On Sale This Week

January 18, 2022

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of January 17th and January 24th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to our "What's Your Book Group Reading This Month?" contest on ReadingGroupGuides.com. Three book groups will win up to 12 copies of the New York Times bestseller ETERNAL, Lisa Scottoline's debut work of historical fiction and a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick, which will be available in paperback on February 1st. The deadline for your entries is Wednesday, February 9th at noon ET.

We are thrilled to announce that Lisa Scottoline will be our first “Bookaccino Live” Book Group guest of 2022. The event will take place on Wednesday, February 23rd at 8pm ET, and you can sign up for it here. After Carol talks to Lisa about ETERNAL, we will take questions from our attendees. If you have a question that you would like to ask on camera during the event, please email it to Carol using the subject line “Question for Lisa Scottoline.” ETERNAL was one of Carol's favorite books of 2021, and she continues to be fascinated by the research that Lisa did for it, so she is looking forward to their discussion.

Our latest "Bookreporter Talks To" interview is with Nita Prose, whose debut novel, THE MAID, is this month's "Good Morning America" Book Club pick and an upcoming Bets On selection. Molly Gray is a socially challenged hotel maid who prides herself on delivering top service to the guests at the Regency Grand Hotel. One day, she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black and finds him dead in his bed. All fingers point to Molly as the killer, so she works to unravel the mystery of what happened to Mr. Black to free herself as a suspect.

Nita explains what inspired her to write THE MAID and how her scribbled notes became the prologue. She also talks about how her day job as the Editorial Director of a Canadian publishing house influenced her, how sometimes pushing your characters into small settings makes them bigger personalities, and the quote at the end of the book, which Carol already has hanging on her office wall. Click here to watch the video and here to listen to the podcast.

We hosted our first “Bookaccino Live” preview event of 2022 last week. Carol presented 33 books releasing between now and February 1st, along with seven from March, that we wanted to get on your radar. You can watch it here and see a list of the featured titles here.

For those of you who are doing online shopping, if you use the store links below, Bookreporter.com gets a small affiliate fee on your purchases. We would appreciate your considering this!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound

Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events

As so many book and author events are happening online these days, we are highlighting a number of them that you may be interested in attending. Click on the links below for more info and to register.

Wednesday, January 19th at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": The "Friends and Fiction" authors --- Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey and Patti Callahan Henry --- will talk to Jillian Cantor (BEAUTIFUL LITTLE FOOLS), Jenny Judson and Danielle Mahfood (THE LAST SEASON).

Wednesday, January 19th at 7pm ET: McNally Jackson: Join Weike Wang for the virtual launch of her new novel, JOAN IS OKAY, which is about a marvelously complicated woman who can’t be anyone but herself.

Wednesday, January 19th at 8pm ET: Murder By The Book: Lisa Gardner will be in conversation with Mary Kubica about her latest thriller, ONE STEP TOO FAR.

Thursday, January 20th at 7pm ET: Avon Free Public Library: Join Avon Free Public Library for a virtual event with Alafair Burke, in conversation with Ivy Pochoda, about her new thriller, FIND ME.

Thursday, January 20th at 7:30pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Stacy Willingham will discuss her debut thriller, A FLICKER IN THE DARK, which Karin Slaughter calls "[a] smart, edge-of-your-seat story with plot twists you’ll never see coming."

Friday, January 21st at 2pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Lars Kepler will discuss his new Killer Instinct thriller featuring Detective Joona Linna, THE MIRROR MAN, with special guest host Brad Thor.

Friday, January 21st at 7pm ET: Loganberry Books: Thrity Umrigar and Paula McLain will be in conversation about Thrity’s dazzling new book, HONOR, which is this month's Reese's Book Club pick.

Monday, January 24th at 7pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Eva Jurczyk will discuss her debut novel, THE DEPARTMENT OF RARE BOOKS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, in which a librarian's quiet life is turned upside down when a priceless manuscript goes missing.

Tuesday, January 25th at 7pm ET: Sourcebooks: Sourcebooks Landmark --- in partnership with Buxton Books, Copperfish Books, FoxTale Book Shoppe, Politics & Prose and Titcomb's Bookshop --- welcomes Marie Benedict in conversation with Beatriz Williams for the virtual launch of Marie's new book, HER HIDDEN GENIUS.

Tuesday, January 25th at 8pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Lisa Lutz will discuss her new novel, THE ACCOMPLICE, which examines the bonds of shared history, what it costs to break them, and what happens when you start wondering how well you know the one person who truly knows you.

This Week's Bonus News:
"What's Your Book Group Reading This Month?"
Contest on ReadingGroupGuides.com
Enter to Win Up to 12 Copies of ETERNAL
by Lisa Scottoline for Your Group

On Sale the Week of January 17th in Hardcover

January 18th

ADMISSIONS: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School by Kendra James (Memoir)
Early on in Kendra James’ professional life, she began to feel like she was selling a lie. As an admissions officer specializing in diversity recruitment for independent prep schools, she persuaded students and families to embark on the same perilous journey she herself had made --- to attend cutthroat and largely white schools similar to The Taft School, where she had been the first African-American legacy student only a few years earlier. Her new job forced her to reflect on her own elite education experience, and to realize how disillusioned she had become with America’s inequitable system.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538753484

DESOLATION CANYON by P. J. Tracy (Mystery/Thriller)
LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan is struggling to move forward after the death of her brother in Afghanistan and taking a life in the line of duty. A moment of weakness leads to cocktails with a colleague --- an attraction she knows could be dangerous --- at the luxurious Hotel Bel-Air bar. A stroll through the grounds leads to a grim discovery beneath the surface of Swan Lake: the body of a successful attorney who made his fortune in international trade. It initially appears to be death by misadventure, but the case is anything but straightforward. As a series of shocking revelations emerge, Nolan finds herself confronting a sinister cabal that just might destroy her and everyone she loves.
Minotaur Books | 9781250754950

THE DOOMSDAY MOTHER: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and the End of an American Family by John Glatt (True Crime)
At first, the residents of Kauai Beach Resort took little notice of their new neighbors. The couple seemed to keep to themselves --- until the police knocked on their door with a search warrant. Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell had fled to Hawaii in the midst of being investigated for the disappearance of Lori’s children, Tylee and JJ, back in Idaho. As authorities searched for the missing children, they uncovered more suspicious deaths with links to both Lori and Chad. In June 2020, the remains of JJ and Tylee were discovered on Chad’s property, and the newlyweds were charged with murder. And in a shocking development, horrifying statements revealed that their fanatical beliefs had convinced them the children had become zombies.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250276674

ENOUGH ALREADY: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today by Valerie Bertinelli (Memoir)
Despite her success receiving Emmys for her Food Network show and critical praise for her books and cookbook, beloved actress Valerie Bertinelli still judged herself harshly if she gained a pound or showed too many wrinkles. But after her mother died, she found an old recipe box with notes of the strong women who came before her, reminding her that she has to find out who she is and take care of herself. Saying “enough already!” Bertinelli set out on a journey to love herself and see that perfection is not the goal; it’s the joy we can find every day in our lives, our loved ones and the food we share.
Mariner Books | 9780358567363

FREE: A Child and a Country at the End of History by Lea Ypi (Memoir)
For precocious 11-year-old Lea Ypi, Albania’s Soviet-style socialism held the promise of a preordained future. That is, until she found herself clinging to a stone statue of Joseph Stalin, newly beheaded by student protests. When the early ’90s saw Albania and other Balkan countries exuberantly begin a transition to the “free market,” Western ideals of freedom delivered chaos: a dystopia of pyramid schemes, organized crime and sex trafficking. With her elegant, intellectual, French-speaking grandmother; her radical-chic father; and her staunchly anti-socialist, Thatcherite mother to guide her through these disorienting times, Lea had a political education of the most colorful sort --- here recounted with outstanding literary talent.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393867732

THE GOOD SON by Jacquelyn Mitchard (Fiction)
Thea's son, Stefan, was just 17 when he went to prison for the drug-fueled murder of his girlfriend, Belinda. Three years later, he’s released to a world that refuses to let him move on. Belinda’s mother, once Thea’s good friend, galvanizes the community to rally against him to protest in her daughter’s memory. The media paints Stefan as a symbol of white privilege and indifferent justice. Neighbors, employers, even some members of Thea's own family turn away. Meanwhile, Thea struggles to understand her son. As his efforts to make amends meet escalating resistance and threats, Thea suspects more forces are at play than just community outrage. And if there is so much she never knew about her own son, what other secrets has she yet to uncover --- especially about the night Belinda died?
Mira | 9780778311799

HOW HIGH WE GO IN THE DARK by Sequoia Nagamatsu (Science Fiction)
In 2030, a grieving archaeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy.
William Morrow | 9780063072640

JOAN IS OKAY by Weike Wang (Fiction)
Joan is a thirtysomething ICU doctor at a busy New York City hospital. The daughter of Chinese parents who came to the United States to secure the American dream for their children, Joan is intensely devoted to her work, happily solitary and successful. Once she and her brother, Fang, were established in their careers, her parents moved back to China, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in their homeland. But when Joan’s father suddenly dies and her mother returns to America to reconnect with her children, a series of events sends Joan spiraling out of her comfort zone just as her hospital, her city and the world are forced to reckon with a health crisis more devastating than anyone could have imagined.
Random House | 9780525654834

THE LEOPARD IS LOOSE by Stephen Harrigan (Historical Fiction)
For Grady McClarty, an ever-watchful but bewildered five-year-old boy, World War II is only a troubling, ungraspable event that occurred before he was born. But he feels its effects all around him. He and his older brother Danny are fatherless, and their mother, Bethie, is still grieving for her fighter-pilot husband. Most of all, Grady senses it in his two uncles: young combat veterans determined to step into a fatherhood role for their nephews, even as they struggle with the psychological scars they carry from the war. When news breaks that a leopard has escaped from the Oklahoma City Zoo, the playthings and imagined fears of Grady’s childhood begin to give way to real-world terrors, most imminently the dangerous jungle cat itself.
Knopf | 9780525655770

LIGHTNING IN A MIRROR by Jayne Ann Krentz (Romantic Suspense)
Olivia LeClair's experiment with speed dating is not going well. First there was the nasty encounter with the date from hell who tried to murder her, and now the mysterious Harlan Rancourt --- long believed dead --- sits down at her table and tells her she's the only one who can help him locate the legendary Vortex lab. This is not what Olivia had in mind when she signed up for the Four Event Success Guaranteed package offered by the dating agency. She doesn't have much choice, though, because her psychic investigation firm works for the mysterious Foundation, and Victor Arganbright, the director, is adamant that she assist Harlan. There's just one problem --- no one knows Harlan's real agenda.
Berkley | 9780593337752

LORRAINE HANSBERRY: The Life Behind A Raisin in the Sun by Charles J. Shields (Biography)
Written when she was just 28, Lorraine Hansberry’s landmark A RAISIN IN THE SUN is listed by the National Theatre as one of the hundred most significant works of the 20th century. Hansberry was the first Black woman to have a play performed on Broadway, and the first Black and youngest American playwright to win a New York Critics’ Circle Award. Charles J. Shields’ authoritative biography of one of the 20th century’s most admired playwrights examines the parts of Hansberry’s life that have escaped public knowledge: the influence of her upper-class background, her fight for peace and nuclear disarmament, the reason why she embraced Communism during the Cold War, and her dependence on her white husband --- her best friend, critic and promoter.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250205537

MANIFESTO: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Evaristo (Memoir)
Bernardine Evaristo’s nonfiction debut is a vibrant and inspirational account of her life and career as she rebelled against the mainstream and fought over several decades to bring her creative work into the world. With her characteristic humor, Evaristo describes her childhood as one of eight siblings, with a Nigerian father and white Catholic mother, tells the story of how she helped set up Britain’s first Black women’s theatre company, remembers the queer relationships of her 20s, and recounts her determination to write books that were absent in the literary world around her. She provides a hugely powerful perspective to contemporary conversations around race, class, feminism, sexuality and aging.
Grove Press | 9780802158901

THE MIRROR MAN: A Killer Instinct Novel written by Lars Kepler, translated by Alice Menzies (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Sixteen-year-old Jenny Lind is kidnapped in broad daylight on her way home from school and thrown into the back of a truck. She’s taken to a dilapidated house, where she and other girls face horrors far beyond their worst nightmares. Though they’re desperate to escape, their captor foils every one of their attempts. Five years later, Jenny’s body is found hanging in a playground. As the police are scrambling to find a lead in the scant evidence, Detective Joona Linna recognizes an eerie connection between Jenny’s murder and a death declared a suicide years before. And when another teenage girl goes missing, it becomes clear to Joona that they’re dealing with a serial killer --- and his murderous rampage may have just begun.
Knopf | 9780593321027

THE MITFORD VANISHING: A Mitford Murders Mystery by Jessica Fellowes (Historical Mystery)
1937. War with Germany is dawning, and a civil war already rages in Spain. Split across political lines, the six Mitford sisters are more divided than ever. Meanwhile, their former maid, Louisa Cannon, is now a private detective, working with her policeman husband, Guy Sullivan. Louisa and Guy are surprised when a call comes in from novelist Nancy Mitford requesting that they look into the disappearance of her Communist sister Jessica in Spain. But one case leads to another as they are also asked to investigate the mysterious vanishing of a soldier. As the two cases come together, Louisa and Guy discover that every marriage has its secrets --- but some are deadlier than others.
Minotaur Books | 9781250819208

ONE STEP TOO FAR by Lisa Gardner (Mystery/Thriller)
ONE STEP TOO FAR sends missing persons expert Frankie Elkin into a national forest in Wyoming looking for a young man who disappeared without a trace. But when the search team encounters immediate threats to their survival, Frankie realizes she’s up against something very dark --- and she’s running out of time.
Dutton | 9780593185414

PUTTING THE RABBIT IN THE HAT: A Memoir by Brian Cox (Memoir)
From Hannibal Lecktor in Manhunter to media magnate Logan Roy in HBO's “Succession,” Brian Cox has made his name as an actor of unparalleled distinction and versatility. We are familiar with him on screen, but few know of his extraordinary life story. Growing up in Dundee, Scotland, Cox lost his father when he was just eight years old and was brought up by his three elder sisters in the aftermath of his mother's nervous breakdowns and ultimate hospitalization. After joining the Dundee Repertory Theatre at the age of 15, you could say the rest is history --- but that is to overlook the enormous effort that has gone into the making of the legend we know today.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538707296

REAL EASY by Marie Rutkoski (Mystery/Thriller)
It’s 1999, and Samantha has danced for years at the Lovely Lady strip club. The newest dancer is so clueless that she feels compelled to help her learn the hustle and drama of the club. One night, when the new girl needs a ride home, Samantha agrees to drive --- a simple decision that turns deadly. Georgia, another dancer drawn into the ensuing murder and missing person investigation, gathers information for Holly, a grieving detective determined to solve the case. Georgia just wants to help, but her involvement makes her a target. As Holly and Georgia round up their suspects, the story’s point of view shifts among dancers, detectives, children, club patrons --- and the killer.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250788245

ROBERT B. PARKER'S BYE BYE BABY: A Spenser Novel by Ace Atkins (Mystery)
Carolina Garcia-Ramirez is a rising star in national politics, taking on the establishment with her progressive agenda. Now facing her second campaign, she finds herself not only fighting a tight primary with an old guard challenger but also contending with numerous death threats coming from hundreds of suspects. It doesn’t take long for Spenser to cross paths with an extremist group called The Minutemen, led by a wealthy Harvard grad named Bishop Graves. Although Graves is a social media sensation, pushing an agenda of white supremacy and toxic masculinity, he denies he’s behind the attacks. As the primary nears and threats become a deadly plot, it’s up to Spenser, Hawk and a surprise trusted ally to ensure the congresswoman is safe.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593328514

THE RUNAWAY: A Peter Ash Novel by Nick Petrie (Thriller)
War veteran Peter Ash is driving through northern Nebraska when he encounters a young pregnant woman alone on a gravel road, her car dead. Peter offers her a lift, but what begins as an act of kindness soon turns into a deadly cat-and-mouse chase across the lonely highways with the woman’s vicious ex-cop husband hot on their trail. The pregnant woman has seen something she was never meant to see…but protecting her might prove to be more than Peter can handle. In order to save the woman and himself, Peter must use everything he has learned during his time as a Marine, including his knowledge of human nature, in order to escape a ruthless killer with instincts and skills that match --- and perhaps exceed --- Peter’s own.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780525535508

SUCH A PRETTY SMILE by Kristi DeMeester (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
2019: Thirteen-year-old Lila Sawyer has secrets she can’t share with anyone. Not even her mother, the infamous Caroline Sawyer, a unique artist whose eerie sculptures have made her a local celebrity. But soon Lila is terrorized by a delicious evil that shows her how to find her voice --- until she is punished for using it. 2004: Caroline Sawyer hears dogs everywhere. At first, she blames the phantom sounds on her insomnia and her acute stress in caring for her ailing father. But then the delusions begin to take shape. Caroline’s past is filled with repressed memories and a lurking horror that the men around her can’t understand. As past demons become a present threat, both Caroline and Lila must chase the source of this unrelenting, oppressive power to its malignant core.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250274212

TARGETED: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel by Stephen Hunter (Political Thriller)
After his successful takedown of a dangerous terrorist, Bob Lee Swagger learns that no good deed goes unpunished. Summoned to court by the United States Congress, Swagger is accused of reckless endangerment by a hardheaded anti-gun congresswoman. But what begins as political posturing soon turns deadly when the auditorium where the committee is being held is attacked. Swagger, the congresswoman, and numerous bystanders and reporters are taken hostage by a group of violent operatives. Trapped in the auditorium and still struggling with injuries from his last assignment, Swagger must rely on his instincts, his shooting skills and the help of a mysterious rogue sniper on the outside to ensure that everyone makes it out alive.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781982169794

TIDES by Sara Freeman (Fiction)
After a sudden, devastating loss, Mara flees her family and ends up adrift in a wealthy seaside town with a dead cell phone and barely any money. Mired in her grief, Mara detaches from the outside world and spends her days of self-imposed exile scrounging for food and swimming in the night ocean. In her state of emotional extremis, the sea at the town's edge is rendered bleak, luminous and implacable. As her money runs out and tourist season comes to a close, Mara finds a job at the local wine store. There, she meets Simon, the shop's soft-spoken, lonely owner. Confronted with the possibility of connection with Simon and the slow return of her desires and appetites, the reasons for her flight begin to emerge.
Grove Press | ‎9780802159175

YINKA, WHERE IS YOUR HUZBAND? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn (Romantic Comedy)
Yinka’s Nigerian aunties frequently pray for her delivery from singledom, her work friends think she’s too traditional (she’s saving herself for marriage!), her girlfriends think she needs to get over her ex already, and the men in her life…well, that’s a whole other story.  But Yinka herself has always believed that true love will find her when the time is right. Still, when her cousin gets engaged, Yinka commences Operation Find-A-Date for Rachel's Wedding. Aided by a spreadsheet and her best friend, Yinka is determined to succeed. Will Yinka find herself a huzband? And what if the thing she really needs to find is herself?
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780593299005

On Sale the Week of January 17th in Paperback

January 18th

ANNIE AND THE WOLVES by Andromeda Romano-Lax (Historical/Speculative Fiction)
Ruth McClintock is obsessed with Annie Oakley and is convinced that a scarring childhood event was the impetus for her crusade to arm every woman in America. She has managed to hunt down what may be a journal of Oakley’s midlife struggles, including secret visits to a psychoanalyst and the desire for vengeance against the “Wolves,” or those who have wronged her. As she attempts to establish the journal’s provenance, she has begun to have jarring out-of-body episodes parallel to Annie’s own lived experiences. As she solves Annie’s mysteries, Ruth confronts her own truths, including the link between her teenage sister’s suicide and an impending tragedy in her Minnesota town that Ruth can still prevent.
Soho Press | 9781641293167

BLACK BUCK by Mateo Askaripour (Satire/Dark Humor)
An unambitious 22-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother. A chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, New York City’s hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the 36th floor. After enduring a “hell week” of training, Darren, the only Black person in the company, reimagines himself as “Buck,” a ruthless salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family. But when things turn tragic at home and Buck feels he’s hit rock bottom, he begins to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America’s sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game.
Mariner Books | 9780358627982

THE BLACK CHURCH: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (History)
For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity --- an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’ distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative.
Penguin Books | 9781984880352

THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING by Jamie Harrison (Fiction)
For Polly, the small town of Livingston, Montana, is a land charmed by raw, natural beauty and a close network of family that extends back generations. But the summer of 2002 finds Polly at a crossroads: a recent head injury has scattered her perception of the present, bringing to the surface long-forgotten events. As Polly's many relatives arrive for a family reunion during the Fourth of July holiday, a beloved friend goes missing on the Yellowstone River. Search parties comb the river as carefully as Polly combs her mind, and over the course of one fateful week, Polly arrives at a deeper understanding of herself and her larger-than-life relatives.
Counterpoint | 9781640094680

CHEAT DAY by Liv Stratman (Fiction/Humor)
Kit is stuck in a loop. She keeps quitting her job managing her sister’s bakery to seek a more ambitious profession, but fear of failure always brings her back to Sweet Cheeks. She finds a fraught solace in cycling through fad diets, which her husband David, in his efforts to be supportive, follows along with her. Their latest program is the Radiant Regimen, an intense cleanse, and Kit is optimistic about embarking on a new chapter of healthy eating and self-control. Hungry in more ways than one, she soon falls into a flirtation with a carpenter named Matt, who is building new shelves for the bakery kitchen. Unable to resist their mutual attraction, Kit and Matt soon begin a passionate affair. Kit suppresses her guilt by obsessing over her diet, pushing herself to greater extremes.
Scribner | 9781982140557

THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine by Janice P. Nimura (Biography)
Elizabeth Blackwell believed from an early age that she was destined for a mission beyond the scope of "ordinary" womanhood. Though the world at first recoiled at the notion of a woman studying medicine, her intelligence and intensity ultimately won her the acceptance of the male medical establishment. In 1849, she became the first woman in America to receive an M.D. She was soon joined in her iconic achievement by her younger sister, Emily, who was actually the more brilliant physician. Exploring the sisters’ allies, enemies and enduring partnership, Janice P. Nimura presents a story of trial and triumph.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324020202

THE EX-HUSBAND by Karen Hamilton (Domestic Thriller)
Paperback Original
Charlotte has an unsavory past. She married the wrong man, falling for Sam’s sweet-talking charm and charisma, and got caught up in his con artist games. Now Sam is missing. But before he disappeared, he left urgent, cryptic messages about someone who has been threatening him and Charlotte. So Charlotte takes a job as a personal assistant for an engagement party aboard a private luxury cruise ship, the Cleobella, to get far away from anyone who means her harm. But as the Cleobella sails through its glittering destinations, increasingly sinister events haunt the guests, and the turquoise waves and sun-drenched beaches give way to something darker. Someone knows what Charlotte did and wants revenge --- before the ship reaches its final port.
Graydon House | 9781525811609

AN EXTRAVAGANT DEATH: A Charles Lenox Mystery by Charles Finch (Historical Mystery)
London, 1878. With faith in Scotland Yard shattered after a damning corruption investigation, Charles Lenox's detective agency is rapidly expanding. The gentleman sleuth has all the work he can handle, two children and an intriguing new murder case. But when Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli offers him the opportunity to undertake a diplomatic mission for the Queen, Lenox welcomes the chance to satisfy an unfulfilled yearning: to travel to America. Arriving in New York, he begins to receive introductions into both its old Knickerbocker society and its new robber baron splendor. Then a shock: the death of the season's most beautiful debutante, who appears to have thrown herself from a cliff. Or was it a suicide?
Minotaur Books | 9781250767158

LAND: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World by Simon Winchester (History/Economics)
Land --- whether meadow or mountainside, desert or peat bog, parkland or pasture, suburb or city --- is central to our existence. It quite literally underlies and underpins everything. In LAND, Simon Winchester examines what we human beings are doing --- and have done --- with the billions of acres that together make up the solid surface of our planet. The book examines in depth how we acquire land, how we steward it, how and why we fight over it, and finally, how we can, and on occasion do, come to share it. Ultimately, Winchester confronts the essential question: Who actually owns the world’s land --- and why does it matter?
Harper Perennial | 9780062938343

MUST LOVE BOOKS by Shauna Robinson (Fiction)
Paperback Original
When Nora Hughes landed an editorial assistant position at Parsons Press, it was her first step towards The Dream Job. But after five years of lunch orders, finicky authors and per my last emails, Nora has come to one grand conclusion: Dream Jobs do not exist. With her life spiraling and the Parsons staff sinking, Nora gets hit with even worse news. Parsons is cutting her already unlivable salary. Unable to afford her rent, Nora decides to moonlight for a rival publisher to make ends meet...and maybe poach some Parsons' authors along the way. But when Andrew Santos, a bestselling Parsons author no one can afford to lose, is thrown into the mix, Nora has to decide where her loyalties lie.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728240732

NICK by Michael Farris Smith (Historical Fiction)
Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby's periphery, he was at the center of a very different story --- one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I. Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed firsthand, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. Instead, he embarks on a transcontinental redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance --- doomed from the very beginning --- to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans, rife with its own flavor of debauchery and violence.
Back Bay Books | 9780316529778

THE ONES WE KEEP by Bobbie Jean Huff (Fiction)
Paperback Original
A quiet lakeside resort in Vermont seems like the perfect summer getaway for Olivia and Harry Somerville and their three young boys. But in a single moment, their idyllic family retreat becomes a mother's worst nightmare. Returning from a solo hike one afternoon, Olivia learns from a passing stranger that one of her sons has drowned --- but not which one. In that moment, Olivia makes a panicked decision that will change her family forever. If she never knows which son has drowned, can Olivia convince herself that none of them have? By shielding herself from reality, can she continue to live in a world where all three boys are still alive?
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728239057

REMINDERS OF HIM by Colleen Hoover (Romance)
Paperback Original
After serving five years in prison for a tragic mistake, Kenna Rowan returns to the town where it all went wrong, hoping to reunite with her four-year-old daughter. But the bridges Kenna burned are proving impossible to rebuild. Everyone in her daughter’s life is determined to shut Kenna out, no matter how hard she works to prove herself. The only person who hasn’t closed the door on her completely is Ledger Ward, a local bar owner and one of the few remaining links to Kenna’s daughter. The two form a connection despite the pressure surrounding them, but as their romance grows, so does the risk. Kenna must find a way to absolve the mistakes of her past in order to build a future out of hope and healing.
Montlake | 9781542025607

SOMEBODY’S HOME by Kaira Rouda (Domestic Thriller)
Paperback Original
Julie Jones has left her suffocating marriage. With her teenage daughter, Jess, she’s starting over. Their new house in Oceanside is the first step toward a new life. The previous owners, a pastor and his wife, have left something --- or rather someone --- behind. Tom Dean has a bitter hatred for the father who considers him a lost cause, and for the woman who’s moved into their family’s house. The only home he’s ever known. He’s never going to leave. She thinks he’ll be gone in three days, but Tom has the perfect plan. For a newly single mother and her daughter, a fresh start is the beginning of a nightmare. Before the weekend is over, somebody is going to get exactly what they deserve.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781542026116

TAKE IT BACK by Kia Abdullah (Legal Thriller)
Zara Kaleel, one of London's brightest legal minds, has exchanged her high-profile career for a job at a sexual assault center, helping victims who need her the most. When Jodie Wolfe, a 16-year-old girl with facial deformities, accuses four boys in her class of an unthinkable crime, the community is torn apart. After all, these four teenage defendants are from hard-working immigrant families, and they all have proven alibis. Even Jodie's best friend doesn't believe her. But Zara does, and she is determined to fight for Jodie to find the truth in the face of public outcry. And as issues of sex, race and social justice collide, the most explosive criminal trial of the year builds to a shocking conclusion.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250827654

UNDER PRESSURE: A Lucas Page Novel by Robert Pobi (Thriller)
On a beautiful October evening, New York City's iconic Guggenheim Museum is closed for a tech company's private gala. Until an explosion rocks the night, instantly killing 702 people, including every single attendee --- yet the damage to the building itself was minimal. An explosion of that precision was no accident. In response, the FBI mobilizes its entire team, but the sheer number of victims strains their resources. Dr. Lucas Page is uniquely gifted for the task at hand --- he can visualize a crime scene as if he was a bystander and can break down any set of data at a glance. Even though Page wants nothing to do with the FBI, with his city under attack and his family at risk, he steps in to find a killer in a haystack before they strike again.
Minotaur Books | 9781250842718

WAITING FOR THE NIGHT SONG by Julie Carrick Dalton (Literary Mystery)
Cadie Kessler has spent decades trying to cover up one truth. One moment. But deep down, didn’t she always know her secret would surface? An urgent message from her long-estranged best friend, Daniela Garcia, brings Cadie, now a forestry researcher, back to her childhood home. There, Cadie and Daniela are forced to face a dark secret that ended both their idyllic childhood bond and the magical summer that takes up more space in Cadie’s memory then all her other years combined. Now grown up, bound by long-held oaths, and faced with truths she does not wish to see, Cadie must decide what she is willing to sacrifice to protect the people and the forest she loves, as drought, foreclosures and wildfire spark tensions between displaced migrant farm workers and locals.
Forge Books | 9781250269201

WHERE THERE’S A WILL: A Rowland Sinclair WWII Mystery by Sulari Gentill (Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
American millionaire Daniel Cartwright has been shot dead: three times in the chest and once in the head. His body is found in Harvard Yard, dressed in evening attire. No one knows who he planned to meet there, or why the staunch Oxford man would be caught dead at Harvard --- literally. Australian Rowland Sinclair, his mate from Oxford and longtime friend, is named executor of the will, to his great surprise --- and that of Danny's family. Events turn downright ugly when the will all but disinherits Danny's siblings in favor of one Otis Norcross, whom no one knows or is able to locate. Amidst assault, kidnapping and threats of slander, Rowly struggles to understand Danny's motives, find the missing heir and identify his friend's killer before the clock --- and his luck --- runs out.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464214905

On Sale the Week of January 24th in Hardcover

January 25th

THE ACCOMPLICE by Lisa Lutz (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Owen Mann is charming, privileged and chronically dissatisfied. Luna Grey is secretive, cautious and pragmatic. Despite their differences, they form a bond the moment they meet in college. Their names soon become indivisible --- Owen and Luna, Luna and Owen --- and stay that way even after an unexplained death rocks their social circle. They’re still best friends years later, when Luna finds Owen’s wife brutally murdered. The police investigation sheds light on some long-hidden secrets, but it can’t penetrate the wall of mystery that surrounds Owen. To get to the heart of what happened and why, Luna has to dig up the one secret she’s spent her whole life burying.
Ballantine Books | 9781984818263

THE BROKEN TOWER by Kelly Braffet (Historical Fantasy)
Judah the Foundling chose freedom over betrayal when she leaped from the top of the castle tower. Now she finds herself wandering an unknown forest, far from everything and everyone she loves. For the first time in her life, she’s beyond the great Wall that surrounds Highfall castle. For the first time, she’s alone. But Judah isn’t free. Fiercely sought by those who believe she holds the key to unlocking the power trapped in the world, she must learn to navigate the dangers of an unfamiliar place. She knows that somewhere, her foster brother Gavin is in peril. To save him, she not only must learn to use the new power she discovers inside herself, she must survive.
Mira | 9780778331797

DEFENESTRATE by Renée Branum (Fiction)
Marta and her twin brother, Nick, have always been haunted and fascinated by an ancestral legend that holds that members of their family are doomed to various types of falls. And when their own family collapses in the wake of a revelation and a resulting devastating fight with their Catholic mother, the twins move to Prague, the city in which their “falling curse” began. There, Marta and Nick try to forge a new life for themselves. But their ties to the past and each other prove difficult to disentangle, and when they ultimately return to their midwestern home and Nick falls from a balcony himself, Marta is forced to confront the truths they've hidden from each other and themselves.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635577396

DEVIL HOUSE by John Darnielle (Fiction)
Gage Chandler is descended from kings. That’s what his mother always told him. Years later, he is a true crime writer, with one grisly success --- and a movie adaptation --- to his name, along with a series of subsequent less notable efforts. But now he is being offered the chance for the big break: to move into the house where a pair of briefly notorious murders occurred, apparently the work of disaffected teens during the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. He begins his research with diligence and enthusiasm, but soon the story leads him into a puzzle he never expected --- back into his own work and what it means, back to the very core of what he does and who he is.
MCD | 9780374212230

EMOTIONAL INHERITANCE: A Therapist, Her Patients, and the Legacy of Trauma by Galit Atlas, PhD (Psychology/Mental Health)
The people we love and those who raised us live inside us; we experience their emotional pain, we dream their memories, and these things shape our lives in ways we don’t always recognize. EMOTIONAL INHERITANCE is about family secrets that keep us from living to our full potential, create gaps between what we want for ourselves and what we are able to have, and haunt us like ghosts. In this transformative book, Galit Atlas entwines the stories of her patients, her own stories and decades of research to help us identify the links between our life struggles and the “emotional inheritance” we all carry. For it is only by following the traces those ghosts leave that we can truly change our destiny.
Little, Brown Spark | 9780316492126

THE FIELDS by Erin Young (Thriller)
It starts with a body --- a young woman found dead in an Iowa cornfield, on one of the few family farms still managing to compete with the giants of Big Agriculture. When Sergeant Riley Fisher, newly promoted to head of investigations for the Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office, arrives on the scene, an already horrific crime becomes personal when she discovers the victim was a childhood friend, connected to a dark past she thought she’d left behind. The investigation grows complicated as more victims are found. Drawn deeper in, Riley soon discovers implications far beyond her Midwest town.
Flatiron Books | 9781250799395

GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American by Wajahat Ali (Memoir)
Growing up living the suburban American dream, young Wajahat Ali devoured comic books (devoid of brown superheroes) and fielded well-intentioned advice from uncles and aunties (“Become a doctor!”). While Ali was studying at University of California, Berkeley, 9/11 happened. Muslims replaced communists as America’s enemy #1, and he became an accidental spokesman and ambassador of all ordinary, unthreatening things Muslim-y. In GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM, Ali tackles the dangers of Islamophobia, white supremacy and chocolate hummus, peppering personal stories with astute insights into national security, immigration and pop culture.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393867978

GOLIATH by Tochi Onyebuchi (Science Fiction)
In the 2050s, Earth has begun to empty. Those with the means and the privilege have departed the great cities of the United States for the more comfortable confines of space colonies. Those left behind salvage what they can from the collapsing infrastructure. As they eke out an existence, their neighborhoods are being cannibalized. Brick by brick, their houses are sent to the colonies, what was once a home now a quaint reminder for the colonists of the world that they wrecked.
Tordotcom | 9781250782953

GOOD RICH PEOPLE by Eliza Jane Brazier (Psychological Thriller)
Lyla has always believed that life is a game she is destined to win, but her husband, Graham, takes the game to dangerous levels. The wealthy couple invites self-made success stories to live in their guesthouse and then conspires to ruin their lives. After all, there is nothing worse than a bootstrapper. Demi has always felt like the odds were stacked against her. At the end of her rope, she seizes a risky opportunity to take over another person’s life and unwittingly becomes the subject of the upstairs couple’s wicked entertainment. But Demi has been struggling forever, and she’s not about to go down without a fight. In a twist that neither woman sees coming, the game quickly devolves into chaos and rockets toward an explosive conclusion.
Berkley | 9780593198254

GREENWICH PARK by Katherine Faulkner (Domestic Thriller)
Helen’s idyllic life begins to change the day she attends her first prenatal class and meets Rachel, an unpredictable single mother-to-be. Rachel doesn’t seem very maternal, but Helen is still drawn to her. She makes Helen laugh, invites her confidences and distracts her from her fears. But her increasingly erratic behavior is unsettling. And Helen is not the only one who’s noticed. Her friends and family begin to suspect that her strange new friend may be linked to their shared history in unexpected ways. When Rachel threatens to expose a past crime that could destroy all of their lives, it becomes clear that there are more than a few secrets laying beneath the broad-leaved trees and warm lamplight of Greenwich Park.
Gallery Books | 9781982150310

HER HIDDEN GENIUS by Marie Benedict (Historical Fiction)
Whether working at the laboratory she adored in Paris or toiling at a university in London, Rosalind Franklin feels closest to the science, those unchanging laws of physics and chemistry that guide her experiments. When she is assigned to work on DNA, she believes she can unearth its secrets. Rosalind knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture --- one more after thousands --- she can unlock the building blocks of life. Never again will she have to listen to her colleagues complain about her, especially Maurice Wilkins, who would rather conspire about genetics with James Watson and Francis Crick than work alongside her. Then it finally happens --- the double helix structure of DNA reveals itself to her with perfect clarity. But what unfolds next, Rosalind never could have predicted.
Sourcebooks Landmark | ‎9781728229393

LAST SEEN ALIVE by Joanna Schaffhausen (Mystery/Thriller)
Boston detective Ellery Hathaway met FBI agent Reed Markham when he pried open a serial killer’s closet to rescue her. Years on, their relationship remains defined by that moment and by Francis Coben’s horrific crimes. To free herself from Coben’s legacy, Ellery had to walk away from Reed, too. But Coben is not letting go so easily. He has an impossible proposition: Coben will finally give up the location of the remaining bodies, on one condition --- Reed must bring him Ellery. But Ellery is the one living person who has seen the monster behind the mask, and she doesn’t believe he can be redeemed. Not after everything he’s done. Not after what she’s been through. And certainly not after a fresh body turns up with Coben’s signature all over it.
Minotaur Books | 9781250249678

LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME by Mike Chen (Science Fiction)
Evie Shao and her sister, Kass, aren’t on speaking terms. Fifteen years ago on a family camping trip, their father and brother vanished. Their dad turned up days later, convinced he'd been abducted by aliens. Their brother, Jakob, remained missing. Kass suspected that her college-dropout twin simply ran off, while Evie traded academics to pursue alien conspiracy theories, always looking for Jakob. When Evie's UFO network uncovers a new event, she goes to investigate. And discovers Jakob is back. He's older, stranger and talking of an intergalactic war, but the tensions between the siblings haven't changed at all. If the family is going to come together to help Jakob, then Kass and Evie are going to have to fix their issues, and fast.
Mira | 9780778311737

THE MAGNOLIA PALACE by Fiona Davis (Historical Fiction)
Eight months since losing her mother in the Spanish flu outbreak of 1919, Lillian Carter's life has completely fallen apart. So when she stumbles upon an employment opportunity at the Frick mansion, she jumps at the chance. But before she knows it, she is pulled her into a tangled web of romantic trysts, stolen jewels and family drama. Nearly 50 years later, mod English model Veronica Weber has her own chance to make her career within the walls of the former Frick residence, now converted into an impressive museum. But then she chances upon a series of hidden messages in the museum --- messages that will lead her on a hunt that not only could solve Veronica's financial woes, but could finally reveal the truth behind a decades-old murder in the infamous Frick family.
Dutton | 9780593184011

MERMAID CONFIDENTIAL by Tim Dorsey (Mystery/Humor)
Serge A. Storms and his permanently baked sidekick, Coleman, have decided to pump the brakes and live on island time. After years of manic road tripping across their beloved Sunshine State, the irrepressible anti-heroes drop anchor in the Florida Keys. They settle down in Pelican Bay, a thriving condo complex with scenic views and friendly neighbors. But the community is at war with investors who are buying up units and leasing them to young vacationers who party at all hours. Meanwhile, the island chain’s long and rich smuggling heritage is causing mayhem --- a gang war erupts when a local drug lord passes the family business to his young, enterprising son, and the sun-loving residents are suddenly dodging bullets.
William Morrow | 9780062967534

NOTES ON AN EXECUTION by Danya Kukafka (Literary Thriller)
Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in 12 hours. He knows what he’s done and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood. Through a kaleidoscope of women, we learn the story of Ansel’s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a 17-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel’s wife, forced to watch helplessly as her sister’s relationship threatens to devour them all; and Saffy, the detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy.
William Morrow | 9780063052734

PERPETUAL WEST by Mesha Maren (Fiction)
When Alex and Elana move from small-town Virginia to El Paso, they are just a young married couple, intent on a new beginning. Mexican by birth but adopted by white American Pentecostal parents, Alex is hungry to learn about the place where he was born. He spends every free moment across the border in Juárez studying lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) for his graduate work in sociology. Meanwhile, Elana feels disillusioned by academia and has stopped going to class. She has no idea that Alex has fallen in love with Mateo, a lucha libre fighter. When Alex goes missing and Elana can’t determine whether he left of his own accord or was kidnapped, it’s clear that neither of them has been honest about who they are.
Algonquin Books | 9781643750941

A PREVIOUS LIFE by Edmund White (Fiction/Humor)
Sicilian aristocrat and musician Ruggero and his younger American wife, Constance, agree to break their marital silence and write their Confessions. Until now they had a ban on speaking about the past, since transparency had wrecked their previous marriages. As the two alternate reading the memoirs they've written about their lives, Constance reveals her multiple marriages to older men, and Ruggero details the affairs he's had with men and women across his lifetime --- most importantly his passionate affair with the author Edmund White.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635577273

QUICKSILVER by Dean Koontz (Supernatural Thriller)
Raised in an orphanage, Quinn Quicksilver had a happy if unexceptional life. Until the day of “strange magnetism.” It compelled him to drive out to the middle of nowhere. It helped him find a coin worth a lot of money. And it practically saved his life when two government agents showed up in the diner in pursuit of him. Now Quinn is on the run from those agents, fleeing for his life. During a shoot-out at a forlorn dude ranch, he finally meets his destined companions: Bridget Rainking, a beauty as gifted in foresight as she is with firearms, and her grandpa Sparky, a romance novelist with an unusual past. Barreling through the Sonoran Desert, the formidable trio is impelled by that same inexplicable magnetism toward the inevitable.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781542019880

ROAD OF BONES by Christopher Golden (Supernatural Thriller)
Known as the Road of Bones, Siberia’s Kolyma Highway is a massive graveyard for the former Soviet Union’s gulag prisoners. Fascinated by the history, documentary producer Felix “Teig” Teigland is in Russia to drive the highway, envisioning a new series capturing Life and Death on the Road of Bones with a ride to the town of Akhust, collecting ghost stories and local legends along the way. But when Teig and his team reach their destination, they find an abandoned town, save one catatonic nine-year-old girl --- and a pack of predatory wolves, faster and smarter than any wild animals should be. This harrowing journey will push Teig beyond endurance and force him to confront the sins of his past.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250274304

UNDERMONEY by Jay Newman (Political Thriller)
When a U.S. airdrop of billions of dollars disap¬pears in the desert sands of Syria, only a small group of military operatives knows its ultimate destination or why it has been stolen. Their goal is no less than the restoration of America’s geopolitical dominance on the global stage. Essential to this scheme are Greta Webb, a sophisticated CIA operative who is an expert on dark money, and Elias Vicker, the damaged, dangerous soul who runs the world’s largest hedge fund. To achieve its goals, the group must form dangerous alliances. One is with the hidden family that manages the largest private pool of capital that has ever existed. Another is with Fyodor Volk, the ruthless founder of Russia’s most successful private military company, a mercenary with ties to Vladimir Putin.
Scribner | 9781982156022

VIOLETA by Isabel Allende (Historical Fiction)
Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Through her father’s prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling. She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy.
Ballantine Books | 9780593496206

On Sale the Week of January 24th in Paperback

January 25th

THE BULLET: An Eve Duncan Novel by Iris Johansen (Thriller)
Diane Connors is a dedicated doctor with the world’s biggest secret, a discovery that could have shocking global ramifications. But while conducting private research trials, word has gotten out. The wrong people have heard the news and now want to hide Diane’s achievement for their own ends. With nowhere else to turn, Diane finds herself on the doorstep of the last man she wants to ask for help: her ex-husband, Joe Quinn. Joe has remarried, and he and his wife, Eve Duncan, seem blissfully happy in their quiet, rural life until they are faced with the challenge of risking it all for the greater good. Now Eve is trapped in a web of murder and deceit as powerful enemies rush to cover up the truth.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538713181

CITY OF A THOUSAND GATES by Rebecca Sacks (Fiction)
Hamid, a college student, has entered Israeli territory illegally for work. Rushing past soldiers, he bumps into Vera, a German journalist headed to Jerusalem to cover the story of Salem, a Palestinian boy beaten into a coma by a group of revenge-seeking Israeli teenagers. On her way to the hospital, Vera runs in front of a car that barely avoids hitting her. The driver is Ido, a new father traveling with his American wife and their baby. Ido is distracted by thoughts of a young Jewish girl murdered by a terrorist who infiltrated her settlement. Ori, a 19-year-old soldier from a nearby settlement, is guarding the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem through which Samar --- Hamid’s professor --- must pass.
Harper Perennial | 9780063011489

THE DEPARTMENT OF RARE BOOKS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS by Eva Jurczyk (Literary Mystery)
Paperback Original
Liesl Weiss long ago learned to be content working behind the scenes in the distinguished rare books department of a large university. But when her boss has a stroke and she's left to run things, she discovers that the library's most prized manuscript is missing. Liesl tries to sound the alarm and inform the police about the missing priceless book, but is told repeatedly to keep quiet, to keep the doors open and the donors happy. But then a librarian unexpectedly stops showing up to work. Liesl must investigate both disappearances, unspooling her colleagues' pasts like the threads of a rare book binding as it becomes clear that someone in the department must be responsible for the theft.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781728238593

FINDING ASHLEY by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Once a bestselling author, Melissa Henderson now pours all her energy into renovating a Victorian house nestled in the foothills of rural New England. Six years ago, she lost her young son to cancer, and her marriage dissolved. After a wildfire that threatens her home appears on the news, Melissa receives a call from her sister, Hattie. They were close once, but that was before Melissa withdrew from the world. Now Hattie, who became a nun at 25, is determined to help Melissa turn a new page. At 16, a pregnant Melissa was sent to a gloomy convent in Ireland to have --- and give up --- her baby. Hattie now feels compelled to embark on a journey that will change both their lives forever, and track down the child Melissa gave up.
Dell | 9781984821485

THE FIVE WOUNDS by Kirstin Valdez Quade (Fiction)
It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and 33-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his 15-year-old daughter, Angel, shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. With weeks to go until her due date, tough, ebullient Angel has fled her mother’s house, setting her life on a startling new path. THE FIVE WOUNDS spans the baby’s first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo’s mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel’s mother, Marissa, to whom Angel isn’t speaking; and disapproving Tíve, Yolanda’s uncle and keeper of the family’s history.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324020219

FLOWERS OF DARKNESS by Tatiana de Rosnay (Mystery/Thriller)
Author Clarissa Katsef is struggling to write her next book. She’s just snagged a brand new artist residency in an ultra-modern apartment, with a view of all of Paris. But since moving in, she has had the feeling of being watched. Is there reason to be paranoid? Or is her distraction and discomfort the result of her husband’s recent shocking betrayal? Or is it that her beloved Paris lies altered outside her windows? A city that will never be quite the same, a city with a scar at its center? Clarissa enlists her beloved granddaughter in her investigation of the mysterious, high-tech building even as she finds herself drawn back into the orbit of her first husband, who shares the past grief that she has never quite let go.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250828705

GATHERING DARK by Candice Fox (Thriller)
Dr. Blair Harbour, once a wealthy, respected pediatric surgeon, is now an ex-con down on her luck. She’s determined to keep her nose clean and win back custody of her son. But when her former cellmate begs for help to find her missing daughter, Blair is compelled to put her new-found freedom on the line. Detective Jessica Sanchez has always had a difficult relationship with the LAPD. And her inheritance of a multi-million-dollar mansion as a reward for catching a killer has just made her police enemy number one. It’s been 10 years since Jessica arrested Blair for cold-blooded murder. So when Jessica opens the door to the disgraced doctor late one night, she expects abuse, maybe even violence. What comes next is a plea for help.
Forge Books | 9781250317629

THE GOOD WIFE OF BATH by Karen Brooks (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
England, 1364: When married off at the age of 12 to an elderly farmer, brazen redheaded Eleanor quickly realizes it won’t matter what she says or does. She was born under the joint signs of Venus and Mars, making her both a lover and a fighter. Aided by a head for business (and a surprisingly kind husband), Eleanor manages to turn her first marriage into success, and she rises through society from a cast-off farm girl to a woman of fortune who becomes a trusted friend of the social-climbing poet Geoffrey Chaucer. But more marriages follow, several pilgrimages, numerous lovers, murder, mayhem and many turns of fortune’s wheel as Eleanor pursues the one thing that all women want: control of their own lives.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063142831

THE HEIRESS: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh by Molly Greeley (Historical Fiction)
As a fussy baby, Anne de Bourgh’s doctor prescribed laudanum to quiet her, and now the young woman must take the opium-heavy tincture every day. Growing up sheltered and confined, the pale and overly slender Anne grew up with few companions except her cousins, including Fitzwilliam Darcy. Throughout their childhoods, it was understood that Darcy and Anne would marry and combine their vast estates of Pemberley and Rosings. But Darcy does not love Anne or want her. In a frenzy of desperation, Anne discards her laudanum and flees to the London home of her cousin, Colonel John Fitzwilliam, who helps her through her painful recovery. Yet, once she returns to health, new challenges await.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063032019

HOUR OF THE WITCH by Chris Bohjalian (Historical Thriller)
Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary's hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life. But in a world where every neighbor is watching for signs of the devil, a woman like Mary --- who harbors secret desires and finds it difficult to tolerate the brazen hypocrisy of so many men in the colony --- soon becomes herself the object of suspicion and rumor. When tainted objects are discovered buried in Mary's garden, when a boy she has treated with herbs and simples dies, and when their servant girl runs screaming in fright from her home, Mary must fight to escape not only her marriage, but also the gallows.
Vintage | 9780525432692

LET ME TELL YOU WHAT I MEAN by Joan Didion (Essays)
These 12 pieces from 1968 to 2000, never before gathered together, offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary figure. Here, Joan Didion touches on topics ranging from newspapers ("the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as to whether one finds it"), to the fantasy of San Simeon, to not getting into Stanford. In "Why I Write," Didion ponders the act of writing: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." From her admiration for Hemingway's sentences to her acknowledgment that Martha Stewart's story is one "that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men," these essays are acutely and brilliantly observed.
Vintage | 9780593312193

THE NARROWBOAT SUMMER by Anne Youngson (Fiction)
Eve has left her 30-year career to become a Free Spirit; Sally has waved goodbye to her indifferent husband and two grown-up children; and Anastasia, a defiantly independent narrowboat-dweller is suddenly landlocked and vulnerable. Before they quite know what they’ve done, Sally and Eve agree to drive Anastasia’s narrowboat on a journey through the canals of England, as she awaits a life-saving operation. As they glide through the countryside, the eccentricities and challenges of narrowboat life draw them inexorably together, and a tender and unforgettable story unfolds. At summer’s end, all three women must decide whether to return to the lives they left behind, or forge a new path forward.
Flatiron Books | 9781250764621

NOT DARK YET: A DCI Banks Novel by Peter Robinson (Mystery/Thriller)
When property developer Connor Clive Blaydon is found dead, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his Yorkshire team dive into the investigation. As luck would have it, someone had installed a cache of spy-cams all around his luxurious home. They hope that they’ll find answers --- and the culprit --- among the video recordings. However, instead of discovering Connor’s murderer, the grainy and blurred footage reveals another crime: a brutal rape. If they can discover the woman’s identity, it could lead to more than justice for the victim; it could change everything the police think they know about Connor and why anyone would want him dead.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062994967

THE OVERNIGHT GUEST by Heather Gudenkauf (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
True crime writer Wylie Lark doesn’t mind being snowed in at the isolated farmhouse where she’s retreated to write her new book. A cozy fire, complete silence. It would be perfect, if not for the fact that decades earlier, at this very house, two people were murdered in cold blood and a girl disappeared without a trace. As the storm worsens, Wylie finds herself trapped inside the house, haunted by the secrets contained within its walls --- haunted by secrets of her own. Then she discovers a small child in the snow just outside. After bringing the child inside for warmth and safety, she begins to search for answers. But soon it becomes clear that the farmhouse isn’t as isolated as she thought, and someone is willing to do anything to find them.
Park Row | 9780778311935

THE PATH TO SUNSHINE COVE by RaeAnne Thayne (Fiction)
Jessica Clayton has made a career out of helping others downsize --- because she’s learned the hard way that the less “stuff,” the better, a policy she applies equally to her relationships. But a new client is taking Jess back to Cape Sanctuary, a town she once called home…and that her little sister, Rachel, still does. The years apart haven’t made a dent in the guilt Jess still carries after a handgun took the lives of both their parents and changed everything between them. With the demands of her youngest child’s disability, Rachel’s marriage has begun to fray at the seams. Against her judgment, Jess finds herself becoming attached --- to her sister and her family, even to her client’s interfering son, Nate --- and it’s time to put everything on the line.
HQN | 9781335534996

PICKARD COUNTY ATLAS by Chris Harding Thornton (Noir Thriller)
In a dusty town in Nebraska’s rugged sandhills, sheriff’s deputy Harley Jensen patrols the streets at night, on the lookout for something to take his mind off the past, which weighs him down like an anvil. And he’s not the only one --- Pickard County is full of restless souls looking for change. Pam bristles against her role as wife and mother, hemmed in by the tragic history of the Reddick family, which is still coping, decades later, with the murder of one of its own. Her husband, Rick, bows beneath the pressures of raising a family while struggling with the wreckage of his youth. And then there’s Paul, the youngest Reddick, town miscreant and flint to Harley’s steel --- and in this stark, Shakespearean drama, it’s just a matter of time until their conflict throws the spark that will burn Pickard County to the ground.
Picador | 9781250829597

ROBERT LUDLUM’S THE TREADSTONE EXILE by Joshua Hood (Thriller/Adventure)
After the revival of Operation Treadstone, former agent Adam Hayes has retreated to Africa, determined to leave behind the black-ops CIA program for good. But his quiet life in Africa changes irrevocably when, while attempting to complete a charitable mission in Burkina Faso, Hayes is attacked by extremists. Forced to make an unexpected landing, his plane is damaged. In order to get back in the air, Hayes agrees to transport a passenger --- Zoe Cabot, the daughter of a tech baron --- to a small coastal city. But just after Hayes completes his flight, Zoe is kidnapped. During his search for Zoe, Hayes funs afoul of multiple enemies, including a rogue Treadstone operative, all of whom are searching for him.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780525542643

A SAINT FROM TEXAS by Edmund White (Fiction)
Yvette and Yvonne Crawford are twin sisters, born on a humble patch of East Texas prairie but bound for far more dramatic and tragic fates. Just as an untold fortune of oil lies beneath their daddy's land, both girls harbor their own secrets and dreams --- ones that will carry them far from Texas and from each other. As the decades unfold, Yvonne will ascend the highest ranks of Parisian society as Yvette gives herself to a lifetime of worship and service in the streets of Jericó, Colombia. And yet, even as they remake themselves in their radically different lives, the twins find that the bonds of family and the past are unbreakable.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635577051

THE SAINTS OF SWALLOW HILL by Donna Everhart (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
For Rae Lynn Cobb, a young woman disguised as a man, the Swallow Hill turpentine camp offers distance and anonymity from those who would wrongly imprison her for killing her husband. For charming bachelor Del Reese, it’s a place where backbreaking work might drown out memories of a recent trauma. The squalid camp is ruled by a sadistic boss named Crow and the greedy commissary owner Otis Riddle, a man who takes out his frustrations on his browbeaten wife, Cornelia. As Rae Lynn forges a deeper friendship with both Del and Cornelia, she begins to envision a path out of the camp. But she will have to come to terms with her past before she can open herself to a new life and seize the chance to begin again.
Kensington | 9781496733320

SOMETHING’S GUAVA GIVE: A Tropical Island Cozy Mystery by Carrie Doyle (Cozy Mystery)
Paperback Original
Plum Lockhart went out on a limb when she ditched her corporate job in New York City and moved to the Caribbean island of Paraiso. Now the head of her own villa broker agency, Plum spends her days chasing down clients and lounging on white sand beaches. But the sweet life turns sour when a publishing heiress is found dead at the mansion of an eccentric tycoon, Dieter Friedrich. Even worse, Plum's old colleague cashes in a favor and asks her to investigate. Friedrich is known for his shady dealings, but he's not the only bad apple on the island. Plum will have to contend with a scheming millionaire, a sleazy rock star and devious B-list celebrities. And joining Plum once again is Juan Kevin Munoz, the distractingly gorgeous Director of Security.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781728232362

THE SON OF MR. SULEMAN by Eric Jerome Dickey (Romance)
Professor Pi Suleman is a Black man from Memphis with a lot to endure. He is constantly forced to bite his tongue in the face of one of his tenured colleague’s prejudices and microaggressions. At the same time, Pi is being blackmailed by a powerful white professor who threatens to claim he assaulted her, when in fact the truth is just the opposite. When he meets Gemma Buckingham, a sophisticated entrepreneur who has just moved to Memphis to escape a deep heartbreak, things begin to look up. But Pi’s whirlwind romance is interrupted when his absentee father passes away, and Pi is called to Los Angeles to both collect his inheritance and learn about the man who never acknowledged him.
Dutton | 9781524745240

THE SWALLOWED MAN by Edward Carey (Historical Fantasy)
A lonely woodcarver longs for the companionship of a son. One day, Giuseppe --- better known as Geppetto --- carves for himself a pinewood boy, a marionette he hopes to take on tour worldwide. But when his handsome new creation comes magically to life, Geppetto screams…and the boy, Pinocchio, escapes into the night. Though he returns the next day, the wily boy torments his father, challenging his authority and making up stories --- whereupon his nose, the very nose his father carved, grows before his eyes. When the boy disappears after one last fight, the father follows a rumor to the coast and out into the sea, where he is swallowed by a great fish. He hunkers in the creature’s belly awaiting the day when he will reconcile with the son he drove away.
Riverhead Books | 9780593188880

TRIPLE CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE MURDER: A Hannah Swensen Mystery with Recipes! by Joanne Fluke (Cozy Mystery)
Hannah Swensen is up to her ears with Easter orders rushing in at The Cookie Jar, plus a festive meal to prepare for a dinner party at her mother’s penthouse. But everything comes crashing to a halt when Hannah receives a panicked call from her sister, Andrea --- Mayor Richard Bascomb has been murdered…and Andrea is the prime suspect. Even with his reputation for being a bully, Mayor Bascomb had been unusually testy in the days leading up to his death, leaving Hannah to wonder if he knew he was in danger. There are plenty of suspects to sift through for sure. And as orders pile up at The Cookie Jar --- and children line up for Easter egg hunts --- Hannah must spring into investigation mode and identify the real killer…before another murder happens!
Kensington | 9781496718938

WHAT’S MINE AND YOURS by Naima Coster (Fiction)
A community in the Piedmont of North Carolina rises in outrage as a county initiative draws students from the largely Black east side of town into predominantly white high schools on the west. For two students, Gee and Noelle, the integration sets off a chain of events that will tie their two families together in unexpected ways over the span of the next 20 years. As love is built and lost, and the past never too far behind, WHAT’S MINE AND YOURS moves between the years, from the foothills of North Carolina, to Atlanta, Los Angeles and Paris. It explores the unique organism that is every family: what breaks them apart and how they come back together.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538702338

Please visit the other websites in TheBookReportNetwork.com: ReadingGroupGuides.com and AuthorsOnTheWeb.com.

And be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.