🎧 It’s here… and it’s time for you to settle down for your next favourite read.
The audiobook of The French Vendetta by Simon Michael is OUT NOW ahead of the ebook and paperback drop next month.
If you love your thrillers on the move, in the car, on a walk, or with headphones in and the world tuned out… this one’s for you. 🎧
A holiday in Europe turns deadly…
Secrets unravel.
Justice is never straightforward.
Step into the world of Charles Holborne and press play.
Available now on Audible, Amazon and iTunes.
#AudiobookRelease #AudiobookOutNow #NewAudiobook #LegalThriller #CrimeFiction #ThrillerReads #AudiobookLovers #BookstagramUK #UKAuthors #AmReading #BooksToListenTo #MidweekReads #WednesdayReads #OnMyTBR #CrimeBooks #MysteryThriller #BookLaunch #ListenNow #BookPromotion #IndieAuthor
From one to eleven…
The Charles Holborne series continues…
Book eleven - The French Vendetta hits shelves next month 🇫🇷 #charlesholborne #thefrenchvendetta #legalcrimethrillers #crimefictionbooks
The Charles Holborne series is a long-running sequence of eleven historical legal crime novels set in London during the upheaval of the 1960s and 70s.
At its centre is barrister Charles Holborne, drawn into cases shaped by organised crime, political pressure, and institutional corruption at a time when the legal system itself was under strain.
Moving between courtrooms and the criminal underworld, the novels explore ambition, integrity, class, prejudice, and the fragile line between justice and expediency.
Crime fiction, here, becomes a lens through which to ask a deeper question:
When institutions are under pressure, who does the law truly serve?
If you enjoy intelligent, character-driven, authentic, historical, legal crime fiction, this is where the journey begins.
Have you started the series yet?
#CharlesHolborne #SimonMichael #LegalThriller
#HistoricalCrime #CrimeFiction #BookSeries
#BookstagramUK #CrimeReads #BritishCrime
#LiteraryCrime #HistoricalThriller #ReadersOfInstagram
Welcome to Book 11. ⚖️🇫🇷
Whether you’ve followed Charles Holborne from the very beginning or you’re just discovering the series for the first time, The French Vendetta is a brilliant place to start.
This time, Charles and Sal leave London behind for rural France… only to find themselves caught in a community still haunted by the Second World War, divided by silence, betrayal and secrets that never truly disappeared.
Early readers are already calling this one of the strongest books in the series yet:
★★★★★
“I have read all in the series and have never been disappointed. Particularly loved this one.”
★★★★★
“I really enjoyed this new setting for Charles and Sal. It’s a truly sad and shocking episode of history that is rarely publicised, and the idea of putting Charles right in the middle of the crisis is inventive and feels authentic.”
Readers are loving:
⚖️ the legal drama
🕵️ the historical intrigue
💥 the moral complexity & mystery
🇫🇷 the atmospheric French setting
And at the centre of it all, as always… Charles Holborne.
Welcome to Book 11.
#TheFrenchVendetta #SimonMichael #CharlesHolborne #LegalThriller #HistoricalThriller
📖📮 Book Mail 📮📖
Thank you so much to LiterallyPR and the author for sending me this book to review.
Look out for my review on 3rd June
Book title: The French Vendetta
Author: Simon Michael
Series: Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers Book 11
Publisher: Sapere Books
Genre: Fiction ● Legal Thriller ● Crime ● Historical Fiction
Pages: 368
Blurb:
France, 1969
When a rare gap opens in barrister Charles Holborne’s court diary, he and Sally seize the chance for their long-postponed honeymoon.
With baby Leia in tow, they seek peace in a friend’s farmhouse deep in the rural heart of Gascony — a picturesque land of vineyards, sleepy village squares and distant Pyrenean peaks.
But Charles soon discovers that the village’s charm hides something much darker.
Beneath the quiet seethes a poisonous web of old grudges and betrayals — a community still fighting the Second World War, where old crimes refuse to stay buried.
Drawn into a simmering vendetta between those who collaborated with the Nazis and those who resisted, Charles has no choice but to defend a client in a place with no judge, no rules, and no law.
With a firing squad waiting for the verdict, his defendant’s life is on the line…
#Ad #BookMail #Bookstagram #BookLover #BookReviewer
☀️OUT TODAY: The French Vendetta by Simon Michael.
Charles Holborne leaves London behind for what should be a peaceful holiday in rural France in 1970.
Instead, he finds himself trapped in a village haunted by wartime betrayal, old loyalties and dangerous secrets dating back to the Nazi occupation.
Holborne is pulled into a deadly vendetta where justice is anything but straightforward.
Early readers are already calling this one of the strongest Charles Holborne novels yet:
★★★★★
“I was totally gripped by this story. I absolutely loved it. The Charles Holborne books just get better and better. I hope they never end.”
★★★★★
“Found the war years & 1970s stories running parallel gripping.”
★★★★★
“The characterisation is brilliant. And it has the ring of truth about it.”
★★★★★
“An excellent story and conjures up a wonderful picture of 1940s and 1970s France.”
Written by former barrister @simonmichaelauthor , the Charles Holborne series combines:
⚖️ authentic legal drama
🕵️ historical crime fiction
👀moral complexity
🇬🇧 strong British fiction
Available now in paperback, eBook and audiobook.
#TheFrenchVendetta #SimonMichael #CharlesHolborne #OutNow #PublicationDay
Severe case of FOMO? Worried you're too late to the party? Seeing Charles Holborne series all over the place and thinking it’s too late to start the series because this is Book 11?
Actually… this is a perfect place to begin.
In The French Vendetta, lawyer Charles Holborne steps away from the London courts and criminal underworld for what should be a peaceful holiday in rural France in 1969.
Instead, he walks straight into a deadly vendetta rooted in the Second World War, old betrayals, and secrets a village would rather leave buried.
You’ll still get:
⚖️ legal drama
🕵️ historical crime
🏞 a gripping mystery
🔥 moral grey areas and danger at every turn
But this story also works brilliantly as a standalone entry point into Charles Holborne’s world.
And if you get hooked?
You can then go right back to Book 1 - The Brief - and follow Charles through the 1960s case by case, crime by crime, as Britain changes around him.
Publication day: 15 May.
#TheFrenchVendetta #SimonMichael #CharlesHolborne #LegalThriller #HistoricalCrimeFiction #CrimeBooks #ThrillerBooks #CourtroomDrama #BritishCrimeFiction #HistoricalThriller #1960s #1970s #WW2Fiction #BookstagramUK #CrimeReads #JohnGrishamFans #LincolnLawyer #BritishThriller #MysteryBooks #BookRecommendation
🇫🇷📚 Review copies now open on NetGalley
I’m delighted that advance copies of The French Vendetta — the latest Charles Holborne legal thriller — are now available to request on NetGalley via @literallypr .
Set against the shadows of Europe’s past, this new case draws Holborne into a deadly mystery where history and justice collide.
Publication: May 2026
If you’re a reviewer, blogger, librarian or bookseller, you can request an advance copy now on @netgalley .
#TheFrenchVendetta #bookreviewers #CharlesHolborne #NetGalleyARC #historicalcrimefiction
Readers like to ask me who I think would make a ‘good Charles Holborne’ on the screen…
And they kindly love to share their own thoughts after reading one or all 11 of my books.
My publicity team and I think Charles Holborne is a mix between Cillian Murphy (aka Tommy Shelby in the Peaky Blinders) and Matthew McConaughey (aka Mickey Haller in The Lincoln Lawyers).
So… the big question is over to you! What do you think?
#PeakyBlinders
#TheLincolnLawyer
#CharlesHolborne
#CillianMurphy
#MatthewMcConaughey
This is the real life inspiration behind Isabella and Nico’s house in The French Vendetta.
Towards the end of my active career at the Bar, I was lucky enough to be able to buy this old Gersois farmhouse in a picturesque village with views of the Pyrenees.
Although I have taken a few liberties over the date of Isabella Lieberman’s trial, as late as this century there remained in the village lingering resentment between families whose grandparents supported Vichy and those who fought, and sometimes died, with the maquis.
That contributed to the seed of the story of my eleventh novel.
#reallifeinspiration #writinglife #TheFrenchVendetta #behindthescenes #writingcommunity
Three Generations, One Wartime Friendship: the story behind THE FRENCH VENDETTA… If you love to discover the real people (such a Nico) and personal influences behind a novel then you’re going to want to read this new blog post! Link in the bio…
