The Ruins of California is a coming-of-age story about young and precocious Inez Ruin, whose surname may have a lot to say for her family. Her father Paul is maddening and intriguing, charming and self-obsessive, brilliant and unable to stay in a monogamous relationship. He divorces Inez’s mother Connie and inevitably, a long string of girlfriends comes to fill his life. Inez is forced to grow up in two worlds, the stable one provided by her mother and Grandmother, both hardworking Peruvian-born women, and the world of her father and Grandmother Ruin, old money and just as old traditions including horse riding, tea parties, and lessons in refinement. On top of this, Inez must navigate the Californian highschool landscape of sex, drugs, art, surfing, Nixon, and the ultimate goal of not making a big deal out of anything. The climb to maturity is a long and difficult one; Inez finds that while she may have the strength to make it, her beloved half-brother may not.

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Isabella D’este, daughter of the Duke of Ferrara and born into a life of luxury and art in Renaissance Italy. She’s beautiful and she loves art, so nothing would make her happier than to sit for the court’s painter, Leonardo Di Vinci. Of course, matters become complicated when her younger, less attractive sister Beatrice becomes the intended to Ludovico Sforza, the future Duke of Milan, the only man who can help Isabella achieve what she believes is to be her destiny. Despite being married to a man she loves, Isabella will do anything to get what she wants, even if it means besting her sister to tempt Ludovico and get to be the muse to one of the greatest painters in the world. However, with Ludovico’s nefarious plans to conquer Europe begin to fail and Isabella’s ambitions are the least of her worries, the sisters are forced to choose between family loyalty and survival in an increasingly perilous political environment.

Two men: one was destined to create England’s greatest detective, the other was to suffer misfortune and become a victim of racial injustice. Julian Barnes weaves a luscious historical fiction novel about the 1906 even that had Sir Arthur Conan Doyle come to the aid of George Edalji and defend him from false accusations of mutilating animals and writing obscene, threatening letters to his family. Barnes examines each man’s life with almost clinical precision, finally detailing the time when their paths, having come from two very different directions, finally crossed — all with restrained irony and fascinating prose. Arthur and George is an excellent examination of early 20th century English society and a fascinating character study of one of England’s most beloved authors.

In Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, Emilia Greenleaf’s life is full of mixed blessings. She’s a Harvard Law School-grad who manages to land a job at a prestigious firm and marry her soul mate, Jack. However, in order to do it, she had to break up Jack’s marriage to Carolyn and become stepmother to Jack and Carolyn’s five-year-old precocious son William every Wednesday afternoon. Carolyn’s obsessive and disparaging remarks on Emilia’s job of stepmotherhood are barely manageable, but things come to a head when William pointedly asks Emilia why she doesn’t sell the old baby things of her 2-day old daughter Isabel who died from SIDS. Can Emilia learn to overcome her grief for her lost child, heal the rift in her marriage, and finally bond with her husband’s son? Author Ayelet Waldman weaves an entertaining and oftentimes humorous tale that hits at the heart of true emotion.

Read The Guardian book review here.

The Father of Horror is back with his latest novel Cell, in which the end of the world comes about not through nuclear bombs or stray viruses, but rather through something called the Pulse, an electronic signal that is sent through all cell phones into whomever is using their cell phone at the time and turning them into mindless, blood thirsty zombies. Those lucky to escape the occurence are now left to suffer the aftereffects: planes falling from the sky, cars crashing, and, naturally, gangs of roving zombies hungry for human flesh. The so-called “normies” retreat to the grounds of Gaiten Academy, where the headmaster and his one remaining student may just have the secret weapon to combat this terror and save the rest of humanity.

Author Sarah Dunant’s sophomore novel finds her once again lavishly delving into lush Italian historical fiction, this time centering her story on Fiammetta Biachini, Rome’s most celebrated courtesan, and her clever, loyal dwarf servant Bucino Teodoldo as they barely escape the 1527 sacking of Rome by German and Spanish soldiers to Venice. Now destitute, Fiametta and Bucino begin to rebuild their lives and reclaim their former glory with the help of La Drega, a mysterious blind woman with strange powers who may or may not mean Fiammetta ill will. The Italian Renaissance, from its art and religion to its politics and daily life, is detailed and portrayed beautifully by Durant’s clearly expert hand.

Though Errol Porter’s father has been dead for several years, a madman who meets Errol in the cemetery his father is buried in just happens to look like a younger version of his father and knows intimate details of Errol’s life claims to be just that. Despite his refusal to accept his father’s return, Errol takes the man home and cleans him up. This sparks Errol to embark on a strange journey of self-discovery that leads him to unexpected places that include an ancient, godlike communal organism and roaming bands of fanatic death squads. Somehow, these strange and terrifying instances come to a head when Errol finds himself having to stop humanity from essentially killing God.

After fifty New York Times best-selling novels, Sandra Brown is back with Long Time Coming, where Law Kincaid, a world-famous astronaut with devastatingly handsome good looks once more appears to throw a wrench into Marnie Hibbs’s life. Seventeen years before, Marnie had been just as in love with Kincaid, but understood that she could never get too close to the ladies’ man. Only now, after being anonymously tipped off that he has a son he never knew, Law is curious and tracks down Marnie’s address as directed by his anonymous informant. Marnie denies being the guilty party, but when Law encounters a boy who is the splitting-image of his younger self, it’s like a suckpunch. What’s more, Law learns that Marnie isn’t even the boy’s biological mother. Both tension and undeniable attraction grows, Marnie is forced to reveal a secret she had been keeping for too long, risking losing the boy she loves and the man she desires.

Best-selling author Barbara Taylor Bradford puts a conclusion of the Harte family in her latest novel Just Rewards, an epic, multi-generational story that first began with A Woman of Substance. After 25 years of passion, revenge, envy, and ambition, four women are now at a crossroads. Linnet O’Neill, Emma Harte’s great-granddaughter, dreams of bringing the Harte’s British department store into its former glory, but finds herself alone at the helm. Tesse Fairly, fresh off her divorce, is looking for a new start, which might mean rivaling her sister Linnet for control of the family business. India Standish’s plans for the perfect summer wedding in Ireland come to a halt when her fiance’s daughter comes to stay with them … along with unstable his ex-girlfriend. The Harte’s American cousin Evan Hughes unwittingly brings an enemy into the women’s midst when his sister Angharad takes a liking to Jonathan Ainsley, the Harte family’s deadliest enemy.

Odd Thomas, the man gifted with the ability to see and communicate with the dead, first introduced to readers in Dean Koontz’s 2003 novel of the same name, is back in Forever Odd, where the ghost of his best friend’s father, Dr. Wilbur Jessup, summons Odd to the Jessup home to discover Dr. Jessup’s body and his friend Danny, afflicted by brittle bones, nowhere to be found. Odd uses his gifts to trace the psychic trails left behind to find his endangered friend, but ends up becoming the prey himself when the beautiful and evil Datura wants to use Odd for his supernatural abilities and then kill him.