Week of Feb. 4, 2025 | New fiction book releases
Happy February! We are kicking off the month with a great lineup—several amazing authors are releasing much-anticipated new titles this week, and I’ve personally got my eye on several from new authors as well. I hope you enjoy this week’s selection!
I’m also quite excited to share that I’ve been working to produce the ‘Bookish gifts’ section of this site… and it’s now ready! Take a moment to go check it out. I made sure to include a few great items that you can pick up for yourself (or a fellow book lover) to celebrate Valentine’s and Galantine’s day.
Enjoy perusing this week’s selection!
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New book releases this week
Thriller and mystery
A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall
Suspense | Goodreads rating: 3.93
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A woman invited to her wealthy fiance’s family retreat realizes they are hiding a terrible secret—and that she’s been there before, by the bestselling author of What Lies in the Woods.
A whirlwind romance.
When Theodora Scott met Connor—wealthy, charming, and a member of the powerful Dalton family—she fell in love in an instant. Six months later, he’s brought her to Idlewood, his family’s isolated winter retreat, to win over his skeptical relatives.
Stay away from Connor Dalton.
Theo has tried to ignore the threatening messages on her phone, but she can’t ignore the footprints in the snow outside the cabin window or the strange sense of familiarity she has about this place. Then, in a disused cabin, Theo finds something impossible: a photo of herself as a child. A photo taken at Idlewood.
I’ve been here before.
Theo has almost no recollection of her earliest years, but now she begins to piece together the fragments of her memories. Someone here has a shocking secret that they will do anything to keep hidden, and Theo is in terrible danger. Because the Daltons do not lose, and discovering what happened at Idlewood may cost Theo everything.
A Long Time Gone by Joshua Moehling
Suspense | Goodreads rating: 4.38
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It's time to put the past to rest…
Ben Packard was just a boy when his older brother disappeared. Ben watched him walk out the back door of their grandparents' house and into the cold night.
His brother was never seen again.
Decades later, Deputy Packard finds himself with too much time on his hands. A shooting has him on leave and under investigation, and for the first time in years, new information about his brother has surfaced that may lead them to the location of a body.
The midwinter ground is frozen solid. Worse, Packard is cut off from department resources. As he strikes out to finally uncover the truth behind his brother's disappearance, he stumbles on a separate, suspicious death. A tenuous connection exists between the two cases, and as Packard starts to dig, he meets fierce resistance from friends and foes alike who want him to stand down.
The winter is long and cold. By the end of it, Packard will risk everything to catch a killer and reveal the shocking truth about his brother.
Bonded in Death by J. D. Robb
Mystery | Goodreads rating: 4.59
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The #1 New York Times bestselling author spins an epic tale of loyalty, treachery, murder, and the long shadow of war…
His passport read Giovanni Rossi. But decades ago, during the Urban Wars, he was part of a small, secret organization called The Twelve. Responding to an urgent summons from an old compatriot, he landed in New York and eased into the waiting car. And died within minutes…
Lieutenant Eve Dallas finds the Rossi case frustrating. She’s got an elderly victim who’d just arrived from Rome; a widow who knows nothing about why he’d left; an as-yet unidentifiable weapon; and zero results on facial recognition. But when she finds a connection to the Urban Wars of the 2020s, she thinks Summerset―fiercely loyal, if somewhat grouchy, major-domo and the man who’d rescued her husband from the Dublin streets―may know something from his stint as a medic in Europe back then.
When Summerset learns of the crime, his shock and grief are clear―because, as he eventually reveals, he himself was one of The Twelve. It’s not a part of his past he likes to revisit. But now he must―not only to assist Eve’s investigation, but because a cryptic message from the killer has boasted that others of The Twelve have also died. Summerset is one of those who remain―and the murderous mission is yet to be fully accomplished…
The Department by Jacqueline Faber
Psychological thriller | Goodreads rating: 4.29
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Some secrets we keep even from ourselves
Philosophy professor Neil Weber can' t think of one good reason to get up in the morning. His wife has left him, his academic research has sputtered, and the prospect of tenure is more remote than ever.
Until Lucia Vanotti disappears.
A college student at the Southern university where Neil teaches, Lucia has a secret of her own— one that haunts her relationships and leads to destructive, reckless behavior. When Neil is drawn into the mystery of her disappearance, he finds himself suddenly relevant again. But at what cost? Each clue pulls him deeper into Lucia' s dark past, but also into the hidden lives of his closest friends and colleagues.
What drove Lucia to risk everything? And why does Neil, a professor who hardly knew her, care to find her? From campus classrooms to sex dens to backwoods hideaways, The Department shows the world through the eyes of Lucia and Neil as they descend into obsession, delusion, and the dangerous terrain of memory— uncovering the trauma that drives them to behave in ways even they themselves could never have predicted.
Contemporary, literary & women’s fiction
Diana in Love by Jen Besser and Shana Feste
Women’s fiction | Goodreads rating: 4.29
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A woman travels to Paris where she reconnects with a man from her past and reclaims the wild, sensual woman she used to be--the second book in the Dirty Diana series, based on the #1 fiction podcast starring Demi Moore.
Diana Wood has thrown her life in the garbage disposal and flipped the switch. Everything is a mess. After years of watching her safe, steady marriage grow strained, she and her husband, Oliver, decided to separate. Now, he’s embarked on a new career and what seems to be a satisfying dating life, while she’s eating cereal for dinner in an empty kitchen after her daughter has gone to bed.
When an important client asks Diana to come to Paris, she jumps at the opportunity--and not only for professional reasons. Paris will afford Diana the time and space she needs to reflect on her next steps, especially her plans for the website she recently launched that showcases women sharing their deepest, most secret fantasies--a site that is quickly growing in popularity. And just maybe, Jasper, the seductive, elusive man from Diana’s past--the man who truly lit her up in every way--will be in Paris at the same time.
Diana and her two best friends travel to the City of Lights, where Diana indulges every one of her desires--culinary, artistic, and sensual. But no vacation lasts forever. When Diana returns to Dallas, she must confront the still-raw feelings she has for her husband, and decide once and for Is it possible to be the spontaneous, creative, fully alive woman she rediscovered in Paris?
We, the Kindling by Otoniya J. Okot Bitek
Style | Goodreads rating: 4.22
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A concise, searing novel centred around the unforgettable voices of schoolgirls in Uganda who survive capture by the Lord's Resistance Army.In northern Uganda in the 1990s, girls as young as eleven were abducted from schools and homes by the Lord’s Resistance Army and thrust into the horrors of war. Facing long, perilous treks, gun battles, and underage marriages, while forced to be pawns in political machinations they did not understand, many did not survive. Those who did make it through continue to bear the physical and psychological weight of these terrors.As We, the Kindling begins, we meet Miriam and Helen, two survivors who are now in their twenties but haunted by their years in forced servitude to the Army. In spare, graceful, yet unflinching prose the novel weaves past with present, layering folk tales with taut realism to reveal the rhythm of the girls’ lives before the war, unspooling the circumstances of their abductions and tracing their harrowing journeys home again. Reminiscent of The Buddha in the Attic, this is a luminous novel, full of life and care, that insistently refuses to spectacularize brutality and tragedy.
The Snowbirds by Christina Clancy
Contemporary fiction | Goodreads rating: 3.70
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The Last Thing He Told Me meets Fleishman Is in Trouble in this page-turning story of a couple who flee winter in the Midwest for Palm Springs, where they find their relationship at a crossroads.
Kim and Grant are at a turning point. A couple for thirty years, their "separate but together" partnership is running up against the realities of late middle age: Grant’s mother has died, the college where he taught philosophy was shuttered, and their twin girls are grown and gone. Escaping the bitter cold of a Midwestern winter for the hot desert sun of Palm Springs seems as good a solution as any to the more intractable problems they face.
When they arrive at Le Desert, a quirky condo community where everyone knows everyone’s business, Kim immediately embraces the opportunity to make new friends and explore a more adventurous side of her personality. Meanwhile, Grant struggles to find his footing in this unfamiliar landscape, leaving Kim to wonder if their relationship can survive the snowbird season. But when Grant goes missing on a hike in the Palm Springs mountains, Kim is forced to consider two terrifying outcomes: either Grant is truly lost, or this time he’s really left her.
Is it ever too late to become the person we wanted to be—and is there still time to change into someone better? The exhilarating, but often confusing transitions of midlife are pitched against the promise and glamour of Palm Springs in this tender, honest story of what it takes to commit to someone for a lifetime. With compassion and humor, Clancy explores the redemptive power of finding ourselves, and of being found.
Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey
Literary fiction | Goodreads rating: 4.33
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Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Snow Child Eowyn Ivey returns to the mythical landscapes of Alaska with an unforgettable dark fairy tale that asks the question: Can love save us from ourselves?
Birdie’s keeping it together; of course she is. So she’s a little hungover, sometimes, and she has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, but she’s getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature.
Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie, he represents everything she’s ever longed for. She finds herself falling for Arthur and the land he knows so well.
Against the warnings of those who care about them, Birdie and Emaleen move to his isolated cabin in the mountains, on the far side of the Wolverine River.
It’s just the three of them in the vast black woods, far from roads, telephones, electricity, and outside contact, but Birdie believes she has come prepared. At first, it’s idyllic and she can picture a happily ever after: Together they catch salmon, pick berries, and climb mountains so tall it’s as if they could touch the bright blue sky. But soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she could have ever imagined, and that like the Alaska wilderness, a fairy tale can be as dark as it is beautiful.
Black Woods, Blue Sky is a novel with life-and-death stakes, about the love between a mother and daughter, and the allure of a wild life—about what we gain and what it might cost us.
This Is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer
Literary fiction | Goodreads rating: 3.66
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An intimate and lyrical celebration of great love, great art, and the sacrifices we make for both
For fifty years Abe and Jane have been coming to Central Park, as starry-eyed young lovers, as frustrated and exhausted parents, as artists watching their careers take flight. They came alone when they needed to get away from each other, and together when they had something important to discuss. The Park has been their witness for half a century of love. Until now.
Jane is dying, and Abe is recounting their life together as a way of keeping them going: the parts they knew—their courtship and early marriage, their blossoming creative lives—and the parts they didn’t always want to know—the determined young student of Abe’s looking for a love story of her own, and their son, Max, who believes his mother chose art over parenthood and who has avoided love and intimacy at all costs. Told in various points of view, even in conversation with Central Park itself, these voices weave in and out to paint a portrait as complicated and essential as love itself.
Historical fiction
Punished by Ann-Helén Laestadius
Historical fiction | Goodreads rating: 4.15
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From the internationally bestselling author of the “extraordinary” (Fredrik Backman) novel Stolen comes a harrowing story—inspired by true events—of five Indigenous children forced to attend a government-run boarding school in 1950s Sweden, revealing the emotional scars they carry thirty years later.
In the 1950s near the Arctic Circle, seven-year-olds Jon-Ante, Else-Maj, Nilsa, Marge, and Anne-Risten are taken from their families. As children of Sámi reindeer herders, the Swedish state has mandated they attend a “nomad school” where they are forbidden to speak their native language. As the children visit home only sporadically, their parents know little about the abuse they face, much of it at the hands of the housemother, Rita. Those who dare to speak up are silenced.
Thirty years later, the five children have chosen different paths to cope with the past. Else-Maj holds strong in her Sámi identity but has turned to religion for comfort, while Anne-Risten now goes by Anne to hide her heritage from friends. Nilsa herds reindeer like his father but harbors a lot of anger, and Jon-Ante struggles with traumatic memories from the school. Then there’s Marge, who is about to adopt a daughter from Colombia, but can’t help questioning if it’s right to take a child from her homeland.
Then suddenly, housemother Rita reappears. Now an old, frail woman claiming to have God on her side, she acts like nothing ever happened. But the five former students have neither forgotten nor forgiven her. As the narrative shifts between each of their perspectives, the novel If you had the chance to punish the person who hurt you as a child, would you?
Based on the author’s family story, Punished is a searing novel about loss, memory, cultural erasure, and community that vibrates with righteous rage over one nation’s greatest betrayals of its native people.
Last Twilight in Paris by Pam Jenoff
Historical fiction | Goodreads rating: 4.30
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A Parisian department store, a mysterious necklace and a woman’s quest to unlock a decade-old mystery are at the center of this riveting novel of love and survival, from New York Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff
London, 1953. Louise is still adjusting to her postwar role as a housewife when she discovers a necklace in a box at a secondhand shop. The box is marked with the name of a department store in Paris, and she is certain she has seen the necklace before when she worked with the Red Cross in Nazi-occupied Europe —and that it holds the key to the mysterious death of her friend Franny during the war.
Following the trail of clues to Paris, Louise seeks help from her former boss Ian, with whom she shares a romantic history. The necklace leads them to discover the dark history of Lévitan—a once-glamorous department store that served as a Nazi prison, and Helaine, a woman who was imprisoned there, torn apart from her husband when the Germans invaded France.
Louise races to find the connection between the necklace, the department store and Franny’s death. But nothing is as it seems, and there are forces determined to keep the truth buried forever. Inspired by the true story of Lévitan, Last Twilight in Paris is both a gripping mystery and an unforgettable story about sacrifice, resistance and the power of love to transcend in even the darkest hours.
Isola by Allegra Goodman
Historical fiction | Goodreads rating: 4.31
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A young woman and her lover are marooned on an island in this epic saga of love, faith, and defiance from the bestselling author of Sam.
Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. Isolated and afraid, Marguerite befriends her guardian’s servant and the two develop an intense attraction. But when their relationship is discovered, they are brutally punished and abandoned on a small island with no hope for rescue.
Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she’d never before needed.
Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.
Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray
Historical fiction | Goodreads rating: 4.28
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The extraordinary story of Jessie Redmon Fauset whose exhilarating world of friends, rivals, and passions all combined to create the magic that was the Harlem Renaissance, written by Victoria Christopher Murray, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian.
In 1919, as civil and social unrest grips the country, there is a little corner of America, a place called Harlem where something special is stirring. Here, the New Negro is rising and Black pride is evident everywhere…in music, theatre, fashion and the arts. And there on stage in the center of this renaissance is Jessie Redmon Fauset, the new literary editor of the preeminent Negro magazine The Crisis.
W.E.B. Du Bois, the founder and editor of The Crisis, has charged her with discovering young writers whose words will change the world. Jessie attacks the challenge with fervor, quickly finding sixteen-year-old Countee Cullen, seventeen-year-old Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends. Under Jessie’s leadership, The Crisis thrives, the writers become notable and magazine subscriptions soar. Every Negro writer in the country wants their work published in the magazine now known for its groundbreaking poetry and short stories.
Jessie’s rising star is shining bright….but her relationship with W.E.B. could jeopardize all that she’s built. The man, considered by most to be the leader of Black America, is not only Jessie’s boss, he’s her lover. And neither his wife, nor their fourteen-year-age difference can keep the two apart. Their torrid and tumultuous affair is complicated by a secret desire that Jessie harbors — to someday, herself, become the editor of the magazine, a position that only W.E.B. Du Bois has held.
In the face of overwhelming sexism and racism, Jessie must balance her drive with her desires. However, as she strives to preserve her legacy, she’ll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success.
A Forty Year Kiss by Nickolas Butler
Historical fiction | Goodreads rating: 3.74
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From the critically acclaimed author of Shotgun Lovesongs comes an exquisitely written, small-town story about one couple's hard-won second chance at love, forty years after their divorce.
Charlie and Vivian parted ways after just four years of marriage. Too many problems, too many struggles, even though the love didn't quite die. When Charlie returns to Wisconsin forty years later, he's not sure what he'll find. He is sure of one thing -- he must try to reconnect with Vivian to pick up the broken pieces of their past. But forty years is a long time. It's forty years of other relationships, forty years of building new lives, and forty years of long-held regrets, mistakes, and painful secrets.
A brave and triumphant exploration of redemption and sunset triumph, A Forty Year Kiss is a once-in-a-lifetime love story, written with dazzling lyricism and remarkable clarity of spirit, from a celebrated author at the top of his game. It's a literary valentine that promises to be a love story for the ages.
Romance
Deep End by Ali Hazelwood
Sports romance | Goodreads rating: 4.39
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A competitive diver and an ace swimmer jump into forbidden waters in this steamy college romance from the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis.
Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. She has no time for relationships—at least, that’s what she tells herself.
Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy, Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records: complete focus, with every stroke. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common. Until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes.
So they start an arrangement. And as the pressure leading to the Olympics heats up, so does their relationship. It was supposed to be just a temporary, mutually satisfying fling. But when staying away from Lukas becomes impossible, Scarlett realizes that her heart might be treading into dangerous water...
Dream Girl Drama by Tessa Bailey
Sports romance | Goodreads rating: 3.86
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A steamy chance encounter between a professional hockey player and the manic pixie dream girl he just can’t seem to forget takes a turn when the pair realize that their parents are engaged—in an all-new rom-com by #1 New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey.
When professional hockey player Sig Gauthier’s car breaks down and his phone dies, he treks into a posh private country club to call a tow truck, where he encounters the alluring Chloe Clifford, the manic pixie dream girl who captivates him immediately with her sense of adventure and penchant for stealing champagne.
Sparks fly during a moonlight kiss and the enamored pair can’t wait to see each other again, but when Sig finally arrives to meet his dad’s new girlfriend over dinner, Chloe is confusingly also there. Turns out the girlfriend is Chloe’s mother. Oh, and they’re engaged.
Sig’s dream girl is his future stepsister.
Though the pair is now wary of being involved romantically, Chloe, a sheltered harp prodigy, yearns to escape her controlling mother. Sig promises to teach her the ins and outs of independence in Boston—but not inside his bedroom. They both know there can never be more than friendship between a famous hockey player and his high-society, soon-to-be stepsister. But keeping their relationship platonic grows harder amid the developing family drama, especially knowing they were meant for so much more…
Never Gamble Your Heart by Lindsay Lovise
Historical romance | Goodreads rating: 4.06
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To find her missing sister, an unconventional governess must infiltrate an infamous gambling den owned by a devilishly handsome rake.
Frankie Turner should be the perfect she’s genteelly born, impoverished, and owns a pair of ugly oversized spectacles. Now if only she didn’t have an alarming tendency to forget her charges while contemplating mathematics principles...
When Frankie’s impulsive younger sister goes missing, Frankie has no idea where to begin the search to find her. But when she discovers hasty marriages materializing between “troublemaking” women and men who don’t deserve them—she knows her sister is somehow involved. The only thread connecting the groomsmen is a membership to Rockford’s, an exclusive gambling hell owned by the devilish Jasper Jones. And it just so happens that Jasper has recently become the guardian of a sullen fifteen-year-old.
Jasper suspects his new governess has an ulterior motive for being in his household, but he can hardly find the time to uncover it when his life is in a constant uproar. First, Frankie teaches his niece how to count cards and then she tries to break into his study. When he finally learns Frankie’s true reason for being there, he agrees to help the brilliant mathematician find her missing sister, even if it means giving her a fake dowry and watching men trip over themselves in her presence. As he and Frankie work together to dismantle a nefarious scheme, Jasper realizes that for the first time in his life, he’s gambled his heart—and possibly lost it.
The Love Lyric by Kristina Forest
Contemporary romance | Goodreads rating: 4.21
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An R&B singer and a corporate executive find love that hits the right notes in this romance by Kristina Forest, USA Today bestselling author of The Partner Plot.
Iris Greene used to be a woman with a plan. But all of that changed after she met the love of her life at twenty-four, got pregnant and married…and then became a widow and a single mother all within the span of a year and a half. Now, after years of hustling, Iris is the director of partnerships at a beauty company and raising spunky six-year-old Calla by herself. Despite her busy life, she still can’t help but feel lonely. She just needs to catch her breath—and one night, at her sister’s wedding, when she steps outside to do just that, she sees a certain singer who takes her breath away. . . .
By all accounts, pop R&B singer Angel Harrison has it made. He’s a successful musician and has just scored a brand ambassador deal with an emerging beauty company. But he’s still not fulfilled; he’s not producing songs he’s passionate about, and there’s a gaping hole in his love life. When he visits the Save Face Beauty office to kickstart his campaign, he’s delighted to see Iris, his stylist’s sister—the beautiful woman he’s secretly had a crush on for years.
Despite their obvious attraction to each other, they must stay professional throughout the campaign tour—which doesn’t quite pan out. But when it becomes clear their lives aren’t in sync, can they fall back in step to the same rhythm and beat?
Unloved by Peyton Corinne
Sports romance | Goodreads rating: 4.40
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The highly anticipated follow-up to Peyton Corinne’s “unputdownable and unforgettable” (Bal Khabra, author of Collide) TikTok sensation Unsteady follows hopeless romantic Ro and player—on and off the ice—Freddy as their feelings for each other grow from strictly friendly to so much more.
Matt “Freddy” Fedderic is all smiles—at least on the surface. On the ice, he’s the star left winger for the Waterfell Wolves with a stellar reputation in bed and a potential future in the NHL. But in the classroom, he’s barely scraping by on a 2.0 GPA, retaking dropped classes and struggling with a rough mix of dyslexia, dyscalculia, and ADHD. Freddy had plans to enter the NHL draft at eighteen, but then his estranged father added a “graduation” clause to his inheritance, and now, he needs help to pass Biology with a professor who’s already betrayed him before.
Ro Shariff is a hopeless romantic with terrible luck in love—and now, Freddy’s new tutor. She keeps telling herself that she’s very happy with her on again/off again boyfriend, but Ro is desperate for real affection. As her tutoring sessions with Freddy lead to friendship and late-night phone calls, an undeniable heat begins to simmer between them, which they’re both trying desperately to ignore.
Although they are too protective of their newfound friendship to cross that line, Ro can’t stop thinking about how Freddy was her first kiss her freshman year at Waterfell, a spine-tingling moment seared into Ro’s memory that Freddy doesn’t seem to remember, and Freddy is determined to protect Ro from his reputation at all costs. Meanwhile, Ro wants to prove to him that despite what others have led him to believe, he’s worth more than his body. But maybe, just maybe, together they can learn how easily the right person can love every part of you, even your flaws.
Fantasy
The Bones Beneath My Skin by Tj Klune
Modern fantasy | Goodreads rating: 4.26
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A spine-tingling thriller by New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, about a 10-year-old girl with an impossible power, her father, and an unlikely stranger, who come together to confront the dangerous forces that want her at all costs. A strange story of family, love, comets, and bacon. Perfect for fans of Stranger Things.
In the spring of 1995, Nate Cartwright has lost everything: his parents are dead, his older brother wants nothing to do with him, and he's been fired from his job as a journalist in Washington DC. With nothing left to lose, he returns to his family's summer cabin outside the small mountain town of Roseland, Oregon to try and find some sense of direction. The cabin should be empty. It's not. Inside is a man named Alex. And with him is an extraordinary little girl who calls herself Artemis Darth Vader. Artemis, who isn't exactly as she appears.
Soon it becomes clear that Nate must make a choice: let himself drown in the memories of his past, or fight for a future he never thought possible. Because the girl is special. And forces are descending upon them who want nothing more than to control her.
Kingdom of Claw by Demi Winters
Epic fantasy | Goodreads rating: 4.40
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Silla Nordvig survived the Road of Bones.
In the aftermath of her journey, her dreams of a simple life have been shattered. Beaten, betrayed, and reeling from the revelation of her true name, she flees Kopa with Reynir Galtung, ruthless leader of the Bloodaxe Crew. But Silla soon discovers Rey has been keeping secrets of his own, and they're forced into hiding together.
Stuck in a shield-home with the murderous man she thought she knew, Silla forms a new plan: master the magic flowing through her veins to save her sister. But before she can do that, Silla must face her most formidable opponent yet--her own inner demons.
Saga Volsik has nothing to lose.
They’ve murdered her family. Stolen her throne. And now they expect her to marry their son. But when she discovers her foster mother has been keeping the biggest secret of all, everything changes.
Saga’s goal: dismantle Queen Signe’s plans piece by piece. The only problem? The handsome Zagadkian dignitary who knows far too many of her secrets.
Meanwhile, dark threads continue to weave themselves through Íseldur as magic long thought dead begins to wake. In this follow-up to The Road of Bones, both women will need to find the strength to step into their destiny and stop chaos from sweeping across the land.
Return to the Kingdom of Íseldur where enemies become lovers and dark secrets hide around each corner. This installment digs deeper into Íseldur’s forbidden magic and the simmering attraction growing between two unlikely couples.
Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine
Historical fantasy | Goodreads rating: 4.38
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A young girl must face a life-altering decision after awakening her sister’s ghost, navigating truths about love, friendship, and power as the Civil War looms.
Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master’s daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, while she spends her nights secretly roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie.
When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie’s life, she commits a desperate act—one that rouses Minnie’s spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her. She enlists the aid of Caleb, the guests’ coachman, and their friendship soon becomes something more. Yet as long-held truths begin to crumble, she realizes Bellereine is harboring dark and horrifying secrets that can no longer be ignored.
With time ticking down, Junie begins to push against the harsh current that has controlled her entire life. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we choose love and liberation, what must we leave behind?
Cozy mystery
The Matchmaker by Aisha Saeed
Cozy mystery | Goodreads rating: 3.95
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A society matchmaker realizes she’s in danger when her clients' weddings are sabotaged in increasingly disturbing ways—an utterly original mystery from New York Times bestselling author Aisha Saeed.
Nura Khan is a third-generation matchmaker in Atlanta and business has never been better. Her exclusive clientele benefits from her impeccable track record. And while a single thirty-one-year-old matchmaker would normally raise some perfectly threaded eyebrows in the community, Nura's childhood best friend Azar is willing to double as her pretend fiancé at her clients’ weddings—as long as Nura is able to hide that her feelings for him might not be so pretend.
But Nura quickly learns that all that glitters isn’t gold. While it’s not uncommon to get the occasional hate mail from rejected prospective clients, after a couple’s carefully constructed wedding implodes, Nura is blindsided by a cascading chain of increasingly terrifying events and realizes someone is taking things too far. With Azar by her side, Nura embarks on a dangerous cat-and-mouse game that threatens not only her safety but everything she's worked so hard to build.