Top 5 Tuesday was created by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm, and it is now being hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads. It’s time to talk about all the shiny new books coming out in October, November and December 2024. What are the books you can’t wait to hold in your hands the most? For details of all of the latest prompts for October to December, see Meeghan’s post here

Here are five books I’m looking forward to reading and they are all coming out this month! They are all by authors whose books I’ve loved.

Death Rites by Sarah Ward – 3 October. This is the first in a new series, a dark and atmospheric crime thriller (Carla James Crime Thrillers Book 1).

Archaeology professor Carla James is reeling following the death of her husband. Desperate for a change of scene, she takes a job at an elite New England college. On her first day, Carla is asked to represent the department at a murder site. She initially believes there is nothing notable about the scattered debris that surrounds the body, but there is more to the case than meets the eye. This victim is just the latest in a series of unsolved deaths. Nothing obvious links them but Carla is convinced – there is a methodical killer operating in the shadows.

Can she uncover the truth before she becomes the next victim?

Midnight and Blue by Ian Rankin – 10 October. It’s the 25th Inspector Rebus book. I’ve read all the others, so I have to read this one!

John Rebus spent his life as a detective putting Edinburgh’s most deadly criminals behind bars. Now, he’s joined them…

As new allies and old enemies circle, and the days and nights bleed into each other, even the legendary detective struggles to keep his head. That is, until a murder at midnight in a locked cell presents a new mystery. They say old habits die hard… However, this is a case where the prisoners and the guards are all suspects, and everyone has something to hide. With no badge, no authority and no safety net, Rebus walks a tightrope – with his life on the line.

But how do you find a killer in a place full of them?

The Map of Bones by Kate Mosse – 10 October The fourth book in the Joubert Family Chronicles series. I love the cover!

Olifantshoek, Southern Africa, 1688. When the violent Cape wind blows from the south-east, they say the voices of the unquiet dead can be heard whispering through the deserted valley. Suzanne Joubert, a Huguenot refugee from war-torn France, arrives in search of her cousin — the notorious she-captain and pirate commander Louise Reydon-Joubert — who landed at the Cape of Good Hope more than sixty years before, then disappeared without a trace . . .

Franschhoek, Southern Africa, 1862. Nearly one hundred and eighty years after Suzanne’s perilous journey, another intrepid and courageous woman of the Joubert family — Isabelle Lepard — has journeyed to the small frontier town once known as Oliftantshoek in search of her long-lost relations. Intent on putting the women of her family back into the history books, she quickly discovers that the crimes and tragedies still shadow the present. And now, Isabelle faces a race against time if she is to discover the truth, and escape with her life . . .

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller – 24 October

December 1962, the West Country.

In the darkness of an old asylum, a young man unscrews the lid from a bottle of sleeping pills.

In the nearby village, two couples begin their day. Local doctor, Eric Parry, mulling secrets, sets out on his rounds, while his pregnant wife sleeps on in the warmth of their cottage. Across the field, in a farmhouse impossible to heat, funny, troubled Rita Simmons is also asleep, her head full of images of a past life her husband prefers to ignore. He’s been up for hours, tending to the needs of the small dairy farm he bought, a place where he hoped to create a new version of himself, a project that’s already faltering.

There is affection – if not always love – in both homes: these are marriages that still hold some promise. But when the ordinary cold of an English December gives way to violent blizzards – a true winter, the harshest in living memory – the two couples find their lives beginning to unravel.

Where do you hide when you can’t leave home? And where, in a frozen world, could you run to?

The Place of Tides by James Rebanks – 27 October because I loved his English Pastoral.

One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Still, somehow, she seemed to be hanging on.

Back at home, Rebanks couldn’t stop thinking about the woman on the rocks. She was fierce and otherworldly – and yet strangely familiar. Years passed. Then, one day, he wrote her a letter, asking if he could return. Bring work clothes, she replied, and good boots, and come quickly: her health was failing. And so he travelled to the edge of the Arctic to witness her last season on the island.

This is the story of that season. It is the story of a unique and ancient landscape, and of the woman who brought it back to life. It traces the pattern of her work from the rough, isolated toil of bitter winter, to the elation of the endless summer light, when the birds leave behind their precious down for gathering, like feathered gold.

Slowly, Rebanks begins to understand that this woman and her world are not what he had previously thought. What began as a journey of escape becomes an extraordinary lesson in self-knowledge and forgiveness.