Saturday Spotlight: New Book Releases July 2026

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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In Deep Water by Elle Blair

 

A murder at sea. One detective. No back-up.

DI Rachel Harlow is off duty and stuck aboard a cruise ship with her twin teenagers and uptight parents. Determined to distract herself from the complicated mess – professional and personal – she’s left back at Northumbria Police HQ, she embarks on a flirtatious game with a stranger on board… until she finds him dead the next day.

With no eyewitnesses and no official investigation, Rachel digs into the murder alone, going strictly against the captain’s orders. Dead end after dead end, she’s met with lies and silence from the ship’s crew.

International waters allow people to play by different rules, but Rachel won’t let up. Even when it leads her to a crime ring just as dangerous as the one she’s left behind on land. But at sea, she has no team to back her up.

Available to buy here
Connect with Elle Blair

Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite

 

Your daughters are cursed. They will pursue men, but the men will be like water in their palms. Your granddaughters will love in vain. Your daughters, your daughter’s daughters, and all the women to come will suffer for man’s sake…

Eniiyi has heard about the family curse her whole life. She’s never believed in it. She’s also heard, her whole life, that she is the reincarnation of her dead aunt, Monife. Same eyes, same left hand, same scar in the same place. She’s never believed in that, either.

Then she falls in love with a handsome local boy, and Monife begins to appear to Eniiyi: in her dreams, on the beach, in the mirror, pulling her, it seems, towards the same terrible fate. Can Eniiyi live her life on her own terms, or is history – and the curse – repeating itself?

Available to buy here
Connect with Oyinkan Braithwaite

Mr Sidhu’s Post Office by Amman Brar

 

For years, Mr Sidhu’s post office has been a place of small rituals and quiet mercies: news exchanged, kindnesses remembered, a haven for all. Mr Sidhu is confidant, caretaker and witness to a community revealing itself in its loyalties and secrets.

But Mr Sidhu is caught between the life he has inherited and the one he has scarcely allowed himself to imagine. When his ordered world begins to shift, he’s drawn towards a new future and an unexpected love, forcing him to navigate family tensions, shifting identities and the question of who stands beside us when everything changes. And soon, the life Mr Sidhu tended so carefully may no longer be enough.

Tender, wise and beautifully observed, Mr Sidhu’s Post Office is an unforgettable novel about love, duty and the communities that shape us – and save us.

Available to buy here
Connect with Amman Brar

Queenie Is Working On It by Candice Carty-Williams

Available to buy here
Connect with Candice Carty-Williams

Enemies To Everything At Cornflower Cove by Lizzie Chantree

Good morning, Cornflower Cove friends! The café doors are open, the coffee’s brewing and the sea is sparkling this morning. Today’s special is lemon drizzle cake. Grab a virtual slice, pull up a chair by the window – the best seats always have a sea view. Enjoy the sunshine. Love is always in the air at Cornflower Cove!

Coming face to face with your first love – now a property tycoon – is a terrible idea when you’re menopausal, freshly divorced and the manager of a crumbling holiday park on the edge of heaven, that would make a great addition to his portfolio.

Ali Royall arrives at Cornflower Cove desperate for a fresh start. After walking away from her failing marriage and a stressful high-powered career, managing her oldest friend’s struggling holiday village on the beautiful Dorset coast feels like the peaceful reset she needs.

Quiet mornings. Stunning views. Sea air. No drama. Until Nick Aster walks back into her life.

Twenty-five years ago, Nick was the man Ali loved most – until he broke her heart. Now he’s a devastatingly handsome property developer with a dangerous smile, a talent for getting under her skin and plans to buy the very holiday village she’s determined to save.

Nick says it’s business. Ali knows it’s personal. As Cornflower Cove fights to survive, old wounds reopen and long-buried feelings refuse to stay buried. Between forced proximity, late-night planning meetings, simmering arguments, seaside chaos, family secrets, and chemistry hot enough to rival the Dorset summer, resisting Nick becomes almost impossible.

But trusting him again? That could destroy her.

Available to buy here
Connect with Jeevani Charika

Everyone knows it is Knights that defeat Dragons.

But how do you defeat a Dragon that hatches in your own heart?

When her mother falls gravely ill, Ziroh leaves her sheltered life on isolated Eallan Island to seek aid. But a chain of catastrophic events draws her into a quest far more dangerous than she ever imagined.

With only a pair of childish imps, a tavern-brawling fairy, and a disillusioned student enchanter at her side, Ziroh must journey through lands of ancient magic and hidden enemies, seeking a mysterious Knight.

But the greatest danger is no longer the world around her. It’s one she carries within.

If Ziroh cannot find the Knight in time, there will be nothing of Ziroh left to save.

Available to buy here
Connect with Sadie Davidson

The Kingpin by A. A. Dhand

 

One Woman’s War by Rosie Goodwin

 

Nuneaton, 1914

War is just around the corner and for Annie Lilburn and her adopted family, life will never be the same. Annie has never felt like she fits in, but since Levi Lilburn, the local rag-and-bone man, took her under his wing and she became a business woman in her own right, things have been on the up. Soon that is set to change again when World War I is declared and the men of the town enlist.

Annie trains to become a nurse and finds herself on the battlefields in France. Through the devastation of war, love starts to bloom as Annie meets a young officer on a dangerous mission. Could this orphan girl finally be finding her place in the world and someone to truly love her, or is her happiness set to come crashing down once again?

Available to buy here

The Summer We Lied by Rebecca Hardy

 

Eighteen years ago, teenager Alex sent a man to prison. She and her two best friends from school, overheard the vicious murder of a mother and child, although only she took the stand in court.

But despite her evidence, there were always rumours the wrong man had been imprisoned. That, although he was someone not to be trusted, he wasn’t a killer.

Alex has always known she did the right thing but when new DNA evidences comes to light and the conviction is overturned, the spotlight falls on her, the woman who sent him to jail. The woman whose mistake may have let the real killer evade justice for years.

And for Jonathan, Alex and Rachel, once friends for life, now strangers to one another, there are going to be many more secrets coming to light.

Because that summer, there were many different versions of the truth.

Available to buy here
Connect with Rebecca Hardy

Murder, She Solved by R.D. Herring

 

Meet Jessica Cabot… unassuming writer of popular murder mysteries and an accidental amateur detective. Her home is Beatrice Cove, a sleepy coastal town of charming houses and rolling sand dunes – and the occasional shocking crime.

In Murder, She Solved, you’ll work alongside Jessica as she takes on a series of mystifying cases, helping her piece together puzzles and solve crimes along the way.

Discover the clues and test your skills with these 120 fun and original cosy crime and murder mystery logic puzzles. Piece together the evidence and unlock the puzzle to discover whodunnit – where, why, how, and when – with illustrations, grids, and diagrams throughout. With difficulty levels from easy coffee-break puzzles to challenging epic brain-benders, this book features series puzzles, logic grid puzzles, sudoku, crossword, wordsearch, and codeword – plus hints and solutions – all to test your sleuthing skills. Examine the suspect, motive, witness and location, inspect the clues and solve the crime.

Available to buy here
Connect with Lea Korsgaard

A Taste Of Paradise by Melissa Hill

 

Erin Howard has just joined The Palms Hotel as guest relations manager. She is determined to make her mark, and a deal with Daniel MacKenzie, the enigmatic CEO of the hottest new ecotourist agency, could be just the way to do that.

Meanwhile, events co-ordinator Lily Carter, is drawn to Shay Brady, a heartbroken groom seeking solace in the island’s tranquillity after his fiancée leaves him. As their bond deepens, Lily starts to question her own desires for the life she’s built.

Naomi Sparks, a vibrant social media influencer, has just arrived to celebrate her milestone birthday with family and friends. As she begins to see the cracks in her relationship with her boyfriend Greg, new and unexpected connections form, leading her to question what true love really means.

Against this stunning backdrop, the lives of staff and guests intertwine. But when a threat to The Palms emerges, it becomes clear that trusting the wrong person could put the survival of the beloved resort in jeopardy.

Available to buy here
Connect with Melissa Hill

The Body Myth by Milli Hill

 

The Body Myth will transform the way a generation of women think, not just about one single aspect of being female, but about their lifetime experience of the female body.

The female body has been misunderstood for centuries. Declared defective. Pathologised. Controlled. Exploited.

In The Body Myth, feminist writer and women’s health campaigner Milli Hill exposes the stories we’ve been told about being female and replaces them with a new narrative: women are powerful, strong and perfect just as we are.

From menstruation to menopause, female biology has been misunderstood, medicalised, sexualised and sold back to us as a problem to fix. The result? A world in which women doubt their own strength, knowledge and instincts ― while industries profit from their insecurity.

Moving from the mirror to the clinic, from the clitoris to childbirth, Milli reveals how culture, medicine and history have misread women’s lives and why reclaiming a new understanding of female power is long overdue.

Bold, eye-opening and deeply empowering, The Body Myth invites women to see themselves differently. Because being female was never the problem. It has always been the source of incredible power.

Available to buy here
Connect with Milli Hill

Spellcast by Sophie Jordan

For ten long years, Arden has been invisible, trapped in her village by a spell she can’t break. Living like a ghost among those who’ve forgotten her, she dreams of vengeance against the witch who cursed her.

Until one fateful day, her village is devoured in flame and everything changes.

From the wreckage rises a pride of dragons that can transform into humans. Their piercing eyes slice through her curse, and for the first time in a decade, Arden can be seen.

Swept off to the Crags by the enigmatic alpha dragon, Tage, Arden is forced into a world of fire and power, drawn unwillingly to Tage’s fiery intensity.

But Arden’s fate is bound to a secret she has yet to uncover. With war on the horizon, she must decide whether to harness the wild magic around her, or risk losing everything.

Sometimes all it takes to break a curse is to cast another spell.

Available to buy here
Connect with Sophie Jordan

Deathless by Julie Kagawa

 

How does one kill the unkillable?

Sparrow and her companions have been left with an impossible task: slay the immortal Deathless King, whose magic siphons the very life of the world to sustain himself.

The answer may lie deep in the past, when those who would become Deathless Kings stormed the sanctuary of the goddess of Fate, in an attempt to remove their threads from the Weave and become immortal. They broke off a piece of the goddess’s loom and hurled it to the earth, where it still lies at the centre of a dangerous wasteland called the World Scar.

For any chance against the Deathless King, Sparrow and her companions must brave the World Scar and reach the loom, which would grant the power of a goddess. But the journey is fraught with danger, and the powerful Deathless King determined to find them.

And if the loom is reached, what will the power of a goddess do to a mere mortal? Sparrow has no choice but to find out.

Available to buy here
Connect with Julie Kagawa

The Night Stairs by Erin Kelly

Every school has its scandals. At St Cordula’s, the next one could be fatal.

St Cordula’s Catholic boarding school has survived for centuries on tradition, discipline and silence. Now its future is under threat, and Deputy Head Fiona Fox is preparing to lead the controversial change that could save it from ruin.

But St Cordula’s has always had rules of its own.

Legend has it that the ghost of 15th-century nun, Sister Matilda, will keep the school safe. But only as long as the words GOD FORGIVE ME, scrawled by Matilda on a chapel staircase wall before she fell to her death, remain.

Every year, the words are repainted.

The only time they were allowed to fade, in 2002, a terrifying outbreak of vertigo swept through the pupils. One girl died on the night stairs. And only three people know what really happened.

Now the vertigo is back, and as panic sweeps the school, Fiona must confront a dark secret from her past. Or face the deadly consequences.

Available to buy here
Connect with Erin Jelly

Howl In by Priyanka Nawathe

 

Stingburrow, a small town hidden beneath the rocky Hollindemun Hills, faces a storm every year.  

Three friends try to control the damage while battling with their deepest desires as one curse holds the power to pull them into its darkness. LYCANTHROPE.

Sheriff Jaymie Lowves carries the responsibility of Stingburrow’s residents while grieving the love he lost.

Dr. Mallory Griffin battles her survivor’s guilt while finding the cure for the town.

Rickwan McIntyre aka Mack, the local repairman, despises them for what he lost years ago.

As the one they lost returns with her pet, will the curse be broken? Or will the Lycan blood prevail?

Available to buy here
Connect with Priyanka Nawathe

Waking The Warriors by Ben Okri

 

When the world ends, only the underground mysteries will save us.

A great wall is rising on the horizon and a foreign army is massing on the borders of the small country of Nevereach. As invaders prepare to smash the last of the resistance, three unlikely heroes emerge from the exhausted populace.

Mel, Rosa and Apibus, driven by the loss of loved ones, inspired by old stories and guided by a mysterious star, set out to save their world by rousing the sleeping warriors. But before they can do that, they must find the witch who alone knows how to wake these mythical figures.

Travelling across a perilous landscape, encountering challenge after challenge, this could be called a cautionary tale for the three, and the reader, but it’s more than that – it’s a journey, a revelation and an inspiration.

Available to buy here
Connect with Ben Okri

Yes, Chef by Grace Reilly

 

If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

After a public meltdown in one of Manhattan’s most elite restaurants, Chef Jack Hartman must return to his small Florida hometown. The only upside? He’ll be far away from Poppy Winfield – his former boss’s blonde, beautiful, utterly infuriating daughter – and the shrimp she threw at his head.

Poppy is also desperate for an escape – from her disapproving family and from her infamy as an influencer without a serious bone in her body. With their reputations in ruins, Jack’s only ticket back to New York is turning the unloved restaurant of his childhood into the newest dining hotspot on the East Coast. And unfortunately for him, Poppy’s is using her well-honed social media skills to sell out his grand opening.

As sparks fly and tensions reach boiling point, will Poppy and Jack be a recipe for disaster? Or could they be a perfect pairing?

Available to buy here
Connect with Grace Reilly

The Tailor by Tim Sullivan

 

George Cross: Unfailingly shrewd. Uniquely brilliant.

A bespoke tailor boards the ten o’clock train from Bristol to London. Before it reaches Bath, he’s found dead in the toilet, his throat slit and a plastic bag pulled over his head.

DS George Cross deduces that this wasn’t a robbery.

Nothing about the killing is random. It’s an execution.

George’s investigation brings him dangerously close to a cold and merciless world. And is it his imagination, or is he being followed?

With the highest conviction rate of any officer in the force, someone will do anything to stop George from getting to the truth.

This time, the next cut could be meant for him…

Available to buy here
Connect with Tim Sullivan

Everything To The Sea by Alicia Upano

 

THIS IS HOW THE STORY OF JANE AND KENJI GOES.
Home in Hilo, Hawaii for one final summer, Jane is working and saving for her senior year before she leaves her island town behind forever. At first, she doesn’t remember Kenji. To Kenji, she’s unforgettable: Janie, nose perpetually buried in her old high school sketchbooks.

THEY WILL FALL IN LOVE.
Jane tells herself it’s only a fling  – one perfect, carefree summer, on her way to achieving her dream of becoming an architect and moving to the continent. But as the days pass, the pair find themselves falling hard into first love.

AND THEN EVERYTHING WILL VANISH.
Then tragedy strikes when a tsunami destroys much of Hilo, leaving both Jane and Kenji convulsed with grief. While Jane leaves, unable to look back, Kenji stays, bound by duty to rebuild their community.

WHEN ALL IS LOST, HOW DO WE FIND OUR WAY HOME?
Seven years later, Jane and Kenji collide again – and find the past is not as easily laid to rest as they thought.

A decade-long story of home and belonging, destruction and renewal, betrayal and forgiveness, Everything To The Sea is an unforgettable love story about what it means to rebuild a life worthy of what was lost.

Available to buy here

Playing The Field by Tabitha Webb

 

An escape to the country never looked so good.

Eliza Fox is down and out in London. 38-years-old with no savings, a boss with a diva complex, and a boyfriend who’s shagging his secretary. It’s definitely time to call a halt to city life.

So, Eliza straps her sequins and heels into her trusty yellow Citroen, and arrives windswept and exhausted into Farmington. Her to-do-list for her fabulous new life is simple: locate an acceptable flat white outside London, pay off her mounting debts and absolutely do not fall for any devastatingly handsome farmers.

But when she spots local heartthrob Luke Stanley emerging shirtless from a lake, like some sort of rural Poseidon, Eliza wonders if she might just be in for the ride of her life…

Available to buy here
Connect with Tabitha Webb

The Allotment Sisterhood by Kay Wilson

 

Three women. One neglected allotment. Countless secrets waiting to surface.

Rose, Kate and Sophia arrive at the allotment hoping for a fresh start. The overgrown plot offers a chance to escape the pressures of everyday life, heal old wounds, and leave painful memories where they belong.

At first, the women are wary of each other. But as the seasons change and the allotment begins to flourish, so does an unlikely friendship that helps each of them rediscover hope, purpose, and the courage to move forward.

Then a Halloween bonfire ends in disaster.

When a video of the explosion goes viral, the pasts they thought they’d buried threaten to unravel, and the lives they’ve carefully rebuilt could go up in flames.

Set over the course of a year, The Allotment Sisterhood is an uplifting contemporary novel about friendship, resilience, and the restorative power of nature. Perfect for readers who enjoy emotional women’s fiction, memorable characters, and stories of second chances.

Available to buy here
Connect with Kay Wilson

12 Jobs In 12 Months

 

Nomad, journalist, aid worker – there is no job that intrepid travel writer Rupert Wolfe Murray won’t do.

In this fascinating book, Rupert shows that you can always turn your life around. To prove his theory to the world, he took on 12 different jobs in 12 short months, showing that you’re never too old and it’s never too late!

If you ever feel bored or trapped in your job, this is the book for you. Follow Rupert’s inquisitive and adventurous spirit and find the confidence to live a life you never thought possible.

Available to buy here
Connect with Rupert Wolfe-Murray

 

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 27 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.

You can hear great new ideas, creative work and writing tips on Write On! Audio. Find us on all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Google Podcasts and Spotify. Type Pen to Print into your browser and look for our logo, or find us on Podcasters.Spotify.com.

We want to help connect authors and readers, so our Saturday Spotlight page showcases some of the exciting new reads available each month.