Are you looking for your next great read? Why not try out the books from across the pond? Despite from what governments say, books are essential and are needed now, more than ever. So if you are need of a variety and want to read diverse stories, then I suggest you try out some British and Irish titles!

We may have left 2020 behind, but the pain and struggles of last year are still being faced, especially independent bookstores. Continue to support indie bookstores by shopping on Bookshop.org and Hive.co.uk.

You can buy these titles from BookDepository.com, a subsidiary of Amazon. They provide free international delivery, although this is being affected right now due to the pandemic. You can also try with the British bookstore, Blackwell’s, also with Wordery.com. Now on with the recommendations!

Featured Book of the Month:

Redder Days by Sue Rainsford

Expected Publication Date: March 11

A stunning exploration of the devastating damage that can be done when power falls into the wrong hands. The powerful and timely new novel from the acclaimed author of Follow Me to Ground.

Twins Anna and Adam live in an abandoned commune in a volatile landscape where they perform devotions to a world-ending event they believe is imminent. Adam keeps watch by day, Anna by night. They meet at dawn and dusk. Their only companion is Koan, the commune’s former leader who still exerts a malignant control over their daily rituals.

When one of the former commune inhabitants returns, everything they had known to be true is thrown into question. (Credit: Doubleday)

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The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex

Cornwall, 1972. Three keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse, miles from the shore. The entrance door is locked from the inside. The clocks have stopped. The Principal Keeper’s weather log describes a mighty storm, but the skies have been clear all week.

What happened to those three men, out on the tower? The heavy sea whispers their names. The tide shifts beneath the swell, drowning ghosts. Can their secrets ever be recovered from the waves?

Twenty years later, the women they left behind are still struggling to move on. Helen, Jenny and Michelle should have been united by the tragedy, but instead it drove them apart. And then a writer approaches them. He wants to give them a chance to tell their side of the story. But only in confronting their darkest fears can the truth begin to surface…(Credit: Pan Macmillan)

You can also get this book in the US on March 16. (US Edition)

Night Feeds and Morning Songs: Honest, Fierce and Beautiful Poems about Motherhood by Ana Sampson 

A collection of honest, fierce and beautiful poems about being a mother, from pregnancy and birth to growing up and leaving home. Curated by acclaimed anthologist Ana Sampson, Night Feeds and Morning Songsexamines motherhood from all angles, capturing the mess and the madness, to the joy and the wonder.

Immerse yourself in classic verse from Carol Ann Duffy, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jackie Kay and Sylvia Path, to poems from bold new voices Kate Baer, Liz Berry, Nikita Gill and Imogen Russell Williams to name but a few. (Credit: Orion Publishing Co)

Who’s Loving You edited by Sareeta Domingo

Lost love. Forbidden Love. Unrequited love. Tenderness. Desire. Romance. Passion.

Who’s Loving You? is a celebration of love in all its guises written by women of colour, with ten original short stories from bold new voices, literary prize-winners and national treasures.

Two souls come together and are torn apart, lifetime after lifetime. A seed of hope begins to grow out of the ashes of grief, heartbreak and loss. Romance sparks in the most unexpected of places. And an unbreakable bond is formed that transcends countries, continents and even the boundaries of time…

In this extraordinary collection, ten writers explore the full spectrum of love in all its messy, joyful, agonising and exhilarating forms. Celebrating and centring the romance, passion and desire of women of colour, these stories burn with an intensity and longing that lingers long after the final page. (Credit: Orion Publishing Co)

Bright Burning Things by Lisa Harding

Being Tommy’s mother is too much for Sonya. Too much love, too much fear, too much longing for the cool wine she gulps from the bottle each night. Because Sonya is burning the fish fingers, and driving too fast, and swimming too far from the shore, and Tommy’s life is in her hands. Once there was the thrill of a London stage, a glowing acting career, fast cars, handsome men. But now there are blackouts and bare cupboards, and her estranged father showing up uninvited. There is Mrs O’Malley spying from across the road. There is the risk of losing Tommy – forever. (Credit:  Bloomsbury Publishing)

The Appeal by Janice Hallett

Dear Reader,

Enclosed are documents relating to the events surrounding the Fairway Players’ staging of All My Sons, and the tragic death of one of its members. Another member is currently in prison for the crime. We have reason to suspect that they are innocent, and that there were far darker secrets that have yet to be revealed.

We believe that the killer has given themselves away. It’s there in writing, hidden in the emails, texts, and letters. In the events surrounding the charity appeal for little Poppy Reswick, and the question of whether that money was truly being used to fund her life-saving cancer treatment. Will you accept the challenge? Can you uncover the truth? Do you dare? (Credit: Profile Books)

Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller

Expected Publication Date: March 25

What if the life you have always known is taken from you in an instant? What would you do to get it back? Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At 51 years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation and poverty. Inside the walls of their old cottage they make music, and in the garden they grow (and sometimes kill) everything they need for sustenance. But when Dot dies suddenly, threats to their livelihood start raining down. Jeanie and Julius would do anything to preserve their small sanctuary against the perils of the outside world, even as their mother’s secrets begin to unravel, putting everything they thought they knew about their lives at stake. Unsettled Ground is a heart-stopping novel of betrayal and resilience, love and survival. It is a portrait of life on the fringes of society that explores with dazzling emotional power how we can build our lives on broken foundations, and spin light from darkness. (Credit: Penguin Books UK)

The Castaways by Lucy Clarke

Expected Publication Date: March 18

A SECRET BEACH. A HOLIDAY OF A LIFETIME.
WISH YOU WERE HERE?
THINK AGAIN…

It should be like any other holiday.

Beautiful beaches.
Golden sunsets.
Nothing for miles.

You’ll never want to leave.
Until you can’t… (Credit: HarperCollins UK)

Hot Stew by Fiona Mozley

Expected Publication Date: March 18

London has changed a lot over the years. The Soho that Precious and Tabitha live and work in is barely recognisable anymore. And now, the building they call their home is under threat; its billionaire-owner Agatha wants to kick the women out to build expensive restaurants and luxury flats. Men like Robert, who visit the brothel, will have to go elsewhere. The collection of vagabonds and strays in the basement will have to find somewhere else to live. But the women are not going to go quietly. They have plans to make things difficult for Agatha but she isn’t taking no for an answer. (Credit: Hodder & Stoughton)

Common Ground by Naomi Ishiguro

Expected Publication Date: March 25

It’s a lonely life for Stan, at a new school that feels more ordeal than fresh start, and at home where he and his mother struggle to break the silence after his father’s death. When he encounters fearless, clever Charlie on the local common, all of that begins to change. Charlie’s curiosity is infectious, and it is Charlie who teaches Stan, for the first time, to stand on his own two feet. But will their unit of two be strong enough to endure in a world that offers these boys such different prospects?

The pair part ways, until their paths cross once again, as adults at a London party. Now Stan is reveling in all that the city has to offer, while Charlie seems to have hit a brick wall. He needs Stan’s help, and above all his friendship, but is Stan really there for the man who once showed him the meaning of loyalty? (Credit: Headline Publishing)

The Other Side of Stone by Linda Cracknell

Expected Publication Date: March 31

The latest work by Saltire-shortlisted Linda Cracknell, The Other Side of Stone centres around a Perthshire woollen mill, revisiting it over three centuries through characters as diverse as a 19th century stone mason and modern-day architect. The primary timeline follows Catharine, a cotton spinner from Paisley and fierce suffragette, who has followed her husband home to the village where he’s taken on a job at the local mill. Both militant members of the Labour Movement, it is through her developing connection to the mill that the intricate interweaving of the other stories is revealed. While fictional, the novella draws on many real histories of local mills, and offers a fascinating insight into the long-term impact of industrialisation upon rural Scotland, as well as the struggle for women’s rights. (Credit: Taproot Press) 

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