It'll Be 2011 Before We Know It! #2

This look into 2011 will be all books Headline, since I received their catalogue through the post very recently and immediately started drooling over all the pretties they are publishing next year! I'm not sure if there is on online version of the catalogue that I can link to - I couldn't find anything in a quick visit to their website - but I'm sure anyone who wanted a copy could contact Headline and have the catalogue sent to them. Warning: it will induce a book ordering frenzy!

First up is a novel I have already received the ARC for - it looks fab and the small amount I have read so far is thoroughly gripping. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness has swept through the US blogs in my Google Reader, garnering a great deal of praise, and I was most excited to realise that Headline would be publishing it in the UK. This one will be released in February 2011 (before that, look out for reviews, interviews with the author and more exciting stuff, across some of the best book blogs in the UK).

Next I'll give you a list of the chick lit books Headline are releasing that I'm most excited about (I'll say this for them, they do have a brilliant group of chick lit authors writing for them!)

• To the Moon and Back - Jill Mansell (February 2011)
• Getting Away With It - Julie Cohen (March 2011)
• It Happened One Summer - Polly Williams (April 2011)
• About Last Night - Adele Parks (July 2011)
• Heaven Scent - Sasha Wagstaff (July 2011)

I am heading on holiday in September for two weeks and I imagine that the five books above will feature heavily in my reading choices. I do love excellent chick lit and these five are doing sterling work in the field.

Now, this next novel is a really intriguing number - intriguing in that I have received a postcard with a cryptic message from one character in the book to another.

Cuckoo is the first novel from Julia Crouch in which she deftly explores the complex and obsessive nature of female friendship. If you liked Erin Kelly’s The Poison Tree, Barbara Vine and Tana French you will be gripped by this compelling psychological thriller, which taps into the irrational yet frightening real fear of a friend stealing one’s identity.

Rose has it all - the gorgeous children, the husband, the beautiful home. But then her best friend Polly comes to stay. Very soon, Rose's cosy world starts to fall apart at the seams - her baby falls dangerously ill, her husband is distracted - is Polly behind it all? It appears that once you invite Polly into your home, it's very difficult to get her out again...

Tense, emotionally wrought and menacing from the get-go, Cuckoo is filled with foreboding and a terrible sense of the inevitable. Inspired by Simone de Beavoir’s She Came to Stay and Nick Cave’s album The Boatman’s Call, Crouch builds a feeling of claustrophobia and in doing so delivers a gripping psychological thrill. Interestingly Julia completed the novel during NaNoWriMo, the annual creative writing challenge where participants are tasked to write 50,000 words of a new novel during the month of November.

On the YA side of things, there are a trinity of novels I find myself anticipating - all three are continuations of series that I am thoroughly enjoying reading.

Of course, one of these books is Lex Trent: Fighting With Fire by Alex Bell. I thought the first Lex Trent novel was both funny and original, and am looking forward to spending more time with the incorrigible young rogue.

As well as this, we also have Wintercraft: Blackwatch by Jenna Burtenshaw and Ghostgirl: Lovesick by Tonya Hurley. I thought that Jenna's first novel was a little mixed, but showed great promise and I am looking forward to seeing what she does in the second. There were parts of Wintercraft that truly sparkled with imagination and rich prose - if Jenna can bring that to the second novel more consistently, we'll have a fine YA story on our hands.

The Ghostgirl sequence are great fun - gothic, yet giggly. I loved the first two, so this should be a great read!

And finally *big drum roll please...* - one of my MOST ANTICIPATED books of 2011.... No cover art, I'm afraid, and absolutely MONTHS to wait...

In June 2011, Headline are releasing Johannes Cabal and the Fear Institute by Jonathan L Howard. The first two novels about Johannes Cabal have been right up there in my top ten books of the year - ghoulish, sarcastic and very, very funny. Pick up the first two, catch up and then join me in the achingly slow countdown to the release of the third!

Okay, I know you're not able to link through to a Headline catalogue - but are there any of the above that you're excited by?