Can't-Wait Wednesday: Dance of the Starlit Sea

   

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released. The meme is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week I'm highlighting Dance of the Starlit Sea by Kiana Krystle.

From Goodreads: 

Lila Rose Li arrives at her aunt’s cottage with dashed dreams. For years, she pushed herself to become the perfect ballerina her parents would approve of, but after collapsing on stage, she snapped and lashed out violently. Now, exiled to Luna Island, with its sparkling blue waters and rose-covered boutiques, Lila struggles to believe that a girl like her—a natural disaster—deserves good and gentle things.

As the islanders gear up for their beloved tradition, the Angel of the Sea pageant, Lila vows to remain on the sidelines. But the more she learns about the island’s lore, the more she grows suspicious. Luna Island was nothing more than a failed fishing village before angels supposedly came and blessed them with abundance. The pageant is a competition to seek a High Priestess for their commune. To win is to be loved and adored by all, the ultimate blessing.

However, the Angel of the Sea is supposed to reign for seven years, and the previous winner only reigned for one. Something is haunting the island, throwing off the balance the pageant ensures. And as an eerie voice calls to Lila, drawing her closer to the ocean—to its depths—she worries its haunting her, too. The only way to discover what’s really going on, and protect herself, is to win the pageant. But how can a monstrous girl like her ever hope to be crowned by angels?

Kiana Krystle's enchanting debut simmers with forbidden romance and dark secrets. A lush and sinister blend of paranormal mystery and mythology, wrapped up in fairytale about a teen girl's hard-earned journey toward loving every part of herself.

I will admit that I'm mainly intrigued by that beautiful cover. I remember back when books about angels were all the rage 10-15 years ago, and this is definitely giving me flashbacks to my younger years. The early reviews for this book have been extremely mixed, with some describing it as a 'pastel horror' book. That only makes me more interested in reading it. Sure, it might not be a 5-star read, but I feel like I need some pastel horror in my life, so I'll give it a chance all the same. 

Dance of the Starlit Sea will be released on August 6, 2024.

Check out the early reviews on Goodreads, or preorder the book at Amazon US / Amazon UK / Blackwells

Can't-Wait Wednesday: Reckless (The Powerless Trilogy #2)

  

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released. The meme is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week I'm highlighting Reckless (The Powerless Trilogy #2) by Lauren Roberts.

From Goodreads: 

The kingdom of Ilya is in turmoil…

After surviving the Purging Trials, Ordinary-born Paedyn Gray has killed the King, and kickstarted a Resistance throughout the land. Now she’s running from the one person she had wanted to run to.

Kai Azer is now Ilya’s Enforcer, loyal to his brother Kitt, the new King. He has vowed to find Paedyn and bring her to justice.

Across the deadly Scorches, and deep into the hostile city of Dor, Kai pursues the one person he wishes he didn’t have to. But in a city without Elites, the balance between the hunter and hunted shifts – and the battle between duty and desire is deadly.

Be swept away by this bestselling, kiss-or-kill romantasy trilogy taking the world by storm.

Having read the first book in the trilogy at the end of last year, I am excited about this sequel. Powerless was a solid 4.5 star read for me, and as the book ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, I can't wait to see what happens in this next book! Now that Paedyn and Kai are enemies, I'm expecting a lot of pining followed by subsequent self-loathing and internal conflicts. Definitely my cup of tea. Please don't disappoint me, book! 

Reckless will be released on July 4, 2024.

Check out the early reviews on Goodreads, or preorder the book at Amazon US / Amazon UK / Blackwells

Can't-Wait Wednesday: Not in Love

  

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released. The meme is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week I'm highlighting Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood.

From Goodreads: 

Rue Siebert might not have it all, but she has enough: a few friends she can always count on, the financial stability she yearned for as a kid, and a successful career as a biotech engineer at Kline, one of the most promising start-ups in the field of food science. Her world is stable, pleasant, and hard-fought. Until a hostile takeover and its offensively attractive front man threatens to bring it all crumbling down.

Eli Killgore and his business partners want Kline, period. Eli has his own reasons for pushing this deal through—and he’s a man who gets what he wants. With one burning exception: Rue. The woman he can’t stop thinking about. The woman who's off-limits to him.

Torn between loyalty and an undeniable attraction, Rue and Eli throw caution out the lab and the boardroom windows. Their affair is secret, no-strings-attached, and has a built-in deadline: the day one of their companies will prevail. But the heart is risky business—one that plays for keeps.

I have read enough Ali Hazelwood books by this point that it's safe to say she's an auto-buy author for me, and I am super excited about her next book. This sounds like a return to what she does best - fun STEM romances with intelligent characters and sizzling chemistry, and in this books she promises an enemies-to-lovers story as well (which happens to be my favorite trope ever). I'm counting down the days!

Not in Love will be released on June 11, 2024.

Check out the early reviews on Goodreads, or preorder the book at Amazon US / Amazon UK / Blackwells

Can't-Wait Wednesday: Not Like Other Girls

  

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released. The meme is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week I'm highlighting Not Like Other Girls by Meredith Adamo.

From Goodreads: 

When Jo-Lynn Kirby's former best friend—pretty, nice Maddie Price—comes to her claiming to be in trouble, Jo assumes it's some kind of joke. After all, Jo has been an outcast ever since her nude photos were leaked—and since everyone decided she deserved it. There’s no way Maddie would actually come to her for help.

But then Maddie is gone.

Everyone is quick to write off Maddie as a runaway, but Jo can’t shake the feeling there's more to the story. To find out the truth, Jo needs to get back in with the people who left her behind—and the only way back in is through Hudson Harper-Moore. An old fling of Jo’s with his own reasons for wanting to find Maddie, Hudson hatches a fake dating scheme to get Jo back into their clique. But being back on the inside means Jo must confront everything she’d rather forget: the boys who betrayed her, the whispers that she had it coming, and the secrets that tore her and Maddie apart. As Jo digs deeper into Maddie’s disappearance, she’s left to wonder who she’s really searching for: Maddie, or the girl she used to be.

Not Like Other Girls is a stunning debut that takes a hard look at how we treat young women and their trauma, through the lens of a missing girl and a girl trying to find herself again.

Listen, sometimes all I want is to read a good YA mystery thriller, and this sounds like an good one. The early reviews on Goodreads have been very positive, which makes me hopeful that this will be a book worth reading. 

Not Like Other Girls will be released on April 30, 2024.

Check out the early reviews on Goodreads, or preorder the book at Amazon US / Amazon UK / Blackwells

Can't-Wait Wednesday: Funny Story

  

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released. The meme is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week I'm highlighting Funny Story by Emily Henry.

From Goodreads: 

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?

Emily Henry is probably my favorite romance writer, and her new book sounds like it will be all kinds of fun, I can always count on her to provide well-written characters, fun banter and an engaging love story with plenty of heart-fluttering moments. My Waterstones special edition is ordered, and I can't wait to add this little beauty to my Emily Henry collection. I'm predicting this will be a five-star read for me, and so I'm desperately waiting for the release date.

Funny Story will be released on April 23, 2024.

Check out the early reviews on Goodreads, or preorder the book at Amazon US / Amazon UK / Blackwells

Can't-Wait Wednesday: Where Are You, Echo Blue?

  

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released. The meme is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week I'm highlighting Where Are You, Echo Blue? by Hayley Krischer.

From Goodreads: 

When Echo Blue, the most famous child star of the nineties, disappears ahead of a highly publicized television appearance on the eve of the millennium, the salacious theories instantly start swirling. Mostly, people assume Echo has gotten herself in trouble after a reckless New Year’s Eve. But Goldie Klein, an ambitious young journalist who also happens to be Echo's biggest fan, knows there must be more to the story. Why, on the eve of her big comeback, would Echo just go missing without a trace?

After a year of covering dreary local stories for Manhattan Eye, Goldie is sure this will be her big break. Who better to find Echo Blue, and tell her story the right way, than her? And so, Goldie heads to L.A. to begin a wild search that takes her deep into Echo’s complicated life in which parental strife, friend break ups, rehab stints, and bad romances abound. But the further into Echo’s world Goldie gets, the more she questions her own complicity in the young star’s demise . . . yet she cannot tear herself away from this story, which has now consumed her entirely. Meanwhile, we also hear Echo's side of things from the beginning, showing a young woman who was chewed up and spit out by Hollywood as so many are, and who may have had to pay the ultimate price.

As these young women's poignant and unexpected journeys unfold, and eventually meet, Where Are You, Echo Blue? interrogates celebrity culture, the thin line between admiration and obsession, and what it means to tell other peoples’ stories, all while ushering us on an unruly ride to find out what did become of Echo Blue.

I will be the first to admit that I tend to stick to my comfort genres: Fantasy, YA, romance and the occasional mystery thriller. Women's fiction is not usually a genre I find myself drawn to, but the synopsis of Where Are You, Echo Blue? sounds so intriguing that it has climbed to the very top of my TBR list. The early reviews promise a look into the downsides of fame, and I for one can't wait to dive into the seedy underbelly of Hollywood through the eyes of the two main characters of this book. 

Where Are You, Echo Blue? will be released on July 16, 2024.

Check out the early reviews on Goodreads, or preorder the book at Amazon US / Amazon UK / Blackwells

Can't-Wait Wednesday: The Reappearance of Rachel Price

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released. The meme is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week I'm highlighting The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson.

 From Goodreads: 

From the author of the multimillion bestselling A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series and Five Survive comes a new true-crime fueled mystery thriller about a girl determined to uncover the shocking truth about her missing mother while filming a documentary on the unsolved case.

Lights. Camera. Lies.

18-year-old Bel has lived her whole life in the shadow of her mom’s mysterious disappearance. Sixteen years ago, Rachel Price vanished and young Bel was the only witness, but she has no memory of it. Rachel is gone, long presumed dead, and Bel wishes everyone would just move on.

But the case is dragged up from the past when the Price family agree to a true crime documentary. Bel can’t wait for filming to end, for life to go back to normal. And then the impossible happens. Rachel Price reappears, and life will never be normal again.

Rachel has an unbelievable story about what happened to her. Unbelievable, because Bel isn’t sure it’s real. If Rachel is lying, then where has she been all this time? And – could she be dangerous? With the cameras still rolling, Bel must uncover the truth about her mother, and find out why Rachel Price really came back from the dead . . .

From world-renowned author Holly Jackson comes a mind-blowing masterpiece about one girl’s search for the truth, and the terror in finding out who your family really is.

I am quite picky when it comes to what kind of mystery thriller I like. There are plenty of books to choose from, but more often than not I end up disappointed by the mysteries themselves. Because of that, it's not a genre I reach for too often. However, when it comes to Holly Jackson's YA mystery thrillers, I have no such reservations. She always delivers in creating entertaining and engaging mysteries, and this book has been at the top of my wishlist since I first heard about it. I have preordered a signed edition from Waterstones, and I can't wait for my book to show up in my mailbox in a couple of weeks.

The Reappearance of Rachel Price will be released on April 2, 2024.

Check out the early reviews on Goodreads, or preorder the book at Amazon US / Amazon UK / Blackwells 

Can't-Wait Wednesday: The Temptation of Magic

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released. The meme is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week I'm highlighting The Temptation of Magic (Empyreal #1) by Megan Scott.

From Goodreads: 

As an Empyreal, Nicole has the ability to kill any deadly supernatural. But if her power ever awakened, the Wake—the organisation that governs supernaturals—would force her to be their loyal huntress. Or kill her, like they did her mother.

To stay safe, Nicole hides in a small university town, convinced the mythological art collection at a local manor contains a final message from her mother. But before she can study it, Kyan McCarter, the Wake’s most skilled Empyreal, arrives on his own hunt. When they discover his prey has stolen a painting for leverage, they’re forced to work together.

As the creature threatens to expose Nicole’s powers, her tenuous alliance with Kyan threatens her heart. If her true identity is revealed, Kyan will hunt her next. No one disobeys The Wake and survives. Especially when the art they’re seeking unveils a conspiracy that would change the lives of creatures and humans forever...

But Nicole may only be able to resist one: her wicked impulses, or a love that could repaint their world. And after a life of hiding her true nature, who could resist the temptation of magic...

SERPENT AND DOVE meets A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES, in this luxurious, forbidden romance.

I'm so excited about this one! I love me a good high-stakes forbidden romance, and this definitely sounds like it will be right up my alley. It is the first book in a brand new trilogy by debut author Megan Scott, and I am so ready to dive right into this brand new world come release day!

The Temptation of Magic will be released on May 23, 2024.

Check out the early reviews on Goodreads, or preorder the book at Amazon US / Amazon UK / Blackwells

Can't-Wait Wednesday: In the Orbit of You

 

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released. The meme is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week I'm highlighting In The Orbit of You by Ashley Schumacher.

 From Goodreads: 

It's been years since Nova Evans last saw Sam. She was too young then to understand why he had to move away―and what it had to do with the cuts and bruises he got from home and never wanted to talk about. All she knew is that they promised to find each other when they were older, something she thought was impossible thanks to her and her mom moving around constantly. Until she bumps into Sam in her new school, and realizes he has clearly forgotten their childhood promise.

Sam Jordan has a plan for his accept his college football scholarship, date his girlfriend Abigail, and―most importantly―hide how much he wants to do something, anything other than The Plan™ his parents and coaches have set before him. It doesn't matter if sometimes he finds himself thinking about the new girl he met in the cafeteria, a girl who reminds him of a past that hurts to remember.

When a school-wide personality test reveals Nova and Sam to be each others' top matches―not only that, but a match of 99%, the highest in the school―they begin to remember why they were such close friends, all those years ago. As well as the myriad of reasons this new-yet-familiar, magnetic, sparkling thing between them will never, ever work out.

In the Orbit of You is a story about the enduring and changing nature of friendship, of the strange struggle between who you are and who you want to be, and finding your voice after trauma.

I've been a fan of Ashley Schumacher since her debut novel (Amelia Unabridged - still one of my absolute favorite YA reads), so when I saw that she was releasing a new novel this year, it immediately went on my to-be-read list. Nobody writes youth grief and trauma like Ashley, and the summary of this novel promises both. Now, I must admit I'm not usually a huge fan of the childhood friends to lovers trope, but I might just make an exception for this book. 

In the Orbit of You will be released on March 19, 2024.

Check out the early reviews on Goodreads, or preorder the book at Amazon US / Amazon UK / Blackwells