Get ready for…

Thrillers, Fiction, True Crime, and lots of Romance this holiday season! We are closing out the year with something for everyone so take a look below for suggestions. Authors Jillian Cantor and Weike Wang have new books out this month that are on my list! Time to stock up so you are ready for the cold winter days.

Floreana by Midge Raymond (Historical Fiction)

On the Galápagos Islands, the lives of two women—a century apart—converge in the most startling ways in a historical novel of desperate love, secrets, and deception by the author of My Last Continent.

After ten years away to build a family, Mallory returns to Floreana Island in the Galápagos, and to Gavin, the mentor with whom she had a long-ago affair. Their project is to build nests to revive the vulnerable penguin population. But Mallory doesn’t dare tell Gavin why she’s really come back. Then she discovers old journals hidden in a lava cave—confessions of another woman who needed to disappear.

In 1929, Dore Strauch left the life she knew to create a new one with the man she loved. On remote Floreana they’re beholden to no one but each other. Until the arrival of strangers, settlers in their paradise. Suddenly, Dore realizes that it’s no longer the refuge she imagined. And that amid the island’s fragile beauty, people can do the most terrible things.

A gripping reimagining of a true story, Floreana intertwines the emotional journeys of two women bound by dark secrets, the want of escape, and the lengths to which they’ll go to find their place in the world.

What the Wife Knew by Darby Kane (Thriller)

Darby Kane, author of the #1 international bestseller Pretty Little Wife, returns with another twisty domestic thriller about a wife wondering who tried to kill her husband twice before finally succeeding… because that was supposed to be her job. 

Dr. Richmond Dougherty is a renowned pediatric surgeon, an infamous tragedy survivor, and a national hero. He’s also very dead—thanks to a fall down the stairs. His neighbors angrily point a finger at the newest Ms. Dougherty, Addison. The sudden marriage to the mysterious young woman only lasted ninety-seven days, and he’d had two suspicious “accidents” during that time. Now Addison is a very rich widow.

As law enforcement starts to circle in on Addison and people in town become increasingly hostile, sides are chosen with Kathryn, Richmond’s high school sweetheart, wife number one, and the mother of his children, leading the fray. Despite rising tensions, Addison is even more driven to forge ahead on the path she charted years ago…

Determined at all costs to unravel Richmond’s legacy, she soon becomes a target—with a shocking note left on her bedroom  You will pay. But it will take a lot more than faceless threats to stop Addison. Her plan to marry Richmond then ruin him may have been derailed by his unexpected death, but she’s not done with him yet.

The Party by Natasha Preston (Thriller/Young Adult)

#1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Natasha Preston is back with another pulse-pounding, twisty read!Are you invited?In the heart of the English countryside, a group of teenagers gather at a remote castle for a weekend of fun and games. But when the first of them dies, the party takes a deadly turn. As the body count rises, the remaining guests must race against time to uncover the killer’s identity before they become the next victim.Set against the backdrop of a sprawling English estate, Natasha Preston’s latest thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page.

The Greatest Lie of All by Jillian Cantor (Mystery/Historical Fiction)

A glamorous romance novelist and an aspiring starlet share an unexpected secret in this addictive story about love, ambition and how far we’re willing to go to protect our hearts 

Fledgling actress Amelia Grant is at rock bottom when offered the opportunity of a to star in a biopic about the world-renowned romance author Gloria Diamond, who used her own tragic love story as inspiration for her bestselling books. To prepare for the role, she’ll spend a week with Gloria at her secluded Washington estate. It’s a chance to get out of LA, away from her cheating ex-boyfriend, and to make her recently deceased mother proud. 

Amelia’s excitement is short-lived, however, once she actually meets Gloria, who is cold, verging on rude and mostly unavailable. If not for Gloria’s frustratingly handsome son Will, the visit might be a complete waste of her time. 

But when Amelia stumbles upon a secret from Gloria’s past, she realizes Gloria’s life story is more fiction than fact. And as the movie’s filming date draws nearer, Amelia must decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice to uncover the truth.

Trial by Ambush by Marcia Clark (True Crime)

In this dramatic true account about the power of sensationalized crime, one woman’s case is exposed for its sexism, flagrant disregard for the truth, and, ultimately, the dangers posed by an unbridled prosecution.

Unwanted and neglected from birth, Barbara Graham had to overcome the odds just to survive. Her beauty was both a blessing and a curse—offering her too many options of all the wrong kind. Her innate sensitivity left her vulnerable to the harsh realities of the street, where she was left to fend for herself before she reached double digits. Her record of petty crimes spoke to a life that constantly teetered on the brink of disaster.

But in 1953, a catastrophic twist of fate would catapult her out of obscurity and into the headlines.

When a robbery spiraled out of control and escalated into a brutal murder, Barbara became the centerpiece of a media circus. Her beauty enraptured the press, and they were quick to portray her as a villainous femme fatale despite abundant evidence to the contrary—a fiction the prosecution eagerly promoted.

The frenzy of public interest and willful distortion paved a treacherous path for Barbara Graham. In Trial by Ambush, author and criminal lawyer Marcia Clark investigates the case exposing the fallacies in the demonizing picture they painted and the critical evidence that was never revealed.

The Answer is No by Fredrik Backman (Fiction/Short Story on Kindle and Audible)

In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone?

Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Told in Fredrik Backman’s singular witty style with sharply drawn characters and relatable antics, The Answer Is No is a laugh-out-loud portrait of a man struggling to keep to himself in a world that won’t leave him alone.

Rental House by Weike Wang (Fiction)

From the award-winning author of Chemistry, a sharp-witted, insightful novel about a marriage as seen through the lens of two family vacations Keru and Nate first meet in college, brought together by a joke at a Halloween party (would a “great white” costume mean dressing like a shark or a privileged Ivy League student?) and marrying a few years later. Misfits in their own families, they find in each other a feeling of home. Keru is the only child of strict, well-educated Chinese immigrant parents who hold her to impossible standards even as an adult (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,” says her father). Nate is from a rural, white, working class family that has never trusted his intellectual ambitions or – now – the citizenship status of his “foreign” wife. Nevertheless, some years into their marriage, Keru and Nate find themselves incorporating their families into two carefully planned vacations. The results are disastrous and revealing. First in a cozy beach house on Cape Cod, and later in a luxury bungalow in the Catskills, the couple is forced to confront the hidden truths at the core of their relationship. Alongside their giant sheepdog Mantou, Keru and Nate navigate visits from in-laws, a sibling, and surprising new friends, all while trying to determine if they have what it takes to make themselves and each other happy. How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) are needed to make a family?  And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what does it take to shepherd everyone back together? Told in wry, gimlet-eyed prose, Rental House is a concentrated gem of a novel about the seen and unforeseen forces like in-laws, careers, dreams, and fears, that shake up a marriage over time.

Ivy in Stills by Ka Hancock (Fiction)

From the author of Dancing on Broken Glass and The Duzy House of Mourning comes an unforgettable story of personal triumph.

Imagine the perfect afternoon in Savannah, Georgia…

Backyard filled with smiles, an amazing dress tailored to your particular bodaciousness, your dad-in-name-only ready to walk you down the path. Thrilling I dos about to be uttered…

But then… I don’t whimpers out of your beloved.

Meet Ivy Talbot. About now all she wants is to walk into the ocean and disappear. Or at least quench her blistering humiliation. Next best thing (per her mother, Bree): fly back to Monterey, California, with her less than thrilled father, to heal.

Meet said father, Daniel. Senior partner in his wife’s law firm. Thriving professionally, socially, and personally. Devoted family man in a I’ve-had-a-thing-going-on-in-Georgia-for two-plus-decades kind of way.

Well…Monterey turns out to be a good solution for Ivy, not so much for Daniel. To complicate things Ivy refuses to leave. She makes friends with a fantastic photographer, Mia and her slightly compulsive brother, Bo. She wants to stay for a while. To remedy this Bree, i.e. Daniel’s poison fruit, comes to California to talk sense into her daughter.

As one might imagine it’s a very revelatory weekend. Worlds collide, lies are exposed, and Ivy is left questioning everything. Ultimately, it takes a surprising new man with demons of his own to convince her that: Sometimes the worst day of your life actually saves it…

The French Winemaker’s Daughter by Loretta Ellsworth (Historical Fiction)

Set during World War II, an unforgettable historical novel about love, war, family, and loyalty told in in the voices of two women, generations apart, who find themselves connected by a mysterious and valuable bottle of wine stolen by the Nazis.

1942. Seven-year-old Martine hides in an armoire when the Nazis come to take her father away. Pinned to her dress is a note with her aunt’s address in Paris, and in her arms, a bottle of wine she has been instructed to look after if something happened to her papa. When they are finally gone, the terrified young girl drops the bottle and runs to a neighbor, who puts her on a train to Paris.

But when Martine arrives in the city, her aunt is nowhere to be found. Without a place to go, the girl wanders the streets and eventually falls asleep on the doorstep of Hotel Drouot, where Sister Ada finds her and takes her to the abbey, and watches over her.

1990. Charlotte, a commercial airline pilot, attends an auction with her boyfriend Henri at Hotel Drouot, now the oldest auction house in Paris. Successfully bidding on a box of wine saved from the German occupation during the Second World War, Henri gives Charlotte a seemingly inferior bottle he finds inside the box. Cleaning the label, Charlotte makes a shocking discovery that sends her on a quest to find the origins of this unusual—and very valuable—bottle of wine, a quest that will take her back fifty years into the past. . . .

A powerful tale of love, war, and family, The French Winemaker’s Daughter is an emotionally resonant tale of two women whose fates are intertwined across time. Loretta Ellsworth’s evocative and poignant page-turner will linger in the heart, and make you think about luck, connection, and the meaning of loyalty.

The Holiday Honeymoon Switch by Julie McKay (Christmas Romance)

When doppelgänger best friends trade one’s cabin Christmas vacation for the other’s Hawaiian would’ve-been-honeymoon, both might just find love they weren’t expecting.

Holly Beech and Ivy Casey are bury-the-body besties. They’re so in sync, they even look alike. So when Holly’s fiancé jilts her, leaving her in shock and with a nonrefundable honeymoon, Holly convinces Ivy to switch places. Ivy will go on the Hawaiian honeymoon her best friend can’t bear to take alone, while Holly escapes to Ivy’s rented Hudson Valley cabin to binge-watch holiday movies and heal.

But Holly’s wallowing is interrupted when her rugged Airbnb host turns out to be her high school academic rival who’s had a major glow-up. Meanwhile, Ivy’s (now Hawaiian) annual solo art retreat is upended when Holly’s ex-fiancé checks into the honeymoon suite—with a new woman. Raging and bedless, the last thing Ivy expects is for the hot hotel bartender to come to her rescue. Against all odds, this Christmas might prove the most magical yet.

Bluebird Day by Megan Tady (Fiction)

n this hilarious, heartwarming tale, mother-daughter skiing champs face the bumps in their own relationship when an avalanche in a Swiss village forces them together.

Alpine skiing G.O.A.T. Claudine Potts and her daughter, Wylie, have been bred for gold medal glory. They’re skiing their way to fame, but this gilded future is cut short when a fall forces Claudine’s retirement and Wylie’s debilitating anxiety sends her off the slopes.

With the collapse of their ski careers, their relationship falters and now it’s been years since Wylie and Claudine have even spoken. They live on opposite coasts, pursuing different passions, until a chance opportunity to pair up in a European fitness competition drives them back together. Can this duo survive snow-buried regrets and family secrets and have the happy reunion they’re hoping for?

Set in a dreamy Swiss village with a colorful cast of characters, Bluebird Day will make readers laugh and swoon, as Claudine and Wylie slalom through the complicated terrain of lost ambition, past mistakes, and mother-daughter love.

She’s Not Sorry by Mary Kubica (Thriller)

An ICU nurse accidentally uncovers a patient’s frightening past in this chilling thriller.

Meghan Michaels is trying to find balance between being a single mom to a teenage daughter and working as a full time nurse. While on duty at the hospital one day, a patient named Caitlin arrives in a coma with a traumatic brain injury, having jumped from a bridge and plunging over twenty feet to the train tracks below. 

But when a witness comes forward with shocking details about the fall, it calls everything they know into question. Was Caitlin  pushed  and if so, by whom and why? 

Meghan has always tried to stay emotionally detached from her patients, but this time, she mistakenly lets herself get too close until she’s deeply entangled in Caitlin’s and her family’s lives. Only when it’s too late, does she realize that she and her daughter could be the next victims.

Not in My Book by Katie Holt (Romance)

The Hating Game meets Beach Read in this sexy and hilarious contemporary romance from a debut Peruvian-Tennessean voice.

Rosie, an idealistic and passionate Peruvian-American who has grown up without strong ties to her culture, leaves her Tennessee hometown to pursue her dream of making it in New York as a writer. But her plan is derailed when she ends up in class with her arch-nemesis and ex-crush, Aiden Huntington—an obnoxious, surly, and gorgeous literary fiction writer who doesn’t have much patience for the romance genre, or for Rosie.

Rosie and Aiden regularly go to verbal battle in workshop until their professor reaches her breaking point. She allows them to stay in her class on one condition: they must co-write a novel that blends their genres. 

The reluctant writing duo can’t help but put pieces of themselves into their accidentally steamy novel, and as they slowly get to know each other, they try to put their differences aside. Meanwhile, their manuscript-in-progress provides an outlet for them to confess their feelings—and explore their attraction toward each other.

When Rosie and Aiden find themselves competing against each other for a potentially career-changing opportunity, the flames of old rivalry reignite, and their once-in-a-lifetime love story is once again at risk of being shelved—unless they can find a way to end the book on their own terms.

Under Loch and Key by Lana Ferguson (Romance)

A woman discovers that not all monsters are her enemy—the opposite, in fact—in this new paranormal romance by Lana Ferguson, author of The Fake Mate.

Keyanna “Key” MacKay is used to secrets. Raised by a single father who never divulged his past, it’s only after his death that she finds herself thrust into the world he’d always refused to speak of. With just a childhood bedtime story about a monster that saved her father’s life and the name of her estranged grandmother to go off of, Key has no idea what she’ll find in Scotland. But repeating her father’s mistakes and being rescued by a gorgeous, angry Scotsman—who thinks she’s an idiot—is definitely the last thing she expects.

Lachlan Greer has his own secrets to keep, especially from the bonnie lass he pulls to safety from the slippery shore—a lass with captivating eyes and the last name he’s been taught not to trust. He’s looking for answers as well, and Key’s presence on the grounds they both now occupy presents a real problem. It’s even more troublesome when he gets a front row seat to the lukewarm welcome Key receives from her family; the strange powers she begins to develop; and the fierce determination she brings to every obstacle in her path. Things he shouldn’t care about, and someone he definitely doesn’t find wildly attractive.

When their secrets collide, it becomes clear that Lachlan could hold the answers Keyanna is after—and that she might also be the key to uncovering his. Up against time, mystery, and a centuries old curse, they’ll quickly discover that magic might not only be in fairy tales, and that love can be a real loch-mess.

PS I Hate You by Lauren Connolly (Romance)

Maddie Sanderson would be proud to honor her older brother’s dying wish, that she scatters his ashes over eight destinations that the adventurous 29-year-old never got to visit before he died from cancer. But in his will, Josh assigned her an impossible partner to help complete the mission—Dominic Perry. Seriously, if Maddie weren’t already at his funeral, she would have killed him for this.

Sure, Dom was Josh’s life-long best friend. He’s also the infuriating man who broke Maddie’s heart back when she was naïve enough to give it to him. But since Dom insists on following the rules and Josh didn’t leave much room for Maddie to argue the matter, they embark together on a farewell trip that spans thousands of miles, exploring new places and revisiting their complicated history along the way.

After a snowstorm leads to a shared bed, Maddie starts to wonder if her brother might be matchmaking from the grave. But when grief also reopens old wounds between them, Maddie will need more than Josh’s ghostly guidance to trust Dom again.