Welcome to the very first TBR of 2024. I will be going into more detail soon regarding my plans/goals for 2024 but just know that new releases will be a strong focus for the next year. I am making sure I am up to date and reading all the new releases the publishers have sent me as I was quite slack last year. So, no themes, no over complicated TBR. I am hoping to read more backlist books during the rest of the month but my focus for Jan is to read all my new releases coming out in Feb 2024.

Plot: An extraordinary destiny unfolds. In a village above the cloud sea, twelve-year-old orphan Zhi Ging is chosen to become a Silhouette, an apprentice to the immortals. Taken to an underwater realm, she begins her training, competes in thrilling challenges and discovers she can awaken a special sort of dragon. But Silhouettes who fail the challenges seem to be disappearing and rumours are spreading of a growing dark force that threatens her world. Zhi Ging begins to realise that there is so much she has yet to learn about the world of the immortals – and herself. Join Zhi Ging on an incredible adventure to an underwater realm, a floating market and a jade mountain as she journeys to fulfil her extraordinary destiny.

Plot: Elodie is the baker’s wife. A plain, unremarkable woman, ignored by her husband and underestimated by her neighbours, she burns with the secret desire to be extraordinary. One day a charismatic new couple appear in town–the ambassador and his sharp-toothed wife, Violet–and Elodie quickly falls under their spell. All summer long she stalks them through the shining streets: inviting herself into their home, eavesdropping on their coded conversations, longing to be part of their world. Meanwhile, beneath the tranquil surface of daily life, strange things are happening. Six horses are found dead in a sun-drenched field, laid out neatly on the ground like an offering. Widows see their lost husbands walking up the moonlit river, coming back to claim them. A teenage boy throws himself into the bonfire at the midsummer feast. A dark intoxication is spreading through the town, and when Elodie finally understands her role in it, it will be too late to stop.

Plot: Late one night, Laura, Daniel, and Mo find themselves beneath the fluorescent lights of a high school classroom, almost a year after disappearing from their hometown, the small seaside community of Lovesend, Massachusetts, having long been presumed dead. Which, in fact, they are. With them in the room is their previously unremarkable high school music teacher, who seems to know something about their disappearance—and what has brought them back again. Desperate to reclaim their lives, the three agree to the terms of the bargain their music teacher proposes. They will be given a series of magical tasks; while they undertake them, they may return to their families and friends, but they can tell no one where they’ve been. In the end, there will be winners and there will be losers. But their resurrection has attracted the notice of other supernatural figures, all with their own agendas. As Laura, Daniel, and Mo grapple with the pieces of the lives they left behind, and Laura’s sister, Susannah, attempts to reconcile what she remembers with what she fears, these mysterious others begin to arrive, engulfing their community in danger and chaos, and it becomes imperative that the teens solve the mystery of their deaths to avert a looming disaster.

Plot: Professional godkiller Kissen and her companions—young noble Inara and knight Elogast—return in a winding adventure in a world overflowing with magic, beauty, and danger.

I may or may not be returning to The Hidden Bookcase Podcast next year with this book…

Plot: Merryn grew up on the wilds of Bodmin moor, raised by her mother and her aunt in an old farmhouse. Here, the locals never leave the decaying village, fear for the future of their farms and cling desperately to the folkloric tales that are woven into their history. Except Merryn, who has escaped to Manchester for university, briefly untethering herself from her past. When Merryn returns home for the memorial service of her ex-girlfriend Claud, she finds her childhood home stranger and more secretive than ever. She’s sure that her mother is hiding something. The villagers are hunting on the moors at night, but for what? And then there’s a notebook, found in an old chest of drawers, full of long-forgotten folklore than seems to be linked somehow to Claud…

Plot: On the streets of White Roaring, Arthie Casimir is a criminal mastermind and collector of secrets. Her prestigious tearoom transforms into an illegal bloodhouse by dark, catering to the vampires feared by society. But when her establishment is threatened, Arthie is forced to strike an unlikely deal with an alluring adversary to save it—and she can’t do the job alone. Calling upon a band of misfits, Arthie formulates a plan to infiltrate the dark and glittering vampire society known as the Athereum. But not every member of her crew is on her side, and as the truth behind the heist unfolds, Arthie finds herself in the midst of a conspiracy that will threaten the world as she knows it. 

Plot: Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Center convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back. Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?