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 2025 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. Now on with the recommendations!
Featured Book of the Month
Heartstopper Vol. 6 by Alice Oseman
Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. The final installment in the bestselling LGBTQ+ graphic novel series about life, love, and everything that happens in between.
Everyone in school knows Nick and Charlie. Everyone knows they’re going to be together forever.
But Charlie’s busy with his bid to become head boy. And while Nick is preparing to leave for uni, he’s starting to wonder who he’ll be…without Charlie.
Contains discussions around mental health and eating disorders, and sexual references. (Credit: Hachette Children’s Group)
Queenie Is Working On It by Candice Carty-Williams
How is it possible for one woman to hold it together when she’s: Confronted with a racing biological clock when she doesn’t even know if she wants kids. Trying to act normal when her heart is smashed into a million pieces. Ten times smarter than the people she’s working for.- Priced out of the housing market in the place she grew up. Stuck in a situationship when all she wants is the love of her life back …
Bigger. Not better. Older. Not wiser. Queenie Jenkins is working on it.
Award-winning author Candice Carty-Williams returns with a scalpel-sharp, poignant and hilarious new book that shines a dazzling light on the realities of modern womanhood. (Credit: Orion Publishing)
You can also order the US release.
Deliverance by Saima Mir
She makes the rules, and God help anyone who dares to break them…
Jia Khan has seized a power most only dare to dream of. In a world dominated by self-posturing men, she gave women a voice, and built a criminal empire that spans the globe. But now the time has come to legitimise her business. To protect the people she loves, she must escape the very chains her life was forged from.
Freedom, however, is never easily won. Her blood runs too deep in the underworld, and powerful enemies have no intention of letting her walk away.
When one of her own is murdered, the danger becomes more real than ever. Forced into uneasy alliances with those she once despised, Jia faces enemies pressing in from every side.
Is her reign destined to end in blood?
For Jia Khan, life has always been a fight, but this is the one battle she cannot afford to lose. (Credit: Oneworld Publications)
A Clean Kill by B.V. Pearce
Dirty little secrets need cleaning up . . .
Brilliant aspiring scientist Sabrina has won a scholarship to study chemistry at a prestigious London university. Best of all, it includes accommodation in the Infaustus Apartments, where the university’s richest students are housed in luxury. But life in London is expensive, so Sabrina takes a job cleaning the residence.
Invisible in her cleaner’s uniform, Sabrina discovers all her classmates’ dirty little secrets. It’s impossible to forget that she is an outsider, but luckily, Sabrina has never been afraid of hard work, and she’s determined to make a better life for herself.
However, Sabrina’s life soon gets very messy when she discovers the dead body of rugby star, Chase Matthews. All the residents are suspects, and Sabrina knows better than most that everyone has a motive to want Chase dead.
Trying to keep investigations away from her own past, Sabrina must use all her smarts to expose the killer before she ends up as their next victim. (Credit: Hachette Children’s Group)
It’s For Your Own Good by Kate Francis
In the middle of the night, Liv Walker is kidnapped from her bedroom by two masked figures. As she’s dragged into an unmarked van, she’s met with an even more horrifying sight: her family are waving goodbye.
Camp Smiling Skies is a wilderness therapy camp for “troubled teens”. At least, that’s what it says in the brochure. In truth, it’s filled with dark secrets, cruel counsellors and no chance of escape.
Things seem as bad as they can get…until, one by one, people start to die.
Liv has already been betrayed by her family, but it seems like they’re not the only traitors in her life.
There’s a murderer in the camp, and everyone’s a suspect. (Credit: Usborne Publishing)
Drive or Die by Alexi Cross
Laila has just been offered the opportunity of a lifetime – a year-long work experience placement with F1s most prolific reporter. It’s the chance of a lifetime and Laila is determined to impress. But during the first race in Bahrain, a terrible crash plunges Laila straight into the action. Rumours start to circulate that there is sabotage at play and Laila makes it her mission to uncover the truth before her apprenticeship ends.
But as she gets closer to unmasking the culprit, she risks her own life and position in the paddock. And will she get to the truth before it’s too late? (Credit: Simon & Schuster UK)
How To Steal The Future by Christopher Edge
The maze is a dangerous place. The maze is ever-changing. The maze has never been solved.
How to Steal the Future follows twelve-year-old Drew Blake, who faces the ultimate challenge. At the heart of a heavily guarded maze lies a secret – known only as the Avenir – which has the power to unlock the future. Many have tried to steal the Avenir, but no one has ever succeeded. Drew is the latest to try, just like his sister Evie did before him. But Drew has his own secret: he doesn’t care about the Avenir; he must find his sister.
Facing dead ends, traps and double-crosses Drew realizes that the maze holds secrets more dangerous than he ever imagined. Can he find the Avenir and save Evie before it’s too late? His future depends on it . . . (Credit: Pan Macmillan)
Effie Is Offline by Karen Harte
Fifteen-year-old Effie has spent her entire life in the spotlight as the daughter of @thebrightfamily, a famous Irish influencer family known for their picture-perfect posts. But after her dad’s very public cheating scandal implodes their online empire, Effie’s mam relocates the family to a small rural town for a fresh start. Desperate to escape her embarrassing past, Effie hides her influencer origins at her new school, where she finally starts to make friends and meets Jack – a grounded, gentle boy with a total lack of online presence or knowledge of that world. But as her mam starts reinventing herself, Effie’s secrets and her chance at a new beginning are at risk of being exposed … in a very public, very messy way. When your parents are online influencers, perhaps the most rebellious thing you can do is to unsubscribe from your life… (Credit: Gill Children’s)
And Now We Run by Nicola Penfold
We’re running now, along the spine of the world, and behind us, just below, half the land is sliding away to nowhere.
Jelly is NOT looking forward to the first school trip at her new school, since her best friend ditched her and is determined to make Jelly miserable. Lincoln however can’t wait – he used to visit the hills with his brothers and he’s excited to be back.
But what neither of them expected was for the extreme weather to cause the reservoirs to burst, and for the area to be flooded. Or to be left behind when the rest of their group is evacuated. As rain pours down and the water rises, Jelly and Lincoln have to put aside their fears to outrun the storm. (Credit: Little Tiger Press Group)
Upland: The Strange History and Vital Future of Britain’s Mountains by Ed Douglas
The first complete history of Britain’s mountains, capturing their beauty, tragedy and the pivotal role of these dramatic landscapes in the nation’s past and future
‘A definitive history of our rocky isles from the most magisterial and far-seeing perspective. Every page holds a fascinating nugget’ GAIA VINCE, author of Nomad Century
Britain’s mountains are our grandest and wildest places, their vast openness providing inspiration and escape. But they are now so revered that we overlook the many peoples who long inhabited them and the dramatic history of plunder and dispossession that explains how strangely empty these regions have become.
Derided for centuries as uncivilised wastes, Britain’s uplands in fact hosted richly cultured, distinctive and resilient populations. And yet by the time Romantic poets ‘discovered’ the beauty of these places, the land itself had been denuded by clearances, famine and the needs of sheep and landowners.
From the earliest Brittonic tribes to present-day tensions between farmers, tourists and ecological activists, Upland repopulates Britain’s mountains with the kings and monks, soldiers and poets, engineers and industrialists, visionaries and campaigners who made them what they are. (Credit: Vintage Publishing)
Eternally Yours by Anika Hussain
Expected Publication Date: July 16
They broke each other’s hearts. Now they’re working side by side to fix everyone else’s.
Poppy isn’t looking for love – she’s looking for a way to get her mum on the client list of Eternally Yours, the most exclusive matchmaking agency in town. So when she lands a summer job there, she’s ready to fake her passion for romance and keep her head down.
Except her ex-boyfriend Salman is also working there. And he somehow still knows exactly how to make her laugh when she’s trying to hate him.
As they’re forced to plan dates for other people, Poppy and Salman find themselves revisiting their own history – and maybe rewriting it. But will they be able to find their way back to each other for good? (Credit: Hot Key Books)
The Parkwood Murders by Chris Chibnall
Expected Publication Date: July 16
Detective Nicola Bridge returns in the thrilling new novel from Chris Chibnall, creator of Broadchurch, and Sunday Times bestselling author of Death at the White Hart.
For its many repeat customers, Parkwood Holiday Village is a haven – idyllic woodland, a tranquil lake, customer service on tap around the clock.
For Detective Nicola Bridge, it’s a crime scene.
When a body is discovered early one morning, Nicola is faced with an investigation like no other: hundreds of potential suspects, but seemingly no witnesses.
As she digs into the reality that lies behind Parkwood’s serene façade, she meets the exhausted staff whose hard work keeps the guests happy. It soon turns out that they are her best sources – after all, who pays attention to what they let slip in front of the lifeguards, cleaners and babysitters that make a holiday seamless?
But when the victim’s identity is revealed, Nicola realises that this might not be a one-off crime of passion.
There’s a killer lurking somewhere in these woods… (Credit: Penguin Books)
You can also order the US release.
Everything She Didn’t Say by Jane Casey
Expected Publication Date: July 16
Someone is dead. Somone is a killer. Someone is lying.
A woman is found in bloodstained clothes on the lonely coast of County Mayo.
At first, she won’t speak. Then a name comes: Ruth. And a story about her missing friend: Maura.
Ruth says she and Maura were staying in a clifftop house together. But there’s no trace of her there. Nothing but a pool of blood.
Ruth says the pair fought in the days before Maura disappeared. But the locals say they only ever saw one woman.
Ruth swears she’s telling the truth, but do the answers really lie in everything she didn’t say? (Credit: HarperCollins)
Fast Track by Christian Wolmar
Expected Publication Date: July 23
Sleek, comfortable, accessible, and sustainable, high-speed rail is the future.
Since Japan’s Bullet Train first sped down the track in the sixties, it has become a global icon, as famous for its punctuality as for its speed.
The French TGV, or Train à Grande Vitesse, established a template that was soon followed across Europe, in Italy, Germany and Spain
But with a remarkable 30,000 miles of track built in fewer than twenty years China has become the world leader.
Now with lines built or planned in over twenty countries, high speed rail has changed the world and, faced with the environmental cost of cars and air travel, might help save it.
Two countries, both pioneers of rail travel, have been conspicuously left behind, though. The UK, which before the Second World War built record-breaking high-speed trains, has just sixty-eight miles of high-speed line and the unfolding embarrassment of HS2, while the United States has no genuine high-speed line at all. How can this be?
In Fast Track, Christian Wolmar, our leading railway writer, tells the story of the irresistible rise of high-speed rail around the world for the first time. From the magnificence of Britain’s steam-engined Mallard to a 250 mile per hour future, this is a story of big personalities, bold decisions, cutting edge technology, and soaring ambition.
All aboard! (Credit: Penguin Books)
Witchland: A Tale of Witch Hunting and War in Seventeenth-Century Britain by Marion Gibson
Expected Publication Date: July 30
If the witchfinders came to your town, who would you have believed – and what would you have done?
In the 1640s, Britain was swept up in a brutal witch hunt. The economic uncertainty and religious extremism fuelled by the English Civil War created a climate of fear. Neighbours turned on each other. Women and the poor were especially vulnerable, scapegoated by the powerful looking for someone to blame. In the resulting hysteria – which would, just a few decades later, provide a handbook for the Salem trials – hundreds of innocent people were killed.
Moving from village to village in Scotland and England, Professor Marion Gibson reveals how accusations grew out of everyday tensions – poverty, grief, and resentment – and how entire communities took part in persecuting the vulnerable. Drawing on newly uncovered historical records, this gripping account restores the voices of those accused of witchcraft. Vivid and intimate, Witchland shows that these were ordinary people with extraordinary stories, largely forgotten by history, caught up in suspicion and moral panic.
Witchland is a captivating story of fanaticism, inequality and the violence that surfaces during times of political upheaval. (Credit: Simon & Schuster)
One of Us Is Guilty by Steve Cavanagh
Expected Publication Date: July 30
A perfect couple.
But one of them is a killer. Which one?
Patrick Vanderpool, son of a billionaire media mogul, is destined for power.
But the affair he’s having could ruin everything.
Vanessa Vanderpool, married to one of America’s most influential men, has her own ambitions.
But the affair he’s having could ruin everything.
When the other woman is found brutally murdered, there are only two suspects…
One of them is guilty. But which one?
Conman-turned-defence lawyer Eddie Flynn must risk his life to find out…
The award-winning, Sunday Times Top Five bestseller returns with a brand new thriller featuring the unforgettable Eddie Flynn. (Credit: Headline Publishing)
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