May and June see an abundance of new books coming out, and from June 17th – 24th we will be celebrating Independent Bookshop Week with a host of indie limited editions, special offers, and a picture book BOGOFF!

Children’s Fiction
Friends & Traitors
by Helen Peters. Nosy Crow paperback £7.99.
Published 6th July but we will receive special signed indie editions for sale from 17th June.
Sussex author Helen Peters is another Steyning Bookshop favourite, we love her engaging, well-written stories which bring to mind classic children’s writers like Nina Bawden and Noel Streatfield.
In Friends and Traitors, Helen is channelling Blyton & Nancy Drew – this is a fun, gripping, spy mystery, set during WW2. The story kicks off when a private girl's boarding school is evacuated to a country manor house. Two girls, Nancy, a housemaid, and Sidney, a 'posh' pupil, stumble upon a dark plot involving the aristocratic Earl of the manor and a cabal of secret Nazi-supporters. At first, it’s all a bit of a wheeze – creeping about at night, discovering secret passageways – but when Sidney’s brothers Spitfire is gunned down over France, the war hits home for her and the girls realise that the Earl’s plot to overthrow democracy and pave the way for Hitler to invade Britain could become a reality – and it’s up to them to stop him.
An enjoyable romp, peppered with delightful ‘jolly hockey sticks’ 1940’s-style dialogue, which nevertheless pays thoughtful attention to the girls’ class differences, and seamlessly weaves in lots of informative background info about fascism, democracy, and WW2.

Julia Donaldson’s Book of Names
by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Nila Aye. Macmillan £12.99
At every book-signing, Julia Donaldson scribbles down any unusual names she encounters - she has been squirrelling them away for years, working on including them all in a book – and finally, here it is!
Set in a magical transforming bookshop, The Book of Names is a love-letter to bookshops and young bookworms, with cute, charming illustrations by Nila Aye, an award-winning new illustrator. Julia has seamlessly woven the names together thematically, from months of the year, colours and flowers to food, history, and gemstones… “I've signed for boys called Romeo, and girls called Juliet . I've signed for Roman, Saxon, Dane-Though not for Norman yet…” Young readers will enjoy trying to find their own name, and even if your name isn't included, there is a special dedicated space to add it, or even better, for Julia to sign!
We have a book-signing with Julia on Saturday 24th June (Time TBC) which will be the perfect time to get Julia to add YOUR little person’s name to the book!

Adult Fiction
Some previous favourites coming into paperback this month:

Best Of Friends
by Kamila Shamsie. Bloomsbury paperback £8.99
All our bookshop staff are huge fans of Pakistani / British novelist Kamila Shamsie, who writes thoughtful, world-spanning novels, which subtly weave together the political and the personal.
Her new novel, Best of Friends is true to form; a powerful story which explores childhood friendship in a changing world. The novel is divided into 2 sections; the first follows two girls, confident, privileged Maryam and studious Zahra, teenagers in 1980’s Pakistan.
As Pakistan’s dictatorship crumbles, the friends are excited at the promise of societal change, and this part of the story reaches a chilling climax one night, with far-reaching consequences…
The second part of the story fast-forwards to London in 2019, where we catch up with principled Zahra, now Director of the Centre for Civil Liberties, and wealthy Maryam, a powerful venture capitalist for ethically dubious tech companies – ideologically the two women are poles apart, but remain bound together by loyalties, disloyalties, and the memory of that night, which echoes through the present in unexpected ways.
A delicately nuanced portrait of friendship against a politically-charged backdrop.

Night Ship
by Jess Kidd, Canongate paperback £9.99
A mesmerising and heart-wrenching historical novel, based on a real shipwreck in 1629, which interweaves the parallel stories of two unforgettable child narrators, 350 years apart.
In 1628 the Dutch merchant vessel Batavia sets sail to the Spice Islands (present-day Indonesia). Aboard are over 300 souls: sailors, soldiers, merchants, wives & children, including our narrator, 9-year-old Mayken, travelling to join her father on his Batavian estate.
Mayken soon wins the hearts of all on board, both above and below deck. As the months of gruelling sailing tick by, conditions deteriorate in the sweltering heat, and tragically, the Batavia runs aground and is wrecked on a coral reef. Mayken is amongst the survivors who eke out a living on a tiny island, but the horror is just beginning...
350 years later, in 1989, this same island has become the home of a small community of Australian cray-fisherman, living in beachfront shacks. 9-year-old orphan Gil has just arrived on the island, sent to stay with his reclusive grandfather, Joss.
Gil becomes fascinated by local folklore about the little ghost-girl May, and ancient Aboriginal legends about the monster Bunyip, and here lie the stitches that weave the two stories delicately together. Gil’s unconventional ways and dark past do not endear him to the islanders, who already have a bitter feud against his surly grandfather, and tensions begin to escalate, until the island erupts in violence, echoing the horrors of its history.
The Night Ship is a jaw-dropping story about the beauty and horror of human nature, rendered in exquisite prose, and Gil and Mayken will stay with you forever!