Paperback Spotlight

To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal

What do you remember about your first love?

As the veneer of her happy life in California is beginning to crack, Judith Whitman recalls the serenity she felt decades earlier, when she was 17 and living in her father’s house in Nebraska. There --- before her marriage to a banker, before the birth of her daughter, before her career as a film editor --- Judith met Willy Blunt, a carpenter whose pale blue eyes and easy smile awakened in Judith the reckless girl he alone imagined her to be. If she were to encounter Willy again, could Judith reconnect with her purer, better self? Tom McNeal points us toward the answer in this heartwrenching, captivating story about who we are with the ones we love, and who we are without them.

Next to Love by Ellen Feldman

It’s 1941. Babe throws like a boy, thinks for herself, and never expects to escape the poor section of her quiet Massachusetts town. Then World War II breaks out, and everything changes. Her friend Grace, married to a reporter on the local paper, fears being left alone with her infant daughter when her husband ships out; Millie, the third member of their childhood trio, now weds the boy who always refused to settle down; and Babe wonders if she should marry Claude, who even as a child could never harm a living thing. As the war rages abroad, life on the home front undergoes its own battles and victories; and when the men return, and civilian life resumes, nothing can go back to quite the way it was.

Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman

Celebrated novelist Francisco Goldman was barely two years into his marriage to the beautiful young writer Aura Estrada when, on their belated honeymoon, Aura broke her neck while bodysurfing. Francisco was blamed for Aura’s death by her family and, overcome with guilt, he wanted to die too. Instead, he wrote his Prix Femina–winning novel, SAY HER NAME, “a work of raw grief refined into lyrical elegance” (Sunday Telegraph) that has captured the hearts of readers and reviewers across the globe. Without pathos, Goldman brings his love back to life.

Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

When Dr. Jennifer White’s best friend, Amanda, is found dead with four of her fingers surgically removed, Dr. White is the prime suspect. But she herself doesn’t know whether she did it. Told in White’s own voice, fractured and eloquent, a picture emerges of the surprisingly intimate, complex alliance between these life-long friends --- two proud, forceful women who were at times each other’s most formidable adversary.

The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin

Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the 20th century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash --- whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts' --- suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham and married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England.

Restoration by Olaf Olafsson

Having grown up in an exclusive circle of wealthy British ex-pats in Florence in the 1920s, Alice Orsini shocks everyone when she marries the son of a minor Italian landowner and begins restoring San Martino, a crumbling villa in Tuscany, to its former glory. But after years of hard work, filling the acres with orchards, livestock, and farmhands, Alice's growing restlessness pulls her into the heady social swirl of wartime Rome and a reckless affair that will have devastating consequences.

Save Me by Lisa Scottoline

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline’s SAVE ME will touch the heart of every woman, as its heroine, the unforgettable Rose McKenna, makes a split-second decision that alters the course of her life --- and makes you wonder what you would do in her shoes.

Long Drive Home by Will Allison

In Will Allison’s critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller, a happily married man makes a split-second decision that sends his life into a devastating tailspin.

"There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me by Eva Gabrielsson

The keys to the "Stieg Larsson phenomenon" all lie with Stieg Larsson the man. No one knew him like his lifelong companion, Eva Gabrielsson. Here she tells the story of their 30-year romance, of Stieg's lifelong struggle to expose Sweden’s Neo-Nazis, of his struggle to keep the magazine he founded, Expo, alive, his difficult relationships with his immediate family, and the joy and relief he discovered writing the Millennium Trilogy.

Little Girl Gone by Drusilla Campbell

Madora was 17 and headed for a load of trouble when Willis rescued her. Alienated from family and friends, she ran away with him, and for five years they have lived alone in near isolation. When he kidnaps a pregnant teenager and imprisons her in a trailer behind the house, Madora is torn between her love for Willis and her sense of right and wrong. Then a pit bull named Foo brings another unexpected person into Madora’s life --- Django Jones, a brilliant but troubled 12-year-old orphan.

You are here:

Vote in Our Poll

Word of Mouth

A Note from Carol

Coming Soon

Bookreporter.com Bets On

New in Paperback

Books On Screen

Reading Group Guides