A Happy New Year to you all! We’ve made it to January 2024 which means it must be time to break the spine of a new notebook and scribble down all those titles we know you have waiting to read this year. Here at Kemps in Malton, we have our eyes and ears to the ground to seek out all the most promising fiction titles that the first few months of this year will bring. So, pencils at the ready, here are just a few of the titles we are keenly anticipating in 2024.

January brings a little looking back and a good deal of looking forward with some fantastic fiction to revive your spirits. Pan MacMillan is looking back almost a century as they reissue the novels of Barbara Pym. Often described as the ‘lost Austen’, Pym delivers keenly observed and often wry social commentary of 1930s parochial life. Dressed in an updated cover, The Sweet Dove Died is one of Pym’s later novels which, in spite of its darker tone, retains the cutting wit that she is well known for.

Two debuts that are well worth searching out are Piglet by Lottie Hazell and The House of Broken Bricks by Fiona Williams. Fans of Sally Rooney are likely to love Piglet, a novel that grabs hold of you and propels you to the end as you turn the pages faster and faster. It’s about a young couple who appear to have everything but, on the verge of their wedding day, one of them reveals a secret that could blow their carefully curated lives apart. Will Piglet manage to navigate this crisis point in her life or will she once again succumb to the cravings she has worked so hard to suppress in her adult life? The House of Broken Bricks is the story of a rural family and how they confront an unspeakable shared grief. Told through beautiful prose and plotted against the shifting seasons, this is a powerful and emotionally intelligent debut novel.

Fans of Val McDermid should pencil 1st February into their diary for an afternoon getting stuck into this ever-popular crime writer’s seventh Karen Pirie novel. Full of McDermid’s trademark twists, the plot centres upon the similarities between a dead author’s incomplete manuscript and a real-life crime. One not to be missed! On a lighter note, Sally Coulthard’s A Brief History of the Countryside in 100 Objects is released in February and we know this will be popular in the shop. Using domestic and professional objects to reveal the beating heart of rural Britain, Sally guides us through life as our countryside ancestors knew it. If you’ve been waiting for the paperback, this might just be the month for you. Some of our most popular hardbacks from 2023 are published this month, including: In Memoriam by Alice Winn, Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons and Cuddy by Benjamin Myers.

Historical fiction flourishes in March! Following the huge success of Sister Song, Lucy Holland’s new folkloric tale, Song of the Huntress is published. History and fantasy collide in this powerful novel recounting the story of woman who makes a desperate pact with the King of the Underworld. From Celts to Romans, Simon Turney’s Agricola: Invader is the story of Agricola, a young man from a noble but now impoverished family. Staking his reputation and his life upon a military career, we follow him from Rome to Brittania where his legion must defeat the Celtic might of the Iceni tribe. It’s another immersive and page-turning adventure through our ancient past.

So that’s just a few of the highlights for the first quarter of 2024. Where novels by celebrity authors seemed to be a key feature of 2023, those in the know are backing the romance and fantasy genres (and their hybrid sibling – Romantasy) as the big trend of 2024. We’ll see on that one and, in the meantime, happy reading whatever book you choose!

The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym, ISBN: 9781529091892, £10.99

Piglet by Lottie Hazell, ISBN: 9780857529565, £16.99

The House of Broken Bricks by Fiona Williams, ISBN: 9780571379552, £14.99

Past Lying by Val McDermid, ISBN: 9781408729076, £22

A Brief History of the Countryside in 100 Objects by Sally Coulthard, ISBN: 9780008559427, £22

Song of the Huntress by Lucy Holland, ISBN: 9781529077407, £22

Agricola Invader by Simon Turney ISBN: 9781804540435, £9.99