There are a lot of new books coming out every week. With New Release Radar, I’ll help you narrow down the week’s new book releases into the titles you should get excited about. This week, I have 10 great books to share with you, including some fun romcoms and truly spooky stories. Read on.
Change of Heart by Falon Ballard
Campbell Andrews has built her life around ambition, not romance. At 34, she’s a rising star at her law firm, with no patience for incompetence, tardiness or love stories. But when she wakes up in Heart Springs, a town ripped straight from a Hallmark movie, her worst nightmare becomes reality. The good news? She’s not dead. The bad news? To return to her real life, she must complete three tasks, including the most ridiculous of all: finding true love. Cam refuses to believe in fairytales, but in Heart Springs, anything is possible, even a change of heart.
Change of Heart is a fast-paced and whimsical new romcom. Blending romance and fantasy, Falon Ballard brings all of the charm of a Hallmark movie.
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The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict
London, 1930. Five legendary women crime writers — Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy — form the Queens of Crime to solve a real murder. Their case: a vanished nurse found strangled in the woods under baffling circumstances. As they unravel the mystery, deadly secrets emerge that may even threaten Sayers herself. If they fail, one of them may be next.
The Queens of Crime brings together five of the golden age female mystery writers. Inspired by a true story in Dorothy L. Sayers’ history, Marie Benedict provides an ending to a real-life mystery.
First-Time Caller by B.K. Borison
Aiden Valentine, host of Baltimore’s romance hotline, has lost faith in love — a problem when his viral interview with a young girl seeking dating advice for her mom puts him in the spotlight. Lucie Stone thought she was content until the city starts rooting for her love life. As she’s pushed toward a radio-sponsored romance, unexpected sparks fly between her and Aiden. Now, she must choose between the scripted happily-ever-after or the man behind the mic.
With quick banter and romantic tension, First-Time Caller is a fun Sleepless in Seattle-inspired romance. B.K. Borison’s new book release will keep you hooked from page one.
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Beauty in the Blood by Charlotte Carter
Sarah Toomey must be losing her mind. She’s acting on strange urges and blacking out and waking in eerie places, all while death seems to follow her. Yvonne Howard, a former prison guard turned aspiring chef, is drawn back into danger when an ex-inmate asks her to investigate a suspicious death, only to be murdered herself. As Yvonne digs deeper, she and Sarah become entangled in a deadly mystery rooted in a curse dating back to the Civil War.
Charlotte Carter’s new novel is a haunting, edge-of-your-seat mystery. Beauty in the Blood tells an eerie, captivating story about two families caught up in a centuries-old curse.
Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett
Scholar Emily Wilde and her fiancé, Wendell Bambleby, are about to take the throne of his long-lost faerie kingdom. There, they’ll plunge into a world of deadly intrigues and magical curses. As Emily struggles to reconcile her scholarly nature with her new role as queen, they must unravel a sinister mystery to save their realm from destruction. Together, they’ll face treacherous foes and their own insecurities.
Heather Fawcett is back with her signature delightful banter and cozy, light academia vibes. Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales combines old-school fae lore with heartfelt romance in this third installation.
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Brother Brontë by Fernando A. Flores
In 2038, the once-thriving town of Three Rivers, Texas, has become a dystopian wasteland under tech industrialist mayor Pablo Henry Crick, who has outlawed reading and enslaved its mothers in a toxic fish cannery. Best friends Prosperina and Neftalí scrape by, with Neftalí secretly preserving the town’s last books, including the elusive novel Brother Brontë by renegade author Jazzmin Monelle Rivas. But as Crick’s forces grow more violent, the duo, joined by a wounded Bengal tigress, three cunning triplets and a network of rebel tías, rise up to reclaim their city and uncover Rivas’s mysterious ties to Three Rivers.
In his most ambitious novel yet, Fernando A. Flores reminds us how important books truly are. Brother Brontë is a near-future adventure through a ruined world just a few steps away from our own.
Life Hacks for a Little Alien by Alice Franklin
Before she becomes Little Alien, our narrator is just a lonely girl in southeast England, struggling to understand the world as others do. But when she discovers the Voynich Manuscript — a book written in an undecipherable language — she dares to hope she’s not alone. Convinced it holds the answers she needs, Little Alien and her only friend, Bobby, set out to find the mysterious book, a quest that will change everything.
With an unexpected and charming narrator, Life Hacks for a Little Alien invites readers into the head of a neurodivergent child. Alice Franklin is a debut author you’ll definitely want to watch out for.
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But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo
After the old keeper of the keys is devoured, her protégé, Dália, inherits the role of tending to the Capricious House and its monstrous mistress: Anatema, a laudanum-addicted spider-woman with a taste for human brides. Tasked with unlocking the drawers that hold Anatema’s memories, Dália hopes to uncover the truth behind her predecessor’s death and survive long enough to claim her place. But there’s one flaw in her plan: Anatema can’t resist a beautiful woman. And she always eats her brides.
The Shape of Water meets Mexican Gothic in this sapphic monster romance novella for Hache Pueyo’s gothic debut. But Not Too Bold is a quick, compelling and macabre read.
The Spirit Collection of Thorne Hall by J. Ann Thomas
At Thorne Hall, a grand estate in the Berkshires, 15 restless spirits are bound by a curse. Elegy Thorne, the heir, must keep them silent with ancient folk songs. When a mischievous spirit causes trouble, the family calls upon a preservationist and his son, Atticus, whose modern ideas and charm captivate Elegy. Torn between duty and desire, Elegy seeks to free the spirits and herself, uncovering dangerous secrets along the way.
The Spirit Collection of Thorne Hall is a new book release from debut author J. Ann Thomas. This book is the perfect spooky read for the coldest months of the year.
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(S)Kin by Ibi Zoboi
15-year-old Marisol, the daughter of a soucouyant, must shed her skin every new moon and become a fireball witch, draining life to sustain her own. Although she hoped to leave her magical past behind when moving to Brooklyn, her mother’s influence keeps her tied to it. 17-year-old Genevieve, struggling with her skin condition and the chaos of her family, feels an inexplicable longing. When a new nanny reveals a family secret connecting her to Marisol, Gen begins uncovering answers to the questions she’s only now discovering.
As their bond grows, the girls realize that the magic hiding beneath their skin may be more dangerous than they ever imagined.
Ibi Zoboi’s fantasy debut is a stunning novel in verse based on Caribbean folklore. (S)Kin is a quick and compelling read with light horror and family drama.
You can check out these new book releases at your local bookstore or Bookshop.org. What February 11 new release are you most excited to read? Let us know below, and tune in next week to grow your TBR.
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