Hey there guys, gals, and nonbinary pals! Ready to get rec’d?
Some of you may have seen this a little early due to a scheduling snafu!
This is a new feature where I, Amanda, will be talking about some of the books I’ve recommend to fellow book lovers outside of Smart Bitches. We’re aiming for every two weeks or so!
For those of you who don’t know, I have a part time job as a bookseller and events coordinator for a local independent bookstore. Handselling is probably my favorite part of the job, where someone comes in looking for recommendations based on something they last read or particular genres they like to read. I also help with Book Riot’s TBR program, which gives out personalized recommendations on a subscription basis.
So, if you’re curious about what I’m recommending to others in different parts of my book life, this column is for you!
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Kingdom of the Wicked
This is one of my two September staff picks at the bookstore and the paperback just came out!
This YA fantasy has a Hades & Persephone vibe, but trade Persephone for a vengeful witch looking to solve the murder of her twin sister.
Kerri Maniscalco introduces her next series, a dark tale of a beautiful young witch, a troubled demon, and their epic romance, set against a 19th century Italian backdrop.
Emilia and her twin sister Victoria are streghe – witches who live secretly among humans, avoiding notice and persecution. One night, Victoria misses dinner service at the family’s renowned Sicilian restaurant. Emilia soon finds the body of her beloved twin…desecrated beyond belief. Devastated, Emilia sets out to discover who did this, and to seek vengeance at any cost—even if it means using dark magic that’s been long forbidden.
Then Emilia meets Wrath, the outlier among the seven demon brethren, always choosing duty over pleasure. He’s been tasked by his master with investigating a series of women’s murders on the island. When Emilia and Wrath’s fates collide, it’s clear this disturbing mystery will take a bewitching turn…
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The Mermaid from Jeju
One of the biggest recommendation requests I get is for historical fiction that takes place outside of the UK, and this is one of my go-to selections.
My brother lived in Korea for a year and was able to visit Jeju and see some of the haenyeo in action. He can confirm that it’s pretty badass.
In the tradition of Yangsze Choo’s Night Tiger and Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko comes a magical saga that explores what it really means to love.
In the aftermath of World War II, Goh Junja is a girl just coming into her own. She is the latest successful deep sea diver in a family of strong haenyeo. Confident she is a woman now, Junja urges her mother to allow her to make the Goh family’s annual trip to Mt. Halla, where they trade abalone and other sea delicacies for pork. Junja, a sea village girl, has never been to the mountains, where it smells like mushrooms and earth, and it is there she falls in love with a mountain boy Yang Suwol, who rescues her after a particularly harrowing journey. But when Junja returns one day later, it is just in time to see her mother take her last breath, beaten by the waves during a dive she was taking in Junja’s place.
Spiraling in grief, Junja sees her younger siblings sent to live with their estranged father, Suwol is gone, the ghost of her mother haunts their home–from the meticulously tended herb garden that has now begun to sprout weeds, to the field where their bed sheets are beaten. She has only her grandmother and herself. But the world moves on without Junja.
The political climate is perilous. Still reeling from Japan’s forced withdrawal from the peninsula, Korea is forced to accommodate the rapid establishment of US troops, and her grandmother, who lived through the Japanese invasion that led to Korea’s occupation understands the signs of danger all too well. When Suwol is arrested for working with and harboring communists, and the perils of post-WWII overtake her homelands, Junja must learn to navigate a tumultuous world unlike anything she’s ever known.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Mermaid from Jeju by Sumi Hahn
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Paradise
When it comes to nonfiction, I like my topics to be a bit more current. Paradise is an emotional journalistic account of the Paradise fires from a few years ago, and the deadliest fire in over 100 years. Johnson includes a lot of epistolary elements and media, from 911 calls to interviews.
Oddly enough, the mother to Johnson’s partner is local and came into the store to buy a copy.
The definitive firsthand account of California’s Camp Fire–the nation’s deadliest wildfire in a century–and a riveting examination of what went wrong and how to avert future tragedies as the climate crisis unfolds
On November 8, 2018, the people of Paradise, California, awoke to a mottled gray sky and gusty winds. Soon the Camp Fire was upon them, gobbling an acre a second. Less than two hours after it ignited, residents were trapped in flames, cremated in their homes and cars. By the next morning, eighty-five people were dead.
San Francisco Chronicle reporter Lizzie Johnson was there as the town of Paradise burned. She saw the smoldering rubble of a historic covered bridge and the beloved Black Bear Diner, and she stayed long afterward, visiting shelters, hotels, and makeshift camps. Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting and reams of public records, including 911 calls and testimony from a grand jury investigation, Johnson provides a minute-by-minute account of the Camp Fire, following residents and first responders as they fight to save themselves and their town. We see a young mother fleeing with her newborn; a school bus full of children in search of an escape route; and a group of paramedics, patients, and nurses trapped in a cul-de-sac, fending off the fire with rakes and hoses.
Johnson documents the unfolding tragedy with empathy and nuance. But she also investigates the root causes, from runaway climate change to a deeply flawed alert system to Pacific Gas and Electric’s decades-long neglect of critical infrastructure. A cautionary tale for a new era of megafires, Paradise is the gripping story of a town wiped off the map and the determination of its people to rise again.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!Paradise by Lizzie Johnson
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So Wild
Of course, I’ll always recommend a romance when I can!
This was the first Eve Dangerfield book I read and I was hooked. A great author to try if you like angsty contemporaries with a focus on ink.
This series is about three sisters who take over their father’s tattoo shop. Dangerfield is on a bit of a hiatus right now and sadly, has yet to announce the third installment. Fingers crossed we’ll get it eventually!
As a teenager, Samantha DaSilva had two interests: running wild and messing with her posh neighbour. The neighbour moved away—the coward—but the wild kept right on going. At least it did until her hippie father vanished, leaving her in charge of the family tattoo studio. As Sam struggles to keep the business afloat her childhood nemesis returns, taller, blonder and more offensively gorgeous than ever.
As a teenager, the wildest thing Scott Sanderson did was get a crush on Sam DaSilva. When that blew up in his face he moved to London to pursue realistic goals and girls who didn’t set fire to his underwear. After unexpected circumstances pull Scott back into Sam’s orbit, he’s shocked to discover he’s still in love with a woman who doesn’t own a phone. And who hasn’t forgiven a thing.
As Sam and Scott struggle to make sense of their mutual attraction, they confront some of life’s biggest questions—can you ever really get over the past? Is it better to be safe or sorry? Is a spanking adequate punishment for putting someone’s virginity on eBay?
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!So Wild by Eve Dangerfield
Re Eve Dangerfield: at the end of her last published romance, NOT YOUR SHOE SIZE (which was more of a coda to ACT YOUR AGE rather than a standalone), she announced she would no longer be writing romance but she was going to be writing in another genre under another name. So, unfortunately, it appears that we’ll never get the third book in the Silver Sisters series and we’ll never know what their father has been doing all this time. Dangerfield is in my “pantheon of missed writers” along with Anne Calhoun, Jill Sorenson, Cara McKenna, and Ruthie Knox. How I miss them all. Sigh.
Handselling is the best job ever. I would do it unpaid for the rest of my life, at an independent bookstore. This feature will be one of my new favorites. Thanks for thinking of it.
FYI: The SO WILD link for Amazon goes to a “not found” page.
Dangerfield dropped a new romance without much fanfare in August, Begin Again Again. It felt like kind of a tonal change from her earlier books and is unconnected to previous series, but worth checking out if you’re a fan.
@DiscoDollyDeb: Don’t know if you heard, but Eve Dangerfield dropped a surprise book, “Begin Again Again,” and it’s billed as “humorous erotica.” It’s more like sexy millennials figuring their shiz out after the pandemic. Sexy times Eve-Dangerfield style. So nice to have her back! And I think there will be a second in the series.
This looks like a feature I’ll enjoy. Thank you, Amanda!
I’m going to love this, thank you!
My dad is about to start Paradise and then I hope he’ll let me borrow it
@Claire & @TinaS: thank you so much for the heads-up on a new Dangerfield. She certainly did drop it without fanfare, but now I have to check it out. Hopefully, a new book means Dangerfield has been rethinking her decision to “retire” from romance.
@DiscoDollyDeb any idea what happened to Anne Calhoun and Ruthie Knox? I loved their stuff and they both dropped off my radar.
@Elise: Ruthie Knox went into a different career—in publishing, iirc, but not on the writing side. I don’t think anyone knows what happened to Anne Calhoun. She published her last book (TURN ME LOOSE) in May 2017 and the ending seemed to be setting up another couple for the next book and then she abruptly shut down all her social media and went radio silent. At this point, I’m not even expecting another book from her, I’d just to know that she’s ok.