He Will be My Ruin by K.A. Tucker
Maggie Sparks grew up in a privileged home and thinks she
has eschewed the trappings of her family’s wealth by starting a charity
building homes in Africa. When she is
called home after the death of her best friend Celine Gonzalez, the daughter of
her family’s live-in for many years Maggie is devastated as she thought of
Celine as her sister. As Maggie begins
to pack up Celine’s Lower East Side apartment, she realizes the Celine she
remembered was one of her own making, one she saw as she wanted to see, and not
the Celine who fought desperately to pay the bills and make her dream to enter
the Hollingsworth Institute of Art within her reach, not the Celine who took
too many pills, drank too much vodka and crawled in bed to never wake up again. Maggie finds secrets hidden among Celine’s
treasures and a scandalous photo of a man who Maggie thinks is connected to
Celine’s death, a death she is certain her friend would never have accepted
willingly. As Maggie relives the past
year of Celine’s life, she realizes she didn’t know Celine as well as she
thought she did, even as a child, and begins to reevaluate her life, her
choices, and the motives behind her acts of charity…she also finds herself in
mortal danger as she gets closer and closer to a truth that no one is willing
to believe.
Why We Came to the City by Kristopher Jansma
This sophomore novel from the author of The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards tells the story of five college
graduates, trying to create lives for themselves, lives that include each
other, in the late aughts of a Manhattan that is experiencing the Great
Recession, never expecting that personal tragedy will affect them more than the
loss of their money and dreams. Sara
Sherman is the glue that holds together these friends, with her boyfriend,
astronomer George Murphy whose years of research are about to be debunked. Jacob is their poet, William Cho, an
investment banker who never quite fit in and the lovely Irene Richmond, a
sensitive artist who will be fallen in love with and who will ultimately be the
downfall of the group after a lump under her eye turns irrevocably tragic. The group carries on through all their
missteps and sadness, together,
individually and groups in this incredibly beautifully wrought tale of
friendships, where hope and love are stronger than any outside forces could
ever be.
The Widow by Fiona Barton
When Jean Taylor’s husband Glen is accused of an unspeakable
crime against a child, she finds herself doing and saying things that make her
unrecognizable, but must be done and said if there is to be any hope of the
couple continuing their well-constructed lives.
Jean played the role of the perfect, support wife for many years, but
Glen has just died in a tragic accident and she finally feels free to tell the
truth, but can Jean remember what the truth is after living with the lies for
so many years? Told from several points
of view, Jean’s, the reporter to whom Jean finally agrees to tell her story,
the detective who couldn’t help convict Glen and the grieving mother of the
child Glen is tried for kidnapping and possibly murdering, the story of a
marriage, a crime and the aftermath of both slowly unfolds with tension and the
dangling possibility of another version and motive of the crime, one that will
make Jean one of the most unreliable, but intriguing narrators to come along in
a while.
The Doll’s House by M.J. Arlidge
Detective Helen Grace is back in this third mystery to be
published in the U.S., one that delves even further into this complicated
character. A young woman’s body is dug
up on a beach and is found to have been dead for several years and has been
still sending text messages and tweeting to her family. As Helen and her newly assembled team begin
to investigate this death, Helen suspects a connection to another recently
reported missing young woman the time and location of whose texts and tweets
correspond to the dead woman’s. Helen’s
gut tells her there are more women who fit this profile and against the
directive of her superiors begins to pull the files of other young women who
have been reported missing. After the
bodies of these women are also found on the beach, Helen and her team ratchet
up their investigation to find the missing woman before she becomes another
victim of a very methodical killer.
Though the investigation is not as suspenseful as some of
Helen’s previous cases, this book adds much to the characters as it explores
more deeply Helen Grace’s family situation and a very jealous Detective
Superintendent. Helen is also
experiencing growing pains as the team that had been so carefully assembled and
had worked so well together is dissolved, through a tragic death, Charlie on
maternity leave and the reassignment of other members. As Helen works to get her bearings, learning
to trust the members again, learning who she shouldn’t trust, she comes close to
making a fatal error in the name of family, but quickly recovers, coming out
victorious as before.
Be Frank with Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
M.M. (Mimi) Banning wrote a bestselling novel when she was barely
twenty but has not written anything since.
Now on the brink of financial ruin, she agrees to deliver on her promise
for her second book if her publisher will provide her a hefty advance to keep
things going until she finishes it along with an assistant to keep her
household affairs including a nine-year-old son, Frank, in order. Alice Whitely isn’t thrilled with traveling
to Los Angeles to fill the role, especially when she arrives and meets the less
than charming Mimi, her oh-so-charming, but wildly eccentric son and the
handyman-piano teacher-who-knows-what who further complicates Alice’s time in
L.A. Frank is brilliant but has the
sensibilities of a 1930’s movie star complete with the wardrobe and grown-up
manners, though his paranoia and odd rules lend a childlike quality to his
eccentricities. Frank begins to warm to
Alice as she learns to navigate this oh-so-strange family her patience and
good-humor, Mimi typing furiously behind closed doors all the while. These charming, flawed, though maybe not,
characters will endear themselves to readers as Johnson shows each from many
different angles, making the picture not as strange as first imagined.
Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes
Joe Goldberg, the anti-hero from You is back, still working at Mooney’s Rare and used books in New
York City after the murders (committed by him) of his girlfriend Beck and her
friend Peach. His new girlfriend Amy
Adams seems too good to be true, and turns out to be when she hightails it to L.A.
with the collection of Portnoy’s
Complaint that she and Joe amassed and a rare signed edition of Easter Parade. Angered, Joe decides Amy must die for her
betrayal and heads out to LA to find her, all the while in the back of his
mind, the mug he urinated into that he left in Peach’s Rhode Island closet, the
only thing (or so he thinks) to tie him to her murder, and certainly nothing
will tie him to Beck’s as her therapist is sitting in jail, convicted of the
crime. In L.A. Joe finds it easy to
create a new self---same name, but he can be whatever he wants---even making
forays into social media hoping to locate Amy, even though she is living “off
the grid” as she says. A few more bodies
pile up as Joe continues his search (they are inevitable, the cost of doing
business as it were) and Joe falls in love with a wealthy ingénue whose twin
brother is more annoying than life itself, but Love is the incarnation of the
word itself and Joe feels he has finally found someone with whom he can feel
safe and build a life, so safe, he even begins sharing his secrets with
her. The highly charged prose takes Joe,
and readers, on a roller coaster ride through L.A. and Hollywood as Joe
searches for, and then mostly forgets about Amy, to a heart-pounding conclusion
that will keep readers on their edge of their seats and holds promise for
another book featuring this intriguing, intense sociopath. Joe is one of the most intriguing characters
to come along in a while, intelligent, paranoid, passionate and dangerous all at
once.
Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon
Alex Dale’s alcoholism has cost her almost everything: her
career in journalism, her baby and her marriage. Now, barely clinging to life, she runs
obsessively in the morning, counting the minutes until noon when she allows
herself to begin her drinking ritual that helps her feel her life is under
control. In a last ditch effort to
remain a freelance writer, Alex is doing a profile of a neurologist in a nearby
hospital. While interviewing him, she
finds a ward of patients, less than a dozen, that are classified as being in a
perpetual vegetative state. Alex
remembers one young woman, Amy Stevenson, from when she disappeared and was
found for dead fifteen years ago, near to where Alex was living. Alex becomes fascinated with the idea that
Amy, and the other patients, are more aware of their surroundings and what is
occurring, and their memoires, than their bodies allow them to convey. Alex begins to wonder whether Amy, whose case
was never solved, has the answers for which everyone has stopped searching, and
whether Alex, through careful research, can somehow find the missing pieces and
along the way, putting herself back on the road to the life she once thought
she would have. This is a fascinating
story of what we know, what we remember and what we can reveal even without
meaning to. Alex is an interesting
character as she tries to rationalize her drinking and convince herself she has
it under control, in sharp contrast to Amy who has no control over anything,
yet cannot help anyone, least of all herself.
While the ending of this story is not surprising, there are enough
twists and turns along the way to hold the reader’s interest.
Piece of Mind by Michelle Adelman
This astonishing debut novel tells the story of
twenty-seven-year-old Lucy whose traumatic brain injury as a child has left her
without people skills, terrible at organizing and slightly messy with, at
times, questionable hygiene habits. But
Lucy’s gifts for drawing, her love of coffee and especially a polar bear named
Gus at the Central Park Zoo, plus a certain openness, endear her to many
people. When her widowed father dies
unexpectedly, she finds herself moved into her younger brother’s small New York
City apartment in completely unfamiliar surroundings. As Lucy begins to learn her new surroundings
and establish new routines, her brother Nate’s life is turned upside down to
the point where he realizes he cannot assist Lucy if he cannot care for himself. During this time, Lucy finds she is a much more
capable person with many more skills and abilities than she than she ever
imagined, making the siblings reunion an opportunity for growth and recognition
of self and each other, providing promise for a more healthy relationship and
the possibility of productive futures.
Michelle Adelman writes with the assurance of a
well-seasoned author. Lucy is written as
a strong character with more self-awareness than many people. Lucy lives her life with tremendous purpose
and though she can’t always clearly express her wants and needs, she knows
herself and comes to learn there is more there than she thought or was led to
believe and that she can trust herself.
This is an exceptional novel with an equally exceptional, unforgettable
heroine.
The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin
In many ways, Noah is a typical four-year-old but in other
ways is exceptional: he knows all about
lizards seemingly intuitively, recalls a lakeside vacation he and his mother
Janie never took, and talks at great lengths about Harry Potter when he only watches
Nemo and Dora the Explorer and an unnatural fear of water, even handwashing,
with recurring nightmares. As Noah grows
more agitated each day, Janie seeks help for him and finds it in Doctor Jeremy
Anderson whose research focuses on the previous life memories of young
children, memories that are generally forgotten at an early age before they
manifest themselves, apparently not the case with Noah. Jeremy is quickly losing his language skills to
aphasia, but holds out hope he can help Janie and Noah and perhaps finally
finish his book. Without feeling forced
or unbelievable, Noah’s story unfolds, sometimes easily, sometimes
uncomfortably, but always in a way where hope lingers, redemptive and healing. Simply astonishing…and unforgettable.