A quartet of friends from Florida have come to Maine to experience a New England autumn, complete with hiking in the woods and fishing. When one of them goes missing, the town rallies to find the presumably lost but otherwise safe tourist. But when newspaper editor Dan Andrews is biking on the trail along a ridge, he looks down and sees a leg caught in the branches of a tree. Count on Jessica Fletcher to uncover the secret reason the victim came to town…and how it led to her murder.
Lucy and her three best friends share a glamorous but decaying house in the heart of Georgetown. They call themselves “the Sweeties” and live an idyllic post-grad lifestyle complete with exciting jobs, dramatic love lives, and, most importantly, each other. But when Addie, the group’s queen bee, discovers that her ex-boyfriend Josh has gone missing, the Sweeties’ worlds are turned upside down. In the days leading up to his disappearance, Josh, a star investigative journalist from a prominent political family, was behaving erratically --- and Lucy is determined to find out why. All four friends upend their lives to search for him, but detectives begin to suspect that the Sweeties might know more than they’re letting on.
Stuck in a Production Assistant job and living at home with her parents after a painful breakup, 31-year-old Chloe Fairway isn’t where she wants to be in life. The last thing she needs is to face the people who once voted her "most likely to succeed" at her upcoming 10-year college reunion. And she definitely doesn’t want to see her former best friend, Sean Adler, who is now a hotshot film director living the life Chloe dreamed of. Desperate to make a splash --- and to save face in front of the man who might be the one that got away --- she turns to a mysterious dating service. Enter Rob, her handsome, well-read and charming match, the perfect plus-one to take to her reunion. The more she gets to know him, the more perfect he appears to be. As Chloe reconnects with old friends, she begins to question everything she thought she wanted.
There’s a tempest brewing in Central America. A government crackdown on cartels leaves most of the drug lords locked up in an impregnable prison. In response, Amador Fierro, a brilliant, tech-savvy crime boss, forges the seven largest cartels into an allegiance called La Liga. If they are to defeat the U.S.-led offensive, they will need a powerful weapon. Thus is born Project Q: an Artificial General Intelligence computer that, when finished, will grant Fierro such overwhelming control of America. Chairman Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon are the only ones standing in his way, but they have their own problems. While two members of the team are unreachable in the Darien Gap searching for an Iranian Quds Force base, the Oregon crew have a mole in their midst. Meanwhile, other dark forces are at play, competing for the all-consuming power at hand.
Fifty years after revealing the secrets of Odessa, an underground organization of former Nazis angling to regain power, Peter Miller is a retired legend in the journalism community. He's spent the last decade caring for his grandson, Georg, after the death of his son and daughter-in-law in a tragic car accident. By 2025, Odessa has been replaced by Medusa, which has reached a level of secret power greater than Odessa ever achieved, its every long-term plan nearing fruition. The subtle rise of the far-right in German politics; the dozens of seemingly unconnected “patriotic” parties growing across Germany’s constituent states and districts; the spike in violence and terrorism against Germany’s immigrant population; and the angry reaction of her citizens. All are symptoms of a man-made, hidden danger, fuel for a planned inferno that must be stopped at all costs.
Birdie Keller wakes one freezing January morning to the news she’s been waiting 18 years to hear. Jimmy Maguire, the man who killed her sister, has been freed from jail. She leaves for London with a pistol and a plan: to find this man and make him pay. But every story has two sides. Jimmy can sense he’s being hunted. He knew Birdie a long time ago, in a life she’d sooner forget, and he isn’t the only one with something to hide. As the two circle each other in a heart-stopping game of cat and mouse, they plunge into a murky world of family secrets, betrayals and unsolved mysteries.
1963, Guatemala. The country is in turmoil, with a presidential election looming and a charismatic, left-wing ex-priest and trade union leader predicted to win. United Fruits, a giant American corporation responsible for a large percentage of the country’s GNP, is not pleased by this prospect. Neither is the CIA. Amid the uncertainty, Gabriel Dax arrives on orders from his MI6 handler Faith Green, who has tasked him with assessing the fallout from the election. Upon arrival, Gabriel meets Frank Sartorius, the local CIA agent. Despite Sartorius’ genial manner, Gabriel suspects something untrustworthy brewing under the surface. Soon, a political assassination with suspicions of Mafia involvement leads to riots. But when Green compels Gabriel to investigate some shady characters in West Berlin, it becomes clear that an even greater danger is afoot.
The Humpty Dumpty Club is distraught when their powerhouse leader, Joan Hargrove, takes a bad fall down her stairs, knocking her out of commission. Now, as well as running errands and shepherding those less able to their doctors’ appointments, they have to pick up the slack. Between navigating their own relationships and aging bodies and attending choir practice, these invisible yet indomitable women help where they can. In the face of death, divorce and the myriad directions our lives can take, the Humpty Dumpty club represents the power of community and chosen family. Weaving together the perspectives of the four cardinal members as they tend to those in need, Stewart O’Nan revisits beloved characters from his past work --- most notably Emily Maxwell.
In the long and dramatic annals of British history, no transition from one monarch to another has been as fraught and consequential as that which ended the Tudor dynasty and launched the Stuart in March 1603. At her death, Elizabeth I had reigned for 44 turbulent years, facing many threats. But no danger was greater than the uncertainty over who would succeed her. As Tracy Borman reveals in THE STOLEN CROWN, according to Elizabeth’s earliest biographer, William Camden, on her deathbed the queen indicated that James was her chosen heir, and indeed he did become king soon after she died. That endorsement has been accepted as fact for more than four centuries. However, recent analysis of Camden’s original manuscript shows that key passages were pasted over and rewritten to burnish James’ legacy.
Audrey and Ian were best friends --- until they fell in love with the same man. To be precise, they fell in love with, married and divorced the same man. Twenty-odd years later, they’re right back at the beginning: Vienna, where their university study abroad turned into a love triangle from which they never quite recovered. But it’s Christmas, and Audrey’s daughter is getting married. Time to let bygones be bygones. Not for the sake of the holiday or even because they’ve matured with age…but because their mutual ex is nowhere to be found. It’s up to Audrey and Ian to track him down. As wedding plans go further awry, the former besties race to find the father of the bride.
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Coming Soon
Curious about what books will be released in the months ahead so you can pre-order or reserve them? Then click on the months below.
December's Books on Screen roundup includes the films The Housemaid, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw, 100 Nights of Hero,The Chronology of Water and Not Without Hope; the series premiere of Paramount+'s "Little Disasters"; the season premiere of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" on Disney+ and Hulu; the season finales of HBO's "IT: Welcome to Derry" and Apple TV+'s "Down Cemetery Road"; the midseason finales of "Tracker" and "Watson" on CBS; and the DVD/Blu-ray releases of Karen Kingsbury's The Christmas Ring and Black Phone 2.