Archives de catégorie : Fiction

BAD BLOOD de Sarah Hornsley

A debut thriller which reads like Blood Orange meets Sharp Objects, following criminal barrister Justine Stone who must return to the home she hasn’t visited in twelve years when her childhood sweetheart is accused of murder.

BAD BLOOD
by Sarah Hornsley
Hodder, TBD 2025
(via Mushens Entertainment)

When criminal barrister, Justine Stone, is handed the lead on her first murder case, she could never have imagined she’d find Jake Reynolds staring back at her. Jake Reynolds – the boyfriend who disappeared from her life twelve years ago and the same man now facing a double homicide charge. Since Jake left without a trace, Justine hasn’t returned to the rural Essex town, Maldon, where they grew up together. But, if she’s going to send Jake to prison for murder, this time she needs to know the truth – not just the story she’ll spin the jury.
Once she arrives there, memories start to surface – of the idyllic love she shared with Jake, and her doubts that such a good man could really have done such a terrible thing. Back in her childhood home darker recollections are harder to avoid. The death of her beloved father in a car crash, and the weight of the small town’s expectations on her shoulders. And when her elder brother Max goes missing, she starts to suspect that everything is connected. Because it turns out that you can never truly bury the past: no matter how much you might want to.

Sarah Hornsley works as a literary agent at PFD. After graduating from Durham University with a First Class Honours in History, Sarah worked at a publishing house followed by a short stint in script development before becoming a Literary Agent in 2015. She was named a Rising Star in The Bookseller in 2019. She lives in Essex with her husband and daughter.

THE CLIQUE de Rhiannon Barnsley

Exploring the toxic work culture at a top law firm, Rhiannon’s debut is perfect for fans of The Whisper Network or BBC’s Industry. 

THE CLIQUE
by Rhiannon Barnsley
One More Chapter/HarperCollins, June 2024
(via Mushens Entertainment)

There’s only one way to join their society. If someone leaves, or dies…

High-flying lawyer Sara O’Neil had it all; the career, the money, the prestige.

And then she jumped to her death.

Cassandra Harlow never expected to see her friend fall from their office rooftop. Someone knows what really happened. But the only people who might know the truth are a secret women-only society, Inside, whose promise is to fast-track your career.

But if Sara was part of it and they helped facilitate her rise to the top, could they also be the reason she came crashing down to earth?

Originally from the West Midlands, Rhiannon Barnsley currently lives in London with her boyfriend and her cat Salem. She’s a corporate lawyer by day and her experiences at work inspired this novel. She is a Faber Academy Writing a Novel graduate and loves to write dark and twisty thrillers with a particular focus on women.

FOREIGN DECEIT de Jeff Carson

His brother is dead. He’s not getting the whole truth… The #1 International bestselling David Wolf Series starts here with this suspense-filled mystery taking you on a thrill-ride halfway around the world to Italy and back to the high country of Colorado.

FOREIGN DECEIT
by Jeff Carson
Cross Atlantic Publishing, October 2023
(via Park & Fine)

Living in a ski resort town in the middle of the Colorado Rockies should be paradise, but deputy David Wolf is stretched thin hunting a missing person and dealing with his ex-wife coming back into the picture. All that trouble drops to the wayside, however, when he gets word his brother has died half a world away while traveling in northern Italy.
A nagging suspicion there’s more to the story than officials are telling him is enough to pull Wolf from his volatile life to Lecco, Italy, a city along the shores of picturesque Lake Como. Five thousand miles from home in this place where Wolf struggles to even communicate with another soul, a disturbing secret awaits among the ancient cobblestone alleys, one that has already proven deadly to one foreigner.
With the aid of a Carabinieri agent with a chip on her shoulder, can Wolf piece together what really happened to his little brother without suffering the same fate?
With twists and turns, memorable characters, action, suspense, mystery with pulse-pounding revelation, all amid breathtaking scenery, it’s no wonder why the David Wolf Series is gaining such acclaim.

Jeff Carson began writing and self-publishing his novels on Amazon a decade ago, and quickly became a bestselling author with legions of devoted fans. He acquired a love for adventure-thriller-mystery-suspense fiction at a young age by listening to audio books while driving the vast landscapes of the western U.S. with his family. One leg of a trip from Denver to Payette, Idaho (to visit relatives) was enough time to squeeze in a good Cussler, a Christie, a Child, a Silva, a Box, a Flynn, or one of the others he considers master story-tellers. Now he incorporates many of the same elements of those authors in his own writing. Jeff and his wife, Cristina, currently live with their two sons in Colorado.

COMPANY de Shannon Sanders

A richly detailed, brilliantly woven debut collection about the lives and lore of one Black family.

COMPANY: Stories
by Shannon Sanders
Graywolf Press, October 2023
(via DeFiore and Co.)

Shannon Sanders’s sparkling debut brings us into the company of the Collins family and their acquaintances as they meet, bicker, compete, celebrate, worry, keep and reveal secrets, build lives and careers, and endure. Moving from Atlantic City to New York to DC, from the 1960s to the 2000s, from law students to drag performers to violinists to matriarchs, COMPANY tells a multifaceted, multigenerational saga in thirteen stories.
Each piece in COMPANY  includes a moment when a guest arrives at someone’s home. In « The Good, Good Men, » two brothers reunite to oust a « deadbeat » boyfriend from their mother’s house. In « The Everest Society, » the brothers’ sister anxiously prepares for a home visit from a social worker before adopting a child. In « Birds of Paradise, » their aunt, newly promoted to university provost, navigates a minefield of microaggressions at her own welcome party. And in the haunting title story, the provost’s sister finds her solitary life disrupted when her late sister’s daughter comes calling.
These are stories about intimacy, societal and familial obligations, and the ways inheritances shape our fates. Buoyant, somber, sharp, and affectionate, this collection announces a remarkable new voice in fiction.

Shannon Sanders lives and works near Washington, DC. Her fiction has appeared in One Story, Electric Literature, Joyland, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere, and was a 2020 winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers

THE HEALING PARTY de Micheline Lee

Evocative, taut and wryly funny, this stunning novel is about faith and lies, the spirit and the flesh.

THE HEALING PARTY
by Micheline Lee
Black Inc. (Australia), August 2023

Estranged from her family, Natasha is making a life for herself in Darwin when her sister calls with bad news. Their mother is ill, and has only a few months to live. Confused and conflicted, Natasha returns to the home she fled many years before. But her father, an evangelical Christian, has not changed—he is still the domineering yet magnetic man she ran from, and her sisters and mother are still in his thrall.
One night her father makes an astonishing announcement: he has received a message from God that his wife is to be healed, and they must hold a party to celebrate. As Natasha and her sisters prepare for the big event—and the miracle—she struggles to reconcile her family’s faith with her sense that they are pretending. Is she a traitor or the only one who can see the truth? And what use is truth anyway, in the face of death?
THE HEALING PARTY is a unique and compelling portrait of the deep complexities of family connection.

Micheline Lee’s novel, THE HEALING PARTY, was shortlisted for several awards including the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. Born in Malaysia, she migrated to Australia when she was eight. Micheline has lived with a motor neurone disability from birth. She is also a former human rights lawyer and painter. Her forthcoming Quarterly Essay is on humanity, disability and the NDIS.