Yesterday, I shared the first of a few posts summarizing the January books I’m looking forward to most. That was only the beginning! Following is the next group. Once again, you can click on the book cover or title link to preorder!

The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick (Jan. 6)

Four linked stories boldly chronicle madness, obsession, and creation through the ages. Beginning with the cave-drawings of a young girl on the brink of creating the earlist form of writing, Sedgwick traverses history, plunging into the seventeenth century witch hunts and a 1920s insane aslyum where a mad poet’s obsession with spirals seems to be about to unhinge the world of the doctor trying to save him. Segwick moves beyond the boundaries of historical fiction and into the future in the book’s final section, set upon a spaceship voyaging to settle another world for the first time. Merging Sedgwick’s gift for suspense with science- and historical-fiction, Ghosts of Heaven is a tale is worthy of intense obsession.

White House Chef Mystery #8: All the President’s Menus by Julie Hyzy (by Jan. 6)

It’s an old adage that too many cooks spoil the broth. But when a tour of the White House kitchen by a group of foreign chefs ends in murder, executive chef Olivia Paras makes sleuthing the special of the day.

 
Murder by Sarah Pinborough (Jan. 6):

A dark, suspenseful work of crime fiction, set in the time of Jack the Ripper–perfect for fans of Dan Simmons’ bestseller Drood.

Almost Famous Women: Stories by Megan Mayhew Bergman (Jan. 6)

The fascinating lives of the characters in Almost Famous Women have mostly been forgotten, but their stories are burning to be told. Now Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of Birds of a Lesser Paradise, resurrects these women, lets them live in the reader’s imagination, so we can explore their difficult choices. Nearly every story in this dazzling collection is based on a woman who attained some celebrity—she raced speed boats or was a conjoined twin in show business; a reclusive painter of renown; a member of the first all-female, integrated swing band. We see Lord Byron’s illegitimate daughter, Allegra; Oscar Wilde’s troubled niece, Dolly; West With the Night author Beryl Markham; Edna St. Vincent Millay’s sister, Norma. These extraordinary stories travel the world, explore the past (and delve into the future), and portray fiercely independent women defined by their acts of bravery, creative impulses, and sometimes reckless decisions.
Her by Harriet Lane (Jan. 6)
You don’t remember her–but she remembers you.

Two different women; two different worlds. On the face of it, Emma and Nina have very little in common. Isolated and exhausted by early motherhood, Emma finds her confidence is fading fast. Nina is sophisticated and assured, a successful artist who seems to have it all under control. And yet, when the two women meet, they are irresistibly drawn to each other. As the friendship develops, as Emma gratefully invites Nina into her life, it emerges that someone is playing games-and the stakes could not be higher.

What, exactly, does Nina see in Emma? What does she want? And how far will she go in pursuit of it?

A gripping novel about friendship and identity, about the wild hopes and worst fears of parenthood, about the small and easily forgotten moments that come to define a life, Her is unputdownable-compelling and hauntingly discomfiting.

Descent by Tim Johnston (Jan. 6):

The Rocky Mountains have cast their spell over the Courtlands, a young family from the plains taking a last summer vacation before their daughter begins college. For eighteen-year-old Caitlin, the mountains loom as the ultimate test of her runner’s heart, while her parents hope that so much beauty, so much grandeur, will somehow repair a damaged marriage. But when Caitlin and her younger brother, Sean, go out for an early morning run and only Sean returns, the mountains become as terrifying as they are majestic, as suddenly this family find themselves living the kind of nightmare they’ve only read about in headlines
or seen on TV.

As their world comes undone, the Courtlands are drawn into a vortex of dread and recrimination. Why weren’t they more careful? What has happened to their daughter? Is she alive? Will they ever know? Caitlin’s disappearance, all the more devastating for its mystery, is the beginning of the family’s harrowing journey down increasingly divergent and solitary paths until all that continues to bind them together are the questions they can never bring themselves to ask: At what point does a family stop searching? At what point will a girl stop fighting for her life?

Written with a precision that captures every emotion, every moment of fear, as each member of the family searches for answers, Descent is a perfectly crafted thriller that races like an avalanche toward its heart-pounding conclusion, and heralds the arrival of a master storyteller.
Sweetland by Michael Crummey (Jan 19):

The epic tale of an endangered Newfoundland community and the struggles of one man determined to resist its extinction.

The scarcely populated town of Sweetland rests on the shore of a remote Canadian island. Its slow decline finally reaches a head when the mainland government offers each islander a generous resettlement package-the sole stipulation being that everyone must leave. Fierce and enigmatic Moses Sweetland, whose ancestors founded the village, is the only one to refuse. As he watches his neighbors abandon the island, he recalls the town’s rugged history and its eccentric cast of characters. Evoking The Shipping News, Michael Crummey-one of Canada’s finest novelists-conjures up the mythical, sublime world of Sweetland’s past amid a stormbattered landscape haunted by local lore. As in his critically acclaimed novel Galore, Crummey masterfully weaves together past and present, creating in Sweetland a spectacular portrait of one man’s battle to survive as his environment vanishes around him.
If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie (Jan. 20):

A heartfelt and wondrous debut, by a supremely gifted and exciting new voice in fiction.

Will has never been to the outside, at least not since he can remember. And he has certainly never gotten to know anyone other than his mother, a fiercely loving yet wildly eccentric agoraphobe who drowns in panic at the thought of opening the front door. Their little world comprises only the rooms in their home, each named for various exotic locales and filled with Will’s art projects.

Soon the confines of his world close in on Will. Despite his mother’s protestations, Will ventures outside clad in a protective helmet and braces himself for danger. He eventually meets and befriends Jonah, a quiet boy who introduces Will to skateboarding.

Will welcomes his new world with enthusiasm, his fears fading and his body hardening with each new bump, scrape, and fall. But life quickly gets complicated. When a local boy goes missing, Will and Jonah want to uncover what happened. They embark on an extraordinary adventure that pulls Will far from the confines of his closed-off world and into the throes of early adulthood and the dangers that everyday life offers.

If I Fall, If I Die is a remarkable debut full of dazzling prose, unforgettable characters, and a poignant and heartfelt depiction of coming of age.
Mobile Library by David Whitehouse (Jan. 20):

“An archivist of his mother,” Bobby Nusku spends his nights meticulously cataloging her hair, clothing, and other traces of the life she left behind. By day, Bobby and his best friend Sunny hatch a plan to transform Sunny, limb-by-limb, into a cyborg who could keep Bobby safe from schoolyard torment and from Bobby’s abusive father and his bleach-blonde girlfriend. When Sunny is injured in a freak accident, Bobby is forced to face the world alone.

Out in the neighborhood, Bobby encounters Rosa, a peculiar girl whose disability invites the scorn of bullies. When Bobby takes Rosa home, he meets her mother, Val, a lonely divorcee, whose job is cleaning a mobile library. Bobby and Val come to fill the emotional void in each other’s lives, but their bond also draws unwanted attention. After Val loses her job and Bobby is beaten by his father, they abscond in the sixteen-wheel bookmobile. On the road they are joined by Joe, a mysterious but kindhearted ex-soldier. This “puzzle of people” will travel across England, a picaresque adventure that comes to rival those in the classic books that fill their library-on-wheels.

At once tender, provocative and darkly funny, Mobile Library is a fable about the intrinsic human desire to be loved and understood—and about one boy’s realization that the kinds of adventures found in books can happen in real life. It is the ingenious second novel by a writer whose prose has been hailed as “outlandishly clever” (The New York Times) and “deceptively effortless” (The Boston Globe).

Glow by Ned Beauman (Jan. 20):

South London, May 2010: foxes are behaving strangely, Burmese immigrants are going missing, and everyone is trying to get hold of a new party drug called Glow. A young man suffering from a rare sleep disorder will uncover the connections between all these anomalies in this taut, riveting new novel by a young writer hailed by The Guardian as “playful, arresting, unnerving, opulent, rude and-above all-deliciously, startlingly, exuberantly fresh.”

Twenty-two-year-old Raf spends his days walking Rose, a bull terrier who guards the transmitters for a pirate radio station, and his nights at raves in warehouses and launderettes. When his friend Theo vanishes without a trace, Raf’s efforts to find him will lead straight into the heart of a global corporate conspiracy. Meanwhile, he’s falling in love with a beautiful young woman he met at one of those raves, but he’ll soon discover that there is far more to Cherish than meets the eye.

Combining the pace, drama, and explosive plot twists of a thriller with his trademark intellectual, linguistic, and comedic pyrotechnics, Glow is Ned Beauman’s most compelling, virtuosic, and compulsively readable novel yet.

How’s your TBR list doing? Growing in size? One more post to come!

This cold/flu I’ve had for the last week has me a bit behind schedule! Typically, I would have posted this list midway through the month. The timing is still good, for I’m certain many of you received bookstore gift cards from Santa today!  Following are the January titles I’m looking forward to most. You have plenty of time to pre-order or request these titles from your local library.

This is quite a hefty list so I’m breaking it up into three posts. Click on the book title or cover to preorder!

A Pleasure and a Calling by Phil Hogan (Jan. 6)

You won’t remember Mr. Heming. He was the estate agent who showed you around your comfortable home, suggested a financial package, negotiated a price with the owner, and called you with the good news. The less good news is that, all these years later, he still has the key. That’s absurd, you laugh. Of all the many hundreds of houses he has sold, why would he still have the key to mine? The answer is; he has the keys to them all.

William Heming’s most at home in a stranger’s private things. He makes it his business to know all their secrets, and how they arrange their lives. His every pleasure is in his leafy community. He loves and knows every inch of it, feels nurtured by it, and would defend it—perhaps not with his life but if it came to it, with yours. Things begin to change when Mr. Hemings’ obsession shifts from many people to one, and then a dead body winds up in someone’s garden. For a man who is used to going unremarked, Mr. Heming’s finds his natural routine becomes uncomfortably interrupted.

The Secret Wisdom of the Earth by Chris Scotton (Jan. 6):

A debut novel about a fourteen-year-old boy who witnesses the death of his younger brother in a horrific accident for readers of To Kill a Mockingbird, Peace Like a River and Cold Sassy Tree.

After witnessing the death of his younger brother in a terrible home accident, 14-year-old Kevin and his grieving mother are sent for the summer to live with Kevin’s grandfather. In this peeled-paint coal town deep in Appalachia, Kevin quickly falls in with a half-wild hollow kid named Buzzy Fink who schools him in the mysteries and magnificence of the woods. The events of this fateful summer will affect the entire town of Medgar, Kentucky.

Medgar is beset by a massive Mountaintop Removal operation that is blowing up the hills and back filling the hollows. Kevin’s grandfather and others in town attempt to rally the citizens against the ‘company’ and its powerful owner to stop the plunder of their mountain heritage. When Buzzy witnesses the brutal murder of the opposition leader, a sequence is set in play which tests Buzzy and Kevin to their absolute limits in an epic struggle for survival in the Kentucky mountains.

Redemptive and emotionally resonant, The Secret Wisdom of the Earth is narrated by an adult Kevin looking back on the summer when he sloughed the coverings of a boy and took his first faltering steps as a man among a rich cast of characters and an ambitious effort to reclaim a once great community.
Against the Country by Ben Metcalf (Jan. 6):

For fans of literary Southern Gothic: an intense, sly and deceptively humorous debut novel about growing up in the wilds of Goochland County, Virginia, from former literary editor of Harper’s Magazine, Ben Metcalf.

Against the Country is an atmospheric, trenchant debut told in a searing and original voice.

Beginning with his parents’ decision to move away from the corrupting influences of town, and to settle instead in rural Virginia, Metcalf’s narrator leads the reader through a gallery of scabrous youths and callous adults driven mad by the stubborn soil of the New World. Eloquently misanthropic, the narrator of Against the Countryfully inhabits the style of the old timer’s winding yarn even as he sabotages all that the forces of provincialism stand for from within. For it is through this deft and self-destructive tone that it becomes clear that the land itself, from dirtyards to farms and forests, is not mere backdrop but the living, breathing, menacing influence behind each and every inhabitant’s hardscrabble existence.

Against the Country reads like William Faulkner with a modern, iconic edge. To put it bluntly: if Gary Shteyngart grew up along the banks of the Mississippi, this is the book that he would write.

Lillian on Life by Alison Jean Lester (Jan. 13):

The Devil You Know by Elisabeth de Mariaffi (Jan. 13):

In the vein of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects and A.S.A. Harrison’s The Silent Wife, The Devil You Know is a thrilling debut about a rookie reporter, whose memories of the murder of her childhood best friend bring danger—and a stalker—right to her doorstep.

The year is 1993. Rookie crime beat reporter Evie Jones is haunted by the unsolved murder of her best friend Lianne Gagnon who was killed in 1982, back when both girls were eleven. The suspected killer, a repeat offender named Robert Cameron, was never arrested, leaving Lianne’s case cold.

Now twenty-one and living alone for the first time, Evie is obsessively drawn to finding out what really happened to Lianne. She leans on another childhood friend, David Patton, for help—but every clue they uncover seems to lead to an unimaginable conclusion. As she gets closer and closer to the truth, Evie becomes convinced that the killer is still at large—and that he’s coming back for her.

From critically acclaimed author Elisabeth de Mariaffi comes a spine-tingling debut about secrets long buried and obsession that cannot be controlled.

The Deep by Nick Cutter (Jan. 13):

A strange plague called the ’Gets is decimating humanity on a global scale. It causes people to forget—small things at first, like where they left their keys…then the not-so-small things like how to drive, or the letters of the alphabet. Then their bodies forget how to function involuntarily…and there is no cure. But now, far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, deep in the Marianas Trench, an heretofore unknown substance hailed as “ambrosia” has been discovered—a universal healer, from initial reports. It may just be the key to a universal cure. In order to study this phenomenon, a special research lab, the Trieste, has been built eight miles under the sea’s surface. But now the station is incommunicado, and it’s up to a brave few to descend through the lightless fathoms in hopes of unraveling the mysteries lurking at those crushing depths…and perhaps to encounter an evil blacker than anything one could possibly imagine.

Part horror, part psychological nightmare, The Deep is a novel that fans of Stephen King and Clive Barker won’t want to miss—especially if you’re afraid of the dark.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (Jan. 13):

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

Compulsively readable, The Girl on the Train is an emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller and an electrifying debut.

Amnesia by Peter Carey (Jan. 13):

The two-time Booker Prize winner now gives us an exceedingly timely, exhilarating novel-at once dark, suspenseful, and seriously funny-that journeys to the place where the cyber underworld collides with international power politics.

When Gaby Baillieux releases the Angel Worm into Australia’s prison computer system, hundreds of asylum-seekers walk free. And because the Americans run the prisons (let’s be honest: as they do in so many parts of her country) the doors of some five thousand jails in the United States also open. Is this a mistake, or a declaration of cyber war? And does it have anything to do with the largely forgotten Battle of Brisbane between American and Australian forces in 1942? Or with the CIA-influenced coup in Australia in 1975? Felix Moore, known to himself as “our sole remaining left-wing journalist,” is determined to write Gaby’s biography in order to find the answers-to save her, his own career, and, perhaps, his country. But how to get Gaby-on the run, scared, confused, and angry-to cooperate?

Bringing together the world of hackers and radicals with the “special relationship” between the United States and Australia, and Australia and the CIA, Amnesia is a novel that speaks powerfully about the often hidden past-but most urgently about the more and more hidden present.

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black (Jan. 13): 

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.

The Last American Vampire by Seth Grahame-Smith (Jan. 13):

Vampire Henry Sturges returns in the highly anticipated sequel to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter-a sweeping, alternate history of twentieth-century America by New York Times bestselling author Seth Grahame-Smith.

In Reconstruction-era America, vampire Henry Sturges is searching for renewed purpose in the wake of his friend Abraham Lincoln’s shocking death. Henry’s will be an expansive journey that first sends him to England for an unexpected encounter with Jack the Ripper, then to New York City for the birth of a new American century, the dawn of the electric era of Tesla and Edison, and the blazing disaster of the 1937 Hindenburg crash.

Along the way, Henry goes on the road in a Kerouac-influenced trip as Seth Grahame-Smith ingeniously weaves vampire history through Russia’s October Revolution, the First and Second World Wars, and the JFK assassination.

Expansive in scope and serious in execution, THE LAST AMERICAN VAMPIRE is sure to appeal to the passionate readers who made Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter a runaway success.

Stay tuned! Two more posts most anticipated books of January yet to come!

Didn’t I warn you about all my “best of” lists? While there is at least one or two more to come, I wanted to share those titles that stood above the rest, the shining stars of my reading year.  This can be for a multitude of reasons. In many cases, my review states why. I’m not saying these are the best ever books released in 2015, just those that held a special meaning for me:

• The Bear by Claire Cameron
• What I Had Before I Had You by Sarah Cornwell
• Be Safe I Love You by Cara Hoffman
• Reflections: Revival by Stephen King
• Review: Above by Isla Morley
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
• This Is the Water by Yannick Murphy
• Review: The Remedy for Love by Bill Roorbach
• Review: The Heart Does Not Grow Back by Fred Venturini
• The Martian by Andy Weir

Which books stood out most for you?

Earlier this week, I kicked off my “best of” series with a list of my favorite Horror/Thriller titles of 2014.  Next up: books in series!  I don’t know about you, but I’m all about series/trilogies! Knowing that a story arc will continue or you’ll be reunited with your favorite characters in a subsequent book is thrilling.  So, following are my favorites from 2014:

• Ex-Purgatory by Peter Clines (The Ex-Heroes Series)
• The Secret Place by Tana French (Dublin Murder Squad)
• The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (Audiobook) (Cormoran Strike)
• The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness (All Souls Trilogy)
• Code Zero by Jonathan Maberry (Audiobook) (Joe Ledger)
• A Better World by Marcus Sakey (The Brilliance Saga)
• Return to Tradd Street by Karen White (Tradd Street)
• Robogenesis by Daniel H. Wilson
• World of Trouble by Ben Winters (Last Policeman)

How about you? What were some of your favorite series/trilogies that released this year?

Can you believe we are halfway through December?! Egads! With the end of the year comes the traditional “best of” lists. With over 40 titles on my favorites list, I thought it best to break it up into multiple posts.  We’ll start with my favorite genres: horror & thrillers.  From sadistic serial killers and stalkers to children that come back from the dead, 2014 was a great year for terrifying books!

Following are my favorite thriller/horror titles of 2014. Click on the link below to read my review!

The Fever by Megan Abbott 

Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes 

The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey

The Competition by Marcia Clark

The Troop by Nick Cutter

Blood Always Tells by Hilary Davidson

The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue 

Suspicion by Joseph Finder

The Headmaster’s Wife by Thomas Christopher Greene

Snowblind by Christopher Golden

The Butcher by Jennifer Hillier

The Three by Sarah Lotz

The Book of You by Claire Kendal

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

Revival by Stephen King

The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

The Ways of the Dead by Neely Tucker

EDITED: I love it when my reading year ends with a bang! I’m adding Things Half in Shadow by Alan Finn (read/reviewed the very last day of 2014!)

Stay tuned! I have at least a few more “Best of” posts up my sleeve!

Which thriller/horror titles did I miss?