Tuesday Tomorrow
Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Takes by Heather Fawcett
Published by: Del Rey Books
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"The third installment in the heartwarming and enchanting Emily Wilde series, about a curmudgeonly scholar of folklore and the fae prince she loves.
Emily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries. A renowned dryadologist, she has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project yet: studying the inner workings of a faerie realm - as its queen.
Along with her former academic rival - now fiancé - the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell's long-lost kingdom, which Emily finds a beautiful nightmare filled with scholarly treasures.
Emily has been obsessed with faerie stories her entire life, but at first she feels as ill-suited to Faerie as she did to the mortal world: How can an unassuming scholar such as herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in, for Wendell's murderous stepmother has placed a deadly curse upon the land before vanishing without a trace. It will take all of Wendell's magic - and Emily's knowledge of stories - to unravel the mystery before they lose everything they hold dear."
I am so excited for this book, not the least of which is what I have planned for my blog later this year.
The Confessions of a Lady by Darcy McGuire
Published by: Boldwood Books
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format:Paperback, 320 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A brand new spicy upstairs/downstairs historical romance featuring the Queen's Deadly Damsels!
Dare she risk revealing her secrets?
In the world of upstairs and downstairs, Lady's maid Penny Smith is able to work anonymously, quietly hiding in the shadows of of Lord William Renquist's household. She's seeking out perpetrators of the Devils Sons and she suspects the man she works for to be a member. But when she meets the infamous Liam, she's taken aback by his disarming eyes and feels her resolve begin to waiver.
Liam's intrigued by his newest maid. But as much as she invites a deep desire within, he knows he must keep his distance. Not only because society says so, but because he is the son of a wicked man and the sins of his family need to be repaid. He has made a vow to the Queen to avoid distraction and assist in her mission."
Could they share a mission and perhaps more?
The Viscount of St. Albans by Natania Barron
Published by: Rebellion Publishing Ltd.
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Kindle, 350 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Sense and Sensibility and Vampires.
Silas Drake, the Viscount St. Albans, is one of the most desirable bachelors in England: approaching thirty, wealthy, and poised to inherit his father's seat in Parliament. His aunt, the dowager viscountess, insists he marries well, and soon - or she'll take matters into her own hands.
But his love belongs to Viola Brightwell, who is a commoner of modest means...and a vampire. Newly transformed after the recent battle to save Netherford, Viola rages in a locked room in Silas's mansion, wrestling with the violent passions of her new affliction.
As Silas struggles to balance the demands of his rank with the desires of his heart, he finds himself at the centre of a conspiracy by ancient and terrible powers..."
Regency Magic!!!
The Moonlight Healers by Elizabeth Becker
Published by: Graydon House
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A powerful debut with a magical twist about one woman's discovery of her family's secret healing abilities and the mysterious consequences she must contend with when she uses them on someone she loves.
For generations, the Winston women have possessed an unspoken magical gift: they can heal with the touch of a hand. It's a tradition they've always had to practice in secret, in the moonlight hours, when the fireflies dance and the whippoorwill birds sing.
But not every healer has rightfully passed on this knowledge to her descendants, and for young Louise Winston, the discovery of her abilities comes in less-than-ideal circumstances - she brings her best friend back from death following an accident, the day after he professed his long-held feelings for her, five days before she's supposed to move away.
Desperate for answers, and to avoid this new reality between them, Louise escapes to her grandmother's lush Appalachian orchard. There, she uncovers her family's hidden history in a tattered journal, stemming back to her brave great-grandmother who illicitly healed Allied soldiers in war-torn France. But just as Louise begins to embrace her unique legacy, she learns that it can also come with a mysterious cost. And with a life hanging in the balance, she'll be forced to make the most impossible of choices...
Spanning eighty years, The Moonlight Healers is a deeply empathetic, heartfelt novel about mothers and daughters, life and death, and the beautiful resilience of love."
Definitely a Pushing Daisies vibe.
The Watermark by Sam Mills
Published by: Melville House Publishing
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 544 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A quirky, literary love story like no other, one that veers wildly from contemporary Britain to Soviet Russia to a bizarre but recognizable future, from one of the UK's hottest young novelists...
Rachel and Jaime: their story isn't simple. It might not even be their story.
Augustus Fate, a once-lauded novelist and now renowned recluse, is struggling with his latest creation. But when Jaime and Rachel stumble into his remote cottage, he spies opportunity, imprisoning them inside his novel-in-progress. Now, the fledgling couple must try to find their way back home through a labyrinthine network of novels.
And as they move from Victorian Oxford to a utopian Manchester, a harsh Russian winter to an AI-dominated near-future, so too does the narrative of their relationship change time and again.
Together, they must figure out if this relationship of so many presents can have any future at all.
The Watermark is a heart-stopping exploration of the narratives we cling to in the course of a life, and the tendency of the world to unravel them. Kaleidoscopic and wildly imaginative, it asks: how can we truly be ourselves, when Fate is pulling the strings?"
A dark Thursday Next!
The Spirit Collection of Thone Hall by J. Ann Thomas
Published by: Alcove Press
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A young woman forced to live with ghosts in a mansion frozen in time must decide between forbidden love and the price of freedom in this Gothic fantasy where Jane Eyre meets The Haunting of Bly Manor, perfect for fans of Starling House.
At Thorne Hall, a grand estate nestled in the Berkshires, fifteen restless spirits roam, bound within the mansion's walls since the Gilded Age. Elegy Thorne bears the weight of her family's curse to preserve the mansion as it was in the 1890s, using ancient folk songs to keep the spirits secret and silent in order to avoid deadly consequences.
When a mischievous child spirit wreaks havoc on the manor, the Thorne family calls upon their trusted preservationist to restore the mansion. He brings along his son, Atticus - a vibrant man full of life and ideas of modernization - and Elegy is captivated by him, igniting a longing for freedom she's never dared to embrace.
Torn between her desire to follow her heart and her duty to her family and its legacy, Elegy begins searching for a way to release the spirit collection back to the afterlife and set both herself and the ghosts free. With century-old secrets, peculiar magic, and spirits both whimsical and deadly, Thorne Hall will haunt and enrapture readers - and you might just not want to leave."
This sounds like a very dark reboot of Ghosts.
Unburied: The True Story of Hannah Beswick, the Manchester Mummy by Hannah Priest
Published by: Manchester University Press
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 264 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"The macabre tale of an eighteenth-century woman immortalised in folklore as the 'Manchester Mummy'.
In 1835, the Manchester Natural History Society opened the doors of its museum. Taking pride of place in its collection were three mummies: one was Egyptian, one was Peruvian and one was a woman from Cheetham Hill.
This is the first time the true story of Hannah Beswick, the so-called 'Manchester Mummy', has been told. Over the years, explanations for the Manchester Mummy have ranged from the chilling - Hannah's fear of being buried alive - to the downright bizarre - the legend of her buried gold - but the truth is more complex.
Exploring this fascinating episode from museum history, Unburied sheds light on the Victorian turn to the macabre and changing attitudes to the display of human remains. It debunks the legends and asks what Hannah Beswick can tell us about death and dying, mummies and museums."
Victorian England, you always have to be the weirdest now don't you?
The Crimson Road by A.G. Slatter
Published by: Titan Books (UK)
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A captivating dark Gothic fantasy set in the same universe as the award-winning author's All The Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns and The Briar Book of the Dead. A tale of vampires, assassins, ancient witches and broken promises, perfect for readers of Alix E. Harrow, Hannah Whitten and Alexis Henderson.
Violet Zennor has had a peculiar upbringing. Training as a fighter in underground arenas, honing her skills against the worst scum, murderers and thieves her father could pit her against, she has learned to be ruthless. To kill.
Until the day Hedrek Zennor dies. Violet thinks she's free - then she learns that her father planned to send her into the Darklands, where the Leech Lords reign. Where Violet's still-born brother was taken years ago. Violet steadfastly refuses. Until one night two assassins attempt to slaughter her - and it becomes clear: she's going to have to clean up the mess her father made.
By turns gripping and bewitching, sharp and audacious, this mesmerising story takes you on a journey into the dark heart of Slatter's sinister and compelling fantasy world in a tale of vampires, assassins, ancient witches and broken promises."
Yeah, I wouldn't want to go to the Darklands with a Leech Lords either.
The Ballad of Smallhope and Pennyroyal by Jodi Taylor
Published by: Headline
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"From the globally bestselling author of the Chronicles of St Mary's and Time Police series - the origin story of bounty hunters extraordinaire: Smallhope and Pennyroyal.
Meet Lady Amelia Smallhope, for whom there is no problem that can't be solved by a drink and a think.
And Pennyroyal, for whom there is no problem. Ever.
Everyone's favourite bounty hunters. Sorry - recovery agents. No bad guy they can't handle. No expense account too flexible. No adventure too outrageous.
Join them as they settle scores, break every rule in the book and take the world by storm.
Fasten your seatbelts. The timeline doesn't know what's hit it."
I'd like to be the type of person where there is no problem ever.
Helle and Death by Oskar Jensen
Published by: Serpent's Tail
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 336 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A snowstorm. A country house. Old friends reunited. It's going to be murder...Torben Helle - art historian, Danish expat and owner of several excellent Scandinavian jumpers - has been dragged to a remote snowbound Northumbrian mansion for a ten-year reunion with old university friends. Things start to go sideways when their host, a reclusive and irritating tech entrepreneur, makes some shocking revelations at the dinner table. And when these are followed by an apparent suicide, the group faces a test of their wits...and their trust. Snowed in and cut off, surrounded by enigmatic housekeepers and off-duty police inspectors, not to mention a peculiar last will and testament, suspicion and sarcasm quickly turn to panic. As the temperature drops and the tension mounts, Torben decides to draw upon all the tricks of Golden Age detectives past in order to solve the mystery: how much money would it take to turn one of his old friends into a murderer? But he'd better be quick, or someone else might end up dead...This witty murder mystery puts a modern spin on the classic country house whodunnit. A must-read for fans of Agatha Christie, Richard Osman and Janice Hallett."
Locked-room joy, with the bestest of tropes, a snowstorm!
A Girl Like Us by Anna Sophia McLoughlin
Published by: Sourcebooks Landmark
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 432 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Succession meets Saltburn in a crackling locked-room thriller of inconceivable wealth, unchecked power, and the secrets poised to bring a powerful family down.
It's 2004 and former reality TV star and party girl Maya Miller has just married the most eligible bachelor on the planet: Colin Sterling, of the globally famous Sterling family whose history of aristocratic titles and land holdings rival a British royal and whose media empire is comparable to the Murdochs. To some, Maya represents the American dream. To others, a gold digger. But when Colin's cousin Arianna, the heiress to the family's immense fortune, is found murdered, Maya is thrust into the spotlight: first as she is revealed to be the next heiress to the fortune, and then as the prime suspect.
Swiftly, the entire Sterling family goes into lockdown at Silver House, the family's ancestral estate in the English countryside. They're told it's for their own safety - but Maya becomes convinced that it's not to keep threats out, but to keep secrets in. Now, she has no choice but to find and expose the truth hidden within the Sterling family, and why Arianna, a girl she had never met, chose her to take her place. But Maya has secrets of her own. And she knows that in order to survive the Sterlings, she'll have to beat them at their own game."
Always be wary of marrying wealth!
The Dollhouse Academy by Margarita Montimore
Published by: Flatiron Books
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"From the national bestselling author of GMA Book Club Pick Oona Out of Order, a novel about two best friends and aspiring actresses who join the Dollhouse Academy, where stars are made and dangerous secrets are hidden
Ivy Gordon is living on borrowed time. For the past eighteen years, she has been the most famous star at the Dollhouse Academy, the elite boarding school and talent incubator that every aspiring performer dreams of attending. But now, at age thirty-four, she is tired of pretending everything is fine. In secret diary entries, Ivy begins to reveal the truth of her life at the Dollhouse: strange medical exams, mysterious supplements, and something unspeakable that's left Ivy terrified and feeling like a prisoner.
Ramona Halloway and her best friend, Grace Ludlow, grew up idolizing Ivy. Now both twenty-two, neither has made much headway in showbiz until a lucky break grants them entry to the Dollhouse. They're enchanted by the picturesque campus and the chance to perform alongside their idols. When Ramona begins to receive threatening anonymous messages, it's easy to dismiss them as a prank from a rival. Her bigger concern is Grace's skyrocketing success, while Ramona struggles to keep up with the fierce competition. As the messages grow more unsettling, so does life at the Dollhouse. Can Ramona overcome her jealousy and resentment to figure out what's really going on? Will Ivy finally find her voice, before another young performer follows her catastrophic path?
With dark academia twists and enormous heart, The Dollhouse Academy is a novel about the complexities of friendship, our desire to be seen and understood, and the true cost of making our dreams a reality."
It's like a dark academia twist on the TV show Dollhouse...
There's No Turning Back by Alba de Céspedes
Published by: Washington Square Press
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Discover the astonishingly powerful debut novel by the beloved feminist author of the "brilliant" (The Wall Street Journal) Forbidden Notebook and the "courageous" (The Washington Post) Her Side of the Story that was so subversive, it was banned by the Italian Fascist regime when it was first published in 1938.
A coming-of-age novel that is as relevant today as it was nearly ninety years ago, There's No Turning Back centers on eight women with radically different backgrounds who attend the same college in Rome. Some are there to study, others to escape a scandal, or keep a secret, and during their time there, they experience the challenges of love, work, and emancipation.
Considered experimental and revolutionary at the time, this novel established Alba de Céspedes as a powerful new voice in the 20th century. Translated by Ann Goldstein, There's No Turning Back demonstrates why de Céspedes deserves "an important place in the canon of women's literature" (Chicago Review of Books)."
We must read about the past to see how universal the human condition is.
The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie - a thrilling story of the five greatest women writers of the Golden Age of Mystery and their bid to solve a real-life murder.
London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.
May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering they're stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.
Inspired by a true story in Sayers' own life, New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict brings to life the lengths to which five talented women writers will go to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of letters as they unpuzzle a mystery torn from the pages of their own novels."
Personally, Dorothy L. Sayers can go hang, but I am SO happy to see Baroness Emma Orczy included. Here Lady Molly of Scotland Yard is fabulous.
You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego
Published by: Bantam
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 3584 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"An exclusive thriller writer's retreat hosted on a private island turns lethal when one of the authors is found murdered.
When renowned anonymous author J. R. Alastor hires former aspiring writer Mila del Angél to host a writing retreat at his private manor off the coast of Maine, she jumps at the chance - particularly since she has an axe to grind with one of the invitees. The guest list? Six thriller authors, all masters of deceit, misdirection, and mayhem.
Confess the crimes, survive the tropes.
Alastor and Mila have masterminded a week of games, trope-fueled riddles, and maybe a jump scare or two - the perfect cover for Mila to plot a murder of her own. But when a guest turns up dead - and it's not the murder she planned - Mila finds herself trapped in a different narrative altogether.
One by one, you'll lose your turn.
With a storm isolating the island, and the body count rising, Mila must outwit a killer who knows literally every trick in the book.
Until only one of us remains..."
I loved locked-room mysteries, and here to have the murderers be writers? Perfection.
Will She Do? Act One of a Life on Stage by Eileen Atkins
Published by: Virago Press (UK)
Publication Date: February 11th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Will She Do? is the story of a girl from a council estate in Tottenham, born in 1934 to an electric-meter reader and a seamstress, who was determined to be an actress.
Candid and witty, this memoir takes her from her awkward performances in working-men's clubs at six years of age as dancing 'Baby Eileen', through the war years in London, to her breakthrough at thirty-two on Broadway with The Killing of Sister George, for which she received the first of four Tony Award nominations. She co-created Upstairs, Downstairs and wrote the screenplay for Mrs. Dalloway (for which she won an Evening Standard Award) and at aged eighty-six, this is her first autobiographical work.
Characterised by an eye for the absurd, a terrific knack for storytelling and an insistence on honesty, Will She Do? is a wonderful raconteur's tale about family, about class, about youthful ambition and big dreams and what really goes on behind the scenes.
Made a Dame in 1991, Eileen Atkins has been on American and British stage and screen since 1957 and has won an Emmy, a BAFTA and is a three-time Olivier Award winner; her theatre performances include The Height of the Storm, Ellen Terry, All that Fall and she has appeared in television and films ranging from Doc Martin to Cranford to The Crown."
Hey, she wasn't just the co-creator of Upstairs, Downstairs, she also starred in the reboot! With a monkey!
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