Can't Wait Wednesday: The Volcano Daughters / A Fatal Feast at Bramsford Manor / The Last Witch in Edinburgh / The Girl Who Knew Too Much

The New

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly feature hosted by the marvelous Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight upcoming release we are excited about that we have yet to read.

Here are three upcoming releases that caught my attention and immediately ended up on my wish list. I am looking forward to reading all of them! 

The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera
Release Date: 08/20/2024 by Pantheon

A saucy, searingly original debut about two sisters raised in the shadow of El Salvador’s brutal dictator, El Gran Pendejo, and their flight from genocide, which takes them from Hollywood to Paris to cannery row, each followed by a chorus of furies, the ghosts of their murdered friends, who aren’t yet done telling their stories.

El Salvador, 1923. Graciela grows up on a volcano in a community of indigenous women indentured to coffee plantations owned by the country’s wealthiest, until a messenger from the Capital comes to claim at nine years old she’s been chosen to be an oracle for a rising dictator—a sinister, violent man wedded to the occult. She’ll help foresee the future of the country.

In the Capital she meets Consuelo, the sister she’s never known, stolen away from their home before Graciela was born. The two are a small fortress within the dictator’s regime, but they’re no match for El Gran Pendejo’s cruelty. Years pass and terror rises as the economy flatlines, and Graciela comes to understand the horrific vision that she’s unwittingly helped shape just as genocide strikes the community that raised her. She and Consuelo barely escape, each believing the other to be dead. They run, crossing the globe, reinventing their lives, and ultimately reconnecting at the least likely moment.

Endlessly surprising, vividly imaginative, bursting with lush life, The Volcano Daughters charts, through the stories of these sisters and the ghosts they carry with them, a new history and mythology of El Salvador, fiercely bringing forth voices that have been calling out for generations. [Goodreads Summary]

A Fatal Feast at Bramsford Manor (#1) by Darci Hannah
Release Date: 08/20/2024 by Kensington Cozies

While filming at a haunted English manor, chef Bunny MacBride’s big break on her first reality TV show may be cut short by an unscripted murder in Darci Hannah’s new Food & Spirits cozy mystery series . . . 

It isn’t how chef Bridget “Bunny” MacBride imagined her own cooking show unfolding. But, if preparing historic meals with a modern flair is what it takes to get her cooking on the air, she can deliver, even if her dinner guest is a ghost. That’s the premise of the new reality TV show Food & Spirits, where Chef Bunny teams up with ghost hunter Brett Bloom and psychic medium Giff McGrady to visit haunted locales around the world and tempt lingering spirits back to the table with a beloved meal. 

For their first episode, the Food & Spirits team sets off to investigate Bramsford Manor, a historic house turned famously haunted hotel, in picturesque Hampshire, England. The sprawling estate is said to be home to the Mistletoe Bride, a young woman who died in the 18th century, the victim of a tragic accident on her Christmas wedding night. Disliking spooks but loving food, Bunny leaves the spectral search to the pros and focuses on the feast, creating a traditional English holiday wedding dinner, complete with a gorgeous prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, and rustic apple tarts. It’s a sumptuous meal she hopes will entice the ghostly Mistletoe Bride to take a seat and join them while the cameras roll. But Bunny’s task is made more difficult when someone steals a boning knife from her custom kit. Alas, when the blade finally turns up again—in the chest of an all-too-human dinner guest—Bunny’s woes only grow as she is named a lead suspect in the case! Now, with a haunted house full of living residents, staff, and crew, Bunny will need the help of Brett, Giff, and her clairvoyant Grandma Mac, to solve this murder before the manor gains another ghost! [Goodreads Summary]

The Last Witch in Edinburgh by Marielle Thompson
Release Date: 08/20/2024 by Kensington

This lush, atmospheric novel blends witchcraft, queer love, a vibrant Edinburgh setting, and Scottish folklore for a propulsive and emotional story exploring what it means to resist the patriarchy and find your voice.

In an alternate Edinburgh of 1824, every woman lives in fear that she will be the next one hanged for witchcraft. All it takes is invoking the anger, or the desire, of the wrong person. Nellie Duncan, beautiful and unwed, keeps to herself until she encounters the Rae Women’s Apothecary. There, fiery Jean Rae and the other women provide cures and teach others that they too can aid the winter deity, the Cailleach, embracing her characteristic independence, agency, and craft, in turn becoming witches themselves.

Nellie finds a place and a purpose at the shop, and a blossoming romance with Jean, as she learns about nature-based craft and a witch’s ability to return to life after death. But the Cailleach has an ancient enemy intent on stripping the power of the deity and all her witches, leaving a wake of patriarchal violence and destruction.

When heart-breaking disaster strikes, Nellie flees and spends the next two centuries hiding from the world—until love gives her the courage and the motivation to come back. Nellie’s past is waiting for her there, and hanging witches is no longer the only means of oppression. But this time, Nellie refuses to run—either from her foes, or from her resolve to awaken others to the unimaginable power that can come with fighting the patriarchy in its many forms—and finding one’s own magical inner-strength. [Goodreads Summary]

Do any of these books interest you? What upcoming releases are you looking forward to reading?

The Old(er) 

Carole of Carole's Random Life in Books has given me the perfect excuse to spotlight those unread books on my TBR in her Books from the Backlog feature, reminding me what great books I have waiting for me under my own roof still to read!

These past few months I have been featuring books on the losing end of my TBR List Poll, all books which are on my TBR shelves. This one was one of the options in my August 2017 poll that I have not managed to get to yet.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much (Burning Cove #1) by Amanda Quick (2017)

Amanda Quick, the bestselling author of ’Til Death Do Us Part, transports readers to 1930s California, where glamour and seduction spawn a multitude of sins…

When Hollywood moguls and stars want privacy, they head to an idyllic small town on the coast, where the exclusive Burning Cove Hotel caters to their every need. It’s where reporter Irene Glasson finds herself staring down at a beautiful actress at the bottom of a pool…

The dead woman had a red-hot secret about up-and-coming leading man Nick Tremayne, a scoop that Irene couldn’t resist—especially since she’s just a rookie at a third-rate gossip rag. But now Irene’s investigation into the drowning threatens to tear down the wall of illusion that is so deftly built around the famous actor, and there are powerful men willing to do anything to protect their investment.

Seeking the truth, Irene finds herself drawn to a master of deception. Oliver Ward was once a world-famous magician—until he was mysteriously injured during his last performance. Now the owner of the Burning Cove Hotel, he can’t let scandal threaten his livelihood, even if it means trusting Irene, a woman who seems to have appeared in Los Angeles out of nowhere four months ago…

With Oliver’s help, Irene soon learns that the glamorous paradise of Burning Cove hides dark and dangerous secrets. And that the past—always just out of sight—could drag them both under… [Goodreads Summary]

Have you read The Girl Who Knew Too Much?  Does this book sound like something you would like to read? 

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