Are you ready for April book releases? If we’re lucky, it will actually be spring weather, and we can enjoy these books with sunshine. I am so ready! Let’s dive right into the April Treasures in My Closet. Don’t forget to let me know what books you’re anticipating. These are only the ones I already have or read, so I’m sure there are a number of April releases that I’m missing on this list.

Ellery Adams’ fifth Secret, Book, and Scone Society novel is The Vanishing Type. In this one, bookshop owner, bibliotherapist, and occasional sleuth Nora Pennington must enlist the help of her brilliant, brassy librarian friend Bobbie to unravel the connection between The Scarlet Letter, an obscure 19th-century writer, and a dead hiker. (Release date is April 26.)

Samantha Jayne Allen’s debut mystery, Pay Dirt Road, was the winner of the Tony Hillerman Prize, an award that indicates an atmospheric novel set in the Southwest. After college, Annie McIntyre returns home to Garnett, Texas. She’s lost, and doesn’t know what to do with her future, so she’s working as a waitress. When a fellow waitress disappears, Annie realizes that could have been her. Along with her grandfather, who is supposed to be retired from a private investigation firm, Annie hunts down answers in oil fields and local honky-tonks. (Release date is April 19.)

In Janelle Brown’s I’ll Be You, two identical twin sisters and former child actors have grown apart. Then one, who appeared to be the responsible one, disappears, and the other is forced to confront the secrets they’ve kept from each other in this twisty suspense novel. Sam has never recovered from her failed career, or from the addictions that have propped her up for the last fifteen years. Now, Sam has to learn if that once responsible sister is in trouble. (Release date is April 26.)

Susan Cain is the author of Quiet, the bestselling book about introverts. Now, in Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, she reveals the power of a bittersweet outlook on life. She employs a mix of research, storytelling and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and the surprising lessons these states of mind teach us about creativity, compassion, leadership, spirituality, mortality and love. (Release date is April 5.)

I don’t know how I missed the first two Jersey Girl Legal Mysteries by E.J. Copperman. I normally enjoy his books, but I probably skipped the first one because it said “legal”, and I usually skip legal novels. Witness for the Persecution, the third in the series, was delightful. Movie premiers, murder charges and celebrity shenanigans? It’s all in a day’s work for New Jersey prosecutor turned LA family lawyer Sandy Moss. Former New Jersey prosecutor Sandy Moss moved to a prestigious Los Angeles law firm to make a new start as a family lawyer. So it seems a little unfair that Seaton, Taylor have created a criminal law division specifically for her. Just because she’s successfully defended two murder trials, it doesn’t mean she likes them! But when abrasive Hollywood movie director Robert Reeves is accused of murdering a stuntman on set, Sandy finds she can’t say no when he demands her help. Robert might be an unpleasant, egotistical liar, but something tells Sandy that he’s innocent – even if no one else can see it. I loved Sandy Moss, her wit, and her intelligence. (Release date is April 5.)

I’m always eager to try a new series. Trish Esden’s The Art of the Decoy, A Scandal Mountain Antiques mystery, caught my attention with the caption, “Perfect for fans of Jane K. Cleland and Connie Berry.” After her mother is sent to prison for art forgery, Edie Brown returns to Northern Vermont to rebuild her family’s fine art and antiques business. Her mother’s bad business practices drove Edie away three years earlier, along with a screwup that put Edie on probation for selling stolen property. When she accepts a job appraising a waterfowl decoy collection, Edie’s eager to rebuild the business’s tarnished reputation. But, when the collection vanishes, Edie’s accused of the theft. With the help of her eccentric uncle Tuck and a new employee, Edie must risk everything to expose the thieves and recover the decoys. (Release date is April 5.)

Lessons in Chemistry is Bonnie Garmus’ debut novel. Elizabeth Zott is a scientist in the early 1960s, and a woman with a mind of her own. When she’s fired from her research position for being unwed and pregnant (but, really for being a woman with a mind of her own), she takes a new job as host of a daytime cooking show. And, then history is made. Because cooking is chemistry and chemistry is change, and when she brings that message to the housewives of America, she ignites a revolution. (Release date is April 5.)

Librarian and amateur sleuth Greer Hogan returns in M.E. Hilliard’s Shadow in the Glass. Hogan is in Upstate New York to celebrate her friend Sarah Whitaker’s wedding on Mirror Lake. But, she has an ulterior motive – to gather information that could reopen the investigation into her husband’s murder, a crime for which she believes an innocent man went to prison. Her plans come to a shuddering halt when a wedding guest goes missing and turns up dead in the lake. The police have no leads, but Greer – an avid reader of crime fiction who possesses an uncanny knack for deduction – begins her own investigation. (Release date is April 5.)

I’ll admit if Sam Holland’s The Echo Man hadn’t been a debut novel, it might be on the treasures list below. But, I always like to push debuts. Sam Holland’s chilling debut draws inspiration from infamous serial killer cases, culminating in the ultimate, heart-pounding copycat tale. Detectives Cara Elliott and Noah Deakin are on the case of a series of seemingly unconnected murders, each different in method, but each shocking and brutal. As the body count increases, they can’t ignore the details that echo famous cases of the past—Manson, Kemper, Dahmer, and more. Meanwhile, Jessica Ambrose is on the run. She’s been implicated as the arsonist who killed her neglectful husband and injured her young daughter. With the help of disgraced and suspended detective Nate Griffin, Jess discovers a shocking link between her case and that of the ultimate copycat killer working on his horrifying masterpiece. (Release date is April 5.)

Colleen Hubbard’s Housebreaking is another debut novel. Following a long-standing family feud and looking to settle a score, a woman decides to dismantle her family home – alone and by hand – and move it across a frozen pond during a harsh New England winter. After her parents’ divorce, del’s uncle and the rest of the family shunned her and her mother. Now, with both of her parents gone, her uncle wants the one thing Del inherited: the family home. Instead of handing the place over and giving her uncle what he wants, Del decides she will tear the place apart herself – by hand, piece by piece. But, the task stirs up more than just old memories as family members – each in their own state of unraveling – come knocking on her door. (Release date is April 19.)

How about something a little lighter, Abby Jimenez’ Part of Your World? Alexis Montgomery has had her world turned upside down. The cause: Daniel Grant, a ridiculously hot carpenter who’s ten years younger than her and as casual as they come. While her ultra-wealthy parents want her to carry on the family legacy of world-renowned surgeons, Alexis doesn’t need glory or fame. She’s fine with being a “mere” ER doctor. And every minute she spends with Daniel and the tight-knit town where he lives, she’s discovering just what’s really important. Yet letting their relationship become anything more than a short-term fling would mean turning her back on her family and giving up the opportunity to help thousands of people. How can Alexis possibly choose between her world and his? (Release date is April 19.)

There’s a great deal of buzz about T. Kingfisher’s Nettle & Bone in libraries. From Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes an original and subversive fantasy adventure. This isn’t the kind of fairytale where the princess marries a prince. It’s the one where she kills him. Marra never wanted to be a hero. As the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter, she escaped the traditional fate of princesses, to be married away for the sake of an uncaring throne. But her sister wasn’t so fortunate―and after years of silence, Marra is done watching her suffer at the hands of a powerful and abusive prince. Hero or not―now joined by a disgraced ex-knight, a reluctant fairy godmother, an enigmatic gravewitch and her fowl familiar―Marra might finally have the courage to save her sister, and topple a throne. (Release date is April 26.)

I’m going to relieve fears of my dog-loving readers right now. Edie doesn’t die in Meredith May’s Loving Edie: How a Dog Afraid of Everything Taught Me to Be Brave. I checked. When Meredith May and her wife, Jenn, adopt Edie, a sweet golden retriever puppy, she wins their hearts immediately. Then problems begin. Edie is an unusually anxious dog. She cowers around most people and the slightest noise sends her into a frenzy. Edie’s fears are so intense that Meredith and Jenn can’t leave the house. In this memoir, Meredith shares her unforgettable journey with Edie, and the lessons about selflessness and unconditional love that she learns along the way. Meredith shows just how far she is willing to go to save her dog. But maybe Edie is secretly the one doing the saving – if Meredith will only open her heart. (Release date is April 19.)

The Fool Dies Last is Carol Miller’s first Fortune Telling Mystery, and it’s fun. Sisters Hope and Summer Bailey run Bailey’s Boutique, a mystic shop in Asheville, North Carolina. While Hope’s performing a palm reading a local doctor, Dylan Henshaw, bursts in, accusing them of trying to kill his patient with a tincture. The confrontation is interrupted when the sisters’ Gram calls. One of her friends has died, and there’s a Tarot card, the Fool, in her purse. Hope is reluctant to read the Tarot cards, but when another of Gram’s friends dies, with the Fool card left at the scene, she might reconsider. (Release date is April 5.)

Gary Phillips’ One-Shot Harry is another book with a lot of buzz. Race and civil rights in 1963 Los Angeles provide a powerful backdrop in Gary Phillips’s riveting historical crime novel about an African American forensic photographer seeking justice for a friend. African American Korean War veteran Harry Ingram earns a living as a news photographer and occasional process server: chasing police radio calls and dodging baseball bats. With racial tensions running high on the eve of Martin Luther King’s Freedom Rally, Ingram risks becoming a victim at every crime scene he photographs. When Ingram hears a call to the scene of a deadly automobile accident, he recognizes the vehicle as belonging to an old army buddy. The LAPD calls the car crash an accident, but when Ingram develops his photos there are signs of foul play. He feels compelled to play detective, even if it means putting his own life on the line. (Release date is April 5.)

How about a story collection, Bill Pronzini’s Small Felonies 2. 50 short-short stories told in first-person, third-person, present as well as past tense, and in epistolary format; tales of detection (three feature long-running series character, the “Nameless Detective”), psychological suspense, historical noir, light and dark fantasy, satirical humor, horror, the biter-bitten, the O. Henry twist, a shaggy dog story or two, even a shameless futuristic Hemingway pastiche. (Release date is April 22.)

Sascha Rothchild’s debut thriller is Blood Sugar. “I could just kill you right now!” It’s something we’ve all thought at one time or another. But Ruby Simon has actually acted on it. Three times, to be exact. When we meet Ruby, a thirty-year-old therapist and dog mom living in Miami, she’s in a police interrogation room, accused of her husband’s murder. Ironically, this is the one crime that she did not commit, though her vicious mother-in-law and a scandal-obsessed public believe differently. As she undergoes questioning, Ruby’s mind races back to all the details of her life that led her to this exact moment, and to the three dead bodies in her wake. Because, though she may not have killed her husband, Ruby certainly isn’t innocent. (Release date is April 19.)

If you’re a fan of John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport, you’ll recognize Letty Davenport’s name. She’s the lead character in Sandford’s The Investigator. She’s bored to death with her job in D.C., just about to resign when a Senator asks her to go undercover in Texas. She’s partnered with an agent from Homeland Security. Several oil companies in Texas have reported thefts of crude oil. Senator Colles wants to know if the profits are going to militia groups, especially one led by a woman who seems to have an explosive plan. (Release date is April 12.)

I”ll admit I picked up Jeremy Scott’s When the Corn is Waist High because it’s set in Indiana farm country. By the time I read through the early part of the book, the humorous part, I was already sucked into this story that turned into a thriller with a shocking ending. In the early 1980s, a tight-knit Indiana community is struck by a series of violent murders. Father Solomon Lancaster—the town’s dry-witted sheriff and priest at the community Catholic church—finds himself on the forefront of the investigation. Soon, he’s fighting to match wits with the serial killer terrorizing his town while trying to justify his law enforcement credentials to the FBI as their analysts and profilers take Crooked Creek, Indiana, by storm. The second half of the book turns everything upside down after what you thought you knew in the first half. (Release date is April 19.)

It’s been years since I’ve read one of Adriana Triginai’s books, and I’m ready for The Good Left Undone. It’s a novel of three generations of Tuscan artisans with one remarkable secret. As Metelda, the Cabrelli family’s matriarch, faces the end of her life, she is determined to share a long-held secret with her family – the story of her own mother’s great love story: with her childhood friend, Silvio, and with dashing Scottish sea captain John Lawrie McVicars, the father Matelda never knew. . . .n the halcyon past, Domenica Cabrelli thrives in the coastal town of Viareggio until her beloved home becomes unsafe when Italy teeters on the brink of World War II. Her journey takes her from the rocky shores of Marseille to the mystical beauty of Scotland to the dangers of wartime Liverpool—where Italian Scots are imprisoned without cause—as Domenica experiences love, loss, and grief while she longs for home. One hundred years later, Metelda is running out of time, and the two timelines intersect and weave together in unexpected and heartbreaking ways that lead the family to shocking revelations and, ultimately, redemption. (Release date is April 26.)

Don’t forget these Treasures as well.

Ahmad, Aamina – The Return of Faraz Ali (4/5)
Bannalec, Jean-Luc – The King Arthur Case (4/26)
Bieker, Chelsea – Heartbroke (4/5)
Bowery, Liz – Love, Hate & Clickbait (4/26)
Close, Jennifer – Marrying the Ketchups (4/26)
Egan, Jennifer – The Candy House (4/5)
Gillham, David R. – Shadows of Berlin (4/19)
Green, Jane – Sister Stardust (4/5)
Johnson, Chantal V. – Post-Traumatic (4/5)
Jones, Chloe Cooper – Easy Beauty: A Memoir (4/5)
Li, Grace D. – Portrait of a Thief (4/5)
Mandel, Emily St. John – Sea of Tranquility (4/5)
Patel, Reema – Such Big Dreams (4/26)
Perkens-Valdez, Dolen – Take My Hand (4/12)
Philpott, Mary Laura – Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives (4/12)
Vuong, Ocean – Time is a Mother (4/5)
Weinberger, Andy – The Kindness of Strangers (4/12)
Wiley, Soon – When We Fell Apart (4/26)
Wilson, Carter – The New Neighbor (4/12)
Winter, Dawn – Sedating Elaine (4/12)