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It is the end of another month, which means that it’s time for Aardvark to drop book hints! This month they have started off with an audio hint where we must determine the sounds and then figure out the sounds’ connections to possible May books. I went into these hints with a list of a few books I thought may be picks, including You Know What You Did, The Garden, and Colton Gentry’s Third Act.
I will be updating this post every day once new hints have been posted.
Book #1
Hint 1.1: 🎵Bob Ross painting
We know from the hint earlier in the month that You Know What You Did will be one of the books. Since the protagonist is an artist, I think it connects to the Bob Ross clip.
Hint 2.6: I think they were trying to trick us with this one. It looks like it is zoomed in over the ladybug on the cover.
You Know What You Did
K.T. Nguyen
In this heart-pounding debut thriller for fans of Lisa Jewell and Celeste Ng, a first-generation Vietnamese American artist must confront nightmares past and present. . . .
Annie “Anh Le” Shaw grew up poor, but seems to have it all now: a dream career, a stunning home, and a devoted husband and daughter. When Annie’s mother, a Vietnam War refugee, dies suddenly one night, Annie’s carefully curated life begins to unravel. Her obsessive-compulsive disorder, which she thought she’d vanquished years ago, comes roaring back—but this time, the disturbing fixations swirling around in Annie’s brain might actually be coming true.
A prominent art patron disappears, and the investigation zeroes in on Annie. Spiraling with self-doubt, she distances herself from her family and friends, only to wake up in a hotel room—naked, next to a lifeless body. The police have more questions, but with her mind increasingly fractured, Annie doesn’t have answers. All she knows is this: She will do anything to protect her daughter—even if it means losing herself.
With dizzying twists, You Know What You Did is both a harrowing thriller and a heartfelt exploration of the refugee experience, the legacies we leave for our children, and the unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters.
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Publication Date: April 16
Publisher: Dutton
Book #2
Hint 1.2: 🎵Tarot card reading discussing loss, regret, and hope in the future, possibly from Long Island Medium
When I realized this sound bit was a tarot card reading, I instantly thought of Happy Medium since it is one I am looking forward to. However, I think hint 1.6 may be alluding to Happy Medium. If Happy Medium was not the book, my second guess was either See: Loss. See Also: Love. by Yukiko Tominaga or The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez. I also considered Shanghailanders and 888 Love and the Divine Burden of Numbers, but I do not think they fit this hint as well.d
Hint 2.1: It looks like I was completely wrong with my guess for the first hint. Based upon this new hint, it appears the book is Evocation. However, I am a bit skeptical about this still.
Evocation
S.T. Gibson
From The Sunday Times bestselling author of B&N’s best books of 2022 A Dowry of Blood, comes a spellbinding and vibrant new series.
The Devil knows your name, David Aristarkhov.
As a teen, David Aristarkhov was a psychic prodigy, operating under the shadow of his oppressive occultist father. Now, years after his father’s death and rapidly approaching his thirtieth birthday, he is content with the high-powered life he’s curated as a Boston attorney, moonlighting as a powerful medium for his secret society.
But with power comes a price, and the Devil has come to collect on an ancestral deal. David’s days are numbered, and death looms at his door.
Reluctantly, he reaches out to the only person he’s ever trusted, his ex-boyfriend and secret Society rival Rhys, for help. However, the only way to get to Rhys is through his wife, Moira. Thrust into each other’s care, emotions once buried deep resurface, and the trio race to figure out their feelings for one another before the Devil steals David away for good…
Genre: Fantasy; Romantasy
Publication Date: May 28
Publisher: Angry Robot
Book #3
Hint 1.3: 🎵Heartbeat on an ultrasound
The first book that came to mind for me is The Garden. I have kept this book in the back of my mind since I learned about it as it yelled Aardvark to me. My second guess, if it is not The Garden, would be The Mother Act by Heidi Reimer.
Hint 2.5: Originally, I thought this hint belonged to a totally different book. However, after zooming in a bit, this looks like the center of the flower.
The Garden
Claire Beams
The discovery of a secret garden with unknown powers fuels this page-turning and psychologically thrilling tale of women yearning to become mothers and the ways the female body has always been policed and manipulated, from the award-winning author of The Illness Lesson (“A masterpiece” – Elizabeth Gilbert)
In 1948, Irene Willard, who’s had five previous miscarriages in a quest to give her beloved husband the child he desperately desires and is now pregnant again, comes to an isolated house-cum-hospital in the Berkshires, run by a husband-and-wife team of doctors who are pioneering a cure for her condition. Warily, she enlists herself in the efforts of the Doctors Hall to “rectify the maternal environment,” both physical and psychological. In the meantime, she also discovers a long-forgotten walled garden on the spacious grounds, a place imbued with its own powers and pulls. As the doctors’ plans begin to crumble, Irene and her fellow patients make a desperate bid to harness the power of the garden for themselves—and must face the incalculable risks associated with such incalculable rewards.
With shades of Shirley Jackson and Rosemary’s Baby, The Garden delves into the territory of motherhood, childbirth, the mysteries of the female body, and the ways it has always been controlled and corralled.
Genre: Horror
Publication Date: April 9
Publisher: Doubleday
Book #4
Hint 1.4: 🎵Say Yes to the Dress clip for a bride named Kelly
I think this is the most difficult hint from the first set. The sound clip is not very specific and just mentions wedding dress shopping. There are obviously a slew of books that have or mention weddings. Two books that were on my radar are Lovers and Liars by Amanda Eyre Ward and You May Now Kill the Bride. Based upon the other guesses, there are already two thrillers/mysteries and one horror. I think I am going to go with Lovers and Liars unless I find a historical fiction book that fits the hint. I also considered Mistakes Were Never Made by Hannah Brown and Kevin Kwan’s newest.
Hint 2.4: I originally thought this hint may belong to The Garden, but upon closer inspection, this looks like the hat on the far right woman.
Hint 3.4: I am not feeling confident about this hint matching Lovers and Liars, but hint 2.4 so clearly matches this book. Based only on hint 3.4, I thought that maybe The Sleepwalkers is one of the picks.
Lovers and Liars
Amanda Eyre Ward
Three wildly different sisters reunite for a destination wedding at an English castle in this heartfelt and rollicking novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Jetsetters.
Once upon a time, the Peacock sisters were little girls who combed each other’s tangled hair. But decades of secrets have led them to separate lives—and to telling lies, to themselves and to one another.
Sylvie is getting married. Again. A librarian and widow who soothes her grief by escaping into books (and shelving them perfectly), Sylvie has caught the attention of an unlikely match: Simon Rampling, a mysterious, wealthy man from Northern England. Sylvie allows herself to imagine a life beside him—one filled with the written word, kindness, and companionship. She’s ready to love again . . . or is she?
Cleo is the golden child. A successful criminal defense lawyer with the perfect boyfriend, she is immediately suspicious of Simon. Is he really who he says he is? Cleo heads to Mumberton Castle with a case of investigative files, telling herself she will expose Simon and save her sister from more heartbreak . . . but who is she really trying to save?
Emma is living a lie. She can’t afford this fancy trip—and she definitely can’t tell her husband and sons why. She once dreamed of a line of her own perfumes. Fragrances allowed her to speak in silence. Now, that tendency for silence only worsens her situation. Will she emerge with her dignity and family intact?
When their toxic mother shows up, the sisters assume the roles they fell into to survive their childhood . . . but they just might find the courage to make new choices.
Set over a spectacularly dramatic weekend, in the grand halls of a sprawling castle estate—amid floor-to-ceiling libraries, falconry lessons, and medieval meals—Lovers and Liars is the unforgettable story of a family’s ability to forgive and to find joy in one another once again.
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publication Date: May 14
Publisher: Ballantine
Book #5
Hint 1.5: 🎵Beautiful silence
I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. The “sound clip” was silence, and the title is When We Were Silent.
Hint 2.3: By process of elimination, I think I was initially wrong and the book that fits both hints 1.5 and 2.3 is Ghost Station. An abandoned planet would be pretty silent I imagine.
Hint 3.2: I think it is possible that this hint and 3.4 could be swapped.
Ghost Station
S.A. Barnes
An outsider threatens to expose the secrets at an elite private school in this suspenseful debut novel for readers of My Dark Vanessa and Dare Me
Louise Manson is the newest student at Highfield Manor, Dublin’s most exclusive private school. It seems nearly perfect: the high arched window alcoves and tall granite pillars, the overspill of lilac at the front gate and the immaculate playing fields, the giggling students, the dusty, oak-lined library, and the dark, festering secret she has come to expose.
At first, Lou’s working-class status makes her the consummate outsider, though all that changes when she is befriended by the beautiful and wealthy Shauna Power. But Lou finds out that even Shauna is caught up in Highfield’s web, and her time there ends with a lifeless body sprawled at her feet.
Thirty years later, Lou has rebuilt her life after the harrowing events of the so-called “Highfield Affair,” when she gets a shocking phone call. Ronan Power, Shauna’s brother, is a high-profile lawyer bringing a lawsuit against the school. And he needs Lou to testify.
Now with a daughter and career to protect, the last thing Lou wants is for Highfield Manor to be back in her life. But to finally free herself and others, she has to confront her past, go to battle once more, and discover, for once and for all, what really happened at Highfield. Powerful and compelling, When We Were Silent is an unputdownable, thrilling story of exploitation, privilege, and retribution.
Genre: Horror; Sci-Fi
Publication Date: April 9
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Book #6
Hint 1.6: 🎵Goat yoga on The Kardashians or Keeping Up with the Kardashians
I did a search of reviews that include the mention of goat yoga and other than The Long Game by Elena Armas, Happy Medium seems to be the only non-indie book with goat yoga being published in the target time frame. I originally had it as the answer for hint 12, but it looks like I will need to find another book for that hint.
Hint 2.2: This looks like where the fence and grass meet the man’s jeans.
Happy Medium
Sarah Adler
A clever con woman must convince a skeptical, sexy farmer of his property’s resident real-life ghost if she’s to save them all from a fate worse than death, in this delightful new novel from the author of Mrs. Nash’s Ashes.
Fake spirit medium Gretchen Acorn is happy to help when her best (read: wealthiest) client hires her to investigate the unexplained phenomena preventing the sale of her bridge partner’s struggling goat farm. Gretchen may be a fraud, but she’d like to think she’s a beneficentone. So if “cleansing” the property will help a nice old man finally retire and put some much-needed cash in her pockets at the same time, who’s she to say no?
Of course, it turns out said bridge partner isn’t the kindly AARP member Gretchen imagined—Charlie Waybill is young, hot as hell, and extremely unconvinced that Gretchen can communicate with the dead. (Which, fair.) Except, to her surprise, Gretchen finds herself face-to-face with Everett: the very real, very chatty ghost that’s been wreaking havoc during every open house. And he wants her to help ensure Charlie avoids the same family curse that’s had Everett haunting Gilded Creek since the 1920s.
Now, Gretchen has one month to convince Charlie he can’t sell the property. Unfortunately, hard work and honesty seem to be the way to win over the stubborn farmer—not exactly Gretchen’s strengths. But trust isn’t the only thing growing between them, and the risk of losing Charlie to the spirit realm looms over Gretchen almost as annoyingly as Everett himself. To save the goat farm, its friendly phantom, and the man she’s beginning to love, Gretchen will need to pull off the greatest con of her life: being fully, genuinely herself.
Genre: Romance
Publication Date: April 30
Publisher: Berkley
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