January 2020 list by Donalee Jacobs
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The Age of Anxiety
by Pete Townshend
A debut novel by the influential rock artist traces two generation of life and madness in a modern London family that is upended by apocalyptic visions in the wake of drug-addled, ambition-driven disappearances and murders.
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And the Bride Closed the Door
by Ronit Matalon
In this moving and humorous look at contemporary Israel and the chaotic ups and downs of love everywhere, a family gathers outside the locked door of a bride refusing to get married, not knowing what to do. The family tries an array of unusual tactics to ensure the wedding goes ahead, including a psychologist specializing in brides who change their mind and a ladder truck from the Palestinian Authority electrical company. The only communication they receive from behind the door are scribbled notes, one of them a cryptic poem about a prodigal daughter returning home. The harder they try to reach the defiant woman, the more the despairing groom is convinced her refusal should be respected. But what, exactly, ought to be respected?
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Big Lies in a Small Town
by Diane Chamberlain
Imprisoned for a crime she did not commit, an artist is offered a chance to complete her remaining time by restoring a post office mural in a sleepy Southern town where another artist confronted violent prejudice decades earlier.
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The Country Guesthouse
by Robyn Carr
A woman unexpectedly raising her sister’s son and a man mourning his own child discover healing and community support through their mutual love of the orphaned boy.
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Deep State
by Chris Hauty
When a controversial populist candidate is elected president over an increasingly partisan America, the assassination of the White House chief of staff reveals a far-ranging conspiracy that implicates insiders at the most hidden levels of government.
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Good Girls Lie
by J. T Ellison
In a follow-up to Lie to Me and Tear Me Apart, a popular transfer student at an elite prep school races to protect a dangerous secret when a killer sets her up for a string of murders.
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Hitting a Straight Lick With a Crooked Stick
by Zora Neale Hurston
Featuring eight lesser-known stories, a collection of Harlem Renaissance tales by the revered folklorist and author of Their Eyes Were Watching God explores subjects ranging from class and migration to racism and sexism.
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House on Fire
by Joseph Finder
Eagerly accepting a job investigating whistleblower claims about the manufacturer of an opioid that contributed to an army buddy’s death, Nick Heller uncovers dangerous secrets implicating a powerful family.
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Hunter Killer
by Brad Taylor
When a suspicious attack ends a friend’s life in a lawless region of South America, Pike Logan teams up with Jennifer Cahill to investigate a crew of Russian assassins that may be targeting Taskforce members.
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Lady Takes the Case
by Eliza Casey
When an agricultural depression threatens her ancestral estate, Lady Cecelia Bates of 1912 England is aided by her curiously intelligent cat in identifying the culprit behind a poisoning death.
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A Long Petal of the Sea
by Isabel Allende
Sponsored by the poet Pablo Neruda to flee the violence of the Spanish Civil War, a pregnant widow and an army doctor unite in an arranged marriage only to be swept up by the early days of World War II.
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Lost
by James Patterson
Tasked with combating international crime, Detective Tom Moon searches for two Russian nationals who have built a vast, powerful European crime syndicate that reaches into Miami in this new collaboration from the world’s best-selling author.
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The Majesties
by Tiffany Tsao
A sole survivor of a Chinese-Indonesian family struggles on the edge of a coma to regain consciousness while reexamining tragic elements in her family that may have driven a beloved sister to a shocking act of violence.
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Moral Compass
by Danielle Steel
The students at an elite private school that has admitted females for the first time navigate painful secrets, family dynamics and a prying media in the aftermath of a Halloween event that is upended by a classmate’s alcohol poisoning.
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The Rhythm Section
by Mark Burnell
When Stephanie Patrick learns that a terrorist bomb was responsible for the plane crash that killed her family, she embarks on a plan for revenge that includes training to become a terrorist herself. Movie tie-in.
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The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr
by Susan Holloway Scott
Inspired by a woman and events forgotten by history, best-selling author Susan Holloway Scott weaves together carefully researched fact and fiction to tell the story of Mary Emmons, and the place she held in the life—and the heart—of the notorious Aaron Burr.
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Treason
by Stuart Woods
Helping his close friend discretely identify and remove a destructive traitor hiding within a classified agency, Stone Barrington is embroiled in an audacious plot that threatens to reveal confidential intelligence.
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Trinity Sight
by Jennifer Givhan
Anthropologist Calliope Santiago awakens to find herself in a strange and sinister wasteland, a shadow of the New Mexico she knew. Empty vehicles litter the road. Everyone has disappeared—or almost everyone. Calliope, heavy-bellied with the twins she carries inside her, must make her way across this dangerous landscape with a group of fellow survivors, confronting violent inhabitants, in search of answers. Long-dead volcanoes erupt, the ground rattles and splits, and monsters come to ominous life. The impossible suddenly real, Calliope will be forced to reconcile the geological record with the heritage she once denied if she wants to survive and deliver her unborn babies into this uncertain new world.
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The Vanishing
by Jayne Ann Krentz
Decades after a mysterious explosion causes the members of their community to develop strange otherworldly symptoms, local investigator Cat teams up with an enigmatic scientist to stop a killer who may be behind a partner’s disappearance.
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Westering Women
by Sandra Dallas
Joining other mail-order brides on a dangerous wagon journey to the gold mines of 1852 Chicago, a seamstress with painful secrets discovers strengths she did not know she possessed among a growing sisterhood of fellow women pioneers.
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The Wives
by Tarryn Fisher
A woman in a voluntarily bigamous marriage befriends one of her husband’s other wives by chance, only to discover that the gentle husband she knows may be abusing his other families.
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