Top Ten Tuesday: Most-Anticipated 2019 Adult Book Releases

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week, I’m going to show you some intriguing adult books that are coming out between January and June 2019. There will be another post for books coming out in the second half of the year. If you’re interested in children’s books, check out my most-anticipated 2019 young adult releases. This post contains affiliate links. I earn a commission from qualifying purchases.

2019 Releases That Are My Kind Of Weird And Wonderful

The Last Boat Out Of Shanghai: The Epic Story Of The Chinese Who Fled Mao’s Revolution by Helen Zia

Historical Nonfiction

January 2019

Terrified of the horrors the Communists would wreak upon their lives, citizens of Shanghai who could afford to fled in every direction. Seventy years later, members of the last generation to fully recall this massive exodus have revealed their stories to Chinese American journalist Helen Zia, who interviewed hundreds of exiles about their journey through one of the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century. From these moving accounts, Zia weaves together the stories of four young Shanghai residents who wrestled with the decision to abandon everything for an uncertain life as refugees in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States.

Benny, who as a teenager became the unwilling heir to his father's dark wartime legacy, must decide either to escape to Hong Kong or navigate the intricacies of a newly Communist China. The resolute Annuo, forced to flee her home with her father, a defeated Nationalist official, becomes an unwelcome exile in Taiwan. The financially strapped Ho fights deportation from the U.S. in order to continue his studies while his family struggles at home. And Bing, given away by her poor parents, faces the prospect of a new life among strangers in America. The lives of these men and women are marvelously portrayed, revealing the dignity and triumph of personal survival.

What interests me: I don’t know much about China, and I want to learn. I like that it focuses on stories of average people and not just on what happened with the government.

Buy it on Amazon

At The Wolf’s Table by Rosella Postorino

Historical Fiction

January 2019

Germany, 1943: Twenty-six-year-old Rosa Sauer's parents are gone, and her husband Gregor is far away, fighting on the front lines of WWII. Impoverished and alone, she makes the fateful decision to leave war-torn Berlin to live with her in-laws in the countryside, thinking she'll find refuge there. But one morning, the SS come to tell her she has been conscripted to be one of Hitler's tasters: three times a day, she and nine other women go to his secret headquarters, the Wolf's Lair, to eat his meals before he does. Forced to eat what might kill them, the tasters begin to divide into The Fanatics, those loyal to Hitler, and the women like Rosa who insist they aren't Nazis, even as they risk their lives every day for Hitler's.

As secrets and resentments grow, this unlikely sisterhood reaches its own dramatic climax. What's more, one of Rosa's SS guards has become dangerously familiar, and the war is worsening outside. As the months pass, it becomes increasingly clear that Rosa and everyone she knows are on the wrong side of history.

What interests me: This was a bestseller and award nominee in Italy, and now it’s being translated into English. I’m always interested to learn what women were doing while men were killing each other in wars.

Buy it on Amazon

Say Nothing: A True Story Of Murder And Memory In Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

Crime Nonfiction

February 2019

In December 1972, Jean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress—with so many kids, McConville always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.

Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists—or volunteers, depending on which side one was on—such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace and denied his I.R.A. past, betraying his hardcore comrades—Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.

What interests me: I’m always on the lookout for well-researched true crime stories. This crime seems to have had national (and international) ramifications.

Buy it on Amazon

The Hollow Bones by Leah Kaminsky

Historical Fiction

March 2019

Berlin, 1938. The eve of war. Ernst Schäfer, a young, ambitious zoologist, keen hunter and devoted husband of the beautiful Herta, has come to the attention of Heinrich Himmler, who invites him to lead a group of SS scientists to the frozen mountains of Tibet. Their secret mission: to search for the origins of the Aryan race. For Schäfer, the personal consequences of failure are unthinkable, yet little does he know this outlandish expedition will become a prelude to the unimaginable horror soon to overrun Europe.

Using material discovered in field diaries, letters, films, photographs and secret documents, the novel tells the story behind Schäfer through the eyes of his ill-fated lover, Herta. Nazism proved a convenient short-cut to personal glory for Schäfer, who, accompanied by a group of SS scientists, trekked across inhospitable, treacherous terrain on a mission to conduct experiments to 'prove' Nordic heritage. In 1939, the team was flown out of India on Himmler’s flying boats. Schäfer was an instant celebrity on his return to Berlin and, at just twenty-eight, he became one of the most celebrated men in Hitler’s Reich. But his world was about to change, as science was enlisted for racial murder and Himmler sent Schäfer to Dachau to observe and film medical experiments.

What interests me: It’s based on a true story. Early reviewers say that it’s bizarre, dark, and captivating.

Buy it on Amazon

The Conviction Of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby

Historical Fiction

March 2019

Cora was born in a prison. But is this where she belongs?

Birmingham, 1885.

Born in a gaol and raised in a workhouse, Cora Burns has always struggled to control the violence inside her.

Haunted by memories of a terrible crime, she seeks a new life working as a servant in the house of scientist Thomas Jerwood.

Here, Cora befriends a young girl, Violet, who seems to be the subject of a living experiment. But is Jerwood also secretly studying Cora . . . ?

What interests me: Criminals and science experiments? I’m here for that. Also, it’s been compared to Hannah Kent’s novels. I loved Burial Rites. I’ll be thrilled if this book is similar to that one.

Buy it on Amazon

Women Talking by Miriam Toews

Literary Fiction

April 2019

One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm.

While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women—all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in—have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they’ve ever known or should they dare to escape?

Based on real events and told through the “minutes” of the women’s all-female symposium, Toews’s masterful novel uses wry, politically engaged humor to relate this tale of women claiming their own power to decide.

What interests me: Margaret Atwood endorsed it. This book is already out in Canada and has pretty good reviews. “Based on real events” is a quick way to make me buy a book. The author is of Mennonite descent, so I trust that she can tell this story realistically.

Buy it on Amazon

Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis

Humor Essays

April 2019

Helen Ellis has a mantra: "If you don't have something nice to say, say something not-so-nice in a nice way." Say "weathered" instead of "she looks like a cake left out in the rain." Say "early-developed" instead of "brace face and B cups." And for the love of Coke Salad, always say "Sorry you saw something that offended you" instead of "Get that stick out of your butt, Miss Prissy Pants." In these twenty-three raucous essays Ellis transforms herself into a dominatrix Donna Reed to save her marriage, inadvertently steals a $795 Burberry trench coat, witnesses a man fake his own death at a party, avoids a neck lift, and finds a black-tie gown that gives her the confidence of a drag queen. While she may have left her home in Alabama, married a New Yorker, forgotten how to drive, and abandoned the puffy headbands of her youth, Helen Ellis is clinging to her Southern accent like mayonnaise to white bread, and offering readers a hilarious, completely singular view on womanhood for both sides of the Mason-Dixon.

What interests me: I read Helen Ellis’s other book, American Housewife, a few years ago and loved it. Even though I’m not married or Southern, it was funny and relatable. This sounds like more of the same.

Buy it on Amazon

Clover Blue by Eldonna Edwards

Historical fiction

May 2019

There are many things twelve-year-old Clover Blue isn't sure of: his exact date of birth, his name before he was adopted into the Saffron Freedom Community, or who his first parents were. What he does know with certainty is that among this close-knit, nature-loving group, he is happy. Here, everyone is family, regardless of their disparate backgrounds—surfer, midwife, Grateful Dead groupie, Vietnam deserter. But despite his loyalty to the commune and its guru-like founder Goji, Blue grapples with invisible ties toward another family—the one he doesn't remember.

With the urging of his fearless and funny best friend, Harmony, Clover Blue begins to ask questions. For the first time, Goji's answers fail to satisfy. The passing months bring upheaval to their little clan and another member arrives, a beautiful runaway teen named Rain, sparking new tensions. As secrets slowly unfurl, Blue's beliefs—about Goji, the guidelines that govern their seemingly idyllic lives, and the nature of family itself—begin to shift. With each revelation about a heartbreaking past he never imagined, Blue faces a choice between those he's always trusted, and an uncertain future where he must risk everything in his quest for the truth.

What interests me: Historical fiction about a commune? That’s very “me.” I think I’ll wait for reviews before I spend money on it. The synopsis sounds like a billion other cult books I’ve read, but I’m optimistic. It could be amazing. Currently, I know pretty much nothing about this book. I’m not even sure about the target audience. I guess the publisher/author is keeping it mysterious. Or just not advertising it very well.

Buy it on Amazon

Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell

Magical Realism Short Stories

June 2019

In "Bog Girl," a young man falls in love with a two-thousand-year-old girl that he's extracted from a mass of peat in a Floridian bog. In "The Bad Graft," a couple on a road trip stop in Joshua Tree National Park, where the spirit of a giant tree accidentally infects the young woman, their fates becoming permanently entangled. In the brilliant, hilarious "Orangeworld," a new mother desperate to ensure her daughter's health strikes a diabolical deal—she agrees to breastfeed the devil in exchange for his protection. In the collection's luminous title story, two opportunistic young women fleeing the depression strike out for new territory, and find themselves fighting for their lives.

What interests me: I love Karen Russell so much. She’s a genius. If you like magical realism and you haven’t read her short stories, what are you doing with your life?

Buy it on Amazon

Which new releases are you looking forward to? Are any of these books on your wish list?