I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving weekend! My husband and I went to visit my side of the family and had a blast visiting with everyone and playing with our nieces and nephews. I had a reading plan for the weekend, which I posted here last week, but I totally underestimated my reading time. Oh well, I’ll get there!
I’m excited to share this week’s new releases with you, there are lots of great new reads from authors like Ann Rule, Dale Brown, Richard North Patterson and so many more! As always, you can see all of this week’s new releases at Lazy Day Books, but here are a few of the highlights.
DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU by Ann Rule. I’LL BE WATCHING YOU. Walking home on a dark night, you hear footsteps coming up behind you. As they get closer, your heart pounds harder. Who is closing in with dangerous intent–a total stranger? Or someone you know and trust? The answer is as simple as turning around, but don’t look behind you . . . run. Ann Rule, who shared her own nerve-jangling account of unknowingly befriending sadistic sociopath Ted Bundy in The Stranger Beside Me, chronicles other fateful encounters with the hidden predators among us in this riveting collection, fifteenth in the bestselling series drawn from her personal files.
RAVEN STRIKE by Dale Brown. The mission is classified . . . and illegal. In the blistering heat of the Sudan, the CIA has gone rogue. On the trail of a notorious terrorist, Agency operatives have overstepped their sanctioned boundaries. And now the ultimate weapon has fallen into the wrong hands. As Danny Freah and his spec-ops team scramble to recover a top secret aircraft that has crashed in Africa, Whiplash Director Jonathon Reid finds himself mysteriously shut off from information about the robot drone and its mission.
THE FINAL JUDGEMENT by Richard North Patterson. A young man has been murdered. His girlfriend, twenty-two-year-old Brett Allen, is found at the scene of the crime. She claims she is innocent–even though she’s dripping in blood, the murder weapon covered with her fingerprints. Enter attorney Caroline Masters, Brett’s estranged aunt. She’s been summoned back to her affluent New England hometown to help Brett out of this mess…and revisit the troubled family she left behind.
A SUMMER IN EUROPE by Marilyn Brant. On her thirtieth birthday, Gwendolyn Reese receives an unexpected present from her widowed Aunt Bea: a grand tour of Europe in the company of Bea’s Sudoku and Mahjongg Club. The prospect isn’t entirely appealing. But when the gift she is expecting, an engagement ring from her boyfriend, doesn’t materialize, Gwen decides to go. At first, Gwen approaches the trip as if it’s the math homework she assigns her students, diligently checking monuments off her must-see list. But amid the bougainvillea and stunning vistas of southern Italy, something changes. Gwen begins to live in the moment – skipping down stone staircases in Capri, running her fingers over a glacier in view of the Matterhorn, racing through the Louvre, and taste-testing pastries at a Marseilles cafe.
ONSTAGE, OFFSTAGE by Michael Bublé. He’s sold more than 25 million records. His live shows fill the world’s biggest stadiums to capacity. He has captured hearts everywhere with his classic style. Now, for the first time ever, Grammy Award–winning singer Michael Bublé offers fans an all-access, behind-the-scenes glimpse at his private life, onstage and off.Pairing the singer’s own heartfelt words with hundreds of exclusive, never-before-seen photographs, this unique diary reveals Bublé’s inspirational journey, from singing into a hairbrush in his suburban Canadian bedroom to entertaining thousands onstage at New York’s famed Madison Square Garden.
HI, MY NAME IS JACK by Jack Watts. In this grippingly honest narrative about one man’s journey from addiction and self-destruction to recovery and a changed life, readers will be dismayed at the hurtful patterns of his two alcoholic parents and how they scarred and shaped the outcome of their three sons forever. Watts openly talks of his multiple failed marriages, strained relationships with his children, overwhelming business losses, and the self-loathing and guilt that plagued him for years. In spite of all of this, Jack held on to the conviction he made more than fifteen years ago never to drink again. Gradually learning to make better choices, he discovered how to move past deeply engraved dysfunctions and become a productive, loving adult.
A KIDNAPPED SANTA CLAUS by Alex Robinson. First published in 1904, “A Kidnapped Santa Claus” by L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wizard of Oz, describes the action of some uncommon events in the land of Santa. Not far from the Laughing Valley where Santa and all his magical helpers live, and beyond the Forest of Burzee, there stands a huge mountain that contains the Cave of Demons. Each demon has a specialty: Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, Malice, and Repentance. Adapted by Alex Robinson, author of several graphic novels, the action and menace of the tale will be enhanced and lightly spoofed. It seems a most appropriate treatment of Baum’s work- he was an author who often let his profound and unsettling meanings roil beneath the surface of his otherwise fanciful stories.
A WINTER DISCOVERY by Michael Baron. Baron presents us with his first novelette and his first holiday story, a touching, luminous, and openhearted tale of love, wonder, and revelation. Returning to the characters of his first novel, When You Went Away, Baron takes us again into the world of Gerry Rubato, a man who has been marked by loss and revived by love, and his son Reese, now five, who celebrates life at a remarkable level but is only now starting to understand that he was robbed of the chance of ever knowing his mother. At once buoyant and poignant, and filled with irrepressible spirit, A Winter Discovery is a story of that will take you to new places in your heart.
ANY GIVEN CHRISTMAS by Candis Terry. Dean Silverthorne’s mother may be dead, but she still has matchmaking to do. When an injury dashes NFL Quarterback Dean Silverthorne’s Super Bowl dreams, he heads back to Deer Lick, Montana with a chip on his wounded shoulder, more determined than ever to get back in the game. He loves his kooky family, but this trip home is going to be a very brief Christmas visit. His game plan doesn’t include an instant attraction to Emma Hart, a feisty kindergarten teacher who seems to be the only person in Deer Lick not interested in the hometown hero.
What are you reading this week? Share with us in the comments!
Happy Reading!
Kimberly
Differential Equations, the novel Julian Iragorri and I just published, had numerous sources of inspiration. Julian’s family story was one, as was the fact that both of us had some mind/body experience. Another key source of inspiration were the magic realists. I knew that Julian and I could collaborate well when I learned in our first conversation that both of us considered Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude a favorite novel. Further conversation revealed a shared affection for Isabel Allende, Jorge Amado, and others. I’d wanted to write a magic realist novel for some time, and with Julian I would finally get the chance to do so.
