Get Rec’d with Amanda – Volume 25

Hey all! It’s been a hot minute! I’m current at a black tie wedding in Rhode Island. Now, I don’t love attending weddings, but I do love free food and an open bar.

For those of you who don’t know, I have a lot of book-related jobs outside of Smart Bitches and not all of them are romance-specific. I love connecting books to readers and I feel like I do a pretty dang good job. Here are a handful I’ve recommended in the last couple weeks.

Did you get any good recommendations lately? Any books you want to tell me about?

  • The Atlas Six

    The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

    This has been a super popular handsell for me for people who have read and enjoyed Leigh Bardugo and Holly Black’s adult fantasy debuts!

    The much-acclaimed BookTok sensation, Olivie Blake’s The Atlas Six–now newly revised and edited with additional content.

    • A dark academic debut fantasy with an established cult following that reads like THE SECRET HISTORY meets THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY

    • The first in an explosive trilogy

    The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation.

    Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, unwilling halves of an unfathomable whole, who exert uncanny control over every element of physicality. Reina Mori, a naturalist, who can intuit the language of life itself. Parisa Kamali, a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious, navigating worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova, an empath easily mistaken for a manipulative illusionist, who can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through illusions to a new structure of reality—an ability so rare that neither he nor his peers can fully grasp its implications.

    When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will.

    Most of them.

    Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

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    • Kobo

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    The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

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  • The Final Strife

    The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

    A great option for fantasy readers in your life, especially if they love cultural mythology.

    In the first book of a visionary African- and Arabian-inspired fantasy trilogy, three women band together against a cruel empire that divides people by blood.

    Red is the blood of the elite, of magic, of control.
    Blue is the blood of the poor, of workers, of the resistance.
    Clear is the blood of the slaves, of the crushed, of the invisible.

    Sylah dreams of days growing up in the resistance, being told she would spark a revolution that would free the empire from the red-blooded ruling classes’ tyranny. That spark was extinguished the day she watched her family murdered before her eyes.

    Anoor has been told she’s nothing, no one, a disappointment, by the only person who matters: her mother, the most powerful ruler in the empire. But dust always rises in a storm.

    Hassa moves through the world unseen by upper classes, so she knows what it means to be invisible. But invisibility has its uses: It can hide the most dangerous of secrets, secrets that can reignite a revolution.

    As the empire begins a set of trials of combat and skill designed to find its new leaders, the stage is set for blood to flow, power to shift, and cities to burn.

    Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

    This book is available from:
    • Available at Amazon
    • Order this book from apple books

    • Barnes & Noble
    • Kobo

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    We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!

    The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

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  • Our Last Days in Barcelona

    Our Last Days in Barcelona by Chanel Cleeton

    A woman came into the bookstore this week. She had a list of historical fiction novels her friend suggested she might want to grab for an upcoming trip. I’m happy to say I threw this one in, just in case she was open to a suggestion off her list, and I’m proud to say she bought this one!

    When Isabel Perez travels to Barcelona to save her sister Beatriz, she discovers a shocking family secret in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton’s new novel.

    Barcelona, 1964. Exiled from Cuba after the revolution, Isabel Perez has learned to guard her heart and protect her family at all costs. After Isabel’s sister Beatriz disappears in Barcelona, Isabel goes to Spain in search of her. Joining forces with an unlikely ally thrusts Isabel into her sister’s dangerous world of espionage, but it’s an unearthed piece of family history that transforms Isabel’s life.

    Barcelona, 1936. Alicia Perez arrives in Barcelona after a difficult voyage from Cuba, her marriage in jeopardy and her young daughter Isabel in tow. Violence brews in Spain, the country on the brink of civil war, the rise of fascism threatening the world. When Cubans journey to Spain to join the International Brigades, Alicia’s past comes back to haunt her as she is unexpectedly reunited with the man who once held her heart.

    Alicia and Isabel’s lives intertwine, and the past and present collide, as a mother and daughter are forced to choose between their family’s expectations and following their hearts.

    Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

    This book is available from:
    • Available at Amazon
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    Our Last Days in Barcelona by Chanel Cleeton

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  • Unmask Alice

    Unmask Alice by Rick Emerson

    This one was a recommendation to me through the magic of the algorithm. I remember reading the Go Ask Alice profile that I featured in a recent-ish links post and this definitely aligns with my fascination on the Alice history.

    Two teens, two diaries, two sordid scandals. All from the same dark place: a serial con artist who betrayed a grieving family, stole a dead boy’s identity, and swindled her way to the National Book Awards.

    First published in 1971, Go Ask Alice shocked readers and reinvented the young adult genre. Fifty years and 5 million copies later, Go Ask Alice is more than famous—it’s iconic. Even people who haven’t read it know the basics: Some teenager’s diary…she’s hooked on drugs…it might be fake…doesn’t she die at the end?

    But Alice was only the beginning.

    In 1979, another “real” diary rattled the nation. The posthumous account of a boy lured into devil-worship, Jay’s Journal spurred the Satanic Panic—a literal witch hunt that lasted for decades, shattering lives and poisoning whole communities.

    Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the Worlds Most Notorious Diaries is the true story of a young-adult blockbuster…of a terror that stalked 1980s America…and of the ruthless charlatan behind both.

    Author and veteran radio/television broadcaster Rick Emerson spent five years unearthing and assembling this amazing and , nearly unbelievable story: interviewing central and peripheral players, visiting key locations, and sifting through tens of thousands of documents.

    The story stretches from Hollywood to Quantico, and passes through a tiny patch of Utah desert called “the fraud capital of America”. It’s the story of a doomed romance and an unhinged celebrity. Of a lazy press and a public mob. Of two suicidal teenagers, and their exploitation by a literary vampire. Unmask Alice is the gripping true story of a pop-culture smash—and its ugly, ongoing fallout

    Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

    This book is available from:
    • Available at Amazon
    • Order this book from apple books

    • Barnes & Noble
    • Kobo

    As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
    We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!

    Unmask Alice by Rick Emerson

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Comments are Closed

  1. DonnaMarie says:

    Am I the only one who read GO ASK ALICE back in the day and thought “Nope”? My 15yo self was not so credulous. Years later, when the truth about it came out, I said “Told you so.” Funny enough, none of my friends even remember reading it. Ah, the impact of Contemporary Lit in High School. Looks like the story is more interesting than my vague memories of the debunking.

    And if you think human beings aren’t much smarter than sheep, ask someone who was around for the Satanic Panic.

  2. Emmy says:

    Thanks for the recs! I put The Final Strife on my library hold list!

  3. Susan says:

    @DonnaMarie I clearly remember reading Go Ask Alice when I was maybe 12 and being shocked and scared haha. Just recently The New Yorker ran a piece about it and the author. She made a lucrative career out of making this stuff up. Its a fascinating read for those of us of a certain age who recall the book.

    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/01/how-a-mormon-housewife-turned-a-fake-diary-into-an-enormous-best-seller

    Ditto the Chanel Cleeton rec. She’s on my autobuy list.

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