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. You can use the promo code READBETWEENTHESPINES to get your first book for $4.
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.
The first set of March hints show that there will be 6 Aardvark selections again this month! I usually wait until the second hint is out to post my guesses. However, I prepared this month by creating a bit of a predictions list, which I was super happy I did once I saw the first set of hints. It was definitely easier to start with a location and look at a Google Earth view than to just browse a map.
The third set of hints are challenging and vague. I consulted some others, and it seems more than one could fit a book or none at all. For example, hint 3.6 could fit The Warm Hands of Ghosts or Wandering Stars. We know for a fact that Bride will be one of the picks, but I do not feel like any of today’s hints fit it particularly well. Then again, multiple hints look like the fit it. One thing I know for sure is that I will not be able to declare a book as a pick with any confidence based upon these hints.
I will be updating this post every day once new hints have been posted.
Hint #1 caption: 🔎 Bit of backstory with this one: this hint is our reattempt at a geography clue after the *interesting* December hint that stumped so many 😅 Athens anyone?! 🏺
Geogussr pros might have an advantage with this one #geographynerds unite! 🗺💪
Hint #2 caption: This time, the clues are quotes we would add to the beginning of our March picks… Pro tip: Look at both the quotes & paintings for thematic clues 💡
The painting is The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1767). I wish this was a reference to the book The Painter’s Daughters.
Museum buffs might have an advantage with this one #artnerds unite! 🖼💪
Hint #3 caption: 3 Truth & 1 Lie. Otherwise known as a default icebreaker game for summer camps and new jobs. 🧊🤛 1 clue on each of the following slides is designed to lead you astray … but which one? 🤯
Book # 1
Hint 1.1: This is a city on the water. This picture is actually oriented correctly and shows Halifax Harbor in Nova Scotia, Canada. The “X” is actually over the water right outside the Halifax Shipyard.
I know off hand that the The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden takes place in Halifax. I saw someone say The Catch by Amy Lea may also be the book, but the synopsis says “a rural fishing village on the east coast of Canada.” Since Halifax is the largest city in Nova Scotia, I think we can rule that one out. Until I can find another book that takes place in Halifax, I will guess The Warm Hands of Ghosts.
Hint 2.2: Vanitas Still Life with Flowers and Skull by Adriaen van Utrecht (1642) – This painting hints at the finality and fragility of life while eschewing excess vanity and materialism, which is very much inline with The Warm Hands of Ghosts storyline. Relevant themes: inevitability of death & decay (Memento mori painting), hell on earth.
Hint 3.4: The twin dancers are the lie.
The Warm Hands of Ghosts
Katherine Arden
During the Great War, a combat nurse searches for her brother, believed dead in the trenches despite eerie signs that suggest otherwise, in this hauntingly beautiful historical novel with a speculative twist, from the author of The Bear and the Nightingale.
January 1918. Laura Iven was a revered field nurse until she was wounded and discharged from the medical corps, leaving behind a brother still fighting in Flanders. Now home in Halifax, Canada, Laura receives word of Freddie’s death in combat, along with his personal effects—but something doesn’t make sense. Determined to uncover the truth, Laura returns to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital, where she soon hears whispers about haunted trenches and a strange hotelier whose wine gives soldiers the gift of oblivion. Could Freddie have escaped the battlefield, only to fall prey to something—or someone—else?
November 1917. Freddie Iven awakens after an explosion to find himself trapped in an overturned pillbox with a wounded enemy soldier, a German by the name of Hans Winter. Against all odds, the two form an alliance and succeed in clawing their way out. Unable to bear the thought of returning to the killing fields, especially on opposite sides, they take refuge with a mysterious man who seems to have the power to make the hellscape of the trenches disappear.
As shells rain down on Flanders and ghosts move among those yet living, Laura’s and Freddie’s deepest traumas are reawakened. Now they must decide whether their world is worth salvaging—or better left behind entirely.
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Publication Date: February 13
Publisher: Del Rey
Tags: Historical Fiction, Magical Realism, Fantasy
Book # 2
Hint 1.2: To my unknowing eye, this book like a forest or jungle, possibly with mountains. After some trial and error, I identified these as the Carpathian Mountains and this area as Romania. The “X” is over Baraolt, Romania, which is in Eastern Transylvania.
Initially, I thought it could be The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft. Who am I to say if in medieval times Poland did not extend in this direction? However, the synopsis notes that it is on the border with Belarus. The other potential option is The Morningside by Téa Obreht since the main characters have fled their Southeastern European homeland. Thirst also involves a vampire from Europe. I also think Bride could be the Romania clue if Aardvark is trying to throw a curve ball.
Hint 2.3: The Kiss (Il bacio) by Francesco Hayez (1859) – Hayez was asked to depict the hopes associated with the alliance between France and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The girl leans backwards, while the man bends his left leg so as to support her, simultaneously placing a foot on the step next to him as though poised to go at any moment. The couple, though at the center of the painting, are not recognizable, as Hayez wanted the action of the kissing to be at the center of the composition. In the left part of the canvas shadowy forms lurk in the corner to give an impression of conspiracy and danger. Relevant themes: burning passion, love or lust at first sight, Twilight.
This background seems very in line with Bride’s synopsis. And then, there is the Twilight quote
Hint 3.3: The rocket is the lie.
Bride
Ali Hazelwood
A dangerous alliance between a Vampyre bride and an Alpha Werewolf becomes a love deep enough to sink your teeth into in this new paranormal romance from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love, Theoretically and The Love Hypothesis.
Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is an outcast—again. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over: she has been called upon to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and she sees little choice but to surrender herself in the exchange—again…
Weres are ruthless and unpredictable, and their Alpha, Lowe Moreland, is no exception. He rules his pack with absolute authority, but not without justice. And, unlike the Vampyre Council, not without feeling. It’s clear from the way he tracks Misery’s every movement that he doesn’t trust her. If only he knew how right he was….
Because Misery has her own reasons to agree to this marriage of convenience, reasons that have nothing to do with politics or alliances, and everything to do with the only thing she’s ever cared about. And she is willing to do whatever it takes to get back what’s hers, even if it means a life alone in Were territory…alone with the wolf.
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publication Date: February 6
Publisher: Berkley
Tags: Romantasy, Includes a dog
Book # 3
Hint 1.3: A city with a very brown river through it. The first place that comes to mind it London. There is a pretty distinctive building or railyard in the picture. (Again, the image is not right-side up. The “X” is on the South Bank of the River Thames.) The “X” is right next to UCL’s Waterloo campus library and above the Blackfriars Bridge. I have actually been to the Tate Modern which is to the west of the bridge in the above image.
I know a lot of people are hoping Piglet by Lottie Hazell will be a choice this month. I already have a copy on hand and looked through it. The protagonist’s job at Fork House (a publishing house she works at) is located near the Waterloo Bridge, just like the “X”. I am not ruling out that more hints could change this to say The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder.
Hint 2.1: The Reluctant Bride (La Fiancée Hésitante) by Auguste Toulmouche (1866) Without knowing anything more than the title of this painting, I think it suggests Piglet. Relevant themes: Mixed feelings about wedding, never feeling full or satisfied.
Hint 3.5: The stethoscope is a lie.
Piglet
Lottie Hazell
An elegant, razor-sharp debut about women’s ambitions and appetites–and the truth about having it all.
Outside of a childhood nickname she can’t shake, Piglet’s rather pleased with how her life’s turned out. An up-and-coming cookbook editor at a London publishing house, she’s got lovely, loyal friends and a handsome fiancé, Kit, whose rarefied family she actually, most of the time, likes, despite their upper-class eccentricities. One of the many, many things Kit loves about Piglet is the delicious, unfathomably elaborate meals she’s always cooking.
But when Kit confesses a horrible betrayal two weeks before they’re set to be married, Piglet finds herself suddenly…hungry. The couple decides to move forward with the wedding as planned, but as it nears and Piglet balances family expectations, pressure at work, and her quest to make the perfect cake, she finds herself increasingly unsettled, behaving in ways even she can’t explain. Torn between a life she’s always wanted and the ravenousness that comes with not getting what she knows she deserves, Piglet is, by the day of her wedding, undone, but also ready to look beyond the lies we sometimes tell ourselves to get by.
A stylish, uncommonly clever novel about the things we want and the things we think we want, Piglet is both an examination of women’s often complicated relationship with food and a celebration of the messes life sometimes makes for us.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Date: February 27
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.
Tags: Debut, Literary Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
Book # 4
Hint 1.4: That is a very distinctive looking island along the coast. It looks like there may be an airport on the right hand end. Desert-y at the foot of mountains, so California? I browsed up and down the California coast on Google Earth and identified that strangely shaped island as Alameda, CA. (The picture has been rotated). The “X” is right outside the Oakland Coliseum.
I considered A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda, but it takes place in Pacific Hills, which is in Mission Viejo, California. A Fire So Wild takes place in Berkley. There is a powwow in Wandering Stars that is set in Oakland. Until tomorrow when a second set of hints drop, I will be looking for books that are set in Oakland. Until then, I think Wandering Stars is a solid guess.
Hint 2.6: Among the Sierra Nevada, California by Albert Bierstadt (1868). There is a line in the book spoken by Lony, “Everyone only thinks we’re from the past, but then we’re here, but they don’t know we’re still here.” Relevant themes: The past is still alive and its repercussions can be felt today, paintings of the “idealized American West”.
Hint 3.6: The snowflake is the lie.
Wandering Stars
Tommy Orange
The Pulitzer Prize-finalist and author of the breakout bestseller There There delivers a masterful follow-up to his already classic first novel. Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family in a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous.
Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.
In a novel that is by turns shattering and wondrous, Tommy Orange has conjured the ancestors of the family readers first fell in love with in There There—warriors, drunks, outlaws, addicts—asking what it means to bethe children and grandchildren of massacre. Wandering Stars is a novel about epigenetic and generational trauma that has the force and vision of a modern epic, an exceptionally powerful new book from one of the most exciting writers at work today and soaring confirmation of Tommy Orange’s monumental gifts.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Date: February 27
Publisher: Knopf
Tags: Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Coming-of-Age
Book # 5
Hint 1.5: It is difficult to tell how far this is zoomed in and out, and therefore, tough to guess where it may be. But it does look like a desert-like city, which makes me think it could be Los Angeles. When I looked at a mapped that showed LA neighborhoods, it looks like the “X” is situated over Hollywood specifically.
I had an entire list of possibilities that I liked for a novel set in Hollywood. We know from hints earlier this month that Bride will be a choice. Apparently, at least a segment of Bride takes place in Hollywood and mentions stealing the “L” from the Hollywood sign.
Hint 2.4: The Raft of the Medusa (originally titled Scène de Naufrage) by Théodore Géricault (1818-9) – In its insistence on portraying an unpleasant truth, the painting depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Méduse, the moment when, after 13 days adrift on the raft, the remaining 15 survivors view a ship approaching from a distance. According to an early British reviewer, the work is set at a moment when “the ruin of the raft may be said to be complete.” In EWCFMID, the protagonist is one of the only survivors of a fatal night, similar to the survivors in the portrait.
Relevant themes: A major tragic event with survivors, truth vs. deceit to protect others.
Hint 3.1: The wand is the lie.
Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead
Jenny Hollander
She has everything to live for―and everything to hide.
Nine years ago, with the world’s eyes on her, Charlie Colbert fled. The press and the police called Charlie a “witness” to the nightmarish events at her elite graduate school on Christmas Eve―events known to the public as “Scarlet Christmas”―though Charlie knows she was much more than that.
Now, Charlie has meticulously rebuilt her life: She’s the editor-in-chief of a major magazine, engaged to the golden child of the publishing industry, and hell-bent on never, ever letting her guard down again. But when a buzzy film made by one of Charlie’s former classmates threatens to shatter everything she’s worked for, Charlie realizes how much she’s changed in nine years. Now, she’s not going to let anything―not even the people she once loved most―get in her way.
Genre: Thriller
Publication Date: February 6
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Tags: Debut, Thriller
Book # 6
Hint #1.6: This is the only location I knew off hand. This is a picture of lower Manhattan, part of Brooklyn, and Hoboken & Jersey City, New Jersey upside down. The “X” looks like it is around the World Trade Center.
With only one hint, I do not think I will be able to identify with any certainty which book that is set in New York this clue refers to. It could be a slew of books.
Hint #2.5: Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic) by Thomas Eakins (1875) – In Jefferson Medical College’s surgical amphitheater, Dr. Gross is demonstrating to students the relatively new surgical procedure he had developed to treat bone infections. In contrast to the recoiling woman to the left—traditionally identified as the patient’s mother—Gross embodies the confidence that comes from knowledge and experience.
This painting depicts both a new medical treatment and a mother’s reaction, which seems in line with Baby X‘s plot. Relevant themes: The intersection of science and power, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Hint 3.2: The snake is a lie.
Baby X
Rachel Lyon
When any biological matter can be used to create life, stolen celebrity DNA sells to the highest bidder–or the craziest stalker–in this propulsive thriller.
With a vivid imagining of the future, Gattaca meets Black Mirror in Kira Peikoff’s Baby X.
In the near-future United States, where advanced technology can create egg or sperm from any person’s cells, celebrities face the alarming potential of meeting biological children they never conceived. Famous singer Trace Thorne is tired of being targeted by the Vault, a black market site devoted to stealing DNA. Sick of paying ransom money for his own cell matter, he hires bio-security guard Ember Ryan to ensure his biological safety.
Ember will do anything she can to protect her clients. She knows all the Vault’s tricks–discarded tissues, used straws, lipstick tubes–and has prevented countless DNA thefts. Working for Thorne, her focus becomes split when she begins to fall for him, but she knows she hasn’t let anything slip–love or not, his DNA is safe. But then she and Thorne are confronted by a pregnant woman, Quinn, who claims that Thorne is the father of her baby, and all bets are off.
Brilliantly plotted and terrifyingly prescient, Baby X is an unpredictable and relentless speculative thriller perfect for fans of Blake Crouch and John Marrs.
Genre: Science Fiction, Thriller
Publication Date: March 5
Publisher: Crooked Lane
Tags: Early Release, Sci-Fi, Thriller
