In a Badger Way (The Honey Badger Chronicles #2) cover image

March 2019 Must Haves

BP Note: March, quite aside from being my birthday month, has really turned into one of my favorite book release months. While Patricia Briggs, usually a staple on this list had to delay her upcoming book by a couple of months, we still have several regulars and a slew of newer members on this month’s list to keep us reading. Browse away let us know who else we should be haunting the book or cyber shelves for! Happy reading ~ E

Contemporary Romance

Down & Dirty (Men of Haven #6) cover imageDown & Dirty (Men of Haven #6) by Rhenna Morgan – 11 Mar 19 (Carina Press)

A powerful man

Axel McKee abandoned his musical career years ago in favor of becoming a power player on the music scene. His dreams of the spotlight are over—and he’s better off for it. Working with his Haven brothers and building their empire is enough for him.

One who commanded attention with nothing more than a look

And then came Lizzy. A dynamic, beautiful powerhouse of a performer unlike any he’s seen or heard before. Her presence leaps off stage and into the heart of anyone who watches her sing. Axel wants her. Wants to help her and collaborate with her… But more than anything, he wants to be with her.

And every ounce of his attention was locked on her

Two things are immediately obvious: Lizzy’s been burned before, and earning her trust will be Axel’s biggest challenge yet. If he can get this fierce, stubborn, talented woman to see the passion and care that he’s offering, he might get a chance at a new dream—sharing the spotlight with the woman he loves.

Writing Her In (Plot Twist #1) cover imageWriting Her In (Plot Twist #1) by Holley Trent – 11 Mar 19 (Carina Press)

There’s room in a heart for more than one kind of love.

Dara and Adrien Valliere are soul mates and best friends…but they’re not lovers. Their marriage may be unconventional, but it’s satisfying and loving, and they’ve never needed anything or anyone else.

Until they met writer Stacia Leonard.

Stacia built a career on maintaining close ties with her fictional characters while keeping everyone else at arm’s length. She avoids intimacy, apart from a few one-night stands when the loneliness and need become too much. But when Adrien Valliere, her cover model and long-distance friend, invites her for drinks, she’s too fascinated to refuse.

Dara recognizes the physical attraction between her husband and Stacia and sees it for what it is: an opportunity to help Adrien get what he needs. Dara can breathe easy knowing that both she and her husband are happy.

Before long, though, it’s clear that Stacia’s connection isn’t just with Adrien… She and Dara have something special, and it’s something neither of them can—or want to—deny.

Shammed cover imageShammed by Bernadette Franklin – 12 Mar 19 (Pen & Page Publishing)

At R.K. Legal & Associates, office hours are between ten to six, pranks happen after hours, and evidence of all shenanigans are removed before doors open to clients.

When Alice’s boss, Mr. Kenton, starts a prank war with Lance McCarthy, an up-and-coming attorney from a rival firm, she thinks it’s just business as usual.

She’s never been so wrong in her life.

Chosen to be Mr. Kenton’s accomplice, Alice must face off against Lance in what quickly becomes a winner-takes-all game of hearts.

Slow Ride (Road to Love #2) cover imageSlow Ride (Road to Love #2) by Lori Foster – 12 Mar 19 (HQN)

You can’t put the brakes on love…

Ronnie Ashford needs a distraction. In the morning, she has to offer arrogant, conventional Jack Crews a job and convince him not to take it. She doesn’t need anyone’s help, thank you very much. But tonight is all about the tall, sexy stranger who just walked in the bar—and all the delicious trouble they could get into together. Too bad just as things are heating up between them, he whispers the three little words that destroy everything: “I’m Jack Crews.”

Jack is determined to connect with fiery Ronnie—in bed and out of it—but her terms are clear. If he takes the job, helping her acquire prized artifacts for her mysterious bosses, anything between them is strictly off-limits. Somehow he has to convince a woman who’s never felt like she belonged that she’s found her place—with him. And with the danger sparking hotter than the fire between them, it’s going to be one unforgettable trip…

Epic Fantasy

Mahimata (Asiana #2) cover imageMahimata (Asiana #2) by Rati Mehrotra – 5 Mar 19 (Harper Voyager)

A young female assassin must confront the man who slaughtered her family, risk her heart, and come to terms with her identity as a warrior and as a woman in this thrilling fantasy from the author of Markswoman.

Kyra has returned to the caves of Kali, but her homecoming is bittersweet. Her beloved teacher is dead and her best friend Nineth is missing. And gone, too, is Rustan, the Marksman who helped her train for the duel with Tamsyn–and became far more than a teacher and friend.

Shaken by his feelings for Kyra and the truth about his parentage, Rustan has set off on a quest for answers. His odyssey leads him to the descendants of an ancient sect tied to the alien Ones–and the realization that the answers he seeks come with a price.

Yet fate has plans to bring Kyra and Rustan together again. Kai Tau, the man who slaughtered Kyra’s family, wages war on the Orders of Asiana. Hungering for justice, Kyra readies herself for battle, aided by her new companions: the wyr-wolves, who are so much more than what they seem. And determined to keep the woman he loves safe, Rustan joins the fight to ride by her side.

But will this final confrontation ultimately cost them their love…and their lives?

The Women's War (Women's War #1) cover imageThe Women’s War (Women’s War #1) by Jenna Glass – 5 Mar 19 (Del Ray)

In a high fantasy feminist epic, a revolutionary spell gives women the ability to control their own fertility—with consequences that rock their patriarchal society to its core.

When a nobleman’s first duty is to produce a male heir, women are treated like possessions and bargaining chips. But as the aftereffects of a world-altering spell ripple out physically and culturally, women at last have a bargaining chip of their own. And two women in particular find themselves at the crossroads of change.

Alys is the widowed mother of two teenage children, and the disinherited daughter of a king. Her existence has been carefully proscribed, but now she discovers a fierce talent not only for politics but also for magic—once deemed solely the domain of men. Meanwhile, in a neighboring kingdom, young Ellin finds herself unexpectedly on the throne after the sudden death of her grandfather the king and everyone else who stood ahead of her in the line of succession. Conventional wisdom holds that she will marry quickly, then quietly surrender the throne to her new husband…. Only, Ellin has other ideas.

The tensions building in the two kingdoms grow abruptly worse when a caravan of exiled women and their escort of disgraced soldiers stumbles upon a new source of magic in what was once uninhabitable desert. This new and revolutionary magic—which only women can wield—threatens to tear down what is left of the patriarchy. And the men who currently hold power will do anything to fight back.

The True Queen (Sorcerer Royal #2) cover imageThe True Queen (Sorcerer Royal #2) by Zen Cho – 12 Mar 19 (Ace)

In the follow-up to the “delightful” Regency fantasy novel (NPR.org) Sorcerer to the Crown, a young woman with no memories of her past finds herself embroiled in dangerous politics in England and the land of the fae.

When sisters Muna and Sakti wake up on the peaceful beach of the island of Janda Baik, they can’t remember anything, except that they are bound as only sisters can be. They have been cursed by an unknown enchanter, and slowly Sakti starts to fade away. The only hope of saving her is to go to distant Britain, where the Sorceress Royal has established an academy to train women in magic.

If Muna is to save her sister, she must learn to navigate high society, and trick the English magicians into believing she is a magical prodigy. As she’s drawn into their intrigues, she must uncover the secrets of her past, and journey into a world with more magic than she had ever dreamed.

Historical Fantasy

The Bird King cover imageThe Bird King by G. Willow Wilson – 12 Mar 19 (Grove Press)

Set in 1491 during the reign of the last sultanate in the Iberian peninsula, The Bird King is the story of Fatima, the only remaining Circassian concubine to the sultan, and her dearest friend Hassan, the palace mapmaker.

Hassan has a secret–he can draw maps of places he’s never seen and bend the shape of reality. When representatives of the newly formed Spanish monarchy arrive to negotiate the sultan’s surrender, Fatima befriends one of the women, not realizing that she will see Hassan’s gift as sorcery and a threat to Christian Spanish rule. With their freedoms at stake, what will Fatima risk to save Hassan and escape the palace walls?

As Fatima and Hassan traverse Spain with the help of a clever jinn to find safety, The Bird King asks us to consider what love is and the price of freedom at a time when the West and the Muslim world were not yet separate.

Historical Mystery

The American Agent (Maisie Dobbs #15) cover imageThe American Agent (Maisie Dobbs #15) by Jacqueline Winspear – 26 Mar 19 (Harper)

When Catherine Saxon, an American correspondent reporting on the war in Europe, is found murdered in her London digs, news of her death is concealed by British authorities. Serving as a linchpin between Scotland Yard and the Secret Service, Robert MacFarlane pays a visit to Maisie Dobbs, seeking her help. He is accompanied by an agent from the US Department of Justice—Mark Scott, the American who helped Maisie escape Hitler’s Munich in 1938. MacFarlane asks Maisie to work with Scott to uncover the truth about Saxon’s death.

As the Germans unleash the full terror of their blitzkrieg upon the British Isles, raining death and destruction from the skies, Maisie must balance the demands of solving this dangerous case with her need to protect Anna, the young evacuee she has grown to love and wants to adopt. Entangled in an investigation linked to the power of wartime propaganda and American political intrigue being played out in Britain, Maisie will face losing her dearest friend—and the possibility that she might be falling in love again.

Historical Romance

Lady Derring Takes a Lover cover imageLady Derring Takes a Lover by Julia Anne Long – 6 Mar 19 (Avon)

Delilah Swanpool, Countess of Derring, learns the hard way that her husband, “Dear Dull Derring,” is a lot more interesting—and perfidious—dead than alive. It’s a devil of an inheritance, but in the grand ruins of the one building Derring left her, are the seeds of her liberation. And she vows never again to place herself at the mercy of a man.

But battle-hardened Captain Tristan Hardy is nothing if not merciless. When the charismatic naval hero tracks a notorious smuggler to a London boarding house known as the Rogue’s Palace, seducing the beautiful, blue-blooded proprietress to get his man seems like a small sacrifice.

They both believe love is a myth. But a desire beyond reason threatens to destroy the armor around their hearts. Now a shattering decision looms: Will Tristan betray his own code of honor…or choose a love that might be the truest thing he’s ever known?

Paranormal Romance

Devil and the Dancer (Elemental Legacy #2.5) cover imageThe Devil and the Dancer (Elemental Legacy #2.5) by Elizabeth Hunter – 19 Mar 19 (Recurve Press LLC)

Sometimes falling is the safest step to take.

Chloe Reardon has a problem, and his name is Gavin Wallace.

Okay, Gavin isn’t exactly a problem, unless you consider a highly attractive wind vampire with dubious intentions a problem. Especially if that vampire is your boss. With an affinity for kilts and excellent taste in music.

But none of that matters because Chloe Reardon has had enough of dangerous men. Danger is overrated. Danger is the opposite of sexy. So Gavin is the last man—or vampire—on earth she needs to let into her heart.

Except what if the most dangerous man you knew was also the one who made you feel the strongest?

The Devil and the Dancer is a paranormal romance novella in the Elemental Legacy series.

In a Badger Way (The Honey Badger Chronicles #2) cover imageIn a Badger Way (The Honey Badger Chronicles #2) by Shelly Laurenston – 26 Mar 19 (Kensington)

Petite, kind, brilliant, and young, Stevie is nothing like the usual women bodyguard Shen Li is interested in. Even more surprising, the youngest of the lethal, ball-busting, and beautiful MacKilligan sisters is terrified of bears. But she’s not terrified of pandas. She loves pandas.

Which means that whether Shen wants her to or not, she simply won’t stop cuddling him. He isn’t some stuffed Giant Panda, ya know! He is a Giant Panda shifter. He deserves respect and personal space. Something that little hybrid is completely ignoring.

But Stevie has a way of finding trouble. Like going undercover to take down a scientist experimenting on other shifters. For what, Shen doesn’t want to know, but they’d better find out. And fast. Stevie might be the least violent of the honey badger sisters, but she’s the most dangerous to Shen’s peace of mind. Because she has absolutely no idea how much trouble they’re in . . . or just how damn adorable she is.

Death and Divination (Accidental Witches #3) cover imageDeath and Divination (Accidental Witches #3) by Debra Dunbar – 28 Mar 19 (Self)

Ophelia Perkins faces death’s reapers every day—she never thought she’d fall in love with one of them.

As an oracle, Ophelia divines the future—and sometimes there is no future for the people she fights to keep alive in her job as a paramedic. Those countless lives she’s saved never seem to outweigh the devastation of losing a patient.

One night, one patient she can’t bear to lose, and Ophelia makes a deal with a reaper—save this life, and in return she’ll trade him her own. With the deal struck, Ophelia walks each day with a reaper by her side and waits for the scythe to fall, only to find out this reaper is more than just an agent of death, he’s the man she wants as her happily ever after.

Post Apocalyptic Fantasy

Bound Magic (Faerene Apocalypse #2) cover imageBound Magic (Faerene Apocalypse #2) by Jenny Schwartz – 28 Mar 19 (Self)

Six billion people are dead. More are dying. The Faerene Apocalypse isn’t over, but the seeds for a new beginning have to be planted, now.

The future of Earth is that of a planet of many sentients: of the invading, magical Faerene and mundane, traumatized humanity.

But a few, exceedingly rare humans do have magic. Amy Carlton is one of them. Forced to bond with the black griffin, Magistrate Istvan, and act as his familiar, she doesn’t understand the magic she possesses. Nor does she understand the Faerene society she is thrown into.

She’ll have to learn fast because the cost of Amy’s ignorance couldn’t be higher. Death stalks an apocalypse, and the lives lost could be those of people she loves.

Science Fiction

Radicalized cover imageRadicalized by Cory Doctorow – 19 Mar 19 (Tor Books)

n Cory Doctorow’s new novella, corporations provide welfare: but only if you use their DRM’d devices: toasters that won’t toast third-party bread, dishwashers that won’t wash third-party dishes.

It all started with Salima. Fresh out of a refugee detention centre in Arizona, she’s housed in the exclusive Dorchester Towers. For the first time in months, she has her own bedroom, a bathtub she can lie down in if she squinches her legs and tucks her chin.

But it’s a tower block divided into ‘us’ and ‘them’: elevators with a poor-door and a rich-person door. Even the pettiest amenity is spitefully denied to subsidy tenants like Salima – then one day Salima’s Boulangism toaster won’t accept her overpriced Boulangism-approved bread. So she hacks into the toaster – with its USB ports and Ethernet jacks – to reprogramme and toast unauthorised bread. If she can hack a toaster, then maybe she can hack an elevator.

Now it’s a tower block that has decided to fight back…

The Chaos Function cover imageThe Chaos Function by Jack Skillingstead – 19 Mar 19 (John Joseph Adams/HMH)

Olivia Nikitas, a hardened journalist whose specialty is war zones, has been reporting from the front lines of the civil war in Aleppo, Syria. When Brian, an aid worker she reluctantly fell in love with, dies while following her into danger, she’ll do anything to bring him back. In a makeshift death chamber beneath an ancient, sacred site, a strange technology is revealed to Olivia: the power to remake the future by changing the past.

Following her heart and not her head, Olivia brings Brian back, accidentally shifting the world to the brink of nuclear and biological disaster. Now she must stay steps ahead of the guardians of this technology, who will kill her to reclaim it, in order to save not just herself and her love, but the whole world.

Science Fiction Romance

Hell Squad: Griff by Anna Hackett – 19 Mar 19 (Self)

Urban Fantasy

Jacked Cat Jive (Kai Gracen #3) cover imageJacked Cat Jive (Kai Gracen #3) by Rhys Ford – 5 Mar 19 (Dreamspinner)

Stalker Kai Gracen knew his human upbringing would eventually clash with his elfin heritage, but not so soon. Between Ryder, a pain-in-his-neck Sidhe Lord coaxing him to join San Diego’s Southern Rise Court, and picking up bounties for SoCalGov, he has more than enough to deal with. With his loyalties divided between the humans who raised him and the Sidhe Lord he’s befriended and sworn to protect, Kai finds himself standing at a crossroads.

When a friend begs Kai to rescue a small group of elfin refugees fleeing the Dusk Court, he’s pulled into a dangerous mission with Ryder through San Diego’s understreets and the wilderness beyond. Things go from bad to downright treacherous when Kerrick, Ryder’s cousin, insists on joining them, staking a claim on Southern Rise and Kai.

Burdened by his painful past, Kai must stand with Ryder against Kerrick while facing down the very Court he fears and loathes. Dying while on a run is expected for a Stalker, but Kai wonders if embracing his elfin blood also means losing his heart, soul, and humanity along the way.

Wild Country (World of The Others #2) cover imageWild Country (World of The Others #2) by Anne Bishop – 5 Mar 19 (Ace)

There are ghost towns in the world—places where the humans were annihilated in retaliation for the slaughter of the shape-shifting Others.

One of those places is Bennett, a town at the northern end of the Elder Hills—a town surrounded by the wild country. Now efforts are being made to resettle Bennett as a community where humans and Others live and work together. A young female police officer has been hired as the deputy to a Wolfgard sheriff. A deadly type of Other wants to run a human-style saloon. And a couple with four foster children—one of whom is a blood prophet—hope to find acceptance.

But as they reopen the stores and the professional offices and start to make lives for themselves, the town of Bennett attracts the attention of other humans looking for profit. And the arrival of the Blackstone Clan, outlaws and gamblers all, will uncover secrets…or bury them.

All Souls Near & Nigh (Soulbound #2) cover imageAll Souls Near & Nigh (Soulbound #2) by Hailey Turner – 19 Mar 19 (Self)

You can’t bargain with death if you’ve already sold your soul.

Special Agent Patrick Collins has been reassigned by the Supernatural Operations Agency to New York City. Navigating his new relationship with Jonothon de Vere, the werewolf he’s now soulbound to, is nothing compared to dealing with territorial disputes between the vampires and werecreatures who call the five boroughs home. But the delicate treaties that have kept the preternatural world in check are fraying at the edges, and the fallout is spilling into the mundane world.

Manhattan’s club scene is overrun with the vampire drug known as shine and the subways have become a dumping ground for bodies. When the dead are revealed as missing werecreatures, Patrick and Jono find themselves entangled in pack politics twisted by vampire machinations.

Learning to trust each other comes with problems for both of them, and the gods with a stake in Patrick’s soul debt aren’t finished with him yet. Bound by promises they can’t break, Patrick and Jono must find a way to survive a threat that takes no prisoners and is stalking them relentlessly through the city streets.

Old and new betrayals are coming home to roost but the truth—buried in blood—is more poisonous than the lies being spun. Trying to outrun death is a nightmare—one Patrick may never wake up from.

Young Adult Fantasy

From Breath and Ruin (Elements of Five #1) cover imageFrom Breath and Ruin (Elements of Five #1) by Carrie Ann Ryan – 19 Mar 19 (Self)

In her YA debut, New York Times bestselling author Carrie Ann Ryan dives into a world with magic and sacrifice with the Elements of Five.

Five hundred years ago, the Maison Realm was shattered, divided into warring kingdoms of elemental Wielders with fate and truth shadowed and uncertain. Now, factions of both the light and dark venture into the human realm in search of the prophesied Spirit Priestess who is said to Wield the Elements of Five to bring the two fractured kingdoms together.

Lyric has no idea that there’s a realm outside the human one she lives in. When fate and circumstances are pulled from her hands after an accident, she finds out that nothing is as it seems.
War is raging around her, and when Lyric realizes that they are searching for her, she must rely on those she once trusted as she trains: a boy who isn’t who she thought, and a new realm of warriors who have come to protect her.

For the darkness is coming, and the Queen of Obscurité wants to ensure that the King of Lumière can’t get his hands on Lyric. And the only way to ensure that is if Lyric herself is no more…no matter the cost to prophecy.

The monthly Must Have list is a compilation of the upcoming release titles that we, The Book Pushers, just can’t wait to get our hands on. Don’t see a title you’re excited about listed here? Add it to the comments section below. Let us know what you’re looking forward to!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.