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
Heroes and Villains: Poems About Legends by Ana Sampson and illustrated by Chris Riddell
Expected Publication Date: September 12
Folklore and tales have been the lifeblood of every culture worldwide since the beginning of time. Similarly, legends have traversed this passage, believed to have a speck of truth nestled at their heart. Heroes and Villains pays homage to the glittering royal courts and journey through ancient landscapes and perilous voyages, meeting Arthur and Guinevere, the Queen of Sheba, Kubla Khan, Robin Hood, Joan of Arc, and Mulan along the way.In this poetry collection you will also meet mythical beings such as the phoenix, yeti, dragon and kraken, as we witness them leap from travellers’ tales and compendiums into the world of verse. (Credit: Pan Macmillan)
A City Runs Through Them: Dublin and its Twenty River Bridge by Fergal Tobin
An original and fascinating history of Dublin that tells the story of the city through its bridges.
Dublin started life on the south bank of the River Liffey and for six or seven centuries that is more or less where the town stayed. In all that time, there was only one bridge across the river. Then, suddenly, in the twenty years after 1670, three more bridges were thrown up and the north side was born. Within a century, Dublin was being talked of as one of the ten largest cities in the whole of Europe.
Built over a span of a thousand years, the twenty bridges that now traverse the tidal section of the Liffey have each contributed to the city’s development, as it pushed through the open fields north of the river and east towards the bay, so much so that it is possible to piece together Dublin’s history by tracing their construction in chronological order.
Starting with Church Street Bridge, Dublin’s first, which dates back to the Vikings, and ending with Rosie Hackett Bridge, erected in 2014, Fergal Tobin charts the rise of Ireland’s capital city as never before and reveals how, perhaps more than any other city in the world, it has been truly made by its bridges. (Credit: Atlantic Books)
Gaeilge i Mo Chroí – Irish In My Heart: Your Guide to Loving and Living the Irish Language by Molly Nic Céile
How do you feel about embracing Ireland’s native tongue? At odds after a tricky relationship at school? Maybe you’ve given up, or don’t know where to start?
Well, is fada an bóthar nach mbíonn casadh ann – long is the road that has no turn and, in this book, the road is about to turn.
Molly Nic Céile – creator of social media sensation for Irish-language learners and lovers Gaeilge i Mo Chroí – invites us to connect with Irish in our hearts, as we set out on a journey of renewed pride sa Ghaeilge. Using seanfhocail agus scéalta, proverbs and stories, and with plenty of craic along the way – including the hilarious ‘if Irish were English’ approach to better understanding sentence structure – the book offers guidance on bringing Irish into our everyday lives, supported by useful word and phrase glossaries throughout.
Connect with an Ghaeilge you didn’t know you knew, embrace na botúin – the mistakes – and discover the richness that our beautiful language – ár dteanga álainn – has to offer. (Credit: Hachette Books Ireland)
Manifesto: Unlock the Life You Deserve and Find Contentment In Your Everyday by Candice Brathwaite
Manifesting. Big Magic. The Law of Attraction. There’s no denying that whatever you call it, using your mindset to bring your desires into reality is having a moment. But what if your life experiences so far have demonstrated the exact opposite? What does manifesting look like if you’re not white, thin, traditionally pretty, or able bodied?
Candice Brathwaite, Sunday Times bestselling author, is here to tell you exactly what it looks like. Supported by her four pillars of Seeing, Believing, Doing and Being, Candice will guide you towards the life you deserve and show you that manifesting can be for everyone – not just those to whom the universe has already been kind.
So whether you want to improve your health, career, finances or love life, Candice has learnt to manifest the hard way and with her game-changing approach, and can teach you to do the same. (Credit: Quercus Publishing)
Frankie by Graham Norton
Expected Publication Date: September 12
Frankie Howe has lived a long life and her small London flat is crammed full of art, furniture and memories. Damian, her young carer, listens as she gradually tells him parts of her story – a story that takes us into a progressive, daring world of New York artists on the brink of fame, aspiring writers and larger-than-life characters.
Always just on the periphery, looking on, young Frankie is never quite sure enough of herself to take centre stage. But the outsider holds certain advantages, sees things others don’t, can influence without drawing attention. And when the map has been lost, it’s anyone’s guess where you may end up, or the accidental choices you find you have made. Frankie discovers that life is not always the one we hope for, or the one others expect of us. (Credit: Hodder & Stoughton)
The Women Behind the Door by Roddy Doyle
Expected Publication Date: September 12
At sixty-six, Paula Spencer – mother, grandmother, widow, addict, survivor – is finally living her life. A job at the dry cleaners she enjoys, a man – Joe – with whom she shares what she wants, friends who see her for who she is, and four grown children, now with families and petty dramas the likes of which Paula could only have hoped for. Despite its ghosts, Paula has started to push her past aside.
That is until Paula’s eldest, Nicola, turns up on her doorstep. Independent, affluent, a loving wife and mother, “a success” – Nicola is suddenly determined to leave it all behind. Over the next few days, as Nicola gradually confides in Paula the secret that unleashed this moment of crisis, mother and daughter find themselves untangling anecdotes, jokes, memory and revelation to confront the bruised but beautiful symmetry of what each means to the other. (Credit: Vintage Publishing)
What A Way To Go by Bella Mackie
Expected Publication Date: September 12
‘I was immensely grateful that despite the gruesome way my husband died, he’d done it with his clothes on.’
Anthony Wistern is wealthy beyond imagination. Fragrant wife, gaggle of photogenic children, French chateau, Cotswold manor, plethora of mistresses, penchant for cutting moral corners, tick tick tick tick tick tick.
Unfortunately for him, he’s also dead. Suddenly poised to inherit his fortune, each member of the family falls under suspicion.
And that’s when the lying starts…(Credit: HarperCollins)
Saints: A New Legendary of Heroes, Humans and Magic by Amy Jeffs
Expected Publication Date: September 12
Numerous saints were held to have lived, breathed and performed miracles across Britain, from only decades after Christ’s death, up to the eve of the Reformation, with all of its consequent destruction.
In medieval narratives these saints are given nature’s blessing: a salmon finds Cadog’s handbook, the Thames parts for Alban, geese fill the sky to converse with Werbaugh. Moreover they fit the medieval view of British history at large. St Cadog and King Arthur are contemporaries; St Mungo meets Merlin in the woods; St Alban is implicated in the Roman persecution of Christians. And while there was no single history accepted across its islands and diverse populations, these stories do enable us to reconstruct a long, obsolete view on Britain’s deepest past.
Through passages of narrative, deeply researched explanation and beautifully illustrated by the author with thirty paper-cutouts, Saints retells stories that enjoyed centuries of popular appeal among medieval Christians but were suppressed when their shrines were destroyed. These stories embraced the darkness of their heroes: sinister saints who sacrificed their followers and women who communed with geese, saints whose decapitated heads spoke to wolves. (Credit Quercus Publishing)
The Lie of the Land: Who Really Cares for the Countryside? by Guy Shrubsole
Expected Publication Date: September 12
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Lost Rainforests of Britain comes a fierce expose of how private landowners wreck the countryside, and how the public can restore it.
Britain’s landowners, we are told, are the rightful stewards of the countryside. They care for the land, they nurture it for future generations and for the good of all. But this is not true. In The Lie of the Land, Guy Shrubsole shows that a handful of large landowners are responsible for the destruction and degradation of many of our most important landscapes. This book paints a vivid picture of some of the most dramatic failures of land stewardship in Britain’s recent history. But it also tells the story of the people trying to pick up the pieces – the small-scale farmers, community groups and members of the public who may not own land, but who nevertheless seek to be its custodians.
The time has come to shed our deference to landowners and demand that they live up to their ideals of stewardship – or forfeit the right to own land. In overturning the ‘lie of the land’, Shrubsole shows that we can all become custodians of the countryside once again. (Credit: HarperCollins)
Ghostlines by Katya Balen
Expected Publication Date: September 12
A sea-soaked story of friendship, community and discovering what it means to carry home in your heart, from Carnegie Medal-winning author Katya Balen. On the Island of Ayrie, everybody knows everyone. They know each other’s stories as they know every road, every hill and the coming of the tide. In the summer, there are bonfires to celebrate the migration of the puffins. Everything is familiar, nothing much changes, and for Tilda, nothing ever should – it is beautiful, it is perfect and it is home.
When newcomer Albie arrives at the island, Tilda wants to show Ayrie off – Albie wants her to leave him alone. She learns quickly that it’ll take more than a tour and some seal viewings to win him around. Then, she remembers stories of the old island just an hour’s boat ride away from the shore.
The old island is a death trap. The journey there is treacherous. Trips across to it are strictly forbidden. And there’s a rumour it’s haunted by the ghosts of those left there to die. But with all else having failed, the old island is the only way for Tilda to make Albie see what she sees in Ayrie.
Besides, it’s a different kind of ghost that worries Tilda. The ghost that’s been following her, now, since her brother left the island …
All The Devils by Catelyn Wilson
Expected Publication Date: September 19
Hell is empty and all the demons are at Ravenswood Academy.
Mourning the sudden death of her sister, Andy Emmerson knows she must come to terms with a life without Violet. But on the day of the funeral Andy is shocked to discover one thing: the person in that casket is not her sister.
Violet is alive.
Convinced her sister’s elite boarding school is covering up the truth, Andy enrols at Ravenswood Academy to discover what really happened and find Violet.
The school is as beautiful and haunting as the students within it and Andy learns that it’s not just good grades that drives these pupils. Something much darker is at play.
After discovering a cryptic note from her sister, Andy must follow a set of clues to unlock the truth. This will bring her into contact with secret societies, ancient magic, demons and monsters. And a charming senior named Jae Han who has his own reasons for finding out what happened to Violet . . .
Soon Andy realises the price she must pay to bring her sister home is darker and more dangerous than she ever could have imagined. (Credit: Penguin Books)
The Forest of a Thousand Eyes by Frances Hardinge and illustrated by Emily Gravett
Expected Publication Date: September 19
Costa Award-winning Frances Hardinge’s gripping story of a young girl’s daring mission through a natural world intent on her destruction.
With stunning two-colour illustrations by superstar illustrator Emily Gravett on every page, this richly atmospheric book is perfect for fans of David Almond and Kiran Millwood Hargrave.
The hungry Forest is moving forward like an army, a green and constant threat to the humans living in and on an increasingly crumbling Wall. Feather, accompanied only by her scaled ferret, Sleek, must avoid the Forest’s tentacles, and the many dangerous creatures it shelters, to return the community’s precious spyglass to its rightful place. Along the way, she develops her resilience, and meets other people living on the Wall, whose stories and experiences open her mind, and those of her community, to new horizons.
A compelling story filled with adventure, emotional intensity and the rawness of nature. (Credit: Pan Macmillan)
The Bell Witches by Lindsey Kelk
Expected Publication Date: September 26
You’ll want to be one. Until you know their secrets.
After Emily’s father tragically dies, she is forced to live with the only family she has left, an aunt and grandmother in the heart of Savannah, Georgia in a house as beautiful as it is mysterious.
But all is not what it seems with the Bell family; they’re hiding a magical secret.
When Emily meets the alluring Wyn, she forms a connection that feels like it was always meant to be. As the spark between them grows more powerful, her life takes an exhilarating and terrifying turn; but every step closer to him, takes her a step further away from her family.
Emily will find out that blood is always thicker than water…
There’s no bond greater than magic.(Credit: HarperCollins Publishers)
Honeybee by Dawn O’Porter
Expected Publication Date: September 26
Old friends Renée and Flo couldn’t be more different. Flo wants to be invisible, Renée wants to be a somebody. But old friendships are magnetic. In their early twenties, and on the cusp of the rest of their lives, Renée and Flo both fly home to Guernsey: to the island where it all began.
Back in the place of their youth, yet spreading their wings into adulthood, will they flail and fall? Or will growing up be the making of them?
A coming-of-age story and a love letter to female friendship, Honeybee is about the gloriously messy days of early adulthood.
We’re all just winging it – but women stick together. (Credit: HarperCollins)
The Secrets of Blythswood Square by Sara Sheridan
Expected Publication Date: September 26
You wouldn’t suspect it, but scandalous secrets are being kept on Blythswood Square…
1846. Glasgow is a city on the cusp of great social change, but behind the curtains, neighbours are watching, and rumours of improper behaviour spread like wildfire on the respectable Blythswood Square.
When Charlotte Nicholl discovers that the fortune she has been bequeathed by her father is tied up in a secret collection of erotic art, she is faced with a terrible dilemma: sell it and risk shaming her family’s good name or lose her home.
An encounter with Ellory Mann, a talented working-class photographer newly arrived in Glasgow, leads Charlotte to hope she has found not only someone who might help her, but also a friend. Yet Ellory is hiding secrets of her own – secrets that become harder to conceal as she finds herself drawn into Charlotte’s world.
As the truth begins to catch up with both women, will it destroy everything they’ve fought to build – or set them both free? (Credit: Hodder & Stoughton)
Brielle and Bear: Once Upon a Time by Salomey Doku
Expected Publication Date: September 26
Fairytale Rule No.1: All the best fairytales start with ‘Once upon a time . . .’
First-year student Brielle, a daydreamy book lover, knows everything there is to know about fairytales. Returning to the city of Rosebridge four years after moving away, she attends Once Upon a Time University, with the intention of living her fairytale dream. And when she meets Bear, shy vice-captain of the Princes rugby team, at the bookshop where she works, Brielle’s dream is off to a good start.
Determined to forget the past, and with an unexpected new relationship blossoming, Brielle feels she’s finally living the dream. That is, until she discovers that she’s not the only one hiding something. (Credit: HarperCollins)
Turtle Moon by Hannah Gold and illustrated by Levi Pinfold
Journey to the heart of the adventure!
Silver Trevelon’s parents aren’t happy. They haven’t been happy since the nursery they decorated started gathering cobwebs, waiting for the baby brother or sister that never came. So when Silver’s dad is invited to paint at a turtle rescue centre in Costa Rica, she hopes it’ll be just the adventure the family needs.
Under the hot tropical sun, Silver settles into life at the animal centre. She even witnesses a rare sighting of a leatherback turtle nesting on the beach. But when the turtle’s eggs are stolen, events take a dark and dangerous turn. Can Silver and her new friends track them down before it’s too late? It’ll mean journeying into the heart of the jungle and uncovering long-buried secrets. (Credit: HarperCollins)
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