New book releases September 2021

Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff

It has been 27 long years since the last sunrise. For nearly three decades, vampires have waged war against humanity; building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Now, only a few tiny sparks of light endure in a sea of darkness. Gabriel de Leon, half man, half monster and last remaining silversaint – a sworn brother of the holy Silver Order dedicated to defending the realm from the creatures of the night – is all that stands between the world and its end. Now imprisoned by the very monsters he vowed to destroy, the last silversaint is forced to tell his story. A story of legendary battles and forbidden love, of faith lost and friendships won, of the quest for humanity’s last remaining hope: the Holy Grail.

Easily one of the most highly anticipated fantasy novels of 2021, this book also marks the start of a new series from the author of the Nevernight Chronicle.

Release date: 7^th September

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He’s made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life. As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn’t that be a bonus? But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn’t bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can the Thursday Murder Club find the killer before the killer finds them?

Osman follows his phenomenally successful debut novel with a sequel that promises to be every bit as fun and entertaining as the first. Let’s just hope there aren’t quite so many plot holes…

Release date: 16^th September

Horseman by Christina Henry

Everyone in Sleepy Hollow knows about the Horseman, but no one really believes in him. Not even Ben Van Brunt’s grandfather, Brom Bones, who was there when it was said the Horseman chased the upstart Crane out of town. Brom says that’s just legend, the village gossips talking. More than 30 years after those storied events, the village is a quiet place. Fourteen-year-old Ben loves to play ‘Sleepy Hollow boys’, re-enacting the events Brom once lived through. But then Ben and a friend stumble across the headless body of a child in the woods near the village, and the discovery makes Ben question everything the adults in Sleepy Hollow ever said. Could the Horseman be real after all? Or does something even more sinister stalk the woods?

After reinventing tales from Alice in Wonderland to The Little Mermaid, Henry now turns her attention to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, with a new book that sounds perfect for the time of year when the nights start drawing in.

Release date: 28^th September

Matrix by Lauren Groff

Seventeen-year-old Marie, too wild for courtly life, is thrown to the dogs one winter morning, expelled from the royal court to become the prioress of an abbey. At first taken aback by life at the abbey, Marie finds purpose and passion among her mercurial sisters. Yet she deeply misses her secret lover, Cecily, and queen Eleanor. Born last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, Marie decides to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. She will bring herself, and her sisters, out of the darkness, into riches and power.

This new historical novel from the bestselling author of Fates and Furies has been described by Sarah Waters as ‘an audacious piece of storytelling, full of passion, wisdom and magic’.

Release date: 23^rd September

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

Joy Delaney and husband Stan have done well. Four wonderful grown-up children. A family business to envy. The golden years of retirement ahead of them. So when Joy Delaney vanishes – no note, no calls, her bike missing – it’s natural that tongues will wag. How did Stan scratch his face? And who was the stranger who entered and suddenly left their lives? What are they all hiding? But for the Delaney children, there is a much more terrifying question: did they ever know their parents at all?

The worldwide bestselling author of Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers returns with another compelling read about twisted family dynamics.

Release date: 14^th September

Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber

For as long as she can remember, Evangeline Fox has believed in happily ever after. Until she learns that the love of her life is about to marry another, and her dreams are shattered. Desperate to stop the wedding and heal her wounded heart, Evangeline strikes a deal with the charismatic but wicked Prince of Hearts. In exchange for his help, he asks for three kisses, to be given at the time and place of his choosing. But after Evangeline’s first promised kiss, she learns that bargaining with an immortal is a dangerous game – and that the Prince of Hearts wants far more from her than she pledged. He has plans for Evangeline, plans that will either end in the greatest happily ever after, or the most exquisite tragedy.

From the bestselling author of the Caraval series comes the first book in a new series about love, curses, and the lengths people will go to for happily ever after.

Release date: 30^th September

Powers and Thrones by Dan Jones

This epic new history is a thousand-year adventure that moves from the ruins of the once-mighty city of Rome, to the first contacts between the old and new worlds in the 16^th century. It shows how, from a state of crisis and collapse, the West was rebuilt and came to dominate the entire globe. The book identifies three key themes that underpinned the success of the West: commerce, conquest and Christianity. It shows how successive western powers thrived by attracting – or stealing – the most valuable resources, ideas and people from the rest of the world.

Covering a thousand years of history, Dan Jones’s epic new book tells the story of how the world we know today came to be built.

Release date: 2^nd September

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

One October morning, Laina gets the news that her brother has been shot and killed by Boston cops. But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger. Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it. As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence. A professor follows a missing friend’s trail of breadcrumbs to a mysterious secret society. And a young boy with unique abilities seeks refuge in a pro-monster organisation with secrets of its own. At the centre is a mystery no one thinks to ask: why now? What has frightened the monsters out of the dark? The world will soon find out.

This novel is a sprawling urban fantasy about monsters, magic and mythology, inspired by the Caribbean and asking what happens when monsters walk among us.

Release date: 7^th September

The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova

The Montoyas are used to life without explanations. They know better than to ask why the pantry never seems to run low, or why their matriarch won’t ever leave their home in Four Rivers. But when Orquídea Divina invites them to her funeral and to collect their inheritance, they hope to learn some of her secrets. Instead, they are left with more questions than answers. Seven years later, her gifts have manifested in different ways for Orquídea’s family, granting them unexpected blessings. But soon, a hidden figure begins to tear through their family tree, picking them off one by one. Determined to save what’s left of their family, the four descendants travel to Ecuador – to the place where Orquídea buried her secrets.

A story about family, ancestry and power, this novel from the acclaimed author of the Brooklyn Brujas series has been billed for fans of Alice Hoffman and Isabel Allende.

Release date: 7^th September

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

To his customers and neighbours on 125^th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture. He and his wife, Elizabeth, are expecting their second child, and if her parents don’t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home. But cash is tight, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace at the furniture store, Ray doesn’t see the need to ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweller downtown who doesn’t ask questions. Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa and volunteers Ray’s services as the fence. The heist doesn’t go as planned, and now Ray has to cater to a new clientele of shady cops, vicious minions of the local crime lord, and numerous other Harlem lowlifes.

The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Underground Railroad, Whitehead returns with a family saga set against the backdrop of 1960s Harlem.

Release date: 14^th September

New book releases September 2020

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he is approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough – who went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1974. Strike has never tackled a cold case before, let alone one 40 years old. But despite the slim chance of success, he is intrigued and takes it on; adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency, Robin Ellacott, are currently working on. As Strike and Robin investigate Margot’s disappearance, they come up against a fiendishly complex case with leads that include tarot cards, a psychopathic serial killer and witnesses who cannot be trusted.

J.K. Rowling, continuing her successful crime series as Robert Galbraith, has certainly had her share of controversy recently. But her Cormoran Strike novels are always highly entertaining, and Troubled Bloodpromises to be more of the same.

Release date: 15^thSeptember

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food and waterlilies to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone. Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and what do they want?

This mysterious new novel is one of the most highly anticipated books of 2020, coming from the author of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which sold four million copies worldwide and won numerous awards. Expectations are high for this one.

Release date: 15^thSeptember

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Enter a school of magic unlike any you have ever encountered. There are no teachers, no holidays, friendships are purely strategic, and the odds of survival are never equal. One you’re inside, there are only two ways out: you graduate or you die. El Higgins is uniquely prepared for the school’s many dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to destroy the countless monsters that prowl the school. Except, she might accidentally kill the other students too. So El is trying her hardest not to use it… that is, unless she has no other choice.

The author of Uprootedand Spinning Silverreturns to the world of fantasy with a book that marks the start of a new series set in a school for the magically gifted.

Release date: 29^thSeptember

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders. But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

TV presenter Richard Osman turns his hand to fiction with this new crime comedy, marking the start of a new gripping book series.

Release date: 3^rdSeptember

The Testimony of Alys Twist by Suzannah Dunn

1553. Deeply divided England rejoices as the rightful heir, Mary Tudor, sweeps to power on a tide of populist goodwill. But the people should have been careful what they wished for: Mary’s mission is to turn back time to an England of old. Within weeks there is widespread rebellion in favour of her heir, her half-sister, Princess Elizabeth, who is everything Mary isn’t. Orphan Alys Twist has come a long way – further than she ever dared hope – to work as a laundress at the royal wardrobe. There she meets Bel, daughter of the Queen’s tailor, and seems to have arrived at her own happy ending. But in a world where appearance is everything, a laundress is in a unique position to see the truth of people’s lives, and Alys is pressed into service as a spy in the errant princess’s household.

There’s something about books about intrigues in the Tudor court that feel like home to me, and this new book promises plenty of intrigue and romance in a 16^thcentury setting.

Release date: 24^thSeptember

A Girl Made of Air by Nydia Hetherington

Born into a post-war circus family, our nameless star was unwanted and forgotten, abandoned in the shadows of the big top. Until the bright light of Serendipity Wilson threw her into focus. Now an adult, haunted by an incident in which a child was lost from the circus, our narrator, a tightrope artiste, weaves together her spellbinding tales of circus legends, earthy magic and folklore, all in the hope of finding the child. But will her story be enough to bring the pair together again?

A book about storytelling and truth, this debut novel has been recommended for fans of Angela Carter and Erin Morgenstern.

Release date: 3^rdSeptember

Just Like You by Nick Hornby

Lucy married just the sort of man you might expect: a university graduate who runs his own business. Unfortunately he turned out to have serious dependency issues. Joseph is shaking off the memory of his last date, a girl who ticked all the right boxes and also drove him up the wall. On an average Saturday morning in a shop in North London, Lucy and Joseph meet on opposite sides of the counter. They are opposites in almost all ways. Can something life-changing grow from uncommon ground?

Popular author Nick Hornby, whose previous books include High Fidelityand About A Boy, returns with another witty, touching novel which promises to be just as popular as his past work.

Release date: 17^thSeptember

The Abstainer by Ian McGuire

Manchester, 1867. Two men, haunted by their pasts, driven by the need for justice. Stephen Doyle arrives in Manchester from New York. He is an Irish-American veteran of the Civil War and a member of the Fenians, a secret society intent on ending British rule in Ireland, by any means necessary. James O’Connor has fled grief and drink in Dublin for a sober start in Manchester as Head Constable. His mission is to discover and thwart the Fenians’ plans. When his long-lost nephew arrives on his doorstep, he never could have foreseen how this would imperil his fragile new life – or how his and Doyle’s fates would come to be intertwined.

Man Booker Prize-nominated author Ian McGuire returns with a new novel about revenge, justice and obsession.

Release date: 17^thSeptember

Us Three by Ruth Jones

Meet Lana, Judith and Catrin. Best friends since primary school when they swore an oath on a Curly Wurly wrapper that they would always be there for each other, come what may. After the trip of a lifetime, the three girls are closer than ever. But an unexpected turn of events shakes the foundation of their friendship to its core, leaving their future in doubt.

Actor and screenwriter Ruth Jones returns to the world of fiction after the success of her bestselling debut novel, Never Greener, with a story about the complexities of female friendship.

Release date: 3^rdSeptember

Islands of Mercy by Rose Tremain

In the city of Bath, in 1865, an extraordinary young woman renowned for her nursing skills is convinced that some other destiny will one day show itself to her. But when she finds herself torn between a dangerous affair with a female lover and the promise of a conventional marriage to a respectable doctor, her desires begin to lead her towards a future she had never imagined. Meanwhile on the wild island of Borneo, an eccentric British ‘rajah’, Sir Ralph Savage, sees his schemes relentlessly undermined by his own fragility.

Award-winning author Rose Tremain’s absorbing new novel travels the globe from England to Borneo, Dublin to Paris.

Release date: 10^thSeptember