When Lauren returns home after a night out in London, she is greeted by Michael. This man is a stranger claiming to be her husband. She was definitely not married when she left that evening, but now her own camera roll, the changes to her flat, and her friends all tell a different story. How could this be? When the shocking answer is revealed, it is truly unbelieve-he came from the attic. Lauren quickly discovers that her attic produces a seemingly infinite supply of husbands.
Lauren’s life changes with each new husband. And while the idea of endless possible lives sounds appealing, she eventually starts questioning what she truly wants out of love and life. How will she trust she’s found the right one when she knows she can easily swap him out?
The Husbands is a delightful debut brimming with quirky characters, magical realism, and thought-provoking situations. Lauren’s journey is an emotional rollercoaster for both her and the reader! The audio narration by Miranda Raison made the experience all the more enjoyable.
Fans of witty, romantic comedies, and Brit Lit will want to add The Husbands to their reading lists. Thanks to NetGalley for providing a review copy.
There are so many wonderful, new books being published but since it is still Women’s History Month, I wanted to focus on…women authors! I’ve created a list of a few recently published books by debut women authors to continue our celebration of Women’s History Month. From witches to thrillers to family strife, we’ve got it covered.
“When his wife, unable to handle the demands of motherhood and feeling the dreams she had slipping away once again, disappears, leaving their toddler son behind, Sam finds his vision for their future shattered, in this heartrending love story that explores what happens after a marriage collapses.”
“A woman investigating her brother’s apparent suicide finds herself falling for her prime suspect—his darkly mysterious girlfriend—in this edgy Southern gothic thriller.”
“Told over five centuries through three connected women, this riveting novel follows Kate, in 2019, as she seeks refuge in Weyward Cottage; Altha, in 1619, as she uses her powers to maintain her freedom; and Violet, in 1942, as she searches for the truth about her mother’s death.”
“A funny, sharply observed novel of family, wealth, love and tennis, this zeitgeisty debut follows three women in an old Brooklyn Heights clan: one who was born with money, one who married into it, and one, the millennial conscience of the family, who wants to give it all away. Rife with the indulgent pleasures of affluent WASPS in New York and full of recognizable if fallible characters, it’s about the peculiar unknowability of someone else’s family, about the haves and have-nots and the nuances in between, and the insanity of first love-Pineapple Street is a scintillating, wryly comic novel of race, class, wealth and privilege in an age that disdains all of it.”
“A powerful debut novel follows a Puerto Rican family in Staten Island who discovers their long missing sister is potentially alive and cast on a reality TV show, and they set out to bring her home.”
“In 1852, young widow Margaret Lennox, taking a position as governess to an only child at an isolated country house in the West of England, starts to feel that something isn’t quite right and, as her past threatens to catch up with her, she learns the truth behind the secrets of Hartwood Hall.”
“Seven years after the mysterious death of her best friend, Aubrey, Maya comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman dies in front of the same man Aubrey did, leading her back to a New England cabin to finally uncover a truth that could save her.”
There are innumerable Black authors that have impacted, influenced, and informed the landscape of literature—Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, Ralph Ellison, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and many more prolific, important people.
For Black History Month, I want to highlight some Black authors that published their debuts in 2022 and 2023.
In Brooks’ YA debut, three prep school students are accused of murdering their high school principal. The boys team up to find the real killer before it’s too late.
This collection of short stories follows each tenant in the Banneker Homes, a low-income high rise in Harlem where gentrification weighs on everyone’s mind, as they weave in and out of each other’s lives, endeavoring to escape from their pasts and forge new paths forward.
Rooted in spiritual energy and centered in black liberation, womanism and Afrofuturism, the founder of The Nap Ministry sheds new light on our troubled relationship with rest and how to imagine and dream our way to a future where rest is exalted – and a divine human right.
In a series of exacting and fierce vignettes, the author, who found salvation in geek culture, takes readers through the unceasing cruelty of his impoverished childhood toward an understanding of what it means to lose the desire to fit in and build community and love on your own terms.
Read it or Weep 