Enola Holmes and the Mark of the Mongoose by Nancy Springer
Published by: Wednesday Books
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"In May of 1890, Enola Holmes is finally fully on her own and, no longer hiding from her older brothers Sherlock and Mycroft, attending classes and occasionally pursuing her chosen profession as a scientific perditorian, a finder of lost things and people.
Wolcott Balestier, the representative of an American book publisher, arrived in London on a singular mission - to contract with English authors for their latest works. When Balestier disappears on the streets of London one day, his great friend - Rudyard Kipling - bursts into Enola's office looking for help in finding him. Brash and unwilling to hire a young woman, instead he turns to Sherlock Holmes. Convinced that evil has befallen Balestier, at the hands of rival American publishers who pirate the works of English authors, he sets the elder Holmes on the trail.
But Enola is not one to accept defeat, especially not to her brother, and sets off on her own - determined to learn the truth behind the disappearance of the young American. Can book publishing truly be so ruthless and deadly or can the missing man be rescued from his apparent fate and returned to his friends and loved ones?
The redoubtable Enola is determined to do just that, even if it means working with her brother Sherlock!"
I am an Enola Holmes devotee. What's more, the lawlessness of the early book publishing in the United States fascinates me!
The Dread Penny Society by Sarah M. Eden
Published by: Shadow Mountain
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"This beautiful, cloth-covered hardcover collector's anthology compiles all the penny dreadful short stories from Sarah M. Eden's five-book Victorian romance series. Included in this edition are three new, never-before-released stories.
Each short story is written in the style of the Victorian fiction that became so popular during that time period. From ghost stories to adventures to mysteries, Sarah weaves these gothic tales among her romantic storylines, making it the perfect way to celebrate the Dread Penny Society series (The Lady and the Highwayman, The Gentleman and the Thief, The Merchant and the Rogue, The Bachelor and the Bride, and The Queen and the Knave)."
Oh, cloth-covered collector's edition? Yes please!
The Spy's Daughter by Bianca M. Schwarz
Published by: Central Avenue Publishing
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"The fourth and final book in the darkly romantic Gentleman Spy Mysteries.
Emily March, the illegitimate daughter of Sir Henry March, has all she needs: bountiful wealth, ample beauty, and abundant talent. But will this be enough to secure the one thing she truly wants: a loving marriage and her own family? However, it's not her illegitimacy that stands in her way, but a mystery her father - an agent of the crown - has never been able to solve.
Max Warthon has twice rescued Emily from the machinations of his sinister grandfather, the Earl of Warthon, enemy of Sir Henry. Max knows that getting too close to his daughter will lead to certain peril, but he cannot resist her. Played out in front of London's high society, their whirlwind romance attracts everyone's attention - and raises the ire of the Earl.
With old secrets standing in their way, will Emily and Max be able to unravel the mystery of an ancient hatred and unmask the true enemy? Their happiness and their lives depend on it."
Bring on the curtain call and the HEA!
The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer
Published by: Scribner Book Company
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"For readers of Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel, an immersive literary debut inspired by historical events - a deadly witch hunt in 17th-century England - that claimed many innocent lives.
East Anglia, 1645. Martha Hallybread, a midwife, healer, and servant, has lived peacefully for more than four decades in her beloved seaside village of Cleftwater. Having lost her voice as a child, Martha has not spoken a word in years.
One autumn morning, a sinister newcomer appears in town. The witchfinder, Silas Makepeace, has been blazing a trail of destruction along the coast, and now has Cleftwater in his sights. His arrival strikes fear into the heart of the community. Within a day, local women are being captured and detained, and Martha finds herself a silent witness to the hunt.
Powerless to protest, Martha is enlisted to search the accused women for "devil's marks." She is caught between suspicion and betrayal; between shielding herself or condemning the women of the village. In desperation, she revives a wax witching doll that belonged to her mother, in the hope that it will bring protection. But the doll's true powers are unknowable, Martha harbors a terrible secret, and the gallows are looming...
Set over the course of just a few weeks that will forever change history, The Witching Tide delivers powerful and psychologically astute insights about the exigencies of friendship and the nature of loyalty, and heralds the arrival of a striking new voice in fiction."
There are a few books I stumble on that I mark instantly as "must get" and this is one of them ever since Waterstones featured it in a recent email.
The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
Published by: Atria Books
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 528 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"An orphaned fortune teller in 18th-century England searches for answers about her long-dead mother and uncovers shocking secrets in this immersive and atmospheric saga perfect for fans of Sarah Waters and Sarah Perry.
Cornwall, 1730: A young girl known only as Red travels with her father making a living predicting fortunes using the ancient Cornish method of the Square of Sevens. Shortly before he dies, her father entrusts Red's care to a gentleman scholar, along with a document containing the secret of the Square of Sevens technique.
Raised as a lady amidst the Georgian splendor of Bath, Red's fortune-telling delights in high society. But she cannot ignore the questions that gnaw at her soul: who was her mother? How did she die? And who are the mysterious enemies her father was always terrified would find him?
The pursuit of these mysteries takes her from Cornwall and Bath to London and Devon, from the rough ribaldry of the Bartholomew Fair to the grand houses of two of the most powerful families in England. And while Red's quest brings her the possibility of great reward, it also leads to grave danger.
Laura Shepherd-Robinson, "the queen of modern Georgian literature" (Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of Pandora), has written a dazzling and Dickensian story of mystery and intrigue, with audacious twists and turns."
Oh my, a fortune teller with comparisons to Sarah Waters and Sarah Perry, the two best English Sarahs!?!
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White
Published by: Peachtree Teen
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"New York Times bestselling author Andrew Joseph White returns with the transgressive Gothic horror of our time!
Mors vincit omnia. Death conquers all.
London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he'll be married by the end of the year. It doesn't matter that he's needed a decade of tutors to hide his autism; that he practices surgery on slaughtered pigs; that he is a boy, not the girl the world insists on seeing.
After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness - a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness - and shipped away to Braxton's Finishing School and Sanitorium. The facility is cold, the instructors merciless, and the students either bloom into eligible wives or disappear. When the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton's innards and expose its guts to the world - if the school doesn't break him first.
Featuring an autistic trans protagonist in a historical setting, Andrew Joseph White's much-anticipated sophomore novel does not back down from exposing the violence of the patriarchy and the harm inflicted on trans youth who are forced into conformity."
Gothic in so many ways.
The Mossheart's Promise by Rebecca Mix
Published by: Balzer and Bray/Harperteen
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 432 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"From New York Times bestselling YA author Rebecca Mix comes the first book in a breathtaking middle grade fantasy duology about a young fairy who has always lived in her heroic grandmother's shadow, but now must step up and embark on a quest to save her mother from the ever-creeping mold overtaking their world. Perfect for readers who loved Brandon Mull's Fablehaven, The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, and Endling: The Last by Katherine Applegate.
The mold takes all.
Twelve-year-old fairy Canary Mossheart knows this better than most. A few years ago, the mold took her papa, and even her famous, former-chosen-one Gran never found a cure. So when Ary's beloved mama falls ill, Ary decides it's taken enough. Armed with only a bucket and a prayer, she sneaks out to find a magical, underground lake whose healing waters are straight out of Gran's adventures.
But when Ary gets there, the lake's bone dry, and instead of healing waters, she finds a terrifying secret: Her entire world is actually trapped inside a giant terrarium - one they were meant to leave centuries ago. Worse, Gran knew and hid the truth, dooming Ary and her generation to a dying, rotting world.
Now, allied with only her doomsday-obsessed frenemy, a timid pill bug, and a particularly grumpy newt, Ary has one week to unravel the clues and find a way out of the terrarium - or they'll be trapped for good."
Yeah, being trapped in a terrarium, especially one that I'm in charge of, would be a very very bad thing.
Sleep No More by Seanan McGuire
Published by: Daw Books
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"The 17th novel of the Hugo-nominated, New York Times bestselling October Daye urban fantasy series.
October is very happy with her life as the second daughter of her pureblood parents, Amandine and Simon Torquill. Born to be the changeling handmaid to her beloved sister August, she spends her days working in her family's tower, serving as August's companion, and waiting for the day when her sister sets up a household of her own. Everything is right in October's Faerie. Everything is perfect.
Everything is a lie.
October has been pulled from her own reality and thrown into a twisted reinterpretation of Faerie where nothing is as it should be and everything has been distorted to support Titania's ideals. Bound by the Summer Queen's magic and thrust into a world turned upside down, October has no way of knowing who she can trust, where she can turn, or even who she really is. As strangers who claim to know her begin to appear and the edges of Titania's paradise begin to unravel, Toby will have to decide whether she can risk everything she knows based on only their stories of another world.
But first she'll have to survive this one, as Titania demonstrates why she needed to be banished in the first place - and this time, much more than Toby's own life is at stake."
And you only have a month to wait until volume 18!
All the Dead Shall Weep by Charlaine Harris
Published by: Gallery / Saga Press
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 256 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"#1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author returns with the fifth installment in the bestselling Gunnie Rose series as sisters Lizbeth Rose and Felicia as well as brother Eli and Peter, are reunited in Texoma only to break apart before the Wizard's Ball held in San Diego, which will determine all their fates.
Following the murderous events of the "gripping...thrill-ride" (Karin Slaughter) Serpent of Heaven, Lizbeth Rose is awaiting the arrival of her sister Felicia and her husband's younger brother Eli in Texoma. Both needed to leave the seat of the Holy Russian Empire in San Diego after Felicia's burgeoning wizardly power in death magic became the reason for kidnapping and assassination attempts from her mother's family of high-powered wizards in Mexico.
Yet bad news has traveled ahead of them, as Eli is called back to San Diego, taking Peter along with him, splitting them apart in more ways than one as their enemies' plans for revenge come to fruition. In this fifth installment in the beloved and bestselling Gunnie Rose series, #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Charlaine Harris has crafted a family drama of murderous and magical thrills."
Charlaine Harris writes it, I will read it and love it.
Midnight at the Houdini by Delilah S. Dawson
Published by: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 368Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A girl discovers a surreal hotel where no one ever leaves. When the clock strikes midnight, she'll be trapped there forever unless she's able to break free from magic that in turn breaks all her rules. Perfect for fans of Caraval and The Starless Sea!
Life has gone according to plan for Anna - she stays in the background, letting her sister, Emily, shine in the spotlight. But on Emily's wedding night, Anna learns that her sister is moving away, abandoning her - and all their shared dreams. Devastated, Anna leaves the reception in the middle of a raging storm, taking shelter in a hotel she's never seen before: the Houdini.
The Houdini is a hotel unlike any other, with sumptuous velvet couches, marble tiled floors, secret restaurants, winding passageways, and an undercurrent of magic in the air. And when Anna meets Max, who has lived his entire life inside its walls, she's captivated. For the first time in her life, Anna is center stage, in a place that anticipates her every desire, with a boy who only has eyes for her.
But there's a terrifying secret hidden in the Houdini. When the clock strikes midnight, Anna will be trapped there forever unless she can find a way to break free from its dreamlike magic. But will she be able to do it if it means leaving Max behind?
Enchanting, mysterious, and utterly fantastic, Midnight at the Houdini will cast its spell on you."
And would you really want to leave a magic hotel?
The Library of Shadows by Rachel Moore
Published by: Harperteen
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Funny, moving, and heart-achingly real, this romantic romp and paranormal romcom debut - through a haunted library with trapdoors, ghosts, and memories - is full of great love that triumphs over even death, perfect for fans of Ninth House and Cemetery Boys.
Radcliffe Prep. The third most haunted school in the country, where a student disappearance isn't uncommon and no one dares stay in the library after dark. And Este Logano enrolls with the hopes of finding her dead father.
Not literally, of course. She doesn't believe in ghosts. Going to her dad's school just seems like her best hope at figuring out who he was.
But then Este meets Mateo, who is maybe - probably - definitely - a real ghost. And an annoying one at that.
When Mateo frames Este for the theft of a rare book from the library's secret spire and then vanishes, Este will have to track him down or risk being expelled and leaving Radcliffe early just like her father did.
Except following her father's footsteps might be more dangerous than Este ever anticipated. As she investigates the library with its secret passageways, hidden tunnels, and haunted halls, she learns that the student disappearances aren't just myth. And if she isn't careful, she'll be next."
Dark academia here I come! Bring on the library and ghosts!
Holly by Stephen King
Published by: Scribner Book Company
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Holly Gibney, one of Stephen King's most compelling and ingeniously resourceful characters, returns in this thrilling novel to solve the gruesome truth behind multiple disappearances in a Midwestern town.
Stephen King's Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly's gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges's partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King's new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.
When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl's desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.
Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie's disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.
Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King."
Aren't all professors shockingly twisted?
The September House by Carissa Orlando
Published by: Berkley Books
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.
When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street - for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price - they couldn't believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.
Margaret is not most people.
Margaret is staying. It's her house. But after four years Hal can't take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he's not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine - who knows nothing about the hauntings - arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep."
Why don't they got to an Airbnb for September?
There's No Way I'd Die First by Lisa Springer
Published by: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A spine-tingling contemporary horror novel that follows a scary-movie buff as she hosts an elaborate Halloween bash but soon finds the festivities upended when she and her guests are forced to test their survival skills in a deadly game, from debut author Lisa Springer.
Seventeen-year-old Noelle Layne knows horror. Every trope, every warning sign, every survival tactic. She even leads a successful movie club dedicated to the genre. Who better to throw the ultimate, most exclusive Halloween party on all of Long Island?
With some of the top influencers in her school on the guest list, including gorgeous singer-songwriter Archer Mitchell, her popularity is bound to spike. She could really use the social boost for an upcoming brand expansion. Nothing is going to ruin this party.
Except...maybe the low budget It clown she hired for a stirring round of tag. He axes one of her classmates. From the looks of his devilish grin and bag full of killer tricks, he's just getting started.
A murderous clown is out for blood, but Noelle has been waiting her entire life to prove that she's a Final Girl."
Just saying, if Randy Meeks couldn't make it...
The Raging Storm by Ann Cleeves
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Ann Cleeves - New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows - returns with The Raging Storm, the extraordinary third installment in the Matthew Venn series.
Fierce winds, dark secrets, deadly intentions.
When Jem Rosco - sailor, adventurer, and legend - blows into town in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone, Devon, are delighted to have a celebrity in their midst. But just as abruptly as he arrived, Rosco disappears again, and soon his lifeless body is discovered in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own.
This is an uncomfortable case for Detective Inspector Matthew Venn. Greystone is a place he visited as a child, a community he parted ways with. Superstition and rumor mix with fact as another body is found, and Venn finds his judgment clouded.
As the winds howl, and Venn and his team investigate, he realizes that no one, including himself, is safe from Scully Cove's storm of dark secrets."
I stan Ann Cleeves!
Grave Expectations by Alice Bell
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A fast-paced and hilarious debut crime novel, in which a burnt-out Millennial medium must utilize her ability to see ghosts and team-up with a band of oddball investigators to figure out which member(s) of a posh English family are guilty of murder.
Almost-authentic medium Claire and her best friend, Sophie, agree to take on a seemingly simple job at a crumbling old manor in the English countryside: performing a seance for the family matriarch's 80th birthday. The pair have been friends since before Sophie went missing when they were seventeen. Everyone else is convinced Sophie simply ran away, but Claire knows the truth. Claire knows Sophie was murdered because Sophie has been haunting her ever since.
Despite this traumatic past, Claire and Sophie are still unprepared for what they encounter when they arrive at the manor: a ghost, tragic and unrecognizable, and clearly the spirit of someone killed in a rage at the previous year's party. Given her obsession with crime shows - not to mention Sophie's ability to walk through walls - Claire decides they're the best people to solve the case. And with the help of the only obviously not-guilty members of their host family - sexy ex-policeman Sebastian and far-too-cool non-binary teen Alex - they launch an investigation into which of last year's guests never escaped the manor's grounds.
What follows is somewhat irregular detective work involving stealing a priest's cassock, getting too drunk to remember to question your suspect, and of course, Chekhov's sparkly purple dildo. As Claire desperately tries to keep a lid on the shameful secret that would definitely alienate her new friends, the gang must race against their own incompetence to find the murderer before the murderer finds them."
I'm all here for unconventional mysteries and crime solvers.
Scenes of the Crime by Jilly Gagnon
Published by: Bantam
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 400 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"An ambitious screenwriter tries to solve her friend's disappearance by re-creating their fateful final girls' trip in this riveting locked-room mystery from the author of All Dressed Up.
It should have been the perfect spring break: Five girlfriends. A remote winery on the Oregon coast. An infinite supply of delicious wine at their manicured fingertips. But then their center - beautiful, magnetic Vanessa Morales - vanished without a trace.
Emily Fischer was perhaps the last person to see her alive. But now, years later, Emily spots Vanessa's doppelganger at a local café. At the end of her rope working a lucrative yet mind-numbing gig on a network sitcom, Emily is inspired to finally tell the story that's been percolating inside her for so long: Vanessa's story. But first, she needs to know what really happened on that fateful night. So she puts a brilliant scheme into motion.
She gets the girls together for a reunion weekend at the scene of the crime under the guise of reconnecting. There's Brittany, Vanessa's cousin and the inheritor of the winery; Paige, a former athlete, bullish yet easily manipulated; and Lydia, the wallflower of the group.
One of them knows the truth. But what have they each been hiding? And how much can Emily trust anything she learns from them...or even her own memories of Vanessa's last days?
Suspenseful, propulsive, and interspersed with scenes from Emily's blockbuster screenplay, Scenes of the Crime is an unforgettable mystery that examines culpability, the shiny rearview mirror of Hollywood storytelling, and the pitfalls of female friendship."
I mean, the only reason you'd go on this trip is if you're the killer and want to silence everyone right?
Murder Off Stage by Mary Miley
Published by: Severn House
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 224 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Welcome to Broadway - and to an unthinkable crime! Former theater starlet turned amateur sleuth Jessie Beckett gets mixed up in murder when an on-stage shooting turns all too real.
New York, 1926. It's not like Jessie Beckett goes around looking for murders to solve, but the vaudeville star turned movie script girl has a natural talent for it. After a lifetime on stage, she's sensitive to details that other people miss.
So when leading theatre star Allen Crenshaw is shot live on stage during a performance of hit Broadway show Rules of Engagement - a horrified Jessie watching from the second row - she knows she has to act fast before Allen's co-star, the beautiful Norah Rose, goes down for murder. After all, it was Norah who fired the fateful bullet...even if the shooting was all part of the show.
Jessie investigates those closest to Allen - the presence of her theater companion, the superstar Adele Astaire, opening doors wherever they go - and finds only enemies. With the suspects for the disliked actor so numerous, can she uncover the truth in time to save Norah - or will the killer silence her too?
Packed with real-life stars of the stage and screen, this page-turning romp through the boards and backstreets of Broadway is a perfect pick for readers who enjoy Jazz Age mysteries with intrepid female sleuths."
With this cast of characters and that cover there's no way I'm not picking up this book.
From Dust to Stardust by Kathleen Rooney
Published by: Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 285 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"From the bestselling author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk comes a novel about Hollywood, the cost of stardom, and selfless second acts, inspired by an extraordinary true story.
Chicago, 1916. Doreen O'Dare is fourteen years old when she hops a Hollywood-bound train with her beloved Irish grandmother. Within a decade, her trademark bob and insouciant charm make her the preeminent movie flapper of the Jazz Age. But her success story masks one of relentless ambition, tragedy, and the secrets of a dangerous marriage.
Her professional life in flux, Doreen trades one dream for another. She pours her wealth and creative energy into a singular achievement: the construction of a one-ton miniature Fairy Castle, the likes of which the world has never seen. So begins Doreen's public tour to lift the nation's spirits during the Great Depression - and a personal journey worth remembering.
A sweeping journey from the dawn of the motion picture era through turbulent twentieth-century America, From Dust to Stardust is a breathtaking novel about one determined woman navigating change, challenging the price of fame, and sharing the gift of real magic."
I was an still am obsessed with her Fairy Castle!
Witches Get Stuff Done by Molly Harper
Published by: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Juggling newfound witchy powers, a house full of ghosts, and verbal battles with the handsome local librarian is almost too much for a new witch to manage. A new witch with a coven, however, can get so much more done...
From the moment Riley Everett set foot in Starfall Point, magic bubbled inside of her. But with only her late aunt's journals and a cantankerous live-in ghost butler to instruct her on all things witchy - including her newly inherited Victorian haunted house - Riley seeks out a coven for sisterhood and support. The last person she expects to be drawn to is the town's frustrating, yet ridiculously attractive head librarian.
Edison Held knows almost everything there is to know about Starfall Point, but Shaddow House was always off-limits, thanks to its elusive owner. If he can convince the new owner, Riley, to let him take a peek inside, there's so much he could learn. But as he gets closer to Riley, he's fascinated by her dazzling wit and fiery spirit. Edison will do whatever he can to help Riley keep her family legacy alive, especially if it means spending more time with the captivating new witch in town.
Bestselling author Molly Harper wields a magical pen in this hilarious, delightful witchy romcom perfect for readers of The Ex Hex and Payback's a Witch."
It's September, which means it's "officially" fall, which means you now need to read only books with witches, AKA read this book.
The Art of Desire by Stacey Abrams
Published by: Berkley Books
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 288 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Trouble comes in threes...
One doomed love affair after another has made lovely Alex Walton swear off men. Now, she's determined to try something that maybe she can succeed at: a writing career. Little does she know that a chance meeting with a strikingly handsome stranger, a mysterious obelisk, and a lost kingdom will change her life forever. As Alex is about to discover, truth can be stranger - and far more dangerous - than fiction.
...but true love comes only once.
After three years inside a terrorist organization, Phillip Turman is trying to rebuild his life. His first assignment is to pick up Alex Walton, the maid of honor for his best friend's wedding, at the airport. His second is to deal with his instant attraction to her. But his third may be the toughest: to keep Alex out of danger as his past - and her need to know about it - threaten to destroy their future."
I love Stacey Abrams and I am bemused by the obelisk way more than I should be. I mean, it's a romance book after all!
The Secret History of Christmas Baking by Linda Raedisch
Published by: Llewellyn Publications
Publication Date: September 5th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Explore the Surprising and Sometimes Dark Origins of Beloved Holiday Bakes.
Spice up your season by rolling, molding, and kneading your way through some of the world's most iconic Christmas recipes. Interspersed with tales of sailors, saints, tomb raiders, and artisans, The Secret History of Christmas Baking proves that even the humblest holiday treat has a global backstory.
Did you know that the ancient Egyptians had their own version of gingerbread or that marzipan was once considered a pharmaceutical? Linda Raedisch dispels some long-standing culinary myths and delves into the darker chapters of the West's centuries-long romance with sugar and spices. In addition to more than forty recipes for modern bakers, you'll find illustrated instructions for dressing up your cakes and cookie plates with paper stars, angels, and witches. From Linzer tartlets to Christstollen, you can turn your kitchen into an Old World Christmas market stall."
I mean, I'm here for everything about this book, but Linzer tartlets!?! Oh yeah.
Death of an Author by E.C.R. Lorac
Death of a Master Chef by Jean-Luc Bannalec
Magic and Miracles by Sally Britton, Sarah M. Eden, Jo Perry, Clarissa Kae, Adam Berg, Julie Wright, Mindy Strunk, Rebecca Connolly, Serene Heiner, Traci Abramson, Nancy Campbell Allen, Krista Jensen, and Charlie N. Holmberg
The Long Call by Ann Cleeves
Iced in Paradise by Naomi Hirahara
Murder on a Mystery Tour by Marian Babson
A Dangerous Engagement by Ashley Weaver
The Lady and the Highwayman by Sarah M. Eden
Magic Under the Mistletoe by Lucy Coleman
There Will Come a Darkness by Katy Rose Pool
The Lady Rogue by Jenn Bennett
The Girl the Sea Gave Back by Ann Cleeves
Sword and Pen by Rachel Caine
The Unkindest Tide by Seanan McGuire
Loki: Where Mischief Lies by Mackenzi Lee
Little Witches: Magic in Concord by Leigh Dragoon
Texts from Mittens by Angie Bailey
