Wondering which of your favorite authors are publishing books over the next couple of months? Here’s a selection of titles coming out through the end of January – click on the covers to be taken to the catalog. Did we miss any? Tell us about them in the comments. And don’t forget to join us for our next Friday Fiction on January 15, when we’ll tell you more about these and other great new and forthcoming titles.

Desperate Measures by Jo Bannister (December 8)

When Gabriel Ash’s wife and kids were kidnapped four years ago by Somali pirates, his life spiraled out of control. But with the help of his dog, Patience, and his friendship with young police officer Hazel Best, his focus returned. So when he discovers that his wife is still alive, Ash is once again filled with hope and fear. Hope that he has another chance to find her and their two young sons; fear that, in trying, he may bring about their deaths.

Secret Sisters by Jayne Ann Krentz (December 8)

Madeline has returned to Washington after her grandmother’s mysterious death. And at the old, abandoned hotel — a place she never wanted to see again — a dying man’s last words convey a warning: the secrets she and Daphne believed buried forever have been discovered. Now, after almost two decades, Madeline and Daphne will be reunited in friendship and in fear.

The Relic Master by Christopher Buckley (December 8)

The year is 1517. Dismas is a relic hunter: one who procures “authentic” religious relics for wealthy and influential clients. His two most important patrons are Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony and soon-to-be Cardinal Albrecht of Mainz. When Albrecht’s ambitions increase his demands for grander and more marketable relics, Dismas and his artist friend Dürer conspire to manufacture a shroud to sell to the unsuspecting noble.

After She’s Gone, by Lisa Jackson (December 29)

Cassie Kramer and her younger sister, Allie, learned the hazards of fame long ago. Together, they’d survived the horror of a crazed fan who nearly killed their mother. Still, Cassie moved to L.A., urging Allie to follow. As a team, they’d take the town by storm. But Allie, finally free of small-town Oregon and just that little bit more beautiful, also proved to be more talented — and driven. Where Cassie got bit parts, Allie rose to stardom. But now her body double has been shot on the set of her latest movie — and Allie is missing.

Cold Betrayal, by J. A. Jance  (December 29)

Ali Reynolds’ longtime friend and Taser-carrying nun, Sister Anselm, rushes to the bedside of a young pregnant woman hospitalized for severe injuries after she was hit by a car on a deserted Arizona highway. The girl had been running away from The Family, a polygamous cult with no patience for those who try to leave its ranks. Something about her strikes a chord in Sister Anselm, reminding her of a case she worked years before when another young girl wasn’t so lucky.

My Name is Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout (January 5, 2016)

Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters.

The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert (January 5, 2016)

In a sprawling estate, willfully secluded, lives Morgan Fletcher, the disfigured heir to a fortune of mysterious origins. One day, two children, Moira and David, appear. Morgan takes them in, giving them free reign of the mansion he shares with his housekeeper Engel. Then more children begin to show up. Every day the children seem to disappear into the hidden rooms of the estate, and perhaps, into the hidden corners of Morgan’s mind.

The Guest Room, by Chris Bohjalian (January 5, 2016)

When Kristin Chapman agrees to let her husband, Richard, host his brother’s bachelor party, she expects a certain amount of debauchery. What she does not expect is this: bacchanalian drunkenness, her husband sharing a dangerously intimate moment in the guest room, and two women stabbing and killing their Russian bodyguards before driving off into the night. In the aftermath, Kristin and Richard’s life rapidly spirals into nightmare.

Even the Dead, by Benjamin Black (January 12, 2016)

One night during a June heat wave, a car crashes into a tree in central Dublin and bursts into flames. The police assume the driver’s death was either an accident or a suicide, but Quirke’s examination of the body leads him to believe otherwise. When a pregnant woman who had asked for his daughter’s help disappears, Quirke seeks the assistance of his old friend Inspector Hackett. Before long the two men find themselves untangling a twisted string of events that takes them deep into a shadowy world where one of the city’s most powerful men uses the cover of politics and religion to make obscene profits.

Scandalous Behavior, by Stuart Woods (January 12, 2016)

After a series of nonstop adventures, Stone Barrington is eager for some peace and quiet in a rustic British setting. But no sooner does he land in England than he’s beset by an outrageous demand from a beautiful lady, and an offer he can’t refuse. Unfortunately, Stone quickly learns that his new acquisition comes with some undesired strings attached — namely, a deadly mystery involving the complex relationships of the local gentry, and a relentless adversary who raises the stakes with every encounter.

The Bitter Season, Tami Hoag (January 12, 2016)

Sam Kovac is having a difficult time adjusting to his former partner Detective Niki Liska’s absense. But Kovac is distracted from his troubles by an especially brutal double homicide: a prominent university professor and his wife, bludgeoned and hacked to death in their home with a ceremonial Japanese samurai sword. Liska’s case — a 25-year-old unsolved murder of a decorated sex crimes detective — is less of a distraction. As the trails of two crimes a quarter of century apart twist and cross, Kovac and Liska race to find answers before a killer strikes again.

Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, by Sunil Yapa (January 12, 2016)

On a rainy, cold day in November, young Victor — a nomadic, scrappy teenager who’s run away from home — sets out to sell as much marijuana as possible to the throng of WTO demonstrators determined to shut down the city. However, it quickly becomes clear that what started out as a peaceful protest is threatening to erupt into violence. Over the course of one life-altering afternoon, the fates of seven people will change forever: Chief Bishop, the estranged father Victor hasn’t seen in three years, two protesters, two police officers in the street, and the financial minister from Sri Lanka. When Chief Bishop reluctantly unleashes tear gas on the unsuspecting crowd, it seems his hopes for reconciliation with his son, as well as the future of his city, are in serious peril.

Orphan X, by Greg Hurwitz (January 19, 2016)

Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He’s also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as part of the off-the-books black box Orphan program, designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence assets — i.e. assassins. He was Orphan X. Evan broke with the program, using everything he learned to disappear. Now, however, someone is on his tail and determined to eliminate him.

The Man Without a Shadow, by Joyce Carol Oates (January 19, 2016)

In 1965, neuroscientist Margot Sharpe meets the attractive, charismatic Elihu Hoopes — the “man without a shadow” — whose devastated memory, unable to store new experiences or to retrieve the old, will make him the most famous and most studied amnesiac in history. THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW tracks the intimate, illicit relationship between Margot and Eli, as scientist and subject embark upon an exploration of the labyrinthine mysteries of the human brain.

The Road to Little Dribbling, by Bill Bryson (January 19, 2016)

Two decades after the weeks-long farewell motoring trip about England which led to NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND, Bill Bryson set out again to rediscover that country, and the result is THE ROAD TO LITTLE DRIBBLING. Nothing is funnier than Bill Bryson on the road — prepare for the total joy and multiple episodes of unseemly laughter.

Warriors of the Storm, by Bernard Cornwell (January 19, 2016)

A fragile peace reigns in Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia. King Alfred’s son Edward and formidable daughter, Aethelflaed, rule the kingdoms. But all around the restless Northmen, eyeing the rich lands and wealthy churches, are mounting raids. Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the kingdoms’ greatest warrior, controls northern Mercia from the strongly fortified city of Chester. But forces are gathering against him. Northmen allied to the Irish, led by the fierce warrior Ragnall Ivarson, are soon joined by the Northumbrians, and their strength could prove overwhelming.

Private Paris, by James Patterson (January 25, 2016)

When Jack Morgan stops by Private’s Paris office, he envisions a quick hello during an otherwise relaxing trip filled with fine food and sightseeing. But Jack is quickly pressed into duty after a call from his client Sherman Wilkerson, asking Jack to track down his young granddaughter who is on the run from a brutal drug dealer. Before Jack can locate her, several members of France’s cultural elite are found dead — murdered in stunning, symbolic fashion. The only link between the crimes is a mysterious graffiti tag.

The Illegal, by Lawrence Hill (January 25, 2016)

All Keita has ever wanted to do is to run. Running means respect and wealth at home. His native Zantoroland, a fictionalized country whose tyrants are eerily familiar, turns out the fastest marathoners on earth. But after his journalist father is killed for his outspoken political views, Keita must flee to the wealthy nation of Freedom State — a country engaged in a crackdown on all undocumented people. Set in an imagined country bearing a striking resemblance to our own, this tension-filled novel casts its eye on race, human potential, and what it means to belong.

Coconut Cowboy, by Tim Dorsey (January 26, 2016)

Setting a course for the Florida panhandle, Captain Serge — with Coleman literally riding shotgun — mounts his classic motorcycle and hits the highway in search of the real America: the apple-pie-eating, freedom-swilling moms and pops of Main Street USA. But the America he finds in the rural burgs dotting the neck of the peninsula is a little bit different. In a state where criminal politicians are more common than gators, Serge and Coleman discover one particular speed-trap locale so aggressively inept at corruption that investigators are baffled where to start.

Unspeakable Things, by Karen Spivak (January 26, 2016)

Set in early 1940s New York City, eight-year-old Maria is exposed to the darkness and secrets of her family. She begins to understand from the furtive fear of her mother, and the huddled penury of their lives, and the sense of being in hiding, even in New York, that life is a test of courage and silence. She witnesses the family’s strange comings and goings, being regaled at night, when most are asleep, with the intoxicating, thrilling stories of their secret pasts. This is a strange, haunting novel about survival and love in all its forms; about sexual awakenings and dark secrets; about European refugee intellectuals who have fled Hitler’s armies with their dreams intact.

Where My Heart Used to Beat, by Sebastian Faulks (January 26, 2016)

Robert Hendricks, an established psychiatrist and author, has so bottled up memories of his own wartime past that he is nearly sunk into a life of aloneness and depression. A baffling letter arrives from Dr. Alexander Pereira which brings Robert to the older man’s home on a rocky, secluded island off the south of France, and into tempests of memories — his childhood as a fatherless English boy, the carnage he witnessed and the wound he can’t remember receiving as a young officer in World War II, and, above all, the great, devastating love of his life, an Italian woman, “L,” whom he met during the war.