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The Highly Anticipated Sequel to BIG LITTLE LIES is Reese's Book Club Pick for September

Liane Moriarty examines the complexities of modern women’s lives, shining light on family dynamics and long-hidden truths.

A Man's World is Upended After He Stumbles Upon a Grisly Crime Scene

NOT A WORD is about the lies that families tell themselves and how far a man will go to protect the ones he loves.

Hank Phillippi Ryan's Latest Novel is a Twisty and Captivating Psychological Thriller

Our New Release Spotlight includes more about the book, our review, an excerpt, and links to Hank's bio, website and social media.

Ghosts of the Cold War Return with a Vengeance --- and Cannot Be Outrun

Our reviewer Ray Palen says that THE SHADOW FRIENDS is “the best installment in Tess Gerritsen’s Martini Club series thus far.”

J.T. Ellison is Back with One of the Twistiest and Most Surprising Novels of Her Career

YOU KNOW WHY is a domestic thriller about identity, revenge, and the dangerous secrets kept hidden from the ones we love most.

Two Murdered Girls. A Town with Dark Secrets. A Race to Break a Deadly Cycle.

With a devastating mystery at its core, THEY SAY A GIRL DIED HERE is a novel of thrilling and terrifying secrets with a mind-bending twist.

Latest Features and Contests


New Release Spotlight: MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER by Hank Phillippi Ryan --- An Upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On Title

The sole survivors of the fiery plane crash that killed their parents, Eliza Ramsey and her sister, Bea, share an unbreakable bond. But now, on the 11th anniversary of the tragedy, Bea fails to retrieve her preteen daughter from a sleepover at Eliza’s. Eliza knows her sister would never leave her precious Piper behind, and she fears the worst. But did Bea plan her own disappearance? The Ramseys’ lives have already crashed and burned once. Now, Eliza discovers she's the only one who can protect her niece from the horrifying legacy of her family’s sinister history. Together, the two must prevent their lives from going up in flames once again.

» Click here to read more in our New Release Spotlight.
» Click here to read our review.


Bookreporter.com Bets On: GOD'S COUNTRY by William Kent Krueger --- A New Release Spotlight Title

When I read one of William Kent Krueger's Cork O’Connor books, I journey back to Minnesota and Cork’s universe. His writing makes me dash aside the day-to-day of my life, and I drop into what is a brilliantly built world with a set of characters I want to revisit to see how they are, what they have been up to, and what their next life adventure will be. 

In GOD’S COUNTRY, we find Cork and the male members of his family on a canoe trip into the Boundary Waters. This place is spiritual to Cork, and as a reader who takes journeys with him into this space vicariously, its grandeur and beauty spill off the page.

» Click here to read more of Carol's Bets On commentary.
» Click here to read more in our New Release Spotlight.
» Click here to read our review.


Bookreporter.com's Word of Mouth Contest: Tell Us What You've Read --- and You Can Win Two Books!

Let us know by Friday, September 11th at noon ET what books you’ve read, and you’ll have a chance to win two notable releases in our Word of Mouth contestBIG LITTLE TRUTHS by Liane Moriarty, the highly anticipated sequel to BIG LITTLE LIES and Reese's Book Club pick for September, and THE BIRTHING TREE by Amanda Peters, the national bestselling author of THE BERRY PICKERS, which was a 2023 Bookreporter.com Bets On pick.

» Click here to enter the contest.


Bookreporter.com's 16th Annual Fall Reading Contests and Feature

Fall is known as the biggest season of the year for books. The titles that release during this latter part of the year often become holiday gifts, and many are blockbusters. In our Fall Reading Contests and Feature, we are spotlighting a number of outstanding books that we know people will be talking about this fall.

We are hosting a series of 24-hour contests for these titles on select days through mid-October, so you will have to check the site each day to see the featured prize book and enter to win. We also are sending a special newsletter to announce the day's title, which you can sign up for here.

Our next contest will be up on Wednesday, September 9th at noon ET. The prize book will be THE LOST BAKER OF VIENNA by Sharon Kurtzman, a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection that is now available in paperback.

» Click here to read all the contest details and learn more about our featured titles.

Bookreporter Talks To...

As part of our mission to expand The Book Report Network, we have been shooting video interviews with authors and posting them on our YouTube channel. We also have been making them available as podcasts. Carol loves interviewing authors, so this feels like a natural.

GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER by Shari Lapena is a Bets On title. The novel centers on Jill and Ted, a privileged Manhattan couple who live in a Brooklyn Heights brownstone. Shari chose this as their home due to her personal fascination with these properties, using a coffee table book of floor plans and history for research. The two kill Ted's wealthy older brother, Greg (setting it up to look like a sailing accident), in order to inherit his estate and preserve their lifestyle. The settings throughout the book become characters of their own, and it is very interesting to see how this murder affects each character. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.

Carol enjoyed talking to Chris Bohjalian about his new book, THE AMATEUR, which is a Bets On pick. Chris wrote in an “alchemic frenzy” over 90 days in the summer of 2024 without telling anyone until it was finished. It's his most autobiographical novel in nature as he mined the days he spent as a “spectacular golf caddie” when he was in high school. The book's title carries multiple meanings, including class elitism in golf culture and broader themes about his main character's identity and choices. The 1978 setting is integral to the novel's exploration of gender inequality, the dismissal of female athletes, and the systemic failure of adults to protect young women. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.

Nadia Hashimi's new novel, CITY OF WIDOWS, is a Bets On selection. While the book looks back in time, the arc of it moves towards the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, focusing on Afghan female soldiers, journalists and the chaos of evacuation. Nadia talks about the shock of the total Taliban takeover --- many had hoped for a power-sharing arrangement --- and the rapid reversal of 20 years of progress for women. She also discusses the City of Widows, a place in Afghanistan where widowed women built their own homes on a hill, away from the city, creating an independent community. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.

» Click here for a complete list of our "Bookreporter Talks To" videos and podcasts, along with upcoming interviews.

Latest Reviews

In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. Though strangers to one another, they share an inescapable truth: All of them are gay. And they live in a world that refuses to accept them. One night, the men are savagely beaten, and one of them is killed. As their bodies heal, the survivors begin to face the hatred and contempt that the violence laid bare. Some try to ignore what happened. Others double down on retribution. Some disappear completely.

Dèy by Edwidge Danticat - Fiction

“Is home the place where we are born? Or is it the place where we die?” These questions haunt Magnolia, a successful Haitian American real estate agent in Miami. When she hears gunfire while at a shopping mall, she takes shelter in a nearby restaurant. Once she’s safely home, Magnolia keeps this traumatic event from everyone. But given her life back, she begins to see everything clearly: her extraordinary bond with her daughter, Zoë; her nearly broken relationship with Zoë’s father; the challenges of her mentally troubled mother; and her father’s affair with a woman who has borne him a child. While struggling through the labyrinth of her past, Magnolia also must come to terms with the losses sustained that life-altering day, and nearly every day by her parents and sibling in Haiti.

Jemma Stelling walks into a police station and confesses --- not to a murder she's committed, but to the one she's terrified she might. Jemma can't stop herself from thinking about murdering her stepmother, Marianne Upton. The only way to stop herself might be to confess before she snaps and does the unthinkable. But while Jemma is still giving her statement, a call comes in: Marianne has just been found stabbed to death, killed in exactly the way Jemma described. Suddenly, the woman desperate to prevent a murder has an unshakeable alibi…and a disturbingly accurate description of the crime she couldn't have committed. Is Jemma an innocent bystander? Or a brilliant, cold-blooded killer who planned everything down to the minute?

There is no mystery more compelling in the history of mountaineering than the disappearance of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine close to the summit of Mount Everest on June 8, 1924. Over 100 years after they were last seen “going strong for the top,” the question of exactly what happened to them on that fateful day has not been answered. George Mallory’s frozen remains were discovered in 1999. But in September 2024, a climber found an old boot lying out in the open on the Central Rongbuk Glacier on Mount Everest. It contained a foot, and a sock bearing a nametape spelled out in red: A.C. IRVINE. Did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit, or did they perish while ascending? What happened to the camera that Irvine may have carried, which would have documented their climb?

At 9:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, an American bomber pierced the skies over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The single bomb it dropped unleashed an atomic hurricane that toppled homes, vaporized birds in flight, and carbonized humans. Three days later, a second bomb flattened the port city of Nagasaki. In the span of a mere 75 hours, the United States --- a nation once morally opposed to the bombing of civilians --- killed 120,000 men, women and children, dooming tens of thousands more to agonizing death in the weeks and months ahead. EMPIRE OF ASHES explores the final brutal months of the war in the Pacific, featuring the voices of never-before-heard victims of the atomic bombs. 

The Calamities by Chuck Wendig - Dark Urban Fantasy/Horror

Mourning Mayne knows he’ll one day bear the duty of managing his family’s vast empire of wealth and power. But the feckless Mourning has always struggled to accept this legacy of cruelty, domination and exploitation…and something even darker. Because the Maynes are no ordinary family. Hidden in our world are the fiends --- half-human, half-demon, and possessed of a dark magic born from buying human souls --- and the Maynes are one of the oldest and most influential fiendish families. But when Mourning’s estranged father, the formidable and terrifying Hadrian Mayne, demands that Mourning return to the fold, he has to decide whether to accept his legacy and embrace his role in the family or to forge his own destiny…and, with it, change the course of the world. 

Plant Lady written by Minyoung Kang, translated by Shanna Tan - Psychological Thriller/Horror

Tucked away in the corner of a neighborhood in Dosan, South Korea, is the Plant Shop. Shop owner Yoohee has started anew, and her meticulously grown foliage thrives under her tender care. By day, Yoohee dispenses advice on gardening, but she also finds herself offering a special service off the clock. Women who are at their wits’ end come to her about a man they hope might disappear from their lives. So as night falls, Yoohee trades her apron for a shovel and a hoe and disappears into her moonlit garden. There, she buries not just the remains of the day, but also the bloody remnants of a few unfortunate encounters. As men begin to disappear, will anyone ever suspect the Plant Lady?

Nina Johnson has always taken pride in belonging to The Tenth. Her great-great-grandmother founded the prestigious DC society --- a space for influential African Americans --- just 40 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Nina has been elected to helm the organization, but she is determined to escape the influence of her mother and forge her own path. To realize her ambitions, Nina needs funding. So when a wealthy white benefactor named Sienna Masters offers financial support in exchange for her participation in a mysterious project at a former public housing complex, The Orchard, Nina ignores her initial skepticism and agrees to a partnership. But as Nina and those closest to her piece together Sienna's true motives, they discover far more sinister forces at play.

Blackjack pro Ronnie “the Technician” Redfield has his life blown up when a casino owner decides to take him down. Card counting isn’t illegal, but the court battle costs Ronnie his livelihood, his sobriety and his family. His wife is dead, and his teenage daughter, Margot, has disappeared. Now, three years later, he’s just about dug himself out of his hole when his old army buddy, “Wild” Bill Grimsley --- now a casino handler for high rollers --- shows up to drag Ronnie back into the action. Bill has a revenge plot to take down Rodrigo Gwynne, the nastiest, most exploitative casino owner on the Strip. All Ronnie has to do is what he does best: make money off the house. If he succeeds, his share of the take will be enough to get his life back on track --- and hire a detective to track down Margot.