Saturdays at the Café

 

Saturdays at the Café is a weekly feature hosted here to talk about and discuss the books I’ve discovered during the past week, added to my shelf and am excited about reading. They may be new/scheduled releases I’ve seen on NetGalley, at the library, or from publishers or they may be older titles my friends have reviewed and shared on Goodreads or blogs.

---

The gripping follow up to the “smart, stylish, and savage” (People) New York Times bestseller and Reese’s Book Club pick The Club—a twisty mystery involving a cursed wealthy family and a Surrealist painting which holds the key to three suspicious deaths over the course of a century.

Some women won’t be painted out of history . . .

Everybody knows that in 1938, runaway heiress artist Juliette Willoughby perished in an accidental studio fire in Paris, alongside her masterpiece Self Portrait As Sphinx.

Fifty years later, two Cambridge art history students are confounded when they stumble across proof that the fire was no accident but something more sinister. What they uncover threatens the very foundation of Juliette’s aristocratic family and revives rumors of the infamous curse that has haunted the Willoughbys for generations.

But what does their discovery mean? And how is it connected to a brutal murder in present-day Dubai?

A tale of love and madness, obsession and revenge, The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby unravels the riddle posed by a Sphinx who refuses to reveal her secrets . . .

I’d ignored this until I read the review by Eva @ Novel Deelights. I also learned that it’s a sequel to The Club. It’s a library audiobook hopeful.

---

An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family, from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

Thanks to my friend Marialyce who included this title in her comments on my last post. I’m a Rooney fan and this one sounds fascinating. It’s scheduled for release in September and is a library audiobook hopeful.

---

A gripping story of friendship and murder from acclaimed author Margot Hunt—created as an immersive audio experience!

Tessa and Charlie have been best friends since childhood. Now Tessa is a famous travel writer who documents her adventures on social media while Charlie rarely leaves the safety of her home, living in fear after narrowly escaping a vicious attack years earlier. But despite their different lives, their bond of friendship remains unbreakable … even in death.

When Tessa is found murdered in her luxurious French Quarter hotel, the New Orleans police go down the wrong trail. Knowing the killer is still out there, Charlie must do the unthinkable in order to solve the crime: face her fears and step outside her comfort zone. She starts her own social media channel, hoping to find someone who saw Tessa on the night she was killed, and travels to New Orleans to investigate Tessa’s final days—all the while knowing that the killer may come for her too.

This twisty, harrowing thriller will remind you that even in our most frightening moments, we can somehow summon the courage to survive.

Found this while surfing Audible Plus.

---

Detective Alyssa White Series

 

You don’t want to play their games. . .

All around Albuquerque, New Mexico, young women are going missing, seemingly vanished into thin air. With no link between the victims, Detective Alyssa Wyatt is quickly plunged into a horrifying case with no obvious clues.

And when Jersey Andrews, the best friend of Alyssa’s teenage daughter, Holly, joins the list of vanished girls, the case becomes personal.

But this investigation will lead Alyssa and partner Cord into the most sinister depths of humanity; an evil place where life is expendable, and where the depraved can fulfill their darkest desires – if they have the money to pay for it.

As the first bodies appear, abandoned on the streets, Alyssa is forced into a frantic hunt to track down the killers – before more innocent women lose their lives. But when the truth comes out, it seems that the key to solving the case was hiding in the last place anyone expected. . .

The parents are dead. The girls are hiding. The killer is still inside the house.

Gabriel Kensington and his wife, Lydia, have been brutally slain in their luxurious home in New Mexico. A frantic, whispered phone call from their teenage daughter, Addis, and her best friend, Emerson, quickly alerts the authorities to the killings.

But when Detective Alyssa Wyatt and the squad appear at the house, the unthinkable has happened. The girls are nowhere to be found…and neither is the killer.

In a race against time, it’s up to Alyssa Wyatt and her partner, Cord, to find the missing girls – and discover just why the Kensingtons have been targeted.

Because for Addis and Emerson, every minute passing could be the difference between survival – or an unthinkable death.

The addictive, absolutely nail-biting new Alyssa Wyatt detective novel will have fans of Kendra Elliot, Melinda Leigh, or Angela Marsons on the edge of their seat.

It’s their usual Thursday girls’ night in, and best friends Skye, Elena, and London are enjoying hanging out at Skye’s house in New Mexico, eating junk food, drinking wine, and playing with Skye’s little children, Carter and Abigail.

Until the intruders arrive.

Hearing the horrific screams from Elena and Skye, London hides the children, tiptoes out to see what has happened . . . and disappears.

After Carter raises the alarm, Detective Alyssa Wyatt is called in to investigate a bloodbath that appears to have no motive, no evidence, and worse still—no sign of London.

As Alyssa and her team dig deeper, the truth is always out of their reach . . . but what is clear is that they need to find London, and fast. And as they uncover a link between the murders and a sinister local cult, can Alyssa find the young woman who has vanished without a trace—before London joins the list of victims?

Meet Detective Alyssa Wyatt. Mom, Wife . . . and a serial killer’s worst nightmare.

An utterly addictive, dark and twisty detective novel with a twist that will leave you gasping. If you’re a fan of Kendra Elliot, Lisa Regan, or Angela Marsons, you’ll fall in love with Charly Cox’s stunning detective series.

I have the first book in the series and discovered these next three were free with my Audible Plus membership.

---

The widows are back! Big hair and bigger lies collide in the highly anticipated follow-up to Audible’s best-selling Young Rich Widows, where nothing’s more dangerous than a widow with nothing left to lose.

Set in neon-drenched Providence, Rhode Island, circa 1987, just two years after a plane carrying four mafia-affiliated law-firm partners exploded over the Atlantic along with the cushy lives of their once wealthy wives. Now, Krystle fights to keep their fallen law firm afloat. Justine hustles as a lawyer-in-training. Meredith owns and operates the strip club where she once danced. And Camille orchestrates honey-pot schemes for scorned women–until one of her arrangements goes terribly wrong, and she becomes implicated in the debauched Mayor Tom’s mysterious murder in the champagne room. With everything on the line, the widows must join forces once more. But as the conspiracy unravels beyond the mayor’s demise, their search for justice pits first wife against second wife and widow against widow. With the widows’ fragile bond now tested, will the women cement their friendships, or is loyalty a luxury they just can’t afford?

In this thrilling expansion of the Widows universe, brimming with sloshed champagne, smeared lipstick, and lethal secrets, Desperate Deadly Widows unfolds as an edge-of-your-seat thriller where desperation wears stilettos, trust is a poker chip, and redemption comes at the cost of everything you thought you knew.

The last from my Audible Plus surfing.

---

From the New York Times bestselling author of Practice Makes Perfect comes an expanded edition of The Match—a charming romance novel about second chances and the healing power of love, with a never-before-seen chapter.

Sometimes love finds you when you least expect it.

Evie Jones has dedicated her life and very limited funds working for Southern Service Paws, the company that matched her with the love of her life: Charlie, a service dog trained to assist with her epilepsy. But it’s no secret that the company has been struggling to make ends meet. It’s up to her and her longtime mentor and boss to throw the fundraiser of the century to keep the doors open.

Then, Evie meets Jacob Broaden at a client consultation meeting. There are instant sparks—but not the good kind, because Jacob’s daughter set up the meeting without his knowledge. Ten-year-old Sam has been recently diagnosed with epilepsy and has wanted a service animal ever since. While he has hesitations at first, it doesn’t take long for Jacob to be convinced that a service dog and possibly Evie, with her magical, woodland-green eyes, might just be the best thing for him and his daughter.

As Evie spends more time with Jacob and helps Sam find her perfect match with a lovable golden retriever named Daisy, she starts longing for something she’s never had before—a loving family. For Jacob, falling in love with Evie is the last thing he should be doing, but love has a way of finding those who need it most.

Offered for audio review, I grabbed it as I’d had my eye on it.

---

This chilling, sizzling, and addictive thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Vi Keeland follows a New York psychiatrist’s dark descent into dangerous obsession.

This isn’t a love story.

It’s a story about obsession.

After experiencing a terrible loss, New York City psychiatrist Meredith McCall feels painfully adrift. When she crosses paths with a man with whom she has a tragic connection, she follows him, sparking an unhealthy obsession with Gabriel Wright. How is he doing so well while her life is in shambles?

But when Gabriel walks into her office as a patient, seemingly unaware of who she is, she knows it crosses all ethical and moral bounds to treat him. Yet, Meredith can’t bring herself to turn him away and becomes further entangled. With her life and career continuing to unravel, it appears that things could not get any worse…until they do.

When this was offered for audio review, I gave it a pass. But then trusted Goodreads friends started weighing in with great reviews so I changed my mind.

---

Who killed the Mayor? It’s up to the Marlow Murder Club to find out …

Geoffrey Lushington, Mayor of Marlow, dies suddenly during a Town Council meeting. When traces of aconite—also known as the queen of poisons—are found in his coffee cup, the police realize he was murdered. But who did it? And why?

The police bring Judith, Suzie and Becks in to investigate as Civilian Advisors right from the start, so they have free rein to interview suspects and follow the evidence to their heart’s content, which is perfect because Judith has no time for rules and standard procedure.

But this case has the Marlow Murder Club stumped. Who would want to kill the affable Mayor? How did they even get the poison into his coffee? And is anyone else in danger? The Marlow Murder Club are about to face their most difficult case yet …

It’s a new book in the Marlow Murder Club series! Still hoping my library comes through with the audiobook.

---

A disappearance and a dead body put Cork O’Connor’s family in the crosshairs of a killer in the twentieth book in the New York Times bestselling series from William Kent Krueger­, “a master storyteller at the top of his game” (Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

The disappearance of a local politician’s teenaged daughter is major news in Minnesota. As a huge manhunt is launched to find her, Cork O’Connor’s grandson stumbles across the shallow grave of a young Ojibwe woman—but nobody seems that interested. Nobody, that is, except Cork and the newly formed Iron Lake Ojibwe Tribal Police. As Cork and the tribal officers dig into the circumstances of this mysterious and grim discovery, they uncover a connection to the missing teenager. And soon, it’s clear that Cork’s grandson is in danger of being the killer’s next victim.

Seems like I waited forever to get the audio edition added for this next book in the Cork O’Connor series. It’s an audio review hopeful scheduled for release in August.

---

A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the best-selling author of Friends and Strangers

On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.

Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself.

Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.

This is the July selection by Reese’s Book Club and I’d already had my eye on it. Thanks to my library for coming through with the audiobook.

---

A recently deceased woman meets “the one” in the afterlife waiting room, scoring a second chance at life (and love!) if she can find him on earth before ten days are up…

If she wasn’t dead already, Delphie would be dying of embarrassment. Not only did she just die by choking on a microwaveable burger, but now she’s standing in her ‘shine like a star’ nightie in front of the hottest man she’s ever seen. And he’s smiling at her.

As they start to chat, everything else becomes background noise. That is until someone comes running out of a door, yelling something about a huge mistake, and sends the dreamy stranger back down to earth. And here Delphie was thinking her luck might be different in the afterlife.

When Delphie is offered a deal in which she can return to earth and reconnect with the mysterious man, she jumps at the opportunity to find her possible soulmate and a fresh start. But in a city of millions, Delphie is going to have to listen to her heart, learn to ask for help, and perhaps even see the magic in the life she’s leaving behind…

Another book I mistakenly ignored until so many of my trusted Goodreads friends raved about it. I’m in a really long queue for the audiobook.

---

What books did YOU add to your shelves this week?