New titles from Sophie White, Cecelia Ahern, and a portrait of both Dublin and Dubliners in flux are among the best new books being published this August.
Seduction Theory, by Emily Adrian
12 August, Weidenfeld & Nicholson
What they were doing was not an affair, because Ethan had never laid a hand on Abigail. But it also was, because leaving a department potluck to buy cigarettes was better than sex. The long summer holiday has begun on the campus of Edwards University in upstate New York. Simone is the star of the creative writing department, a renowned scholar, successful memoirist and campus sex icon.
Ethan, her devoted husband, is a lecturer in the same department, though he hasn’t published a novel since he was twenty-six. Their marriage is long, strong and happy. But, over the course of that aggressively hot summer break, both will stray. And, as others become involved, new sides to the story of this apparently flawless marriage will emerge.
Deliciously smart and bitingly funny, Seduction Theory is a novel about love and betrayal, truth and fiction, power and attraction.
Loved One, Aisha Muharrar
14 August, Fourth Estate
When Julia’s first-love-turned-best-friend Gabe, a successful indie musician, dies unexpectedly aged 29, Julia launches herself into an intercontinental quest to recover the possessions he left with friends and acquaintances across the world. The search for these items leads Julia to Elizabeth, the last woman Gabe loved, in an interaction that leaves Julia with more questions than answers about Gabe and their shared history. And now, Julia can’t stop talking to, thinking about and googling Elizabeth.
Both women, it turns out, have something to hide. Together, the two must reconcile their conflicting versions and memories of Gabe and what he meant to each of them… and what they now mean to each other.
Influenced by Anna Whitehouse
14 August, Orion Books
Her life was perfect. Now she wants revenge.
Alexandra is falling apart. She’s just lost her job, her husband barely acknowledges her existence and her daughter hates her. The only place she truly feels seen is online.
She loves nothing more than the rush of emotion when she sees a blinking notification, a heart on one of her posts. Here, in this filtered reality, this community of women means she doesn’t feel quite so alone, after all.
Until one day, everything changes. And she’ll do everything in her power to put it right…
What We Left Unsaid, by Winnie M Li
19 August, Simon & Schuster
On an unexpected road trip, three estranged siblings uncover a startling family secret and larger truths about being Asian American in a post-COVID world.
The Chu siblings haven’t seen each other in years but when they’re told that their ailing mother is scheduled for an operation next month, they agree to visit her together. Then their mother makes an odd request: before seeing her, they must go on a road trip together to the Grand Canyon.
Together, Bonnie, Kevin, and Alex travel along Route 66—but as the trip continues, they realise the Great American Road Trip may not be what they expected. Facing their own prejudices and those of others, they somehow learn to bridge the distances between them, the present-day, and their past.
Such a Good Couple, Sophie White
26 August, Hachette Books Ireland
Superstar husband, Hollywood mansion, stylist on speed-dial — Maggie’s life has never looked better. No one, not even Fionn (who’s usually in a different time zone), can tell how much she’s struggling.
Annie is trying to have a baby. Conor is trying to talk to Annie about their crumbling relationship. But surely breaking up after two decades together would be ludicrous — and if they do, how will Annie ever become a mother?
Clara and Ollie spend most of their days shouting to each other from different rooms of their crowded home, but Clara thinks they are mostly happy. Until she spots a text on Ollie’s phone that might blow their life up.
Their annual holiday brings the six friends — a tight gang for the past twenty years — together, each couple at breaking point. As the sunny days pass in the lap of luxury on Cape Cod, with champagne, secrets and harsh truths being spilled, they find they can’t hide their issues any longer. But when the first “it’s over” is uttered, can the other couples survive the fallout?
We Used to Dance Here, by Dave Tynan
28 August, Granta Books
Told in chronological order and spanning the years 2016 to 2020, We Used to Dance Here is a portrait of both Dublin and Dubliners in flux. Together, these stories explore life on the margins, toxic masculinity, and frustrated ambitions. There are dog tracks, bars and pubs, and half-finished estates.
In Tourists, we meet Conor, who has fallen in love with Shannon, a student at Trinity. She is busy avoiding the news from back home in the U.S. and places her trust in books instead. In Off Your Chest, a young man moves anonymously through the city as he listens obsessively to a talk radio host. In Forge Worlds, we encounter Oran and Ger—ten years apart in age—working as joiners.
Together, these stories reveal a darker, edgier side of Dublin, rendered in brilliant, crackling prose.
Conversation with the Sea, by Hugo Hamilton
28 August, Hachette Books Ireland
Fleeing his failed marriage in Berlin, Lukas Dorn revisits the west of Ireland—the place of his honeymoon two decades earlier. While his former wife faces cancellation at work and his daughter is arrested at a street protest, Lukas seeks meaning in his broken life, with only his journal as a companion.
His inherited memory of the Nazi Holocaust confronts the present when he meets a refugee from a recent war zone. As Lukas communes with the elements in this wild coastal place, he is forced into a reckoning with the past—one that brings him to the edge of existence.
Conversation with the Sea speaks with heart-rending tenderness to our present moment. It explores truth, illusion, and the deadly silencing of war in a captivating tale of love in a time of displacement.
Paper Heart, Cecelia Ahern
28 August, Harper Collins
From the bestselling Irish author of P.S. I Love You and Where Rainbows End, both of which were adapted into beautiful films, comes a story of finding yourself and finding your way home.
Pip’s life is a small one, as a single mother still living with her parents and teenage daughter. Her tiny acts of rebellion are to escape to a Pilates class or work behind a different counter in the local petrol station. Years ago, she made one mistake – and she’s never found a way to overcome the fallout.
Until a stranger stands in front of her sandwich counter. Io is a scientist looking for a signal from a distant star. The two of them strike up an unlikely friendship. Slowly, Pip’s world expands – and as she starts to see things differently, she begins to unfold her heart to let others in. And when Jamie, the one person who has always held her heart, returns, Pip begins to see that there could be a whole new world for her.
A Particularly Nasty Case, by Adam Kay
28 August, Orion Books
When a toxic hospital consultant dies of a heart attack, fellow doctor Eitan Rose smells foul play. Nobody else does, though, including some quite crucial players like the police and the coroner.
But Eitan just won’t let it drop, and his friends and colleagues become increasingly concerned about his mental health as his chaotic investigation and equally chaotic life spiral out of control. Is he making a career-ending mistake, or could there genuinely be a killer stalking the wards?
A deathly funny mix of mystery, murder and medicine, A Particularly Nasty Case is the brilliantly original debut novel from Adam Kay, BAFTA-winning author of multi-million global bestseller This is Going to Hurt.
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