Lisa’s Looking Forward To #81 – October 6th, 2020

Posted September 30, 2020 by Lisa Mandina in LLFT / 16 Comments

So, I love October and Halloween! Therefore I decided to update my little logo for this post to have fun this whole month. Once again I’ll be joining up with the Can’t Wait Wednesday posts hosted by Wishful Endings.  Since it is the first week of a new month, there are a ton to share, so let’s get going!

From my ARC list for October 6th, 2020:

I think this is probably a really good book for these times, about the treatment Native Americans deal with, and also told with some parts in verse.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

How about a book that makes you barge into your boss’s office to read a page of poetry from? That you dream of? That every movie, song, book, moment that follows continues to evoke in some way?

The term “Apple” is a slur in Native communities across the country. It’s for someone supposedly “red on the outside, white on the inside.”

Eric Gansworth is telling his story in Apple (Skin to the Core). The story of his family, of Onondaga among Tuscaroras, of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools, to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds.

Eric shatters that slur and reclaims it in verse and prose and imagery that truly lives up to the word heartbreaking.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Sounds like a fun reimagining of the Mary Shelley family!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Angsty teenager Mary Shelley is not interested in carrying on her family’s celebrated legacy of being a great writer, but she soon discovers that she has the not-so-celebrated (and super-secret) Shelley power to heal monsters, just like her famous ancestor, and those monsters are not going to let her ignore her true calling anytime soon.

The Shelley family history is filled with great writers: the original Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, the acclaimed mystery writer Tawny Shelley, cookbook maven Phyllis Shelley…the list goes on and on. But this Mary Shelley, named after her great-great-great-great-great grandmother, doesn’t want anything to do with that legacy. Then a strangely pale (and really cute) boy named Adam shows up and asks her to heal a wound he got under mysterious circumstances, and Mary learns something new about her family: the first Mary Shelley had the power to heal monsters, and Mary has it, too. Now the monsters won’t stop showing up, Mary can’t get her mother Tawny to leave her alone about writing something (anything!), she can’t tell her best friend Rhonda any of this, and all Mary wants is to pass biology.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Of course it has a gorgeous cover! I also have an ARC of this from the publisher that I plan to read and review next week!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

For fans of Maggie Stiefvater and Neil Gaiman comes a stunning contemporary fantasy about a mysterious death, three friends who seek the truth, and the incredible power of our own desires.

Last summer, Link Miller drowned on dry land in the woods, miles from the nearest body of water. His death was ruled a weird accident, but Noemi Amato knows the truth: Link was killed. He told her so himself, because he’s been texting her from beyond the grave, warning her to keep away from the forest.

Amberlyn, Link’s sister, can’t shake the feeling that Noemi is hiding something, and Jonas, Noemi’s new housemate, can’t get past the walls that she has constructed around herself. Because Noemi has a dangerous secret even bigger than Link’s ghost…

Link drowned in an impossible lake that only she can find.

Now, if the three don’t work together to unravel the truth about what is happening in the woods, someone else may wind up dead. Set over the course of one heartbreaking, mystifying, and ultimately hopeful year, this remarkable debut heralds the arrival of an incredible new voice in young adult literature.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Sounds like an intense psychological thriller, but I might be more in the mood to read this when we get some snow!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

A hitched ride home in a snow storm turns sinister when one of the passengers is plotting for the ride to end in disaster.

When Mira flies home to spend Christmas with her mother in Pittsburgh, a record-breaking blizzard results in a cancelled layover. Desperate to get to her grief-ridden mother in the wake of a family death, Mira hitches a ride with a group of friendly college kids who were on her initial flight.

As the drive progresses and weather conditions become more treacherous, Mira realizes that the four other passengers she’s stuck in the car with don’t actually know one another.

Soon, they’re not just dealing with heavy snowfall and ice-slick roads, but the fact that somebody will stop at nothing to ensure their trip ends in a deadly disaster. 

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

I want to read this one so bad, I always love retellings like this! But I didn’t get an early copy, so it goes on my someday TBR.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

From bestselling author Jillian Cantor comes a smart, edgy update of Jane Austen’s beloved classic Emma.

Emma Woodhouse is a genius at math, but clueless about people. After all, people are unreliable. They let you down—just like Emma’s sister, Izzy, did this year, when she moved to California for college. But numbers…those you can count on. (No pun intended.)

Emma’s senior year is going to be all about numbers, and seeing how far they can take her. When she and George, her Coding Club co-president, are tasked with brainstorming a new project, The Code for Love is born—a matchmaking app that goes far beyond swiping, using algorithms to calculate compatibility. George disapproves of Emma’s idea, accusing her of meddling in people’s lives. But all the happy new couples at school are proof that the app works. At least at first.

Emma’s code is flawless. So why is it that perfectly matched couples start breaking up, the wrong people keep falling for each other and her own feelings defy any algorithm? Emma thought math could solve everything. But there’s nothing more complex—or unpredictable—than love.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

I love the cover and it sounds like it could be a good one!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

They use magic to silence the world. Who will break the hush? 

Seventeen-year-old Shae has led a seemingly quiet life, joking with her best friend Fiona, and chatting with Mads, the neighborhood boy who always knows how to make her smile. All while secretly keeping her fears at bay… Of the disease that took her brother’s life. Of how her dreams seem to bleed into reality around her. Of a group of justice seekers called the Bards who claim to use the magic of Telling to keep her community safe.

When her mother is murdered, she can no longer pretend.

Not knowing who to trust, Shae journeys to unlock the truth, instead finding a new enemy keen to destroy her, a brooding boy with dark secrets, and an untold power she never thought possible.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

So I haven’t read anything by this author yet, but this one sounds right up my alley. But first I want to say that as I was looking on Goodreads, I found a different cover for this that I like so much better. The cover above actually would not get my attention like this one below does:

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

From Jennifer Niven, the New York Times bestselling author of All the Bright Places, comes an unforgettable new novel about a sensitive girl ready to live her bravest life–sex, heartbreak, family dramas, and all.

Before: With graduation on the horizon, budding writer Claudine Henry is making plans: college in the fall, become a famous author, and maybe–finally–have sex. She doesn’t even need to be in love. Then her dad drops a bombshell: he’s leaving Claude’s mother. Suddenly, Claude’s entire world feels like a lie, and her future anything but under control.

After: Claude’s mom whisks them away to the last place Claude could imagine nursing a broken heart: a remote, mosquito-infested island off the coast of Georgia. But then Jeremiah Crew happens. Miah is a local trail guide with a passion for photography–and a past he doesn’t like to talk about. He’s brash and enigmatic, and even more infuriatingly, he’s the only one who seems to see Claude for who she wants to be. So when Claude decides to sleep with Miah, she tells herself it’s just sex, nothing more. There’s not enough time to fall in love, especially if it means putting her already broken heart at risk.

Compulsively readable and impossible to forget, Jennifer Niven’s luminous new novel is an insightful portrait of a young woman ready to write her own story.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

This one sounds so good. Very haunting, and I’m guessing it will make me cry because I will probably relate to some of the feelings from my own experience.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Perfect for fans of Rory Power and Laurie Halse Anderson, this sharp, emotional debut follows two girls as they navigate tumultuous relationships, the effects of trauma, and what empowerment means to them.

Ali Greenleaf and Blythe Jensen couldn’t be more different. Ali is sweet, bitingly funny, and just a little naive. Blythe is beautiful, terrifying, and the most popular girl in school. They’ve never even talked to each other, until a party when Ali decides she’ll finally make her move on Sean Nessel, her longtime crush, and the soccer team’s superstar. But Sean pushes Ali farther than she wants to go. When she resists–he rapes her.

Blythe sees Ali when she runs from the party, everyone sees her. And Blythe knows something happened with Sean, she knows how he treats girls. Even so, she’s his best friend, his confidant. When he begs her to help him, she can’t resist.

So Blythe befriends Ali in her attempt to make things right with Sean, bringing Ali into a circle of ruthless popular girls, and sharing her own dark secrets. Despite the betrayal at the heart of their relationship, they see each other, in a way no one ever has before.

In her searing, empowering debut novel, Hayley Krischer tells the story of what happened that night, and how it shaped Ali and Blythe forever. Both girls are survivors in their own ways, and while their experiences are different, and their friendship might not be built to last, it’s one that helps each of them find a way forward on their own terms.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

This one sounds like it could be good, I’ve enjoyed the one or two episodes of Black Mirror that I’ve watched, and this compares itself to that show in the blurb.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Sometimes there’s a town called Indianola. 

And sometimes there isn’t.

Summer, 1993. Claire has been dumped in rural Indianola, Texas, to spend her whole vacation taking care of mean, sickly Grammy. There’s nothing too remarkable about Indianola: it’s run-down, shabby, and stifling hot, a pin-dot on the Gulf Coast.

Well, there is one remarkable thing, she discovers. Something otherworldly.

But if you leave Indianola, you forget about it… and if you stay, you have to live with it every day.

Because there’s a confluence of energies at Indianola, a fissure in time and space, a gap in reality. Nothing is as it seems. And unless Claire can figure out this town–the talkative lizards under the pecan trees; the honey-sweet but terrifying girl next door; the cute daughter of a powerful family, who would answer Claire’s questions if she had any answers; the pervasive sense of history coming unspooled, like a video tape–she might never leave.

Featuring a mindbending plot, heartfelt queer romance, brilliant writing, and intricate worldbuilding, Forget This Ever Happened is a lush and thrilling genre-bender perfect for the Black Mirrorgeneration.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

So I reached out to the publisher again about an advanced copy, but didn’t hear back. I was lucky enough to get one with their last book in the spring. It’s probably best I don’t get on a set list with them to get all their books, because for me, Christina Lauren and also Colleen Hoover are similar because there are some of their books I adore and gush over, and then there are others that just don’t grab me or sound good. This one, however, sounds right up my alley! So I’ll try to get it closer to the holidays maybe, because honestly I don’t necessarily know that I’m in the mood for Christmas stuff yet.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

One Christmas wish, two brothers, and a lifetime of hope are on the line for hapless Maelyn Jones in In a Holidaze, the quintessential holiday romantic novel by Christina Lauren, the New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…but not for Maelyn Jones. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job, and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions.

But perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will be at her favorite place in the world—the snowy Utah cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born, along with two other beloved families. Mentally melting down as she drives away from the cabin for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. Show me what will make me happy.

The next thing she knows, tires screech and metal collides, everything goes black. But when Mae gasps awake…she’s on an airplane bound for Utah, where she begins the same holiday all over again. With one hilarious disaster after another sending her back to the plane, Mae must figure out how to break free of the strange time loop—and finally get her true love under the mistletoe.

Jam-packed with yuletide cheer, an unforgettable cast of characters, and Christina Lauren’s trademark “downright hilarious” (Helen Hoang, author of The Bride Test) hijinks, this swoon-worthy romantic read will make you believe in the power of wishes and the magic of the holidays.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

I have an ARC of this as well, and plan to read it and post a review before it comes out next week as well. It sounds like a spooky historical tale.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Eventide is an evocative YA historical fantasy thriller by debut author Sarah Goodman, for fans of Jennifer Donnelly and Libba Bray.

MADNESS, SECRETS, AND LIES

Wheeler, Arkansas, 1907

When their father descends into madness after the death of their mother, Verity Pruitt and her little sister Lilah find themselves on an orphan train to rural Arkansas.

In Wheeler, eleven-year-old Lilah is quickly adopted, but seventeen-year-old Verity is not. Desperate to stay close to her sister, Verity indentures herself as a farmhand. But even charming farm boy Abel Atchley can’t completely distract her from the sense that something is not quite right in this little town. Strange local superstitions abound, especially about the eerie old well at the center of the forest. The woods play tricks, unleashing heavy fog and bone-chilling cold…and sometimes visions of things that aren’t there. 

But for Verity, perhaps most unsettling of all is the revelation that her own parents have a scandalous history in this very town. And as she tries to unearth the past, sinister secrets come with it—secrets that someone will go to violent lengths to protect….

A haunting tale of long-buried secrets, small-town scandal, and single-minded vengeance by talented debut novelist Sarah Goodman.”

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

I adore the sound of this one! And I love that cover! As a curvy girl, I totally dig it!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Olivia Dade bursts onto the scene in this delightfully fun romantic comedy set in the world of fanfiction, in which a devoted fan goes on an unexpected date with her celebrity crush, who’s secretly posting fanfiction of his own. 

Marcus Caster-Rupp has a secret. While the world knows him as Aeneas, the star of the biggest show on TV, Gods of the Gates, he’s known to fanfiction readers as Book!AeneasWouldNever, an anonymous and popular poster.  Marcus is able to get out his own frustrations with his character through his stories, especially the ones that feature the internet’s favorite couple to ship, Aeneas and Lavinia. But if anyone ever found out about his online persona, he’d be fired. Immediately.

April Whittier has secrets of her own. A hardcore Lavinia fan, she’s hidden her fanfiction and cosplay hobby from her “real life” for years—but not anymore. When she decides to post her latest Lavinia creation on Twitter, her photo goes viral. Trolls and supporters alike are commenting on her plus-size take, but when Marcus, one half of her OTP, sees her pic and asks her out on a date to spite her critics, she realizes life is really stranger than fanfiction.

Even though their first date is a disaster, Marcus quickly realizes that he wants much more from April than a one-time publicity stunt. And when he discovers she’s actually Unapologetic Lavinia Stan, his closest fandom friend, he has one more huge secret to hide from her.

With love and Marcus’s career on the line, can the two of them stop hiding once and for all, or will a match made in fandom end up prematurely cancelled?

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Final Thoughts:

A total of 11 books this week! So many good ones too! Are any of these on your TBR, or have you already read them? If so, which do you recommend? Leave me a link to your post in your comment and I’ll be sure to return the visit!

Also, while you’re here, make sure to go enter my monthly giveaway HERE. As long as you are here on Wednesday, the day I posted this, you’ve got till midnight to enter!

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16 responses to “Lisa’s Looking Forward To #81 – October 6th, 2020

  1. I liked both Spoiler Alert and Code for Love. They fun and the romances were sweet. I LOVED In a Holidaze. It gave me all the holiday warm fuzzies. Hope you enjoy all of these.

  2. Girl, I can totally see why you’re excited about these. It seems like fall is the season of book releases. I haven’t heard of all of these, but Mary, In A Holidaze, and Spoiler Alert are definitely all on my looking forward to list, as well. I hope you get to grab a copy of all of these beauties.

    Reese’s @Reese’s Reviews

  3. That’s a lot of books coming out soon! Where do you start?! Someone last week had mentioned In a Holidaze and I fell in love the description of it. I can’t wait to read it. Eventide gets me with that cover every time. That’s another one I really want to read at some point. My daughter has been bugging me to read more graphic novels, and I really like the look and sound of Mary: The Adventures of Mary Shelley’s Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Granddaughter. That’s a new one to me. And Hush! Another great sounding one. They all sound good, really. I hope you are able to get your hands on some, if not all of these, and enjoy every single one. Have a great week, Lisa.

    • Lisa Mandina

      No idea where to start, especially if they’re not on my blogging calendar, I don’t always know when I’ll get to them. Thanks for stopping by!

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