New Releases Tuesday: The Best Books Out This Week

Smart, witty, and refreshingly diverse, this new Regency-set series from acclaimed author Vanessa Riley combines her signature emotional richness and attention to detail in a historical mystery featuring a strong, clever, and captivating heroine…

Discovering a body on her property presents Lady Abigail Worthing with more than one pressing problem. The victim is Juliet, the wife of her neighbor, Stapleton Henderson. Although Abigail has little connection with the lady in question, she expects to be under suspicion. Abigail’s skin color and her mother’s notorious past have earned her a certain reputation among the ton, and no amount of wealth or status will eclipse it.

Abigail can’t divulge that she was attending a secret pro-abolition meeting at the time of the murder. To her surprise, Henderson offers her an alibi. Though he and Juliet were long estranged, and she had a string of lovers, he feels a certain loyalty to his late wife. Perhaps together, he and Abigail can learn the truth.

Abigail, whose marriage to Lord Worthing was not a love match, knows well how appearances can deceive. For all its surface elegance, London’s high society can be treacherous. Yet who in their circle would have killed Juliet, and why? Taking the reins of her life in a way she never has before, Abby intends to find out — but in the process she will uncover more danger than she ever imagined…

Reasons to read it: This is for all of us who wanted a darker, more murder-y Bridgerton. This book, much like the show, does an excellent job showing just how varied ethnicities could be in Regency London. Add a smart, plucky heroine, an engaging mystery, and you’re in for a good time.

After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.

The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. Then at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows…

Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.

With a wicked wink to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Daisy Darker’s unforgettable twists will leave readers reeling.

Reasons to read it: Feeney’s atmospheric ode to Agatha Christie’s classic mystery is given a bit of gothic flair with its setting. Although the story takes cues from Christie, Daisy Darker stands on its own with a patient build up to a satisfying end, and all the twists along the way.

Princess Shiori made a deathbed promise to return the dragon’s pearl to its rightful owner, but keeping that promise is more dangerous than she ever imagined.

She must journey to the kingdom of dragons, navigate political intrigue among humans and dragons alike, fend off thieves who covet the pearl for themselves and will go to any lengths to get it, all while cultivating the appearance of a perfect princess to dissuade those who would see her burned at the stake for the magic that runs in her blood.

The pearl itself is no ordinary cargo; it thrums with malevolent power, jumping to Shiori’s aid one minute, and betraying her the next — threatening to shatter her family and sever the thread of fate that binds her to her true love. It will take every ounce of strength Shiori can muster to defend the life and the love she’s fought so hard to win.

Reasons to read it: Here’s another great duology by Elizabeth Lim that ends beautifully. Pick this one up for adventure, romance, and a magical world full of Chinese mythology.

Amsterdam in the year 1705. It is Thea Brandt’s eighteenth birthday. She is ready to welcome adulthood with open arms, but life at home is increasingly difficult. Her father Otto and her Aunt Nella argue endlessly over their financial fate, selling off furniture in a desperate attempt to hold on to the family home.

As catastrophe threatens to engulf the household, Thea seeks refuge in Amsterdam’s playhouses. She loves the performances, and the stolen moments afterwards are even better. In the backrooms of her favorite theater, Thea can spend a few precious minutes with her secret lover, Walter, the chief set-painter, a man adept at creating the perfect environments for comedies and tragedies to flourish. The thrill of their hidden romance offers Thea an exciting distraction from home. But it also puts her in mind of another secret that threatens to overwhelm the present: Thea knows her birthday marks the day her mother, Marin, died in labor. Thea’s family refuses to share the details of this story, just as they seem terrified to speak of “the miniaturist” — a shadowy figure from their past who is possessed of uncanny abilities to capture that which is hidden.

Aunt Nella believes the solution to all Thea’s problems is to find her a husband who will guarantee her future. An unexpected invitation to Amsterdam’s most exclusive ball seems like a golden opportunity. But when Thea finds, on her doorstep, a parcel containing a miniature figure of Walter, it becomes clear that someone out there has another fate in mind for the family…

A feat of sweeping, magical storytelling, The House of Fortune is an unputdownable novel about love and obsession, family and loyalty, and the fantastic power of secrets.

Reasons to read it: This sequel to the bestselling The Miniaturist has the same magic and excellent storytelling as the first one. Add to that Thea experiencing life as a Dutch-African woman in 18th century Amsterdam, and you’ve got a really enchanting story with an interesting setting that you’ll want to make sure to read.

The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family — the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors — hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace.

But that god cannot be contained forever.

With the aid of Jun, a guard broken by his guilt-stricken past, and Keema, an outcast fighting for his future, the god escapes from her royal captivity and flees from her own children, the triplet Terrors who would drag her back to her unholy prison. And so it is that she embarks with her young companions on a five-day pilgrimage in search of freedom — and a way to end the Moon Throne forever. The journey ahead will be more dangerous than any of them could have imagined.

Both a sweeping adventure story and an intimate exploration of identity, legacy, and belonging, The Spear Cuts Through Water is an ambitious and profound saga that will transport and transform you — and is like nothing you’ve ever read before.

Reasons to read it: Read this for the unique storytelling, beautiful writing, and folklore. Jimenez switches point of view throughout the story, at times directly inserting you as the reader into the story, letting you feel what his fully-formed characters are feeling. This book is seriously so thorough and imaginative.