Known for his brilliant songwriting, his extraordinary guitar playing and his haunting voice, Richard Thompson is considered one of the top 20 guitarists of all time, in the songwriting pantheon alongside Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Randy Newman. Now, in his long-awaited memoir, the British folk musician takes us back to the late 1960s, a period of great change and creativity --- both for him and for the world at large.
Piper Parrish's life on Frick Island --- a tiny, remote town smack in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay --- is nearly perfect. Well, aside from one pesky detail: Her darling husband, Tom, is dead. When Tom's crab boat capsized and his body wasn't recovered, Piper did a most peculiar thing: carried on as if her husband was not only still alive, but right there beside her. Anders Caldwell’s career is not going well. But when he gets an assignment to travel to the remote Frick Island and cover their boring annual Cake Walk fundraiser, he stumbles upon a much more fascinating tale: an entire town pretending to see and interact with a man who does not actually exist.
Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP, for short), has always loved his niece, Maisie, and nephew, Grant. That is, he loves spending time with them when they come out to Palm Springs for weeklong visits, or when he heads home to Connecticut for the holidays. So when tragedy strikes and Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian, he is, honestly, overwhelmed. Patrick has no idea what to expect, having spent years barely holding on after the loss of his great love, a somewhat-stalled acting career, and a lifestyle not-so-suited to a six- and a nine-year-old. But when his waggish set of "Guncle Rules" no longer appease Maisie and Grant's parental void, Patrick's eyes are opened to a new sense of responsibility.
Detective Isaac Bell thwarts the assassination of a U.S. Senator shortly after meeting the man. This heroic rescue is just the start of the mystery for Bell, who suspects that the would-be assassins have a much larger and more dangerous agenda --- one involving the nearly constructed Panama Canal. While the senator supports the building of the canal, there are many, including a local Panamanian insurgency known as the Red Vipers, who never want to see its completion. With millions of dollars and the fates of two nations at stake, Bell heads to Panama to find answers. After a deadly bombing at the canal's construction site, he is determined to stop the insurgents --- or whoever is funding them --- before they can attack again.
In its heyday, The Golden Hotel was the crown jewel of the hotter-than-hot Catskills vacation scene. For more than 60 years, the Goldman and Weingold families have presided over this glamorous resort that served as a second home for well-heeled guests and celebrities. But the Catskills are not what they used to be --- and neither is the relationship between the Goldmans and the Weingolds. As the facilities and management begin to fall apart, a tempting offer to sell forces the two families together again to make a heart-wrenching decision. Can they save their beloved Golden, or is it too late? Long-buried secrets emerge, new dramas and financial scandal erupt, and everyone from the traditional grandparents to the millennial grandchildren wants a say in the hotel’s future.
Ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, Poppy and Alex are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart, but every summer, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together. Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. She decides to convince Alex to take one more vacation together --- lay everything on the table and make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees. Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?
Sophie O'Neill left behind an envy-inspiring career and the stressful, competitive life of big-city Chicago to settle down with her husband and young son in a small Texas town. There she meets Margot Banks, an alluring socialite who is part of an elite clique secretly known as the Hunting Wives. Sophie finds herself completely drawn to Margot and swept into her mysterious world of late-night target practice and dangerous partying. As Sophie's curiosity gives way to full-blown obsession, she slips farther away from the safety of her family and deeper into this nest of vipers. When the body of a teenage girl is discovered in the woods where the Hunting Wives meet, Sophie finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation.
For years, rumors have swirled about an exclusive, women-only social club where the elite tastemakers of New York City meet. People in the know whisper all sorts of claims: Membership dues cost $1,000 a month. Last time Rihanna was in town, she stopped by and got her aura read. The women even handpicked the city's first female mayor. But no one knows for sure. That is, until journalist Jillian Beckley decides she's going to break into the club. But the deeper she gets into this new world, the more she learns that bad things happen to those who dare to question the club's motives or giggle at its outlandish rituals. The select group of women who populate the club may be far more powerful than she ever imagined. And far more dangerous too.
Unjustly imprisoned in a notorious Havana women's jail, 18-year-old Evangelina Cisneros dreams of a Cuba free from Spanish oppression. When William Randolph Hearst learns of her plight and splashes her image on the front page of his paper, she becomes a rallying cry for American intervention in the battle for Cuban independence. With the help of Marina Perez, a courier secretly working for the Cuban revolutionaries in Havana, journalist Grace Harrington and Hearst's staff attempt to free Evangelina. But when Cuban civilians are forced into reconcentration camps and the explosion of the USS Maine propels the United States and Spain toward war, the three women must risk everything in their fight for freedom.
PI Sunny Randall has often relied on the help of her best friend, Spike, in times of need. When Spike's restaurant is taken over under a predatory loan agreement, Sunny has a chance to return the favor. She begins digging into the life of the hedge fund manager who screwed Spike over, and soon finds this new enemy may have the backing of even badder criminals. At the same time, Sunny's cop contact Lee Farrell asks her to intervene with his niece, a college student who reported being the victim of a crime but seems to know more than she's telling police. What appear to be two disparate cases are united by a common factor, and the picture becomes even more muddled.
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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.