Hot Off The Shelf: August 22nd New Releases
Happy August everyone! This means summer is almost over and those reading lists are about to wrap up.
There are books from new authors, second books from acclaimed authors, and stories you may seem interested in just by the synopsis. At Maude’s Book Club, we want our community to broaden their horizons and try new genres!
Here are the new books being released in the fourth week of August!
August 22nd
Fifteen years ago, Sara Linton’s life changed forever when a celebratory night out ended in a violent attack that tore her world apart. Since then, Sara has remade her life. A successful doctor engaged to a man she loves, she has finally managed to leave the past behind her. Until one evening, on call in the ER, everything changes. Sara battles to save a broken young woman who’s been brutally attacked. But as the investigation progresses, led by GBI Special Agent Will Trent, it becomes clear that Dani Cooper’s assault is uncannily linked to Sara’s.
Eighteen-year-old Jane Reye is a psychic artist. She draws what she sees, and what she sees are spirits and the supernatural. Growing up orphaned, she’s now of legal age and can no longer return to the girls’ school she’s called home for most of her life. Lost and alone after the death of her lifelong friend, she receives an invitation to partake in a study at the English manor Fairfax Hall: an investigation of the property that requires her specific area of expertise. Upon arrival, Jane understands this will be no ordinary study when she meets Elias Thornfield, the elusive proprietor of the estate, a boy her age, roguishly handsome, who dons a mysterious eye patch.
Lin Chong is an expert arms instructor, training the Emperor’s soldiers in sword and truncheon, battle axe and spear, lance and crossbow. Unline bolder friends who flirt with challenging the unequal hierarchies and values of Imperial society, she believes in keeping her head down and doing her job. Until a powerful man with a vendetta rips that carefully built life away. Disgraced, tattooed as a criminal, and on the run from an Imperial Marshall who will stop at nothing to see her dead, Lin Chong is recruited by the Bandits of Liangshan. Mountain outlaws on the margins of society proclaim the belief in justice — for women, for the downtrodden, for progressive thinkers, a corrupt Empire would imprison or destroy.
Moonlight Bay is a magical place — or it was once. After a tragic death mars the town, the pink and lavender waters in the bay turn gray, and the forest that was a refuge for newcomers becomes a scourge to the townspeople. Almost overnight, the entire town seems devoid of life and energy. The tourists have stopped coming. And the people in the town are struggling.
Yasmin and Rafay have been friends since Rafay first arrived, nearly ten years ago. As they’ve gotten older, their friendship has blossomed. Not that they would ever act on their feelings. The forest elders have long warned that falling in love with “outsiders” will lead to devastating consequences for anyone from Willow Forest.
Isabel is having an existential crisis. She’s three years into high school, and everything she’s learned has only shaken her faith in humanity. Late one night, she finds herself drawn to a niche corner of the internet — a forum whose members believe firmly in one that there are indeed people out in the world quietly performing impossible acts of heroism. You might even call them supers. No, not in the comic book sense — these are real people, just like each of us, but who happen to have a power or two. If Isabel can find them, she reasons, she might be able to prove to herself that humanity is more good than bad.
Jane is unhappy.
A struggling midlist writer whose novels barely command four figures, she feels trapped in an underwhelming marriage, just scraping by to pay a crippling Bay Area mortgage for a house — a life — she’s never really wanted.
There’s only ever been one person she cared about, one person who truly understood her: Thalia. Jane’s best and only friend nearly a decade ago during their Creative writing days at Oxford. It was the only good year of Jane’s life — cobblestones and books and damp English air, heady wine and sweet cider and Thalia, endless Thalia.
But one blood-soaked night ruined everything.
Mae Roberts is certain her new life in the suburbs with her family will be everything she’s always wanted. That is until one of the mothers from her daughters’ school goes missing.
Mae never thought she would fit in amongst the beautiful and rich mothers at Riverpark Elementary. Though, when she’s accepted into their clique and they ask her to be part of their unofficial neighbourhood watch, Mae finds herself slipping more and more into a world of odd dinner parties, secrets and lies, and even rumours.
Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor.
But Zhu isn’t the only one with imperial ambitions. Her neighbour in the south, the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband — and she’s strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map. To stay in the game, Zhu will have to gamble everything on a risky alliance with an old enemy: the talented but unstable eunuch general Ouyang, who has already sacrificed everything for a chance at revenge on his father’s killer, the Great Khan.
A duke has been murdered. The lord of Thorn Grove has been framed. And Fate, the elusive brother of Death, has taken up residence in a sumptuous estate nearby. He’s hellbent on revenge after Death took the life of the woman he loved many years ago… and now he’s determined to have Signa for himself, no matter the cost.
Signa and her cousin Blythe are certain that Fate can save Elijah Hawthorne from prison if they will entertain his presence. But the more time the girls spend with Fate, the more frightening their reality becomes as Signa exhibits dramatic new powers that link her to Fate’s past.
Rose Barnes has got curve for days — and to Angus Drummond, the big, bearded contractor working in her new house, she’s the perfect thorn in his side. Little does she know Angus is perturbed on a daily basis by his attraction to this cheery, smart-ass woman with her sunshiny enthusiasm, her kindness, and her beautiful body.
Angus feels he has a debt to pay to the world and doesn’t deserve love until he pays it. Best to keep his mind on his work and his hands to himself. But the more Rose sees Angus’s gruff, honourable thoughtfulness, and the more rusty laughter she surprises from him, the more she wants him too.
Have you picked any of the books listed above? If you have, let us know which ones! If you have any recommendations similar to the books listed above drop them in the comments below.
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