Welcome back to Book Break, and welcome to another virtual
book haul. This is our July book haul and I have just been sent a very
exciting email which I have here unopened in front of me.
It contains information of some of the most brilliant books we have published
in the month of July. So get your pen and paper ready,
you're gonna want to add a lot of these to your shopping list.
The first book in here is A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes.
OK so this is the paperback cover which looks really different, it's
absolutely beautiful. I'm sure you've already heard so much
about this book, it has been raved about all over booktube, and it was
shortlisted for the women's prize for fiction.
So this is a greek myth retelling, it retells the story of the Trojan War
but from loads of different perspectives, from the perspectives of
all of the women involved, from the goddesses to the princesses to the slave
girls, so many different voices. I loved this
book so much, it's so much fun. I went on a complete greek myth
retelling binge last year and we actually made a video
with our recommendations of the best in this genre, which i will link to,
so you can click through and have a watch. But this is just one of the best,
it's so much fun seeing women being put back front and centre in these stories,
because they actually play such an important part in the
original stories. So yeah absolutely loved this. OK next
is Dance Prone by David Coventry. OK this is one that I really want to read.
This one sounds like a kind of literary 80s version of Daisy Jones and the Six.
So it's about two members of this 80s indie
band and we follow them on their 1985 tour
on which two significant really terrible things happened.
And flash back and forth to the present and see the consequences of what
happened and how it's affected them all those years later. It just sounds brilliant
I think, and the author David Coventry is passionate about the kind of 80s
post-punk indie rock scene, so it's very much
filled with his love for the music. The Sun Sister by Lucinda Riley, OK so
this series is so popular, and this is book number. . . I've
lost count. Okay so this is book number six in the
Seven Sisters series, and each book so far has followed
a different sister, and all of these girls are the adopted
daughters of this elusive billionaire called Pa Salt. So
there's this mystery that runs throughout all of the books,
and you better catch up quickly because there's only one left!
A Minute to Midnight by David Baldacci. Okay so this is the second in the Atlee
Pine series. So Atlee Pine is a special agent
who, when she was about six years old, her twin sister was
kidnapped, from the room that I think they were
both sleeping in, so Atlee has been haunted by this ever since, and that's
why she now has a job in which she dedicates her life to
catching those who hurt others. And it seems like all of these
cases she's taking on are connected in some way to her own
mystery from her past. Okay next we have a Michelle Frances, the
new Michelle Frances. This is Sisters, so this is on all of our summer
reading lists. Michelle Frances is just the queen of
summer psychological thrillers, they're so much
fun. This one, the tagline on the front here says 'one's
the favourite and the other knows it'. So it's about these two sisters who
really don't get along, but one summer one of them invites the other to come
and stay in her luxury italian villa, and their mother comes as
well, and they're hoping it'll be a chance for them all to bond.
But of course all of the old tensions are still there, and then
something shocking is going to happen on this trip, and suddenly the sisters are
forced to rely on each other despite not really
trusting each other at all. OK what's next? Gotta Get Theroux This.
This is the Louis Theroux memoir, 'my life and strange times in television'.
I love Louie Theroux so much, he's so funny, we've actually done quite a few
videos with him which I will link to if you want to watch,
including one where he interviews himself, which is just brilliant.
So as you can imagine, this book is very funny and very
interesting. Sex Robots and Vegan Meat by Jenny Kleeman. OK I am so
desperate to get my hands on this. I mean just the title alone, how brilliant is
that? So this is adventures at the frontier of
birth, food, sex, and death. So this is a non-fiction
book where Jenny Kleeman has picked four really interesting
developments in technology. So she has interviewed a sex
robot, she's eaten a lab-grown vegan chicken
nugget, she's seen how foetuses can be grown in
plastic bags, and she's gone to these members only
meetings where members discuss and plan how to
have the perfect death. So it's these four
massive areas of life that seem so intrinsic to
what it means to be human, but that are massively changing
beyond our understanding. Oh this looks creepy.
Find Them Dead by Peter James. One word, she dies,
two words, she lives. Terrifying. And that cover is so creepy with that
shadow seen through the window. I don't know what this one is about
so i'm gonna have a quick read. So this is the 16th
book in the Roy Grace series, and in this one Roy Grace gets a tip off about a
drugs mastermind operating out of Brighton, and
ends up unearthing a powerful criminal network.
Sounds fantastic. Okay, oh this is so beautiful, this is
Palace of Palms. So this is the one that's all about Kew
Gardens. So this is a non-fiction book about the building of the palm house at
Kew Gardens which was opened in 1848 and is still
just one of the most beautiful glass buildings in the world,
and has such an extraordinary story of how and why it
was built in the first place, and the Victorians'
obsession with the palms that filled it. Such a niche topic but those are always
the most fun nonfiction books I think. Then we have The Hidden Beach by Karen
Swan. Just from looking at that cover this is
such a summer read. A family secret, a summer that could save them. I'm already
just lost in staring at that cover, but let's see what the book's actually about.
Oh my goodness, that synopsis is amazing. So this one is set in Stockholm,
and it's about a woman who works as a nanny for a really rich family, she's
worked for them for two years, and one morning as she's rushing out to
take the children to school she gets a phone call
letting her know that Hannah, the woman that she works for, that Hannah's husband
is awake. And Bell, our main character, has no idea
what this means, because she was just with Max this morning, the
man that she thinks is Hannah's husband. It turns out that Hannah has a husband
who fell into a coma seven years earlier, and has just woken
up. Then we have Exhalation by Ted Chiang. I love this
cover so much, I actually talked about this, we recently
did a video where we compared UK covers to US covers, and this was one
of the covers that we looked at. It's just so gorgeous! So this is a
collection of short stories, I haven't read these, but i'm desperate to.
I actually own Ted Chiang's other short story collection which I'm planning to
read any minute now, and that contains the short story that
was the inspiration for the movie Arrival. So he basically writes these
really thoughtful, human, sci-fi stories, and I've just heard
nothing but praise about him. All right this is
such a good haul so far, I want basically everything.
And then there's The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi. I have read this one.
This is such a brilliant, feminist, historical fiction book. I actually
recommended it in our video that we did all about
feminist historical fiction books, so i will link to that so you can browse
through, loads more good titles. But this one is
set in a kind of alternative Tudor Britain, and it's kind
of this conspiracy thriller, so our main
character is a girl who is sentenced to become a sin eater,
which is a punishment in which as well as having to consume
ritual foods on people's death beds to help them get into heaven,
she also is forbidden from speaking or being spoken to.
So when she discovers this weird conspiracy going on in the royal family,
she has to try and solve the mystery without speaking to anyone.
So it's so gripping and tense and just so much fun.
Next up, Three Men in the Boat by Jerome K Jerome. This is a new Macmillan Collectors
Library edition. I love this book so much, it's honestly
just still one of the funniest books that I've ever read,
about three men and a dog who go on a boating journey down the Thames,
and just get into all sorts of ridiculous adventures.
It's brilliant. And I'm hoping there'll be another MCL next, there usually are at
least two. Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora
Thompson. Do you know, I don't know anything about this book.
OK so this is actually a trilogy for all three books together in this
volume about a girl called Laura growing up in the english countryside
between the wars. So it's all about this farming community and about nature
and about England being redefined at that time.
I didn't know anything about that but it sounds great.
Ah and another MCL, Anne of Avonlea by LM Montgomery.
So this is the next in the Anne of Green Gables series, I only read Anne of Green
Gables, I don't think I went any further on in this series,
but I really want to now. So these are these Canadian books that came out in
the early 1900s, all about a young orphan called Anne who
is sent to live with this couple who don't
originally want her, because they wanted a boy, but she will do,
and it's about her struggling to fit in, and getting into all sorts of scrapes, and
also really hating her bright red hair and freckles, and I
just absolutely loved that first book when I was younger.
And Anne of Avonlea is the sequel, I think she's about 16 or
18 in this one, I'm not sure. But I will find out when I
pick this up and read it! But there's still more.
Oh, If I Can't Have You by Charlotte Levin. This is another one I have read and
really enjoyed, so this is a thriller drama
about a woman who becomes completely obsessed with a man that she meets
through work, they have a bit of a fling and then she becomes
obsessed with him. But it's so much more interesting
than just the kind of crazy ex-girlfriend storyline. He is
absolutely awful, so you hate him and side with her for so
far through the story, even as her behaviour gets more and more
obsessive and dangerous, but she feels like this really
real character. I just loved it, page turner.
OK so this one is Blue in Chicago by Bette Howland.
So this is a short story collection, but Bette Howland is really interesting
because in the 80s she was hailed as this kind
of literary genius, and then she pretty much vanished from
the public eye, so this is now bringing new life to these forgotten stories.
And then this looks like the last one. Oh that beautiful cover. This is The Pull of
the Stars by Emma Donoghue. I actually have my copy right here, here
it is! Isn't it gorgeous? I haven't read it yet but I am
so excited to. So this feels like a very appropriate read right now in that it's
set in a pandemic, but this one is set in the
1918 great flu. So this is set in a hospital
in Dublin on a maternity ward where pregnant
mothers who've come down with this flu are being quarantined together, which
sounds like an absolutely terrifying situation.
But this is about one doctor, a nurse and a volunteer
on this ward, and the amazing difference that they make. It's all about
hope in the darkness. I actually think that was our best haul yet.
I really want all of the books on that list, so do leave us a comment letting us
know which one you're the most excited about.
And I will link our playlist here of all of our book hauls so you can browse
through all of the exciting books we've been publishing recently,
and we'll see you next time!