Here are my favorite books from this past year, listed alphabetically by author. Click on the titles to place holds on the ones you’d like to read, and maybe they’ll become your favorites, too.
Non Fiction: Gender Studies, LGBTQ+, History “Hugh Ryan’s When Brooklyn Was Queer is a groundbreaking exploration of the LGBT history of Brooklyn, from the early days of Walt Whitman in the 1850s up through the queer women who worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II, and beyond. No other book, movie, or exhibition has ever told this sweeping story. Not only has Brooklyn always lived in the shadow of queer Manhattan neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and Harlem, but there has also been a systematic erasure of its queer history–a great forgetting.
Ryan is here to unearth that history for the first time. In intimate, evocative, moving prose he discusses in new light the fundamental questions of what history is, who tells it, and how we can only make sense of ourselves through its retelling; and shows how the formation of the Brooklyn we know today is inextricably linked to the stories of the incredible people who created its diverse neighborhoods and cultures. Through them, When Brooklyn Was Queer brings Brooklyn’s queer past to life, and claims its place as a modern classic.”
Fiction: Horror/Paranormal “IN AMERICA, DEMONS WEAR WHITE HOODS. In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan’s ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die. Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan’s demons straight to Hell. But something awful’s brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up. Can Maryse stop the Klan before it ends the world?”
Fiction: Teen, Fantasy, Witches “On the way home from a party, seventeen-year-old Ivy and her soon-to-be ex nearly run over a nude young woman standing in the middle of a tree-lined road. It’s only the first in a string of increasingly eerie events and offerings: a dead rabbit in the driveway, a bizarre concoction buried by her mother in the backyard, a box of childhood keepsakes hidden in her parents’ closet safe. Most unsettling of all, corroded recollections of Ivy and her enigmatic mother’s past resurface, with the help of the boy next door.
What if there’s more to Ivy’s mother than meets the eye? And what if the supernatural forces she messed with during her own teen years have come back to haunt them both? Ivy must grapple with these questions and more if she’s going to escape the darkness closing in.
Straddling Ivy’s contemporary suburban town and her mother’s magic-drenched 1990s Chicago, this bewitching and propulsive story rockets towards a conclusion guaranteed to keep readers up all night.”
Fiction: Fantasy “Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book’s content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.
Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon–like all other book eater women–is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories.
But real life doesn’t always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger–not for books, but for human minds.”
Fiction: Historical “Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with her husband, Edward. An apothecary who has fallen under the spell of opium, his pile of debts have forced them to flee Glasgow for a fresh start in the New World. But only days after they’ve arrived in Salem, Edward abruptly joins a departing ship as a medic–leaving Isobel penniless and alone in a strange country, forced to make her way by any means possible.
When she meets a young Nathaniel Hawthorne, the two are instantly drawn to each other: he is a man haunted by his ancestors, who sent innocent women to the gallows–while she is an unusually gifted needleworker, troubled by her own strange talents. As the weeks pass and Edward’s safe return grows increasingly unlikely, Nathaniel and Isobel grow closer and closer. Together, they are a muse and a dark storyteller; the enchanter and the enchanted. But which is which?
In this sensuous and hypnotizing tale, a young immigrant woman grapples with our country’s complicated past, and learns that America’s ideas of freedom and liberty often fall short of their promise. Interwoven with Isobel and Nathaniel’s story is a vivid interrogation of who gets to be a “real” American in the first half of the 19th century, a depiction of the early days of the Underground Railroad in New England, and atmospheric interstitials that capture the long history of “unusual” women being accused of witchcraft. Meticulously researched yet evocatively imagined, Laurie Lico Albanese’s Hester is a timeless tale of art, ambition, and desire that examines the roots of female creative power and the men who try to shut it down.”
Fiction: Science Fiction, Humanity/Identity “Set in the glittering art deco world of a century ago, MEM makes one slight alteration to history: a scientist in Montreal discovers a method allowing people to have their memories extracted from their minds, whole and complete. The Mems exist as mirror-images of their source — zombie-like creatures destined to experience that singular memory over and over, until they expire in the cavernous Vault where they are kept. And then there is Dolores Extract #1, the first Mem capable of creating her own memories. An ageless beauty shrouded in mystery, she is allowed to live on her own, and create her own existence, until one day she is summoned back to the Vault. What happens next is a gorgeously rendered, heart-breaking novel in the vein of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Debut novelist Bethany Morrow has created an allegory for our own time, exploring profound questions of ownership, and how they relate to identity, memory and history, all in the shadows of Montreal’s now forgotten slave trade.”
Fiction: Horror/Apocalyptic, Transgender “Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they’ll never face the same fate.
Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren’t safe.
After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics–all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.”
Fiction: Asian American, Literary “Twenty-one-year-old Reed is fed up. Angry about the killing of a Black man by an Asian American NYPD officer, he wants to drop out of college and devote himself to the Black Lives Matter movement. But would that truly bring him closer to the moral life he seeks?
In a series of intimate, charged conversations, his mother–once the leader of a Korean-Black coalition–demands that he rethink his outrage, and along with it, what it means to be an organizer, a student, an ally, an American, and a son. As Reed zips around his hometown of Los Angeles with his mother, searching and questioning, he faces a revelation that will change everything.
Inspired by his family’s roots in activism, Ryan Lee Wong offers an extraordinary debut novel for readers of Anthony Veasna So, Rachel Kushner, and Michelle Zauner: a book that is as humorous as it is profound, a celebration of seeking a life that is both virtuous and fun, an ode to mothering and being mothered.
Fiction: Thriller, Historical, LGBTQ+ “Lavender House, 1952: the family seat of recently deceased matriarch Irene Lamontaine, head of the famous Lamontaine soap empire. Irene’s recipes for her signature scents are a well guarded secret–but it’s not the only one behind these gates. This estate offers a unique freedom, where none of the residents or staff hide who they are. But to keep their secret, they’ve needed to keep others out. And now they’re worried they’re keeping a murderer in.
Irene’s widow hires Evander Mills to uncover the truth behind her mysterious death. Andy, recently fired from the San Francisco police after being caught in a raid on a gay bar, is happy to accept–his calendar is wide open. And his secret is the kind of secret the Lamontaines understand.
Andy had never imagined a world like Lavender House. He’s seduced by the safety and freedom found behind its gates, where a queer family lives honestly and openly. But that honesty doesn’t extend to everything, and he quickly finds himself a pawn in a family game of old money, subterfuge, and jealousy–and Irene’s death is only the beginning.
When your existence is a crime, everything you do is criminal, and the gates of Lavender House can’t lock out the real world forever. Running a soap empire can be a dirty business.”
Fiction: Mystery/Thriller, Anisfield-Wolf Winner “Percival Everett’s The Trees is a page-turner that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till.
The detectives suspect that these are killings of retribution, but soon discover that eerily similar murders are taking place all over the country. Something truly strange is afoot. As the bodies pile up, the MBI detectives seek answers from a local root doctor who has been documenting every lynching in the country for years, uncovering a history that refuses to be buried. In this bold, provocative book, Everett takes direct aim at racism and police violence, and does so in a fast-paced style that ensures the reader can’t look away. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance from an author with his finger on America’s pulse.”
Fiction: Science Fiction, Robots, Gender Non-Conforming “After A Psalm for the Wild-Built comes this tale of hope and acceptance in the second volume of the USA Today bestselling Monk and Robot series. After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot sent on a quest to determine what humanity really needs) turn their attention to the villages and cities of the little moon they call home. They hope to find the answers they seek, while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe. Becky Chambers’s new series continues to ask: in a world where people have what they want, does having more even matter?”
Fiction: Psychological, Women, Japan, Pacific NW “In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace–and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine.
Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox–possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao’s drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.
Full of Ozeki’s signature humor and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.”
Here are some of the new books coming to our shelves this week for you to add to your book list!
Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy – Told entirely through the transcripts of the narrator’s psychiatric sessions, this intimate portrait of grief and longing follows 20-year-old Alicia Western as she, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, contemplates the nature of madness, her hallucinations and her own existence in 1972 Black River Falls, Wisconsin.
Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon by Kate Andersen Brower – The author of the New York Times best-seller The Residence returns with the first authorized biography of the Hollywood icon, including her rise to fame at age 12, her eight marriages and her efforts to fight AIDS.
Tom Clancy Red Winter by Marc Cameron – When possibly Soviet defector offers the CIA details of his government’s espionage plans in return for asylum, former Marine and brilliant CIA analyst Jack Ryan goes behind the Iron Curtain to find answers before the Cold War turns into a Red Winter.
A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley – A 1851 Monterey widow working at a brothel investigates when the dead bodies of young women start appearing on the outskirts of town in the new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres.
The Ingenue by Rachel Kapelke-Dale – When the family estate is bequeathed to a man she shares a complicated history with, former piano prodigy Saskia Kreis is forced to reexamine her own past—and the romantic relationship that changed the course of her life—for answers.
Night Shift by Robin Cook – When her longtime friend, Dr. Sue Passero, dies mysteriously in the hospital parking garage, newly appointed chief medical examiner Dr. Laurie Montgomery asks her husband to investigate, which pits him against a clever and deranged killer determined to administer another lethal blow.
Three-Edged Sword by Jeff Lindsay – Fearless thief and master of disguise Riley Wolfe plans his biggest heist yet even though his list of powerful enemies grows longer and more dangerous.
W. E. B. Griffin the Devil’s Weapons by Peter Kirsanow – Dick Canidy and the agents of the OSS search war-torn Poland for a rocket scientist who holds the secrets to the Nazis’ superweapons before the Germans and Soviets get their hands on him.
The Last Invitation by Darby Kane – Invited to join a secret club of powerful women, the Sophie Foundation, who mete out justice to men who behave very, very badly, Jessa Hall soon realizes the high—and deadly—price of admission and discovers that once in the group, it’s impossible to get out.
Geraldine Brook’s new novel Horse weaves together real and imagined history to tell the story of Lexington, one of the most famous racehorses of the 19th-Century.
In Georgetown in 2019, Theo, an art history grad student, discovers an abandoned painting of a racehorse in his neighbor’s trash. Intrigued, he visits the nearby Smithsonian to research pre-Civil War horse paintings. There, he crosses paths with Jess, an Australian osteopath who oversees the animal bones in the Smithsonian’s collections, including, coincidentally, those of Lexington’s. The two work together to uncover the stories behind Theo’s found painting.
Moving back and forth in time and told through the eyes of multiple characters, this novel is about more than the mystery of a painting of a famous horse. It also tells the imagined story of Lexington’s Black groom, an enslaved man named Jarrett, whose dedication to Lexington costs him everything.
By the end of this riveting read about art, race, slavery, and antebellum South, readers are left wondering how little life has changed through the decades. A great choice for book clubs, Horse is a fascinating blend of historical and literary fiction that is well-researched, imaginative, and unforgettable.
Here we have some new exciting releases for you to take a look at this week!
After tracking down fugitive Oswald Wednesday with a fellow apprehension agent, Stephanie Plum faces a new obstacle as she tries to bring in her latest bounty, in the latest addition to the long-running, very popular series following Game On.
When Adele Schumacher arrives in his office with a bag of cash, bizarre tales of government conspiracies and a squad of professional bodyguards, Elvis must find her missing son, a controversial podcaster, before someone else does, bringing him and Joe face-to-face with corrupt politicians and vicious drug cartels.
When she is kidnapped, Amelie, a billionaire’s wife, wonders why she has been taken, who her mysterious captors are and why she feels safer here, imprisoned, than with her husband.
The beloved Friends star shares candid behind the scenes stories from the legendary sitcom, as well as detailing his own struggles with addiction that threatened to derail his career.
After the death of his wife, whom he insists visits him every night in the form of an angel, Lucas Goodgame forms an unlikely alliance with a young man, ostracized by their community, who begins camping out in his backyard, bringing with him hope and the power to heal.
One of the music world’s most iconic artists writes about his remarkable life for the first time, from his early days growing up in Dublin, to U2’s meteoric rise to fame, to his more than 20 years of activism dedicated to the fight against AIDS and extreme poverty.
In New York, six human avatars that embody their city’s heart and wield its magic, must join together with the Great Cities to stop a mayoral candidate, backed by the Enemy, whose populist rhetoric of gentrification, xenophobia and “law and order” could destroy the world.
When an old family bracelet inadvertently calls up both her mother’s ghost and a monstrous entity, an urban indigenous woman searches for what happened to her mother all those years ago, forcing her to confront a long-denied truth and the one thing she’s always wanted but could never have.
Take a look at some of the exciting new releases coming to our shelves in this week…
The Revolutionary Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff – Offers a biography of a noted Founding Father—the one who stood behind the change in thinking that produced the American Revolution.
The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddhartha Mukherjee – Presenting revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, drawing on his own experience as a researcher, doctor and prolific reader, explores medicine and our radical new ability to manipulate cells.
Marmee by Sarah Miller – In 1861, Margaret March, with her husband serving as an army chaplain, finds the comfort and security of her four daughters resting on her shoulders alone as she faces financial hardships, secrets and tragedy, in this revealing retelling of Little Women from the perspective of the beloved matriarch known as Marmee.
Thief of Fate by Jude Deveraux & Tara Sheets – After changing the course of history when he stole Cora McLeod from her destined soulmate, Finley Walsh, in 1844, Liam O’Conner, desperately trying to make amends, has three months to restore the balance by reuniting Cora and Finn or pay the ultimate price.
Livid: A Scarpetta Novel by Patricia Cornwell, Patricia – When the sister of the judge presiding over a sensational murder case is found dead, chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, the reluctant start witness in the trial, investigates and recognizes telltale signs of the unthinkable, pitting her against a powerful force that returns her to the past.
No Plan B: A Jack Reacher Novelby Lee Child, Lee & Andrew Child – Witnessing a woman pushed to her death in front of a bus, Jack Reacher, following the killer on foot, is unaware that this is part of a secret conspiracy with many moving parts with no room for error and any threats will be permanently removed, including Reacher.
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy – In 1980 Pass Christian, Mississippi, salvage diver Bobby Western, after a plane crash, discovers the pilot’s flight bag, the plane’s black box and the tenth passenger are missing, submerging him in a conspiracy beyond his understanding as he is shadowed in body and spirit by the past and present.
Here some of the new exciting releases for you to take a look at this week!
Poster Girl by Veronica Roth, Veronica – After the collapse of the Delegation, an oppressive dystopian regime, Sonya, a poster girl imprisoned for her involvement, is offered a chance at freedom if she finds a missing girl stolen from her parents by the old regime, forcing her to confront a past rife with lies and dark secrets.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver – The son of an Appalachian teenager uses his good looks, wit and instincts to survive foster care, child labor, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses in the new novel from the best-selling author of Unsheltered.
The Favor by Nicci French – When she agrees to pick up an ex-boyfriend at the train station, Jude is shocked when the police show up instead of him and, realizing she knows nothing about the man he’s become, becomes entangled in his life as she tries to uncover the truth.
And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham – The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer examines life and moral evolution of Abraham Lincoln and how he navigated the crises of slavery, secession and war by both marshaling the power of the presidency while recognizing its limitations.
A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin – Fresh off of helping his daughter Samantha find her missing husband, Inspector John Rebus investigates another surprising crime in the latest addition to the long-running thriller series following A Song for the Dark Times.
The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man by Paul Newman – Culled from thousands of pages of transcripts, this raw, candid, unvarnished memoir of the greatest movie star of the past 75 years, told with searing honesty, covers everything: his traumatic childhood, his career, his drinking, his intimate life with Joanne Woodward and his innermost fears and passions and joys.
Robert Ludlum’s The Blackbriar Genesis by Simon Gervais – When an undercover Treadstone agent is murdered in Prague, but none of his superiors know what he was doing there, Blackbriar operatives Helen Jouvert and Donovan Wade are sent to investigate, drawing them into a world of conspiracy and fake news.
The Last Chairlift by John Irving – Growing up in a family that defies conventions and evades questions concerning the eventful past, Adam goes to Aspen, where he was conceived, to learn the truth about his mother, a former slalom skier and ski instructor, and meets some ghosts, which aren’t the first or the last ones he sees.
Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro – When the Shenkmans arrive on Division Street, their brilliant, lonely son Waldo, who has a native ability to find connections in everything, befriends Dr. Wilf, who is harboring a dark secret, setting in motion a chain of events that cause the past to come back with a vengeance.
The Christmas Spirit by Debbie Macomber – When Pete, a local pastor, and his best friend, Hank, a bartender, decide to switch jobs until Christmas Eve, they begin to see each other’s lives in a new light as they each discover a new love to cherish, forever changing their lives.
Liberation Day by George Saunders – This brilliant collection of stories, written with the author’s trademark prose – wickedly funny, unsentimental and perfectly tuned, encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.
The Boys from Biloxi by John Grisham – The #1 New York Times best-selling author sets the stage for his most gripping thriller yet as he returns to Mississippi where his page-turning twists and turns lead to a stunning conclusion.
In the dystopian world of Celeste Ng’s latest novel, books are banned, children are re-homed, and Asian Americans are outcasts. Amidst it all, twelve-year old Bird is left with a handful of memories of his mother. Her presence and poetry have faded from his life, but a familiar image sparks his curiosity and forces him to revisit her disappearance. Melinda
Raised in a Dublin housing estate by an alcoholic father toward the end of the 1940s, Joan and her sister had to grow up fast. Working in a factory by age fourteen it made sense she would find the love of her life at eighteen. Martin Egan, son of a successful business owner, promised Joan the world until she became pregnant and he persuaded her to place the baby up for adoption. Thirty years later when their secret child makes contact, how will they each respond? Family relationships are seen from the women’s perspective and as we get to know the characters better, we understand how difficult and limited their choices truly were, making Joan, in particular, even more endearing. If you enjoy spending time with interesting characters, this is the book for you! Stacey
A sheltered wizard’s daughter falls in love with a ballet dancer while a monster stalks the streets and the bodies of brutalized men appear all over the city. A reimagining of the classic fairy tale “The Juniper Tree.” Shannon
Marra is a princess on a quest to save her sister with the help of a reluctant grave-witch and a dog she creates out of bone and wire. Along the way, their party grows, with the addition of Marra’s fairy godmother, whose blessings turn out to be curses and a loveable disgraced knight, whose heart is in desperate need of rescuing. Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher is an adult, revenge-filled fairy-tale that is equal parts action-packed, humorous, and original – a perfect feminist fantasy novel. Carol
In the 19th century, Sioux Falls, SD, became a haven for women seeking a divorce. Among the laxest laws in the country, women came from all the States and Europe to gain their freedom during a time that women had few rights. The book explores not only the social drama but political and religious drama, while telling detailed and entertaining stories of the women who took hold of their futures. Christine
This story takes place in 1925 in Oak Park, an affluent suburb of Chicago. Elizabeth Fairchild is a close friend of Mr. Anthony, owner of a quaint antique store. Mr. Anthony is found stabbed to death and the local police think they have the killer. Elizabeth and a few others, including Mrs. Hemingway are certain the police have arrested the wrong man. At this point in the story the search is on for the real killer. Please stay tuned… Emma
In post-WWII Japan, Detective Kindaichi is called and warned that the reading of a local magnate’s will is certain to set off a series of murders. Though skeptical of the prognostication, Detective Kindaichi travels to the small town and awaits the reading. However, immediately upon his arrival, he is witness to a life-threatening accident that portends the danger to the magnate’s family yet to come. The detective must first uncover the family secrets to unravel the mystery. Trent
The final installment in the Beartown trilogy, about the resilient and closely knit community that puts hockey above all else. Taking place over two weeks, Beartown residents must prove their love for each other and for their town, struggling to move on from the past in the wake of numerous changes. Told in Backman’s signature reflective style, it’s hard to put this one down. Linnea
When a 12-year-old girl goes missing in a rural Australian town during the worst heat wave in decades, tempers flare and townspeople with skeletons in their closets, and long histories together, begin to fall apart, and also to come together to search for the young girl. Kept me guessing for quite awhile. Sara
Here some of the new exciting releases for you to take a look at this week!
Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder by William Shatner & Joshua Brandon – The beloved star of Star Trek and recent space traveler reflects on the interconnectivity of all things, our fragile bond with nature and the joy that comes from exploration.
Daughter of Darkness by Terry Brooks – After accepting her Fae heritage and escaping the sinister Goblin prison, Auris tries to live happily with her lover, Harlow, until the Goblin attacks begin again and she must uncover her still-shrouded past for answers and solutions.
The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken – After her mother’s death, the narrator, a writer, recalls all that made her complicated mother extraordinary and even though she wants to respect her mother’s nearly pathological sense of privacy, must decide whether chronicling this remarkable life is an act of love or betrayal.
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult & Jennifer Finney Boylan – Her life upended when her husband revealed a darker side, Olivia MacAfee and her teenage son Asher move back to her New Hampshire hometown for a new beginning until Asher is implicated in the death of his girlfriend and she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.
Our Missing Heartsby Celeste Ng – In a society consumed by fear, 12-year-old Bird Gardner, after receiving a mysterious letter, sets out on a quest to find his mother – a Chinese American poet who left when he was nine years old, leading him to NYC where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.
The Twelve Long, Hard, Topsy-turvy, Very Messy Days of Christmas by James Patterson & Tad Safran – During the holiday season, a family of three, missing someone very dear to them, find their house filling up with unexpected guests, making Christmas memories to last a lifetime.
Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America by Maggie Haberman – The Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times reporter chronicles the rise of our 45th president, from his days as a New York City real estate developer to vanguard of a new norm-shattering era in American political history.
Home Sweet Christmas by Susan Mallery – Excited to regain her independence after sending her sisters off to college, Camryn Neff is not thrilled when a client tries to set her up with her son in the second novel of the series following The Christmas Wedding Guest.
Endless Summer by Elin Hilderbrand – Nine stories set in the universe of the best-selling author’s previous romance novels includes a visit with friends of Mallory Blessing three years after her death and Margot Carmichael encouraging her husband to reunite with his ex.
Righteous Prey by John Sandford – When a mysterious vigilante group known only as “The Five” starts targeting the very worst of society, using their unlimited resources to offset the damage done by those they’ve killed, Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers are called in to investigate – and destroy – this virtually untraceable group.
Read it or Weep 