GRACE returns to ITV for series 6

Photo credit: ITV

Series 6 of the hit Brighton-based detective drama GRACE returns to screens this Spring, with the first episode airing this Sunday 29th March 2026 at 8pm. Subsequent episodes will air weekly. GRACE is based on the internationally bestselling Detective Superintendent Roy Grace books by Peter James.

John Simm returns as Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, joined again by Richie Campbell (Glenn Branson), Zoë Tapper (Cleo Moray), Laura Elphinstone (Bella Moy), Brad Morrison (Nick Nicholl) and Juliette Motamed (Vee Wilde). Series 6 will be based on books from the Peter James series – LEFT YOU DEAD and ONE OF US IS DEAD – as well as original stories too.

The opening episode of GRACE, based on the first Roy Grace novel, DEAD SIMPLE, was broadcast in March 2021. It was a TV Pick of the Day across all the major UK newspapers, appeared on ITV1’s prime Sunday night slot and viewing figures quickly reached more than 8.8 million, with glowing reviews.

The second series was broadcast in 2022, starting with LOOKING GOOD DEAD, which like the subsequent episode NOT DEAD ENOUGH, topped the chart as most-watched UK TV show of the night. DEAD MAN’S FOOTSTEPS and DEAD TOMORROW followed. The popular streamer Britbox brought the GRACE series to US and Canadian viewers in 2021, followed by further world territories. The third series, DEAD LIKE YOU, DEAD MAN’S GRIP and NOT DEAD YET, began airing in March 2023 and the fourth series based on DEAD MAN’S TIME, WANT YOU DEAD, LOVE YOU DEAD and DEAD LIKE YOU was broadcast in September 2024.

The fifth series began airing in April 2025. The first episode, DEAD IF YOU DON’T, achieved average viewing figures of 3 million, surpassing ITV1’s slot average of 2.6 million. GRACE dominated the evening’s other television offerings on BBC1, BBC2, Channel 4 and Channel 5 with a 26.6% share of viewing across the channels between 8pm and 10pm. DEAD AT FIRST SIGHT, NEED YOU DEAD and FIND THEM DEAD followed.

Pan Macmillan will publish the paperback edition of the 21st book in the Roy Grace series, THE HAWK IS DEAD, on 9th April 2026. The hardback edition jumped straight to Number 3 in the charts on publication in October 2025 and saw a 25% increase in sales compared to the previous book. Book 22 will be released in Autumn 2026.

Praise for GRACE

‘A stirring return’ – TV Times, 5-star review

‘Truly nail-biting TV and there were great performances, with Simm as watchable as ever as the shrewd, yet vulnerable Grace… With more to come later this year… I’ll certainly be tuning in.’ – Gwendolyn Smith, The i

‘There is a reason why Peter James’s novels have sold all over the world, and one of the main ones is that… Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is a well-written and believable character… Simm makes for a likeable lead and the atmospheric Brighton setting is well used.’ – Sarah Hughes, The Sunday Telegraph, ‘The Very Best of the Week Ahead’

‘Darkly compelling’ – Tim Oglethorpe, The Daily Mail

‘Simm gives [Roy Grace] a winning sense of humour beneath all the grit… Campbell is smooth foil, playing Branson quietly enough that Simm doesn’t have to be enormous to stand out. Brighton’s mix of pretty shoreline, faded glamour, criminal past and contemporary hipsterism makes it a ripe spot for some murder. The action feels rooted in its setting… It’s almost inconceivable Simm hasn’t already been in a long running franchise… and I expect the wait’s over.’ – Ed Cumming, The Independent

‘Few people do moody, angst-ridden men better than John Simm, who takes on the role of Grace. With so many books in hand, this series could run and run.’ – Prospect Magazine, ‘The best television shows in the UK this April’

‘Simm plays the lead with elegant understatement’ – Mail On Sunday

‘A very effective appetite-whetter… The unpretentious storytelling makes this an easy watch, helmed by the always watchable Simm.’ – The Mail on Sunday, ‘Pick of the Day’

‘Roy Grace doesn’t have any obvious gimmick to mark him out, but he swiftly establishes himself as a solid addition to the Sunday-night pack… Chilling.’ – James Jackson, The Times, ‘Critic’s Choice’

Photo credit: Max 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 twenty-three 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.

BENBECULA by Graeme Macrae Burnet on the longlist for the Highland Book Prize 2025

Graeme Macrae Burnet has made it two prize nominations in as many weeks – following last Thursday’s announcement by the Walter Scott Prize – for his novel BENBECULA, as it is named among the longlist for the 2025 Highland Book Prize, awarded by the Highland Society of London and Moniack Mhor, Scotland’s Creative Writing Centre.

This annual award celebrates literature that comes from the rich landscape and culture of the Scottish Highlands and Islands, and is open to books of any genre – including fiction, non-fiction and poetry – written by authors who live in the Highlands or were born there, as well as books whose content is Highland themed. This year’s judges are poet and essayist Jen Hadfield; fiction writer Cynan Jones; and Scotland’s Makar Peter Mackay. A shortlist will be announced in May, followed by the winner in June 2026.

Also on the longlist this year are:

• An Staran by Petra Johana Poncarová (Acair, Gaelic Poetry & Prose)

• Drifting North by Dominic Hinde (Manchester University Press, Non-fiction)

• Dwell Time by Taylor Strickland (Tapsalteerie, Poetry)

• The Edge of Silence by Neil Ansell (Birlinn, Non-fiction)

• Fo Fhasgadh Beinn Chianabhail by Mòrag Anna NicNèill (Acair, Gaelic Fiction)

• Fower Pessoas by Colin Bramwell (Carcanet, Poetry)

• The Highland Cow and the Horse of the Woods by Roy Dennis (Porto Press, Non-fiction)

• Looking Down at the Stars by Christina Riley (Saraband, Non-fiction)

• The Lost Elms by Mandy Haggith (Headline, Non-fiction)

• Pathfinding by Kerri Andrews (Elliott and Thomson, Non-fiction)

• The Shapeshifter’s Daughter by Sally Magnusson (John Murray Press, Fiction)

BENBECULA was published in the UK by Polygon and WF Howes, and in Australia by Text Publishing in October 2025; a North American edition, published by Biblioasis and Recorded Books, followed in November 2025. 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.

Credit: Euan Anderson

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.

Ivan Vladislavić’s ‘elegant’ and ‘bewitching’ account of life in Johannesburg THE NEAR NORTH to be published by Batis Books

Credit: Minky Schlesinger

THE NEAR NORTH, the latest book by double-Sunday Times Literary Award-winner Ivan Vladislavić, will be published by new independent publisher Batis Books. Director Nick Mulgrew acquired UK and Irish rights (excluding Audio) from Isobel Dixon, and will publish in premium trade paperback format at the end of 2026.

Originally published in South Africa by Picador Africa in March 2024, and extracted in the Yale Review, THE NEAR NORTH was longlisted for South Africa’s Sunday Times Literary Awards last year. A vivid personal account of life in Johannesburg during times of crisis, in its obsession with place- and homemaking, The Near North is in some ways a companion to Vladislavić’s earlier, award-winning PORTRAIT WITH KEYS – but it stands alone as its own achievement. This is a narrative of fine description and self-reflection by a writer with a flaneur’s spirit, even as he bumps against the sharp edges of violence against nature and people alike.

‘THE NEAR NORTH could not have found a more congenial home than Batis,’ said Ivan. ‘Nick Mulgrew is a ground-breaking publisher and I’m thrilled to be part of his new venture. I look forward very much to working with him.’

‘It is my honour to bring Ivan Vladislavić’s most recent work to the British and Irish markets,’ added Nick Mulgrew, director of Batis Books. ‘Vladislavić is one of South Africa’s great contemporary writers, and THE NEAR NORTH is a book that, patiently and powerfully, makes personal the amazing chaos of Jo’burg – a place that is at once manmade forest, securitised suburban sprawl and decaying modern city. Vladislavić gets to grips with a place that even its inhabitants can find overwhelming.’

Isobel Dixon says: “I’m delighted that Ivan and his brilliant THE NEAR NORTH will join the exciting new Batis Books list. I’ve long appreciated Nick Mulgrew’s vision and publishing acumen and it’s a great pleasure to join forces to bring Ivan’s latest work to more readers this year.’

About Ivan Vladislavić

Ivan Vladislavić was born in Pretoria in 1957 and lives in Johannesburg. His books include the novels THE DISTANCE, THE RESTLESS SUPERMARKET, THE EXPLODED VIEW and DOUBLE NEGATIVE, and the story collections 101 DETECTIVES and FLASHBACK HOTEL. In 2006, he published PORTRAIT WITH KEYS, a sequence of documentary texts on Johannesburg. He has edited books on architecture and art, and sometimes works with artists and photographers. TJ/DOUBLE NEGATIVE, a joint project with photographer David Goldblatt, received the 2011 Kraszna-Krausz Award for best photography book.

His work has also won the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the Alan Paton Award, the University of Johannesburg Prize and Yale University’s Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction. He is a Distinguished Professor in the Creative Writing Department at Wits University.

Praise for THE NEAR NORTH

‘Some of the most moving prose ever written about this former mining town…What a chronicle of a city in perpetual crisis.’ – Jacob Dlamini (author of ASKARI)

‘Ivan Vladislavić’s hand, not unlike that of Marlene Dumas, is unshaking as it paints silent, slow and highly vivid, almost cinematic, lines on the canvas of our shared Johannesburg… A masterful form of reportage of life spent seeing… feeling.’ – Bongani Madondo

‘A bewitching meditation. A raw, literary, and heart-felt ode to life in Johannesburg.’ – Andrew Harding

‘An elegant, gentle, bitter-sweet ramble through the streets of Johannesburg with the incomparable Vladislavić.’ – Jonny Steinberg

‘Ivan is one of South Africa’s best writers… the book is filled with exquisitely observed observations of Johannesburg in all its different moods and the different way people experience the different streets of Johannesburg: absolutely exquisite writing.’ – John Maytham, CapeTalk

‘THE NEAR NORTH has the febrile, hallucinatory feel of JG Ballard’s earlier apocalyptic novels, but tempered and made gentle by a Proustian attention to the ordinary that manages to make the book both paean and threnody.’ – Chris Roper, Daily Maverick

‘Vladislavić's helpless addiction to the inexhaustible variety of the ordinary reality is what makes his books so extraordinary. THE NEAR NORTH is a delightful addition to a substantial output.’ – Michiel Heyns (translated from Afrikaans)

‘There is sadness, rage, confusion and humour in the author’s responses to things but they come together in a reassuring gentle wisdom, an acceptance of things as they are, even as he wishes they could be different. There has been no waning of the author’s observational powers, and no waxing of the author’s ego. It’s a beautiful book. A true thing.’ – Karin Schimke

Praise for Ivan Vladislavić

‘Ivan Vladislavić occupies a place all of his own in the South African literary landscape: a versatile stylist and formal innovator whose work is nevertheless firmly rooted in contemporary urban life.’ – J.M. Coetzee

‘Mysterious, lyrical and wickedly funny… Ivan Vladislavić is one of the most significant writers working in English today. Everyone should read him.’ – Katie Kitamura

‘In a country obsessed with social realism, Vladislavic has always tried to find less obvious ways to approach the world.’ – Damon Galgut

‘Vladislavić's narrative intelligence is nowhere more visible than in his way with language itself… We enter incidents in medias res – as though they were piano études – and exit them before we have overstayed our welcome.’ – Teju Cole

‘Nothing short of a great contemporary writer, he pushes at form and content to make something strangely new and profound.’ – Neel Mukherjee

Visit Ivan's website

Graeme Macrae Burnet’s BENBECULA longlisted for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

Booker-shortlisted author Graeme Macrae Burnet’s latest novel BENBECULA has garnered its first prize nomination – a longlisting 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 novel 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.

The Walter Scott Prize celebrates works of historical fiction, published during the last calendar year, and which are set more than 60 years ago. A shortlist will be announced in April ahead of the prizegiving at the Borders Book Festival – held at the home of Walter Scott in Abbotsford, Melrose – in June. The winner will receive £25,000, with each shortlisted author also awarded £1,500. Recent winners include Hilary Mantel, James Robertson, Lucy Caldwell, Kevin Jared Hosein and, last year’s victor, Andrew Miller (THE LAND IN WINTER).

The Abbotsford Trust, the independent Scottish charity dedicated to preserving the legacy and extraordinary home of Sir Walter Scott, said that this year’s nominees each ‘pays fitting tribute to its namesake [Walter Scott] and encompasses all the variety of story, tone and drama that, in the hands of first-class novelists, history has to offer.’ The judging panel this year comprises of Katie Grant (Chair), Rosi Byard-Jones, Rosamund de la Hey, Elizabeth Laird, James Holloway and James Naughtie.

Also on the longlist this year are:
VENETIAN VESPERS by John Banville (Faber & Faber)
THE TWO ROBERTS by Damian Barr (Canongate)
EDEN’S SHORE by Oisín Fagan (John Murray Press)
HELM by Sarah Hall (Faber & Faber)
THE PRETENDER by Jo Harkin (Bloomsbury)
BOUNDARY WATERS by Tristan Hughes (Parthian Books)
THE MATCHBOX GIRL by Alice Jolly (Bloomsbury)
EDENGLASSIE by Melissa Lucashenko (Oneworld Publications)
ONCE THE DEED IS DONE by Rachel Seiffert (Virago)
THE ARTIST by Lucy Steeds (John Murray Press)
SEASCRAPER by Benjamin Wood (Viking)

BENBECULA was published in the UK by Polygon and WF Howes, and in Australia by Text Publishing in October 2025; a North American edition, published by Biblioasis and Recorded Books, followed in November 2025. 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.

Credit: Euan Anderson

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.

Blake Friedmann Best of 2025

We’re proud of all our authors and thrilled to see the praise and prizes announced in 2025. Here’s a glimpse of the news in the media – and congratulations to all our writers on their many and varied achievements!

A WOMAN LIKE ME by Diane Abbott

Shortlisted for the 2025 RSL Christopher Bland Prize

A Guardian ‘Best Paperback’, March 2025

One of The i’s ‘Best New Paperbacks’, March 2025

WHO WILL REMAIN by Kasim Ali

A Spotify ‘Best Fiction Audiobook of 2025’

One of New Arab’s ‘25 standout books of 2025’

One of The i’s ‘Best New Books, July 2025’

A Spotify Editor’s Pick – August 2025

‘Kasim Ali’s second novel WHO WILL REMAIN also left a lasting impression. I was captivated by Amir’s journey navigating, societal and familial pressure within Alum Rock’s Pakistani community. The father-son relationship was depicted incredibly well and left me pondering. We really need more books written by men of colour that tackle themes this poignant – pick this up.’ – Linda Malek, The Candid Book Club

RECIPES TO DIE LIVE FOR by Sally Andrew

Winner of a 2025 Gourmand World Cookbook award in the Acknowledgements category

AGIMAT by Romalyn Ante

Longlisted for the Jhalak Prize for Poetry

THE MEMORY OF US by Dani Atkins

Shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s 2025 Romantic Thriller Award

SWEET HEAT by Bolu Babalola

One of Time’s ‘100 Must-Read Books of 2025’

One of Oprah Daily’s ‘Books That Got Us Through 2025’

Amazon Editors; Picks: Best Romance books of September

A Kobo Best of Romance, September 2025

One of The i’s ‘Best New Books’, July 2025

A New York Times ‘Best Novel Coming in Fall 2025’

‘Previously a Reese Witherspoon book club pick for her 2022 novel HONEY & SPICE, Babalola continues to show why with this gorgeous, lush new book… It’s witty, obviously, but there’s a warmth and real depth to the characterisation and the issues affecting the young Londoners it portrays. Will you see what’s coming a mile off? Definitely. Will you enjoy the journey? Every bit of it.’ – Jenny Colgan, The Guardian, ‘The Five Best Romance Books of 2025’

‘Stunning… It’s a joy to witness the former flames rediscover their passion in this emotional second-chance romance. Brilliantly narrated by Weruche Opia, SWEET HEAT is a transcendent listen that delivers pure magic.’ – Audible UK’s Best of the Year 2025 – Top 20 Pick

‘SWEET HEAT lives up to the high expectations set with its predecessor… Deliciously smart, humorous, and sexy… This is a sweet second-chance love story with a kick.’ – Lauren Puckett-Pope, ELLE, ‘The Best Books of Fall 2025’

‘Babalola writes romance stories that tug at your heartstrings. The banter feels natural, and she isn’t afraid to turn up the heat. Fans of her other books will enjoy this new entry.’ – Adaora Obeleagu, Zikoko ‘The Best Nigerian Books of 2025’

‘There’s this beautifully layered tension, this wave of emotion, romance and personal reflection that runs through the whole story. SWEET HEAT is the book that comes after the coming-of-age story, it speaks to that weird messy in between time that sometimes comes after college, when you're figuring out who you are, what you want, and how to move forward. Babalola’s writing is stunning. She does a wonderful job of weaving words together in a way that makes you connect with the characters and whatever they're going through. SWEET HEAT is a must-read for anyone navigating the chaos of adulthood, love, and identity, especially when everything feels uncertain.’ – Chicago Public Library, Books of the Year

‘Underneath the fun and banter-filled second-chance romance lies a profound (okay, profound-ish) meditation on love and forgiveness.’ – Melissa Locker, Portland Mercury, ‘10 Favorite Romance (and Romantasy) Books of 2025’

COSTANZA by Rachel Blackmore

Longlisted for the Historical Writers’ Association Debut Crown Award 

Kenny Boyle

Scottish TikToker of the year

BENBECULA by Graeme Macrae Burnet

One of ‘The Globe 100: The 100 Best Books of 2025’, Globe and Mail 

A CASE OF MATRICIDE by Graeme Macrae Burnet 

Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for International Crime Fiction 

THIS BRIGHT LIFE by Karen Campbell

Shortlisted for the Best Fiction prize at Scotland’s National Book Awards 

SUMMER ROLLS by Tuyền Đỗ

‘Perfectly encapsulates the immigrant experience and how different generations might look at the same situation through entirely different lenses… This story transported me through time in such a way that I couldn’t believe I had come to the end when I did. More than anything, though, this story made me HUNGRY. For more than just food; for travel and to experience more of the beauty in other corners of this vast world we live in.’ – Payal Shah, @pie_loves_books, ‘Books of the Year’

GROW WHERE THEY FALL by Michael Donkor 

One of The i’’s ‘Best New Paperbacks, March 2025’

EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE by Kathryn Faulke

Winner of the 2025 RSL Christopher Bland Prize

FELICITY’S WAR by Jean Fullerton

Shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s 2025 Romantic Saga Award

HEARTWOOD by Amity Gaige

‘HEARTWOOD absorbs the reader in the subculture and shorthand of the trail, exploring the thorny tangles of motherhood (and daughterhood) and building satisfying suspense about whether, and how, all three women will emerge from their metaphorical woods.’ – The New York Times, ‘The Best Books of the Year (So Far)’

THE DOGWALKER’S DETECTIVE AGENCY by Michael Hogan

‘Cosy crime takes a delightfully fresh turn with this striking debut about a graphic designer who returns to his childhood home at the seaside and finds a body while walking three dogs. One body breeds another, and the plot gently thickens. If you like Richard Osman’s books, you will love this.’ – Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail, ‘Best Books of 2025 – Crime’

ONE OF US IS DEAD by Peter James

No.1 UK paperback bestseller  

THE HAWK IS DEAD by Peter James

No. 3 UK hardback bestseller

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

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

GRACE (TV show based on Roy Grace novels by Peter James)

‘Screenwriter Russell Lewis (ENDEAVOUR) adapts the novels of popular British crime mystery author Peter James in this series of feature-length episodes that feel like the epitome of prestige television. Grace follows John Simm (DOCTOR WHO) as a troubled detective whose failure to find his missing wife drives him to the point of obsession to solve each case… Simm’s performance is one of the best in his career, and it's a big draw of the show, though the cinematography and visual storytelling are a close second, as each episode feels like it has cinema-quality production to match the movie-style runtime.’ – Tauri Miller, Collider, ‘The 8 Best British Mystery Shows on Britxbox Right Now’

SHE PLAYS WITH THE DARKNESS by Zakes Mda

 Selected for the Searchlight Book List August 2025

THE ZULUS OF NEW YORK by Zakes Mda

Selected for the Searchlight Book List August 2025

LEO by Deon Meyer

Christmas No.1 in South Africa

‘This South African series has everything – an exotic setting, a great plot and the talents of detectives Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido as they put their careers on the line to find the link between three seemingly unrelated homicides.’ – Globe and Mail, ‘The Globe 100: The 100 best books of 2025’

‘The master South African storyteller shows his aptitude for weaving multiple plotlines together and making them all equally engaging in this smart, exciting geopolitical thriller. LEO is a book to get lost in and to learn from.’ – Lisa Henricksson, Air Mail, ‘AIR MAIL’s 10 Best Mystery Books of 2025’

One of Amazon's Best Books of the Year So Far 2025 – Top 20 in the Mystery/Thriller (new and continuing series) category

ASHEN CROWN: BOUND BY FIRE by Elli J. Morrigan

‘BOUND BY FIRE held me captive with its rich world-building and titillating romance. Imogen Wilde was her own spark in this audiobook, delivering a layered performance of a story that was quite literally made for audio. I’m eager to see what debut author Elli J. Morrigan does next.’ —Audible Blog, ‘The 10 best romantasy listens of 2025’

THE GHOSTS OF ROME by Joseph O’Connor

Winner of the overall An Post Irish Book of the Year Award 2025

Winner of the Listeners’ Choice Award at the 2025 An Post Irish Book Awards

Shortlisted for the Eason Novel of the Year Award 2025

Shortlisted for the 2025 Kerry Group Novel of The Year Award

The seventh-highest selling book in Ireland in 2025

No.1 Irish hardback bestseller

One of The Times’ ‘Best Books of 2025 so far’

‘The second book in Joseph O’Connor’s Rome Escape Line trilogy is another superb testament to humankind’s bravery and resilience. Continuing the story of resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Italy, THE GHOSTS OF ROME is just as moving and immersive as its predecessor, MY FATHER’S HOUSE’ – Laura Wilson, The Guardian, ‘The Best Crime and Thrillers of 2025’

‘Round two of the Rome Escape Line trilogy – that there won’t be one in 2026 means the whole year is already a dead loss – shows O’Connor’s mastery of the literary thriller. There’s poetry inspired by Urbs Aeterna and plenty of action to go with it, kicking off with an airman falling towards the Nazi-occupied city before the chase, while “bullets spit at his back”, begins. O’Connor’s reimagined adventures of our man in the Vatican, Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, will hit a screen at some point but don’t wait.’ – Pat Carty, Hot Press, ‘The Best Books of 2025’

MY FATHER’S HOUSE by Joseph O’Connor

A No.5 Irish Bestseller

THE HONEYMOON AFFAIR by Sheila O’Flanagan

Irish Top 10 bestseller and UK Top 20 bestseller

GUNNER by Alan Parks

Longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year

‘Taking inspiration from the real-life secret mission of Rudolph Hess, Parks's blazing wartime crime thriller finds a wounded former detective reluctantly drawn into the case of a mutilated German found in Glasgow's bomb wreckage.’ – Waterstones, ‘The Best Crime & Thrillers of 2025’

‘Lost love, bitter gangland enemies, and the identity of the dead man is at the heart of a powerful conspiracy story. It all makes for an intelligent and pacy crime thriller… Parks knows Glasgow and this is like experiencing the wartime streets of a city under siege from bombers and suffering the deprivations of war.’ – Paul Burke, Crime Fiction Lover, ‘Top Five Books of 2025’

TO DIE IN JUNE by Alan Parks

Longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award

PASSIONTIDE by Monique Roffey

Longlisted for CARICON Prize for Fiction

A MOTHER’S PROMISE by Renee Salt and Kate Thompson 

No.6 Sunday Times bestseller

THE STRANGER IN THE ROOM by Luca Veste

One of The Times’ ‘Best Thrillers of 2025 — so far’

THE NEAR NORTH by Ivan Vladislavic

Longlisted for South Africa’s Sunday Times Non-fiction Literary Award 

THE INNOCENTS by Bridget Walsh

Longlisted for the 2025 Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Gold Dagger award

WHITE ROAD by Harry Whitehead

‘WHITE ROAD by Harry Whitehead is a harrowing tale of endurance about an ex-navy rescue swimmer who is stranded in the Arctic. A compelling eco-thriller with big themes and an unforgiving icescape that’s a character in itself.’ – Eve Smith, ‘We're the queens of psychological crime thrillers – these were our fave reads of 2025’, Express

‘Probably the closest I will ever get to the Arctic is reading this frozen-white-knuckle ride of a thriller by Harry Whitehead. WHITE ROAD is both a page-turning disaster drama and a moral re-examination of the climate crisis and our species’ relentless need for more hydrocarbons. The author attends to the hour-by-hour twists in his plot, yet spliced to a forensic exploration of the human heart. He gives us a love letter to the extraordinary ice world of the Arctic: both its fragile beauty and its remorseless terrors. Before everything, the book strikes me as a singular, beautifully integrated achievement.’ – Mark Cocker, ‘Christmas Books 2025’

THE GRAMMAR OF ANGELS by Edward Wilson-Lee

‘In this smart and rangy book, Wilson-Lee, a Cambridge don, paints a glorious portrait of the great 15th-century prince of learning, and teaches you more about magic than you thought you would ever know.’ – The Telegraph, ‘The Greatest Books of 2025’,

Blake Friedmann picks for 2026

SMITTEN by Tom Bellamy

 One of the Next Big Idea Club’s Must-Read Books for February 2026

ADRIFT by Will Dean

‘Dean leans into claustrophobic tension, testing how trust collapses when survival becomes uncertain.’ – Girish Shukla, Times Now, ‘2026 Book Releases Worth Pre-Ordering Now’

BANSHEE, ed. by Ailbhe Malone

An Irish Times ‘One to Watch in 2026’

An Irish Examiner ‘Fiction to watch out for this year’

One of Stellar.ie’s 20 Books We’re Dying To Read In 2026

 SECRETS BETWEEN FRIENDS by Sheila O’Flanagan

 One The Irish Times ‘Best Fiction of 2026 to Look Forward to’ picks