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March is a great month for books! I'm looking forward to reading all of these spring babies.

Note: Some of the release dates may change or be different in your part of the world. Don't come for me if they're wrong. I'm trying to keep up!

🌊  March 2024 Book Releases  🍃

The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste

Young Adult Urban Fantasy

March 5, 2024

In a country divided between humans and witchers, Venus Stoneheart hustles as a brewer making illegal love potions to support her family.

Love potions is a dangerous business. Brewing has painful, debilitating side effects, and getting caught means death or a prison sentence. But what Venus is most afraid of is the dark, sentient magic within her.

When an enemy's iron bullet kills her mother, Venus’s life implodes. Keeping her reckless little sister Janus safe is now her responsibility. When the powerful Grand Witcher, the ruthless head of her coven, offers Venus the chance to punish her mother's killer, she has to pay a steep price for revenge. The cost? Brew poisonous potions to enslave D.C.'s most influential politicians.

As Venus crawls deeper into the corrupt underbelly of her city, the line between magic and power blurs, and it's hard to tell who to trust . . . herself included.

Why I want to read it: A revenge story? Sign me up. I love morally gray characters. It also sounds like it has the potential for a lot of plot twists.

Buy it on Amazon

RAINBOW BLACK BY MAGGIE THRASH

Adult Historical Fiction

March 19, 2024

Lacey Bond is a thirteen-year-old girl in New Hampshire growing up in the tranquility of her hippie parents’ rural daycare center. Then the Satanic Panic hits. It’s the summer of 1990 when Lacey’s parents are handcuffed, flung into the county jail, and faced with a torrent of jaw-dropping accusations as part of a mass hysteria sweeping the nation. When a horrific murder brings Lacey to the breaking point, she makes a ruthless choice that will haunt her for decades.

Why I want to read it: Maggie Thrash is amazing at writing teenagers. Her memoir, Honor Girl, is one of my favorite graphic novels because the dialogue between the teenagers is hilarious. It brought back memories of the misadventures I had at Girl Scout camp. I'm interested to see what the author can do with fiction.

Buy it on Amazon

Under This Red Rock by Mindy McGinnis

Young Adult Mystery

March 19, 2024

Neely’s monsters don’t always follow her rules, so when the little girl under her bed, the man in her closet, and the disembodied voice that shadows her every move become louder, she knows she’s in trouble.

With a history of mental illness in her family, and the suicide of her older brother heavy on her mind, Neely takes a job as a tour guide in the one place her monsters can’t follow—the caverns. There she can find peace. There she can pretend to be normal. There . . . she meets Mila.

Mila is everything Neely isn’t—beautiful, strong, and confident. As the two become closer, Neely’s innocent crush grows into something more. When a midnight staff party exposes Neely to drugs, she follows Mila’s lead . . . only to have her hallucinations escalate.

When Mila is found brutally murdered in the caverns, Neely has to admit that her memories of that night are vague at best. With her monsters now out in the open, and her grip on reality slipping, Neely must figure out who killed Mila . . . and face the possibility that it might have been her.

Why I want to read it: Cave monsters! I love caves. They're a perfect place for monsters and murder. This book sounds like an intriguing mystery. Also, that cover is disturbing.

Buy it on Amazon

Future Tense: How We Made Artificial Intelligence—And How It Will Change Everything by Martha Brockenbrough

Technology Nonfiction

March 19, 2024

Human history has always been shaped by technology, but AI is like no technology that has come before it. Unlike the wheel, combustion engines, or electricity, AI does the thing that humans do: think. While AI hasn’t reproduced the marvelously complex human brain, it has been able to accomplish astonishing things. AI has defeated our players at games like chess, Go, and Jeopardy!. It’s learned to recognize objects and speech. It can create art and music. It’s even allowed grieving people to feel as though they were talking with their dead loved ones.

On the flip side, it’s put innocent people in jail, manipulated the emotions of social media users, and tricked people into believing untrue things.

Why I want to read it: Like pretty much everybody else, I'm fascinated and terrified by AI. Is it going to take my job? What will it do to art? How will we know what's true? This book explores how "AI has touched every corner of our world, including education, healthcare, work, politics, war, international relations, and even romance." It sounds interesting.

Buy it on Amazon

A BOTANICAL DAUGHTER BY NOAH MEDLOCK

Adult Historical Horror

March 19, 2024

It is an unusual thing, to live in a botanical garden. But Simon and Gregor are an unusual pair of gentlemen. Hidden away in their glass sanctuary from the disapproving tattle of Victorian London, they are free to follow their own interests without interference. For Simon, this means long hours in the dark basement workshop, working his taxidermical art. Gregor's business is exotic plants—lucrative, but harmless enough. Until his latest acquisition, a strange fungus which shows signs of intellect beyond any plant he's seen, inspires him to attempt a masterwork: true intelligent life from plant matter.

Driven by the glory he'll earn from the Royal Horticultural Society for such an achievement, Gregor ignores the flaws in his plan: that intelligence cannot be controlled; that plants cannot be reasoned with; and that the only way his plant-beast will flourish is if he uses a recently deceased corpse for the substrate.

The experiment—or Chloe, as she is named—outstrips even Gregor's expectations, entangling their strange household. But as Gregor's experiment flourishes, he wilts under the cost of keeping it hidden from jealous eyes. The mycelium grows apace in this sultry greenhouse. But who is cultivating whom?

Why I want to read it: It's a tale of family and fungus! What's not to like? Early reviewers are comparing it to Mexican Gothic, The Picture Of Dorian Gray, and Frankenstein.

Buy it on Amazon

SLEEPING GIANTS BY RENE DENFELD

Adult Mystery

March 26, 2024

Twenty years ago, a nine-year-old boy was swept away by powerful waves on a remote Oregon beach, his body lost to the sea. Only a stone memorial remains to mark his tragic death.

For most of her life, Amanda Dufresne had no idea she had an older brother named Dennis Owens, or that he had died. Adopted as a baby, she learned about him while looking into her late birth mother, and is curious to know more about this lost sibling. A solitary young woman, Amanda has always felt distanced from the world around her. Her brain works differently from others, leaving her feeling set apart. Her one true companion is the orphaned polar bear she cares for working at the zoo. By getting to know her birth family, she hopes to understand more about herself.

Retired police officer Larry Palmer is a widower with nothing but time and in need of a purpose. He offers to help Amanda find answers. The search leads to shocking and heartbreaking discoveries. Dennis Owen had been a forgotten foster child abandoned to a home for disturbed boys off the coast. As Amanda and Larry dig deeper into the past, the two stumble upon decades of cruelty and hidden crimes—including a barbaric treatment still used today.

Why I want to read it: If I made a list of the most disturbing books I've ever read, The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld would be on it. It's about a death row inmate who has gone very, very insane and imagines his prison cell as a terrifyingly magical place. The author's new books sounds extremely different, but I'm hoping it has the same disturbing imagery.

Buy it on Amazon

Icarus by K. Ancrum

Young Adult Mythology Retelling
March 26, 2024

Icarus Gallagher is a thief.

He steals priceless art and replaces it with his father’s impeccable forgeries. For years, one man—the wealthy Mr. Black—has been their target, revenge for his role in the death of Icarus’s mother. To keep their secret, Icarus adheres to his own strict rules to keep people, and feelings, at bay: Don’t let anyone close. Don’t let anyone touch you. And, above all, don’t get caught.

Until one night, he does. Not by Mr. Black, but by his mysterious son, Helios, now living under house arrest in the Black mansion. Instead of turning Icarus in, Helios bargains for something even more dangerous—a friendship that breaks every single one of Icarus’s rules.

As reluctance and distrust become closeness and something more, they uncover the bars of the gilded cage that has trapped both of their families for years. One Icarus is determined to escape. But his father’s thirst for revenge shows no sign of fading, and soon it may force Icarus to choose: the escape he’s dreamed of, or the boy he’s come to love. Reaching for both could be his greatest triumph—or it could be his downfall.

Why I want to read it: Normally, the word "retelling" is an automatic No from me, but I trust K. Ancrum. She's awesome at writing morally gray characters. If you like books about young people who do questionable things, check out The Wicker King. It's a quick, memorable read.

Buy it on Amazon

Which March releases are you looking forward to reading?