category: Fiction

The Year of the Rat

Year of the Rat is a gripping and urgent exposé – nail-bitingly tense, darkly absurd and utterly chilling. Risking his safety and sanity, Shukman has removed the far right’s terrifyingly everyday mask. Now, we must ensure it stays off.

In summer 2024, riots swept England in the biggest wave of far-right violence in the post-war period. But far-right activity takes many other forms as well, all of them dangerous.

Journalist Harry Shukman knows the dangers all too well: he’d gone undercover to infiltrate these groups. For over a year, he carefully attached his hidden lapel camera and pretended to be an extremist named Chris.

We follow Shukman as he hangs out in the pub with a secretive community network, canvasses with political party Britain First and attends a neo-Nazi conference. We meet a circle of Holocaust deniers, a race science organisation with a major Silicon Valley investor and right-wing think tanks supported by Conservative policymakers. What we witness is hard to believe, or stomach.

Harry Shukman is a researcher at HOPE not hate, an anti-fascist organisation. Formerly a journalist, he worked as a news reporter for The Times and then a writer and editor for the Manchester Mill – an investigative online newspaper – and its sister sites in Liverpool and Sheffield. He is represented for publishing by Doug Young at PEW Literary.

Pacific Heights

‘A rising star of Australian crime fiction’ SUNDAY TIMES

In the courtyard of the Pacific Heights building, a local waitress is found dead.
Five apartments overlook the murder scene. Five people witnessed a crime take place.
Finding the killer should be simple.

Except none of the witnesses’ stories match.
They all saw something – from a different angle, at a different time.
None of them saw everything. Anyone could be the killer.

Detectives Carl “Bluey” Blueson and Lachlan Dyson, each with their own careers in peril, must solve what others assume is a straightforward case. But to unmask a killer they must unpick a complex puzzle – where the motivations of the witnesses are as mystifying as the crime itself.

How can you solve a crime if anyone could be lying?

Bad Manners

A men-only charity dinner. A clutch of young waitresses.

The jokes are uncomfortable. The hands linger. The collars loosen.

Behind closed doors, the wine flows.

The night is dark. The faces blur. The memories warp.

Behind closed doors, the money flows.

But revenge is sweet and justice is a burning flame.

Behind closed doors, the blood flows…

A fierce and addictive read about lust and power, the love we want versus the love we take, and the tinderbox secrets that hide so well in the heart of families, this is the searing new novel from the author of Spilt Milk.

A Very Irish Christmas

One part American sugar, two parts Irish spice. Cassie O’Hara is about to discover the recipe for the sweetest Christmas…

When New York-born Cassie O’Hara decides to use the money her sassy Irish nana Nora left in her will to book a month-long stay in a quaint country village, she’s expecting a cozy cottage, steak-and-ale pie and plenty of Christmas cheer. Instead, she gets a draughty disaster covered in dust, a temperamental stray dog and two devastatingly handsome men vying for her attention…

There’s Charles, the dashing English aristocrat with an enormous manor house and a heart of gold. And Ryan, a curly-haired Irish handyman with a past he won’t talk about and an accent that makes her weak at the knees.

When Charles enlists Cassie’s event-planning expertise to save his family estate, she finds herself working shoulder to shoulder with Ryan, breathing new life into Bancroft Manor. As village life weaves its spell, Cassie uncovers some intriguing secrets about Nana Nora’s past. With her return ticket looming and her heart pulling her in unexpected directions, can Cassie find the love and belonging Nana Nora always wanted for her?

A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy filled with Irish charm, festive flirting and enough Christmas spirit to warm even the coldest of hearts. Perfect for fans of Sophie Kinsella, Catherine Walsh and anyone who believes in the luck of the Irish…

Murder in the Dressing Room: A Misty Divine Mystery

MURDER IN THE DRESSING ROOM by Holly Stars is the first book in the brilliantly funny Misty Divine drag-queen murder mystery series published by Penguin. With shades of Only Murders in the Building and Medusa Deluxe, centred around our drag amateur sleuth, Misty.

Drag queens aren’t just dramatic. They’re deadly…

By day, shy hotel accountant Joe hides behind their desk and plays by the rules.

By night, Joe takes to the stage as Misty Divine, an upcoming star of the London drag scene.

But when Misty’s mentor and drag bar owner, Lady Lady, is found dead in her dressing room, Misty finds herself in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Because Lady Lady was murdered – and as the only ones with access to her room, Misty and her fellow performers quickly become prime suspects.

Heartbroken by the loss, and frustrated by the inaction of the police, Joe is determined to uncover the killer in their midst. But what can they, a mere hotel accountant, possibly do?

This is a case for Misty Divine…

About Holly:

Holly Stars is a drag stand-up comedian and writer. She is the writer of smash hit drag murder mystery, Death Drop, a play that has had three runs on the West End and a UK and Ireland tour. Holly has two seasons of her own television series, Holly Stars: Inspirational, produced by Froot TV and Tuckshop. She is also the producer and co-host of murder mystery book review podcast, Read to Death.
She is currently a “trainee investigator”, completing an accredited qualification in professional investigation which she believes will make her the world’s first drag queen private detective. Murder In The Dressing Room is her debut novel.

Your Child Next

Your Child Next is the latest in MJ Arlidge’s co-written books published by Orion. It asks how far you’d go to protect your child and taps into our deep-seated fears about how much we share about ourselves online and what the wrong people can do with that information.

 

They’ve faked your child’s death, and if you don’t give them what they want, they’ll make it a reality

Things have been difficult for Annie since her husband left and her teenage daughter, Isla, has become a ghost of her former self. Annie’s terrified that Isla might do something desperate and that she’ll lose her, too. So, when Annie receives a video of herself crying at Isla’s funeral, her blood runs cold.

Confused and horrified, Annie races upstairs to check on Isla, who is alive and well. The video is a fake. But who sent it and what do they want?

The following day Annie is approached by a stranger – a young woman who tells her that unless she sets up a direct debit for £5,000 a month to a company registered in the Cayman Islands, her daughter will die. And she mustn’t go to the police.

Annie has a deadly choice on her hands: comply with the demands or try to unmask the dangerous criminal.

Across town, rich widower Michael is struggling to hold it together for his kids. Going through his late wife’s finances, he chances upon a surprising monthly direct debit for £5,000 to a bank in the Cayman Islands, which he can’t make head or tail of. He decides to cancel it. Big mistake.

Two days later, his son Aaron is run over in a nasty hit and run but miraculously survives, making the local newspapers.

Michael holds vigil at the hospital, and it’s here that Annie (who’s made a connection between the woman who threatened her and the hit and run driver caught on doorbell footage) approaches him. Had Michael or his late wife been forced to pay money to a shell company in the Cayman Islands..?

Together the pair join forces on a desperate mission that will reveal the bewildering scale of this sickening shakedown. They will risk their lives to free themselves from an awful bind, liberating scores of other families in the process. And when their victory is assured, when the dust has finally settled, might they have found something in each other that will allow them to re-build their lives?

Clever Little Thing

Psychological thriller about a mother who must confront a sudden and terrifying change in her daughter after the abrupt death of their babysitter, asking the question: what lengths will a mother go to to protect her daughter. THE SERVANT (Apple) meets the THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE.

Charlotte’s daughter Stella is sensitive and brilliant, perhaps even a genius, but a recent change in her behaviour has alarmed her parents.

Following the sudden death of Stella’s babysitter, Blanka, the once disruptive and anti-social child has become docile and agreeable. But what’s unsettling is that she has begun to mirror Blanka’s personality, from Blanka’s repetitive phrases to her accent, to fierce cravings for Armenian meat stew after being raised a vegetarian…She’s even started to walk like Blanka, and dress like her too.

Charlotte is pregnant with her second child and depleted and sick with the pregnancy, and she’s convinced that Blanka herself is somehow responsible for Stella’s transformation. But how could Blanka, dead, still be entwined in their lives? Has Blanka’s spirit somehow possessed Stella? Has Stella become Blanka? And would this explain why Blanka’s mother seems to be the only one Stella actually likes and trusts?

As Charlotte becomes increasingly obsessed, she is sure that only she can save her daughter…even though it’s soon clear that her husband believes this is all in Charlotte’s head.

 

About Helena Echlin:

Helena has written for numerous publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Guardian and The Times. She taught at Stanford University for eight years and has recently returned to the UK, where she now teaches fiction writing for Oxford University’s Department of Continuing Education. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and two children.

You Between the Lines by Katie Naymon

YOU BETWEEN THE LINES is the brand new contemporary romance novel by debut American author, Katie Naymon and selected as a February add-on pick for Book of the Month.

Centred around a will-they-won’t they relationship, the novel is full of tension, stolen glances and undeniable chemistry – and a protagonist who goes on a journey from being desperate to please others to finding her own way, and embracing her uniqueness. It also features some brilliant original poetry in the same tone and style of The Tortured Poets Society, and is perfect for (the many!) fans of Taylor Swift.

Poet-at-heart Leigh Simon’s high-powered ad agency job has left her sobbing in the bathroom and dreading Monday mornings. Burnout is imminent, so after learning of her parents’ separation, Leigh’s therapist urges her to do something just for herself for once: get an MFA and become the writer she’s always dreamed of being––the kind that writes pop culture-inspired free verse, not manifestos for diapers.

No one’s more surprised than Leigh when a prestigious program in North Carolina accepts her. A former sorority girl, Leigh’s the first to admit she knows more about the lyrics of Taylor Swift than T.S. Eliot, and she’s never been able to shake the “all-style-no-substance” feedback her high school crush shared in their workshop when she was 17. Bad enough that her tattooed, New Yorker tote bag-carrying classmates have read all the right authors and been published in the country’s leading literary journals, Leigh’s insecurities become all too real when Will, that same high school crush-turned-nemesis, shows up at orientation as a another first-year in the program…only now, he’s William and exactly the kind of writer Leigh hates, complete with his casual-academic menswear and tattered Moleskine.

Leigh’s determined to prove herself—and William—wrong by landing the program’s career-jumpstarting fellowship. But Will’s dead-set on it, too, and in a small cohort, they can’t keep apart for long. When Will submits an intimate poem (that’s maybe, probably, definitely about Leigh) to workshop, they’re both forced to realize there’s more to the other than what’s on the page. And what’s between the lines may be even more interesting.

Cloudless by Rupert Dastur

Set against the natural beauty of north-east Wales, a quietly devastating portrait of a farming family; their experience of love and war, addiction and recovery, and the tug of missed opportunities and lost love.

It is autumn 2004 and in a farmhouse on the hills outside Llandudno, a family endures the agonizing wait for their son to return from Iraq.

His decision to join up has left them reeling, yet there are other pressing concerns to be met at home: the working of the farmland that has been theirs for generations and what to do with their troubled younger son.

Catrin’s childhood sweetheart comes back to their small town, giving the boys’ doting mother a glimpse into the life she could have had. And John, their father, falls once more into his gambling habit, even as the farm sits on the brink of bankruptcy. Meanwhile, no one quite knows why Harri joined the army and the truth behind his decision to leave when he did.

With one son away in a distant war and the farm under financial strain, will either family or farmstead survive?

As each member of the family grasps at their own tenuous lifeline, they drift further from one another – until, on a cold winter evening, there is a fateful knock at the door.

Parallel Lines

It is summer, and Sebastian is in treatment following a breakdown that has left him with a fragile hold on reality and a persistent hunger to connect with the mother who abandoned him as a child.

His therapist, Martin, is also facing challenges, including his adopted daughter Olivia’s tenuous relationship with her biological mother – a predicament that makes Sebastian’s struggle feel uncannily close to her own. Olivia is producing a radio series on natural disasters, which itself seems to be running parallel to the events unfolding in her personal life, as her best friend Lucy faces a grave diagnosis and her husband, Francis, pursues his mission of rewilding the world.

Over the course of the next year their fates collide in outrageous and poignant ways, as each of their destinies is revealed in a marvellous new light.

Written with Edward St Aubyn’s trademark wit and inimitable style, Parallel Lines is a novel about connection, love and the cascading consequences of our choices. It is a vibrant, moving celebration of the life of the spirit and the life of the mind from one of our most irresistible storytellers.