Bestsellers

It's publication day for Clare Mackintosh: A return visitor to the BestSellers Podcast. Clare's second book in her Ffion Morgan Detective series is called A Game of Lies. It centres around a fictional reality TV show called Exposure, where contestants have to battle to keep their inner secrets, secret, whilst exposing the secrets of their fellow competitors. When one of the contestants disappears...

Holiday reads covered! And even if you're not headed away, Nat and Phil have got 5 suggestions for books to metaphorically whisk you away. There's a book about mental fitness, fictional rich people behaving badly in a whodunnit, and a fascinating debut about language and identity from Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi. Plus in praise of Caitlin Moran's writing and Julie Cohen's lusty summer romantic drama, a...

The brilliant Comedy Dramatist Mike Gayle returns to BestSellers. This time to tell us about his brand new nineteenth book on what is our nineteenth consecutive Episode of this season. Spooky, eh...? The book isn't spooky. It's Mike's best yet about a newly separated teacher, Helen, whose husband has not only had the mid life affair but decides to take his new girlfriend on the family holiday Hele...

The world truly took notice of Kirstin Chen's writing with her third book, Counterfeit, which was picked up and included on influential lists by Reese Witherspoon and Roxanne Gay. A thrilling crime story centre around friendship, prejudice, and a counterfeit handbag operation, Kirstin's book hooks you in from the get-go. Based in San Francisco, Kirstin explains how a real life crime sparked this n...

Daisy Upton is a Rock Star in the BestSellers Household. You'll know her better as Five Minute Mum, a former classroom assistant who's 5 min easy to set up games for kids, have come to the rescue of many an arguing home, and earned her over 250,000 Instagram followers. Her latest book is her first targeted at children rather than parents: STARTING SCHOOL walks your child through what to expect in...

Way back in Episode 6 of Series 4, Cecilia's debut novel, Everything's Fine, was recommended to all of us by Curtis Sittenfeld. So we took her up on that rec, read Cecilia's book and totally fell in love with the story and her whip-smart writing style too. And lo, as if by magic, now we get to talk to Cecilia Rabess all about how she achieved that! It's a romantic comedy of errors if you like, abo...

Hollywood knows a good thing when it reads it, and TJ Newman is a very good thing whose two novels are currently in the works to become movies. Her second thriller, Drowning, once again draws on her flight expertise from a decade spent as cabin crew and it is the perfect summer, or anytime-of-year read. Proper page-turning stuff. As ever, you never quite know where these conversations might go wit...

What can we say about Dennis Lehane..? He's written some of the best novels of all time which people like Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese have seized upon for the big screen. Think MYSTIC RIVER or SHUTTER ISLAND. He was a staff writer on The Wire. He's now a major show runner for Apple TV+ with the likes of Blackbird and the upcoming Firebug, both starring Taron Egerton. Dennis is back with his...

Mark Billingham has done it all. He's been an actor, a stand up, a TV screenwriter and a multi award winning crime writer. He's back with his first brand new series in 20 years, with Detective Miller: He dances, he keeps pet rats and he's very sardonic. THE LAST DANCE is a departure from Billingham's award winning Tom Thorne series, with a change of tone that brings rich humour to the whodunnit ge...

Yep, THE Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles fame chats to Phil and Natalie about her debut fiction novel, This Bird Has Flown. Susanna explains how she started writing fiction in the '80s at the peak of her her pop fame, and has always read voraciously from childhood. She's written screenplays before now but after one of her sons questioned if she'd ever write that book she'd talked about for so many ye...

It's Joanne Harris on today's Ep. She's such a magnificent writer, held in high esteem by everyone in publishing. Her new book, BROKEN LIGHT, chronicles the life of Bernie: A menopausal woman who appears to have a superpower to change people's thinking and behaviours. There's a nod to Stephen King's Carrie in here, it's a great twisty thriller which also opens the eyes to some of the male attitude...

Looking for your next read? Then take a listen as it's Natalie's turn to share with Phil the books she's loved recently, in the hope that you'll find something to love too! Various genres are covered, from fiction to fantasy to food! If you want to get ahead and know what's coming up, or want to look these up afterwards, here's Nat's latest reads: Rebecca F Kuang 'Yellowface' Nikki May 'Wahala' Ta...

So many good books to share! This week Phil takes us through what he's been reading to inspire your next read. From thrillers to autobiography to one of the biggest debuts of recent times. Plus Kazuo Ishiguro shares why he loves working in mainstream popular culture, a writing legend after our own hearts! If you want to know the books discussed ahead of time - or look them up after listening - Phi...

Andy Nyman & Jeremy Dyson are the team behind GHOST STORIES. They met as teenagers and bonded over their shared love of magic which is the subject of their first collab novel. Andy is a magician in his own right and frequently works with Derren Brown; Jeremy is a founding member of The League of Gentlemen and has co-written on Killing Eve. This book has already triggered an eight way auction f...

Jason Rekulak is a hugely talented story teller. He's only written two books: An Impossible Fortress and the new novel, Hidden Pictures, where he's combined with two illustrators, to bring to life pictures a five year old in the story is drawing. He's gone from writing a coming of age comedy to a psychological thriller which Stephen King says is, "A one of a kind thriller. You won't put it down."...

A treat of an episode! Curtis Sittenfeld is the author who's given us Rodham, Prep, American Wife, and now this new beaut of a book, Romantic Comedy. Come for the book chat but stay for how you go about disguising comedy TV gold Saturday Night Live in a story, and meeting Jay-Z on his private jet. Hope you love this one as much we do! If you do enjoy these chats, we'll keep making them, and if you...

It's our second ever returning guest as Jojo Moyes talks us through a year of big life changes, and a wonderful new book, Someone Else's Shoes. Always surprising in her writing, this latest novel takes on female friendship, divorce, and incredible sandwiches. And we love a good sandwich. Like what we do? Support is always welcomed! https://ko-fi.com/bestsellerspodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.co...

After a longer than planned absence due to Phillness, Natalie and Phil are back with more blockbuster books and award winning authors. This episode features the magnificent Cariad Lloyd whose own Podcast, Griefcast, is excellent on tackling Death and Bereavement. Her book follows on from the pod. It's called You Are Not Alone and in this episode we discuss death, dying, losing loved ones, what to...

Ever wondered what *really* happens to allow those Hollywood parties we've heard about, to actually happen? And who's potentially to blame for the unforgivable behaviour that's allowed to carry on regardless? In her book Complicit, Winnie M Li zooms out on the swirl of people surrounding a fictional person about to be felled by the #MeToo movement, and makes us question the actions, however small,...

BestSellers is back, baby! In this brand new season opener, Natalie and Phil talk to ace American thriller writer Scott Turow. Scott shot to fame in the 90s with Presumed Innocent which was turned into a Hollywood Blockbuster starring Harrison Ford. It's just about to be re-worked into an Apple TV show, with David E Kelley writing the episodes. We talk about that and we talk about Scott's incredib...

Episode 2 of Season 4 sees Phil & Natalie delve into one of Nat's favourite subjects: Cook Books. But BreadSong is way more than just a cook book. It tells the truly extraordinary story of teenager Kitty Tait's complete mental health breakdown and why baking offered not just a route out of the bleakness, but it created a brand new career path for both Kitty and her father Al. It's a gloriously...

In the last of our festive mini series, Phil & Natalie give you their three books of the year each. With some rules subversion from Natalie Jamieson! We hope you enjoyed listening to all these amazing writers and we will be back with more in 2022. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Natalie and Phil both adore Gi Fletcher. Here, she tells Bestsellers about her latest novel, how she writes, and the perils of having members of the Royal Family on your podcast. Hers, not ours, obviously. We know our place! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're BACK! It's a Christmas mini-series for you. First up: The incredible Jodi Picoult talking exclusively to Natalie, as Phil was on solo childcare duty. See if you can spot the fan-girling from Natalie as she gets to interview one of her all time favourite authors. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anthony Horowitz is the first returning author to Bestsellers. Both Phil & Natalie are huge fans of Anthony's and his latest Hawthorne thriller, A Line to Kill, is loads of fun and quite excellent. In this episode Anthony talks about how he constructs his whodunnits with notebooks alongside the manuscript; he talks about his latest and third James Bond original story due out next year and he a...