PAPERBACK

North Woods by Daniel Mason | 29th August | £9.99

A single house deep in the woods of New England.  A young Puritan couple on the run. An English soldier with a fantastic vision.  A lovelorn painter and a lusty beetle. A desperate mother and her haunted son. Buried secrets. Madness, dreams and hope. All are connected. The dark, beautiful past is very much alive. North Woods will change the way you see the world.

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward | 1st August | £9.99

Everything Annis knows, she learned from her mother – how to fight, how to be strong, how to grow up in a world shrouded in darkness. When sold south, she must venture through the unforgiving American South alone, searching for relief in memories. This reimagining of American slavery is a magnificent portrait of the strength of the human spirit and its ability to emerge from darkness into light.

Kennedy 35 by Charles Cumming | 1st August | £9.99

Kite’s mission should be straightforward, but it soon turns into a terrifying game of cat and mouse along the beaches and backstreets of Senegal. Now, nearly thirty years later, it seems the game isn’t over. And unless Kite can turn the tables on his pursuers, the inner workings of the secret state could be exposed…

HARDBACK

Wife by Charlotte Mendelson | 8th August | £18.99

Zoe Stamper, junior researcher, meets fellow academic Dr Penny Cartwright. Penny leaves Zoe a cryptic note, and a passionate affair ensues. But there is something else Penny needs as badly in her life as Zoe’s adoration, and thus the beginning of their affair might also have signalled its end…Wife is heart-breaking and funny, profound and gripping, as it takes the reader from the end of a relationship to its beginning, and back again.

Phantom Limb by Chris Kohler | 1st August | £17.99

Gillis – a young Scottish minister who technically doesn’t believe in god – falls into a hole left by a recently dug up elm tree and discovers an ancient disembodied hand in the soil. He’s about to rebury it when the hand…beckons to him. Somewhere, in the hand’s deep history, there lies a story of the Scottish reformation, of art and violence, and of its owner long since dead. But for Gillis, there lies only opportunity.

Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers | 29th August | £20

Helen Hansford is an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital where she has been having a long love affair with Gil: a charismatic, married doctor. One afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance. A 37 year old man called William Tapping, has been discovered along with his elderly aunt. It is clear he has been shut up in the house for decades, but when it emerges that William is a talented artist, Helen is determined to discover his story.

The Examiner by Janice Hallett | 29th August | £18.99

The year-long art course at Royal Hastings University is blighted by students setting fire to one another’s artwork, a rumoured extra-marital affair and a disastrous road trip. But finally they are given their last assignment: to build an art installation for a local manufacturer. With six students who have nothing in common except their clashing personal agendas, what could possibly go wrong? The answer is: murder.

A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike| 1st August | £16.99

Tibb Ingleby’s mother taught her that if you’re not bound by the Big Man’s rules, there are many ways a woman can find shelter in this world. When the opportunity presents itself to escape the shackles society has placed on them, Tibb and her new friends conjure an audacious plan: her greatest trickerie yet. Portraying a side of Tudor England rarely seen, it’s a tale of belief and superstition, with a ragtag cast of characters and a distinctly unangelic heroine.

There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak | 8th August | £18.99

This is the story of one lost poem, two great rivers, and three remarkable lives – all connected by a single drop of water. A dazzling feat of storytelling There are Rivers in the Sky is a rich, sweeping novel that spans centuries, continents and cultures, entwined by rivers, rains, and waterdrops: ‘Water remembers. It is humans who forget.’

Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson | 22nd August | £22

Welcome to Rook Hall. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed…Ex-detective Jackson Brodie is called to Burton Makepeace for the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting.  Once a magnificent country house, Burton Makepeace now hosts Murder Mystery weekends.  As guests and old friends converge, we are treated a fiendishly clever mystery; one that pays homage to the masters of the genre—from Agatha Christie to Dorothy Sayers.

These are just some of the exciting new releases in fiction for this month. To keep up to date with more recommendations and new releases, keep an eye on our socials, or join our newsletter.