A new year means new books to add to my TBR! If your shelves are anything like mine, they are probably already overflowing with books to be read. But who can resist a pretty cover and a newly published story? Here are five that I am looking forward to the most:
Beautiful Ugly – Alice Feeney
January 14 – Domestic Thriller/Suspense
“Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.
Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared.
A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track.
Then he sees the impossible – a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife. Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t. Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.”
The Crash – Freida McFadden
January 28 – Psychological Thriller/Suspense
“The nightmare she’s running from is nothing compared to where she’s headed. Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone, and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror.
So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. But she doesn’t realize she’s heading straight into a blizzard. She never arrives at her destination. Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and broken ankle, Tegan worries she’s made a terrible mistake. Then a miracle occurs: she is rescued by a couple who offers her a room in their warm cabin until the snow clears.
But something isn’t right. Tegan believed she was waiting out the storm, but as time ticks by, she comes to realize she is in grave danger. This safe haven isn’t what she thought it was, and staying here may have been her most deadly mistake yet.”
No Place Left To Hide – Megan Lally
January 7 – Young Adult Thriller/Suspense
“To Brooke, image is everything. She works hard to maintain perfect grades, perfect looks, a perfect life–especially after ’the incident’ that threatened it all. Getting into her dream university puts her that much closer to a fresh start. How can she say no to celebrating with all her classmates?
Hanging out with her crush by the bonfire is the perfect end to the night. Except it isn’t the end. An old truck starts aggressively tailing Brooke and her best friend on the isolated road toward home.
Someone thinks they know the truth about ‘the incident,’ and they won’t stop until it’s all out in the open. This terrifying drive is about to bring out Brooke’s worst fears…if she survives it.”
Onyx Storm – Rebecca Yarros
January 21 – Young Adult/Fantasy
”After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty. Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust.
Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.
Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming…and not everyone can survive its wrath.”
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls – Grady Hendrix
January 14 – Horror/Gothic/Thriller
”They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, to give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.
Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who plans to marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.
Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.”
This was a good read! I look forward to seeing more.