Waiting on Wednesday with Mart (The Beardy Book Blogger) @LaughingGravy71 @OrendaBooks #Orentober

Hi and welcome to Waiting on Wednesday! Originally hosted at Breaking the Spine, Waiting on Wednesday has now linked up with Can’t Wait Wednesday at Wishful Endings.

Since it’s still #Orentober and you’re probably getting tired of hearing me yapping all the time, I thought it would be fun to ask a few other Orenda fans what their most anticipated Orenda books are! (Also, I’m a nosy Parker so I’m dying to know which Orenda book people are desperate to get their hands on 😬)

As I announced last week when I had Yvo as my guest, today I welcome to FromBelgiumWithBookLove an awesome blogger of the bearded variety: Mart a.k.a. The Beardy Book Blogger, do check out this bookish beardiness if you haven’t already! Mart was one of the bloggers who introduced me to Orenda Books, his Q&A with Louise Beech last year was the final nudge I needed to buy The Lion Tamer Who Lost. Totally not my genre, I had decided not to risk it, until I read said Q&A and found that Louise was so funny and had so many interesting things to say and perhaps I did need to read her book. It ended up being my favourite book of the entire year, so thank you Mart! So naturally, when thinking about who to ask about their anticipated Orenda books, Mart came to mind immediately!

Obviously, he had to bend the rules a little and present me with not one, not even two, but three, yes THREE, novels he is dying to read. Sigh. If I had allowed it, he would have giving me the entire list of future Orenda Books, I think ? To be fair, I completely understand, as I’ll be waiting impatiently for all of these (and quite a few more) too.

But without further ado, these are Mart’s most anticipated Orenda titles:

I Am Dust – Louise Beech
If you know anything about me at all you’ll know that my love for Louise Beech and her books knows no bounds and so her 6th book was a no brainer on this list. Louise write directly from the heart and from personal experience. She crafts characters and stories that feel real and fully formed from the moment they appear on the page. Her ‘debut’ novel, How To Be Brave, is one of my very favourite books ever.

As we’re already waiting with Yvo for I Am Dust, I’ll just refer you to that post for more information about what is surely to be another brilliant Louise Beech novel!

Beast – Matt Wesolowski
The three ‘Six Stories’ books that have been released so far – Six Stories, Hydra and Changeling – are amongst some of the most unique and riveting books I’ve read in the last few years, so this 4th installment is an absolute must for me. I don’t even know what the plot is, but I want it and I want it NOW, dammit.

No need to get aggressive now Mart! Beast is out in eBook in December 2019, and in paperback in February 2020 (pre-order here) and actually yes, that’s still a very long wait ? Here’s a little more about it:

Elusive online journalist Scott King examines the chilling case of a young vlogger found frozen to death in the legendary local ‘vampire tower’, in another explosive episode of Six Stories… In the wake of the ‘Beast from the East’ cold snap that ravaged the UK in 2018, a grisly discovery was made in a ruin on the Northumbrian coast. Twenty-four-year-old Vlogger, Elizabeth Barton, had been barricaded inside what locals refer to as ‘The Vampire Tower’, where she was later found frozen to death. Three young men, part of an alleged ‘cult’, were convicted of this terrible crime, which they described as a ‘prank gone wrong.’ However, in the small town of Ergarth, questions have been raised about the nature of Elizabeth Barton’s death and whether the three convicted youths were even responsible. Elusive online journalist Scott King speaks to six witnesses people who knew both the victim and the three killers to peer beneath the surface of the case. He uncovers whispers of a shocking online craze that held the young of Ergarth in its thrall and drove them to escalate a series of pranks in the name of internet fame. He hears of an abattoir on the edge of town, which held more than simple slaughter behind its walls, the tragic and chilling legend of the ‘Ergarth Vampire’… Both a compulsive, taut and terrifying thriller, and a bleak and distressing look at modern society’s desperation for attention, Beast will unveil a darkness from which you may never return…

Untitled Lori Anderson – Steph Broadribb
I have no idea when this book will be out, what its title is (I know it’ll have ‘Deep’ in there somewhere), or even what it will be about, but if it’s written by Steph, features her kick ass, bad ass, bounty hunter mother Lori Anderson and drops her into yet more trouble and strife with the mob, count me in! The previous books in this series – Deep Down Dead, Deep Blue Trouble and Deep Dirty Truth – were superb; widescreen, high octane blockbuster action movies with heart and great characters. I can’t wait to see what Deep Dirty Shizzle Steph will get Lori, JT and their poor daughter Dakota into next. Yeeee harrrrrr *cracks whip and shoots pistols into the air*

Yes quite, and thank you for that mental image, Mart 😳 Well, I did a bit of research and there will in fact be a ‘Deep’ in the title: the fourth Lori Anderson will be called Deep Dark Night and it will be out in eBook format in January 2020 and paperback in March 2020 (pre-order here). Here’s what it will be about:

One woman. A million-dollar card game. A city in darkness. 
Fearless Florida bounty-hunter Lori Anderson travels to Chicago to trap the head of a notorious crime family, in a high-stakes, nail-biting mission that sees her trapped in one of the city’s tallest buildings during a blackout… 
Working off the books for FBI Special Agent Alex Monroe, Florida bounty-hunter Lori Anderson and her partner, JT, head to Chicago. Their mission: to entrap the head of the Cabressa crime family. The bait: a priceless chess set that Cabressa is determined to add to his collection. 
An exclusive high-stakes poker game is arranged in the penthouse suite of one of the city’s tallest buildings, with Lori holding the cards in an agreed arrangement to hand over the pieces, one by one. But, as night falls and the game plays out, stakes rise and tempers flare. 
When a power failure plunges the city into darkness, the building goes into lockdown. But this isn’t an ordinary blackout, and the men around the poker table aren’t all who they say they are. Hostages are taken, old scores resurface and the players start to die. 

Thanks for joining me today! Are any of these on your wishlist as well? Let me know below and stay tuned because next week I’ll have another blogger guest over on FromBelgiumWithBookLove!