The Best Grown-Up Reads of
January 2020
by the Brightly Editors
Featuring first-rate parenting advice and thrillers about the complicated nature of sisterhood, January’s best new books for grown-ups will take you on a ride of quiet reflection, page-turning tension, and even a few laughs in between. Start 2020 on a high note — you deserve it!
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The Kids Are in Bed: Finding Time for Yourself in the Chaos of Parenting
Available from:If you’re a parent, you’ve probably been there: after the bedtime routine is a wrap and you have a couple hours to yourself, you wind up spending that time catching up on chores or zoning out on your phone. Journalist and mom Rachel Bertsche wants better for all of us. Based on interviews with scientists, experts, and burned-out parents, Bertsche offers a game plan for reclaiming your downtime and getting back to you.
(On Sale: 1/7/20)
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Long Bright River
If you can appreciate a crime novel that will also tug on your heart, look no further than Long Bright River. In Philadelphia, two formerly inseparable sisters live wildly divergent lives: Mickey works on the police force, while Kacey — addicted to opioids — is living on the street. When Kacey goes missing amidst a string of murders, Mickey searches through hell and high water to find her.
(On Sale: 1/7/20)
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The Power of Showing Up
Available from:From the bestselling authors of The Whole-Brain Child comes an empowering and reassuring guide to raising happy, successful kids — all you have to do, they insist, is show up. Of course, the quality of your presence matters, and Siegel and Bryson offer research-based guidance on how to speak and respond to your children so they feel The Four S’s: Safe, Seen, Soothed, and Secured. A much-needed, simple approach for modern parenting.
(On Sale: 1/7/20)
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The Better Liar
Leslie hasn’t seen her sister, Robin, in a decade, but either they both show up for their inheritance or no one gets it at all. Trouble is, Robin is dead. Desperate, Leslie recruits an uncanny Robin lookalike to play the part of her sister — a woman who slowly but surely insinuates herself into Leslie’s life. It all builds to a jaw-dropper of a finale.
(On Sale: 1/14/20)
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The Words I Never Wrote
In 1936, Cordelia Capel takes a job at a newspaper in Paris, and her sister Irene moves with her new husband to Berlin. As political tensions begin to rise, Cordelia learns with a shock that Irene’s husband is a Nazi sympathizer, and Irene’s letters become more and more opaque. Some 80 years later in New York, a woman discovers Cordelia’s fictionalized account of the two sisters, though without an ending. On a whim, she flies overseas for answers.
(On Sale: 1/21/20)
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Interior Chinatown
Available from:Charles Yu’s wickedly funny Interior Chinatown takes on Hollywood cliches and Asian stereotypes through Willis Wu, a perpetual background character on the procedural cop show Black and White — perpetual because his “Generic Asian Man” look means he can appear over and over again without notice. But Willis’s mother wants more for him, and he’s starting to think he might want more, too.
(On Sale: 1/28/20)
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The Other People
Three years ago, Gabe experienced the worst night of his life. From the rear window of the car ahead, his five-year-old daughter’s face emerged, calling out for him. Everyone believes his daughter to be dead, but Gabe refuses to give up, even when the car is found with a body inside. Meanwhile, Alice and her daughter are on the run, the only people — besides the guilty — who know what happened.
(On Sale: 1/28/20)
