As 2024 begins, January hopefully kicks off another year of excellent fiction to dig into.
1/9: Cold Victory by Karl Marlantes
In 1947 Finland, what begins as a friendly challenge – a secret cross-country ski race between an American and a Soviet military attaché – turns life-and-death when the race becomes public and freighted with the political weight of the era. Can their wives, themselves cautious friends, salvage futures for them all? (historical fiction) A Peak Pick!
1/9: The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan
Off the coast of South Africa sits a ruined mansion, home to a group of misfits, and to a grieving djinn who has haunted the house for a hundred years. Drawn by curiosity, resident Sana investigates a locked door and a mysterious death. (gothic/historical fiction) A Peak Pick!
1/9: The Expectant Detectives by Kat Ailes
Alice and Joe, expecting their first child, move to a quiet village. Quiet, until a dead body shows up in the prenatal class, and Alice and the rest of the group investigate to clear their names, discovering plenty of secrets in the process. (cozy mystery)
1/9: Invisible Woman by Katia Lief
After a lifetime of playing a supporting role in the lives of others, Joni is ready to reveal some secrets and come into her own. As she reads the novels of Patricia Highsmith, Joni revels in the darkness of the characters and looks for lessons she can employ in her own life. (thriller)
1/9: My Friends by Hisham Matar
A young Libyan finds his life changed by the power of story and friendship, from growing up under the Qaddafi regime in the 1980s, to studying in Edinburgh, to the 2011 Arab Spring uprising. (general fiction)
1/9: Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky
As a young girl, Margaret is implicated in an accident that haunts her. Guilt, confusion, grief – for Margaret these manifest as a creature, Poor Deer, that is her constant companion. Looking back Margaret spins stories and fables to try to make sense of the past. (general fiction)
1/9: Sanctuary of the Shadow by Aurora Ascher
Harrow, gifted with prophecy, escapes the murder of her clan and joins the circus, where she tells fortunes but hides her true skill. When a monster who is missing his memory is brought to the circus as a new attraction, Harrow feels an undeniable pull – but will their combined histories let them escape the future laid out for them? (romance/fantasy)
1/9: The Waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell
Family and community secrets come home to roost for herbalist "Herself" Zook, as she tends to her granddaughter and the community near her home in Michigan's Great Massasauga Swamp. (general fiction)
1/9: You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer
Enrigue reimagines the 1519 arrival of Spanish conquistadors to the Aztec city Tenochtitlan and the fateful meeting between Cortés and Moctezuma, culminating in a revenge that rewrites history. (historical fiction)
1/9: You Only Call When You're in Trouble by Stephen McCauley
Tom is an architect of tiny homes ready to build his masterpiece. He's pulled back into the embrace and dysfunction of his family when his niece, a university professor, is embroiled in a school investigation, and his sister makes questionable investments. (general fiction)
1/16: Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj
The lives of three generations of three families in Baltimore's Palestinian immigrant community intersect in ways that highlight generational, class, and religious differences, as the past coexists alongside the present and potential futures. (general fiction) A Peak Pick!
1/16: City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter
As Shiva grapples with grief over the death of her father, as well as a breakup with her girlfriend, she digs into her family history and Jewish folklore by traveling to the area of Poland where her great-grandmother lived. The stories of these four generations of women all feature the same green-eyed stranger… (general fiction)
1/16: The Curse of Pietro Houdini by Derek B. Miller
In World War II, 14-year-old orphan Massimo takes refuge from the bombing of Rome at the hillside abbey of Montecassino. There, he finds an adoptive father in artist Pietro, and the two conspire to steal the abbey's paintings to keep them safe from the Nazis. (historical fiction)
1/16: Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett
Academic Emily Wilde is the foremost expert on faeries, but it's not just a scholarly pursuit for her: she's also in love with fugitive faerie king Wendell Bambleby. Emily and Wendell set off on a quest to find the key to Wendell's realm in the Austrian Alps. (fantasy)
1/16: The Fury by Alex Michaelides
Famous-yet-reclusive movie star Lana Farrar is hosting her annual Easter party on her private Greek island, but this year the party features murder… By the author of The Silent Patient. (thriller)
1/16: Only If You're Lucky by Stacy Willingham
Shy Margot is entering her sophomore year in college, still grieving the death of her best friend after high school. Then dynamic Lucy asks Margot to join her and two others as roommates, and things are looking up. But when a fraternity pledge from the house next door is murdered, Lucy disappears, and Margot fixates on solving the situation. (thriller)
1/16: The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler
The mammoth has been resurrected from extinction. To teach them to be mammoths – and to fend off the poachers that would tip them back into extinction – is the digitized consciousness of murdered elephant behaviorist Damira Khismatullina. (science fiction thriller) A Peak Pick!
1/23: Family, Family by Laurie Frankel
Successful actress India Allwood stars in a film about adoption full of tired tropes, and torpedoes the film during promotion by telling a journalist that it's not a very good movie. As her own adoptive family turns inward during the media storm, a messy past is revealed. (general fiction) A Peak Pick!
1/23: Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar
Cyrus, a young Iranian-American poet, is obsessed with martyrs. Grappling with addiction and a legacy of violence and loss, Cyrus examines the various mysteries and martyrs of his past, encountering a terminally ill painter in Brooklyn who may hold clues to his deceased mother's hidden past. (general fiction)
1/23: Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea by C.D. Rose
19 short stories with the timelessness of literary fables that are both "entertaining and thought-provoking" – Publishers Weekly. (general fiction)
1/30: Come and Get It by Kiley Reid
In this campus comedy-of-manners set at the University of Arkansas, student Millie sells eavesdropping access to professor Agatha, even as Millie finds herself growing increasingly attracted to Agatha, and Agatha leaves a trail of mayhem. From the author of Such a Fun Age. (general fiction) A Peak Pick!
1/30: How We Named the Stars by Andrés N. Ordorica
Daniel de La Luna heads off to college, on scholarship, at an elite East Coast school. Gay but closeted, feeling the weight of family expectations, Daniel discovers in his golden-boy roommate Sam first camaraderie and belonging, then a potential romance. The summer after freshman year Daniel grapples with his relationship with his family, and changes in his relationship with Sam. (general fiction)
1/30: The Mayor of Maxwell Street by Avery Cunningham
In Prohibition-era Chicago, Nelly Sawyer is young, rich, and Black – and working undercover as a journalist. She'll seek out the help of a speakeasy manager to get the scoop in taking down a crime syndicate. (historical romance/mystery)
~ posted by Andrea G.
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