April 2025 book releases
Carnivore plants, PR relationships and a woman who likes planes a little too much
Contemporary & Literary Fiction
Friends of the Museum: When Diane Schwebe, the director of a major New York museum, is awakened in the early morning by a text message from the museum’s lawyer, it is the start of a twenty-four hour roller-coaster ride. Orbiting Diane is a motley assortment of museum employees, each on the precipice of collapse.
Wise, surprising, and darkly funny, Friends of the Museum is a kaleidoscopic tragicomedy that surges along to the unstoppable tick of the clock, leaving you on the edge of your seat until the final second.
I want to read it because… Boxes this book ticks: Set in a museum ✅ Backstage drama ✅ Takes place in a single day ✅ Tragicomedy in the vein of White Lotus ✅ Blurbed by Mona Awad ✅
She’s a Lamb!: Sharp, relentless, and darkly funny, She’s a Lamb! is a cutting satire about the grotesque pall patriarchy casts over one woman’s delusional quest to achieve her dreams and the depths she will sink to for a chance at the life she’s convinced she deserves.
I want to read it because… I love a delusional, entitled female character every once in a while and that’s what Jessamyn, She’s a Lamb!’s protagonist, seems to be: an usher at a regional theater, she believes it’s her destiny to be a star, Pearl-style. And, just like Pearl, she seems willing to go to great lengths to get what she wants.
Sky Daddy: On the last Friday of each month, Linda indulges in her true passion: taking BART to SFO for a round-trip flight to a regional hub. The destination is irrelevant because each trip means a new date with a handsome stranger—a stranger whose intelligent windscreens, sleek fuselages, and powerful engines make her feel a way that no human ever could.
Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes—nor can she reveal her belief that her destiny is to “marry” one of her suitors by dying in a plane crash, thereby uniting her with her soulmate plane for eternity.
I want to read it because… Mile high club just gained a whole new meaning, huh? This lady is hot for planes, and I’m understandably very intrigued by it all. Especially since Titane, whose protagonist has a similar obsession with cars, was one of my favorite films last year.
The Usual Desire to Kill: An often hilarious, surprisingly moving portrait of a long-married couple, seen through the eyes of their wickedly observant daughter.
I want to read it because… What got me interested in this one, besides the interesting choice of portraying a couple through the eyes of their adult daughter, was the fact that she “plays the role of translator when she visits, communicating the desires or complaints of one parent to the other”. If you’ve ever had to deal with a similar dynamic, you know how emotionally taxing it can be, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it take center stage in a novel before.
Audition: Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an elegant and accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, and young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her – and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us best.
I want to read it because… When I was little, my youngest aunt—who lived nearby and was single, and therefore in charge of babysitting me every once in a while—used to take me to the beach and we played people watching. We had to guess what the people around us did and loved and said, and this book speaks to the people watcher in me.
Bad Nature: Armed with a terminal diagnosis, a grudge, and a rental car, Hester sets out to fulfill her lifelong dream of killing her father in this brilliantly subversive and bleakly funny novel.
I want to read it because… I love a woman on a mission. Don’t you love a woman on a mission?
Romance
I swear, early spring always gets me in the mood to read romance. It’s a seasonal miracle of sorts.
No Ordinary Love: A PR relationship between a pop superstar and a pro-athlete bad boy turns into so much more in this swoony romance from the acclaimed author of When I Think of You.
I want to read it because… This sounds like the exact brand of escapism I need right now. I love the concept of a PR-relationship-turned-real; I know it’s a trope that’s been done before, but I’ve never read a book with it.
Swept Away: What if you were lost at sea…with your one-night stand?
To Zeke and Lexi, going back home with a stranger seems like a perfect escape from their problems. But a miscommunication in the dark, foggy night means no one tied the houseboat to the dock. The next morning, Zeke and Lexi realize all they can see is miles and miles of water.
I want to read it because… Beth O’Leary loves a forced proximity romcom, if The Flatshare and The Road Trip are anything to go by. Swept Away takes place on an idle boat and sounds like the perfect beach read. Inspired by Joey and Pacey (aka the only couple I cared for in Dawson’s Creek), perhaps?
Horror
Sour Cherry: A stunning reimagining of Bluebeard—one of the most mythologized serial killers—twisted into a modern tale of toxic masculinity, a feminist sermon, and a folktale for the twenty-first century.
I want to read it because… This is 1000% a cover-driven, title-driven purchase. That, and as a kid I had a book about Bluebeard with some seriously disturbing illustrations that I’m still trying to forget.
Eat the Ones You Love: During a grocery run to her local shopping center, Shell Pine sees a ‘HELP NEEDED’ sign in a flower shop window. Shell realizes right away that flowers are just the good thing she's been looking for, as is Neve, the beautiful florist who wrote the sign. The thing is, Neve needs help more than Shell could possibly imagine.
An orchid growing out of sight in the heart of the mall is watching them closely. His name is Baby, and the beautiful florist belongs to him. He’s young, he’s hungry, and he’ll do just about anything to make sure he can keep growing big and strong. Nothing he eats – nobody he eats – can satisfy him, except the thing he most desires. Neve. He adores her and wants to consume her, and will stop at nothing to eat the one he loves.
I want to read it because… I love carnivore plants! Perfect spring read right here.
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I am PUMPED for the new Katie Kitamura. Intimacies was my fave read in 2021
Ooo. Sour Cherry sounds great!!! Adding it to my tbr.