• Feel Good
  • 4th May 2024
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BookTok – the 8 books that are worth the hype

There are over 32.1 million posts with the hashtag BookTok on TikTok, but how do you separate the wheat from the chaff?

From page-turning thrillers to Greek retellings and romantasies aplenty, the recommendations of BookTok are diverse and dense.

Here’s what is actually worth the hype.

Beach Read by Emily Henry

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighbouring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no-one will fall in love. Really.

BUY NOW – £8.27

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Think House of the Dragon meets Divergent…

Fourth Wing follows the bookish Violet Sorrengail, daughter of a revered wartime General, who is thrust into elite training to become a dragon rider. She must attempt to survive long enough to graduate, amid deadly trials and a brewing war outside.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

BUY NOW – £4.99

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

BUY NOW – £5.00

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Alicia Berenson is a famous painter married to a very handsome fashion photographer, who lives in a beautiful house overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas.

Her life is seemingly perfect, until one day she shoots her husband five times in the face and never speaks another word.

Theo Faber is a forensic psychotherapist who is convinced he can successfully treat Alicia, but to get her to talk he must first understand what happened to cause her silence.

His determination to unravel the mystery of the silent patient takes him down a dark path into his own motivations. And if she speaks, would he want to hear the truth?

BUY NOW – £8.97

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

The romantasy that started it all.

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world. At least, he’s not a beast all the time.

As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

BUY NOW – £5.00

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Achilles, “the best of all the Greeks,” son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods’ wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

BUY NOW – £9.19

Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations. The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince.

As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?

BUY NOW – £7.49

Verity by Colleen Hoover

Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish.

Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity‘s notes but what she finds is an unfinished autobiography full of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity‘s recollection of what really happened the day her daughter died.

Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents would devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy grow, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words.

After all, a truth this horrifying is impossible to come back from.

BUY NOW – £6.08

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Beth is our Senior Digital Executive and can be credited with how everything at HLN ‘looks’ – from the website to our social media and twice-weekly emails. She’s also the super organised one in the team and keeps us all on-track. A born and bred scouser, Beth moved to Newcastle…

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