There are a lot more January book releases than December ones. Are you ready to kick off 2021 with a variety of selections? Let’s check them out.

Melanie Benjamin’s novel covers an event most of you have probably never heard of, The Children’s Blizzard of 1888. So many schoolchildren perished in this natural tragedy when an unexpected blizzard hit the Plains States, trapping children in schools, and leaving young teachers with a decision, send the children home in a blizzard, or try to protect them in schools that were not prepared to shelter them. (Release date is Jan. 12.)

One Poison Pie launches Lynn Cahoon’s new mystery series. Mia Malone, a kitchen witch, starts over in her grandmother’s Idaho hometown where witches and warlocks are (mostly) welcome.  With a new gourmet dinner delivery business, and a touch of magic in her recipes, Mia’s hopes are high until she finds her first client dead. Mia’s not only a suspect, she’s next on a killer’s list. (Release date is Jan. 26.)

We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen is an emotional adventure featuring unlikely friends who have the power to choose who they want to be. Jamie wakes up in an empty apartment with no memory, and only a few clues to his identity. But he does have the ability to read and erase other people’s memories – a power he uses to hold up banks to buy coffee, cat food and books. Zoe is also searching for the past. She  uses her abilities of speed and strength to deliver fast food while occasionally donning a cool suite and beating up bad guys. The archrivals meet in a memory-loss support group. When they uncover an ongoing threat, they realize there’s a lot at stake. Jamie and Zoe will have to recognize that sometimes being a hero starts with trusting someone else, and yourself. (Release date is Jan. 26.)

I’ve already read Lee Goldberg’s intriguing second Eve Ronim book, Bone Canyon. When wildfires scorch the Santa Monica Mountains, they expose the charred remains of a woman who disappeared years earlier. Eve Ronim, the youngest homicide detective in the LA County Sheriff’s Department, is assigned the case. Bones don’t lie, so Eve digs into the past, and there are very few people she can trust to help with the case. (Release date is Jan. 5.)

There isn’t much of a summary of Julie Carrick Dalton’s debut novel, Waiting for the Night Song. It’s a coming-of-age story, sharing a passion for the environment, immigration rights, and the people who make small towns special. Cadie Kessler has spent decades trying to cover up one truth, one moment. But deep down, didn’t she always know her secret would surface? (Release date is Jan. 12.)

No Holding Back is the first romance in Lori Foster’s The McKenzies of Ridge Trail series. Trucker Sterling (Star) Parson is no stranger to the challenges a woman faces, both in her industry and in life. She’s never needed – or wanted – a man around…until she meets Cade McKenzie. Cade’s lived in Ridge Trail long enough to know trouble when he sees it, and the moment Sterling – Star – walks into his bar, he knows trouble’s come to call. Now, the two just need to learn to trust each other. (Release date is Jan. 26.)

Michael Kaufman’s The Last Exit takes readers to Washington, D.C. twenty years from now. Climate change has hit hard, fires are burning, unemployment is high, and controversial longevity treatments are only available to the very rich. Police detective Jen B. Lu is a detective in the Elder Abuse Unit, working with her partner, Chandler, a SIM implant in her brain, her instant link to the internet and police records. But, when Jen’s investigations of Eden, a longevity drug, takes her too close to the truth, she is suspended and Chandler is deactivated, Jen is left to pursue a very dangerous investigation all by herself. (Release date is Jan. 12.)

Bloodline by Jess Lourey has the same setting as her terrific book, Unspeakable Things, Lilydale, Minnesota. After she’s mugged, pregnant journalist Joan Harken agrees to move to his hometown, Lilydale, with her fiancé, Deck. But, there’s something off in this town, and Joan feels it when she first meets the residents of the street where they live. I have to say, Bloodline, reminded me of a cross between The Stepford Wives and Rosemary’s Baby. Want a little horror in your Midwestern small town? (Release date is Jan. 1.)

The basic plot of Mameve Medwed’s novel, Minus Me, reminds me of several other books. But, there’s a radical departure. Annie is a small-town girl in Maine, happily married to her charming, but comically helpless childhood sweetheart. Together, they run Annie’s, home to the legendary Paul Bunyan Special Sandwich. Although her actress mother, Ursula, abandoned her, Annie finds solace and joy in taking care of Sam. But, Annie’s grim medical diagnosis forces her to device step-by-step plans for Sam to go on. Everything proceeds smoothly until Ursula shows up. (Release date is Jan. 12.)

Anna North’s Outlawed is called “The Crucible meets True Grit.” At seventeen, Ada’s life is good with a husband she loves and an apprenticeship with her mother, a respected midwife. But, after a year of marriage, and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are hanged as witches, Ada flees in order to survive. She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, led by a preacher-turned-robber, the Kid, who is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But, the gang’s plans to make that dream a reality could get them all killed. (Release date is Jan. 12.)

Other librarians have raved about Paraic O’Donnell’s The House on Vesper Sands. O’Donnell introduces a detective duo in a mystery set in London in 1893. Why does a seamstress jump from a window? Why is a cryptic message stitched into her skin? And, how is she connected to a rash of missing girls, all of whom seem to have disappeared under similar circumstances. Inspector Cutter in on the case, along with Gideon Bliss, who was in love with one of the missing girls. He stumbles into the role of Cutter’s sidekick. And a journalist, Octavia Hillingdon, sees the case as chance to tell a story that matters. (Release date is Jan. 12.)

Rachel Marin returns in A Stranger at the Door, the sequel to Jason Pinter’s Hide Away. After years of struggle, the single mother has a stable, loving relationship, and she’s putting her investigative skills to work solving crime for the local police department. But, just as the pieces of her life are finally coming together, her teenaged son’s teacher is gruesomely murdered, a man who sent her an ominous email just before his death. She knows she must help bring his killer to justice. But, a figure from her past threatens to expose her secrets, and her son is recruited by someone who may be connected to the murder. Rachel’s latest case has gotten very personal. (Release date is Jan. 12.)

Portrait of Peril is Laura Joh Rowland’s fifth Victorian mystery. London, October 1890, and crime scene photographer Sarah Bain is overjoyed to marry Detective Sergeant Barrett. But, the wedding takes a sinister turn when the body of a stabbing victim is discovered in the crypt of the church. Not every newlywed couple begins their marriage with a murder investigation. The dead man’s profession is “spirit photography”, photographing the ghosts of the deceased. Then, a ghost-hunting expedition ends with a new murder. While Sarah searches for the truth, she travels a dark, twisted path into her own family’s sordid history. (Release date is Jan. 12.)

At the Edge of the Haight, Katherine Seligman’s debut novel, takes readers into a world that most of us manage not to see. Maddy Donaldo is homeless at twenty, but she’s made a family in the hidden spaces of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, a group that looks out for each other. She’s a survivor, until she stumbles on the scene of a murder, and has to confront the killer, and deal with the police. Then, she becomes entangled with the victim’s parents, who are desperate to learn about his life on the streets. Maddy must decide if she wants to stay lost, or be found by her own family. (Release date is Jan. 19.)

I have to admit that Chris Harding Thornton’s Pickard County Atlas is beautifully written, and one of the most depressing books I’ve ever read. Set in Nebraska, the rural noir focuses on a small group of characters, a deputy on the night shift, whose mother committed suicide in the family home years earlier, a troublemaker from a connected local family whose mother and entire family has been affected by the long ago disappearance of his brother, and a young woman who desperately wants out of the community and her marriage. As I said, beautiful, but there’s no happiness in this novel. (Release date is Jan. 5.)

Hope Taylor, pastor of a small-town California church, tries to find out who sent a church elder to Heaven in Laura Jensen Walker’s Hope, Faith, & a Corpse.  Hope Taylor arrives in Apple Springs to start her new life as the first female pastor of Faith Chapel Episcopal Church. But, while looking for the kindly old rector who hired her, she stumbles across the body of a church elder. The last time Hope had seen him, he had shouted that she would preach at Faith Chapel over his dead body. Now, she’s the prime suspect in his murder. (Release date is Jan. 12.) And, watch for Laura Jensen Walker’s guest post in January.

I picked this one from the pile just for fun, Eley Williams’ The Liar’s Dictionary. “Mountweazel n. the phenomenon of false entries within dicitonaries and works of reference. Often used as a safeguard against copyright infringement.” In the final year of the nineteenth century, Peter Winceworth is toiling away at the letter S for Swansby’s multivolume Encyclopedia Dictionary. Winceworth is increasingly uneasy about his colleagues’ work, so he feels compelled to assert some sense of artistic freedom, and begins inserting unauthorized, fictitious entries into the dictionary. In the present day, Mallory, a young intern employed by the publisher, must uncover these mountweazels before the work is digitized. Through the words and their definitions, she begins to sense their creator’s motivations. The two narratives combine as Winceworth and Mallory must discover how to negotiate life. (Release date is Jan. 5.)

We started and will end with novels inspired by true stories. Marty Wingate’s Glamour Girls introduces Rosalie Wright. At the age of eighteen, on the verge of earning her pilot’s license, that dream crashes without her when Britain enters World War II, bringing civilian aviation to a standstill. Then Rosalie’s father dies, leaving her, her mother, and her brothers to run the family farm. Everything changes when she learns that the Air Transport Authority is recruiting women pilots to ferry warplanes across Britain to RAF bases. Despite her mother’s objections, Rosalie can’t resist the lure of the skies. Later, as the war drags on, love and tragedy might send Rosalie’s exhilarating airborne life crashing to the ground. (Release date is Jan. 12.)

Here are a few other treasures, January releases, that you might want to read. Any others you wanted to mention?

Burdick, Serena – Find Me in Havana (1/12)

Chammah, Maurice – Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty (1/26)

Fisher, Helen – Faye, Faraway (1/26)

Johnson, Sadeqa – Yellow Wife (1/12)

Moss, Sarah – Summerwater (1/12)

Moulite, Maika and Maritza Moulite – One of the Good Ones (1/5)

Owusu, Nadia – Aftershocks (1/12)

Vanderbilt, Tom – Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning (1/5)