Happy New Year! It’s time to talk Most Anticipated Reads for 2024. I gotta tell ya, it was tough narrowing it down this year and there are a few obvious big releases this year that aren’t on the list. Not because I’m not excited for them, but because I wanted to make space for books that aren’t going to get a boatload of marketing support in 2024.
We’ve got a little historical fiction, a little mystery, and a lotta romance. If you’re interested in the AAPI releases I’m tracking in 2024, the starter list is here. I’ve had the opp to read a few of these as ARCs and loved them so much, they’re still on the Most Anticipated List because they’re books I won’t be shutting up about. Now let’s get to it.
RELEASE DATE: February 13, 2024
ARC provided by the publisher, review to come
I’m loving the trend of author collaborations to better inform historical fiction. If you’ve read the Personal LIbrarian you know how effective two lenses on history can be. Now Kate Quinn and Janie Chang are teaming up to tell the tale of two very different women in 1906 San Francisco. Gemma is a down-on-her-luck opera singer and Suling, a Chinese embroideress trying to get out of an arranged marriage. Their stories intertwine and their fortunes change thanks to Henry Thornton, a railroad magnate and collector of Chinese antiquities, including the Phoenix Crown. The San Francisco earthquake turns everything upside down and Thornton mysteriously disappears. The Phoenix Crown turns up years later in Paris, “drawing Gemma and Suling together in one last desperate quest for justice.” Mystery, 20th century Calfornia history, a Chinese protagonist, I can’t wait to dive in.
Get The Phoenix Crown from The Ripped Bodice | Bookshop.org | Amazon | Apple Books
RELEASE DATE: MARCH 5, 2024
ARC provided by the publisher for review
Flawless. Another multifaceted romance masterwork from Kennedy Ryan. A 2024 must read.
This Could Be Us, the second book in Ryan’s Skyland series, follows Soledad, an Afro-Latina mom raising 3 girls, when the bottom falls out of her seemingly happy suburban life. Faced with figuring out how to hold onto her house in the aftermath of misdeeds by her husband, Soledad grapples with how she ended up where she is and how she moves forward for herself and her daughters.
This Could Be Us reinforces the notion that to find someone worthy of your love, you’ve gotta love yourself first. All the signs were there in the first book in the Skyland series: Edward is not a great husband. But in This Could Be Us, you find out just what kind of trifling ass MF’er he is. It’s the springboard for Soledad to reclaim herself, her happiness, and what it means to truly partner in a relationship.
What sets this book apart isn’t its focus on mental health/self-worth or the support network female friendships and sisterhood form in our lives, it’s that this is a romance between two grown adults dealing with complex family lives while making room for them to find love. It’s such a relief to have a 40 year old FMC who just has no choice but to get on with it. And an MMC who redefines sexy with the emotional wherewithal to support and create space without pushing away. With these two, there’s no time for wingeing about adulting when you’re trying to keep the ship steady for your girls even when everything feels like it’s falling apart.
Bravo, bravo, bravo!!
5 stars
Get This Could Be Us from The Ripped Bodice | Bookshop.org | Amazon | Apple Books
![How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang]](https://dailywaffle.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/how-to-end-a-love-story.jpg)
RELEASE DATE: April 9, 2024
ARC provided by the publisher for review
How to End a Loves Story has the emotional heft of a Kennedy Ryan book and the trauma through line of an Abby Jimenez book. It’s got legit steam and Asian American rep you haven’t seen 1,000x before.
Helen’s young adult novel is being made into a TV show and she’s scored herself a spot in the writers room. When she arrives in LA, she discovers that Grant, a guy she hasn’t seen in 13 yrs and is tied to a personal tragedy, is the second on the show. And they’re going to have to face each other on the daily as they break story and get the show into production.The first days are bumpy, but then they turn a corner (hotdamn!) .
Helen initially isn’t gonna be everyone’s cup of tea. At least not like Grant, who people just gravitate to. But I totally got her.
You may have heard Yulin Kuang is adapting Emily Henry’s work — directing Beach Read and writing the screenplay for People We Meet on Vacation. So if you like Kennedy Ryan, Abby Jimenez or Emily Henry, How to End a Love Story has gotta be on your TBR.
It’s a must read.
CW: grief, loss of a sibling to suicide, panic attacks
Get How to End a Love Story from The Ripped Bodice | Bookshop.org | Amazon | Apple Books
RELEASE DATE: April 23, 2024
I love seeing a fave author jump into a new sub-genre in romance. And while Jenny Holiday has mainly been a contemporary romance author, I can’t wait to get my hands on Earl’s Trip. Call it The Hangover but make it Regency. Archie’s annual guys trip takes a turn when just before leaving, he gets a urgent plea for help from an old family friend. And “suddenly the trip has become earls-plus-girls” the synopsis tells us. With an indecent proposal to follow!
Get Earl’s Trip from The Ripped Bodice | Bookshop.org | Amazon | Apple Books
RELEASE DATE: April 9, 2024
Book 2 in a Series. Details are slim on this one! You might have guessed it’s a Sleeping Beauty retelling, but nope, it’s Snow White. So all I know is it’s Felicia Grossman and it’s a Snow White retelling “where a handsome businessman must decide whom to trust with his heart—but with danger looming, it’s his life, not his love, at risk.” I loved Marry Me By Midnight, book one in the series, so yeah, I’m in.
Get Wake Me Most Wickedly from The Ripped Bodice | Bookshop.org | Amazon | Apple Books
RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2024
Modern marriage of convenience.
Publisher’s Synopsis: Anna Green thought she was marrying Liam “West” Weston for access to subsidized family housing while at UCLA. She also thought she’d signed divorce papers when the graduation caps were tossed, and they both went on their merry ways.
Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch.
Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather’s will, Liam won’t see a penny until he’s been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he’s in the home stretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he’s afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents—his, not-so-ex-wife.
But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.
Get The Paradise Problem from The Ripped Bodice | Bookshop.org | Amazon | Apple Books
RELEASE DATE: June 4, 2024
Book 3 in a Series. Saffron Everleigh is an assistant botany researcher in a university biology department. Set in 1920s London. The epilogue from book 2 set up A Botanist’s Guide to Society and Secrets, with Alexander Ashton’s brother Adrian showing up on his doorstep unexpectedly. It seems a man died on his train and Adrian may find himself a murder suspect. Alexander asks Saffron to put in a good word with Inspector Green as the investigation gets underway. Then, Saffron’s best friend’s war hero brother shows up, adding more secrets to the mix. I’ll be interested to see where this one goes as the Saffron Everleigh universe expands. Jodie Harris does an amazing job with the audio for this series, so I’ll be on the lookout for that.
Get A Botanist’s Guide to Society and Secrets from The Ripped Bodice | Bookshop.org | Amazon | Apple Books
RELEASE DATE: June 4, 2024
Book 2 in a Series. Publisher’s Synopsis: Isabel Luna Valdés has long since resigned herself to being the “forgotten” Luna sister. But thanks to familial connections to the Mexican ambassador in London, wallflower Isabel is poised to unearth any British intelligence hidden by the ton that might aid Mexico during the French Occupation. Though she slips easily from crowded ballrooms into libraries and private studies, Isabel’s search is hampered by trysting couples and prowling rogues—including the rakish Captain Sirius Dawson.
As a covert agent for the British Home Office, Sirius makes a game of earning the aristocracy’s confidence. He spends his days befriending foolish politicians and seducing well-born ladies in order to learn their secrets. But after he spies a certain sharp-tongued Luna sister lurking in the shadows where no proper debutante should venture, it’s clear Sirius is outmatched, outwitted, and soon to be outmaneuvered by the one woman he can’t resist.
Their mutual attraction is undeniable, but when Isabel discovers private correspondence that could turn the tide of political turmoil in Mexico, she’s willing to do whatever it takes to protect her country—even if this means ignoring her heart and courting danger…
Get Isabel and the Rogue from The Ripped Bodice | Bookshop.org | Amazon | Apple Books
RELEASE DATE: July 2024 (Berkley); May 2024 (Pan Macmillan)
Book 1 in a series. If you’re looking for BIPOC rep in a Formula 1 romance, put Cross the Line on your TBR. Simone Soltani’s Cross the LIne is a brother’s best friend contemporary between an F1 driver in need an image revamp and a college grad in need of a comms job, even just a temporary one. Can these two keep things professional, despite Willow’s old crush on Dev? I had an opp to read the ARC before Soltani got her pub deal and loved it. It’s got two mixed race MCs, a cinnamon roll hero who’s so gone for the FMC, and F1 chops that make it a compelling read.
Get Cross the Line from The Ripped Bodice | Bookshop.org | Amazon | Apple Books (links to come!)
RELEASE DATE: August 6, 2024
Debut Author. Workplace romance. Ownvoices Indigenous rep. Chickasaw author.
Publisher’s Synopsis: Ember Lee Cardinal has not always been a liar—well, not for anything that counted at least. But her job search is not going well and when her resumé is rejected for the thirty-seventh time, she takes matters into her own hands. She gets “creative” listing her qualifications and answers the ethnicity question on applications with a lie—a half-lie, technically. No one wanted Native American Ember, but white Ember has just landed her dream accounting job on Park Avenue (Oklahoma City, that is).
Accountant Ember thrives in corporate life—and her love life seems to be looking up too: Danuwoa Colson, the IT guy and fellow Native who caught her eye on her first day, seems to actually be interested in her too. Despite her unease over the no-dating policy at work, they start to see each other secretly, which somehow makes it even hotter? But when they’re caught in a compromising position on a work trip, a scheming colleague blackmails Ember, threatening to expose their relationship. As the manipulation continues to grow, so do Ember’s lies. She must make the hard decision to either stay silent or finally tell the truth, which could cost her everything.
Get The Truth According to Ember from The Ripped Bodice | Bookshop.org | Amazon | Apple Books
