From the Jacket

An ice fisherman is savagely mauled to death in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, and an eyewitness claims the man was attacked by a hodag. There's just one problem with that: it's well known that the creature is not real and was created by a local hoaxer. So how could an imaginary creature be chomping on local sportsmen?

The witness to the attack happens to be the nephew of Morgan Carter's bookstore employee, Rita Bosworth, who convinces the professional cryptozoologist to travel to Wisconsin to prove that a hodag not only exists but killed the victim.

During the Advent season of 1962, the rural town of Faha receives a most unexpected Christmas miracle: a child, left in the dark near the ever-flowing River Shannon. "To those who lived there, Faha was perhaps the last place on earth to expect a miracle," Niall Williams writes. "It had neither the history nor the geography for it. The history was remarkable for the one fact upon which all commentators agreed: nothing happened here." And yet the child will transform the lives of an aging country doctor and his daughter, and will draw forth a love and humanity from those who live in the small Irish town. … continued

Review by Megan Shaffer

Besides getting access to our digital magazine and a wealth of archived content, BookBrowse members can take part in our First Impressions reader review program and book club discussions year-round. In 2025, we discussed or will discuss more than 35 books in our community forum, and we featured nearly 50 titles in First Impressions. Below, we look at some of the books that generated the most enthusiastic and intriguing discussion and that were the most highly rated and positively reviewed. We hope you enjoy browsing through them and find some perfect picks for your TBR or your own book club discussion list. … continued

At BookBrowse, we’re all about bringing you great reading, period. That’s why we don’t only feature reviews of recommended books, but also “beyond the book” articles, bite-sized literary and cultural pieces that expand on an aspect of each featured title. Below, we’ve selected some of the best articles written by our reviewers this year, one from each of our nine categories. These span subjects ranging from Ukraine’s national soil to American political lawn signs, crime dioramas created by “the mother of forensic science,” Mariah Carey’s career, how author Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu transformed aspects of the 19th-century adventure novel King Solomon’s Mines, and more. … continued

We know it can be tough to keep up with all the new books coming out every month, so we do the hard work for you.

We've carefully selected 90+ of the most noteworthy books publishing in January and are continually updating our selections—check them out and get yourself on the library waitlist ahead of the crowd!

From the Jacket

A young woman and her lover are marooned on an island in this breathtaking saga, an epic story of love, faith, and defiance from the bestselling author of Sam.

Praise

"Goodman writes with fluid beauty, deep empathy, and an emotional undertow that pulls you in and holds you from the first page to the last. [This] sweeping page turner is at once historical and modern, intimate and epic, personal and powerful." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)