With THE OFFICE OF HISTORICAL CORRECTIONS, Danielle Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters’ lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture and history. She introduces us to Black and multiracial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief --- all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively. Ultimately, she provokes us to think about the truths of American history --- about who gets to tell them, and the cost of setting the record straight.
Two months a widow, Mallory Dent has made the impulsive decision to pack up and move on. In remote McNamara, nestled in the northern mountains, she can escape her grief, guilt and pain. But the day Mallory arrives, death follows her. A woman’s body is found floating in Loss Lake --- and it’s not the first death on these shores. Locals talk about a monster in the depths with an almost disturbing reverence. Sergeant Joel Benson understands Mallory’s unease. Years ago, his own brother was killed in the home Mallory now owns. But that was just a tragic accident. Wasn’t it? The more Mallory investigates, the more fearful she becomes. Maybe there are monsters in McNamara. Maybe some have followed her there.
In the middle of Brooklyn Heights sits the Starlite: boutique dress shop by day, underground women's club by night. Started by the shop's proprietor after her marriage crumbled, Madeline's social club soon becomes a safe haven for women from all walks of life looking for a respite from their troubled relationships and professional frustrations. These after-hour soirées soon bring two very different ladies into Madeline's life, irrevocably changing all three women's lives in ways no one could have predicted. But when Madeline's ne'er-do-well ex-husband shows up again, the luster of Starlite quickly dampens. And when an unspeakable tragedy befalls their sorority, one woman must decide whether to hide the truth from the group or jeopardize her own hopes and dreams.
On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a few questions on his mind: What kind of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or intended by the nation’s founders? Trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders’ thinking, and the letters they wrote to each other debating these crucial works --- among them the Iliad, Plutarch’s Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato and Cicero. Although much attention has been paid to the influence of English political philosophers like John Locke, the founders were far more immersed in the literature of the ancient world.
In DEARLY, her first collection of poetry in over a decade, Margaret Atwood addresses themes such as love, loss, the passage of time, the nature of nature, and --- zombies. Her new poetry is introspective and personal in tone, but wide-ranging in topic. In poem after poem, she casts her unique imagination and unyielding, observant eye over the landscape of a life carefully and intuitively lived.
Every year, Úna prepares for her father to leave her. He will wave goodbye early one morning, then disappear with seven other men to traverse the Irish countryside. Together, these men form the Butchers, a group that roams from farm to farm, enacting ancient methods of cattle slaughter. THE BUTCHERS' BLESSING moves between the events of 1996 and the present, offering a simmering glimpse into the modern tensions that surround these eight fabled men.
Five months ago, an accident left Diana Sparrow badly injured and missing a few months of her memory. As if that's not enough, she's started having recurring nightmares about the night of the accident. Dreams that feel so real, she's left questioning: Maybe she didn't just slide off the road into a ditch. Maybe, just maybe, she hit something. Or someone. She can't turn to her former best friend Val, who's been sleeping with Diana's husband Jonathan for months, but she might find some comfort in newcomer Cole Pelham. Yet the closer they become, the more Diana begins to wonder what really happened that night --- and how Cole might be connected. Worse, it seems everyone else could be involved, too.
When "The Russian Pink" --- a stunningly large rose-hued diamond --- makes a surprise appearance around the neck of Honey Li, the wife of surging presidential candidate Harry Nash, Alex Turner, an investigator for the Treasury Department’s diamond division and former CIA agent, finds himself spiraling down a seemingly endless rabbit hole. A diamond like that always carries secrets, but the web of mystery behind "The Pink" is more complex than Alex could ever imagine. Starting with the trail of damage from a botched sting operation, Alex wavers between legal and illegal tactics, friends, family and foes to find out why a mysterious Russian double agent betrayed him and the diamond ended up on a potential path to the White House.
Hitler's four capital warships --- Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz and Bismarck, the largest warship on the ocean --- threatened the Allied war effort, sending thousands of men to the icy depths of the North Atlantic. Bristling with guns and steeled in heavy armor, these reapers of the sea could outrun and outgun any battleship in the Allied arsenal. The campaign against Hitler's surface fleet would continue into the dying days of World War II and involve everything from massive warships engaged in bloody, fire-drenched battle to daring commando raids in German-occupied harbors. This is the fast-paced story of the Allied bomber crews, brave sailors and bold commandoes who "sunk the Bismarck" and won a hard-fought victory over Hitler's iron sea.
The Four Musketeers all venture to England on parallel missions to save King Charles I, pursued by the murderous and vengeful Mordaunt, the son of Milady de Winter, the great villain of THE THREE MUSKETEERS. Despite all his experience, d’Artagnan is repeatedly foiled by the much younger Mordaunt, who erupts out of the past to embody the strengths of audacity and cunning that were once d’Artagnan’s hallmarks. Mordaunt has corrupted those youthful strengths, and the older d’Artagnan is no match for him until he is able to pull his former team together again. To do this, d’Artagnan will have to become a true leader of men, leading not just by example but also by foresight, persuasion and compromise.
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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.
June's Books on Screen roundup includes the series premieres of Prime Video's "We Were Liars" and Netflix's "The Survivors"; the season premieres of "Grantchester" on PBS "Masterpiece" and "The Buccaneers" on Apple TV+; the season finale of "The Walking Dead: Dead City" on AMC; the continuation of Hulu's "Nine Perfect Strangers" and Max's "And Just Like That..."; the films The Life of Chuck and How to Train Your Dragon in theaters and Pie to Die For: A Hannah Swensen Mystery on Hallmark Mystery; and the DVD/Blu-ray releases of Snow White, The Friend, The Monkey, In the Lost Lands and A Working Man.