Winter Book Preview: February, 2016

It’s been a busy few weeks for me. It’s my busy work travel weekend. When I get home from work, I’m too tired to read, but all the flights I’ll be taking in the next several weeks means more reading time!

February seems to be a quiet publishing month. Several books are rereleasing in paperback, kind of like a rebirth for books!
Following are titles releasing in the first two weeks of February that have piqued my interest. Click on the book cover or title to pre-order or to learn more about the book. As always, I’ve included a quick statement as to why I’m excited about it!

The Passenger by F. R. Tallis (Feb. 1):
1941. A German submarine, U-471, patrols the stormy inhospitable waters of the North Atlantic. It is commanded by Siegfried Lorenz, a maverick SS officer who does not believe in the war he is bound by duty and honor to fight in.

U-471 receives a triple-encoded message with instructions to collect two prisoners from a vessel located off the Icelandic coast and transport them to the base at Brest—and a British submarine commander, Sutherland, and a Norwegian academic, Professor Bjornar Grimstad, are taken on board. Contact between the prisoners and Lorenz has been forbidden, and it transpires that this special mission has been ordered by an unknown source, high up in the SS. It is rumored that Grimstad is working on a secret weapon that could change the course of the war . . .

Then, Sutherland goes rogue, and a series of shocking, brutal events occur. In the aftermath, disturbing things start happening on the boat. It seems that a lethal, supernatural force is stalking the crew, wrestling with Lorenz for control. A thousand feet under the dark, icy waves, it doesn’t matter how loud you scream…

I discovered this author last year, reading his book The Voices and enjoying it tremendously.  This one has an intriguing combination of history and the supernatural. Consider me interested!

Forsaken by Ross Howell, Jr. (Feb. 1)

The 1912 execution of a black girl for murdering her white employer leads a reporter deep into the deadly waters of Jim Crow. “Ross Howell Jr.’s depiction of time and place-and the racial tensions of a torn society-are drawn with great expertise and insight,” says author Jill McCorkle.

In April 1912 white, 18-year-old reporter Charles Mears covers his first murder case, a trial that roiled racial tensions in Hampton, Virginia. An uneducated black girl just five feet tall, Virginia Christian was tried for killing her white employer, a widow. “Virgie” died in the electric chair at the state penitentiary one day after her seventeenth birthday, the only female juvenile executed in Virginia history.

Young Charlie tells the story of the trial and its aftermath. Woven into his narrative are actual court records, letters, newspaper stories, and personal accounts, reflecting the true arc of history in characters large and small, in events local and global. Charlie falls in love with Harriet, a girl orphaned by the murder; meets Virgie’s blind attorney George Fields, a former slave; and encounters physician Walter Plecker, a state official who relentlessly pursues racial purity laws later emulated in Nazi Germany.

I was contacted by the publisher regarding this title several months ago.  Set just a few hours from where I live now, I was intrigued not only by the location, but the incident itself. I’m incredibly intrigued! 

Missing Pieces by Heather Gudenkauf (Feb. 1): 

Sarah Quinlan’s husband, Jack, has been haunted for decades by the untimely death of his mother when he was just a teenager, her body found in the cellar of their family farm, the circumstances a mystery. The case rocked the small farm town of Penny Gate, Iowa, where Jack was raised, and for years Jack avoided returning home. But when his beloved aunt Julia is in an accident, hospitalized in a coma, Jack and Sarah are forced to confront the past that they have long evaded.

Upon arriving in Penny Gate, Sarah and Jack are welcomed by the family Jack left behind all those years ago—barely a trace of the wounds that had once devastated them all. But as facts about Julia’s accident begin to surface, Sarah realizes that nothing about the Quinlans is what it seems. Caught in a flurry of unanswered questions, Sarah dives deep into the puzzling rabbit hole of Jack’s past. But the farther in she climbs, the harder it is for her to get out. And soon she is faced with a deadly truth she may not be prepared for.

I’m a long-time fan of Gudenkauf’s books.  Dark, mysterious past, riddled with secrets? Yep, this one has my attention! 

 

The Doll’s House by M.R. Arlidge (Feb. 2):

When the body of a woman is found buried on a secluded beach, Detective Helen Grace is called to the scene. She knows right away that the killer is no amateur. The woman has been dead for years, and no one has even reported her missing. But why would they? She’s still sending text messages to her family.

Helen is convinced that a criminal mastermind is at work: someone very smart, very careful, and worst of all, very patient. But as she struggles to piece together the killer’s motive, time is running out for a victim who is still alive….

I’ve mentioned this author’s books quite a few times before.  They are incredibly well-written and terrifying; I’m completely sold on this author!

The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee (Feb. 2):

Lilliet Berne is a sensation of the Paris Opera, a legendary soprano with every accolade except an original role, every singer’s chance at immortality. When one is finally offered to her, she realizes with alarm that the libretto is based on a hidden piece of her past. Only four could have betrayed her: one is dead, one loves her, one wants to own her. And one, she hopes, never thinks of her at all.

Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase (Feb. 9)
Ghosts are everywhere, not just the ghost of Momma in the woods, but ghosts of us too, what we used to be like in those long summers…

Amber Alton knows that the hours pass differently at Black Rabbit Hall, her London family’s country estate, where no two clocks read the same. Summers there are perfect, timeless. Not much ever happens. Until, of course, it does.

More than three decades later, Lorna is determined to be married within the grand, ivy-covered walls of Pencraw Hall, known as Black Rabbit Hall among the locals. But as she’s drawn deeper into the overgrown grounds, half-buried memories of her mother begin to surface and Lorna soon finds herself ensnared within the manor’s labyrinthine history, overcome with an insatiable need for answers about her own past and that of the once-happy family whose memory still haunts the estate.

Stunning and atmospheric, this debut novel is a thrilling spiral into the hearts of two women separated by decades but inescapably linked by the dark and tangled secrets of Black Rabbit Hall.

The cover, the summary, the setting.  Everything about it, I adore. 

There you have it! Titles releasing early in February that I’m looking forward to!  Which ones intrigued you the most? Which titles are you looking forward to most?  Stay tuned! Tomorrow I’ll share the remaining February titles that have made my “Must read” list!