Welcome to February! Doesn’t it seem like January just flew by? This month might be a short month but February is packed with so many new releases that it hard to keep track! A popular mystery waiting to be uncovered, a powerful and award-winning poetry collection, an apartment with distrustful neighbors…your February will be “booked” with a variety of stories that you’ll forget the winter weather outside (maybe even be glad for it):
Featured Book of the Month
The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley
Expected Publication Date: February 22
Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up – to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? – he’s not there.
The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.
The socialite – The nice guy – The alcoholic – The girl on the verge – The concierge
Everyone’s a neighbor. Everyone’s a suspect. And everyone knows something they’re not telling. (Credit: William Morrow & Company)
The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont
“A long time ago, in another country, I nearly killed a woman. It’s a particular feeling, the urge to murder. It takes over your body so completely, it’s like a divine force, grabbing hold of your will, your limbs, your psyche. There’s a joy to it. In retrospect, it’s frightening, but I daresay in the moment it feels sweet. The way justice feels sweet.”
The greatest mystery wasn’t Agatha Christie’s disappearance in those eleven infamous days, it’s what she discovered.
London, 1925: In a world of townhomes and tennis matches, socialites and shooting parties, Miss Nan O’Dea became Archie Christie’s mistress, luring him away from his devoted and well-known wife, Agatha Christie.
The question is, why? Why destroy another woman’s marriage, why hatch a plot years in the making, and why murder? How was Nan O’Dea so intricately tied to those eleven mysterious days that Agatha Christie went missing? (Credit: St. Martin’s Press)
Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead by Elle Cosimano
Finlay Donovan is–once again–struggling to finish her next novel and keep her head above water as a single mother of two. On the bright side, she has her live-in nanny and confidant Vero to rely on, and the only dead body she’s dealt with lately is that of her daughter’s pet goldfish.
On the not-so-bright side, someone out there wants her ex-husband, Steven, out of the picture. Permanently. Whatever else Steven may be, he’s a good father, but saving him will send her down a rabbit hole of hit-women disguised as soccer moms, and a little bit more involvement with the Russian mob than she’d like.
Meanwhile, Vero’s keeping secrets, and Detective Nick Anthony seems determined to get back into her life. He may be a hot cop, but Finlay’s first priority is preventing her family from sleeping with the fishes… and if that means bending a few laws then so be it.
With her next book’s deadline looming and an ex-husband to keep alive, Finlay is quickly coming to the end of her rope. She can only hope there isn’t a noose at the end of it…(Credit: Minotaur Books)
The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb
Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. If he’s lucky, he’ll get a job at the hospital cafeteria. If he’s extra lucky, he’ll earn more than minimum wage. But Ray has a gift and a dream–he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music.
When he discovers that his great-great-grandfather’s beat-up old fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach. Together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition–the Olympics of classical music–the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place. Ray will have to piece together the clues to recover his treasured Strad … before it’s too late.
With the descendants of the man who once enslaved Ray’s great-great-grandfather asserting that the instrument is rightfully theirs, and with his family staking their own claim, Ray doesn’t know who he can trust–or whether he will ever see his beloved violin again. (Credit: Anchor Books)
Kemosha of the Caribbean by Alex Wheatle
In 1668, fifteen-year-old Kemosha is sold by a slave owner to a tavern keeper in Port Royal, Jamaica–the “wickedest city on earth.” She soon flees from a brutal assault and finds herself in the company of a mysterious free Black man, Ravenhide, who teaches her the fine art of swordplay, introduces her to her soul mate, Isabella, and helps her win her freedom.
Ravenhide is a privateer for the notorious Captain Morgan aboard his infamous ship, the Satisfaction. At Ravenhide’s encouragement, Morgan invites Kemosha to join them on a pillaging voyage to Panama. As her swashbuckling legend grows, she realizes she has the chance to earn enough to buy the freedom of her loved ones–if she can escape with her life . . .(Credit: Black Sheep)
Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth Macneal
Step up, step up! In 1860s England, circus mania is sweeping the nation. Crowds jostle for a glimpse of the lion-tamers, the dazzling trapeze artists and, most thrilling of all, the so-called “human wonders.”
When Jasper Jupiter’s Circus of Wonders pitches its tent in a poor coastal town, the life of one young girl changes forever. Sold to the ringmaster as a “leopard girl” because of the birthmarks that cover her body, Nell is utterly devastated. But as she grows close to the other performers, she finds herself enchanted by the glittering freedom of the circus, and by her own role as the Queen of the Moon and Stars.
Before long, Nell’s fame spreads across the world–and with it, a chance for Jasper Jupiter to grow his own name and fortune. But what happens when her fame begins to eclipse his own, when even Jasper’s loyal brother Toby becomes captivated by Nell? No longer the quiet flower-picker, Nell knows her own place in the world, and she will fight for it.
A gorgeously wrought exploration of celebrity, power, and belonging, this is a historical novel unlike any other, with an unforgettable heroine at its heart. (Credit: Atria Books)
Breaking The Maafa Chain by Anni Domingo
Salimatu and her sister Fatmata are captured, sold to slavers, renamed and split apart. Forced to change their names to Sarah and Faith, they end up on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Faith is taken to America, where slavery is still legal and she is stripped of all rights. Sarah ends up in a Victorian England and as the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. Can the two sisters reclaim their freedom and identity in a world that is trying to break them down? Will these once inseparable sisters survive without each other? And if they do find each other again, will they find the other changed beyond recognition? (Credit: Peagasus Books)
Me and White Supremacy: Young Readers’ Edition by Layla Saad
Me and White Supremacy has reached so many adults in their journeys to become better ancestors. This edition aims to teach readers how to explore and understand racism and white supremacy and how young readers can do their part to help change the world. Covering topics such as white privilege, white fragility, racist stereotypes, cultural appropriation, and more, Layla Saad has developed a brilliant introduction and deep dive that is sure to become a standard in antiracist education.
Layla Saad meticulously updated the content for young readers to include:
- definitions and history of various topics covered
- sections to help readers process complex topics
- no time limit–unlike the adult edition, this is not a 28-day challenge so readers can use this content for however long it takes to do the work
- content is approachable and applicable for those with and without white privilege (Credit:Sourcebooks Explore)
Asking For a Friend by Andi Osho
Forty-something Jemima’s life is on track – well, sort of, she just needs to bat her troublesome ex away for good.
Twenty-something Meagan is in the midst of her five-phase plan and is nearly ready for phase three: a relationship.
While thirty-something Simi has had more it’s not yous than any I dos.
These best friends decide it’s time to ditch the dating apps and play the love game by their own rules. They’re going to ask people out in real life…but only for each other. What could possibly go wrong? (Credit: HQ)
The Boy Who Met a Whale by Nizrana Farook
Razi, a local fisherboy, is watching turtle eggs hatch when he sees a boat bobbing into view. With a chill, he notices a small, still hand hanging over the side.
Inside is Zheng, who’s escaped a shipwreck and is full of tales of sea monsters and missing treasure. But the villains who are after Zheng are soon after Razi and his sister, Shifa, too. And so begins an exhilarating escapade in the shadow of the biggest sea monster of them all.
Author Nizrana Farook has crafted another briskly paced, action-packed quest that swells with empathetic heroes, missing treasure, and a great beast lurking beneath. Set against a vibrant, authentic landscape inspired by Sri Lanka, this delightful caper will thrill young fans of adventure and fantasy. (Credit: Peachtree Publishing Company)
Hey You!: An Empowering Celebration of Growing Up Black by Dapo Adeola
Remember to dream your own dreams
Love your beautiful skin
You always have a choice
This book addresses–honestly, yet hopefully–the experiences Black children face growing up with systemic racism, as well as providing hope for the future and delivering a message of empowerment to a new generation of dreamers. It’s a message that is both urgent and timeless–and offers a rich and rewarding reading experience for every child. To mirror the rich variety of the Black diaspora, this book showcases artwork from Dapo Adeola and eighteen more incredible Black illustrators in one remarkable and cohesive reading experience. (Credit: Nancy Paulsen Books)
On The Move: Home Is Where You Find It by Michael Rosen
Expected Publication Date: February 8
That’s why
it can happen again.
It does happen again.
It has happened again.
Some of Michael Rosen’s relatives were lost before he was born, in the Holocaust. First, he wondered about them. And he wrote poems. Next, he searched for their stories. And he wrote poems. Then he found their stories. And he wrote poems. Now, in a companion book to The Missing: The True Story of My Family in World War II, Michael Rosen has brought together forty-nine of his most powerful poems, exploring the themes of migration and displacement through the lens of his childhood in the shadow of World War II, the lives of his relatives during that war, and migration, refugees, and displacement today and tomorrow, here, there, and everywhere. Throughout, atmospheric watercolors from master illustrator Quentin Blake evoke the hardship, exhaustion, isolation, and companionship of being on the move. At once intimate and universal, On the Move probes the power of art to adapt, bear witness, and heal. (Credit: Candlewick Press)
Secrets of the Sprakkar : Iceland’s Extraordinary Women and How They Are Changing the World by Eliza Reid
Expected Publication Date: February 8
Iceland is the best place on earth to be a woman–but why?
For the past twelve years, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report has ranked Iceland number one on its list of countries closing the gap in equality between men and women. What is it about Iceland that makes many women’s experience there so positive? Why has their society made such meaningful progress in this ongoing battle, from electing the world’s first female president to passing legislation specifically designed to help even the playing field at work and at home? And how can we learn from what Icelanders have already discovered about women’s powerful place in society and how increased fairness benefits everyone?
Eliza Reid, the First Lady of Iceland, examines her adopted homeland’s attitude toward women–the deep-seated cultural sense of fairness, the influence of current and historical role models, and, crucially, the areas where Iceland still has room for improvement. Reid’s own experience as an immigrant from small-town Canada who never expected to become a first lady is expertly interwoven with interviews with dozens of sprakkar (extraordinary women) to form the backbone of an illuminating discussion of what it means to move through the world as a woman, and how the rules of society play more of a role in who we view as equal than we may understand. Secrets of the Sprakkar is a powerful and atmospheric portrait of a tiny country that could lead the way forward for us all. (Credit: Sourcebooks)
Cherish Farrah by Bethany C. Morrow
Expected Publication Date: February 8
Seventeen-year-old Farrah Turner is one of two Black girls in her country club community, and the only one with Black parents. Her best friend, Cherish Whitman, adopted by a white, wealthy family, is something Farrah likes to call WGS–White Girl Spoiled. With Brianne and Jerry Whitman as parents, Cherish is given the kind of adoration and coddling that even upper-class Black parents can’t seem to afford–and it creates a dissonance in her best friend that Farrah can exploit. When her own family is unexpectedly confronted with foreclosure, the calculating Farrah is determined to reassert the control she’s convinced she’s always had over her life by staying with Cherish, the only person she loves–even when she hates her.
As troubled Farrah manipulates her way further into the Whitman family, the longer she stays, the more her own parents suggest that something is wrong in the Whitman house. She might trust them–if they didn’t think something was wrong with Farrah, too. When strange things start happening at the Whitman household–debilitating illnesses, upsetting fever dreams, an inexplicable tension with Cherish’s hotheaded boyfriend, and a mysterious journal that seems to keep track of what is happening to Farrah–it’s nothing she can’t handle. But soon everything begins to unravel when the Whitmans invite Farrah closer, and it’s anyone’s guess who is really in control.
Told in Farrah’s chilling, unforgettable voice and weaving in searing commentary on race and class, this slow-burn social horror will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page. (Credit: Dutton Books)
The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Taken Less Seriously Than Men-And What We Can Do about It by Mary Ann Sieghart
Expected Publication Date: February 8
Every woman has a story of being underestimated, ignored, challenged, or patronized in the workplace. Maybe she tried to speak up in a meeting, only to be talked over by male colleagues. Or a client addressed her male subordinate instead of her. Despite the progress we’ve made toward equality, we still fail, more often than we might realize, to take women as seriously as men.
In The Authority Gap, journalist Mary Ann Sieghart examines the wide-ranging implications of this critical gender bias. She explores its intersections with race and class biases and the measures we can take to bridge the gap. With precision and insight, she marshals a wealth of data from a variety of disciplines—including psychology, sociology, politics, and business—and interviews pioneering women like Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo and Janet Yellen. The Authority Gap offers a “a credible roadmap that is capable of taking women from the margins to the center” (Mary McAleese, former president of Ireland). (Credit: W.W. Norton)
The Second Woman by Charlotte Philby
Expected US Publication Date: February 15
Two women are found dead.
Both had a secret.
Both had a choice.
Artemis leaves the remote Greek island she grew up on to start a shiny new life in 1990s London with her British husband, a successful entrepreneur. Finally, she has escaped the ghosts of her past. Until she is found hanging from the stairs of her beautiful family home.
Two decades later, the apparent suicide of an heiress uncannily mirrors Artemis’ mysterious death. And when the ensuing investigation uncovers links to a criminal cartel, National Crime Agency officer Madeleine Farrow begins to pull apart the web of deceit surrounding the two women.
The Second Woman is a deeply unsettling, brilliantly gripping story of a family legacy built upon lies.
Secrets can be suffocating… especially in the wrong hands. (Credit: The Borough Press)
Even When Your Voice Shakes by Ruby Yayra Goka
Expected Publication Date: February 15
When Amerley is offered a job working for one of her mother’s old school friends, she knows she has to accept. Her wages will feed her family, help her sisters stay in school, and ensure that her mother won’t have to worry about them. Amerley’s move to Accra isn’t easy, but she soon settles into her new life away from her small village–until she is raped by the son of her employer. Torn between keeping quiet to keep her job and speaking up for herself and for justice, Amerley must decide how to live her truth, and the impact of her choice will be felt through her entire community.
Through the life of an ordinary girl from a small country village, Even When Your Voice Shakes exposes the damage wrought by institutionalized misogyny and poverty and reveals how even those who are most disadvantaged are never without their own power. (Credit: Norton Young Readers)
The Naked Don’t Fear the Water: An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees by Matthieu Aikins
Expected Publication Date: February 15
In 2016, a young Afghan driver and translator named Omar makes the heart-wrenching choice to flee his war-torn country, saying goodbye to Laila, the love of his life, without knowing when they might be reunited again. He is one of millions of refugees who leave their homes that year.
Matthieu Aikins, a journalist living in Kabul, decides to follow his friend. In order to do so, he must leave his own passport and identity behind to go underground on the refugee trail with Omar. Their odyssey across land and sea from Afghanistan to Europe brings them face to face with the people at heart of the migration crisis: smugglers, cops, activists, and the men, women and children fleeing war in search of a better life. As setbacks and dangers mount for the two friends, Matthieu is also drawn into the escape plans of Omar’s entire family, including Maryam, the matriarch who has fought ferociously for her children’s survival.
Harrowing yet hopeful, this exceptional work brings into sharp focus one of the most contentious issues of our times. The Naked Don’t Fear the Water is a tale of love and friendship across borders, and an inquiry into our shared journey in a divided world. (Credit: Harper)
The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World by Shelley Puhak
Expected Publication Date: February 22
Brunhild was a foreign princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law Fredegund started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet–in sixth-century Merovingian France, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport–these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms, changing the face of Europe.
The two queens commanded armies and negotiated with kings and popes. They formed coalitions and broke them, mothered children and lost them. They fought a decades-long civil war–against each other. With ingenuity and skill, they battled to stay alive in the game of statecraft, and in the process laid the foundations of what would one day be Charlemagne’s empire. Yet after the queens’ deaths–one gentle, the other horrific–their stories were rewritten, their names consigned to slander and legend. (Credit: Bloomsbury Publishing)
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? A Memoir by Seamus O’Reilly
Expected Publication Date: February 22
Séamas O’Reilly’s mother died when he was five, leaving him, his ten (!) brothers and sisters, and their beloved father in their sprawling bungalow in rural Derry. It was the 1990s; the Troubles were a background rumble, but Séamas was more preoccupied with dinosaurs, Star Wars, and the actual location of heaven than the political climate.
An instant bestseller in Ireland, Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is a book about a family of loud, argumentative, musical, sarcastic, grief-stricken siblings, shepherded into adulthood by a man whose foibles and reticence were matched only by his love for his children and his determination that they would flourish. (Credit: Little Brown and Company)
Would I Lie To You? by Aliya Ali-Afzal
Expected Publication Date: February 22
At the school gates, Faiza fits in. It took a few years, but now the snobbish white mothers who mistook her for the nanny treat her as one of their own. She’s learned to crack their subtle codes, speak their language of fashion and vacations and haircuts. You’d never guess, seeing her at the trendy kids’ parties and the leisurely coffee mornings, that her childhood was spent being bullied and being embarrassed of her poor Pakistani immigrant parents.
When her husband Tom loses his job in finance, he stays calm. Something will come along, and in the meantime, they can live off their savings. But Faiza starts to unravel. Creating the perfect life and raising the perfect family comes at a cost – and the money Tom put aside has gone. Faiza will have to tell him she spent it all.
Unless she doesn’t…
It only takes a second to lie to Tom. Now Faiza has mere weeks to find $100,000. If anyone can do it, Faiza can. She’s had to fight for what she has, and she’ll fight to keep it. But as the clock ticks down and Faiza desperately tries to put things right, she has to ask herself: how much more should she sacrifice to live someone else’s idea of the dream life? (Credit: Grand Central Publishing)
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