By the Book ~ Julia Sonneborn (Pub. Date February 6, 2018)

Sonneborn, Julia. 2018. By the Book. New York, NY: Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Schuster.

I'm a big fan of contemporary retellings of Jane Austen's works and have read some great and not-so-great ones. By the Book is definitely one of the better ones I've read.  I am always so impressed when a debut author creates a novel that feels like they've been writing for years, and that's how I felt about Julia Sonneborn's writing. Plus, she managed to take a novel like Persuasion, and yet create a thoroughly new story, keeping the basics of the plot.  There was a lot of humor, as well, though more overt than Austen's would be; but that goes with the contemporary aspect of this novel. The campus setting was perfect, and it was enjoyable to read about the life of academics (publish or perish, gossip, drama, student behavior etc.).  As the author states in her acknowledgements: "This novel is a love letter to books...and book lovers."  I felt that love as a reader, and look forward to recommending this book to my patrons (and peers) who I know will enjoy it, too!  Plus, the cover of this book is lovely!

Need to Know ~ Karen Cleveland (Pub. Date January 23, 2018)

Cleveland, Karen. 2018. Need to Know. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. ISBN  978- 1524797027. $26.00 USD.

I am very excited about the release of this debut spy thriller written by former CIA analyst Karen Cleveland.  I was lucky to receive a digital advance reader’s copy a few months ago and have been recommending it for a while for customer holds.

The reviews have been mixed, so all I have to say is that I stayed up until 1 a.m. two nights in a row, work nights (!), in order to finish it.  I don’t read books to find the faults; I read them for pleasure, and this one fit the bill for me.

The main character, Vivan, is a married CIA Analyst (natch) with four young children.  She works for the Counterintelligence Center, Russia Division, which is searching for agents who are running sleeper cells in the U.S.  During the course of her research, she discovers something ominous that directly affects her family, and that is where the book really takes off.  Written in the present, with flashbacks to her relationship with her husband, it is almost impossible to stop reading.

Even Lee Child says, “Prediction: If you read chapter one, you’ll read chapter two. If you read chapter two, you’ll miss dinner, stay up far too late, and feel tired at work tomorrow. This is that kind of book.  Superb.”  I have to concur with his statement on this book, as that is exactly what happened when I read it.

The author does a fabulous job of ending many of the chapters with bombshells that left me gasping. The suspense and tension in this book were so high that at times I covered my eyes with my hand with just enough room to peek between my fingers at the text I was reading! That was really a first for me in the hundreds of books I’ve read as a bibliophile and librarian.  I wanted to skim the pages at times to get to the next part of the story.  My emotions were all over the place while reading it, and I even read the ending three times, just to let it all sink in.  It’s not without a few flaws (plot holes), but the story was so enjoyable that I happily overlooked them when I saw them.

 Need to Know will make a great movie, and I’m pretty sure it’s already been optioned.  I’m always so impressed with debut authors who pull off such great first novels.  Highly recommended!  Happy Reading!

The Night Market ~ Jonathan Moore (Published Today)!

Moore, Jonathan. 2018. The Night Market. New York, NY: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt. ISBN: 978-0544671898. $24.00 USD

The Night Market is the third book in Jonathan Moore’s Triptych of novels set in San Francisco (after The Poison Artist and The Dark Room), and this one kind of blew my mind!

Set in the near future, this SF noir mystery has a lot going for it.  There is a very strong "Blade-Runner" feel to the setting in this book, with all the action being at night, or near dusk, constant rain, electric cars, areas of destruction and rubble adjacent to new extravagant edifices, LED postcard ads ("glow cards") littering the sidewalks and some futuristic equipment used by the characters in the book.

Detective Ross Carver and his partner, Cleve Jenner, are called to a very strange late-night crime scene where the body is covered in some kind of growing gray moss.  FBI agents in Hazmat suits arrive and that’s the last thing the detectives remember: something has erased their memories.

 Ross awakens days later with his new neighbor, Mia, at his side, with no memory of recent events, but with the knowledge that something is very, very wrong.  I cannot write much more about his excellent mystery without giving too much away. Suffice it to say that it will leave you very unsettled, but with the feeling that you’ve been in the hands of a very creative and imaginative author.  The books in this series can be read in any order, but I can recommend all three.  Happy Reading!

Hunted ~ Meagan Spooner

I don’t read a lot of YA anymore.  I got on a kick a while back when many of the adult novels I was reading were really dark, graphic and, to be honest, depressing.  Ironically, a lot of the YA novels being published lately fall into the latter category now!  But, at the time, I found myself enjoying more lighthearted teen books.  Recently, I saw a dedication from a book posted on Twitter or Facebook, which made me investigate the book and author.  It read:

"To the girl

who reads by flashlight

who sees dragons in the clouds 

who feels most alive in worlds that never were

who knows magic is real

who dreams

This is for you."

The post asked the reader which book this dedication belonged to, and in the comments section I discovered it was the YA novel Hunted by Meagan Spooner - a Beauty and the Beast retelling.  Luckily, my library had it on the shelves and I fell into the book as easily as falling into a magical fairy tale.

Set in the 13th century around the time of the Mongol invasion of Rus,' this tale follows a father and three daughters who live in a bustling village. The father was a famous hunter who settled into a merchant’s life after he married and had children.  The mother died at some point, and the family of four has settled into normal roles and routines.  The youngest daughter, Yeva, called Beauty by her family, acts as a companion to the Baroness in town, but secretly only wants to be out in the forest hunting with her father (he used to take her when she was younger).  When her father loses the family fortune and moves the daughters to the outskirts of town, Yeva is much happier in spite of their reduced circumstances.

One day the father goes hunting and comes back raving about magical creatures and other strange things.  The family believes he is losing his mind, and when he goes missing, Yeva leaves her sisters to try to find him.  What she finds in the woods sets up the rest of the story of Beauty and ……you guessed it: the Beast.

The author has done an incredible job of describing the era of the story, the frozen landscape of the setting, and the relationships among the characters.  The story of Beauty and her experiences with the Beast are new and fresh, and the reader cannot help but get lost in this fairy tale.  Great escape reading (but you might want to wait until it's warmer: this book will have you shivering)!

Now That You Mention It ~ Kristan Higgins

I’ve been a fan of Kristan Higgins for a number of years for her Blue Heron romance series, and was surprised and pleased when she made the transition to writing books with more substantial content (domestic fiction), though these books usually do contain an element of romance – not a bad thing!

Now That You Mention It is one of the best books I’ve read of this genre lately.  It has well-developed characters, great inner dialogue by the main character and realistic and witty dialogue between other characters in the book.  There are conflicts to overcome, relationships to mend, and some to begin, a wonderful small town setting, disabilities to work through and Harry Potter references throughout!

Nora Stuart escaped a very unhappy adolescence by winning a scholarship to Tufts, which the whole town assumed would be given to the “golden boy” of the high school.  Now a practicing doctor in Boston, she has a tense relationship with her mother who still lives in coastal Maine, and a younger sister in jail in Seattle. When Nora is in a serious accident, and overhears her boyfriend flirting with a nurse in the recovery room, Nora decides she wants to go home to recover.  But does “home” want her to come back?

Exploring many contemporary themes and brimming with humor and heartache, Now That You Mention It is a great book for readers who need a little lightness to counteract the dark themes of other popular books found on the shelves and a good escape from the troubled world we live in today.  Highly recommended and Happy Reading!

January LibraryReads!

A review of mine was featured in the January 2018 LibraryReads List, the top ten books published each month that Librarians across the country love!




The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

Published: 1/9/2018 by St. Martin’s Press
 ISBN: 9781250130921

“A thriller told from the perspective of three narrators:  a woman, her ex-husband, and his fiance. The storyline is intricate and nonlinear and the characters are likable, but unreliable. This one will keep you guessing.”

Kelly Moore, Carrollton Public Library, Carrollton, TX

Click here for the other titles librarians love this month: http://libraryreads.org/pastlists/