BOOKS


Elsie Mason The Biscuit Factory Girls at War Orion, 19th, £8.99, PBO, 9781409196501 Second in the Biscuit Factory Girls series, set in South Shields, where Beryl and her sisters-in- law work and keep their families afloat while the men are away fighting the Second World War.


SFF


Peter V Brett The Desert Prince HarperVoyager, 3rd, £20, HB, 9780008309770 First in a new series set in the same world as Brett’s bestselling Demon Cycle series, featuring a new generation of heroes, including Olive, Princess of Hollow and Darin who learn that the demons are not all gone, and that those who remain hunger for revenge.


Previews New Titles: Fiction


roots trace back to the right hand of the Emperor; and his mother, whose family rejects the oppres- sive Empire and embrace the resistance. But perhaps Wen will choose a third way.


Ian Green


The Gauntlet and the Fist Beneath Aries, 5th, £18.99, HB, 9781800244108


Début “Action-packed” fantasy adven-


ture from a Scottish writer who has won the BBC Radio 4 Opening Lines competition, set in a world of brutal juntas and ancient animism, where gruesome medieval warfare and strange magic are the tactics used in the name of freedom.


Jake Chapman 2+2=5 Urbanomic, 3rd, £18.99, PB, 9781913029692 “A much-needed rectifica- tion of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four offers an all-you-can-eat quinoa buffet of wrong- think”, from one half of the 1990s YBA duo the Chapman Brothers (with sibling Dinos). Will Self is a fan.


D K Fields Farewell to the Liar Ad Astra, 5th, £18.99, HB, 9781789542561 The final instalment of the Tales of Fenest (Widow’s Welcome, The Stitcher and the Mute) and former detective Cora Gorderheim, stripped of her badge by the corrupt chief inspector, faces a terrible choice: her sister’s life, or the future of the Union of Realms.


J T Greathouse


The Hand of the Sun King Gollancz, 5th, £16.99, HB, 9781473232877


Début Début fantasy with an East


Asian influence. Wen Alder is a boy torn between two legacies: his father, whose


32 7th May 2021


Paul Hoffman The White Devil Michael Joseph, 5th, £20, HB, 9780718185848 Latest in the Left Hand of God series. Survivor Thomas Cale is back stumbling into a series of world events that not even a mercenary as wily as him can escape. As the poets say, where Cale goes, a funeral surely follows.


Rian Hughes The Black Locomotive Picador, 5th, £16.99, HB, 9781529074420 Literary SF. A strange anomaly is uncovered in the new top-secret Crossrail extension being built under Buckingham Palace. It is an archeologi- cal puzzle, a mysterious alien artefact that may transform our understand- ing of history—and the origins of London itself. From the author of XX: A Novel, Graphic.


Linden Lewis The Second Rebel Hodder & Stoughton, 24th, £16.99, HB, 9781529386950 Second in the epic, genderqueer space opera series follows The First Sister. While Astrid seeks to bring down the Sisterhood from within, Hiro val Akira, on an outlaw colony station deep in space, plans to bring a dangerous ally into the rebellion.


Ada Palmer Perhaps the Stars Ad Astra, 5th, £20, HB,


9781786699602 Final instalment of the Terra Ignota series. The long years of near-utopia have come to an abrupt end and corruption, deception and uncertainty hum within the once steadfast leadership of the Hives.


Alastair Reynolds Inhibitor Phase Gollancz, 26th, £20, HB, 9780575090712 Standalone set in the Revelation Space universe, where Miguel de Ruyter has successfully protected his family from the xenocidal alien machines known as “Inhibitors” for years, hiding on the airless planet of Michealmas. But then a passing ship threatens to bring them some unwanted atten- tion… BookScan


it seems every road leads to war.


Mimi Yu Empress of Flames Gollancz, 19th, £12.99, TPB, 9781473223141 Sequel to The Girl King. Sisters Lu and Min are set for an epic confrontation over the throne of the late Emperor, their father, but then it becomes clear the Empire faces a threat even greater than their rivalry.


P Djeli Clark A Master for Djinn Orbit, 19th, £8.99, PBO, 9780356516882 Wonderful-sounding fantasy set in an alterna- tive 1912 Cairo, where Fatma el-Sha’arawi, an agent for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, investigates a murderous imposter claiming to be Al-Jahiz, the man who, 50 years earlier, drew back the veil between the magical and the mundane realms.


Anthony Ryan The Pariah Orbit, 26th, £20, HB, 9780356514550 Begins a new epic fantasy series following Alwyn Scribe, raised as an outlaw, who finds himself a soldier in the king’s army, under the command of a noblewoman beset by visions of a demonic apocalypse. But can an outlaw really become a warrior? From the author of the Raven’s Blade series.


Andrzej Sapkowski Warriors of God Gollancz, 26th, £18.99, HB, 9781473226166 Second volume of the Hussite trilogy from the Polish author of the best- selling Witcher series (now a Netflix hit) follows the adventures of Reynevan and his friends through the years 1427–28, as war erupts across Europe. Based on the real-life Hussite wars of the 15th century, but obviously with a magical twist.


Matthew Ward Legacy of Light Orbit, 19th, £25, HB, 9780356513423 The Legacy trilogy concludes as the sins of the past are laid bare and


Kevin Hearne Paper & Blood Orbit, 12th, £8.99, PBO, 9780356515243 Second in the Ink & Sigil series, set in the world of the Iron Druid Chronicles and follow- ing Al MacBharrais, an eccentric master of magic solving uncanny mysteries in Scotland… Slips from June. BookScan


Deborah Hewitt The Rookery Pan, 5th, £8.99, PBO, 9781509896493 Sequel to The Nightjar finds Alice learning to wield her rare powers in defence of the Rookery, city of secrets, lies and magic, as it faces destruction. When Alice discovers why the Rookery is at risk, she realises the price she must pay to save it…


Richard Kadrey King Bullet HarperVoyager, 19th, £9.99, PBO, 9780008358723 The supernatural noir Sandman Slim series comes to an end with this, the 12th book. LA is gripped by a viral pandemic, and King Bullet and his Shoggot gang of crazed killers are revelling in the city’s collapse. But there’s more to Bullet than meets the eye, and what Stark


discovers will change everything forever.


Devin Madson We Cry for Blood Orbit, 5th, £9.99, PBO, 9780356514116 Third in the dark fantasy Reborn Empire quartet (We Ride the Storm, We Lie with Death). The Kisian Empire has fallen, but another rises from its ashes.


Jodi Taylor Long Shadows Headline, 5th, £9.99, PBO, 9781472267528 From the author of the beloved Chronicles of St Mary’s series, this is the third in her supernatural thriller series featuring Elizabeth Cage, whose identity has always been a mystery—even she doesn’t know, who, or what, she is. But now someone else very badly wants to know the truth about Elizabeth.


Matt Thomas Anthracite Unbound, 5th, £10.99, PBO, 9781789651478 Comic SF. Deadbeat Kevin Jones finds himself kidnapped by the mysteri- ous Gwen and transported to an alternative reality in which Wales is the single global superpower, but forces there seek Kevin’s destruction. BookScan


Horror & ghost stories


Richard Chizmar Chasing the Boogeyman Hodder & Stoughton, 17th, £16.99, HB, 9781529372373 Said to be a clever, terrify- ing and heart-rending work of metafiction, this tells of recent graduate Richard Chizmar, who returns to his Maryland hometown in 1988 just as a curfew is enacted to try and stop a serial killer. There is a rumour that whoever is stalking local teens is not entirely human. Author Chizmar co-wrote Gwendy’s Button Box with Stephen King.


Keisuke Nishimoto, William Scott Wilson (trans) Strange Tales from Japan Tuttle Publishing, 10th, £12.99, TPB, 9784805316603 Ninety-nine spine-tingling tales of ghosts, yokai, demons and shapeshifters from Japan, with 32 pages of full-colour images.


Graphic novels


Luke & Kelly Jackson; Mara Wild Two-Week Wait Scribe UK, 12th, £14.99, PBO, 9781913348649


Début Scribe’s first graphic novel is


based on the IVF stories of its authors. A couple who met at university decide they are finally ready to have children, but struggle to conceive. Ahead of them lies a difficult, expen- sive and emotional jour- ney, where each successful implantation is followed by a two-week wait.


Julia Quinn, Violet Charles (illus) Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron Piatkus, 17th, £14.99, TPB, 9780349430454 Julia Quinn’s first graphic novel. It’s the story of Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron, which pops up in Bridgerton book seven, It’s in His Kiss.


Jed Mercurio & Prasanna Puwanarajah, Coke Navarro (illus) Sleeper Scribner, 5th, £16.99, PB Bespoke, 9781471194979 First in a new graphic novel series featuring DS-5, a biologically enhanced law-enforce- ment marshal, who is due to be decommissioned after decades in deep space, but has one final mission: an investigation into mass murder that becomes entwined with a geologist’s quest for her missing father. Jed Mercurio is the creative force behind “Line of Duty” and “The Bodyguard”.


Bryan Talbot Grandville L’Intégrale Jonathan Cape, 19th, £40, HB, 9781787333031 The complete Grandville series (five graphic novels) in one hardback, with an introduction by Ian Rankin. Detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard pursues shadowy death squads, psychotic killers and ruth- less crime lords through the streets of London and the Belle Epoque Paris.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40