Tuesday Tomorrow
The Rushworth Family Plot by Claudia Gray
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 336 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"The fourth book in New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray's Jane Austen sequel series, which finds amateur sleuths Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney caught up in the whirlwind of the London Season - and in a murderous scheme involving the family of Edmund and Fanny Bertram
Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney understand each other perfectly; it's a pity their families do not. A series of misunderstandings, misplaced pride, and - indeed - prejudice, has led their parents to deem the pair unsuited to wed. Now, with the Season approaching, Juliet's grandfather, General Tilney, has sent her to London with a new wardrobe and orders to prove herself worthy of someone better than the snobby Darcys. Meanwhile, Jonathan has been forced to accept an invitation to stay in town with old friends Edmund and Fanny Bertram at the house of Edmund's brother, Sir Thomas. Oblivious to and undesiring of female attention outside of Juliet's, Jonathan is at risk of being ensnared by Caroline Bingley's previously rebuffed plans to make herself - or her daughter - mistress of Pemberley.
But when Mr. Rushworth, the former husband of Edmund's sister Maria, is discovered dead in his home, Jonathan and Juliet find themselves with problems far weightier than the marriage market. In one of the greatest scandals of its day, Maria abandoned her new husband in favor of the notorious rake Henry Crawford, and when he wouldn't marry her, was forced to flee to the continent in disgrace. Now Maria is back, accompanied by a daughter she claims Mr. Rushworth fathered after their divorce - and who he wrote into his will just before his death. To spare Edmund and Fanny further social shame, Jonathan and Juliet must unmask a killer before the drama surrounding the Rushworth family fortune claims another victim."
Damn, Mr. Rushworth dead!?! I've always felt sorry for him. I too want his killer caught.
To Catch a Lord by Emma Orchard
Published by: Boldwood Books
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: eBook, 332 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"London, 1813
As a daughter of the notorious Wyverne family, Lady Amelia is used to being the subject of gossip. But while she has accepted her marred reputation - however unfair it is - she hates the horrible men it attracts.
Amelia decides she needs a suitor of impeccable repute to save her from the attentions of ungentlemanly gentlemen, and who better than the handsome and famously moral Lord Thornfalcon? Since coming into his title, 'Thorn' has been besieged by women who want to marry him, or have an affair with him, or both - so perhaps a pretend relationship might suit him too?
There's just one small catch. Thorn's childhood sweetheart Lavinia has also set her sights on him again, and rallied half the ton behind her. But what does that matter to Amelia - it's only a fake engagement, isn't it? Except, as Lavinia and her friends try to tear Amelia and Thorn apart, she starts to realise that her feelings may not be quite so fake after all.
Because the trouble with brave and handsome Lords is...they might just steal your heart."
Yes yes, beware brave and handsome Lords and faux relationships of convenience, love might be right behind.
A Far Better Thing by H.G. Parry
Published by: Tor Books
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 416 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell meets A Tale of Two Cities in H. G. Parry’s A Far Better Thing, a heart-rending fantasy of faery revenge set during the French Revolution.
I feared this was the best of times; I hoped it could not get any worse.
The faeries stole Sydney Carton as a child, and made him a mortal servant of the Faery Realm. Now, he has a rare opportunity for revenge against the fae and Charles Darnay, the changeling left in his stead.
It will take magic and cunning - cold iron and Realm silver - to hide his intentions from humans and fae and bring his plans to fruition.
Shuttling between London and Paris during the Reign of Terror, generations of violence-begetting-violence lead him to a heartbreaking choice in the shadow of the guillotine."
If you haven't read any of H.G. Parry's magical tales set during the French Revolution, you are in for a ride. They are thrilling and so deeply researched, the worlds are habitable by the reader.
A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith
Published by: Raven Books
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"The first in a delightful new mystery series set in the hidden heart of London's legal world, introducing a wonderfully unwilling sleuth, perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Nita Prose.
When barrister Gabriel Ward steps out of his rooms at exactly two minutes to seven on a sunny May morning in 1901, his mind is so full of his latest case - the disputed authorship of bestselling children's book Millie the Temple Church Mouse - that he scarcely registers the body of the Lord Chief Justice of England on his doorstep.
But even he cannot fail to notice the judge's dusty bare feet, in shocking contrast to his flawless evening dress, nor the silver carving knife sticking out of his chest. In the shaded courtyards and ancient buildings of the Inner Temple, the hidden heart of London's legal world, murder has spent centuries confined firmly to the casebooks. Until now...
The police can enter the Temple only by consent, so who better to investigate this tragic breach of law and order than a man who prizes both above all things? But murder doesn't answer to logic or reasoned argument, and Gabriel soon discovers that the Temple's heavy oak doors are hiding more surprising secrets than he'd ever imagined..."
Please say the murder has to do with a children's author! It would be wonderful synchronicity.
The Lost Masterpiece by B.A. Shapiro
Published by: Algonquin Books
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 448 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"An enigmatic painting. The mystery of who painted it. A riveting thriller from the bestselling author of The Art Forger.
In a gripping novel full of plot twists, B.A. Shapiro embeds us in a circle of famous painters in late-nineteenth-century Paris, centering on the anguished Impressionist artist Berthe Morisot - the one woman in their midst who never got her due - and the story of Morisot's great-great-great-great granddaughter, Tamara Rubin, who has inherited Édouard Manet's Party on the Seine, a painting that completely upends her life.
When Tamara inherits Party, she discovers a long-hidden family history replete with unanswered questions: How had it been stolen by the Nazis? How had the painting managed to survive three disasters that destroyed every other artwork around it? And most of all, why had she never known about her ancestor, Berthe Morisot? As the painting begins to metamorphose into darker and more terrifying versions of itself, Tamara's ordinary life is thrown into turmoil. What wounds and resentments plagued Morisot, and to what lengths will her spirit go for revenge?
The Lost Masterpiece is a story of love, adultery, betrayal, family secrets, and the grueling birth of Impressionism, taking the reader on a whirlwind adventure from the streets of Paris in the late 1800s and the studio Berthe Morisot shared with Manet, Degas, and Renoir to the present day. Shapiro brings Berthe's world to life, tracing her work through generations of descendants and introducing us to a painter as brilliant and original as her male counterparts across 150 years of triumphs, struggles, passions, animosities, and malevolence."
Justice for Morisot! At least when I was an school we studied her.
Last Dance Before Dawn by Katharine Schellman
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Last Dance Before Dawn is the final book in the luscious, mysterious, and queer Nightingale mystery series by Katharine Schellman, set in 1920s New York.
Vivian Kelly has finally created a home and a family at the glamorous speakeasy known as The Nightingale, where no one cares who you are in the daytime. After all, in the underground world of 1920s New York City, everyone has a secret to keep, and they're on The Nightingale's dance floor to leave those secrets behind. But sometimes it takes more than a dance to escape your past.
When a stranger from Chicago shows up at The Nightingale looking to settle old scores, Vivian and The Nightingale's owner, the mysterious and alluring Honor Huxley, send him packing. They soon discover, though, that the stranger was just a warning. Slowly, the people who have made The Nightingale their home realize that someone is following them. Hunting them. And that someone won't stop until they unravel a mystery that's been cold for years: a missing girl, a boy out for revenge, and a truck full of cash that disappeared in a job gone horribly wrong.
Vivian just wants to protect the people she loves, and she's willing to dig into the dirt of the past to make it happen. But some questions are safer left unanswered, and now that Vivian has built a family for herself, she has more to lose than ever before."
If you've been waiting to start this series, wait no longer, because you can now read the whole thing!
A Novel Murder by E.C. Nevin
Published by: Knopf
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Welcome to the Killer Lines Crime Fiction Festival, the place for star writers of the genre to meet their adoring fans. But be careful - this year the murders aren't just on the page.
In the quaint English town of Hoslewit, the biggest names in crime writing have congregated to celebrate all things bookish and murderous. Author Jane Hepburn is determined to make her time at the Killer Lines festival worthwhile. This is her chance to change her fortunes and make her fictional Private Detective Baker a household name. And if she has to resort to sneaking into the book tent after hours to rearrange some books so hers are front and center, so be it.
But when Jane encounters the dead body of renowned (and reviled) literary agent Carrie Marks, the festival takes on a decidedly different tone. Joined by Carrie's newest client, debut novelist Natasha Martez, and the agency's hapless intern, Daniel Thurston, Jane decides to put her fictional sleuthing skills to use in the real world - she's going to solve the murder. But the list of suspects is long: seemingly everyone at the festival has a motive to kill Carrie, and the more Jane and her new friends investigate, the closer they come to a dangerous truth - one that's stranger than fiction."
I LOVE murder mysteries set at literary festivals ever since I saw the Midsomer Murders episode "Sins of Commission."
Fox by Joyce Carol Oates
Published by: Hogarth
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 672 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Who is Francis Fox? A charming English teacher new to the idyllic Langhorne Academy, Fox beguiles many of his students, their parents, and his colleagues at the elite boarding school, while leaving others wondering where he came from and why his biography is so enigmatic. When two brothers discover Fox's car half-submerged in a pond in a local nature preserve and parts of an unidentified body strewn about the nearby woods, the entire community, including Detective Horace Zwender and his deputy, begins to ask disturbing questions about Francis Fox and who he might really be.
A hypnotic, galloping tale of crime and complicity, revenge and restitution, victim vs. predator, Joyce Carol Oates's Fox illuminates the darkest corners of the human psyche while asking profound moral questions about justice and the response evil demands. A character as magnetically diabolical as Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley and Vladimir Nabokov's Humbert Humbert, Francis Fox enchants and manipulates nearly everyone around him, until at last he meets someone he can't outfox. Written in Oates's trademark intimate, sweeping style, and interweaving multiple points of view, Fox is a triumph of craftsmanship and artistry, a novel as profound as it is propulsive, as moving as it is full of mystery."
Fits right into my broader definition of dark academia.
The Farmhouse by Chelsea Conradt
Published by: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 432 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Every woman who has lived on this farm has died. Emily just moved in.
When Emily Hauk's mother dies, it's time for her and her husband, Josh, to finally leave San Francisco. A farm in rural Nebraska is everything they want for a fresh start: clear skies, low costs, and distance from the grief back home.
They should have asked why the farm was for sale.
Three years ago, a teenage girl went missing from the farm. Soon after, the girl's mother mysteriously died. The deeper Emily digs, the more stories she finds of women with a connection to her new home who've met their own dark ends.
The farmhouse was meant to be Emily's fresh start, but with each passing day, her sanctuary slips further away. The barn seems to move throughout her property, as though chasing her. Her mother's favorite music drifts across the corn. She swears she saw blood in one of the farmhand's trucks. And the screams that wake her are not foxes, no matter how many times her husband says otherwise.
Despite Josh's skepticism, Emily feels the darkness that has seeped into the soil of her farm. And if she wants to claim this place as her own, she'll have to find the truth before whatever watches from the cornfield takes her too."
Oh, a barn on the move, like on Haven!
Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor
Published by: Berkley
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Long before Dorothy visits Oz, her aunt, Emily Gale, sets off on her own grand adventure, leaving gritty Chicago behind for Kansas and a life that will utterly change her, in this transporting novel from New York Times bestselling author Hazel Gaynor.
Chicago, 1924: Emily and her new husband, Henry, yearn to leave the bustle of Chicago for the promise of their own American dream among the harsh beauty of the prairie. But leaving the city means leaving Emily's beloved sister, Annie, who was once closer to her than anyone in the world.
Kansas, 1932: Emily and Henry have established their new home among the warmth of the farming community in Kansas. Aligned to the fickle fortunes of nature, their lives hold a precarious and hopeful purpose, until tragedy strikes and their orphaned niece, Dorothy, lands on their doorstep.
The wide-eyed child isn't the only thing to disrupt Emily's world. Drought and devastating dust storms threaten to destroy everything, and her much-loved home becomes a place of uncertainty and danger. When the past catches up with the present and old secrets are exposed, Emily fears she will lose the most cherished thing of all: Dorothy.
Bursting with courage and heart, Before Dorothy tells the story of the woman who raised a beloved heroine, and ponders the question: what is the true meaning of home?"
Because every true book lover has wondered about the women who raised our most iconic heroines.
Death on the Caldera by Emily Paxman
Published by: Titan Books
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 448 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"It's Murder on the Orient Express - with witches!
A thrilling blend of fantasy and classic murder mystery, this rollicking adventure with a wide cast of suspects is ideal for those who love both Agatha Christie and V. E. Schwab, and are drawn to stories that take place in a vivid fantasy world.
The Linde siblings - Kellen, Davina, and Morel - are anxious to return to the kingdom of Halgyr before their father dies, leaving Kellen to assume the throne as king. They book tickets on a luxury express train, expecting a swift journey home - but disaster strikes when the train engine explodes, stranding the siblings atop a caldera bubbling with volcanic magic.
The crash triggers Davina's latent witch powers, but her magic disrupts her ability to remember what she was doing when the explosion took place. While a witch would be the prime suspect for the catastrophe, the only ones who knew Davina might become one are her brothers - who never warned her. And, to add insult to injury, somebody is bumping off the surviving train crew and passengers. But it can't be Davina, can it?
While the remaining passengers try to determine who sabotaged the engine and catch the killer, the fractured siblings attempt to stay one step ahead, concealing not only Davina's powers but their own secrets. Luckily, they aren't the only shifty characters on the train...
A thrilling blend of classic murder mystery and fantasy for those who love Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile every bit as much as Fourth Wing and A Court of Thorns and Roses."
This book was written for me. I sometimes can't decide if I want to read a murder mystery or fantasy, and now I don't have the choose!
If We Survive This by Racquel Marie
Published by: Feiwel and Friends
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"The Walking Dead meets Yellowjackets in If We Survive This, a tense and emotional young adult horror novel from award-winning author Racquel Marie about a teen girl leading a group of survivors on a perilous journey during the apocalypse.
Flora Braddock Paz is not the girl who survives. A colorful creative who spends as much time fearing death as she does trying to hide that fear from her loved ones, she's always considered herself weak. But half a year into the global outbreak of a rabies mutation that transforms people into violent, zombielike "rabids," she and her older brother, Cain, are still alive. With their mom dead, their dad missing, and their Los Angeles suburb left desolate, they form a new plan: venture out to the secluded Northern California cabin they vacationed in growing up - their best chance at a safe haven and maybe even seeing their dad again.
The dangers of the world have changed, but so has Flora. Still, their journey up the state is complicated by encounters with familiar faces, hidden truths, new allies, and painful memories of the whole family's final time making this trip the previous year. And for Flora, one thing inevitably remains: No matter how far you run, death is never far behind."
I want to know why the suspect their father is at the cabin...
I Think I'm in Love with an Alien by Ann Aguirre
Published by: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 400 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Galaxy Quest meets Roswell in this quirky sci-fi rom-com from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Ann Aguirre.
He's stranded. He's desperate. He's not looking for love.
Alien Tamzir Jaarn, a.k.a. Seeker, is paying the price for risking an illicit holiday on an interdicted planet. His ride off-world never showed, and he's been stranded on Earth for nearly a year. His gear is breaking down, food is becoming a problem, and if his camouflage unit fritzes, he'll wind up in a government lab.
But he's met some cool humans online, and they've invited him to the biggest space-themed convention around. Why not make memories with them while he figures out how to get home?
Space Con or bust!
She's nerdy. She's flirty. She's ready for romance.
Jennette Hammond is an endearing weirdo, voted most likely to bang an alien in high school. Her house is full of gray man collectibles, adorable tentacle monsters, and yes, in college, she volunteered for a SETI-type program. Not that she's ever had any close encounters of the sexy, alien kind. Heck, she's never even been able to convince anyone to attend Space Con.
But that's about to change. Finally, she has online friends who have agreed to go, and it will be a romp to remember - and she'll finally put a face to the name of her longtime crush, Seeker.
When alien meets adorkable, they're destined for an out-of-this-world affair..."
I mean, I was sold at Galaxy Quest meets Roswell, but the fact that it's written by Ann Aguirre!?! Perfection!
The Mercy Makers by Tessa Gratton
Published by: Orbit
Publication Date: June 17th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 560 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A talented heretic must decide between the pursuit of forbidden magic, or the ecstasy of forbidden love, in the start of a sweeping, romantic epic fantasy trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Tessa Gratton.
Can an empire trip and fall on a mere strand of silk?
Iriset is a prodigy and an outlaw. The daughter of a powerful criminal, she dons her alter ego Silk to create magical disguises for those in her father's organization, but she longs to do more with her talent: to enhance what it means to be human by giving people wings, night-sight, and other abilities; to unlock the possibilities of gender and parenthood; to cure disease and even to end mortality itself.
Everything changes when her father is captured and sentenced to death. To save him, Iriset must infiltrate the palace and the empire's fanatical ruling family. There, she realizes she has a chance - and an obligation - to bring down the entire corrupt system. She'll have to entangle herself in the lives of the emperor and his sister, getting them to trust and even to love her. But love is a two-way street, and Iriset's own heart holds the most mysterious and impenetrable magic of all."
So much yes here, but damn, that cover is a true work of art.
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