Top 5 anticipated reads for Jul-Sep 2022

Title: Husband Material
Author: Alexis Hall
Publication date: 2 August 2022
NOTE: This is book 2 in the London Calling series. Please read below blurb at your own risk.

Blurb:

Wanted: One (very real) husband.
Nowhere near perfect but desperately trying his best.

In Boyfriend Material, Luc and Oliver met, pretended to fall in love, fell in love for real, dealt with heartbreak and disappointment and family and friends… and somehow figured out a way to make it work. Now it seems like everyone around them is getting married, and Luc’s feeling the social pressure to propose. But it’ll take more than four weddings, a funeral, and a bowl full of special curry to get these two from I don’t know what I’m doing to I do.

Good thing Oliver is such perfect Husband Material.

Title: Spells for Forgetting
Author: Adrienne Young
Publication date: 2 August 2022

Blurb:

A rural island community steeped in the mystical superstitions of its founders and haunted by an unsolved murder is upended by the return of the suspected killer in this deeply atmospheric novel.

Emery Blackwood’s life was forever changed on the eve of her high school graduation, when the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her best friend, Lily. Now, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence among the community that fractured her world in two. She’d once longed to run away with August, eager to escape the misty, remote shores of Saiorse Island and chase new dreams; now, she maintains her late mother’s tea shop and cares for her ailing father. But just as the island, rooted in folklore and tradition, begins to show signs of strange happenings, August returns for the first time in fourteen years and unearths the past that no one wants to remember.

August Salt knows he is not welcome on Saiorse, not after the night that changed everything. As a fire raged on at the Salt family orchard, Lily Morgan was found dead in the dark woods, shaking the bedrock of their tight-knit community and branding August a murderer. When he returns to bury his mother’s ashes, he must confront the people who turned their backs on him and face the one wound from the past that has never healed ― Emery. But the town has more than one reason to want August gone, and the emergence of deep betrayals and hidden promises that span generations threatens to reveal the truth behind Lily’s death once and for all.

Title: Fence Vol 5: Rise
Author: C.S. Pacat; Johanna the Mad
Publication date: 16 August 2022
NOTE: This is Volume 5 in the Fence series. Please read below blurb at your own risk.

Blurb:

Excitement is in the air as Nicholas and his friends celebrate their prestigious invitation to the Halverton Training Camp. They immediately come face-to-face with the best teams in the country, and Nicholas struggles as he suffers defeat after defeat by an old enemy. Will a new addition to the team bring Nicholas closer to the rest of the team and awaken the resilience within he needs to prevail?

But Seiji, in contrast to Nicholas, remains unchallenged and let down by the camp. With Seiji’s goal to learn (instead of win) stuck in his head, will Nicholas step up to pose a real challenge to Seiji, even growing their friendship as a result?

Title: Forestfall
Author: Lyndall Clipstone
Publication date: 30 August 2022 (Aus)
NOTE: This is book 2 in the World at Lake’s Edge series. Please read below blurb at your own risk.

Blurb:

Some oaths can never be broken…

The curse that haunted Lakesedge Estate has been broken, but at great cost. Violeta Graceling has sacrificed herself to end the Corruption. To escape death, Leta makes a desperate bargain with the Lord Under, one that sees her living at his side in the land of the dead.

But this world of souls and mist hides many secrets. And when Leta realises she is still connected to Rowan by a tethering spell, she will risk everything ― even her soul ― to try and reach him.

Torn between power and love, life and death, Leta struggles to keep hold of her humanity as she falls further and further under the spell of the world Below… and the Lord Under.

Title: Kingdom of the Feared
Author: Kerri Maniscalco
Publication date: 27 September 2022
NOTE: This is book 3 in the Kingdom of the Wicked series. Please read below blurb at your own risk.

Blurb:

Two curses.
One prophecy.
A reckoning all have feared.
And a love more powerful than fate. All hail the king and queen of Hell.

Emilia is reeling from the shocking discovery that her twin sister, Vittoria, is alive. But before she faces the demons of her past, Emilia yearns to claim her king, the seductive Prince of Wrath, in the flesh. Emilia doesn’t simply desire his body, she wants his heart and soul ― but that’s something the enigmatic demon can’t promise her.

When a high-ranking member of House Greed is assassinated, Emilia and Wrath are drawn to the rival demon court. Damning evidence points to Vittoria as the murderer and she’s quickly declared an enemy of the Seven Circles. Despite her betrayal, Emilia will do anything to solve this new mystery and find out who her sister really is.

Together Emilia and Wrath play a sin-fueled game of deception as they work to stop the unrest that’s brewing between witches, demons, shape-shifters and the most treacherous foes of all: the Feared.

Emilia was warned that when it came to the Wicked nothing was as it seemed. But, have the true villains been much closer all along? When the truth is finally revealed, it just might end up costing Emilia her heart.