The 4 New Releases I Absolutely Need to Read

New release posts have to be among my favorite types of posts to write. And I’m sure you all can tell based on the fact that this is the third iteration of this post I’ve done so far this year.

But here I am, yet again, writing a new release post because a lot of books have been coming out recently. Without further ado, let’s get into the list of some more new releases I absolutely need to read.

1) Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Release date: September 28, 2021

This book sounds so interesting, but I simply cannot take the title seriously because of The Lego Movie (“I am Princess Unikitty and I welcome you to Cloud Cuckoo Land!”) Anyone else watch that movie and that specific scene 2731534271932 times in 2014? No? Okay. Anyway…

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

“Thirteen-year-old Anna, an orphan, lives inside the formidable walls of Constantinople in a house of women who make their living embroidering the robes of priests. Restless, insatiably curious, Anna learns to read, and in this ancient city, famous for its libraries, she finds a book, the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to a utopian paradise in the sky. This she reads to her ailing sister as the walls of the only place she has known are bombarded in the great siege of Constantinople. Outside the walls is Omeir, a village boy, miles from home, conscripted with his beloved oxen into the invading army. His path and Anna’s will cross.

Five hundred years later, in a library in Idaho, octogenarian Zeno, who learned Greek as a prisoner of war, rehearses five children in a play adaptation of Aethon’s story, preserved against all odds through centuries. Tucked among the library shelves is a bomb, planted by a troubled, idealistic teenager, Seymour. This is another siege. And in a not-so-distant future, on the interstellar ship Argos, Konstance is alone in a vault, copying on scraps of sacking the story of Aethon, told to her by her father. She has never set foot on our planet.“

Why it’s on my TBR:

You can’t read that synopsis and tell me this book doesn’t sound fascinating. I mean, it’s three stories, past, present, and future, all rolled into one, and it sounds like a VERY ambitious hodge-podge of historical fiction, fantasy and sci fi. Intriguing, very intriguing.

2) I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys

Release date: February 2022

My favorite historical fiction author, coming out with a NEW BOOK about some more history I never heard of? It’s almost too good to be true. I am SO excited to read this when it comes out in February!

I binge-read all four of Ruta Sepetys’s books in summer 2020 because I couldn’t get enough of them, and I cannot WAIT for this. I’ve also been seeing such good reviews for it.

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

“Romania, 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams of becoming a writer, but Romanians aren’t free to dream; they are bound by rules and force.

Amidst the tyrannical dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu in a country governed by 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 dictator in Eastern Europe.

Cristian risks everything to unmask the truth behind the regime, give voice to fellow Romanians, and expose to the world what is happening in his country. He eagerly joins the revolution to fight for change when the time arrives. But what is the cost of freedom?”

Why it’s on my TBR:

I absolutely love how Ruta Sepetys’ books focus on “hidden history”– the kinds of swept-under-the-rug events you rarely learn about in school, and I can never get enough of the almost documentary-like style of her writing. The books are just so good and I cannot wait until this one comes out!

3) You’ll Be The Death of Me by Karen M. McManus

Release date: November 30, 2021

Yes! Karen McManus, the queen of addictive and clever guilty-pleasure YA thrillers, is coming out with a new book in November!

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

“Ivy, Mateo, and Cal used to be close. Now all they have in common is Carlton High and the beginning of a very bad day.

Type A Ivy lost a student council election to the class clown, and now she has to face the school, humiliated. Heartthrob Mateo is burned out–he’s been working two jobs since his family’s business failed. And outsider Cal just got stood up . . . again.

So when Cal pulls into campus late for class and runs into Ivy and Mateo, it seems like the perfect opportunity to turn a bad day around. They’ll ditch and go into the city. Just the three of them, like old times. Except they’ve barely left the parking lot before they run out of things to say . . .

. . . until they spot another Carlton High student skipping school–and follow him to the scene of his own murder. In one chance move, their day turns from dull to deadly. And it’s about to get worse.

It turns out Ivy, Mateo, and Cal still have some things in common. They all have a connection to the dead kid. And they’re all hiding something.

Now they’re all wondering–could it be that their chance reconnection wasn’t by chance after all?”

Why it’s on my TBR:

No one can pass up a good thriller. Everyone should have one day where they just pick any entertaining, fluffy, twisted, clever, thriller and read it all day– preferably with some tea and sitting by a window on a stormy, ominous day in November. An international holiday.

4) The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield

Release date: October 12, 2021

Fun fact: I didn’t realize this book existed until I saw my friend add it on Goodreads, and let me say… I’m so excited.

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

“1973: a final, top-secret mission to the Moon. Three astronauts in a tiny spaceship, a quarter million miles from home. A quarter million miles from help.

NASA is about to launch Apollo 18. While the mission has been billed as a scientific one, flight controller Kazimieras “Kaz” Zemeckis knows there is a darker objective. Intelligence has discovered a secret Soviet space station spying on America, and Apollo 18 may be the only chance to stop it.

But even as Kaz races to keep the NASA crew one step ahead of their Russian rivals, a deadly accident reveals that not everyone involved is quite who they were thought to be. With political stakes stretched to the breaking point, the White House and the Kremlin can only watch as their astronauts collide on the lunar surface, far beyond the reach of law or rescue.

Full of the fascinating technical detail that fans of The Martian loved, and reminiscent of the thrilling claustrophobia, twists, and tension of The Hunt for Red October, The Apollo Murders is a high-stakes thriller unlike any other. Chris Hadfield captures the fierce G-forces of launch, the frozen loneliness of space, and the fear of holding on to the outside of a spacecraft orbiting the Earth at 17,000 miles per hour as only someone who has experienced all of these things in real life can.

Strap in and count down for the ride of a lifetime.“

Why it’s on my TBR:

This book sounds right up my alley, first of all. I am super interested in the Apollo program and I loved Chris Hadfield’s nonfiction book An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, which I read in July. Andy Weir (one of my favorite authors) supplied one of the praise blurbs, and it’s a historical space thriller written by a guy who’s ACTUALLY BEEN to space. What more could a girl want?

Well, that’s it for the new releases I’m going to talk about in today’s post. Are you excited for any of these? Have you already read any of them? Let me know in the comments!

(Don’t forget to check out these other very-cool-if-I-do-say-so-myself new release posts for more book recs!

• 8 YA New Releases That Went Straight on my TBR
• 6 New Releases I Can’t Wait To Read | 2021 TBR)

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