April TBR
Happy April! I have 7 books on my April TBR, and I really feel like I can get to them all this month. It’s a good mix of genres, but I still need to find a nonfiction book for this month.
I Think They Love You by Julian Winters
I actually finished this book on April 1st, but since it was on my April TBR, I’m still including it in this post.
With his funny, big-hearted adult rom com debut, bestselling, award-winning YA author Julian Winters shows sometimes fake dating your ex can turn into a second chance.
When Denzel “Denz” Carter’s workaholic father and CEO of 24 Carter Gold unexpectedly announces his retirement, the competition is on for who will become his successor. To convince his family members that he’s capable of commitment, Denz impulsively lies about being in a serious relationship.
Now Denz needs to find a fake boyfriend to seal the deal on the CEO position. Denz is forced to turn to the last person he wants to be in a pretend (or any) relationship with: Braylon, the man who broke his heart.
Braylon’s sudden reappearance in Denz’s life turns everything upside down. But, apparently, he needs Denz’s connections to the mayor to win his own promotion. So, they strike a deal. It’s all business until the funny texts and the confusing kisses leave Denz struggling to separate this temporary arrangement from the affairs of his heart.
I Think They Love You is a celebration of love, queer communities, big families—in all their beautiful complications— healing, and, most importantly, falling in love with the person you’re becoming.
Grown Women by Sarai Johnson
I started this one last month and was really getting into it, so I want to dedicate time to finishing it in April.
In this stunning debut novel, four generations of complex Black women contend with motherhood and daughterhood, generational trauma and the deeply ingrained tensions and wounds that divide them as they redefine happiness and healing for themselves.
Erudite Evelyn, her cynical daughter Charlotte, and Charlotte’s optimistic daughter Corinna see the world very differently. Though they love each other deeply, it’s no wonder that their personalities often clash. But their conflicts go deeper than run-of-the-mill disagreements. Here, there is deep, dark resentment for past and present hurt.
When Corinna gives birth to her own daughter, Camille, the beautiful, intelligent little girl offers this trio of mothers something they all need: hope, joy, and an opportunity to reconcile. They decide to work together to raise their collective daughter with the tenderness and empathy they missed in their own relationships. Yet despite their best intentions, they cannot agree on what that means.
After Camille eventually leaves her mother and grandmother in rural Tennessee for a more cosmopolitan life in Washington, DC with her great-grandmother, it’s unclear whether this complex and self-contained girl will thrive or be overwhelmed by the fears and dreams of three generations she carries. As she grows into a gutsy young woman, Camille must decide for herself what happiness will look like.
In masterful, elegant prose, debut novelist Sarai Johnson has created a rich and moving portrait of Black women’s lives today.
A Legend in the Baking by Jamie Wesley
This one is a part of my BRBF TBR. I started it yesterday and already adore it, so I’m excited to continue!
In A Legend in the Baking, the new romance from Jamie Wesley, a cupcake-baking football player gets assistance from a social media maven—and his best friend’s little sister—to help promote his new bakery after accidentally going viral online.
August Hodges was supposed to be the silent partner in Sugar Blitz Cupcakes. Emphasis on silent. That is until his impromptu feminist rant about how women bakers are the backbone of the industry and baking cupcakes isn’t a threat to masculinity goes viral, making him the hottest bachelor in town. With a new location in the works, August and his partners decide to capitalize on this perfect opportunity to help cement their place in the community. But the hiring of his best friend’s younger sister, the woman who has haunted some of his best dreams for years, was as much of a shock as his new-found fame.
Social media manager Sloane Dell fell hard for her brother’s best friend the moment she met him more than a decade ago, but that teenage infatuation cost her dearly. Still, she accepts her brother’s request to revamp the bakery’s social media presence to take advantage of August’s newfound popularity, knowing it’s the big break her fledgling career needs. She’ll just ignore the fact that August is still August, i.e. sexier and sweeter than any man has a right to be. And that he drives her crazy with his resistance to all her ideas.
They vow to leave the past in the past. But when an explosive make-out session makes it clear their attraction burns hotter than ever, Sloane and August are forced to reconsider what it means to take a risk and chase your dreams.
As they’re both about to find out, all’s fair in love and cupcakes.
The Blood Trials by N.E. Davenport
Another book on my BRBF TBR, but one that I’ve been wanting to read for years. Will it finally be its time?
It’s all about blood.
The blood spilled between the Republic of Mareen and the armies of the Blood Emperor long ago. The blood gifts of Mareen’s deadliest enemies. The blood that runs through the elite War Houses of Mareen, the rulers of the Tribunal dedicated to keeping the republic alive.
The blood of the former Legatus, Verne Amari, murdered.
For his granddaughter, Ikenna, the only thing steady in her life was the man who had saved Mareen. The man who had trained her in secret, not just in martial skills, but in harnessing the blood gift that coursed through her.
Who trained her to keep that a secret.
But now there are too many secrets, and with her grandfather assassinated, Ikenna knows two things: that only someone on the Tribunal could have ordered his death, and that only a Praetorian Guard could have carried out that order.
Bent on revenge as much as discovering the truth, Ikenna pledges herself to the Praetorian Trials–a brutal initiation that only a quarter of the aspirants survive. She subjects herself to the racism directed against her half-Khanaian heritage and the misogyny of a society that cherishes progeny over prodigy, all while hiding a power that–if found out–would subject her to execution…or worse. Ikenna is willing to risk it all because she needs to find out who murdered her grandfather…and then she needs to kill them.
Mareen has been at peace for a long time…
Ikenna joining the Praetorians is about to change all that.
Magic and technology converge in the first part of this stunning debut duology, where loyalty to oneself–and one’s blood–is more important than anything.
Love at Second Sight by F.T. Lukens
I loved In Deeper Waters and Otherworldly by F.T. Lukens, so I’m so ready to read more by them.
When a teen has an unexpected vision about a future murder, he must juggle newfound interest from the supernatural community with trying to prevent the murder from happening in this new romantic fantasy from New York Times bestselling author F.T. Lukens.
Tired of being known as the artsy oddball, fifteen-year-old Cam Reynolds hopes to fly under the radar when he changes high schools as a sophomore. It shouldn’t be too hard, considering he’s a human going to school with kids who have super-cool paranormal powers, like his best friend and witch, Al, and longtime werewolf crush, Miguel.
Then Cam has a psychic glimpse of the future in front of most of the student body, seeing a gruesomely murdered teen girl from the point of view of the killer. When Cam comes to, he knows two things: someone he goes to school with is a future murderer and his life is about to change. No longer a mere human but a clairvoyant, one of the rarest of supernatural beings, Cam finds himself at the center of attention for the first time.
As the most powerful supernatural factions in the city court Cam and his gift, he’ll have to work with his friends, both old and new, to figure out who he can trust. Because the clock is ticking, and Cam and his friends must identify the girl in the vision, find her potential killer, and prevent the murder from happening. Or the next murder Cam sees might be his own.
Things Left Unsaid by Sara Jafari
This one I got on NetGalley a while ago because it sounded like a good comp for the previous book I wrote.
A dazzling, electrifying, and thought-provoking novel for readers of Maame and Honey Girl, Things Left Unsaid is a mesmerizing and deeply-felt exploration of discovering your place in the world and the lasting power of love.
When twenty-six year old Shirin Bayat bumps into Kian at a house party in London, she is taken aback by the immediate feelings that resurface. It’s been a decade since they were close friends at school, before painful events pulled them apart, suddenly and seemingly forever. Ever since, Shirin has lived with the aching weight of things left unsaid between them.
Now they’re back in each other’s lives, at a time when Shirin needs someone she can trust the most. Feeling stuck in a sea of slippery friendships and deeply burned out by her publishing job, Kian is a bright light amongst a sea of gray. There’s nothing worse than losing the person you trust most with your deepest secrets and desires, and Shirin and Kian are determined to hold tightly to each other.
But of course, life often has other plans. Will it be different this time around, or are Shirin and Kian destined to fall apart once more?
The Floating World by Axie Oh
I’m always up to falling in love with a new fantasy series, and this one sounds like it could be the one!
From Axie Oh, the New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, Final Fantasy meets Shadow and Bone in this lighthearted romantic fantasy reimagining the Korean legend of Celestial Maidens.
Sunho lives in the Under World, a land of perpetual darkness. An ex-soldier, he can remember little of his life from before two years ago, when he woke up alone with only his name and his sword. Now he does odd-jobs to scrape by, until he comes across the score of a lifetime—a chest of coins for any mercenary who can hunt down a girl who wields silver light.
Meanwhile, far to the east, Ren is a cheerful and spirited acrobat traveling with her adoptive family and performing at villages. But everything changes during one of their festival performances when the village is attacked by a horrific humanlike demon. In a moment of fear and rage, Ren releases a blast of silver light—a power she has kept hidden since childhood—and kills the monster. But her efforts are not in time to prevent her adoptive family from suffering a devastating loss, or to save her beloved uncle from being grievously wounded.
Determined to save him from succumbing to the poisoned wound, Ren sets off over the mountains, where the creature came from—and from where Ren herself fled ten years ago. Her path sets her on a collision course with Sunho, but he doesn’t realize she’s the girl that he—and a hundred other swords-for-hire—is looking for. As the two grow closer through their travels, they come to realize that their pasts—and destinies—are far more entwined than either of them could have imagined…
