Six thrilling new book releases for your springtime reading list from Between the Covers

10 March 2023

Between the Covers is back on BBC Two for the next six weeks, as Sara Cox returns with a new series of the show that celebrates the joy of a great book recommendation. Read on for the recent releases up for discussion, including some stunning debut novels and a much-anticipated new book from Irish writer Sebastian Barry.

Each week on Between the Covers, Sara Cox and her guests invite us to take an informed and often irreverent look at some of their favourite books.

This series has a truly continental feel, as the team take inspiration from Eurovision. Alan Davies, Mel Giedroyc and Sophie Duker are just some of the celebrity bookworms who will be deciding which texts deserve a full twelve points. Watch out for our European reading odyssey feature, coming soon.

If you'd like to read along with the new releases in this series, here we take a sneak peak at some of the fantastic titles the nation will be talking about this spring.

Six new novels for your Spring reading list

In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan

A bereaved DCS who trusts her instincts and an Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity join forces to crack two missing persons cold cases in this gripping, powerful and truly original debut thriller.

DCS Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her instincts. Picked to lead a pilot programme that has her paired with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock, Kat's instincts come up against Lock's logic. But when two cold cases suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help Kat when the case gets personal. AI versus human experience. Logic versus instinct. With lives on the line, can the pair work together before someone else becomes a statistic?

In the Blink of an Eye is a dazzling debut from an exciting new voice and asks us what we think it means to be human.

The Space Between Us by Doug Johnstone

Lennox is a troubled teenager with no family. Ava is eight months pregnant and fleeing her abusive husband. Heather is a grieving mother and cancer sufferer. They don’t know each other, but when a meteor streaks over Edinburgh, all three suffer instant, catastrophic strokes, only to wake up the following day in hospital, miraculously recovered.

When news reaches them of an octopus-like creature washed up on the shore near where the meteor came to earth, Lennox senses that some extra-terrestrial force is at play. With the help of Ava, Heather and a journalist, Ewan, he rescues the creature they call 'Sandy' and goes on the run.

However, they aren’t the only ones with an interest in the alien. Close behind are Ava’s husband, the police and a government unit who wants to capture the creature at all costs. And Sandy’s arrival may have implications beyond anything anyone could imagine…

Weyward by Emilia Hart

Weaving together the stories of three women across five centuries, Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.

In 2019, Kate flees London – abandoning everything – for Cumbria and Weyward Cottage, inherited from her great-aunt. There, a secret lurks in the bones of the house, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

In 1942, Violet is more interested in collecting insects and climbing trees than in becoming a proper young lady, until a chain of shocking events changes her life forever.

In 1619, Altha is on trial for witchcraft, accused of killing a local man. Known for her uncanny connection with nature and animals, she is a threat that must be eliminated.

But Weyward women belong to the wild. And they cannot be tamed…

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.

Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she cannot remember. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends and big decisions, and learning that people don't always mean what they say.

But who is the man observing Sally from the other side of the world? And why does her neighbour seem to be obsessed with her? Sally's trust issues are about to be severely challenged in this vivid psychological thriller.

Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein

On a hill overlooking Bell Village sits the Changoor farm, where Dalton and Marlee Changoor live in luxury unrecognisable to those who reside in the farm's shadow. Down below is the barrack, a ramshackle building of wood and tin, divided into rooms occupied by whole families. Among these families are the Saroops - Hans, Shweta, and their son, Krishna, who live hard lives of backbreaking work, grinding poverty and devotion to faith.

When Dalton Changoor goes missing and Marlee's safety is compromised, farmhand Hans is lured by the promise of a handsome stipend to move to the farm as watchman. But as the mystery of Dalton's disappearance unfolds, their lives become hellishly entwined, and the small community is altered forever.

Set in colonial Trinidad and steeped in a brooding, ominous atmosphere, Hungry Ghosts is a mesmerising novel about violence, religion, family and class.

Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry

Recently retired policeman Tom Kettle is settling into the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a Victorian castle overlooking the Irish Sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, catching only glimpses of his eccentric landlord and a nervous young mother who has moved in next door. Occasionally, fond memories return, of his family, his beloved wife June and their two children.

However, when two former colleagues turn up at his door with questions about a decades-old case - one which Tom never quite came to terms with - he finds himself pulled into the darkest currents of his past.

A beautiful, haunting novel, in which nothing is quite as it seems, Old God's Time is about what we live through, what we live with, and what may survive of us.