Thank you to the mentioned publishers for these books.
New Year, New Netgalley percentage? That's my hope anyway. I have a LOT of books to review there and these are 6 that I plan to read in January.
Which of these should I read first?!
Beyond Possible
by Nims Purja
Thanks to Netgalley and Paraclete Press
Nepali climber Nims Purja is the first man ever to summit all fourteen of the world's 8000 meter "Death Zone" peaks. He did so in less than seven months, breaking the previous record of seven years.
In this spellbinding memoir, tied to the acclaimed Netflix documentary 14 Peaks, Purja reveals the man behind the climbs, explaining how his early life in Nepal and training as a soldier in Britain's elite Gurkha and SBS units allowed him to achieve a mountaineering mission few thought was attainable. Purja shows how leadership, integrity, and collaboration drive world's greatest climbing feats, including the first-ever winter ascent of Pakistan's K2--another mountaineering milestone that he achieved in January 2021.
Both profound and inspiring, this intimate book reveals what it takes to go miles beyond the possible.
When You Get a Chance
by Emma Lord
Thanks to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, and St. Martin's Press
Nothing will get in the way of Millie Price's dream of becoming a Broadway star. Not her lovable but super introverted dad, who raised Millie alone since she was a baby. Not her drama club rival, Oliver, who is the very definition of Simmering Romantic Tension. And not her "Millie Moods," the feelings of intense emotion that threaten to overwhelm. Millie needs an ally. And when an accidentally left-open browser brings Millie to her dad's embarrassingly moody LiveJournal from 2003, Millie knows just what to do--find her mom.
But how can you find a new part of your life and expect it to fit into your old one without leaving any marks? And why is it that when you go looking for the past, it somehow keeps bringing you back to what you've had all along?
Northwind
by Gary Paulsen
Thanks to Netgalley and FSG BYR
This stunning novel from the survival story master, set along a rugged coastline centuries ago, does for the ocean what Hatchet does for the woods, as it relates the story of a young person's battle to stay alive against the odds, where the high seas meet a coastal wilderness.
When a deadly plague reaches the small fish camp where he lives, an orphan named Leif is forced to take to the water in a cedar canoe. He flees northward, following a wild, fjord-riven shore, navigating from one danger to the next, unsure of his destination. But the deeper into his journey he paddles, the closer he comes to his truest self as he connects to "the heartbeat of the ocean . . . the pulse of the sea."
With hints of Nordic mythology and an irresistible narrative pull, Northwind is Gary Paulsen at his captivating, adventuresome best.
The Last House on the Street
by Diane Chamberlain
Thanks to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, and St. Martin's Press
A community's past sins rise to the surface in New York Times bestselling author Diane Chamberlain's The Last House on the Street when two women, a generation apart, find themselves bound by tragedy and an unsolved, decades-old mystery.
1965:
Growing up in the well-to-do town of Round Hill, North Carolina, Ellie Hockley was raised to be a certain type of proper Southern lady. Enrolled in college and all but engaged to a bank manager, Ellie isn't as committed to her expected future as her family believes. She's chosen to spend her summer break as a volunteer helping to register black voters. But as Ellie follows her ideals fighting for the civil rights of the marginalized, her scandalized parents scorn her efforts, and her neighbors reveal their prejudices. And when she loses her heart to a fellow volunteer, Ellie discovers the frightening true nature of the people living in Round Hill.
2010:
Architect Kayla Carter and her husband designed a beautiful house for themselves in Round Hill's new development, Shadow Ridge Estates. It was supposed to be a home where they could raise their three-year-old daughter and grow old together. Instead, it's the place where Kayla's husband died in an accident--a fact known to a mysterious woman who warns Kayla against moving in. The woods and lake behind the property are reputed to be haunted, and the new home has been targeted by vandals leaving threatening notes. And Kayla's neighbor Ellie Hockley is harboring long buried secrets about the dark history of the land where her house was built.
Two women. Two stories. Both on a collision course with the truth--no matter what that truth may bring to light--in Diane Chamberlain's riveting, powerful novel about the search for justice.
Wayward Creatures
by: Dayna Lorentz
Thanks to Netgalley and Clarion Books
In this heartfelt animal friendship story, a troubled young boy befriends a wayward coyote after a forest fire changes both of their lives. Perfect for fans of A Wolf Called Wander and Pax.
Twelve-year-old Gabe doesn’t know where he belongs anymore. His family is caught up in their own lives and his friends barely have time for him now that they’re stars on the soccer team. In a desperate plea for attention to impress his friends after school, Gabe sets off fireworks in the woods near his house and causes a small forest fire that destroys several acres of land.
In the chaos of the destruction, a coyote named Rill—tired of her family and longing for adventure—finds herself far from home. Already on animal control’s watch for wandering into a backyard and snapping at a child, Rill crawls into a cave, where she nurses her wounds alone.
Gabe and Rill’s paths irrevocably cross when Gabe is tasked with cleaning up the forest through the court's restorative justice program. The damage to the land and both their lives is beyond what the two can imagine. But together, they discover that sometimes it only takes one friend to find the place where you belong.
The Saints of Swallow Hill
by Donna Everhart
Thanks to Netgalley and Kensington Books
Where the Crawdads Singmeets The Four Winds as award-winning author Donna Everhart immerses readers in a unique setting--a turpentine camp buried deep in the vast pine forests of Georgia during the Great Depression--for a captivating story of friendship, survival, and three vagabonds' intersecting lives...
During the Great Depression, wretched labor camps crop up in remote areas of the expansive pine forests throughout the American South. Destitute workers live and toil under terrible conditions to harvest pine gum, hacking into tree trunks, drawing out the sticky sap that gives the Tar Heel State its nickname, and hauling it to stills to be refined into turpentine. Trapped in these isolated locations, workers are entirely dependent on the often greedy, abusive camp owners who provide food and housing at grossly inflated prices. Subsistence living means racking huge debts they are forced to work off, creating an endless cycle of labor and debt. But for the most desperate among America's vast unemployed, these camps are often the last and only option.
This much is true for three individuals whose lives intersect in the deep woods of Georgia at the Swallow Hill turpentine camp in 1932. For Rae Lynn Cobb, a young woman disguised as a man, Swallow Hill offers distance and anonymity from those who would wrongly imprison her for killing her kind though careless husband. For a charming bachelor named Del Reese, it's a place where backbreaking work might drown out memories of a recent trauma that's shaken him to his core.
But Swallow Hill is no easy haven. The squalid camp is ruled by a sadistic boss named Crow and the greedy commissary owner Otis Riddle, a man who takes out his frustrations on his browbeaten wife, Cornelia. Del and "Ray Cobb" are physically and emotionally tested as they struggle to survive harsh, brutal conditions under the ever watchful, narrow-minded Crow. As Rae Lynn forges a deeper friendship with both Del and Cornelia, she begins to envision a path out of the camp. But she will have to come to terms with her past, with all its pain and beauty, before she can open herself to a new life and seize the chance to begin again...
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