10 Hot New Books for April

I’m sharing 10 hot new books to read including a food memoir, a diet and exercise book from Carrie Underwood’s trainer, a healthy cookbook with delicious and easy recipes, a new tale from the creator of Downton Abbey, and more good reads!

Read on to find out what’s on my April reading list.

1.    Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir by Padma Lakshmi | In her memoir, Padma Lakshmi writes about her childhood, judging Top Chef, her marriage to Salman Rushdie, endometriosis, motherhood, and food. If you are a fan of Top Chef and a food lover, pick up a copy.

For more information about endometriosis, visit the Endometriosis Foundation of America website. Padma co-founded the non-profit with her doctor to bring recognition, research, and education to a common gynecological condition.

2.   Where the Light Gets In: Losing My Mother Only to Find Her Again by Kimberly Williams-Paisley | Kimberly Williams-Paisley started noticing odd changes in her mother’s behavior when she got engaged to country superstar Brad Paisley in 2002. In 2005, they learned that her mother, then 62, was suffering from a rare and incurable form of early-onset dementia called primary progressive aphasia, which left her moody, accident-prone and increasingly unable to recognize her family. Kimberly details her family’s difficult journey including the mistakes they made along the way as they bonded together, trying to help her mother as best they could.

3.    The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith | The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is a beautiful story of deception and betrayal. In the 17th century, a woman paints a beautiful landscape. In the 1950’s, a lowly art restorer is hired to copy the painting for a mysterious benefactor. After the turn of the century, the art restorer has become a curator at a prestigious museum in Sydney, and an exhibition of De Vos painting is coming, and her forgery is at the forefront.

4.    The White Donkey: Terminal Lance by Maximilian Uriarte | The White Donkey follows the story of Abe and Garcia on their enlistment into the Marine Corps and their first deployment to Iraq, with a heavy emphasis on the return home and the challenges many veterans face battling Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression. This one is powerful and will help you understand the challenges our military face long after the deployment ends.

5.    Good + Simple: Recipes to Eat Well and Thrive by Jasmine and Melissa Hemsley | Good + Simple contains 140 recipes that are gluten-free, void of refined sugars and grains, but full of flavor to leave you energized and satisfied. The sisters just opened a cafe at Selfridges Oxford Street, London.

Jasmine and Melissa also designed a spiralizer. The Hemsley Spiralizer is the insanely useful gadget your kitchen’s been missing. Its claim to fame is effortlessly turning fresh veggies (cucumber, carrot, sweet potato, butternut squash) into spirals or noodles, which are the backbone of so many great recipes in Hemsley + Hemsley’s first cookbook, The Art of Eating Well.

Find out more about Hemsley & Hemsley at Hemsleyandhemsley.com, and find all of their Vogue.co.uk recipes here.

6.    4 x 4 Diet by Erin Opera | Erin Opera is a former marine and Carrie Underwood’s trainer. She breaks the book into four parts: The Clean and Lean Lifestyle, Eating Clean, Getting Lean, and The 4×4 diet. Her four main beliefs of her clean eating philosophy include:

• Cut out starches at night
• Cut back on sugar
• Cut back on sodium
• Cut back on alcohol

She also explains how to get lean, using her 4-minute tabata workouts: 8 repetitions of 20 seconds of high-intensity moves, then 10 seconds of rest.

Within four weeks, the average person will be able to reduce bloating and belly fat; gain increased muscle definition in the arms, legs, and stomach; improve cardiovascular endurance; and break sugar and sodium addictions. Complete with meal plans and recipes, The 4 x 4 Diet is perfect for anyone looking to streamline their body and lifestyle.

If you’re looking for some new workout to add into your routine, then check out Erin’s Instagram @ErinOprea.

7.    Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly | The story is based on the history of Ravensbrück, the largest female concentration camp that operated during the German Reich.  The story is about the lives of New York socialite turned WWII heroine Caroline, Herta, an ambitious German doctor working at the camp, and teenager Kasia, a Polish prisoner. Read this one if you enjoyed, The Nightingale. It is an incredible story of love, redemption, and terrible secrets hidden for decades.

8.    Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent’s Expectations by Ron Fournier | Love That Boy is a uniquely personal story about the causes and costs of outsized parental expectations. What we want for our children popularity, normalcy, achievement, genius and what they truly need grit, empathy, character. National Journal’s Ron Fournier weaves his extraordinary journey to acceptance around the latest research on childhood development and stories of other loving-but-struggling parents.

9.    Glory Over Everything by  Kathleen Grissom | The author of the New York Times bestseller, The Kitchen House continues the story of Jamie Pyke, son of both a slave and master of Tall Oakes, whose deadly secret compels him to take a treacherous journey through the Underground Railroad.

The Kitchen House is such a good book, and I’m looking forward to reading Glory Over Everything.

10.  Belgravia by Julian Fellowes | Belgravia is the brand new story from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes. Julian Fellowes’s Belgravia will tell the story of a secret. A secret that unravels behind the porticoed doors of the poshest of posh areas of London. The story behind this secret will be revealed in weekly installments complete with all the twists and turns and cliff-hanger endings you’d expect from a Julian Fellowes effort.

Looking for more good books, check out all my recommendation here.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Have you read anything good or memorable lately?

Tell me in the comments!

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