Given that Suspense/Thriller is my kryptonite, I always find this list to be the most interesting. It’s also impossible for me to narrow it down to just a handful. So, without further ado, my favorite suspense/thrillers of 2015.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins: I know, I know. People have strong feelings about this book. The things that many don’t like about it (unreliable narrator, etc.) were things I actually loved!

Crazy Love You by Lisa Unger: Twisted. Brilliant.

The Ice Twins by S. K. Tremayne: Super creepy twins. Still gives me the shivers.

The Wrong Man by Kate White: Completely transfixing and compelling. Read it in one sitting, I crave this sort of book!

Eeny Meeny by M J Arlidge: The first book in a series, I became completely obsessed with this author’s books. Completely terrifying. I absolutely loved it.

Pop Goes the Weasel: A Detective Helen Grace Thriller by M. J. Arlidge: Yep, two books by the same author, same series. And there’s another one coming out here in a few months. Definitely an author to add to your must-read list!

The Killing Kind by Chris Holm: 2,000 balloons and two hit-men in one room. Hilarious, yes, but also completely mesmerizing! Another stunning book by one of my favorite go-to authors!

Wonderland by Jennifer Hillier: If you haven’t read Jennifer’s books, you really need to. As a fan of her writing from the beginning, it’s been amazing to follow her as her writing progresses and matures. Truly outstanding work!

As my “Best of” lists are coming to an end (just two more!), it’s been a treat to revisit my favorite reads of the year. I have fond memories of each and every one of them and look forward to discovering new titles in 2016!

Ok, enough with the sappy stuff. Following are my favorite fiction reads (very general, yes) of 2015.  Mirroring my eclectic reading tastes, the following books are unique and vastly different from one another! Note that there are many other fiction titles I read and enjoyed that I may have mentioned in other “best of” lists.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper: I have so much love for this title. The message is beautiful, quite an endearing cast of characters!

Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella: A young adult novel by one of my long-time favorite authors!

Above the Waterfall by Ron Rash: Everything this man writes is a work of art!

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon: This one was compared to other renowned YA titles, but it has the strength and beauty to stand out on its own!

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell: Loved, loved this one. A must read for fans of Harry Potter. Yes, there are vague similarities but Rowell puts her own, completely unique and innovative spin on the story.

There are some books that are so brilliant, so moving, so intense that they soften my cold, dead heart or evoke such strong emotions in me that I essentially demand everyone I know to purchase said book.  Following is a breakdown of those books for 2015:

• Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum: I knew going in that this one was going to evoke strong emotion in me. I was warned. I didn’t expect to end up bawling (the loud, nasty, snotty kind) on a plane while reading it, though!

• The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain: Oh, I loved this little book so! I picked it for a book club read as soon as I could. A tiny, beautiful, amazing book that packs a big punch.

• Violent Ends: This book, a collaboration of several talented authors, is a book about a school shooting. I guarantee it is like nothing you have ever read.

Then, there are those books that moved me so profoundly that I couldn’t put into words just how much they moved me:

• Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff: This is the first in a sci-fi series that completely knocked my socks off. My breath was taken away, my heart pounded out of my chest. It’s visually and mentally stimulating and I can’t wait until the next book is released!

• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates: Ta-Nehisi writes about race in a completely open, no-holds barred, yet simultaneously sympathetic and moving sort of way. I read the book, then listened to the audio, then read it again. Then I forced my husband to read it, then passed it on to several of my family members.  Its a subject matter that many attempt to tiptoe around, yet Ta-Nehisi attacks it full on, unrelenting.

• A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara: I read this in early 2015 and it still evokes a whirlwind of intense emotions in me. This novel consumes you mentally and emotionally. Your stomach will churn, your heart will break, but you will persevere, for it is that good.  Of all the books on this list, this is the one that has generated the most conversation, both negative and positive, that I have experienced in some time.

You tell me! Which 2015 reads evoked the strongest emotions or feelings in you?

I listen to quite a few audiobooks each year.  My commute into work is about 30 minutes each way, and I refuse to listen to the radio (all they talk about is traffic), so I tune in to an audiobook. That said, I don’t post about them nearly as often as I should! Regardless, I posted about the following audiobooks I loved throughout the year, so I thought I’d wrap them up neatly into one post!

• Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike Novels) by Robert Galbraith: This is the third in this series and it is so, so addictive. I really do recommend starting at the beginning of the series of you can!
• Audio Production: Locke & Key by Joe Hill (illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez): This was a free download I listened to as part of Murder, Monsters & Mayhem. More than a simple audio narration, this is an audio production, complete with sound effects. Brilliant!
• The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich: Another audio I listened to as part of Murder, Monsters & Mayhem. Uber creepy, brilliant narration!
• None of the Above by I. W. Gregorio: This one gave me all the feels: anger, sympathy, sadness, joy. The narration added to the experience.

Other audios of note, that I didn’t get a chance to review:

• Paradise Sky by Joe Lansdale: I can honestly say I’ve never listened to anything like this one. Just trust me on this one.
• You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day: I’ve been a fan of Felicia’s following her roles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural. When I heard about her book, and that she was narrating, I knew I had to listen to it. Quite rewarding and informative…and laugh out loud hilarious.
• The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: Stories: Stephen King. That’s all I need to say.
• Certainly not published this year (or this decade!), my family and I just started listening to the dramatic production of the Star Wars movies. Originally produced by NPR in the 1980s, these add dimension to the movies we all love.

There you have it! What were some of your favorite audios of 2015?

Edit: Last minute addition! I just finished Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy and, just like Let’s Pretend This Never Happened I found myself listening with tears of laughter rolling down my cheeks. An honest, heartfelt discussion of mental illness.

For the last few days, I’ve been sharing my most anticipated books of January! Today, I’ll conclude with the last of the lists. Included is the publisher’s summary & a short explanation about why I’m looking forward to that particular title.

 The Man Without A Shadow by Joyce Carol Oates (Jan. 19)

In 1965, neuroscientist Margot Sharpe meets the attractive, charismatic Elihu Hoopes—the “man without a shadow”—whose devastated memory, unable to store new experiences or to retrieve the old, will make him the most famous and most studied amnesiac in history. Over the course of next thirty years, Margot herself becomes famous for her experiments with E.H—and inadvertently falls in love with him, despite the ethical ambiguity of their affair, and though he remains forever elusive and mysterious to her, haunted by mysteries of the past.

The Man Without a Shadow tracks the intimate, illicit relationship between Margot and Eli, as scientist and subject embark upon an exploration of the labyrinthine mysteries of the human brain. Where does “memory” reside? Where is “love”? Is it possible to love an individual who cannot love you, who cannot “remember” you from one meeting to the next?

Made vivid by her exceptional eye for detail and her keen insight into the human psyche, The Man Without A Shadow is a unique story of forbidden love, a kind of secret, evolving marriage, depicted in Joyce Carol Oates’s tight, impassioned prose. It is an uncanny, ambitious, and structurally complex novel that penetrates the mind and illuminates the heart.

Joyce Carol Oates. Need I say more? Honestly, though, the summary alone would sell me as well. An intriguing, thought-provoking title.

River Road by Carol Goodman (Jan 19):

Nan Lewis—a creative writing professor at a state university in upstate New York—is driving home from a faculty holiday party after finding out she’s been denied tenure. On her way, she hits a deer, but when she gets out of her car to look for it, the deer is nowhere to be found. Eager to get home and out of the oncoming snowstorm, Nan is forced to leave her car at the bottom of her snowy driveway to wait out the longest night of the year—and the lowest point of her life…

The next morning, Nan is woken up by a police officer at her door with terrible news—one of her students, Leia Dawson, was killed in a hit-and-run on River Road the night before. And because of the damage to her car, Nan is a suspect. In the days following the accident, Nan finds herself shunned by the same community that rallied around her when her own daughter was killed in an eerily similar accident six years prior. When Nan begins finding disturbing tokens that recall the death of Nan’s own daughter, Nan suspects that the two accidents are connected.

As she begins to dig further, she discovers that everyone around her, including Leia, is hiding secrets. But can she uncover them, clear her name, and figure out who really killed Leia before her reputation is destroyed for good?

I swear this sounds like a book I read this year but can’t remember what the title is! It’s my kind of twisty novel.

Feverborn by Karen Marie Moning (Jan. 19):

Without rules, you have to decide what you want, and what you’re willing to do to get it.

In Karen Marie Moning’s latest installment of the epic #1 New York Times bestselling Fever series, the stakes have never been higher and the chemistry has never been hotter. Hurtling us into a realm of labyrinthine intrigue and consummate seduction, FEVERBORN is a riveting tale of ancient evil, lust, betrayal, forgiveness and the redemptive power of love.

How did I miss the last two books in the Fever series? I got hooked on this series a few years back. Now I need some time to play catch-up!

 

The Forgotten Room by Karen White, Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig (Jan. 19):

One unforgettable historical novel of New York City—a masterful collaboration from three New York Times bestselling authors.

1945: When the critically wounded Captain Cooper Ravenal is brought to a private hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, young Dr. Kate Schuyler is drawn into a complex mystery that connects three generations of women in her family to a single extraordinary room in a Gilded Age mansion. A sumptuous feast of a novel, The Forgotten Room is set in alternating time periods, each brought to vivid life by a brilliant historical storyteller.

Ok, do I even need to explain why I can’t wait to start this one? Look at the author line-up!

Girl Through Glass by Sari Wilson (Jan. 26)
In the roiling summer of 1977, eleven-year-old Mira is an aspiring ballerina in the romantic, highly competitive world of New York City ballet. Enduring the mess of her parent’s divorce, she finds escape in dance—the rigorous hours of practice, the exquisite beauty, the precision of movement, the obsessive perfectionism. Ballet offers her control, power, and the promise of glory. It also introduces her to forty-seven-year-old Maurice DuPont, a reclusive, charismatic balletomane who becomes her mentor.

Over the course of three years, Mira is accepted into the prestigious School of American Ballet run by the legendary George Balanchine, and eventually becomes one of “Mr. B’s girls”—a dancer of rare talent chosen for greatness. As she ascends higher in the ballet world, her relationship with Maurice intensifies, touching dark places within herself and sparking unexpected desires that will upend both their lives.

In the present day, Kate, a professor of dance at a Midwestern college, embarks on a risky affair with a student that threatens to obliterate her career and capsizes the new life she has painstakingly created for her reinvented self. When she receives a letter from a man she’s long thought dead, Kate is hurled back into the dramas of a past she thought she had left behind.

Told in interweaving narratives that move between past and present, Girl Through Glass illuminates the costs of ambition, secrets, and the desire for beauty, and reveals how the sacrifices we make for an ideal can destroy—or save—us.

So many people have been raving about this title. Typically, I tend to avoid titles everyone is raving about, but I trust the opinions of those raving so I’ll be adding this one to my must-read list!

 
The Ex by Alafair Burke (Jan. 26):

Twenty years ago she ruined his life.
Now she has the chance to save it.

Widower Jack Harris has resisted the dating scene ever since the shooting of his wife, Molly, by a fifteen-year-old boy three years ago. An early morning run along the Hudson River changes that when he spots a woman in last night’s party dress, barefoot, enjoying a champagne picnic alone, reading his favorite novel. Everything about her reminds him of what he used to have with Molly. Eager to help Jack find love again, his best friend posts a message on a popular website after he mentions the encounter. Days later, that same beautiful stranger responds and invites Jack to meet her in person at the waterfront. That’s when Jack’s world falls apart.

Olivia Randall is one of New York City’s best criminal defense lawyers. When she hears that her former fiancé, Jack Harris, has been arrested for a triple homicide—and that one of the victims was connected to his wife’s murder—there is no doubt in her mind as to his innocence. The only question is who would go to such great lengths to frame him—and why?

For Olivia, representing Jack is a way to make up for past regrets, to absolve herself of guilt from a tragic decision, a secret she has held for twenty years. But as the evidence against him mounts, she is forced to confront her doubts. The man she knew could not have done this. But what if she never really knew him?

Alafair Burke. That’s all I need to say. If you haven’t read any of Burke’s books before (!!!?!!!#*&%*&#), this is a stand-alone and a good starting point.

The Golden Son by Shilpi Somaya Gowda (Jan. 26):

The first of his family to go to college, Anil Patel, the golden son, carries the weight of tradition and his family’s expectations when he leaves his tiny Indian village to begin a medical residency in Dallas, Texas, at one of the busiest and most competitive hospitals in America. When his father dies, Anil becomes the de facto head of the Patel household and inherits the mantle of arbiter for all of the village’s disputes. But he is uneasy with the custom, uncertain that he has the wisdom and courage demonstrated by his father and grandfather. His doubts are compounded by the difficulties he discovers in adjusting to a new culture and a new job, challenges that will shake his confidence in himself and his abilities.

Back home in India, Anil’s closest childhood friend, Leena, struggles to adapt to her demanding new husband and relatives. Arranged by her parents, the marriage shatters Leena’s romantic hopes, and eventually forces her to make a desperate choice that will hold drastic repercussions for herself and her family. Though Anil and Leena struggle to come to terms with their identities thousands of miles apart, their lives eventually intersect once more—changing them both and the people they love forever.

Tender and bittersweet, The Golden Son illuminates the ambivalence of people caught between past and present, tradition and modernity, duty and choice; the push and pull of living in two cultures, and the painful decisions we must make to find our true selves.

Books about family, especially family struggles, are my kryptonite. 

Noah’s Wife by Lindsay Starck (Jan. 26):
Noah’s Wife is a story of a community battered by a relentless downpour from the heavens, a gray and wet little town teeming with eccentric characters who have learned to endure the extraordinary circumstances of the rain with astonishing human fortitude and willfulness.

When Noah’s wife arrives with her minister husband to this small coastal town, she is driven by her desire to help revive the congregation. However, she is thwarted by the resistance of her eccentric new neighbors and her failure to realize that her husband is battling his own internal crisis.

As Noah and his wife strive to bring the townspeople to the church—and keep the strains on their marriage at bay—the rain intensifies, impeding their efforts. Soon the river waters rise, flooding the streets of the town and driving scores of wild animals out of the once-renowned zoo. And so, Noah, his wife, and the townspeople must confront the savage forces of nature and attempt to reinforce the fragile ties that bind them to each other before their world is washed away.

Full of whimsy and gentle ironic humor, Noah’s Wife is a wise and poignant novel that draws upon the motifs of the biblical flood story to explore the true meaning of community, to examine the remarkable strength of the human spirit, and to ask whether hope can exist even where faith has been lost.

I admit: when I first read this synopsis I might have rolled my eyes a little. Then, I read the summary and I’m actually now quite intrigued by it. 

Love in Lowercase by Francesc Miralles (Jan. 26):

When Samuel, a lonely linguistics lecturer, wakes up on New Year’s Day, he is convinced that the year ahead will bring nothing more than passive verbs and un-italicized moments—until an unexpected visitor slips into his Barcelona apartment and refuses to leave. The appearance of Mishima, a stray cat less than a foot tall and covered in brindle fur, leads Samuel from the comforts of his favorite books, foreign films, and classical music to places he’s never been (next door) and to people he might never have met (his neighbor Titus, with whom he’s never exchanged a word). Even better, it leads him back to the mysterious Gabriela, whom he thought he’d lost long before.

As a childhood love is reignited and unexpected relationships develop with fellow word-lovers, the secluded world that Samuel has built around himself slowly opens up. And thanks to a persistent cat-turned-catalyst, Samuel awakens to the importance of the little things in life, and discovers that sometimes love is hiding in the smallest characters.

I know, I know. This doesn’t sound like a book I’d typically like. Yet, something about it calls to me! I can’t wait to read it.

There we have it! Three posts, full of recommendations of January titles. Which ones are you looking forward to most? What am I missing?

Yesterday, I shared the first part of my most anticipated books of January post. Today’s post is dedicated to all books published the second week of January. As you can see, there are quite a few!

Once again, I’ve included the publisher’s summary and a brief explanation about why I am excited about a particular title.

And Again by Jessica Chiarella (Jan. 12):Would you live your life differently if you were given a second chance? Hannah, David, Connie, and Linda—four terminally ill patients—have been selected for the SUBlife pilot program, which will grant them brand-new, genetically perfect bodies that are exact copies of their former selves—without a single imperfection. Blemishes, scars, freckles, and wrinkles have all disappeared, their fingerprints are different, their vision is impeccable, and most importantly, their illnesses have been cured.

But the fresh start they’ve been given is anything but perfect. Without their old bodies, their new physical identities have been lost. Hannah, an artistic prodigy, has to relearn how to hold a brush; David, a Congressman, grapples with his old habits; Connie, an actress whose stunning looks are restored after a protracted illness, tries to navigate an industry obsessed with physical beauty; and Linda, who spent eight years paralyzed after a car accident, now struggles to reconnect with a family that seems to have built a new life without her. As each tries to re-enter their previous lives and relationships they are faced with the question: how much of your identity rests not just in your mind, but in your heart, your body?

I think the description alone gives you an indication of my interest!

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (Jan. 12):
At the age of 36, on the verge of a completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi’s health began to falter. He started losing weight and was wracked by waves of excruciating back pain. A CT scan confirmed what Paul, deep down, had suspected: he had stage four lung cancer, widely disseminated. One day, he was a doctor making a living treating the dying, and the next, he was a patient struggling to live. Just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined, the culmination of decades of striving, evaporated.

With incredible literary quality, philosophical acuity, and medical authority, he approaches the questions raised by facing mortality from the dual perspective of the neurosurgeon who spent a decade meeting patients in the twilight between life and death, and the terminally ill patient who suddenly found himself living in that liminality. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What happens when the future, instead of being a ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present? When faced with a terminal diagnosis, what does it mean to have a child, to nuture a new life as another one fades away? As Paul wrote, “Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.”

Certainly not a light subject, I’m intrigued to see how a man of medicine embraces and deals with his own mortality. I can’t even imagine…

Written in Fire by Marcus Sakey (Jan. 12):

The explosive conclusion to the bestselling Brilliance Trilogy

For thirty years humanity struggled to cope with the brilliants, the one percent of people born with remarkable gifts. For thirty years we tried to avoid a devastating civil war.

We failed.

The White House is a smoking ruin. Madison Square Garden is an internment camp. In Wyoming, an armed militia of thousands marches toward a final, apocalyptic battle.

Nick Cooper has spent his life fighting for his children and his country. Now, as the world staggers on the edge of ruin, he must risk everything he loves to face his oldest enemy—a brilliant terrorist so driven by his ideals that he will sacrifice humanity’s future to achieve them.

From “one of our best storytellers” (Michael Connelly) comes the blistering conclusion to the acclaimed series that is a “forget-to-pick-up-milk, forget-to-water-the-plants, forget-to-eat total immersion experience” (Gillian Flynn).

I adore this trilogy so much. As much as I’m saddened to see it end, I can’t wait to devour this book!

Beside Myself by Ann Morgan (Jan 12):

Beside Myself is the story of a pair of identical twins, Ellie and Helen, who switch places when they are six. At first, Helen, who suggests the swap, thinks they are just playing. But the game turns into a trap when Ellie refuses to switch back, forcing her sister to live her life instead. With those around her oblivious to her plight, the girl who used to be Helen withdraws into a spiral of behavioral problems, delinquency, and mental illness, while her sibling blossoms with the approval and praise that their harsh and distant mother used to bestow upon Helen.

Twenty-five years later, her estranged mother calls to tell her that her perfect sister–a celebrity now–has been in a car accident and is in a coma. The woman who was long ago referred to as Helen and now thinks of herself as “Smudge” has the chance to revisit the past. Battling the mental illness and alcohol abuse that have taken over her existence, Smudge seeks to discover what really happened to her sister and herself.

Psychological thriller. Twins. Sold.

What She Left by T.R. Richmond (Jan. 12)

On a snowy February morning, the body of twenty-five-year-old journalist Alice Salmon washes up on a riverbank south of London. The sudden, shocking death of this beloved local girl becomes a media sensation, and those who knew her struggle to understand what happened to lively, smart, and savvy Alice Salmon. Was it suicide? A tragic accident? Or…murder?

Professor Jeremy Cooke, known around campus as Old Cookie, is an anthropologist nearing the end of his unremarkable academic career. Alice is his former student, and the object of his unhealthy obsession. After her death, he embarks on a final project—a book documenting Alice’s life through the digital and paper trails that survive her: her diaries, letters, Facebook posts, Tweets, and text messages. He collects news articles by and about her; he transcribes old voicemails; he interviews her friends, family, and boyfriends.

Bit by bit, the real Alice—a complicated and vulnerable young woman—springs fully formed from the pages of Cookie’s book…along with a labyrinth of misunderstandings, lies, and secrets that cast suspicion on everyone in her circle—including Jeremy himself.

This one is so dark and twisty I can’t resist. 

The Crooked House by Cristobel Kent (Jan 12):

A stunning novel about the disturbing secrets of a small British village and its sinister crooked house

Published in the United Kingdom in early 2015, Christobel Kent’s The Crooked House has already drawn comparisons to works by the pantheon of British female literary suspense writers–Daphne du Maurier, Agatha Christie, P. D. James, and Kate Atkinson. In this darkly atmospheric psychological thriller, she accomplishes what those celebrated writers do best: she creates an insular world (a single house, a small town) where something sinister has occurred, and subtly inflects each page with the toxic residue of violence.

Much like the unnamed narrator of Rebecca, Alison lives her life under the radar. She has no ties, no home, and she spends her days at a backroom publishing job. Which is how she wants it. Because Alison used to be a teenager named Esme, who lived in a dilapidated house by a bleak estuary with her parents and three siblings. One night, something unspeakable happened in the house, and Alison emerged the only survivor. In order to escape from the horror she witnessed, she moved away from her village, changed her name, and cut herself off from her past.

Only now her boyfriend invites her to a wedding in her old hometown, and she decides that if she’s going to have any chance of overcoming the trauma of what happened, she’ll have to confront it. But soon Alison realizes that that night’s events have left a terrible mark on everyone in the village, and she begins to suspect that they are all somehow implicated in her family’s murder.

Frankly, I’m quite intrigued by this crooked house. Creepy enough to intrigue me!

 The Case of Lisandra P. by Hélène Grémillon (Jan. 12):

Buenos Aires, 1987. When a beautiful young woman named Lisandra is found dead at the foot of a six-story building, her husband, a psychoanalyst, is immediately arrested for her murder. Convinced of Vittorio’s innocence, one of his patients, Eva Maria, is drawn into the investigation seemingly by chance. As Eva Maria combs through secret recordings of Vittorio’s most recent therapy sessions in search of the killer—could it be the powerful government figure? The jealous woman? The musician who’s lost his reason to live?—Eva Maria is forced to confront her most painful memories, and some of the darkest moments in Argentinian history.

In breathless prose that captures the desperate spinning of a frantic mind, Hélène Grémillon blurs the lines of past and present, personal and political, reality and paranoia in this daring and compulsively readable novel.

This is another one in which the cover grabbed my attention. It seem simple, but has so much complexity behind it. 

The Good Good-bye by Carla Buckley (Jan. 12):

Two cousins, Rory and Arden, lie unconscious in a hospital burn unit. The fire, which broke out in their shared college dorm room, killed another student, and the police want answers. Tension between Rory and Arden’s parents was already at an all-time high before the fire, owing to a recent financial crisis and the decline of the family business. As the parents huddle anxiously in the waiting room, carefully avoiding the subject of their own unraveling relationships, disturbing truths come to light. This is the deeply moving story of a family’s struggle to hold together while their secrets threaten to tear them apart.

I adored The Deepest Secret  so I’ve been waiting for Buckley to write another domestic thriller. I cannot wait to devour this one!

This wraps up the second part of my most-anticipated titles of January. I’ll conclude the list tomorrow with titles publishing the second half of January!

Many apologies for not doing these previews the last few months. No excuses, just a promise to make a conscious effort to keep doing them!  I’ve included the publisher’s summary, along with a brief explanation as to why I’m looking forward to that particular book. Without further delay…

 

A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti (Jan. 1):

Contemplating suicide after nearly a decade at war, Levi sits down to write a note to his best friend Nick, explaining why things have to come to this inevitable end. Years earlier, Levi–a sergeant in the army–made a tragic choice that led his team into ambush, leaving three soldiers dead and two badly injured. During the attack, Levi risked death to save a badly burned and disfigured Nick. His actions won him the Silver Star for gallantry, but nothing could alleviate the guilt he carried after that fateful day. He may have saved Nick in Iraq, but when Levi returns home and spirals out of control, it is Nick’s turn to play the savior, urging Levi to write. Levi begins to type as a way of bidding farewell, but what remains when he is finished is not a suicide note. It’s a love song, a novel in which the beginning is the story’s end, the story’s end is the real beginning of Levi’s life, and the future is as mutable as words on a page.

I think the description alone sells this one! Hefti speaks from experience, having been deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

 Angels Burning by Tawni O’Dell (Jan 5):

On the surface, Chief Dove Carnahan is a true trailblazer who would do anything to protect the rural Pennsylvanian countryside where she has lived all fifty of her years. Traditional and proud of her blue-collar sensibilities, Dove is loved by her community. But beneath her badge lies a dark and self-destructive streak, fed by a secret she has kept since she was sixteen.

When a girl is beaten to death, her body tossed down a fiery sinkhole in an abandoned coal town, Dove is faced with solving the worst crime of her law enforcement career. She identifies the girl as a daughter of the Truly family, a notoriously irascible dynasty of rednecks and petty criminals.

During her investigation, the man convicted of killing Dove’s mother years earlier is released from prison. Still proclaiming his innocence, he approaches Dove with a startling accusation and a chilling threat that forces her to face the parallels between her own family’s trauma and that of the Trulys.

With countless accolades to her credit, author Tawni O’Dell writes with the “fearless insights” (The New York Times Book Review) she brought to the page in Back Roads and One of Us. In this new, masterfully told psychological thriller, the past and present collide to reveal the extent some will go to escape their fate, and in turn, the crimes committed to push them back to where they began.

I’m quite the fan of O’Dell’s writing, first discovering her when her book, Back Roads, was selected as an Oprah Book Club pick. Thrillers are my kryptonite, I can’t wait to dive into this one.

The Past by Tessa Hadley (Jan. 5):

Over five novels and two collections of stories Tessa Hadley has earned a reputation as a fiction writer of remarkable gifts. She brings all of her considerable skill and an irresistible setup to The Past, a novel in which three sisters, a brother, and their children assemble at their country house one last time before it is sold. The house is filled with memories of their shared past (their mother took them there to live when she left their father); yet beneath the idyllic surface, hidden passions, devastating secrets, and dangerous hostilities threaten to consume them.

Sophisticated and sleek, Roland’s new wife arouses his sisters’ jealousies. Kasim, the twenty-year-old son of Alice’s ex-boyfriend, makes plans to seduce Molly, Roland’s sixteen-year-old daughter, while Fran’s young children uncover an ugly secret in a dilapidated cottage in the woods that shatters their innocence. Passion erupts where it’s least expected, shattering the quiet self-possession of Harriet, the eldest sister.

Over the course of this summer holiday, the family’s stories and silences intertwine, small disturbances build into familial crises, and a way of life—bourgeois, literate, ritualized, Anglican—winds down to its inevitable end.

I don’t know about you, but stories involving families, especially reunions after a loss, tug at my heart strings. Add ugly secrets and I’m sold. Plus, the cover is stunning!

The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert (Jan. 5):

In a sprawling estate, willfully secluded, lives Morgan Fletcher, the disfigured heir to a fortune of mysterious origins. Morgan spends his days in quiet study, avoiding his reflection in mirrors and the lake at the end of his garden. One day, two children, Moira and David, appear. Morgan takes them in, giving them free reign of the mansion he shares with his housekeeper Engel. Then more children begin to show up.

Dr. Crane, the town physician and Morgan’s lone tether to the outside world, is as taken with the children as Morgan, and begins to spend more time in Morgan’s library. But the children behave strangely. They show a prescient understanding of Morgan’s past, and their bizarre discoveries in the mansion attics grow increasingly disturbing. Every day the children seem to disappear into the hidden rooms of the estate, and perhaps, into the hidden corners of Morgan’s mind.

The Children’s Home is a genre-defying, utterly bewitching masterwork, an inversion of modern fairy tales like The Chronicles of Narnia and The Golden Compass, in which children visit faraway lands to accomplish elusive tasks. Lambert writes from the perspective of the visited, weaving elements of psychological suspense, Jamesian stream of consciousness, and neo-gothic horror, to reveal the inescapable effects of abandonment, isolation, and the grotesque—as well as the glimmers of goodness—buried deep within the soul.

This books is recommended for fans of Shirley Jackson, Neil Gaiman, and Roald Dahl. I have to admit, creepy children kind of terrify me but I’m willing to take a chance with this one!

Traveler’s Rest by Keith Lee Morris (Jan 5):

The Addisons-Julia and Tonio, ten-year-old Dewey, and derelict Uncle Robbie-are driving home, cross-country, after collecting Robbie from yet another trip to rehab. When a terrifying blizzard strikes outside the town of Good Night, Idaho, they seek refuge in the town at the Travelers Rest, a formerly opulent but now crumbling and eerie hotel where the physical laws of the universe are bent.

Once inside the hotel, the family is separated. As Julia and Tonio drift through the maze of the hotel’s spectral interiors, struggling to make sense of the building’s alluring powers, Dewey ventures outward to a secret-filled diner across the street. Meanwhile, a desperate Robbie quickly succumbs to his old vices, drifting ever further from the ones who love him most. With each passing hour, dreams and memories blur, tearing a hole in the fabric of our perceived reality and leaving the Addisons in a ceaseless search for one another. At each turn a mysterious force prevents them from reuniting, until at last Julia is faced with an impossible choice. Can this mother save her family from the fate of becoming Souvenirs-those citizens trapped forever in magnetic Good Night-or, worse, from disappearing entirely?

With the fearsome intensity of a ghost story, the magical spark of a fairy tale, and the emotional depth of the finest family sagas, Keith Lee Morris takes us on a journey beyond the realm of the known. Featuring prose as dizzyingly beautiful as the mystical world Morris creates, Travelers Rest is both a mind-altering meditation on the nature of consciousness and a heartbreaking story of a family on the brink of survival.

I don’t know about you, but this one feels like The Shining to me, but with a mystical spin to it. 

The May Bride by Suzannah Dunn (Jan 11):

Jane Seymour is a shy, dutiful fifteen-year-old when her eldest brother, Edward, brings his bride home to Wolf Hall. Katherine Filliol is the perfect match for Edward, as well as being a breath of fresh air for the Seymour family, and Jane is captivated by the older girl.

Only two years later, however, the family is torn apart by a dreadful allegation—that Katherine has had an affair with the Seymour patriarch. The repercussions for all the Seymours are incalculable, not least for Katherine herself. When Jane is sent away to serve Katharine of Aragon, she is forced to witness another wife being put aside, with terrible consequences.

Changed forever by what happened to Katherine Filliol, Jane comes to understand that, in a world where power is held entirely by men, there is a way in which she can still hold true to herself.

I used to devour all sorts of historical fiction. I haven’t read it as much lately, but when this book came across my desk, I knew I had to add it to my pile. 

This wraps up the first segment of my most anticipated books of January. January 12th is a big release day; I’m going to need an entire post to cover those titles!