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 2024 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
Wild Magic: Legend of the Black Lion by Abiola Bello and illustrated by Emma McCann
Expected Publication Date: March 13
Discover your wild side! Join twins Misha and Ziggy as they put their extraordinary animal powers to the test in this new illustrated wildlife adventure series for readers 6+. For fans of Leonora Bolt and Space Detectives.
Misha and Ziggy are no ordinary twins. They have a secret that no one else knows: Misha can speak to animals and Ziggy can shapeshift into them!
The siblings couldn’t be happier to be joining their wildlife presenter father on a trip to Ethiopia, and they’re determined to help him bag the best footage of the legendary Black Lion.
When the Black Lion goes missing, Misha and Ziggy are certain their powers can help track it down, but they aren’t the only ones on the hunt for the extraordinary animal. Can the twins help keep the whole jungle safe from harm? (Credit: Simon & Schuster)
A Trial In Three Acts by Guy Morpuss
A trial is rather like a play.
We wear our costumes. We perform to the audience.
And on a good day no-one gets murdered.
Six nights a week the cast of the smash-hit play Daughter of the Revolution performs to a sold-out audience. A thrilling story of forbidden marriage and a secret love child, the critics say it’ll run for years. That is until one night the third act ends not in applause but in death, when leading lady Alexandra Dyce is beheaded live on stage.
Every cast member has a motive, but it is the dead woman’s co-star – and ex-husband – Hollywood legend Leo Lusk who is charged with the crime. When defence barrister Charles Konig is brought in last minute, he knows this ought to be the case of a lifetime. But Charles would rather be on his holiday trekking up K2, and he isn’t interested in celebrities, especially ones that seem to be mysteriously trying to derail their own defence. But as he and his co-counsel New York lawyer Yara Ortiz sift through the evidence, it becomes clear that clues may lie in the play itself. And that Charles’s only chance of victory is to identify the real murderer…
A delightfully clever legal mystery with as many layers as an onion. Perfect for readers of Janice Hallett, Tom Hindle, Rob Rinder and Richard Osman. (Credit: Profile Books)
Patriarchy Inc.: What We Get Wrong About Gender Equality – and Why Men Still Win at Work by Cordelia Fine
– The most lucrative industries are male-dominated – yet half of men think they’re the ones being discriminated against.
– Post #MeToo, we’re all committed to stamping out sexual harassment – but not to changing the conditions that foster it.
– Women work more hours than men and accumulate less wealth – while many children want more time with their dad.
Inequality in the workplace impacts all areas of our lives, from health and self-development to economic security and family life. But, despite the world’s richest countries’ long-avowed commitments to gender equality, there is still so much to fix – and so much we don’t see.
With perceptive and razor-sharp insight, award-winning author Cordelia Fine reveals how the status quo – Patriarchy Inc. – is harming us all, in our working lives and beyond. Drawing on social and cultural history, examples from hunter-forager societies to high finance and the latest thinking in evolutionary science, she dismantles the existing, inadequate visions for gender equality and charts an inspiring path towards a fairer and freer society. (Credit: Atlantic Books)
Murder Below Deck by Orlando Murrin
Worse things happen at sea…
Paul Delamare has been roped into accompanying his old friend on a luxury cruise aboard the magnificent superyacht Maldemer. It’s all plain sailing until his friend’s priceless necklace is stolen, and everyone falls under suspicion.
As Paul races to catch the thief, the ship begins to drift off-course, veering into the storm-lashed mid-Atlantic. Then one of the passengers is found dead in mysterious circumstances, in a pool of coffee and surrounded by cake crumbs.
It’s all hands on deck to catch the killer, but Paul soon discovers guests and crew are harbouring deadly secrets. And if he can’t get to the bottom of the mystery soon, he’ll be sleeping with the fishes.(Credit: Transworld Publishing)
How to Stay Sane in a House Share by Alice Wilkinson
How do you keep it together when you’re living together?
If you’ve found yourself asking this question (returning home from a day of winning in the workplace only to realise you’ve lost the fight for your own living room — again) then it’s likely that you’re one of the millions of people living in a house share in the UK, US and beyond.
Between marriage rates dwindling and the cost-of-living soaring, house sharing is becoming more and more common – but that doesn’t stop it being one of the most complex living set-ups of the 21st century. Thankfully, journalist and serial house sharer, Alice Wilkinson is here to help you stay sane when you’re feeling stuck.
This is the friendly and informed guide to house sharing you have been waiting for. From how to choose the right housemate to navigating conflict when it (inevitably) arises, Alice draws on interviews with experts such as Professor Dunbar, ‘The Millennial Therapist’ Sara Kubric and more to explore the anxieties that run the lives of young professionals living in house shares to help create a more harmonious home. (Credit: Dorling Kindersley)
Why We’re Getting Poorer: A Realist’s Guide to the Economy and How We Can Fix it by Cahal Moran
Expected Publication Date: March 13
An insider’s guide to our broken economy and how it fails to serve us.
Did you know that while we think of money as notes issued by the government, the truth is that the overwhelming majority of money today is credit created by private banks?
Did you know that the reason housing keeps getting less accessible is because we haven’t found a way to separate houses from land in our policies?
And did you know that far from globalisation being a mystical force, certain countries and currencies have dominated the way it has played out – to their own advantage?
Whilst economics is at the heart of the society we live in, governing so many functions from our taxes to where we live to the price of our shopping, few of us have a strong grasp on the subject. This book is here to help.
Why We’re Getting Poorer delves into the key topics in economics – money, globalisation, inequality, climate change and growth – showing that what we think we know about these things is wrong, and teaching us what we really need to know. Deciphering the jargon and complexity of economic thinking, with examples ranging from the Simpsons to the German football league to The Inbetweeners, Cahal Moran shows us why our economy set us up to fail, and offers suggestions for how we can make positive changes.
Written by an award-winning economist and the YouTuber responsible for ‘Unlearning Economics’, Why We’re Getting Poorer is a thrilling, iconoclastic guide to how the world really works.(Credit: HarperCollins)
Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives by Lucy Mangan
Expected Publication Date: March 13
A love letter to all those who come alive when they pull a new treasure off the shelf, stay up late reading just one more page and pack their suitcases with clothes wedged between books instead of the other way around.
From exploring the stacks as a student, to finding her feet as a bookseller-turned-journalist, falling for a fellow bookworm in an independent bookshop, escaping the doldrums of new motherhood and finally building a (book) room of her own, Bookish is the story of a life spent falling in love with reading. Bookworm author Lucy Mangan chronicles her years of buying, borrowing and hoarding everything from well-worn literary classics to steamy bonkbusters, gripping thrillers, young adult novels and other not-so-guilty pleasures.
Brimming with literary insights, wry observations and stellar recommendations, this book is an ode to the bookish places – from local libraries to bookstores big and small – and the stories that make us who we are. Credit: Vintage Publishing)
Cuckoo by Callie Kazumi
Expected Publication Date: March 13
When Claire surprises her fiancé, Noah, at work for their anniversary, she’s the one who ends up being shocked to her core …
Because Noah left the company nine months ago, and she had no idea. How can she not have known?
Now he isn’t answering her calls. He won’t respond to her messages. He’s disappeared.
As Claire desperately tries to find her fiancé, her world begins to shatter as the truth about who Noah really is starts to emerge.
And things are about to spiral dangerously out of control . . (Credit: Cornerstone Publishing)
The CIA Book Club: The Best-Kept Secret of the Cold War by Charlie English
Expected Publication Date: March 13
The astonishing story of the ten million books that were smuggled across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.
For almost five decades after the Second World War, Europe was divided by the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. The Iron Curtain, a near-impenetrable barrier of wire and wall, tank traps, minefields, watchtowers and men with dogs, stretched for 4,300 miles from the Arctic to the Black Sea. No physical combat would take place along this frontier: the risk of nuclear annihilation was too high for that. Instead, the conflict would be fought in the psychological sphere. It was a battle for hearts, minds and intellects.
No one understood this more clearly than George Minden, the head of a covert intelligence operation known as the ‘CIA books programme’, which aimed to win the Cold War with literature.
From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden’s global CIA ‘book club’ would infiltrate millions of banned titles into the Eastern Bloc, written by a vast and eclectic list of authors, including Hannah Arendt and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, George Orwell and Agatha Christie. Volumes were smuggled on trucks and aboard yachts, dropped from balloons, and hidden in the luggage of hundreds of thousands of individual travellers. Once inside Soviet bloc, each book would circulate secretly among dozens of like-minded readers, quietly turning them into dissidents. Latterly, underground print shops began to reproduce the books, too. By the late 1980s, illicit literature in Poland was so pervasive that the system of communist censorship broke down, and the Iron Curtain soon followed.
Charlie English tells this true story of spycraft, smuggling and secret printing operations for the first time, highlighting the work of a handful of extraordinary people who risked their lives to stand up to the intellectual strait-jacket Stalin created. People like Miroslaw Chojecki, an underground Polish publisher who endured beatings, force-feeding and exile in service of this mission. And Minden, the CIA’s mastermind, who didn’t waver in his belief that truth, culture, and diversity of thought could help free the ‘captive nations’ of Eastern Europe. This is a story about the power of the printed word as a means of resistance and liberation. Books, it shows, can set you free. (Credit: HarperCollins)
A Jane Austen Year: Celebrating 250 Years of Jane Austen by Jane Austen’s House
Expected Publication Date: March 13
This beautifully illustrated book charts the life, works and legacy of one of the world’s most beloved authors, offering a seasonal guide to Jane Austen’s life through the objects that surrounded her, the personal letters and manuscripts that she created, and the events that shaped her life and understanding.
It is created by Jane Austen’s House – the enchanting Hampshire cottage where her genius flourished, now a museum that attracts tens of thousands of visitors every year – and reveals highlights from the museum’s collection.
Arranged over the course of a calendar year, from snowy scenes in January to festive recipes in December, specially commissioned photography of Austen’s home and possessions are brought together with extracts from her books, reproductions of her letters, and stories of her life throughout the seasons. Highlights include affectionate letters to her sister Cassandra, the story of the publication of the first edition of Pride and Prejudice, and the ‘topaze crosses’ that inspired Mansfield Park.
Read this book for a unique and intimate insight into Jane Austen’s world. Dip into it as you will, or visit each month, and enjoy a full year of Austen – her life, works and letters, people and objects she knew, and of course her idyllic, inspiring home. (Credit: Batsford)
Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Expected Publication Date: March 18
It is the 1990s. Growing up in Zanzibar, three very different young people – Karim, Fauzia and Badar – are coming of age, and dreaming of great possibilities in their young nation. But for Badar, an uneducated servant boy who has never known his parents, it seems as if all doors are closed.
Brought into a lowly position in a great house in Dar es Salaam, Badar finds the first true home of his life – and the friendship of Karim, the young man of the house. Even when a shattering false accusation sees Badar sent away, Karim and Fauzia refuse to turn away from their friend.
But as the three of them take their first steps in love, infatuation, work and parenthood, their bond is tested – and Karim is tempted into a betrayal that will change all of their lives forever. (Credit: Bloomsbury Publishing)
I Want To Go Home But I’m Already There by Róisín Lanigan
Expected Publication Date: March 20
Renting is a nightmare…
Áine should be feeling happy with her life. She’s just moved in with Elliot. Their new flat is in an affluent neighbourhood, surrounded by bakeries, yoga studios and organic vegetable shops. They even have a garden. And yet, from the moment they move in, Áine can’t shake the sense that there’s something not quite right about the place…
It’s not just the humourless estate agent and nameless landlord: it’s the chill that seeps through the draughty windows; the damp spreading from the cellar door; the way the organic fruit and veg never lasts as long as it should. And most of all, it’s the upstairs neighbours, whose very presence makes peaceful coexistence very difficult indeed.
The longer Áine spends inside the flat – pretending to work from home; dissecting messages from the friends whose lives seem to have moved on without her – the less it feels like home. And as Áine fixates on the cracks in the ceiling, it becomes harder to ignore the cracks in her relationship with Elliott…
Brilliantly observed and darkly funny, I Want to Go Home But I’m Already There is a ghost story set in the rental crisis. A wonderfully clear-eyed portrait of loneliness, loss and belonging, it examines what it means to feel at home. (Credit: Penguin Books)
Your Worry Makes Sense: Anxiety and Burnout are Logical (and You Can Overcome Them) by Dr Martin Brunet
Expected Publication Date: March 21
How do you make sense of worry?
On the surface, anxiety and panic seem to make no sense at all. But if you dig a little deeper, you can understand why we need some anxiety to survive and how it can escalate to become a problem. And once you learn that it really does make sense, you can learn how to overcome it!
Written by GP Dr Martin Brunet, who has over 30 years of professional experience and is well known online for his popular mental health videos, Your Worry Makes Sense explores the logical basis for the common experiences of both anxiety and burnout.
Accompanied by Hannah Robinson’s witty illustrations, Dr Brunet uses powerful visual metaphors that help you unpack your anxiety, you’ll discover…
– Why anxiety can spiral out of control
– Practical strategies to help you manage it
– How to navigate and understand your triggers
– How to identify and manage burnout, a common cause of both anxiety and depression
– How you can begin to break harmful cycles and implement effective techniques to regain control of your mental health
– How your breathing pattern can become disordered when you are anxious, and what to do about it
– How to fix common sleep problems
– The role of both talking therapy and medication in managing anxiety (Credit: Jessica Kingsley Publishers)
Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress and Dr Crippen by Hallie Rubenhold
Expected Publication Date: March 27
In 1910, the name Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen entered legend. The remains of his wife, the music hall performer, Belle Elmore were discovered in his London cellar, while he and his secretary Ethel Le Neve were found masquerading as father and son on a ship bound for Canada. Meanwhile, in New York, the Irish family of Charlotte Bell, Crippen’s first wife were investigating the mysterious circumstances of her death, nearly 20 years earlier.
For over a century, Belle Elmore’s murder has been retold as a tale about a cold-blooded killer and the heroic men who brought him to justice, however the real story is one that hasn’t been heard. It is told by the ranks of women who dominated the case, not only the larger-than-life Belle, the rebellious and ambitious Ethel, and the courageous Charlotte, but an army of Edwardian actresses, circus performers, singers, horse trainers, landladies, secretaries, bookkeepers and medical professionals whose version of events has been drowned out by those of law enforcement and even by the murderer himself.
Their perspectives paint a chilling picture of an Edwardian world, not so entirely distant from our own. (Credit; Transworld Publishing)
Deep Dark: A Cassia Thorne Mystery by Zohra Nabi
Expected Publication Date: March 27
‘In the deep of the dark, a pair of eyes watched. A great mouth opened wide…’
Cassia Thorne leads a double life. In one she is a respectable young music teacher for the children of the elite. In another, she sells ballads on the streets and spends her evenings locked up in Fleet Prison. When the Bartholomew Fair comes to town, it brings joy to the city but also rumours of children going missing off the streets of London. With the help of a young pickpocket, Teo and her friend Felix, Cassia starts to investigate these disappearances. She soon discovers a darkness at the heart of the city and a beast that lives in the deep, dark tunnels under it. Can Cassia save the children when the conspiracy goes all the way to the top? (Credit: Simon & Schuster)
When Shadows Fall by Neil Lancaster
Expected Publication Date: March 27
A TRAGIC DEATH
When the body of Leanne Wilson is found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, it is classified as a tragic accident. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise.
A RISING BODY COUNT
Then DS Max Craigie discovers that five other women in the last year have died by falling off mountains, and something feels very wrong. They were all experienced climbers and alone when they died. This can only mean one thing: there’s a killer on the loose.
A KILLER IN THE SHADOWS
The more Max investigates, the more he believes that they are dealing with something much bigger than a lone serial killer. With five victims and conflicting clues, how do you catch someone committing the perfect crime? (Credit: HarperCollins)
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