Reading Ahead: February 2015, part 1

I firmly believe that there's no such thing as post-holiday let-down for readers. Especially when we have the opportunity to look forward to quiet time spent with a book! Here are a few to help ease you out of the holiday mania.

Crazy Love You, by Lisa Unger. In the need for some good scary fun after all the holiday sweetness? Unger's latest may be just what you're craving. From the time they were children, Ian and Priss were best friends. Priss was Ian's salvation through a childhood enduring teasing and taunts from bullies and the horrible secrets kept by his family. Though there's always been something just a bit off about Priss... Now they're adults and living in New York City, and while Ian has reinvented himself, becoming a successful graphic artist, Priss is still trouble. When Ian meets a woman who makes him want to change for the better, Priss finds herself angry and resentful of the change. And when Priss is angry, terrible things tend to happen.

Motive, by Jonathan Kellerman. Even having hundreds of closed cases to his credit can’t keep LAPD police lieutenant Milo Sturgis from agonizing over the crimes that don’t get solved—and the victims who go without justice. Victims like Katherine Hennepin, a young woman strangled and stabbed in her home. The only thing he can do is move on to the next case, because there's always a next case. This time it's Ursula Corey, a successful divorcee who's been gunned down, and Milo with the help of psychologist Alex Delaware, begin to zero in on the most likely suspect, only to find a bizarre new clue that seems to indicate that Corey's murder is actually tied to the unsolved murder of Katherine Hennepin. Then the body count starts to rise and Sturgis and Delaware must race against the clock to the stop the killer before he can escalate further. Kellerman fans are in for a wild ride.

Crash & Burn, by Lisa Gardner. A new standalone thriller from bestselling Gardner will have readers questioning everything protagonist Nicole Frank says. There's a missing child, but there's no evidence that she ever existed. Nicole's husband says he'll do anything he can to save her, except the reality may be that he can't. In fact, Nicole may not actually be Nicole Frank, and no one can figure out how she managed to survive a car accident one rainy night, climb out of a ditch and flag down help. As unreliable a narrator as ever there was, Nicole and her story will leave readers guessing right up until the very end. I'm a fan, and I can't wait.