Meg's Picks: November 2018, part 2

I've mentioned before, these are often my favorite posts: full of new titles that might be off the beaten track a bit but still very worthy of the spotlight. If you're tired of the same-old-same-old, here are a few to take into consideration...

Come With Me, by Helen Schulman. Schulman, author of the 2011 bestseller This Beautiful Life, returns here with a thrilling and somewhat alarming tale of the possibilities of technology. Stanford junior and tech start-up genius Donny has developed an algorithm that may allow people to access their "multiverses", the lives they might have had if life choices had been played out differently. One of his first test subjects is PR part-timer Amy Reed, whose daydreams often drift to a simpler, less encumbered life, one without her out-of-work husband and rowdy children. As the testing draws her daydreams frighteningly close to the surface, Amy and her family have to make some serious choices. Dark comedy fans should absolutely check this out.

The Shadows We Hide, by Allen Eskens. In this sequel to 2014's The Life We Bury, Joe Talbert returns to investigate the murder of the father he never knew, and to reckon with his family's past. What he discovers upon arriving in his father's small hometown is that no one has much to say about the deceased except that his death was long overdue. Upon further digging, it seems the man had been a cheat and generally nasty character. But Joe must continue to dig, both to solve the murder as well as to fill in the missing pieces of his own family history. I'm recommending this to fans of Jane Harper (The Dry, etc.).

Once A Midwife, by Patricia Harman. This new addition to Harman's popular Hope River series (The Midwife of Hope River, etc.) follows midwife Patience Hester through World War II, facing trouble when her husband Daniel refuses to fight after seeing too much bloodshed in the first world war. This earns him not only the scorn of his neighbors, but also a prison sentence, leaving Patience behind to support their family, raising their four young children in his absence. Historical fiction fans looking for a different take on WWII fiction might want to add this to their reading lists.