Archives de catégorie : Fiction

HARD TIMES de Jeff Boyd

Set in Chicago the novel follows the ripple effects of a tragic shooting throughout the community, focusing especially the teachers, police officers and students. With a cinematic sense of place and scene along with a wide cast of richly-drawn characters, this novel provides equal parts heartbreak, suspense, and action.

HARD TIMES
by Jeff Boyd
Flatiron/SMPG, March 2026

Buddy Mack has been caught in the middle of two worlds at war. As an English teacher at a South Side Chicago high school lauded for their football team but at risk in every other way, he tries to instill a love of literature, and is especially concerned with a trio of boys who test him to no end but are full of promise and heart. There’s Zeke, the football star; Truth, the sweet-talking charmer; and Dontell, Buddy’s most promising student.

At home, his wife, Chrissy, a successful corporate lawyer, is ready to upgrade to a big house on the North Side and start a family. He’s torn over all the implications. And the closest person he has in his life to talk to about the pressure he’s feeling is Chrissy’s little brother, Curtis, a corrupt Chicago cop.

The push-and-pull of the two worlds collide in a shocking moment that requires Buddy to choose a side and fight for all that he holds dear. HARD TIMES takes stock of what it means to be there for your people whether you want to or not and unflinchingly confronts the American dream—a moving, engrossing, and necessary read.

Like S.A. Cosby, Jeff Boyd has written a crime novel that sits on a shelf with literary fiction and digs deep into the social aspect of crime. This book explores rich and complicated family dynamics, the vulnerability of the students, and the tension between a community and law enforcement. And it all comes together in a really extraordinary, page-turning read.

Jeff Boyd is the author of The Weight (Simon & Schuster, 2023). A former public school teacher from Chicago, he is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is currently a Visiting Instructor of Creative Writing at Pratt Institute and lives in Brooklyn with his partner and child.

THE HEART OF VENGEANCE de Mei Goodwin

A gender-flipped loose retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo, containing a sapphic romance, a love triangle, and inspired by Chinese mythology – with winged horses! Rollicking, original, and hugely page-turning: perfect for fans of She Who Became the Sun and Sue Lynn Tan, and the thrilling romance of a Callie Hart novel.

THE HEART OF VENGEANCE
by Mei Goodwin
Michael Joseph UK/Del Rey US, Spring 2027
(via Mushens Entertainment)

Aviva has trained all her life to become an Ailier, a military officer chosen to ride one of the great winged horses known as the Thousand. The only thing more important to her is being worthy of the love of the court’s Princess, heir to the Vridan nation – one of the richest families in the world, thanks to their seemingly unlimited stores of lustre, the natural substance that helps the family perform feats of magic to keep them in power. When Aviva connects with one of the Thousand on her first try, she and Leyla officially become betrothed. All her wildest dreams are made real.

Her happiness is ripped away when she is arrested for a crime she didn’t commit – being a ‘Usurper’ who uses soul-possession magic – and hauled to a remote prison to have her spirit broken. Trapped on the island, guarded by brutal guards, Aviva knows that she is innocent. They know she is innocent – but they torture her anyway, breaking her spirit. Meanwhile, Leyla is reeling from the news that her beloved committed such a heinous crime. But as she begins to investigate she realises that there is more to the story than she first thought, casting doubt on everything she believed.

As the two are set on a collision path – can love prevail in the face of revenge?

Mei Goodwin is a Chinese-White author, based in London. She started her career as an editor of SFF at one of the largest genre imprints in the UK. Under her real name, she has published novels in every genre from non-fiction, to thriller, to middle-grade. This is her fantasy debut, and the book she believes she was meant to write.

CAN’T YOU HEAR ME KNOCKING d’Erin A. Craig

A gothic thriller that blends psychological suspense with elements of classic horror, perfect for fans of Marisha Pessl’s Night Film, Riley Sager’s Home Before Dark, and Alix Harrow’s Starling House.

CAN’T YOU HEAR ME KNOCKING
by Erin A. Craig
Pantheon Books, Summer 2027
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

Everyone in the world has heard of Holly in Everhallow. They’ve read the books—or at least listened to the radio broadcasts. But very few people know the real little girl behind the stories—Holiday Harris. Holiday never asked to be a muse for Holly’s creator, Herbert Atkinson, and she certainly never dreamed of the fame that came along with any of it.

Fifteen years have passed and now, as an adult, Holiday is entirely unrecognizable as her beloved counterpart. After Herbert’s death in 1974, Holiday returns to California, renting a room at the Chateau Marmont, keen on building a life as far removed from Everhallow as she can get. There she meets Brett Barten, notoriously private but endlessly celebrated, who seems to have struck a perfect balance flickering in and out of the spotlight in a way that greatly appeals to Holiday. He’s witty and razor smart and, best of all, he’s never read Holly. Their courtship is dazzling and intense and when Brett dies tragically on the morning of their wedding, Holiday is consumed by grief. Nothing can pull her from the fog until she’s summoned to the office of the Barten family’s attorney. Days before the wedding, Brett altered his will, leaving nearly all his estate—including a Big Sur cabin purchased as a surprise honeymoon gift—to Holiday. Upon first impression, the cabin is an idyllic dream. But everything at the cabin is not what it seems, and a darker truth slowly reveals itself.

Erin A. Craig is the author of the bestselling Sisters of Salt young adult fantasy novels and The Thirteenth Child. She holds a BFA in Theatre Design and Production from the University of Michigan. When she is not stage-managing tragic operas with hunchbacks, séances, or murderous clowns, she writes books that are just as spooky. An avid reader, basketball fan, and collector of typewriters, Erin makes her home in Michigan with her husband and daughter.

SISTER, BUTCHER, SISTER de KD Aldyn

The chilling prose of Karin Slaughter meets the high-stakes plotting of The Butcher and the Wren in a dark debut following three normal sisters, their own forgotten traumas, and the serial killer that lives within one, begging the question: can you ever truly recognize the evil around you?

SISTER, BUTCHER, SISTER
by KD Aldyn
Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks, June 2025

Three sisters. One killer. Which one is SHE?

The Rowling sisters have always been people you can understand – with partners and children, homes and dreams. And secrets, the sisters have those too. But when Kate, the eldest, finally returns to buy her late grandfather’s home, the dark things each sister has kept buried soon rise to the surface.

Is Kate having unexplained visions tied to a past she can hardly recall? Is Aurora, the married mother of two, finally acting out in the face of her sisters’ indiscretions? Is Peggy, the youngest and a recovering addict, able to move on from the memories that haunt her?

And then there’s SHE.

SHE is one of them, but SHE is not like them at all. SHE is defined only by the carnage she lets the world see, the murders that have swept through their coastal community. And as the police close in on their newest serial killer, scrutiny lands on the Rowlings, forcing them to face their demons and reveal all they have kept hidden.

KD Aldyn lives everywhere and nowhere (home is where the Wi-Fi is). She most often wears black (and sometimes red) and sometimes dances like Elaine from Seinfeld. SISTER, BUTCHER, SISTER is her debut.

THE GIRLS BEFORE de Kate Alice Marshall

There is a girl in a basement. The door has stopped opening. The light is gone.
The next book from this acclaimed and bestselling author.

THE GIRLS BEFORE
by Kate Alice Marshall
Flatiron Books, February 2026

Stranger is trapped in the dark, with only her imagination and the scribbles on the wall left by long-dead girls to keep her company. Nearly out of food and water, she makes one last attempt to escape. But what will happen if the door opens? Audrey is a search and rescue expert who never stopped looking for her ex-best friend, Janie, who disappeared when they were teenagers. Janie used to love the local legend of a forest witch who saves girls from bad men, but Audrey knows now that for every one saved, there’s always another one lost. When she stumbles upon evidence in the forest that a teenage runaway might have actually been kidnapped from land belonging to the town’s wealthiest family, she will have to dig through decades of secrets to reveal the biggest one of all: what happened to the girls before.

Kate Alice Marshall is the USA Today bestselling author of What Lies in the Woods, No One Can Know, A Killing Cold, and multiple novels for younger readers. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family.