The Fortune Seller by Rachel Kapelke-Dale

Title: The Fortune Seller

Author: Rachel Kapelke-Dale

Expected publication date: February 13, 2024

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

When Rosie returns from time abroad to realize that a new girl has made a position in her friend group, she's a little uneasy. She doesn't know anything about Annelise. And now she has to share a room with her. What's even more strange is that the girls in her friend group don't know much about her either. She's a great equestrian. She fits right in on the team. But where did she come from? How does she afford Yale tuition and the lifestyle that comes with being friends with rich girls? Who is Annelise?

In a classic tale of class and ambition, Rosie has to figure out what everybody in her friend group is after, and which of them will stop at nothing to get it.

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I loved everything about this novel. The way that Kapelke-Dale engrosses readers in atmospheres and how well she develops relationships has never disappointed me, and it didn't let me down here. Just like in The Ballerinas and The Ingenue, I felt completely engrossed in the story unfolding in my mind.

I love the way that her writing captures complicated female relationships and I love the way the tension and pressure builds until it all boils over in a stunning climax. I loved the quiet ending. The way that through everything that happens, there is also space for moving on. How there has to be space for moving on, if you want to keep growing into the person that you are meant to be.

I think as long as Kapelke-Dale is writing anything, I'll be a fan of it. I would probably read her grocery list if it was all I could get my hands on, and as always, even though this novel isn't even published yet, I will be eagerly awaiting her next release. 

Waiting on Wednesday (22): Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Waiting on Wednesday's is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. *It appears that Breaking the Spine hasn't been active since 2016, but I still want to credit them as the creators.

For this week's Waiting on Wednesday I'm spotlighting Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.

Publisher: Entangled Publishing LLC (Red Tower Books)

Publication date: May 2, 2023

Goodreads Synopsis

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

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I know that this book is already published so I don't really have to wait to read it, but I wanted to spotlight it as my Waiting On Wednesday because everybody and their mother read this book in 2023, and I feel so out of the loop not having read it yet. So this post is my formal statement that I will get to this book this year, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it lives up to all the hype that it's been getting.