Happy PRIDE everyone! For this month, we can not only take pride in being true to who we are but we also take pride in the wonderful releases that are hitting our shelves this month! We have thrillers that will give you chills, romances that will warm your hearts and compelling reads that will expand your minds. Get ready for a heavy bag. Because you will want to take every one of these books with you to the beach this summer:
Featured Book of the Month
The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar
“Welcome to the first ever Junior Irish Baking Show!”
Shireen Malik is still reeling from the breakup with her ex-girlfriend, Chris, when she receives news that she’s been accepted as a contestant on a new televised baking competition show. This is Shireen’s dream come true! Because winning will not only mean prize money, but it will also bring some much-needed attention to You Drive Me Glazy, her parents’ beloved donut shop.Things get complicated, though, because Chris is also a contestant on the show. Then there’s the very outgoing Niamh, a fellow contestant who is becoming fast friends with Shireen. Things are heating up between them, and not just in the kitchen.As the competition intensifies, Shireen will have to ignore all these factors and more– including potential sabotage–if she wants a sweet victory! (Credit: Feiwel & Friends)
Gay Club! by Simon James Green
Barney’s a shoo-in for his school’s LGBTQ+ Society President at the club’s next election. But when the vote is opened up to the entire student body, the whole school starts paying attention. How low will the candidates go to win? Buckle up for some serious shade, scandals and sleazy shenanigans. It isn’t long before it’s National Coming Out Day – for everyone’s secrets!
But when the group faces an unexpected threat – and a big opportunity – can the club members put politics aside and stand united?
Marion Lane and the Raven’s Revenge by T.A. Willberg
London, 1960. Marion Lane, a twenty-five-year-old apprentice detective at the elusive Miss Brickett’s Investigations & Inquiries, is busier than ever and determined to prove herself worthy of an official Inquirer badge. But when her close friend’s girlfriend, Darcy, is targeted by a dangerous gang leader and seeks out the Inquirers’ assistance, Marion cannot help but get involved.
Just when Marion thinks she has the situation under control, Darcy disappears and the agency receives a package containing a dead raven. Everyone is puzzled by what the threat could mean, except for Marion. She recognizes it as the same calling card left on her mother’s doorstep just before she died. (Credit: Park Row)
Northranger by Rey Terciero and illustrated by Bre Indigo
Cade has always loved to escape into the world of a good horror movie. After all, horror movies are scary–but to Cade, a closeted queer Latino teen growing up in rural Texas–real life can be way scarier.
When Cade is sent to spend the summer working as a ranch hand to help earn extra money for his family, he is horrified. Cade hates everything about the ranch, from the early mornings to the mountains of horse poop he has to clean up. The only silver lining is the company of the two teens who live there–in particular, the ruggedly handsome and enigmatic Henry.
But as unexpected sparks begin to fly between Cade and Henry, things get…complicated. Henry is reluctant to share the details of his mother’s death, and Cade begins to wonder what else he might be hiding. Inspired by the gothic romance of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and perfect for fans of Heartstopper and Bloom comes a modern love story so romantic it’s scary. (Credit: HarperAlley)
Bad Kids by Zijin Chen
THE PERFECT CRIME DOESN’T EXIST…One beautiful morning, Zhang Dongsheng pushes his wealthy in-laws off a remote mountain.
It’s the perfect crime. Or so he thinks.
For Zhang did not expect that 3 kids would catch him in the act while they’re working on a photography project. When an opportunity for blackmail presents itself the trio start down a dark path that will lead to the unravelling of all their lives.
This dark and grizzly story, where no one is innocent, is perfect for fans of Keigo Higashino and Un-Su Kim. (Credit: Pushkin Vertigo)
All The Sinners Bleed by S.A. Crosby
A Black sheriff. A serial killer.
A small town ready to combust.
Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.
Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon.
With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.
Charon is Titus’s home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning. (Credit: Flatiron Books)
The Dress Diary: Secrets From A Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe by Kate Strasdin
In 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day. Collecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments – some her own, others donated by family and friends – she carefully annotated each one, creating a unique record of their lives. Her name was Mrs Anne Sykes.
Nearly two hundred years later, the diary fell into the hands of Kate Strasdin, a fashion historian and museum curator. Using her expertise, Strasdin spent the next six years unravelling the secrets contained within the album’s pages, and the lives of the people within. Her findings are remarkable. Piece by piece, she charts Anne’s journey from the mills of Lancashire to the port of Singapore before tracing her return to England in later years. Fragments of cloth become windows into Victorian life: pirates in Borneo, the complicated etiquette of mourning, poisonous dyes, the British Empire in full swing, rioting over working conditions and the terrible human cost of Britain’s cotton industry. This is life writing that celebrates ordinary people: not the grandees of traditional written histories, but the hidden figures, the participants in everyday life. Through the evidence of waistcoats, ball gowns and mourning outfits, Strasdin lays bare the whole of human experience in the most intimate of mediums: the clothes we choose to wear. (Credit: Pegasus Books)
The Chaperone by M. Hendrix
Like every young woman in New America, Stella knows the rules:
Deflect attention.
Abstain from sin.
Navigate the world with care.
Give obedience.
Embrace purity.
Respect your chaperone.
Girls in New America must have a chaperone with them at all times . Because of this, Stella is never alone. She can’t go out by herself or learn about the world. She can’t even spend time with boys except at formal Visitations. Still, Stella feels lucky that her chaperone, Sister Helen, is like a friend to her.
And then the unthinkable happens. Sister Helen dies suddenly, and Stella feels lost. Especially when she’s assigned a new chaperone just days later.
Sister Laura is…different. She has radical ideas about what Stella should be doing. She leaves Stella alone in public and even knows how to get into the “Hush Hush” parties where all kinds of forbidden things happen. As Stella spends more time with Sister Laura, she begins to question everything she’s been taught. What if the Constables’ rules don’t actually protect girls? What if they were never meant to keep them safe?
Once Stella glimpses both real freedom and the dark truths behind New America, she has no choice but to fight back against the world she knows, risking everything to set out on a dangerous journey across what used to be the United States. (Credit: Sourcebooks Fire)
Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale
If you had the power to change the past…where would you start?
Cassandra Penelope Dankworth is a creature of habit. She likes what she likes (museums, jumpsuits, her boyfriend, Will) and strongly dislikes what she doesn’t (mess, change, her boss drinking out of her mug). Her life runs in a pleasing, predictable order…until now.
- She’s just been dumped.
- She’s just been fired.
- Her local café has run out of banana muffins.
Then, something truly unexpected happens: Cassie discovers she can go back and change the past. One small rewind at a time, Cassie attempts to fix the life she accidentally obliterated, but soon she’ll discover she’s trying to fix all the wrong things. (Credit: Mira Books)
The Dark That Doesn’t Sleep by Simon Mockler
Winter 1967.
An arctic storm traps three soldiers at a secret American military base located under the ice in Greenland. When the rescue team finally reaches them, two of the soldiers have died in what seems to be an accidental fire and the third, Private Connor Murphy, is left severely burned–with no memory of the previous seven days.
New York psychiatrist–and occasional CIA consultant–Jack Miller is tasked with uncovering Murphy’s memories. Carrying his own scars from World War II, Miller feels a kinship with the badly disfigured young soldier and patiently works to help him recall the events of that deadly storm.
However, the CIA wants Miller to do more than just uncover the missing memories. They also tell him that one of the three soldiers was a Soviet spy–and he needs to figure out who. As Miller delves into the personal background of the other two soldiers, and the history of the isolated base, he quickly realizes that nothing is as it seems. (Credit: Pegasus Crime)
The Memory Of Animals by Claire Fuller
In the face of a pandemic, an unprepared world scrambles to escape the mysterious disease causing sensory damage, nerve loss, and, in most cases, death. Neffy, a disgraced and desperately indebted twenty-seven-year-old marine biologist, registers for an experimental vaccine trial in London–perhaps humanity’s last hope for a cure. Though isolated from the chaos outside, she and the other volunteers–Rachel, Leon, Yahiko, and Piper–cannot hide from the mistakes that led them there.
As London descends into chaos outside the hospital windows, Neffy befriends Leon, who before the pandemic had been working on a controversial technology that allows users to revisit their memories. She withdraws into projections of her past–a childhood bisected by divorce, a recent love affair, her obsessive research with octopuses, and the one mistake that ended her career. The lines between past, present, and future begin to blur, and Neffy is left with defining questions: Who can she trust? Why can’t she forgive herself? How should she live, if she survives? (Credit: Tin House)
Everything’s Fine by Cecilia Rabess
On Jess’s first day at Goldman Sachs, she’s less than thrilled to learn she’ll be on the same team as Josh, her white, conservative sparring partner from college. Josh loves playing the devil’s advocate and is just…the worst.
But when Jess finds herself the sole Black woman on the floor, overlooked and underestimated, it’s Josh who shows up for her in surprising–if imperfect–ways. Before long, an unlikely friendship–one tinged with undeniable chemistry–forms between the two. A friendship that gradually, and then suddenly, turns into an electrifying romance that shocks them both
.Despite their differences, the force of their attraction propels the relationship forward, and Jess begins to question whether it’s more important to be happy than right. But then it’s 2016, and the cultural and political landscape shifts underneath them. And Jess, who is just beginning to discover who she is and who she has the right to be, is forced to ask herself what she’s willing to compromise for love and whether, in fact, everything’s fine.
A stunning debut that introduces Cecilia Rabess as a blazing new talent, Everything’s Fine is a poignant and sharp novel that doesn’t just ask will they, but…should they? (Credit; Simon & Schuster)
Lady Caroline Lamb: A Free Spirit by Antonia Fraser
From the outset, Caroline Lamb had a rebellious nature. From childhood she grew increasingly troublesome, experimenting with sedatives like laudanum, and she had a special governess to control her. She also had a merciless wit and talent for mimicry. She spoke French and German fluently, knew Greek and Latin, and sketched impressive portraits. As the niece of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, she was already well connected, and her courtly skills resulted in her marriage to the Hon. William Lamb (later Lord Melbourne) at the age on nineteen. For a few years they enjoyed a happy marriage, despite Lamb’s siblings and mother-in-law detesting her and referring to her as ‘the little beast’.
In 1812 Caroline embarked on a well-publicised affair with the poet Lord Byron – he was 24, she 26. Her phrase ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’ became his lasting epitaph. When he broke things off, Caroline made increasingly public attempts to reunite. Her obsession came to define much of her later life, as well as influencing her own writing – most notably the Gothic novel Glenarvon – and Byron’s. (Credit: Pegasus Books)
Lore Olympus: Volume Four by Rachel Smythe
I don’t always get to do as I please.
“The rumor mill of Olympus is constantly churning, but Persephone and Hades are all anyone can talk about. With the constant gossip creating intense pressure on the pair, they decide to slow down their budding romance and focus on sorting out their own issues first.But that’s easier said than done.Hades struggles to find support in his personal life, with Zeus trivializing his feelings and Minthe resorting to abusive patterns in their relationship. And while Hades tries to create healthier boundaries where he can–like finally putting a stop to his sporadic, revenge-fueled hookups with Hera–he still feels lonely and adrift.Persephone feels equally ostracized as her classmates shun her for her connection to Hades, and she can find no refuge at home, with Apollo constantly dropping by unannounced and pushing his unwelcome advances. And on top of it all, the wrathful god of war, Ares, has returned to Olympus to dredge up his sordid history with the goddess of spring, threatening to surface Persephone’s dark and mysterious past and ruin her tenuous position in the land of the gods.Despite agreeing to take it slow, Persephone and Hades find themselves inextricably drawn toward each other once more amid the chaos. The pull of fate cannot be denied. (Credit: Random House Worlds)
Much ADO about NADA by Uzma Jalaluddin
Expected Publication Date: June 13
Nada Syed is stuck. On the cusp of thirty, she’s still living at home with her brothers and parents in the Golden Crescent neighbourhood of Toronto, resolutely ignoring her mother’s unsubtle pleas to get married already. While Nada has a good job as an engineer, it’s a far cry from realizing her start-up dreams for her tech baby, Ask Apa, the app that launched with a whimper instead of a bang because of a double-crossing business partner. Nothing in her life has turned out the way it was supposed to, and Nada feels like a failure. Something needs to change, but the past is holding on too tightly to let her move forward.
Nada’s best friend Haleema is determined to pry her from her shell…and what better place than at the giant annual Muslim conference held downtown, where Nada can finally meet Haleema’s fiancé, Zayn. And did Haleema mention Zayn’s brother Baz will be there?
What Haleema doesn’t know is that Nada and Baz have a past–some of it good, some of it bad and all of it secret. At the conference, that past all comes hurtling at Nada, bringing new complications and a moment of reckoning. Can Nada truly say goodbye to once was or should she hold tight to her dreams and find their new beginnings? (Credit: Berkley Books)
She Started It by Sian Gilbert
Expected Publication Date: June 13
Annabel, Esther, Tanya, and Chloe are best friends–or were, as children. Despite drifting apart in adulthood, shared secrets have kept them bonded for better or worse, even as their childhood dreams haven’t quite turned out as they’d hoped. Then one day they receive a wholly unexpected–but not entirely unwelcome–invitation from another old friend. Poppy Greer has invited them all to her extravagant bachelorette party: a first-class plane ticket to three days of white sand, cocktails, and relaxation on a luxe private island in the Bahamas.
None of them has spoken to Poppy in years. But Poppy’s Instagram pics shows that the girl they used to consider the weakest link in their group has definitely made good–and made money. Curiosity gets the better of them. Besides, who can turn down a posh all-expenses-paid vacation on a Caribbean island?
The first-class flight and the island’s accommodations are just as opulent as expected…even if the scenic island proves more remote than they’d anticipated. Quite remote, in fact, with no cell service, and no other guests. The women quickly discover they’ve underestimated Poppy, and each other. As their darkest secrets are revealed, the tropical adventure morphs into a terrifying nightmare. (Credit: William Morrow & Company)
The Close by Jane Casey
Expected Publication Date: June 13
At first glance, Jellicoe Close seems to be a perfect suburban street – well-kept houses with pristine lawns, neighbours chatting over garden fences, children playing together.
But there are dark secrets behind the neat front doors, hidden dangers that include a ruthless criminal who will stop at nothing.
It’s up to DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent to uncover the truth. Posing as a couple, they move into the Close, blurring the lines between professional and personal as never before.
And while Maeve and Josh try to gather the evidence they need, they have no idea of the danger they face – because someone in Jellicoe Close has murder on their mind. (Credit: HarperCollins)
The Woman Inside by M.T. Edvardsson
Expected Publication Date: June 13
Bill Olsson, recently widowed, is desperate to provide for his daughter, Sally. Struggling to pay rent, he welcomes a lodger into their home: Karla, a law student and aspiring judge, who works as a housekeeper to make ends meet. Her clients are the Rytters, an incredibly wealthy couple who hide behind closed doors. The wife is ill and hasn’t left the house in months. The husband is controlling and obsessive. Is he just a worried husband, concerned for his wife’s health? Or is there something more sinister at play?
As Bill’s situation becomes more dire, Karla is forced to make a difficult choice. And when the Rytters wind up dead, and Karla is pulled in for questioning, she’s made to defend some parts of her past she’d rather not revisit.
Every person in The Woman Inside is hiding something, but could any of them really have been driven to kill? (Celadon Books)
Kismat Connection by Ananya Devarajan
Expected Publication Date: June 13
Is it possible to change your fate?
Madhuri Iyer is doomed. Doomed for her upcoming senior year to be a total failure, according to her astrology-obsessed mother, and doomed to a happily ever after with her first boyfriend, according to her family curse.
Determined to prove the existence of her free will, Madhuri devises an experimental relationship with the one boy she knows she’ll never fall for: her childhood best friend, Arjun Mehta. But Arjun’s feelings for her are a variable she didn’t account for.
As Madhuri starts to fall for her experimental boyfriend, she’ll have to decide if charting her own destiny is worth breaking Arjun’s heart–and her own. (Credit: Inkyard Press)
Speak of the Devil by Rose Wilding
Expected Publication Date: June 13
Seven women are gathered in a hotel room at midnight; a man’s head sits in the center of the floor. They all had a motive to kill Jamie Spellman. They all swear they didn’t. But in order to protect one another, they have to find out who did.The ex, who drowns her darkest secret in a hip flask as the woman she loves drifts further away.
The wife, living out her fairytale marriage in a house tucked into woods so thick no one can hear a scream.
The widow, praying to a past she no longer knows whether she can trust.
The teenager, whose wide-eyed crush has trapped her in an unrecognizable future.
The mother figure, battling nature versus nurture under the weight of her own guilt.
The friend, forced to choose sides over and over, until she learns the price of choosing wrong.
And the journalist, who brought them all together–but underestimated how far one of them would go to keep believing the story they’d been told.
Against the ticking clock of a murder investigation, each woman’s secret is brought to light as the connections between them converge to reveal a killer. (Credit: Minotaur Books)
Unaccompanied: Stories of Brave Teenagers Seeking Asylum by Tracy White
Expected Publication Date: June 20
Life at home is so unbearable that these kids will risk their lives and face colossal challenges to escape to the United States and find safety.
This book tells the true stories of five brave teens fleeing their home countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guinea, on their own, traveling through unknown and unfriendly places, and ultimately crossing into the US to find refuge and seek asylum. Based on extensive interviews with teen refugees, lawyers, caseworkers, and activists, Tracy White shines a light on five individual kids from among the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors who enter the US each year. In stark black and white illustrations, she helps us understand why some young people would literally risk their lives to seek safety in the US. Each one of them has been backed into a corner where emigration to the US seems like their only hope. (Credit:Street Noise Books)
Zero Days by Ruth Ware
Expected Publication Date: June 20
Hired by companies to break into buildings and hack security systems, Jack and her husband, Gabe, are the best penetration specialists in the business. But after a routine assignment goes horribly wrong, Jack arrives home to find her husband dead. To add to her horror, the police are closing in on their suspect–her.
Suddenly on the run and quickly running out of options, Jack must decide who she can trust as she circles closer to the real killer in this unputdownable and heart-pounding mystery from an author whose “propulsive prose keeps readers on the hook and refuses to let anyone off until all has been revealed” (Credit: Gallery: Scout Press)
You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron
Expected Publication Date: June 20
Charity has the summer job of her dreams, playing the “final girl” at Camp Mirror Lake. Guests pay to be scared in this full-contact terror game, as Charity and her summer crew recreate scenes from a classic slasher film, The Curse of Camp Mirror Lake. The more realistic the fear, the better for business.
But the last weekend of the season, Charity’s co-workers begin disappearing. And when one ends up dead, Charity’s role as the final girl suddenly becomes all too real. If Charity and her girlfriend Bezi hope to survive the night, they’ll need figure out what this killer is after. As they unravel the bloody history of the real Mirror Lake, Charity discovers that there may be more to the story than she ever suspected . . .(Credit: Bloomsbury YA)
Night Fever by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Sean Phillips and Jacob Phillips
Expected Publication Date: June 20
An amazing new original graphic novel from the bestselling creators of PULP, RECKLESS, CRIMINAL, and KILL OR BE KILLED. Who are you, really? Are you the things you do, or are you the person inside your mind? In Europe on a business trip, Jonathan Webb can’t sleep. Instead, he finds himself wandering the night in a strange foreign city, with his new friend, the mysterious and violent Rainer as his guide. Rainer shows Jonathan the hidden world of the night, a world without rules or limits. But when the fun turns dangerous, Jonathan may find himself trapped in the dark… And the question is, what will he do to get home? NIGHT FEVER is a pulse-pounding noir thriller from grand masters Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. A Jekyll-and-Hyde story of a man facing the darkness inside himself, this riveting tour of the night is a must-have for all Brubaker and Phillips readers! (Credit: Image Comics)
The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson
Expected Publication Date: June 20
Niamh Kelly is dead. Her troubled twin, Ciara, now masquerades as the benevolent witch as Her Majesty’s Royal Coven prepares to crown her High Preistess.
Suffering from amnesia, Ciara can’t remember what she’s done–but if she wants to survive, she must fool Niamh’s adopted family and friends; the coven; and the murky Shadow Cabinet–a secret group of mundane civil servants who are already suspicious of witches. While she tries to rebuild her past, she realizes none of her past has forgotten her, including her former lover, renegade warlock Dabney Hale.
On the other end of the continent, Leonie Jackman is in search of Hale, rumored to be seeking a dark object of ultimate power somehow connected to the upper echelons of the British government. If the witches can’t figure out Hale’s machinations, and fast, all of witchkind will be in grave danger–along with the fate of all (wo)mankind. (Credit: Penguin Books)
Charlotte Illes Is Not a Detective: A Modern and Witty Mystery by Katie Siegel
Expected Publication Date: June 27
The downside of being a famous child detective is that sooner or later, you have to grow up . . .
As a kid, Charlotte Illes’ uncanny sleuthing abilities made her a minor celebrity. But in high school, she hung up her detective’s hat and stashed away the signature blue landline in her “office”–aka garage–convinced that finding her adult purpose would be as easy as tracking down missing pudding cups or locating stolen diamonds.Now twenty-five, Charlotte has a nagging fear that she hit her peak in middle school. She’s living with her mom, scrolling through job listings, and her love life consists mostly of first dates. When it comes to knowing what to do next, Charlotte hasn’t got a clue.And then, her old blue phone rings . . .
Reluctantly, Charlotte is pulled back into the mystery-solving world she knew–just one more time. But that world is a whole lot more complicated for an adult. As a kid, she was able to crack the case and still get her homework done on time. Now she’s dealing with dead bodies, missing persons, and villains who actually see her as a viable threat. And the detective skills she was once so eager to never use again are the only things that can stop a killer ready to make sure her next retirement is permanent . . .(Credit: Kensington Publishing Corporation)
The Boy with Wings by Sir Lenny Henry and illustrated by Keenon Ferrell and Mark Buckingham
Expected Publication Date: June 27
An ordinary kid is about to become an EXTRAORDINARY hero!
Wings? Check.
A super-cool, super-secret past? Check.
An impossible mission to save the world from a fur-ocious enemy? Check.When Tunde sprouts wings and learns he’s all that stands between Earth and total destruction, suddenly school is the least of his problems. Luckily, his rag-tag group of pals have got his back, and with his new powers, Tunde is ready to fly in the face of danger.
So what if he can’t even stand up to the school bully? He’s the boy with wings – this is his destiny.
No pressure then. . .(Credit: Andrews McMeel Publishing)
You’ve Been Served by Kristen Alicia
Expected Publication Date: June 27
It’s the Magic 8 Ball’s fault. All of it. One teeny little question, and suddenly Simone Alexander is chucking her whole life out the window. So long, being a chef in California-it’s time for law school. In Michigan. Where there’s actual winter. And law school’s nothing like the romantic comedies said it was.Simone is tragically underprepared. Hell, she’s already behind before classes have even begun, and her hard-as-nails Contracts professor is giving her no mercy. Then there’s Silas Whitman, her tall and annoyingly cute neighbor. Off campus, Silas is incredible. Kissable, even. In class, he is one thousand percent the obnoxious kiss-ass.But Simone’s given up everything to be a lawyer. The competition is fierce and she has a hateful professor gunning for her to fail, but she’s not about to let little things like sleep, or love, stop her from kicking law school ass…(Credit: Entangled: Amara)
A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales
Expected Publication Date: June 27
Feisty, passionate Beatrice Steele has never fit the definition of a true lady, according to the strict code of conduct that reigns in Swampshire, her small English township–she is terrible at needlework, has absolutely no musical ability, and her artwork is so bad it frightens people. Nevertheless, she lives a perfectly agreeable life with her marriage-scheming mother, prankster father, and two younger sisters– beautiful Louisa and forgettable Mary. But she harbors a dark secret: She is obsessed with the true crime cases she reads about in the newspaper. If anyone in her etiquette-obsessed community found out, she’d be deemed a morbid creep and banished from respectable society forever.
For her family’s sake, she’s vowed to put her obsession behind her. Because eligible bachelor Edmund Croaksworth is set to attend the approaching autumnal ball, and the Steele family hopes that Louisa will steal his heart. If not, Martin Grub, their disgusting cousin, will inherit the family’s estate, and they will be ruined or, even worse, forced to move to France. So Beatrice must be on her best behavior . . . which is made difficult when a disgraced yet alluring detective inexplicably shows up to the ball.Beatrice is just holding things together when Croaksworth drops dead in the middle of a minuet. As a storm rages outside, the evening descends into a frenzy of panic, fear, and betrayal as it becomes clear they are trapped with a killer. Contending with competitive card games, tricky tonics, and Swampshire’s infamous squelch holes, Beatrice must rise above decorum and decency to pursue justice and her own desires–before anyone else is murdered. (Credit: Random House)
Truly Darkly Deeply by Victoria Selman
Expected Publication Date: June 27
Matty Melgren is a convicted serial killer serving life without parole for the murders of several women in London in the 1980s. He has consistently protested his innocence, and the evidence against him was largely circumstantial. At the time of his arrest, Matty’s girlfriend was Amelia-Rose, a single mother to 12-year-old Sophie. Sophie adores Matty. He’s handsome, funny, respectable–she could never suspect him of the brutal killings in the headlines. Then a police sketch of a suspect is released that looks a lot like Matty. Was it him? Sophie is consumed with doubt and guilt, causing her to act impulsively, ripping her family apart. Years later, she is still haunted by her actions. Was she wrong to have done what she did all those years ago? Then Sophie receives a letter from Matty–he’s dying and asks her to visit him in prison. Will she finally get the answers she needs to be able to reclaim her future? (Credit: Union Square & Co.)
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue
Expected Publication Date: June 27
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. (Credit: Knopf Publishing Group)
The Shadow Sister by Lily Meade
Expected Publication Date: June 27
Sutton going missing is the worst thing to happen to Casey, to their family. She’s trying to help find her sister, but Casey is furious. She knows Sutton is manipulative, meanwhile everyone paints a picture of her perfection. People don’t look for missing Black girls–or half-Black girls–without believing there is an angel to be saved.
When Sutton reappears, Casey knows she should be relieved. Except Sutton isn’t the same. She remembers nothing about while she was gone–or anything from her old life, including how she made Casey miserable. There’s something unsettling about the way she wants to spend time with Casey and watch her goldfish swim for hours.
What happened to Sutton? The more Casey starts uncovering her sister’s secrets, the more questions she has. Did she really know her sister? Why is no one talking about the other girls who have gone missing in their area? And what will it take to uncover the truth? (Credit: Sourcebooks Fire)
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I cannot tell you how excited I am that The Shadow Cabinet is almost here!