BOOKMARK November 2024 Book recommendations
View previous months
November titles
All books are available from Waterstones in Perth and Adventure Into Books in Blairgowrie.
The Last Witch of Scotland by Philip Paris
(Bonnier Books, 2024)
Historical Fiction
The Last Witch of Scotland (ISBN: 9781785305245, paperback) inspired by a a true story, the book charts the lives of two women, mother and daughter, scarred by their past. Forced from home, they arrive in a small Highland community in 1727, where they find both joy and dangerous suspicion.
The Specimen by Jaima Fixsen
(Poisoned Pen Press, 2024)
Historical Fiction
The Specimen by Jaima Fixsen (ISBN: 9781464233296, paperback), Set in 1820s Edinburgh, Isobel Tait’s young son has gone missing. On a visit to Dr. Burnett’s public collection of oddities and specimens, she spots a jar containing a boy’s heart: the boy had a damaged mitral valve – the same condition her son suffered from. These two things cannot be connected, can they?
There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
(Penguin, 2025)
Fiction
There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak (ISBN: 9780241435014, hardback, tells the story of three lives: a Victorian printing apprentice escaping poverty, a Yazidi girl awaiting her baptism in 2014, and a broken-hearted hydrologist living on a houseboat in London in 2018. They are connected across time, through an ancient poem and the culturally infused power of water.
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
(Penguin, 2024)
Fiction
Elizabeth Strout's latest novel, Tell Me Everything (ISBN: 9780241634356, hardback), brings together two well-known characters, Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge. This is a story of collected reminiscences, of lives untold, of human relationships, and of love in its many forms.
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2025)
Fiction
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (ISBN: 9781399620420, paperback). Set in the run-down neighbourhood of Chicken Hill, Pottstown, Pennsylvania in the 1970s, this is a story of love, community and long-kept secrets, starting with the discovery of a skeleton at the bottom of a well.
The Burning Stones by Antti Tuomainen
(Orenda, 2024)
Fiction
The Burning Stones by Antti Tuomainen (ISBN: 9781916788329, hardback). An inventive murder mystery, told with ‘humour drier than a desert snake’s belly’ (according to author Ian Moore). Forget the classic English country house setting; this is Finland and the weapon of choice is a sauna. The question is, did Steam Devil’s top sauna saleswoman, Anni Korpinen, murder her boss?
Cairn by Kathleen Jamie
(Sort of Books, 2026)
Poetry
Cairn (ISBN: 9781914502002, paperback). Jamie looks forward and back, explores the changes and permanence of nature and the seasons as they pass, and brings perspective on the big things by observing the small. Poignant writing to lose yourself in.