Most Anticipated Books of 2018

December 29, 2017 Top Ten Tuesday 4

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature/meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Books I’m Looking Forward To In 2018.

 

I’m a little late to the party with this list, in that it was supposed to be this week’s Top Ten Tuesday post. But last week and the beginning of this week were incredibly busy IRL, so today it is! I also refuse to limit myself to only 10 books.

In no particular order:

Fantasy and SF

 

Tempests & Slaughter (Tamora Pierce) I’ve been waiting for the first book in the Numair Chronicles for literally years. If you’re a Tamora Pierce fan, you already know why. If you’re not, go read her Tortall books right now! (Feb. 6, 2018)  (Review of the Protector of the Small quartet)

Spinning Silver (Naomi Novik) Novik rocks, whatever she writes. If this YA fantasy, which seems to be a retelling of Rumplestiltskin, is even half as good as Uprooted, it should be terrific.

The Hills Have Spies (Mercedes Lackey)  Lackey has been a bit inconsistent for a while now, but I still have a strong affection and loyalty to her Valdemar series. I think this book, which begins the Family Spies series-within-a-series,  continues the tales of Mags and Amily begun in The Collegium Chronicles and The Herald Spy trilogy. (May 5, 2018)

 

 

The Calculating Stars (Mary Robinette Kowal)  This book and its sequel, The Fated Sky (due out later in 2018) come before and expand upon Kowal’s award-winning short story, “The Lady Astronaut of Mars.”  I loved Kowal’s alternate-historical-fantasy Ghost Talkers and her regency-fantasy Shades of Milk and Honey (review) so this should be great.  (July 3, 2018)

The Girl with the Dragon Heart (Stephanie Burgis) A direct sequel to Burgis’s charming The Dragon with the Chocolate Heart (review), which I loved. Burgis describes this one as “Spies! Fairies! Delicious chocolate! – And a very human heroine who’s every bit as fierce as her dragon best friend.” (expected 2018; date not set)

Tess of the Road (Rachel Hartman) Set in the same world and kingdom as Seraphina (review) and Shadow Scale, this book follows a new character, Tess, as she runs away from home disguised as a boy. Hartman is always terrific, so I have high expectations for this book. (Feb. 27, 2018)

 

Mystery

 

Island of the Mad (Laurie R. King)  The Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes series is one of my favorite series in any genre, so the 15th book in the series is cause for celebration—particularly since we didn’t get one in 2017. (June 12, 2018) (Review of The Murder of Mary Russell, book #14 in the series)

A Treacherous Curse (Deanna Raybourn)  Third in Raybourn’s Veronica Speedwell series featuring a strong, unconventional, and independent-minded Victorian heroine. I loved the first two books, and I’m looking forward to (hopefully) more resolution of Veronica’s past and of her relationship with her investigative partner, Stoker.  (Review of A Curious Beginning, the first in the series.)

The Woman in the Water (Charles Finch)  A prequel to Finch’s terrific historical mystery series featuring Victorian gentleman-detective Charles Lenox, The Woman in the Water goes back in time to recount Lenox’s first case: that of a fiendish serial killer. (Feb. 20, 2018) (Review of A Beautiful Blue Death, the first book in the series; other reviews are linked on that page.)

 

 

Death and the Viking’s Daughter (Loretta Ross)  I really enjoy this series, which falls under the “cozy” label but is a bit more realistic than many cozies, particularly because one of the two main characters is a veteran with PTSD and a disability due to damaged lungs.  (Reviews of Death and the Redheaded Woman and Death and the Brewmaster’s Widow.)

 

Romance and Romantic Suspense

Someone to Care (Mary Balogh) The “widow” of a bigamous duke finds happiness in the fourth book in the Westcott series. Balogh is one of my favorite historical romance authors, and huzzah for older heroines! (Reviews of Someone to Love and Someone to Hold)

Hello Stranger (Lisa Kleypas) Unfortunate cover aside (too much pink! And the dress is contemporary, not period), I love Kleypas’s historicals, and the Ravenels series has been a good one so far. This time around, England’s first female doctor meets her match in a former Scotland Yard detective who is also a Ravenel by-blow. (Reviews of Cold-Hearted Rake, Marrying Winterborne, and The Devil in Spring.)

The Other Lady Vanishes (Amanda Quick) A sequel to last spring’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much (review), this mystery returns to 1930s Burning Cove, California, but introduces a new hero and heroine.

 

 

The First Time at Firelight Falls (Julie Anne Long)  Fourth in the Hellcat Canyon series, all of which have been terrific. (Reviews of books #1 and #2)

 

Honorable Mention

ADDED SINCE I PUBLISHED THIS POST

(because everyone else’s lists were dangerous!)

  • Bellewether (Susanna Kearsley) Historical fiction blended with a contemporary story is Kearsley’s metier, and she excels at it. Can’t wait to read this one!

 

 

 

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4 Responses to “Most Anticipated Books of 2018”

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      Thanks, Katherine! I think you’d enjoy last year’s Amanda Quick book. It’s sort of like a cross between her Amanda Quick and Jayne Ann Krentz books — still historical but 20th-century rather than Victorian, and more like her Krentz contemporaries in terms of the suspense. No paranormal stuff in these, though; she seems to have abandoned that for the time being.