Amazon First Reads for October

Yet again it’s that time of the month, where I get to choose which Amazon First Read’s I can have for free with being an Amazon Prime Member. Again this month I have a choice of 8 books, that aren’t due to be published until 1 November 2019.

This months choices are:

Suspense

Under Lying by Janelle Harris, Pages: 295, Publication Date: 1 November 2019

Synopsis: In this gripping novel of suspense, the disappearance of a couple’s baby daughter leaves everyone a suspect.

Susan has everything she ever wanted. A loving husband, an angelic daughter and the cottage of her dreams in County Cork. Her picture-perfect life seems too good to be true. And it is.

At a housewarming party with their new neighbours, her daughter Amelia goes missing. As friends become suspects, Susan’s life spirals out of control. And when Amelia’s yellow cardigan is dredged from the lake, every parent’s worst nightmare suddenly seems horribly real.

In the aftermath of Amelia’s disappearance Susan and her husband Paul are not themselves. Someone is hiding something. What if Susan and Paul’s entire relationship was built on lies stretching back years?

Some secrets may be best left buried in the past, but uncovering the truth could be the only way to find Amelia – before it’s too late.

Family Drama

The Puzzle of You by Leah Mercer, Pages: 285, Publication Date:

Synopsis: She’s woken up in a life she doesn’t recognise – with a daughter she doesn’t remember.

When Charlotte McKay wakes up in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there, all she wants is to go back to the perfect London flat she shares with her husband, and the impressive career she’s worked so hard to build. But something’s not right. Her husband David is at her bedside – but so is a three-year-old girl, and she’s calling Charlotte ‘Mummy’…

Charlotte’s first instinct is panic. When – why – did she have a child? What about her promotion, her independence, her romantic weekends with David? She loved being that woman: how can she have turned into the stay-at-home mother she swore she’d never be?

Back at home, she dives into her unfamiliar world, hoping to piece together the mystery of her transformation. But faced with so much that feels foreign and unnatural, will she ever be happy in a life she can’t remember having – or wanting to have?

Science Fiction

The Last Dance by Martin L Shoemaker, Pages: 456, Publication Date: 1 November 2019

Synopsis: At the heart of a mystery unfolding in space, the opposing forces make a treacherous journey between Earth and Mars.

In space, mutiny means death—that’s why Inspector General Park Yerim is taking her investigation so seriously. The alleged mutineer is Captain Nicolau Aames, whose command of the massive Earth-Mars vessel Aldrin has come under fire. The vast System Initiative says he disobeyed orders, but his crew swears he’s in the right.

En route to Mars, Park gathers testimony from the Aldrin’s diverse crew, painting a complex picture of Aames’s character: his heroism, his failures, even his personal passions. As the investigation unfolds, Park finds herself in the thrall of powerful interests, each pushing and pulling her in a fiery cosmic dance.

Corruption, conflicting loyalties, and clashing accounts make it nearly impossible to see the truth in fifty million miles of darkness, and Park faces danger from every direction. All eyes are on her: one way or another, her findings will have astronomical implications for the Aldrin and the future of space travel.

Romantic Comedy

Your Perfect Year by Charlotte Lucas, Pages: 439, Publication Date: 1 November 2019

Synopsis: A man consumed by a meaningless life is going to do something he’s never considered doing before. He’s going to enjoy the day…

For hyper-particular publishing heir Jonathan Grief, the day starts like any other—with a strict morning fitness regimen that’ll keep his divorced, easily irritated, cynical, forty-two-year-old self in absolutely flawless physical condition. But all it takes to put a crimp in his routine is one small annoyance. Someone has left a leather-bound day planner with the handwritten title Your Perfect Year in his spot on his mountain bike at his fitness course!

Determined to discover its owner, Jonathan opens the calendar to find that someone known only as “H.” has filled it in with suggestions, tasks, and affirmative actions for each day. The more he devotes himself to locating the elusive H., the deeper Jonathan is drawn into someone else’s rich and generous narrative—and into an attitude adjustment he desperately needs.

He may have ended up with a perfect year by accident, but it seems fate has set Jonathan on a path toward healing, feeling, and maybe even loving again…if only he can meet the stranger who’s changing his life one day at a time.

Contemporary Fiction

Room to Breath by Liz Talley, Pages: 332, Publication Date: 1 November 2019

Synopsis: A funny, emotional novel full of southern charm about a mother and daughter ready to start over.

“Liz Talley delivers. Her dialogue is crisp and smart, her characters are vivid and real, her stories are unputdownable.” —Robyn Carr, New York Times bestselling author

For a good part of Daphne Witt’s life, she was a supportive wife and dutiful mother. Now that she’s divorced and her daughter, Ellery, is all grown up, Daphne’s celebrating the best part of her life, a successful career, and a flirtation with an attentive hunk fifteen years her junior…who happens to be her daughter’s ex-boyfriend.

Ellery is starting over, too. She’s fresh out of college. Her job prospects are dim. And to support her fiancé in med school, she’s returned home as her mother’s new assistant. Ellery never expected her own life plan to take such a detour. With no outlet for her frustration, she lets an online flirtation go a little too far, especially considering her pen pal thinks he’s corresponding with her mother.

As love lives tangle, secrets spill, and indiscretions are betrayed, mother and daughter will have a lot to learn—not only about the mistakes they’ve made but also about the men in their lives and the women they are each hoping to become.

Thriller

Broken Glass by Alexander Hartung, Pages: 251, Publication Date: 1 November 2019

Synopsis: One murdered, one missing. Both are almost identical.

Detective Nik Pohl has seen every shade of darkness in his career. Not used to playing by the rules, he finds himself frozen out by his superiors. What’s worse, now he’s being blackmailed by a shadowy businessman into investigating a seemingly crimeless disappearance.

A young woman, Viola, left her home months ago, leaving a letter to her parents saying she wouldn’t be coming back. With a little digging Nik discovers the case of an almost identical-looking woman, who went missing in similar circumstances. There’s one important difference: that woman is dead. Viola may still be alive… but perhaps not for much longer.

When Nik is viciously attacked, it becomes clear that whoever is behind Viola’s disappearance has some high-level connections, and they will stop at nothing to shut him down. But he’s in too deep and the clock is ticking. He has to find Viola, and her captors, before it’s too late.

From million-copy bestselling German author Alexander Hartung

Legal Thriller

An Equal Justice by Chad Zunker, Pages: 217, Publication Date: 1 November 2019

Synopsis: Inside a prestigious law firm, a rookie lawyer is pulled into a dark maze of lies and violence.

An ambitious Stanford graduate, David Adams has begun a fast-track career at Austin’s most prestigious law firm. It’s a personal victory for the rising superstar—a satisfying reversal from his impoverished and despairing childhood. Now he has the life he’s always wanted: an extravagant salary, a high-rise condo, a luxury SUV, and no limit to how far he can go in the eyes of the top partners.

But after the shocking suicide of a fellow associate—one who, in his final hours, offered David an ominous warning—he feels the pull of powerful forces behind the corporation’s enviable trappings. The suicide leads unexpectedly to David’s discovery of a secret enclave of the city’s homeless, where he can’t help but feel an affinity to these outcast souls. Nor can he ignore the feeling that they hold the key to the truth behind a dark conspiracy.

When one of his new street friends is murdered, David’s clear doubts about his employer start shifting into a dark reality. Now torn between two worlds, David must surrender all that he’s achieved to fight for a larger cause of justice—and become his firm’s most dangerous acquisition.

Historical Fiction

A Transcontinental Affair by Jodi Daynard, Pages: 321, Publication Date: 1 November 2019

Synopsis: A sweeping tale of adventure and danger, innovation and corruption, and two women whose lives intertwine in unexpected ways on America’s first transcontinental train trip.

May 1870. Crowds throng the Boston station, mesmerised by the mechanical wonder huffing on the rails: the Pullman Hotel Express, the first train to travel from coast to coast. Boarding the train are congressmen, railroad presidents, and even George Pullman himself. For two young women, strangers until this fateful day, it’s the beginning of a journey that will change their lives.

Sensitive Louisa dreads the trip, but with limited prospects, she’s reluctantly joined the excursion as a governess to a wealthy family. Hattie is travelling to San Francisco to meet her fiancé, yet she’s far more interested in the workings of the locomotive than she is in the man awaiting her arrival. As the celebrated train moves westward, the women move toward one another, pulled by an unexpected attraction.

But there is danger in this closeness, just as there is in the wilds of the frontier and in the lengths the railroad men will go to protect their investments. Before their journey is over, Louisa and Hattie will find themselves very far from where they intended to go.

*** Which book would you choose? This month I’ve chosen Your Perfect Year. ***