How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino, £10.99 paperback

The inspiration for The Boy & The Heron, the major new Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli film. In How Do You Live?, Copper, our hero, and his uncle, are our guides in science, in ethics, in thinking. And on the way they take us, through a school story set in Japan in 1937, to the heart of the questions we need to ask ourselves about the way we live our lives. We will experience betrayal and learn about how to make tofu.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, £9.99 paperback

A legendary film actress reflects on her relentless rise to the top and the risks she took, the loves she lost, and the long-held secrets the public could never imagine. Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jump-start her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ’80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a mesmerizing journey through the splendour of old Hollywood into the harsh realities of the present day as two women struggle with what it means and what it costs to face the truth.  

Day by Michael Cunningham, £9.99 paperback

As the world changes around them, a family weathers the storms of growing up, growing older, falling in and out of love, losing the things that are most precious – and learning to go on. In a cosy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. A married couple does their best to hide their growing rift from their children. A brother seeks solace from his break-up in a glamorous online avatar. A son takes his first uncertain steps towards independence, and a daughter obsesses over keeping her family safe. Set on the same day for three consecutive years and against the unsettling backdrop of the pandemic, Day is a searing, exquisitely crafted meditation on growing older, love and loss and the limitations of family life.

Ghost Mountain by Ronan Hession, £18.00 hardback

Ghost Mountain, is a simple fable-like novel about a mountain that appears suddenly, and the way in which its manifestation ripples through the lives of characters in the surrounding community. It looks at the uncertain fragile sense of self we hold inside ourselves, and our human compulsion to project it into the uncertain world around us, whether we’re ready or not. It is also about the presence of absence, and how it shadows us in our lives. Mountains are at once unmistakably present yet never truly fathomable.

Falling Animals by Sheila Armstrong, £8.99 paperback

The disquieting story of an unidentified man as told by those who crossed paths with him on the last day of his life. Sheila Armstrong’s debut novel is haunting, lyrical and darkly suspenseful. On an isolated, windswept beach, a pale figure sits serenely against a sand dune staring out to sea. His hands are folded neatly in his lap and there is a faint smile on his otherwise lifeless face. After months of fruitless investigation, the nameless stranger is buried in an unmarked grave, but the mystery of his life and death lingers on, drawing the nearby villagers into its wake. From strandings to shipwrecks, it is not the first time that strangeness has washed up on their shores. As a chorus of voices come together to unravel the story of one man, alone on a beach, a crosshatched portrait begins to emerge, threaded by lives both true and imagined, real and surreal, past and present. 

The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers, £8.99 paperback

England, 1989. Over the course of a burning hot summer, two very different men – traumatized Falklands veteran Calvert, and affable, chaotic Redbone – set out nightly in a clapped-out camper van to undertake an extraordinary project.

Under cover of darkness, the two men traverse the fields of rural England in secret, forming crop circles in elaborate and mysterious patterns. As the summer wears on, and their designs grow ever more ambitious, the two men find that their work has become a cult international sensation – and that an unlikely and beautiful friendship has taken root as the wheat ripens from green to gold.

The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, £9.99 paperback

Tom Ripley is struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors and the law, when an unexpected acquaintance offers him a free trip to Europe and a chance to start over. Ripley wants money, success and the good life and he’s willing to kill for it. When his new-found happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking.

Sally Vickers – The Gardener, £9.99 paperback

Artist, Hassie Days, and her sister, Margot, buy a run down Jacobean house in Hope Wenlock on the Welsh Marches. While Margot continues her London life in high finance, Hassie is left alone to work the large, long-neglected garden. She is befriended by eccentric, sharp-tongued, Miss Foot, who recommends, Murat, an Albanian migrant, made to feel out of place among the locals, to help Hassie in the garden.

As she works the garden in Murat’s peaceful company, Hassie ruminates on her past life: the sibling rivalry that tainted her childhood and the love affair that left her with painful, unanswered questions. But as she begins to explore the history of the house and the mysterious nearby wood, old hurts begin to fade as she experiences the healing power of nature and discovers other worlds. Salley Vickers writes with the profound psychological insight and sense of the numinous power of place that is the hallmark of all her novels.

Eleanor Catton – Birnam Wood, £9.99 paperback

Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever no one will notice, on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even. Then Mira stumbles on an answer, a way to finally set the group up for the long term: a landslide has closed the Korowai Pass, cutting off the town of Thorndike. Natural disaster has created an opportunity, a sizable farm seemingly abandoned. But Mira is not the only one interested in Thorndike. Robert Lemoine, the enigmatic American billionaire, has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker – or so he tells Mira when he catches her on the property. Intrigued by Mira, Birnam Wood, and their entrepreneurial spirit, he suggests they work this land. But can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust each other? A gripping literary, psychological thriller.

David P Silcox – Tom Thomson: An Introduction to his life and art, £9.95 paperback

Tom Thomson stands as the most important artist in Canadian history. A forerunner of the Group of Seven, Thomson crated paintings that shaped the way Canadian view their land. Although he died before he was forty, Thomson’s compelling works ignited a powerful national art movement and created lasting icons for a young country. His mysterious death continues to stir speculation and spin off theories but he emotional response to his paintings is stronger than ever. This illustrated introduction to Thomson will provide all the background and insight readers need to appreciate his work. Sections include: Thomson’s childhood on a farm near Owen Sound; and his early years; his career as a commercial artist; the influence of Lawren Harris and J.E.H. Macdonald; his increasing fame as an artist; his discovery of Algonquin Park and the mystery surrounding his death.

Colson Whitehead – Crook Manifesto, £9.99 paperback

1971, New York City. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is going bankrupt, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney is trying to keep his head down, his business up and his life straight. But then he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up an old police contact, who wants favours in return. For Ray, staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated – and deadly.

1973. The old ways are being overthrown by the thriving counterculture, but Pepper, Carney’s enduringly violent partner in crime, is a constant. In these difficult times, Pepper takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem, finding himself in a world of Hollywood stars and celebrity drug dealers, in addition to the usual cast of hustlers, mobsters and hit men. These adversaries underestimate the seasoned crook – to their regret.

1976. Harlem is burning, while the country gears up for the Bicentennial. Carney is trying to come up with a celebratory July 4th advertisement he can actually live with, while his wife Elizabeth is campaigning for her childhood friend, rising politician Alexander Oakes. When a fire seriously injures one of Carney’s tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it, navigating a crumbling metropolis run by the shady, the violent and the utterly corrupt.

A powerful and entertaining novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory.

Amy Twigg – Spoilt Creatures, £18.99 hardback

They thought they knew everything about us. The kind of women we were. It was a place for women.

A remote farm tucked away in the Kent Downs. A safe space. When Iris – newly single and living at home with her mother – meets the mysterious and beguiling Hazel, who lives in a women’s commune, she finds herself drawn into the possibility of a new start away from the world of men who have only let her down. Here, at Breach House, the women can be loud and dirty, live and eat abundantly, all while under the leadership of their gargantuan matriarch, Blythe. But even among the women, there are power struggles, cruelty and transgressions that threaten their precarious way of life. When a group of men arrives on the farm, the commune’s existence is thrown into question, hurtling Iris and the other women towards an act of devastating violence. Fierce and unapologetic, Spoilt Creatures is an intoxicating debut about transgression, sisterhood and the seductive nature of obsession. It pulls back the skin of patriarchal violence and examines the female rage that lurks beneath. 

Sarah Winman – When God was a Rabbit, £10.99 paperback

1968. The year Paris takes to the streets. The year Martin Luther King loses his life for a dream. The year Eleanor Maud Portman is born. Young Elly’s world is shaped by those who inhabit it: her loving but maddeningly distractible parents; a best friend who smells of chips and knows exotic words like ‘slag’; an ageing fop who tap-dances his way into her home, a Shirley Bassey impersonator who trails close behind; lastly, of course, a rabbit called God. In a childhood peppered with moments both ordinary and extraordinary, Elly’s one constant is her brother Joe. Twenty years on, Elly and Joe are fully grown and as close as they ever were. Until, that is, one bright morning when a single, earth-shattering event threatens to destroy their bond forever. Spanning four decades and moving between suburban Essex, the wild coast of Cornwall and the streets of New York, this is a story about childhood, eccentricity, the darker side of love and sex, the pull and power of family ties, loss and life. More than anything, it’s a story about love in all its forms.

Emily St John Mandel – The Lola Quartet, £9.99 paperback

How far would you go for someone you love? Jack, Daniel, Sasha and Gavin, four talented musicians at the end of their high school careers. On the dream-like night of their last concert, Gavin’s girlfriend Anna disappears. Ten years later Gavin sees a photograph of a little girl who looks uncannily like him and who shares Anna’s surname, and suddenly he finds himself catapulted back to a secretive past he didn’t realize he’d left behind. But that photo has set off a cascade of dangerous consequences and, as one by one the members of the Lola Quartet are reunited, a terrifying story emerges: of innocent mistakes, of secrecy and of a life lived on the run. Filled with love, music and thwarted dreams, Emily St. John Mandel’s The Lola Quartet is a thrilling novel about how the errors of the past can threaten the future.

Carys Davies – The Mission House, £9.99 paperback

In a former British hill station in South India, fleeing the dark undercurrents of his life in Britain, Hilary Byrd takes refuge in Ooty. There he finds solace in life’s simple pleasures, travelling by rickshaw around the small town with his driver Jamshed and staying in a mission house beside the local presbytery where the Padre and his adoptive daughter Priscilla have taken Hilary under their wing. As Hilary’s friendship with the young woman grows, he begins to wonder whether his purpose lies in this new relationship. But religious and nationalist tensions are brewing and the mission house may not be the safe haven it seems.

Louise Penny – The Long Way Home, £9.99 paperback

 Clara Morrow’s husband is missing. When he fails to come home on the first anniversary of their separation, as promised, Clara asks the only person she trusts to try and find him: former Chief Inspector of Homicide, Armand Gamache. As Gamache journeys further into the case, he is drawn deeper into the tortured mind of Peter Morrow, a man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist that he would sell his soul. As Gamache gets closer to the truth, he uncovers a deadly trail of jealousy and deceit. Can Gamache bring Peter, and himself, home safely? Or in searching for answers, has he placed himself, and those closest to him, in terrible danger?

Enlightenment by Sarah Perry, £20.00 hardback

Thomas and Grace are fellow worshippers at the Baptist chapel in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits – torn between their commitment to religion and their desire for more. But their friendship is threatened by the arrival of love. Thomas falls for James Bower, who runs the local museum. Together they develop an obsession with the vanished nineteenth-century female astronomer Maria Veduva, said to haunt a nearby manor. Inspired by Maria, and the dawning realisation James may not reciprocate his feelings, Thomas finds solace studying the night skies. Could astronomy offer as much wonder as divine or earthly love?Meanwhile Grace meets Nathan, a fellow sixth former who represents a different, wilder kind of life. They are drawn passionately together, but quickly pulled apart, casting Grace into the wider world and far away from Thomas. In time, the mysteries of Aldleigh are revealed, bringing Thomas and Grace back to each other and to a richer understanding of love, of the nature of the world, and the sheer miracle of being alive.

What is Veganism For? by Catherine Oliver, £8.99 paperback

Across the world, an increasing number of people are turning to veganism, changing not just their diets, but completely removing animal products from their lives. For some, this is prompted by concerns over animal ethics; for others, it’s a response to the part played by animal agriculture in the climate crisis or an attempt to improve their own health. Catherine Oliver shows why the veganism movement has become a powerful social, political and environmental force, taking an honest look at how we live and eat. She discusses the health and environmental benefits of veganism, explores the practical and social impacts of the shift to eating plants, and explains why veganism is not just a diet, but a way of life.

The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright, £9.99 paperback

Carmel had been alone all her life. The baby knew this. They looked at each other, and all of time was there. The baby knew how vast her mother’s loneliness had been. Nell is a young woman with adventure on her mind. As she sets out into the world, she finds her family history hard to escape. For her mother, Carmel, Nell’s leaving home opens a space in her heart, where the turmoil of a lifetime begins to churn. Over them both falls the long shadow of Carmel’s famous father, an Irish poet of beautiful words and brutal actions. From our greatest chronicler of family life, The Wren, The Wren is a story of the love that can unite us, and the individual acts that threaten this vital bond.

Rare Singles by Benjamin Myers, £18.99 hardback – due to be published 1st of August

Dinah has always lived in Scarborough. Trapped with her feckless husband and useless son, her one release comes at her town’s Northern Soul nights, where she gets to put on her best and lose herself in the classics. Dinah has an especial hero: Bucky Bronco, who recorded a string of soul gems in the late Sixties and then vanished off the face of the earth. When she manages to contact Bucky she can’t believe her luck. Over in Chicago, Bucky Bronco is down on his luck, and has been since the loss of his beloved wife Maybelle. The best he can hope for is to make ends meet, and try and stay high. But then an unexpected invitation arrives, from someone he’s never met, to come to somewhere he’s never heard of. With nothing to lose, and in need of the cash, Bucky boards a plane. And so Bucky finds himself in rainy Scarborough, where everyone seems to know who is preparing to play for an audience for the first time in nearly half a century. Over the course of the week, he finds himself striking up new and unexpected friendships; and facing his past, and its losses, for the very first time. Wise, hilarious and profound, Rare Singles is an unforgettable story about the power of music and friendship to bring us back to ourselves.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, £9.99 paperback

In 1956, towards the end of Reverend John Ames’s life, he begins a letter to his young son: ‘I told you last night that I might be gone sometime… You reached up and put your fingers on my lips and gave me that look I never in my life saw on any other face besides your mother’s. It’s a kind of furious pride, very passionate and stern. “I’m always a little surprised to find my eyebrows unsinged after I’ve suffered one of those looks. I will miss them.”

Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce, £9.99 paperback

It is 1950. In a devastating moment of clarity, Margery Benson abandons her dead-end job and advertises for an assistant to accompany her on an expedition. She is going to travel to the other side of the world to search for a beetle that may or may not exist. Enid Pretty, in her unlikely pink travel suit, is not the companion Margery had in mind. And yet together they will be drawn into an adventure that will exceed every expectation. They will risk everything, break all the rules, and at the top of a red mountain, discover their best selves. This is a story that is less about what can be found than the belief it might be found; it is an intoxicating adventure story but it is also about what it means to be a woman and a tender exploration of a friendship that defies all boundaries.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt, £8.99 paperback

After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night cleaner shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Ever since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat over thirty years ago keeping busy has helped her cope. One night she meets Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium who sees everything, but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors – until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late. Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel is a reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible. 

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, £9.99 paperback

On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate New York City jazz bar trying to stretch three dollars as far as it will go. But a chance encounter with the handsome banker at the next table changes everything, opening the door to the upper echelons of New York society and a glittering new social circle. Plunged into a dizzy world of cocktail parties, sprawling mansions and glamorous magazine offices, Katey soon learns that there are rules to play by and riches can turn to rags in the trip of a heartbeat .

Susan Parry – Tracks in the Dark, £9.99 paperback

One teenage girl strangled in an isolated Dale, a walker lost on the Herriot Way, and a cyclist who has disappeared. Three unsolved cases in the Yorkshire Dales that need investigating, and solving quick! So how can the DI Miriam Abbot and the Regional Unsolved Crime Unit track down the truth in just two months? Follow the leads they meticulously uncover and watch them solve the tracks in the dark.

Armistead Maupin – Mona of the Manor, £20.00 hardback

The tenth novel in the beloved Tales of the City series. When Mona Ramsey married Lord Teddy Roughton to secure his visa—allowing him to remain in San Francisco to fulfil his wildest dreams—she never imagined she would, by age 48, be the sole owner of Easley House, a romantic country manor in the UK. Now, with her adopted son, Wilfred, Mona has opened Easley’s doors to paying guests to keep her inherited English manor afloat. As they welcome a married American couple to Easley, Mona and Wilfred discover their new guests’ terrible secret. Instead of focussing on the imminent arrival of old friend Michael Tolliver and matriarch Anna Madrigal, Mona will need to use her considerable charm, willpower and wiles to set things right before Easley’s historic Midsummer ceremony. The result is a glittering and addictive comedy of manners that continues to beguile new generations of readers.

Sonia Purnell – A Woman of No Importance, £9.99 paperback

In September 1941, a young American woman strides up the steps of a hotel in Lyon, Vichy France. Her papers say she is a journalist. Her wooden leg is disguised by a determined gait and a distracting beauty. She is there to spark the resistance. By 1942 Virginia Hall was the Gestapo’s most urgent target, having infiltrated Vichy command, trained civilians in guerrilla warfare and sprung soldiers from Nazi prison camps. The first woman to go undercover for British SOE, her intelligence changed the course of the war – but her fight was still not over. This is a spy history like no other, telling the story of the hunting accident that disabled her, the discrimination she fought and the secret life that helped her triumph over shocking adversity. 

Kate Morgan – Murder: The Biography, £9.99 paperback

Murder: The Biography is a gruesome and utterly captivating portrait of the legal history of murder. The stories and the people involved in the history of murder are stranger, darker and more compulsive than any crime fiction. There’s Richard Parker, the cannibalized cabin boy whose death at the hands of his hungry crewmates led the Victorian courts to decisively outlaw a defence of necessity to murder. Dr Percy Bateman, the incompetent GP whose violent disregard for his patient changed the law on manslaughter. Ruth Ellis, the last woman hanged in England in the 1950s, played a crucial role in changes to the law around provocation in murder cases. And Archibald Kinloch, the deranged Scottish aristocrat whose fratricidal frenzy paved the way for the defence of diminished responsibility. These, and many more, are the people – victims, killers, lawyers and judges, who unwittingly shaped the history of that most grisly and storied of laws. Join lawyer and writer Kate Morgan on a dark and macabre journey as she explores the strange stories and mysterious cases that have contributed to UK murder law. The big corporate killers; the vengeful spouses; the sloppy doctors; the abused partners; the shoddy employers; each story a crime and each crime a precedent that has contributed to the law’s dark, murky and, at times, shocking standing.

Andrew O’Hagan – Caledonian Road, £20.00 hardback

An irresistible, unputdownable, state-of-the-nation novel – the story of one man’s epic fall from grace. May 2021. London. Campbell Flynn – art historian and celebrity intellectual – is entering the empire of middle age. Fuelled by an appetite for admiration and the finer things, controversy and novelty, he doesn’t take people half as seriously as they take themselves. Which will prove the first of his huge mistakes. The second? Milo Mangasha, his beguiling and provocative student. Milo inhabits a more precarious world, has experiences and ideas which excite his teacher. He also has a plan. Over the course of an incendiary year, a web of crimes and secrets and scandals will be revealed, and Campbell Flynn may not be able to protect himself from the shattering exposure of all his privilege really involves. But then, he always knew: when his life came tumbling down, it would occur in public.

Anne Youngson – Meet Me At The Museum, £8.99 paperback

This story begins with a letter from a housewife to the gentle curator of an extraordinary museum where lies peacefully, an ancient exhibit that holds the key to everything we are. Meet Me at the Museum tells of a connection made across oceans and against all the odds. Through intimate letters of joy, despair, and discovery, two people are drawn inexorably towards each other, until a shattering revelation pushes their friendship to the very edge. This deeply affecting debut novel by seventy-three year-old Anne Youngson won the Paul Torday Memorial Prize and was dramatized on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour. It is tender, wise and very moving, 

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata, £9.99 paperback

Shimamura is tired of the bustling city. He takes the train through the snow to the mountains of the west coast of Japan, to meet with a geisha he believes he loves. Beautiful and innocent, Komako is tightly bound by the rules of a rural geisha, and lives a life of servitude and seclusion that is alien to Shimamura, and their love offers no freedom to either of them. Snow Country is both delicate and subtle, reflecting in Kawabata’s exact, lyrical writing the unspoken love and the understated passion of the young Japanese couple.

The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks, £9.99 paperback due 30th May

When a young American academic Talissa Adam offers to carry another woman’s child, she has no idea of the life-changing consequences. Behind the doors of the Parn Institute, a billionaire entrepreneur plans to stretch the boundaries of ethics as never before. Through a series of IVF treatments, which they hope to keep secret, they propose an experiment that will upend the human race as we know it. Seth, the baby, is delivered to hopeful parents Mary and Alaric, but when his differences start to mark him out from his peers, he begins to attract unwanted attention. The Seventh Son is a spectacular examination of what it is to be human. It asks the question: just because you can do something, does it mean you should? Sweeping between New York, London, and the Scottish Highlands, this is an extraordinary novel about unrequited love and unearned power.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, £9.99 paperback

Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend. Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything. One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted while searching for the courage to face the dark corners she’s avoided all her life. Change can be good. Change can be bad. But surely any change is better than fine?

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste, £9.99 paperback

Ethiopia, 1935. With the threat of Mussolini’s army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid. Her new employer, Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie’s army, rushes to mobilise his strongest men before the Italians invade. Hirut and the other women long to do more than care for the wounded and bury the dead. When Emperor Haile Selassie goes into exile and Ethiopia quickly loses hope, it is Hirut who offers a plan to maintain morale. She helps disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor and soon becomes his guard, inspiring other women to take up arms. But how could she have predicted her own personal war, still to come, as a prisoner of one of Italy’s most vicious officers? The Shadow King is an exploration of female power, and what it means to be a woman at war.

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy, £8.99 paperback

One by one, she undid each event, each decision, each choice. If Davy had remembered to put on a coat. If Seamie McGeown had not found himself alone on a dark street. If Michael Agnew had not walked through the door of the pub on a quiet night in February in his white shirt. There is nothing special about the day Cushla meets Michael, a married man from Belfast, in the pub owned by her family. But here, love is never far from violence, and this encounter will change both of their lives forever. As people get up each morning and go to work, school, church or the pub, the daily news rolls in of another car bomb exploded, another man beaten, killed or left for dead. In the class Cushla teaches, the vocabulary of seven-year-old children now includes phrases like petrol bomb and rubber bullets. And as she is forced to tread lines she never thought she would cross, tensions in the town are escalating, threatening to destroy all she is working to hold together. Tender and shocking, Trespasses is an unforgettable debut of people trying to live ordinary lives in extraordinary times.

Date With Justice by Julia Chapman, £9.99 paperback

The ninth novel in Julia’s Chapman’s witty and engaging Dales Detective series, sees Delilah’s brother under suspicion of murder. Can Delilah and Samson prove he’s innocent? The Dales Detective Agency is on the brink of closure. Samson O’Brien has returned to his position as an undercover operative for the Met in London, and his relationship with sleuthing partner Delilah Metcalfe is under pressure. Their troubles are only multiplied when an ecologist is found dead and the finger of blame is pointed firmly at Delilah’s older brother, Will. It seems an open and shut case. An argument over an ecology report for planning permission which got out of hand, with Will known to have a hot temper. But Delilah won’t accept he’s guilty and neither will Samson. Dropping everything, he returns to Bruncliffe to help prove Will’s innocence. But as the two detectives start digging, they unearth more than they bargained for and soon realize that the price of justice can be very costly indeed.

Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan, £9.99 paperback

Bombay, New Year’s Eve, 1949. As India celebrates the arrival of a momentous new decade, Inspector Persis Wadia stands vigil in the basement of Malabar House, home to the city’s most unwanted unit of police officers. Six months after joining the force she remains India’s first female police detective, mistrusted, sidelined and now consigned to the midnight shift. And so, when the phone rings to report the murder of prominent English diplomat Sir James Herriot, the country’s most sensational case falls into her lap. As 1950 dawns and India prepares to become the world’s largest republic, Persis, accompanied by Scotland Yard criminalist Archie Blackfinch, finds herself investigating a case that is becoming more political by the second. Navigating a country and society in turmoil, Persis, smart, stubborn and untested in the crucible of male hostility that surrounds her, must find a way to solve the murder – whatever the cost.

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton, £20.00 hardback

Outside the island there is nothing: the world destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island: it is idyllic. 122 villagers and 3 scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they’re told by the scientists. Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And they learn the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn’t solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island – and everyone on it. But the security system has also wiped everyone’s memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer – and they don’t even know it.

The Beholders – Hester Musson, £16.99 hardback

June, 1878. The body of a boy is pulled from the depths of the River Thames, suspected to be the beloved missing child of the widely admired Liberal MP Ralph Gethin. Four months earlier. Harriet is a young maid newly employed at Finton Hall. Fleeing the drudgery of an unwanted engagement in the small village where she grew up, Harriet is entranced by the grand country hall; she is entranced too by her glamorous mistress Clara Gethin, whose unearthly singing voice floats through the house. But Clara, though captivating, is erratic. The master of the house is a much-lauded politician, but he is strangely absent. And some of their beautiful belongings seem to tell terrible stories. Unable to ignore her growing unease, Harriet sets out to discover their secrets. When she uncovers a shocking truth, a chain of events is set in motion that could cost Harriet everything, even her freedom.

The List of Suspicious Things – Jennie Godfrey, £14.99 hardback

Yorkshire, 1979. Maggie Thatcher is prime minister, drainpipe jeans are in, and Miv is convinced that her dad wants to move their family Down South. Because of the murders. Leaving Yorkshire and her best friend Sharon simply isn’t an option, no matter the dangers lurking round their way; or the strangeness at home that started the day Miv’s mum stopped talking. Perhaps if she could solve the case of the disappearing women, they could stay after all? So, Miv and Sharon decide to make a list: a list of all the suspicious people and things down their street. People they know. People they don’t. But their search for the truth reveals more secrets in their neighbourhood, within their families – and between each other – than they ever thought possible. What if the real mystery Miv needs to solve is the one that lies much closer to home?

Maurice & Maralyn – Sophie Elmhurst, £18.99 hardback

What begins as an eccentric English love story turns into one of the most dramatic adventures ever recorded. Maurice and Maralyn couldn’t be more different. He is as cautious and awkward as she is charismatic and forceful. It seems an unlikely romance, but it works. Bored of 1970s suburban life, Maralyn has an idea: sell the house, build a boat, leave England — and its oil crisis, industrial strikes and inflation – forever. It is hard work, turning dreams into reality, but finally they set sail for New Zealand. Then, halfway there, their beloved boat is struck by a whale and the pair are cast adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. On their tiny raft, their love is put to the test. When Maurice begins to withdraw into himself, it falls upon Maralyn to keep them both alive. Filled with danger, spirit, and tenderness, this is a book about human connection and the human condition; about how we survive — not just at sea, but in life. 

A Fete to Remember – Julia Stagg, £9.99 paperback

It’s summertime in the French Pyrenees and the mountain commune of Fogas is en fete. But Christian Dupuy has no time for the frivolity of les vacances. For a start, he’s just been struck by the arrows of l’amour and doesn’t have a clue how to approach the woman who’s stolen his heart. Then there is the not-so-small matter of local politics. With moves afoot to wipe his community from the map, Christian has to enter the fray once more to save the place that he cherishes. In the midst of a sweltering heatwave and with the residents of Fogas at each other’s throats over their future, the lovesick and embattled deputy mayor must decide if all really is fair in love and war.

A Bitter Remedy – Alis Hawkins, £9.99 paperback

Amongst the scholars, secrets and soporifics of Victorian Oxford, the truth can be a bitter pill to swallow. Jesus College, Oxford, 1881. An undergraduate is found dead at his lodgings and the medical examination reveals some shocking findings. When the young man’s guardian blames the college for his death and threatens a scandal, Basil Rice, a Jesus College fellow with a secret to hide, is forced to act and finds himself drawn into Sidney Parker’s sad life. The mystery soon attracts the attention of Rhiannon ‘Non’ Vaughan, a young Welsh polymath and one of the young women newly admitted to university lectures. But when neither the college principal nor the powerful ladies behind Oxford’s new female halls will allow her to become involved, Non’s fierce intelligence and determination to prove herself drive her on. Both misfits at the university, Non and Basil form an unlikely partnership, and it soon falls to them to investigate the mysterious circumstances of Parker’s death. But between corporate malfeasance and snake-oil salesmen, they soon find the dreaming spires of Oxford are not quite what they seem. An intriguing first installment of The Oxford Mysteries series. 

Water – John Boyne, £12.99 hardback

The first thing Vanessa Carvin does when she arrives on the island is change her name. To the locals, she is Willow Hale, a solitary outsider escaping Dublin to live a hermetic existence in a small cottage, not a notorious woman on the run from her past. But scandals follow like hunting dogs. And she has some questions of her own to answer. If her ex-husband is really the monster everyone says he is, then how complicit was she in his crimes? Escaping her old life might seem like a good idea but the choices she has made throughout her marriage have consequences. Here, on the island, Vanessa must reflect on what she did – and did not do. Only then can she discover whether she is worthy of finding peace at all. Can you ever truly wash away your past?

Saint Maybe – Anne Tyler, £9.99 paperback

When eighteen-year-old Ian Bedloe pricks the bubble of his family’s optimistic self-deception, his brother Danny drives into a wall, his sister-in-law falls apart, and his parents age before his eyes. Consumed by guilt Ian finds the hope of forgiveness at the Church of the Second Chance, and leaves college to cope with the three children he has inherited and his own embarrassing religion. Twenty years on, Ian’s prospects of a second chance are receding fast when, out of the heart of the domesticity that has engulfed him, strides a new figure who will bring him new life.

Mansfield Park – Jane Austen, £6.99 paperback

Fanny Price’s rich relatives offer her a home at Mansfield Park so that she can be properly brought up. However, Fanny’s childhood is a lonely one as she is never allowed to forget her place. Her only ally is her cousin Edmund. But when the glamorous and exciting Henry and Mary Crawford arrive in the area, Edmund starts to grow close to Mary and Fanny finds herself dealing with feelings she has never experienced before.

Tin Man – Sarah Winman, £9.99 paperback

This is almost a love story. But it’s not as simple as that. It begins with two boys, Ellis and Michael,who are inseparable. And the boys become men, and then Annie walks into their lives, and it changes nothing and everything. Incredible characters, heartbreaking relationships, and all about finding a way forward whist suffering huge loss, a moving read.

Penguin Lost – Andrey Kurkov, £9.99 paperback

Discover the darkly funny follow-up to cult classic Death and the Penguin. Viktor – last seen in Death and the Penguin fleeing Mafia vengeance on an Antarctica-bound flight booked for Penguin Misha – seizes a heaven-sent opportunity to return to Kiev with a new identity. Clear now as to the enormity of abandoning Misha, then convalescent from a heart-transplant, Viktor determines to make amends. Viktor falls in with a Mafia boss who engages him to help in his election campaign, then introduces him to men who might further his search for Misha, said to be in a private zoo in Chechnya. What ensues is for Viktor both a quest and an odyssey of atonement, and, for the reader, an experience as rich, topical and illuminating as Death and the Penguin.

John Henry’s Walk – Alan Plowright, no longer in print – available online second hand

An account of a long distance walk undertaken in 1875 by John Henry and his friend. Full of interesting snippets of local history and hilarious anecdotes.

Last Night in Montreal – Emily St John Mandel, £9.99 paperback

Lilia has been leaving people behind her entire life. Haunted by her inability to remember her early childhood, and by a mysterious shadow that seems to dog her wherever she goes, Lilia moves restlessly from city to city, abandoning lovers and friends along the way. But then she meets Eli, and he’s not ready to let her go, not without a fight. Gorgeously written, charged with tension and foreboding, Emily St. John Mandel’s Last Night in Montreal is the story of a life spent at the centre of a criminal investigation. It is a novel about identity, love and amnesia, the depths and limits of family bonds and – ultimately – about the nature of obsession.

Mistletoe Malice – Kathleen Farrell, £9.99 paperback

A rediscovered festive classic with fangs. The fire is on, sherry poured, presents wrapped, and claws are being sharpened. In a seaside cottage perched on a cliff, one family reunites for Christmas. While snow falls, a tyrannical widowed matriarch presides over her unruly brood. Her niece tends to her whims, but fantasises about eloping; and as more guests arrive, each bringing their secret truths and dreams, the Christmas tree explodes, a brawl erupts, an escape occurs – and their ‘midwinter madness’ climaxes.

Another Little Christmas Murder – Lorna Nicholl Morgan, £9.99 paperback

A classic country house mystery republished for the first time in nearly seventy years. When Dilys Hughes finds herself snowbound in the middle of a bleak and lonely stretch of Yorkshire, she has no option but to accept help from passing motorist Inigo Brown, who is on his way to visit his uncle. Arriving at his uncle’s remote country house, Wintry Wold, the couple encounters a less than warm welcome from Inigo’s new young aunt, Theresa. Why is she reluctant to let Inigo see his uncle, and is he really as ill as they are told? As the snowstorm brings more stranded strangers to their door, Dilys starts to realise that all is not as it seems at Wintry Wold. When the morning brings news of the death of Inigo’s uncle, Dilys sets out to investigate – was it a natural death, or was it murder?

Before Your Memory Fades – Toshikazu Kawaguchi, £9.99 paperback

On the hillside of Mount Hakodate in northern Japan, Cafe Donna Donna is fabled for its dazzling views of Hakodate port. But that’s not all. Cafe Donna Donna offers its customers the extraordinary experience of travelling through time. From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Tales from the Cafe comes another heartfelt story of lost souls hoping to take advantage of the cafe’s time-travelling offer. Among some familiar faces, readers will also be introduced to:The daughter who begrudges her deceased parents for leaving her orphaned, The comedian who aches for his beloved and their shared dreams, The younger sister whose grief has become all-consuming, The young man who realizes his love for his childhood friend too late.

The Premonition – Banana Yoshimoto, £12.99 paperback

Yayoi lives with her perfect, loving family – something ‘like you’d see in a Spielberg movie’. But while her parents tell happy stories of her childhood, she is increasingly haunted by the sense that she’s forgotten something important about her past. Deciding to take a break, she stays with her eccentric but beloved aunt Yukino. Living a life without order, Yukino seems to be protecting herself, but beneath this facade Yayoi starts to recover lost memories, and everything she knows about her past threatens to change forever.

Mystery in White – J. Jefferson Farjeon, £8.99 paperback

On Christmas Eve, heavy snowfall brings a train to a halt near the village of Hemmersby. Several passengers take shelter in a deserted country house, where the fire has been lit and the table laid for tea – but no one is at home. Trapped together for Christmas, the passengers are seeking to unravel the secrets of the empty house when a murderer strikes in their midst.

So Late in the Day – Claire Keegan, £8.99 hardback

After an uneventful Friday at the Dublin office, Cathal faces into the long weekend and takes the bus home. There, his mind agitates over a woman named Sabine with whom he could have spent his life, had he acted differently. All evening, with only the television and a bottle of champagne for company, thoughts of this woman and others intrude – and the true significance of this particular date is revealed. From one of the finest writers working today, Keegan’s new story asks if a lack of generosity might ruin what could be between men and women. 

A Winter Book – Tove Jansson, £9.99 paperback

A collection of some of Tove Jansson’s best loved and most famous stories. Drawn from youth and older age, and spanning most of the twentieth century, this newly translated selection provides a thrilling showcase of the great Finnish writer’s prose, scattered with insights and home truths. It has been selected and is introduced by Ali Smith. 13 stories from Tove Jansson’s first book for adults, The Sculptor’s Daughter (1968) plus seven of her most cherished later stories (from 1971 to 1996), translated into English and published here for the first time.

Tove Jansson – Moomin Valley in November, £7.99 paperback

It’s November, and lots of people decide they need to visit the Moomins. Snufkin, Toft, Mymble, Fillyjonk and Granpa Grumble. But when they get to Moominvalley they realise they are not at home.They can’t have moved away without saying a word!’ Winter is coming, and everyone is waiting for the Moomins to return home. Winter doesn’t seem right without them.

Sophie Hannah – Hercule Poirot’s Silent Night, £22.00 hardback

 It’s 19 December 1931. Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool are called to investigate the murder of a man in the apparent safe haven of a Norfolk hospital ward. Catchpool’s mother, the irrepressible Cynthia, insists that Poirot stays in a crumbling mansion by the coast, so that they can all be together for the festive period while Poirot solves the case. Cynthia’s friend Arnold is soon to be admitted to that same hospital and his wife is convinced he will be the killer’s next victim, though she refuses to explain why. Poirot has less than a week to solve the crime and prevent more murders, if he is to escape from this nightmare scenario and get home in time for Christmas. Meanwhile, someone else utterly ruthless, also has ideas about what ought to happen to Hercule Poirot.

Andrey Kurkov – Death and the Penguin, £9.99 paperback

All that stands between one man and murder by the mafia is a penguin. Viktor is an aspiring writer in Ukraine with only Misha, his pet penguin, for company. Although Viktor would prefer to write short stories, he earns a living composing obituaries for a newspaper. He longs to see his work published, yet the subjects of his obituaries continue to cling to life. But when Viktor opens the newspaper to see his work in print for the first time, his pride swiftly turns to terror. Viktor and Misha have been drawn into a trap from which there appears to be no escape.

Paul Auster – Baumgartner, £18.99 hardback

The life of Sy Baumgartner – noted author, and soon-to-be retired philosophy professor – has been defined by his deep, abiding love for his wife, Anna. Now Anna is gone, and Baumgartner is embarking on his seventies whilst trying to live with her absence. But Anna’s voice is everywhere still, in every spiral of memory and reminiscence, in each recalled episode of the passionate forty years they shared. Rich with compassion and wit, and showing an eye for beauty in the smallest, most transient episodes of ordinary life.

Lee Cole – Groundskeeping, £8.99 paperback

Eager to clean up his act after his troubled early twenties, Owen has returned to Kentucky to take a job as a groundskeeper at a small college in the Appalachian foothills, one which allows him to enrol on their writing course. It’s there that he meets Alma, a Writer-in-Residence, who seems to have everything Owen doesn’t – a prestigious position, an Ivy League education, and published success as a writer. They begin a secret relationship, and as they grow closer, Alma, from a supportive, liberal family of Bosnian immigrants, struggles to understand Owen’s fraught relationship with his own family and home. Exploring the boundaries between life and art, and how our upbringings affect the people we can become.

Hwang Bo-Reum – Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop, £14.99 hardback

There was only one thing on her mind. ‘I must start a bookshop.’ Yeongju did everything she was supposed to, go to university, marry a decent man, get a respectable job. Then it all fell apart. Burned out, Yeongju abandons her old life, quits her high-flying career, and follows her dream. She opens a bookshop. In a quaint neighbourhood in Seoul, surrounded by books, Yeongju and her customers take refuge. From the lonely barista to the unhappily married coffee roaster, and the writer who sees something special in Yeongju – they all have disappointments in their past. The Hyunam-dong Bookshop becomes the place where they all learn how to truly live. A heart-warming story about finding comfort and acceptance in your life and the healing power of books.

Shirley Jackson – The Haunting of Hill House, £9.99 paperback

Alone in the world, Eleanor is delighted to take up Dr Montague’s invitation to spend a summer in the mysterious Hill House. Joining them are Theodora, an artistic ‘sensitive’, and Luke, heir to the house. But what begins as a light-hearted experiment is swiftly proven to be a trip into their darkest nightmares, and an investigation that one of their number may not survive.