Hi guys,
A happy new year to you once again.
I hope you year has started off on a good note so far and I wish you a fabulous reading experience the rest of this quarter. Towards the end of last year got so busy for me that I couldn’t find the time to consistently blog as much as I have done in the past. Although, the commitments I have are still there, I hope to make out time to be here more often since I am more comfortable with my new routine. I also hope to get more reading done. Fingers crossed. I hope for a splendid experience this new year.
There are six books to be released this first quarter of the year that I highly anticipate reading. Here they are….
Expected Publication Date: January 31, 2023
Pages: 400
Genre: Fiction
Synopsis:
Lola is twenty-one, and her life in Senegal couldn’t be better. An aspiring writer and university graduate, she has a great job, a vibrant social life, and a future filled with possibility. But fate disrupts her world when she falls for Armand, an American Marine stationed at the U.S. Embassy. Her mother, a high court judge in Ghana, disapproves of her choice, but nothing will stop Lola from boarding a plane for Armand and America.
That fateful flight is only the beginning of an extraordinary journey, for she has traded her carefree life for the perilous existence of an undocumented immigrant. Lola encounters adversity that would crush a less determined woman. Her fate hangs on whether she’ll grow in courage to forge a life different from the one she’d imagined whether she’ll succeed in putting herself and her family together again. Daughter in Exile is a hope-filled story about mother love and what defines us all.
Expected Publication Date: February 7, 2023
Pages: 384
Genre: Romance
Synopsis:
Hallie Welch fell hard for Julian Vos at fourteen, after they almost kissed in the dark vineyards of his family’s winery. Now the prodigal hottie has returned to their small town. When Hallie is hired to revamp the gardens on the Vos estate, she wonders if she’ll finally get that smooch. But the grumpy professor isn’t the teenager she remembers and their polar opposite personalities clash spectacularly. One wine-fueled girls’ night later, Hallie can’t shake the sense that she did something reckless–and then she remembers the drunken secret admirer letter she left for Julian. Oh shit.
On sabbatical from his ivy league job, Julian plans to write a novel. But having Hallie gardening right outside his window is the ultimate distraction. She’s eccentric, chronically late, often literally covered in dirt–and so unbelievably beautiful, he can’t focus on anything else. Until he finds an anonymous letter sent by a woman from his past. Even as Julian wonders about this admirer, he’s sucked further into Hallie’s orbit. Like the flowers she plants all over town, Hallie is a burst of color in Julian’s gray-scale life. For a man who irons his socks and runs on tight schedules, her sunny chaotic energy makes zero sense. But there’s something so familiar about her… and her very presence is turning his world upside down.
Expected Publication Date: February 2, 2023
Pages: 448
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Synopsis:
Nisha Cantor lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband announces a divorce and cuts her off. Nisha is determined to hang onto her glamorous life. But in the meantime, she must scramble to cope–she doesn’t even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in.
That’s because Sam Kemp – in the bleakest point of her life – has accidentally taken Nisha’s gym bag. But Sam hardly has time to worry about a lost gym bag–she’s struggling to keep herself and her family afloat. When she tries on Nisha’s six-inch high Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes, the resulting jolt of confidence that makes her realize something must change—and that thing is herself.
Full of Jojo Moyes’ signature humor, brilliant storytelling, and warmth, Someone Else’s Shoes is a story about how just one little thing can suddenly change everything.
Expected Publication Date: February 7, 2023
Genre: Short Story Collection
Synopsis:
In the 2021 NLNG Prize finalist’s new collection of stories, ordinary people find (and fashion) themselves in (and into) far-from-ordinary situations. A beautiful woman is discovered half-naked and dead but is the killer one of her wealthy suitors? A plumber is treated to an intense sexual experience by a woman with cash, curves, and killer moves—but is she who he thinks she is? A young doctor arrives at the brink of insanity after a forbidden entanglement with a married woman. A sexually promiscuous tailor’s return to her father’s house immediately sparks lust, jealousy, chaos, and violence.
In The Widow Who Died With Flowers in Her Mouth, Obinna Udenwe opens a window into Nigerian life and gives readers an unvarnished look at the country and its people in all of their thrilling, titillating, and terrible glory.
Expected Publication Date: March 7, 2023
Genre: Fiction
Synopsis:
When brooding artist, Yarima Lalo, encounters a moving train for the first time, two serendipitous events occur. First, it triggers memories of past lives in which he was twice murdered—once on a train. He also meets Aziza, a woman with a complicated past of her own, who becomes key to helping him understand what he is experiencing. With a third death in his current life imminent, together they go hunting for remnants of his past lives. Will they find evidence that he is losing his mind or the people who once loved or loathed him?
Expected Publication Date: March 14, 2023 by Algonquin Books
Pages: 352
Genre: Historical Fiction
Synopsis:
In 1969, sisters Trang and Quỳnh, desperate to help their parents pay off debts, leave their rural village and become “bar girls” in Sài Gòn, drinking, flirting (and more) with American GIs in return for money. As the war moves closer to the city, the once-innocent Trang gets swept up in an irresistible romance with a young and charming American helicopter pilot, Dan. Decades later, Dan returns to Việt Nam with his wife, Linda, hoping to find a way to heal from his PTSD and, unbeknownst to her, reckon with secrets from his past.
At the same time, Phong—the son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman—embarks on a search to find both his parents and a way out of Việt Nam. Abandoned in front of an orphanage, Phong grew up being called “the dust of life,” “Black American imperialist,” and “child of the enemy,” and he dreams of a better life for himself and his family in the U.S.
Past and present converge as these characters come together to confront decisions made during a time of war—decisions that force them to look deep within and find common ground across race, generation, culture, and language. Suspenseful, poetic, and perfect for readers of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko or Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, Dust Child tells an unforgettable and immersive story of how those who inherited tragedy can redefine their destinies through love, hard-earned wisdom, compassion, courage, and joy.
So that’s it.
Are any of these books in your radar?
What books are you anticipating reading this first quarter? Share with us in the comments.
Enjoy your week.
Copyright © Biyai Garricks
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