February may be the shortest month of the year (including the extra day we’re getting this year), but February 2024 is packed full of exciting new releases that will make you wish February would last a little longer. Are you interested in reading about Medieval Britain? Or do you want to read cozy mystery debut containing food and adorable cats? February books also bring romance for book lovers looking for something to read for Valentine’s Day or books celebrating diversity and Black history. Whatever you are looking for this month, February has the reads that are perfect for you to snuggle up with, especially during the cold winter nights:

Featured Book of the Month

Island Witch by Amanda Jayatissa

Expected Publication Date: February 20

Set in 19th century Sri Lanka and inspired by local folklore, the daughter of a traditional demon-priest–relentlessly bullied by peers and accused of witchcraft herself–tries to solve the mysterious attacks that have been terrorizing her coastal village.

Being the daughter of the village Capuwa, or demon-priest, Amara is used to keeping mostly to herself. Influenced by the new religious practices brought in by the British Colonizers, the villagers who once respected her father’s craft have turned on the family. Yet, they all still seem to call on him whenever supernatural disturbances arise.

Now someone–or something–is viciously seizing upon men in the jungle. But instead of enlisting Amara’s father’s help, the villages have accused him of carrying out the attacks himself.

As she tries to clear her father’s name, Amara finds herself haunted by dreams that eerily predict the dark forces on her island. And she can’t shake the feeling that it’s all connected to the night she was recovering from a strange illness, and woke up, scared and confused, to hear her mother’s frantic cries: No one can find out what happened. (Credit: Berkley Books)

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Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain by Amy Jeffs 

Wild: Tales from the Early Medieval World takes you on a journey out of the present and into the wilderness of another age. A collection of poems, tales, and deeply researched musings that explore the rich history of the Medieval wilderness of northern Europe and the mysteries and teachings that it holds. Amy Jeffs knows that if you “get lost in the wilderness, you may never be found,” so she is here to guide you through it and back home to your own wēstendream. (Credit: Andrews McMeel Publishing)

Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries, and Just One More Page Before Lights Out by Shannon Reed

We read to escape, to learn, to find love, to feel seen. We read to encounter new worlds, to discover new recipes, to find connection across difference, or simply to pass a rainy afternoon. No matter the reason, books have the power to keep us safe, to challenge us, and perhaps most importantly, to make us more fully human.

Shannon Reed, a longtime teacher, lifelong reader, and New Yorker contributor, gets it. With one simple goal in mind, she makes the case that we should read for pleasure above all else. In this whip-smart, laugh-out-loud-funny collection, Reed shares surprising stories from her life as a reader and the poignant ways in which books have impacted her students. From the varied novels she cherishes (Gone Girl, Their Eyes Were Watching God) to the ones she didn’t (Tess of the d’Urbervilles), Reed takes us on a rollicking tour through the comforting world of literature, celebrating the books we love, the readers who love them, and the ways in which literature can transform us for the better. (Credit: Hanover Square Press)

The Teacher by Freida McFadden

Eve has a good life. She gets up each day, gets a kiss from her husband Nate, and heads off to teach math at the local high school. All is as it should be. Except…

Last year, Caseham High was rocked by a scandal involving a student-teacher affair, with one student, Addie, at its center. But Eve knows there is far more to these ugly rumors than meets the eye.

Addie can’t be trusted. She lies. She hurts people. She destroys lives. At least, that’s what everyone says.

But nobody knows the real Addie. Nobody knows the secrets that could destroy her. And Addie will do anything to keep it quiet. (Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)

Dear Black Girls: How to Be True to You by A’Ja Wilson

Despite gold medals, WNBA championships, and a list of accolades, A’ja Wilson knows how it feels to be swept under the rug–to not be heard, to not feel seen, to not be taken seriously. As a fourth grader going to a primarily white school in South Carolina, A’ja was told she’d have to stay outside for a classmate’s birthday party. “Huh?” she asked. Because the birthday girl’s father didn’t like Black people.

Wilson tells stories like this, about how even when life tried to hold her down, it didn’t stop her. She shares her contribution to “The Talk,” and how to keep fighting, all while igniting strength, passion, and joy. Dear Black Girls is a necessary and meaningful exploration of what it means to be a Black woman in America today–and a rallying cry to lift up women and girls everywhere. (Credit: Flatiron Books: A Moment of Lift Book)

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead by Jenny Hollander

She has everything to live for–and everything to hide.

Nine years ago, with the world’s eyes on her, Charlie Colbert fled. The press and the police called Charlie a “witness” to the nightmarish events at her elite graduate school on Christmas Eve–events known to the public as “Scarlet Christmas”–though Charlie knows she was much more than that.

Now, Charlie has meticulously rebuilt her life: She’s the editor-in-chief of a major magazine, engaged to the golden child of the publishing industry, and hell-bent on never, ever letting her guard down again. But when a buzzy film made by one of Charlie’s former classmates threatens to shatter everything she’s worked for, Charlie realizes how much she’s changed in nine years. Now, she’s not going to let anything–not even the people she once loved most–get in her way. (Credit: Minotaur Books)

The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C. L. Miller

What antique would you kill for?

Freya Lockwood is shocked when she learns that Arthur Crockleford, antiques dealer and her estranged mentor, has died under mysterious circumstances. She has spent the last twenty years avoiding her quaint English hometown, but when she receives a letter from Arthur asking her to investigate–sent just days before his death–Freya has no choice but to return to a life she had sworn to leave behind.

Joining forces with her eccentric Aunt Carole, Freya follows clues and her instincts to an old manor house for an advertised antiques enthusiast’s weekend. But not all is as it seems. It’s clear to Freya that the antiques are all just poor reproductions and her fellow guests are secretive and menacing. What is going on at this estate and how was Arthur involved? More importantly, can Freya and Carole discover the truth before the killer strikes again? (Credit: Atria Books)

The Resort by Sara Ochs

Welcome to paradise. We hope you survive your stay…

There are three rules to follow during a vacation at the famous Koh Sang Resort

1 – Leave the past behind.

When Cass sets foot on the coast of Thailand’s world-famous party island, she’s searching for an escape. With dark secrets following her every move, Koh Sang becomes the perfect place to hide.

2 – Always be careful of who you trust.

Now, years later, Cass is a local dive instructor alongside the Permanents, a group of expats who have claimed the island as their own. The Permanents don’t linger on who they were before the island. Simply because, like Cass, they all have something to outrun.

3 – If someone discovers who you really are, run.

But suddenly, a dive student is found dead and paradise comes crashing down. Because this isn’t the first mysterious death on the island, and it won’t be the last. Someone knows who Cass is and they’re ready to make sure justice is finally served. (Credit: Sourcebooks Landmark)

Significant Others by Zoë Eisenberg

Roommates since college, Jess and Ren have built a strong–if at times codependent–friendship. Now navigating their late thirties, the women co-own a weathered beachfront home, comother a rescued shelter pup and have inadvertently centered their lives around each other.

Jess is clever and driven with a lucrative career running her own real estate brokerage. Magnetic but aimless, Ren has been making margaritas at the same local dive and teaching dance classes at the same run-down gym for well over a decade. After a one-night stand with a tourist leads to pregnancy, Ren realizes motherhood may be the change she’s been waiting for, and the friends make a plan to raise the child together.

Ren is excitedly pushing toward her due date when the baby’s father resurfaces, forcing Jess to face the foreboding notion that for the first time in eighteen years, they may not want the same thing. (Credit: Mira Books)

The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge

Sarah and Angelina Grimke–the Grimke sisters–are revered figures in American history, famous for rejecting their privileged lives on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand activists in the North. Their antislavery pamphlets, among the most influential of the antebellum era, are still read today. Yet retellings of their epic story have long obscured their Black relatives. In The Grimkes, award-winning historian Kerri Greenidge presents a parallel narrative, indeed a long-overdue corrective, shifting the focus from the white abolitionist sisters to the Black Grimkes and deepening our understanding of the long struggle for racial and gender equality.

That the Grimke sisters had Black relatives in the first place was a consequence of slavery’s most horrific reality. Sarah and Angelina’s older brother, Henry, was notoriously violent and sadistic, and one of the women he owned, Nancy Weston, bore him three sons: Archibald, Francis, and John. While Greenidge follows the brothers’ trials and exploits in the North, where Archibald and Francis became prominent members of the post-Civil War Black elite, her narrative centers on the Black women of the family, from Weston to Francis’s wife, the brilliant intellectual and reformer Charlotte Forten, to Archibald’s daughter, Angelina Weld Grimke, who channeled the family’s past into pathbreaking modernist literature during the Harlem Renaissance.

In a grand saga that spans the eighteenth century to the twentieth and stretches from Charleston to Philadelphia, Boston, and beyond, Greenidge reclaims the Black Grimkes as complex, often conflicted individuals shadowed by their origins. Most strikingly, she indicts the white Grimke sisters for their racial paternalism. They could envision the end of slavery, but they could not imagine Black equality: when their Black nephews did not adhere to the image of the kneeling and eternally grateful slave, they were cruel and relentlessly judgmental–an emblem of the limits of progressive white racial politics. (Credit: Liveright Publishing Corporation)

Girls with Bad Reputations by Xio Axelrod

Once upon a time, the pressure to be the perfect daughter nearly broke Kayla Whitman. Desperate to find an outlet away from her controlling mother, she picked up a pair of drumsticks, forever altering the rhythm of her life. Since then, she’s been determined to make her own way, finding her home with her bandmates even as she fights to keep her past and her present firmly separate.

Things were simple enough when the Lillys were playing local gigs at dive bars, but now they’re on their first official tour–and all Kayla can see are warning signs. Desperate to escape the worry churning inside her, Kayla finds solace in quiet tour bus driver Ty Baldwin…and discovers in him a kindred spirit like no one she’s ever met before.

Their connection is immediate and intense, but when increasing scrutiny from the press threatens to destroy Ty’s newfound peace and Kayla’s carefully guarded secrets, Kayla’s forced to make an impossible choice: pursue her dream and risk destroying everyone around her? Or give in and lose the chance of ever becoming the person she’s always known she could be. (Credit: Sourcebooks Casablanca)

The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown

Expected Publication Date: February 13

Cassie Andrews works in a New York City bookshop, shelving books, making coffee for customers, and living an unassuming, ordinary life. Until the day one of her favorite customers–a lonely yet charming old man–dies right in front of her. Cassie is devastated. She always loved his stories, and now she has nothing to remember him by. Nothing but the last book he was reading.

But this is no ordinary book…

It is the Book of Doors.

Inscribed with enigmatic words and mysterious drawings, it promises Cassie that any door is every door. You just need to know how to open them.

Then she’s approached by a gaunt stranger in a rumpled black suit with a Scottish brogue who calls himself Drummond Fox. He’s a librarian who keeps watch over a unique set of rare volumes. The tome now in Cassie’s possession is not the only book with great power, but it is the one most coveted by those who collect them.

Now Cassie is being hunted by those few who know of the Special Books. With only her roommate Izzy to confide in, she has to decide if she will help the mysterious and haunted Drummond protect the Book of Doors–and the other books in his secret library’s care–from those who will do evil. Because only Drummond knows where the unique library is and only Cassie’s book can get them there.

But there are those willing to kill to obtain those secrets. And a dark force–in the form of a shadowy, sadistic woman–is at the very top of that list. (Credit: William Morrow & Company)

Medea by Eilish Quin

Expected Publication Date: February 13

Known for the brutal act of killing her own children to exact vengeance on her deceitful husband, the Argonauts leader Jason, Medea has carved out a singularly infamous niche in our histories.

But what if that isn’t the full story?

The daughter of a sea nymph and the granddaughter of a Titan, Medea is a paradox. She is at once rendered compelling by virtue of the divinity that flows through her bloodline and made powerless by the fact of her being a woman. As a child, she intuitively submerges herself in witchcraft and sorcery, but soon finds it may not be a match for the prophecies that hang over her entire family like a shroud.

As Medea comes into her own as a woman and a witch, she also faces the arrival of the hero Jason, preordained by the gods to be not only her husband, but also her lifeline to escape her isolated existence. Medea travels the treacherous seas with the Argonauts, battles demons she had never conceived of, and falls in love with the man who may ultimately be her downfall. (Credit: Atria Books)

This Is How You Fall in Love by Anika Hussain

Expected Publication Date: February 13

Zara loves love in all forms: rom-coms and romance novels and grand sweeping gestures. She’s desperate to have her own great love story-a real one.

Everyone thinks Zara and her best friend, Adnan, obviously belong together. And they do love each other-just not like that. So when Adnan begs Zara to help cover his new, secret relationship by pretending to be his girlfriend, she doesn’t really hesitate. How difficult can it be? It isn’t the kind of great romance she had in mind, but with fake dating comes fake hand-holding and fake kissing and . . . real feelings?

And when a new, exciting boy arrives in Zara’s life, things get more confusing than ever. Her fake romance might be making everyone around her happy, but should it be real, and can Zara and Adnan really be in love if they both have real feelings for somone else? (Credit: Bloomsbury YA)

The Framed Women of Ardemore House by Brandy Schillace

Expected Publication Date: February 13

Jo Jones has always had a little trouble fitting in. As a neurodivergent, hyperlexic book editor and divorced New Yorker transplanted into the English countryside, Jo doesn’t know what stands out more: her Americanisms or her autism.

After losing her job, her mother, and her marriage all in one year, she couldn’t be happier to take possession of a possibly haunted (and clearly unwanted) family estate in North Yorkshire. But when the body of the moody town groundskeeper turns up on her rug with three bullets in his back, Jo finds herself in potential danger–and she’s also a potential suspect. At the same time, a peculiar family portrait vanishes from a secret room in the manor, bearing a strange connection to both the dead body and Jo’s mysterious family history.

With the aid of a Welsh antiques dealer, the morose local detective, and the Irish innkeeper’s wife, Jo embarks on a mission to clear herself of blame and find the missing painting, unearthing a slew of secrets about the town–and herself–along the way. And she’ll have to do it all before the killer strikes again…(Credit: Hanover Square Press)

Hebridean Baker: At Home: Flavors & Folklore from the Scottish Islands by Coinneach MacLeod

Expected Publication Date: February 13

Fàilte! I’m Coinneach, and this is my Hebridean home…

In my kitchen, flavors become stories, bakes become family favorites and recipes are shared with friends from across the islands. Join me where the rolling hills of the Hebrides meet the rolling pins of my kitchen! For this book, I travelled from Islay, via Barra, Uist, Berneray and Harris before arriving home to Lewis. I’ve shared recipes and stories that have been handed down through the generations, bakes that celebrate the flavors of Scotland and simple dishes that you can whip up from your store cupboard ingredients.

The Hebridean Baker at Home is filled with comforting cakes and bakes from his Double Dram Cake to Marmalade Shortbread, Fern Cake to Ecclefechan Tarts. Alongside delicious, hearty savory dishes, including Leek Bread & Butter Pudding and Salmon Wellington, which are served up with a chapter full of Celtic recipes and signature Christmas bakes.

Fasten your apron, switch the oven on, and prepare to embark on an adventure that will transport you to the heart of the Hebrides from your very own kitchen. Welcome to my home. Welcome to my kitchen. (Credit: Sourcebooks)

Sex, Lies and Sensibility by Nikki Payne

Expected Publication Date: February 13

Two sisters roll up their sleeves to run a dilapidated inn but must learn to work with the locals in this deliciously spicy novel inspired by Sense and Sensibility.

There’s never a good time to learn you are your father’s secret child–especially not at the reading of his will. With their father’s affairs laid bare and Nora’s sensible reputation in tatters due to a viral video scandal, she and her free-spirited sister have nothing left but a rustic inn in the middle of nowhere and each other. What’s more, they need to revamp the inn before Labor Day or they lose it all. Nora hasn’t even knocked the traveling dust off last season’s designer boots when she’s confronted with three problems:

1. She really should have watched more HGTV.
2. She hasn’t seen another Black person for miles.
3. A tall, dark stranger has already staked a claim on their property.

Native Abenaki eco-tour guide Ennis “Bear” Freeman has seen hapless tourists come and go. When he spots two pampered city girls at his unofficial headquarters, he expects them to catch a flight out of the inhospitable coastal Maine backwoods within a week’s time. But Nora, turns out, is made of sterner stuff. And as she rolls up her sleeves to breathe new life into the inn, she unwittingly reignites a flood of emotions inside of Bear that he had very intentionally suppressed.

Their connection is electric, their desire palpable. But Bear’s silence about his mysterious past might turn out to be the one thing that sends Nora packing. (Credit: Berkley Books)

The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai and translated by Jesse Kirkwood

Expected Publication Date: February 13

What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?

Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that’s not the main reason customers stop by . . .The father-daughter duo are ‘food detectives’. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories – dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility. (Credit: G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

Latinoland: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority by Marie Arana

Expected Publication Date: February 20

LatinoLand is an exceptional, all-encompassing overview of Hispanic America based on personal interviews, deep research, and Marie Arana’s life experience as a Latina. At present, Latinos comprise 20 percent of the US population, a number that is growing. By 2050, census reports project that one in every three Americans will claim Latino heritage.

But Latinos are not a monolith. They do not represent a single group. The largest numbers are Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, and Cubans. Each has a different cultural and political background. Puerto Ricans, for example, are US citizens, whereas some Mexican Americans never immigrated because the US-Mexico border shifted after the US invasion of 1848, incorporating what is now the entire southwest of the United States. Cubans came in two great waves: those escaping communism in the early years of Castro, many of whom were professionals and wealthy, and those permitted to leave in the Mariel boat lift twenty years later, representing some of the poorest Cubans, including prisoners.

As LatinoLand shows, Latinos were some of the earliest immigrants to what is now the US–some of them arriving in the 1500s. They are racially diverse–a random fusion of White, Black, Indigenous, and Asian. Once overwhelmingly Catholic, they are becoming increasingly Protestant and Evangelical. They range from domestic workers and day laborers to successful artists, corporate CEOs, and US senators. Formerly solidly Democratic, they now vote Republican in growing numbers. They are as varied culturally as any immigrants from Europe or Asia.(Credit: Simon & Schuster)

All The Rage by Cara Hunter

Expected Publication Date: February 20

After being abducted and assaulted, a teenage girl somehow managed to escape from her captor. She is traumatized and needs to heal, but the police need her help to catch her assailant–information she clearly knows, but is unwilling to give.

Without the girl’s assistance, DI Adam Fawley’s investigation is at a dead end. When another girl vanishes under the same circumstances, he recognizes a disturbing pattern–and a link to something long buried in his past. . . (Credit: William Morrow & Company)

Where They Lie by Claire Coughlan

Expected Publication Date: February 20

Some stories demand to be told. They keep coming back, echoing down through the decades, until they find a teller . . .

Dublin, 1943. Actress Julia Bridges disappears. She was last seen entering the house of Gloria Fitzpatrick, who is later put on trial for the murder of a woman whose abortion she facilitated. But it’s never proved that Gloria had a hand in Julia’s death–and Julia’s body has never been found. Gloria, however, is sentenced to life in an institution for the criminally insane, where she’s found dead a few years later from an apparent suicide, and the truth of what happened to Julia Bridges dies with her.

Until . . .

Dublin, 1968. Nicoletta Sarto is an ambitious junior reporter for the Irish Sentinel when the bones of Julia Bridges are discovered in the garden of a house on the outskirts of the city. Drawn into investigating the 25-year-old mystery of Julia’s disappearance and her link to the notorious Gloria Fitzpatrick, Nicoletta becomes immersed in the tangled underworld of the illegal abortion industry, stirring up long-buried secrets from her own past. (Credit: Harper Perennial)

A Step Past Darkness by Vera Kurian

Expected Publication Date: February 20

SIX CLASSMATES. ONE TERRIFYING NIGHT. A MURDER TWENTY YEARS IN THE MAKING…

There’s something sinister under the surface of the idyllic, suburban town of Wesley Falls, and it’s not just the abandoned coal mine that lies beneath it. The summer of 1995 kicks off with a party in the mine where six high school students witness a horrifying crime that changes the course of their lives.

The six couldn’t be more different.

• Maddy, a devout member of the local megachurch
• Kelly, the bookworm next door
• James, a cynical burnout
• Casey, a loveable football player
• Padma, the shy straight-A student
• Jia, who’s starting to see visions she can’t explain

When they realize that they can’t trust anyone but each other, they begin to investigate what happened on their own. As tensions escalate in town to a breaking point, the six make a vow of silence, bury all their evidence, and promise to never contact each other again. Their plan works – almost.

Twenty years later, Jia calls them all back to Wesley Falls–Maddy has been murdered, and they are the only ones who can uncover why. But to end things, they have to return to the mine one last time. (Credit: Park Row)

Crime and Cherry Pits by Amanda Flower

Expected Publication Date: February 20

Shiloh Bellamy can hardly believe it–for the first time in her family farm’s seventy-year history, she has managed to score a highly-coveted booth at the Cherry Farm Market in Traverse City, Michigan. It’s a huge win in her master plan to bring the rundown farm back to life… and the fact that her coup has sent her next-door neighbor and organic farming competitor into fits of jealousy doesn’t hurt, either. But the festive atmosphere at the farm market takes a dark turn when a man entered in the famous cherry pit-spitting competition chokes and dies right in front of Shiloh, who is standing near the sidelines as a spectator.

When the death turns out to be more suspicious than a cherry pit down the wrong pipe, Shiloh finds herself under local law enforcement’s microscope–she has developed something of a reputation for being unwittingly involved in local murders. And when they discover her cousin Stacey had been secretly dating the man in question–and that he was married to someone else–Shiloh begins to worry that everything she has worked so hard to accomplish with her family’s farm is about to be taken away. It will take all her investigative skills, a tenuous friendship (or is it something more?) with the local sheriff, and some help from Shiloh’s trusty pug, Huckleberry, to prove the cops are barking up the wrong cherry tree and put the real killer behind bars for good. (Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)

The Temple of Persephone by Isabella Kamal

Expected Publication Date: February 20

Persephone Honeyfield is witty, intelligent, and very aware that the only way to escape the monotony of the life she shares with her father and sister in the English countryside–and the wagging, ever-critical tongues of the people around her–is through marriage. She also knows the likelihood of it being a love match is nearly zero.

Aidon Barrington has carried on the legacy of his family’s funeral furnishing business, losing himself in the process. A shell of his former charming self, he’s traded his reputation as a rake for that of a recluse and regularly appears in the scandal sheets as London’s mysterious Lord of the Dead.

When Persephone finds herself at Gallowsgate–the old Barrington estate–on a seemingly simple errand, an unexpected run-in with the Lord of the Dead himself leaves her on the brink of ruination. With no other way to silence the village rumor mill, or save her sister’s reputation, Persephone agrees to marry Aidon, becoming the wife of a man she hardly knows.

Persephone finds herself increasingly fascinated by her new husband, whose kind, patient nature stands in stark contrast to the ever-swirling rumors about him. But when the gossip begins to sound more like reality than fiction, she attempts to uncover the truth behind the Lord of the Dead while discovering she may have already lost her most guarded possession: her heart. (Credit: Blackstone Publishing)

Miss Austen Investigates: The Hapless Milliner by Jessica Bull

Expected Publication Date: February 27

Jane Austen–sparkling, spirited, and incredibly clever–is suddenly thrust into a mystery when a milliner’s dead body is found locked inside a cupboard in the middle of a ball. When Jane’s brother Georgy is found with some jewelry belonging to the deceased, the local officials see it as an open-and-shut case: one which is likely to end with his death. Jane is certain that he is innocent, and there is more to the murder than meets the eye. Her investigations send her on a journey through local society, as Jane’s suspect list keeps on growing– and her keen observational skills of people will be put to the test to solve the crime and save her brother. (Credit:
Union Square & Co.)

My Name Was Eden by Eleanor Barker-White

Expected Publication Date: February 27

One twin vanished. The other twin remained. Until now…

When her daughter Eden came home from the hospital, Lucy was profoundly relieved. Eden had survived a drowning incident and had no apparent brain damage, no serious injuries, not even a scratch on her. Lucy fervently welcomed having a second chance at being the good mother she should have been before her teenager’s accident.

Until Eden tells her that Eden isn’t her name. Until she starts calling herself Eli. The name Lucy had reserved for Eden’s unborn twin.

Don’t worry, says the doctor. Eden is completely fine, says her husband. Of course I’m fine, Eden says, with that strange new smile of hers. I didn’t die. I’m here.

But Lucy knows something’s very wrong with Eden. She’s not her maddening, complicated teenage girl anymore–this straight-backed, even tempered, steady-eyed child in her house is someone else entirely. Eden, it seems, is the twin who disappeared… (Credit: William Morrow & Company)

Tender Beasts by Liselle Sambury

Expected Publication Date: February 27

Sunny Behre has four siblings, but only one is a murderer.

With the death of Sunny’s mother, matriarch of the wealthy Behre family, Sunny’s once picture-perfect life is thrown into turmoil. Her mother had groomed her to be the family’s next leader, so Sunny is confused when the only instructions her mother leaves is a mysterious note: “Take care of Dom.”

The problem is, her youngest brother, Dom, has always been a near-stranger to Sunny…and seemingly a dangerous one, if found guilty of his second-degree murder charge. Still, Sunny is determined to fulfill her mother’s dying wish. But when a classmate is gruesomely murdered, and Sunny finds her brother with blood on his hands, her mother’s simple request becomes a lot more complicated. Dom swears he’s innocent, and although Sunny isn’t sure she believes him, she takes it upon herself to look into the murder–made all the more urgent by the discovery of another body. And another.

As Sunny and Dom work together to track down the culprit, Sunny realizes her other siblings have their own dark secrets. Soon she may have to choose: preserve the family she’s always loved or protect the brother she barely knows–and risk losing everything her mother worked so hard to build. (Credit: Margaret K. McElderry Books)

Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History by Philippa Gregory

Expected Publication Date: February 27

Did you know that there are more penises than women in the Bayeux Tapestry? That the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was started and propelled by women who were protesting a tax on women? Or that celebrated naturalist Charles Darwin believed not just that women were naturally inferior to men, but that they’d evolve to become ever more inferior?

These are just a few of the startling findings you will learn from reading Philippa Gregory’s Normal Women. In this ambitious and groundbreaking book, she tells the story of England over 900 years, for the very first time placing women–some fifty per cent of the population–center stage.

Using research skills honed in her work as one of our foremost historical novelists, Gregory trawled through court records, newspapers, and journals to find highwaywomen and beggars, murderers and brides, housewives and pirates, female husbands and hermits. The “normal women” you will meet in these pages went to war, ploughed the fields, campaigned, wrote, and loved. They rode in jousts, flew Spitfires, issued their own currency, and built ships, corn mills and houses. They committed crimes or treason, worshipped many gods, cooked and nursed, invented things, and rioted. A lot. (Credit: HarperOne)

Once Persuaded, Twice Shy: A Modern Reimagining of Persuasion by Melodie Edwards

Expected Publication Date: February 27

When Anne Elliott broke up with Ben Wentworth, it seemed like the right thing to do . . . but now, eight years later, she’s not so sure.

In her scenic hometown of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Anne is comfortable focusing on her successful career: filling her late mother’s shoes as town councilor and executive director of her theater company. She certainly keeps busy as the all-around wrangler of eccentric locals, self-centered family members, elaborate festivals, and the occasional attacking goose. But the more she tries to convince herself that her life is fine as is, the more it all feels like a show–and not nearly as good as the ones put on by her theater company. She’s the always responsible Anne, always taken for granted and cleaning up after other people, and the memories of happier times with Ben Wentworth still haunt her.

So when the nearby Kellynch Winery is bought by Ben’s aunt and uncle, Anne’s world is set ablaze as her old flame crashes back into her life–and it’s clear he hasn’t forgiven her for breaking his heart. A joint project between the winery and Anne’s theater forces both Ben and Anne to confront their complicated history, and as they spend more time together, Anne can’t help but wonder if there might be hope for their future after all. (Credit: Berkley Books)

A Haunting in the Arctic by C.J. Cooke

Expected Publication Date: February 27

The year is 1901, and Nicky is attacked, then wakes on board the Ormen, a whaling ship embarked on what could be its last voyage. With land still weeks away, it’s just her, the freezing ocean, and the crew – and they’re all owed something only she can give them…Now, over one hundred years later, the wreck of the Ormen has washed up on the forbidding, remote coast of Iceland. It’s scheduled to be destroyed, but explorer Dominique feels an inexplicable pull to document its last days, even though those who have ventured onto the wreck before her have met uncanny ends.

Onboard the boat, Dominique will uncover a dark past riddled with lies, cruelty, and murder–and her discovery will change everything. Because she’ll soon realize she’s not alone. Something has walked the floors of the Ormen for almost a century. Something that craves revenge. (Credit: Berkley Books)

I Only Read Murder by Will Ferguson and Ian Ferguson

Expected Publication Date: February 27

A once-famous TV sleuth
An amateur theater production
An onstage murder
A town full of suspects…

Miranda Abbott, once known for the crime-solving, karate-chopping church pastor she played on network television, has hit hard times. She’s facing ruin when a mysterious postcard arrives, summoning her to Happy Rock, a small town in the Pacific Northwest. But when she gets there, nothing is what she expected.

In dire straits, she signs up for an amateur production at the Happy Rock Little Theater. On opening night, one of the actors is murdered, live, in front of the audience. But no one actually saw what happened. Now everyone is under a cloud of suspicion, including the town doctor, the high school drama teacher, an oil-stained car mechanic, an elderly gentleman who may have been in the CIA–and Miranda herself.

Clearly, the only way to solve this mystery is for Miranda to summon her skills as television’s Pastor Fran. Because the show must go on! (Credit: Mira Books)

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