Books To Look Forward To From Michael Joseph Books

 January 2021

What if your experience of motherhood was nothing like what you hoped for - but everything you always feared? The women in this family, we're different . . .' The arrival of baby Violet was meant to be the happiest day of my life. A fresh start. But as soon as I held her in my arms, I knew something wasn't right. I have always known that the women in my family weren't meant to be mothers. My husband Fox says I'm imagining it, but she's different with me. Something feels very wrong. Is it her? Or is it me? Is she the monster? Or am I? Push is by Ashley Audrain.

The Burning Girls is by C J Tudor. 500 years ago: eight martyrs were burnt to death. 30 years ago: two teenagers vanished without trace. Two months ago: the vicar committed suicide. Welcome to Chapel Croft. For Rev Jack Brooks and teenage daughter Flo it's supposed to be a fresh start. New job, new home. But, as Jack knows, the past isn't easily forgotten. And in a close-knit community where the residents seem as proud as they are haunted by Chapel Croft's history, Jack must tread carefully. Ancient superstitions as well as a mistrust of outsiders will be hard to overcome. Yet right away Jack has more frightening concerns. Why is Flo plagued by visions of burning girls? Who's sending them sinister, threatening messages? And why did no one mention that the last vicar killed himself? Chapel Croft's secrets lie deep and dark as the tomb. Jack wouldn't touch them if not for Flo - anything to protect Flo. But the past is catching up with Chapel Croft - and with Jack. For old ghosts with scores to settle will never rest . . .

Thomas Cale has been running from his enemies. Raised and trained in an underground programme - the Sanctuary - he was sent to destroy God's greatest mistake, mankind itself. Cale is a paradox: arrogant and innocent, generous and pitiless. Feared and revered by those that created him, he has already used his terrifying talent for violence and destruction to bring down the most powerful civilisation in the world. But Thomas Cale has been caught. He's been given a choice. Bring down the world's best hope for order, for honesty and for progress, or condemn his soul to hell. The fate of humankind rests on Cale's decision. The White Devil is by Paul Hoffman.

February 2021

Prodigal Son is by Gregg Hurwitz. He can escape anything. Except his own past . . . 'Evan. It's your mother. I heard you help people . . ' Evan Smoak used to be known as Orphan X: a figure as elusive as a rumour, until he came to the rescue of those who most desperately needed his help. The kind of help no one else could provide. The kind that caused concern in the corridors of power. As a boy he'd been plucked from a foster home and trained as an off-the-books assassin inside a top secret US government programme. Which is why, even forced into early retirement, he dare not trust the phone call. Nor the caller claiming to be his mother. Asking him to protect a complete stranger who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of it stacks up. Yet it bears the tell-tale signs of the secret world that made him. And from inside it, a deadly new threat to the nation's security. But this time the danger is more personal than he could have ever imagined. Because blood runs deep … 

Louise wakes up. Her head aches, her mouth is dry, her memory is fuzzy. But she suspects she's done something bad. She rolls over towards her husband, Niall. The man who, until recently, made her feel loved. But it's not Niall who's lying beside her. In fact, she's never seen this man before. And he's dead . . . As Louise desperately struggles to piece her memories back together, it's clear to Detective Jonah Sheens and his team that she is their prime suspect - though they soon find she's not the only one with something to hide. Did she do it? And, if not, can they catch the real killer before they strike again? Lie Beside Me is by Gytha Lodge.

March 2021

Get ready to meet Rebekah in Missing by Tim Weaver's in his first standalone. She is stranded on an island, left for dead and determined to get home, but danger will continue to stalk her . . . Crow Island was meant to be the perfect break. A chance for Rebekah to reconnect with her brother Jonny and forget about her crumbling marriage. But stepping onto this island puts her in more danger than she could ever imagine. After finding themselves in the forest Rebekah and her brother are attacked. When she wakes up her phone is missing and Jonny has vanished. At that moment Rebekah realises the island has become her living hell. By the time she makes it back to safety the island has closed for the season – and it'll be seven months before anyone returns.With her brother missing and no boats, no phones, no people, Rebekah must survive and make her way off this island. But is finding a way back to the mainland the end of her nightmare, or just the beginning? 

This Nowhere Place is by Natasha Bell. 'That's the thing about our town: people only come here if they're going somewhere else.' One grey afternoon, high on the cliffs of Dover, two girls agree to help a stranger. Within months, two of the three girls are dead. In the years that follow, local legend grows around the events of that summer - and, with the one survivor refusing to speak, it seems the truth will never emerge. Until a documentary-maker arrives, determined to solve the mystery of the Dover Girls. But some will stop at nothing to keep this town's secrets...

In the early days of World War II, the infamous German Luftwaffe embark upon an expedition to Antarctica, hoping to set up a military base to support their goal of world domination. Though the military outpost never comes to fruition, what the Nazis find on the icy continent indeed proves dangerous...and will have implications far into the future. In the present day, Kurt Austin and his assistant Joe Zavala embark for the freezing edge of the world after a former NUMA colleague disappears in Antarctica. While there, they discover a photo of the Luftwaffe expedition of 1939, and are drawn into a decades-old conspiracy. Even as they confront perilous waters and frigid temperatures, they are also are up against a terrifying man-made weapon--a fast-growing ice that could usher in a new Ice Age. Pitted against a determined madman and a monstrous storm, Kurt and the NUMA team must unravel the Nazi-era plot in order to save the globe from a freeze that would bury it once and for all. Fast Ice is by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown. 

April 2021

The Saboteurs is by Clive Cussler and Jack Du Brul. Detective Isaac Bell's wife has said that he is always in the wrong place at the right time. This is certainly the case when Bell thwarts the attempted assassination of a United States Senator shortly after meeting the man. This heroic rescue is just the start of the mystery for Bell, who suspects that the would-be assassins have a much larger and more dangerous agenda--one involving the nearly constructed Panama Canal. While the Senator supports the building of the canal, there are many, including a local Panamanian insurgency known as the Red Vipers, who never want to see the its completion. With millions of dollars and the fates of two nations at stake, Bell heads to Panama to find answers. After a deadly bombing at the Canal's construction site, he is determined to stop the insurgents--or whoever is funding them--before they can attack again.

The teacher wanted on the edge of the world. Una knows she is struggling to deal with her father's sudden, tragic suicide. She spends her nights drinking alone in Reykjavik, stricken with thoughts that she might one day follow in his footsteps. So when she sees an advert seeking a teacher for two girls in the tiny village of Skalar - population of ten - on the storm-battered north coast of the island, she sees it as a chance to escape. But once she arrives, Una quickly realises nothing in city life has prepared her for this. The villagers are unfriendly. The weather is bleak. And, from the creaky attic bedroom of the old house where she's living, she's convinced she hears the ghostly sound of singing. Una worries that she's losing her mind. And then, just before Christmas, there's an unexplained death and Una's life going from bad to worse..... The Girl Who Died is by Ragnar Jónasson.

Don't let Him In is by Howard Linskey. He's always been there. Now he's looking for you.  There have always been deaths in the small town of Eriston over the years - more than can easily be explained. People dying in their houses, behind locked doors. Sean Cole thought he'd spotted a pattern. Thought he was on the trail of a killer. Now he's dead too. When his daughter Rebecca returns to the town, she realises that her father might have been onto something. But can she find the murderer before he finds her? Because if she can't, her father's shabby old Victorian house is no place to hide.

May 2021

An unlikely spy. July 1940. As Britain braces itself for invasion, ex-Tommy and safecracker Bill O'Hagan is glad to have escaped the battlefield. But when a job goes wrong, he finds himself forced to serve his country once more. A former king. Spurned by his government and fearing for his life, the Duke of Windsor flees to Portugal with the woman for whom he abdicated the throne, Wallis Simpson. As a web of Nazi trickery threatens to ensnare him, his fate and the fate of Britain rest on one man. The fate of a nation in their hands. Dropped on an occupied Channel Island without backup, Bill must crack an enemy safe and get its contents to safety. Failure will devastate any hope Britain has of winning the war. But with the layers of deception and intrigue drawing ever more tightly around them, Bill and the Duke both learn they aren't the only players in this game. And Berlin - which has the Duke in its own sights - is plotting its greatest move yet... Island Reich is by Jack Grimwood.

In Harm's Way is by Anthony Mosawi. Sara Eden isn't like other agents. She was the greatest asset MI5 had ever had. But then she disappeared without a trace. Now, she's out of hiding. And she'll do whatever it takes to save innocent lives. Robert Waterman is the director of GCHQ. He trusts numbers. He trusts data. He's learned that whilst humans are unreliable, patterns and codes never lie. But then he meets Sara. What Sara can do isn't rational. What Sara can do defies logic. He can't trust her - but he needs her.

June 2021

Scorpion is by Christian Cantrell. Around the world, twenty-two people have been murdered. The victims fit no profile, the circumstances vary wildly, but one thing links them all: in every case the victim is branded with a number. With police around the globe floundering and unable to identify any pattern, let alone find a killer, CIA Analyst Quinn Mitchell is called in to investigate. Before long, Quinn is on the trail of an ice-hearted assassin with seemingly limitless resources - but she's prepared for that. What she isn't prepared for is the person pulling the strings.