Part thriller, part love story, and part ode to rural Kentucky, “Mind Games” is New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts latest addition to her huge library of work, over 200 books and counting. Often, Roberts dabbles in the paranormal in her novels, and in this one, the main character has a “gift” and is able to read the minds of others. This is a gift that has been passed on to the women in her family for generations, and Thea’s gift is strong.
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Author Douglas Preston’s latest novel, “Extinction,” fits comfortably into several genre spaces. It’s definitely a murder mystery, certainly a science fiction piece, and, eventually, absolutely a horror story which, incidentally, could quite easily be adapted as movie material.
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In her latest murder mystery, “The Last Time She Saw Him,” New York Times bestselling author Kate White chooses an unusual relationship between the victim and the person investigating his death. Kiki Reed is a complicated person with a complicated past, and her latest complication is Jamie Larsson, the really nice, standup guy she was engaged to and whom she broke up with before the marriage. He was deeply in love with Kiki, but she realized that while she loved him, she wasn’t in love with him. His family and friends have not forgiven her.
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Kelley Armstrong’s time travel series “A Rip Through Time” is clever, with a fascinating premise and much informative detail about life in Victorian Edinburgh through Armstrong’s deft melding of fact and fiction. And those are just a few of the many reasons to read this series. In this latest mystery in the series, “Disturbing the Dead,” main character Mallory is “treated” to the Victorian fad of all things Egyptian as she and Dr. Gray attend a mummy unwrapping party. Of course, being that Mallory is from the 21st century and has been thrown back to Victorian Edinburgh, she retains modern sensibilities and knows that unwrapping a mummy is a completely disrespectful manner in which to treat the remains of a human being. Many in that time also share that belief, but what the aristocracy want, they get. As is wont to happen in a murder mystery, the unwrapping party leads to a murder that Mallory and her friends will spend the novel solving.
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Imagine sending an honest letter to those who have wronged you so that after your death, everyone knows how you really felt. Now imagine those heartfelt, very frank letters being sent accidentally before your death. In “One Last Word,” author Suzanne Park imagines that happening to Sara Chae, who has been working on an app she thinks has great potential. But when her honest emails go out to her former employers, her former landlord, her parents, and even a former high school crush, she has a lot to worry about.
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Newberry Medal winner Erin Entrada Kelly’s new middle grade novel, “The First State of Being,” is a delightful, thoughtful, and thought-provoking work which explores both the potential problems and fascinating possibilities of time travel. The novel features two young protagonists, both quite brilliant, and both of whom find themselves in situations and locations which reveal their mutual discomfort in new and unfamiliar surroundings.
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There are several mysteries in Sally Hepworth’s new novel, “Darling Girls.” The first, and the vehicle she uses to bring the main characters back to their childhood foster home of nightmares, is the bones found buried under the large farmhouse where they lived. Holly Fairchild, Miss Fairchild to the three sisters, took in foster children. It was decades later, when she sold the home and it was demolished, that the bones were found.
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