Archives par étiquette : Mushens Entertainment

NOTES ON A DROWNING d’Anna Sharpe

A novel that goes to the heart of a political scandal involving misogyny, international corruption, and abuse of power.

NOTES ON A DROWNING
by Anna Sharpe
Orion, TBC 2024
(via Mushens Entertainment)

Alex is a solicitor trying to keep afloat in a struggling London legal aid practice. When she takes on a new case for a Moldovan woman whose younger sister’s body was found in the Thames, Alex assumes Natalia’s story will be the usual sadly predictable tale of addiction and poverty.

On the other side of the river, Kat has secured her dream job: special adviser to the charismatic new Home Secretary, introducing her to a seductive new world of power, elitism and influence.

But when the girl’s inquest is speedily shut down, and Kat begins to query why immigration cases have been quashed, both Alex and Kat suspect that they have stumbled upon high level corruption. Might it link to the disappearance of Alex’s sister twelve years before?

Anna Sharpe is the pseudonym of Anna Mazzola. She’s the award-winning author of three historical thrillers plus one ghost novel. Her debut novel, The Unseeing, won an Edgar Allan Poe award in the US. Her third novel, The Clockwork Girl, set in 18th century Paris, reached number 11 in the Sunday Times Chart.

REMEMBER, REMEMBER d’Elle Machray

Gunpowder, treason and a plot to  destroy the British Empire…

REMEMBER, REMEMBER
by Elle Machray
HarperNorth, February 2024
(via Mushens Entertainment)

1770. Delphine lives in the shadows of London: a secret, vibrant world of smugglers, courtesans and small rebellions. Four years ago, she escaped enslavement at great personal cost. Now, she must help her brother Vincent do the same.

While Britain’s highest court fails to administer justice for Vincent, little rebellions are no longer enough. What’s needed is a big, explosive plot – one that will strike at the heart of the transatlantic slave trade. But can one Black woman, one fuse and one match bring down an Empire?

An incendiary alternative history, REMEMBER, REMEMBER is a gripping story of conscience, conspiracy, queer identity and courage in the face of injustice.

Elle Machray (she/they) lives in Edinburgh and studied Politics at the University of Leeds. Elle started writing in lockdown and was selected to join the inaugural cohort of the HarperCollins Author Academy in 2021. In the moments between working and writing, Elle practices karate and explores the beauty of Scotland with their dog, Bruce.

BOMBSHELL de Rebecca Lewis Smith

BOMBSHELL is the story of Kate, an ordinary woman who begins to suspect she’s been used as an alibi by her childhood best friend, famed movie star Lena Fontaine, when the murder of Lena’s much older male co-star and rumoured lover explodes onto the news.

BOMBSHELL
by Rebecca Lewis Smith
TBD
(via Mushens Entertainment)

Scraping rock-bottom after a painful divorce, Kate hardly bats an eyelid when her childhood best friend whisks her away to Ibiza at a moment’s notice. That’s Lena Fontaine, after all – movie star, sex symbol, supportive friend. But then the news breaks that Jimmy Carvell, Lena’s much older, long-time co-star – and rumoured lover – has been shot in his London home, and the internet explodes.

Kate is disgusted by the accusations flying around online suggesting that Lena had something to do with the crime, reporting every post she sees and doing her best not to entertain the vitriolic speculation. Lena is distraught – and after all, Kate knows her. She could never do something like that.

Then CCTV footage of Lena leaving Jimmy’s home the morning of the murder is leaked. As it quickly becomes clear that Lena might be more involved than she’s letting on, Kate can’t help but wonder – did Lena invite Kate on their whirlwind trip to provide herself with an alibi? Why won’t Lena tell Kate, or the police, why she was at the house that morning?

Kate has long lived in the shadow of her best friend – even long before ‘Lena Fontaine’ existed, and she was just Helen, from down the road. But now, Lena is in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, and Kate must decide whether she can trust her oldest and closest friend, even when all the evidence points to her being a murderer…

Rebecca Lewis Smith grew up splitting time between the UK, Massachusetts, and Norway. She studied Drama at the University of East Anglia, and settled in Norfolk, where she now writes. Rebecca co-founded a digital marketing agency in her twenties, growing it to a thriving, well-regarded local employer. As she was able to step away from the day-to-day running of the business, she delighted in rediscovering her creative core, and her joy in writing. She completed a fiction course with the National Centre for Writing in 2021, and in 2022 gained a place on the selective Curtis Brown Creative six-month novel writing course.

CLEOPATRA de Saara El-Arifi

You know my name, but you do not know me.

CLEOPATRA
by Saara El-Arifi
Borough Press, September 2025
(via Mushens Entertainment)

Credit: Mustafa Raee, Lightning Rod Films

After the death of her father, nineteen year old Cleopatra is thrust upon the throne, unaware of what the next twenty years would bring. Blessed by the Goddess Isis, Cleopatra’s reign is plagued by Roman intervention that even her deity cannot stop. She must navigate the Roman civil war, the wrath of the gods, but most of all the lure of love. Writing back to the millenia of propaganda and myth-making, El-Arifi weaves together a never seen before rendition of Cleopatra in this captivating new tale. With the magical spark of Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne and the feminist heart of Madeline Miller’s Circe, Cleopatra promises a spell-binding adventure in the land of ancient Egypt.

Saara El-Arifi is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Final Strife and The Battle Drum, the first two instalments of The Ending Fire Trilogy inspired by her Ghanaian and Sudanese heritage, and much beloved on Tik Tok. El-Arifi knew she was a storyteller from the moment she told her first lie. Over the years, she has perfected her tall tales into epic ones. She has lived in many countries, had many jobs, and owned many more cats. After a decade of working in marketing and communications, she returned to academia to complete a master’s degree in African studies alongside her writing career. She currently resides in London as a full-time procrastinator.

THE HOUSEHOLD de Stacey Halls

From the Sunday Times bestseller and winner of the Women’s Prize Futures Award, the captivating, highly anticipated new novel, inspired by real historical figures and events..

THE HOUSEHOLD
by Stacey Halls
April 2024
(via Mushens Entertainment)

In a quiet house in the countryside outside London, the finishing touches are being made to welcome a group of young women. The house and its location are top secret, its residents unknown to one another, but the girls have one thing in common: they are fallen. Offering refuge for prostitutes, petty thieves and the destitute, Urania Cottage is a second chance at life – but how badly do they want it?

Meanwhile, a few miles away in a Piccadilly mansion, millionairess Angela Burdett-Coutts, one of the benefactors of Urania Cottage, makes a discovery that leaves her cold: her stalker of 10 years has been released from prison . . .

As the women’s worlds collide in ways they could never have expected, they will discover that freedom always comes at a price.

Stacey Halls has worked as a journalist at The Bookseller and Fabulous Magazine, and has written for publications including Stylist, Psychologies and The Independent. She has won the Women’s Prize Futures Award. Her debut novel, The Familiars, was a Sunday Times Bestseller and was a Richard and Judy pick. Her second novel, The Foundling, was a Sunday Times Bestseller.