5 New Books I’m Looking Forward to in Q4 2024 -

Hello! Thanks to having some school holidays time off I’m finally getting it together to join in with a Top 5 Tuesday post! Top 5 Tuesday is a meme hosted by lovely Meeghan at Meeghan Reads – you can see this week’s posts here, and the lists of prompts for the rest of the year here.

This week’s prompt is top 5 anticipated reads for Q4 2024. Part of me absolutely can’t believe that we’re into the final quarter of the year already (although it does also feel like a very long time since January!). There are some books that look truly fabulous coming out before the end of the year (and a few in very early 2025 that I can’t wait for too!) and today I’ve managed to narrow it down to five titles to talk about here. Click on the titles to go to the publishers’ websites to find out more about each book.

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The Last Illusion of Paige White by Vanessa McCausland

Paige White kayaked across the lake each morning at dawn. Someone was watching her. Many someones watched her online. But was anyone with her the day she was found?

Paige White’s beautiful life is documented closely for her thousands of followers: lakeside picnics with her daughter, sunny afternoons in the family van, and romantic dinners with her husband. So when she posts an ominous image, and her body is shortly after discovered in the lake, everyone immediately wonders – suicide or foul play?

Paige finds herself suspended in a strange, idyllic place that resembles her most ‘liked’ Instagram post, forced to watch as life continues without her.

When Paige’s death makes national news, Jane Masters, a journalist who was close to Paige in childhood, reluctantly travels home. Struggling with the morality of covering her friend’s death, Jane will confront the town she left behind and the dark undercurrents that she’s always known run underneath.

Out 4 December from Harper Collins

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Rapture by Emily Maguire

The motherless child of an English priest living in ninth-century Mainz, Agnes is a wild and brilliant girl with a deep, visceral love of God. At eighteen, to avoid a future as a wife or nun, Agnes enlists the help of a lovesick Benedictine monk to disguise herself as a man and devote her life to the study she is denied as a woman.

So begins the life of John the Englishman: a matchless scholar and scribe of the revered Fulda monastery, then a charismatic heretic in an Athens commune and, by her middle years, a celebrated teacher in Rome. There, Agnes (as John) dazzles the Church hierarchy with her knowledge and wisdom and finds herself at the heart of political intrigue in a city where gossip is a powerful—and deadly—currency.

And when the only person who knows her identity arrives in Rome, she will risk everything to once again feel what it is to be known—and loved.

Out 1 October from Allen & Unwin

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Everyone this Christmas has a Secret by Benjamin Stevenson

My name’s Ernest Cunningham. I used to be a fan of reading Golden Age murder mysteries, until I found myself with a haphazard career getting stuck in the middle of real-life ones. I’d hoped, this Christmas, that any self-respecting murderer would kick their feet up and take it easy over the holidays. I was wrong.

So here I am, backstage at the show of world-famous magician Rylan Blaze, whose benefactor has just been murdered. My suspects are all professional tricksters: masters of the art of misdirection.

THE MAGICIAN
THE ASSISTANT
THE EXECUTIVE
THE HYPNOTIST
THE TWIN
THE COUNSELLOR
THE STAGEHAND

My clues are even more abstract: A suspect covered in blood, without a memory of how it got there; A murder committed without setting foot inside the room where it happens; And an advent calendar. Because, you know, it’s Christmas.

If I can see through the illusions, I know I can solve it. After all, a good murder is just like a magic trick, isn’t it?

Out 22 October from Penguin Australia

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Don’t Let the Forest In by CG Drews

On the first day back at boarding school, Andrew can’t wait to find refuge in the twisted fairy tales that he writes for Thomas – the boy with hair like autumn leaves.

But Thomas’ parents have vanished, and he has blood on his sleeve. Stranger still, Thomas won’t talk to Andrew, even though he’s always loved sketching the monstrous creatures from Andrew’s stories.

Desperate to discover the truth, Andrew follows Thomas into the forest and catches him fighting a nightmarish monster – his drawings have come to life.

To ensure no one else dies, the boys must battle the creatures every night. But as their obsession with each other grows stronger, so do the monsters, and Andrew fears the only way to stop them might be to destroy their creator.

Out 29 October from Hachette

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Swordcrossed by Freya Marske

Mattinesh Jay, heir to his family’s struggling business, needs his arranged marriage to go off without a hitch. But if he’s to successfully restore his house’s fortunes, Matti must first hire a swordsman to defend him against any sword-challenges at the altar. Unfortunately, the only duellist he can afford is part-time con artist and full-time charming menace Luca Piere.

All Luca wants to do is make some easy money and forget the crime he committed in his home town. He didn’t plan on being blackmailed into giving sword lessons to a chronically responsible – and inconveniently handsome – wool-merchant like Matti.

However, neither Matti’s business troubles nor Luca himself are quite what they seem. As secrets threaten to drive a blade through their growing alliance, both Matti and Luca will have to answer the question: how many lies are you prepared to strip away when the truth could mean losing everything you want?

Out October 8 from Tor Books

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Honestly, my TBR pile is doomed with so many fab books coming out all the time! I’d love to know whether you have any of these on your radar too, and which new releases you’re looking forward to coming out soon!

Don’t forget to pop over and visit Meeghan Reads to see which other titles book lovers are looking forward to before the end of the year.

xo Bron
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Looking for more book previews? Click here.

5 New Books I’m Looking Forward to in Q4 2024