Hello, how is everyone? You’re all looking wonderful and that outfit totally suits you.
I hid from the internet for about 3 weeks over the holidays because I wanted to reclaim my mind space. Choose what to focus on instead of having social media tell me what I should be thinking or terrified about. It was marvelous being able to hear my own thoughts again. Some may have been ridiculous but, hey, they were mine.
To help fill your mind with wonder and insightful musings, check out these books on this year’s first Nerdy Special List.
From Jen at Brown Dog Solutions:
The Wife by Alafair Burke (Harper, January 23)
The Wife centers on a famous man accused of sexual harassment and rape. His wife believes his claims of innocence, but she has skeletons in her closet and fears the attention her husband receives will reveal her secrets to the world.
The suspense is top-notch, the plot twists kept me guessing, and the book had me reading until daybreak. Burke obviously wrote this prior to the #MeToo movement, so once again she proves she has her finger on the pulse of American culture.
Martin Rising: Requiem for a King by Andrea, 9780545702539, January 2)
The final months of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life are told in a series of poems written by Andrea David Pinkney and a collection of paintings from her husband, Brian Pinkney. As a former teacher, I couldn’t help but think how amazing this would be for kids to perform as a slam poetry reading, and as an avid adult reader, I found myself lost in the beauty and inspiration the language and illustrations create, despite their devastating subject. This is truly a celebration of an extraordinary man and his influence on a nation. [Read Jen’s full, starred review at Shelf Awareness.]
From Rory at Fourth Street Review:
Grist Mill Road by Christopher J. Yates (Picador, January 9)
In August of 1982, Matthew ties Hannah to a tree and shoots her with a BB gun that belongs to his friend Patch. In 2008, Hannah and Patch are married and living in New York City, but a chance encounter with Matthew sends their lives into chaos.
What they knew, how they felt, and what really happened is slowly unveiled in this literary thriller. Alternating between the past and the present, Christopher J. Yates masterfully weaves the tension, mania, and despair of the main characters. Grist Mill Road reveals how anger, passion, history, and love bind us in the most unexpected ways.
From Erin at In Real Life:
A Map of the Dark by Karen Ellis (Mulholland, January 2)
When a teenage girl goes missing, FBI Agent Elsa Myers with the Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team is called away from her father’s deathbed to find her. As the complex case progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult for Elsa to keep her personal and professional lives separate.
A Map of the Dark introduces some of the most interesting characters I’ve met. It’s a fantastic start to what will be a long-lived series, and a perfect blend of a procedural with a character-driven story.
From Lauren at Malcolm Avenue Review:
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin (Putnam, January 9)
In the summer of 1969, the four Gold siblings track down the elusive Woman on Hester Street, who they’ve heard can tell fortunes. One by one, they secretly learn the date of their death.
From this intriguing beginning, Chloe Benjamin spins a glorious tale of how knowing their expiration date impacts each of the Gold children over the coming decades. Family, faith, fate, destiny, and dreams are all part of their journeys. Benjamin sucked me in from the first page and wouldn’t let go. This is certainly my first best novel of 2018.
Lullaby Road by James Anderson (Crown, January 16)
Second in a trilogy about desert delivery trucker Ben Jones, Road follows the genius of The Never-Open Desert Diner with more character and atmosphere than you can imagine exists in the Utah high desert.
The eccentric route inhabitants and “friends” who pepper Ben’s days are more than enough to keep the pages turning. Throw in the mysteries of a young child in need and a local icon in trouble and Lullaby Road became my second great novel of 2018. If you’re not reading this series, start.
PCN recommends:
The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor (Crown, January 9)
In this fantastic, cinematic thriller that reads like Stand by Me crossed with The Goonies, a group of prepubescent friends discover a dead body one summer and are still trying to come to terms with it 30 years later.
As I wrote in my Shelf Awareness review, “Tudor is a master conjurer of thrills, crafting tight scenes that make the skin crawl in a fun way, like [while you’re] walking through a haunted house at a carnival.” She also “observes life with deadpan humor” and “infuses her story with heart and the pang of lost love.” If I had a box of chalk, I’d draw arrows pointing you straight to this book.
What was your first read of 2018? What else are you reading this month?
This post includes affiliate links, which might generate small commissions for me if you click on them…assuming I embedded the right links. The updated affiliate system is slightly confusing and maybe these links send commissions to some guy named Ted in Iowa.
David Clawson’s young adult debut is a modern retelling of Cinderella. Following the death of seventeen-year-old Chris’s father, his stepfamily is determined to regain the wealth and social status they lost in the recession. Chris’s stepmother plots to marry her daughter off to J.J. Kennerly, New York’s most eligible bachelor. But her plan goes awry when J.J. falls for Chris instead.
This book should have been called A BOULDER of Hope. Jim St. Germain is a Haitian immigrant who grew up on the streets of Brooklyn, found trouble at a young age, and had the luck to be placed in a rehabilitation program called Boys Town.
Turtle Alveston is 14 years old, being raised by her father. That’s where any sense of normalcy ends, though Turtle doesn’t know that. Raw eggs, guns, and beer begin her day. Turtle does her best to please her survivalist father, but she never quite succeeds.
An orange peel on the cover didn’t tell me much, and by the time I got a copy from the library, I didn’t remember what it was about (seriously, no clue) or what might have intrigued me.
This book is like Ocean’s 11 in book form. Friendship, action, smart dialogue, great pacing, crime, humor, and a little heartbreak. Michael Skellig, highly educated and decorated military veteran, owns Oasis Limo Services, employing a dedicated and unique tribe of fellow veterans. Skellig gets embroiled in the dangerous problems of a client, testing his moral compass and putting everyone around him at risk. The Driver is a rip-roaring good time.
A handsome man with amnesia, an abandoned bride, and long-ago events in a seaside town are somehow linked in this layered, well-paced mystery. The characters ache with loneliness and a desire to belong, making me root for them even while I suspected a happy ending wasn’t possible for everyone. Sometimes I have to pick between strong plot or characters but Lisa Jewell let me have both, plus an atmospheric setting. I’m glad I found her.
Ruth Emmie Lang’s fictional realism debut is heartwarming and inspiring at a time when we could all use a little hope. Weylyn Grey is an orphan raised with wolves before re-integrating into the human realm.
Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Jessica Yu makes her book debut with a true story about an amazing woman making a difference in the lives of Ugandan children.
Cedar Hawk Songmaker is pregnant, living in a near post-apocalyptic world. Evolution is seemingly running backward, with the flora and fauna looking downright prehistoric, and the government is ruled by religion. Pregnant women are being captured and monitored. Cedar knows she has to protect her unborn baby, but how? What, where, and who is safe?
The Savage by Frank Bill (FSG Originals, November 14)
Check out this killer opening line: “Anna Blanc was the most beautiful woman ever to barrel down Long Beach Strand with the severed head of a Chinese man.” This captures the tone of the book—whimsical but deadly.
As the titular character in Rene Denfeld’s The Child Finder, Naomi does exactly what her job description says: find missing children. Madison disappeared three years earlier, at the age of five, and her parents have approached Naomi. The family was in Oregon’s Skookum National Forest to cut down a Christmas tree when the little girl walked away—and seemingly off the edge of the Earth. It’s impossible for Madison to have survived in the wilds and frigid cold by herself. Turns out she didn’t.
We were motivated by a book we both loved, 
PCN: Lemme see what else I can find…there’s an old pouch of Swedish Fish in my bag! Wait, why did you give up snacks for two weeks? Are you a savage?
Want to win signed copies of both IQ and Righteous? Send a message to 
Wiley Cash’s third novel is based on the story of Ella May Wiggins, a white woman working in an integrated North Carolina textile mill. Wiggins works nights six days a week—approximately 70 hours—and earns nine dollars. Abandoned by her husband with four small children, Wiggins has very few options if she wants her family to survive.
Debut author Tochi Onyebuchi has created a profoundly gripping fantasy world, using influence from Nigerian folklore and the age-old, universal idea of haves and have-nots.
In 1962, Gloria Golden and three twentysomething girlfriends live by Prim: A Modern Woman’s Guide to Manners. Then, at a monthly potluck, over martinis and Neil Sedaka on the hi-fi, they explore a copy of The Housewife’s Handbook to Selective Promiscuity.
My tagline when I recommend this debut, and I’ve been doing that quite a bit lately, is “Gird your loins.” It’s not for the faint of heart, but man, is it worth the pain if you’re a fan of grit-lit.
This is the third in a science-fiction series, and I am loving them!
Twenty years ago, as illustrator and author Aaron Caycedo-Kimura was trying to figure out what to do with his life, he made a monumental discovery: he was an introvert, specifically an INFJ, according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. “The description nailed and validated me; among other things, INFJs are deeply emotional, empathetic, relational, and INTROVERTED.”
Pop Culture Nerd: Hey, you there?
At book number 13, I’m still as in love with Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire series as I was at book 1. This installment takes readers into some of Walt’s backstory—the early years with his wife Martha—and a deadly train trip of Wyoming Sheriffs on a locomotive named The Western Star.
This stunning YA novel about three generations of women from an Indian family is both timely and timeless. As teenagers, Sonia and Tara Das move to the United States with their parents. The girls attempt to acclimate to their new home in their individual styles while their mother holds tight to the cultural traditions and norms of India. Their clash of personalities comes to a peak when Sonia elopes with a man her mother disapproves of, causing an estrangement between the two.
Ali gets a job at a psychiatric hospital despite her lack of qualifications, but finds the residents take to her. Her success with patients gets her in trouble with the spooky couple running the facility.
For three years, journalist Jessica Bruder immersed herself in an exploding American subculture—individuals, couples, and families who have forsaken real estate for “wheel estate,” living on the road performing itinerant work to make ends meet.
Seriously, who wouldn’t fall in love with a title like that? Annie Spence is witty and fun, and I think she’d be a blast to work with.
Here I am talking about trying to relax and unwind, and yet I’m recommending this book that kept me TENSE the whole time I was reading it. Sharon Bolton usually has that effect on me. And I love it.