Aardvark Book Club is a monthly book subscription box (in both the U.S. & Canada) in which members choose up to 3 hardcover books. In addition to past months’ selections, Aardvark provides 4-5 newly published books to choose from each month. You can also discuss the books with other members in the Aardvark app.
As the end of the month approaches, Aardvark Book Club starts posting hints for their upcoming month’s selection. While the type of hints changes from month-to-month, they remain fun to follow along with. I typically make guesses as to what books they will be in my Instagram stories, but I thought I would also share them here.
I update this post as each new hint becomes available. While I had identified most of these books after hint #2, one of the books (#5) was unclear until hint #4.
Hint #1 caption: IT’S TIME!!! The first Dec ’23 hint is here! Today, we’ve got five 4×4 rooms built using Sims 4 because we were raised on the franchise 🎮. Bella Goth ❤️, Strangetown 🛸, “motherlode” 💵, and the lack of base game pools 😡 – we know it all! For our non-Simmers in the crowd, not to worry – all you need to know for this hint is that these rooms are each filled with objects that allude to a Dec pick 🕵️♀️.
Hint #2: This hint appears to offer coordinates. Are they coordinates of the book’s setting? Or something totally different?
Hint #3: Links led to some Wordles that produced 5 words: Dowry, Barre, Post, Gothic, & Power (in that order).
Book # 1
Hint 1.1: This room looks like an older study/library, perhaps with some gothic vibes. As far as items in the room, there is a map, a woman’s portrait, a painting of mushrooms, and a shield with swords crossed behind it. There is also a topiary, a statute of a man on a pedestal, and a coat rack with one coat. On top of the desk, there appears to be a dog statute, an urn, a tea pot, and a check. In addition, there is a green, round object on the floor; it could be an apple or a ball.
Hint 2.4: St. James Park, London
Hint 3.1: Dowry
Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord seems like it would be a romance… but it is in fact a mystery! Hint 1.1 resembles a Regency-era room that I would spend a lot of my time in avoiding the party; Lady Petra probably is of like mind. I am told that there is a dowry (hint 3.1) in this London (hint 2.4) novel.
Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord
Celeste Connally
Bridgerton meets Agatha Christie in Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord, a dazzling first entry in a captivating new Regency-era mystery series with a feminist spin from Celeste Connally.
London, 1815. Lady Petra Forsyth, daughter of the Earl of Holbrook, has made a shocking proclamation. After losing her beloved fiancé in an accident three years earlier, she announces in front of London’s loosest lips that she will never marry. A woman of independent means―and rather independent ways―Petra sees no reason to cede her wealth and freedom to any man now that the love of her life is gone. Instead, she plans to continue enjoying the best of society without any expectations.
Publication Date: November 14
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Tags: Debut, Historical Romance, Series Debut, Cozy Mystery, & Includes a Dog
Book # 2
Hint 1.2: The room in this hint looks like a garage, complete with a garage door. On the floor, there are several planters with flowers along with a water can and gardening tools. There is also a stack of boxes with some vegetables on top, a chair, and a telescope. On the wall, there is a tool rack with a shovel, spade, hoe, and rake.
Hint 2.1: Madison Square Garden/Penn Station, New York City
Hint 3.5: Power
Yours for the Taking is speculative/climate fiction with strong feminist undertones. I am assuming that The Inside Project requires people not only live inside but grow crops inside as well (hint 1.3). The synopsis states that this project is being built on the bones of Manhattan, and I am guessing that is very close to MSG/Penn Station (hint 2.1). And it says power (hint 3.5) in the synopsis!
Yours for the Taking
Gabrielle Korn
The year is 2050.
Ava and her girlfriend live in what’s left of Brooklyn, and though they love each other, it’s hard to find happiness while the effects of climate change rapidly eclipse their world. Soon, it won’t be safe outside at all. The only people guaranteed survival are the ones whose applications are accepted to The Inside Project, a series of weather-safe, city-sized structures around the world.
At once a mesmerizing story of queer love, betrayal, and chosen family, and an unflinching indictment of white, corporate feminism, Gabrielle Korn’s Yours for the Taking holds a mirror to our own world, in all its beauty and horror.
Publication Date: December 5
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Tags: Sci-fi, LGBTQ+, Early Release, Dystopian
Book # 3
Hint 1.3: This room looks like a café complete with a logo and menu on the wall. There are two tables with chairs. On top of the tables appear to be condiments, napkins, and a plate with a muffin or cupcake. On tope of the island, there appears to be baked goods on several covered plates. The countertop has a chef statue, an espresso machine, a coffee grinder, and tea bags. I cannot tell what is on the counter in the far left corner.
Hint 2.5: Parthenon, Athens, Greece
Hint 3.2: Barre
This book, a follow-up to the Aardvark selection All the Dark Places, follows Esme Foster a former ballerina (hint 3.2) working in a café (hint 1.3). The Parthenon in Athens, Greece (hint 2.5) likely has the wrong name, or a case of mistaken identity, similar to the a plot point in What Waits in the Woods. (Don’t worry, I had to look that up. I had no previous idea.)
What Waits in the Woods
Terri Parlato
Her ballet career derailed by injury, a once promising young dancer returns to her hometown only to face a grisly discovery – and the increasingly alarming realization that nothing from her past is quite what she believed – in this electrifyingly twisty suburban thriller for fans of Stacy Willingham, Greer Hendricks, and Megan Miranda.
When Esmé Foster left the Boston suburbs to become a professional ballerina, the future shimmered with promise. Eleven years later, her career has been derailed by an injury, and Esme knows it’s time to come back to Graybridge to help her brother care for their ailing father. But her return coincides with an unthinkable crime. Kara Cunningham, one of Esme’s high school friends, is found dead in the woods behind the Fosters’ house.
Publication Date: December 26
Publisher: Kensington
Tags: Thriller, Crime, Early Release, & Repeat Author
Book # 4
Hint 1.4: The room appears to be a gym with two treadmills and one weight machine. There is a television and lockers mounted on one wall, and a mirror and shelves with towels and a robe on the other. There is also a massage table and an ottoman. It looks like a towel and some soap or shampoo is on top of the ottoman.
Hint 2.2: Temple of Athena Nike, Athens, Greece
Hint 3.3: Posh
I went back and forth whether this was The Vacation House or The Other Half. For a few hours yesterday, some people convinced me it was The Vacation House. But my gut instinct was correct – it will be The Other Half. Kirkus Reviews tells me that Rupert & Clemmie took a recent trip to Greece (hint 2.2) that is not mentioned in the synopsis.
The Other Half
Charlotte Vassell
Rupert’s 30th birthday party is a black-tie dinner at the Kentish Town McDonald’s—catered with cocaine and expensive champagne. The morning after, his girlfriend Clemmie is found murdered on Hampstead Heath, a single stiletto heel jutting from under a bush.
Who killed Clemmie? Was it the blithe, sociopathic boyfriend? His impossibly wealthy godmother? The gallery owner with whom Clemmie was having an affair? Or was it the result of something else entirely? All the party-goers have alibis. Naturally. This investigation is going to be about aristocrats and Classics degrees, Instagram influencers and whose father knows who.
Publication Date: November 21
Publisher: Anchor
Tags: Eat the Rich, Humor, Debut, Mystery, & Contemporary Fiction
Book # 5
Hint 1.5: This room appears to be a living room or similar space. The first thing that sticks out to me is the fire extinguisher in the corner. Along the same wall, there are shelves lined with glass (alcohol?) bottles, a modern art print, and a table or fireplace. On top of the table/fireplace, there is a bust, a screwdriver or lighter, and candles. In the middle of the room on top of a lush rug, there is a chair, a couch, and a coffee table. Atop of the coffee table appears to be a wine rack, an empty bottle of wine, a gold bar, and a few books. The right wall almost looks like prison bars. In front of the wall is a shelving unit with books and another wine rack.
Hint 2.3: Ojai, California
Hint 3.4: Gothic
The Fiction Writer is set in Malibu, California in which the protagonist, Olivia Fitzgerald, recently wrote a modern retelling of the classic gothic fiction novel Rebecca (hints 3.4 & 4.2). Ojai is not far from Malibu, so I am going to assume it is where Olivia Fitzgerald is from (hint 2.3). The house of Henry Asherwood is fancy smancy, and he plies her with wine (hint 1.5).
The Fiction Writer
Jillian Cantor
From the USA Today-bestselling author of Beautiful Little Fools, Jillian Cantor’s The Fiction Writer follows a writer hired by a handsome billionaire to write about his family history with Daphne du Maurier and finds herself drawn into a tangled web of obsession, marital serets, and stolen manuscripts.
The once-rising literary star Olivia Fitzgerald is down on her luck. Her most recent novel—a retelling of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca—was a flop, her boyfriend of nine years just dumped her and she’s battling a bad case of writer’s block. So when her agent calls her with a high-paying ghostwriting opportunity, Olivia is all too willing to sign the NDA.
At first, the write-for-hire job seems too good to be true. But when Olivia arrives at his Malibu estate, nothing is as it seems. The more Olivia digs into his grandmother’s past, the more questions she has—and before she knows it, she’s trapped in a gothic mystery of her own.
Publication Date: November 28
Publisher: Park Row
Tags: Gothic Fiction, Suspense, & Books about Books
