Archives de catégorie : Fiction

PLAYING COLTRANE d’Andre Hardy

Former NFL player Andre Hardy’s debut, featuring a young man who has risen from the rarely seen dark side of San Diego to the upper echelons of the city’s elite, serving as the fixer to a corrupt kingmaker who now wants to get out and focus on his family, but first he’s got to survive one last job. A potent and atmospheric new vision of the hard-boiled detective and noir genres.

PLAYING COLTRANE
by Andre Hardy
Grand Central, September 2026
(via Writers House)

Like the complex, morally ambiguous protagonists written by Hammett, Chandler, Macdonald, Cain and their many descendants, Coltrane Davis is at once a knight and a hustler. He has risen to wealth and success, graduating from San Diego’s back alleys to the halls of power through his partnership with Saul Sollman, a crooked kingmaker among the city’s elite. Running multimillion dollar scams with Saul, he has been Saul’s fixer, but now he wants out of the hustle so that he can focus on his teenage daughter’s burgeoning tennis career and finally be the dad he has always wanted to be. But when the San Diego Chargers’ star running back disappears one evening before a big game, Coltrane is drawn into an investigation of what happened by Saul and his protégé, the player’s agent; at the same time, Coltrane’s daughter’s closest friend disappears into San Diego’s underworld of drugs and prostitution, and Coltrane is haunted by his failure to save her from San Diego’s sex industry. Torn by the unreconcilable demands of the life he can’t seem to quit, Coltrane brings himself and his loved ones to the brink of destruction in his quest to free himself once and for all of Saul’s control.

PLAYING COLTRANE is brimming with gorgeous writing about place, music, and the hard-fought struggle for personal growth against legacies of violence and neglect.

Andre Hardy is a former NFL running back and Antioch University MFA graduate whose essays and short fiction have appeared in journals and anthologies. His extraordinary journey from professional athlete to Big Five-published novelist infuses his storytelling with grit, rhythm, and authenticity. With this novel, he establishes himself as a breakout voice in contemporary crime fiction, speaking to identity, resilience, and justice with global resonance.

THE LOST MASTERPIECE de Lou Morgan

The Time Traveller’s Wife meets I Capture the Castle in this sweeping love story with a time travel (and bookish!) edge.

THE LOST MASTERPIECE
by Lou Morgan
Penguin Michael Joseph, publication date TBC
(via Mushens Entertainment)

When Jess – grieving the loss of her brother – returns to her family home she is alarmed to find a man living in the tower room. Solomon Nash has been stuck there for 150 years, unable to finish his novel. Determined to help set him free – and to unravel the mystery of what her brother intended to tell her before his accident – she doesn’t expect Solomon to unlock a part of her no one else has. But how can she fall in love with someone who doesn’t belong to this time?

The Grant family have been caretakers of Merrith, the house of famed Victorian poet Hercules Nash, for 150 years. Everyone assumed that her brother Toby would be the one to inherit the house, which is full of old books, memories, and family history. But then Toby died, and the Nash Foundation decide to sell it, meaning that Jess is forced back to confront her complex emotions around the property and her family. Jess is lonely, very aware that Toby was the family favourite, and haunted by a mysterious message from her brother before he died.

One day, convinced that she sees someone through a tower window, she visits a room she has never entered before. Defying all reason, she discovers it’s a pocket of time: it’s always 1853 in that room, and Hercules Nash’s younger brother, Solomon, is stuck there, unable to finish his novel. It’s impossible, he’s impossible, but the more time she spends with him, the more he starts to bring her back to life. She wants to help him return to his own time, and to find out exactly why he has been erased from Hercules Nash’s history. But she’s also falling in love. Torn between helping to save him, and wanting to find a way to be with him – and with the ticking clock of the house sale on the horizon – Jess finds herself torn between her heart and her head, and utterly changed by the experience of loving him.

Since 2018 Lou Morgan he has been a regular writer for Big Finish Productions across some of their most popular Doctor Who full cast audio ranges, writing for actors including Sir Derek Jacobi, Michelle Gomez and Richard Armitage. After publishing two urban fantasy novels with Solaris in 2012, she then turned her hand to YA, where she published six novels, with four contemporary romances under the pseudonym Maggie Harcourt. Born in Wales and a graduate of University College London, she now lives in Bath with her family.

HALF LIVES de Krystle Zara Appiah

A heartbreaking novel about the bond between two sisters, perfect for fans of The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett and Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors.

HALF LIVES
by Krystle Zara Appiah
The Borough Press, June 2026
(via Mushens Entertainment)

No one can hurt you like a sister

Growing up in 1970s Ghana, Evelyn and Maggie are two sides of the same coin. While reliable Evelyn is entrusted to support her struggling family, Maggie skips class to flirt with boys. Despite their differences, they’ve made a promise: one day they will escape to America, and start a new life together.

Evelyn’s prospects transform when she marries Gus, a wealthy surgeon who already lives in New York, and quickly falls pregnant. Meanwhile, Maggie sees her prospects vanish when she realises she is also expecting, but without the crucial detail of a husband.

When a terrible accident causes Evelyn to lose her unborn child, the answer seems simple, and Evelyn takes her sister’s unwanted baby to the States to raise as her own. But such an act has untold consequences for both sisters, and when one of them changes their mind, an impossible decision awaits.

An emotional gut-punch of a novel, HALF LIVES is about the enduring power of love, and what it can withstand before it breaks.

Krystle Zara Appiah is a British-Ghanaian writer, editor and screenwriter based in London. She has a degree in literature and creative writing from the University of Kent. In 2020, she was one of forty writers selected for the London Library’s Emerging Writers Programme. Her debut novel, Rootless, was highly acclaimed, with Krystle heralded as ‘One of Britain’s best new writers’ by Harper’s Bazaar.

POPPY CREEK d’Ivy Fang

A con woman posing as an exorcist must trust in ghosts—and confront her own—when she’s called to a remote bed and breakfast for a job…but she’ll soon learn that the spirits are not the most dangerous guests in residence.

POPPY CREEK
by Ivy Fang
Tor Nightfire, Spring 2027
(via Park, Fine & Brower)

Laurel Meng calls herself an exorcist, but she’s never performed a real exorcism. All she needs to secure her paychecks—spread ever thinner in the face of her mother’s mounting medical bills—is her white clients’ overactive imaginations and boundless ignorance.

So when Annie Shaye-Matsuda calls, convinced her late son Taika’s restless spirit is haunting her quaint bed and breakfast, Laurel is relieved to have found a new mark—not a moment too soon, given the mortgage payment she’s defaulted on. But when voices in the walls warn her to leave, she begins to suspect something far worse than Taika lingers in the bones of Poppy Creek Bed and Breakfast. And that something is intent on trapping her there.

Confronted with the real deal—crawling specters made of dirt, doors that lead nowhere, blood running through the plumbing—Laurel can’t fake her way out of this one. She must ally with a ghost to perform a true exorcism if she hopes to uncover the truth and escape with her money in hand. But secrets are buried amidst the flowerbeds of Poppy Creek, and if Laurel’s not careful, she’ll end up just like them…or worse.

For fans of The Eyes are the Best Part, We Used to Live Here, and Pet Sematary, POPPY CREEK is a novel about love and loss, and the horror that grows from them. It is the author’s debut.

Ivy Fang grew up along the briny California coasts and now lives and works in the Bay Area. When she’s writing, Ivy is usually digging into horror, fantasy worlds, blood-spattered romance, and families that weather every storm. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing video games or enjoying a good scoop of ice cream with a Chinese drama.

FLYING GEESE AND OTHER FICTIONS de Kira Chung Judish

A wildly compelling debut novel about family, ambition, and a lie that spins out of control.

FLYING GEESE AND OTHER FICTIONS
by Kira Chung Judish
HarperCollins, Winter/Spring 2027
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

When high school senior Minjee Choi insists she’s been accepted to Harvard, she expects the lie to last only long enough to save face. But when her mother Dasom learns the truth, she doubles down instead—determined to keep the family dream alive. Soon, what began as a desperate cover-up becomes a dazzling performance for their tight-knit immigrant community in Fairfax County, VA, where everyone has a stake in the family’s success.

Told primarily through alternating mother–daughter perspectives, FLYING GEESE AND OTHER FICTIONS reveals the relentless pressure to succeed at all costs, masterfully details the tug-of-war between blending in and standing out, and the weight of carrying generations of hope. At the same time, it’s a total blast—darkly funny, absurd, and irresistibly entertaining, with a duo you can’t help but root for even as the lie unravels. A chorus of nosy neighbors, competitive classmates, and PTA parents adds bite, comedy, and urgency, making the story as layered as it is propulsive.

FLYING GEESE AND OTHER FICTIONS will appeal to fans of Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You for its poignant portrait of family and belonging, R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface for its sharp look at deception and desire, and Elaine Hsieh Chou’s Disorientation for its satirical take on identity and community.

Kira Chung Judish is a Korean American and Jewish writer based in Silver Spring, Maryland. A graduate of Amherst College, she is pursuing a doctorate in acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine and was named a 2025 Periplus Fellowship finalist. In addition to writing, she performs in local theatre productions.