February 17, 2023

New Fiction

All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham – One year ago, Isabelle Drake’s life changed forever: her toddler son, Mason, was taken out of his crib in the middle of the night while she and her husband were asleep in the next room.  With little evidence and few leads for the police to chase, the case quickly went cold.  However, Isabelle cannot rest until Mason is returned to her – literally.  Except for the occasional catnap or small blackout where she loses track of time, she hasn’t slept in a year.  Isabelle’s entire existence now revolves around finding him, but she knows she can’t go on this way forever.  In hopes of jarring loose a new witness or buried clue, she agrees to be interviewed by a true-crime podcaster – but his interest in Isabelle’s past makes her nervous.  His incessant questioning paired with her severe insomnia have brought up uncomfortable memories from her own childhood, making Isabelle start to doubt her recollection of the night of Mason’s disappearance, as well as second-guess who she can trust…including herself.  But she is determined to figure out the truth no matter where it leads.

The Night Travelers by Armando Lucas Correa – Berlin, 1931.  Ally Keller, a talented young poet, is alone and scared when she gives birth to Lilith, the child she conceived with her lover, a Black jazz musician who has now disappeared.  As a mixed-race child growing up during the Nazis’ rise to power, Lilith will spend her childhood confined to the shadows, safe only in the night.  As Lilith nears her seventh birthday, Ally sets in motion a plan that will send Lilith to safety halfway around the world, while Ally herself stays behind to face the horrors of war.  Havana, 1959.  Her life in Berlin a distant memory, Lilith falls in love with and marries Martin Bernal, a pilot in the Cuban air force with strong ties to the Batista government.  As the flames of revolution ignite in Cuba and engulf her family, Lilith gives birth to a daughter, Nadine, and finds herself forced to make a terrible choice to protect her child.  Berlin, 1988.  Nadine is a scientist and scholar in Berlin, dedicated to ensuring the dignity of the remains of all those murdered by the Nazis.  But it is her own family’s history that she has spent a lifetime avoiding.  It will take the encouragement of her daughter, Luna, to allow Nadine to uncover the truth about the sacrifices her mother and grandmother made to ensure the survival of their children.  And it will fall to Luna to come to terms with a shocking betrayal and an unexpected return that change everything she thought she knew.

Hold My Girl by Charlene Carr – Katherine is a woman full of obsessions.  Everything clean, everything perfect, all the time.  After seven years of trying-and failing- to conceive, she finally gives birth to Rose, her IVF miracle child.  But she’s always feared that Rose may not be her daughter, Rose’s pale skin not matching Katherine’s own.  Tess never got her happy ending.  She underwent IVF alongside Katherine and a group of hopeful mothers, but her daughter, Hanna, was stillborn.  After a series of poor choices, Tess is divorced, broke, and stuck in a job beneath her skill set.  When Rose is ten months old, both Katherine and Tess get a call from the fertility clinic – the women’s eggs were switched.  Katherine’s perfect world begins to crumble around her, but for Tess it’s the glimmer of hope she needs to get her life back on track.  It will take a custody suit to decide who deserves to be Rose’s mother, a battle that will push both women to the brink.

Stolen by Ann-Helen Laestadius – It is Winter, north of the Arctic Circle.  A few hours of pale light is all the sun has to offer before the landscape is once more enveloped in complete darkness.  This is Sapmi, land of the Sami, Scandinavia’s Indigenous people.  Nine-year-old Elsa is the daughter of Sami reindeer herders.  Her community is under constant threat- from the Swedish population who don’t always value the Sami way of life, from the government that wants to claim their land for mining, and from violent poachers who slaughter reindeer for sport and for sale on the black market.  One morning, when Elsa goes skiing alone, she witnesses a man brutally killing her beloved reindeer calf.  Fearing for her own life and the lives of her family members, she remains silent.  Ten years pass, and Elsa is now trying to claim a role for herself in her community, where male elders expect young women to know their place.  Meanwhile, hostility toward the Sami is escalating, and the police won’t do anything to protect them.  When Elsa becomes the target of the man who killed her reindeer calf all those years ago, something inside her breaks.  The guilt, fear, and anger she’s been carrying since childhood come crashing over her, leading to a final catastrophic confrontation.