International Picks: Our Big Releases in January

Fans of Star Wars and Divergent will revel in internationally bestselling author Veronica Roth’s stunning new science-fiction fantasy series.

Available here: http://amzn.to/2jaJBeK

Mark Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better.

Human beings are flawed and limited—’not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault’. Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek. There are only so many things we can give a fuck about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience.

A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of realtalk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them truly lead contented, grounded lives.

Available here: http://amzn.to/2jaL30A

It’s here. A word-of-mouth and Twitter sensation, it’s the most talked about debut of 2016 and a startlingly new voice in fiction.

England, 1976. Mrs Creasy is missing and The Avenue is alive with whispers. As the summer shimmers endlessly on, ten-year-olds Grace and Tilly decide to take matters into their own hands. And as the cul-de-sac starts giving up its secrets, the amateur detectives will find much more than they imagined…

‘A splendid debut …Forensic period detail and pithy exchanges between characters give the novel the feel of a seventies’ sitcom …a wonderful achievement’ — DAILY MAIL

‘Vibrant and funny…imagine Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, set in 1970s English suburbia’ — GUARDIAN

Available here: http://amzn.to/2krOtsM

On the same day that his wife gave birth to twins, Anthony Doerr received the Rome Prize, an award that gave him a year-long stipend and studio in Rome…

Four Seasons in Rome charts the repercussions of that day, describing Doerr’s varied adventures in one of the most enchanting cities in the world, and the first year of parenthood. He reads Pliny, Dante, and Keats – the chroniclers of Rome who came before him – and visits the piazzas, temples, and ancient cisterns they describe. He attends the vigil of a dying Pope John Paul II and takes his twins to the Pantheon in December to wait for snow to fall through the oculus. He and his family are embraced by the butchers, grocers, and bakers of the neighbourhood, whose clamour of stories and idiosyncratic child-rearing advice is as compelling as the city itself. This intimate and revelatory book is a celebration of Rome, a wondrous look at new parenthood and a fascinating account of the alchemy of writers.

Available here: http://amzn.to/2k8xKgr

Perfect for fans of John Green, David Levithan, Rainbow Rowell…

Kara Winters is always striving for perfection. But when her anxiety takes over, the price of perfection spirals out of control…

‘Perfect’ Kara Winters has always hated her nickname. Especially now that she no longer lives up to it. She used to have normal friends, she used to be normal. Now all she wants is to get into Harvard and leave high school behind. So when the pressure to ace her exams finally gets to her, Kara does one tiny bad thing, just to help out, to ease the stress. If it will help Kara get a perfect exam score and one step closer to a new life, it’s a price she’s willing to pay. But she never expects to get caught out. Or that Alex, Raj and her other not-so-perfect new friends might get embroiled in a horrible mess that could ruin all of their futures.

Sometimes perfection isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

Available here: http://amzn.to/2jvXwKQ

From leading breakfast radio star Christian O’Connell comes a brilliant and laugh-out-loud story of an ordinary boy with an extraordinary secret radio show. (Broadcast from his shed.)

Meet Spike, aka Radio Boy: a new Adrian Mole on the radio for the internet generation. Spike’s your average awkward eleven-year-old, funny and cheeky and with a mum to reckon with. When he becomes the first presenter ever to be sacked from hospital radio, he decides to carry on from a makeshift studio in the garden shed, with the help of his best friends Artie and Holly, disguising his voice and going by the moniker Radio Boy. Week by week, word gets around and soon Spike is a star… if only people knew it was actually him. When Spike begins to believe his own hype, and goes too far with his mocking of the school headmaster, a hunt is launched for the mysterious Radio Boy. Can Spike remain anonymous? Will he get to marry the girl of his dreams, Katherine Hamilton? Will he become famous and popular? The answer to most of these questions is no…

Available here: http://amzn.to/2k8suJu

Destiny and darkness collide in this romantic, sweeping new fantasy series from New York Times bestselling author Sophie Jordan.

Seventeen years ago, an eclipse cloaked the kingdom of Relhok in perpetual darkness. In the chaos, an evil chancellor murdered the king and queen and seized their throne. Luna, Relhok’s lost princess, has been hiding in a tower ever since. Luna’s survival depends on the world believing she is dead. But that doesn’t stop Luna from wanting more. When she meets Fowler, a mysterious archer braving the woods outside her tower, Luna is drawn to him despite the risk.

When the tower is attacked, Luna and Fowler escape together. But this world of darkness is more treacherous than Luna ever realized. With every threat stacked against them, Luna and Fowler find solace in each other. But with secrets still unspoken between them, falling in love might be their most dangerous journey yet.

With lush writing and a star-crossed romance, Reign of Shadows is Sophie Jordan at her best.

Available here: http://amzn.to/2jXSV2N

In this breakthrough biography, Brad Gooch brilliantly brings to life the man and puts a face to the name Rumi as well as vividly coloring in his time and place, a world as rife with conflict as our own.

The map of Rumi’s life stretched over 2,500 miles. Gooch traces this epic journey from Central Asia, where Rumi was born in 1207, travelling with his family, displaced by Mongol terror, to settle in Konya, Turkey. Pivotal was the disruptive appearance of Shams of Tabriz, teaching him to whirl and transforming him from a respectable Muslim preacher into a poet and mystic. Their vital connection as teacher and pupil, friend and beloved, is one of the world’s greatest spiritual love stories. When Shams disappeared, Rumi coped with the pain of separation by composing joyous poems of reunion, both human and divine.

Ambitious, bold and beautifully written, Rumi’s Secret reveals the unfolding of Rumi’s devotion to a ‘religion of love’, remarkable in his own time, and made even more relevant for the twenty-first century by this compelling account.

Available here: http://amzn.to/2k8DG9a

Starting the Apocalypse is not easy…

2000 B.C.—A beautiful, ambitious angel stands on a mountaintop, smiling because soon, the last of humanity who survived the great flood will meet its end, too. And he should know. He’s going to play a big part in it. But when he reaches for the instrument of humanity’s doom, he can’t find it. Looking over the Earth at all that could have been, the majestic angel utters a single word. ‘Crap.’

2015 A.D.—Coop, a thief specializing in purloining magic objects, steals and delivers a small box to the mysterious client who engaged his services. Coop doesn’t know that his latest job could be the end of him—and the rest of the world—and will propel him into the company of The Department of Peculiar Science, a fearsome enforcement agency that polices the odd and strange. The box isn’t just a supernatural heirloom with quaint powers, the Peculiar agents tell him.

It’s doomsday itself.

Or a bomb. Or something. They’re not really sure…

And suddenly, everyone is out to get it.

Available here: http://amzn.to/2jDMLUo

It happens every September — the list is posted all over school.

Two girls are picked from each year. One is named the prettiest, one the ugliest.

The girls who aren’t picked are quickly forgotten. The girls who are become the centre of attention, and each reacts differently to the experience. With The List, Siobhan Vivian deftly takes you into the lives of eight very different girls struggling with issues of identity, self-esteem, and the judgements of their peers. Prettiest or ugliest, once you’re on the list, you’ll never be the same.

Available here: http://amzn.to/2jXNyjQ

She’s watching you, but who’s watching her?

Lily Gullick lives with her husband Aiden in a new-build flat opposite an estate which has been marked for demolition. A keen birdwatcher, she can’t help spying on her neighbours. Until one day Lily sees something suspicious through her binoculars and soon her elderly neighbour Jean is found dead. Lily, intrigued by the social divide in her local area as it becomes increasingly gentrified, knows that she has to act. But her interference is not going unnoticed, and as she starts to get close to the truth, her own life comes under threat. But can Lily really trust everything she sees?

The Watcher is an absolutely addictive and on trend commercial psychological suspense read, with a captivating unreliable narrator and some powerful narrative twists.

Available here: http://amzn.to/2jwcPD5

Unrivaled is #1 New York Times bestselling Alyson Noël’s first book in a thrilling suspense trilogy about how our most desperate dreams can become our darkest nightmares.

Everyone wants to be someone. Layla Harrison wants to be a reporter. Aster Amirpour wants to be an actress. Tommy Phillips wants to be a guitar hero. But Madison Brooks took destiny and made it her own a long time ago. She’s Hollywood’s hottest starlet, and the things she did to become the name on everyone’s lips are merely a stain on the pavement, ground beneath her Louboutin heel. That is, until Layla, Aster, and Tommy find themselves with a VIP invite to the world of Los Angeles’s nightlife and lured into a competition where Madison Brooks is the target.

Just as their hopes begin to gleam like stars through the California smog, Madison Brooks goes missing. . . . And all of their hopes are blacked out in the haze of their lies.

Available here: http://amzn.to/2ka5zOk 

In the eyes of history, Barack Obama will be viewed as one of America’s best and most accomplished presidents. As the page turns to our next Commander in Chief, Jonathan Chait, acclaimed as one of the most incisive and meticulous political commentators in America, digs deep into Obama’s record on major policy fronts—economics, the environment, domestic reform, healthcare, race, foreign policy, and civil rights—to demonstrate why history will judge America’s forty-fourth president as among the greatest in history.

Audacity does not shy away from Obama’s failures, most notably in foreign policy. Yet Chait convincingly shows that President Obama has accomplished what candidate Obama said he would, despite overwhelming opposition — and that the hopes of those who voted for him have not been dashed despite the smokescreen of extremist propaganda and the limits of short-term perspective.

Available here: http://amzn.to/2jXV3HM

Since her husband walked out, Louise has made her son her world, supporting them both with her part-time job. But all that changes when she meets… David Young, successful and charming — Louise cannot believe a man like him would look at her twice let alone be attracted to her. But that all comes to a grinding halt when she meets his wife… Adele. Beautiful, elegant and sweet — Louise’s new friend seems perfect in every way. As she becomes obsessed by this flawless couple, entangled in the intricate web of their marriage, they each, in turn, reach out to her. But only when she gets to know them both does she begin to see the cracks…

Is David really is the man she thought she knew and is Adele as vulnerable as she appears? Just what terrible secrets are they both hiding and how far will they go to keep them?

Behind Her Eyes is a psychological thriller you cannot miss.

Available here: http://amzn.to/2jDUMJ3