Welcome to the March edition of Emma’s Anticipated Treasures. It is another great month full of fabulous being released next month and even after shaving it down I’ve ended up with twenty two books on my list. Authors and publishers really are making it impossible to keep up with all the amazing books that are out there!
Are any of my most anticipated books on your list? Let me know…
The Broken Ones (Detective Gina Harte Book 8) by Carla Kovach
Published: March 1st, 2021
Publisher: Bookouture
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Police Procedural, Crime Fiction, Crime Series
SYNOPSIS:
Amber applies a dash of red lipstick and checks herself out in the mirror before heading out on a date. ‘Don’t wait up!’ she calls to her housemates as she leaves. But Amber never returns home that night. Amber Slater is never seen again.
The last person to see Amber was her housemate. He remembers everything she was wearing that night. He watched her leave. He listened to every word of her phone conversation with her friend before she left. He knows more about Amber’s movements than anyone.
At university, she is well-liked by her fellow students and teachers. Her tutor’s voice shakes when he is questioned by the police. Some say he and Amber were very close. Too close. Some say his wife had just found out about their relationship.
The manager at the restaurant where Amber was supposed to eat that night says she didn’t show up. Yet the chef at the restaurant is overly chatty about her. He wasn’t working that night. He wasn’t answering his phone. Nobody knows where he was when Amber went missing.
Rumours begin to circulate about Amber, it seems that everyone has a story to tell. But when the young girl’s lifeless body is found in a local park, with her blue lips glued shut, the gossip suddenly goes quiet. As the police trace the last few hours of Amber’s life, it seems that the girl simply vanished on her way to catch her bus. And when another woman goes missing in the dead of night, it’s a race against time to find her before she too is silenced forever.
Fans of crime books from Angela Marsons, Cara Hunter and Clare Mackintosh will love The Broken Ones.
The Fear-Fighter Manual: Lessons from a Professional Troublemaker by Luvvie Ajayi Jones
Published: March 2nd, 2021
Publisher: Quercus
Genre: Self-help book
SYNOPSIS:
‘You could spend a lifetime and fortune finding the perfect therapist, mentor, minister, career coach, and girlfriend – or you could just spend a day reading PROFESSIONAL TROUBLEMAKER.’ Glennon Doyle, author of #1 NYT Bestseller Untamed
From the New York Times bestselling author of I’m Judging You, a hilarious and transformational book about how to tackle fear – that everlasting hater – and audaciously step into lives, careers, and legacies that go beyond even our wildest dreams.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones is known for her trademark wit, warm voice, and exceptional integrity. But even she’s been challenged by the enemy of progress known as fear. She was once afraid to call herself a writer because she was afraid of the title. She nearly skipped out on doing a TED talk that changed her life because of imposter syndrome. And, as she shares in The Fear-Fighter Manual: Lessons from a Professional Troublemaker, she’s not alone.
We’re all afraid. We’re afraid of asking for what we want because we’re afraid of hearing “no.” We’re afraid of being different, of being too much or not enough. We’re afraid of leaving behind the known for the unknown. But in order to do the things that will truly, meaningfully change our lives, we have to become professional troublemakers: people who are committed to not letting fear talk them out of the things they need to do or say to live free.
With humor and honesty, and guided by the influence of her professional troublemaking Nigerian grandmother, Funmilayo Faloyin, Luvvie walks us through what we must get right within ourselves before we can do the things that scare us; how to use our voice for a greater good; and how to put movement to the voice we’ve been silencing-because truth-telling is a muscle.
The point is not to be fearless, but to know we are afraid and charge forward regardless. It is to recognize that the things we must do are more significant than our fears. This book is about how to live boldly in spite of all the reasons we have to cower. Let’s go!
The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan
Published: March 2nd, 20021
Publisher: Atria Books
Genre: Biography, True Crime
SYNOPSIS:
Named Most Anticipated Crime Book of the Year by CrimeReads
​​A chilling true story–part memoir, part crime investigation–reminiscent of Ann Rule’s classic The Stranger Beside Me, about a little girl longing for love and how she found friendship with her charismatic babysitter–who was also a vicious serial killer.
Growing up on Cape Cod in the 1960s, Liza Rodman was a lonely little girl. During the summers, while her mother worked days in a local motel and danced most nights in the Provincetown bars, her babysitter–the kind, handsome handyman at the motel where her mother worked–took her and her sister on adventures in his truck. He bought them popsicles and together, they visited his “secret garden” in the Truro woods. To Liza, he was one of the few kind and understanding adults in her life. Everyone thought he was just a “great guy.”
But there was one thing she didn’t know; their babysitter was a serial killer.
Some of his victims were buried–in pieces–right there, in his garden in the woods. Though Tony Costa’s gruesome case made screaming headlines in 1969 and beyond, Liza never made the connection between her friendly babysitter and the infamous killer of numerous women, including four in Massachusetts, until decades later.
Haunted by nightmares and horrified by what she learned, Liza became obsessed with the case. Now, she and cowriter Jennifer Jordan reveal the chilling and unforgettable true story of a charming but brutal psychopath through the eyes of a young girl who once called him her friend.
The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
Published: March 2nd, 2021
Publisher: Legend Press
Genre: Historical Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
A forgotten history. A secret network of women. A legacy of poison and revenge. Welcome to The Lost Apothecary…
Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary’s fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious twelve-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries.
Meanwhile in present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, running from her own demons. When she stumbles upon a clue to the unsolved apothecary murders that haunted London two hundred years ago, her life collides with the apothecary’s in a stunning twist of fate–and not everyone will survive.
With crackling suspense, unforgettable characters and searing insight, The Lost Apothecary is a subversive and intoxicating debut novel of secrets, vengeance and the remarkable ways women can save each other despite the barrier of time.
The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex
Published: March 4th , 2021
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
They say we’ll never know what happened to those men.
They say the sea keeps its secrets . . .
‘A mystery, a love story and a ghost story, all at once. I didn’t want it to end’ – S J Watson
Cornwall, 1972. Three keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse, miles from the shore. The entrance door is locked from the inside. The clocks have stopped. The Principal Keeper’s weather log describes a mighty storm, but the skies have been clear all week.
What happened to those three men, out on the tower? The heavy sea whispers their names. The tide shifts beneath the swell, drowning ghosts. Can their secrets ever be recovered from the waves?
Twenty years later, the women they left behind are still struggling to move on. Helen, Jenny and Michelle should have been united by the tragedy, but instead it drove them apart. And then a writer approaches them. He wants to give them a chance to tell their side of the story. But only in confronting their darkest fears can the truth begin to surface . . .
Inspired by real events, The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex is an intoxicating and suspenseful mystery, an unforgettable story of love and grief that explores the way our fears blur the line between the real and the imagined.
The Eighth Girl by Maxine Mei-Fung
Published: March 4th, 2021
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
Alexa Wú is a brilliant yet darkly self-aware young woman whose life is manipulated and controlled by a series of alternate personalities.
One woman, many personas. But which one is telling the truth?
Only three people know the truth.
HER THERAPIST
HER BEST FRIEND
HER STEPMOTHER
When her best friend is plunged into danger, Alexa is soon drawn into London’s cruel underbelly to save her.
But will the truth lead to self-discovery, or to self-destruction?
AN UNSETTLING AND PROVOCATIVE THRILLER ABOUT MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES, WRITTEN BY A PRACTISING PSYCHOANALYTIC THERAPIST
Silence is a Sense by Layla AlAmmar
Published: March 4th, 2021
Publisher: The Borough Press
Genre: Literary Fiction, Political Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
A young woman spends her days watching the neighbours through their windows. She is a refugee, who has seen the failure of the Arab Spring in her homeland and who has been traumatized into silence by her brutal journey from Syria to Britain.
As an outsider, a mute voyeur, she sees everything, she hears everything: the love, the fighting, the families, the secrets, the lies, the sex, the shame. Slowly drawn into the community that surrounds her, she begins to come to terms with all she has lost. After a brutal attack on the local mosque, she realises she is the only witness to the truth behind the violence. But will she finally speak of all she’s seen?
Rear Window meets Exit West, this beautifully written novel tells the powerful story of one woman’s trauma and her gradual healing.
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Published: March 4th, 2021
Publisher: Viking
Genre: Literary Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Psychological Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
As a child Gifty would ask her parents to tell the story of their journey from Ghana to Alabama, seeking escape in myths of heroism and romance. When her father and brother succumb to the hard reality of immigrant life in the American South, their family of four becomes two – and the life Gifty dreamed of slips away.
Years later, desperate to understand the opioid addiction that destroyed her brother’s life, she turns to science for answers. But when her mother comes to stay, Gifty soon learns that the roots of their tangled traumas reach farther than she ever thought. Tracing her family’s story through continents and generations will take her deep into the dark heart of modern America.
Transcendent Kingdom is a searing story story of love, loss and redemption, and the myriad ways we try to rebuild our lives from the rubble of our collective pasts.
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth
Published: March 4th, 2021
Publisher: The Borough Press
Genre: Gothic Fiction, Horror Fiction, Humour, LGBTQ Literature
SYNOPSIS:
As a ‘It’s a terrible story and one way to tell it is this: two girls in love and a fog of wasps cursed the place forever after…’
BROOKHANTS SCHOOL FOR GIRLS: Infamous site of a series of tragic deaths over a hundred years ago. Soon to be the subject of a controversial horror movie about the rumoured ‘Brookhants curse’:
In the early 1900’s, Brookhants students Flo and Clara fell madly in love, brought together by their obsession for a scandalous memoir.
A few months later they were found dead in the woods, after a horrific wasp attack, the book lying next to their intertwined bodies.
Three more grisly deaths followed before the school was forced to close.
Now, the school’s doors are open once more. But as the crew of glamorous young actresses assemble to start filming, past and present begin to blur. And soon it’s impossible to tell quite where the curse ends and Hollywood begins…
Dangerous Women by Hope Adam
Published: March 4th, 2021
Publisher: Michael Joseph
Genre: Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Thriller, Mystery
SYNOPSIS:
London, 1841.
The Rajah sails for Australia.
On board are 180 women convicted of petty crimes, sentenced to start a new life half way across the world.
Daughters, sisters, mothers – they’ll never see home or family again. Despised and damned, all they have now is each other.
Until the murder.
As the fearful hunt for a killer begins, everyone on board is a suspect.
The investigation risks tearing their friendships apart . . .
But if the killer isn’t found, could it cost them their last chance of freedom?
Based on a real-life voyage, Dangerous Women is a sweeping tale of confinement, hope and the terrible things we do to survive.
Bright Burning Things by Lisa Harding
Published: March 4th, 2021
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Genre: Psychological Fiction, Domestic Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
Being Tommy’s mother is too much for Sonya.
Too much love, too much fear, too much longing for the cool wine she gulps from the bottle each night. Because Sonya is burning the fish fingers, and driving too fast, and swimming too far from the shore, and Tommy’s life is in her hands.
Once there was the thrill of a London stage, a glowing acting career, fast cars, handsome men. But now there are blackouts and bare cupboards, and her estranged father showing up uninvited. There is Mrs O’Malley spying from across the road. There is the risk of losing Tommy – forever.
The Talk of Pram Town by Joanna Nadin
Published: March 4th, 2021
Publisher: Mantle
Genre: Coming-of-Age Fiction, Domestic Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
For fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel, comes a story about mothers, daughters and second chances . . .
It’s 1981. Eleven-year-old Sadie adores her beautiful and vibrant mother, Connie, whose dreams of making it big as a singer fill their tiny house in Leeds. It’s always been just the two of them. Until the unthinkable happens.
Jean hasn’t seen her good-for-nothing daughter Connie since she ran away from the family home in Harlow – or Pram Town as its inhabitants affectionately call it – aged seventeen and pregnant.
But in the wake of the Royal Wedding, Jean gets a life-changing call: could she please come and collect the granddaughter she’s never met?
We all know how Charles and Diana turned out, and Jean and Sadie are hardly a match made in heaven – but is there hope of a happy ending for them?
Written in Joanna Nadin’s trademark dazzling prose, The Talk of Pram Town tells the story of three generations of Earnshaws and asks whether it always has to be like mother, like daughter . . .
Dog Days by Ericka Waller
Published: March 11th, 2021
Publisher: Doubleday
Genre: Humorous Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
George is very angry. His wife has upped and died on him, and all he wants to do is sit in his underpants and shout at the cricket. The last thing he needs is his cake-baking neighbour Betty trying to rescue him. And then there’s the dog, a dachshund puppy called Poppy. George doesn’t want a dog – he wants a fight.
Dan is a counsellor with OCD who is great at helping other people – if only he were better at helping himself. His most meaningful relationship so far is with his labrador Fitz. But then comes a therapy session that will change his life.
Lizzie is living in a women’s refuge with her son Lenny. Her body is covered in scars and she has shut herself off from everyone around her. But when she is forced to walk the refuge’s fat terrier, Maud, a new life beckons – if she can keep her secret just a while longer…
Dog Days is a novel about those small but life-changing moments that only come when we pause to let the light in. It is about three people learning to make connections and find joy in living life off the leash.
Body of Stars by Laura Maylene Walter
Published: March 16th 2021
Publisher: Hodder Studios
Genre: Dystopian Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
No future, dear reader, can break a woman on its own
A bold and dazzling exploration of fate and female agency in a world where women own the future but not their own bodies.
Like every woman, Celeste Morton holds a map of the future in her skin, every mole and freckle a clue to unlocking what will come to pass. With puberty comes the changeling period – when her final marks will appear and her future is decided.
The possibilities are tantalising enough for Celeste’s excitement to outweigh her fear. Changelings are sought after commodities and abduction is rife as men seek to possess these futures for themselves.
Celeste’s marks have always been closely entwined with her brother, Miles. Her skin holds a future only he, as a gifted interpreter, can read and he has always considered his sister his practice ground. But when Celeste’s marks change she learns a devastating secret about her brother’s future that she must keep to herself – and Miles is keeping a secret of his own. When the lies of brother and sister collide, Celeste determines to create a future that is truly her own.
Body of Stars is an urgent read about what happens when women are objectified and violently stripped of choice – and what happens when they fight back.
The Last House On Needless Street by Catriona Ward
Published: March 18th, 2021
Publisher: Viper Books
Genre: Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Horror Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
This is the story of a murderer. A stolen child. Revenge. This is the story of Ted, who lives with his daughter Lauren and his cat Olivia in an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street.
All these things are true. And yet some of them are lies.
You think you know what’s inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you’ve read this story before. In the dark forest at the end of Needless Street, something lies buried. But it’s not what you think…
Future Perfect by Felicia Yap
Published: March 18th, 2021
Publisher: Wildfire
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Science Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
What if today was your last day…
A bomb has exploded during a fashion show, killing a beautiful model on the catwalk. The murderer is still at large… and he may strike again. Yet this is the least of Police Commissioner Christian Verger’s worries. His fiancée Viola has left him. He has to keep his tumultuous past a secret. To make things worse, his voice assistant Alexa is 99.74% sure he will die tomorrow.
Moving from snowy 1980s Montana to chic 1990s Manhattan to a drone-filled 2030s Britain, FUTURE PERFECT is an electrifying race to solve a murder before it’s too late. Yet it is also a love story, a riveting portrait of a couple torn apart by secrets, grief and guilt. A twisted tale of how the past can haunt a person’s future and be used to predict if he will die… or kill.
The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox
Published: March 18th, 2021
Publisher: Michael Joseph
Genre: Fantasy Fiction, High Fantasy, Contemporary Fantasy
SYNOPSIS:
Taryn Cornick barely remembers the family library. Since her sister was murdered, she’s forgotten so much.
Now it’s all coming back. The fire. The thief. The scroll box. People are asking questions about the library. Questions that might relate to her sister’s murder.
And something called The Absolute Book.
A book in which secrets are written – and which everyone believes only she can find. They insist Taryn be the hunter. But she knows the truth.
She is the hunted . . .
The Absolute Book is a tale of sisters, ancient blood, a forgotten library, murder, revenge and a book that might just have the answer to everything.
The Split by Laura Kay
Published: March 18th, 2021
Publisher: Quercus
Genre: Literary Fiction, Romance Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
A brilliant, heart-warming and intensely funny story of love, heartache, friendship and family. Perfect for fans of Marian Keyes and Beth O’Leary.
Brutally dumped by her girlfriend, Ally is homeless, friendless and jobless… but at least she has Malcolm. Wounded and betrayed, Ally has made off with the one thing she thinks might soothe the pain: Emily’s cat.
After a long train journey she arrives home to her dad in Sheffield, ready to fold herself up in her duvet and remain on the sofa for the foreseeable. Her dad has other ideas. A phone call later, and Ally is reunited with her first ever beard and friend of old, Jeremy. He too is broken-hearted and living at home again.
In an inspired effort to hold each other up, the pair decide to sign up for the local half marathon in a bid to impress their exes with their commitment and athleticism.
Given neither of them can run, they enlist the support of athletic, not to mention beautiful, Jo. But will she have them running for the hills… or will their ridiculous plan pay off…?
Goodnight Beautiful by Aimee Molloy
Published: March 18th, 2021
Publisher: Hodder
Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Thriller
SYNOPSIS:
A HANDSOME PSYCHOTHERAPIST, HIS LONELY WIFE, AND IN HIS HOME OFFICE, A CEILING VENT. . . YOU’D LISTEN TOO, WOULDN’T YOU?
Newlyweds, Sam Statler and Annie Potter are ready to begin their lives together in a small town in upstate New York. Whilst Annie spends most of her time alone, Sam, her therapist husband, works long hours in his home office, tending to the egos of his mostly female clientele.
Little does Sam know that through a vent in the ceiling, every word of his sessions can be heard from the room upstairs. The pharmacist’s wife, contemplating a divorce. The well-known painter whose boyfriend doesn’t satisfy her in bed. Who could resist eavesdropping?
Everything is fine until the French girl in the green Mini Cooper shows up, and Sam disappears into thin air, throwing a wrench into Sam and Annie’s happily ever after.
This is a brilliant story of a whirlwind marriage in which untold secrets and games threaten to destroy them both.
The Hellion by Harriet Young
Published: March 18th, 2021
Publisher: Unbound
Genre: Historical Fiction, Thriller, Suspense, Saga
SYNOPSIS:
Whalley, 1537: On a day like any other, a devastating fire changes the lives of two young girls.
What happens next triggers a series of events leading inexplicably to the cells of Lancaster Gaol.
Lancashire, 1612:The most notorious witchcraft trials in England are taking place.
Among the accused, three generations of the same family. A family rooted in Pendle, tied to the infamous Malkin Towers and always followed by a whisper of evil. A family destroyed by the evidence given by a nine year old girl
The Castaways by Lucy Clarke
Published: March 18th, 2021
Publisher: Harper CollinsUK
Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Fiction, Domestic Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
A SECRET BEACH.
A HOLIDAY OF A LIFETIME.
WISH YOU WERE HERE?
THINK AGAIN…
It should be like any other holiday.
Beautiful beaches.
Golden sunsets.
Nothing for miles.
You’ll never want to leave.
Until you can’t…
Gripping, twisty and full of sun-soaked atmosphere, THE CASTAWAYS will whisk you far away to the island – and never let you go.
Unsettled Ground by Clare Fuller
Published: March 25th, 2021
Publisher: Fig Tree
Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Fiction
SYNOPSIS:
What if the life you have always known is taken from you in an instant?
What would you do to get it back?
Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At 51 years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation and poverty. Inside the walls of their old cottage they make music, and in the garden they grow (and sometimes kill) everything they need for sustenance.
But when Dot dies suddenly, threats to their livelihood start raining down. Jeanie and Julius would do anything to preserve their small sanctuary against the perils of the outside world, even as their mother’s secrets begin to unravel, putting everything they thought they knew about their lives at stake.
Unsettled Ground is a heart-stopping novel of betrayal and resilience, love and survival. It is a portrait of life on the fringes of society that explores with dazzling emotional power how we can build our lives on broken foundations, and spin light from darkness.
What books being released in March are you most excited about? Are any on this list? Let me know in the comments.
Thank you for reading. Until next time Bibliophiles, Emma xxx
Emma's Biblio Treasures 