New Releases and Publications

Hello, friends – and happy Tuesday! Welcome to another round of new releases that I was lucky enough to get an early copy of, and have either already read or are upcoming on my #TBR.

These books could be gifted from the publisher through sites like NetGalley or Edelweiss+, they could be electronic copies gifted directly to me from the publisher or the author, an early audiobook copy through the publisher or Libro.fm, or even a physical copy that has been sent to me from the author or publisher. I am so thankful for all of the reading opportunities that I am given through these various sources, and I am excited to share these new releases!

In these weekly posts I will include a 20% review if I am currently reading the book, as well as a link to my full review if I have already finished the book. And if I have not yet started the book by the time this is posted, I will leave those spots blank and edit the post to add them in later!

Witcha Gonna Do?

Author: Avery Flynn

Publication Date: December 6, 2022

Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Paranormal/Witches, Contemporary, Adult

Page Count: 336 pages

Thanks so much to the author, Berkley Publishing Group, Valentine PR, and Netgalley for the gifted advanced e-copy of this book!

Description from Goodreads:

An unlucky witch and her know-it-all nemesis must team up in the first of a new, hot romantic comedy series from USA Today bestselling author Avery Flynn.

Could it possibly get any worse than having absolutely no magical abilities when you’re a member of the most powerful family of witches ever? It used to be that I’d say no, but then I keep getting set up on dates with Gil Connolly whose hotness is only matched by his ego. Seriously. I can’t stand him. Even if I also can’t stop thinking about him (specifically kissing him) but we’re going to pretend I never told you that part.

So yeah, my life isn’t the greatest right now, but then it goes straight to the absolute worst hell when I accidentally make my sister’s spell glitch and curse my whole family. And the only person who can help non-magical me break the spell? You guessed it. Gil the super hot jerk.

Now we have to work together to save my family and outmaneuver some evil-minded nefarious forces bent on world domination. Oh yeah, and we have to do all that while fighting against the attraction building between us because I may not be magical, but what’s happening between Gil and I sure feels like it.

20% Review:

This book is such a good time! It is written in first person and the main character talks to the reader, which gives it a very narrator-in-a-sitcom vibe that I am finding really fun and different from all of my other recent reads. The world building so far is interesting and easy to understand, if a little silly – think things like WitchyGram instead of Instagram – but I don’t mind a little silliness in my romcoms. Overall I’m really excited to see what happens next and how the relationship between the two leads grows!

Check out my full review and blog tour here!

The Wedding Ranch

Author: Nancy Naigle

Publication Date: December 6, 2022

Genre: Romance, Contemporary Romance, Women’s Fiction

Page Count: 352 pages

Thanks so much to the author, St. Martin’s Griffin, and Netgalley for the gifted advanced e-copy of this book!

Description from Goodreads:

Two people get a second chance at love in this heartwarming story by author Nancy Naigle, The Wedding Ranch…

When Lorri Walker’s husband gifted her with a mastiff puppy on Valentine’s Day, she believed he was recommitting himself to their marriage after going astray. Six months later, he left both her and their dog for someone else. Since her recent move to Dalton Mill to unbraid herself from the past, Lorri’s graphic design business is now flourishing, her growing mastiff, Mister, has plenty of space to romp, and her ex in Raleigh can fade to a distant memory.

Ryder Bolt is haunted by the tragic loss of his wife and young son seven years ago. Thankfully, ranching keeps Ryder busy, and spending time with his niece and nephew—whose venue, The Wedding Ranch, has become a popular tourist destination—keeps him from getting lonely.

When Lorri and Ryder met, love was the last thing they were looking for. When they’re together, smiles come easier and burdens feel lighter, and both are embracing the possibility of something deeper.

But when a long-buried revelation surfaces, the fate that brought them together threatens to tear them apart.

20% Review:

(This will be added at a later date, once I start reading this book!)

Review:

(This will be added at a later date, once I have finished this book!)

No One Left to Come Looking for You

Author: Sam Lipsyte

Publication Date: December 6, 2022

Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Adult

Page Count: 224 pages

Thanks so much to the author, Simon & Schuster, and Edelweiss+ for the gifted advanced e-copy of this book!

Description from Goodreads:

A darkly comic mystery by the author of Hark and The Ask set in the vibrant music scene of early 1990s New York City.

Manhattan’s East Village, 1993. Dive bars, DIY music venues, shady weirdos, and hard drugs are plentiful. Crime is high but rent is low, luring hopeful, creative kids from sleepy suburbs around the country.

One of these is Jack S., a young New Jersey rock musician. Just a few days before his band’s biggest gig, their lead singer goes missing with Jack’s prized bass, presumably to hock it to feed his junk habit. Jack’s search for his buddy uncovers a sinister entanglement of crimes tied to local real estate barons looking to remake New York City—and who might also be connected to the recent death of Jack’s punk rock mentor. Along the way, Jack encounters a cast of colorful characters, including a bewitching, quick-witted scenester who favors dressing in a nurse’s outfit, a monstrous hired killer with a devotion to both figure skating and edged weapons, a deranged if prophetic postwar novelist, and a tough-talking cop who fancies himself a retro-cool icon of the homicide squad but is harboring a surprising secret.

No One Left to Come Looking for You is a page-turning suspense novel that also serves as a love letter to a bygone era of New York City where young artists could still afford to chase their dreams.

20% Review:

(This will be added at a later date, once I start reading this book!)

Review:

(This will be added at a later date, once I have finished this book!)

Your Table is Ready

Author: Michael Cecchi-Azzolina

Publication Date: December 6, 2022

Genre: Nonfiction, Autobiography/Memoir, Food and Drink

Page Count: 304 pages

Thanks so much to the author, St. Martin’s Press, and Netgalley for the gifted advanced e-copy of this book!

Description from Goodreads:

A front-of-the-house Kitchen Confidential from a career maître d’hotel who manned the front of the room in New York City’s hottest and most in-demand restaurants.

From the glamorous to the entitled, from royalty to the financially ruined, everyone who wanted to be seen—or just to gawk—at the hottest restaurants in New York City came to places Michael Cecchi-Azzolina helped run. His phone number was passed around among those who wanted to curry favor, during the decades when restaurants replaced clubs and theater as, well, theater in the most visible, vibrant city in the world.

Besides dropping us back into a vanished time, Your Table Is Ready takes us places we’d never be able to get into on our own: Raoul’s in Soho with its louche club vibe; Buzzy O’Keefe’s casually elegant River Café (the only outer-borough establishment desirable enough to be included in this roster), from Keith McNally’s Minetta Tavern to Nolita’s Le Coucou, possibly the most beautiful room in New York City in 2018, with its French Country Auberge-meets-winery look and the most exquisite and enormous stands of flowers, changed every three days.

From his early career serving theater stars like Tennessee Williams and Dustin Hoffman at La Rousse right through to the last pre-pandemic-shutdown full houses at Le Coucou, Cecchi-Azzolina has seen it all. In Your Table Is Ready, he breaks down how restaurants really run (and don’t), and how the economics work for owners and overworked staff alike. The professionals who gravitate to the business are a special, tougher breed, practiced in dealing with the demanding patrons and with each other, in a very distinctive ecosystem that’s somewhere between a George Orwell “down and out in….” dungeon and a sleek showman’s smoke-and-mirrors palace.

Your Table Is Ready is a rollicking, raunchy, revelatory memoir.

20% Review:

So far this book has been a bit of a slow read for me. I only started it this morning, so not in the sense that I’m finding myself constantly putting it down and picking it back up, but in the sense that a few times I’ve realized I’ve read the same sentence or paragraph multiple times because I’m losing my place or spacing out and forgetting what I’ve already read. Now, I am reading it on my phone at the moment, so take that with a grain of salt, but still. However, I’m in a part of the book where he’s talking more about the theatre-side of his restaurant career, which is particularly interesting to me as a performer, and I hope there’s more of it.

Check out my full review here!

The Light Pirate

Author: Lily Brooks-Dalton

Narrated by: Rosemary Benson

Audio Publication Date: December 6, 2022

Genre: Fiction, Sci-Fi, Literary Fiction, Dystopia, Contemporary, Adult

Audiobook Length: 11 hours 18 minutes

Thanks so much to the author, Hachette Audio, and Libro.fm for the gifted advanced audio-copy of this book!

Description from Goodreads:

Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels gradually wreak havoc on the state’s infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker; his pregnant wife, Frida; and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the worst. When the boys go missing just before the hurricane hits, Kirby heads out into the high winds to search for them. Left alone, Frida goes into premature labor and gives birth to an unusual child, Wanda, whom she names after the catastrophic storm that ushers her into a society closer to collapse than ever before.

As Florida continues to unravel, Wanda grows. Moving from childhood to adulthood, adapting not only to the changing landscape, but also to the people who stayed behind in a place abandoned by civilization, Wanda loses family, gains community, and ultimately, seeks adventure, love, and purpose in a place remade by nature.

Told in four parts—power, water, light, and time—The Light Pirate mirrors the rhythms of the elements and the sometimes quick, sometimes slow dissolution of the world as we know it. It is a meditation on the changes we would rather not see, the future we would rather not greet, and a call back to the beauty and violence of an untamable wilderness.

20% Review:

I just started this one on audio, and so far it has been a pretty quick listen! I’m not always a sci-fi/literary fiction type of person – it really has to be just the right one to fully draw me in. I’m not sure yet if this is going to be just the right story to make me fall in love with it, but it is fast paced and seems like it might be a pretty short listen for me, so I’m keeping an open mind!

Review:

(This will be added at a later date, once I have finished this book!)