Tantalizing Tales — March 2025 — Part Three

Hello, dear readers! It is Week Three of me turning with the equinox to talk of current and upcoming titles that have caught my eye that I can’t quite yet squeeze into my reading schedule. The first of these is Alison Gunn’s debut horror novel Nowhere.

Police chief Rachel Kennan throws herself into keeping the peace in her small Virginia town, focusing on work in order to avoid dealing with the grief of recently losing her young son. Her husband Finn, whose alcoholism led to the accident that claimed their child’s life, struggles to redeem himself. The only thing keeping them together is the existence of their two surviving daughters, girls who have enough problems without being the lynchpin of their parents’ floundering marriage.

When a disturbing crime rocks their town, Rachel gets what she wished for: a case so involved that it takes up almost all her time, as she chases down leads in a religious and tightly knit community that doesn’t take well to outsiders. But something weird is going on. An ominous force in the forest is calling out to children, spawning fear and hatred in the townspeople. As the Kennans find themselves right in the firing line, they’ll have no choice but to rely on each other, if they have any hope of surviving as a family.

A haunting family saga and a disquieting horror debut, Nowhere draws from Appalachian folklore to caution readers that true terror is what we bury in our own hearts.

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Another small town tale of crime and remorse is Lee Martin’s The Evening Shades, the follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize finalist novel The Bright Forever. It can be read as a standalone, however, so don’t let the fact that it’s a sequel of sorts stop you from diving in!

Widowed Edith Green is lonely. It’s the autumn of 1972 and she’s lived by herself for far too long in the town of Mt Gilead, Illinois. Her unbearable loneliness drives her to one day impulsively offer a room for rent to a stranger in need, despite never having really thought of taking on a boarder before.

Henry Dees is socially awkward but grateful for a safe harbor from his past in Tower Hill, Indiana. But he’s never really far from the guilt that plagues him still, about the things that he did and didn’t do that led to the death of a little girl back home. Her bereaved family still wants answers from him, even as they themselves hide their own secrets about the mysterious disappearance of the man who killed their daughter.

As Edith and Henry learn more about each other, they slowly learn to trust again. But will they let love into their hearts, when it’s such a precious thing so fragile in the face of others’ harsh opinions and judgments?

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And now we pivot to books publishing in April, with another novel that deals in love! I’m super excited for this next one, Victoria Lavine’s spicy new romance Any Trope But You.

Beloved romance author Margot Bradley has a dark secret: she doesn’t actually believe in Happily Ever Afters. Not for herself, not for her readers and certainly not for her characters. She secretly writes them Happily Never Afters, alternate endings that swap the weddings and babies they get in her books for divorce papers and the occasional slashed tire instead. When her Happily Never Afters document is hacked and released to the public, she finds herself canceled and dropped by her publisher.

Desperate to find a way to continue supporting her chronically ill sister Savannah, Margot decides to trade meet-cutes for murder (the fictional kind. Probably.) But when Savannah books Margot a six-week stay in a remote Alaskan resort to concentrate on penning her murder mystery, Margot finds herself running from, of all things, a moose. After leaping for safety into the arms of the resort’s ruggedly handsome proprietor, she fears she’s just landed in a romance novel plot instead.

The last thing Dr. Forrest Wakefield ever expected was to leave his dream job as a cancer researcher to become a glorified bellhop. Sure he’s caring for his stubborn, ailing father at their family’s resort, but his puzzle-loving mind is slowly freezing over—until Margot shows up. Forrest, however, has no vacancy in his heart or life for another person he could lose, and especially not for a woman with a checkout date.

As long snowy nights and one unlikely trope after another draw Margot and Forrest together, they’ll each have to learn to melt the ice around their hearts before Margot leaves… or become a Happily Never After story themselves.

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Our next romance novel is more dark fantasy than comedy but is just as swoon-worthy. Patrice Caldwell’s When Shadows Meet is a thrilling new Black sapphic vampire romantasy that questions what it truly means to sacrifice for love.

A long time ago, a girl named Favre gave up her wings for love. Thana, the young goddess she so willingly sacrificed them for, turned around and traded that same love for power. Everything, after all, has a cost.

Favre never got over the loss of her wings. Thana’s choices subsequently led to a life of eternal night and, later, destruction. Favre has been biding her time ever since, waiting for the chance to resurrect the girl she loves, the same girl who turned her into a creature that she hates.

A thousand years later, Crown Princess Leyla of the malichora — an ancient race that survives on human blood — must travel to the Island of the Dead after her best friend is captured during an attack on her nation’s capital. With the unexpected help of Najja, a fierce and beautiful seer, Leyla must forge a dangerous path as she seeks to save her friend.

But nothing is as it seems. The closer Leyla gets to her goal, the more she risks awakening an ancient evil that could very well destroy everything she holds dear.

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Another new fantasy novel coming out in April is from one of my favorite fantasy authors, Alwyn Hamilton! After concluding the incredible Rebel Of The Sands trilogy, she’s back with The Notorious Virtues, the first in a brand new series!

At sixteen, Honora “Nora” Holtzfall is the daughter of the most powerful heiress in all of Walstad. Her family controls all the money — and all the magic — in the entire country. But despite being the center of attention, Nora has always felt like an outsider.

When her mother is found dead in an alley, the family throne and fortune are suddenly up for grabs, as Nora is pitted against her cousins in the Veritaz, the ultimate magical competition for power that determines the sole family heir. But there’s a surprise contestant this time. Lotte is the illegitimate daughter of Nora’s aunt. When Lotte’s absent mother retrieves her from the rural convent she’d been abandoned to, Lotte goes from being an orphan to being surrounded by family. Unfortunately for her, most of that family wants her dead.

While the dangers of the Veritaz competition threaten each of the Holtzfall girls — and the stark class differences of Walstad turn political outrage into terrifying violence — the new cousins must fight to stay alive, no matter what. Incredible tests, impossible choices and deadly odds await both girls, in a competition that can only have one winner.

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Finally, we have next month’s Read With Jenna pick, Amity Gaige’s new literary thriller Heartwood, which follows a search and rescue team as they race against time to save a missing hiker on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.

Forty-two year-old Valerie Gillis is an experienced hiker who has abruptly gone missing two hundred miles from her destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep the flame of hope alive.

At the center of the search for Valerie are Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden who leads the search on the ground, and Lena, a seventy-six year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community who has become an armchair detective. The narrative shifts between all three of their perspectives as the search becomes more frantic, intensified by emerging signs that Valerie’s disappearance may not have been accidental.

I have been sent so much publicity regarding this novel, a surefire sign that it’s something truly special. And who can resist a novel that’s been hailed as an enthralling examination of our motivations for bravery, our longing for community and safe harbor in a world of increasing isolation and loneliness, and the complexities of love and familial bonds?

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Let me know if you’re able to get to any of these books before I do, dear readers! I’d love to hear your opinions, and see if that will help spur me to push any of them higher up the mountain range that is my To Be Read pile.

And, as always, you can check out the list of my favorite books in my Bookshop storefront linked below!