A blog I visit daily, The Story Siren, has a really neat feature called “books to pine for.” She gathers together forthcoming titles that have piqued her interest – and usually mine, too. Since I’m such a fan of the feature (and her blog, which is a terrific read for all of us who thoroughly enjoy young adult fiction,) I thought it might be a good idea to bring it to Read This!
So, here are a few books I’m pining for…
Drood by Dan Simmons
On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens–at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world–hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever. Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the worst slums of London and his deepening obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a hidden subterranean London mere research . . . or something more terrifying? Just as he did in The Terror, Dan Simmons draws impeccably from history to create a gloriously engaging and terrifying narrative. Based on the historical details of Charles Dickens’s life and narrated by Wilkie Collins (Dickens’s friend, frequent collaborator, and Salieri-style secret rival), DROOD explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the famous author’s last years and may provide the key to Dickens’s final, unfinished work: The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts by Laura Benedict
Alice, Roxanne, and Del have been best friends since childhood—a childhood full of silly games, growing pains, and a hint of the kind of cruelty that only young girls know. Now, Alice’s marriage is over, her husband having a child with another woman. Roxanne, an artist, is losing touch with everyone who cares for her—and perhaps with reality. And Del is soldiering through, but her friends see a dark cloud gathering in her eyes. The instrument of their destruction is a single enigmatic man—Varick. Seemingly summoned from the air, the strikingly handsome Varick is a lonely woman’s dream come true. But as Varick seduces the women in turn, their lives become unrecognizable to them. But where has he come from? And what does he want? His secret lies buried in their shared past. One simple, childish act has brought them, all these years later, to a place where not only their lives are at risk, but so are their souls. For once upon a time, the three friends agreed to tell a lie—one that ruined the life of a young priest. Defrocked, destitute, and ruined, he hoped with the whole of his shattered heart that he would get revenge. And in that hope he shook hands with the one who promised it. The devil himself. Varick. And now they all must live with the consequences. . . .
Bone Crossed (4th book in the Mercy Thompson series) by Patricia Briggs
In a world where “witches, vampires, werewolves, and shape-shifters live beside ordinary people” (Booklist), it takes a very unusual woman to call it home. By day, Mercy Thompson is a car mechanic in Eastern Washington. By night, she explores her preternatural side. As a shape-shifter with some unusual talents, Mercy’s found herself maintaining a tenuous harmony between the human and the not-so- human on more than one occasion. This time she may get more than she bargained for.