Spring Book Preview: April 2016, Part I |

We’re on Spring Break this week. My boys are spending the week with their grandparents while my husband and I are enjoying some quiet time at a gorgeous country home. It’s the perfect setting to sit back, relax, and plan my reading for the next month.

It should be no surprise, but I have quite a few titles on my anticipated books list, quite an eclectic range of titles to say the least. I’ve included a short summary by the publisher and a few words about why I’m interested in that title.

Three-Martini Lunch by Suzanne Rindell (April 5):

In 1958, Greenwich Village buzzes with beatniks, jazz clubs, and new ideas—the ideal spot for three ambitious young people to meet. Cliff Nelson, the son of a successful book editor, is convinced he’s the next Kerouac, if only his father would notice. Eden Katz dreams of being an editor but is shocked when she encounters roadblocks to that ambition. And Miles Tillman, a talented black writer from Harlem, seeks to learn the truth about his father’s past, finding love in the process. Though different from one another, all three share a common goal: to succeed in the competitive and uncompromising world of book publishing. As they reach for what they want, they come to understand what they must sacrifice, conceal, and betray to achieve their goals, learning they must live with the consequences of their choices. In Three-Martini Lunch, Suzanne Rindell has written both a page-turning morality tale and a captivating look at a stylish, demanding era—and a world steeped in tradition that’s poised for great upheaval.

Rindell wrote The Other Typist, a title I still cannot forget. When I read she was releasing another novel, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy!

Dodgers by Bill Beverly (April 5):

Dodgers is the story of a young man named East who works for an LA drug gang, sent by his uncle along with some other teenage boys—including East’s hotheaded younger brother—to kill a witness connected to a major case, who is hiding out in Wisconsin. The journey takes East out of a city he’s never left and into an America that is entirely alien to him, and over the course of his journey the book brings in elements from a diverse array of genres, ranging from crime fiction to road narrative to coming-of-age novel. Written in stark and unforgettable prose and featuring an array of surprising and memorable characters rendered with empathy and wit, Dodgers heralds the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction.

This title has received quite a bit of praise from quite a few trusted sources, so of course I immediately put it on my most-anticipated reading list.

Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire (April 5):

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations
No Visitors
No Quests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere… else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced… they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of things.

No matter the cost.

I discovered Seanan’s books she writes under another name (Mira Grant) and became a quick fan. The thought of her writing a book about a children’s home has my interest piqued!

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly (April 5):

On a September day in Manhattan in 1939, twenty-something Caroline Ferriday is consumed by her efforts to secure the perfect boutonniere for an important French diplomat and resisting the romantic advances of a married actor. Meanwhile across the Atlantic, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish Catholic teenager, is nervously anticipating the changes that are sure to come since Germany has declared war on Poland. As tensions rise abroad – and in her personal life – Caroline’s interest in aiding the war effort in France grows and she eventually comes to hear about the dire situation at the Ravensbruck all-female concentration camp. At the same time, Kasia’s carefree youth is quickly slipping away, only to be replaced by a fervor for the Polish resistance movement. Through Ravensbruck – and the horrific atrocities taking place there told in part by an infamous German surgeon, Herta Oberheuser – the two women’s lives will converge in unprecedented ways and a novel of redemption and hope emerges that is breathtaking in scope and depth.

From New York to Paris, and Furstenberg to Lublin, Martha Hall Kelly captures the powerful pull of human compassion, strong enough to stretch across continents and capable of triumphing over the grim evils of war. This is a striking story of an unsung heroine and her resolute will to right what is wrong.

I’ve become quite interested in reading historical fiction again lately, particularly the sort that covers this time period. When I read praise from some of my favorite historical fiction authors, I knew I had to add this one to my list.

Fellside by M.R. Carey (April 5):

The unmissable and highly anticipated new literary thriller from the author of the international phenomenon The Girl with all the Gifts.

Fellside is a maximum security prison on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. It’s not the kind of place you’d want to end up. But it’s where Jess Moulson could be spending the rest of her life.

It’s a place where even the walls whisper.

And one voice belongs to a little boy with a message for Jess.

Will she listen?

I absolutely adored The Girl With all the Gifts, so I can’t wait to read this one!

Sunday’s on the Phone with Monday by Christine Reilly (April 5):

The Middlesteins meets The Virgin Suicides in this arresting family love story about the eccentric yet tightknit Simone family, coping with tragedy during 90s New York, struggling to reconnect with each other and heal.

Claudio and Mathilde Simone, once romantic bohemians hopelessly enamored with each other, find themselves nestled in domesticity in New York, running a struggling vinyl record store and parenting three daughters as best they can: Natasha, an overachieving prodigy; sensitive Lucy, with her debilitating heart condition; and Carly, adopted from China and quietly fixated on her true origins.

With prose that is as keen and illuminating as it is whimsical and luminous, debut novelist Christine Reilly tells the unusual love story of this family. Poignant and humane, Sunday’s on the Phone to Monday is a deft exploration of the tender ties that bind families together, even as they threaten to tear them apart.

I’ve always enjoyed family dramas, particularly ones in which family comes together for support and healing. This novel seems to fit the bill! The character, unique in their own way, truly intrigue me.

Madam President by Nicolle Wallace (April 5):

Take “a breezy romp through the corridors of power town” (USA TODAY) with co-host of The View and former White House Communications director Nicolle Wallace in her electrifying insider novel of three powerful women on a day that will change the country forever.

Charlotte Kramer, the 45th President of the United States, has done the unprecedented in allowing a network news team to document a day in her life—and that of her most senior staff. But while twenty news cameras are embedded with the president, the unthinkable happens: five major attacks are leveled on US soil. Her secretary of defense, Melanie, and her press secretary, Dale, must instantly jump into action in supporting the president and reassuring the country that the safety they treasure is in capable hands.

But secrets have always thrived in President Kramer’s White House. With all eyes on them and America’s stability on the line, all three women are hiding personal and professional secrets that could rock the West Wing to its very foundations…and change the lives of the people they love most.

With an insider’s sharp eye and her trademark winning prose, Nicolle Wallace delivers a timely novel of domestic and political intrigue that is impossible to put down.

This title intrigued me for a number of reasons. First, a female President of the United States! Secondly, the overall premise of internal White House secrets (we all know they exist) has me quite interested.

The Railwayman’s Wife by Ashley Hay (April 5):

In 1948, in the strange, silent aftermath of war, in a town overlooking the vast, blue ocean, Anikka Lachlan has all she ever wanted—until a random act transforms her into another postwar widow, destined to raise her daughter on her own. Awash in grief, she looks for answers in the pages of her favorite books and tries to learn the most difficult lesson of all: how to go on living.

A local poet, Roy McKinnon, experiences a different type of loss. How could his most powerful work come out of the brutal chaos of war, and why is he now struggling to regain his words and his purpose in peacetime? His childhood friend Dr. Frank Draper also seeks to reclaim his pre-war life but is haunted by his failure to help those who needed him most—the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps.

Then one day, on the mantle of her sitting room, Ani finds a poem. She knows neither where it came from, nor who its author is. But she has her suspicions. An unexpected and poignant love triangle emerges, between Ani, the poem, and the poet—whoever he may be.

Written in clear, shining prose, The Railwayman’s Wife explores the power of beginnings and endings—and how difficult it can be to tell them apart. It is an exploration of life, loss, and what comes after, of connection and separation, longing and acceptance, and an unadulterated celebration of love that will break your heart open.

Tell me you can’t read that synopsis and not want to pick it up immediately!? The setting, the time period, the premise. It all has my attention.

A Brilliant Death by Robin Yocum (April 5):

Amanda Baron died in a boating accident on the Ohio River in 1953. Or, did she? While it was generally accepted that she had died when a coal barge rammed the pleasure boat she was sharing with her lover, her body was never found.

Travis Baron was an infant when his mother disappeared. After the accident and the subsequent publicity, Travis’s father scoured the house of all evidence that Amanda Baron had ever lived, and her name was never to be uttered around him. Now in high school, Travis yearns to know more about his mother. With the help of his best friend, Mitch Malone, Travis begins a search for the truth about the mother he never knew. The two boys find an unlikely ally: an alcoholic former detective who served time for falsifying evidence. Although his reputation is in tatters, the information the detective provides about the death of Amanda Baron is indisputable—and dangerous.

Nearly two decades after her death, Travis and Mitch piece together a puzzle lost to the dark waters of the Ohio River. They know how Amanda Baron died, and why. Now what do they do with the information?

This is the first in a new series. You know I had to throw a thriller into the mix. I can’t wait to give this one a try.