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Week of February 28, 2022

New in Paperback

Week of February 28, 2022

Paperback releases for the week of February 28th include THE BEAUTY OF LIVING TWICE, Sharon Stone's intimate and candid memoir that chronicles her efforts to rebuild her life after a massive stroke cost her not only her health, but also her career, family, fortune and global fame; THE PARIS LIBRARY by Janet Skeslien Charles, an unforgettable story of romance, friendship, family and the power of literature to bring us together, inspired by the real-life heroic librarians at the American Library in Paris during World War II; THE GOOD SISTER, a knock-out of a novel from Sally Hepworth about the lies that bind two sisters; WHO IS MAUD DIXON? by Alexandra Andrews, a taut, twisty and character-driven psychological thriller about a famous novelist and a small-town striver locked in a struggle for fortune and fame; and Lauren Willig's BAND OF SISTERS, a sweeping novel based on a true story about a group of young women from Smith College who risk their lives in France at the height of World War I.

Antiquities and Other Stories by Cynthia Ozick - Fiction/Short Stories

March 1, 2022

In ANTIQUITIES, Lloyd Wilkinson Petrie, one of the seven elderly trustees of the now-defunct (for 34 years) Temple Academy for Boys, is preparing a memoir of his days at the school, intertwined with the troubling distractions of present events. As he navigates, with faltering recall, between the subtle anti-Semitism that pervaded the school's ethos and his fascination with his own family's heritage, he reconstructs the passions of a childhood encounter with the oddly named Ben-Zion Elefantin, a mystifying older pupil who claims descent from Egypt's Elephantine Island. Included alongside this wondrous tale are four additional stories weaving myth and mania, history and illusion: "The Coast of New Zealand," "The Bloodline of the Alkanas," "Sin" and "A Hebrew Sibyl."

Artifact by Arlene Heyman - Fiction

March 1, 2022

Born in Michigan in the early 1940s to a taciturn mother and embittered father, Lottie Kristin is independent from the start, fascinated with the mysteries of nature and the human body. By age 16, she and her sweetheart, cheerful high school sports hero Charlie Hart, have been through a devastatingly traumatic pregnancy. When an injury ends Charlie's football career four years later, the two move to Texas hoping for a fresh start. There, torn between the vitality of the antiwar movement and her family's traditional values, Lottie discovers the joys of motherhood, and reconnects with her interest in biology and experimentation, taking a job as a lab technician. While Charlie's depression pervades their home, Lottie's instinct is toward life.

Band of Sisters by Lauren Willig - Historical Fiction

March 1, 2022

A scholarship girl from Brooklyn, Kate Moran thought she found a place among Smith College’s Mayflower descendants, only to have her illusions dashed the summer after graduation. When charismatic alumna Betsy Rutherford delivers a rousing speech at the Smith College Club in April of 1917, looking for volunteers to help French civilians decimated by the German war machine, Kate is too busy earning her living to even think of taking up the call. But when her former best friend, Emmeline Van Alden, reaches out and begs her to take the place of a girl who had to drop out, Kate reluctantly agrees to join the new Smith College Relief Unit. Four months later, Kate and 17 other Smithies set sail for France. The volunteers are armed with money, supplies and good intentions --- all of which immediately go astray.

The Beauty of Living Twice by Sharon Stone - Memoir

March 1, 2022

Sharon Stone, one of the most renowned actresses in the world, suffered a massive stroke that cost her not only her health, but her career, family, fortune and global fame. In THE BEAUTY OF LIVING TWICE, Stone chronicles her efforts to rebuild her life and writes about her slow road back to wholeness and health. In a business that doesn’t accept failure, in a world where too many voices are silenced, she found the power to return, the courage to speak up, and the will to make a difference in the lives of men, women and children around the globe. Over the course of these intimate pages, as candid as a personal conversation, Stone talks about her pivotal roles, her life-changing friendships, her worst disappointments and her greatest accomplishments.

By Any Other Name by Lauren Kate - Romantic Comedy

March 1, 2022

With a successful career as a romance editor, and an engagement to a man who checks off all 99 boxes on her carefully curated list, Lanie is more than good. She's killing it. Then she’s given the opportunity of a lifetime: to work with world-renowned author and her biggest inspiration in love and life --- the Noa Callaway. All Lanie has to do is cure Noa's writer's block and she'll get the promotion she's always dreamed of. Simple, right? But there's a reason no one has ever seen or spoken to the mysterious Noa Calloway. And that reason will rock Lanie’s world. It will call into question everything she thought she knew.

The Day He Left: A Violent Crime Investigations Team Mystery by Frederick Weisel - Mystery

March 1, 2022

Annie has fallen out of the habit of listening to her husband. She and Paul have been married for a long time; it's easy to nod as he drones on. That becomes a problem, of course, when Paul disappears and the police have questions. Was Paul having issues at work? Is there any reason to think he might harm himself? Annie doesn't know. But someone does. An unsettling photo found amongst Paul's things turns the investigation toward his job as a middle school teacher and a troubled girl who is hiding secrets of her own. But what exactly happened to Paul on the day he left for work and never made it to the classroom? Is his disappearance related to a local heroin trafficking operation?

Enchanting the Heiress: Hearts on the Heath, Book 3 by Kristi Ann Hunter - Historical Romance

March 1, 2022

Miss Harriet Hancock enjoys playing the role of eccentric heiress, using her wealth and influence to cleverly and anonymously better the lives of those in Newmarket. Though she keeps people at a distance to protect a years-old secret, when her friend pleads for help on a personal project, Harriet can't resist. Stable hand Jonas Fitzroy would do anything for his twin sister, even if it means seeking out the woman whose meddling ways have made him wary and suspicious. The last thing he expects is for Miss Hancock to request his help in writing a book. Intent on revealing her underlying plan, Jonas agrees. As they work together, an unexpected friendship forms. But when things for once don't go according to Harriet's plan, she's left wondering if good intentions might not be enough.

The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth - Psychological Thriller/Mystery

March 1, 2022

Fern Castle works in her local library. She has dinner with her twin sister, Rose, three nights a week. And she avoids crowds, bright lights and loud noises as much as possible. Fern has a carefully structured life, and disrupting her routine can be...dangerous. When Rose discovers that she cannot get pregnant, Fern sees her chance to pay her sister back for everything Rose has done for her. Fern can have a baby for Rose. She just needs to find a father. Simple. Fern's mission will shake the foundations of the life she has carefully built for herself and stir up dark secrets from the past.

The Heights by Louise Candlish - Psychological Thriller

March 1, 2022

The Heights is a tall, slender apartment building among warehouses in London. Its roof terrace is so discreet, you wouldn’t know it existed if you weren’t standing at the window of the flat directly opposite. But you are. And that’s when you see a man up there --- a man you’d recognize anywhere. He may be older now, but it’s definitely him. But that can’t be because he’s been dead for over two years. You know this for a fact. Because you’re the one who killed him.

Hostage by Clare Mackintosh - Psychological Thriller

March 1, 2022

Mina is trying to focus on her job as a flight attendant, not the problems with her five-year-old daughter back home or the fissures in her marriage. But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination: "The following instructions will save your daughter's life..." Someone needs Mina's assistance and knows exactly how to make her comply. When one passenger is killed and then another, Mina knows she must act. But which lives does she save: Her passengers...or her own daughter and husband who are in grave distress back at home?

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro - Science Fiction

March 1, 2022

KLARA AND THE SUN, the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, tells the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. The book offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator and explores the fundamental question: What does it mean to love?

The Lights of Sugarberry Cove by Heather Webber - Fiction

March 1, 2022

Sadie Way Scott has been avoiding her family and hometown of Sugarberry Cove, Alabama, since she nearly drowned in the lake just outside her mother’s B&B. Eight years later, Sadie is the host of a much-loved show about southern cooking and family. But despite her success, she wonders why she was saved. Sadie’s sister, Leala Clare, is still haunted by the guilt she feels over the night Sadie almost died. Now, at a crossroads in her marriage, Leala has everything she ever thought she wanted. So why is she so unhappy? When their mother suffers a minor heart attack, the two sisters come home to run the inn while she recovers. With a little help from the inn’s quirky guests, they may come to terms with their strained relationships, accept the past and rediscover a little lake magic.

The Lowering Days by Gregory Brown - Fiction

March 1, 2022

Growing up, David Almerin Ames and his brothers, Link and Simon, believed the wild patch of Maine where they lived along the Penobscot River belonged to them. Their affinity for the natural world derives from their iconoclastic parents: Arnoux, a romantic artist and Vietnam War deserter who builds boats by hand, and Falon, an activist journalist who runs The Lowering Days, a community newspaper that gives equal voice to indigenous and white issues. But the boys’ childhood reverie is shattered when a bankrupt paper mill is burned to the ground on the eve of potentially reopening. As the community grapples with the scope of the devastation, Falon receives a letter from a Penobscot teenager confessing to the crime --- an act of justice for a sacred river under centuries of assault.

Mr. Wrong Number by Lynn Painter - Romantic Comedy

March 1, 2022

Bad luck has always followed Olivia Marshall...or maybe she's just the screw-up her family thinks she is. But when a "What are you wearing?" text from a random wrong number turns into the hottest, most entertaining --- albeit anonymous --- relationship of her life, she thinks things might be on the upswing. Colin Beck has always considered Olivia his best friend's annoying little sister, but when she moves in with them after one of her worst runs of luck, he realizes she's turned into an altogether different and sexier distraction. He's sure he can keep his distance, until the moment he discovers she's the irresistible Miss Misdial he's been sort of sexting for weeks --- and now he has to decide whether to turn the heat up or ghost her before things get messy.

Must Love Dogs: Lucky Enough by Claire Cook - Fiction

March 4, 2022

If you live in Marshbury, Massachusetts, that picture postcard perfect seaside town an hour south of Boston and the epicenter of the Irish Riviera, it’s pretty much mandatory to be a little bit Irish for the whole month of March. Preschool teacher Sarah probably should have warned John about that once they bought the Hurlihy family house. And she definitely should have told him that half the town would be watching the St. Patrick’s Day parade from their front yard. In her defense, Sarah has a lot on her plate. Hormones are flying every which way as she and John ramp up their fertility journey, their five rescue cats get spayed and neutered, and assistant teacher-slash-housemate Polly gets ready to give birth with Sarah’s bossy big sister as her labor coach.

No Accident: A Posadas County Mystery by Steven F. Havill - Mystery

March 1, 2022

When a driver slams his pickup truck into a tandem bike being ridden by Carlos Guzman and his fiancée, Tasha, it's more than a simple hit-and-run; the driver clearly intended to harm them. Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman gets the call with the news of her son's accident and wastes no time racing to his side. While Carlos struggles with critical injuries, an employee at the bike shop where Carlos bought the tandem is found shot dead in a dumpster --- the same man who had borrowed the truck that mowed down Carlos and Tasha. Not a believer in coincidence, Estelle pursues every possible angle with a cop's determination to solve the case, and a mother's resolve to keep her son safe at any cost.

Palace of the Drowned by Christine Mangan - Literary/Psychological Thriller

March 1, 2022

It’s 1966, and Frankie Croy retreats to her friend’s vacant palazzo in Venice. Years have passed since the initial success of Frankie’s debut novel, and she has spent her career trying to live up to the expectations. Now, after a particularly scathing review of her most recent work, she needs to recharge and get re-inspired. Then Gilly appears. A precocious young admirer eager to make friends, Gilly seems determined to insinuate herself into Frankie’s solitary life. But there’s something about the young woman that gives Frankie pause. How much of what Gilly tells her is the truth? As a series of lies and revelations emerge, the lives of these two women will be tragically altered as the catastrophic 1966 flooding of Venice ravages the city.

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles - Historical Fiction

March 1, 2022

Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet has it all: her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into Paris, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved library. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books. But when the war finally ends, instead of freedom, Odile tastes the bitter sting of unspeakable betrayal. Montana, 1983: Lily is a lonely teenager looking for adventure in small-town Montana. Her interest is piqued by her solitary, elderly neighbor. As Lily uncovers more about her neighbor’s mysterious past, she finds that they share a love of language, the same longings and the same intense jealousy, never suspecting that a dark secret from the past connects them.

The Princess Spy: The True Story of World War II Spy Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones by Larry Loftis - Biography

March 1, 2022

As the US enters the Second World War, college graduate Aline Griffith is desperate to aid in the war effort, but no one is interested in a bright-eyed young woman whose only career experience is modeling clothes. Aline’s life changes when, at a dinner party, she meets a man named Frank Ryan and reveals how desperately she wants to do her part for her country. Within a few weeks, he helps her join the Office of Strategic Services --- forerunner of the CIA. With a code name and expert training under her belt, she is sent to Spain to be a coder, but is soon given the additional assignment of infiltrating the upper echelons of society, mingling with high-ranking officials, diplomats and titled Europeans, any of whom could be an enemy agent.

Red Widow by Alma Katsu - Thriller

March 1, 2022

Lyndsey Duncan, cast down and restless from a required home leave, has one thing keeping her going --- a second chance to prove herself at the agency. So when her former boss --- now Chief of the Russia Division, where Lyndsey was once a top handler in the Moscow Field Station --- recruits her to investigate a potential mole in the department after the exposure of three Russian assets, Lyndsey finds herself entrenched once again in fickle fields. Meanwhile, fellow agent Theresa Warner can't avoid the spotlight. She is the infamous "Red Widow," the wife of a former director mysteriously killed in the field. As Lyndsey uncovers a surprising connection to Theresa that could answer all of her questions, she unearths a terrifying web of secrets within the department, if only she is willing to unravel it.

The Scapegoat by Sara Davis - Literary Mystery

March 1, 2022

N is employed at a prestigious California university, where he has distinguished himself as an aloof and somewhat eccentric presence. His meticulous, ordered life is violently disrupted by the death of his estranged father --- unanticipated and, as it increasingly seems to N, surrounded by murky circumstances. His investigation leads him to a hotel built over a former Spanish mission, a site with a dark power and secrets all its own. On campus, a chance meeting with a young doctor provokes uncomfortable feelings on the direction of his life, and N begins to have vivid, almost hallucinatory daydreams about the year he spent in Ottawa, and a shameful episode from his past. Meanwhile, a shadowy group of fringe academics surfaces in relation to his father’s death.

Silence Is a Sense by Layla AlAmmar - Fiction

March 1, 2022

A young woman sits in her apartment, watching the small daily dramas of her neighbors across the way. Journeying from her war-torn Syrian homeland to this unnamed British city has traumatized her into silence, and her only connection to the world is the column she writes for a magazine under the pseudonym “the Voiceless,” where she tries to explain the refugee experience without sensationalizing it --- or revealing anything about herself. Gradually, though, the boundaries of her world expand. When an anti-Muslim hate crime rattles the neighborhood, she has to make a choice: Will she remain a voiceless observer, or become an active participant in a community that is quickly becoming her own?

The Smash-Up by Ali Benjamin - Fiction

March 1, 2022

Ethan has always been one of the good guys, and for years, nobody has appreciated this fact more than his wife, Zo. Until now. Jolted into activism by the 2016 election, Zo has transformed their home into the headquarters for the local resistance, turning their comfortable decades-long marriage inside-out. Meanwhile, their boisterous daughter, Alex, grows wilder by the day. Ethan’s former business partner needs help saving the media company they’d co-founded. Financial disaster looms. Enter a breezy, blue-haired millennial making her way through the gig economy. Suddenly, Ethan faces a choice unlike any he’s ever had to make.

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason - Fiction

March 1, 2022

Martha Friel just turned 40. Once she worked at Vogue and planned to write a novel. Now she creates internet content. She used to live in a pied-à-terre in Paris. Now she lives in a gated community in Oxford, in a house she hates but cannot bear to leave. But she must leave, now that her husband Patrick has just moved out. There’s something wrong with Martha, and has been for a long time. When she was 17, a little bomb went off in her brain and she was never the same. But countless doctors, endless therapy and every kind of drug later, she still doesn’t know what’s wrong. And she has nowhere to go except her childhood home: a bohemian (dilapidated) townhouse in a romantic (rundown) part of London.

Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir by Elizabeth Miki Brina - Memoir

March 1, 2022

Elizabeth's mother was working as a nightclub hostess on U.S.-occupied Okinawa when she met the American soldier who would become her husband. The language barrier and power imbalance that defined their early relationship followed them to the predominantly white, upstate New York suburb where they moved to raise their only daughter. There, Elizabeth grew up with the trappings of a typical American childhood and adolescence. Yet even though she felt almost no connection to her mother's distant home, she also felt out of place among her peers. Decades later, Elizabeth comes to recognize the shame and self-loathing that haunt both her and her mother, and attempts a form of reconciliation.

Stories from Suffragette City edited by M.J. Rose and Fiona Davis - Historical Fiction/Short Stories

March 1, 2022

STORIES FROM SUFFRAGETTE CITY is a collection of short stories from the leading voices in historical fiction that all take place on a single day: the day one million women marched for the right to vote in New York City in 1915. A day filled with a million different stories, and a million different voices longing to be heard. Taken together, these stories from writers at the top of their bestselling game become a chorus, stitching together a portrait of a country looking for a fight, and echo into a resounding force strong enough to break even the most stubborn of glass ceilings.

The Sweet Taste of Muscadines by Pamela Terry - Fiction

March 1, 2022

Lila Bruce Breedlove never quite felt at home in Wesleyan, Georgia, especially after her father’s untimely demise when she was a child. Both Lila and her brother, Henry, fled north after high school, establishing fulfilling lives of their own. In contrast, their younger sister, Abigail, opted to remain behind to dote on their domineering, larger-than-life mother, Geneva. When their elderly mother dies suddenly and suspiciously in the muscadine arbor behind the family estate, Lila and Henry return to the town that essentially raised them. But as they uncover more about Geneva’s death, shocking truths are revealed that overturn the family’s history as they know it, sending the pair on an extraordinary journey to chase a truth that will dramatically alter the course of their lives.

That Old Country Music: Stories by Kevin Barry - Fiction/Short Stories

March 1, 2022

With three novels and two short story collections published, Kevin Barry has steadily established his stature as one of the finest writers not just in Ireland but in the English language. All of his prodigious gifts of language, character and setting in these 11 exquisite stories transport the reader to an Ireland both timeless and recognizably modern. Shot through with dark humor and the uncanny power of the primal and unchanging Irish landscape, the stories in THAT OLD COUNTRY MUSIC represent some of the finest fiction being written today.

They Did Bad Things by Lauren A. Forry - Psychological Thriller

March 1, 2022

In 1995, six university students moved into the house at 215 Caldwell Street. Months later, one of them was found dead on the sofa the morning after their end-of-year party. His death was ruled an accident by the police. The remaining five all knew it wasn’t, and though they went on with their lives, the truth of what happened to their sixth housemate couldn’t stay buried forever. Twenty years later, all five of them arrive --- lured separately under various pretenses --- at Wolfheather House, a crumbling, secluded mansion on the Scottish isle of Doon. Trapped inside with no way out and no signal to the outside world, the now forty-somethings fight each other --- and the unknown mastermind behind their gathering --- as they confront the role they played in their housemate’s death. They are given one choice: confess to their crimes or die.

Tiny Tales: Stories of Romance, Ambition, Kindness, and Happiness written by Alexander McCall Smith, illustrated by Iain McIntosh - Fiction/Short Stories

March 1, 2022

In TINY TALES, Alexander McCall Smith explores romance, ambition, kindness and happiness in 30 short stories accompanied by 30 witty cartoons designed by Iain McIntosh. Here we meet the first Australian pope, who hopes to finally find some peace and quiet back home in Perth; a psychotherapist turned motorcycle racetrack manager; and an aspiring opera singer who gets her unlikely break onstage. And, of course, we spend time in McCall Smith’s beloved Scotland, where we are introduced to progressive Vikings, a group of housemates with complex romantic entanglements, and a couple of globe-trotting dentists. These tales and illustrations depict the full scope of human experience and reveal the rich tapestry of life --- painted in miniature.

Tower of Babel by Michael Sears - Mystery/Thriller

March 1, 2022

Ted Molloy was once a high-powered Manhattan lawyer, but after a spectacular fall from grace, he has found himself back on his home turf in Queens, scraping by as a foreclosure profiteer. It’s a grubby business, but a safe one --- until Ted’s case sourcer, a mostly reformed small-time conman named Richie Rubiano, turns up murdered shortly after tipping Ted off to an improbably lucrative lead. With Richie’s widow on his back and shadows of the past popping up at every turn, Ted realizes he has gotten himself embroiled in a murder investigation. His quest for the truth will take him all over Queens, plunging him into the machinations of greedy developers, mobsters, enraged activists, old litigator foes and old-school New York City operators.

Truth and Other Lies by Maggie Smith - Fiction

March 4, 2022

After losing both her job as a reporter and her boyfriend in the same day, Megan Barnes retreats to Chicago and moves in with Helen, her overprotective mother. Before long, the two are clashing over everything from pro-choice to #MeToo, not to mention Helen's run for U.S. Congress, which puts Megan's career on hold until after the election. Desperate to reboot her life, Megan gets her chance when an altercation at a campus rally brings her face-to-face with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jocelyn Jones, who offers her a job on her PR team. Before long, Megan is pulled into the heady world of fame and glamour that her charismatic new mentor represents. Until an anonymous tweet brings it all crashing down. To salvage Jocelyn's reputation, Megan must locate the online troll and expose the lies.

Vera by Carol Edgarian - Historical Fiction

March 1, 2022

Meet Vera Johnson, 15-year-old illegitimate daughter of Rose, notorious proprietor of San Francisco’s most legendary bordello. Vera has grown up straddling two worlds --- the madam’s alluring sphere, replete with tickets to the opera, surly henchmen and scant morality, and the quiet domestic life of the family paid to raise her. On the morning of the great quake, Vera’s worlds collide. As the city burns and looters vie with the injured, orphaned and starving, Vera and her guileless sister, Pie, are cast adrift. Disregarding societal norms and prejudices, Vera begins to imagine a new kind of life. She collaborates with Tan, her former rival, and forges an unlikely family of survivors, navigating through the disaster together.

Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews - Psychological Thriller

March 1, 2022

Florence Darrow has always felt she was destined for greatness, but after a disastrous affair with her married boss, she starts to doubt herself. All that changes when she sets off for Morocco with her new boss, the celebrated but reclusive author Maud Dixon. Amidst the colorful streets of Marrakesh and the windswept beaches of the coast, Florence begins to feel she’s leading the sort of interesting, cosmopolitan life she deserves. But when she wakes up in the hospital after a terrible car accident, with no memory of the previous night --- and no sign of Maud --- a dangerous idea begins to take form.