We’re about to hit the big autumn new book wave, but before we get there, I wanted to mention that the paperback edition of Sonia Purnell’s Kingmaker is out in shops from today. This was my Book of the Week at the start of October last year and was my favourite non-fiction read of 2024. It’s a fascinating re-examining of the life of Pamela Churchill Harriman, making a case for her as a behind the scenes political operator and power player rather than the husband stealing courtesan that she has previously been seen – and portrayed – as. I only read it because I’ve read a fair bit about Truman Capote’s Swans, where she appears fairly often, but it was so much more than I was expecting – and really really worth a look.
You know how I sometimes say I don’t know if this was just announced or if I had just not noticed? Not this time. This was just announced yesterday and was not my original plan for today but I couldn’t not do it, given that as soon as I read the email from Taylor Jenkins Reid I clicked on the preorder link in it and preordered the signed edition Waterstones had. And when I came back to my inbox, there was an email from Waterstones telling me about the book that I had just ordered. Ahead of the game I tell you. Anyway…
I don’t need to give you the plot of Atmosphere because the blurb is right there in the Instagram post, but if what Taylor Jenkins Reid said when Carrie Soto came out still holds, this is not going to be linked to that quartet – although whether those characters will exist in this new world (as Easter eggs for us nerds) or not I do not know. I enjoyed those four books so much that I’m a little trepidatious about venturing into a new world – especially because space and sci fi aren’t usually my thing and I am Aware of certain space shuttle related events in the mid 1980s – but clearly not nervous enough not to have ordered that signed copy immediately. A nice treat coming my way in eight months time – the big question is will I remember that I’ve preordered it or will I accidentally order it again before then? Anything is possible…
Also before I go: there hadn’t been an email from Taylor Jenkins Reid since April and then she sent one on Tuesday with book reccs – so another one twenty four hours later announcing a new book was quite the shock – and delightful surprise because I was disappointed at the end of Tuesday’s email that there was still no news of anything new!
I spotted this on Friday night and honestly I nearly screamed outloud with excitement:
I’ve been saying for ages that I would like another book in the Susan Ryland series and now my prayers have been answered. I’ve wondered as well how easy it would be to come up with another plot for this given that the author of the Atticus Pund series is dead, and in the second book Susan seemed to have unravelled as many secrets as had been hidden there, so I’m thrilled Horowitz has come up with something – and the blurb is intruiguing:
Susan Ryeland has had enough of murder.
She’s edited two novels about the famous detective, Atticus Pünd, and both times she’s come close to being killed. Now she’s back in England and she’s been persuaded to work on a third.
The new ‘continuation’ novel is by Eliot Crace, grandson of Miriam Crace who was the biggest selling children’s author in the world until her death exactly twenty years ago.
Eliot believes that Miriam was deliberately poisoned. And when he tells Susan that he has hidden the identity of Miriam’s killer inside his book, Susan knows she’s in trouble once again.
As Susan works on Pünd’s Last Case, a story set in an exotic villa in the South of France, she finds more and more parallels between the past and the present, the fictional and the real world – until suddenly she finds that she has become a target.
Someone in Eliot’s family doesn’t want the book to be written. And they will do anything to prevent it.
This is coming out at the end of March and I’ve no idea how recent this announcement actually is – I’ve checked the usual places and there was nothing, but I think it must be pretty recent because it’s the first time Amazon has suggested it to me and that algorithm knows I like Horowitz so suggests them to me on the regular, and of course it hasn’t got a cover yet. Anyway, I’m really excited about it – and in addition to that, the TV adaptation of The Moonflower Murders is hitting the screens in the US this weekend, so hopefully it’ll be here in the UK soon too.
So I missed this being announced about ten days ago – but we have a date and a cover for the next Emily Henrynovel. The blurb is out as well and has a heroine who is starting over after her fiancé realised he was actually in love with his childhood best friend and a hero who is the ex of that childhood best friend. They end up as roommates and decide to stage photos of themselves together for revenge on their mutual exes, just for show of course, definitely no real feelings involved…
Fake relationships are totally my cup of tea as you know, so this sounds delightful – if only I didn’t have to wait until April for it! But it is already pre-orderable on Kindle and Waterstones have a signed hardback edition up for preorder too.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 