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AFTER ALICE by Gregory Maguire (Fantasy)
Ada, a friend of Alice’s mentioned briefly in ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, is off to visit her friend, but arrives a moment too late --- and tumbles down the rabbit hole herself. Ada brings to Wonderland her own imperfect apprehension of cause and effect as she embarks on an odyssey to find Alice and see her safely home from this surreal world below the world. If Eurydice can ever be returned to the arms of Orpheus, or Lazarus can be raised from the tomb, perhaps Alice can be returned to life. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
AMAZING FANTASTIC INCREDIBLE: A Marvelous Memoir by Stan Lee, Peter David and Colleen Doran (Graphic Memoir)
Audiobook available, narrated by Peter Riegert
In this gorgeously illustrated, full-color graphic memoir, Stan Lee --- comic book legend and co-creator of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Incredible Hulk, and a legion of other Marvel superheroes --- shares his iconic legacy and the story of how modern comics came to be. Moving from his impoverished childhood in Manhattan to his early days writing comics, through his military training films during World War II and the rise of the Marvel empire in the 1960s to the current resurgence in movies, AMAZING FANTASTIC INCREDIBLE documents the life of a man and the legacy of an industry and career. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
A BANQUET OF CONSEQUENCES: A Lynley Novel by Elizabeth George (Mystery)
As Inspector Thomas Lynley investigates the London angle of an ever more darkly disturbing case, his partner, Barbara Havers, is looking behind the peaceful façade of country life to discover a twisted world of desire and deceit. The suicide of William Goldacre is devastating to those left behind who will have to deal with its unintended consequences. Could there be a link between the young man’s leap from a Dorset cliff and a horrific poisoning in Cambridge? Reviewed by Katherine B. Weissman.
THE BAZAAR OF BAD DREAMS: Stories by Stephen King (Thriller/Short Stories)
Audiobook available, narrated by Stephen King and 14 others
Since his first collection, NIGHTSHIFT, published 35 years ago, Stephen King has dazzled readers with his genius as a writer of short fiction. In this new collection, he assembles, for the first time, recent stories that have never been published in a book. He introduces each with a passage about its origins or his motivations for writing it. There are thrilling connections between stories: themes of morality, the afterlife, guilt, what we would do differently if we could see into the future or correct the mistakes of the past. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
CAREER OF EVIL: A Cormoran Strike Novel by Robert Galbraith (Mystery)
Audiobook available, narrated by Robert Glenister
When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman's severed leg. Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed; there are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible. With the police focusing on the one suspect Strike is increasingly sure is not the perpetrator, he and Robin take matters into their own hands, and delve into the dark and twisted worlds of the other three men. But as more horrendous acts occur, time is running out for the two of them. Reviewed by Kate Ayers.
CHRISTMAS BELLS by Jennifer Chiaverini (Historical Fiction)
Audiobook available, narrated by Christina Moore
Jennifer Chiaverini’s resonant and heartfelt novel chronicles the events of 1863, when the peace and contentment of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s family circle was suddenly, tragically broken, cutting even deeper than the privations of wartime. Through the pain of profound loss and hardship, Longfellow’s patriotism never failed, nor did the power of his language. “Christmas Bells,” the poem he wrote that holiday, lives on, spoken as verse and sung as a hymn. Reviewed by Carole Turner.
THE CIRCLE by Bernard Minier (Mystery)
In the middle of a World Cup match in June 2010, Martin Servaz receives a call from a long-lost lover. A few miles away in the town of Marsac, Classics professor Claire Diemar has been brutally murdered. As if that weren't disturbing enough, Servaz receives a cryptic email indicating that Julian Hirtmann, the most twisted of all serial killers, is back…and hitting a little too close to home. With the help of detectives Irene Ziegler and Esperandieu, Servaz will have to uncover a world of betrayal and depravity to connect the dots between these gruesome murders that keep reopening wounds from his past. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE CROSSING: A Bosch Novel by Michael Connelly (Thriller)
Audiobook available, narrated by Titus Welliver
Detective Harry Bosch has retired from the LAPD, but his half-brother, defense attorney Mickey Haller, needs his help. A woman has been brutally murdered in her bed, and all evidence points to Haller's client, a former gang member turned family man. The murder rap seems ironclad, but Haller is sure it's a setup. Though it goes against all his instincts, Bosch reluctantly takes the case. Soon his investigation leads him inside the police department, where he realizes that the killer he's been tracking also has been tracking him. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
DARK CORNERS by Ruth Rendell (Psychological Thriller)
When his father dies, Carl Martin inherits a house in an increasingly rich and trendy London neighborhood. Carl needs cash, so he rents the upstairs room and kitchen to the first person he interviews: Dermot McKinnon. That was colossal mistake number one. Mistake number two was keeping his father’s bizarre collection of homeopathic “cures” that he found in the medicine cabinet, including a stash of controversial diet pills. Mistake number three was selling 50 of those diet pills to a friend, who is then found dead. Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum.
DEPRAVED HEART: A Scarpetta Novel by Patricia Cornwell (Thriller)
Dr. Kay Scarpetta is working a suspicious death scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when an emergency alert sounds on her phone. A video link lands in her text messages and seems to be from her computer genius niece Lucy. But how can it be? It’s clearly a surveillance film of Lucy taken almost 20 years ago. The diabolical presence behind what unfolds seems obvious --- but strangely, not to the FBI. Certainly that’s the message they send when they raid Lucy’s estate and begin building a case that could send her to prison for the rest of her life. Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum.
FIND A WAY by Diana Nyad (Sports/Memoir)
On September 2, 2013, at the age of 64, Diana Nyad emerged onto the sands of Key West after swimming 111 miles, nation to nation, Cuba to Florida, in an epic feat of both endurance and human will, in 53 hours. Millions of people around the world cheered this maverick on, moved by her undeniable tenacity to be the first to make the historic crossing without the aid of a shark cage. In FIND A WAY, Diana engages us with a unique, passionate story of this heroic adventure and the extraordinary life experiences that have served to carve her unwavering spirit. Reviewed by Miriam Tuliao.
THE GOLEM OF PARIS by Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman (Supernatural Thriller)
Audiobook available, narrated by John Rubinstein
It’s been more than a year since LAPD detective Jacob Lev learned the remarkable truth about his family, and he’s not coping well. He’s back to drinking, he’s not talking to his father, the LAPD Special Projects Department continues to shadow him, and the memory of a woman named Mai haunts him day and night. While Jacob has tried to build a bridge to his mother, she remains a stranger to him, imprisoned inside her own tattered mind. Then he comes across the file for a gruesome unsolved murder that brings the two halves of his life into startling collision. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE GROWNUP: A Story by the Author of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, narrated by Julia Whelan
A canny young woman is struggling to survive by perpetrating various levels of mostly harmless fraud. On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a drama injection. However, when the "psychic" visits the eerie Victorian home that has been the source of Susan’s terror and grief, she realizes she may not have to pretend to believe in ghosts anymore. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
HAS#TAG: A Crime Story by Eryk Pruitt (Crime Fiction)
Odie Shanks is the manager of a pizza parlor in Virginia, with dreams of Hollywood fame and stardom. When the establishment is robbed, he see cross-country crime as his ticket to the Big Time. Meanwhile, college student Melinda Kendall is on her own crime spree across the south, on the run from her drug-dealing, angry boyfriend. Eryk Pruitt’s second novel (following DIRTBAGS) is a wild ride across the American South. Reviewed by Tom Callahan.
THE KING'S JUSTICE: Two Novellas by Stephen R. Donaldson (Fantasy)
Stephen R. Donaldson may have been quiet since the release of THE LAST DARK in 2013, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t busy during that time. While he is most well known for his 10-volume series featuring Thomas Covenant --- a vast epic rivaling those who garner more press raves than he does --- it is an often overlooked fact that Donaldson is just as comfortable with shorter works as he is with sprawling page counts. With THE KING’S JUSTICE, Donaldson provides readers with two finely crafted and riveting page-turners. Reviewed by Stephen Hubbard.
SHOPAHOLIC TO THE RESCUE by Sophie Kinsella (Fiction)
Audiobook available, narrated by Clare Corbett
Becky’s father has vanished from Los Angeles on a mysterious quest with her best friend’s husband. Becky’s mum is hysterical; her best friend, Suze, is desperate. Worse, Becky must tolerate an enemy along for the ride, who she’s convinced is up to no good. Determined to get to the bottom of why her dad has disappeared, help Suze, contain Alicia, and reunite her fractured family, Becky knows she must marshal all her trademark ingenuity. But just when her family needs her more than ever, can Becky pull it off? Reviewed by Hillary Wagy.
SLADE HOUSE by David Mitchell (Paranormal Thriller)
Down the road from a working-class British pub, along the brick wall of a narrow alley, if the conditions are exactly right, you’ll find the entrance to Slade House. A stranger will greet you by name and invite you inside. At first, you won’t want to leave. Later, you’ll find that you can’t. Every nine years, the house’s residents --- an odd brother and sister --- extend a unique invitation to someone who’s different or lonely. But what really goes on inside Slade House? For those who find out, it’s already too late. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
THE THREE-YEAR SWIM CLUB: The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory by Julie Checkoway (Sports/History)
In 1937, a schoolteacher on the island of Maui challenged a group of poverty-stricken sugar plantation kids to swim upstream against the current of their circumstance. The goal? To become Olympians. In spite of everything --- including the virulent anti-Japanese sentiment of the late 1930s --- by their third year, they'd be declared the greatest swimmers in the world, but they'd also face their greatest obstacle: the dawning of a world war and the cancellation of the Games. Still, in 1948, they'd have one last chance for Olympic glory. Reviewed by Melanie Reynolds.
THE WOMAN WHO WALKED IN SUNSHINE: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (16) by Alexander McCall Smith (Mystery)
Business is slow at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency --- so slow, in fact, that for the first time in her estimable career, Precious Ramotswe has reluctantly agreed to take a holiday. The promise of a week of uninterrupted peace is short-lived, however, when she meets a young boy named Samuel, a troublemaker who is in some trouble himself. Once she learns more about Samuel’s sad story, Mma Ramotswe feels compelled to step in and help him find his way out of a bad situation. Reviewed by Amie Taylor.
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