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1 October
The Lost Spell by Robert Macfarlane
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Kindred in spirit to The Lost Words but fresh in its form, The Lost Spells is a pocket-sized treasure that introduces a beautiful new set of natural spell-poems and artwork by beloved creative duo Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris.
As in The Lost Words, these “spells” take their subjects from relatively commonplace, and yet underappreciated, animals, birds, trees and flowers — from Barn Owl to Red Fox, Grey Seal to Silver Birch, Jay to Jackdaw. But they break out of the triptych format of The Lost Words, finding new shapes, new spaces and new voices with which to conjure.
Written to be read aloud, painted in brushstrokes that call to the forest, field, riverbank and also to the heart, The Lost Spells summons back what is often lost from sight and care, and inspires protection and action on behalf of the natural world. Above all, it celebrates a sense of wonder, bearing witness to nature’s power to amaze, console and bring joy.
The Danger Gang by Tom Fletcher
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Franky can’t wait to move to his new town – although he wishes he didn’t have to leave his best friend Dani behind.
But everything changes after the storm, when strange green lightning and powerful thunder crash down on the town. From that night on, the kids who live on Franky’s street start to change. One by one, they become a little odd. A little unusual. A little… magical.
Franky’s always wanted to be part of an amazing gang – just like his hero, super-spy Zack Danger! And soon, he realises that there’s real danger in store for himself and his new friends.
And so the Danger Gang is born…
A Clock of Stars: The Shadow Moth by Francesca Gibbons
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Imogen should be nice to her little sister Marie. She should be nice to her mum’s boyfriend too. And she certainly shouldn’t follow a strange silver moth through a door in a tree.
But then… who does what they’re told?
Followed by Marie, Imogen finds herself falling into a magical kingdom where the two sisters are swept up in a thrilling race against time – helped by the spoiled prince of the kingdom, a dancing bear, a very grumpy hunter… and even the stars above them.
The Miracle on Ebenezer Street by Catherine Doyle
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George is about to spend his third Christmas without his mum. Since she died, George’s life has felt dull and grey; his dad has thrown himself into his work and has no time for family, and definitely no time for Christmas.
Then, George stumbles across Marley’s Curiosity Shop. There he finds a mysterious snow globe, which – though George can’t quite understand how – appears to show a scene from George’s past. A Christmas in which he and his family were together, and happy…
That night, George and his dad are swept on an adventure to three Christmases – past, present, and future. With help from new friends, and just a touch of magic, can they begin living life in full colour again?
Warriors Super Edition: Graystripe’s Vow by Erin Hunter
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In this Super Edition, set during the events of The Broken Code, respected ThunderClan warrior Graystripe seeks a path to the Clan’s future by returning to his past—and the Moonstone in the Clans’ old forest territory.
Graystripe served ThunderClan for many moons before retiring to the elders’ den. As Firestar’s most trusted friend and deputy, Graystripe promised that he would never abandon his home. But as new tensions strain ThunderClan, Graystripe will need to call on all of his long history, leaving ThunderClan behind in hopes of finding an answer that might save it.
The Day I Fell Into a Fairytale by Ben Miller
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Lana loves stories. Especially the ones she and her brother, Harrison, share in their make-believe games. But when Harrison decides he’s too grown-up to play with Lana she finds herself feeling lonely. Until something magical happens…
Hidden in the strange new supermarket in town, Lana discovers a portal to a fairytale world! But these aren’t the happy-ever-after fairytales that Lana knows, they are darker and more dangerous, and the characters need Lana’s help to defeat an evil witch. But she can’t do it alone. Can she convince Harrison to believe in stories again and journey to the world with her. . . before it’s too late?
The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars by Jaclyn Moriarty
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The town of Spindrift is frequented by pirates, Shadow Mages and charlatans. It’s also home to the Orphanage School, where Finlay lives with Glim, Taya and Eli. Just outside town is the painfully posh Brathelthwaite Boarding School, home to Honey Bee, Hamish and Victor, Duke of Ainsley. When the two schools compete at the Spindrift Tournament, stakes are high, tensions are higher, and some people are out to win at any cost. Before long, the orphans and the boarding school are in an all-out war.
And then Whispering Wars break out, and Spindrift is thrust onto the front lines. Children are being stolen, Witches, Sirens and a deadly magical flu invade the town, and all attempts to fight back are met with defeat.
Finlay, Honey Bee and their friends must join forces to outwit the encroaching forces of darkness, rescue the stolen children, and turn the tide of the war. But how can one bickering troupe outwit the insidious power of the Whisperers? And who are the two mysterious figures watching them from the shadows?
6 October
The Tower of Nero by Rick Riordan
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It’s time to face the final trial . . .
The battle for Camp Jupiter is over. New Rome is safe. Tarquin and his army of the undead have been defeated. Somehow Apollo has made it out alive, with a little bit of help from the Hunters of Artemis.
But though the battle may have been won, the war is far from over.
Now Apollo and Meg must get ready for the final – and, let’s face it, probably fatal – adventure. They must face the last emperor, the terrifying Nero, and destroy him once and for all.
Can Apollo find his godly form again? Will Meg be able to face up to her troubled past? Destiny awaits . . .
8 October
A Tale of Magic: A Tale of Witchcraft by Chris Colfer
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Brystal Evergreen changed the world, but the journey is just beginning …
Brystal Evergreen and her friends have saved the world from the evil Snow Queen and secured worldwide acceptance for the magical community.
However, when a mysterious new witch named Mistress Mara arrives at the Academy, the celebrations are cut short. As Mistress Mara begins recruiting faeries into her rival school of Witchcraft, it becomes clear she has dark intentions. And soon Brystal’s friend Lucy becomes embroiled in an ominous plot against mankind.
Elsewhere, the fragile peace is on the brink of shattering. Outrage has spread throughout the kingdoms in opposition to the legalisation of magic. And a dangerous and centuries old clan known as the Righteous Brotherhood has resurfaced, with one goal in mind: to exterminate all magical life for ever … starting with Brystal …
13 October
The Fallen Hero by Katie Zhao
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Faryn Liu thought she was the Heaven Breaker, a warrior destined to wield the all-powerful spear Fenghuang, command dragons, and defeat demons. But a conniving goddess was manipulating her all along . . . and her beloved younger brother, Alex, has betrayed her and taken over as the Heaven Breaker instead. Alex never forgave the people who treated him and Faryn like outcasts, and now he wants to wipe out both the demons and most of humanity.
Determined to prevent a war and bring Alex back to her side, Faryn and her half-dragon friend Ren join the New Order, a group of warriors based out of Manhattan’s Chinatown. She learns that one weapon can stand against Fenghuang–the Ruyi Jingu Bang. Only problem? It belongs to an infamous trickster, the Monkey King.
Faryn sets off on a daring quest to convince the Monkey King to join forces with her, one that will take her to new places–including Diyu, otherwise known as the underworld–where she’ll run into new dangers and more than one familiar face. Can she complete her mission and save the brother she loves, no matter the cost?
15 October
Good Night Stories For Rebel Girls: 100 Immigrant Women Who Changed The World by Elena Favilli
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The latest installment in the New York Times bestselling Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls series, featuring 100 immigrant women who have shaped, and will continue to shape, our world.
Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Immigrant Women Who Changed the World is the third book in the New York Times bestselling series for children. Packed with 100 all-new bedtime stories about the lives of incredible female figures from the past and the present, this volume recognizes women who left their birth countries for a multitude of reasons: some for new opportunities, some out of necessity. Readers will whip up a plate with Asma Khan, strategize global affairs alongside Madeleine Albright, venture into business with Rihanna, and many more. All of these unique, yet relatable stories are accompanied by gorgeous, full-page, full-color portraits, illustrated by female artists from all over the globe.
Future Friend by David Baddiel
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The year is 3020.
Pip is lonely and bored: she goes to virtual school on her G-Glasses, she only has a talking cat and parrot to hang out with, and she can’t even leave her LivingSpace due to the extreme heat and floods outside.
Until the day that Pip explores a glowing ring in a lab and finds herself in a warehouse, in 2019.
Where she meets boy-inventor Rahul – who is also lonely and bored.
Together, Rahul and Pip are no longer lonely. But they have a whole load of new problems, including hiding talking animals from Rahul’s parents, and finding a way back to the future.
Plus – just maybe – saving the world…
The Magic Misfits: The Fourth Suit by Neil Patrick Harris
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Ridley Larsen is everything you want in a friend. She’s tough as nails, she’s fiercely loyal, and she’s smart as a whip. But she can be a harsh critic, which has put her position with the Magic Misfits on the rocks, even as the threat of the group’s longtime enemy Kalagan looms large. Ever since his recent appearance in Mineral Wells, the kids know that a showdown with the vicious magician is imminent.
They must first deal with a series of odd instances and random attacks, though, all of which they use to bring themselves closer to discovering where Kalagan may be hiding, and the nature of his true identity. But can Ridley finally master her temper and put her essential magical skills to good use? She’ll do anything to protect her friends, and when the time comes, she’ll find that the Magic Misfits are strongest when they all work together.
The Griffin Gate by Vashti Hardy
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“Warden Griffin at your service. Can I ask if you’ve seen a monster in the area …?” Grace’s family are wardens of the Griffin Map, using its teleport technology to fight crime across Moreland. Although Grace is still too young, she longs to go on missions herself. After all, if her brother, Bren, can do it, why can’t she? So when Grace finds herself alone with the map when a distress call comes in, she jumps at the chance to prove she’s up to the task. But the map transports Grace to a remote village where nothing is quite as it seems … Has she taken on more than she can handle?
20 October
Deny All Charges by Eoin Colfer
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The second Fowl Twins adventure starts with a bang – literally.
Artemis’s little brothers Myles and Beckett borrow the Fowl jet without permission, and it ends up as a fireball over Florida. The twins plus their fairy minder, the pixie-elf hybrid Lazuli Heitz, are lucky to escape with their lives.
The Fowl parents and fairy police force decide that enough is enough and the twins are placed under house arrest. But Myles has questions, like: who was tracking the Fowl jet? Why would someone want to blow them out of the sky? These questions must infuriate someone, because Myles is abducted and spirited away from his twin.
Now Beckett and Lazuli must collaborate to find Myles and rescue him – not easy when it was Myles who was the brains of the operation. Their chase will take them across continents, deep underground, and into subaquatic super villain lairs. They will be shot at, covered in spit, and at the receiving end of some quite nasty dwarf sarcasm. But will Beckett be able to come up with a genius plan without a genius on hand…?
1 October
Home Stretch by Graham Norton
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It is 1987 and a small Irish community is preparing for a wedding. The day before the ceremony a group of young friends, including bride and groom, drive out to the beach. There is an accident. Three survive, but three are killed.
The lives of the families are shattered and the rifts between them are felt throughout the small town. Connor is one of the survivors. But staying among the angry and the mourning is almost as hard as living with the shame of having been the driver. He leaves the only place he knows for another life, taking his secrets with him. Travelling first to Liverpool, then London, he makes a home – of sorts – for himself in New York. The city provides shelter and possibility for the displaced, somewhere Connor can forget his past and forge a new life.
6 October
One More For Christmas by Sarah Morgan
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For sisters Samantha and Ella Mitchell, Christmas is their most precious time of the year–a time for togetherness, love and celebration. Most of all, it’s about making up for everything their childhood Christmases lacked. But this year, they’ll be buying presents for the most unexpected guest of all–their estranged mother. It’s been five years since they last saw each other. But when their mom calls out of the blue and promises that this Christmas will be different, Samantha and Ella cautiously agree to spend it all together…
Gayle Mitchell is at the top of her career, but her success has come at a price–her relationship with her daughters. She never seemed to say and do the right things. Her tough-love approach was designed to make them stronger, but instead managed to push them away…until a brush with her own mortality forces Gayle to make amends. As the snowflakes fall on their first family celebration in years, the Mitchell women must learn that sometimes facing up to the past is all you need to heal your heart…
8 October
Trio by William Boyd
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A producer. A novelist. An actress.
It is summer in 1968, the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. There are riots in Paris and the Vietnam War is out of control. While the world is reeling our three characters are involved in making a Swingin’ Sixties movie in sunny Brighton.
All are leading secret lives. Elfrida is drowning her writer’s block in vodka; Talbot, coping with the daily dysfunction of making a film, is hiding something in a secret apartment; and the glamorous Anny is wondering why the CIA is suddenly so interested in her.
But the show must go on and, as it does, the trio’s private worlds begin to take over their public ones. Pressures build inexorably – someone’s going to crack. Or maybe they all will.
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
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Natsuki isn’t like the other girls. Together with her cousin Yuu, she spends her summers in the wild Nagano mountains, hoping a spaceship will take her home. When a terrible sequence of events threatens to part the cousins for ever, they make a promise: survive, no matter what.
Now, Natsuki is grown. She lives quietly in an asexual marriage, pretending to be normal, and hiding the horrors of her childhood from her family and friends. But dark shadows from Natsuki’s past are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of Nagano, Natsuki prepares herself for a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?
15 October
Ghosts by Dolly Alderton
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Nina Dean has arrived at her early thirties as a successful food writer with loving friends and family, plus a new home and neighbourhood. When she meets Max, a beguiling romantic hero who tells her on date one that he’s going to marry her, it feels like all is going to plan.
A new relationship couldn’t have come at a better time – her thirties have not been the liberating, uncomplicated experience she was sold. Everywhere she turns, she is reminded of time passing and opportunities dwindling. Friendships are fading, ex-boyfriends are moving on and, worse, everyone’s moving to the suburbs. There’s no solace to be found in her family, with a mum who’s caught in a baffling mid-life makeover and a beloved dad who is vanishing in slow-motion into dementia.
Love by Roddy Doyle
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One summer’s evening, two men meet up in a Dublin restaurant.
Old friends, now married and with grown-up children, their lives have taken seemingly similar paths. But Joe has a secret he has to tell Davy, and Davy, a grief he wants to keep from Joe. Both are not the men they used to be.
Neither Davy nor Joe know what the night has in store, but as two pints turns to three, then five, and the men set out to revisit the haunts of their youth, the ghosts of Dublin entwine around them. Their first buoyant forays into adulthood, the pubs, the parties, broken hearts and bungled affairs, as well as the memories of what eventually drove them apart.
As the two friends try to reconcile their versions of the past over the course of one night, Love offers up a delightfully comic, yet moving portrait of the many forms love can take throughout our lives.
Christmas at the Island Hotel by Jenny Colgan
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On the tiny Scottish island of Mure, Christmas preparations are even more hectic than usual . . .
Flora Mackenzie is worried about her brother. Fintan hasn’t got over the death of his partner, Coltan, and Flora thinks he needs a project.
The Rock – the rambling, disused hotel on the tip of the island – was Coltan’s passion project before he died. With Flora’s help, Fintan is going to get the hotel up and running in time for Christmas, transforming it into a festive haven of crackling log fires and delicious food. But running a hotel, they are about to discover, is not that easy. Especially when their motley staff includes a temperamental French chef, a spoilt Norwegian kitchen boy who can’t peel a potato without mutilating his own hand and a painfully shy kitchen assistant who blushes when anyone speaks to her.
Can they pull it together in time for the big opening?
And can Flora help her family find happiness this Christmas?
20 October
The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult
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Who would you be, if you hadn’t turned out to be the person you are now?
Dawn is a death doula, and spends her life helping people make the final transition peacefully.
But when the plane she’s on plummets, she finds herself thinking not of the perfect life she has, but the life she was forced to abandon fifteen years ago – when she left behind a career in Egyptology, and a man she loved.
Against the odds, she survives, and the airline offers her a ticket to wherever she needs to get to – but the answer to that question suddenly seems uncertain.
As the path of her life forks in two very different directions, Dawn must confront questions she’s never truly asked: what does a well-lived life look like? What do we leave behind when we go? And do we make our choices, or do our choices make us?
Two possible futures. One impossible choice.
29 October
A Christmas to Remember by Anton Du Beke
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London, 1938.
As the threat of war looms ever closer, the Buckingham Hotel’s difficulties grow. Still reeling from the events of last year, and with guests decreasing as foreign tensions mount, the staff of the Buckingham will have to struggle to keep up the hotel’s glamorous reputation. Life for Nancy Nettleton and the man she loves, demonstration dancer Raymond de Guise, is only about to get harder.
But beneath the glitz of the ballroom lies a thousand secrets…
Love Your Life by Sophie Kinsella
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I love you . . . but what if I can’t love your life?
Ava is sick of online dating. She’s always trusted her own instincts over an algorithm, anyway, and she wants a break from it all. So when she signs up to a semi-silent, anonymous writing retreat in glorious Italy, love is the last thing on her mind.
Until she meets a handsome stranger. . . All she knows is that he’s funny, he’s kind and – she soon learns – he’s great in bed. He’s equally smitten, and after a whirlwind, intoxicating affair, they pledge their love without even knowing each other’s real names.
But when they return home, reality hits. They’re both driven mad by each other’s weird quirks and annoying habits, from his eccentric, naked-sauna-loving family to her terribly behaved, shirt-shredding dog. As disaster follows disaster, it seems that while they love each other, they just can’t love each other’s lives. Can they overcome their differences to find one life, together?
1 October
Talent by B. Lynn Goodwin
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Sandee Mason is convinced her life will change if she can just win applause for her talents-whatever they may be. She can’t wait to accomplish something after living in the shadow of her big brother, Bri, who disappeared in Afghanistan months earlier, leaving Sandee craving the same attention the whole town is giving him even as she wrestles with feelings of loss. When her high school drama department puts on the play Oklahoma!, she knows that now is her chance to step out and be noticed. What will she learn about herself as she reaches out to the world?
13 October
You Know I’m No Good by Jessie Ann Foley
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Mia is officially a Troubled Teen(TM)– she gets bad grades, drinks too much, and has probably gone too far with too many guys.
But she doesn’t realize how out of control she seems until she is taken from her home in the middle of the night and sent away to Red Oak Academy, a therapeutic girls’ boarding school in the middle of nowhere.
While there, Mia is forced to confront her painful past at the same time she questions why she’s at Red Oak. If she were a boy, would her behavior be considered wild enough to get sent away? But what happens when circumstances outside of her control compel Mia to make herself vulnerable enough to be truly seen?
Challenging and thought-provoking, this stunni
Above All Else by Dana Alison Levy
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Rose Keller and Tate Russo have been climbing for years, training in harsh weather and traveling all over the world. The goal that kept them going? Summiting Mount Everest, the highest point on earth. Accompanied by Tate’s dad, the two will finally make the ultimate climb at the end of their senior year. But neither Rose nor Tate are fully in the game–not only is there a simmering romance between them, but Rose can’t get her mind off her mother’s illness, while Tate constantly fails to live up to his ambitious father’s standards.
Everyone on their expedition has something to prove, it seems. And not everyone is making the best decisions while short on oxygen and exhausted, body and mind. The farther up the mountain they go, the more their climbing plans unravel and the more isolated each team member becomes. Rose and Tate will have to dig deep within themselves to determine what–or who–they value above all else.
Everything I Thought I Knew by Shannon Takaoka
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A teenage girl wonders if she’s inherited more than just a heart from her donor in this compulsively readable debut.
Seventeen-year-old Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college. But after she collapses during cross-country practice and is told that she needs a new heart, all her careful preparations are laid to waste. Eight months after her transplant, everything is different. Stuck in summer school with the underachievers, all she wants to do now is grab her surfboard and hit the waves–which is strange, because she wasn’t interested in surfing before her transplant. (It doesn’t hurt that her instructor, Kai, is seriously good-looking.) And that’s not all that’s strange. There’s also the vivid recurring nightmare about crashing a motorcycle in a tunnel and memories of people and places she doesn’t recognize. Is there something wrong with her head now, too, or is there another explanation for what she’s experiencing? As she searches for answers, and as her attraction to Kai intensifies, what she learns will lead her to question everything she thought she knew–about life, death, love, identity, and the true nature of reality.
The Stories Stars Tell by CL Walters
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Emma-Christian daughter of Mo and Amy Matthews, big sister to Shelby, lover of John Hughes films, and Salutatorian of the senior class-has spent her entire high school career playing it safe because she stifles her risk-taking gene for perfectionism instead. This behavior isn’t necessarily because that’s who she is, but because of all of those external expectations wrapped up in her parents’ approval and the religious messages she’s grown up believing. She’s not a perfect girl; she just feels like she’s supposed to be. Now, she’s headed to college in the fall ill-equipped to face the challenges of real life. Though that one time junior year when she got drunk for the liquid courage to coerce Tanner James into kissing her might be an outlier, unlike most of her well-laid plans (even if she got what she wanted), she took the calculated risk to squash her infatuation for Tanner and it didn’t work. She still wants to have sex with him.
Like Emma, Tanner hasn’t forgotten that kiss junior year either, but for entirely different reasons. Party f-boy extraordinaire has reached high school graduation without options-a dead end. He’s made choices rooted in the expectations of his friends and their pact: the Bro Code. Except, he’s tired of the party life and the Nowhere it leads. That junior-year kiss changed something in him, and now he’d rather be at home reading his favorite book. As graduation and the great empty beyond looms, Tanner questions every choice he’s made. This upheaval unravels the protective box he’s built to insulate himself for all the real stuff he’s been avoiding, namely his older brother’s death and the volatile divorce of his parents.
One week before high school graduation, Emma and Tanner find themselves face-to-face at the edge of a cliff at the Quarry when it’s time for the partner-jump during the traditional Senior Send Off. Under the light of the stars, they both face the terrifying adventure of making a different choice. Tanner asks Emma to be his partner; Emma says, “yes,” both risking everything to write a new story they’d thought had already been written. It’s just that change always has a price.
The Gifted, the Talented, and Me by William Sutcliffe
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Fifteen-year-old Sam is not a famous vlogger, he’s never gone viral, and he doesn’t want to be the Next Big Thing. In fact, he’s ordinary and proud of it. None of which was a problem until Dad got rich and Mom made the whole family move to London. Now Sam’s off to the North London Academy for the Gifted and Talented, where everyone’s busy planning Hollywood domination or starting alt-metal psychedelica crossover bands. Sam knows he’ll never belong, even if he wanted to — but can he find himself on his own terms?
15 October
Grown by Tiffany D Jackson
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When legendary R&B artist Korey Fields spots Enchanted Jones at an audition, her dreams of being a famous singer take flight. Until Enchanted wakes up with blood on her hands and zero memory of the previous night. Who killed Korey Fields?
Before there was a dead body, Enchanted’s dreams had turned into a nightmare. Because behind Korey’s charm and star power was a controlling dark side. Now he’s dead, the police are at the door, and all signs point to Enchanted.
Who I Was with Her by Nita Tyndall
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There are two things that Corinne Parker knows to be true: that she is in love with Maggie Bailey, the captain of the rival high school’s cross-country team and her secret girlfriend of a year, and that she isn’t ready for anyone to know she’s bisexual.
But then Maggie dies, and Corinne quickly learns that the only thing worse than losing Maggie is being left heartbroken over a relationship no one knows existed. And to make things even more complicated, the only person she can turn to is Elissa—Maggie’s ex, and the single person who understands how Corinne is feeling.
As Corinne struggles to make sense of her grief and what she truly wants out of life, she begins to have feelings for the last person she should fall for. But to move forward after losing Maggie, Corinne will have to learn to be honest with the people in her life…starting with herself.
20 October
This Is How We Fly by Anna Meriano
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17-year-old vegan feminist Ellen Lopez-Rourke has one muggy Houston summer left before college. She plans to spend every last moment with her two best friends before they go off to the opposite ends of Texas for school. But when Ellen is grounded for the entire summer by her (sometimes) evil stepmother, all her plans are thrown out the window.
Determined to do something with her time, Ellen (with the help of BFF Melissa) convinces her parents to let her join the local muggle Quidditch team. An all-gender, full-contact game, Quidditch isn’t quite what Ellen expects. There’s no flying, no magic, just a bunch of scrappy players holding PVC pipe between their legs and throwing dodgeballs. Suddenly Ellen is thrown into the very different world of sports: her life is all practices, training, and running with a group of Harry Potter fans.
Even as Melissa pulls away to pursue new relationships and their other BFF Xiumiao seems more interested in moving on from high school (and from Ellen), Ellen is steadily finding a place among her teammates. Maybe Quidditch is where she belongs.
But with her home life and friend troubles quickly spinning out of control–Ellen must fight for the future that she wants, now she’s playing for keeps.
1 October
The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton
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It’s 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world’s greatest detective, is being transported from the Dutch East Indies to Amsterdam, where he is facing trial and execution for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Travelling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent, while also on board are Sara Wessel, a noble woman with a secret, and her husband, the governor general of Batavia.
But no sooner is their ship out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. A strange symbol appears on the sail. A dead leper stalks the decks. Livestock are slaughtered in the night.
And then the passengers hear a terrible voice whispering to them in the darkness, promising them three unholy miracles. First: an impossible pursuit. Second: an impossible theft. Third: an impossible murder.
Could a demon be responsible for their misfortunes?
With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent and Sara can solve a mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board.
Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes
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The Greek myths are among the world’s most important cultural building blocks and they have been retold many times, but rarely do they focus on the remarkable women at the heart of these ancient stories.
Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, from the Trojan War to Jason and the Argonauts. And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost three thousand years ago. But modern tellers of Greek myth have usually been men, and have routinely shown little interest in telling women’s stories. And when they do, those women are often painted as monstrous, vengeful or just plain evil. But Pandora – the first woman, who according to legend unloosed chaos upon the world – was not a villain, and even Medea and Phaedra have more nuanced stories than generations of retellings might indicate.
Now, in Pandora’s Jar, Natalie Haynes – broadcaster, writer and passionate classicist – redresses this imbalance. Taking Pandora and her jar (the box came later) as the starting point, she puts the women of the Greek myths on equal footing with the menfolk. After millennia of stories telling of gods and men, be they Zeus or Agamemnon, Paris or Odysseus, Oedipus or Jason, the voices that sing from these pages are those of Hera, Athena and Artemis, and of Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Eurydice and Penelope
Burning Roses by S. L. Huang
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Rosa, also known as Red Riding Hood, is done with wolves and woods.
Hou Yi the Archer is tired, and knows she’s past her prime.
They would both rather just be retired, but that’s not what the world has ready for them.
When deadly sunbirds begin to ravage the countryside, threatening everything they’ve both grown to love, the two must join forces. Now blessed and burdened with the hindsight of middle age, they begin a quest that’s a reckoning of sacrifices made and mistakes mourned, of choices and family and the quest for immortality.
Battle Ground by Jim Butcher
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Harry has faced terrible odds before. He has a long history of fighting enemies above his weight class. The Red Court of vampires. The fallen angels of the Order of the Blackened Denarius. The Outsiders.
But this time it’s different. A being more powerful and dangerous on an order of magnitude beyond what the world has seen in a millennium is coming. And she’s bringing an army. The Last Titan has declared war on the city of Chicago, and has come to subjugate humanity, obliterating any who stand in her way.
Harry’s mission is simple but impossible: Save the city by killing a Titan. And the attempt will change Harry’s life, Chicago, and the mortal world forever.
Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston
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The world is changing. Poison desert eats good farmland. Once-sweet water turns foul. The wind blows sand and sadness across the Empire. To get caught in a storm is death. To live and do nothing is death. There is magic in the world, but good conjure is hard to find.
Djola, righthand man and spymaster of the lord of the Arkhysian Empire, is desperately trying to save his adopted homeland, even in exile.
Awa, a young woman training to be a powerful griot, tests the limits of her knowledge and comes into her own in a world of sorcery, floating cities, kindly beasts, and uncertain men.
Awash in the rhythms of folklore and storytelling and rich with Hairston’s characteristic lush prose, Master of Poisons is epic fantasy that will bleed your mind with its turns of phrase and leave you aching for the world it burns into being.
Ashes of the Sun by Django Wexler
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Long ago, a magical war destroyed the Chosen Empire, and a new republic rose from its ashes. But old grudges still simmer…
Gyre hasn’t seen his beloved sister since their parents sold her to the mysterious Twilight Order. Now, twelve years after her disappearance, Gyre’s sole focus is revenge, and he’s willing to risk anything and anyone to claim enough power to destroy the Order.
Chasing rumors of a fabled city protecting a powerful artifact, Gyre comes face-to-face with his lost sister. But she isn’t who she once was. Trained to be a warrior, Maya wields magic for the Twilight Order’s cause. Standing on opposite sides of a looming civil war, the two siblings will learn that not even the ties of blood will keep them from splitting the world in two.
6 October
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
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When Addie La Rue makes a pact with the devil, she trades her soul for immortality. But there’s always a price – the devil takes away her place in the world, cursing her to be forgotten by everyone.
Addie flees her tiny home town in 18th-Century France, beginning a journey that takes her across the world, learning to live a life where no one remembers her and everything she owns is lost and broken. Existing only as a muse for artists throughout history, she learns to fall in love anew every single day.
Her only companion on this journey is her dark devil with hypnotic green eyes, who visits her each year on the anniversary of their deal. Alone in the world, Addie has no choice but to confront him, to understand him, maybe to beat him.
Until one day, in a second hand bookshop in Manhattan, Addie meets someone who remembers her. Suddenly thrust back into a real, normal life, Addie realises she can’t escape her fate forever.
Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman
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We first met the Owens in the glorious novel Practical Magic. We discovered the tragedy of the Owens siblings in Rules of Magic. Now we learn how it all began… with a baby abandoned in a snowy English field in the 1600s. Under the care of gentle Hannah Owens, little Maria learns about the ‘Unnamed Arts’. Maria has a gift for them – a gift that may well prove her undoing.
When Maria is abandoned by the man she loves, she invokes the curse that will haunt her family for centuries. Because magic has rules, and they must be followed. This is the lesson that Maria will carry with her for the rest of her life, and pass on to her children and her children’s children.
8 October
The Sun’s Devices by Rebecca Levene
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In the aftermath of the shattering of Mirror Town, Krish has taken has rightful place as heir to the kingdom of Ashanesland, with his friends and allies ruling by his side. He’s turned his back on his divine birthright and set out to bring unity to the warring tribes and nations as no more than a man.
The mysterious land once known as the Eternal Empire has opened its borders at last, and invited Krish to take his place as part of its ruling Triumvirate. But there are plots within plots in the country that once worshipped his sister, the sun, and now hates all gods.
Because the sun goddess been made flesh once again and is determined to end the ancient conflict with her brother’s final defeat. And there are strange and new gods stirring in the lands – while some search for a weapon that could destroy them all.
13 October
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
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A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black sun
In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.
Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.
Crafted with unforgettable characters, Rebecca Roanhorse has created an epic adventure exploring the decadence of power amidst the weight of history and the struggle of individuals swimming against the confines of society and their broken pasts in the most original series debut of the decade.
15 October
The Bladebone by Ausma Zehanat Khan
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THE LAST WORD.
Armed with the powerful sorcery of the Bloodprint and supported by the Talisman, the oppressive, patriarchal One-Eyed Preacher is on the verge of conquering all Ashfall. Women will not be free under his rule.
Yet not all is lost for Sinnia, Arian, and the Citadel of Companions. If these brave warriors can find an ancient magic weapon known as the Bladebone, they can defeat the Preacher and crush his cruel regime.
But none of them yet know the Bladebone’s whereabouts, and not all may survive the search to uncover it. Pursued by an enemy aligned with the Preacher, our heroines become separated, each following a different path.
When the secret of the Bladebone is finally revealed, the knowledge will come at a devastating price.
For those who survive, if any, Khorasan will never be the same.
Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee
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Dragons. Art. Revolution.
Gyen Jebi isn’t a fighter or a subversive. They just want to paint.
One day they’re jobless and desperate; the next, Jebi finds themself recruited by the Ministry of Armor to paint the mystical sigils that animate the occupying government’s automaton soldiers.
But when Jebi discovers the depths of the Razanei government’s horrifying crimes and the awful source of the magical pigments they use they find they can no longer stay out of politics.
What they can do is steal Arazi, the ministry’s mighty dragon automaton, and find a way to fight.
Hard Time by Jodi Taylor
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The Time Police do not have problems. They have challenges.
Idiots who want to change history have always proved ‘challenging’. But now temporal tourism is on the rise – highly illegal but highly lucrative. If you’re prepared to take the risk.
To face down this threat the Time Police will despatch their toughest undercover agents. Which is fine until the unthinkable happens. Replacements are needed fast and who better than three young officers who don’t even look the part?
Step forward Jane, Luke and Matthew. They may be about to graduate, but there’s still plenty of time for everything to go wrong. Throw in the Versailles time slip, a covert jump to Ancient Egypt and a race against Time itself and you’ve got yourself an assignment worthy of Team Weird.
27 October
The Tower of Fools by Andrzej Sapkowski
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Reinmar of Bielawa, sometimes known as Reynevan, is a doctor, a magician and, according to some, a charlatan.
Discovered in bed with the wife of a high-born knight, he must flee his normal life. But his journeys will lead him into a part of Europe which will be overtaken by chaos. Religious tension between Hussite and Catholic countries is threatening to turn into war.
Pursued not only by the affronted Stercza brothers, bent on vengeance, but also by the Holy Inquisition, and with strange, mystical forces gathering in the shadows, Reynevan finds himself in the Narrenturm, the Tower of Fools. The Tower is an asylum for the mad, or for those who dare to think differently and challenge the prevailing order. The ‘patients’ of this institution form a gallery of colourful types including the young Copernicus, proclaiming the truth of his heliocentric solar system.
But can Reynevan escape the Tower, and avoid being drawn in to the conflict around him, without losing his own mind?
A Storm of Blood and Stone by Galen Surlak-Ramsey
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What she wanted was to reunite with her exiled sister.
What she got was a betrayal that left her with a broken body and a shattered family.
Euryale had always tried to live her life in peace, but clearly that was a mistake. Now, the gorgon is determined to rise from the ashes, save those she loves, and lay waste to all who wronged her.
And if that means making pacts with the darkest, most powerful beings in all of creation to burn Olympus to the ground, so be it.
29 October
Troy by Stephen Fry
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The story of Troy speaks to all of us – the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against that great city, to which they will lay siege for ten whole and very bloody years.
It is Zeus, the king of the gods, who triggers war when he asks the Trojan prince Paris to judge the fairest goddess of them all. Aphrodite bribes Paris with the heart of Helen, wife of King Menelaus of the Greeks, and naturally, nature takes its course.
It is a terrible, brutal war with casualties on all sides. The Greeks cannot defeat the Trojans – since Achilles, the Greek’s boldest warrior, is consumed with jealousy over an ally’s choice of lover, the Trojan slave Briseis, and will not fight . . .
The stage is set for the oldest and greatest story ever told, where monstrous passions meet the highest ideals and the lowest cunning.
The Last Druid by Terry Brooks
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Since he first began the Shannara saga in 1977, Terry Brooks has had a clear idea of how the series should end, and now that moment is at hand.
As the Four Lands reels under the Skaar invasion – spearheaded by a warlike people determined to make this land their own -our heroes must decide what they will risk to save the integrity of their home. Even as one group remains to defend the Four Lands, another is undertaking a perilous journey across the sea to the Skaar homeland, carrying with them a new piece of technology that could change the face of the world for ever. And yet a third is trapped in a deadly realm from which there may be no escape.
30 October
Dust on the Altar by Michelle Winkler
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Dust on the Altar is a dark urban fantasy with magical witches and a touch of sci-fi. It’s set in an alternate Earth timeline, where cities are ruled by technology and their citizens have marginalized witches to the townships, where they can practice magic with little fear of reprisal. When Sugar Hill’s coven leader is murdered, Jade becomes the last of the Cerridwen bloodline and is called back home to take her place as High Priestess. Of course, Jade will do what’s right, but will the cost be too high?
Dark Days by D.W. Saur
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“A chosen one can come not only during dark times, but also on the brink of them.” The dark times about to grace Sori are marked by a mysterious, ghost-like figure who begins to upset the balance the land has come to enjoy, manipulating members of the Galenvarg and Veirlintu sects into rebellion against the Duine. But hope for peace is not lost; the goddess Nantosuelta has selected her chosen one, a Leigheasan named Maya.
Maya is independent, curious, a skilled hunter, and a master smith, and unique among her kind in her connection to the land. But, sensing that she has an unrevealed purpose, she has yet to undertake her clan’s rite of passage, and isolates herself from her peers. With Nantosuelta’s blessing, Maya begins her quest to find her powers, prevent war, and establish herself as leader among the Leigheasan. But can she rally the clans in time to confront the dark days ahead?
1 October
Gold Wings Rising by Alex London
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In Gold Wings Rising, the final installment of Alex London’s Skybound Saga, Kylee and Brysen must fight for their lives and their humanity. Book 1 was a Today Show Book Club Pick! The war on the ground has ended, but the war with the sky has just begun. After the Siege of the Six Villages, the ghost eagles have trapped Uztaris on both sides of the conflict. The villagers and Kartami alike hide in caves, huddled in terror as they await nightly attacks. Kylee aims to plunge her arrows into each and every ghost eagle; in her mind, killing the birds is the only way to unshackle the city’s chains. But Brysen has other plans. While the humans fly familiar circles around each other, the ghost eagles create schemes far greater and more terrible than either Kylee or Brysen could have imagined. Now, the tug-of-war between love and power begins to fray, threatening bonds of siblinghood and humanity alike.
Spell Starter by Elsie Chapman
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Every spell cast needs a starter.
Aza Wu now has magic back. But like all things in her life, it has come at a great cost. After winning the Tournament of Casters, Aza is able to pay off her parents’ debt to Saint Willow. But the price of the gathered spell she used to strip Finch of his magic has put her permanently in the employ of the gang leader. And the magic that has been returned to her is not her own.
Aza is forced to use this magic, stolen and unpredictable, to do Saint Willow’s dirty work. But the gang leader is ambitious and power-obsessed, and she always seems to have a larger plan. Aza knows that if Saint Willow can benefit, it doesn’t matter who gets hurt along the way.
Forced into a dangerous new situation, Aza will have to reckon with the choices she’s made and the unstable magic she wields. If she can find a way out of Saint Willow’s hold, she just might survive. That is, if her casting doesn’t finally consume her.
A Neon Darkness by Lauren Shippen
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A Neon Darkness, the second Bright Sessions novel from creator Lauren Shippen, asks: “What if the X-Men, instead of becoming superheroes, decided to spend some time in therapy?” (Vox) Robert Gorham always gets what he wants. But the power of persuasion is as potent a blessing as it is a curse. Robert is alone until a group of strangers who can do impossible things–produce flames without flint, conduct electricity with their hands, and see visions of the past–welcome him. They call themselves Unusuals and they give Robert a new name too: DAMIEN. Finally, finally he belongs. As long as he can keep his power under control. But control is a sacrifice he might not be willing to make.
Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco
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Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria are streghe – witches who live secretly among humans, avoiding notice and persecution. One night, Vittoria misses dinner service at the family’s renowned Sicilian restaurant. Emilia soon finds the body of her beloved twin . . . desecrated beyond belief. Devastated, Emilia sets out to find her sister’s killer and to seek vengeance at any cost-even if it means using dark magic that’s been long forbidden.
Then Emilia meets Wrath, one of the Wicked-princes of Hell she has been warned against in tales since she was a child. Wrath claims to be on Emilia’s side, tasked by his master with solving the series of women’s murders on the island. But when it comes to the Wicked, nothing is as it seems . . .
Found by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
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Fog rolls into Tulsa, and with it comes Darkness.
Zoey knows that the darkness brings with it an old enemy. The more Zoey uncovers the more she’s faced with the certainty that Neferet has returned. Once again the Nerd Herd are going to have to dig deep to save this world.
When Other Neferet arrives in Woodward Park to set this world’s Neferet free from her grotto prison, she quickly discovers there may be those who sympathize with their cause. And from the ashes two powerful enemies will rise.
Will the unlikeliest of allies be powerful enough to defeat their old nemesis, or will two worlds be destroyed and claimed by Darkness?
Witch by Finbar Hawkins
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Set in the 17th century, a breathtaking debut, and a potential prize-winner, about the power of women, witchcraft, fury, revenge and the ties that bind us.
After witnessing the brutal murder of her mother by witch-hunters, Evey vows to avenge her and track down the killers. Fury burns in her bright and strong. But she has promised her mother that she will keep Dill, her little sister, safe.
As the lust for blood and retribution rises to fever pitch, will Evey keep true to the bonds of sisterhood and to the magick that is her destiny?
The Girl and the Goddess by Nikita Gill
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Let her be a little less human, a little more divine
Give her heart armour so it doesn’t break as easily as mine
One girl’s wild journey of strength, beauty and growth as she discovers who she really is.
Lyrical wonder, spiritual revelation and revolution meet with epic mythical landscapes in this deeply intimate coming-of-age story, one that teaches us all, no matter how small we feel, to become the masters of our own destiny.
Meet Paro. A girl with a strong will, a full heart and much to learn. Born into a family reeling from the ruptures of Partition, follow her as she crosses the precarious lines between childhood, teenage discovery and realising her adult self.
6 October
Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
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Neither accepted nor beloved, Eugenides is the uneasy linchpin of a truce on the Lesser Peninsula, where he has risen to be high king of Attolia, Eddis, and Sounis. As the treacherous Baron Erondites schemes anew and a prophecy appears to foretell the death of the king, the ruthless Mede empire prepares to strike.
Hush by Dylan Farrow
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They use magic to silence the world. Who will break the hush?
Seventeen-year-old Shae has led a seemingly quiet life, joking with her best friend Fiona, and chatting with Mads, the neighborhood boy who always knows how to make her smile. All while secretly keeping her fears at bay… Of the disease that took her brother’s life. Of how her dreams seem to bleed into reality around her. Of a group of justice seekers called the Bards who claim to use the magic of Telling to keep her community safe.
When her mother is murdered, she can no longer pretend.
Not knowing who to trust, Shae journeys to unlock the truth, instead finding a new enemy keen to destroy her, a brooding boy with dark secrets, and an untold power she never thought possible.
Breakwater by Catherine Jones Payne
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A red tide is rising.
As the daughter of one of the mer-king’s trusted advisors, seventeen-year-old Jade has great responsibilities. When her fiancé murders a naiad, plunging the underwater city of Thessalonike into uproar, tensions surge between the mer and the naiads. Jade learns too late that the choices she makes ripple further than she’d ever imagined. And as she fights against the tide of anger in a city that lives for scandal, she discovers danger lurking in every canal, imperiling her family and shattering the ocean’s fragile peace.
Can the city’s divisions be mended before the upwelling of hate rips apart everything Jade loves?
13 October
Lightbringer by Claire Legrand
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Two queens, separated by a thousand years must face their ultimate destinies.
Queen Rielle, pushed away from everything she loves, turns to Corien and his promises of glory. Meanwhile, whispers from the empirium slowly drive her mad, urging her to open the Gate. Separated from Audric and Ludivine, she embraces the role of Blood Queen and her place by Corien’s side, determined to become the monster the world believes her to be.
In the future, Eliana arrives in the Empire’s capital as a broken shell of herself. Betrayed and abandoned, she fights to keep her power at bay–and away from Corien, who will stop at nothing to travel back in time to Rielle, even if that means destroying her daughter.
But when the mysterious Prophet reveals themselves at last, everything changes, giving Rielle and Eliana a second chance for salvation–or the destruction their world has been dreading.
Champion of the Titan Games by Brandon Mull
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As the war with the dragons intensifies, all eyes are turning to Titan Valley for help. A dragon sanctuary unlike any of the others, this one is home to enslaved dragons ruled by the powerful Giant Queen, one of the five monarchs of the magical world. In addition, it houses the arena for the Titan Games, a series of gladiator-style battles presided over by none other than Humbuggle, the demon who stole Seth’s memories!
Seth is seeking for his memories. Kendra is seeking for Seth. And everyone is seeking to stop the dragons from taking over the world–everyone but Ronodin, the dark unicorn, who has his own devious agenda. In the monstrous battle between giants and dragons, who wins? In the race to retrieve a magical talisman that could help win the war, can Kendra trust Seth? Will they find the answers they desperately need in a realm of trolls and titans? Or are more betrayals imminent?
15 October
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
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In 1893, there’s no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box.
But when the three Eastwood sisters join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten ways that might turn the women’s movement into the witch’s movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote – and perhaps not even to live – the sisters must delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.
There’s no such thing as witches. But there will be.
20 October
Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston
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Cerys is safe in the Kingdom of Aloriya. Here there are no droughts, disease, or famine, and peace is everlasting. It has been this way for hundreds of years, since the first king made a bargain with the Lady who ruled the forest that borders the kingdom. But as Aloriya prospered, the woods grew dark, cursed, and forbidden.
Cerys knows this all too well: When she was young, she barely escaped as the woods killed her friends and her mother. Now Cerys carries a small bit of the curse–the magic–in her blood, a reminder of the day she lost everything.
As a new queen is crowned, however, things long hidden in the woods descend on the kingdom itself. Cerys is forced on the run, her only companions a small and irritating fox from the royal garden and the magic in her veins. It’s up to her to find the legendary Lady of the Wilds and beg for a way to save her home.
But the road is darker and more dangerous than she knows, and as secrets from the past are uncovered amid the teeth and roots of the forest, it’s going to take everything she has just to survive
God Storm by Coco Ma
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Everything has a price.
In the kingdom of Axaria, a darkness has fallen. After defeating the evil mother who summoned an immortal demon to kill her, newly coronated Queen Asterin Faelenhart should have every reason to celebrate. Her kingdom is safe, forbidden magic eradicated, and her friends are alive. Except Asterin’s triumph has come at a devastating cost–forced to choose between a lifelong friend and true love, she’s lost both. But the shadows in Axaria have begun to stir once again, and no one is more starved for vengeance than Asterin …
Yet it soon becomes clear that the shadows plaguing her kingdom are just the beginning. Another realm coexists with the mortal world–the beautiful, nightmarish Immortal Realm ruled by the wicked God of Shadow, King Eoin. When their paths entwine, Asterin realizes that Eoin possesses exactly what–and who–she seeks most. And the fates of all those that she holds dear–Orion, her missing Guardian; Luna, the friend she could not save; Harry, the demon who saved them all; and Quinlan, her beloved broken prince–ultimately rest in the god’s hands.
But in a world of magic, not everyone is always as they seem. When shocking discoveries threaten everything and everyone that Asterin has sworn her life to protect, she won’t be the only person forced to make a choice … a choice that will change the mortal world forever.
And maybe even destroy it.
27 October
The Alchemyst’s Mirror by Liz Delton
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Petra and Maisie Everturn just want to run their family’s tea shop, but when their explorer brother Jiordan goes missing while looking for an alchemycal artifact, none of them are safe.
The sisters must enlist the help of another explorer in order to find Jiordan or the artifact-before the mysterious alchemyst society finds them first.
However, when one of the sisters stumbles into the clutches of the most dangerous alchemyst in the city, the race to unravel the clues becomes desperate. And when they discover the truth about the artifact, their quest to infiltrate the alchemyst’s secret society becomes a matter of life and death.
1 October
The Return by Harry Sidebottom
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He came home a hero.
But death isn’t finished with him yet . . .
145BC – CALABRIA, ANCIENT ROME. After years of spilling blood for Rome, Gaius Furius Paullus has returned home to spend his remaining days working quietly on the family farm.
But it seems death has stalked Paullus from the battlefield. Just days after his arrival, bodies start appearing – murdered and mutilated. And as the deaths stack up, and panic spreads, the war hero becomes the prime suspect. After all, Paullus has killed countless enemies on the battlefield – could he have brought his habit home with him?
With the psychological effects of combat clouding every thought, Paullus must use all his soldier’s instincts to hunt the real killer. Because if they are not brought to justice soon, he may become the next victim.
Fortress of Fury by Matthew Harffy
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Beobrand is besieged in the action-packed instalment in the Bernicia Chronicles set in AD 647 Anglo-Saxon Britain.
War hangs heavy in the hot summer air as Penda of Mercia and his allies march into the north. Caught unawares, the Bernician forces are besieged within the great fortress of Bebbanburg.
It falls to Beobrand to mount the defence of the stronghold, but even while the battle rages, old and powerful enemies have mobilised against him, seeking vengeance for past events.
As the Mercian forces tighten their grip and unknown killers close in, Beobrand finds himself in a struggle with conflicting oaths and the dreadful pull of a forbidden love that threatens to destroy everything he holds dear.
With the future of Northumbria in jeopardy, will Beobrand be able to withstand the powers that beset him and find a path to victory against all the odds?
Balkan Glory by Julian Stockwin
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1811. The Adriatic, the ‘French Lake’, is now the most valuable territory Napoleon Bonaparte possesses. Captain Sir Thomas Kydd finds his glorious return to England cut short when the Admiralty summons him to lead a squadron of frigates into these waters to cause havoc and distress to the enemy.
Kydd is dubbed ‘The Sea Devil’ by Bonaparte who personally appoints one of his favourites, Dubourdieu, along with a fleet that greatly outweighs the British, to rid him of this menace.
At the same time, Nicholas Renzi is sent to Austria on a secret mission to sound out the devious arch-statesman, Count Metternich. His meeting reveals a deadly plan by Bonaparte that threatens the whole balance of power in Europe. The only thing that can stop it is a decisive move at sea and for this he must somehow cross the Alps to the Adriatic to contact Kydd directly.
A climactic sea battle where the stakes could not be higher is inevitable. Kydd faces Dubourdieu with impossible odds stacked against him. Can he shatter Bonaparte’s dreams of breaking out of Europe and marching to the gates of India and Asia?
8 October
Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold by
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DARK, POTENT AND UNCANNY, HAG BURSTS WITH THE UNTOLD STORIES OF OUR ISLES, CAPTURED IN VOICES AS VARIED AS THEY ARE VIVID.
Here are sisters fighting for the love of the same woman, a pregnant archaeologist unearthing impossible bones and lost children following you home. A panther runs through the forests of England and pixies prey upon violent men.
From the islands of Scotland to the coast of Cornwall, the mountains of Galway to the depths of the Fens, these forgotten folktales howl, cackle and sing their way into the 21st century, wildly reimagined by some of the most exciting women writing in Britain and Ireland today.
15 October
War Lord by Bernard Cornwell
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After years fighting to reclaim his rightful home, Uhtred of Bebbanburg has returned to Northumbria. With his loyal band of warriors and a new woman by his side, his household is secure – yet Uhtred is far from safe. Beyond the walls of his impregnable fortress, a battle for power rages.
To the south, King Æthelstan has unified the three kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia – and now eyes a bigger prize. To the north, King Constantine and other Scottish and Irish leaders seek to extend their borders and expand their dominion.
Caught in the eye of the storm is Uhtred. Threatened and bribed by all sides, he faces an impossible choice: stay out of the struggle, risking his freedom, or throw himself into the cauldron of war and the most terrible battle Britain has ever experienced. Only fate can decide the outcome.
29 October
Hidden in Plain Sight by Jeffrey Archer
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Newly promoted, Detective Sergeant William Warwick has been reassigned to the drugs squad. His first case: to investigate a notorious south London drug lord known as the Viper.
But as William and his team close the net around a criminal network unlike any they have ever encountered, he is also faced with an old enemy, Miles Faulkner. It will take all of William’s cunning to devise a means to bring both men to justice; a trap neither will expect, one that is hidden in plain sight . . .
1 October
We Are Not Free by Traci Chee
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“All around me, my friends are talking, joking, laughing. Outside is the camp, the barbed wire, the guard towers, the city, the country that hates us. We are not free. But we are not alone.” From New York Times best-selling and acclaimed author Traci Chee comes We Are Not Free, the collective account of a tight-knit group of young Nisei, second-generation Japanese American citizens, whose lives are irrevocably changed by the mass U.S. incarcerations of World War II. Fourteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco. Fourteen teens who form a community and a family, as interconnected as they are conflicted. Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps. In a world that seems determined to hate them, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart.
A Secret of Birds & Bone by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
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In an Italian city ravaged by plague, Sofia’s mother carves beautiful mementoes from the bones of loved ones. But one day, she doesn’t return home. Did her work lead her into danger? Sofia and her little brother Ermin are sent to the convent orphanage but soon escape, led by an enigmatic new friend and their pet crow, Corvith.
Together they cross the city underground, following clues in bones up to the towers of Siena, where – circled by magpies – the children find the terrible truth …
13 October
Shadow War by Lindsay Smith
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World War II is raging, and five teens are looking to make a mark. Daniel and Rebeka seek revenge against the Nazis who slaughtered their family; Simone is determined to fight back against the oppressors who ruined her life and corrupted her girlfriend; Phillip aims to prove that he’s better than his worst mistakes; and Liam is searching for a way to control the portal to the shadow world he’s uncovered, and the monsters that live within it–before the Nazi regime can do the same. When the five meet, and begrudgingly team up, in the forests of Germany, none of them knows what their future might hold.
As they race against time, war, and enemies from both this world and another, Liam, Daniel, Rebeka, Phillip, and Simone know that all they can count on is their own determination and will to survive. With their world turned upside down, and the shadow realm looming ominously large–and threateningly close–the course of history and the very fate of humanity rest in their hands. Still, the most important question remains: Will they be able to save it?
15 October
The Testimony of Alys Twist by Suzannah Dunn
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Arrested by her sister for treason, who in her household can Elizabeth trust?
1553: deeply-divided England rejoices as the rightful heir, Mary Tudor, sweeps to power on a tide of populist goodwill. But the people should have been careful what they wished for: Mary’s mission is to turn back time to an England of old. Within weeks there is widespread rebellion in favour of her heir, her half-sister, princess Elizabeth, who is everything that Mary isn’t. From now on, Elizabeth will have to use her considerable guile just to stay alive.
Orphan Alys Twist has come a long way – further than she ever dared hope – to work as a laundress at the royal Wardrobe. There she meets Bel, daughter of the Queen’s tailor, and seems to have arrived at her own happy ending.
But in a world where appearance is everything, a laundress is in a unique position to see the truth of people’s lives, and Alys is pressed into service as a spy in the errant princess’s household. Alys herself, though, is hardly whiter than white, and when the princess is arrested she must make a dangerous choice.
20 October
Cane Warriors by Alex Wheatle
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Nobody free till everybody free.
Moa, a fourteen-year-old slave, gets caught up in the most significant slave rebellion in Jamaican history, paying homage to freedom fighters all over the world.
27 October
Nemesis and the Swan by Lindsay K Bandy
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From her prison cell in revolutionary Paris, nineteen-year-old aristocrat Hélène d’Aubign recalls the events that led her to choose between following in her parents’ unforgivable footsteps or abandoning the man she loves.
Despite her world of privilege, Hélène is inspired early on by the radical ideas of her progressive governess. Though her family tries to intervene, the seeds of revolution have already been planted in Hélène’s heart, as are the seeds of love from an unlikely friendship with a young jeweler’s apprentice. Hélène’s determination to find true love is as revolutionary as her attempt to unravel the truth behind a concealed murder that tore her family apart.
As violence erupts in Paris, Hélène is forced into hiding with her estranged family, where the tangled secrets of their past become entwined with her own. When she finally returns to the blood-stained streets of Paris, she finds everything–and everyone–very much changed. In a city where alliances shift overnight, no one knows whom to trust.
Faced with looming war, the mystery of her family’s past, and the man she loves near death, Hélène will soon find out if doing one wrong thing will make everything right, or if it will simply push her closer to the guillotine.
29 October
When I Come Home Again by Caroline Scott
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They need him to remember. He wants to forget.
1918. In the last week of the First World War, a uniformed soldier is arrested in Durham Cathedral. When questioned, it becomes clear he has no memory of who he is or how he came to be there.
The soldier is given the name Adam and transferred to a rehabilitation home. His doctor James is determined to recover who this man once was. But Adam doesn’t want to remember. Unwilling to relive the trauma of war, Adam has locked his memory away, seemingly for good.
When a newspaper publishes a feature about Adam, three women come forward, each claiming that he is someone she lost in the war. But does he believe any of these women? Or is there another family out there waiting for him to come home?
1 October
The Haunting of Alma Fielding by Kate Summerscale
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London, 1938. Alma Fielding, an ordinary young woman, begins to experience supernatural events in her suburban home.
Nandor Fodor – a Jewish-Hungarian refugee and chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical research – begins to investigate. In doing so he discovers a different and darker type of haunting: trauma, alienation, loss – and the foreshadowing of a nation’s worst fears. As the spectre of Fascism lengthens over Europe, and as Fodor’s obsession with the case deepens, Alma becomes ever more disturbed.
With rigour, daring and insight, the award-winning pioneer of historical narrative non-fiction Kate Summerscale shadows Fodor’s enquiry, delving into long-hidden archives to find the human story behind a very modern haunting.
The House of a Hundred Whispers by Graham Masterton
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All Hallows Hall is a rambling Tudor mansion on the edge of the bleak and misty Dartmoor. It is not a place many would choose to live. Yet the former Governer of Dartmoor Prison did just that. Now he’s dead, and his children – long estranged – are set to inherit his estate.
But when the dead man’s family come to stay, the atmosphere of the moors seems to drift into every room. Floorboards creak, secret passageways echo, and wind whistles in the house’s famous priest hole. And then, on the same morning the family decide to leave All Hallows Hall and never come back, their young son Timmy disappears – from inside the house.
Does evil linger in the walls? Or is evil only ever found inside the minds of men?
6 October
We Hear Voices by Evie Green
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Kids have imaginary friends. Rachel knows this. So when her young son, Billy, miraculously recovers from a horrible flu that has proven fatal for many, she thinks nothing of Delfy, his new invisible friend. After all, her family is healthy and that’s all that matters.
But soon Delfy is telling Billy what to do, and the boy is acting up and lashing out in ways he never has before. As Delfy’s influence is growing stranger and more sinister by the day, and rising tensions threaten to tear Rachel’s family apart, she clings to one purpose: to protect her children at any cost–even from themselves.
Nightmare Flower by Elizabeth Engstrom and Lisa Kroger
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This collection of eighteen short tales, a novelette and a short novel takes the reader inside the dark imagination of Elizabeth Engstrom, author of acclaimed horror classics like When Darkness Loves Us.
In these stories, you will read about a woman asked to be complicit in her own mother’s death, a grandmother with a macabre hobby, a bizarre, phallic-shaped flower that portends evil for a married couple, a father whose son is caught up in a sinister government experiment. These are weird and unsettling tales will linger with the reader.
15 October
The Nesting by C.J. Cooke
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It was like something out of a fairytale…
The grieving widower.
The motherless daughters.
A beautiful house in the woods.
Deep in a remote Norwegian forest, Lexi has found a new home with architect Tom and his two young daughters. With snow underfoot and the sound of the nearby fjord in her ears, it’s as if Lexi has stepped into a fairy tale
But this family has a history – and this place has a past. Something was destroyed to build their beautiful new house. And those ancient, whispering woods have a long memory.
Lexi begins to hear things, see things that don’t make sense. She used to think this place heavenly, but in the dark, dark woods, a menacing presence lurks.
With darkness creeping in from the outside, Lexi knows she needs to protect the children in her care.
But protect them from what?
20 October
The Night Will Find Us by Matthew Lyons
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They say never go into the woods at night…
School’s out for summer and that means one thing to Parker, Chloe, and their four friends: a well-deserved camping trip in the Pine Barrens, a million-acre forest deep in the heart of New Jersey. But when old grudges erupt, an argument escalates into the unthinkable, leaving one of them dead and the killer missing. As darkness descends and those left alive try to determine a course of action, the forest around them begins to change…
In the morning, more of the group has vanished and the path that led them into the woods is gone―as if consumed by the forest itself. Lost and hungry, the remaining friends set out to find help, only to realize that the forest seems to have other plans―a darker, ancient horror lies dead and dreaming in a lake in the center of the woods. And it’s calling to them.
Meanwhile, deep in the trees, the killer is still at large, and one of the group’s own has started to transform and warp into something other. Something inhuman. Something that wants to feast.
Banding together to survive, the friends soon begin to understand the true nature of the horror waiting for them in the Pine Barrens―and that not all of them will make it out alive.
Don’t Move by James S Murray and Darren Wearmouth
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Megan Forrester has barely survived the unthinkable. Six months ago, she witnessed a horrific accident that killed her husband and son, and lives with the guilt of knowing she could have done more to save them. Now, Megan hopes to mend the pieces of her broken spirit by attending a local church group’s annual camping trip. But the church group members–riddled with dark secrets of their own–make a catastrophic navigational mistake, leaving them stranded in an untouched canyon in the West Virginian national forest.
Isolated from any chance of help or rescue, Megan and the others quickly realize why this side of the canyon has never been surveyed by humankind: it’s home to a terrifying prehistoric arachnid that patiently stalks its prey through even the slightest movement or vibration in the forest. And it’s desperate for a meal.
Grief-stricken and haunted by her tragic loss, Megan now faces her ultimate test of endurance. Can she outwit a bloodthirsty creature hellbent on ensuring that no one gets out alive? When a single wrong turn can mean death, she only has one option: DON’T MOVE.
29 October
The Apparition Phase by Will Maclean
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Tim and Abi have always been different from their peers. Precociously bright, they spend their evenings in their parents’ attic discussing the macabre and unexplained, zealously re-reading books on folklore, hauntings and the supernatural. In particular, they are obsessed with photographs of ghostly apparitions and the mix of terror and delight they provoke in their otherwise boring and safe childhoods.
But when Tim and Abi decide to fake a photo of a ghost to frighten an unpopular school friend, they set in motion a deadly and terrifying chain of events that neither of them could have predicted, and are forced to confront the possibility that what began as a callous prank might well have taken on a malevolent life of its own.
31 October
A Stitch in Time by Kelley Armstrong
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Thorne Manor has always been haunted…and it has always haunted Bronwyn Dale. As a young girl, Bronwyn could pass through a time slip in her great-aunt’s house, where she visited William Thorne, a boy her own age, born two centuries earlier. After a family tragedy, the house was shuttered and Bronwyn was convinced that William existed only in her imagination.
Now, twenty years later Bronwyn inherits Thorne Manor. And when she returns, William is waiting.
William Thorne is no longer the boy she remembers. He’s a difficult and tempestuous man, his own life marred by tragedy and a scandal that had him retreating to self-imposed exile in his beloved moors. He’s also none too pleased with Bronwyn for abandoning him all those years ago.
As their friendship rekindles and sparks into something more, Bronwyn must also deal with ghosts in the present version of the house. Soon she realizes they are linked to William and the secret scandal that drove him back to Thorne Manor. To build a future, Bronwyn must confront the past.
1 October
Every Missing Thing by Martyn Ford
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One family. Two missing children. A lifetime of secrets.
Ten-year-old Ethan Clarke’s disappearance gripped the nation. Just as his parents are starting to piece together a life ‘after Ethan’, their world is ripped apart once more when their daughter, Robin, disappears in almost identical circumstances. They’ve lost two children within a decade … and now doubts about their innocence are setting in.
Detective Sam Maguire’s obsession with the first case cost him his own family, but he has unfinished business with the Clarkes. He is convinced that discovering what happened to Ethan holds the key to finding Robin. But what if the Clarkes know more than they’re letting on?
With the world watching eagerly, the clock is ticking for Sam as he embarks on an investigation that forces him to confront his own demons. To uncover the truth, he must follow a trail of devastating deception—but the truth always comes at a cost …
Agatha Raisin: Hot to Trot by M.C. Beaton
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Private Detective Agatha Raisin immerses herself in the glittering lifestyle of the fabulously wealthy when Sir Charles Fraith is accused of murder – and Agatha is named as his accomplice!
A high-society wedding, a glitzy masked ball, and an introduction to the world of international show-jumping where the riders are glamorous, the horses are beautiful, and intrigue runs deep, leave Agatha with a list of suspects as long as a stallion’s tail.
Sinister evidence then emerges that appears to seal Sir Charles’s fate and Agatha must uncover the truth before a net of skulduggery closes around him and he loses his ancestral home, his entire estate, and his freedom. And if events weren’t complicated enough… Agatha’s ex-husband James Lacey is back in Carsely and back in Agatha’s heart…
A Song for the Dark Times by Ian Rankin
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‘He’s gone…’
When his daughter Samantha calls in the dead of night, John Rebus knows it’s not good news. Her husband has been missing for two days.
Rebus fears the worst – and knows from his lifetime in the police that his daughter will be the prime suspect.
He wasn’t the best father – the job always came first – but now his daughter needs him more than ever. But is he going as a father or a detective?
As he leaves at dawn to drive to the windswept coast – and a small town with big secrets – he wonders whether this might be the first time in his life where the truth is the one thing he doesn’t want to find…
Loyalty by Martina Cole
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If you want to survive in this world there’s one thing you need to value above all else: loyalty.
The Unspoken by Ian K. Smith
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Former Chicago detective Ashe Cayne is desperate for redemption. After refusing to participate in a police department cover-up involving the death of a young black man, Cayne is pushed out of the force. But he won’t sit quietly on the sidelines: he’s compelled to fight for justice as a private investigator…even if it means putting himself in jeopardy.
When a young woman, Tinsley Gerrigan, goes missing, her wealthy parents from the North Shore hire Cayne to find her. As Cayne looks into her life and past, he uncovers secrets Tinsley’s been hiding from her family. Cayne fears he may never find Tinsley alive.
His worries spike when Tinsley’s boyfriend is found dead–another black man murdered on the tough Chicago streets. Cayne must navigate his complicated relationships within the Chicago PD, leveraging his contacts and police skills to find the missing young woman, see justice done, and earn his redemption.
I Follow You by Peter James
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To the outside world, suave, charming and confident doctor Marcus Valentine has it all. A loving wife, three kids, a great job. But there’s something missing, there always has been. . . . or rather, someone . . .
Driving to work one morning, his mind elsewhere and not on the road, he almost mows down a female jogger on a crossing. As she runs on, Marcus is transfixed. Infatuated. She is the spitting image of a girl he was crazy about in his teens. A girl he has never been able to get out of his mind.
Lynette had dumped him harshly. For years he has fantasized about seeing her again and rekindling their flame. Might that jogger possibly be her all these years later? Could this be the most incredible coincidence?
Despite all his attempts to resist, he is consumed by cravings for this woman. And when events take a tragically unexpected turn, his obsession threatens to destroy both their worlds. But still he won’t stop. Can’t stop.
The Girl She Wanted by K.L. Slater
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What if my sister is unstable and everyone can see it but me? What was she really doing standing over Florence’s cot in the middle of the night?
Alexa has always looked up to her older sister Carrie. Carrie lives in Alexa’s family home, and adores her one-year-old niece Florence. Alexa doesn’t know how they would cope without her. So when Carrie is suspended from her job as a senior nurse, accused of the most terrible crime, Alexa reels in disbelief. Alexa knows how caring Carrie is, and as she watches Florence gurgling and cooing whenever Carrie is around, she knows her little girl is in safe hands.
Alexa’s husband doesn’t trust Carrie. He wants her out of the house, unable to ignore what people are saying about her. But when he suggests that Carrie could be a danger to their daughter, Alexa shuts him out. Nobody will ever come between her and her sister.
Then Florence is hurt while in Carrie’s care and Alexa at last starts to wonder. Alexa has always wanted to protect Carrie from the past they have hidden. But does Alexa know what Carrie wants? And will the secret that has kept the sisters together now destroy her little girl?
The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths
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PS: Thanks for the murders.
The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should absolutely not be suspicious. DS Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing to concern her in carer Natalka’s account of Peggy Smith’s death.
But when Natalka reveals that Peggy lied about her heart condition and that she had been sure someone was following her…
And that Peggy Smith had been a ‘murder consultant’ who plotted deaths for authors, and knew more about murder than anyone has any right to…
And when clearing out Peggy’s flat ends in Natalka being held at gunpoint by a masked figure…
Well then DS Harbinder Kaur thinks that maybe there is no such thing as an unsuspicious death after all.
13 October
A Time for Mercy by John Grisham
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Deputy Stuart Kofer is a protected man. Though he’s turned his drunken rages on his girlfriend, Josie, and her children many times before, the police code of silence has always shielded him.
But one night he goes too far, leaving Josie for dead on the floor before passing out. Her son, sixteen-year-old Drew, knows he only has this one chance to save them. He picks up a gun and takes the law into his own hands.
In Clanton, Mississippi, there is no one more hated than a cop killer – but a cop killer’s defence lawyer comes close. Jake Brigance doesn’t want this impossible case but he’s the only one with enough experience to defend the boy.
As the trial begins, it seems there is only one outcome: the gas chamber for Drew. But, as the town of Clanton discovers once again, when Jake Brigance takes on an impossible case, anything is possible …
27 October
The Sentinel by Lee Child
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Jack Reacher gets off the bus in a sleepy no-name town outside Nashville, Tennessee. He plans to grab a cup of coffee and move right along.
Not going to happen.
The town has been shut down by a cyber attack. At the centre of it all, whether
he likes it or not, is Rusty Rutherford. He’s an average IT guy, but he knows more than he thinks.
As the bad guys move in on Rusty, Reacher moves in on them . . .
And now Rusty knows he’s protected, he’s never going to leave the big man’s side.
Reacher might just have to stick around and find out what the hell’s gone wrong . . . and then put it right, like only he can.
1 October
Nobody Knows But You by Anica Mrose Rissi
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Kayla is still holding on to Lainie’s secrets.
After all, Lainie is Kayla’s best friend. And despite Lainie’s painful obsession with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, and the ways he has tried to come between them, friends don’t spill each other’s secrets. They don’t betray each other’s trust.
The murder at the end of the summer doesn’t change all that.
Besides—Kayla knows that the truth is not the whole story.
The Shadow Mission by Shamim Sarif
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Jessie Archer faced down death to prove her dedication to Athena, the elite organization of female spies she works for. Now she’s back on the team, in time to head to Pakistan to take down the man whose actions spurred Athena’s founders to create the secretive squad.
But his connections spread farther than anyone knew, and when a girls’ school in Mumbai is bombed, a shadowy far-right organization reveals itself–and its evil plans to continue attacks.
When someone close to the investigation turns on Athena, Jessie knows that their time to save everyone is nearly up. Once again, she’ll have to risk everything to protect the vulnerable and prove herself.
White Fox by Sara Faring
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After their world-famous actor mother disappeared under mysterious circumstances, Manon and Thais left their remote Mediterranean island home–sent away by their pharma-tech tycoon father. Opposites in every way, the sisters drifted apart in their grief. Yet their mother’s unfinished story still haunts them both, and they can’t put to rest the possibility that she is still alive. Lured home a decade later, Manon and Thais discover their mother’s legendary last work, long thought lost: White Fox, a screenplay filled with enigmatic metaphors. The clues in this dark fairytale draw them deep into the island’s surreal society, into the twisted secrets hidden by their glittering family, to reveal the truth about their mother–and themselves.
Forget This Ever Happened by Cassandra Rose Clarke
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Sometimes there’s a town called Indianola.
And sometimes there isn’t.
June, 1993. Claire has been dumped in rural Indianola, Texas, to spend her whole vacation taking care of mean, sickly Grammy. There’s nothing too remarkable about Indianola: it’s run-down, shabby, and sweltering, a pin-dot on the Gulf Coast.
Except there is something remarkable. Memories shimmer and change. Lizards whisper riddles under the pecan trees. People disappear as if they never existed. Yesterday keeps coming unspooled, like a video tape. And worst of all, a red-lightning storm from beyond our world may just wipe the whole town off the map, if Claire and her maybe-girlfriend Julie can’t stop it.
Because reality doesn’t apply in Indianola. Indianola is not supposed to exist.
6 October
I Hope You’re Listening by Tom Ryan
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In her small town, seventeen year-old Delia “Dee” Skinner is known as the girl who wasn’t taken. Ten years ago, she witnessed the abduction of her best friend, Sibby. And though she told the police everything she remembered, it wasn’t enough. Sibby was never seen again.
At night, Dee deals with her guilt by becoming someone else: the Seeker, the voice behind the popular true crime podcast Radio Silent, which features missing persons cases and works with online sleuths to solve them. Nobody knows Dee’s the Seeker, and she plans to keep it that way. When another little girl goes missing, and the case is linked to Sibby’s disappearance, Dee has a chance to get answers, with the help of her virtual detectives and the intriguing new girl at school. But how much is she willing to reveal about herself in order to uncover the truth? Dee’s about to find out what’s really at stake in unraveling the mystery of the little girls who vanished.
13 October
In the Study with the Wrench by Diana Peterfreund
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In the aftermath of Headmaster Boddy’s murder, Blackbrook Academy has been thrown into Complete disarray. Half the student body hasn’t bothered to return to campus–but those who have include Orchid, Vaughn, Scarlett, Peacock, Plum, and Mustard, now warily referred to by the other students as the Murder Crew. When another staff member is found dead and an anonymous threat begins to target the group, each of the teen’s opportunistic reasons for sticking around come to light. Orchid’s identity comes under question while Vaughn’s family life takes a turn; Finn and Mustard grow closer; and Scarlett and Beth struggle to turn over new leaves. All of this comes to a dramatic head at Tudor House, with a cliff-hanger that will leave readers eager for the final installment in the series.
15 October
Serpentine by Philip Pullman
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‘Lyra Silvertongue, you’re very welcome . . . Yes, I know your new name. Serafina Pekkala told me everything about your exploits’
Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon have left the events of His Dark Materials far behind.
In this snapshot of their forever-changed lives they return to the North to visit an old friend, where we will learn that things are not exactly as they seem . . .
Illustrated throughout by Tom Duxbury, the perfect re-entry for fans of His Dark Materials and a wonderful companion to The Book of Dust.
20 October
You Were Never Here by Kathleen Peacock
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Cat hasn’t been to Montgomery Falls, the town her family founded, since she was twelve years old. Since the summer she discovered she could do things that no normal twelve-year-old could do. Since she had her first kiss with Riley Fraser. Since she destroyed their friendship.
Now, five years later, she’s back and Riley has disappeared.
When Noah, Riley’s brother, asks for help in discovering what happened, Cat is torn between wanting to learn the truth and protecting the secret that she’s been guarding ever since that summer she and Riley stopped speaking. Only one choice will put her in a killer’s sights…
29 October
The Magpie Society: One for Sorrow by Amy McCulloch and Zoe Sugg
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A STUDENT FOUND DEAD ON THE BEACH.
A WEB OF UNANSWERED QUESTIONS.
SOMEONE POISED TO STRIKE AGAIN.
Illumen Hall is a boarding school of tradition and achievement.
But tragedy strikes when the body of a student is discovered on the beach – and on her back is an elaborate tattoo of a magpie.
For new student Audrey, it is just another strange and unsettling thing about her new surroundings, along with the secrets the school seems to hide and its weird obsession with magpies. For her roommate Ivy, the death of her friend Lola is just one thing she desperately wants to get past – and having a new student asking questions and cluttering up her personal space is not helping a bit.
But the two girls are forced into an unlikely alliance when a mysterious podcast airs, with one sinister headline:
I KNOW WHO KILLED LOLA. AND ONE OF YOU IS NEXT.
1 October
Failosophy: A Handbook For When Things Go Wrong by Elizabeth Day
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In Failosophy Elizabeth Day brings together all the lessons she has learned, from conversations with the guests on her award-winning How to Fail podcast, from stories shared with her by readers and listeners, and from her own life, and distils them into seven principles of failure.
Practical, reassuring and inspirational, these principles offer a guide through life’s rough patches. From failed exams to romantic break-ups, from career setbacks to confidence crises, from navigating anxiety to surviving loss, Failosophy recognises, and celebrates, the fact that failure connects us all. It is what makes us human.
With insights from Malcolm Gladwell, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Lemn Sissay, Frankie Bridge, Nigel Slater, Emeli Sande, Alain de Botton, Mabel, Fearne Cotton, Meera Syal, Dame Kelly Holmes, Andrew Scott and many, many more, Failosophy is the essential handbook for turning failure into success.
Black and British by David Olusoga
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A short, essential introduction to Black British history
When did Africans first come to Britain?
Who are the well-dressed black children in Georgian paintings?
Why did the American Civil War disrupt the Industrial Revolution?
These and many other questions are answered in this essential introduction to 1800 years of the Black British history: from the Roman Africans who guarded Hadrian’s Wall right up to the present day.
This new edition of the bestseller Black and British by award-winning historian and broadcaster David Olusoga is Illustrated with maps, photos and portraits
Life in Pieces by Dawn O’Porter
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LIFE IN PIECES is a book for anyone who’s been thrown into a life they didn’t plan, or who just wants to stick it to 2020. When it looks like everything’s falling apart, we’ll piece it back together.
From reflections on grief and identity, bad hair and parenting, sleep and spirituality, to the things we can control and the things we cannot, Dawn has been doing a lot of thinking about life in lockdown. Mostly from a cupboard. Discover the daily diaries that track the journey – for a hilarious, heartbreaking and highly entertaining glimpse into the new normal.
A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future by David Attenborough
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‘I am 94. I’ve had an extraordinary life. It’s only now that I appreciate how extraordinary.
As a young man, I felt I was out there in the wild, experiencing the untouched natural world – but it was an illusion. The tragedy of our time has been happening all around us, barely noticeable from day to day – the loss of our planet’s wild places, its biodiversity.
I have been witness to this decline. A Life on Our Planet is my witness statement, and my vision for the future. It is the story of how we came to make this, our greatest mistake – and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right.
We have one final chance to create the perfect home for ourselves and restore the wonderful world we inherited.’ All we need is the will to do so.’
8 October
All We Can Save by Ayana Eliza Johnson
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There is a renaissance blooming in the climate movement: leadership that is more characteristically feminine and more faithfully feminist, rooted in compassion, connection, creativity, and collaboration. While it’s clear that women and girls are vital voices and agents of change for this planet, they are too often missing from the proverbial table. More than a problem of bias, it’s a dynamic that sets us up for failure. To change everything, we need everyone.
All We Can Save illuminates the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States–scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race–and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. These women offer a spectrum of ideas and insights for how we can rapidly, radically reshape society.
Intermixing essays with poetry and art, this book is both a balm and a guide for knowing and holding what has been done to the world, while bolstering our resolve never to give up on one another or our collective future. We must summon truth, courage, and solutions to turn away from the brink and toward life-giving possibility. Curated by two climate leaders, the book is a collection and celebration of visionaries who are leading us on a path toward all we can save
Humour, Seriously: Why Humour Is A Superpower At Work And In Life by Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas
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Have you fallen off the Humour Cliff? If you’re anything like most people, the answer is probably yes: around the time you entered the workplace, your average laughs per day began to plummet.
But the upside of humour for our careers is significant. A recent survey of more than 700 CEOs showed that 98% prefer job candidates with a sense of humour and 84% think that funny employees do better work. With good reason: research has shown that humour makes us appear more competent and confident, strengthens relationships and boosts resilience during difficult times.
At Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Dr. Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas teach some of the world’s best business minds how to build levity into their organizations and lives. Drawing on behavioural science, advice from world-class comedians and stories from top leaders, Humour, Seriously will show you how to use humour to:
– enhance creativity and problem-solving
– influence and motivate others
– build bonds and defuse tension within teams
– create a culture where colleagues feel safe, appreciated and joyful
Inside, you’ll learn how to mine your life for material, which category of humour style you fall into and how to keep it appropriate – and recover if you cross a line! Humour is a superpower. If you’re not using it, the joke’s on you.
Do Photo: Observe. Compose. Capture. Stand Out by Andrew Paynter
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This isn’t a book about how to take the best pictures. It’s not even about the technical aspects of photography or how to ‘make it’ as a photographer. In fact, it argues that you should take fewer photographs.
By sharing 10 practices honed over a lifetime spent behind the lens working with clients such as Adidas, Levi Strauss, Converse and Apple, photographer Andrew Paynter encourages you to develop a more considered approach to photography so that you craft pictures with care.
Do Photo teaches novice, intermediate and advanced photographers – and everyone in between – how to use their cameras to connect with subjects in a meaningful way, create memorable and more impactful photographs, and curate a body of work that represents who they are. And guess what: it all starts before you even pick up the camera.
22 October
How Not To Be Wrong: The Art of Changing Your Mind by James O’Brien
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James O’Brien has built well over a million loyal listeners to his radio show by dissecting the opinions of callers live on air, every day. But winning the argument doesn’t necessarily mean you’re right.
In this deeply personal book, James turns the mirror on himself to reveal what he has changed his mind about and why, and explore how examining and changing our own views is our new civic duty in a world of outrage, disagreement and echo chambers. He writes candidly about the stiff upper lip attitudes and toxic masculinity that coloured his childhood, and the therapy and personal growth that have led him question his assumptions and explore new perspectives. Laying open his personal views on everything from racial prejudice to emotional vulnerability, from fat-shaming to tattoos, he then delves into the real reasons – often irrational or unconscious – he holds them.
Unflinchingly honest, revealing and funny, How Not to Be Wrong is a tonic for a world more divided than ever and a personal manifesto for a better way of thinking and living.
Because after all, if we can’t change our own minds we’ll never really be able to change anyone else’s.
27 October
The Photography Storytelling Workshop by Finn Beales
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Don’t just take a picture, make photos that move people.
Storytelling is a gift to photographers, letting you weave together characters, events, locations and subjects into a work of beauty greater than the sum of its parts. There are as many stories to tell as pictures to take, but there are also tried-and-tested methods you can adopt to help improve your photography and streamline your workflow.
In this beginner-to-pro workshop, award-winning photographer and influencer Finn Beales teaches enthusiasts and aspiring professionals how to master every element of the photographer’s process. By following his five-step course – Pitch, Prepare, Shoot, Edit and Deliver – you will develop the same successful, reliable working methods that earn influence and delight audiences, regardless of what genre you’re working in. Create intrigue, pull in your audience and tell richer, more rounded stories using your DSLR camera.
Want to craft a shoot from start to finish? All the essentials are covered, from building a story into your creative, shoot preparation, the necessary gear and props, working with mood-boards and call sheets, compositional balance, and directing models, right through to post production, editing and file delivery.
29 October
The Complete Notes From the Universe by Mike Dooley
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For the first time ever, the hugely popular Notes from the Universe trilogy is presented in one volume, making it even easier to share the love and wisdom of Mike Dooley’s Universe.
Since 2000, Mike Dooley has created empowering and positive affirmations to remind us that we have power over our lives and a say in our destiny. In order to bring about change, we must simply ask and show up. His insights can help you harness the metaphysical laws of the Universe so that you can be swept off your feet and carried along, as divine intelligence puts the right people in your path at just the right time. Soon you can find yourself living in a physical world that mirrors the life you thought could only exist in dreams.
Now, you can discover fresh and inspirational notes in this ultimate volume, spread goodwill, and bring happiness and hope to your everyday life.
The Promise That Changes Everything: I Won’t Interrupt You by Nancy Kline
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How often do you interrupt? How often do people interrupt you? Can you remember the last time someone listened to you all the way through your thinking?
In her new book, Nancy Kline, bestselling author of Time To Think, makes this radical proposal: ‘I won’t Interrupt you’ is a promise that changes everything. It deepens relationships, spawns dignity, raises the intelligence of groups, and enriches every conversation. It may, in fact, be the most important promise we ever make. And the hardest to keep. This promise matters because when we interrupt each other, we interrupt our thinking, and that interrupts the quality of everything we do.
Nancy has spent the last three decades researching independent thinking and the barriers that prevent us from thinking for ourselves. In The Promise That Changes Everything Nancy shares insights into the nature of interruption, case studies and stories from her work with clients, as well as simple ways to change how we behave with each other so that this promise can change our lives.
1 October
Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott
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It has been eight centuries since the beacon system failed, sundering the heavens. Rising from the ashes of the collapse, cultures have fought, system-by-system, for control of the few remaining beacons. The Republic of Chaonia is one such polity. Surrounded by the Yele League and the vast Phene Empire, they have had to fight for their existence. After decades of conflict, Queen-Marshal Eirene has brought the Yele to heel.
Now it is time to deal with the Empire. Princess Sun, daughter and heir, has come of age.
In her first command, she drove a Phene garrison from the beacons of Na Iri – an impressive feat. But growing up in the shadow of her mother – a ruler both revered and feared – has been no easy task. While Sun may imagine that her victorious command will bring further opportunity to prove herself, it will in fact place her on the wrong side of court politics. There are those who would like to see Sun removed as heir, or better yet, dead. To survive, the princess must rely on her wits and companions.
The Lost Colony by A.G. Riddle
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Can humanity survive on a new world?
The last survivors of the human race escaped a ruined Earth. Their new homeworld Eos seemed perfect at first. Warm. Hospitable. Safe from the grid. But everything isn’t as it seems.
The first colony of settlers have disappeared. Their settlement is still there, but everyone is gone. As Dr James Sinclair digs into the mystery of the lost colony, he discovers a series of spheres, buried on Eos. Are they the key to finding the lost colonists? Or are they responsible for their deaths?
Just as James is unraveling the secrets of the spheres, a storm hits Jericho City. Emma, recently elected mayor, struggles to lead her people to safety while James tries to make his way home. In the middle of the chaos, a new danger emerges a threat no one saw coming.
With time running out to save the colonists, James and Emma will face their hardest choice yet in the final pulse-pounding instalment in the Long Winter trilogy.
Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow
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Masha Maximow has made some bad choices in life choices that hurt people. But she’s also made some pretty decent ones. In the log file of life, however, she can’t quite work out which side of the ledger she currently stands.
Masha works for Xoth Intelligence, an InfoSec company upgrading the Slovstakian Interior Ministry’s ability to spy on its citizens’ telecommunications with state-of-the-art software (at least, as state-of-the-art as Xoth is prepared to offer in its middle-upper pricing tier). Can you offset a day-job helping repressive regimes spy on their citizens with a nighttime hobby where you help those same citizens evade detection? Masha is about to find out.
Hold Up the Sky by Cixin Liu
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In Hold Up the Sky, Cixin Liu takes us across time and space, from a rural mountain community where elementary students must use physics to prevent an alien invasion; to coal mines in northern China where new technology will either save lives or unleash a fire that will burn for centuries; to a time very much like our own, when superstring computers predict our every move; to 10,000 years in the future, when humanity is finally able to begin anew; to the very collapse of the universe itself.
Written between 1999 and 2017 and never before published in English, these stories came into being during decades of major change in China and will take you across time and space through the eyes of one of science fiction’s most visionary writers.
8 October
Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker
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The baker’s dozen stories gathered here (including a new, previously unpublished story) turn readers into travellers to the past and the future, and explorers of the weirder points of the present. The journey is the thing as Pinsker weaves music, memory, technology, history, mystery, love, loss, and even multiple selves on generation ships and cruise ships, on highways and high seas, in murder houses and treehouses. They feature runaways, fiddle-playing astronauts, and retired time travellers; they are weird, wired, hopeful, haunting, and deeply human. They are often described as beautiful but Pinsker also knows that the heart wants what the heart wants and that is not always right, or easy.
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
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Told entirely through fictional eye-witness accounts, The Ministry For The Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, the story of how climate change will affect us all over the decades to come.
Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us – and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.
It is a novel both immediate and impactful, desperate and hopeful in equal measure, and it is one of the most powerful and original books on climate change ever written.
13 October
Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick by David Wong
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In the futuristic city of Tabula Ra$a, Zoey Ashe is like a fish so far out of water that it has achieved orbit. After inheriting a criminal empire, the twenty-three year-old finds herself under threat from all sides as a rogue’s gallery of larger-than-life enemies think they smell weakness.
On the eve of the world’s most lavish and ridiculous Halloween celebration, a steamer trunk-sized box arrives at Zoey’s door and she is shocked to find that it contains a disemboweled corpse. She is even more shocked when that corpse, controlled by an unknown party, rises and goes on a rampage through the house. Speaking in an electronic voice, it publicly accuses Zoey of being its murderer. This is the kind of thing that almost never happened at her old job.
The city was already a ticking time bomb of publicity-hungry vigilantes with superhuman enhancements and Zoey knows this turn of events is unlikely to improve the situation. Now, she and her team of high-tech tricksters have to solve this bizarre murder while simultaneously keeping Tabula Ra$a from descending into chaos.
15 October
The Evidence by Christopher Priest
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Todd Fremde is an author, a writer of police procedurals and criminal mysteries. Invited to the remote island of Dearth, far across the Dream Archipelago, to talk at a conference, he finds himself caught up in a series of mysteries. How can Dearth claim to be completely crime-free, yet still have an armed police force? Why are they so keen for him to appear, but so dismissive when he arrives? Is his sense of time confused, or is something confusing happening to time itself?
And how does this all connect with a murder committed on his home island, ten years before, and seemingly forgotten?
Fremde’s investigation and research will lead him to some dangerous conclusions…
20 October
Machine by Elizabeth Bear
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Meet Doctor Jens.
She hasn’t had a decent cup of coffee in fifteen years. Her workday begins when she jumps out of perfectly good space ships and continues with developing treatments for sick alien species she’s never seen before. She loves her life. Even without the coffee.
But Dr. Jens is about to discover an astonishing mystery: two ships, one ancient and one new, locked in a deadly embrace. The crew is suffering from an unknown ailment and the shipmind is trapped in an inadequate body, much of her memory pared away.
Unfortunately, Dr. Jens can’t resist a mystery and she begins doing some digging. She has no idea that she’s about to discover horrifying and life-changing truths.
Wool by Hugh Howey
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The first book in the acclaimed, New York Times best-selling trilogy, Wool is the story of mankind clawing for survival. The world outside has grown toxic, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. The remnants of humanity live underground in a single silo. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they want: They are allowed to go outside.
After the previous sheriff leaves the silo in a terrifying ritual, Juliette, a mechanic from the down deep, is suddenly and inexplicably promoted to the head of law enforcement. With newfound power and with little regard for the customs she is supposed to abide, Juliette uncovers hints of a sinister
27 October
How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge by K Eason
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Rory Thorne must use the fairy blessings gifted to her to change the multiverse in the second book in this space opera duology.
After avoiding an arranged marriage, thwarting a coup, and inadvertently kick-starting a revolution, Rory Thorne has renounced her title and embraced an unglamorous life as a privateer on the edge of human space.
Her new life is interrupted when Rory and her crew–former royal bodyguards, Thorsdottir and Zhang, and co-conspirator Jaed–encounter an abandoned ship registered under a false name, seemingly fallen victim to attack. As they investigate, they find evidence of vicious technology and arithmancy, alien and far beyond known capabilities.
The only answer to all the destruction is the mysterious, and unexpected, cargo: a rose plant. One that reveals themself to be sentient–and designed as a massive biological weapon. Rose seeks to escape their intended fate, but before Rory and her friends can get Rose off the derelict ship, the alien attackers return.
GhostCityGirl by Simon Paul Wilson
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Serial killers, starvation cults, and spicy noodles – just another day in Nihon City. It’s been one hundred years since Tokyo was ravaged by a ghost quake and talking about the supernatural was forbidden. To escape her unhappy family life and mundane job, Kichi Honda spends her days off visiting Mister Tanaka, an old man who tells her illegal tales of haunted Japan. But when Kichi gets stranded on Level One, she meets an impossible girl who claims to have come from Tokyo. Kichi learns the truth about what really happened all those years ago … and discovers
29 October
Dead Lies Dreaming by Charles Stross
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In a world where magic has gone mainstream, a policewoman and a group of petty criminals are pulled into a heist to find a forbidden book of spells that should never be opened.
A new adventure begins in the world of the Laundry Files.
The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum
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In a far-future society where biotechnology has revolutionized gender, young Fift must decide whether to conform or carve a new path.
In the distant future somewhere in the galaxy, a society has emerged where everyone has multiple bodies, cybernetics has abolished privacy, and individual and family success within the rigid social system is reliant upon instantaneous social approbation.
Young Fift is an only child of the staid gender, struggling to maintain their position in the system while developing an intriguing friendship with the poorly-publicized bioengineer Shria-somewhat controversial, since Shria is bail-gendered.
In time, Fift and Shria unintentionally wind up at the center of a scandalous art spectacle which turns into the early stages of a multi-layered revolution against their strict societal system.
The Saints of Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton
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Live in hiding – or die for freedom
Humanity welcomed the Olyix and their utopian technology. But mankind was tricked. Now these visitors are extracting a terrible price.
For two years, the Olyix have laid siege to Earth, harvesting its people for their god. One by one, cities are falling to their devastating weaponry. And while millions have fled to seek refuge in space, others continue to fight an apparently unwinnable war.
As Earth’s defeat draws near, a team attempts to infiltrate the Salvation of Life – the Olyix’s arkship. If it succeeds, those chosen will travel to a hidden enclave thousands of light years away. Once there, they must signal its location to future generations, to bring the battle to the enemy. Maybe allies scattered throughout space and time can join forces. Yet in the far future, humanity are still hunted by their ancient adversary. And as forces battle on in the cold reaches of space, hope seems distant indeed . . .
1 October
The Captive Kingdom by Jennifer a. Nielsen
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In a peaceful Carthya, Jaron leads as the Ascendant King with Imogen beside him — but the peace he fought so long for is not destined to last.
On a routine sea voyage, Jaron’s ship is brutally attacked, and he is taken hostage. The mysterious captors and their leader, Jane Strick, accuse Jaron of unthinkable acts. They are also in possession of some shocking items — including the crown and sword that belonged to Jaron’s older brother, Darius. The items unearth a past Jaron thought he had put behind him.
Though it seems impossible, Jaron must consider: Could Darius be alive? And what does Strick want from Jaron? Against his will, Jaron will be pulled back into a fight for the throne — and a battle to save his kingdom.
6 October
The Rule of All by Ashley and Leslie Saunders
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Outlaw twin sisters Ava and Mira Goodwin were born to defy Texas’s tyrannical and oppressive Governor Roth. They inspired millions across the country to liberate themselves and fight to live free under the new Common rule. But an enemy still endangers their fragile vision for the future. Ava and Mira’s mission: hunt the man down.
The once-mighty Governor Roth has fled Dallas. Holding a hostage beloved by Ava and Mira, Roth has a mission, too: regroup his Loyalists, wreak vengeance, and reclaim his power.
With the help of a savvy programmer turned rebel warrior, Ava and Mira brave a journey more uncertain than they’ve ever attempted before. As they forge southward into foreign territory—against a ruthless cartel, Roth’s aggressive Texas Guard, and a formidable new foe—courage, alliances, and trust will be tested. Now, in the most unlikely and treacherous of places, the sisters must finish what they started. Before they—and the Common—are erased from history forever.
13 October
The Key to Fear by Kristin Cast
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No touching today for a healthy tomorrow.
For fifty years, the Key Corporation has defended humanity against a deadly virus that spreads through touch. Lovers don’t kiss, or even hold hands. Personal boundaries are valued above all. Break the laws, and you’ll face execution.
Elodie, a talented young nurse, believes in the mission of the Key and has never questioned the laws that control her life. But Elodie is forced to break the rules when she sets out in search of a terminal patient who goes missing while under her care.
From the outside, it seems like Aiden was given everything he could want from the Key–a purpose, an education, and a future. But Aiden knows more than he’s letting on, and the dark secrets he’s keeping could tear the Key’s strict society apart.
When Elodie and Aiden’s lives collide, the fallout will be devastating. What do you do when the brutal system that once kept you safe hunts you down? Run.
14 October
The PAN by Jenny Hickman
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Since her parents were killed, Vivienne has always felt ungrounded, shuffled through the foster care system. Just when liberation finally seems possible-days before her eighteenth birthday-Vivienne is hospitalized with symptoms no one can explain.
The doctors may be puzzled, but Deacon, her mysterious new friend, claims she has an active Nevergene. His far-fetched diagnosis comes with a warning: she is about to become an involuntary test subject for Humanitarian Organization for Order and Knowledge-or H.O.O.K.
Vivienne can either escape to Neverland’s Kensington Academy and learn to fly (Did he really just say fly?) or risk sticking around to become a human lab rat. But accepting a place among The P.A.N. means Vivienne must abandon her life and foster family to safeguard their secrets and hide in Neverland’s shadows … forever.
20 October
Rebel Sisters by Tochi Onyebuchi
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It’s been five years since the Biafran War ended. Ify is now nineteen and living where she’s always dreamed–the Space Colonies. She is a respected, high-ranking medical officer and has dedicated her life to helping refugees like herself rebuild in the Colonies.
Back in the still devastated Nigeria, Uzo, a young synth, is helping an aid worker, Xifeng, recover images and details of the war held in the technology of destroyed androids. Uzo, Xifeng, and the rest of their team are working to preserve memories of the many lives lost, despite the government’s best efforts to eradicate any signs that the war ever happened.
Though they are working toward common goals of helping those who suffered, Ify and Uzo are worlds apart. But when a mysterious virus breaks out among the children in the Space Colonies, their paths collide. Ify makes it her mission to figure out what’s causing the deadly disease. And doing so means going back to the homeland she thought she’d left behind forever.
The Brightest Night by Jennifer L Armentrout
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He is the darkest star.
She is the burning shadow.
And together, they will bring about the brightest night.
Less than a year ago, Evelyn Dasher was a normal girl, living a safe, rather unremarkable life–a life that was a total lie. Now she’s learned the truth about who she was and what she is.
Hidden within Zone 3, she knows that if she loses control of her dangerous abilities again, she not only puts everyone in the secret community at risk, but also the beautiful, deadly inhuman Luc. He will do anything to keep her safe. Lie. Barter. Beg. Kill.
But there are truths that not even Luc can prepare for, and as Evie’s abilities evolve, the consequences of everything he’s done turn devastating. Luc is stepping into the darkness. But Evie might already be lost to the shadows
Tinderbox: Soldier of Indira by Lou Diamond Phillips
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Two worlds at war will bring them together… or tear them apart…
Everson didn’t want to be a soldier. His parents forced him to serve, as all good Indiran men should. The only problem? His first battle against their mortal enemies goes horribly wrong and he winds up stranded on the enemy planet.
Now, Everson has to survive in this strange new land where everyone is out to get him. Not to mention, the planet Mano is covered in unforgiving desert. And he’s the target of traitors who want to use him in a dastardly plot to overthrow their mad king, Xander the Firm, by having him retrieve a piece of mysterious and powerful ancient technology known as the Tinderbox.
But everything changes during a chance encounter with the king’s daughter, Allegra. Despite her station, she’s in as grave of danger from her own people as Everson is. And though their peoples have been at odds for centuries, an unlikely spark forms between them. As their worlds come crashing down around them, their forbidden love might be the only chance to end this war forever. Or, it might just be the doom of everyone…
27 October
Currents by Jeremy Scott
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Set four years after the events of Strings, Currents finds the Ables gang about to start their second year at Goodspeed University. Phillip is struggling more than ever with anxiety and PTSD, and he continues to feel tremendous guilt over the loss of a friend. It’s haunting him. He’s having vivid nightmares, passing out frequently, and starting to question his role in the world.
On top of all that, he’s taking his first public speaking course, and the learning curve is steep―though he does make a new friend in the class.
Phillip also finds himself truly blind once again, with no one to give him even temporary sight. He and his girlfriend, Emmaline, have created a sort of shorthand that allows her to communicate enemy positions so that Phillip can still be an effective crime fighter. Sherpa, his dog, is proving just as helpful during hero work as she is in the day-to-day things Phillip needs help with.
There’s more distance between Phillip & Bentley now, and the reasons aren’t entirely understood by either of them. As Phillip tries to keep it together and rebuild an old friendship, the group of college heroes chases a new energy-hoarding villain across the globe, desperate to understand the danger in time to stop it. By the end, few of them will ever be the same.
29 October
Disclose by Joelle Charbonneau
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Meri Buckley has lost everything. She lost her mother to a fight much bigger than herself. Her father to grief, fear, and denial. And the truth—to an overbearing government that insists that censorship and secrecy is the only path to peace.
But though Meri and her band of truth-seeking Stewards did lose the first battle in their quest to enlighten the public, they have not yet lost the war.
Meri can start the revolution she seeks, if the powerful figures who profit from the status quo don’t find her—and kill her first.
The Nemesis by S. J. Kincaid
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Three years ago, Tyrus Domitrian shocked the galaxy by killing the woman he swore to love forever. The woman for whom he upended the Empire. The woman with whom he wanted to build a new and brighter future.
Now, the once-idealistic heir apparent has become the cruel Emperor Tyrus, wielding his authority with an iron fist, capable of destroying planets with a single word, controlling all technology with a simple thought. He has bent the Grandiloquy to their knees, and none has the power to stand against him.
But there is a muttering among the Excess. They say that Nemesis is not truly gone. They whisper of her shadow spotted in distant star systems. They say that Nemesis lives. That she will rise, and rally the people to topple the man who was once her truest love—and is now her fiercest enemy.
