The Baroness’ Choices of New Books Publishing This Week
2022, Week 23’s New Books
My choices for this week include Cozy Culinary Mysteries, Cozy Crafts and Hobbies Culinary Mystery, YA Rom-Com, YA Sports Rom-Com, Historical Mystery, Women’s Fiction, Romance, Cozy Animal Mystery, YA Historical Adventure Fantasy, YA, and Dystopian Romantic Suspense Mystery. There are lots of fabulous books coming out. I hope you find at least one that you like.
Here are my choices for New Books Publishing Week 23 of 2022!
A Fatal Booking by Victoria Gilbert
A Booklover’s B&B Mystery #3
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: Cozy Culinary Mystery
Victoria Gilbert’s third Booklover’s B&B Mystery, a treat for fans of Mary Daheim and Kate Carlisle, finds owner Charlotte Reed and her former spy neighbor, Ellen Montgomery, pitted against a tea-party poisoner.
Booklover Charlotte is delighted to welcome an eclectic group of guests to Chapters Bed and Breakfast for a book club retreat focused on fairy tales and classic children’s literature. But when one of the guests is poisoned at a Mad Hatter tea party, Charlotte realizes she’s fallen down a rather unpleasant rabbit hole
The victim – an opinionated busybody whose jewelry store sold original designs, along with some possibly “hot” merchandise – had plenty of enemies, spurring Charlotte and Ellen to offer their well-honed investigative skills to assist the local police. But as they delve deeper into each of the guest’s stories, they realize all of them had a motive, and the means, to close the book on the unfortunate victim.
Enlisting the aid of a few local residents, as well as their new ally, agent Gavin Howard, Charlotte and Ellen vow to reveal the truth, even if the path to any sort of happy ending is strewn with deadly danger.
Bayou Book Thief by Ellen Byron
A Vintage Cookbook Mystery #1
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: Cozy Culinary Mystery
A fantastic new cozy mystery series with a vintage flair from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award–winning author Ellen Byron.
Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki’s teen mother disappeared from the hospital.
Ricki’s dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the spectacular former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet, the city’s legendary restauranteur. Ricki is excited about turning her avocation – collecting vintage cookbooks – into a vocation by launching the museum’s gift shop, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware. Then she discovers that a box of donated vintage cookbooks contains the body of a cantankerous Bon Vee employee who was fired after being exposed as a book thief.
The skills Ricki has developed ferreting out hidden vintage treasures come in handy for investigations. But both her business and Bon Vee could wind up as deadstock when Ricki’s past as curator of a billionaire’s first edition collection comes back to haunt her.
Will Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware be a success … or a recipe for disaster?
Clause of Death by Lorna Barrett
A Booktown Mystery #16
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: Cozy Crafts and Hobbies Culinary Mystery
Bookstore owner Tricia Miles tries to open a new chapter in life, but murder mars the pages in the latest entry to Lorna Barrett’s New York Times bestselling Booktown series.
Tricia Miles and her sister, Angelica, are the co-presidents of the Stoneham Chamber of Commerce. Things are changing in the booktown, and some merchants would say not for the better. They grumble that too many non-book-related stores are moving into the village, taking up the most visible storefronts on Main Street, diluting the “Booktown” moniker. Of course, the members with other businesses, like the latest, The Bee’s Knees, are fine with other businesses moving in. No matter what side of the argument they’re on, all the business owners agree on one thing: Tricia and Angelica are to blame.
Still, it’s a pretty typical day in the life of a small-town Chamber of Commerce until one of the disgruntled bookstore owners is killed—Eli Meier from The Inner Light Bookstore, the most vocal of the Chamber complainers. He sold religious and other spiritual books, but also stocked books on wild conspiracy theories and sold incense, crystals, etc. Eli had never been a member of the Chamber until Angelica recently convinced him to join. He hit on her and she, having good taste, turned him down. He hounded (but not stalked) her, and some might think that was a motive for murder.
Stoneham’s new police chief is an old friend of Tricia’s, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to go easy on her sister. One might even say that he’s going to throw the book at her.
Death By Beach Read by Eva Gates
A Lighthouse Library Mystery #9
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: Cozy Culinary Mystery
Librarian Lucy’s new historic house comes with a lot of baggage and family secrets. Can she put them to rest or will a killer bring Lucy’s family to their downfall, in the 9th Lighthouse Library mystery.
It’s spring in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and Lucy and Connor have moved into their new home at last, a historic cottage on the Nags Head Beach. The house needs a lot of renovations, but they worked hard over the winter to get it ready. Lucy is now happily immersed in her work at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, planning her wedding, and decorating the house. That is, until a dead body disrupts their peaceful new abode.The first night Lucy’s alone in the house, with the company of Charles the library cat, she hears sounds. Investigating they see footsteps in the dust of the unfinished living room, and the door to the outside is open. Lucy’s reminded that the house is said to be haunted: forty years ago the teenage daughter of the owners fled in the night, and never again stepped foot inside her family home.
But the sounds have an all-too-human origin and one evening Lucy and Connor find the dead body of a man they don’t even recognize in their kitchen. They soon realize he has a long-time connection to their house. Lucy’s forced to find out what happened all those years ago and why it’s threatening her happiness today.
Meanwhile, the Classic Novel Reading Club is reading The House of the Seven Gables by Nathanial Hawthorne, a book about another old house full of secrets. Can Lucy find parallels to her own situation in Hawthorne’s fiction before the killer strikes again?
Happily Ever Island by Crystal Cestari
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: YA Rom-Com
Welcome to Happily Ever Island, the most pixie-dusted vacation a Disney fan could ever imagine.
Head-in-the-clouds romantic Madison and driven pragmatist Lanie are unlikely best friends, but the two would do anything for each other. So when Madison’s life starts to fall apart, Lanie agrees to join Madison for the test run of Disney’s newest resort experience during their first college spring break: Happily Ever Island―an immersive vacation destination, where guests can become their favorite Disney character for a week. Madison decides to go as the iconic princess herself, Cinderella, with Lanie as bow-wielding Merida. It’s not Lanie’s idea of fun, but she knows Madison needs her, and besides, she could use the break from her strenuous courseload anyway. Plus, maybe she’ll get to shoot things.
But once on the island, Lanie and Madison begin to drift apart. Madison finds herself either missing out or messing up all the enchanting moments she has dreamt her whole life about, and is forever running into their annoyingly perfect (and distractingly cute) vacation’s coordinator, Val. Meanwhile, Lanie unexpectedly finds herself swept up in the magic of it all. She strikes up a secret romance with Prince Charming―but there’s no telling whether he’s just playing a part.
In this delightful YA rom-com inspired by Disney fandom, get swept up in a whirlwind of laughter, tears, and more than just a touch of Disney magic.
Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: YA Sports Rom-Com
Amber McCloud’s dream is to become cheer captain at the end of the year, but it’s an extra-tall order to be joyful and spirited when the quarterback of your team has been killed in a car accident. For both the team and the squad, watching Robbie get replaced by newcomer Jack Walsh is brutal. And when it turns out Jack is actually short for Jaclyn, all hell breaks loose.
The players refuse to be led by a girl, the cheerleaders are mad about the changes to their traditions, and the fact that Robbie’s been not only replaced but outshined by a QB who wears a sports bra has more than a few Atherton Alligators in a rage. Amber tries for some semblance of unity, but it quickly becomes clear that she’s only got a future on the squad and with her friends if she helps them take Jack down.
Just one problem: Amber and Jack are falling for each other, and if Amber can’t stand up for Jack and figure out how to get everyone to fall in line, her dream may come at the cost of her heart.
Dahlia Adler’s Home Field Advantage is a sparkling romance about fighting for what – or who – you truly want.
Last Call at the Nightingale by Katharine Schellman
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: Historical Mystery
First in a captivating Jazz age mystery series from author Katharine Schellman, Last Call at the Nightingale beckons readers into a darkly glamorous speakeasy where music, liquor, and secrets flow.
New York, 1924. Vivian Kelly’s days are filled with drudgery, from the tenement lodging she shares with her sister to the dress shop where she sews for hours every day.
But at night, she escapes to The Nightingale, an underground dance hall where illegal liquor flows and the band plays the Charleston with reckless excitement. With a bartender willing to slip her a free glass of champagne and friends who know the owner, Vivian can lose herself in the music. No one asks where she came from or how much money she has. No one bats an eye if she flirts with men or women as long as she can keep up on the dance floor. At The Nightingale, Vivian forgets the dangers of Prohibition-era New York and finds a place that feels like home.
But then she discovers a body behind the club, and those dangers come knocking.
Caught in a police raid at the Nightingale, Vivian discovers that the dead man wasn’t the nameless bootlegger he first appeared. With too many people assuming she knows more about the crime than she does, Vivian finds herself caught between the dangers of the New York’s underground and the world of the city’s wealthy and careless, where money can hide any sin and the lives of the poor are considered disposable…including Vivian’s own.
Meant to Be Mine by Hannah Orenstein
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: Women’s Fiction
From the author of the “funny, sexy, and absurdly entertaining” (Marie Claire) Playing with Matches, a sweeping love story in the vein of Rebecca Serle and Chloe Benjamin about a woman who knows the date she’ll meet her true love—only he isn’t quite as perfect as she always imagined.
What if you knew exactly when you’d meet the love of your life? Edie Meyer knows. When her Grandma Gloria was a young woman, she had a vision of the exact day she would meet her soul mate—and then Grandpa Ray showed up.
Since then, Gloria has accurately predicted the day every single member of the family has met their match. Edie’s day arrives on June 24, 2022, when she’s twenty-nine years old. She has been waiting for it half her life. That morning, she boards an airplane to her twin sister’s surprise engagement, and when a handsome musician sits beside her, she knows it’s meant to be.
But fate comes with more complications than Edie expected and she can’t fight the nagging suspicion that her perfect guy doesn’t have perfect timing. After a tragedy and a shocking revelation rock Edie’s carefully constructed world, she’s forced to consider whether love chooses us, as simple as destiny, or if we choose it ourselves.
Murder Is No Picnic by Amy Pershings
A Cape Cod Foodie Mystery #3
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: Cozy Culinary Mystery
When a celebrity chef is found dead, Samantha Barnes, the “Cape Cod Foodie”, finds her search for the world’s best blueberry buckle turning into a search for a killer.
The Fourth of July is coming, and for professional food lover Samantha Barnes, it’s all about the picnic. Okay, and the fireworks. And the parade. But mostly the picnic. What could be better than a DIY clambake followed by the best blueberry buckle in the world? Sam has finally found the perfect recipe in the kitchen of Clara Foster, famed cookbook author and retired restaurateur, and she’s thrilled when Clara agrees to a buckle baking lesson.
But when Clara dies in a house fire blamed on carelessness in the kitchen, Sam doesn’t believe it. Unfortunately, her doubts set in motion an investigation pointing to the new owner of Clara’s legendary restaurant—and a cousin of Sam’s harbormaster boyfriend. So, in between researching the Cape’s best lobster rolls and planning her clambake, Sam needs to find Clara’s killer before the fireworks really start….
Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: Romance
Evvie Drake Starts Over meets Beach Read in this heartwarming and hilarious novel about a divorced romance channel screenwriter whose script about her marriage’s collapse just might help her reclaim her life and find love.
Nora’s life is about to get a rewrite…
Nora Hamilton knows the formula for love better than anyone. As a romance channel screenwriter, it’s her job. But when her too-good-to work husband leaves her and their two kids, Nora turns her marriage’s collapse into cash and writes the best script of her life. No one is more surprised than her when it’s picked up for the big screen and set to film on location at her 100-year-old-home. When former Sexiest Man Alive, Leo Vance, is cast as her ne’er do well husband Nora’s life will never be the same.
The morning after shooting wraps and the crew leaves, Nora finds Leo on her porch with a half-empty bottle of tequila and a proposition. He’ll pay a thousand dollars a day to stay for a week. The extra seven grand would give Nora breathing room, but it’s the need in his eyes that makes her say yes. Seven days: it’s the blink of an eye or an eternity depending on how you look at it. Enough time to fall in love. Enough time to break your heart.
Filled with warmth, wit, and wisdom, Nora Goes Off Script is the best kind of love story—the real kind where love is complicated by work, kids, and the emotional baggage that comes with life. For Nora and Leo, this kind of love is bigger than the big screen.
Peril at Pennington Manor by Tracy Gardner
An Avery Ayers Antique Mystery #2
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: Cozy Animal Mystery
Perfect for fans of Jane K. Cleland and Ellery Adams, the second volume in Tracy Gardner’s antiques-themed mystery series finds appraiser Avery Ayers sleuthing a murder in a castle.
Thanks to Aunt Midge’s unlikely friendship with Nicholas Pennington, the Duke of Valle Charme, Avery Ayers and her associates at Antiques and Artifacts Appraised head off to their most glamorous assignment yet—cataloguing and appraising the contents of a castle-like mansion on the Hudson River. But regal splendor becomes a backdrop to mayhem when the precious Viktor Petrova timepiece disappears—and housekeeper Suzanne Vick plummets from a parapet to her death.Avery, her dad William, and colleagues Micah Abbott and Sir Robert Lane soon learn that Suzanne’s predecessor also met with an untimely end. Further, the housekeeper’s suspicious demise coincides with Avery’s discovery that many of the Duke’s most priceless heirlooms have been replaced by fakes.
Detective Art Smith lends his expertise, but the suspect list encompasses the Duke’s entire retinue—including his family. Could the killer be someone intimately familiar with the Pennington estate, such as caretaker couple Ira and Lynn Hoffman, the Penningtons’ chauffeur Roderick, or even one of the heirs to the Pennington fortune?
Then the duke himself is injured in an inexplicable riding accident, and the clock swiftly ticks toward a reckoning with a cold-blooded killer. A criminal mastermind is making a desperate bid for ill-gotten riches…can Avery bring the culprit to justice before her time is up?
Rise of the Snake Goddess by Jenny Elder Moke
A Samantha Knox Novel #2
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: YA Historical Adventure Fantasy
The beautiful island of Crete, an archaeological find for the ages, and one seriously pissed-off Greek goddess. It’s just another day for Samantha Knox.
After being snubbed by her college’s archaeology department for an honor she rightfully earned, Sam is hell-bent on proving her worth to her misogynistic department head. So when an opportunity presents itself to solve the hidden meaning behind a symbol found inside a cave in Greece, Sam is all over it, and she’s bringing Bennett and Jo with her for the cross-Atlantic trip. Once on the island of Crete, Sam finds a treasure she never expected―the golden girdle of an ancient and powerful goddess, and she can’t resist its siren call, or the accolades she would win for discovering it. But before she can take credit for the find, the girdle is stolen and the island is hit with a series of earthquakes that don’t feel quite coincidental.Soon Sam, Bennett, and Jo are embroiled in a wild hunt―one that takes them to tiny island shops, a glamorous high-stakes auction, and a fiery near-death experience―to find the girdle before someone can use it to raise the ancient goddess from her slumber. An unexpected heist, a terrifying trek through a labyrinth, and a fight to the death with the Minotaur itself lead to a final standoff she and her friends won’t soon forget―one that might just break up Sam and Bennett for good.
Set against the gorgeous backdrop and ancient ruins of the Greek islands, the pulse-pounding action in this twisting mystery will appeal to action-adventure fans, romance die-hards, and mythology buffs alike.
The Proof Is in the Poison by Diane Kelly
A Southern Homebrew Mystery #2
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: Cozy Culinary Mystery
Moonshine shop owner Hattie Hayes is ready to lend a hand when a mystery starts brewing at a train convention in Chattanooga, TN, in this charming cozy mystery series.
Now that her moonshine shop is up and running, Hattie Hayes can focus her efforts on expanding her fledgling business to events in the area, like the Chattanooga Choo Choo Model Train Convention, which is running full steam ahead at the convention center down the block. Hattie is all aboard, seizing this perfect opportunity to promote her Southern homebrew to the folks who have come to the city for the annual event.
But when an attendee dies after drinking some of Hattie’s moonshine, she’ll need to prove her innocence. Between tight-lipped train hobbyists and competitors for a coveted convention prize, Hattie has a wide array of suspects to choose from, and she’ll need to use all the tricks up her sleeve to make sure her moonshine business can survive a murderer and stay on track.
This Place is Still Beautiful by XiXi Tian
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: YA
A sweeping debut novel about first love, complicated family dynamics, and the pernicious legacy of racism. Perfect for fans of Tahereh Mafi, Jandy Nelson, and Emily X.R. Pan, with crossover appeal for readers of Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half and Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You.
The Flanagan sisters are as different as they come. Seventeen-year-old Annalie is bubbly, sweet, and self-conscious, whereas nineteen-year-old Margaret is sharp and assertive. Margaret looks just like their mother, while Annalie passes for white and looks like the father who abandoned them years ago, leaving their Chinese immigrant mama to raise the girls alone in their small, predominantly white Midwestern town.
When their house is vandalized with a shocking racial slur, Margaret rushes home from her summer internship in New York City. She expects outrage. Instead, her sister and mother would rather move on. Especially once Margaret’s own investigation begins to make members of their community uncomfortable.
For Annalie, this was meant to be a summer of new possibilities, and she resents her sister’s sudden presence and insistence on drawing negative attention to their family. Meanwhile Margaret is infuriated with Annalie’s passive acceptance of what happened. For Margaret, the summer couldn’t possibly get worse, until she crosses paths with someone she swore she’d never see again: her first love, Rajiv Agarwal.
As the sisters navigate this unexpected summer, an explosive secret threatens to break apart their relationship, once and for all.
This Place Is Still Beautiful is a luminous, captivating story about identity, sisterhood, and how our hometowns are inextricably a part of who we are, even when we outgrow them.
Asherwick by Sarah Westill
Gen-Heirs: The Guardians of Sziveria #4
Publication Date: June 9, 2022
Genre: Dystopian Romantic Suspense Mystery
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Review
She broke his heart…
Besides work, Sylphine is the only thing that’s ever gotten under Jonathon’s skin. He’d thought she was out of his life for good, but he was wrong. When she arrives, desperate for his help, honor won’t let him walk away from her. But warring anger and desire leave him in a precarious situation. Everything would have been so easy if she’d only stayed out of his life and let him get over her.
Now he controls her future…
With her future at risk of falling into the hands of an enemy, Sylphine turns to the one person who can help—and the one person who probably doesn’t want to. Jonathon agrees, but not without conditions, compelling her to realize all her previous fears can cost her everything if she can’t learn to trust him.
Together, they discover the treacherous reason someone is desperate for her shipping empire, and the reckless measures her adversary will go to claim her. And as the tension heats up between them, Jonathon soon makes it clear he’ll be the one staking his claim…
Valued For Murder by Victoria Tait
A Dotty Sayers Antique Mystery #2
Publication Date: June 10, 2022
Genre: Cozy Culinary Mystery
An antiques TV show. A dead celebrity expert. Can a shy amateur sleuth step into the lime-light and expose a murderer?
Dotty Sayers is enjoying her job in a Cotswold auction house. When she’s offered a place on an antiques TV show, she nervously agrees to a makeover and is surprised by the admiring glances she receives. But working at an historic country hotel, she realises the show can’t go on when, at the bottom of the circular staircase, one of the experts is found dead.
Dotty can’t help wondering if the death was accidental or if someone else was involved.
She promises to stay in the background and leave the investigation to the police, but this amateur detective can’t help uncovering clues. When she returns from viewing a priceless sculpture, and finds her British blue cat missing, she knows she’ll struggle to keep the show on the road.
Can Dotty emerge from behind the scenes and identify the killer?
Valued for Murder is the second book in the captivating Dotty Sayers Antique Mystery series. If you like engaging mysteries, captivating characters, and fascinating British settings, then you’ll adore Victoria Tait’s entertaining tale.
Buy Valued for Murder and read a showstopper today!
Well, that’s it for the New Books Releasing Week 23 of 2022
Drop a comment if you like one of the books above or if you have one to recommend.
Thank you for stopping by,
Happy Reading!
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