Saturday Spotlight: New Book Releases March 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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Southend Theatre Listings April 2025
Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman
Tue 8 – Sat 12 April 7.30pm
Thu & Sat Mat 2.30pm
Palace Theatre
One of the greatest plays of the twentieth century, Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman explodes onto the stage in this fresh new production led by acclaimed actor David Hayman (Sid And Nancy, Dad’s Army).
This timeless, powerful story takes you on a thrilling journey through the final 24 hours of Willy Loman’s life, filled with his memories, dreams and struggles and pitting a father’s expectations against his son’s realities.
Book Death Of A Salesman tickets | Palace Theatre Southend
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
Thur 15 – Sat 19 April 7pm
Wed, Thu & Sat Mat 2pm
Cliffs Pavilion
Step through the wardrobe into the magic kingdom of Narnia, where a world of wonder awaits. Join Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter as they meet new friends, face dangerous foes and learn the lessons of courage, sacrifice and the power of love. Celebrating the 75th anniversary of C.S. Lewis’s classic novel, watch The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe come to life in this spectacular production. A delight for all ages!
Book The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe tickets | Cliffs Pavilion Southend
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30 Reasons Why You Should Never Give Up by John Akinde
What if the only thing standing between you and success is your ability to keep going?
30 Reasons Why You Should Never Give Up: A Guide To Never Surrendering Your Dreams is not just another self-help book — it’s a battle cry for every creative, entrepreneur and dreamer who’s ever felt like giving up.
Universality by Natasha Brown
Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, a man is brutally bludgeoned with a solid gold bar.
A plucky young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic columnist and a radical anarchist movement. She solves the mystery, but her viral long read exposé raises more questions than it answers.
Universality is a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of truth and power. Through a voyeuristic lens, it focuses on words: what we say, how we say it and what we really mean. The follow-up novel to Natasha Brown’s Assembly is a compellingly nasty celebration of the spectacular force of language. It dares you to look away.
Available to buy here
Connect with Natasha Brown
Tideborn by Eliza Chan
A tsunami and a dragon’s wish have wrought changes upon the city of Tiankawi that have never been seen before.
But shared experiences have not healed the rift between the city’s fathomfolk and human citizens, and scars from years of oppression still remain.
Mira, a half-siren and activist, fights politicians and her own people to rebuild her city and to uncover a deadly conspiracy.
And Nami, the dragon princess, undertakes a daring ocean voyage alongside friend and foe, in order to convince a mythical Titan not to destroy Tiankawi for its crimes…
Everyone In The Group Chat Dies by L.M. Chilton
Kirby Cornell needs a break from everything:
– Her crumbling flat in the sleepy town of Crowhurst (famous for its award-winning sausage rolls and a second-rate serial killer from the 90s).
– Her dead-end job.
– Her sleazy landlord.
– Her slobbish housemates.
– And, most of all, the terrible thing they all did.
Luckily, that hasn’t caught up with her just yet. Until a new message on their old group chat pops up:
Everyone in the group chat will die.
It’s the first text her ex-flatmate and social-media sleuth Esme has sent for ages, but that’s not the really weird thing.
The really weird thing is, Esme died 12 months ago.
Tunnel Vision by
Way Back by Sara Cox
Josie’s life is fine. Absolutely, completely fine.
Her gorgeous house in London is fine. Her husband is fine. It’s the life she wanted – isn’t it?
So why this feeling, nibbling away at the edges of Josie’s thoughts? Why can’t she stop thinking about the life she used to have, back on the farm where she grew up? Why does she feel something is missing?
When her childhood home comes up for sale, Josie realises that there is the chance of a different life altogether. The question is, does she want to take it? And is she willing to risk her heart all over again? After all, everything’s fine as it is.
To find the right future, sometimes you have to go back – way back.
Available to buy here
Connect with Sara Cox
The Journey by Bose Dania
Bose Dania was trained as a professional dancer and went on to run a successful dance school for three years in Austria. At that time she’d never heard of Mental Health and fought the symptoms for over a year, before having her first episode in Austria.
She returned to London to be with her family. After having seven episodes within the space of three years, she was determined not to be beaten by her illness and dyslexia. She learned how to manage them and have a normal life.
After having her son, Bose decided to put this book of poems together to let other people know there is a ‘Life after Diagnosis’.
Ride North by Maria de Jong
Tooth is my pony, but he’s his own boss. I take care of him and in exchange he lets me ride him. I wasn’t surprised when Tooth first communicated with me. All I knew was that with Tooth, it was different. I loved him the minute I saw him. Of course we understood each other!
Twelve-year-old Folly is angry and grieving for her mum. She isn’t ready for Dad’s plans for a new life in Auckland with his new girlfriend. So Folly runs away with the one friend who truly understands: her wise pony, Tooth.
With her mother’s ashes in her backpack, Folly sets off to the fabled Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of New Zealand. Through tourist towns and wilderness, across beaches, roads and forest tracks, Folly and Tooth find both adventure and hardship. But then a spur-of-the-moment choice sets danger on their tail.
Girl and horse must fight to survive together – to the very end of the road.
The Third Rule Of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi
Rule One: Travel can only occur to a point within your lifetime.
Rule Two: You can only travel for 90 seconds.
Rule Three: You can only observe.
The rules cannot be broken.
This is not the story you think you know. And the rules are only the beginning.
Available to buy here
Connect with Philip Fracassi
Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
What are we given, and what do we have to take for ourselves?
It is the 1990s. Growing up in Zanzibar, three very different young people – Karim, Fauzia and Badar – are coming of age, and dreaming of great possibilities within their young nation. But for Badar, an uneducated servant boy who has never known his parents, it seems as though all doors are closed.
Brought into a lowly position in a great house in Dar es Salaam, Badar finds the first true home of his life – and the friendship of Karim, the young man of the house. Even when a shattering false accusation sees Badar sent away, Karim and Fauzia refuse to turn away from their friend.
But as the three of them take their first steps in love, infatuation, work and parenthood, their bond is tested – and Karim is tempted into a betrayal that will change all of their lives forever.
Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
Everyone in the village said nothing good would come of Gabriel’s return. And as Beth looks at the man she loves on trial for murder, she can’t help thinking they were right.
Beth was 17 when she first met Gabriel. Over that heady, intense summer, he made her think and feel and see differently. She thought it was the start of her great love story. When he left to become the person his mother expected him to be, she was broken.
It was Frank who picked up the pieces and together they built a home very different from the one she’d imagined with Gabriel. Watching her husband and son, she remembered feeling so sure that, after everything, this was the life she was supposed to be leading.
But when Gabriel comes back, all Beth’s certainty about who she is and what she wants crumbles. Even after ten years, their connection is instant. She knows it’s wrong and she knows people could get hurt. But how can she resist a second chance at first love?
Available to buy here
Connect with Clare Leslie Hall
The Phoenix Ballroom by Ruth Hogan
It’s never to late to spread your wings…
Recently widowed Venetia Hamilton Hargreaves is left with a huge house, a bank balance to match and an uneasy feeling she’s been sleepwalking through the last 50 years.
Buying the dilapidated Phoenix Ballroom and, with it, a community drop-in centre could be seen as reckless, but Venetia’s generosity, courage and kindness provides a refuge for an array of damaged and lonely people.
As their stories intertwine, long-buried secrets are revealed, missed opportunities seized and lives renewed: the Phoenix lives up to its name.
Available to buy here
Connect with Ruth Hogan
The Trials Of Sylvie DaSouza by Lark Holden
‘The events of the morning make me feel dizzy and lightheaded, as if after a morning’s exercise in the hot sun: a montage of disordered images in vibrant colours… flood my mind: cheering women waving placards with abandon, photographers with flashing cameras that blind you; a friend, cornered like an animal, … full of loathing; a bearded crow in black robes circling the high ceilings in Court Number Three; a pair of doors swinging shut; a female hunter in a canary-yellow jacket, … and a pair of legal lovebirds! And Bunchee Golding! … who must have melted a jury’s heart! … the one person in the world I’d most like to kill. The one person in the world who doesn’t know that by tea-time Thursday, she’s going to be dead.’
The Crime Writer by Diane Jeffrey
2019. Thirty-four-year-old Leona Walsh vanishes on a bitter afternoon while jogging on Exmoor. It’s a mystery which captures public interest and ignites wild speculation. The police have a prime suspect: Leona’s husband, Matthew, a renowned crime writer. He can plot the perfect crime. But is he capable of committing the perfect murder?
Despite extensive searches, the police find no trace of Leona. As public interest dwindles, Matthew returns to raising their daughters, aware the cloud of suspicion is never far away.
2024. Some human bones are discovered in a garden. Could they be Leona’s remains? And if so, is there enough evidence to find out what really happened five years ago?
Journalist Gabriela Conti covered the news story back in 2019. The police may have stopped watching Matthew, but Gabriela hasn’t forgotten him. And she is determined this case will define her career… even if that means getting close to a murderer.
Available to buy here
Connect with Diane Jeffrey
Cuckoo by Callie Kazumi
A story of obsession, love and murder – and not the one you’re expecting. . . Discover a gripping new thriller with a killer twist at its core.
When Claire surprises her fiancé, Noah, at work for their anniversary, she’s the one who ends up being shocked to her core.
Because Noah left the company nine months ago, and she had no idea. How can she not have known?
Now he isn’t answering her calls. He won’t respond to her messages. He’s disappeared.
As Claire desperately tries to find her fiancé, her world begins to shatter as the truth about who Noah really is starts to emerge.
And things are about to spiral dangerously out of control…
Available to buy here
Connect with Callie Kazumi
The Grapevine by Kate Kemp
Australia, 1979.
It’s the height of summer and on a quiet suburban cul-de-sac a housewife is scrubbing the yellow-and-white chequered tiles of her bathroom floor. But all is not as it seems. For one thing, it’s three am. For another, she is trying desperately to remove all traces of blood before they stain. Her husband seems remarkably calm, considering their neighbour has just been murdered.
As the sun rises on Warrah Place, news of Antonio Marietti’s death spreads like wildfire, gossip is exchanged in whispers and suspicion mounts. Twelve-year-old Tammy launches her own investigation, determined to find out what happened, but she’s not the only one whose well-meaning efforts uncover more mysteries than they solve. There are secrets behind every closed door in the neighbourhood and the identity of the murderer is only one of them.
Richly atmospheric and simmering with tension, The Grapevine is an acutely observed debut novel about prejudice and suspicion, the hidden lives of women, and how the ties that bind a community can also threaten to break it.
Available to buy here
Connect with Kate Kemp
Murder At Gulls Nest by Jess Kid
In a house like Gulls Nest, curiosity might prove fatal.
After 30 years in a convent, Nora Breen has thrown off her habit. Her fellow sister Frieda has gone missing and it’s up to Nora to find her. Nora’s only clue is that Frieda was last seen at Gulls Nest boarding house. So she travels down to the seaside town of Gore-on-Sea, takes a room and settles in to watch and listen. Over dubious – and sometimes downright inedible – dinners, Nora gathers evidence about the other lodgers. At long last, she’s found an outlet for her powers of observation and, well, sheer nosiness.
When one of the lodgers is found dead, Nora decides she must find the murderer. Not least because she suspects the victim knew Frieda. Could solving this mystery help her to understand what has happened to her friend?
Available to buy here
Connect with Jess Kidd
The Rest Of Our Lives by Benjamin Markovits
What’s left when your kids grow up and leave home?
When Tom Layward’s wife had an affair he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest daughter turned 18. Twelve years later, while driving her to Pittsburgh to start university, he remembers his pact.
He’s also on the run from his own health issues, and the fact that he’s been put on leave at work after students complained about the politics of his law class; something he hasn’t yet told his wife.
So, after dropping Miriam off, he keeps driving, with the vague plan of visiting various people from his past: an old college friend, his ex-girlfriend, his brother, his son en route, maybe, to his father’s grave in California.
by Richard McColl
When British foreign correspondent Richard McColl purchased, on a whim, a ruined colonial building in the rural Colombian town of Mompós, he imagined a lifestyle of relaxation, with idle afternoons reading the works of Gabriel García Márquez, writing glib observations and enjoying the hypnotic momentum of a Caribbean tropical narrative, swaying in a hammock and the promise of an ice-cold beer never far away. He was mistaken.
His first restoration yields a hostel, which later becomes a hotel and then spirals into further projects, including the restoration of three more colonial houses, experiencing challenges that make him reconsider his upbringing, education and outlook on how he fits into his adopted homeland. With two hotels in Mompós, he experiences the joy of new friendships and a despair over the predictability of guests.
With a journalist’s eye for a story, McColl navigates the history of Mompós and how its society is a microcosm of today’s Colombia, with its feudal system still very much in place, inherent prejudices, stigma surrounding the politics, the people and the past, all coming to the fore.
And yet, while combating fierce opposition to his inroads into the community, facing up to ghostly tales, witchcraft and an unwelcome brush with right-wing paramilitaries, he and his Colombian wife Alba and her extended momposina family, make a successes of the businesses and grace the pages of both the international and national press.
This work of non-fiction is overall a love story for a village and its population that, in spite of the soporific temperatures, extend a welcome-yet-syrupy embrace to an outsider. Reading this will not reveal a tale of a fish out of water or the unoriginal and well-covered narrative of an Englishman abroad, but more an exploration of identity and belonging in Colombia’s garciamarquian heartlands.
Every hotelier has tales to tell, but who more so than a writer, better versed in relating the salty minutiae of Colombia’s peace process, narco-subs and the cocaine trade, sharing honest insights into life in Colombia, anecdotes of creatively planned infidelities, cowardly and corrupt politicians, curiosities and happenings that are at first peculiar and then become part of the day-to-day experience in Mompós.
This book is a prismed look at modern-day Colombia through the lens of Mompós and should be read by anyone wishing to visit the country and explore its idiosyncrasies.
Available to buy here
Connect with Richard McColl
Lula Dean’s Little Library Of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller
It’s time to rise up…
In Troy, Georgia, local woman Lula Dean has campaigned to cleanse the town’s reading habits. All the ‘disgusting’, ‘pornographic’ and downright ‘un-American’ books have been removed from public spaces. Now, the townspeople are only allowed to read ‘appropriate’ books from Lula’s personal lending library.
But a small group refuse to be told what they can and cannot read and, unbeknownst to Lula, her personal collection is slowly restocked with banned books: literary classics, gay romances, Black history, spell books and more.
One by one, each person who borrows the books from Lula’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. And as they begin to reveal their new selves, it’s clear that a showdown is fast approaching – one that will change the town of Troy forever.
Available to buy here
Connect with Kirsten Miller
Where Do The Dead End Up? by
Tales from beyond the veil of darkness will draw you into their world as journeys never end with death but simply begin a new chapter.
Six stories to chill your spine and three poems to keep you enthralled by the words written for the dead.
Available to buy here
Connect with Priyanka Nawathe
Madame Sosostris & The Festival For The Broken-Hearted by Ben Okri
What do you do when your heart has been made a wasteland by love?
Viv, who’s in the House of Lords, had the idea for the festival on the 20th anniversary of the day her first husband left her. Six months later, crowds descend on the grounds of a dreamlike chateau in the South of France, avidly awaiting the experience of a lifetime: Viv’s inaugural Festival For The Broken-Hearted.
Everyone is in fancy dress. No one knows who anyone is. They wander the beautiful woods with just one night to change everything. And to crown it all, a very special guest is expected: world-renowned clairvoyant and fortune-teller Madame Sosostris, known as the wisest woman in Europe, and not seen since the pages of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. She will attend for one night only.
But will she actually appear at all, or will Viv’s carefully orchestrated festival fall to pieces? Will Viv and her husband make it through the night? Will anyone else?
The Toffee Man And The Kingdom Of Ends by LK Quinn
It’s 1968. Life is changing fast as the world prepares for the moon landings.
When April’s stepdad, Andy, is sent to prison, she and her family are moved from the caravan in the valley she loves to a village house. She’ll miss Eli, but he has to get back to America and get a man on the moon.
The family are not welcome in the village, except for the kindness of Reverend Fisher and his sister at the local church. Undeterred, April explores this new world, befriending The Toffee Man, a war veteran and a clock mender, who struggles to manage his garden.
When Andy is released, he uses her friendship with The Toffee Man to cover his latest crimes – with tragic consequences.
Available to buy here
Connect with LK Quinn
Story Of A Murder by Hallie Rubenhold
No murderer should ever be the keeper of their victim’s story…
On 1 February, 1910, vivacious music-hall performer, Belle Elmore, suddenly vanished from her north London home, causing alarm among her circle of female friends, the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild, who demanded an immediate investigation.
They could not have known what they would provoke: the unearthing of a gruesome secret, followed by a fevered manhunt for the prime suspect: Belle’s husband, the medical fraudster, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen.
Hiding in the shadows of this evergreen tale is Crippen’s typist and lover, Ethel Le Neve. Was she really just ‘an innocent young girl’ in thrall to a powerful older man, as so many people have since reported?
In this epic examination of one of the most infamous murders of the twentieth century, prizewinning social historian Hallie Rubenhold gives voice to those who have never properly been heard: the women.
Available to buy here
Connect with Hallie Rubenhold
The Quiet Sister by Alex Stone
To outsiders, twins Mia and Chloe have always been close, as good sisters should be. But in private, their relationship is one of jealousy, resentment and bitterness.
Popular and attractive Mia is always the centre of attention, loved by all. Quiet and reserved, Chloe is overlooked and underestimated, and has tried to build a life away from Mia and her manipulation. Finally, she is happy and content.
But then Mia returns and makes it clear she wants to be part of her sister’s life again, to have everything Chloe has; including her new fiancé, Scott.
Chloe can’t allow Mia to ruin her life again. She’s done this too many times in the past: always taking things that don’t belong to her.
As old tensions, secrets and lies return, tragedy strikes. And one sister will use the opportunity to live the life she’s always wanted; the life she’s always deserved.
Available to buy here
Connect with Alex Stone
They Bloom At Night by Trang Thanh Tran
Ever since a hurricane devastated the small town of Mercy, Louisiana, a red algae bloom has taken over.
Mutated wildlife lurks in the water that rises by the day, but Mercy has always been a place where monsters walk in plain sight. Especially at its heart: the Cove, where Noon’s life was upended long before the storm at a party her older boyfriend insisted on.
Now, Noon is stuck navigating the submerged town with her mom, who believes their family have been reincarnated as sea creatures. Alone with the pain of what happened that night at the cove, Noon buries the truth: she is not the right shape.
When Mercy’s predatory leader demands Noon and her mum capture the creature-drowning residents, she reluctantly finds an ally in his deadly hunter of a daughter and friends old and new. As the next storm approaches, Noon must confront the past and decide if it’s time to answer the monster itching at her skin.
Available to buy here
Connect with Trang Thanh Tran
Hybrid ~ Renewal by Martin Walker
Rachael and Michael find that the world has changed.Available to buy here
Connect with Martin Walker
10 Marchfield Square by Nicola Whyte
Marchfield Square was meant to be a haven from the outside world.
A place for those who need somewhere safe from their pasts, or who could otherwise not afford to stay in the city they call home. That was Celeste Van Duren’s plan. One of her tenants being murdered in his own kitchen and the police trying to pin it on his long-suffering wife, was not.
So Celeste does what anyone with a lot of money, a strong sense of justice and a bad hip would do: she recruits some help to track down the real murderer. Her cleaner, Audrey, knows everyone in the square and is liked by all, while failed crime writer, Lewis, is known by no one. He hates his job, hates his life and he’s not that fond of Audrey either, but Celeste is persuasive. In theory, his knowledge of police procedure and her way with people should help them find the killer – if they don’t kill each other first.
Despite their differences, the two soon discover the victim’s dodgy art deals may hold the key to the mystery. But have they missed something closer to home? After all, how well do you really know your neighbours?
Available to buy here
Connect with Nicola Whyte
The Mysterious Bakery On Rue De Paris by Evie Woods
Nestled among the cobblestone streets of Compiègne, there existed a bakery unlike any other.
Rumours were whispered through the town that its pastries offered a taste of magic, chasing away the darkest of sorrows. Just one bite of a croissant might bring luck, unlock a precious memory or reveal hidden longings.
But dark clouds were looming on the horizon…
For Edie Lane, a recipe for disaster doesn’t require that many ingredients. Take an unhealthy amount of wishful thinking and a sprinkle of desperation and that’s how Edie left everything behind in Ireland for her dream job at a bakery in Paris. Except the bakery isn’t in Paris – and neither is Edie.
This might not be where Edie intended to be but she soon realises it’s exactly where she needs to be.
Available to buy here
Connect with Evie Woods
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.
