Happy Tuesday!
Lots of interesting picks from the SBTB team this week. There is a short story collection, Mediterranean-inspired fantasy, and series continuations.
Which new releases are on your to-read list? Let us know in the comments!
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A Deceptive Composition
Author: Anna Lee Huber
Released: June 18, 2024 by Berkley
Genre: Historical: European, Mystery/Thriller
Series: Lady Darby Mysteries #12Lady Kiera Darby and her dashing husband, Sebastian Gage, hope they’ve finally found peace after a tumultuous summer, but long-buried family secrets soon threaten to unravel their lives . . .
October 1832. Kiera is enjoying the slower pace of the English countryside. She, Sebastian, and their infant daughter have accompanied her father-in-law, Lord Gage, home so that he can recuperate from the injuries he sustained in a foiled attempt on his life. But as the chill of autumn sweeps across the land, they receive a summons from an unexpected quarter. Lord Gage’s estranged uncle—a member of the notorious Roscarrock family—has been murdered, and his family is desperate for answers. Despite Lord Gage’s protests, Kiera and Sebastian press on to Cornwall to assist.
It isn’t long before they discover that almost nothing is as it seems among the Roscarrocks, and they’ve been lured to their isolated cove under false pretenses. There are whispers of a lost treasure and frightening allusions to a series of murders stretching back decades that touch the lives of the family personally. Kiera and Sebastian are left with no choice but to uncover the truth before the secrets of the past threaten to destroy them all.
Sarah: New Lady Darby! This is such a great series. I may have to listen to them from book one.
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A Shore Thing
Author: Joanna Lowell
Released: June 18, 2024 by Berkley
Genre: Historical: European, LGBTQIA, RomanceA delightful queer Victorian love story, featuring a boldly brash trans hero, the beguiling botanist who captures his heart, and a buoyant bicycle race by the British seaside — from the author of The Duke Undone.
Former painter and unreformed rake Kit Griffith is forging a new life in Cornwall, choosing freedom over an identity that didn’t fit. He knew that leaving his Sisterhood of women artists might mean forfeiting artistic community forever. He didn’t realize he would lose his ability to paint altogether. Luckily, he has other talents. Why not devote himself to selling bicycles and trysting with the holidaymakers?
Enter Muriel Pendrake, the feisty New-York-bound botanist who has come to St. Ives to commission Kit for illustrations of British seaweeds. Kit shouldn’t accept Muriel’s offer, but he must enlist her help to prove to an all-male cycling club that women can ride as well as men. And she won’t agree unless he gives her what she wants. Maybe that’s exactly the challenge he needs.
As Kit and Muriel spend their days cycling together, their desire begins to burn with the heat of the summer sun. But are they pedaling toward something impossible? The past is bound to catch up to them, and at the season’s end, their paths will diverge. With only their hearts as guides, Kit and Muriel must decide if they’re willing to race into the unknown for the adventure of a lifetime.
Shana: I keep hearing how good this quiet little romance is, and I can’t wait to read it.
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The Art of Catching Feelings
Author: Alicia Thompson
Released: June 18, 2024 by Berkley
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomanceDahlia: Thompson is at the tippy top of my autobuy list. I just love the way she writes personalities in a way no one else does, and I’m especially excited to see what she does with sports since I initially know her from a gymnastics YA she published waaay back when.
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Craft
Author: Ananda Lima
Released: June 18, 2024 by Tor
Genre: Horror, Science Fiction/FantasyStrange, intimate, haunted, and hungry—Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil is an intoxicating and surreal fiction debut by award-winning author Ananda Lima.
“Remarkable and memorable.” —OLIVIE BLAKE • “An astounding new voice.” —ERIC LaROCCA • “I love it so much.” —KELLY LINK • “Trippy, eerie, wry, and always profound.” —JOHN KEENE • “Incredible. Truly wondrous.” —KEVIN WILSON • “Heart-wrenching and wickedly funny.” —GWEN KIRBY • “Propulsive, uncanny, and expertly built.” —JULIA FINE
At a Halloween party in 1999, a writer slept with the devil. She sees him again and again throughout her life and she writes stories for him about things that are both impossible and true.
Lima lures readers into surreal pockets of the United States and Brazil where they’ll find bite-size Americans in vending machines and the ghosts of people who are not dead. Once there, she speaks to modern Brazilian-American immigrant experiences–of ambition, fear, longing, and belonging—and reveals the porousness of storytelling and of the places we call home.
With humor, an exquisite imagination, and a voice praised as “singular and wise and fresh” (Cathy Park Hong), Lima joins the literary lineage of Bulgakov and Lispector and the company of writers today like Ted Chiang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.
Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil includes: “Rapture,” “Ghost Story,” “Tropicália,” “Antropógaga,” “Idle Hands,” “Rent,” “Porcelain,” “Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory,” and “Hasselblad.”
A great next read for fans of Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties and V. E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.
Amanda: Spooky season is a mindset, not a timeframe.
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Daughter of Calamity
Author: Rosalie Lin
Released: June 18, 2024 by St. Martin's Press
Genre: Horror, Historical: Other, Science Fiction/FantasyGenres collide in this dark and atmospheric reimagining of 1930s Shanghai for fans of Nghi Vo and S. A. Chakraborty.
Jingwen spends her nights as a showgirl at the Paramount, one of the most lavish clubs in Shanghai, competing ruthlessly to charm wealthy patrons. To cap off her shifts, she runs money for her grandmother, the exclusive surgeon to the most powerful gang in the city. A position her grandmother is pressuring her to inherit…
When a series of dancers are targeted—the attacker stealing their faces—Jingwen fears she could be next. And as the faces of the dancers start appearing on wealthy foreign socialites, she realizes Shanghai’s glittering mirage of carefree luxury comes at a terrible price.
Fighting not just for her own safety but that of the other dancers—women who have simultaneously been her bitterest rivals and only friends—Jingwen has no choice but to delve into the city’s underworld. In this treacherous realm of tangled alliances and ancient grudges, silver-armed gangsters haunt every alley, foreign playboys broker deals in exclusive back rooms, and the power of gods is wielded and traded like yuan. Jingwen will have to become something far stranger and more dangerous than her grandmother ever imagined if she hopes to survive the forces waiting to sell Shanghai’s bones.
Shana’s pick!
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Lady Scandal
Author: Laura Lee Guhrke
Released: June 18, 2024 by Forever
Genre: Historical: European, Romance
Series: Scandal at the Savoy #2From a New York Times bestselling author comes a dazzling Victorian romance featuring a haughty businessman and the headstrong event planner who steals his heart—perfect for fans of Bridgerton, Evie Dunmore, and Amalie Howard!
Delia Stratham is an unconventional woman. While other ladies learned proper decorum at finishing school, she composed naughty limericks and admired the gardener’s muscular legs. So naturally when she’s widowed for the third time, she does the unthinkable: she gets a job. Planning events for the Savoy Hotel is perfect for someone with her skills. But her dream career turns into a nightmare when she’s forced to work with the most annoying—and gorgeous—man she’s ever met.
Hotel magnate Simon Hayden knows something fishy is going on at the Savoy: the hotel is constantly busy, yet the books say it’s in the red. He’s determined to root out the fraud and its perpetrators, and that means spending time with one of the most likely suspects: the delectable, infuriating Lady Stratham. She’s definitely getting in his way and under his skin and he can’t decide whether to fire her or kiss her until she stops arguing. But when the sparks between them flare into flame, Simon must choose between his love for Delia and his duty to the hotel. Will his choice bring them together or tear them apart?
A historical romance without any obvious nobility!
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One-Star Romance
Author: Laura Hankin
Released: June 18, 2024 by Berkley
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomanceA struggling writer is forced to walk down the aisle at her best friend’s wedding with the man who gave her book a very public one-star rating in this fresh romantic comedy from Laura Hankin.
Natalie and Rob couldn’t have less in common. Nat’s a messy artist, and Rob’s a rigid academic. The only thing they share is their devotion to their respective best friends—who just got engaged. Still, unexpected chemistry has Natalie cautiously optimistic about being maid of honor to Rob’s best man.
Until, minutes before the ceremony, Nat learns that Rob wrote a one-star review of her new novel, which has them both reeling: Nat from imposter syndrome, and Rob over the reason he needed to write it.
When the reception ends, these two opposites hope they’ll never meet again. But, as they slip from their twenties into their thirties, they’re forced together whenever their fast-track best friends celebrate another milestone. Through housewarmings and christenings, life-changing triumphs and failures, Natalie and Rob grapple with their own choices—and how your harshest critic can become your perfectly imperfect match.
After all, even the truest love stories sometimes need a bit of rewriting.
Dahlia: This one had me at the title, and as an author, I just think this is the funniest premise.
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Right Where We Left Us
Author: Jen Devon
Released: June 18, 2024 by St. Martin's Griffin
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomancePerfect for fans of Carly Fortune and Lucy Score, Right Where We Left Us is a searing and unforgettable romance.
Temperance Jean Madigan and Duncan Brady have never gotten it right. After one radiant, secret summer together when they were eighteen, they’ve been on-again off-again ever since. Now, despite red-hot chemistry and TJ’s closeness with Duncan’s family, they’re virtually strangers, only capable of adversarial banter, awkward small talk—and the occasional messy hookup.
When a wedding at the Bradys’ vineyard lands TJ there for the summer, their mutual avoidance strategies prove impossible. The last thing TJ wants is to be under those angsty, heated glances Duncan thinks he hides. And for Duncan, having fiery TJ constantly close is the ultimate distraction that he absolutely can’t afford. When forced proximity begins to chip away at their armor, buried tensions resurface, old wounds urge confrontation, and once-in-a-lifetime love demands one last chance to finally get it right.
Aarya: This author’s debut was *chef’s kiss* and she sequel-baited this couple HARD.
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The House of the Red Balconies
Author: A.J. Demas
Released: June 30, 2024 by Sexton's Cottage
Genre: LGBTQIA, Romance, Science Fiction/FantasyHylas has come to the island of Tykanos to build an aqueduct. He is not interested in the island’s main attraction: the pleasure houses where polished courtesans both female and male serve tea and elegant conversation. Until he finds himself renting a room in one of the tea houses and meeting his neighbour, the courtesan Zo.
Over breakfasts in Zo’s garden, the two men strike up a friendship that transforms the isolation of their lives. But Hylas’s aqueduct project is threatened by bureaucratic delays, and Zo needs to secure a rich patron to help support his failing house. Just when they have begun to hope that they have found a home together, will the world force them apart?
Aarya: Demas writes such interesting Mediterranean-inspired fantasy settings.
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I’ve been counting the days til The House of the Red Balconies comes out. It was set for June 24th, and I still see that on the links – so hopefully I won’t have to wait a whole extra week 😉
Probably an odd question, but is there some sort of glitch in processing the blurbs for books? It seems to eat the word immediately before a colon, so (above): “she does the she gets a job.” Then “something fishy is going on at the the hotel”, and finally “with one of the most likely the delectable”. Missing: “unthinkable:” (between the she), “Savoy:” (between the the), and “suspects:” (between likely the).
This started at least one (maybe more) of these collections-of-blurbs ago. I noticed an ungrammatical sentence, with a fairly obvious word missing, but no idea what the word was, so went and found the blurb on Amazon. That one was also a single word and a colon, I think, but I don’t remember what it was exactly. Having the Guhrke blurb miss three in two short paras triggered all of my pedantic obsessiveness, so I wonder: is there some custom software that’s doing this, or what?
Patricia Briggs’ new Mercy Thompson book, Winter Lost, is out today.
@Amy! Well, now, that’s a WEIRD one. Off to investigate – thank you for pointing that out!
Sierra Simone’s latest, Honey Cut, is out today! Book two (book one is Salt Kiss) in a contemporary Tristan and Isolde retelling that’s definitely aiming for an endgame of Tristan/Mark/Isolde. Mark owns a sex club, Tristan’s an ex-soldier who likes taking orders, and Isolde is engaged to Mark, but…So much angst, so much smoking-hot sex. It’s waiting on the Nook for me at home if I can make it through the day.
OMG, THANK YOU for the reminder about the new Lady Darby! The series quickly became a new favorite when I started it last year and I have been eagerly awaiting the next installment since last July yet somehow completely FORGOT it came out today! And the audiobook is already available on my Hoopla!
Now to decide whether to relisten to the entire series (which I’ve been considering doing since immediately finishing book 11 last year) or to just dive right in…much to think about. (If I’m being honest with myself I’m much to impatient and will probably listen to the entirety of the new installment tonight.)
I wasn’t a huge fan of the last Joanna Lowell I read but I’ll try any queer historical once.
Daughters of Calamity sounded so familiar so I checked my GR – apparently I added it to my TBR back in October. So many books, such little brain space!
Very high hopes for Lady Scandal. Exactly my kind of catnip!
I’ve been meaning to try A.J. Demas for ages. Their synopses are always so intriguing and this one’s no exception!
The Craft blurb is repeated. It does sound interesting.