The Make-up Test

Jenny L. Howe's 2022 Debut The Make-up Test is a contemporary rom-com set in the world of academe and launching September 13th. Competitive Allison Avery has been accepted into her dream Ph.D. program, studying medieval literature under a professor she’s admired for years. Classes are intense, her best friend is drifting away, and her students aren't eager to discuss The Knight’s Tale—but she’s doing fine until her ex-boyfriend shows up. Colin Benjamin might be the only person who loves winning more than Allison does, and when they’re both assigned to TA for the same professor, the game is on. But are they better off competing or getting back on the same team?

The Fortunes of Jaded Women

Carolyn Huynh's The Fortunes of Jaded Women is a 2022 Debut launching September 6th. Following a family of estranged Vietnamese women—cursed to never know love or happiness—we see them reunite when a psychic makes a startling prediction. Although everyone in Orange County’s Little Saigon knew that the Duong sisters were cursed, these women emerge victorious, even if the world is against them.

A Wonderful Launch for LOVING THE DEAD AND GONE

I had the privilege last night of attending Judith Turner-Yamamoto's book launch at the Joseph-Beth bookstore in Cincinnati. There aren't exactly a lot of book events to attend where I live, but Cincinnati isn't dreadfully far, so I jumped at the chance to attend Judith's reading and discussion there, especially as I had already read and enjoyed Loving the Dead and Gone (review yet to be written... I'm behind on writing reviews).

The Joseph-Beth bookstore is large and hosts quite a few author events (I'm doing a signing there on September 17th!). The space is welcoming and there is also an adjoining cafe that offers full meals, so I tried their portabello burger before Judith's event began.

The crowd was every debut author's dream--more friends than the store expected to seat! I'm sure it helped that Judith is a Cincinnati-based author, but it is always gratifying to see people turn out to support local authors (or authors, period!).

Loving the Dead and Gone is getting a lot of positive attention in the press and from early readers. You can get signed copies at Joseph-Beth, ask your local bookstore to order you a copy, or get the special-edition hardback direct from Regal House.

Other People's Secrets

Canadian author Meredith Hambrock's Debut 2022 thriller Other People's Secrets launches September 6th. Baby’s got problems—namely, a fierce taste for booze and an on-again, off-again boyfriend. She’s living and working at a crumbling lakeside resort with her friends, Crystal Nugget and DJ Overalls, reeling since her step-mom died of a stroke. And now, the return of the local drug kingpin, Bad Mike, is about to throw her already unstable summer into full-blown chaos. But that's just the beginning of her troubles...

Loving the Dead and Gone

Judith Turner-Yamamoto's novel Loving the Dead and Gone launches September 6 from Regal House.

From the Regal House website:

For forty years Aurilla Cutter has tended a clutch of secrets that have turned her mean, and imprinted the lives of her daughter Berta Mae, son-in-law Clayton, and others in her small world. A freak car accident becomes the catalyst for the release of the passions, needs, and hurts in everyone touched by Aurilla’s hidden past. Clayton’s discovery of dead Donald Ray upends his longtime emotional numbness. Darlene, the seventeen-year-old widow, struggles to reconnect with her late husband while proving herself still alive. Soon Clayton and Darlene’s bond of loss and death works its magic, drawing them into an affair that brings the loneliness in Clayton and Berta Mae’s marriage to crisis. When Aurilla learns about the affair, her own memories of longing and infidelity are set loose. Like Darlene’s–unappeased and clung to—they possess an intensity that denies life to the present. As Aurilla’s forbidden and tragic story of love, death, and repeated loss alternates with Darlene’s, the divide of generations and time narrows and collapses, building to the unlikely collision of the two women’s yearnings, which free them both from the past. Loving the Dead and Gone is a lyrical novel about the transformative power of death and how tragedy binds people even more lastingly than passion.

A Very Typical Family

Sierra Godfrey's A Very Typical Family is a 2022 Debut about family--a very troubled family--launching September 1st. Natalie Walker is the reason her older brother and sister went to prison over 15 years ago, and she hasn’t spoken to anyone in her family since. Then, years later, Natalie receives a letter from a lawyer saying her estranged mother has died and left the family’s historic Santa Cruz house to her. Except that the only way for Natalie and her siblings to inherit is for all three adult children to come back and claim it—together! As a former Santa Cruz resident, I have to read this one...

The Unlocked Path

The Unlocked Path, by Janis Robinson Daly, debuted August 25th. In 1897 Philadelphia, educated, career-minded, independent “New Woman” Eliza Pearson Edwards witnesses her aunt's suicide and rejects her mother’s wishes for a society debut and instead enters a woman’s medical college. With determination and the support of a circle of women, Eliza charts a life path that combines science and sympathy to heal others and herself.