Freida McFadden’s fans will be all over The Divorce. It starts off as the quintessential love story. Boy meets girl. They fall in love, get married, buy a dream house, have a son. Until … she’s locked out of her home, he hires the best divorce lawyer in town, empties their bank accounts, and takes up with a 20-something. End of story. She goes off and lives in a tiny apartment and gets back into the workplace. Nope … not in this razor-sharp thriller, when ditched wife – determined to save her marriage – decides to investigate the new girlfriend and there’s danger and a wicked twist at every turn. Poisoned Pen Press
Imagine. You lose your husband in a freak car accident. Two days later, you win the lottery with a ticket he bought. Then you’re approached by a trio of glam women – also jackpot winners, also with dead husbands – and things get seriously twisted, mischievous and interesting. Elly Vine’s The Lottery Winner Widows Club … dark, wicked and fabulously funny. Wildfire
Caroline Rillema has been influential in South Africa’s wine industry for more than four decades, shaping trends and nurturing her passion for wine. Celestina is her passion project, and she’s just released the 2024 Celestina Agulhas White. She says, about this heavenly white blend, “The sauvignon blanc shines in the blend, whilst the Sémillon adds palate weight. Understated white peach, citrus, and toasted nut develop more vibrancy on the palate, with seamless mouth-filling richness and texture. It has a beguiling peacock’s tail finish.” The name Celestina, meaning little celestial one, was chosen late at night, when the sky was pitch-black with the splendid stars in the Milky Way hanging low like jewels above the earth on which the vines are grown. “When you’re here in this beautiful landscape with its vast open sky, you get a celestial feeling… like the sky is yours,” Caroline explains. She suggests serving the wine with tempura prawns, salt and pepper squid, freshly caught kabeljou, roast chicken, or a zucchini, mushroom and parmesan pasta. R395 a bottle from carolineswine.com
In Nora Roberts’ latest thriller, a young author becomes the object of a fan’s obsession, showing up at her debut author appearance with a copy of her novel and an eager smile, showering her with compliments and asking for her autograph. Then he came to her next event. And the one after that. After incessant invitations and finally a harrowing assault, he gets a five-year sentence at a psychiatric facility. And while she learns to thrive, he remains his delusional, twisted self, as fixated as ever … but he’s now seething with anger. The Final Target is massively enjoyable, suspenseful from start to finish. Piatkus
A psychiatrist and researcher for unexplained extraordinary human experiences is tasked with interviewing a young six-year-old girl who claims to remember a past life, in vivid detail. The girl lives in an area where the psychiatrist lived years before … one where two dozen years ago, her best friend disappeared without a trace. And in Lauren Oliver’s The Girl In The Lake, the youngster’s memories tie in directly to the missing girl … eerie details no one else would ever know. A haunting suspense novel … chills! Hodder and Stoughton
Brendan’s best friend, his only friend, is Ronan. He knows things about Brendan that no one else does … about the loneliness he sometimes feels even when surrounded by hundreds of others at school. But Brendan never told Ronan about the dark feeling that sits at the bottom of his stomach, the feeling that tells him something bad is coming. It never comes when Ronan’s around. Standing at the school gates on the first day of term, the dark feeling begins to form in Brendan’s stomach. And when Ronan doesn’t turn up, Brendan learns that something terrible happened to his best friend over the Summer. And he’ll never be the same again. The Ballad of Ronan McCoy by Colin Morgan is a beautifully written, tender, heart-breaking coming-of-age story about friendship and first love, loss and letting go, and the hopes and fears of a young man standing on the cusp of the rest of his life. HQ
Daniel Hurst’s The Holiday Home is a psychological thriller about two families enjoying a weekend break at the luxurious, isolated holiday home belonging to one of the couples. The women are best friends, their husbands less so but tolerant of one another, bar the odd snide comment. It should be blissful. But whispers and secrets and tensions turn the perfect holiday into the perfect nightmare. A mystery full of twists. Bookouture
A marriage on a beach in Thailand turns into a tragedy when four hours after the ‘I do’, the husband is snatched away in a violent abduction, never to be seen again. Until a dozen years later, when the wife, now happily remarried and raising twins, sees a photo of her missing husband online. He’s alive. He has a new life. And he obviously never tried to find her. Desperate for answers, she risks her family to uncover the truth of what happened that day in Thailand. But is the truth worth the destruction of her new life and family? The One Day You Were My Husband by Rosie Walsh is thrilling, twisty, a brilliant read-it-in-one-sitting book. Macmillan
