Some New Books Coming Out in May 2012

Here is a small selection of some of the new books being published this month.

I think there's something for everyone!

Let me know what you think of them.......





The Dead Season (Sandro Cellini Book 3) by Christobel Kent
Published:  1 May 2012  (UK/USA)
Formats (UK):  Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle
Genre:  Mystery

Every August, Florence shimmers in the summer heat. But this year the heatwave is fiercer than usual, and the city's inhabitants have fled to the cool of the hills and beaches of the surrounding countryside. So it is no surprise that amidst the shrubbery of a normally busy roundabout, a corpse lies unnoticed, bloating in the humid air.

Sandro Cellini will not be joining the crowds of holidaymakers this year. The former policeman turned private detective has a case: a man who seems to have vanished into thin air - leaving his pregnant young wife alone in the city.
Meanwhile, bankteller Roxana Delfino is also stuck in the city for the season, with nothing to do but worry for her aging mother and puzzle over the disappearance of one her regular clients.

As all Florence sweats it out, Cellini attempts as best he can to grapple with his case and the complications it throws up. And when the weather finally breaks, it brings with it a shocking revelation...      

CHRISTOBEL KENT'S previous books include A Time of Mourning, A Party in San Niccolo, Late Season and A Florentine Revenge. She lives near Cambridge with her husband and five children.


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Beyond 2012 by Piero Rivolta
Published:  1 May 2012 (UK/USA)
Formats (UK):  Hardcover
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction

According to the Mayan calendar, Nostradamus and other prognosticators, December 21, 2012 will usher in dramatic changes for the world – if it does not end first.
Piero Rivolta’s visionary novel, Journey Beyond 2012, explores these predictions through the lives of three people.
Meet George, an engineer of international construction projects, his wife, Valeria, and Ryan, a financier, business partner and friend. As the deadline nears, each imagines a different turning point. How they cope with what actually happens takes this engaging and memorable story to a fitting climax as it suggests an innovative direction for the new millennium. 

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The Girl in Berlin by Elizabeth Wilson
Published:  2 May 2012 (UK/USA)
Formats (UK):  Paperback, Hardcover
Genre:  Historical Thriller

Summer 1951.The Cold War is at its height. Burgess and Maclean have just disappeared, and the nation is obsessed with the story of their probable defection.
Colin Harris, a member of the Communist Party, who has been exiled in Germany for several years, arrives back in England with news: he has fallen in love with a girl in Berlin and plans to return to the UK permanently with his bride-to-be.
Then Konrad Ebershardt, a German scientist, living in England for the past two decades, is found dead, and it emerges that Harris was one of the last people to see him alive.
What does Harris know about Burgessand Maclean? Was he involved in Ebershardt's murder? And who is this girl in Berlin?

A novel about secrets and spies, about making choices and living with the consequences,The Girl In Berlin is a reminder that when nothing is as it seems, no-one can be trusted - even, sometimes, those you think you know best.

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The Knot by Jane Borodale
Published:  10 May 2012  (UK/USA)
Formats (UK):  Hardcover, Paperback & Kindle
Genre:  Historical Fiction

From the author of the Orange New Writers shortlisted THE BOOK OF FIRES

An extraordinarily evocative story of obsession, love and secrets.

1565. Across Europe, a new era of natural science is dawning. In a remote, damp corner of Somerset, an unlikely pioneer is working to change the course of English botany. Passionate, private, meticulous - Henry Lyte has begun to neglect his other responsibilities in the pursuit of knowledge. This has happened before, with disastrous results.

Married again after the tragic death of his first wife Anys, Henry tries to forget the past, absorbed by his scholarly translation of a Dutch 'Herbal' and by the intricate herb garden he is planting, with a Knot at its heart.

Yet beneath the surface he is uneasy, and as the garden begins to flourish, old family troubles start to worm their way up towards the light. Here, on the edge of the fertile wetlands that his new wife Frances fears so much, Henry is accustomed to the peril of flood.

But when the unexpected death of his father unleashes the malevolence of his stepmother Joan Young, he is not prepared for this new threat that could destroy everything he has come to love...

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The Child Thief by Dan Smith
Published:  10 May 2012  (UK/USA)
Formats (UK):  Paperback, Hardcover, Kindle
Genre:  Thriller

December 1930, Western Ukraine.
Luka is a veteran of the First World War and the Russian Civil War. All he wants now is a quiet life with his wife, twin sons and young daughter. Their small village has, so far, managed to remain hidden from the advancing Soviet brutality and labour camp deportations.
But everything changes the day the stranger arrives, pulling a sled bearing the bodies of two children. In a fervour, the villagers lynch the stranger, despite Luka's protests. But when calm is restored, the mob leader, Dimitri, discovers his daughter has vanished. Luka is the only man with the skills to find who could have stolen a child in these frozen white wastelands - and besides, the missing girl is best friends with Luka's daughter Lara, and he promises her that he will find her friend and bring her home.
Together with his sons and Dimitri, Luka sets out in pursuit across lands ravaged by war and gripped by treachery. Soon they realise that the man they are tracking is a no ordinary criminal, but a skilful hunter with the kidnapped child as the bait in his violent game. It will take all of Luka's strength to battle the harshest of conditions, and all of his wit to stay a step ahead of Soviet authorities. And though his toughest enemy is the man he tracks, his strongest bond is a whispered promise to his family back at home.

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Maria and the Admiral by Rachel Billington
Published:  10 May 2012 (UK)
Formats (UK):  Hardcover & ebook
Genre:  Historical -- based on a true story

For readers of richly detailed historical fiction.
Valparaiso, June 1822. Thomas Cochrane has led the Chilean fleet to victory, and as the news spreads of the country's independence from Spain, a British woman, Maria Graham, watches from her house near Valparaiso Bay. A vivacious and clever young widow, her first thought as she contemplates her compatriot's arrival is that her loneliness has come to an end.
Lauded in the press, and admired by Napoleon, Cochrane had long been at odds with the Admiralty, who failed to subdue his outspoken independence. In Maria Graham he meets a woman whose intelligence and spirit of adventure match his own.

Based on a true story, MARIA AND THE ADMIRAL vividly imagines the intensity of Maria and Thomas's first meeting and their parting in Rio de Janeiro 10 months later, in March 1823. Against the backdrop of one of the most beautiful and remote cities on earth, caught between the Pacific and the snow-capped Andes, this is the story of two exceptional people whose lives are joined before being torn apart by family ties, natural disaster and war.

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The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani
Published:  24 May 2012  (UK)  3 April 2012 (USA)
Formats (UK):  Hardcover, eBook …..... Paperback 13 Sept 2012
Genre:  Fiction

The lives of two young Italian lovers, Enza Ravanelli, a practical girl born into poverty and Ciro Amadei, a dreamer raised in a convent orphanage, are woven together in this lush, epic novel set against the landscape of world events in the first half of the 20th century.
The Shoemaker's Wife spans two world wars, immigration, the birth of American manufacturing, the rigors of assimilation and the perils of the Great Depression. Like the times they were born into, Enza and Ciro's story is filled with surprising twists and turns. Together, they embrace the promise of a new and better life as they attempt to survive by the labour of their own hands. But when Ciro is diagnosed with a deadly cancer from the bombs he endured in World War I, he returns home alone to Italy to say goodbye, and solve a final mystery about his family.

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The Charm Bracelet by Melissa Hill
Published:  24 May 2012  (UK/USA)
Formats (UK):  Hardcover ….... Paperback 25 Oct 2012
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction


Every charm bracelet tells a story and Holly O'Neill knows this better than most.

Many years ago she was sent one mysteriously, just a single charm attached. Some time later another charm appeared, and the same happened until the bracelet was almost full. Each charm proved significant, as if her anonymous benefactor knew she needed a little bit of magic in her life.

So when Holly stumbles across another bracelet - one that somebody else has lost - she recognises a lifetime spelt out through the charms, and knows she must try to reunite it with its owner.

Using each charm to help discover more about the bracelet's owner, Holly gradually begins to piece together details of this other charmed life. And her quest leads her somewhere she never expected... 

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Secrets and Lies by Janet Woods
Published:  31 May 2012 (UK)  1 Sept 2012 (USA)
Formats (UK):  Hardcover
Genre:  Historical Fiction

A destructive secret is guarded by a network of lies . . . until they begin to unravel.
1933. Esmé Carr travels to Australia with her best friend in search of adventure. Left behind is Esmé's adolescent niece. Meggie Elliot has an imaginative and independent frame of mind, but there is mystery surrounding her birth - one she intends to unravel, despite her mother's warnings to leave the past alone. When the truth surfaces it's not what Meggie wants to hear, and Esmé must reconcile the rift between mother and daughter.

For more on Janet Woods’ books her website is here
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The Beautiful Truth by Belinda Seaward
Published:  24 May 2012  (UK/USA)
Formats  (UK):  Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction

Catherine never knew her father. A Polish exile, he disappeared when she was a small child, leaving her only a pair of binoculars and a lifelong love of the stars. Now in her forties, she leads a settled academic life in Cambridge - until one day she receives a letter with a Polish postmark from an American film-maker who is in Krakow to research the wartime experiences of his aunt. What Konrad has uncovered will send Catherine on a voyage of discovery not only into Poland's past, but into her own history. And what she uncovers there will change her life in ways she could not possibly have imagined.

Moving between present-day Krakow and wartime Poland, The Beautiful Truth tells a passionate and moving story of the way ordinary lives are swept up in extraordinary events. Heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure, it will not be easily forgotten.


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