monthly tbr august 2024
monthly tbr august 2024

It’s time to decide what we’ll add to our TBR (To-Be-Read) book stack for August 2024! 

The Fishbird Central Book Club Pick for August 2024 is …

“Small Mercies” by Dennis Lehane

You don’t need to ‘sign up’ or have ‘special elite access’ to join the Fishbird Central Book Club. Just read along with our chosen book for the month, and let us know how you like it! 

We’ll talk a little more in depth about the Book Club and our thoughts on the monthly book pick in our Fishbird Central Newsletter. We’d love to chat with you in the newsletter comments!

Join us as we read some great new titles and tick off some reading prompts! We’ll be sure to circle back around and post reviews of the books we read at the end of August.

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We encourage you to always source books from your local independent bookshop. However, we understand this is sometimes not practical based on location or budget.

Therefore, this post contains Amazon affiliate links. This means, if you click on the link and purchase the book from that link, I get a few dollars at no extra cost to you! This way we can both restock our TBR stack! 😀

Happy Reading, Friends! 

IN THIS POST
TBR Prompt:

Read a book with a black and white cover!

Back Blurb:

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessey is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of ‘Southie’, the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart. One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched – asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business.

What made me pick it up?:

This book will be our Fishbird Central Book Club pick for August 2024! Woot woot! We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Nominated for a Gold Dagger in the 2024 CWA Dagger Awards, this is a standalone novel by a veteran author, that I’m very excited to get to! I haven’t read any of Lehane’s work previously, but ‘Shutter Island‘ has been on my want-to-read list for years too. Have you read much of Lehane’s work? What has been your favourite so far?

Grab yourself a copy:

‘Small Mercies’ by Dennis Lehane

TBR Prompt:

Read a book by a female author!

Back Blurb:

There was nothing about Beverly Danziger to cause Kinsey concern. She was looking for her sister. There was a will to be settled. She paid up front. And if it seemed a lot of money for a routine job, Kinsey wasn’t going to argue. She kicked herself later for the things she didn’t see – Beverly Danziger did not look as if she needed a few thousand dollars and she didn’t seem like someone longing for a family reunion. But just as Kinsey begins to suspect foul play and start asking questions, Beverly Danziger pulls her off the case and fires her.

What made me pick it up?:

This is Book Two in the ‘Kinsey Millhone‘ series, and I’m keen to continue and plow my way through the 25 books in the series! This book was published in 1985, and I sometimes find that there’s a danger starting at the beginning of such a long standing series – but this means (to my mind) the stories can only get better as Grafton learns more about her writing style and the characters she’s introducing us to. Are you ready for a new crime series? How many are you in the middle of already? 

Grab yourself a copy:

‘B is for Burglar’ by Sue Grafton

TBR Prompt:

Read a book with a cat on the cover!

Back Blurb:

No good library is complete without a great cat…and an even better detective. Home for the first time in years, librarian Charlie Harris and his walking companion, Maine Coon cat, Diesel, have become familiar sights on the streets of small town Athena, Mississippi. All Charlie wants to do is devote himself to the books in his care, but those plans are shelved when he finds himself enmeshed in the claws of a true murder-mystery. Charlie’s absolutely dreadful old classmate-turned-celebrated author, Godfrey Priest, has also descended upon Athena. Fame certainly hasn’t changed Godfrey; if anything, he’s more obnoxious than he was when they were young. In one day, he’s put one man in the hospital; before the next dawn, he’s dead! Charlie and Diesel must investigate a seemingly endless supply of motivated suspects to trap the real killer before an innocent is falsely purr-secuted!

What made me pick it up?:

I mean – its a cosy crime mystery with a cat on the cover. I’m not a monster! This is Book One in the ‘Cat in the Stacks Mysteries’– cute! I’ve got quite a few cosy mystery series going at the moment, but I can’t resist the cover and the trade paperback feel. It’s always a hoot when someone with no business solving a crime, inserts themselves into a small town investigation. Looking forward to this one!

Grab yourself a copy:

‘Murder Past Due’ by Miranda James

TBR Prompt:

Read a YA spooky story!

Back Blurb:

Seventeen-year-old Jade Nguyen has always lied to fit in. She’s straight enough, Vietnamese enough, and American enough–at least for this last summer in Vietnam at Nh Hoa, the French colonial house her estranged father is fixing up as a vacation rental. At first, Jade is determined to keep her head down and ignore the quietly decaying house. But relentless mist and monstrous hydrangeas lurk outside the walls, and within, dead bugs gather on her windowsill daily. Jade begins waking up paralysed every morning, certain that something has clawed down her throat while she slept. Something that may be living inside of her. It’s a fear that only seems to be confirmed when the ghost of a beautiful Vietnamese bride, murdered in the house a hundred years ago, visits Jade with a cryptic warning- Don’t eat. 

What made me pick it up?:

This is a standalone novel, and has a nice spooky feel to it. It was also nominated for ‘Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel’ in the 2023 Bram Stoker Awards! I’m sure I could find a whole TBR stack of spooky YA reads with creepy girls and flowers on the cover – might be a challenge for later in the year! Can you recommend any?

Grab yourself a copy:

‘She is a Haunting’ by Trang Thanh Tran

TBR Prompt:

Read a book with a one-word title!

Back Blurb:

Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer working for the Albuquerque police force. Her excellent photography skills have cracked many cases—she is almost supernaturally good at capturing details. In fact, Rita has been hiding a secret: she sees the ghosts of crime victims who point her toward the clues that other investigators overlook. As a lone portal back to the living for traumatised spirits, Rita is terrorised by nagging ghosts who won’t let her sleep and who sabotage her personal life. Her taboo and psychologically harrowing ability was what drove her away from the Navajo reservation, where she was raised by her grandmother. It has isolated her from friends and gotten her in trouble with the law. And now it might be what gets her killed. When Rita is sent to photograph the scene of a supposed suicide on a highway overpass, the furious, discombobulated ghost of the victim—who insists she was murdered—latches onto Rita, forcing her on a quest for revenge against her killers, and Rita finds herself in the crosshairs of one of Albuquerque’s most dangerous cartels. 

What made me pick it up?:

This is Book One in the ‘Rita Todacheene‘ series set in New Mexico’s Navajo Nation. I’m a sucker for ghosts, and this sounds like an interesting premise, with our main protagonist having some supernatural insight into crimes. Sign me up!

Grab yourself a copy:

‘Shutter’ by Ramona Emerson

TBR Prompt:

Celebrate some Dinosaurs! 

Back Blurb:

Dr. Simon Nealy never expected to return to his quiet Pennsylvania hometown, let alone the Hawthorne Museum of Natural History. He was just a boy when his six-year-old sister, Morgan, was abducted from the museum under his watch. The guilt has haunted Simon ever since. But after the loss of the aunt who raised him, Simon feels drawn back to the place where Morgan vanished without a trace. But from the moment he arrives, things aren’t what he expected. The Hawthorne is a crumbling ruin and plummeting toward financial catastrophe. Worse, Simon begins seeing and hearing things he can’t explain: strange animal sounds. Bloody footprints that no living creature could have left. A prehistoric killer looming in the shadows of the museum. Terrified he’s losing his grasp on reality, Simon turns to the handwritten research diaries of his predecessor and uncovers a blood-soaked mystery in the making that could be the answer to everything – if he can solve it before it’s too late.

What made me pick it up?:

So we’ve got crime fiction, mixed with dinosaurs AND supernatural happenings in a museum? You’d have to be crazy not to be interested in this book. And look at that cool cover! Nominated for ‘Best Paperback Original’ in the 2024 ITW Thriller Awards – this one looks like an edge-of-your-seat ride!

Grab yourself a copy:

‘The Paleontologist’ by Luke Dumas

TBR Prompt:

Read a book that contains secrets!

Back Blurb:

Trying to investigate the Secret Service is like trying to get rid of the stink of dead badger. Hard. For two years the government’s Monochrome inquiry has produced nothing more than a series of dead ends. The Service has kept what happened in the newly reunified Berlin under wraps for decades, and intends for it to stay that way. But then the OTIS file turns up. What classified secrets does it hold? And what damage will it create? All Max Janácek knows is that someone is chasing him through the pitch-dark country lanes and they want him gone.

What made me pick it up?:

Mick Herron is fast becoming an auto-buy author for me, and I’m working my way through his ‘Slough House‘ series. This book is a standalone though, even though it still ties in to the Secret Service. I’m excited to get back into Herron’s head for a fast-paced read! Nominated for a swag of awards – Last Laugh Award; Best Hardcover Novel; Gold Dagger – Herron is a master at his game.

Grab yourself a copy:

‘The Secret Hours’ by Mick Herron

TBR Prompt:

Read an award nominated book!

Back Blurb:

On Memorial Day in Jewel, Minnesota, the body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. The investigation falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife. As suspicions and accusations mount and the town teeters on the edge of more violence, Dern struggles not only to find the truth of Quinn’s murder but also put to rest the demons from his own past. Caught up in the torrent of anger that sweeps through Jewel are a war widow and her adolescent son, the intrepid publisher of the local newspaper, an aging deputy, and a crusading female lawyer, all of whom struggle with their own tragic histories and harbour secrets that Quinn’s death threatens to expose.

What made me pick it up?:

This will be a carry-over from my last TBR that I didn’t get to. I still really want to read this stand-alone novel. Nominated for ‘Best Novel’ in the 2024 Edgar Awards, it looks like it will be an atmospheric crime read, and I’m hoping Krueger will become a new favourite author.

Grab yourself a copy:

‘The River We Remember’ by William Kent Kruger

TBR Prompt:

Read a gothic / historical novel!

Back Blurb:

1876, Victorian London. Minnie Ward, a feisty scriptwriter for the Variety Palace Music Hall, is devastated when her best friend is found brutally murdered. She enlists the help of private detective Albert Easterbrook to help her find justice. Together they navigate London, from its high-class clubs to its murky underbelly. But as the bodies pile up, they must rely on one another if they’re going to track down the killer – and make it out alive.

What made me pick it up?:

Nominated for a ‘New Blood Dagger’ this book kicks off the ‘Variety Palace Mystery‘ series. I find historical crime novels quite comforting, as they have a specific feel to them. With this story set in a Music Hall, I’m expecting zany and theatrical characters and a lot of grudges in the wings. 

Grab yourself a copy:

‘The Tumbling Girl’ by Bridget Walsh

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