Book of the Week | Multiple Listings by Tracy McMillan

cover69006-mediumTITLE: Multiple Listings

AUTHOR: Tracy McMillan

PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster

RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2016

GENRE: Women’s Fiction, General Fiction (Adult)

PRE-ORDER LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | BAM! | INDIEBOUND

What would you do if your ex-con father suddenly came to visit…indefinitely? Family drama ensues when Nicki’s dad unexpectedly moves in with her, her son, and her boyfriend in this comedic novel from successful TV writer Tracy McMillan.

Nicki Daniels owns a home appraisal business, but real estate is her true passion: she lives for open houses and really knows her way around a floor plan. And especially at this juncture of her life, real estate has come to signify the stability she is trying to build with her teenage son, Cody, and her much younger boyfriend, Jake. She’s finally ready to find the perfect house for the three of them and work on a new business venture with Jake that she thinks will jump-start their lives together.

Meanwhile, Ronnie, a longtime inmate at a nearby correctional facility, is getting some good news for once—there was a mistake in his sentencing, and he’s eligible to get out of prison. After a sixty-day stay in a halfway house, Ronnie decides his best option to avoid homelessness is to move in with his estranged daughter: Nicki. Even though they haven’t spoken in years, her door is always open to him, right?

Inspired by the author’s life and imbued with wit and profound insight into relationships, Multiple Listings speaks poignantly—and often hilariously—about the ties that bind families of all types together. (Description found on NetGalley.com)

Follow Stories Unfolded on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads

March New Releases

MARCH NEW RELEASES

I want to share a few upcoming March releases I’m excited about and have added to my TBR list. Congrats to the authors on the release of your new books.

cover74034-mediumTITLE: Work Like Any Other

AUTHOR: Virginia Reeves

PUBLISHER: Scribner

RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016

GENRE: General Fiction (Adult)

In this astonishingly accomplished, morally complicated, “exceptional and starkly beautiful debut” (Kevin Powers, National Book Award–nominated author of The Yellow Birds), a prideful electrician in 1920s rural Alabama struggles to overcome past sins and find peace after being sent to prison for manslaughter.

Roscoe T Martin set his sights on a new type of power spreading at the start of the twentieth century: electricity. It became his training, his life’s work. But when his wife, Marie, inherits her father’s failing farm, Roscoe has to give up his livelihood, with great cost to his sense of self, his marriage, and his family. Realizing he might lose them all if he doesn’t do something, he begins to use his skills as an electrician to siphon energy from the state, ushering in a period of bounty and happiness. Even the love of Marie and their child seem back within Roscoe’s grasp.

Then a young man working for the state power company stumbles on Roscoe’s illegal lines and is electrocuted, and everything changes: Roscoe is arrested; the farm once more starts to deteriorate; and Marie abandons her husband, leaving him to face his twenty-year sentence alone. Now an unmoored Roscoe must carve out a place at Kilby Prison. Climbing the ranks of the incarcerated from dairy hand to librarian to “dog boy,” an inmate who helps the guards track down escapees, he is ultimately forced to ask himself once more if his work is just that, or if the price of his crimes—for him and his family—is greater than he ever let himself believe. (Description found on NetGalley.com)


 

cover77816-mediumTITLE: At The Edge Of The Orchard

AUTHOR: Tracy Chevalier

PUBLISHER: Penguin Group Viking

RELEASE DATE: March 15, 2016

GENRE: General Fiction

From internationally bestselling author Tracy Chevalier, a riveting drama of a pioneer family on the American frontier

1838: James and Sadie Goodenough have settled where their wagon got stuck – in the muddy, stagnant swamps of northwest Ohio. They and their five children work relentlessly to tame their patch of land, buying saplings from a local tree man known as John Appleseed so they can cultivate the fifty apple trees required to stake their claim on the property. But the orchard they plant sows the seeds of a long battle. James loves the apples, reminders of an easier life back in Connecticut; while Sadie prefers the applejack they make, an alcoholic refuge from brutal frontier life.

1853: Their youngest child Robert is wandering through Gold Rush California. Restless and haunted by the broken family he left behind, he has made his way alone across the country. In the redwood and giant sequoia groves he finds some solace, collecting seeds for a naturalist who sells plants from the new world to the gardeners of England. But you can run only so far, even in America, and when Robert’s past makes an unexpected appearance he must decide whether to strike out again or stake his own claim to a home at last.

Chevalier tells a fierce, beautifully crafted story in At the Edge of the Orchard, her most graceful and richly imagined work yet. (Description found on NetGalley.com)


 

cover74959-mediumTITLE: The Charm Bracelet

AUTHOR: Viola Shipman

PUBLISHER: Thomas Dunne Books

RELEASE DATE: March 29, 2016

GENRE: Women’s Fiction

Through an heirloom charm bracelet three women will rediscover the importance of family, love, faith, friends, fun and a passion for living as the magic of each charm changes their lives.

Lolly, still lives in the family cabin on Lost Land Lake where her mother gave her the charm bracelet that would become Lolly’s talisman and connection to family past and Lolly hopes the present, but her daughter, Arden, and granddaughter, Lauren, haven’t visited in years and time is running out for Lolly.

Arden, couldn’t wait to leave her small town life behind for Chicago, but now divorced and burned out at work, she’s simply trying to make it from day to day. In the rush of life she’s let the years and all the things she once enjoyed slip away. When she receives an unexpected phone call about her mother she must decide if she can face going home.

Lauren, a talented young painter buries her passion to study business in the hopes of helping her mother after she discovers that her father left Arden struggling to make ends meet, but Lauren is slowly dying inside and doesn’t know how to tell her mother the truth. (Description found on NetGalley.com)

 

What new releases are you excited about this month?

Follow Stories Unfolded on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Goodreads

Book of the Week | Where My Heart Used To Beat by Sebastian Faulks

cover78682-mediumTITLE: Where My Heart Used To Beat

AUTHOR: Sebastian Faulks

PUBLISHER: Henry & Holt

RELEASE DATE: January 26, 2016

GENRE: Literary Fiction, General Fiction (Adult)

BUY LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | INDIEBOUND

A sweeping drama about the madness of war and the power of love that marks acclaimed novelist Sebastian Faulks’s return, after twenty years, to the fictional territory of his #1 international bestseller Birdsong

London, 1980. Robert Hendricks, an established psychiatrist and author, has so bottled up memories of his own wartime past that he is nearly sunk into a life of aloneness and depression. Out of the blue, a baffling letter arrives from one Dr. Alexander Pereira, a neurologist and a World War I veteran who claims to be an admirer of Robert’s published work. The letter brings Robert to the older man’s home on a rocky, secluded island off the south of France, and into tempests of memories–his childhood as a fatherless English boy, the carnage he witnessed and the wound he can’t remember receiving as a young officer in World War II, and, above all, the great, devastating love of his life, an Italian woman, “L,” whom he met during the war. As Robert’s recollections pour forth, he’s unsure whether they will lead to psychosis–or redemption. But Dr. Pereira knows. Profoundly affecting and masterfully told, Where My Heart Used to Beat sweeps through the 20th century, brilliantly interrogating the darkest corners of the human mind and bearing tender witness to the abiding strength of love. (Description found on NetGalley.com)

Follow Stories Unfolded on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads

Book Review | When I’m Gone by Emily Bleeker

BOOK REVIEW | WHEN I’M GONE

cover77538-mediumTITLE: When I’m Gone

AUTHOR: Emily Bleeker

PUBLISHER: Lake Union Publishing

RELEASE DATE: March 15, 2016

GENRE: Women’s Fiction, General Fiction (Adult)

PRE-ORDER LINKS: AMAZON

Dear Luke,
First let me say—I love you…I didn’t want to leave you…

Luke Richardson has returned home after burying Natalie, his beloved wife of sixteen years, ready to face the hard job of raising their three children alone. But there’s something he’s not prepared for—a blue envelope with his name scrawled across the front in Natalie’s handwriting, waiting for him on the floor of their suburban Michigan home.

The letter inside, written on the first day of Natalie’s cancer treatment a year ago, turns out to be the first of many. Luke is convinced they’re genuine, but who is delivering them? As his obsession with the letters grows, Luke uncovers long-buried secrets that make him question everything he knew about his wife and their family. But the revelations also point the way toward a future where love goes on—in written words, in memories, and in the promises it’s never too late to keep. (Description found on NetGalley.com)

MY THOUGHTS

Last night I couldn’t put this book down and ended up finishing it at 1am, but it was definitely worth losing a few hours of sleep. When I’m Gone is one of those books that made me “react” to things that would unfold and the twists and turns that were revealed. At one point my husband (who isn’t a reader) asked me why I have to react to everything in the book. When I say react (my fellow readers will know what I’m talking about), I mean gasps, sighs, and a little bit of commentary mixed in. I just looked at him and said “when it’s a really good book, you can’t help but react”. That’s what this book is.

When I first started reading this book, I thought it might be exactly like P.S. I Love You in reverse (wife dies and husband gets romantic love letters), but it’s so much more than that. The letters Luke Richardson receives aren’t even that romantic and has much more to focus on then just his wife passing away. He has three kids to take care of and he has to deal with knowing that his wife kept a very big secret from him that brings up unwanted memories from his past.

Here’s a quote that I think will tell you more about the plot without giving away anything:“The only positive thing about dying is knowing I won’t have to see your face when you find out all the reasons you should hate me. Maybe that’s my final gift – when you find out all my secrets, you’ll be glad I’m gone.”

There was a point in the book when I thought I knew what was going to happen, but I was pleasantly surprised that I couldn’t predict everything. I really enjoyed those twists and turns I mentioned. Emily Bleeker really knew how to keep you interested and I couldn’t wait to figure out who was sending the letters and what his wife’s secret was.

Overall, I would highly recommend When I’m Gone. It’s a riveting novel about love, loss, and explores the thought that you might not know the people close to you as well as you thought. It keeps you guessing and keeps you wanting more.

OVERALL RATING

5-gold-star-rating

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | GOODREADS | TWITTER

emily-10

Emily lives in suburban Chicago with her husband and four kids. Between writing and being a mom, she attempts to learn guitar, sings along to the radio (loudly), and embraces her newfound addiction to running.

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing for providing a copy of this book for an honest review.

Follow Stories Unfolded on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.

Book of the Week | We’ve Already Gone This Far by Patrick Dacey

cover78685-mediumTITLE: We’ve Already Gone This Far

AUTHOR: Patrick Dacey

PUBLISHER: Henry Holt & Company

RELEASE DATE: February 16, 2016

GENRE: General Fiction (Adult)

BUY LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | INDIEBOUND | GOOGLEPLAY

A heartfelt, vital collection; the debut of an exciting new talent already hailed as one of George Saunders’ “favorite young American writers”

In Patrick Dacey’s stunning debut, we meet longtime neighbors and friends–citizens of working-class Wequaquet–right when the ground beneath their feet has shifted in ways they don’t yet understand. Here, after more than a decade of boom and bust, love and pride are closely twinned and dangerously deployed: a lonely woman attacks a memorial to a neighbor’s veteran son; a dissatisfied housewife goes overboard with cosmetic surgery on national television; a young father walks away from one of the few jobs left in town, a soldier writes home to a mother who is becoming increasingly unhinged. We’ve Already Gone This Far takes us to a town like many towns in America, a place where people are searching for what is now an almost out-of-reach version of the American Dream

Story by story, Dacey draws us into the secret lives of recognizable strangers and reminds us that life’s strange intensity and occasional magic is all around us, especially in the everyday. With a skewering insight and real warmth of spirit, Dacey delivers that rare and wonderful thing in American fiction: a deeply-felt, deeply-imagined book about where we’ve been and how far we have to go. (Description found on NetGalley.com)

Follow Stories Unfolded on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads

Book of the Week | Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves

cover74034-mediumTITLE: Work Like Any Other

AUTHOR: Virginia Reeves

PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster

RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016

GENRE: General Fiction (Adult)

PRE-ORDER LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | BAM! | INDIEBOUND

In this astonishingly accomplished, morally complicated, “exceptional and starkly beautiful debut” (Kevin Powers, National Book Award–nominated author of The Yellow Birds), a prideful electrician in 1920s rural Alabama struggles to overcome past sins and find peace after being sent to prison for manslaughter.

Roscoe T Martin set his sights on a new type of power spreading at the start of the twentieth century: electricity. It became his training, his life’s work. But when his wife, Marie, inherits her father’s failing farm, Roscoe has to give up his livelihood, with great cost to his sense of self, his marriage, and his family. Realizing he might lose them all if he doesn’t do something, he begins to use his skills as an electrician to siphon energy from the state, ushering in a period of bounty and happiness. Even the love of Marie and their child seem back within Roscoe’s grasp.

Then a young man working for the state power company stumbles on Roscoe’s illegal lines and is electrocuted, and everything changes: Roscoe is arrested; the farm once more starts to deteriorate; and Marie abandons her husband, leaving him to face his twenty-year sentence alone. Now an unmoored Roscoe must carve out a place at Kilby Prison. Climbing the ranks of the incarcerated from dairy hand to librarian to “dog boy,” an inmate who helps the guards track down escapees, he is ultimately forced to ask himself once more if his work is just that, or if the price of his crimes—for him and his family—is greater than he ever let himself believe. (Description found on NetGalley.com)

Follow Stories Unfolded on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads

Book of the Week | Written on My Heart by Morgan Callan Rogers

cover77532-mediumTITLE: Written on My Heart

AUTHOR: Morgan Callan Rogers

PUBLISHER: Penguin Group Plume

RELEASE DATE: February 2, 2016

GENRE: General Fiction (Adult)

BUY LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | INDIEBOUND

The marriage of Florine Gilham and Bud Warner is cause for celebration down on The Point, the Maine fishing village where they’ve grown up together. Yet even as the newlyweds being their lives together, Florine is drawn back into the memory of her mother, Carlie, who vanished when Florine was twelve.

As unexpected clues regarding Carlie’s fate surface and problems mar their young marriage, Florine and Bud face the challenges of trying to solve an old mystery while sustaining their marriage, holding on to love and trust, and raising a family. Ultimately, they find themselves being led down a strange path bordered by memory, struggles, and triumph, even as they are reminded of the power of family—the one you are born into and the ones forged by friendship. This unforgettable sequel to Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea contains its own unique heartbeat, as well as the pleasure of re-acquainting readers with old and new friends (Description found on Morgan Callan Rogers Website)

Follow Stories Unfolded on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads

Book of the Week | The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton

cover62926-mediumTITLE: The Quality of Silence

AUTHOR: Rosamund Lupton

PUBLISHER: Crown Publishing

RELEASE DATE: February 16, 2016

GENRE: Mystery & Thriller

PRE-ORDER LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | INDIEBOUND

The gripping, moving story of a mother and daughter’s quest to uncover a dark secret in the Alaskan wilderness, from the New York Times bestselling author of Sister and Afterwards

Thrillingly suspenseful and atmospheric, The Quality of Silence is the story of Yasmin, a beautiful astrophysicist, and her precocious deaf daughter, Ruby, who arrive in a remote part of Alaska to be told that Ruby’s father, Matt, has been the victim of a catastrophic accident. Unable to accept his death as truth, Yasmin and Ruby set out into the hostile winter of the Alaskan tundra in search of answers. But as a storm closes in, Yasmin realizes that a very human danger may be keeping pace with them. And with no one else on the road to help, they must keep moving, alone and terrified, through an endless Alaskan night. (Description from Amazon)

Follow Stories Unfolded on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads

February New Releases

FEBRUARY NEW RELEASES

cover64898-mediumTITLE: One More Day

AUTHOR: Kelly Simmons

PUBLISHER: Sourcebooks Landmark

RELEASE DATE: February 1, 2016

GENRE: Women’s Fiction

Don’t look away

No one wants to be the mother whose child disappears. It’s unthinkable, the stuff of nightmares. But when she turns her back to pay a parking meter, Carrie Morgan becomes that mother. Ben is gone, and more than a year later, it’s clear that he is never coming back.

Until he does…for just twenty-four hours, before once again vanishing from his crib without a trace. Rumors start to circulate through Carrie’s small town. Whispers that she’s seeing things. That her alibi doesn’t quite add up.

Her husband and friends start to think she’s crazy. The police start to think she’s guilty. As the investigation heats up, Carrie must decide what to share, and why. Because the crime is about to be solved… and her secret revealed. (Description by Netgelly.com)

cover65672-mediumTITLE: In Another Life

AUTHOR: Julie Christine Johnson

PUBLISHER: Sourcebooks Landmark

RELEASE DATE: February 1, 2016

GENRE: Women’s Fiction

She has fallen for a man who shouldn’t exist

Historian Lia Carrer has finally returned to southern France, determined to rebuild her life after the death of her husband. But instead of finding solace in the region’s quiet hills and medieval ruins, she falls in love with Raoul, a man whose very existence challenges everything she knows about life—and about her husband’s death. As Raoul reveals the story of his past to Lia, she becomes entangled in the echoes of an ancient murder, resulting in a haunting and suspenseful journey that reminds Lia that the dead may not be as far from us as we think.

Steeped in the rich history and romantic landscape of rural France, In Another Life is a story of love that conquers time, and the lost loves that haunt us all. (Description found on NetGalley.com)

cover74250-mediumTITLE: The Flood Girls

AUTHOR: Richard Fifield

PUBLISHER: Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books

RELEASE DATE: February 1, 2016

GENRE: General Fiction (Adult)

This snappy, sassy redemption story set in small-town Montana is “a wild and crazy debut novel by a talented young writer” (Jackie Collins), filled with an uproarious and unforgettable cast of characters you won’t want to leave behind.

Welcome to Quinn, Montana, population: 956. A town where nearly all of the volunteer firemen are named Jim, where The Dirty Shame—the only bar in town—refuses to serve mixed drinks (too much work), where the locals hate the newcomers (then again, they hate the locals, too), and where the town softball team has never even come close to having a winning season. Until now.

Rachel Flood has snuck back into town after leaving behind a trail of chaos nine years prior. She’s here to make amends, but nobody wants to hear it, especially her mother, Laverna. But with the help of a local boy named Jake and a little soul-searching, she just might make things right.

In the spirit of Empire Falls and A League of Their Own, with the caustic wit of Where’d You Go, Bernadette thrown in for good measure, Richard Fifield’s hilarious and heartwarming debut will have you laughing through tears. (Description found on NetGalley.com)

cover75550-mediumTITLE: I’ll See You in Paris

AUTHOR: Michelle Gable

PUBLISHER: St. Martin’s Press, Thomas Dunne Books

RELEASE DATE: February 9, 2016

GENRE: General Fiction (Adult)

Michelle Gable’s I’ll See You in Paris winds together the lives of three women born generations apart, but who face similar struggles of love and heartbreak.

After losing her fiancé in the Vietnam War, nineteen-year-old Laurel Haley takes a job in England, hoping the distance will mend her shattered heart. Laurel expects the pain might lessen but does not foresee the beguiling man she meets or that they’ll go to Paris, where the city’s magic will take over and alter everything Laurel believes about love.

Thirty years later, Laurel’s daughter Annie is newly engaged and an old question resurfaces: who is Annie’s father and what happened to him? Laurel has always been vague about the details and Annie’s told herself it doesn’t matter. But with her impending marriage, Annie has to know everything. Why won’t Laurel tell her the truth?

The key to unlocking Laurel’s secrets starts with a mysterious book about an infamous woman known as the Duchess of Marlborough. Annie’s quest to understand the Duchess, and therefore her own history, takes her from a charming hamlet in the English countryside, to a decaying estate kept behind barbed wire, and ultimately to Paris where answers will be found at last. (Description found on NetGalley.com)

What new releases are you excited about this month?

Follow Stories Unfolded on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Goodreads

Book of the Week | Why We Came To The City by Kristopher Jansma

cover75967-mediumTITLE: Why We Came to the City

AUTHOR: Kristopher Jansma

PUBLISHER: Penguin Group Viking

RELEASE DATE: February 16, 2016

GENRE: General Fiction, Literary Fiction

PRE-ORDER LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | BAM! | iBOOKS | INDIEBOUND

A sweeping, funny, and poignant novel about a tight-knit group of twentysomethings in New York whose lives are forever altered by an unexpected tragedy—from the widely acclaimed author of The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards.

Five years after their college graduation, the devoted friends once known as “the Murphys” remain as inseparable as ever. There’s Sara Sherman, an editor and social butterfly; George Murphy, her caring, if troubled, astronomer boyfriend; Jacob Blaumann, a poet manqué and their loudmouth third wheel; William Cho, an awkward but well-meaning investment banker; and Irene Richmond, an enigmatic, immensely talented artist. As this absorbing novel opens in December 2008, they are making their way through heavy snowfall to gather at a lavish art world holiday party. But for all the glitz and glamor, the festivities mark a more momentous evening than any of them realize. Irene will first notice a curious lump under her eye. William will fall desperately in love with her. And George will, at long last, ask Sara to marry him.

Over the years that follow, this cast of rich, warmly drawn characters scrape by chasing their dreams in Great Recession New York. They watch acquaintances drop like flies and cling ever tighter to one another. When a devastating blow threatens to tear them irreparably apart, they must struggle to carry on together. A powerful and transfixing follow-up to Kristopher Jansma’s celebrated debut, Why We Came to the City paints a portrait of a generation and tells an unforgettable story of hope, love, and friendship. (Description found on NetGalley.com)

Follow Stories Unfolded on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads