Welcome to Book Beat! Think of Book Beat as Hide Your Wallet, Part Two!
In Hide Your Wallet, we talk about books coming out in a particular month that we really want to read. But there’s more to good books than just new releases!
Book Beat aims to highlight other books that we may hear about through friends, social media, or other sources. We could see a gorgeous ad! Or find a new-to-us author on a list of underrated romances! Think of Book Beat as Teen Beat or Tiger Beat, but for books. And no staples to open to get the fold-out poster.
The titles below are my top five discoveries from attending Book Expo America this year!
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Dear Haiti, Love Alaine
Author: Maika Moulite
Released: September 3, 2019 by Inkyard Press
Genre: Young AdultThis exceptional debut novel captures a sparkling new voice and irrepressible heroine in a celebration of storytelling sure to thrill fans of Nicola Yoon, Ibi Zoboi and Jenna Evans Welch!
When a school presentation goes very wrong, Alaine Beauparlant finds herself suspended, shipped off to Haiti and writing the report of a lifetime…
You might ask the obvious question: What do I, a seventeen-year-old Haitian American from Miami with way too little life experience, have to say about anything?
Actually, a lot.
Thanks to “the incident” (don’t ask), I’m spending the next two months doing what my school is calling a “spring volunteer immersion project.” It’s definitely no vacation. I’m toiling away under the ever-watchful eyes of Tati Estelle at her new nonprofit. And my lean-in queen of a mother is even here to make sure I do things right. Or she might just be lying low to dodge the media sharks after a much more public incident of her own…and to hide a rather devastating secret.
All things considered, there are some pretty nice perks…like flirting with Tati’s distractingly cute intern, getting actual face time with my mom and experiencing Haiti for the first time. I’m even exploring my family’s history—which happens to be loaded with betrayals, superstitions and possibly even a family curse.
You know, typical drama. But it’s nothing I can’t handle.
The cover is so gorgeous in person! It was co-written by two sisters, whom I met briefly, and they were so lovely and nice. This book has both travel and epistolary elements, two things that I really enjoy.
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A Match Made in Mehendi
Author: Nandini Bajpai
Released: September 10, 2019 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readershttp
Genre: Young AdultFifteen-year-old Simran “Simi” Sangha comes from a long line of Indian vichole-matchmakers-with a rich history for helping parents find good matches for their grown children. When Simi accidentally sets up her cousin and a soon-to-be lawyer, her family is thrilled that she has the “gift.”
But Simi is an artist, and she doesn’t want to have anything to do with relationships, helicopter parents, and family drama. That is, until she realizes this might be just the thing to improve her and her best friend Noah’s social status. Armed with her family’s ancient guide to finding love, Simi starts a matchmaking service-via an app, of course.
But when she helps connect a wallflower of a girl with the star of the boys’ soccer team, she turns the high school hierarchy topsy-turvy, soon making herself public enemy number one.
I’m a sucker for anything that uses apps and tech for modern matchmaking. It also mentions upsetting the “high school hierarchy” when a start athlete is matched with a wallflower.
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Imaginary Friend
Author: Stephen Chbosky
Released: October 1, 2019 by Grand Central Publishing
Genre: HorrorChristopher is seven years old. Christopher is the new kid in town. Christopher has an imaginary friend. The epic work of literary horror from the #1 bestselling author of THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER.
We can swallow our fear or let our fear swallow us.
Single mother Kate Reese is on the run. Determined to improve life for her and her son, she flees an abusive relationship in the middle of the night with Christopher at her side. Together, they find themselves drawn to the tight-knit community of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania. It’s as far off the beaten track as they can get. Just one highway in, one highway out.
At first, it seems like the perfect place to finally settle down. Then Christopher vanishes. For six awful days, no one can find him. Until Christopher emerges from the woods at the edge of town, unharmed but not unchanged. He returns with a voice in his head only he can hear, with a mission only he can complete: Build a tree house in the woods by Christmas, or his mother and everyone in the town will never be the same again.
Soon Kate and Christopher find themselves in the fight of their lives, caught in the middle of a war playing out between good and evil, with their small town as the battleground.
Though Stephen Chbosky is known for his teen novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, this one is completely different. It’s horror and sounds wonderfully creepy.
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Ninth House
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Released: October 1, 2019 by Flatiron Books
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: Alex Stern #1The mesmerizing adult debut from #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo
Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?
Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.
If you listened to my podcast episode with Sarah on BEA, this was one of the most coveted books at the expo. It’s Bardugo’s first adult fantasy novel and I may have procured one after BEA. Bardugo has been dropping quotes from the book across social media and this one I know is going to be a hit.
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Fortuna
Author: K.S. Merbeth
Released: November 5, 2019 by Orbit
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: The Nova Vita Protocol #1A rebellious young woman leads a family of smugglers who become unwittingly entangled in a galactic war in this first book of an action-packed space opera trilogy.
There’s only one thing Scorpia Kaiser wants in the whole galaxy: to finally own Fortuna, the ship she pilots and the only home she’s ever known. But when it becomes clear her predecessor – the family matriarch – has been secretly dealing with various planetary governments, Scorpia realizes that her own family may be the reason the system’s five planets are headed toward a devastating war.
Lies, manipulation, and profit are all she’s ever been taught, but as she ascends into her new position Scorpia finds she has the chance to change everything. Yet even as she takes on more responsibility for the family’s fate, fortune and influence, she is not at all sure she’s ready for it – nor that she has the support of her crew, particularly her brother and rival Corvus.
To stop the war, she’ll have to unite her family and unravel the chaos they’ve left in their wake.
The cover of this one was on display in the Hachette booth and I got to hear all about it from a publicist. It’s about a family of space smugglers. The heroine aims to be the best in the business, but has to contend with her rival/brother and devastating space secrets!
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I am REAL excited about Ninth House.
These all look great and Fall seems so very far away. The one I am hopping up and down for is GIDEON THE NINTH by Tamsyn Muir.
The books in my TBR continue to pile up and teeter; I need uninterrupted time and battery to make a dent.