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AFTER THE PARADE by Lori Ostlund (Fiction)
After 20 years under the Pygmalion-like direction of his older partner Walter, Aaron Englund at last decides it is time to stop letting life happen to him and to take control of his own fate. But soon after establishing himself in San Francisco, Aaron sees that real freedom will not come until he has made peace with his memories of Morton, Minnesota: a cramped town whose 400 souls form a constellation of Aaron’s childhood heartbreaks and hopes. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
AFTER YOU by Jojo Moyes (Romance)
After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, Louisa Clark is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started. Thanks to the members of the Moving On support group, Lou meets strong, capable Sam Fielding, a paramedic whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future. Reviewed by Katherine B. Weissman.
BLOOD RED: Mundy's Landing Book One by Wendy Corsi Staub (Thriller)
Nestled in New York's Hudson Valley, Mundy's Landing is famous for its picturesque setting --- and for a century-old string of gruesome unsolved murders. Rowan returned to her hometown years ago, fleeing a momentary mistake that could have destroyed her family. Life is good here until an anonymous gift brings Rowan's fears to life again. The town's violent history was just the beginning. Soon everyone in Mundy's Landing will know that the past cannot be forgotten or forgiven --- not until every sin has been paid for, in blood. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE DEAD STUDENT by John Katzenbach (Psychological Thriller)
Timothy Warner, a PhD student who goes by the nickname “Moth,” discovers his uncle lying in a pool of blood. The police pronounce the death a suicide, but Moth refuses to believe that his uncle would take his own life. Devastated and confused, he calls on the only person he thinks he can trust: his ex-girlfriend, Andrea Martine. Each battling their inner demons, Moth and Andy travel into dark, unfamiliar territory, intent on finding out the truth about Ed’s death and circling ever closer to a devious mind that will flinch at nothing to achieve his own goal of revenge. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
FURIOUSLY HAPPY: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson (Memoir/Humor)
In FURIOUSLY HAPPY, Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best. This is a book about embracing everything that makes us who we are --- the beautiful and the flawed --- and then using it to find joy in fantastic and outrageous ways. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
THE GAP OF TIME by Jeanette Winterson (Fiction)
In THE GAP OF TIME, Jeanette Winterson’s cover version of THE WINTER’S TALE (one of Shakespeare’s “late plays”), we move from London, a city reeling after the 2008 financial crisis, to a storm-ravaged American city called New Bohemia. Her story is one of childhood friendship, money, status, technology and the elliptical nature of time; of the consuming power of jealousy on the one hand, and redemption and the enduring love of a lost child on the other. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
GHOSTLY: A Collection of Ghost Stories introduced and illustrated by Audrey Niffenegger (Horror/Short Stories)
From Edgar Allan Poe to Kelly Link, M.R. James to Neil Gaiman, H. H. Munro to Audrey Niffenegger herself, GHOSTLY reveals the evolution of the ghost story genre with tales going back to the 18th century and into the modern era, ranging across styles from Gothic Horror to Victorian, with a particular bent toward stories about haunting. Every story is introduced by Niffenegger with some words on its background and why she chose to include it. Reviewed by Ray Palen.
GIRL IN THE WOODS: A Memoir by Aspen Matis (Memoir)
On her second night of college, Aspen Matis was raped by a fellow student. Dealing with a problem that has sadly become all too common on college campuses around the country, she stumbled through her first semester --- a challenging time made even harder by the coldness of her college's "conflict mediation" process. Her desperation growing, she made a bold decision: She would seek healing in the freedom of the wild, on the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail leading from Mexico to Canada. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
GOLD FAME CITRUS by Claire Vaye Watkins (Fiction)
Unrelenting drought has transfigured Southern California into a surreal, phantasmagoric landscape. With the Central Valley barren, underground aquifer drained, and Sierra snowpack entirely depleted, most “Mojavs,” prevented by both armed vigilantes and an indifferent bureaucracy from freely crossing borders to lusher regions, have allowed themselves to be evacuated to internment camps. In Los Angeles’s Laurel Canyon, two young Mojavs squat in a starlet’s abandoned mansion. But when they cross paths with a mysterious child, the thirst for a better future begins. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
THE HEART GOES LAST by Margaret Atwood (Dystopian/Science Fiction)
Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed, and everyone gets a comfortable house to live in…for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents must leave their homes and function as inmates in the Positron prison system. But when Charmaine becomes romantically involved with the man who lives in their house during the months when she and Stan are in the prison, a series of troubling events unfolds, putting Stan's life in danger. Reviewed by Pauline Finch.
THE KILLING LESSONS by Saul Black (Thriller)
When the two strangers turn up at Rowena Cooper's isolated farmhouse, she knows instantly that it's the end of everything. For the two haunted and driven men, it's just another stop on a long and bloody journey. For San Francisco homicide detective Valerie Hart, their trail of victims has brought her from obsession to the edge of physical and psychological destruction. But the murders at the Cooper farmhouse didn't quite go according to plan. There was a survivor, Rowena's 10-year-old daughter, who now holds the key to the killings. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS written by George R. R. Martin, illustrations by Gary Gianni (Fantasy/Adventure)
Taking place nearly a century before the events of "Game of Thrones," A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS compiles the first three official prequel novellas to George R. R. Martin’s ongoing masterwork, A Song of Ice and Fire. These never-before-collected adventures recount an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne, and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living consciousness. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
A LINE OF BLOOD by Ben McPherson (Mystery/Thriller)
For Alex Mercer, his wife, Millicent, and their precocious 11-year-old son, Max, are everything. But when he and Max find their enigmatic next-door neighbor dead in his apartment, their lives are suddenly and irrevocably changed. The police begin an extremely methodical investigation, and Alex becomes increasingly impatient for them to finish. After all, it was so clearly a suicide. As new information is uncovered, troubling questions arise --- questions that begin to throw suspicion on Alex, Millicent and even Max. It seems each of them has secrets. And each has something to hide. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
MOTHERS, TELL YOUR DAUGHTERS: Stories by Bonnie Jo Campbell (Fiction/Short Stories)
Bonnie Jo Campbell is a keen observer of life and trouble in rural America, and her working-class protagonists can be at once vulnerable, wise, cruel and funny. The strong but flawed women of MOTHERS, TELL YOUR DAUGHTERS must negotiate a sexually charged atmosphere as they love, honor and betray one another against the backdrop of all the men in their world. Such richly fraught mother-daughter relationships can be lifelines, anchors, or they can sink a woman like a stone. Reviewed by Megan Elliott.
THE MURDER HOUSE by James Patterson and David Ellis (Thriller)
No. 7 Ocean Drive is a gorgeous, multi-million-dollar beachfront estate in the Hamptons. But its beautiful gothic exterior hides a horrific past: it was the scene of a series of depraved killings that have never been solved. Neglected, empty and rumored to be cursed, it's known as the Murder House, and locals keep their distance. When a Hollywood power broker and his mistress are found dead there, the gruesome crime scene rivals anything Detective Jenna Murphy experienced as a New York City cop. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
PRETTY GIRLS by Karin Slaughter (Psychological Thriller)
More than 20 years ago, Claire and Lydia’s teenaged sister, Julia, vanished without a trace. The two women have not spoken since, and now their lives could not be more different. But neither has recovered from the horror and heartbreak of their shared loss --- a devastating wound that's cruelly ripped open when Claire's husband is killed. The surviving sisters look to the past to find the truth, unearthing the secrets that destroyed their family all those years ago…and uncovering the possibility of redemption, and revenge, where they least expect it. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE SCAM: A Fox and O'Hare Novel by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg (Mystery/Thriller)
Evan Trace is running a money-laundering operation through his casino in Macau. Some of his best customers are mobsters, dictators and global terrorists. Nicolas Fox and Kate O’Hare will have to go deep undercover as high-stakes gamblers, wagering millions of dollars --- and their lives --- in an attempt to topple Trace’s empire. Their only backup: a self-absorbed actor, a Somali pirate, and Kate’s father, an ex-soldier who believes a rocket launcher is the best way to solve every problem. What could possibly go wrong? Reviewed by Roz Shea.
SHADOW PLAY: An Eve Duncan Novel by Iris Johansen (Thriller)
When a sheriff in California contacts Eve Duncan with a request for help on the reconstruction of the skull of a girl whose body has been buried for eight years, his fierce investment in the case puzzles her. But when Eve finds herself experiencing an unusual connection with the girl she calls Jenny, she becomes entangled in the case more intensely than she ever could have imagined. Not since her daughter Bonnie has Eve had such an experience, and suddenly she finds herself determined to solve the murder and bring closure to the crime. Reviewed by Judy Gigstad.
THE SLAUGHTER MAN by Tony Parsons (Thriller)
On New Year's Day, a wealthy family is found slaughtered inside their exclusive gated community, their youngest child stolen away. The murder weapon leads homicide detective Max Wolfe to a dusty corner of Scotland Yard's Black Museum devoted to a mass murderer who, 30 years ago, was known as The Slaughter Man. But The Slaughter Man has done his time and is now old and dying. Is he really back in the killing game? And was the slaughter of a happy family a mindless killing spree, or a grotesque homage by a copycat killer, or a contract hit designed to frame a dying man? Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
A SONG OF SHADOWS: A Charlie Parker Thriller by John Connolly (Thriller)
Still recovering from his life-threatening wounds, private detective Charlie Parker has retreated to the small Maine town of Boreas to regain his strength. There he befriends a widow named Ruth Winter and her young daughter, Amanda. But Ruth has her secrets. Old atrocities are about to be unearthed, and old sinners will kill to hide their sins. Now Parker is about to risk his life to defend a woman he barely knows, one who fears him almost as much as she fears those who are coming for her. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
TWO YEARS EIGHT MONTHS AND TWENTY-EIGHT NIGHTS by Salman Rushdie (Fiction/Magical Realism)
Once upon a time, in a world just like ours, there came “the time of the strangenesses.” A simple gardener began to levitate, and a powerful djinn raised an army composed entirely of her semi-magical great-great-great-grandchildren. A baby was born with the ability to see corruption in the faces of others. The ghosts of two philosophers, long dead, began arguing once more. And a battle for the kingdom of Fairyland was waged throughout our world for 1,001 nights --- or, to be more precise, for two years, eight months and 28 nights. Reviewed by Rebecca Munro.
YOU ARE DEAD by Peter James (Mystery)
Two events --- the disappearance of Logan Somerville and the death of a young woman years before --- seem totally unconnected to Detective Superintendent Roy Grace and his Major Crime Team. But then another young woman in Brighton goes missing and another body from the past surfaces. At the same time, a strange man visits an eminent London psychiatrist, claiming to have a piece of information on the missing woman, Logan, that turns out to be wrong --- or so it seems. It is only later that Roy Grace makes the chilling realization that this one thing is the key to both the past and the present. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
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