At a Glance
- 15 new releases span treasure hunts, divorce memoirs, historical murders, and celebrity journeys
- Oprah Winfrey co-authors a weight-loss guide with her endocrinologist
- Pakistani cities and countryside anchor a multigenerational epic
**Why it matters: Readers get an early curated list to plan winter reading before release-day rushes.
Fifteen January titles promise escape, confrontation, and revelation. From Utah deserts to Cornish estates, these are the books News Of Los Angeles‘s reviewers are buzzing about.
Fiction to Watch
Scavengers drops Bea, newly jobless in New York, into the Utah desert beside her eccentric mother, Christy. A hand-drawn map, a mystery man, and buried gold launch a perilous ride that forces the pair to face the past and each other.
This Is Where the Serpent Lives roams Pakistan, tracking three generations through cities, feudal landholdings, tragedy, love, and power. Reviewers call the novel “absolutely gorgeous.”
Call Me Ishmaelle re-imagines Moby-Dick with an orphaned British woman who cross-dresses as a cabin boy to join a whaling voyage.
Skylark braids a 1664 artist’s bid for freedom with a World War II doctor’s resistance under Nazi rule.
The Storm traps a true-crime writer in a coastal town as a historic tempest approaches and old murder secrets surface.
The Water Lies opens on a Venice, California, canal where a young woman’s apparent drowning pushes two mothers to challenge police, family, and danger in pursuit of truth.
Memoir & Real-Life
Strangers chronicles Belle Burden’s life after her financier husband ends their decades-long marriage with the line, “I feel like a switch has flipped.” The memoir dissects intimacy, resilience, and single parenting.
Enough partners Oprah Winfrey with endocrinologist Ania M. Jastreboff to recount Winfrey’s weight-loss path and offer science-backed guidance for readers walking the same road.
Why We Drink Too Much blends primate tales-monkeys that drink “until they vomit and fall out of trees”-with human psychosocial and biological research to explain alcohol’s grip.
Crime & Suspense
The Hitch finds Rose battling time to exorcise a dog’s soul from her nephew’s body before his parents return.
Lost Lambs unearths criminal conspiracy inside the already chaotic open-marriage fallout of the Flynn family.
Wreck Your Heart follows country-star Dahlia “Doll” Devine as her estranged mother’s reappearance and an ex-lover’s murder threaten her rising career.
The Murder at World’s End teams an underbutler and a sharp-tongued octogenarian to solve her nephew’s murder on an isolated Cornish estate during 1910 Halley’s Comet panic.
Meet the Newmans watches a sitcom dynasty confront secrets that could end their reign.
Photography & Art
Sophia by Eisenstaedt collects more than 70 years of images capturing Sophia Loren’s partnership with Life photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, whom she nicknamed her “shadow.”
Key Takeaways
- January’s list mixes escapism with hard questions about marriage, weight, and alcohol
- Historical settings range from 1664 Europe to 1910 comet hysteria
- Celebrity offerings include Oprah’s health guide and a Loren photography tribute
- Reviewers praise emotional depth, propulsive plots, and lush landscapes across the lineup
