Netgalley picks of the week | 12th – 19th June

I found several good books on Netgalley this week, like a new historical fiction with a touch of mystery, Soot by Andrew Martin, and another upload for Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker (for all of you who missed or got rejected for the other upload!). There’s also a new Ronald Malfi book, Bone White.

I also came across loads of Canada only books which all sounded amazing, but I didn’t add them into this list!

{CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO BE TAKEN TO THE NETGALLEY PAGE}

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Title: I Am Missing

Author: Tim Weaver

Synopsis: When a young man wakes up bruised and beaten, with no memory of who he is or where he came from, the press immediately dub him ‘The Lost Man’. Naming himself Richard Kite, he spends the next ten months desperately trying to find out who he is. But despite media appeals and the efforts of the police, no one knows him. Richard’s last hope may be private investigator David Raker – a seasoned locator of missing people. But Raker has more questions than answers. Who is Richard Kite? Why does no one know him? And what links him to the body of a woman found beside a London railway line two years ago? Could Richard be responsible for her death – or is he next?

Genre: mystery & thrillers, general fiction

Publishing: 27 Jul 2017

Request status: auto-approved

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Title: Three Days and a Life

Author: Pierre Lemaitre

Synopsis: In 1999, in the small provincial town of Beauval, France, twelve-year-old Antoine Courtin accidentally kills a young neighbor boy in the woods near his home. Panicked, he conceals the body and to his relief–and ongoing shame–he is never suspected of any connection to the child’s disappearance.
But the boy’s death continues to haunt him, shaping his life in unseen ways. More than a decade later, Antoine is living in Paris, now a young doctor with a fiancée and a promising future. On a rare trip home to the town he hates and fears, Antoine thoughtlessly sleeps with a beautiful young woman from his past. She shows up pregnant at his doorstep in Paris a few months later, insisting that they marry, but Antoine refuses.

Meanwhile, the newly discovered body of Antoine’s childhood victim means that the case has been reopened, and all of his old fears rush back. Then the young woman’s father threatens Antoine with a paternity test–which would almost certainly match the DNA found on the dead child’s body. Will Antoine finally be forced to confront his crime? And what is he prepared to do to keep his secrets buried in the past?

Genre: mystery & thrillers

Publishing: 07 Nov 2017

Request status: n/a

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Title: 99 Red Balloons

Author: Elisabeth Carpenter

Synopsis: Two girls go missing, decades apart. What would you do if one was your daughter?

Eight-year-old Grace is last seen in a sweetshop. Her mother Emma is living a nightmare. But as her loved ones rally around her, cracks begin to emerge.

What are the emails sent between her husband and her sister? Why does her mother take so long to join the search? And is there more to the disappearance of her daughter than meets the eye?

Meanwhile, ageing widow Maggie Taylor sees a familiar face in the newspaper. A face that jolts her from the pain of her existence into a spiralling obsession with another girl – the first girl who disappeared…

Genre: mystery & thrillers

Publishing: 24 Aug 2017

Request status: n/a

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Title: Emma in the Night

Author: Wendy Walker

Synopsis: Two sisters go missing
Only one returns.

We believe what we want to believe. We believe what we need to believe.

When my sister and I disappeared three years ago, they found Emma’s car at the beach. Some people believed she had gone there to find a party or meet a friend who never showed. They believed that she’d gone for a swim. They believed that she’d drowned. Maybe by accident. Maybe a suicide.

Everyone believed Emma was dead.

As for me, well – it was not as simple as that.

Genre: mystery & thrillers

Publishing: 22 Feb 2018

Request status: n/a

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Title: Soot

Author: Andrew Martin

Synopsis: York, 1799.

In August, an artist is found murdered in his home – stabbed with a pair of scissors. Matthew Harvey’s death is much discussed in the city. The scissors are among the tools of his trade – for Harvey is a renowned cutter and painter of shades, or silhouettes, the latest fashion in portraiture. It soon becomes clear that the murderer must be one of the artist’s last sitters, and the people depicted in the final six shades made by him become the key suspects. But who are they? And where are they to be found?

Later, in November, a clever but impoverished young gentleman called Fletcher Rigge languishes in the debtor’s prison, until a letter arrives containing a bizarre proposition from the son of the murdered man. Rigge is to be released for one month, but in that time, he must find the killer. If he fails, he will be incarcerated again, possibly for life.

And so, with everything at stake, and equipped only with copies of the distinctive silhouettes, Fletcher Rigge begins his search across the snow-covered city, and enters a world of shadows…

Genre: general fiction

Publishing: 06 Jul 2017

Request status: n/a (UK Only)

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Title: Grief Cottage

Author: Gail Godwin

Synopsis: After his mother’s death, eleven-year-old Marcus is sent to live on a small South Carolina island with his great aunt, a reclusive painter with a haunted past. Aunt Charlotte, otherwise a woman of few words, points out a ruined cottage, telling Marcus she had visited it regularly after she’d moved there thirty years ago because it matched the ruin of her own life. Eventually she was inspired to take up painting so she could capture its utter desolation.

The islanders call it “Grief Cottage,” because a boy and his parents disappeared from it during a hurricane fifty years before. Their bodies were never found and the cottage has stood empty ever since. During his lonely hours while Aunt Charlotte is in her studio painting and keeping her demons at bay, Marcus visits the cottage daily, building up his courage by coming ever closer, even after the ghost of the boy who died seems to reveal himself. Full of curiosity and open to the unfamiliar and uncanny given the recent upending of his life, he courts the ghost boy, never certain whether the ghost is friendly or follows some sinister agenda.

Genre: general fiction

Publishing: 10 Aug 2017

Request status: n/a

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Title: Bone White

Author: Ronald Malfi

Synopsis: Paul Gallo saw the report on the news: a mass murderer leading police to his victims’ graves, in remote Dread’s Hand, Alaska.

It’s not even a town; more like the bad memory of a town. The same bit of wilderness where his twin brother went missing a year ago. As the bodies are exhumed, Paul travels to Alaska to get closure and put his grief to rest.

But the mystery is only beginning. What Paul finds are superstitious locals who talk of the devil stealing souls, and a line of wooden crosses to keep what’s in the woods from coming out. He finds no closure because no one can explain exactly what happened to Danny.

And the more he searches for answers, the more he finds himself becoming part of the mystery.

Genre: general fiction, horror

Publishing: 25 Jul 2017

Request status: n/a

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Title: If I Die Before I Wake

Author: Emily Koch

Synopsis: Everyone believes Alex is in a coma, unlikely to ever wake up. As his family debate withdrawing life support, and his friends talk about how his girlfriend Bea needs to move on, he can only listen.

But Alex soon begins to suspect that the accident that put him here wasn’t really an accident. Even worse, the perpetrator is still out there and Alex is not the only one in danger.

As he goes over a series of clues from his past, Alex must use his remaining senses to solve the mystery of who tried to kill him, and try to protect those he loves, before they decide to let him go.

Genre: general fiction, horror

Publishing: 11 Jam 2018

Request status: n/a

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That’s it for this week everyone!

Have you requested any of these books, or now plan to? I’d love to hear your thoughts!