Let’s kick of 2021 by looking ahead. When we did this in 2020, I know none of us knew what was going to happen that year. Let’s hope for more positive things in this new year, although 2020 did bring a number of good books. Since I’m already talking about February, I can tell you I have so many books due out in that month, that I’d need to read a book a day just to keep up. That’s only the books I already have. You might have others on your own TBR list.

Let’s start with a debut, Olivia Blacke’s first Brooklyn Murder mystery, Killer Content. Odessa Dean arrived on the bus from Louisiana, planning to pet-sit for her aunt’s cat for three months, but she turned down the offer of living money. The innocent young woman had no idea of the cost of living in NYC, so she took a job as a waitress. But, when she’s convinced another waitress was murdered, and can’t get a police detective to believe her, Odessa looks for clues. This is a fun debut with an eclectic cast of characters. (Release date is Feb. 2.)

Valentino Will Die is Donis Casey’s second Bianca Dangereuse Hollywood mystery. Bianca LaBelle and Rudolph Valentino have been friends for years, but in the summer of 1926, they’re making their first picture together. One evening after dinner, a troubled Rudy confesses that he has received anonymous death threats. Just days later, filming stops when Rudy falls deathly ill? Could it be poison? As Rudy lies dying, Bianca promises him she will find out who is responsible. (Release date is Feb. 2.)

Linda Castillo’s A Simple Murder is a Kate Burkholder story collection. The short stories featuring the police chief from Ohio’s Amish country, are collected for the first time in an anthology that touches on Kate’s life as an inquisitive young girl into her recent career and life, living, and occasionally solving crimes with her life partner, John Tomasetti. While it’s not as in-depth as Castillo’s outstanding novels, fans will still want to catch up with Kate Burkholder. (Release date is Feb. 9.)

Release date for Janet Skeslien Charles’ The Paris Library has been bumped back several times.The novel is baed on the true World War II story of the heroic librarians of the American Library in Paris. It’s a story of romance, friendship, family, and the power of literature to bring us together. In Paris, 1939, Odile Soucher has it all: her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. But, when the Nazis march in to occupy Paris, Odile joins the Resistance with her fellow librarians. But when the war finally ends, Odile tastes the bitterness of betrayal. In 1983, Lily is a lonely teenager looking for adventure in small-town Montana. Her interest is piqued by an air of mystery about her solitary, elderly neighbor. As Lily uncovers more about her neighbor’s past, she finds that they share a love of language, the same longings, and never suspects that a dark secret connects them. (Release date is Feb. 9.)

It’s Been a Pleasure Nonie Blake is Australian author Claire Christians’ first adult novel. Of all the women and men Noni Blake has pleased in her life, there’s one she’s often overlooked – herself. After the end of a decade-long relationship, Noni decides it’s time to prioritize her wants and desires and only do things that feel good at the moment. It’s a fresh feel-good story about starting over as a thirty-something women who’s been living life for everyone else. (Release date is Feb. 23.)

Here’s another debut novel, Lauren Edmondson’s modern retelling of Sense and Sensibility, Ladies of the House. Daisy Richardson is a woman of routine, order, and careful thought, so when it’s revealed in dramatic fashion that her esteemed father was involved in a public scandal before his death, Daisy’s life becomes complicated. The Richardsons must sell their house in Georgetown, one they can no longer afford, although her mother is holding on to the last vestige of their former life. Her younger sister falls for someone Daisy doesn’t trust. And, she’s always wished her relationship with her best friend, Atlas, could be more, but now he’s writing an expose about her father. Daisy always wanted to maintain a low profile, but, when another scandal is uncovered, she must find the courage to stand up and accept the power of her own voice. (Release date is Feb. 9.)

The latest Charles Lenox mystery by Charles Finch is An Extravagant Death. In London, 1878, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli offers Lenox the opportunity to undertake a diplomatic mission to America. When he arrives in New York, he receives introductions to both old Knickerbocker society and the new robber barons. But, the death of the season’s most beautiful debutante brings a request for Lenox’s help. He’s summoned to Newport to investigate the death and determine if the young woman threw herself from a cliff, or was murdered. Without any connections in this new country, Lenox is forced to rely on his own skills and wit. (Release date is Feb. 16.)

Gwen Florio launches a new mystery series with Best Laid Plans. After she catches her husband cheating, Nora Best launches her new life without him. They had retired, and hoped to travel the U.S. in an Airstream. Instead Nora heads to Wyoming by herself, where she ends up in campground, and shares her problems with the caretakers. After a little too much wine, she wakes to find one of the caretakers is missing, and she’s a murder suspect. With the news plastered across the media, Nora’s husband tracks her down. But, only the local naturalist seems to believe her when she says she’s not a killer. (Release date is Feb. 2.)

I’ve been waiting for Kristin Hannah’s The Four Winds since I heard her talk about it a few months ago. The author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone brings us a novel of love and heroism and hope, set against the backdrop of one of America’s most defining eras – the Great Depression. In Texas in 1934, millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. Elsa Martinelli, like so many of her neighbors, must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. (Release date is Feb. 2.)

The bestselling author of The Dry, Jane Harper, now brings us The Survivors. Kieran Elliott’s life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences. The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home. Kieran’s parents are struggling “a town where fortunes are forged by the sea.” Between them all is his absent brother, Finn. When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away. (Release date is Feb. 2.)

Author Val McDermid calls Mick Herron “the John Le Carre of our generation”. At Slough House – MI5’s depository for demoted spies – Brexit has takena toll. The “slow horses” have been pushed further into the cold, Slough House wiped from Service records – and fatal accidents keep happening. No wonder Jackson Lamb’s crew is feeling paranoid. But are they actually targets? With enemies on all sides, not even Jackson Lamb can keep his team from harm. (Release date is Feb. 9.)

Like The Paris Library, Jenny Lecoat’s debut novel, The Girl from the Channel Islands, is inspired by true WWII events. Hedy Bercu fled Vienna two years earlier, Now, in the summer of 1940, she’s convinced the Germans are about to invade. There’s no counterattack because the Channel Islands are not worth defending. Most islanders and occupying forces settle into an uneasy coexistence, but for Hedy, the situation is perilously different. Hedy is Jewish, and that fact could mean deportation or worse. Lecoat recreates little-known events during World War II on the island of Jersey, in a story of resilience and bravery. (Release date is Feb. 2.)

World War II is a popular subject this February. Larry Loftis’ The Princess Spy is nonfiction, subtitled The True Story of World War II Spy Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones. It’s the hidden history of an ordinary American girl, born in a quiet New York suburb, who became one of the OSS’s most daring spies in World War II before marrying into European nobility. She’s sent to Spain to be a coder, but is soon given the additional assignment of infiltrating the upper echelons of society, mingling with high-ranking officials, diplomats, and titled Europeans, and of whom could be an enemy agent. Against this glamours backdrop of galas and dinner parties, she recruits sub-agents and engages in deep-cover espionage to counter Nazi tactics in Madrid. Even after marrying the Count of Romanones, one of the wealthiest men in Spain, Aline secretly continues her covert activities. (Release date is Feb. 9.)

E.C.R. Lorac was a penname of Edith Caroline Rivett who also wrote as Carol Carnac. Her Second World War Mystery, Checkmate to Murder, is a British Library Crime Classic with an introduction by Martin Edwards. On a dismally foggy night in Hampstead, London, an unusually mismatched party has gathered in an artist’s studio to weather the wartime blackout. When one of the group is brutally murdered, and the murder discovered by his Canadian infantryman nephew, Inspector Macdonald of Scotland Yard is on the scene. But, he’s faced with perplexing alibis, and he and his team must figure out if one of the group is responsible, or another neighbor. (Release date is Feb. 23.)

Hide in Place is Emilya Naymark’s debut novel. When NYPD undercover cop Laney Bird’s cover is blown in a racketeering case against the Russian mob, she flees the city with her troubled son, Alfie. Three years later, she’s found the perfect haven in upstate New York. Then, the unthinkable happens; her son vanishes. While local law enforcement dismisses Alfie as a runaway, Laney knows better. As a February snowstorm rips through the region, she’s forced to launch her own investigation, using every trick she learned in her years undercover. (Release date is Feb. 9.)

Jennifer Ryan, author of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir, takes us back to World War II in her latest novel, The Kitchen Front. Four women compete for a once-in-a-lifetime spot hosting a BBC cooking program during World War II in this historical novel. Two years into the war, Britain is feeling her losses. The Nazis have won battles; the Blitz has destroyed cities, and U-boats have cut off the supply of food. In an effort to help housewives with food rationing, a BBC radio program called “The Kitchen Front” is putting on a cooking contest – and the grand prize is a job as the program’s first-ever female co-host. For four very different women, winning the contest presents a crucial chance to change their lives. (Release date is Feb. 23.)

Inspector Ian Rutledge is exiled to Wales on a case in Charles Todd’s A Fatal Lie. When a boy finds a body in a nearby river, it appears that the man fell from the canal aqueduct spanning the river. The local police call in Scotland Yard. They do tell Rutledge that the man isn’t local, and no one claims to have seen him before. He finally identifies him as a well-respected man, but clues lead him to a suicidal woman, a missing child, and a woman determined to protect her past. Someone’s lies proved fatal to the man found in the river. Rutledge has his problems digging through all the lies in this case. (Release date is Feb. 16.)

Whoops. Slightly out of order after I went back to add the Charles Todd book. I do want to cover Martha Teichner’s (yes, that Martha Teichner from CBS Sunday Morning) When Harry Met Minnie. I’m looking forward to this memoir, although I know it’s going to be a tearjerker. New York City is the background for a fairy tale, an impossible story of coincidence, although it won’t have a conventional happily-ever-after ending. There’s a special camaraderie among early-morning dog walkers. While walking her dog, Minnie, Martha Teichner ran into an old acquaintance who changed her world. Her friends knew someone who was dying of cancer, from exposure to toxins after 9/11, and desperate to find a home for her dog, Harry. He was a Bull Terrier, the same breed as Martha’s dear Minnie. Would Martha consider giving Harry a safe, loving new home? So, boy dog meets girl dog, the fairy-tale part of the story. But, there’s so much more. After Martha agrees to meet Harry and his owner, Carol, what begins as a transaction becomes a deep, meaningful friendship between two women with complicated lives and a love of Bull Terriers in common. Through the heartbreak and grief of Carol’s illness, the bond that develops changes all their lives. It also changes Carol’s death. (Release date is Feb. 2.) And, darn, I’m crying writing the summary, and I haven’t even read the book yet.

Last Seen Wearing by Hillary Waugh is a new release in the Library of Congress Crime Classics series, with an introduction by editor Leslie S. Klinger. Lowell Mitchell seems like a perfectly normal college student at a women’s college, until she goes missing. Considered one of the first police procedurals, Last Seen Wearing is based on a true story. Readers will follow, step-by-step, the police investigation of the case. (Release date is Feb. 2.)

Frederick Weisel’s debut mystery, The Silenced Women, introduces Santa Rosa, California’s Violent Crime Investigations Team. Over several years, women have been found dead, strangled, in the largest park in the city. A new body reminds Detective Mahler, head of the VCI, of his failure two years earlier when the DA failed to indict the man the team knew was the killer. But, there’s something different about this murder, and the VCI. Mahler suffers from crippling migraines, and his newest recruit washed out at the FBI because she found herself too deep into her analysis of the cases. The Silenced Women is an outstanding debut that truly does put together a team of investigators. (Release date is Feb. 2.)

There you go. A list of twenty books to entice you to read in February. Do you have something to add to the list? Or, maybe something in the list below jumps out at you. Enjoy the books!

Other February Releases

Benjamin, Ali – The Smash-Up (2/23)
Chen, Te-Ping – Land of Big Numbers (2/2)
Dean, Abigail – Girl A (2/2)
Fox, Lauren – Send for Me (2/2)
Hawke, Ethan – A Bright Ray of Darkness (2/2)
Hayes, Mike – Never Enough (2/9)
Hopkins, Pauline – Of One Blood (2/9)
Jarrar, Randa – Love is an Ex-Country (2/2)
Layden, Emily – All Girls (2/16)
Lee, Chang-Rae – My Year Abroad (2/2)
Lomnitz, Claudio – Nuestra America (2/9)
Pang, Amelia – Made in China (2/2)
Reardon, Bryan – Let Her Lie (2/9)
Rogers, Morgan – Honey Girl (2/23)
Romano-Lax, Andromeda – Annie and the Wolves (2/2)
Rosende, Mercedes –Crocodile Tears (2/23)