There’s something about the beginning of the year, new year new book releases new reading challenges, that gets me hyped about reading. I love seeing if any favourite authors have upcoming books and coming across books from authors I haven’t heard of before. I’ve come across so many releases that I’ve split them into different blog posts. This one will concentrate on the first four months of the year.
Two Can Keep a Secret by
Karen McManus
I really enjoyed
One of Us is Lying, which was a murder mystery meets a mixture of
The Breakfast Club and
Gossip Girl. So I’m looking forward to reading the next book from the same author. I don’t know too much about it as I want to go into it cold. Ellery has to move in with her Grandmother in Echo Ridge, a town that has mysteries (her aunt disappeared from there at the age of 17) and dark secrets (5 years ago a homecoming queen was murdered). Of course, secrets have a way of coming out and causing mayhem. This book is already out, it was released
January 10th and I’m on the wait list at the library
Duped: Double Lives, False Identities and the Con Man I Almost Married by
Abby Ellin
After discovering that her fiancé was lying about who he was, Abby Ellin explores her own story, looks into the art of lying and talks to other people who have had similar stories. It sounds so fascinating, I’m always floored when I hear stories about people who have successfully lived double lives.
January 15th
The Dead Queens Club by
Hannah Capin
Take the story of Henry VIII and his wives, put it in a modern high school setting and you get a story that’s being billed as
The Tudors meets
Mean Girls. There’s a lot of mixed reviews for it on Goodreads but I’m just hoping for some campy good fun!
January 29th
On the Come Up by
Angie Thomas
The Hate U Give was one of my favourite books from 2017. There’s a reason it’s so hyped and it’s well deserved. The story and characters are fantastic and the messages in the book are so so important. I was disappointed
On the Come Up was pushed back from its release last year but I’m sure the wait will be well worth it. 16 year old Bri is the daughter of an underground hip hop legend who died before he hit it big. Bri really wants to become a rapper and when her mom loses her job and bills start piling up, Bri no longer just wants to hit it big, she
needs to hit it big.
February 5th
The Wych Elm by
Tana French
I mentioned this book in my
September to December 2018 Book Releases post. It seems it was released in the US last October, as
The Witch Elm, but it’s due to be officially released here in February as
The Wych Elm. It’s Tana’s first stand alone novel, it’s not part of the Dublin Murder Squad series. I’ve heard it’s very slow paced and atmospheric but worth reading. As I’m a big fan of Tana, I’ll definitely be picking it up.
February 21st
Daisy Jones and the Six by
Taylor Jenkins Reid
Written as an oral history of a fictional band, Daisy Jones and the Six, it tells the story of their rise in popularity and why the band split at the height of fame in the 70s. The concept sounds super unique, I’m getting a Fleetwood Mac vibe off the whole thing and it’s already been opted for a TV series by Reese Witherspoon’s company Hello Sunshine. And she has soon good taste in books judging by her book club! If that wasn’t enough, given that
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was one of my favourites last year, it makes me even more hyped about this book.
March 7th
The Department of Sensitive Crimes by
Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander McCall Smith perfectly nails cosy crime books with his other series (I’ve read a lot of the
No.1 Ladies Detectives Agency as well as some of the other ones too). Scandi-noir crime novels are dark, bleak, moody with serious subject matters. This is being billed as the opposite, Scandi-blanc! Detective Varg and his department deals with cases that the other police deem not worth the time, things that seem strange or inconsequential. Like why the local business owner was stabbed in the back of the knee. It sounds like the
No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency if it was set in Sweden and I know I’ll probably pick this up if I’m looking for something gentle but different.
March 7th
Sounds Like Titanic by
Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman
When Jessica joins a classical music ensemble as a violinist in New York City, she thinks it’s a dream come true. Until she discovers the whole thing is a sham, the microphones are never on and the music is coming from a CD that sounds suspiciously like the Titanic soundtrack. From what I can tell this book doesn’t just centre around the story but is also a memoir of her life. The story alone though as me intrigued as it sounds batshit crazy!
March 12th
Microtrends Squared by
Mark Penn
I read the original
Microtrends book back in college, about 10 years ago. It focuses on how the behaviour of tiny groups of people can have a larger effect on the population (off the top of my head I remember soccer moms being one of the groups in the first book!). With so many changes and advances over the past ten years, it’ll be interesting to see what’s being proposed as the next big small things in society. And it’ll be perfect for the
Book Riot Read Harder challenge for a business book as it’s all about microeconomics.
March 20th
The Mobster’s Lament by
Ray Celestin
The Mobster’s Lament is book 3 in
City Blue Quartet. The first book is
The Axeman’s Jazz (set in New Orleans) and the second book is
Dead Man’s Blues (set in Chicago). I’ve only read
Dead Man’s Blues but it didn’t spoil
The Axeman’s Jazz for me (I have a copy of this actually, I didn’t know
Dead Man’s Blue was the follow up when I started reading it, otherwise I would have started with
The Axeman’s Jazz!).
The Mobster’s Lament is set in New York City and I plan on picking up
The Axeman’s Jazz before this one!
March 21st
Reasons to be Cheerful by
Nina Stibbe
I’m a big fan of Stibbe’s books and this will be the 3rd book with Lizzy Vogel, the first being Man at the Helm and the second Paradise Lodge. Lizzie is now 18 and trying to be an independent woman. Though she has a lot to learn about the realities of life and love. I’m sure it’ll be a great mixture of Stibbe’s usual charm, dry wit and dark humour.
March 28th
Sex Power Money by
Sara Pascoe
Animal by Sara Pascoe is one of my favourite books on feminism. It’s not perfect as it doesn’t have a lot of experiences with intersectionality but a lot of it is from Sara’s own experiences and Sara acknowledges and addresses the lack of intersectionality by saying she doesn’t expect her book to be the definitive in feminism, she just wants to be apart of the conversation. I expect this will be a follow on look at feminism and I’m hoping it’ll be just as funny as Animal. The publisher’s catalogue says March 28th but Amazon says 27th August so fingers crossed it’s sooner rather than later!
March 28th
Things in Jars by
Jess Kidd
I’ve heard of Jess Kidd before and you probably have too (
Himself and
The Hoarder) but have yet to pick up any of her novels. This caught my eye as it’s a Victorian murder mystery with a female detective. Er, yes please! Sign me up!
April 4th
The Rosie Result by
Graeme Simsion
This is book 3 in
The Rosie Project series, book two
The Rosie Effect came out 2o14. I enjoyed the previous two books, though as I was unaware this series was to be continued I’m not super hyped for it. However I’m sure I will pick it up at some stage as I am interested in seeing how the story progresses.
April 4th
Cruel Acts by
Jane Casey
Book 8 in the Maeve Kerrigan detective series and I can’t wait to read it! One of my favourite crime series and this book can’t come out quick enough. I read books 2-7 over the space of a month in 2017 so it really can’t come quick enough!
April 4th
I’ve already started to keep tabs on the releases for May onwards but I’m going to wait to post these until the end of March or beginning of April. Let me know what new books you’re most looking forward to reading this year.
On another note, I wrote this post in January but then Open Writer, the programme I use to write and publish posts, developed some issue with Google changing something to do with how photos are uploaded or something. IDK. Anyway, I ended up removing the photos, adding this as a draft to edit on Blogger and then got super frustrated because I can NEVER get my posts to look the way I want them to using the Blogger editor. It took me ages, editing the HMTL to get the post to look semi decent and it makes me regret not choosing WordPress when I originally started the blog. Sigh
