February 10th New Releases

Buckle up, Lazies… because this list is fire. (Or at least I think that’s what the cool kids say. I don’t know, I read books and drink iced coffee, I’m doing my best.)

But seriously, I opened my February releases list and immediately had to sit down. Dramatically. Like I had just received life-altering news. Because these books are unhinged in the best way and I am not emotionally prepared for how good this month is about to be.

We’ve got chaos.We’ve got romance.We’ve got morally gray men, danger, secrets, heartbreak, and at least three books that are going to emotionally ruin me on purpose.

So consider this your warning and your invitation. Cancel your plans. Clear your TBR. Prepare snacks. February is about to be a problem.

Fireflies in Winter – Eleanor Shearer

Goodreads Rating - 3.88/5 with 41 ratings.

Vibe: historical Sapphic survival romance

Two women trying to survive on the edge of the wilderness while also falling in love in a way that could absolutely get them killed? Say less.

Picture this: Nova Scotia, 1796. (Yes, I did think of Golden Girls. No, I will not apologize. Sophia would thrive here.)

Cora is an orphan newly arrived from Jamaica and has never felt cold like this in her life. This is not “grab a sweater” cold. This is “your soul has left your body” cold. Everyone is huddled inside trying not to die, and then Cora sees a shadow slipping through the trees. Naturally she assumes her eyes are lying to her, because why would someone be out there? Except… the tracks in the snow say otherwise. Excuse me, what?

Cue our possible morally gray love interest. Because obviously.

Enter Agnes. In hiding. Immediate red flag. On the run from her past. Surviving alone in the wilderness like a haunted forest cryptid. She cannot afford mistakes, and then along comes fearless, curious Cora like, “Hi, I saw you in the woods and I think fate did this.”

Agnes believes their meeting was destined. Which is romantic. And terrifying. Usually both.

Deep among the cedars, they find a fragile little pocket of safety. A tiny, soft space in a brutal world. But Agnes’s past is not done with her, and when it comes closing in, they’re forced to confront what freedom really costs.

This is survival. This is danger. This is Sapphic yearning in the snow.

And honestly, cold, gay, and dangerous is my favorite genre.

Warning Signs - Tracy Sierra

Goodreads Rating - 4.03/5 204 with 226 ratings

This is the second novel from this author, and if you read Nightwatching, then you already know what kind of emotional damage we’re signing up for. She ate. She left no crumbs. That book played directly into some of my biggest fears as a mother, and I could not put it down. So naturally, I am ready to be hurt again.

Ok. Back to our regularly scheduled program.

Warning Signs.

A book where a father and son go skiing. Which is already a terrible idea because snow is bad. The end.

But seriously, this starts as a “bonding weekend” and immediately becomes a “desperate fight for survival,” which honestly feels correct. Their feet are literally strapped to boards while gliding across frozen wilderness. What could go wrong?

Twelve-year-old Zach is cautiously optimistic. Which is brave of him, considering everything. His dad, Bram, very much schemed this trip so he could schmooze his biggest investors because Daddy is broke and priorities are questionable.

The twist? Zach is actually incredible at outdoor survival. He knows his stuff. He’s capable, smart, and ready to show off. Mostly because his father is hypercritical, and Zach desperately wants to impress him. Which immediately broke my heart, by the way.

The group of adult men (derogatory) ignores the worsening conditions because, of course they do. Meanwhile, Zach notices things. He always has loved the mountains, but something feels wrong. He’s convinced something is watching their cabin from the tree line. Something that leaves behind strange tracks. Something that strips its prey clean.

And the scariest part? Zach starts to wonder if the men around him are more dangerous than the weather… or whatever is lurking in the dark.

So now we’ve got: – A kid who knows survival – A father who won’t listen – A group of arrogant adults – A brutal wilderness – And a mysterious predator

No pressure, Zach. No pressure at all.

He’s going to have to rely on everything he knows about the outdoors if he hopes to make it home. Because the wilderness doesn’t care about money, ego, or bad parenting. And neither does whatever is watching from the trees.

Top of my February new release list... Because holy sh*t.

The Better Mother: A Thriller - Jennifer van der Kleut

Goodreads Rating - 4.40/5 with 90 ratings

Savannah is 34, freshly coming out of a terrible breakup, finally starting to feel like a person again, and then life does what life does and throws chaos directly at her face. One casual hookup with Max later and boom. Pregnant. It happens, mama.

So she does the responsible thing and calls him. Tells him she’s with child. And this man says, “pump the brakes baby mama, I just got back with my ex.” Sir. The audacity. But wait, it gets worse, because Madison, the ex, is apparently thrilled. Like, “hell yeah, let’s have a baby” thrilled. She wants to help. She wants to be involved. Max insists she has the best intentions.

Savannah’s intuition immediately says absolutely not. And I trust women who listen to their gut more than I trust men who say, “she means well.”

Madison starts showing up uninvited. Hard pass, girl. Immediately no. Then she starts telling Savannah how she should be living, what she should be eating, how she should be handling her pregnancy. It goes from “supportive” to controlling real fast. Homegirl is not helping. She is managing. She is supervising. She is trying to run the situation like Savannah is an incubator and not an actual human being.

So Savannah finally does what every woman eventually has to do in situations like this. She sets boundaries.

And Madison loses it.

Not mildly. Not awkwardly. She goes off the rails. Cruel. Dangerous. Unhinged in that quiet, calculated way that makes your stomach drop. Savannah wanted friendly co-parenting. What she got was someone who has zero interest in co-parenting and a whole lot of interest in control.

This is giving modern Fatal Attraction meets The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and I am absolutely not emotionally prepared. Unplanned pregnancy, unstable ex, a man who keeps insisting everything is fine while everything is very much not fine. Besties, this is stress reading, and I am obsessed.

It sounds messy. It sounds intense. It sounds wildly uncomfortable.

Which means I will be reading it immediately.

She Made Herself a Monster - Anna Kovatcheva

Goodreads Rating - 3.82/5 with 164 ratings

This one feels like dark folklore, feminine rage, and quiet rebellion wrapped in a gothic fever dream. The kind of story that sits heavy in your chest in the best way.

We have Yana, a self-proclaimed vampire slayer who is actually a traveling con artist. She moves from town to town staging “evidence” of monsters. Animal corpses in the square. Blood-filled eggs. Fear planted just deep enough to take root. Then she swoops in, kills the imagined threat, and leaves behind hope. It’s survival. It’s performance. It’s power built from stories people already want to believe.

Because we make monsters when we need someone to blame.

When crops die. When children fall ill. When things stop making sense.

And in nineteenth-century Bulgaria, fear is currency.

But everything shifts when Yana reaches Koprivici, a village where children rarely survive infancy and illness hangs thick in the air. There she meets Anka, a headstrong orphan the villagers have already decided is the cause of their suffering. Because of course they have. And as Anka nears womanhood, the village captain is grooming her for marriage she does not want and cannot escape.

Until Yana arrives.

Together they decide to do something dangerous and brilliant and horrifying. They will create a monster real enough, vile enough, terrifying enough to give Anka cover to escape. To disappear. To take control of her life.

And this is where the story turns feral.

Because creating a monster is easy. Controlling it is not.

What starts as deception becomes something alive. Something powerful. Something that no longer belongs to them. And suddenly the question is no longer how to escape, but what they have unleashed in order to do it.

This book is about agency. About how women survive in systems built to trap them. About how fear is used to control, and how storytelling can be both a weapon and a shield. It’s gothic and grimy and soaked in folklore, but underneath it is a deeply feminist story about reclaiming power when none is given.

It’s witchery and ghost stories. It’s heresy and deception. It’s collective rage taking shape.

And the title alone tells you everything: Sometimes survival means becoming the monster they already think you are.

Wicked Onyx (The Veritas Legacy, #1) - Debbie Cassidy

Goodreads Rating - 4.22/5 169 with ratings

Ok listen. This one is giving dark magical academy, vengeance arc, and why-choose energy and I am already emotionally invested.

“You don’t graduate Nightbridge Academy… you survive it.” First of all, rude. Second of all, I’m in.

We have a cursed heroine born into a powerful sorcerer bloodline that was stripped of its magic and branded as traitors generations ago. Outcast energy. Main character trauma. Love that journey for her. Then her mother dies (because fantasy mothers never survive) and leaves behind a clue that could expose the truth: an ancient text hidden deep beneath Nightbridge Academy that could prove the Imperium lied about her family.

So naturally, she enrolls in the most ruthless magical academy imaginable. A fortress of power, corruption, and secrets. Basically Hogwarts if it was run by morally bankrupt sorcerers who deserve consequences.

Her plan is simple. Find the book. Expose the Imperium. Make them pay. Clean, focused, slightly unhinged. My favorite kind of energy.

Except now she’s hearing whispers in her dreams, which is either a red flag or fate or both. And she’s developing feelings for two men who are tied directly to the institution she plans to destroy. One is quiet and observant, the type who sees everything and says nothing. The other is steady, protective, and very much “I’m on your side even when the world burns” coded.

She can’t have either of them. But her curse begins to crack when they’re near her. Which means they matter. Which means danger. Which means emotional damage is coming.

And I love when love starts breaking curses because it always means something is about to go terribly right or terribly wrong.

This book is dark academia with teeth. It’s revenge fantasy. It’s a powerful girl reclaiming her legacy while navigating morally corrupt systems and inconvenient feelings. It’s “touch her and there will be consequences” energy. It’s betrayal, power, and a heroine who is absolutely done being silent.

“The Imperium cursed my bloodline. Stripped us of our magic. Branded us as traitors. And now they will pay.”

Say less. I’m already on her side. Burn it all down, queen.

Heir of Illusion (Verran Isles, #1) - Madeline Taylor

Goodreads Rating - 4.39/5 with 6,792 ratings

This is dark romantasy in its most feral form and I am already deeply unwell about it.

We have a fae assassin with the power of illusion who is literally collared and owned by a king she despises. Forced to serve. Forced to play obedient pet. Quietly plotting his downfall. That alone is enough to sell me. But then we add a grim reaper? With secrets? And a deadly touch? I’m seated.

Iverson Pomeroy is not fragile. She is not tamed. She is not the pet they think they own. The enchanted collar at her throat may control her body, but her mind is already at war. Every illusion she casts, every move she makes, is part of a long game for freedom.

Enter Thorne. The reaper. Enigmatic, dangerous, searching for the same artifact Ivy needs to break her chains. An alliance between enemies. Mutual goals. Zero trust. Maximum tension. And unfortunately, devastating chemistry.

Because of course he’s dangerous. Of course anyone who touches him dies. Of course he sparks something in her she absolutely does not have time for.

This is enemies to lovers done the way we like it. Slow burn. Forced proximity. Banter layered over trauma. “Who did this to you” energy mixed with “touch her and die” consequences. A morally gray MMC. A female assassin who refuses to stay powerless. A bond that could rewrite fate or destroy them both.

Also the line “She is not the pet they tamed. She is the beast they let inside.”

Say less. That is a personality.

This is giving: Unlikely alliance. Shadow daddy. He falls first. Deadly secrets. Desire mixed with destruction. And a heroine who is absolutely done being owned.

If you like your romantasy dark, dangerous, and dripping with tension, this one is going to ruin your peace in the best way.

Operation Bounce House - Matt Dinniman

Goodreads Rating - 4.13/5 with 348 ratings

First of all, the title alone feels unhinged in the best way. Second of all, this is exactly the kind of chaotic sci-fi I love from Matt Dinniman.

We’ve got Oliver Lewis, who just wants a quiet life. Run the family ranch with his sister, play some music with his band, keep their aging agricultural bots from falling apart. Normal goals. Reasonable dreams. And then Earth decides to absolutely ruin everything.

Because instead of honoring their promise to leave the colonists alone, Earth hires Apex Industries to “evict” an entire planet. But here’s the twist that makes this feel extra disturbing and extra brilliant: they don’t even want to spend money on soldiers. They turn it into a game. Why deploy trained forces when you can let bored gamers pay for the privilege of committing planetary destruction from their living rooms?

The game is Operation Bounce House. And I already hate how casual that sounds compared to how horrifying it actually is.

So now Oliver and his friends aren’t just fighting machines. They’re fighting machines piloted by people who think this is entertainment. People who paid extra to play war with real lives on the line. That layer of commentary alone makes this feel so much darker than a standard sci-fi invasion story.

With nothing but an old book from his grandfather and a bucket of rusty parts, Oliver has to defend the only home he’s ever known. It’s scrappy. It’s desperate. It’s humanity versus capitalism and apathy and corporate greed.

This feels like Dungeon Crawler Carl energy but pointed directly at how terrifying it would be if real suffering became a form of paid entertainment. Fast paced, high stakes, sarcastic, and deeply unsettling if you think about it for more than two seconds.

Also, I love a main character who isn’t a chosen one. He’s just a guy trying to protect his home. And honestly, that always hits harder.

Sci-fi, dark humor, corporate villainy, gamers as accidental war criminals, and a fight for survival using duct tape and stubbornness. I’m absolutely reading this.

Sinful Manor #2 Promise Me - Sara Cate

Goodreads Rating - 4.63/5 with 292 ratings

This one is pure emotional sabotage and I mean that as the highest compliment.

Second chance romance. The one that got away. Forced proximity. A ticking clock. Seven days to change everything? I am already stressed and invested.

Fifteen years ago, Declan Barclay left home trying to escape his family’s control and become his own person. Instead, he found Colin Shelby. Soft, mysterious, an actor who needed guidance, stability, and someone to see him. Declan became that person. They became inseparable. Until the night before graduation, when everything crossed from friendship into something more complicated and then everything fell apart.

Now Colin is back. And of course he’s engaged. Because it’s always like that. He’s made a promise to marry someone else, and Declan has exactly one week to decide if he’s going to live with losing him forever or finally say everything he should have said years ago.

The added cruelty? The wedding is happening at Barclay Manor. Declan’s home. His family is counting on him to make it perfect. So he’s forced to help plan the wedding of the man he’s still in love with. That is not a subplot, that is emotional warfare.

This is longing. Regret. Unspoken feelings. The kind of love that never really left, just waited quietly and painfully in the background. It’s about timing and fear and the terror of choosing yourself when it risks blowing up everything else.

Seven days. One last chance. Stay silent and lose him forever, or risk it all for the love that never stopped being real.

This is soft, devastating, and romantic in that “this might ruin me but I’m choosing it anyway” way. If you love second chance romance with high emotional stakes and quiet desperation, this is going to hurt so good.

My TBR is crying. My wallet is nervous. My heart is not prepared.

But honestly? This is exactly why we do this. For the stories that ruin us a little, comfort us a lot, and remind us why reading feels like home.

Tell me which ones you’re grabbing first, which ones you’re emotionally avoiding, and which ones you’re pretending you won’t read but absolutely will.

Same time next week for the February 17th releases?

With so much love besties,

Tiffany