Autumn is here, the nights are drawing in so you have the perfect excuse for staying home and curling up on the sofa with a good book. Here are 8 fabulous books coming out this October.
The Secret by Lee and Andrew Child
Fans of Jack Reacher will be thrilled to read the latest instalment out on October 24th.
Here’s a sneak preview..
Chicago. 1992. A hospital patient wakes to find two strangers by his bed.
They show him a list of names and ask a simple but impossible question. Minutes later he falls to his death from his twelfth floor window – a fall which generates some unexpected attention.
That attention comes from the Secretary of Defense, who calls for an inter-agency task force to investigate. Jack Reacher, recently demoted from Major, is assigned as the Army’s representative. If he gets a result, great. If not, he’s a convenient fall guy.
Reacher may be an exceptional military investigator, but office politics aren’t what gets him up in the morning. As he races to identify a cold-blooded killer and uncover a secret that stretches back 23 years, he must navigate around his new partners.
Will Reacher bring the bad guys to justice the official way . . . or his way?
Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
From the author of Costa Book Award winning Golden Hill comes this thrilling tale of murder and mystery set in a city that never was. Get your copy from October 5th.
It’s 1922, and Americans are drinking in speakeasies, dancing to jazz, stepping quickly to the tempo of modern times.
Beside the Mississippi, the ancient city of Cahokia lives on – a teeming industrial metropolis, containing every race and creed.
Among them, peace holds.
Just about. But that body on the roof is about to spark off a week that will spill the city’s secrets, and bring it, against a soundtrack of wailing clarinets and gunfire, either to destruction or rebirth.
Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare
The latest novel from the author of the Shadowhunter Chronicles, out on October 10th, is a spellbinding epic of power, intrigue and magic.
In the vibrant city-state of Castellane, a young orphan named Kel is stolen from his old life to enter a new one of luxury and peril. He’s to become Prince Conor Aurelian’s body-double, shielding the Prince from all dangers. As his ‘Sword Catcher,’ he and Conor become close as brothers – yet Kel lives for one purpose: to die for Conor.
Lin Caster is an Ashkar physician, part of a community ostracised for its rare magical abilities. But events pull her and Kel together and into the web of the mysterious Ragpicker King who rules Castellane’s criminal underworld.
Together, they’ll discover an extraordinary conspiracy. But can forbidden love bring down a kingdom? And will their discoveries plunge their nation into war and the world into chaos?
From the author of the Twisted series comes, on October 24th, this steamy billionaire romance.
He had her, he lost her . . . and he’ll do anything to win her back.
Powerful, brilliant, and ambitious, Dominic Davenport clawed his way up from nothing to become the King of Wall Street.
He has everything – a beautiful home, a beautiful wife and more money than he could spend in a lifetime. But no matter how much he accumulates, he’s never satisfied.
In his endless quest for more, he drives away the only person who saw him as enough.
It isn’t until she’s gone that he realizes there may be more to life than riches and glory . . . but by then, it may be too late.
Kind, intelligent, and thoughtful, Alessandra Davenport has played the role of trophy wife for years.
She stood by her husband while he built an empire, but now that they’ve reached the top, she realizes he’s no longer the man she fell for.
On October 19th comes the book all fans of Orwell have been waiting for. The author of The Men tackles the world of Big Brother with a dramatically different feminist narrative.
London, chief city of Airstrip One, the third most populous province of Oceania. It’s 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Under the ideology of IngSoc and the rule of the Party and its leader Big Brother, Julia is a model citizen – cheerfully cynical, believing in nothing and caring not at all about politics. She routinely breaks the rules but also collaborates with the regime whenever necessary. Everyone likes Julia. A diligent member of the Junior Anti-Sex League (though she is secretly promiscuous) she knows how to survive in a world of constant surveillance, Thought Police, Newspeak, Doublethink, child spies and the black markets of the prole neighbourhoods. She’s very good at staying alive.
But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department – a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith – when she sees him locking eyes with a superior from the Inner Party at the Two Minutes Hate. And when one day, finding herself walking toward Winston, she impulsively hands him a note – a potentially suicidal gesture – she comes to realise that she’s losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world.
This beautiful reimagining of American slavery by the award winning author Jesmy Ward is available from October 24th.
Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape.
As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother.
Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take.
While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.
The Blunders by David Walliams
The latest book by national treasure Walliams is a laugh-out-loud caper about a lovable family and is available on October 12th.
Just in time to keep the youngsters entertained during half-term.
Meet the Blunders: Bertie, Betsy, their children, Brutus and Bunny, along with their beloved grandma Old Lady Blunder, and their pet ostrich, Cedric.
An ostrich is not a sensible pet, but then the Blunders are not sensible people.
This family of upper-class twits lives in a crumbling country house named Blunder Hall.
When their home comes under threat, they must embark on a series of comic misadventures to save it.
Animal lovers will adore this memoir of a man who has dedicated his life to caring for the world’s beautiful creatures. The memoir is released on October 5th and you can meet Jonathan at our event on November 1st.
The role of resident vet in the British Overseas Territories of the Falklands, St Helena, Tristan da Cunha and Ascension encompasses the complexities of caring for the world’s oldest land animal – a 200-year-old giant tortoise – and MoD mascots at the Falklands airbase; pursuing mystery creatures and invasive microorganisms; relocating herds of reindeer; and rescuing animals in extraordinarily rugged landscapes, from subtropical cloud forests to volcanic cliff faces.