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7. Highly-anticipated April new releases
14 Plays2 months ago
April new releases I am really looking forward to:
- American Fantasy - Emma Straub (April 7)
- The Girls Trip - Ally Condie (April 7)
- Yesteryear – by Caro Claire Burke (April 7)
- Mad Mabel - Sally Hepworth (April 21)
- The Island Club - Nicola Harrison (April 28)
Thank you for listening. You can find me on Instagram @Kristinsnextchapter
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Transcript
Introduction to Kristen's Podcast
00:00:01
Kristin Paulin
Hi, I'm Kristin, the host of Kristin's Next Chapter, a podcast to help you find your next read and introduce you to debut authors.
Significance of April for Book Releases
00:00:09
Kristin Paulin
Today's episode is a look at new releases coming out in April, and I'll explain a little bit about why to do this for April in particular.
Current Reads and Bookish Experiences
00:00:18
Kristin Paulin
But first, I wanted to share what I'm currently reading, as well as some of my favorite bookish moments recently.
00:00:25
Kristin Paulin
So right now, I'm reading This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum. I'm so close to finishing this one. By the time this episode is published, you'll be able to read my review on Instagram.
Book Review: 'This Story Might Save Your Life'
00:00:38
Kristin Paulin
This is an unputdownable modern thriller, in my opinion. The story is two best friends turned famous podcasters, Joy and Benny,
00:00:49
Kristin Paulin
Joy goes missing and suspicion starts to point to Benny. The stories told through Benny's perspective in the current timeline when Joy is missing interspersed with chapters from Joy as written from their joint memoir before she went missing.
Bookish Moments and Community Events
00:01:07
Kristin Paulin
There are various side characters, a husband, an ex-wife, various neighbors, fans, siblings, and many of them start to look suspicious too. i am not able to flip the pages fast enough to learn the rest of this story.
00:01:24
Kristin Paulin
So looking at bookish moments recently, just so this doesn't get too long winded, I'm just going to highlight two really special bookish moments recently.
00:01:35
Kristin Paulin
First, a big shout out to Jackie, the book club hostess with the mostest. She hosted our classy ladies book club discussion of Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. This book involves an elderly Chinese woman as an amateur sleuth and tea shop owner.
00:01:56
Kristin Paulin
And among the special touches at our book club were tea-infused wines in specially designed bottles with the Vera Wong theme. And fortune cookies that were personalized relating to the book itself and to our book club.
00:02:12
Kristin Paulin
It was so special and it seems impossible to ever tap. And second, i had a really nice coffee and book catch-up with one of my new book friends, Rutwika. We are both involved a lot in our local community, or especially the book community, and we have a lot of similar interests about community building and reading.
00:02:36
Kristin Paulin
And she introduced me to a new local space called the Front Room Collective. For those not from Chicago, front room is a Chicago area slang term for the front room of a house where you would entertain guests.
00:02:52
Kristin Paulin
It's thought to be mashed-up pronunciation of front room with a heavy Chicago accent. So front room. Anyways, it's the type of space that I've been dreaming of. It's a coffee shop and a community event space.
00:03:07
Kristin Paulin
Some of the upcoming events include like a stitch-and-bitch kind of gathering, mahjong classes, watercolor classes, silent book club, writers' groups, meditation,
00:03:21
Kristin Paulin
etc. Everything sounds absolutely amazing. So far, I have signed up to the Silent Book Club, of course, as well as a watercolor class and the craft gathering.
00:03:36
Kristin Paulin
And so Ritwika and I talked about co-hosting some kind of community book event that she was dubbing the Literary Society where we can talk about book recommendations and we may end up doing something like that at the French room.
April's Notable Book Releases
00:03:52
Kristin Paulin
And then first, there's an event in the U.S. called the Independent Bookstore Day. It's April 25th, and it's a big day for indie bookstores to host events in store and have various promotions. And book lovers often try to support multiple stores on that one day.
00:04:15
Kristin Paulin
So Ritwika and I are going to host a book club crawl where we will map out a route with different times for different stops on the route to visit as many bookstores as possible on that particular day. And I'm really excited about this and I'm definitely going to report back to it after the event.
00:04:37
Kristin Paulin
And now to get into the topic of the day, the April new releases. So April is kind of a big new release month for books. And from what I understand, it serves as like the kickoff to the spring and summer reading season where new books are launched in time for... upcoming summer vacation planning, and it gives people time to hear more about the books from influencers and friends and make their TBRs for their beach and summer vacations. So I put together a list of five April new releases that I'm really looking forward to.
00:05:14
Kristin Paulin
The list was initially 10, and I pared it down, which was tough to do. But here are the five that I'm really looking forward to. The first is American Fantasy by Emma st Straub.
00:05:28
Kristin Paulin
When the American Fantasy cruise ship sets sail for a four-day themed voyage, aboard are all five members of a famous 90s-era boy band and 3,000 screaming women who have worshipped them since childhood.
00:05:44
Kristin Paulin
Feeling slightly out of place amid this crowd is Annie, newly divorced, turning 50 with an empty nest, and here on a lark to appease her sister. Yet, when the lights come up and the idols of her youth begin to sing, something is unlocked. Call it a memory, call it nostalgia, call call it the chemical reaction of hormones, hope, and sexual awakening.
00:06:09
Kristin Paulin
Between the slushy alcoholic drinks, the familiar music, and the throngs of middle-aged women acting like lovesick teenagers, Annie finally reconnects to a long, submerged part of herself.
00:06:23
Kristin Paulin
By the time she meets one of the band members, not just a celebrity but someone one in need of a friend, she has accessed a new sense of possibility. In a smart and incisive book packed with laugh-out-loud reflections on fame, aging, marriage, and middle age, Emma st Straub delivers a richly textured story that shows us real passion is never truly lost, That what we love makes us who we are, and that deep meaning can sometimes be found in a sea of screaming fans.
00:06:59
Kristin Paulin
And if you don't already know, Emma Straub, the author of that book, owns a bookstore in Brooklyn called Books Are Magic, and there actually are two locations of this bookstore in Brooklyn.
00:07:14
Kristin Paulin
The second book I'm looking forward to in April is called The Girl's Trip by Ali Kondi. Hope, Ash, and Caro met at an online book club. Over the past two years, they've been there for each other in every way except in person. When each of their lives reaches a crossroads, they decide to meet in real life at the gorgeous Sonnet Resort in Eden National Park.
00:07:42
Kristin Paulin
Hope, an actress, has been entirely too famous and needs to get away from it all. Ash, a successful online entrepreneur, isn't sure what's happened to her marriage.
00:07:55
Kristin Paulin
Carol, a doctor, has lost a patient and doesn't know if she wants to carry on or start all over. And none of them are telling each other the full story.
00:08:06
Kristin Paulin
So I'm particularly drawn to this one just because I'm a part of a an online book club and I didn't meet most of the members of that book club for many years. And so this one just sounded especially interesting to me.
00:08:23
Kristin Paulin
The next book is Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth. Meet Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, 81 years old, gloriously grumpy, fiercely independent, and never without a hot cup of tea or a cutting remark.
00:08:39
Kristin Paulin
She minds her own business in her quiet Melbourne neighborhood until neighbor turns up dead and the whispers start flying. Because Elsie hasn't always been Elsie. Once upon a headline, she was Mad Mabel Waller, Australia's youngest convicted murderer.
00:09:00
Kristin Paulin
But was she really mad or just misunderstood? Either way, she's kept her secret buried for decades.
00:09:09
Kristin Paulin
Enter seven-year-old Persephone, a relentless little chatterbox who has just moved in across the road, armed with stickers, questions, and no sense of personal boundaries.
00:09:22
Kristin Paulin
Joan, who appears to have it out for Elsie and a healthy dose of public interest, the cops are sniffing around and the media is circling like seagulls at a picnic. So Mabel does what she's always done best. She takes matters into her own hands.
00:09:39
Kristin Paulin
Is she a cantankerous old lady with a shady past, a cold-blooded killer with arthritis, or just someone who's finally ready to tell her side of the story?
00:09:50
Kristin Paulin
Sharp, surprising, and wickedly funny, this is the unforgettable story of a woman who spent a lifetime being underestimated and is about to prove everyone wrong again.
00:10:06
Kristin Paulin
So I was so happy to see this as one of the Book of the Month Club selections for April, so I snapped this up ahead of the release date later this month.
00:10:18
Kristin Paulin
The next book is The Island Club by Nicola Harrison, an unputdownable novel of loves lost and found, shocking secrets, and the power of female friendship, 1956.
00:10:33
Kristin Paulin
on idyllic Balboa Island just off the California coast, life seems peaceful and welcoming, but when the lives of three women begin to unravel in shockingly different ways, an unlikely friendship and the game of tennis may be the only thing that can save them.
00:10:49
Kristin Paulin
Millie Kincaid's plan to fix her crumbling marriage seems to be falling apart before it even begins. She believed that moving her young family from Hollywood to Balboa Island might entice her increasingly distant husband to come home earlier after work.
00:11:05
Kristin Paulin
Instead, he's barely coming home at all. Society matriarch Sylvia Johnson and her husband have been pillars of their community for decades and have just recently begun a new business venture, the Island Club, a place for members to swim, play tennis, and dine in style. But when she learns that he has been risking their financial security and putting their family's future in grave danger, she's not only poised to lose the club, but the entire community she holds dear.
00:11:39
Kristin Paulin
Meanwhile, standoffish loner Adele Lambert's entire world is on the brink of being destroyed if the dark secrets of her past and her hidden identity is revealed. 20 years ago, she ran away from a shameful scandal and left behind the only thing she ever loved. Now, terrified that the anonymity she spent decades guarding will be exposed, she But desperate to stay afloat, she risks everything to return to the game that brought her to her knees all those years before.
00:12:11
Kristin Paulin
Set against the sun-drenched beaches of Balboa Island with its prim and proper 1950s facade, The Island Club is a story of love, loneliness, and the lies we tell ourselves, and what can be gained when the truth is finally revealed.
00:12:30
Kristin Paulin
The next book is Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic. Her husband, a handsome cowboy. Her six children, each more delightful than the last.
00:12:49
Kristin Paulin
So what if there are nannies, producers, etc. behind the scenes? Her kitchen is hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens. Her husband is the heir to a political dynasty.
00:13:02
Kristin Paulin
What Natalie's followers, all 8 million of them, don't know won't hurt them. And the angry women, the privileged Ivy League coastal elite haters who call her an anti-feminist iconoclast, they're sick with jealousy.
00:13:17
Kristin Paulin
Because Natalie isn't simply living the good life, she's living the ideal. And just so happens to be building an empire from it. Until one morning, she wakes up in a life that isn't hers. Her home, her husband, her children. They're all familiar, but something's off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity. Her children are dirty and strange. And her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer.
00:13:46
Kristin Paulin
Just yesterday, Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she's expected to haul firewood and hand wash clothes until her fingers bleed.
00:13:56
Kristin Paulin
Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan?
00:14:08
Kristin Paulin
When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things. This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible. A gripping, electrifying novel that is darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.
Kristen's April Reading Plans and Closing
00:14:32
Kristin Paulin
This is another book of the month club selection, and I also snapped this up as one of my add-ons for April. I think the book sounds a bit out there, but a friend of mine read it as an ARC and really enjoyed this funny look at the trad life phenomenon that we have today.
00:14:56
Kristin Paulin
And that'll do it for the April new releases that I'm looking forward to. Next, for reading intentions, I know I said that I was going to take a break from book clubs in April and do more mood reading, but that's not happening. on my own, i am going to read Mad Mabel in April. I'm determined.
00:15:16
Kristin Paulin
Watch my Instagram for a review later this month. But I am going to be reading some books for book clubs. For my goat book club, we're reading another Jesse Q. Sitanto book, Dial A for Aunties.
00:15:29
Kristin Paulin
And the Chapter Chasers book club at my local bookstore... About Time Bookstore, is reading The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett. And it really, it sounded way too good to miss. So this is the way the book is described. A darkly comedic and heartwarming novel about a lottery winning man on a cross country road trip with his daughter, two orphaned children, and a therapy cat to reunite with his high school sweetheart. The book explores themes of grief, forgiveness, and family dysfunction through a journey filled with humor, heartbreak, and flawed characters dealing with heavy topics like divorce, suicide, and child abuse in a way that is both serious and absurd.
00:16:15
Kristin Paulin
And that'll do it for today. Thank you for listening. If you like the episode, please tell a friend. In the meantime, you can find me on Instagram at Kristen's Next Chapter, all one word.
00:16:27
Kristin Paulin
I would love to hear from you. What new releases are you looking forward to in April? Have a great week and happy reading.