Archives de catégorie : London 2024 Fiction

GIRL ON WARD A de Christie Newport

Gripping historical thriller – perfect for all fans of Kate Morton and Hannah Kent.

GIRL ON WARD A
by Christie Newport
Storm Publishing, June 2024
(via Northbank Talent Management)

In 1995, journalist Olive Brown receives a threatening letter hinting at her connection to a dark past in an asylum in 1952. With a controlling and abusive husband and two young daughters to protect, Olive decides to investigate the matter herself to avoid jeopardizing her career.

Meanwhile, in 1952, Martha Littler is a pregnant teenager hiding her condition from her abusive parents. After giving birth, Martha’s baby is taken away by her parents, and she is admitted to Wynwarden Asylum, where she befriends fellow patient Lizzie. They discover the horrifying truth about the abusive treatments and atrocities happening within the asylum. As bodies begin to appear, Martha tries to seek the truth – whilst being torn between saving her sister and finding her baby.

The lives of Olive and Martha are linked in ways they could never imagine. As they begin to uncover the hidden pasts of those closest to them, there are deadly consequences.

Christie Newport is a mixed-heritage writer living in Northumberland. Since developing a rare illness as a child, Christie found reading and creating stories to be an escape. In recent years Christie has taken her writing seriously, honing her skills through courses and various brilliant opportunities. Writing crime and psychological thrillers set in her home city is her passion.

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, 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.

THE HOUSE IN THE WATER de Victoria Darke

May Day House sits, imposing and crumbling, on its own island in the Thames.

THE HOUSE IN THE WATER
by Victoria Darke
Boldwood Books, Summer 2024
(via Northbank Talent Management)

Only accessible by boat, the house has been sitting empty for two decades. It wasn’t always empty, of course. It’s a house that’s brimming with history. During WW2, it hosted hundreds of recuperating wounded soldiers. And now, there are the ghosts – staring out at those who sail past its windows.

In the autumn of 2013, and Philip and Meredith Holland are the proud new owners of May Day House. Following a string of tragedies, the couple have moved to the area in search of a new start. But all is not what it seems in this friendly, close-knit neighbourhood. Will shadows from the past darken their new-found happiness?

Victoria Darke is the pen name for Faber Academy graduate Victoria Scott. She has a degree in English from King’s College, London and a Postgraduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism from City University, London. She lives near London with her husband and two children, and works as a freelance journalist, media trainer and journalism tutor.

THE TINY THINGS ARE HEAVIER d’Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo

A stunning debut exploring the hardships of migration, the subtleties of Nigeria’s class system, and how far we’ll go to protect those we love.

THE TINY THINGS ARE HEAVIER
by Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo
Bloomsbury, June 2025
(via Writers House)

THE TINY THINGS ARE HEAVIER follows Sommy, a Nigerian woman who comes to the United States for graduate school two weeks after her brother, Mezie, attempts suicide. Plagued by the guilt of leaving Mezie behind, Sommy struggles to fit into her new life as a student and an immigrant. She soon enters a complicated relationship with her boisterous Nigerian roommate, Bayo, a relationship that plummets into a web of lies and deceit when Sommy meets Bryan, a biracial American, whose estranged Nigerian father left the States immediately after his birth. Bonded by their feelings of unbelonging and a vague sense of kinship, Sommy and Bryan transcend the challenges of their new relationship.

After a year together, Sommy and Bryan visit Lagos, Nigeria for the summer break, where Sommy reunites with Mezie and Bryan gets a lead on his father. But when Mezie accidentally commits manslaughter in a drunken fit of fear, Sommy and Bryan react to the crime in vastly different ways, exposing the cracks in their relationship and forcing Sommy to confront her notions of self and familial love.

A deeply moving and gorgeously written novel about family, grief, privilege, and coming-of-age within cultural rupture, THE TINY THINGS ARE HEAVIER will appeal to readers of Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah, Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom, and Jessica George’s Maame.

Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a second-year PhD student in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Her fiction has appeared in Isele Magazine, Guernica, and Catapult. She’s a recipient of the 2021 Elizabeth George Foundation Grant.

WHAT YOU MAKE OF ME de S.M. Dess

Intense, darkly humorous, and emotionally acute, WHAT YOU MAKE OF ME poses questions about love and obsession, about meaning and the purpose of art. What does it mean to use someone else’s life for your art? Where is the line? Does it matter?

WHAT YOU MAKE OF ME
by S.M. Dess
Penguin Press, March 2025
(via Writers House)

Demetri and his sister, Ava. Ava and her brother, Demetri. As fiercely competitive as they are co-dependent, the two have long been locked in an emotionally charged relationship. Ava, defiant and impassioned, grew up in the shadow of soft, charming, and intellectual Demetri. But in the aftershocks of familial trauma, it is Demetri who finds himself emotionally ruined, whereas Ava has no time nor patience for grief. As they grow up, following one another from city to city, the siblings are set on their own parallel paths as artists, thinkers, and lovers. Ava throws herself into her obsession with her art, which gradually leads to fame and financial stability – as well as extreme existential insecurity. But Demetri flounders, unable to escape the wake of tragedy.

When Nati, an Italian gallery owner, arrives in New York, Demetri and Ava orbit her, possessed by their own priorities. But when they both fall for her, Nati refuses to play their game. Once again, and perhaps for the last time, the brother and sister must face what they most want from each other, and what they’re unwilling to give.

S.M. Dess is a writer with fiction in The Paris Review, The Drift, Forever Magazine and more. She received her MFA from Columbia University in Spring 2023.