The 10 books to read in 2019, based on what you loved in 2018

Washington

THEY say out with the old and in with the new when the year turns, but don't shelve last year's books quite yet.

The titles you devoured in 2018 can help determine what to pick up in 2019. Here are 10 options to consider based on some of last year's favourites.

In this Dexter-like debut thriller, a couple gets bored and, naturally, spice things up with murder. They get away with it - until they don't, of course, which is when things start to get interesting in this dark, disturbing exploration of family, marriage and murderous compulsions.

Years of emotional and physical abuse followed, inflicted by a husband who isolated her. In her searing debut memoir, Zafar describes mustering the strength to concoct an escape plan for herself and her daughters, and risking cultural isolation by walking away to build a new future.

During the final days of World War II, the Huntress - a Nazi - commits horrific acts before fleeing to America. Three people, including an English journalist and Russian bomber pilot, embark on a hunt to find her. Their stories converge with that of 17-year-old Jordan McBride, whose pretty new stepmother has a past shrouded in secrecy.

Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires - his 2009 account of Facebook's founding - was the basis for The Social Network, that little movie starring Jesse Eisenberg. Parts of the book examined Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss' lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg claiming that the idea for the site had been stolen from them.

In Bitcoin Billionaires, Mezrich returns to the identical twins' story: In the wake of their legal battle with Facebook, the Winklevosses went all in on cryptocurrency, and in 2017, became the first bitcoin billionaires. Expect a deeply reported "only in Silicon Valley" saga.

It stands to reason that the late McNamara's obsessive search for the Golden State Killer resonated with many of the same people who tune in to cult-favourite true-crime podcast My Favorite Murder.

In their upcoming book, charmingly brash co-hosts Hardstark and Kilgariff reflect on their struggles with depression, eating disorders and addiction. They also impart advice on the importance of personal safety and, well, how to stay alive in this dangerous world.

A spirited, independent heroine meets a smoking hot fireman in Center's smart romance. On Page 1, Cassie Hanwell becomes the youngest person - and only female ever - to win the Austin Fire Department's Valor Award.

Shortly thereafter, she's forced to relocate to an old-school Boston firehouse with hazing, poor facilities and firemen who are not thrilled to have a woman on the crew. Except, of course, for a dapper rookie.

Treuer grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota, part of the Ojibwe tribe, and then pursued a doctorate in anthropology, with an emphasis on past and present native life.

His forthcoming counternarrative blends memoir - a retelling of his own family and tribe's experiences - and in-depth, detailed reporting on 125 years of native history.

Gray's debut introduces a trio of reeling sisters: Althea, who's just been sentenced to prison for food stamp fraud and charity embezzlement, and Viola and Lillian, who return to the home where they were raised to care for Althea's resentful daughters.

Each chapter is narrated by an alternating sister, revealing layers of complex family history and demons. It all fuses into an absorbing commentary on love, family and forgiveness.

In glitzy 1889 Paris, hotelier Séverin Montagnet-Alarie's team of teenage miscreants is helping him exact revenge against those who denied him an heirship 10 years prior.

When Séverin is approached by a powerful society that promises to restore his inheritance if he helps execute a dangerous heist, he's thrust into an occult world that will kill him if he doesn't tread carefully.

This satiric debut comes from Brodesser-Akner, the New York Times Magazine writer you might know for that viral profile of Gwyneth Paltrow. Newly separated Dr Toby Fleishman is enjoying a sexual resurgence - not one woman he meets can resist him.

But then his ex drops their kids off at his place and never returns. Toby adopts the appealing persona of "spurned husband" as he attempts to juggle women, kids and patients, but figuring out what has become of his missing ex will require unfamiliar - and uncomfortable - introspection. WP