Archives de catégorie : Fiction

A THORN IN EVERY HEART de Kate King

Beauty and the Beast meets Anastasia in this spicy and addictive modern fairytale mashup from the USA Today bestselling author of Wilde Fae.

A THORN IN EVERY HEART
(Enchanted Legacies Series, Book 1)
by Kate King
Kate King Publishing, April 2025
(via JABberwocky)

What if Belle never returned to the enchanted castle?

After her cheating husband ruins her life, twenty-nine-year-old musician, Alixandria Knight, moves from Chicago to Ironhill, Pennsylvania—a near-abandoned Appalachian ghost town with a firey history. Officially, she’s there to help her aging grandmother. Unofficially, Alix just wants to escape reality.

She’ll get her wish.

When a one night stand with a wickedly handsome stranger turns out to be more than she bargained for, Alix is whisked away to the land of the fae. There, she uncovers her family’s darkest secret: sixty years ago, Alix’s grandmother, Isabelle, broke her promise to marry a beastly king. Now, the fae are hungry, and it’s up to Alix to clear her family’s debt.

USA Today and International best selling author Kate King loves sassy heroines, crazy magic, and alpha-hole heroes. An avid reader and writer from a young age, she has been telling stories her whole life. Ever a fan of the dramatic, she lives in an 18th century church with her husband and two cats, and often writes in cemeteries.

THE PAPER BIRDS de Jeanette Lynes

Imagine you have only a pencil and paper, a pocketful of hunches, and your puzzle-solving skills to help end the war.

THE PAPER BIRDS
by Jeanette Lynes
HarperAvenue/HarperCollins Canada, June 2025

Fresh out of high school, Gemma Sullivan lands what she believes is an office job, only to learn that she’s been hired for top-secret government codebreaking work in a cottage in Mimico, Ontario. The codebreaking “Cottage”—run by the brilliant, eccentric Miss Fearing, who was trained at England’s Bletchley Park—pulls Gemma in with its urgent lure and mystery. But along with this comes an oath of lifelong secrecy.

Gem can’t tell anyone about her job, not even her elderly Aunt Wren, who has raised her since the age of three after the tragic death of Gem’s parents. Her aunt harbours a deep love for crossword puzzles and Tarot cards and an equally passionate hatred for war after the death of her own fiancé in World War I. The last thing she’d want for her niece is a job that involves anything to do with the war. 

The codebreaking is intense, even mind-numbing at times. One day during her lunch break Gem goes for a walk and discovers a German POW camp not far from the cottage. At the barbed-wire fence, she encounters a prisoner named Toby. Even though she risks losing her job, or worse, if she’s caught fraternizing with the enemy, Gem can’t stop visiting him. After several weeks of risky conversations, Toby disappears from the camp.

While Gem grows into her engrossing job, she hadn’t anticipated the tremendous mental strain it would cause, and she struggles with the burden of secrecy both at work and in her private life. As Gem is pulled deeper into wartime intelligence work, she becomes an integral part of the codebreakers’ circle. The Cottage codebreaking unit is small but determined; her female coworkers all possess a range of complementary skills. But in order to be successful, they must learn to work together.

THE PAPER BIRDS is a WWII love story that reveals the struggles and sacrifices of everyday working women during the war and highlights the previously unknown codebreaking work undertaken by women in Canada during the war. This novel is both one woman’s story, and many.

JEANETTE LYNES is the author of the bestselling novel The Apothecary’s Garden, a finalist for a High Plains Book Award and two Saskatchewan Book Awards. Her second novel, The Small Things That End the World, won the 2019 Fiction Prize at the Saskatchewan Book Awards. Her first novel, The Factory Voice, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a ReLit Award. She has also written seven books of poetry. Her forthcoming non-fiction book Apron Apocalypse: Lyric Essays received the John V. Hicks Long Manuscript Award. A settler, Jeanette Lynes grew up on the traditional territory of the People of the Three Fires: the Ojibway, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations of Anishinabek peoples. Since 2011 she has directed the MFA in Writing at the University of Saskatchewan on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis. THE PAPER BIRDS is her fourth novel.

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TWENTY YEARS TOGETHER de Tom Rob Smith

A shattering and beautiful love story, the most personal and powerful piece of storytelling by New York Times bestselling author of Child 44 and The Farm.

TWENTY YEARS TOGETHER
by Tom Rob Smith
Simon & Schuster, Spring 2026
(via Aaron Priest Literary)

Danny and Luis have been a couple for twenty years. Piece-by-piece, they’ve built a life together. They’ve created a home. They’ve comforted and held each other up through challenges and tragedies. They’ve shared happiness and they’ve shared joy.

The one thing they didn’t have was the one thing that, when they first met, was denied them: the possibility of marriage. They’ve witnessed the weddings of their friends, but the law was clear and would not recognize the union of two men.

But the law has now changed. Marriage, for the first time, would be legal. So while celebrating the 20th wedding anniversary of their close friends, Danny realizes he’s ready for more from his relationship with Luis. He wants them to be married.

He wants to declare their shared past as the start of their renewed future. He proposes to Luis, and the moment he does, he risks everything they’ve built falling apart.

Deeply felt and remarkably tender, TWENTY YEARS TOGETHER is a profound exploration of the bonds we create with each other, of the tension between living authentically against the expectations of family and community, and, most of all, of desire, romance and love.

Tom Rob Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Child 44 trilogy. Child 44 itself was a global publishing sensation, selling over two million copies. Among its many honors, it was longlisted for the Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Prize and won the CWA Steel Dagger Award and ITW Award for Best First Novel. His novel The Farm was a number 1 international bestseller and the first crime thriller to be longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Tom also writes for television and won a Writer’s Guild Award for best adapted series and an Emmy and Golden Globe for best limited series with American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace. His recent original series Class of 09 was released on Hulu in the USA and Disney Plus around the world. The Farm is currently being adapted as a series for the BBC and Swedish Broadcaster SVT.

THE NIGHTLESS CITY de Callum McSorley

The first in a new series of historical thrillers set in nineteenth-century Japan, from the prizewinning author of Squeaky Clean.

THE NIGHTLESS CITY
by Callum McSorley
Pushkin Press, September 2026

Tokyo, 1886.

Chino Kunio, a male courtesan in Tokyo’s infamous Yoshiwara neighbourhood, the Nightless City, discovers his one and only client, a British diplomat, dead and himself in the frame for the man’s grisly murder.

Trying to save Chino from the judicial blade are his friend, samurai rebel turned reckless drunk Shimura Shingo, police inspector Tokuda Reiji, and the victim’s wife, Fiona Gordon, a Scottish teacher living a stifled life in the foreign concession, who is seeking her own answers.

But as more foreigners are slain, dredging up the shadow of shipwreck that led to a diplomatic scandal, Chino’s only hope may be to escape the Nightless City for good, before it explodes into violence between belligerent westerners and nationalist bully boys.

Callum McSorley is a writer based in Glasgow, where he grew up. His debut thriller, Squeaky Clean, the first book in the Alison McCoist thriller series, was published to great acclaim and went on to win the prestigious McIlvanney Prize for best Scottish Crime Book of the Year. THE NIGHTLESS CITY is the first in a new series of historical thrillers set in nineteenth-century Japan.

ALL AT SEA de Jonathan Whitelaw

A destination murder-mystery – think Below Deck meets Knives Out. Perfect for all fans of Only Murders In the Building.

ALL AT SEA
by Jonathan Whitelaw
HarperNorth, publication date TBC
(via Northbank Talent Management)

Howie Temple is down on his luck and desperate for cash. A once promising action movie star, he now lives off a crumbling reputation. On his way to film a new reality TV show, which casts a team of c-list celebrities as crew aboard a luxury yacht, he meets fellow contestant, influencer-of-the-moment Cassandra Troy. The duo take an immediate dislike to each other.

After a hectic first day of filming, the pair are shocked discover that the captain of the ship has been murdered – locked in his control room, slumped over the wheel, a knife in his back. Convinced by the show’s ever-opportunistic director to keep the cameras rolling, the pair team-up to hunt the murderer.

Will the show make Howie and Cassandra bigger stars than they could ever dream of? And can they crack the case before the killer strikes again, or will they go down with this sinking ship?

Jonathan Whitelaw is a Scottish writer and journalist based in Canada, and he’s also a regular host at book events and panels, as well as a regular arts reviewer on BBC Radio Scotland’s Afternoon Show. Jonathan is a leading author in the cosy crime market. His latest series, Bingo Hall Detectives, is published by HarperNorth. There are currently two books in the series, The Bingo Hall Detectives (2022) and The Village Hall Vendetta (2023), the first of which awarded the Gilpin Hotel Prize for Fiction at this year’s Lakeland Book Awards.