My Most Anticipated Book Releases October 2024

Another great month of new releases- so excited to see some great middle grade novels on the list.

October 1

A small Southern town. An ordinary Saturday night. A little boy disappears without a trace.

Everyone in Wynotte, North Carolina, knows the name Davy Malcor. Knows the video clip of him juggling four balls, “All at the very same time!” Knows the Marty McFly jacket his mother made for his birthday that he wore proudly, and often. But no one knows what happened to him the night he went missing more than twenty years ago.

When the jacket is unexpectedly uncovered, the cold case reopens, and Davy’s family is thrust into yet another media storm. But at the heart of the story are four people forever changed by one single Thaddeus Malcor, Davy’s older brother, created the life of his dreams by writing a bestselling memoir about his family’s experience and is enjoying success and notoriety as a result, even if the memoir doesn’t quite reveal the whole story. Tabitha Malcor, his mother, is divorced and living alone, advocating for victims’ rights and faithfully cataloging her regrets each week, never including her biggest regret of all. Anissa Weaver was just a kid herself when Davy went missing, and her connection to him is one she cannot reveal as she serves as the Malcor family’s Public Information Officer. And, long suspected in Davy’s disappearance, Gordon Swift has kept his head down and scraped together a decent life. But the new attention to the case makes it impossible to hide from the public, and the past.

When Aviva Davis and Holly Martin meet at the holiday pageant tryouts for their local senior’s center, they think they must be seeing double. While they both knew they were adopted, they had no idea they had a biological sibling, let alone an identical twin! The similarities are only skin deep, though, because while Aviva has a big personality and even bigger Broadway plans, Holly is more the quiet dreamer type who longs to become a famous author like her grandfather.

One thing the girls do have in common is their curiosity about how the other celebrates the holidays. What better way to discover the magic of the holidays than to experience them firsthand? The girls secretly trade lives, planning to stage a dramatic reveal to their families at the pageant. Two virtual strangers swapping homes, holidays, and age-old traditions–what could possibly go wrong?

October 8

Summer, 1940. Nineteen-year-old Jakob Novis and his quirky younger sister Lizzie share a love of riddles and puzzles. And now they’re living inside of one. The quarrelsome siblings find themselves amidst one of the greatest secrets of World War II—Britain’s eccentric codebreaking factory at Bletchley Park. As Jakob joins Bletchley’s top minds to crack the Nazi’s Enigma cipher, fourteen-year-old Lizzie embarks on a mission to solve the mysterious disappearance of their mother.

The Battle of Britain rages and Hitler’s invasion creeps closer. And at the same time, baffling messages and codes arrive on their doorstep while a menacing inspector lurks outside the gates of the Bletchley mansion. Are the messages truly for them, or are they a trap? Could the riddles of Enigma and their mother’s disappearance be somehow connected? Jakob and Lizzie must find a way to work together as they race to decipher clues which unravel a shocking puzzle that presents the ultimate challenge: How long must a secret be kept?

On the cusp of turning eighty, newly retired pharmacist Augusta Stern is adrift. When she relocates to Rallentando Springs—an active senior community in southern Florida—she unexpectedly crosses paths with Irving Rivkin, the delivery boy from her father’s old pharmacy—and the man who broke her heart sixty years earlier.

As a teenager growing up in 1920’s Brooklyn, Augusta’s role model was her father, Solomon Stern, the trusted owner of the local pharmacy and the neighborhood expert on every ailment. But when Augusta’s mother dies and Great Aunt Esther moves in, Augusta can’t help but be drawn to Esther’s curious methods. As a healer herself, Esther offers Solomon’s customers her own advice—unconventional remedies ranging from homemade chicken soup to a mysterious array of powders and potions.

As Augusta prepares for pharmacy college, she is torn between loyalty to her father and fascination with her great aunt, all while navigating a budding but complicated relationship with Irving. Desperate for clarity, she impulsively uses Esther’s most potent elixir with disastrous consequences. Disillusioned and alone, Augusta vows to reject Esther’s enchantments forever.

Sixty years later, confronted with Irving, Augusta is still haunted by the mistakes of her past. What happened all those years ago and how did her plan go so spectacularly wrong? Did Irving ever truly love her or was he simply playing a part? And can Augusta reclaim the magic of her youth before it’s too late?

Eve is a successful novelist who wakes up one day in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there. Her husband, never far from her side, explains that she has had an operation to remove the large, malignant tumor growing in her brain.

As Eve learns to walk, talk, and write again—and as she wrestles with her diagnosis, and how and when to explain it to her beloved children—she begins to recall what’s most important to her: long walks with her husband’s hand clasped firmly around her own, family game nights, and always buying that dress when she sees it.

Recounted in brief anecdotes, each one is an attempt to answer the type of impossible questions recognizable to anyone navigating the labyrinth of grief. This short, extraordinary novel is a celebration of life, shot through with warmth and humor—it will both break your heart and put it back together again.

October 15

So begins Chapter Twelve of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and the heartwarming story of Harry Potter’s first Christmas at Hogwarts. From the Great Hall decked with magnificent fir trees to cozy evenings in the Gryffindor Common Room to the joy of presents on Christmas morning, it’s a holiday filled with warmth, friendship, good food, and magical surprises that Harry will never forget.

With text drawn directly from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and luminous illustrations by artist Ziyi Gao, this favorite moment from one of the most beloved books of all time is now fully illustrated for the whole family to enjoy. Sure to be treasured by Harry Potter fans of all ages, Christmas at Hogwarts is the perfect gift, destined to become an enchanting new holiday tradition.

Greek myths have fascinated people for millennia, seeing in them lessons about fate and hubris and the contingency of existence. Mark Haddon digs into the heart of these ancient fables and sees them anew.In “The Quiet Limit of the World” Haddon imagines Tithonus’ life as he slowly ages over thousands of years, turning the cautionary tale of tempting the gods into a spellbinding meditation on witnessing death from the outside, and ultimately, how carnal love evolves into something richer and more poignant with time. In “The Mother’s Story,” Haddon takes the myth of the minotaur in his labyrinth, in which the beast is the spawn of the monstrous lust of the king’s wife Pasiphae, and turns it into a wrenching parable of maternal love for a damaged child, and the more real monstrosities of patriarchy. In “D.O.G.Z.” the story of Actaeon, who was turned into a stag after glimpsing the naked goddess Diana and torn to pieces by his hunting dogs, becomes a visceral metaphor about the continuum of human and animal behavior.Other stories play with contemporary mythic tropes—genetic engineering, trying to escape the future, the viciousness of adolescent ostracism—to showcase how modern humans are subject to the same capriciousness that obsessed the Greeks. Haddon’s tales cover a vast range, from the mythic to the domestic, from ancient Greece to the present day, from stories about love to stories about cruelty, from battlefields to bed and breakfasts, from dogs in space to doors between worlds—all of them bound together by a profound sympathy and an understanding of how human beings act and think and feel when pushed to the very edge. Throughout Haddon’s supple prose, he showcases his astonishing powers of observation, of both the physical world and the workings of the psyche. His vision is clear-eyed, but always resolutely empathetic.

October 29

An isolated Scottish island, accessible to the mainland only twelve hours a day. A famous (some might say infamous) artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared after visiting her twenty years ago. A present-day discovery that intimately connects three people and unveils a web of secrets and lies.

Welcome to Eris: an island with only one house, one inhabitant, one way out. Unreachable from the Scottish mainland for twelve hours each day.

Once home to Vanessa: A famous artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared twenty years ago.

Now home to Grace: A solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation.

But when a shocking discovery is made in an art gallery far away in London, a visitor comes calling.

And the secrets of Eris threaten to emerge….

Santo is a stranger in a strange land. He doesn’t know any English, and he gets separated from his mother and siblings at Ellis Island.

Santo’s father left for America a few years before, and he has finally sent word for the rest of his family to come join him in New York. Though Santo has always imagined America as a land of limitless opportunity, when he arrives at Ellis Island, he soon discovers that it’s not what he envisioned. Inspectors separate him from his mother and siblings, and he’s left to fend for himself in Manhattan.

While searching desperately for a clue as to where his family–and his father–have gone, Santo gets caught up with a group of boys who steal. After escaping the police by the skin of his teeth, Santo is taken in by a wealthy man and his wife—but somehow Santo again finds himself on the wrong side of the law. When an unexpected betrayal leaves Santo scrambling, it might just take all the street smarts he’s gained to find a way back to his family.

My Favorite Book of September 2024: The Paris Daughter by Kristin Harmel

“I’ve always believed that books are simply dreams on paper, taking us where we most need to go.”
― Kristin Harmel, The Paris Daughter

Title: The Paris Daughter

Author: Kristin Harmel

Publisher: Gallery Books

Publication Date: June 6, 2023

Goodreads Synopsis:

Paris, 1939: Young mothers Elise and Juliette become fast friends the day they meet in the beautiful Bois de Boulogne. Though there is a shadow of war creeping across Europe, neither woman suspects that their lives are about to irrevocably change.

When Elise becomes a target of the German occupation, she entrusts Juliette with the most precious thing in her life—her young daughter, playmate to Juliette’s own little girl. But nowhere is safe in war, not even a quiet little bookshop like Juliette’s Librairie des Rêves, and, when a bomb falls on their neighborhood, Juliette’s world is destroyed along with it.

More than a year later, with the war finally ending, Elise returns to reunite with her daughter, only to find her friend’s bookstore reduced to rubble—and Juliette nowhere to be found. What happened to her daughter in those last, terrible moments? Juliette has seemingly vanished without a trace, taking all the answers with her. Elise’s desperate search leads her to New York—and to Juliette—one final, fateful time.

My Thoughts:

Sometimes, it seems like the market is being saturated with WWII novels. But, I never seem to tire of them. There are so many different angles and untold stories. This one stood out to me because it focused on the aftermath. At a time when no one talked about mental health, and counseling wasn’t readily available, Juliette and Elise both faced unimaginable tragedy. They are each profoundly affected but deal with their losses in different ways. The story is heartbreaking, but the end also leaves the reader with a sense of hope.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Book Review: A Face is a Poem by Julie Morstad

Title; A Face is a Poem

Author: Julie Morstad

Publisher: Penguin Random House, Canada: Turndra Books

Publication Date: September 24, 2024

Thank you to netgalley for giving me an advanced free ereader copy inexchange for an honest review.

Description:

Have you ever stopped and looked, really looked, at a face? Do faces stay the same forever, or do they change? What if we could change faces to see through someone else’s eyes? What if eyelashes were butterflylashes?

Julie Morstad guides readers through a playful and fantastical exploration of the unique eyes, noses, mouths, freckles, wrinkles, scars and all those one-of-a-kind marks that make up a face. Embracing commonalities and differences alike, A Face Is a Poem is an ode to the unique beauty of each and every person’s appearance, with an empowering message of love.

My Thoughts

I love the message of this book. We’re all unique and beautiful. I also like that it could appreciated at any day. It’s written simplistically enough that a young child can understand, but it could also lead to deeper discussions with older children.

Rating: 5 out of 5.


Picture Book Review: Grampy’s Chair by Rebecca Thomas

Title: Grampy’s Chair

Author: Rebecca Thomas

Publisher: Annick Press

Publication Date: September 17, 2024

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced ebook copy in exchange for an honest review.

Description:

Grampy’s chair sits in the middle of his living room and always keeps an eye on My Love. The Chair is the perfect spot for My Love to learn to read, to play games with her friends, and The Chair is always extra soft when My Love is sick. As My Love grows up, The Chair sees Grampy grow older and My Love must care for him. One day Grampy is gone, and The Chair is moved to a space with only a few things it recognizes (and a few spiders too). Will it see My Love again?

In this poignant story inspired by her own grandfather and his chair, Rebecca Thomas invites readers of all ages to explore love, grief, and the important moments in life that take place in our favorite spots. With lively illustrations from Coco A. Lynge and featuring a heartfelt author’s note, Grampy’s Chair takes the readers through loss, and how we can be found again by the ones we love.

My Thoughts

Grampy’s Chair is a touching story that adults will appreciate even more than children. The personal recollections of the author shine through. Anyone who had a close relationship with a grandparent can relate.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

My Favorite Book of August 2024: Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

“My Google search history alone was probably enough to put me on a government watch list. I wrote suspense novels about murders like this. I’d searched every possible way to kill someone. With every conceivable kind of weapon.”
― Elle Cosimano, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It

Title: Finlay Donovan is Killing It

Author: Elle Cosimano

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Publication Date: February 2, 2021

Goodreads Synopsis:

Finlay Donovan is killing it . . . except, she’s really not. She’s a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist, Finlay’s life is in the new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors.

When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer, and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet . . . Soon, Finlay discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation.

Fast-paced, deliciously witty, and wholeheartedly authentic in depicting the frustrations and triumphs of motherhood in all its messiness, hilarity, and heartfelt moment, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It is the first in a brilliant new series from YA Edgar Award nominee Elle Cosimano.

My Thoughts:

I was going through a bit of a reading slump early in the summer, and this book was exactly what I needed to get out of it. It’s not deeply meaningful or realistic, but it was so much fun, I didn’t want to put it down. The twists and turns are so crazy, you never know what will happen next. Finlay Donovan is a great character and I can’t wait to read more books in the series.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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