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 2023 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.
Waterstones currently ships to the United States but there will be an international shipping fee. You can also try with the British bookstore, Blackwell’s, also with Wordery.com. Now on with the recommendations!
Featured Book of the Month
The Kill List by Nadine Matheson
He will come for them, one by one…
Five shocking murders
Twenty-five years ago, DCI Harry Rhimes arrested Andrew Streeter for the brutal murders of five young people. Streeter’s ‘kill list’ of victims was found in his home, and he was convicted of all five crimes.
A legacy under threat
Now, Streeter’s convictions are being overturned, as new evidence implies the original investigation was corrupt. No one is more shocked that DI Henley. Because this case is personal; Rhimes was her old boss, and he’s no longer alive to defend himself. But when the killings start up again, Henley must face the truth: Rhimes got it wrong twenty-five years ago.
A hunt for a killer
Henley and her team reopen the original murder cases, but they must put their personal feelings to one side. Because the real killer is still out there, and he’s working his way through a new kill list …(Credit: HarperCollins)
The Kill List will come out in the US on August 6. You can pre-order your copy here.
The Estate by Denzil Meyrick
Every family has a secret. The mega-rich Pallander family are used to luxury – a castle in the Scottish Highlands, a villa in Tuscany, a billion-dollar fortune and an island in the Caribbean – but their perfect life is about to be shattered.
Every father has a favourite. Sebastian Pallander dies, leaving a pitiful amount of money to his wife and children. His family fight over the scraps as old rivalries and bitter jealousies come to the surface. And when Pallander’s son is killed in mysterious circumstances, everyone suspects foul play.
Every killer has a motive. After a desperate race for survival, the relatives gather at their estate to weather the storm. They all begin to wonder: who will be next? Where has all their money gone? And will any of them get what they truly deserve? (Credit: Transworld Publishers Ltd)
The Exes by Anam Iqbal
Can opposites ever really attract? When star-crossed lovers Karim and Zara’s worlds collide, they have to work out just how far they’re willing to go to give their love a chance.
When Karim and Zara meet, sparks shouldn’t fly.
They’ve got nothing in common: Karim – with his on-and offline clique, The Exes – is a globally renowned influencer. Zara is just a normal teen, trying to get into uni, and not bring shame to the family by getting distracted by silly boys.
Sparks do fly though. With Zara, Karim can finally let his guard down, while his glamorous world offers Zara an escape from her parent’s control. But someone has their eye on them – a secret gossip who’s been spilling truths about The Exes for years.
While Karim and Zara’s dates get swoonier, the blogger’s posts get more personal – and more threatening. (Credit: Penguin Random House Children’s UK)
Desi Girl Speaking by A. S. Hussain
Tweety is struggling.
Battling depression and faced with parents and friends who don’t fully understand what’s happening, sixteen-year-old Tweety feels like no one is listening and there’s nowhere to turn to. Until she stumbles across Desi Girl Speaking, a podcast by someone else who’s struggling too.
Through episodes and exchanged emails, Tweety and Desi Girl begin to confide in each other, but as Tweety’s depression deepens, she’ll have to decide whether to stay silenced or use her voice to speak up.
A powerful and compassionate novel about mental health and hope, for readers of Yasmin Rahman, Muhammad Khan and Danielle Jawando.
(TRIGGER WARNING: this book explores mental health, including discussion of depression, suicide and self-harm.) (Credit: Hot Key Books)
Your Time Is Up by Sarah Naughton
One has a secret, one of them saw, there’s blood on the papers, who’ll take the fall? Zaina never meant to get involved. The plan was always to focus on her exams, make her dad proud. But none of this is what she’d planned for. Chanelle never made it to the exam; Nero’s convinced he saw something last night and Ysla can’t stop crying. As Zaina starts to scratch the surface of secrets which desperately want to stay hidden she begins to wonder … how far will they go to keep her from the truth? (Credit: Scholastic)
If My Words Had Wings by Danielle Jawando
When fifteen-year-old Tyrell Forrester gets caught up in a high-profile armed robbery, he’s sentenced to two years in a young offenders’ prison. Now he’s getting out, and he’s determined to turn his life around. But despite his release, systemic discrimination makes it difficult for Ty to truly be free. Inspired by a visiting poet while inside, Ty discovers a whole new world through spoken word and is finally finding his voice. But will society ever see him as anything other than a criminal? (Credit: Simon & Schuster UK)
Displeasure Island by Alice Bell
‘There are apparently a lot of ghosts on Spike Island,’ said Basher. ‘So perhaps one more can’t hurt.’
Claire sighed and looked at Sophie. She was standing in the sunlight beaming through the windows, so she was washed out and almost see-through – but still very clearly sticking her tongue out at Claire. ‘Oh,’ said Claire, ‘I think you’d be surprised.’
Professional medium turned detective Claire, her best friend Sophie (a 17-year-old ghost) and their pals are enjoying a much-needed cheap holiday in an unfinished hotel on Spike Island off the coast of Ireland. Claire is flattered to be asked by the local ghost of a pirate captain to investigate the theft of treasure from the shipwreck that stranded him there several hundred years ago.
But just when she thinks she is closing in on the culprit, a murder takes place, and Claire and her friends quickly become the chief suspects. Can they recover the treasure, solve the murder and clear their names before all is lost? (Credit: Atlantic Books)
The Coast Road by Alan Murrin
It’s 1994 in County Donegal, Ireland, and everyone is talking about Colette Crowley – the writer, the bohemian, the woman who left her husband and sons to pursue a relationship with a married man in Dublin. But now Colette is back, and nobody knows why.
Returning to the community to try and reclaim her old life, Colette quickly learns that they are unwilling to give it back to her. The man to whom she is still married is denying her access to her children, and while the legalisation of divorce might be just around the corner, Colette finds herself caught between her old life and the freedom for which she risked everything. Desperate to see her children, she enlists the help of Izzy, a housewife and mother of two, and the women forge a friendship that will send them on a spiralling journey – one toward a path of self-discovery, and the other toward tragedy.
Brilliantly observed from a sharp new literary talent, The Coast Road is a novel about a closed community and the consequences of daring to move against the tide. (Credit: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC)
Openings by Lucy Caldwell
The much-anticipated new collection from the BBC National Short Story Award-winning author of Multitudes and Intimacies.
I still sometimes wonder if one could draw a window in the wall, or in the air, and step through it together. To somewhere else, entirely new.
From a passionate affair in Blitz-era London, to a highly charged Christmas party in Belfast, to a trip to Marrakech which could form a new family, the thirteen striking stories of Openings pulse with possibility and illuminate those fleeting but recognisable moments of heartbreak and hope that can change the course of a life. (Credit: Faber & Faber)
Morgan Is My Name by Sophie Keetch
My name is Morgan… And there aren’t enough words for all that I am.
When King Uther Pendragon murders her father and tricks her mother into marriage, Morgan refuses to be crushed. Trapped amid the machinations of men in a world of isolated castles and gossiping courts, she discovers secret powers. Vengeful and brilliant, it’s not long before Morgan becomes a worthy adversary to Merlin, influential sorcerer to the king. But fighting for her freedom, she risks losing everything – her reputation, her loved ones and her life. (Credit: Oneworld Publications)
Lost In The Lakes: Notes from a 379-Mile Hike Around the Lake District by Tom Chesshyre
Join travel writer Tom Chesshyre for a Lakeland adventure like no other. Explore towering mountains, wide-open valleys and magnificent lakes – stopping off at a cosy inn or two along the way – on a 379-mile hike around the Lake District
From Penrith and back, via Keswick, Cockermouth, Coniston, Grasmere and Windermere, plus many places in between, Tom Chesshyre puts on his walking boots and sets forth in a “big wobbly circle” around the Lakes, drawn onwards by the dramatic scenery that attracts more than 19 million visitors each year.
Across landscape that so inspired the Romantic poets, he takes in remote parts of the parkland that many tourists miss – enjoying encounters aplenty with farmers, fell runners and fellow hikers, while staying in shepherds’ huts, bothies and old climbers’ hotels along the way, and even going for a (chilly) dip in Derwentwater.
This is the Lake District seen from its walking paths – with just a backpack, an open mind… and a spring in the step. (Credit: Octopus Publishing Group)
Dead Happy by Josh Silver
FRIENDS, WELCOME TO ELMHALLOW. YOU ARE THE CHOSEN TEN.
By some miracle, Seb has survived the HappyHead programme, only to find himself stranded on a remote island under the guidance of a freakishly beautiful couple.
Far from home, Seb reluctantly teams up with Eleanor again and the pair are forced to compete in a series of ever stranger trials to prove their connection. All the while, he can’t stop thinking about Finn. Determined to find him, Seb’s search uncovers an even darker reality.
Can he escape the island and expose the sinister truth behind HappyHead? (Credit: Oneworld Publications)
Ellen, Countess of Castle Howel by Anna Maria Bennett
Marked by the sometimes scandalous life experiences of its author, Ellen, Countess of Castle Howel (1794) is an insightful, often humorous look at Wales, and Britain, at a time of changing social norms and attitudes. Raised in relative seclusion in Wales, where she is preyed on by a corrupt English lord, Ellen marries Lord Castle Howel, a wealthy, older man, in order to save her grandparents’ ancient estate. Transplanted to London, accompanied by her indefatigable Welsh maid, Winifred, Ellen’s innocence about the workings of fashionable society brings about a separation from her husband and the loss of her reputation. Following a dash to the north of England, where she gives birth to her son, she is reunited with her husband and her good name is restored. When Lord Castle Howel is killed in a riding accident, Ellen returns to Wales and sees her and her family’s fortunes transformed. (Credit: Honno Press)
A Girl Can Dream by Emily Barr
Expected Publication Date: May 16
Venice, 2024
Hazel is on a spontaneous holiday with her stepbrother, Enzo, and best friend, Phoebe. They have just helped Hazel escape her increasingly destructive relationship with her older boyfriend, and have come away to celebrate her being her again.
In the dreamy Italian sunshine, Hazel is managing to relax, to stop looking over her shoulder in case Freddie has followed her here. But there’s a girl she keeps seeing in the city. A girl with beautiful eyes. And whenever Hazel sees her and their eyes meet, something strange seems to happen – de ja vu, at first, and then even stranger things that make her wonder if she’s really in Venice at all . . .
England, 2022
Hazel goes to see an up-and-coming local band with Enzo and some friends. She locks eyes with the lead singer, Freddie, during a song, and he finds her afterwards and slips her his number. She’s not even 16. He is ten years older. She knows it’s stupid. She didn’t even think it was boys she was into.
Things with Freddie start wonderfully – flowers, dates, he even writes a song about her. It’s everything a girl could dream of. Until it’s absolutely not . . .(Credit: Penguin Random House Children’s UK)
Made in Manchester: A People’s History of the City That Shaped the Modern World by Brian Groom
Expected Publication Date: May 23
A rich and vivid history of Britain’s second city through the people who have made it
Made in Manchester is the tale of England’s second city; a metropolis that exported industry and commerce to all others and whose culture is celebrated globally. Like Brian Groom’s bestselling Northerners, this definitive history expertly combines pacey narrative with vividly drawn portraits.
Manchester was the ‘shock city’ of the Industrial Revolution. Visitors arrived from foreign lands, who saw in it a foretaste of the world’s future. But no one knew whether the upheaval would lead to prosperity or starvation. ‘From this filthy sewer pure gold flows,’ wrote French social commentator Alexis de Tocqueville.
It was a hotbed of politics too. The Peterloo Massacre of 1819 is immortalised in British folklore. The city was a centre for radical movements such as Chartism, yet also spawned the employer-led Anti-Corn Law League, which made free trade Britain’s economic orthodoxy. It became the centre of the global cotton industry and a pioneer in engineering. But Made in Manchester will also tell the untold story of the pre-industrial age: Manchester’s Roman fort was manned by soldiers from across the empire, prefiguring the cosmopolitanism of the present day.
We meet the scientists who produced the world’s first stored-program computer; industrialists who laid the foundation of modern mass production; campaigners like Emmeline Pankhurst; writers Elizabeth Gaskell and Anthony Burgess; composers like Peter Maxwell Davies; and artists such as L.S. Lowry. Manchester’s music scene produced iconic bands including Joy Division and Oasis.
Made in Manchester will tackle the city’s sometimes spiky relations with its neighbours and its reputation for arrogance, asking whether the city’s inhabitants have a definable character. And it will ask whether Manchester, through economic decline and recent recovery, has lived up to its early promise, and whether it can still do so today. (Credit: HarperCollins)
Something’s About To Blow Up by Sam Blake
Expected Publication Date: May 23
When an explosion rips through the chemistry lab at Dublin’s Raven’s Hill School and six girls are injured, the first thought is that it’s an experiment gone wrong. Then the Gardaí start investigating and declare it a potential bomb attack. But – if so – who was it targeting, and why?
Ella, Becky, Maeve and Mackenzie are rushed to hospital, along with the injured Frankie and Sorcha, who team up with Jess to figure out what actually happened. But what they discover is something more sinister than even they could have imagined …(Credit: Gill)
Moon Stone by Laura Purcell
Expected Publication Date: May 23
Don’t misbehave. Beware the moon. And never go out after dark.
Following a scandal at the Vauxhall pleasure gardens, Camille is sent to the woods to live with her reclusive godmother and her strange daughter, Lucy. Cast out from polite society, she must learn to live by her godmother’s strict rules.
Camille has never met anyone quite like Lucy before, and as they grow closer and cross forbidden boundaries, strange things begin to happen. Mysterious deaths, claw marks raking the doors, and the nights are pierced by the howls of a creature that sounds almost . . . otherworldly.
Should Camille be more afraid of what’s hiding in the woods – or her own heart? (Credit: HarperCollins)
Greenwild: The City Beyond the Sea by Pari Thomson
Expected Publication Date: May 23
In a land ruled by water, treachery runs deep. Daisy Thistledown and the Five O’Clock Club might have defeated a terrifying foe, but their journey to find the missing Botanists is only just beginning.
Desperate to join the long-awaited expedition to the heart of the Amazon, Daisy and her friends abandon the safety of magical Mallowmarsh – only to fall face-first into danger on the high seas when they find themselves pursued across the waves by Grim Reapers. Their only hope: to find the legendary Iffenwild, a mysterious pocket of the Greenwild hidden and lost to time.
But beneath the waves, a strange botanical magic stirs. And it will take all of Daisy’s courage and determination – and the trust of an unexpected new friend – if she is to discover the truth that haunts Iffenwild, and save the Greenwild from a terrible fate. (Credit: Pan Macmillan)
The Guests by Nikki Smith
Expected Publication Date: May 23
WELCOME TO PARADISE!
Or so the staff say as they greet the Hamiltons on the pristine shores of the idyllic Maldives resort.
And it starts off that way: snorkelling in the serene blue sea, champagne picnics on powder-white sand, and moonlit walks under the stars.
But lies lurk beneath the luxury, because each of the guests has a secret… and they’re not the only ones.
Months later, a grisly discovery is made.
Whatever happened to the Hamiltons? And how did their once-in-a-lifetime trip turn into the holiday from hell? (Credit: Penguin Books)
Code Name Kingfisher by Liz Kessler
Expected Publication Date: May 23
When Liv finds a secret box from her grandmother’s childhood she uncovers an extraordinary war-time story of bravery, betrayal and daring defiance. A story that will change Liv and her family forever…
Holland, 1942. The world is at war and as the Nazis’ power grows, Jewish families are in terrible danger. Twelve-year-old Mila and her older sister Hannie are sent to live with a family in another city with new identities and the strict instruction not to tell anyone that they are Jewish.
Hannie, determined to fight back, is swept into the Dutch resistance as an undercover agent: Code Name Kingfisher. And though Mila does her best to make friends and keep out of trouble, there is danger at every turn and the sisters are soon left questioning who they can trust…(Credit: Simon & Schuster)
Wild East by Ashley Hickson-Lovence
Expected Publication Date: May 23
Pen in one hand, on my wrist, a ticking clock. I’ve got to make this work, just need a little luck…’
When fourteen-year-old Ronny’s life is struck by tragedy, his mum decides it’s finally time they move out of East London.
In his new city, as a Black teenager in a mostly white school, Ronny feels like a complete outsider and struggles to balance keeping his head down with his ambition of becoming a rapper.
But when a local poet comes into class, Ronny discovers a world he’s never considered before. Rap is like spoken word, bars equal poetry – and maybe the combination of both could be the key to achieving his dreams? (Credit: Penguin Random House Children’s UK)
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