August Book Haul Part 1 #StackedShelves #TBR #BookReviews

Welcome to the first book haul of August 2017! Publishers have been very generous to Always Trust In Books this year and I am incredibly grateful. There are plenty of superb additions to the TBR here so keep your eyes peeled and make sure to let me know if there are any books here that you will definitely be checking out. Of course, if you are already reading any of these titles then please let me know what you think! To the books!

August Week 1 Book Haul

My Name Is Nobody by Matthew Richardson

Published by: Michael Joseph

I love a good spy novel. This better be as good as it sounds!

Official Synopsis: Solomon Vine was the best of his generation, a spy on a fast track to the top. But when a prisoner is shot in unexplained circumstances on his watch, only suspension and exile beckon.

Three months later, MI6’s Head of Station in Istanbul is abducted from his home. There are signs of a violent struggle. With the Service in lockdown, uncertain of who can be trusted, thoughts turn to the missing man’s oldest friend: Solomon Vine.

Officially suspended, Vine can operate outside the chain of command to uncover the truth. But his investigation soon reveals that the disappearance heralds something much darker. And that there’s much more at stake than the life of a single spy . . .

My Name is Nobody is a sophisticated, pacey and accomplished debut novel by 26-year-old rising star Matthew Richardson. Appealing to fans of the TV series Homeland and The Night Manager – as well as I Am Pilgrim, Nomad, Charles Cumming and Robert Harris – this is a gripping, multi-layered and assured debut thriller that drips with an insider’s knowledge of London’s corridors of power.

The Scandal by Fredrick Backman

Published by: Michael Joseph

The Scandal sounds amazing. Dark, intense and intruiging. It may just be the change of style and pace I have been looking for.

Official Synopsis: ‘Late one evening towards the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barrelled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

This is the story of how we got there.’

For most of the year it is under a thick blanket of snow, experiencing the kind of cold and dark that brings people closer together – or pulls them apart.

Its isolation means that Beartown has been slowly shrinking with each passing year. But now the town is on the verge of an astonishing revival. Everyone can feel the excitement. A bright new future is just around the corner.

Until the day it is all put in jeopardy by a single, brutal act. It divides the town into those who think it should be hushed up and forgotten, and those who’ll risk the future to see justice done. At last, it falls to one young man to find the courage to speak the truth that it seems no one else wants to hear.

With the town’s future at stake, no one can stand by or stay silent. Everyone is on one side or the other.

Which side would you be on?

The Marriage Pact by Michelle Richmond

Published by: Michael Joseph

The Marriage Pact is an ingeniously messed up concept. This has potential to be the psychological thriller of the year!

Official Synopsis: It’s the perfect wedding gift.

Newlyweds Jake and Alice are offered membership of a club which promises members will never divorce.

Signing The Pact seems the ideal start to their marriage.

Until one of them breaks the rules.

Because The Pact is for life.

And its members will go to any lengths to ensure nobody leaves . . .

How Not To Be A Boy by Robert Webb

Published by: Canongate Books

I am a huge fan of Robert Webb. Peep Show and That Mitchell and Webb Look are a big part of my comedy intake. I hope he brings his satirical and childish humour to this brilliant topic.

Official Synopsis: RULES FOR BEING A MAN

Don’t Cry; Love Sport; Play Rough; Drink Beer; Don’t Talk About Feelings
But Robert Webb has been wondering for some time now: are those rules actually any use? To anyone?

Looking back over his life, from schoolboy crushes (on girls and boys) to discovering the power of making people laugh (in the Cambridge Footlights with David Mitchell), and from losing his beloved mother to becoming a husband and father, Robert Webb considers the absurd expectations boys and men have thrust upon them at every stage of life.

Hilarious and heartbreaking, How Not To Be a Boy explores the relationships that made Robert who he is as a man, the lessons we learn as sons and daughters, and the understanding that sometimes you aren’t the Luke Skywalker of your life – you’re actually Darth Vader.

Madness Is Better Than Defeat by Ned Beauman

Published by: Sceptre (Hodder)

I can’t wait to get into this as it sounds brilliantly absurd! I think this will be a novel I either love or hate. I hope it is the former 😅.

Official Synopsis: In 1938, two rival expeditions set off for a lost Mayan temple in the jungles of Honduras, one intending to shoot a screwball comedy on location there, the other intending to disassemble it and ship it back to New York. A seemingly endless stalemate ensues, and twenty years later, when a rogue CIA agent learns that both expeditions are still out in the wilderness, he embarks on a mission to exploit the temple as a geopolitical pawn. But the mission hurtles towards disaster when he discovers that the temple is the locus of grander conspiracies than anyone could have guessed.

Force Of Nature by Jane Harper

Published by: Little Brown

This is going to be a massive release for 2018! The Dry was an immensly popular novel that I had the great fortune to review. Force of Nature carries on the story of Aaron Falk and it looks to be another great piece of fiction.

Official Synopsis: FIVE WENT OUT. FOUR CAME BACK…

Is Alice here? Did she make it? Is she safe? In the chaos, in the night, it was impossible to say which of the four had asked after Alice’s welfare. Later, when everything got worse, each would insist it had been them.

Five women reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking along the muddy track. Only four come out the other side.

The hike through the rugged landscape is meant to take the office colleagues out of their air-conditioned comfort zone and teach resilience and team building. At least that is what the corporate retreat website advertises.

Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a particularly keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing bushwalker. Alice Russell is the whistleblower in his latest case – and Alice knew secrets. About the company she worked for and the people she worked with.

Far from the hike encouraging teamwork, the women tell Falk a tale of suspicion, violence and disintegrating trust. And as he delves into the disappearance, it seems some dangers may run far deeper than anyone knew

Clade by James Bradley

Published by: Titan Books

This sounds bonkers! I certainly look forward to finding out how intense it really is!

Official Synopsis: On a beach in Antarctica, scientist Adam Leith marks the passage of the summer solstice. Back in Sydney his partner Ellie waits for the results of her latest round of IVF treatment.
That result, when it comes, will change both their lives and propel them into a future neither could have predicted. In a collapsing England, Adam will battle to survive an apocalyptic storm. Against a backdrop of growing civil unrest at home, Ellie will discover a strange affinity with beekeeping. In the aftermath of a pandemic, a young man finds solace in building virtual recreations of the dead. And new connections will be formed from the most unlikely beginnings.

The Night Stalker by Clare Donoghue

Published by: Pan MacMillan

Pan Macmillan are one of my go to publishers when it comes to dark thrillers. I am sure The Night Stalker will meet their excellent standard 😆.

Official Synopsis: The Night Stalker is a compelling crime thriller from Clare Donoghue. 

Dead Woman’s Ditch. The site of a grisly two-hundred-year-old murder – and a recent hit and run. When a young woman’s body is found at the macabre landmark in Somerset’s Quantock Hills, DI Mike Lockyer and Sergeant Jane Bennett are called in to investigate.

They find a community gripped by fear and superstition. The locals won’t venture out at night, believing there’s a man stalking the hills; a phantom cloaked in folklore and legend, keeping the sinister legacy of Dead Woman’s Ditch alive.

Confronted by a hostile CID team and a murder victim with close ties to their own squad, Lockyer and Bennett will have to accept what they can’t see before they can find what’s really there…

The Gradual by Christopher Priest

Published by: Gollancz

I saw this released last year but I missed out on a review copy. That opportunity appeared again this year so I quickly went for it. I have a feeling this novel is going to be something special. Unique, creative and enjoyable is my prediction.

Official Synopsis: In the latest novel from one of the UK’s greatest writers we return to the Dream Archipelago, a string of islands that no one can map or explain.

Alesandro Sussken is a composer, and we see his life as he grows up in a fascist state constantly at war with another equally faceless opponent. His brother is sent off to fight; his family is destroyed by grief. Occasionally Alesandro catches glimpses of islands in the far distance from the shore, and they feed into his music – music for which he is feted.

But all knowledge of the other islands is forbidden by the junta, until he is unexpectedly sent on a cultural tour. And what he discovers on his journey will change his perceptions of his country, his music and the ways of the islands themselves.

Playing with the lot of the creative mind, the rigours of living under war and the nature of time itself, this is Christopher Priest at his absolute best.

Thank you for stopping by to check out all the excellent additions to my TBR/Review List. 2017 has been an amazing year for book post and I am incredibly grateful to all the publishers who send me advanced copies of books. Thank you all! If you have read any of these books then please let me know as I would love to discuss them with you! If any of these books have caught your eye then also let me know. I love building up the anticipation by chatting to all of you lovely people. Until next time, happy reading!

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