Three Books I'm Reading Now, 1/5/25 Edition

The Books I'm Reading Now

I'm reading Rachel Hawkins's upcoming suspense novel, The Storm; I'm listening to Kate Fagan's intriguing novel The Three Lives of Cate Kay; and I'm reading Charlotte Wood's meditative novel set in Australia, Stone Yard Devotional.

What are you reading, bookworms?

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01 The Storm by Rachel Hawkins

St. Medard's Bay, Alabama, seems to attract the strongest of hurricanes, and the only building that's withstood every storm for a century is the charming Rosalie Inn.

But St. Medard's Bay was also the center of a media whirlwind in the early 1980s following the mysterious death of Landon Fitzroy, the governor's handsome son, in the midst of that year's hurricane. Married Landon was having a passionate affair with a beautiful, spunky local young woman, Lo Bailey, who was later accused of his murder but never convicted.

Geneva Corliss is running the money pit Rosalie Inn, taking up the mantle of her family's business across generations. When Lo Bailey and a handsome ghostwriter come to stay while crafting a book about the events around Landon's death, Geneva begins uncovering secrets that shake what she believes to be true regarding the inn, her community, and even her own family.

Rachel Hawkins is also the author of The Heiress, The Villa, Reckless Girls, and The Wife Upstairs.

I received a prepublication version of The Storm, which is scheduled for publication January 6, courtesy of NetGalley and St. Martin's Press.

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02 The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan

I can't remember who recommended this book to me at a party over the holidays, but I'm reading and enjoying it while I try to recall my source. (If it's you, please let me know!)

The reclusive author Cate Kay has written a bestselling trilogy (which is about to be made into a series of movies), but her extensive fan base has never seen her or even heard her voice.

That's because Cate Kay doesn't exist. When the writer was just out of high school, she was set for a big cross-country adventure and artist's life in LA with her best friend. But a tragedy the day before their planned departure changed everything--and led her to a newly imagined identity.

The secretive, haunted author has attempted to work through the pain and complications of her past by fictionalizing key elements of her personal history and using real details of her life in her novels. Then a shocking realization upends her carefully curated life and shifts her understanding of all she knows to be true.

I'm listening to The Three Lives of Cate Kay as an audiobook.

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03 Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

The main protagonist in Stone Yard Devotional is a middle-aged woman who leaves Sydney for some respite in her rural Australian hometown. Although both of her parents have passed away (they are buried nearby), she has little else to connect her to this place. She seeks out a small nearby religious community, although she does not believe in God and has not attended church.

Despite her unbelief, she finds herself drawn to the structure of the nuns' days--prayer, church services, hymns, and a meditative life within simple surroundings. Without intentionally choosing to stay, she simply never returns to Sydney, thereby abandoning her former life--including her husband, who she had been growing apart from, her friends, and her work--for a life within the nuns' orbit. Yet she remains agnostic and therefore exists more adjacent to the nuns than fully entrenched in their world.

Charlotte Wood is also the author of The Natural Way of Things, The Weekend, and other novels.