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.

---

New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan Henry’s riveting new novel takes readers deep into the woods where the lives of two teenage girls—one lost and one hiding—will forever change.

The summer Emma McKinney turns fifteen, hope feels fragile. Her father is missing in action in Vietnam, and her mother—seeking escape as much as stability—accepts a teaching job in a remote mountain town. Emma, sensitive and intelligent, senses her mother has other reasons for their stay in Silverveil. Before she can press for answers, Emma is sent away to a youth group retreat with only her father’s worn copy of The Call of the Wild for comfort.

On the last day of the retreat, Emma strays from the trail and becomes hopelessly lost. With no clear path back to camp, she relies on instinct, animal signs, and the vast, unyielding wild for guidance. As days go by and exhaustion, hunger, and fear begin to hollow her out, Emma’s fate feels uncertain. But she is not alone. Deep in the woods, another teenage girl is keeping watch—resourceful and determined to remain unseen. As they move through the same wilderness, their stories begin to collide, forcing them to discover their strength and will to survive.

Aching and gritty, Heart of the Wild is an atmospheric journey not only of perseverance, but of self-discovery and secrets whose roots run much deeper than just the forest floor.

Thanks to Jodie @ That Happy Reader for featuring this in her Sunday Post. Scheduled for release in March, it’s an audio review hopeful.

---

Succession meets The Family Stone in bestselling author Wade Rouse’s humorous and sharply observant look at a family teetering on the edge of merry mayhem.

The Chapmans do Christmas the way they do everything: impeccably, expensively, and with the unshakable belief that good lighting can conceal bad blood. Their annual Christmas card may look picture-perfect, but behind the polite smiles there’s a storm brewing. This year, at their grand lakefront cottage on Mackinac Island, a snowstorm traps generations of Chapmans—and their schemes—under one roof.

Chris Chapman is on the verge of losing everything: his father’s trust, his role at the helm of the family business, and his wife’s respect. Kat Chapman is already fed up with hosting her critical, stuck-up in-laws and their impossibly inflexible holiday traditions. Her solution? Invite her working-class parents – born and bred Islanders – for Christmas, much to the horror of the Chapmans, whose rule that “We do not share Christmas with other people” is about to be broken.

As the snow piles up, so do the grievances: their children—fiercely liberal Leah and conservative golden-boy Chip—are locked in a battle of wits, Chris’s vaguely corrupt brother Cormac and his calculating trophy wife are stirring the pot, and Kat’s mother is holding onto a secret that could upend the entire game.

Deliciously messy and surprisingly tender, The Bluff is a feisty festive family drama about money, marriage, power, and all the things we bring to the holiday table besides the turkey.

Thanks to Jodie @ That Happy Reader for featuring this in her Sunday Post. Scheduled for release in October, it’s a library audiobook hopeful.

---

A wellness retreat turns deadly when a violent storm churns up grief and betrayal…and murder reveals a shocking truth.

Surrounded by lush rainforest high in the Cascades, Echo Ridge Sanctuary is the picture of calm and isolation. Visitors flock there to better their souls. But some souls are too fractured to fix—and after murder rocks its tranquil grounds, the luxury wellness retreat descends into chaos.

Tai chi instructor Jade Vega, reeling from a recent betrayal, accepts her aunt’s offer to teach at Echo Ridge, hoping to unplug and heal. Guest Naomi March, grief-stricken after one daughter’s death, seeks similar solace with her other daughter by her side.

But the sanctuary’s promise of serenity shatters when two more guests arrive. Jade’s former best friend and business partner appears, and her new fiancé is the one man Naomi’s family has never been able to forgive.

When a violent storm traps them among the towering evergreens and suspended walkways, there’s more to fear than just wind and rain. Secrets, paranoia, and revenge abound—and a killer lurks somewhere in the shadows.

Thanks to Yvo @ It’s All About Books and for featuring this in her Stacking the Shelves post. Scheduled for release in January, it’s an audio review hopeful.

---

Some secrets don’t die―they wait.

When Julia Barlow loses her job and her apartment, she has nowhere left to go but Pemberton, her family’s sprawling seventeenth-century estate in rural Massachusetts. Officially, she’s there to check in on her aging grandmother. Unofficially, she’s hoping the old house will give her a place to disappear.

Instead, Pemberton begins to unravel her.

Every night, the grandfather clock stops at exactly 3:41 a.m. The lights flicker without warning. And a disembodied voice cries for help outside Julia’s bedroom door.

As Julia digs into the house’s dark history, she uncovers the story of a woman executed for witchcraft in 1692―and realizes the past may not be finished with Pemberton yet. When decades of family lies begin to surface, Julia must confront a terrifying truth: Pemberton may be haunted by women whose voices refuse to stay silent.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden comes The Witch, a chilling, twist-filled thriller about secrets―those we inherit, those we bury, and those people will burn to keep silent.

Thanks to Jodie @ That Happy Reader for featuring this in her Can’t Wait Wednesday post. Scheduled for release in October, is an audio review hopeful.

---

She’d long ago stopped believing in the fairy tale.

Then a grumpy man with a truck full of dogs pulled over for her in the rain, and ruined all her carefully built rules.

Maggie Rivers has spent years surviving, planning, and making sure nothing catches her off guard. Not storms. Not heartbreak. And definitely not her family’s relentless matchmaking. But after one tiny lie about having a boyfriend spirals wildly out of control, she finds herself with a problem she can’t spreadsheet, organize, or escape.

Jack Archer is exactly the kind of man she should avoid. Broody, guarded, frustratingly attractive, and carrying enough baggage to fill the bed of his pickup. He’s only supposed to help her out once. Instead, he agrees to play the role of her fake boyfriend—and suddenly they’re spending far too much time together.

What starts as a favor becomes something neither of them expected.

Because the more Maggie discovers the man beneath Jack’s gruff exterior, the harder it becomes to remember this relationship isn’t real. And the more Jack falls for the woman who crashes through every wall he’s built, the more impossible it becomes to let her go.

But fairy tales don’t exist. Maggie knows that better than anyone.

The trouble is, Jack is making her wonder if happily-ever-after might be worth believing in after all.

I learned about this from the author’s newsletter. Scheduled for release in February, it’s an audio review hopeful.

---

From bestselling novelist Nadia Hashimi—a gripping, occasionally terrifying, yet ultimately hopeful novel focusing on the women of Afghanistan in the years since the Taliban regained power.

In February 2020 the US began to withdraw troops from Afghanistan after nearly twenty years of occupation. A whole generation of Afghan women had been born during that time—women who had grown up in relative peace, gone to school, entered the professions, even served in the army and Parliament. The women of Afghanistan watched as the Taliban filled the streets again. They knew everything was about to change.

In the bustling, cosmopolitan city of Kabul, women are TV newscasters, shop owners, doctors, teachers, lawyers, even soldiers. They include Marjan, who fought with the Afghan army, and will risk everything to keep her daughter Hawa safe. In her earlier days Marjan was called Rahima and had lived the life of a bacha posh—a girl raised as a boy until she came of age. Forced into an early marriage, Rahima took the name Marjan when she fled her warlord husband. She’s created a whole new life for herself, one she will not give up easily.

So has Soraya, who defiantly wore red lipstick as she led the army’s all-female combat force over the objections of her upper-class family. Soraya’s now a wanted woman whose brother may choose not to shelter her from the Taliban. What will become of her? Or Mina, a journalist and broadcaster whose beautiful face is known to everyone in Kabul—including the new regime?

Fight or flight? Or find a third way? One thing is for none of these women will meekly accept her fate.

An epic saga of fear, resistance, change, and reinvention, City of Widows gives voices to the unforgettable Afghan women at a crossroads of history.

Thanks for the wonderful review by Stephanie @ Stephanie Likes Books. It’s on my Libro.fm wishlist.

---

From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a suspenseful domestic thriller about identity, revenge, and the dangerous secrets kept hidden from the ones we love most.

It’s the holidays, and photographer Brooklyn Locke is bound for Italy with her husband, Trey, and their two children. But when Trey vanishes from the airport, missing their connecting flight, their impromptu vacation—and life as she knows it—begins to unravel.

Desperate to find her husband, Brooklyn accepts help from a stranger on the same flight, Eden Barrow. But Eden soon makes a shocking claim. She is the sister of Trey’s first wife, and ten years ago he was the main suspect in her murder.

Struggling to comprehend these accusations, fate delivers one more a violent accident that leaves Brooklyn fighting for her life. With nowhere else to turn, Brooklyn leans on Eden for support. But each kindness feels too rehearsed, feeding her doubts about Eden’s motives and Trey’s true past.

Brooklyn has her own dark history she’d rather forget and confronts an unsettling possibility. Her life is not what it seems, and the truth is a trap—laid by someone waiting for the perfect time to strike.

I accepted this for audio review.

---

A rollicking work of lyricism and humor, about one family’s tumble into the unknown, from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of North Woods

Miles Krzelewski is a devoted husband, a doting father beloved for his outlandish bedtime stories, and the proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He is also a bit lost, twelve years late with his PhD on Russian folktales, and increasingly haunted by a sense that he’s become a disappointment to his family. So when his wife Kate accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the far away forests of Vermont, he decides that this will be his year to finally move forward with his life.

But Miles is a man of many enthusiasms, one who possesses, in Kate’s words, “a great capacity to fall in with anyone, anywhere.” And no sooner does he arrive than he finds himself entangled with a cast of characters as colorful as any of his folktales, from a ghostly tree surgeon to a scythe-mad biochemist, a Shakespearean temptress and a photographer of snowflakes obsessed with chronicling, on thousands of index cards, the world’s delusions in a “Inventory of Wrong Ideas.”

The new friends, the enchanted woods, the sure, no PhD, but all good fun. Until Miles stumbles upon a bizarre—perhaps ridiculous—local legend, which, he soon suspects, might not be just a legend after all.

Joyous, absurd, and life-affirming, Country People is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.

Thanks for the wonderful review by Louis @ Book Me a Read. It’s on my library audiobook wishlist.

---

What books did YOU add to your shelves this week?