Friends, spring is almost here! We are mere hours away from stepping out of this snowy/freezing February and I couldn’t be more excited and anxious to embrace all that March is about to offer.
Even with the negative degree temps, February did bring some pretty great stuff. Lots of snow, means lots of reading and tea time. (There is always a positive side!) I celebrated Valentine’s Day with a little Eleanor & Park and I absolutely thought it was adorable. It left me with all kinds of feels and made my heart happy. Young love, is there anything better? I also began The Bone Season series by Samantha Shannon. I’ve noticed there has been a lot of book buzz about it recently, probably because the sequel, The Mime Order, (which I am currently reading) released late January. The series is great, however each book takes me FOREVER to read. (I’m not entirely sure why that is.) Have you read this series yet? What do you think?
Some other books I picked up were The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black and The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma. Speaking of The Walls Around Us…let’s talk about March’s new releases!
1. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Releases: March 3rd by Knopf
via Goodreads
The Romans have long since departed and Britain is steadily declining into ruin. But, at least, the wars that once ravaged the country have ceased. Axl and Beatrice, a couple of elderly Britons, decide that now is the time, finally, for them to set off across this troubled land of mist and rain to find the son they have not seen for years, the son they can scarcely remember. They know they will face many hazards—some strange and otherworldly—but they cannot foresee how their journey will reveal to them the dark and forgotten corners of their love for each other. Nor can they foresee that they will be joined on their journey by a Saxon warrior, his orphan charge, and a knight—each of them, like Axl and Beatrice, lost in some way to his own past, but drawn inexorably toward the comfort, and the burden, of the fullness of a life’s memories.
Sometimes savage, sometimes mysterious, always intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel in a decade tells a luminous story about the act of forgetting and the power of memory, a resonant tale of love, vengeance, and war.
2. Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver
Releases: March 10th by HarperCollins
via Goodreads
New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver delivers a gripping story about two sisters inexorably altered by a terrible accident.
Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before the accident that left Dara’s beautiful face scarred and the two sisters totally estranged. When Dara vanishes on her birthday, Nick thinks Dara is just playing around. But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it’s too late.
In this edgy and compelling novel, Lauren Oliver creates a world of intrigue, loss, and suspicion as two sisters search to find themselves, and each other.
5. Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum
Releases: March 17th by Random House
via Goodreads
Hausfrau
haus·frau haus-frau n 1: Origin: German.
Housewife, homemaker. 2: A married woman. 3: A novel by jill alexander essbaum
Anna was a good wife, mostly.
Anna Benz, an American in her late thirties, lives with her Swiss husband, Bruno—a banker—and their three young children in a postcard-perfect suburb of Zürich. Though she leads a comfortable, well-appointed life, Anna is falling apart inside. Adrift and increasingly unable to connect with the emotionally unavailable Bruno or even with her own thoughts and feelings, Anna tries to rouse herself with new experiences: German language classes, Jungian analysis, and a series of sexual affairs she enters with an ease that surprises even her.
But Anna can’t easily extract herself from these affairs. When she wants to end them, she finds it’s difficult. Tensions escalate, and her lies start to spin out of control. Having crossed a moral threshold, Anna will discover where a woman goes when there is no going back.
Intimate, intense, and written with the precision of a Swiss Army knife, Jill Alexander Essbaum’s debut novel is an unforgettable story of marriage, fidelity, sex, morality, and most especially self. Navigating the lines between lust and love, guilt and shame, excuses and reasons, Anna Benz is an electrifying heroine whose passions and choices readers will debate with recognition and fury. Her story reveals, with honesty and great beauty, how we create ourselves and how we lose ourselves and the sometimes disastrous choices we make to find ourselves.
2. The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma
Releases: March 24th by Algonquin Young Readers
via Goodreads
I had the opportunity to get my hands on an advanced copy of this wonderful book. (Thank you NetGalley & Algonquin!) I’m not sure I can eloquently relay how great this book is, but I did try. You can read my review for this haunting read here.
“Ori’s dead because of what happened out behind the theater, in the tunnel made out of trees. She’s dead because she got sent to that place upstate, locked up with those monsters. And she got sent there because of me.”
The Walls Around Us is a ghostly story of suspense told in two voices—one still living and one long dead. On the outside, there’s Violet, an eighteen-year-old dancer days away from the life of her dreams when something threatens to expose the shocking truth of her achievement. On the inside, within the walls of a girls’ juvenile detention center, there’s Amber, locked up for so long she can’t imagine freedom. Tying these two worlds together is Orianna, who holds the key to unlocking all the girls’ darkest mysteries.
We hear Amber’s story and Violet’s, and through them Orianna’s, first from one angle, then from another, until gradually we begin to get the whole picture—which is not necessarily the one that either Amber or Violet wants us to see.
Nova Ren Suma tells a supernatural tale of guilt and innocence, and what happens when one is mistaken for the other.
4. The Haunting of Sunshine Girl by Paige Mckenzie
Releases: March 24th by Weinstein Books
via Goodreads
Based on the wildly popular YouTube channel, The Haunting of Sunshine Girl has been described as “ Gilmore Girls meets Paranormal Activity for the new media age.” YA fans new and old will learn the secrets behind Sunshine—the adorkable girl living in a haunted house—a story that is much bigger, and runs much deeper, than even the most devoted viewer can imagine…
6. We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach
Releases: March 24th by Simon and Schuster
via Goodreads
Four high school seniors put their hopes, hearts, and humanity on the line as an asteroid hurtles toward Earth in this contemporary novel.
They always say that high school is the best time of your life.
Peter, the star basketball player at his school, is worried “they” might actually be right. Meanwhile Eliza can’t wait to escape Seattle—and her reputation—and perfect-on-paper Anita wonders if admission to Princeton is worth the price of abandoning her real dreams. Andy, for his part, doesn’t understand all the fuss about college and career—the future can wait.
Or can it? Because it turns out the future is hurtling through space with the potential to wipe out life on Earth. As these four seniors—along with the rest of the planet—wait to see what damage an asteroid will cause, they must abandon all thoughts of the future and decide how they’re going to spend what remains of the present.
All opinions are my own and are not endorsed or affiliated with any company or organization.
The Book Trove 