February TBR

So, I may have overbooked myself for ARCs. Netgalley went all Oprah with books last month, so my Netgalley TBR is bursting. I spent a few hours yesterday organizing my physical TBR bookshelf, and things feel like they are a bit in control…maybe. With that said, let’s look at what I plan to read for the next few weeks.

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Off the Map, Trish Doller
Contemporary Romance
Releases March 7th
Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N

I’ve already started this one, and I love it. This has been such a fun series, I love Doller’s work.

About the Book
On the road to love, you don’t need a GPS…

Carla Black’s life motto is “here for a good time, not for a long time.” She’s been traveling the world on her own in her vintage Jeep Wrangler for nearly a decade, stopping only long enough to replenish her adventure fund. She doesn’t do love and she doesn’t ever go home.

Eamon Sullivan is a modern-day cartographer who creates digital maps. His work helps people find their way, but he’s the one who’s lost his sense of direction. He’s unhappy at work, recently dumped, and his one big dream is stalled out—literally.

Fate throws them together when Carla arrives in Dublin for her best friend’s wedding and Eamon is tasked with picking her up from the airport. But what should be a simple drive across Ireland quickly becomes complicated with chemistry-filled detours, unexpected feelings, and a chance at love – if only they choose it.

All That Is Mine I Carry With Me, William Landay
Mystery/Thriller
Releases March 7th
Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N

It’s funny to think that I used to hate suspense and thrillers because I didn’t like the not knowing feeling of suspense. Now it’s my most favorite genre.

About the Book
One afternoon in November 1975, ten-year-old Miranda Larkin comes home from school to find her house eerily quiet. Her mother is missing. Nothing else is out of place. There is no sign of struggle. Her mom’s pocketbook remains in the front hall, in its usual spot.
 
So begins a mystery that will span a lifetime. What happened to Jane Larkin?
 
Investigators suspect Jane’s husband. A criminal defense attorney, Dan Larkin would surely be an expert in outfoxing the police.
 
But no evidence is found linking him to a crime, and the case fades from the public’s memory, a simmering, unresolved riddle. Jane’s three children—Alex, Jeff, and Miranda—are left to be raised by the man who may have murdered their mother.
 
Two decades later, the remains of Jane Larkin are found. The investigation is awakened. The children, now grown, are forced to choose sides. With their father or against him? Guilty or innocent? And what happens if they are wrong?
 
A tale about family—family secrets and vengeance, but also family love—All That Is Mine I Carry With Me masterfully grapples with a primal question: When does loyalty reach its limit?

The Foxglove King, Hannah Whitten
Fantasy/Romance
Releases March 7th
Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N

Fantasy would be my next favorite genre, and this sounds amazing. I’m super excited to start it.

About the Book
When Lore was thirteen, she escaped a cult in the catacombs beneath the city of Dellaire. And in the ten years since, she’s lived by one rule: don’t let them find you. Easier said than done, when her death magic ties her to the city.
 
Mortem, the magic born from death, is a high-priced and illicit commodity in Dellaire, and Lore’s job running poisons keeps her in food, shelter, and relative security. But when a run goes wrong and Lore’s power is revealed, she’s taken by the Presque Mort, a group of warrior-monks sanctioned to use Mortem working for the Sainted King. Lore fully expects a pyre, but King August has a different plan. Entire villages on the outskirts of the country have been dying overnight, seemingly at random. Lore can either use her magic to find out what’s happening and who in the King’s court is responsible, or die.
 
Lore is thrust into the Sainted King’s glittering court, where no one can be believed and even fewer can be trusted. Guarded by Gabriel, a duke-turned-monk, and continually running up against Bastian, August’s ne’er-do-well heir, Lore tangles in politics, religion, and forbidden romance as she attempts to navigate a debauched and opulent society.
 
But the life she left behind in the catacombs is catching up with her. And even as Lore makes her way through the Sainted court above, they might be drawing closer than she thinks.

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, K.J. Charles
Historical Romance
Releases March 7th
Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N

This is very far from my normal genre of reading because I’m not usually fond of historical romance. However, this one sounds so fun, I knew I had to read it.

About the Book
Abandoned by his father, Gareth Inglis grew up lonely, prickly, and well-used to disappointment. Still, he longs for a connection. When he meets a charming stranger, he falls head over heels—until everything goes wrong and he’s left alone again. Then Gareth’s father dies, turning the shabby London clerk into Sir Gareth, with a grand house on the remote Romney Marsh and a family he doesn’t know.

The Marsh is another world, a strange, empty place notorious for its ruthless gangs of smugglers. And one of them is dangerously familiar…

Joss Doomsday has run the Doomsday smuggling clan since he was a boy. When the new baronet—his old lover—agrees to testify against Joss’s sister, Joss acts fast to stop him. Their reunion is anything but happy, yet after the dust settles, neither can stay away. Soon, all Joss and Gareth want is the chance to be together. But the bleak, bare Marsh holds deadly secrets. And when Gareth finds himself threatened from every side, the gentleman and the smuggler must trust one another not just with their hearts, but with their lives.

Clytemnestra, Costanza Casati
Fantasy/Mythology
Releases March 7th
Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N

I am here for mythology retellings, not to mention I love this cover.

About the Book
As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her best…

You were born to a king, but you marry a tyrant. You stand by helplessly as he sacrifices your child to placate the gods. You watch him wage war on a foreign shore, and you comfort yourself with violent thoughts of your own. Because this was not the first offence against you. This was not the life you ever deserved. And this will not be your undoing. Slowly, you plot.

But when your husband returns in triumph, you become a woman with a choice.

Acceptance or vengeance, infamy follows both. So, you bide your time and force the gods’ hands in the game of retribution. For you understood something long ago that the others never did.

If power isn’t given to you, you have to take it for yourself.

The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway, Ashley Schumacher
YA/Romance
Releases March 14th
Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N

I love Ashley’s books. The previous 2 were 5-star reads for me, so I’m excited to read this one.

About the Book
Since her mother’s death, Madeline “Gwen” Hathaway has been determined that nothing in her life will change ever again. That’s why she keeps extensive lists in journals, has had only one friend since childhood, and looks forward to the monotony of working the ren faire circuit with her father. Until she arrives at her mother’s favorite end-of-tour stop to find the faire is under new management and completely changed.

Meeting Arthur, the son of the new owners and an actual lute-playing bard, messes up Maddie’s plans even more. For some reason, he wants to be her friend – and ropes her into becoming Princess of the Faire. Now Maddie is overseeing a faire dramatically changed from what her mother loved and going on road trips vastly different from the routine she used to rely on. Worst of all, she’s kind of having fun.

Ashley Schumacher’s The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway is filled with a wise old magician who sells potion bottles, gallant knights who are afraid of horses and ride camels instead, kings with a fondness for theatrics, a lazy river castle moat with inflatable crocodile floaties, and a plus-sized heroine with a wide open heart… if only she just admits it.

A Clash of Fate and Fury, Rachel Menard
YA/Fantasy
Releases March 21st
Goodreads, Amazon, B&N

This series is a YA retake on mythology and as I really liked book 1, I knew I needed this one.

About the Book
Seventeen-year-old Gen may have rescued her beloved father from prison, but she hasn’t saved him yet. If she fails her end of a bargain with the Olympian Empresses, they will send him right back to his cell. To keep the Empresses happy, Gen must bring them the legendary golden apples of Hesperides and the monstrous Cerberus. But both are rumored to be in the neighboring Elysium Empire, which has a long history of war with Olympia. Making matters worse, Gen’s former enemy and newly designated heir to the isle of Arcadia Castor invites herself on the journey, hoping a golden apple could end Arcadia’s reliance on Illumium for storm vials. And Castor’s twin brother, Gen’s StormMaker boyfriend Pollux, has been pulling away from Gen due to troubles stemming from her mind magic. With Castor’s pirate-thief girlfriend and Pollux’s servant companion in tow, the unlikely team embarks on its voyage. But war is only an insult away in Elysium, and more than the Emperor has their eyes on Gen’s mission. The quest has caught the attention of one of Elysium’s Oracles, and trouble is sure to brew with Prophecy on the rise.

Momenticon, Andrew Caldecott
Dystopian/Post-Apocalyptic
Goodreads, Amazon, Bookshop, B&N

I don’t know how I first stumbled upon this book, but a dystopian, alice-esque retelling? I knew I had to have it.

About the Book
The world has become a dangerous place. Despite the environmentalists’ best efforts, the atmosphere has turned toxic, destroying almost all life – plants, animals, and most of humanity too.

Survivors live in domes protected by chitin shields, serving one or other of the two great companies, Lord Vane’s Tempestas or Lord Sine’s Genrich, with their very different visions for mankind’s future.

Fogg has been the curator of the isolated Museum Dome for three years. It contains Man’s finest artefacts, but Fogg hasn’t had a single visitor. He immerses himself in the exhibits with only AI PT, his automated physical trainer, for company.

Then a single mysterious pill appears in the Museum as if from nowhere: a momenticon. It signals the end of his hermit’s life and an impending struggle with the dark forces which threaten everything that remains: a struggle which will take him and his new companions to the ends of the earth.

This is a post-apocalyptic world unlike any other.

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So that’s my immediate TBR. (All these books due on March 7th 😫) I was hoping to fit in a classic as well, but I have been having bad luck with them lately. I had to DNF The Great Gatsby and The Swiss Family Robinson. I am going to attempt War and Peace this year…but maybe not this month.

What’s on your TBR?