Scandal. Suspense. Intrigue.
All in a day’s read at Lake Forest Book Store.
The House I Loved
By Tatiana de Rosnay, St. Martin’s Press, $25.99
From The New York Times bestselling author of Sarah’s Key and A Secret Kept comes an absorbing new novel about one woman’s resistance in Paris during the 1860s. In Paris, hundreds of houses are being razed and reduced to ashes by order of Emperor Napoleon III to Baron Haussman. This has set into motion renovations that will permanently alter the face of old Paris, molding it into a “modern city.” Rose Bazelet is determined to fight against the destruction of her family home until the very end. When others flee and she stakes her claim in her family home, she attempts to overcome the loneliness of her daily life. She begins to write letters to Armand, her beloved late husband, and, in the act of remembering, Rose is forced to come to terms with a secret that has been buried deep in her heart for 30 years.
Lone Wolf
By Jodi Picoult, Atria/Emily Bestler Books, $28
Luke Warren has spent his life researching wolves. He has written about them, studied their habits intensively, and even lived with them for extended periods of time. In many ways, Luke understands wolf dynamics better than those of his own family. His wife, Georgie, has left him, giving up on their lonely marriage. His 24-year-old son, Edward, fled six years ago, leaving behind a shattered relationship with his father. Then comes a frantic phone call—Luke has been gravely injured in a car accident with Edward’s younger sister, Cara. Suddenly everything changes: Edward must return home to face the father he walked out on at age 18. He and Cara have to decide their father’s fate together, though there’s no easy answer. Another tour de force by Jodi Picoult, Lone Wolf brilliantly describes the nature of a family—the love, protection, and strength it can offer—and the price we might have to pay for those gifts.
The Darlings
By Cristina Alger, Viking/Pamela Dorman Books, $26.95
This is a sophisticated page-turner about a wealthy New York family embroiled in a financial scandal with cataclysmic consequences. Paul Ross marries Merrill Darling, the daughter of billionaire financier Carter Darling, and he becomes accustomed to New York society and all of its luxuries, including a Park Avenue apartment with weekends in the Hamptons. When Paul loses his job, Carter offers him the chance to head the legal team at his hedge fund. Paul is thrilled with his good fortune in the midst of the worst financial downturn since the Depression and accepts the position. Paul’s luck begins to shift as a tragic event catapults the Darling family into the media spotlight, a regulatory investigation, and a red-hot scandal with enormous implications for everyone involved. Suddenly, Paul must decide where his loyalties lie—will he save himself while betraying his wife and in-laws or protect the family business at all costs?
The Shadow Patrol
By Alex Berenson, Putnam Adult, $26.95
Two years after a suicide bomber guts the CIA’s Kabul Station taking out most of the senior staff, the station is still floundering and the CIA’s chiefs wonder if the unthinkable has happened, if somehow the Taliban has infiltrated the station. When the Director of Central Intelligence calls upon former CIA agent John Wells to investigate, he reluctantly agrees to return to the country where his career as an undercover operative began. But there, he finds a nest of hostility and mistrust and clues that hint at a drug-trafficking operation involving the Agency, the military, and the Taliban. Americans are dying, and an American is responsible. And only John Wells stands in his way. This is a riveting thriller with an insider’s view of up-to-the-minute espionage techniques in Afghanistan and Pakistan; a must-read for fans of spy fiction.
Lake Forest Book Store is located at 680 N. Western Avenue in Lake Forest.
—Words by Sue Boucher
