New Year, New Books

Happy New Year. My hope for everyone 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. 

‘The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf’

The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf by Isa Arsén is a sexy, dark Ripley-esque novel about a couple of Shakespearian actors enjoying the stage and an unconventional marriage. Though they deeply love each other, their relationship is strained when they depart for the New Mexico desert where temptation and obsession mingle with drugs, mobsters, and a handsome costume designer who seduces them both. The games they play grow uglier and more dangerous, leading up to opening night, where someone is sure to get hurt.

‘Viva Violetta & Verdi’

Local author Howard Jay Smith brings another operatic historical fiction with his Viva, Violetta & Verdi. Set Between 1813 and 1901 the book is narrated by a friend of Giuseppe Verdi, a Jewish minor opera singer named Dario. The books trills through the many love affairs the Italian composer conducted along with numerous highs and lows, against the backdrop of Italy’s unification. Opera lovers will swoon over this one.

‘The Rainfall Market’

I was delighted with You Yeong-Gwang’s The Rainfall Market. Serin is a lonely young girl hoping to receive a Ticket to Rainbow Town. When she wins her ticket, she enters the mysterious Rainfall Market where a plethora of opportunities to change her life are presented. Along the way she meets fantastical creatures and magical realms. This book is aimed for the YA author in your life, but I found it sweet and mesmerizing. 

‘Confessions’

Confessions begins with Cora’s father jumping from the World Trade Center on 9/11. Her mother had killed herself seven years earlier, and now Cora is alone. When a letter from Ireland arrives offering the not-yet-adult a place to live, Cora embarks on a new life with an aunt she doesn’t know in rural Burtonport, Ireland. The book spans three generations of Cora’s relatives and their secrets, buried trauma, loneliness and mental health. Catherine Airey has written a debut that is stunning with an emotional wallop. 

‘Blood and the Badge’

For those looking to walk the sleaze-filled streets of bad cops and lowlife mafia, dip into Michael Cannell’s Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal that Shocked a Nation. This true crime is loaded with bodies, drugs and two crooked NYPD cops working for the Mafia for over forty years before getting caught. Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were highly respected and decorated detectives who leaked an endless river of information in exchange for money from crime families. They were ruthless and carried out numerous murders for hire.