REQUIRED READING

Mr. Rochester Sarah Shoemaker (Grand Central Publishing)

You’ve heard Jane Eyre’s side of the story — now it’s time for Mr. Rochester’s version of events. The much misunderstood, brooding Rochester of the Charlotte Brontë masterpiece sounds off on his upbringing, his feelings for governess Jane and the wife he keeps locked in the attic.

Proving Ground

Peter Blauner (Minotaur Books) Brash NYPD Detective Lourdes Robles is back, and she’s got murders to solve. When a well-known civil-rights lawyer named David Dresden is found dead in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, Robles looks to his Iraq War veteran son Nathaniel, thinking he might have had something to do with it. As she investigates, the list of people that could have wanted David dead seems to keep growing.

My Rescue Dog Rescued Me Sharon Ward Keeble (Skyhorse Publishing)

The title is no exaggeration: These rescue dogs were given a new lease on life, and in return they saved their new owners right back. Among these heroic canines are Hercules, the St. Bernard who saved his owners from burglars the day he moved in, and Alfie, the terrier who gave a bullied girl a new reason to embrace life.

The Widow of Wall Street

Randy Susan Meyers (Atria Books) When Phoebe and Jake Pierce meet as teenagers, she knows he’s someone on the way up, and she wants to be there as he climbs the Wall Street ladder. He gets everything he ever wanted. When it turns out that Jake’s success rests on a huge Ponzi scheme, Phoebe has to make an excruciating choice.

Dinner with DiMaggio: Memories of an American Hero

Rock Positano (Simon & Schuster) In 1990, Dr. Rock Positano, a Manhattan foot and ankle specialist, met Joe DiMaggio. Brought together by a heel spur injury, an unlikely, decade-long friendship formed between the baseball legend and Positano, with the generally reserved DiMaggio opening up about his joys and disappointments.

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women

Kate Moore (Sourcebooks) When radium was first discovered, it made headlines as the new wonder drug. It showed up in everything from body lotion to tonic water, and the women that worked in the radium factories had coveted jobs that made them gleam — literally. But when they began to fall mysteriously ill, it became one of the biggest scandals of America’s early 20th century.