This preview highlights titles to be published in May 2022


05


Sceptre, 3rd, £18.99, HB, 9781529371574 In the afterlife, murder victim Angus Mooney finds a way to observe his beloved wife, who is carrying their first child, and his own murderer— and the pair are becoming uncomfortably close. Scathingly funny and affecting, says Sceptre. Toltz’s début, A Fraction of the Whole, was shortlisted for the Booker.


Sadly my proof has not arrived in time but the second novel from the actor, and author of Booker-shortlisted début Love and Other Thought Experiments, sounds intriguing. In 1990s north London, a photograph of a missing schoolgirl in a newspaper prompts Isobel to remember her time at The Schoolhouse, a 1970s experimental school where the usual rules did not apply.


Dawn Winter Sedating Elaine Fleet, 5th, £14.99, HB,9780349727240


Début An “exuberant” black comedy


Sarai Walker The Cherry Robbers Serpent’s Tail, 5th, £14.99, TPB, 9781800810310 Her previous novel Dietland was an Editor’s Choice for me, neatly summarised by Entertainment Weekly as “a thrilling, incendiary manifesto disguised as a beach read”. This concerns Sylvia Wren, a reclusive American artist, whose two sisters both died of mysterious causes shortly after walking down the aisle.


about Frances who, faced with mounting pressure to pay off her drug dealer and wishing to escape her voraciously amorous girl- friend, decides the answer is to tranquillise her.


Jennifer Atkins The Cellist Peninsula Press, 12th, £10.99, PBO, 9781913512118


Début A début that asks what love


and companionship costs: what happens when you are forced to cast yourself in the distorting light of another person’s needs? Author Atkins has written fiction for the White Review and is a former bookseller.


Sophie Ward The Schoolhouse Corsair, 5th, £16.99, HB, 9781472156327


Literary


Akwaeke Emezi You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty Faber & Faber, 26th, £14.99, HB, 9780571372669


Beatriz Bracher, Adam Morris (trans) Antonio Pushkin Press, 26th, £9.99, PBO, 9781782277873 In Brazil, Benjamim discovers a disturbing family secret: before his father was born, his


author of Wild Spinning Girls.


paternal grandfather had a child with Benjamim’s mother. Both men are now dead, so Benjamim turns to three of their confi- dantes to piece together the secrets and conflicts that shattered his wealthy family.


Sheena Patel I’m a Fan Rough Trade Books, 5th, £11.99, PBO, 9781914236150


Début The narrator uses the story of


Fleur Jaeggy The Water Statues And Other Stories, 5th, £10.99, PBO, 9781913505448 A “shiningly peculiar book”, says the publisher, the latest from the Swiss- Italian “master stylist” is concerned with the loneli- ness and odd emotional poverty of wealth, and is partly structured as a play.


Carol Lovekin Only May Honno Welsh Women’s Press, 18th, £8.99, PB, 9781912905553 Set in a small Welsh village at the end of the 1950s, this tells of May, about to turn 17, who knows her mother and aunt are keeping secrets from her that have some- thing to do with Second World War. From the


their experience in a seemingly unequal, unfaithful relationship and unpicks the behaviour of all involved. Offers “a devastating critique of access, social media, patriarchal heteronorma- tive relationships, and our cultural obsession with status and how that status is conveyed,” says the publisher.


Matthew Yorke Fish Tale Cogito Publishing, 12th, £8.99, PBO, 9781919605333 When a painting of a beautiful woman disappears from a wall at Balmoral Castle, the consequences are far- reaching: a tragic death, a search for truth and motive and a fraught reconciliation between father and son.


Literary short stories


Jem Calder Reward System Faber & Faber, 5th, £12.99, HB, 9780571363780 “Ultra-contemporary and electrifyingly fresh


One to Watch


A “superlead” for Faber, this is the third novel from the author of Freshwater—longlisted for the Women’s Prize—and The Death of Vivek Oji. Billed as “a sizzling romance and a joyful celebra- tion of Black excellence”, this tells of


Feyi, a young woman seeking joy while recovering from loss who is offered the chance to escape the city on a dream island holiday, but is falling for the one man she absolutely can’t have. Optioned for the screen by Amazon Studios. Faber will support with a “stunning” bespoke campaign.


Crime & thriller


Gillian McAllister Wrong Place, Wrong Time Michael Joseph, 12th, £12.99, HB, 9780241520949


fictions” about Millennial life, written by Calder while at a boring office job. Sally Rooney is a fan: “An exhilarating and beautiful book by an extraordinarily gifted writer. Reading these stories I found myself thinking newly and differ- ently about contemporary life.”


Elizabeth Garner, Phoebe Connolly (illus) Lost and Found Unbound, 12th, £16.99, HB, 9781800181236 A re-telling of 15 folk tales that have “nurtured, sustained, terrified and enthralled” the author over the years, with woodcut illustrations from Connolly. Stories include “The Riddle of the Crossroads”, “The Twisted Oak” and “The Wits of the Whetstone”.


Danielle Pender Watching Women and Girls 4th Estate, 26th, £12.99, HB, 9780008472467


Début First short story collection from


the founder and editor-in- chief of Riposte magazine. The book explores how women and girls are looked at, look at one another and look at them- selves. A wedding day brings back memories of sisterhood and betrayals; a motorway service- station burger bar is the site of explosive violence.


Maggie Shipstead You Have a Friend in 10A Doubleday, 19th, £14.99, HB, 9780857526823 Her previous novel, the Booker-shortlisted Great Circle, was a Book of the


Month for me in hardback (out in mass-market paperback in April) and I’ve been a fan ever since her début, so I’m very much looking forward to this collection. Daring, edgy, witty and tender, says Transworld, and I can well believe it. BookScan


Crime & thriller


Rachelle Atalla The Pharmacist Hodder & Stoughton, 12th, £14.99, HB, 9781529342109


Début Speculative thriller about a


pharmacist who made it to safety and is now in a position of power in the bunker, doling out medi- cine under the watchful eye of an increasingly erratic and powerful leader. But is the place of safety actually extremely dangerous?


Ashok Banker A Kiss After Dying Michael Joseph, 12th, £12.99, HB, 9780241510513 Revenge thriller with a twist. A wealthy playboy meets a shy girl and is


One to Watch


First time in hardback for Michael Joseph’s rising thriller brand author and former lawyer (That Night was a Richard & Judy Book Club pick). This ingenious crime tale unfolds backwards—one night Jen watches helplessly as her


teenage son stabs someone in the street outside their house. By the time she falls asleep that night, her son is in custody and has declined a solicitor. But when she wakes up, it is the day before. So does she have a chance to stop a murder that has already happened? Film rights optioned by Sony Pictures.


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