I saw this meme on It’s All About Booksand thought, I like this!! So, I decided to do it once a month also. Many thanks to Yvonne for initially posting this!!
This post is what it says: Places I travel to in books each month. Books are lovely and take you to places you would never get to. That includes places of fantasy too!!
Bon Voyage!!
Please let me know if you have read these books or traveled to these areas.
Countries I visited the most:United States, Utopian Sects of America, England
States I visited the most:New York, Georgia, Massachusetts, California, Pennsylvania
Cities I visited the most:New York City, Los Angeles, Capitol City, Base Nain, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Buffalo
Morning Realms
Zanhei, Old Changxi, Flower Town
United States
New York (New York City, Brooklyn, Mount Kisco, Yorktown Heights, Brewster, Poughkeepsie, Hudson, Amsterdam, Utica, Syracuse, Seneca Falls, Medina, Buffalo, Niagra Falls), Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)Unknown state (Wyndy Hallows, Golden City, Forrest Heights), New York (New York City), Massachusetts, Louisiana (New Orleans)Georgia (Peridot)Georgia (Atlanta), Washington D.C.California (Los Angeles), Oregon (Verdana)Illinois (Chicago)Virginia (Fairfax)Massachusetts (Boston, Watertown), California (Los Angeles, Venice, Santa Monica)California (San Fransisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Sonoma)New York (Rudolph)New York (New York City)Pennsylvania (Glenhaven, Philadelphia)Georgia (Atlanta), New York (New York City, Buffalo), Missouri (Saint Louis, Springfield, Cedar Wood), Nevada (Las Vegas), Florida (Miami), Connecticut (Stamford), Florida (Haynes)
Sailor Moon meets Cinder in Guardians of Dawn: Zhara, the start of a new, richly imagined fantasy series from S. Jae-Jones, the New York Times bestselling author of Wintersong.
Magic flickers. Love flames. Chaos reigns.
Magic is forbidden throughout the Morning Realms. Magicians are called abomination, and blamed for the plague of monsters that razed the land twenty years before.
Jin Zhara already had enough to worry about—appease her stepmother’s cruel whims, looking after her blind younger sister, and keeping her own magical gifts under control—without having to deal with rumors of monsters re-emerging in the marsh. But when a chance encounter with an easily flustered young man named Han brings her into contact with a secret magical liberation organization called the Guardians of Dawn, Zhara realizes there may be more to these rumors than she thought. A mysterious plague is corrupting the magicians of Zanhei and transforming them into monsters, and the Guardians of Dawn believe a demon is responsible.
In order to restore harmony and bring peace to the world, Zhara must discover the elemental warrior within, lest the balance between order and chaos is lost forever.
First Line:
The rent was due, rodents had gotten into the rice, and Zhara had just dumped a bag of salt instead of sugar into the custard filling.
Zhara (Guardians of Dawn) by S. Jae-Jones
Jin Zhara’s life hasn’t been easy. Her mother died as a baby, her father was taken and killed in a purge of magicians, and she is treated horribly by Second Wife, her father’s second wife. She also has to hide that she has magical powers. Her only joy is tending to her blind younger sister, reading romance serials, and working at the apothecary shop. But that will change when she bumps into a young man named Han. Through him, Zhara discovers that a plague corrupts the magician’s powers and turns them into unrecognizable monsters. She also finds the secret organization, the Guardians of Dawn, sworn to help the surviving magicians and discover what caused the plague. Zhara doesn’t know or understand that she is instrumental in balancing order and chaos. But Zhara must learn to control her magical abilities, or the world as she knows will be lost. Can Zhara do that? Can Zhara learn to control her magical powers and save the world?
When I got the email containing the widget for Zhara, I was pleasantly surprised. I had read Wintersong a couple of years ago and enjoyed it (which, it turns out, puts me in the minority). I accepted the invitation and downloaded the book. Also, what figured into my downloading the book was that I love the mythology and lore of South Korea. Seeing that this book is loosely based on those myths and lore, I knew I needed to read it.
Before I get further into the book, I want to put up some trigger and content warnings. The warnings are:
Child abuse (off-page but prevalent. It consists of emotional, verbal, and physical)
Genocide (off-page and vividly remembered by everyone in the book)
Death of parents (Zahara’s mother died of a fever when she was a baby, and her father was killed in the genocide of the magicians in the land. Han’s mother was also killed during that same genocide)
Possession (on and off page. Demons possess the living bodies of magicians and transform them)
Body Horror (Zhara, without permission, used magic to try to help Suzhan (her stepsister). Instead, she ended up blinding her sister)
Abelism (Second Wife shames Suzhan constantly for being blind. Suzhan’s suitors discard her after discovering she is blind.)
If any of these trigger you, I suggest not reading the book.
Zhara is the first book in the Guardians of Dawn series. Here is where I post if this book is a standalone or if you need to read the other books in the series. But since this is the first book in a new series, you can disregard anything I usually say.
The author has a forward explaining how this book is loosely based on Korean mythology and lore. She also apologizes for any inconsistencies that arise because of it. It was a very tongue-in-cheek forward, and it did make me smile.
There are three storylines in Zhara. One follows Zhara, her introduction to the Guardians of Dawn, and her home life. The other storyline follows Han and his search for a book, Songs of Order and Chaos, and the shenanigans he and Xu get into. Towards the middle of the book, Han and Zhara’s storylines merge, following them as they look for a cure for the plague and figure out who was behind it. All of these storylines were wonderfully written and could keep my attention.
I loved the characters in Zhara. I found them all to be complex characters. Some of these characters had more depth, more layers, to them than what the author had written.
The storyline following Zhara, the Guardians of Dawn, and her home life broke my heart. I was beyond angry at Second Wife and her treatment of those girls. She kept reminding Zhara that she kept her safe from the Kestrels and that she houses and feeds her. The abuse that both Zhara and Suzhan went through (even if it wasn’t on page) was awful. But, at the same time, I liked that Zhara started to see herself as more than Second Wife’s property (even though she wasn’t). Her character growth during the book was terrific. It reached a head during the battle scene, where she faced and overcame her demons (literally).
The storyline following Han, Xu, and their shenanigans did give a bit of a comedic break between Zahra’s chapters. But, there was a darker undercurrent running underneath. Han and his brother were forced to watch their mother die because she was a magician. Before she died, Han’s mother made him promise to take care of his brother, who was a magician himself. It was a lot to put on an 11-year-old, but he did it. He ensured his brother was kept safe from the Kestrels at all costs. His friendship with Xu was one of the best I have ever read. The search for the book became a backdrop when Han and Zahara’s storyline merged.
The storyline following Han, Zhara, the plague, the reason for the plague, and the search for the book was interesting. I liked that Zhara slowly started to accept that she was worthy of her power and love. There was a part that I wasn’t fond of. It was the engagement of Han and Yuli. This brings me to another thing I didn’t like: Han keeping who he was from Zhara. It made that scene where she finds out heartbreaking.
The fantasy angle of the book was wonderful. The author created a world that, while similar to ancient Korea, was different. I liked that magic was something people were born with. I also loved that there were antimagicians. I wasn’t expecting that revelation, and who was revealed to be one.
There is an LGBTQIA rep in the book, and I loved how the author wrote those characters. Xu was gender-neutral. I loved their personality and their friendship with Han. They were like JiminyCricket was to Pinnochio with Han: a voice of reason. Yuli, who is introduced later in the book, is lesbian. She isn’t exactly loud and proud, but she doesn’t hide it either.
The end of Zhara was interesting. The battle scene and what happened while Zhara was in the Void was anti-climatic. But Zhara needed it. The fallout from that battle was widespread but needed. Also, something shocking happened, something that I didn’t see coming. The author did wrap up most of the storylines but left a few hanging. That makes sense if there is going to be a second book. Also, the epilogue was fascinating, and I can’t wait to find out if that person is a friend or foe.
I would recommend Zhara to anyone over 16. There is no language, but there is violence and a couple of kissing scenes. Also, see my trigger warning list.
Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books, NetGalley, and S. Jae-Jones for allowing me to read and review Zhara. All opinions stated in this review are mine.
If you enjoy reading books similar to Zhara, then you will enjoy these books:
Here is what I am currently reading, recently finished, and plan to read from Thursday to Wednesday.
Let me know if you have read or are planning on reading any of these books!!
Happy Reading!!
What I am currently reading:
Sailor Moon meets Cinder in Guardians of Dawn: Zhara, the start of a new, richly imagined fantasy series from S. Jae-Jones, the New York Times bestselling author of Wintersong.
Magic flickers. Love flames. Chaos reigns.
Magic is forbidden throughout the Morning Realms. Magicians are called abomination, and blamed for the plague of monsters that razed the land twenty years before.
Jin Zhara already had enough to worry about—appease her stepmother’s cruel whims, looking after her blind younger sister, and keeping her own magical gifts under control—without having to deal with rumors of monsters re-emerging in the marsh. But when a chance encounter with an easily flustered young man named Han brings her into contact with a secret magical liberation organization called the Guardians of Dawn, Zhara realizes there may be more to these rumors than she thought. A mysterious plague is corrupting the magicians of Zanhei and transforming them into monsters, and the Guardians of Dawn believe a demon is responsible.
In order to restore harmony and bring peace to the world, Zhara must discover the elemental warrior within, lest the balance between order and chaos is lost forever.
What I recently finished reading:
In this new installment of Tasha Alexander’s acclaimed Lady Emily series set in the wild Scottish highlands, an ancient story of witchcraft may hold the key to solving a murder centuries later.
Lady Emily, husband Colin Hargreaves, and their three sons eagerly embark on a family vacation at Cairnfarn Castle, the Scottish estate of their dear friend Jeremy, Duke of Bainbridge. But a high-spirited celebration at the beginning of their stay comes to a grisly end when the duke’s gamekeeper is found murdered on the banks of the loch. Handsome Angus Sinclair had a host of enemies: the fiancée he abandoned in Edinburgh, the young woman who had fallen hopelessly in love with him, and the rough farmer who saw him as a rival for her affections. But what is meaning of the curious runic stone left on Sinclair’s forehead?
Scotland, 1676. Lady MacAllister, wife of the Laird of Cairnfarn Castle, suddenly finds herself widowed and thrown out of her home. Her sole companion is a Moorish slave girl who helps her secretly spirit out her most prized possessions from the castle: her strange books. Her neighbors are wary of a woman living on her own, and when a poppet—a doll used to cast spells—and a daisy wheel are found in her isolated cottage, Lady MacAllister is accused of witchcraft, a crime punishable by death.
Hundreds of years later, Lady Emily searches for the link between Lady MacAllister’s harrowing witchcraft trial and the brutal death of Sinclair. She must follow a trail of hidden motives, an illicit affair, and a mysterious stranger to reveal the dark side of a seemingly idyllic Highland village.
What I think I will read next (I will definitely get to the ARCs on this list. The reading challenge books will be read if I have finished the ARCs.):
ARC
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Weiner comes a warmhearted and empowering new novel about love, family, friendship, secrets, and a life-changing journey.
Thirty-three-year-old Abby Stern has made it to a happy place. True, she still has gig jobs instead of a career, and the apartment where she’s lived since college still looks like she’s just moved in. But she’s got good friends, her bike, and her bicycling club in Philadelphia. She’s at peace with her plus-size body—at least, most of the time—and she’s on track to marry Mark Medoff, her childhood summer sweetheart, a man she met at the weight-loss camp that her perpetually dieting mother forced her to attend. Fifteen years after her final summer at Camp Golden Hills, when Abby reconnects with a half-his-size Mark, it feels like the happy ending she’s always wanted.
Yet Abby can’t escape the feeling that something isn’t right…or the memories of one thrilling night she spent with a man named Sebastian two years previously. When Abby gets a last-minute invitation to lead a cycling trip from NYC to Niagara Falls, she’s happy to have time away from Mark, a chance to reflect and make up her mind.
But things get complicated fast. First, Abby spots a familiar face in the group—Sebastian, the one-night stand she thought she’d never see again. Sebastian is a serial dater who lives a hundred miles away. In spite of their undeniable chemistry, Abby is determined to keep her distance. Then there’s a surprise last-minute addition to the her mother, Eileen, the woman Abby blames for a lifetime of body shaming and insecurities she’s still trying to undo.
Over two weeks and more than seven hundred miles, strangers become friends, hidden truths come to light, a teenage girl with a secret unites the riders in unexpected ways…and Abby is forced to reconsider everything she believes about herself, her mother, and the nature of love.
ARC
Night of the Living Queers is a YA horror anthology that explores a night when anything is possible exclusively featuring queer authors of color putting fresh spins on classic horror tropes and tales.
No matter its name or occasion, Halloween is more than a Hallmark holiday, it’s a symbol of transformation. NIGHT OF THE LIVING QUEERS is a YA horror anthology that explores how Halloween can be more than just candies and frights, but a night where anything is possible. Each short story will be told through the lens of a different BIPOC teen and the Halloween night that changes their lives forever. Creative, creepy, and queer, this collection will bring fresh terror, heart, and humor to young adult literature.
Contributors include editors Alex Brown and Shelly Page, Kalynn Bayron, Ryan Douglass, Sara Farizan, Maya Gittelman, Kosoko Jackson, Em Liu, Vanessa Montalban, Ayida Shonibar, Tara Sim, Trang Thanh Tran, and Rebecca Kim Wells.
ARC
As first contact transforms the Earth, a group of gifted visionaries race to create a new future in this wondrous science fiction novel from the award-winning author of The Best of All Possible Worlds.
The world is changing, and humanity must change with it. Rising seas and soaring temperatures have radically transformed the face of the Earth. Meanwhile, Earth is being observed from afar by other civilizations … and now they are ready to make contact.
Vying to prepare humanity for first contact are a group of dreamers and changemakers, including Peter Hendrix, the genius inventor behind the most advanced VR tech; Charyssa, a beloved celebrity icon with a passion for humanitarian work; and Kanoa, a member of a council of young people from around the globe drafted to reimagine the relationship between humankind and alien societies.
And they may have an unexpected secret weapon: Owen, a pop megastar whose ability to connect with his adoring fans is more than charisma. He has a hidden talent that may be the key to uniting Earth as it looks towards the stars.
But Owen’s abilities are so unique that no-one can control him, and so seductive that he cannot help but use them. Can he transcend his human limitations and find the freedom he has always dreamed of? Or is he doomed to become the dictator of his nightmares?
2023 TBR Toppler
A new romantic comedy that will stop readers in their tracks…
For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.
But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.
Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.
Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.
2023 Monthly Themes
What would you sacrifice to bring to light the greatest discovery in human history?
Quentin Darnell was only a boy when his anthropologist parents were overcome by a professional failure so crushing it led to his father’s suicide. Now a schoolteacher, Quentin is looking for answers that can only be found in the wild terrains of Indonesian Papua, where years ago his parents studied an isolated aboriginal tribe.
Quentin leads his wife, son, and six students on a field trip to experience Papua’s pristine tropical forests. When their plane tragically crashes in the wilderness, Quentin becomes trapped in a vicious fight to protect the ones he loves.
Just as resources and hope run out, several mysterious tribesmen appear, bearing a substance with extraordinary healing properties. The material promises to benefit all of humanity. But it’s much more than medicine. It creates creatures unknown to science. And it brings to life what should remain dead—including Quentin’s own son, Addison.
Logic and sanity begin to unravel. Addison speaks a new language. He knows things he shouldn’t. And he’s a killer.
For the others to escape, Quentin must face a decision no parent should have to make.
2023 Reading Challenge
A graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei’s childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon — and America itself.
Long before George Takei braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father’s — and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.
In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten “relocation centers,” hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard.
They Called Us Enemy is Takei’s firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother’s hard choices, his father’s faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.
2023 ABC Challenge
Kiki Michaelson wants one wild night to forget her starving-artist worries. Simple.
Only instead of Darren Cole becoming her one-night stand, he taunts her with a challenge. Then while she’s trying to best him at his own game, he turns out to be the last thing she’s prepared for: someone she wants to keep.
Which means all he can ever be…is a friend.
Darren Cole never allows a girl to get close—not close enough to matter.
Then storms in Kiki Michaelson, a beautiful, fearless temptation that rocks his world off-balance. But he fights their attraction, unwilling to gamble something physical with their close ties. Until the passionate sculptor exposes her heart and breaks his wide open.
In that moment it becomes clear: she could never be just a friend.
Sometimes what you run from…is exactly what you need.
***HEARTBREAKER is a standalone, full-length new adult romance told in dual POV. Due to mature themes and adult language, this book is for those 18 and older.***
ARC
A wild girl with sand magic in her bones and a mad god who is trying to fix the world he broke come together in SANDYMANCER, a genre-warping mashup of weird fantasy and hard science fiction.
All Caralee Vinnet has ever known is dust. Her whole world is made up of the stuff; water is the most precious thing in the cosmos. A privileged few control what elements remain. But the world was not always a dust bowl and the green is not all lost.
Caralee has a secret—she has magic in her bones and can draw up power from the sand beneath her feet to do her bidding. But when she does she winds up summoning a the former god-king who broke the world 800 years ago and has stolen the body of her best friend.
Caralee will risk the whole world to take back what she’s lost. If her new companion doesn’t kill her first.
ARC
When seamstress Lydia Barnes finds a dead body soon after moving to a new town, she will need more than shear luck to find the killer, in this novel perfect for fans of Molly MacRae and Anna Gerard.
Lydia Barnes is excited for a fresh start when she moves to the quaint mountain town of Peridot, Georgia. Her friend, Fran, offers her a job at the Measure Twice fabric store and even sets her up on a date with the handsome Brandon Ivey, who also happens to be Lydia’s new next-door neighbor. Finally, things are looking up. But after a disaster first date that ends with a fist bump instead of a kiss, Lydia doesn’t think her night can get any worse. She’s soon proven wrong when she later stumbles upon Brandon’s dead body.
Considered the prime suspect by the police, Lydia calls on her friends to help her hunt for the truth and prove her innocence. But when another body is soon found inside the Measure Twice store, Lydia knows that the killer must be close by, and that this town has more than its fair share of secrets. Who would want to frame the newest addition to Peridot for these terrible murders—and why?
Lydia may discover that while sewing might have a pattern, killing rarely does. Will she be able to stitch together the clues and clear her own name before the killer strikes again?
Here is what I am currently reading, recently finished, and plan to read from Thursday to Wednesday.
Let me know if you have read or are planning on reading any of these books!!
Happy Reading!!
What I am currently reading:
Things have gone from weird to blatantly absurd in Rome and Julian’s quest to preserve the boundary between the Earth realm and The Void. With Darkbrand numbers growing at a terrifying rate, the escape of Beliarahm, the fiercest Nocturn yet, and the struggle to make ANY headway with the Elementals and all their tomfoolery, The Alliance has hit a veritable wall. Even with the promise of the light Talisman to oppose the forces of darkness, there’s just no telling how or where to find it. All the other Talismans are collected, but that doesn’t necessarily give our heroes any comfort, because to this point, these magical items seem to have served more as crosshairs than protection. Maybe they need something more than the Talismans. But what could that be?
What I recently finished reading:
In this queer cozy series debut perfect for fans of Ellen Byron and Ellery Adams, Luke Tremblay is about to discover that Crescent Cove has more than its fair share of secrets…and some might be deadlier than others.
Crescent Cove, a small hamlet on Vancouver Island, is the last place out-of-work investigative journalist Luke Tremblay ever wanted to see again. He used to spend summers here, until his family learned that he was gay and rejected him. Now, following his aunt’s sudden death, he’s inherited her entire estate, including her seaside cottage and the antiques shop she ran for forty years in Crescent Cove. Luke plans to sell everything and head back to Toronto as soon as he can…but Crescent Cove isn’t done with him just yet.
When a stranger starts making wild claims about Luke’s aunt, Luke sends him packing. The next morning, though, Luke discovers that the stranger has returned, and now he’s lying dead in the back garden. To make matters worse, the officer leading the investigation is a handsome Mountie with a chip on his shoulder who seems convinced that Luke is the culprit. If he wants to prove his innocence and leave this town once and for all, Luke will have to use all his skills as a journalist to investigate the colorful locals while coming to terms with his own painful past.
There are secrets buried in Crescent Cove, and the more Luke digs, the more he fears they might change the town forever.
What I think I will read next (I will definitely get to the ARCs on this list. The reading challenge books will be read if I have finished the ARCs.):
The StoryGraph’s Reading Challenge’s Genre Challenge 2023
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
Beat the Backlist 2023
Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.
When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.
Scavenger Hunt TBR Book Challenge
From Rupi Kaur, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of milk and honey, comes her long-awaited second collection of poetry. A vibrant and transcendent journey about growth and healing. Ancestry and honoring one’s roots. Expatriation and rising up to find a home within yourself. Divided into five chapters and illustrated by Kaur, the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms. this is the recipe of life said my mother as she held me in her arms as i wept think of those flowers you plant in the garden each year they will teach you that people too must wilt fall root rise in order to bloom
Scavenger Hunt
A wryly funny and surprisingly moving account of an extraordinary life lived almost entirely in the public eye
A teen idol at fifteen, an international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood’s top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a painfully misunderstood child actor in Ohio uprooted to the wild counterculture of mid-seventies Malibu, where he embarked on his unrelenting pursuit of a career in Hollywood.
The Outsiders placed Lowe at the birth of the modern youth movement in the entertainment industry. During his time on The West Wing, he witnessed the surreal nexus of show business and politics both on the set and in the actual White House. And in between are deft and humorous stories of the wild excesses that marked the eighties, leading to his quest for family and sobriety.
Never mean-spirited or salacious, Lowe delivers unexpected glimpses into his successes, disappointments, relationships, and one-of-a-kind encounters with people who shaped our world over the last twenty-five years. These stories are as entertaining as they are unforgettable.
ARC
In this new installment of Tasha Alexander’s acclaimed Lady Emily series set in the wild Scottish highlands, an ancient story of witchcraft may hold the key to solving a murder centuries later.
Lady Emily, husband Colin Hargreaves, and their three sons eagerly embark on a family vacation at Cairnfarn Castle, the Scottish estate of their dear friend Jeremy, Duke of Bainbridge. But a high-spirited celebration at the beginning of their stay comes to a grisly end when the duke’s gamekeeper is found murdered on the banks of the loch. Handsome Angus Sinclair had a host of enemies: the fiancée he abandoned in Edinburgh, the young woman who had fallen hopelessly in love with him, and the rough farmer who saw him as a rival for her affections. But what is meaning of the curious runic stone left on Sinclair’s forehead?
Scotland, 1676. Lady MacAllister, wife of the Laird of Cairnfarn Castle, suddenly finds herself widowed and thrown out of her home. Her sole companion is a Moorish slave girl who helps her secretly spirit out her most prized possessions from the castle: her strange books. Her neighbors are wary of a woman living on her own, and when a poppet—a doll used to cast spells—and a daisy wheel are found in her isolated cottage, Lady MacAllister is accused of witchcraft, a crime punishable by death.
Hundreds of years later, Lady Emily searches for the link between Lady MacAllister’s harrowing witchcraft trial and the brutal death of Sinclair. She must follow a trail of hidden motives, an illicit affair, and a mysterious stranger to reveal the dark side of a seemingly idyllic Highland village.
ARC
Sailor Moon meets Cinder in Guardians of Dawn: Zhara, the start of a new, richly imagined fantasy series from S. Jae-Jones, the New York Times bestselling author of Wintersong.
Magic flickers. Love flames. Chaos reigns.
Magic is forbidden throughout the Morning Realms. Magicians are called abomination, and blamed for the plague of monsters that razed the land twenty years before.
Jin Zhara already had enough to worry about—appease her stepmother’s cruel whims, looking after her blind younger sister, and keeping her own magical gifts under control—without having to deal with rumors of monsters re-emerging in the marsh. But when a chance encounter with an easily flustered young man named Han brings her into contact with a secret magical liberation organization called the Guardians of Dawn, Zhara realizes there may be more to these rumors than she thought. A mysterious plague is corrupting the magicians of Zanhei and transforming them into monsters, and the Guardians of Dawn believe a demon is responsible.
In order to restore harmony and bring peace to the world, Zhara must discover the elemental warrior within, lest the balance between order and chaos is lost forever.
ARC
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Weiner comes a warmhearted and empowering new novel about love, family, friendship, secrets, and a life-changing journey.
Thirty-three-year-old Abby Stern has made it to a happy place. True, she still has gig jobs instead of a career, and the apartment where she’s lived since college still looks like she’s just moved in. But she’s got good friends, her bike, and her bicycling club in Philadelphia. She’s at peace with her plus-size body—at least, most of the time—and she’s on track to marry Mark Medoff, her childhood summer sweetheart, a man she met at the weight-loss camp that her perpetually dieting mother forced her to attend. Fifteen years after her final summer at Camp Golden Hills, when Abby reconnects with a half-his-size Mark, it feels like the happy ending she’s always wanted.
Yet Abby can’t escape the feeling that something isn’t right…or the memories of one thrilling night she spent with a man named Sebastian two years previously. When Abby gets a last-minute invitation to lead a cycling trip from NYC to Niagara Falls, she’s happy to have time away from Mark, a chance to reflect and make up her mind.
But things get complicated fast. First, Abby spots a familiar face in the group—Sebastian, the one-night stand she thought she’d never see again. Sebastian is a serial dater who lives a hundred miles away. In spite of their undeniable chemistry, Abby is determined to keep her distance. Then there’s a surprise last-minute addition to the her mother, Eileen, the woman Abby blames for a lifetime of body shaming and insecurities she’s still trying to undo.
Over two weeks and more than seven hundred miles, strangers become friends, hidden truths come to light, a teenage girl with a secret unites the riders in unexpected ways…and Abby is forced to reconsider everything she believes about herself, her mother, and the nature of love.
