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January 19, 2016 |
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Here you will find books releasing the weeks of January 18th and January 25th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review on the site that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar. This week, we are calling attention to THREE Women's Fiction Author Spotlights and Contests. Be sure to enter for your chance to win some terrific titles and give us your feedback on them.
Know a friend or family member who you think may enjoy this newsletter? Then please forward it on to them!
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This Week's Bonus News: THREE Women's Fiction Author Spotlights & Contests
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We have 25 copies of MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON by Elizabeth Strout to give away to readers who would like to read the book, which is now in stores, and share their comments on it. To enter, please fill out this form by Thursday, January 28th at noon ET.
MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON by Elizabeth Strout (Fiction)
Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, and her love for her two daughters.
-Click here to read more in our Women's Fiction Author Spotlight and enter the contest.
We have 100 copies of THE READERS OF BROKEN WHEEL RECOMMEND by Katarina Bivald to give away to readers who would like to read the book, which is now in stores, and share their comments on it. To enter, please fill out this form by Thursday, January 28th at noon ET.
THE READERS OF BROKEN WHEEL RECOMMEND by Katarina Bivald (Fiction)
Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her book-loving pen pal. When she arrives, however, she finds Amy's funeral guests just leaving. The residents of Broken Wheel are happy to look after their bewildered visitor --- not much else to do in a small town that's almost beyond repair. They just never imagined that she'd start a bookstore. Or that books could bring them together --- and change everything.
-Click here to read more in our Women's Fiction Author Spotlight and enter the contest.
We have 25 copies of STARS OVER SUNSET BOULEVARD by Susan Meissner to give away to readers who would like to read the book, which is now in stores, and share their comments on it. To enter, please fill out this form by Thursday, January 28th at noon ET.
STARS OVER SUNSET BOULEVARD by Susan Meissner (Fiction)
Los Angeles, Present Day. When a hat worn by Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind ends up in Christine McAllister's vintage clothing boutique by mistake, her efforts to return it to its owner take her on a journey more enchanting than any classic movie. Los Angeles, 1938. Violet Mayfield goes to Hollywood after her dream of having a family falls apart. There, she meets enigmatic Audrey Duvall, a once-rising film star. Their adventures together among Hollywood's glitterati enthrall Violet...until each woman's deepest desires collide.
-Click here to read more in our Women's Fiction Author Spotlight and enter the contest.
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On Sale the Week of January 18th in Hardcover
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January 19th
BLUE by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Ginny Carter was once a rising star in TV news, married to a top anchorman, with a three-year-old son and a full and happy life in Beverly Hills --- until her whole world dissolved in a single instant on the freeway two days before Christmas. In the aftermath, she pieces her life back together and tries to find meaning in her existence as a human rights worker in the worst areas around the globe. Then, on the anniversary of the fateful accident --- and wrestling with the lure of death herself --- she meets a boy who will cause her life to change forever yet again.
Delacorte Press * 9780345531056
EVEN DOGS IN THE WILD by Ian Rankin (Mystery)
Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is investigating the death of a senior government prosecutor, David Minton, while Malcolm Fox is helping a surveillance team track a notorious Glasgow crime family. John Rebus gets a call from his old nemesis, "Big Ger" Cafferty; someone just fired a bullet through his front window, and the only man he trusts with his life is Rebus. As the cases collide, it's up to Clarke, Fox and Rebus to connect the dots and save their unlikely ally, whose past harbors a shocking secret that implicates Minton's friends in an unspeakable crime.
Little, Brown and Company * 9780316342513
THE FORGOTTEN ROOM by Karen White, Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig (Historical Fiction)
When the critically wounded Captain Cooper Ravenal is brought to a private hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in 1945, young Dr. Kate Schuyler is drawn into a complex mystery that connects three generations of women in her family to a single extraordinary room in a Gilded Age mansion. Who is the woman in Captain Ravenel's portrait miniature who looks so much like Kate? And why is she wearing the ruby pendant handed down to Kate by her mother?
NAL * 9780451474629
THE MAN WITHOUT A SHADOW by Joyce Carol Oates (Psychological Suspense)
In 1965, neuroscientist Margot Sharpe meets Elihu Hoopes --- the “man without a shadow” --- whose devastated memory, unable to store new experiences or to retrieve the old, will make him the most famous and studied amnesiac in history. Over the course of the next 30 years, Margot herself becomes famous for her experiments with E. H. --- and inadvertently falls in love with him, despite the ethical ambiguity of their affair. Though he remains forever elusive and mysterious to her, she is haunted by mysteries of the past.
Ecco * 9780062416094
ORPHAN X by Gregg Hurwitz (Thriller)
Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He's also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as part of the off-the-books black box Orphan program, designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence assets --- i.e. assassins. He was Orphan X. Evan broke with the program, using everything he learned to disappear. Now, however, someone is on his tail and determined to eliminate him.
Minotaur Books * 9781250067845
THE PORTABLE VEBLEN by Elizabeth McKenzie (Fiction/Humor)
THE PORTABLE VEBLEN is set in and around Palo Alto, amid the culture clash of new money and old (antiestablishment) values, and with the specter of our current wars looming across. A young couple on the brink of marriage --- the charming Veblen and her fiancé Paul, a brilliant neurologist --- find their engagement in danger of collapse. Along the way they weather everything from each other’s dysfunctional families, to the attentions of a seductive pharmaceutical heiress, to an intimate tête-à-tête with a very charismatic squirrel.
Penguin Press * 9781594206856
RIVER ROAD by Carol Goodman (Psychological Thriller)
Nan Lewis, a creative writing professor, hits a deer while driving home from a faculty holiday party. But when she gets out of her car to look for it, the deer is nowhere to be found. The next morning, Nan is informed that one of her students was killed in a hit-and-run the night before. And because of the damage to her car, Nan is a suspect. In the days following the accident, Nan finds herself shunned by the same community that rallied around her when her own daughter was killed in an eerily similar accident. When she begins to find disturbing tokens that recall the death of her daughter, Nan suspects that the two accidents are connected.
Touchstone * 9781501109904
THE ROAD TO LITTLE DRIBBLING: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson (Travel/Memoir)
In 1995, Bill Bryson got into his car and took a weeks-long farewell motoring trip about England before moving his family back to the United States. The book about that trip, NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND, is uproarious and endlessly endearing. Two decades later, he set out again to rediscover that country, and the result is THE ROAD TO LITTLE DRIBBLING. Nothing is funnier than Bill Bryson on the road, so prepare for the total joy and multiple episodes of unseemly laughter.
Doubleday * 9780385539289
A SONG FOR THE BROKENHEARTED: A Breen and Tozer Mystery by William Shaw (Mystery)
After being wounded in the line of duty, Detective Sergeant Breen recuperates on the family farm of his former partner, Helen Tozer. To fill the long and empty hours, he reviews the open case file for a murder that has haunted Helen for years: that of her younger sister. Breen discovers that the teenage victim had been having a secret affair with James Fletchet, the son of an affluent local landowner. Breen and Tozer return to London's Criminal Investigation Division, where their questions about Fletchet's past are met with resistance and suspicion.
Mulholland Books * 9780316246910
THE STARGAZER'S SISTER by Carrie Brown (Historical Fiction)
William Herschel, the great composer and astronomer, rescues his sister, Caroline, from a life of drudgery in Germany and brings her to England and a world of music making and stargazing. Lina, as Caroline is known, serves as William’s assistant and the captain of his exhilaratingly busy household. William is generous, wise and charismatic, an obsessive genius whom Lina adores and serves with the fervency of a beloved wife. But when William suddenly announces that he will be married, Lina watches her world collapse.
Pantheon * 9780804197939
THEIR PROMISED LAND: My Grandparents in Love and War by Ian Buruma (Social History)
During the almost six years England was at war with Nazi Germany, Winifred and Bernard Schlesinger, Ian Buruma’s grandparents, and the film director John Schlesinger's parents, were, like so many others, thoroughly sundered from each other. Their only recourse was to write letters back and forth. And write they did, often every day. Now, in a labor of love that is also a powerful act of artistic creation, Buruma has woven his own voice in with theirs to provide the context and counterpoint necessary to bring to life not just a remarkable marriage, but a class and an age.
Penguin Press * 9781594204388
THE THINGS WE KEEP by Sally Hepworth (Fiction)
Anna Forster, in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease at only 38 years old, resides in Rosalind House, an assisted living facility. There, she meets fellow resident Luke, and a relationship develops between the two. When Eve Bennett is suddenly thrust into the role of single mother, she finds herself putting her culinary training to use at Rosalind House. When she meets Anna and Luke, she is moved by the bond the pair has forged. But when a tragic incident leads Anna's and Luke's families to separate them, Eve finds herself questioning what she is willing to risk to help them.
St. Martin's Press * 9781250051905
THOMAS MURPHY by Roger Rosenblatt (Fiction)
Trying his best to weasel out of an appointment with the neurologist his only child, Máire, has cornered him into, the poet Thomas Murphy contemplates his sunset years. Máire worries that Murph is losing his memory, while Murph wonders what to do with the rest of his life. Into his world comes the lovely Sarah, a blind woman less than half his age, who sees into his heart as he sees into hers. Brought together under the most unlikely circumstance, Murph and Sarah begin in friendship and wind up in impossible possible love.
Ecco * 9780062394569
WARRIORS OF THE STORM by Bernard Cornwell (Historical Fiction/Adventure)
A fragile peace reigns in Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia. King Alfred’s son, Edward, and formidable daughter, Aethelflaed, rule the kingdoms. But all around the restless Northmen, eyeing the rich lands and wealthy churches, are mounting raids. Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the kingdoms’ greatest warrior, controls northern Mercia from the strongly fortified city of Chester. But forces are gathering against him. Northmen allied to the Irish, led by the fierce warrior Ragnall Ivarson, are soon joined by the Northumbrians, and their strength could prove overwhelming.
Harper * 9780062250940
WHAT BELONGS TO YOU by Garth Greenwell (Fiction)
On an unseasonably warm autumn day, an American teacher enters a public bathroom beneath Sofia’s National Palace of Culture. There he meets Mitko, a charismatic young hustler, and pays him for sex. He returns to Mitko again and again over the next few months and finds himself ensnared in a relationship in which lust leads to mutual predation, and tenderness can transform into violence. As he struggles to reconcile his longing with the anguish it creates, he’s forced to grapple with his own fraught history.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux * 9780374288228
THE WINTER GIRL by Matt Marinovich (Psychological Thriller)
Scott and his wife, Elise, have come to the Hamptons to be with Elise’s terminally ill father. Every night at precisely 11, the lights in their neighbor's bedroom turn off. There's something about that light that Scott can't let go of. So one day he breaks in --- and feels a jolt of excitement he hasn't felt in a long time. Soon he enlists his wife as a partner in crime. Their one simple transgression quickly sends husband and wife down a deliriously wicked spiral of bad decisions, infidelities, escalating violence and absolutely shocking revelations.
Doubleday * 9780385539975 |
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On Sale the Week of January 18th in Paperback
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January 18th
GATEWAY TO FREEDOM: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad by Eric Foner (History)
Building on fresh evidence --- including a detailed record of slave escapes secretly kept by Sydney Howard Gay, one of the key organizers in New York --- Eric Foner elevates the underground railroad from folklore to sweeping history. It eventually took a civil war to destroy American slavery, but here at last is the story of the courageous effort to fight slavery by "practical abolition" --- person by person, family by family.
W. W. Norton & Company * 9780393352191
January 19th
THE BOOK OF LOVE: Improvisations on a Crazy Little Thing by Roger Rosenblatt (Love & Romance)
In THE BOOK OF LOVE, Roger Rosenblatt explores love in all its moods and variations --- romantic love, courtship, battle, mystery, marriage, heartbreak, fury, confusion, melancholy, delirium, ecstasy; love of family, of friends; love of home, of country, of work, of writing, of solitude, of art; love of nature; love of life itself. Rosenblatt is on a quest to illuminate this elusive and essential emotion, to define this thing called love.
Ecco * 9780062349439
BROOKLYN ON FIRE: A Mary Handley Mystery by Lawrence H. Levy (Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
After closing a case with the Brooklyn Police Department, Mary Handley is determined to become an official detective in her own right. And when Emily Worsham shows up at her new office --- convinced that her uncle John Worsham was murdered and desperate for answers --- Mary’s second assignment begins. As she investigates the curious circumstances surrounding John’s death, Mary soon finds herself entangled in a high-stakes family scandal, a series of interconnected murders, political corruption, untrustworthy sources, and an unexpected romance with a central member of New York's elite.
Broadway Books * 9780553418941
CANARY by Duane Swierczynski (Thriller)
Honors student Sarie Holland is busted by the local police while doing a favor for her boyfriend. Unwilling to betray him but desperate to avoid destroying her future, she has no choice but to become a "CI" --- a confidential informant. Sarie turns out to be the perfect CI but soon enough is hunted by crooked cops and killers alike with nothing to save her --- except what she's learned during her harrowing weeks as an informant. Which is bad news for the police and the underworld.
Mulholland Books * 9780316403191
DELICIOUS FOODS by James Hannaham (Fiction)
Darlene, once an exemplary wife and a loving mother to her young son, Eddie, finds herself devastated by the unforeseen death of her husband. Unable to cope with her grief, she turns to drugs and quickly forms an addiction. One day she disappears without a trace. Unbeknownst to 11-year-old Eddie, now left behind in a panic-stricken search for her, Darlene has been lured away with false promises of a good job and a rosy life. A shady company named Delicious Foods shuttles her to a remote farm, where she is held captive.
Back Bay Books * 9780316284936
A FIFTY-YEAR SILENCE: Love, War, and a Ruined House in France by Miranda Richmond Mouillot (Memoir/History)
A FIFTY-YEAR-SILENCE is the deeply involving account of Miranda Richmond Mouillot's journey to find out what happened between her grandmother, a physician, and her grandfather, an interpreter at the Nuremberg Trials, who refused to utter his wife's name aloud after she left him. To discover the roots of their embittered and entrenched silence, Miranda moves to their stone house; immerses herself in letters, archival materials and secondary sources; and teases stories out of her reticent grandparents.
Broadway Books * 9780804140669
FROG written by Mo Yan, translated by Howard Goldblatt (Fiction)
FROG opens with a playwright nicknamed Tadpole, who plans to write about his aunt. In her youth, Gugu --- the beautiful daughter of a famous doctor and staunch Communist --- is revered for her skill as a midwife. But when her lover defects, Gugu’s own loyalty to the Party is questioned. She decides to prove her allegiance by strictly enforcing the one-child policy, keeping tabs on the number of children in the village, and performing abortions on women as many as eight months pregnant.
Penguin Books * 9780143128380
LOVE WITHOUT LIMITS: A Remarkable Story of True Love Conquering All by Nick Vujicic, with Kanae Vujicic (Memoir/Personal Growth)
Even though he was born without arms or legs, Nick Vujicic created a “ridiculously good life.” But after dating disappointments and a failed relationship, he reached his mid-20s worried that he would never find a woman to love him and share his life. Then he met Kanae and everything changed. In LOVE WITHOUT LIMITS, Nick and Kanae tell how they improbably found each other, fell in love, and then fought to overcome skepticism from others about their relationship.
WaterBrook Press * 9781601426185
ORHAN’S INHERITANCE by Aline Ohanesian (Fiction)
When Orhan’s brilliant and eccentric grandfather is found dead in a vat of dye, Orhan inherits his decades-old business. Kemal has left the family estate to a stranger thousands of miles away, an aging woman in a retirement home in Los Angeles. Intent on righting this injustice, Orhan boards a plane to LA. There, he will unearth the story that 87-year-old Seda so closely guards --- the story that, if told, has the power to undo the legacy upon which Orhan’s family is built, the story that could unravel Orhan’s own future.
Algonquin Books * 9781616205300
PRODIGAL SON by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Twin boys grow up in the same family and in the same town. Dramatically different, they become bitter enemies, even as children. One leaves his peaceful hometown, but when all else fails, the prodigal son returns 20 years later. The reunion of brothers, sweet and healing at first, exposes shattering revelations of good and evil. Danielle Steel tells a story of suspicion, betrayal and a life-and-death struggle for survival. Which twin is good and which is evil, as the tables turn again and again?
Dell * 9780440245186
RADIANT ANGEL: A John Corey Novel by Nelson DeMille (Thriller/Adventure)
After a showdown with the notorious Yemeni terrorist known as The Panther, John Corey has left the Anti-Terrorist Task Force and returned home to New York City, taking a job with the Diplomatic Surveillance Group. Although Corey's new assignment with the DSG --- surveilling Russian diplomats working at the U.N. Mission --- is thought to be "a quiet end," he is more than happy to be out from under the thumb of the FBI and free from the bureaucracy of office life. But Corey realizes something the U.S. government doesn't: the all-too-real threat of a newly resurgent Russia.
Grand Central Publishing * 9780446699624
THE READERS OF BROKEN WHEEL RECOMMEND by Katarina Bivald (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her book-loving pen pal. When she arrives, however, she finds Amy's funeral guests just leaving. The residents of Broken Wheel are happy to look after their bewildered visitor --- not much else to do in a small town that's almost beyond repair. They just never imagined that she'd start a bookstore. Or that books could bring them together --- and change everything.
Sourcebooks Landmark * 9781492623441 |
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On Sale the Week of January 25th in Hardcover
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January 25th
THE ILLEGAL by Lawrence Hill (Fiction)
All Keita has ever wanted to do is to run. Running means respect and wealth at home. His native Zantoroland turns out the fastest marathoners on earth. But after his journalist father is killed for his outspoken political views, Keita must flee to the wealthy nation of Freedom State --- a country engaged in a crackdown on all undocumented people. There, Keita becomes a part of the new underground and learns what it means to live as an illegal. As the authorities seek to arrest Keita, he strives to elude capture and ransom his sister, who has been kidnapped.
W. W. Norton & Company * 9780393070590
NYPD RED 4 by James Patterson and Marshall Karp (Thriller)
Detective Zach Jordan and his partner, Kylie MacDonald, are brilliant and tireless investigators who will stop at nothing to catch a criminal. When a glitzy movie premiere is the scene of a shocking murder and high-stakes robbery, NYPD Red gets the call. Traversing the city's highs and lows, from celebrity penthouses to the depths of Manhattan's criminal underworld, Zach and Kylie have to find a cold-blooded killer before he strikes again.
Little, Brown and Company * 9780316407069
January 26th
1916: A Global History by Keith Jeffery (History)
So much of the literature on the First World War centers on the trench warfare of the Western Front, and these were essential battlegrounds. But the war was in fact truly a global conflict, and by focusing on a sequence of events in 1916 across many continents, historian Keith Jeffery's work casts new light on the Great War.
Bloomsbury USA * 9781620402696
1924: The Year That Made Hitler by Peter Ross Range (History)
Before Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, there was 1924. This was the year of Hitler's final transformation into the self-proclaimed savior and infallible leader who would interpret and distort Germany's historical traditions to support his vision for the Third Reich. Everything that would come --- the rallies and riots, the single-minded deployment of a catastrophically evil idea --- crystallized in one defining year. Peter Ross Range depicts the stories and scenes of a year vital to understanding the man and the brutality he wrought in a war that changed the world forever.
Little, Brown and Company * 9780316384032
ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY by Charlie Jane Anders (Paranormal/Urban Fantasy)
Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn't expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during middle school. After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one's peers and families. But now they're both adults, and the planet is falling apart around them. Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them, something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together --- to either save the world or plunge it into a new dark age.
Tor Books * 9780765379948
THE BANDS OF MOURNING: A Mistborn Novel by Brandon Sanderson (Fantasy)
The Bands of Mourning are the mythical metalminds owned by the Lord Ruler, said to grant anyone who wears them the powers that the Lord Ruler had at his command. Hardly anyone thinks they really exist. A kandra researcher has returned to Elendel with images that seem to depict the Bands, as well as writings in a language that no one can read. Waxillium Ladrian is recruited to travel south to the city of New Seran to investigate. Along the way, he discovers hints that point to the true goals of his uncle Edwarn and the shadowy organization known as The Set.
Tor Books * 9780765378576
COCONUT COWBOY by Tim Dorsey (Mystery/Humor)
Serge A. Storms devises his wildest plan yet: finish the journey begun by his freewheeling heroes, Captain America and Billy, tragically cut short by some shotgun-wielding rednecks. Setting a course for the Florida panhandle, Captain Serge --- with Coleman literally riding shotgun --- mounts his classic motorcycle and hits the highway in search of the real America. In a state where criminal politicians are more common than gators, Serge and Coleman discover one particular speed-trap locale so aggressively inept at corruption that investigators are baffled where to start.
William Morrow * 9780062240040
THE EX by Alafair Burke (Thriller)
Widower Jack Harris has resisted the dating scene ever since the shooting of his wife by a 15-year-old boy three years ago. An early morning run along the Hudson River changes that when he spots a woman in last night’s party dress, enjoying a champagne picnic alone and reading his favorite novel. Eager to help Jack find love again, his best friend posts a message on a popular website after he mentions the encounter. Days later, that same beautiful stranger responds and invites Jack to meet her in person at the waterfront. That’s when his world falls apart.
Harper * 9780062390486
GIRL THROUGH GLASS by Sari Wilson (Fiction)
In the summer of 1977, 11-year-old Mira is an aspiring ballerina whose mentor is 47-year-old Maurice DuPont. As she ascends higher in the ballet world, her relationship with Maurice intensifies, sparking unexpected desires that will upend both their lives. In the present day, Kate, a professor of dance, embarks on a risky affair with a student that threatens to obliterate her career and capsize the new life she has painstakingly created for her reinvented self. When she receives a letter from a man she has long thought dead, Kate is hurled back into the dramas of a past she thought she had left behind.
Harper * 9780062326270
THE GOLDEN SON by Shilpi Somaya Gowda (Fiction)
Anil Patel, the golden son, carries the weight of tradition and his family’s expectations when he leaves his tiny Indian village to begin a medical residency in Dallas, Texas. When his father dies, however, Anil becomes the de facto head of the Patel household and inherits the mantle of arbiter for all of the village’s disputes. Back home in India, Anil’s closest childhood friend, Leena, has trouble adapting to her demanding new husband and relatives. Though Anil and Leena struggle to come to terms with their identities thousands of miles apart, their lives eventually intersect once more --- changing them both and the people they love forever.
William Morrow * 9780062391452
THE LOVERS: Afghanistan's Romeo and Juliet, the True Story of How They Defied Their Families and Escaped an Honor Killing by Rod Nordland (Biography)
Zakia and Ali were from different tribes, but they grew up on neighboring farms in the hinterlands of Afghanistan. By the time they were young teenagers, Zakia and Ali had fallen in love. Defying their families, sectarian differences, cultural conventions, and Afghan civil and Islamic law, they ran away together only to live under constant threat from Zakia’s large and vengeful family, who have vowed to kill her to restore the family’s honor. They are still in hiding. Rod Nordland not only has chronicled their plight, but has also shepherded them from danger.
Ecco * 9780062378828
NOAH'S WIFE by Lindsay Starck (Fiction)
When young minister Noah and his dutiful wife arrive at their new post in the hills, they find a gray and wet little town where it's been raining for as long as anyone can remember. Noah's wife is determined to help her husband revive this soggy congregation, but soon finds her efforts thwarted by her eccentric new neighbors. As the river water swallows up the houses, the telephone poles and the single highway out of town, Noah, his wife and the townspeople must confront not only the savage forces of nature but also the fragile ties that bind them to one another.
G.P. Putnam's Sons * 9780399159237
THE PLAGUE OF THIEVES AFFAIR: A Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini (Historical Mystery)
John Quincannon has been hired by the owner of the Golden State brewery to investigate the ''accidental'' death of the head brewmaster, who drowned in a vat of beer. John is certain he can catch his quarry, but his partner, Sabina Carpenter, is not sure she even wants to catch hers: Sherlock Holmes or, rather, the madman claiming his identity. A Mr. Roland W. Fairchild of Chicago claims the man is his first cousin, who is due to inherit a $3 million estate --- if Sabina can find him and if he can be proved sane.
Forge Books * 9780765381040
THE POISON ARTIST by Jonathan Moore (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Dr. Caleb Maddox is a San Francisco toxicologist studying the chemical effects of pain. After a bruising breakup with his girlfriend, he is drinking whiskey at the speakeasy House of Shields when a hauntingly seductive woman appears by his side. Emmeline whispers to Caleb over absinthe, gets his blood on her fingers, and then brushes his ear with her lips as she says goodbye. He must find her. As his search begins, Caleb becomes entangled in a serial murder investigation.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt * 9780544520561
RIVER OF INK by Paul M.M. Cooper (Historical Fiction)
In 13th-century Sri Lanka, Asanka, poet to the king, lives a life of luxury, enjoying courtly life and a sweet, furtive love affair with a palace servant, a village girl he is teaching to write. But when Magha, a prince from the mainland, usurps the throne, Asanka's role as court poet dramatically alters. Although a cruel and calculating king, Magha --- a lover of poetry --- commissions Asanka to translate a holy Sanskrit epic into the Tamil language spoken by his recently acquired subjects. The poem will be an olive branch --- a symbol of unity between the two cultures. But in different languages, in different contexts, meaning can become slippery.
Bloomsbury USA * 9781632860705
THE SWANS OF FIFTH AVENUE by Melanie Benjamin (Historical Fiction)
Of all the glamorous stars of New York high society, none blazes brighter than Babe Paley. Her flawless face regularly graces the pages of Vogue, and she is celebrated and adored for her ineffable style and exquisite taste. But beneath this elegantly composed exterior dwells a passionate woman who is desperately longing for true love and connection. Enter Truman Capote. This diminutive golden-haired genius with a larger-than-life personality explodes onto the scene, setting Babe and her circle of Swans aflutter.
Delacorte Press * 9780345528698
WHERE IT HURTS by Reed Farrel Coleman (Hard-boiled Noir Mystery)
Following the loss of his family, Gus Murphy has settled into a mindless, soulless routine that barely keeps his grief at arm’s length. But his comfortable waking trance comes to an end when ex-con Tommy Delcamino asks him for help. Four months earlier, Tommy’s son T.J.’s battered body was discovered in a wooded lot, yet the Suffolk County PD doesn’t seem interested in pursuing the killers. It’s a dangerous favor Gus has taken on as he claws his way back to take a place among the living, while searching through the sewers for a killer.
G.P. Putnam's Sons * 9780399173035
WHERE MY HEART USED TO BEAT by Sebastian Faulks (Psychological Suspense)
Robert Hendricks, an established psychiatrist and author, has so bottled up memories of his own wartime past that he is nearly sunk into a life of depression. Out of the blue, a baffling letter arrives from Dr. Alexander Pereira, a neurologist and a World War I veteran who claims to be an admirer of Robert's published work. The letter brings Robert to the older man's home on a rocky, secluded island off the south of France, and into tempests of memories. As Robert's recollections pour forth, he's unsure whether they will lead to psychosis or redemption. But Dr. Pereira knows.
Henry Holt and Co. * 9780805097320 |
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On Sale the Week of January 25th in Paperback
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January 25th
THE AMERICAN LOVER by Rose Tremain (Fiction/Short Stories)
Trapped in a London apartment, Beth remembers a transgressive love affair in 1960s Paris. The most famous writer in Russia takes his last breath in a stationmaster’s cottage, miles from Moscow. A young woman who is about to marry a rich aristocrat instead begins a torrid relationship with a construction worker. A father, finally free of his daughter’s demands, embarks on a long swim from his Canadian lakeside retreat. And in the grandest house of all, Danni the Polish housekeeper catches the eye of an enigmatic visitor, Daphne du Maurier.
W. W. Norton & Company * 9780393352443
DARK MONEY: A Jack Bryant Thriller by Larry D. Thompson (Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
Available for a free download for five days, starting January 25th
Millionaire plaintiff lawyer Jackson Bryant receives a call from his old army buddy, Walt Frazier. Walt needs his assistance in evaluating security for Texas Governor Rob Lardner at a Halloween costume fundraiser thrown by one of the nation's richest Republican billionaires. Miriam Van Zandt is the best marksman among The Alamo Defenders, an anti-government militia group in West Texas. She attends the fundraiser dressed as a cat burglar, wounds the governor, and murders the host's brother, another Republican billionaire. Jack is appointed special prosecutor and must call on the Texas DPS SWAT team to track Van Zandt and attack The Alamo Defenders' compound in a lonely part of West Texas.
Story Merchant Books * 9780996990806
January 26th
BAND OF GIANTS: The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America's Independence by Jack Kelly (History)
BAND OF GIANTS brings to life the founders who fought for our independence in the Revolutionary War. Here, Jack Kelly captures the fraught condition of the war --- the bitterly divided populace, the lack of supplies, the repeated setbacks on the battlefield, and the appalling physical hardships. That these inexperienced warriors could take on and defeat the superpower of the day was one of the most remarkable feats in world history.
St. Martin’s Griffin * 9781466893283
BLOOD INFERNAL: The Order of the Sanguines Series by James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell (Thriller/Adventure)
With THE BLOOD GOSPEL, James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell combined science, myth and religion to introduce a breathtaking world where miracles hold new meaning and the fight for good over evil is far more complicated than we ever dreamed. And now, in this epic conclusion to the Order of the Sanguines trilogy, they take us to the very pit of Hell itself, making us peer into the abyss and face our greatest fears, to answer the ultimate question: What price will we pay for true salvation?
William Morrow * 9780062343277
THE DEVIL’S BAG MAN by Adam Mansbach (Supernatural Thriller/Adventure)
Locked in a Mexican jail for a crime he didn’t commit, Jess Galvan made a devil’s bargain to escape and make it back home. He’s now trapped in his own personal hell, his mind and body inhabited by the soul of Cucuy, a fearsome, 500-year-old Aztec priest and major crime kingpin determined to bring about hell on earth. Estranged from his daughter, Sherry, and now his own body, Galvan’s every moment is a battle to keep the evil priest at bay. He must find a way to exorcise his inner demon and save the world from annihilation.
Harper Voyager * 9780062199690
DEVOTED IN DEATH by J. D. Robb (Thriller)
Ella-Loo and her boyfriend, Darryl, hit the road now that Darryl’s sentence has been served. When their car breaks down, they make plans to take someone else’s. Then things get messy, and they wind up killing someone --- an experience that stokes a fierce, wild desire in Ella-Loo. A desire for Darryl. And a desire to kill again. With her husband, Roarke, at her side, Lieutenant Eve Dallas has every intention of hunting these two down and giving them what they truly deserve.
Berkley * 9780425279144
DOUBLE FUDGE BROWNIE MURDER: A Hannah Swensen Mystery with Recipes! by Joanne Fluke (Mystery)
Hannah Swensen is nervous about the upcoming trial for her involvement in a tragic accident. She's eager to clear her name once and for all, but her troubles only double when she finds the judge bludgeoned to death with his own gavel --- and Hannah is the number one suspect. Now on trial in the court of public opinion, she sets out in search of the culprit and discovers that the judge made more than a few enemies during his career.
Kensington * 9780758280411
FIVE by Ursula Archer (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
A woman’s corpse is discovered in a meadow, and a strange combination of letters and numbers has been tattooed on the soles of her feet. Detective inspector Beatrice Kaspary from the local murder squad quickly identifies the digits as map coordinates. These lead to a series of gruesome discoveries as she and her colleague, Florin Wenninger, embark on a bloody trail --- a modern-day scavenger hunt using GPS navigation devices to locate hidden caches.
Minotaur Books * 9781250081490
GLOW by Ned Beauman (Fiction)
Twenty-two-year-old Raf spends his days walking Rose, a bull terrier who guards the transmitters for a pirate radio station, and his nights at raves in warehouses and launderettes. When his friend Theo vanishes without a trace, Raf’s efforts to find him will lead straight into the heart of a global corporate conspiracy. Meanwhile, he’s falling in love with a beautiful young woman he met at one of those raves, but he’ll soon discover that there is far more to Cherish than meets the eye.
Vintage * 9780804172165
GOD HELP THE CHILD by Toni Morrison (Fiction)
At the center of Toni Morrison’s first novel to be set in our current moment is a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There’s also Booker, the man Bride loves but loses to anger; Rain, the mysterious white child with whom she crosses paths; and Bride’s mother, Sweetness, who takes a lifetime to come to understand that “what you do to children matters. And they might never forget.”
Vintage * 9780307740922
HUCK FINN’S AMERICA: Mark Twain and the Era That Shaped His Masterpiece by Andrew Levy (Literary Criticism)
Award-winning biographer Andrew Levy shows how modern readers have been misunderstanding HUCKLEBERRY FINN for decades. Mark Twain’s masterpiece is often discussed either as a carefree adventure story for children or a serious novel about race relations, yet Levy argues it is neither. Instead, HUCK FINN was written at a time when Americans were nervous about youth violence and “uncivilized” bad boys, and a debate was raging about education, popular culture and responsible parenting --- casting Huck’s now-celebrated “freedom” in a very different and very modern light.
Simon & Schuster * 9781439186978
LIFE OR DEATH by Michael Robotham (Thriller)
Audie Palmer has spent 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to a robbery in which four people died and seven million dollars went missing. During that time he has suffered repeated beatings, stabbings and threats by inmates and guards, all desperate to answer the same question: where's the money? On the day before Audie is due to be released, he suddenly vanishes. Now everybody is searching for him, but Audie isn't running to save his own life --- he's trying to save someone else's.
Mulholland Books * 9780316252034
THE LONG UTOPIA by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (Science Fiction)
Human society continues to evolve on Datum Earth as the spread of humanity progresses throughout the many Earths beyond. Lobsang suffers a breakdown and attempts to live a “normal” life on one of the millions of Long Earth worlds. His old friend, Joshua, searches for his father and discovers a heretofore unknown family history. But an alien planet has somehow become “entangled” with one of the Long Earth worlds. As Lobsang and Joshua learn, its voracious denizens intend to capture, conquer and colonize the new universe they have inadvertently discovered.
Harper * 9780062297341
MICHELLE OBAMA: A Life by Peter Slevin (Biography)
With disciplined reporting and a storyteller’s eye for revealing detail, Peter Slevin follows Michelle Obama to the White House from her working-class childhood on Chicago’s largely segregated South Side. He illuminates her tribulations at Princeton University and Harvard Law School during the racially charged 1980s and the dilemmas she faced in Chicago while building a high-powered career, raising a family, and helping a young community organizer named Barack Obama become president of the United States.
Vintage * 9780307949318
THE MIME ORDER by Samantha Shannon (Urban Fantasy)
Paige Mahoney is now the face of a rebellion, having broken out of the clairvoyant prison camp. She’s also the most wanted person in Scion-controlled London at the moment, with her photo repeatedly plastered on screens across the city. The underworld might be able to protect her from Scion, but she isn’t content to hide. She wants to expose the Rephaim, the immortal inhabitants of the Netherworld, for what they are. It seems that Paige isn’t ready to give back her acquired title of rebellion leader just yet.
Bloomsbury USA * 9781620408957
MUNICH AIRPORT by Greg Baxter (Fiction)
In Greg Baxter’s second novel, his follow-up to 2013’s THE APARTMENT, an unnamed narrator waits in Munich’s fog-bound airport with his father and a US consul to transport the corpse of the expatriate narrator’s sister to America. She died alone of starvation in Berlin three weeks earlier. The book consists of flashbacks that paint a portrait of one family’s struggles and of a young man trying to come to terms with decisions he has made.
Twelve * 9781455557967
MY AMERICAN DUCHESS by Eloisa James (Historical Romance)
Paperback Original
The arrogant Duke of Trent intends to marry a well-bred Englishwoman. The last woman he would ever consider marrying is the adventuresome Merry Pelford, an American heiress who has infamously jilted two fiancés. But after one provocative encounter with the captivating Merry, Trent desires her more than any woman he has ever met. He is determined to have her as his wife, no matter what it takes. The problem is, Merry is already betrothed, and the former runaway bride has vowed to make it all the way to the altar.
Avon * 9780062389435
PERFECT TOUCH by Elizabeth Lowell (Romantic Suspense)
An art dealer and owner of her own design studio, Sara Medina travels the world to find the ideal artwork for her clients. Jay Vermillion recently inherited Vermillion Sky, a working ranch near Wyoming’s breathtaking Grand Teton Mountains --- and the estates of the rich and restless. When Jay hires Sara to handle his late father’s artwork, it’s love at first sight --- a mutually inconvenient attraction that is soon complicated by a double murder at the edge of the ranch and a potential betrayal even closer to home.
Avon * 9780062328366
PLATINUM DOLL by Anne Girard (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
It's the Roaring Twenties, and 17-year-old Harlean Carpenter McGrew has run off to Beverly Hills. There, she has everything a girl could want, except an outlet for her talent. But everything changes when a dare pushes her to embrace her true ambition --- to be an actress on the silver screen. With her timeless beauty and striking shade of platinum-blond hair, Harlean becomes Jean Harlow. And as she's thrust into the limelight, Jean learns that this new world of opportunity comes with its own set of burdens.
Mira * 9780778318668
A REUNION OF GHOSTS by Judith Claire Mitchell (Fiction)
In the waning days of 1999, the last of the Alters --- three damaged but wisecracking sisters --- decide it’s time to close the circle of the family curse by taking their own lives. But first, Lady, Vee and Delph must explain the origins of that curse and how it has manifested throughout the preceding generations. Unspooling threads of history, personal memory and family lore, they weave a mesmerizing account that stretches back a century to their great-grandfather, a brilliant scientist whose professional triumph became the terrible legacy that defines them.
Harper Perennial * 9780062355898
ROBERT LUDLUM’S THE JANSON EQUATION by Douglas Corleone (Thriller/Adventure)
Prominent U.S. Senator James Wyckoff hires former government agents-turned-private security consultants Janson and Kincaid to locate his teenage son, Gregory. Gregory's girlfriend, Lynell, has been found strangled in a Seoul hotel, and Gregory has fled the city to avoid being arrested for the crime. But Senator Wyckoff insists that his son is innocent. When Janson and Kincaid realize they're being hunted by an assassin, they suspect that this crime --- and the cover-up --- were orchestrated by a shadowy unit of the U.S. State Department as part of a larger plot to provoke violence between North and South Korea.
Grand Central Publishing * 9781455577668
RUSSIAN TATTOO: A Memoir by Elena Gorokhova (Memoir)
In A MOUNTAIN OF CRUMBS, Elena Gorokhova describes coming of age behind the Iron Curtain and leaving her mother and her Motherland for a new life in the United States. Now, in RUSSIAN TATTOO, Elena learns that the journey of an immigrant is filled with everyday mistakes, small humiliations and a loss of dignity. But through perseverance and resilience, she gradually adapts to her new country.
Simon & Schuster * 9781451689839
SATIN ISLAND by Tom McCarthy (Fiction)
U., a “corporate anthropologist,” is tasked with writing the Great Report, an all-encompassing ethnographic document that would sum up our era. Yet at every turn, he feels himself overwhelmed by the ubiquity of data, lost in buffer zones, wandering through crowds of apparitions, willing them to coalesce into symbols that can be translated into some kind of account that makes sense. As he begins to wonder if the Great Report might remain a shapeless, oozing plasma, his senses are startled awake by a dream of an apocalyptic cityscape.
Vintage * 9780307739629
SINGLE, CAREFREE, MELLOW: Stories by Katherine Heiny (Fiction/Short Stories)
For the commitment-averse women in the 11 stories of SINGLE, CAREFREE, MELLOW, falling in love is never easy and always inconvenient. Maya is in love with both her boyfriend and her boss. Sadie’s lover calls her as he drives to meet his wife at marriage counseling. Nina is more worried that the Presbyterian minister living above her garage will hear her kids swearing than that he will find out she’s sleeping with her running partner. These ladies grapple with love amidst everything from unwelcome houseguests to disastrous birthday parties.
Vintage * 9780804173155
SPEAKING IN BONES by Kathy Reichs (Thriller)
Hazel “Lucky” Strike comes to Temperance Brennan with a tape recording of an unknown girl being held prisoner and terrorized. Strike is convinced the voice is that of 18-year-old Cora Teague, who went missing more than three years earlier. She is also certain that the teenager’s remains are gathering dust in Brennan’s lab. While local legends of eerie nocturnal phenomena and sinister satanic cults abound, it’s a zealous and secretive religious sect that has Brennan spooked and struggling to separate the saints from the sinners.
Bantam * 9780345544063
THE SPRING AT MOSS HILL: A Swift River Valley Novel by Carla Neggers (Romance)
Paperback Original
Kylie Shaw has found a home and a quiet place to work as an illustrator of children's books in little Knights Bridge, Massachusetts. Private investigator Russ Colton is in Knights Bridge to keep his client and friend, eccentric Hollywood costume designer Daphne Stewart, out of trouble. Kylie and Russ have more in common than they or anyone else would ever expect. They're both looking for a place to belong, and if they're able to let go of past mistakes and learn to trust again, they might just find what they need in Knights Bridge…and each other.
Mira * 9780778318675
A TOUCH OF STARDUST by Kate Alcott (Historical Fiction)
Julie Crawford left Fort Wayne, Indiana with dreams of being a Hollywood screenwriter. Unfortunately, her new life is off to a rocky start. Fired by the notoriously demanding director of Gone with the Wind, she’s lucky to be rescued by Carole Lombard, whose scandalous affair with the still-married Clark Gable is just heating up. While Rhett and Scarlett --- and Lombard and Gable --- make movie history, Julie is caught up in a whirlwind of outsized personalities and overheated behind-the-scenes drama...not to mention a budding romance of her own.
Anchor * 9780804171984
TWELVE DAYS: A John Wells Novel by Alex Berenson (Thriller)
John Wells, with his former CIA bosses Ellis Shafer and Vinnie Duto, has uncovered a staggering plot, a false-flag operation to convince the President to attack Iran. But they have no hard evidence. Now the President has set a deadline for Iran to give up its nuclear program, and the mullahs in Tehran --- furious and frightened --- have responded with a deadly terrorist attack. Wells, Shafer and Duto know they have only 12 days to find the proof they need.
Putnam * 9780515155822
THE ULTIMATUM: A Jeremy Fisk Novel by Dick Wolf (Thriller)
When a leaker named Verlyn Merritt releases sensitive documents from the NYPD Intelligence Division to WikiLeaks, some of the deadliest criminals have access to Detective Jeremy Fisk’s unlisted home address. Within hours, three mysterious assailants arrive at his apartment. Who are they, and why do they want Fisk dead? Authorities quickly identify and arrest Merritt. But the case takes a sinister twist when an anonymous third party makes threats if authorities don’t release Merritt immediately.
William Morrow * 9780062286864
THE UNRAVELING OF MERCY LOUIS by Keija Parssinen (Psychological Suspense)
Mercy Louis, the star of the championship girls’ basketball team, seems destined for greatness, but the road out of town is riddled with obstacles. At the periphery of her world floats team manager Illa Stark, who is spellbound by Mercy’s beauty and talent. But a note discovered in Mercy’s gym locker reveals that her life may not be as perfect as it appears. The last day of school brings the disturbing discovery, and as summer unfolds and the police investigate, every girl becomes a suspect.
Harper Perennial * 9780062319104
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