Summer is the perfect time to grab something refreshing to drink, a book to read and a chair to sit in the sunshine.
Here are ten great new releases for August. Enjoy and happy reading.
On her 30th birthday, Yale-educated Zoe Greene was supposed to be married to her high-school sweetheart, pregnant with their first baby, and practising law in Chicago. Instead, she's planning an abortion and filing for divorce. Zoe wants to understand why her plans failed--and to move on, have sex, and date while there's still time. As she navigates dysfunctional penises, a paucity of grammatically sound online dating profiles, and her paralysing fear of ageing alone, she also grapples with the pressure women feel to put others first. Ultimately, Zoe's family, friends, incomparable therapist, and diary of never-to-be-sent letters to her first loves, the rock band U2, help her learn to let go--of society's constructs of female happiness, and of her own.
A gripping historical thriller set in Inverness in the wake of the 1746 battle of Culloden from twice CWA award-winning author S. G. MacLean. Perfect for fans of C. J. Sansom and Andrew Taylor.
After Culloden, Iain MacGillivray was left for dead on Drumossie Moor. Wounded, his face brutally slashed, he survived only by pretending to be dead as the Redcoats patrolled the corpses of his Jacobite comrades.
Six years later, with the clan chiefs routed and the Highlands subsumed into the British state, Iain lives a quiet life, working as a bookseller in Inverness. One day, after helping several of his regular customers, he notices a stranger lurking in the upper gallery of his shop, poring over his collection. But the man refuses to say what he's searching for and only leaves when Iain closes for the night.
The next morning Iain opens up shop and finds the stranger dead, his throat cut, and the murder weapon laid out in front of him - a sword with a white cockade on its hilt, the emblem of the Jacobites. With no sign of the killer, Iain wonders whether the stranger discovered what he was looking for - and whether he paid for it with his life. He soon finds himself embroiled in a web of deceit and a series of old scores to be settled in the ashes of war.
Fifteen-year-old Hailey Rogers is sure her summer is ruined when her parents tell her she has to spend a few days a week, every week, helping her grandmother, Gigi. Although Gigi only lives across town, Hailey never sees her and knows little about her. But Gigi is full of surprises—and family secrets. Throw in the gorgeous boy down the street, and Hailey’s ruined summer might just be the best of her life.
Then tragedy strikes, lies are uncovered, and Hailey’s life suddenly falls apart. After unearthing clues in an old letter written by her great-grandfather, she takes off on a road trip to solve the family mystery with the only person she can trust. In a forgotten Texas town, the past and the present collide—and Hailey is forced to choose what she truly values in life.
A young man walks into the woods on the worst morning of his life and finds something there that will change everything.
It's a tale that might seem familiar. But how it speaks to you will depend on how you've lived until now.
Sometimes, to get out of the woods, you have to go into them. Isaac and the Egg is one of the most hopeful, honest and wildly imaginative novels you will ever read.
J's wife has left, and J is trying to understand why. How could someone you loved so much, who claimed to love you once, just walk away? How could they send divorce papers accusing you of terrible things, when all you've ever done is tried to make them happy?
Narrated by J in the days, weeks and months after the marriage collapses, and interspersed with the departed wife's diary entries, Is This Love? is an addictive, deeply unsettling, and provocative novel of deception and betrayal, and passion turned to pain. As the story unfolds, and each character's version of events undermines the other, all our assumptions about victimhood, agency, love and control are challenged - for we never know J's gender. If we did, would it change our minds about who was telling the truth?
Elizabeth Carne was clearly a remarkable woman whose contribution to Cornish society, geology and the world of banking and commerce has been admirably woven into this well-researched historical novel. It is a story which truly needed to be told and provides an insight to both Elizabeth's life and to those of her contemporaries in Cornwall during the 19th century.
Life in Cockney London was tough in the post-war years. The government's broken promises had led to a chronic housing shortage, rampant crime and families living in squalor. But one thing prevailed: the unbeatable spirit of the East End, a tight-knit community who pulled through the dark times with humour and heart.
Drawing on both family history and her own memories of growing up in the 1950s and '60s, as well as her working life as a district nurse and local police officer, Jean Fullerton vividly depicts this fascinating part of London - from tin baths, to jellied eels, to tigers in a Wapping warehouse.
A woman’s future is determined by fate and choice in a gripping WWII novel about danger, triumph, and second chances by the New York Times bestselling author of The Venice Sketchbook and The Tuscan Child.
London, 1940. Bombs fall and Josie Banks’s world crumbles around her. Her overbearing husband, Stan, is unreachable, called to service. Her home, a ruin of rubble and ash. Josie’s beloved tearoom boss has been killed, and Josie herself is injured, with nothing left and nowhere to go.
Evacuated to the English countryside, Josie ends up at the estate of the aristocratic Miss Harcourt, a reluctant host to the survivors of the Blitz. Awed as she is by the magnificent landscape, Josie sees opportunity. Josie convinces Miss Harcourt to let her open a humble tea shop, seeing it as a chance for everyone to begin again. When Josie meets Mike Johnson, a handsome Canadian pilot stationed at a neighbouring bomber base, a growing intimacy brings her an inner peace she’s never felt before. Then Stan returns from the war.
Now a threat looms larger than anyone imagined. And a dangerous secret is about to upend Josie’s life again. Her newfound courage will be put to the test if she is to emerge, like a survivor, triumphant.
Releasing in paperback this month.
The Oppenheimer triplets have been reared with every advantage: wealth, education, and the determined attention of at least one of their parents. But they have been desperate to escape each other ever since they were born.
Now, on the verge of their departure for college and so close to their long-coveted freedom, the triplets are forced to contend with an unexpected complication: a fourth Oppenheimer sibling has just been born. What has possessed their parents to make such an unfathomable decision? The triplets can't begin to imagine the the power this little latecomer is about to exert - nor just how destructive she'll be to their plans . . .
March 1911: Betty Dean needs a job and somewhere to live, and eventually, a husband - according to her mother. Sent into service at Stowford House in Cheshire, where the days are long and the work is gruelling, Betty's dreams of making something of herself seem even further away.
But soon she is forced to return to The Potteries, carrying with her a dreadful secret which could leave her reputation in tatters.
Could WW1 bring new opportunities or will Betty run out of options?
A new job on the trams throws her a lifeline. Meeting fellow tram girls Connie and Jean brings the joy of friendship, even if Betty struggles with having to keep secrets from her new pals.
When Duncan Kennedy, a shy but charming soldier, enters Betty's life, it seems that she may finally find love. But opening herself up isn't easy, and when he leaves for the front, she finds herself alone once again.
As the Great War rumbles on, Betty's life in The Potteries is full of its own battles...
A heart-breaking WW1 saga that fans of Pam Howes and Nancy Revell will love.
(header photo courtesy of Thought Catalog/Unsplash)
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