My friend Molly Backes, author of the Princesses of Iowa, has helpfully compiled the following list of forthcoming books by wonderful, Chicagolandish authors, coming out in the next few months. Check them out and pre-order them now! If there are others coming out that you're excited out, please feel free to add them below! Reading!!!!

January

1/23: WANDERVILLE by Wendy McClure

This is the first book in a historical series that's perfect for fans of the boxcar children. Jack, Frances, and Frances's younger brother Harold have been ripped from the world they knew in New York and sent to Kansas on an orphan train at the turn of the century. As the train chugs closer and closer to its destination, the children begin to hear terrible rumors about the lives that await them. And so they decide to change their fate the only way they know how... .

They jump off the train.

There, in the middle of the woods, they meet a boy who will transform their lives forever. His name is Alexander, and he tells them they've come to a place nobody knows about--especially not adults--and "where all children in need of freedom are accepted." It's a place called Wanderville, Alexander says, and now Jack, Frances, and Harold are its very first citizens.

February

2/4: A LIFE IN MEN by Gina Frangello

The friendship between Mary and Nix had endured since childhood, a seemingly unbreakable bond, until the mid-1980s, when the two young women reunited for a summer vacation in Greece. It was a trip instigated by Nix, who had just learned that Mary had been diagnosed with a disease that would inevitably cut her life short. Nix, a free spirit by nature, was determined that Mary have the vacation of a lifetime, but by the time their visit to Greece was over, the ties between them had unraveled, and when they said goodbye, it was for the last time. 

Three years later, Mary returns to Europe to try to understand what went wrong, in the process meeting the first of many men she will spend time with and travel with throughout the world. Through them she experiences not just a sexual awakening but a spiritual and emotional awakening that allows her to understand how the past and the future are connected, and to appreciate how important it is that she live her life to the fullest.

February 4, 2014: THE SUN AND OTHER STARS by Brigid Pasulka

From Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award-winning writer Brigid Pasulka comes a charming and compulsively readable modern day fable of one misanthrope's journey from darkness into the light--told by one of the most radiantly talented new voices in fiction.

In the seaside town of San Benedetto, soccer (or calcio) is more than just a sport: it's an obsession. Twenty-two-year-old Etto, however, couldn't care less about soccer. His beloved twin brother Luca, a rising soccer star, died tragically in a motorcycle accident, and their Californian mother, unable to cope with her grief, drowned herself on the anniversary of Luca's death. This has left Etto alone to tend the butcher shop--where his father barely seems to take in his presence and entrusts him with only the most basic tasks. But then Yuri Fil, a Ukrainian soccer star who Etto's father idolizes, takes refuge from the paparazzi in a nearby villa, and Etto accidentally falls into Yuri's orbit--and that of Yuri's beautiful and tough sister, Zhuki. Under their influence, he begins to learn a few life lessons: that the game of soccer might not be a total waste of time, that he might not in fact be a total loser--and that San Benedetto, his father, love, and life itself might have more to offer him than he would have ever believed possible.

2/4: TWISTED SISTERS by Jen Lancaster

New York Times bestselling author Jen Lancaster is "as adept at fiction as she is at telling her own stories" (Publishers Weekly, starred review). And now in her new novel, reality gets an unreal makeover...

Reagan Bishop is a pusher. A licensed psychologist who stars on the Wendy Winsberg cable breakout show I Need a Push, Reagan helps participants become their best selves by urging them to overcome obstacles and change behaviors. An overachiever, Reagan is used to delivering results.

Despite her overwhelming professional success, Reagan never seems to earn her family's respect. Her younger sister, Geri, is and always will be the Bishop family favorite. When a national network buys Reagan's show, the pressures for unreasonably quick results and higher ratings mount. But Reagan's a clinician, not a magician, and fears witnessing her own personal failings in prime time. (And seriously? Her family will never let her hear the end of it.) Desperate to make the show work and keep her family at bay, Reagan actually listens when the show's New Age healer offers an unconventional solution...

Record Nielsen ratings follow. But when Reagan decides to use her newfound power to teach everyone a lesson about sibling rivalry, she's the one who will be schooled...

April

4/1: THE ISLAND OF DOVES by Kelly O'Connor McNees

Vivid and enthralling, Island of the Doves tells the story of two women in early nineteenth century America--one typical of her time, one extraordinary for it--who transform each other's lives.

Susannah Fraser lives in one of Buffalo's finest mansions, but her husband has made it a monstrous prison. When a mysterious woman offers to help her escape, Susannah boards a steamboat for Mackinac Island. But after being a dutiful daughter and obedient wife, it is only as she flees that she realizes how unprepared she is for freedom.

An exceptional woman of early America, Magdelaine Fonteneau has overcome convention to live a bold and adventurous life, achieving great wealth and power as a fur trader. But Magdelaine has also seen great tragedy and lost all that was dear to her, and she is no longer sure her hardened heart is capable of love.

Now, Magdelaine seeks redemption by offering safe harbor to Susannah. But as their friendship grows into something miraculous, it changes each woman in unexpected ways. Each needs to learn to love again, and only together can they realize a future bright with the promise of new life...

4/22: THE ART OF SECRETS by James Klise

A fire destroys ...
A treasure appears ...
A crime unfolds ...

When Saba Khan's apartment burns in a mysterious fire, possibly a hate crime, her Chicago high school rallies around her. Her family moves rent-free into a luxury apartment, Saba's Facebook page explodes, and she starts (secretly) dating a popular boy. Then a quirky piece of art donated to a school fund-raising effort for the Khans is revealed to be an unknown work by a famous artist, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Saba's life turns upside down again. Should Saba's family have all that money? Or should it go to the students who found the art? Or to the school? And just what caused that fire? Greed, jealousy, and suspicion create an increasingly tangled web as students and teachers alike debate who should get the money and begin to point fingers and make accusations. The true story of the fire that sets events in motion and what happens afterward gradually comes together in an innovative narrative made up of journal entries, interviews, articles, letters, text messages, and other documents.

May

5/1: THE BREAK-UP ARTIST by Philip Siegel

Some sixteen-year-olds babysit for extra cash.  

Some work at the mall.  

Becca Williamson breaks up couples. 

Becca knows from experience the damage that love can do. After all, it was so-called love that turned Huxley from her childhood best friend into a social-world dictator, and love that left Becca's older sister devastated at the altar. Instead of sitting on the sidelines, Becca strikes back--for just one hundred dollars via PayPal, she will trick and manipulate any couple's relationship into smithereens. And with relationship zombies overrunning her school and treating single girls as if they're second-class citizens, business is unfortunately booming. Even Becca's best friend, Val, has resorted to outright lies to snag a boyfriend. 

One night, Becca receives a mysterious offer to break up the most popular couple in school: Huxley and the football team's star player, Steve. To succeed, she'll have to plan her most elaborate scheme to date--starting rumors, sabotaging cell phones, breaking into cars...not to mention sneaking back into Huxley's good graces. All while fending off the inappropriate feelings she may or may not be having for Val's new boyfriend. 

No one said being the Break-Up Artist would be easy.

5/6: AN UNTAMED STATE by Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay is a powerful new literary voice whose short stories and essays have already earned her an enthusiastic audience. In An Untamed State, she delivers an assured debut about a woman kidnapped for ransom, her captivity as her father refuses to pay and her husband fights for her release over thirteen days, and her struggle to come to terms with the ordeal in its aftermath.

Mireille Duval Jameson is living a fairy tale. The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haiti's richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, by all appearances a perfect life. The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her father's Port au Prince estate. Held captive by a man who calls himself The Commander, Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom. As it becomes clear her father intends to resist the kidnappers, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents.

An Untamed State is a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, and of the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce. It is the story of a willful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places. An Untamed State establishes Roxane Gay as a writer of prodigious, arresting talent. 

5/13: ONCE I WAS COOL by Megan Stielstra

"Stielstra--collector, curator, and facilitator of so many stories--also writes beautifully and kinetically. Her work possesses a rare aural quality, no doubt the result of so much time on stage, or even in front of a classroom."Time Out Chicago

With storytelling chops honed over a decade of performances at Chicago's 2nd Story storytelling series, these insightful, compassionate, gutsy, and heartbreaking personal essays explore the messy, maddening beauty of adulthood with wit, intelligence, and biting humor, tackling topics ranging from beating postpartum depression through stalking to a surprising run-in with an old lover at the symphony while on ecstasy.

June

6/3: THE BOOK OF UNKNOWN AMERICANS by Cristina Henriquez

A dazzling, heartbreaking page-turner destined for breakout status: a novel that gives voice to millions of Americans as it tells the story of the love between a Panamanian boy and a Mexican girl: teenagers living in an apartment block of immigrant families like their own.

After their daughter Maribel suffers a near-fatal accident, the Riveras leave México and come to America. But upon settling at Redwood Apartments, a two-story cinderblock complex just off a highway in Delaware, they discover that Maribel's recovery-the piece of the American Dream on which they've pinned all their hopes-will not be easy. Every task seems to confront them with language, racial, and cultural obstacles. At Redwood also lives Mayor Toro, a high school sophomore whose family arrived from Panamà fifteen years ago. Mayor sees in Maribel something others do not: that beyond her lovely face, and beneath the damage she's sustained, is a gentle, funny, and wise spirit. But as the two grow closer, violence casts a shadow over all their futures in America. Peopled with deeply sympathetic characters, this poignant yet unsentimental tale of young love tells a riveting story of unflinching honesty and humanity that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be an American. An instant classic is born.

July

7/1: JENNIFER, GWYNETH & ME: THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, ONE CELEBRITY AT A TIME by Rachel Bertsche

For fans of The Happiness Project and The Year of Living Biblically comes a pointed look at our fascination with celebrities, as one woman strives to remake herself in the image of her favorite stars.
 
What woman hasn't seen pictures of Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, or Beyoncé and wished she had their clothes, their abs, their seemingly flawless lives? For Rachel Bertsche, these celebrities are the epitome of perfection--self-assured and effortlessly cool. Yet lately, between juggling her career, her marriage, and her dream of becoming a mother, Bertsche feels anything but put together.
 
In Jennifer, Gwyneth & Me, Bertsche embarks on a quest to emulate her Hollywood role models--while sticking to a budget--to see if they really hold the keys to happiness. While trying to unlock the stars' secrets, from Sarah Jessica Parker's wardrobe to Julia Roberts's sense of calm to--maybe one day--Jessica Alba's chic pregnancy, Bertsche learns valuable lessons. A toned body doesn't come easy or cheap, avoiding social media can do wonders for your peace of mind, and confidence is the key accessory for pulling off any outfit. But can she immerse herself in the A-list lifestyle and still stay true to herself? And will her pursuit of perfection really lead to happiness?
 

 

7/10: EMBERS & ASH by T.M. Goeglein

Sara Jane Rispoli is on the wrong side of the Russian mob, but closer to finding her family than ever. And she's willing to do whatever it takes to finally end this terrible journey even if the price is her own life.

The very cold fury that has seen her through the worst of her troubles is now killing her; she knows the cure, but she can't sacrifice the deadly electricity until she's rescued her family. But when she finally does rescue them, it's not the happy reunion she pictured. And the torment doesn't stop there, not even when she finally discovers Ultimate Power. Only destroying the Outfit completely can end this terrible nightmare.

Old enemies return to seek vengeance, double-crosses abound, and even more mysteries are uncovered as we rocket toward an end no one saw coming. 

7/10: THE HUNDRED-YEAR HOUSE by Rebecca Makkai

A dazzlingly original new novel from the acclaimed author of The Borrower

Rebecca Makkai is one of the most admired young fiction writers in America. Her short fiction was selected for The Best American Short Stories for four years running, and Richard Russo has called her "as sneakily ambitious as she is unpretentious ... a writer to watch."

Now, Makkai returns with an ingenious novel set on an historic estate that once housed an arts colony. Doug, the husband of the estate's heir, desperately needs the colony files to get his stalled academic career back on track. But what he discovers when he finally gets his hands on them is more than he bargained for. Doug may never learn the house's secrets, but the reader will, as Makkai leads us on a thrilling journey into the past of this eccentric family.

With intelligence, wit, and a daring narrative approach, Rebecca Makkai has crafted an unforgettable novel about identity, fate, and the incredible surprises life can offer.