Archives de catégorie : Fiction

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.

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY de JD Kirk

Uncover the secrets of The One That Got Away in the first book in a brand new Scottish crime fiction series by JD Kirk, author of the multi-million selling DCI Jack Logan novels.

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
(A DI Heather Filson Novel, #1)
by JD Kirk
Zertex Media, May 2023
(via Northbank Talent Management)

What if your worst enemy was your only hope?

When a fifteen-year-old girl fails to make it home after school, DI Heather Filson believes she’s dealing with just another teenage runaway.

The girl’s grandfather, a notorious Glasgow gangster, disagrees. Convinced one of his underworld enemies has grabbed her, he’s prepared to bathe the city in blood in order to bring his princess home.

But, as the days pass and the evidence mounts, Heather starts to fear that they’re both wrong, and that a brutal killer from the past has returned.

A killer who once stalked the streets of her hometown, preying on vulnerable young victims. A killer that DI Heather Filson is uniquely familiar with…

JD Kirk is the pen-name of award-winning former children’s author Barry Hutchison, who first turned his hand to tartan noir in early 2019 with the publication of his first DCI Jack Logan novel, A Litter of Bones. Since then, JD has written and published over a dozen novels in the series. In 2021, JD made the final shortlist of five for the Kindle Storyteller Prize, and also released three books in his Robert Hoon spin-off series, which has been described as ‘Jack Reacher meets Trainspotting.’. Born and raised in the Highlands Barry (or JD) has a unique insight into the locations featured in the DI Filson, DCI Logan, and Hoon book series.

TERAFIK de Nilufar Karkhiran Khozani

The moving story of a daughter’s relationship with her father, of life lived between alien worlds, and of a family and a country in pain.

TERAFIK
by Nilufar Karkhiran Khozani
Blessing/PRH Germany, August 2023

When Nilufar was a young girl, her father moved back to Iran, leaving her behind. Now, for the first time, she travels to his home country to meet the family she never knew. In Tehran, she finds a world of contradictions, and encounters new faces – all of them wounded, and each with their hopes and dreams. Nilufar slowly gets to know the life that might have been her own, yet her father keeps eluding her whenever she tries to get close to him. In the midst of this chaotic and restless city, among the well-meaning relatives who have welcomed her into their home, Nilufar little by little discovers and understands a fragmented country, a fragmented family and her own fragmented identity.

Nilufar Karkhiran Khozani, born in 1983, studied literature, comparative literature and psychology before qualifying as a behavioural therapist. She has contributed to several literary journals, and in 2020 published Romance Would Be a Very Fine Bonus Indeed, a volume of selected verse. She was artist-in-residence at the 2020 Prosanova Festival, and translated the script for Town Bloody Hall: A Dialogue on Women’s Liberation for the German feature Als Susan Sontag im Publikum saß (‘The Time Susan Sontag Was in the Audience’, 2021). TERAFIK is her first novel. She lives in Berlin.