2022 Books I Want To Read

Below are eight of the 2022 books I want to read. They are all books that are being published in the first half of this year.

There’s nothing quite like a good book to curl up in front of the fire and lose yourself in between the pages.

Fiona & Jane: (January 24, 2022)

Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years.

When Fiona moves to New York to care for a sick friend through a breakup, Jane remains in California.

Strained by distance and unintended betrayals, the women float in and out of each other’s lives. Their friendship is both a beacon of hope and a reminder of all they’ve lost.

Left On Tenth: (April 12, 2022) A Memoir

Delia Ephron struggled through several years of heartbreak. She lost her sister, Nora, and then her husband, Jerry. Both to cancer.
 
She channeled her grief the best way she knew: by writing a New York Times op-ed. The piece caught the attention of Peter, a Bay Area psychiatrist, who emailed her to commiserate.

Recently widowed himself, he reminded her that they had shared a few dates fifty-four years before, set up by Nora. Delia did not remember him, but after several weeks of exchanging emails and sixties folk songs, he flew east to see her. They were crazy, utterly, in love.
 
But this was not a rom-com: four months later she was diagnosed with AML, a fierce form of leukemia.

The Last House On The Street: (January 11, 2022)

1965: Ellie Hockley was raised to be a certain type of proper Southern lady. Enrolled in college and engaged, Ellie isn’t as committed to her expected future as her family believes. She’s chosen to spend her summer break as a volunteer helping to register black voters.

As Ellie follows her ideals fighting for the civil rights of the marginalized, her scandalized parents scorn her efforts. And her neighbors reveal their prejudices. When she loses her heart to a fellow volunteer, Ellie discovers the frightening true nature of the people living in Round Hill.

2010: Architect Kayla Carter and her husband designed a beautiful house for themselves in Round Hill’s new development, Shadow Ridge Estates. It was supposed to be a home where they could raise their three-year-old daughter and grow old together.

Instead, it’s the place where Kayla’s husband died in an accident, a fact known to a mysterious woman who warns Kayla against moving in. The woods and lake behind the property are reputed to be haunted, and the new home has been targeted by vandals leaving threatening notes.

And Kayla’s neighbor Ellie Hockley is harboring long-buried secrets about the dark history of the land where her house was built.

Two women. Two stories. Both are on a collision course with the truth, no matter what that truth may bring to light.

The Paris Apartment: (February 22, 2022)

Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances.

Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit. But he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better in Paris.

But when she shows up to find a very nice apartment that she doubts Ben could afford, he’s not there.

The longer Ben stays missing the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.

Sister Stardust: (April 5, 2022)

Claire grew up in a small town, far from the glitz and glamour of London. On the cusp of adulthood, she yearns for the adventure and independence of a counterculture taking root across the world.

When she’s offered the chance to start anew in Morocco, in a palace where famous artists and musicians—even the Rolling Stones—have been known to visit, she seizes the chance.

Arriving in Marrakesh, she’s quickly swept up in a heady world of music, drugs and communal living.

And Talitha Getty, the socialite wife of a famous oil heir, seems to preside over the whole scene. As Claire is pulled into her orbit, the realities of Talitha’s precarious existence set off a chain of dangerous events that could alter Claire’s life forever.

The Saints Of Swallow Hill: (January 25, 2022)

In the dense pine forests of North Carolina, turpentiners labor, hacking into tree trunks to draw out the sticky sap. Rae Lynn Cobb and her husband, Warren, run a small turpentine farm together.

Though the work is hard and often dangerous, Rae Lynn, who spent her childhood in an orphanage, is thankful for it. When Warren falls victim to his own negligence, Rae Lynn undertakes a desperate act of mercy.

To keep herself from jail, she disguises herself as a man named “Ray”. She heads to the only place she can think of that might offer anonymity. A turpentine camp in Georgia named Swallow Hill.

Swallow Hill is no easy haven. The camp is isolated and squalid, and commissary owner Otis Riddle takes out his frustrations on his browbeaten wife, Cornelia. Although Rae Lynn works tirelessly, she becomes a target for Crow, the ever-watchful woods rider who checks each laborer’s tally.

The School For Good Mothers: (January 4, 2022)

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress.

Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.

Until Frida has a very bad day.

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones and let their children get injured on the playground. Who let their children walk home alone.

Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.

Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed.

The Perfect Escape: (January 4, 2022)

New friends Sam, Margaret, and Diana are thrilled to be getting out of the city for a girls’ weekend. They’ve bonded over their messy divorces, and every mile on the odometer feels like another step towards putting their exes in the past.

But when car trouble halfway into their trip strands them in the most unlikely of mountain towns, they come face-to-face with the hurts and betrayals they were so desperate to leave behind.

When Diana doesn’t return home after a night out, Sam and Margaret’s search for her reveals just how little they know about their friend.

As eerie coincidences and secrets begin to pile up, and an ex-boyfriend arrives in the tiny town, the women realize that their detour may not have been a mistake.

And that someone wants to guarantee that they never make it out.

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These are just a few of the new books that I am looking forward to being published. I’ll let you know about others as time goes on.

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