Carole Barrowman's Book Picks for the New Year

People make a lot of resolutions for the new year; a lot of which are pretty hard to keep. One simple and productive resolutions we all can make is to read more in 2018! Carole Barrowman is making it easy with her top picks for 2018 books. For more information on Carole and her own books, visit BarrowmanBooks.com. "Light It Up" by Nick Petrie - Petrie lives in Shorewood where he runs his home-inspection business. He’s becoming an expert in the thriller business, too. This is his third one, and it’s terrific. This is the book to snuggle up and read in this chilling weather. It’s bullet speed fast and highly entertaining and it story is set around the legalized “cash-rich cannabis” business. It opens with a modern-day highway robbery that’s amazingly crafted. "The Widows of Malabar Hill" by Sujata Massey - I loved everything about this novel. I learned so much about women in India during this time period, 1920s Bombay. Perveen Mistry India’s first woman lawyer is the main character in this lush romantic and suspenseful story based on a real historical person. Perveen can’t appear before a judge because she’s a woman and she’s restricted to writing briefs and researching, but her gender gives her an advantage in this story when three women who live in purdah, which means they’ve chosen to life in “strict seclusion” need legal help. "The Wife" by Alafair Burke - If you liked Gone Girl, Girl on the Train (don’t get me started on books with GIRL in the title; they’re WOMEN!!!), Burke has become a virtuoso of this popular subgenre in the mystery (untrustworthy narrators and suspicious marriages). In Burke’s latest, Jason the husband is “educated, intellectual and refined,” a handsome academic turned popular media consultant while Angela the wife is organized, “utterly predictable,” trying to make a new life for her and her son. Burke is a smart and entertaining writer. You’ll get sucked into this one. "Montaigne in Barn Boots" by Michael Perry - I love Perry’s wit and thoughtfulness and his down to earth philosophy in this book about what it means to be a good person in today’s world. This was one of the books I gave my husband for his Christmas and he’s loving it too (he’s already a good person, but can’t hurt J). Perry lives and writes “in a room above the garage overlooking a disused pig pen” in rural Wisconsin, and this “philosophy” book was prompted by a kidney stone.