Welcome to 2024! A new year means new book releases to grace our shelves. The publishing world is starting 2024 with a great start. Choose your first read of the year from the fantastic selection of books. Maybe you want to venture into fantasy and adventure. Or do you want to dive into a heart-stopping and suspenseful thriller? Or perhaps you want to snuggle up with a sweet romance? The world is your oyster this month! Start your reading challenge with any of these highlighted reads:
Featured Book of the Month
Somewhere In The Deep by Tanvi Berwah
Seventeen-year-old Krescent Dune is buried under the weight of her dead parents’ debt and the ruinous legacy they left behind. The only way she can earn enough money to escape her unforgiving island is by battling monstrous creatures in an underground fighting pit.
After a fight goes terribly wrong, she’s banned from the pits. Now hopeless, she is offered a deal: in exchange for the erasure of her debts, she must join and protect a hunting party for a rescue mission deep within the mining caves beneath the island.
Krescent is determined to keep her head down and fulfill her role as the dutiful bodyguard, even though she is trapped underground with her childhood enemy and a company of people who would gladly kill her if they knew who her parents were. As they come across creatures she believed only existed in legends, it becomes clear they are in far more danger than she could have imagined.
But someone doesn’t want her to make it out alive. And she’ll have to figure out who before she’s left alone…in the dark. (Credit: Sourcebooks Fire)
Anna O by Matthew Blake
THE WORLD WILL KNOW HER NAME
What if your nightmares weren’t really nightmares at all?
We spend an average of 33 years of our lives asleep. But what really happens, and what are we capable of, when we sleep?
Anna Ogilvy was a budding twenty-five-year-old writer with a bright future. Then, one night, she stabbed two people to death with no apparent motive–and hasn’t woken up since. Dubbed “Sleeping Beauty” by the tabloids, Anna’s condition is a rare psychosomatic disorder known to neurologists as “resignation syndrome.”
Dr. Benedict Prince is a forensic psychologist and an expert in the field of sleep-related homicides. His methods are the last hope of solving the infamous “Anna O'”case and waking Anna up so she can stand trial. But he must be careful treating such a high-profile suspect–he’s got career secrets and a complicated personal life of his own.
As Anna shows the first signs of stirring, Benedict must determine what really happened and whether Anna should be held responsible for her crimes.
Only Anna knows the truth about that night, but only Benedict knows how to discover it. And they’re both in danger from what they find out. (Credit: Harper)
Diary Of A Confused Feminist by Kate Weston
At fifteen, Kat Evans is still sorting it all out, and that includes being a good feminist (and, by extension, a good human).She promises herself that this school year, she’ll be making changes to her life that will make her less of a walking disaster, like: 1) keeping her diary every day as all the top journalists and writers do; 2) stop obsessing over her crush Hot Josh because she doesn’t need a man to complete her; 3) stop stalking said Hot Josh on Instagram and accidentally liking his pictures; 4) somehow managing to stop worrying about every single thing in her life; and, most importantly, 5) SMASHING THE PATRIARCHY–that is, after she figures out what it is and how one goes about dismantling it.And though Kat may lack the grace it requires to meet her goals, she makes up for that with plenty of good humor as she stumbles through high school with all its bullies, parties, and crippling moments of self-doubt. With the help of her best friends, her parents, and her diary, Kat may figure out how to be a cool, fun feminist yet. (Credit: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
How to Be a Renaissance Woman : The Untold History of Beauty & Female Creativity by Jill Burke
Beauty, make-up, art, power: How to Be a Renaissance Woman presents an alternative history of this fascinating period as told by the women behind the paintings, providing a window into their often overlooked or silenced lives.
Can the pressures women feel to look good be traced back to the sixteenth century?As the Renaissance visual world became populated by female nudes from the likes of Michelangelo and Titian, a vibrant literary scene of beauty tips emerged, fueling debates about cosmetics and adornment. Telling the stories of courtesans, artists, actresses, and writers rebelling against the strictures of their time, when burgeoning colonialism gave rise to increasingly sinister evaluations of bodies and skin color, this book puts beauty culture into the frame.
How to Be a Renaissance Woman will take readers from bustling Italian market squares, the places where the poorest women and immigrant communities influenced cosmetic products and practices, to the highest echelons of Renaissance society, where beauty could be a powerful weapon in securing strategic marriages and family alliances. It will investigate how skin-whitening practices shifted in step with the emerging sub-Saharan African slave trade, how fads for fattening and thinning diets came and went, and how hairstyles and fashion could be a tool for dissent and rebellion–then as now. This surprising and illuminating narrative will make you question your ideas about your own body, and ask: Why are women often so critical of their appearance? What do we stand to lose, but also to gain, from beauty culture? What is the relationship between looks and power? (Credit: Peagsus Books)
The Truth About The Accident by Nicole Trope
I gaze at my husband’s once handsome face, so still and pale in the hospital bed. The doctors say I should keep talking. He might be able to hear me even after the terrible accident that left him fighting for his life. But all I have to whisper to my husband is this: I know what you did.
Every day I wave my husband Damon off with a kiss and a smile, drive our precious children to school, and make sure our house is pristine before preparing a delicious meal. I pretend I’m not filled with fury that he once nearly destroyed our perfect life. It’s important to carry on as normal.
That is, until the accident.
My husband was hit by a car. It was pouring with rain. Nobody saw what happened. But the police are asking questions…
Do they know about the terrible argument we had that day?
Do they know about the text message I sent, telling someone to Delete everything? (Credit: Grand Central Publishing)
First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston
The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her mysterious boss Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job.Evie isn’t privy to Mr. Smith’s real identity, but she knows this job will be different. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she’s starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can’t make any mistakes–especially after what happened last time.Because the one thing she’s worked her entire life to keep clean, the one identity she could always go back to–her real identity–just walked right into this town. Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there’s still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn’t be higher–but then, Evie has always liked a challenge…(Credit: Pamela Dorman Books)
Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth by Natalie Haynes
Few writers today have reshaped our view of the ancient Greek myths more than revered bestselling author Natalie Haynes. Divine Might is a female-centered look at Olympus and the Furies, focusing on the goddesses whose prowess, passions, jealousies, and desires rival those of their male kin, including:
Athene, who sprang fully formed from her father’s brow (giving Zeus a killer headache in the process), the goddess of war and provider of wise counsel.Aphrodite, born of the foam (and sperm released from a Titan’s castrated testicles), the most beautiful of all the Olympian goddesses, the epitome of love who dispenses desire and inspires longing–yet harbors a fearsome vengeful side, doling out brutal punishments to those who displease her.Hera, Zeus’s long-suffering wife, whose jealousy born of his repeated dalliances with mortals, nymphs, and other goddesses, leads her to wreak elaborate and often painful revenge on those she believes have wronged her. (Well, wouldn’t you?)Demeter, goddess of the harvest and mother of Persephone; Artemis, the hunter and goddess of wild spaces; the Muses, the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory; and Hestia, goddess of domesticity and sacrificial fire.
Infused with Haynes’s engaging charm and irrepressible wit, Divine Might is a refreshing take on the legends and stories we thought we knew. (Credit: Harper Perennial)
Midnight by Amy McCulloch
THE SUN NEVER SETS AND THIS KILLER NEVER SLEEPS
Olivia Campbell has always dreamed of spending a sunlit night on the frigid Antarctic continent. But as an actuary who assesses risk for a living, she never imagined she would have the chance. So when her career takes an unexpected detour, and her boyfriend–a high-powered art dealer with a taste for the finer things in life–decides to stage an ostentatious, career-making auction on a luxury liner to Antarctica, Olivia is thrilled. That is, until things start to feel a bit strange. In addition to the scores of wealthy patrons and potential buyers, they’ll also be traveling alongside a small group of beleaguered employees of Pioneer Adventures–the company responsible for managing the ship–and their charismatic, divisive CEO.
When the first bodies are discovered, it’s easy enough for Olivia to write it off as a terrible accident. But as the situation heats up and the temperatures continue to plummet, she begins to wonder whether she might have booked a one-way ticket to her own demise. (Credit: Doubleday)
Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma R. Alban
Expected Publication Date: January 9
Gwen has a brilliant beyond brilliant idea.
It’s 1857, and anxious debutante Beth has just one season to snag a wealthy husband, or she and her mother will be out on the street. But playing the blushing ingenue makes Beth’s skin crawl and she’d rather be anywhere but here.
Gwen, on the other hand, is on her fourth season and counting, with absolutely no intention of finding a husband, possibly ever. She figures she has plenty of security as the only daughter of a rakish earl, from whom she’s gotten all her flair, fun, and less-than-proper party games.
“Let’s get them together,” she says.
It doesn’t take long for Gwen to hatch her latest scheme: rather than surrender Beth to courtship, they should set up Gwen’s father and Beth’s newly widowed mother. Let them get married instead.
“It’ll be easy” she says.
There’s just…one, teeny, tiny problem. Their parents kind of seem to hate each other.
But no worries. Beth and Gwen are more than up to the challenge of a little twenty-year-old heartbreak. How hard can parent-trapping widowed ex-lovers be?
Of course, just as their plan begins to unfold, a handsome, wealthy viscount starts calling on Beth, offering up the perfect, secure marriage.
Beth’s not mature enough for this…
Now Gwen must face the prospect of sharing Beth with someone else, forever. And Beth must reckon with the fact that she’s caught feelings, hard, and they’re definitely not for her potential fiancé.
That’s the trouble with matchmaking: sometimes you accidentally fall in love with your best friend in the process. (Credit: Avon Books)
The Djinn Waits A Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan
Expected Publication Date: January 9
Akbar Manzil was once a grand estate off the coast of South Africa. Nearly a century later, it stands in ruins: an isolated boardinghouse for eclectic misfits, seeking solely to disappear into the mansion’s dark corridors. Except for Sana. Unlike the others, she is curious and questioning and finds herself irresistibly drawn to the history of the mansion: To the eerie and forgotten East Wing, home to a clutter of broken and abandoned objects–and to the door at its end, locked for decades.Behind the door is a bedroom frozen in time and a worn diary that whispers of a dark past: the long-forgotten story of a young woman named Meena, who died there tragically a hundred years ago. Watching Sana from the room’s shadows is a besotted, grieving djinn, an invisible spirit who has haunted the mansion since her mysterious death. Obsessed with Meena’s story, and unaware of the creature that follows her, Sana digs into the past like fingers into a wound, dredging up old and terrible secrets that will change the lives of everyone living and dead at Akbar Manzil. (Credit: Viking)
Death Under a Little Sky by Stig Abell
Expected Publication Date: January 9
When Jake Jackson inherits his reclusive uncle’s property in the country, the detective seizes the opportunity for a new life away from the hustle of London.
The new home in this charming rural idyll is beautiful and the surroundings are stunning. While the locals are a bit eccentric, they’re also friendly and invite the newcomer to join their annual treasure hunt.
When a young woman’s bones are discovered, Jake finds himself pulled back into the role of detective, and on the trail of a dangerous killer hiding within this most unlikely of settings. (Credit Harper Paperbacks)
One of the Good Guys by Araminta Hall
Expected Publication Date: January 9
Desperate to escape the ghosts of his failed marriage, Cole upends his life. He leaves London behind for a remote stretch of coast, relishing the respite from the noise, drama, and relentless careerism that curdled his relationship and mental health. Leonora has made the same move for similar reasons. She’s living a short walk from Cole’s seaside cottage, preparing for her latest art exhibition. Though Cole still can’t figure out what went wrong with his marriage, and Leonora is having trouble acclimating to the hostile landscape, the pair forges a connection on the eroding bluff they call home.
Then, two young women activists raising awareness about gendered violence disappear while passing through. Cole and Leonora find themselves in the middle of a police investigation and the resulting media firestorm when the world learns of what happened. And as the tension escalates alongside the search for the missing women, they quickly realize that they don’t know each other that well after all. (Credit:
Gillian Flynn Books)
Arya Khanna’s Bollywood Moment by Arushi Avachat
Expected Publication Date: January 9
Shaadi preparations are in full swing, which means lehenga shopping, taste testing, dance rehearsals, and best of all, Arya’s sister Alina is home. The Khannas are together again, finally, and Arya wants to enjoy it. So she stifles her lingering resentment towards Alina, plays mediator during her sister’s fights with their mother, and welcomes her future brother-in-law with open arms. (Okay, maybe enjoy isn’t exactly right.)Meanwhile at school, Arya’s senior year dreams are unraveling. In between class and her part-time gig as a bookshop assistant, Arya struggles to navigate the aftermath of a bad breakup between her two best friends and a tense student council partnership with her rival, the frustratingly attractive Dean Merriweather.
Arya is determined to keep the peace at home and at school, but this shaadi season teaches Arya new realities: Alina won’t always be in the bedroom down the hall, Mamma’s sadness isn’t mendable, friendships must evolve, and life doesn’t always work out like her beloved Bollywood movies. But sometimes, the person you least expect will give you a glimpse of your dream sequence just when you need it most. (Credit: Wednesday Books)
The Expectant Detectives by Kat Ailes
Expected Publication Date: January 9
Can they solve the mother of all murders?
For Alice and her partner Joe, moving to the sleepy village of Penton is a chance to embrace country life and prepare for the birth of their first child. He can take up woodwork; maybe she’ll learn to make jam? But the rural idyll they’d hoped for doesn’t quite pan out when a dead body is discovered at their local prenatal class, and they find themselves suspects in a murder investigation.
With a cloud of suspicion hanging over the heads of the whole group, Alice and her new-found pregnant friends set out to solve the mystery and clear their names, with the help of her troublesome dog, Helen. However, there are more secrets and tensions in the heart of Penton than first meet the eye. Between the discovery of a shady commune up in the woods, the unearthing of a mysterious death years earlier, and the near-tragic poisoning of Helen, Alice is soon in way over her head. (Credit:
Minotaur Books)
The Night of the Storm by Nishita Parekh
Expected Publication Date: January 16
Hurricane Harvey is about to hit Houston. Meanwhile, single mom Jia Shah is already having a rough week: her twelve-year-old son, Ishaan, has just been suspended from school for getting in a fight. Still reeling from the fallout of her divorce–their move to Houston, her family’s disapproval, the struggle to make ends meet on her own–now Jia is worried about Ishaan’s future, too. Will her solo parenting be enough? Doesn’t a boy need a father?
And now their apartment complex is under a mandatory evacuation order. Jia’s sister, Seema, has invited them to hunker down in her fancy house in Sugar Land, and despite Jia’s misgivings–Seema’s husband, Vipul, has been just a little too friendly with her lately–Jia concedes it’s probably the best place to keep Ishaan safe during the hurricane. With Jia’s philandering ex scrutinizing her every move, all too eager to snatch back custody of Ishaan, she can’t afford to make a mistake.
When Vipul’s brother and his wife show up on Seema’s doorstep, too, it’s a recipe for disaster. Grandma, the family matriarch, has never been shy about playing favorites among her sons and their wives. As the storm escalates, tensions rise quickly, and soon someone’s dead. Was it a horrible accident or is there a murderer in their midst?
With no help available until the floodwaters recede in the morning, Jia must protect her son and identify the culprit before she goes down for a crime she didn’t commit–or becomes the next victim. . . .(Credit: Dutton)
Which Brings Me to You: A Novel in Confessions by Steve Almond and Julianna Baggott
Expected Publication Date: January 16
A pair of romantic flameouts meet at a dull wedding and wind up entwined in a deserted coatroom. Shockingly, Jane and John decide not to have sex.
Instead, they embark on a far more dangerous endeavor: sharing the stories of their past love affairs. They tell each other everything, aiming for radical honesty over polished seduction. Jaded as they may be, these two sense that they just might be soulmates. (Credit: Blackstone Publishing)
Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials by Marion Gibson
Expected Publication Date: January 16
Witchcraft is a dramatic journey through thirteen witch trials across history, some famous–like the Salem witch trials–and some lesser-known: on Vard island, Norway, in the 1620s, where an indigenous Sami woman was accused of murder; in France in 1731, during the country’s last witch trial, where a young woman was pitted against her confessor and cult leader; in Pennsylvania in 1929 where a magical healer was labelled a “witch”; in Lesotho in 1948, where British colonial authorities executed local leaders. Exploring how witchcraft became feared, decriminalized, reimagined, and eventually reframed as gendered persecution, Witchcraft takes on the intersections between gender and power, indigenous spirituality and colonial rule, and political conspiracy and individual resistance.
Offering a vivid, compelling, and dramatic story, unspooling through centuries, about the men and women who were accused–some of whom survived their trials, and some who did not–Witchcraft empowers the people who were and are victimized and marginalized, giving a voice to those who were silenced by history. (Credit: Scribner Book Company)
Escaping Mr. Rochester by L. L. McKinney
Expected Publication Date: January 16
Jane Eyre has no interest in a husband. Eager to make her own way in the world, she accepts the governess position at Thornfield Hall.
Though her new employer, Edward Rochester, has a charming air–not to mention a handsome face–Jane discovers that his smile can sharpen in an instant. Plagued by Edward’s mercurial mood and the strange wails that echo through the corridors, Jane grows suspicious of the secrets hidden within Thornfield Hall–unaware of the true horrors lurking above her very head.
On the topmost floor, Bertha Mason is trapped in more ways than one. After her whirlwind marriage to Edward turned into a nightmare, he locked her away as revenge for withholding her inheritance. Now his patience grows thin in the face of Bertha’s resilience and Jane’s persistent questions, and both young women are in more danger than they realize.
When their only chance at safety–and perhaps something more–is in each other’s arms, can they find and keep one another safe before Edward’s dark machinations close in around them? (Credit: HarperTeen)
Where The Body Was by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Expected Publication Date: January 16
A boarding house full of druggies. A neglected housewife. A young girl who thinks she’s a superhero. A cop who wants to be left alone. And a Private Detective looking for a runaway girl. These stories collide one fateful summer in Where the Body Was, a tale of love and murder in the suburbs, told from a dozen different points of view. All the neighbors on the block have an opinion about the murder and how it happened, but which of them is telling the truth?
Starting with a map of the crime scene, this murder mystery follows the ripples of this killing as they echo through decades of love and loss and passion and violence. (Credit: Image Comics)
The Silence In Her Eyes by Armando Lucas Correa
Expected Publication Date: January 16
Leah has been living with akinetopsia, or motion blindness, since she was a child. For the last twenty years, she hasn’t been able to see movement. As she walks around her upper Manhattan neighborhood with her white stick tapping in front, most people assume she’s blind. But the truth is Leah sees a good deal, and with her acute senses of smell and hearing, very little escapes her notice.
She has a quiet, orderly life, with little human contact beyond her longtime housekeeper, her doctor, and her elderly neighbor. That all changes when Alice moves into the apartment next door and Leah can immediately smell the anxiety wafting off her. Worse, Leah can’t help but hear Alice and a late-night visitor engage in a violent fight. Worried, she befriends her neighbor and discovers that Alice is in the middle of a messy divorce from an abusive husband.
Then one night, Leah wakes up to someone in her apartment. She blacks out and in the morning is left wondering if she dreamt the episode. And yet the scent of the intruder follows her everywhere. And when she hears Alice through the wall pleading for her help, Leah makes a decision that will test her courage, her strength, and ultimately her sanity. (Credit: Atria Books)
The Woman On The Ledge by Ruth Mancini
Expected Publication Date: January 16
Obsession. Intrigue. Revenge. Whose secrets are you keeping? And why?
A woman falls to her death from a London bank’s twenty-fifth-floor roof terrace.
You’re arrested for her murder.
You tell the police that you had only met the victim the previous night at your office party. She was threatening to jump down from the roof, but you had talked her down.
You’ve got nothing to do with this tragedy. You’re clearly being framed.
So why do the police keep picking holes in your story? Even your lawyer doesn’t seem to believe you.
It soon becomes obvious that you’re keeping secrets.
But who are you trying to protect? And why?
Obsession. Intrigue. Revenge.
Get ready for one of the most twisty-turny novels you will read this year. (Credit: Harper Paperbacks)
The Lily of Ludgate Hill by Mimi Matthews
Expected Publication Date: January 16
Lady Anne Deveril doesn’t spook easily. A woman of lofty social standing known for her glacial beauty and starchy opinions, she’s the unofficial leader of her small group of equestriennes. Since her mother’s devastating plunge into mourning six years ago, Anne voluntarily renounced any fanciful notions of love and marriage. And yet, when fate puts Anne back into the entirely too enticing path of Mr. Felix Hartford, she’s tempted to run…right into his arms.
No one understands why Lady Anne withdrew into the shadows of society, Hart least of all. The youthful torch he once held for her has long since cooled. Or so he keeps telling himself. But now Anne needs a favor to help a friend. Hart will play along with her little ruse–on the condition that Anne attend a holiday house party at his grandfather’s country estate. No more mourning clothes. No more barriers. Only the two of them, unrequited feelings at last laid bare.
Finally free to gallop out on her own, Anne makes the tantalizing discovery that beneath the roguish exterior of her not-so-white knight is a man with hidden depths, scorching passions–and a tender heart. (Credit: Penguin Publishing)
The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett
Expected Publication Date: January 23
Everyone knows the story of the Alperton Angels: the cult who brainwashed a teenage girl into believing her baby was the anti-Christ. When the girl came to her senses and called the police, the Angels committed suicide and mother and baby disappeared.
Now, true crime author Amanda Bailey is looking to revive her career by writing a book on the case. The Alperton baby has turned eighteen; finding them will be the scoop of the year. But rival author Oliver Menzies is just as smart, better connected, and also on the baby’s trail.
As Amanda and Oliver are forced to collaborate, they realize that the truth about the Angels is much darker and stranger than they’d ever imagined, and in pursuit of the story they risk becoming part of it. (Credit: Atria Books)
The Sanctuary by Andrew Hunter Murray
Expected Publication Date: January 23
In a disintegrating and lawless near-future, a young man journeys north to a mysterious island owned by one of the world’s wealthiest men–and finds an entire new civilization waiting for him.
Ben is a painter from the crowded, turbulent city. For six months his fiancée, Cara, has been working on the remote island of Sanctuary Rock, the private estate of millionaire philanthropist Sir John Pemberley. Now she has decided to break off their engagement and stay there for good.
Ben travels to the island to try and win Cara back. After an arduous journey, he finds himself compelled to stay. But as Ben begins to traverse Pemberley’s kingdom, he begins to uncover the truth of the apparently perfect society the enigmatic Sir John is building. Is Sanctuary Rock truly a second Eden, as he claims–or a previously undiscovered level of hell? (Credit: Blackstone Publishing)
The Busy Body by Kemper Donovan
Expected Publication Date: January 23
“I tell other people’s stories for a living. . . . I nip and tuck their excesses, soften their hard edges, polish whatever an armada of editors and publicists deem unsightly till it sparkles.”
It’s a dream assignment. Former Senator Dorothy Gibson, aka that woman, is the most talked-about person in the country right now, though largely for the wrong reasons. As an independent candidate for President of the United States, Dorothy split the vote and is being blamed for the shocking result. After her very public defeat, she’s retreated to her home in rural Maine, inviting her ghostwriter to join her.
Her collaborator is impressed by Dorothy’s work ethic and steel-trap mind, not to mention the stunning surroundings (and one particularly gorgeous bodyguard). But when a neighbor dies under suspicious circumstances, Dorothy is determined to find the killer in their midst. And when Dorothy Gibson asks if you want to team up for a top secret, possibly dangerous murder investigation, the only answer is: “Of course!”
The best ghostwriters are adept at asking questions and spinning stories . . . two talents, it turns out, that also come in handy for sleuths. Dorothy’s political career, meanwhile, has made her an expert at recognizing lies and double-dealing. Working together, the two women are soon untangling motives and whittling down suspects, to the exasperation of local police. But this investigation—much like the election—may not unfold the way anyone expects .(Credit: A John Scognamiglio Book)
The Clinic by Cate Quinn
Expected Publication Date: January 23
Meg works for a casino in LA, catching cheaters and popping a few too many pain pills to cope, following a far different path than her sister Haley, a famous actress. But suddenly reports surface of Haley dying at the remote rehab facility where she had been forced to go to get her addictions under control.
There are whispers of suicide, but Meg can’t believe it. She decides that the best way to find out what happened to her sister is to check in herself – to investigate what really happened from the inside.
Battling her own addictions and figuring out the truth will be much more difficult than she imagined, far away from friends, family – and anyone who could help her. (Credit: Sourcebooks Landmark)
Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson
Expected Publication Date: January 30
When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.
The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty:
the debut writer (me!)
the forensic science writer
the blockbuster writer
the legal thriller writer
the literary writer
the psychological suspense writer
But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.
Of course, we should also know how to commit one.
How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder? (Credit: Mariner Books)
A Sweeter Song: Catharsis by Martina McGowan
Expected Publication Date: January 30
Experience the rich tapestry of life through the vibrant poetry of A Sweeter Song by Dr. Martina McGowan. This powerful collection offers a unique perspective on the lives of people of color, women, and other marginalized and oppressed people, highlighting the struggles and triumphs that shape our collective human experience.
With each verse, Dr. McGowan brings to life the complex emotions and perspectives that make us who we are, inviting readers to see the world in a new light.
From the joys of love and family to the pain of loss an injustice, A Sweeter Song is a celebration of the human spirit in all its diversity.
For those who are moved by I am the Rage, Dr. McGowan’s first award-winning poetry collection, and the seminal works of Amanda Gorman and Maya Angelou, Dr. McGowan’s newest collection offers an extraordinary glimpse into the Black experience across a range of topics. The perfect poetry gift book for women and men, A Sweeter Song is a must-read for anyone seeking to connect with the universal issues that touch us all. (Credit: Sourcebooks)
The Royal Game by Linda Keir
Expected Publication Date: January 30
American pop singer Jennie Jensen is ready to marry the love of her life, England’s Prince Hugh, but someone is determined to keep her from becoming a princess–any way they can. To give her fairy tale a happy ending, she’ll have to play the royal game.
Jennie Jensen is touring Europe, already living her dream, when Prince Hugh of Wales–the future King of England–appears at a gig and requests his favorite song. He’s already smitten, and soon so is she. After a secretive, whirlwind romance, Hugh proposes, and when Jennie accepts, her world changes overnight. She’s still learning to navigate the minefield of constant scrutiny, barbed social interactions, and royal protocol (there are rules about pantyhose), as she learns that not everyone in England is excited about the prospect of an American princess.
When Jennie receives a threatening note, she can’t help but see the parallels between herself and another young woman who struggled to adjust to royal life: Hugh’s mother, Princess Penelope, who was killed in a mysterious plane crash. And as the threats to Jennie grow more serious, she digs into Penelope’s past, discovering a woman who also suspected someone in the palace was out to get her. Was Penelope murdered? And is Jennie next? With the eyes of a nation on her as the royal wedding approaches, she’s in a race against time to save her marriage … and her own life. (Credit: Blackstone Publishing)
Prima Facie by Suzie Miller
Expected Publication Date: January 30
Tessa Ensler loves her job. She’s worked her way up to being a top criminal defense barrister against all the odds, and fights to defend those pleading not guilty. Tessa believes in the law, believes in the system. Her quick-witted cross-examinations and intelligence in the courtroom see her clocking up win after win – including securing freedom for men accused of rape and sexual assault. Innocence until proven guilty is, after all, the bedrock of a civilized society.
But when Tessa is raped by a coworker, she struggles to find the strength to bring him to justice in the face of the barriers and opposition within that same system. Determined to have her day in court, Tessa is forced to confront the stark reality that the law was not written for victims, and that she is the one on trial. She fights on, even as her evidence is manipulated to make her look like a liar, even while she is retraumatized in the stand. (Credit: Henry Holt & Company)
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