Penguin Random House South Africa to publish WILD THINGS NEVER DIE by Sally Andrew

We’re delighted that Tannie Maria is back for South African readers! Penguin Random House South Africa will publish WILD THINGS NEVER DIE, the fifth title in Sally Andrew’s bestselling and award-winning Tannie Maria Mystery series, on 1st May 2026. To celebrate the launch of WILD THINGS NEVER DIE, Sally will be attending book launches and festivals across the country in May and June, including Franschhoek Literary Festival and Kingsmead Book Fair.

In WILD THINGS NEVER DIE, Tannie Maria is wrestling with a fear of the dark and Henrietta has PTSD. But this doesn’t stop the intrepid agony aunt – and her hen – from going undercover with Maria’s fiancé, Detective Henk Kannemeyer, to the Karoo Wilderness Reserve. Their mission is ‘Save the Vetplantjies!’ – as they seek to protect rare and endangered indigenous plants. At the luxury game lodge, they spy on guests and support the Anti-Poaching Unit in a battle against dangerous gangsters. Maria’s reporter friend Jessie attends the Succulent Symposium, which is tackling the poaching problem internationally. Then, there is a murder...

Our favourite Ladismith sleuths engage with some colourful suspects, including a barefoot artist, a botanist cowboy, a singing gardener, and a sangoma. Between solving murders, writing agony-aunt letters, eating spectacular food, and having spiritual epiphanies, Maria and Henk get fashion tips from a couturier and his Baroness. But fashion is forgotten when their own lives are at stake…

The Tannie Maria series has been translated into fifteen languages and in 2026, RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER, the first book in the series, was selected as one of the Booksellers Awards’ four favourite books over the last 10 years. Subsequent titles have been Nielsen Booksellers Choice Best Fiction Books of the Year too. The cookbook companion to the series, RECIPES TO LIVE FOR (also published by Penguin Random House), won the 2025 Gourmand World Cookbook award in the Acknowledgements category and the ‘Best of the Best in the world over the last 30 years’ award. The TV series, RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER, is broadcast in over 100 countries and has been recognised for many awards: it recently won multiple awards from the Directors Guild of South Africa: Best Actress (Maria Doyle Kennedy) Best Actor (Tony Kgoroge) and Best Directors (Karen Jeynes and Jozua Malherbe). See more details below.

About Sally Andrew

Photo credit: Joanne Olivier

Sally Andrew divides her time between the Cape Town coast and a nature reserve near the small town of Ladismith in the Klein Karoo, South Africa, the setting of her hugely popular Tannie Maria novels. She lives with her renowned wildlife artist partner, among various wild creatures (including, as she says, ‘a giant eland and a secretive leopard’). Sally has also published a number of non-fiction books on adult and environmental education.

You can see lots of excellent video clips – featuring beautiful nature and appetising food –  on Sally’s YouTube channel and get a glimpse of Sally and Tannie Maria’s world on her website. Sally sometimes writes for the Daily Maverick in South Africa, featuring the delights of food and the natural world, often including delicious recipes.

With RECIPES TO LIVE FOR: A Tannie Maria Cookbook and International Gourmand Award, the fictional character of Tannie Maria competed with chefs and cooks from 222 countries and won a Best in the World award for the category of Acknowledgments, 2025. It won second place in the Regional category and was subsequently Winner of the Gourmand Best of the Best award in its category, over the last 30 years.

TV rights for a series based on the Tannie Maria books were bought by French-South African Both Worlds Productions, with the support of Edinburgh-based Pirate Productions and with Creative Scotland contributing to funding. The series was selected for the Berlinale ‘Series Markets Selects’ and began broadcast in South Africa on M-Net in March 2022 to brilliant reviews and social media praise. The series was nominated for three awards at the 2023 South African Film & Television Awards (Best Supporting Actress in a TV Drama, Best Achievement in Editing in a TV Drama, and Best Achievement in Directing in a TV Drama), Best Writing for a Television Series at the 2023 WGSA Muse Awards, Best Cinematography at the 2023 Venice TV Awards, and was also shortlisted for a Rose d’Or Award. In 2026 it received awards from the Directors Guild of South Africa for Best Actress (Maria Doyle Kennedy) Best Actor (Tony Kgoroge) and Best Directors (Karen Jeynes and Jozua Malherbe). Acorn TV distributes the series around the world. Watch the trailer here.

Praise for Sally Andrew

‘If you want a vivid, amusing and immensely enjoyable read about detection (and cooking) in an intriguing part of southern Africa, then this is the book for you. A triumph.’ – Alexander McCall Smith

‘Detection, recipes and a cracking mystery. An irresistible page-turning debut.’ – Woman & Home

‘Winning debut culinary cozy. Take a pinch of Alexander McCall Smith, a dash of Diane Mott Davidson, and add a smidge of the wild veld and you’ll get a taste for this lekker story (that’s “delicious” in Afrikaans). … With a fascinating setting, engaging characters, and a full complement of drool-worthy recipes, this is sure to leave readers craving more.’ – Library Journal

‘An intriguing mystery in an exotic locale, a work of enormous charm.’ – Wall Street Journal

‘For something completely different, I suggest RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER. Our detective is a chef turned agony aunt and the story includes recipes – and has a pleasing bite.’ – Cathy Rentzenbrink, The Bookseller

‘Utterly delicious, to the very last morsel.’ – Deon Meyer

Follow Sally Andrew on Instagram.

Viper signs three new thrillers by Will Dean in six-figure deal

Photo credit: Rosalind Hobley

Miranda Jewess, Publishing Director at Profile Books’ crime imprint Viper, has acquired three thrillers by Will Dean. Jewess acquired UK and Commonwealth rights plus audio from Kate Burke at Blake Friedmann Literary Agency. The first book in the deal, titled THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE WORLD, and described as STATION ELEVEN meets AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, will be published in hardback, e-book and audio in April 2027.

The synopsis reads: Nature is reclaiming London. Grass grows through the pavements, buildings are left to crumble, and herds of deer roam the streets. While most Londoners now choose to live in a virtual world, Wendy is one of the few people who still value real human connection enough to stay in the abandoned city. She even finds what might be love, and the hope of a family. But something is very wrong. Her few friends start to disappear one by one, and there is no-one left for Wendy to turn to. No police or authorities to stop the violence or find the culprit. And soon Wendy finds herself completely alone in the city with a killer…

Miranda Jewess commented: ‘I’ve been reading and loving Will’s work since his debut DARK PINES back in 2017, and it is genuinely a dream come true to now be his editor and publisher. The fictional universe in THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE WORLD is an extraordinary creation; this combined with Will’s genius for writing incredibly real, fallible characters and his mastery of the propulsive plot makes this a gamechanger. We’re so pleased to welcome him to the Viper list.’

Will Dean added: ‘I am absolutely thrilled to join Viper. I’ve admired Miranda’s work (and superb list of authors) for years, and I’m excited to work with her team to bring atmospheric, genre-bending fiction to readers.’

Kate Burke said: ‘I’m delighted for this next chapter Will’s publishing. It’s a pleasure and a privilege to work with someone so creative and hardworking, and be on this journey with him.’

About Will Dean

Will Dean grew up in the East Midlands. After studying law at the London School of Economics and working in London, he settled in rural Sweden where he built a wooden house in a vast forest, and it’s from this base that he compulsively reads and writes.

Dean is the author of eleven novels, the six-book Tuva Moodyson series (Oneworld/Hodder) and five standalone thrillers (Hodder). His books have been selected for the Zoe Ball Book Club and the Richard & Judy Book Club, and shortlisted for the National Book Awards, the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize and the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.

Praise for Will Dean

‘Will Dean manages to accomplish the rare blend of excellent writing and intriguing, ingenious plotting.’ – Liz Nugent

‘Will Dean is a master at creating moody, oppressive thrillers that are equally as unsettling as they are gut-wrenching, with characters you can’t stop thinking about long after the last page.’ – Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of LOCAL WOMAN MISSING

‘Will Dean writes a mean thriller, with a keen ear for what scares us.’ – Sarah Hilary

‘Like Chris Whittaker, Will Dean is a master of the tense, morally complex, emotionally devastating modern thriller.’ – William Hussey

‘Will Dean’s writing continues to elevate the thriller genre.’ – Anna Bailey’

‘One of the best psychological thriller writers to ever put pen to paper.’ – Stuart Ashenbrenner

Follow Will on X (previously Twitter) and Instagram

Watch Will on YouTube

Peter James has another Top Ten Bestseller with THE HAWK IS DEAD

THE HAWK IS DEAD, the 21st title in Peter James’s international bestselling Roy Grace Series, shot to No.4 in the UK paperback fiction bestseller chart after only three days on sale, with significantly higher sales than previous Roy Grace titles. Last year the hardback edition jumped straight to Number 3 in the charts on publication and also saw more fans and new readers embracing the new book. Peter celebrated the paperback release of THE HAWK IS DEAD with a special appearance at the Windsor Festival earlier this month.

The ‘excellent’, ‘edge-of-the-seat’ television adaptation of the Roy Grace series continues to delight viewers. Starring John Simm and Richie Campbell, GRACE returned to screens with Series 6 in April, winning the top viewing figures in its prime-time Sunday night slot. Last night saw the end of the Sunday night broadcasts, though viewers can catch up on ITVX. The series has also been shown widely internationally.

In THE HAWK IS DEAD, Her Majesty, Queen Camilla, is aboard the Royal Train heading to a charity event in Sussex when disaster strikes – the train is derailed. A tragic accident or a planned attack? When, minutes later, a trusted aide is shot dead by a sniper, the police have their answer.

Despite all the evidence, Roy Grace is not convinced The Queen was the intended target. But he finds himself alone in his suspicions. Fighting against the scepticism of his colleagues and the Palace itself, Grace pursues his own investigation. But when there is a second murder, the stakes rise even higher, and Grace is at risk of being embroiled in a very public catastrophe – and in mortal danger.

Failure at this level is not an option. But time is running out before a killer in the Palace will strike again…

Peter is currently completing the next novel in the Roy Grace series, which will be published by Pan Macmillan in the autumn of 2026.  

Praise for THE HAWK IS DEAD
‘What a fool I’ve been not to have read Peter James until THE HAWK IS DEAD. Anyway, I have no idea if this is the best Roy Grace thriller, but it’s most definitely a great story.’ – James Patterson

‘A majestic treat’ – James Owen, The Times, ‘The Best Thrillers of 2025 so far’

‘THE HAWK IS DEAD is classic Peter James, combining the trademark intricate plotting of his acclaimed Roy Grace series with a fascinating, behind-the-scenes exploration of life within the royal household.’ – Rachel Abbott

‘The pages turn themselves in James’ series’ – Anna Bonet, the i newspaper, ‘The best new crime and thriller books to read in October 2025’

‘I’d never read a detective novel before, but what better place to start than this thumping new thriller from Peter James? A murder investigation sends him deep into Buckingham Palace when Her Majesty Queen Camilla’s train is derailed, and her trusted aide is shot dead by a sniper. Fast-paced and gripping, I couldn’t put it down!’ – Alexandra Potter, Stylist

Photo credit: May Young

About Peter James
Peter James is the international bestselling author of many award-winning novels. Peter writes both thriller standalones and the hugely popular Brighton-set Roy Grace series.

Peter’s books have been translated into thirty-eight languages, with worldwide sales of over 23 million copies and his Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series, set in Brighton, has given him 21 Sunday Times Number Ones. In 2015 WH Smith customers voted him the Greatest Crime Author of All Time and in 2016 he was awarded the coveted CWA Diamond Dagger, a lifetime achievement award for sustained excellence. In 2018 he received a Specsavers Honorary Platinum Bestseller Award and in 2024 he won four Silver Nielsen Bestseller Awards. Peter James has also written two books based on true crime stories, with former senior detective Graham Bartlett.

Peter took part in the launch podcast of the Queen’s Reading Room in January 2024, having had the Grace series featured on the Royal Reading Room previously. He appeared on the podcast again in June 2024, where he was named one of Her Majesty’s favourite crime writers and Roy Grace her favourite fictional detective!

Visit Peter’s website.

Like him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

Graeme Macrae Burnet’s BENBECULA advances to the shortlist of the 2026 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

Following swiftly on from today’s earlier announcement of its longlisting for the CWA Historical Dagger award, Graeme Macrae Burnet’s BENBECULA continues to attract further awards attention, advancing to the shortlist for this year’s Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. BENBECULA is published on Polygon’s Darkland Tales list, featuring retellings of Scottish history by some of the nation’s best authors. In the novella Graeme takes readers back to the 19th century Outer Hebrides and a pitch-black tale of murder and madness reminiscent of his own acclaimed HIS BLOODY PROJECT.

‘Thus the stage is set for Macrae Burnet’s powerful, innovative psychological novella, all the more haunting in its brevity,’ wrote the judges in their citation. ‘[BENBECULA] takes its literary lead from the early innovators of the modern novel, James Hogg and Robert Louis Stevenson, with a neat and clever tale that beds its roots firmly in the gothic, with themes of madness, isolation and morality at its dark heart.   What happens when communities are tarred by association, and is it possible to keep the right side of madness when all around you madness abounds?  BENBECULA is as far removed from the recent cosy-crime tradition as it is possible to be: this is claustrophobic crime at its very best, and with so very much to admire.’

The Walter Scott Prize celebrates works of historical fiction, published during the last calendar year, and which are set more than 60 years ago. Graeme and all the shortlisted authors are invited to read at the Borders Book Festival – held at the home of Walter Scott in Abbotsford, Melrose – on 11 June, where the winner will be announced.  The winner – following recent honourees Hilary Mantel, James Robertson, Lucy Caldwell, Kevin Jared Hosein and, last year’s victor, Andrew Miller – will receive £25,000, with each shortlisted author also awarded £1,500.

Shortlisted alongside Graeme are:
THE PRETENDER by Jo Harkin (Bloomsbury)
THE MATCHBOX GIRL by Alice Jolly (Bloomsbury)
ONCE THE DEED IS DONE by Rachel Seiffert (Virago)
SEASCRAPER by Benjamin Wood (Viking)

BENBECULA is published in the UK by Polygon – who will release their paperback edition on 7 May – and in UK audio by WF Howes. It’s also published in Australia by Text Publishing, with a North American edition published by Biblioasis, with audio by Recorded Books. Spanish and Catalan editions are forthcoming from Impedimenta and crims.cat respectively.

Congratulations Graeme!

About BENBECULA

On 9 July 1857, Angus MacPhee, a labourer from Liniclate on the island of Benbecula, murdered his father, mother and aunt. At trial in Inverness he was found to be criminally insane and confined in the Criminal Lunatic Department of Perth Prison.

Some years later, Angus’s older brother Malcolm recounts the events leading up to the murders while trying to keep a grip on his own sanity. Malcolm is living in isolation, ostracised by the community and haunted by this gruesome episode in his past.

From Graeme Macrae Burnet, the Booker-shortlisted author of HIS BLOODY PROJECT, comes a beguiling psychological novel set on a remote Scottish island. Based on a true story and drawing on the documentary evidence of the time, Burnet constructs a gripping narrative about madness, murder and the uncertain nature of the self.

About Graeme Macrae Burnet

Graeme Macrae Burnet was born in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire and now lives in Glasgow. He has also lived in the Czech Republic, France, Portugal and London.

His first novel, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ADÈLE BEDEAU (Contraband, 2014), received a New Writer’s Award from the Scottish Book Trust and was longlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award. A second Inspector Gorski novel, THE ACCIDENT ON THE A35, was published in 2017, and the trilogy was completed in 2024 with the ‘tragic, cinematic, propulsive' (Martin MacInnes) A CASE OF MATRICIDE, which won the 2025 Ned Kelly Award for Best International Crime Fiction.

HIS BLOODY PROJECT (Contraband, 2015) won the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award and the Vrij Nederland Thriller of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the LA Times Mystery Book of the Year and the European Crime Fiction prize. It has been published in over twenty languages. CASE STUDY was published in 2021 by Saraband (UK), Text (ANZ) and Bolinda (UK audio) to wide critical acclaim. The North American edition was published in 2022 by Biblioasis. It has been longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022 and the Dublin Literary Award, and shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and Ned Kelly International Crime Prize. It has been published in fifteen languages.

Graeme was named Author of the Year in the 2017 Sunday Herald Culture Awards and has appeared at festivals and events in Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, Russia, Estonia, Macau, Ireland, Germany, Poland and France, as well as in the UK.

Praise for BENBECULA

‘Graeme Macrae Burnet’s recreation of a macabre incident in 19th-century Hebridean history is unrelentingly disturbing and utterly gripping' – James Robertson

‘Some crime writers are successful at creating fully-formed living, breathing characters; others are more adept at playing games with the reader: to an almost unique degree, Macrae Burnet excels at both.’ – Jake Kerridge, ‘The 21 best crime and thriller novels of 2025’, The Telegraph

‘Burnet’s vivid portrayal of a troubled household by a man attempting to explain the inexplicable is dark, intense and utterly compelling.’ – Laura Wilson, ’The best recent crime and thrillers’, The Guardian

‘Reading a novel by Graeme Macrae Burnet is unnerving because the experience always becomes physical… The more compressed and oppressive and inescapable the lives of his characters become, the tighter his books are wrapped in seeming limitations, the freer you feel as a reader… The way out of the dark hell of your own mind is to imagine yourself into the minds of others. Graeme Macrae Burnet will do anything to help get you there.’ – Ian Brown, Globe and Mail

‘BENBECULA is an elegant, eerie volume… Perhaps the most impressive feature of the novella is the sense of simmering. The bare facts are not really in dispute, but the reasons and motives are deliberately opaque. Rather than any explicit cause, Macrae Burnet conjures an atmosphere of suppression.’ – Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman

Visit Graeme’s website.

Follow Graeme on X (previously Twitter) and Instagram.

Hodder & Stoughton scoops Kenny Boyle’s Scottish folk horror trilogy in three-way auction

Photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic

Hodder Fiction has acquired SHADOWS OF THE BURNING MOOR, a folk horror thriller with interwoven elements of Scottish folklore and Gàidhlig language, and two additional books in The Undercrofter series in a hotly contested three-way auction. Senior commissioning editor Kit Nevile bought UK & Commonwealth rights from Isobel Dixon at Blake Friedmann and will publish in hardback, trade paperback, eBook and audio on 1st July 2027.

Set amidst the dark mountains and deep lochs of the Outer Hebrides, the series focuses on an isolated crofting community on a small island. When a young couple, Connor and Morgan, return to the place of his birth to live off his recently deceased uncle’s land, it becomes clear that there are many people in the town who want them gone.

When a wildfire erupts suddenly on the moors, the simmering tension in the village ignites, and Connor and Morgan soon find themselves haunted by terrifying, nightly visitors. But are their attackers human, or something darker, something ancient?

Kit Nevile says: ‘As a lover of all things eerie and otherworldly, I was absolutely entranced by SHADOWS OF THE BURNING MOOR. Kenny is a visionary talent, and there is nobody else I know with as much knowledge and passion for Scotland’s dark and mesmeric folkloric history. He has channelled all of that into this one-of-a-kind, brooding and bewitching tale. I am so excited for readers to experience the stunning world he has created.’

Kenny Boyle says: ‘I’ve wanted to tell this story for years, but I wanted to tell it when the time was right. The folklore I grew up with, and the landscape I grew up in, shaped my life. That same folklore – mischievous and malicious, natural and supernatural, visceral and ethereal – is what feeds the fire of Burning Moors. With my inimitable agent Isobel Dixon, the invaluable insight of Kit Neville, and the perfect home at Hodder & Stoughton, the time to tell this story has arrived.’

Isobel Dixon says:  ‘Within moments of opening Kenny’s submission email I was captivated by the world – and netherworld – that he has created. It was wonderful to hear from others who offered and felt the same about SHADOWS OF THE BURNING MOOR, and to see Kit’s energy and vision win the day. Here’s to a great journey ahead!’

About Kenny Boyle

Kenny Boyle is an author, actor, and content creator from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. He, his wife and Labrador, split their time between Falkirk and the Isle of Lewis. He is the winner of Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland’s New Playwrights’ award 2021 and was a finalist for the Imison Prize for Radio Drama in 2023. He boasts a sizeable social media following, detailing and elucidating Scotland’s rich, folkloric past.

Visit Kenny’s website

Follow Kenny on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Threads.