category: Fiction

Some people move to the big city hoping to find themselves – Sickan Hermansson isn’t leaving it up to chance.

Twenty-one, friendless, without money but not without hope, Sickan’s arrival at Stockholm University represents a new start. Her lonely childhood in a small southern town has left her utterly unprepared for intimacy: for friends, for sex, for love even. But Sickan is determined to build a new version of herself from the ground up, to make up for lost time. To simply be normal.

Just as Sickan seems to be finding her first ever friends, in whose company she finally feels safe, she meets Abbe: beautiful, charming – and by some miracle he wants her too. Unlike Sickan, Abbe seems completely at ease in his own skin. A solid foundation then, on which to build a relationship? Maybe?

What A Time To Be Alive is a story of class, sex, loneliness, and the trials of young womanhood. But above all, it’s a story of firsts: the first party you’re actually invited to, the first moment you fall in love, the first time you betray a friend. The first time you ask yourself, how much of myself am I willing to sacrifice, to finally fit in?

Jenny Mustard is a writer and social media influencer, born in Sweden but living in London. She has over 600k followers, and more than 50 million views on YouTube. Together with her partner David she co-hosts a culture and literature podcast, with 20,000 downloads per episode.

Jenny and her work have featured in the Observer, the Independent, Vogue, and elsewhere. Her debut novel, Okay Days, was published in 2023. Her second novel, What A Time To Be Alive, will be published in 2025.

When a boy in her town starts claiming that a demon is stalking him – Alecto Gray has no choice but to investigate. After all, that’s exactly what her brother Lucas said, right before he died. Soon, Alecto’s investigation leads her to uncover a sinister underbelly to her small seaside town with two warring factions at its heart. Armed only with her razor-sharp wit and a talent for getting into trouble, Alec endures threats and kidnappings, and even the spark of a new romance, in order to get to the truth. But can she handle the truth or will the darkness at the heart of the mystery destroy her as well?

Laure Eve is a French British hybrid who grew up in Cornwall. Her first novel, Fearsome Dreamer, is a wonderfully ambitious but lusciously rich and multi-layered novel, a magnificently crafted alternate universe dripping with sensuous imagination, characters to fall in love with and an unputdownable storyline. Her debut has been longlisted for the Branford Boase Children’s Prize and Waterstone’s Childrens Prize. She has published a second novel called The Illusionists. Laure Eve’s next novel, The Graces, is a seductive, powerful and startlingly original young-adult thriller in the vein of The Virgin Suicides and The Secret History (and films such as The Craft). This is her first novel for older YA (16+) readers. It was shortlisted for the YA Book Prize 2017. The Curses, which continues the magic of The Graces, was published in 2018. Blackheart Knight, was  published in 2021 by Quercus.

Someone Like Pearl explores what happens when 27-year-old Pearl – who lives with OCD – pushes herself outside her comfort zone in search of a real connection. Pearl finds solace in the small routines of her life – lunch with her best friend Una, talking with her therapist Mairead and working with the O’Callaghans in their local shop. Her other routines – from needing to count to ten before she can go up or down the stairs, to obsessively sanitising her hands – pose more of a problem, that is until Jack enters the picture.

Claire Frances has worked as a journalist and freelance feature writer for BBC Countryfile Magazine and Devon Life and was a host blogger for The Huffington Post UK.

Jemma has lived a thousand lives through books. The only life she isn’t living is her own.

That is, until the day she finds a note from a stranger in her favourite library book. When she replies, the pair begin a longhand conversation about their love of novels that sees Jemma finally coming out of her shell. Is she ready to fall in love for the first time – with someone she’s never met?

Clara has always run away from her problems, but this might finally be one she can’t escape.

Everyone wants to know what happened to Clara in America – but Clara isn’t talking. Instead she’s focusing all her energy obsessing over a hot new actor, starring in the TV adaptation of her twin Jemma’s favourite book. Soon, Clara is reading every interview, trawling his social media, and following him to showbiz parties in the hopes he’ll notice she’s The One.

As the sisters fall hard for two men they’ve never met, it’s time to ask the question: Can either relationship survive the real world?

The first novel in a dazzling epic fantasy trilogy inspired by Japanese folklore and Studio Ghibli, set within a mythical archipelago brimming with dragons and Sun Spirits, high-tech hackers and bubble tea.

Life is hard for the inhabitants of Rainshadow City, a place where poverty and corruption are rife and where they are terrorised by an underground criminal organisation known as the Lucky Crows.

Toshiko, Jun and Mei Kawakami are a family, bonded through loyalty if not blood, who live outside the law and who are seeking revenge for the murder of their beloved ‘aunt’ Reiko. Haru is the son of the Emperor, destined to one day rule over the Archipelago and uphold his mother’s ignoble legacy, but he is more interested in making friends with the magical Sun Spirits it seems only he can see. Theo, forced to leave his homeland, is a reluctant foot-soldier for the Lucky Crows. He doesn’t want to be a gangster, but as an illegal immigrant to the city, his choices are severely limited.

When Toshiko steals a dragon pearl from the leader of the Crows, it sets them all on a thrilling path which will determine the future of Rainshadow City. Set across two days and peopled with unforgettable characters, The Rainshadow Orphans blends fantasy and science fiction to explore what it means to stand up to corruption and take charge of destiny.

With warmth and humour, Elizabeth Lovatt reimagines the women who both called and volunteered for the Lesbian Line in the 1990s, whilst also tracing her own journey from accidentally coming out to disastrous dates to finding her chosen family.

With callers and agents alike dealing with first crushes and break-ups, sex and marriage, loneliness and illness (or simply the need to know the name of a gay bar on a night out), this is a celebration of the ordinary lives of queer women.

Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line is timely and vital exploration of how lesbian identity continues to remake and redefine itself in the 21st century, and where it might lead us in the future.

A sharp, funny and deliciously dark thriller that fans of Katy Brent, Bella Mackie or Killing Eve will love.

When your boss is at a conference in a city where there’s a suspicious death, it’s unlucky.

If it happens twice, it’s odd.

But when she’s in the same city at the same time as a third unexplained death . . .

Could she be a stone-cold killer?

Millie’s always known her boss Freya is a psycho – the demanding and ever-changing coffee orders, the cryptic instructions, the apparently expected mind reading and don’t even start on the insistence that Millie wears heels . . . All. The. Time.

But it only extends as far as exacting office standards. Right?

As Freya’s assistant, Millie has privileged access to her diary and travel history and when a pattern emerges of men (who seem to have no connection to each other) dying in cities where Freya is travelling, Millie is determined to figure out what’s going on.

After all, a stone-cold killer could be exactly what Millie needs . . .

Readers are loving How to Slay at Work:

‘A hilarious romp that I just couldn’t put down. Bonner’s newest novel had me absolutely howling with her murderous boss. If Miranda Priestly went on a killing spree it would look like this. Just brilliant.‘ Katy Brent, author of How To Kill Men and Get Away With It

Praise for Sarah Bonner:

‘Brilliantly twisty and thoroughly entertaining.’ T.M. Logan, bestselling author of The Holiday

‘A perfect thriller, we read this in one sitting.’ Closer

‘A wonderfully twisty, and twisted, thriller that will have you up until the early hours, and with an ending that you will NOT see coming. Brilliant.’ SJ Watson, bestselling author of Before I Go To Sleep

‘Captivating.‘ Janice Hallett, bestselling author of The Appeal

‘Constant twists, turns and delicious backstabbing betrayals.’ Culturefly

‘A twisted tale I could not have loved more.‘ Natasha Harding, The Sun

They say you should keep your enemies closer…

For Fliss, the prospect of a team building work trip fills her with dread. Mostly because she cannot stand her pushy colleague James, who often attempts to derail her brilliant plans. But when the two arrive in the Scottish Highlands, they find themselves facing a unique challenge: their boss has abandoned them in the middle of nowhere with only one tent, two sleeping bags and a few protein bars.

Cut off from the outside world, the pair are forced to put aside their differences to weather the unpredictable elements of the Highlands and get home. As they set out on a journey across miles of rugged wilderness – pushing each other to survive and testing their physical and emotional limits – they remain fully aware of their boss’s manipulative plan to orchestrate a hook up between them.

But even with only each other for company, Fliss and James stand firm in their resolve: they won’t give in to any romantic notions. Or will they?