I have another collection of books to tempt you today. I hope you’re excited about some of the January releases.

We have a number of interesting debut novels this month. In Jane Harper’s The Dry, “Small towns can hide big secrets.” Federal Agent Aaron Falk returns to his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years earlier, Falk was accused of murder, but Luke was his alibi. Now, someone knows the two didn’t tell the truth, and Luke has killed himself. Now, Luke and the local detective question the official verdict in Luke’s death. Long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies. (Release date is Jan. 10.)

“True Grit meets Catch Me If You Can” in Andrew Hilleman’s debut novel, World, Chase Me Down. It’s based on the forgotten true story of a Robin Hood of the American frontier who pulls off the first successful kidnapping for ransom in U.S. history. (Release date is Jan. 24.)

Blake Crouch, author of this year’s hit, Dark Matter, raves about Jay Hosking’s debut, Three Years with the Rat. He calls it, “A mind-warping thriller that will make you question reality as you conceive it.” A young man’s quest to find his missing sister will catapult him into a dangerous labyrinth of secrets in this genre-blending novel. (Release date is Jan. 24.)

Rachel Hulin’s debut is Hey Harry, Hey Matilda, an inventive novel told entirely in e-mails, the story of fraternal twins Henry and Matilda Goodman. They’re fumbling their way into adulthood, telling lies, keeping secrets (Matilda tells her boyfriend she has a dead twin), and finally confronting their complicated relationship. (Release date is Jan. 17.)

The Most Dangerous Place on Earth, Lindsey Lee Johnson’s debut takes readers back to a dangerous place, the American high school. A new teacher, Molly Nicoll, becomes intrigued by the hidden lives of her privileges students. But, she doesn’t know that a middle school tragedy continues to reverberate for the kids. They were all complicit. (Release date is Jan. 10.)

The thriller Snowblind by Ragnar Jonasson was a bestseller in England. Now, it makes its U.S. debut. It’s set in idyllic fishing village in northern Iceland where Ari Thor Arason is a rookie policeman on his first posting. When a young woman is found lying half-naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and an elderly writer falls to his death in the local theater, Ari is dragged straight into the heart of a community where he can trust no one. (Release date is Jan. 31.)

After all those debuts, we have Shoes for Anthony by Emma Kennedy. Set in a small Welsh coal-mining town during World War II, it tells the story of Anthony, a boy who is anticipating the arrival of American troops. Inn 1944, a German plane crashes into the village mountain. A Polish prisoner-of-war survives and develops a close relationship with Anthony. Then, the villagers discover one of the Germans on the plane survived and is still on the mountain. (Release date is Jan. 31.)

Three generations of a Russian-American Jewish family are caught in the turmoil of the Soviet Union and its aftermath in Sana Krasikov’s novel, The Patriots. During the Great Depression, a young woman who just graduated from college follows a Soviet engineer back to the Soviet Union. The Soviets may have made promises for the future, but Florence finds life imperiled by purges, interrogations, and executions. Years later, her son goes back to the U.S., but returns when he learns his mother’s KGB file has been opened. (Release date is Jan. 24.)

Jennifer McVeigh takes readers to Kenya in the 1950s in Leopard at the Door. Rachel has returned to Kenya and the farm where she spent her childhood after spending six years in England. She discovers changes in the household, and in the country, as Kenya grows more unsettled every day. Looming over them all is the threat of Mau Mau, a secret society determined to unite the Africans and overthrow the whites. The story is set against the fading backdrop of the British Empire, a tale of self-discovery, betrayal, and an impossible love. (Release date is Jan. 3.)

Everything You Want Me to Be by Mindy Mejia is a psychological thriller in the same vein as Gone Girl. No one knows who Hattie Hoffman really is because she’s spent her whole life playing roles – the good student, the good daughter, the good girlfriend. When she’s found brutally stabbed to death, the tragedy rips through the small town. The novel reconstructs a year in the life of a dangerously mesmerizing young woman as she inches closer and closer to her death. (Release date is Jan. 3.)

Susan Rivers based her debut novel, The Second Mrs. Hockaday, on a terrible crime she read about because she couldn’t stop thinking about it. In this story, Major Gryffith Hockaday is called to the frontline of the Civil War, leaving his teenage bride behind, left to care for his three-hundred acre farm and their infant son. When he finally returns two years later, he finds his wife heading for jail, accused of having borne a child in his absence, and murdering it. What really happened in the two years he was away? (Release date is Jan. 10.)

Author Kathleen Rooney was inspired by Margaret Fishback, a poet and Macy’s ad-writing phenom of the 1930s. In Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, she introduces Boxfish, a poet who became the highest paid advertising woman in 1930s America. On New Year’s Eve 1984, the octogenarian walks to the end of Manhattan and back, illuminating all the ways her world has changed, and has not. (Release date is Jan. 17.)

Indelible by Adelie Saunders is a debut novel that introduces Magdalena, a young woman who has a gift of seeing the truth about people written on their skin. When she meets Neil, she is intrigued to see her name on his cheek, and she is drawn into a family drama that goes back more than a half century when Neil’s father was abandoned at birth by his mother. (Release date is Jan. 17.)

In Randall Silvis’ Two Days Gone, the wife and children of a bestselling author are found slaughtered in their home, and the author himself as disappeared. Sergeant Ryan DeMarco doesn’t think Huston was capable of murdering his family, but doesn’t know why he’s on the run if he’s innocent. (Release date is Jan. 10.)

Home Sweet Home by April Smith follows the Kusek family from New York City to America’s heartland where they are caught up in the panic of McCarthyism, a smear campaign, a sensational trial, and, ultimately, murder. (Release date is Jan. 31.)

Here are the January releases I didn’t summarize –

Mexico: A Collection of Stories by Josh Barkan
Human Acts by Han King
Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh
Idaho by Emily Ruskovich
Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
No Man’s Land by Simon Tolkien
The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker
The Guests on South Battery by Karen White

I hope you found a book or two, maybe a debut novel, that you want to read in January. Let me know if something sounds wonderful to you. Happy reading!