The second half of the year is here and with it, new releases! I’ve got my eye on a fair amount of sci-fi this month, which is exciting – and as always a lot of fantasy, historical fiction and general fiction. Bring it on!

Titles I’m looking forward to:

• The Night Ship
• The Tin Nose Shop
• Dark Earth
• The Italian Ballerina
• Sister Mother Warrior
• The Blunder

Sequels

Fantasy

The Dragon In The Bookshop | Ewa Jozefkowicz

RELEASE DATE: 7 July

An old Polish city fizzes with fear. The townsfolk are at the mercy of a dragon who lurks in the cave below the castle…

Konrad’s dad always used to say, ‘There is a character in a book somewhere that matches you almost entirely. It’s just a matter of finding them’. Konrad never expected the ‘finding’ to involve stepping right into a story, and he never expected his dad not to be there with him.

After his dad’s death, Konrad stops speaking. Not a word at home or school as the year rolls by. But that begins to change when he meets Maya on the beach he loved to explore with Dad. She doesn’t mind his silence. It gives her a chance to be heard, because at home no one seems to notice her. When the pair go on a last visit to Konrad’s family bookshop before it’s sold, they soon get lost in the pages of Konrad’s favourite book of folk tales. Whisked back in time to quest with a dragon, they must find themselves and their voices, as well as a happy end to the story in the book and in real life. 

The Valkyrie’s Daughter | Tiana Warner

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

A thrilling, intricate, and romantic #OwnVoices LGBTQ fantasy that builds on Norse mythology into a beautiful story all its own.

For as long as Sigrid could remember, she’s wanted to become a mighty, fearless valkyrie. But without a winged mare, she’s a mere stable hand, left wondering who her parents were and why she’s so different. So when the Eye shows her a vision where she’s leading a valkyrie charge on the legendary eight-legged horse Sleipnir, she grabs the possibility of this greater destiny with both hands, refusing to let go.

Too bad that the only one who can help her get there is Mariam, an enemy valkyrie who begrudgingly agrees to lead her to Helheim but who certainly can’t be trusted―even if she does make Sigrid more than a little flustered. As they cross the nine worlds, battling night elves, riding sea serpents, and hurtling into fire to learn the truth about Sigrid’s birthright, an unexpected but powerful bond forms.

As her feelings for Mariam deepen into something fiery and undeniable, Fate has other plans for Sigrid. What happens when the one thing you think you were meant to do might end the nine worlds?

Violet Made of Thorns | Gina Chen

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

Violet is a prophet and a liar, influencing the royal court with her cleverly phrased—and not always true—divinations. Honesty is for suckers, like the oh-so-not charming Prince Cyrus, who plans to strip Violet of her official role once he’s crowned at the end of the summer—unless Violet does something about it.

But when the king asks her to falsely prophesy Cyrus’s love story for an upcoming ball, Violet awakens a dreaded curse, one that will end in either damnation or salvation for the kingdom—all depending on the prince’s choice of future bride. Violet faces her own choice: Seize an opportunity to gain control of her own destiny, no matter the cost, or give in to the ill-fated attraction that’s growing between her and Cyrus.

Violet’s wits may protect her in the cutthroat court, but they can’t change her fate. And as the boundary between hatred and love grows ever thinner with the prince, Violet must untangle a wicked web of deceit in order to save herself and the kingdom—or doom them all.

The Witchery | S. Isabelle

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

A bewitching debut by S. Isabelle, perfect for fans of Maggie Stiefvater, Zoraida Córdova, and Leigh Bardugo!

THE HAUNTING SEASON IS HERE AND THE WOLVES ARE AWAKE.

Haelsford, Florida is a Hellmouth. Or at least, that’s what Logan, a baby witch struggling to control her powers, thinks as she arrives to the witchtown to begin the new school year at Mesmortes Coven Academy. She is immediately taken under the wing of the infamous Red Three. Iris is a deathwitch who wants nothing more than to break the town’s curse; Jailah is one of the most powerful witches at the academy but her thirst for power may lead her down a dark path; and Thalia, the talented greenwitch, is on the run from her religious family and a past that still haunts her.

Fear and prejudice still fuel the uneasy truce between humans and witches who are forced to work together when the Haunting Season begins and Wolves rise from the swamp to feed. With this approaching, two Hammersmitt boys prepare to make their first sacrifices to the witches in exchange for protection. But as they become involved with the Mesmortes witches’ plan to end the Wolves’ reign of terror once and for all, old dangers lie in wait.

The cost to break the curse may be greater than any witch or human could ever know.

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance | Foz Meadows

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

Living on an island plagued by magic and mythical monsters isn’t a fairy tale… it’s a nightmare.

After Keelynn witnesses her sister’s murder at the hands of the legendary Gancanagh, an immortal creature who seduces women and kills them with a cursed kiss, she realizes there’s nothing she wouldn’t do to get her back. With the help of a vengeful witch, she’s given everything she needs to resurrect the person she loves most.

But first, she must slay the Gancanagh.

Tadhg, a devilishly handsome half-fae who has no patience for high society—or propriety—would rather spend his time in the company of loose women and dark creatures than help a human kill one of his own.

That is until Keelynn makes him an offer he can’t refuse.

Together, they embark on a cross-country curse-breaking mission that promises life but ends in death.

Perfect for fans of Holly Black’s Folk of the Air series and The Falconer, A Cursed Kiss is the first book in a series of interconnected novels and novellas set on the mythical island of Airren.

The Book of Gothel | Mary McMyne

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

Everyone knows the tale of Rapunzel in her tower, but do you know the story of the witch who put her there?

Haelewise has always lived under the shadow of her mother, Hedda—a woman who will do anything to keep her daughter protected. For with her strange black eyes and even stranger fainting spells, Haelewise is shunned by her medieval village, and her only solace lies in the stories her mother tells of child-stealing witches, of princes in wolf-skins, of an ancient tower cloaked in mist, where women will find shelter if they are brave enough to seek it.

Then, Hedda dies, and Haelewise is left unmoored. With nothing left for her in her village, she sets out to find the legendary tower her mother used to speak of—a place called Gothel, where Haelewise meets a wise woman willing to take her under her wing.

But Haelewise is not the only woman to seek refuge at Gothel. It’s also a haven for a girl named Rika, who carries with her a secret the Church strives to keep hidden. A secret that unlocks a dark world of ancient spells and murderous nobles behind the world Haelewise has always known…

Youngblood | Sasha Laurens

RELEASE DATE: 19 July

For fans of Vampire Diaries and dark academia, two queer teen bloodsuckers at an elite vampire-only boarding school must go up against all of Vampirdom when they uncover a frightening conspiracy on campus.

Kat Finn and her mother can barely make ends meet living among humans. Like all vampires, they must drink Hema, an expensive synthetic blood substitute, to survive, as nearly all of humanity has been infected by a virus that’s fatal to vampires. Kat isn’t looking forward to an immortal life of barely scraping by, but when she learns she’s been accepted to the Harcote School, a prestigious prep school that’s secretly vampires-only, she knows her fortune is about to change.

Taylor Sanger has grown up in the wealthy vampire world, but she’s tired of its backward, conservative values—especially when it comes to sexuality, since she’s an out-and-proud lesbian. She only has to suffer through a two more years of Harcote before she’s free. But when she discovers her new roommate is Kat Finn, she’s horrified. Because she and Kat used to be best friends, a long time ago, and it didn’t end well.

When Taylor stumbles upon the dead body of a vampire, and Kat makes a shocking discovery in the school’s archives, the two realize that there are deep secrets at Harcote—secrets that link them to the most powerful figures in Vampirdom and to the synthetic blood they all rely on.

Blackwater | Jeannette Arroyo & Ren Graham

RELEASE DATE: 19 July

Riverdale meets Stranger Things in this debut queer YA graphic novel, developed from a hit webcomic. Set in the haunted town of Blackwater, Maine, two boys fall for each other as they dig for clues to a paranormal mystery.

Tony Price is a popular high school track star and occasional delinquent aching for his dad’s attention and approval. Eli Hirsch is a quiet boy with a chronic autoimmune disorder that has ravaged his health and social life. What happens when these two become unlikely friends (and a whole lot more . . .) in the spooky town of Blackwater, Maine? Werewolf curses, unsavory interactions with the quarterback of the football team, a ghostly fisherman haunting the harbor, and tons of high school drama.

Co-illustrated by both creators, who alternate drawing chapters in their own styles, Blackwater combines the spookiness of Anya’s Ghost with the irreverent humor of Nimona.

The Force of Such Beauty | Barbara Bourland

RELEASE DATE: 19 July

After a failed escape attempt, the princess of a tiny kingdom begins to reevaluate her life.

Caroline, a former marathon runner who dropped out of school at fourteen to pursue an Olympic medal, was the perfect candidate for a tiara: shapely, disciplined, accustomed to public attention, and utterly uneducated. When she meets Finn, the handsome prince of a small European kingdom, her fate is sealed. With a collar of pearls locked around her throat, and a rope of diamonds leashing her to a balcony, Caroline uses her once-powerful body to smile, wave, and produce children with perfect grace.

But as she begins to open her eyes to the world around her – and examine her own reflection – Caroline discovers that she may have entered a bargain that cannot be undone.

Barbara Bourland’s stunning third novel is her softest, strangest book to date. Inspired by the alleged escape attempts of real-life princesses, and set in a grotesque and gaudy pre-recession 2000s Europe, The Force of Such Beauty is a heart-wrenching and compulsively readable testament to the way in which real-life power structures around the world ultimately rest on the subjugation of women’s bodies.

The Last Feather | Shameez Patel Papathanasiou

RELEASE DATE: 19 July

South African born, debut author brings a threat-and-danger, hidden-world fantasy with touches of Suzanne Collins which fans of VE Schwab or Sarah J Maas will love.

Twenty-two-year-old Cassia’s sister is dying, and she doesn’t know why. Soon after, Cassia wakes up in another realm, not only does she find her missing best friend, Lucas, but he knows how to save her sister.

Meanwhile Lucas is part of a community of Reborns, people who were born on earth and after death, were reborn in this realm with magical abilities. The original beings of the realm, the Firsts, rule over them.

But, to keep the Reborn numbers manageable, the king of the Firsts releases a curse to cull them and Cassia finds herself in the middle of it. She needs to break the curse before her time runs out, otherwise she will be trapped there forever.

Flames Of Mira | Clay Harmon 

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

An epic new fantasy in a world of ice, magma and magic!

Among the volcanoes beneath Mira’s frozen lands, people like Ig are forced to undergo life-threatening trials that bind chemical elements to the human body. One of Mira’s most powerful elementals, Ig works in secret as an enforcer for the corrupt Magnate Sorrelo Adriann, but is cursed with flesh binding magic — magic that will kill him at the first sign of disobedience. His days are spent hunting down anyone who would oppose the magnate, a shell of his old self who clings to old memories and his budding friendships with the magnate’s son and daughter.

When Sorrelo is overthrown in a coup and the country is thrown into chaos, Ig quickly learns he can do far worse than what Sorrelo has asked from him so far. If he can’t rediscover the person he was and escape the flesh binding in time, he will have to kill countless innocents as Sorrelo and his allies seek to reclaim the throne, or sacrifice himself trying.

The Dragon In The Bookshop | Ewa Jozefkowicz

RELEASE DATE: 7 July

An old Polish city fizzes with fear. The townsfolk are at the mercy of a dragon who lurks in the cave below the castle…

Konrad’s dad always used to say, ‘There is a character in a book somewhere that matches you almost entirely. It’s just a matter of finding them’. Konrad never expected the ‘finding’ to involve stepping right into a story, and he never expected his dad not to be there with him.

After his dad’s death, Konrad stops speaking. Not a word at home or school as the year rolls by. But that begins to change when he meets Maya on the beach he loved to explore with Dad. She doesn’t mind his silence. It gives her a chance to be heard, because at home no one seems to notice her. When the pair go on a last visit to Konrad’s family bookshop before it’s sold, they soon get lost in the pages of Konrad’s favourite book of folk tales. Whisked back in time to quest with a dragon, they must find themselves and their voices, as well as a happy end to the story in the book and in real life. 

The Darkening | Sunya Mara

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

In this thrilling and epic YA fantasy debut the only hope for a city trapped in the eye of a cursed storm lies with the daughter of failed revolutionaries and a prince terrified of his throne.

Vesper Vale is the daughter of revolutionaries. Failed revolutionaries. When her mother was caught by the queen’s soldiers, they gave her a choice: death by the hangman’s axe, or death by the Storm that surrounds the city and curses anyone it touches. She chose the Storm. And when the queen’s soldiers—led by a paranoid prince—catch up to Vesper’s father after twelve years on the run, Vesper will do whatever it takes to save him from sharing that fate.

Even arm herself with her father’s book of dangerous experimental magic.

Even infiltrate the prince’s elite squad of soldier-sorcerers.

Even cheat her way into his cold heart.

But when Vesper learns that there’s more to the story of her mother’s death, she’ll have to make a choice if she wants to save her city: trust the devious prince with her family’s secrets, or follow her mother’s footsteps into the Storm. 

The Society For Soulless Girls | Laura Steven

RELEASE DATE: 7 July

A dark and funny YA thriller with a supernatural twist. From the winner of the Comedy Women in Print Prize

Ten years ago, four students lost their lives in the infamous North Tower murders at the elite Carvell College of Arts, forcing Carvell to close its doors.

Now Carvell is reopening, and fearless student Lottie is determined to find out what really happened. But when her roommate, Alice, stumbles upon a sinister soul-splitting ritual hidden in Carvell’s haunted library, the North Tower claims another victim.

Can Lottie uncover the truth before the North Tower strikes again? Can Alice reverse the ritual before her monstrous alter ego consumes her? And can they stop flirting for literally fifteen seconds in order to do this?

Exploring possession and ambition, lust and bloodlust, femininity and violence, The Society of Soulless Girls is perfect for fans of Ace of Spaces, The Secret History and The Inheritance Games.

Skin of the Sea | Natasha Bowen

RELEASE DATE: 7 July

The great love of Corey’s life has always been her best friend, Bree: closer than sisters, their bond is unbreakable.

Or so Corey believes, until Bree betrays her, and Corey’s world is shattered.

Corey finds herself heartbroken, furious and alone…

Only to discover that the Underworld – and Hades, Lord of the Dead – is closer than she thinks…

The Not So Chosen One | Kate Emery

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

Lucy is just a regular teenager with regular worries: homework, friends, getting home for dinner on time. Oh, and there’s the small matter of how she’s going to tell her mother about her unplanned pregnancy.

So when she first hears about Drake’s College, a school for students with magical talent, she’s sure someone’s messing with her. But despite her scepticism, she’s soon swept up into a world beyond her wildest imaginings—and now she’s got something else to hide.

At Drake’s, Lucy befriends Jack, a teacher’s assistant who has secrets of his own. More concerningly, Lucy’s ‘talent’ doesn’t seem to be materialising, and one of the other students collapses in a mysterious incident. There’s danger in the air…

Populated with charming characters, and laugh-out-loud funny at times, The Not So Chosen One is a clever, rollicking ride.

Nura and the Immortal Palace | M.T. Khan

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

Aru Shah and the End of Time meets Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away in this mesmerizing portal fantasy that takes readers into the little-known world of Jinn.

Nura longs for the simple pleasure of many things—to wear a beautiful red dupatta or to bite into a sweet gulab. But with her mom hard at work in a run-down sweatshop and three younger siblings to feed, Nura must spend her days earning money by mica mining. But it’s not just the extra rupees in her pocket Nura is after. Local rumor says there’s buried treasure in the mine, and Nura knows that finding it could change the course of her family’s life forever.

Her plan backfires when the mines collapse and four kids, including her best friend, Faisal, are claimed dead. Nura refuses to believe it and shovels her way through the dirt hoping to find him. Instead, she finds herself at the entrance to a strange world of purple skies and pink seas—a portal to the opulent realm of jinn, inhabited by the trickster creatures from her mother’s cautionary tales. Yet they aren’t nearly as treacherous as her mother made them out to be, because Nura is invited to a luxury jinn hotel, where she’s given everything she could ever imagine and more.

But there’s a dark truth lurking beneath all that glitter and gold, and when Nura crosses the owner’s son and is banished to the working quarters, she realizes she isn’t the only human who’s ended up in the hotel’s clutches. Faisal and the other missing children are there, too, and if Nura can’t find a way to help them all escape, they’ll be bound to work for the hotel forever. 

Sci-Fi

Three Miles Down | Harry Turtledove

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

From New York Times bestselling author Harry Turtledove, the modern master of alternate history, a novel of alien contact set in the tumultuous year of the Watergate scandal.

It’s 1974, and Jerry Stieglitz is a grad student in marine biology at UCLA with a side gig selling short stories to science fiction magazines, just weeks away from marrying his longtime fiancée. Then his life is upended by grim-faced men from three-letter agencies who want him to join a top-secret “Project Azorian” in the middle of the north Pacific Ocean—and they really don’t take “no” for an answer. Further, they’re offering enough money to solve all of his immediate problems.

Joining up and swearing to secrecy, what he first learns is that Project Azorian is secretly trying to raise a sunken Russian submarine, while pretending to be harvesting undersea manganese nodules. But the dead Russian sub, while real, turns out to be a cover story as well. What’s down on the ocean floor next to it is the thing that killed the sub: an alien spacecraft.

Jerry’s a scientist, a longhair, a storyteller, a dreamer. He stands out like a sore thumb on the Glomar Explorer, a ship full of CIA operatives, RAND Corporation eggheads, and roustabout divers. But it turns out that he’s the one person in the North Pacific who’s truly thought out all the ways that human-alien first contact might go.

And meanwhile, it’s still 1974 back on the mainland. Richard Nixon is drinking heavily and talking to the paintings on the White House walls. The USA is changing fast—and who knows what will happen when this story gets out? Three Miles Down is both a fresh and original take on First Contact, and a hugely enjoyable romp through the pop culture, political tumult, and conspiracies-within-conspiracies atmosphere that was 1974.

A Half-Built Garden | Ruthanna Emrys

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

On a warm March night in 2083, Judy Wallach-Stevens wakes to a warning of unknown pollutants in the Chesapeake Bay. She heads out to check what she expects to be a false alarm–and stumbles upon the first alien visitors to Earth. These aliens have crossed the galaxy to save humanity, convinced that the people of Earth must leave their ecologically-ravaged planet behind and join them among the stars. And if humanity doesn’t agree, they may need to be saved by force.

The watershed networks aren’t ready to give up on Earth. Decades ago, they rose up to exile the last corporations to a few artificial islands, escape the dominance of nation-states, and reorganize humanity around the hope of keeping their world liveable. By sharing the burden of decision-making, they’ve started to heal the wounded planet.

But now corporations, nation-states, and networks all vie to represent humanity to these powerful new beings, and if any one accepts the aliens’ offer, Earth may be lost. With everyone’s eyes turned skyward, everything hinges on the success of Judy’s effort to create understanding, both within and beyond her own species.

The Stranded | Sarah Daniels

RELEASE DATE: 21 July

A gripping, near-future thriller – The Hunger Games meets Station Eleven, for fans of pacey, disruptive TV, such as the Noughts and Crosses adaptation

Welcome to the Arcadia.

Once a luxurious cruise ship, it became a refugee camp after being driven from Europe by an apocalyptic war. Now it floats near the coastline of the Federated States – a leftover piece of a fractured USA.

For forty years, residents of the Arcadia have been prohibited from making landfall. It is a world of extreme haves and have nots, gangs and make-shift shelters.

Esther is a loyal citizen, working flat-out to have the rare chance to live a normal life as a medic on dry land. Ben is a rebel, planning something big to liberate the Arcadia once and for all.

When events throw them both together, their lives, and the lives of everyone on the ship, will change forever . . .

Every Version of You | Grace Chan

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

In late twenty-first century Australia, Tao-Yi and her partner Navin spend most of their time inside a hyper-immersive, hyper-consumerist virtual reality called Gaia. They log on, go to work, socialise, and even eat in this digital utopia. Meanwhile their aging bodies lie suspended in pods inside cramped apartments. Across the city, in the abandoned ‘real’ world, Tao-Yi’s mother remains stubbornly offline, preferring instead to indulge in memories of her life in Malaysia.

When a new technology is developed to permanently upload a human brain to Gaia, Tao-Yi must decide what is most important: a digital future, or an authentic past.

Never Let Me Go meets Black Mirror, with a dash of Murakami surrealism thrown in, this is speculative literary fiction at its best.

August Kitko and the Mechas from Space | Alex White

RELEASE DATE: 12 July

When an army of giant robot AIs threatens to devastate Earth, a virtuoso pianist becomes humanity’s last hope in this bold, lightning-paced, technicolor new space opera series from the author of A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe.

Jazz pianist Gus Kitko expected to spend his final moments on Earth playing piano at the greatest goodbye party of all time, and maybe kissing rockstar Ardent Violet, before the last of humanity is wiped out forever by the Vanguards–ultra-powerful robots from the dark heart of space, hell-bent on destroying humanity for reasons none can divine. 

But when the Vanguards arrive, the unthinkable happens–the mecha that should be killing Gus instead saves him. Suddenly, Gus’s swan song becomes humanity’s encore, as he is chosen to join a small group of traitorous Vanguards and their pilots dedicated to saving humanity.

Into the Mist | P.C. Cast

RELEASE DATE: 12 July

As men fall to the mist, the age of womankind begins to rise.

The world as we know it ends when an attack on the U.S. unleashes bombs that deliver fire and biological destruction. Along with sonic detonations and devastating earthquakes, the bombs have also brought the green mist. If breathed in, it is deadly to all men—but alters the body chemistry of many women, imbuing them with superhuman abilities.

A group of high school teachers heading home from a conference experiences firsthand the strength of these new powers. Mercury Rhodes is the Warrior, possessing heightened physical powers. Stella Carver is the Seer, with a sixth sense about the future. Imani Andrews is the Watcher, with a rare connection to the earth. Karen Gay is the Priestess, demonstrating a special connection with Spirits. And Gemma Jenkins is the Healer, a sixteen-year-old student who joins the group after losing her parents.

As they cross the Pacific Northwest, trying to find a safe place to ride out the apocalypse, the women soon learn they can’t trust anyone, and with fresh danger around every corner, it will take all their powers to save themselves—and possibly the world.

The Snow Laundry | Mette Jakobsen

RELEASE DATE: 6 July

With the intensity of The Handmaid’s Tale, the drama of Divergent and the political intrigue of The Darkest Minds series, this is a captivating, fast-paced thriller set in a dystopian world not so different from our own.

Sixteen-year-old Ally is one of 400 homeless young people who has been promised new and better lives in exchange for their votes.

The once homeless children and teenagers are now warm and fed. But they are forced to work for the new administration – and their new home is really a prison.

When Ally’s boyfriend Bon vanishes into thin air, her search for him leads her to discovering that the homeless kids are really lab rats intended for scientific testing. And as Ally delves deeper into her search for Bon, she learns the frightening truth behind his disappearance. 

Historical Fiction

The Night Ship | Jess Kidd

RELEASE DATE: 12 July

Based on a real-life event, an epic historical novel from the award-winning author of Things in Jars that illuminates the lives of two characters: a girl shipwrecked on an island off Western Australia and, three hundred years later, a boy finding a home with his grandfather on the very same island.

1629: A newly orphaned young girl named Mayken is bound for the Dutch East Indies on the Batavia, one of the greatest ships of the Dutch Golden Age. Curious and mischievous, Mayken spends the long journey going on misadventures above and below the deck, searching for a mythical monster. But the true monsters might be closer than she thinks.

1989: A lonely boy named Gil is sent to live off the coast of Western Australia among the seasonal fishing community where his late mother once resided. There, on the tiny reef-shrouded island, he discovers the story of an infamous shipwreck…​

The Little French Bookshop | Cécile Pivot

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

A letter writing workshop.
Five strangers.
Countless secrets bursting in between the pages.

When French bookseller Esther loses her father, she decides to place an ad in a newspaper, inviting struggling readers to join her secret letter writing workshop.

To Esther’s surprise, applications pile in by the dozens – and before long, an elderly lady, a disillusioned businessman, a disheartened couple and an awkward teenager find themselves sharing stories, seeking advice, and forging new friendships.

As Esther’s students uncover the hopes, dreams and fears that were hiding behind the pen, Esther, too, finds herself thrown into a new world full of unexpected adventures.

The Half Life of Valery K | Natasha Pulley

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

In 1963, in a Siberian gulag, former nuclear specialist Valery Kolkhanov has mastered what it takes to survive: the right connections to the guards for access to food and cigarettes, the right pair of warm boots to avoid frostbite, and the right attitude toward the small pleasures of life so he won’t go insane. But on one ordinary day, all that changes: Valery’s university mentor steps in and sweeps Valery from the frozen prison camp to a mysterious unnamed town that houses a set of nuclear reactors and is surrounded by a forest so damaged it looks like the trees have rusted from within.

In City 40, Valery is Dr. Kolkhanov once more, and he’s expected to serve out his prison term studying the effect of radiation on local animals. But as Valery begins his work, he is struck by the questions his research raises: why is there so much radiation in this area? What, exactly, is being hidden from the thousands who live in the town? And if he keeps looking for answers, will he live to serve out his sentence?

Based on real events in a surreal Soviet city, and told with bestselling author Natasha Pulley’s inimitable style, The Rust Country is a sweeping new adventure for readers of Stuart Turton and Sarah Gailey.

Perfectly Ordinary People | Nick Alexander

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

In occupied France, two people sacrificed everything. Now their granddaughter has come looking for the truth…

Ruth’s childhood was a happy one, and her family—on her mother’s side—large and loving. But her father’s French origins have always remained a mystery. Now, with aged relatives beginning to die, Ruth decides to research her father’s family before it’s too late.

When she discovers a series of long-lost cassettes, everything she thought she knew about them shatters. The tapes expose an unimaginable truth – an epic wartime story of hidden love and sacrifice, stretching back to occupied France.

These long-buried confessions will rock Ruth’s family—and finally piece together the puzzle of her father’s heritage. But are any of them ready for the truth?

The Orphan Girl | Kurt Palka

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

London, 1944/45

Kate Henderson is an energetic and spirited young woman. As a trained paramedic and ambulance driver she does her work courageously and with determination, even though underneath she is still wrestling with grief after witnessing the shooting death of her diplomat father seven years earlier. Her father’s murder was never properly investigated and it remains unsolved.

Kate’s life is drastically interrupted once more when she wakes up one night to the sound of the air raid alarm and the terror whistles of a bomb’s stabilizers screaming toward the roof of her house. In the explosion, her mother and her aunt die; Kate survives, but she is injured.

Her house is gone as well, and after her time in the hospital, Claire Giroux, a kind doctor and family friend, invites Kate to live with her as she recuperates. This arrangement works well for them until a few months later when Claire’s husband comes home from the war. Within days the lives of both women are drastically changed, and events are set in motion, both in England and in Canada, that challenge Kate and Claire to their limits.

The Orphan Girl is a moving and powerful story about friendship and courage, and about promises made and kept.

The Librarian Spy | Madeline Martin

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

Ava thought her job as a librarian at the Library of Congress would mean a quiet, routine existence. But an unexpected offer from the US military has brought her to Lisbon with a new mission: posing as a librarian while working undercover as a spy gathering intelligence.

Meanwhile, in occupied France, Elaine has begun an apprenticeship at a printing press run by members of the Resistance. It’s a job usually reserved for men, but in the war, those rules have been forgotten. Yet she knows that the Nazis are searching for the press and its printer in order to silence them.

As the battle in Europe rages, Ava and Elaine find themselves connecting through coded messages and discovering hope in the face of war.

The Woman with Two Shadows | Sarah James

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

For fans of Atomic City Girls and The Secrets We Kept, a fascinating debut historical novel of one of the most closely held secrets of World War II and a woman caught up in it when she follows her missing sister to the mysterious city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Lillian Kaufman hasn’t heard from her twin sister since Eleanor left for a mysterious job at an Army base somewhere in Tennessee. When she learns, on an unexpected phone call, that Eleanor is missing, Lillian takes a train from New York down to Oak Ridge to clear up the matter.

It turns out that the only way into Oak Ridge is to assume Eleanor’s identity, which Lillian plans to do swiftly and perfectly. But Eleanor has vanished without a trace—and she’s not the only one. And how do you find someone in a town so dangerous it doesn’t officially exist, when technically you don’t exist either?

Lillian is thrust into the epicenter of the gravest scientific undertaking of all time, with no idea who she can trust. And the more she pretends to be Eleanor, the more she loses her grip on herself. 

The War Girls | V.S. Alexander

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

Casting light into one of the darkest periods of World War II, acclaimed author V.S. Alexander’s powerful historical novel tells of two Jewish sisters of Polish descent who unite in a fight to save their family from the Warsaw Ghetto.

It’s not just a thousand miles that separates Hanna Majewski from her younger sister, Stefa. There is another gulf—between the traditional Jewish ways that Hanna chose to leave behind in Warsaw, and her new, independent life in London. But as autumn of 1940 draws near, Germany begins a savage aerial bombing campaign in England, killing and displacing tens of thousands. Hanna, who narrowly escapes death, is recruited as a spy in an undercover operation that sends her back to her war-torn homeland.

In Hanna’s absence, her parents, sister, and brother have been driven from their comfortable apartment into the Warsaw Ghetto. Sealed off from the rest of the city, the Ghetto becomes a prison for nearly half a million Jews, struggling to survive amid starvation, disease, and the constant threat of deportation to Treblinka. Once a pretty and level-headed teenager, Stefa is now committed to the Jewish resistance. Together, she, Hanna, and Janka, a family friend living on the Aryan side of the city, form a trio called The War Girls. Against overwhelming odds and through heartbreak they will fight to rescue their loved ones, finding courage through sisterhood to keep hope alive . . .

The City Underground | Michael Russell

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

Ireland 1941. A German spy escapes from Mountjoy Prison, clearly with inside help. Yet no one wants to catch him. When the head of Garda Special Branch sends Inspector Stefan Gillespie to find out why, it must be in secret. But he meets a web of deceit in which the past’s dark shadows loom over the lies of the present. Alone, except for an alcoholic private detective and a woman who could betray him to the IRA, Stefan embarks on a journey that drags him into a plot to attack British interests in Ireland and an attempt on the life of the IRA Chief-of-Staff by his own men. Crossing into war-torn Northern Ireland, he is suddenly unprotected, a rogue policeman to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, a dangerous spy to the IRA.

The Tin Nose Shop | Don J Snyder

RELEASE DATE: 1 July

INSPIRED BY ONE OF THE LAST GREAT UNTOLD STORIES OF WW1. 1916. Young artist Sam Burke is spared death by firing squad on the battlefields of France and brought to a remote castle by the Irish Sea. At the ‘Tin Nose Shop’ he is tasked with creating intricate masks to hide the mutilated faces of his fellow soldiers from the Front. While he tries to come to terms with the death of his best friend and the promise he failed to keep, Sam and the disfigured soldiers struggle to return to their former lives and their loved ones.

A stirring and emotional tale based on the real-life story of the Tin Nose Shop.

The Falcon’s Eyes | Francesca Stanfill

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

Set in France and England at the end of the twelfth century, the moving story of a spirited, questing young woman, Isabelle, who defies convention to forge a remarkable life, one profoundly influenced by the fabled queen she idolizes and comes to know—Eleanor of Aquitaine.

A sweeping, suspenseful tale about marriage, freedom, identity, and motherhood, The Falcon’s Eyes not only illuminates a brilliant century and the notorious queen who dominated it, but also brings to life the vivid band of characters whom the heroine encounters on her journey to selfhood. Principal among them, Isabelle’s charismatic, controlling husband, as obsessed by falconry as he is by having an heir. The various settings—Château Ravinour, Fontevraud Abbey, and Queen Eleanor’s exiled court in England—are depicted as memorably as the noblewomen, nuns, servants, falconers, and courtiers who inhabit them. With a series of twists and turns, the story pulses forward as Isabelle confronts one challenge, one danger, after another, until it hurtles to its final, enthralling, page.

With the historical understanding of Hillary Mantel and the storytelling gifts of Ken Follett, Francesca Stanfill has created an unforgettable character who, while firmly rooted in her era, is also a woman for all times.

The Crimson Thread | Kate Forsyth

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

In Crete during World War II, Alenka, a young woman who fights with the resistance against the brutal Nazi occupation, finds herself caught between her traitor of a brother and the man she loves, an undercover agent working for the Allies.

May 1941. German paratroopers launch a blitzkrieg from the air against Crete. They are met with fierce defiance, the Greeks fighting back with daggers, pitchforks, and kitchen knives. During the bloody eleven-day battle, Alenka, a young Greek woman, saves the lives of two Australian soldiers.

Jack and Teddy are childhood friends who joined up together to see the world. Both men fall in love with Alenka. They are forced to retreat with the tattered remains of the Allied forces over the towering White Mountains. Both are among the seven thousand Allied soldiers left behind in the desperate evacuation from Crete’s storm-lashed southern coast. Alenka hides Jack and Teddy at great risk to herself. Her brother Axel is a Nazi sympathiser and collaborator and spies on her movements.

As Crete suffers under the Nazi jackboot, Alenka is drawn into an intense triangle of conflicting emotions with Jack and Teddy. Their friendship suffers under the strain of months of hiding and their rivalry for her love. Together, they join the resistance and fight to free the island, but all three will find themselves tested to their limits. Alenka must choose whom to trust and whom to love and, in the end, whom to save.

Joan | Katherine J. Chen

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

Girl. Warrior. Heretic. Saint? A stunning secular reimagining of the epic life of Joan of Arc, in the bold tradition of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall

1412. France is mired in a losing war against England. Its people are starving. Its king is in hiding. From this chaos emerges a teenage girl who will turn the tide of battle and lead the French to victory, an unlikely hero whose name will echo across the centuries.

In Katherine J. Chen’s hands, the myth and legend of Joan of Arc is transformed into a flesh-and-blood young woman: reckless, steel-willed, and brilliant. This deeply researched novel is a sweeping narrative of her life, from a childhood steeped in both joy and violence to her meteoric rise to fame at the head of the French army, where she navigates both the perils of the battlefield and the equally treacherous politics of the royal court. Many are threatened by a woman who leads, and Joan draws wrath and suspicion from all corners, even as her first taste of fame and glory leave her vulnerable to her own powerful ambition.

With unforgettably vivid characters, transporting settings, and action-packed storytelling, Joan is a thrilling epic, a triumph of historical fiction, as well as a feminist celebration of one remarkable—and remarkably real—woman who left an indelible mark on history. 

A Dress of Violet Taffeta | Tessa Arlen

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

A sumptuous novel based on the fascinating true story of Belle Epoque icon Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon, a woman determined to shatter the boundaries of the fashion world and support herself and her young daughter with her magnificent designs.

Lucy Duff Gordon knows she is talented. She sees color, light, fabric, and texture in ways few other people do. But is the world ready for her? A world dominated by men who would try to control her and use her art for their own gain?

After being deserted by her wealthy husband, Lucy is desperate to survive. She turns to her one true talent to make a living. As a little girl, the dresses she made for her dolls were the envy of her group of playmates. Now, she uses her courageous innovations in Belle Époque fashion to support her own little girl. Lucile knows it is an uphill battle, and a single woman is not supposed to succeed on her own, but she refuses to give up. She will claim her place in the fashion world; failure simply is not an option.

Then, on a frigid night in 1912, Lucy’s life changes once more, when she becomes one of 706 people to survive the sinking of the Titanic. She could never have imagined the effects the disaster would have on her career, her marriage to her second husband, and her legacy. But no matter what life throws at her, Lucile will live on as a trailblazing and fearless fashion icon, never letting go of what she worked so hard to earn. This is her story. 

Dark Earth | Rebecca Stott

RELEASE DATE: 19 July

A captivating novel about two sisters fighting for survival in male-dominated Dark Ages Britain that weaves a thrilling spell of magic and myth—from a bestselling author and historian.

In Dark Ages Britain, sisters Isla and Blue live in the shadows of the Ghost City, the abandoned ruins of the once-glorious, mile-wide Roman settlement Londinium on the north bank of the Thames. The native Britons and the new migrants from the East who scratch out a living in small wooden camps in its hinterland fear that the crumbling stone ruins are haunted by vengeful spirits.

But the small island they call home is also a place of exile for Isla, Blue, and their father, a legendary blacksmith accused of using dark magic to make his firetongue swords. The local warlord, Osric, has put the Great Smith under close guard and ruled that he make his magnificent swords only for him so that he can use them to build alliances and extend his kingdom.

For years, the sisters have been running wild, Blue communing with animals and plants and Isla secretly learning her father’s trade, which is forbidden to women. But when their father suddenly dies, they find themselves facing enslavement by Osric and his cruel, power-hungry son Vort. Their only option is to escape to the Ghost City, where they discover an underworld of rebel women living secretly amid the ruins. As Blue and Isla settle into their new life, they find both refuge and community with the women around them. But it is all too fragile. With the ruins collapsing all around them, Blue and Isla realize they can’t elude the men who hunt them forever. If they are to survive, they will need to use all their skill and ingenuity—as well as the magic of their foremothers—to fight back.

With cinematic intimacy, Rebecca Stott skillfully recreates an ancient world steeped in myth and folklore, and the vibrant women who fight back against their patriarchal society. A heart-in-mouth adventure full of moments of tenderness, this is a beautiful, profound novel about oppression and power that puts a female perspective on a historical period dominated by men’s stories.

Switchboard Soldiers | Jennifer Chiaverini

RELEASE DATE: 19 July

From New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini, a bold, revelatory novel about one of the great untold stories of World War I–the women of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, who broke down gender barriers in the military, smashed the workplace glass ceiling, and battled a pandemic as they helped lead the Allies to victory.

In June 1917, General John Pershing arrived in France to establish American forces in Europe. He immediately found himself unable to communicate with troops in the field. Pershing needed operators who could swiftly and accurately connect multiple calls, speak fluent French and English, remain steady under fire, and be utterly discreet, since the calls often conveyed classified information.

At the time, nearly all well-trained American telephone operators were women–but women were not permitted to enlist, or even to vote in most states. Nevertheless, the U.S. Army Signal Corps promptly began recruiting them.

More than 7,600 women responded, including Grace Banker of New Jersey, a switchboard instructor with AT&T and an alumna of Barnard College; Marie Miossec, a Frenchwoman and aspiring opera singer; and Valerie DeSmedt, a twenty-year-old Pacific Telephone operator from Los Angeles, determined to strike a blow for her native Belgium.

They were among the first women sworn into the U.S. Army under the Articles of War. The male soldiers they had replaced had needed one minute to connect each call. The switchboard soldiers could do it in ten seconds.

The risk of death was real–the women worked as bombs fell around them–as was the threat of a deadly new disease: the Spanish Flu. Not all of the telephone operators would survive.

The women of the U.S. Army Signal Corps served with honor and played an essential role in achieving the Allied victory. Their story has never been the focus of a novel…until now.

The Italian Ballerina | Kristy Cambron

RELEASE DATE: 12 July

A prima ballerina. Two American medics. And a young Jewish girl with no name . . . At the height of the Nazi occupation of Rome, an unlikely band of heroes comes together to save Italian Jews in this breathtaking World War II novel based on real historical events.

Rome, 1943. With the fall of Italy’s Fascist government and the Nazi regime occupying the streets of Rome, British ballerina Julia Bradbury is stranded and forced to take refuge at a hospital on Tiber Island. But when she learns of a deadly sickness that is sweeping through the quarantine wards—a fake disease known only as Syndrome K—she is drawn into one of the greatest cons in history. Alongside hospital staff, friars of the adjoining church, and two Allied medics, Julia risks everything to rescue Italian Jews from the deadly clutches of the Holocaust. But when one little girl who dreams of becoming a ballerina arrives at their door, Julia and the others are determined to reunite the young dancer with her family—if only she would reveal one crucial secret: her name.

Present Day. With the recent loss of her grandfather—a beloved small-town doctor and WWII veteran—Delaney Coleman returns home to help her aging parents, even as she struggles to pick up the pieces of her own life. When a mysterious Italian woman claims she owns one of the family’s precious heirlooms, Delaney is compelled to uncover what’s true of her grandfather’s hidden past. Together with the woman’s skeptical but charming grandson, Delaney learns of a Roman hospital that saved hundreds of Jewish people during the war. Soon, everything Delaney thought she knew about her grandfather comes into question as she wrestles with the possibility that the man she’d revered all her life had unknown ties to Rome and may have taken noble secrets to his grave.

Based on true accounts of the invented Syndrome K sickness, The Italian Ballerina journeys from the Allied storming of the beaches at Salerno to the London ballet stage and the war-torn streets of WWII Rome, exploring the sometimes heart-wrenching choices we must make to find faith and forgiveness, and how saving just one life can impact countless others.

Sister Mother Warrior | Vanessa Riley

RELEASE DATE: 12 July

Acclaimed author of Island Queen Vanessa Riley brings readers a vivid, sweeping novel of the Haitian Revolution based on the true-life stories of two extraordinary women: the first Empress of Haiti, Marie-Claire Bonheur, and Gran Toya, a West African-born warrior who helped lead the rebellion that drove out the French and freed the enslaved people of Haiti.

Gran Toya: Born in West Africa, Abdaraya Toya was one of the legendary minos–women called “Dahomeyan Amazons” by the Europeans–who were specially chosen female warriors consecrated to the King of Dahomey. Betrayed by an enemy, kidnapped, and sold into slavery, Toya wound up in the French colony of Saint Domingue, where she became a force to be reckoned with on its sugar plantations: a healer and an authority figure among the enslaved. Among the motherless children she helped raise was a man who would become the revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines. When the enslaved people rose up, Toya, ever the warrior, was at the forefront of the rebellion that changed the course of history.

Marie-Claire: A free woman of color, Marie-Claire Bonheur was raised in an air of privilege and security because of her wealthy white grandfather. With a passion for charitable work, she grew up looking for ways to help those oppressed by a society steeped in racial and economic injustices. Falling in love with Jean-Jacques Dessalines, an enslaved man, was never the plan, yet their paths continued to cross and intertwine, and despite a marriage of convenience to a Frenchman, she and Dessalines had several children.

When war breaks out on Saint Domingue, pitting the French, Spanish, and enslaved people against one another in turn, Marie-Claire and Toya finally meet, and despite their deep differences, they both play pivotal roles in the revolution that will eventually lead to full independence for Haiti and its people.

Both an emotionally palpable love story and a detail-rich historical novel, Sister Mother Warrior tells the often-overlooked history of the most successful Black uprising in history. Riley celebrates the tremendous courage and resilience of the revolutionaries, and the formidable strength and intelligence of Toya, Marie-Claire, and the countless other women who fought for freedom.

The Soviet Sisters | Anika Scott

RELEASE DATE: 12 July

From the bestselling author of The German Heiress, Anika Scott, comes a gripping new historical novel filled with secrets, lies, and betrayals, following two spy sisters in the years after WWII, perfect for fans of Kate Quinn and Pam Jenoff.

Sisters Vera and Marya were brought up as good Soviets: obedient despite hardships of poverty and tragedy, committed to communist ideals, and loyal to Stalin. Several years after fighting on the Eastern front, both women find themselves deep in the mire of conflicts shaping a new world order in 1947 Berlin. When Marya, an interpreter, gets entangled in Vera’s cryptic web of deceit and betrayal, she must make desperate choices to survive—and protect those she loves.

Nine years later, Marya is a prisoner in a Siberian work camp when Vera, a doyenne of the KGB, has cause to reopen her case file and investigate the facts behind her sister’s conviction all those years ago in Berlin. As Vera retraces the steps that brought them both to that pivotal moment in 1947, she unravels unexpected truths and discoveries that call into question the very history the Soviets were working hard to cover up.

Epic and intimate, layered and complex, The Soviet Sisters is a gripping story of spies, blackmail, and double, triple bluff. With her dexterous plotting and talent for teasing out moral ambiguity, Anika Scott expertly portrays a story about love, conflicting world views, and loyalty and betrayal between sisters.

Remember Love | Mary Balogh

RELEASE DATE: 12 July

The undisputed queen of Regency romance is back with a brand-new story perfect for fans of Bridgerton.

The handsome and charismatic Earl of Stratton, Caleb Ware, has been exposed to the ton for his clandestine affairs—by his own son.

As a child, Devlin Ware thought his family stood for all that was right and good in the world. They were kind, gracious, and shared the beauty of Ravenwood, their grand country estate, by hosting lavish parties for the entire countryside. But at twenty-two, he discovered his whole world was an elaborate illusion, and when Devlin publicly called his family to account for it, he was exiled as a traitor.

So be it. He enlisted in the fight against Napoleon and didn’t look back for six years. But now his father is dead, the Ware family is broken, and as the heir he is being called home. It’s only when Gwyneth Rhys—the woman he loved and then lost after his family banished him—holds out her hand to help him that he is able make the difficult journey and try to piece together his fractured family.

It is Gwyneth’s loyalty, patience, and love that he needs. But is Devlin’s war-hardened heart even capable of offering her love in return?

What Souls Are Made Of | Tasha Suri

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

What Souls Are Made Of, British Fantasy Award-winning author Tasha Suri’s masterful new take on Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, will leave readers breathless.

As the abandoned son of a Lascar—a sailor from India—Heathcliff has spent most of his young life maligned as an “outsider.” Now he’s been flung into an alien life in the Yorkshire moors, where he clings to his birth father’s language even though it makes the children of the house call him an animal, and the maids claim he speaks gibberish.

Catherine is the younger child of the estate’s owner, a daughter with light skin and brown curls and a mother that nobody talks about. Her father is grooming her for a place in proper society, and that’s all that matters. Catherine knows she must mold herself into someone pretty and good and marriageable, even though it might destroy her spirit.

As they occasionally flee into the moors to escape judgment and share the half-remembered language of their unknown kin, Catherine and Heathcliff come to find solace in each other. Deep down in their souls, they can feel they are the same.

But when Catherine’s father dies and the household’s treatment of Heathcliff only grows more cruel, their relationship becomes strained and threatens to unravel. For how can they ever be together, when loving each other—and indeed, loving themselves—is as good as throwing themselves into poverty and death?

Briefly, A Delicious Life | Nell Stevens

RELEASE DATE: 19 July

An unforgettable debut novel from an award-winning writer: a lively, daring ghost story about a teenage ghost who falls in love with a writer who doesn’t know she exists.

In 1473, fourteen-year-old Blanca dies in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca. Nearly four hundred years later, when George Sand, her two children, and her lover Frederic Chopin arrive in the village, Blanca is still there: a spirited, funny, righteous ghost, she’s been hanging around the monastery since her accidental death, spying on the monks and the townspeople and keeping track of her descendants.

Blanca is enchanted the moment she sees George, and the magical novel unfolds as a story of deeply felt, unrequited longing—the impossible love of a teenage ghost for a woman who can’t see her and doesn’t know she exists. As George and Chopin, who wear their unconventionality, in George’s case, literally on their sleeves, find themselves in deepening trouble with the provincial, 19th-century villagers, Blanca watches helplessly and reflects on the circumstances of her own death (which involves an ill-advised love affair with a monk-in-training).

Charming, original, and emotionally moving, this is a surprisingly touching story about romantic fixation and a powerful meditation on creativity.

The Light Always Breaks | Angela Jackson-Brown

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

As 1947 opens, Eva Cardon is the twenty-four-year-old owner of Washington, D.C.’s, most famous Black-owned restaurant. When her path crosses with Courtland, a handsome white senator from Georgia, both find themselves drawn to one another—but the danger of a relationship between a Black woman and a white man from the South could destroy them and everything they’ve worked for.

Few women own upscale restaurants in civil rights era Washington, D.C. Fewer still are twenty-four, Black, and wildly successful. But Eva Cardon is unwilling to serve only the wealthiest movers and shakers, and she plans to open a diner that offers Southern comfort to the working class.

A war hero and one of Georgia’s native sons, Courtland Hardiman Kingsley IV is a junior senator with great ambitions for his time in D.C. But while his father is determined to see Courtland on a path to the White House, the young senator wants to use his office to make a difference in people’s lives, regardless of political consequences.

When equal-rights activism throws Eva and Courtland into each other’s paths, they can’t fight the attraction they feel, no matter how much it complicates their dreams. For Eva, falling in love with a white Southerner is all but unforgivable—and undesirable. Her mother and grandmother fell in love with white men, and their families paid the price. Courtland is already under pressure for his liberal ideals, and his family has a line of smiling debutantes waiting for him on every visit. If his father found out about Eva, he’s not sure he’d be welcome home again.

Surrounded by the disapproval of their families and the scorn of the public, Eva and Courtland must decide if the values they hold most dear—including love—are worth the loss of their dreams . . . and everything else.

The Last Hours in Paris | Ruth Druart

RELEASE DATE: 15 July

A powerful portrait of war and retribution. A beautiful story of love and forgiveness.

“Words are power. They can bring you down, lift you up, make your heart soar, make you fall in love. Or make you hate.”

Paris 1944. Elise Chevalier knows what it is to love . . . and to hate. Her fiancé, a young French soldier, was killed by the German army at the Maginot Line. Living amongst the enemy, Elise must keep her rage buried deep within.

Sebastian Kleinhaus no longer recognizes himself. Forced to join the Third Reich and wear a uniform he despises, he longs for a way out. For someone, anyone, to be his salvation.

Brittany 1963. Reaching for the suitcase under her mother’s bed, eighteen-year-old Josephine Chevalier uncovers a secret that shakes her to the core. Determined to find the truth, she travels to Paris where she learns the story of a forbidden love as a city fought for its freedom. Of the last stolen hours before the first light of liberation. And of a betrayal so deep that it would irrevocably change the course of two young lives life forever.

The Blunder | Mutt-Lon

RELEASE DATE: 12 July

From a bold voice in African fiction comes a satirical and unputdownable reimagining of an overlooked episode in Cameroon’s colonial past.

Cameroon, 1929. As colonial powers fight for influence in Africa, French military surgeon Eugène Jamot is dispatched to Cameroon to lead the fight against sleeping sickness there. But despite his humanitarian intentions, the worst comes to pass: seven hundred local villagers are left blind as a result of medical malpractice by a doctor under Jamot’s watch.

Damienne Bourdin, a young white woman, ventures to Cameroon to assist in the treatment effort. Reeling from the loss of her child, she’s desperate to redeem herself and save her reputation. But the tides of rebellion are churning in Cameroon, and soon after Damienne’s arrival, she is enlisted in a wild plot to staunch the damage caused by the blunder and forestall tribal warfare. Together with Ndongo, a Pygmy guide, she must cross the country on foot in search of Edoa, a Cameroonian princess and nurse who has gone missing since the medical blunder was discovered.

As Damienne races through the Cameroonian forest on a farcical adventure that unsettles her sense of France’s “civilizing mission,” she begins to question her initial sense of who needed saving and who would save the day.

The Bewitching | Jill Dawson

RELEASE DATE: 16 July

A dazzling, shocking novel that speaks to our times, drawing on the 16th-century case of the witches of Warboys.

Alice Samuel might be old and sharp-tongued, but she’s no fool. Visiting her new neighbours in her Fenland village, she suspects Squire Throckmorton’s household is not as God-fearing as it seems and finds the children troubled. Yet when one of the daughters accuses her of witchcraft, Alice has no inkling of how quickly matters will escalate and fails to grasp the danger she is in.

As evidence mounts against Alice, soon the entire village is swept up in the frenzied persecution of one of their own community.

Exploring a neglected episode of English history to powerful effect, The Bewitching vividly conveys the brutal tribalism that can erupt in a closed society and how victims can be made to believe in their own wickedness. 

Contemporary

Grace | Victoria Scott 

RELEASE DATE: 7 July

She gave you her baby. Now she wants her back.

Nineteen-year-old Michelle has had a tough life, to say the least. Then she gets pregnant. She is convinced she would be a terrible mother but having grown up in care, she cannot bring herself to subject her child to the same fate.

Amelia and her husband have dreamed of having a family for years, but have lost all hope after the worst kind of tragedy. Then they are offered the chance to adopt baby Grace, and it feels like they finally have everything they’ve ever wanted.

But then Michelle decides she wants her daughter back, and it’s up to the courts to decide. What is best for Grace – a mother’s love, or a stable home? Whatever the ruling, one thing is certain: neither woman’s life will ever be the same again…

After Paris | Nicole Kennedy

RELEASE DATE: 21 July

Three best friends take the same Eurostar to Paris for a girls’ weekend, but take separate trains back. What happened that weekend? A grown-up, thought-provoking and gripping novel set in Paris about motherhood, friendship, secrets, and the face we present to the world.

Three best friends. A weekend away. And a whole lot of baggage.

Alice, Nina and Jules have been best friends for 20 years. They met in Paris and return there once a year, to relive their youth, leave the cares and troubles of home behind, and indulge in each other’s friendship and warmth. But this year, aged 35, the cracks in their relationships are starting to show…

After their weekend together in Paris, the three women never speak again. Each of them claims the other two ghosted them. But what really happened that weekend?

Twice as Perfect | Louisa Onomé

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

The only things worth doing are those that will lead to success.

For seventeen-year-old Adanna Nkwachi, life is all about duty: to school and the debate team, to her Nigerian parents, and even to her cousin Genny as Ada helps prepare Genny’s wedding to Afrobeats superstar Skeleboy (“Skeleboy me, Skeleboy this money, everything na Skeleboy…that Skeleboy!”). Because ever since her older brother, Sam, had a fight with their parents a few years ago and disappeared, somebody has to fill the void he left behind. Ada may never know what caused Sam to leave home, but the one thing she’s certain of is that it’s on her to make sure her parents’ sacrifices aren’t in vain.

One day, chance brings the siblings back together. Although she fears how their parents will react if they find out she and Sam are back in touch, Ada’s determined to get answers about the night Sam left—Sam, who was supposed to be an engineer but is now, what, a poet? The more she learns about Sam’s poetry, the more Ada begins to wonder if maybe her own happiness is just as important as doing what’s expected of her. Amid parental pressure, anxiety over the debate competition, a complicated love life, and the Nigerian wedding-to-end-all-weddings, can Ada learn, just this once, to put herself first?

Boys I Know | Anna Gracia

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

June Chu is the “just good enough” girl. Good enough to line the shelves with a slew of third-place trophies and steal secret kisses from her AP Bio partner, Rhys. But not good enough to meet literally any of her Taiwanese mother’s unrelenting expectations or to get Rhys to commit to anything beyond a well-timed joke.

While June’s mother insists she follow in her (perfect) sister’s footsteps and get a (full-ride) violin scholarship to Northwestern (to study pre-med), June doesn’t see the point in trying too hard if she’s destined to fall short anyway. Instead, she focuses her efforts on making her relationship with Rhys “official.” But after her methodically-planned, tipsily-executed scheme explodes on the level of a nuclear disaster, she flings herself into a new relationship with a guy who’s not allergic to the word “girlfriend.”

But as the line between sex and love blurs, and pressure to map out her entire future threatens to burst, June will have to decide on whose terms she’s going to live her life—even if it means fraying her relationship with her mother beyond repair.

Some of It Was Real | Nan Fischer 

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

A psychic on the verge of stardom who isn’t sure she believes in herself and a cynical journalist with one last chance at redemption are brought together by secrets from the past that also threaten to tear them apart.

Psychic-medium Sylvie Young starts every show with her origin story, telling the audience how she discovered her abilities. But she leaves out a lot—the plane crash that killed her parents, an estranged adoptive family who tend orchards in rainy Oregon, panic attacks, and the fact that her agent insists she research some clients to ensure success.

After a catastrophic reporting error, Thomas Holmes’s next story at the L.A. Times may be his last, but he’s got a great personal pitch. “Grief vampires” like Sylvie who prey upon the loved ones of the deceased have bankrupted his mother. He’s dead set on using his last-chance article to expose Sylvie as a conniving fraud and resurrect his career.

When Sylvie and Thomas collide, a game of cat and mouse ensues, but the secrets they’re keeping from each other are nothing compared to the mysteries and lies they unearth about Sylvie’s past. Searching for the truth might destroy them both—but it’s the only way to find out what’s real.

Time and Tide in Sarajevo | Bronwyn Birdsall

RELEASE DATE: 26 July

Evelyn is teaching English in Sarajevo, a beautiful city still recovering almost two decades after the long and brutal siege in the 1990s.

Life in the city is tenuous yet welcoming. Dedicated to her work preparing high-schoolers for a scholarship that could change the course of their lives, Evelyn feels more herself here than at home in Australia. But when the teenage son of a local hero is stabbed and it seems like a cover-up will let the killer go free, Sarajevans take to the streets in protest.

When Evelyn discovers evidence that could ignite the volatile situation, putting both her students’ ambitions and her friendships at risk, she faces an impossible decision.

Gripping and heartfelt, Time and Tide in Sarajevo asks: how do we find hope in a world that feels beyond repair?

The Bodyguard | Katherine Center

RELEASE DATE: 19 July

She’s got his back.
Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindgerten teacher than somebody who could kill you with a wine bottle opener. Or a ballpoint pen. Or a dinner napkin. But the truth is, she’s an Executive Protection Agent (aka “bodyguard”), and she just got hired to protect superstar actor Jack Stapleton from his middle-aged, corgi-breeding stalker.

He’s got her heart.
Jack Stapleton’s a household name—captured by paparazzi on beaches the world over, famous for, among other things, rising out of the waves in all manner of clingy board shorts and glistening like a Roman deity. But a few years back, in the wake of a family tragedy, he dropped from the public eye and went off the grid.

They’ve got a secret.
When Jack’s mom gets sick, he comes home to the family’s Texas ranch to help out. Only one catch: He doesn’t want his family to know about his stalker. Or the bodyguard thing. And so Hannah—against her will and her better judgment—finds herself pretending to be Jack’s girlfriend as a cover. Even though her ex, like a jerk, says no one will believe it.

What could possibly go wrong???
Hannah hardly believes it, herself. But the more time she spends with Jack, the more real it all starts to seem. And there lies the heartbreak. Because it’s easy for Hannah to protect Jack. But protecting her own, long-neglected heart? That’s the hardest thing she’s ever done. 

A Heavy Dose of Allison Tandy | Jeff Bishop

RELEASE DATE: 12 July

You’ve Reached Sam meets John Hughes in a funny and heartfelt debut about a boy’s delirious summertime quest with his ex-girlfriend.

The summer after senior year should have been a time for Cam to party and hang out with his friends. It should also have been a time for him to win back the love of his life, Allison Tandy, who’d dumped him so brutally the year before.

But it quickly becomes clear that this summer is going to be worse than a failure for Cam. It’s going to be a tragedy.

Ally is left comatose after a terrible car crash, then Cam tears his ACL in a basketball accident. The operation leaves him in agony, confined to his couch and ruminating over the fact that his ex may not survive.

But when (after taking his medication) Cam starts seeing Ally, he starts to think: 1. He may be headed for a complete mental breakdown and 2. This summer might just be interesting afterall.

Brimming with honesty and humor, A Heavy Dose of Allison Tandy interrogates how much control we really have over matters of love—and life.

Five-Part Invention | Andrea J. Buchanan

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

panning five generations of women, Five-PartInvention wrestles with the question—if trauma echoes through generations, can love echo, too? Is the love we transmit enough to undo the trauma of the past that we unwittingly carry with us and often re-enact in the present?

When Lise, a pianist, suffers a nervous breakdown early in her marriage, her husband, in a warped act of protection and jealousy, has her piano taken away. With prose that is precise and emotionally affecting, Buchanan vividly renders how Lise’s separation from her one source of expression and fulfilment cascades into her relationship with her daughter, leaving a legacy of trauma that echoes through the generations to come. Characters emerge broken and passionate, jagged, and yet hopeful and emotionally resonant, written in a way that only Buchanan, herself a conservatory-trained pianist, could achieve.

Five-Part Invention is by turns frightening and exquisitely observed, and establishes Buchanan as a literary force.

Where Dogs Bark with Their Tails | Estelle-Sarah Bulle

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

An award-winning best first novel in France, Estelle-Sarah Bulle’s Where Dogs Bark with Their Tails, the story of Guadaloupe emerges through the epic, lively tales of one family and their larger-than-many-lives sister, Antoine.

A young woman born in the suburbs of Paris, whose skin color and memories of occasional childhood visits alone connect her to her father’s native Guadeloupe, yearns to understand her lineage and her métis identity. Upon her request, her old aunt Antoine, the eccentric and indomitable family matriarch, unveils the history of the Ezechiel clan, and with it, that of the island over the course of the twentieth century.

In a spirited account, punctuated by interludes from other family members, Antoine tells her life’s story: a childhood spent deep in the countryside, an ill-fated romance between her upper-class mother and farmer father, the splendors and slums of the capital city, Point-à-Pitre, the eruption of modernity, the rifts in a deeply hierarchical society under colonial rule—and the reasons she left it all behind.

Through the unforgettable story of the Ezechiels, a richly textured account of the Guadeloupean diaspora emerges, spanning decades and crossing the Atlantic. With lush language and vivid storytelling, Where Dogs Bark with Their Tails examines the legacies of capitalism and colonialism, and the loss of a beloved mother, and asks what it means to be caught between worlds, and how we might reconcile past, present, and future.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow | Gabrielle Zevin

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

In this exhilarating novel by the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry two friends–often in love, but never lovers–come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.

The Charmed List | Julie Abe

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

After spending most of high school as the quiet girl, Ellie Kobata is ready to take some risks and have a life-changing summer, starting with her Anti-Wallflower List—thirteen items she’s going to check off one by one. She’s looking forward to riding rollercoasters, making her art Instagram public (maybe), and going on an epic road-trip with her best friend Lia.

But when number four on Ellie’s list goes horribly wrong—revenge on Jack Yasuda—she’s certain her summer has gone from charmed to cursed. Instead of a road trip with Lia, Ellie finds herself stuck in a car with Jack driving to a magical convention. But as Ellie and Jack travel down the coast of California, number thirteen on her list—fall in love—may be happening without her realizing it.

In The Charmed List, Julie Abe sweeps readers away to a secret magical world, complete with cupcakes and tea with added sparks of joy, and an enchanted cottage where you can dance under the stars.

A Disaster in Three Acts | Kelsey Rodkey

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

Fans of Elise Bryant and Rachel Lynn Solomon will swoon for Last Chance Books author Kelsey Rodkey’s next romance, packed with snark, banter, and inconvenient crushes.

Saine Sinclair knows a little something about what makes a story worth telling.

Your childhood best friend refuses to kiss you during a pre-adolescent game of spin the bottle? Terrible, zero stars, would not replay that scene again. The same ex-friend becomes your new best friend’s ex? Strangely compelling, unexpected twist, worth a hate-watch. That same guy–why is he always around?–turns out to be your last shot at getting into the documentary filmmaking program of your dreams?

Saine hates to admit it, but she’d watch that movie.

There’s something about Holden that makes her feel like she’s the one in front of the camera–like he can see every uncomfortable truth she’s buried below the surface. Saine knows how her story’s supposed to go. So why does every moment with Holden seem intent on changing the ending?

Honey & Spice | Bolu Babalola

RELEASE DATE: 5 July

Introducing internationally bestselling author Bolu Babalola’s dazzling debut novel, full of passion, humor, and heart, that centers on a young Black British woman who has no interest in love and unexpectedly finds herself caught up in a fake relationship with the man she warned her girls about.

Sweet like plantain, hot like pepper. They taste the best when together…

Sharp-tongued (and secretly soft-hearted) Kiki Banjo has just made a huge mistake. As an expert in relationship-evasion and the host of the popular student radio show Brown Sugar, she’s made it her mission to make sure the women of the African-Caribbean Society at Whitewell University do not fall into the mess of “situationships”, players, and heartbreak. But when the Queen of the Unbothered kisses Malakai Korede, the guy she just publicly denounced as “The Wastemen of Whitewell,” in front of every Blackwellian on campus, she finds her show on the brink.

They’re soon embroiled in a fake relationship to try and salvage their reputations and save their futures. Kiki has never surrendered her heart before, and a player like Malakai won’t be the one to change that, no matter how charming he is or how electric their connection feels. But surprisingly entertaining study sessions and intimate, late-night talks at old-fashioned diners force Kiki to look beyond her own presumptions. Is she ready to open herself up to something deeper?

A gloriously funny and sparkling debut novel, Honey & Spice is full of delicious tension and romantic intrigue that will make you weak at the knees.

Mystery / Thriller / Horror

Death on the Isle | M.H. Eccleston

RELEASE DATE: 7 July

Amateur sleuth Astrid Swift faces a maritime mystery in this cosy crime adventure set on the Isle of Wight.

It’s high summer, and with the grisly events at Dorset’s Sherborne Hall behind her, Astrid Swift sets sail for the Isle of Wight. She’s been asked to value a collection of maritime art owned by a recently deceased millionaire.

His surviving daughter has inherited the art along with the family’s seafront mansion, The Needle’s Eye, and wants to sell up. There are too many memories of her twin sister, a sailing prodigy who went missing at sea three years earlier.

When Victor Leech, the local busybody, is found washed up under the town pier, Astrid thinks lightning has struck twice. She’s stumbled on a fresh case that only she and her new art club friends can solve. But getting to the bottom of the unexplained death will draw out powerful new enemies…

The second in the Astrid Swift murder mystery series pitches our art restorer heroine into the thick of Cowes Week, the most respected sailing regatta in the world. As the deaths stack up, the Isle of Wight’s reputation for being England’s friendliest island is about to be put to the test. 

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau | Silvia Moreno-Garcia

RELEASE DATE: 19 July

From the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night comes a dreamy reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Mexico.

Carlota Moreau: a young woman, growing up in a distant and luxuriant estate, safe from the conflict and strife of the Yucatán peninsula. The only daughter of either a genius, or a madman.

Montgomery Laughton: a melancholic overseer with a tragic past and a propensity for alcohol. An outcast who assists Dr. Moreau with his scientific experiments, which are financed by the Lizaldes, owners of magnificent haciendas and plentiful coffers.

The hybrids: the fruits of the Doctor’s labor, destined to blindly obey their creator and remain in the shadows. A motley group of part human, part animal monstrosities.

All of them living in a perfectly balanced and static world, which is jolted by the abrupt arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the charming and careless son of Doctor Moreau’s patron, who will unwittingly begin a dangerous chain reaction.

For Moreau keeps secrets, Carlota has questions, and in the sweltering heat of the jungle, passions may ignite.

I Told You This Would Happen | I Told You This Would Happen

RELEASE DATE: 12 July

Fans of Darcey Bell, B.A. Paris, and Samantha Downing will be hooked on this gripping follow-up to Elaine Murphy’s debut thriller, Look What You Made Me Do.

Carrie’s sister is dead.

Four months after losing her sister, Becca—a serial killer unknown to everyone else in town—Carrie Lawrence is finally free of her manipulative clutches. From now on, she’s keeping her hands clean, no more hiding dead bodies in the middle of the night, no more lies.

She’s never been happier.

Then she attends a meeting of the Brampton Kill Seekers, a group of amateur local sleuths, and learns that a recent victim left behind a note that incriminates her in their disappearance. All of a sudden the quiet, law-abiding life she’s been planning starts to unravel.

She’s never had so much to lose.

In her frantic quest to keep her secret dead and buried, she discovers someone nefarious lurking in the shadows…someone who’ll go to any lengths to bring her dark truths to light. Now if Carrie wants her secrets to stay hidden, she’ll have to get her hands very, very dirty. 

With only two island employees making up the rest of their party, everyone is forced to question what—or who—they really want. Island Time is a sumptuous summer read that dives deep into queer romance, family secrets, ambition, parenthood, and a bird-chasing bromance. This sexy, sun-soaked paradise of white sandy beaches, crystal-clear waters, and lush rainforest will show you it’s never too late to change your destiny.

Wake the Bones | Elizabeth Kilcoyne

RELEASE DATE: 12 July

The sleepy little farm that Laurel Early grew up on has awakened. The woods are shifting, the soil is dead under her hands, and her bone pile just stood up and walked away.

After dropping out of college, all she wanted was to resume her life as a tobacco hand and taxidermist and try not to think about the boy she can’t help but love. Instead, a devil from her past has returned to court her, as he did her late mother years earlier. Now, Laurel must unravel her mother’s terrifying legacy and tap into her own innate magic before her future and the fate of everyone she loves is doomed.

We Made It All Up | Margot Harrison

RELEASE DATE: 12 July

Celeste is the talk of the town when she moves to Montana from Montreal, but the only friend she makes is Vivvy, the heir to the town’s name and a social pariah. Inspired by a passion-fueled school incident, they begin writing a love-story fan fic between the popular guy and the school stoner, one that gradually reveals Celeste’s past. While their bond makes Celeste feel safe and alive again, Vivvy keeps prodding Celeste to turn fantasy into reality. When they finally try, one drunken night on a dark mountainside, Celeste is the one who ends up kissing golden boy Joss. And Joss ends up dead.

Celeste doesn’t remember the end of that night and can’t be sure she didn’t deliver the killing blow. Could she still be that scared of getting close to a boy? Secrets are hard to keep in a small town, and even Vivvy seems to suspect her. Exploring the winding passages of the cave where Joss died, Celeste learns he had his own dark secrets, as does Vivvy. The town isn’t as innocent as it appears.

The King is Dead | Benjamin Dean

RELEASE DATE: 7 July

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda meets The Inheritance Games in this Black LGBTQ+ royal romp full of heart-swooning romance, scandalous secrets and one hell of a mystery.

James has been a prince all of his life, and since he was born, he’s been thrust into the spotlight as the first Black heir to the throne. But when his father unexpectedly dies, James is crowned king at seventeen. Now, the secrets he could keep as a prince with no real responsibility – namely, his sexuality and hidden relationship – are rocked as his life irrevocably changes.

When his boyfriend suddenly goes missing, the royal secrets and scandals that only he knows start to leak online. And when it becomes clear that whoever is behind the messages isn’t going to stop anytime soon, James begins to question everyone around him.

Non-fiction

The Sewing Girl’s Tale | John Wood Sweet

RELEASE DATE: 19 July

A riveting Revolutionary Era drama of the first published rape trial in American history and its long, shattering aftermath, revealing how much has changed over two centuries—and how much has not.

On a moonless night in the summer of 1793 a crime was committed in the back room of a New York brothel—the kind of crime that even victims usually kept secret. Instead, seventeen-year-old seamstress Lanah Sawyer did what virtually no one in US history had done before: she charged a gentleman with rape.

Her accusation sparked a raw courtroom drama and a relentless struggle for vindication that threatened both Lanah’s and her assailant’s lives. The trial exposed a predatory sexual underworld, sparked riots in the streets, and ignited a vigorous debate about class privilege and sexual double standards. The ongoing conflict attracted the nation’s top lawyers, including Alexander Hamilton, and shaped the development of American law. The crime and its consequences became a kind of parable about the power of seduction and the limits of justice. Eventually, Lanah Sawyer did succeed in holding her assailant accountable—but at a terrible cost to herself.

Based on rigorous historical detective work, this book takes us from a chance encounter in the street into the sanctuaries of the city’s elite, the shadows of its brothels, and the despair of its debtors’ prison. The Sewing Girl’s Tale shows that if our laws and our culture were changed by a persistent young woman and the power of words two hundred years ago, they can be changed again.

The School that Escaped the Nazis | Deborah Cadbury

RELEASE DATE: 12 July

The extraordinary true story of a courageous school principal who saw the dangers of Nazi Germany and took drastic steps to save those in harm’s way

In 1933, the same year Hitler came to power, schoolteacher Anna Essinger saved her small, progressive school from Nazi Germany. Anna had read Mein Kampf and knew the terrible danger that Hitler’s hate-fueled ideologies posed to her pupils, so she hatched a courageous and daring plan: to smuggle her school to the safety of England.

As the school she established in Kent, England, flourished despite the many challenges it faced, the news from her home country continued to darken. Anna watched as Europe slid toward war, with devastating consequences for the Jewish children left behind. In time, Anna would take in orphans who had given up all hope: the survivors of unimaginable horrors. Anna’s school offered these scarred children the love and security they needed to rebuild their lives.

Featuring moving firsthand testimony from surviving pupils, and drawing from letters, diaries, and present-day interviews, The School that Escaped the Nazis is a dramatic human tale that offers a unique perspective on Nazi persecution and the Holocaust. It is also the story of one woman’s refusal to allow her belief in a better world to be overtaken by hatred and violence.