Ok, is it just me or did March go zooooooom? Goodness, I don’t know if I have just been that busy reading, writing, and creating graphics or if the beginning of the year is just flying by right before my eyes. Either way, with April about a week away now I figured what better time then to drop the April book releases list. As always, I have specially researched through the depths of the inter-webs and social media looking for books that sound like amazing reads so that you don’t have to. I enjoy looking for hidden gems and of course saving my readers and friends time so that they don’t have to go scouring. With that said, I always strive to include a diverse array of genres and authors in my lists. Whether you are a fan of gripping thrillers, heartwarming romances, thought-provoking non-fiction, or whimsical fantasies, there should always be something within my selections for everyone to enjoy; I want to ensure that my recommendations reflect that vast potential. So, without further ado, let’s look forward to the exciting new releases that April has in store for us!
-Fantasy-
Awakening by J. Ross
Publication Date: April 1, 2025
Description
Waking from a coma, Adanya finds herself alone and betrayed. Everything she knew is gone...
The Northern Kingdom has long sought the annihilation of Rydell. In a desperate bid to stop them, Adanya and the Council of Sorcerers craft a spell to defend their people. But Adanya's sacrifice was supposed to leave her in a magically-induced coma for a few months-not seventy years.
Now, her kingdom is destroyed, and her betrayer rules the continent with more magic than anyone should be able to possess. Adanya must find and work with the descendants of the people she loved to discover the magic within herself-and the confidence to stand against someone who once meant so much to her.
Faced with overwhelming odds, can Adanya find the strength she needs?
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Awakening, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9798218616267>.
-Psychological Thriller-
The Last Session by Julia Bartz
Publication Date: April 1, 2025
Description
From the instant New York Times bestselling author of The Writing Retreat, a white-knuckled locked-room thriller about a social worker who, after coming face-to-face with her dark past, must infiltrate a mysterious wellness center in the deserts of New Mexico.
When a catatonic woman shows up at the psychiatric unit, social worker Thea swears she knows her from somewhere. She’s shocked to discover the patient holds a link to a traumatic time in her past. Upon regaining lucidity, the patient claims she can’t remember the horrific recent events that caused her brain to shut down. Thea’s at a loss—especially when the patient is ripped away from her as suddenly as she appeared.
Determined to find her, Thea follows a trail of clues to a remote center in Southwestern New Mexico, where a charismatic couple holds a controversial monthly retreat to uncover attendees’ romantic and sexual issues. Forced to participate in increasingly intimate exercises, Thea finds herself inching closer not only to her missing patient, but also to tantalizing answers about her harrowing past. However, time is running out, and if she stays for the last session, she too might lose her mind…or worse.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Last Session, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781982199494>.
-Paranormal Rom-Com-
Don't Bite the Director by T. M. Kirk
Publication Date: April 01, 2025
Description
Indie horror film director Cora Lee is dying…
But she came to terms with that years ago and is ready to embrace the great beyond. Provided she gets to finish making her vampire movie first, that is. So when a real vamp shows up on set trying to shut the production down, she’s not having it… or him. He does offer her an out though–accompany him home to plead her case to the vampiric higher ups. Surely nothing bad could come from hopping in a car with an incredibly sexy vampire.
Sent to compel Cora into dropping her film, the last thing Saiden expected to discover was that she was his mate. Exciting? Yes. Problematic given that he still has a mission to complete? Also yes. Easy solution–he’ll lie to her to buy some time so he can convince her to turn. Surely he can woo the woman who should be supernaturally attracted to him.
He has all the time in the world.
Her clock is quickly ticking down.
As they hit the road, Cora only has one hard and fast rule:
Don’t bite the director!
*This is a romance book that contains sexual content and explicit scenes recommended for ages 18+
Source Citation:
Amazon.com 2025, Don't Bite the Director, Amazon website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://a.co/d/au16kB3>.
-YA Mystery Thriller-
Deadstream by Mar Romasco-Moore
Publication Date: April 1, 2025
Description
Rear Window meets The Ring in this sinister YA thriller, in which a teen girl witnesses the livestreamed murder of a popular online streamer by a paranormal entity . . . and could be its next victim.
After surviving a car accident that claimed the life of her best friend, Teresa is now terrified to leave the safety of her bedroom. Since then, her only solace and window to the outside world has been the online community she found through streaming.
But one night, the safe world Teresa created starts to break down. A shadowy figure appears in the background of her favorite's streamer's video, and his behavior mysteriously changes over the next few days before he dies in front of thousands of viewers. Teresa finds herself at the center of a life-and-death investigation as the world tries to figure out what or who this figure could be . . . especially as it begins appearing in the other people's streams, compelling them to "open the door" and let it in—including Teresa’s own. In order to save herself and the rest of the internet from this relentless entity, Teresa must venture outside of the mental and physical walls she’s created. But will she be able to conquer her fears before anyone else loses their life?
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Deadstream, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593691885>.
-Mystery / Crime Fiction-
The Museum Detective by Maha Khan Phillips
Publication Date: April 1, 2025
Description
Inspired by a real-life antiquities scandal in Pakistan, this gripping series debut introduces archaeologist Dr. Gul Delani, whose investigation into the discovery of a mummy gets complicated—and personal—when it collides with her years-long search for a missing family member. Perfect for fans of Sue Grafton and Elsa Hart.
When Dr. Gul Delani receives a call in the middle of the night from the Sindh police, she thinks they may have finally found her niece, Mahnaz—a precocious, politically conscious teenage girl who went missing three years prior. Gul has been racked with grief since Mahnaz’s disappearance and distracts herself through work: a talented curator at the Museum of Heritage and History in Karachi, she is one of the country’s leading experts in archaeology and ancient civilizations, a hard-won position for a woman.
But there is no news of Mahnaz. Instead, Gul is summoned to a narcotics investigation in a remote desert region in western Pakistan. In her wildest dreams, Gul couldn’t have imagined what she’d find there: amid a drug bust gone wrong, there is a mummy—life-size, seemingly authentic, its sarcophagus decorated with symbols from Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire. The discovery confounds everyone. It is both too good to be true, and for Gul, too precious to leave in careless or corrupt hands.
Aided by her team of unlikely misfits, Gul will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of it, even as her quest for the truth puts her in the throes of a dangerous conspiracy and threatens to collide with her ongoing search for Mahnaz. A portrait of a city fueled by corruption and a woman relentlessly in pursuit of justice, The Museum Detective is an exciting, gritty new crime thriller that announces a whip-smart and brilliant sleuth and builds to a stunning, emotional conclusion that readers won’t soon forget.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Museum Detective, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781641296564>.
-Cozy Mystery Fiction-
Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) by Jess Q. Sutanto
Publication Date: April 1, 2025
Description
Vera Wong is back and as meddling as ever in this follow-up to the hit Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.…
Ever since a man was found dead in Vera's teahouse, life has been good. For Vera that is. She’s surrounded by loved ones, her shop is bustling, and best of all, her son, Tilly, has a girlfriend! All thanks to Vera, because Tilly's girlfriend is none other than Officer Selena Gray. The very same Officer Gray that she had harassed while investigating the teahouse murder. Still, Vera wishes more dead bodies would pop up in her shop, but one mustn't be ungrateful, even if one is slightly...bored.
Then Vera comes across a distressed young woman who is obviously in need of her kindly guidance. The young woman is looking for a missing friend. Fortunately, while cat-sitting at Tilly and Selena's, Vera finds a treasure trove: Selena's briefcase. Inside is a file about the death of an enigmatic influencer—who also happens to be the friend that the young woman was looking for.
Online, Xander had it all: a parade of private jets, fabulous parties with socialites, and a burgeoning career as a social media influencer. The only problem is, after his body is fished out of Mission Bay, the police can't seem to actually identify him. Who is Xander Lin? Nobody knows. Every contact is a dead end. Everybody claims not to know him, not even his parents.
Vera is determined to solve Xander's murder. After all, doing so would surely be a big favor to Selena, and there is nothing she wouldn't do for her future daughter-in-law.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man), Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593546253>.
-Thriller Action Fiction-
The Snares by Rav Grewal-Kök
Publication Date: April 1, 2025
Description
A Punjabi American lawyer at a mysterious federal intelligence agency fights to keep his career, marriage, and morality intact in this gripping post-9/11 drama from a thrilling new voice.
“Are you happy where you are? Toiling in the trenches of the Justice Department?”
In the waning months of George W. Bush’s presidency, Neel Chima, a former naval officer and federal prosecutor, is recruited to join a new federal intelligence agency—one with greater than usual powers and fewer than usual restrictions. Neel soon finds himself intimately involved in the surveillance of domestic terrorism suspects and the selection of foreigners for drone assassination—men who often look just like his Sikh family members. As both his ambitions and his moral qualms mount, he is drawn farther and farther away from his wife and two young daughters. When he makes a critical mistake at work, he is left vulnerable to shadowy figures in the intelligence world who seek to use him in their own, still more radical counterterrorism missions. If he agrees, the world of power will open up even wider to him. If he doesn’t . . .
Is Neel an insider or an outsider? The hunter or the hunted? An idealist or a mercenary? What truths, and whose lives, is he willing to sacrifice? The novel plunges readers into the human turmoil behind the faceless operations—the torture, secret assassinations, and drone strikes—of the American security state, creating an eye-opening meditation on morality, violence, and the price of a human soul.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Snares, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593446034>.
-Gothic Horror Fiction-
Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoridou
Publication Date: April 1, 2025
Description
The tale begins with Agnes. After losing her baby, Agnes is called to the great manor house to nurse the local lord's baby boy. But something is wrong with the child: his nails grow too fast, his skin smells of soil, and his eyes remind her of the dark forest. As he grows into a boy, then into man, a plague seems to follow him everywhere. Trees wither at the roots, fruits rot on their branches, and the town turns against him. The man takes a wife, who bears him a son. But tragedy strikes in cycles and his family is forced to consider their own malignancy--until wife after wife, death after death, plague after plague, every woman he touches becomes a ghost. The ghosts become a chorus, and they call urgently to our narrator as she tries to explain, in our very real world, exactly what has happened to her. The ghosts can all agree on one thing, an inescapable truth about this man, this powerful lord who has loved them and led them each to ruin: If you leave, you die. But if you die, you stay.
Natalia Theodoridou's haunting and unforgettable debut novel, Sour Cherry, confronts age-old systems of gender and power, long-held excuses made for bad men, and the complicated reasons we stay captive to the monsters we love.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Sour Cherry, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781963108194>.
-Women's Fiction / Literary Fiction / Historical Fiction-
Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Publication Date: April 8, 2025
Description
A woman learns the incredible story of a real-life American Kingdom—and her family’s ties to it—in this enthralling novel from the New York Timesbestselling, NAACP Image Award-winning author of Take My Hand.
Nikki hasn’t seen her grandmother in years. So when the elder calls out of the blue with an urgent request for Nikki to visit her in the hills of western North Carolina, Nikki hesitates only for a moment. After years of silence in her family, due to a mysterious estrangement between her mother and grandmother, she’s determined to learn the truth while she still can.
But instead of answers about the recent past, Mother Rita tells Nikki an incredible story of a kingdom on this very mountain, and of her great-great-great grandmother, Luella, who would become its queen.
It sounds like the makings of a fairy tale—royalty among a community of freed people. But the more Nikki learns about the Kingdom of the Happy Land, and the lives of those who dwelled in the ruins she discovers in the woods, the more she realizes how much of her identity and her family’s secrets are wrapped up in these hills. Because this land is their legacy, and it will be up to her to protect it before it, like so much else, is stolen away.
Inspired by true events, Happy Land is a transporting multi-generational novel about the stories that shape us and the dazzling courage it takes to dream.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Happy Land, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593337721>.
-Political Crime Fiction-
Big Chief by Jon Hickey
Publication Date: April 8, 2025
Description
There, There meets The Night Watchman in this gripping literary debut about power and corruption, family, and facing the ghosts of the past.
Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside his childhood friend, Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe’s Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack’s reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack’s estranged sister and Mitch’s former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go—and what they will sacrifice—to win it all.
But when an accident claims the life of Mitch’s mentor, a power broker in the reservation’s political scene, the election slides into chaos and pits Mitch against the only family he has. As relationships strain to their breaking points and a peaceful protest threatens to become an all-consuming riot, Mitch and Layla must work together to stop the reservation’s descent into violence.
Thrilling and timely, Big Chief is an unforgettable story about the search for belonging—to an ancestral and spiritual home, to a family, and to a sovereign people at a moment of great historical importance.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Big Chief, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781668046463>.
-LGBTQ+ Contemporary Romance-
Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory
Publication Date: April 8, 2025
Description
A captivating and sizzling new queer romance by New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Guillory.
Avery Jensen is almost thirty, fresh off a breakup, and she’s tired of always being so uptight and well-behaved. She wants to get a hobby, date around (especially women), flirt with everyone she sees, wear something not from the business casual section of her closet—all the fun stuff normal people do in their twenties. One problem: Avery doesn't know where to start. She doesn't have a lot of dating experience, with men or women, and despite being self-assured at work, she doesn't have a lot of confidence when it comes to romance.
Enter Taylor Cameron, Napa Valley's biggest flirt and champion heartbreaker. Taylor just broke up with her most recent girlfriend, and her best friend bet her that she can't make it until Labor Day without sleeping with someone. (Two whole months? Without sex? Taylor?!?!) So, she offers to give Avery flirting lessons. It should keep her busy and stop her from texting people she shouldn't. And it might take her mind off how inadequate she feels compared to her friends, who all seem much more settled and adult than Taylor.
At first, Avery is stiff and nervous, but Taylor is patient and encouraging, and soon, Avery looks forward to their weekly lessons. With Taylor’s help, Avery finally has the life she always wanted. The only issue is: now she wants Taylor. Their attraction becomes impossible to ignore, despite them both insisting to themselves and everyone else that it isn't serious. When Taylor is forced to confront her feelings for Avery, she doesn't know what to do—and most importantly, if she's already ruined the best thing she's ever had.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Flirting Lessons, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593100905>.
-Gothic Romantic Fantasy-
House of Blight by Maxy M. Martineau
Publication Date: April 8, 2025
Description
The first novel in an eerie, darkly creative, and romantic new gothic fantasy duology from Maxym M. Martineau, for readers of Sarah J. Maas and Rachel Gillig.
Edira Brillwyn is a threadmender. She holds a rare, lifesaving power that can cure disease and heal injuries in the blink of an eye. But magic always comes with a cost, and saving anyone sacrifices a sliver of her own life. She’s always kept her abilities hidden…until the powerful Fernglove family discovers her secret.
The Ferngloves are charming and beautiful, possess powerful magic, and don’t take no for an answer—especially Orin, the head of these ruling elites. When Edira’s brothers unexpectedly contract blight—an incurable virus killing people throughout the town, and an illness too strong for her to heal them both—Orin offers to help. Together at his estate they’ll research a cure while Orin slows their sickness and Edira hones her magic. His kindness and honesty surprises Edira, as does her undeniable attraction to him.
But the other Ferngloves are suspicious of her power and may be more dangerous than the ever-present disease. The longer Edira stays within the confines of the Manor, the more the family’s pristine exterior begins to crack—until Edira discovers a terrifying secret and must choose who she can save and at what cost…
"[E]nthralling...With court intrigue, a dash of romance, and betrayal galore, this promises good things to come." — Publishers Weekly
"[A] gorgeous fae gothic... I'm excited to see what [Martineau] does next." —ILLONA ANDREWS, #1 New York Times bestselling author
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, House of Blight, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780063391192>.
-LGBTQ+ Literature-
Don't Sleep with the Dead by Nghi Vo
Publication Date: April 8, 2025
Description
From award-winning author Nghi Vo comes Don't Sleep with the Dead, a standalone companion novella to The Chosen and the Beautiful, her acclaimed reimagining of The Great Gatsby.
“A vibrant and queer reinvention of F. Scott Fitzgerald's jazz age classic. . . . I was captivated from the first sentence.”―NPR on The Chosen and the Beautiful
Nick Carraway―paper soldier and novelist―has found a life and a living watching the mad magical spectacle of New York high society in the late thirties. He's good at watching, and he's even better at pretending: pretending to be straight, pretending to be human, pretending he's forgotten the events of that summer in 1922.
On the eve of the second World War, however, Nick learns that someone's been watching him pretend and that memory goes both ways. When he sees a familiar face one very dark night, it quickly becomes clear that dead or not, damned or not, Jay Gatsby isn't done with him.
In all paper there is memory, and Nick's ghost has come home.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Don't Sleep with the Dead, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781250362612>.
-Science Fiction Horror-
Cold Eternity by S. A. Barnes
Publication Date: April 8, 2025
Description
Cold Eternity is the newest action-packed space horror from S.A. Barnes perfect for fans of Severance, where desperation for eternal life leads to a fate worse than death...
Halley is on the run from an interplanetary political scandal that has put a huge target on her back. She heads for what seems like the perfect place to lay low: a gigantic space barge storing the cryogenically frozen bodies of Earth’s most fortunate citizens from more than a century ago…
The cryo program, created by trillionaire tech genius Zale Winfeld, is long defunct, and the AI hologram "hosts," ghoulishly created in the likeness of Winfeld’s three adult children, are glitchy. The ship feels like a crypt, and the isolation gets to Halley almost immediately. She starts to see figures crawling in the hallways, and there’s a constant scraping, slithering, and rattling echoing in the vents.
It’s not long before Halley realizes she may have gotten herself trapped in an even more dangerous situation than the one she was running from….
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Cold Eternity, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781250884954>.
-Folklore Short Stories-
Every Drip is a Man's Nightmare (paperback) by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto
Publication Date: April 8, 2025
Description
From major new storytelling talent Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, a blazing, bodily, raucous journey through contemporary Hawaiian identity and womanhood.
Megan Kamalei Kakimoto's wrenching and sensational debut story collection follows a cast of mixed native Hawaiian and Japanese women through a contemporary landscape thick with inherited wisdom and the ghosts of colonization. This is a Hawai'i where unruly sexuality and generational memory overflow the postcard image of paradise and the boundaries of the real, where the superstitions born of the islands take on the weight of truth.
A childhood encounter with a wild pua'a (pig) on the haunted Pali highway portends one young woman's fraught relationship with her pregnant body. An elderly widow begins seeing her deceased lover in a giant flower. A kanaka writer, mid-manuscript, feels her raw pages quaking and knocking in the briefcase.
Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare is both a fierce love letter to Hawaiian identity and mythology, and a searing dispatch from an occupied territory threatening to erupt with violent secrets.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Every Drip is a Man's Nightmare, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781639734634>.
-LGBTQ+ Spicy Romance-
Nightingale by Frances M. Thompson
Publication Date: April 8, 2025
Description
London, 1990
Sharon Goldblatt
My best friend Danny is sick. Really sick. We know what it is, we know how he got it, but we don't know how to make him better. Even the doctors and nurses don't know. Although that doesn't stop one particular nurse on his ward from acting like she knows it all. She's bold, brash and bloody infuriating when she dismisses my questions and concerns at every turn. But I'm determined to do whatever I can to save Danny from AIDS. Because my family rejected me long ago and my social life consists of reading too many superhero comic books, so Danny is all I have. I'm a 27-year-old lesbian who has never kissed a woman and he's all I have. And more than that, I'm all he has. So Florence F*cking Nightingale better keep out of my way if she knows what's good for her.
Kate Xiao Hong Chiu
People think I'm crazy for loving my job. My husband divorced me because of it and even some nursing friends keep their distance, but these are not my problems. My sole focus is treating my patients or rather making them as comfortable as possible. Which is why I don't take lightly to people getting in the way of my job, like this Sharon woman who thinks she knows better than me because she read a few articles. Does it matter that I keep wondering if the shaved sides of her head feel like velvet? No. Is it interesting that she seems to love Lady Phantom comics as much as me? Just a coincidence. Do I wonder what her body would feel like pressed up to mine? Yes, but that's irrelevant. I have a job to do, and when there aren't many of us willing to do it, I'm not going to let anyone stop me from doing it. People's lives literally depend on me so Sharon Goldblatt and her honey-brown eyes can take a running jump... and not into my bed no matter how good that would be.
Nightingale is a frenemies to lovers, grumpy/grumpy sapphic romance with lesbian and bisexual rep, a Jewish MC and a British Chinese MC, and butch/femme representation.
Source Citation:
Amazon.com 2025, Nightingale, Amazon website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://a.co/d/2ZGDWtD>.
-Dystopian Science Fiction / Absurdist Fiction / Literary Fiction-
Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata
Publication Date: April 15, 2025
Description
From the author of the bestselling literary sensations Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings comes a surprising and highly imaginative story set in a version of Japan where sex between married couples has vanished and all children are born by artificial insemination
Sayaka Murata has proven herself to be one of the most exciting chroniclers of the strangeness of society, x-raying our contemporary world to bizarre and troubling effect. Her depictions of a happily unmarried retail worker in Convenience Store Woman and a young woman convinced she is an alien in Earthlings have endeared her to millions of readers worldwide. Vanishing World takes Murata's universe to a bold new level, imagining an alternative Japan where attitudes to sex and procreation are wildly different to our own.
As a girl, Amane realizes with horror that her parents "copulated" in order to bring her into the world, rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. Amane strives to get away from what she considers an indoctrination in this strange "system" by her mother, but her infatuations with both anime characters and real people have a sexual force that is undeniable. As an adult in an appropriately sexless marriage--sex between married couples is now considered as taboo as incest--Amane and her husband Saku decide to go and live in a mysterious new town called Experiment City or Paradise-Eden, where all children are raised communally, and every person is considered a Mother to all children. Men are beginning to become pregnant using artificial wombs that sit outside of their bodies like balloons, and children are nameless, called only "Kodomo-chan." Is this the new world that will purify Amane of her strangeness once and for all?
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Vanishing World, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780802164667>.
-Historical Fiction / Mystery-
Strangers in Time by David Baldacci
Publication Date: April 15, 2025
Description
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Calamity of Souls comes a David Baldacci novel, set in London in 1944, about a bereaved book shop owner and two teenagers scarred by the second world war--and the healing and hope they find in one another.
Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters is up to no good, but for a very good reason. Without parents, peerage, or merit, ducking school but barred from actual work, he steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he's old enough to enlist to fight the Germans. After barely surviving the Blitz, Charlie knows there's no telling when a falling bomb might end his life.
Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of people to have been evacuated to the countryside via "Operation Pied Piper," Molly has been away from her parents--from her home--for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she'd hoped for as she's confronted by a devastating reality: neither of her parents are there, only her old nanny, Mrs. Pride.
Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his book shop, The Book Keep, where "a book a day keeps the bombs away". Mourning the recent loss of his wife, Ignatius forms a kinship with both children, and in each other--over the course of the greatest armed conflict the world had ever seen--they rediscover the spirit of family each has lost.
But Charlie's escapades in the city have not gone unnoticed, and someone's been following Molly since she returned to London. And Ignatius is reeling from a secret Imogen long kept from him while she was alive--something so shocking it resulted in her death, and his life being turned upside down.
As bombs continue to bear down on the city, Charlie, Molly, and Ignatius learn that while the perils of war rage on, their coming together and trusting one another may be the only way for them to survive.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Strangers in Time, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781538742051>.
-High Historical Fantasy-
The Ashfire King by Chelsea Abdullah
Publication Date: April 15, 2025
Description
A merchant and a prince trapped in the crumbling realm of jinn must figure out how to save one world to return to their own in The Ashfire King, the second book in the Sandsea Trilogy, perfect for fans of The City of Brass and The Bone Shard Daughter.
Neither here nor there, but long ago...
After fleeing a patricidal prince, legendary merchant Loulie al-Nazari and banished prince Mazen bin Malik find themselves in the realm of jinn. But instead of sanctuary, they find a world on the cusp of collapse.
The jinn cities, long sheltered beneath the Sandsea by the magic of its kings, are sinking. Amid the turmoil, political alliances are forming, and rebellion is on the rise. When Loulie assists a dissenter--one of her bodyguard's old comrades--she puts herself in the center of a centuries-old war.
Trapped in a world that isn't her own and wielding magic that belongs to a fallen king, Loulie must decide: Will she carry on someone else's legacy or carve out her own?
The Sandsea Trilogy:The Stardust Thief & The Ashfire King
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Ashfire King, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780316369060>.
-Mystery horror Fiction-
Another Fine Mess (Hardback) by Lindy Ryan
Publication Date: April 15, 2025
Description
From Lindy Ryan, "one of the most electrifying voices in the horror genre” (Gwendolyn Kiste), Another Fine Mess brings the Evans women back around in this unputdownable, crackling, rollicking mystery of humor, heart, and horror.
Making sure dead things stay buried is the family business ...
For over a hundred years, the Evans women have kept the undead in their strange southeast Texas town from rising. But sometimes the dead rise too quick–and that’s what left Lenore Evans, and her granddaughter Luna, burying Luna’s mother, Grace, and Lenore’s mother, Ducey. Now the only two women left in the Evans family, Luna and Lenore are left rudderless in the wake of the most Godawful Mess to date.
But when the full moon finds another victim, it’s clear their trouble is far from over. Now Lenore, Luna, and the new sheriff—their biggest ally—must dig deep down into family lore to uncover what threatens everything they love most. The body count ticks up, the most unexpected dead will rise–forcing Lenore and Luna to face the possibility that the undead aren’t the only monsters preying on their small town.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Another Fine Mess, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781250324238>.
-Historical Saga / Biography-
The Rebel Romanov by Helen Rappaport
Publication Date: April 15, 2025
Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanov Sisters comes the story of a courageous young Imperial Grand Duchess who scandalized Europe in search of freedom.
In 1795, Catherine the Great of Russia was in search of a bride for her grandson Constantine, who stood third in line to her throne. In an eerie echo of her own story, Catherine selected an innocent young German princess, Julie of Saxe-Coburg, aunt of the future Queen Victoria. Though Julie had everything a young bride could wish for, she was alone in a court dominated by an aging empress and riven with rivalries, plotting, and gossip—not to mention her brute of a husband, who was tender one moment and violent the next. She longed to leave Russia and her disastrous marriage, but her family in Germany refused to allow her to do so.
Desperate for love, Julie allegedly sought consolation in the arms of others. Finally, Tsar Alexander granted her permission to leave in 1801, even though her husband was now heir to the throne. Rootless in Europe, Julie gave birth to two—possibly three—illegitimate children, all of whom she was forced to give up for adoption. Despite entreaties from Constantine to return and provide an heir, she refused, eventually finding love with her own married physician.
At a time when many royal brides meekly submitted to disastrous marriages, Julie proved to be a woman ahead of her time, sacrificing her reputation and a life of luxury in exchange for the freedom to live as she wished. The Rebel Romanov is the inspiring tale of a bold woman who, until now, has been ignored by history.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Rebel Romanov, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781250273123>.
-Contemporary Romance-
Wild and Wrangled by Lyla Sage
Publication Date: April 15, 2025
Description
She’s the one that got away. He’s the one that never let her go.
From the bestselling author of Done and Dusted and Swift and Saddled, the next book in the Rebel Blue Ranch series, a small-town romance in which past lovers get a second chance to rediscover what they lost
“The perfect farewell . . . I dare you to get to the last page without turning right back around to walk through the gates of Rebel Blue all over again. I’ll see you there.”—Jessica Joyce, USA Today bestselling author of The Ex Vows
Camille Ashwood had always loved a plan. Her latest was her best yet. She was going to get married so she could secure her daughter’s future, get her overbearing parents off her back, and finally start building her own life in small-town Meadowlark, Wyoming. Easy, right?
But when her groom doesn’t show up to the wedding, Cam’s life is turned upside down—she doesn’t even have a place to live. That is until she finds out the house she’s loved since high school is available to rent. There’s only one problem: the neighbor.
Dusty Tucker has spent nearly all of his adult life running. Running from what, though? More like who: Cam Ashwood. But ever since he returned home last year, the girl who was his first, well, everything has become a woman seemingly determined to keep him at arm’s length. And he was okay with that—at least, that’s what he kept telling himself. She was getting married, after all. But now she’s single and living next door. Dusty wants to show her that they can be friends, and that he can stay put.
Despite her best attempts to stay far away from Dusty Tucker, Cam realizes that being close to him is like slipping into her favorite jeans. Easy. Comfortable. That is until past wounds start to open and feelings—both old and new—wreak havoc. Nearly ten years after they first met, Dusty and Cam begin to wonder if their first love can also be their last. And this time, will it be forever?
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Wild and Wrangled, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593732472>.
-YA Dystopian Romance / Action Suspense-
Watch Me Deluxe Limited Edition by Tahereh Mafi
Publication Date: April 15, 2025
Description
This breathtaking custom deluxe edition features:
Shimmery jacket with holographic foil
Gorgeous designed endpapers
Foil case design with a quote from the novel
Stunning holographic edges
Quantities are limited for this deluxe edition so be sure to preorder now!
James Anderson had a plan or half of one. All that matters is that he managed to do what his older brother, the famous Aaron Warner Anderson, never did: infiltrate Ark Island, the last refuge of The Reestablishment. In the past decade no outsider has breached the stronghold of the authoritarian regime, but James is in. In a prison cell, sure, but as far as James is concerned, a win is a win.
It’s been ten years since the fall of The Reestablishment. Ten years since the notorious duo—Juliette Ferrars and Aaron Warner Anderson—led a worldwide rebellion and established the New Republic of the West. But after a decade of unsettling quiet, The Reestablishment is ready to make a devastating move, and they have the perfect person for the job.
Rosabelle Wolff had a plan. She always has a plan. On Ark Island, where constant surveillance is packaged as security, even emotions must be experienced with caution. A trained assassin, her every movement is monitored by synthetic intelligence—and when she’s given an order to kill, she never hesitates.
Brimming with pulse-pounding action and torturous romance, Watch Me is an explosive journey through a dystopian landscape where enemies-to-lovers has never felt more impossible. Step into a beloved and breathtaking world that demands an answer to a desperate question—
Who are we when no one is watching?
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Watch Me Deluxe Limited Edition, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780063425187>.
-Contemporary Romance-
A Fowl Match by Sarah Madeline
Publication Date: April 18, 2025
Description
A meet cringe. A small town. A spring small business game. And two rivals. Forced to work towards one common goal—winning first place.
"There were moments that I literally was giggling and kicking my feet like a goofball." -Phoebe, Goodreads review
"If you're wanting a sweet read, with a cute chicken, a kitten, and some realistic and relatable characters - this is it!" -Haley, Goodreads review
"It's so clear how much Sarah adores her characters. They are very realistic, they grow, they laugh, they cry, they love." -Erin, StoryGraph review
Dustin Rhett has avoided taking over the family farm for years. After being laid off from his nine to five job in New York City, a call from his grandfather felt like fate. A drive to the unhinged, but charming town he's since forgotten was inevitable.
Violet "Vivi" Hart is the proud owner of, The Not So Secret Garden, a flower and garden shop in Thornwood Valley, Pennsylvania. Her life seems to be status quo, at least appearing to be. Until the gossip mill strikes again with the announcement of the town's annual spring small business games. To her dismay she's paired with the grumpy man she collided with only days earlier...Dustin.
When Dustin brings out feelings Violet's tried so hard to suppress, she finds herself face to face with her scarred past and unresolved grief.
Will she overcome her fears and explore a budding romance with Dustin? Or will they continue to be rivals?
A Fowl Match is the first book in the Thornwood Valley Series. A small town rom-com set in spring. Filled with chicken puns to make you laugh out loud, tender moments to bring you to tears, and one small open door chapter.
Source Citation:
Amazon.com 2025, A Fowl Match, Amazon website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://a.co/d/0q8FooY>.
-Romance-
A Decade for Destiny by Aspen Kilgore
Publication Date: April 19, 2025
Description
I wasn't desperate. At least not for myself. It was never about me.
You know those memes? There's a picture of a cabin in the woods and the caption reads: "Would you be able to live here for a year without internet for a million dollars?" It's like that, only I'll get two mil if I stick it out. Marry a rich CEO for a year, live in a posh apartment over looking Seattle. And did I mention that he's gorgeous? What's not to like.
But here's the thing...what's the catch? There's always a catch, right? But if I can't find it, will I go ahead with the deal?
It's only a year...
A Decade for Destiny is a fun, trope-filled romance with ADHD representation. Enemies to lovers, Second Chance, Forced Proximity, Arranged Marriage, Open Door Spice. ALL THE THINGS!
Source Citation:
Amazon.com 2025, A Decade for Destiny, Amazon website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://a.co/d/1x2mxBQ>.
-Horror-
Deliver Us to Evil by H. L. Crowe
Publication Date: April 20, 2025
Description
From the twisted mind of H.L. Crowe comes their hauntingly sacrilegious debut, DELIVER US TO EVIL.
Arthur Knight, the priest of the Woodheart Catholic Church, is anything but a person who practices what he preaches—or that’s what Father Andy wants you to believe!
The priest and the pope are intertwined in a feud over power and corruption that has secretly plagued the town, and nobody seems to know what’s up...until a raid on a Satanic cult in the city next door turns everyone’s world upside down. The Swanford raid ropes in a whole new conflict when the group of wayward goth teenager-turned-young adults and a detective both race for answers to their questions.But just as they begin to go somewhere, things turn for the worst when they realize that someone in the church may not be the only danger to Woodheart.Because if God can’t save you, no-one will.
Source Citation:
Amazon.com 2025, Deliver Us To Evil, Amazon website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://a.co/d/1P3rzeg>.
-Work Place Romance-
Steamy on Set by D.S. Walls
Publication Date: April 21, 2025
Description
After a devastating breakup leaves her questioning everything, Farrah Darby trades her flailing life in San Francisco for a fresh start in Hollywood as a movie set stylist. Her fashion expertise should be her ticket to success, but there's one problem: Director Errol Davis seems determined to make her life hell. Every costume choice becomes a battle, every interaction a test of wills.
Farrah gives as good as she gets – if Davis wants war, she'll show him exactly what she's made of. But between their heated arguments, she can't help noticing other things too: his intense focus when he's directing, the rare smile that transforms his face, and yes, that irritatingly perfect ass. When a crisis on set forces them to work closely together, Farrah glimpses a different man beneath the harsh exterior – one who might be worth the risk of letting her guards down again.
Now she's facing a dilemma bigger than any wardrobe decision: trust her head, which warns her to keep her distance, or her heart, which whispers that their rivalry might be disguising something much more intriguing.
Source Citation:
Amazon.com 2025, Steamy on Set, Amazon website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://a.co/d/5MCWIJT>.
-Short Stories-
Atavists by Lydia Millet
Publication Date: April 22, 2025
Description
The word atavism, coined by a botanist and popularized by a criminologist, refers to the resurfacing of a primitive evolutionary trait or urge in a modern being. This inventive collection from Lydia Millet offers overlapping tales of urges ranging from rage to jealousy to yearning--a fluent triumph of storytelling, rich in ideas and emotions both petty and grand.
The titular atavists include an underachieving, bewildered young bartender; a middle-aged mother convinced her gentle son-in-law is fixated on geriatric porn; a bodybuilder with an incel's fantasy life; an arrogant academic accused of plagiarism; and an empty-nester dad determined to host refugees in a tiny house in his backyard.
As they pick away at the splitting seams in American culture, Millet's characters shimmer with the sense of powerlessness we share in an era of mass overwhelm. A beautician in a waxing salon faces a sudden resurgence of grief in the midst of a bikini Brazilian; a couple sets up a camera to find out who's been slipping homophobic letters into their mailbox; a jilted urban planner stalks a man she met on a dating app.
In its rich warp and weft of humiliations and human error, Atavists returns to the trenchant, playful social commentary that made A Children's Bible a runaway hit. In these stories sharp observations of middle-class mores and sanctimony give way to moments of raw exposure and longing: Atavists performs an uncanny fictional magic, full of revelation but also hilarious, unpretentious, and warm.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Atavists Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781324074410>.
-Historical Fiction-
The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick
Publication Date: April 22, 2025
Description
By 1960s standards, Margaret Ryan is living the American woman's dream. She has a husband, three children, a station wagon, and a home in Concordia--one of Northern Virginia's most exclusive and picturesque suburbs. She has a standing invitation to the neighborhood coffee klatch, and now, thanks to her husband, a new subscription to A Woman's Place--a magazine that tells housewives like Margaret exactly who to be and what to buy. On paper, she has it all. So why doesn't that feel like enough?
Margaret is thrown for a loop when she first meets Charlotte Gustafson, Concordia's newest and most intriguing resident. As an excuse to be in the mysterious Charlotte's orbit, Margaret concocts a book club get-together and invites two other neighborhood women--Bitsy and Viv--to the inaugural meeting. As the women share secrets, cocktails, and their honest reactions to the controversial bestseller The Feminine Mystique, they begin to discover that the American dream they'd been sold isn't all roses and sunshine--and that their secret longing for more is something they share. Nicknaming themselves the Bettys, after Betty Friedan, these four friends have no idea their impromptu club and the books they read together will become the glue that helps them hold fast through tears, triumphs, angst, and arguments--and what will prove to be the most consequential and freeing year of their lives.
The Book Club for Troublesome Women is a humorous, thought provoking, and nostalgic romp through one pivotal and tumultuous American year--as well as an ode to self-discovery, persistence, and the power of sisterhood.
"Bostwick's latest is ideal for fans of historical fiction and those who enjoyed Bonnie Garmus's Lessons in Chemistry, Kristin Hannah's The Women, or Kate Quinn's The Briar Club, which explore the historical roles of women and the challenges they faced within a society structured to define and limit their roles in and out of the home." --Library Journal Starred Review
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Book Club for Troublesome Women, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781400344741>.
-Genre-Bending Memoir-
The Hollow Half by Sarah Aziza
Publication Date: April 22, 2025
Description
A brush with death. An ancestral haunting. A century of family secrets. Sarah Aziza’s searing, genre-bending memoir traces three generations of diasporic Palestinians from Gaza to the Midwest to New York City—and back
“You were dead, Sarah, you were dead.” In October 2019, Sarah Aziza, daughter and granddaughter of Gazan refugees, is narrowly saved after being hospitalized for an eating disorder. The doctors revive her body, but it is no simple thing to return to the land of the living. Aziza’s crisis is a rupture that brings both her ancestral and personal past into vivid presence. The hauntings begin in the hospital cafeteria, when a mysterious incident summons the familiar voice of her deceased Palestinian grandmother.
In the months following, as she responds to a series of ghostly dreams, Aziza unearths family secrets that reveal the ways her own trauma and anorexia echo generations of violent Palestinian displacement and erasure—and how her fight to recover builds on a century of defiant survival and love. As she moves towards this legacy, Aziza learns to resist the forces of colonization, denial, and patriarchy both within and outside her.
Weaving timelines, languages, geographies, and genres, The Hollow Half probes the contradictions and contingencies that create “nation” and “history.” Blazing with honesty, urgency, and poetry, this stunning debut memoir is a fearless call to imagine both the self and the world anew.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Hollow Half, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 23 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781646222438>.
-Biography-
The Acid Queen by Susannah Cahalan
Publication Date: April 22, 2025
Description
The untold story of the woman who played a critical role in bringing psychedelics into the mainstream—until her audacious exploits forced her into the shadows—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire
Rosemary Woodruff Leary has been known only as the wife of Timothy Leary, the Harvard professor-turned-psychedelic high priest, whose jailbreak captivated the counterculture and whose life on the run with Rosemary inflamed the government. But Rosemary was more than a mere accessory. She was a beatnik, a psychonaut, and a true believer who tested the limits of her mind and the expectations for women of her time.
Long overlooked by those who have venerated her husband, Rosemary spent her life on the forefront of the counterculture, working with Leary on his books and speeches, sewing his clothing, and shaping—for better and for worse—the media’s narrative about LSD. Ultimately, Rosemary sacrificed everything for the safety of her fellow psychedelic pioneers and the preservation of her husband’s legacy.
Drawing from a wealth of interviews, diaries, archives, and unpublished sources, Susannah Cahalan writes the definitive portrait of Rosemary Woodruff Leary, reclaiming her narrative and her voice from those who dismissed her. Page-turning, revelatory, and utterly compelling, The Acid Queen shines an overdue spotlight on a pioneering psychedelic seeker.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, The Acid Queen , Bookshop.org website, Accessed 23 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780593490051>.
-Biography-
Medicine River by Mary Annette Pember
Publication Date: April 22, 2025
Description
A sweeping and trenchant exploration of the history of Native American boarding schools in the U.S., and the legacy of abuse wrought by systemic attempts to use education as a tool through which to destroy Native culture.
From the mid-19th century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their families to attend boarding schools that claimed to help create opportunity for these children to pursue professions outside their communities and otherwise "assimilate" into American life. In reality, these boarding schools—sponsored by the US Government but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation—were an insidious attempt to destroy tribes, break up families, and stamp out the traditions of generations of Native people. Children were beaten for speaking their native languages, forced to complete menial tasks in terrible conditions, and utterly deprived of love and affection.
Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother was forced to attend one of these institutions—a seminary in Wisconsin, and the impacts of her experience have cast a pall over Mary's own childhood, and her relationship with her mother. Highlighting both her mother's experience and the experiences of countless other students at such schools, their families, and their children, Medicine River paints a stark portrait of communities still reckoning with the legacy of acculturation that has affected generations of Native communities. Through searing interviews and assiduous historical reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of a culture whose country has been seemingly intent upon destroying it.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Medicine River, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 23 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780553387315>.
-Romance-
Star-Crossed by McKenzie Burns
Publication Date: April 22, 2025
Description
Jackson S. Albrecht is one of the most entitled, pretentious, egotistical human beings Tori Wilson has ever met.
He also happens to be one of the best lays she's ever had.
That one-night stand entangled them much more than Tori would have anticipated-until the publisher she works for threatens to drop Jackson from their author roster, putting an abrupt halt to the situationship.
Never one to keep her mouth shut, however, Tori accidentally comes up with the idea that would not only help Jackson out, but prove she's deserving of the promotion she recently received. The catch? In order to do so, she has to join him on the two-week writing retreat he's been assigned to attend.
Now it's up to Tori to help fix Jackson's attitude, fix his career, and try to do it all without blurring the lines of business and pleasure. What could possibly go wrong?
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Star-Crossed, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 23 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9798990265837>.
-Paranormal Fantasy-
Reverie by Bridgette Hooper
Publication Date: April 24, 2025
Description
Every night, Aisling dreams of a different life. One night, a dragon appears.
Aisling's life has been a fight for survival - surviving her mother's addictions, her negligent father, and a decade of homelessness, leaving her exhausted and hopeless. She relies heavily on a recurring dream of wildflowers and the sea to give her the peace and safety she lacks in her waking hours.
The peace is shattered when a dragon, injured and on the verge of death, falls from the sky and rewrites her fate.
Aisling neglects her reality and falls headfirst into the war-torn realm of her dream. There, she meets an elite group of bonded warriors and dragons designed to fight the Cruento, a faceless enemy intent on controlling women through fear and chaos. Aisling finally finds a sense of worth in the fight but teeters dangerously on the edge of insanity in her waking life.
What begins as an exciting nightly escape turns terrifyingly real when Aisling discovers she's a plane stepper - a soul able to walk worlds in her sleep. With each night that passes, Aisling's tether on her soul weakens, forcing her to fight against the empty void between worlds.
Aisling must choose where she belongs before her fracturing existence is irreparably destroyed, and time is not on her side.
The line between dreams and reality is going to shatter.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Reverie, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 23 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9798992599817>.
-Sports Romance-
Doc Defence: Two Worlds Collide Romance 2 by Quinn Hart
Publication Date: April 28, 2025
Description
Get ready to meet Hel and Frost on April 28th 2025
She saves lives. He plays to win. But can they find love before the final buzzer?
Dr. Ethel “Hel” Rayleigh has spent years working as a Consultant Doctor in the Emergency Room, but this season, she’s adding a hockey rink to the hospital halls, volunteering as the team doctor for an Australian Ice Hockey League club, the Burra Wombats. She expects more work, bruised players, and a fast-paced challenge—but she doesn’t expect Jake “Frost” Forster.
An NHL veteran playing one last season before retirement, Frost came to Australia for the love of the game, not for distractions. But Hel is impossible to ignore—sharp-witted, fiercely capable, and no-nonsense. There’s something about Hel that gets under his skin in a way no opponent ever has.
Hel knows she can’t get involved with an athlete whose real life is half a world away, and Frost’s career is a ticking clock counting down to the day he leaves.
Will they take the risk and go all in—or let love slip through their fingers before the final buzzer sounds?
Source Citation:
Amazon.com 2025, Doc Defence, Amazon website, Accessed 23 March 2025, <https://amzn.in/d/caD2MqV>.
-LGBTQ+ Cozy Mystery-
How to Have a Killer Time in DC by Sam Lumley
Publication Date: April 29, 2025
Description
A young, gay, autistic travel writer takes a head-spinning detour when murder and romance unbalance his well-planned life and career in this fun, quirky debut mystery . . .
For twenty-four-year-old Oliver Popp, autism is just another fact of life. As long as Oliver sticks to a comfortable itinerary planned well in advance, he gets by just fine as a staff writer for Offbeat Traveler magazine. But a curveball drops into Oliver’s budding career when his first feature assignment takes him to Washington, DC, to chronicle the latest tourism trends.
His freelance project photographer is Ricky Warner, a gregarious and impulsively adorable shot of adrenaline. If the flirty gay photographer isn’t enough to unbalance shy Oliver at the get-go, there’s also an unsettling chance encounter with old acquaintance, Elise Perkins, and a congressional hearing that’s shaking up both the capitol and an entrepreneurial billionaire. The unexpected distractions soon collide—quite literally—when Elise is struck dead by a speeding car. Funny how she didn’t move and didn’t scream. She just stared it down like she knew it was coming. Forget the National Mall and Mt. Vernon Square. Oliver and Ricky are game for something much more interesting: solving a mystery and a murder.
With their focus shifted and a deadline coming, they only have a few days to solve the crime. For Oliver, it’s a weeks of firsts: first crush, first time without a schedule, first time playing amateur sleuth, and first time getting wrestled out of his comfort zone. But with a loosey-goosey new partner like Ricky, that might not be such a bad thing at all.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, How to Have a Killer Time in DC, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 23 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781496753557>.
-Gothic Dark Romance / Fantasy / Erotica-
Enigma by RuNyx
Publication Date: April 29, 2025
Description
DELUXE EDITION--a deluxe hardback edition, featuring gorgeous dark teal sprayed edges, a foil case stamp, exclusive endpapers, a detailed map, and deliciously moody art throughout.
A twisted Hades and Persephone meets the enthralling suspense of The Secret History in a new scorchingly hot dark academia tale of unforgettable, legendary love from RuNyx, the New York Times bestselling author of Gothikana.
There are secrets she must uncover.
There are secrets he must keep.
Salem Salazar is a Mortimer University legacy and the black sheep of her scandal-ridden, wealthy family. Obsessed with death, she arrives at Mortimer on the hunt for answers about what happened to her perfect, missing older sister. There, she discovers that her sister is far from the only girl to have gone missing at Mortimer. Salem will do anything to discover what dark forces are killing Mortimer's students... even if it means using herself as bait.
And Cazimir van der Waal has caught her scent. He has a dark past, a hidden agenda, and a ravenous appetite for a beautiful, golden-eyed girl who seems determined to risk her life. But he is far from the most dangerous thing at Mortimer.
In this magnificent, steamy dark academia romance filled with taut suspense, sparks will fly, rivals will become lovers, terrible truths will be revealed, and an epic love will change everything.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Enigma, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 23 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781250334237>.
-Science Fiction / Dark Fantasy-
One Way Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
Publication Date: April 29, 2025
Description
Set in the universe Africanfuturist luminary Nnedi Okorafor first introduced in the World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death, One Way Witch is the second in the She Who Knows trilogy
The world has forgotten Onyesonwu.
As a teen, Najeeba learned to become the beast of wind, fire and dust: the kponyungo. When that took too much from her, including the life of her father, she let it all go, and for a time, she was happy — until only a few years later, when the small, normal life she’d built was violently destroyed.
Now in her forties and years beyond the death of her second husband, Najeeba has just lost her beloved daughter. Onyesonwu saved the world. Najeeba knows this well, but the world does not. This is how the juju her daughter evoked works. One other person who remembers is Onyesonwu’s teacher Aro, a harsh and hard-headed sorcerer. Najeeba has decided to ask him to teach her the Mystic Points, the powerful heart of sorcery. There is something awful Najeeba needs to kill and the Mystic Points are the only way. Najeeba is truly her daughter’s mother.
When Aro agrees to help, Najeeba is at last ready to forge her future. But first, she must confront her past — for certain memories cannot lie in unmarked graves.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, One Way Witch, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 23 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780756418977>.
-Narrative History-
Strangers in the Land by Michael Luo
Publication Date: April 29, 2025
Description
From New Yorker writer Michael Luo comes a masterful narrative history of the Chinese in America that traces the sorrowful theme of exclusion and documents their more than century-long struggle to belong.
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2025 (Time)
"A story about aspiration and belonging that is as universal as it is profound.”—Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing
"A gift to anyone interested in American history. I couldn't stop turning pages."—Charles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown
"What history should be--richly detailed, authoritative, and compelling."—David Grann, author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon
Strangers in the Land tells the story of a people who, beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, migrated by the tens of thousands to a distant land they called Gum Shan––Gold Mountain. Americans initially welcomed these Chinese arrivals, but, as their numbers grew, horrific episodes of racial terror erupted on the Pacific coast. A prolonged economic downturn that idled legions of white workingmen helped create the conditions for what came next: a series of progressively more onerous federal laws aimed at excluding Chinese laborers from the country, marking the first time the United States barred a people based on their race. In a captivating debut, Michael Luo follows the Chinese from these early years to modern times, as they persisted in the face of bigotry and persecution, revealing anew the complications of our multiracial democracy.
Luo writes of early victims of anti-Asian violence, like Gene Tong, a Los Angeles herbalist who was dragged from his apartment and hanged by a mob during one of the worst mass lynchings in the country’s history; of demagogues like Denis Kearney, a sandlot orator who became the face of the anti-Chinese movement in the late-1870s; of the pioneering activist Wong Chin Foo and other leaders of the Chinese community, who pressed their new homeland to live up to its stated ideals. At the book’s heart is a shameful chapter of American history: the brutal driving out of Chinese residents from towns across the American West. The Chinese became the country’s first undocumented immigrants: hounded, counted, suspected, surveilled.
In 1889, while upholding Chinese exclusion, Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field characterized them as “strangers in the land.” Only in 1965 did America’s gates swing open to people like Luo’s parents, immigrants from Taiwan. Today there are more than twenty-two million people of Asian descent in the United States and yet the “stranger” label, Luo writes, remains. Drawing on archives from across the country and written with a New Yorker writer’s style and sweep, Strangers in the Land is revelatory and unforgettable, an essential American story.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, Strangers in the Land, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 23 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9780385548571>.
-LGBTQ+ Historical Romantic Fantasy-
When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley
Publication Date: April 29, 2025
Description
The Shape of Water meets The Greatest Showman in this beautifully illustrated queer historical cozy fantasy, as a young Puerto Rican immigrant goes through a journey of love and self-discovery after capturing a merman for a Coney Island sideshow act in turn-of-the 20th century New York.
“Venessa gives life to the most unexpected things. I have a strong, strong feeling that this is the start of something special.” —TJ KLUNE, New York Times Bestselling author of The House in the Cerulean Sea
Benigno “Benny” Caldera knows an orphaned Boricua blacksmith in 1910s New York City can’t call himself an artist. But the ironwork tank he creates for famed Coney Island playground, Luna Park, astounds everyone, especially the eccentric side-show proprietor who commissioned it. Benny’s work earns him an invitation to join the show’s eclectic crew of performers—his first welcome in the city—and share in their astonishing secret: the tank Benny built is a cage for their newest exhibit, a living, breathing, in-the-flesh merman stolen from the banks of the East River under a gleaming full moon.
The merman is more than a mythic marvel, though. Benny comes to know Río as a clever philosopher, an observant traveler, and a kindred spirit more beautiful and compassionate than any human he’s ever met. Despite their different worlds, what begins as a friendship of necessity deepens to love, leading Benny’s heart into uncharted waters where he can no longer ignore the agonizing truth of Río’s captivity—and his own.
A cage is no place for a merman to survive. Though releasing Río means betraying his new family, bankrupting their home, and losing his soulmate forever, Benny must look within for the courage to do what’s right, and find a love strong enough to free them both.
"When the Tides Held the Moon is a beautifully illustrated novel with artwork throughout by Venessa Vida Kelley, known for her stunning romance and fantasy art. This novel includes two different full-color endpapers for front and back, fully-designed chapter headers, and 27 pieces of detailed illustrations throughout, using beautiful two-color, aqua blue and black inks.
Source Citation:
Bookshop.org 2025, When the Tides Held the Moon, Bookshop.org website, Accessed 22 March 2025, <https://bookshop.org/a/109400/9781645661535>.
So what are your thoughts on April’s newest book releases? Are you excited because I sure am. Each month that passes is just another excuse for me to load up on more books and to expand that ever-growing TBR of mine. Have you read any of these books as ARCs? Drop a comment, a rating, and let me hear what you have to say. Thanks for reading! If you're interested in purchasing any of these books for yourself, each book has a direct link to it for bookshop.org or feel free to check out the link below.
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