Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
Published by: Berkley Books
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 496 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"There's power in a book...
They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they're sent to Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, to give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.
Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There's Rose, a hippie who insists she's going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who plans to marry her baby's father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.
Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they're allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what's best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it's never given freely. There's always a price to be paid...and it's usually paid in blood."
Hopefully the blood of their oppressors!
Clever Little Thing by Helena Echlin
Published by: Pamela Dorman Books
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A taut, powerful psychological thriller following a mother who must confront a sudden and terrifying change in her daughter after the abrupt death of their babysitter.
Charlotte's daughter Stella is sensitive and brilliant, perhaps even a genius, but a recent change in her behavior has alarmed her mother. Following the sudden death of Stella's babysitter, Blanka, the once disruptive and anti-social child has become docile and agreeable. But what's unsettling is that she has begun to mirror Blanka's personality, from Blanka's repetitive phrases to her accent, to fierce cravings for Armenian meat stew after being raised a vegetarian.
Charlotte is pregnant with her second child, and depleted and sick with the pregnancy. She is convinced that Blanka herself is somehow responsible for Stella's transformation. But how could Blanka, dead, still be entwined in their lives? Has Blanka somehow possessed Stella? Has Stella become Blanka? As Charlotte becomes increasingly obsessed, she is sure that only she can save her daughter...even though it's soon clear that her husband believes this is all in Charlotte's head.
Helena Echlin's singular, chilling voice holds light to the blurred lines of diagnosis in children and to the vital power of maternal instinct. Kaleidoscopic and tense, pulse-pounding and genuinely creepy, and infused with shades of the supernatural, Clever Little Thing is an ode to motherhood and a nuanced critique of the caretaking industry, a page-turner that will haunt readers long after its epic, surprising finale."
Seriously, when a kid's behavior changes, be suspicious. Be very suspicious.
Honeysuckle and Bone by Trisha Tobias
Published by: Zando - Sweet July Books
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"On the run from her own dark secrets, a teen girl becomes the nanny for a prestigious family on their Jamaican estate, where she quickly discovers even paradise may be haunted.
Carina Marshall is looking to reinvent herself, and what better place to do it than Jamaica, her mother's alluring homeland where she conveniently has access to an au pair gig for the wealthy and powerful Hall family. After months of being the target of vicious rumors and hate online, Carina might have found everything she wants at the luxurious Blackbead House: a world of mango trees, tropical breezes, and glamorous parties - and a place to disappear.
Once there, Carina finds herself settling right into her busy, but comfortable, new life. Yes, the family runs a tight ship, and yes, there is some tension between the Halls, but Carina is content flying under the radar and hanging out with her new friends - not least, the handsome and charming Aaron. But when inexplicable things start happening to her in the house, only getting worse each night, Carina realizes that someone, or something, is out to get her. Is it the Halls? The house itself? Or is her own past catching up with her? With Aaron's help, she must figure out what is haunting her, and fast, before she's forced out of Blackbead House for good.
Honeysuckle and Bone is a deliciously atmospheric and utterly spooky young adult novel following an imperfect yet courageous teen as she seeks to remake herself in the homeland she always idealized, discovering that new beginnings don't always come easy."
A Wide Sargasso Sea vibe that's even more Gothic.
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Published by: William Morrow and Company
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 448 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"In this exhilarating tale by New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor, a disabled Nigerian American woman pens a wildly successful Sci-Fi novel, but as her fame rises, she loses control of the narrative - a surprisingly cutting, yet heartfelt drama about art and love, identity and connection, and, ultimately, what makes us human. This is a story unlike anything you've read before.
The future of storytelling is here.
Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing than a lucrative career in medicine or law, Zelu has always felt like the outcast of her large Nigerian family. Then her life is upended when, in the middle of her sister's lavish Caribbean wedding, she's unceremoniously fired from her university job and, to add insult to injury, her novel is rejected by yet another publisher. With her career and dreams crushed in one fell swoop, she decides to write something just for herself. What comes out is nothing like the quiet, literary novels that have so far peppered her unremarkable career. It's a far-future epic where androids and AI wage war in the grown-over ruins of human civilization. She calls it Rusted Robots.
When Zelu finds the courage to share her strange novel, she does not realize she is about to embark on a life-altering journey - one that will catapult her into literary stardom, but also perhaps obliterate everything her book was meant to be. From Chicago to Lagos to the far reaches of space, Zelu's novel will change the future not only for humanity, but for the robots who come next.
A book-within-a-book that blends the line between writing and being written, Death of the Author is a masterpiece of metafiction that manages to combine the razor-sharp commentary of Yellowface with the heartfelt humanity of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Surprisingly funny, deeply poignant, and endlessly discussable, this is at once the tale of a woman on the margins risking everything to be heard and a testament to the power of storytelling to shape the world as we know it."
And how once out in the world, an author's words are no longer theirs to control.
Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao
Published by: Del Rey Books
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets, and then embarks on a magical quest when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop, in this dreamlike and enchanting fantasy novel.
On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones - those who are lost - will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.
Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop's new owner to find it ransacked, the shop's most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.
Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana's father and the stolen choice - by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds.
But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own - and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back."
Why can't I ever inherit a mystical shop or for that matter just stumble upon one...
The Vanishing of Josephine Reynolds by Jennifer Moorman
Published by: Harper Muse
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Can one thoughtless wish erase a life?
Widowed at thirty-five, Josephine Reynolds wishes she could disappear, but her concerned sister convinces her to buy their ancestral home, a Craftsman bungalow in disrepair and foreclosure. It's a welcome distraction, and Josephine can't believe her luck when she finds the home's original door in a salvage yard.
When she installs the door and steps through it, Josephine is transported into 1927, where she meets her great-grandmother Alma, a vivacious and daring woman running an illegal speakeasy in the bungalow's basement. Immersed in the vibrant Jazz Age, Josephine forms a profound bond with Alma, only to discover upon her return to the present that history has been altered. Alma's life was tragically cut short in a speakeasy raid just a week after their fateful meeting.
Josephine has a chilling revelation - her own existence is unraveling/vanishing - and she must race against time to rewrite history. Josephine is desperate to not only save Alma but save her own future in a time-bending journey where past and present intertwine in a desperate battle for survival."
Always be careful to not Marty McFly yourself!
The Lost House by Melissa Larsen
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"In Melissa Larsen's The Lost House comes the mesmerizing story of a young woman with a haunting past who returns to her ancestral home in Iceland to investigate a gruesome murder in her family.
Forty years ago, a young woman and her infant daughter were found buried in the cold Icelandic snow, lying together as peacefully as though sleeping. Except the mother's throat had been slashed and the infant drowned. The case was never solved. There were no arrests, no conviction. Just a suspicion turned into a certainty: the husband did it. When he took his son and fled halfway across the world to California, it was proof enough of his guilt.
Now, nearly half a century later and a year after his death, his granddaughter, Agnes, is ready to clear her grandfather's name once and for all. Still recovering from his death and a devastating injury, Agnes wants nothing more than an excuse to escape the shambles of her once-stable life - which is why she so readily accepts true crime expert Nora Carver's invitation to be interviewed for her popular podcast. Agnes packs a bag and hops on a last-minute flight to the remote town of Bifröst, Iceland, where Nora is staying, where Agnes's father grew up, and where, supposedly, her grandfather slaughtered his wife and infant daughter.
Is it merely coincidence that a local girl goes missing the very same weekend Agnes arrives? Suddenly, Agnes and Nora's investigation is turned upside down, and everyone in the small Icelandic town is once again a suspect. Seeking to unearth old and new truths alike, Agnes finds herself drawn into a web of secrets that threaten the redemption she is hell-bent on delivering, and even her life - discovering how far a person will go to protect their family, their safety, and their secrets.
Set against an unforgiving Icelandic winter landscape, The Lost House is a chilling and razor-sharp mystery packed with jaw-dropping twists that will leave you breathless."
A true crime podcast, a family mystery, and Iceland? Sold!
The Last Room on the Left by Leah Konen
Published by: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Kerry's life is in shambles: Her husband has left her, her drinking habit has officially become a problem, and though the deadline for her big book deal - the one that was supposed to change everything - is looming, she can't write a word. When she sees an ad for a caretaker position at a revitalized roadside motel in the Catskills, she jumps at the chance. It's the perfect getaway to finish her book and start fresh.
But as she hunkers down in a blizzard, she spots something through the window: a pale arm peeking out from a heap of snow. Trapped in the mountains and alone with a dead, frozen body, Kerry must keep her head and make it out before the killer comes for her too. But is the deadly game of cat-and-mouse all in her mind? The body count begs to differ..."
I mean, everyone wants a nice read alike to The Shining right? It can't JUST be me.
Vantage Point by Sara Sligar
Published by: MCD
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Succession meets Megan Abbott in this seductive, technological suspense about the dramatic downfall of one of America's most affluent families.
The old-money Wieland family has it all - wealth, status, power. They're also famously cursed.
Clara and her brother, Teddy, grew up on a small island in Maine in the shadow of their parents' tragic deaths, haunted by rumors and paparazzi. Fourteen years later, they've mostly put their turbulent past to rest. Teddy has married Clara's best friend, Jess, and the three of them have moved back home to take over the sprawling, remote family mansion known as Vantage Point.
Then Teddy decides to run for the Senate - an unnerving prospect made much worse when intimate videos of Clara are leaked online. The most frightening part is that she doesn't remember filming any of them. Are the videos real? Or are they deepfakes? Is someone trying to take down the Wielands once and for all?
Everyone thinks Clara is losing her grasp on reality. But she knows the truth: the videos are only the beginning. Years ago, the curse destroyed her parents. Now, it's coming for her.
Sara Sligar, the critically acclaimed author of Take Me Apart, returns with a shocking family drama full of suspense. Brimming with palpable tension, Vantage Point carefully unravels a twisted web of family secrets and political ambition that raises questions about the nature of "truth" in our digital age."
First mistake, trying to run for office. That right there will activate a curse every time.
The New Rector by Rebecca Shaw
Published by: George Weidenfeld and Nicholson
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 272 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"When Peter Harris arrives in Turnham Malpas as the new rector, he finds the village people welcoming but set in their ways. Yet despite his own weaknesses, and a deeply felt sadness his wife keeps hidden, he comforts and advises his new parishioners, growing more and more involved with the rural way of life.
Then the whole village is rocked by spiteful trick that goes terribly wrong, and a gruesome murder that points to a killer in its midst. Now, more than ever, Peter's pastoral role is crucial - and yet he is wrestling with his own private hell that may still wreck his own life."
Is his own private hell the secret that he's a killer? Because that could be a fun twist...
Frankie by Graham Norton
Published by: Harpervia
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"From the internationally bestselling author and host of The Graham Norton Show, a dazzling and decades-sweeping story about love, bravery, and what it means to live a significant life.
Always on the periphery, looking on, young Frankie Howe was never quite sure enough of herself to take center stage - after all, life had already judged her harshly. Now old, Frankie finds it easier to forget the life that came before.
Then Damian, a young Irish caretaker, arrives at her London flat, there to keep an eye on her as she recovers from a fall. A memory is sparked, and the past crackles into life as Damian listens to the story Frankie has kept stored away all these years.
Traveling from post-war Ireland to 1960s New York - a city full of art, larger-than-life characters and turmoil - Frankie shares a world in which friendship and chance encounters collide. A place where, for a while, life blazes with an intensity that can't last but will perhaps live on in other ways and in other people."
As someone in entertainment I find it odd that Graham named his character Frankie Howe which is so close to Frankie Howerd...
Unromance by Erin Connor
Published by: Forever
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A recently dumped TV heartthrob enlists a jaded romance novelist to ruin romance for him - one rom-com trope at a time - so he never gets swept off his feet again...
Sawyer Greene knows romance. She's a bestselling author of the genre - or she was, until her ex left her with nothing but writer's block and a broken heart. But when she gets stuck in the elevator with a handsome stranger, she sees their meet cute for what it is: just a one-night stand. It might have worked, too, if they could stop running into each other.
Actor Mason West sees Sawyer's reappearance in his life as a sign. Obviously, they're meant to cure each other. Him of the hopeless romanticism that only ends in heartbreak - and tabloid trainwrecks - and Sawyer of her writer's block. Their agreement is simple: 1. No (more) sex, and 2. No matter how swoony the circumstances, absolutely no falling in love.
It's a foolproof plan - until Sawyer and Mason find that, once set in motion, some plots can't be stopped - and that they might be hurtling towards a happy ending..."
I mean, how can you NOT fall for all the rom-com tropes? They're tropes for a reason.
1986: Stories by Will Stepp
Published by: Bookbaby
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 164 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Ten interconnected stories about a boy growing up in a small town in Georgia, set against the backdrop of the 1980s. From a secret pond nestled in the woods to the fog-shrouded rooftop of an interstate truck stop, to the shadowy corridors of a YMCA basement, familiar landscapes transform into realms of childhood wonder and discovery. Together, these dreamlike and often surreal tales weave a nostalgic meditation on family, home, memory, and time."
You can't get more 80s than a YMCA basement.
Everything Is Poison by Joy McCullough
Published by: Dutton Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A Blood Water Paint-style historical YA in prose and verse from New York Times bestselling author Joy McCullough.
Early Seventeenth-Century Rome.
For as long as she can remember, Carmela Tofana has desperately wanted one thing: to be a part of La Tofana's, her mother's apothecary in Campo Marzio, Rome. When she finally turns sixteen, she's allowed into the inner sanctum: the workroom where her mother and two assistants craft renowned remedies for their customers. But for every sweet-smelling flower extract in the workroom, there's another potion requiring darker ingredients. And then there's Aqua Tofana, the apothecary's remedy of last resort. In all Carmela's years of wishing to follow in her mother's footsteps, she never realized one tiny vial could be the death of them all.
Everything Is Poison is a story of a deadly secret hiding in plain sight and of the women who risk everything to provide care for those with nowhere else to turn."
Oh, feminist and deadly!
Queen of Diamonds by Beezy Marsh
Published by: William Morrow and Company
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Peaky Blinders - but with women! In the thrilling final installment of Beezy Marsh's riveting crime trilogy about a real-life London gang that began with Queen of Thieves, we go back to crime queen Alice Diamond's bold beginnings in 1920s Soho.
London, 1922. Orphan girl Alice dreams of more than toiling long hours in Pink's jam factory. Inspired by stories about the legendary Queen of Thieves, Mary Carr, who terrorized the streets of Victorian London, Alice decides to set up her own gang: the Forty Thieves. She has an accomplice too: sly seamstress Kate Felix from Whitechapel persuades Alice they'd make the perfect team. Before long, the pair are making headlines in the glitzy world of 1920s Soho, known for their daring heists and for the row of heavy diamond rings that Alice uses like brass knuckles in her frequent brawls.
What Alice soon discovers is that a life of crime makes her powerful enemies, including some who are closer to home than they'd like. Alice must sacrifice more than she ever imagined - but the toughest and most beautiful diamonds are formed under pressure.
From squalid slums and the grim confines of Holloway Prison to the glittering nightclubs of London in the roaring twenties, Queen of Diamonds is a fast-paced, gritty story of love, loss, and loyalty to the gang. Women's fiction with brass knuckles on!"
You know how a few years back now Ada Lovelace was everywhere? Well, replace Ada with Alice Diamond. She's the star of the moment.
A Treasury of XXth Century Murder Compendium II by Rick Geary
Published by: Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"400 pages of real murder cases from the 20th century! From the famous Sacco and Vanzetti story through the ever-intriguing renowned Black Dahlia murder of a striking aspiring actress in Los Angeles, the mysterious murder of silent movie director William Desmond Taylor in early Hollywood to that of a preacher and his lover found murdered in a park, here is a collection of scandalous murders which were never solved or marked the century. Meticulously researched, they are presented in Geary's inimitable tongue-in-cheek style."
As someone who's read everything that Rick Geary has written in the true crime genre I have to say this reissued collection contains easily his best work. Especially Lovers' Lane!
Marvel Studios' She-Hulk: Attorney at Law - The Art of the Series by Jess Harrold
Published by: Marvel Universe
Publication Date: January 14th, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 224 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Jennifer Walters is a talented, ambitious lawyer trying to balance her work life and personal life just like anyone else...except hers is complicated by Hulk-like super-powers that she never asked for, gained from her cousin Bruce Banner! Now six feet tall, super-strong and emerald green, Jen has just landed her dream job at a prestigious law firm...but her first big case is representing Emil Blonsky, better known as Bruce's archnemesis the Abomination! Continuing their popular Art Of series of tie-in books, Marvel Studios presents another blockbuster achievement! Featuring exclusive concept artwork and in-depth interviews with the creative team, this deluxe volume provides insider details about the making of the highly anticipated series!"
And maybe we'll get a second season? Pretty please!
Louise Brooks: Detective by Rick Geary
Lovers' Lane: The Hall-Mills Mystery by Rick Geary
