Tantalizing Tales — April 2026 — Part Two

Hello, dear readers! I haven’t been bedridden in over a week now, which feels like a small but important victory as I struggle to catch up with all the work that’s fallen by the wayside since mid-January. The weather, at least, has been lovely where I am, leading to lots of outdoor reading (after a hefty dose of allergy meds, of course.)

I’ve also been looking favorably at my pile of upcoming reads, with Kelly Yang’s The Take top of the list. I first fell in love with her writing when my eldest child introduced me to Front Desk, a book he’d been assigned in middle school, and I’ve loved everything I’ve read of hers since.

Her debut adult novel revolves around the relationship between Maggie Wang and Ingrid Parker, two women in very different positions in life. Maggie is a broke young Asian American writer, whose work is dismissed as not possessing enough life experience. Ingrid is an aging white Hollywood producer who isn’t willing to be sidelined in an industry that renders women invisible as they age.

Out of desperation, Ingrid makes Maggie an offer. She’ll pay Maggie three million dollars and act as her mentor. In exchange, all Maggie has to do is participate in an experimental age-reversal treatment involving ten blood transfusions.

Their strictly transactional arrangement devolves into a power play as both women discover that simply taking what they want — whether it be youth, wisdom or power — comes at a cost. As they begin to question who’s really benefiting from their relationship, they also have to confront what they’re willing to do and sacrifice in order to succeed.

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Our next selection involves a thrilling dual timeline mystery set in an English country manor, in Jennifer N Brown’s debut novel The Lost Book Of Elizabeth Barton.

The title character is a 16th century prophetess whose proclamations regarding Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn led to her execution. All copies of her prophecies were subsequently destroyed… or so it was believed, until historian Alison Sage makes an archival discovery that catapults her to academic superstardom.

Her newfound fame earns her an invitation to the exclusive Codex Consortium, a scholarly retreat in a crumbling manor right next to the ruins of the priory where Elizabeth herself once lived. For one week, Alison and a handful of other historians will research and confer on topics including the local legend of a centuries-old treasure. When someone turns up dead, however, everyone becomes a suspect.

Alison’s research skills make her uniquely suited to investigating whodunnit. But the world of academia can be as cutthroat as a royal court, especially when it comes to silencing women speaking truth to power. Will Alison be able to escape the fate of the woman on whom her own reputation rests, or is she doomed to become another voice abruptly cut off by people who believe they have too much to lose?

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For a more lighthearted glimpse into England’s past, look no further than R M Caldwell’s rollicking Regency romance, Fast And Fastidious. This novel asks, “what if Jane Austen but also Fast and Furious?”

Lucy Elliott is prim, gentle and, yes, fastidious. She believes that there is one objectively correct and proper way to do anything. She does, however, have one very scandalous secret that could destroy her reputation altogether: her illicit involvement in illegal carriage racing.

The Night Races are a notorious series of competitions where unchaperoned men and women — Lucy included — of all social classes mingle to bet on furiously fast carriage races. Adding to their aura of danger is the spate of carriage robberies that have recently plagued the area. When her mysterious new neighbor Captain Dashwood joins the races, she can’t help but wonder whether he’s hiding more than this one secret behind his handsome facade.

As Lucy and the captain are drawn together into a web of deceit and espionage, she discovers that the fate of Britain itself hangs in the balance. Will her trademark meticulousness be the very thing that carries the day, or will it doom them all?

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Moving from the past to the future, we have Shay Kauwe’s debut novel The Killing Spell, an urban fantasy murder mystery revolving around the fascinating topic of language magic.

A catastrophic flood has submerged the Hawaiian islands, unleashing magic into the world. Five clans forged a treaty with the city of Los Angeles, establishing a new Hawaiian Homestead where they could live in security and relative peace. Nearly two hundred years on, however, that treaty is about to expire.

At only twenty-five years old, Kea Petrova is the youngest of the Hawaiian clan leaders. Her small clan struggles to stay afloat, with Kea herself scraping together rent via odd jobs and the sale of Hawaiian language spells that she crafts herself. While she’s well-known for her talent in spellwork, she can’t help but feel like a mere shadow of the leaders and spellworkers who came before her.

The murder of LA’s most prominent Filipino activist Angelo Reyes changes everything. Angelo was killed by a Hawaiian death spell, and Kea quickly becomes the prime suspect. She’s going to have to investigate in order to clear her name, even it if means confronting some of LA’s most powerful and dangerous players, each wielding their own type of magic. With the fate of her clan and the Homestead itself at stake, will Kea be able to save herself before it’s too late?

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Looking back at books from 2025 that I really wish I had time for, we have J A Dauber’s Press 1 For Invasion, a Middle Grade novel revolving around the very relatable desire to own a cellphone.

From the publicity materials:

“Ten-year-old Matt really wants a phone, but his parents won’t let him have one. When he finds one just lying on the sidewalk, he naturally picks it up and claims it for himself. But when Matt uses his new phone to take pictures, they show the crossing guard in front of his school as a monster. But that can’t be right…can it?

“Matt soon learns that: a) his lunch lady is also a monster (actually, an alien); b) an invasion of Earth is due to take place within the next few days; and c) the lunch lady is having cold feet (well, tentacles) about the whole thing and wants his help. Matt and his friend Marcela join forces with her to save the planet.

“Battles in their school cafeteria and high above the Earth’s atmosphere place them in very close encounters with alien pets and the business end of a gigantic oven. As the danger mounts, Matt and Marcela must ask themselves what they’re willing to risk to save their friends, their family, and their world.”

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Finally, we have the award-winning journalist Edwy Plenel’s powerful essay The Garden And The Jungle. Translated from the French by Luke Leafgren, this critique of Europe’s betrayal of universal values and the fight for human rights comes with a brand new introduction for US readers.

Subtitled How The West Sees The World, this book by a former Editorial Director of Le Monde challenges the colonial thinking that continues to permeate European halls of power, leading to an infamous description by no less than Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, of Europe as a garden and the rest of the world an invasive jungle. As M Plenel goes over the history of Europe and its relationships with the rest of the world, he underscores the continent’s obligation to champion justice and equality even when it’s inconvenient or at the expense of the mighty.

I really want to make time to read this invitation to rebuild a Europe that truly cares about the humanity and dignity of everyone, especially in our tumultuous political times. It’s pretty short, so wish me luck!

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All these books are either available or available for pre-order now, so let me know if you’re able to get to them before I do, dear readers! I’d love to hear your opinions, and see if that will 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!