Some of the Most Anticipated Books of 2019

 

 

As an avid reader, I am always looking out for books and book reviews and watching to see which books are coming out. If I see a list of books, I will read it and go over to Goodreads to mark the books TO-READ so I don’t forget.

From my reading, I have seen many lists of books eagerly anticipated for 2019.  These are some of them…

 

 

I’ve seen The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides mentioned over and over again. I was lucky to get a sneak peek and started it last night. Yes, it’s very good and once you start reading, you don’t want to stop. I read for a solid two hours and only put the book down because I needed to get some sleep.

There are so many ways a story can be told. This one is told from the point of view of a psychotherapist who takes a job at a hospital for the sole purpose of treating a woman who shot her husband in the face then proceeded to not utter a single word for years.  Why did she shoot him? What was going on in their marriage? Why is she silent now?

Theo is determined to find the answers.

Here’s the official synopsis:

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him.

 

I can’t wait to continue reading. Its every bit as good as I hoped it would be with a real sense of suspense.

 

 

Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce is another thrilling page-turner. This is another highly anticipated book that is getting great early reviews. I read it quickly, and its dark and creepy. In other words, you need to read it!

Alison has it all. A doting husband, adorable daughter, and a career on the rise – she’s just been given her first murder case to defend. But all is never as it seems…
She’s neglecting her family. And she’s having an affair with a colleague whose taste for pushing boundaries may be more than she can handle.

Alison’s client doesn’t deny that she stabbed her husband – she wants to plead guilty. And yet something about her story is deeply amiss. Saving this woman may be the first step to Alison saving herself.  But someone knows Alison’s secrets. Someone who wants to make her pay for what she’s done, and who won’t stop until she’s lost everything…

The main character is deeply flawed and almost unlikeable yet the reader is completely pulled into the story.  There are twists and turns and it’s a moody thriller that’s both a family and legal drama. It’s a fast read that is plotted and paced well which keeps your turning the pages.

 

 

I featured this book recently and I wanted to talk about it again! Two Can Keep A Secret by Karen M. McManus is eagerly anticipated by fans of YA and those of us who love a suspenseful thriller. I read this one in two nights. I know a book is super duper good by the way I cannot stop thinking about it all day. I wanted to know who was responsible for killing the young girls in this story. So many people had the potential to be a killer…

Echo Ridge is small-town America. Ellery’s never been there, but she’s heard all about it. Her aunt went missing there at age seventeen. And only five years ago, a homecoming queen put the town on the map when she was killed. Now Ellery has to move there to live with a grandmother she barely knows.

The town is picture-perfect, but it’s hiding secrets. And before school even begins for Ellery, someone’s declared open season on homecoming, promising to make it as dangerous as it was five years ago. Then, almost as if to prove it, another girl goes missing.

Ellery knows all about secrets. Her mother has them; her grandmother does too. And the longer she’s in Echo Ridge, the clearer it becomes that everyone there is hiding something. The thing is, secrets are dangerous–and most people aren’t good at keeping them. Which is why in Echo Ridge, it’s safest to keep your secrets to yourself.

Even if you don’t normally gravitate towards YA, I think you will like this one!

 

 

I’ve seen this book on a few lists, When All Is Said by Anne Griffin promises to deliver a wonderful story that you won’t want to end.  This appealed to me from the description:

If you had to pick five people to sum up your life, who would they be? If you were to raise a glass to each of them, what would you say? And what would you learn about yourself, when all is said and done?

This is the story of Maurice Hannigan, who, over the course of a Saturday night in June, orders five different drinks at the Rainford House Hotel. With each he toasts a person vital to him: his doomed older brother, his troubled sister-in-law, his daughter of fifteen minutes, his son far off in America, and his late, lamented wife. And through these people, the ones who left him behind, he tells the story of his own life, with all its regrets and feuds, loves and triumphs.

Like I have mentioned many times, I love a book with quirky characters and an unusual plot.  I really enjoy books that make me think, get me a little teary eyed. From the early reviews and the fact that I have seen this novel on several lists, I know Im not only going to love it but will be watching for future works from Anne Griffin.

 

 

The Escape Room by Megan Goldin is getting lots of praise and for good reason! It’s one that has stuck out in my mind as a really fantastic story with a jaw-dropping conclusion. Set in New York City in the cut-throat world of finance, four investment bankers head to a mandatory “escape room” challenge but shortly after entering, they realize there is no easy way out. In fact, there are barely any clues. What is going on?

The fast pace of the book will keep you on the edge of your seat. I liked it from the first few pages but the more I read, the more into it I got.

In the lucrative world of Wall Street finance, Vincent, Jules, Sylvie and Sam are the ultimate high-flyers. Ruthlessly ambitious, they make billion-dollar deals and live lives of outrageous luxury. Getting rich is all that matters, and they’ll do anything to get ahead.

When the four of them become trapped in an elevator escape room, things start to go horribly wrong. They have to put aside their fierce office rivalries and work together to solve the clues that will release them. But in the confines of the elevator the dark secrets of their team are laid bare. They are made to answer for profiting from a workplace where deception, intimidation and sexual harassment thrive.

Tempers fray and the escape room’s clues turn more and more ominous, leaving the four of them dangling on the precipice of disaster. If they want to survive, they’ll have to solve one final puzzle: which one of them is a killer?

 

 

My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing is twisted and crazy! You read this and hope there are not people like the main characters living in your neighborhood. I was intrigued by the synopsis and read this book quickly! Fans of dark thrillers will love the high creep factor.

Our love story is simple. I met a gorgeous woman. We fell in love. We had kids. We moved to the suburbs. We told each other our biggest dreams, and our darkest secrets. And then we got bored.

We look like a normal couple. We’re your neighbors, the parents of your kid’s friend, the acquaintances you keep meaning to get dinner with.

We all have secrets to keeping a marriage alive. Ours just happens to be getting away with murder.

It’s shocking and pretty evil, definitely, a good thriller/suspense that you will want to imagine that your perfectly normal neighbors have a hidden dark side!

 

 

I LOVED THIS BOOK! I have given Fiona Barton’s newest novel, The Suspect, five stars on Goodreads and wrote about it a few weeks ago.  This is the case of reading the right book at the right time when I was in the mood for a really, really gripping story.

The writing, pacing, storyline, characters are perfectly braided together to create a story you don’t want to put down until you know everything.

Here’s the premise:

When two eighteen-year-old girls go missing on their gap year in Thailand, their families are thrust into the international spotlight: desperate, bereft and frantic with worry.

Journalist Kate Waters always does everything she can to be first to the story, first with the exclusive, first to discover the truth – and this time is no exception. But she can’t help but think of her own son, who she hasn’t seen in two years since he left home to go traveling. This time it’s personal.

And as the case of the missing girls unfolds, they will all find that even this far away, danger can lie closer to home than you might think

 

 

I love historical fiction. And I love the East Coast of the USA. So when I saw the description of Montauk by Nicola Harrison, my interest was piqued. Let’s take a second to appreciate this beautiful cover!

Okay, now for the premise of the book:

Montauk, Long Island, 1938.

For three months, this humble fishing village will serve as the playground for New York City’s wealthy elite. Beatrice Bordeaux was looking forward to a summer of reigniting the passion between her and her husband, Harry. Instead, tasked with furthering his investment interest in Montauk as a resort destination, she learns she’ll be spending twelve weeks sequestered with the high society wives at The Montauk Manor—a two-hundred room seaside hotel—while Harry pursues other interests in the city.

College educated, but raised a modest country girl in Pennsylvania, Bea has never felt fully comfortable among these privileged women, whose days are devoted not to their children but to leisure activities and charities that seemingly benefit no one but themselves. She longs to be a mother herself, as well as a loving wife, but after five years of marriage she remains childless while Harry is increasingly remote and distracted. Despite lavish parties at the Manor and the Yacht Club, Bea is lost and lonely and befriends the manor’s laundress whose work ethic and family life stir memories of who she once was.

As she drifts further from the society women and their preoccupations and closer toward Montauk’s natural beauty and community spirit, Bea finds herself drawn to a man nothing like her husband –stoic, plain spoken and enigmatic. Inspiring a strength and courage she had almost forgotten, his presence forces her to face a haunting tragedy of her past and question her future.

Desperate to embrace moments of happiness, no matter how fleeting, she soon discovers that such moments may be all she has, when fates conspire to tear her world apart.

 

I am already in love with this book based on that synopsis.  It reminds of when I was a teenager and read all kind of historical fiction set in the English countryside about the scullery maids who fall in love with the wrong man. It’s the kind of story that can break your heart and make you feel all the feelings. I am so looking forward to this book!

 

 

I found this book yesterday on a huge list of books coming out in 2019. I want to read it! Michelle Campbell’s new novel is A Stranger on the Beach.  I read Michelle’s novel, The Quiet One and liked it so I have a feeling that I will like this one too. Especially after reading the synopsis!

Described as Strangers on a Train meets Fatal Attraction, what more do we need to know?

There is a stranger outside Caroline’s house.  Her spectacular new beach house, built for hosting expensive parties and vacationing with the family she thought she’d have. But her husband is lying to her and everything in her life is upside down, so when the stranger, Aiden, shows up as a bartender at the same party where Caroline and her husband have a very public fight, it doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary.

As her marriage collapses around her and the lavish lifestyle she’s built for herself starts to crumble, Caroline turns to Aiden for comfort…and revenge. After a brief and desperate fling that means nothing to Caroline and everything to him, Aiden’s obsession with Caroline, her family, and her house grows more and more disturbing. And when Caroline’s husband goes missing, her life descends into a nightmare that leaves her accused of her own husband’s murder.

I want to read this book ASAP!

What books are on your Most Anticipated List for 2019?