Mohrbooks London 2025: SELECTED FICTION

Katherine Parker doesn't just dream of rowing in the Olympics. She has a carefully crafted plan. With a strict training schedule, a meticulous diet, and absolutely no room for distractions, she's as good as gold. Then her boyfriend breaks up with her at the starting line of a big race and Kath comes in dead last. She's swiftly kicked off the team and out of the Olympic Training Center - the only place she's ever felt at home.

With one shot to win back her spot, Kath returns to her hometown to train alongside a gaggle of high school rowers. The upside? Coach Adrian is hot. The downside? Instead of letting Kath follow her own training regimen, Adrian pushes her outside her comfort zone, urging her to try new things and let go of what's not working for her.

With her Olympic dreams on the line, Kath will have to choose: stick to her perfect plan, or find out if the key to winning, and happiness, is to embrace the part of rowing that makes it fun, one sweaty, sexy training session at a time.

Ann Adams is a former US rowing national team member and Olympic Training Center resident who now lives in Sacramento, California.

Herculine's narrator has demons. Sure, her life includes several hallmarks of the typical trans girl sob story-conversion therapy, a string of shitty low-paying jobs, and even shittier exes. But, she also regularly debates sleep paralysis demons that turn to mist soon after she wakes and carries vials of holy oil in her purse. Nothing, though, prepares her for the new malevolent force stalking her through the streets of New York City, more powerful than any she's ever encountered. Desperate to escape this ancient evil, she flees to rural Indiana, where her ex-girlfriend started an all-trans girl commune in the middle of the woods.

The secluded camp, named after 19th-century intersex memoirist Herculine Barbin, is a scrappy operation, but the shared sense of community among the girls is a welcome balm to the narrator's growing isolation and paranoia. Still, something isn't quite right at Herculine. Girls stop talking as soon as she enters the room, everyone seems to share a common secret, and the books lining the walls of the library harbor strange cryptograms. Soon what once looked like an escape becomes a trap all its own.

While trying to untangle the commune's many mysteries, the narrator contends with disemboweled pigs, cultlike psychosexual rituals, and the horrors of communal breakfast. And before long, she discovers that her demons have followed her. And this time, they won't be letting her go.

Grace Byron is a writer from the Midwest based in Queens. Her writing has appeared in many outlets. She is a 2024 Queer Art Fellow and her story "Validity" has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

"Byron's debut is a haunting portrait of disaffected, dysfunctional adulthood and the human devastation left behind by fundamentalist Christian upbringing." (Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt and Cuckoo)

The Devoted Lands was once home to many gods: Salt, Stone, Storm, Green,Shadow. Now, after centuries of devastating wars, only Tempestra-Innara, the Eternal Flame, remains.

Conscripted as a child, Lys, potentiate of the Dawn Cloister, is outwardly a loyal servant to her goddess. If she harbors impossible dreams of deicide, that's her business. But when a routine heretical execution erupts into a near-fatal assassination attempt on Tempestra-Innara, Lys sees a glimmer of hope for her freedom.

Lys is chosen to hunt down the heretics and find an ancient reliquary that holds the power to kill a god. Annoyingly, she's not alone. Paired with Nolan, a potentiate from a rival cloister who is as pious as he is determined, Lys must feign devotion if she hopes to keep her own heretical thoughts hidden and god-killing ambitions within reach.

As they pursue a dangerous network of heretics linked to the assassination, Lys uncovers a world brimming with more possibility - and peril- than she ever anticipated.

Lyndsay Ely is an author of science fiction and fantasy across YA and adult categories. Her debut, Gunslinger Girl, was a YA genre-bent dystopian Western. She has also published an Overwatch tie-in novel, Deadlock Rebels, is a contributor to Overwath 2 and is currently working on an upcoming interactive adventure novel for Five Nights at Freddy's.

It's been five years since heiress Clare Monroe tragically died on New Year's Eve at her family's opulent Italian palazzo. Since that time, her college friends have harbored a dark secret: their lies and betrayals led to Clare's untimely death.

What happened that fateful night was a horrible accident, but Luca, Harper, Sirina, and David are guilty, nonetheless. And their desperate decision to conceal the truth destroyed their once-close bond. Now, the estranged friends are each the recipient of an invitation from the Monroes to return to the lakeside palazzo for a long-overdue memorial for Clare. Accepting the Monroes' invitation means playing with fire, but they can hardly refuse.

Luca, Harper, Sirina, and David have barely settled into their idyllic accommodations on Lake Como before someone at the memorial party begins targeting them. Haunted by little "gifts" left in their rooms, taunting notes, and the unshakable sense of being watched, it soon becomes clear that someone on the guest list knows the whole truth about the night Clare died and the secrets her friends have been keeping. Nothing is as it seems at the palazzo on the lake, and under their tormentor's vengeful gaze, their secrets and their lives are in danger.

Kit Frick is a MacDowell Fellow and International Thriller Writers Award finalist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and received her MFA from Syracuse University. She is the author of the adult suspense novels The Split and Friends and Liars, the young adult thrillers Before We Were Sorry (originally published as See All the Stars), All Eyes on Us, I Killed Zoe Spanos, Very Bad People, and The Reunion, and the poetry collection A Small Rising Up in the Lungs. Kit loves a good mystery but has only ever killed her characters. Honest.

Three days after Sarai Lilienblum, a high school robotics teacher, mysteriously disappears, her son Ilai receives a message: your mother was found, sunbathing in the middle of the desert, wearing a burgundy robe, with a martini in her hand. No one knows where she's been, and she refuses to say.

The confusion increases when a video from the three days of her absence pops up online. Sarai is in the desert testing an invention of hers, a device that turns sand into clouds at the touch of a button. The viral video leads to an offer from one of the world's most successful tech entrepreneurs -- $20 million if the cloud machine can make it rain.

From the remote town where she lives, Sarai founds a startup company that generates international interest after her video is seen around the world. If she succeeds, she will solve the global water crisis. If she fails, she'll have drained her family's bank accounts. Ilai is dragged into the venture together with his older sister, all the while trying to find out what really happened those three days his mother disappeared.

Mrs. Lilienblum's Cloud Factory is a funny, human and contemporary novel about the tech world and those who remain outside its gates, the polarization between rural and urban communities, the climate crisis and the "Startup Nation." It's a story about a woman who dares to challenge the social conventions that have stifled her dreams, and a son who does everything to keep his family from falling apart.

IDDO GEFEN is a cognitive psychology Ph.D. student at Columbia University. His short story collection, "Jerusalem Beach" received the Israeli Minister of Culture's 2017 Award, and film rights to several stories wer optioned to leading Hollywood companies, including actor Ryan Gosling.

Foreign sales: US: Astra House ; China: Thinkingdom Media ; Netherlands: Signatuur ; Polish: Znak

Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Beautiful. Quiet. Isolated. Anonymous. It's all that nineteen-year-old Elisabeth needs, and everything she wants. Cloistered in her tiny cabin, she's determined to be alone, hiding from her memories and making sure that no one can ever hurt her again.

But when a massive snowstorm strikes, plunging the town into darkness, Elisabeth finally allows herself to accept help from her neighbor, Noah, the town's young sheriff. Forced to show him more vulnerability than she ever intended, she realizes she can no longer outrun the scars of her childhood, and facing the darkness might be exactly what she needs to let the light in.

In a searing, own-voices story accented by poignant childhood flashbacks and stunning poetry, Allison Sweet Grant's young adult debut is a powerful portrait of a young woman's journey to confront the medical trauma inflicted on her to "fix" her and heal her heart in the process.

Allison Sweet Grant has been published in the New York Times and the Atlantic. She holds dual master's degrees from the University of Michigan. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, #1 New York Times bestselling author Adam Grant and their children.

When Sydney and Mae meet on the playground as toddlers, it seems like kismet. Even their very different mothers -- the type-A Beth Anne and the free-spirited Joni -- agree the girls are made for each other, and it's not long until both families are staples in one another's lives.

Decades later, the loneliness of her sudden falling out with Mae still lingers for the newly pregnant Sydney. Adrift after the inexplicable absence of her closest friend, Sydney has been drawn into a Multi-Level Marketing scheme, exacerbated by her inflexible mother, Beth Ann, whose constant scrutiny seems reserved for her daughter.

Across the city, Mae is stunned to find herself single, pregnant, and still haunted by the loss of her mercurial late mother, Joni, whose mysterious death holds as many unanswered questions as Mae herself.

When they find themselves back in one another's lives with baby girls on the horizon, it once again seems like destiny, as Mae and Sydney begin to pull one another away from the coercive influence of others -- mommy groups and marketing schemes and ex-boyfriends.

But they'll soon discover it is not destiny, but decision, that once again draws Sydney and Mae together, this time towards a devastating secret at the center of their orbits; a truth that will either bind them or shatter them, for good.

A searing novel about mothers and daughters, destiny and desire, and breaking cycles, MOTHERS AND OTHER STRANGERS is a perfect book club novel that holds a mirror up to readers, with results that are at once enlightening and entertaining.

Corey Ann Haydu is the author of several titles for children and young adults, and a professor of Vermont College of Fine Arts' creative writing for children program. Her books have been Edgar Award nominees, Amazon Books of the Month, Junior Library Guild Selections, Kirkus, PW, and SLJ Best Books of the Year, and more. MOTHERS AND OTHER STRANGERS is her adult debut. Corey lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters and is currently at work on her next adult novel.

A new father in the Golden Age of Dutch Science searches for the source of life; two aviators at the cusp of their careers grapple with adulthood and a disastrous crash; a young woman prepares to write the Olympics of mathematics exams in nineteenth-century Cambridge; a manuscript changes hands from 9th-century Baghdad across continents, altering meanings as it goes.

Based on historical figures and archival research, in each story the deeply personal and the scientific layer produce unexpected new meanings. The title story Like Rabbits will appeal to fans of scientific biography (Oppenheimer, The Theory of Everything), or to readers of Benjamin Labatut and Andrea Barrett.

Nayani Jensen is a writer and historian of science from Halifax, Nova Scotia (Kjipuktuk). After studying Mechanical Engineering and working on climate research projects, she received a Rhodes Scholarship and went on to study English Literature and History of Science at the University of Oxford. In both her academic and creative work, she is interested in merging arts and sciences in interdisciplinary approaches to history, science and fiction. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in publications including Nature, Augur Magazine and The New Quarterly. She received the 2024 RBC Brownwen Wallace award for Emerging Writers from the Writers' Trust of Canada. She is currently completing a PhD in the History of Science at the University of Toronto and working on a collection of historical-science short fiction.

Rhea Wolfe lives a simple life in small-town Alabama. She works for an insurance agency and has an on-again-off-again relationship with the local tow-truck driver. Things are stable, which is more than she can say about the childhood stories she grew up hearing from her mom.

But when Rhea's estranged grandmother dies, leaving everything to her, she finds herself in Arcadia Falls, the quaint mountain town her mother made her swear never to set foot in. While the defunct bookstore she's also inherited needs a serious upgrade, Rhea's lucky that good-looking resident handyman Hunter Blakely is more than happy to help. It's just too bad he's the grandson of her grandmother's sworn rival - in witchcraft.

When strange occurrences around town begin to make her think someone's trying to drive her out, each clue she uncovers points to Arcadia Falls' magic hanging in the balance. To keep her new home safe, Rhea must step into her enchanted birthright and harness her newfound powers before it's too late.

BOOKS & BEWITCHMENT is the first book in the Arcadia Falls series. The second book, COFFEE & CONJOURING, is expected to publish in 2026.

Isla Jewell is the author of the Arcadia Falls series. She published various bestsellers under the name Delilah S. Dawson. With Kevin Hearne, she co-writes the TALES OF PELL.

After a botched high-profile murder investigation as a cop in Alberta, Corporal Eldrick Cole is exiled to the remote, rugged landscape of Nunavut, Canada, a vast and stark territory in the Arctic Circle known for its untamed beauty, frigid temperatures, and perpetual darkness. Amid these harsh elements, the indomitable spirit of the Inuit people prevails.

Cole's bleak existence takes a darker turn when he discovers the hanging body of Pitseolala, a wry, troubled sixteen-year-old Inuit girl who had spent countless nights passed out in the detachment cells under his watch. Her battle with addiction dredges up demons he thought he'd buried - along with the scars of a fractured marriage and the aching divide between him and his estranged daughter, whom he abandoned long before he was ousted from Northern Alberta.

As Cole's life unravels, so does the fragile thread of his lone, faltering inquiry - until he turns to Pitseolala's younger brother, Maliktu, a fellow outsider. Cole uncovers what else binds them: the eerie, relentless visitation of Pitseolala's ghost, haunting them both with a singular mission - to lead them to her killer and, therefore, expose the looming threat to other young women in their sacred hamlet.

Malcolm Kempt worked as a criminal lawyer in the remote Arctic for seventeen years before leaving to write full-time. He won the Percy Janes Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript. He lives on the island of Newfoundland. A GIFT BEFORE DYING is his debut novel.

In 1945, Charlie Trammell steps into the vibrant tapestry of Los Angeles, lured by his cousin Marguerite's invitation to the esteemed West Adams Heights, L.A.'s newly rechristened "Sugar Hill." Among the opulence of Black success intertwined with old-money white privilege, Charlie finds himself captivated by the allure of his new surroundings.

He discovers a world brimming with opportunity, from promising career prospects at a Black-owned insurance firm to the promise of romance. But none of the young, Black elites dazzle quite like James "Reaper" Mann. Reaper's extravagant parties, attended by luminaries like Lena Horne and Hattie McDaniel, draw him deeper into a milieu of wealth and excess.

Meanwhile, tension in the neighborhood simmers, as white neighbors, frustrated by their own dwindling fortunes, ignite a landmark court case that exposes racial covenants, threatening the community's well-being. As Charlie navigates a landscape rife with ambition, betrayal, and societal turmoil, he soon finds himself beside Reaper, facing a pivotal decision that could end in tragedy.

Kyra Davis Lurie is a New York Times bestselling author and screenwriter. Her novels have been published in numerous languages, including French, Spanish, Portuguese/Brazil. Kyra was born and raised in California and currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband.

Lilah Graywood never imagined she'd be spending her summer amidst the roaring engines and adrenaline-fueled world of Formula 1 racing. As a serious documentarian, her passion lies in capturing the raw, unfiltered truth. But when her best friend, business co-owner, and secret boyfriend Max decides to pivot their documentary company to film the Ignition Energy Drink Racing team, Lilah is thrust into a world she despises. Her disdain turns to fury when Max blindsides her, not only ending their relationship but also threatening the company she painstakingly built.

Enter Arthur Bianco, the charismatic and enigmatic F1 reserve driver whose career is as tumultuous as the races he dreams of winning. Initially, Lilah is supposed to document Arthur's relegation to backup driver, but together they concoct a plan to take control of Max's documentary, each with their own motives – Lilah's revenge and Arthur's redemption. Their secret alliance promises to change the narrative, both on and off the track.

As they navigate the glamorous circuits and behind-the-scenes secrets of Formula 1, an unexpected speedbump forces Lilah and Arthur's partnership to evolve into a fake relationship that feels all too real. The chemistry between them is off-limits and undeniable, and as Arthur's cinematic comeback plays out over the hot globe-trotting summer, Lilah finds herself drawn to his true charm and hidden vulnerability. But as the cameras roll and the world watches, Lilah must confront her own feelings and the reality that no script can dictate the course of true love.

With its blend of humor, heart, and high-speed drama, this contemporary romance is a must-read for anyone who believes in the power of second chances and the thrill of the chase.

Madge Maril is a writer, editor, and Byronic hero enthusiast whose work has been published by Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and more. Previously a beauty and fashion journalist, Madge fell back in love with fiction through fandom and has been writing stories about big feelings ever since. She lives in Ohio with her husband and cat.

Vanetta (Vinnie) Taylor isn't a cop anymore. After 25 years in service, she retired from her job in spectacular fashion – working undercover for Internal Affairs to bust a sex trafficking ring in her own Homicide Unit. Nearly beaten to death by her former colleagues to prevent her testimony from crossing the thin blue line, Vinnie is now living a small-town life, far from the police who tried to kill her. Vinnie is determined to put her past behind her, but the story of a teenager missing in her new hometown catches her attention.

Avery Adair's family is notorious in Wills Harbor, Maryland. If there's a burglary, a scam, or a drug deal in this town, it's safe to assume an Adair was involved. Which is why no one was particularly concerned when Avery went missing. But Vinnie feels a kinship to this teen she's never met. Vinnie also grew up poor, surrounded by hard circumstances and harder people.

Celebrated children's novelist Saundra Mitchell has created in Vinnie a vivid, multidimensional character that readers will want to root for. While fearing for her own safety, Vinnie is attempting to stay as far away from any police officer as humanly possible. Will she succeed? This novel is perfect for fans of Tana French and Rachel Howzell Hall.

Saundra Mitchell (she/they) has been a phone psychic, a car salesperson, a denture-deliverer and a layout waxer. She's dodged trains, endured basic training, and hitchhiked from Montana to California. She now lives in Maryland with her wife, daughter and two terrible, perfect cats. THIS SIDE OF GONE is her first novel for adults.

Niamh Ryan and Lucy Foley have known each other their whole lives. Niamh spent most of her childhood on the Foleys' farm with Lucy and her four siblings.

Lucy's father Liam Foley is an Irish hurling legend. He trains his daughters' local team which Niamh captains to victory in her mid-twenties.

When Lucy discovers messages from her father on Niamh's phone, she confronts him about the situation and informs him that what happened between him and Niamh was not consensual. The next morning, Lucy finds her father dead in a field on the family farm. He has taken his own life.

Only three women know the circumstances surrounding his death. Three years later, a family wedding brings them back together.

The novel follows the journey of these women – Helen, Niamh, and Lucy – in the lead up to the wedding day.

This novel explores the idea of beauty as an unspoken contract we all have within ourselves, a spell that can be broken over and over again by sorrow and disappointment, hurt and rage, only to come back around to lift us into new ways of believing in the world again.

Louise Nealon has been awarded several times for her short stories. Her novel "Snowflake" (2021) was published internationally. She lives in County Kildare, Ireland.

Parker Navarro's debut novel was the buzzy event of the season, when it sold for a million dollars to one of the most esteemed literary editors in the industry. It should've been the book of the year, but instead, it was panned so harshly by City Magazine critic Selina Chan that it became the literary flop of the decade and made Parker a publishing pariah.

Four years later, his second novel is about to come out, and this time things will be different.

But, once again, Selina writes a review, and once again, it's devastating.
The night it goes online, Parker and Selina collide at an industry party and erupt into a blowout fight in a backroom that, unbeknownst to them, is secretly filmed. When the video hits the internet, it goes viral and, to their surprise, drives both Parker's preorders and City Magazines once dangerously dwindling subscription numbers.

As Parker and Selina are pitted against each other again and again through pointed interviews and in-person clashes at conventions, their jabs about writing, criticism, and who gets to lead an artist's life start to give way to the realization that they might be more like-minded than they thought. While the feud carries on online and in public, a different conversation is taking place in private, especially after they're thrust together for one snowy New York evening and begin an epistolary communication that starts to feel a lot like flirting.

Rioghnach Robinson has published five YA novels under the pen name Riley Redgate, which have received a number of honors from ALA, YALSA, Booklist, and Kirkus. She has also written for the Onion, and is the writer of the WEBTOON series Angel of Death. BAD WORDS is her first novel for adults.

Azrael Ashmedai Hart must be cursed. He's a witch twice named for the devil. He's making his way back to his family manor in Hallowcross after a failed screenwriting career. He's adopted a cat he's allergic to, and if all of that is not enough, he's also forced to come face-to-face with his childhood best friend and former crush.

Victoria Starnberger, the bubbly girl-next-door Az lost touch with after an awkward incident in college, has just been disowned by her parents for quitting business school and buying Azrael's late parents' Hopelessly Teavoted tea shop against their wishes. Being cut off financially is one thing. But, now Vickie also owes a lesser devil for the souls her parents promised him in exchange for her gift to summon the dead by touching something they treasured in life, destroying the object in the process.

When spirits all over town, including Az's parents, keeping warning her about a sinister threat, Vickie and Az are forced to combine their powers to save the Hallowcross. But to do so, they must prevent her magic from immolating him after Vickie's devil places a curse on them to keep them from touching until she repays her debt. As they race against the clock to find clever ways around their curse, they find it increasingly harder to deny that they've been hopelessly devoted to each other all along.

Audrey Goldberg Ruoff is a former high school English and journalism teacher who taught with the enthusiasm of Valerie Frizzle, but for secondary education. She lives in a suburb of Washington, DC, with her spouse, her kids, a scrappy but loyal little dog, and a witchy black cat. Hopelessly Teavoted is her debut novel.