Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Alexis Hall’s Audrey Lane Stirs The Pot, which releases on December 9th 2025.

Audrey Lane is perfectly fine. Really. So what if she left her high-powered job as a Very Important Journalist―and her even higher-powered long-term girlfriend―to live a quiet life as a reporter for the second-biggest newspaper in Shropshire? And so what if she keeps hearing that same higher-powered long-term now-ex-girlfriend in her head night and day, constantly judging just how small Audrey’s allowed her life to become?

She’s fine. She’s happy. She’s perfectly within her groove. Do not-in-their-groove people get weekday drunk and impulsively apply for the UK’s most beloved baking show?

All right, so maybe she’s not completely fine, but being on Bake Expectations is opening her world again in ways she never anticipated. First through fellow contestant Doris, whose personal story of queer love during WW2 captures Audrey’s heart, imagination and journalistic interest like nothing has in ages. Then through Jennifer Hallet, the most foul-tempered (and fouler-mouthed) producer, woman, and menace Audrey has ever met. Jennifer should be off-limits, but her fire lights something unexpected inside of Audrey, making her want to burn back a million times brighter. A million times hotter. A million times more herself than she’s been in a long, long time.

Reflecting on her life choices was the last thing Audrey wanted to be doing, but the long drive out of Shropshire through Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and the dreaded London to finally reach Surrey and the set of Bake Expectations was, unfortunately, the sort of trip that gave you plenty of time to reflect. Plenty of time to ask six-months-ago Audrey what the fuck she’d been thinking. And for six-months-ago Audrey to sit back and reply, Oh come off it, you know perfectly well.

And she did.

Because this was the biggest thing—so far at least—that was Natalie’s fault.

Six months ago was when Natalie had won the Orwell Prize for a nuanced yet hard-hitting article she’d written in The Guardian about . . . Actually, Audrey couldn’t remember the details, but something worthy: domestic terrorism or climate change or one of the many other ways the world was screwed and getting screweder. She should have known. It was petty of her not to know. A mature, reasonable woman in her thirties was completely capable of acknowledging that her ex-girlfriend was continuing to be brilliant and successful and celebrated without blotting out as many of the details as she could with Lidl wine and competitive baking.

Audrey had not, in that moment, been a mature, reasonable woman. She had instead decided that it was the most important thing in the world to show Natalie—or the gaping judgmental void where Natalie used to be—that she was more than just a technically not failed journalist working for a proudly second-rate local paper. She was also, she could declare with the confidence of a proud LGBTQ+ role model, pretty okay at making buns, too.

It was, in retrospect, a slight point of concern for Audrey that she’d been accepted on Bake Expectations despite being so blitzed out of her skull that she couldn’t actually remember what she’d written on her entry form. Either it meant that she was such a fantastic writer that even completely hammered she could weave an enchanting word picture about how she would be an asset to the show, or—perhaps more likely—she was this year’s joke contestant: a loveable drunk who was going out in week one for putting far too much rum in her baba. Maybe she’d redeemed herself at the follow-up interview.

Or maybe she’d just cemented the idea that she was a charmingly incompetent buffoon, like Bernard from last season.

For about an hour and a half, Audrey let herself stew in insecurity like a plum in a syrup made of disappointment. Then, since an hour and a half only got her halfway to her destination and since she’d seen a lot of statistics about fatigue-related fatalities, she stopped at a service station. Checking her phone on the way to the loo, she found four messages. One was from her dad and said Good luck on BE. The other three were from her mother and said, respectively: Your father keeps telling me you’re filming this week. Then But I’m sure it’s next week. Followed by Good luck in case it isn’t. She sent back a thanks and an actually Dad was right, gave herself ten minutes of not-driving time to grab a coffee and a croissant, and then hopped back in the car.

With the caffeine helping her feel slightly more awake and the croissant helping her feel slightly more like she’d eaten a croissant, Audrey set off on the final leg of the journey. Once she’d skirted London courtesy of the M25, she was relieved to find herself back in the countryside. Having been born in it, Audrey had an abiding fondness for rural England, although she privately felt that the South and East couldn’t really compete with the Welsh borders. There was an indefinable Londonishness that radiated out from the capital and made the land for miles around seem regimented and uniform in ways the North and the West never were.

She was barely over the county line into Surrey when she spotted the first sign for Patchley House and Park, which had gone from obscure hotel in a former stately home to a semi-major tourist attraction thanks to the magic of mass media. From its iconic wrought iron gates, it was a short-for-a-road-but-long-for-a-driveway trip up to the gravelly carpark. And then it was a matter of following the contestants this way notices that, in contrast to the homey-but-slick presentation of the on-camera parts of the show, were just A4 paper run off on a printer and taped onto whatever surfaces could support them. These led her, at last, to a bored-looking man who signed her in and told her to make her way down the hill to the Lodge. As a longtime fan of the show—albeit one who’d had to watch it alone while Natalie was out networking or otherwise living the careerist dream—Audrey was still waiting for the moment when it all started to feel real. Or at least to feel unreal in the way that she assumed it would. In that oh-my-God-I-can’t-believe-I’m-actually-here way that other people seemed to get, rather than the “welp” way that she was currently experiencing.

She found her room fairly easily, dumped her things, and checked her phone to see if her parents had resolved their “is our daughter on TV yet” debate. As it turned out, they both had and hadn’t, the response from her dad being see, I told her and the one from her mum saying sorry, I was getting it mixed up with Auntie Beryl’s hemorrhoid appointment. Communication, Audrey had always believed, was the basis of a healthy relationship. But if her parents were anything to go by, it didn’t actually have to be coherent or effective communication.

She texted back to her dad apparently she was thinking of Auntie Beryl’s hemorrhoid appointment (now that’s a week next Tuesday he replied) and to her mum do you often confuse me with Auntie Beryl’s bottom (her response was: only when you act like an arse). Between messages, she sat on the edge of the bed, trying not to have too many thoughts. It had been long enough since the breakup that, theoretically, being alone was something she should have been used to. But at home she had her work and her family and—not to sound too materialistic—her stuff to keep her from dwelling. A hotel room, especially the kind of hotel room you got on a BBC budget, was tailor made to make a person regret every decision they’d ever made in their entire life.

So-called “reality” television, Natalie was explaining in her head, constructs false narratives that pressure people into living up to unrealistic standards. And Audrey tried to push back a little by pointing out that it was just people making cakes in a nice house, but Natalie’s voice, as always, was insistent. It’s a parochial, whitewashed—in both senses of the word—illusion of Britishness for Brexiteers and housewives. I honestly can’t believe you watch it. And she didn’t have an answer to that, any more than she’d had one when the conversation, or conversations very much like it, had originally happened.

She should have brought a project. Audrey was the sort of person who liked to have a project, even if the project was just a jigsaw puzzle on the kitchen table. The bedroom in her new flat was full of bags of yarn and piles of fabric, which were slowly being converted into scarves no one in particular wanted to wear and quilts no one in particular wanted to snuggle under.

Partly, she would be the first to admit, because they weren’t very good scarves or quilts. Just like her hand-painted bowls weren’t very well-painted and her one attempt at kintsugi had left the broken vase looking both worse and still broken. For the first couple of years of their relationship, her fondness for crafting had driven Natalie up the wall, a conflict Audrey had resolved by . . . stopping. Giving up or, in Natalie’s words, acknowledging there were better ways to use her time.

Sitting on the bed, staring at the wall, Audrey stayed lost with her thoughts just long enough to conclude that staying in her room would definitely suck. And while wandering the grounds aimlessly might also suck, it would at least suck in the open air.

Besides, Audrey had always been an explorey sort. And, much as she wanted to pretend it was part of what made her an excellent—well, an adequate; well, a former—investigative journalist, mostly it just meant she’d spent a lot of her childhood increasing her mother’s risk of cardiac arrest. She’d once enlivened a summer picnic by trying to climb up Wenlock Priory. And, in her defence, she’d managed it. The climbing up part, at least. Getting down had been more of a challenge and had, eventually, involved fire engines. To this day, Audrey felt guilty around a National Trust logo.

That probably wasn’t going to happen at Patchley House, though. Not unless she got really, really bored. Mostly she was hoping a good, old-fashioned wander would keep the more infuriating parts of her brain quiet. With enquieting in mind, she scoped out the woodlands and, once she’d finished scoping, found her way down to the stream, locating the faux-medieval hermitage that her pre-visit research had told her was located somewhere on the grounds.

Once she’d had all the faux medievalness she could take, she looped back to the Lodge just in time to see a girl coming out of the front door. And she was definitely a girl, probably—if Audrey was any judge—no more than sixteen. Also probably no less than sixteen, unless the show was violating its own terms and conditions, along with a couple of child labour laws. Neither of which, given what she knew of reality TV, she would have ruled out.

“Hi,” Audrey said, discovering as she got closer that, sixteen-ish as she may have been, the newcomer was still a good inch taller than Audrey was. “Are you one of the other contestants?”

The girl nodded and, not being from a handshakey generation, waved. “Alanis.”

“Alanis?”

“Yeah. After this singer my mum likes.”

The realisation that it was perfectly possible for a woman who listened to Jagged Little Pill at a formative age to now have a daughter old enough to be baking on national television rose up in Audrey’s heart, killed a part of her, and went back to sleep. “Audrey,” said Audrey. “After—”

“Audrey Hepburn?” asked Alanis.

“Honestly a bit surprised you know who that is.”

“I’m really into retro stuff.”

Audrey could probably have guessed that for herself, since Alanis’s personal style appeared to have been culled from the greatest hits of the last two centuries: a pleated miniskirt like it was 2001, a chunky black-and-pink cable-knit like it was 2020, tube socks like it was 1974, and ribbons in her hair like she was about to get snubbed by Mr. Darcy at a country dance. “Oh,” she said. “Cool. So kind of cottagecore?”

There was a certain look teenagers got when they felt an adult had been embarrassing in a way that inspired pity rather than loathing. “I don’t really want to put a label on it. But I’m liking your whole thing.”

“I’m not sure I have a thing.”

There was another look teenagers got when they felt you were full of shit. “Sixties glasses? Fifties silhouette? That’s a thing. You just don’t want to admit it.”

Great. Now Audrey was being called out by a child. On the other hand, the child seemed to be enjoying it. Which was probably a win on aggregate. “Fine. You got me. I’m a plus-sized stereotype.”

Alanis looked immediately mortified, like she was cancelling herself. “Oh fuck, sorry. I did not mean that in, like, a shaming way.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s just the reality of a certain height-to-girth ratio. And I’d rather own it than hide.”

“You’re definitely owning it.”

“Okay, now you’re overcompensating.”

“No, no,” protested Alanis, whose limited life experience had yet to teach her the benefits of quitting when you were behind. “You look really good for your age.”

Audrey stared at her. Over the past thirtysomething years she’d got pretty comfortable with her body. Having to be comfortable with her age as well had snuck up on her. “Which you think is . . . what exactly?”

“Like maybe twenty-five?” said Alanis with complete and bewildering sincerity. “Or twenty-eight?”

This was flattering. But also not flattering. “Oh my God, Alanis. How do you think time works?”

“I don’t know. I’m not Einstein.”

“No, I mean, twenty-five isn’t old enough to look good for your age. And, by similar reasoning, in no universe do I look twenty-five.”

“Look”—Alanis spread her hands in a gesture of I give up on everything—“you seem like you’re older than me and younger than my mum. I don’t know what else to do here.”

Tiny twinge of nostalgia aside, Audrey was pretty glad that she no longer lived in a world where the categories of people were yourself, your parents, and everybody else. “How about we leave gerontology for now and talk about baking? Because I’m beginning to sense a generation gap and I really want to get onto a topic that doesn’t make me feel ancient.”

“Works for me.” Cheerfully, Alanis looped her arm through Audrey’s and began to drag her up the hill. “Totally crepuscular.”

Audrey was not falling for that one. “Crepuscular?”

“Yeah, it means good.”

“No it doesn’t. It means of or relating to twilight. This is because I said there was a generation gap, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be such a zymurgy.”

“Study of fermentation. You’re not going to get me on this. I’m old and uncool but I know a lot of weird words.”

“How?” By a process of contrarian logic known only to the young, Alanis sounded almost impressed.

“I told you,” said Audrey. “I’m old and uncool.”

“You’re not uncool. You’re peripatetic.”

“Wandering. Which we actually are. So I think one of us has won but I can’t tell which.”

Alanis flashed an Instagrammable smile. “How about both of us?”

Which—damningly—was the most mature thing Audrey had heard all week.

The lights of Patchley House were golden against the darkening sky, almost magical and, funnily enough, crepuscular. Had she not been getting yoinked along by an overenthusiastic teenager, Audrey might have stopped to take it in. The problem with living somewhere beautiful—and she’d lived in beautiful places for much of her life—was that you got inured to the specifics of it. And sometimes a new, hitherto unnoticed, specific would sneak up on you, and it would be like you were seeing the world for the first time all over again. Except that feeling got rarer the longer you stuck around. And, for a while, especially living in London, Audrey thought she’d lost it entirely. That it had just faded away, like so many other things.

Coming back to Shropshire had taught her that it hadn’t, and moments like this—looking up a hill at a stately home in the twilight—reinforced the lesson. But that sense of wonder still felt fragile enough that she regretted having to let it go. Unfortunately the alternative was to turn to her teenage companion and say, Hey can we just stop and appreciate some quiet beauty because we might never see it again, which might just have pushed her, in Alanis’s eyes, from uncool into irredeemably sad.

“I’m starving,” declared Alanis, substantially less concerned with the ache of the transient and ephemeral than with the buffet, which was being served al fresco outside the main dining hall.

They were making their way over to join the other contestants when a weaselly looking man with a clipboard descended on them from somewhere in the small city-state of technical vehicles and trailers that were parked on the less conspicuous side of the grounds.

“I’m terribly sorry to bother you,” he began in the tones of a man who was always sorry to bother you but would never allow his sorrow to detract from his bothersomeness. “Are you the journalist?”

He was looking directly at Alanis when he said it, which Audrey tried to blame on the light but which she suspected was more to do with the fact that serious reporters weren’t meant to get yanked around country estates by actual children.

“I’m the journalist,” Audrey clarified.

“Jennifer wants to see you.”

It had been an abrupt introduction, and Audrey wasn’t sure she wanted to reward abruptness. “Sorry, who are you?”

The man winced as though he’d accidentally taken a vegan to a restaurant that served nothing but veal and foie gras. Then he held out a shaky hand and said, “Thrimp. Colin Thrimp. Jennifer’s assistant. Jennifer Hallet. She’s in charge of”—he made an expansive gesture—“well, everything really. And she wants to talk to you especially because of your . . . you know . . .”

Audrey should have seen something like this coming. Nobody trusted media people, especially other media people. “Job?”

He nodded.

“Does she think I’m going to write some kind of searing exposé?”

Alanis grinned in a way that Audrey didn’t think she’d have had the confidence to grin, even at sixteen. “You should. That’d be effervescent.”

“Stop it,” said Audrey, trying to sound playful rather than snappish and mostly succeeding.

Colin wrung his hands. “Can you just go to see her? She said I had to bring you to her yesterday, which normally means soon and it’s already been a bit longer than soon and she’ll be in a fearful mood if you don’t go and speak to her.”

“How fearful, exactly?” asked Audrey. It had been a long day and an executive in a fearful mood—or really any kind of mood—fell pretty close to last on her list of things she wanted to deal with.

“Fearfully fearful.”

It wasn’t the most helpful of answers, but Audrey had met several Colin Thrimps in her life and didn’t think there was much point protesting further. After taking a responsible but obviously futile moment to make certain that Alanis would be okay on her own (she was, she was probably okayer than most adults would have been by a long way), Audrey set off in search of the fearfully fearful producer.

***

Jennifer Hallet’s trailer was unmarked, which made it mildly awkward for Audrey to find, but only mildly. Her keen investigative instincts told her to try the biggest, swankiest one, and the biggest, swankiest one it was.

She knocked on the door and then stood outside waiting. When she’d been waiting for just long enough that she was about to give up, a voice from within called out, “Who the fuck is it?”

“It’s Audrey?” she tried. “Audrey Lane.”

There was the sound of movement and then the door was thrown open by the most intimidating woman Audrey had ever seen. Jennifer was tall and cold-eyed, with lips that curled into a permanent frown. There was something arresting about the sheer concentrated hostility of her, almost a challenge—the most undirected, universal kind of challenge, as if she was telling the entire world to come and have a go if it thought it was hard enough. And Audrey only realised she’d been staring when Jennifer asked her, quite pointedly, what she was staring at.

“Sorry, I—you wanted to see me. I’m the journalist.”

“Oh that. Took you long enough.”

“Your assistant only just found me.”

“Then it took him long enough.” Jennifer went back inside the trailer and, suspecting that waiting for an invitation would be an exercise in futility, Audrey followed her.

Inside, she found a setup that looked one step more supervillain than was strictly necessary. While the wall of constantly shifting monitors was probably a legitimate necessity of the job, and the various keyboards, microphones, and panels of miscellaneous switches likely had their uses, the enormous black swivel chair was a Persian cat away from full Blofeld. Right in the middle of the functionality to evil spectrum were the two smaller seats that had been set up at optimal bollocking distance.

“I just thought,” Jennifer said in a voice as smooth and pleasant as honey over razor blades, “that we should have a nice, polite, face-to-face conversation so that we can both be crystal fucking clear how our relationship is going to work.”

Settling herself onto a bollocking chair, Audrey did her best to remain composed. “If you like, but I’m not sure what there is to—”

“I’ve got your number, sunshine.”

“Which number, exactly?”

“Seventy-nine thousand, four hundred and six.”

To anybody else, the number would have been meaningless. But to Audrey it had a very clear, very specific meaning. It was the circulation of the Shropshire Echo. “We get over half a million unique visits on our website as well.”

“And do you know what I do with half a million unique visits?” asked Jennifer.

Audrey was pretty sure she could tell where this was going, and how this particular TV big shot liked to express herself. “Do you, perhaps, wipe your arse with them?”

“I do fucking not. Because they’re a fucking ephemeral concept, and if I tried to wipe my arse with an ephemeral concept I’d wind up with shit on my fingers.” Jennifer paused, definitely more for effect than for breath. “What I do is I look at them and I say, Well gosh, what a tiny pissing number of unique visits, then I go back to my job making one of the biggest shows on television and then I say to myself, I hope no miserable little spunkstain—”

“Please don’t call me a spunkstain,” replied Audrey with a professional calm that she was, in the circumstances, pretty fucking proud of.

“I’m sorry.” Jennifer didn’t even blink. “Am I being demeaning? Let’s try again. I hope no miserable little sack of piss-drenched baby wipes comes crawling up here from fucking Shropshire to try to wank her ten minutes of relevance out of my years of back-breaking work. But oh look, it seems Satan has jizzed in my cornflakes again, because here you are.”

Well wasn’t this the beginning of a beautiful friendship? Clearly the politely-set-boundaries plan had failed, so Audrey shifted to the be-visibly-unfazed plan. “You knew where I worked when I applied.”

“I did. You ticked some boxes and we needed a quirky rural one for this season so I thought I’d take the risk. But I know journalists”—Here it comes, said Audrey’s inner cynic—“You’re like the fucking police.”

“Never off duty?” Audrey finished.

“Pricks.”

“I don’t suppose”—Audrey shifted slightly in a chair she was sure had been deliberately chosen to be as buttock aggravating as possible—“you have a less sweary mode of communication you could fall back on?”

“Fuck off.”

“Thought so.” She adjusted her position again to stop her arse from falling asleep. “In that case, let me just reassure you that I work for a local paper, about local things, and so unless you happen to have a contestant from Cleobury Mortimer, there’s nothing here for me to write about.”

Jennifer folded her arms like a statue of Stalin. “That’s what you say. But I know what you people are like. You get one sniff of—”

Despite not having been told she could go, Audrey stood up. “Look, you’ve warned me not to mess with your program. I’ve told you I have no intention of messing with your program. I’m not sure what more you want me to say.”

It seemed like there was more Jennifer could have said, but it also seemed the get-up-and-agree combo had taken the wind out of her sails.

“So I think we’re on the same page?” Audrey confirmed.

Jennifer looked like she was about to nod and couldn’t quite bring herself to. “Hang on, there’s no we here.”

The sensible thing to do was to get out. Because while Jennifer had a number of qualities that made sticking around a very tempting prospect—like legs for days and dark eyes that felt like they could look right through you if they didn’t always seem to be looking at something else—her temperament wasn’t one of them. And maybe it was the journey, or just being in a strange stately home, but Audrey wasn’t in a sensible mood. So she lingered a moment, and pushed her luck. “We’re having a conversation. That’s a we.”

“This isn’t a conversation. This is a—”

“A what? A scolding? I’ve not really done anything scold-worthy, so from where I’m standing this is either a conversation or it’s you inviting me onto your show—something you didn’t have to do in the first place—then preemptively deciding I’m going to screw you and hauling me into your office to be a dick for no reason.”

“Is that how you see it?” Unexpectedly, the producer sounded almost defensive. In fact if Audrey let herself use her optimistic ears, it might even have been defensiveness with an undertone of grudging respect.

Deciding words had done their job, Audrey nodded precisely once.

“I will admit,” conceded Jennifer in a tone like she was revealing state secrets, “that I could have blocked your application if I wanted to, and I didn’t.”

“Because?” asked Audrey, aware that if she came across as too curious she’d confirm all of Jennifer’s worst suspicions.

“Because this season needs to be perfect and you—from a certain perspective—are perfect.”

Audrey knew better than to be flattered by people in positions of authority saying things that seemed superficially positive. Even if they meant it, they didn’t mean what you wanted them to mean. “Perfect how?”

“Memorable look, interesting job, ticks a diversity box.”

“The gay box or the heavy box?” asked Audrey, determined not to let Jennifer’s tone affect her in any way.

“Both, but mostly body positivity. Honestly the gay thing counts against you—ginger and sparkly from last season are still looking cute all over fucking TikTok, so the allies”—she almost spat the word—“are in the bag. We go too queer this year and we’ll lose the Middle England Tory voter market.”

This was still feeling like bait. “Is that a market you want to keep?”

“Do they have money? Then yes. Plus the fuckers run the country and that includes BBC funding, so we need to reflect the rich and beautiful diversity of these islands while also pretending that we hate immigrants and are very concerned about trans people. That’s public service broadcasting.”

It was a deathly cynical attitude, but one Audrey recognised even if wasn’t usually stated so openly. “You’re meant to be apolitical, which in practice means agreeing with the home secretary?”

Jennifer nodded. “Would you look at that, she gets it. Welcome to the magical world where Brexit wasn’t a shitshow, the only minorities who exist are charmingly nonthreatening, and you can only be fat if you’re also pretty.”

Pretty wasn’t an adjective Audrey would have used to describe herself. Although that did make her fatally susceptible to its use by other people. “Fuck, am I here to be one of the good ones?”

To that, Jennifer offered a frankly wicked grin. “How’s it feel?”

“Fine,” replied Audrey, still defiantly unperturbed.

A look of genuine dismay crept across Jennifer’s face. “I hope you’re not going to make me like you, sunshine. I can’t think of anything worse. Now if we’re done, perhaps you could be so kind as to get the fuck out of my sight.”

It was, Audrey thought, about the most literal example of mixed messages she could possibly imagine. And it left her with the nagging sense that this wasn’t the last time she was going to run afoul of Jennifer’s highly specific worldview. Along with the still more nagging suspicion that she couldn’t quite tell if she was dreading their next run-in or looking forward to it.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘Audrey Lane Stirs the Pot’ by Alexis Hall appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

About She Doesn’t Have A Clue: With a colorful cast of characters and a cellar full of wine, anything can happen—from murder to a second chance at love—in Jenny Elder Moke’s half mystery, half romance adult debut set at a lavish destination wedding.

The trees have been dragged to the curb, traces of tinsel glint forlornly in the corner, and the cheery scent of cinnamon and butter no longer permeate the house. It’s official – we’ve hit the winter doldrums. But we’ve got the perfect cure for those early sunsets and chilly evenings – a list of eight cozy mysteries to keep the blood pumping, with a strong twist of romance to bring the spice and melt your heart.

She Doesn’t Have A Clue by Jenny Elder Moke

A locked room murder mystery on a remote island at a lavish society wedding during a raging storm that features a second-chance romance? Say less! When best-selling mystery writer, Kate Valentine, shows up at her ex-fiancé/current editor’s wedding weekend, she’s hoping to find some quiet time to finish her (extremely overdue) latest novel. What she stumbles across instead is the bride’s lifeless body, staged to look like a scene out of one of Kate’s mystery novels. Now, instead of toasting the bride and groom, Kate is roasting on the hot seat as the prime suspect, and the only person on her side is Jake Hawkins – aka the Hotstralian, aka Kate’s biggest romantic regret. Will Kate catch a killer before the bouquet toss, or end up locked up before the last dance?

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter

Christmas may have come and gone, but Carter knows how to write a fun, sexy mystery that will keep you warm year-round. When cozy mystery queen Maggie Chase gets invited to a mysterious Christmas house party at an English estate, she can’t say no. At least until she learns that her biggest rival, Ethan Wyatt of John Grisham-style thrillers fame is also in attendance. But she’s willing to ignore his presence when she learns who their host is – the biggest mystery writer in the world, Eleanor Ashley. When Eleanor disappears from a locked room overnight, Maggie and Ethan have to work together to figure out what is fact and what is fiction as they search for the missing Duchess of Death. As the snow starts piling up, so do the clues, and the heat is on (in more ways than one). These rivals-to-lovers will have to get on the same page if they want to rescue Eleanor.

 

The Body in the Backyard by Lucy Score

The latest in romance queen Score’s Riley Thorn series finds the psychic detective and her PI boyfriend taking on the last case either of them wishes to handle – Riley’s ex-husband. Someone is out to get him, and he needs Riley’s help. With a quirky cast of characters, a satisfying level of spice, and an ending you never see coming, The Body in the Backyard is an excellent addition to the series.

 

In Want of a Suspect by Tirzah Price

A spin off of her massively popular Jane Austin Murder Mystery series, In Want of a Suspect follows Lizzie Bennett and Mr. Darcy as they investigate a warehouse fire that leaves someone dead and lands a figure from Mr. Darcy’s past at the top of the suspects list. Fans of Price’s Pride and Premeditation will love to see more of Lizzie and Darcy, and fans of Jane Austen will delight at all the in-world callbacks (hello, Dashwoods!) If the historical cozy mystery vibes and fresh perspective on a timeless classic don’t hook you on this one, the adorable cross-stitch cover design will. 

 

Do Your Worst by Rosie Danan

Another delightful genre mash-up, this time bringing together paranormal and romance to tell a steamy, spooky story that will be sure to haunt you long after you’re done reading (see what we did there?). Another entry in the “enemies-to-lovers stuck in a remote mansion” category, this time we see occult specialist Riley Rhodes paired with by-the-book archaeologist Clark Edgeware as the two vie for control of an infamous Scottish castle. Danan is no stranger to flirty banter and well-executed spicy scenes, and the chemistry between Riley and Clark is no different. We’re booking our tickets to the Scottish Highlands asap.

 

Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson

It’s hard to imagine “is my hot neighbor possibly a serial killer?” as the perfect meet-cute, but Thompson pulls it off in this ode to the women who love true crime, and the men who (attempt) to love them. Phoebe Walsh is a true crime obsessed PhD candidate dragged home to clear out the childhood home of her estranged father, when she runs into a mysterious barefoot man outside her house late at night offering to help her move some furniture (as if she’d fall for such an obvious gambit). But when Phoebe learns the man is her father’s neighbor, Sam Dennings, she assumes the nice guy act is a cover for something far more sinister. As Phoebe investigates what she is sure will be the true crime discovery of the century, she finds something far more potentially dangerous – a nice guy who might just capture her heart.

 

‘Til Heist Do Us Part by Sara Desai

For those readers looking for an Ocean’s Eight meets Bonnie and Clyde vibe, this spicy heist series is the ticket! Simi Chopra leads the most motley crew beside her partner in crime, Jack Danger, and after pulling off the diamond heist of the century, they’re broke and looking for work again. But when the mafia boss they stole the necklace from comes calling to demand the return of his jewels, they have to partner with Jack’s arch-nemesis to save their hides. With plenty of action, whip-smart banter, and enough tension to keep you tearing through the pages, this series is perfect to fill those long, dull winter nights.

 

Murder Most Actual by Alexis Hall

Millennial cozies are on a Scottish Highlands kick, and we are here for it! When true crime podcaster Liza takes a trip with her wife, Hanna, to a remote Scottish castle, they’re both just looking for a weekend to repair their strained marriage. What they find, instead, is an Agatha Christie-level murder scene. Perfect for fans of Knives Out and Clue, with the outlandish side characters you expect to see in such a loving entry to the zany cozy category. But Hall infuses her humorous story with real heart in the complicated portrait of a marriage in serious need of work. Watching these two characters find their way back to each other while the bodies pile up will leave you feeling warm and fuzzy long after you finish reading.

 

The post Eight Romantic Mysteries To Keep You Cosy This Winter appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

About The Seemingly Impossible Love Life of Amanda Dean: A queer love story told in a series of flashbacks, starting from the self-described bi-disaster’s wedding day, and moving back and forth in time through her past relationships as our heroine discovers herself and readers discover who finally won her heart. 

Nothing is more romantic than a wedding. At least that’s what Amanda Dean would say; although I’m sure her best friend would disagree. Regardless, if the couple elopes or plans the perfect day down to the pink peonies tied with gold ribbon (looking at you Mandy) no one can refute that weddings—good or bad—always have a flair for the dramatics. So let’s take a look at some sensational wedding romances (that also have queer characters) that you need to make sure are on your TBR.

The Lovers by Rebekah Faubion

Full disclosure, Rebekah and I are published with the same imprint and our release dates are a week apart so we were destined to be bffs, and I couldn’t have a list about weddings without this wonderful second chance romance.

If Kit Larson believes one thing, it’s that the cards never lie. She’s seen it proven time and time again as a tarot reader and mystic influencer. But unfortunately the cards didn’t warn her about her most recent breakup or her parents’ divorce, so when Kit is offered a gig at another influencer’s boho-chic Joshua Tree wedding she accepts for the distraction. And distract it does when she finds out her high school crush, Julia, is the wedding planner.

Julia Kelley is her agency’s most sought-after wedding planner, and for a good reason—she’s a perfectionist. Control means never showing others the vulnerable, blobby mess she really is deep down inside. Having an ex-girlfriend in the bridal party is a problem, sure, but reconnecting with the beautiful tarot reader who broke her heart as a teenager is so much worse.

Kit’s cards once told her that she and Julia were Twin Flames, two halves of the same soul. With wedding events pushing them together, their spark reignites . . . and so does a chance at being lovers.

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake

This enemies to lovers has all the tension and then some, so when this couple finally gets together you will need a cold shower.

Delilah Green swore she would never go back to Bright Falls—nothing is there for her but memories of a lonely childhood where she was little more than a burden to her cold and distant stepfamily. Her life is in New York, with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure, it’s a different woman every night, but that’s just fine with her.

When Delilah’s estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her wedding with a guilt trip and a five-figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home. She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astrid’s stuck-up besties, and decides that maybe there’s some fun (and a little retribution) to be had in Bright Falls, after all.
 
Having raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise…at first. Though they’ve known each other for years, they don’t really know each other—so Claire is unsettled when Delilah figures out exactly what buttons to push. When they’re forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparations—including a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancé—Claire isn’t sure she has the strength to resist Delilah’s charms. Even worse, she’s starting to think she doesn’t want to…

The Fiancé Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur

Fake dating is an extreme sport when the main characters in this book announce their (fake) engagement.

Tansy Adams’ greatest love is her family’s bookstore, passed down from her late father. But when it comes to actual romance… Tansy can’t get past the first chapter. Tired of her stepfamily’s questions about her love life, Tansy invents Gemma, a fake girlfriend inspired by the stunning cover model on a bestselling book. They’ll never actually meet, so what’s the harm in a little fib? Yet when real-life Gemma crosses Tansy’s path, her white lie nearly implodes.

Gemma van Dalen is a wild child, the outcast of her wealthy family, and now the latest heir to Van Dalen Publishing. But the title comes with one tiny condition: she must be married in order to inherit. When Gemma discovers a beautiful stranger has been pretending to date her for months, she decides to take the charade one step further—and announces their engagement.

Gemma needs a wife to meet the terms of her grandfather’s will and Tansy needs money to save her struggling bookstore. A marriage could be mutually beneficial, if they can fool everyone into thinking it’s a love match. Unexpected sparks fly as Tansy and Gemma play the role of affectionate fiancées, and suddenly the line between convenient arrangement and real feelings begins to blur. But the scheming Van Dalen family won’t give up the company without a fight, and Gemma and Tansy’s newfound happiness might get caught in the fallout…

Husband Material by Alexis Hall

In the first book they pretended to fall in love and then actually did, now the pressure to walk down the aisle is strong, but will they make it?

Wanted:
One (very real) husband
Nowhere near perfect but desperately trying his best

In BOYFRIEND MATERIAL, Luc and Oliver met, pretended to fall in love, fell in love for real, dealt with heartbreak and disappointment and family and friends…and somehow figured out a way to make it work. Now it seems like everyone around them is getting married, and Luc’s feeling the social pressure to propose. But it’ll take more than four weddings, a funeral, and a bowl full of special curry to get these two from I don’t know what I’m doing to I do.

Good thing Oliver is such perfect HUSBAND MATERIAL.

Love at First Set by Jennifer Dugan

Ruining a wedding by inadvertently telling the bride to leave the groom is one thing, falling for the bride is another. Oh the drama!!  

The gym is Lizzie’s life–it’s her passion, her job, and the only place that’s ever felt like home. Unfortunately, her bosses consider her a glorified check-in girl at best, and the gym punching bag at worst.

When their son, Lizzie’s best friend, James, begs her to be his plus one at his perfect sister Cara’s wedding, things go wrong immediately, and culminate in Lizzie giving a drunken pep talk to a hot stranger in the women’s bathroom–except that stranger is actually the bride-to-be, and Lizzie has accidentally convinced her to ditch her groom.

Now, newly directionless Cara is on a quest to find herself, and Lizzie–desperate to make sure her bosses never find out her role in this fiasco–gets strong-armed by James into “entertaining” her. Cara doesn’t have to know it’s a setup; it’ll just be a quick fling before she sobers up and goes back to her real life. After all, how could someone like Cara fall for someone like Lizzie, with no career and no future?

But the more Lizzie gets to know Cara, the more she likes her, and the bigger the potential disaster if any of her rapidly multiplying secrets get out. Because now it’s not just Lizzie’s job and entire future on the line, but also the girl of her dreams.

No Rings Attached by Rachel Lacey

When you don’t have a date to your brother’s wedding, just ask your best friend to set you up—what the worst that could happen? Who knows maybe you’ll even fall in love.

Lia Harris is tired of being the odd one out. She’s never quite fit in with her uptight family, and now that her roommates have all found love, she’s starting to feel like a third wheel in her own apartment. Fed up with her mother’s constant meddling in her love life, Lia drops hints about a girlfriend she doesn’t have.

But with her brother’s London nuptials approaching, she needs to find a date to save face. Lia turns to her best friend, Rosie, for help, and Rosie delivers—with the fun, gorgeous Grace Poston.

Grace loves to have a good time, hiding her insecurities behind a sunny smile. Her recent move to London has provided her with a much-needed fresh start. Grace isn’t looking for love, and she hates weddings, having weathered more than her fair share of heartache. Friendships are different, though, so for Rosie’s sake, she reluctantly agrees to pose as Lia’s adoring girlfriend for the wedding festivities.

Both Grace and Lia are prepared for an awkward weekend, complete with prying family members and a guest room with only one bed. As it turns out, they get along well—spectacularly, in fact. Before they know it, the chemistry they’re faking feels all too real. But is their wedding weekend a fleeting performance or the rehearsal for a love that’s meant to last?

Forever and a Day by Haley Cass

If you loved watching them fall in love, you will love this follow up of Sutton and Charolette, and scenes from their life together after the end of the first book—Those Who Wait.

Good things come to those who wait and now Sutton Spencer and Charlotte Thompson get to reap the benefits. They spent months circling around admitting their feelings, but the time for denying their love is over.

As the world watches, their lives never stop growing. The only thing that’s for certain is that through every hurdle that comes their way, they’ll face it together.

A collection of snapshots of a life lived and loved. A follow-up to the bestselling novel, Those Who Wait.

Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun

Fake engagements aren’t easy especially when you fall for your fake fiancé’s sister—now pair this with a holiday romance and this charming story really has it all. Watch out Hallmark.  

One year ago, recent Portland transplant Ellie Oliver had her dream job in animation and a Christmas Eve meet-cute with a woman at a bookstore that led her to fall in love over the course of a single night. But after a betrayal the next morning and the loss of her job soon after, she finds herself adrift, alone, and desperate for money.

Finding work at a local coffee shop, she’s just getting through the days—until Andrew, the shop’s landlord, proposes a shocking, drunken plan: a marriage of convenience that will give him his recent inheritance and alleviate Ellie’s financial woes and isolation. They make a plan to spend the holidays together at his family cabin to keep up the ruse. But when Andrew introduces his new fiancée to his sister, Ellie is shocked to discover it’s Jack—the mysterious woman she fell for over the course of one magical Christmas Eve the year before. Now, Ellie must choose between the safety of a fake relationship and the risk of something real.

The post Eight Queer Romance Novels with Weddings appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

At its heart, 10 Things is a story about found family; which is especially relevant during the holiday season…but also of family (re)found. What is it about a British holiday season that brings people together? 

It’s interesting that you’d characterise the book as being about found family—as a boringly consistent believer in death of the author I’d never want to dismiss any reading of the text but I think to me found family is something quite particular. I suspect that part of the issue here is that “found family “is one of those terms that gets used a lot but doesn’t actually have a generally accepted definition. Although thinking about it, so is “family” in general.

I’d agree that it’s a book about finding family, but the type of family it’s about finding is very specific. And I think that’s possibly why my answer to this question has got so rambling and is growing steadily ramblinger. Something I try (not always successfully) to avoid is dualistic thinking, and so part of the reason I’m hesitant to use the term “found family” to describe the dynamics at play in 10 Things is that I don’t want to fall into the trap of using “found family” as an umbrella term to mean “anything that isn’t a 1950s nuclear family with a single male breadwinner, a housewife, and two point four kids who the housewife personally gave birth to “.

The family dynamics in 10TTNH (TTTNH? T3NH?) are intended to evoke the dynamics of a working class extended family. There’s elements of that that are similar to the nuclear family—it’s mostly based on relationships of blood or marriage—and that are similar to what we call “found family”—everybody I knew had at least one “uncle” or “auntie” that was actually just somebody who was friends with their parents or grandparents. And it’s ultimately that specific dynamic that Sam (for spoiler reasons) is looking for. Part of his journey in the book is actually that he starts out trying to get something more like a traditional “found family” with the staff at Splashes & Snuggles, and it doesn’t work because it’s not really what either he or they are looking for.

So in that context, the question of what it is about the holiday season that brings people together is—in some ways it’s a bit of a clinical-sounding answer—simply culture. Getting the whole family together for the holidays is just what you do in the culture that Sam and Jonathan both come from. Quite often it actually sucks, there’s invariably a row, and getting the whole family together means having to deal with the local equivalent of your uncle who gets his news from Facebook; but not doing it means being cut off from a part of your identity. Which sounds at once distancing and dramatic but I think it’s quite important to recognise that “culture” isn’t just high art and things you read about in textbooks or travelogues; it’s the things you take completely for granted because you do them because you always have. Also I’ve written an awful lot of books about the importance of found family, or about the toxic elements of more conventional families, and I wanted to make sure I was exploring those ideas from more directions.

Sorry, that got long. I hope it answered the question though?

At one point, Jonathan reveals a tiny bit of intel about the Luc he knew in university…were these two ever really friend material? 

Once again, death of the author; whatever dynamic you want to imagine Luc and Jonathan having at university is completely fine and no more valid than my take. If you’re out there writing Lunathan university hookup fics, please go right ahead, it’s not my job to tell you otherwise (for legal reasons I assert my derivative works rights etc etc).

Having said that: oh God no. Something that I’ve always danced around in the Material books is that Luc is actually from an absurdly privileged background. He acts all down-to-earth and this-is-me-eating-pizza-in-my-flat but his parents were multimillionaire rock stars. By contrast, Jonathan’s entire personality was shaped by childhood experiences that left him acutely aware that a slight shift in the economy could take away everything you have and uproot your life. That’s not an insurmountable disconnect, but it’s an enormous one, and you’d only really make the effort to get over it if you felt some kind of connection to the other person, and (in, I should stress my personal headcanon that is no more valid than anybody else’s personal headcanon) Jonathan and Luc never really connected.

If Jonathan is Scrooge…who would Sam be, in Dickensian terms? (And Gollum?)

If we’re talking Dickensian then we’re clearly talking A Christmas Carol, and if we’re talking A Christmas Carol then we’re clearly talking the best possible version of A Christmas Carol.

In which case Sam and Gollum are clearly Rizzo the Rat and the Great Gonzo. And actually I think that might be in the correct order. Gollum is clearly the one in charge in that relationship.

If you were Jonathan, what would be your favorite holiday tradition, which you’d never actually admit to your family?

I suspect Jonathan’s favourite holiday tradition actually is the one that’s explicitly in the book, where every member of the family has a personal decoration that they put on the tree and once those are up it is Officially Christmas.

I think he might also secretly quite like charades. Although I also think he’s probably terrible at it. And might have a tendency to blame other people when his team loses.

POV: You’re Gollum. You know you should love Samwise more, but you find yourself circling Jonathan more and more. What gives?

Y’see it’s questions like this that are going to make people think I don’t like cats.

I am Gollum. I am a fucking cat. That means I am not a pack animal and that I see every other living organism as something to be eaten, fled from, exploited, or ignored. I appreciate Sam because Sam knows how to get the food out of those weird cylindrical rocks, that’s why I carry on allowing him to live in my house. Jonathan, however, doesn’t make direct eye contact with me, and to my species that’s a sign of submission. I judge from this that he is more likely to bring me food and my judgement has, thus far, been correct. Therefore I permit him to carry on living in my new larger, nicer house.

Love Actually…yes or no? (And either way, what is your favorite holiday rom-com flick?)

Yes with caveats. Like obviously huge amounts of it are somewhere on the spectrum of problematic to terrible but despite what pop culture keeps trying to convince us that social media says, it is actually possible to appreciate something even if it doesn’t 100% align with your personal social and political values. Besides, Bill Nighy takes his trousers off in it, which easily puts it into the top ten seasonal movies all by itself.

As for my favourite—the troll answer of course is to pretend there’s a debate about whether Die Hard is a holiday rom-com or just a movie with holidays, romance and comedy in it. But I think the real answer, or at least the answer I’d feel churlish not giving since it was such a big influence on T3NH, is While You Were Sleeping. It’s sweet, affirming, goes to some surprisingly dark places, and has Sandra Bullock in it. What more could I possibly want?

Chapter One

IT PROBABLY SAYS GOOD THINGS about modern Britain— or maybe just about modern Liverpool— that when I was growing up, I got way less shit for being gay than I got for being

named after a hobbit. And while I’m glad my classmates weren’t homophobic, the hobbit thing did hack me off a little, especially because the hobbit I was named after wasn’t even one of the weird ones. If I’d been called Meriadoc or Fatty Bolger that’d have been one thing, but my name was Sam. Still is Sam, really. But my full legal name is Samwise Eoin Becker and so every time I started a new class, on the first day, the teacher would be reading the register and they’d call out “Samwise” and I’d have to say, “here miss” and that’d be it from then on. It didn’t help that the first set of movies came out just as I was starting primary school and the second set hit just as I was starting my GCSEs, so I had jokes about second breakfast and hairy feet from the age of five until I was eighteen.

Still, you’ve got to laugh, don’t you? My dad taught me that.

And it’s probably the most useful thing I’ve ever learned.

For example:

“Hey, Ban,” yells one of my employees. He knows what I’m really called, but this is Amjad, and Amjad is even nerdier than my mam and so once he found out I’d been named after a hobbit he thought it was hilarious to refer to me by Sam’s original Westron name from the appendices that he apparently knew off the top of his head. And I let him get away with it because at least it was an original bit, “they’re going to need you in bedding.”

I love my team. Not love love, obviously. More tolerate bemusedly. But the phrase they’re going to need you in bedding inspires a feeling so far from confidence I might almost call it concern.

“Why?” I ask.

The only answer Amjad gives is the only answer I need. “Brian.”

So I give a small internal fuck and head over to the afflicted department. Bedding’s half the store so I’ve got quite a wide area to search, but Brian has a way of creating a little zone of chaos around himself so I’m not terribly worried about finding him.

And find him I do. He’s standing next to the Country Living Hamsterley mattress, which with its double layered calico pocket springs, hand-teased soft natural fibres of lambswool and mohair, and one hundred percent natural Belgian damask, is one of the most luxurious, most expensive, and—importantly—most not-to-be-trusted-around-Brian mattresses in the store.

He’s looking flustered. He’s also holding an extremely ominous mug.

“Please,” I tell him as soon as I’m close enough to be heard without shouting, “please for the love of everything tell me you did not just spill tea on the Country Living Hamsterley mattress with the double layered calico pocket springs and the hand-teased natural fibres.”

“No,” he says, “I didn’t.”

And like I muppet, I let myself feel relieved.

“I spilled coffee on it,” he explains.

It’s not the detail I should pick up on. It’s really not. “I didn’t think you drank coffee.”

“I don’t.” He’s doing his best to look apologetic. “But I thought Claire might want one so I was bringing a mug through to the office just in case and, well, here we are.”

So many details to address. And so little time. “And you picked a path straight past the most expensive mattress in the store because…?”

“Well, I thought I should steer clear of the Flaxby Nature’s Finest 9450 Pillow Top on account of what happened last week.”

The fact that I hadn’t been aware of anything at all happening last week as regarded the Flaxby Nature’s Finest 9450 Pillow Top probably said not-entirely-great things about me as a manager.

“Should I ask?”

“Well, I was having a jam sandwich—”

“You got jam on the Flaxby Nature’s Finest 9450 Pillow Top?”

Brian nods, sheepishly. “It’s fine though, I got Tiffany to help me flip it over, so it doesn’t show.”

Once again, I make the mistake of feeling relieved. Then the bits of my brain that are professionally required to know how beds work start talking to each other. “Hang on Brian, you can’t flip a pillow top mattress. Because it’s got a pillow top. On the top.”

“Ooh.” Brian winces a way you ideally never want a man in charge of two grands’ worth of mattress to wince.

I decide that the pillow top issue can wait. “Well, I suppose we can at least flip this one. Come on.”

Flipping the mattress is hard work but at least it’s simple work and, once I’ve reminded him to put the bloody mug down, Brian can handle it with something approaching competence. We heave it up onto one side, pivot it about the middle, and lay it down nicely on the frame that’s being used to display it. Then I step back and check it looks okay, and I see another large, brown stain spread right across the middle.

“Ah,” says Brian, “now that one is tea.”

I’m heading back from bedding, trying to work out how to replace not one but two display models of high-end mattresses, when Claire, my assistant manager, sticks her head out of the office door and yells, “His Royal Dickishness is on the phone” the entire length of the store. Which she follows with, “And don’t worry, I’ve got him muted.”

“That just means,” I yell back, “that you can’t hear him, not that he can’t hear you.”

“Well, balls.”

One of these days I’m going to have to do something about Claire’s habit of calling our boss His Royal Dickishness. And also about her habit of shouting swear words across the showroom. And also, for that matter, about Brian just, y’know, in general.

Though I’m guessing that right now His Royal Dickishness is going to care more about the swearing.

I’m guessing right.

“So”—Jonathan Forest’s slightly too-polished accent glides down the phone line and into my ears—“this isn’t what I was originally calling you about but why the hell is your assistant manager

calling me a His Royal Dickishness in front of what sounded like the whole shop?”

There’s no way to cover for this, but I try anyway for Claire’s sake. “It’s affectionate?”

“How’s it affectionate?”

“It’s a northern thing. Y’know, like when you’ve got a mate you call y’bastard.”

“I lived in the north for sixteen years,” says Jonathan Forest—he likes to bring that up because it makes him sound more working class even though he’s a rich fucker who only gives a fuck about other rich fuckers. “And I never had a mate I called y’bastard.”

Privately, I think he’d probably never had a mate. “I’m just saying it’s how folk talk.”

“Even so, bastard,” he says bastard with a short a like a normal person, even if everything else he says sounds like one of the shitter royals, “has a very different connotation to dickish.”

“It’s the same principle,” I try. It sounds weak even to me.

“Okay.” I’m pretty sure Jonathan Forest isn’t actually a robot, but I almost hear his brain click as he moves on. “While this isn’t what I wanted to talk about, it’s very much connected to it.”

Oh fuck, he knows I call him a dick as well. We all call him a dick because he’s a dick. The way I see it, if you didn’t want people calling you a dick, you shouldn’t be a dick. “Is it?” I ask, trying not to sound too much like he’s just caught me wanking.

“Splashes & Snuggles has three branches now and a fourth opening next year. The Croydon branch is performing as I expect it to. The Leeds branch is performing as I expect it to. The Sheffield branch, decidedly, is not.”

Probably not the time to tell him one of my employees just wrecked four grand’s worth of mattress with a tea run. “In what way exactly are we not performing as you expect us to?”

“You’re over budget and under target. And, frankly, I’m a bit concerned you don’t already know that.”

Oh why does this dick have to be such a dick. Yes, we are technically a bit over budget what with all the stock Brian has trashed, and yes, we are technically a bit under target but that’s because his targets are bollocks. “I know what the figures are, Jonathan. But we’re a new store, it’s a competitive area, and we’re getting pretty close.”

“I didn’t hire you to get pretty close.” Somehow he manages to sneer just with his voice. “I hired you to meet the goals I give you, and if you can’t, I’ll find someone who can.”

Part of me really wants to say “fine, do that”. This job’s not worth putting up with this kind of crap. Except it’s not just my job we’re talking about. If I go then Jonathan Forest replaces me with

somebody who’ll give him his precious fucking “targets” and then what’ll happen to Claire and Amjad and Brian and the rest of them? So I don’t push back. Instead, I try to walk that line between promising results I won’t deliver and giving him an excuse to replace me with someone who will. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

“I’ve already worked something out.” He gives the tiniest, tiniest pause and then his tone softens just faintly. “I don’t want to let you go, Sam. I think you’ve got it in you to be a really good manager.”

You patronising shit. As far as I’m concerned, I’m already a good manager. Or at least as good a manager as you can expect in a second-rate bed-and-bath showroom in a competitive area with a team full of Brians.

Claire is holding up a piece of paper. It says, Is he being a dick?

I mouth yes obviously back at her, and she holds up another piece of paper saying sorry I can’t read lips. Normally this would be fine, but normally I’m not trying to work out whether I’m at risk of losing my job. I wave at her to get her to stop. She doesn’t. And there’s no way she was ever going to, but I like to pretend I’m in charge sometimes.

“…so that’s why,” Jonathan’s saying when I can focus on him again, “I want you to come to Croydon tomorrow so you can see how I do things.”

Tomorrow is Friday. My least favourite day for going to London. My favourite day for going to London is never. “We’re actually quite busy what with the run up to Christmas.”

“I’m sure Claire can handle it. She seems to have a lot of time on her hands. Certainly she has enough time to invent ‘affectionate’ nicknames for me.”

Looks like patronising shit is still where we are. “Claire is a valued member of the team and…”

Now Claire is brandishing an elaborate and lovingly rendered picture of a giant cock and balls.

“…and…and…”

She adds ball hairs.

“…makes an important contribution to morale.”

“Then,” Jonathan snaps, “I’m sure she can cope without you for a day. This isn’t a request, Samwise.”

I just about manage not to make a noise, but I physically cringe. I know it’s my name, but nobody’s ever used it except my mam, and I don’t want to be thinking about her right now. “Please don’t call me that.”

“The point is, Sam, I’m your boss and you’re coming to Croydon tomorrow. The company will reimburse your travel.”

He hangs up before I can say anything else. Which, at this point, is probably for the best.

“Are you all right?” Claire has put down the dick pic, which is what you might call a small mercy.

I sink into my chair and sit on my hands to stop them shaking. “Yeah. He’s just such a…such a…”

“Dick?”

“Such a dick.”

The post Q&A: Alexis Hall, Author of ‘10 Things That Never Happened’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Releasing on November 14th, Mom Com is a heartwarming tale of love, family, and pastry perfection.

It’s the time of lights and cookies! Of cozy blankets and silly pyjamas. But is it truly the Christmas season until you’ve watched at least one Christmas movie, or maybe binged seventeen of them? Preferably curled up on a couch in front of a fireplace with a steaming cup of cocoa. If you’re anything like me you have your set list of fav holiday movies you’ve been watching every year since you were little, adding to them as you grow. Which is why it’s a double dip of pleasure to pair these movies with equally compelling books.

Do you watch Love Actually every year? Try Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory.

If you swooned and giggled over Huge Grant and Martine McCutcheon in Love Actually, give Jasmine Guillory’s holiday romance a twirl. In Royal Holiday, Vivian Forest has been out of the country a grand total of one time, so when she gets the chance to tag along on her daughter Maddie’s work trip to England to style a royal family member, she can’t refuse. She’s excited to spend the holidays taking in the magnificent British sights, but what she doesn’t expect is to become instantly attracted to a certain private secretary, his accent, and his unyielding formality. This story is infused with British charm!

Love The Holiday?  Check out The Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox.

There is nothing more fun than watching two people switch lives, make mistakes, and learn things about themselves while they scramble to fix it. In The Holiday Swap is a feel-good romantic comedy about identical twins who switch lives in the days leading up to Christmas. Will the twins’ identity swap be a recipe for disaster, or does it have all the right ingredients for getting their lives back on track?

Did you swoon over Happiest Season? Read Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur.

What’s not to love about sapphic romances with sparkly twinkle lights holiday backdrops? In Written in the Stars, two women who are complete opposites find themselves embroiled in a fake relationship stemming from a white lie. It’s a feel-good holiday novel following a free-spirited astrologer and an uptight actuary who made a pact to keep up their relationship ruse until New Year’s Eve. Love is definitely in the air!

If you habitually watch A Christmas Story, try Wishin’ and Hopin’ by Wally Lamb.

Of course A Christmas Story is based on Jean Shepherd’s book by the same name, but if you’re looking to shake things up with story that embodies the same heady nostalgia, try Wishin’ and Hopin’. The story follows a feisty parochial school fifth grader named Felix Funicello and is filled with Christmas dreams, a whole lotta laughs, and a dose of Christmas magic.

Charmed by Dash and Lily? Try The Christmas Clash by Suzanne Park.

There is nothing like young love. And if you were enchanted by Dash and Lily (based on the book Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn) then you will love the vibe of Suzanne Park’s YA. Chloe Kwon can’t stand Peter Li. It’s always been that way. Their families don’t get along either: their parents operate rival restaurants in the Riverwood Mall food court―Korean food for the Kwons and Chinese food for the Lis. Now it’s the holiday season and Chloe’s the photographer at the mall’s Santa’s Village, and Peter works at the virtual reality North Pole experience right across the atrium. It’s all Chloe can do to avoid Peter’s smug, incredibly photogenic face.

A fan of The Family Stone? Read 10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall.

Love a complicated and emotional family story that centers around the holidays? Try this awesome queer romance with fake amnesia and real feelings! In 10 Things That Never Happened Sam believes his boss Jonathan is going fire him and his entire branch. He panics, trips, and bumps his head, accidentally implying he doesn’t remember anything? Faking amnesia seemed like a good idea, but now he has to deal with the reality of Jonathan’s guilt―as well as the unsettling fact that his surly boss might have a softer side. Can Sam really bring himself to tell the truth, or will their future be built entirely on one impulsive lie?

And if like me, you desperately wish The Gilmore Girls had a Christmas movie, read Mom Com by Adriana Mather.

While the Gilmore Girls is an all year favorite, the show embodies the warmth, joy, and humor of a great holiday romp. In Mom Com, Maddi reluctantly returns to her tiny gossipy town (where she’s the town scandal) for the holidays with her nine-year old. What Maddi doesn’t know is that there’s an issue with her father’s will and his beloved bakery that mysteriously involves the one person she’s vowed never to speak to again—her childhood best friend, Wilder. It’s a story laden with pastries, heartfelt and complicated families, and swoony romance, all wrapped up in a heaping dose of banter!

The post Book Actually: Pairing Books With Favourite Holiday Movies appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Mary, what inspired you to approach Alexis with the idea that the time is right, right now, to re-release GLITTERLAND and the Spires series?

I think it’s safe to say that I’ve been a fan of Alexis’s work for years. I fell in love with Glitterland not too long after it first released and have been eagerly following the series ever since. The first book Alexis and I got to work on together (Boyfriend Material) was quite different in tone, but it has the same deeply empathetic and nuanced understanding of character that made me fall in love with Glitterland’s Ash and Darian—which inspired me to pull Glitterland off my shelf again and rediscover everything I loved about it the first time around.

From there it was a pretty easy hop from I love this series to I think this series needs to be in more libraries and bookstores to I think Sourcebooks can help make that happen. So working together on Boyfriend Material sparked the idea, but everything else just unfolded very naturally from there.

Alexis, what was your reaction when Mary broached bringing GLITTERLAND back out, to a much wider potential audience?

Well, I was thrilled, obviously. It’s a complex feeling because it’s a book I worked on quite a long time ago when I was quite a different writer in quite a different place. But getting the chance to see it polished up and repackaged for a new audience (and, eek, a new decade) is kind of amazing. The story is still really important to me, and the type of book it was had fallen out of fashion for a while, so I’m really excited to hopefully reach new readers with it (while also, hopefully, giving existing readers who may not have had an opportunity to pick up a physical copy a chance to do that if they want).

Alexis, committing to do this project with Mary shows a lot of trust; what made you confident about putting this project in her (and Sourcebooks’) capable hands?

It’s a bit awkward answering this question in a conversation with Mary because I worry that anything nice I say will either make her embarrassed or just come across as disingenuous. But, yes, I trust Mary with my work. She took a chance on Boyfriend Material when no-one else would and that does, actually, mean a lot to me. I think one of the weird things about the way publishing stories are told is that you always hear about two kinds of books, which are the ones that sold at a massive auction and got a twenty-figure advance, or the ones that everybody rejected and then became self-published TikTok sensations. And you’re told to aspire to the auction and then, if you don’t get it, sharply pivot into being Colleen Hoover. But, for me, my most successful books have been the ones where one person has definitely got it. And that’s been Mary for me.

And also, as well as Mary, I’ve had a huge amount of support from the Sourcebooks team as a whole. Different publishers work differently, and you don’t always feel like you’ve got the whole weight of the house behind you. But at Sourcebooks I always have and that’s the sort of thing that engenders trust.

Mary, I understand that you and Alexis worked closely together to look at GLITTERLAND and the other Spires novels; there is a bit of previously unseen content within the book (i.e. conversations between characters), but the true jewels of the edition are in the bonus materials. Can you talk us through those?

When I approached Alexis about bringing Spires back into wider distribution, it was with the idea that we’d be doing something a bit different from a traditional reissue. (Not that there’s anything wrong with a reissue!) I wanted to celebrate the series and make this feel like a special edition so fans and new readers both have something to discover. We had a lot of terrific ideas that will be playing out across the whole series, including really fabulous author annotations, a scene that explores the complex relationship between two key secondary characters, a story-within-the-story look at Ash’s book and—in a future installment—even a short graphic novel sequence bringing a key scene to life.

Alexis and I talk about the bonus content almost like those old DVD special features (was anyone else obsessed with the LotR bonus menu?) and wanted to kind of recreate that vibe. Not to get too nerdy about it, but I love when books are a full experience—whether that’s maps or bonus scenes or annotations or art or playlists or recipes or whatever. When I love a book, I want to live in that world in every possible way, and this was a really cool chance to make that happen.

(Also, there was a brilliant idea to try to make glardigans—and while I couldn’t make that happen yet, I’m deeply tempted to learn how to knit just for the experience of creating a glardigan of my very own.)

Alexis, can you tell us a little about the original reception for this iconic novel?

I mean, I flinch from describing one of my own novels as iconic. But actually I can answer this without triggering my aversion to bragging because the initial reception to Glitterland was very confused. I hesitate to say a lot of people didn’t get it, because that sounds like I’m attributing people’s distaste for my work to a failure on their part, but a lot of people, like, literally said they didn’t get what I thought I was doing here. It was critically panned, everywhere except Library Journal (God bless you Library Journal, I might have completely given up on this whole writing thing without you). I think it really didn’t help that it was my first published book (not my first written, but it just happened to be the first one out) and it was in the voice of … well. A pretentious, self-loathing wanker? And, don’t get me wrong, in a lot of ways I am a pretentious, self-loathing wanker but I don’t normally write quite that much like one. Like most writers, I try to adapt my style and my voice to the protagonist but a lot of people just assumed that the way Ash thinks and talks is just the way I write. And I can see why that might be off-putting to someone picking up a new author.

But—and, again, thank God for this—it did find a small audience of people who really appreciated what it was trying to do, and felt spoken to by that (although, as always, not everyone did—and that’s totally fine). And over time, this audience has sort of grown organically into the medium-sized group of people who like the book it is today.

Alexis, what are you most excited about, in regard to releasing GLITTERLAND to new markets and to readers who have only just recently discovered your witty and clever writings?

Also a bit uncomfortable describing my own writing as witty and clever.

So Glitterland was originally published by a boutique press that had limited reach and then afterwards I self-published it to keep it available. And I have even more limited reach, because I don’t have the time, expertise or, quite frankly, personality type required to be a really successful self-published author. Like, I absolutely need other people who know what they’re doing to make publishing happen for me. All of which meant that Glitterland was on quite restricted availability—bookshops had to buy hard copies from Amazon which is a complex thing to have to ask them to do and I had absolutely no idea how to make the book available to libraries, and making my books available to libraries is something that’s very important to me, because I think libraries are very important.

All of which is to say, I’m excited that Glitterland will now be available in bookshops, especially indie bookshops (who have been vital in supporting my career and bringing me to readers) and—at last—accessible to libraries.

Alexis, tell us what’s next for the Spires series?

Oh help, now I have to remember.  Over the next few years, Sourcebooks and I are going to be releasing each of the existing Spires novels in beautiful trade paperback. I think the order they’re coming will match the original publication order, which will be Waiting for the Flood (after Glitterland), then For Real, then Pansies.

Mary butting in here to confirm that yes! We’ll be releasing Spires in original publication order, all with covers by the incredibly talented Elizabeth Turner Stokes.

Alexis, will there be new books? 

Yes! I cannot tell how overwhelmingly happy I am to be able to return to this series. I mean, I have wanted to for literally years and haven’t been able to find either the right opportunity or the right publishing partner. There are so many stories set in this world that I want to tell. Honestly, the hardest thing was picking the right ones to pitch to Mary to expand the series. In the end, I went for the ones that fed most directly into the themes and stories of the previous four books, as well as focusing on characters readers had been asking me about for a long time. So, the next new book will be Dom the dom’s book (he’s supporting character in For Real) and, after that, will be Niall’s story. He’s a support character in Glittlerand and perilously close to being an antagonist. I’m sorry to say he hasn’t learned a whole lot in time for his own book but. Well. Kind of the core message of these stories for me is that even terrible people can be loved.

ABOUT ALEXIS HALL
USA Today bestselling author Alexis Hall writes books in the southeast of England, where he lives entirely on a diet of tea and Jaffa Cakes. You can find him on Twitter and Facebook, and at his website. 

ABOUT MARY ALTMAN
Senior Editor Mary Altman grew up reading everything from J.R.R. Tolkien to Laura Kinsale to Shirley Jackson. She loves books that introduce her to new worlds and happily reads (and acquires) across multiple genres. She started her post-college life studying law before coming to her senses and settling happily into a decade-long editorial career; she now lives outside Chicago with her long-time partner.

The post Glitterland: In Conversation With Author Alexis Hall and Editor Mary Altman appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

It’s hard to believe that this is Hall’s first ever novel considering the emotional punch it packs. The amount of times I had to put down the book because I was so overcome with the indescribably realistic depiction of mental illness is unfathomable to me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my own experience with mental health portrayed quite as relatably as I did in Glitterland. Ash is such an easy character to engage with, perhaps because I understood his actions on a deeply personal level. Ash is constantly crushed by the expectations others place on him (and those he thinks they place on him) and crippled by the fear that he won’t be able to meet them. Instead, he self-sabotages (both consciously and unconsciously) and hates himself for it, perpetuating the cycle of confusion, dread and inward-directed guilt.

Then Darian comes into his life, turning his dull life to technicolour (yes that’s a Lizzie McGuire reference, sue me) and making Ash desperate to cling to this version of his life he never imagined possible. Suddenly, he finds himself wanting to try again. To be a better person, to give himself the benefit of the doubt and to maybe let someone in. What makes reading this book manageable even during the hardest of scenes (and there are quite a few) is Ash’s sarcastic wit and self-deprecating voice, not to mention Darian’s smirk-inducing Essex accent. Hall doesn’t shy away from depicting Ash’s panic attacks in all their grandness, but infuses it with so much care and then balances it with inexplicably sweet scenes of Ash being absolutely stunned by the effect Darian has on him. Darian is a bit of a golden retriever, so Ash’s mean streaks (that are heavily influenced by his trauma) feel like barbs that even the reader is pierced by but again, it’s so authentic you can’t really look away, either.

I think one of the things Hall always excels at is telling it like it is and Glitterland is no different. Ash isn’t miraculously cured by Darian’s presence. He isn’t suddenly no longer experiencing hardship and self-doubt and doesn’t just stop self-destructing. He makes mistakes and hurts people but most of all, he ends up hurting himself in the process. Yet Ash’s story is ultimately a hopeful one. It reminds readers that it’s part of life to make mistakes and to sometimes hurt the people who deserve it the least, especially if those mistakes are driven by things that feel (or are) out of your control. What matters isn’t necessarily not making the mistakes, but learning from them and trying to make up for them in whatever way you can. Which we should all take to heart, no matter where we are at in life.

Hard-hitting but ultimately uplifting, Glitterland is a complex, emotionally resonant exploration of mental illness, the tenacity it takes to endure life and most of all, a reminder to let people in.

Glitterland is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of January 17th 2023.

Will you be picking up Glitterland? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis | Goodreads

From the acclaimed author of BOYFRIEND MATERIAL comes a deeply emotional romance about heartbreak, hope, and learning to love against all the odds.

Once the golden boy of the English literary scene, now a clinically depressed writer of pulp crime fiction, Ash Winters has given up on hope, happiness, and―most of all―himself. He lives his life between the cycles of his illness, haunted by the ghosts of other people’s expectations.

Then a chance encounter throws him into the path of Essex-born Darian Taylor. Flashy and loud, radiant and full of life, Darian couldn’t be more different…and yet he makes Ash laugh, reminding him of what it’s like to step beyond the boundaries of his anxiety. But Ash has been living in his own shadow for so long that he can no longer see a way out. Can a man who doesn’t trust himself ever trust in happiness? And how can someone who doesn’t believe in happiness ever fight for his own?

The post Review: Glitterland by Alexis Hall appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

I rarely say this with confidence but I think I can do it in this case: whether you will enjoy Husband Material or not will entirely depend on what you expect from the novel going in. Truth be told, it’s been two months since I’ve read this book and I’m still on the fence about my feelings. But here goes nothing. A friend of mine said that this story reads more like a collection of short stories and I can wholeheartedly agree. If you don’t think of this as a continuation but rather glimpses into Luc and Oliver’s individual growth and the latter ‘short stories’ addressing their relationship, then chances are you’re going to love this just as much as Boyfriend Material, if not more.

However, I did not go into this book with that mindset and thus, what left me feeling a bit disappointed was the lack of Oliver and Luc content in a book that is literally supposed to be about them. It takes until almost 60% into the book before there is a truly intimate moment between the two of them (and get your mind out of the gutter, I’m not talking about that here), where they talk to each other and communicate about something beyond the antics of their peers or household chores and the likes. Maybe that was the intention, to show that relationships are about the day-to-day things more so than the bond underlying it all but I guess it left me wanting more. That’s not at all to say that Husband Material isn’t a fantastic book, though, because it absolutely is—again, it all comes back to expectations.

Husband Material has all the amazing elements we’ve come to love about Boyfriend Material. Luc being his chaotic self, Oliver being the voice of reason – but both somewhat matured and more secure in themselves— Luc’s family and work colleagues being an absolute riot at every turn and drama-filled moments such as deciding whether to go to the wedding of the ex who literally sold you out to the press and is now kinda-sorta-but-not-really trying to make amends for it by inviting you to his wedding. But we also get another layer of depth as Luc and Oliver realise (even more so than in the first book) that they’re very different when it comes to their queer identity and how secure they are in it—what might make one of them feel as part of the queer community isolates the other and vice versa, in part influenced by the different ways in which they grew up. It’s a multifaceted discussion that arises time and again in this book and even though I didn’t expect it from the novel, it turned out to be one of my favourite explorations of what it means to be queer that I’ve seen to date.

Now, for spoiler’s sake I can’t tell you what happens in the latter part of the book but I can tell you that there is an unexpected event that makes everything feel incredibly real to Luc and Oliver and it’s with this storyline that I absolutely fell in love with Husband Material. Here, you finally, finally get to see Hall’s prose shine as Luc and Oliver grapple with decisions, familial expectations and loss, as they try to reconcile their differing opinions and grow as individuals and together, learning to deal with life’s many obstacles and emerging stronger by holding on to each other instead of tearing the other apart. I loved how realistic the depiction of being in a long-term relationship was: the ups and downs, the good days and the bad ones, the messy times you say things you shouldn’t and the perfect ones that show that the moments that makes life great are often those you wouldn’t think of ever happening. I just wish that we would have had more of this kind of connection and realness of what love looks like and the utter relatability for the entirety of the novel instead of having to wait for over half of the book since this was—presumably—supposed to be about that all along. But that might just be me, so take this with a grain of salt.

The ending of Husband Material is, quite like its predecessor somewhat open-ended. You get a hint of what’s coming but if you wanted more resolution than Boyfriend Material had, you…might not get it. Things are left somewhat resolved and I’m curious to see whether Hall will once again return to Luc and Oliver or if this open ending was intended to leave readers free to imagine what they want for these two lovable and unforgettable characters. All in all, it was a treat to have spent 400 more pages with these kooky people and I for one am sure going to miss everybody (except for Luc’s dad. He can choke).

Infused with Hall’s trademark humour, Husband Material is a delightful, hilarious reunion with Luc and Oliver, their absurd friends and family and an exploration of love and its many obstacles. Balancing the uproarious with the devastating aspects of life, this slice-of-life sequel will soothe everyone in the knowledge that we’re all just pretending to be competent adults and are not alone in making things up as they come along.

Husband Material is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of August 2nd 2022.

Will you be picking up Husband Material? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis | Goodreads

Wanted:
One (very real) husband
Nowhere near perfect but desperately trying his best

In BOYFRIEND MATERIAL, Luc and Oliver met, pretended to fall in love, fell in love for real, dealt with heartbreak and disappointment and family and friends…and somehow figured out a way to make it work. Now it seems like everyone around them is getting married, and Luc’s feeling the social pressure to propose. But it’ll take more than four weddings, a funeral, and a bowl full of special curry to get these two from I don’t know what I’m doing to I do.

Good thing Oliver is such perfect HUSBAND MATERIAL.

This Summer 2022, you’re invited to the event(s) of the season.

The post #ReadWithPride: Husband Material by Alexis Hall appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Heat Wave by T.J. Klune
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Nick, Seth, Gibby, and Jazz are back in action bringing justice, protection, and disaster energy to the people of Nova City. An unexpected hero returns to Nova City and crash lands into Nick’s home, upturning his life, his family, and his understanding of what it means to be a hero in the explosive finale of the thrilling and hilarious Extraordinaries trilogy.

Youngblood by Sasha Laurens
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

For fans of Vampire Diaries and dark academia, two queer teen bloodsuckers at an elite vampire-only boarding school must go up against all of Vampirdom when they uncover a frightening conspiracy on campus.

The Comedienne’s Guide to Pride by Hayli Thomson
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

The Comedienne’s Guide to Pride is a queer coming of age story with biting humor about a young lesbian striving to win a spot on SNL. Taylor Parker isn’t out yet, but she’s keeping an even bigger secret: she entered a sketch contest where the grand prize is an internship at SNL.

The Witchery by S. Isabelle
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Haelsford, Florida, is a hellmouth. Or at least, that’s what Logan, a new witch struggling to control her powers, thinks when she arrives at Mesmortes Coven Academy. She is immediately taken under the wing of the infamous Red Three: Iris, a deathwitch, who wants nothing more than to break the town’s curse; Thalia, the talented greenwitch, on the run from her religious family and a past that still haunts her; and Jailah, one of the most extraordinary witches at the academy whose thirst for power may lead her down a dark path.

In the Event of Love by Courtney Kae
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Offering a steamy, queer spin on the feel-good tropes of a Hallmark movie, this sweet, funny #OwnVoices rom-com is perfect for fans of Casey McQuiston and Alexandria Bellefleur!

Husband Material by Alexis Hall
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

In Boyfriend Material, Luc and Oliver met, pretended to fall in love, fell in love for real, dealt with heartbreak and disappointment and family and friends…and somehow figured out a way to make it work. Now it seems like everyone around them is getting married, and Luc’s feeling the social pressure to propose. But it’ll take more than four weddings, a funeral, and a bowl full of special curry to get these two from I don’t know what I’m doing to I do.

The Feeling of Falling in Love by Mason Deaver
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From the bestselling author of I Wish You All the Best, comes a new kind of love story, about the bad decisions we sometimes make… and the people who help get us back on the right path.

This Is Why They Hate Us by Aaron H. Aceves
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

This fun, irreverent summer romp is Netflix’s Never Have I Ever meets What If It’s Us about a high school senior determined to get over his unrequited feelings for his best friend by getting under someone else.

Aces Wild by Amanda DeWitt
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Six of Crows goes to Las Vegas in debut author Amanda DeWitt’s suspenseful casino heist, starring an entire crew of asexual teens.

Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix by Anna Marie McLemore
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Three teens chase their own version of the American Dream during the Roaring 20s in this YA remix of The Great Gatsby. 

The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Welcome to The Sunbearer Trials, where teen semidioses compete in a series of challenges with the highest of stakes, in this electric new Mexican-inspired fantasy from Aiden Thomas, the New York Times bestselling author of Cemetery Boys.

Fraternity by Andy Mientus
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A queer, dark academia YA story about a mysterious boarding school, a brotherhood that must stay in the shadows, and an ancient evil that could tear it all apart. 

Destination Unknown by Bill Konigsberg
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From Stonewall Award winner Bill Konigsberg, a remarkable, funny, sexy, heartbreaking story of two teen boys finding each other in New York City at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Hazel Hill is Gonna Win This One by Maggie Horne
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A funny, feminist, and queer contemporary middle grade debut that follows twelve-year-old loner Hazel Hill, who, after one of her classmates is harassed online, devises a plan to catch the school’s golden boy in the act.

Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A delicious story from a new voice in suspense, Lev AC Rosen’s Lavender House is Knives Out with a queer historical twist.

The First To Die at The End by Adam Silvera
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

In this prequel to They Both Die at the End, #1 New York Times bestselling author Adam Silvera tells the story of new star-crossed lovers facing down Death-Cast’s first day. It’s the night before Death-Cast goes live, and there’s one question on everyone’s mind: Can Death-Cast actually predict when someone will die, or is it just an elaborate hoax?

You’re a Mean One, Matthew Prince by Timothy Janovsky
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

An “effervescent” (Rachel Lynn Solomon) Christmas LGBTQIA+ New Adult RomCom, perfect for fans of Schitt’s Creek and Red White & Royal Blue.

This Is Our Place by Vitor Martins
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Three teens — in three different decades — navigate life, love, and family in Vitor Martins’ heartfelt new novel that spans generations. Perfect for fans of Tales from the City and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda.

The Ones We Burn by Rebecca Mix
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Love and duty collide in this richly imagined, atmospheric young adult debut about a witch whose dark powers put her at the center of a brewing war between the only family she’s ever known and the enemy who makes her question everything.

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Family secrets, a swoon-worthy romance, and a slow-burn mystery collide in We Deserve Monuments, a YA debut from Jas Hammonds that explores how racial violence can ripple down through generations.

Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail by Ashley Herring Blake
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

An interior designer who is never without the perfect plan learns to renovate her love life without one in this new romantic comedy by Ashley Herring Blake, author of Delilah Green Doesn’t Care.

Never Ever Getting Back Together by Sophie Gonzales
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A girl enters a reality dating competition to get revenge on her cheating, royal-adjacent ex-boyfriend, and ends up falling for another girl on the show—in fact, the girl he cheated on her with.

Wicked Little Things by Justin Arnold
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Silver in the Mist by Emily Victoria
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Eight years ago, everything changed for Devlin: Her country was attacked. Her father was killed. And her mother became the Whisperer of Aris, the head of the spies, retreating into her position away from everyone… even her daughter.

A Million to One by Adiba Jaigirdar
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Adiba Jaigirdar, author of one of Time‘s Best YA books of all time, gives Titanic an Ocean’s 8 makeover in this nail-biting heist set onboard the infamous ship.

Do you have any other recommendations? Tell us in the comments below!

The post You Need These Upcoming 2022 Queer Book Releases To End The Year appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Hello second half of 2022 and hello to all the incredible upcoming book releases we can look forward to!

In this round up, we take a look at some of the most exciting titles to be released between the months of July and December with releases from the likes of Sarah Gailey, Ruth Ware, Alexis Hall, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Courtney Summers, and many more, along with delightful debuts from new authors you should keep on your radar!

Read on to discover just a few of our favourite July to December 2022 releases and tell us in the comments if you’re looking forward to any of them! 

JULY

Violet Made of Thorns by Gina Chen
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A darkly enchanting fantasy debut about a morally gray witch, a cursed prince, and a prophecy that ignites their fate-twisted destinies—perfect for fans of The Cruel Prince and Serpent & Dove.

Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Just Like Home is a darkly gothic thriller from nationally bestselling author Sarah Gailey, perfect for fans of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House as well as HBO’s true crime masterpiece I’ll Be Gone in the Dark.

The Accidental Pinup by Danielle Jackson
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Rival photographers are forced to collaborate on a body-positive lingerie campaign, but they might have to readjust their focus when sparks fly.

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

The masterful story of a lifelong friendship between two very different women with shared histories and buried secrets, tested in the twilight of their lives, set across the arc of the 20th century.

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

The It Girl by Ruth Ware
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the “claustrophobic spine-tingler” (People) One by One returns with an unputdownable mystery following a woman on the search for answers a decade after her friend’s murder.

Youngblood by Sasha Laurens
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

For fans of Vampire Diaries and dark academia, two queer teen bloodsuckers at an elite vampire-only boarding school must go up against all of Vampirdom when they uncover a frightening conspiracy on campus.

Acts of Violet by Margarita Montimore
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From Margarita Montimore, the author of GMA Book Club pick and national bestseller Oona Out of Order, Acts of Violet is a dazzling and twisty new novel about a famous magician who disappears, leaving her sister to figure out what really happened.

The Book of Gothel by Mary McMyne
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Everyone knows the story of Rapunzel in the tower, but do you know the story of the witch who put her there? Told from her own perspective, The Book of Gothel is a lush, historical retelling filled with dark magic, crumbling towers, mysterious woods, and evil princes. This is the truth they never wanted you to know, as only a witch might tell it.

What Souls Are Made Of: A Wuthering Heights Remix by Tasha Suri
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

What Souls Are Made Of, British Fantasy Award-winning author Tasha Suri’s masterful new take on Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and fourth book in the Remixed Classics, will leave readers breathless.

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night comes a dreamy reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Mexico.

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

New York Times bestselling author Katherine Center’s The Bodyguard is unabashedly romantic, laugh-out-loud funny, and the perfect summer read.

AUGUST

Husband Material by Alexis Hall
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Luc and Oliver met, pretended to fall in love, fell in love for real, dealt with heartbreak and disappointment and family and friends…and somehow figured out a way to make it work. Now it seems like everyone around them is getting married, and Luc’s feeling the social pressure to propose. But it’ll take more than four weddings, a funeral, and a bowl full of special curry to get these two from I don’t know what I’m doing to I do.

These Fleeting Shadows by Kate Alice Marshall
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

The Haunting of Hill House meets Knives Out in a bid for an inheritance that will leave Helen Vaughan either rich…or dead.

Belladonna by Adalyn Grace
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

New York Times bestselling author Adalyn Grace brings to life a highly romantic, Gothic-infused world of wealth, desire, and betrayal.

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Sunyi Dean’s The Book Eaters is “a darkly sweet pastry of a book about family, betrayal, and the lengths we go to for the ones we love. A delicious modern fairy tale.”― Christopher Buehlman, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author

Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

In this powerful novel about the cost of greatness, a legendary athlete attempts a comeback when the world considers her past her prime—from the New York Times bestselling author of Malibu Rising.

Sophie Go’s Lonely Hearts Club by Roselle Lim
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A new heartfelt novel about the power of loneliness and the strength of love that overcomes it by critically acclaimed author Roselle Lim.

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

With a wicked wink to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Daisy Darker’s unforgettable twists will leave readers reeling.

The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A “superb fantasy saga” (Helene Wecker) of martial arts and magic, about what happens when a prophesied hero is not the chosen one after all—but has to work with a band of unlikely allies to save the kingdom anyway, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lives of Tao

You’re Invited by Amanda Jayatissa
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

What could be worse than your ex-boyfriend marrying your childhood best friend? Getting accused of her murder… From the author of My Sweet Girl comes a dangerously addictive new thriller about a lavish Sri Lankan wedding celebration that not everyone will survive.

The Last Housewife by Ashley Winstead
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From the author of the acclaimed In My Dreams I Hold a Knife comes a pitch-black thriller about a woman determined to destroy a powerful cult and avenge the deaths of the women taken in by it, no matter the cost.

Luck and Last Resorts by Sarah Grunder Ruiz
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

They have a second chance at love, but there are some rough seas ahead in the new contemporary romance from the acclaimed author of Love, Lists, and Fancy Ships.

The First Binding by R.R. Virdi
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A thrilling new take on Epic Fantasy, inspired by the many culturally divergent stops along a fantastical Silk Road, that follows a storyteller and a singer on the run from their old lives and secrets. 

SEPTEMBER

I’m the Girl by Courtney Summers
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match by Sally Thorne
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From USA Today bestselling author of The Hating Game Sally Thorne comes something a little unexpected… a historical rom-com that imagines Victor Frankenstein’s sheltered younger sister, and her attempts to create the perfect man.

Ithaca by Claire North
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

This is the story of Penelope of Ithaca, famed wife of Odysseus, as it has never been told before. Beyond Ithaca’s shores, the whims of gods dictate the wars of men. But on the isle, it is the choices of the abandoned women—and their goddesses—that will change the course of the world.

The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From New York Times Bestselling author Kwame Alexander comes the first book in a searing, breathtaking trilogy that tells the story of a boy, a village, and the epic odyssey of an African family.

Princess of Souls by Alexandra Christo
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From the author of To Kill a Kingdom comes Princess of Souls, a Rapunzel-inspired YA fantasy romance about a teen witch groomed to steal souls for an immortal king and the reckless, rebellious boy to whom her fate is tied.

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Tamsyn Muir’s New York Times and USA Today bestselling Locked Tomb Series continues with Nona …the Ninth?

The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From New York Times bestselling author Adrienne Young comes a deeply atmospheric story about ancestral magic, an unsolved murder, and a second chance at true love.

People Person by Candice Carty-Williams
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From an author with “a flair for storytelling that appears effortlessly authentic” (Time), People Person is a vibrant and charming celebration of discovering family as an adult.

Foul Lady Fortune by Chloe Gong
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights and Our Violent Ends comes the first book in a captivating new duology following an ill-matched pair of spies posing as a married couple to investigate a series of brutal murders in 1930s Shanghai.

Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Full of court intrigue, queer romance, and terrifying monsters—this gothic epic fantasy will appeal to fans of Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree and the adult animated series Castlevania.

Direwood by Catherine Yu
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

In this velvet-clad 1990s gothic horror, Aja encounters a charming vampire who wants to lure her into the woods―just like her missing sister.

OCTOBER

Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove by Rati Mehrotra
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

In Rati Mehrotra’s Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove, a young guardswoman struggles with her unwitting role as a major pawn in the deadly games between two kingdoms in a monster-infested alternate medieval India.

Sign Here by Claudia Lux
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A darkly humorous, surprisingly poignant, and utterly gripping debut novel about a guy who works in Hell (literally) and is on the cusp of a big promotion if only he can get one more member of the wealthy Harrison family to sell their soul.

A Cosmic Kind of Love by Samantha Young
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Space is the last thing an event planner and an astronaut need in this charming new romantic comedy from New York Times bestselling author Samantha Young.

Just Like Magic by Sarah Hogle
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From the author of Twice Shy comes a sprightly Christmas novel, a rollicking romp through the absurdity of family holidays and the hope of new love.

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From the number one bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, a deeply suspenseful and heartrending novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear.

The Storyteller’s Death by Ann Dávila Cardinal
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From International Latino Book Award-winning author Ann Dávila Cardinal comes a gorgeously written family saga about a Puerto Rican teenager who finds herself gifted (or cursed?) with a strange ability.

Dead Man’s Hand by James J. Butcher
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

In the tradition of his renowned father, James J. Butcher’s debut novel is a brilliant urban fantasy about a young man who must throw out the magical rule book to solve the murder of his former mentor.

A Scatter of Light by Malinda Lo
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Award-winning author Malinda Lo returns to the Bay Area with another masterful coming-of-queer-age story, this time set against the backdrop of the first major Supreme Court decisions legalizing gay marriage. And almost sixty years after the end of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Lo’s new novel also offers a glimpse into Lily and Kath’s lives since 1955.

Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Amateur detective Mallory Viridian’s talent for solving murders ruined her life on Earth and drove her to live on an alien space station, but her problems still follow her in this witty, self-aware novel that puts a speculative spin on murder mysteries, from the Hugo-nominated author of Six Wakes.

Jackal by Erin E. Adams
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside her white Rust Belt town. But she’s not the first—and she may not be the last. . . .

Lavender House by Lev A.C. Rosen
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A delicious story from a new voice in suspense, Lev AC Rosen’s Lavender House is Knives Out with a queer historical twist.

Strike the Zither by Joan He
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A dazzling new fantasy from New York Times and Indie bestselling author Joan He, Strike the Zither is a powerful, inventive, and sweeping fantasy that reimagines the Chinese classic tale of the Three Kingdoms.

NOVEMBER

The Ones We Burn by Rebecca Mix
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Love and duty collide in this richly imagined, atmospheric young adult debut about a witch whose dark powers put her at the center of a brewing war between the only family she’s ever known and the enemy who makes her question everything.

She’s Gone by David Bell
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

When 17-year-old Hunter Gifford wakes in the hospital on the night of homecoming, he’s shocked to learn he and his girlfriend, Chloe Summers, have been in a terrible car accident. Hunter has no memory of the crash, and his shock turns to horror when he is told Chloe’s blood has been found in the car—but she has disappeared.

Ship Wrecked by Olivia Dade
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

After All the Feels and Spoiler Alert, Olivia Dade once again delivers a warm and wonderful romantic comedy about two co-stars who once had an incredible one-night stand—and after years of filming on the same remote island, are finally ready to yield to temptation again…

The Luminaries by Susan Dennard
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From Susan Dennard, the New York Times bestselling author of the Witchlands series, comes a haunting and high-octane contemporary fantasy, about the magic it takes to face your fears in a nightmare-filled forest, and the mettle required to face the secrets hiding in the dark corners of your own family.

White Horse by Erika T. Wurth
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

White Horse is a gritty, vibrant debut from Erika T. Wurth about an Indigenous woman who must face her past when she discovers a bracelet haunted by her mother’s spirit.

Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

The author of the “swoon-worthy debut” (Harper’s Bazaar) The Charm Offensive returns with a festive romantic comedy about a woman who fakes an engagement with her landlord…only to fall for his sister.

Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga by Lindy Ryan and Christina Henry
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A collection of new and exclusive short stories inspired by the Baba Yaga. Featuring Gwendolyn Kiste, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Mercedes M. Yardley, Monique Snyman, Donna Lynch, Lisa Quigley, and R. J. Joseph, with a foreword by Christina Henry.

Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A stunning and witty debut novel about a young woman’s emotional journey through unimaginable loss, pulled along by her tight-knit Nigerian family, a posse of new friends, and the love and laughter she shared with her husband. Onyi Nwabineli is a fresh new voice for fans of Yaa Gyasi, Queenie and I May Destroy You.

The Cloisters by Katy Hays
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

The Secret History meets Ninth House in this sinister, atmospheric novel following a circle of researchers as they uncover a mysterious deck of tarot cards and shocking secrets in New York’s famed Met Cloisters.

Wait For Me by Sara Shepard
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Dating New York socialite Marcus Coleman, Casey has had trouble recognizing herself lately. But things only get stranger when she begins to hear a voice in her head: one that warns her of danger and leads her to the sleepy town of Avon, where she recognizes people and places she couldn’t possibly know, including a beguiling local boy who seems important to her past—and her present.

Two Wrongs Make a Right by Chloe Liese
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Opposites become allies to fool their matchmaking friends in this swoony reimagining of Shakespeare’s beloved comedy, Much Ado About Nothing.

The Family Game by Catherine Steadman
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A rich, eccentric family. A time-honored tradition. Or a lethal game of survival? One woman is about to find out if she has what it takes to join her husband’s family in this riveting, must-read thriller from the author of Something in the Water, Mr. Nobody, and The Disappearing Act.

DECEMBER

Queen of Myth and Monsters by Scarlett St. Clair
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Queen becomes conqueror in this powerful follow-up to King of Battle and Blood where Queen Isolde de Lara has come into her own as the newly coronated queen of Cordova.  She and her mate, the vampire King Adrian, battle insurrection from the Nine Kingdoms…and a mysterious plague that turns humans to monsters. But hell hath no fury like Isolde’s wrath when she discovers that one of the vassal kings has enslaved her mother’s people.

A Million to One by Adiba Jaigirdar
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Adiba Jaigirdar, author of one of Time‘s Best YA books of all time, gives Titanic an Ocean’s 8 makeover in this nail-biting heist set onboard the infamous ship.

Never Ever Getting Back Together by Sophie Gonzales
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A girl enters a reality dating competition to get revenge on her cheating, royal-adjacent ex-boyfriend, and ends up falling for another girl on the show—in fact, the girl he cheated on her with.

The Widowmaker by Hannah Morrissey
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A wealthy family shrouded in scandal; a detective tasked with solving an impossible cold case; and a woman with a dark past collide in Hannah Morrissey’s stunning new Black Harbor mystery, The Widowmaker.

A Dash of Salt and Pepper by Kosoko Jackson
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Sometimes two cooks in the kitchen are better than one in this swoony romantic comedy from the author of I’m So (Not) Over You.

The Last Invitation by Darby Kane
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Darby Kane, the author of the critically acclaimed and #1 International Bestseller Pretty Little Wife, has crafted another gripping and twisty suspense about an invitation to an exclusive club that comes with deadly consequences.

Acting the Part by Z.R. Ellor
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

This delightfully tropey teen romance perfect for fans of Ashley Poston and Lyla Lee follows a queer teen actor navigating their gender identity—while pretending to date their co-star.  

All the Dark Places by Terri Parlato
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A savage murder rocks a quiet Massachusetts suburb, revealing the dark secrets at the center of a group of friends and setting two women – one with a traumatic past, the other a Boston police detective – on a hunt for truth in this stylish debut thriller for fans of Megan Miranda and Shari Lapena…

The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

For readers of Station Eleven and Where the Crawdads Sing comes a hopeful, sweeping story of survival and resilience spanning one extraordinary woman’s lifetime as she navigates the uncertainty, brutality, and arresting beauty of a rapidly changing world.

The Key to My Heart: A Novel by Lia Louis
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A heartwarming novel about hope after loss as a young widow receives mysterious messages of love from the “must-buy author” (Jodi Picoult) of Eight Perfect Hours.

The Ingenue by Rachel Kapelke-Dale
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

My Dark Vanessa meets The Queen’s Gambit in this new novel of suspense about the bonds of family, the limits of talent, the risks of ambition, and the rewards of revenge.

Witcha Gonna Do by Avery Flynn
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

An unlucky witch and her know-it-all nemesis must team up in the first of a new, spicy romantic comedy series from USA Today bestselling author Avery Flynn.

What July to December releases are you looking forward to? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Get Your Hands On These Anticipated July To December 2022 Book Releases appeared first on The Nerd Daily.