Archives de catégorie : Fiction

ALWAYS ON MY MIND de Carys Green

A high-concept thriller that centres on a couple trying to reconnect after 10 years of marriage by getting the latest tech – an implant that allows you and your partner to share thoughts 24/7. What could go wrong? Everything.

ALWAYS ON MY MIND
by Carys Green
Harvill Secker, 2025
(via Mushens Entertainment)

When Elijah suggests going to OneMind to celebrate their ten year anniversary, Anna is dubious and also relieved. She had been anticipating the request for a threesome in an attempt to spice things up between them, but instead Elijah wants to bond them in the most intimate of ways. Anna has seen the adverts, everyone has, the city is saturated with them –

Never again wonder if they are cheating.

Never again argue over what to have for dinner.

Know your partner intimately.

OneMind. For the ultimate closeness.

Anna is touched that Elijah would want this. A chance to share their conscious thoughts via a new, revolutionary technology. And at first things are great. Idyllic. Anna knows everything her husband is thinking. His every waking thought. But then she develops a strange side effect. Dreams that aren’t dreams. Dreams that are memories. Memories that aren’t hers. And if Anna is now experiencing Elijah’s memories, does that mean he can access hers? Does that mean he’s now aware of her darkest secret?

Suddenly Anna’s mind is a prison, where she has to repeat nursery rhymes to stop her thoughts betraying her. Everything has to be spoken. And soon she is trapped in a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Carys Green is an author living in Shropshire where she lives with her husband, daughter, and dog. When she’s not writing she can often be found indulging two of her greatest passions – either walking round the local woodland or catching up on all things Disney related.

DER GROSSE WUNSCH de Sherko Fatah

A daughter disappears. A father in despair sets off for a dangerous journey to Syria.

DER GROSSE WUNSCH
(What You Wish For)
by Sherko Fatah
Luchterhand Literaturverlag/PRH Germany, August 2023

A daughter has disappeared. She has travelled to Syria to marry a jihadist she met online. Her father Murad blames himself. If he had only told Naima more about his old homeland, which he has left behind mentally, as well as physically; if only he had paid more attention to her feelings of alienation – perhaps then she wouldn’t have gone to a strange country in the name of religion. Murad knows he must find Naima. He contacts human traffickers and travels to the Kurdish territory on the Turkish-Syrian border, where he comes face to face with his past. When the traffickers play him an audio diary recorded by a woman in Raqqa – probably Naima – Murad sets out on a perilous journey into ISIS territory…

Sensitive and insightful, this is a heartbreaking story set against the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East.

Sherko Fatah was born in 1964 as the son of an Iraqi Kurd and a German mother. He grew up in East Germany and, in 1975, moved to West Berlin with his family via Vienna. He studied philosophy and history of art. Fatah has received numerous awards for his narrative work, most recently the Großer Kunstpreis Berlin of the Akademie der Künste, the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize 2015, as well as the Aspekte-Literaturpreis for Borderland. His novels have been translated into several languages.

ACHT WÖLFE d’Ulla Scheler

Eight young people, lost in the Canadian wilderness – if they want to get out alive, they must stick together.

ACHT WÖLFE
(Eight Wolves)
by Ulla Scheler
Heyne/PRH Germany, September 2023

Eight young people join a guided hike through Canada’s biggest national park. For the next three weeks, they will experience the wilderness and see the Northern Lights. But even in the wilderness, you can end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. When they witness a crime, the eight have no choice but to run. Lost in the middle of nowhere, they have no equipment and nothing to help them find their way home. They also can’t stand each other. But their only chance of getting out of this alive is to work together.

A survival thriller for fans of « Rust Creek ».

Ulla Scheler, born in 1994, studied psychology and IT in Munich and Karlsruhe. Her debut novel « Es ist gefährlich, bei Sturm zu schwimmen » (« Swimming during a storm is dangerous ») was a big popular and critical success, and shortlisted for the German YA Prize. « Eight Wolves » is her first non-YA novel.

THE CURSE OF PIETRO HOUDINI de Derek Miller

In the tradition of City of Thieves by David Benioff, The Curse of Pietro Houdini is an epic war story and old-fashioned heist set in the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino, Italy against one of the most enigmatic and morally complex fronts of World War II where German soldiers became heroes, Allies became villains, and a child has to learn what it means to become an adult.

THE CURSE OF PIETRO HOUDINI
by Derek Miller
S&S/Avid Reader Press, March 2024
(via Writers House)

It is August 1943. Fourteen-year-old Massimo is an orphan fleeing south to Naples from Rome after his parents are killed in an American bombing raid. After he is attacked by thugs at the base of the Benedictine abbey of Montecasino, a man who calls himself Pietro Houdini (“Master Artist and confident of the Vatican!”) brings him inside. Unfortunately, the abbey sits on the German’s Gustav Line, and the allies are coming north. In the months to follow, Massimo, Pietro Houdini, the mysterious “black angel” named Ada, the cafe owner and murderer Bella Bocci, the wounded but chipper German soldier Harald, and the lovers Dino and Lucia (on their wounded mule named Ferrari) will lie, cheat, steal, fight, kill, and sin their way through the front line of the World War II to survive, all while smuggling three Titian Renaissance paintings they stole from the Nazis who were stealing them from the monks.

The Curse of Pietro Houdini is a work of fiction based on well researched historical events; it is full of compelling superbly portrayed characters who come together from all walks of life but manage to accept and protect each other in a difficult and perilous situation they are in.

Derek Miller is the author of Norwegian by Night, as well as The Girl in Green, American by Day, Radio Life, and How to Find Your Way in the Dark. His work has been shortlisted for many awards, with Norwegian by Night winning the CWA John Creasey Dagger Award for best first crime novel, among others. How to Find Your Way in the Dark was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and a New York Times best mystery of 2021. A Boston native, Miller lives in Spain with his family.

FORM AND VOID d’A.J. Smith

‘Convincing action sequences, vivid world-building and fascinating magic. Best described as George RR Martin meets HP Lovecraft, The Glass Breaks is a fine example of British fantasy writing at its most entertaining’ The Guardian.

FORM AND VOID
by A.J. Smith
Head of Zeus, 2019 – 2022
(via Northbank Talent Management)

Book One – THE GLASS BREAKS (June 2019)

Seventeen-year-old Duncan Greenfire is alive. Three hours ago, he was chained to the rocks and submerged as the incoming tide washed over his head. Now the waters are receding and Duncan’s continued survival has completed his initiation as a Sea Wolf.

It is the 167th year of the Dark Age. The Sea Wolves and their Eastron kin can break the glass and step into the void, slipping from the real world and reappearing wherever they wish. Wielding their power, they conquered the native Pure Ones and established their own Kingdom.

The Sea Wolves glorify in piracy and slaughter. Their rule is absolute, but young Duncan Greenfire and duellist Adeline Brand will discover a conspiracy to end their dominion, a conspiracy to shatter the glass that separates the worlds of Form and Void and unleash a primeval chaos across the world.

Book Two – THE SWORD FALLS (March 2021)

A man of the dawn claw will be the always king.

It will ever be so. They will always rule… but they will not always lead.

Prince Oliver Dawn Claw, heir to the Kingdom of the Four Claws, is thrust into a world he doesn’t understand as he waits for his father to die. Away from home, with few allies – and too many enemies – he faces a new and otherworldly threat from beneath the sea. Alliances break and masks fall, as the Dark Brethren reveal their true master.

Meanwhile, Adeline Brand – called the Alpha Wolf – refuses to wait, and becomes the edge of the sword that swings back at the Dreaming God. Assembling allies and crushing resistance, she enters a fight she doesn’t know if she can win, as the sea begins to rise.

Book Three – THE SEA RISES (March 2022)

Ages end and the sea rises. As the sea rises, so too does the old world.

Lord Marius Cyclone faces an unimaginable danger. The mighty legions of Santago Cyclone – known as the Bloodied Harp – and King Oliver Dawn Claw will be upon the Dark Harbour in less than a day, and truce seems impossible, even as the end of the world of Form creeps ever nearer.

But the tide waits for no man. Marius has only one choice if his people are to survive: flight, into the Void.

All the while, a primal power awakens. The Sunken God has lived through many ages and watched countless civilisations rise and fall. And he will not let his quarry flee without a fight.

AJ Smith is a teacher and youth worker based in Luton, England.