Hoohoo, friends of the blade.
It’s time for some more exciting book releases. How is it August already? But as every year, my birth month blesses me with highly anticipated releases. And by that I mean Katabasis (I am first and foremost a R.F. Kuang stan) and Once A Villain, a trilogy I have been obsessed with for quite a while (years). But there are so many other books releasing this August that I’m also excited to read. Beloved authors, cute romance and hopefully some nice vampires.
5th AUGUST
Mistress of Bones by Maria Z. Medina
Necromancer Azul del Arroyo only wants one thing: to steal her sister back from Death by reclaiming her sister’s bones. But the Emissary of the Lord Death will do anything to stop her, no matter how alluring he finds her . . .
As their paths collide, they’re drawn into a deadly game of pawns and power with a count who begrudgingly works for a child king, a faceless witch who transforms the bones of gods into dreams she can peddle, and a long-lost half-brother with a secret of his own—and soon realize the fate of the lands is hanging in the balance.
For long ago the gods raised the continents, binding them with their own bones to keep humanity alive. But in an era when the gods’ sacrifice has been forgotten, Death might not be the only resentful god Azul must defy.
If All Else Sails by Emma St. Clair
When Josie’s brother sends her to a random address for their (sometimes) annual Super Summer Sibling Extravaganza, she finds neither siblings nor extravaganzas. Instead, ends up at a run-down cottage on the Northern Neck of Virginia occupied by a hockey player she knows and loathes.
A hockey player who isn’t just one of her sports agent brother’s clients. He’s also his best friend. And Josie’s sworn enemy.
Oh-and her brother wants Josie to help Wyatt recover from his injury.
Dragging grumpy hockey players to physical therapy is a far cry from bandaging skinned knees, but for the price her brother offers to pay, Josie is willing to try.
Even if it means sharing what she dubs the quaint little murder cottage with Wyatt.
Begrudgingly, Josie starts to see a little more of the man behind the grumpy exterior. And when she finds out he was supposed to sail the Intracoastal Waterway south to Savannah scattering his uncle’s ashes, Josie surprises even herself by offering to be Wyatt’s first mate.
Smooth sailing is nowhere to be found, and Josie begins to wonder if they’ll be able to make it home without killing-or kissing?-each other.
And yet, the longer they share cramped quarters and canned food, the more of Wyatt’s layers she peels back until Josie realizes she misunderstood him, their shared history, and perhaps herself as well.
Once Upon A Time in Dollywood by Ashley Jordan
Eve Ambroise may be a rising star playwright, but her personal life is falling part. Desperate for a fresh start, she breaks up with her fiancé, cuts off her parents, and heads to the Tennessee mountains. But keeping up the lie that she’s just on a writing retreat becomes near impossible when faced with the well-meaning townspeople and a neighbor who has just as much baggage as she has.
Coming off a contentious custody battle, Jamie Gallagher is restructuring what his life looks like as a single dad, and spending more days at his cabin makes his new “free time” a little less empty. Especially when he meets the beautiful—and prickly—woman next door. The last thing he needs is a new romance to shake up his family dynamics even more, but there’s something about Eve.
What starts out as a fling quickly becomes more serious, and it’s not long before Eve is running scared once again. She’s loved and lost in every possible way, and risking it one more time could finally break her. But like the fireflies that fill the mountains around them, Jamie’s and Eve’s lives keep falling into sync. A fairy-tale ending could be in the cards, but only if the new couple can get out of their heads and put their hearts first.
8th AUGUST
Maneater by Morgan Elizabeth
Josie, nicknamed the Maneater, is part of an elite group of private investigators who use their beauty, brains, and society’s habit of underestimating women to get the intel they need to solve crime and investigate for clients. Her particular strength is in her ability to seduce men and convince them to tell her whatever she wants to hear. She often goes on dates with high-profile men to find out what she needs to know, be it cheating, embezzlement, or the sharing of trade secrets.
Now she’s assigned to go undercover as a vacationer at the Daydream Resort, a luxury all-inclusive vacation spot for the rich and famous, and find out who is sabotaging it.
While there, Rowan, a nuisance from her past and the VP of Operations for the resort, keeps getting in her way, but she’s not backing down. He continues to find her at the source of the sabotages he’s also looking into, and knows that somehow, she’s not just a vacationer.
As the sabotages continue, the tension between Rowan and Josie gets more and more palpable, but both are there on a mission and can’t afford the distraction.
But be it love or disaster, neither of them is ready for what’s coming next.
12th AUGUST
For the Record by Emma Lord
Once the most notorious rivals in the music scene, pop princess Mackenzie Waters and punk rockstar Sam Blaze electrified audiences as their bands clashed on stage. But behind the scenes, their simmering tension grew into something more — until suddenly both bands fell apart, and the idea of Mackenzie and Sam did, too.
Two years later, Sam has traded the rockstar lifestyle for a quiet life raising the son he didn’t know about. Meanwhile, Mackenzie is dealing with a postoperative change in her voice by only singing under a pseudonym. The only way to revive their public careers? A joint comeback album.
With fans over the moon and their futures on the line, Sam and Mackenzie face their biggest challenge yet: giving up the old rivalry and learning to work together. But as old sparks fly and new secrets emerge, they set off a chain reaction neither of them could have anticipated — one that proves that sometimes, the greatest hits are the ones yet to be written.
Her Soul For A Crown by Alysha Rameera
Anula Ramanayake of Anuradhapura calculated her ascent the moment she was orphaned—when her village burned in an endless war and the gods forsook her prayers. First, she would marry the raja. Then, she would poison him and take the throne for herself and her people. But when an unexpected coup thwarts her careful plans, Anula is left with one desperate option. She offers her soul to the cursed gods she renounced in exchange for the crown.
In the Second Heavens, Reeri the Blood Yakka, the most dangerous and powerful of his clan, hears her prayer. For eons, he’s waited for such a valuable offering—one that could finally give him the chance to kill his divine tormentor and return his fellow Yakkas to their former glory on earth. Reeri accepts Anula’s bargain, tethering them until their goals are achieved, or until they die.
As the war presses on, Anula must move quickly or lose her chance to become the first raejina. But while she is skilled at many things, especially in stopping hearts, the closer she grows to Reeri, the more she finds her own heart at risk. And when the time comes to fight enemies both human and divine, Anuradhapura and the Heavens will never be the same.
The Sun And The Moon by Rebekah Faubion
Cadence Connolly grew up in the cosmic shadow of her mother, the renown psychic Madame Moira. Now, as a park ranger in Maine, she’s carved out her own life far away from her mother’s many premonitions and tarot cards . . . until she receives an invitation to Moira’s engagement party. Cadence doesn’t know what led to the thawing of her mother’s heart, but she’ll have to return home to discover the truth.
Sydney Sinclair’s schedule as a pilot makes long-term relationships difficult, but at least she can fly anywhere in the world for free with only her emotional baggage as a carry-on. After her mom passed, it’s always been Sydney and her dad against the world, so it’s no wonder she doesn’t trust the enigmatic Madame Moira—his newly minted fiancée.
When Cadence meets Sydney, they realize they both share similar suspicions about their parents’ impending nuptials. As they begin scheming to break up their parents’ engagement—they can’t possibly be in love after such a short time together— Sydney and Cadence discover an irresistible chemistry with each other instead. Despite not believing in fate, Cadence might just have found her soulmate in Sydney.
19th AUGUST
Once A Villain by Vanessa Len
Monsters #3
After Joan’s failed attempt to save the world, Eleanor now rules over a cruel new timeline where monsters live openly among humans, preying on them and subjugating them.
Nick -once a hero to humans, and Joan’s first love – is tormented by the choice he made to save her over the timeline itself. And Aaron – the ruthless heir to a powerful monster family – now finds himself in a world where monsters have power beyond imagining while his feelings for Joan grow.
Wrenched between love and rivalry, the three of them must negotiate their fractured pasts to survive the new world and restore what was lost. Because only they remember that there was once a better timeline.
But how will they defeat a whole world of monsters with control over time itself?
Voidwalker by S.A. Maclean
Fionamara is a smuggler. Antal is the reason her people fear the dark.
Fi ferries contraband between worlds, stockpiling funds and stolen magic to keep her village self-sufficient – free from the blood sacrifices humans have paid to Antal’s immortal species for centuries.
Only legends whispered through the pine forests recall a time when things were different, before one world shattered into many, and the flesh-devouring beasts crept from the cracks between realities, with their sable antlers and slender tails, lethal claws and gleaming fangs. Now, mortal lives are food to pacify their carnivorous overlords, exchanged for feudal protection, and the precious silver energy that fuels everything from transport to weaponry.
When Fi gets planted with a stash of smuggled energy, a long-lost flame recruits her for a reckless heist that escalates into a terrorist bombing – and a coup against the reigning immortals, with Fi’s home caught in the crossfire.
She’s always known the dangers of her trade – and of the power she’s wielded since childhood, allowing her to see the secret doors between dimensions, to walk the Void itself. But nothing could have prepared her for crossing paths with Antal. For the deal she’ll have to make with him, a forced partnership to reclaim his city that begins as a desperate bid for survival, only to grow into something far more dangerous.
A revolution.
And a temptation – for how sweet the monster’s fangs might feel.
26th AUGUST
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality—her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world—that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.
Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.
The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood and Boyfriends by Jamie D’Amato
It’s only natural nineteen-year-old Brennan’s life would be upended by something as ridiculous and unexpected as turning into a vampire. But if there’s one thing Brennan can do, it’s pretend everything’s fine when he’s close to losing his mind. Brennan is nineteen and just clawed his way back to Sturbridge University after recovering from a suicide attempt, and this is not the new life he was hoping for.
Brennan’s newly bloodthirsty existence gets way more complicated when Cole, the super cute librarian and everyone’s campus crush, stumbles on Brennan drinking from a stolen blood bag. Luckily, adorable Cole is happy to keep Brennan’s secret, and even seems to maybe like him? Navigating a new relationship is hard enough without the added struggles of vampire puberty, an eclectic clan of self-proclaimed “good” vampires, and growing feelings for the one person who makes Brennan feel normal. With swirling rumors of a missing student and a rise in strange “animal attacks” near campus, Brennan must uncover the secrets of the clan and figure out how to balance vampirism and humanity, or risk losing the first real friends he’s ever had.
Love’s a Witch yb Tricia O’Malley
Sloane MacGregor swore she’d never return to Briarhaven, but with her twenty-fifth birthday looming—the day witches come into their magic—her grandmother summons her and her sisters back for one tiny task: break the centuries-old curse haunting their bloodline.
Knox Douglas, Briarhaven’s grumpy mayor, has worked tirelessly to make his town a haven for magical folk. The last thing he needs is a cursed MacGregor wreaking havoc. It doesn’t matter he once crushed on her. For the sake of Briarhaven, Sloane has to go.
But magic has other plans—and in Briarhaven, love really is a witch.
The Executioners Three by Susan Dennard
Freddie Gellar didn’t mean to get half the rival high school arrested. She’d simply heard shrieks coming from the woods, so she’d called the cops like any good human would do. How was she supposed to know it was just kids partying?
Except the next day, a body is found. And while the local sheriff might call it suicide, Freddie’s instincts tell her otherwise. So, like the aspiring sleuth (and true X-Files aficionado) she is, Freddie sets out to prove there’s a murderer at large.
But her investigation is quickly disrupted by the rivalry between her school and the school of the partying teens she got arrested. For over twenty years now, the two student bodies have had an ongoing prank war, and Freddie’s failed attempt at Good Samaritanism has upped the ante. Big time. Worse, the clever―and gorgeous―leader of the rival prank squad has set his sights on Freddie.
As more pranks unfurl, more bodies also start piling up in the forest. But it’s the supernatural warning signs around town―each plucked straight from an old forgotten poem called “The Executioners Three”―that worry Freddie the most. She knows the poem and its blood curse can’t be real, but she’s quickly running out of time to prove it.
Because the murderer―or executioners?―knows she’s onto them now, and their next target might just be Freddie.
The Entanglement of Rival Wizards by Sara Raasch
Sebastian Walsh: twenty-four. Grad student at Lesiara University in the Mageus of Evocation program. Human. The first of his family to go to college rather than the military (and it goes over at family get-togethers about as well as you’d think).
Elethior Tourael: also twenty-four. Also a grad student, but in the far more inferior Mageus of Conjuration program. Half-elf. The latest in a long line of Touraels to grace the hallowed halls of Lesiara U (what would the world do if the Touraels ran out of rich douches to lead their magical weapons manufacturing empire?).
―and the other finalist for the Mageus Research Grant.
Sebastian needs that grant to fund the last few months of research for his degree, after which he’ll get a job that actually helps people. He isn’t about to let anyone snatch this from him, least of all a snob who doesn’t even need the money because his family is loaded thanks to war profiteering.
But there’s something worse than having a conceited academic nemesis steal grant money from you: you could be forced to work with him. Thio is secretive, broody, and his stunning biceps take up far too much shared lab space―but even as volatile as their partnership is, Sebastian just might find himself falling for his rival―and it could blow up his whole future.
What August book releases are you most excited for? When’s the next book by your favourite author releasing and which one is it?
Until next time,
