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Week of May 29, 2023

New in Paperback

Week of May 29, 2023

Paperback releases for the week of May 29th include IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THIS by Therese Anne Fowler, a stylish, insightful take on the dysfunctional family dramedy, in which everyone will have to come to terms with the ways their lives have turned out differently than they expected, as well as the secrets they’ve been keeping from each other --- and themselves; HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, a collection of personal essays from humorist David Sedaris that features his unique and acerbic take on the pandemic, political unrest and the death of his father; MUSTIQUE ISLAND, a sun-splashed romp from Sarah McCoy featuring a rich divorcée and her two wayward daughters in 1970s Mustique, the world’s most exclusive private island; THE SHORE by Katie Runde, a big-hearted novel set over the course of one summer that follows a mother and her two daughters as they grapple with heartbreak, young love and the weight of family secrets; and WOKE UP THIS MORNING, the definitive oral history of the landmark television series "The Sopranos," courtesy of stars Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa.

Acts of Service by Lillian Fishman - Fiction

May 30, 2023

Eve has an adoring girlfriend, an impulsive streak, and a secret fear that she’s wasting her brief youth with just one person. So one evening she posts some nudes online. This is how Eve meets Olivia and, through Olivia, the charismatic Nathan. Despite her better instincts, the three soon begin a relationship --- one that disturbs Eve as much as it enthralls her. As each act of their affair unfolds across a cold and glittering New York, Eve is forced to confront the questions that most consume her: What do we bring to sex? What does it reveal of ourselves, and one another? And how do we reconcile what we want with what we think we should want?

Dirt Creek by Hayley Scrivenor - Mystery

May 30, 2023

When 12-year-old Esther disappears on the way home from school in a small town in rural Australia, the community is thrown into a maelstrom of suspicion and grief. As Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels arrives in town during the hottest spring in decades and begins her investigation, Esther’s tenacious best friend, Ronnie, is determined to find Esther and bring her home. When school friend Lewis tells Ronnie that he saw Esther with a strange man at the creek the afternoon she went missing, Ronnie feels she is one step closer to finding her. But why is Lewis refusing to speak to the police? And who else is lying about how much they know about what has happened to Esther?

Esme Cahill Fails Spectacularly by Marie Bostwick - Fiction

May 30, 2023

Esme Cahill thinks she has failed spectacularly. Fired from her New York City publishing job, divorced from her husband, and possessing little more than a broken-down car and a pile of unfinished manuscripts, she drives home to Asheville at the request of her late grandmother, Adele. There she discovers that the once-charming lakeside retreat run by her family is sliding toward financial ruin, so with the help of her grandfather, her estranged mother and a traveling chef, they set to work. In the attic, Esme unearths a trove of museum-worthy art quilts, sewn by Adele. Piecing together the inspiration behind them, Esme discovers a forgotten chapter in her family history and her grandmother’s untold story --- that of a gifted artist who never received her due.

Florida Woman by Deb Rogers - Fiction/Humor

May 30, 2023

Jamie is a Florida Woman. She grew up on the beach, thrives in humidity, has weathered more hurricanes than she can count, and now, after going viral for an outrageous crime she never meant to commit, she has the requisite headline to her name --- and the impending jail time with it. So when Atlas Wildlife Center, a shelter for exotic monkeys, offers Jamie the chance to take a community service sentence for the summer, it seems like just the fresh start Jamie needs to finally get her life back on track…until it’s not. Something sinister stirs in the dark palmetto woods, and secrets lurk among the three beguiling staff women of Atlas as they affectionately take Jamie under their wing. Soon her summer is set to become material for an even stranger Florida headline than she could’ve imagined.

Gangland by Chuck Hogan - Thriller

May 30, 2023

In the late 1970s, The Outfit has the entire city of Chicago in its hands. Tony Accardo is its fearless leader. Nicky Passero is his loyal soldier, though no one knows he has a direct line in to the boss of bosses. When the Christmas gift Accardo got for his wife, an inscribed bracelet with gold and diamond inlay, is stolen along with other items in a jewelry heist, Nicky is charged with tracking down and returning all of the items --- by whatever means necessary. Forced into an impossible situation, Nicky must find a way to carry out Accardo's increasingly unhinged instructions and survive the battle for control of Chicago. What Accardo doesn't know: Nicky has a secret that has made his life impossible and has put him in the pocket of the FBI.

A Good Family by Matt Goldman - Domestic Thriller

May 30, 2023

Katie Kuhlmann's marriage is falling apart. But she has a secure job, her children are healthy, and her house, a new construction in the prestigious Country Club neighborhood of Edina, Minnesota, is beautiful. She can almost ignore the way her husband, Jack, has been acting. Tension in the Kuhlmann house only gets worse when Adam "Bagman" Ross, a mutual friend from college, happens to be in the neighborhood and in need of a place to stay. Jack is quick to welcome him into the sanctity of their home, but Jack's strange behavior only gets worse, and Katie fears their new guest is also harboring a dark secret. As she begins to uncover the truth, she realizes that something is terribly wrong --- and she must race to protect her family as danger closes in.

Graceland by Nancy Crochiere - Fiction

May 30, 2023

People-pleasing Hope Robinson can’t seem to please anyone lately --- not her slogan-spewing boss, not her pink-haired teenage daughter, and especially not her mother, flamboyant soap star Olivia Grant. Olivia loves Elvis more than Jesus, and now that she’s on oxygen, she insists that Hope take her on a final trip to Graceland. Eighteen years earlier, pregnant and distraught, Hope fled Tennessee with a secret agreement: to never reveal her baby’s father and never return to Memphis. Olivia, though, has never learned the word no. After she wrangles Hope’s impulsive daughter, Dylan, to drive her from Boston to Memphis with the promise of meeting her mystery father, Hope has no choice but to chase after them. Along the road to Memphis, everyone’s long-held secrets begin to unravel.

Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris - Humor/Essays

May 30, 2023

Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask --- or not --- was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger’s teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone’s son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America.

It All Comes Down to This by Therese Anne Fowler - Fiction

May 30, 2023

Meet the Geller sisters: Beck, Claire and Sophie, a trio of strong-minded women whose pragmatic, widowed mother, Marti, will be dying soon. Marti’s will surprises them with its provision that the family’s summer cottage in Maine must be sold, the proceeds split equally between the three sisters. While there’s a ready buyer in C.J. Reynolds, he’s an ex-con with a complicated past and a tangled history with one of the women. Before long, everyone in this cast of indelible characters will have to come to terms with the ways their lives have turned out differently than they expected, as well as the secrets they’ve been keeping from each other --- and themselves.

Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey - Gothic Thriller

May 30, 2023

“Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories, she's come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he'd built for his family. Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren’t alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back and is slowly stripping Vera’s childhood for spare parts. He insists that he isn’t the one leaving notes around the house in her father’s handwriting. But who else could it possibly be? There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the notorious Crowder House.

Master of Furies: Book Three of the Firemane Saga by Raymond E. Feist - Fantasy

May 30, 2023

War has swept across Marquensas. Ruthless raiders have massacred the inhabitants of Beran’s Hill, including Gwen, the beloved wife of Declan Smith. Declan swears to track down and destroy the raiders, an ambition shared by Baron Daylon Dumarch, whose family was massacred as they fled the capital. Meanwhile, Hava, whose gift for piracy has seen her acquire the treasure ship Borzon’s Black Wake and the swift Azhante sailing vessel, Queen of Storms, and won her the name of “the Sea Demon,” is closing in on the whereabouts of those who unleashed the murderous hordes. Her husband, Hatushaly, the last remaining member of the ruling family of Ithrace, the legendary Firemanes, seeks to control the magical powers he has inherited.

Metropolis by B. A. Shapiro - Psychological Thriller

May 30, 2023

Six people, six secrets, six different backgrounds. They would never have met if not for their connection to the Metropolis Storage Warehouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When someone falls down an elevator shaft at the facility, each becomes caught up in an intensifying chain of events. We meet Serge, an unstable but brilliant street photographer; Marta, an undocumented immigrant finishing her dissertation and hiding from ICE; Liddy, an abused wife and mother, who recreates her children’s bedroom in her unit; Jason, a former corporate lawyer now practicing in the facility; Rose, the office manager, who takes illegal kickbacks to let renters live in the building; and Zach, the building’s owner and an ex-drug dealer, who scans Serge’s photos as he searches for clues to the accident. But was it an accident?

Miss Chloe: A Memoir of a Literary Friendship with Toni Morrison by A. J. Verdelle - Memoir

May 30, 2023

Toni Morrison, born Chloe A Wofford, was a towering figure in the world of literature when she entered A.J. Verdelle’s life. Their literary friendship was a young writer’s dream --- simultaneously exhilarating, intimidating, fulfilling and challenging. Like many women friends, these two writers imagined and built a relationship that was responsive, inventive and engaged. MISS CHLOE powerfully situates the risks writers face and the freedom they find when they put Black women’s lives into words. Verdelle chronicles her grief at Morrison’s passing and finds comfort in Morrison’s astute advice --- wisdom Verdelle didn’t always recognize at the time.

Mrs. England by Stacey Halls - Historical Fiction

May 30, 2023

West Yorkshire, 1904. When recently graduated Ruby May takes a nanny position looking after the children of Charles and Lilian England, a wealthy couple from a powerful dynasty of mill owners, she hopes it will be the fresh start she needs. But as she adapts to life at the isolated Hardcastle House, it becomes clear something is not quite right about the beautiful, mysterious Mrs. England. Distant and withdrawn, Lilian shows little interest in her children or charming husband and is far from the angel of the house Ruby was expecting. As the warm, vivacious Charles welcomes Ruby into the family, a series of strange events forces her to question everything she thought she knew.

The Museum of Ordinary People by Mike Gayle - Fiction

May 30, 2023

Still reeling from the sudden death of her mother, Jess is about to empty her childhood home so it can be sold. As she sorts through a lifetime of memories, everything comes to a halt when she comes across something she just can’t part with: an old set of encyclopedias. In the process of finding the books a new home, Jess discovers an unusual archive of letters, photographs and curious housed in a warehouse and known as the Museum of Ordinary People. Irresistibly drawn, she becomes the museum's unofficial custodian, along with the warehouse’s mysterious owner. As they delve into the history of objects in their care, they not only unravel heart-stirring stories that span generations and continents, but also unearth long-buried secrets that lie closer to home.

Mustique Island by Sarah McCoy - Fiction

May 30, 2023

Tucked into the southernmost curve of the Caribbean, Mustique is a private island that has become a haven for the wealthy and privileged. Its owner is the eccentric British playboy Colin Tennant, who is determined to turn this speck of white sand into a luxurious neo-colonial retreat for his rich friends and into a royal court in exile for the Queen’s rebellious sister, Princess Margaret. Willy May Michael, a former beauty queen from Texas, seeks out Mustique for its peaceful isolation. Determined to rebuild her life and her relationships with her two daughters, she constructs a fanciful white beach house across the island from Princess Margaret. But when Willy May’s daughters arrive, they discover that beneath its veneer of decadence, Mustique has a dark side.

The Paris Deception by Bryn Turnbull - Historical Fiction

May 30, 2023

Sophie Dix fled Stuttgart with her brother as the Nazi regime gained power in Germany. Now, with her brother gone and her adopted home city of Paris conquered by the Reich, Sophie reluctantly accepts a position restoring damaged art at the Jeu de Paume museum under the supervision of the ERR --- a German art commission using the museum as a repository for art they’ve looted from Jewish families. Fabienne Brandt was a rising star in the Parisian bohemian arts movement until the Nazis put a stop to so-called “degenerate” modern art. She has resolved to muddle her way through the occupation until her estranged sister-in-law, Sophie, arrives at her door with a stolen painting in hand. Soon the two women embark upon a plan to save Paris’s “degenerates.”

Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins - Historical Fiction

May 30, 2023

Rockwell “Rocky” Rhodes has spent years fiercely protecting his California ranch from the LA Water Corporation. It is here where he and his beloved wife, Lou, raised their twins, Sunny and Stryker, and it is here where Rocky has mourned Lou in the years since her death. As Sunny and Stryker reach the cusp of adulthood, the country teeters on the brink of war. Stryker decides to join the fight, deploying to Pearl Harbor not long before the bombs strike. Rocky and his family soon find themselves facing yet another incomprehensible tragedy. But when the government decides to build a Japanese-American internment camp next to the ranch, Rocky realizes that the land faces even bigger threats than the LA watermen he’s battled for years.

Racing the Light: An Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Novel by Robert Crais - Thriller

May 30, 2023

Adele Schumacher isn't a typical worried mom. When she hires Elvis Cole to find her missing son, a controversial podcaster named Josh Shoe, she brings a bag filled with cash, bizarre tales of government conspiracies, and a squad of professional bodyguards. Finding Josh should be simple, but Elvis quickly learns he isn't alone in the hunt --- a deadly team of mysterious strangers are determined to find Josh and his adult film star girlfriend first. With dangerous secrets lurking behind every lead, Elvis needs his friend Joe Pike more than ever to uncover the truth about Josh, corrupt politicians, and the vicious business cartels rotting the heart of Los Angeles from within.

The Shore by Katie Runde - Fiction

May 30, 2023

Brian and Margot Dunne live year-round in Seaside with their daughters, Liz and Evy. The Dunnes run a real estate company, but their future becomes quite precarious when Brian develops a brain tumor. Amidst the chaos and new caretaking responsibilities, Liz still seeks out summer adventure and flirting with a guy she should know better than to pursue. Her younger sister, Evy, works in a candy shop, falls in love with her friend Olivia, and secretly adopts the persona of a middle-aged mom in an online support group, where she discovers her own mother’s most vulnerable confessions. Meanwhile, Margot faces an impossible choice driven by grief, impulse and the ways that small-town life in Seaside has shaped her.

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo - Historical Fantasy

May 30, 2023

Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, Luli Wei knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill --- but she doesn't care. She’d rather play a monster than a maid. But in Luli's world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes --- even if that means becoming the monster herself.

We Spread by Iain Reid - Psychological Thriller

May 30, 2023

Penny, an artist, has lived in the same apartment for decades. She is resigned to the mundane rituals of old age, until things begin to slip. Before her longtime partner passed away years earlier, provisions were made for a room in a unique long-term care residence, where Penny finds herself after one too many “incidents.” Initially, surrounded by peers, conversing, eating, sleeping and looking out at the beautiful woods that surround the house, all is well. She even begins to paint again. But as the days start to blur together, Penny begins to lose her grip on the passage of time and on her place in the world. Is she succumbing to the subtly destructive effects of aging, or is she an unknowing participant in something more unsettling?

The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle by Jennifer Ryan - Historical Fiction

May 30, 2023

After renowned fashion designer Cressida Westcott loses both her home and her design house in the London Blitz, she has nowhere to go but the family manor house she fled decades ago. Her niece, Violet Westcott, is thrilled that her famous aunt is coming to stay. But just as Cressida arrives, so does Violet’s conscription letter. How will she ever find a suitably aristocratic husband if she has to spend her days wearing a frumpy uniform and doing war work? Meanwhile, the local vicar’s daughter, Grace Carlisle, is trying in vain to repair her mother’s gown, her only chance of a white wedding. When Cressida appears at the local Sewing Circle meeting, Grace asks for her help --- but Cressida has much more to teach the ladies than just simple sewing skills.

Woke Up This Morning: The Definitive Oral History of The Sopranos by Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa, with Philip Lerman - Performing Arts/Oral History

May 30, 2023

Inspired by the incredibly successful "Talking Sopranos" podcast, "The Sopranos" stars Michael Imperioli (Christopher Moltisanti) and Steve Schirripa (Bobby Baccalieri) finally reveal all the Soprano family secrets in this surprising, funny and honest book. WOKE UP THIS MORNING is the definitive behind-the-scenes history of the groundbreaking HBO series that became a worldwide cultural phenomenon, ushered in a new Golden Age of Television, and to this day continues to be one of the most binged shows of all time. The book covers the entire history of "The Sopranos" series and answers many of the thousands of fan questions sent to the podcast, as well as dispel some widely propagated myths and reveal things no one outside the show would even know to ask.

Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour - Fiction

May 30, 2023

Sara Foster runs away from home at 16, leaving behind the girl she once was, capable of trust and intimacy. Years later, in Los Angeles, she is a sought-after bartender, renowned as much for her brilliant cocktails as for the mystery that clings to her. Across the city, Emilie Dubois is in a holding pattern, yearning for the beauty and community her Creole grandparents cultivated but unable to commit. On a whim, she takes a job arranging flowers at the glamorous restaurant Yerba Buena. The morning Emilie and Sara first meet at Yerba Buena, their connection is immediate. But soon Sara's old life catches up to her, upending everything she thought she wanted, just as Emilie has finally gained her own sense of purpose. Will their love be more powerful than their pasts?