November 2024 Aardvark Book Club Hints & Selections

Going into the final stretch of October, we already have a good idea of 2 November Aardvark Book Club picks: American Rapture and Memorials. Are you with me? If not, go catch up and come back.


Book #1

Hint 1.1: If you are not familiar, the bird-like masks (and staffs) are associated with plague doctors. Also in the picture is garlic, rope, and a Celtic-looking necklace.

Hint 2.2: Avignon

Eleanore of Avignon

Elizabeth DeLozier

Rich with unforgettable characters, gorgeously drawn, and full of captivating historical drama, Eleanore of Avignon is the story of a healer who risks her life, her freedom, and everything she holds dear to protect her beloved city from the encroaching Black Death.

Provence, 1347. Eleanore (Elea) Blanchet is a young midwife and herbalist with remarkable skills. But as she learned the day her mother died, the most dangerous thing a woman can do is draw attention to herself. She attends patients in her home city of Avignon, spends time with her father and twin sister, gathers herbs in the surrounding woods, and dreams of the freedom to pursue her calling without fear. 
In a chance encounter, Elea meets Guigo de Chauliac, the enigmatic personal physician to the powerful Pope Clement, and strikes a deal with him to take her on as his apprentice. Under Chauliac’s tutelage she hones her skills as a healer, combining her knowledge of folk medicine with anatomy, astrology, and surgical techniques.

Then, two pieces of earth-shattering news: the Black Death has made landfall in Europe, and the disgraced Queen Joanna is coming to Avignon to stand trial for her husband’s murder. She is pregnant and in need of a midwife, a role only Elea can fill.

The queen’s childbirth approaches as the plague spreads like wildfire, leaving half the city dead in its wake. The people of Avignon grow desperate for a scapegoat and a group of religious heretics launch a witch hunt, one that could cost Elea—an intelligent, talented, unwed woman—everything.

Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Date: November 5
Publisher: Dutton

Book #2

This is the only book that I am not positive about.

Hint 1.2: The outfit in this image is giving me dark academia with a side of magic. The blazer makes me think the book takes place at a private school. The hand with chalk and watch lead me to believe the protagonist is perhaps an instructor.

Hint 2.1: Oxford

The Scholar & the Last Faerie Door

Jandy Nelson

From the author of The Magician’s Daughter comes The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door, a mythic, magical tale full of secret scholarship, faerie curses, and the deadliest spells of all—the ones that friends cast on each other.

All they needed to break the world was a door, and someone to open it.

Camford, 1920. Gilded and glittering, England’s secret magical academy is no place for Clover, a commoner with neither connections nor magical blood. She’s there only to find a cure for her brother Matthew, one of the few survivors of a deadly faerie attack on the battlefields of WWI.

When Clover catches the eye of golden boy Alden Lennox-Fontaine and his friends, doors that were previously closed to her are flung wide open, and she soon finds herself enmeshed in the seductive world of the country’s magical aristocrats. But the summer she spends in Alden’s orbit leaves a fateful mark: months of joyous friendship and mutual study come crashing down when experiments go awry, and old secrets are unearthed. The consequences will only be truly understood many years later, when it’s too late…

Genre: Fantasy
Publication Date: October 22
Publisher: Redhook

Book #3

Hint 1.3: The picture is giving me 80s or 90s camping trip with friends or hitchhiking. There is a Blair Witch Search Party t-shirt circa October 1994 and a VHS tape.

Hint 2.6: Ohio

Memorials

Richard Chizmar

A group of students encounter a supernatural terror while on a road trip through Appalachia in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the “unforgettable and scary” (Harlan Coben) Chasing the Boogeyman.

1983: Three students from a small college embark on a week-long road trip to film a documentary on roadside memorials for their American Studies class. The project starts out as a fun adventure with long stretches of empty road and nightly campfires where they begin to open up with one another.

But as they venture deeper into the Appalachian backwoods, the atmosphere begins to darken. They notice more and more of the memorials feature a strange, unsettling symbol hinting at a sinister secret. Paranoia sets in when it appears they are being followed. Their vehicle is tampered with overnight and some of the locals appear to be anything but welcoming. Before long, the students can’t help but wonder if these roadside deaths were really random accidents…or is something terrifying at work here?

Genre: Horror
Publication Date: October 22
Publisher: Gallery Books

Book #4

Hint 1.4: Obviously, this image is all about the cheese. Because I also see a Culver’s t-shirt featuring cheese curds, I am leaning toward this hint representing Wisconsin. Butter burgers, anyone?

Hint 2.3: Wisconsin

American Rapture

C.J. Leede

A virus is spreading across America, transforming the infected and making them feral with lust. 

Sophie, a good Catholic girl, must traverse the hellscape of the midwest to try to find her family while the world around her burns. Along the way she discovers there are far worse fates than dying a virgin… 

The end times are coming.

Genre: Dystopian, Horror
Publication Date: October 15
Publisher: Tor Nightfire

Book #5

Hint 1.5: With the two outfits and the background colors, my mind instantly went to Freak Friday, the 2003 film with the queen herself, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Lindsay Lohan. If not that, I think the left side is the life I am living, and the right side is the life I wish I was living. 😂

Hint 2.5: Washington, D.C.

Like Mother, Like Mother

Susan Rieger

An enthralling novel about three generations of strong-willed women, unknowingly shaped by the secrets buried in their family’s past.

Detroit, 1960. Lila Pereira is two years old when her angry, abusive father has her mother committed to an asylum. Lila never sees her mother again. Three decades later, having mustered everything she has—brains, charm, talent, blond hair—Lila rises to the pinnacle of American media as the powerful, brilliant executive editor of The Washington Globe. Lila unapologetically prioritizes her career, leaving the rearing of her daughters to her generous husband, Joe. He doesn’t mind—until he does.

But Grace, their youngest daughter, feels abandoned. She wishes her mother would attend PTA meetings, not White House correspondents’ dinners. As she grows up, she cannot shake her resentment. She wants out from under Lila’s shadow, yet the more she resists, the more Lila seems to shape her life. Grace becomes a successful reporter, even publishing a bestselling book about her mother. In the process of writing it, she realizes how little she knows about her own family. Did Lila’s mother, Grace’s grandmother, die in that asylum? Is refusal to look back the only way to create a future? How can you ever be yourself, Grace wonders, if you don’t know where you came from?

Spanning generations, and populated by complex, unforgettable characters, Like Mother, Like Mother is an exhilarating, portrait of family, marriage, ambition, power, the stories we inherit, and the lies we tell to become the people we believe we’re meant to be.

Genre: Romance
Publication Date: October 29
Publisher: Dial Press

Book #6

Hint 1.6: A Chappell Roan/Pink Pony Club bachelorette party? I have no idea who that is under the pink cowboy hats.

Hint 2.4: Austin, Texas

Perfect Fit

Clare Gilmore

A hilarious and heartfelt rom-com about having it all, slowing down to see the big picture, and finding out that the person you least expect could be your perfect fit.

Josephine Davis has spent her entire twenties building Revenant, a fashion brand headquartered in downtown Austin. When her biggest investor orders Josie to hire a consultant, the last person she expects to be working with is Will Grant – the twin brother of her ex best friend.

Sure, Will and Josie may have shared one mistake of a kiss during senior spring break nine years ago, but they’ve never been friends. She remembers him as moody; he always thought of her as shallow. Romance isn’t on the table for either of them until they blink, and realize there’s a reason they can’t stay away from each other.

But there’s Will’s sister to consider, whom Josie hasn’t spoken with since their falling out. Not to mention, Will and Josie live seventeen hundred miles apart. And it’s not like she has time for a boyfriend anyway when she’s an overworked CEO. As Josie’s burnout looms while she falls deeper and harder for Will, she contends with the fact that eventually, she’ll have to make a choice: stay alone to be productive, or slow down to be in love.

Genre: Romance
Publication Date: October 29
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin