February has been shaping up to be a great month for books, and this week looks no different. We have a slew of new mysteries from authors like Laura Lippman, Walter Mosley, and M.C. Beaton, along with another twisty thriller with “Girl” in the title. There’s also a pair of exciting new sci-fi novels, a family drama, and one of Britain’s most talked-about books in the speculative fiction story The One. Last but not least, nonfiction readers can look forward to a riveting memoir, a look at our inclination towards tribalism, and Michio Kaku’s best guess at what the future has in store for us as a species. So see if any of these pique your interest and then come by the library to give them a try!
FICTION
The One by John Marrs
How far would you go to find The One?
A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner—the one you’re genetically made for.
That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.
Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.” They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after” isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others…
A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.
Description from Goodreads.
“Brilliantly inventive, The One is a must-read for anyone who’s ever braved the dating pool.” – Good Housekeeping
“Marrs’ engrossing, believable thriller raises intriguing questions about our science-tinged future.” – Booklist
“Just try to put this gripping thriller down once you pick it up.” – AARP
“This will have you gripped.” – Woman’s Own
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Rosie Colored Glasses by Brianna Wolfson
Willow Thorpe knows friction… The friction between her parents, Rosie and Rex. The friction inside herself as she tries to navigate two worlds since their divorce.
But life has not always been like this.
When Rosie and Rex first met, theirs was an attraction of opposites. Rosie lived life for those heightened moments when love reveals its true secrets. Rex lived life safely, by the rules. Common sense would say theirs was a union not meant to last, but it was genuine love.
Now Willow just wants to be with Rosie, to bask in her mother’s outsize glow and, she thinks, protection. Because Rosie is the only person who can make Willow feel totally alive and completely loved.
But as Willow and Rosie and Rex try harder and harder to stay connected as a family, Rosie’s manic tornado of love continues to sweep up everyone in sight, ultimately to heartbreaking results.
Description from Goodreads.
“While sadness hides behind the beautiful language, the idea that children see their parents through rose-colored glasses will resonate with readers beyond the last page.” – Booklist
“Rosie Colored Glasses begins with love, imagination and wonder, then slides into haunting loss and longing, but oh, how love remains and bursts forth to fill the story.” – Bookreporter
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MYSTERY & SUSPENSE
The French Girl by Lexie Elliott
They were six university students from Oxford–friends and sometimes more than friends–spending an idyllic week together in a French farmhouse. It was supposed to be the perfect summer getaway–until they met Severine, the girl next door.
For Kate Channing, Severine was an unwelcome presence, her inscrutable beauty undermining the close-knit group’s loyalties amid the already simmering tensions. And after a huge altercation on the last night of the holiday, Kate knew nothing would ever be the same. There are some things you can’t forgive, and there are some people you can’t forget, like Severine, who was never seen again.
Now, a decade later, the case is reopened when Severine’s body is found in the well behind the farmhouse. Questioned along with her friends, Kate stands to lose everything she’s worked so hard to achieve as suspicion mounts around her. Desperate to resolve her own shifting memories and fearful she will be forever bound to the woman whose presence still haunts her, Kate finds herself buried under layers of deception with no one to set her free.
Description from Goodreads.
“The shifting dynamics within the group will keep the reader guessing until the end. First novelist Elliott has done a phenomenal job of combining a whodunit with a Big Chill vibe.” – Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“Scottish debut novelist Elliott, who holds a doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford, launches a fiction-writing career with a smart, suspenseful thriller.” – Booklist
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Down the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley
Joe King Oliver was one of the NYPD’s finest investigators, until, dispatched to arrest a well-heeled car thief, he is framed for assault by his enemies within the NYPD, a charge which lands him in solitary at Rikers Island.
A decade later, King is a private detective, running his agency with the help of his teenage daughter, Aja-Denise. Broken by the brutality he suffered and committed in equal measure while behind bars, his work and his daughter are the only light in his solitary life. When he receives a card in the mail from the woman who admits she was paid to frame him those years ago, King realizes that he has no choice but to take his own case: figuring out who on the force wanted him disposed of–and why.
Running in parallel with King’s own quest for justice is the case of a Black radical journalist accused of killing two on-duty police officers who had been abusing their badges to traffic in drugs and women within the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
Joined by Melquarth Frost, a brilliant sociopath, our hero must beat dirty cops and dirtier bankers, craven lawyers, and above all keep his daughter far from the underworld in which he works. All the while, two lives hang in the balance: King’s client’s, and King’s own.
Description from Goodreads.
“Mosley writes with great power here about themes that have permeated his work: institutional racism, political corruption, and the ways that both of these issues affect not only society at large but also the inner lives of individual men and women.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Walter Mosley is back with a whole new character to love. . . . As gorgeous a novel as anything he’s ever written. And with Joe King Oliver I’m betting, and hoping, he’s given us a character we haven’t see the last of.” – Washington Post
“Great stuff . . . The vibrant characters and pulsating dialogue are primo Mosley.” – New York Times Book Review
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Sunburn by Laura Lippman
One is playing a long game. But which one?
They meet at a local tavern in the small town of Belleville, Delaware. Polly is set on heading west. Adam says he’s also passing through.
Yet she stays and he stays—drawn to this mysterious redhead whose quiet stillness both unnerves and excites him. Over the course of a punishing summer, Polly and Adam abandon themselves to a steamy, inexorable affair. Still, each holds something back from the other—dangerous, even lethal, secrets that begin to accumulate as autumn approaches, feeding the growing doubts they conceal.
Then someone dies. Was it an accident, or part of a plan? By now, Adam and Polly are so ensnared in each other’s lives and lies that neither one knows how to get away—or even if they want to. Is their love strong enough to withstand the truth, or will it ultimately destroy them?
Something—or someone—has to give.
Which one will it be?
Description from Goodreads.
“Modern noir at its best, it will delight old-movie lovers, satisfy suspense readers, and reward Lippman’s legion of fans.” – Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“You can tell how much fun the author had updating the classic noir tropes, and it’s contagious. Plotty, page-turning pleasure.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
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Death of an Honest Man by M.C. Beaton
Nobody loves an honest man, or that was what police sergeant Hamish Macbeth tried to tell newcomer Paul English. Paul had moved to a house in Cnothan, a sour village on Hamish’s beat.
He attended church in Lochdubh. He told the minister, Mr. Wellington, that his sermons were boring. He told tweedy Mrs. Wellington that she was too fat and in these days of increasing obesity it was her duty to show a good example. Angela Brody was told her detective stories were pap for the masses and it was time she wrote literature instead. He accused Hamish of having dyed his fiery red hair. He told Jessie Currie–who repeated all the last words of her twin sister–that she needed psychiatric help.
“I speak as I find,” he bragged. Voices saying, “I could kill that man,” could be heard from Lochdubh to Cnothan.
And someone did.
Now Hamish is faced with a bewildering array of suspects. And he’s lost the services of his clumsy policeman, Charlie, who has resigned from the force after Chief Inspector Blair berated Charlie one too many times, and the policeman threw Blair into the loch. Can Hamish find the killer on his own?
Description from Goodreads.
“Hamish Macbeth is that most unusual character, one to whom the reader returns because of his charming flaws. May he never get promoted.” – New York Journal of Books
“Satisfying for both established and new Macbeth fans.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
Print Book | Audiobook | eBook | eAudiobook
SCI-FI & FANTASY
The Rending and the Nest by Kaethe Schwehn
When ninety-five percent of the world’s population disappears for no apparent reason, Mira does what she can to create some semblance of a life: She cobbles together a haphazard community named Zion, scavenges the Piles for supplies they might need, and avoids loving anyone she can’t afford to lose. Four years after the Rending, Mira has everything under control. Almost.
Then Mira’s best friend, Lana, announces her pregnancy, the first in this strange world and a new source of hope for Mira. But Lana gives birth to an inanimate object—and soon other women of Zion do, too—and the thin veil of normalcy Mira has thrown over her new world begins to fray. As the community wrestles with the presence of these Babies, a confident outsider named Michael appears, proselytizing about the world outside Zion. He lures Lana away and when she doesn’t return, Mira has to decide how much she’s willing to let go in order to save her friend, her community, and her own fraught pregnancy.
Description from Goodreads.
“Schwehn has created a postapocalyptic world in which why is not the main question. The Rending happened; accepting that is the first step toward recovery for the novel’s multidimensional characters. This beautifully written story begs to be read again.” – Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“[An] unsettling, postapocalyptic page-turner . . . Schwehn has created an intriguing and bizarre world where there are no easy answers . . . Readers will race to find out just what is happening and what it all means . . . The entertainment value is high, and those looking for a new dystopian world will be pleased.” – Booklist
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Outpost by W. Michael Greer
Donovan: A world of remarkable wealth, habitable, with a breathable atmosphere, water, and a salubrious climate. Call it a dream come true. A dream? Or a nightmare? Donovan’s wealth comes at a price. For Donovan lies thirty light years away–a two-year journey that few survive.
When Turalon arrives in orbit, Supervisor Kalico Aguila discovers a failing colony, it’s government overthrown, and the few colonists left now gone wild. For Kalico, Donovan offers the chance of a lifetime: one desperate spin of the wheel that will leave her the most powerful woman in the solar system. Or dead.
Planetside, Talina Perez is one of the three rulers of Port Authority–the only remnant of a town on Donovan. She’s the only law left, and now a Corporate ship has appeared in orbit and is demanding answers about things she’s done in the name of survival. Perez is about to lose everything, including her life, when Kalico lands with her Marines.
For Dan Wirth, Donovan is a last chance. A psychopath with a death sentence looming over his head, he can’t wait to set foot on Port Authority. He will make one desperate play to grab a piece of the action. No matter who he has to corrupt, murder, or destroy.
Captain Max Taggart has been The Corporation’s “go to” guy when it comes to brutal enforcement. As the situation in Port Authority deteriorates, he’ll be faced with committing mass murder in order to dominate the wild Donovanians. Only Talina Perez stands in his way. Or, God forbid, is he getting squeamish in his old age?
Just as matters spiral out of control, a ghost ship, the Freelander, appears in orbit. Missing for two years, she arrives with a crew dead of old age, and reeks of a bizarre death-cult ritual that forewarns any ship from making the return journey to Solar System.
Does anyone dare space back on Turlon with her wealth of ore, ceramic, gems, and gold? Or do they take their chances on a deadly planet that kills three out of four colonists?
And in the meantime, a brutal killer is stalking all of them, for Donovan plays its own complex and deadly game. One whose secrets are hidden in Talia Perez’s very blood. A game which will change everything, forever.
Description from Goodreads.
“Gear has managed to develop a vivid world, and in it set in motion a sweeping conflict.” – Locus
“Galactic intrigue combines with military SF in a tightly woven, intricate story with strong male and female characters…. Highly recommended.” – Library Journal
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NONFICTION
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag.” In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard.
Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent.
Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes, and the will to change it.
Description from Goodreads.
“Educated is an inspiring reminder that knowledge is, indeed, power.” – Amazon Book Review
“A memoir that is fit to stand alongside classics by the likes of Jeanette Winterson and Lorna Sage . . . a compelling and ultimately joyous account of self-determination.” – The Sunday Times (UK)
“One of the best, most absorbing memoirs I’ve ever read.” – Stylist
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The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth by Michio Kaku
Human civilization is on the verge of spreading beyond Earth. More than a possibility, it is becoming a necessity: whether our hand is forced by climate change and resource depletion or whether future catastrophes compel us to abandon Earth, one day we will make our homes among the stars.
World-renowned physicist and futurist Michio Kaku explores in rich, accessible detail how humanity might gradually develop a sustainable civilization in outer space. With his trademark storytelling verve, Kaku shows us how science fiction is becoming reality: mind-boggling developments in robotics, nanotechnology, and biotechnology could enable us to build habitable cities on Mars; nearby stars might be reached by microscopic spaceships sailing through space on laser beams; and technology might one day allow us to transcend our physical bodies entirely.
With irrepressible enthusiasm and wonder, Dr. Kaku takes readers on a fascinating journey to a future in which humanity could finally fulfill its long-awaited destiny among the stars – and perhaps even achieve immortality.
Description from Goodreads.
“An exhilarating look at the future.” – Kirkus Reviews
“…wonderfully illuminates possible ways the human race could survive on other planets.” – Publishers Weekly
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Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations by Amy Chua
Humans are tribal. We need to belong to groups. In many parts of the world, the group identities that matter most – the ones that people will kill and die for – are ethnic, religious, sectarian, or clan-based. But because America tends to see the world in terms of nation-states engaged in great ideological battles – Capitalism vs. Communism, Democracy vs. Authoritarianism, the “Free World” vs. the “Axis of Evil” – we are often spectacularly blind to the power of tribal politics. Time and again this blindness has undermined American foreign policy.
In the Vietnam War, viewing the conflict through Cold War blinders, we never saw that most of Vietnam’s “capitalists” were members of the hated Chinese minority. Every pro-free-market move we made helped turn the Vietnamese people against us. In Iraq, we were stunningly dismissive of the hatred between that country’s Sunnis and Shias. If we want to get our foreign policy right – so as to not be perpetually caught off guard and fighting unwinnable wars – the United States has to come to grips with political tribalism abroad.
Just as Washington’s foreign policy establishment has been blind to the power of tribal politics outside the country, so too have American political elites been oblivious to the group identities that matter most to ordinary Americans – and that are tearing the United States apart. As the stunning rise of Donald Trump laid bare, identity politics have seized both the American left and right in an especially dangerous, racially inflected way. In America today, every group feels threatened: whites and blacks, Latinos and Asians, men and women, liberals and conservatives, and so on. There is a pervasive sense of collective persecution and discrimination. On the left, this has given rise to increasingly radical and exclusionary rhetoric of privilege and cultural appropriation. On the right, it has fueled a disturbing rise in xenophobia and white nationalism.
In characteristically persuasive style, Amy Chua argues that America must rediscover a national identity that transcends our political tribes. Enough false slogans of unity, which are just another form of divisiveness. It is time for a more difficult unity that acknowledges the reality of group differences and fights the deep inequities that divide us.
Description from Goodreads.
“Presented with keen clarity and brimming with definitive insights, Chua’s analysis of identity politics is essential reading for understanding policy challenges both at home and abroad.” – Booklist
“Brilliant, timeless and timely. Political Tribes concisely explains the forces that made our experiences in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq so maddeningly difficult to comprehend, and brings that same thoughtful analysis to America today. Amy Chua provokes thought – and we need that.” – General Stan McChrystal, US Army (Ret)