Sponsored by Amazon Original Stories.
Ava and Justin are about to be married for the holidays, but there’s just one thing left for them to do. For generations, engaged couples in Ava’s family have traveled into the Everglades to retrieve a rare bird egg and bake it into a wedding cake. Those who succeed live happily ever after. Those who fail are destined for heartbreak. With Ava’s beloved grandmother ill, the tradition means more than ever. Can Ava uphold their oldest family ritual before it’s too late? Read The Marriage Test, a touching short story by Suzanne Redfearn. Prime members read and listen for free.
Welcome to December, friends, and happy Tuesday! I hope you’ve been well. I don’t know about you, but around this time of year, I start getting really antsy to start a new yearly reading spreadsheet, even though there are still days left in this year. But I do hope to fit in a lot more books before we close the books (ha) on 2021. Because there are a notoriously small number of new books released in December compared to the rest of the year, I’ve done a round-up of some highlights for the whole month. And I’ll think of something fun for the newsletters for the rest of the year. More round-ups, for sure! You know how I love to tell you about as many books as I can. 🥰
Below, you’ll find titles (loosely) broken up into several categories, to make it easier for your browsing convenience. I hope you have fun with it! And as with each first Tuesday newsletter, I am putting a ❤️ next to the books that I have had the chance to read and loved.
And speaking of today’s great books, for this week’s episode of All the Books! Danika and I discussed some of the wonderful books that we’ve read, such as The Fortune Men, The Love Con, They Can’t Take Your Name, and more.
And now, it’s time for everyone’s favorite gameshow: AHHHHHH MY TBR! Here are today’s contestants:
Biography and Memoir
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Apparently There Were Complaints: A Memoir by Sharon Gless
Garbo: Her Life, Her Films by Robert Gottlieb
Sea State: A Memoir by Tabitha Lasley
Vivian Maier Developed: The Untold Story of the Photographer Nanny by Ann Marks ❤️
The Death of My Father the Pope: A Memoir by Obed Silva
Fiction
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The Women of Pearl Island by Polly Crosby
Bright Burning Things by Lisa Harding
Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim ❤️
The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa
Tell Me How to Be by Neel Patel ❤️
Where You Come From by Saša Stanišić, Damion Searls (translator)
You Never Get It Back (Iowa Short Fiction Award) by Cara Blue Adams ❤️
The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed ❤️
Middle Grade
Girl Giant and the Jade War by Van Hoang
Mystery and Thriller
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A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw
Observations by Gaslight: Stories from the World of Sherlock Holmes by Lyndsay Faye
They Can’t Take Your Name by Robert Justice ❤️
True Crime Story by Joseph Knox
One Night, New York by Lara Thompson
Silent Parade (Detective Galileo Series) by Keigo Higashino
My Darling Husband by Kimberly Belle
The Sorority Murder by Allison Brennan
The Replacement Wife by Darby Kane
Nonfiction
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The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera by Matthew Aucoin
Mothers, Fathers, and Others: Essays by Siri Hustvedt
Silence and Silences by Wallis Wilde-Menozzi
Agent Sniper: The Cold War Superagent and the Ruthless Head of the CIA by Tim Tate
Dark Tourist by Hasanthika Sirisena ❤️
Awakening Artemis: Deepening Intimacy with the Living Earth and Reclaiming Our Wild Nature by Vanessa Chakour
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
Poetry
Call Us What We Carry: Poems by Amanda Gorman
Jim Harrison: Complete Poems by Jim Harrison
Romance
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Fools In Love: Fresh Twists on Romantic Tales edited by Ashley Herring Blake and Rebecca Podos
The Love Con by Seressia Glass
Sci-fi, Fantasy, and Horror
Cyber Mage by Saad Z. Hossain ❤️
The Veiled Throne (The Dandelion Dynasty Book 3) by Ken Liu
The Last Wish: Illustrated Edition (The Witcher) by Andrzej Sapkowski
Spidertouch by Alex Thomson
Dark Hearts: The World’s Most Famous Horror Writers by Jim Gigliotti
Young Adult
The Righteous (The Beautiful Quartet) by Renée Ahdieh
Heart of the Impaler by Alexander Delacroix
The Upper World by Femi Fadugba
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If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich
The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke-Dale
The Coldest Touch by Isabel Sterling
Spin Me Right Round by David Valdes
Here’s to Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera
The Midnight Girls by Alicia Jasinska ❤️
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This week: I’m currently reading Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt and the Saga: Compendium One by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples. Outside of books, I’m still rewatching Psych (mostly because I want to find all the pineapples myself this time), and watching all the Celtics games, even the late West Coast ones. And the song stuck in my head is Take Ya Dancin’ by Say Hi. And as promised, here is a cat picture! Look, it’s a very rare picture of all three cats sitting peacefully together! This is obviously a sign of the apocalypse.
Thank you, as always, for joining me each week as I rave about books! I am wishing the best for all of you in whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! – XO, Liberty ❤️