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Thursday, May 28, 2015

Last of the June titles

There are still quite a few good titles coming out in June. One, I can't believe I didn't start out with and a few that I have put on my must read list. See what you think.

First, Stephen King (I can't believe I didn't put him on the big name author's list!) has Finders Keepers coming out on June 2nd. A story that is strongly reminiscent of Misery, an angry fan kills John Rothstein, the author of a series that loves. He steals the contents of his safe including notebooks containing another series novel. The murderer is jailed and decades later a young boy finds the stash. When the murderer is let out of jail after 35 years, he comes after the boy and his family. This is the second in the Bill Hodges series that started with Mr. Mercedes.

S. J Watson follows Before I Go To Sleep, which I loved, with Second Life. This one has gotten very mixed reviews. Some people just don't care for it. Julie decides to investigate her sister's online life after she is murdered. The police aren't moving fast enough for her so she finds her online screen name and password and begins a very slippery slope involving cybersex. Will Julie destroy her respectable middle class family and life? Read it and find out.

Matthew Quick, the author of The Silver Linings Playbook, has Love May Fail arriving on June 16th. Portia Kane leaves Florida and her lying, pornographer husband and returns to South Jersey and her childhood town. On her return, she lives with her hoarder mother and finds a high school friend, and renews her acquaintance with  a beloved teacher who retired after being attacked in the classroom. This novel is about second chances.

Jonathan Galassi is a poet and was president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Muse is his first novel coming on June 2nd and it is about what he knows. Paul Dukach is an up and comer at an independent publisher in New York City. He is particularly focused on a poet whose longtime publisher is his bosses biggest rival. Galassi shows the insider view of the publishing industry with humor and wit.

Jane Green has Summer Secrets coming on June 23rd. This will be a great beach read. Cat Coombs was working in London during the late 1990's. She was working and partying hard. She was well on her way to trouble with alcohol when she discovers the identity of her father. This shock caused her to blow up most of her relationships and had her turning even more to drink. 15 years later, we meet Cat again but this time sober. She goes to Nantucket to make amends. Is she successful? Does everyone have a secret?

Lisa Jewell has The Third Wife coming on June 9th. Adrian Wolfe's third wife steps into the path of an oncoming bus. Wolfe starts to wonder if it was accidental or on purpose. This causes him to look at his relationships with his past wives and children. Perhaps things were not quite as happy as they had seemed to him.

Well, that is it for June. Hope there is something there to tempt you. Enjoy!

Friday, May 22, 2015

More June Titles Part 2

OK -  before the holiday weekend, on with some more June titles that are sure to appeal to some of you.

If you read and liked Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians, you will want to get on the list for China Rich Girlfriend coming out on June 16th. Rachel Chu accompanies her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, back to Singapore for the summer and discovers he isn't just rich but obscenely rich. Nicholas appears to be ready to give up his fortune for Rachel and they are engaged. Now, Rachel is shocked when she discovers who her birth father is.

Jenny Milchman, a past winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Award gives us As Night Falls on June 30th. Sandy Tremont is cooking dinner in her rural home for her daughter and husband one minute and the next, 2 escaped convicts have taken control. The frightening part is that one of them is Sandy's brother Dirk, a person that Sandy has hoped to forget. This books is suppose to be very suspenseful and affecting. I unfortunately, can't read it because I'm afraid that the Tremont's dog is killed. If one of you read it and the dog lives, let me know so I can put it on my list.

Reeve LeClaire is a college student who was abducted when she was 12 by a pedophile and held captive for 4 years. She has tried to be normal again. Her story started in Carla Norton's The Edge of Normal and her second entry in the series coming on June 30th is What Doesn't Kill Her. Her abductor has escaped from the psychiatric hospital and Reeves realizes that she is the only one who understands the way his mind work well enough to catch him.

Lori Roy has Let Me Die in His Footsteps coming on June 2nd. Roy has won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and if you like historical novels which are kind of dark and threatening while being psychologically suspenseful, this one is for you. It is 1952 in Kentucky when 15 1/2 old Annie Holleran sneaks over to the well on their feuding neighbor's property. She wants to see her future in the well, unfortunately, what she stumbles on is a dead body. Back in the 1930's a Holleran girl, Juna, led a Baines boy, Joseph Carl, to do evil things. The story of these two events are fascinating if perhaps sad.

Vanessa Michael Munroe is a strange character that has her own series by Taylor Stevens. Stevens has The Mask coming out on June 30th. Munroe is an 'informationist' (also the title of the first book in the series) and who has been said to be the female Jason Bourne. She is captivating and lethal at the same time. Recovering from her last book where she had to escape from Somali pirates and was almost killed, she was recovering in Japan where her boyfriend, Bradford, was working. Unfortunately, Bradford gets arrested for murder and Vanessa is off on another case.

Lastly, Ingrid Thoft's third book in the Fina Ludlow series, Brutality arrives on June 23rd. Fina is the black sheep in a family firm of lawyers but here she steps out on her own when a mother asks her to investigate her adult daughter's attach. The daughter was left with life threatening injuries but 20 years earlier, she was a star soccer player in college. Recently, she had sued the university because of head injuries suffered during her playing years. Did the lawsuit bring about the attack or was there something else that the daughter didn't share?

OK - that gives you a few more to entice you. Hope one of them is just what you were looking for. It's suppose to be a nice weekend to read outside. Enjoy!

Saturday, May 16, 2015

LibraryReads for June

They posted the LibraryReads for June shortly after I posted my blog. Two of the titles on the list, I just spoke about last week so I won't go into them other than title author. Some of the others were surprises to me.

Number one on the list is Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave. Another beach read book, I believe. A career minded young woman, Julia, sees something on the street while being fitted for her wedding dress. It causes her to run home to a vineyard in Sonoma, CA. A book about relationships, with parents, with other family and with yourself. A strong sense of place and delightfully imagined characterizations.

Next, let me get the 2 we have already discussed out of the way.
Paul Doiron's The Precipice which I have on my list to read and Elin Hilderbrand's The Rumor which I just know you will see people reading on the beach this summer.

Now, there is one nonfiction work. Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship by Robert Kurson. This is basically the story of 3 people who go in search for a sunken pirate ship. One reviewer called "history, biography, and psychology rolled into one page-turning tale."

The author of A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman, has written another work just as lovely but completely different. My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry is the story of a 7 year old little girl whose only friend is her 77 year old crazy grandmother who dies and leaves letters to all the people that she felt needed an apology. Said to be extremely affecting.

Next we have the children's/teens author Judy Blume with a book aimed at adults, In the Unlikely Event  Miri Ammerman returns home to Elizabeth, NJ after 35 years to revisit events that happened the year she was 15 and 3 passengers planes crashed in a short period. Reviewers say the sense of time and place was outstanding and although the number of characters were confusing it was definitely worth it.

Erika Johansen's The Invasion of the Tearling made the list. It is the second volume of her fantasy tale of Kelsea, the new Tearling Queen. Those who read the extremely well reviewed first volume have been waiting for this one. Without going into the plot of the first one, just know that the Tearling were supplying slaves for the evil kingdom next to theirs. Kelsea stopped sending the slaves so the evil kingdom attacked them to take the slaves themselves.

Nina George's The little Paris Bookshop is next. 50 year old Jean Perdu owns a book barge on the River Seine in Paris. From it, he dispenses literary remedy for all. He himself has a lost love who left him with a sealed letter (he has never opened) 21 years ago. He finally opens the letter and takes the barge down the Seine toward Provence to find the truth. A story of love and loss. It has been an international best sellers.

The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler is perhaps a little dark but magical also so.....you make the decision. Reviewers have compared it favorably to The Night Circus so if you liked that title, definitely pick this one up. Simon Watson is a librarian whose life is falling apart when someone sends him an old book that has his grandmother's name in it. He discovers that among other things, women in his family seem to drown themselves on July 24th. Suddenly, close to that magic date, he gets a phone call from his sister who says she is coming home. Simon believes it is up to him to see if he can break the curse.

Lastly, Annie Barrows has The Truth According to Us on the list. Interestingly, Barrows co-authored The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society with her aunt. This work is also a sweet, gentle read. It takes place in 1938 rural West Virginia when a young female working for the Federal Writer's Project comes to record the history of Macedonia, WV. Surprisingly, secrets are uncovered and some not willingly.

OK - enjoy this months list. Hope something reaches out and tempts you.

Friday, May 8, 2015

More June Titles

There are quite a few books in June that appear interesting to me. Let's see what you think about these five titles.

First of all, Jefferson Bass has the 9th Body Farm novel coming out - The Breaking Point comes out on June 9th. Jefferson Bass is actually the writing team of Dr. Bill Bass, a forensic expert who teaches at the University of Tennessee and founded a "Body Farm" there and Jon Jefferson, a journalist and writer. So the Body Farm series comes with real life knowledge. this one has Dr. Bill Brockton accused of misidentifying a body and threatened by a serial killer. Sounds like things are jumping. This series is not for the faint of heart as technical knowledge leads to a gritty, descriptive story.

Martin Clark, a relatively unknown legal thriller author, has his 4th book in 15 years arriving on June 9th, The Jezebel Remedy. Clark is a Virginia circuit court judge so has the technical aspects of the legal system down. Clark has been compared to Scott Turow with black humor. In this tale, Joe and Lisa Stone are partners in a small town law firm in Henry County, VA. One of their frequent clients is Lettie VanSandt - a crabby, perhaps crazy, animal hoarder and would-be inventor. When her trailer explodes killing her, the Stones suspect it was not an accident and investigate. This leads them into big trouble not that they aren't having personal troubles already.

Next comes Paul Dioron and the 6th book in Maine game warden Mike Bowditch series, The Precipice arrives on June 16th. I am a sucker for suspense with a strong sense of place. I don't know why but somehow those two elements make me very happy with a title. Dioron writes very descriptively about the Maine wilderness and transports you there. In this one, 2 young female hikers have disappear and their bodies were found having been picked clean by coyotes. Bowditch's girlfriend knows that coyotes, as scavengers, couldn't have killed them and they must have been murdered. After convincing Bowditch, she disappears and he is off on a search.

David Housewright has Unidentified Woman #15 arriving on June 2nd. This is the 12th featuring retired cop, unlicensed P.I. and millionaire Rushmore McKenzie. Housewright is an Edgar Award winner whose dark pessimistic tales have wit and charm too. In this tale, McKenzie was riding behind a truck when someone dumps a bound woman from the back and McKenzie causes a 37 car pile up avoiding hitting her. The woman remembers nothing and McKenzie makes it his business to find out who she is and why and how this happened to her.

Finally, for the beach reading crowd, Elin Hilderbrand's The Rumor arrives on June 16th. The characters in Hilderbrand's titles always change but the island of Nantucket remains consistent. Grace is married to Nantucket's successful real estate broker and they have 2 twin daughters. Her best friend is Maggie, the mother of the high school quarterback who is dating one of the twins and a successful author with writer's block. When Grace hires a handsome landscaper to rebuild her garden, and the real estate broker visits Maggie's writing cottage, rumors start to fly around the island. Typical summer fare.

OK , there you go. There are some pretty good ones coming in June and even more that I'll talk about next week. Enjoy!

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Big Name Authors Coming in June

June continues to be a big month for publishing. There are lots of A list authors publishing this month too. You might start to think it is the month for the romance genre because a lot of the big name romance authors are publishing - it is starting to be the beach reading season after all. However, if you skip to the end of the list, you can see Patterson also has a title arriving.

First, Jackie Collins - it has been awhile but Collins is coming out with her 4th Lucky Santangelos book on June 16th, The Santangelos. Lucky's daughter is Europe 'hot' new model and her son is being framed for murder. Can she handle it? What do you think?

Jude Deveraux has the third book in the Nantucket Brides series, Ever After, coming on June 23rd. The plot is complicated. Let's just say that a girl inherits a house and as a physical therapist takes on a client who was injured in Afghanistan. Her house has ghosts and there are hurdles to get over. This is suppose to be the last in the series and some have recommended reading the first two before this one but others say it works as a stand alone. Your choice on how to do it.

Barbara Delinsky, another beach favorite, has Blueprints coming out on June 9th.This is the story of two women, a skilled carpenter who hosts a home construction TV show and her architect daughter. The mother is asked by the network to step aside and let her daughter take over. A rift occurs between the two just when they are both trying to figure out who they are.

Dorothea Benton Frank who is always popular in the summer has All the Single Ladies coming out on June 9th. Once again in the Carolina Lowcountry, 3 friends gather after the death of a middle-aged friend. They discuss the life of their dead friend but also their own and whether any of them is really happy.

Danielle Steel has Country coming out on June 16th. How does she write so many books without a co-author? I don't know. Stephanie Adams had been a stay at home wife, devoted to her children and rather boring husband. When the husband dies in a skiing accident, she finds herself with other choices. Hmmmmm.

The author here is not as well known or a big name but the series is so.....Douglas Corleone has Robert Ludlum's The Janson Equation coming on June 2nd. Senator James Wyckoff's son has disappeared after his girlfriend is found strangled. Paul Janson and Jessica Kincaid are hired to find him but find themselves being stalked by an assassin.

Brad Meltzer has The President's Shadow coming out on June 16th. This is the 3rd in the Beecher White series. White finds a chopped off arm in the White House Rose Garden. He realizes that this is a message for the President. Meltzer is often compared to Baldacci so if you like him, give Meltzer a try.

Finally, James Patterson and Howard Roughan have Truth or Die coming on June 22nd. Attorney Trevor Mann's girlfriend is shot and killed while investigating a story for a New York Times article. Mann can't let it go, even if he puts himself in lethal danger.

OK - I started this list on Saturday but then was called out of town on an emergency. So....I finish it on Tuesday. Hope you find something good to read.




Friday, May 1, 2015

Edgar Winners

They announced the winners of the Edgar Award on Wednesday night, April 29th. There were no real surprises but I wanted to make sure you knew who the 4 most important winners were.

The major award for best novel went to Stephen King for Mr. Mercedes. King spoke about having has doubts about writing in the mystery genre because it wasn't the sort of thing he did. However, he couldn't let a good idea go by. He must be happy he did, because the sequel to this is coming out in June, Finders Keepers.

The award for best paperback original went to Chris Abani's The Secret History of Las Vegas. This title was described as part mystery, part horror and part literary. It apparently is not for the faint of heart and deals with all kinds of deformity (body, spiritual, emotional). The interesting thing here is that Abani wrote his first novel at age 16 in his homeland of Nigeria and was jailed for it. He is a poet, a playwright and a professor at Northwestern. Interesting, huh?

The award for best first novel by an American author went to Tom Bouman for Dry Bones int he Valley. This title is about drugs and crime coming to small town, rural northeastern PA and the long cop trying to maintain order. Nothing unusual about him really. He lives in rural northeastern PA also.

Lastly and the one I am excited about is the Mary Higgins Clark Award which was won by Jane Casey's The Stranger You Know. This is the 4th in her Maeve Kerrigan series and I love that series. Maeve is on the London Murder Squad. OK - so you have to be able to put up with British mysteries to enjoy her but her titles are always fast paced, plot driven and suspenseful. So, I am happy she won.

All winning titles are available in the catalog so give one or two of them a try.