Archives de catégorie : Fiction

THE ROYAL STATION MASTER’S DAUGHTERS d’Ellee Seymour

A heartwarming and dramatic World War I saga of secrets, love and the British royal family for readers of Daisy Styles and Maisie Thomas. Based on the Saward family, who ran the train station at Wolferton, the local stop for the Royal Sandringham Estate.

THE ROYAL STATION MASTER’S DAUGHTERS (Book 1)
by Ellee Seymour
Zaffre, April 2022
(via Northbank Talent Management)

Roll out the red carpet. The royal train is due in half an hour and there’s not a minute to be wasted.
It’s 1915 and the country is at war. In the small Norfolk village of Wolferton, uncertainty plagues the daily lives of sisters Ada, Jessie and Beatrice Saward, as their men are dispatched to the frontlines of Gallipoli.
Harry, their father, is the station master at the local stop for the royal Sandringham Estate. With members of the royal family and their aristocratic guests passing through the station on their way to the palace, the Sawards’ unique position gives them unrivalled access to the monarchy.
But when the Sawards’ estranged and impoverished cousin Maria shows up out of the blue, everything the sisters thought they knew about their family is thrown into doubt.
THE ROYAL STATION MASTER’S DAUGHTERS is the first book in a brand-new World War I saga series, inspired by the Saward family, who ran the station at Wolferton in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through this history-making family we get a glimpse into all walks of life – from glittering royalty to the humblest of servants.

Don’t miss the second book in the series, The Royal Station Master’s Daughters at War, published in March 2023.

Ellee Seymour is an author, ghost writer and PR consultant. The Shop Girls is her first book as an author. It was a joy for her to research and write this heart-warming true story about a glamorous bygone era, based on an elegant ladies’ department store in Cambridge with its very own Mr Selfridge-styled character as the boss who the shop girls either loved or loathed. Heyworth’s closed 49 years ago and had all but faded from living memory when Ellee began researching the book. Ellee lives near Cambridge.

GLORY DAYS de Simon Rich

Laugh till you cry in this new collection of stories from the “Serena Williams of humor writing” (New York Times Book Review) about millennials finally growing up and getting older.

GLORY DAYS
by Simon Rich
Voracious Books/Little, Brown, Fall 2024
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary)

Photo: © Adrian Kinloch

From Mario waking up with back pain and going to get his first physical, to an anthropomorphized city addressing gentrification, to the victim of a Nigerian Prince scheme who actually moves to Nigeria to serve as a loyal subject, to a co-op meeting gone awry, these stories from the former youngest-ever SNL head writer and staff writer for Pixar writer.

Simon Rich is an American humorist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has published two novels and six collections of humor pieces, several of which appeared in The New Yorker. His novels and short stories have been translated into over a dozen languages.

LITTLE SECRETS de Gail Schimmel

A perfect life, a perfect lie. A compelling new read for fans of Liane Moriarty and Lisa Jewell.
‘LITTLE SECRETS is utterly brilliant – it’s a wolf of a thriller in suburban sheep’s clothing!’ – Qarnita Loxton, author of the much-loved ‘Being’ series

LITTLE SECRETS
by Gail Schimmel
Picador Africa, 2024
(via The Lennon-Ritchie Agency)

Monique and Ben Cohen have been married for 25 years. They both know that they didn’t get married for the right reasons, but they’re happy with the decision they made. They have a good life, in a beautiful house, with three children that they adore. It all worked out in the end. Or did it?
Monique has become obsessed with being the perfect wife and mother. Her sense of self is attached to the compliments she receives from friends and relatives. From her appearance to her home to her children – nobody will be allowed to see the cracks.
Ben knows that he gave up on a part of himself and his dreams when he married Monique. He’s an actuary, working for a corporate, and not the artist that he longed to be. If anyone asks, he’s happy.
Their daughter Rose is struggling with her friendships and the daunting world of teenage parties. But she knows that even if she gets frustrated, Monique’s rules will keep her safe.
Until Ben meets Daisy. And Rosie meets Margie. And everything starts to fall apart.

Gail Schimmel is the author of seven novels including The Aftermath (2019) and Never Tell A Lie (2021). She writes domestic noir and pacy thrillers that feature women and characters with secrets. She is an admitted attorney with four degrees to her name. Gail also writes cosy crime as part of writing duo Katie Gayle.

CHAIN OF CAUSE de Kurt Ellis

A fast-paced blackly-comic thriller about a group of four friends who attempt to commit insurance fraud worth millions. This dark caper is for fans of In Bruges, Get Shorty and A Serious Man.

CHAIN OF CAUSE
by Kurt Ellis
Penguin Random House South Africa, April 2024
(via The Lennon-Ritchie Agency)

Fast paced blackly-comic thriller about a group of four friends who attempt to commit insurance fraud worth millions. Unfortunately, the friends make one mistake and poor decision after another putting them on a collision course with a relentless Ukrainian fraud investigator, a psychopathic American hitman, a ruthless local drug lord, and an Eastern European mobster.
Gabriel, passed over for promotion, decides to set up his own business. The business is a spectacular failure and he loses everything. Desperate and furious, he enlists his best friend Skellie, a conman, drug addict and drug dealer, to help him strike back at the institution that he feels has wronged him. Forced to enlist help on the inside, the mistakes come thick and fast and as the bodies pile up, Gabriel and Skellie do their best to make it out of their scheme alive.
A novel about injustices—historical, racial, gender, economic, and social—and an indictment of the practices in the financial industry in which Ellis has almost two decades of experience.

WGSA Muse Award winner Kurt Ellis is a screenwriter and novelist. Ellis is the author of the Johannesburg-set thrillers By Any Means (NB Publishing) and In the Midst of Wolves (Penguin Books). Winner of the Harry Oppen-heimer Creative Writing Award, Ellis has an MFA from the University of the Witwatersrand. Nominated for four 2021 WGSA Muse Awards, Ellis – a master at building tension through pacy plotting and nuanced characterization – won with his original pilot script Rainbow’s End.

HELL OF A COUNTRY de David Cornwell

In 1970s South Africa, desire and desperation have bloody consequences.

HELL OF A COUNTRY
by David Cornwell
(via The Lennon-Ritchie Agency)

Seventeen-year-old Lorraine van Niekerk despises the fact that her boss and lover, middle-aged André Bekker, won’t leave his hateful wife for her.
Driver Alfie Geemooi is horrified when he wakes up in Groote Schuur’s Non-White wing after a car crash with one leg missing.
Alfie and Lorraine’s lives intersect fatefully in André’s consultation rooms. André is an orthopaedic technician, and Lorraine can grant access to the prothesis Alfie so desperately needs.
But at a price.
HELL OF A COUNTRY is a fictionalised retelling of the Scissors Murder—a famous true-crime story from early 1970s South Africa. A pacy and poetic work told in the third person from multiple points of view, it focuses on the meeting-point between political machinery and personal desire, and uses the true-crime genre to tell a fresh and original story about South Africa’s turbulent past in a deeply human and engaging way.

David Cornwell’s debut novel, LIKE IT MATTERS, was published by Penguin Random House in South Africa to critical acclaim. The book was longlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and shortlisted for the 9mobile Award for Best African Fiction Debut. David’s short film, Die Onderspit, was developed as part of KykNET’s Silwerskermfees festival program. He also co-wrote a screenplay with Damon Galgut. David’s feature film Pou (Peacock) was shown at Idyllwild, the Buffalo International Festival, the Winter Film Awards, Razor Reel and at SA Horror Fest. Born in Grahamstown, he currently lives in Johannesburg.