Reading Ahead: October 2018, part 2

It is staggering the sheer quantity of excellent new fiction being published next month. Get your reading muscles ready!

Every Breath, by Nicholas Sparks. A chance encounter becomes a touchstone for two very different individuals in Sparks's latest. Hope is at a personal crossroads. At thirty-six, her six year relationship with a successful surgeon shows no signs of moving toward the altar, and when her father is diagnosed with ALS, she returns to North Carolina to care for him and to reassess the direction of her life. Tru Walls, a safari guide born and raised in Zimbabwe, finds himself summoned to North Carolina by a man claiming to be his father. He chooses to go primarily in hopes of resolving some of the mysteries about his mother's past, mysteries that seemed hopelessly unsolvable following her death. When Tru and Hope meet, it will mean a personal battle for each of them, that of family duty versus personal happiness. Also available in Large Print. 

Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver. Present day, out-of-work journalist Willa is trying to keep her household together, four generations living together in their falling-down house. She delves into the old home's history in hopes that recognition from the historical register will mean money for much-needed repairs and restoration. In her research, though, she finds the story of a previous owner, 1870s science teacher Thatcher, who ran into major pushback for teaching Darwinism. Kingsolver fans should put their requests in now. Also available in Large Print. 

A Spark of Light, by Jodi Picoult. When a lone gunman, seeking vengeance for his daughter's abortion, starts taking hostages at the women's reproductive clinic, police hostage-negotiator has more on the line than normal in such a high-stakes encounter: his own daughter, Wren, is inside the facility. I'm expecting demand for this to be huge.

The Fox, by Frederick Forsyth. After a brilliant English teen hacker orchestrates brutal cyberattacks on the CIA, the Pentagon, and the NSA--just for fun--it's decided that rather than prosecute him, they'll recruit him in order to undermine American enemies. This new thriller from Forsyth (The Kill List, etc.) is chillingly bleeding-edge.

The Clockmaker's Daughter, by Kate Morton. Morton (The Lake House, etc.) takes us back across the decades in her latest. In contemporary London, archivist Elodie Winslow is intrigued when she comes across the following items in her employer's collection: a satchel, an antique photograph of a woman in Victorian garb, and a sketch of a country house. The sketch in particular catches her interest: it reminds her of the magical house her late mother used to tell her stories about. When she discovers the house itself, it is only natural to start digging into its secrets, some of which have been buried for over a century. Morton is an excellent storyteller, and historical fiction fans will want to add this to their lists.