Q. How do you know when you’ve become obsessed with books?
A. When your calendar lists the publication dates of books you already know you want to buy.

I plead guilty to being obsessed with books. One sign of that is that even before the summer is over, I’m already thinking about the books that I’ll hug to myself as the nights get longer. If that’s an impulse you share, I offer you the twelve yet to be published books that are on my wishlist for September, October and November 2025.

September

Spies lie. They betray. It’s what they do.

Chief of the intelligence service, Diana Taverner, doesn’t appreciate threats. So, when a team involved in a double-agent operation during the height of the Troubles are threatening to expose the truth and lay bare the dark side of state security, Taverner turns this blackmail into an opportunity.

Slow horse, River Cartwright, is out in the cold waiting to be passed fit for work. To kill time, and with his grandfather – a former head spy – long dead, River investigates the secrets of his private library where a book has gone missing. Or perhaps it never existed.

Back at Slough House, the repository for failed spies, Louisa Guy is pondering her future. Shirley Dander is wondering if the new kid, Ash Khan, is as annoying as she seems. Roddy Ho wants the team to know that his tattoo is a hummingbird, and not, as Lech Wicinski claims, a platypus. Catherine Standish just wants everyone to play nice and as far as Slough House’s master, Jackson Lamb is concerned, they should all be at their desks.

Because when Taverner starts plotting mischief people get hurt, and Lamb has no plans to send in the clowns. On the other hand, if the clowns ignore his instructions and fool around, any harm that befalls them is hardly his fault.

But they’re his clowns. And if they don’t all come home, there’ll be a reckoning.

I’ve been reading Mick Herron’s ‘Slough House’ series since is stumbeld across ‘Slow Horses’ in 2017. I love his prose, his twisting plots and his well-informed view of the ugly realities of how the Bristish establishment protects itself. ‘Clown Town’ is the ninth book about the failures doomed to drugery and disgrace who occupy Slough House. I’m eager to spend more time with them as they wade their semi-competent, mostly disenchanted way through deceit, and treachery.

Kinsey has the perfect job as the team leader in a remote research outpost. She loves the isolation and the way the desert keeps temptations from the civilian world far out of reach.

When her crew discovers a mysterious specimen buried deep in the sand, Kinsey breaks quarantine and brings it into the hab. But the longer it’s inside, the more her carefully controlled life begins to unravel. Temptation has found her after all, and it can’t be ignored any longer.

One by one, Kinsey’s team realizes the thing they’re studying is in search of a new host—and one of them is the perfect candidate….

I loved Sarah Gailey’s ‘Magic For Liars’. She captured the spirit of a rather strange institution and the people who kept it that way while delivering a compelling murder mystery set in an academy for magic. Her upcoming book has a premise that calls to me: isolated research centre with a small team of scientists dealing with an unknown but fascinating entity. It should be a great thriller for the dark nights.

Birds, Strangers and Psychos is a thrilling anthology that brings together the biggest names in mystery and crime fiction to pay homage to Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary filmmaker whose name is synonymous with suspense. Acclaimed editor Maxim Jakubowski curates 24 original short stories, each inspired by the mood, tension, and style that defined Hitchcock’s groundbreaking work. This anthology invites both emerging and established voices to reimagine the chilling atmospheres, twisted plots, and unforgettable characters of Hitchcock’s films, from Psycho and Vertigo to North by Northwest and The Birds.

Each author takes on the challenge of evoking the quintessentially ‘Hitchcockian’ elements that have captivated audiences for decades: ordinary lives interrupted by peril, psychological duels, and unexpected encounters that spiral into nightmares. The volume showcases an extraordinary blend of talent, including Lee Child, Denise Mina, Sophie Hannah, Vaseem Khan, MW Craven, Jeff Noon and S. A. Cosby and many more!

Just as Hitchcock adapted stories from literary giants like Daphne du Maurier, Patricia Highsmith, and Roald Dahl, Birds, Strangers and Psychos unites today’s literary stars to craft new suspenseful tales that are destined to thrill, haunt, and unsettle. This volume is not just a collection of stories – it’s an invitation to rediscover the artistry of suspense.

Maxim Jakubowski is one of my favourite editors. He’s good at spotting talent and great at coming up with challenges that excite writers. I think this book will be a blast. So far, I now that there are stories by Lee Child, Denise Mina, Sophie Hannah, Vaseem Khan, MW Craven, Jeff Noon and S. A. Cosby. I’m eager to see who else made the cut in this collection.

Three women give birth in different countries and different decades. In the near future, they become neighbours in a coastal town in Aotearoa New Zealand. Single parent Keri has her hands full with four-year-old tearaway Walty and teen Wairere, a strange and gifted child, who always picks up on things that aren’t hers to worry about. They live next door to Janet, a white woman with an opinion about everything, and new arrival Sera, whose family are refugees from ecological devastation in Europe. 

When Janet’s son Conor arrives home without warning, sporting a fresh buzzcut and a new tattoo, the quiet tension between the neighbours grows, but no one suspects just how extreme Conor has become. No one except Wairere who can feel both the danger, and the swamp beneath their street, watching and waiting.

‘The Mires’ is the first of TIna Makereti’s books that I’ve been able to get as an audiobook in the UK. It also seems to be her most contemporary book, so I’m hoping it’s a good place to start. Tina Makereti is a New Zealand writer with a unique voice. She’s is deeply immersed in the history of her country, before and after the European’s arrived. I’m hoping for a distinctive, thought-provoking story.

October

Dahin believes he has clues to the location of the Hierarchs’ Well, and the Witch King Kai, along with his companions Ziede and Tahren, knowing there’s something he isn’t telling them, travel with him to the rebuilt university of Ancartre, which may be dangerously close to finding the Well itself.

Can Kai stop the rise of a new Hierarch?

And can he trust his companions to do what’s right?

This is the sequel to Martha Wells’ ‘Witch King‘ which I read and enjoyed in 2023. I love how Marth Wells brings the worlds of her imagination alive and drives a plot with urgency through a bizarre landscape.

A fifty-five-gallon drum washes up in the Malibu Lagoon stuffed with the corpse of Gene Dent, the key player in a bribery scandal that ensnared several local politicians. LASD detectives Eve Ronin and Duncan Pavone know the case—and all the likely suspects—well. Just as they begin their investigation, the sheriff publicly reveals evidence linking the crime to LA’s mayor.

But Eve and Duncan realize the bombshell allegation, true or not, arises from corruption within the sheriff’s own office…because they helped cover it up years ago. If the sheriff goes down, so will they.

Eve is agonizing over her moral dilemma when a helicopter crashes in the hillside below her Calabasas home. It’s not a coincidence. Eve soon discovers among the twisted wreckage and dead passengers shocking connections to her own past…and they lead straight to a fight for her life.

The Eve Ronin books are an automatic buy for me. I’ve been waiting for this one to come out since I finished ‘Hidden In Smoke’ in May.

Ruby Young is slowly adjusting to her new life in Boston. A big part of that is her unexpected roommate—the ghost of the woman who lived there before. For Cordelia Graves, she may no longer be breathing, but it’s still her apartment and Ruby is the somewhat unwanted houseguest. They’re both happy they’ve managed to become friends, which is a miracle considering they struggle to communicate with each other. Cordelia even set Ruby up with her old job.

When Ruby discovers the body of a delivery guy at work, the new life she’s been building hangs in the balance. The last time Cordelia dragged Ruby into a murder investigation, it was almost two ghosts living in the apartment, not one. Determined to protect Ruby, Cordelia tries to shield her from the investigation, but Ruby has other ideas. It will take both of them working together to navigate the fine line between the dead and the living to bring a killer to light.

This is the sequel to ‘A New Lease On Death‘ which I read last December. I’m looking forward to seeing how the relationship between Ruby and her dead but not departed roommate Cordelia, progresses. Oh, and I’d like there to be a good mystery for them to solve.

A young girl has wandered into the small town of Koraha, her hands stained with blood. She can’t speak, but her path is tracked through New Zealand’s unforgiving wilderness to a cabin – and the scene of a double murder.

The townsfolk know this cabin, for it has a violent history. Twenty years ago, another girl was forced to flee, leaving her siblings and father behind. But now that Effie’s family’s secrets have claimed more victims, she has no choice but to return to the bush and face the truth of what happened there – and why she ran.

A debut novel from a New Zealand writer. This is a bit of a roll of the dice but the early reviews are good and I like the premise and the setting.

November

They called it hysteria. She called it survival.

Lulu Mayfield has spent the last five years molding herself into the perfect 1950s housewife. Despite the tragic memories that haunt her and the weight of exhausting expectations, she keeps her husband happy, her household running, and her gelatin salads the talk of the neighborhood. But after she gives birth to her second child, Lulu’s carefully crafted life begins to unravel.

When a new neighbor, Bitsy, moves in, Lulu suspects that something darker lurks behind the woman’s constant smile. As her fixation on Bitsy deepens, Lulu is drawn into a web of unsettling truths that threaten to expose the cracks in her own life. The more she uncovers about Bitsy, the more she questions everything she thought she knew—and soon, others begin questioning her sanity. But is Lulu truly losing her mind? Or is she on the verge of discovering a reality too terrifying to accept?

This is Meagan Church’s third novel and the first one with a pitch that calls to me. The reconsideration of the idealised 1950s American housewife seems timely given the strong push from the right wing to Make American Women Wives Again (Am I imagining wordplay between Trad Wife and Mad Wife?). What really pulled me in was the addition of a supernatural element.

Fern has weathered the stillness and storms of a bookseller’s life for decades, but now, in the face of crippling ennui, transplants herself to the city of Thune to hang out her shingle beside a long-absent friend’s coffee shop. What could be a better pairing? Surely a charming renovation montage will cure what ails her!

If only things were so simple . . .

It turns out that fixing your life isn’t a one-time prospect, nor as easy as a change of scenery and a lick of paint.

A drunken and desperate night sees the rattkin waking far from home in the company of a legendary warrior surviving on inertia, an imprisoned chaos-goblin with a fondness for silverware, and an absolutely thumping hangover.

As together they fend off a rogue’s gallery of ne’er-do-wells trying to claim the bounty the goblin represents, Fern may finally reconnect with the person she actually is when there isn’t a job to get in the way.

Much to my own surprise, I fell in love with ‘Bookshops & Bonedust’. It could so easily have been twee and saccharin but instead ended up being charming and funny. I’m hoping that this third book will deliver the same kind of feelings while taking me deeper into this world.

Words have power. Intentions matter.

Most people come to Destiny Park for entertainment. They come to have their cards read to tell them a bit about their future. They come to walk through a beautiful park and to eat at the hotel’s restaurant. They come in the hope of catching a glimpse of the Arcana, the paranormal beings who rule the Isle of Wyrd.

But some people come to make a bargain with the Arcana—to change their fate. And some people come for dark purposes.

When Detective Beth Fahey is sent to Destiny Park to inquire about a “ghost gun,” she will begin a strange journey on which she must learn to navigate the Arcana’s unforgiving laws and dangerous attractions. Her search will draw her into seemingly impossible cases and the secrets of her own past as tensions rise between the Arcana and their human neighbors across the river.

For the Isle of Wyrd is a place where the dead ride trains to their final destinations, predators literally become prey, and seekers’ true natures are revealed in the ripples of destiny unknowingly stirred in their wakes.

Who will live? Who will die? And who will be lost in between?

It’s been three years since I finished ‘Crowbones‘ the eighth novel in ‘The Others‘ series. I’ve missed having a new Anne Bishop novel to turn to. I’m excited that she’s decided to start a new series, especially one that combines magic and detective stories.

No one is supposed to know harmless office worker Gwen Tanner is the vanished daughter of serial killer Abel Haggerty. But a low profile and a new name aren’t going to cut it when an obsessive new killer starts targeting her, in this lively and propulsive thriller with a standout voice. 

Marin Haggerty, the daughter of a notorious serial killer, was only a child when they arrested her father. Ripped from her home and given a new identity, Marin disappeared. 

Twenty years later, Gwen Tanner keeps everyone at a distance, preferring to satirize the world around her than participate in it. It’s for her safety–and theirs. But when someone starts sending body parts to her front door, the message is clear: I Know Who You Are. 

To preserve her secrets, Gwen must hunt down the killer, a journey which immerses her in the twisted world of true crime fandom and makes her confront her past once and for all. Maybe she is capable of deep, human connections, but she’s not the only one keeping secrets. Will opening herself up to others help her find the killer, or remind her why it was necessary she hide her true self in the first place? 

The apple never falls too far, after all.

I have an aversion to True Crime books and podcasts. To me, they feel voyeuristic and exploitative. Novels that treat that world as problematic interest me. I’m hoping that this will be a trope-twisting thriller that slices through the underbelly of True Crime tribalism.