Can’t Wait Wednesday: Even More April 2020 Book Releases

Can’t Wait Wednesday is hosted by Wishful Endings. I get to spotlight a few upcoming book releases that sound interesting to me. Here’s what’s coming out in the next few weeks.

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April 2020 Book Releases

Death In Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh

Adult Literary Fiction/Mystery

April 21, 2020
August 11, 2020

While on her normal daily walk with her dog in the forest woods, our protagonist comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground with a frame of stones. "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body." Our narrator is deeply shaken; she has no idea what to make of this. She is new to area, having moved her from her longtime home after the death of her husband, and she knows very few people. And she's a little shaky even on her best days. Her brooding about this note quickly grows into a full-blown obsession, and she begins to devote herself to exploring the possibilities of who this woman was and how she met her fate. Her suppositions begin to find echoes in the real world, and with mounting excitement and dread, the fog of mystery starts to form into a concrete and menacing shape. But as we follow her investigation, strange dissonances start to accrue, and our faith in her grip on reality weakens, until finally, just as she seems be facing some of the darkness in her own past, we are forced to face the prospect that there is either a more innocent explanation for all this or a much more sinister one—one that strikes closer to home.

What interests me? Well, definitely not the ugly cover or the clunky writing in the synopsis. I am super-interested in the mystery and in the age of the protagonist. I love Elizabeth is Missing and Three Things About Elsie. Both of those are about elderly characters with memory problems who are trying to solve mysteries. I like my narrators unreliable.

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Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk

Middlegrade Historical Fiction

April 21, 2020

After the financial crash, Ellie and her family have lost nearly everything—including their home in town. They have started over, carving out a new life in the unforgiving terrain of Echo Mountain. Though her sister Esther, especially, resents everything about the mountain, Ellie has found more freedom, a new strength, and a love of the natural world that now surrounds them. But there is little joy, even for Ellie, as they all struggle with the sorrow and aftermath of an accident that left her father in a coma. An accident for which Ellie has accepted the unearned weight of blame.

Urgent for a cure to bring her father back, Ellie is determined to try anything. Following her heart, and the lead of a scruffy mutt, Ellie will make her way to the top of the mountain, in search of the healing secrets of a woman known only as "the hag." But the mountain still has many untold stories left to reveal to Ellie, as she finds her way forward among a complex constellation of strong women spanning generations.

What interests me? The author’s other book, Wolf Hollow, is one of the most shocking middlegrade books I’ve ever read. For a children’s book, it’s extremely bleak. I would have adored it as a preteen. I’m wondering if this book is as brutal as Wolf Hollow.

Buy it on Amazon

Buy it on Book Depository

Rick by Alex Gino

Middlegrade Contemporary

April 21, 2020

Rick's never questioned much. He's gone along with his best friend Jeff even when Jeff's acted like a bully and a jerk. He's let his father joke with him about which hot girls he might want to date even though that kind of talk always makes him uncomfortable. And he hasn't given his own identity much thought, because everyone else around him seemed to have figured it out.

But now Rick's gotten to middle school, and new doors are opening. One of them leads to the school's Rainbow Spectrum club, where kids of many genders and identities congregate, including Melissa, the girl who sits in front of Rick in class and seems to have her life together. Rick wants his own life to be that understood. Even if it means breaking some old friendships and making some new ones.

What interests me? Rick’s best friend is a jerk. That should create some tension. The author’s other book, George, won tons of awards and is adored by the Goodreads masses. I haven’t read it yet because I have too many books and occasionally need to do things that aren’t reading. That doesn’t stop me from being curious about Rick, though.

Buy it on Amazon

Buy it on Book Depository

The Year The Maps Changed by Danielle Binks

Middlegrade Contemporary

April 28, 2020

Sorrento, Victoria—1999

Fred's family is a mess. Fred's mother died when she was six and she's been raised by her Pop and adoptive father, Luca, ever since. But now Pop is at the Rye Rehabilitation Centre recovering from a fall; Luca's girlfriend, Anika, has moved in; and Fred's just found out that Anika and Luca are having a baby of their own. More and more it feels like a land-grab for family and Fred is the one being left off the map.

But even as the world feels like it's spinning out of control, a crisis from the other side of it comes crashing in. When 400 Kosovar-Albanian refugees arrive in the middle of the night to be housed at one of Australia's 'safe havens' on an isolated headland not far from Sorrento, their fate becomes intertwined with the lives of Fred and her family, as she navigates one extraordinary year that will change them all.

What interests me? It’s about the refugee crisis. I’m interested to see how the fate of 400 refugees becomes intertwined with the fate of a family.

Buy it on Book Depository

Are you looking forward to any April book releases?