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For the fourth day of Ring in the New Reads, we've highlighted books new to hardback this January. There are some fantastic new releases coming out this month, and below you'll find those we're most excited to read.
There are twenty books in total, our top five picks detailed in this post, and the full list can be viewed via the link to Bookshop at the end.
*All book descriptions have been taken from the blurb as displayed on Bookshop.org pages. Book reviews by Pickering Book Tree will likely follow in the future, and will be linked to each section as available.
Book 1 of 5: River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer
Powerful, moving and redemptive, RIVER SING ME HOME tells of a mother's desperate search to find her stolen children and her freedom.
We whisper the names of the ones we love like the words of a song. That was the taste of freedom to us, those names on our lips.
Mary Grace, Micah, Thomas Augustus, Cherry Jane and Mercy. These are the names of her children. The five who survived, only to be sold to other plantations. The faces Rachel cannot forget. It's 1834, and the law says her people are now free. But for Rachel freedom means finding her children, even if the truth is more than she can bear. With fear snapping at her heels, Rachel keeps moving. From sunrise to sunset, through the cane fields of Barbados to the forests of British Guiana and on to Trinidad, to the dangerous river and the open sea. Only once she knows their stories can she rest. Only then can she finally find home.
Book 2 of 5: The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths
​The unmissable new book in the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries. Ruth and Nelson are working on a murder case in which Cathbad emerges as the prime suspect. Can they uncover the truth in time to save their friend?
When builders renovating a café in King's Lynn find a human skeleton behind a wall, they call for DCI Harry Nelson and Dr Ruth Galloway, Head of Archaeology at the nearby University of North Norfolk. Ruth is preoccupied with the threatened closure of her department and by her ever-complicated relationship with Nelson. However, she agrees to look at the case.
Ruth sees at once that the bones are modern. They are identified as the remains of Emily Pickering, a young archaeology student who went missing in the 1990s. Emily attended a course run by her Cambridge tutor. Suspicion falls on him and also on another course member - Ruth's friend Cathbad, who is still frail following his near death from Covid.
As they investigate, Nelson and his team uncover a tangled web of relationships within the student group and the adults leading them. What was the link between the group and the King's Lynn cafe where Emily's bones were found?
Then, just when the team seem to be making progress, Cathbad disappears. Was it guilt that led him to flee?
The trail leads Ruth and Nelson to the Neolithic flint mines in Grimes Graves which are as spooky as their name. The race is on, first to find Cathbad and then to exonerate him, but will Ruth and Nelson uncover the truth in time to save their friend?
Book 3 of 5: We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman
​Who knows you better than your best friend? Who knows your secrets, your fears, your desires, your strange imperfect self?
Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years. Since childhood they have seen each other through life's milestones: stealing vodka from their parents, the Madonna phase, REM concerts, unexpected wakes, marriages, infertility, children. As Ash notes, 'Edi's memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.'
So when Edi is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ash's world reshapes around the rhythms of Edi's care, from chipped ice and watermelon cubes to music therapy; from snack smuggling to impromptu excursions into the frozen winter night. Because life is about squeezing the joy out of every moment, about building a powerhouse of memories, about learning when to hold on, and when to let go.
For fans of Nora Ephron and Sorrow & Bliss , We All Want Impossible Things is a deeply moving, jubilant celebration of life and friendship at its imperfect, radiant, and irreverent best.
Book 4 of 5: Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood
​Grace Adams is one bad day away from saving her life.
One hot summer day, stuck in traffic on her way to pick up the cake for her daughter's sixteenth birthday party, Grace Adams snaps.
She doesn't scream or break something or cry. She simply abandons her car and walks away.
But not from her life - towards it. To the daughter who won't live with her anymore and has banned her from the party. To the husband divorcing her. Towards the terrible thing that has blown their family apart . . .
Today she'll show her daughter that no matter how far we fall we can always get back up again. Because Grace Adams was amazing. Her husband and daughter once thought so. They and the world might have forgotten. But Grace is about to remind them ...
Amazing Grace Adams tells the story of a life, a marriage, a family, set against a single north-London day. A rollercoaster ride of redemption and discovery, it's a powerful celebration of womanhood.
Book 5 of 5: The Things That We Lost by Jyoti Patel
​Nik has lots of questions about his late father but knows better than to ask his mother, Avani. It's their unspoken rule.
When his grandfather dies, Nik has the opportunity to learn about the man he never met. Armed with a key and new knowledge about his parents' past, Nik sets out to unlock the secrets that his mother has been holding onto his whole life.
As the carefully crafted portrait Avani has painted for her son begins to crack, and painful truths emerge, can the two of them find their way back to each other?
The Things That We Lost is a beautifully tender exploration of family, loss and the lengths to which we go to protect the ones we love.
The Full List
You can find the full list of twenty January new releases we're most excited to read on the Bookshop.org shelf below.
There are some brilliant books to be shared with the world for the first time over the next few weeks. Which are you most looking forward to reading?
Coming up tomorrow: New to Paperback this January.