This preview highlights titles to be published in August


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accused of war crimes, she is soon pushed to the precipice. One for read- ers of Rachel Cusk and Deborah Levy.


‘Sliding Doors’ meets Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, says Hodder.


Per Petterson


Alexandra Kleeman Something New Under the Sun 4th Estate, 19th, £14.99, HB, 9780008339111 Second novel from the author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine (“an existential thriller written in prose that points the way to the future,” said Zadie Smith) concerns a novelist who comes to Hollywood planning to oversee the production of the film adaptation of one of his books, only to find California is not what he expected—and a new brand of synthetic water seems to be at the root of it all. A darkly funny and menacing novel about capitalism, desire and destruction in LA, says HarperCollins.


Beth Lewis


The Origins of Iris Hodder Studio, 19th, £14.99, HB, 9781529357684 Iris flees New York City, and her abusive wife Claude, for a cabin deep in the Catskill Mountains, where she comes face to face with a seemingly prettier, happier and better version of herself who has made different choices in life and love.


Crime & thriller Val McDermid


1979 Little Brown, 19th, £20, HB, 9780751583090


Men in My Situation Harvill Secker, 5th, £16.99, HB, 9781787301658 Said to be a “tender, scin- tillating” portrait of grief, divorce, fatherhood and a life falling to pieces, set in Oslo 1992, where 38-year- old Arvid Jansen’s wife has left him, taking their three daughters, to start a new life. From the author of Out Stealing Horses.


Conach performs miracles which survive as legend in the Book of Glen Conach. In the 19th century, the book is rediscovered by a charlatan, and in the pres- ent day a young boy sees ghosts in the glen. Author Robertson runs indepen- dent publisher Kettillonia, and co-founded the Scots-language imprint Itchy Coo.


from the Booker Prize- shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, tells of two star-crossed lovers who meet in secret (one is Greek Cypriot, the other Turkish Cypriot) until war breaks out. Decades later Kostas, now a botanist, returns to look for Defne. BookScan


actress Betty to stay in his house in France and play Martha’s role as loving spouse. But Betty’s method acting will take them to a dark place…


Ketty Rouf, Tina Kover (trans) No Touching Europa Editions, 12th, £12.99, TPB, 9781787703162


Michèle Roberts Cut Out Sandstone Press, 12th, £14.99, HB, 9781913207472 Denis is searching for his mother’s past, knowing she had secrets that she kept from him. In Nice, he finds her friends Monique and Clemence who, in the 1950s, were Matisse’s assistants when he was old and ill. Author Roberts’ most recent book was the 2020 memoir Negative Capability, described as “raw and glittering… superb” in the Sunday Times.


James Roberston News of the Dead Hamish Hamilton, 5th, £18.99, HB, 9780241401996 Three narrators are linked by the setting of Glen Conach in the Scottish Highlands. In ancient Britain, the hermit Saint


Début By day, Josephine


teaches at a grim college in a Paris suburb. By night, she transforms into strip- per Rose Lee in a night- club on the Champs- Élysées, where she draws power from the desire she inspires in men. A story of liberation that shatters prejudices about sex and society, says Europa.


Joan Silber Secrets of Happiness Allen & Unwin, 5th, £14.99, HB, 9781911630081 In New York, lawyer Ethan discovers his father has a secret life and second family (a wife and two children) in Queens, a revelation that will have far-reaching consequences for members of both families. Silber’s previous novel Improvement won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and drew comparisons with Alice Munro.


Elif Shafak


The Island of Missing Trees Viking, 5th, £14.99, HB, 9780241434994 Another sadly delayed proof but this, the latest


David Thewlis Shooting Martha W&N, 5th, £14.99, HB, 9781474621533 Second novel from the actor and author of The Late Hector Kipling is a lead for W&N, which will support with a “big and buzzy” publicity campaign. Celebrated director Jack Drake is struggling to make his latest film without his late wife Martha, so he hires


One to Watch


Another delayed proof but this sounds unmissable: the first in a brand new series, McDermid’s first in nearly 20 years, introduces reporter Allie Burns, whose career will be plotted over five books, each set a decade apart. We begin in


1979 in the winter of discontent, with Allie needing a big story to help her break into the boys’ club that is the newsroom of her Glasgow paper. She comes up with a plan to infiltrate a Glasgow terror plot, but Allie is a woman in a man’s world, and putting a foot wrong could be fatal. A “major” superlead for Little, Brown. BookScan


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Bernice McFadden Sugar Vintage Classics, 5th, £8.99, PBO, 9781784877316


Sugar, a young prostitute, moves next door to Pearl, still grieving for her daughter, who was murdered 15 years


earlier. McFadden is the author of nine novels and is widely acclaimed in her native US, and Vintage plans an “ambitious” marketing and publicity plan to launch her in the UK.


Samar Yazbek Planet of Clay World Editions, 26th, £12.99, PB, 9781912987238 Rima, a young girl in the midst of war-torn Damascus, finds refuge in a fantasy world full of crayons, secret planets and The Little Prince. Then her mother is killed by a sniper. Offers a surreal depiction of the horrors taking place in Syria, in vivid and poetic language, says the publisher. BookScan


One Sunday, a woman leaves hot, muggy Paris to visit her sister in the western Parisian suburb of Ville d’Avray. A slender, enigmatic novel that unearths the disquiet beneath seemingly peace- ful lives, half-shared truths and desires that can never fully be expressed.


Stevyn Colgan Cockerings Unbound, 19th, £9.99, PBO, 9781789651515 Third comic novel from the former QI “elf” (A Murder to Die For, The Diabolical Club). Berkeley Cockering wants to live the hedo- nistic life of a millionaire playboy, but is stymied by his sister Marcheline, who refuses to sell off any of their large, jointly owned estate.


Petar Andonovski, Christina E Kramer (trans) Fear of Barbarians Parthian Books, 9th, £9, PBO, 9781913640194 Winner of the 2020 European Union Prize for Literature. Set on a remote island south of Crete, it tells of Ukrainian Oksana, recovering from an illness in the aftermath of Chernobyl, for whom the island is a sanctuary. For Greek Penelope, married off to an unsuit- able man, it is a prison.


Dominique Barbery, John Cullen (trans) Sunday in Ville d’Avray Daunt Books, 17th, £9.99, PBO, 9781911547969


Nataliya Deleva, Izidora Angel (trans) Four Minutes Open Letter, 19th, £11.99, PBO, 9781948830379


Début In post-commu- nist Bulgaria,


orphan Leah, who suffered daily horrors as a child, now struggles to integrate into society as a gay woman. The novel contains nine other character studies of people on the periphery in Eastern Europe.


Awais Khan No Honour Orenda Books, 19th, £8.99,


One to Watch


Début First UK publication for this story of friendship and forgiveness set in small-town Arkansas, where


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