I looked back at my favorite books of 2019 yesterday. Now, it’s time to look forward. Here it is, January 1, 2020, and I’m already talking about February book releases. Just because it’s New Year’s Day doesn’t mean I can skip Treasures in My Closet. If you’re looking for my New Year’s post, check the one from earlier today. And, if you’re looking for my favorite books of 2019, check out yesterday’s blog post. But, today we’re going to talk about February’s releases. (Check all the fire and burning titles this month.)

Thriller readers will want to try Heather Chavez’ debut, No Bad Deed. On her way home one night, Cassie Larkin sees a couple fighting on the side of the road. She calls 911, but the veterinarian tries to intervene. She tries to stop the violent man who threatens her, steals her car, and now has her name and address. When her husband disappears the next day, Cassie doesn’t know if he’s taken off, or if the the roadside attacker is involved. She can’t sit back when her loved ones are in danger. (Release date is Feb. 18.)

The Last Passenger is the third and final book in Charles Finch’s Charles Lenox prequel trilogy. For the first time in young Charles Lenox’s life, he encounters a murder case with no clues left behind. Slumped in a third-class car at Paddington Station is the body of a young, handsome gentleman with no luggage, empty pockets, and no sign of violence upon his person – except his clothes. Pursuing the investigation against the wishes of Scotland Yard, the young detective encounters every obstacle London in 1835 has to offer, from obstinate royalty to class prejudice to the intense grief of his closest friend. Readers get to know the young Charles Lenox at the start of his career. (Release date is Feb. 18.)

Sophie Hannah brings us Perfect Little Children. When Beth takes her son to his soccer game, something makes her drive by her ex-best friend’s home. She hasn’t seen Flora in twelve years. While Beth watches, Flora and her children arrive in their car. Flora looks the same, only older. But, Thomas and Emily were five and three the last time Beth saw them twelve years earlier. But, in twelve years, Thomas and Emily haven’t changed at all. (Release date is Feb. 4.)

Kathleen Kent was an Edgar Award finalist for The Dime. Now, in the sequel, The Burn, she brings back veteran detective Betty Rhyzyk. She’s back on the job as a narcotics detective, but she’s having a hard time adjusting. She suspects her work partner is keeping dangerous company, and secrets that are getting people killed. She reaches her breaking point, and goes rogue, investigating her colleagues. The chase will lead her to the dark heart of a drug cartel terrorizing Dallas, and straight to the crooked cop who plans to profit. (Release date is Feb. 11.)

Mary Kubica’s The Other Mrs. is scheduled for a Netflix film. Sadie and Will Foust have only just moved to small-town Maine when their neighbor Morgan Baines is found dead in her home. The murder rocks the tiny coastal island, but Sadie is shaken the most. The death, the eerie, decrepit old home they inherited, and Will’s disturbed teenage niece all have Sadie on edge. Sadie is drawn deeper into Morgan’s death, but the more she discovers about Mrs. Baines, the more she has to lose. (Release date is Feb. 18.)

The King’s Justice is the ninth Maggie Hope mystery by Susan Elia MacNeal. Maggie has returned to London after being imprisoned on a remote island, and she’s traumatized. She takes a break from spying, but starts to behave more and more recklessly. She drinks too much, speeds through the streets on her motorcycle, and joins a squad tasked with diffusing unexploded bombs left in London from the blitz. When conscientious objectors to the war start disappearing, and human bones wash up on the shores of the Thames,  Maggie is drawn into searching for a serial killer. (Release date is Feb. 25.)

I love the premise of Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore. Oona Lockhart will turn nineteen on the stroke of midnight, New Year’s Eve, 1982, with her whole future ahead of her. As the countdown begins, she faints, and wakes  thirty-two years in the future, at the age of 51, greeted by a stranger in a house she’s told is her own. Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at random. “Just because life is out of order, doesn’t mean it’s broken.” (Release date is Feb. 25.)

Owen Nicholls brings us a debut contemporary romance, Love, Unscripted. ‘A film-obsessed romantic rewrites the script to understand why his “picture-perfect” love story crashed and burned. Nick’s a cinema devotee and lover of great love stories. He always fancied himself as the Tom Hanks of his own romantic comedy. For four blissful years, Nick loves Ellie as his own Meg Ryan. But, when she moves out, he wants to discover why love in real life isn’t like the movies. (Release date is Feb. 11.)

I was a teen when I read Annemarie Selinko’s novel, Desiree, a book that came out before I was born. It’s the story of Desiree Clary, “Napoleon’s first love”. Now, Allison Pataki brings another view of that story in the novel The Queen’s Fortune: Desiree, Napoleon, and the Dynasty. I’m in. I really don’t care what’s true about the story, other than Desiree Clary and Napoleon courted until he met Josephine de Beauharnais. But, Desiree’s fortunes change when she meets Napoleon’s general, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte. I know what happens, but I’m still going to read the story of a relatively unknown woman linked to two powerful men. (Release date is Feb. 11.)

I read more crime fiction than anything else, but occasionally a fiction title jumps out at me.The Authenticity Project is by Clare Pooley. Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian, believes that most people aren’t really honest with each other. But what if they were. He writes, in a plain, green journal, the truth about his own life, and leaves it in his local cafe. The woman who runs it adds her own entry, and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, others who find the green notebook add the truths of their deepest selves, and soon find each other in Monica’s Cafe. (Release date is Feb. 4.)

The Heartless is the seventh in David Putnam’s Bruno Johnson series. Former LA County Deputy Bruno Johnson is now a bailiff in the courts after stepping down to spend more time with his daughter, Olivia. But, he gets a frantic all to extricate Oliva from a gunpoint situation in an LA gang-infested neighborhood. He learns a killer awaiting trial has orchestrated the whole scene. When the man breaks out of jail, Bruno is back in violent crime mode because his daughter has become a pawn. (Release date is Feb. 4.)

I never overlook Lori Rader-Day’s new releases. The award-winning author’s latest is The Lucky One.  Alice Fine recognizes that she was lucky. When she was stolen from her backyard as a child, her policeman father rescued her that same day. But, she hasn’t forgotten. One day, while trolling a site called The Doe Pages about missing people, she recognizes one face, the man who kidnapped her. She enlists people from the web site to help her find him, but when she meets Merrily Cruz who is also hunting for answers, she realizes her truth might not be accurate. (Release date is Feb. 18.)

Luanne Rice’s Last Day is a little slow-moving, but the shocking ending is worth the entire book. Kate Woodward and her sister, Beth, were held hostage as teens in the family art gallery, and they watched their mother die. Years later, history repeats itself when Kate finds her dead sister, and, once again, a painting is missing. Detective Conor Reid, who rescued the girls twenty-three years earlier, feels responsible because he couldn’t save Beth a second time. Now, the two team up in looking into family secrets and history to find a killer. (Release date is Feb. 1.)

The third Ellery Hathaway crime novel is All the Best Lies by Joanna Schaffhausen. FBI agent Reed Markham is haunted by one painful unsolved mystery: who murdered his mother? Camila was brutally stabbed to death more than forty years ago while baby Reed lay in his crib just steps away. Now, a shattering family secret changes everything Reed knows about his origins. He enlists the help of his friend, suspended cop Ellery Hathaway, on his quest for justice. (Release date is Feb. 11.)

One Day You’ll Burn is a fascinating debut, a police procedural by Joseph Schneider. Detective Tully Jarsdel is not the typical police detective. He’s a former academic, not appreciated by his department or his partner. And, his career choice is not acceptable to his fathers, both professors. But, when assigned the case of a burned body found in Hollywood, he won’t quit until he finds the brutal killer. It’s an atmospheric book with a troubled detective dealing with personal issues. (Release date is Feb. 4.)

I usually wouldn’t mention a cookbook, but See You on Sunday is by the Food editor of The New York Times. Let’s face it. I can cook, but I seldom do. This book is going to my brother-in-law. Kevin is an outstanding cook whose food is enjoyed by family and friends. I’m celebrating traditions in Linda and Kevin’s family by sending this to him because the intro to the ARC says, “A cookbook to help us rediscover the art of Sunday supper and the joy of gathering with friends and family.” Family and friends are always welcome at Kevin’s for Sunday dinner. He’ll appreciate the thought and, hopefully, the recipes. (Release date is Feb. 18.)

Firewatching marks the debut of a British police procedural series by Russ Thomas. Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler is a cold-case reviewer who wonders if he was ever intended to get results. But, when a body is found sealed behind a cellar wall, it’s the answer to a financier’s disappearance six years earlier. Tyler has a good suspect, the victim’s son. Unfortunately, he slept with him the night before. It’s a complicated, messy case, and an intriguing book. (Release date is Feb. 25.)

If none of the titles above appeal to you, check out some of these other February releases.

Anappara, Deepa – Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line (2/4)
Beams, Clare – The Illness Lesson (2/11)
Bump, Gabriel – Everywhere You Don’t Belong (2/4)
Dare, Abi – The Girl with the Louding Voice (2/4)
DiRico, Maria – Here Goes the Body (2/25)
Donohoe, Kathleen – Ghosts of the Missing (2/11)
Freeman, Brian – Thief River Falls (2/1)
Goldfarb, Bruce – 18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics (2/4)
Hall, Tarquin – The Case of the Reincarnated Client (2/4)
Jen, Gish – The Resisters (2/4)
Little, Elizabeth – Pretty as a Picture (2/25)
McCann, Colum – Apeirogon (2/25)
McDonald, Christina – Behind Every Lie (2/4)
Moore, Graham – The Holdout (2/18)
Murdoch, Sierra Crane – Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country (2/25)
Murray, Andrew Hunter – The Last Day (2/4)
Neumann, Ariana – When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father, Survival, and What Remains (2/4)
Offill, Jenny – Weather (2/11)
Rothschild, Hannah – House of Trelawney (2/11)
Taylor, Brandon – Real Life (2/18)
West, Kathleen – Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes (2/4)
Zapata, Michael – The Lost Book of Adana Moreau (2/4)