FALLS THE SHADOW de Mike Nicol

An edgy new detective series from master of noir Mike Nicol.

FALLS THE SHADOW
by Mike Nicol
Pan Macmillan (South Africa), late 2025
(via The Lennon-Ritchie Agency)

A cop in a quiet rural town kills his family and then turns the gun on himself. In his shed is a cache of weapons: Russian automatics, handguns, 9mils, .38s. You don’t need forensics to work out what’s going on. This is a cop with a side racket. Which gets the attention of Captain Zara Dewane of the Internal Crime Unit. A single mom, known among cops as the Jackal, what she uncovers about the family murder puts her in the firing line. There are cops running guns stolen from the police armoury. There are cops selling guns to gangsters. Thing is, the money chain goes deep into the police hierarchy. Even fingers the political bosses. Close her down, comes the order from on high. Kill her, in other words. Making Zara and her family targets. With only one way out.

Mike Nicol is the author of twenty-four books. He has written novels, works of non-fiction and poetry. His thrillers are published in the UK and the USA, and have been translated into Afrikaans, Dutch, French and German. His long list of accolades starts in 1979, with his debut poetry collection receiving the Ingrid Jonker Prize. His Revenge Trilogy featured in the KrimiZeit Top 10 list in Germany, as did Of Coprs and Robberts and Power Play, while Payback was shortlisted for the VN Thriller of the Year award in Holland and the Prix SCNF Du Polar 2016 in France. He lives in Cape Town.

LION OF JUDAH (Graphic Novel) de M. Menelik Makhar

An immersive graphic novel detailing Bob Marley’s moving personal history and foundation as a musical, cultural, spiritual, and political legend.

LION OF JUDAH: A Graphic Novel
by M. Menelik Makhar
Ten Speed Press, September 2025

LION OF JUDAH is the graphic novel story of Bob Marley’s early life and origins as an artist and musical prophet. The book juxtaposes Marley’s personal history with stories of H.I.M. Haile Selassie I, the former emperor of Ethiopia and Marley’s self-proclaimed « Spiritual Father, » and Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of an independent Ghana, the country of Marley’s family ancestry. LION OF JUDAH—named for the prominent symbol of the Rastafari movement—weaves together the seminal moments of these three timelines through an anthology-style artistic collaboration of an international all-star team of comic artists including Damien Hill, Massimiliano Veltri, Will Rosado, N. Steven Harris, Christopher « ChrisCross » Williams, and Eric Battle among others.
This full-color, immersive visual reading experience is the untold story of Bob Marley, a comprehensive history of Reggae music, and an insightful examination of music, spirituality, and politics. LION OF JUDAH depicts the enduring lessons of struggles, triumph, and tragedy that connect us all.

M. Menelik Makhar is an acclaimed activist, songwriter/ghostwriter, and musician.

THE ENGLISH PROBLEM de Beena Kamlani

A lyrical and ambitious debut that is set against the backdrop of the Indian independence movement that looks at the insidiousness of colonialism and one young man’s sexual awakening.

THE ENGLISH PROBLEM
by Beena Kamlani
Crown, February 2025

In 1931, a young man from India arrives in London. Ten years later he will be on a ship bound for India, in a coma, accompanied by a nurse. But that is a decade away. For now, he is not dressed for the British rain, and shivering, rings the doorbell of the people who have agreed to host him during his stay in this strange land. He finds that his hosts are having a party and warmly welcome him in. He is the only Brown person in the room. It is the first time for what will become an everyday experience.

Shiv Advani is eighteen years old. He has been personally chosen by Mahatma Gandhi to come to England, learn their rules of law, and then return home and help drive the British out of India using their own laws against them. Before he leaves his family insists he fulfill his arranged marriage and is hastily betrothed.

Shiv thinks he knows his duty: come to London, become a barrister, figure out how to overcome these oppressors, return home, and help his people. But as anyone who has ever lived in a British colony can tell you, The English Problem is multifaceted. The racist colonialism of the sun never sets and seeps into everything—not just landed territories, but territories of the mind: literature, religion, sex, self-identity.  As Shiv sets out to beat the English at their own game, he will also learn how colonialism is insidious, and how the people he sought to be liberated from are now the people he desperately wants to be a part of.

Beena Kamlani was a senior editor for the Penguin Group. She taught book editing at New York University for nearly two decades. Kamlani is also a Pushcart Prize-winning fiction writer whose work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Identity Lessons: Learning to be American, Growing Up Ethnic in America, The Lifted Brow, World Literature Today, and other publications. She has been awarded residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, Ledig House, Hawthornden Castle, Jentel Arts, and Hedgebrook. The English Problem is her first novel, and it is based on the life of her uncle. She lives in New York.

LEGENDS & LATTES: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL de Travis Baldree

After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time.

LEGENDS & LATTES: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
by Travis Baldree
Ten Speed Graphic, September 2025

The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first-ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success―not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is.

If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won’t be able to go it alone. After all, true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family, and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.

This full color graphic novel adaptation brings the high fantasy and low stakes of this beloved story to vibrant life as its never been seen before.

Travis Baldree is a full-time audiobook narrator who has lent his voice to hundreds of stories. Before that, he spent decades designing and building video games like Torchlight, Rebel Galaxy, and Fate. Apparently, he now also writes books. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his very patient family and their small, nervous dog.

THE SPIRIT COLLECTION OF THORNE HALL de J. Ann Thomas

Jamie Thoma’s writing is whimsical, lyrical, and charming as Elegy’s romance blooms in the darkest and most ominous of places. THE SPIRIT COLLECTION OF THORNE HALL is ideal for fans of Jennifer McMahon,Wendy Webb, and Alix E. Harrow.

THE SPIRIT COLLECTION OF THORNE HALL
by J. Ann Thomas
Alcove Press, February 2025

For more than a hundred years, the Thorne family has lived in splendor and isolation in their New England manor, devoting their lives to pacifying the fourteen spirits cursed to dwell there. Now, with her father on his deathbed, 25-year-old Elegy Thorne is about to inherit the Spirit Collection despite her terrifying inability to control them.

Timid but headstrong, Elegy lives, speaks, and dresses one hundred years out of step with the world around her. She must keep the house and everything inside as near as possible to America’s Gilded Age when the spirits were summoned, lest they erupt in violence. She is resigned to live this way forever until for the first time in her life she falls in love with a young man who is helping restore a damaged part of the mansion.

Jamie Thomas’ debut YA novel Asperfell (Uproar Books, 2020) earned the gold medal for Fantasy at the INDIES Awards and was named among Booklist’s top ten debut speculative fiction novels of the year, among other accolades. She’s a high school English teacher in Washington state and a classically trained opera singer.