February's 9 Best Books Offer Sweet Surprises

Step into three days in the life of Gail. When we meet her, she’s been pushed out of her job, her daughter is about the get married and the mother of the groom still hasn’t asked her to go to the spa day. Then, her ex-husband crashes onto her doorstep with his cat, looking for a place to stay, and then her daughter gets news about the groom to-be. All of this is told with the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s typical humor and heart.

Lila is dealing with divorce, motherhood, home ownership and taking care of her elderly stepfather. Her career and love life aren’t so hot either. When her biological father appears 35 years after he abandoned her for Hollywood, she has yet another problem, but maybe it's also a lesson in what it means to be a family, too.

New mom Camilla is returning to work for the first time since her daughter was born. She plans to drop her off at daycare that morning, but when she wakes, her husband is not there. She then gets word that Luke is part of a hostage situation. But he’s not a hostage — he’s the gunman. Now it’s up to Camilla to make the next move in this heart-pounding thriller.

Not only are these five women famous for writing about crime — they’re about to solve a murder, too. In 1930 London, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy get word of a young woman found strangled in a park in France. As the Queens of Crime, they’ll pay attention to the details the police don’t and solve the case, even if that means becoming targets, too.

This is a trapped room mystery, but with a twist. A famous, anonymous author hires aspiring writer Mila to host a writing retreat at his coastal manor. Because of a grudge, she uses this opportunity to plot to murder one of the six thriller authors on the invite list. When the wrong author turns up dead, not by her hand, Mila needs to outwit a killer who’s one step ahead.

Birdie’s barely surviving, longing for the days when she was free to roam in the Alaskan wilderness. When the mysterious and scarred recluse Arthur rescues Birdie’s daughter, Emaleen, from the woods, Birdie realizes he lives the wild life she longs for. Impulsively, Birdie and Emaleen move to Arthur’s cabin and, at first, it’s everything she’s dreamed. But then, she sees the dangerous side of Arthur, in this dark and beautiful fairy tale.

Calla and Dre have become guardians to their teenage brother, Jamie, but the burden is mostly left to Calla to reign in his recklessness. Calla also has visions of her brothers dying. After Jamie’s actions at a protest force the brothers to go on the run, they wind up in a spooky cabin, where they fear Calla’s visions are about to come true.

In the third book in the Ruinous Love Trilogy, Dr. Fion is running away from Boston, his fiancé, and his career, to a small town in Nebraska. Rose, a motorcycle performer with the circus, has a penchant for murder. When a kill goes wrong, her broken leg takes her to an office in a small Nebraska town, where she meets a cute doctor. The two of them together just might be a killer combination.

From the author of “I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf” comes this wild and funny romance. Dorothy is getting mauled by a lion, until she’s abducted by aliens. She and the lion, Toto, escape, crash landing on a planet with two hot aliens. Soon, they're battling outer space dinosaurs together and things are getting steamy…and really weird.