Publishers are back after their slowdowns in December and January is offering a stack of new books to keep readers busy. 

           

Two new books that are garnering a lot of attention are from Australian writers.  Jane Harper’s “The Dry” is a mystery while Emily Bitto’s “The Strays” is a historical novel.  “The Dry” is set in a backwater town in West Australia.  A Federal agent is sent to investigate a murder-suicide; the prime suspect was his high school friend, Luke Hadler.  Aaron Falk is not happy to return to his home town where everyone still thinks he murdered another classmate, and trying to discover the truth behind the Hadler case just brings a whole lot of older mysteries to the forefront.

           

“The Strays” follows a young woman who is caught up in the social life of the wealthy Trentham family in 1930’s Melbourne.  When the Trenthams invite a group of fellow artists into the family home for communal living, the results ricochet down the years.  The story is told in flashbacks by the young woman when a member of the family returns to town for a retrospective of her father’s work.

           

“The Most Dangerous Place on Earth” by Lindsey Lee Johnson is another debut novel; here the story revolves around a group of students, one of whom commits suicide when a love letter he wrote is posted on Facebook.  The action reverberates through his friends and other schoolmates.   Johnson wanted to write “a literary vision of contemporary high school and teenagers that was written for adults.” 

           

A prolific writer, Joanne Harris, the author of “Chocolat,” has also turned her novelist skills to high school this time, set in St. Oswald’s, a boy’s school in the north of England.   Weaving a story of abuse into her novel, Harris brings many of the stories she learned during her 15 years of teaching into “Different Class.”

           

“The Bear and the Nightingale” by Katherine Arden is another first novel that is gaining considerable critical acclaim.  Set in 14th century Russia, Arden uses Russian folklore to anchor her story of Vasya, a brave young woman, who grows up on her family’s stories and legends.  When it appears these stories are based on reality, it is Vasya who must stand and protect them, not only against the past, but the future as well.  This is the first volume of a series that is earning words like “remarkable” and “spellbinding” by critics.

           

Other new books for fiction readers this January are: “History of Wolves” by Emily Fridlund, “The River at Night” by Erica Ferencik, “Human Acts” by Han Kang, “The Midnight Cool” by Lydia Peele, “The Second Mrs. Hockaday” by Susan Rivers and “Two Days Gone” by Randall Silvis.