Archives de catégorie : Women’s Fiction

THE UNWEDDING d’Ally Condie

An enticing combination of murder mystery and women’s fiction written with the eloquence and emotional insight that Ally brings to all her books and that we first loved in her YA debut, Matched.

THE UNWEDDING
by Ally Condie
Grand Central, June 2024
(via Writers House)

Photo: © Erin Summerill

Ellery Wainwright and her husband, Luke, were supposed to spend their twentieth wedding anniversary together at the luxurious Resort at Broken Point in Big Sur, California. Where better to celebrate a marriage, a family, and a life together than one of the most stunning places on earth? But when Luke, unexpectedly and shockingly asks for a divorce, and her world falls apart, devastated Ellery decides to do the planned trip alone. For years her identity was linked with Luke’s, she was a part of a couple, but now for the first time in decades she is no one’s wife, and, among the happy groups of fellow guests, she’s also no one’s friend. She feels like no one at all. Until she discovers a body in the pool and a bad storm isolates the resort completely.

Suddenly, from belonging to no one, she becomes acquainted with everyone, and becomes a central figure, the only person who can solve the murder.

Ally Condie is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Matched trilogy and co-author of the Darkdeep middle grade series. She is also the author of the novel Summerlost, an Edgar Award Finalist. A former English teacher, Ally lives with her family outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. Ally has an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is the founder and director of the nonprofit WriteOut Foundation.

THE OPPOSITE OF SUCCESS d’Eleanor Elliott Thomas

Lorrie Hope has a steady job, a partner she adores and two wonderful kids. All she wants is to get promoted, love her body and end global warming. By Friday. What could possibly go wrong?

THE OPPOSITE OF SUCCESS
by Eleanor Elliott Thomas
Text Publishing (Australia), October 2023

Lorrie Hope is about to have the worst day of her life.
Lorrie has been stuck for years in a mediocre job at the local council, and she’s applied for a promotion she’s not entirely sure she wants. Her best friend of twenty years, Alex, is stuck in a very different mess—one that involves Lorrie’s rakish ex, Ruben; or, more accurately, his wife. Oh, and Ruben’s boss happens to be the mining magnate Sebastian Glup, who is sponsoring Lorrie’s most important project at work…
As the day spirals from bad to worse to frankly unhinged, Lorrie and Alex are forced to reconsider what they can expect from life, love and middle management. THE OPPOSITE OF SUCCESS is a hilarious debut novel about our work, motherhood, friendship and ambition.

Eleanor Elliott Thomas worked for many years as a lawyer before devoting herself to writing full-time. She is a graduate of the Faber Writing Academy’s ‘Writing a Novel’ course, in which she was taught by Sophie Cunningham and Emily Bitto. She lives with her partner and two daughters in Naarm/Melbourne. THE OPPOSITE OF SUCCESS is her first novel.

DANZIG de Hilke Sellnick

Love in a time of upheaval: the bestselling author’s captivating new saga set in Danzig.

DANZIG
by Hilke Sellnick
Penguin Germany, June 2023

Danzig, 1856. When young Johanna Berendt finds herself standing in front of the big villa in Langgasse Street, she feels deeply embarrassed. She eloped with a pianist just a few months ago, but now she’s back and hoping that her family will forgive her. Yet a shock awaits Johanna: her father has died, and her brother is now in charge of the family and their long-established merchant business. And he has no time for his freedom-loving sister.
When Berthold Forster, a good-natured and considerably older shipyard owner, proposes to Johanna, she seizes the opportunity to free herself from her brother’s sway. At Forster’s side, she even develops an interest in shipbuilding, and Georg, Forster’s son from his first marriage, is put out when she expresses a desire to help run the place. Yet Johanna is intelligent and courageous enough to pursue her vision, and Georg soon realises he has met his match – in business, of course. Or do his feelings run deeper?

Volume 2 (May 2024) and volume 3 (June 2025) also available:

Hilke Sellnick‘s bestselling historical novels have won her hundreds of thousands of fans over the years. With this first book in a brilliant new series for Penguin, she is now showing her readers a different side to herself. Set in nineteenth-century Danzig, it tells the addictive story of a young woman who defies social convention, turns an old shipyard into a successful business, and fights for love.

EINE FAST PERFEKTE DEBÜTANTIN de Hannah Conrad

True love and scandals in nineteenth-century Munich…

EINE FAST PERFEKTE DEBÜTANTIN
[An Almost Perfect Debutante]
The Lily Palace Saga, vol. 1
by Hannah Conrad
‎ Heyne/Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe, November 2022

Munich, 1827. Johanna von Seybach has moved from Königsberg to the magnificent Lily Palace, her uncle’s family seat – where an exciting season awaits her! Even before her official debut, it looks like a proposal from the eligible bachelor Friedrich Veidt is all but certain. But then Johanna has an unguarded moment of passion, and her reputation is suddenly in tatters. Friedrich drops her, and she’s left broken-hearted. Will anyone want to marry her, after such a scandal? Then she meets Alexander von Reuss at a glittering masked ball. That same evening, they grow closer than they should, experiencing a sensuous moment of surrender. But Johanna’s scandalous past is making such waves that even true love may not be enough to save her.

Hannah Conrad has already published many popular novels across various genres. She studied German and cultural journalism, and has won several awards, including the DeLiA Book Prize, the Selfpublisher prize and a short-story prize. She uses her extensive travels to research her novels, and is at home in several German cities.

THE SUNSET CROWD de Karin Tanabe

In 1970s Los Angeles, everyone is fighting to reach the top, but very few have the talent, ambition, and luck to get there.

THE SUNSET CROWD
by Karin Tanabe
St. Martin’s Press, July 2023

Fame. Fortune. Love. You can’t have them all.
Meet L.A. darling Evra Scott. The daughter of an Oscar-winning director and a Brazilian bombshell actress, Evra is the city’s reigning style queen. By day, she’s at the helm of Sunset on Sunset, the store beloved by Hollywood’s young and beautiful. By night, she’s on the arm of Kai de la Faire, Hawaii’s hottest export, and the screenwriter of the moment. 
Enter Theodora Leigh. The twenty-something Paramount assistant looks like a big screen star, but her sights are firmly set behind the scenes, as she fights to become a movie producer in a town where sex and sexism sell. Theodora’s got the talent and instincts, but she’s not willing to wait. Luckily, getting ahead by any means necessary is L.A.’s mantra.      
Observing it all is Bea Dupont, a photographer for Rolling Stone and Vogue, who never misses the party, but always keeps to its fringes. A Manhattan blue blood turned West Coast bohemian, Bea holds Evra’s Sunset crowd together. She’s also Kai’s oldest friend, and she’s harbored a not-so-secret flame for him since they met at an elite Swiss boarding school. 
But in Hollywood, no one stays on top forever. And it’s not long before Theodora’s unrelenting ambition sets in motion a dramatic quest for power in an industry that is as glamorous as it is duplicitous.
From the pulsating Sunset Strip to the French Riviera, Tanabe’s new novel is a story of survival and reinvention, of faking it until you make it, and the glittering appeal of wealth and power, as it seeks to answer that timeless question—who gets to have the American dream? 

Karin Tanabe is the author of several novels, including A Woman of Intelligence, A Hundred Suns and The Gilded Years (soon to be a major motion picture starring Zendaya, who will produce alongside Reese Witherspoon/Hello Sunshine). A former Politico reporter, her writing has also been featured in The Washington Post, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, and Newsday. She has appeared as a celebrity and politics expert on Entertainment Tonight, CNN, and CBS Early Show. A graduate of Vassar College, Karin lives in Washington, DC.