What's on my must-read list this winter? Read on to find out!
Freefall, by Jessica Barry. In Maine, Maggie Carpenter receives news that her daughter, Allison, is presumed dead following the crash of a private plane in the Colorado Rockies, though Allison's body has not yet been recovered. The deceased pilot has been identified as Allison's fiance, a pharmaceutical company CEO. After two years estrangement from her daughter, Maggie didn't even know that Allison was engaged, and as she begins to dig into the last two years of her daughter's life, Maggie discovers that she barely knew her daughter anymore, least of all why Allison might want the authorities to believe she died in the crash...
The Dreamers, by Karen Thompson Walker. I was a huge fan of Walker's 2012 debut, The Age of Miracles, and her new novel is already creating a lot of pre-publication buzz, so this is right at the top of my January reading list. It all starts in on the campus of a small California college, where a student falls asleep and cannot be awakened. Then another, and another, the sleeping sickness (which occasionally ends in death) spreading across campus and the nearby town, which are quickly quarantined. Cue students inside the quarantine zone planning their escapes, others volunteering to care for their stricken friends as the number of infected continue to climb. Shifting seamlessly among multiple characters, Walker has written what early reviews are calling a "provocative, hypnotic" and "skillful" novel. I can't wait.
The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man, by Jonas Jonasson. In this sequel to Jonasson's best-selling The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (2012), centenarian Allan Karlsson and his sidekick, petty thief Julius Jonasson, are back and as uproariously funny as ever as they fly in a hot air balloon well-stocked with champagne, only to crash land into the sea. Then they're rescued by a North Korean ship carrying contraband uranium, and things really start to get interesting!
Happy Holidays and Happy Reading! I'll be back with my 2018 wrap-up next week!
Thursday, December 20, 2018
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
Meg's Picks: January 2019, part 1
Need some suspense in your life? Here are a few titles that have made my list next month, including a couple of spectacular debuts!
An Anonymous Girl, by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen. New psychological fiction from the authors of the 2018 best-seller The Wife Between Us. When Jessica signs up for an ethics study of women ages 18-32, she has no idea that the doctor running the study will be so dangerously controlling. As the study progresses and she shares, and overshares, with the doctor, Jessica begins to wonder whether she'll ever be able to leave the study at all... Also available in Large Print.
The Woman Inside, by E.G. Scott. Scott is the pseudonym for a pair of writers, one a publishing professional and the other a screenwriter, making their debut with a dark marital thriller that is already in development for a TV series. After nearly two decades of marriage, Rebecca and Paul are growing apart, separated by a slowly unraveling string of secrets. Like Rebecca's career-ending substance abuse problem. Or Paul's failure to mention that he's withdrawn all of their savings from the bank, or his adultery. Fans of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl will want to check this out in the new year.
The Nowhere Child, by Christian White. White's impressive debut starts with Australian teacher Kim Leamy being approached by American James Finn, who claims the 30-year-old woman is actually Sammy Went, who was abducted from Kentucky at the age of 2 back in 1990. When James admits he's actually Stuart Went, Sammy's brother, and shares all of the documentation of Sammy's disappearance, Kim is intrigued, and together they work to unearth what really happened. Don't skip ahead, the ending is worth the wait!
An Anonymous Girl, by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen. New psychological fiction from the authors of the 2018 best-seller The Wife Between Us. When Jessica signs up for an ethics study of women ages 18-32, she has no idea that the doctor running the study will be so dangerously controlling. As the study progresses and she shares, and overshares, with the doctor, Jessica begins to wonder whether she'll ever be able to leave the study at all... Also available in Large Print.
The Woman Inside, by E.G. Scott. Scott is the pseudonym for a pair of writers, one a publishing professional and the other a screenwriter, making their debut with a dark marital thriller that is already in development for a TV series. After nearly two decades of marriage, Rebecca and Paul are growing apart, separated by a slowly unraveling string of secrets. Like Rebecca's career-ending substance abuse problem. Or Paul's failure to mention that he's withdrawn all of their savings from the bank, or his adultery. Fans of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl will want to check this out in the new year.
The Nowhere Child, by Christian White. White's impressive debut starts with Australian teacher Kim Leamy being approached by American James Finn, who claims the 30-year-old woman is actually Sammy Went, who was abducted from Kentucky at the age of 2 back in 1990. When James admits he's actually Stuart Went, Sammy's brother, and shares all of the documentation of Sammy's disappearance, Kim is intrigued, and together they work to unearth what really happened. Don't skip ahead, the ending is worth the wait!
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Reading Ahead: January 2019, part 3
Winter is often the season when many readers turn to easy reading to while away a bitterly cold night. If that sounds like you, read on!
Turning Point, by Danielle Steel. Four busy and dedicated California doctors are chosen for an honor and a unique project: to work with their counterparts in Paris in a mass-casualty training program. As professionals, they will gain invaluable experience. As men and women, they will find that their time in the City of Lights offers them a variety of personal opportunities. But when an unspeakable act of mass violence calls them all into action, this will be their turning point, when each must make choices that will change each of them forever. Also available in Large Print.
Untouchable, by Jayne Ann Krentz. This is the wrap-up of Krentz's Cutler, Sutter & Salinas trilogy, following 2016's When All The Girls Have Gone and 2017's Promise Not To Tell. FBI consultant Jack Lancaster has always been drawn to the coldest of cold cases. A survivor of a fire himself, he finds himself with a unique perspective on arson cases in particular. But the more cases he solves, the closer he slips toward darkness. His salvation is meditation therapist Winter Meadows, who can manage to lead him back toward the light when his thoughts are at their darkest. As long as Quinton Zane is alive, though, Jack will never have peace, and so the battle begins. Also available in Large Print.
The Best of Us, by Robyn Carr. Latest in Carr's Sullivan's Crossing series, after 2018's The Family Gathering, finds Dr. Leigh Culver enjoying the slower pace of practicing medicine in Timberlake, Colorado after her years in Chicago. The only drawback is that she misses her aunt Helen, who raised Leigh, but perhaps the gorgeous mountain views will entice Helen to visit often? Neither of them expected to miss one another so much, though, and Helen never thought she'd fall for a place like Sullivan's Crossing, but that's just the beginning of what happens upon her first fateful visit. Also available in Large Print.
Turning Point, by Danielle Steel. Four busy and dedicated California doctors are chosen for an honor and a unique project: to work with their counterparts in Paris in a mass-casualty training program. As professionals, they will gain invaluable experience. As men and women, they will find that their time in the City of Lights offers them a variety of personal opportunities. But when an unspeakable act of mass violence calls them all into action, this will be their turning point, when each must make choices that will change each of them forever. Also available in Large Print.
Untouchable, by Jayne Ann Krentz. This is the wrap-up of Krentz's Cutler, Sutter & Salinas trilogy, following 2016's When All The Girls Have Gone and 2017's Promise Not To Tell. FBI consultant Jack Lancaster has always been drawn to the coldest of cold cases. A survivor of a fire himself, he finds himself with a unique perspective on arson cases in particular. But the more cases he solves, the closer he slips toward darkness. His salvation is meditation therapist Winter Meadows, who can manage to lead him back toward the light when his thoughts are at their darkest. As long as Quinton Zane is alive, though, Jack will never have peace, and so the battle begins. Also available in Large Print.
The Best of Us, by Robyn Carr. Latest in Carr's Sullivan's Crossing series, after 2018's The Family Gathering, finds Dr. Leigh Culver enjoying the slower pace of practicing medicine in Timberlake, Colorado after her years in Chicago. The only drawback is that she misses her aunt Helen, who raised Leigh, but perhaps the gorgeous mountain views will entice Helen to visit often? Neither of them expected to miss one another so much, though, and Helen never thought she'd fall for a place like Sullivan's Crossing, but that's just the beginning of what happens upon her first fateful visit. Also available in Large Print.
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Reading Ahead: January 2019, part 2
Need a new thriller to get your blood running on a cold winter's night? Consider one of these up and coming titles!
The Suspect, by Fiona Barton. The bestselling author of The Widow (2016) returns with a twisted psychological thriller about every parent's worst nightmare. When two eighteen-year-old girls go missing on a trip to Thailand, their frantic, worried families are thrust into the spotlight overnight. What were the girls doing before they disappeared? Journalist Kate Waters wants the exclusive, to be the first to the find the truth, but in the process she's forced to deal with her own issues, including her son who left for his own international travels two years ago...and hasn't been heard from since.
What Doesn't Kill Her, by Christina Dodd. Following 2018's Dead Girl Running, we again meet up with Kellen Adams, who has a year-long gap in her memory. A gunshot to the head will do that, it seems. But she's slowly piecing things back together and what she learns changes everything. Like that she bends, but doesn't break. And that even on the run in the wilderness, carrying a priceless burden, she has her sights set on her pursuers, vowing to end this chase as the hunter, not the hunted...
Judgement, by Joseph Finder. Massachusetts Superior Court judge Juliana Brody is rumored to be in consideration for the federal circuit, and she doesn't want anything to jeopardize that. But while at a conference in Chicago, she indulges in a one-night-stand with a man who seems gentle and vulnerable. Their mutual understanding is that this will never happen again. Upon returning home, however, Juliana soon realizes that this was no chance encounter, and that the man in Chicago has an integral role in the sexual discrimination case she's presiding over. Her indiscretion has been recorded, but it soon becomes clear that personal humiliation or even the end of her career may be the least of her concerns. It could spell mortal peril for her and for those she holds most dear.
The Suspect, by Fiona Barton. The bestselling author of The Widow (2016) returns with a twisted psychological thriller about every parent's worst nightmare. When two eighteen-year-old girls go missing on a trip to Thailand, their frantic, worried families are thrust into the spotlight overnight. What were the girls doing before they disappeared? Journalist Kate Waters wants the exclusive, to be the first to the find the truth, but in the process she's forced to deal with her own issues, including her son who left for his own international travels two years ago...and hasn't been heard from since.
What Doesn't Kill Her, by Christina Dodd. Following 2018's Dead Girl Running, we again meet up with Kellen Adams, who has a year-long gap in her memory. A gunshot to the head will do that, it seems. But she's slowly piecing things back together and what she learns changes everything. Like that she bends, but doesn't break. And that even on the run in the wilderness, carrying a priceless burden, she has her sights set on her pursuers, vowing to end this chase as the hunter, not the hunted...
Judgement, by Joseph Finder. Massachusetts Superior Court judge Juliana Brody is rumored to be in consideration for the federal circuit, and she doesn't want anything to jeopardize that. But while at a conference in Chicago, she indulges in a one-night-stand with a man who seems gentle and vulnerable. Their mutual understanding is that this will never happen again. Upon returning home, however, Juliana soon realizes that this was no chance encounter, and that the man in Chicago has an integral role in the sexual discrimination case she's presiding over. Her indiscretion has been recorded, but it soon becomes clear that personal humiliation or even the end of her career may be the least of her concerns. It could spell mortal peril for her and for those she holds most dear.
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Reading Ahead: January 2019, part 1
It's time to start thinking about keeping warm with red-hot thrillers this winter! Here are a few to consider adding to your list as the mercury starts to dip.
The Rule of Law, by John Lescroart. Last seen in 2018's Poison, Dismas Hardy is concerned: something is troubling his long-time and most-trusted assistant, Phyllis. And then? She disappears without a word. Then Hardy finds out that her brother, who has been in prison for armed robbery and attempted murder, has just been released. When Phyllis is found and arrested for the murder of a human trafficker, there's simply too much coincidence for Hardy to leave it alone. He has to put the pieces together, fast, if there's any hope of saving his trusted colleague.
Daughter of War, by Brad Taylor. Pike Logan and fellow Taskforce operator Jennifer Cahill are back after 2018's Operator Down and they're hot on the trail of a North Korean looking to sell sensitive information the Syrian regime. Then they stumble on something even more grave: the sale of a lethal substance known as Red Mercury, a weapon of mass destruction against American and Kurdish forces. Can the Taskforce unravel the plot and neutralize the threat before the conspiracy comes to a deadly end?
Liar, Liar, by James Patterson & Candice Fox. Harriet Blue is a great cop who has gone very, very bad. In the space of a week, she's committed theft and fraud, resisted arrest, assaulted an officer, and is now considered a dangerous fugitive. All of this because of one man who killed the person she held most dear...and intends to kill her next.
The New Iberia Blues, by James Lee Burke. This twenty-second entry in Burke's long-running Detective David Robicheaux series finds Robicheaux meeting up with a figure from his past, a once undersized twelve-year-old boy on the streets of New Orleans who, twenty-five years later, has fulfilled his dreams of Hollywood splendor. But when Robicheaux comes to Cormier's estate, it isn't to offer congratulations--he's looking for answers related to a nearby homicide. Cormier isn't saying much, but Robicheaux knows better. It's only as he wades deeper into the investigation, however, that he discovers just how dark and convoluted this case is.
The Rule of Law, by John Lescroart. Last seen in 2018's Poison, Dismas Hardy is concerned: something is troubling his long-time and most-trusted assistant, Phyllis. And then? She disappears without a word. Then Hardy finds out that her brother, who has been in prison for armed robbery and attempted murder, has just been released. When Phyllis is found and arrested for the murder of a human trafficker, there's simply too much coincidence for Hardy to leave it alone. He has to put the pieces together, fast, if there's any hope of saving his trusted colleague.
Daughter of War, by Brad Taylor. Pike Logan and fellow Taskforce operator Jennifer Cahill are back after 2018's Operator Down and they're hot on the trail of a North Korean looking to sell sensitive information the Syrian regime. Then they stumble on something even more grave: the sale of a lethal substance known as Red Mercury, a weapon of mass destruction against American and Kurdish forces. Can the Taskforce unravel the plot and neutralize the threat before the conspiracy comes to a deadly end?
Liar, Liar, by James Patterson & Candice Fox. Harriet Blue is a great cop who has gone very, very bad. In the space of a week, she's committed theft and fraud, resisted arrest, assaulted an officer, and is now considered a dangerous fugitive. All of this because of one man who killed the person she held most dear...and intends to kill her next.
The New Iberia Blues, by James Lee Burke. This twenty-second entry in Burke's long-running Detective David Robicheaux series finds Robicheaux meeting up with a figure from his past, a once undersized twelve-year-old boy on the streets of New Orleans who, twenty-five years later, has fulfilled his dreams of Hollywood splendor. But when Robicheaux comes to Cormier's estate, it isn't to offer congratulations--he's looking for answers related to a nearby homicide. Cormier isn't saying much, but Robicheaux knows better. It's only as he wades deeper into the investigation, however, that he discovers just how dark and convoluted this case is.
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