Glass Houses by Madeline AshbyPublished by: Tor Books
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A group of employees and their CEO, celebrating the sale of their remarkable emotion-mapping-AI-algorithm, crash onto a not-quite-deserted tropical island.
Luckily, those who survived have found a beautiful, fully-stocked private palace, with all the latest technological updates (though one without connection to the outside world). The house, however, has more secrets than anyone might have guessed, and a much darker reason for having been built and left behind.
Kristen, the hyper-competent "chief emotional manager" (a position created by her eccentric, boyish billionaire boss, Sumter) is trying to keep her colleagues stable throughout this new challenge, but staying sane seems to be as much of a challenge as staying alive.
Being a woman in tech has always meant having to be smarter than anyone expects - and Kristen's knack for out-of-the-box problem-solving and quick thinking has gotten her to the top of her field. But will a killer instinct be enough to survive the island?
A gleefully decadent near future whodunit from Madeline Ashby, the acclaimed futurist and author of Company Town - perfect for fans of Severance, The White Lotus, and Black Mirror."
Please say AI kills them. Fingers crossed!
I Need You to Read This by Jessa MaxwellPublished by: Atria Books
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"The author of the "clever, atmospheric, and creepy" (Andrea Bartz, New York Times bestselling author) The Golden Spoon returns with a sly and addictive new mystery about an advice columnist searching for answers about her predecessor's murder.
Her most important letter might be her last...
Years ago Alex Marks escaped to New York City for a fresh start. Now, aside from trips to her regular diner for coffee, she keeps to herself, gets her perfectly normal copywriting job done, and doesn't date. Her carefully cultivated world is upended when her childhood hero, Francis Keen, is brutally murdered. Francis was the woman behind the famous advice column, Dear Constance, and her words helped Alex through some of her darkest times.
When Alex sees an advertisement searching for her replacement, she impulsively applies, never expecting to actually get the job. Against all odds, Alex is given the position and quickly proves herself skilled at solving other people's problems. But soon, she begins to receive strange, potentially threatening letters at the office. Francis's murderer was never identified, turning everyone around her into a threat. Including her boss, editor-in-chief Howard Dimitri, who has a habit of staying late at the office and drinking too much.
As Alex is drawn into the details surrounding her predecessor's murder, her own dark secrets begin to rise to the surface and Alex suddenly finds herself trapped in a dangerous and potentially deadly game of cat and mouse that takes her all the way from the power centers of Manhattan to Francis Keen's summer house, where her body was found and where the killer may just be waiting for her."
A body in a summer house? Oh, so much yes.
The Queen City Detective Agency by Snowden WrightPublished by: William Morrow and Company
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Following an unforgettable cast of characters and a jaded female P.I. enmeshed in a criminal conspiracy in 1980s Mississippi, The Queen City Detective Agency is a riveting, razor-sharp Southern noir that unravels the greed, corruption, and racism at the heart of the American Dream.
Meridian, Mississippi - once known as the Queen City for its status in the state - has lost much of its royal bearing by 1985. Overshadowed by more prosperous cities such as New Orleans and Atlanta, Meridian attracts less-than-legitimate businesses, including those enforced by the near-mythical Dixie Mafia. The city's powerbrokers, wealthy white Southerners clinging to their privilege, resent any attempt at change to the old order.
Real-estate developer Randall Hubbard took advantage of Meridian's economic decline by opening strip malls that catered to low-income families in Black neighborhoods - until he wound up at the business end of a .38 Special. Then a Dixie Mafia affiliate named Lewis "Turnip" Coogan, who claims Hubbard's wife hired him for the hit, dies under suspicious circumstances while in custody for the murder.
Ex-cop turned private investigator Clementine Baldwin is hired by Coogan's bereaved mother to find her son's killer. A woman struggling with her own history growing up in Mississippi, Clem braves the Queen City's corridors of crime as she digs into the case, opening wounds long forgotten. She soon finds herself in the crosshairs of powerful and dangerous people who manipulate the law for their own ends - and will kill anyone who threatens to reveal their secrets."
There's something more gritty and real about crime set in the 80s.
Through the Midnight Door by Katrina MonroePublished by: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Three sisters. Three keys. Three unspeakable horrors.
The Finch sisters once spent long, hot summers exploring the dozens of abandoned properties littering their dying town - until they found an impossible home with an endless hall of doors...and three keys left waiting for them. Curious, fearless, they stepped inside their chosen rooms, and experienced horrors they never dared speak of again.
Now, years later, youngest sister Claire has been discovered dead in that old, desiccated house. Haunted by their sister's suicide and the memories of a past they've struggled to forget, Meg and Esther find themselves at bitter odds. As they navigate the tensions of their brittle relationship, they draw unsettling lines between Claire's death, their own haunted memories, and a long-ago loss no one in their family has ever been able to face. With the house once again pulling them ever-closer, Meg and Esther must find the connection between their sister's death and the shadow that has chased them across the years...before the darkness claims them, too.
As emotional as it is haunting, Through the Midnight Door explores the sometimes-fragile bonds of sisterhood and the way deeply rooted trauma can pass from generation to generation."
Trauma, mystery, yeah yeah, this house totally eats people right?
The Dark We Know by Wen-Yi LeePublished by: Zando - Gillian Flynn Books
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"From Gillian Flynn Books, a lyrical young adult horror by debut author Wen-yi Lee that's perfect for fans of She Is a Haunting, Stephen King's IT, and The Haunting of Hill House.
Growing up in Slater, Isadora Chang never felt at ease in the repressive small town, even before she realized she was bisexual - but after the deaths of two childhood friends, Slater went from feeling claustrophobic to suffocating. So, Isa took off before the town could swallow her, too. Even though it meant leaving everything she knew behind, including her last surviving friend, Mason.
When Isa's abusive father dies, however, she agrees to come back from art school just long enough to collect the inheritance. But then Mason turns up at the cemetery with a revelation and a plea: their friends were murdered by an evil that haunts the town, and he needs Isa to help stop it - before it takes anyone else.
When Isa begins to hear strange songs on the wind, and eerie artwork fills her sketchbook that she can't recall drawing, she's forced to stop running and confront her past. Because something is waiting in the shadows of Slater's valleys, something that feeds on the pain and heartbreak of its children. Whatever it is, it knows Isa's back...and it won't let her escape again.
Wen-yi Lee's young adult debut is an intimate and gripping exploration of trauma, healing, and the lasting power of friendship, as a runaway teen must finally face the sinister forces that defined her childhood, and in doing so, demand her right to survive."
I mean, if you're stupid enough to go back you have to see it through...
The Queen's Lies by Oliver ClementsPublished by: Atria Books
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"The latest in the thrilling and "lively" (The New York Times) Agents of the Crown series follows John Dee and his wife working together in an act of espionage that may turn out to be treason.
While working on a powerful new weapon for England, the country's first secret agent John Dee finds himself threatened from all sides. First, his secret plans are stolen, then his son is kidnapped by a vengeful enemy from his past. At the same time, Dee's wife, Jane, is sent by Queen Elizabeth I to console her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, whom court advisors are determined to try for treason.
But Jane suspects her assignment is much more than a visit from a sympathetic cousin. Is it possible that Elizabeth sent her to speed Mary to her death without the public trial that she knows will forever define the limits of royal power? Together, John and Jane begin to feel genuine sympathy for the Scottish queen and work to finish his invention, protect their son, and save Mary from the scaffold. But can they do that while still remaining loyal to the English crown?"
I am SUCH a sucker for John Dee!
Lady Macbeth by Ava ReidPublished by: Del Rey Books
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ava Reid comes a reimagining of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare's most famous villainess, giving her a voice, a past, and a power that transforms the story men have written for her.
The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men.
The Lady knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed.
The Lady knows his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive.
But the Lady does not know her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that prophecy girds him like armor. She does not know that her magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world.
She does not know this yet. But she will."
I'm loving this new trend of reexamining Lady Macbeth!
The House Keeper's Secret by Iona GreyPublished by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Duty, desire, and deception reside under one roof.
Standing in the remote windswept moors of Northern England, Coldwell Hall is the perfect place to hide. For the past five years, Kate Furniss has maintained her professional mask so carefully that she almost believes she is the character she has created: Coldwell's respectable housekeeper.
It is the summer of 1911 that brings new faces above and below the stairs of Coldwell Hall - including the handsome and mysterious new footman, Jem Arden. Just as the house's shuttered rooms open, so does Kate's guarded heart to a love affair that is as intense as it is forbidden. But Kate can feel her control slipping as Jem harbors secrets of his own.
Told in alternating timelines from the last sun-drenched summer of the Edwardian Age to the mud-filled trenches of WWI, The Housekeeper's Secret opens its door to a world of romance, the truths we hold onto, and the past we must let go."
Why are so many deliciously unavoidable men named Jem?
Through the Mist by Lindsay Jayne AshfordPublished by: Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 331 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Two women disturb the dark history of a deceptively quiet postwar Cornwall village in a haunting novel by the bestselling author of A Feather on the Water and The Woman on the Orient Express.
It's winter 1947 when newlyweds Ellen and Tony Wylde move into an abandoned Cornish farmhouse overlooking the sea. For both, it's a new beginning in the country, and together they're bringing Carreg Cottage back to life. Yet Ellen can't hide a creeping unease. There's the ominous iconography painted on their bedroom ceiling, the sinister doll hidden away in the chimney. And Tony seems more familiar with the peculiar villagers than he's letting on.
Meanwhile, after nearly a decade away, young Iris returns to Cornwall seeking sanctuary in memories and longing for what she lost as a child. It was here that her mother died on the moors under a shroud of mystery and rumor - and was last seen alive in the isolated, long-shuttered cottage the Wyldes now call home.
Discovering more about each other and themselves, Ellen and Iris soon unite in a quest to uncover every dark secret this village - and the West Country mist - holds before it destroys them."
At doll hidden in chimney I would be already moving.
The Winged Tiara by J'nell CiesielskiPublished by: Thomas Nelson
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Diamonds and danger dazzle in Ciesielski's latest enchanting romp through post-war Europe as estranged spouses and jewel thieves hunt an elusive Valkyrie tiara.
November 12, 1918. It was a match made in champagne-soaked heaven, but all too soon the bubbles dried up, and Esme Fox awakens the morning after celebrating the end of the Great War to find herself shockingly and accidentally married. She gathers her belongings and slips out before her new husband can stop her. After all, she knows it's best to leave before he does.
Four years later, Jasper Truitt, after having made a name for himself in the underground world of jewel thieves, is on the hunt for a valuable heirloom: a one-of-a-kind winged tiara - the last Valkyrie tiara ever created. So it's with great surprise that he discovers it at a charity event atop the head of a woman he's never forgotten. His long-lost wife...who happens to be pursuing the tiara for a vengeful opera diva desperate to obtain the jewel for herself.
The reunion is cut short when Esme vanishes - again - but their separation is temporary. With a hitman on their heels and a deadline looming, the pair find themselves in an epic game of cat and mouse across Europe following leads from the French Riviera to a shop of wonders in Venice, a fairy-tale castle in Bavaria, and a veritable circus thrown by a champagne heiress, all before a dramatic horseback flight through the French countryside.
In the end only one can win, and with both of their hearts on the line, the winner may well turn out to be the loser.
In her latest glamorous historical romance, J'nell Ciesielski spins a sparkling story filled with her signature snappy dialogue and vivid atmosphere that will keep you reading late into the night to see what happens next."
I love the trope of accidental marriage actually working out in the end. Even if they're both thieves.
A Great Marriage by Frances MayesPublished by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"When a perfect wedding is called off just days before the big event, it sends two people - and their families - reeling, in this poignant novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun and Women in Sunlight.
A great marriage is an elusive thing, and only a few know the secret to making one.
Dara Willcox, in New York for a weekend, meets Austin Clarke at an art gallery. If love at first sight can happen, it happens to them. These two vivid, ambitious people are on different courses - he's British, working temporarily in New York. She's from North Carolina, set on law school. They don't care. They will make their lives together happen. At their April engagement dinner at Dara's family home, her mother, Lee, sets a beautiful table, and the family and close friends gather to celebrate. Rich, Dara's father, raises a toast. Suddenly, Lee spills the wine, a brilliant red stain splashing onto the tablecloth and onto Austin.
Days later, Austin hears unsettling news from London that wrecks their plans. Dara abruptly cancels the wedding. She refuses to reveal the reason, not even to her best friends or her parents or grandmother, disrupting their family tradition of openness. As everyone knows, Lee and Rich have a great marriage, and Charlotte, her grandmother, had a colossal one, to the late Senator Mann. Charlotte literally wrote the book on the subject: She's the author of international bestsellers on what makes a good or possibly a great marriage.
While Dara escapes to California and Indigo Island, South Carolina, Austin, back in London, faces a major tragedy, the consequences of which are life-altering. But it's Lee, Dara's mother, whose impulsive visit to London alters their fate.
With her signature warmth, humor, and incisive style, beloved author Frances Mayes creates a multigenerational probe into the complexity of love and the great mystery ride of marriage. A novel of casual choices and fateful consequences, A Great Marriage introduces two unforgettable families and the arrival of a stranger who rearranges their futures."
Come on, like me, I know you need to know what they broke up!
Beyond Ivy Walls by Rachel FordhamPublished by: Thomas Nelson
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 336 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast, a recluse and a young woman discover that the scars of life are no match against an act of love.
Iowa, 1903. All of Monticello believes Otis Taylor has been away fostering his musical genius. But the truth is that his father exiled him long ago, rejecting Otis's appearance and the scars that came with it. Now that he is the last living Taylor, Otis has covertly returned to settle his family's affairs and rid himself of his past for good. However, he soon discovers that he may not have been the only abandoned Taylor and begins a tireless search for his missing toddler niece.
At twenty-three years old, Sadie West left her family farm and found employment at the Hoag feather duster factory. It isn't a romantic job, but she's hardly had a glimmer of romance since her beau went off to college, leaving her with no promise of a future together. Desperate to save money and help her family make ends meet, she trespasses and finds shelter in an abandoned building - and is thrown in the path of the town's mysterious bachelor.
Otis's wounds are deep, but as Sadie's friendship with him grows, she begins to fall for the man beneath the mask. Locating his long-lost niece, however, is more difficult than either could have imagined, and Sadie West may be the key to Otis Taylor finally finding his way home."
Yes, romance, yes, recluse, I want to know more about the Hoag feather duster factory!
Netherford Hall by Natania BarronPublished by: Solaris Nova
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 360 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Pride and Prejudice and Witches.
After a mysterious fire at their home in Regency London displaces Gentlewitch Edith Rookwood and her now much-reduced family to their ancestral seat of Netherford Hall in Kent, she faces a new threat in the form of her tenant-the chaotic and lovely Poppy Brightwell.
The repairs on the old pile are prohibitive, Edith's standing is uncertain, and her inheritance has been challenged by a forgotten American branch of the family. It is clear she needs to marry, soon and wisely-but the lively girl from Harrow House gradually comes to occupy all of her thoughts.
As tenants, rivals, suitors and enemies start to circle Netherford, and dark secrets about both women's pasts come to light, Edith and Poppy must confront what it means to fight for love and family, and to be their authentic selves."
Regency Magic Bitches! Or should I say Witches?
A Bachelor Establishment by Jodi TaylorPublished by: Headline
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 208 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"High adventure and dark mystery combine in this sparkling historical romance from the internationally bestselling author of the Chronicles of St Mary's series.
Elinor Bascombe, widowed and tied to an impoverished estate, has learned to ask little of life. With no hope of leaving, the years have passed her by.
Lord Ryde, exiled abroad after a scandal, has returned to strip his estate and make a new start in America.
A chance encounter changes their plans, plunging Elinor and Lord Ryde into adventure and not a little peril until, finally, they are forced to confront the mystery of what happened on That Night, all those years ago.
Are they both so entangled in the riddles of the past that they are about to miss this one last opportunity for future happiness?"
Come on, a night so mysterious it's capitalized!?!
Over My Dead Body by Maz EvansPublished by: Headline
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 352Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Hello? Can you hear me? Probably not. I'm Dr Miriam Price...and I'm dead.
The local police, who couldn't investigate their own nostrils, think I drank myself into an early grave. The nerve! I was murdered. I was just too plastered to know whodunnit, that's all.
Unless I prove to my inquest this week that my death was no 'misadventure', I'm condemned to 50 years in Limbo. I have to find my killer - but I can't communicate with any living human. Well, there's one, but she barely qualifies...Winnie - my neighbour and nemesis. It seems the dying can interact with the dead, which is helpful news for me, if not stellar for Winnie. Oh well. She'll live. Maybe.
Suspects? How long have you got? My saintly husband, who'd reached his limit? My best friend, who was anything but? My secret lover, or his wife? My disgruntled colleague? The mother who wrongly holds me responsible for her child's death? Professor Plum? Your guess is as good as mine.
So Winnie - slap on your deerstalker and strap on your granny pants. Let's catch a killer! Assuming we don't kill each other first..."
But maybe the killer had a good reason?
The Story Collector by Evie WoodsPublished by: One More Chapter
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"An evocative and charming novel full of secrets and mystery, from the million-copy bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop.
In a quiet village in Ireland, a mysterious local myth is about to change everything...
One hundred years ago, Anna, a young farm girl, volunteers to help an intriguing American visitor translate fairy stories from Irish to English. But all is not as it seems and Anna soon finds herself at the heart of a mystery that threatens her very way of life.
In New York in the present day, Sarah Harper boards a plane bound for the West Coast of Ireland. But once there, she finds she has unearthed dark secrets - secrets that tread the line between the everyday and the otherworldly, the seen and the unseen.
With a taste for the magical in everyday life, Evie Woods's latest novel is full of ordinary characters with extraordinary tales to tell."
All about the fairy stories being translated. Perhaps something was released?
Haunted Ever After by Jen DeLucaPublished by: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"It's love at first haunting in a seaside town that raises everyone's spirits in this new series from USA Today bestselling author Jen DeLuca.
Small Florida coastal towns often find themselves scrambling for the tourism dollars that the Orlando theme parks leave behind. And within the town limits of Boneyard Key, the residents decided long ago to lean into its ghostliness. Nick Royer, owner of the Hallowed Grounds coffee shop, embraces the ghost tourism that keeps the local economy afloat, as well as his spectral roommate. At least he doesn't have to run air-conditioning.
Cassie Rutherford possibly overreacted to all her friends getting married and having kids by leaving Orlando and buying a flipped historic cottage in Boneyard Key. Though there's something unusual with her new home (her laptop won't charge in any outlets, and the poetry magnets on her fridge definitely didn't read "WRONG" and "MY HOUSE" when she put them up), she's charmed by the colorful history surrounding her. And she's catching a certain vibe from the grumpy coffee shop owner whenever he slips her a free slice of banana bread along with her coffee order.
As Nick takes her on a ghost tour, sharing town gossip that tourists don't get to hear, and they spend nights side-by-side looking into the former owners of her haunted cottage, their connection solidifies into something very real and enticing. But Cassie's worried she's in too deep with this whole (haunted) home ownership thing...and Nick's afraid to get too close in case Cassie gets scared away for good."
What's a ghost or two when love is on the line?
Clickbait by Holly BaxterPublished by: Harper Perennial
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 336 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"With the dark comedy and sharp observations of Monica Heisey and Dolly Alderton, a whip-smart and laugh-out-loud funny debut novel about a disgraced, newly divorced journalist demoted to a "clickbait" job at a Manhattan tabloid.
The first thing they tell you when you begin your training is never to become the news.
Natasha has screwed up royally. Her mistake isn't just embarrassing, it's a breach of journalistic ethics that makes headlines and costs her a plum job reporting from London. Back in New York at thirty-five and single, divorced from a kind man she loved, she finds herself at the bottom of the media food chain - a junior reporter at a clickbait factory, rewriting sensational tabloid stories to make them just different enough to avoid lawsuits.
As if her professional fall from grace weren't bad enough, she's taken the money she'd saved for a down payment for a home on a charming Brooklyn block with her husband, and rashly bought a boxy apartment overlooking the gray ocean in Rockaway Beach, Queens.
Though seeing friends and family only serves to remind her of what she's lost, things begin to pick up when her ex-boyfriend Zach moves back to New York and accepts her offer of a spare bedroom. The arrangement is strictly platonic, of course - for him. But Natasha can't help but wonder whether he might be the solution to all her problems.
As Natasha's obsession with Zach grows and her involvement in increasingly dystopian "churnalism" deepens, her worlds threaten to collide in the most cataclysmic, extremely public way."
Never go down the internet rabbit hole. It's a deep dark well.
New Adventures in Space Opera edited by Jonathan StrahanPublished by: Tachyon Publications
Publication Date: August 13th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 336 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Ann Leckie / Becky Chambers / Alastair Reynolds / T. Kingfisher / Charlie Jane Anders / Anya Johanna DeNiro / Yoon Ha Lee / Lavie Tidhar / Tobias S. Buckell / Arkady Martine / Aliette de Bodard / Seth Dickinson / Karin Tidbeck
Award-winning Australian science-fiction editor Jonathan Strahan (The Best Science Fiction of the Year series) presents the quintessential guide to the exciting New Space Opera. This skillfully curated, must-read volume gathers fifteen dramatic, newly classic interstellar adventures from some of the most highly acclaimed and popular speculative-fiction authors.
In "Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance," a cloud-based contractor finds a human war criminal clinging to the hull of the ship. The clones of "All the Colors You Thought Were Kings," about to attend their coming-of-age ceremony, are also plotting treason. During "A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime," two outlaws go on the run after stealing a device from a space cult.
Take a faster-than-light trip to the future. Discover where memes rise and fall in moments. Here are the new and adventurous takes on interplanetary battles, sentient starships, and galactic intrigue. This must-read volume gathers fifteen dramatic, newly classic stories from some of the most highly acclaimed speculative authors."
I mean, you have to buy it for the T. Kingfisher story alone.
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