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When her brother passed away, Ayesha lost her dreams, her fierce independence, and the man she loved: her brother’s best friend Emmitt. Not wanting to see her mother hurt anymore, she put her wild self away and became the dutiful daughter her mother needed, taking on her brother’s role in the family business. Now, at her best friend’s Indian wedding, Ayesha is set up with a doctor handpicked by her mother. But Emmitt’s unexpected appearance changes everything. From USA Today bestselling author Sonali Dev and Amazon Original Stories comes a heartfelt new short story. Prime members read and listen free.
Greetings, Book Lovers!
Another Thursday, which means time to plan out our weekend reading goals. I have several books I’m planning on finishing this weekend. Additionally, as I mentioned on Monday, I’m checking out a lot of the Sundance movies this weekend. And… I also just started watching Station Eleven, so I’ll let you know how that goes. I feel like watching that show counts as a reading goal because it’s based on a book I have read. That’s how that works, right? Anyway, I hope your weekend is a restful one if that’s what you need and a productive one if that’s your goal. In the meantime, as we wait for the weekend to roll around, here are some book things for you to read about.
❤️ Emily
Book Deals and Reveals
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Here’s the cover reveal for Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove, a new “medieval Indian YA Fantasy about a sassy guardswoman, a handsome monk, and a plethora of monsters!” Coming out October 18th from Wednesday Books!
Magic! Murder! Shipboard romance! Here’s the cover reveal for A Restless Truth, the sequel to A Marvelous Light by Freya Marske. This one’s out November 1st from Tordotcom Publishing.
Another notable cover reveal: this is the cover for Cherish, the sixth book in the Crave series by Tracy Wolff!
A stage adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel The Kite Runner is about to make its Broadway debut.
A rare first edition of William Shakespeare’s Comedies Histories and Tragedies, which contains 36 of Shakespeare’s 38 known plays, is now in the collections of the University of British Columbia Library.
Here’s the trailer for Moon Knight, starring Oscar Isaac. The six-episode Disney+ series will debut on March 30th.
Stephen Curry’s Literati-branded book club Underrated has chosen Tim Fielder’s self-published graphic novel Matty’s Rocket as its February 2022 reading selection.
Kokila, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers, is publishing Goodnight Racism, a children’s picture book by National Book Award winner and MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient Dr. Ibram X. Kendi.
Mariah Carey, known as the Queen of Christmas for “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” is releasing a Christmas-themed picture book.
So many book-to-film adaptations are happening in 2022! Here are 8 of the great film adaptations coming this year for you to look forward to!
Book Riot Recommends
I’m a Contributing Editor at Book Riot, I write the Today in Books newsletter, and I’m a Bibliologist for Book Riot’s Tailored Book Recommendations subscription service. I also have a PhD in English, so I’m basically a doctor of books. Books are my life, in other words, so in this section of the newsletter, let me share with you some upcoming books I’m super excited about. And I think you will be too!
Make sure to get your own Read Harder Book Journal from Book Riot to track your reading for the year!
Can’t Wait for This One
Circling Back to You by Julie Tieu (Avon, July 15th)
It’s been a while since I hyped up an upcoming romance novel, so it seemed like it was right about time. And now that it’s January and we’re all back to work—you know, circling back, touching base, and stuff—it seems like a good time to start looking ahead to an office romance coming out later this year.
Enter Circling Back to You by Julie Tieu. This book has one of my absolute favorite romance tropes: fake dating. Even though I have never, ever seen fake dating happen in real life and it’s totally bizarre, I absolutely eat it up in romance stories. Are you with me? Great. This is the story of Cadence Lim, who has worked her way up the corporate ladder at Prism Realty. Her best friend at work is Matt Escanilla, a top broker who is forever single. When a business trip lands both Matt and Cadence in their hometown, Matt asks Cadence for a little help. He needs her to pretend to be his girlfriend for a family gathering. Cadence agrees, and this trips forces the two to see each other in a different light, in more ways than one.
If Julie Tieu’s name seems familiar, that might be because everyone has been talking about her debut novel The Donut Trap that came out at the end of 2021. The Donut Trap was a romance novel that was delightfully cute, funny, and just a sweet (pun intended) read. Circling Back to You is a humorous romance in the same vein that I think people are going to love.
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
Words of Literary Wisdom
“You reach a point where you realize that your life must go on regardless. You choose to live or you choose to die. But then there are moments, things that you see, something funny on the street or or a good joke that you hear, a television program that you want to share, and it makes you miss the person who’s gone terribly and then it’s not grief at all, it’s more a sort of bitterness at the world for taking them away from you.”
— The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
What’s Up in the Book Community?
My iPhone is constantly telling me I spend too much time staring at my screen, which is honestly so rude. But this means I spend a lot of time scrolling around the online book community: BookTube, Bookstagram, BookTok, BookLinkedIn (JK. That’s not a thing… I don’t think). You get the idea. Don’t have the time, energy, or the will to do all of that yourself? No problem. I got you. In this weekly section of Book Radar, we’ll take a look at something cool, interesting, and/or newsy that’s going on in the book community.
You know I like to keep y’all informed about upcoming Read-a-thons when I think they may be of interest to you. And here’s one that I’m personally planning on participating in for the month of February. It’s Blackathon, a month-long readathon hosted by multiple YouTubers that celebrates Black voices in literature.
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This year, Blackathon has four teams covering four different genres, with a different Youtuber leading each genre. Each team will have three reading prompts and a group read. Blackathon will also include Instagram challenges, Neflix parties, and more. You can get all of the details about Blackathon here.
I will be joining Team Thriller, hosted by Jesse over at Bowties and Books. You can watch their video about the challenge here. The group read for Team Thriller is going to be The Perfect Ruin by Shanora WIlliams. So feel free to read that along with me in the month of February, even if you choose not to participate in any other parts of the readathon. There are also teams for romance, literary fiction, and sci-fi/fantasy if those are more your speed. And if you do end up participating, I’d love to hear about what you’re reading!
Your Weekend Reading Soundtrack
This weekend, why not watch Station Eleven with me instead of listening to music? TV can be enriching too!
And Here’s A Cat Picture!
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I love Phantom’s beautifully outstretched arm here. When he does this, I just want to take his paw in my hand and say, “Nice to meet you, sir!”
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you this week! Have a great one! Don’t wait until the weekend to get enough hours of sleep! Oh, and tell your friends how much they mean to you!
❤️ Emily