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There are a ton of awesome books coming out in April. Let's look at 12 that I'm desperate to read.
💧 April 2022 New Book Releases 🌳
A Brilliant Night of Stars And Ice by rebecca connolly
Shortly after midnight on April 15, 1912, the captain of the Carpathia, Arthur Rostron, wakes to a distress signal from the Titanic, which has struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage. Though information is scarce, Rostron leaps into action, determined to answer the call for help. But the Carpathia is more than four hours away, and there are more questions than answers: Will his ship hold together if pushed to never-before-tested speeds? What if he also strikes an iceberg? And with the freezing temperatures, will there be any survivors by the time the Carpathia arrives?
Kate Connolly is a third-class passenger on Titanic, and she is among the last to receive instruction and help after it hits an iceberg. Despite the chaos of abandoning ship, Kate is able to board a lifeboat, though after seeing the Titanic sink into the abyss and hearing the cries from hundreds of people still in the water, she wonders if any rescue is even possible.
Why I'm excited to read it: Historical fiction is my favorite genre, and Titanic is one of my favorite historical events to read about. Of course I need to pick up this book!
SEA OF TRANQUILITY BY EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL
Adult Literary Science Fiction
April 5, 2022
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal, an experience that shocks him to his core.
Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's bestselling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.
When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.
Why I'm excited to read it: "Excited" is the wrong word. Let's go with "cautiously optimistic." I read Station Eleven and didn't love it as much as everybody else. I thought it was a bit boring, actually. Maybe because I'm not interested in actors or Shakespeare. I'm curious about this one because of the "anomaly" in the forest. It seems like it could create some chaos.
PORTRAIT OF A THIEF BY GRACE D. LI
Adult Mystery / Thriller
April 5, 2022
History is told by the conquerors. Across the Western world, museums display the spoils of war, of conquest, of colonialism: priceless pieces of art looted from other countries, kept even now.
Will Chen plans to steal them back.
A senior at Harvard, Will fits comfortably in his carefully curated roles: a perfect student, an art history major and sometimes artist, the eldest son that has always been his parents’ American Dream. But when a shadowy Chinese corporation reaches out with an impossible—and illegal—job offer, Will finds himself something else as well: the leader of a heist to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing centuries ago.
His crew is every heist archetype one can imagine—or at least, the closest he can get. A conman: Irene Chen, Will’s sister and a public policy major at Duke, who can talk her way out of anything. A thief: Daniel Liang, a premed student with steady hands just as capable of lockpicking as suturing. A getaway driver: Lily Wu, an engineering student who races cars in her free time. A hacker: Alex Huang, an MIT dropout turned Silicon Valley software engineer. Each member of his crew has their own complicated relationship with China and the identity they’ve cultivated as Chinese Americans, but when Will asks, none of them can turn him down.
Because if they succeed? They earn fifty million dollars—and a chance to make history. But if they fail, it will mean not just the loss of everything they’ve dreamed for themselves but yet another thwarted attempt to take back what colonialism has stolen.
Why I'm excited to read it: Ever since I read Six of Crows, I've been searching for a character-driven heist novel. Have I finally found it? I guess we'll see. I love reading about morally gray characters, and this novel might be full of them.
FOUR TREASURES OF THE SKY BY JENNY TINGHUI ZHANG
Adult Historical Fiction
April 5, 2022
Daiyu never wanted to be like the tragic heroine for whom she was named, revered for her beauty and cursed with heartbreak. But when she is kidnapped and smuggled across an ocean from China to America, Daiyu must relinquish the home and future she imagined for herself. Over the years that follow, she is forced to keep reinventing herself to survive. From a calligraphy school, to a San Francisco brothel, to a shop tucked into the Idaho mountains, we follow Daiyu on a desperate quest to outrun the tragedy that chases her. As anti-Chinese sentiment sweeps across the country in a wave of unimaginable violence, Daiyu must draw on each of the selves she has been—including the ones she most wants to leave behind—in order to finally claim her own name and story.
Why I'm excited to read it: It's set in the 1880s American west, which is a setting I can't pass up. Goodreads says this book is "Steeped in untold history and Chinese folklore." I know nothing about Chinese folklore, but I'm eager to learn.
AN ARROW TO THE MOON BY EMILY X.R. PAN
Luna Chang dreads the future. Graduation looms ahead, and her parents’ expectations are stifling. When she begins to break the rules, she finds her life upended by the strange new boy in her class, the arrival of unearthly fireflies, and an ominous crack spreading across the town of Fairbridge.
As Hunter and Luna navigate their families’ enmity and secrets, everything around them begins to fall apart. All they can depend on is their love . . . but time is running out, and fate will have its way.
TAKE MY HAND BY DOLEN PERKINS-VALDEZ
Adult Historical Fiction
April 12, 2022
Montgomery, Alabama 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.
But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a worn down one-room cabin, she’s shocked to learn that her new patients are children—just 11 and 13 years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black and for those handling the family’s welfare benefits that’s reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her role, she takes India, Erica and their family into her heart. Until one day, she arrives at the door to learn the unthinkable has happened and nothing will ever be the same for any of them.
Decades later, with her daughter grown and a long career in her wake, Dr. Civil Townsend is ready to retire, to find her peace and to leave the past behind. But there are people and stories that refuse to be forgotten. That must not be forgotten.
Because history repeats what we don’t remember.
Why I'm excited to read it: It's inspired by true events! That's my favorite type of historical fiction. I get to learn about the real world, but fiction (usually) cuts out all the boring parts.
THE FERVOR BY ALMA KATSU
Adult Historical Horror
April 26, 2022
1944: As World War II rages on, the threat has come to the home front. In a remote corner of Idaho, Meiko Briggs and her daughter, Aiko, are desperate to return home. Following Meiko's husband's enlistment as an air force pilot in the Pacific months prior, Meiko and Aiko were taken from their home in Seattle and sent to one of the internment camps in the Midwest. It didn’t matter that Aiko was American-born: They were Japanese, and therefore considered a threat by the American government.
Mother and daughter attempt to hold on to elements of their old life in the camp when a mysterious disease begins to spread among those interned. What starts as a minor cold quickly becomes spontaneous fits of violence and aggression, even death. And when a disconcerting team of doctors arrive, nearly more threatening than the illness itself, Meiko and her daughter team up with a newspaper reporter and widowed missionary to investigate, and it becomes clear to them that something more sinister is afoot, a demon from the stories of Meiko’s childhood, hell-bent on infiltrating their already strange world.
Inspired by the Japanese yokai and the jorogumo spider demon, The Fervor explores a supernatural threat beyond what anyone saw coming; the danger of demonization, a mysterious contagion, and the search to stop its spread before it’s too late.
Why I'm excited to read it: Alma Katsu's The Hunger is one of my favorite horror novels. I love how she blends real events with monsters and mayhem and magic. I'll probably read anything she writes.
THE CHILDREN ON THE HILL BY JENNIFER MCMAHON
Adult Mystery / Thriller / Horror
April 26, 2022
1978: At her renowned treatment center in picturesque Vermont, the brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Helen Hildreth, is acclaimed for her compassionate work with the mentally ill. But when’s she home with her cherished grandchildren, Vi and Eric, she’s just Gran—teaching them how to take care of their pets, preparing them home-cooked meals, providing them with care and attention and love.
Then one day Gran brings home a child to stay with the family. Iris—silent, hollow-eyed, skittish, and feral—does not behave like a normal girl.
Still, Violet is thrilled to have a new playmate. She and Eric invite Iris to join their Monster Club, where they catalogue all kinds of monsters and dream up ways to defeat them. Before long, Iris begins to come out of her shell. She and Vi and Eric do everything together: ride their bicycles, go to the drive-in, meet at their clubhouse in secret to hunt monsters. Because, as Vi explains, monsters are everywhere.
2019: Lizzy Shelley, the host of the popular podcast Monsters Among Us, is traveling to Vermont, where a young girl has been abducted, and a monster sighting has the town in an uproar. She’s determined to hunt it down, because Lizzy knows better than anyone that monsters are real—and one of them is her very own sister.
Why I'm excited to read it: Someday I'll find a thriller that I love. There has to be one out there somewhere! This one caught my attention because of the monster sightings. Are they supernatural monsters or human monsters? I want to know.
UNMASKED: MY LIFE SOLVING AMERICA'S COLD CASES BY PAUL HOLES
Adult True Crime Nonfiction
April 26, 2022
I order another bourbon, neat. This is the drink that will flip the switch. I don’t even know how I got here, to this place, to this point. Something is happening to me lately. I’m drinking too much. My sheets are soaking wet when I wake up from nightmares of decaying corpses. I order another drink and swig it, trying to forget about the latest case I can’t shake.
Crime-solving for me is more complex than the challenge of the hunt, or the process of piecing together a scientific puzzle. The thought of good people suffering drives me, for better or worse, to the point of obsession.
People always ask how I am able to detach from the horrors of my work. Part of it is an innate capacity to compartmentalize; the rest is experience and exposure, and I’ve had plenty of both. But I had always taken pride in the fact that I can keep my feelings locked up to get the job done. It’s only been recently that it feels like all that suppressed darkness is beginning to seep out.
When I look back at my long career, there is a lot I am proud of. I have caught some of the most notorious killers of the twenty-first century and brought justice and closure for their victims and families. I want to tell you about a lifetime solving these cold cases, from Laci Peterson to Jaycee Dugard to the Pittsburg homicides to, yes, my twenty-year-long hunt for the Golden State Killer.
But a deeper question eats at me as I ask myself, at what cost? I have sacrificed relationships, joy—even fatherhood—because the pursuit of evil always came first. Did I make the right choice? It’s something I grapple with every day. Yet as I stand in the spot where a young girl took her last breath, as I look into the eyes of her family, I know that, for me, there has never been a choice. “I don’t know if I can solve your case,” I whisper. “But I promise I will do my best.”
It is a promise I know I can keep.
Why I'm excited to read it: A few years ago, I read I'll Be Gone In The Dark and became interested in people who are obsessed with cold cases. Some people are really obsessed, like solving cold cases becomes their entire life. I want to hear the author's story. I bet he's had some unusual experiences.
LITTLE SOULS BY SANDRA DALLAS
Adult Historical Fiction
April 26, 2022
Colorado, 1918. World War I is raging overseas, but it’s the home front battling for survival. With the Spanish Flu rampant, Denver’s schools are converted into hospitals, churches and funeral homes are closed, and horse-drawn wagons collect corpses left in the street. Sisters Helen and Lutie have moved to Denver from Iowa after their parents’ deaths. Helen, a nurse, and Lutie, a carefree advertising designer at a fashionable women’s store share a small, neat house, and each finds a local beau—for Helen a doctor, for Lutie a young student who soon enlists. They make a modest income from a rental apartment in the basement. When their tenant dies from the flu, the sisters are thrust into caring for the woman’s small daughter, Dorothy. Soon after, Lutie comes home from work and discovers a dead man on their kitchen floor and Helen standing above the body, an icepick in hand. She has no doubt Helen killed the man—Dorothy’s father—in self-defense, but she knows that will be hard to prove. They decide to leave the body in the street, hoping to disguise it as a flu victim.
Meanwhile Lutie also worries about her fiancé “over there.” As it happens, his wealthy mother harbors a secret of her own and helps the sisters as the danger deepens, from both the murder investigation and the outbreak.
Why I'm excited to read it: A historical fiction book that's set in Denver and isn't a cowboy romance or Centennial! Yay! I went to college in Denver and live on the Colorado plains now. I'd love to read about those areas, but they don't seem to be popular book settings (unless you're really into sexy cowboys). Anyway, Little Souls is giving me vibes of My Sister, The Serial Killer. Two sisters who get themselves into murderous trouble. I'm here for it.
JENNIFER CHAN IS NOT ALONE BY TAE KELLER
Middle Grade Contemporary
April 26, 2022
Thanks to her best friend, Reagan, Mallory Moss knows the rules of middle school. The most important one? You have to fit in to survive. But then Jennifer Chan moves in across the street, and that rule doesn’t seem to apply. Jennifer doesn’t care about the laws of middle school, or the laws of the universe. She believes in aliens—and she thinks she can find them.
Then Jennifer goes missing. Using clues from Jennifer’s journals, Mallory goes searching. But the closer she gets, the more Mallory has to confront why Jennifer might have run . . . and face the truth within herself.
Why I'm excited to read it: ALIENS! Actually, Tae Keller wrote The Science of Breakable Things, which is one of my favorite middle grade books. It's hilarious and clever. I'm looking forward to more of the same. I can't recommend her work enough. Please pick up her books! They win awards for a good reason.
A TIDY ENDING BY JOANNA CANNON
Adult Mystery
April 28, 2022 (UK)
August 2, 2022 (US)
Linda has lived in a quiet neighborhood since fleeing the dark events of her childhood in Wales. Now she sits in her kitchen, wondering if this is all there is: pushing the vacuum around and cooking fish sticks for dinner, a far cry from the glamorous lifestyle she sees in the glossy magazines coming through the mail slot addressed to the previous occupant, Rebecca.
Linda’s husband Terry isn’t perfect—he picks his teeth, tracks dirt through the house, and spends most of his time in front of the TV. But that seems fairly standard—until he starts keeping odd hours at work, at around the same time young women in the town start to go missing.
If only Linda could track down and befriend Rebecca, maybe some of that enviable lifestyle would rub off on her and she wouldn’t have to worry about what Terry is up to. But the grass isn’t always greener and you can’t change who you really are. And some secrets can’t stay buried forever.
Why I'm excited to read it: A few years ago, I read Joanna Cannon's Three Things About Elsie, and I haven't stopped thinking about it. It stars a trio of elderly people who set out to solve a mystery, but they all have memory problems, so their plans don't go as planned. I could not put that book down. It's full of twists and devastating reveals. I'm hoping for more of the same with the author's newest novel.
Which April book releases are you looking forward to reading?
A Brilliant Night looks amazing. And that cover is so chilling (no pun intended). St. John Mandel is someone I've been wanting to read also.
ReplyDeleteChildren too because Monster Club. That sounds like something I'd have played as a kid. wish I would have thought of it.
A Brilliant Night sounds amazing, I too love books about the Titanic!
ReplyDeleteWe both match on An Arrow to the Moon! Let's hope we both enjoy it!
ReplyDeleteHere’s my Waiting on Wednesday!
Ronyell @ Rabbit Ears Book Blog
So many great books coming out in April!
ReplyDeleteSo many great books coming out this month! Thanks for sharing! :)
ReplyDeleteUnmasked and The Fervor are on my wish list. The one about the Titanic sounds fascinating too.
ReplyDeleteLauren @ www.shootingstarsmag.net
So many good new books! I especially like the looks of Take My Hand and Portrait of a Thief. And I do like the idea of the Titanic story being told from the perspective of the rescuers.
ReplyDeleteI requested Take My Hand on NetGalley, but I haven't heard anything yet. 📘✨
ReplyDeleteSo many interesting books! Thanks for sharing them. Hope you enjoy them!
ReplyDeleteSeems like a nice eclectic list. Now I'm thinking the Mandel novel will be too weird for me. But I think you've sold me on the Joanna Cannon book. funny cover too.
ReplyDelete