The Baroness’ Choices of New Books Publishing This Week
2024, Week 29’s New Books
My choices for this week include Cozy Animal Mystery, Romantic Comedies, Contemporary Romance, Psychological Thriller, Paranormal Thriller, Sweet Romances, Young Adult, and Cozy Mystery.
It’s the third week of July already! I can’t believe how fast this month is passing us by—another week of great opportunities for you, me, and some fantastic books.
All of these books sound so good. I have one of these on my list, and Jen does too.
Here are my choices for New Books Publishing Week 29 of 2024!
A Controversial Cover by Lorna Barrett
Booktown Mystery #18
Publication Date: July 16, 2024
Genre: Cozy Animal Mystery
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When a famous children’s author is murdered at the library, Tricia Miles has to find the killer before it’s too late in the latest entry to Lorna Barrett’s New York Times bestselling Booktown series.
Tricia Miles is ready to close the book on all her amateur sluething—she’s tired of finding dead bodies and being accused of murder. But even the best laid plans often go awry.
Stoneham is all abuzz when Lauren Barker, a famous children’s book author, arrives for an event at the local library. Lauren is a Stoneham native, and her new book strikes some members of the town as controversial. But when Lauren is found strangled to death after an altercation at the event, the plot twist throws Tricia right back into the middle of things.
Who could possibly have wanted Lauren dead? Was it Dan Reed, who had to be thrown out of the signing for spouting conspiracy theories and causing a disturbance? Stella Kraft, Lauren’s high school teacher, who thought of the author as a protégé—something Lauren violently disputed? Or the mystery man who spoke to Lauren just before she was found dead? With the suspect count climbing higher and more information about Lauren’s past coming to light, will Tricia be able to give this story a happily ever after?
Hate to Fake It to You by Amanda Sellet
Publication Date: July 16, 2024
Genre: Romantic Comedy
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A waitress masquerading as an influencer and a wildlife photographer are on a collision course with romance―and chaos―in Hate to Fake It to You, a zany modern twist on a screwball comedy classic about figuring out what you really want―by pretending to be someone you’re not.
Everyone gets a glow-up on social media, but Libby Lane’s online persona is the fakest of fakes. Cooked up as a joke by Libby and her best friends, Lillibet is the affluent, healthier-than-thou opposite of her glam-free life on the side of Oahu most tourists never see. The phony fronting is all in good fun, until a real influencer stumbles onto the Love, Lillibet Instagram feed and starts making waves.
When Hildy Johnson, the ambitious junior member of a media dynasty, travels to Hawaii to talk to Lillibet about parlaying her lifestyle brand into a job, Libby and her friends scramble to take the make-believe to a new level. Complicating the charade even further is Hildy’s handsome companion, a wildlife photographer named Jefferson Jones, whose keen eye sees more than he lets on.
Between the pretend husband, borrowed goats, a made-up holiday, and Libby’s very real attraction to Jefferson, it’s anyone’s guess which lie will blow their cover first . . . especially since Lillibet isn’t the only one with something to hide.
He Loves Me Knot by Annabelle McCormack
Wanderlust Contemporary Romance #2
Publication Date: July 16, 2024
Genre: Contemporary Romance
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When perfectionist Lydia Winnick’s world collides with her infuriatingly attractive and cocky boss, Callum Scott, during a fateful flight to Costa Rica, sparks fly in more way than one.
On her way to celebrate her sister’s destination wedding at a resort, Liddy makes a terrible mistake.Then her life takes an unexpected turn when Callum shockingly covers for her, forcing them to pretend they’re dating. With an heirloom wedding dress lost in transit and a web of lies spinning out of control, they embark on a week-long misadventure that blurs the lines of fiction and reality.
As tensions rise and attraction simmers to a boil, Liddy discovers a side of Callum that challenges her perceptions. Yet the more their connection deepens, the tighter the knot of deception becomes. Can their growing bond withstand the heat, or will the tangled web they’ve woven unravel in a blaze that could wreck her sister’s happy day?
He Loves Me Knot is the second book in the Wanderlust Contemporary Romance series, which feature comedic, zany adventures, heartfelt family drama, and steamy open door romance. A series of interconnected standalones, they can be read in any order. Content Warnings: infidelity, strong language
It Had to Be You by Eliza Jane Brazier
Publication Date: July 16, 2024
Genre: Psychological Thriller
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Two contract killers, each with a hit out on the other, must fight their growing attraction as they face off in an epic game of lust and murder across Western Europe.
When Eva and Jonathan hook up on the sleeper train from Florence to Paris, they think they’ll never see each other again. Which is too bad, because neither has ever felt a spark like this for another person. But love isn’t on the agenda in their line of work.
Six months later, they run into each other in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. This encounter is not by chance, because Eva has been hired to kill Jonathan. She’s a contract killer, but what she doesn’t know is that he is too.
Their meeting kicks off a high-stakes adventure across Western Europe. There will be tourism. There will be bodies. Eva and Jonathan might even fall for each other.
As the two get closer to completing their assignments, it becomes clear that they are also being hunted—by something even more dangerous than love. . . .
The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness
All Souls #5
Publication Date: July 16, 2024
Genre: Paranormal Thriller
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Diana Bishop journeys to the darkest places within herself—and her family history—in the highly anticipated fifth novel of the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling All Souls series.
The stunning hardcover of The Black Bird Oracle features a custom-stamped case, beautiful endpapers, and a premium dust jacket!
Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, an Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clermont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two otherworldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana’s family line.
Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family’s future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It’s time you came home, Diana.
On the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, the Proctor family home, and under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family’s dark past and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power—if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it.In this stunning new novel, grand in scope, Deborah Harkness deepens the beloved world of All Souls with powerful new magic and long-hidden secrets, and the path Diana finds at Ravenswood leads to the most consequential moments yet in this cherished series.
The Ex Vows by Jessica Joyce
Publication Date: July 16, 2024
Genre: Romantic Comedy
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Estranged exes must stick close together to save their best friend’s wedding after a string of disasters in this swoony and steamy second-chance romance from the USA Today bestselling author of You, with a View.
Georgia Woodward lives by her lists, none more so than the one about her ex, Eli Mora. It’s full of the ironclad dos and don’ts they’ve been following since she returned to the Bay Area after their cataclysmic breakup five years ago.
With the wedding of their mutual best friend, Adam, looming, and them about to step into their roles as best woman and man, Georgia’s never needed it more. She refuses to threaten their tight-knit friend group with her messy—and still very present—feelings. The rules on that list will keep her cool, calm, and compartmentalized.
What’s not on her list? Eli arriving from New York with a new rule-breaking attitude or the all-inclusive venue burning to the ground, leaving the bride and groom in dire straits. Nor does she anticipate Adam asking her and Eli to help him make a miracle happen. Together.
As Georgia and Eli rush up to Napa Valley to pull off the perfect wedding, their old chemistry comes back in technicolor. Somewhere between cake tastings gone wrong, disastrous DJ auditions, and Eli’s heated attention, Georgia starts recognizing the man she fell in love with before. And if she lets herself break her rules, she might find what they’re building isn’t the something old that ruined them—it’s a chance at something new.
The Ghost of Loon Lake by Rachelle Paige Campbell
Shores of Loon Lake #1
Publication Date: July 16, 2024
Genre: Sweet Romance
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Ten years ago, ASHLEY HALE left the Inn at Loon Lake, her family’s business, frustrated by her father’s apprenticeship that treated her more like a personal assistant than heir apparent. Her childhood best friend turned husband, CHRISTOPHER LEWIS, stayed behind, breaking her heart. After her father’s sudden passing, Ashley discovers that he changed the terms of the will to include either her or her husband, whoever stays for thirty consecutive days following his death.
To claim her rightful legacy and her only chance at a happy future, Ashley sneaks into the lighthouse behind the Inn with the intention of scaring her estranged husband off the premises by pretending to be a ghost. Unfortunately for Ashley, Christopher knows she’s back. He’s spent the last decade running the business and hating himself for not following her. Her father forbade him from telling her the truth of the Inn’s financial circumstances. In an act of love, he saved the resort and has been supporting her with an allowance ever since.
When Ashley accidentally sets the lighthouse on fire, she runs into Christopher’s arms. He hopes her return means a relationship resolution and a chance to show how much work is involved in managing the property, hoping she will gladly hand over the reins. However, Ashley isn’t giving up, and Christopher doesn’t want her to leave. Convinced the Inn’s lighthouse is haunted, she starts an investigation. Together, they uncover one mystery after another. Will they discover the secret to a happy future and a second chance at love?
The Ping-Pong Queen of Chinatown by Andrew Yang
Publication Date: July 16, 2024
Genre: Young Adult
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Perfect for fans of Ben Philippe and Mary H. K. Choi, this charming, insightful YA novel follows two high school students who form a complicated, ground-shifting bond while filming a movie.
High school junior Felix Ma wants to prove to his parents that he’s not a quitter. After crashing out of piano lessons and competitive ping-pong, Felix starts a film club at his school in a last-ditch attempt to find a star extracurricular for his college applications.
Then he meets Cassie Chow, a bubbly high school senior who shares Felix’s anxieties about the future and complicated relationship with parental expectations. Felix feels drawn to Cassie for reasons he can’t quite articulate, so as an excuse to see her more, he invites Cassie to star in his short film.
The project starts out as a lighthearted mockumentary. But at the urging of Felix’s college admissions coach, who wants to turn the film into essay material, it soon morphs into a serious drama about the emotional scars that parents leave on their kids. As Felix and Cassie uncover their most painful memories, Cassie starts to balk at opening her wounds for the camera.
With his parents and college admissions coach hot on his heels, Felix discovers painful truths about himself and his past—and must decide whether pleasing his parents is worth losing his closest friend.
Maid of Dishonor by Nancy Robards Thompson
Wedding Bell Mysteries #4
Publication Date: July 18, 2024
Genre: Cozy Mystery
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Instead of walking down the aisle, the bride is suspected of murder….
Maddie Bell’s life and career have hit peak stride. She’s sold her cozy mystery series and is contracted for two more books; she’s engaged to Hemlock’s chief of police; and her mother has purchased and restored the beautiful historic mansion, Gracewood Hall, in their hometown of Hemlock, North Carolina. Three generations—Gigi, Maddie, and Jenna–are now happily engaged in the wedding and special event business.
But their highly scrutinized inaugural event—the wedding of an A-List social media influencer—becomes a murder scene before the rehearsal dinner. Kate Archer, the professional bridesmaid Jenna hired, is found bludgeoned by a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, not only threatening their new business, but also sending Jenna into a tailspin of guilt. She knew Kate from college and had begged her to fill in as the maid of honor.
Even as the police warn Maddie not to interfere with the investigation, mother and daughter set out to discover who killed Kate and dispel the growing rumors that Gracewood Hall is cursed.
Kara’s Garden Center by Leanne Stanfield
Larkin Bay Romance #2
Publication Date: July 19, 2024
Genre: Sweet Romance
When an attractive stranger comes to Kara’s aid, she can’t help but wonder if he’s destined to be more than just a ride to the hospital.
Kara Sullivan’s life revolves around her young daughter, her beloved Larkin Bay, and the cherished garden center she inherited from her late mother. But when a shady property developer tries to convince her to sell it, Kara won’t even consider the idea, even though she really could use the money.
Sexy and sweet Scott Campbell wants to escape the social media frenzy of his failed professional baseball career, so he’s moved to Larkin Bay to practice law. When he meets Kara, he realizes he wants his new life to include her, until his glamorous ex-fiancée’s arrival complicates everything.
Just as Scott is offered a tempting career opportunity that will take him back into the baseball world, Kara’s daughter’s health takes an unexpected turn, causing her to rethink everything she once held dear.
Now, Kara and Scott must determine if their new relationship is strong enough to withstand the allure of the big leagues and the troubling family obligations that are pulling them apart.
Sometimes there’s a difference between doing the right thing and doing what’s right.
Kara’s Garden Center is the second book in the Larkin Bay Romance series. It is a sweet, full-length, standalone novel.
Well, that’s it for the New Books Releasing Week 29 of 2024
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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