Forthcoming books from Oneworld Publications Incl Point Blank Press

March 2023 

Clara & Olivia is by Lucy Ashe. "Surely you would like to be immortalised in art, fixed forever in perfection?" Sadler's Wells, 1933. I would kill to dance like her. Disciplined and dedicated, Olivia is the perfect ballerina. But no matter how hard she works, she can never match identical twin Clara's charm. I would kill to be with her. As rehearsals intensify for the ballet Coppelia, the girls feel increasingly like they are being watched. And, as infatuation turns to obsession, everything begins to unravel.

A book deal to die for. Five attendees are selected for a month-long writing retreat at the remote estate of Roza Vallo, the controversial high priestess of feminist horror. Alex, a struggling writer, is thrilled. Upon arrival, they discover they must complete an entire novel from scratch, and the best one will receive a seven-figure publishing deal. Alex's long-extinguished dream now seems within reach. But then the women begin to die. Trapped, terrified yet still desperately writing, it is clear there is more than a publishing deal at stake at Blackbriar Estate. Alex must confront her own demons - and finish her novel - to save herself. This unhinged, propulsive, claustrophobic closed-door thriller will pull you in and spit you out... The Writing Retreat is by Julia Bartz.

April 2023

Blood and Water (Twin Truths) is by Jacqueline Sutherland. How well do your family really know you? Belle can't wait to finally have her twins all to herself after their first term at university. But when Kit unexpectedly brings back her boyfriend Ivo, Belle has to welcome him into their home. Charming and confident, Ivo soon wins over the family, but Belle can't shake a strange feeling. And when Ivo reveals he knows a lot more about Belle than he first let on, she realises his intrusion into their lives could destroy everything she has built. How far is Belle willing to go to protect her family and herself?

May 2023

In this crackerjack Cold War thriller, MI5 faces a deadly threat, one only Richard Knox can avert. But he only has six days and the clock is ticking fast. How long can you survive in the shadows? Richard Knox, freshly returned to active duty after a year out of the field, is ordered to uncover the invisible enemy that's infiltrated the Service in his absence. His quest takes him to Hong Kong, a city on the brink of chaos, where he discovers the lines between friend and foe have never been more blurred. Who is behind the assault on MI5? How long have they been operating in the shadows? And what is their endgame? A Game of Deceit is by Tim Glister.

June 2023

The Chemical Code is by Fiona Erskine. Jaq Silver is back in Brazil and this time she has a single mission - vengeance. But after several near misses, Jaq isn't sure who to trust. Determined to discover what exactly is in the mysterious box that everyone is after, Jaq becomes increasingly embroiled in a web of far-reaching corruption. It seems like everyone has a hidden agenda but is she chasing the right target? And who is chasing Jaq?

It's not that Alice wants someone to die. It's just that things were a lot more interesting when she and Iris were investigating a murder. Two months after Alice and Iris solved the murder of Brooke Donovan, Steve Anderson has become a semi-celebrity; Iris Adams and Cole Fielding are almost dating; and Alice Ogilvie is bored out of her brain. Reluctantly attending the school dance at Levy Castle, Alice sneaks away from the party to do some snooping while Iris gets close to Cole. But when she pushes open the door to what was once Charles Levy's study, she quite literally falls onto her next case... The Night in Question is by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson.

What do a priceless painting, a minotaur, a lighthouse and a glass eye have in common? They're all part of a treasure trail set by an eccentric millionaire. For 10-year-old aspiring journalist Rani it couldn't be more perfect. A chance for adventure and also a shot at getting the perfect scoop for a story competition in the local newspaper. Joining forces with her mischievous Nani who is visiting from Mauritius, she sets out to get to the bottom of the mystery. But solving the clues isn't so simple...and neither is outwitting rival wannabe journalist Lexi. Can Rani and Nani crack the code and avoid a dangerous nemesis determined to take the prize at any cost? Rani Reports: The Missing Millions (The Trickster's Treasure) is by Gabrielle & Satish Shewhorak.

Books to Look Forward to from Oneworld and Point Blank Press

 January 2022

In the summer of 1991, teen Dee McBride vanished in the city of Milwaukee. It was the summer the Journal Sentinel dubbed 'the deadliest . . . in the history of Milwaukee.' Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's heinous crimes dominated the headlines and the disappearance of one girl was easily overlooked. 2019, nearly thirty years later, Dee's sister, Peg, is still haunted by her disappearance. Desperate to find out what happened to her, the family hire a psychic and Peg is plunged back into the past. But Peg's hazy recollections are far from easy to interpret and digging deep into her memory raises terrifying questions. How much trust can we place in our own recollections? How often are our memories altered by the very act of speaking them aloud? And what does it mean to bear witness in a world where even our own stories about what happened are inherently suspect? The Comfort of Monsters is by Willa C Richards.

February 2022

A Loyal Traitor is by Tim Glister. Duty or honour. Which would you betray? It's 1966. London is swinging, and the Cold War is spiralling. Clear cut lines have faded to grey areas. Whispers of conspiracies are everywhere. Spies on both sides of the iron curtain are running in circles, chasing constant plots and counterplots. And MI5 agent Richard Knox is tired of all of it. But when Abey Bennett, his CIA comrade in arms, appears in London with a ghost from Knox's past and a terrifying warning that could change the balance of power in the Cold War for good, he has to fight to save the future. He must also face an agonising choice: who will he believe, and who will he betray - his duty to his country or his loyalty to his friends?

April 2022

Wake Me Up at Nine in the Morning is by A Yi. Infamous local thug Hongyang is found dead by his lover after a night of debauched drinking. Hongyang is a man with plenty of enemies, any one of whom could be responsible for his death...Piecing together the story of Hongyang's violent criminal past through the voices of his friends, family, and his former lover Aiwan, Wake Me Up at Nine in the Morning is a breathless and immersive journey into China's criminal underworld. It is also a terrifying snapshot of a society in which cynicism and suspicion reign supreme.

Everyone deserves a second chance. After a car accident killed her husband and left her permanently scarred, Kat Alexander, a wealthy widow, starts a new life in the countryside. Mourning not only her husband but her last chance of motherhood, Kat is completely lost. Until she meets Ginny, who runs the local animal sanctuary and offers Kat a lifeline. The two become inseparable and Ginny encourages Kat to join the local branch of Young and Widowed, dubbed the Coffin Club by its members. There she meets Nico, a young Spanish widower with a five-year-old daughter Magdalena 'Midge'. Nico is gorgeous - good-looking, kind, caring - and wants to settle in the UK permanently. Kat would do anything to be a mother and Nico can offer her just that. Marriage seems like the perfect option but how well do they really know each other? The Coffin Club is by Jacqueline Sutherland.

June 2022

Chemical Cocktail is by Fiona Erskine. Jaq Silver is back with a bang in this high-octane third novel in the series. When Jaq Silver's mother dies, she is handed a poisoned chalice. An inheritance more valuable to her than she could have imagined. Travelling from Portugal to Brazil amid conspiracies and corruption to get to the bottom of her family mystery, Jaq learns she is not the only one with an interest in her unusual inheritance. Racing against the clock as the threats to her life increase on all sides, Jaq must use her scientific know-how to save what matters most.

Time is Slippery by Tim Glister

 

The funny thing about decades is that they don’t really start when they say they do. I don’t mean this in the ‘actually the millennium was technically 2001’ sort of way. I mean that era-defining cultural and social shifts don’t happen suddenly whenever there’s a zero or a one at the end of a year.

 Everyone who lived through the 2010's will probably agree that they weren't exactly fantastic. But we’d probably also say that things didn’t really start to bite until 2013. And now, given how 2020 went, it’s pretty easy to imagine that we’ll still be dealing with the fall out of it beyond 2021.

The sixties were the same. When we collectively think back to them, we imagine they were swinging, economically resurgent, and increasingly liberal. And they were. But not in 1961. At least, not quite.

1961, like the start of every decade, was a transitional time. It had one foot stretching boldly out into the future and its other one still rooted firmly in the past. This was true across Europe, but particularly in the UK, and especially London, which is so iconically connected to the time.

Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had famously - and somewhat optimistically - said that Britons ‘have never had it so good’ in 1957. But even though the economy was on the up, the nation’s post-war recovery was taking a long time to trickle all the way down to every resident of the country, and its capital.

The city’s skyline was starting to change as new towers grew out of the gaps left by the Second World War. But not as many as you might think, and not as quickly either. Mid-century icons like the Southbank were in their infancy, with just the Royal Festival Hall left standing after the Festival of Britain. It would be another two years before the Centre Point office block started to be built on top of Tottenham Court Road Tube station. And another four before work began on the Barbican Estate in the vast Blitz crater that had destroyed almost the whole of the old Cripplegate area in the heart of the city.

Old barges still slowly made their way up and down the Thames. Men still pushed carts laden with fruit and veg through Soho. And, while miniskirts were getting shorter and flares were getting wider, you were more likely to see businessmen strolling around Bank in top hats and tails, Teddy Boys lingering on the corners that hadn’t yet been colonised by teenagers and hippies, and old war veterans in demob suits shuffling down Carnaby Street.

Yet, profound social and cultural change was on the horizon. Test tunnels for the Victoria Line had been completed, the Post Office Tower was beginning to rise above Fitzrovia, and in September police arrested 1,300 protestors in Trafalgar Square after a rally for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Time is fluid. It slips over, round and past itself in interesting ways. Things don’t change at the same rate or in nice fixed blocks, no matter how we choose to measure them or cut them up into generalised, easy to digest chunks. There’s always a little bit of yesterday and tomorrow mixed in with today - whenever today happens to be.

This makes period writing really interesting for authors, because you can infuse your writing with unexpected details that don’t just help build your narrative world but also inform and surprise your readers.

And for espionage writers, it gives you fantastic real-world and literary source material to play with. 1961 was the year George Smiley was born in Call For The Dead, and the year SPECTRE stole two atomic bombs that James Bond had to get back in Thunderball. It also saw the Bay of Pigs crisis, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and the start of the Apollo space programme. The Cold War was spilling over from the 1950s, and morphing into something new.

But, writing about the past also comes with its own challenges. For one thing, it’s incredibly precious to the people who lived through it and remember it, so you must respect it while also moulding it around the story you want to tell. You have to make sure your research is as accurate as possible, create a world that feels authentic, and keep tight control on your artistic license. Because the absolute last thing you want is to have your characters driving cars that shouldn’t be on the road yet, or riding tube lines that haven’t been dug out of the ground yet…

RED CORONA by Tim Glister is out on 14 January from Point Blank, hardback £14.99

It's 1961 and the white heat of the Space Race is making the Cold War even colder.  Richard Knox is a secret agent in big trouble. He's been hung out to dry by a traitor in MI5, and the only way to clear his name could destroy him. Meanwhile in a secret Russian city, brilliant  scientist Irina Valera makes a discovery that will change the world, and hand the KGB unimaginable power.  Desperate for a way back into MI5, Knox finds an unlikely ally in Abey Bennett, a CIA recruit who's determined to prove herself whatever the cost...  As the age of global surveillance dawns, three powers will battle for dominance, and three people will fight to survive...