With a new year comes speculation and wonder. How will my life change this year? One thing is certain: If you read lots of books in 2017, your year will be filled with new friends, travel and surprises.
If you want to step out of your reading comfort zone this year, try the library’s Reading Bingo challenge. And try out one of my five picks for January. Any of these are a great first step in starting the year out right.
1. Everything You Want Me to Be by Mindy Mejia
Full of twists and turns, Everything You Want Me to Be reconstructs a year in the life of a dangerously mesmerizing young woman, during which a small town’s darkest secrets come to the forefront…and she inches closer and closer to her death.This will be a hit with fans of Gone Girl.
2. Idaho by Emily Ruskovich
Ann and Wade have carved out a living for themselves from a rugged landscape in northern Idaho, but they are bound together by more than love. Ann attempts to piece together the truth of what happened to the family that came before her.
3. The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers
When Major Gryffth Hockaday is called to the front lines of the Civil War, his new bride is left to care for her husband’s three-hundred-acre farm and infant son. Placidia, a mere teenager, must endure the darkest days of the war on her own. By the time Major Hockaday returns two years later, Placidia is bound for jail, accused of having borne a child in his absence and murdering it. What really transpired in the two years he was away?
4. Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
A heart-wrenching novel that gives voice to two mothers: a young undocumented Mexican woman and an Indian-American wife whose love for one lucky boy will bind their fates together. Lucky Boy is an emotional journey that will leave you certain of the redemptive beauty of this world.
5. Difficult Women: Stories by Roxane Gay
A collection of stories of rare force and beauty, of hardscrabble lives, passionate loves and quirky and vexed human connection. The women in these stories live lives of privilege and of poverty, are in marriages both loving and haunted by past crimes or emotional blackmail.
See more of Jennifer’s fiction suggestions
Jennifer Jones
I’m the library’s fiction selector and I’ve been suggesting new books to library and bookmobile customers for over 25 years. I keep up on all the new book reviews, and my favorite question is “What are you reading?” I love to talk about books and to read books. I like to tell library customers, “Try something new. If the book doesn’t grab you, we have many more to choose from."