New Books Publishing Week 29 of 2023

Posted July 16, 2023 by karenbaron in Upcoming Book Releases / 0 Comments

The Baroness’ Choices of New Books Publishing This Week

2023, Week 29’s New Books

My choices for this week include Cozy Animal Mystery, Cozy Culinary Mystery, MG Fantasies, Sweet Romance, and Mystery.

Can you believe that we are halfway through July? Time is flying. It’s a short list this week but another amazing list. Let me know if I forgot any that you are looking forward to.

Here are my choices for New Books Publishing Week 29 of 2023!

A Questionable Character by Lorna Barrett

Booktown Mystery #17

Publication Date: July 18, 2023

Genre: Cozy Animal Mystery

The murder of a local contractor may be the final nail in the coffin for Tricia Miles in the latest entry to Lorna Barrett’s New York Times bestselling Booktown series.

It’s a busy summer in Booktown. Contractor Jim Stark is in great demand: he’s overseeing a number of projects, including Angelica Miles’s newly constructed building on Main Street, finishing up the new brew pub, and gutting a stone mansion off Main Street that Angelica bought to be the world headquarters for Nigela Ricita Asssociates. It’ll house office space where her marketing staff and the rest of the NR Associates clerical personnel will work.

Tricia Miles and Angelica arrive at the mansion before their workday to see how the construction is going. They find the place unlocked and Stark’s right-hand man, Sanjay Arya, dead—bludgeoned to death. The loss of the contractor’s top man threatens all the projects in the works, which would effectively ruin the expensive marketing plan that the Chamber of Commerce has been working. Is Jim a suspect? (He’d be stupid to kill the person he depends on to keep the projects going.) But Stark also thinks his wife, who was very chummy with Sanjay, might have been cheating on him with the second-in-command, making him a likely suspect.

Once again Tricia finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation, but can she find the killer before he or she has the chance to bring the hammer down?

Between a Wok and a Dead Place by Leslie Budewitz

Spice Shop Mystery #7

Publication Date: July 18, 2023

Genre: Cozy Culinary Mystery

It’s the Lunar New Year, and fortunes are about to change.

Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, loves a good festival, especially one serving up tasty treats. So what could be more fun than a food walk in the city’s Chinatown–International District, celebrating the Year of the Rabbit?

But when her friend Roxanne stumbles across a man’s body in the Gold Rush, a long-closed residential hotel, questions leap out. Who was he? What was he doing in the dust-encrusted herbal pharmacy in the hotel’s basement? Why was the pharmacy closed up—and why are the owners so reluctant to talk?

With each new discovery, Pepper finds herself asking new questions and facing more brick walls.

Then questions arise about Roxanne and her relationship to Pepper’s boyfriend Nate, away fishing in Alaska. Between her worries and her struggle to hire staff at the Spice Shop, Pepper has her hands and her heart full. Still, she can’t resist the lure of the Gold Rush and its tangled history of secrets and lies stretching back nearly a century.

But the killer is on her tail, driven by hidden demons and desires. As Pepper begins to expose the long-concealed truth, a bigger question emerges: Can she uncover the secrets of the Gold Rush Hotel without being pushed from the wok into the fire?

Into the Shadow Mist by Christina Soontornvat

Legends of Lotus Island #2

Publication Date: July 18, 2023

Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy

From two-time Newbery honor recipient Christina Soontornvat comes a compelling new young middle grade fantasy series for readers who love stories about animals, magic, and kids like them embracing their power to change the world.

Plum and her friends are traveling to the misty Bokati Island. There they will study with the mysterious Guardian Master Em, who is the keeper of the ancient forest there. The field trip comes just in time for Plum, who still can’t figure out why she’s so different from the other Novices on Lotus Island.

At first, Plum doesn’t know what to make of this quiet and sometimes gloomy place. But it doesn’t take long to discover that Bokati is brimming with an incredible array of fascinating animals and plants.

When an unseen force begins to destroy the trees, putting the entire ecosystem at risk, Plum and her classmates must spring into action. Plum is determined to help, even though she’s hiding secrets about her own Guardian powers from even her closest friends.

The Hollister Brothers’ Homecoming by Anna J. Stewart, Kayla Perrin, Melinda Curtis, and Cari Lynn Webb

Publication Date: July 18, 2023

Genre: Sweet Romance

Goodreads | Bookhype | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

For the four Hollister brothers, Sea Glass Bay means home, family, and, most recently, heartbreak.

Taken in as foster kids by Clay and Leda Hollister, their rocky starts in life were turned around thanks to stability and unconditional love. Despite their successes as adults, Leda’s death two years ago shook the brothers to their core, but not nearly as hard as Clay’s recent announcement he’s getting married again–to his late wife’s best friend! It’s not something the brothers want to hear, nor easily accept, but family is family no matter what.

It’s time for the Hollister brothers to unite in Sea Glass Bay and heal those family wounds once and for all. What none of brothers expect is to find love themselves along the picturesque beaches known for their ocean-tumbled glass pebbles.

The Legend of Greyhallow by Summer Rachel Short

Publication Date: July 18, 2023

Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy

Disney’s Enchanted gets a Lord of the Rings twist in this fantastical middle grade adventure about two siblings who must close the portal to a magical realm that inspired a popular movie franchise before their own world is conquered by emerging foes.

Twelve-year-old Ainsley Galloway and her ten-year-old brother, Tobin, have just moved to the small, picturesque mountain town of Lowry. The town is famously the setting for the blockbuster Legend of Greyhallow trilogy and there are traces of the films wherever they go. Ainsley’s parents even bought the film director’s former home, which they dream of turning into an inn that caters to fans eager to check out the local Greyhallow Movie Festival.

But when Ainsley and Tobin are fooling around in the attic of their new home, Ainsley unleashes something. Something she doesn’t quite understand. And suddenly, purple mist is flooding the town, she’s receiving cryptic messages from strangers in medieval garb. Oddest of all, the enigmatic director of the Greyhallow movies, who’s been missing for years, has a message for them.

Ainsley and Tobin have opened a passage between the very real magical world of the movies and their own. In a swirl of shifting loyalties, capricious creatures, and movie trivia, Ainsley and Tobin have to figure out what to do—and who to trust—in order to save them all.

To Have and to Heist by Sara Desai

Publication Date: July 18, 2023

Genre: Mystery

To exonerate her best friend, one woman must mastermind a jewelry heist during the wedding of the season in this hilarious romantic-comedy caper from the author of The Dating Plan.

Simi Chopra is on a bad-luck streak. She’s lost yet another job, her student loan debt won’t stop growing, her basement apartment is a certifiable flood zone, and now her best friend has been accused of stealing a multimillion-dollar diamond necklace. To put it lightly, she’s desperate for a break—that’s right when Jack waltzes out of the bushes and into her life.

Jack is just as charming as he is mysterious. When he offers to help her find the missing necklace and steal it back, Simi jumps at the chance to clear her friend’s name and collect the substantial reward. But every good heist needs a crew. All she needs to do is transform a ragtag group of strangers into an elite heist crew, infiltrate a high-society wedding and steal the necklace from a dangerous criminal before the happy couple say “I do.” Meanwhile the bride is keeping secrets, a detective with a slow-burn smile keeps showing up at her door, and the ultimate robbery might not be the wedding con, but the way Jack is stealing her heart.