Waiting on Wednesday: The Blue by Lucy Clarke

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine, and is a weekly spotlight on upcoming releases.

I discovered Lucy Clarke last year, and absolutely fell in love. Both of her books were favourite reads for me in 2014. I also passed them along to my mom and sister-in-law, who both really enjoyed them as well.

I reviewed A Single Breath here and Swimming at Night here. I absolutely loved both and can not rave about them enough.

Clarke has definitely become an auto-buy author for me, and I cannot wait for her next book, The Blue. Her covers are always beautiful, too.

Goodreads synopsis: In the tradition of Alex Garland's The Beach, a spine-tingling adventure novel about a group of friends whose journey around the world on a yacht turns from a trip to paradise into a chilling nightmare when one of them disappears at sea.

Lana and her best friend Kitty leave home looking for freedom and that's exactly what they find when they are invited onto The Blue, a fifty-foot yacht making its way from the Philippines to New Zealand. Manned by a young crew of wanderers, The Blue is exactly the escape they are looking for and the two quickly fall under The Blue's spell spending their days exploring remote islands, and their rum-filled nights relaxing on deck beneath the stars.

Yet paradise found can just as quickly become lost. Lana and Kitty begin to discover that they aren't the only ones with secrets they'd rather run from than reveal. And when one of their new friends disappears overboard after an argument with the other crew members, the dark secrets that brought each of them aboard start to unravel.

Yes, please! This sounds like more of a thriller than her previous two novels, but that is absolutely okay with me. It looks like it's set to release August 4th, and I am already counting down the days (103)!

Waiting on Wednesday: Where They Found Her

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is a weekly event that spotlights upcoming book releases.

I read Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight in December of 2013, and I still think about it from time to time. McCreight's upcoming release, Where They Found Her is due out April 14th, 2015 from HarperCollins.

Love this cover!

From Goodreads, "An idyllic suburban town. A devastating discovery. Shocking revelations that will change three lives forever.

At the end of a long winter in well-to-do Ridgedale, New Jersey, the body of a newborn is found in the woods fringing the campus of the town's prestigious university. No one knows the identity of the baby, what ended her very short life, or how she wound up among the fallen leaves. But among the residents of Ridgedale, there is no shortage of opinions.

When freelance journalist, and recent Ridgedale transplant, Molly Anderson is unexpectedly called upon to cover the disturbing news for the Ridgedale Reader—the town's local paper—she has good reason to hesitate. A severe depression followed the loss of her own baby, and this assignment could unearth memories she has tried so hard to bury. But the history Molly uncovers is not her own. Her investigation unravels a decades-old trail of dark secrets hiding behind Ridgedale's white picket fences.

Told from the perspectives of three Ridgedale women, Kimberly McCreight's taut and profoundly moving novel unwinds the tangled truth behind the tragedy, revealing that these women have far more in common than they could have ever known. That the very worst crimes are committed against those we love. And that—sooner or later—the past catches up to all of us."

Also, check out this awesome book trailer from HarperBooks YouTube channel:

How can you NOT want to read that?! Come on, April!

Waiting on Wednesday: Leaving Time

My Waiting on Wednesday is Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult. Jodi Picoult has been one of my favourite authors for years, and when asked who my favourite authors are, she is always first.. She is an auto-buy, and I push her books on everyone I know. Even if they didn't ask for a recommendation. My first Picoult book was My Sisters Keeper (well before the movie came out), and then I quickly devoured The Pact, Nineteen Minutes, and every other book I could get my hands on. I have even made my mom read a lot of her books, and she has loved them all, too.

Her newest, Leaving Time, comes out October 14th, and you have no idea how excited I am for this book! To keep you excited and wanting more, Picoult has released two short stories involving Leaving Time characters. Where There's Smoke and Larger Than Life are both available now as e-books.

From Goodreads:

For more than a decade, Jenna Metcalf has never stopped thinking about her mother, Alice, who mysteriously disappeared in the wake of a tragic accident. Refusing to believe that she would be abandoned as a young child, Jenna searches for her mother regularly online and pores over the pages of Alice’s old journals. A scientist who studied grief among elephants, Alice wrote mostly of her research among the animals she loved, yet Jenna hopes the entries will provide a clue to her mother’s whereabouts.

Desperate to find the truth, Jenna enlists two unlikely allies in her quest. The first is Serenity Jones, a psychic who rose to fame finding missing persons—only to later doubt her gifts. The second is Virgil Stanhope, a jaded private detective who originally investigated Alice’s case along with the strange, possibly linked death of one of her colleagues. As the three work together to uncover what happened to Alice, they realize that in asking hard questions, they’ll have to face even harder answers.

As Jenna’s memories dovetail with the events in her mother’s journals, the story races to a mesmerizing finish. A deeply moving, gripping, and intelligent page-turner, Leaving Time is Jodi Picoult at the height of her powers.

Sounds so intriguing, right?! Are you a Jodi Picoult fan?