Happy Tuesday, star bits! I hope you all had a delightful weekend. It was pretty nice here in Maine. Things are finally settling down and I’m able to take more time to stop and eat the roses. And read books! There are so many I want to read that I can’t seem to settle on just one. I want to have all of them in my brain right this very minute! To help you break your TBR, today I have a collection of essays from a talented artist; new YA noir from a Book Riot favorite; and the sequel to one of the best vampire novels of the last few years!
As for other new releases, at the top of my list of today’s books that I want to get my hands on are Off With Their Heads by Zoe Hana Mikuta, A Body Made of Glass: A Cultural History of Hypochondria by Caroline Crampton, and Officer Clawsome: Crime Across Time by Brian “Smitty” Smith and Chris Giarrusso. (Much like The Investigators and Fry Guys, this series has so. many. puns.)
You can hear about more of the fabulous books coming out today on this week’s episode of All the Books! Patricia and I talked about books we are excited about that are out this week, including The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Ocean’s Godori, and Knife.
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I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays by Nell Irvin Painter
Painter first turned up on my radar with Old in Art School, her memoir about, well, going to art school in middle age. This book collects Painter’s critical thinking and personal writing from her decades-long career in one place. Painter has been documenting her interests, research, and opinions about people, politics, race, and the Black experience in America for half a century and is a smart, incisive writer, no matter her subject. The book also includes original works of art throughout by the aptly named Painter. It’s a great book to enjoy at your leisure, or read cover to cover in one sitting.
Backlist bump: Old In Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over by Nell Painter
Kill Her Twice by Stacey Lee
Stacey Lee has been a Book Riot favorite since her first YA novel, Under a Painted Sky. Lee’s books are consistently great, and she’s an auto-buy author for me, for sure. She excels at historical fiction, and this is no exception. Kill Her Twice is a noir set in 1930s Chinatown. When Hollywood starlet Lulu Wong is found dead by her former classmates, they think it’s suspicious. Lulu may have been out of their orbit, living a supposedly glamorous life of fame, but they knew the real her. And something isn’t right. So Lulu’s friends take it upon themselves to find out what happened to her, and how she ended back up in Chinatown. But if their instincts are correct, and Lulu was murdered, that means a killer is still out there. And they are putting a big target on their backs by seeking answers.
Backlist bump: The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee
First Light (Night’s Edge, #2) by Liz Kerin
This is the sequel to one of my favorite vampire novels of the last few years! The first book was Night’s Edge, and it’s a great short and nasty vampire tale, with a very 1980s-vampire novel feel. I’m not going to spoil anything here by telling you about First Light, but I will tell you a bit about the first book. It involves a young woman named Mia. In this world, vampires are real, and they are registered and regulated by the government. Meaning, they’re locked away. Mia’s mother Izzy was turned into a vampire when Mia was young, and she has grown up helping her hide mother her vampirism from the world. But this means that Mia never left home, never had friends over, never got to have a life of her own. And her mother isn’t even that grateful, as her condition makes her frequently aggressive and unpleasant to live with. Then, Mia meets a young woman who has her questioning her dedication to her mother and her own lack of a social life. Can Mia find happiness out in the daylight, or will she spend her life at her mother’s side in darkness?
Backlist bump: Night’s Edge by Liz Kerin
This week, I am reading Those Opulent Days by Jacquie Pham and We Came to Welcome You by Vincent Tirado. I am two seasons into rewatching The X-Files for the twelfth time. And by “watch” I mean “leave on in the background while I do work.” It has been a few years since I rewatched it, and I feel like I have a new appreciation of it. The last few times, I have been very critical of it. But while it certainly has its flaws, this time I am struck anew by how creepy and messed up it is. (Related: Did you know that before he took on college students cheating Las Vegas and the creation of Facebook, Ben Mezrich wrote an X-Files tie-in novel?) The song stuck in my head this week is “My Home is the Sea” by Bonnie Prince Billy. And here is your weekly cat picture: Look at this little orange soda jerk. (Related: Do people even know what a soda jerk is anymore?)
That’s all for this week! I appreciate you more than I can say, friends. Thank you for joining me each Tuesday as I rave about books! I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! See you next week! – XO, Liberty
“Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.”—Diane Duane