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!
The books link to the reading website StoryGraph.
Featured Book of the Month:
The Poet by Louisa Reid
Bright, promising Emma is entangled in a toxic romance with her old professor – and she’s losing control. Cruel, charming Tom is idolized by his students and peers – confident he holds all the cards.
In their small Oxford home, he manipulates and undermines her every thought and act. Soon, he will push her to the limit and she must decide: to remain quiet and submit, or to take her revenge. (Credit: Transworld Publishers)
While The Storm Rages by Phil Earle
September 1939. The world is on the brink of war. As his dad marches off to fight, Noah makes him a promise, to keep their beloved family dog safe. When the government advises people to have their pets put down in readiness for the chaos of war, hundreds of thousands of people do as they are told. But not Noah. He’s not that sort of boy. With his two friends in tow, he goes on the run, to save his dog and as many animals as he can. No matter what. (Credit: Andersen Press)
Friends Like These by Meg Rosoff
New York City. June, 1982.
When eighteen-year-old Beth arrives in Manhattan for a prestigious journalism internship, everything feels brand new – and not always in a good way. A cockroach-infested sublet and a disaffected roommate are the least of her worries, and she soon finds herself caught up with her fellow interns – preppy Oliver, ruthless Dan and ridiculously cool, beautiful, wild Edie.
Soon, Beth and Edie are best friends – the sort of heady, all-consuming best-friendship that’s impossible to resist. But with the mercury rising and deceit mounting up, betrayal lies just around the corner. Who needs enemies … when you have friends like these? (Credit: Bloomsbury)
Empress Crowned in Red by Ciannon Smart
Enemy witches Iraya and Jazmyne have each achieved their darkest desires. For the former, the doyenne who killed her family is dead. For the latter, the crown has been won. For both, their treacherous alliance is over – until a hidden evil rises from their last adversary’s ashes, forcing them to join forces once more to defend Aiyca and their respective orders.
Laying claim to the island of Iraya’s birth right and the bloody crown Jazmyne wears, this mysterious assailant is rearing monsters in the name of war. A war neither Iraya or Jazmyne are prepared to fight. New alliances must be forged to protect Aiyca and once again the two witches must work together to defeat an enemy who threatens both their worlds.
Who will be the one sitting on top of the throne in the end – Iraya, Jazmyne, or another? Two witches. One motive. And everything to fight for. (Credit: Hot Key Books)
Gay Club by Simon James Green
Barney’s a shoo-in for his school’s LGBTQ+ Society President at the club’s next election. But when the vote is opened up to the entire student body, the whole school starts paying attention. How low will the candidates go to win? Buckle up for some serious shade, scandals and sleazy shenanigans. It isn’t long before it’s National Coming Out Day – for everyone’s secrets!
But when the group faces an unexpected threat – and a big opportunity – can the club members put politics aside and stand united? (Credit: Scholastic)
The Murder Book by Mark Billingham
Tom Thorne has it all. In Nicola Tanner and Phil Hendricks, Thorne has good friends by his side. He finally has a love life worth a damn and is happy in the job to which he has devoted his life…
Tom Thorne has it all… to lose.
Hunting the woman responsible for a series of grisly murders, Thorne has no way of knowing that he will be plunged into a nightmare from which he may never wake. A nightmare that has a name.
Finally, Thorne’s past has caught up with him and a ruinous secret is about to be revealed. If he wants to save himself and his friends, he must do the unthinkable. (Credit: Little, Brown Book Group)
Fannie by Rebecca F. John
Montreuil-sur-Mer, 1815. Life is hard for Fannie working at the factory, with only sweet memories of her ‘gentleman’ and daughter to sustain her. But when she is revealed as an unmarried mother and dismissed, she is forced to take greater and greater risks to earn money for her child. What can she sell? Who can she trust? Has she any escape? A story of desperation, but also of love and the soaring power of hope. (Credit: Honno Welsh Women’s Press)
These Impossible Things by Salma El-Wardany
They recognized that they were all existing in a perfect moment, and eventually it would have to end. Other times it felt like it would always be this way.
These Impossible Things charts the dreams and disappointments of a group of British Muslim women; Jenna, Kees and Malak. They have been friends for years: the three of them together against the world.
Yet one night changes everything between them and they are left adrift, marooned from each other as their lives take different paths. Without the support of each other, nothing seems to go quite right and in the wake of heartbreaks, marriages, new careers and new beginnings, they need each other more than ever. Will they be able to forgive each other in time?
These Impossible Things tells the story of three women coming to terms with the choices we make, of reconciling love, loss, faith, womanhood and friendship, and how one moment, in a life where everything feels at odds, can change everything. (Credit: Orion Publishing)
The Social Distance Between Us: How Remote Politics Wrecked Britain by Darren McGarvey
Expected Publication Date: June 16
Britain is in a long-distance relationship with reality…
From poverty and policing, homelessness and overrun prisons to Grenfell and hostile environments, Britain has long been failing those who need our help the most. There is arguably one unifying theme that links all these afflictions: proximity. Proximity is how close we are to the action and how that affects how we assess, relate to and address whatever that action happens to be. Almost every job requires a level of experience and training with the notable exception of the most powerful people in the country – our political class.
So this is a book about the distance, whether geographical, economic, or cultural, between those who make decisions and the people on the receiving end of them. The distance between the affluent and the poor, how their interests and values diverge, and the assumptions they make about each other’s experiences and intentions in the absence of any meaningful interaction. How even those with the noblest aims, inadvertently cause harm as a result of their social remoteness and fail to advance anybody’s interests but their own misguided ones.
Could Britain’s problem be, not that there is a lot of inequality, but that for generations, a small group of people, who know little about it, have been charged with discussing, debating, and sorting it out? At what point do we look for answers, not to the people who are hardest up, but the apparently educated and sophisticated, whose dominance of Britain’s institutions has been virtually unbroken for centuries? (Credit: Ebury Publishing)
The Missing Cryptoqueen by Jamie Bartlett
Expected Publication Date: June 21
Hundreds of countries. Billions of dollars. One lie.
In 2014 a brilliant Oxford graduate called Dr Ruja Ignatova promised to revolutionise money and make people rich in the process. The future, she said, belonged to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. And the self-styled cryptoqueen vowed that she had invented the Bitcoin Killer. She launched OneCoin, an exciting new cryptocurrency that she promised would not only earn its investors untold fortunes, it would change the world. OneCoin swept the globe – becoming one of the fastest companies to make $1 billion in revenue.
By 2017, billions of dollars had been invested in OneCoin in hundreds of countries, from the USA to Pakistan, Hong Kong to Yemen, and the UK to Uganda. But by the end of the year Ruja Ignatova had disappeared, along with the money, and it slowly became clear that her revolutionary cryptocurrency was not all it seemed.
The Missing Cryptoqueen tells the unbelievable story of the rise, disappearance and fall of Dr Ruja Ignatova. It is a modern tale of intrigue, techno-hype and herd madness that reveals how OneCoin became the biggest scam of the 21st Century. (Credit: Ebury Publishing)
Great LGBTQ+ Speeches: Empowering Voices That Engage And Inspire by Tea Uglow
Expected Publication Date: June 21
Photocollage portraits and enlightening commentaries accompany the words of Audre Lorde, Harvey Milk, Munroe Bergdorf, Sir Elton John and more. Together these speakers touch on all aspects of LGBTQ+ life from equal marriage to the AIDS crisis, bullying to parenthood, the first 19th century campaigns through to trans rights allyship today. We are stronger when we stand together, and this collection from award-winning activist Tea Uglow encourages us to do just that whilst celebrating the beauty of our differences. Pour through a pioneering collection of talks, declarations and lectures, from people whose voices have too often been marginalised and the allies that support them; Find over 40 empowering and influential speeches that chart the history of the LGBTQ+ movement up to the present day; Each speech is presented with a striking photographic portrait and an insightful introduction, offering essential context, fresh insights and a nuanced understanding that brings each character and their words to life. (Credit: White Lion Publishing)
Factory Girls by Michelle Gallen
Expected Publication Date: June 23
Smart-mouthed and filthy-minded, Maeve Murray has always felt like an outsider in the shitty wee town in Northern Ireland that she calls home. She hopes her exam results will be her ticket to a new life in London; a life where no one knows her business, or cares about her dead sister. But first she’s got to survive a tit-for-tat paramilitary campaign as brutal as her relationship with her mam, iron 800 shirts a day to keep her summer job in the local factory, and dodge the attentions of Handy Andy Strawbridge, her dubious English boss.
Maeve and her two best friends try to squeeze as much fun as possible into their last summer at home. But as marching season raises tensions among the Catholic and Protestant workforce, Maeve realises something is going on behind the scenes at the factory, forcing her to make a choice that will impact her life – and the lives of others – for ever. (Credit: John Murray Press)
The Silver Chain by Jion Sheibani
Expected Publication Date: June 23
Azadeh is a budding violinist on a music scholarship at an expensive private school, dealing with all the usual trials of being sixteen: trying her best to fit in, keep up and have fun. Then as her mum’s mental health spirals out of control, Azadeh’s world starts to unravel. Her friendships fall away, and as much as she and her dad try to keep a lid on everything, their problems insist on taking over.
Feeling alone, it’s her violin that finally helps Azadeh to find her way back to her friends, herself and even her mum. A beautifully packaged, highly important and irresistible novel about mental health struggles and the solace we find in music and rhythm, friendship, family and honesty. (Credit: Hot Key Books)
Godmersham Park by Gill Hornby
Expected Publication Date: June 23
On 21 January 1804, Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. At 31 years old, she has no previous experience of either teaching or fine country houses. Her mother has died, and she has nowhere else to go. Anne is left with no choice. For her new charge – twelve-year-old Fanny Austen – Anne’s arrival is all novelty and excitement.
The governess role is a uniquely awkward one. Anne is neither one of the servants, nor one of the family, and to balance a position between the ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ members of the household is a diplomatic chess game. One wrong move may result in instant dismissal. Anne knows that she must never let down her guard.
When Mr Edward Austen’s family comes to stay, Anne forms an immediate attachment to Jane. They write plays together, and enjoy long discussions. However, in the process, Anne reveals herself as not merely pretty, charming and competent; she is clever too. Even her sleepy, complacent mistress can hardly fail to notice.
Meanwhile Jane’s brother, Henry, begins to take an unusually strong interest in the lovely young governess…
And from now on, Anne’s days at Godmersham Park are numbered. (Credit: Cornerstone)
The Bay by Allie Reynolds
Expected Publication Date: June 23
The waves are to die for. It’s a paradise they’d kill to keep.
There’s a darkness inside all of us and The Bay has a way of bringing it out. Everyone here has their secrets but we don’t go looking for them. Because sometimes it’s better not to know.
Kenna arrives in Sydney to surprise her best friend, shocked to hear she’s going to marry a guy she’s only just met. But Mikki and her fiance Jack are about to head away on a trip, so Kenna finds herself tagging along for the ride.
Sorrow Bay is beautiful, wild and dangerous. A remote surfing spot with waves to die for, cut off from the rest of the world. Here Kenna meets the mysterious group of people who will do anything to keep their paradise a secret. Sky, Ryan, Clemente and Victor have come to ride the waves and disappear from life. How will they feel about Kenna turning up unannounced? (Credit: Headline Publishing)
The US Publication of this book comes out in July!
Twelve Percent Dread by Emily McGovern
Expected Publication Date: June 23
Katie and Nas are best friends, exes, and co-dependents. They share everything, including a tiny room in a North London townhouse belonging to their landlord, Jeremy, former host of the hit 90s show Football Lads.
While Katie bounces from job to job and obsesses about falling behind in life, Nas has bigger things in mind, such as waiting endlessly for their visa to come through and working on a seismic art project that will revolutionize politics and society as we know it.
Their friend Emma, meanwhile, seems to have it all figured out – job, mortgage, engagement – yet the long hours working for tech giant Arko and endless wedding admin have left her similarly anxious and unsatisfied.
But when Katie’s latest job finds her tutoring the daughter of Arko’s formidable CEO, Michelle, and Emma welcomes the eccentric and enigmatic Alicia to her team at Arko, none of the three women are aware that their lives – and possibly the future of society itself – are about to change forever . . .(Credit Pan Macmillan)
cup of tea with that book, please 