Saturday Spotlight: New Book Releases February 2025
By Claire Buss, Deputy Editor, Write On!
At Write On! and Pen to Print, we want to help connect authors and readers, playwrights and audiences, so we’ve created a Spotlight page on the last Saturday of the month, showcasing some of the exciting new reads and plays available. The curated list is based on books and plays that you send us, so if you’re an author or a playwright and you’d like your book or play in the spotlight, reach out to us at pentoprint@lbbd.gov.uk. Whether you’re an indie author, with a small press or mainstream publisher, established or brand new playwright, we’d love to hear from you and shine a light on your new work.
Write On! offers other opportunities for writers as well. If you’d like us to feature an extract from your book or a short story, please send the extract, book cover and blurb to pentoprint@lbbd.gov.uk with the subject: Write On! Showcase (ensuring you have your publisher’s permission, of course).
Pen to Print are also looking for short videos from people reading a passage from their favourite book, or authors reading extracts from their own books. These videos will be featured on the Pen to Print YouTube channel and across our social media. Please send in your videos or links to pentoprint@lbbd.gov.uk with the subject: Video Stories.
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Shadows In The Stone by TWM Ashford
The bigger the score, the harder the fall.
Legend tells of a sword that makes a warrior’s enemies fall to their knees in surrender. Sheni isn’t sure if he believes the drunken ramblings of old space pirates, but what he does know is that a sword like that would fetch an eye-watering price.
Unfortunately, the trail leads them from ancient temples to prison planets, and retrieving the sword from its final resting place might cost the crew more than they’re willing to pay. Especially since someone on board the Silver Hart is keeping a secret with deadly implications.
This could be the heist that finally makes them millionaires. They just need to survive rival raiders, corrupt prison wardens and reanimated corpses first…
Available to buy here
Connect with TWM Ashford
The Ffryes Affair by MC Butterworth
After working for ten years as airline cabin crew, Antonia is ready for a change.
She seeks a new life on the beautiful island of Antigua. There she meets Peter, a British expat and romance blossoms between them.
One day, on the beach after a storm, they discover a mysterious metal box that contains ownership papers for Ffryes Mills, once a sugar plantation. Ettie, an old lady living in a derelict windmill on the estate, claims that her family used to own the land, so it is now hers.
Antonia immerses herself in the project to prove Ettie’s ownership, but soon discovers she’s fighting an unscrupulous American property investor, determined to grab the land for a hotel development.
Meanwhile, Peter’s job in Antigua is not secure. He may have to leave the island to work elsewhere, leaving Antonia behind. Antonia is devastated he’s putting work ahead of her and their relationship and the couple separate.
How will Antonia prove Ettie’s ownership of the land? And what is her future with Peter? Will love win the day?
Remember, I Love You by Claudia Carroll
Recently-widowed father of one Luke is desperate for a sign.
Since his beloved wife Helen passed, Luke and six-year-old Amy are just about keeping the show on the road, but he’d do anything to have Helen near him again.
Connie’s much-missed mum was everything to her daughter. A friend, a cheerleader, a comfort and the best housemate Connie ever had. What she wouldn’t give to speak to her one more time.
Teenage twins Alex and Lucy both miss their dad desperately but neither have the words to put it right.
In the heart of Dublin, a quiet community is forming, drawn together by the loved ones they have lost, but kept together by friendship and laughter. As Luke, Connie, Alex, Lucy and the other patrons of the Leesom Street Café learn to smile again, none of them are quite ready for meeting the person who may be able to make all their dreams come true.
Because if you love and listen hard enough, goodbye might not be the end.
Where The Heart Should Be by Sarah Crossan
Ireland, 1846.
Nell is working as a scullery maid in the kitchen of the Big House. Once, she loved school and books and dreaming. But there’s not much choice of work when the land grows food that rots in the earth. Now, she’s scrubbing, peeling, washing, sweeping for Sir Philip Wicken, the man who owns her home, her family’s land, their crops, everything. His dogs are always well fed, even as famine sets in.
Upstairs in the Big House, where Nell is forbidden to enter, is Johnny Browning, newly arrived from England: the young nephew who will one day inherit it all. As hunger and disease run rampant all around them, a spark of life and hope catches light when Nell and Johnny find each other.
Needy Little Things by
Emily Wilde’s Compendium Of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett
Emily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries. A renowned dryadologist, she has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia Of Faeries. Now she’s about to embark on her most dangerous academic project yet: studying the inner workings of a faerie realm, as its queen.
Along with her former academic rival, now fiancé, the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell’s long-lost kingdom. Filled with scholarly treasures, Emily finds it to be a beautiful nightmare.
She’s been obsessed with faerie stories her entire life, but at first she feels as ill-suited to Faerie as she did to the mortal world. How could an unassuming scholar like herself pass for a queen? Yet there’s little time to settle in: Wendell’s murderous stepmother has placed a deadly curse upon the land before vanishing without a trace. It will take all of Wendell’s magic and Emily’s knowledge of stories to unravel the mystery before they lose everything they hold dear.
Available to buy here
Connect with Heather Fawcett
Life Hacks For A Little Alien by Alice Franklin
“Climb up here, Little Alien. Sit next to me. I will tell you about life on this planet. I will tell you how it goes.”
From her first words to her first day at school, Little Alien can’t help but get things wrong. She doesn’t understand the world the way others seem to, and the world doesn’t seem to understand her either. Her anxious mum and meticulous dad, while well-intentioned, are of little help.
But when Little Alien sees a documentary about the Voynich Manuscript, a mediaeval codex written in an unknown language and script, she begins to suspect there are other people who feel just like her. Convinced that translating this manuscript will offer the answers she needs, she sets out on a journey that will show her a delicious taste of freedom.
So begins this charming, witty and profoundly moving novel about the power of language, the wonder of libraries and how to find a path that fits, when you yourself do not.
Available to buy here
Connect with Alice Franklin
The List Of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
Yorkshire, 1979.
Maggie Thatcher is Prime Minister, drainpipe jeans are in, and Miv is convinced that her dad wants to move their family Down South.
Because of the murders.
Leaving Yorkshire and her best friend Sharon simply isn’t an option, no matter the dangers lurking round their way; or the strangeness at home that started the day Miv’s mum stopped talking. Perhaps if she could solve the case of the disappearing women, they could stay after all?
So, Miv and Sharon decide to make a list: a list of all the suspicious people and things down their street. People they know. People they don’t.
But their search for the truth reveals more secrets in their neighbourhood, within their families and between each other, than they ever thought possible.
What if the real mystery Miv needs to solve is the one that lies much closer to home?
Available to buy here
Connect with Jennie Godfrey
The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths
Ali Dawson and her cold case team investigate crimes so old, they’re frozen, or so their inside joke goes. Most people don’t know that they travel back in time to complete their research.
The latest assignment sees Ali venture back further than they have dared before: to 1850s London in order to clear the name of Cain Templeton, the eccentric great-grandfather of MP Isaac Templeton. Rumour has it that Cain was part of a sinister group called The Collectors: to become a member, you had to kill a woman…
Fearing for her safety in the middle of a freezing Victorian winter, Ali finds herself stuck in time, unable to make her way back to her life, her beloved colleagues and her son, Finn, who suddenly finds himself in legal trouble in the present day.
Could the two cases be connected?
Available to buy here
Connect with Elly Griffiths
We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes
Welcome to the Kennedy household.
Lila wrote a bestseller about keeping your marriage alive, before discovering her ex was playing happy families with another woman. A woman she sees every day at school pick-up.
Bill, her stepdad, moved in after Lila’s mum died. He’s kind, old-fashioned and driving her absolutely nuts.
Celie, Lila’s eldest, hates school. Hates it so much she’s stopped going. Her mother’s fine with that – because she doesn’t know yet.
Violet is nine and sings age-inappropriate rap songs, laughs at fart jokes and Lila dearly hopes she’ll never, ever change.
And Truant the dog, who has just bitten the American actor who’s suddenly landed on the Kennedys’ doorstep.
This is Gene, Lila’s estranged father and no one’s idea of a role model. He walked out on Lila and her mum years ago, and wherever he goes domestic discord follows.
Because Gene’s presence changes things in unexpected ways. Soon the girls discover a kindred spirit in a man always chasing life’s joy. Bill even loosens up. And Lila finds herself, astonishingly, dating.
Something is happening to the Kennedy household – but what is it? And will it break, or save, their family?
Available to buy here
Connect with Jojo Moyes
The East Ham Golem by Barbara Nadel
The streets of East London are alive with different languages, cultures and religions.
Private investigators Lee Arnold and Mumtaz Hakim are well-versed in the community’s tensions, the sad day-to-day reality that includes the desecration of graves at Plashet Jewish cemetery in East Ham.
The vandalism of these final resting places leads to a disturbing discovery: one of the damaged coffins does not contain human remains but instead a sculpture of a man made of clay. This so-called ‘golem’, a term from Jewish myth given to a figure brought to life by supernatural means, proves intriguing to Arnold and Hakim; even more so when it’s stolen from a police storage facility in an armed raid.
The case leads the pair deep into London’s past and its connections to wartime Prague and on to the trail of a priceless jewel worth killing for.
Available to buy here
Connect with Barbara Nadel
Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill
Beneath the still surface of a lake lurks a monster with needle-sharp teeth. Hungry and ready to pounce.
Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake by an angry mob, something makes Jenny decide she’s worth saving.
Temperance doesn’t know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor. All she wants is to return to her husband and children, still trapped under his baleful influence.
Though they have nothing in common, these two unlikely companions must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Temperance’s family, Jenny’s lake and, possibly, the very soul of Britain.
Available to buy here
Connect with Molly O’Neill
The Rose Bargain by Sasha Peyton Smith
Every citizen of England is granted one bargain from their immortal fae queen.
High society girls are expected to bargain for qualities that will win them suitors: a rare talent for piano in exchange for one’s happiest childhood memory. A perfect smile for one’s ability to taste.
But Ivy Benton’s debut season arrives with a shocking twist: a competition to secure the heart of the Queen’s fae son, Prince Bram. A prize that could save Ivy’s family from ruin… and free her sister from the bargain that destroyed her.
Yet every glittering fae deal has a rotting heart, and at the centre of this contest is a dark plot that could destroy everything.
Available to buy here
Connect with Sasha Peyton Smith
Dirty Money by Charlotte Philby
An investigative journalist turned private detective, Ramona Chang’s final scoop left her with a target on her back.
Now in hiding, she’s living in a run-down flat in east London. But when her latest case looking into an upmarket escort agency takes a dark turn, she needs information only accessible to those in power.
Detective Sergeant Madeleine Farrow is a high-flying operative at a government agency. On the day of her 50th birthday, she finds out she’s been given the lead on an investigation into corruption on a global scale. But when she finds her case mysteriously blocked from the inside, she needs someone on the outside, capable of moving undetected.
As Ramona’s and Madeleine’s cases collide, can the unlikely allies find justice for multiple victims within the capital’s hotbed of lies and deception?
Available to buy here
Connect with Charlotte Philby
Spells, Strings, And Forgotten Things by Breanne Randall
In the small town of Gold Springs, Calliope Petridi and her two sisters carefully guard the secret of their magic and the price they must pay to practise it: memories.
Luckily, all Calliope wants to do is forget: the mother who left without a trace, the sisters from whom she feels increasingly distant and, most of all, the way the love of her life shattered her heart two years ago.
But when an ancient evil awakens, the fragile thread that holds the sisters together breaks. As their magic slowly begins to fade, Calliope accidentally binds herself to the handsome leader of a rival coven infamous for their ruthless pursuit of power. Battling the sizzling chemistry with a man she can’t trust, Calliope must confront painful memories of her past, dark family secrets, and ancient magic in order to protect the town and all she loves.
But will she have anything left of herself?
Available to buy here
Connect with Breanne Randall
May All Your Skies Be Blue by Fiona Scarlett
He’s leaning in. I’m leaning in. “The future is ours to make, Shauns,” he says, lips almost touching.
Summer, 1991.
Dean: sun-stung and sticky with cool ice-pop juice, walks to the middle of The Green to get a good gawk at the new salon. And at the owner’s kid. Hands deep in his pockets, his jet-black mop of hair hides the tension in his face at the thought of going back home.
Shauna: stands well hid behind her ma – her eyes dark and haunted like the rest of her. The salon is theirs, a fresh start. The smell of her ma’s Body Shop perfume clings to her jumper – Shauna can’t be anywhere else other than here.
Instantly inseparable, their friendship blooms. But as time passes and tell-tale blushes and school fights develop into something deeper, conflicting responsibilities threaten to pull Shauna and Dean apart.
When all seems lost, will they find each other under the same blue sky?
Grave Empire by Richard Swan
Blood once turned the wheels of empire. Now it’s money.
A new age of exploration and innovation has dawned, and the Empire Of The Wolf stands to take its place as the foremost power in the known world. Glory and riches await.
But dark days are coming. A mysterious plague has broken out in the pagan kingdoms to the north, while in the south, the Empire’s proxy war in the lands of the wolfmen is weeks away from total collapse.
Worse still is the message brought to the Empress by two heretic monks, who claim to have lost contact with the spirits of the afterlife. The monks believe this is the start of an ancient prophecy heralding the end of days: The Great Silence.
It falls to Renata Rainer, a low-ranking ambassador to an enigmatic and vicious race of mermen, to seek answers from those who still practice the arcane arts. But with the road south beset by war and the Empire on the brink of supernatural catastrophe, soon there may not be a world left to save.
Available to buy here
Connect with Richard Swan
Is It My ADHD? by Grace Timothy
Darkly funny, relatable and unflinchingly honest, Is it My ADHD? gives irreverent and intersectional insight into what life is like for women living with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Much like the three to four per cent of the British population with ADHD, Grace Timothy always felt on the outskirts of ‘normal’. After a lifetime of mental and physical symptoms that didn’t quite add up, she was finally diagnosed in 2021.
At the time, information was scant. Now, neurodivergence is the hot topic on everyone’s lips. With this increased awareness, we’ve encountered a new challenge: how can we circumnavigate the misinformation and better understand our own brains?
Writer and podcaster Grace Timothy speaks to those living with ADHD to explore traits specific to women, grounding each chapter in clinical research and expert commentary. Offering comfort and real, tried-and-tested tips along the way, this book is for anyone who’s ever wondered: Is it my ADHD?
Available to buy here
Connect with Grace Timothy
The Horse And The Girl by Madeleine F White
The Horse And The Girl is a series of 30 linked narrative poems, conversations between the ‘Horse And The Girl,’ looking at issues such as relationships, climate change, growing older, life, death and change in general.
It offers a wry, poignant look at the world around us, with a strong environmental slant. Something between Conversations With God and The Boy, The Mole, The Fox And The Horse, bestsellers both, these rhyming poems detail the imagined dialogues that occur between the main protagonist and the horse she rides.
There is wisdom, there is profundity, and there’s a charming style to the works which – despite embracing themes of ageing, death and the dangers that are palpably present to our environment – are lightly penned and seem to whinny, canter and trot this way and that, carrying the reader on a journey that’s emotional as well as heartfelt. In all, it’s a sweetly affecting book and very accessible to any reader.
Available to buy here
Connect with Madeleine F White
Fundamentally by
“By normal, you mean like you? A slag with a saviour complex?”
Nadia is an academic who’s been disowned by her puritanical mother and dumped by her lover, Rosy. She decides to make a getaway, accepting a UN job in Iraq. Tasked with rehabilitating ISIS women, Nadia becomes mired in the opaque world of international aid, surrounded by bumbling colleagues.
Sara is a precocious and sweary East Londoner who joined ISIS at just 15.
Nadia is struck by how similar they are: both feisty and opinionated, from a Muslim background, with a shared love of Dairy Milk and rude pick-up lines. A powerful friendship forms between the two women, until a secret confession from Sara threatens everything Nadia has been working for.
A bitingly original, wildly funny and razor-sharp exploration of love, family, religion and the decisions we make in pursuit of belonging, it fundamentally upends and explores a defining controversy of our age with heart, complexity and humour.
Available to buy here
Connect with Nussaibah Younis
Remember, if you’re an author and you’d like to see your book in our Saturday Spotlight, email: pentoprint@lbbd.gov.uk and send us the details of your new novel.
For details of Penguin RandomHouse new releases, visit their website here.
For details of Hachette new releases, visit their website here.
For details of HarperCollins new releases, visit their website here.
For details of PanMacmillan new releases, visit their website here.
For details of Simon & Schuster new releases, visit their website here.
Disclaimer: Amazon links are given for ease but please remember there are a number of other online retailers operating, including hive (which helps to support independent book shops), Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play and Nook as well as online stores for bookstores such as Waterstones, Barnes & Noble and WHSmiths.
Issue 23 of Write On! is out now and you can read it online here. Find it in libraries and other outlets. You can find previous editions of our magazines here.
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We want to help connect authors and readers, so our Saturday Spotlight page showcases some of the exciting new reads available each month.
