Hot Off The Shelf: October 10th New Releases
Welcome to Spooktober, everyone!
It is the best month for those who enjoy thrillers, horror, and some dark sci-fi/fantasy novels. The month of October feels like a clean slate and a chance to try something new. Luckily for avid readers like us, plenty of books are being released in the next four months to keep us invested. Whether they are debut novels or long-awaited sequels, there is something for everyone.
Check out the books being released the second week of October.
October 10th
1999: The Kim family is struggling to move on after their mother, Sunny, vanished a year ago. Sixty-one-year-old John Kim feels more isolated from his grown children, Anastasia and Ronald, than ever before. But one evening, their fragile lives are further upended when John finds the body of a stranger in the backyard, carrying a letter to Sunny, leaving the family with more questions than ever about the stranger’s history and possible connections to their mother.
Evan Taft has plans. Take a gap year in Alaska, make sure his little brother and single mother are taken care of, and continue therapy to process his father’s departure. But after his mom’s unexpected diagnosis, as Evan’s plans begin to fade, he hears something: a song no one else can hear, the voice of a mysterious singer…
Shosh Bell has dreams. A high school theatre legend, she’s headed to performing arts college in LA, a star on the rise. But when a drunk driver takes his sister’s life, that star fades to black. All that remains is a void — and a soft voice singing in her ear.
Over it all, transcending time and space, a celestial bird brings strangers together: from an escaped murderer in 19th century Paris, to a Norwegian cosmonaut in low-earth orbit, something is happening that began long ago and will long outlast Evan and Shosh.
Sasha has had it. She cannot bring herself to respond to another inane, “urgent” (but obviously not at all urgent) email or participate in the corporate employee joyfulness program. She hadn’t seen her friend in months. Sex? Seems like a lot of effort. Even cooking dinner takes far too much planning. Sasha has hit a wall.
Armed with good intentions to drink kale smoothies, try yoga, and find peace, she heads to the seaside resort she loved as a child. But it’s the off-season, the hotel is in a dilapidated shambles, and she has to share the beach with the only other grumpy guy named Finn, who seems as stressed as Sasha.
Israel, October 1973. As the Yom Kippur War flares into life, a state-of-the-art Soviet MiG fighter plane plummets to an unexpected landing. NASA Flight Controller and former US test pilot Kaz Zemeckis watches from the ground — unaware that its arrival will pull him into a high-stakes game of spies, lies, and secrets that hold the key to the Cold War air and space supremacy.
For within that plane is a Society pilot pleading to defect, offering a prize beyond the workings of the Soviets’s mythical “Foxbat” MiG-25, the fastest, highest-flying fighter plane in the world. But trusting him is risky, and Kaz must tread a careful line. As Kaz accompanies the defector into the United States, to the military’s most secret test site, he must hope that, with skill and cunning, the game plays out his way.
Jasmine Yang arrives in New York City from her rural Chinese village without money or family support, fleeing a controlling husband, on a desperate search for the daughter who was taken from her at birth — another female casualty of China’s controversial One Child Policy. But with her husband on her trail, the clock is ticking, and she’s forced to make increasingly desperate decisions if she ever hopes to be reunited with her daughter.
Meanwhile, publishing executive Rebecca Whitney seems to have it all: a prestigious family name and the wealth that comes with it, a high-powered career, a beautiful home, a handsome husband, and an adopted Chinese daughter she adores. She’s even hired a Chinese nanny to help her balance the demands of being a working wife and mother. But when an industry scandal threatens to jeopardize not only Rebecca’s job but her marriage, this perfect world begins to crumble and he role in her own family is called into question.
With a brilliant mind and a fierce will to survive, Sarah Forbes Bonetta, a kidnapped African princess, is rescued from enslavement at seven years old and presented to Queen Victoria as a “gift”. To the Queen, the girl is an exotic trophy to be trotted out for the entertainment of the royal court and to showcase Victoria’s magnanimity.
Sarah charms most of the people she meets, even those who would cast her aside. Her keen intelligence and her aptitude for languages and musical composition helped Sarah navigate the Victorian era as an outsider given insider privileges.
Cam is living in Los Angeles and falling apart after the love of his life has died. Kai’s ghost won’t leave Cam alone his spectral visits are wild, tender, and unexpected. When Cam returns to his hometown of Houston, he crashes back into the orbit of his former best friend, TJ, and TJ’s family bakery. TJ’s not sure how to navigate this changed Cam, impenetrably cool and self-destructing, or their charged estrangement. Can they find a way past all that has been said — and left unsaid — to save each other?
Kel is an orphan, stolen from the life he knew to become the Sword-Catcher — the body-double of a royal heir, Prince Conor Aurelian. He has been raised alongside the prince, and trained in every aspect of combat and statecraft. He and Conor are close as brothers, but Kel knows he has one destiny: to die for Conor. No other future is possible.
Lin Caster is one of the Ashkar, a small community that still possesses magical abilities. By law, they must live behind walls in the city, but Lin, a physician, ventures out to tend to the sick and dying of Castellane. Despite her skills, she cannot heal her best friend Mariam without access to forbidden knowledge.
Atia is a monster who feeds on fear. As the last of her kind, she hides in the shadows of the world to escape the wrath of the unpredictable Gods. Silas is a Herald, carrying messages and ferrying the dead as punishment for a past he can’t remember. Stripped of his true name, he yearns to recover his identity.
Atia would never dream of allying with someone like him, but when she breaks a sacred law and the Gods send monsters to hunt her, Silas offers an irresistible deal: he’ll help avenge her family and take on the Gods who now hunt her if she helps him break his curse and restore his humanity. All they need to do is kill three powerful creatures: a vampire, a banshee, and one of the very Gods who destroyed both their lives.
Lithuania, 1943. A father drowns in the all-consuming grief of a daughter killed by the nazis. He can’t bring Chaya back from the dead, but he can use kishuf — an ancient and profane magic — to create a golden in her image. A Nazi killer, to avenge her death.
When Vera awakens, she can feel her violent purpose thrumming within her. But she can also feel glimpses of a human life lived, of stolen kisses amidst the tragedy, and of a grisly death. And when she meets Akiva, she recognizes the boy with soft lips that give warm kisses. But when these memories aren’t hers, and Vera doesn’t know if she gets — or deserves — to have a life beyond what she was made for.
When the parents of the richest family in Fall River are found murdered by an axe, the town is quick to blame newcomer Vik. It doesn’t help that he was caught standing over the bodies with blood on his hands and can’t remember anything about the night in question.
But Vik’s sister, Tessa, knows that Vik would never be capable of such a gruesome crime. Haunted by the mistakes she made that led her family to Fall River in the first place, she sets out to prove her brother’s innocence.
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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