Warm your way through Winter with this season’s hottest reads. Fireplaces, rugs, hot cocoa, and your grandmother’s hand-knitted jumpers, you get it, winter warmers, and what better way to warm up than pairing the above with the latest book release from Bloomsbury.
There’s nothing quite like a good book to keep you going through the colder months, especially if you are in hibernation mode, a good read is the ultimate friend to keep you company when the weather is way too cold to venture outdoors.
It doesn’t get more perfect than staying in with a hot cuppa and indulging in a book club-recommended read, that invites you into a world of fantasy or romance, you know it’s going to be good.
This winter, let us help you through the colder months with some of the best new books the legends over at Bloomsbury have on offer.
Bookclub Winners
Oprah has a knack for picking a winner. And this season it’s all about the girl. Whether you are hankering for an edgy modern take on love or the raw vulnerability of an inspired true scandal, Bloomsbury has got just what you need.
Lisa Taddeo – Ghost Lover
Lisa Taddeo, the #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of Three Women brings us an eye-popping and stunning collection of stories in Ghost Lover. Refreshingly honest – albeit a little brutal – Taddeo explores sexuality with vivid intimacy, striving for the truth to the point that it becomes quite painful, choosing to face head-on the complexities of modern-day love, and sex.
Taddeo invites you into a world that looks and smells a lot like yours, but doesn’t do much sugar coating, it’s edgier, and more brutally honest than you would ever dare to be. It would be too simple to say it’s a vicarious read because Taddeo hits too close to home for the story to feel like it’s happening to someone else.
From the CEO who surrounds herself with an army of cool and beautiful girls who manage the dating service Ghost Lover to a star-studded political fundraiser in a LA mansion, where a trio of women vie to win the heart of the guest of honour, Taddeo shines a bright light on fever, obsession, the blindness of love, and grief brilliantly.
LISA TADDEO
GHOST LOVER
Leila Mottley – Nightcrawling
Kiara and her brother are barely making ends meet in a dingy complex in East Oakland. Both have dreams, but both have had to drop out of high school to find jobs to survive. One night, a conversation changes everything. Kiara’s life gets turned upside down when a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger leads her to a new job ‘nightcrawling’. Just when Kiara thought things couldn’t get any harder, she becomes the key witness in a scandal within the Oakland PD. Mottley’s stunning debut novel shines a visceral light on the issues that have been left too long in the dark.
Nightcrawling is officially Oprah Winfreys 96 OBC pick. “It always brings me joy to help introduce new writers to the reading community, and this young poet wowed me with her ode and elegy to Oakland, and her acute and insightful depictions of youth, injustice, the legacy of incarceration, and the resilience of community and chosen family. Nightcrawling is a soul-searching portrait of survival and hope.” Oprah Winfrey.
LEILA MOTTLEY
NIGHTCRAWLING
Bingeable Romance
Lose yourself in the seductive combination of magic, fantasy and pleasure that make for an enthralling and unforgettable read.
Sarah J. Maas – The House of Earth and Blood
A stunning modern fantasy set in a divided world where in order to seek revenge, you must first uncover the truth. Half-Fae, half-human Bryce Quinlan is enjoying all of life’s pleasures that Cresent City’s nightclubs have to offer. Until one fateful night, a brutal murder changes her world forever. Fast forward to two years later, and Bryce is trying to forget about the night that made her world crumble down around her when in the depths of trying to forget, the murderer attacks again.
Fallen angel, Hunt Athalar, is assigned to the case, and to watch Bryce’s every move. Together they fight to unravel the mystery, in a city where their own dark pasts lead them to Hel, where things that have been sleeping are beginning to rise again. Sarah J. Maas delves into heartache, loss, the cost of freedom – and the liberating power of love.
Think Game of Thrones meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a drizzle of E.L. James – Telegraph
SARAH J. MAAS
HOUSE OF EARTH AND BLOOD
Sarah J. Maas – A Court of Thorns and Roses
The first compelling and seductive book in the best-selling series and TikTok sensation will have you hooked. When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, she couldn’t have predicted the high price she would have to pay for its death. Dragged away from her family for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor Tamlin is not truly the beast she thought he was, but is one of the immortal faeries who once ruled her world. As Feyre’s feelings for Tamlin turn from hostility to passion, she learns that danger is at every turn and that she must break an ancient curse to prevent her from losing Tamlin forever. A breathtaking romance, adventure, and faerie lore rolled into one unforgettable read.
‘With bits of Buffy, Game Of Thrones and Outlander, this is a glorious series of total joy’ STYLIST
SARAH J. MAAS
A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES
Spellbinding Fantasy
Ancient times and ancient stories of yesteryear spellbind in their dark and brooding re-tellings. From a fantastical journey that follows ‘the talents’ a group of orphaned children that will change the world as they know it, to a gripping reimagining of the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion. Fantasy has never had it so good.
J. M. Miro – Ordinary Monsters
A dark and captivating historical fantasy series, by J. M Miro. From the gaslit streets of London to the lochs of Scotland where the realms of the dead and the living collide, we are introduced to the world of the Talents. Set in the dark and terrible times of the Victorian era, Ordinary Monsters tells the story of two foundlings. Charlie Ovid, whose body can heal itself, whether he wants it to or not, and orphan Marlowe, who has a bluish glow emanating from his body and can melt or mend flesh at a whim. Together, with other gifted children (The Talents) they gather together to discover the truth about their abilities and the chilling nature of the force that is stalking them.
J.M.MIRO
ORDINARY MONSTERS
Madeline Miller– Galatea
A bold and captivating reimagining of the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion. Galatea is an enchanting short story that boldly reimagines the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion. Set in Ancient Greece, a skilled marble sculptor has been blessed by a goddess who has given his most prized masterpiece – the most beautiful woman the town has ever seen – the gift of life. Now his wife, the sculptor expects Galatea to please and obey him. But she has desires of her own and yearns for freedom. In a desperate attempt to keep her at his side, Pygmalion locks Galatea away under the constant watch of doctors and nurses. But with a daughter to rescue, she is determined to break free, whatever the cost.
‘A novel to be gobbled greedily in one sitting’ Observer
MADELINE MILLER
GALATEA
Bloomsbury Change Your Life Titles
Upskill with a little help from Johann Hari and Baek Sehee. Self teaching is an arms reach away with superb insightful thoughts and teachings from two of the best minds in 2022.
Johann Hari – Stolen focus
Stolen focus, or why can’t you pay attention?
International bestselling author Johann Hari went on a three-year journey to search for why we have lost our ability to focus? What are the causes? And, most importantly, how do we get it back? For these very answers. Interviewing the leading experts in attention, he learned that everything that he thought he knew on the topic, was wrong. When we lose out track of thought and are unable to spend no more than a minute at any given time on one thing, unable to give the moment wholly and fully of ourselves. Johann’s journey led him to discover that there are twelve deep cases of this crisis, from the decline of mind-wandering to rising pollution, all of which rob our attention. From Silicon Valley dissidents to a favela in Rio where attention vanished, to an office in New Zealand that found a remarkable way to restore our attention. Hari shares how he has learned– as individuals, and as a society – we can get our focus back if we are determined to fight for it.
‘This book is exactly what the world needs right now . . . Worth your time and certainly worth your focus” Oprah Winfrey
JOHANN HARI
STOLEN FOCUS
Baek Sehee, translated by Anton Hur – I want to die but I want to eat Tteokbokki
Sehee is young, and successful, by all appearances she is more than proficient at performing everyday tasks that her lifestyle demands. But Sehee finds it exhausting and finds herself regularly falling prey to anxiety, which keeps her from forming meaningful bonds with the people in her life. Sehee recorded the dialogue between herself and her psychiatrist over a 12-week period, to help her to get out from under the web of anxiety, knee-jerk reactions, and bad habits that keep her feeling depressed, and discovers that she can always summon a desire for her favourite street food, the hot, spicy rice cake, Tteokbokki? Illuminating and poignant, Sehee offers up global wisdom to help you to pick yourself up when you are feeling low.
Part memoir, part self-help book, I want to die but I want to eat Tteokbokki is a keep by your bedside table kind of book to help you through the dark days.
