Archives par étiquette : Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe (Bertelsmann)

BÖSE TIERE de Markus Bennemann

Adultery, blackmail, murder – the animal kingdom is bursting with transgressive energy…

BÖSE TIERE
[Nasty Beasts]
by Markus Bennemann
Goldmann/PRH Germany, November 2026

Markus Bennemann loves our fellow creatures. But he also knows they can be anything but loveable.

Following his bestselling « Böse Bäume » (‘Nasty trees’), the nature and science writer sheds light on the nastiest criminals in the animal kingdom, from five-limbed burglars and safe-crackers with jug ears to scaly sharpshooters, feathered serial killers and sexually motivated killer women lurking in the grass.

Blackmailers and adulterers, mass murderers and accomplices – animals are no strangers to true crime. And they’re more sneaky, inventive and bonkers than any crime writer could come up with.

Markus Bennemann couldn’t decide whether to major in literature or biology. In the end, he chose literature, and now writes books about… well, biology. His most recent book is the bestselling Böse Bäume (‘Bad trees’).

DIE BLUETENSAMMLERIN de Corina Bomann

A dual-timeline story of lost love, botanical discovery and a mysterious disappearance, following a London woman who becomes obsessed with the love letters of two botanists who traveled to Tibet in the early 20th century, by German bestselling author Corina Bomann.

DIE BLUETENSAMMLERIN
[The Botanis]
by Corina Bomann
Penguin Germany, May 2027

Photo credit: Nadja Klier

After Cleo was left at the altar by the love of her life, her days have been passing by without purpose. How on earth is she supposed to go on? Even her job at the historic London Lost and Found Office barely distracts her—until one day she opens an old suitcase and finds a Tibetan prayer flag along with some letters.

Out of curiosity, Cleo begins to read and is drawn into the story of Richard and Rosa—two botanists who traveled to Tibet at the beginning of the 20th century to research a rare species of rhododendron. Initially bitter rivals, their letters soon reveal a deep love. Until contact abruptly ceases.

Cleo can’t stop thinking about the love letters, and she wonders what dramatic end the relationship between Richard and Rosa met. She begins to research, delving into the history of the first female botanists, and has no idea that Richard and Rosa’s love will give her own life a new twist …

With sales totalling over two million copies, Corina Bomann‘s popular historical sagas are regular bestsellers, and her readers adore her strong women, passionate emotions and moving stories – such as her four-book Waldfriede saga set in a Berlin clinic, the two-part Rosenhag series set in Sweden, and now her new two-part Rosewell Castle series, which takes her readers into the fascinating world of butlerdom.

DIE UNVERSCHÄMTE FRAU de Miriam Stein

A both personal and socio-critical examination of toxic shame – over our sexuality, our bodies, our origins – and how to free ourselves from it.

DIE UNVERSCHÄMTE FRAU
[The Shameless Woman]
by Miriam Stein
Goldmann/PRH Germany, September 2026

Being able to feel shame is key to our survival as a social animal. It’s a clever little mechanism that ensures we follow social norms. But whereas men usually seem capable of dealing with it relatively well, women often overdo it. It’s a powerful emotion, and from childhood onwards it’s like a toxic friend in your ear, controlling your decisions, keeping you in line, and telling you that you aren’t empathetic / confident / slim / feminine / smooth / natural enough. No matter how emancipated a woman you are, thousands of years of patriarchy aren’t something you can shake off just like that.

Bestselling author and journalist Miriam Stein has known all about shame ever since she was a little girl. In fact, she was practically born with it: in 1977, someone left newborn Miriam on a South Korean street corner in a shoe box, wrapped in newspaper. Was her mother not allowed to keep her? Was she ashamed of her pregnancy? Meanwhile, Miriam has gone through puberty, experienced her own pregnancy, survived career setbacks and relationship crises, and even seen off perimenopause – the female ‘shame supernova’ par excellence. In « The Shameless Woman », she sets out to expose the many false narratives that darken so many women’s lives, and to forge a path towards liberation.

• For fans of Miranda July, Glennon Doyle and Gillian Anderson

Miriam Yung Min Stein was born in South Korea in 1977 and subsequently adopted by a German family. She has performed on stage with Christoph Schlingensief and Rimini Protokoll, and is an acclaimed culture journalist. Her bestselling Die gereizte Frau (‘The irritated woman’), about the menopause, turned what was largely a taboo topic into one openly discussed in public. In her most recent book, Weise Frauen (‘Wise women’), she went in search of female wisdom. She lives with her family in Berlin.

IST DOCH SCHÖN HIER de Miriam Burdelski

A powerful, deeply moving novel about memory, forgiveness and longing for a place to call home.

IST DOCH SCHÖN HIER
[It’s Lovely Here]
by Miriam Burdelski
Blessing Verlage/PRH Germany, July 2026

Family is what you make it.

When Liesel joins her grandma Emmi on a trip to what was once East Prussia, she’s hoping to find answers to questions that have kept generations in her family apart, and to uncover the secret that’s been hiding in yellowed old calendars and Emmi’s silence.

Between tree-lined avenues, old farm houses and the Baltic’s waves, a story of loss and hope, guilt and love unfolds. But the closer Liesel gets to discovering what happened all those years ago, the more she realises that home isn’t a place on a map: home are the people who stay when everything else is gone.

Miriam Burdelski studied history, German and art at Hamburg University and at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. While still a student, she started working as a photographer, and among other things worked on documentaries about development aid in Africa and Central America. In 2014, she retraced her grandmother’s journey as a refugee from former East Prussia to West Germany.

KASKADEN de Louise K. Böhm

An electrifying novel about a formative, all-consuming friendship that refuses to be categorised.

KASKADEN
by Louise K. Böhm
Penguin Verlag, July 2026

If Jojo could erase her past, she would. At uni, she is constantly scared that someone will find out that she doesn’t belong there, and even her parents don’t really understand what she’s doing in her lab all day. When her former best friend Yara gets back in touch, Jojo thinks back to her sheltered youth in a dreary suburbia she couldn’t wait to leave, and radiant Yara, her only anchor in this confusing world – Yara in those green trainers of hers, who had an answer for everything and protected Jojo from a world that didn’t value girls. Jojo still doesn’t understand why Yara ghosted her after high school.

But just as Jojo is about to lose herself in her memories, a flirtation with her tutor and money troubles force her to focus on the here and now. How much power will she let the past wield over her?

Smart and light as a feather, « Cascades » is a brilliant debut about friendship, love and everything in between – about marginalisation and belonging, about opening up and the strength that true friendship can give us.

For fans of Paradise Garden by Elena Fischer, Normal People by Sally Rooney, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng and My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante.

Louise K. Böhm, born in Berlin in 2000, studied media, creative writing, and cultural journalism and policy before starting a career in the music business. Her writing has appeared in various literary magazines and anthologies. On social media (@louschreibt_), she writes about books, gives insights into her life as an author and talks about classism in the culture sector. KASKADEN is her first novel.