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Week of August 17, 2026

New in Paperback

Week of August 17, 2026

Paperback releases for the week of August 17th include WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE? by Sophie Kinsella, an unforgettable story --- by turns heartbreaking and life-affirming --- of a renowned novelist facing a devastating diagnosis and learning to live and love anew; THE LOST BAKER OF VIENNA, a sweeping saga about survival, loss, love and the reverberating effects of war that was inspired by the experiences of Sharon Kurtzman's own family after the Holocaust; WRECK, a wonderful novel from Catherine Newman about marriage, family, and what happens when life doesn’t go as planned; and THAT NIGHT by Gillian McAllister, an electrifying thriller about three siblings torn apart by the cover-up of a death while on a family vacation in Italy, which is now available in the US for the first time and was adapted earlier this year as a limited series on Netflix.

And the Sea Gave Up the Dead by William Friend - Psychological Thriller/Horror

August 18, 2026

When Morwenna receives a troubling call from her reclusive Aunt Bethan, she reluctantly returns to the family's crumbling chateau by the French seaside. Bethan has lived there alone for years, ever since her husband vanished in circumstances the locals are still gripped by. Some whisper she killed him. Others claim something older, and far worse, took him. What Morwenna finds is a house warped by grief. And the deeper she digs, the more the chateau seems aware of her presence. Worse, it seems drawn to her children. As strange events escalate, Morwenna must uncover the truth about her uncle's fate and the beings the villagers believe still haunt the estate --- before history repeats itself. Because if the tales are true, something long buried is stirring…and it has been waiting for her family to return.

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz - Science Fiction

August 18, 2026

You don’t have to eat food to know the way to a city’s heart is through its stomach. So when a group of deactivated robots come back online in an abandoned ghost kitchen, they decide to make their own way doing what they know: making food --- the tastiest hand-pulled noodles around --- for the humans of San Francisco, who are recovering from a devastating war. But when their robot-run business starts causing a stir, a targeted wave of one-star reviews threatens to boil over into a crisis. To keep their doors open, they’ll have to call on their customers, their community and each other --- and find a way to survive and thrive in a world that wasn’t built for them.

Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan - Dystopian Fiction

August 18, 2026

Bo knows she should go. Years of rain have drowned the city, and almost everyone else has fled. Her mother was carried away in a storm surge, and Bo has been alone ever since. She is stalled: an artist unable to make art, a daughter unable to give up the hope that her mother may still be alive. Half-heartedly, she allows her cousin to plan for her escape --- but as the departure day approaches, she finds a note slipped under her door from Mia, an elderly woman who lives in her building and wants to hire Bo to be her caregiver. Suddenly, Bo has a reason to stay. Mia can be prickly, but they forge a connection deeper than any Bo has had with a client. Then Mia’s health turns, and Bo determines to honor their disappearing world and this woman who has brought her back to it.

The Blonde Who Came In from the Cold by Ally Carter - Romantic Comedy/Suspense

August 18, 2026

Ten years ago, they joined the CIA. Six years ago, he left the game. Five years ago, they fell in love. One year ago, she ran out into the cold with absolutely no intention of ever coming back. And two minutes ago, they woke up, bloody and bruised and handcuffed together in the dark. They don’t know where they are. They don’t know how they got there. And they have absolutely no idea who is after them or what this nameless, faceless villain wants. The only thing that’s clear is that, after 10 years of covers and chemistry, secrets and lies, these two rival spies have been sucked into their greatest mission yet, and now they’re going to have to team up to stay alive (if they don’t kill each other first). 

Brain Damage by Freida McFadden - Psychological Thriller

August 18, 2026

Dr. Charly McKenna had the perfect life: a thriving dermatology practice, a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park, and a handsome husband who adored her. Until the night a bullet tore through her skull…and stole everything. Now Charly wakes in a rehabilitation hospital unable to walk, speak or remember her own name. All she knows is that someone tried to kill her. As fragments of memory surface, so do unsettling questions about the people around her. The truth of what happened that night lives somewhere inside her brain. And as Charly pieces together the jagged edges of her past, she begins to realize the most terrifying possibility: the person who wants her dead might be the one she once trusted most.

The Crying Killer by Jess Lourey - Domestic Thriller

August 18, 2026

Tuesday Hendrickson has spent eight years running from memories of that night. Her sister’s screams. Blood on the walls. And Arsen Bauer, a monster known as the Crying Killer, shot down in a barrage of bullets as he fled. Tuesday changed her last name and moved away. She’s now a private investigator who guards herself and her daughter, Julia, like their lives depend on it. And maybe they do. Because unless she’s imagining things, Tuesday has seen Arsen on the streets of Saint Paul. When bodies begin surfacing bearing the Crying Killer’s brutal and unmistakable signature, Tuesday is certain he’s coming for them. As her paranoia intensifies, she is left with a terrible choice: unearth the shocking secret she buried with her sister, or become the Crying Killer’s next victim.

How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop by Poppy Alexander - Romance

August 18, 2026

Petra's career as a literary agent has imploded. Now she is stuck for six months babysitting a little bookshop by the sea. Ross McCloud’s award-winning debut novel blew the minds of the world’s literati, but now he and his keenly awaited second work have vanished. When Petra discovers Ross lurking, incognito, in the secondhand books section, a kinship tentatively forms. She also is finding time to help her new best friend, Jess --- owner of a local telephone box library --- to launch the inaugural Portneath Literary Festival. What better opportunity to put the Festival on the map, says Ross, than for Petra to unveil his second novel to the world there, before relaunching her career representing him at the Frankfurt book fair? But can Petra find the courage to help the man she loves?

The Lost Baker of Vienna by Sharon Kurtzman - Historical Fiction

August 18, 2026

In 2018, Zoe Rosenzweig is reeling after the loss of her beloved grandfather, a Holocaust survivor. She becomes obsessed with finding out what really happened to her family during the war. Vienna, 1946: Chana Rosenzweig has endured the horrors of war to find herself, her mother and her younger brother finally free in Vienna. But freedom doesn’t look like they’d imagined it would, as they struggle to make a living and stay safe. Despite the danger, Chana sneaks out most nights to return to the hotel kitchen where she works as a dishwasher, using the quiet nighttime hours to bake her late father’s recipes. Soon, Chana finds herself caught in a dangerous love triangle, torn between the black-market dealer who has offered marriage and protection, and the apprentice baker who shares her passions. How will Chana balance her love of baking against her family’s need for security?

Our Last Wild Days by Anna Bailey - Thriller

August 18, 2026

Living in a shack out in the swamps, the Labasques made do by hunting down alligators and other animals. To the good people of Jacknife, Louisiana, they are troublemakers and outcasts, the kind of people you wouldn’t want in your community. So when Cutter Labasque is found face down in the muddy swamp, no one seems to care, not even her two brothers. The only person who questions the official verdict of suicide is Cutter’s childhood friend, Loyal May, who has just returned home to care for her mother. When she left town at 18 years old, she betrayed Cutter. Now with a ragtag group from the local paper where she works, Loyal goes in search of answers, uncovering a web of deceit and corruption that implicates those in town.

Parkie by Michael S. Bregman - Fiction

August 18, 2026

Stanley and Ernie are best friends who couldn’t be more unalike. The common denominator holding their friendship together besides skateboarding is selling drugs to the affluent scions of Manhattan’s Upper East Side at the Central Park Bandshell. As Stanley and Ernie come of age, they claim Bandshell as their turf and transform it into their own personal fiefdom. But as their influence grows, the pair must decide which lines to cross --- or not. While Ernie forges one path, Stanley discovers tarot and the Aleister Crowley system of Magick. He becomes obsessed with the dark side of mysticism and withdraws from all vestiges of morality. Meanwhile, the 1980s unfold while Stanley and Ernie carry on as formidable players --- until ill-fated events ensue and everything reaches a breaking point.

The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas - Gothic Thriller/Horror

August 18, 2026

In 1765, plague sweeps through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancé, Carlos, to his family’s isolated mine for refuge. But she begins suffering from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking and violent convulsions. She senses something cold lurking beneath her skin. Something angry. Something wrong. Elías, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune and escape his family’s legacy of greed. Alba, as his cousin’s betrothed, is none of his business. Which, of course, is why he can’t help but notice the growing tension between them every time she enters the room…and why he notices her deteriorate when the demon’s thirst for blood gets stronger. In the fight for her life, Alba and Elías become entangled with the occult, the Church, long-kept secrets and each other.

Rose in Chains by Julie Soto - Fantasy/Romance

August 18, 2026

The war is over, the dark forces have won, and the hero who was supposed to save them is dead.  Captured as her castle is overrun by the enemy, the world as Briony Rosewood knows it is changed forever. Evil has won, and her people face imminent servitude, imprisonment or death. Stripped of her Magic and her freedom, Briony and the other survivors are quickly sold off to the highest bidders in an auction --- and as Evermore's princess, she fetches the highest price. After a fierce bidding war, she’s sold to none other than Toven Hearst, scion of a family known for their cruelty. Yet despite the horrors of her new world and the role she must learn to play within it, all is not lost. Help --- and hope --- may yet arise in the most unlikely of places.

The Society of Unknowable Objects by Gareth Brown - Fantasy/Thriller

August 18, 2026

The world of unknowable objects --- magical items that most people have no idea possess powers --- has been quiet for decades. But the three current members of a secret society have remained watchful, meeting every six months in the basement of a bookshop in London. They are pledged to protect their archive of magical items hidden away, safe from the outside world --- and the world safe from them. But when Frank Simpson, the longest-standing member of the Society of Unknowable Objects, hears of a new artifact coming to light in Hong Kong, he sends Magda Sparks to investigate. Within hours of arriving in Hong Kong, Magda is confronted by a professional killer who seems to know all about unknowable objects, specifically one that was stolen from him a decade before. Magda is forced to flee, using an artifact that not even the rest of the Society knows about.

Spread Me by Sarah Gailey - Science Fiction/Horror

August 18, 2026

Kinsey has the perfect job as the team lead in a remote research outpost. She loves the isolation and the way the desert keeps temptations from the civilian world far out of reach. When her crew discovers a mysterious specimen buried deep in the sand, Kinsey breaks quarantine and brings it inside. But the longer it's there, the more her carefully controlled life begins to unravel. Temptation has found her after all, and it can't be ignored any longer. One by one, Kinsey's team realizes the thing they're studying is in search of a new host --- and one of them is the perfect candidate.

That Night by Gillian McAllister - Domestic Thriller

August 18, 2026

On vacation in Europe, Frannie makes two urgent phone calls. One to her sister, and one to her brother. The siblings come running, and they find their sister covered in blood, kneeling over an unmoving body. There’s been an accident: Frannie has hit a man with her car, and she needs their help. They bury the body, and they make a promise. They’ll never tell anyone. But when the police come calling, the siblings’ lies start to spiral. They begin to doubt their trust in each other. Because what really happened that night? And who will be the first to crack?

What Does It Feel Like? by Sophie Kinsella - Fiction

August 18, 2026

Eve is a successful novelist who wakes up one day in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there. Her husband explains that she has had an operation to remove the large, malignant tumor growing in her brain. As Eve learns to walk, talk and write again --- and as she wrestles with her diagnosis, and how and when to explain it to her beloved children --- she begins to recall what’s most important to her: long walks with her husband’s hand clasped firmly around her own, family game nights, and always buying that dress when she sees it. Recounted in brief anecdotes, each one is an attempt to answer the type of impossible questions recognizable to anyone navigating the labyrinth of grief.

What Hunger by Catherine Dang - Horror

August 18, 2026

The thought of her brother, Tommy, leaving for college fills Ronny Nguyen with dread, as she contemplates the quiet house she will be left alone in with her parents, Me and Ba. They rarely speak of their past in Vietnam, except through the lens of food. In the aftermath of the war, Me and Ba taught Ronny and Tommy that meat was a dangerous luxury, a symbol of survival that should never be taken for granted. But when tragedy strikes, Ronny's world is upended. Her sense of self and her understanding of her family are shattered. A few nights later, at her first high school party, a boy crosses the line, and Ronny is overtaken by a force larger than herself. This newfound power comes with an insatiable hunger for raw meat, a craving that is both a saving grace and a potential destroyer.

Wreck by Catherine Newman - Fiction/Humor

August 18, 2026

If you loved Rocky and her family on vacation on Cape Cod, wait until you join them at home two years later. (And if this is your first meeting with this crew, get ready to laugh and cry --- and relate.) Rocky, still anxious, nostalgic and funny, is living in Western Massachusetts with her husband, Nick, and their daughter, Willa, who's back home after college. Their son, Jamie, has taken a new job in New York, and Mort, Rocky’s widowed father, has moved in. It all couldn’t be more ridiculously normal…until Rocky finds herself obsessed with a local accident that only tangentially affects them --- and with a medical condition that, she hopes, won’t affect them at all.