We’re partnering with NOVL to give away a $200 gift card to ThriftBooks PLUS a bundle of hardcovers (titles below) to one lucky winner!
Enter here for a chance to win, or click the image below!
Hardcover copies of 6 new NOVL books—gift a friend or gift yourself!
The Brothers Hawthorne by Jennifer Lynn Barnes So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole Only She Came Back by Margot Harrison Emmett by L.C. Rosen Phoebe’s Diary by Phoebe Wahl How to Find a Missing Girl by Victoria Wlosok
Here’s a bit more about our partner: Join NOVL for YA exclusive sneak peeks, book box giveaways, the NOVLtea talk show, and access to FREE advance copies! Brought to you by @LittleBrownYR and home to Twilight, The Inheritance Games, Belladonna, the Novels of Elfhame, and your favorite book boyfriends, @thenovl is a community of YA fans who like their worlds fantastic, their points of view diverse, and their love triangles spicy.
Happy Holidays y’all!! Welcome, or welcome back, to the Kissing Books newsletter. I’m PN Hinton, here to share my love of the romance genre with like-minded readers through a myriad of ways.
Y’all, Christmas is one week away, which means that 2024 is two weeks away. My eyes bugged out just writing that, even though I’m ready to see what the new year brings. I have been through a lot over the last 12 months, so it’s been a year. However, I am fairly happy with the person I am turning into, so I am looking towards the new year with mostly optimistic eyes.
I don’t have much to update in terms of reading since I haven’t been doing a lot of that this month. Woe to my planned TBR. However, I am already starting to plan my goals for next year and, as always, will share them once I get them finalized in my head.
Are you looking for the perfect gift for that bookish special someone in your life this holiday season? Tailored Book Recommendations is here to help! Here at TBR, we pair our customers with a professional book nerd (aka bibliologist) who just gets them. They fill out a survey and then sit back and relax as we pick books just for them. We’ve got three levels — recs-only, paperback, and hardcover — and you can gift a full year or one time, so there are options for every budget! Get all the details at mybtro.com/gift.
While I love the idea of ugly holiday sweaters, the practicality of them in my home state is less than ideal. So, ugly holiday T-shirts are a nice compromise, and this is perfect for the holiday season. $25
While Naomi is content to stay single, all of her friends think it’s time for her to re-enter the dating world and sign her up for a dating app. Javier is the new owner of the lounge where Naomi and her friends have their weekly girls’ night and noticed her right away. From that moment, he has been drawn to her, but her overly cautious nature makes it hard for him to break down her walls. Will he be able to convince her to trust love again and give him a chance?
Alexander is a grumpy up-and-coming force in the culinary world. Sunshiny Eden, on the other hand, may have over-embellished her skills in order to land a position as his sous chef. As the two work closely together, tempers and other passions begin to simmer and soon spill over.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
For today’s recommendations, I’m going to highlight two of my top reads from this year. One is a Beverly Jenkins, which I’m sure no one is surprised by. The other is a *very* slow-burn M/M romance that I read for a book club and ended up enjoying more than I thought I would. As such, I am eagerly awaiting the second book, which rumor has it will be steamier than the first.
When a less than moral Pinkerton blackmails their respective families, Raven and Braxton are forced to work together for her — their mission? They pose as a married couple and domestic workers to infiltrate the home of a former Confederate official who is believed to have stolen the Declaration of Independence. Under the guise of matrimony, they quickly give in to their mutual attraction to one another while trying to recover the lost document, neither wanting to fully think about what will happen to their blossoming relationship once the mission is over.
When three people are found murdered at a Seattle marina, empath Reece is called to the scene. Once there, he finds out one of the victims is the author of a strict anti-empathy bill, which means that others like him are in danger of being blamed. Against his better judgment, he must join forces with Grayson, a government agent known in some circles as The Dead Man, to find out who is really behind the murders and stop them before it’s too late. All the while, he has to fight a simmering attraction to the other man, who is someone that he can’t get a read on, even with his empathic powers.
That’s all she wrote for today, friends. Don’t worry though; I’ll be back in your inboxes on Thursday. As always, you can give me a follow over on the bird app under @PScribe801 or Instagram under @pns_bookish_world. Until we meet again, happy reading and stay hydrated.
Hi, horror fans! Somehow, we’ve made it to the last The Fright Stuff newsletter of the year, so I thought this week would be a good chance to look back at all the wonderful horror of 2023…and everything we can look forward to in 2024! I love a new year. Let’s do this.
Are you looking for the perfect gift for that bookish special someone in your life this holiday season? Tailored Book Recommendations is here to help! Here at TBR, we pair our customers with a professional book nerd (aka bibliologist) who just gets them. They fill out a survey and then sit back and relax as we pick books just for them. We’ve got three levels — recs-only, paperback, and hardcover — and you can gift a full year or one time, so there are options for every budget! Get all the details at mybtro.com/gift.
Is one of your New Year’s resolutions to watch more horror movies in 2024? Grab yourself a copy of this horror movie logbook. You can mark details about the movie, when you watched it, how scary the movie was, and more. Each page provides sections to rate two different movies. $26.
There were so many good horror novels in 2023. Here are just a few of my favorites I read this year! What Kind of Mother is a Southern Gothic horror novel that follows Madi Price, who has reluctantly returned to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her 17-year-old daughter. Madi scrapes by working as a palm reader, which is how she encounters Henry McCabe, whose son went missing five years ago. Everyone assumes Henry’s son is dead, but when Madi reads his palm, she sees something different. This book is so unique and disturbing in the best way. And you will never look at crabs the same way again. Trust me!
This is the second book in Stephen Graham Jones’ Indian Lake Trilogy, and we can look forward to the third book in the series, The Angel of Indian Lake, in 2024. Don’t Fear the Reaper sees Jade Daniels return to the rural lake town of Proofrock on the same day serial killer Dark Mill South escapes to exact his revenge. A lot has changed since Jade’s senior year, but after Dark Mill South’s 36-hour rampage and 20 dead bodies, many of the horrors of that year come flooding back.
Natural Beauty combines horror and humor to tell the story of an unnamed narrator who quits her job as a pianist to care for her parents in New York City. There, she takes up a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store called Holistik and grows close to the owner’s niece, Helen. The two form a friendship that slowly becomes more, and the narrator becomes deeply wrapped up in the products and ideology of Holistik. But underneath its glossy surface, Holistik hides something sinister.
Paul Tremblay is always a must-read horror author every year, but this book looks especially good. Back in 1993, a group of young filmmakers spent four weeks making an art-house horror film that would become a cult classic…even though only a few scenes from the film were ever released to the public. And yet, somehow, the movie became a fascination for film fans everywhere. And now, three decades later, there are talks of creating a major Hollywood reboot. Only one member of the film’s original cast is still alive. The man who starred in the film as “The Thin Kid” has vivid memories of just how strange the filming process was. And just how dangerous. As he attempts to help the big-budget remake get underway, memories of the original filming and all of its mysteries and secrets come flooding back. And the past and the present begin to blur.
This book cover is already haunting my nightmares. When her father leaves unexpectedly, Ji-Won is forced to keep the rest of her family together and care for her grieving mother. Then Ji-Won’s mother tells her eating fish eyes could bring them good luck, so Ji-Won tries it. Now, all she can think about is eating eyes. And not fish eyes this time. Human ones.
This final book is being described as perfect for fans of Yellowjackets, and it comes from Gwendolyn Kiste, who won a Bram Stoker Award for The Rust Maidens and the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction for Reluctant Immortals. This book follows the story of three childhood friends who are the lone survivors after everyone else in their town turns into ghosts.
Horror fans, I hope you have a great rest of your holiday season and a happy new year! I’ll see you on the other side! Until then, you can follow me (and message me) on Instagram at emandhercat. Sweet dreams, horror fans!
We’re nearing the end of the year, and I’m so ready to sit back for a few days, wrap up some reading, watch more bad Christmas movies, and live my best December life. What are you up to for the holidays? Are you reading 5,000 Christmas rom-com books like I am? Let me know!
Hi, welcome to everyone’s favorite segment of Book Radar called Book Riot Recommends. This is where I’ll talk to you about all the books I’m reading, the books I’m loving, and the books I can’t wait to read and love in the near future. I think you’re going to love them too!
Are you looking for the perfect gift for that bookish special someone in your life this holiday season? Tailored Book Recommendations is here to help! Here at TBR, we pair our customers with a professional book nerd (aka bibliologist) who just gets them. They fill out a survey and then sit back and relax as we pick books just for them. We’ve got three levels — recs-only, paperback, and hardcover — and you can gift a full year or one time, so there are options for every budget! Get all the details at mybtro.com/gift.
Prepare Your Shelves!
Family Family by Laurie Frankel (Henry Holt and Co., January 23)
It’s time to get excited and prepare your shelves for January 2024 releases. Remember when January 2024 seemed super far away? Well. Here we are. And this is one of the January books you’re going to want to read, especially if you love literary fiction and family dramas.
India Allwood’s dreams are coming true. Sort of. She’s always wanted to be an actress, and now she’s starring in a prestige feature film about adoption. But India hates that the film’s story is the same old adoption tragedy story. Not every story of adoption is a sad story. What about all of the happy adoption stories? Why are those never told?
As someone who is an adoptive mom in real life, she wants the world to know the truth about adoption. And so when she’s asked by a journalist, she tells the truth about the movie. She thinks it’s bad. Almost as soon as the words are out of her mouth, India finds herself under fire in the media. With people coming at her from every direction, India knows it’s time to turn to her family for help.
Last Thursday, the wrong newsletter edition hit your inboxes. That should have been for today, which means that you got a look at two books that hit shelves this week a little early. So today, you’re getting a look at two paperbacks that hit shelves last week, plus a roundup of the latest in YA book news.
The results of the reader poll on the best and most underrated read of the year will be in Thursday’s newsletter.
Are you looking for the perfect gift for that bookish special someone in your life this holiday season? Tailored Book Recommendations is here to help! Here at TBR, we pair our customers with a professional book nerd (aka bibliologist) who just gets them. They fill out a survey and then sit back and relax as we pick books just for them. We’ve got three levels — recs-only, paperback, and hardcover — and you can gift a full year or one time, so there are options for every budget! Get all the details at mybtro.com/gift.
How fun and cute is this bumper sticker? I love the color scheme and its vintage feel. I’ll be racing you to grab one. $11.50.
New Releases
One of the benefits of fewer book releases this time of the year is that maybe you can eke out a little extra time with the books already flopped on your TBR. At least…we can pretend that’ll happen, right?
Here are a pair of this last week’s new paperback releases. You can grab the whole list—again, it’s pretty short—over here.
Jake and Nate’s ex-boyfriends decided to fake that they’re doing well post-breakup. Their exes are together and sharing on Instagram just how perfect their relationship is.
Naturally, Jake and Nate decide they’re going to get back at their exes and pretend to have the best summer ever. They’ll hit the ‘Gram, too, with incredible photos of their perfect road trip. It’s a big scheme to make everything look like it’s going great, and the two of them are mourning the loss of their relationships.
What they won’t talk about is how they’re stuck in a van with Nate’s annoying parents and younger sister. Nor how they actually haven’t talked to each other in years.
Nor…how they might be falling for one another. A hilarious road trip meets social media hijinks rom-com.
Perla, 16, has done everything right in high school in order to graduate early, with honors, and get into her dream college, Delmont University. But when she’s rejected by the school, she doesn’t know what to do. Everything she’s worked for has been upended.
So she decides to do what anyone else would do: forge an acceptance letter and show up anyway. If she can lay low but see how things work, maybe she can actually get an acceptance when she reapplies for next year.
In the meantime, she’ll be crashing classes.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
YA Book News
Two of the big YA book awards given by librarians have announced their finalists. Get to know the five candidates for best debut YA novel (the Morris Awards) and the five candidates for best YA nonfiction (the Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award).
Dhonielle Clayton is adding to her literary career with a new book packaging company, Electric Postcard Entertainment. The focus is on diverse genre reads and is in addition to her YA packaging business, Cake Literary.
We’re teaming up with HTP Books to give away a Nook Glowlight Plus to one lucky reader!
Enter here for a chance to win, or click the image below!
Here’s a bit more about our partner: HTP Books newsletter celebrates books and popular culture, connecting readers, booksellers, librarians, and book clubs with relevant content and resources.
Happy Sunday, kidlit friends! I’m teaching English this semester for an online associate’s program, and I am currently in a grading frenzy as the semester ends. Wish me luck!
Are you looking for the perfect gift for that bookish special someone in your life this holiday season? Tailored Book Recommendations is here to help! Here at TBR, we pair our customers with a professional book nerd (aka bibliologist) who just gets them. They fill out a survey and then sit back and relax as we pick books just for them. We’ve got three levels — recs-only, paperback, and hardcover — and you can gift a full year or one time, so there are options for every budget! Get all the details at mybtro.com/gift.
This is a silly reader about a chicken named Sabrina Sue who wants to travel to the moon. The other farm animals, with the exception of her frog friend, are dubious and caution her against her space travel goals. Initially, Sabrina Sue wonders if they’re right, but then she finds her courage and decides she should pursue her goals no matter what. She wants to walk on the moon, so she’s going to do it! I read this yesterday with my daughter, and it garnered lots of laughs.
In this sweet picture book, a young boy shows his new little sister his love through chocolate. Before bringing home his adopted sister, the boy’s mother tells him love takes time and needs to rise. He welcomes her home with chocolate muffins, and each celebration following is welcomed with more chocolate — chocolate cake for birthdays, chocolate pie for game days, chocolate peppermint ice cream to welcome winter, and more. At the end of the book, both brother and sister are cooking together. Back matter includes a recipe for chocolate sauce. The parents and son are white while the adopted daughter is brown.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
There are a lot of winter holidays in December and January beyond Christmas and Hanukkah. Here are four picture books celebrating other holidays this month.
Three Kings Day is celebrated by many Spanish-speaking countries. It’s a holiday celebrating the day the three wise men first saw baby Jesus and brought him gifts, and is celebrated on January 6th, the day after the 12 days of Christmas. In this funny picture book, Marta worries about eating the literal baby Jesus in the traditional Three Kings Day dessert — la Rosca de Reyes, which hides a figurine of baby Jesus.
This is another new Three Kings’ Day picture book and is available in both English and Spanish. Lucía has recently moved to Ohio, and she so misses living in Puerto Rico. She’s worried that she and her family won’t be able to celebrate Three Kings’ Day in their new home, but her family finds a way to keep the holiday alive despite the cold.
Kwanzaa is an African American holiday celebrated from December 26 to January 1. In this gorgeous, award-winning picture book, Zoboi writes poems for each of the seven principals of Kwanzaa. It opens in Africa with people celebrating harvest until they are forcibly taken from their homes. It then follows these African descendants in America, from the Great Migration to the Civil Rights Movement to today. Back matter includes an author’s note and timeline of events presented in this picture book.
Winter by Kelsey E. Gross, illustrated by Renata Liwska
Winter solstice is celebrated on December 21st. This beautifully illustrated picture book opens with Owl asking who can help shine the light and share a gift of hope for winter solstice. Each animal helps. Deer adds nuts to branches in the hope that all the forest creatures will have enough to eat through the winter. Mouse sprinkles seeds in the hope of blossoming growth in the months to come. As each animal adds gifts, hope spreads. This could be the basis for a lovely new tradition for families.
We went to our first Christmas festival last weekend, a “traditional” tractor lighting. I wondered if tractor lighting could really be traditional, but then I remembered a giant crane decorated with Christmas lights every year growing up in a small Tennessee town. This tractor lighting was also in rural Tennessee. I wonder if other Southern towns do this?
If you’d like to read more of my kidlit reviews, I’m on Instagram @BabyLibrarians, Twitter @AReaderlyMom, and blog irregularly at Baby Librarians. You can also read my Book Riot posts. If you’d like to drop me a line, my email is kingsbury.margaret@gmail.com.
Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and I am here with an issue full of anthologies for you short story lovers out there. I hope it’s been a safe and peaceful week for all of you, and I hope you have any necessary holiday shopping done because we are past the point in the month where brick and mortar stores are officially scary. Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I’ll see you on Tuesday!
The holidays have arrived, and so has our new paperback level at TBR! If you (or a reader you know) are just over-carrying around bulky hardcovers or are looking for a more budget-friendly option, we’ve got you. Check out all the offerings at mybtro.com/gift, and give personalized reading recommendations customized for any and every reader.
Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here are two places to start: Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, which provides medical and humanitarian relief to children in the Middle East regardless of nationality, religion, or political affiliation; and Ernesto’s Sanctuary, a cat sanctuary and animal rescue in Syria that is near and dear to my heart.
It’s pretty simple: sometimes you just want a dragon wearing a Santa hat to celebrate the season, and Etsy delivers. This time, in T-shirt form. Next time, who knows? $23.89
The previous anthology of this series won a World Fantasy Award, and they’re coming back swinging for their second year, bringing another all around great set of science fiction and fantasy stories from African authors.
This anthology focuses on science fiction detective and true crime stories, exploring how crime, the investigation thereof, and punishment might be changed by technologies like cloning, AI, technologically augmented bodies, and more.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
Since this is an anthology new release edition of the newsletter, I wanted to keep going on that with two more anthologies…and I wanted to recommend older anthologies that we can thankfully still get our hands on as ebooks.
This anthology is filled with original short stories by African, Asian, South Asian, and Aboriginal writers, along with North American and British authors of color, all of them imagining futures of what the world might become after leaving behind the destructive legacy of colonialism.
Women of War edited by Tanya Huff and Alexander Potter
This anthology focuses on strong and well-rounded female main characters fighting like hell from the fantasy battlefield to the distant reaches of space. Editor Tanya Huff was nice enough to let a couple male authors squeak in, but it’s mostly stories about women by women!
See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.
Like a lot of people around the holidays, I’ll be traveling back home to see my parents. I grew up in Southern Ohio, a corner of Appalachia with a unique culture all its own. I still remember afternoons spent staring out at the Ohio River, or days spent driving around Chillicothe, going back and forth across the Scioto River. So today, I’m featuring two Ohio authors, each with their own story to tell. But first, we have new books AND bookish goods!
The holidays have arrived, and so has our new paperback level at TBR! If you (or a reader you know) are just over-carrying around bulky hardcovers or are looking for a more budget-friendly option, we’ve got you. Check out all the offerings at mybtro.com/gift, and give personalized reading recommendations customized for any and every reader.
I first saw these earrings in a tear-drop shape. But then I saw these cat-shaped ones and knew I HAD to share them. Oh my goodness, these are perfect for all of my bookish cat lady dreams. $17
Celebrate Black joy with this new book from Kleaver Cruz. Their Black Joy Project, which proclaims that Black joy is resistance, has been featured in British Vogue, Vibe.com, the Huffington Post, and various other publications.
Raechel Anne Jolie grew up as a working-class kid on the outskirts of Cleveland. When she was just a girl, her father was hit by a drunk driver, which ended their way of life forever. From there, her childhood was spent moving from home to home, never seeming to stay for long. She finds the alt scene downtown and begins to discover a whole new world that she feels irrevocably drawn to. This tiny memoir is a shining testament to a love of working-class people, the Midwest, and queer culture.
Brian Broome couldn’t wait to leave northeast Ohio. He spent his childhood as a queer, Black kid, never fitting in. But no matter where he moved, he still faced racism and homophobia. He describes how he coped with sex and drugs, always trying to forget the trauma he’s experienced while searching for belonging. Broome’s prose is incredible; every word is there for a reason. His memoir is full of heart and a deep sense of longing.
Dylan in his festive collar, waiting to eat his (cored) apple
Editor’s Note: Apologies to those of you who may have received this twice, or who received another newsletter’s content instead. We had an email snafu on Wednesday (possibly related, Mercury is in Retrograde…).
It’s finally here: the 2024 Read Harder Challenge! Would you believe this is the TENTH YEAR of the Read Harder Challenge? Every year, we have fun cooking up the perfect tasks to get you out of your reading comfort zone, discovering your new favorite books. As always, there are 24 tasks: two for each month of the year.
You can approach this challenge any way you want: use one book to complete multiple tasks, or only assign each title once. Yes, audiobooks and comics count! Make this challenge your own. The important thing is that you branch out and pick up books you wouldn’t otherwise have tried.
This year’s tasks include all sorts of fun challenges, including some timely reading projects (we really need to collectively improve our media literacy skills), trending genres (cozy fantasy, anyone?), and tasks to diversify your reading in all sorts of ways.
Not sure where to get started? You’ll be receiving emails with recommendations for each task throughout the year! Free subscribers will get a couple book recommendations for each, while paid subscribers will get access to the whole list — plus more crowd-sourced in the comments! We’ll also be doing weekly progress check-ins for paid subscribers, where we can discuss what we’re reading, what we recommend for each challenge, and which tasks we need advice on how to complete. If you want to join the Read Harder community, you can subscribe for $6 a month or $60 for the year. Community features will go live in January.
Without further ado, here are the 24 tasks for the 2024 Read Harder Challenge! And if you want the downloadable PDF, you can grab that here.
Read a cozy fantasy book.
Read a YA book by a trans author.
Read a middle grade horror novel.
Read a history book by a BIPOC author.
Read a sci-fi novella.
Read a middle grade book with an LGBTQIA main character.
Read an indie published collection of poetry by a BIPOC or queer author.
Read a book in translation from a country you’ve never visited.
Read a book recommended by a librarian.
Read a historical fiction book by an Indigenous author.
Read a picture book published in the last five years.
Read a genre book (SFF, horror, mystery, romance) by a disabled author.
Read a comic that has been banned.
Read a book by an author with an upcoming event (virtual or in person) and then attend the event.
Read a YA nonfiction book.
Read a book based solely on the title.
Read a book about media literacy.
Read a book about drag or queer artistry.
Read a romance with neurodivergent characters.
Read a book about books (fiction or nonfiction).
Read a book that went under the radar in 2023.
Read a manga or manhwa.
Read a howdunit or whydunit mystery.
Pick a challenge from any of the previous years’ challenges to repeat!
