OCTOBER NEW RELEASES

Here are the upcoming October releases I’m excited about and have added to my TBR list.

TITLE: See Me

AUTHOR: Nicholas Sparks

PUBLISHER: Grand Central Publishing

RELEASE DATE: October 13, 2015

GENRE: Romance, Women’s Fiction, Fiction

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Colin Hancock is giving his second chance his best shot.  With a history of violence and bad decisions behind him and the threat of prison dogging his every step, he’s determined to walk a straight line.  To Colin, that means applying himself single-mindedly toward his teaching degree and avoiding everything that proved destructive in his earlier life.  Reminding himself daily of his hard-earned lessons, the last thing he is looking for is a serious relationship.

Maria Sanchez, the hardworking daughter of Mexican immigrants, is the picture of conventional success: with a degree from Duke Law School and a job at a prestigious firm in Wilmington, she is a dark-haired beauty with a seemingly flawless professional track record.  And yet Maria has a traumatic history of her own, one that compelled her to return to her home town and left her questioning so much of what she once believed.

A chance encounter on a rainswept road will alter the course of both Colin and Maria’s lives, challenging deeply held assumptions about each other and ultimately, themselves.  As love unexpectedly takes hold between them, they dare to envision what a future together could possibly look like . . . until menacing reminders of events in Maria’s past begin to surface.

As a series of threatening incidents wreaks chaos in Maria’s life, Maria and Colin will be tested in increasingly terrifying ways.  Will demons from their past destroy the tenuous relationship they’ve begun to build, or will their love protect them, even in the darkest hour?

Rich in emotion and fueled with suspense, See Me reminds us that love is sometimes forged in the crises that threaten to shatter us . . . and that those who see us for who we truly are may not always be the ones easiest to recognize. (Description and photo from NicholasSparks.com)

TITLE: Chasing Ghosts

AUTHOR: Louise DeSalvo

PUBLISHER: Fordham University Press

RELEASE DATE: October 12, 2015

GENRE: Biographies & Memoirs

PRE-ORDER LINKS: FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS

When literary biographer and memoirist Louise DeSalvo embarked upon a journey to learn why her father came home from World War II a changed man, she didn’t realize her quest would take ten years or that it would yield more revelations about the man–and herself–and the effect of his military service upon their family than she’d ever imagined. During his last years, as he told her about his life, DeSalvo began to understand that her obsession with war novels and military history wasn’t merely academic but rooted in her desire to understand this complex father whom she both adored and reviled because of his mistreatment of her. Although she at first believes she wants to uncover his story, the story of a man who was no hero and who was adversely affected by his military service, she learns that what she really wants is to recover the man he was before he went away.

As DeSalvo and her father uncover his past piece by piece, bit by bit, she learns about the dreams of a working-class man who entered the military in the late 1930s during peacetime to better himself, a man who wanted to become a pilot. She learns about what it was like for him to participate in war games in the Pacific prior to the war, and the war’s devastating toll. She learns about what it was like for her parents to fall in love, set up house, marry, and have children during this cataclysmic time. And as the pieces of her father’s life fall into place as DeSalvo works to piece together the puzzle of everything she’s learned about this time, she finds herself finally able to understand him. (Description and photo from NetGalley.com)

TITLE: Things Unsaid

AUTHOR: Diana Y. Paul

PUBLISHER: She Writes Press

RELEASE DATE: October 13, 2015

GENRE: Fiction

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

Jules, her sister Joanne, and her brother Andrew all grew up in the same household—but their varying views of and reactions to their experiences growing up have made them all very different people. Now, as adults with children of their own, they are all faced with the question of what to do to help their parents, who insist on maintaining the upscale lifestyle they’re accustomed to despite their mounting debts. A deft exploration of the ever-shifting covenants between parents and children, Things Unsaid is a ferocious tale of family love, dysfunction, and sense of duty over forty years. (Description and photo from NetGalley.com)

TITLE: We Were Brothers

AUTHOR: Barry Moser

PUBLISHER: Algonquin Books

RELEASE DATE: October 20, 2015

GENRE: Memoir

PRE-ORDER LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | INDIEBOUND | POWELL’S 

Preeminent illustrator Barry Moser and his brother, Tommy, were born of the same parents, were raised in the same small Tennessee community, and were poisoned by their family’s deep racism and anti-Semitism. But as they grew older, their perspectives and their paths grew further and further apart. From attitudes about race, to food, politics, and money, the brothers began to think so differently that they could no longer find common ground, no longer knew how to talk to each other, and for years there was more strife between them than affection.

When Barry was in his late fifties and Tommy in his early sixties, their fragile brotherhood reached a tipping point and blew apart. From that day forward they did not speak. But fortunately, their story does not end there. With the raw emotions that so often surface when we talk of our siblings, Barry recalls why and how they were finally able to traverse that great divide and reconcile their kinship before it was too late.  

Including fifteen of Moser’s stunning drawings, this powerful true story captures the essence of sibling relationships–their complexities, contradictions, and mixed blessings. (Description and photo from NetGalley.com)

What new releases are you excited about this month?

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AUGUST NEW RELEASES

Each month I plan on sharing upcoming new releases that I’m excited about reading. Most of the time these books will be from my NetGalley shelf because that’s where I get a lot of my books lately. So here’s a look at what is releasing this month.

TITLE: It Started With Paris

AUTHOR: Cathy Kelly

PUBLISHER: Grand Central Publishing

RELEASE DATE: August 4, 2015 (US Version)

GENRE: Women’s Fiction

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

The new novel from #1 international bestselling author Cathy Kelly.

It all started with Paris. At the top of the Eiffel Tower, a young man proposes to his girlfriend. In that second, everything changes, not just for the happy couple, but for the family and friends awaiting their return in Ireland.

Leila’s been nursing a broken heart since her husband suddenly left her, but she’s determined to put on a brave face for the bride. Vonnie, a widow, has finally dared to let love back into her life, but a curveball arises that puts another’s safety at risk. And Grace, a school principal, finds that her son’s impending union brings her ex-husband back into her daily life, and starts to ponder past decisions and wonder if her divorce was in fact a mistake.

As these three women gather around the young couple to prepare for the wedding, they’ll each have to address their own demons and find a way to move forward, whatever the cost. (Description from NetGalley.com)

TITLE: We Never Asked for Wings

AUTHOR: Vanessa Diffenbaugh

PUBLISHER: Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine Books

RELEASE DATE: August 18, 2015

GENRE: Women’s Fiction

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From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Language of Flowers comes her much-anticipated new novel about young love, hard choices, and hope against all odds.

For fourteen years, Letty Espinosa has worked three jobs around San Francisco to make ends meet while her mother raised her children—Alex, now fifteen, and Luna, six—in their tiny apartment on a forgotten spit of wetlands near the bay. But now Letty’s parents are returning to Mexico, and Letty must step up and become a mother for the first time in her life.

Navigating this new terrain is challenging for Letty, especially as Luna desperately misses her grandparents and Alex, who is falling in love with a classmate, is unwilling to give his mother a chance. Letty comes up with a plan to help the family escape the dangerous neighborhood and heartbreaking injustice that have marked their lives, but one wrong move could jeopardize everything she’s worked for and her family’s fragile hopes for the future.

Vanessa Diffenbaugh blends gorgeous prose with compelling themes of motherhood, undocumented immigration, and the American Dream in a powerful and prescient story about family.  (Description from NetGalley.com)

TITLE: The Sisters Club

AUTHOR: Lauren Baratz-Logsted

PUBLISHER: Diversion Books

RELEASE DATE: August 18, 2015

GENRE: Women’s Fiction

PRE-ORDER LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | IBOOKS | KOBO

Some families you are born into. Some you choose. And some choose you.

Four women have little in common other than where they live and the joyous complications of having sisters. Cindy waits for her own life to begin as she sees her sister going in and out of hospitals. Lise has made the boldest move of her life, even as her sister spends every day putting herself at risk to improve the lives of others. Diana is an ocean apart from her sister, but worries that her marriage is the relationship separated by the most distance. Sylvia has lost her twin sister to breast cancer, a disease that runs in the family, and fears that she will die without having ever really lived.

When Diana places an ad in the local newsletter, Cindy, Lise, and Sylvia show up thinking they are joining a book club, but what they discover is something far deeper and more profound than any of them ever imagined.

With wit, charm, and pathos, this mesmerizing tale of sisters, both born and built, enthralls on every page. (Description from NetGalley.com)

What new releases are your excited about?