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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of January 5th and January 12th 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 Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks feature for January, which includes Indie Next, LibraryReads, the Barnes & Noble Book Club, the "Good Morning America" Book Club, the PBS Books Readers Club, the "Read with Jenna" Book Club, Reese's Book Club, and the Target Book Club.
Last Chance to Enter Our BIG “Bets On” Contest!
This is your last “On Sale This Week” newsletter reminder to enter our End-of-the-Year contest, which will be open until Monday, January 12th at noon ET.
One Grand Prize winner will be awarded all 42(!) of Carol Fitzgerald's Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2025, while seven other winners will receive six of these titles.
If you would like to know more about these books, be sure to check out this video and podcast where Carol talks about each of her selections and why she's betting you’ll love these titles just as much as she did.
Join us for a special “Bookaccino Live” Winter Preview evening program on Wednesday, January 21st at 8pm ET. Carol will talk about a number of books being published this winter that we think you will enjoy reading over the next few months. Included will be fiction; historical fiction; thrillers and mysteries; and memoirs, biographies and other nonfiction.
P.S. For those of you who shop online, if you use the store links that appear on our site for shopping, Bookreporter.com gets a small affiliate fee on your purchases from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and IndieBound. As you read our reviews and features, we would appreciate your considering this as you buy!
This Week's Bonus News:
Our Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks for January
Each month, we share top book picks from Indie Next and LibraryReads. We also feature a number of other prominent selections, including the Barnes & Noble Book Club, the "Good Morning America" Book Club, Oprah’s Book Club, the PBS Books Readers Club, the "Read with Jenna" Book Club, Reese's Book Club, and the Target Book Club.
Below is a preview of January's "Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks." For the complete Indie Next and LibraryReads lists, as well as additional links pertaining to this month's selections, please click here.
Indie Next
#1 Pick: THE FIRST TIME I SAW HIM by Laura Dave
SKYLARK by Paula McLain
IS THIS A CRY FOR HELP? by Emily Austin
MEET THE NEWMANS by Jennifer Niven
LOST LAMBS by Madeline Cash
LibraryReads
Top Pick: IS THIS A CRY FOR HELP? by Emily Austin
THE BOOKBINDER'S SECRET by A. D. Bell
ALL THE LITTLE HOUSES by May Cobb
ANATOMY OF AN ALIBI by Ashley Elston
WOMEN OF A PROMISCUOUS NATURE by Donna Everhart
Barnes & Noble Book Club
THE REST OF OUR LIVES by Ben Markovits
"Good Morning America" Book Club
SKYLARK by Paula McLain
Oprah's Book Club
Please note that there is no Oprah's Book Club pick for January. Oprah is focusing this month on promoting her new book, ENOUGH: Your Health, Your Weight, and What It's Like to Be Free, which she wrote with Dr. Ania M. Jastreboff.
PBS Books Readers Club
ONCE THERE WERE WOLVES and WILD DARK SHORE by Charlotte McConaghy
"Read with Jenna" Book Club
HOMESCHOOLED: A Memoir by Stefan Merrill Block
Reese's Book Club
THE FIRST TIME I SAW HIM by Laura Dave
Target Book Club
TIME LOOPS & MEET CUTES by Jackie Lau
Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events
Here are three upcoming virtual book and author events that you may be interested in attending. Click on the links for more info and to register.
Wednesday, January 7th at 7pm ET: “Friends & Fiction”: Join “Friends & Fiction” for a conversation with Brad Meltzer about his new Zig & Nola thriller, THE VIPER. As a relentless killer closes in, Nola uncovers a sinister plot that gets very personal --- and deadly --- quickly.
Wednesday, January 7th at 8pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Robert Dugoni will talk about his riveting new novel of suspense, HER COLD JUSTICE. To save a client accused of murder, defense attorney Keera Duggan must fight a complex web of corruption.
Thursday, January 8th at 8pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Amy Pease will talk about her new book, WILDWOOD, in which a mother-son law enforcement team confront buried secrets in their small town as they work to expose a conspiracy that goes far beyond the tight-knit community.
On Sale the Week of January 5th in Hardcover
January 5th
THE INVISIBLE WOMAN by James Patterson and Susan DiLallo (Psychological Thriller)
Elinor Gilbert was once a young woman with a thriving career at the FBI. Now decades past solving crimes with the bureau, she is personally and professionally forgettable. Which is exactly what her former FBI boss needs. He disguises Elinor as a middle-aged nanny, and casts her as an agent on the inside of his investigation into a New York art dealer suspected of ties to organized crime. But as Elinor pushes toward the truth, her superpower --- anonymity --- morphs into a fatal flaw. The more the invisible woman integrates into her “host” family, the more dangerously memorable she becomes.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316587075
January 6th
ADVANCE BRITANNIA: The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1942-1945 by Alan Allport (History)
By 1942, Winston Churchill found himself facing a vastly different war than the one he’d inherited from Neville Chamberlain back in 1940. In the East, the Soviets were now a co-belligerent (if not exactly a firm ally). And the aid he’d so longed for from across the Atlantic had finally arrived, when Pearl Harbor pushed America to end its “dithering and buggering about.” But with Parliament and the public losing faith in him, Churchill had to manage a war that now stretched into the Pacific and Indian Oceans, threatening Britain’s colonies, all the while negotiating a new relationship with Roosevelt and Stalin --- two jostling, unpredictable comrades-in-arms fully prepared to carve up the world to their own satisfaction. In this sequel to his prizewinning BRITAIN AT BAY, Alan Allport completes his superlative history of Britain’s role in World War II.
Knopf | 9780451494764
THE ARCHITECT OF NEW YORK written by Javier Moro, translated by Peter J. Hearn (Historical Fiction)
Architect Rafael Guastavino's signature vaulted tile ceilings revolutionized Gilded Age New York City. The Oyster Bar in Grand Central, the Prospect Park Boathouse, and the iconic Old City Hall subway station are among his masterpieces. But while his works continue to imbue the city with the glamour of a bygone era, the man himself has been largely forgotten. Told through the eyes of Guastavino's son and business partner, Rafael Jr., Javier Moro's magnetic prose brings to life the remarkable rags-to-riches journey of this influential immigrant family. Guastavino was a stubborn man, enamored of his own sense of destiny, but he also was a deeply compassionate father, as committed to his family as he was to his work, and equally defined by his successes in the latter realm as by his failures in the former.
Counterpoint | 9781640097469
FIRST DO NO HARM: A Lydia Chin/Bill Smith Mystery by S. J. Rozan (Mystery)
With River Valley Hospital in the midst of negotiations to avert a nurses' strike, a wealthy benefactor is set to give a large donation in honor of the Chief of Emergency Medicine: Dr. Elliott Chin, the brother of private investigator Lydia Chin. Before the donation can be finalized, a member of the nurses' negotiating committee is found murdered. A morgue assistant is arrested, and his father and brother, both doctors at the hospital, are quick to urge him to take a plea. Another negotiating committee member abruptly resigns, and a senior biomedical technician disappears. An officially off-limits section of the hospital basement turns out to be a hotbed of unauthorized --- and, in some cases, criminal --- activity. Hired by the arrested man's lawyer, Lydia Chin and her partner, Bill Smith, start to dig into the events and personnel at the hospital.
Pegasus Crime | 9798897100323
THE FIRST TIME I SAW HIM by Laura Dave (Domestic Thriller/Mystery)
Five years after her husband, Owen, disappeared, Hannah Hall and her stepdaughter, Bailey, have settled into a new life in Southern California. Together, they've forged a relationship with Bailey's grandfather, Nicholas, and are putting the past behind them. But when Owen shows up at Hannah's new exhibition, she knows that she and Bailey are in danger again. As a thrilling drama unfolds, Hannah and Bailey are forced to go on the run in a relentless race to keep their past from catching up with them. Hannah risks everything to get Bailey to safety --- and finds there just might be one way back to Owen.
Scribner | 9781668002964
HOMESCHOOLED: A Memoir by Stefan Merrill Block (Memoir)
Stefan Merrill Block was nine when his mother pulled him from school, certain that his teachers were “stifling his creativity.” Hungry for more time with her boy, she began to instruct Stefan in the family’s living room. Beyond his formal lessons in math, however, Stefan was largely left to his own devices and his mother’s erratic whims, such as her project to recapture her 12-year-old son's early years by bleaching his hair and putting him on a crawling regimen. Years before homeschooling would become a massive nationwide movement, at a time when it had just become legal in his home state of Texas, Stefan vanished into that unseen space and into his mother’s increasingly eccentric theories and projects. But when, after five years away from the outside world, Stefan reentered the public school system in Plano as a freshman, he was in for a jarring awakening.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335000989
JACKSON ALONE written by Jose Ando, translated by Kalau Almony (Thriller)
Nobody at the corporate offices of Athletius Japan knows much about the massage therapist Jackson. But rumors abound. He used to work as a model. He likes to party. He’s mixed race --- half-Japanese, half-somewhere-in-Africa-n. He might be gay. Fueling the gossip is the sudden appearance of a violent pornographic video featuring a man who looks a lot like Jackson. When Jackson serendipitously meets three other queer mixed-race guys, he learns he’s not the only one being targeted. Together they concoct a plan: find out who’s responsible and, in the meantime, switch identities and play tricks on people --- a boyfriend, a boss --- who’ve wronged them, exploiting the fact that nobody can seem to tell them apart.
Soho Crime | 9781641296366
MEET THE NEWMANS by Jennifer Niven (Historical Fiction)
For two decades, Del and Dinah Newman and their sons, Guy and Shep, have ruled television as America’s Favorite Family. Millions of viewers tune in every week to watch them play flawless, black-and-white versions of themselves. But now it’s 1964, and the Newmans’ idealized apple-pie perfection suddenly feels woefully out of touch. Ratings are in free fall, as are the Newmans themselves. Del is keeping an explosive secret from his wife, and Dinah is slowly going numb --- literally. Steady, stable Guy is hiding the truth about his love life, and the charmed luck of rock ‘n’ roll idol Shep may have finally run out. When Del is in a mysterious car accident, Dinah hires Juliet Dunne, an outspoken, impassioned young reporter, to help her write the final episode. But Dinah and Juliet have wildly different perspectives about what it means to be a woman, and a family, in 1964.
Flatiron Books | 9781250372444
ORDER OF ROYALS by Jude Deveraux (Fantasy/Romance)
Princess Aradella is trapped in the iron grip of her evil and powerful aunt, Queen Olina. Navigating the treacherous waters of political machinations and familial duties, Aradella discovers allies in unexpected places, including Tanek, a swansman with his own mysterious connections. Set in a world where royalty, magic and mythical beings coexist, Aradella’s path is intertwined with that of Kaley Arens, an Earthling who becomes deeply entangled in the planet’s intricate social hierarchy, as she is faced with a choice between her homeland and newfound love. As Aradella and her companions uncover dark secrets and hidden agendas, they embark on an adventure filled with loyalty, romance and courage, where the lines between magic and reality blur, but where love has the power to transform destinies.
Mira | 9780778305798
THE RECKONING: A Renata Drake Thriller by Kelli Stanley (Historical Thriller/Mystery)
California, Southern Humboldt County, 1985. Renata Drake steps off a Greyhound bus and into small-town Garberville, hoping to disappear. But she’s made a mistake. The FBI has the cannabis-producing “Emerald Triangle” town --- and its corrupt residents --- in their sights. Even worse, a teenage girl is missing. And when she turns up dead, the third in three years, it’s clear a serial killer is living among them. Renata knows about murdered girls and the burning desire for justice --- and for revenge. Her younger sister, Josie, is gone, and now so is the man who killed her. Renata didn’t stay in Washington, D.C. to be arrested for executing a murderer, and she shouldn’t stay here either. But Renata decides to investigate, and what she uncovers will trigger a final reckoning: for herself, for a killer, and for all of Southern Humboldt.
Severn House | 9781448317547
RETURN OF THE MALTESE FALCON by Max Allan Collins (Hard-boiled Historical Mystery)
Legendary mystery writer Dashiell Hammett only wrote one novel about detective Sam Spade: THE MALTESE FALCON, the most famous private-eye story ever told. But the case was never really solved. The priceless golden, bejeweled bird that men and women had been dying to possess turned out to be a fake. Now, Max Allan Collins brings closure to this crime classic, reuniting all the surviving members of the original cast alongside femme fatales, crooked collectors and greedy gangsters for one more thrilling, deadly chase through the streets, wharves, morgues, bars and back alleys of 1920s San Francisco --- and finally answers the question: Whatever became of the Maltese falcon?
Hard Case Crime | 9781835414873
THE RIGHT TO REMAIN: A Jack Swyteck Novel by James Grippando (Legal Thriller)
Miami criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck’s client, Elliott Stafford, has been indicted for murder but has gone silent. He won’t talk to the judge, his girlfriend, or even the attorney fighting for his life. There seems to be no medical or psychological reason for his silence. To some, it’s an act of protest against a broken criminal justice system. Jack doesn’t buy it. Undeterred by the hoopla and calls to walk away, he keeps his client and tries his best to save Elliott from himself. As he digs for facts, Jack discovers a much more disturbing reason for Elliott’s silence. Virtually everything Elliott told Jack before the indictment is proving false, including Elliot’s criminal history, family turmoil and secret past. As Jack plunges deeper, he comes to believe that Elliott isn’t trying to hide his own guilt. He may be protecting someone else --- and the stakes could not be higher.
Harper | 9780063358119
RINGS OF FATE: Curses and Crowns, Book 1 by Melissa de la Cruz
(Fantasy/Romance)
Aren Bellamore has no interest in being anyone’s princess. She’s too busy running the Raven’s Beak tavern, fending off unwanted marriage proposals, and dreaming of escape. But when a brush with death and a dangerously handsome stranger upend her life, Aren finds herself bound to a bargain that could change everything. Prince Dietan has carried the cursed Rings of Fate --- ancient weapons of devastating power --- since childhood. The magic is killing him, and the enemies are closing in. To make the journey to reverse his curse, he needs a bride to hide his secrets. Aren wants freedom. Pretending to be his fiancée should give them both what they want. But as their perilous journey pits them against political schemes, monstrous Kilandrar, and a growing attraction neither can deny, the line between make-believe and destiny begins to blur.
Entangled: Red Tower Books | 9781649376954
ROOTS OF DARKNESS: The Ashen Series, Book 2.5 by Demi Winters (Historical Fantasy/Romance)
The Bloodaxe Crew have arrived at the village of Istré --- beleaguered and missing three of their members. They might be down in numbers, but Hekla “Rib Smasher” is determined they’ll complete their job all the same: defeat the monstrous, sentient mist and keep the citizens of Istré safe. What she didn’t expect is for Istré’s bullheaded chieftain to block her every move. Exasperated, Hekla throws caution to the wind for a single passion-filled night. But to her horror, the mysterious red-cloaked warrior to whom she’s spilled her deepest secrets is the Bloodaxe Crew’s new temporary leader and ally --- Eyvind Hakonsson. Hekla must now learn to play by Eyvind’s rules while guarding her heart. But when it becomes clear that his plans align with the chieftain’s, Hekla takes matters into her own hands.
Delacorte Press | 9798217299836
THE SHOP ON HIDDEN LANE by Jayne Ann Krentz (Romantic Suspense)
The Harper and the Wells families have regarded each other with deep suspicion for four generations. The Harpers have been known to offer their psychic talents for less-than-legal purposes, and the powerful Wells clan has a reputation for playing both sides of the street. But for all the years of history and distrust between them, there is a mysterious pact binding the two. They share the responsibility for protecting a long-buried and very dangerous secret. Sophy Harper and Luke Wells are shocked to learn that her aunt and his uncle have been sleeping together --- and now they are both missing. Not only that, but the last traces of them are at the scene of a murder soaked in negative paranormal energy. Clearly, someone is willing to kill to obtain the secret their families have been charged with protecting.
Berkley | 9798217187348
SKYLARK by Paula McLain (Historical Fiction)
SKYLARK chronicles two parallel journeys of defiance and rescue that connect in ways both surprising and deeply moving. 1664: Alouette Voland is the daughter of a master dyer at the famed Gobelin Tapestry Works, who secretly dreams of escaping her circumstances and creating her own masterpiece. When her father is unjustly imprisoned, Alouette's efforts to save him lead to her own confinement in the notorious Salpêtrière asylum, where thousands of women are held captive and cruelly treated. But within its grim walls, she discovers a small group of brave allies and the possibility of a life bigger than she ever imagined. 1939: Kristof Larson is a medical student beginning his psychiatric residency in Paris, whose neighbors on the Rue de Gobelins are a Jewish family who have fled Poland. When Nazi forces descend on the city, Kristof becomes their only hope for survival.
Atria Books | 9781668028155
THE STORM by Rachel Hawkins (Gothic Thriller)
St. Medard’s Bay, Alabama, is famous for three things: the deadly hurricanes that regularly sweep into town; the Rosalie Inn, a century-old hotel that’s survived every one of those storms; and Lo Bailey, the local girl infamously accused of the murder of her lover, political scion Landon Fitzroy, during Hurricane Marie in 1984. When Geneva Corliss, the current owner of the Rosalie Inn, hears that a writer is coming to town to research the crime that put St. Medard’s Bay on the map, she’s less interested in solving a whodunit than in how a successful true-crime book might help the struggling inn’s bottom line. But August Fletcher is accompanied by none other than Lo Bailey herself. Lo says she’s returned to her hometown to clear her name once and for all. But the closer Geneva gets to both Lo and August, the more she wonders if Lo is actually back to settle old scores.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250341884
THROUGH GATES OF GARNET AND GOLD by Seanan McGuire (Fantasy)
After Nancy was cast out of the Halls of the Dead and forced to enroll at Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children, she never believed she'd find her door again, and when she did, she didn't look back. She disappeared from the school to resume her place in the Halls, never intending to return. Years have passed. A darkness has descended on the Halls, and the living statues who populate them are dying at the hands of the already dead. The Lord and Lady who rule the land are helpless to stop the slaughter, forcing Nancy to leave the Halls again, this time on purpose, as she attempts to seek much-needed help from her former schoolmates. But who would volunteer to quest in a world where the dead roam freely? And why are the dead so intent on adding to their number?
Tordotcom | 9781250339409
TOM PAINE'S WAR: The Words That Rallied a Nation and the Founder for Our Time by Jack Kelly (History)
Two hundred and fifty years ago, the Declaration of Independence marked the birth of the United States. But two essays of that era appealed even more directly to Americans’ feelings. In January 1776, Thomas Paine --- a recent immigrant to America --- published Common Sense. His straightforward argument upended the fraud of monarchy and dismantled the idea of aristocratic privilege that had dominated the world for centuries. He turned a rebellion over taxes and representation into a true Revolution. Having inspired patriots to declare their independence, Paine enlisted as a militia private. He saw Washington’s army suffer grievous defeats. He slogged through the mud with retreating troops to Pennsylvania. There, he wrote The American Crisis, the most stirring rallying cry in our history. It began: “These are the times that try men’s souls…”
St. Martin's Press | 9781250331939
THE VIPER: A Zig & Nola Novel by Brad Meltzer (Thriller)
Andrew Fechmeier is a master at hiding. He’s spent decades concealing a secret that could get him killed. So when he’s diagnosed with a terminal disease, he heads for the local funeral home carrying the blue suit he eventually wants to be buried in. But what no one knows is that Fechmeier secretly tucked something inside, turning the suit into a final, untraceable hiding spot. It's a perfect plan. Until Fetch is brutally murdered by a mysterious killer who will stop at nothing to find the priceless object hidden in the suit. Wasting no time, the cunning but unconventional Roddy LaPointe opens an investigation into Fetch’s murder, recruiting help from his friend, the brilliant “Zig” Zigarowski. But it doesn’t take long for Zig to discover the real reason Roddy cares so much about this case: Fetch’s death is tied to Roddy’s mother, who was murdered decades earlier.
William Morrow | 9780062892430
WHAT BOYS LEARN by Andromeda Romano-Lax (Psychological Thriller)
Over one terrible weekend, two teenage girls are found dead in a wealthy Chicago suburb. As the community mourns, Abby Rosso, the girls’ high school counselor, begins to suspect that her son was secretly involved in their lives --- and possibly their deaths. Abby doesn’t want to believe Benjamin hurt anyone. But she’s seen the warning signs before. Two decades ago, her brother was imprisoned for a disturbing crime --- he was only a little older than Benjamin is now. And Abby has more troubling memories from her own adolescence that confirm what boys and men are capable of. As Abby searches for the truth about what happened to her students, she’s forced to face the question: Has she been making excuses for Benjamin for years?
Soho Crime | 9781641296915
WILDWOOD by Amy Pease (Mystery/Thriller)
Deputy Sheriff Eli North has spent the last year getting his life back together. He hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol, he’s working through his PTSD from his military deployment, and he’s repairing his most important relationships. When an undercover informant disappears and all signs point to murder, Eli must expose the dark underbelly of his idyllic Wisconsin small town while safeguarding his newfound stability. Then, with the unexpected arrival of FBI Agent Alyssa Mason, Eli and his mother, the sheriff, are pulled deeper into a violent criminal network built on the backs of the lost and forgotten. As the case deepens, loyalties fracture and the line between justice and survival begins to blur. In a town where everyone has something to hide, exposing the truth may cost them everything.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781668078723
WRECK YOUR HEART by Lori Rader-Day (Mystery)
As part of Chicago’s country music scene, Dahlia “Doll” Devine is an up-and-coming singer of classic country tunes. That is, until her boyfriend up and went, taking the rent money with him. So Dahlia is relying on Alex McPhee --- again. Alex helped her out of a bad situation when she was a kid living rough with her mother. Now he’s part landlord, part band booster, all-around rescuer. Just as Dahlia suspects she’s scraped rock bottom, the mother she hasn’t spoken to in 20 years shows up with something to say. The next morning, a distraught young woman arrives at the bar, asking after her missing mother --- Dahlia's mother, too. When a body is discovered outside McPhee’s Tavern, the crime threatens not just the place Dahlia has made into a home, but everything she’s believed about her past and her dreams for the future.
Minotaur Books | 9781250393739
On Sale the Week of January 5th in Paperback
January 6th
BLOOD TIES written by Jo Nesbø, translated by Robert Ferguson (Noir Thriller)
By all accounts, Carl and Roy Opgard are doing quite well for themselves. Or at least they’re doing as well as can be expected in a small town like Os. Carl manages the area’s swanky and successful spa and hotel, while Roy runs a nearby gas station and harbors grand plans to build it out into an entire amusement park, complete with a rollercoaster. But when news breaks about a new highway to be built nearby, bypassing Os and leaving the town cut off and isolated, it’s clear that something has to be done…even if the methods are bound to be dirty. Fortunately, Carl and Roy have experience with just that kind of work. Meanwhile, the town sheriff has gotten his hands on new technology that will enable him to take a deeper look at a slate of unsolved murders from years past --- including that of his own father.
Vintage Crime/Black Lizard | 9780593689530
THE CASTAWAYS by Lucy Clarke (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Two years ago, a small plane disappeared over Fiji. For Erin, it’s been two years of obsessing over every detail, refusing to move forward even as life does. Her sister, Lori, was on that plane, and Erin was meant to be, too. But after a bitter argument, she failed to show. Everyone thinks Lori is dead, but Erin can’t let go. Just when Erin is on the verge of losing hope, the pilot of the missing plane turns up still in Fiji, seemingly with no memory of the crash. In a final bid to find her sister, Erin travels there herself. But what she discovers is beyond anything she could have predicted.
Atlantic Crime | 9780802167170
FIRST IN THE FAMILY: A Story of Survival, Recovery, and the American Dream by Jessica Hoppe (Memoir)
During the first year of the pandemic and the ensuing isolation, fatal drug overdoses spiked to numbers previously unseen. Jessica Hoppe’s cousin was one of them. “I never learned the true history of substance use disorder in my family,” Hoppe writes. “People just disappeared.” At the time of her cousin’s death, Hoppe had been in recovery for nearly four years, but she hadn’t told anyone. In FIRST IN THE FAMILY, Hoppe shares her journey as the first in her family to recover from addiction and takes the reader on a remarkable investigation of her family’s history, the American Dream, and the erasure of BIPOC from recovery institutions and narratives.
Flatiron Books | 9781250865236
FRAMED IN DEATH by J. D. Robb (Mystery/Thriller)
Manhattan is filled with galleries and deep-pocketed collectors who can make an artist's career with a wave of a hand. But one man toils in obscurity, his brilliance unrecognized while lesser talents bask in the glory he believes should be his. Come tomorrow, he vows, the city will be buzzing about his work. Indeed, before dawn, Lt. Eve Dallas is speeding toward the home of the two gallery owners whose doorway has been turned into a horrifying crime scene overnight. A lifeless young woman has been elaborately costumed and precisely posed to resemble the model of a long-ago Dutch master, and Dallas plunges into her investigation.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250370846
THE GRANDDAUGHTER written by Bernhard Schlink, translated by Charlotte Collins (Fiction)
It is only after the sudden death of his wife, Birgit, that Kaspar discovers the price she paid years earlier when she fled East Germany to join him: she had to abandon her baby. Shattered by grief yet animated by a new hope, Kaspar closes up his bookshop in present-day Berlin and sets off to find her lost child in the east. His search leads him to a rural community of neo-Nazis, intent on reclaiming and settling ancestral lands to the East. Among them, Kaspar encounters Svenja, a woman whose eyes, hair and even voice remind him of Birgit. Beside her is a red-haired, slouching 15-year-old girl. His granddaughter? Their worlds could not be more different --- an ideological gulf of mistrust yawns between them --- but he is determined to accept her as his own.
HarperVia | 9780063295247
I’LL COME TO YOU by Rebecca Kauffman (Fiction)
In I'LL COME TO YOU, beloved author Rebecca Kauffman explores overlapping narratives involving a couple whose struggle to become pregnant has both softened and hardened them; a woman whose husband of 40 years has left her for reasons he's unwilling to share and the man who is now disastrously attempting to woo her; a couple in denial about a looming health crisis; and their son, who is fumbling toward middle age and can't stop lying. Ultimately, these storylines crescendo and converge into a dramatic and harrowing turn of events. With heart, wit and courage, and through pain, these characters traverse territory that both challenges and defines the bonds of family.
Counterpoint | 9781640097353
THE IN-BETWEEN BOOKSTORE by Edward Underhill (Fiction/Magical Realism)
When Darby finds himself unemployed and in need of a fresh start, he moves back to the small Illinois town he left behind. But Oak Falls has changed almost as much as he has since he left. One thing is familiar: In Between Books, Darby’s refuge growing up and eventual high school job. When he walks into the bookstore now, Darby feels an eerie sense of déjà vu --- everything is exactly the same. Even the newspapers are dated 2009. And behind the register is a teen who looks a lot like Darby did at 16…who just might give Darby the opportunity to change his own present for the better --- if he can figure out how before his connection to the past vanishes forever.
Avon | 9780063357648
KISS HER GOODBYE by Lisa Gardner (Mystery/Thriller)
Recent Afghan refugee Sabera Ahmadi was last seen exiting her place of work three weeks ago. The local police have yet to open a case, while her older, domineering husband, Isaad, seems unconcerned. Sabera's closest friend, however, is convinced Sabera would never willingly leave her three-year-old daughter, Zahra. At her insistence, missing persons expert Frankie Elkin agrees to take up the search. Just in time for a video of the young mother to surface --- showing her walking away from the scene of a brutal double murder. Frankie quickly realizes there's much more to the Ahmadi family than meets the eye. When Isaad also disappears under mysterious circumstances and an attempt is made on Zahra's life, Frankie realizes that she quickly must crack the code of this family's horrific past.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538765128
LAST TWILIGHT IN PARIS by Pam Jenoff (Historical Fiction)
London, 1953. Louise is still adjusting to her postwar role as a housewife when she discovers a necklace in a box at a secondhand shop. The box is marked with the name of a store in Paris. She is certain that she has seen the necklace before --- when she worked with the Red Cross in Nazi-occupied Europe --- and that it holds the key to the mysterious death of her friend, Franny, during the war. Following the trail of clues to Paris, Louise discovers the dark history of Lévitan --- a once-glamorous department store that served as a Nazi prison --- and Helaine, a woman who was imprisoned there. Louise races to find the connection between the necklace, the store and Franny’s death. But nothing is as it seems, and there are forces determined to keep the truth buried forever.
Park Row | 9780778307990
THE LIFE CYCLE OF THE COMMON OCTOPUS by Emma Knight (Fiction)
Arriving at the University of Edinburgh for her first term, Pen knows that her divorced parents back in Canada are hiding something from her. She believes she’ll find the answer here in Scotland, where an old friend of her father’s --- now a famous writer known as Lord Lennox --- lives. When she is invited to spend the weekend at Lord Lennox’s centuries-old estate with his enveloping, fascinating family, Pen begins to unravel her parents’ secret, just as she’s falling in love for the first time. As Pen experiences the sharp shock of adulthood, she comes to rely on herself for the first time in her life.
Penguin Books | 9780593830475
THE LIFE OF HEROD THE GREAT written by Zora Neale Hurston, edited by Deborah G. Plant (Historical Fiction)
In the 1950s, as a continuation of MOSES, MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, Zora Neale Hurston penned a historical novel about one of the most infamous figures in the Bible, Herod the Great. In Hurston’s retelling, Herod is not the wicked ruler of the New Testament who is charged with the “slaughter of the innocents,” but a forerunner of Christ --- a beloved king who enriched Jewish culture and brought prosperity and peace to Judea. An intimate of both Marc Antony and Julius Caesar, the Judean king lived during the first-century BCE, in a time of war and imperial expansion that was rife with political assassinations and bribery, as the old world gave way to the new. Portraying Herod within this vivid and dynamic world of antiquity, little known to modern readers, Hurston’s unfinished manuscript brings this complex, compelling and misunderstood leader fully into focus.
Amistad | 9780063161016
THE LIST by Steve Berry (Legal Thriller)
After a 10-year self-imposed exile, Brent Walker is returning home to Concord, a quaint town in central Georgia. His father died two years ago, and now Brent --- hired by Southern Republic Pulp and Paper Company as its assistant general counsel --- is returning to care for his ailing mother. Southern Republic’s success is based largely on a highly unorthodox and deadly system to control costs, known only to the three owners of the company. Now, one of them, Christopher Bozin, has had a change of heart. Brent’s return to Concord, a move Bozin personally orchestrated, provides his conscience with a chance at redemption. So a plan is set into motion, one that not only will criminally implicate Bozin’s two partners but also will place Brent square in the crosshairs of men who want him dead --- with only one course left available.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538770887
A MONSOON RISING: A Hurricane Wars Novel by Thea Guanzon (Fantasy/Romance)
After a lifetime of war, Alaric and Talasyn were thrust into an alliance between their homelands that was supposed to end the fighting. However, being married to their sworn foe feels far from peaceful. Now Talasyn must play the part of Alaric’s willing empress while her allies secretly plot to overthrow his reign. But the longer the couple are forced together, the harder it becomes to deny the feelings crackling like lightning between them. As the master of the Shadowforged Legion, Alaric has trained for battle all his life, but marrying a Lightweaver might be his most dangerous challenge yet. With tensions between nations churning, he needs to focus on the greater threat --- the Moonless Dark, a cataclysmic magical event that could devour everything. Only he and Talasyn can stop it. But saving their world from this disaster is a mere preface to his father’s more sinister schemes.
Harper Voyager | 9780063277311
MORE OR LESS MADDY by Lisa Genova (Fiction)
Maddy Banks is just like any other stressed-out freshman at NYU. Between schoolwork, exams, navigating life in the city, and a recent breakup, it’s normal to be feeling overwhelmed. It doesn’t help that she’s always felt like the odd one out in her picture-perfect Connecticut family. But Maddy’s latest low is devastatingly low, and she goes on an antidepressant. She begins to feel good, dazzling in fact, and she soon spirals high into a wild and terrifying mania that culminates in a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. As she struggles to find her way in this new reality, navigating the complex effects that bipolar has on her identity, her relationships and her life dreams, Maddy will have to figure out how to manage being both too much and not enough.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781668026106
NO ONE KNEW by Kendra Elliot (Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
In the crisp mountain air of central Oregon, a teenage girl’s search for discarded cans leads to a horrifying discovery: a body, brutally murdered and abandoned in the woods. The case falls to Deschutes County Detective Noelle Marshall, who finds herself navigating a community steeped in secrets, suspicion and distrust of outsiders --- especially law enforcement. Miles away, FBI Special Agent Max Rhodes investigates a different kind of darkness --- chatter about a violent uprising from a shadowy militia group preparing for war. The two cases seem worlds apart. But as Noelle digs into the murdered man’s past and Max closes in on the source of the terror plot, their paths begin to converge in a terrifying way. This was no random killing. It was a message.
Montlake | 9781662525803
PLAYING FOR KEEPS by Alexandria Bellefleur (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Poppy Peterson is thriving as the publicist of the NFL’s most promising quarterback (and her childhood best friend), Cash Curran. So she doesn’t appreciate when he makes an impulsive and public pass at America’s popstar darling, Lyric Adair. When Lyric’s notorious publicist, Rosaline Sinclair, reaches out, Poppy is ready to face her wrath but instead learns that Lyric is equally interested. As Cash and Lyric embark on their ill-advised whirlwind romance, Poppy and Rosaline are forced together, each determined to protect their own client from the other. Poppy is frustrated by Rosaline’s cool demeanor yet is determined to impress her. But no matter what she does, she can’t shake the feeling that Rosaline doesn’t like her. That is until one steamy night, when the two women contend with their unexpected feelings and begin a messy romance of their own.
Avon | 9780063258570
SAINT OF THE NARROWS STREET by William Boyle (Crime Fiction)
Gravesend, Brooklyn, 1986: Risa Franzone lives in a ground-floor apartment on Saint of the Narrows Street with her bad-seed husband, Saverio, and their eight-month-old baby, Fabrizio. On the night Risa's younger sister, Giulia, moves in to recover from a bad breakup, a fateful accident occurs: Risa strikes a drunk, erratic Sav with a cast-iron pan, killing him on the spot. The sisters are left with a choice: notify the authorities and make a case for self-defense, or bury the man's body and go on with their lives as best they can. In a moment of panic, they call upon Sav's childhood friend, Christopher "Chooch" Gardini, to help them. Over the vast expanse of the next 18 years, life goes on in the working-class Italian neighborhood of Gravesend as Risa, Giulia, Chooch and eventually Fabrizio grapple with what happened that night.
Soho Crime | 9781641297417
SAVE OUR SOULS: The True Story of a Castaway Family, Treachery, and Murder by Matthew Pearl (True Crime/History)
On December 10, 1887, a shark fishing boat disappeared. On board the doomed vessel were the Walkers --- the ship’s captain Frederick, his wife Elizabeth, their three teenage sons, and their dog --- along with the ship’s crew. The family had spotted a promising fishing location when a terrible storm arose, splitting their vessel in two and leaving those onboard adrift on the perilous sea. When the castaways awoke the next morning, they discovered they had been washed ashore --- on an island inhabited by a large but ragged and emaciated man who introduced himself as Hans. It turned out that Hans had a secret. And as the Walker family gradually came to learn more, what seemed like a stroke of luck to have the mysterious man’s assistance became something ominous, something darker.
Harper Perennial | 9780063338074
WOMEN OF GOOD FORTUNE by Sophie Wan (Fiction)
Bride-to-be Lulu is set to marry Shanghai’s most eligible bachelor, but her two best friends know the truth: she’s only marrying him to fix her family’s financial issues. The wedding will be the social event of the season, but the three women will be focused on one thing: the red envelopes filled with cash gifts, stored in an elaborate safe at the center of the ballroom. It's more than enough money to get Lulu out of the marriage and transform all their lives. With the help of a mysterious luxury goods counterfeiter and a snarky getaway driver, the women set in motion a brilliant scheme to lift all the red envelopes on the big day. But as their plot grows increasingly complicated and relationships are caught in the crossfire, they're forced to decide what they're willing to give up to get their way.
Park Row | 9781525830365
THE WOMEN ON PLATFORM TWO by Laura Anthony (Historical Fiction)
Dublin, 1969: Maura has just married Dr. Christy Davenport, and they look forward to growing their family. But as her husband’s vicious temper emerges, Maura worries that her home might never be safe for a child. Meanwhile, her close friend Bernie, a mother of three, learns the devastating news that if she conceives again, her health complications could prove fatal. Dublin, 2023: A close call makes Saoirse realize that she may never want to be a mother. Little does she know that only a few decades ago, a group of women made this option possible for her. And she’s about to meet one of them.
Gallery Books | 9781668047392
On Sale the Week of January 12th in Hardcover
January 13th
ANATOMY OF AN ALIBI by Ashley Elston (Psychological Thriller)
Camille Bayliss appears to have the picture-perfect life. She is married to hotshot lawyer Ben and is the daughter of a wealthy Louisiana family. Only nothing is as it seems: Camille believes that Ben has been hiding dirty secrets for years, but she can’t find proof because he tracks her every move. Aubrey Price has been haunted by the terrible night that changed her life a decade ago, and she’s convinced Benjamin Bayliss knows something about it. Living in a house full of criminals, Aubrey understands there’s more than one way to get to the truth --- and she may have found the best way in. Aubrey and Camille hatch a plan. For 12 hours, Aubrey will take Camille’s place. Camille will spy on Ben, and the two women will get the answers they desperately seek. Except the next morning, Ben is found murdered. Both women need an airtight alibi, but only one of them has it.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780593834459
THE BOOKBINDER'S SECRET by A. D. Bell (Historical Fiction)
Lilian ("Lily") Delaney, apprentice to a master bookbinder in Oxford in 1901, chafes at the confines of her life. She is trapped between the oppressiveness of her father’s failing bookshop and still being an apprentice in a man’s profession. But when she’s given a burned book during a visit to a collector, she finds a 50-year-old letter speaking of love, fortune and murder. Lily is pulled into the mystery of the young lovers, a story of forbidden love, and discovers there are more books and more hidden pages telling their story. Lilian becomes obsessed with the story, but she is not the only one looking for the remaining books. With sinister forces closing in, willing to do anything for the books, Lilian’s world begins to fall apart, and she must decide if uncovering the truth is worth the risk to her own life.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250412645
THE BRIARS by Sarah Crouch (Literary Thriller)
Desperate to escape a relationship gone bad, Annie Heston flees north to accept a job as a game warden in Lake Lumin, a picturesque town in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. A cougar has been spotted in the area. As Annie warns the community of the threat, she quickly discovers that not everyone in the tight-knit town is welcoming of outsiders, except for Daniel Barela, a reclusive carpenter who lives in the shadow of the mountain. They form an instant bond, though Annie soon comes to realize there is more to his past than meets the eye. When the body of a young woman is found in the briars that border Daniel’s property, the peace Annie has found in Lake Lumin shatters. As she assists the local sheriff with the investigation, Annie must rely on her wilderness training and intuition to find a murderer hiding in plain sight.
Atria Books | 9781668091883
DANDELION IS DEAD: A Novel About Life by Rosie Storey (Fiction)
When Poppy discovers unanswered messages from a charming stranger in her late sister's dating app, she makes an impulsive choice: She'll meet him, just once, on what would have been Dandelion's 40th birthday. Jake is ready to find something real --- and not least because his ex-wife's twentysomething boyfriend has moved into their old family home. When he meets the intriguing woman who calls herself Dandelion, their connection is undeniable, and he can think of little else. As their relationship deepens, Poppy finds herself trapped in a double life she never meant to create. Every moment with Jake feels genuine, electric and totally right --- despite the fact they're tangled in deceit. As the lines between grief and love blur, Poppy faces a choice: keep her sister's memory alive through her lies, or risk everything for a chance at her own happiness.
Berkley | 9780593954348
DARKROOMS by Rebecca Hannigan (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
On the night of the Summer Solstice in 1999, nine-year-old Roisin O’Halloran marched into the Hanging Woods, the mysterious copse that had inspired fear in decades of children in the small Irish town of Bannakilduf. She was never seen again. Twenty years later, two women are drawn together to discover the truth of what happened to Roisin: Roisin’s older sister, Deedee, a rookie cop who’s barely hanging on to the appearance of keeping it all together, and Roisin’s childhood best friend, Caitlin, a petty criminal who was the last person to see the young girl before she disappeared, now returned to her hometown after her mother’s death. Reluctantly brought together after decades of mistrust, Caitlin and Deedee must reckon with their shadowy pasts, the monsters that still haunt them, and the role they each may have played in Roisin’s disappearance.
William Morrow | 9780063419599
DETOUR by Jeff Rake and Rob Hart (Science Fiction/Thriller)
When Ryan Crane, a cop, spots a gunman emerging from an unmarked van, he leaps into action and unknowingly saves John Ward, a billionaire with presidential aspirations, from an assassination attempt. As thanks for Ryan’s quick thinking, Ward offers him the chance of a lifetime: to join a group of lucky civilians chosen to accompany three veteran astronauts on the first manned mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. As the ship is circling Titan, it is rocked by an unexplained series of explosions. The crew works together to get back on course, and they return to Earth as heroes. When the fanfare dies down, Ryan and his fellow astronauts notice that things are different. Some changes are good, but others are more disconcerting. Before the group can connect, mysterious figures start tailing them, and their communications are scrambled.
Random House Worlds | 9780593871379
THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Graduating magna cum laude from MIT is the happiest day of Billie Banks’ life, although her family is not part of it. Her mother, who always supported her, died when Billie was 17. Since then, her father has been slowly drinking himself to death on the family farm in Iowa, and she and her younger sister, Mickie, have grown even more estranged. Despite Billie’s attempts to look after Mickie following their mother’s death, her sister consistently treated her with cruelty. So when Mickie invites Billie to move in with her in Los Angeles, Billie is both wary and hopeful. Taking a leap of faith, she joins her sister on the West Coast. While Mickie lands a questionable modeling job and falls in with a fast crowd, Billie begins working at a pathology lab and starts dating a warm, supportive reporter at the Los Angeles Times. But then the siblings’ difficult history once again rises to the surface.
Delacorte Press | 9780593498859
DIVINE RUIN: A Sister Holiday Mystery by Margot Douaihy (Mystery)
It’s a steamy, restless end of the school year in New Orleans. Sister Holiday is finishing her music classes and preparing for her permanent vow ceremony, a pivotal moment in her journey of faith. But when one of her favorite students is found dead of a fentanyl overdose, Sister Holiday and her partner-in-PI, Magnolia Riveaux, are determined to track down the drug dealers. As students continue to fall prey to this sinister drug, Sister Holiday becomes more desperate to stop the epidemic --- while facing her own past with addiction, a demon that is never too far.
Gillian Flynn Books | 9781638931980
ENOUGH: Your Health, Your Weight, and What It's Like to Be Free by Ania M. Jastreboff, MD, PhD and Oprah Winfrey (Self-Help/Health & Fitness)
Obesity is a disease. It’s a question of biology, created by our bodies' need to survive and the environment we created and now live in. And it’s treatable. The new medications can lower our body fat set point (our brain’s “Enough Point”), so that we lose weight without battling biology with willpower. Dr. Ania Jastreboff describes strategies to optimize health and manage side effects, all with the reassuring perspective of decades of experience treating patients with obesity and leading studies with these medications. Oprah says she’s learned so much from Dr. Jastreboff about how, when it comes to weight, our bodies work with us --- and also against us. How each of our struggles are different and each of our choices in living with obesity also may be different.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781668217283
FIRE SWORD AND SEA by Vanessa Riley (Historical Fiction)
The Caribbean Sea, 1675. Jacquotte Delahaye is the mixed-race daughter of a wealthy tavern owner on the island of Tortuga. Instead of marriage, Jacquotte dreams of joining the seafarers and smugglers whose tall-masted ships cluster in the turquoise waters around Tortuga. She falls in love with a pirate, but when he returns to the sea, Jacquotte decides to make her own way. In Haiti she becomes Jacques, a dockworker, earning the respect of those around her while hiding her gender. She forms a deep bond with Bahati, an African-born woman who has escaped slavery and also disguises herself as a man. They join forces with Dirkje De Wulf, a fearless adventurer who also lives as a man at sea. For the next 20 years, Jacquotte raids the Caribbean, making enemies and amassing a fortune in stolen gold. Risking her life in one deadly skirmish after another, she begins to plot a war of liberation.
William Morrow | 9780063271043
FUNDAMENTALS OF BEING A GOOD GIRL by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone (Romantic Comedy)
When rookie lecturer Maddie Kowalczk lands at Astra University, she’s looking to start fresh after a messy breakup. But her first night in town takes a twist when she bumps into Bram Loe, who she (not so accidentally) stole a parking spot from earlier that day. The unspoken chemistry as he locks eyes with her while she gets a birthday spanking at a local bar is hotter than a Bunsen burner at full flame. Bram is looking for a break from his hectic life as an ecology professor and dad to rambunctious twins and a busy teenager. So when his college friend’s divorce celebration brings him face to face with the same delectable brat who stole his parking spot, he’s ready for a night to remember. But the next morning, Bram’s world turns upside down. His new nanny? None other than Maddie, who also happens to be the new poli-sci adjunct at the university where he teaches.
Avon | 9780063338371
HOLLOW by Celina Myers (Paranormal Romance/Horror)
As a kid, Mia Adair experienced a strange sort of fame within the paranormal community thanks to her inclusion in a book that revealed Mia’s ability to talk with the dead. But that was then, and Mia’s “gift” dried up once adolescence set in. These days, she feels like she’s nobody special. Until she dies in a tragic car crash and reawakens as a vampire. Forced to leave behind everything she knew, Mia must choose to live with one of two rival vampire families. The Bellamy and Sutton clans share a dark, complicated history that spans centuries. As Mia learns about their age-old traditions and extraordinary powers, along with their forbidden romances and betrayals, she’s drawn toward two very different loves. And as she feels her gift returning, more potent than ever before, Mia realizes she’ll need it to protect innocent lives --- and save the only family she has left.
Hanover Square Press | 9780778387855
INSIDE MAN: A Head Cases Novel by John McMahon (Mystery/Thriller)
FBI Agent Gardner Camden is an analytical genius with an affinity for puzzles. He and his squad of brilliant yet quirky agents make up the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit, the FBI’s hidden edge, brought in for cases that no one else can solve. PAR’s latest case involves a militia group stockpiling weapons. When their confidential informant in the case is killed, it quickly becomes clear that the militia did not kill him. As the squad looks into the evidence surrounding his murder, an unidentified man is caught on camera with their informant. This mystery man’s picture is connected to another case at the FBI, an unsolved series of murdered women, buried in the ground in north Florida. As PAR juggles an investigation into both the dead women and the militia, they enroll a new informant, only to find the case escalating in dangerous ways.
Minotaur Books | 9781250348326
IS THIS A CRY FOR HELP? by Emily Austin (Fiction/Dark Humor)
Darcy’s life turned out better than she ever could have imagined. She is a librarian at the local branch, while her wife, Joy, runs a book binding service. Between the two of them, there is no more room on their shelves with their ample book collections, various knickknacks and bobbles, and dried bouquets. Rounding out their ideal life is two cats and a sun-soaked house by the lake. But when Darcy receives the news that her ex-boyfriend, Ben, has passed away, she spirals into a pit of guilt and regret, resulting in a mental breakdown and medical leave from the library. When she returns to work, she is met by unrest in her community and protests surrounding intellectual freedom, resulting in a call for book bans and a second look at the branch’s upcoming DEI programs.
Atria Books | 9781668200230
IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU by Andrea Mara (Domestic Thriller)
You press send, and your message disappears. Full of secrets about your neighbors, it’s meant for your sister. But it doesn’t reach her --- it goes to the entire local community WhatsApp group instead. As rumor spreads like wildfire through the picture-perfect neighborhood, you convince yourself that people will move on, that this quickly will be forgotten. But then you receive the first death threat. The next day, a woman has been murdered. And what’s even more chilling is that she had the same address as you --- 26 Oakpark --- but in a different part of town. Did the killer get the wrong house? It won’t be long before you find out.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780593832097
JEAN by Madeleine Dunnigan (Historical Fiction)
Seventeen-year-old Jean, a troubled Jewish boy caught in the countercultural swirl of 1970s London, arrives at Compton Manor, a rural alternative boarding school for boys with “problems.” Dyslexic, antisocial and prone to violent outbursts, Jean has never made friends easily, and school has never been a place of safety or enjoyment. All of a sudden, he is befriended by Tom --- confident, charming, buoyed by years of good breeding and privilege --- and it seems as if Jean’s world might change. When things turn romantic, Jean is tipped into a heady, overwhelming infatuation. Now Jean skips class to venture into the woods, or sneaks across moonlit fields to see Tom, wondering if the relationship might offer a way out of a life marked by alienation. But what if the only true path to freedom is to disappear altogether?
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324105640
THE LAST OF EARTH by Deepa Anappara (Historical Fiction)
1869. Tibet is closed to Europeans, an infuriating obstruction for the rapidly expanding British Empire. In response, Britain begins training Indians to undertake illicit, dangerous surveying expeditions into Tibet. Balram is one such surveyor-spy, an Indian schoolteacher who has worked for the British, often alongside his dearest friend, Gyan. But Gyan went missing on his last expedition and is rumored to be imprisoned within Tibet. Desperate to rescue his friend, Balram agrees to guide an English captain on a foolhardy mission. The captain, disguised as a monk, wants to personally chart a river that runs through southern Tibet. Their path will cross fatefully with that of another Westerner in disguise, 50-year-old Katherine. Denied a fellowship in the all-male Royal Geographical Society in London, she intends to be the first European woman to reach Lhasa.
Random House | 9780593731352
LOST LAMBS by Madeline Cash (Fiction)
The Flynn family is coming undone. Catherine and Bud's open marriage has reached its breaking point as their daughters spiral in their own chaotic orbits: Abigail, the eldest, is dating a man in his 20s nicknamed War Crime Wes; Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist; the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone --- or something --- is monitoring the town’s citizens. Casting a shadow across their lives, and their small coastal town, is Paul Alabaster, a billionaire shipping magnate. Rumors of corruption circulate, but no one dares to dig too deep. No one except Harper, whose obsession with a mysterious shipping container sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy --- one that may just bring them closer together.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374619237
MURDER YOUR DARLINGS by Jenna Blum (Psychological Thriller/Romantic Suspense)
Simone “Sam” Vetiver is a mid-career novelist finishing a lukewarm publicity tour while facing a deadline for a new book on which she’s totally blocked. Recently divorced, Sam is worrying where her life is going when she receives glowing fan mail from stratospherically successful author William Corwyn, renowned for his female-centric novels. When William and Sam meet and his literary sympathy is as intense as their chemistry, both writers think they’ve found The One. But as in their own novels, things between Sam and William are not what they seem. William has multiple stalkers, including a scarily persistent one named The Rabbit. When writers turn up dead, including from The Darlings support group William runs, Sam has to ask: Is it The Rabbit --- William’s #1 Stalker? Another woman scorned? Can William be everything he seems?
Harper | 9780063448087
NOTHING RANDOM: Bennett Cerf and the Publishing House He Built by Gayle Feldman (Biography)
At midcentury, everyone knew Bennett Cerf: the witty, beloved, middle-aged panelist on “What’s My Line?” whom TV brought into America’s homes each week. But they didn’t know that the handsome, driven, paradoxical young man of the 1920s had vowed to become a great publisher and, a decade later, was. By then, he’d signed Eugene O’Neill, Gertrude Stein and William Faulkner, and had fought the landmark censorship case that gave Americans the freedom to read James Joyce’s ULYSSES. Using interviews with more than 200 individuals, deeply researched archival material, and letters from private collections not previously available, NOTHING RANDOM brings Bennett Cerf to vibrant life, drawing book lovers into his world, finally laying open the page on a quintessential American original.
Random House | 9781400060276
SCAVENGERS by Kathleen Boland (Fiction)
After being fired for taking an uncharacteristic risk at her commodities trading job, Bea Macon sublets her New York apartment and books a one-way ticket to stay with her mother, Christy. Usually the responsible one, Bea isn't about to admit exactly why she's suddenly decided to visit, but she isn’t the only one keeping secrets: Christy has a man. She has a map. She has…a username on a forum devoted to unearthing $1 million in buried treasure that an antiquities dealer claims to have hidden somewhere in the western U.S.? Bea is convinced this is just another one of her mother’s wild larks, an elaborate way to refuse to finally grow up. But Christy believes she’s onto something --- and she’s arranged a rendezvous in a rural town called Mercy with the guy she’s been obsessively trading theories with online to prove it.
Viking | 9780593834480
THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT written by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Martin Aitken (Fiction)
Kristian Hadeland, young and ambitious, has moved to London to study photography. He knows that he and his art are destined for more. His family never understood him, and his fellow photography students bore him. But when he meets Hans, an eccentric Dutch artist, the future he yearns for becomes possible --- as long as he is willing to sacrifice everything and stop at nothing. Twenty-four years later, Kristian sees his dreams come to fruition when a major retrospective of his work is held in New York City. As his past catches up to him, Kristian’s world begins to crumble. Success comes at a price, but is he prepared to pay it?
Penguin Press | 9780593832806
SHEER by Vanessa Lawrence (Fiction)
It’s 2015, and Maxine Thomas, the founder and creative director of the cult makeup company Reveal, has just been suspended by her own Board for a scandalous transgression. Housebound in her New York City apartment, where she awaits the verdict on her future, Max recounts her version of the events that have brought her to this moment. From her start as a precocious suburban child in the '80s to her decades as a workaholic visionary, Max proselytizes a sheer, dewy look --- cosmetics through a female gaze --- all while battling sexist investors, the whiplash of cultural change, and the mounting pressure to keep her sexuality a secret. But when Max’s story catches up to her present, she must contend with the cost of true transparency. Who has she become in her relentless pursuit of success? And what will happen if she loses it all?
Dutton | 9780593854860
STRANGERS: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden (Memoir)
In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha’s Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together --- building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whiskey sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of 20 years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume. In STRANGERS, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal.
The Dial Press | 9780593733318
A VOW IN VENGEANCE by Jaclyn Rodriguez (Fantasy/Romance)
Rune Ryker has nothing left to lose. Everything has been stolen by the Immortals --- her family, her home, her freedom. Each year, humans are forced to journey into the Immortal Realms, but 20-year-old Rune orchestrates her own selection, determined to find her family and destroy anyone who stands in her way. Rune is used to doing whatever it takes to survive, and now she must endure the Forge, a cutthroat college for the Immortal druids’ elusive tarot magic. When Rune’s magic reveals itself to be the rarest and most powerful, she must live with its only other wielder: Prince Draven. As arrogant as he is ruthlessly ambitious, he’s the last person she can trust. Rune’s abilities also draw the eyes of the most dangerous druids in the realms. Some want to use her. More want her dead. Draven offers to train her…for a price.
Slowburn | 9781638932543
WINTER: The Story of a Season by Val McDermid (Memoir/Essays)
Val McDermid has always had a soft spot for winter: the bitter clarity of a crisp cold day, the crunch of frost on fallen leaves, and the chance to be enveloped in big jumpers and thick socks. In WINTER, McDermid takes us on an adventure through the season, from the frosty streets of Edinburgh to the windblown Scottish coast, from Bonfire Night and Christmas to Burns Night and Up Helly Aa. Recalling in parallel memories from her own childhood --- of skating over frozen lakes and carving a “neep” (rutabaga) for Halloween to being taken to see her first real Christmas tree in the town square --- McDermid offers a wise and enchanting meditation on winter and its ever-changing, sometimes ephemeral, traditions.
Atlantic Monthly Press | 9780802167811
On Sale the Week of January 12th in Paperback
January 13th
BABYLONIA by Costanza Casati (Historical Fiction)
Babylonia across the centuries has become the embodiment of lust, excess and dissolute power that ruled Ancient Assyria. In this world you had to kill to be king. Or, in the case of Semiramis, an orphan raised on the outskirts of an empire: Queen. When she meets a young representative of the new Assyrian king, a prophecy unfolds before her, one that puts her in the center of a brutal world and in the hearts of two men --- one who happens to be king. Now a risen lady in a court of vipers, Semiramis becomes caught in the politics and viciousness of ancient Assyria. Instead of bartering with fate, Semiramis trains in war and diplomacy. And with each move, she rises in rank, embroiled in a game of power, desire, love and betrayal, until she can ascend to the only position that will ever keep her safe.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781464228209
BROOKE SHIELDS IS NOT ALLOWED TO GET OLD: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman by Brooke Shields with Rachel Bertsche (Memoir)
Brooke Shields has spent a lifetime in the public eye. Growing up as a child actor and model, her every feature was scrutinized, her every decision judged. Today she faces a different kind of scrutiny: that of being a “woman of a certain age.” And yet, for Brooke, the passage of time has brought freedom. At 60, she feels more comfortable in her skin, more empowered and confident than she did decades ago in those famous Calvin Kleins. Now, in BROOKE SHIELDS IS NOT ALLOWED TO GET OLD, she’s changing the narrative about women and aging. This is an era, she insists, when women are reclaiming agency and power, not receding into the shadows. With remarkable candor, Brooke paints a vibrant and optimistic picture of being a woman in the prime of her life, while dismantling the myths that have dimmed that perception for too long.
Flatiron Books | 9781250346971
CLEVER LITTLE THING by Helena Echlin (Psychological Thriller)
Charlotte’s daughter, Stella, is sensitive and brilliant, but a recent change in her behavior has alarmed her mother. Following the sudden death of Stella’s babysitter, Blanka, the once disruptive and anti-social child has become docile and agreeable. But what’s unsettling is that she has begun to mirror Blanka’s personality --- from Blanka’s repetitive phrases to her accent, to fierce cravings for Armenian meat stew after being raised a vegetarian. Charlotte is pregnant with her second child, and depleted and sick with the pregnancy. She is convinced that Blanka herself is somehow responsible for Stella’s transformation. But how could Blanka, dead, still be entwined in their lives? As Charlotte becomes increasingly obsessed, she is sure that only she can save her daughter…even though it’s soon clear that her husband believes this is all in Charlotte’s head.
Penguin Books | 9780593656099
THE DEATH MASK: An Eve Duncan Novel by Iris Johansen (Thriller)
World-renowned forensic sculptor Eve Duncan’s skills frequently make her a target. And in this epic adventure, they make her the first choice to create an Egyptian death mask for a nefarious potential client. But Eve cannot be bought, not for all the riches in a gold mine. Her would-be employer soon realizes that he must threaten the lives of those she holds dear to procure Eve’s services and force her to travel to Africa to mold the priceless mask. Eve knows that her husband, Joe Quinn, is out there somewhere, searching tirelessly for a way to help. Joe has back-up from Alex Dominic, a mercenary for hire, but nothing will make it easier to set his emotions aside in order to navigate the impenetrable jungle and mastermind a breathtaking escape.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538781241
FAMOUS LAST WORDS by Gillian McAllister (Domestic Thriller)
It is June 21st, the longest day of the year, and new mother Camilla’s life is about to change forever. After months of maternity leave, she will drop her infant daughter off at daycare for the first time and return to her job as a literary agent. Finally. But when she wakes, her husband Luke isn’t there, and in his place is a cryptic note. Then it starts. Breaking news: there's a hostage situation developing in London. The police arrive and tell her that Luke is involved. But he isn't a hostage. Her husband --- doting father, eternal optimist --- is the gunman. What she does next is crucial. Because only she knows what the note he left behind that morning says.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063338432
GOOD GIRL by Aria Aber (Fiction)
In Berlin’s artistic underground, where techno and drugs fill warehouses still pockmarked from the wars of the 20th century, 19-year-old Nila at last finds her tribe. Born in Germany to Afghan parents, raised in public housing graffitied with swastikas, drawn to philosophy, photography and sex, Nila has spent her adolescence disappointing her family while searching for her voice as a young woman and artist. Then in the haze of Berlin’s legendary nightlife, Nila meets Marlowe, an American writer whose fading literary celebrity opens her eyes to a life of personal and artistic freedom. But as Nila finds herself pulled further into Marlowe’s controlling orbit, ugly, barely submerged racial tensions begin to roil Germany --- and Nila’s family and community. After a year of running from her future, Nila stops to ask herself the most important question: Who does she want to be?
Hogarth | 9780593731130
HEAD CASES by John McMahon (Mystery/Thriller)
FBI Agent Gardner Camden is an analytical genius with an affinity for puzzles. He also has a blind spot on the human side of investigations, a blindness that sometimes even includes people in his own life, like his beloved seven-year-old daughter, Camila. Gardner and his squad of brilliant yet quirky agents make up the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit, the FBI’s hidden edge, brought in for cases that no one else can solve. When DNA links a murder victim to a serial killer long presumed dead, the team springs into action. A second victim establishes a pattern, and the murderer begins leaving a trail of clues and riddles especially for Gardner. And while the PAR team is usually relegated to working cold cases from behind a desk, the investigation puts them on the road and into the public eye, following in the footsteps of a killer.
Minotaur Books | 9781250348319
THE HUMAN SCALE by Lawrence Wright (Thriller)
Tony Malik, a half-Irish, half-Arab FBI agent based in New York, specializes in tracking money from drug and arms deals. His life takes a dramatic turn when a long-term relationship ends and his job hangs in the balance. Amid personal turmoil, Malik becomes intrigued by his Palestinian father's past. He decides to visit his ancestral homeland for his niece's wedding, accepting a seemingly simple FBI assignment along the way. Upon arrival in the West Bank, Malik's world is upended when the Israeli police chief is murdered. Initially a suspect, Malik's investigative prowess soon earns him a place in the Israeli investigation. At the heart of the story is Malik's complex relationship with Yossi, the hardline anti-Arab Israeli police officer leading the case.
Vintage | 9780593686249
I WAS A TEENAGE SLASHER by Stephen Graham Jones (Thriller/Horror)
1989, Lamesa, Texas. A small west Texas town driven by oil and cotton --- and a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. So it goes for 17-year-old Tolly Driver, a good kid with more potential than application, who is about to be cursed to kill for revenge. Here Stephen Graham Jones explores the Texas he grew up in, the unfairness of being on the outside, through the slasher horror he lives but from the perspective of the killer, Tolly, writing his own autobiography. Find yourself rooting for a killer in this summer teen movie of a novel gone full blood-curdling tragic.
S&S/Saga Press | 9781668022269
THE JACKAL’S MISTRESS by Chris Bohjalian (Historical Thriller)
Virginia, 1864. Libby Steadman’s husband has been away for so long that she can barely conjure his voice in her dreams. While she longs for him in the night, fearing him dead in a Union prison camp, her days are spent running a gristmill with her teenage niece, a hired hand and his wife. It’s an uneasy life in the Shenandoah Valley, and Libby awakens every morning expecting to see her land a battlefield. And then she finds a gravely injured Union officer left for dead in a neighbor’s house. Captain Jonathan Weybridge of the Vermont Brigade is her enemy --- but he’s also a human being, and Libby must make a terrible decision: Does she leave him to die alone? Or does she risk treason and try to nurse him back to health? And if she succeeds, does she try to secretly bring him across Union lines, where she might negotiate a trade for news of her own husband?
Vintage | 9780593315019
THE JFK CONSPIRACY: The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy — and Why It Failed by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch (History)
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is often ranked among Americans’ most well-liked presidents. Yet what most Americans don’t know is that JFK’s historic presidency almost ended before it began --- at the hands of a disgruntled sociopathic loner armed with dynamite. On December 11, 1960, shortly after Kennedy’s election and before his inauguration, a retired postal worker named Richard Pavlick waited in his car on a quiet street in Palm Beach, Florida. Pavlick knew the president-elect’s schedule. He knew when Kennedy would leave his house. He knew where Kennedy was going. From there, Pavlick had a simple plan --- one that could’ve changed the course of history.
Flatiron Books | 9781250790590
THE JILTED COUNTESS by Loretta Ellsworth (Historical Romance)
Paperback Original
The war stole Roza Meszaros’ dreams of becoming a ballerina and her aristocratic family’s fortune. But the penniless Hungarian countess’s fate takes a hopeful turn when she meets an American soldier named Joe, who promises to marry her and take her to the States. After two years of waiting to obtain the necessary money and paperwork to emigrate, Roza finally arrives in Minnesota --- and discovers that Joe has married someone else. Determined to stay in America, Roza turns to popular newspaper columnist Cedric Adams to help her find a suitable husband. Sharing Roza’s story and her picture, Adams makes a special plea to his military readers. The response is overwhelming. Roza ultimately chooses Finn Erickson, a former soldier and railroad locomotive engineer. But when she unexpectedly runs into her former fiancé, things quickly become complicated.
Harper Perennial | 9780063457140
THE LUST CRUSADE by Jo Segura (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Daniela Guiterrez has been in love with her brother’s best friend for as long as she can remember --- until he went missing a year ago during an archaeological expedition. But on a solo trip to Greece, the intrepid librarian discovers that Theo is very much alive. An expert in Ancient Greek archaeology, Dr. Theo Galanis has been abducted by artifact smugglers in search of a priceless gemstone --- the Eye of the Minotaur. When a little white lie spirals into his captors believing that Theo and Dani are engaged, they must utilize her research skills and his expertise to solve the centuries-old Minoan mystery. Now with less than six days to find the jewel, underground societies, mythological beings and pesky abductors are only half the battle. Because among the ancient ruins and temples they explore is an even bigger danger: falling in love for real.
Berkley | 9780593953280
THE NAYSAYERS by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke (Romance/Magical Realism)
Paperback Original
At Naysay Inc., Megan’s job is to whisper negative thoughts straight into the minds of clients in the Real World. It’s all in a day’s dirty work in Naysayland, the parallel reality where your negativity is manufactured and self-doubt is a commodity. But when she is assigned to sabotage a romance between lifestyle influencer Lily and author Jasper, Megan’s carefully constructed reality begins to unravel. The project teams her with Ben, the smug but cute whisperer in the next cubicle. As they work to tear down Lily and Jasper’s situationship, Megan and Ben are catching feelings for each other. As their empathy grows, and they start rooting for the relationship they’re tasked with destroying, dreaded HR is sniffing around. Now they’re facing a choice: keep crushing dreams for a paycheck, or risk everything for their own fairy tale.
Little A | 9781662535185
PEDRO THE VAST written by Simón López Trujillo, translated by Robin Myers (Fiction)
Paperback Original
In the disorienting, devastatingly tense world of Simón López Trujillo, a eucalyptus farm worker named Pedro starts coughing. Several of his coworkers die of a strange fungal disease, which has jumped to humans for the first time. But Pedro, miraculously, awakes. His survival fascinates a foreign mycologist, as well as a local priest, who dubs his mysterious mutterings to be the words of a prophet. Meanwhile, Pedro's kids are left to fend for themselves: the young Cata, whose creepy art projects are getting harder and harder to decipher, and Patricio, who wasn't ready to be thrust into the role of father. Their competing efforts to reckon with Pedro’s condition eventually meet in a horrifying climax that readers will never forget.
Algonquin Books | 9781643757100
PICKS AND SHOVELS: A Martin Hench Novel by Cory Doctorow
(Science Fiction/Thriller)
San Francisco, 1986. Martin Hench will invent the forensic accountant, but for now he's an MIT dropout odd-jobbing his way around a city still reeling from the invention of a revolutionary new technology that will change everything about crime forever. When Marty finds himself hired by Silicon Valley PC startup Fidelity Computing to investigate a group of disgruntled ex-employees who've founded a competitor startup, he quickly realizes he's on the wrong side. Marty ditches Fidelity Computing, utterly infatuated with the electric atmosphere of Computing Freedom. This group of brilliant young women found themselves exhausted by the predatory business practices of Fidelity Computing and set out to beat them at their own game. But this optimistic startup has no idea the depth of the evil they're seeking to unroot or the risks they run.
Tor Books | 9781250865915
PRIVATE ROME: A Private Novel by James Patterson and Adam Hamdy (Thriller)
Paperback Original
Jack Morgan, ex-Marine helicopter pilot and CIA agent, is in Italy to open the latest outpost of his international private investigation firm. Its wealthy client base demands maximum force and maximum discretion. But when a priest is murdered at the firm’s opening party, Morgan and Matteo Ricci --- a decorated former Rome police inspector, now Morgan’s newly appointed deputy --- come under intense scrutiny. As Morgan and Ricci work the case, they discover that eight priests have died, all under watch of the Swiss Guard and the Vatican Police. Private relies on the world’s most advanced forensic tools to make and break cases. This one rests on breaking the secret hold of the Holy See’s all-powerful, all-knowing inner circle.
Little, Brown and Company | 9781538758557
SWEET FURY by Sash Bischoff (Thriller)
Lila Crayne is America’s sweetheart: she’s generous and kind, gorgeous and magnetic. She and her fiancé, visionary filmmaker Kurt Royall, have settled into a stunning new West Village apartment and are set to begin filming their feminist adaptation of Fitzgerald’s TENDER IS THE NIGHT. To prepare for the leading role, Lila begins working with charming and accomplished therapist Jonah Gabriel to dig into the trauma of her past. Soon, Lila’s impeccably manicured life begins to unravel on the therapy couch --- and Jonah is just the man to pick up the pieces. But everyone has a secret, and no one is quite who they seem.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668043264
TARTUFO by Kira Jane Buxton (Fiction)
After nearly losing the election to a geriatric donkey, newly installed Mayor Delizia Miccuci can’t help but feel like the sun has finally set on the rural Italian village of Lazzarini Boscarino. All that’s left is Bar Celebrità, a rustic establishment where weary locals gather to quibble over decades-long disputes, submit their poor stomachs to bartender Giuseppina’s volcanic espresso, and wonder what will become of the place where together they’ve spent their entire lives. Little do the villagers know that local truffle hunter Giovanni Scarpazza has just happened upon something that could change everything. A truffle --- un tartufo, that is --- sits beneath the soil with the power to either be the greatest gift or the foulest curse the village has ever seen.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538770825
TOO SOON by Betty Shamieh (Fiction)
Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theater director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic --- which might garner international attention --- in the West Bank. Her mother, Naya, and grandmother, Zoya, hatch a plot to match her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz, since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theater designer, seem destined for disaster. Upon learning that one of them is living on borrowed time, the three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781668046555
THE UNDEAD: A Novel of Modern Russia by Svetlana Satchkova (Fiction)
Paperback Original
When Maya, a young Russian filmmaker, makes a low-budget horror movie with her friends, it seems like a promising start to a career in indie film. Little does she know that her jokey lo-fi film will soon attract the attention of the autocratic censors at the highest levels of the Russian police state. What follows is a propulsive narrative of an artist being crushed by state power, and the choices that one makes within a system where free expression is literally illegal.
Melville House | 9781685892197
VANTAGE POINT by Sara Sligar (Domestic Thriller)
The old-money Wieland family has it all --- wealth, status, power. They’re also famously cursed. Clara and her brother, Teddy, grew up on a small island in Maine in the shadow of their parents’ tragic deaths, haunted by rumors and paparazzi. Fourteen years later, they’ve mostly put their turbulent past to rest. Teddy has married Clara’s best friend, Jess, and the three of them have moved back home to take over the sprawling, remote family mansion known as Vantage Point. Then Teddy decides to run for the Senate --- an unnerving prospect made much worse when intimate videos of Clara are leaked online. The most frightening part is that she doesn't remember filming any of them. Everyone thinks Clara is losing her grasp on reality. But she knows the videos are only the beginning. Years ago, the curse destroyed her parents. Now it’s coming for her.
Picador | 9781250397515
WHO I ALWAYS WAS: A Memoir by Theresa Okokon (Memoir/Essays)
When Theresa Okokon was nine, her father traveled to his hometown in Nigeria to attend his mother’s funeral…and never returned. His mysterious death shattered Theresa as her family’s world unraveled. Now a storyteller and television cohost, Okokon sets out to explore the ripple effects of that profound loss and the way heartache shapes our sense of self and of the world --- for the rest of our lives. Using her grief and her father’s death as a backdrop, Okokon delves deeply into intrinsic themes of Blackness, African spirituality, family, abandonment, belonging, and the seemingly endless, unrequited romantic pursuits of a Black woman who came of age as a Black girl in the Wisconsin suburbs where she was --- in many ways --- always an anomaly.
Atria Books | 9781668008966
WITCHCRAFT FOR WAYWARD GIRLS by Grady Hendrix (Gothic Thriller/Horror)
They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption and forget any of it ever happened. Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970; she’s pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. Everything they eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely.
Berkley | 9780593548998
WITNESS 8 by Steve Cavanagh (Psychological Thriller)
A former resident of the ultra-elite Manhattan upper class, Ruby Johnson now works as a maid in the type of houses she used to live in. Unassuming, she sees everyone’s dirty secrets from the inside of their beautiful, renovated brownstones. But when Ruby witnesses a murder, she has wicked plans in mind that don’t involve telling the authorities the truth. Eddie Flynn, a streetwise ex-con-artist-turned-defense attorney, is the only lawyer in New York City willing to take on hopeless cases. And none is more hopeless than John Jackson’s --- the gun that killed his neighbor was found, with Jackson’s DNA, in his own home. Flynn and his unconventional team will need to use every trick they know to keep an innocent man from being locked up. But to save his client’s life, Eddie must first protect his own, as the scariest organized criminals in the city are out for his head.
Atria Books | 9781668049389
WOMAN DOWN by Colleen Hoover (Romantic Suspense)
Paperback Original
A viral backlash over her latest film adaptation forced Petra Rose to take a hiatus, resulting in missed deadlines and an overdue mortgage. Branded a fraud and fame-hungry opportunist, she learned the hard way what happens when the internet turns on you. And she’s been uninspired to write ever since. Now, with her next suspense novel outlined and savings nearly gone, she retreats to a secluded lakeside cabin, hoping to find inspiration. Then he shows up. Detective Nathaniel Saint arrives with disturbing news, his presence igniting a creativity in her she thought long since burned out. Petra’s words return in a rush, and her fictional cop character begins to mirror the very real cop who’s becoming her muse. But when Saint starts taking his role in her career a little too seriously, Petra is forced to confront the chaos she created.
Montlake | 9781542025614
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