13th June 2025


Books Spotlight Northern Powerhouse


Titles in this Spotlight are to be published between July 2025 and June 2026 Previews


Publishers embracing northern talent


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Our expert, their picks


Will Smith


Will is co-owner of Sam Read Bookseller, an independent bookshop in Grasmere that has served the Lake District for more than 130 years. He has more than two decades of experience in bookselling, with previous roles at Blackwell’s and Ottakar’s. Will has been a judge for the Nero Book Awards, Costa Book Awards and the Nature Chronicles Prize.


HF Askwith Half a Dark Heart Penguin, 29th January, £9.99, PB, 9780241738429


A brilliantly spooky YA “Gothic horromantasy” with a great mix of wit and turn-of-the-century detail. In a Whitby guest house with a view across the River Esk, Alice hides from the terrible things she can see. However, the arrival of charming actor Mr Austin Parker, in need of convalescence to regain his voice, and the disappearance of her sister Lucille, disturb her world. Third novel from Northern Writers’ Award winner and Harrogate- based writer Askwith.


ECR Lorac Still Waters British Library, 10th December, £10.99, PB, 9780712355346


When Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard returns to Lunesdale, the valley around the River Lune, to investigate wrongdoing at a quarry pool, the mystery leads to the Lake District. A reissue of the 1949 mystery written by one-time Aughton resident Lorac, aka Edith Caroline Rivett, whose former home was recognised in August 2024 with an English Heritage blue plaque. Lorac’s vivid sense of place along with her tight plotting continues to earn her new fans.


Shahnaz Ahsan The Jackfruit Chronicles: Memories and Recipes from a British- Bangladeshi Kitchen


HarperNorth, 3rd July, £16.99, HB, 9780008683795


From jackfruit kofta curry to sour tomato broth, fish with clementine peels to vermicelli pudding, Ahsan’s second book mines the memories triggered by food to create an appetising personal memoir of Bengali cuisine and culture. Recipes are interwoven with the story of Ahsan’s grandfather Habib’s arrival in Manchester in the 1950s and the broader narrative of the resilience of the Bangladeshi diaspora.


Sarah Hall Helm Faber, 28th August, £20, HB, 9780571383559


Acclaimed writer Hall’s poetic new novel has been two decades in the making, bringing to life characters across centuries who lived in thrall to the Helm Wind of the Eden valley (the only named wind in the UK). A neolithic tribe attempts to placate Helm, a Dark Age wizard priest tries to banish it, a Victorian engineer wants to capture it and today a researcher fears pollution is killing it. The Helm is a compelling character interjecting in their tale, all made of “maleficence and data and lore”.


Rory Stewart Debatable Land: Dispatches from the Borders


Jonathan Cape, 30th October, £22, HB, 9781787336247


After the tremendously entertaining and gossipy Politics on the Edge, the former MP for Penrith and The Border returns with pieces originally written for the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald, painting a portrait of rural Britain filled with tensions around farming, nature, conservation, development and politics. Promises to be “a timeless evocation of the history, people and landscape of Cumbria”. Stewart’s profile has soared on the back of podcast The Rest Is Politics.


t is a familiar story that the book trade has a geographical problem. The concen- tration of publishing in London leads some to believe that Birmingham, Derby and Glasgow lie in the north of England.


Dear reader, you know this is not true. Yet northern authors, publishers and subject matter are booming, and it has been heartening to read that writers previously rejected for includ- ing northern settings are now seeing print. A strong walking theme emerges as the


paperback of David Nicholls’ You Are Here (Sceptre), joins Jenn Ashworth’s ( 1) The Parallel Path (Sceptre) and Raynor Winn’s On Winter Hill (Michael Joseph) in treading the coast-to-coast. Accessible new guides encourage walkers to take on either coast


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in Ange Harker’s Walking the King Charles III England Coast Path: North West (Cicerone) and Christopher Goddard’s The Yorkshire Coast (Gritstone). Bookseller-writers from the north are also making their mark, including a first picture book from Storytellers Inc’s Katie Clapham, illustrated by Nadia Shireen, The Tour at School: Because You’re the New Kid at School! (Walker), a cosy romance from Book Corner’s Jenna Warren, The Hometown Bookshop (Fairlight), and Mancunian former book- seller Connor Hutchinson’s debut novel Dead Lucky (Corsair). There are also plenty of exciting new Children’s books coming from northern writers, including Sophie Anderson, Curtis Jobling, Tom Palmer and JP Rose.


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Books


Spotlight


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