Welcome back to Hide Your Wallet! This is where we talk about the books releasing this week that are pretty buzzy or are on our radar.
This time, I feel like there’s an even mix of subgenres across romance!
What books are you excited for this week? Let us know in the comments!
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A Letter to the Luminous Deep
Author: Sylvie Cathrall
Released: April 23, 2024 by Orbit
Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale Romance, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: The Sunken Archive #1A charming fantasy set in an underwater world with magical academia and a heartwarming penpal romance, perfect for fans of A Marvellous Light, Emily Wilde’s Encylopaedia of Faeries and The House in the Cerulean Sea.
“An underwater treasure-chest to be slowly unpacked, full of things I adore: nosy and loving families, epistolary romance, gorgeous worldbuilding, and anxious scholars doing their best to meet the world with kindness and curiosity.” —Freya Marske, author of A Marvellous Light
A beautiful discovery outside the window of her underwater home prompts the reclusive E. to begin a correspondence with renowned scholar Henerey Clel. The letters they share are filled with passion, at first for their mutual interests, and then, inevitably, for each other.
Together, they uncover a mystery from the unknown depths, destined to transform the underwater world they both equally fear and love. But by no mere coincidence, a seaquake destroys E.’s home, and she and Henerey vanish.
A year later, E.’s sister Sophy, and Henerey’s brother Vyerin, are left to solve the mystery, piecing together the letters, sketches and field notes left behind—and learn what their siblings’ disappearance might mean for life as they know it.
Inspired, immersive, and full of heart, this charming epistolary tale is an adventure into the depths of a magical sea and the limits of the imagination from a marvelous debut voice.
Amanda: A cozy fantasy romance with an underwater world and epistolary elements!
Sarah: I LOVE epistolary stories, and Amanda flagged this for me the minute she saw it.
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Funny Story
Author: Emily Henry
Released: April 23, 2024 by Berkley
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomanceA shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common.
Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.
Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.
Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?
But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?
Sarah: Debut book by a new author no one has ever heard of, sounds neat! (I’m kidding.) Emily Henry knows tropes SO well, and it’s fun to see what she does with them.
Lara: This book wrecked me. Not in a crying way, but definitely in a using-all-my-emotions-to-the-max way.
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My Season of Scandal
Author: Julie Anne Long
Released: April 23, 2024 by Avon
Genre: Historical: European, Romance
Series: The Palace of Rogues #7In USA Today bestselling author Julie Anne Long’s latest installment in the Palace of Rogues series, a notorious rake meets his match in a doe-eyed girl from the country, changing the course of both of their futures…
A London season is the chance of a lifetime for Catherine Keating. But the ton’s glitter and decadence and casual cruelty threaten to crush her hopes of finding a husband before her season even begins…until she accidentally acquires one of the most scandalous men in England as a secret chaperone.
Famously fiery Lord Dominic Kirke can hold the House of Commons—and any woman he chooses— in thrall. But when his house goes up in flames in the dead of night, he finds himself at the Grand Palace on the Thames. And there he discovers his cynical armor is no match for another an innocent country girl with a crackling wit and eyes like a summer sky.
He’s maddening, elusive, hopelessly charismatic, wrong in every way—perfectly designed to break her heart. But she doesn’t know she holds his battered heart in her hands. And though it will destroy him, Dominic knows loving her means setting Catherine free for the life—and man—she deserves.
Lara: This book and I had a wonderful time together. This is definitely my favourite in the series.
Aarya: JAL’s best book after What I Did for a Duke.
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Song of the Six Realms
Author: Judy Lin
Released: April 23, 2024 by Feiwel & Friends
Genre: Historical: Other, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young AdultJudy I. Lin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Magic Steeped in Poison , weaves a dreamy gothic romance worthy of the heavens in Song of the Six Realms .
Xue, a talented young musician, has no past and probably no future. Orphaned at a young age, her kindly poet uncle took her in and arranged for an apprenticeship at one of the most esteemed entertainment houses in the kingdom. She doesn’t remember much from before entering the House of Flowing Water, and when her uncle is suddenly killed in a bandit attack, she is devastated to lose her last connection to a life outside of her indenture contract.
With no family and no patron, Xue is facing the possibility of a lifetime of servitude playing the qin for nobles that praise her talent with one breath and sneer at her lowly social status with the next. Then one night she is unexpectedly called to the garden to put on a private performance for the enigmatic Duke Meng. The young man is strangely kind and awkward for nobility, and surprises Xue further with an irresistible serve as a musician in residence at his manor for one year, and he’ll set her free of her indenture.
But the Duke’s motives become increasingly more suspect when he and Xue barely survive an attack by a nightmarish monster, and when he whisks her away to his estate, she discovers he’s not just some country He’s the Duke of Dreams, one of the divine rulers of the Celestial Realm. There she learns the Six Realms are on the brink of disaster, and incursions by demonic beasts are growing more frequent.
The Duke needs Xue’s help to unlock memories from her past that could hold the answers to how to stop the impending war… but first Xue will need to survive being the target of every monster and deity in the Six Realms.
Amanda: Lin’s books are always beautiful to look at and full of adventure.
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The Stranger I Wed
Author: Harper St. George
Released: April 23, 2024 by Berkley
Genre: Historical: European, Romance
Series: The Doves of New York #1New to wealth and to London high society, American heiress Cora Dove discovers that with the right man, marriage might not be such an inconvenience after all. . . .
Cora Dove and her sisters’ questionable legitimacy has been the lifelong subject of New York’s gossipmongers and a continual stain on their father’s reputation. So when the girls each receive a generous, guilt-induced dowry from their dying grandmother, the sly Mr. Hathaway vows to release their funds only if Cora and her sisters can procure suitable husbands—far from New York. For Cora, England is a fresh start. She has no delusions of love, but a husband who will respect her independence? That’s an earl worth fighting for.
Enter: Leopold Brendon, Earl of Devonworth, a no-nonsense member of Parliament whose plan to pass a Public Health bill that would provide clean water to the working class requires the backing of a wealthy wife. He just never expected to crave Cora’s touch or yearn to hear her thoughts on his campaign—or to discover that his seemingly perfect bride protects so many secrets…
But secrets have a way of bubbling to the surface, and Devonworth has a few of his own. With their pasts laid bare and Cora’s budding passion for women’s rights taking a dangerous turn, they’ll learn the true cost of losing their heart to a stranger—and that love is worth any price.
Amanda: Harper St. George’s historicals are an autobuy for me!
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Two books on my tbr this week:
ENEMIES AT THE GREEK ALTAR by Jackie Ashenden (April 23) is—based on its title—obviously a Harlequin Presents. It’s another of those “willed to wed” stories where the MCs are being manipulated into marriage by a wily grandparent. The MCs in this case are sworn enemies, so I’m expecting some typical antagonists-to-lovers steam from Ashenden.
PIECE OF ME Juliana Stone (April 24) is the second book in her Bridgestones of Montana series of cowboy romances. In PIECE OF ME, both MCs are responsible for raising young children: the heroine is a single mom with a baby, the hero is raising his sister’s twins. Stone is hit-or-miss for me, but PIECE OF ME looks like it’s full of angsty emotion.
After an interminable wait due to a change in release schedule(s?)—mumblemumble covid and the resulting well, everything—Nalini Singh’s ARCHANGEL’S LINEAGE releases 23.4 (US) and 25.4 (UK)!!! Woo hoo!
Excuse me, I’ll be reading and do not wish to be bothered unless the house is on fire…
(To be fair, the wait for Nalini Singh releases is always interminable, but being a polite reader I keep my frustrations to myself and browse my TBR for entertainment while waiting. You know, instead of traveling to New Zealand and howling under Nalini’s window.)
If you pick up A LETTER TO THE LUMINOUS DEEP, you should know that this is the first book in a series and it ends with a cliffhanger. A few GR reviewers were angry because there is nothing in the description to indicate that the story isn’t complete as is. OTOH, some reviewers loved it.
Yes,yes very nice, but today is all about one book and only one:
https://nalinisingh.com/books/guild-hunter-series/archangels-lineage/
Look at that cover! LOOK AT IT!!! I am having god-awful back spasms and I am still heading off to B&N to pick it up. Raphael & Elena are back and I am giddy for it.
I *think* I want to read EARL’S TRIP, but to be quite honest “Ted Lasso meets Bridgerton for a 19th century spin on The Hangover” is a wild description which I hope is an exaggeration from the marketing department.
Earl’s Trip is a solid B for me; kinda wallpaper on the history, but good. The St. George is a solid A – freaking fantastic. Everything else is on the TBR.
Thank you for the heads-up on MY SEASON FOR SCANDAL. I have really enjoyed this series and was delighted to discover I had enough Kobo Points to purchase -yea! Know what I will be reading tonight…
My Season For Scandal has one of the best grovels I’ve read in a long time. Highly recommended. If you aren’t already reading the series, you can definitely read this as a standalone, but the found family relationships that have developed over the course of the series make it that much richer.
So is it really Earls Trip with no apostrophe? It sounds like multiple earls are stumbling…perhaps falling in love?