He and the gang are off to Washington, where, for once, his heart may be the warmest one around. |
20th March | Amazon | Waterstones | All-Star Batman Vol. 3: First Ally Scott Snyder When the Dark Knight is taken down by a new enemy whose attacks he cannot counter, he uncovers a plot spanning generations…whose mastermind might be one of his closest allies! But who is the First Ally? |
20th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Erased, Vol. 4 Kei Sanbe Satoru has begun rehabilitation in the hospital and suddenly is reunited with Airi. But as Satoru struggles with his memory, will he ever regain his former self? |
20th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Green Lantern: Earth One Vol. 1 Gabriel Hardman Hal Jordan yearns for the thrill of discovery, but the days when astronaut and adventure were synonymous are long gone. His gig prospecting asteroids for Ferris Galactic is less than fulfilling-but at least he’s not on Earth, where technology and culture have stagnated. When Jordan finds a powerful ring, he also finds a destiny to live up to. There are worlds beyond his own, unlike anything he ever imagined. But revelation comes with a price: the Green Lantern Corps has fallen, wiped out by ruthless killing machines known as Manhunters. The odds against reviving the Corps are nearly impossible…but doing the impossible is exactly what Hal Jordan was trained to do! |
20th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Irredeemable Premier Vol. 5 Mark Waid When the world’s greatest hero becomes its most feared villain—how does the world survive on the brink of destruction? Once the world’s most beloved superhero and now the world’s most terrifying supervillain, The Plutonian’s unstoppable rampage concludes here! |
20th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Spider-Man/Deadpool Joe Kelly & Ed McGuinness The Webbed Wonder and the Merc with a Mouth are the double act of your dreams! And legendary Deadpool creative team Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness have reunited to make it everything you ever hoped for – beginning with the Dread Dormammu! But will a fledgling friendship turn sour when Wade Wilson’s next target turns out to be…Peter Parker?! Someone is messing with our wascally wisecrackers, and they’ve blended the genetics of our heroes to create one murderous, mixed-up miss named Itsy Bitsy. She’s Spidey and ‘Pool’s “daughter” – and she has seriously creepy daddy issues! Can the proud parents work together to put a stop to her rampage? Prepare for action, adventure and just a smattering of (b)romance as Spidey and Deadpool show the comic-book world what a real dynamic duo looks like! |
20th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Sheriff of Babylon: The Deluxe Edition Tom King Baghdad, 2003. The reign of Saddam Hussein is over. The Americans are in command. And no one is in control. Former cop turned military contractor Christopher Henry knows that better than anyone. He’s in country to train up a new Iraqi police force, and one of his recruits has just been murdered. With civil authority in tatters and dead bodies clogging the streets, Chris is the only person in the Green Zone with any interest in finding out who killed him–and why. Chris’ inquiry brings him first to Sofia, an American-raised Iraqi who now sits on the governing council, and then to Nassir, a grizzled veteran of Saddam’s police force–and probably the last real investigator left in Baghdad. United by death but divided by conflicting loyalties, the three must help each other navigate the treacherous landscape of post-invasion Iraq in order to hunt down the killers. But are their efforts really serving justice–or a much darker agenda? |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Sherlock Holmes and the Disappearing Diamond (Baker Street Academy) Sam Hearn John Watson has barely settled into his new school, Baker Street Academy, when his teacher announces a trip to one of London’s top museums, home to the world’s most famous jewel. But it’s been stolen! When police catch the thief it seems the case is closed. Can Sherlock Holmes uncover the mystery behind this extraordinary gem? |
31th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Mean Girls Club: Pink Dawn Ryan Heshka The Mean Girls Club have been laying waste to the town for years, and Mayor Schlomo is hell-bent on their destruction. He has other plans for the town’s young women… brainwashing and sexual servitude. And so the Mayor blackmails a young mechanic by the name of Roxy to infiltrate the Clubhouse – but Roxy’s feisty attitude lands her an initiation into the Club instead! Torn between her obligations to her dying grandfather, the Mayor’s dirty threats, and her unexpected friendships with the Mean Girls, will Roxy help the Girls to bring down the Mayor’s cult once and for all? |
Historical Fiction
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Man Upon the Stair Gary Inbinder At the public execution of the anarchist assassin Laurent Moreau, the outgoing Chief Inspector warns his protégé, the newly promoted Lefebvre: “I’ve heard that some of Moreau’s cronies have sworn revenge. You don’t want to get killed your first week as chief.” Meanwhile, Lefebvre is charged with investigating the disappearance of the Baron de Livet, a brash millionaire with connections to Russian spies and a history of gambling, womanizing, and fighting in duels. The case is more complicated than it seems, of course, and Lefebvre and his team must make sense of a poisoned maid, an unidentifiable stage coach, and a missing briefcase full of cash. The Baron’s connection to the world of international espionage means that if the Inspector isn’t fast enough, the Baron’s disappearance might trigger a war. And Lefebvre mustn’t forget those stalking anarchists who are out for his blood, as he searches for the man who wasn’t there… |
8th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Caligula Simon Turney Caligula: loving brother, reluctant ruler and tortured soul. The five children of Germanicus are cursed from birth. Father: believed poisoned by the Emperor Tiberius over the imperial succession. Mother and two brothers arrested and starved to death by Tiberius. One sister married off to an abusive husband. Only two are left: Caligula, in line for the imperial throne, and his youngest sister, Livilla, who tells us this story. The ascent of their family into the imperial dynasty forces Caligula to change from the fun-loving boy Livilla knew into a shrewd, wary and calculating young man. Tiberius’s sudden death allows Caligula to manhandle his way to power. With the bloodthirsty tyrant dead, it should be a golden age in Rome and, for a while, it is. But Caligula suffers emotional blow after emotional blow as political allies, friends, and finally family betray him and attempt to overthrow him, by poison, by the knife, by any means possible. Little by little, Caligula becomes a bitter, resentful and vengeful Emperor, every shred of the boy he used to be eroded. As Caligula loses touch with reality, there is only one thing to be done before Rome is changed irrevocably. . . |
8th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Kin Snorri Kristjansson He can deny it all he likes, but everyone knows Viking warlord Unnthor Reginsson brought home a great chest of gold when he retired from the longboats and settled down with Hildigunnur in a remote valley. Now, in the summer of 970, adopted daughter Helga is awaiting the arrival of her unknown siblings: dark, dangerous Karl, lithe, clever Jorunn, gentle Aslak, henpecked by his shrewish wife, and the giant Bjorn, made bitter by Volund, his idiot son. And they’re coming with darkness in their hearts. The siblings gather, bad blood simmers and old feuds resurface as Unnthor’s heirs make their moves on the old man’s treasure – until one morning Helga is awakened by screams. Blood has been shed: kin has been slain. No one confesses, but all the clues point to one person – who cannot possibly be the murderer, at least in Helga’s eyes. But if she’s going to save the innocent from the axe and prevent more bloodshed, she’s got to solve the mystery – fast . . . |
20th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The White Angel John MacLachlan Gray Vancouver is in an uproar over the death by gunshot of a Scottish nanny, Janet Stewart. An almost deliberately ham-handed police investigation has Constable Hook suspecting a cover-up. The powerful United Council of Scottish Societies is demanding an inquiry. The killing has become a political issue with an election not far away. The city is buzzing with rumours. Miss Stewart’s fellow nannies have accused the Chinese houseboy of murder, capitalizing on a wave of anti-Chinese propaganda led by the Asian Exclusion League and enthusiastically supported by the sensational press–not to mention the Ku Klux Klan, which has taken up residence in upperclass Shaughnessy. The White Angel is a work of fiction inspired by the cold case of Janet Smith, who, on July 26, 1924, was found dead in her employer’s posh Shaughnessy Heights mansion. A dubious investigation led to the even more dubious conclusion that Smith died by suicide. After a public outcry, the case was re-examined and it was decided that Smith was in fact murdered; but no one was ever convicted, though suspects abounded–from an infatuated Chinese houseboy to a drug-smuggling ring, devil-worshippers from the United States, or perhaps even the Prince of Wales. For Vancouver, the killing created a situation analogous to lifting a large flat rock to expose the creatures hiding underneath. |
22th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Atomic City Girls Janet Beard “What you see here, what you hear here, what you do here, let it stay here.” In November 1944, eighteen-year-old June Walker boards an unmarked bus, destined for a city that doesn’t officially exist. Oak Ridge, Tennessee has sprung up in a matter of months—a town of trailers and segregated houses, 24-hour cafeterias, and constant security checks. There, June joins hundreds of other young girls operating massive machines whose purpose is never explained. They know they are helping to win the war, but must ask no questions and reveal nothing to outsiders. The girls spend their evenings socializing and flirting with soldiers, scientists, and workmen at dances and movies, bowling alleys and canteens. June longs to know more about their top-secret assignment and begins an affair with Sam Cantor, the young Jewish physicist from New York who oversees the lab where she works and understands the end goal only too well, while her beautiful roommate Cici is on her own mission: to find a wealthy husband and escape her sharecropper roots. Across town, African-American construction worker Joe Brewer knows nothing of the government’s plans, only that his new job pays enough to make it worth leaving his family behind, at least for now. But a breach in security will intertwine his fate with June’s search for answers. When the bombing of Hiroshima brings the truth about Oak Ridge into devastating focus, June must confront her ideals about loyalty, patriotism, and war itself. |
22th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Magpie Tree Katherine Stansfield Jamaica Inn, 1844: the talk is of witches. A boy has vanished in the woods of Trethevy on the North Cornish coast, and a reward is offered for his return. Shilly has had enough of such dark doings, but her new companion, the woman who calls herself Anna Drake, insists they investigate. Anna wants to open a detective agency, and the reward would fund it. They soon learn of a mysterious pair of strangers who have likely taken the boy, and of Saint Nectan who, legend has it, kept safe the people of the woods. As Shilly and Anna seek the missing child, the case takes another turn – murder. Something is stirring in the woods and old sins have come home to roost. |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Balcony Jane Delury What if our homes could tell the stories of others who lived there before us? Set in a small village near Paris, The Balcony follows the inhabitants of a single estate-including a manor and a servants’ cottage-over the course of several generations, from the Belle Époque to the present day, introducing us to a fascinating cast of characters. A young American au pair develops a crush on her brilliant employer. An ex-courtesan shocks the servants, a Jewish couple in hiding from the Gestapo attract the curiosity of the neighbors, and a housewife begins an affair while renovating her downstairs. Rich and poor, young and old, powerful and persecuted, all of these people are seeking something: meaning, love, a new beginning, or merely survival. Throughout, cross-generational connections and troubled legacies haunt the same spaces, so that the rose garden, the forest pond, and the balcony off the manor’s third floor bedroom become silent witnesses to a century of human drama. |
29th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Impossible Saints Clarissa Harwood Escaping the constraints of life as a village schoolmistress, Lilia Brooke bursts into London and into Paul Harris’s orderly life, shattering his belief that women are gentle creatures who need protection. Lilia wants to change women’s lives by advocating for the vote, free unions, and contraception. Paul, an Anglican priest, has a big ambition of his own: to become the youngest dean of St. John’s Cathedral. Lilia doesn’t believe in God, but she’s attracted to Paul’s intellect, ethics, and dazzling smile. As Lilia finds her calling in the militant Women’s Social and Political Union, Paul is increasingly driven to rise in the church. They can’t deny their attraction, but they know they don’t belong in each other’s worlds. Lilia would rather destroy property and serve time in prison than see her spirit destroyed and imprisoned by marriage to a clergyman, while Paul wants nothing more than to settle down and keep Lilia out of harm’s way. Paul and Lilia must reach their breaking points before they can decide whether their love is worth fighting for. |
30th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Death of a Novice Cora Harriso The Reverend Mother is delighted with her new entrant to the convent. Young Sister Gertrude is well-educated, has worked for an accountant and has an appealing sense of humour. But one autumn morning, Sister Gertrude is found dead inside a small wooden shed, just beside the river. Surely a young nun could not die from alcohol poisoning? But when the Reverend Mother delves more deeply into Sister Gertrude’s background, she finds some puzzling anomalies. Why did the young nun not delay her entry to the convent until after her sister’s wedding? Is it a coincidence that her father died of a similar illness not long before? And could there be a link between Sister Gertrude’s death and the gunpowder explosion on Spike Island? The Reverend Mother must find the answers to these questions if she is to safeguard her community from suspicions of murder. |
Horror
22th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Bram Stoker Horror Stories Misc Dublin-born Bram Stoker lived in London, meeting other notable authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde. Apart from the ground-breaking Dracula Stoker wrote supernatural horror short stories, many of which, including ‘The Judge’s House’ and ‘Dracula’s Guest’, are featured here with extracts from his longer works. |
Mystery/Thriller
1th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Bone Music Christopher Rice Charlotte Rowe spent the first seven years of her life in the hands of the only parents she knew—a pair of serial killers who murdered her mother and tried to shape Charlotte in their own twisted image. If only the nightmare had ended when she was rescued. Instead, her real father exploited her tabloid-ready story for fame and profit—until Charlotte finally broke free from her ghoulish past and fled. Just when she thinks she has buried her personal hell forever, Charlotte is swept into a frightening new ordeal. Secretly dosed with an experimental drug, she’s endowed with a shocking new power—but pursued by a treacherous corporation desperate to control her. Except from now on, if anybody is going to control Charlotte, it’s going to be Charlotte herself. She’s determined to use the extraordinary ability she now possesses to fight the kind of evil that shattered her life—by drawing a serial killer out from the shadows to face the righteous fury of a victim turned avenger. |
1th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Silent Victim Caroline Mitchell Emma’s darkest secrets are buried in the past. But the truth can’t stay hidden for long. Emma is a loving wife, a devoted mother…and an involuntary killer. For years she’s been hiding the dead body of the teacher who seduced her as a teen. It’s a secret that might have stayed buried if only her life had been less perfect. A promotion for Emma’s husband, Alex, means they can finally move to a bigger home with their young son. But with a buyer lined up for their old house, Emma can’t leave without destroying every last trace of her final revenge… Returning to the shallow grave in the garden, she finds it empty. The body is gone. Panicked, Emma confesses to her husband. But this is only the beginning. Soon, Alex will discover things about her he’ll wish he’d learned sooner. And others he’ll long to forget. |
1th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Splinter in the Blood Ashley Dyer Sergeant Ruth Lake and DCI Greg Carver are on the hunt for a serial killer. But what they don’t realise is that the killer is hunting them, too. The victims are found fully-dressed and carefully arranged, every inch of their bodies covered in intricate, cryptic tattoos. The media have dubbed it the work of the Thorn Killer, thanks to the primitive thorn method used to etch his victims. Lake and Carver have been tracking the killer for months, and a breakthrough feels imminent. But then the killer gets personal: the latest victim, a student found only a week earlier, is staged to look like Carver’s wife. Pushed over the edge by this latest twist, Carver spirals into a self-destructive cycle of alcohol abuse. Now he lies near death, and the unreadable Lake stands over him with a gun. Did she shoot her boss? If not, why is she removing evidence from his apartment, staging a fake scene? When Carver wakes from a coma, the night of the shooting is a blank, yet he is haunted by terrifying flashbacks and hallucinations. Then he begins to see lights and colours around people. Auras, the neurologist tells him – his brain, starved of oxygen after his trauma finding ways around damaged tissue, forging new connections. But Carver believes they give him insights into people’s unspoken feelings, and that Ruth is hiding something from him. Ruth, too, is convinced that Carver is holding back; that remembers more than he admits. Does he know what she did? How can she hope to unravel the half-truths, hidden meanings, secrets and lies at the centre of this investigation when she has lied and lied herself? All the while, the Thorn Killer is still at large, watching their every move – and plotting his next. Will Carver and Ruth pull together to stop him before he strikes again? Or will they be held captive by their own web of lies? |
1th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Western Wind Samantha Harvey 15th century Oakham, in Somerset; a tiny village cut off by a big river with no bridge. When a man is swept away by the river in the early hours of Shrove Saturday, an explanation has to be found: accident, suicide or murder? The village priest, John Reve, is privy to many secrets in his role as confessor. But will he be able to unravel what happened to the victim, Thomas Newman, the wealthiest, most capable and industrious man in the village? And what will happen if he can’t? Moving back in time towards the moment of Thomas Newman’s death, the story is related by Reve – an extraordinary creation, a patient shepherd to his wayward flock, and a man with secrets of his own to keep. Through his eyes, and his indelible voice, Harvey creates a medieval world entirely tangible in its immediacy. |
2th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Deadly Cure Lawrence Goldstone In 1899, in Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Noah Whitestone is called urgently to his wealthy neighbor’s house to treat a five-year-old boy with a shocking set of symptoms. When the child dies suddenly later that night, Noah is accused by the boy’s regular physician—the powerful and politically connected Dr. Arnold Frias—of prescribing a lethal dose of laudanum. To prove his innocence, Noah must investigate the murder—for it must be murder—and confront the man whom he is convinced is the real killer. His investigation leads him to a reporter for a muckraking magazine and a beautiful radical editor who are convinced that a secret, experimental drug from Germany has caused the death of at least five local children, and possibly many more. By degrees, Noah is drawn into a dangerous world of drugs, criminals, and politics, which threatens not just his career but also his life. |
3th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Affliction Beth Gutcheon Since retiring as head of a famous New York City private school, Maggie Detweiler is busier than ever. Chairing a team to evaluate the faltering Rye Manor School for girls, she will determine whether, in spite of its fabled past, the school has a future at all. With so much on the line for so many, tensions on campus are at an excruciating pitch, and Maggie expects to be as welcome as a case of Ebola virus. At a reception for the faculty and trustees to “welcome” Maggie’s team, no one seems more keen for all to go well than Florence Meagher, a star teacher who is loved and respected in spite of her affliction—that she can never stop talking. Florence is one of those dedicated teachers for whom the school is her life, and yet the next morning, when Maggie arrives to observe her teaching, Florence is missing. Florence’s husband, Ray, an auxiliary policeman in the village, seems more annoyed than alarmed at her disappearance. But Florence’s sister is distraught. There have been tensions in the marriage, and at their last visit, Florence had warned, “If anything happens to me, don’t assume it’s an accident.” Two days later, Florence’s body is found in the campus swimming pool. Maggie is asked to stay on to coach the very young and inexperienced head of Rye Manor through the crisis. Maggie obviously knows schools, but she also knows something about investigating murder, having solved a mysterious death in Maine the previous year when the police went after the wrong suspect. She is soon joined by her madcap socialite friend Hope, who is jonesing for an excuse to ditch her book club anyway, before she has to actually read Silas Marner. What on earth is going on in this idyllic town? Is this a run-of-the-mill marital murder? Or does it have something to do with the school board treasurer’s real estate schemes? And what is up with the vicious cyber-bullying that’s unsettled everyone, or with the disturbed teenaged boy whom Florence had made a pet of? And is it possible that someone killed Florence just so she’d finally shut up? |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Kremlin Conspiracy Joel C Rosenberg Everything he learned to protect the president, he must use to take out theirs. With an American president distracted by growing tensions in North Korea and Iran, an ominous new threat is emerging in Moscow. A czar is rising in the Kremlin, a Russian president feverishly consolidating power, silencing his opposition, and plotting a brazen and lightning-fast military strike that could rupture the NATO alliance and bring Washington and Moscow to the brink of nuclear war. But in his blind spot is the former U.S. Secret Service agent, Marcus Ryker, trained to protect but ready to kill to save his country |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Last Equation of Isaac Severy Nova Jacobs Just days after mathematician and family patriarch Isaac Severy dies of an apparent suicide, his adopted granddaughter Hazel, owner of a struggling Seattle bookstore, receives a letter from him by mail. In it, Isaac alludes to a secretive organization that is after his final bombshell equation, and he charges Hazel with safely delivering it to a trusted colleague. But first, she must find where the equation is hidden. While in Los Angeles for Isaac’s funeral, Hazel realizes she’s not the only one searching for his life’s work, and that the equation’s implications have potentially disastrous consequences for the extended Severy family, a group of dysfunctional geniuses unmoored by the sudden death of their patriarch. As agents of an enigmatic company shadow Isaac’s favorite son—a theoretical physicist—and a long-lost cousin mysteriously reappears in Los Angeles, the equation slips further from Hazel’s grasp. She must unravel a series of maddening clues hidden by Isaac inside one of her favorite novels, drawing her ever closer to his mathematical treasure. But when her efforts fall short, she is forced to enlist the help of those with questionable motives. |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Longest Silence Debra Webb Joanna Guthrie was free. She had been for eleven years–or so she needed everyone to believe. What really happened during the longest eighteen days of her life, when she and two other women were held captive by a dangerous serial killer, wasn’t something she could talk about. Not with him watching. Not unless she wanted to end up like the ones who didn’t make it out. But when more women go missing in an eerily similar manner, Jo knows her prolonged silence will only seal their fates. She’s finally ready to talk; she just needs someone to listen. FBI special agent Tony LeDoux can’t deny he finds Jo compelling–he’s just not sure he believes her story. But with the clock ticking, Jo will do anything to convince him, even if it means unearthing long-buried secrets that will land them squarely in the crosshairs of the killer… |
8th March | Amazon | Waterstones | House of Beauty Melba Escobar Nails, lips, brows. Wax, tweeze, thread. Full leg, half leg, bikini line. Half hour, one hour, one night. Massage, misogyny, murder. Welcome to House of Beauty. Karen will be taking care of you today. Relax. Turn off your phone. Whatever you tell Karen will stay in this cubicle. She’ll listen to you. She listens to all the women she sees here. Perhaps she’ll talk about her own life. Why is she so desperate for money? What is she so afraid of? And what does she know about Sabrina Gusman, the teenager who has been found dead? Can you keep a secret? |
8th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Let Me Lie Clare Mackintosh The police say it was suicide. Anna says it was murder. They’re both wrong. One year ago, Caroline Johnson chose to end her life brutally: a shocking suicide planned to match that of her husband just months before. Their daughter, Anna, has struggled to come to terms with their loss ever since. Now with a young baby of her own, Anna misses her mother more than ever and starts to question her parents’ deaths. But by digging up their past, she’ll put her future in danger. Sometimes it’s safer to let things lie… The stunning, twisty new psychological thriller from number one bestseller Clare Mackintosh, author of I Let You Go and I See You. |
8th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Rainbirds Clarissa Goenawan Clarissa Goenawan’s dark, spellbinding literary debut opens with a murder and shines a spotlight onto life in fictional small-town Japan. Ren Ishida is nearly finished with graduate school when he receives news of his sister Keiko’s sudden death. She was viciously stabbed one rainy night on her way home, and there are no leads. Ren heads to Akakawa to conclude his sister’s affairs, still failing to understand why she chose to abandon the family and Tokyo for this desolate town years ago. But Ren soon finds himself picking up where Keiko left off, accepting both her teaching position at a local cram school and the bizarre arrangement of free lodging at a wealthy politician’s mansion in exchange for reading to the man’s catatonic wife. As he comes to know the figures in Akakawa, from the enigmatic politician to his fellow teachers and a rebellious, alluring student named Rio, Ren delves into his shared childhood with Keiko and what followed, trying to piece together what happened the night of her death. Haunted in his dreams by a young girl who is desperately trying to tell him something, Ren struggles to find solace in the void his sister has left behind. |
8th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Devil’s Dice Roz Watkins Detective Inspector Meg Dalton has recently returned to her Peak District roots, when a man’s body is found near The Devil’s Dice – a vast network of caves and well-known local suicide spot. The man’s initials and a figure of the Grim Reaper are carved into the cave wall behind his corpse, but bizarrely, the carvings have existed for over one hundred years. The locals talk about a mysterious family curse that started in the times of the witch trials, and Meg finds it increasingly hard to know who to trust. Even her own mother may be implicated. For Meg, the case is a chance to prove herself in a police force dominated by men, one of whom knows a lot more about her past than she’d like, and is convinced she’s not fit for the role. In a race against time, Meg finds her own life at risk as she fights to stop the murderer from killing again. |
15th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Shadow Killer Arnaldur Indridason Reykjavík, August 1941. When a travelling sales rep is found murdered in a Reykjavík flat, killed by a bullet from a Colt 45, the police initially suspect a member of the Allied occupation force. The British are in the process of handing over to the Americans and the streets of Reykjavík are crawling with servicemen whose relations with the local women are a major cause for concern. Flóvent, Reykjavík’s sole detective, is joined by the young military policeman Thorson, the son of Icelandic emigrants to Canada. Their investigation focuses on a family of German residents, the retired doctor Rudolf Lunden and his estranged son Felix, who is on the run, suspected of being a spy. Flóvent and Thorson race to solve the case before US Counterintelligence can take it out of their hands, amid rumours of a pending visit by Churchill. But the plot thickens as evidence emerges of dubious experiments carried out on Icelandic schoolboys in the 1930s, while Thorson becomes increasingly suspicious of the role played by the murdered man’s former girlfriend, Vera, and her British soldier lover. ( |
22th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Gate Keeper Charles Todd Hours after his sister’s wedding, a restless Ian Rutledge drives aimlessly, haunted by the past, and narrowly misses a motorcar stopped in the middle of a desolate road. Standing beside the vehicle is a woman with blood on her hands and a dead man at her feet. She swears she didn’t kill Stephen Wentworth. A stranger stepped out in front of their motorcar, and without warning, fired a single shot before vanishing into the night. But there is no trace of him. And the shaken woman insists it all happened so quickly, she never saw the man’s face. Although he is a witness after the fact, Rutledge persuades the Yard to give him the inquiry, since he’s on the scene. But is he seeking justice—or fleeing painful memories in London? Wentworth was well-liked, yet his bitter family paint a malevolent portrait, calling him a murderer. But who did Wentworth kill? Is his death retribution? Or has his companion lied? Wolf Pit, his village, has a notorious history: in Medieval times, the last wolf in England was killed there. When a second suspicious death occurs, the evidence suggests that a dangerous predator is on the loose, and that death is closer than Rutledge knows |
22th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Long Forgotten David Whitehouse When the black box flight recorder of a plane that went missing 30 years ago is found at the bottom of the sea, a young man named Dove begins to remember a past that isn’t his. The memories belong to a rare flower hunter in 1980s New York, whose search led him around the world and ended in tragedy. Restless and lonely in present-day London, Dove is quickly consumed by the memories, which might just hold the key to the mystery of his own identity and what happened to the passengers on that doomed flight, The Long Forgotten. The Long Forgotten is a thrilling mystery about memory and identity from David Whitehouse, the award-winning author of Bed and Mobile Library. |
22th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Two Houses Fran Cooper After an acclaimed career in ceramics making things and breaking things, it is now Jay herself who has cracked. Recovering from a breakdown, she and her husband Simon move to the desolate edges of the Yorkshire moors, where they find and fall in love with the Two Houses: a crumbling Victorian property whose central rooms were supposedly so haunted that a previous owner had them cut out from the building entirely. But on uprooting their city life and moving to the sheltered grey village of Hestle, Jay and Simon discover it’s not only the Two Houses that seems to be haunted by an obscure past. It becomes increasingly clear that the villagers don’t want them there at all – and when building work to make the two houses whole again starts, a discovery is made that will unearth decades-old secrets . . . |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Bone Curse Carrie Rubin MEDICINE HAS NO CURE FOR EVIL… Ben Oris, a pragmatic med student from Philadelphia, gets cut by an old bone while touring the Paris catacombs. His companion Laurette, a public health student from Haiti, senses danger and worries an evil curse now runs through him. Ben scoffs at the idea—he simply has a wound that won’t heal—and back home he returns to his stressful clerkship at the hospital. But when people close to him succumb to a grisly illness and a dark priest pursues him, his skepticism wavers. Could a bone from an 18th-century skeleton with a frightening history really cause modern-day disease? With the help of Laurette, he scrambles to find a cure through Vodou before more of his loved ones die. But first, he must battle the mysterious priest who’s bent on vengeance and determined to have Ben’s blood as his own. |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Worth Killing For Jane Haseldine The past never really leaves us. Crime reporter Julia Gooden sees proof of this every day in her stories. A dark childhood, a negligent parent, early abandonment–any one of them can seal a person’s fate as either a villain or victim. Julia, who experienced all three, seems to have beaten the odds, finding happiness raising her two sons and a blossoming relationship with detective Raymond Navarro. But now, after three decades of absence, Julia’s conman father has resurfaced to throw her life into turmoil again. Julia was only seven when Duke Gooden abruptly left. Barely a month later, her nine-year-old brother, Ben, disappeared. Ben was her hero and protector, and though the case is cold, Julia has never given up hope of finding him. Duke’s return offers vital clues–but it also makes her a target of those who intend to see Duke punished for his many sins. When Julia investigates the death of a city councilman’s young nephew, she finds links to a string of other murders . . . and to a web of greed and kidnapping that stretches back decades. At long last, Julia may be able to discover what happened to Ben all those years ago, but only if she’s willing to risk everything in her present . . |
SciFi
9th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Alien Invasion Short Stories Misc Visitors from other planets have long obsessed us. H.G. Wells’ War of Worlds spawned a huge wave of speculative fiction but the roots of such fears run deep in our literature, from Voltaire to Thomas Hardy. Flame Tree’s successful Gothic Fantasy series brings a brilliant new mix of classic and new writing, in this beautiful edition. |
9th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Endless Apocalypse Short Stories Misc Stories of the end of civilized life have always fascinated us, from the mythological world endings, Armageddon to Ragnorok, to the flood stories of across the Ancient world. They make us wonder what we would do if all around us came to an end: no transport, no fuel, no communications: a retreat into the desperation, the onslaught of disease, how would we survive? This is the source of zombie literature and provides the inspiration for this fabulous mix of horror and adventure, of classic and brand new writing in the successful series of Gothic Fantasy titles from Flame Tree. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Semiosis Sue Burke Only mutual communication can forge an alliance with the planet’s sentient species and prove that mammals are more than tools. Forced to land on a planet they aren’t prepared for, human colonists rely on their limited resources to survive. The planet provides a lush but inexplicable landscape–trees offer edible, addictive fruit one day and poison the next, while the ruins of an alien race are found entwined in the roots of a strange plant. Conflicts between generations arise as they struggle to understand one another and grapple with an unknowable alien intellect. |
19th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Lightning Stenography Device M. F. Sullivan The first marketable thought to text device is released for public consumption in 2031. That same year, author Cassius Wagner will have a seizure. At least, that is what the novel says: the novel to which he awakens in fragments one morning after a late night of writing. This novel. Terrified to have a prophetic manuscript unfurling at his heels, his desperation to evade his fate prevents him from considering that his lover and editrix, Katherine Beauvoir, might be wrestling with a destiny of her own. Told in four psychedelic parts which peak with the fable of a sublingual Huntress as she fights to save her King, THE LIGHTNING STENOGRAPHY DEVICE blurs the speculative fiction and fantasy genres to explore the fabric of literature, and the boundaries of reality. |
20th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The October Men David Impey Otto Parsons, a brilliant young Oxford physicist, is missing. The October Men is a story of Otto’s experiment in quantum physics – trying to create zero gravity without going into space – which yields spectacularly unexpected results: time travel. Professor Dan Sibley, ever more desperate to secure funding to keep the experiment running, allows their work to fall into the control of men with an utterly different agenda. Otto’s disappearance is the first link in a chain of events, which tie together monumental historic moments including the sale of a lost van Gogh painting, the discovery of rare film footage of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the discovery of a hoard of rare art treasures in a French cave, and the murder of a financial advisor in the Cayman Islands. The scientists initially try to fund the experiment by producing a historical TV series that uncovers the truth behind the Roswell Incident and the assassination of President Kennedy, among others. Inevitably, the show goes viral and attracts unwanted attention. As the project requires ever more funds, sponsorship is sought elsewhere, and control of the equipment quickly passes to a shadowy cabal of international criminals whose activities have global consequences, as they exploit the equipment to take advantage of the financial and art markets. When the truth slips out, human existence itself comes under threat. |
26th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Eternal Life Dara Horn Rachel is a woman with a problem: she can’t die. Her recent troubles—widowhood, a failing business, an unemployed middle-aged son—are only the latest in a litany spanning dozens of countries, scores of marriages, and hundreds of children. In the 2,000 years since she made a spiritual bargain to save the life of her first son back in Roman-occupied Jerusalem, she’s tried everything to free herself, and only one other person in the world understands: a man she once loved passionately, who has been stalking her through the centuries, convinced they belong together forever. But as the twenty-first century begins and her children and grandchildren—consumed with immortality in their own ways, from the frontiers of digital currency to genetic engineering—develop new technologies that could change her fate and theirs, Rachel knows she must find a way out. |
YA Contemporary
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | In Search of Us Ava Dellaira This sweeping multi-generational love story introduces readers to mother-and-daughter pair Marilyn and Angie. To seventeen-year-old Angie, who is mixed-race, Marilyn is her hardworking, devoted white single mother. But Marilyn was once young, too. When Marilyn was seventeen, she fell in love with Angie’s father, James, who was African-American. But Angie’s never met him, and Marilyn has always told her he died before she was born. When Angie discovers evidence of an uncle she’s never met she starts to wonder: What if her dad is still alive, too? So she sets off on a journey to find him, hitching a ride to LA from her home in New Mexico with her ex-boyfriend, Sam. Along the way, she uncovers some hard truths about herself, her mother, and what truly happened to her father. |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Poet X Elizabeth Acevedo A young girl in Harlem discovers slam poetry as a way to understand her mother’s religion and her own relationship to the world. Debut novel of renowned slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo. Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems. Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | A Girl Like That Tanaz Bhathena Sixteen-year-old Zarin Wadia is many things: a bright and vivacious student, an orphan, a risk taker. She’s also the kind of girl that parents warn their kids to stay away from: a troublemaker whose many romances are the subject of endless gossip at school. You don’t want to get involved with a girl like that, they say. So how is it that eighteen-year-old Porus Dumasia has only ever had eyes for her? And how did Zarin and Porus end up dead in a car together, crashed on the side of a highway in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia? When the religious police arrive on the scene, everything everyone thought they knew about Zarin is questioned. And as her story is pieced together, told through multiple perspectives, it becomes clear that she was far more than just a girl like that. This beautifully written debut novel from Tanaz Bhathena reveals a rich and wonderful new world to readers. It tackles complicated issues of race, identity, class, and religion, and paints a portrait of teenage ambition, angst, and alienation that feels both inventive and universal. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | All We Can Do Is Wait Richard Lawson In the hours after a bridge collapse rocks their city, a group of Boston teenagers meet in the waiting room of Massachusetts General Hospital: Siblings Jason and Alexa have already experienced enough grief for a lifetime, so in this moment of confusion and despair, Alexa hopes that she can look to her brother for support. But a secret Jason has been keeping from his sister threatens to tear the siblings apart…right when they need each other most. Scott is waiting to hear about his girlfriend, Aimee, who was on a bus with her theater group when the bridge went down. Their relationship has been rocky, but Scott knows that if he can just see Aimee one more time, if she can just make it through this ordeal and he can tell her he loves her, everything will be all right. And then there’s Skyler, whose sister Kate—the sister who is more like a mother, the sister who is basically Skyler’s everything—was crossing the bridge when it collapsed. As the minutes tick by without a word from the hospital staff, Skyler is left to wonder how she can possibly move through life without the one person who makes her feel strong when she’s at her weakest. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Chaotic Good Whitney Gardner Cameron’s cosplay–dressing like a fictional character–is finally starting to earn her attention–attention she hopes to use to get into the CalTech costume department for college. But when she wins a major competition, she inadvertently sets off a firestorm of angry comments from male fans. When Cameron’s family moves the summer before her senior year, she hopes to complete her costume portfolio in peace and quiet away from the abuse. Unfortunately, the only comic shop in town–her main destination for character reference–is staffed by a dudebro owner who challenges every woman who comes into the shop. At her twin brother’s suggestion, Cameron borrows a set of his clothes and uses her costuming expertise to waltz into the shop as Boy Cameron, where she’s shocked at how easily she’s accepted into the nerd inner sanctum. Soon, Cameron finds herself drafted into a D&D campaign alongside the jerky shop-owner Brody, friendly (almost flirtatiously so) clerk Wyatt, handsome Lincoln, and her bro Cooper, dragged along for good measure. But as her “secret identity” gets more and more entrenched, Cameron’s portfolio falls by the wayside–and her feelings for Lincoln threaten to make a complicated situation even more precarious. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Falling Between Us Ash Parsons After 15-year-old Joshua Blackbird posts a performance of an original song on YouTube, he becomes an overnight sensation, catapulting to the dizzying heights of celebrity. Joshua is plucked from his middle-of-nowhere small town to pursue a pop star career complete with million-dollar record deals, international tours with sold-out crowds, and a diehard following who call themselves “Birdies.” But it’s not long before the never-blinking eye of fame begins weighing this bird down–the constant hunger of managers, record execs, paparazzi, even family, all leeching onto him. Then there is the staged romance with a teen pop princess and the unsettling fear brought on by a stalker. Everyone reaching out, determined to grab their piece of stardom, forgetting that an actual person–a kid nonetheless–is on the other side their grasp. It’s all too much. Until, that is, Joshua Blackbird disappears. Was it a suicide? An accident? Narrated from the perspective of Joshua’s girlfriend from home, Roxie, The Falling Between Us presents every wannabe teen heartthrob’s dream come true . . . only to realize it is a nightmare. |
22th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Winterfolk Janel Kolby Rain is a homeless teen living with her father in the woods outside Seattle, near a community of other homeless people called the Winterfolk. She finds safety and sanctuary in this hidden world—until the day that safety is shattered when she learns the city plans to clear the woods of everyone who lives there. Now she’s forced to confront Seattle, which is full of strange sights, sounds, people—and memories… |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | And She Was Jessica Verdi Dara’s lived a sheltered life with her single mom, Mellie. Now, at eighteen, she’s dreaming of more. When Dara digs up her never-before-seen birth certificate, her world implodes. Why are two strangers listed as her parents? Dara confronts her mother, and is stunned by what she learns: Mellie is transgender. The unfamiliar name listed under “father”? That’s Mellie. She transitioned when Dara was a baby, shortly after Dara’s birth mother died. But Dara still has more questions than answers. Reeling, she sets off on a road trip with her best guy friend, Sam. She’s determined to find the extended family she’s never met. What she discovers—and what her mother reveals, piece by piece over emails—will challenge and change Dara more than she can imagine. From rising star Jessica Verdi, this is a gorgeous, timely, and essential novel about the importance of being our true selves. |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Damselfly Chandra Prasad In the wake of crash-landing on a deserted tropical island, a group of private-school teens must rely on their wits and one another to survive. Having just survived a plane crash, Samantha Mishra finds herself isolated and injured in the thick of the jungle. She has no idea where she is or where anybody else is — she doesn’t even know if anybody else is alive. Once Sam connects with her best friend, Mel, and they locate the others, they set up camp and hope for rescue. But as the days pass, the survivors, all teammates on the Drake Rosemont fencing team, realize that they’re on their own — with the exception of a mysterious presence who taunts and threatens them. When their initial attempts to escape the island fail, the teens find they need to survive more than the jungle . . . they need to survive each other. This taut novel, with a setting evocative of Lord of the Flies, is by turns cinematic and intimate, and always thought-provoking. |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Emergency Contact Mary H K Choi For Penny Lee high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she somehow managed to land a boyfriend, he doesn’t actually know anything about her. When Penny heads to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer, it’s seventy-nine miles and a zillion light years away from everything she can’t wait to leave behind. Sam’s stuck. Literally, figuratively, emotionally, financially. He works at a café and sleeps there too, on a mattress on the floor of an empty storage room upstairs. He knows that this is the god-awful chapter of his life that will serve as inspiration for when he’s a famous movie director but right this second the seventeen bucks in his checking account and his dying laptop are really testing him. When Sam and Penny cross paths it’s less meet-cute and more a collision of unbearable awkwardness. Still, they swap numbers and stay in touch—via text—and soon become digitally inseparable, sharing their deepest anxieties and secret dreams without the humiliating weirdness of having to see each other. |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Place Between Breaths An Na Sixteen-year-old Grace is in a race against time—and in a race for her life—even if she doesn’t realize it yet… She is smart, responsible, and contending with more than what most teens ever have to. Her mother struggled with schizophrenia for years until, one day, she simply disappeared—fleeing in fear that she was going to hurt herself or those she cared about. Ever since, Grace’s father has worked as a recruiter at one of the leading labs dedicated to studying the disease, trying to lure the world’s top scientists to the faculty to find a cure, hoping against hope it can happen in time to help his wife if she is ever found. But this makes him distant. Consumed. Grace, in turn, does her part, interning at the lab in the gene sequencing department in hopes that one day they might make a breakthrough…and one day they do. Grace stumbles upon a string of code that could be the key. But something inside of Grace has started to unravel. Could her discovery just be a cruel side effect of the schizophrenia finally taking hold? Can she even tell the difference between what is real and what isn’t? |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Way the Light Bends Cordelia Jensen Virtual twins Linc and Holly were once extremely close. But while artistic, creative Linc is her parents’ daughter biologically, it’s smart, popular Holly, adopted from Ghana as a baby, who exemplifies the family’s high-achieving model of academic success. Linc is desperate to pursue photography, to find a place of belonging, and for her family to accept her for who she is, despite her surgeon mother’s constant disapproval and her growing distance from Holly. So when she comes up with a plan to use her photography interests and skills to do better in school–via a project based on Seneca Village, a long-gone village in the space that now holds Central Park, where all inhabitants, regardless of race, lived together harmoniously–Linc is excited and determined to prove that her differences are assets, that she has what it takes to make her mother proud. But when a long-buried family secret comes to light, Linc must decide whether her mother’s love is worth obtaining. |
29th March | Amazon | Waterstones | 806 Cynthia Weil Sibling 1 throws blenders and plays guitar. Sibling 2 is allergic to everything and is into magic. Sibling 3 is a varsity swimmer with a group of female fans. Enough said. The only thing they have in common is their biological father, and the only thing they can agree on is that they all want to meet him. With the help of a broken-down, “borrowed” Jeep, KT, Jesse, and Gabe make their way across the country evading police, trying their luck on the slots, and meeting a life-changing pig, all to track down Donor 806, their father. Any hope of success requires smarts, luck, and ingenuity. Good thing they have each other…even if they don’t see it that way. |
YA Fantasy
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Children of Blood and Bone Tomi Adeyemi Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zelie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were targeted and killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope. Now, Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good. Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers—and her growing feelings for the enemy. |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Daughters of the Storm Kim Wilkins They are the daughters of a king. Though they share the same royal blood, they could not be more different. Bluebell is a proud warrior, stronger than any man and with an ironclad heart to match. Rose’s heart is all too passionate: She is the queen of a neighboring kingdom, who is risking everything for a forbidden love. The twins: vain Ivy, who lives for admiration, and zealous Willow, who lives for the gods. And Ash, who is discovering a dangerous talent for magic that might be a gift–or a curse. But when their father is stricken by a mysterious ailment, they must come together on a desperate journey to save him and prevent their treacherous stepbrother from seizing the throne. Their mission: find the powerful witch who can cure the king. But to succeed on their quest, they must overcome their differences, and hope that the secrets they hide from one another and the world are never brought to light. Because if this royal family breaks, it could destroy the kingdom. |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | InkMistress Audrey Coulthurst Asra is a demigod with a dangerous gift: the ability to dictate the future by writing with her blood. To keep her power secret, she leads a quiet life as a healer on a remote mountain, content to help the people in her care and spend time with Ina, the mortal girl she loves. But Asra’s peaceful life is upended when bandits threaten Ina’s village and the king does nothing to help. Desperate to protect her people, Ina begs Asra for assistance in finding her manifest—the animal she’ll be able to change into as her rite of passage to adulthood. Asra uses her blood magic to help Ina, but her spell goes horribly wrong and the bandits destroy the village, killing Ina’s family. Unaware that Asra is at fault, Ina swears revenge on the king and takes a savage dragon as her manifest. To stop her, Asra must embark on a journey across the kingdom, becoming a player in lethal games of power among assassins, gods, and even the king himself. Most frightening of all, she discovers the dark secrets of her own mysterious history—and the terrible, powerful legacy she carries in her blood. |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Wicked Deep Shea Ernshaw Welcome to the cursed town of Sparrow… Where, two centuries ago, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery. Stones were tied to their ankles and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town. Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them under. Like many locals, seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the fate of the town. But this year, on the eve of the sisters’ return, a boy named Bo Carter arrives; unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into. Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain-soaked streets. The townspeople turn against one another. Penny and Bo suspect each other of hiding secrets. And death comes swiftly to those who cannot resist the call of the sisters. But only Penny sees what others cannot. And she will be forced to choose: save Bo, or save herself. |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | To Kill a Kingdom Alexandra Christo Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe most—a human. Robbed of her song, Lira has until the winter solstice to deliver Prince Elian’s heart to the Sea Queen or remain a human forever. The ocean is the only place Prince Elian calls home, even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. Hunting sirens is more than an unsavory hobby—it’s his calling. When he rescues a drowning woman in the ocean, she’s more than what she appears. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all of sirenkind for good—But can he trust her? And just how many deals will Elian have to barter to eliminate mankind’s greatest enemy? |
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Wizard for Hire Obert Skye Fourteen-year-old Ozzy lives near Portland, Oregon, and is desperate for help. His scientist parents have been kidnapped after discovering a formula that enables mind control. Their work was so top secret Ozzy is afraid to go to the police, but without help, he fears he’ll never find his parents. Then he stumbles across a classified ad in the local newspaper that says “Wizard for Hire. Call 555-SPEL.” Ozzy has read about wizards in books like Harry Potter, but wizards couldn’t actually exist today, could they? After Ozzy meets the wizard Labyrinth–aka Rin–he’s even more skeptical. Sure, Rin dresses like a wizard, but the short robe and high-top tennis shoes seem unorthodox, as does Rin’s habit of writing notes on his shoes and eating breakfast for every meal. Plus, Rin doesn’t even cast any magic spells, which means that the unexplained coincidences that start happening around Ozzy are just that–coincidences. With the help of a robotic-talking raven invented by Ozzy’s father, a kind and curious girl at school who decides to help Ozzy, and, of course, a self-proclaimed wizard who may or may not have a magical wand, Ozzy begins an unforgettable quest that will lead him closer to the answers he desperately seeks about his missing parents. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire John August As Arlo looked around, the walls of his room began to vanish, revealing a moonlit forest. Only his bed remained, and the frame of his window, through which he saw the girl. The world on her side of the glass was sparkling with silver and gold, like a palace made of autumn leaves. She looked off to her right. Someone was coming. Her words came in an urgent whisper: “If I can see you, they can see you. You’re in danger. Be careful, Arlo Finch.” Arlo Finch is a newcomer to Pine Mountain, Colorado, a tiny town of mystery and magic, but he’s already attracted the attention of dark and ancient forces. At first he thinks these increasingly strange and frightening occurrences are just part of being in Rangers, the mountain scouting troop where he learns how to harness the wild magic seeping in from the mysterious Long Woods. But soon Arlo finds himself at the center of a dangerous adventure, where he faces obstacles that test the foundations of the Ranger’s Vow: Loyalty, Bravery, Kindness, and Truth. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | By a Charm and a Curse Jaime Questell Le Grand’s Carnival Fantastic isn’t like other traveling circuses. It’s bound by a charm, held together by a centuries-old curse, that protects its members from ever growing older or getting hurt. Emmaline King is drawn to the circus like a moth to a flame…and unwittingly recruited into its folds by a mysterious teen boy whose kiss is as cold as ice. Forced to travel through Texas as the new Girl in the Box, Emmaline is completely trapped. Breaking the curse seems like her only chance at freedom, but with no curse, there’s no charm, either—dooming everyone who calls the Carnival Fantastic home. Including the boy she’s afraid she’s falling for. Everything—including his life—could end with just one kiss. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Daughter of the Siren Queen Tricia Levenseller Alosa’s mission is finally complete. Not only has she recovered all three pieces of the map to a legendary hidden treasure, but the pirates who originally took her captive are now prisoners on her ship. Still unfairly attractive and unexpectedly loyal, first mate Riden is a constant distraction, but now he’s under her orders. And she takes great comfort in knowing that the villainous Vordan will soon be facing her father’s justice. When Vordan exposes a secret her father has kept for years, Alosa and her crew find themselves in a deadly race with the feared Pirate King. Despite the danger, Alosa knows they will recover the treasure first . . . after all, she is the daughter of the Siren Queen. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Ink, Iron and Glass Gwendolyn Clare Can she write a world gone wrong? A certain pen, a certain book, and a certain person can craft entirely new worlds through a branch of science called scriptology. Elsa comes from one such world that was written into creation by her mother—a noted scriptologist. But when her home is attacked and her mother abducted, Elsa must cross into the real world and use her own scriptology gifts to find her. In an alternative 19th-century Italy, Elsa finds a secret society of pazzerellones—young people with a gift for mechanics, alchemy or scriptology—and meets Leo, a gorgeous mechanist with a smart mouth and a tragic past. She recruits the help of these fellow geniuses just as an assassin arrives on their doorstep. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Obsidio Jay Kristoff Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza—but who knows what they’ll find seven months after the invasion? Meanwhile, Kady’s cousin, Asha, survived the initial BeiTech assault and has joined Kerenza’s ragtag underground resistance. When Rhys—an old flame from Asha’s past—reappears on Kerenza, the two find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. With time running out, a final battle will be waged on land and in space, heros will fall, and hearts will be broken.Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza—but who knows what they’ll find seven months after the invasion? Meanwhile, Kady’s cousin, Asha, survived the initial BeiTech assault and has joined Kerenza’s ragtag underground resistance. When Rhys—an old flame from Asha’s past—reappears on Kerenza, the two find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. With time running out, a final battle will be waged on land and in space, heros will fall, and hearts will be broken. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Time Jumpers Brandon Mull Trapped in a world where magic is powerful and dreams are real, Cole’s epic adventure comes to a close in book five of the New York Times bestselling “fanciful, action-packed adventure” series (Publishers Weekly, starred review), from the author of the Fablehaven and Beyonders series. Cole and his friends are pushed to the limit in this finale to the bestselling Five Kingdoms series. Will they finally be able to restore magic to the world of the Outskirts and find their way back home? |
23th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Wingbound Heather Trim Ledger is supposed to fear and despise the Sky People of Ellery. When an Ellerian girl named Alouette with beautiful, white wings sneaks into his village, everything changes. With his village at war with the winged people who live on the floating island that circles their world, he does the unthinkable: he befriends her. In Ledger’s seventeenth harvest, Ellery returns empty. The Sky People are gone, Alouette is missing, and Ledger must make a difficult choice—continue life as usual in the blacksmith workshop or board the island against the elders’ wishes and find her. From debut author Heather Trim comes a vibrant fantasy where following the rules isn’t always the right thing to do when you were born to be the exception. |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Good Guys Steven Brust Donovan was shot by a cop. For jaywalking, supposedly. Actually, for arguing with a cop while black. Four of the nine shots were lethal–or would have been, if their target had been anybody else. The Foundation picked him up, brought him back, and trained him further. “Lethal” turns out to be a relative term when magic is involved. When Marci was fifteen, she levitated a paperweight and threw it at a guy she didn’t like. The Foundation scooped her up for training too. “Hippie chick” Susan got well into her Foundation training before they told her about the magic, but she’s as powerful as Donovan and Marci now. They can teleport themselves thousands of miles, conjure shields that will stop bullets, and read information from the remnants of spells cast by others days before. They all work for the secretive Foundation…for minimum wage. Which is okay, because the Foundation are the good guys. Aren’t they? |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Lost Crow Conspiracy Rosalyn Eves Sixteen-year old Anna Arden was once just the magically barren girl from an elite Luminate family. Now she has broken the Binding—and Praetheria, the creatures held captive by the spell, wreak havoc across Europe. Lower-class citizens have access to magic for the first time, while other Luminates lose theirs forever. Austria and Hungary are at odds once more. Anna Arden did not know breaking the Binding would break the world. Anna thought the Praetheria were on her side, content and grateful to be free from the Binding. She thought her cousin Matyas’s blood sacrifice to the disarm the spell would bring peace, equality, justice. She thought her future looked like a society that would let her love a Romani boy, Gabor. But with the Monarchy breathing down her neck and the Praetheria intimidating her at every turn, it seems the conspiracies have only just begun. As threat of war sweeps the region, Anna quickly discovers she can’t solve everything on her own. Now there’s only one other person who might be able to save the country before war breaks out. The one person Anna was sure she’d never see again. A bandit. A fellow outlaw. A man known as the King of Crows. Matyas. |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Reflection: A Twisted Tale Elizabeth Lim What if Mulan had to travel to the Underworld? When Captain Shang is mortally wounded by Shan Yu in battle, Mulan must travel to the Underworld, Diyu, in order to save him from certain death. But King Yama, the ruler of Diyu, is not willing to give Shang up easily. With the help of Shang’s great lion guardian ShiShi, Mulan must traverse Diyu to find Shang’s spirit, face harrowing obstacles, and leave by sunrise–or become King Yama’s prisoner forever. Moreover, Mulan is still disguised as the soldier called Ping, wrestling with the decision to reveal her true identity to her closest friend. Will Mulan be able to save Shang before it’s too late? Will he ever be able to trust her again? Or will she lose him–and be lost in the Underworld–forever? |
27th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Continent Keira Drake For her sixteenth birthday, Vaela Sun receives the most coveted gift in all the Spire—a trip to the Continent. It seems an unlikely destination for a holiday: a cold, desolate land where two nations remain perpetually locked in combat. Most citizens lucky enough to tour the Continent do so to observe the spectacle and violence of battle, a thing long vanished in the peaceful realm of the Spire. For Vaela, the war holds little interest. As a smart and talented apprentice cartographer and a descendent of the Continent herself, she sees the journey as a dream come true: a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve upon the maps she’s drawn of this vast, frozen land. But Vaela’s dream all too quickly turns to nightmare as the journey brings her face-to-face with the brutal reality of a war she’s only read about. Observing from the safety of a heli-plane, Vaela is forever changed by the sight of the bloody battle being waged far beneath her. And when a tragic accident leaves her stranded on the Continent, Vaela finds herself much closer to danger than she’d ever imagined—and with an entirely new perspective as to what war truly means. Starving, alone, and lost in the middle of a war zone, Vaela must try to find a way home—but first, she must survive. |
YA Historical Fiction
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Blood Water Paint Joy McCullough Her mother died when she was twelve, and suddenly Artemisia Gentileschi had a stark choice: a life as a nun in a convent or a life grinding pigment for her father’s paint. She chose paint. By the time she was seventeen, Artemisia did more than grind pigment. She was one of Rome’s most talented painters, even if no one knew her name. But Rome in 1610 was a city where men took what they wanted from women, and in the aftermath of rape Artemisia faced another terrible choice: a life of silence or a life of truth, no matter the cost. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Radical Element Misc To respect yourself, to love yourself—should not have to be a radical decision. And yet it remains as challenging for an American girl to make today as it was in 1927 on the steps of the Supreme Court. It’s a decision that must be faced whether you’re balancing on the tightrope of neurodivergence, finding your way as a second-generation immigrant, or facing down American racism even while loving America. And it’s the only decision when you’ve weighed society’s expectations and found them wanting. In The Radical Element, twelve of the most talented writers working in young adult literature today tell the stories of the girls of all colors and creeds standing up for themselves and their beliefs—whether that means secretly learning Hebrew in early Savannah, using the family magic to pass as white in 1920s Hollywood, or singing in a feminist punk band in 1980s Boston. And they’re asking you to join them. |
22th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Hamilton and Peggy! L.M. Elliott Revolutionary. Friend. Lover. Sister. Peggy Schuyler has always felt like she’s existed in the shadows of her beloved sisters: the fiery, intelligent Angelica and the beautiful, sweet Eliza. The three of them have a magnetic pull—they are stronger together than they are alone. But it’s in the throes of a chaotic war that Peggy finds herself a central figure amid Loyalists and Patriots, spies and traitors, and friends and family. Charming, quick-witted, and clever beyond compare, Peggy is determined to use her talents to make her own mark on the Revolutionary War. When a flirtatious aide-de-camp, Alexander Hamilton, writes an eloquent letter to Peggy asking for her help in wooing the earnest Eliza, Peggy finds herself unable to deny such an impassioned plea. A fast friendship forms between the two, but Alexander is caught in the same war as her father, General Philip Schuyler, and the danger to all their lives is real. Everything is a battlefield—from the front lines to their carefully coded letters—and Peggy must put herself in harm’s way to protect the people she loves. But will her bravery and intelligence be enough to keep them all safe? |
YA Mystery/Thriller
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Case for Jamie Brittany Cavallaro It’s been a year since the shocking death of August Moriarty, and Jamie and Charlotte haven’t spoken. Jamie is going through the motions at Sherringford, trying to finish his senior year without incident, with a nice girlfriend he can’t seem to fall for. Until strange things start happening to him. Strange things that might mean nothing at all—or that someone is after him again. Charlotte is on the run, from Lucien Moriarty and from her own mistakes. No one has seen her since that fateful night on the lawn in Sussex. Charlotte wants it that way. She knows she isn’t safe to be around. She knows that her Watson can’t forgive her. Holmes and Watson may not be looking to reconcile, but there is someone who wants the team back together. Someone who has been quietly observing them both. Making plans. Biding their time. Someone who wants to see one of them suffer and the other one dead. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | People Like Us Dana Mele Kay Donovan may have skeletons in her closet, but the past is past, and she’s reinvented herself entirely. Now she’s a star soccer player whose group of gorgeous friends run their private school with effortless popularity and acerbic wit. But when a girl’s body is found in the lake, Kay’s carefully constructed life begins to topple. The dead girl has left Kay a computer-coded scavenger hunt, which, as it unravels, begins to implicate suspect after suspect, until Kay herself is in the crosshairs of a murder investigation. But if Kay’s finally backed into a corner, she’ll do what it takes to survive. Because at Bates Academy, the truth is something you make…not something that happened. |
22th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Break Us Jennifer Brown Nikki Kill doesn’t see the world in black and white. Her synesthesia shades everything in view, transforming numbers, words, and emotions into colorful clues. Which means she’s a dangerous commodity to anyone with something to hide. Nikki has already taken on the Hollises—one of L.A.’s most powerful families—for murdering her half sister, Peyton. However, Nikki’s next steps are clouded by the gray of uncertainty. Before she knows it, Nikki is on the trail of a cold case that couldn’t be any more personal—the death of her mother. But when the web of lies and secrets she uncovers leads back to the people who have tried to silence her, Nikki must pursue the sunbeam gold of justice, or everything—including her life—will be lost. |
YA SciFi
6th March | Amazon | Waterstones | The Final 6 Alexandra Monir When Leo, an Italian championship swimmer, and Naomi, a science genius from California, are two of the twenty-four teens drafted into the International Space Training Camp, their lives are forever altered. After erratic climate change has made Earth a dangerous place to live, the fate of the population rests on the shoulders of the final six who will be scouting a new planet. Intense training, global scrutiny, and cutthroat opponents are only a few of the hurdles the contestants must endure in this competition. For Leo, the prospect of traveling to Europa—Jupiter’s moon—to help resettle humankind is just the sense of purpose he’s been yearning for since losing his entire family in the flooding of Rome. Naomi, after learning of a similar space mission that mysteriously failed, suspects the ISTC isn’t being up front with them about what’s at risk. As the race to the final six advances, the tests get more challenging—even deadly. With pressure mounting, Naomi finds an unexpected friend in Leo, and the two grow closer with each mind-boggling experience they encounter. But it’s only when the finalists become fewer and their destinies grow nearer that the two can fathom the full weight of everything at stake: the world, the stars, and their lives. |
13th March | Amazon | Waterstones | Blood of a Thousand Stars Rhoda Belleza With a revolution brewing, Rhee is faced with a choice: make a deal with her enemy, Nero, or denounce him and risk losing her crown. Framed assassin Alyosha has one goal in mind: kill Nero. But to get his revenge, Aly may have to travel back to the very place he thought he’d left forever—home. Kara knows that a single piece of technology located on the uninhabitable planet Wraeta may be the key to remembering—and erasing—the princess she once was. Villainous media star Nero is out for blood, and he’ll go to any means necessary to control the galaxy. Vicious politics and high-stakes action culminate in an epic showdown that will determine the fate of the universe. |
Comments
10 responses to “March Book Releases”
Wow, I can see that it takes you a long time to do this post!! Lots of great titles out this month 🙌🏼 X
I kept getting distracted by the really good descriptions 😂 x
Seriously I love this post so much! Might be my favorite post of the month. ❤️
You’re so sweet Maud! And I’m so happy you enjoy it! x
I would definitely want to check out the second book , girls burn brighter because I was floored by the twist and the plot seems so interesting.
Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll add it to my TBR! x
I need some new books to read so I’m definitely going to check some of these out! Great post!
Suffering Wanderlust
Glad you liked it Dani! x
I’m definitely going to check these out! I’m trying to read more this year and so far can’t find a book which grabs my attention!!
Kelly
http://thiswayandthatway.com
What kind of books are you interested in? Maybe I can suggest something good x