The Bookworm’s Holiday Book Giving Guide: Fiction (1 of 3)
Narration provided by Wondervox.
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworms See
Holiday Book Giving Guide: Fiction
So you looked at the calendar the other day and… eeeek.
You’re not very far away at all to the holidays and you’re way, too, uncomfortably far away from having everything ready. At the top of your list is fulfilling your Gift List, but you’re out of ideas and now what? How about a book? How about one of these great books….
Fiction
For the reader who loves a good comedy, “The Best Way to Bury Your Husband” by Alexia Casale (Penguin, $18.00) is perfect. It’s the story of four women and one same old story: their husbands have been jerks and it’s time to take matters into their own hands. Pair it with “How to Solve Your Own Murder” by Kristen Perrin (Dutton, $28), another fine mystery that’ll keep your giftee perfectly entertained.
If there’s someone on your list who loves a good novel with a healthy dose of drama, you can’t go wrong with “Very Bad Company” by Emma Rosenblum (Flatiron Books, $28.99), the story of a group of high-level, high-money executives on retreat in Florida. What could go wrong, right? Turns out, plenty…Wrap it up with “The Divorcees” by Rowan Beaird (Flatiron Books, $28.99), a novel set in a midcentury Reno divorce ranch.
That thriller-lover on your gift list will be easy to satisfy when you give “She’s Not Sorry” by Mary Kubica (Park Row Books, $30.00), a story of an ICU nurse, a suicidal-now-comatose patient, and secrets that come to light about an almost-deadly accident that was (maybe) no accident. Wrap it up with “Heads Will Roll” by Josh Winning (Putnam, $30.00), a novel of a dumb mistake at work made by an actor who’s sent away to deal with her demons. Sometimes, though, the demons are real…
Your vampire lover will want to bite into “So Thirsty” by Rachel Harrison (Berkley, $29.00), a mystery of best friends and secrets with unexpected consequences. Wrap it up with “Tiny Threads” by Lilliam Rivera (Del Ray, $28.00), a novel of a fashionista and a dream job that turns out to be, well, from you-know-where…
Is there a reader on your list who loves complicated family dramas? Then “April May June July” by Alison B. Hart (Graydon House, $28.99) is the book to wrap. Siblings April, May, June, and brother July Barber are totally separate people with nothing in common, other than that they’re family. When their missing father resurfaces after more than a decade, the family wedding they’re all set to attend suddenly becomes so much more than a family wedding. Wrap it up with “A Fire So Wild” by Sarah Ruiz-Grossman (Harper, $25.99), the story of a wildfire in Berkeley, California, and a group of the city’s residents who must immediately reckon with the lives they’ve built there.
You don’t have to know a thing about St. Paul, Minnesota, to want to read “Mysterious Tales of Old St. Paul” by Larry Millett (University of Minnesota Press, $24.95). It’s a collection of whodunits set in the 1890s and features a character you’ll come to love. Wrap it up with “You’d Look Better as a Ghost” by Joanna Wallace (Penguin, $18.00), an LOL novel about a killer with an unusual gift: she sees people as ghosts, just before they become one. Also try “The Mesmerist” by Caroline Woods (Doubleday, $28.00), a book of magic based on a real story from the late 1800s.
For the person on your list who is a self-professed lover of Mark Twain’s works, “Big Jim and the White Boy” by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson (Ten Speed Graphic, $35.00) will be a welcome gift this season. It’s a re-imagining of the classic Twain tale, told in graphic-novel format. It’s great for collectors, and teens would love it, too.
Here’s an unusual sibling novel: “Pearly Everlasting” by Tammy Armstrong (HarperCollins, $28.99). It’s the story of a bear cub named Bruno, the human sister he was raised with, and the bond of love that overcomes everything when the bear goes missing. Wrap it up with “We’ll Prescribe You a Cat” by Syou Ishida (Berkley, $25.00), a cute novel about the “healing power” of cats.
Lovers of short stories will enjoy unwrapping “Neighbors and Other Stories” by Diane Oliver (Grove Press, $27.00), a collection of tales about racism, Jim Crow, fear, prejudice, scandal, and more. Pair it with “Float Up, Sing Down” by Laird Hunt (Bloomsbury, $26,99), a collection about a single day in the life of folks in a small Indiana community.
No doubt, there’s someone on your gift list who loves to be really, really scared and “Nightwatching” by Tracy Sierra may fit on your gift list. It’s a novel about a woman alone with her children during a blizzard, and an intruder who seems awfully, horrifyingly familiar…
UP NEXT WEEK: NON-FICTION
Terri Slichenmeyer