Tantalizing Tales — April 2025 — Part One

Happy April, dear readers! It finally feels like spring in the northern hemisphere, and I’ve been taking the opportunity to bring books with me on my daily walks to enjoy the weather as much as I can. Here’s a small selection of upcoming titles that I have my eye on for further jaunts, starting with Jon Hickey’s standout literary debut Big Chief, publishing on April 8.

Big Chief tells the story of a hotly contested election and the lengths that some people will go to in order to win, in an under-explored literary realm: the world of tribal politics. Filled with the energy of protest, activism and tumult, this novel faces political corruption head on while asking what you would do, reader, if the very problems that you sought to fix threatened to consume you.

But Big Chief isn’t just a book about politics. It’s also a big-hearted book about second chances, lost love and facing the ghosts of your past.

Mitch Caddo is a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer who, much like the author himself at that age, feels like an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. Alongside his childhood friend, incumbent Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe’s Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel.

On the eve of Mack’s reelection, the young men’s tenuous grip on power is threatened by nationally known activist and politician Gloria Hawkins and her young aide Layla Beck, who happens to be Mack’s estranged sister and Mitch’s former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go — and what they will sacrifice — to win it all.

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Another debut author on my radar is Kelly Mullen, whose upcoming murder mystery This Is Not A Game features the sleuthing odd couple of a grandmother and her video game designer granddaughter.

Widowed Mimi lives on idyllic Mackinac Island, where no cars are allowed and a Gibson with three onions at the witching hour is compulsory. Her estranged granddaughter Addie is just getting over the heartbreak of her fiancé Brian dumping her and cutting her out of the deal for the brilliantly successful video game, Murderscape, that they invented together (tho really it was Addie doing most of the heavy lifting.)

When Mimi gets an invitation from local, semi-scandalous socialite Jane Ireland to attend a charity auction, it’s the perfect excuse to get Addie to join her for the weekend. What Mimi isn’t telling Addie is that a blackmail threat from Jane looms over the party invitation.

But then a big storm rolls in, trapping everyone in the mansion where the auction is being held. Worse, Jane is found dead. Soon Mimi and Addie are caught in a dangerous game, relying on their skills to narrow down the suspects. When another body turns up, the sleuthing pair realize that if they don’t figure out what’s going on and stop a cunning killer, there’s a strong chance that neither of them will survive the night.

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Stacy Johns’ What Remains Of Teague House is another gripping murder mystery debut, as the Rawlins siblings dismantle the weight of suffocating generational trauma while uncovering the chilling truths buried within their lives — and in the shallow graves in the backyard.

When the Rawlins family matriarch unexpectedly passes, all three adult children rush home. Robby, Sandra and Jon are more or less prepared to find a house bursting with grief and other unwieldy emotions. Every family is complicated, they know. What they’re not prepared for is the discovery of multiple bodies buried in the woods right behind their house. Worse, one grave was dug just in the past week.

Are the men, who’ve had various sad histories with relationships, somehow involved in the most recent murder? Is their sister Sandra experiencing false memories of her late father digging near where the old bodies are found? Why is Aunt Phil in such a rush to leave town after her newly deceased sister’s funeral?

Enter Detective Maddie Reed, who has her own reasons for being curious about the bodies buried behind Teague House. She’s determined to unmask a killer… one she may have been hunting her entire life.

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I am so excited about this next book, which marks the return of Belinda Bauer after a four-year publishing hiatus. Her newest book The Impossible Thing is a sweeping tale of obsession, greed and ambition that is centered around two friends who stumble across a mysterious crime that began with a theft 100 years before.

1926. On the cliffs of Yorkshire, men are lowered on ropes to steal the eggs of the sea birds who nest there. The most beautiful are sold for large sums. A small girl — penniless and neglected by her family — retrieves one such treasure. Its discovery will forever alter the course of her life.

In a remote cottage in Wales a century later, Patrick Fort finds his friend Nick and his mother tied up and robbed. The only thing missing from the cottage is a carved case containing an incredible scarlet egg. Doggedly attempting to retrieve it, Patrick and Nick discover the cruel world of egg trafficking, and soon find themselves on the trail of a priceless collection of eggs long lost to history… until now.

Alright, I know that this description sounds a bit random, but after the masterpiece that was the 2019 Booker Prize-longlisted Snap, I trust Belinda Bauer to write nothing but excellence. This second book in the Rubberneckers series brims with skullduggery at every turn, but can definitely be enjoyed as a standalone, too.

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Turning our gaze to books publishing on April 15, we start with The Murder Show, the latest and most personal novel yet from Emmy-award winning writer Matt Goldman.

Showrunner Ethan Harris had a hit with The Murder Show, a television crime drama that features a private detective who solves the cases that the police can’t. After his pitch for the fourth season is rejected by the network, however, he returns home to Minnesota looking for inspiration.

His timing is fortunate. His former classmate Ro Greeman is now a local police officer, and she’s uncovered new information about the devastating hit and run that killed their mutual friend Ricky the summer after high school. She asks Ethan to not only help her investigate but to portray the killing on The Murder Show too. The publicity, she hopes, could help bring Ricky’s killer to justice.

Ethan is skeptical that Ricky’s death was anything more complicated than a horrible accident, but with the clock running out on his career, he’s willing to try anything. It doesn’t take long for him and Ro to realize that they’ve dug up more than they bargained for. Someone is dead set on stopping them from looking too closely into Ricky’s death — even if keeping them quiet means killing again…

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Finally, we circle back around to another debut author with C L Montblanc’s brilliantly titled Pride Or Die. This is a book written by an author whose ambition is to create fun coming-of-age hijinks for LGBTQIA teens who enjoy stories that are “a bit chaotic,” and especially for those who “maybe also spend a little too much time on the internet.”

Seventeen-year-old Eleanora Finkel just wants to finish her senior year and get the hell out of Texas. But when her LGBTQ+ club meeting inconveniently coincides with an attack on the school’s head cheerleader, she and her friends find themselves in the hot seat as they’re all suspected of murder.

In order to clear their names and ensure the survival of their club for future queer teens, Eleanor and co will have to track down the real culprit themselves. Unfortunately, Eleanora is far from a professional detective. She’s riddled with anxiety, annoyingly attracted to the case’s cute victim, and her trusty crochet hook feels insufficient for fighting off a killer. But if her chaotic friend group can’t sleuth their way out of an entire freaking murder mystery, they might just become the next targets.

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Let me know if you’re able to get to any of these books before I do, dear readers! I’d love to hear your opinions, and see if that will help spur me to push any of them higher up the mountain range that is my To Be Read pile.

And, as always, you can check out the list of my favorite books in my Bookshop storefront linked below!