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February Book Releases: Fiction

Elise Dumpleton — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 20:00:12 +0000

One can never have enough books, so add some more books to your TBR with these February 2018 book releases! From a father returning home from the Vietnam war in The Great Alone, to a couple who finds themselves whisked into an affair with a death not far behind them in Laura Lippman’s Sunburn. Or perhaps take a step back in time to the 1980s where seventeen-year-old Angel joins the drag world in The House of Impossible Beauties.

Read on to discover our 2018 February Fiction picks and tell us in the comments below if you will be checking one (or several) out!

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah | Goodreads

Alaska, 1974. A story of a family in crisis struggling to survive at the edge of the world, it is also a story of young and enduring love. Cora Allbright and her husband Ernt, a recently returned Vietnam veteran scarred by the war, uproot their thirteen-year-old daughter Leni to start a new life in Alaska. Utterly unprepared for the weather and the isolation, but welcomed by the close-knit community, they fight to build a home in this harsh, beautiful wilderness.

As Bright As Heaven by Susan Meissner | Goodreads

In 1918, Philadelphia was a city teeming with promise. Into this bustling town, came Pauline Bright and her husband, filled with hope that they could now give their three daughters a chance at a better life. But then the Spanish Flu reaches the shores of America. As the pandemic claims more than twelve thousand victims in their adopted city, they find their lives left with a world that looks nothing like the one they knew.

The Storm King by Brendan Duffy | Goodreads

Nate McHale has assembled the kind of life most people would envy after becoming a respected New York City surgeon, devoted husband, and loving father. Then a body is discovered deep in the forests that surround Greystone Lake, his childhood home. This discovery brings up tragedy from his youth causing him to reconnect with estranged friends and old enemies. Without a doubt, a reckoning is coming–one that will lay bare the lies that lifelong friends have told themselves and unleash a vengeance that may consume them all.

The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara | Goodreads

It’s 1980 in New York City, seventeen-year-old Angel comes into her own. Burned by her traumatic past, Angel is new to the drag world, new to ball culture, and has a yearning inside of her to help create family for those without. She soon falls in love with Hector, who soon dies of AIDS-related complications, Angel must bear the responsibility of tending to their house alone. Recruiting others, they must learn to navigate sex work, addiction, and persistent abuse, leaning on each other as bulwarks against a world that resists them.

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez | Goodreads

When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog’s care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones | Goodreads

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.

Sunburn by Laura Lippman | Goodreads

They meet at a local tavern in the small town of Belleville, Delaware. Polly is set on heading west. Adam says he’s also passing through. However, they both stay and abandon themselves to a steamy, inexorable affair. Still, each holds something back from the other—dangerous, even lethal, secrets. Then someone dies.

The French Girl by Lexie Elliott | Goodreads

They were six university students from Oxford–friends and sometimes more than friends–spending an idyllic week together in a French farmhouse. It was supposed to be the perfect summer getaway–until they met Severine, the girl next door. Now, a decade later, the case is reopened when Severine’s body is found in the well behind the farmhouse.

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi | Goodreads

An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born “with one foot on the other side.” Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.

Punishment by Scott J. Holliday | Goodreads

Detroit-based homicide detective John Barnes has seen it all—literally. Thanks to a technologically advanced machine, detectives have access to the memories of the living, the dying, and the recently dead. But extracting victims’ experiences firsthand and personally reliving everything up to the final, brutal moments of their lives—the sights, the sounds, the scents, the pain—is also the punishment reserved for the criminals themselves. But Barnes has had enough…until a masked serial killer known as Calavera strikes a little too close to home.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton | Goodreads

At a gala party thrown by her parents, Evelyn Hardcastle will be killed–again. She’s been murdered hundreds of times, and each day, Aiden Bishop is too late to save her. Doomed to repeat the same day over and over, Aiden’s only escape is to solve Evelyn Hardcastle’s murder and conquer the shadows of an enemy he struggles to even comprehend–but nothing and no one are quite what they seem.

Sadness Is a White Bird by Moriel Rothman-Zecher | Goodreads

In this lyrical and searing debut novel written by a rising literary star and MacDowell Fellow, a young man is preparing to serve in the Israeli army while also trying to reconcile his close relationship to two Palestinian siblings with his deeply ingrained loyalties to family and country.

Like the sound of any of these books? Tell us in the comments below!

The post February Book Releases: Fiction appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

February Book Releases

Elise Dumpleton — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 20:00:06 +0000

And just like that, we’re on to the second month of 2018! However, despite the year already flying by, we will be treated to some great new releases! From the highly anticipated YA release The Belles, to Carter Wilson’s new thriller Mister Tender’s Girl, and a new book featuring Hamilton and Peggy. Or if you’re after a new fantasy novel, try Paris Adrift or Robert Dinsdale’s The Toymakers.

Read on to discover some our picks for February 2018 and tell us in the comments below what you are excited to get your hands on this month!

Feel Free by Zadie Smith | Goodreads

Gathering in one place for the first time previously unpublished work, as well as already classic essays offers a survey of important recent events in culture and politics, as well as Smith’s own life.

By A Charm and A Curse by Jaime Questell | Goodreads

Le Grand’s Carnival Fantastic isn’t like other traveling circuses. It’s bound by a charm, held together by a centuries-old curse, that protects its members from ever-growing older or getting hurt. Emmaline King is drawn to the circus like a moth to a flame…and unwittingly recruited into its folds by a mysterious teen boy whose kiss is as cold as ice.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah | Goodreads

Alaska, 1974. A story of a family in crisis struggling to survive at the edge of the world, it is also a story of young and enduring love .Cora Allbright and her husband Ernt, a recently returned Vietnam veteran scarred by the war, uproot their thirteen-year-old daughter Leni to start a new life in Alaska. Utterly unprepared for the weather and the isolation, but welcomed by the close-knit community, they fight to build a home in this harsh, beautiful wilderness.

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton | Goodreads

Camellia Beauregard is a Belle and they control Beauty, a commodity coveted above all else. Camellia wants to be the favourite—the Belle chosen by the Queen of Orléans to tend to the royal family. But once she arrives, it becomes clear that being the favourite is not everything she always dreamed it would be.

Surprise Me by Sophie Kinsella | Goodreads

After being together for ten years, Sylvie and Dan have all the trimmings of a happy life and marriage. However, a trip to the doctor projects they will live another 68 years together and panic sets in. They never expected “until death do us part” to mean seven decades. They quickly concoct a plan to keep their relationship fresh and exciting, but in their pursuit to execute Project Surprise Me, mishaps arise and secrets are uncovered.

The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale | Goodreads

It is 1917, and London has spent years in the shadow of the First World War. In the heart of Mayfair, though, there is a place of hope. A place where children’s dreams can come true, where the impossible becomes possible – that place is Papa Jack’s Toy Emporium. Now his sons, Kaspar and Emil, are just old enough to join the family trade. Into this family comes a young Cathy Wray – homeless and vulnerable. The Emporium takes her in, makes her one of its own. But Cathy is about to discover that while all toy shops are places of wonder, only one is truly magical…

Sunburn by Laura Lippman | Goodreads

Mister Tender’s Girl by Carter Wilson | Goodreads

At fourteen, Alice Hill was viciously attacked by two of her classmates who claim she was a sacrifice for a man called Mister Tender, but that could never be true: Mister Tender doesn’t exist. His sinister character is pop-culture fiction, created by Alice’s own father in a series of popular graphic novels. A decade later, someone is watching and Mister Tender will come with a smile that seduces, and a dark whisper in her ear…

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones | Goodreads

Paris Adrift by E.J. Swift | Goodreads

Determined to escape her old life, misfit and student geologist Hallie packs up her life in England and heads to Paris. She winds up as a bartender at the notorious Millie’s, located next to the Moulin Rouge. But Millie’s is not all that it seems when Hallie discovers a time portal located in the keg room. Over the next nine months, irate customers will be the least of her concerns, as she navigates time-faring through the city’s turbulent past and future, falling in love, and coming to terms with her own precarious sense of self.

Hamilton and Peggy!: A Revolutionary Friendship by L.M. Elliott | Goodreads

The colonies are in the throes of the Revolutionary War and caught in the midst of spies, traitors, Loyalists and Patriots, is the charming, quick-witted Peggy Schuyler—youngest of the famed Schuyler sisters and daughter of General Philip Schuyler. Her eldest sister Angelica, the “thief of hearts,” is known for her passion and intelligence, while kind, sweet Eliza has a beauty so great, it only outshone by her enormous heart. Though often in the shadows of her beloved sisters, Peggy is talented in her own right—fluent in French, artistically talented, and brave beyond compare.

The Rending and The Nest by Kaethe Schwehn | Goodreads

When ninety-five percent of the world’s population disappears for no apparent reason, Mira does what she can to create some semblance of a life by forming a haphazard community named Zion. Then Mira’s friend is pregnant, the first in this strange world, but she gives birth to an inanimate object. Soon the other women of Zion do too and a confident outsider named Michael appears, proselytizing about the world outside Zion. Luring Lana away, Mira has to decide what she will do to save her friend.

Intrigued by any of these reads? Tell us in the comments below!

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