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 2021 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:
People Person by Candice Carty-Williams
Expected Publication Date: April 28
f you could choose your family… you wouldn’t choose the Penningtons.
Dimple Pennington knew of her half siblings, but she didn’t really know them. Five people who don’t have anything in common except for faint memories of being driven through Brixton in their dad’s gold jeep, and some pretty complex abandonment issues. Dimple has bigger things to think about.
She’s thirty, and her life isn’t really going anywhere. An aspiring lifestyle influencer with a terrible and wayward boyfriend, Dimple’s life has shrunk to the size of a phone screen. And despite a small but loyal following, she’s never felt more alone in her life. That is, until a dramatic event brings her half siblings Nikisha, Danny, Lizzie and Prynce crashing back into her life. And when they’re all forced to reconnect with Cyril Pennington, the absent father they never really knew, things get even more complicated. Credit: Orion Publishing Co)
None of This Is Serious by Catherine Prasifka
Dublin student life is ending for Sophie and her friends. They’ve got everything figured out, and Sophie feels left behind as they all start to go their separate ways. She’s overshadowed by her best friend Grace. She’s been in love with Finn for as long as she’s known him. And she’s about to meet Rory, who’s suddenly available to her online.
At a party, what was already unstable completely falls apart and Sophie finds herself obsessively scrolling social media, waiting for something (anything) to happen. (Credit: Canongate Books Ltd)
You Can Trust Me by Gina Blaxill
Tragedy hits a teenage New Year’s party…
When Alana’s best friend is found drowned in a pool, the forensic reports discover date-rape drug GHB in her blood. GHB from a drink Alana knows was meant for her. Despite the swirling rumours, the suspected group of boys seem untouchable. To investigate, Alana allows herself to be pulled into their glittering orbit. But among shifting alliances, changing alibis and buried secrets, can she pinpoint which of the boys is responsible before she becomes their next target? (Credit: Scholastic)
The Girl Who Lost A Leopard by Nizrana Farook
Selvi is a wild child who loves climbing in the beautiful mountains behind her home. She is often joined by Lokka, a leopard with a beautiful coat and huge golden eyes. When hunters come for Lokka, Selvi is determined to fight. But what can she do against such powerful enemies? Turn to her friends, of course! Now they just need the perfect plan.. (Credit: Nosy Crow)
The Women Who Saved The English Countryside by Matthew Kelly
Expected Publication Date: April 12
In Britain today, a mosaic of regulations protects the natural environment and guarantees public access to green spaces. But this was not always so. Over the last 150 years, activists have campaigned tirelessly for the right to roam through the countryside and the vital importance of preserving Britain’s natural beauty.
Matthew Kelly traces the history of landscape preservation through the lives of four remarkable women: Octavia Hill, Beatrix Potter, Pauline Dower, and Sylvia Sayer. From the commons of London to the Lake District, Northumberland, and Dartmoor, these women protected the English landscape at a crucial period through a mixture of environmental activism, networking, and sheer determination.
They grappled with the challenges that urbanization and industrial modernity posed to human well-being as well as the natural environment. By tirelessly seeking to reconcile the needs of particular places to the broader public interest they helped re-imagine the purpose of the English countryside for the democratic age.
First Born by Will Dean
Expected Publication Date: April 14
The last thing a twin expects is to be alone…
Molly lives a quiet, contained life in London. Naturally risk averse, she gains comfort from security and structure. Every day the same.
Her identical twin Katie is her exact opposite: gregarious and spontaneous. They used to be inseparable, until Katie moved to New York a year ago. Molly still speaks to her daily without fail.
But when Molly learns that Katie has died suddenly in New York, she is thrown into unfamiliar territory. Katie is part of her DNA. As terrifying as it is, she must go there and find out what happened. As she tracks her twin’s last movements, cracks begin to emerge. Nothing is what it seems. And a web of deceit is closing around her. (Credit: Hodder & Stoughton)
If you want to wait, the US copy is released in July.
Truth Be Told by Sue Divin
Expected Publication Date: April 14
Tara is from Derry, Faith is from Armagh; their lives are very different, but they look exactly the same – they just don’t know why…
Two teens from very different backgrounds – Tara, the Catholic daughter of a two generation single parent family, and Faith, the daughter of strict Evangelical Protestants from Armagh, come face to face at a residential and discover they look almost identical. A DNA test reveals they are related, and that Faith’s father is not who she thinks – while Tara has never known hers.
Between them, they set out to unravel the mystery of their shared parentage, but in doing so set in motion a series of revelations about the pasts of both their families. Meanwhile, they are also dealing separately with their own issues – Tara angry and grieving after the sudden death of her boyfriend Oran, and Faith hiding her true sexuality from her family for fear of being disowned. (Credit: Pan Macmillan)
Northerners: A History by Brian Groom
Expected Publication Date: April 14
careering (verb)
1. working endlessly for a job you used to love and now resent entirely
2. knowing that a little of your soul is inextricably tied to the work you do
3. moving in a way that feels out of control
There’s a fine line between on the right track and coming off the rails.
Harri has poured her life into her job at Panache magazine, losing friendships, the love of her life, and increasingly, her sanity. She knows it will all be worth it when she gets the top job. Until she’s side lined, passed over for promotion and forced into running ‘a new venture’, which everyone knows is code for ‘being pushed out’.
Imogen has had to hustle her whole professional life to cling onto an industry that favours the privileged. When Harri offers her a job, putting an end to her constant sofa-surfing, she feels like all her dreams are coming true. But her fairy-tale ending soon sours as she finds herself putting more and more of herself into writing for a company that doesn’t care if she sinks or swims.
Harri and Imogen both thought they loved their jobs, but it is becoming increasingly clear that their jobs do not love them. Together, they stage a rebellion the only way they know how. But what will the view look like from the other side?
Hilarious and unflinchingly honest, Careering takes a hard look at the often toxic relationship working women have with their dream jobs. (Credit: Little, Brown Book Group)
Enough: The Violence Against Women and How to End It by Harriet Johnson
Expected Publication Date: April 14
This is a book that calls time on the endless tide of violence against women and the failures of our criminal justice system to respond.
From barrister Harriet Johnson, Enough lays bare the appalling status quo of abuse against women in our society, offering an irrefutable case for why change is needed in policing and justice. Most vitally, it also gives a manifesto for how to get there.
With expertise, clear-sightedness and appropriate fury, this book helps us see where women are suffering – from homicide to domestic abuse to street harassment. It exposes the ways the criminal justice system lets women down – from officers failing to properly investigate to a lack of consequences when police behaviour is unacceptable, to backlogged courts and the realities of convincing a jury.
Addressing misogyny is to everyone’s benefit and the answers aren’t simple. Enough is the call to arms we can – and must – all get behind. (Credit: HarperCollins Publishers)
The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne
Expected Publication Date: April 28
She was Pym to friends. Miss Pym in her diaries. Sandra in seduction mode. Pymska at her most sophisticated.
English novelist Barbara Pym’s career was defined, in many senses, by rejection. Her first novel Some Tame Gazelle was turned down by every publisher she sent it out in 1935, finally published only fifteen years later. Though she picked up a publisher from there and received modest praise, the publishing industry grew restless and her sales spiralled downwards. By her seventh novel she had been dropped. She was deemed old-fashioned, telling stories of little English villages, unrequited love and the social dramas of vicars or academics.
This brilliant biography, brimming with Pym’s private diaries and intimate letters, offers a first full insight into Barbara Pym’s life and how it informed her writing. It gallops through her love affairs and lifelong relationships. It opens a door to the quick-draw humour which lives in her every written line. It shows how, with a little help from her most ardent fans and friends including Philip Larkin, her work eventually resurfaced, meeting new readers and bringing her sudden astounding, resounding love and acclaim – in the last years of her life.
My Heart & Other Breakables by Alex Barclay
Expected Publication Date: April 28
Ellery Brown says NO to sadness. And yes to HER CRAZY NEW LIFE.
This is the diary of me, Ellery Brown, aged 16 and a half. I think I’m supposed to use it to record my feelings about my Mom, since she died.
So why do I keep thinking about who my dad might be, instead…? My best friend has narrowed it down to three authors my Mom knew. (She was an author too.) But they’re not just in different countries: they’re on different CONTINENTS. Which means fake IDs, passports, disguises, plane tickets, and somehow getting away from my self-obsessed grandmother.
One thing’s for sure: this year is going to be INTERESTING. (Credit: HarperCollins UK)
The Offline Diaries by Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinene
Expected Publication Date: April 28
Ade is about to start at a new school. She is NOT happy with her stepdad for making them move here. Shanice has been at the school for a year already. Since her mum died, she’s been living with her dad and annoying older brother, spending most of her time outside school in her dad’s hair salon. When Ade and Shanice meet in the salon, and spot each other’s diaries, an instant friendship is formed, and they start to chat online… but offline is a whole other story! (Credit: Harper & Collins)
cup of tea with that book, please 