April’s Most-Anticipated Books

A collage of the covers included in this article

Look no further for your next read. The amount of great new books hitting shelves each month can be overwhelming but we’ve rounded up ten books coming out this April that both the NetGalley team and members can’t wait for. If you were approved for any of these books on NetGalley, you can read them directly in your NetGalley Shelf app. Don’t forget to leave a review!

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

Ling Ling Huang’s debut explores the insidious intentions behind a beauty and wellness company. The book’s unnamed narrator is pursuing a career in classical music when her parents are injured in a car accident. To help them, she takes a job at the high-end Holistik in New York City. It’s there that she grows close with Helen, the niece of the company’s owner. As their bond strengthens, the narrator begins to question the products she’s been selling customers and using on herself.

The Fiancée Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur

Alexandria Bellefleur’s newest sapphic romance is a modern-day marriage of convenience. Tired of her family’s prodding about her love life, bookseller Tansy Adams invents a girlfriend—or rather claims that Gemma van Dalen, a romance cover model, is her girlfriend. It seems harmless until she comes face-to-face with Gemma in real life. When Gemma learns of Tansy’s lie, she decides to lean in and join the charade. After all, she learned that to inherit her family’s publishing company she needs to be married. But once they begin faking it, real sparks start to fly.

The Last Word by Taylor Adams

A book reviewer goes toe-to-toe with an author in Taylor Adams’s latest psychological thriller. There isn’t much to do at the isolated beach house where Emma Carpenter is house-sitting. So she passes the time walking her dog and binge-reading books. When she reads a particularly bad horror novel, she has no idea that sharing her critical review online will spark an argument with the author himself. When strange things begin happening around the house, Emma starts to fear that he may have come to find her.

The Bone Shard War by Andrea Stewart

Andrea Stewart’s fantasy trilogy, the Drowning Empire series, comes to a close this April. Set two years after the events of The Bone Shard Emperor, this novel opens on the brink of war. Emperor Lin Sukai is struggling to hold the Phoenix Empire together as disease spreads through the population and rivals plot to end her reign. Her one hope is the legend of the seven mythic swords—if she can reach them before her enemies, she can end the war once and for all. New readers, head back to book one to start this epic journey off right. Series fans, prepare for a dramatic finale.

This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham

In this YA sapphic horror novel, things get bloody for a group of friends attending a music festival. Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are ghouls—humans who were impacted by a dangerous pathogen that led them to crave human flesh. Thankfully the invention of a synthetic alternative keeps them vegetarian. With graduation on the horizon, all they want is to celebrate together. But when Val suddenly kills and eats a concertgoer, they realize someone at the festival is drugging ghouls to make them lose control.

The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland

Historical fiction fans, let Rachel Beanland transport you to Virginia in 1811 for a tale based on the Richmond theater fire. The novel follows four characters—Sally, Cecily, Jack, and Gilbert—who are among the 600 crowded into the theater on the night after Christmas. When Jack forgets to snuff out a candle, a domino effect is created that ends in the theater going up in flames. In the ensuing chaos, all four characters make decisions that ripple out to affect others in ways they couldn’t have imagined.

Sisters of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina

In his debut, Nick Medina (a member of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana) drew inspiration from both passed-down family stories as well as the real-life epidemic of disappearances of Indigenous women and girls in the U.S. and Canada. Set around the reservation of the fictional Takoda tribe, Sisters of the Lost Nation blends the thriller and horror genres as it follows Anna Horn. A string of recent disappearances leaves Anna increasingly concerned about the connections between what’s happening now and a decades-old cold case. When her own sister goes missing, Anna is willing to do anything to get her back.

To Swoon and to Spar by Martha Waters

Martha Waters returns this April with the fourth installment of the Regency Vows historical romance series, and NetGalley members are already raving about it. All Viscount Penvale wants is ownership of his ancestral home and when his uncle finally agrees to sell it to him on the condition that Penvale marries his uncle’s ward Jane Spencer, Penvale agrees. His first meeting with Jane is far from pleasant and he expects their marriage to be in name only. What he doesn’t expect are the lengths Jane will go to drive him away from the home—including faking a haunting.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

If this book looks familiar, you may have spotted it on our buzzy books of 2023 roundup! We’ve been counting down the days until Emily Tesh’s debut novel hits shelves. In this queer, dark space opera, warrior Kyr has spent a lifetime training to avenge the destruction of planet Earth. Or so she thought. When she comes of age and is instead expected to be used as a vessel to breed future soldiers, she decides to take matters into her own hands and leaves her home. Far from all she’s known, Kyr begins to question everything she once believed in.

Hungry Ghost by Victoria Ying

Victoria Ying drew from her own experiences when writing this young adult graphic novel about a Chinese American girl’s struggles with an eating disorder. Valerie Chu wants to be a good daughter. She works hard for good grades in school, helps around the house, and takes in all of her mother’s messages about the importance of being thin. But on a class trip to Paris, Val starts to wonder if her relationships with food, her body, and her mother are truly healthy.

Which April release are you most excited about?

Stuff Your Shelves

Kelly Gallucci

Kelly Gallucci is the Executive Editor of We Are Bookish, where she oversees the editorial content, offers book recommendations, and interviews authors and NetGalley members. When she's not working, Kelly can be found color coordinating her bookshelves, eating Chipotle, and watching way too many baking shows.

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