February Releases
We’re back with a few releases we’re excited for this month.
Horror Hotel by Victoria Fulton and Faith McClaren – 1st February
A group of teen ghost hunters travel to a haunted hotel, the site of an infamous LA tragedy, to spend the night and secretly film after dark. It’s just one night…what’s the worst that could happen?
But when they stumble upon a dead body in the former room of a notorious killer, they quickly realize that they’re in over their heads. Sometimes it’s the dead who need our help and the living we should fear.
I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys – 1st February
Romania, 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams of becoming a poet and philosopher. But Romanians aren’t free to dream; they are bound by rules and force.
Amidst the grip of the maniacal dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu and a country governed by lies, deceit, isolation, and fear, Cristian is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer. He’s left with only two choices: betray everyone and everything he loves—or use his position to creatively undermine the most notoriously evil regime in Eastern Europe.
Cristian risks everything to expose the truth behind the regime, to give his people a voice, and to tell the world what is happening in Romania. And he is eager to join in the revolution and fight for change when the time arrives. But the cost of a better future comes at the expense of broken hearts and lives lost.
I, Mona Lisa by Natasha Solomons – 10th February
Listen to my history. My adventures are worth hearing. I have lived many lifetimes and been loved by emperors, kings and thieves. I have survived kidnap and assault. Revolution and two world wars. But this is also a love story. And the story of what we will do for those we love.
In Leonardo da Vinci’s studio, bursting with genius imagination, towering commissions and needling patrons, as well as discontented muses, friends and rivals, sits the painting of the Mona Lisa. For five hundred tumultuous years, amid a whirlwind of power, money, intrigue, the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo is sought after and stolen. Over the centuries, few could hear her voice, but now she is ready to tell her own story, in her own words – a tale of rivalry, murder and heartbreak. Weaving through the years, she takes us from the dazzling world of Florentine studios to the French courts at Fontainebleau and Versailles, and into the Twentieth Century.
Sabotage on the Solar Express by M.G. Leonard and Sam Sedgman – 17th February
Billionaire train enthusiast August Reza has invited Harrison Beck and Uncle Nat to travel on the maiden voyage of the winning design of his Reza’s Rocket competition. Australian child genius Boaz won with his hybrid locomotive, driven by hydrogen fuel cells and solar power. But during the journey from Alice Springs to Darwin, someone onboard sabotages the train, hurtling passengers into a heart-stopping thrill-ride across the Australian Outback. Can Hal find the saboteur and stop the runaway train before disaster strikes?
League of Liars by Astrid Scholte – 22nd February
Ever since his mother was killed, seventeen-year-old Cayder Broduck has had one goal–to see illegal users of magic brought to justice. People who carelessly use extradimensional magic for their own self-interest, without a care to the damage it does to society or those around them, deserve to be punished as far as Cayder is concerned. Because magic always has a price. So when Cayder lands a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to apprentice under a premier public defender, he takes it. If he can learn all the tricks of public defence, the better he’ll be able to dismantle defence arguments when he’s a prosecutor. Then he’ll finally be able to make sure justice is served.
But when he meets the three criminals he’s supposed to defend, it no longer seems so black and white. They’re teenagers, like him, and their stories are . . . complicated, like his. Vardean, the prison where Cayder’s new clients are incarcerated, also happens to be at the very heart of the horrible tear in the veil between their world and another dimension–where all magic comes from.
The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley – 22nd February
Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up – to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? – he’s not there.
The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbours are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.
The socialite – The nice guy – The alcoholic – The girl on the verge – The concierge
Everyone’s a neighbour. Everyone’s a suspect. And everyone knows something they’re not telling.
A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross – 22nd February
Enchantments run deep on the magical Isle of Cadence: gossip is carried by the wind, plaid shawls can be as strong as armour, and the smallest cut of a knife can instil fathomless fear. The capricious spirits that live there find mirth in the lives of the humans who call the land home, but that mischief turns to malevolence as girls begin to go missing. Adaira, heiress of the east, knows the spirits only answer to a bard’s music, enticing them to return the missing girls. But there’s only one bard capable of drawing the spirits forth by song: her childhood enemy Jack Tamerlaine. He hasn’t stepped foot on Cadence in ten long years, content to study music at the mainland university, but as Jack and Adaira reluctantly work together it becomes apparent the trouble with the spirits is far more sinister than first thought and an older, darker secret lurks beneath the surface, threatening to undo them all.
