On Bee's Bookshelf

1991 - Marina arrives at 24 Harrington Gardens, a striking Victorian building that proudly over the quiet grey of the rest of the estate. She's been here before, a very long time ago, when her own Mother left her abandoned and disappeared into the night. Eva spends her days behind her piano, quietly remembering the years gone by, the residents who've come and gone, and the baby in blue who appeared in the hallway that one night years ago. 1964 - Connie is seventeen … and pregnant. She knows this will devastate her family, her Dad could never afford to help her raise a baby with the money from their bookstore ... but part of her longs for a baby with those same beautiful eyes and captivating smile as Johnny.  Inside the flats of Harrington Gardens, secrets are hidden behind closed doors and hushed lips. And after all this time, she's on her way to finally dig up their hiding place. "Or are there more secrets lurking in the shadows? More hiding places not yet found? So m...

Genre: Literary Fiction | Horror | Mystery Release Date: Expected 3rd February 2022 Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (Previously published in Dutch) Translated by: Moshe Gilula  "We all tell stories when we can't face the truth." Sam Avery had always tried to support his boyfriend Nick, even when it comes to his passionate obsession with mountain climbing despite having a sick feeling every time he leaves. Now, his worst fears have come true.  After his biggest climb ever, Nick has made it back alive, but only just. His climbing partner is dead and Nicks face and body have become disfigured and broken beyond recognition - but his mind has become a dark, haunted place and there is no escape from it. The man Sam fell in love with is gone, left somewhere on a cursed mountain top that may or may not exist. Sam has to decide whether to run away or enter the darkness with Nick where there may not be a way back. " Not a single story you ever tell is the whole story." ...

  Genre: Adult Fiction | Speculative Fiction Release Date: Expected 3rd February 2022 Publisher: Random House UK | Bantam Press  Elizabeth and Bryony have always been best friends despite being polar opposites in almost every way. They're even the Godmothers of each others children, because they know they can trust each other with everything, even their own children's safety.  But there's one difference that they've avoided talking about because it might be the one thing to explode them forever - a radically different belief over one very important issue. So when Bryony tells what she thinks is just a little white lie to save an argument, she can't foresee the devastating consequences that will change both of their lives as they know it for good.  "Gossip, he's realised, is even more contagious than the virus itself." A timely and uncomfortable exploration into the affects others actions, including vaccination, can have on others - and the risks you ca...

  When Ella Perri unravelled the secret that crept among her family for years, she unleashed a storm of darkness and destruction in its path. A secret life. Whispers of murder. And the worst has yet to come. 1939 ~ Gianna Russo knows she gave birth to twin daughters, but the midwife hands her only one. She quickly learns of her mother’s deception and vows to find her child. Days later, she walks into the woods with Luca Perri and doesn’t come out.  Present Day ~ Ella Perri is convinced she’s being stalked, and she suspects her discovery in Italy may have followed her home. A mysterious delivery suggests the darkest of family secrets await, sending Ella once again to Tuscany’s beautiful streets that harbor a terrible truth. A frightening reality chills her to the bone as she becomes trapped in a mystifying mansion with an evil past…and this time, she might not make it out alive. Luca thought the secrets he buried decades ago would never come to light. But his niece, Ella, prove...

  Genre: Adult Fiction  Release Date: Expected 20th January 2022 Publisher: Headline | Headline Review  "Nina did not want to spend her thirtieth birthday in a prison cell. But, unfortunately, it looked like that was exactly what was about to happen." Thirty was meant to be her year - the year she came back from her devastating break-up, unstable journalism career and general chaos of her life. But instead, she's sitting in her PJ's at Leicestershire jail after an ill-fated attempt for a late night falafel.  But as she's sitting there, alone, the only entertainment available is an old self-help book that she's sure will be so boring she'll be able to sleep - but instead she can't stop reading. And as a journalist, she can't help but wonder if something so simple as finding things you love about yourself could change the world so drastically. By the time her first morning as a thirty-year old woman arrives, she realises she doesn't love three th...

Genre: Adult Fiction | Contemporary | Humour   Release Date: Expected 3rd February 2022 Publisher: Bookouture  Lucy Callaghan - almost actress, part time party princess impersonator, Dorito connoisseur, owner of the worlds grumpiest cat and now … amnesiac.  While rushing to a last minute gig dressed as Elsa, her bike and a bus collide, and the bus wins. Waking up in hospital, it's like the last ten years have vanished and she's seventeen again. She doesn't remember becoming an auntie, or Netflix and smartphones, living through a pandemic, discovering her sexuality and her passions … or even why she has tweety-pie tattooed on her ankle.  But as she tries to piece together the past decade of her life, the friends, the jobs, the lovers - she can't help but look at her sisters lives and compare them. They're stable, secure, sure about their path - so can Lucy find the thing she's been missing when she can't even remember who she is? "I've kept lo...

Genre: Speculative Fiction | Literary Fiction Release Date: Expected 18th January 2022 Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing  Nobody really knows what is lurking beneath them -  not even Dr Cliff Miyashiro. When he arrives at the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his late daughter, he finds that underneath the melting ice a virus is waiting to take hold of the world above.  The consequences spread further than anyone could have imagined - it doesn't just ravage through the continents, but throughout time as humanity try to fight this plague. Whether a scientist, a comedian, a mother, a teenager or an astronaut, humanity tries, fails and tries again to survive and thrive in the face of danger.  This beautifully moving collection of carefully interlaced short stories from across time and space manages to show thousands of years of life and death in a totally mesmerising way.  Nagamatsu creates an engrossing universe with euthanasia rollercoasters, unbelievable virt...

  Genre: Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction | Magical Realism Release Date: Expected 25th January 2022 Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing  Violeta arrived on this world on a dark and stormy day in 1920, a hundred years ago. The first daughter amongst five sons, her birth is the first of many extraordinary moments in her life.  The Great War has left a mark on the world, the Spanish Flu is ravaging its way through her homeland and the Great Depression is looming in the not-so-distant future, waiting to threaten the life she has always known. And this is just the start for Violeta as she grows into a beautiful young woman in an ever-changing world.  Now, after an entire century of life, Violeta pauses to write a letter to her precious Grandson, one she has loved more than most, reliving a journey of love and loss, and of major turning points in modern history through her own eyes. There's a reason that Allende is the undisputed Queen of magical realism - she invokes ...

  Genre: Young Adult | Romance | Contemporary  Release Date: 20th July 2021 Publisher: Scholastic Press  This is no ordinary apocalypse.  Five days ago, it went quiet. Hannah is totally alone in her once bustling city and she has no idea why or how everyone disappeared. Then she finds Leo; the most beautiful boy in the world, and not only because he might very well be the only boy in the world. They don't know why the world has stopped around them, or why they're still there. But now there's nobody else to watch over them, who are they in the silence?  Maybe they'll finally figure it out as they explore their silent, empty world together … if they can survive the strange and unusual new world unfolding around them.  " So, now that we've established our mutual existence, please tell me you know what's going on. Do you know where everyone else went?" Honestly, I saw this book and had to buy it because it's just so beautiful. And thankfully, the story...

  Genre: Thriller | Mystery | Crime Release Date: 11th November 2021 Publisher: Orion Natalie needs a break. At thirty-seven, she's broke, getting broker, divorced and sharing custody of her son with her ex. As a freelance music journalist, she isn't even earning enough to survive let alone pay for a legal battle.  But while reading the music gossip columns, she comes across a rumour that could be big. Monumental, even. Eight years earlier, Isaac Naylor, lead singer of the Ospreys, drowned himself off the Devon Coast after a teenage fan was found dead in his hotel room. But Natalie thinks that's not the whole story. There's something more … and Issac might still be out there somewhere. Natalie has to get to the bottom of what really happened that day eight years ago. This could be the answer to all her problems, the story of the century … or it could be the death of her.  Michelle Davies just has a way of capturing fear and dread in a way that is compl...

Metronome - Tom Watson Expected March 2022 (Bloomsbury) A striking piece of literary fiction that follows two exiled people living on an Island, tethered to it by pills they have to take every eight hours to survive. Nothing is as it seems in this eerie poetic novel.  Impossible - Sarah Lotz Expected March 2022 (Harper Collins UK)  Impossible is a love story like any other - two people fall in love after connecting over a stray email to find their relationship is more than complicated.  Electrifying and alluring all the way to the heartbreakingly epic denouement - this story is impossible to put down. The Measure - Nicki Erlick Expected July 2022 (Harper Collins UK) You wake up one morning and a there's a box on your doorstep. Inside, is the answer to how long you have left to live - do you open it? The Measure is a multi-perspective journey into a unique type of dystopia both haunting and exhilarating. Stepping Up - Sarah Turner Expected March 2022 (Random House UK) Aft...

Happy New Year Bookworms! What a year it's been. This has been a very good reading year for me, I smashed my reading challenge of 150 books and ended up reading over 250! So narrowing those down to just twenty was almost impossible, there's been some amazing releases this year and I wish I could mention every single one again because they all deserve so much love. Thank you to all the publishers, authors, tour operators and readers I get to work with every day to make this so special! Now, let's see what's at the top of the bookshelf this year ...  20. The Quiet People - Paul Cleave 19. Rock Paper Scissors - Alice Feeney 18. We Are Not Like Them - Christine Pride & Jo Piazza 17. Starstuck - Beth Miller 16. The Lighthouse Witches - CJ Cooke 15. Monkey Man - Takuji Ichikawa 14. Poison for Breakfast - Lemony Snicket 13. The Husbands - Chandler Baker 12. Beach Reads Book Club - Kathyrn Freeman 11. The Ex Hex - Erin Sterling / Rachel Hawkins 10. The Couple - Helly Acton ...