 | | Auswahl neuer Lizenzrechte, November 2024 | |
 | | Title No: 87383 THE REMARKABLE TRUTHS OF ALFIE BAINS Clutton, Sarah General fiction 408 pp Allen & Unwin (May 2025) When Penny Bains opens the door of her Tasmanian farmhouse to Alfie, a boy with an Irish accent claiming to be her grandson, her life is turned upside down. Penny is about to discover that buried secrets are no match for the will of a precocious 10-year-old, newly skilled in the art of deception. Alfie is on the hunt for his real dad, and when he realises everyone is lying to him, he secretly launches ‘Operation Tadpole’: a quest to discover the truth. After Alfie’s mum’s appendix bursts they return to Australia and Alfie is surprised, and delighted, to meet grandparents and great aunts he never knew he had. He also hears his mum was once married to the mysterious Julian. (So does this mean Mum’s sperm-bank paternity story is yet another one of her lies?) Wasting no time, Alfie launches Operation Tadpole, his private quest to find his real dad. In secret he befriends Julian’s mother, Cynthia, and his brother Noah – and both are shocked at how he looks exactly like Julian. But are things that straightforward? As Alfie starts to uncover secrets that residents of Beggars Rock would prefer to keep hidden, the one certain thing he discovers is that no one is willing to tell him the truth. Sarah Clutton is an Australian author and former lawyer who writes contemporary fiction full of drama, suspense and humour. Having majored in psychology in her original degree, she is fascinated by people. How does the past shape us? Can we learn empathy? What determines the outcomes when moral and legal boundaries collide? Sarah's work saw her named as the national recipient of the Dymocks/McIntosh Commercial Fiction Scholarship in 2018. Her next book will be on the shelves in 2025. She lives with her family in the beautiful Southern Highlands of New South Wales in the tiny, historic village of Berrima. | |
 | | Title No: 87373 SONG OF THE MANGO AND OTHER NEW MYTHS Cruz-Borja, Vida Fantasy Tales / Legends / Mythology Short Stories 345 pp Ateneo Press (November 2022) A diwata brings a grieving slave's brother back to life as a mango tree. Two writers write their ideal lovers into existence with ink from a mangkukulam. A kapre and a farmgirl play out a tale as old as time in Spanish colonial Philippines. A girl with a magical heritage must rescue a bumbling cartographer from the hidden city of Biringan. Maria Makiling opens a pop-up cafe with human heartbreak on the menu. In Song of the Mango and Other New Myths, Vida Cruz-Borja brings stories woven from elements of classical myths and folklore from the Philippines and other parts of the world, as well as from visions of the modern and of the future. In words richly reimagined and reinvented, these "new myths" explore hidden depths from flawed characters who strive to search for a just and equal world, whether that may be in the realm of ordinary humans or the terrain of magical creatures. Vida Cruz-Borja is a Filipina fantasy and science fiction writer and editor. Her short fiction and essays have been published in F&SF, Fantasy, Strange Horizons, PodCastle, Expanded Horizons, and various anthologies. She won the 2022 IGNYTE Award for Best Creative Nonfiction. Her work in her different fields has been nominated, longlisted, and recommended for the Hugo Award, the British Science Fiction Award, and the James Tiptree Jr. Award. | |
 | | Title No: 87361 EAT THE ONES YOU LOVE Griffin, Sarah Maria Fantasy 288 pp Tor Books (April 2025) A twisted, tangled story about workplace love-affairs, and plants with a taste for human flesh… During a grocery run to her local shopping center, Shell Pine sees a 'HELP NEEDED' sign in a flower shop window. She's just left her fiancé, lost her job, and moved home to her parents' house. She has to make a change and bring some good into her life, so she goes inside and takes a chance. Shell realizes right away that flowers are just the good thing she's been looking for, as is Neve, the beautiful florist who wrote the sign asking for help. The thing is, Neve needs help more than Shell could possibly imagine. An orchid growing out of sight in the heart of the mall is watching them closely. His name is Baby, and the beautiful florist belongs to him. He's young, he's hungry, and he'll do just about anything to make sure he can keep growing big and strong. Nothing he eats – nobody he eats – can satisfy him, except the thing he most desires. Neve. He adores her and wants to consume her, and will stop at nothing to eat the one he loves. This is a story about possession, and monstrosity, and working retail. It is about hunger and desire, and other terrible things that grow. Sarah Maria Griffin lives in Dublin, Ireland, in a small red brick house by the sea, with her husband and cat. She writes about monsters, growing up, and everything those two things have in common. Her first book, SPARE AND FOUND PARTS, is out now. US: Tor; UK: Titan; | |
 | | Title No: 87372 LESSER RUINS A Novel Haber, Mark Literary fiction 296 pp Coffee House Press (October 2024) From the author of Reinhardt's Garden and Saint Sebastian's Abyss comes a breathless new novel of delirious obsession. Bereft after the death of his ailing wife, a retired professor has resumed his life's work—a book that will stand as a towering cathedral to Michel de Montaigne, reframing the inventor of the essay for the modern age. The challenge is the litany of intrusions that bar his way—from memories of his past to the nattering of smartphones to his son's relentless desire to make an electronic dance album. As he sifts through the contents of his desk, his thoughts pulsing and receding in a haze of caffeine, ghosts and grievances spill out across the page. From the community college where he toiled in vain to an artists' colony in the Berkshires, from the endless pleasures of coffee to the finer points of Holocaust art, the professor's memories churn with sculptors, poets, painters, and inventors, all obsessed with escaping both mediocrity and themselves. Laced with humor as acrid as it is absurd, Lesser Ruins is a spiraling meditation on ambition, grief, and humanity's ecstatic, agonizing search for meaning through art. Mark Haber's debut novel, Reinhardt’s Garden, was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award. His second novel, Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, was named a best book of 2022 by the New York Public Library, Literary Hub, and Publishers Weekly. Mark's fiction has appeared in Guernica, Southwest Review, and Air/Light, among others. | |
 | | Title No: 87414 MOLLY A Prequel to the Dressmaker Ham, Rosalie Historical fiction 415 pp Picador (October 2024) It's 1914 and Molly Dunnage wants to see change: at home, at work and in underwear. Her burgeoning corsetry business is starting to take off, thanks to some high-profile supporters. She's marching with Melbourne's suffragists for better conditions for women everywhere. And her family - her eccentric, confounding, adored father and aunt - are turning their minds to country retirement. But as the clouds of war gather and an ominous figure starts skulking in the shadows of her life, Molly's dreams begin to falter. Then, when true love drops out of the sky and into her arms, her hopes for her life and the world are entirely upended. With the dark humour, richly detailed settings and vividly drawn characters we've come to expect from Rosalie Ham, this prequel to the international bestseller The Dressmaker is an unforgettable story of hopes lost, love found - and corsets loosened. Rosalie Ham is the author of The Dressmaker, Summer at Mount Hope, There Should be More Dancing, The Year of the Farmer and The Dressmaker's Secret. Rosalie was born and raised in Jerilderie, NSW and now lives in Melbourne. She holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing and teaches literature. | |
 | | Title No: 87413 THE ROAD TO TENDER HEARTS Hartnett, Annie Romance: Contemporary ms 336 pp Ballantine Books (April 2025) A darkly comic and warm-hearted novel about an old man on a cross-country mission to reunite with his high school crush—bringing together his adult daughter, two orphaned kids, and a cat who can predict death—by the beloved author of Rabbit Cake and Unlikely Animals At sixty-three years old, million-dollar lottery winner PJ Halliday would be the luckiest man in Pondville, Massachusetts, if it weren’t for the tragedies of his life: the sudden death of his eldest daughter and the way his marriage fell apart after that. Since then, PJ spends both his money and his time at the bar, and he probably doesn’t have much time left—he’s had three heart attacks already. But when PJ reads the obituary of his old romantic rival, he realizes his high school sweetheart, Michelle Cobb, is finally single again. Filled with a new enthusiasm for life, PJ decides he’s going to drive across the country to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Arizona to win Michelle back. Before PJ can hit the road, tragedy strikes Pondville, leaving PJ the sudden guardian of his estranged brother’s grandchildren. Anyone else would be deterred from the planned trip, but PJ figures the orphaned kids might benefit from getting out of town. PJ also thinks he can ask Sophie, his adult daughter who's adrift in her twenties, to come along to babysit. And there’s one more surprise addition to the roster: Pancakes, a former nursing home therapy cat with a knack of predicting death, who recently turned up outside PJ’s home. This could be the second chance PJ has long hoped for—a fresh shot at love and parenting—but does he have the strength to do both those things again? It’s very possible his heart can’t take it. Annie Hartnett is the author of Unlikely Animals, which won the Julia Ward Howe prize for fiction and was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and Rabbit Cake, a finalist for the New England Book Award and a Kirkus Reviews best book of the year. Hartnett has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the MacDowell Colony, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Associates of the Boston Public Library. http://www.anniehartnett.com | |
 | | Title No: 87421 TIME TOGETHER Horton, Luke Literary fiction 288 pp Scribe Publications (March 2025) Once they were just them. Now they’re forty-something and there’s kids. Whose time is this? Phil is trying to feel closer to his recently passed mother by spending time alone at his parent’s house on the coast. But he is lonely, and stupidly he’s invited a bunch of old friends to visit. It’s bound to be a mistake. All those children! But it’s too late now, and tomorrow Bella and Tim will arrive with their two kids, one on the brink of puberty, and the next day Jo and Lucas will come too, with their little one. Then there’s Annie, who will be by herself. The story of a beach holiday told by four different people, Time Together is a novel about different kinds of love, different kinds of loneliness, and the way spending time together can bring out the best and worst in each other. Luke Horton’s writing has appeared in various publications, including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, and The Australian, and was shortlisted for the Viva La Novella prize. The former editor of The Lifted Brow Review of Books, he currently teaches creative writing at RMIT, and is a member of acclaimed indie-rock band Love of Diagrams. His debut novel, The Fogging, was highly commended for the Victorian Premier’s Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2019. | |
 | | Title No: 87428 DIRECT DESCENDANT Huff, Tanya Romance: Paranormal 336 pp Daw Books (April 2025) This cozy horror novel set in modern-day Toronto includes phenomenal characters, fantastic writing, and a queer romance—the perfect balance of dark and delightful. This stand-alone novel from the bestselling author of the Peacekeeper novels mixes the creepy with the charming for plenty of snarky, queer fun—for fans of T. Kingfisher, Grady Hendrix, Sangu Mandannaand Erin Sterling. Generations ago, the founders of the idyllic town of Lake Argen made a deal with a dark force. In exchange for their service, the town will stay prosperous and successful, and keep outsiders out. And for generations, it’s worked out great. Until a visitor goes missing, and his wealthy family sends a private investigator to find him, and everything abruptly goes sideways. Now, Cassidy Prewitt, town baker and part-time servant of the dark force (it’s a family business) has to contend with a rising army of darkness, a very frustrated town, and a very cute PI who she might just be falling for…and who might just be falling for her. And if they can survive their own home-grown apocalypse, they might even just find happiness together. Queer, cozy, and with a touch of eldritch horror mixed in just for fun, this is a charming love story about a small-town baker, a quick-witted PI, and, yes, an ancient evil. Tanya Huff shares an idyllic rural existence with her partner Fiona Patton, six cats, and a chihuahua. She acquired a degree in Radio and Television Arts from Ryerson Polytechnic--an education she was happy to finally use while writing her Smoke novels. Of her previous twenty-three books, those featuring Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII, romance writer, and vampire are among the most popular. | |
 | | Title No: 87360 WHAT ABOUT THE BODIES Jaworowski, Ken Thriller 70'000 words ms Grove Atlantic (Fall 2025) How far would you go to save the ones you love—and yourself? In What About the Bodies, three thrilling stories intertwine in a small, rust-belt town: A mother must help her son hide the body of a girl who died while with him, lest he end up in prison for life. An autistic young man sets out on a journey to keep a death-bed promise. And an aspiring musician needs to quickly come up with the cash she owes a brutal ex-convict, or else. Jaworowski keeps the pages turning with twists and turns to satisfy even the most hard-to-satisfy readers of suspense. Dark, gritty, and hugely fun. Ken Jaworowski has been a Senior Staff Editor at The New York Times for 17 years, primarily covering the culture desk. He has also had a dozen short stories published in literary magazines, several of which were nominated for Pushcart Prizes. His plays have been produced in New York, London, France, Edinburgh, and elsewhere. Russia: Celeste; | |
 | | Title No: 87430 PANIC Jinks, Catherine Thriller 338 pp Text Publishing (January 2025) An unputdownable thriller involving online stalking, right wing conspiracy theorists and a remote homestead in rural NSW. She posted a drunken rant that went horrifically viral. Now – jobless, friendless and broke – she’s forced to volunteer as a carer on an isolated rural property. She won’t be paid for looking after dementia sufferer Nell, but at least she’ll have a place to stay. Bronte’s host is Nell’s daughter Veda, who runs spiritual rebirthing retreats. She also claims the rights of a sovereign citizen and rejects the authority of the state, refusing even to register her car. She has acquired a small but devoted following. Are they harmless cranks, with their conspiracy theories and outrage at government overreach? Or dangerously paranoid domestic terrorists? And what is the dark secret that Nell, in her confusion, keeps harking back to? Bronte, increasingly uneasy, would be getting far away from the whole place – if she had anywhere else to go. Catherine Jinks’ books for adults, young adults and children have been published in a dozen countries and have won numerous awards, including a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and the CBCA Book of the Year Award (four times). http://www.catherinejinks.com | |
 | | Title No: 87422 KATARAINA Manawatu, Becky Literary fiction 288 pp Scribe Publications (April 2025) The much-awaited follow-up to the award-winning international bestseller Au?. In Au?, eight-year-old ?rama was taken by his brother, Taukiri, to live with Kat and Stu at the farm in Kaik?ura, setting in train the tragedy that unfolded. ?rama’s aunty Kat was at the centre of events, but, silenced by abuse, her voice was absent from the story. In Kataraina, Kat and her wh?nau take over the telling. As one, they return to her childhood and the time when she first began to feel the greenness of the swamp in her veins — the swamp that holds her tears and the tears of her t?puna; the swamp on the land owned by Stu that has been growing since the girl shot the man. Unflinching in its portrayal of the darkness, tender in its harnessing of the hope that future generations represent, Kataraina is a stunning novel that confirms Becky Manawatu as one of the most talented and powerful writers working in Aotearoa/New Zealand today. Becky Manawatu (Ng?i Tahu, Ng?ti M?moe, Waitaha) is a West Coast author and journalist. She was born in Nelson and grew up in Waimangaroa, living now in Westport with her family. Her debut novel, Au?, won Aotearoa’s leading fiction prizes and became one of the country’s all-time fiction bestsellers. Turkish: New Human; | |
 | | Title No: 87415 DIVING, FALLING Mirmohamadi, Kylie General fiction 256 pp Scribe Publications (September 2024) It’s never too late to rewrite your own story. For years, Leila Whittaker has been the mediator in her family. She smoothes ruffled feathers between her sons; endures the volatile moods of their father, the acclaimed Australian artist Ken Black; and even swallows the bitter pill of Ken’s endless affairs. All this, for the quiet hum of creative freedom her marriage provides. Or so she tells herself. When Ken dies, leaving his artist’s estate to their two sons, and the pointed amount of sixty-nine thousand dollars to his muse, Anita, Leila decides she’s had enough. It’s time to seek some peace (and pleasure) of her own … Diving, Falling is an elegant, exhilarating journey through grief, betrayal, and the intoxicating rediscovery of joy. Ripe with wickedly wry observations, unashamedly bold and sexy, it examines the calculations and sacrifices women make to keep the peace, escape their pasts, and find the agency to pursue their own passions. Kylie Mirmohamadi is a writer and academic whose work and research spans domestic Australian landscapes, online fan fiction, and 19th-century English literature. She has a PhD in History and is currently an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in English and Creative Writing at La Trobe University. Kylie lives with her family in Melbourne where she often finds ideas for writing when walking among the tree-lined creeks of her inner suburb with her poodle. Kylie has published widely in the academic sector, most recently on the long afterlives of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. She was the recipient of a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship in 2022 and her unpublished manuscripts have been highly commended in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and shortlisted for the Dorothy Hewett Award (2020).Diving, Falling is her first novel. | |
 | | Title No: 87399 WHERE THE AXE IS BURIED Nayler, Ray Science Fiction 336 pp MCD (FSG) (April 2025) All systems fail. All societies crumble. All worlds end. In the authoritarian Federation, there is a plot to assassinate and replace the President, a man who has downloaded his mind to a succession of new bodies to maintain his grip on power. Meanwhile, on the fringes of a Western Europe that has renounced human governance in favor of ostensibly more efficient, objective, and peaceful AI Prime Ministers, an experimental artificial mind is malfunctioning, threatening to set off a chain of events that may spell the end of the Western world. As the Federation and the West both start to crumble, Lilia, the brilliant scientist whose invention may be central to bringing down the seemingly immortal President, goes on the run, trying to break out from a near-impenetrable web of Federation surveillance. Her fate is bound up with a worldwide group of others fighting against the global status quo: Palmer, the man Lilia left behind in London, desperate to solve the mystery of her disappearance; Zoya, a veteran activist imprisoned in the taiga, whose book has inspired a revolutionary movement; Nikolai, the President’s personal physician, who has been forced into more and more harrowing decisions as he navigates the Federation’s palace politics; and Nurlan, the hapless parliamentary staffer whose attempt to save his Republic goes terribly awry. And then there is Krotov, head of the Federation’s security services, whose plots, agents, and assassins are everywhere. Following the success of his debut novel, The Mountain in the Sea, Ray Nayler launches readers into a thrilling near-future world of geopolitical espionage. A cybernetic novel of political intrigue, Where the Axe is Buried combines the story of a near-impossible revolutionary operation with a blistering indictment of the many forms of authoritarianism that suffocate human freedom. Ray Nayler is the author of the novel The Mountain in the Sea, which won the Locus Award for “Best First Novel,” and the novella The Tusks of Extinction. Called “one of the up-and-coming masters of SF short fiction” by Locus, Nayler’s stories have been published widely and won several prestigious awards. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He holds an MA in global diplomacy from the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS University of London. UK: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; | |
 | | Title No: 87391 FIRE IN THE HEAD Oakman, Daniel Thriller 280 pp Melbourne Books (March 2025) Part crime drama, part coming-of-age tale, part modern psychological odyssey, Oakman’s novel is a gripping, unsettling and powerful story about self-discovery, the importance of friendship and the transcendent power of words. Fire in the Head addresses a deep taboo in modern society: the legacy of child sexual abuse and what victims must endure to bring perpetrators to justice. In March 1999, twenty-seven-year-old James Harper, a shy public servant living in Canberra, is called to a police station to provide evidence on the suicide of his youngest sister nine years earlier. As the investigation gets underway, James confesses that he had been abused by his stepfather, Martin Jenkins, when he was a child. Could the two events be connected? But as he dives head-first into the legal system in a quest for justice, James must face some disturbing truths about himself and the past he thought he had left behind. Daniel Oakman is a writer and historian, and previously the senior curator of the National Museum of Australia. His past publications include Facing Asia (2005), Oppy (2018), an acclaimed biography of the sporting icon and politician Hubert Opperman, and Wild Ride (2020), an immersive exploration of how the bicycle has long shaped understandings of the Australian continent and its people. His writing has also appeared in Mountain Biking Australia, VeloNews, Australian Historical Studies, The Big Issue and Meanjin. | |
 | | Title No: 87410 HARD TO KILL Jane Smith #2 Patterson, James Thriller 384 pp Little, Brown (US) (July 2024) Jane Smith is being hailed as James Patterson’s greatest character yet, a tough-as-nails attorney up against a relentless killer. Hard to Kill features possibly the author’s most stunning twist ever. Attorney Jane Smith is mounting an impossible criminal defense. Her client, Rob Jacobson, is the unluckiest of the unlucky. No sooner is he accused of killing a family of three in the Hamptons than a second family is gunned down. It’s not double jeopardy. It’s not double murder. It’s double triple homicide. Jane’s career has spanned from NYPD beat cop to Hamptons courtroom. She’s tough to beat. She’s even tougher to kill. The defense may never rest. James Patterson is the most popular storyteller of our time. He is the creator of unforgettable characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Jane Smith, and Maximum Ride, and of breathtaking true stories about the Kennedys, John Lennon, and Tiger Woods, as well as our military heroes, police officers, and ER nurses. Patterson has coauthored #1 bestselling novels with Bill Clinton and Dolly Parton, and collaborated most recently with Michael Crichton on the blockbuster Eruption. He has told the story of his own life in James Patterson by James Patterson and received an Edgar Award, ten Emmy Awards, the Literarian Award from the National Book Foundation, and the National Humanities Medal. | |
 | | Title No: 87297 LA ISLA DE LA MUJER DORMIDA Pérez-Reverte, Arturo General fiction 416pp Alfaguara (Octubre 2024) The Island of the Sleeping Woman In April 1937, while the Civil War is raging in Spain, the merchant seaman Miguel Jordán Kyriazis is commissioned by the fascist rebel side to clandestinely attack the naval traffic from the Soviet Union carrying military aid for the Spanish Republic. At the base of operations, a small island in the Aegean Sea, the life of the Spanish corsair will intersect, in a murky triangle, with that of the owners, Baron Katelios and his wife, a seductive mature woman who searches, with cold desperation, for a way to escape her fate. I always wanted to write a modern-day corsair novel, and La isla de la mujer dormida (The Island of the Sleeping Woman) finally gave me the opportunity to do so. Besides, the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea of the 1930s are the perfect setting for it. --Arturo Pérez-Reverte | |
 | | Title No: 87380 SYCAMORE Rogers, Ian Horror Crime / Mystery 320 pp Cemetery Dance Publications (October 2024) Back in 1945, the first portal opened--a tear in reality leading from our world into the mysterious Black Lands, a realm of perpetual night filled with strange and deadly entities. Soon another portal appeared. Then another. Today, the government secures every portal they find, but with more and more opening, and no idea how to predict or prevent the next one's arrival, society is teetering on the brink of panic. Felix Renn knows the Black Lands all too well. His career as a private investigator has dragged him closer to it than most, and has garnered him a reputation for dealing with supernatural threats. But people who interact with the Black Lands have a habit of turning up dead in horrible ways--if they turn up at all--so when the chance comes up to take on a simple missing person's case in the small town of Sycamore, Felix jumps at the opportunity. Only, something else is happening in Sycamore. A serial killer is on the loose, and as the bodies continue to pile up, it becomes clear that the perpetrator may be something less--or something more--than human. Felix may have thought he was done with the Black Lands, but he soon discovers a terrifying truth: the Black Lands isn't done with him. Ian Rogers is the author of the award-winning collection, Every House Is Haunted. His novelette, “The House on Ashley Avenue,” was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and is currently being adapted into a feature film produced by Sam Raimi. http://www.ian-rogers.com | |
 | | Title No: 87420 THE KNOWING Ryan, Madeleine General fiction 256 pp Scribe Publications (February 2025) From the author of A Room Called Earth, a brilliant new novel about the mess that comes before salvation. Camille lives in the country. She’s forgotten her phone. She’s taking the train to work. She’s got period pain. She can’t escape herself … or her toxic boss, Holly. And it’s Valentine’s Day. The Knowing is a day in the life of a woman who goes to work as usual while dreaming of more. Madeleine Ryan is an Australian writer, director, and author. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, SBS, Vogue, The Daily Telegraph, The Sydney Morning Herald, and Vice. She is currently working on the screen adaptation of her first novel, A Room Called Earth. | |
 | | Title No: 87439 TOO SOON Shamieh, Betty Literary fiction 323 pp Avid Reader Press (January 2025) For readers of Pachinko and Queenie, a funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut that explores exile, ambition, and hope across three generations of Palestinian American women. Arabella gets an unexpected chance at love when she's thrust into a conflict and history she's tried to avoid all her life. Zoya is playing matchmaker for her last unmarried granddaughter—introducing Arabella to the very eligible grandson of an old flame and stirring up buried family history. Naya is keeping a secret from her family that will change all their lives. Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic (that might garner international attention) in the West Bank. Her grandmother, Zoya, plots to make a match between her and Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster. Arabella and Aziz's instant connection reminds Zoya of the passion she once felt for Aziz's grandfather, a man she desired desperately, even after her father arranged another husband for her. In turn, Zoya would later marry off her youngest daughter, Naya, who aspired to date the Jackson 5 and wasn't ready to be a wife or mother to Arabella at sixteen. Now that Naya's children are grown and she's arrived at an abrupt midlife crossroads, it's time to settle old scores… With biting hilarity, Too Soon introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices. This dramatic saga follows one family's epic journey from fleeing war-torn Jaffa in 1948, chasing the American Dream in Detroit and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, hustling in the New York theatre scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning one of them is living on borrowed time, three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms. Too Soon joins the stories that seek to illuminate our shared history and ask, how can we set ourselves free? Betty Shamieh is a Palestinian American writer and the author of fifteen plays. She is the playwright-in-residence at the Classical Theatre of Harlem. Her six New York play premieres include the sold-out off-Broadway runs of Roar and Malvolio, a sequel to Twelfth Night, which were both New York Times Critic's Picks. Shamieh was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and named a UNESCO Young Artist for Intercultural Dialogue. She is a founding artistic director of The Semitic Root, a collective that supports innovative theatre cocreated by Arab and Jewish Americans. A graduate of Harvard College and the Yale School of Drama, she lives with her family in San Francisco. | |
 | | Title No: 87374 VERVAIN HOLLOW Silvey, C.A. Fantasy ms84'500 words Union Square & Co. ( ) Ever since Vervain Hollow burned to the ground, Laura’s life has turned to ash. All the neighbours think she’s crazy. She was in a cult, after all. And even after the fire, after they all - all except Vervain, of course - escaped with their lives, Laura still insists that everything she’d been led to believe is real. That magic exists. That Vervain, their strikingly handsome and magnetic leader, was more than simply human. Now, three years later, Laura is trying to move on from that strange, fantastical, terrifying year, struggling to move through her trauma and the mysterious hold that Vervain had over her (that he still, somehow, has over her). But then Laura’s now estranged friend Aliyah calls with news: former acolyte Daniel has gone back to the Hollow, claiming to have received a message from Vervain. Daniel's last communication consisted of three frantic words: He's still here. As Laura and Aliyah venture back to the Hollow to find the truth, Laura finds herself reliving that first year. Can everything she remembers possibly be true? And can she extricate herself from Vervain's influence, or will she finally claim the wonderful and terrifying power he promised her - at any cost? Catriona Silvey’s debut novel, MEET ME IN ANOTHER LIFE, published in 2021 by HarperVoyager (UK) and William Morrow (US), was a #2 Waterstones bestseller in hardback. In addition to the wonderful reviews that you can find on her website, the book has now sold in 14 languages and is currently in development as a major feature film with Atlas Entertainment and Pilot Wave Motion Pictures, with Gal Gadot attached to star. Catriona’s next novel, LOVE AND OTHER PARADOXES, is coming in Spring 2025 with HarperVoyager (UK) and William Morrow (US), and we are already receiving stunning review quotes from early readers. Going forward, Catriona plans to continue writing love stories with a speculative twist under the name Catriona Silvey, while also developing another strand of darker, fantastical thrillers as C.A. Silvey. She lives and works in Edinburgh. | |
 | | Title No: 87412 YOUR SOULMAIL IS ATTACHED Smith, Joan F. Romance: Contemporary 89'000 words Ballantine Books (Winter 2026) Olivia Adler has her life on track: a newsroom job in an industry that she loves; a Manhattan apartment that she and her socialite fiancé own; and even the possibility of converting the newsroom job into a role more focused on documentary production, especially if she gets to keep a producer credit From Yes to I Do, the reality series that is following her engagement to Wells. That all changes with the delivery of two shocking messages: first, a text sent to Wells that she certainly was not supposed to intercept; and second, an email sent to everyone in the world, revealing the name and birthdate of their one true soul mate. Things get even more complicated when Olivia is pulled from the newsroom to the spotlight after the usual anchors and their usual backups are all unavailable. She has barely had the chance to grapple with Wells' betrayal before she has to confront the even more unlikely: that something about her unrehearsed coverage of the emails has gone viral, and suddenly she is, for many viewers--a shocking number of viewers--the face of Soulmail. Olivia herself is determined never to check her own email. She can't imagine that the name waiting there would be Wells; it's bad enough that the network is suddenly pushing their wedding episode, unaware that there is no more wedding to promote. In her heart of hearts, she might want it to be the childhood best friend she's just reconnected with--but more than Wells, more than Caleb, all she wants is for her life to be her choice. Unfortunately for Olivia, not everyone in her life feels the same way. In the vein of Rebecca Serle’s Expiration Dates and Nikki Erlick’s The Measure, and for fans of The Morning Show, YOUR SOULMAIL IS ATTACHED will have every reader asking whether they would choose to know who their soulmate is, and how their worlds—indeed, how the world—would change with this knowledge. Joan F. Smith is the author of YA novels The Other Side of Infinity (Feiwel & Friends 2023) and The Half-Orphan's Handbook (Imprint 2021), a dance instructor, and a former associate dean of creative writing. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. Joan was the 2021 Writer-in-Residence at the Milton Public Library. When she's not writing, she's either wrangling her kids, embarking on a new hobby she will quickly abandon, or listening to podcasts on a run. | |
 | | Title No: 87389 SIX LIVES Tidhar, Lavie Literary fiction 464 pp Head of Zeus (August 2024) SIX LIVES Six lives, connected through blood and history, each rooted in the dirt of their inheritance, look to the future, and what it might hold. THE GUANO MERCHANT In 1855, Edward Feebes travels to the guano islands of South America to investigate an irregularity in the accounts of the House of Feebes & Co. MOMENTO MORI In 1912, post-mortem photographer and reluctant blackmailer Annie Connolly plots her escape from Ireland to America on board the Titanic. THE COUNTRY HOUSE MURDER In 1933, idealistic Edgar Waverley faces a choice of the heart when he becomes embroiled in a country house murder. THE SPY In 1964, hapless KGB agent Vasily Sokolov makes his career conjuring valuable information from worthless detritus. ZABBALEEN in 1987, actor Mariam Khouri looks back at Black Dirt, the movie that lifted her from the streets of Cairo. NEW YORK In 2012, Isabelle Feebes attempts to break with her poisonous heritage once and for all. Can she forge a new life for herself in the New World? Can you ever truly escape your past? British-Israeli author Lavie Tidhar has been described as ‘a political writer, an iconoclast and sometimes a provocateur’ by the Review of Contemporary Fiction. Born on a kibbutz in Israel, Tidhar’s unusual childhood has inspired a life devoted in equal parts to books and travelling. He has lived in South Africa, Laos and Vanuatu, and currently resides in London, a city he has made his home. In 2021, Lavie was appointed Writer in Residence at Richmond University, in London. | |
 | | Title No: 87385 ME PIDEN QUE REGRESE I Am Asked to Return Trapiello, Andrés Historical fiction Thriller 395 pp Destino (October 2024) Political literary thriller by the masterful storyteller Andrés Trapiello! In 1945, after the Spanish Civil War and when the Second World War is about to end. the American secret services ask the American Benjamin Smith to return to Spain to carry out a dangerous mission: to “remove” a hierarch of the regime whom he does not even know. The historical moment is decisive: the World War is about to end, and no one is safe. Least of all Benjamin Cortés / Benjamin Smith, protagonist of this story, the young Spaniard, American by adoption. After ten years of absence, an unusual Madrid awaits him, a hotbed of intrigue, of aristocrats and military men, spies and diplomats, dazzling and gloomy at the same time. Action, love and ideals. The city of the aristocratic salons and the underground. The big world and the shady suburbs. On one side, those who are not willing to give up the privileges of victory, and on the other, those who try to prolong the struggle, surviving as best they can in defeat. A city in which the parties at the Palace Hotel, the dances at the fashionable Pasapoga nightclub, the Balenciaga costumes and the success of bullfighter Manolete coexist with the chains of prisoners led on foot along the Gran Vía, fear, misery, and petty smuggling. The appearance of a young, rich, attractive, and independent woman in Benjamin's life will change everything. Andrés Trapiello (1953) has lived in Madrid since 1975. He was awarded the Premio Nacional de la Crítica in 1993 for Acaso una verdad, Premio Nadal in 2003 for Los amigos del crimen perfecto, Premio Plaza & Janés in 1992 for El buque fantasma, the José Manuel Lara Foundation Award in 2004 for Al morir don Quijote, and Ayer no más (chosen Best Novel by the readers of El País, 2012) among his other novels. He also has published twenty-four volumes of his journals Salón de pasos perdidos, labeled as “a novel in progress”. He currently writes for the newspaper El Mundo. He has received, among others, the Premio de las Letras de la Comunidad de Madrid and the Premio de Castilla y León for his entire work as a whole and has adapted Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote into modern Spanish. His works have been translated worldwide. | |
 | | Title No: 87364 TRANSECTION Wang, Sarah Literary fiction ms 255 pp Little, Brown (US) (Spring 2026) Sarah Wang’s scaldingly original debut novel, TRANSECTION, set in present-day Los Angeles, takes the city’s sinister beauty-obsessed undercurrents, warps and heightens them in service of a comically poignant and monumentally fraught daughter-mother struggle between Linli and Fanny Feng. It leaves a mark. Linli is 26 and trying desperately to liberate herself from her mother’s centripetal, undermining pull. They’ve been estranged for three years when Linli is summoned home by Fanny’s latest medical catastrophe: for decades Fanny has been compulsively seeking bargain basement plastic surgery. Now her disfigured face is in dangerous revolt. That does not stop her from finding her way onto America’s Beauty Extreme, a popular reality competition in which fellow plastic surgery addicts compete for cash and even more surgery, while mysteriously succumbing to crippling and sometimes fatal maladies in the course of undermining one another in front of a huge, hungry audience. Meanwhile, duped into staying and putting off grad school, Linli finds she has an aptitude for performing hair transplants for men at a clinic with its own dubious, compromised mission. She spends her days trapped under the hot surgical lamps, stitching follicle after follicle, wondering if this is the life she deserves. They are best friends and enemies, trapped in a cycle of resentment-laced need and denial, learning to survive with and without each other in a society that exploits and overlooks women of color so baldly. TRANSECTION manages to be simultaneously intimate and operatic, a devastating entertainment told in a register that feels new, urgent and necessary. Sarah Wang’s writing has appeared in, among other places, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, London Review of Books, The Nation, The New Republic, Harper’s Bazaar, n+1, Bomb. She has been a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Fellow, a 2023 MacDowell Fellow, a 2020 Center for Fiction Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellow, was the winner of the Nelson Algren prize for fiction, she teaches writing at Barnard College and has received support and recognition from still more institutions. | |
 | | Title No: 87388 PALAVER Washington, Bryan Literary fiction ms 327 pp Farrar Straus Giroux (September 2025) A mother and son, estranged for a decade, embark on a journey of healing and rediscovery in the heart of Tokyo. The story of a mother and a son, estranged for 10 years, reconnecting in the son’s chosen city of Tokyo in the weeks leading up to Christmas. They both have different memories and understandings of their family dynamic, and what actually happened that caused the son to leave Houston. They bristle against each other at the beginning of the visit, the son lashing out and the mother taking lone walks around the neighborhood. But through time and conversation, meals, and the son’s queer community and the mother’s tentative friendship with a shop owner – as well as an eventful trip to Nara’s sacred sites – they come to see the other more clearly, and find a way to redefine themselves as ‘home.’ Bryan Washington is the author of the novels Family Meal, Memorial, and the short story collection Lot. He has been named a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree, a Forbes “30 Under 30” honoree, and has won the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Ernest J. Gaines Award, the Lambda Literary Award (twice), and the Young Lions Fiction Award, among others. He lives in Tokyo. UK: Atlantic Books; | |
 | | Title No: 87425 A TEMPTING ARRANGEMENT Twisted Vows #1 Wilder, Jessa Romance: Contemporary 528 pp Independently published (April 2024) Marry or lose his inheritance? That’s the ultimatum billionaire Damon Everette faces. There’s one problem. The woman he craves is his sunshine PR rep…who wants nothing to do with him. Ruthless, arrogant, cold-hearted are some of the words I would use to describe my a**hole of a boss, Damon Everette. That doesn’t stop the goosebumps from rising along my neck every time he says my name, or the way my pulse races when his stormy gray eyes pierce mine. So, when he coerces me into a fake marriage to uphold his family's tradition, I can't resist pushing his buttons. He's a walking red flag, and I should run the second this arrangement ends. But the very thought of losing him is suffocating - a dangerous addiction that I can't seem to break. Is this really love or just a twisted desire to own me? And deep down, do I secretly crave to be possessed by him? A Tempting Arrangement is a red flag billionaire, marriage of convenience, standalone romance from USA Today bestselling author, J. Wilder Jessa Wilder is a Canadian author of steamy contemporary and unconventional romance. When not writing, you can find her chasing around her six-year-old son, walking her dog in the woods, and devouring Kindle Unlimited books. | |
 | | Title No: 87064 TO JAFFA ROAD AND BACK Zaghal, Ashraf General fiction House of Anansi Press (Winter 2026) Sidewalk Fever follows Aziz, a fifteen-year-old Palestinian boy, as he tries to find his footing amid everyday violence across Jerusalem between the autumn of 2015 and the spring of 2016. The sudden death of Hassan at the hands of an Israeli passerby leaves his friends, Aziz and Mustafa, reeling with grief and guilt. Soon, the two friends find themselves recruited by Hassan’s father, a community leader known for his charity work and fiery speeches. Now, the two friends have to deal with questions and doubts concerning their identity, their future and the future of their families. When Aziz meets Dafna, a Jewish girl who works with him at a café in West Jerusalem, he starts to develop feelings for her. Mustafa is not happy about those new feelings, and he accuses Aziz of forgetting Hassan. Questions about avenging Hassan’s death remain unresolved, and Aziz and Mustafa find themselves at square one, unable to find a peaceful closure. In an effort to save her son, Aziz’s mother reaches out to her sister in Canada in the hopes of finding him an opportunity to escape the violence. This further complicates the relationship between Aziz and Mustafa. When Mustafa gets killed in a car-ramming accident, Aziz is faced with existential questions related to his physical and emotional presence in the city that he loves. Sidewalk Fever explores themes of identity, power, and tolerance, all while tackling the personal and psychological growth of a teenager during a time of violence and despair. Ashraf Zhagal is a Palestinian poet, essayist, and environmentalist. He is the author of four books of Arabic poetry, selections from which have been translated into English, French, and Hebrew. His poems have appeared in The Literary Review, Metamorphoses, and Transference (English), Anthologie de la Poésie Palestinienne d'aujourd'hui and Interludes Poétiques de Palestine (French), and in Iton 77 and Literature between Two Languages (Hebrew). Ashraf completed an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. He edits an online magazine concerned with progressive Arabic literature and translations. | |
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