Happy June 13th Publication Day!

Hey guys! I saw a couple books I was excited for are released today. I thought I’d do a post about some of the books being published today. I did my Waiting on Wednesday post last week for at least one of these books. I didn’t realize how many other books I’ve had my eye on come out today as well. So let’s dive in and see what books I’m excited for!

The Drowning Woman By Robyn Harding

Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Fiction, Suspense, Adult, Adult Fiction
Pages: 336 pages
Publication Date: June 13th 2023
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Plot: Lee Gulliver never thought she’d find herself living on the streets—no one ever does—but when her restaurant fails, and she falls deeper into debt, she leaves her old life behind with nothing but her clothes and her Toyota Corolla. In Seattle, she parks in a secluded spot by the beach to lay low and plan her next move—until early one morning, she sees a sobbing woman throw herself into the ocean. Lee hauls the woman back to the surface, but instead of appreciation, she is met with fury. The drowning woman, Hazel, tells her that she wanted to die, that she’s trapped in a toxic, abusive marriage, that she’s a prisoner in her own home. Lee has thwarted her one chance to escape her life.

Out of options, Hazel retreats to her gilded cage, and Lee thinks she’s seen the last of her, until her unexpected return the next morning. Bonded by disparate but difficult circumstances, the women soon strike up a close and unlikely friendship. And then one day, Hazel makes a shocking request: she wants Lee to help her disappear. It’ll be easy, Hazel assures her, but Lee soon learns that nothing is as it seems, and that Hazel may not be the friend Lee thought she was.

Murdle: Volume 1 By G.T. Karber

Genre: Mystery, Humor
Pages: 384 pages
Publication Date: June 13th 2023
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Plot: G. T. Karber, the creator of the popular online daily mystery game Murdle, presents the first collection of 100 original murder mystery logic puzzles―a perfect gift for armchair detectives and puzzlers to hone their minds and solve a series of crimes.

Who committed the ghastly deed?
What weapon was used to dispatch the victim?
Where did the calculated demise occur?

Join Deductive Logico and investigate murders most foul in Volume 1 . The first of their kind, these humorous mini-mystery puzzles challenge you to find whodunit, how, where, and why. Examine the clues, interview the witnesses, and use the power of deduction to complete the grid and catch the culprit. Together, you’ll uncover a buried secret beneath all of the murders and a message that can only be decrypted when you’ve solved them all.

Packed with illustrations, codes, and maps, and brimming with wit and intrigue , Volume 1 is the must-have detective casebook for the secret sleuth in everyone.

What Remains By Wendy Walker

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Suspense, Fiction, Adult, Crime, Psychological Thriller
Pages: 350 pages
Publication Date: June 13th 2023
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Plot: She saved his life. Now he‘ll never let her go.

Detective Elise Sutton is drawn to cold cases. Each crime is a puzzle to solve, pulled from the past. Elise looks for cracks in the surface and has become an expert on how murderers slip up and give themselves away. She has dedicated her life to creating a sense of order, at work with her ex-marine partner; at home with her husband and two young daughters; and within, battling her own demons. Elise has everything under control, until one afternoon, when she walks into a department store and is forced to make a terrible choice: to save one life, she will have to take another.

Elise is hailed as a hero, but she doesn’t feel like one. Steeped in guilt, and on a leave of absence from work, she’s numb, even to her husband and daughters, until she connects with Wade Austin, the tall man whose life she saved. But Elise soon realizes that he isn’t who he says he is. In fact, Wade Austin isn’t even his real name. The tall man is a ghost, one who will set off a terrifying game of cat and mouse, threatening Elise and the people she loves most.

Going Bicoastal By Dahlia Adler

Genre: Romance, LGBT, Young Adult, Contemporary, Fiction, Contemporary Romance
Pages: 336 pages
Publication Date: June 13th 2023
Publisher: Wednesday Books

Plot: A queer Sliding Doors YA rom-com in which a girl must choose between summer in NYC with her dad (and the girl she’s always wanted) or LA with her estranged mom (and the guy she never saw coming).

In Dahlia Adler’s Going Bicoastal, there’s more than one path to happily ever after.

Natalya Fox has twenty-four hours to make the biggest choice of her life: stay home in NYC for the summer with her dad (and finally screw up the courage to talk to the girl she’s been crushing on), or spend it with her basically estranged mom in LA (knowing this is the best chance she has to fix their relationship, if she even wants to.) (Does she want to?)

How’s a girl supposed to choose?

She can’t, and so both summers play out in alternating timelines – one in which Natalya explores the city, tries to repair things with her mom, works on figuring out her future, and goes for the girl she’s always wanted. And one in which Natalya explores the city, tries to repair things with her mom, works on figuring out her future, and goes for the guy she never saw coming.

The Puzzle Master By Danielle Trussoni

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction, Adult, Suspense, Literary Fiction, Puzzles
Pages: 384 pages
Publication Date: June 13th 2023
Publisher: Random House

Plot: All the world is a puzzle, and Mike Brink—a celebrated and ingenious puzzle constructor—understands its patterns like no one else. Once a promising Midwestern football star, Brink was transformed by a traumatic brain injury that caused a rare medical condition: acquired savant syndrome. The injury left him with a mental superpower—he can solve puzzles in ways ordinary people can’t. But it also left him deeply isolated, unable to fully connect with other people.

Everything changes after Brink meets Jess Price, a woman serving thirty years in prison for murder who hasn’t spoken a word since her arrest five years before. When Price draws a perplexing puzzle, her psychiatrist believes it will explain her crime and calls Brink to solve it. What begins as a desire to crack an alluring cipher quickly morphs into an obsession with Price herself. She soon reveals that there is something more urgent, and more dangerous, behind her silence, thrusting Brink into a hunt for the truth.

The quest takes Brink through a series of interlocking enigmas, but the heart of the mystery is the God Puzzle, a cryptic ancient prayer circle created by the thirteenth-century Jewish mystic Abraham Abulafia. As Brink navigates a maze of clues, and his emotional entanglement with Price becomes more intense, he realizes that there are powerful forces at work that he cannot escape.

Ranging from an upstate New York women’s prison to nineteenth-century Prague to the secret rooms of the Pierpont Morgan Library, The Puzzle Master is a tantalizing, addictive thriller in which humankind, technology, and the future of the universe itself are at stake.

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I’m so excited for these books! I’m currently finishing up The Puzzle Master and loving it. It’s such a well thought out well researched thriller. There is so much depth to this book. I found out last night it’s going to be a series. Book 2, The Puzzle Box sounds incredible. I did preorder The Drowning Woman so I can’t wait to pick that up. I preordered it because you get a free short story that’s a prequel short story for the book. Also, What Remains is on Libro.fm for June Influencers ALCS. I think I’ll be picking that one. There are a lot of interesting book picks so it’s been a tough choice. Can’t wait to pick these all up!

Have you read any of these early? Will you be picking any of these books up? I would love to hear your thoughts?

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