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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Combustion
Author: Elia Winters
Released: February 15, 2021 by Cecaelia Press
Genre: Erotica/Erotic Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy, SteampunkAstrid Bailey is content living alone, balancing her career as a contract machinist with her true passion: making “felicitation devices” for her discerning female clients. The upcoming World’s Fair, with its substantial cash prize, is an opportunity for her to open the shop she’s always imagined and solve her financial woes. With questionable credentials, though, she’s unable to enter without a reputable businessman to vouch for her.
Eli Rutledge, noted watchmaker, needs to enter the World’s Fair to maintain his reputation as an innovator, but he’s fresh out of ideas. With no other options, he agrees to Astrid’s proposal, lending his good name to her scandalous invention. When construction heats up, so does their chemistry–and the complications. Astrid is unaccustomed to accepting help, especially from a privileged businessman like Eli, even if she can’t keep her hands off him. Eli is losing his fight to an attraction that could spell professional disaster and heartbreak. As the Fair date approaches, Astrid and Eli must decide how far they’ll go for the business…and for each other.
Warning: contains scandalous “product testing,” steamy f/f and m/f encounters, and gratuitous liberties with an alternative-history Steampunk London, all in the quest for happily ever after.
Aarya: Sex toys in steampunk London!
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A Court of Silver Flames
Author: Sarah Maas
Released: February 16, 2021 by Bloomsbury Publishing
Genre: New Adult, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses #4Nesta Archeron has always been prickly-proud, swift to anger, and slow to forgive. And ever since being forced into the Cauldron and becoming High Fae against her will, she’s struggled to find a place for herself within the strange, deadly world she inhabits. Worse, she can’t seem to move past the horrors of the war with Hybern and all she lost in it.
The one person who ignites her temper more than any other is Cassian, the battle-scarred warrior whose position in Rhysand and Feyre’s Night Court keeps him constantly in Nesta’s orbit. But her temper isn’t the only thing Cassian ignites. The fire between them is undeniable, and only burns hotter as they are forced into close quarters with each other.
Meanwhile, the treacherous human queens who returned to the Continent during the last war have forged a dangerous new alliance, threatening the fragile peace that has settled over the realms. And the key to halting them might very well rely on Cassian and Nesta facing their haunting pasts.
Against the sweeping backdrop of a world seared by war and plagued with uncertainty, Nesta and Cassian battle monsters from within and without as they search for acceptance-and healing-in each other’s arms.
Ellen: As much as Maas is starting to feel more like a relic of my reading tastes 5+ years ago than a current fave, I have to admit I’m pretty excited for the next ACOTAR installment.
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Breaking Out
Author: Lise MacTague
Released: February 16, 2021 by Bella Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, RomanceKJ Stennes has only one thing on her mind: winning the league championship. She certainly doesn’t have time for her defense partner to get pregnant, of all things. But breaking in a new partner—even one who shows as much promise as Adrienne—just isn’t part of her plan.
Adrienne Pierce hopes moving to a new town with her son, Lawrence, will bring some stability to their lives. That the town has a women’s recreational hockey team is definitely a bonus. Despite a rocky start with KJ, the team’s star player, Adrienne can’t deny the attraction building between them. But how can she get involved with someone when she hasn’t yet found the stability her family needs?
And soon KJ’s budding attraction to Adrienne reminds her that there’s more to life than hockey… Maybe it’s time for KJ to get a new plan after all.
Tara: Oh hello, f/f hockey romance! It’s the right time of year and I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while.
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The Echo Wife
Author: Sarah Gailey
Released: February 16, 2021 by Tor Books
Genre: Mystery/Thriller, Science Fiction/Fantasy“When they said all happy families are alike, I don’t think this is what they meant…”
Evelyn Caldwell’s husband Nathan has been having an affair — with Evelyn Caldwell. Or, to be exact, with a genetically cloned replica.
After a morning that begins with a confrontation and ends with Nathan’s body bleeding out on the kitchen floor, the two Caldwell wives will have to think fast—before sharing everything includes sharing a jail cell.
The Echo Wife is a non-stop thrill ride of lies, betrayal, and identity, perfect for fans of Big Little Lies and Killing Eve.
Maya: Carrie liked Gailey’s Upright Women Wanted and I’ve been looking forward to their newest story!
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First Comes Like
Author: Alisha Rai
Released: February 16, 2021 by Avon
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Series: Modern Love #3The author of The Right Swipe and Girl Gone Viral returns with a story about finding love in all the wrong inboxes…
Beauty expert and influencer Jia Ahmed has her eye on the prize: conquering the internet today, the entire makeup industry tomorrow, and finally, finally proving herself to her big opinionated family. She has little time for love, and even less time for the men in her private messages—until the day a certain international superstar slides into her DMs, and she falls hard and fast.
There’s just one wrinkle: he has no idea who she is.
The son of a powerful Bollywood family, soap opera star Dev Dixit is used to drama, but a strange woman who accuses him of wooing her online, well, that’s a new one. As much as he’d like to focus on his Hollywood fresh start, he can’t get Jia out of his head. Especially once he starts to suspect who might have used his famous name to catfish her…
When paparazzi blast their private business into the public eye, Dev is happy to engage in some friendly fake dating to calm the gossips and to dazzle her family. But as the whole world swoons over their relationship, Jia can’t help but wonder: Can an online romance-turned-offline-fauxmance ever become love in real life?
Maya: Catfishing to fake dating to luurrrrrve!
Sneezy: Aaah I love this book! I love all of Alisha Rai’s books! If you don’t feel like too much angst, but have enjoyed her other books, this is a good one to dive into!
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Like You Love Me
Author: Adriana Locke
Released: February 16, 2021 by Montlake
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Series: Honey Creek #1Two childhood friends are playing house—and maybe playing for keeps—in this sexy, and unpredictable marriage-of-convenience romance.
To save her Tennessee bed-and-breakfast, Sophie Bates needs a fast-cash miracle. Holden McKenzie, her childhood best friend, needs to prove to a prospective employer that he’s a committed man. Their fortunes on the line, Holden proposes…a solution.
He’ll take care of Sophie’s bills if she agrees to a temporary marriage of convenience. And why not? They’re comfortable together, they have fun, and they trust each other. It’s as simple as saying “I do.” But the off-the-cuff wedding has all of Honey Creek talking—and Sophie and Holden realizing that their perfect arrangement is working too well. If they’re not careful, this marriage could turn into a love story.
Maya: I love the marriage of convenience trope!!!
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Soulstar
Author: C.L. Polk
Released: February 16, 2021 by Tor.com
Genre: Historical: European, LGBTQIA, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: Kingston Cycle #3With Soulstar, C. L. Polk concludes her riveting Kingston Cycle, a whirlwind of magic, politics, romance, and intrigue that began with the World Fantasy Award-winning Witchmark. Assassinations, deadly storms, and long-lost love haunt the pages of this thrilling final volume.
For years, Robin Thorpe has kept her head down, staying among her people in the Riverside neighborhood and hiding the magic that would have her imprisoned by the state. But when Grace Hensley comes knocking on Clan Thorpe’s door, Robin’s days of hiding are at an end. As freed witches flood the streets of Kingston, scrambling to reintegrate with a kingdom that destroyed their lives, Robin begins to plot a course that will ensure a freer, juster Aeland. At the same time, she has to face her long-bottled feelings for the childhood love that vanished into an asylum twenty years ago.
Can Robin find happiness among the rising tides of revolution? Can Kingston survive the blizzards that threaten, the desperate monarchy, and the birth throes of democracy? Find out as the Kingston Cycle comes to an end.
Aarya: Need to catch up with this series, but I remember really liking Witchmark.
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The Sum of Us
Author: Heather McGhee
Released: February 16, 2021 by One World
Genre: NonfictionA powerful new exploration about the self-destructive bargain of white supremacy and its rising cost to all of us–including white people–from one of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers.
Heather C. McGhee’s specialty is the American economy–and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. As she dug into subject after subject, from the financial crisis to declining wages to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a common problem at the bottom of them all: racism–but not just in the obvious ways that hurt people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It’s the common denominator in our most vexing public problems, even beyond our economy. It is at the core of the dysfunction of our democracy and even the spiritual and moral crises that grip us. Racism is a toxin in the American body and it weakens us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out?
To find the way, McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Mississippi to Maine, tallying up what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm–the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she collects the stories of white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams and their shot at a better job to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country–from parks and pools to functioning schools–have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world’s advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare. It’s why we fail to prevent environmental and public health crises that require collective action. But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee also finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: gains that come when people come together across race, to the benefit of all involved.
The Sum of Us is a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here: divided and self-destructing, still the richest country in the world, but spiritually starved and vastly unequal. At the heart of the book are the humble stories of Americans yearning to be a part of a better America, including white supremacy’s collateral victims: white people themselves. With startling empathy, this heartfelt message from a Black woman to a multiracial America leaves us with a vision for the future of our country–one whose population has ties to every place on the globe–where we finally realize that life can be so much more than zero-sum.
Sneezy: How white supremacy fucked over infrastructure and how people still uphold this system despite being actively harmed by it.
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We Had a Little Real Estate Problem
Author: Kliph Nesteroff
Released: February 16, 2021 by Simon & Schuster
Genre: Humor, NonfictionFrom Kliph Nesteroff, “the human encyclopedia of comedy” (VICE), comes the important and unheralded story of Native Americans and comedy.
It was one of the most reliable jokes in Charlie Hill’s stand-up routine, the line almost always guaranteed to get a big laugh: “I’m from Wisconsin, of the Oneida Nation. My people are from Wisconsin. We used to be from New York, but we had a little real estate problem.” In We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, acclaimed comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff focuses on one of comedy’s most significant and little-known stories: how, despite having been denied representation in the entertainment industry except for racist caricatures and humorless stereotypes, Native Americans have greatly influenced and advanced the art form.
The account begins in the late 1880s, when Native Americans were forced to tour in wild west shows instead of going to prison. (One modern comedian said it was as “if a Guantanamo detainee suddenly had to appear on X-Factor.”) This is followed by a detailed look at the life and work of seminal figures such as Depression-era humorist Will Rogers, whose Cherokee citizenship is known to few, and Hill, who in the 1970s was the first Native American comedian to appear The Tonight Show yet never achieved the fame of his peers David Letterman and Robin Williams.
Also profiled are several contemporary comedians, including Jonny Roberts, a social worker from the Red Lake Nation who drives five hours to the closest comedy club to pursue his stand-up dreams; the Kiowa-Apache comic Adrianne Chalepah, who brings together other female comics to form the touring group the Native Ladies of Comedy; and the 1491s, a sketch troupe whose satire is smashing stereotypes. As Ryan Red Corn, the Osage member of the 1491s, says: “The American narrative dictates that Indians are supposed to be sad. It’s not really true and it’s not indicative of the community experience itself…Laughter and joy is very much a part of native culture.”
Featuring dozens of original interviews and the exhaustive research that is Nesteroff’s trademark, We Had a Little Real Estate Problem is a powerful and overdue tribute to a neglected legacy.
Sneezy: Let’s all decolonize! I’m super fired up to learn another piece of history I should have learned in school and hear the stories of these comedians! Some of my favourites are going to be in this book!
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(Trust) Falling for You
Author: Charish Reid
Released: February 19, 2021 by Charish Reid
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomanceYolanda Watson is the “fun professor.”
She makes literature exciting, she brings students donuts for Finals Week, and her colleagues love her. The only thing that will make teaching better is if she can learn how to write a grant and skip those boring committee meetings. In short, a History professor is her problem. He stole her grant and he chairs the most boring committee on campus.
Sure, he’s cute… but he can afford to loosen up.
Samuel Morris is a work-horse.
He puts his head down and proves his worth at Franklin University. That means no inane chit-chat with colleagues, no treating students like friends, and no shenanigans during the Assessment Committee. But a certain English professor happens to be full of shenanigans. She’s late, loud, and disorganized.
Sure, she’s sexy… but she can afford to tighten up.
They’ll both have to compromise.
A university team-building retreat to the woods of Wisconsin will ensure that. After a lodging mix-up, the opposites are forced to share the same cabin for six nights. As Team-Building Buddies, they will: sleep together, eat together, and play embarrassing bonding games together. One of them will have to budge. The sexual tension will get harder to ignore, especially when one Buddy requires rescuing from spiders, grasshoppers, and bears. Oh my…
Aarya: I love rivals-to-lovers in an academic setting.
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A Dark and Hollow Star
Author: Ashley Shuttleworth
Released: February 23, 2021 by Margaret K. McElderry Books
Genre: LGBTQIA, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult
Series: A Dark and Hollow Star #1Choose your player.
The “ironborn” half-fae outcast of her royal fae family.
A tempestuous Fury, exiled to earth from the Immortal Realm and hellbent on revenge.
A dutiful fae prince, determined to earn his place on the throne.
The prince’s brooding guardian, burdened with a terrible secret.For centuries, the Eight Courts of Folk have lived among us, concealed by magic and bound by law to do no harm to humans. This arrangement has long kept peace in the Courts—until a series of gruesome and ritualistic murders rocks the city of Toronto and threatens to expose faeries to the human world.
Four queer teens, each who hold a key piece of the truth behind these murders, must form a tenuous alliance in their effort to track down the mysterious killer behind these crimes. If they fail, they risk the destruction of the faerie and human worlds alike. If that’s not bad enough, there’s a war brewing between the Mortal and Immortal Realms, and one of these teens is destined to tip the scales. The only question is: which way?
Wish them luck. They’re going to need it.
Amanda: First, let’s take a moment to appreciate that cover. Also, I will read anything that features a girl with a sword and fae.
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Best Laid Plans
Author: Roan Parrish
Released: February 23, 2021 by Carina Adores
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
Series: Garnet Run #2A man who’s been moving his whole life finally finds a reason to stay put.
Charlie Matheson has spent his life taking care of things. When his parents died two days before his eighteenth birthday, he took care of his younger brother, even though that meant putting his own dreams on hold. He took care of his father’s hardware store, building it into something known several towns over. He took care of the cat he found in the woods…so now he has a cat.
When a stranger with epic tattoos and a glare to match starts coming into Matheson’s Hardware, buying things seemingly at random and lugging them off in a car so beat-up Charlie feels bad for it, his instinct is to help. When the man comes in for the fifth time in a week, Charlie can’t resist intervening.
Rye Janssen has spent his life breaking things. Promises. His parents’ hearts. Leases. He isn’t used to people wanting to put things back together—not the crumbling house he just inherited, not his future and certainly not him. But the longer he stays in Garnet Run, the more he can see himself belonging there. And the more time he spends with Charlie, the more he can see himself falling asleep in Charlie’s arms…and waking up in them.
Is this what it feels like to have a home—and someone to share it with?
Aarya: 1) This is a better cover compared to the first book and 2) I will read anything with the phrase “crumbling house” in the blurb.
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Honey Girl
Author: Morgan Rogers
Released: February 23, 2021 by Park Row Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, RomanceA refreshingly timely and relatable debut novel about a young woman whose life plans fall apart when she meets her wife.
With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls’ trip to Vegas to celebrate. She’s a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know…until she does exactly that.
This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father’s plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her father’s expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.
In New York, she’s able to ignore all the annoying questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along—the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.
Tara: I’ve been seeing a lot about this story and I so hope it lives up to the hype.
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Love at First
Author: Kate Clayborn
Released: February 23, 2021 by Kensington Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomanceA sparkling and tender novel from the acclaimed author of Love Lettering, full of bickering neighbors, surprise reunions, and the mysterious power of love that fans of Christina Lauren, Sarah Hogle, and Emily Henry will adore.
Sixteen years ago, a teenaged Will Sterling saw—or rather, heard—the girl of his dreams. Standing beneath an apartment building balcony, he shared a perfect moment with a lovely, warm-voiced stranger. It’s a memory that’s never faded, though he’s put so much of his past behind him. Now an unexpected inheritance has brought Will back to that same address, where he plans to offload his new property and get back to his regular life as an overworked doctor. Instead, he encounters a woman, two balconies above, who’s uncannily familiar . . .
No matter how surprised Nora Clarke is by her reaction to handsome, curious Will, or the whispered pre-dawn conversations they share, she won’t let his plans ruin her quirky, close-knit building. Bound by her loyalty to her adored grandmother, she sets out to foil his efforts with a little light sabotage. But beneath the surface of their feud is an undeniable connection. A balcony, a star-crossed couple, a fateful meeting—maybe it’s the kind of story that can’t work out in the end. Or maybe, it’s the perfect second chance . . .
Sarah: Given how terrific Love Lettering was, I have giddy expectations for this one.
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Liner Notes for the Revolution
Author: Daphne A. Brooks
Released: February 23, 2021 by Harvard University Press
Genre: NonfictionAn award-winning Black feminist music critic takes us on an epic journey through radical sound from Bessie Smith to Beyoncé.
Daphne A. Brooks explores more than a century of music archives to examine the critics, collectors, and listeners who have determined perceptions of Black women on stage and in the recording studio. How is it possible, she asks, that iconic artists such as Aretha Franklin and Beyoncé exist simultaneously at the center and on the fringe of the culture industry?
Liner Notes for the Revolution offers a startling new perspective on these acclaimed figures—a perspective informed by the overlooked contributions of other Black women concerned with the work of their musical peers. Zora Neale Hurston appears as a sound archivist and a performer, Lorraine Hansberry as a queer Black feminist critic of modern culture, and Pauline Hopkins as America’s first Black female cultural commentator. Brooks tackles the complicated racial politics of blues music recording, song collecting, and rock and roll criticism. She makes lyrical forays into the blues pioneers Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith, as well as fans who became critics, like the record-label entrepreneur and writer Rosetta Reitz. In the twenty-first century, pop superstar Janelle Monae’s liner notes are recognized for their innovations, while celebrated singers Cécile McLorin Salvant, Rhiannon Giddens, and Valerie June take their place as cultural historians.
With an innovative perspective on the story of Black women in popular music—and who should rightly tell it—Liner Notes for the Revolution pioneers a long overdue recognition and celebration of Black women musicians as radical intellectuals.
Sneezy: “A LONG OVERDUE RECOGNITION AND CELEBRATION OF BLACK WOMEN MUSICIANS AS RADICAL INTELLECTUALS.”
YES, PLEASE! LET’S CELEBRATE! Hahaha I love learning about art and the world mutually influence each other. I’m extremely excited for this book!
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Make It Sweet
Author: Kristen Callihan
Released: February 23, 2021 by Montlake
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomanceFrom New York Times bestselling author Kristen Callihan comes a charming, emotional romance about redefining dreams and discovering unlikely love along the way.
Life for Emma isn’t good. The world knows her as Princess Anya on Dark Castle, but then her character gets the axe—literally. The cherry on top is finding her boyfriend in bed with another woman. She needs a break, and sanctuary comes in the form of Rosemont, a gorgeous estate in California promising rest and relaxation.
Then she meets the owner’s equally gorgeous grandson, ex–hockey player and current recluse Lucian Osmond, and she sees her own pain and yearning reflected in his eyes.
He’s charming when he wants to be but also secretive and gruff, with protective walls as thick as Emma’s own. Despite a growing attraction, they avoid each other.
But then there’s an impromptu nighttime skinny-dip, and Lucian’s luscious homemade tarts and cream cakes start arriving at Emma’s door, tempting her to taste life again…
In trying to stay apart, they only grow closer—and their broken pieces just might fit together and make them whole.
Aarya: Callihan’s last book did NOT work for me, so I’m cautious about this one. But the blurb looks too good to resist.
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Quiet in Her Bones
Author: Nalini Singh
Released: February 23, 2021 by Berkley
Genre: Mystery/ThrillerIn this gripping thriller set in New Zealand, New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh takes you into the twisted world of an exclusive cul-de-sac located on the edge of a sprawling forest.
My mother vanished ten years ago.
So did a quarter of a million dollars in cash.
Thief. Bitch. Criminal.
Now, she’s back.
Her bones clothed in scarlet silk.When socialite Nina Rai disappeared without a trace, everyone wrote it off as another trophy wife tired of her wealthy husband.
But now her bones have turned up in the shadowed green of the forest that surrounds her elite neighborhood, a haven of privilege and secrets that’s housed the same influential families for decades.
The rich live here, along with those whose job it is to make their lives easier. And somebody knows what happened to Nina one rainy night ten years ago.
Her son Aarav heard a chilling scream that night, and he’s determined to uncover the ugly truth that lives beneath the moneyed elegance…but no one is ready for the murderous secrets about to crawl out of the dark.
Even the dead aren’t allowed to break the rules in this cul-de-sac.
Maya: Looking forward to this thriller from Nalini Singh!
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Raceless
Author: Georgina Lawton
Released: February 23, 2021 by Harper Perennial
Genre: Memoir, NonfictionFrom The Guardian’s Georgina Lawton, a moving examination of how racial identity is constructed—through the author’s own journey grappling with secrets and stereotypes, having been raised by white parents with no explanation as to why she looked black.
Raised in sleepy English suburbia, Georgina Lawton was no stranger to homogeneity. Her parents were white; her friends were white; there was no reason for her to think she was any different. But over time her brown skin and dark, kinky hair frequently made her a target of prejudice. In Georgina’s insistently color-blind household, with no acknowledgement of her difference or access to black culture, she lacked the coordinates to make sense of who she was.
It was only after her father’s death that Georgina began to unravel the truth about her parentage—and the racial identity that she had been denied. She fled from England and the turmoil of her home-life to live in black communities around the globe—the US, the UK, Nicaragua, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, South Africa, and Morocco—and to explore her identity and what it meant to live in and navigate the world as a black woman. She spoke with psychologists, sociologists, experts in genetic testing, and other individuals whose experiences of racial identity have been fraught or questioned in the hopes of understanding how, exactly, we identify ourselves.
Raceless is an exploration of a fundamental question: what constitutes our sense of self? Drawing on her personal experiences and the stories of others, Lawton grapples with difficult questions about love, shame, grief, and prejudice, and reveals the nuanced and emotional journey of forming one’s identity.
Sneezy: Learning about other people’s struggle with their racial identity helps me process and feel less alone with my diaspora blues. I’ve also been looking to expand my understanding of how race is structured outside of the North American context.
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Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters
Author: Aimee Ogden
Released: February 23, 2021 by Tor.com
Genre: LGBTQIA, Novella, Science Fiction/FantasyGene-edited human clans have scattered throughout the galaxy, adapting themselves to environments as severe as the desert and the sea. Atuale, the daughter of a Sea-Clan lord, sparked a war by choosing her land-dwelling love and rejecting her place among her people. Now her husband and his clan are dying of an incurable plague, and Atuale’s sole hope for finding a cure is to travel off-planet. The one person she can turn to for help is the black-market mercenary known as the World Witch—and Atuale’s former lover. Time, politics, bureaucracy, and her own conflicted desires stand between Atuale and the hope for her adopted clan.
Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters has all the wonder and romance of a classic sci-fi novel, with the timelessness of a beloved fairy tale.
Tara: It’s a sci-fi reinterpretation of The Little Mermaid and I just have to read it.
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The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting
Author: KJ Charles
Released: January 25, 2021 by Orion
Genre: Historical: European, LGBTQIA, Romance
Series: The Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune #1Robin Loxleigh and his sister Marianne are the hit of the Season, so attractive and delightful that nobody looks behind their pretty faces.
Until Robin sets his sights on Sir John Hartlebury’s heiress niece. The notoriously graceless baronet isn’t impressed by good looks, or fooled by false charm. He’s sure Robin is a liar—a fortune hunter, a card sharp, and a heartless, greedy fraud—and he’ll protect his niece, whatever it takes.
Then, just when Hart thinks he has Robin at his mercy, things take a sharp left turn. And as the grumpy baronet and the glib fortune hunter start to understand each other, they also find themselves starting to care—more than either of them thought possible.
But Robin’s cheated and lied and let people down for money. Can a professional rogue earn an honest happy ever after?
Claudia: A new KJ Charles is always welcome, and this looks to be so much fun!
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In addition to what is already on my TBR for the remainder of February (Lauren Blakely’s MY ONE-WEEK HUSBAND, Natasha Knight’s I THEE TAKE, and Juliana Stone’s SLOW KIND OF LOVE), I just learned about Avril Ashton’s m/m TEMPLE (it was published in January). I’m unfamiliar with Ashton, but TEMPLE features a man falling for his late friend’s fiancé. The premise reminds me of one of my favorite books of 2020, Marley Valentine’s WITHOUT YOU, and it’s available from KU, so I’m looking forward to giving it a try.
Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire. Next Incrypted.
The Diabolical Bones by Bella Ellis. Next Bronte sisters mystery. I liked the first one, although it reinforced that the Brontes were a strange lot.
The Russian Cage by Charlaine Harris. Next Gunnie Rose. I hated book 1, but 2 was better.
Combustion was kind of a dud for me. It’s a rewrite – first edition came out in 2015. Surprisingly little world building considering the steampunk setting. Not very much build up of the characters either. Could be longer but it would risk dragging it down. C-ish. I usually greatly enjoy Elia Winters so a bit disappointing.
A new Alisha Rai AND a new KJ Charles I didn’t know about!? Sign. Me. Up.
Love at first was the best book I’ve read all year. Adored it!
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