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Bookreporter.com Bets On...

With thousands of books published each year and much attention paid to the works of bestselling and well-known authors, it is inevitable that some titles worthy of praise and discussion may not get the attention we think they deserve. Thus throughout the year, we will continue this feature that we started in 2009, to spotlight books that immediately struck a chord with us and made us say “just read this.” We will alert our readers about these titles as soon as they’re released so you can discover them for yourselves and recommend them to your family and friends.

Below are all of our selections thus far. For future "Bets On" titles that we will announce shortly after their release dates, please visit this page.

Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann

July 2012

TIGERS IN RED WEATHER by Liza Klaussmann is a wonderfully ambitious debut novel --- told in five voices with twists and turns --- that completely delivers as it rolls from page to page. The setting for most of the story is a vacation home called Tiger House on Martha’s Vineyard, which has been enjoyed by Nick (note: Nick is a woman) and Helena’s families since they were children. Following World War II, Nick married a man named Hughes, and Helena has married as well and moved to California.

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Gold by Chris Cleave

July 2012

You probably know Chris Cleave as the author of LITTLE BEE, which was a bestseller and book group favorite. His latest, GOLD is set in Manchester, England, with the protagonists Zoe and Kate, two world-class female cyclists who have known each other as both friends and rivals since their first day of Elite training. They are both in the hunt for their last Olympic gold. The chance to even be in the race has eluded one of the women for two Olympics, and at her age, this is her last shot. She has a young child who is desperately ill, and balancing the emotions that swirl around her as she tries to calculate her daughter’s odds for survival with her training raises the stakes and the tension.

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The Woman at the Light by Joanna Brady

July 2012

THE WOMAN AT THE LIGHT by Joanna Brady opens on Wrecker’s Cay in 1839, where Emily Lowry soon learns that her lighthouse keeper husband has not returned from a trip in his boat. Suddenly she is alone with her three young children, keeping not only her hearth and home, but also the lighthouse beacon burning. Wrecker’s Cay is isolated, and life there is lonely. So when a young black man with manacles attached to his hands washes up on their shore, there’s definitely time for tension to unfold. Who is he, and what is his story? Can he be trusted?

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The World Without You by Joshua Henkin

June 2012

Many of you may remember Joshua Henkin’s book of a few years ago, MATRIMONY, which was eagerly embraced by both book clubs and readers. Just out this week is THE WORLD WITHOUT YOU, which is set over a few days around the 4th of July in 2005 as the Frankel family gathers at their vacation home in Lenox, MA, to commemorate the unveiling of their son/brother Leo’s tombstone on the first anniversary of his death.  Leo, the only son, was a journalist who loved adventure, and his death while on assignment in Iraq was devastating. The book opens with his parents awaiting the arrival of the rest of the family, and we learn the bombshell of a secret that they plan to share over the next few days.

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Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick

June 2012

As many of you recall, I was just crazy about A RELIABLE WIFE by Robert Goolrick, which was a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection. In his latest book, HEADING OUT TO WONDERFUL, Goolrick again grabbed my attention with a bold story and a group of flawed characters.

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Gilded Age by Claire McMillan

June 2012

GILDED AGE, a debut novel by Claire McMillan, is set in Cleveland, “the Rust Belt,” and shows a stylish side to that city that I never expected. Readers meet Ellie Harr, who makes her return to her native city after a divorce in New York and stint in rehab. But she learns that what while her beauty is dazzling, her sexual reputation matters as much as her family heritage and bankbook. Her more grounded childhood friend is living a respectable Cleveland life, and the divide between their worlds exacerbates Ellie’s troubles all the more.

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The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty

June 2012

THE CHAPERONE by Laura Moriarty opens in the early 1920s in Wichita, Kansas, where Cora Carlisle lives with her husband, Alan, and twin sons. The boys are growing up, and Cora is restless. She seizes a chance to go to New York with Louise Brooks, then just a local girl, to chaperone her as she practices and tries out for the Denishawn dance troupe. Cora has a secret reason for wanting to get back to New York, and Louise provides the perfect opportunity to get there.

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The Innocents by Francesca Segal

June 2012

THE INNOCENTS by Francesca Segal opens with the newly engaged Adam and Rachel, who have been together since they were 16 (they are now 28) celebrating the High Holidays at Temple Fortune in West London with the rest of their tightly knit community. The spotlight is on this well-matched pair who seem to have it all. By page two, a new player has entered the scene: Rachel’s ravishing cousin Ellie, who lives in New York and has “a story” behind her. The contrast between Rachel and Ellie could not be more drastic. It’s the classic “safe good girl” and “the temptress” story, which is handled so deftly in Francesca’s hands. Adam is clearly questioning his choices and seeing a world beyond the safe haven he has come to know. The plot, the tension, the twists and the turns make THE INNOCENTS a page-turner, and the ending is perfect.

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To the Last Breath: A Memoir of Going to Extremes by Francis Slakey

May 2012

A few months ago, I saw a wonderful movie called The Way starring Martin Sheen, in which “a father heads overseas to recover the body of his estranged son who died while traveling the ‘El camino de Santiago,’ and decides to take the pilgrimage himself.” While I am neither a hiker nor much of an athlete beyond swimming in the pool, journeys like this intrigue me --- both for the physical endurance of them and the way people can open their minds when they are away from the everyday world.

Thus I picked up TO THE LAST BREATH: A Memoir of Going to Extremes, which I found wonderful in the way that I loved THE WAVE, CRAZY FOR THE STORM, SHADOW DIVERS and THE LAST DIVE. Francis Slakey is a physics professor at Georgetown who one day found he was going through the motions of life, not really connecting with people the way he wanted. His lectures were such that at the end of the day, he would realize that he had written long theorems, but not really spoken to students. Relationships were not working out. So he decided to take on a new challenge --- to climb the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean.

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True Sisters by Sandra Dallas

May 2012

TRUE SISTERS by Sandra Dallas looks at the story of how, in 1856, the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS, or Mormons) brought converts from Europe to Iowa, where they were fitted with handcarts that they pulled and pushed 1,300 miles to Salt Lake City. The carts were essentially square boxes on two wheels. The four women portrayed in the book were members of the Martin Company, the last group to head out that had 575 people in it when they left. Along the way, they lost one quarter of the group to harsh conditions, including blizzards and deathly cold. While the Donner party is referenced in history as the story of a magnitude of human loss, it is dwarfed by this.

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