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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of June 5th and June 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 Women's Fiction Author Spotlight of THE LIGHT IN SUMMER: A Butternut Lake Novel by Mary McNear, which releases on June 20th. Twenty-five readers will win a copy of the book and share their comments on it. The deadline for your entries is Thursday, June 15th at noon ET.
Also, please keep in mind our Father's Day contest. From now through Monday, June 19th at noon ET, readers can enter to win one of our five prize packages, which includes all 12 of our featured titles. Click here to read more about the books and enter the contest.
And, finally, we are spotlighting WITH YOU ALWAYS, the first book in Jody Hedlund's historical romance series, Orphan Train, which is now available. You can download the prequel e-novella to this series for free here.
For those of you who are doing online shopping, if you use the store links below, Bookreporter.com gets a small affiliate fee on your purchases. We would appreciate your considering this.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound
Now Available: WITH YOU ALWAYS by Jody Hedlund
WITH YOU ALWAYS: Orphan Train, Book 1 by Jody Hedlund (Historical Romance)
When an 1850s financial crisis leaves orphan Elise Neumann and her sisters destitute, Elise seizes their only hope: to find work as a seamstress out west through the Children’s Aid Society and send money home. On the rails, she meets privileged Thornton Quincy, who suddenly must work for his inheritance. From different worlds, can these two help each other find their way?
“Hedlund has effectively captured the hopelessness, volatility, and uncertainty of the times in the first book in her Orphan Train series, a heart-stirring story of survival and love filled with memorable characters.” —Booklist starred review
“Hedlund’s Cinderella story, shedding light on the hardships women faced in both the East Coast cities and the developing West in the 1850s, is a pleasant romance with plenty of twists to keep readers engaged until the final page.” —Publishers Weekly
- Click here to read more about the book.
Click here to download the prequel e-novella to this series for free!
This Week's Bonus News:
Our Women's Fiction Author Spotlight & Contest for
THE LIGHT IN SUMMER by Mary McNear
We have 25 copies of THE LIGHT IN SUMMER: A Butternut Lake Novel by Mary McNear --- a heartwarming story about a woman coming to terms with her past as she learns to have faith in herself and that happiness doesn’t always mean perfection --- to give away to readers who would like to read the book, which releases on June 20th, and share their comments on it. To enter, please fill out this form by Thursday, June 15th at noon ET.
THE LIGHT IN SUMMER: A Butternut Lake Novel by Mary McNear (Fiction)
It’s summertime on Butternut Lake, where the heat of noon is soothed by the cool breezes of the evening, where the pace grows slower, and sometimes, just sometimes, the summer light makes everything clearer...
For the lovely Billy Harper, Butternut Lake is the place she feels most at home, even though lately she feels the only one listening to her is Murphy, her faithful Labrador Retriever. Her teenage son, Luke, has gone from precious to precocious practically overnight. Her friends are wrapped up in their own lives, and Luke’s father, Wesley, disappeared before his son was even born. No wonder she prefers to spend time with a good book, especially ones where everything ends in perfection.
But Billy is about to learn that anything is possible during the heady days of summer. Coming to terms with her past --- the death of her father, the arrival of Cal Cooper, a complicated man with a definite interest in Billy, even the return of Wesley ---will force her to have a little bit of faith in herself and others...and realize that happiness doesn’t always mean perfection.
Click here to read more in our Women's Fiction Author Spotlight
and enter the contest.
On Sale the Week of June 5th in Hardcover
June 6th
THE ANSWERS by Catherine Lacey (Fiction)
Mary is a young woman living in New York City and struggling to cope with a body that has betrayed her. All but paralyzed with pain, she seeks relief from a New Agey treatment called Pneuma Adaptive Kinesthesia, PAKing for short. And, remarkably, it works. But PAKing is prohibitively expensive and Mary is dead broke. So she scours Craigslist for fast-cash jobs and finds herself applying for the “Girlfriend Experiment,” the brainchild of an eccentric actor, Kurt Sky, who is determined to find the perfect relationship --- even if that means paying different women to fulfill distinctive roles. Mary is hired as the “Emotional Girlfriend” and pulled into Kurt’s ego-driven and messy attempt at human connection.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374100261
BEFORE WE WERE YOURS by Lisa Wingate (Fiction)
Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family's Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge --- until strangers arrive in force, and the children are thrown into an orphanage. Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all. But when she returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family's long-hidden history, on a path that ultimately will lead either to devastation or to redemption.
Ballantine Books | 9780425284681
BLACKOUT by Marc Elsberg (Thriller)
When the lights go out one night, no one panics. Not yet. The lights always come back on soon, don't they? Surely it's a glitch, a storm, a malfunction. But something seems strange about this night. Across Europe, controllers watch in disbelief as electrical grids collapse. There is no power, anywhere. A former hacker and activist, Piero investigates a possible cause of the disaster. The authorities don't believe him, and he soon becomes a prime suspect himself. With the United States now also at risk, Piero goes on the run with Lauren Shannon, a young American CNN reporter based in Paris, desperate to uncover who is behind the attacks. After all, the power doesn't just keep the lights on --- it keeps us alive.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781492654414
BLOOD FOR WINE: A Cal Claxton Oregon Mystery by Warren C. Easley (Mystery)
When former prosecutor Cal Claxton’s neighbor, Jim Kavanaugh, the owner and gifted vintner of an up-and-coming winery, is accused of murdering his wife, his freedom --- and the grape harvest --- is suddenly in jeopardy along with his reputation, and his business begins to slide. No gentleman farmer, this puts the rugged winemaker's property, his only financial asset, in play. When a blackmail plot is hatched against the owner of adjacent land, it begins to look like a brutal game of real-life Monopoly is underway. Cal agrees to defend Jim, a good friend, which pulls him reluctantly into the blackmail plot and might well make him the next target of a vicious, cunning killer.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464208386
THE BRIGHT HOUR: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs (Memoir)
Nina Riggs was just 37 years old when initially diagnosed with breast cancer. Within a year, the mother of two sons received the devastating news that her cancer was terminal. How does one live each day, “unattached to outcome”? How does one approach the moments, big and small, with both love and honesty? Exploring motherhood, marriage, friendship and memory, even as she wrestles with the legacy of her great-great-great grandfather, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nina Riggs’ memoir continues the urgent conversation that Paul Kalanithi began in WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR. She asks: What makes a meaningful life when one has limited time?
Simon & Schuster | 9781501169359
CAMINO ISLAND by John Grisham (Thriller)
A gang of thieves stage a daring heist from a secure vault deep below Princeton University’s Firestone Library. Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in the black market of stolen books and manuscripts. Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer’s block. A generous offer of money convinces her to go undercover and infiltrate Cable’s circle of literary friends, ideally getting close enough to him to learn his secrets. But eventually Mercer learns far too much, and there’s trouble in paradise.
Doubleday | 9780385543026
A DARK SO DEADLY by Stuart MacBride (Mystery/Thriller)
Welcome to the Misfit Mob. It’s where Police Scotland dumps the officers it can’t get rid of, but wants to: the outcasts, the troublemakers, the compromised. Officers like DC Callum MacGregor, lumbered with all the boring go-nowhere cases. So when an ancient mummy turns up at the Oldcastle tip, it’s his job to find out which museum it’s been stolen from. But then Callum uncovers links between his ancient corpse and three missing young men, and life starts to get a lot more interesting. No one expects the Misfit Mob to succeed, but right now they’re the only thing standing between the killer’s victims and a slow, lingering death. The question is, can they prove everyone wrong before he strikes again?
HarperCollins | 9780007494682
DEFECTORS by Joseph Kanon (Historical Thriller)
In 1949, Frank Weeks of the newly formed CIA was exposed as a Communist spy and fled the country to vanish behind the Iron Curtain. Now, 12 years later, he has written his memoirs and has asked his brother Simon, a publisher, to come to Moscow to edit the manuscript. At first Frank is still Frank --- the same charm, the same jokes, the same bond of affection that transcends ideology. Then Simon begins to glimpse another Frank, still capable of treachery, still actively working for “the service.” He finds himself dragged into the middle of Frank’s new scheme, caught between the KGB and the CIA in a fatal cat and mouse game that only one of the brothers is likely to survive.
Atria Books | 9781501121395
DIS MEM BER and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates (Mystery/Short Stories)
At the heart of this collection are girls and women confronting the danger around them, and the danger hidden inside their turbulent selves. In the title story, a precocious 11-year-old named Jill is in thrall to an older male relative, the mysterious, attractive black sheep of the family. Without telling her parents, Jill climbs into his sky-blue Chevy to be driven to an uncertain, and unforgettable, fate. In “The Drowned Girl,” a university transfer student becomes increasingly obsessed with the drowning/murder of another female student, as her own sense of self begins to deteriorate. And in the final story, “Welcome to Friendly Skies,” a trusting group of bird-watchers is borne to a remote part of the globe, to a harrowing fate.
Mysterious Press | 9780802126528
DO NOT BECOME ALARMED by Maile Meloy (Thriller)
When Liv and Nora decide to take their husbands and children on a holiday cruise, everyone is thrilled. But when they all go ashore for an adventure in Central America, a series of minor misfortunes and miscalculations leads the families farther from the safety of the ship. One minute the children are there, and the next they’re gone. The disintegration of the world the families knew --- told from the perspectives of both the adults and the children --- is riveting and revealing. The parents, accustomed to security and control, turn on each other and blame themselves, while the seemingly helpless children discover resources they never knew they possessed.
Riverhead Books | 9780735216525
EVERYBODY'S SON by Thrity Umrigar (Fiction)
During a terrible heat wave in 1991, 10-year-old Anton has been locked in an apartment in the projects alone for seven days. Hot, hungry and desperate, he shatters a window and climbs out. Juanita, his mother, is discovered in a crack house less than three blocks away, nearly unconscious and half-naked. Though the bond between mother and son is extremely strong, Anton is placed with child services while Juanita goes to jail. Desperate to have a child in the house again after the tragic death of his teenage son, Judge David Coleman uses his power and connections to keep his new foster son, Anton, with him and his wife --- actions that will have devastating consequences in the years to come.
Harper | 9780062442246
FLY ME by Daniel Riley (Historical Fiction)
The year is 1972, and the beaches of Los Angeles are the center of the world. Dropping into the embers of the drug and surf scene is Suzy Whitman, who has tossed her newly minted Vassar degree aside to follow her older sister into open skies and the borderless adventures of stewardessing for Grand Pacific Airlines. In Sela del Mar, California --- a hedonistic beach town in the shadow of LAX --- Suzy skateboards, suntans, and flies daily and nightly across the country. Motivated by a temporary escape from her past, and a new taste for danger and belonging, Suzy falls into a drug-trafficking scheme that clashes perilously with the skyjacking epidemic of the day.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316362139
GIVE UP THE DEAD: A Jay Porter Novel by Joe Clifford (Mystery/Thriller)
Three years have passed since estate-clearing handyman Jay Porter almost lost his life following a devastating accident on the thin ice of Echo Lake. The traumatic, uncredited events cost him his wife and his son, and left him with a permanent leg injury. Jay is just putting his life back together when a mysterious stranger stops by with an offer too good to be true: a large sum of cash in exchange for finding a missing teenage boy who may have been abducted by a radical recovery group. Skeptical of gift horses and weary of reenlisting in the local drug war, Jay passes on the offer. The next day his boss is found beaten and left for dead, painting Jay the main suspect. As clues begin to tie the two cases together, Jay finds himself back on the job and back in the line of fire.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608092048
GOING DEEP: John Philip Holland and the Invention of the Attack Submarine by Lawrence Goldstone (History)
Like Henry Ford and the Wright brothers, John Philip Holland was completely self-taught, a brilliant man raised in humble circumstances, earning his living as a schoolteacher and choirmaster. But all the while he was obsessed with creating a machine that could successfully cruise beneath the waves. His struggle to unlock the mystery behind controlled undersea navigation would take three decades. But his indestructible belief in himself and his ideas led him to finally succeed where so many others had failed. GOING DEEP is a vivid chronicle of the fierce battles not only under the water, but also in the back rooms of Wall Street and the committee rooms of Congress.
Pegasus Books | 9781681774299
GRIEF COTTAGE by Gail Godwin (Fiction)
After his mother's death, 11-year-old Marcus moves in with his great aunt, a reclusive painter with a haunted past. Aunt Charlotte points out a ruined cottage, telling Marcus she had visited it regularly after she'd moved there 30 years ago because it matched the ruin of her own life. The islanders call it "Grief Cottage," because a boy and his parents disappeared from it during a hurricane 50 years before. While Aunt Charlotte is in her studio painting, Marcus visits the cottage, building up his courage by coming ever closer, even after the ghost of the boy who died seems to reveal himself. He courts the ghost boy, never certain whether the ghost is friendly or follows some sinister agenda.
Bloomsbury USA | 9781632867049
THE GYPSY MOTH SUMMER by Julia Fierro (Fiction)
It is the summer of 1992, and a gypsy moth invasion blankets Avalon Island. It is also the summer Leslie Day Marshall --- the only daughter of Avalon's most prominent family --- returns with her husband, a botanist, and their children to live in "The Castle," the island's grandest estate. Leslie's husband Jules is African-American, their children are bi-racial, and islanders from both sides of the tracks form fast and dangerous opinions about the new arrivals. Maddie Pencott LaRosa falls in love with Brooks, their son, and that love feels as urgent to Maddie as the questions about the new and deadly cancers showing up across the island. Could Grudder Aviation, the pride of the island --- and its patriarch, the Colonel --- be to blame?
St. Martin's Press | 9781250087515
HE SAID/SHE SAID by Erin Kelly (Psychological Thriller)
In the summer of 1999, Kit and Laura travel to a festival in Cornwall to see a total eclipse of the sun. Young and in love, they are certain this will be the first of many they’ll share. But in the hushed moments after the shadow passes, Laura interrupts a man and a woman. She knows that she saw something terrible. The man denies it. The victim seems grateful. Months later, the woman turns up on their doorstep like a lonely stray. As her gratitude takes a twisted turn, Laura begins to wonder if she trusted the wrong person. Fifteen years later, Kit and Laura are living under new names and are completely off the digital grid. As the truth catches up to them, they realize they can no longer keep the past in the past.
Minotaur Books | 9781250113696
HOW TO SURVIVE A SUMMER by Nick White (Fiction)
Grad student Will Dillard has largely buried memories of the summer he spent at a camp intended to “cure” homosexuality. But when he finds out that a horror movie based on the camp is hitting theaters, he’s forced to face his past --- and his role in another camper’s death. As he recounts the events surrounding his “failed rehabilitation,” Will strikes out on an impromptu road trip back home to Mississippi, eventually returning to the abandoned campgrounds to solve the mysteries of that pivotal summer.
Blue Rider Press | 9780399573682
IF I UNDERSTOOD YOU, WOULD I HAVE THIS LOOK ON MY FACE?: My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating by Alan Alda (Science/Personal Growth)
Alan Alda has been on a decades-long journey to discover new ways to help people communicate and relate to one another more effectively. IF I UNDERSTOOD YOU, WOULD I HAVE THIS LOOK ON MY FACE? is the warm, witty and informative chronicle of how Alda found inspiration in everything from cutting-edge science to classic acting methods. His search began when he was host of PBS’s "Scientific American Frontiers," where he interviewed thousands of scientists and developed a knack for helping them communicate complex ideas in ways a wide audience could understand --- and Alda wondered if those techniques held a clue to better communication for the rest of us.
Random House | 9780812989144
INDECENT EXPOSURE: A Stone Barrington Novel by Stuart Woods (Thriller/Adventure)
As an eligible bachelor, man-about-town, and mover in the highest social echelons, Stone Barrington has always been the subject of interest and gossip. But when he’s unwittingly thrust into the limelight, he finds himself scrambling to take cover. Before too long, Stone is fending off pesky nuisances left and right, and making personal arrangements so surreptitiously it would take a covert operative to unearth them. Unfortunately, Stone soon discovers that these efforts only increase the persistence of the most troublesome pests…and when he runs afoul of a particularly tenacious lady, he’ll be struggling to protect not just his reputation, but his life.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780735217119
KENNEDY AND KING: The President, the Pastor, and the Battle Over Civil Rights by Steven Levingston (History)
KENNEDY AND KING traces the emergence of two of the 20th century's greatest leaders, their powerful impact on each other and on the shape of the civil rights battle between 1960 and 1963. These two men from starkly different worlds profoundly influenced each other's personal development. Kennedy's hesitation on civil rights spurred King to greater acts of courage, and King inspired Kennedy to finally make a moral commitment to equality.
Hachette Books | 9780316267397
THE LOST HISTORY OF STARS by Dave Boling (Historical Fiction)
In turn-of-the-century South Africa, 14-year-old Lettie, her younger brother and her mother are Dutch Afrikaner settlers who have been taken from their farm by British soldiers and are being held in a concentration camp. It is early in the Boer War, and Lettie’s father, grandfather and brother are off fighting the British as thousands of Afrikaner women and children are detained. The camps are cramped and disease-ridden; the threat of illness and starvation are ever present. Determined to dictate their own fate, Lettie and her family give each other strength and hope as they fight to survive amid increasingly dire conditions.
Algonquin Books | 9781616204174
LOVE STORY: The Baxter Family, Book 1 by Karen Kingsbury (Romance)
John and Elizabeth's whirlwind romance started when they were young college students and lasted nearly 30 years --- until Elizabeth died of cancer. When John is asked to relive his long-ago love story with Elizabeth for his grandson Cole’s heritage project, he reluctantly agrees and allows his heart and soul to go places they haven’t gone in decades. At the same time, Baxter family friend Cody Coleman is working through the breakup of his complicated relationship with Andi Ellison. He is determined to move on when a chance sighting changes his plans --- and heart. Can Cody convince Andi to give their love another try, or is it time for them to say goodbye for good?
Howard Books | 9781451687590
MAGPIE MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz (Mystery/Thriller)
When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. Conway’s latest tale has Atticus investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but the more Susan reads, the more she’s convinced that there is another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript: one of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition and murder.
Harper | 9780062645227
MILES OFF COURSE: A Rowland Sinclair Novel by Sulari Gentill (Historical Mystery)
It is early in 1933, and wealthy bohemian Rowland Sinclair and his companions --- a poet, a painter and a sculptress who also models nude --- are ensconced in the superlative luxury of The Hydro Majestic-Medlow Bath. But Rowland, try as he might to lead the boho life in Sydney in the family mansion or in a luxury spa, can't dismiss the responsibilities of being a Sinclair. Most of them rest upon his conservative elder brother, Wilfred. And Wil now makes two claims on Rowly. One is to appear at an important upcoming board meeting of a firm where Rowly, pressured by Wil, serves as a director. The other is to hustle up into the high country where a longtime family stockman appears to have gone missing --- and find him.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464206856
THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS by Arundhati Roy (Fiction)
THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS begins with Anjum --- who used to be Aftab --- unrolling a threadbare Persian carpet in a city graveyard she calls home. We encounter the odd, unforgettable Tilo and the men who loved her --- including Musa, sweetheart and ex-sweetheart, lover and ex-lover; their fates are as entwined as their arms used to be and always will be. We meet Tilo’s landlord, a former suitor, now an intelligence officer posted to Kabul. And then we meet the two Miss Jebeens: the first a child born in Srinagar and buried in its overcrowded Martyrs’ Graveyard; the second found at midnight, abandoned on a concrete sidewalk in the heart of New Delhi.
Knopf | 9781524733155
MURDER IN SAINT-GERMAIN: An Aimée Leduc Investigation by Cara Black (Mystery)
Private investigator Aimée Leduc is walking through Saint-Germain when she is accosted by Suzanne Lesage, a Brigade Criminelle agent on an elite counterterrorism squad. Suzanne has just returned from the former Yugoslavia, where she was hunting down dangerous war criminals for the Hague. Back in Paris, Suzanne is convinced she’s being stalked by a ghost --- a Serbian warlord her team took down. She’s suffering from PTSD and her boss thinks she’s imagining things. She begs Aimée to investigate; is it possible Mirko Vladić could be alive and in Paris with a blood vendetta?
Soho Crime | 9781616957704
ODD NUMBERS: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel by Anne Holt (Mystery)
On an early April afternoon, a bomb goes off in the Islamic Cooperation Council’s offices in Oslo, killing 23 people. The Police and Security Service suspect an extremist organization to be responsible for the attack, a suspicion that grows stronger when threats of yet another, bigger explosion during the planned celebration of the Norwegian constitution reach the authorities. Hanne Wilhelmsen is approached by her long-lost friend, Billy T., whose son Linus has undergone some disturbing changes recently. As the mood of the city darkens, Hanne tries to help Billy T. reach out to Linus and realizes that Oslo is up against forces far more terrible and menacing than ever before.
Scribner | 9781451634730
THE PARTY by Robyn Harding (Psychological Suspense)
Sweet sixteen. It’s an exciting coming of age, a milestone, and a rite of passage. Jeff and Kim Sanders plan on throwing a party for their daughter, Hannah --- a sweet girl with good grades and nice friends. Rather than an extravagant, indulgent affair, they invite four girls over for pizza, cake, movies and a sleepover. What could possibly go wrong? But things do go wrong, horrifically so. After a tragic accident occurs, Jeff and Kim’s flawless life in a wealthy San Francisco suburb suddenly begins to come apart. In the ugly aftermath, friends become enemies, dark secrets are revealed in the Sanders’ marriage, and the truth about their perfect daughter, Hannah, is exposed.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781501161247
PENDULUM by Adam Hamdy (Thriller)
Solitary photojournalist John Wallace struggles to consciousness to find he has been bound and blindfolded by a masked man who is preparing to hang him in his own living room. He gets lucky and manages to escape his apartment, just ahead of his assailant. Bloody, barefoot and with at least one broken rib, he has no choice but to run for his life. With no idea who would want to kill him, he makes it to the hospital and files a police report, but it soon becomes clear that as far as the authorities are concerned the only threat to Wallace's life is himself, and he is placed under suicide watch. When his would-be killer strikes again, Wallace realizes he will have to figure out who is hunting him and stop him on his own.
Quercus | 9781681441351
THE PEOPLE WE HATE AT THE WEDDING by Grant Ginder (Fiction)
Paul and Alice’s half-sister, Eloise, is getting married. There will be fancy hotels, dinners at “it” restaurants, and a reception at a country estate. They couldn’t hate it more. THE PEOPLE WE HATE AT THE WEDDING is the story of a less than perfect family. Donna, the clan’s mother, is now a widow living in the Chicago suburbs. Alice is stuck in a dead-end job where she is mired in a rather predictable, though enjoyable, affair with her married boss. Her brother Paul lives in Philadelphia with his tenured track professor boyfriend who eyes undergrads. And then there’s Eloise, who has spent her school years at the best private boarding schools and a post-college life cushioned by a fat, endless trust fund. To top it off, she’s infuriatingly kind and decent.
Flatiron Books | 9781250095206
PERENNIALS by Mandy Berman (Fiction)
Rachel Rivkin and Fiona Larkin used to treasure their summers together as campers at Camp Marigold. Now, reunited as counselors after their first year of college, their relationship is more complicated. Rebellious Rachel has been losing patience with her best friend’s insecurities, while Fiona envies Rachel’s popularity with their campers and fellow counselors. For the first time, the two friends start keeping secrets from each other. Through them, as well as from the perspectives of their fellow counselors, their campers and their mothers, we witness the tensions of the turbulent summer build to a tragic event, which forces Rachel and Fiona to confront their pasts --- and the adults they’re becoming.
Random House | 9780399589317
RETURN TO GLORY: The Story of Ford's Revival and Victory in the Toughest Race in the World by Matthew DeBord (Business/Transportation)
In January 2015 at the Detroit Auto Show, Ford unveiled a new car and the automotive world lost its collective mind. Onto the stage rolled a supercar, a carbon-fiber GT powered by a mid-mounted six-cylinder Ecoboost engine that churned out over 600 horsepower. It was sexy and jaw-dropping, but, more than that, it was historic, a callback to the legendary Ford GT40 Mk IIs that stuck it to Ferrari and finished 1-2-3 at Le Mans in 1966. Detroit was back, and Ford was going back to Le Mans. Journalist Matthew DeBord has been covering the auto industry for years, and in RETURN TO GLORY he tells the recent story of Ford.
Atlantic Monthly Press | 9780802126504
SHE RIDES SHOTGUN by Jordan Harper (Thriller)
Eleven-year-old Polly McClusky is unexpectedly reunited with her father, Nate, fresh out of jail and driving a stolen car. He takes her from the front of her school into a world of robbery, violence and the constant threat of death. And he does it to save her life. Nate made dangerous enemies in prison; a gang called Aryan Steel has put out a bounty on his head, counting on its members on the outside to finish him off. They’ve already murdered his ex-wife, Polly’s mother. And Polly is their next target. Nate and Polly’s lives soon become a series of narrow misses, of evading the bad guys and the police, of sleepless nights in motels. Will they ever be able to live an honest life, free of fear?
Ecco | 9780062394408
SHIVER HITCH: A Jane Bunker Mystery by Linda Greenlaw (Mystery)
Jane Bunker thought she’d escaped the pollution, noise and dead bodies of the big city when she left her job as a Miami homicide detective and moved back to the idyllic town of Green Haven, Maine. Through her work as a marine insurance investigator, it appears she has left behind the bustle of the city, but not the murder. When Jane is called to the remote Acadia Island to assess the damages from a house fire, she also finds a badly burned body in the charred rubble. The victim just happens to be one of the most hated women in town. As Jane investigates further, she becomes embroiled in a plot that involves convicted felons, a real estate scam, and the deep conflicts between the locals and the summer folks.
Minotaur Books | 9781250107565
THE SONGS by Charles Elton (Fiction)
Iz Herzl is a famed political activist and protest singer. Now, at 80 and estranged from everyone who has ever loved him, his refusal to look back on his extraordinary life leaves his teenage children, the brilliant Rose and her ailing younger brother, Huddie, adrift in myths and uncertainty that cause them to retreat into a secret world of their own. Iz's other child, Joseph, a faltering Broadway songwriter 40 years older than Rose and Huddie, is on a shocking and violent path to self-destruction. When the disparate members of the Herzl family begin to converge, the ambiguities at the heart of Iz Herzl's life begin to surface in a way that will change all of them.
Other Press | 9781590517994
THE SUNSHINE SISTERS by Jane Green (Fiction)
Ronni Sunshine left London for Hollywood to become a beautiful, charismatic star of the silver screen. But at home, she was a narcissistic, disinterested mother who alienated her three daughters. Still, when Ronni discovers she has a serious illness, she calls her now-adult girls home to fulfill her final wishes. And though Nell, Meredith and Lizzy have never been close, their mother’s illness draws them together to confront the old jealousies and secret fears that have threatened to tear these sisters apart. As they face the loss of their mother, they will discover if blood might be thicker than water after all.
Berkley | 9780399583315
SWELL by Jill Eisenstadt (Fiction)
When Sue Glassman's family needs a new home, Sue relents and agrees to convert to Judaism. In return, Sue's father-in-law, Sy, buys the family a capacious but ramshackle beachfront house in Rockaway, Queens. The catch? Sy is moving in, too. And the house is haunted. On the weekend of Sue's conversion party, 90-year-old Rose, who (literally) got away with murder on the premises years earlier, shows up uninvited and seems intent on moving back in. Enter neighbor Tim --- a former lifeguard, former firefighter and reformed alcoholic --- who feels, for reasons even he can't explain, inordinately protective of the Glassmans.
Lee Boudreaux Books | 9780316316903
THE TRIAL OF ADOLF HITLER: The Beer Hall Putsch and the Rise of Nazi Germany by David King (History)
On the evening of November 8, 1923, 34-year-old Adolf Hitler stormed into a beer hall in Munich, fired his pistol in the air and proclaimed a revolution. Seventeen hours later, all that remained of his bold move was a trail of destruction. Hitler was on the run from the police. His career seemed to be over. THE TRIAL OF ADOLF HITLER tells the true story of the monumental criminal proceeding that followed when Hitler and nine other suspects were charged with high treason.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393241693
THE TUNNEL by Carl-Johan Vallgren (Thriller)
When his former drug dealer, Ramón, dies from an apparent overdose and Ramón's girlfriend, Jenny, disappears without a trace, Danny Katz suspects that something is amiss. He decides to investigate, enlisting the help of prosecutor Eva Westin to find the missing young woman. It isn't long before the line between Katz's current and former lives begins to blur, raising many questions about his own troubled youth. Katz's inquiries lead him to the darkest corners of Stockholm's black market, and he quickly finds his old addiction threatening to reassert its grip on his life. It also becomes clear that someone is willing to do whatever it takes to keep him from discovering the answers to his questions.
Quercus | 9781681441870
THE WEIGHT OF INK by Rachel Kadish (Fiction)
Set in London of the 1660s and of the early 21st century, THE WEIGHT OF INK is the interwoven tale of Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history. Helen has been summoned by a former student to view a cache of 17th-century Jewish documents newly discovered in his home during a renovation. Enlisting the help of Aaron Levy, an American graduate student as impatient as he is charming, and in a race with another fast-moving team of historians, Helen embarks on one last project: to determine the identity of the documents’ scribe, the elusive “Aleph.”
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9780544866461
THE WHOLE WAY HOME by Sarah Creech (Fiction)
Country singer and fiddler Jo Lover is poised to become a one-name Nashville star like her idols, Loretta, Reba and Dolly. But the stage persona she’s built is threatened when her independent label merges with big-time Capitol Records, bringing Nashville heartthrob JD Gunn --- her first love --- back into her life. Long ago Jo played with JD’s band. But they parted ways and took their own crooked roads to stardom. When the label reunites them for a show, the old sparks fly, the duet they sing goes viral, and fans begin clamoring for more. All too soon, the painful secret Jo has been hiding is uncovered, a shocking revelation that threatens to destroy her reputation and her dreams.
William Morrow | 9780062409294
WOLF ON A STRING by Benjamin Black (Historical Mystery)
Christian Stern, an ambitious young scholar and alchemist, arrives in Prague intent on making his fortune at the court of the eccentric Rudolf II. The night of his arrival, he stumbles upon the body of a young woman whose throat has been slashed. Christian quickly finds himself entangled in the machinations of several ruthless courtiers, and before long he comes to the attention of the Emperor himself. Rudolf sets Christian the task of solving the mystery of the woman’s murder. But Christian soon realizes that he has blundered into the midst of a power struggle that threatens to subvert the throne itself. And as he gets ever nearer to the truth of what happened that night, he finally sees that his own life is in grave danger.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781627795173
WOULD EVERYBODY PLEASE STOP?: Reflections on Life and Other Bad Ideas by Jenny Allen (Humor/Essays)
In Jenny Allen's debut essay collection, the longtime humorist and performer declares no subject too sacred, no boundary impassable. One moment she’s flirting shamelessly --- and unsuccessfully --- with a younger man at a wedding; the next she’s stumbling upon X-rated images on her daughter’s computer. She ponders the connection between her ex-husband’s questions about the location of their silverware, and the divorce that came a year later. While undergoing chemotherapy, she experiments with being a “wig person.” And she considers those perplexing questions that we never pause to ask: Why do people say “It is what it is”? What’s the point of fat-free half-and-half ? And haven’t we heard enough about memes?
Sarah Crichton Books | 9780374118327
YOU'LL NEVER KNOW, DEAR by Hallie Ephron (Psychological Suspense/Mystery)
Seven-year-old Lissie and her four-year-old sister, Janey, were playing with their porcelain dolls in the front yard when a puppy scampered by. Lissie chased after the pup as it ran down the street. When she returned to the yard, Janey and her precious doll were gone. Every year on the anniversary of her disappearance, Lis and Janey’s mother places an ad in the local paper with a picture of the toy Janey had with her that day, offering a generous cash reward for its return. For years, there’s been no response. But this year, the doll came home. It is the first clue in a decades-old mystery that is about to turn into something far more sinister --- endangering Lis and the lives of her mother and daughter as well.
William Morrow | 9780062473615
On Sale the Week of June 5th in Paperback
June 6th
AMERICAN ULYSSES: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant by Ronald C. White (Biography)
In his time, Ulysses S. Grant was routinely grouped with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the “Trinity of Great American Leaders.” But the battlefield commander–turned–commander-in-chief fell out of favor in the 20th century. In AMERICAN ULYSSES, Ronald C. White argues that we need to once more revise our estimates of him in the 21st. He shows Grant to be a generous, curious, introspective man and leader --- a willing delegator with a natural gift for managing the rampaging egos of his fellow officers. His wife, Julia Dent Grant, long marginalized in the historic record, emerges in her own right as a spirited and influential partner.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780812981254
BEFORE THE FALL by Noah Hawley (Thriller)
On a foggy summer night, 11 people --- 10 privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter --- depart Martha's Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are Scott Burroughs --- the painter --- and a four-year-old boy, who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul's family. With chapters weaving between the aftermath of the crash and the backstories of the passengers and crew members, the mystery surrounding the tragedy heightens.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781455561797
BLOOD WEDDING by Pierre Lemaitre (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Normally happy and well-adjusted Sophie Duguet doesn't understand what's happening to her: she has become forgetful and was even detained by the police for shoplifting --- a crime she has no memory whatsoever of having committed. As she slowly sinks deeper into dementia and depression, things go from troubling to alarming when she finds herself connected to the deaths of several people around her. In a desperate attempt to evade the law, a confused Sophie changes her name and relocates, hoping to outrun the demons now plaguing her. It soon becomes clear, however, that the real nightmare has only just begun.
MacLehose Press | 9781681445298
BROKEN TRUST : A Badge of Honor Novel by W. E. B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV (Thriller/Adventure)
Having investigated his share of gruesome murders, Philadelphia Homicide Sergeant Matt Payne is beginning to think nothing can shock him --- until the case of a young socialite’s death lands on his desk. The Camilla Rose Morgan he’d known as a teenager was beautiful and brilliant. How was it possible she’d jumped to her death from her own balcony? Her brother tells Payne she’d tragically been battling a lifetime of mental demons, and there is plenty of evidence of it, but still…something just doesn’t sit right. The more Payne digs, the more complications he discovers. Reputations are on the line here, and lives --- and if Payne doesn’t tread carefully, one of them may be his own.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780515155679
THE CHILDREN by Ann Leary (Fiction)
Charlotte Maynard rarely leaves her mother’s home, the sprawling Connecticut lake house that belonged to her late stepfather, Whit Whitman, and the generations of Whitmans before him. While Charlotte and her sister, Sally, grew up at “Lakeside,” their stepbrothers, Spin and Perry, were welcomed as weekend guests. Now the grown boys own the estate. When Spin brings his fiancé home for the summer, the entire family is intrigued. The beautiful and accomplished Laurel Atwood breathes new life into this often comically rarefied world. But as the wedding draws near, and flaws surface in the family’s polite veneer, an array of simmering resentments and unfortunate truths is exposed.
Picador | 9781250045386
CLOSED CASKET : A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Sophie Hannah (Mystery)
As guests arrive for a party at her Irish mansion, Lady Athelinda Playford has decided to cut off her two children without a penny and leave her vast fortune to an invalid who has only weeks to live. Among her visitors are the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard. Neither knows why he has been invited --- until Poirot begins to wonder if Lady Playford expects a murder. But why does she seem so determined to provoke a killer? And why --- when the crime is committed despite Poirot's best efforts to stop it --- does the identity of the victim make no sense at all?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062458834
DARKTOWN by Thomas Mullen (Historical Thriller)
Responding to orders from on high, the Atlanta Police Department is forced to hire its first black officers, including war veterans Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith. The newly minted policemen are met with deep hostility by their white peers. When a black woman who was last seen in a car driven by a white man turns up dead, Boggs and Smith suspect that white cops are behind it. Their investigation sets them up against a brutal cop, Dunlow, who has long run the neighborhood as his own, and his partner, Rakestraw, a young progressive who may or may not be willing to make allies across color lines.
Atria/37 INK | 9781501133879
DEAR MR. M written by Herman Koch, translated by Sam Garrett (Psychological Thriller)
Once a celebrated writer, M had his greatest success with a suspense novel based on a real-life disappearance. It told the story of a history teacher who went missing one winter after having a brief affair with a beautiful student of his. The teacher was never found. Upon publication, M's novel was a runaway bestseller, one that marked his international breakthrough. That was years ago, and now M's career is fading. But not when it comes to his bizarre, seemingly timid neighbor who keeps a close eye on him and his wife. Why?
Hogarth | 9781101903346
THE END OF TEMPERANCE DARE by Wendy Webb (Gothic Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
When Eleanor Harper becomes the director of a renowned artists’ retreat, she knows nothing of Cliffside Manor’s dark past as a tuberculosis sanatorium, a “waiting room for death.” After years of covering murder and violence as a crime reporter, she hopes that being around artists and writers in this new job will be a peaceful retreat for her as much as for them. But from her first fog-filled moments on the manor’s grounds, Eleanor is seized by a sense of impending doom and realizes there’s more to the institution than its reputation of being a haven for creativity. As the chilling mysteries of Cliffside Manor unravel and the eerie sins of the past are exposed, she must fight to save the new fellows --- and herself --- from sinister forces.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781477824115
THE GATEKEEPER: Missy LeHand, FDR, and the Untold Story of the Partnership That Defined a Presidency by Kathryn Smith (Biography)
Widely considered the first --- and only --- female presidential chief of staff, Marguerite “Missy” LeHand was the right-hand woman to FDR for more than 20 years. Although her official title as personal secretary was relatively humble, her power and influence were unparalleled. She was one of his most trusted advisors, affording her a unique perspective on the president that no one else could claim. With unprecedented access to Missy’s family and original source materials, journalist Kathryn Smith tells the captivating and forgotten story of the intelligent, loyal and clever woman who had a front-row seat to history in the making.
Touchstone | 9781501114977
GENEROUS FRUITS: A Survey of American Homesteading by Barbara Bamberger Scott (History)
Paperback Original
In GENEROUS FRUITS, the first comprehensive chronicle of American homesteading from earliest settlement to the current day, author Barbara Bamberger Scott quickly establishes her voice as a passionate urban homesteader and accomplished writer. Scott’s personal, "I’ve-been-there" approach to the subject --- its roots and branches, its past and future --- targets both the avid practitioner and the armchair philosopher.
Mascot Books | 9781684012381
GRUNT : The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach (Social Science)
GRUNT tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries --- panic, exhaustion, heat, noise --- and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393354379
THE HAMILTON AFFAIR by Elizabeth Cobbs (Historical Fiction)
Hamilton was a bastard and an orphan, raised in the Caribbean and desperate for legitimacy, who became one of the American Revolution’s most dashing --- and improbable --- heroes. Admired by George Washington, scorned by Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton was a lightning rod: the most controversial leader of the new nation. Elizabeth was the wealthy, beautiful, adventurous daughter of the respectable Schuyler clan --- and a pioneering advocate for women. Together, the unlikely couple braved the dangers of war, the perils of seduction, the anguish of infidelity, and the scourge of partisanship that menaced their family and the country itself.
Arcade Publishing | 9781628728552
HERE COMES THE SUN by Nicole Dennis-Benn (Fiction)
At an opulent resort in Montego Bay, Margot hustles to send her younger sister, Thandi, to school. Taught as a girl to trade her sexuality for survival, Margot is ruthlessly determined to shield Thandi from the same fate. When plans for a new hotel threaten their village, Margot sees not only an opportunity for her own financial independence but also perhaps a chance to admit a shocking secret: her forbidden love for another woman. As they face the impending destruction of their community, each woman --- fighting to balance the burdens she shoulders with the freedom she craves --- must confront long-hidden scars.
Liveright | 9781631492945
HERE I AM by Jonathan Safran Foer (Fiction)
Unfolding over four tumultuous weeks in present-day Washington, D.C., Jonathan Safran Foer’s first novel in 11 years is the story of a fracturing family in a moment of crisis. As Jacob and Julia Bloch and their three sons are forced to confront the distances between the lives they think they want and the lives they are living, a catastrophic earthquake sets in motion a quickly escalating conflict in the Middle East. At stake is the meaning of home --- and the fundamental question of how much aliveness one can bear.
Picador | 9781250135759
HUNGRY HEART : Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing by Jennifer Weiner (Essays)
Jennifer Weiner is many things: a bestselling author, a Twitter phenomenon, and an “unlikely feminist enforcer” (The New Yorker). She’s also a mom, a daughter and a sister, a former rower and current clumsy yogini, a wife, a friend, and a reality-TV devotee. In her first essay collection, she takes the raw stuff of her life and spins it into a collection of tales of modern-day womanhood. Born in Louisiana, raised in Connecticut, educated at Princeton, Jennifer spent years feeling like an outsider before finding her people in newsrooms, and her voice as a novelist, activist and New York Times columnist.
Washington Square Press | 9781476723426
THE INNOCENTS: A Quinn Colson Novel by Ace Atkins (Thriller)
When a former high school cheerleader is found walking a back road completely engulfed in flames, the entire state of Mississippi focuses on Tibbehah county, wanting answers. The light soon shines on several people: the girl’s father, a worthless drunk; a pair of teenage thugs with grand ambitions to control north Mississippi; and a red-headed truck stop madam who has her own problems. As Quinn Colson and acting Sheriff Lillie Virgil uncover old secrets and new lies, the entire town turns against them, and they learn that the most dangerous enemies may be the ones you trust most.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780399185472
IRENA’S CHILDREN: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the Warsaw Ghetto by Tilar J. Mazzeo (Biography)
In 1942, social worker Irena Sendler was granted access to the Warsaw ghetto as a public health specialist. While there, she reached out to the trapped Jewish families, going from door to door and asking the parents to trust her with their young children. She started smuggling them out of the walled district, convincing her friends and neighbors to hide them. Driven to extreme measures and with the help of a network of local tradesmen, ghetto residents, and her star-crossed lover in the Jewish resistance, Irena ultimately smuggled thousands of children past the Nazis. In IRENA’S CHILDREN, Tilar Mazzeo tells the incredible story of this courageous and brave woman who risked her life to save innocent children from the Holocaust.
Gallery Books | 9781476778518
JONATHAN UNLEASHED by Meg Rosoff (Romantic Comedy)
Jonathan Trefoil’s boss is unhinged, his relationship baffling, and his apartment just the wrong side of legal. His girlfriend wants to marry someone just like him --- only richer and with a different sense of humor. He doesn’t remember life being this confusing, back before everyone expected him to act like a grown-up. When his brother asks him to look after his dogs, Jonathan's world view begins to shift. Could a border collie and a cocker spaniel hold the key to life, the universe and everything? Their sly maneuvering on daily walks and visits to the alluring vet suggest that human emotional intelligence may not be top dog after all.
Penguin Books | 9781101980927
MARROW ISLAND by Alexis M. Smith (Mystery)
Twenty years ago, the May Day Quake set loose catastrophic waves along the west coast, shattering thousands of lives. At that time, Lucie Bowen’s father disappeared in an explosion at the Marrow Island oil refinery, which destroyed the island’s ecosystem. Now, Lucie's old friend, Katie, writes with strange and miraculous news. Marrow Island is no longer uninhabitable. She is part of a community, a mysterious Colony, that has conjured life again from Marrow’s soil. Lucie's journalist instincts tell her there’s more to the Colony and their charismatic leader --- a former nun with an all-consuming plan --- than its members want her to know.
Mariner Books | 9781328710345
MELVILLE IN LOVE: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick by Michael Shelden (Biography)
Herman Melville’s epic novel, MOBY-DICK, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851. Because he was neglected by academics for so long and made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his “wicked book.” Scholars still puzzle over what drove him to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale. Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden sheds light on this literary mystery to tell a story of Melville’s affair with a married woman named Sarah Morewood, whose libertine impulses encouraged and sustained his own.
Ecco | 9780062419040
MERCURY by Margot Livesey (Psychological Thriller)
Donald is sure that he and his wife, Viv, who runs the local stables, are both devoted to their two children and to each other. Then Mercury --- a gorgeous young thoroughbred with a murky past --- arrives at Windy Hill, and everything changes. Mercury’s owner, Hilary, is a newcomer to town who has enrolled her daughter in riding lessons. When she brings Mercury to board at Windy Hill, everyone is struck by his beauty and prowess, particularly Viv. As she rides him, Viv begins to dream of competing again, embracing the ambitions that she had harbored, yet relinquished, as a young woman. Her daydreams soon morph into consuming desire, and her infatuation with the thoroughbred escalates to obsession.
Harper Perennial | 9780062437518
MILLER’S VALLEY by Anna Quindlen (Fiction)
For generations, the Millers have lived in Miller’s Valley. Mimi Miller tells about her life with intimacy and honesty. As Mimi eavesdrops on her parents and quietly observes the people around her, she discovers more and more about the toxicity of family secrets, the dangers of gossip, the flaws of marriage, the inequalities of friendship, and the risks of passion, loyalty and love. Home, as Mimi begins to realize, can be “a place where it’s just as easy to feel lost as it is to feel content.”
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780812985900
THE SINGLES GAME by Lauren Weisberger (Fiction)
When America’s sweetheart, Charlotte “Charlie” Silver, makes a pact with the devil --- the infamously brutal tennis coach Todd Feltner --- she finds herself catapulted into a world of celebrity stylists, private parties, charity matches aboard mega-yachts, and secret dates with Hollywood royalty. Under Todd’s new ruthless regime, Charlie the good girl is out. Todd wants “Warrior Princess” Charlie all the way. Celebrity mags and gossip blogs go wild for Charlie as she jets around the globe chasing Grand Slam titles and Page Six headlines. But as the Warrior Princess’s star rises on and off the court, it comes at a cost.
Simon & Schuster | 9781476778396
SIRACUSA by Delia Ephron (Fiction)
New Yorkers Michael, a famous writer, and Lizzie, a journalist, travel to Italy with their friends from Maine --- Finn; his wife, Taylor; and their daughter, Snow. “From the beginning,” says Taylor, “it was a conspiracy for Lizzie and Finn to be together.” Told Rashomon-style in alternating points of view, the characters expose and stumble upon lies and infidelities past and present. Snow, 10 years old and precociously drawn into a far more adult drama, becomes the catalyst for catastrophe as the novel explores collusion and betrayal in marriage.
Blue Rider Press | 9780735212329
SO SAY THE FALLEN by Stuart Neville (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Henry Garrick, a local car dealer who was maimed in an accident five months before, has apparently taken his own life. A simple case, it should be wrapped up in a few days. But something doesn’t feel right to Belfast detective Serena Flanagan, despite the fact that there is no evidence of foul play. As she investigates, Flanagan interviews Roberta Garrick, Henry’s widow, who is comforted in her grief by Reverend Peter McKay, rector of the local church and a close family friend. But with the secrets McKay is keeping, he is in no position to help anyone. As Flanagan picks at the threads of the dead man’s life, a disturbing picture emerges, and she realizes that Roberta is not what she seems.
Soho Crime | 9781616958350
TAKEDOWN: A Small-Town Cop's Battle Against the Hells Angels and the Nation's Biggest Drug Gang by Jeff Buck, with Jon Land and Lindsay Preston (True Crime)
Twenty years working undercover in the netherworld of drugs has left Jeff Buck burned out and grateful to assume the quiet job of police chief in the small town of Reminderville, Ohio. That is, until a simple domestic assault case turns out to have links to the murder of a drug runner in upstate New York and a syndicate smuggling billions of dollars in drugs across the US-Canada border. As Buck reluctantly plunges back into his old world of death and deceit, he uncovers a complex chain linking the Hells Angels to the Russian Mafia in a plot to use Native American tribal land to smuggle their deadly wares into the United States.
Forge Books | 9780765338105
THEY MAY NOT MEAN TO, BUT THEY DO by Cathleen Schine (Fiction)
Joy Bergman is not slipping into old age with the quiet grace that her children, Molly and Daniel, would prefer. Her marriage to their father, Aaron, has lasted through health and dementia, as well as some phenomenally lousy business decisions. The Bergman clan has always stuck together, growing as it incorporated in-laws, ex-in-laws and same-sex spouses. But families don't just grow, they grow old. Cathleen Schine's novel is an intergenerational story about searching for where you belong as your family changes with age.
Picador | 9781250132123
VALLEY OF THE MOON by Melanie Gideon (Fiction)
Lux is a single mom struggling to make her way in the world when she stumbles across an idyllic community in the Sonoma valley, where she feels instantly at home. It seems like a place from another time --- until she realizes it actually is. One night in 1906, an earthquake left Greengage stuck in the past. Lux must keep one foot in her world, raising her son as well as she can with the odds stacked against her. But every day she is more strongly drawn in by the sweet simplicity of life in Greengage, and by the irresistible connection she feels with a man born decades before her time. Soon she finds herself torn between her ties to the modern world and the first place she has ever felt truly at home.
Ballantine Books | 9780345539304
THE WANGS VS. THE WORLD by Jade Chang (Fiction)
Charles Wang, a brash, lovable businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, has just lost everything in the financial crisis. So he rounds up two of his children from schools that he can no longer afford and packs them into the only car that wasn’t repossessed. Together with their wealth-addicted stepmother, Barbra, they head on a cross-country journey from their foreclosed Bel-Air home to the upstate New York retreat of the eldest Wang daughter, Saina. The trip brings them together in a way money never could.
Mariner Books | 9781328745538
On Sale the Week of June 12th in Hardcover
June 13th
THE ACCOMPLISHED GUEST : Stories by Ann Beattie (Fiction/Short Stories)
Set along the East Coast from Maine to Key West, Ann Beattie’s new collection explores unconventional friendships, frustrated loves, mortality and aging. One theme of THE ACCOMPLISHED GUEST is people paying visits or receiving visitors, traveling to see old friends, the joys and tolls of hosting company (and of being hosted). The occasion might be a wedding, a birthday, a reunion, an annual Christmas party, or another opportunity to gather and attempt to bond with biological relatives or chosen families. In some stories, as in life, what begins as a benign social event becomes a situation played for high stakes.
Scribner | 9781501111389
THE BLACK ELFSTONE: The Fall of Shannara by Terry Brooks (Fantasy)
The Four Lands has been at peace for generations, but now a mysterious army of invaders is cutting a bloody swathe across a remote region of the land. No one knows who they are, where they come from, or what they are after --- and most seem content to ignore these disturbing events. The only people who sense a greater, growing threat and wish to uncover the truth are society’s outcasts: an exiled high Druid, a conflicted warrior, a teenage girl struggling to master a prodigious magic…and a scrappy young orphan, improbably named Shea Ohmsford.
Del Rey | 9780553391480
THE CHALK ARTIST by Allegra Goodman (Fiction)
Collin James is young, creative and unhappy. A college dropout, he waits tables and spends his free time beautifying the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his medium of choice: chalk. Collin’s art captivates passersby with its vibrant colors and intricate lines --- until the moment he wipes it all away. Nothing in Collin’s life is meant to last. Then he meets Nina. The daughter of a tech mogul who is revolutionizing virtual reality, Nina Lazare is trying to give back as a high school teacher, but her students won’t listen to her. When Collin enters her world, he inspires her to think bigger. Nina wants to return the favor, even if it means losing him.
The Dial Press | 9781400069873
THE CHANGELING by Victor LaValle (Supernatural Thriller/Fantasy)
When Apollo Kagwa’s father disappeared, all he left his son were strange recurring dreams and a box of books stamped with the word IMPROBABILIA. Now Apollo is a father himself --- and as he and his wife, Emma, are settling into their new lives as parents, exhaustion and anxiety start to take their toll. Irritable and disconnected from their new baby boy, at first Emma seems to be exhibiting signs of postpartum depression, but it quickly becomes clear that her troubles go even deeper. Before Apollo can do anything to help, Emma commits a horrific act and vanishes. Thus begins Apollo’s odyssey through a world he only thought he understood, to find a wife and child who are nothing like he had imagined.
Spiegel & Grau | 9780812995947
DOWN AMONG THE STICKS AND BONES by Seanan McGuire (Fantasy)
Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter --- polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline. Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter --- adventurous, thrill-seeking and a bit of a tomboy. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you've got. They were five when they learned that grown-ups can’t be trusted. They were 12 when they walked down the impossible staircase, and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you for a life filled with magic in a land filled with mad scientists and death and choices.
Tor.com | 9780765392039
ENDGAME: A Nameless Detective Novel by Bill Pronzini (Mystery)
The Nameless Detective has taken two cases that will test his agency's resources. One involves a woman whose husband died accidentally in a remote cabin in the Sierras. The wife isn’t buying that her husband was alone, and is determined to find out his secret and get closure…in spite of any potential heartbreak. The other case is a missing person…but the person missing was agoraphobic and never left the house. The husband swears that while their relationship was strained due to his wife’s condition, he was still in love with her. He begs Nameless to clear him and find his wife before the cops come for him.
Forge Books | 9780765388186
FOREVER AND A DEATH by Donald E. Westlake (Hard-boiled Mystery)
Two decades ago, the producers of the James Bond movies hired legendary crime novelist Donald E. Westlake to come up with a story for the next Bond film. The plot Westlake dreamed up --- about a Western businessman seeking revenge after being kicked out of Hong Kong when the island was returned to Chinese rule --- had all the elements of a classic Bond adventure, but political concerns kept it from being made. Never one to let a good story go to waste, Westlake instead wrote an original novel based on the premise --- a novel he never published while he was alive. Now, nearly a decade after Westlake’s death, Hard Case Crime is proud to give that novel its first publication ever.
Hard Case Crime | 9781785654237
A HOUSE AMONG THE TREES by Julia Glass (Fiction)
When the revered children's book author Mort Lear dies accidentally, he leaves his property and all its contents to his trusted assistant, Tomasina Daulair. Tommy must try to honor Morty's last wishes while grappling with their effects on several people, including Dani Daulair, her estranged brother; Meredith Galarza, the lonely, outraged museum curator to whom Lear once promised his artistic estate; and Nicholas Greene, the beguiling British actor cast to play Mort Lear in a movie. When the actor arrives for the visit he had previously arranged with the man he is to portray, he and Tommy are compelled to look more closely at Morty's past and the consequences of the choices they now face.
Pantheon | 9781101870365
HUNGER: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay (Memoir)
Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In HUNGER, she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens and 20s --- including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life --- and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains and joys of her daily life.
Harper | 9780062362599
THE IDENTICALS by Elin Hilderbrand (Fiction)
Harper Frost, laid-back and easygoing, has inherited her father’s rundown house on Martha’s Vineyard. Tabitha Frost, dignified and refined, has inherited a flailing fashion boutique on Nantucket. After more than a decade apart, Harper and Tabitha switch islands --- and lives --- to save what's left of their splintered family. But the twins quickly discover that the secrets, lies and gossip they thought they'd outrun can travel between islands just as easily as they can. Before the last beach picnic of the season, there will be enough old resentments, new loves and cases of mistaken identity to make this the most talked-about summer that Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket have experienced in ages.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316375191
LINCOLN AND THE ABOLITIONISTS: John Quincy Adams, Slavery, and the Civil War by Fred Kaplan (History)
Abraham Lincoln was shaped by the values of the white America into which he was born. While he viewed slavery as a moral crime abhorrent to American principles, he disapproved of anti-slavery activists. Until the last year of his life, he advocated "voluntary deportation," concerned that free blacks in a white society would result in centuries of conflict. In 1861, he had reluctantly taken the nation to war to save it. While this devastating struggle would preserve the Union, it would also abolish slavery --- creating the biracial democracy Lincoln feared. John Quincy Adams, 40 years earlier, was convinced that only a civil war would end slavery and preserve the Union. An antislavery activist, he had concluded that a multiracial America was inevitable.
Harper | 9780062440006
THE LITTLE FRENCH BISTRO by Nina George (Fiction)
Marianne is stuck in a loveless, unhappy marriage. After 41 years, she has reached her limit, and one evening in Paris she decides to take action. Following a dramatic moment on the banks of the Seine, Marianne leaves her life behind and sets out for the coast of Brittany, also known as “the end of the world.” Here she meets a cast of colorful and unforgettable locals who surprise her with their warm welcome and the natural ease they all seem to have, taking pleasure in life’s small moments. And, as the parts of herself she had long forgotten return to her in this new world, Marianne learns it’s never too late to begin the search for what life should have been all along.
Crown | 9780451495587
LOCKDOWN by Laurie R. King (Psychological Suspense)
A year ago, Principal Linda McDonald arrived at Guadalupe Middle School determined to overturn its reputation for truancy, gang violence and neglect. One of her initiatives is Career Day --- bringing together children, teachers and community presenters in a celebration of the future. A principal with a secret. A husband with a murky past. A cop with too many questions. A kid under pressure to prove himself. A girl struggling to escape a mother’s history. A young basketball player with an affection for guns. Even the school janitor has a story he dare not reveal. But no one at the gathering anticipates the shocking turn of events that will transform a day of possibilities into an explosive confrontation.
Bantam | 9780804177931
THE MAP THAT LEADS TO YOU by J.P. Monninger (Fiction)
Heather Mulgrew plans to travel abroad with her friends after college, come back to a great career in September, and head into a life where not much is left to chance. But that was before an encounter on an overnight train introduces her to Jack, a passionate adventurer who changes the course of her journey and her life. Throwing Heather's careful itinerary to the wind, they follow Jack's grandfather's journal through post-World War II-era Europe. As September looms, Jack urges Heather to stay with him and give in to the romance of their experience; Heather convinces him to return to the United States. Jack has a secret that could change everything. And Heather’s world is about to be shaken to the core.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250060761
THE MARSH KING'S DAUGHTER by Karen Dionne (Psychological Suspense)
At last, Helena Pelletier has the life she deserves. Then she catches an emergency news announcement and realizes she was a fool to think she could ever leave her worst days behind her. Helena has a secret: she is the product of an abduction. Her mother was kidnapped as a teenager by her father and kept in a remote cabin. Helena, born two years after the abduction, loved her father --- until she learned precisely how savage a person he could be. More than 20 years later, she has buried her past so soundly that even her husband doesn’t know the truth. But now her father has killed two guards, escaped from prison, and disappeared into the marshland he knows better than anyone else in the world.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780735213005
MATCHUP edited by Lee Child (Thriller/Short Stories)
MATCHUP takes the never-before-seen bestseller pairings of FACEOFF and adds a delicious new twist: gender. Eleven of the world’s best female thriller writers, from Diana Gabaldon to Charlaine Harris, are paired with 11 of the world’s best male thriller writers, including John Sandford, C.J. Box and Nelson DeMille.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501141591
MEMORY'S LAST BREATH: Field Notes on My Dementia by Gerda Saunders (Memoir)
Based on the "field notes" she keeps in her journal, MEMORY’S LAST BREATH is Gerda Saunders' astonishing window into a life distorted by dementia. She writes about shopping trips cut short by unintentional shoplifting, car journeys derailed when she loses her bearings, and the embarrassment of forgetting what she has just said to a room of colleagues. Coping with the complications of losing short-term memory, Saunders nonetheless embarks on a personal investigation of the brain and its mysteries, examining science and literature, and immersing herself in vivid memories of her childhood in South Africa.
Hachette Books | 9780316502627
MIDNIGHT AT THE BRIGHT IDEAS BOOKSTORE by Matthew Sullivan (Mystery)
Lydia Smith is a clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore whose life comes unglued when Joey Molina kills himself in the bookstore’s upper room. Always Joey’s favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. But when Lydia flips through his books, she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia? As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey’s suicide, she unearths a long-buried memory from her own violent childhood.
Scribner | 9781501116841
THE RISE AND FALL OF D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland (Science Fiction/Thriller)
Military intelligence operator Tristan Lyons approaches Melisande Stokes, an expert in linguistics and languages, about translating some very old documents, which, if authentic, are earth-shattering. They prove that magic actually existed and was practiced for centuries. But the arrival of the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment weakened its power and endangered its practitioners. And so the Department of Diachronic Operations --- D.O.D.O. --- gets cracking on its real mission: to develop a device that can bring magic back, and send Diachronic Operatives back in time to keep it alive…and meddle with a little history at the same time.
William Morrow | 9780062409164
ROBERT LUDLUM'S THE BOURNE INITIATIVE by Eric Van Lustbader (Thriller/Adventure)
General Boris Karpov, head of the feared Russian FSB, is dead. But Karpov has reached out from the grave with an unstoppable cyber operation he conceived before his murder, aimed at the heart of the United States --- a way to steal the president's nuclear launch codes. Who has taken over the operation? Karpov trusted only one man: Jason Bourne. But can Bourne be working against his own country? The U.S. government is convinced of his treason and is doing everything in its power to kill him. Flushed from cover and gravely wounded, Bourne's only hope is to join forces with his most bitter enemy: a powerful Somali terrorist named Keyre, and his protégée, the Angelmaker.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781455597987
THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Fiction)
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated. Regardless of why Evelyn has chosen her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career. As Evelyn’s life unfolds and catches up with the present, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.
Atria Books | 9781501139239
SLAVES OF THE SWITCHBOARD OF DOOM: A Novel of Retropolis written and illustrated by Bradley W. Schenck (Science Fiction/Humor)
If Fritz Lang’s Metropolis somehow mated with “Futurama,” their mutant offspring might well be SLAVES OF THE SWITCHBOARD OF DOOM. Inspired by the future imagined in the 1939 World’s Fair, this hilarious, beautifully illustrated adventure by writer and artist Bradley W. Schenck is utterly unlike anything else in science fiction: a gonzo, totally bonkers, gut-busting look at the World of Tomorrow, populated with dashing, bubble-helmeted heroes, faithful robot sidekicks, mad scientists, plucky rocket engineers, sassy switchboard operators, space pirates, and much, much more --- enhanced throughout by two dozen astonishing illustrations.
Tor Books | 9780765383297
SMALL HOURS by Jennifer Kitses (Fiction)
In the vein of Richard Russo and Tom Perrotta, SMALL HOURS is a gripping and suspenseful debut novel --- told hour-by-hour over the course of a single day --- in which a husband and wife try to outrun long-buried secrets, sending their lives spiraling into chaos.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781455598526
THE SWITCH by Joseph Finder (Thriller)
Michael Tanner accidentally picks up the wrong MacBook in an airport security line. He later discovers that the owner is a US senator and that the laptop contains top secret files. When Senator Susan Robbins realizes she’s come back with the wrong laptop, she calls her young chief of staff, Will Abbott, in a panic. Both know that the senator broke the law by uploading classified documents onto her personal computer. If those documents wind up in the wrong hands, her career in politics will be over. When Will fails to gain Tanner’s cooperation, he is forced to take measures to retrieve the laptop before a bigger security breach is revealed. Suddenly Tanner finds himself a hunted man, terrified for the safety of his family and able to trust no one.
Dutton | 9781101985786
TOM CLANCY POINT OF CONTACT : A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel by Mike Maden (Thriller/Adventure)
Former U.S. Senator Weston Rhodes is a defense contractor with an urgent problem. His company needs someone to look over the books of Dalfan Technologies, a Singapore company. He turns to his old friend Gerry Hendley for help. Hendley Associates is one of the best financial analysis firms in the country and the cover for The Campus, a top-secret American intelligence agency. Rhodes asks for two specific analysts: Jack Ryan Jr., and Paul Brown, a mild-mannered forensic accountant. Together Ryan and Brown race to escape both the murderous storm and a team of trained assassins in order to prevent a global catastrophe, even at the cost of their own lives.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780735215863
THE ULTIMATUM by Karen Robards (Thriller)
Bianca St. Ives is known as the Guardian. Running a multinational firm with her father, she makes a living swindling con men out of money they stole. But her latest gig had a little hiccup --- if you count 200 million dollars and top secret government documents going missing as little. Her father also died on the mission, though the US government doesn't believe he's really dead. They'll stop at nothing to capture Richard St. Ives, a high-value target and someone who has been on most-wanted lists all over the world for over two decades. With only a fellow criminal for backup and her life on the line, it's up to Bianca to uncover the terrifying truth behind what really happened and set it right before it's too late.
Mira | 9780778330707
YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie (Memoir)
Family relationships are never simple. But Sherman Alexie's bond with his mother Lillian was more complex than most. She plunged her family into chaos with a drinking habit, but shed her addiction when it was on the brink of costing her everything. She survived a violent past, but created an elaborate facade to hide the truth. She wanted a better life for her son, but it was only by leaving her behind that he could hope to achieve it. When she passed away, the incongruities that defined his mother shook Sherman and his remembrance of her. Grappling with the haunting ghosts of the past in the wake of loss, he responded the only way he knew how: he wrote.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316270755
On Sale the Week of June 12th in Paperback
June 13th
AS GOOD AS GONE by Larry Watson (Historical Fiction)
It’s 1963, and Calvin Sidey, one of the last of the old cowboys, has long ago left his family to live a life of self-reliance out on the prairie. He’s been a mostly absentee father and grandfather until his estranged son asks him to stay with his grandchildren, Ann and Will, for a week while he and his wife are away. Calvin agrees to return, but trouble soon comes to the door when a boy’s attentions to 17-year-old Ann become increasingly aggressive and a group of reckless kids portend danger for 11-year-old Will. Calvin knows only one way to solve problems: the Old West way, in which scores are settled and ultimatums are issued, and your gun is always loaded.
Algonquin Books | 9781616206956
THE AUDACIOUS CRIMES OF COLONEL BLOOD: The Spy Who Stole the Crown Jewels and Became the King's Secret Agent by Robert Hutchinson (History)
One morning in May 1671, a man disguised as a parson daringly attempted to seize the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Astonishingly, he managed to escape with the regalia and crown before being apprehended. And yet he was not executed for treason. Instead, the king granted him a generous income, and he became a familiar strutting figure in the royal court's glittering state apartments. This man was Colonel Thomas Blood, a notorious turncoat and fugitive from justice. Historian Robert Hutchinson paints a vivid portrait of a double agent bent on ambiguous political and personal motivation.
Pegasus Books | 9781681774220
BASED ON A TRUE STORY: Not a Memoir by Norm Macdonald (Humor/Memoir)
When Norm Macdonald, one of the greatest stand-up comics of all time, was approached to write a celebrity memoir, he flatly refused, calling the genre “one step below instruction manuals.” Norm then promptly took a two-year hiatus from stand-up comedy to live on a farm in northern Canada. When he emerged, he had under his arm a manuscript, a genre-smashing book about comedy, tragedy, love, loss, war and redemption. When asked if this was the celebrity memoir, Norm replied, “Call it anything you damn like.”
Spiegel & Grau | 9780812983869
DAISY IN CHAINS by Sharon Bolton (Mystery)
He’s a serial killer. A murderer of young women, all killed in brutal attacks. Despite serial killer Hamish Wolfe’s conviction, he’s always stuck to his story --- he is innocent of the murders of young women and has been wrongly imprisoned. Now he wants someone to investigate and, more importantly, to write his story. Maggie Rose is a notorious defense attorney and writer whose specialty is getting convictions overturned. At first, Maggie is reluctant to even acknowledge Hamish’s requests to meet, ignoring his letters. But this is a very charismatic and persuasive man, good-looking and intelligent. Eventually even she can’t resist his lure…
Minotaur Books | 9781250130068
THE DEAD DON’T BLEED by David Krugler (Historical Mystery)
Victory in World War II looms, but a new fear transfixes Washington, DC: fear of communist spies and the atomic secrets they covet. When the corpse of a Navy Intelligence officer is found on a cobblestone back alley, Lt. Voigt is called in to investigate. It’s his first murder, but in the plot that he quickly begins unraveling, it won’t be his last. Pursuing crosses and double-crosses, Voigt goes undercover, and the fragments he discovers suggest something far larger than the usual spy v. spy shenanigans. Soon enough he’s in a race to identify the killer, keep the bomb away from the Russians --- and keep ahead of his own secrets.
Pegasus Books | 9781681774251
DIE OF SHAME by Mark Billingham (Mystery)
Every Monday evening, six people gather in a smart North London house to talk about shame. But when one of the group is murdered, it quickly becomes apparent that someone else in that circle is responsible. The investigation is hampered by the strict confidentiality that binds these individuals and their therapist together, which makes things difficult for Detective Inspector Nicola Tanner. What could be shameful enough to cost someone their life? And how do you find the truth when secrets, lies and denial are second nature to all of your suspects?
Grove Press | 9780802126771
DINNER WITH EDWARD: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship by Isabel Vincent (Memoir)
When Isabel meets Edward, both are at a crossroads: he wants to follow his late wife to the grave, and she is ready to give up on love. As they gather each week for the glorious dinners that Edward prepares, he shares so much more than his recipes for apple galette or the perfect martini, or even his tips for deboning poultry. Edward is teaching Isabel the luxury of slowing down and taking the time to think through everything she does, to deconstruct her own life, cutting it back to the bone and examining the guts, no matter how messy that proves to be.
Algonquin Books | 9781616206949
THE DOLL-MASTER AND OTHER TALES OF TERROR by Joyce Carol Oates (Horror/Short Stories)
In the title story of Joyce Carol Oates’ haunting collection of six “tales of terror,” a young boy becomes obsessed with his cousin’s doll after she tragically passes away from leukemia. As he grows older, he begins to collect “found dolls” from the surrounding neighborhoods and stores his treasures in the abandoned carriage house on his family's estate. But just what kind of dolls are they? Joyce Carol Oates evokes the “fascination of the abomination” that is at the core of the most profound, the most unsettling and the most memorable of dark mystery fiction.
Mysterious Press | 9780802126719
FALLING: A Daughter, a Father, and a Journey Back by Elisha Cooper (Memoir)
Elisha Cooper spends his mornings writing and illustrating children's books, his afternoons playing with his two daughters. But when he discovers a lump in five-year-old Zoë's midsection as she sits on his lap at a Chicago Cubs game, everything changes. In FALLING, Elisha writes about what it took for him and his wife to preserve a sense of normalcy and joy in their daughters' lives; how the family emerged from this experience profoundly changed; and how we are all transformed by the fear and hope we feel for those we love.
Anchor | 9781101971840
FORWARD: A Memoir by Abby Wambach (Sports/Memoir)
Abby Wambach has always pushed the limits of what is possible. At age seven she was put on the boys’ soccer team. At age 35 she would become the highest goal scorer in the history of soccer, capturing the nation’s heart with her team’s 2015 World Cup Championship. She has become a fierce advocate for women’s rights and equal opportunity, pushing to translate the success of her team to the real world. As she reveals in this searching memoir, Abby’s professional success often masked her inner struggle to reconcile the various parts of herself: ferocious competitor, daughter, leader, wife. Here she shares her inspiring and often brutal journey from girl in Rochester, New York, to world-class athlete.
Dey Street Books | 9780062467003
THE GOOD LIEUTENANT by Whitney Terrell (Fiction)
On the outskirts of Baghdad, Lieutenant Emma Fowler’s platoon unwittingly rolls into a buried maze of IEDs --- and their Humvee is blasted into a shrapnel-torn wreck. From this catastrophic moment, THE GOOD LIEUTENANT unspools backward in time as Fowler and her platoon are guided into disaster by suspicious informants and questionable intelligence, their mission the result of a previous snafu in which a soldier was kidnapped by insurgents. The novel unfolds from points of view that are not customarily included in war coverage --- a tenacious female officer, jaded career soldiers, and Iraqis both innocent and not so innocent.
Picador | 9781250132161
GOODNIGHT, BEAUTIFUL WOMEN by Anna Noyes (Fiction/Short Stories)
Moving along the Maine Coast and beyond, the interconnected stories in GOODNIGHT, BEAUTIFUL WOMEN bring us into the sultry, mysterious inner lives of New England women and girls as they navigate the dangers and struggles of their outer worlds. Debut novelist Anna Noyes explores the ruptures and vicissitudes of growing up and growing old, and shines a light on our most uncomfortable impulses while charting the depths of our murky desires.
Grove Press | 9780802126795
HARMONY by Carolyn Parkhurst (Fiction)
How far will a mother go to save her family? The Hammond family is living in DC, where everything seems to be going just fine, until it becomes clear that the oldest daughter, Tilly, is developing abnormally --- a mix of off-the-charts genius and social incompetence. Once Tilly --- whose condition is deemed undiagnosable --- is kicked out of the last school in the area, her mother is out of ideas. The family turns to Camp Harmony and the wisdom of child behavior guru Scott Bean for a solution. But what they discover in the woods of New Hampshire will push them to the very limit.
Penguin Books | 9780399562617
HOW TO SET A FIRE AND WHY by Jesse Ball (Fiction)
Lucia Stanton’s father is dead, her mother is in a mental hospital, and she’s recently been kicked out of school --- again. Living with her aunt in a garage-turned-bedroom, and armed with only a book, a Zippo lighter and a pocketful of stolen licorice, she spends her days riding the bus to visit her mom and following the only rule that makes any sense: Don’t do things you aren’t proud of. When Lucia discovers that her school has a secret Arson Club, her life is suddenly lit up; she’ll do anything to join.
Vintage | 9781101911754
I’VE GOT SAND IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella (Humor/Essays)
The New York Times bestselling mother-daughter team returns with a new collection of funny and relatable true stories in the everyday lives of modern women. Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella give their multigenerational take on a variety of topics, from the terrors of Tinder to the indignities of the gym, and from fleece as formalwear to playing the lotto as financial planning, sounding like two girlfriends you’ve known your whole life. As with all mothers and daughters, Lisa and Francesca sometimes joke, sometimes fight, but always love their way through life’s best and worst moments.
St. Martin's Griffin | 9781250059987
THE KAMIKAZE HUNTERS: Fighting for the Pacific: 1945 by Will Iredale (History)
In May 1945, with victory in Europe established, the war was all but over. But on the other side of the world, the Allies were still engaged in a bitter struggle to control the Pacific. And it was then that the Japanese unleashed a terrible new form of warfare: the suicide pilots, or Kamikaze. Will Iredale follows a group of young men from the moment they signed up through their initial training to the terrifying reality of fighting against pilots who, in the cruel last summer of the war, chose death rather than risk their country's dishonorable defeat --- and deliberately flew their planes into Allied aircraft carriers.
Pegasus Books | 9781681774305
THE NOISE OF TIME by Julian Barnes (Historical Fiction)
In 1936, Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich fears for his livelihood and his life. Joseph Stalin has taken a sudden interest in his work and denounced his latest opera. Now, certain he will be exiled to Siberia (or, more likely, executed on the spot), Shostakovich reflects on his predicament. Though a stroke of luck prevents him from becoming yet another casualty of the Great Terror, for decades to come he will be held fast under the thumb of despotism: made to represent Soviet values at a cultural conference in New York City, forced into joining the Party, and compelled to weigh appeasing those in power against the integrity of his music.
Vintage | 9781101971185
ONE LESS PROBLEM WITHOUT YOU by Beth Harbison (Fiction)
Three women --- Prinny, a shop owner who is in love with a married lawyer; Chelsea, whose dream of becoming a successful actress starts to seem more remote; and Diana, who needs to figure out whether she’d rather be lonely alone than lonely in love --- suddenly find themselves together at their own very different crossroads. It will take hope, love, strength and a little bit of magic for them to find their way together.
St. Martin's Griffin | 9781250043863
OUR SISTER REPUBLICS: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions by Caitlin Fitz (History)
In the early 19th century, the United States turned its idealistic gaze southward, imagining a legacy of revolution and republicanism it hoped would dominate the American hemisphere. Even as Latin Americans were gradually ending slavery, U.S. observers remained energized by the belief that their founding ideals were triumphing over European tyranny among their “sister republics.” But as slavery became a violently divisive issue at home, goodwill toward antislavery revolutionaries waned. By the nation’s 50th anniversary, republican efforts abroad had become a scaffold upon which many in the United States erected an ideology of white U.S. exceptionalism that would haunt the geopolitical landscape for generations.
Liveright | 9781631493171
THE SALT HOUSE by Lisa Duffy (Fiction)
Paperback Original
In the coastal town of Alden, Maine, Hope and Jack Kelly have settled down to a life of wedded bliss. They have a beautiful family, a growing lobster business, and the Salt House --- the dilapidated oceanfront cottage they’re renovating into their dream home. But tragedy strikes when their young daughter doesn’t wake up from her afternoon nap, taking her last breath without making a sound. A year later, each member of the Kelly family navigates the world on their own private island of grief. When Jack’s old rival, Ryland Finn, threatens his fishing territory, he ignites emotions that propel the Kelly family toward circumstances that will either tear them apart --- or be the path to their family’s future.
Touchstone | 9781501156557
SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF EASE AND PLENTY by Ramona Ausubel (Historical Fiction)
Labor Day, 1976, Martha's Vineyard. Summering at the family beach house along this moneyed coast of New England, Fern and Edgar are happily preparing for a family birthday celebration when they learn that the unimaginable has occurred: There's no more money in the estate of Fern's recently deceased parents, which, as the sole source of Fern and Edgar's income, had allowed them to live this beautiful, comfortable life. Quickly, the once-charmed family unravels. In distress and confusion, Fern and Edgar are each tempted away on separate adventures: she on a road trip with a stranger, he on an ill-advised sailing voyage with another woman.
Riverhead Books | 9781594634895
THE SWALLOW’S NEST by Emilie Richards (FIction)
Paperback Original
When Lilia Swallow's husband, Graham, goes into remission after a challenging year of treatment for lymphoma, the home and lifestyle blogger throws a party. But just as the party is in full swing, a new guest arrives. She presents Lilia with a beautiful baby boy, and vanishes. Toby is Graham's darkest secret --- his son, conceived in a moment of despair. This unasked-for precious gift becomes a life changer for three women: Lilia, who takes him into her home and heart; Marina, who bore and abandoned him until circumstance and grief changed her mind; and Ellen, who sees in him a chance to correct the mistakes she made with her own son, Toby's father.
Mira | 9780778320005
SWIMMING IN THE SINK: A Memoir by Lynne Cox (Memoir)
A celebrated athlete who set swimming records around the world, Lynne Cox achieved astonishing feats of strength and endurance. But in a short period of time, she loses her father, followed by her mother, and then Cody, her beloved Labrador retriever. Soon after, Lynne herself is diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition that leaves her unable to swim and barely able to walk. But against all odds, and with the support of her friends and family, Lynne begins the slow pull toward recovery. What follows is a beautifully poignant meditation on loss and an exhilarating celebration of life.
Vintage | 9781101971833
TRYING TO FLOAT : A Memoir by Nicolaia Rips (Memoir)
New York’s Chelsea Hotel may no longer be home to its most famous denizens, but the eccentric spirit of the Chelsea is alive and well. Meet the family Rips: father Michael, a lawyer turned writer with a penchant for fine tailoring; mother Sheila, a former model and renowned artist who matches her welding outfits with couture; and daughter Nicolaia, a precocious high school junior at work on a record of her peculiar 17 years. Nicolaia is a perpetual outsider who has struggled to find her place in public schools populated by cliquish girls and loudmouthed boys. But at the Chelsea, Nicolaia need not look far to find her tribe.
Scribner | 9781501132995
UNDERTOW by Elizabeth Heathcote (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Carmen is happily married to Tom, although she knows she'll always live in the shadow of the mistress who ended his first marriage: Zena, who drowned in the sea late one night. Zena seems ever-more present, and when Carmen unknowingly stumbles on evidence that her husband has not been telling her the whole truth, she can't shake her unease. As she uncovers documents and photographs, a very different tale than the one Tom has led her to believe begins to unfold, and she finds herself increasingly isolated and paranoid. As the twisted events of that night begin to come to light, Carmen must ask herself if it's really a truth worth knowing…even if it destroys her and the lives of the people she loves most.
Park Row Books | 9780778330967
THE UNSEEN WORLD by Liz Moore (Fiction)
Ada Sibelius is raised by David, her brilliant, eccentric, socially inept single father, who directs a computer science lab in 1980s-era Boston. Home-schooled, Ada accompanies David to work every day; by 12, she is a painfully shy prodigy. The lab begins to gain acclaim at the same time that David’s mysterious history comes into question. When his mind begins to falter, leaving Ada virtually an orphan, she is taken in by one of David’s colleagues. Soon she embarks on a mission to uncover her father’s secrets: a process that carries her from childhood to adulthood.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393354416
WE COULD BE BEAUTIFUL by Swan Huntley (Psychological Thriller)
Catherine West has spent her entire life surrounded by beautiful things. Yet, despite all this, she still feels empty. One night, at an art opening, Catherine meets William Stockton, a handsome man who shares her impeccable taste and love of beauty. He is educated, elegant, and even has a personal connection --- his parents and Catherine's parents were friends years ago. But as he and Catherine grow closer, she begins to encounter strange signs, and her mother, Elizabeth (now suffering from Alzheimer's), seems to have only bad memories of William as a boy. Is William lying about his past? If so, is Catherine willing to sacrifice their beautiful life in order to find the truth?
Anchor | 9781101912188
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN: In the Service of My Country: A Life by James Lee McDonough (Biography)
General Sherman’s 1864 burning of Atlanta solidified his legacy as a ruthless leader. Yet he proved far more complex than his legendary military tactics reveal. James Lee McDonough offers fresh insight into a man tormented by the fear that history would pass him by, who was plagued by personal debts, and who lived much of his life separated from his family. As a soldier, Sherman evolved from a spirited student at West Point into a general who steered the Civil War’s most decisive campaigns. Lamenting casualties, Sherman sought the war’s swift end by devastating Southern resources in the Carolinas and on his famous March to the Sea.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393354201
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