Just when I thought I would be able to make some headway on my unending TBR, these amazing books are being released next month which completely upends that goal.
Bloomsbury Girls - Natalie Jenner (Publication Date: May 17, 2022): Taking place in London after World War II, three women, Vivien Lowery, Grace Perkins, and Evie Stone, learn that the world is slowly changing and they want to be a part of it. They all begin to work at Bloomsbury Books, a bookstore previously run by only men. As they interact with some of the most well-known writers of the day, the girls plan how to make the shop continue to be successful and make them richer than they could ever imagine.
The Book Woman's Daughter - Kim Michele Richardson (Publication Date: May 3rd, 2022): The much-anticipated follow-up to the 2019 bestseller, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. I was lucky enough to be given the chance to read an advanced copy of this story (review here) and I loved it. Honey Lovett takes after her mama in many ways, including working for the Pack Horse Library Project. Due to the imprisonment of her parents and the death of her guardian, Honey must learn to take care of herself and learn how to create her own freedom.
The Seamstress of New Orleans - Diane C. McPhail (Publication Date: May 31, 2022): The tale of two women recently widowed or left who must learn to live life without their husbands. One woman, Alice Butterworth, whose husband has disappeared moves from Chicago to New Orleans in an attempt to take care of herself and her unborn child. While there, she meets Constance Halstead, whose husband left behind a huge gambling debt when he died, and they prepare a gown for the leap year ball - where women are allowed to control their own interactions with men. Despite the advances women appear to be making during this time period, for these two women life remains woefully the same despite the dangers they both face.
The Lioness - Chris Bohjalian (Publication Date: May 10, 2022): When a Hollywood couple invites their friends to Africa with them to celebrate their honeymoon, they expected to be touring safaris by day and camping with a gin and tonic in their hand by night. What they didn't expect was a kidnapping and the fact that they would have to fight for their lives against Russian mercenaries. The couple and their friends pray every day for the chance to head back to their lives and heal from this experience.
The Foundling - Anne Leary (Publication Date: May 31, 2022): Inspired by the true story as relayed to the author by her grandmother. This is the story of the way asylums were run in the early 1900s and the ways in which the patients suffered due to understaffing and negligence on the part of those in charge. When Mary Engle is hired to work as a receptionist at the Nettleton State Village for the Feebleminded Women of Child Bearing Age, she believes she is going somewhere that will put women's needs at the forefront of everything. When she learns that one of her former classmates, Lillian, is an inmate and reaches out to her, she receives more than she bargained for. Lillian asks Mary to help her escape the asylum as not everything is as it first appears.