Ten great books to look out for in early 2019

5th January 2019

Here are ten great books from some of our favourite authors for TripFiction fans to look out for in early 2019:

JANUARY:

Dream Sequence by Adam Foulds – set in PHILADELPHIA & LONDON

Henry Banks, a brilliant but narcissistic young actor, is prepared to go to any length for a role, to capitalise on his successes in television drama by securing the lead in the latest film by a celebrated Spanish director. He is on the brink of the next step – very close to achieving intellectual credibility and some serious celebrity.

However, Henry has – unwittingly – become an important part of the life of recently-divorced Kristin: someone who is also on the brink. Sitting in her beautiful, empty Philadelphia home, Kristin is obsessed with the handsome English actor and convinced they are destined to be together. She resolves to fly to London and bring their relationship to fruition.

Dream Sequence explores what it is to live at our current moment, with its porous borders between the inner and the outer life, and is a stunning, terrifying drama about psychological damage, stalking, and the perils of celebrity.

The Truths and Triumphs of Grace Atherton by Anstey Harris, set in Kent, Paris and Cremona

Between the simple melody of running her violin shop and the full-blown orchestra of her romantic interludes in Paris with David, her devoted partner of eight years, Grace Atherton has always set her life to music.

Her world revolves entirely around David, for Grace’s own secrets have kept everyone else at bay. Until, suddenly and shockingly, one act tips Grace’s life upside down, and the music seems to stop.

It takes a vivacious old man and a straight-talking teenager to kickstart a new chapter for Grace. In the process, she learns that she is not as alone in the world as she had once thought, that no mistake is insurmountable, and that the quiet moments in life can be something to shout about …

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley, thriller set in the Scottish Highlands

In a remote hunting lodge, deep in the Scottish wilderness, old friends gather for New Year.

The beautiful one
The golden couple
The volatile one
The new parents
The quiet one
The city boy
The outsider

The victim.

Not an accident – a murder among friends.

FEBRUARY:

Adèle by Leila Slimani – set in PARIS

Adèle appears to have the perfect life. A respected journalist, she lives in a flawless Parisian apartment with her surgeon husband and their young son. But beneath the veneer of ‘having it all’, she is bored – and consumed by an insatiable need for sex, whatever the cost. Struggling to contain the twin forces of compulsion and desire, she begins to orchestrate her life around her one night stands and extramarital affairs, arriving late to work and lying to her husband about where she’s been, until she becomes ensnared in a trap of her own making.

An erotic and daring story – with electrically clear writing – Adèle will captivate readers with its exploration of addiction, sexuality, and one woman’s quest to feel alive.

The Lost Man by Jane Harper – set in the AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK

The gripping new novel from the author of the Sunday Times top ten bestsellers, The Dry and Force of Nature.

He had started to remove his clothes as logic had deserted him, and his skin was cracked. Whatever had been going through Cameron’s mind when he was alive, he didn’t look peaceful in death.

Two brothers meet at the remote border of their vast cattle properties under the unrelenting sun of the outback. In an isolated part of Australia, they are each other’s nearest neighbour, their homes hours apart.

They are at the stockman’s grave, a landmark so old that no one can remember who is buried there. But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last hope for their middle brother, Cameron. The Bright family’s quiet existence is thrown into grief and anguish.

Something had been troubling Cameron. Did he choose to walk to his death? Because if he didn’t, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects…

APRIL:

Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan – set in LONDON

Britain has lost the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. In a world not quite like this one, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding.

Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda’s assistance, he co-designs Adam’s personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever – a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma. Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel poses fundamental questions: what makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns of the power to invent things beyond our control.

Metropolis by Philip Kerr – set in BERLIN

Berlin detective Bernie Gunther bows out at last in the 14th and final book of the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling series, perfect for fans of John le Carre and Robert Harris.

Berlin, 1928, the dying days of the Weimar Republic shortly before Hitler and the Nazis came to power. It was a period of decadence and excess as Berliners – after the terrible slaughter of WWI and the hardships that followed – are enjoying their own version of Babylon. Bernie is a young detective working in Vice when he gets a summons from Bernard Weiss, Chief of Berlin’s Criminal Police. He invites Bernie to join KIA – Criminal Inspection A – the supervisory body for all homicide investigation in Kripo. Bernie’s first task is to investigate the Silesian Station killings – four prostitutes murdered in as many weeks. All of them have been hit over the head with a hammer and then scalped with a sharp knife.

Bernie hardly has time to acquaint himself with the case files before another prostitute is murdered. Until now, no one has shown much interest in these victims – there are plenty in Berlin who’d like the streets washed clean of such degenerates. But this time the girl’s father runs Berlin’s foremost criminal ring, and he’s prepared to go to extreme lengths to find his daughter’s killer.

Then a second series of murders begins – of crippled wartime veterans who beg in the city’s streets. It seems that someone is determined to clean up Berlin of anyone less than perfect. The voice of Nazism is becoming a roar that threatens to drown out all others. But not Bernie Gunther’s …

JUNE:

Shadowplay by Joseph O’Connor – set in LONDON

1878 – The Lyceum Theatre, London. Three extraordinary people begin their life together, a life that will be full of drama, transformation, passionate and painful devotion to art and to one another. Henry Irving, the Chief, is the volcanic leading man and impresario; Ellen Terry is the most lauded and desired actress of her generation, outspoken and generous of heart; and ever following along behind them in the shadows is the unremarkable theatre manager, Bram Stoker.

Fresh from life in Dublin as a clerk, Bram may seem the least colourful of the trio but he is wrestling with dark demons in a new city, in a new marriage, and with his own literary aspirations. As he walks the London streets at night, streets haunted by the Ripper and the gossip which swirls around his friend Oscar Wilde, he finds new inspiration. But the Chief is determined that nothing will get in the way of his manager?s devotion to the Lyceum and to himself. And both men are enchanted by the beauty and boldness of the elusive Ellen.

This exceptional novel explores the complexities of love that stands dangerously outside social convention, the restlessness of creativity, and the experiences that led to Dracula, the most iconic supernatural tale of all time.

AUGUST:

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead – set in FLORIDA

The Nickel Boys is Colson Whitehead’s follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning bestseller The Underground Railroad, in which he dramatizes another strand of United States history, this time through the story of two boys sentenced to a stretch in a hellish reform school in Jim-Crow-era Florida.

Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clearsighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide ‘physical, intellectual and moral training’ which will equip its inmates to become ‘honorable and honest men’.

In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear ‘out back’. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King’s ringing assertion, ‘Throw us in jail, and we will still love you.’ But Elwood’s fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks Elwood is naive and worse; the world is crooked, and the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors.

The tension between Elwood’s idealism and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions.

Based on the history of a real reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped and destroyed the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative by a great American novelist whose work is essential to understanding the current reality of the United States.

Platform Seven by Louise Doughty – set in PETERBOROUGH

Platform Seven is new. It is also the furthest point of Peterborough Station from the entrance. It is completely deserted. The man walking along the covered walkway at 4am on this freezing November morning knows that. As he sits on the metal bench at the far end of the platform it is clear his choice is strategic: a wall hides him from the CCTV camera’s persistent blink.

What the man fails to realise is that he is not alone, and what Lisa Evans knows, to her cost, is what his decision to be here means, as she tries and fails to stop him standing and walking to the platform edge.

Two deaths on Platform Seven. Two fatalities in eighteen months – surely they’re connected?

No one is more desperate to understand what connects them than Lisa Evans herself. She was after all the first of the two to die.

Happy 2019 to all TripFiction members, lovers of books with a strong sense of place and which help the reader see a destination through an author’s eyes.

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