January is the Monday of the year. After a revitalizing vacation, it’s when we face winter’s brutal cold while also returning to the daily grind. So what can serve as a reprieve from all that responsibility? A good book. This month, our mix of brand-new January 2019 books includes a heretofore-hidden Native American history, a wildly inventive poetry collection, and a risqué French thriller.

When Susan Conley was a teenager washing dishes at Phippsburg’s Sebasco Lodge, she would have laughed if you’d told her she’d be living and raising kids in Maine as an adult. “I was waiting for my ride south,” says the 51-year-old writer, whose newest novel, Elsey Come Home, hits shelves this month. “I was just twiddling my thumbs. I knew there was more out there.”

“A gem of a book! I’m going to recommend it to everybody!” — WBJC “BookNotes” with Emma Snyder, owner, The Ivy Bookshop. Listen to the radio review.

Beijing’s dumplings are perhaps the very greatest comfort food in the world, and they’re probably a big reason why you’ve landed in the capital city in the first place.

“Even within a few paragraphs of this exploration of motherhood and individuality, Elsey’s voice and emotional turbulence leap off the page.”

Portland author Susan Conley’s ‘Elsey Comes Home’ goes on sale Jan. 15.

Described as “perfect” by Judy Blume herself, Susan Conley’s new novel follows Elsey, a woman living in Beijing struggling to reconcile her identities as painter, mother, expat, individual, and wife. When the novel opens, Elsey is drinking heavily and descending rapidly into misery. Her husband suggests she take part in a retreat, where she meets a handful of strangers who change her life. It’s a necessary look at the identity crisis women can face when the world forces them into boxes.

Susan Conley’s Elsey Come Home finds its protagonist struggling with alcoholism and the pressures of modern life at a Chinese wellness retreat