OMG, the final TBR of 2023! How crazy is that! Hopefully this month will be a great final month for the year. And maybe some new favourites as well!

There are some changes to the way I am planning my reads which I will explain more in my 2024 Reading Plan but I am trying to be up to date with my new releases. The final theme for this year is Christmas!

January 2024 Releases

Plot: Ten years ago, Theodora “Teddy” Angstrom’s older sister, Angie, disappeared. Her case remains unsolved. Now Teddy’s father, Mark, has killed himself. Unbeknownst to Mark’s family, he had been active in a Reddit community fixated on Angie, and Teddy can’t help but fall down the same rabbit hole. Teddy’s investigation quickly gets her in hot water with her colleagues at the pretentious high school where she teaches English, her gun-nut boyfriend, and her long-lost half brother. Further complicating matters is Teddy’s growing obsession with Mickey, a charming amateur sleuth who is eerily keen on helping her solve the case. Bewitched by Mickey, Teddy begins losing her grip on morality. As she struggles to reconcile new information with old memories, her erratic behavior reaches a fever pitch, but she won’t stop until she finds Angie—or destroys herself in the process.

Plot: June, 1878. The body of a boy is pulled from the depths of the River Thames, suspected to be the beloved missing child of the widely admired Liberal MP Ralph Gethin. Four months earlier. Harriet is a young maid newly employed at Finton Hall. Fleeing the drudgery of an unwanted engagement in the small village where she grew up, Harriet is entranced by the grand country hall; she is entranced too by her glamorous mistress Clara Gethin, whose unearthly singing voice floats through the house. But Clara, though captivating, is erratic. The master of the house is a much-lauded politician, but he is strangely absent. And some of their beautiful belongings seem to tell terrible stories. Unable to ignore her growing unease, Harriet sets out to discover their secrets. When she uncovers a shocking truth, a chain of events is set in motion that could cost Harriet everything, even her freedom…

Plot: The Everly family is cursed. Every generation is destined to lose their best and brightest, taken by a woman named Penelope, who never ages, never sickens, and never forgives a debt. When her mother vanishes in the middle of the night, the curse falls on Violet Everly—unless she can break it first. To do so, she must descend into a seductive, magical underworld of power-hungry scholars, fickle gods, and monsters bent on revenge. And at the edges of the world, she’ll find the City of Stardust, where the Everly story began.

Manga/Graphic Novels

Plot: Nana “Hachi” Komatsu hopes that moving to Tokyo will help her make a clean start and leave her capricious love life behind her. Nana Osaki, who arrives in the city at the same time, has plans to score big in the world of rock’n’roll. Although these two young women come from different backgrounds, they quickly become best friends in a whirlwind world of sex, music, fashion, gossip and all-night parties! Anxious to get into a Tokyo groove, both women are on the prowl for a funky and cheap place to live. But inexpensive apartments in Japan’s capital city are hard to find. Thank goodness each Nana has a clique of cool friends willing to help out. Too bad these friends are a little wiggy!

Plot: For years, fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra have burned with one question–what happened to Fire Lord Zuko’s mother? Finding a clue at last, Zuko enlists the aid of Team Avatar–and the most unlikely ally of all–to help uncover the biggest secret of his life.

Plot: Yae’s living her dream, working at the toiletry maker Lilia Drop. Little do her coworkers know, the reason she loves the company so much is that she’s ashamed of her body odor, and their soap is the only thing that does the trick. So when the company’s lead product developer, a perfuming genius, approaches her in the lobby and wonders what “that smell” is, she’s terrified… but could it be… that he likes it? And, even more surprising to Yae… does she like him?

Plot: The intelligent and outspoken child of radical Marxists, and the great-grandaughter of Iran’s last emperor, Satrapi bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. This is a beautiful and intimate story full of tragedy and humour – raw, honest and incredibly illuminating.

Christmas Reads

Plot: The Christmas season has arrived in Lower Lockwood, and the Fairway Players are busy rehearsing their festive holiday production of Jack and the Beanstalk to raise money for a new church roof. But despite the season, goodwill is distinctly lacking among the amateur theater enthusiasts with petty rivalries, a possibly asbestos-filled beanstalk, and some perennially absent players behind the scenes. Of course, there’s also the matter of the dead body onstage. Who could possibly have had the victim on their naughty list? Join lawyers Femi and Charlotte as they investigate Christmas letters, examine emails, and pore over police transcripts to identify both the victim and killer before the curtain closes on their holiday production—for good.

Plot: It’s 19 December 1931. Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool are called to investigate the murder of a man in the apparent safe haven of a Norfolk hospital ward. Catchpool’s mother, the irrepressible Cynthia, insists that Poirot stays in a crumbling mansion by the coast, so that they can all be together for the festive period while Poirot solves the case. Cynthia’s friend Arnold is soon to be admitted to that same hospital and his wife is convinced he will be the killer’s next victim, though she refuses to explain why. Poirot has less than a week to solve the crime and prevent more murders, if he is to escape from this nightmare scenario and get home in time for Christmas. Meanwhile, someone else – someone utterly ruthless – also has ideas about what ought to happen to Hercule Poirot . . .

Plot: On Christmas Eve, heavy snowfall brings a train to a halt near the village of Hemmersby. Several passengers take shelter in a deserted country house, where the fire has been lit and the table laid for tea – but no one is at home. Trapped together for Christmas, the passengers are seeking to unravel the secrets of the empty house when a murderer strikes in their midst.