by Hello, bookish lovelies, and welcome to another edition of New Releases here at The Bookworm Files! This week we have a wide range of books for you from fantastical fictional worlds to our own murder happy reality. This week also features one of the most anticipated true crime books of the last few years written by one of the nicest fellas you could hope to meet. Let’s dive right in!
Ever since she discovered her affinity for magic, seventeen-year-old Anouk has been desperate to become a witch. It’s the only way to save her friends who, like Anouk, are beasties: animals enchanted into humans. But unlike Anouk, the other beasties didn’t make it out of the battle at Montélimar in one piece.
With her friends now trapped in their animal forms, Anouk is forced into a sinister deal involving a political marriage with her sworn enemy, a wicked plot to overthrow London’s fiercest coven of witches, and a deadly trial of fire to become a witch. The price for power has always been steep in the world of the Haute. Now, it will cost Anouk everything.
First up, we have the somewhat anticipated conclusion to theGrim LoveliesDuology. Midnight Beautites, written by Megan Shepherd and published by HMH Books for Young Readers, is a YA fantasy follow-up to the middling reviewed Grim Lovelies. Early reviews are giving it an impressive 4.14 rating on Goodreads, but I’ll be curious to see what the reviews do once it’s released to the public at large. Conclusions can be a tricky business, so we shall see if Shepherd can make her fans happy.
London. 1850. The Great Exhibition is being erected in Hyde Park and among the crowd watching the spectacle two people meet. For Iris, an aspiring artist, it is the encounter of a moment – forgotten seconds later, but for Silas, a collector entranced by the strange and beautiful, that meeting marks a new beginning.
When Iris is asked to model for pre-Raphaelite artist Louis Frost, she agrees on the condition that he will also teach her to paint. Suddenly her world begins to expand, to become a place of art and love.
But Silas has only thought of one thing since their meeting, and his obsession is darkening . . .
Next on our list is a psychological thriller set in Victorian London. The Doll Factoryis the debut novel by author Elizabeth Macneal, published by Simon and Schuster, that is being billed as a historical suspense novel for fans of The Alienist. The concept certainly sounds creepy—and the cover is perfection—so I for one am all in on this one.
Have you ever wanted to solve a murder? Gather the clues the police overlooked? Put together the pieces? Identify the suspect?
Journalist Billy Jensen spent fifteen years investigating unsolved murders, fighting for the families of victims. Every story he wrote had one thing in common―they didn’t have an ending. The killer was still out there.
But after the sudden death of a friend, crime writer and author of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara, Billy became fed up. Following a dark night, he came up with a plan. A plan to investigate past the point when the cops had given up. A plan to solve the murders himself.
You’ll ride shotgun as Billy identifies the Halloween Mask Murderer, finds a missing girl in the California Redwoods, and investigates the only other murder in New York City on 9/11. You’ll hear intimate details of the hunts for two of the most terrifying serial killers in history: his friend Michelle McNamara’s pursuit of the Golden State Killer and his own quest to find the murderer of the Allenstown Four. And Billy gives you the tools―and the rules―to help solve murders yourself.
Finally, we come to a highly anticipated true crime nonfiction tome written by one of the biggest names in the true crime scene. Chase Darkness With Me: How One True Crime Writer Started Solving Murders, written by Billy Jensen and published by Sourcebooks, isn’t just another true crime procedural. It’s a chronicle of the last twenty years of Jensen’s life, told in his characteristic style of investigative storytelling. Focusing on crowdsolving and citizen sleuths, Jensen gives readers the tools to help solve murders while still telling true crime stories. If that’s not enough, I had the pleasure of meeting Jensen at BEA in New York this year, and he is one of the nicest humans I have ever gotten to meet. He drew a “spooky” bookworm in my book, and it was amazing. Go get this book, friends.
That’s it for this week, friends. I’ll be taking a little break next Tuesday for the first week of the fall semester, but, never fear, I’ll be back August 27 with more upcoming goodies!
The Bookworm Files 
Leave a Reply