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Must-Read New Books Coming In April 2024

Old Flames and New Fortunesby Sarah Hogle

Romina Tempest has been using her magical gift to create beauty and romantic love around her, even if said love is evading her. It's been like this for the past decade, but she's learned to live with the decision that ended her chance at romance.

Creating magic in her floral shop, Romina can't help but get excited when she learns about a dream angel investor's upcoming (and very prestigious) wedding. Cooking up an elaborate scheme to help her business, she and her co-worker Trevor decide to pretend they're in a relationship.

Things go fairly well until she realizes Trevor knows the man responsible for her love deficit: Alex King. It's a recipe for disaster, but maybe a bit of magic can help.

Just For the Summerby Abby Jimenez

Justin and Emma are in the same predicament: every person they date seems to end up in a successful relationship after dating them. Unfortunately for Justin, everyone knows. However, they hope that dating each other will undo whatever omen is hovering over their chance at love.

Over the summer, they spend time together on Lake Minnetonka and become wrapped up in each other's lives. From an overbearing mother to a sudden change in family dynamics, Emma and Justin begin to suspect their mutual bad luck in love may not have been so bad after all.

An Inconvenient Wife by Karen E. Olson

The Husbandsby Holly Gramazio

Lauren feels like she'd remember whether she was married or not, but the people around her are convinced she's always had a husband: Michael. Sadly, she's having trouble proving she doesn't know who he is because there are too many signs that they've been together.

In the midst of her confusion, Michael disappears into the attic and a new husband appears for Lauren. She watches in fascination as life slowly tweaks to accommodate this new marriage, and she wonders how many lives she's able to live. The more husbands Lauren sees, the more she realizes that jumping from one marriage to the next may not be worth it. That finding one version of happy is enough.

Daughter of Mine by Megan Miranda

Hazel Sharp has a complicated relationship with Mirror Lake. It's the place she grew up, but she's got conflicted feelings about her mother's sudden disappearance and the unshakable feeling that one of her brothers really doesn't like her. When she's forced to come back after her father dies, Hazel has to deal with suddenly inheriting his house — and wondering why a car was discovered in their backyard lake.

She knows she should probably leave it alone, but Hazel can't help but feel like it's time to uncover what happened to her mother. What'll she discover is far worse than anything she could've imagined.

The Age of Magical Overthinkingby Amanda Montell

Have you noticed you have a tendency to overthink? Join the party because we've all been living in an analytical bubble, but there may be hope! In The Age of Magical Overthinking, author Amanda Montell breaks down the things we tend to overthink and why they occupy our brain so much.

From celebrity worship to a hilarious chapter about Mercury Retrograde, she talks about the way we relate to pop culture and life around us in a way that's easy to understand. And, she makes it clear that she's still an optimist who believes there's a method to our supposed irrationality.

How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang

Deep Is the Fen by Lili Wilkinson (April 16)

Merry has her own version of paradise in her small village despite losing her mother. She still has her father and two best friends without the need for the magic that's been banned. But, her perfect slice of heaven is threatened when she learns one of her best friends is joining the secret society of Toadmen. Although she doesn't consider herself a witch, she can see the dark magic that covers the Toadmen — including her dad.

To help save her best friend, she begrudgingly teams up with her rival Caraway. Together they form an uneasy bond that's consistently tested by things the latter hides from her. She eventually learns he isn't her real enemy and that something much sinister lurks behind the legacy of the Toadmen. It'll take more than her knowing eyes and Caraway's advanced magic to stop an ancient horror.

Funny Storyby Emily Henry (April 23)

Funny Story is the latest Emily Henry book that's been on my radar for a while! Daphne feels like she has the perfect love story with her fiancé Peter, but he decides his love story should actually involve his best friend Petra — and then leaves Daphne before their wedding. Facing this unfortunate news, Daphne decides there's no use in wallowing and moves forward with her life in Waning Bay, Michigan.

Faced with the reality she's back to a single income, she moves in with Miles Nowak...Petra's ex. Sparks don't immediately fly until one fateful day convinces them to play a long game of pretend. After receiving invites to their exes' wedding, Daphne and Miles decide to find "love" in each other, and to put everything on display for the world to see. After all, it's the best way to rub something in Peter and Petra's faces. But, feelings don't always know when people are pretending and this duo quickly forms a bond, whether that was a part of the plan or not.

The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl (April 23)

Stella isn't the first person you'd call to go on a spontaneous trip, but life — and her deceased mother's inheritance — nudge her to explore life beyond what she knows. Reluctantly traveling to Paris, Stella doesn't enjoy the city at first. She'd rather find a comfortable rhythm she's used to until she crosses paths with a gorgeous vintage Dior dress she can't bring herself to walk away from.

Intrigued by the way it makes her feel (and the confidence it gives her), Stella decides she's ready to see what life has to offer, and the people and experiences she encounter encourage her to grab life by the horns. At the center of her renewed sense for living is the discovery that she truly feels alive when indulging in delicious food, art, and literature.

The more she allows herself to live, the more Stella is able to understand who she is and how her identity is connected to the past.

The Best Spotify Audiobooks For Moms

Choosing Family: A Memoir of Queer Motherhood and Black Resistance by Francesca T. Royster

Francesca T. Royster details her experience being a Black, Queer mom in Choosing Family: A Memoir of Queer Motherhood and Black Resistance in a riveting way. Along with her wife Annie, Francesca adopts a little Black girl and they begin navigating what it means to choose your family. From detailing the long adoption process to understanding what it means to be a mother, Francesca examines how her experiences have allowed her to be open to something other than the traditional nuclear family.

Narrated by Sarah Palmero.

Chouette by Claire Oshetsky

Tiny knew from the moment she was pregnant with Chouette that she'd be different. She felt it throughout her pregnancy and stands correct in her assumptions when her daughter is born. She works overtime to make sure Chouette wants for nothing, but it seems like her efforts are in vain.

Convinced that she'd rather learn how to care for a child whose nature is to be free and wild, Tiny doubles down on her stance to love her unconditionally. Confronted by the knowledge her husband is trying to find a way to make Chouette as normal as possible, Tiny's love and devotion to her daughter are relentlessly tested.

Narrated by Julia Whelan.

More: Life on the Edge of Adventure and Motherhoodby Majka Burhardt

Majka Burhardt was known for going on rock and ice climbing expeditions with her husband, but her pregnancy caused her to slow down in ways she was unwilling to. Knowing that things will be different from here on out, Majka starts the process of grieving the life she had before entering motherhood.

Although she eventually goes back to work, she constantly feels torn between being there for her twins and what she used to choose without a second thought. Also, she and her husband Peter struggle to find a sense of balance with the addition of children.

It's an honest and raw look at one mother's journey as she works to understand how to navigate being a wife, mom, and working woman. Narrated by Majka Burhardt.

Honey, Baby, Mine by Laura Dern, Diane Lad and Reese Witherspoon

Laura Dern and her mother Diane Ladd peel back the layers of life, love, and more in Honey, Baby, Mine by having honest conversations. Stemming from an illness that plagued Diane's lungs, their conversations were born on the long walks that were meant to help her focus on other things. Daring to approach their conversations with open hearts and cover things that most mothers and daughters stray away from. The more Laura and her mother Diana share, the more their already close bond strengthens.

Honey, Baby, Mine is a recollection of those conversations and memories. Narrated by Laura Dern and Diane Ladd.

Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin

Although Interesting Facts About Space isn't completely about motherhood, it's an excellent listen for moms who want a break from things that talk about everything that comes with it.

Enid has an obsession with anything related to space and can share many facts about it. It's part of what moves her and keeps her going. Unfortunately, other areas of her life are all over the place. She spends most of her time listening to true crime podcasts and swiping right on dating apps that end in fruitless relationships.

Her relationship with her family is shaky at best, but she decides to be more intentional about her interactions with her half-sisters after their dad dies. It's around this time she unintentionally begins an affair and becomes paranoid that someone with violent motives is following her.

She eventually beings to realize that she has to deal with the one person she hasn't been honest with — herself.

Narrated by Natalie Naudus.

Down Came The Rain by Brooke Shields

Down Came The Rain is Brooke Shields' recollection of her postpartum experience and the depression that followed. She didn't expect to feel pure love and intense sadness after having her daughter, but those feelings came anyway. What makes this audiobook special is that Brooke speaks with clarity about how postpartum can be overlooked and implies that she hopes her story will make other moms feel less alone if they're struggling.

Narrated by Brooke Shields.

The Manicurist's Daughter by Susan Lieu

Susan Lieu takes listeners behind the scenes as she works to understand her family and how her future fits into the bigger picture. She talks about their escape from the ongoing Vietnam war in the 1980s and the way her own mother helped them transition successfully in California. Things were going well until Susan's mom unexpectedly died during a cosmetic procedure and the family forbid conversations about her.

It leads Susan down a long path of discovering how far people will go to change themselves and how no justice was brought against the surgeon who had a negative reputation with Vietnamese immigrants. Determined to find answers to her burning questions, Susan does everything she can to uncover secrets about the past. What she finds is unlike anythign she was prepared to discover.

Narrated by Susan Lieu.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Little Fires Everywhere is a chilling look at two mothers who have made choices that directly affect themselves and their children. One one side of the coin, Elena Richardson lives in the picturesque Shaker Heights with her devoted husband and their three children. She's as "by the book" as anyone can be and she relishes in the life it's afforded her.

Then there's the free-spirited Mia Warren who strikes up an uneasy friendship with Elena and even becomes her tenant along with her daughter Pearl. Somehow, Elena's children are charmed by Mia and Pearl, wanting to spend as much time with them in their own ways. It sounds perfect until it's revealed that Mia has a complicated and elusive past that even Pearl isn't 100% aware of.

Things reach a head when Mia learns that Elena's friends are trying to adopt her co-workers daughter that she felt she was unable to care for. This custody battle forces those in close proximity to deal with their internal biases about race and socioeconomic status. As Elena works to bring Mia down, her own carefully coordinated life begins to unravel and it affects her family in irreversible ways.

Narrated by Jennifer Lim.

Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman

Journalist Pamela Druckerman gives birth in Paris and secret wonders how French parents are able to get their children to behave so well. She can't help but notice the glaring difference between children in France compared to the children in America as if someone has drawn an invisible line that separates the two. What she learns over time surprises her like the fact no one tells French mothers who they're supposed to model their lives after in order to be 'successful mothers.'

She learns that the French actually let their children exist as if instead of expecting them to hit every single benchmark that's expected of American children. Coupled with her notebook and curiosity, Pamela begins to investigate what helps French parents rear their children the way they do. She eventually comes to term with her own feelings about raising her child and relinquishes the idea that being a mom or child are supposed to be perfect.

Narrated by Abby Craden.

B+C: Why do you think so many of us are overthinking things, especially in the age of modern social media?

Amanda Montell: I decided to title the book The Age of Magical Overthinking because I couldn't help but notice that there just seems to be an inexplicable, excessive [amount of] delulu in the culture despite the fact we're living in the so-called information age. Everything from people with Master's degrees basing their genuine decisions on astrology to, you know, my neighbors opting not to get the Covid vaccine because a TikToker — a like, white girlie with a Bindi — told them it would downgrade their DNA.

Stuff like that didn't seem to check out for me, especially since we're ostensibly living in a time when you can fact check anything with the click of a button. I was like, 'What is going on here,' and as it turns out, what is going on is this innate clash between our innate decision-making shortcuts — the processes by which we always jump to conclusions in order to make quick decisions to make sense of the world enough to survive it. There's a clash between those age old decision-making methods called cognitive biases and the information age in a way that is ending up pretty explosive for society at large...and is causing us a great deal of existential pain.

So, magical thinking — or the idea that our internal thoughts can affect external events — is a human quirk that has been around since the dawn of our species. But I think overthinking is really a product of the modern age or result of this capitalistic pressure to be right about everything under the sun...

B+C: How do you think this is impacting the way we interact with each other?

Amanda Montell: There's a lot going on. We need to interact in person in order to have empathy...to establish the social glue that keeps us from getting into extremely fraud and sometimes violent ideological conflict. I think there's the idea that the internet is causing ideological rifts to widen and I think in a way that's true, but what's more problematic is the fact we are engaging in social discourse in a medium that prevents that empathy from holding us together.

I think almost everyone can relate to the experience of receiving a curt email from a boss or receiving a salty Instagram comment that sends us into fight or flight. We're responding to non-threats — these sort of abstract disagreements or fake problems — that we're projecting panic onto.

B+C: Can you break down the halo effect for our readers?

Amanda Montell: It was so much fun to explore this particular cognitive bias early in the book because I felt like it really would set up the whole thesis of it quite well. Basically the halo effect is this penchant admire one quality in a person — their fashion sense, their intelligence, the way they blend an oat milk latte — and then assume they must be perfect overall. This halo effect connects to the ways ancient humans used to find role models for survival purposes in our communities.

Ages ago, you used to clock someone in your small village with big muscles...and figure, 'Oh they must be a skilled hunter or they've avoided disfigurement from battle. I would love to align myself with this person for survival,' even though you're jumping to conclusions about them. Their big muscles might not necessarily indicate that they're skilled in battle or they're a good hunter, but it's an efficient enough decision to make.

We're not mapping that conclusion jumping onto modern parasocial relationships. We see a pop star whose music we really connect to and assume they must be educated, worldly, nurturing, they're political beliefs align with ours in this particular time when we're losing so much trust in the government...Basically since the Regan era — our first celebrity President — celebrities have really started swerving into other aspects of life (spiritual, political, etc.,)...

Rapid Fire Q&A

B+C: What are some some of the things you're currently obsessing over?

Amanda Montell: That's so funny you asked that because on this new podcast — The Magical Overthinkers — I also am opening every episode by asking 'What's an irrational thought spiral that's living rent-free in your head?'

I am totally overthinking my book tour outfits right now. Speaking of consumerism as like a distracting or numbing exercise, launching a book is very stressful and the one thing that made me feel some sense of relief is just shopping for cute outfits. I've been buying a lot of plaid skirt suits. The vibe is definitely 90s nostalgic, a little dark academia meets cochette.

B+C: If you were to give yourself five days to unplug from social media, how would you spend your time?

Amanda Montell: Great question. You know what? I'm setting up a week like this for myself in May after the book tour stuff dies down. After my last book Cultish came out, I was unwell in the mind. I felt so exposed and so fragile. I was like, 'I need to send myself on some kind of retreat,' so I sent myself on this little solo excursion to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina and it was so healing...I went and lived in an Airstream for a couple of days. I was doing nature walks and lying in a hammock journaling...

The Age of Magical Overthinking