Here are a few non-romance books I plan to read this summer.
A Reliable Wife (2009) by Robert Goolrick – Historical Fiction
Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for “a reliable wife.” But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she’s not the “simple, honest woman” that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple: she will win this man’s devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is that Truitt – a passionate man with his own dark secrets -has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds in unimaginable ways. With echoes of “Wuthering Heights” and “Rebecca,” Robert Goolrick’s intoxicating debut novel delivers a classic tale of suspenseful seduction, set in a world that seems to have gone temporarily off its axis.
The Children’s Book (2009) by A.S. Byatt – Historical Fiction
Olive Wellwood is a famous writer, interviewed with her children gathered at her knee. For each of them she writes a separate private book, bound in different colours and placed on a shelf. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world – but their lives, and those of their rich cousins, children of a city stockbroker, and their friends, the son and daughter of a curator at the new Victoria and Albert Museum, are already inscribed with mystery. Each family carries its own secrets. Into their world comes a young stranger, a working-class boy from the potteries, drawn by the beauty of the Museum’s treasures. And in midsummer a German puppeteer arrives, bringing dark dramas. The world seems full of promise but the calm is already rocked by political differences, by Fabian arguments about class and free love, by the idealism of anarchists from Russia and Germany. The sons rebel against their parents’ plans; the girls dream of independent futures, becoming doctors or fighting for the vote. This vivid, rich and moving saga is played out against the great, rippling tides of the day, taking us from the Kent marshes to Paris and Munich and the trenches of the Somme. Born at the end of the Victorian era, growing up in the golden summers of Edwardian times, a whole generation grew up unaware of the darkness ahead. In their innocence, they were betrayed unintentionally by the adults who loved them. In a profound sense, this novel is indeed the children’s book.
Genesis (2009) by Karin Slaughter – Thriller (Note: The US title is Undone)
Someone had spent time with her – someone well-practised in the art of pain…Three and a half years ago former Grant County medical examiner Sara Linton moved to Atlanta hoping to leave her tragic past behind her. Now working as a doctor in Atlanta’s Grady Hospital she is starting to piece her life together. But when a severely wounded young woman is brought in to the emergency room, she finds herself drawn back into a world of violence and terror. The woman has been hit by a car but, naked and brutalised, it’s clear that she has been the prey of a twisted mind. When Special Agent Will Trent of the Criminal Investigation Team returns to the scene of the accident, he stumbles on a torture chamber buried deep beneath the earth. And this hidden house of horror reveals a ghastly truth – Sara’s patient is just the first victim of a sick, sadistic killer. Wrestling the case away from the local police chief, Will and his partner Faith Mitchell find themselves at the centre of a grisly murder hunt. And Sara, Will and Faith – each with their own wounds and their own secrets – are the only thing that stands between a madman and his next crime…
Dead Connection (2007) by Alafair Burke – Thriller (First in the Ellie Hatcher series)
Two young, single women are murdered on the streets of New York City, exactly one year apart. Their only connection: Both had posted profiles on the popular online dating service, FirstDate.com. Enter NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher. She fits the profile of the victims, and is called in for a special assignment to the homicide team. FirstDate.com promises its online clientele that they’ll remain anonymous and safe. But Ellie is about to discover that the company is protecting the identity of the killer more than it protected the safety of his victims…Soon Ellie is entangled in a web of anonymous identities and false leads as she tries to attract and lure in a suspect. But time is running out to find the killer before he claims his next victim which, in a devastating twist of fate, is looking more and more likely to be Ellie herself…
When Gods Die (2007) by C.S. Harris – Historical Mystery (Second in the Sebastian St. Cyr series. I’ll be posting my review of What Angels Fear on Wednesday.)
The young wife of an aging marquis is found murdered in the arms of the Prince Regent. Around her neck lies a necklace said to have been worn by Druid priestesses-that is, until it was lost at sea with its last owner, Sebastian St. Cyr’s mother. Now Sebastian is lured into a dangerous investigation of the marchioness’s death-and his mother’s uncertain fate. As he edges closer to the truth-and one murder follows another-he confronts a conspiracy that imperils those nearest him and threatens to bring down the monarchy.
Which non-romance books are you planning to read over the coming months? Which are your favourite genres?
