TTT: Most Anticipated ’23 Part 2

June 27: Most Anticipated Books Releasing During the Second Half of 2023

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

That Artsy Reader Girl

It was not easy narrowing it down to just ten and I was looking at just three months: July, August, and September. And then I ended up with ten authors I have previously read.

Curious if anyone else had the same issues. 😁❓

1.

What Never Happened by Rachel Howzell Hall

• 428 pages, Kindle Edition
• Expected publication July 11, 2023
• Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Serial Killer
• Goodreads rating: 3.71

Colette “Coco” Weber has relocated to her Catalina Island home, where twenty years before, she was the sole survivor of a deadly home invasion. All Coco wants is to see her aunt Gwen, get as far away from her ex as possible, and get back to her craft—writing obituaries. Thankfully, her college best friend, Maddy, owns the local paper and has a job sure to keep Coco busy, considering the number of elderly folks who are dying on the island.

goodreads

1. Someone makes a living writing obituaries. !!!! Is this possible?
2. Works at the local paper??? Is this still a thing?

I received a copy of Hall’s book Land of Shadows back in 2014 and loved it.

2.

The Bonus Room by Ben H. Winters

• 256 pages, Paperback
• Expected publication August 1, 2023
• Genres: Fiction, Horror, Supernatural
• Goodreads rating: 3.94

… supernatural page-turner about a real-estate nightmare will make you think twice about your dream home.
Alex and Susan’s new Brooklyn apartment seems too good to be true. Big kitchen, lots of light, a real bedroom for their little girl, even a studio for Susan to paint in—all for under $4,000 a month. Yes, the landlord is a little intense, and they’re not allowed in the basement, but who needs to go in the basement, right? 

goodreads

Mr. Winters wrote one of the best ever trilogies: The Last Policeman. (Asteroid headed towards earth and it is known that this will be an extinction event. Protagonist is literally the last policeman who is trying to continue to solve crimes.)

So, this one is must-read for me.

3.

The Last Ranger by Peter Heller

• 272 pages, Kindle Edition
• Expected publication August 1, 2023
• Genres: Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Nature, Literary Fiction
• Goodreads rating: 4.24

… a lush and vivid mystery set in Yellowstone National Park where a skirmish between a local hunter and a wolf biologist turns violent, and a park ranger, facing his own personal demons, sets out to determine what really happened.

goodreads

I thoroughly enjoyed Heller’s The Dog Stars (apocalyptic fiction). And, our local library typically carries Peter Heller’s books, so win/win!

4.

He Who Drowned the World (The Radiant Emperor #2) by Shelley Parker-Chan

• 400 pages, Kindle Edition
• Expected publication August 22, 2023
• Genres: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, LGBTQ, 1300s China
• Goodreads rating: 4.64

How much would you give to win the world?
Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor.
Her neighbor in the south, the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband—and she’s strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map.
The scorned scholar Wang Baoxiang has maneuvered his way into the capital, and his lethal court games threaten to bring the empire to its knees. For Baoxiang also desires revenge: to become the most degenerate Great Khan in history—and in so doing, make a mockery of every value his Mongol warrior family loved more than him.

goodreads

Super excited about this one – Book one of the series, She Who Became the Sun (Second daughter born to peasants is given the fate of nothingness. She is the one who lives and becomes the Sun.), was amazing.

5.

Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas

• 384 pages, Kindle Edition
• Expected publication August 29, 2023
• Genres: Horror, Historical Fiction, Gothic, Vampires, 1800s Mexico
• Goodreads rating: 4.31

As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters—her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead.
Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago.

goodreads

This is Isabel Cañas’s second novel. Her debut was The Hacienda, also of the horror genre, and if her writing (plotting?) is the same, expect a slow spellbinding build to the true horror. The Hacienda also showed racism and the extreme sexism of the time.

6.

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

• 336 pages, Kindle Edition
• Expected publication September 19, 2023
• Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Humor, Superheroes, Fantasy
• Goodreads rating: 4.26

Inheriting your mysterious uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might imagine.
Sure, there are the things you’d expect. The undersea volcano lairs. The minions. The plots to take over the world. The international networks of rivals who want you dead.
Much harder to get used to…are the the sentient, language-using, computer-savvy cats.
And the fact that in the overall organization, they’re management…

uh oh. My three keep telling me this is going to happen!

7.

Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig

• 544 pages, Kindle Edition
• Expected publication September 26, 2023
• Genres: Fiction, Horror, Thriller, Supernatural, Fantasy
• Goodreads rating: 4.51

It’s autumn in the town of Harrow, but something else is changing in the town besides the season.
Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: Strange, beautiful, with skin so red it’s nearly black.
Take a bite of one of these apples and you will desire only to devour another. And another. You will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing—and become darker.

goodreads

The Wanderers by Chuck Wendig was a great read: perfect pacing for an apocalyptic event that seems almost mundane. I expect more great writing in his newest.

8.

The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger

• 432 pages, Kindle Edition
• Expected publication September 5, 2023
• Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Thriller, Suspense, Racism, Bigotry
• Goodreads rating: 4.52

On Memorial Day 1958, as the people of Jewel, Minnesota gather to remember and honor the sacrifice of so many sons in the wars of the past, the half-clothed body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. Investigation of the murder falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife.

Goodreads

Within the last year I read Krueger’s Ordinary Grace, it was so beautiful and heartbreaking all at the same time.

9.

After That Night by Karin Slaughter

• 432 pages, Kindle Edition
• Expected publication August 22, 2023
• Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Suspense, Contemporary
• Goodreads rating: 4.51

Fifteen years ago, Sara Linton’s life changed forever when a celebratory night out ended in a violent attack that tore her world apart. Since then, Sara has remade her life. A successful doctor, engaged to a man she loves, she has finally managed to leave the past behind her.
Until one evening, on call in the ER, everything changes. Sara battles to save a broken young woman who’s been brutally attacked. But as the investigation progresses, led by GBI Special Agent Will Trent, it becomes clear that Dani Cooper’s assault is uncannily linked to Sara’s.

Goodreads

The other book by this author that’ I’ve read is her debut novel, Blindsighted.

10.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

• 400 pages, Kindle Edition
• Expected publication August 8, 2023
• Genres: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, African American, Contemporary
• Goodreads rating: 4.47

… a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.

Goodreads

I feel like there should be trumpets heralding the publication of James McBride’s books, and this is after I’ve read only one of his previous stories: Deacon King Kong. He not only comes up with great titles, but he also shows how everyone in a community is a hero in their own right. 🎺🎺🎺

Thoughts?