Books We Love What to Read This Month
Missing the election excitement? These books deliver blackmail schemes, gripping thrills and like family drama. —
Succession
For anyone in need of a good laugh, Kelly Conaboy’s The Particulars of Peter: Dance Lessons, DNA Tests, and Other Excuses to Hang Out With My Perfect Dog (Grand Central Publishing, Dec. 8) chronicles life with her Labrador-terrier mix alongside hilarious observations and reporting on dog behaviorists, dog dancers, ghost chasers and more. $27
If the cobblestone streets of Florence aren’t on your holiday itinerary, enjoy some armchair travel to the Italian countryside in Lori Nelson Spielman’s The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany (Berkley), where three women bound by a centuriesold curse will learn of love, second chances and self-discovery.
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the woman her boyfriend loved. In Layla (Montlake, Dec. 8) by Colleen Hoover, an isolated B&B, a strange love triangle and some paranormal twists take this contemporary romance on a bizarre turn. $15
A Hollywood con artist makes a living blackmailing lecherous men in The Lady Upstairs (Putnam) by Halley Sutton, a witty and feminist
Megan O’Neill Melle modern-day noir that tells a chilling story of female revenge. $16
In Big Girl, Small Town, (Algonquin, Dec. 1), Irish newcomer Michelle Gallen debuts with a hysterically honest and moving portrait of a young girl on the autism spectrum, her irresponsible mother and the residents of a small
Irish village just after the Troubles. $17
“All three of the Drumm brothers were at the funeral, although one of us Ü>Ã > V vw °» / i wÀÃÌ i Little Cruelties (Scout Press) by Liz Nugent will reel you into a dysfunctional family whose history of playing dangerous games is about to get sinister. $28
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award-winning country songwriter Aimee Mayo (Tim McGraw, Carrie Underwood and Blake Shelton have all recorded her songs), whose emotional memoir Talking to the Sky: A Memoir of Living Your Best Life in a S--t Show is both tragic and triumphantly hilarious.
$35