The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty: Daevabad has fallen. After a brutal conquest stripped the city of its magic, Nahid leader Banu Manizheh and her resurrected commander, Dara, must try to repair their fraying alliance and stabilize a fractious, warring people. Nahri and Ali, now safe in Cairo, face difficult choices of their own. As peace grows more elusive and old players return, Nahri, Ali, and Dara come to understand that in order to remake the world they may need to fight those they once loved.
The Golden Cage by Camilla Lackberg: Jack, the perpetual golden boy, grew up wealthy, unlike Faye, who has worked hard to bury a dark past. When Jack needs help launching a new company, Faye leaves school to support him. Then Faye finds herself alone, shattered, and financially devastated–but hell hath no fury like a woman with a violent past bent on vengeance. Jack is about to get exactly what he deserves–and so much more.
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue: In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at a hospital where expectant mothers who have fallen sick are quarantined into a separate ward to keep the plague at bay. Into Julia’s world step two outsiders: a woman doctor who is a rumored Rebel and a teenage girl procured from an orphanage as an extra set of hands. In the intensity of this ward, over three brutal days, Julia and the women come together in unexpected ways.
The Darkest Evening by Ann Cleeves: On the first snowy night of winter, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope finds a car has skidded off a narrow road, its door left open, and she stops to help. There is no driver, so Vera assumes that the owner has gone to find help. But a cry calls her back: a toddler is strapped in the back seat. Vera takes the child and, driving on, she arrives at a place she knows well. Inside, there’s a party in full swing. Outside, a woman lies dead in the snow.
The Geometry of Holding Hands by Alexander McCall Smith: In Edinburgh, the latest whispers hint at mysterious goings-on, and who but Isabel can be trusted to get to the bottom of them? At the same time, she must deal with her two small children, her husband, and her rather tempestuous niece, Cat, whose latest romantic entanglement comes–to no one’s surprise–with complications. Still, even with so much going on, Isabel, through the application of good sense, logic, and ethics, will triumph.
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell: A thrilling departure: a short, piercing, deeply moving novel about the death of Shakespeare’s 11 year old son Hamnet–a name interchangeable with Hamlet in 15th century Britain–and the years leading up to the production of his great play. Hamnet offers luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a hypnotic recreation of the story that inspired one of the greatest masterpieces of all time.
The Order by Daniel Silva: When Pope Paul VII dies suddenly, Gabriel is summoned to Rome by the Holy Father’s loyal private secretary, Archbishop Luigi Donati. A billion Catholic faithful have been told that the pope died of a heart attack. Donati, however, has two good reasons to suspect his master was murdered. The Swiss Guard who was standing watch outside the papal apartments the night of the pope’s death is missing. So, too, is the letter the Holy Father was writing during the final hours of his life. A letter that was addressed to Gabriel.
Relentless by R.A. Salvatore: Displaced in time and unexpectedly reunited with his son, Drizzt Do’Urden, Zaknafein has overcome the prejudices ingrained in him as a drow warrior to help his son battle the ambitious Spider Queen and stem the tide of darkness that has been unleashed upon the Forgotten Realms. When circumstances take an unexpected turn, Zaknafein discovers he must not only conquer the darkness but learn to accept the uncontrollable: life itself.
Shadows in Death by J.D. Robb: While Eve examines a fresh body in Washington Square Park, her husband, Roarke, spots a man among the onlookers he’s known since his younger days on the streets of Dublin. A man who claims to be his half-brother. A man who kills for a living and who burns with hatred for him. Eve is quick to suspect that the victim’s spouse resentful over his wife’s affair and poised to inherit her fortune would have happily paid an assassin to do his dirty work. Roarke is just as quick to warn her that if Lorcan Cobbe is the hitman, she needs to be careful.