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APRIL
PICKS

HSP x Barnes & Noble
BOOK PICKS
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Hello HERsay Podcast book lovers!  

We know what's on the minds of women, and each month we're sharing the books we think women will loveWe partner with expert Barnes & Noble booksellers who scour their bookshelves for new releases and favorite titles by female authors, stories featuring female characters you'll love (or love to hate!), books that inspire us, teach us something new, or resources to help us face the challenges that uniquely arise for women each month. For our April HSP x BN Book Picks episode, we tapped Anne Pfohl from Barnes & Noble in McKinley Mall in Buffalo, NY (go Bills!) to talk about this month's selections. Anne researched and selected our April picks based on the genres we know women are looking for this month: New Fiction, Memoir/Biography, Gardening, and Anne's recommendation from anywhere in the store.

 

Check out our picks below, order online, or - better yet! - stop into your closest Barnes & Noble store to experience IRL that incomparable smell of coffee + books and perusing book covers that we just can't get from shopping the 'net.

 

Proceeds from books purchased here this month will be donated to the Buffalo City Mission's Women and Children's Shelter, providing a safe haven for women and children to transition to stable homes.

 

Listen to Caroline's conversation with Barnes & Noble's Anne Pfohl and visit us on Instagram to share what you think of our picks, enter our book giveaway, or to just say "Hi". Happy reading!

NEW FICTION

"In this sexy modern-day fairytale from the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Days in June, a free-spirited florist and an enigmatic musician share a soul mate connection told through the history, art, and magic of Harlem.

“Tia Williams is a superlative author constantly testing her own boundaries, innovating with each new book. Sparkling, heartbreaking and laugh-out-loud funny…Ezra and Ricki's love story is one for the ages.” – NPR
 
“Tia Williams is a go-to-author for epic love stories.” – Marie Claire, A Most Anticipated Book of 2024

 

Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing.

Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn’t one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she’s the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they’re long-stemmed roses, she’s a dandelion: an adorable bloom that’s actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her.

When regal nonagenarian, Ms. Della, invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the music, stories and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmers.

One evening in February as the heady, curiously off-season scent of night-blooming jasmine fills the air, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way.  

Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance, and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked."

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GARDENING

"Buffalo-Style Gardens is a one-of-a-kind, offbeat garden design book that showcases the wildly inventive gardens and gardeners of Buffalo – and offers readers "the best of the best” ideas to use in their own small-space gardens.

Who knew? Buffalo, New York, is the new Ground Zero for free-spirited garden innovation? Learn from the stories of everyday, non-professional gardeners who have unintentionally transformed Buffalo’s urban neighborhoods into a 21st century garden design laboratory.

 

It’s all about seeing your space with new eyes and not letting existing limitations on the ground stop you from being out-of-the-box creative. Each July, over 400 private gardens open to the public to show off their fresh, often quirky, take on outdoor living. There’s nothing quite like “Garden Walk Buffalo,” the largest garden tour in North America.

 

With hundreds of design, planting and DIY tips, authors and show-garden experts Sally Cunningham and Jim Charlier reveal how fences and furnishings, trees and shrubs, art and whimsy – and the element of surprise – work together to change an ordinary space into something uniquely yours: your own unforgettable Buffalo-style garden."

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NEW FICTION, THRILLER, SUSPENSE - GUEST'S CHOICE 2 OF 2

 

"With a deviously unreliable narrator providing a constant and consistent supply of twists, turns and surprises, this character-rich story is dripping in readability. Rounded out with a propulsive plot and saturated in suspense, The Fury is immensely compelling and a joy to read.

A masterfully paced thriller about a reclusive ex–movie star and her famous friends whose spontaneous trip to a private Greek island is upended by a murder — from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient 

This is a tale of murder.

Or maybe that’s not quite true. At its heart, it’s a love story, isn’t it?

Lana Farrar is a reclusive ex–movie star and one of the most famous women in the world. Every year, she invites her closest friends to escape the English weather and spend Easter on her idyllic private Greek island.

I tell you this because you may think you know this story. You probably read about it at the time ― it caused a real stir in the tabloids, if you remember. It had all the necessary ingredients for a press sensation: a celebrity; a private island cut off by the wind…and a murder.

We found ourselves trapped there overnight. Our old friendships concealed hatred and a desire for revenge. What followed was a game of cat and mouse ― a battle of wits, full of twists and turns, building to an unforgettable climax. The night ended in violence and death, as one of us was found murdered.

But who am I?

My name is Elliot Chase, and I’m going to tell you a story unlike any you’ve ever heard."

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MEMOIR

"Happy days are here again! The long-awaited memoir by the superstar of stage, screen, recordings, and television. EGOT, icon, and the funny girl herself shares her story — from Brooklyn to Broadway to Brolin, and everything in between.

 

Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in the history of popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major motion picture.

 

In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career, from growing up in Brooklyn to her first star-making appearances in New York nightclubs to her breakout performance in Funny Girl on stage and winning the Oscar for that performance on film. Then came a long string of successes in every medium in the years that followed. The book is, like Barbra herself, frank, funny, opinionated, and charming. She recounts her early struggles to become an actress, eventually turning to singing to earn a living; the recording of some of her acclaimed albums; the years of effort involved in making Yentl; her direction of The Prince of Tides; her friendships with figures ranging from Marlon Brando to Madeleine Albright; her political advocacy; and the fulfillment she’s found in her marriage to James Brolin.
 
No entertainer’s memoir has been more anticipated than Barbra Streisand’s, and this engrossing and delightful book will be eagerly welcomed by her millions of fans."

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FICTION/SCIENCE FICTION/ROMANCE - *GUEST'S CHOICE! (1 OF 2)

 

"From debut author Nina Varela comes the first book in a richly imagined epic fantasy duology about an impossible love between two girls—one human, one Made—whose romance could be the beginning of a revolution.

 

Perfect for fans of Marie Rutkoski’s The Winner’s Curse as well as Game of Thrones and Westworld.

After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, designed to be the playthings of royals, usurped their owners’ estates and bent the human race to their will.

Now Ayla, a human servant rising in the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging her family’s death…by killing the sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier. 

Crier was Made to be beautiful, flawless, and to carry on her father’s legacy. But that was before her betrothal to the enigmatic Scyre Kinok, before she discovered her father isn’t the benevolent king she once admired, and most importantly, before she met Ayla.

Now, with growing human unrest across the land, pressures from a foreign queen, and an evil new leader on the rise, Crier and Ayla find there may be only one path to love: war."

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