February Treasures in My Closet

So, here it is, January 1st, and I'm talking about February book releases.  There isn't a better way to kick off the year, though, than to talk about forthcoming books.   I'm excited about the February book releases in my closet.  I hope you'll also be interested in the books due out then.

I requested a copy of Eleanor Brown's debut novel, The Weird Sisters.  A quote from the novel, on the back cover, says, "There is no problem a library card can't solve."  The Andreas family is passionate about books.  The father named all of his daughters for great Shakespearean women.  When the three sisters return home, planning to take care of their ailing mother, they're not happy to find the others there.  But, sisterhood offers much more than they expected.

Donis Casey will be appearing for Authors @ The Teague on Feb. 26.  Her latest Alafair Tucker mystery, Crying Blood, is due out at the beginning of the month.  As usual, Alafair steps in to investigate when one of her large brood of children is in trouble.  This time, her son, Shaw, is on a hunting trip when his dog uncovers a skeleton with a bullet hole in the skull.  When murder follows Shaw home, Alafair hopes to protect her son.

Deborah Coonts follows up the success of her debut, Wanna Get Lucky?, with a book that's getting a lot of buzz, Lucky Stiff.  This time, Lucky O'Toole, troubleshooter at the Las Vegas mega-resort, The Babylon, has to discover who fed a local oddsmaker to the sharks in a shark tank.  Of course, she has other problems at the same time, everything from handling fight week to dealing with an eccentric new chef.  It's bound to be another difficult job for Lucky, and a fun romp for us.

Jonathan Evison's West of Here is another novel receiving a great deal of press.   Evison melds two stories, more than a century apart, to tell the story of the settlers of Port Bonita, a town on the Pacific Coast of Washington, rugged characters in the 1890s, and their descendants in 2006, who must deal with the repercussions of their ancestors' actions.

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino pits two masterminds against each other.  When a single mother is involved in a murder, her neighbor, a brilliant math teacher, concocts the perfect alibi.  But, the head investigator turns to an equally brilliant man, a physicist, to try to uncover the truth.

How to Woo a Reluctant Lady is the third book in Sabrina Jeffries' Hellions of Halstead Hall series.  Lady Minerva Sharpe has no intention of marrying and giving up writing gothic novels.  When barrister Giles Masters proposes so she can keep her inheritance, she has other plans.  But, Giles has a few plans of his own.

Soho Press publishes mysteries that introduce readers to foreign cultures and countries.  Devil-Devil, the first in a new series by Graeme Kent, is set in the Solomon Islands, and follows Sergeant Ben Keila, a member of the police force who is also a hereditary spiritual peacekeeper of the Lau people.   When he catches Sister Conchita, a rebellious American nun, trying to bury a skeleton, they team up to solve a series of murders.

How about a nonfiction book?  Lisa Napoli was in the grip of a midlife crisis when a chance encounter led her to Bhutan, the happiest place on earth, to volunteer at the country's first radio station for the youth of Bhutan.  The resulting story is Radio Shangi-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, The Happiest Kingdom on Earth.

Once again, bestselling author Michael Palmer brings together politics and medicine in the thriller, A Heartbeat Away.  On the eve of the State of the Union address, a terrifying turn of events forces President Allaire to quarantine everyone in the Capitol building.  A terrorist group unleashed a deadly virus into the building.  It's up to virologist Griffin Rhodes, serving time in a federal prison, to unravel the mysteries before time runs out.

Brad Parks won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel and the Nero Award for his debut novel, Faces of the Gone.  Now, he brings back investigative reporter Carter Ross in Eyes of the Innocent.  When Carter covers a tragic house fire that killed two young boys, the mother's story of working two jobs due to a mortgage reset makes the front page.  Neither the mother nor the fire are what they seem to be, though, and Carter finds himself investigating a larger story of political corruption.

D.M. Pirrone brings us No Less in Blood, in which a woman's search for her birth mother leads to danger and a secret family past.  In 1893, seventeen-year-old Mary Anne Schlegel left her uncle's Chicago home and vanished.  Over a hundred years later, two young women are in danger when their own lives threaten men determined to inherit the Schlegel fortune.

Kelli Stanley won the Bruce Alexander Award for Best Historical Mystery for Nox Dormienda, the first book in her series featuring a Roman physician in occupied England.  Arcturus returns in The Curse-Maker, a story of fake healers, ghost-raisers and medicine men.  Set in the resort town of Aquae Sulis (Bath), people go there to heal, and end up dead.  Now, Arcturus seems to be cursed, following the discovery of the body of a curse maker, and he has to find a killer.

Tina Whittle kicks off a new series with The Dangerous Edge of Things.   Tai Randolph and her brother just inherited a Confederate themed gun shop in Atlanta. When she finds a murdered corpse in her brother's driveway, and her brother's business card in the victim's car, her problems only get worse.  With her brother on a cruise, it's up to her to investigate and defend the Randolph name.

Terrific stack of books in my closet, isn't it?  And, there are more interesting books coming out in February.  I'll talk about some of those February Hot Titles tomorrow.