New Year. New Books.

Happy New Year. My hope for all of us in the coming months is that we embrace more stories, smart stories, entertaining and transportive stories. I’ve set my reading goals high to bring you even more recommendations. There is power, solace, and joy that comes from books and I think this month I have found something for everyone. 

Diva by Daisy Goodwin captures the grit and glamour of opera singer Maria Callas. Caught between a doting, but boring, husband and the charismatic Aristotle Onassis, Callas chooses her heart. A woman who conquered the opera stages of the world, she seemed to have it all, but could not hold the elusive Onassis and it broke her heart. Goodwin’s portrayal of Callas brings understanding and empathy to a strong, determined woman who will prevail at all costs.

It is a family saga riding on a wave of gorgeous prose. Amy Jo Burns’s Mercury asks what family gives and takes from us. For Elise, the matriarch of a family of roofers, she has seen her hopes and dreams leached away by a demanding husband and their boys. For Marly, new to the town of Mercury, she is determined to have a seat at the Joseph family table, though ridiculed for being a “stray.” But when a body is found, long hidden secrets threaten to disrupt the tentative goodwill in the old, big home where they all live, avoiding long-simmering resentments. This is a story of suffocating, sometimes selfish men and the women struggling to be seen and heard and heal.

Jeanne Mackin does a brilliant job not only bringing Picasso to life in her latest, Picasso’s Lovers, but by portraying him with empathy and understanding, if not in a completely flattering light. Blending fictional characters with real (Sara Murphy), wives and lovers (Françoise Gilot and Irene Lagut), Mackin drops us on the beach of the French Riviera in 1923. There are long wine-filled afternoons centered around Picasso’s various affairs, women struggling for his undivided attention. Switch to 1950 and Alana – a journalist in search of the “real” Picasso and a story that might save her career if only she can solve the mystery of Sara and Picasso’s relationship.

The rumors of a lost Van Gogh, a self-portrait, is the impetus behind Jonathan Santlofer’s highly entertaining The Lost Van Gogh. Returning from Santlofer’s The Last Mona Lisa – Luke, INTERPOL agent Smith, and Alexis, a daughter of an art thief – all return in this nail-biting hunt for the missing art. Is the piece part of Nazi stolen loot as thousands of pieces were? Not just a thriller, Santlofer, an artist himself, gives us a lesson in Van Gogh’s genius and the sometimes-shady world of art dealing.

Based on the true story of her grandfather, a sometime bandido, shot twice in his face, author Elizabeth Gonzalez James weaves a supernatural tale in The Bullet Swallower. Epic in scope, from 1800 and a tragedy that haunts the Sonoro family, to 1895 and the rise of Antonio on a quest to save his family in Mexico to 1964 and Jamie Sonoro’s quest to discover who the Sonoros really were. The books ask: Are we responsible for the sins of our ancestors? This is one fantastic ride through the Rio Grande and beyond. Both magical realism and historical fiction exposing politics and colonialism that does much to keep a family down. 

A wealthy heiress seemingly controls her family from beyond the grave in Rachel Hawkins’ delightful The Heiress. I loved this dark gothic read. When Ruby, wealthy and rumored to have murdered her many husbands, dies, her adopted heir Cam reluctantly returns to the family home. With him is wife Jules, a struggling actress with her own secrets and ambitions. Why can’t Cam accept the wealth left to him? A trio of creepy relatives haunt the mansion on the edge of the woods and things quickly start getting spooky. No one is telling the complete truth in this one, everyone has an agenda and wants their hands on the inheritance. Ruby tells her own story, the truth of the dead husbands in a sheaf of letters left behind. This one is sure to delight thrill lovers.

Delightful and a slow burn, You Only Call When You’re in Trouble from Stephen McCauley asks the question: Is taking care of someone else worth sacrificing one’s own worth and desires? Three main characters, Dorothy, Cecily, and Tom, have lost or are on the verge of losing their partners and their jobs because they spend so much time taking care of others. This one will get under your skin, and you’ll be rooting for all of them. A poignant exploration of family, relationships, and mistakes. 

Guns and addiction and a desolate neighborhood in Arizona. Alexander Sammartino’s Last Acts is a brilliant tale about Randy, who would do anything to save his son, recently overdosed. Both men wish to “do good … but settled for what was better than nothing.” The author has a lot to say about our current state of affairs all with a biting wit and much emotion.