Dear Book Friends,
How is your Monday going? It’s been kind of hectic here (more on that later), and we’re counting down the days to our big move. So if you’ve got any recommendations for books and movies set in Seattle (besides Fifty Shades of Grey) to get me more excited about this move, let me know. In the meantime, I’ve got book stuff to share with you.
Book Deals and Reveals
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Here’s the cover reveal of Mae Coyiuto’s upcoming YA rom com novel Chloe and the Kaishao Boys. This book follows the story of a Chinese-Filipino girl whose dad sets her up on arranged dates to convince her to stay home for college. It’s out from Penguin Teen on March 7, 2023.
Here’s another upcoming rom com cover reveal: In Priyanka Taslim’s The Love Match, a Bangladeshi-American teen fake-dates the match arranged for her while crushing on another boy. And then she ends up falling for both guys. Out January 3, 2023.
And LGBTQ Reads has an exclusive cover reveal for Gwendolyn Clare’s speculative YA novel In the City of Time, out from Feiwel & Friends on November 29th.
And here’s another YA cover reveal! Check out the cover of You Wouldn’t Dare by Samantha Markum, out from Wednesday Books on March 28, 2023.
Tordotcom Publishing has released the cover of The Keeper’s Six by Kate Elliott. The publisher describes the book as follows: “A world-hopping, bad-ass, spell-slinging mother sets out to rescue her kidnapped son from a dragon lord with everything to lose.”
Entertainment Weekly has the exclusive reveal of the cover for the next Heartstopper comic: The Heartstopper Yearbook, coming this fall.
Audiobook sales are up for the tenth straight year. Here are the results from a few studies detailing audiobook listener habits.
Warner Bros. dropped the first trailer for their upcoming DC Comics film Black Adam, starring Dwayne Johnson as the titular character.
Book Riot Recommends
I’m a Contributing Editor at Book Riot, I write the Today in Books newsletter, and I’m a Bibliologist for Book Riot’s Tailored Book Recommendations subscription service. I also have a PhD in English, so I’m basically a doctor of books. Books are my life, in other words, so in this section of the newsletter, let me share with you some upcoming books I’m super excited about. And I think you will be too!
Prepare Your Shelves!
The Darkness of Others by Care Holahan (Grand Central Publishing, August 23rd)
It’s summer, which means I’m suddenly especially hungry for fast-paced thrillers and easy-to-read-by-the-pool rom coms. Based on the cover and title of this one, I’ll give you one guess which category The Darkness of Others falls into. Or maybe you know already because you’re familiar with the name Cat Holahan, the bestselling author of Lies She Told and Her Three Lives.
Still stumped? Yes, The Darkness of Others is a thriller. Psychiatrist Imani Banks and her restauranteur husband Philip are living in a posh townhouse in Brooklyn Heights. Meanwhile, Tonya Sayre moves to Manhattan with dreams of becoming a Broadway star, but instead she’s working in a restaurant and struggling to support her teen daughter Layla. After Philip’s restaurant closes due to the pandemic lockdown, he and Imani decide to let Tonya and Layla rent their extra rooms. But Tonya begins skipping payments, and Imani becomes concerned that Tonya may be responsible for the death of their neighbors. Evicting someone during a lockdown is tricky, though, even when you think that person might be a murderer.
Oh yeah, you heard that right. This book addresses the fact that there is a pandemic and that there were lockdowns. I know some people are still feeling a little bit iffy about lockdown-related fiction, but I feel like it’s even weirder if we don’t acknowledge it at all. For thrillers especially, the claustrophobia created by a pandemic and a lockdown are kind of too perfect (in a fictional sense, not IRL) to ignore. So with all of that in mind, prepare your shelves. This one’s out in late August.
What I’m Reading This Week
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The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Siren Queen by Nghi Vo
The Perfume Thief by Timothy Schaffert
This is Not the Real World by Anna Carey
Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
Monday Memes
Okay here’s that Kate Middleton meme everyone is loving right now… but make it bookish.
Other Things That Make Me Happy
Y’all know I’m just watching Love Island every day now, so that’s what’s making me happy. Watching Love Island. Texting my friends about Love Island. Saying Love Island things like “I’ve got a text!” and “I’m loyal, babe,” and “You’re 100% my type on paper.”
If you don’t watch Love Island, like… what even do you do in the summer?
And Here’s A Cat Picture!
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Friends and fellow cat lovers, I need everyone to send my sweet Cersei their well wishes right now. My poor angel girl hurt her ankle, and she’s going to be recovering for the next couple of weeks.
I really hate when cats are in pain, because there’s really no way to tell them why this is happening to them. I wish I could assure her we’re doing everything we can to make her feel better as soon as possible! We love her so much.
So anyway, keep my sweet girl in your thoughts this week. Hopefully she’ll be feeling back to new soon enough.
Other than that, thanks so much for reading. And I hope you have a wonderful week.
💙 Emily