
I have added so many books to my Goodreads TBR lately, and I haven’t written one of these posts in ages! I am going to share a few of the new additions to my TBR, not including new releases.

After a lifetime of failed relationships, non-binary history professor Sam Bell is committed to a new (non)romantic strategy: Thirst Only. It’s the actual drinking where things get too complicated, where Sam inevitably gets hurt.
Sam is good at being thirsty, though, especially when it’s karaoke night at The Moonlight Café, otherwise known as Moonie’s to its largely queer regulars. Moonie’s is fun. Comfortable. Safe. Except for tonight, when one by one, all of Sam’s friends abandon them. Disappointed, they prepare to leave—until their #1 karaoke crush catches their eye…
For Lily Fischer, karaoke at Moonie’s is the only time she can step outside of her quiet shell. When there’s a mic in her hand, she’s no longer merely a receptionist harboring big dreams. At Moonie’s, Lily can pretend to be someone else: someone bold, who takes what she wants. And tonight, what Lily wants is the way Sam looks at her across the room as she sings her signature opening song, like they see her exactly as she wants to be seen. Like Moonie’s Lily is real.
As the night progresses, both Sam’s and Lily’s personal fears are tested, and the real world outside of Moonie’s looms. But maybe sometimes, the real world should be a little more like karaoke. It’s not always about knowing all the right words or having the perfect voice. Maybe all Sam and Lily need is a little courage to pick up the mic, and sing anyway.
I just read Anita Kelly’s full-length novel, Love & Other Disasters, and I was thrilled to find that she has a novella series! I love a good romance novella, and Anita Kelly seems to write my favourite tropes. Love & Other Disasters is a foodie romance and Sing Anyway follows characters who have a passion for music- two things I love in my novels!

May the best chef win…
After four years at the country’s top culinary school and several years as head chef in her mother’s restaurant, Rowan Townsend has built a notable reputation. Her farm-to-table collard greens have long been bringing everyone to the yard, but limits on the restaurant’s size have led to long waits. Looking to expand the restaurant, she enters a televised chef competition. The problem? Her infuriatingly-talented nemesis from culinary school also enters.
To the culinary world, Knox Everheart is restaurant royalty. As much as Rowan wants to deny it, he’s a gifted chef. Rowan knows her arrogant arch-nemesis is confident he’ll win—he’s certainly given her a run for her money more times than she’d like to admit. But this time, she’s ready to show him who’s boss.
Their rivalry soon sparks fireworks in the kitchen and, as the competition heats up, so does Rowan’s attraction to Knox. And somewhere between pasta and gumbo, they both need to decide what’s worth fighting for.
I recently put together a list of foodie romances, and I was so thankful to receive a ton of recommendations! An Acquired Taste is one that stood out to me. A rivals-to-lovers romance that unfolds on the set of a chef competition? Yes, please!

Meredith Fox has been going to Martha’s Vineyard for the summer as long as she can remember. But this summer is the first one back since the death of Meredith’s sister. It will all be overwhelming, but even more since the entire extended family will be together for her cousin’s big wedding.
Unfortunately, Meredith’s longtime boyfriend unexpectedly dumped her two weeks before the wedding, leaving her dateless. Luckily, she has the perfect distraction. Her family has a tradition of playing the ultimate game of Assassin every summer, and this year it will take place during the week of wedding festivities.
But her target just happens to be a very cute groomsman. She’s determined to not let herself get distracted, not let herself be lost in another doomed relationship. But as the week progresses, she can’t help falling for him, which may cost her not only the game, but also her heart.
I am always looking for summer romances, so I was excited to find a fellow blogger who recommended The Summer of Broken Rules! I love romances that unfold over the course of a wedding weekend!

North Carolina, 1863. As the American Civil War rages on, the Freedmen’s Colony of Roanoke Island is blossoming, a haven for the recently emancipated. Black people have begun building a community of their own, a refuge from the shadow of the old life. It is where the March family has finally been able to safely put down roots with four young daughters:
Meg, a teacher who longs to find love and start a family of her own.
Jo, a writer whose words are too powerful to be contained.
Beth, a talented seamstress searching for a higher purpose.
Amy, a dancer eager to explore life outside her family’s home.
As the four March sisters come into their own as independent young women, they will face first love, health struggles, heartbreak, and new horizons. But they will face it all together.
As soon as I heard about So Many Beginnings, I went out and bought a copy. It is a remix of Little Women and it is set in North Caroline during the American Civil War. This seems to be a series of sorts as there is a Treasure Island remix called A Clash of Steel that I also have my eye on and a Wuthering Heights remixed called What Souls Are Made Of, which comes out later this year and is written by Tasha Suri.

While studying wolverines on a wildlife sanctuary in Montana, biologist Alex Carter is run off the road and threatened by locals determined to force her off the land.
Undeterred in her mission to help save this threatened species, Alex tracks wolverines on foot and by cameras positioned in remote regions of the preserve. But when she reviews the photos, she discovers disturbing images of an animal of a different kind: a severely injured man seemingly lost and wandering in the wilds.
After searches for the unknown man come up empty, local law enforcement is strangely set on dismissing the case altogether, raising Alex’s suspicions. Then another invasive predator trespasses onto the preserve. The hunter turns out to be another human—and the prey is the wildlife biologist herself. Alex realizes too late that she has seen too much—she’s stumbled onto a far-reaching illegal operation and now has become the biggest threat.
In this wild and dangerous landscape, Alex’s life depends on staying one step ahead—using all she knows about the animal world and what it takes to win the brutal battle for survival.
A Solitude of Wolverines is the first book in a new thriller series. I love that the main character is a biologist who is studying wolverines at a wildlife sanctuary and that she stumbles upon information she should never have seen and that makes her a target. The second book is called A Blizzard of Polar Bears, so I am really hoping I like the first one because that title alone sounds amazing!

Since the 1970s, FantasticLand has been the theme park where “Fun is Guaranteed!” But when a hurricane ravages the Florida coast and isolates the park, the employees find it anything but fun. Five weeks later, the authorities who rescue the survivors encounter a scene of horror. Photos soon emerge online of heads on spikes outside of rides and viscera and human bones littering the gift shops, breaking records for hits, views, likes, clicks, and shares. How could a group of survivors, mostly teenagers, commit such terrible acts?
Presented as a fact-finding investigation and a series of first-person interviews, FantasticLand pieces together the grisly series of events. Park policy was that the mostly college-aged employees surrender their electronic devices to preserve the authenticity of the FantasticLand experience. Cut off from the world and left on their own, the teenagers soon form rival tribes who viciously compete for food, medicine, social dominance, and even human flesh. This new social network divides the ravaged dreamland into territories ruled by the Pirates, the ShopGirls, the Freaks, and the Mole People. If meticulously curated online personas can replace private identities, what takes over when those constructs are lost?
I don’t know much about Fantasticland other than it is a horror set at a theme park. Something about that really creeps me out!

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.
Years later, a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited – her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.
The Island of Missing Trees came out in August of last year, but it seems to have gotten a lot of buzz recently. I have been seeing it everywhere! I am someone who loves novels that have a unique narrator, so the fact that one of the narrators in this story is a fig tree instantly sold me on it.
What books have you added to your TBR recently?
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this is such a wonderful list! sing anyway sounds great!
Doesn’t that look so cute?
I haven’t read any of them but hope you enjoy ❤
Thank you!
Ah yay the summer of broken rules, I love that one so much! <3 An Aquired Taste sounds like so much fun!
I thought it was you who recommended The Summer of Broken Rules, Marie!!
I screamed about The Summer of Broken Rules all of last year, so seeing it on your TBR makes me so happy!!! I hope more people pick it up <3
I’m so excited for that one!! It seems so underrated!
It does feel underrated, but there was a weird time last year, where I wanted to gift the book to a friend and it wasn’t available anywhere in any format.
I really like the look of So Many Beginnings! I just added it to my TBR. I love that it’s a little women remix.
Doesn’t that look so good? I want to grab all the books in the series. Love the whole idea of remixing classics like this!
I started listening to Fantasticland, but I never finished it. I was enjoying it, but struggling to follow the story as an audiobook. I should pick it back up, maybe in a readable format, so I can better keep track of things.
I loved So Many Beginnings! I haven’t read any of the others, but An Acquired Taste looks like one I’d enjoy.
I’m so looking forward to So Many Beginnings!
I hope you will enjoy all of these!
I really want to read So Many Beginnigns as well!
It looks so good!
The Island of Missing Trees sounds amazing!
Doesn’t it?! I have a feeling it will be long listed for the Women’s Prize.