Welcome back to Book Break! It is time for our monthly virtual book haul. If you haven't seen one
of these videos before, every month I get an email from Elle, the other half of the Book Break team,
packed with pictures and info of some of the most exciting books that we have published in
the previous month. So we are now looking back on the month of May and I can't wait to tell
you about all of these books. I don't yet know what they're gonna be. OK so let's open it up.
Starting with kicking things off with an explosive one. Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keith. This
is the secret history of the Sackler dynasty. So back in 2017 you might remember Patrick Radden
Keith wrote a long read article for the New Yorker that was called The Family That Built an Empire of
Pain. And it was all about the Sackler dynasty and their ruthless marketing of painkillers
that had generated billions of dollars for them and millions of addicts. So that was an
absolutely fascinating and terrifying and very exposing article, and this book Empire of Pain
is him expanding on that. Even more research, even more interviews into this whole like chilling
mesmerizing nonfiction book. Then we have a happier one. Making It by Jay Blades.
Jay Blades is of course a very popular TV presenter, he presents The Repair Shop
amongst other things, and he has gone through a lot of hardships in his life, but this book
is the story of how love kindness and community helped him repair his life. It's even got a blurb
on the cover here from Leigh-anne from Little Mix. She said that she couldn't put it down,
so I would take her word for it! Then we have a cozy paperback, The Village Green Bookshop by
Rachael Lucas. So this is set in the same cute little Cotswolds village as The Telephone Box
Library if you've read and loved that one. So this one is about a woman called Hannah who takes over
the post office in this little village but finds that life in this like very tight knit village
isn't always as welcoming as she would want it to be. There's a lot of gossip, it's a
very tight-knit community where everyone knows each other. Even her plan to introduce a little
bookshop to the post office causes a stir because it's change, it's something new. But it's gonna
turn into a heartwarming story of good books and good friends, but it's also got a little bit of
drama in it. A secret from Hannah's family's past threatens to uproot their new life at one point.
And then we're going into space for Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Why did they strike
and where are they now? So this is the first book in what's going to be a new trilogy from Adrian
Tchaikovsky, the Final Architecture trilogy. So this one is about a world in which 80 years ago
Earth was completely destroyed by an alien enemy. Millions of people died, but many did escape
and mankind, to defend themselves, created these enhanced humans such as our main character Idris
who could communicate mind to mind with the alien enemies who had destroyed Earth. But then
these enemies called architects completely disappeared and Idris and other enhanced
humans like him became obsolete. But now we are 80 years on and Idris and his crew have discovered
something strange in space that seems to be the work of the architects. Are they coming back? And
then we have the cutest little dog on the cover of Grayfriars Bobby by Eleanor Atkinson.
I always love when there are new MCLs. New additions to the Macmillan Collectors Library.
This is maybe my favourite cover yet. Anything with a dog that cute on it I'm going to have to
buy for my shelves. So you probably already know the story of Greyfriars Bobby. It's based on a
true story. And it's basically about the story of this incredible bond between a dog and a human,
even the dog going on to guard his owner's grave for many years after he dies. You might cry.
And then we have another new MCL, Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. So Robert Louis Stevenson
is the author of Treasure Island, also the author of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Kidnapped is possibly less famous these days than those two but it's still a beloved classic.
It is a swashbuckling novel about a young boy who is forced to go to sea and then gets caught up in
this whole daring adventure. Okay next in here we have Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastasic. I actually
have the physical copy on my desk so let me just grab it. This is such a fun colourful cover,
I'm really excited to read this one. This is about two old friends who reunite for a road trip across
Bosnia to try and track down the missing brother of one of them. He has been missing presumed dead
ever since the Bosnian war but only these two girls believe he might still be alive. And it's
kind of split between different timelines, so each chapter is divided into the first section,
which is set in present day on this road trip, and then the second section which recollects some of
their shared experiences from their friendship many years before. They had drifted and they've
now reunited for this road trip. And you get to see how the two girls remember these shared events
very differently sometimes. All right back into my computer. Next we have How to Save a Life by Eva
Carter. I do have this one physically but I just have my proof copy, I don't yet have this lovely
finished version. But How to Save a Life by Eva Carter is going to be such a big book club
book I'm predicting. We did a readalong with a group of Instagrammers, where we read this book
and everyone just loved it so much. It's about these three main characters, it begins on the eve
of the millennium when these three are teenagers, they're all at a New Year's Party and then one of
them collapses. The other two are both aspiring doctors and one of them manages to go over
and keep him alive giving him CPR, the other one freezes and panics so then the events of this
night affect all three of these characters in different ways throughout their lives,
and we get to follow them through the years seeing how their lives change and continue to intersect
with each other's. And it's really lovely and it gets very deep. There's a lot of issues explored
in here. And the author Eva Carter was actually inspired to write it because of her own experience
when her husband suffered heart failure and she managed to keep him alive using CPR until
the paramedics arrived. And so throughout the book is scattered information about what to do
in that situation. Okay then we've got, oh this looks like a poetry collection Hotel Raphael by
Rachael Boast. Okay let's see what it says about it. So this is actually Rachael Boast's fourth
poetry collection, and it says it charts a journey through heat, drought and pain, and describes not
only the reality of chronic illness but living with it at the time of global crisis. Wow that
sounds really powerful and also a reality for a lot of people so I think a lot of people will find
words to help them in this collection. Okay next we have The Harpy by Megan Hunter. This
is the paperback. I just recently did a video on paperbacks that have just come out if you've been
holding out for them and also comparing the covers of the hardbacks versus the paperbacks. I will
link to that video below if you're interested. The Harpy is a really dark fairy tale about revenge
and about metamorphosis of the mind and body. It's a very unsettling and unique story. On the surface
it's about a marriage in which it is revealed that the husband has been cheating on the wife,
and so they agree that the wife is allowed to hurt him back three times to settle the score. But in
reality the book is about so much more than that. You're gonna have to read it to truly understand
the depths. Okay next, oh we have Fake Law by The Secret Barrister. I also put that one in the video
about new paperbacks that have just come out. So this is the truth about justice in an age of
lies. The Secret Barrister is a real barrister whose identity is kept hidden so that they can
reveal a lot of truths from behind the scenes of the law. It's absolutely fascinating stuff.
Then we have a new Peter James novel Left You Dead. So this is a new book in the Roy Grace
series, if you've been watching that series on TV, it is inspired by Peter James's books. So in this
one Niall and Eden Paternoster start their Sunday the same way they always do: with a long drive,
a visit to a country house, and a quick stop at the local supermarket on the way home.
But this Sunday ends differently because while Niall waits and waits in the car park for Eden
to pick up supplies, Eden never returns. Oh boy! So Niall gets arrested on suspicion of her murder,
and it's up to DS Roy Grace to realize that nothing is quite what it seems.
Then we have - what is this? The Tyrant by Seth Dickinson. There's always at least one book in
all of these videos that I haven't yet heard of. There's just so many amazing books that come
out of Pan Macmillan every month, there's always some surprises. So let's find out about this one
together. Okay so The Tyrant is actually the third book in Seth Dickinson's fantasy quartet,
Masquerade. So put in the comments below if you are a fan of this series, I have somehow
missed it. The Tyrant is a sweeping fantasy of empire and intrigue. After years of service
to the corrupt imperial republic of Falcrest, Baru Cormorant finally knows how to destroy it.
She's discovered a deadly weaponized blood plague and if she releases it
the epidemic will kill millions, not just in Falcrest but worldwide. Yikes.
Okay then we have Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth Macneal. I'm so excited about this one. I have my
finished copy, where is it, it's downstairs. I'm actually gonna get it because it's just, it's so
beautiful you should see the real book. Here it is. Circus of Wonders. So Elizabeth Macneal is
the author who wrote The Doll Factory which was another really buzzed about historical fiction.
That one was set in the world of artists and painters and collectors, this time we're moving
to the world of the circus. So I talked about this book recently in a video all about books set
in the circus. I will link to that below if you want to check it out. This is about Nellie Moon
who is nicknamed the leopard girl because of her very distinctive birthmarks that cover her skin,
and she is basically sold into the circus by her father and she becomes their star aerialist. So
she is absolutely adored by the public but she is also being very controlled and manipulated by
Jasper who owns the circus. And Elizabeth Macneal is just brilliant at bringing characters to life
in all of their moral grayness. She doesn't have straightforward heroes and villains,
you really believe in every character, even the ones who slightly maybe creep you out a bit. Okay
then we have Going with the Boys by Judith Mackrell. So this is another non-fiction about
six extraordinary women writing from the front line. So the book follows six women, six female
journalists, writing from the front lines of the second world war. And these women include Martha
Gelhorn who was married at the time to Ernest Hemingway, also the artist Lee Miller is in here,
these are six really really remarkable women, who kind of changed the rules of what war reporting
could be, and also of what women could bring to that field. Next - oh it's a new edition of
The Kindness Method by Shahroo Izadi. I loved this book. I actually did a video a few years
ago when I first started here on Book Break with Shahroo Izadi where I used this book to help me
change some of my habits around the way I use my phone. It's really a method that you can use to
help you change any habits all through being kind to yourself and not judging yourself. It's the
most important thing. This is on the front here: it's the most effective and most enjoyable way to
change your habits, and that's really important. Then another pretty pale blue one: Pandora's Jar
by Natalie Haynes. So this is Natalie Haynes's non-fiction book about women in the Greek myths.
She is very well known and very beloved for her fictional retellings of Greek myths that
center women's stories. So A Thousand Ships is her retelling of the Iliad essentially, of the Trojan
war. And Children of Jocasta is her retelling of the story of Oedipus and Antigone. But if you want
to really dig deep into the history of these stories, and the roles that women originally
played, and then the ways they were written out of these stories and then written back in,
and how men have often retold these stories to just see the women as kind of vengeful jealous
monsters essentially in these stories, this is your book. This is a really well researched
history of women's role in Greek myths. Next is The Melting by Lize Spit. Okay so this
is a very very dark book. This is a story of revenge. It's about a young woman going back to
the town where she grew up with a block of ice in the boot of her car, ready to settle the score for
what happened to her 15 summers before. It is not a book for the faint-hearted, I have been warned
that it's, you have to have a strong stomach maybe to read parts of this book. But I've also heard, I
haven't yet been brave enough to face it myself, I have also heard that it is fantastic, and that if
you are up for reading some very very dark scenes this book is really powerful and hits really hard.
Okay we have just one more in the email and that is The Missing Sister by Lucinda Riley. This is a
book a lot of people have been waiting for. So this is the seventh book in the Seven Sisters
series. So far we have met six sisters, and each book has followed each sister going on a journey
to discover their true heritage and the mysteries from that past. There is a missing sister, and in
this book we are finally going to find out who she is and where she is. So the sisters are going to
unite in this mission, they only have one clue, which is an image of a star-shaped emerald ring,
and this search for the missing sister is going to take them across the globe and uncover this
amazing story that actually started 100 years before. So let us know in the comments below
which of those you are most excited about. I will also link here to a playlist of all of our other
book haul videos and I will also link here to the video I mentioned about paperbacks you've
been holding out for that have just come out in paperback in the last few months. So do click
through to either of these to watch what you want to watch next, and I'll see you next time!