Must Read Fiction For April 2025

Molly the maid is no stranger to secrets…

She sees everything behind closed doors at the Regency Grand hotel: wiping away the dust and grime of guests passing through.

But one secret lies much closer to home.

An old trinket – a faux Fabergé egg – is revealed to be a precious antique during an appraisal at the hotel, making Molly a rags-to-riches sensation. But no sooner has the egg shown its value than it’s stolen: vanishing without a trace.

Determined to crack the case of the missing Fabergé, Molly begins dusting for clues – uncovering a mystery that stretches deep into the past.

For in the pages of a long-forgotten diary, written by her late gran, lie the secrets that could unlock all others – and only Molly holds the key…

Don’t miss the next captivating page-turner from Sunday Times bestseller Susan Lewis!

They raised me. Nurtured me. And lied about everything.

Sadie’s childhood has always been shrouded in mystery.

But there are three things she knows.

She was raised by two aunts.

She never knew her parents.

She is convinced she was stolen.

Cristy Ward, podcast host, is gripped by Sadie’s story. It’s perfect for her next true-crime investigation. Yet Sadie’s aunt claims it’s all a fantasy.

As the evidence begins to stack up, and the lies fall apart, they all could be in a lot more danger than they thought…

A beautiful anniversary edition to mark twenty years of Kazuo Ishiguro’s modern classic, in which he imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of 1990s England.

Narrated by Kathy H, as she tries to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, it is a story of love, friendship and memory, charged throughout with a sense of life’s fragility.

It’s the story everyone wants to hear.

That spring night in South London, when Isabel and Edward’s lives were torn apart.

The night Isabel learned that the worst things wait, just outside the door.

The night Edward learned that he was powerless to stop them.

The night they never talk about.

When their attacker is caught, it’s finally time to tell the story of that night.

Not to the world. Or to the man who did it. But to each other.

This is a story of murder. This is a story of survival. But most of all, this is a story of love.

A fearsomely dark, incantatory new dystopia set in a post-apocalyptic convent from the author of viral sensation Tender is the Flesh.

In the House of the Sacred Sisterhood, the unworthy live in fear of the Superior Sister’s whip. Seething with resentment, they plot against each other and await who will ascend to the level of the Enlightened – and who will suffer the next exemplary punishment.

Risking her life, one of the unworthy keeps a diary in secret. Slowly, memories surface from a time before the world collapsed, before the Sacred Sisterhood became the only refuge.

Then Lucía arrives. She, too, is unworthy – but she is different. And her presence brings a single spark of hope to a world of darkness.

The new novel from the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature – ‘a maestro’ (Guardian). A captivating story of the intertwined lives of three young people coming-of-age in postcolonial East Africa

Selected as a book to look out for in 2025 by the Guardian, Observer, Irish Times and BBC

What are we given, and what do we have to take for ourselves?

It is the 1990s. Growing up in Zanzibar, three very different young people – Karim, Fauzia and Badar – are coming of age, and dreaming of great possibilities in their young nation. But for Badar, an uneducated servant boy who has never known his parents, it seems as if all doors are closed.

Brought into a lowly position in a great house in Dar es Salaam, Badar finds the first true home of his life – and the friendship of Karim, the young man of the house. Even when a shattering false accusation sees Badar sent away, Karim and Fauzia refuse to turn away from their friend.

But as the three of them take their first steps in love, infatuation, work and parenthood, their bond is tested – and Karim is tempted into a betrayal that will change all of their lives forever.

The much-anticipated sequel to How To Solve Your Own Murder.

Annie thought the murders were over.
She was wrong.

It is autumn in Castle Knoll and Annie Adams is busy settling into her new home. She doesn’t find Gravesdown Hall particularly cosy, especially since she found two dead bodies there over the summer. What’s more, ever since she arrived in the village, Annie has had the creeping sense she’s being watched.

Lonely, and desperate for some company, Annie starts talking to a stranger she meets in the grounds of the estate. The striking old woman introduces herself as Peony Lane, the fortune-teller who predicted Great Aunt Frances’ murder all those years ago. And now she has a fortune to tell Annie.

Desperate not to fall into the same trap as Frances, Annie flees Peony Lane, refusing to hear any of her grim predictions. But she can’t outrun Peony for long, as hours later she finds her, dead on the floor of Gravesdown Hall, a ruby-hilted dagger plunged into her back.

But who killed the mysterious fortune teller and why? And can Frances’ library of evidence help Annie solve the case?

Maybe having a few enemies on the school run means you’re doing something right…

Florence knows all about failure. After a dismal end to her 2000s girlband career, she’s moping around West London, single, broke and unfulfilled. The only things she’s proud of are her increasingly elaborate nail art choices – and her ten-year-old son, Dylan.

But when Alfie Risby, Dylan’s bitter class rival and the child heir to a frozen foods empire, mysteriously vanishes on a school trip, Dylan becomes a prime suspect. Florence has to get her act together, find the missing boy and clear her son’s name or risk losing him forever. The only problem? She doesn’t have any detective skills, she’s not exactly popular at the school gates and she’s just found Alfie’s backpack hidden under Dylan’s bed…

All the Other Mothers Hate Me is an irresistibly witty novel about fitting in, starting over and the lengths we’ll go to for the people we love.

Every book tells a story. Every heart hides a secret.

In the shadowy aisles of the Lamplighter’s Bookshop, secrets lie as thick as the dust…

When Evelyn Seaton answers an advertisement for an assistant at a forgotten bookshop in York, she is not the only one with something to hide.

There she meets the enigmatic and prickly William Morton, an aspiring writer keeping secrets of his own. But when the walls that Evelyn has built around herself start to crumble, there is only one person she can turn to.

As the layers are brushed away, can Evelyn and William find the courage to write the next chapter of their story?

The Lost Bookshop meets The Lost Apothecary in a beguiling novel full of secrets…

Everyone in the village said nothing good would come of Gabriel’s return. And as Beth looks at the man she loves on trial for murder, she can’t help thinking they were right.

Beth was seventeen when she first met Gabriel. Over that heady, intense summer, he made her think and feel and see differently. She thought it was the start of her great love story. When Gabriel left to become the person his mother expected him to be, she was broken.

It was Frank who picked up the pieces and together they built a home very different from the one she’d imagined with Gabriel. Watching her husband and son, she remembered feeling so sure that, after everything, this was the life she was supposed to be leading.

But when Gabriel comes back, all Beth’s certainty about who she is and what she wants crumbles. Even after ten years, their connection is instant. She knows it’s wrong and she knows people could get hurt. But how can she resist a second chance at first love?

A love story with the pulse of a thriller, Broken Country is a heart-pounding novel of impossible choices and devastating consequences.

A scholarship kid with straight As and massive potential, Evie Gordon always thought she was special, that she’d be someone.

But after graduating from an elite university, she finds herself drowning in debt and working as a private tutor to the children of Los Angeles’s super-rich.

Everything changes when Evie arrives at the Victor family’s lavish mansion for her weekly lesson to discover, not the bored teenager she excepted, but pure carnage: the bloody remains of Mr and Mrs Victor sullying their beautiful back garden, and a woman crying for help from within the walls of the house.

Within moments, Evie and the woman go from bystanders to suspects to fugitives.

Suddenly at the heart of a nation-wide manhunt, Evie finds that her mysterious companion, who refuses to speak, has quickly become the most important person in her upside-down life. Meanwhile, the press runs wild with Evie’s story – anointing her the new Charles Manson, a blood thirsty ninety-nine percenter looking to start a class war.

Evie is – finally and disastrously – someone.

Droll, dark and deeply insightful, Killer Potential is an edge-of-your-seat break-neck ride, a queer love story, and a darkly funny critique of the horrors of late capitalism and how the stories we’re sold about our potential can shape the course of our lives.

The Maid meets Only Murders in the Building in this twist-packed cosy mystery set in the smallest residential square in London.

Marchfield Square was meant to be a haven from the outside world. A place for those who need somewhere safe from their pasts, or who could otherwise not afford to stay in the city they call home. That was Celeste Van Duren’s plan. One of her tenants being murdered in his own kitchen, and the police trying to pin it on his long-suffering wife, was not.

So Celeste does what anyone with a lot of money, a strong sense of justice and a bad hip would do: she recruits some help to track down the real murderer. Her cleaner, Audrey, knows everyone in the square and is liked by all, while failed crime writer, Lewis, is known by no one. He hates his job, hates his life, and he’s not that fond of Audrey either, but Celeste is persuasive. In theory his knowledge of police procedure and her way with people should help them find the killer – if they don’t kill each other first…

Despite their differences the two soon discover the victim’s dodgy art deals may hold the key to the mystery – but have they missed something closer to home? After all, how well do you really know your neighbours?

Welcome to The Surf House.Where everyone’s escaping something…

High on the cliffs of Morocco, far from the city lights and the souks, stands The Surf House: a sanctuary for travellers chasing sunshine and waves.

But the idyll hides a dark mystery.

And when Bea washes in, seeking refuge after a dangerous encounter in Marrakesh, she soon gets caught in the current.

A woman her age – who stayed in the same area, walked the same beaches, met the same guests – disappeared one year earlier, vanishing without trace.

Somewhere inside The Surf House lies the truth – but there’ll be a price for uncovering it…

Hope You Are Satisfied welcomes you to Dubai as you’ve never seen it before…

1990. Twenty-five-year-old Riya works for Discover Arabia, a tour guide company in the far-flung outpost of Dubai. In the months leading up to the first Gulf War, the city’s iconic skyline and global reputation are just a gleam in developers’ eyes. For Riya, it’s a desert purgatory that spreads out between her family back home in India and her unknown future.

As political tensions run high, international arms dealers, American soldiers, CIA consultants, corrupt bosses and wayward vacationers all compete for Discover Arabia’s attention. Meanwhile, Riya and her colleagues begin to plan their exit strategies.

Will a favour from Dubai’s most notorious fixer offer Riya the chance to fulfil her financial obligations and escape to the United States?

Perfect for fans of American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson and The Club by Ellery Lloyd, Hope You Are Satisfied unravels timely political themes through the lens of 1990s Dubai and undoes the ‘guest worker’ stereotype one tequila shot at a time.

1922: You are cordially invited to summer at the Gatsby Mansion in West Egg, with the most illustrious – and the deadliest – guest list.

Freshly twenty-one and sporting a daring new bob, Greta Gatsby – younger sister to the infamous Jay – is finally free of finishing school. An idyllic summer stretches ahead of her at the Gatsby Mansion, the jewel of West Egg.

But when Greta arrives at the secluded white-stone estate bathed in the late-afternoon light, she finds she isn’t the only visitor. Jay is hosting an intimate gathering of New York’s fashionable set: Daisy and Tom Buchanan, along with his brother Edgar, Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker.

That evening, the guests enjoy a candelabra-lit dinner party. That night, they dance to the lilt of the gramophone. The next morning, one of them is missing.

Murder has come to West Egg, the warm breeze tainted by scandal, betrayal and secrets. Turning sleuth isn’t how Greta meant to spend her summer – but what choice does she have when one of them could be next?

The gilded opulence of the Roaring Twenties. A murder that scandalises high society. And a clever young woman of unusual persistence… A deliciously unputdownable whodunnit perfect for fans of The Christie Affair and Miss Austen Investigates.

At night, the garden comes alive… Mexican Gothicmeets The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo in Christina Li’s completely addictive and beautifully haunting gothic page-turner.

Vivian Yin is dead. The trailblazing starlet was the first Chinese actress to win an Oscar ­- but at what should have been the peak of her career, she became a recluse. The rest of her life was shrouded in mystery…

Now, her daughters gather for the reading of her will. They expect to inherit their childhood home: a grand Southern California manor house with a sprawling, labyrinthine garden. But due to a last-minute change to the will, the house is passed on to another family instead. The two families haven’t seen each other for decades – not since the tragedy that fractured all of their lives.

Vying for the estate, both families move into the crumbling, vine-covered manor. As Vivian’s daughters race to piece together what happened in the last weeks of their mother’s life, they soon discover they are being haunted by something far more sinister and vengeful than just their memories.

After so many years of silence, will the families finally confront the truth behind the house’s origins and the last, tragic summer they spent there? Or will the manor of dreams – and its deadly secrets – finally lay claim to its owners?

What if Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow collided with Normal People in the universe of Everything Everywhere All at Once? It would spawn WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER, a time-bending, decades-long quest for immortality catapulting you from Japan to Silicon Valley to eternity.

This is the greatest romance you will ever read without the happily ever after.

Yuki and Sam are soulmates.
They are destined to spend the rest of their lives together.
They are supposed to love one another, forever.

But when a miracle drug is released which can extend a human’s life indefinitely, Sam chooses to live forever, instead of loving Yuki forever – and the world they know is spun inside out.

WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER plunges into a parallel universe where forever is on sale to the highest bidder. What comes next is a world-building epic narrated by an intersecting cast of characters that will drive you to the edge of reality and leave you to answer biggest questions of all: What is life without death? What is life without love?

A timely and timeless reimagining of the story of Dionysus, Greek God of ecstasy and madness, revelry and ruin, for readers of The Song of Achilles and Elektra.

Raised in a Greek legion, Phaidros has been taught to fight for the homeland he’s never seen and to follow his commander’s orders at all costs. But when he rescues a baby from a fire at Thebes’s palace, his commander’s orders cease to make sense: Phaidros is forced to abandon the blue-eyed boy at a temple, and to keep the baby’s existence a secret.

Years later, after a strange encounter that led to the death of his battalion, Phaidros has become a training master for young soldiers. He struggles with panic attacks and flashbacks, and he is not the only one: all around him, his fellow veterans are losing their minds.

Phaidros’s risk of madness is not his only problem: his life has become entangled with Thebes’s young crown prince, who wishes to escape the marriage his mother, the Queen, has chosen for him. When the prince vanishes, Phaidros is drawn into the search for him-a search that leads him to a blue-eyed witch named Dionysus, whose guidance is as wise as the events that surround him are strange. In Dionysus’s company, Phaidros witnesses sudden outbursts of riots and unrest, and everywhere Dionysus goes, rumors follow about a new god, one sired by Zeus but lost in a fire.

In The Hymn to Dionysus, bestselling author Natasha Pulley transports us to an ancient empire on the edge of ruin to tell an utterly captivating story about a man needing a god to remind him how to be a human.