These books bring past into present

What happened in the past stays in the past? Well almost never … Check out these fictional mirrors of real life, where the past has a way of catching up with the present.

Black Water Rising: a Novel, by Attica Locke ~ Writing in the tradition of Dennis Lehane and Greg Iles, Attica Locke, a powerful new voice in American fiction, delivers a brilliant debut thriller that readers will not soon forget. Jay Porter is hardly the lawyer he set out to be. His most promising client is a low-rent call girl and he runs his fledgling law practice out of a dingy Houston strip mall. But he’s long since made peace with not living the American Dream and carefully tucked away his darkest sins: the guns, the FBI file, the trial that nearly destroyed him. But before he can get to the bottom of a new case that reaches into the upper echelons of Houston’s corporate power brokers, Jay must confront the demons of his past. The pacing captures the reader from the first scene and holds on all the way to an exhilarating climax.

Just Another Hero, by Sharon M. Draper ~ Suppose someone showed up in YOUR classroom carrying an AK-47. You have a split second: to think, to act, to be a hero. But what is a hero? That question becomes all too real for Arielle, November, Jericho, and their friends. They’ve been through so much: the hazing ritual that left Joshua dead and hearts aching; November finding out that she was pregnant with Josh’s baby. But senior year is going well, and when the fire alarm goes off in English class, everyone assumes that crazy Jack is trying to get out of another quiz. But the alarm was pulled for a very different reason. There’s only a matter of seconds to stop a tragedy, and all eyes are searching for someone—anyone—to step up and do something. This shocking conclusion to the two-time Coretta Scott King Honor-winning trilogy by Sharon M. Draper will have you holding your breath to the very last page.

The Embers: A Novel, by Hyatt Bass~ A once-charmed family is forced to confront the devastating tragedy that struck it years ago in this fiercely tender tale of betrayal and reconciliation.  It’s the fall of 2007, and Emily Ascher should be celebrating: she just got engaged to the man she loves, her job is moving in new and fulfilling directions, and her once-rocky relationship with her mother, Laura, has finally mellowed into an easy give-and-take. But with the happiness comes a difficult look at how her family has been torn apart in the many years since her brother died. Her parents have long since divorced.  Her father, Joe, a famous actor and playwright, has been paralyzed with grief since the tragedy and carries the blame for his son’s death.  Moving between past and present over the course of sixteen years, The Embers is a skillfully structured debut novel of buried secrets and deep regrets.

Trust No One, by Gregg Hurwitz ~Over the past two decades, Nick Horrigan has built a quiet, safe life for himself, living as much under the radar as possible. But all of that shatters when, in the middle of the night, a SWAT team bursts into his apartment, grabs him and drags him to a waiting helicopter. A terrorist has seized control of a nuclear reactor, threatening to blow it up. Though he has never heard of him, the only person the terrorist will talk to is Nick. Furthermore, he is promising to tell Nick the truth behind the events that shattered his life twenty years ago.  The only thing guiding Nick through this deadly labyrinth is his stepfather’s dying pronouncement, “Trust no one.”

The Fixer Upper, by Mary Kay Andrews ~ After her boss in a high-powered Washington public relations firm is caught in a political scandal, fledgling lobbyist Dempsey Jo Killebrew is left almost broke, unemployed, and homeless. Out of options, she reluctantly accepts her father’s offer to help refurbish Birdsong, the old family place he recently inherited in Guthrie, Georgia. All it will take, he tells her, is a little paint and some TLC to turn the fading Victorian mansion into a real-estate cash cow. But, oh, is Dempsey in for a surprise!  What started as a job of necessity somehow becomes a labor of love and, ultimately, a journey that takes her to a place she never expected to be.