New in January
With a slew of new books coming out in January, including some bestselling authors, it’s a perfect chance to finally achieve your reading goals.
1. “American Traitor” by Brad Taylor
Release Date: January 5, 2021
Pike Logan and Jennifer Cahill are enjoying a sunny vacation down under when they get disturbing news: their friend and colleague, Clifford Delmonty, is in serious trouble. While working as a contractor at an Australian F 35 facility, the former Taskforce member—callsign Dunkin—saw something he shouldn’t have, and now he’s on the run from Chinese agents.
As the threat of conflict reaches a boiling point, Pike alone realizes that what is being seen is not what is happening. A soldier who has always been trained to fight and win, Pike is now against an invisible enemy—one he can’t actually attack. With the help of a Taiwanese intelligence agent, he races to prevent a catastrophic conflict from consuming a whole region of the world—and the lives of his teammates.
2. “Our Darkest Night” by Jennifer Robson
Release Date: January 5, 2021
With Nazi Germany now occupying most of her beloved homeland, and the threat of imprisonment and deportation growing ever more certain, Antonina Mazin has but one hope to survive—to leave Venice and her beloved parents and hide in the countryside with a man she has only just met. Nico Gerardi was studying for the priesthood until circumstances forced him to leave the seminary to run his family’s farm. A moral and just man, he could not stand by when the fascists and Nazis began taking innocent lives. And to keep her safe and protect secrets of his own, Nico and Nina must convince prying eyes they are happily married and in love.
As Nina and Nico come to know each other, their feelings deepen, transforming their relationship into much more than a charade. Yet both fear that every passing day brings them closer to being torn apart.
3. “Neighbors” by Danielle Steel
Release Date: January 5, 2021
In Danielle Steel’s gripping new novel, a reclusive woman opens up her home to her neighbors in the wake of a devastating earthquake, setting off events that reveal secrets, break relationships apart, and bring strangers together to forge powerful new bonds.
Meredith White was one of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces. But a personal tragedy cut her acting career short and alienated her from her family. For the last fifteen years, Meredith has been living alone in San Francisco with two trusted caretakers. Then, on a muggy late summer day, a massive earthquake strikes Northern California, plunging the Bay Area into chaos. Without a moment’s hesitation, Meredith invites her stunned and shaken neighbors into her mostly undamaged home as the recovery begins.
Filled with powerful human dramas, Neighbors is a penetrating look at how our world can be upended in a moment. In a novel of unforgettable characters and stunning twists, acts of love and courage become the most powerful forces of all.
4. “The Russian” by James Patterson
Release Date: January 7, 2021
A serial killer crashes Detective Michael Bennett’s wedding.
Weeks before NYPD Detective Michael Bennett is to marry his longtime love, Mary Catherine, an assassin announces his presence in the city with a string of grisly murders. Each victim is a young woman. And each has been killed in a manner as precise as it was gruesome.
Tasked with working alongside the FBI, Bennett and his gung-ho new partner uncover multiple cold-case homicides across the country that fit the same distinctive pattern — proving the perpetrator they seek is as experienced at ending lives as he is at evading detection.
Bennett promises Mary Catherine that the case won’t affect their upcoming wedding. But as Bennett prepares to make a lifetime commitment, the killer has a lethal vow of his own to fulfill.
5. “Before She Disappeared” by Lisa Gardner
Release Date: January 19, 2021
From bestselling author Lisa Gardner, a propulsive thriller featuring an ordinary woman who will stop at nothing to find the missing people that the rest of the world has forgotten.
Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will–searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking.
A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier. Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim’s wary family tells Frankie she’s on her own–and she soon learns she’s asking questions someone doesn’t want answered. But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing could be her.
6. “Prodigal Son” by Gregg Hurwitz
Release Date: January 26, 2021
As a boy, Evan Smoak was pulled out of a foster home and trained in an off-the-books operation known as the Orphan Program. He was a government assassin, perhaps the best, known to a few insiders as Orphan X. He eventually broke with the Program and adopted a new name — The Nowhere Man–and a new mission, helping the most desperate in their times of trouble. But the highest power in the country has made him a tempting offer–in exchange for an unofficial pardon, he must stop his clandestine activities as The Nowhere Man. Now Evan has to do the one thing he’s least equipped to do–live a normal life.
But then he gets a call for help from the one person he never expected. A woman claiming to have given him up for adoption, a woman he never knew–his mother. Her unlikely request: help Andrew Duran–a man whose life has gone off the rails, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, bringing him to the deadly attention of very powerful figures. Now a brutal brother & sister assassination team are after him and with no one to turn to, and no safe place to hide, Evan is Duran’s only option. But when the hidden cabal catches on to what Evan is doing, everything he’s fought for is on the line–including his own life.