upcoming

Highly Anticipating Sunday

by Stefani

Another Sunday and another installment of upcoming books that I just can’t wait for.

52867387._SX318_SY475_Beach Read by Emily Henry

Expected publication date: May 19, 2020

Goodreads

Synopsis: Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

Why I’m excited: I got this book for the Book of the Month club because it was the most different of the selections that month. It sounds funny and witty. I typically approach romantic comedies with some caution because they often are cheesy and silly. But this sounds different enough to be worth a try.

 

48673052The Swap by Robyn Harding

Expected Publication date: June 23, 2020

Goodreads

Synopsis: Low Morrison is not your average teen. You could blame her hippie parents or her looming height or her dreary, isolated hometown on an island in the Pacific Northwest. But whatever the reason, Low just doesn’t fit in—and neither does Freya, an ethereal beauty and once-famous social media influencer who now owns the local pottery studio.

After signing up for a class, Low quickly falls under Freya’s spell. And Freya, buoyed by Low’s adoration, is compelled to share her darkest secrets and deepest desires. Finally, both feel a sense of belonging…that is, until Jamie walks through the studio door. Desperate for a baby, she and her husband have moved to the island hoping that the healthy environment will result in a pregnancy. Freya and Jamie become fast friends, as do their husbands, leaving Low alone once again.

Then one night, after a boozy dinner party, Freya suggests swapping partners. It should have been a harmless fling between consenting adults, one night of debauchery that they would put behind them, but instead, it upends their lives. And provides Low the perfect opportunity to unleash her growing resentment.

Why I’m excited: I admit it, I cannot get enough of the domestic thriller/mystery. I love the idea of a best friends gone awry. I will eat it up every time.

Highly Anticipating Sunday

by Stefani

I am hoping to make this a regular feature with upcoming books that I am truly excited to read. I will tell you about them, why I am excited by them, and we can discuss. See something here that piques your interest? I’ll like to the Goodreads listing for it too.

 

51901147._SX318_SY475_The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Expected publication: May 19, 2020 by Scholastic Press

Goodreads link

Synopsis: It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the 10th annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to out charm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.

The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined – every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute… and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.

My thoughts: So, you may not know this but I have read the Hunger Games trilogy at least 10 times. Except the last book, it really made me too mad to read at the same rate. But this is the prequel that tells the story of the 10th Hunger Games. This is a year that they talk about a lot of the rest of the books and I have always wondered what happened. I already have this pre-ordered and I am so excited!! If this is a good book, I might even be able to forgive Suzanne Collins for Mockingjay.

 

52454426._SX318_SY475_Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks

Expected publication: June 16, 2020 by Del Rey Books

Goodreads link

Synopsis: The #1 bestselling author of World War Z takes on the Bigfoot legend with a tale that blurs the lines between human and beast–and asks what we are capable of in the face of the unimaginable.

As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier’s eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now.

But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town’s bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing–and too earth-shattering in its implications–to be forgotten.

In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate’s extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the legendary beasts behind it.

Kate’s is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity’s defiance in the face of a terrible predator’s gaze, and inevitably, of savagery and death.

Yet it is also far more than that.

Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us–and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.

Part survival narrative, part bloody horror tale, part scientific journey into the boundaries between truth and fiction, this is a Bigfoot story as only Max Brooks could chronicle it–and like none you’ve ever read before.

My thoughts: I loved World War Z! I have read it more than once and consider it the premiere zombie novel, all others just don’t live up. It was one of the only books that actually made me feel scared of zombies. And this one sounds fantastic. Another monster story taking place in the hills at the base of Mount Rainier. I used to live in the area so I know the imposing figure that Mount Rainier makes on the landscape. I cannot wait. And, I have an ARC!!!

 

52027273._SX318_SY475_Providence by Max Barry

Expected publication: March 31, 2020 by GP Putnam’s Sons

Goodreads link

Synopsis: A dazzling, inventive, and thought-provoking new novel from the ingenious author of Jennifer Government and Lexicon.

Gilly, Talia, Anders, and Jackson are astronauts captaining a new and supposedly indestructible ship in humanity’s war against an alien race. Confined to the ship for years, each of them holding their own secrets, they are about to learn there are threats beyond the reach of human ingenuity–and that the true nature of reality might be the universe’s greatest mystery.

In this near future, our world is at war with another, and humanity is haunted by its one catastrophic loss–a nightmarish engagement that left a handful of survivors drifting home through space, wracked with PTSD. Public support for the war plummeted, and the military-industrial complex set its sights on a new goal: zero-casualty warfare, made possible by gleaming new ships called Providences, powered by AI.

But when the latest-launched Providence suffers a surprising attack and contact with home is severed, Gilly, Talia, Anders, and Jackson must confront the truth of the war they’re fighting, the ship that brought them there, and the cosmos beyond.

My thoughts: I read another book by this author a few years ago, Lexicon. I absolutely loved it.  So I saw this one pop up and saw aliens and knew I needed to read it. The way this author writes is beautiful. He likes to play with language and I love it when that is done well.

 

New Releases Wednesday

by Stefani

Here is a small handful of new books available this week, a little something for everyone.

 

49246460._SY475_A Good Marriage by Kimberly McCreight

Published May 5, 2020 by Harper

Synopsis: Big Little Lies meets Presumed Innocent in this riveting novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Reconstructing Amelia, in which a woman’s brutal murder reveals the perilous compromises some couples make—and the secrets they keep—in order to stay together.

Lizzie Kitsakis is working late when she gets the call. Grueling hours are standard at elite law firms like Young & Crane, but they’d be easier to swallow if Lizzie was there voluntarily. Until recently, she’d been a happily underpaid federal prosecutor. That job and her brilliant, devoted husband Sam—she had everything she’d ever wanted. And then, suddenly, it all fell apart.

No. That’s a lie. It wasn’t sudden, was it? Long ago the cracks in Lizzie’s marriage had started to show. She was just good at averting her eyes.

The last thing Lizzie needs right now is a call from an inmate at Rikers asking for help—even if Zach Grayson is an old friend. But Zach is desperate: his wife, Amanda, has been found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their Brooklyn brownstone. And Zach’s the primary suspect.

As Lizzie is drawn into the dark heart of idyllic Park Slope, she learns that Zach and Amanda weren’t what they seemed—and that their friends, a close-knit group of fellow parents at the exclusive Grace Hall private school, might be protecting troubling secrets of their own. In the end, she’s left wondering not only whether her own marriage can be saved, but what it means to have a good marriage in the first place.

Why I like it:  This book was part of my Book of the Month offering and it looks really good. I am a sucker for a good mystery. These domestic mysteries are really popular right now but rarely disappoint.

 

51907346._SX318_SY475_All Adults Here by Emma Straub

Published: May 4, 2020 by Riverhead Books

Synopsis: When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus accident in the center of town, it jostles loose a repressed memory from her young parenting days decades earlier. Suddenly, Astrid realizes she was not quite the parent she thought she’d been to her three, now-grown children. But to what consequence?

Astrid’s youngest son is drifting and unfocused, making parenting mistakes of his own. Her daughter is intentionally pregnant yet struggling to give up her own adolescence. And her eldest seems to measure his adult life according to standards no one else shares. But who gets to decide, so many years later, which long-ago lapses were the ones that mattered? Who decides which apologies really count? It might be that only Astrid’s thirteen-year-old granddaughter and her new friend really understand the courage it takes to tell the truth to the people you love the most.

In All Adults Here, Emma Straub’s unique alchemy of wisdom, humor, and insight come together in a deeply satisfying story about adult siblings, aging parents, high school boyfriends, middle school mean girls, the lifelong effects of birth order, and all the other things that follow us into adulthood, whether we like them to or not.

Why I like it: This synopsis grabbed my attention because it is a good reminder of a simple fact, every member of a family has a different memory of what that family was like.

 

52179715Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella

Published: May, 5, 2020 by Random House

Synopsis: Cadence Archer arrives on Harvard’s campus desperate to understand why her brother, Eric, a genius who developed paranoid schizophrenia took his own life there the year before. Losing Eric has left a black hole in Cady’s life, and while her decision to follow in her brother’s footsteps threatens to break her family apart, she is haunted by questions of what she might have missed. And there’s only one place to find answers.

As Cady struggles under the enormous pressure at Harvard, she investigates her brother’s final year, armed only with a blue notebook of Eric’s cryptic scribblings. She knew he had been struggling with paranoia, delusions, and illusory enemies—but what tipped him over the edge? With her suspicions mounting, Cady herself begins to hear voices, seemingly belonging to three ghosts who walked the university’s hallowed halls—or huddled in its slave quarters. Among them is a person whose name has been buried for centuries, and another whose name mankind will never forget.

Does she share Eric’s illness, or is she tapping into something else? Cady doesn’t know how or why these ghosts are contacting her, but as she is drawn deeper into their worlds, she believes they’re moving her closer to the truth about Eric, even as keeping them secret isolates her further. Will listening to these voices lead her to the one voice she craves—her brother’s—or will she follow them down a path to her own destruction?

Why I like it: Nothing intrigues me more than mysteries. Except maybe mysteries with potential ghosts.

 

51178017._SX318_SY475_The Hilarious World of Depression by John Moe

Published: May 5, 2020 by St. Martins Press

Synopsis: For years John Moe, critically-acclaimed public radio personality and host of The Hilarious World of Depression podcast, struggled with depression; it plagued his family and claimed the life of his brother in 2007. As Moe came to terms with his own illness, he began to see similar patterns of behavior and coping mechanisms surfacing in conversations with others, including high-profile comedians who’d struggled with the disease. Moe saw that there was tremendous comfort and community in open dialogue about these shared experiences and that humor had a unique power. Thus was born the podcast The Hilarious World of Depression.

Inspired by the immediate success of the podcast, Moe has written a remarkable investigation of the disease, part memoir of his own journey, part treasure trove of laugh-out-loud stories and insights drawn from years of interviews with some of the most brilliant minds facing similar challenges. Throughout the course of this powerful narrative, depression’s universal themes come to light, among them, struggles with identity, lack of understanding of the symptoms, the challenges of work-life, self-medicating, the fallout of the disease in the lives of our loved ones, the tragedy of suicide, and the hereditary aspects of the disease.

The Hilarious World of Depression illuminates depression in an entirely fresh and inspiring way.

Why I like it: I know what it’s like to have a disorder that people make light of. I hear it a thousand times a week “Oh, I’m totally feeling a little OCD about my coffee today.” It’s not a joke, and too often people who are struggling joke as a way to cover up their struggle. This is a huge problem in the entertainment world too. This looks like an honest and refreshing look at mental illness.