Adding to Your TBR – April 2019
TBR – To Be Read tower/list
April’s list of the most anticipated reads. There are some got-to-haves here begging to be pre-ordered! Happy reading.
Descendant of the Crane by Joan He
This is book has had such high praise from early reviewers who comment especially about the magnificent world building. Visit the author’s site for information about pre-order gifts – open internationally. #fantasy #YA
Expected 2 April 2019
Tyrants cut out hearts. Rulers sacrifice their own.
Princess Hesina of Yan has always been eager to shirk the responsibilities of
the crown, dreaming of an unremarkable life. But when her beloved father is
found dead, she’s thrust into power, suddenly the queen of a surprisingly
unstable kingdom. What’s more, Hesina believes that her father was murdered—and
that the killer is someone close to her.
Hesina’s court is packed full of dissemblers and deceivers eager to use the
king’s death for political gain, each as plausibly guilty as the next. Her
advisers would like her to blame the neighboring kingdom of Kendi’a, whose
ruler has been mustering for war. Determined to find her father’s actual
killer, Hesina does something desperate: she enlists the aid of a soothsayer—a
treasonous act, punishable by
death, since magic was outlawed centuries ago.
Using the information provided by the sooth, and uncertain if she can trust her
family, Hesina turns to Akira—a brilliant investigator who’s also a convicted
criminal with secrets of his own. – Goodreads
The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman
Early reviewers are loving this book from debut author Christine Lynn Herman. The praise includes the world-building, atmosphere and unforgettable characters. #fantasy #debutauthor #YA
Expected 2 April 2019
Branches and stones, daggers and bones,
They locked the Beast away.
After the death of her sister, seventeen-year-old Violet Saunders finds herself dragged to Four Paths, New York. Violet may be a newcomer, but she soon learns her mother isn’t: They belong to one of the revered founding families of the town, where stone bells hang above every doorway and danger lurks in the depths of the woods.
Justin Hawthorne’s bloodline has protected Four Paths for generations from the Gray—a lifeless dimension that imprisons a brutal monster. After Justin fails to inherit his family’s powers, his mother is determined to keep this humiliation a secret. But Justin can’t let go of the future he was promised and the town he swore to protect.
Ever since Harper Carlisle lost her hand to an accident that left her stranded in the Gray for days, she has vowed revenge on the person who abandoned her: Justin Hawthorne. There are ripples of dissent in Four Paths, and Harper seizes an opportunity to take down the Hawthornes and change her destiny-to what extent, even she doesn’t yet know.
The Gray is growing stronger every day, and its victims are piling up. When Violet accidentally unleashes the monster, all three must band together with the other Founders to unearth the dark truths behind their families’ abilities—before the Gray devours them all. – Goodreads
Since We Last Spoke by Brenda Rufener
With amazing reviews this story reminiscent of Romeo & Juliet’s tragedy sounds like an emotional, hard-hitting story. @contemporary #YA
Expected 2 April 2019
When Aggi Frank and Max Granger finally admitted their feelings
for each other last December, it felt like love was beautiful and endless…
until it wasn’t.
A fatal car accident involving their older siblings throws their lives into
sudden chaos. And with a restraining order now in place between the two bitter
households, Aggi and Max’s love runs cold. Being together again seems like a
distant fantasy, even though they share the same driveway.
Still, Plum Lake is a small town, and staying apart can’t last forever. Aggi
and Max eventually reunite at a lake-house party hosted by a mutual friend and
break the ice after a year of silence. But just as they begin to rebuild their
relationship, the unthinkable happens when Aggi’s little sister, Grace, flees
from home after their father spirals into a fit of rage. With a support system
of friends close by, Aggi and Max must confront each other and their families
in the hopes of mending all the broken pieces. – Goodreads
We Rule the Night by Claire Eliza Bartlett
We Rule the Night features pilots, war and forbidden magic. Described on Goodreads as part Shadow and Bone, part Code Name Verity (links to my reviews), No pressure the for this debut author then! #fantasy #YA #debutauthor
Expected 2 April 2019
Two girls use to fly and fight–for their country and for themselves–in this riveting debut that’s part Shadow and Bone, part Code Name Verity.
Seventeen-year-old Revna is a factory worker, manufacturing war machines for the Union of the North. When she’s caught using illegal magic, she fears being branded a traitor and imprisoned. Meanwhile, on the front lines, Linné defied her father, a Union general, and disguised herself as a boy to join the army. They’re both offered a reprieve from punishment if they use their magic in a special women’s military flight unit and undertake terrifying, deadly missions under cover of darkness. Revna and Linné can hardly stand to be in the same cockpit, but if they can’t fly together, and if they can’t find a way to fly well, the enemy’s superior firepower will destroy them–if they don’t destroy each other first.
We Rule the Night is a powerful story about sacrifice, complicated friendships, and survival despite impossible odds. – Goodreads
Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan
The first book in the Something Dark and Holy trilogy that’s described by early reviewers as ‘dark and brutal, glittering and blood-soaked.’ That’s it, I’m in and counting the days. #fantasy #YA
Expected 2 April 2019
A girl who can speak to gods must save her people without destroying herself.
A prince in danger must decide who to trust.
A boy with a monstrous secret waits in the wings.
Together, they must assassinate the king and stop the war.
In a centuries-long war where beauty and brutality meet, their three paths entwine in a shadowy world of
The Boy Who Steals Houses by C.G. Drews
A new book from C.G.Drews (aka book blogger PaperFury), the book we have all been holding our breath for since her début in June last year A Thousand Perfect Notes (link to my review) #contemporary #YA
Expected 4 April 2019
Can two broken boys find their perfect home?
Sam is only fifteen but he and his autistic
older brother, Avery, have been abandoned by every relative he’s ever known.
Now Sam’s trying to build a new life for them. He survives by breaking into
empty houses when their owners are away, until one day he’s caught out when a
family returns home. To his amazement this large, chaotic family takes him
under their wing – each teenager assuming Sam is a friend of another sibling.
Sam finds himself inextricably caught up in their life, and falling for the
beautiful Moxie.
But Sam has a secret, and his past is about to
catch up with him. –
Goodreads
Every Moment After by Joseph Moldover
Debut author explores the lives of the survivors after a school shooting. #contemporary #YA
Expected 9 April 2019
Surviving was just the beginning.
Eleven years after a shooting rocked the small town of East Ridge, New Jersey
and left eighteen first graders in their classroom dead, survivors and recent
high school graduates Matt Simpson and Cole Hewitt are still navigating their
guilt and trying to move beyond the shadow of their town’s grief. Will Cole and
Matt ever be able to truly leave the ghosts of East Ridge behind? Do they even
want to?
As they grapple with changing relationships, falling in love, and growing
apart, these two friends must face the question of how to move on—and truly
begin living. – Goodreads
In the Neighborhood of True by Susan Kaplan Carlton
A historical fiction with strong, contemporary themes. #HistoricalFiction #YA
Expected 9 April 2019
A powerful story of love,
identity, and the price of fitting in or speaking out.
After her father’s death, Ruth Robb and her family transplant themselves in the
summer of 1958 from New York City to Atlanta—the land of debutantes, sweet tea,
and the Ku Klux Klan. In her new hometown, Ruth quickly figures out she can be
Jewish or she can be popular, but she can’t be both. Eager to fit in with the
blond girls in the “pastel posse,” Ruth decides to hide her religion. Before
she knows it, she is falling for the handsome and charming Davis and sipping
Cokes with him and his friends at the all-white, all-Christian Club.
Does it matter that Ruth’s mother makes her attend services at the local
synagogue every week? Not as long as nobody outside her family knows the truth.
At temple Ruth meets Max, who is serious and intense about the fight for social
justice, and now she is caught between two worlds, two religions, and two boys.
But when a violent hate crime brings the different parts of Ruth’s life into
sharp conflict, she will have to choose between all she’s come to love about
her new life and standing up for what she believes. -Goodreads
This Book Is Not Yet Rated by Peter Bognanni
By the author of Things I’m Seeing Without You – which I still haven’t read despite good intentions *rearranging TBR* – this book is already standing out among early reviewers. #contemporary #YA
Expected 9 April 2019
The Green Street Cinema has always been a
sanctuary for Ethan. Maybe it’s because movies help him make sense of real
life, or maybe it’s because the cinema is the one place he can go to still feel
close to his dad, a film professor who died three years ago. Either way, it’s a
place worth fighting for, especially when developers threaten to tear it down
to build a luxury condos.
They say it’s structurally unsound and riddled with health code violations.
They clearly don’t understand that the crumbling columns and even Brando, the
giant rat with a taste for sour patch kids, are a part of the fabric of this
place that holds together the misfits and the dreamers of the changing
neighborhood the cinema house has served for so many years.
Now it’s up to the employees of the Green Street Cinema–Sweet Lou the organist
with a penchant for not-so-sweet language; Anjo the projectionist, nicknamed
the Oracle for her opaque-but-always-true proclamations; Griffin and Lucas who
work the concessions, if they work at all; and Ethan, known as
“Wendy,” the leader of these Lost Boys–to save the place they love.
It’s going to take a movie miracle if the Green Street is going to have a happy
ending. And when Raina, Ethan’s oldest friend (and possible soul mate?), comes
back home from Hollywood where she’s been starring in B-movies about
time-traveling cats, Ethan thinks that miracle just may have been delivered.
But life and love aren’t always like the movies. And when the employees of the
Green Street ask what happens in the end to the Lost Boys, Ethan has to share
three words he’s not been ready to say: “they grow up.” – Goodreads
Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
This sounds so good! I love courtroom drama and haven’t read one for ages. #contemporary
Expected 16 April 2019
My husband asked
me to lie. Not a big lie. He probably didn’t even consider it a lie, and
neither did I, at first . . .
In the small town of Miracle Creek, Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an
experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine—a
pressurized oxygen chamber that patients enter for therapeutic “dives” with the
hopes of curing issues like autism or infertility. But when the Miracle
Submarine mysteriously explodes, killing two people, a dramatic murder trial
upends the Yoos’ small community.
Who or what caused the explosion? Was it the mother of one of the patients, who
claimed to be sick that day but was smoking down by the creek? Or was it Young
and Pak themselves, hoping to cash in on a big insurance payment and send their
daughter to college? The ensuing trial uncovers unimaginable secrets from that
night—trysts in the woods, mysterious notes, child-abuse charges—as well as
tense rivalries and alliances among a group of people driven to extraordinary
degrees of desperation and sacrifice.
Angie Kim’s Miracle Creek is a thoroughly contemporary take on the
courtroom drama, drawing on the author’s own life as a Korean immigrant, former
trial lawyer, and mother of a real-life “submarine” patient. – Goodreads
Upon a Burning Throne by Ashok K. Banker
This epic fantasy book, the first in the Burnt Empire Saga, has the bookish world in a storm. And it has such a beautiful cover! *grabby hands* #fantasy #YA
Expected 16 April 2019
In a world where
demigods and demons walk among mortals, the Emperor of the vast Burnt Empire
has died, leaving a turbulent realm without an emperor. Two young princes, Adri
and Shvate, are in line to rule, but birthright does not guarantee inheritance:
For any successor must sit upon the legendary Burning Throne and pass The Test
of Fire. Imbued with dark sorceries, the throne is a crucible—one that
incinerates the unworthy.
Adri and Shvate pass The Test and are declared heirs to the empire… but there
is another with a claim to power, another who also survives: a girl from an
outlying kingdom. When this girl, whose father is the powerful demonlord
Jarsun, is denied her claim by the interim leaders, Jarsun declares war, vowing
to tear the Burnt Empire apart—leaving the young princes Adri and Shvate to
rule a shattered realm embroiled in rebellion and chaos…. – Goodreads
I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney
A thriller that promises a well-paced storyline and numerous twists from the author of Sometimes I Lie #thriller
Expected 16 April 2019
l Know Who You Are is the brilliant tale
of two stories. One is about Aimee Sinclair—well-known actress on the verge of
being full-on famous. If you saw her, you’d think you knew her. One day towards
the near-end of her shoot on her latest film, Aimee comes home from filming to
find her husband’s cell phone and wallet on the dining room table. He never
goes anywhere without them. But he’s nowhere to be found. She’s not too
concerned—they had a huge fight the night before. They both said things they
didn’t mean. He might have done things he didn’t mean, things she can’t forget.
Even though she has a history of supposedly forgetting. After all, she’s a very
good actress.
The next morning she goes for her morning run and then goes to her favorite
coffee shop. But her card is denied. When she calls the bank they say her
account has been emptied of $10,000. She immediately suspects her husband. But
they say no, it was Aimee herself who closed out the account. And thus begins a
bizarre rabbit hole into which Aimee finds herself falling where nothing is at
it seems.
Alternating with Aimee’s story is that of a little girl who wandered away from
home. We always tell our kids not to talk to strangers or bad things will
happen. Well, bad things happen. – Goodreads
The Tiger at Midnight by Swati Teerdhala
The Tiger at Midnight, Is the first book in a fantasy trilogy (Burnt Empire Saga) from debut author Swati Teerdhala, was inspired by ancient Indian history and Hindu mythology.#fantasy #YA #debutauthor
Expected 16 April 2019
Esha is a legend, but no one knows. It’s only in the shadows that she moonlights as the Viper, the rebels’ highly skilled assassin. She’s devoted her life to avenging what she lost in the royal coup, and now she’s been tasked with her most important mission to date: taking down the ruthless General Hotha.
Kunal has been a soldier since childhood, training morning and night to uphold the power of King Vardaan. His uncle, the general, has ensured that Kunal never strays from the path—even as a part of Kunal longs to join the outside world, which has been growing only more volatile.
Then Esha’s and Kunal’s paths cross—and an unimaginable chain of events unfolds. Both the Viper and the soldier think they’re calling the shots, but they’re not the only players moving the pieces. As the bonds that hold their land in
Little Darlings by Melanie Golding
Goodreads reviewers describe Little Darlings as ‘sinister’ ‘creepy’ and having ‘echoes of Grimm’s Fairy Tales’. They had me at Grimm’s Fairy Tales, but possibility of changelings means I need this book! #Thriller #debutauthor
Expected 30 April 2019
Everyone says
Lauren Tranter is exhausted, that she needs rest. And they’re right; with
newborn twins, Morgan and Riley, she’s never been more tired in her life. But
she knows what she saw: that night, in her hospital room, a woman tried to take
her babies and replace them with her own…creatures. Yet when the police
arrived, they saw no one. Everyone, from her doctor to her husband, thinks
she’s imagining things.
A month passes. And one bright summer morning,
the babies disappear from Lauren’s side in a park. But when they’re found,
something is different about them. The infants look like Morgan and Riley―to
everyone else. But to Lauren, something is off. As everyone around her
celebrates their return, Lauren begins to scream, These are not my babies.
Determined to bring her true infant sons home,
Lauren will risk the unthinkable. But if she’s wrong about what she saw…she’ll
be making the biggest mistake of her life.
Compulsive, creepy, and inspired by some our
darkest fairy tales, Little
Darlings will have you checking―and rechecking―your own little
ones. Just to be sure. Just to be safe. –
Goodreads
Leave a Reply