April 2026 Book Picks
2026 is gearing up to be a “Something New” all the time year because, once again, I have something new for you! When Box of Books began, one of the most important and defining aspects of the subscription was its personalization and ability to custom each box to the reader. I’ve been juggling a lot with ‘less but better’ options in both the book pick realm and the novelty items. I’ve given less freedom to customize the novelty items in the past year- and I often wonder how my subscribers feel about that. “The Big Wigs” tell me that people will like whatever I send them and to just make signing up as quick and easy as possible (aka just get the sale). But I know I work hard for the money I earn and so do you. I don’t want my money wasted on ‘whatever,’ and I can only assume neither do you.
Therefore, I am going back to giving you the option to pick your novelty items. I will have a default novelty package each month, like I’ve been doing for the past six month. This will go out to anyone who has not picked their preference. But I have also added a section to The Book Room and the monthly form at the bottom of this page.
And yes, I do have another “Something New” up my sleeve, but I am still working out the logistics to it, so stay tuned!
Now- on to the Book Picks for April!
Just This Once by Lena Hendrix
Perfect for you if you like: contemporary romance - firefighters - rural
Publisher Synopsis:
In a rugged small town on the coast of Michigan where heartbreak lingers but love always finds a way, sparks fly between a fireman and the daughter of the fire chief after an unforgettable one night stand. Fans of Lucy Score’s Knockmeout Series, Elsie Silver, Carley Fortune, and B.K. Borison will swoon over book 1 in Lena Hendrix’s bestselling Kings Series!
*DELUXE LIMITED EDITION PAPERBACK featuring stenciled edges, holographic foil, designed interior covers, chapter headers, and full color special character art!*
Cocky, pierced firefighters are perfect for late-night rom-coms, but in real life they’re nothing but trouble. Especially when you find out they work for your dad—after you’ve already slept with them.
Moving to my parents’ small town was supposed to be the fresh start I was looking for. When a disastrous Valentine’s Day leads to an unexpected encounter with a sexy stranger, it ended with the hottest night of my life.
I didn’t think I would ever see Whip again.
Imagine my surprise when one of my sixth-grade students has a medical emergency and it’s Whip who shows up, looking hot as hell, to save the day. I should be embarrassed at how we left things, but instead I’m furious he doesn’t seem to remember me.
So I scrape my pride off the floor, lift my chin, and pretend there’s nothing between us. But that can last only so long. Stolen glances melt into forbidden touches, and once we give in to temptation, we can’t keep our hands off each other.
Nothing has ever felt so right, but my guarded heart won’t let me believe in happily ever after with a man like him. Opening up to Whip may be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and every time we agree to one last time, we both know it’s a lie.
How many times can we keep telling ourselves just this once before we realize that, when it comes to love, once is never enough?
Wait with Me by Amy Daws
Perfect for you if you like: romantic comedy
Publisher Synopsis:
From TikTok sensation Amy Daws comes a new deluxe paperback edition of her fan-favorite Wait With Me series, featuring adorable sprayed edges and all-new bonus chapters!
For this spicy writer, her muse might just be...a mechanic?
When romance novelist Kate Smith suddenly gets writer's block just as she's beginning the final installment of her internationally bestselling, steamy Bed 'n' Breakfast series, she panics. The last thing she wants is to fail her readers or herself.
She'll do pretty much anything to get her inspiration back.
Like sneak into a Tire Depot waiting room, because her words flow there. Just like the complimentary coffee--smooth, sweet, and scorchingly hot.
As the words pour out of her, she manages to fly under the radar at first. Until the shop's rugged and charming mechanic takes notice.
Miles Hudson is very confused when he catches a quirky redhead slinking in and out of the employees-only entrance to his tire shop. But she's way too intriguing to blow the whistle on.
After a few flirtatious exchanges, Kate surmises that Miles is perfect book boyfriend material, inspiring an idea that could make this book her best one yet.
What better way to get inspiration for her spicy story than to test-drive her ideas in real life.
Tune up your TBR if you love:
Spice lessons for book research
Secret identities
Friends with benefits
Tire shop meet-cutes
Blood & Roses by Callie Hart
Perfect for you if you like: dark romance - romantic suspense
Publisher Synopsis:
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Quicksilver comes a contemporary dark romance.
This stunning Deluxe Limited Edition includes designed edges and cover effects--only available while supplies last.
What happens in the dark never stays in the dark.
As one of Seattle's most dangerous, feared men, Zeth Mayfair always carried out the jobs he's sent on without a second thought. Drugs? Guns? Dirty money? They're all fair game. But girls? Girls are another matter entirely. When Zeth's employer decides buying and selling kidnapped women is a lucrative sideline, Zeth's usually uncomplicated life suddenly becomes very complicated indeed. And his biggest complication goes by the name of Sloane Romera.
Sloane's sister is missing, and she needs to find her, yet all doors leading into the seedy world of human trafficking are firmly closed in Sloane's face. She's a trauma doctor; she needs information. What she really needs is help ... and help presents itself in a most unlikely form.
Zeth is terrifying, scandalously hot, and comes fully loaded with a terrible attitude and wicked smile. He also looks like he's Sloane's only hope. Can she work with the guy without getting herself killed, losing her job, or falling head over heels in love?
Content Guidance: Blood & Rosesis a dark romance series that contains explicit content and heavy themes intended for mature audiences. Readers are strongly encouraged to consider their personal sensitivities.
This book contains: graphic violence, human trafficking, murder, psychological abuse, coercion, child abuse, substance abuse and addiction, and BDSM.
Potting Shed Murder by Paula Sutton
Perfect for you life you like: lite and cozy mysteries
*This is a hardcover copy that may have a remainder mark.
Publisher Synopsis:
From the creator of Hill House Vintage and “Queen of Cottagecore” (Vogue), a fresh, witty, fun, and delightfully quirky cozy crime novel set in a seemingly sleepy English village for fans of Richard Osman, Parini Shroff, Benjamin Stevenson, and Anthony Horowitz.
“Miss Marple for the 21st Century.” ―S.J. Bennett, author of The Windsor Knot
Welcome to the beautiful, bucolic village of Pudding Corner, where there's death amongst the dahlias . . . in this gripping, delightfully quirky mystery from the beloved cottage-core social media sensation behind Hill House Vintage.
Daphne Brewster has gladly swapped south London for Pudding Corner, a Norfolk hamlet full of quintessentially English charm. With a mix of stone cottages, Georgian architecture, and Victorian Gothic houses all nestled together and surrounded by fields of gold and green, Pudding Corner and its neighboring village of Pepperbridge seem as far from the bustle of city living as one can get.
For Daphne, joy at moving into beautiful Cranberry Farmhouse with her husband, James, and their three young children is tempered by some concerns about being the only Black woman for miles around. But within a few short months, Daphne becomes known as the parish’s “Vintage Lady” and has set up her own shop. Business is thriving, and so is her family. As for Pudding Corner, it’s rapidly revealing itself to be filled with complicated, intertwined lives on par with anything she left behind. Then the local school’s headmaster is found dead in his allotment patch, unleashing a storm of secrets and scandal.
Even a sleepy village has its social hierarchy, and as her new friend, Minerva, becomes a target of whispers and speculation, Daphne can’t resist getting involved. Fighting for the underdog comes as naturally as sourcing the perfect vintage piece. But there’s more at stake than Daphne could have guessed, and a killer who succeeded once is all too willing to try again.
The Mail Man by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Perfect for you if you like: mystery/suspense - private investigators
Publisher Synopsis:
A Library Journal and Deadly Pleasures Magazine Best Mystery/Thriller of 2025
In a new thriller from the author of The End of the Road, a former postal inspection agent tracks a violent crew through the Midwest to rescue a kidnapped woman.
Mercury Carter is a delivery man and he takes his job very seriously. When a parcel is under his care, he will stop at nothing to deliver it directly to its intended recipient. Not even, as in the current case, when he finds a crew of violent men at the indicated address that threaten his life and take the woman who lives there hostage.
That's because Carter has special skills from his former life as a federal agent with the postal inspection service, skills that make him particularly useful for delivering items in circumstances as dangerous as these. After Carter dispatches the goons sent to kill him, he enters a home besieged by criminals--but the leader of the gang escapes with attorney Rachel Stanfield before the mailman can complete his assignment.
With Rachel's husband Glenn in tow, Carter takes off in pursuit of the kidnapper and his quarry, hunting them across Indiana, up to Chicago, and into small-town Illinois. Along the way, he slowly picks off members of the crew and uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy and a powerful crime syndicate, all in service of his main objective: to hand the package over to Rachel. Carter has never missed a delivery and isn't about to start now.
Introducing a new lone-wolf protagonist to rival Lee Child's Jack Reacher, Steve Hamilton's Nick Mason, and Gregg Hurwitz's Evan Smoak, The Mailman is a pulse-pounding series opener with captivating action and enough thrills to leave readers anxiously awaiting the next installment.
King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby
Perfect for you if you like: suspense - southern fiction
Publisher Synopsis:
Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby returns with King of Ashes, a Godfather-inspired Southern crime epic and dazzling family drama.
When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father's car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family--and the family business--together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante's recklessness has placed them all in real danger.
Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he's forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his brother: himself, and his own particular set of skills.
Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything.
Because everything burns.
Still Life: Ten Crime Stories by Malin Persson Giolito
Perfect for you if you like: true crime - short stories - nonfiction
Publisher Synopsis:
These 10 sharp yet deeply human stories show how people from all walks of life can end up on the wrong side of the law, regardless of their intentions.
A compelling portrait of modern Sweden that speaks to universal questions about crime and morality, from the internationally bestselling author of Quicksand.
A police officer fresh out of the academy becomes acutely aware of the deadly consequences of prejudice and how biases color our actions, leading us to justify faulty choices. A teenager has lost her voice and resorts to violence to get heard, even against those she loves. A university student breaks a law on a night of youthful revelry, which soon has fatal consequences that plunge those involved into an abyss of remorse. A mother commits the very same crime her son is being prosecuted for, in order to protect him. A man extends a helping hand in defiance of state restrictions, keeping a refugee safe from the harsh Swedish winter and deportation.
With her unique and prominent voice in Swedish literature, Malin Persson Giolito sheds light on the lives of people at all levels of the society through these ten thought-provoking and emotionally charged stories. She delivers a poignant portrayal of societal failure, vividly illustrating that actions driven by good intentions may still be considered criminal in the eyes of the law, underscoring that the legal system doesn’t always shield those who need protection the most.
April Novelty Items - Default Package
Spring is in the air and in your upcoming shipment! Our April default novelty package is everything floral. Every single one of these items is from a small business in the USA. Retail value: $30.00
In this package, you will get:
Dried flower acrylic bookmark by @succulent_kreations *may be pink or blue
Honey lavender hand lotion from @123farmorganics
Handmade wildflower earrings by @washingtonswildflowers *colors vary
Bee-friendly wildflower seeds from @bloomandhaul
Chamomile lavender bath salts from @hera_byhera and @theboxofbooks
So there’s our April line up! Please let me know which title(s) you’d be overjoyed to see in your April book box. And please please please let me know by March 25th! Submissions after that are NOT disregarded- we will do our utmost best to accommodate every request.
