Time travel, apocalypses, and abduction, oh my! These spring 2015 books include some fantastic sci-fi and speculative fiction that I’m really excited about, plus some shocking stranger-than-fiction real-life stories. Which one are you most excited about?
Girl in the Dark: A Memoir
Author: Anna Lyndsey
Anna is a young woman with a fast-paced job at a hectic government office when she develops an unusual health problem: light makes her face hurt. As her mysterious condition spreads to her entire body, Anna realizes she can no longer live normally or take care of herself. Her only solution is retreating to a stifling, light-proof box of a room, her “lair.” After much frustration, she’s eventually diagnosed with an extremely rare light-sensitivity disorder for which there’s no treatment. Although the life she once took for granted is gone forever, Anna works to create a life worth living and learns to value what she has: a caring family, a lively mind, a patient and supportive partner, and the occasional stolen moment outside in the darkest night. See our full review.
A Desperate Fortune
Author: Susanna Kearsley
Historical fiction, encrypted journals, and romance — everything I love in a book! This story follows two women connected by a mysterious journal. In the 18th century, the naive and idealistic Mary Dundas works in secret for the Jacobite rebellion, embarking on a life of danger and adventure for the principles she believes in. Meanwhile, in the present day, amateur codebreaker Sara Thomas travels to Paris to decode Mary’s secret journal. Sara, who has Asperger’s syndrome, struggles with the equally hard-to-decipher “code” of human emotions and communication, and now faces a new challenge: navigating her way through a budding romance.
The Dead Lands: A Novel
Author: Benjamin Percy
This might just be the first post-apocalyptic retelling of the Lewis and Clark story. In the near future, a deadly combination of superflu and nuclear fallout have destroyed our world. A few tenacious humans manage to survive in protected communities under martial law, such as the Sanctuary (formerly St. Louis. Missouri). One day, a rider on horseback visits the Sanctuary, bringing enticing news of the west, where rain falls, crops grow, and civilization flourishes. But it’s not without danger: a merciless army attacks and enslaves every outpost they find. A small group, led by Lewis Meriwether and Mina Clark, secretly embark to the west, hoping to reunite the isolated communities into a strong nation. But the Sanctuary isn’t about to let them go without a fight.
Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland
Authors: Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus
I love a good true-crime book, and here we have something pretty unique: three different perspectives on the same horrific crime. I’m speaking, of course, of Ariel Castro, who imprisoned and abused three women for many years in Cleveland, Ohio. Michelle Knight previously wrote her own memoir, and now the other two women — Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus — have written their own. Check out our newly updated Girls, Abducted reading list for more suspenseful true-crime books about real-life abduction survivors.
The Memory Painter
Author: Gwendolyn Womack
Here’s another one for my time-travel romance reading list! Bryan Pierce is a world-famous artist with a secret: his paintings are inspired by powerfully vivid dreams. When he awakens from these dreams, he possesses strange new skills, like fluently speaking an arcane language or suddenly being a chess grandmaster. Neurogeneticist Linz Jacobs, deeply shaken by seeing one of her own nightmares as a painting of Bryan’s, tracks him down to study the bizarre phenomenon. Then Bryan has a new vision: a team of scientists who were on the verge of finding a cure for Alzheimer’s when they all died in a lab explosion. As Bryan’s dreams reveal more about the scientists, he becomes obsessed with finding the truth about what happened… but someone out there will stop at nothing to make sure the past stays buried. Plus, time travel to ancient Egypt! What more could you want?
Seveneves
Author: Neal Stephenson
While I haven’t been a huge fan of Neal Stephenson’s last couple of books, this apocalyptic new sci-fi novel sounds very promising indeed. When the destruction of Earth’s moon starts a countdown clock ticking, international groups work together in a last-ditch effort toward humanity’s survival — a genetic ark in outer space. Naturally, disaster strikes, and only a handful of viable humans survive, the “seven Eves” of the book’s title. Five thousand years later, this tiny group has grown to a population of several billion, and they’re ready to try reinhabiting Earth. But are they prepared for their ancestral planet to be utterly transformed? Stephenson uses plausible extensions of present-day space technology to create a believable and thought-provoking work of speculative fiction that’s not afraid to tackle the big topics.
The Water Knife
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
This chillingly timely thriller makes water rights more exciting than you’d ever imagined. When the Southwest is devastated by extreme drought, Nevada and Arizona battle over access to the Colorado River, while California plots a hostile takeover of the river’s entire water supply. Detective (and sometimes assassin) Angel Velasquez is a “water knife” who illegally diverts water supplies for the Southern Nevada Water Authority — allowing its powerful boss, Catherine Case, control over the region. As rumors grow about a big new water source in Phoenix, Velasquez heads to Arizona to find out the truth, teaming up with a tough journalist and a migrant girl from Texas. Can they survive this dangerous life-and-death game of power and corruption in the desert?
- Spring 2020 Book Preview - May 15, 2020
- Winter 2020 Book Preview - January 1, 2020
- Fall 2019 Book Preview - September 26, 2019
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