As 2020 comes to a close, I’m so grateful for the writing community that bolstered my spirits, knowledge, voice, and excitement over the launch of my debut novel Boop and Eve’s Road Trip. In spite of a pandemic, riots, and an unsettling election we found joy, readers, celebrations, and new friendships.
Obviously my book wasn’t the only book to make it’s way into the world. I’ve already shared a few others (I’ll put links at the bottom) and will continue to share more in the coming months. But before this year comes to a close, I wanted to be sure to bring attention to these 2020 new releases you don’t want to miss!
“Tara moves to the American South three years after her arranged marriage to tech executive Sanjay. Ignored and lonely, Tara finds herself regressing back to childhood memories that have scarred her for life. When she was eight, her parents had left her behind with her aging grandparents and a schizophrenic uncle in Mangalore, while taking her baby brother with them to make a new life for the family in Dubai.
Tara’s memories of abandonment and isolation mirror her present life of loneliness and escalating abuse at the hands of her husband. She accepts the help of kind-hearted American strangers to fight Sanjay, only to be pressured by her patriarchal family to make peace with her circumstances. Then, in a moment of truth, she discovers the importance of self-worth―a revelation that gives her the courage to break free, gently rebuild her life, and even risk being shunned by her community when she marries her childhood love, Cyrus Saldanha.
Life with Cyrus is beautiful, until old fears come knocking. Ultimately, Tara must face these fears to save her relationship with Cyrus―and to confront the victim-shaming society she was raised within.
Intimate and deeply moving, Purple Lotus is the story of one woman’s ascension from the dark depths of desolation toward the light of freedom.”–back of book summary
“Beth cherished her childhood summers on a pristine northern Canadian lake, where she reveled in the sweet smell of dew on early morning hikes, the loons’ evening trills across the lake’s many bays, every brush stroke of her brother’s paintings celebrating their cherished place, and their grandfather’s laughter as he welcomed neighbors to their annual Welsh harvest celebration. Theirs was an unshakeable bond with nature, family, and friends, renewed every summer on their island of granite and pines.
But that bond was threatened and then torn apart, first as rights to their island were questioned and then by nature itself, and the family was forced to leave. Fourteen years later, Beth has created a new life in urban Chicago. There, she’s erected a solid barrier between the past and present, no matter how much it costs―until her grandfather asks her to return to the island to determine its fate. Will she choose to preserve who she has become, or risk everything to discover if what was lost still remains?
The Best Part of Us will immerse readers in a breathtaking natural world, a fresh perspective on loyalty, and an exquisite ode to the essential roles that family, nature, and place hold in all of our lives.” –back of book summary
“How to Walk on Water and Other Stories presents stories that bristle with menace and charm with intimate revelations. An investment banker falls for a self-made artist who turns the rooms of her apartment into eerie art installations. An au pair imagines her mundane life as film noir, endangering the infant in her care. A down-on-his-luck son moves in with his elderly mother and tries to piece together the brutal attack she survived when he was a baby. Swearingen takes us from Chicago, Minneapolis, and Northern Michigan, to Seattle, Venice, and elsewhere. She explores not only what it means to survive in a world marked by violence and uncertainty, but also how to celebrate what is most alive.” –back of book summary
“When the airplane piloted by Elias Santos crashes one week before their wedding day, Coen Caraway loses the man he loves and the illusion of happiness he has worked so hard to create. The only thing Elias leaves behind is a recording of his final words, and even Coen is baffled by the cryptic message.
Numb with grief, he takes refuge on the Mexican island that was meant to host their wedding. But as fragments of the past come to the surface in the aftermath of the tragedy, Coen is forced to question everything he thought he knew about Elias and their life together. Beneath his flawed memory lies the truth about Elias ― and himself.
From the damp concrete of Vancouver to the spoiled shores of Mexico, After Elias weaves the past with the present to tell a story of doubt, regret, and the fear of losing everything.”–back of book summary
“Veronica is eternally fifty-one years old with a proclivity for problematic drinking. Like most hormonally challenged women negotiating the change of life, she is a hot mess. To retain her sanity, she attends weekly AA meetings and adheres to a strict diet of organic, locally-sourced, (mostly) cruelty-free human blood from the hospice facility where she works. Her life stopped being fun about a hundred years ago, right about the time her teenage daughter stole her soul and took off for California with a hot, older guy. These days, Veronica’s existence is just that – an existence, as flat and empty as her own non-reflection in the bathroom mirror. When her estranged daughter contacts her via Facebook, Veronica learns that she has one chance to escape her eternal personal summer: she must find and apologize to every one of the people she’s turned into vampires in the last century. That is, if they’re still out there. With raging hormones and a ticking clock, Veronica embarks on a last-ditch road trip to regain her mortality, reclaim her humanity, and ultimately, die on her own terms.“–back of book summary
“When Edgar Degas visits his French Creole relatives in New Orleans from 1872 to ’73, Estelle, his cousin and sister-in-law, encourages the artist―who has not yet achieved recognition and struggles to find inspiration―to paint portraits of their family members.
In 1970, Anne Gautier, a young artist, finds connections between her ancestors and Degas while renovating the New Orleans house she has inherited. When Anne finds two identical portraits of Estelle, she discovers disturbing truths that change her life as she searches for meaningful artistic expression―just as Degas did one hundred years earlier.
A gripping historical novel told by two women living a century apart, Estellecombines mystery, family saga, art, and romance in its exploration of the man Degas was before he became the artist famous around the world today.”–back of book summary
“With the cloud of the Holocaust still looming over them, twin sisters Bronka and Johanna Lubinski and their parents arrive in the US from a Displaced Persons Camp. In the years after World War II, they experience the difficulties of adjusting to American culture as well as the burgeoning fear of the Cold War. Years later, the discovery of a former Nazi hiding in their community brings the Holocaust out of the shadows. As the girls get older, they start to wonder about their parents’ pasts, and they begin to demand answers. But it soon becomes clear that those memories will be more difficult and painful to uncover than they could have anticipated. Poignant and haunting, The Takeaway Men explores the impact of immigration, identity, prejudice, secrets, and lies on parents and children in mid-twentieth-century America.”–back of book summary
“Aliens invade Earth following prophecy and Mycos traveled across the universe to trade old technology to the backwards world in order to find his true mate. Surviving the plague and life on the streets, Lydia struggles to keep her 6 sisters alive and safe. Mycos demands Lydia submit to him. She refuses. Will he compromise in order to win her over and open the world up for other Hylatians to find their fated mates? The fates of both worlds rests with these seven sisters.”–back of book summary
“1966, the Beatles and “Leave It To Beaver” reign, the Vietnam War and Civil Rights rage, feminism is unheard of, and Linda’s first baby is diagnosed with Down syndrome. Linda refuses to institutionalize him, determined to raise Steve at home. For the two more sons who follow and her husband, Linda tries to fulfill cultural norms as a homemaker, a woman whose voice is seldom heard or valued. But it isn’t her nature to be meek.
Linda struggles to provide Steve an education at a time when disability rights don’t exist. Her advocacy focuses first on integrating him into the community, then, as he grows into adulthood, landing a real job and independent housing. Pioneering what’s now called “inclusion,” Linda follows her heart to help Steve develop his fullest humanity.
Over these same decades, Linda learns to advocate for herself as well, starting with a career in public education. When she unexpectedly falls in love with a woman, her life path takes unforeseen turns. Linda must dig deep to accept her new identity before she’s ready to meet her true soulmate. Throughout, unwavering love for all her sons is her lodestar.“–back of book summary
“The insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out. —Nellie Bly Elizabeth Cochrane has a secret. She isn’t the madwoman with amnesia the doctors and inmates at Blackwell’s Asylum think she is. In truth, she’s working undercover for the New York World. When the managing editor refuses to hire her because she’s a woman, Elizabeth strikes a deal: in exchange for a job, she’ll impersonate a lunatic to expose a local asylum’s abuses. When she arrives at the asylum, Elizabeth realizes she must make a decision—is she there merely to bear witness, or to intervene on behalf of the abused inmates? Can she interfere without blowing her cover? As the superintendent of the asylum grows increasingly suspicious, Elizabeth knows her scheme—and her dream of becoming a journalist in New York—is in jeopardy. A Feigned Madness is a meticulously researched, fictionalized account of the woman who would come to be known as daredevil reporter Nellie Bly. At a time of cutthroat journalism, when newspapers battled for readers at any cost, Bly emerged as one of the first to break through the gender barrier—a woman who would, through her daring exploits, forge a trail for women fighting for their place in the world.”–back of book summary
And if that’s not enough to whet your appetite, here are several 2020 releases I featured in earlier posts–
The Peculiar Fate of Holly Banks
A Delightful Little Book on Aging
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires
More to come…
Note: The image in the header was created by author of Once Again, Cat Wallace Hope.
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Bookish Road Trip Facebook group.
