Yesterday, Book of the Month posted two February book hints in the app. This month the hints are in the form of “love”. I thought they were pretty quick to solve, particularly if you have knowledge of February 2024 releases. However, one of them could be more than one books. It is difficult to be 100% sure.
Hints
Your February Crush: Any ideas on what books we’re flirting with?
Book 1
A few books came to mind when I saw this first book hint: Bride, Island Witch, and The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson. I think the best way to tell is to do a little magic with the image.
The font looks the most similar to Island Witch; however, the coloring blends the best into The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson. At the same time, the font is not drastically different from The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson. Until they add additional hints/clues, I think this is the most likely answer.
This book just came onto my radar and now seems like the best fit. It looks like BOTM may be getting into the dark romance & romantasy game.
Book 2
The first book that comes to mind is Ready or Not. The other book that has a cover that could match these colors would be Expiration Dates, which is a mid-March release. It would not be unheard of for it be an early release. To ensure that Ready or Not is the best guess, I again did some image magic.
Although the font of the hint is closer to Expiration Dates, the pink on the book’s cover does not touch the blue or green. In fact, I can almost figure out exactly where the clue came from on the cover of Ready or Not. After a closer look, it appears that the clue’s font is somewhat similar to the non-title text on the cover.
Book 3
My first thought upon seeing this hint was Northern Lights or headlights! The coloring/image is that it looks like it comes from something circular (see below). But the font is really difficult to pin point. I looked and looked and looked and did not find an identical font on any covers.
After identifying the circular nature of the image, I went a little crazy comparing it to a ton of titles that I thought it may fit. The coloring is also unusual. I came up with three or four solid possibilities. Like all of the images above, I put the clue on top of the covers. As you can see, the coloring is very close to the four possibilities below. (The fourth and fifth options I did not include a picture of are The Butcher of the Forest and Hard by a Great Forest.) However, I am leaning to the correct title being one of the three below: Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead (the curve of the flower stems seem like a good bet), Island Witch (it matches Hint #1’s font), or The Mayor of Maxwell Street (not sure where exactly on the cover the hint is from).
My Guesses
While I was looking for a book that fit the image portion of Hint #3, I came up with a theory. What if the font indicates one book and the image a separate one? For example, the font of Hint #1 could match/indicate Bride or Island Witch while the coloring/image of Hint #1 could match/indicate a second book like The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson. If this is true, then Hint #2 could allude to Ready or Not (coloring/image) and a second book (font). Actually, the font in Hint #2 almost exactly matches the font used for the title of The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson. I was not able to find hint #3’s font. I could see the image/coloring from Hint #3 coming from the cover of another (see above). But it could also be that the font is simply there to throw us off, and the image is actually the clue. So I selected the book that I think is the most likely match for the image.
Both of these guesses are also among my predictions for February. The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson is compared to several past BOTM selections and blurbed by past BOTM authors. Ready or Not is also blurbed by several past BOTM authors, including Abby Jimenez.
Heartless Hunter
Kristen Ciccarelli
Enemies-to-lovers doesn’t get more high stakes than a witch and a witch hunter falling in love in bestselling author Kristen Ciccarelli’s latest romantic fantasy
On the night Rune’s life changed forever, blood ran in the streets. Now, in the aftermath of a devastating revolution, witches have been diminished from powerful rulers to outcasts ruthlessly hunted due to their waning magic, and Rune must hide what she is.
Spending her days pretending to be nothing more than a vapid young socialite, Rune spends her nights as the Crimson Moth, a witch vigilante who rescues her kind from being purged. When a rescue goes wrong, she decides to throw the witch hunters off her scent and gain the intel she desperately needs by courting the handsome Gideon Sharpe – a notorious and unforgiving witch hunter loyal to the revolution – who she can’t help but find herself falling for.
Gideon loathes the decadence and superficiality Rune represents, but when he learns the Crimson Moth has been using Rune’s merchant ships to smuggle renegade witches out of the republic, he inserts himself into her social circles by pretending to court her right back. He soon realizes that beneath her beauty and shallow façade, is someone fiercely intelligent and tender who feels like his perfect match. Except, what if she’s the very villain he’s been hunting?
Kristen Ciccarelli’s Heartless Hunter is the thrilling start to The Crimson Moth duology, a romantic fantasy series where the only thing more treacherous than being a witch…is falling in love.
Genre: Young Adult/Dark Romantasy
Pub Date: February 20, 2024
Ready or Not
Cara Bastone
Eve Hatch lives for surprises! Just kidding. She expects every tomorrow to be pretty much the same as today. She loves her cozy apartment in Brooklyn that’s close to her childhood best friend Willa, and far from her midwestern, traditional family who has never really understood her. While her job is only dream-adjacent, it’s comfortable and steady. She always knows what to expect from her life . . . until she finds herself expecting after an uncharacteristic one-night stand.
The unplanned pregnancy cracks open all the relationships in her life. Eve’s loyal friendship with Willa is feeling tense, right when she needs her the most. And it’s actually Willa’s steadfast older brother, Shep, who steps up to help Eve. He has always been friendly, but now he’s checking in, ordering her surprise lunches, listening to all her complaints, and is . . . suddenly kinda hot? Then, as if she needs one more complication, there’s the baby’s father, who is (technically) supportive but (majorly) conflicted.
Up until this point, Eve’s been content to coast through life. Now, though—maybe it’s the hormones, maybe it’s the way Shep’s shoulders look in a T-shirt—Eve starts to wonder if she has been secretly desiring more from every aspect of her life.
Over the course of nine months, as Eve struggles to figure out the next right step in her expanding reality, she begins to realize that family and love, in all forms, can sneak up on you when you least expect it.
Genre: Romance
Pub Date: February 13, 2024
Everyone Who Can Forgive Me is Dead
Avery Cunningham
When a rich Black debutante enlists the help of a low-level speakeasy manager to identify the head of an underground crime syndicate, the two are thrust into the dangerous world of Prohibition-era Chicago.
The year is 1921, and America is burning. A fire of vice and virtue rages on every shore, and Chicago is its beating heart.
Nelly Sawyer is the daughter of the “wealthiest Negro in America,” whose affluence catapulted his family to the heights of Black society. After the unexpected death of her only brother, Nelly becomes the premier debutante overnight. But Nelly has aspirations beyond society influence and marriage. For the past year, she has worked undercover as an investigative journalist, sharing the achievements and tribulations of everyday Black people living in the shadow of Jim Crow. Her latest assignment thrusts her into the den of a dangerous vice lord: the so-called Mayor of Maxwell Street.
Born in rural Alabama to a murdered biracial couple, Jay Shorey knows firsthand what it means to be denied a chance at the American dream. When a tragic turn of fate gave Jay a rare path out, he took it without question. He washed up on Chicago’s storied shores and forged his own way to the top of the city’s underworld, running Chicago’s swankiest speakeasy, where the rich and famous rub elbows with gangsters and politicians alike.
When Nelly’s and Jay’s paths cross, she recruits him to help expose the Mayor and bring about lasting change in a corrupt city. But Jay also introduces a whole new world to Nelly, one where her horizons can extend beyond the confines of her ivory tower. Trapped between the monolith of Jim Crow, the inflexible world of the Black upper class, and the violence of Prohibition-era Chicago, Jay and Nelly work together and stoke the flames of a love worth fighting for.
Debut author Avery Cunningham’s stunning novel is at once an epic love story, a riveting historical drama, and a brilliant exploration of Black society and perseverance when the ‘20s first began to roar.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pub Date: January 30, 2024
