On the Smugglers’ Radar

“On The Smugglers’ Radar” is a feature for books that have caught our eye: books we have heard of via other bloggers, directly from publishers, and/or from our regular incursions into the Amazon jungle. Thus, the Smugglers’ Radar was born. Because we want far more books than we can possibly buy or review (what else is new?), we thought we would make the Smugglers’ Radar into a weekly feature – so YOU can tell us which books you have on your radar as well!

On Ana’s Radar:

I saw this on netgalley this morning and did a double take immediately followed by a LOUD GASP. ” I MUST HAVE IT

A PRINCESS
A STABLE BOY
A QUEST

When her father dies, Princess Amarande is given an ultimatum: Marry the leader of one of the four neighboring kingdoms, or lose her crown—and possibly her life. And to force her hand, her beloved, the stable boy Luca, is kidnapped.

But Amarande was raised to be a warrior, not a sacrifice.

And nothing will stop her from saving her true love and rescuing her kingdom.

The acclaimed author of Sea Witch turns the classic damsel-in-distress tale on its head with this story of adventure, identity, and love. 

And this one also sounds like it will be a lot of fun:

A ragtag crew of misfit criminals bands together to hunt the biggest score in the galaxy in this irreverent YA sci-fi adventure.

Cora Saros is trying her best to join the family business of theft and intergalactic smuggling. Unfortunately, she’s a total disaster. After landing herself in prison following an attempted heist gone wrong, she strikes a bargain with the prison warden: He’ll expunge her record if she brings back a long-lost treasure rumored to grant immortality.

Cora is skeptical, but with no other way out, she assembles a crew from her cellmates—a disgraced warrior from an alien planet; a cocky pirate who claims to have the largest ship in the galaxy; and a glitch-prone robot with a penchant for baking—and take off after the fabled prize.

But the ragtag group soon discovers that not only is the too-good-to-be-true treasure very real, but they’re also not the only ones on the hunt for it. And it’s definitely a prize worth killing for.

I am deadly serious about wanting this one:

A young lady who aspires to be a detective investigates the murder of her cousin in this YA thriller from the author of The Hummingbird Dagger.

1834. Sophia Thompson wants nothing more than to be one of the famed Bow Street Runners, London’s most elite corps of detectives. Never mind that a woman has never before joined their ranks—and certainly never mind that her reclusive family has forbidden her from pursuing such an unladylike goal.

She gets the chance to prove her capabilities when an urgent letter arrives from her frantic cousin Daphne, begging Sophia to come look into the suspicious death of Daphne’s brother.

As Sophia begins to unravel the tangled threads of the case—with the help of a charming young policeman—she soon realizes that the murderer may be even closer to her family than she ever suspected.

A twisty tale reminiscent of Jane Austen—with a dash of murder—Deadly Curious is perfect for fans of Kerri Maniscalco.

Love the sound of this SCIFI novel:

Andra wakes up from a cryogenic sleep 1,000 years later than she was supposed to, forcing her to team up with an exiled prince to navigate an unfamiliar planet in this smart, thrilling sci-fi adventure, perfect for fans of Renegades and Aurora Rising.

When Andra wakes up, she’s drowning.

Not only that, but she’s in a hot, dirty cave, it’s the year 3102, and everyone keeps calling her Goddess. When Andra went into a cryonic sleep for a trip across the galaxy, she expected to wake up in a hundred years, not a thousand. Worst of all, the rest of the colonists—including her family and friends—are dead. They died centuries ago, and for some reason, their descendants think Andra’s a deity. She knows she’s nothing special, but she’ll play along if it means she can figure out why she was left in stasis and how to get back to Earth.

Zhade, the exiled bastard prince of Eerensed, has other plans. Four years ago, the sleeping Goddess’s glass coffin disappeared from the palace, and Zhade devoted himself to finding it. Now he’s hoping the Goddess will be the key to taking his rightful place on the throne—if he can get her to play her part, that is. Because if his people realize she doesn’t actually have the power to save their dying planet, they’ll kill her.

With a vicious monarch on the throne and a city tearing apart at the seams, Zhade and Andra might never be able to unlock the mystery of her fate, let alone find a way to unseat the king, especially since Zhade hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with Andra. And a thousand years from home, is there any way of knowing that Earth is better than the planet she’s woken to?

SO! Tehlor Kay Mejia and Anna-Marie McLemore wrote a book together and I am very much here for this:

TWO EX-BEST FRIENDS. TWO ENORMOUS SECRETS. ONE BEAUTY PAGEANT.

Everyone knows that Meteor, New Mexico, got its name from the space rock that crashed into the desert nearby. No one knows that Lita Perez came with it—or that she’s starting to turn back into stardust. She’ll never get a chance to graduate high school or kids the boy of her dreams — not unless she can find a way to make Meteor hold onto her and never let go. Not unless she achieve her wildest childhood dream and win the annual Miss Meteor beauty pageant. But if she’s going to have a chance, she’ll need her ex-best friend Chicky Quintanilla.
Chicky knows Lita has no chance of becoming Miss Meteor. Every year, the pageant queen is skinny, poised, and white—three things that Lita definitely is not. But Chicky also knows that if Lita wins, it will show this whole backward town that there’s more to beauty than being blonde and popular. If Lita can find a way to overcome the odds, then maybe Chicky can find a way to come out of the closet. Maybe she can finally stand up to the people who look down on her for not fitting in and stop pushing away the people who make her feel seen. To pull off the unlikeliest underdog story in pageant history, Lita and Chicky are going to have to forget the past and imagine a future where girls like them are more than enough—they are everything.
Witty and heartfelt with characters that leap off the page, Miss Meteor is acclaimed authors Anna-Marie McLemore and Tehlor Kay Mejia’s first book together.

And that’s it from us! What books do you have on your radar?