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Week of February 17, 2025

New in Paperback

Week of February 17, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of February 17th include WANDERING STARS, a novel that is by turns shattering and wondrous, in which Tommy Orange traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family; A DEATH IN CORNWALL, the 24th installment in Daniel Silva’s action-packed Gabriel Allon series, which finds the art restorer and legendary spy pursuing a powerful and dangerous new adversary when an old friend seeks his help with a baffling murder investigation; SHELTERWOOD by Lisa Wingate, a sweeping novel inspired by the untold history of women pioneers who fought to protect children caught in the storm of land barons hungry for power and oil wealth; and the paperback original THE DRESSMAKERS OF LONDON, a heartfelt work of fiction from Julia Kelly about estranged sisters who inherit their late mother’s dress shop in World War II London.

The 24th Hour by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro - Thriller

February 18, 2025

SFPD Sergeant Lindsay Boxer, Medical Examiner Claire Washburn, Assistant District Attorney Yuki Castellano and crime writer Cindy Thomas gather at one of San Francisco’s finest restaurants to celebrate exciting news: Cindy is getting married. Before they can raise their glasses, there’s a disturbance in the restaurant. A woman has been assaulted. Claire examines the victim. Lindsay makes an arrest. Yuki takes the case. Cindy covers it. The legal strategy is complicated by gaps in the plaintiff’s memory --- and the shocking reason behind her ever-changing testimony. As Yuki leads the prosecution, Lindsay chases down a high-society killer whose target practice may leave the Women’s Murder Club short a bridesmaid…or two.

Bad Animals by Sarah Braunstein - Fiction

February 18, 2025

Now that her brilliant botanist daughter is off at college, Maeve Cosgrove loves her job at a quiet Maine public library more than anything. But when a teenager accuses Maeve of spying on her romantic escapades in the mezzanine bathroom, she winds up laid off and humiliated. Stuck at home in a tailspin, Maeve cares for the mysterious plants in her daughter’s greenhouse while obsessing over the clearly troubled girl at the source of the rumor. She hopes to have a powerful ally in her attempts to clear her name: her favorite author, Harrison Riddles, who has finally responded to her adoring letters and accepted an invitation to speak at the library. Riddles, meanwhile, announces a plan to write a novel about another young library patron, Sudanese refugee Willie, and enlists Maeve’s help in convincing him to participate.

Black Wolf by Juan Gómez-Jurado - Mystery/Thriller

February 18, 2025

Antonia Scott is the linchpin of the Red Queen project, created to work behind the scenes to solve the most devious and dangerous crimes. But she is unwilling to move past the last case, convinced it’s related to a personal tragedy, until a series of deadly events pulls her back in. In southern Spain, a key mafia figure is found brutally murdered in his villa. His pregnant wife, Lola Moreno, barely escapes an attempt to kill her in a shopping mall and is on the run. A shipping container from St. Petersburg arrives in port in Spain containing the corpses of nine women, all of whom suffocated. Now Antonia, with the help of her helper and protector, Jon Gutierrez, must track down Lola. But a dangerous contract killer, known as the Black Wolf, is also on her trail.

A Death in Cornwall by Daniel Silva - Thriller/Adventure

February 18, 2025

Art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon has slipped quietly into London to attend a reception at the Courtauld Gallery celebrating the return of a stolen self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh. But when an old friend from the Devon and Cornwall Police seeks his help with a baffling murder investigation, he finds himself pursuing a powerful and dangerous new adversary. The victim is Charlotte Blake, a celebrated professor of art history from Oxford who spends her weekends in the same seaside village where Gabriel once lived under an assumed identity. Her murder appears to be the work of a diabolical serial killer who has been terrorizing the Cornish countryside. But there are a number of telltale inconsistencies, including a missing mobile phone. And then there is the mysterious three-letter cypher she left behind on a notepad in her study.

The Dressmakers of London by Julia Kelly - Historical Fiction

February 18, 2025

Isabelle Shelton has always found comfort in the predictable world of her mother’s dressmaking shop, Mrs. Shelton’s Fashions, while her sister, Sylvia, turned her back on the family years ago to marry a wealthy doctor whom Izzie detests. When their mother dies unexpectedly, the sisters are stunned to find they’ve jointly inherited the family business. Izzie is determined to buy Sylvia out, but when she’s conscripted into the WAAF, she’s forced to seek Sylvia’s help to keep the shop open. Realizing this could be her one chance at reconciliation with her sister, Sylvia is determined to save Mrs. Shelton’s Fashions from closure --- and financial ruin. Through letters, the sisters begin to confront old wounds, new loves, and the weight of family legacy in order to forge new beginnings.

A Fool's Kabbalah by Steve Stern - Historical Fiction

February 18, 2025

At the end of the Second World War, Gershom Scholem, the magisterial scholar of Jewish mysticism, is commissioned by the Hebrew University in what was then British-ruled Palestine to retrieve a lost world. He is sent to sift through the rubble of Europe in search of precious Jewish books stolen by the Nazis or hidden by the Jews themselves in secret places throughout the ravaged continent. The search takes him into ruined cities and alien wastelands. The terrible irony of salvaging books that had outlasted the people for whom they’d been written leaves Dr. Scholem longing for the kind of magic that had been the merely theoretical subject of his lamplit studies. A FOOL’S KABBALAH reimagines Gershom Scholem’s quest and how it sparked in him the desire to realize the legacy of his dear friend, the brilliant philosopher Walter Benjamin.

A Ghost of Caribou by Alice Henderson - Thriller

February 18, 2025

When a remote camera on a large, rugged expanse held by the Land Trust for Wildlife Conservation picks up a blurry image of what could be a mountain caribou, they contact Alex Carter to investigate. After all, mountain caribou went extinct in the contiguous U.S. years ago, and if one has wandered down from Canada, it’s monumental. But when Alex arrives on scene in the Selkirk mountains of northeastern Washington state, she quickly learns that her only challenge isn’t finding an elusive caribou on a massive piece of land. The murdered body of a forest ranger is found strung up in the town’s park, and Alex learns of a backcountry hiker who went missing in the same area the year before.

Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard - History

February 18, 2025

KILLING THE WITCHES revisits one of the most frightening and inexplicable episodes in American history: the events of 1692 and 1693 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. What began as a mysterious affliction of two young girls who suffered violent fits and exhibited strange behavior soon spread to other young women. Rumors of demonic possession and witchcraft consumed Salem. Soon three women were arrested under suspicion of being witches --- but as the hysteria spread, more than 200 people were accused. Thirty were found guilty, 20 were executed, and others died in jail or their lives were ruined.

Knife River by Justine Champine - Literary Mystery

February 18, 2025

When Jess was 13, her mother went for a walk and never returned. Jess and her older sister, Liz, never found out what happened. As soon as she was old enough, Jess fled their small town of Knife River, aimless in her attempts to outrun grief and confusion. But 15 years after their mother’s disappearance, she gets the call she’s been bracing for: Her mother’s remains have been found. Jess returns to find Knife River --- and her sister --- frozen in time. Jess plans to stay only until they get some answers, but their mother’s bones, exposed to the elements for so long, just leave them with more questions. As Jess gets caught up in the case and falls back into an entanglement with her high school girlfriend, her understanding of the past, of Liz, of their mother and of herself becomes more complicated --- and the list of theories more ominous.

My Name Was Eden by Eleanor Barker-White - Psychological Thriller

February 18, 2025

No one knows why Lucy's 14-year-old daughter, Eden, almost drowned in the lake after school one day. But now she’s safe and well. Lucy can start being a good mother. The mother she should have been all these years --- years that were fraught with grief over the loss of Eden’s twin during pregnancy. Yes, all that matters is that Eden is fine. But then Eden starts saying that Eden isn’t her name. Her name is Eli. The name Lucy had reserved for Eden’s unborn twin. Don’t worry, says the doctor. Eden is completely fine, says her husband. Of course I’m fine, Eden says, with that strange new smile of hers. I didn’t die. I’m here. But Lucy knows something is very wrong with Eden. She’s not her maddening, complicated teenage girl anymore --- this straight-backed, even-tempered and steady-eyed child in her house is someone else entirely. Eden, it seems, is the twin who disappeared.

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard - Science Fiction

February 18, 2025

Sixteen-year-old Odile is vying for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she’ll decide who may cross her town’s heavily guarded borders. On the other side, it’s the same valley, the same town. Except to the east, the town is 20 years ahead in time. To the west, it’s 20 years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness. When Odile recognizes two visitors she wasn’t supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her friend Edme have been escorted across the border from the future, on a mourning tour, to view their son while he’s still alive in Odile’s present. Edme, the only person to truly see Odile, is about to die. Sworn to secrecy in order to preserve the timeline, Odile now becomes the Conseil’s top candidate. Yet she finds herself drawing closer to the doomed boy, imperiling her entire future.

Ours by Phillip B. Williams - Historical Fiction/Magical Realism

February 18, 2025

Saint is a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own creation: a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours. It is in this miraculous place that Saint’s grand experiment --- a truly secluded community where her people may flourish --- takes root. But although Saint does her best to protect the inhabitants of Ours, over time, her conjuring and memories begin to betray her, leaving the town vulnerable to intrusions by newcomers with powers of their own. As the cracks in Saint’s creation are exposed, some begin to wonder if the community’s safety might be yet another form of bondage.

The Painter's Daughters by Emily Howes - Historical Fiction

February 18, 2025

Peggy and Molly Gainsborough, the daughters of one of England’s most famous portrait artists of the 1700s, are best friends. From a young age, Molly periodically experiences bouts of mental confusion, even forgetting who she is, and Peggy instinctively knows she must help cover up her sister’s condition. When the family moves to Bath, it’s not so easy to hide Molly’s slip-ups. There, the sisters are thrown into the whirlwind of polite society, where the codes of behavior are crystal clear. Molly dreams of a normal life but slides deeper and more publicly into her delusions. By now, Peggy knows the shadow of an asylum looms for women like Molly. But when Peggy unexpectedly falls in love with her father’s friend, the charming composer Johann Fischer, the sisters’ precarious situation is thrown catastrophically off course.

Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate - Historical Fiction

February 18, 2025

1990  .   Law enforcement ranger Valerie Boren-Odell arrives at Horsethief Trail National Park seeking a quiet place to raise her son. But no sooner has Valerie reported for duty than a teenage hiker goes missing, and the long-hidden burial site of three children is discovered in a cave. Val’s quest to uncover the truth wins an ally among the Choctaw Nation’s Tribal Police but soon collides with the deadly legacy of the land itself. 1909. Eleven-year-old Olive Radley knows that her stepfather is a threat to the two Choctaw girls boarded in their home. When the older girl disappears, Ollie flees, taking six-year-old Nessa with her. Together they begin a perilous journey to the remote Winding Stair Mountains, the territory of outlaws, treasure hunters and desperate men. Along the way, they form an unlikely band with other children struggling to get by on their own.

The Underground Library by Jennifer Ryan - Historical Fiction

February 18, 2025

When the new deputy librarian, Juliet Lansdown, finds that Bethnal Green Library isn’t the bustling hub she is expecting, she becomes determined to breathe life back into it. Katie Upwood is thrilled to be working at the library, although she is only there until she heads off to university in the fall. Sofie Baumann, a young Jewish refugee, came to London on a domestic service visa only to find herself working as a maid for a man who treats her abominably. When a slew of bombs destroys the library, Juliet relocates the stacks to the local Underground station where the city’s residents shelter nightly, determined to lend out stories that will keep spirits up. But tragedy after tragedy threatens to unmoor the women and sever the ties of their community.

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange - Fiction

February 18, 2025

Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.

Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women by Annabel Abbs-Streets - History/Travel Memoir

February 18, 2025

WINDSWEPT is a beautifully written meditation on connecting with the outdoors through the simple act of walking. In captivating and elegant prose, Annabel Abbs-Streets follows in the footsteps of women who boldly reclaimed wild landscapes for themselves, including Georgia O’Keeffe in the empty plains of Texas and New Mexico, Nan Shepherd in the mountains of Scotland, Gwen John following the French River Garonne, Daphne du Maurier along the River Rhône, and Simone de Beauvoir --- who walked as much as 25 miles a day in a dress and espadrilles --- through the mountains and forests of France.