Pyres by Derek Nikitas

I don't know how I heard about this book, but the Joyce Carol Oates blurb on the back intrigued me enough to give it a try. What a horrible roller-coaster of a crime novel. The main character, Luc, is a high school aged daughter of a college professor, whose murder she witnesses in the first chapter. The bloodbath that follows the opening disaster is not typical of my reading preferences, but this book kept me up at night until I finished it. It was well worth it. Derek Nikitas is a talented new voice.

Trespass by Valerie Martin

Valerie Martin is a great writer. I read this Christmas gift from my husband in two days. It is a compelling story about family struggles, as well as a parallel narrative of a Bosnian woman's horrors of life during wartime. I was dissatisfied with the ending, though.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Dark, dark, dark. This post-apocalyptic novel is a quick read. I kept hoping the father and young boy would find something hopeful along the road, but it is not that sort of book. Very repetitive.

Last Night at the Lobster by Stuart O'Nan

This was such a fun, quick book to read right before Christmas. The story takes place right before Christmas, actually, during a snow storm that makes for slow business on the last night of the Red Lobster is open for business. The main character, the restaurant manager, is forced to move to the Olive Garden to keep his job. O'Nan is said to have done is research at a Red Lobster here in Astabula, Ohio. I loved this book.