We are already halfway through June and I am looking forward to some of the exciting new books which are being published in July.
Is there anything here that catches your eye?
Power. Politics. Prosperity. Plague. Tudor England; a country replete with sprawling landscapes, dense forests and twisting urban labyrinths. This is a place of stagnation and of progress; of glorious cultural revolution, where the wheel of fortune is forever turning. From the plush royal palaces to the draughtiest of wattle-and-daub cottages, sixteenth-century England revolved around the people who formed the beating heart of Tudor society. These people celebrated scientific progress and lamented religious persecution; championed the rights of women and the underrepresented; fell in love with sweethearts, cared for pets and mourned the deaths of their loved ones. In her first book, Bethan Catherine Watts sheds light on the Tudor home and the everyday lives of those who lived there.
In Paris 1870, three wandering souls find themselves in a city set to descend into war.
Anne is a former patient from a women's asylum trying to carve out a new life for herself in a world that doesn't understand her. Newcomer Lawrence is desperate to develop his talent as a photographer and escape the restrictions of his puritanical upbringing. Ellis, an army surgeon, has lived through the trauma of one civil war and will do anything to avoid another bloodbath.
Each keeps company with the restless beasts of Paris' Menagerie, where they meet, fight their demons, lose their hearts, and rebel in a city under siege.
A dazzling historical epic of love and survival, Stef Penney carries the reader captivated through war-torn Paris.
Grand Life Apartments is a middle-class apartment block surrounded by lush gardens in the coastal city of Chennai, India. It is the home of Kamala, a pious, soon-to-be retired dentist who spends her days counting down to the annual visits from her daughter who is studying in the UK. Her neighbour, Revathi, is a thirty-two-year-old engineer who is frequently reminded by her mother that she has reached her expiry date in the arranged marriage market. Jason, a British chef, has impulsively moved to India to escape his recent heartbreak in London.
The residents have their own complicated lives to navigate, but what they all have in common is their love of where they live, so when a developer threatens to demolish the apartments and build over the gardens, the community of Grand Life Apartments is brought even closer together to fight for their beautiful home...
A warm-hearted debut novel set in the beautiful coastal city of Chennai, for fans of Alexander McCall Smith, Joanna Nell and Graeme Simsion.
UPSTAIRS, MADAM IS PLANNING THE PARTY OF THE SEASON.
DOWNSTAIRS, THE SERVANTS ARE PLOTTING THE HEIST OF THE CENTURY.
When Mrs King, housekeeper to the most illustrious home in Mayfair, is suddenly dismissed after years of loyal service, she knows just who to recruit to help her take revenge.
A black-market queen out to settle her scores. An actress desperate for a magnificent part. A seamstress dreaming of a better life. And Mrs King's predecessor, who has been keeping the dark secrets of Park Lane far too long.
Mrs King has an audacious plan in mind, one that will reunite her women in the depths of the house on the night of a magnificent ball - and play out right under the noses of her former employers...
THEY COME FROM NOTHING. BUT THEY'LL LEAVE WITH EVERYTHING.
Hidden in Jimbocho, Tokyo is a booklover's paradise. On a quiet corner in an old wooden building lies a shop filled with hundreds of second-hand books.
Twenty-five-year-old Takako has never liked reading, although the Morisaki bookshop has been in her family for three generations. It is the pride and joy of her uncle Satoru, who has devoted his life to the bookshop since his wife Momoko left him five years earlier.
When Takako's boyfriend reveals he's marrying someone else, she reluctantly accepts her eccentric uncle's offer to live rent-free in the tiny room above the shop. Hoping to nurse her broken heart in peace, Takako is surprised to encounter new worlds within the stacks of books lining the Morisaki bookshop.
As summer fades to autumn, Satoru and Takako discover they have more in common than they first thought. The Morisaki bookshop has something to teach them both about life, love, and the healing power of books.
Bram Stoker: Author of Dracula is an affectionate and revealing biography of the man who created the vampire novel that would define the genre and lead to a new age in Gothic horror literature.
Based on decades of painstaking research in libraries, museums, and university archives and privileged access to private collections on both sides of the Atlantic, the private letters of Bram and the reminiscences of those who knew him not only shed new light on Stoker's ancestry, his life, loves and friendships they also reveal more about the places and people who inspired him and how he researched and wrote his books. Bram wrote numerous articles, short stories and poetry for newspapers and magazines, he had a total of eleven novels and two collections of short stories published in his lifetime, but he would only become known for one of them - Dracula. Tragically, he did not live long enough to see it as a huge success.
In his heyday as Acting Manager for Sir Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre in the West End of London, Bram was a well-known figure in a golden age of British theatre. He was a big-framed, ebullient, genial, gentleman, with red hair and beard, who never lost his soft Irish brogue, was blessed with wit, and a host of entertaining stories fit for every occasion. Described as having the paw of Hercules and the smile of Machiavelli, above all he knew what it meant to be a loyal friend.
The Forgotten Singer: The Exiled Sister of I. J. and Isaac Bashevis Singer is made up of 46 evocative snapshots that portray what life was like for Esther Singer Kreitman, an important writer living in the shadow of her famous brothers. It's also a meditation on the mother-son relationship, a failed marriage, and life as a Jew in the interwar period. Carr's writing is urgent, irreverent, timely, and unaffected, proving it's never too late to celebrate an unsung hero of the written word.
Three devoted sisters... One complicated family.
After the untimely death of their biological father, triplets Eva, Rosa and Hannah find themselves the unlikely owners of Heatherly Hall, the vast manor house overlooking their home village of Westenbury. But the beautiful house comes with almost as much baggage as it does land, not least high running costs and expectations. It's up to the sisters to find a way to keep Heatherly Hall going and, most importantly, in the family.
But with drama in their private lives and secrets about to emerge, can the sisters stick together to focus on the task at hand?
Fans of Katie Fforde, Phillipa Ashley and The Vicar of Dibley will love this heartwarming and witty new novel from Julie Houston.
SOMEONE KILLED YOUR DAUGHTER. SOMEONE YOU KNOW...
Your daughter isn't answering your calls.
She's not replying to your messages.
You rush to her house.
She's slumped in the basement, dying and alone.
You desperately call for help.
She whispers a single word: 'pushed'.
Someone is keeping secrets.
And it must be someone you know...
Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice.
It seems like just another morning.
Around the world, people wake up, check the news, open the front door.
On every doorstop is a box. Inside that box is the exact number of years that person has left to live.
Whether they open it or hide it under their bed, each person must learn to live in this new world: a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush their life together, a doctor who cannot save himself from his own fate, best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything…
Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is a sweeping, ambitious and invigorating story about family, friendship, hope and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest.
*Disclosure: I only recommend books I would buy myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post contains an affiliate link from which I may earn a small commission.
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