Spring has sprung, and it’s time to enjoy some fresh air and sunshine and dive into a new book (or two!). This month, we’ve got fiction of all types, including literary fiction, historical fiction, and fiction with a touch of magic. We also have the new Barbara Walters biography and two mystery/thrillers. There is something for every imagination on our list of new books to read!
Sandy’s Reading List
A Table for Two by Amor Towles | Literary Fiction
A Table for Two is a collection of six stories set in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood, written with the author’s signature wit, humor, and sophistication. Each story has a moment in which two characters face each other across a kitchen table, confronting some new reality.
She’s Not Sorry by Mary Kubica | Crime Thriller
In She’s Not Sorry, a woman arrives at the hospital in a coma with a traumatic brain injury due to her fall from a bridge. Was it suicide? Did someone push her? An ICU nurse accidentally uncovers a patient’s frightening past in this chilling thriller. In this slow-burn book, the writer successfully weaves together multiple dark storylines.
Rule Breaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters by Susan Page | Biography
When TV exploded on the American scene in the 1960s, Barbara Walters was a force. She is on the short list of those who have left the most prominent imprints on television news and our culture, male or female. It is the eye-opening account of the woman who knew she had to break all the rules.
The Husbands by Holly Gramazio | Magical Fiction
Lauren returns home from a bachelorette party to be greeted by her husband, Michael, except she doesn’t remember being married, now or ever. Every time her husband enters the attic, a new one replaces the old one. As Lauren pursues her seemingly endless options, she must consider which life suits her.
Funny Story by Emily Henry | Humor
Funny Stories is about someone falling in love with her ex-fiancee’s new fiancee’s ex-boyfriend. The new lovers plot together and send photos of their summer adventures to their past loves. They each receive wedding invitations from the “new” couple and respond with “yes” RSVPs, which surprises the ex. Then, their pretend dating becomes real.
The Beautiful People by Michelle Gable | Historical Fiction
Set against the glamorous 1960s, The Beautiful People is a novel about a failed debutant with a new job as assistant to society photographer Slim Aarons. She is thrown headfirst into the glamorous jet-set world she so covets, observing its ways from behind the camera as Slim’s sidekick. She knows this opportunity is her ticket to something better.
Daughter of Mine by Megan Miranda | Mystery/Thriller
In Daughter of Mine, the daughter of the longtime local detective unexpectedly inherits her childhood home. The mystery centers on the disputed inheritance and the unfinished family business from the past. This simmering small-town drama has delicious twists, dark secrets, and a deadly past.
In Case You Missed It: Here are Sandy’s Selections from May 2023!
Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls | Literary Saga
Hang the Moon is a story about the people of Virginia in their complexities, tangled family bonds, and explosive romantic relationships. Epic in scope, the novel is a thrill ride through prohibition and change in the American South, where hucksters and opportunists, fallen women, and upright moralists kept their secrets to the grave.
Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge | Mystery
Mastering The Art of French Murder is set in 1950’s Paris and connects with Julia Child and her famous cookbook. This mystery focuses on Julia’s American best friend when she is trying to protect Julia and her sister from being arrested. A body has been found in their cellar, and the murder weapon found nearby is recognizable — a knife from Julia’s kitchen.
The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel | Nonfiction
Two daughters follow their scientist mother to the Arctic in an attempt to “de-extinct” the woolly mammoth. There, they find a nearly perfectly preserved mammoth and embark on a process to bring it back to life. The Last Animal is about scientific discovery, but it’s also about being a mom to teenage girls and enjoying the chaos of life with family by your side.
My Cousin Maria Schneider by Vanessa Schneider | Memoir
Composed like a posthumous love letter to her cousin, Vanessa Schneider’s memoir captures their sisterly bond with tenderness and grace. My Cousin Maria Schneider is an exquisite portrait of a tragic heroine whose story offers a heartrending example of the cruelty of powerful men. Bertolucci made Maria Schneider a star and ruined her life when he cast her in Last Tango in Paris.
A Woman of Influence by Vanessa Wilkie | Historical Fiction
A Woman of Influence tells the spectacular life story of Alice Spencer, who rose from a family of sixteenth-century sheep farmers to riches and power as the Countess of Derby. This book carefully pieces together the true tales of a remarkable woman who outlasted two husbands, accusations of treason, a family sex scandal, countless lawsuits, and three monarchs.
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld | Fiction
Romantic Comedy is set on a fictional TV show, “The Night Owls,” which follows SNL in its format as well as in its penchant for male cast members dating the celebrity hosts. But famous, wealthy men that host TNO never find any women cast members attractive. A comedy writer thinks she’s sworn off love until a handsome pop star flips the script on all her assumptions.
Happy Place by Emily Henry | Fiction
Every year for the last decade, college sweethearts-turned-engaged couples have joined their friends at a cottage in Maine for a weeklong getaway. But one of the couples broke up five months ago and still hasn’t told their best friends. How hard can it be to fake it for one week? Happy Place is a second-chance romance full of vulnerability, growth, and love that tugs on our heartstrings and gives us higher hopes for love.
In Case You Missed It: Here are Sandy’s Selections from May 2022!
The Worth of Water by Matt Damon and Gary White | Nonfiction
The Worth of Water shares how access to safe water and sanitation has changed the lives of 40 million people around the world. Access to safe water at home turns poverty into possibility — unlocking education, economic opportunity, and improved health. The Worth of Water is involved in the pursuit of clean water for everyone globally.
The Price of a Contract by Ellen Kingman Fisher| Historical Fiction
The Price of a Contract is a captivating love story set in the late 1890s that addresses timeless issues with relationships, personal decisions, and business ethics. It’s the story of America’s westward expansion, brought on by the trains and the telegraph during the tumultuous era of greed, political corruption, and inequality known as “The Gilded Age.”
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan | Literary Fiction
The Candy House centers on a new technology – “Own Your Unconscious” – that allows people to save and share all their memories. The book uses tweets and emails from the future to illustrate what happens when we have access to each other’s most private thoughts. The Candy House delivers an extraordinary combination of fierce, exhilarating intelligence and heart.
Finding Me by Viola Davis | Biography
Viola Davis is the 56-year-old Oscar, Emmy, and Tony-winning actor and the first Black woman to win the acting triple crown. Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to herself. She hopes that this story will inspire the reader to light up their own life with creative expression and rediscover who they are in the world.
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel | Time Travel Fiction
Sea of Tranquility is a novel about art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon three hundred years later. The Story is told in multiple time periods, including the far future, and there is a satisfying and well-told pandemic angle. Mandel plays with the idea of parallel worlds and presents a puzzle about the nature of time and reality that surprises again.
The Wise Women by Gina Sorell | Fiction
The Wise Women is a witty and wild novel set in New York City about two adult daughters and their meddling advice columnist mother. As the three women confront the disappointments and heartaches that have accumulated between them over the years, they discover that the future may look different from the one that they expected—and that future may even be brighter than they’d hoped.
CLASSIC: Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier | Suspense Novel
Rebecca is a 1938 Gothic novel—a psychological thriller about a young woman who becomes obsessed with her husband’s first wife. It spans several themes, including love and marriage, death and memory, and justice and deceit. Rebecca was later adapted for TV, film, and the stage, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Academy Award-winning film (1940), starring Laurence Olivier as Maxim and Joan Fontaine as his second wife.
If you are an Amazon Prime member, you get a free Prime Read each month. Right now, our favorite is Close to Home by L.T. Ryan and K.M. Rought.
Read Next:
Sandy’s Selections: February Reading List
