A selection of ten titles is now available to order through Gardners’ wholesale network, giving retailers and libraries across the UK and Europe direct access to the Armin Lear Press catalogue, previously only available in a limited capacity in these markets. The move represents a significant step in the publisher’s international growth strategy.

Founded in 2020, Armin Lear Press publishes a broad range of fiction and non-fiction, with a particular focus on current affairs, memoir, business, and practical titles aimed at connecting people with ideas that deepen their perspective and make their lives richer.

The publisher’s catalogue includes a number of thrillers and narrative non-fiction with strong international themes. The launch list for Gardners has been curated for its relevance to European readers and includes a mix of frontlist and established backlist across memoir, current affairs, business, and fiction, available in a combination of hardback and paperback formats.

Frontlist titles include The Escape Artist, Hope at Work, The Xinjiang Procedure, and Pop Life. Backlist highlights include The WWII Bombing of Bari, Italy, BANKHAUS, The Custodians, Altar of Ashes, Your Sexually Addicted Spouse, and Simplicity.

Additional titles are expected to be made available through Gardners later in 2026 as Armin Lear Press continues to expand its international reach.

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Deeply entrenched in culture wars, the current Western political landscape can be a minefield. How can we define what justice looks like in the multicultural world we live in, with so many different elements at play?

History teacher and debut novelist Bruce Westrate boldly tackles this conundrum, building on his knowledge of sati to write Altar of Ashes (Armin Lear Press), a searing, fast-paced legal thriller that challenges the politics of modern-day America.

The premise will instantly hook lovers of thriller and crime fiction: when two young hunters stumble upon an unthinkable scene deep in the Indiana woods – a ten-year-old girl burned alive on her husband’s funeral pyre in the sacrificial rite of sati – a quiet community is thrust into a legal and moral firestorm.

Allen Southworth, the local prosecutor, soon finds himself embroiled in a spectacular case, confronting issues of religious toleration, cultural bigotry, and multicultural diversity.

At a time of huge political uncertainty across the US and UK, Westrate explores what happens when tolerance protects the intolerable. Blurring the line between justice and ideology, what is legal and what is right, Altar of Ashes will have readers guessing in vain for the unknowable outcome.

With firm historical underpinnings, Westrate uses his expertise on the banned ritual of sati to weave a compelling narrative that begs the question, can modern justice challenge ancient customs?

Set against the backdrop of a small-town community, multiculturalism is a key feature of Altar of Ashes, taking unexpected twists and turns as its protagonists tussle with their individual senses of right and wrong.

In the unfolding courtroom scenes, the personal meets the political. While the ravenous press consumes the story, Westrate includes a more intimate angle: the prosecutor’s marriage is unravelling, clouding his legal judgment. His growing attraction to his brilliant, enigmatic co-counsel threatens to compromise everything he claims to stand for.

Asking thought-provoking questions of race, culture, and identity, Altar of Ashes presents a diverse array of characters, with the co-counsel conflicted by her Asian background, and the formidable African-American legal adversary vacillating between a seasoned notion of social justice and the hideous mission he is enlisted to perform.

As each side argues their case, readers will be caught re-evaluating their own standpoint time and time again.

Perfect for fans of Lynda La Plante and Imran Mahmood, what begins as a horrific murder mystery quickly spirals into something far more explosive: a collision of religious freedom, cultural identity, and the limits of tolerance. As national media descends and tensions ignite, the courtroom becomes a battleground where the law itself is put on trial.

Altar of Ashes dares to go where few novels venture – into the volatile intersection of law, culture, and conscience – building toward a shocking conclusion that will leave readers questioning everything they believe about justice.

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