If you’re new to Hide Your Wallet, this is where we list new releases we’re pretty excited for in the coming month.
Each reviewer has a book maximum (five per person), but we’ve separated HYW into two parts. The first HYW of the month will cover books that release from the 1st to the 14th. The second HYW will cover books released from the 15th to the end of the month.
We also think this will help us feature books from smaller publishers who don’t have buy links up as quickly as the big five.
As always, if we missed any books that you’re particularly looking forward to, tell us all about them in the comments.
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Cry Wolf
Author: Charlie Adhara
Released: January 18, 2021 by Carina Press
Genre: LGBTQIA, Paranormal, Romance
Series: Big Bad Wolf #5Don’t miss this thrilling installment in Charlie Adhara’s suspenseful paranormal mystery series, Big Bad Wolf.
Agent Cooper Dayton never thought anything could be harder than solving murders. Until he had to plan a wedding.
After taking down an old adversary, Agent Cooper Dayton of the Bureau of Special Investigations has earned a break. Not that planning a wedding to his sexy shifter partner, Oliver Park, is necessarily stress free, but it’s better than worrying about the ominous warning, delivered months ago, that Cooper’s life is in danger.
When he’s dragged to an event by his family, Cooper braces for an awkward evening, but instead finds himself in the middle of an ugly feud between Park’s ex and a rebel pack leader. What was supposed to be a quick outing turns into a full-blown murder investigation after the pack leader ends up dead, Park’s ex goes missing, and Cooper and Park are sent a series of disturbing wedding gifts that are somehow connected to it all.
The list of potential suspects is long, and with the bodies piling up, Cooper must turn to the one person he trusts the least: the villain he’s already put behind bars once and who has nothing to lose by lying and everything to gain if Cooper is out of the picture—for good.
Aarya: I love this series and want everyone to read it. One of the best werewolf detective series being published right now.
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Craft in the Real World
Author: Matthew Salesses
Released: January 19, 2021 by Catapult
Genre: NonfictionA groundbreaking resource for fiction writers, teachers, and students, this manifesto and practical guide challenges current models of craft and the writing workshop by showing how they fail marginalized writers, and how cultural expectations inform storytelling.
The traditional writing workshop was established with white male writers in mind; what we call craft is informed by their cultural values. In this bold and original examination of elements of writing–including plot, character, conflict, structure, and believability–and aspects of workshop–including the silenced writer and the imagined reader– Matthew Salesses asks questions to invigorate these familiar concepts. He upends Western notions of how a story must progress. How can we rethink craft, and the teaching of it, to better reach writers with diverse backgrounds? How can we invite diverse storytelling traditions into literary spaces?
Drawing from examples including One Thousand and One Nights , Curious George, Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea , and the Asian American classic No-No Boy , Salesses asks us to reimagine craft and the workshop. In the pages of exercises included here, teachers will find suggestions for building syllabi, grading, and introducing new methods to the classroom; students will find revision and editing guidance, as well as a new lens for reading their work. Salesses shows that we need to interrogate the lack of diversity at the core of published fiction: how we teach and write it. After all, as he reminds us, “When we write fiction, we write the world.”
Sneezy: I’m always HERE for examinations on how structures of marginalization is baked into the foundations of a thing, and explorations of how to build something better. That this book is exploring writing and writing workshops in particular makes me extra excited!!!
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Land
Author: Simon Winchester
Released: January 19, 2021 by Harper
Genre: NonfictionThe author of The Professor and the Madman and The Perfectionists explores the notion of property—our proprietary relationship with the land—through human history, how it has shaped us and what it will mean for our future.
Land—whether meadow or mountainside, desert or peat bog, parkland or pasture, suburb or city—is central to our existence. It quite literally underlies and underpins everything. Employing the keen intellect, insatiable curiosity, and narrative verve that are the foundations of his previous bestselling works, Simon Winchester examines what we human beings are doing—and have done—with the billions of acres that together make up the solid surface of our planet.
Land: The Ownership of Everywhere examines in depth how we acquire land, how we steward it, how and why we fight over it, and finally, how we can, and on occasion do, come to share it. Ultimately, Winchester confronts the essential question: who actually owns the world’s land—and why does it matter?
Sneezy: The conversation around what it means to own land and the fundamental problems with systems reliant on land ownership is an on going on. From the summary, it sounds like this book would be a good starting point for those newer to the conversation.
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Last Night at the Telegraph Club
Author: Malinda Lo
Released: January 19, 2021 by Dutton Books for Young Readers
Genre: Historical: American, LGBTQIA, Romance, Young AdultAcclaimed author of Ash Malinda Lo returns with her most personal and ambitious novel yet, a gripping story of love and duty set in San Francisco’s Chinatown during the 1950s.
“That book. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other.” And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.
America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father–despite his hard-won citizenship–Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.
Shana: Lo is an auto-buy author for me, and I love f/f historicals. This sounds like the book I wanted Passing Strange to be.
Tara: I’m curious to see how this one plays out, since it was illegal to be gay in the 1950s and there’s the added threat of it being an interracial relationship.
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Remote Control
Author: Nnedi Okorafor
Released: January 19, 2021 by Tor.com
Genre: Novella, Science Fiction/FantasyThe new book by Nebula and Hugo Award-winner, Nnedi Okorafor.
“She’s the adopted daughter of the Angel of Death. Beware of her. Mind her. Death guards her like one of its own.”
The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa–a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past.
Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks–alone, except for her fox companion–searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers.
But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?
Shana: I don’t even know what this book is about, but I’m obsessed with Okorafor’s heroines
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Rise of the Red Hand
Author: Olivia Chadha
Released: January 19, 2021 by Erewhon
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult
Series: The Mechanists #1A rare, searing portrayal of the future of climate change in South Asia. A streetrat turned revolutionary and the disillusioned hacker son of a politician try to take down a ruthlessly technocratic government that sacrifices its poorest citizens to build its utopia.
The South Asian Province is split in two. Uplanders lead luxurious lives inside a climate-controlled biodome, dependent on technology and gene therapy to keep them healthy and youthful forever. Outside, the poor and forgotten scrape by with discarded black-market robotics, a society of poverty-stricken cyborgs struggling to survive in slums threatened by rising sea levels, unbreathable air, and deadly superbugs.
Ashiva works for the Red Hand, an underground network of revolutionaries fighting the government, which is run by a merciless computer algorithm that dictates every citizen’s fate. She’s a smuggler with the best robotic arm and cybernetic enhancements the slums can offer, and her cargo includes the most vulnerable of the city’s abandoned children.
When Ashiva crosses paths with the brilliant hacker Riz-Ali, a privileged Uplander who finds himself embroiled in the Red Hand’s dangerous activities, they uncover a horrifying conspiracy that the government will do anything to bury. From armed guardians kidnapping children to massive robots flattening the slums, to a pandemic that threatens to sweep through the city like wildfire, Ashiva and Riz-Ali will have to put aside their differences in order to fight the system and save the communities they love from destruction.
Amanda: South Asian sci-fi with hackers! Hello!
Aarya: I find climate fiction terrifying to read, but this looks amazing!
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Shipped
Author: Angie Hockman
Released: January 19, 2021 by Gallery Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomanceThe Unhoneymooners meets The Hating Game in this witty, clever, and swoonworthy novel following a workaholic marketing manager who is forced to go on a cruise with her arch-nemesis when they’re up for the same promotion.
Between taking night classes for her MBA and her demanding day job at a cruise line, marketing manager Henley Evans barely has time for herself, let alone family, friends, or dating. But when she’s shortlisted for the promotion of her dreams, all her sacrifices finally seem worth it.
The only problem? Graeme Crawford-Collins, the remote social media manager and the bane of her existence, is also up for the position. Although they’ve never met in person, their epic email battles are the stuff of office legend.
Their boss tasks each of them with drafting a proposal on how to boost bookings in the Galápagos—best proposal wins the promotion. There’s just one catch: they have to go on a company cruise to the Galápagos Islands…together. But when the two meet on the ship, Henley is shocked to discover that the real Graeme is nothing like she imagined. As they explore the Islands together, she soon finds the line between loathing and liking thinner than a postcard.
With her career dreams in her sights and a growing attraction to the competition, Henley begins questioning her life choices. Because what’s the point of working all the time if you never actually live?
Perfect for fans of Christina Lauren and Sally Thorne, Shipped is a fresh and engaging rom-com that celebrates the power of second chances and the magic of new beginnings.
Elyse: It will be awhile before I feel safe traveling again, so I need vacation romance in my life.
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Love Code
Author: Ann Aguirre
Released: January 22, 2021
Genre: Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: Galactic Love #2He’s cute. He’s cranky. His code is sleek as hell.
What’s an amnesiac AI doing in a place like this? Helix has no idea. He knows he planned to build a life for himself on Gravas Station, but he has no clue what he’s been doing for the last half cycle. Nor does he understand why his ship crashed. A genius Tiralan scientist saved him by copying his code into an organic host, and after meeting her meddling mothers, it seems like his problems have only just begun…She’s clever. She’s creative. She claims that he’s her mate.
Qalu has no interest in relationships. She’d much rather be working in her lab, innovating instead of socializing. Problem is, the Tiralan believe that one cannot be happy alone. When a solution literally falls from the sky, she leaps at the opportunity to advance her research and teach Helix how to be Tiralan while calming her mothers’ fears. It might be unconventional, but she’s ready to break all the rules for a little peace.They agree to pose as each other’s mates for the most logical reasons, but love always finds a way.
Maya: KU exclusive that was originally released as a serial throughout 2020. Follow up to Strange Love with Zylar’s AI bestie!!
Sneezy: I’m soooo ready for this!!!! The first book had me feeling the hots for a cricket dude, I’m fully prepared for this book to yeet me into the arms of an AI!!!!
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Mr. Right Across the Street
Author: Kathryn Freeman
Released: January 22, 2021 by One More Chapter
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomanceMia Abbott’s move to Manchester was supposed to give her time and space from all the disastrous romantic choices she’s made in her past. But then the hot guy who lives opposite – the one who works out every day at exactly 10 a.m., not that Mia has noticed thank-you-very-much – starts leaving notes in his window…for her.
Bar owner Luke Doyle has his own issues to deal with but as he shows Mia the sights of her new city he also shows her what real romance looks like for the first time. And when he cooks up a signature cocktail in her honour, she realises that the man behind the bar is even more enticing than any of his creations. And once she’s had a taste she knows it will never be enough!
Catherine: The hero leaves notes for the heroine and I am 100% a sucker for epistolary novels of any kind so there you are.
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The Beautiful Things Shoppe
Author: Phillip William Stover
Released: January 26, 2021 by Carina Adores
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
Series: Seasons of New Hope #2Their collections may clash but their hearts are a perfect match.
Moving to eclectic New Hope, Pennsylvania, and running The Beautiful Things Shoppe is a dream come true for elegant and reserved fine arts dealer Prescott J. Henderson. He never agreed to share the space with Danny Roman, an easygoing extrovert who collects retro toys and colorful knickknacks.
And yet here they are, trapped together in the quaint shop as they scramble to open in time for New Hope’s charming Winter Festival.
Danny has spent years leading with his heart instead of his head. The Beautiful Things Shoppe is his chance to ground himself and build something permanent and joyful. The last thing he needs is an uptight snob who doesn’t appreciate his whimsy occupying half his shop.
It’s only when two of New Hope’s historic landmarks—each as different as Danny and Prescott—are threatened that a tentative alliance forms. And with it, the first blush of romance. Suddenly, running The Beautiful Things Shoppe together doesn’t seem so bad…until Danny’s secret threatens to ruin it all.
Aarya: If blurbs can sound cozy, this one does. I love a small town romance focusing on architecture and community shops.
Sneezy: This just sounds so gosh dang CUTE!!!!
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Big Bad Wolf
Author: Suleikha Snyder
Released: January 26, 2021 by Sourcebooks Casablanca
Genre: Paranormal, Romance
Series: Third Shift #1In 2016, New York became a Sanctuary City for supernaturals…but things quickly spun out of control. Now, Third Shift is an elite team of operatives tasked with exposing the gritty underbelly of New York’s criminal-supernatural underworld, taking down the worst of the worst and protecting human- and shifter-kind alike.
Joe Peluso has blood on his hands. But lawyer and psychologist Neha Ahluwalia is determined to help him craft a solid defense…even if she can’t defend her own obsession. Because Joe took out those Russian mobsters for good reason–they were responsible for the death of his beloved foster brother. Those six bad guys were part of the ruthless clan of bear shifters who control Brooklyn’s Russian mafia, so his vigilante justice has earned him countless enemies in New York’s supernatural-controlled underworld, and no friends in a government that now bends to Russia at every turn.
Joe knows that creatures like him only deserve the worst. Darkness. Solitude. Punishment. But meeting Neha makes him feel human for the first time in forever. He’s never wanted anything in his life like he wants Neha, and he’ll break almost any rule to spend a minute alone with her. But when the Russian mob attacks the jail for payback, Joe and Neha are forced to escape. Before long they’re on the run–from monsters who want him dead and from their own traitorous hearts.
Ellen: Always curious about new PNR series, and I’ve only heard good things about Snyder.
Shana: I’m a big fan of this author, and this sound delightfully dark.
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The Care Crisis
Author: Emma Dowling
Released: January 26, 2021 by Verso
Genre: NonfictionAn examination of the global economic crisis from the perspective of care
Valuing care and care work does not simply mean attributing care work more monetary value. To really achieve change, we must go further.
In this groundbreaking book, Emma Dowling charts the multi-faceted nature of care in the modern world, from the mantras of self-care and what they tell us about our anxieties, to the state of the social care system. She examines the relations of power that play profitability and care off in against one another in a myriad of ways, exposing the devastating impact of financialisation and austerity.
As the world becomes seemingly more uncaring, the calls for people to be more compassionate and empathetic towards one another—in short, to care more—become ever-more vocal. The Care Crisis challenges the idea that people ever stopped caring, but also that the deep and multi-faceted crises of our time will be solved by a simply (re)instilling the virtues of empathy. There is no easy fix.
The Care Crisis enquires into the ways in which the continued off-loading of the cost of care onto the shoulders of underpaid and unpaid realms of society, untangling how this off-loading combines with commodification, marketisation and financialisation to produce the mess we are living in. The Care Crisis charts the current experiments in short-term fixes to the care crisis that are taking place within Britain, with austerity as the backdrop. It maps the economy of abandonment, raising the question: to whom care is afforded? And what would it mean to seriously value care?
Sneezy: After the year we’ve had, I hope the questions asked in this book are paddling around everyone’s minds. Looking forward to how this person breaks it down!!!
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The Ex Talk
Author: Rachel Lynn Solomon
Released: January 26, 2021 by Berkley
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomancePublic radio co-hosts navigate mixed signals in Rachel Lynn Solomon’s sparkling romantic comedy debut.
Shay Goldstein has been a producer at her Seattle public radio station for nearly a decade, and she can’t imagine working anywhere else. But lately it’s been a constant clash between her and her newest colleague, Dominic Yun, who’s fresh off a journalism master’s program and convinced he knows everything about public radio.
When the struggling station needs a new concept, Shay proposes a show that her boss green-lights with excitement. On The Ex Talk, two exes will deliver relationship advice live, on air. Their boss decides Shay and Dominic are the perfect co-hosts, given how much they already despise each other. Neither loves the idea of lying to listeners, but it’s this or unemployment. Their audience gets invested fast, and it’s not long before The Ex Talk becomes a must-listen in Seattle and climbs podcast charts.
As the show gets bigger, so does their deception, especially when Shay and Dominic start to fall for each other. In an industry that values truth, getting caught could mean the end of more than just their careers.
Sarah: Public Radio Competence P0rn, plus a fake former relationship instead of a fake relationship – they have to pretend to be exes. But they never dated in the first place, nor did they have a relationship to break up from. Again, so many trope keywords.
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Flirting with Forever
Author: Cara Bastone
Released: January 26, 2021 by HQN Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Series: Forever Yours #3Sometimes you get a second chance at a first impression
Mary Trace is bright, bubbly and back in the dating pool in her midthirties. All of her closest friends are in love, and she refuses to miss out on romance. So when a regular customer at her trendy Brooklyn boutique wants to set Mary up on a blind date with her son, she gives a hesitant yes. John Modesto-Whitford is gorgeous and well-groomed, so maybe dinner won’t be a total bust—until he drops a less-than-flattering comment about Mary’s age.
Desperate to be nothing like his snake of a politician father, public defender John Modesto-Whitford prides himself on his honesty and candor. But his social awkwardness and lack of filter just blew it with the most beautiful woman he’s ever dated.
Luckily, Mom’s machinations keep Mary and John running into each other all summer long, and soon they resort to fake dating to get her to back off. When their pretense turns to real friendship—and some surprisingly hot chemistry—can these two stubborn individuals see past their rocky start to a rock-solid future together?
Aarya: I loved Cara Bastone’s debut Just a Heartbeat Away and Audible Original Call Me Maybe last year, so I’ll read anything she writes.
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The Girls I’ve Been
Author: Tess Sharpe
Released: January 26, 2021 by G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Genre: Mystery/Thriller, Young AdultA deliciously commercial YA page-turner about the daughter of a con artist who is taken hostage in a bank heist.
Nora O’Malley is a lot of things. A sister. An ex. A secret girlfriend. Kind of crooked, but reformed… somewhat.
Nora O’Malley’s been a lot of girls. As the daughter of a con-artist who targets criminal men, she grew up her mother’s protege. But when mom fell for the mark instead of conning him, Nora pulled the ultimate con: escape.
For five years she’s been playing at normal. But she needs to dust off the skills she ditched because she has three problems:
#1: her ex walked in on her with her girlfriend. Even though they’ve all been inseparable for months, Wes didn’t know about her and Iris.
#2: The morning after, they all have to meet to deposit the fundraiser money they raised together. It’s a nightmare that goes from awkward to deadly.
Because #3: right after they get in the bank, two guys start robbing it.
But they have no idea who they’re really holding hostage.
The robbers are trouble. Nora’s something else entirely.
Amanda: I’m a huge fan of Sharpe’s writing and I can’t wait for this one.
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The Heiress Gets a Duke
Author: Harper St. George
Released: January 26, 2021 by Berkley
Genre: Historical: European, Romance
Series: The Gilded Age Heiresses #1Even a fortune forged in railroads and steel can’t buy entrance into the upper echelons of Victorian high society—for that you need a marriage of convenience.
American heiress August Crenshaw has aspirations. But unlike her peers, it isn’t some stuffy British Lord she wants wrapped around her finger—it’s Crenshaw Iron Works, the family business. When it’s clear that August’s outrageously progressive ways render her unsuitible for a respectable match, her parents offer up her younger sister to the highest entitled bidder instead. This simply will not do. August refuses to leave her sister to the mercy of a loveless marriage.
Evan Sterling, the Duke of Rothschild, has no intention of walking away from the marriage. He’s recently inherited the title only to find his coffers empty, and with countless lives depending on him, he can’t walk away from the fortune a Crenshaw heiress would bring him. But after meeting her fiery sister, he realizes Violet isn’t the heiress he wants. He wants August, and he always gets what he wants.
But August won’t go peacefully to her fate. She decides to show Rothschild that she’s no typical London wallflower. Little does she realize that every stunt she pulls to make him call off the wedding only makes him like her even more.
Amanda: Love me an ambitious American heiress causing a fuss for stuffy British heroes.
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If I Disappear
Author: Eliza Jane Brazier
Released: January 26, 2021 by Berkley
Genre: Mystery/ThrillerWhen her favorite true crime podcast host goes missing, an adrift young woman plunges headfirst into the wild backcountry of Northern California and her own dangerous obsession.
Sera loves true crime podcasts. They make her feel empowered in a world where women just like her disappear daily. She’s sure they are preparing her for something. So when Rachel, her favorite podcast host, goes missing, Sera knows it’s time to act. Rachel has always taught her to trust her instincts.
Sera follows the clues hidden in the episodes to an isolated ranch outside Rachel’s small hometown to begin her search. She’s convinced her investigation will make Rachel so proud. But the more Sera digs into this unfamiliar world, the more off things start to feel. Because Rachel is not the first woman to vanish from the ranch, and she won’t be the last…
Rachel did try to warn her.
Elyse: A woman becomes obsessed with a true crime podcast and solving a cold case.
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The Knockout
Author: Sajni Patel
Released: January 26, 2021 by North Star Editions
Genre: Romance, Young AdultA rising star in Muay Thai figures out what (and who) is worth fighting for in this #ownvoices YA debut full of heart.
If seventeen-year-old Kareena Thakkar is going to alienate herself from the entire Indian community, she might as well do it gloriously. She’s landed the chance of a lifetime, an invitation to the US Muay Thai Open, which could lead to a spot on the first-ever Olympic team. If only her sport wasn’t seen as something too rough for girls, something she’s afraid to share with anyone outside of her family. Despite pleasing her parents, exceling at school, and making plans to get her family out of debt, Kareena’s never felt quite Indian enough, and her training is only making it worse.
Which is inconvenient, since she’s starting to fall for Amit Patel, who just might be the world’s most perfect Indian. Admitting her feelings for Amit will cost Kareena more than just her pride–she’ll have to face his parents’ disapproval, battle her own insecurities, and remain focused for the big fight. Kareena’s bid for the Olympics could very well make history–if she has the courage to go for it.
Maya: Girlfight is one of my favorite movies of all time and I’m hoping for more of the same!!
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Night Tide
Author: Anna Burke
Released: January 26, 2021 by Bywater Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
Series: A Seal Cove Romance #2Tides change, but some feelings can’t be washed away.
Lillian Lee doesn’t believe in love at first sight. Hate is a different story—and one she is intimately familiar with. Luckily, she hasn’t seen her arch-nemesis, Ivy Holden, since graduating from veterinary school five years ago. Since then, while her life isn’t going exactly according to plan, she’s happy. She has great friends, a job she loves, and the best pets in the world. Most importantly, her life is stable.
Seal Cove, Maine, is the last place Ivy Holden anticipated ending up. But when an unexpected medical condition forces her to relocate to be closer to family, she can’t turn down the opportunity. Her new job at Seal Cove Veterinary Clinic has everything she needs: flexibility, proximity to her family’s summer home, and the chance to do the work she loves. Unfortunately, it also has Lillian Lee.
Thrown back into each other’s orbits, Lillian and Ivy must find a way to work together, despite the treacherous emotions threatening to drown them both.
Tara: I enjoyed Spindrift, so I’m excited to jump back into this world, see a new romance unfold, and check in on Morgan and Emilia.
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Patience & Esther
Author: S.W. Searle
Released: January 26, 2021 by Iron Circus Comics
Genre: Historical: European, Graphic Novel, LGBTQIA, RomancePatience is a kindhearted country girl, eking out a living in Edwardian England as tremors of social change rock the world around her. When she starts her employment in formal service on the grounds of an opulent country manor, she has no idea that her own personal revolution is about to begin.
Selfless, dutiful, and just a touch naive, she takes to both her place as a parlor maid and to her new roommate, the bookish and progressive lady’s maid, Esther. In another time, the two women would have kept one another’s company forever in their little attic bedroom, living out their days in the employ of a Lord. But it’s now the dawn of a new age. The expanding empire has brought with it not only plundered wealth, but worldliness and new ideas. Suffragists agitate in the street, idle-rich bohemians challenge sexual mores, and Patience and Esther slowly come to realize the world is wider and full of more adventure and opportunity than they ever imagined . . . so long as they find the will to seize it.
Sensual, sweet, and beautifully illustrated, PATIENCE & ESTHER is a steamy period romance and an inspirational erotic journey across the epic sweep of history, from the end of a gilded age to the start of an uncharted future.
Ellen: I love Searle’s art style and I always love to see more romance comics!
Tara: The style of the art on the cover is calling me and I love the idea of an f/f historical romance comic.
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Then There Was You
Author: Mona Shroff
Released: January 26, 2021 by HQN Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomanceThe wrong man never felt so right.
When helicopter medic Daniel Bliant answers an emergency call at Phil’s Bar, he can’t believe who the bartender is: the beautiful woman he saw in his ER months before and hasn’t been able to stop thinking about. He should forget her. After all, he knows he’s damaged goods. But Annika is intelligent, fun and totally stunning—the breath of life he desperately needs after the incident that left him shattered.
Annika Mehta is doing just fine. She loves her job as a kindergarten teacher, even if the pay is low and she has a side gig working at Phil’s. At least the bar owners are more like family. Sure, she’s reeling from a bad breakup and the terrible event that caused it, but she’s fine. Really. What she doesn’t need is Daniel. He’s wrong for her in every single way—so why is their chemistry off the charts?
Maya: Pretty cover! Kindergarten teacher! Hopefully no glaring HIPAA violations!
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When Tara Met Farah
Author: Tara Pammi
Released: January 26, 2021
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, New Adult, Romance
Series: Bollywood Dance & Drama Society #1Sunshine Girl needs math lessons…
Nineteen-year-old Tara Muvvala didn’t mean to lead a double life. But her bone-deep aversion to math + a soul-deep desire to please her mother = her failing math grade + exploding food vlog ‘this masala life’.
Enter her mother’s research intern and resident math genius Farah Ahmed. Tara makes a deal with Farah – help her pass the math course and she’ll welcome Farah into the local Bollywood Drama & Dance Society.
Grumpy girl gets life lessons…
After losing her mom to a heart attack, dumping her small-minded boyfriend (she’s
bisexual, not confused) and reluctantly moving to the US to be near her dad – all in the span of eighteen months, twenty-three-year-old Farah has hit the full quota on LIFE. Two things keep her going – her internship with a brilliant statistics professor and the possibility of meeting her dancing idol through the Bollywood Drama & Dance Society. That is, if her new hot-mess housemate will let her.Soon Tara and Farah are bonding over chicken biryani, dancing to Bollywood Beats at midnight and kissing… against all the odds. And maybe beginning to realize that while life’s even more complicated than math, love is the one variable that changes everything!
Will they realize that together they have the recipe for a Happily Ever After?
Aarya: Haven’t read this author before but love the blurb!
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Work Won’t Love You Back
Author: Sarah Jaffe
Released: January 26, 2021 by Bold Type Books
Genre: NonfictionA deeply-reported examination of why “doing what you love” is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives.
You’re told that if you “do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” Whether it’s working for “exposure” and “experience,” or enduring poor treatment in the name of “being part of the family,” all employees are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do what we love.In Work Won’t Love You Back, Sarah Jaffe, a preeminent voice on labor, inequality, and social movements, examines this “labor of love” myth — the idea that certain work is not really work, and therefore should be done out of passion instead of pay. Told through the lives and experiences of workers in various industries — from the unpaid intern, to the overworked nurse, to the nonprofit worker and even the professional athlete — Jaffe reveals how all of us have been tricked into buying into a new tyranny of work.
As Jaffe argues, understanding the trap of the labor of love will empower us to work less and demand what our work is worth. And once freed from those binds, we can finally figure out what actually gives us joy, pleasure, and satisfaction.
Maya: Let’s talk about capitalism, baby, let’s talk about you and me, let’s talk about all the exploiting and the oppressing that may be.
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Written in Starlight
Author: Isabel Ibañez
Released: January 26, 2021 by Page Street Kids
Genre: Historical: Other, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult
Series: Woven in Moonlight #2An adventerous South American Tomb Raider! This hotly anticipated companion to Woven in Moonlight follows an outcast Condesa, as she braves the jungle to forge an alliance with the lost city of gold.
If the jungle wants you, it will have you…
Catalina Quiroga is a Condesa without a country. She’s lost the Inkasisa throne, the loyalty of her people, and her best friend. Banished to the perilous Yanu Jungle, Catalina knows her chances of survival are slim, but that won’t stop her from trying to escape. It’s her duty to reclaim the throne.
When Manuel, the son of her former general, rescues Catalina from a jaguar, a plan forms. Deep in the jungle, the city of gold is hidden, home to the fierce Illari people, who she could strike an alliance with.
But the elusive Illari are fighting a battle of their own—a mysterious blight is corrupting the jungle, laying waste to everything they hold dear. As a seer, Catalina should be able to help, but her ability to read the future in the stars is as feeble as her survival instincts. While searching for the Illari, Catalina must reckon with her duty and her heart to find her true calling, which could be the key to stopping the corruption before it destroys the jungle completely.
Maya: I heard really great things about Woven in Moonlight and this looks to be more of the same wonderful!
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“Maya: Pretty cover! Kindergarten teacher! Hopefully no glaring HIPAA violations!”
As someone who works in health research, that totally made me laugh.
After going on a buying binge earlier this week (when several of my favorite authors released new books), I only have one book left on my January list: Zoe York’s FIERCE AT HEART, which is scheduled for January 26. This is the second of York’s Kinkaids of Pine Harbour series and features marriage-of-convenience and older-heroine tropes, plus the h&h are military veterans and, when they were on active duty, the heroine was the hero’s commanding officer. I love Zoe York’s style (which I’d describe as “small-town sexy”) and am really looking forward to all of the troptastic goodness FIERCE AT HEART promises.
Wench by Maxine Kaplan looks interesting: “A funny, fiercely feminist YA epic fantasy—following the adventures of a tavern wench”
Death comes to the Rectory by Catherine Lloyd: Latest Kurland St. Mary mystery, featuring Lucy and Sir Robert Kincade, a couple who are a) both of their time and b) nice people.
The Mirror Dance by Catriona McPherson: I love Dandy Gilver mysteries so much.
My TBR pile’s only growing larger thanks to y’all! February, unless I’m misremembering, is super packed with good stuff too.
I am reading Strange Love now and LOVING it. I’m crushed that the sequel is limited to Amazon as I refuse to buy anything from them
I’m anticipating Craft, by Glenn Adamson (a history of crafts and artisans in the US) and Norah Gaughn’s Twisted Stitch Workbook…
@Gail I think you might still be able to get Love Code by signing up for Ann Aguirre’s newsletter? At least until it is released on KU next week…
I thought I had more open orders for January-besides Fierce At Heart by Zoe York, that is it! I just got another non-resident library card, this time with the Orange County Library in Florida, so that makes 3 libraries I belong to now. I have to get organized, and not let my borrows expire. I’m also starting back to work on Wed, covering a maternity leave (I’m a substitute teacher) so I won’t be spending most of my day reading, like I’ve been doing since last March. It will be an adjustment!
Hockman’s “Shipped” might be of interest, since the last place I visited in the Before Times was the Galapagos, and I’d love to revisit the islands with the H/h. I’m very much for the concept of a book that takes me away from the RL, but right now it’s hard to imagine a heroine who works in marketing for a cruise line. I think I’d spend most of the book telling her to update her resume and LinkedIn profile as soon as possible.
What great choices! Thanks for this list.
How on earth did Evan Sterling end up with the title ‘Duke of Rothschild’?!
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