In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of October 30th and November 6th 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 special contest for ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL by Sarah Vaughan, which releases on January 23rd. We're giving 25 readers the chance to win an advance copy of the book and send us their feedback on it. The deadline for your entries is Thursday, November 9th at noon ET.
We also are featuring Carol Fitzgerald's Bookreporter.com Bets On commentary for THE LAST MRS. PARRISH, a debut psychological thriller from Liv Constantine, which is the pen name of sisters Lynne Constantine and Valerie Constantine.
Finally, we want to make sure that this year's Miami Book Fair, which will be taking place from November 12-19, is on your radar. On Saturday the 18th at 10am in Room 3314 in Building 3, Carol will be doing a presentation featuring great book club reads for fall and winter. In addition, she will be interviewing Ann Hood about her novel, THE BOOK THAT MATTERS MOST, and her memoir, MORNINGSTAR: Growing Up with Books, as well as her experiences talking to book groups. Click here for more details. At this program, Carol also will provide a guide to Miami Book Fair sessions of interest to book groups. Hundreds of authors will be attending this year, including Megan Abbott, Isabel Allende, Elin Hilderbrand, Walter Isaacson, Min Jin Lee, Claire Messud, Salman Rushdie, Will Schwalbe, Lisa See, Scott Turow, and many, many more. Click here for the full list.
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
This Week's Bonus News:
Bookreporter.com's Special Contest for
ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL by Sarah Vaughan
We have 25 advance copies of ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL by Sarah Vaughan --- an astonishingly incisive and suspenseful novel about a scandal amongst Britain’s privileged elite and the women caught up in its wake --- to give away to readers who would like to preview the book, which releases on January 23rd, and share their comments on it. To enter, please fill out this form by Thursday, November 9th at noon ET.
ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL by Sarah Vaughan (Thriller)
Sophie’s husband James is a loving father, a handsome man, a charismatic and successful public figure. And yet he stands accused of a terrible crime. Sophie is convinced he is innocent and desperate to protect her precious family from the lies that threaten to rip them apart.
Kate is the lawyer hired to prosecute the case: an experienced professional who knows that the law is all about winning the argument. And yet Kate seeks the truth at all times. She is certain James is guilty and is determined he will pay for his crimes.
Who is right about James? Sophie or Kate? And is either of them informed by anything more than instinct and personal experience? Despite her privileged upbringing, Sophie is well aware that her beautiful life is not inviolable. She has known it since she and James were first lovers, at Oxford, and she witnessed how easily pleasure could tip into tragedy.
Most people would prefer not to try to understand what passes between a man and a woman when they are alone: alone in bed, alone in an embrace, alone in an elevator… Or alone in the moonlit courtyard of an Oxford college, where a girl once stood before a boy, heart pounding with excitement, then fear. Sophie never understood why her tutorial partner Holly left Oxford so abruptly. What would she think, if she knew the truth?
Click here to enter the contest.
On Sale the Week of October 30th in Hardcover
October 31st
BOBBY KENNEDY: A Raging Spirit by Chris Matthews (Biography)
Overlooked by his father and overshadowed by his war-hero brother, Bobby Kennedy was the perpetual underdog. When he had the chance to become a naval officer like Jack, Bobby turned it down, choosing instead to join the Navy as a common sailor. It was a life-changing experience that led him to connect with voters from all walks of life. They were the people who turned out for him in his 1968 campaign. RFK would prove himself to be the rarest of politicians --- both a pragmatist who knew how to get the job done and an unwavering idealist who could inspire millions. Drawing on extensive research and interviews, Chris Matthews pulls back the curtain on the public and private worlds of Robert Francis Kennedy.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501111860
CRAZY LIKE A FOX by Rita Mae Brown (Mystery)
Sister Jane Arnold takes a scenic drive up the Blue Ridge Mountains for a board meeting at the Museum of Hounds and Hunting. Brimming with colorful stories and mementos from hunts of yore, the mansion is plunged into mystery when a venerable hunting horn is stolen right out of its case. The only clue, on a left-behind cell phone, is what seems to be a “selfie” video of the horn’s original owner, Wesley Carruthers --- deceased since 1954. Odder still, Wesley’s body was never found. When Sister makes a discovery that may explain his unsolved disappearance, it leads her back to the Jefferson Hunt at midcentury. But as the clues quickly mount, Sister is no longer sure if she’s pursuing a priceless artifact, a thief, Wesley’s killer…or a ghost.
Ballantine Books | 9780399178344
THE DEAL OF A LIFETIME by Fredrik Backman (Fiction)
It all begins with a father telling a story to his son on Christmas Eve. But this isn’t your typical Christmas story. The father admits to his son that he’s taken a life, but he won’t say whose --- not yet. One week earlier, in a hospital late at night, the man met a five-year-old girl with cancer. She’s smart enough to know that she won’t beat cancer by drawing with crayons all day, but it seems to make the adults happy, so she keeps doing it. The man is given the unexpected chance to do something selfless that could change the destiny of this little girl. But before he can make the deal of a lifetime, he needs to find out what his own life has actually been worth in the eyes of his son. And so he seeks him out and tells him this story.
Atria Books | 9781501193491
HIDDENSEE: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker by Gregory Maguire (Historical Fantasy)
Having brought his legions of devoted readers to Oz in WICKED and to Wonderland in AFTER ALICE, Gregory Maguire now takes us to the realms of the Brothers Grimm and E. T. A. Hoffmann --- the enchanted Black Forest of Bavaria and the salons of Munich. HIDDENSEE imagines the backstory of the Nutcracker, revealing how this entrancing creature came to be carved and how he guided an ailing girl named Klara through a dreamy paradise on a Christmas Eve. At the heart of Hoffmann's mysterious tale hovers Godfather Drosselmeier --- the ominous, canny, one-eyed toy maker made immortal by Petipa and Tchaikovsky's fairy tale ballet --- who presents the once and future Nutcracker to Klara, his goddaughter.
William Morrow | 9780062684387
IN THE MIDST OF WINTER by Isabel Allende (Fiction)
Richard Bowmaster, a 60-year-old human rights scholar, hits the car of Evelyn Ortega --- a young, undocumented immigrant from Guatemala --- in the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn. What at first seems just a small inconvenience takes an unforeseen and far more serious turn when Evelyn turns up at the professor’s house seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant Lucia Maraz --- a 62-year-old lecturer from Chile --- for her advice. These three very different people are brought together in a mesmerizing story that moves from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil, sparking the beginning of a long overdue love story between Richard and Lucia.
Atria Books | 9781501178139
THE KING IS ALWAYS ABOVE THE PEOPLE: Stories by Daniel Alarcón (Fiction/Short Stories)
Migration. Betrayal. Family secrets. Doomed love. Uncertain futures. In Daniel Alarcón’s hands, these are transformed into deeply human stories with high stakes. In "The Thousands," people are on the move and forging new paths; hope and heartbreak abound. A man deals with the fallout of his blind relatives' mysterious deaths and his father's mental breakdown and incarceration in "The Bridge." A gang member discovers a way to forgiveness and redemption through the haze of violence and trauma in “The Ballad of Rocky Rontal.” And in "The Auroras," a man severs himself from his old life and seeks to make a new one in a new city, only to find himself seduced and controlled by a powerful woman.
Riverhead Books | 9781594631726
MR. DICKENS AND HIS CAROL by Samantha Silva (Historical Fiction)
Charles Dickens is not feeling the Christmas spirit. His newest book is an utter flop, the critics have turned against him, and relatives near and far hound him for money. While his wife plans a lavish holiday party for their ever-expanding family and circle of friends, Dickens has visions of the poor house. But when his publishers try to blackmail him into writing a Christmas book to save them all from financial ruin, he refuses. And a serious bout of writer’s block sets in. Frazzled and filled with self-doubt, Dickens seeks solace in his great palace of thinking, the city of London itself. On one of his long night walks, in a once-beloved square, he meets the mysterious Eleanor Lovejoy, who might be just the muse he needs.
Flatiron Books | 9781250154040
PARTING SHOT by Linwood Barclay (Thriller)
After a tragedy rocks the community of Promise Falls, Cal Weaver is asked to investigate the threats being made to the accused's family. He's heard all about it on the news: the young man who drank too much, stole a Porsche and killed a girl, and who claimed afterwards not to remember a single thing. The whole town is outraged that he got off lightly, but for reasons Cal can't explain, he accepts the job. Then he finds himself caught up in a vicious revenge plot, chasing someone set on delivering retribution. In Cal's experience, it's only ever a matter of time before threats turn into action.
Doubleday Canada | 9780385690232
THE QUEEN'S PROPHET by Dawn Patitucci (Historical Fiction)
When the Countess of Walther dies at her German estate, her loyal dwarfess Maria-Barbara is forced to work as a prophet for a traveling magician, who betrays her by selling her to the Queen of Spain. At the royal court in Madrid, Mari finds herself in a bizarre, enchanted world, a society culturally splendid but intellectually isolated. There she becomes Maribarbola, prophet to the Queen, and, her survival at stake, endeavors to outsmart the Spaniards. Mari's wits and loyalties are tested as she becomes embroiled in palace intrigue alongside the politically embattled Queen. But even as she survives and thrives at the Spanish court, the loss of identity Mari suffers from living a lie makes her question whether she is really surviving at all.
Turner | 9781683366836
STALIN: WAITING FOR HITLER, 1929-1941 by Stephen Kotkin (Biography)
In 1929, Joseph Stalin, having already achieved dictatorial power over the vast Soviet Empire, formally ordered the systematic conversion of the world’s largest peasant economy into “socialist modernity,” otherwise known as collectivization, regardless of the cost. What it cost, and what Stalin ruthlessly enacted, transformed the country and its ruler in profound and enduring ways. Building and running a dictatorship, with life and death power over hundreds of millions, made Stalin into the uncanny figure he became. Stephen Kotkin’s STALIN: WAITING FOR HITLER, 1929–1941 is the story of how a political system forged an unparalleled personality and vice versa.
Penguin Press | 9781594203800
TWIN PEAKS: THE FINAL DOSSIER by Mark Frost (Supernatural Thriller)
The return of “Twin Peaks” is one of the most anticipated events in the history of television. Featuring all the characters we know and love from the first series, as well as a list of high-powered actors in new roles, the show will be endlessly debated, discussed and dissected. While THE SECRET HISTORY OF TWIN PEAKS served to expand the mysteries of the town and place the unexplained phenomena that unfolded there into a vastly layered, wide-ranging history, TWIN PEAKS: THE FINAL DOSSIER tells us what happened to key characters in the 25 years in between the events of the first series and the second, offering details and insights fans will be clamoring for.
Flatiron Books | 9781250163301
TWO KINDS OF TRUTH: A Bosch Novel by Michael Connelly (Thriller)
Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer working cold cases for the San Fernando Police Department and is called out to a local drug store where a young pharmacist has been murdered. Bosch and the town's three-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous, big business world of pill mills and prescription drug abuse. Meanwhile, an old case from Bosch's LAPD days comes back to haunt him when a long-imprisoned killer claims Bosch framed him, and seems to have new evidence to prove it. The two unrelated cases wind around each other like strands of barbed wire. Along the way, Bosch discovers that there are two kinds of truth: the kind that sets you free and the kind that leaves you buried in darkness.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316225908
On Sale the Week of October 30th in Paperback
October 31st
AL CAPONE: His Life, Legacy, and Legend by Deirdre Bair (Biography)
At the height of Prohibition, Al Capone loomed large as Public Enemy Number One: his multimillion-dollar Chicago Outfit dominated organized crime, and law enforcement was powerless to stop him. But then came the fall: a legal noose tightened by the FBI, a conviction on tax evasion, a stint in Alcatraz. After his release, he returned to his family in Miami a much diminished man, living quietly until the ravages of his neurosyphilis took their final toll. Now, through rigorous research and exclusive access to Capone’s family, National Book Award–winning biographer Deirdre Bair cuts through the mythology, uncovering a complex character who was flawed and cruel but also capable of nobility.
Anchor | 9780345804518
THE ART OF WAR by Stephen Coonts (Thriller/Adventure)
As the Chinese military begins to prey on neighbors in the South China Sea, attacking fishing vessels and scheming to seize natural resources, the US goes on high alert. But a far more ominous danger lurks closer to home: a Chinese sleeper cell has planted a nuclear weapon in the harbor at Norfolk, Virginia, the biggest naval base on the planet. The target: a secret rendezvous of the Atlantic Fleet aircraft carriers and their battle groups. When the CIA director is assassinated and Jake Grafton is appointed to take his place, he gets wind of the conspiracy, but has no idea when or where the attack will occur.
St. Martin’s Paperbacks | 9781250042880
CAN'T LET GO: The Original Heartbreakers, Book 5 by Gena Showalter (Romance)
Paperback Original
With trust issues a mile long, Ryanne Wade has sworn off men. Then Jude Laurent walks into her bar, and all bets are off. The former army ranger has suffered unimaginably --- first being maimed in battle, then losing his wife and daughters to a drunk driver. Making the brooding widower smile is priority one. Resisting him? Impossible. For Jude, Ryanne is off-limits. And yet the beautiful bartender who serves alcohol to potential motorists tempts him like no other. When a rival bar threatens her livelihood --- and her life --- he can’t turn away. She triggers something in him he thought long buried, and he’s determined to protect her, whatever the cost.
HQN | 9780373803675
EVEN IF IT KILLS HER: A Bailey Weggins Mystery by Kate White (Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
Bailey Weggins’ new friend in college, Jillian Lowe, had everything going for her. All of that dramatically changed during her sophomore year, when a neighbor became unhinged and murdered her family. Now, 16 years later, Bailey is shocked to see Jillian at her book event. The man accused of murdering her family is on the brink of being cleared of the crime through new DNA evidence. With the real killer walking free, Jillian is desperate for Bailey’s help to identify him and allow her the closure she yearns for. As the two uncover deeply guarded secrets, so shocking that they make Jillian rethink her entire relationship to her family, Bailey and Jillian find themselves in great peril.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062448873
THE FLAME BEARER by Bernard Cornwell (Historical Fiction/Adventure)
Britain is in a state of uneasy peace. Northumbria’s Viking ruler, Sigtryggr, and Mercia’s Saxon Queen Aethelflaed have agreed to a truce. And so England’s greatest warrior, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, at last has the chance to take back the home his traitorous uncle stole from him so many years ago. But the enemies Uhtred has made and the oaths he has sworn combine to distract him from his dream of recapturing Bebbanburg. New enemies enter into the fight for England’s kingdoms, and Britain’s precarious peace threatens to turn into a war of annihilation. But Uhtred is determined that nothing, neither the new enemies nor the old foes who combine against him, will keep him from his birthright.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062250803
THE GLASS UNIVERSE: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars by Dava Sobel (Science/History)
In the mid-19th century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as calculators, or “human computers,” to interpret the observations their male counterparts made via telescope each night. As photography transformed the practice of astronomy, the ladies turned from computation to studying the stars captured nightly on glass photographic plates. The “glass universe” of half a million plates that Harvard amassed over the ensuing decades enabled the women to make extraordinary discoveries that attracted worldwide acclaim.
Penguin Books | 9780143111344
THE INHERITANCE: A Charles Lenox Mystery by Charles Finch (Historical Mystery)
Charles Lenox has received a cryptic plea for help from an old Harrow schoolmate, Gerald Leigh, but when he looks into the matter, he finds that his friend has suddenly disappeared. As boys they had shared a secret: a bequest from a mysterious benefactor had smoothed Leigh’s way into the world after the death of his father. Lenox, already with a passionate interest in detective work, made discovering the benefactor's identity his first case --- but was never able to solve it. Now, years later, Leigh has been the recipient of a second, even more generous bequest. Is it from the same anonymous sponsor? Or is the money poisoned by ulterior motives?
Minotaur Books | 9781250130198
MY HUSBAND’S WIFE by Jane Corry (Psychological Thriller)
When young lawyer Lily marries Ed, she’s determined to make a fresh start and leave the secrets of the past behind. But then she takes on her first murder case and meets Joe, a convicted murderer to whom she is strangely drawn and for whom she will soon be willing to risk almost anything. Lily is not the only one with secrets, however. Her next-door neighbor Carla may be only nine, but she already has learned that secrets are powerful things. When Lily finds Carla on her doorstep 16 years later, a chain of events is set in motion that can end only one way.
Penguin Books | 9780735220966
NEVERTHELESS: A Memoir by Alec Baldwin (Memoir)
In NEVERTHELESS, Alec Baldwin transcends his public persona, making public facets of his life he has long kept private. He introduces us to the Long Island child who felt burdened by his family’s financial strains and his parents’ unhappy marriage; the Washington, DC, college student gearing up for a career in politics; the self-named "Love Taxi" who helped friends solve their romantic problems while neglecting his own; the young soap actor learning from giants of the theater; the addict drawn to drugs and alcohol who struggles with sobriety; the husband and father who acknowledges his failings and battles to overcome them; and the consummate professional for whom the work is everything.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062409713
THE NOWHERE MAN: An Orphan X Novel by Gregg Hurwitz (Thriller)
Taken from a group home when he was young, Evan Smoak was raised and trained as an Orphan, an off-the-books black box program designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence asset: an assassin. Evan was Orphan X --- until he used everything he’d learned to disappear and reinvent himself as the Nowhere Man. But now, his new life has been interrupted by a surprise attack from an unlikely source. Captured, drugged and spirited off to a remote location, Evan finds himself heavily guarded from everything he knows. His captors think they have him trapped and helpless in a virtual cage, but they do not know that they’re dealing with one of the deadliest, most resourceful men on earth.
St. Martin’s Paperbacks | 9781250136473
THE SILENT CORNER by Dean Koontz (Thriller)
“I very much need to be dead.” These are the chilling words left behind by a man who had everything to live for, but took his own life. In the aftermath, his widow, Jane Hawk, is determined to find the truth, no matter what. People of talent and accomplishment, people admired and happy and sound of mind, have been committing suicide in surprising numbers. When Jane seeks to learn why, she becomes the most-wanted fugitive in America. Her powerful enemies are protecting a secret so important --- so terrifying --- that they will exterminate anyone in their way. But all their power and viciousness may not be enough to stop a woman as clever as they are cold-blooded, as relentless as they are ruthless.
Bantam | 9780345546791
SOMETHING IN THE BLOOD: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote Dracula by David J. Skal (Biography)
First published in 1897, DRACULA has had a long and multifaceted afterlife --- one rivaling even its immortal creation --- yet Bram Stoker has remained a hovering specter in this pervasive mythology. In SOMETHING IN THE BLOOD, David J. Skal exhumes the inner world and strange genius of the writer who birthed an undying cultural icon, painting an astonishing portrait of the age in which Stoker was born --- a time when death was no metaphor but a constant threat easily imagined as a character existing in flesh and blood.
Liveright | 9781631493867
TO CAPTURE WHAT WE CANNOT KEEP by Beatrice Colin (Historical Fiction)
In February 1887, Caitriona Wallace and Émile Nouguier meet in a hot air balloon, floating high above Paris, France --- a moment of pure possibility. But back on firm ground, their vastly different social strata become clear. Cait is a widow who, because of her precarious financial situation, is forced to chaperone two wealthy Scottish charges. Émile is expected to take on the bourgeois stability of his family's business and choose a suitable wife. As the Eiffel Tower rises, a marvel of steel and air and light, the subject of extreme controversy and a symbol of the future, Cait and Émile must decide what their love is worth.
Flatiron Books | 9781250138774
TOM CLANCY TRUE FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE: A Jack Ryan Novel by Mark Greaney (Thriller/Adventure)
A massive data breach has compromised the personal information of millions of American military officers and intelligence agents. After several deadly attacks on off-duty personnel and their families, President Jack Ryan faces one of the greatest challenges of his career. Can he find the hackers and cap the flow of information before it’s too late?
Berkley | 9781101988831
On Sale the Week of November 6th in Hardcover
November 7th
BONFIRE by Krysten Ritter (Psychological Thriller)
It has been 10 years since Abby Williams left home and scrubbed away all visible evidence of her small-town roots. Now working as an environmental lawyer in Chicago, she has a thriving career, a modern apartment, and her pick of meaningless one-night stands. But when a new case takes her back home to Barrens, Indiana, the life she painstakingly created starts to crack. Tasked with investigating Optimal Plastics, the town’s most high-profile company and economic heart, Abby begins to find strange connections to Barrens’s biggest scandal from more than a decade ago, involving the popular Kaycee Mitchell and her closest friends --- just before Kaycee disappeared for good.
Crown Archetype | 9781524759841
A CHRISTMAS RETURN by Anne Perry (Historical Mystery)
As Charlotte Pitt’s grandmother, Mariah Ellison, finds herself investigating a long-unsolved slaying, it becomes clear that grappling with intrigue and foul play runs in the family. A festive Christmas package left on Mariah’s doorstep contains an ominous present, sparking memories of a 20-year-old murder that shattered her friendship with the victim’s widow. Though the gift is a bitter reminder of that tragic time, in the spirit of the season Mariah travels to Surrey in hopes of reconciling with her estranged friend and solving the crime that drove them apart. But Surrey’s picturesque hills conceal dark doings and shocking revelations that could make the holiday anything but calm and bright.
Ballantine Books | 9780425285077
COME HOME by Patricia Gussin (Thriller)
Nicole Nelson and Ahmed Masud are partners in a thriving plastic surgery practice, are very much in love, and adore their young son, Alex. But cracks are beginning to appear in their fairy-tale life: most recently, pressure from Ahmed’s wealthy family in Cairo for him to return to Egypt --- permanently --- with his son. The Masud family pressure becomes a demand as the Hosni Mubarak regime is seriously threatened by protestors in Egypt. Ahmed’s family owes their control of the Egyptian cotton empire directly to Mubarak cronyism. If Mubarak goes down, the Masuds will surely lose their wealth, maybe even their lives. Ahmed must make a decision --- stay with Nicole in America or obey his father. And what about their son?
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608092598
DEAD OF WINTER: A Lily Dale Mystery by Wendy Corsi Staub (Mystery)
Just as a murderer dumps his corpse into the lake across Valley View in Lily Dale, Bella Jordan happens to be at her window. Unbeknownst to her, the killer spots her silhouette and prowls straight to her door. That is, until he’s interrupted by a black cat. A superstitious gambler, he takes off but vows to return. Jiffy Arden, a neighborhood kid looking for the black cat and stumbling across the killer, begins to have premonitions of being kidnapped during the season’s first snowstorm. Sure enough, when it strikes, he vanishes, never arriving home from the bus stop. While her son, Max, believes Jiffy has been kidnapped, Bella is convinced he has just wandered off as he typically does… until a body shows up in the lake.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781683313335
DEADLY CURE by Lawrence Goldstone (Historical Thriller)
In 1899, in Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Noah Whitestone is called urgently to his wealthy neighbor’s house to treat a five-year-old boy with a shocking set of symptoms. When the child dies suddenly later that night, Noah is accused by the boy’s regular physician --- the powerful and politically connected Dr. Arnold Frias --- of prescribing a lethal dose of laudanum. To prove his innocence, Noah must investigate the murder --- for it must be murder --- and confront the man whom he is convinced is the real killer. His investigation leads him to a reporter for a muckraking magazine and a beautiful radical editor who are convinced that a secret, experimental drug from Germany has caused the death of at least five local children, and possibly many more.
Pegasus Books | 9781681775524
DEATH AT THE EMERALD: A Frances Ffolkes Mystery by R. J. Koreto (Historical Mystery)
One-named stunning actress Helen mysteriously vanished 30 years ago. An elderly family friend is unable to bear not knowing any longer and commissions Lady Frances Ffolkes to track her down. Taking on the role of Lady Sherlock, with her loyal maid Mallow drafted as her Watson, Frances finds herself immersed in the glamorous world of Edwardian theater and London’s latest craze --- motion pictures. When one of Helen’s old suitors is suddenly murdered, Frances and Mallow work quickly to uncover a box of subtle clues to Helen’s whereabouts. But someone unexpected wants that box just as badly and is willing to kill to keep it shut.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781683313373
DISPLACED by Stephan Abarbanell (Historical Thriller)
Elderly writer Elias Lind isn’t convinced by reports that his scientist brother, Raphael, died in a concentration camp. Too frail to search for Raphael himself, Elias persuades a contact in the Jewish resistance to send someone in his place. Lilya joined the resistance movement to help form a new state, not to waste her time on a fruitless chase across a war-ravaged continent at the request of a most likely delusional old man. As her comrades make their final preparations for a major operation, a bitter Lilya must accept her orders and embark on her journey to Europe. But Lilya isn’t the only person pursuing the missing man. Someone has been mirroring her every move --- a dangerous adversary who will go to drastic lengths to find Raphael first.
Harper | 9780062484475
EASY ERRORS: The Posadas County Mysteries by Steven F. Havill (Mystery)
A violent crash has occurred. Not only is the vehicle totaled and the driver and a passenger crushed inside, a dead boy has been ejected. The first deputy to join Undersheriff Bill Gastner at the scene is rookie Robert Torrez, the department's newest hire. Before Gastner can head him off, Torrez sees that the boy is his spirited younger brother. And the girl crushed inside the SUV is a younger sister. The driver of the Suburban, also dead, is the assistant District Attorney's teenaged son. Were the three dead kids running from someone --- or something --- rather than speeding? Further investigation reveals that a fourth teen should have been in the vehicle, but is now missing. Where had the four kids been? And why?
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464209222
THE END WE START FROM by Megan Hunter (Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction)
As London is submerged below floodwaters, a woman gives birth to her first child, Z. Days later, she and her baby are forced to leave their home in search of safety. They head north through a newly dangerous country seeking refuge from place to place. The story traces fear and wonder as the baby grows, thriving and content against all the odds.
Grove Press | 9780802126894
EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke (Mystery/Thriller)
Laurie Moran’s television show “Under Suspicion” is a hit, both in the ratings and its record of solving cold cases. But her romantic break from former host Alex Buckley has left her with on-air talent she can’t stand --- Ryan Nichols --- and a sense of loneliness. Now Ryan has suggested a new case. Three years ago, Virginia Wakeling, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and one of the museum’s most generous donors, was found dead in the snow. The leading suspect then and now is her much younger boyfriend and personal trainer, Ivan Gray. Laurie’s skepticism about the case is upended by a tip from her father’s NYPD connection, and soon Laurie realizes there are a bevy of suspects --- including Virginia’s trusted inner circle.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501171642
FOOLS' RIVER: A Poke Rafferty Thriller by Timothy Hallinan (Thriller)
The two most difficult days in Bangkok writer Poke Rafferty’s life begin with an emergency visit from Edward Dell, the almost-boyfriend of Poke’s teenage daughter, Miaow. The boy’s father, Buddy, a late-middle-aged womanizer who has moved to Bangkok for happy hunting, has disappeared, and money is being siphoned out of his bank and credit card accounts. It soon becomes apparent that Buddy is in the hands of a pair of killers who prey on Bangkok’s “sexpats”; when his accounts are empty, he’ll be found, like a dozen others before him, floating facedown in a Bangkok canal. His money is almost gone. Over 48 frantic hours, Poke does everything he can to locate Buddy before it’s too late.
Soho Crime | 9781616957506
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: A Political Life by Robert Dallek (Biography)
In an era of such great national divisiveness, there could be no more timely biography of one of our greatest presidents than one that focuses on his unparalleled political ability as a uniter and consensus maker. Robert Dallek’s book takes a fresh look at the many compelling questions that have attracted all his biographers: How did a man who came from so privileged a background become the greatest presidential champion of the country’s needy? How did someone who never won recognition for his intellect foster revolutionary changes in the country’s economic and social institutions? How did he work such a profound change in the country’s foreign relations?
Viking | 9780525427902
GARDEN OF THE LOST AND ABANDONED: The Extraordinary Story of One Ordinary Woman and the Children She Saves by Jessica Yu (Biography)
At least 5,000 children live on the streets of Uganda’s capital city of Kampala. Some forget the names of their villages. The youngest may not know the names of their parents. But Gladys Kalibbala --- part journalist, part detective, part Good Samaritan --- does not hesitate to dive into difficult or even dangerous situations to aid a child. Author of a newspaper column called “Lost and Abandoned,” she is a resource that police and others turn to when they stumble across a stranded kid with a hidden history. Jessica Yu delivers an acutely observed story of this hardnosed and warmhearted woman, the children she helps, and the twists of fate they experience together.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9780544617063
THE GREAT HALIFAX EXPLOSION: A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism by John U. Bacon (History)
On Monday, December 3, 1917, the French freighter SS Mont-Blanc set sail from Brooklyn carrying the largest cache of explosives ever loaded onto a ship. The U.S. had just recently entered World War I, and the ordnance was bound for the battlefields of France, to help the Allies break the grueling stalemate that had protracted the fighting for nearly four demoralizing years. The explosives were so dangerous that Captain Aimé Le Medec took unprecedented safety measures. Sailing north, the Mont-Blanc faced deadly danger, enduring a terrifying snowstorm off the coast of Maine and evading stealthy enemy U-boats hunting the waters of the Atlantic. But it was in Nova Scotia that an extraordinary disaster awaited.
William Morrow | 9780062666536
HEATHER, THE TOTALITY by Matthew Weiner (Fiction)
Mark and Karen Breakstone have constructed the idyllic life of wealth and status they always wanted, made complete by their beautiful and extraordinary daughter, Heather. But they are still not quite at the top. When the new owners of the penthouse above them begin construction, an unstable stranger penetrates the security of their comfortable lives and threatens to destroy everything they've created.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316435314
HEAVEN'S CROOKED FINGER by Hank Early (Mystery)
Earl Marcus thought he had forever left behind the painful memories of a childhood spent under the fundamentalist rule of his father RJ’s church. But then an ominous photo of RJ is delivered to Earl’s home. The photograph is dated long after his father’s burial, and there’s no doubt that the man in the picture is very much alive. As Earl returns to Church of the Holy Flame searching for the truth, faithful followers insist that his father has risen to a holy place high in the mountains. Nobody will talk about the teenage girls who go missing, only to return with strange tattoo-like marks on their skin. Earl doesn’t know what to believe, but he has long been haunted by his father, forever lurking in the shadows of his life.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781683313915
HITLER, MY NEIGHBOR: Memories of a Jewish Childhood, 1929-1939 by Edgar Feuchtwanger with Bertil Scali, translated by Adriana Hunter (Memoir)
Edgar Feuchtwanger came from a prominent German-Jewish family. He was a carefree five-year-old when Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party, moved into the building opposite theirs in Munich. In 1933, the joy of this untroubled life was shattered. Hitler had been named Chancellor. Edgar's parents, stripped of their rights as citizens, tried to protect him from increasingly degrading realities. In class, his teacher had him draw swastikas, and his schoolmates joined the Hitler Youth. In 1939, Edgar was sent on his own to England, where he would make a new life, a career, have a family, and strive to forget the nightmare of his past --- a past that came rushing back when he decided, at the age of 88, to tell the story of his buried childhood and his infamous neighbor.
Other Press | 9781590518649
THE HOUSE OF UNEXPECTED SISTERS: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (18) by Alexander McCall Smith (Mystery)
Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi are approached by their part-time colleague, Mr. Polopetsi, with a troubling story: a woman, accused of being rude to a valued customer, has been wrongly dismissed from her job at an office furniture store. Never one to let an act of injustice go unanswered, Mma Ramotswe begins to investigate, but soon discovers unexpected information that causes her to reluctantly change her views about the case. Other surprises await our intrepid proprietress in the course of her inquiries. Mma Ramotswe is puzzled when she happens to hear of a local nurse named Mingie Ramotswe. She thought she knew everybody by the name of Ramotswe, and that they were all related. Who is this mystery lady?
Pantheon | 9781101871379
IT'S ALL RELATIVE: Adventures Up and Down the World’s Family Tree by A.J. Jacobs (Memoir/Humor)
A.J. Jacobs has received some strange emails over the years, but this note was perhaps the strangest: “You don’t know me, but I’m your eighth cousin. And we have over 80,000 relatives of yours in our database.” Who are these people, he wondered, and how do I find them? So began A.J.’s three-year adventure to help build the biggest family tree in history. His journey would take him to all seven continents. He drank beer with a US president, found himself singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and unearthed genetic links to Hollywood actresses and real-life scoundrels. After all, we can choose our friends, but not our family.
Simon & Schuster | 9781476734491
L'APPART: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home by David Lebovitz (Memoir)
When David Lebovitz began the project of updating his apartment in his adopted home city, he never imagined he would encounter so much inexplicable red tape while contending with the famously inconsistent European work ethic and hours. Lebovitz maintains his distinctive sense of humor with the help of his partner Romain, peppering this renovation story with recipes from his Paris kitchen. In the midst of it all, he reveals the adventure that accompanies carving out a place for yourself in a foreign country --- under baffling conditions --- while never losing sight of the magic that inspired him to move to the City of Light many years ago, and to truly make his home there.
Crown | 9780804188388
LENIN: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror by Victor Sebestyen (Biography)
Brought up in comfort and with a passion for hunting and fishing, chess and the English classics, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was radicalized after the execution of his brother in 1887. Victor Sebestyen traces the story from Lenin's early years to his long exile in Europe and return to Petrograd in 1917 to lead the first Communist revolution in history. Uniquely, Sebestyen has discovered that throughout Lenin's life his closest relationships were with his mother, his sisters, his wife and his mistress. The long-suppressed story told here of the love triangle that Lenin had with his wife and his beautiful, married mistress and comrade reveals a more complicated character than that of the coldly one-dimensional leader of the Bolshevik Revolution.
Pantheon | 9781101871638
THE MAYFLOWER: The Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America by Rebecca Fraser (History)
The voyage of the Mayflower and the founding of Plymouth Colony is one of the seminal events in world history. But the poorly equipped group of English Puritans who ventured across the Atlantic in the early autumn of 1620 had no sense they would pass into legend. They had 80 casks of butter and two dogs but no cattle for milk, meat or ploughing. They were ill-prepared for the brutal journey and the new land that few of them could comprehend. But the Mayflower story did not end with these Pilgrims’ arrival on the coast of New England or their first uncertain years as settlers. Rebecca Fraser traces two generations of one ordinary family and their extraordinary response to the challenges of life in America.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250108562
THE MIDNIGHT LINE: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child (Thriller)
Reacher takes a stroll through a small Wisconsin town and sees a class ring in a pawn shop window: West Point 2005. The ring is tiny, for a woman, and it has her initials engraved on the inside. Reacher wonders what unlucky circumstance made her give up something she earned over four hard years. He decides to find out. And find the woman. And return her ring. So begins a harrowing journey that takes Reacher through the upper Midwest, from a lowlife bar on the sad side of a small town to a dirt-blown crossroads in the middle of nowhere, encountering bikers, cops, crooks, muscle, and a missing persons PI who wears a suit and a tie in the Wyoming wilderness. The deeper Reacher digs, and the more he learns, the more dangerous the terrain becomes.
Delacorte Press | 9780399593482
MONTAIGNE IN BARN BOOTS: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy by Michael Perry (Memoir/Humor)
Written in a spirit of exploration rather than declaration, MONTAIGNE IN BARN BOOTS is a down-to-earth (how do you pronounce that last name?) look into the ideas of a philosopher "ensconced in a castle tower overlooking his vineyard," channeled by a midwestern American writing "in a room above the garage overlooking a disused pig pen." Whether grabbing an electrified fence, fighting fires, failing to fix a truck, or feeding chickens, Michael Perry draws on each experience to explore subjects as diverse as faith, race, sex, aromatherapy and Prince. But he also champions academics and aesthetics, in a book that ultimately emerges as a sincere, unflinching look at the vital need to be a better person and citizen.
Harper | 9780062230560
MRS. OSMOND by John Banville (Historical Fiction)
Isabel Archer is a young American woman, swept off to Europe in the late 19th century by an aunt who hopes to round out the impetuous but naïve girl's experience of the world. When Isabel comes into a large, unexpected inheritance, she is finagled into a marriage with the charming, penniless, and --- as Isabel finds out too late --- cruel and deceitful Gilbert Osmond, whose connection to a certain Madame Merle is suspiciously intimate. On a trip to England to visit her cousin Ralph Touchett on his deathbed, Isabel is offered a chance to free herself from the marriage, but nonetheless chooses to return to Italy.
Knopf | 9780451493422
NANTUCKET RED TICKETS: A Henry Kennis Mystery by Steven Axelrod (Mystery)
It's Christmas Eve on Nantucket, and prominent businessman Jackson Blum is about to live out his own version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL. No visions, no ghosts --- just the past, represented by the exhumed skeleton of his old partner, Ted Coddington, with a bullet from Blum's Ruger pistol in its skull; the present, in the form of a horribly mistreated employee who reveals Blum as the Scrooge he is; and the future, invoked by a family crisis that threatens to ruin the rest of his life. Nantucket Police Chief Henry Kennis is investigating the so-cold Coddington case with Blum as the main suspect while he roots out a plot to rig the traditional $5,000 Red Tickets raffle and struggles to close down a local opioid dealer who's selling to high school kids.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464207136
THE NOEL DIARY by Richard Paul Evans (Fiction)
Bestselling romance author Jacob Churcher hasn't been home for almost 20 years --- not since his mentally ill mother kicked him out of the house when he was just 16. When a lawyer calls to inform him that his estranged mother has passed away and left her house to him, Jacob returns to try and reconcile with the past and the pain and abuse he experienced as a child. As he digs through two decades worth of clutter, he uncovers many puzzling items, including a diary left by someone named Noel, who stayed with Jacob’s family during her pregnancy. Jacob then has an unexpected visitor, Rachel, who is looking for the mother who put her up for adoption 30 years before. United by their quest to make sense of the past and rewrite their futures, Jacob and Rachel begin a search for Noel.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501172038
OBAMA: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT by Pete Souza (Photography/History)
During Barack Obama's two terms, Pete Souza was with the President during more crucial moments than anyone else --- and he photographed them all. Souza captured nearly two million photographs of President Obama, in moments highly classified and disarmingly candid. OBAMA: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT reproduces more than 300 of Souza's most iconic photographs with fine-art print quality in an oversize collectible format. Together they document the most consequential hours of the Presidency, alongside unguarded moments with the President's family, his encounters with children, interactions with world leaders and cultural figures, and more.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316512589
PLAYING WITH FIRE: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics by Lawrence O'Donnell (History/Politics)
The 1968 U.S. Presidential election was the young Lawrence O’Donnell’s political awakening, and in the decades since it has remained one of his abiding fascinations. For years he has deployed one of America’s shrewdest political minds to understanding its dynamics, not just because it is fascinating in itself, but because in it is contained the essence of what makes America different, and how we got to where we are now. PLAYING WITH FIRE represents O’Donnell’s master class in American electioneering, embedded in the epic human drama of a system --- and a country --- coming apart at the seams in real time.
Penguin Press | 9780399563140
THE QUANTUM SPY by David Ignatius (Thriller)
A hyper-fast quantum computer is the digital equivalent of a nuclear bomb; whoever possesses one will be able to shred any encryption and break any code in existence. The winner of the race to build the world’s first quantum machine will attain global dominance for generations to come. Who will cross the finish line first: the U.S. or China? In THE QUANTUM SPY, the United States’ top-secret quantum research labs are compromised by a suspected Chinese informant, inciting a mole hunt of history-altering proportions. CIA officer Harris Chang leads the charge. Do the leaks expose real secrets, or are they false trails meant to deceive the Chinese? The answer forces Chang to question everything he thought he knew about loyalty, morality and the primacy of truth.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393254150
THE REVOLUTION OF MARINA M. by Janet Fitch (Historical Fiction)
St. Petersburg, New Year's Eve, 1916. Marina Makarova is a young woman of privilege who aches to break free of the constraints of her genteel life, a life about to be violently upended by the vast forces of history. Swept up on these tides, Marina will join the marches for workers' rights, fall in love with a radical young poet, and betray everything she holds dear, before being betrayed in turn. As her country goes through almost unimaginable upheaval, Marina's own coming-of-age unfolds, marked by deep passion and devastating loss, and the private heroism of an ordinary woman living through extraordinary times.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316022064
REVOLUTION SONG: A Story of American Freedom by Russell Shorto (History)
Russell Shorto takes us back to the founding of the American nation, drawing on diaries, letters and autobiographies to flesh out six lives that cast the era in a fresh new light. They include an African man who freed himself and his family from slavery, a rebellious young woman who abandoned her abusive husband to chart her own course, and a certain Mr. Washington, who was admired for his social graces but harshly criticized for his often-disastrous military strategy. Through these lives, we understand that the revolution was fought over the meaning of individual freedom, a philosophical idea that became a force for violent change.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393245547
THE RUINED HOUSE by Ruby Namdar (Fiction)
Andrew P. Cohen, a professor of comparative culture at New York University, is at the zenith of his life. Adored by his classes and published in prestigious literary magazines, he is about to receive a coveted promotion. He is on excellent terms with Linda, his ex-wife, and his two grown children admire and adore him. His girlfriend, Ann Lee, a former student half his age, offers lively companionship. A man of elevated taste, education and culture, he is a model of urbanity and success. But the manicured surface of his world begins to crack when he is visited by a series of strange and inexplicable visions involving an ancient religious ritual that will upend his comfortable life.
Harper | 9780062467492
THE SHADOW DISTRICT by Arnaldur Indridason (Thriller)
In wartime Reykjavik, Iceland, a young woman is found strangled in “the shadow district,” a rough and dangerous area of the city. An Icelandic detective and a member of the American military police are on the trail of a brutal killer. A 90-year-old man is discovered dead on his bed, smothered with his own pillow. Konrad, a former detective now bored with retirement, finds newspaper cuttings reporting the WWII shadow district murder in the dead man’s home. It’s a crime that Konrad remembers, having grown up in the same neighborhood. Why, after all this time, would an old crime resurface? Did the police arrest the wrong man? Will Konrad's link to the past help him solve the case and finally lay the ghosts of WWII Reykjavik to rest?
Minotaur Books | 9781250124029
THREE DAYS AND A LIFE by Pierre Lemaitre (Psychological Thriller)
In 1999, 12-year-old Antoine Courtin accidentally kills a young neighbor boy. Panicked, he conceals the body and is never suspected of any connection to the child's disappearance. But the boy's death continues to haunt him, shaping his life in unseen ways. More than a decade later, Antoine is a young doctor with a fiancée and a promising future. On a rare trip home, Antoine thoughtlessly sleeps with a young woman from his past. She shows up pregnant at his doorstep a few months later, insisting that they marry, but Antoine refuses. Meanwhile, the newly discovered body of Antoine's childhood victim means that the case has been reopened. Then the young woman's father threatens Antoine with a paternity test --- which almost certainly would match the DNA found on the dead child's body.
MacLehose Press | 9781681441788
TYPHOON FURY: A Novel of the Oregon Files by Clive Cussler and Boyd Morrison (Thriller/Adventure)
Hired to search for a collection of paintings worth half a billion dollars, Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon soon find themselves in much deeper waters. The vicious leader of a Filipino insurgency is not only using them to finance his attacks, he has stumbled upon one of the most lethal secrets of World War II: a Japanese-developed drug, designed, but never used, to turn soldiers into super-warriors. To stop him, the Oregon must take on not only the rebel commander, but also a South African mercenary intent on getting his own hands on the drug, a massive swarm of torpedo drones targeting the U.S. Navy, an approaching megastorm --- and, just possibly, a war that could envelop the entire Asian continent.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780399575570
UNHOLY CITY: A Claire Codella Mystery by Carrie Smith (Mystery)
Despite their rocky history, Detective Claire Codella and Precinct Detective Brian Haggerty come together when senior churchwarden Philip Graves’ bloody body is found lying in the herb garden of historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side just two days before Good Friday. Upon first glance, it looks like a random act of big city violence, but it soon becomes clear that Philip’s death was the result of a meticulously calculated ploy by someone who knew him. There are five vestry members and a choir director in addition to the 10 homeless men asleep in the church basement. Any one of them could have done it, but what did Philip do to warrant such a merciless death?
Crooked Lane Books | 9781683313298
WHAT UNITES US: Reflections on Patriotism by Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner (Political Science/Essays)
With this collection of original essays, venerated journalist Dan Rather reminds us of the principles upon which the United States was founded. Looking at the freedoms that define us --- from the vote to the press; the values that have transformed us, from empathy to inclusion to service; the institutions that sustain us, such as public education; and the traits that helped form our young country, such as the audacity to take on daunting challenges in science and medicine --- Rather brings to bear his decades of experience on the frontlines of the world’s biggest stories. As a living witness to historical change, he offers up an intimate view of history, tracing where we have been in order to help us chart a way forward and heal our bitter divisions.
Algonquin Books | 9781616207823
THE WINE LOVER'S DAUGHTER: A Memoir by Anne Fadiman (Memoir)
An appreciation of wine --- along with a plummy upper-crust accent, expensive suits, and an encyclopedic knowledge of Western literature --- was an essential element of Clifton Fadiman’s escape from lower-middle-class Brooklyn to swanky Manhattan. But wine was not just a class-vaulting accessory; it was an object of ardent desire. THE WINE LOVER’S DAUGHTER traces the arc of a man’s infatuation from the glass of cheap Graves he drank in Paris in 1927; through the Château Lafite-Rothschild 1904 he drank to celebrate his 80th birthday, when he and the bottle were exactly the same age; to the wines that sustained him in his last years, when he was blind but still buoyed, as always, by hedonism.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374228088
WOMEN'S LIBATION!: Cocktails to Celebrate a Woman's Right to Booze by Merrily Grashin (Humor)
The perfect mix of punny humor, feminist verve and practical instruction, WOMEN'S LIBATION! is a cocktail guide for the lady who likes to shake things up (and not just her martinis). In it, Brooklyn-based illustrator and long-time bartender Merrily Grashin toasts the feminist heroes who have come before us and the social movements that have helped shape us, honoring each with a delicious, imaginative cocktail. Beautifully appointed in a paper-over-board package with two-color interiors, each spread features an original illustration for every boozy beverage and a brief reflection on the historical figure, event or movement in women's history on which the drink is based.
Plume | 9780735216921
WONDER VALLEY by Ivy Pochoda (Fiction)
During a typically crowded morning commute, a naked runner is dodging between the stalled cars. The strange sight makes the local news and captures the imaginations of a stunning cast of misfits and lost souls. There's Ren, just out of juvie, who travels to LA in search of his mother. There's Owen and James, teenage twins who live in a desert commune, where their father, a self-proclaimed healer, holds a powerful sway over his disciples. There's Britt, who shows up at the commune harboring a dark secret. There's Tony, a bored and unhappy lawyer who is inspired by the runner. And there's Blake, a drifter hiding in the desert, doing his best to fight off his most violent instincts. Their lives will all intertwine and come crashing together in a shocking way.
Ecco | 9780062656353
On Sale the Week of November 6th in Paperback
November 7th
BEATLES '66: The Revolutionary Year by Steve Turner (Music History)
They started off as hysteria-inducing pop stars playing to audiences of screaming teenage fans and ended up as musical sages considered responsible for ushering in a new era. The year that changed everything for the Beatles was 1966. Music journalist and Beatles expert Steve Turner investigates the enormous changes that took place in the Beatles’ lives and work during 1966. He looks at the historical events that had an impact on the group, the music they made that in turn profoundly affected the culture around them, and the vision that allowed four young men from Liverpool to transform popular music and serve as pioneers for artists from Coldplay to David Bowie, Jay-Z to U2.
Ecco | 9780062475589
THE CITY BAKER’S GUIDE TO COUNTRY LIVING by Louise Miller (Fiction)
When Olivia Rawlings --- pastry chef extraordinaire for an exclusive Boston dinner club --- sets not just her flambéed dessert but the entire building alight, she escapes to the most comforting place she can think of: the idyllic town of Guthrie, Vermont. But the getaway turns into something more lasting when Margaret Hurley, the cantankerous owner of the Sugar Maple Inn, offers Livvy a job, which she accepts. Livvy soon uncovers the real reason she has been hired --- to help Margaret reclaim the inn’s blue ribbon status at the annual county fair apple pie contest. But when a new arrival takes the community by surprise, Livvy must decide whether to do what she does best and flee --- or stay and finally discover what it means to belong.
Penguin Books | 9781101981214
DARKEST HOUR: How Churchill Brought England Back from the Brink by Anthony McCarten (History)
Paperback Original
May 1940. Britain is at war. The horrors of blitzkrieg have seen one western European democracy after another fall in rapid succession to Nazi boot and shell. Invasion seems mere hours away. Just days after becoming Prime Minister, Winston Churchill must deal with this horror --- as well as a skeptical King, a party plotting against him, and an unprepared public. Pen in hand and typist-secretary at the ready, how could he change the mood and shore up the will of a nervous people? In this gripping day-by-day, often hour-by-hour account of how an often uncertain Churchill turned Britain around, Anthony McCarten exposes sides of the great man never seen before.
Harper Perennial | 9780062749529
DOWN TO NO GOOD by Earl Javorsky (Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
Private investigator Charlie Miner, freshly revived from his own murder, gets a call from Homicide Detective Dave Putnam. Self-styled “psychic to the stars” Tamara Gale has given crucial information about three murders, and the brass thinks it makes the Department look bad. Dave wants Charlie to help figure out the angle, since he has first-hand experience with the inexplicable. Trouble is, Charlie, just weeks after his full-death experience, once again has severe cognitive problems and may get them both killed.
Story Plant | 9781611882537
THE EMERALD LIE: A Jack Taylor Novel by Ken Bruen (Mystery/Thriller)
The latest terror to be visited upon the dark Galway streets arrives in a most unusual form: a Cambridge graduate who becomes murderous over split infinitives, dangling modifiers, and any other sign of bad grammar. Meanwhile, ex-cop Jack Taylor is approached by a grieving father with a pocketful of cash on offer if Jack will help exact revenge on those responsible for his daughter’s brutal rape and murder. Though hesitant to get involved, Jack agrees to get a read on the likely perpetrators. But he is soon derailed by the reappearance of Emily, the chameleon-like young woman who joined forces with Jack to take down her pedophile father and who remains passionate, clever and utterly homicidal.
Mysterious Press | 9780802127235
THE EVENING ROAD by Laird Hunt (Historical Fiction)
Meet Ottie Lee Henshaw, a startling, challenging beauty in small-town Indiana. Quick of mind, she navigates a stifling marriage, a lecherous boss, and on one day in the summer of 1930 an odyssey across the countryside to witness a dark and fearful celebration. Meet Calla Destry, a determined young woman desperate to escape the violence of her town and to find the lover who has promised her a new life. On this day, the countryside of Jim Crow-era Indiana is no place for either. It is a world populated by frenzied demagogues and crazed revelers, by marauding vigilantes and grim fish suppers, by possessed bloodhounds and, finally, by the Ku Klux Klan itself.
Back Bay Books | 9780316391313
HANK: The Short Life and Long Country Road of Hank Williams by Mark Ribowsky (Biography)
Hank Williams, a frail, flawed man who had become country music’s first real star, instantly morphed into its first tragic martyr when he died in the backseat of a Cadillac at the age of 29. Six decades later, Mark Ribowsky traces the miraculous rise of this music legend --- from the dirt roads of rural Alabama to the now-immortal stage of the Grand Ole Opry, and, finally, to a lonely end on New Year’s Day in 1953. Examining Williams’ chart-topping hits while also recreating days and nights choked in booze and desperation, HANK uncovers the real man beneath the myths, reintroducing us to an American original whose legacy, like a good night at the honkytonk, promises to carry on and on.
Liveright | 9781631493379
HILLARY by D.W. Buffa (Political Thriller)
When Robert Constable, President of the United States, dies in bed with a woman in a New York hotel room, the public is told that he died suddenly and peacefully of natural causes --- and alone. The President’s wife, Hillary Constable, asks young senator Bobby Hart, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, to find out who had her husband murdered and why. As Hart begins to learn more about the President’s shady dealings, he uncovers a massive global criminal and financial conspiracy, headed by a secret underground organization. Yet the closer Hart gets to the truth, the more shocking secrets are revealed that could threaten his life, American Democracy, and the future of the nation.
Polis Books | 9781943818808
IDAHO by Emily Ruskovich (Fiction)
Ann and Wade have carved out a life for themselves from a rugged landscape in northern Idaho, where they are bound together by more than love. With her husband’s memory fading, Ann attempts to piece together the truth of what happened to Wade’s first wife, Jenny, and to their daughters. In a story told from multiple perspectives --- including Ann, Wade, and Jenny, who is now in prison --- we gradually learn of the mysterious and shocking act that fractured Wade and Jenny's lives, of the love and compassion that brought Ann and Wade together, and of the memories that reverberate through the lives of every character in IDAHO.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780812984460
I LOVED HER IN THE MOVIES: Memories of Hollywood's Legendary Actresses by Robert Wagner with Scott Eyman (Memoir)
In a career that has spanned more than 60 years, Robert Wagner has witnessed the twilight of the Golden Age of Hollywood and the rise of television, becoming a beloved star in both media. During that time he became acquainted, both professionally and socially, with the remarkable women who were the greatest screen personalities of their day. I LOVED HER IN THE MOVIES is his intimate and revealing account of the charisma of these women on film, why they became stars, and how their specific emotional and dramatic chemistries affected the choices they made as actresses as well as the choices they made as women.
Penguin Books | 9780143107989
I SEE YOU by Clare Mackintosh (Psychological Thriller)
It all starts during her commute home one night. Zoe Walker glances through her local paper and sees her own face staring back at her in a classified ad. With the grainy photo is a phone number and a listing for a website called FindTheOne.com. In the following days, she sees other women in the same ad, a different one every day, and nearly all of them show up in the newspapers as victims of increasingly violent crimes --- including murder. With the help of a determined cop, Zoe uncovers the ad’s twisted purpose. And suddenly, the man on the train sitting across the car --- the one smiling at Zoe --- could be more than just a friendly stranger.
Berkley | 9781101988305
MADONNA IN A FUR COAT written by Sabahattin Ali, translated by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
A shy young man leaves his home in rural Turkey to learn a trade and discover life in 1920s Berlin. There, amidst the city’s bustling streets, elegant museums, passionate politics and infamous cabarets, a chance meeting with a beautiful half-Jewish artist transforms him forever. Caught between his desire for freedom from tradition and his yearning to belong, he struggles to hold on to the new life he has found with the woman he loves.
Other Press | 9781590518809
A MIDSUMMER’S EQUATION by Keigo Higashino (Mystery)
Manabu Yukawa, the physicist known as "Detective Galileo," has traveled to Hari Cove, a once-popular summer resort town that has fallen on hard times. He is there to speak at a conference on a planned underwater mining operation, which has sharply divided the town. The night after the tense panel discussion, one of the resort's guests is found dead on the seashore at the base of the local cliffs. As the police try to uncover where Tsukahara was killed and why, Yukawa finds himself enmeshed in yet another confounding case of murder. In a series of twists, Galileo uncovers the hidden relationship behind the tragic events that led to this crime.
Minotaur Books | 9781250145420
THE MISSING by C. L. Taylor (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
When 15-year-old Billy Wilkinson goes missing in the middle of the night, his mother, Claire Wilkinson, blames herself. She’s not the only one. There isn’t a single member of Billy’s family that doesn’t feel guilty. But the Wilkinsons are so used to keeping secrets from one another that it isn’t until six months later, after an appeal for information goes horribly wrong, that the truth begins to surface. Claire is sure of two things --- that Billy is still alive and that her friends and family had nothing to do with his disappearance. A mother’s instinct is never wrong. Or is it?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062673534
THE PRICE OF ILLUSION: A Memoir by Joan Juliet Buck (Memoir)
When Joan Juliet Buck became the first and only American woman ever to fill Paris Vogue's coveted position of Editor in Chief, she had the means to recreate for her aging father --- now a widower --- the life he’d enjoyed during his high-flying years, a splendid illusion of glamorous excess that could not be sustained indefinitely. Joan’s memoir tells the story of a life lived in the best places at the most interesting times: London and New York in the swinging 1960s, Rome and Milan in the dangerous 1970s, Paris in the heady 1980s and 1990s. But when her fantasy life at Vogue came to an end, she had to find out who she was after all those years of make-believe.
Washington Square Press | 9781476762951
RASPUTIN: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs by Douglas Smith (Biography)
A hundred years after his murder, Rasputin continues to excite the popular imagination as the personification of evil. Numerous biographies, novels and films recount his mysterious rise to power as Nicholas and Alexandra's confidant and the guardian of the sickly heir to the Russian throne. His debauchery and sinister political influence are the stuff of legend, and the downfall of the Romanov dynasty was laid at his feet. But as the prize-winning historian Douglas Smith shows, the true story of Rasputin's life and death has remained shrouded in myth. Combining probing scholarship and powerful storytelling, RASPUTIN separates fact from fiction to reveal the real life of one of history's most alluring figures.
Picador | 9781250141262
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 | 9781455597994
SKITTER by Ezekiel Boone (Apocalyptic Thriller/Horror)
First, there was the black swarm that swallowed a man whole, the suspicious seismic irregularities in India that confounded scientists, the nuclear bomb China dropped on its own territory without any explanation. Then, scientist Melanie Guyer's lab received a package containing a mysterious egg sac; little did Dr. Guyer know that, almost overnight, Earth would be consumed by previously dormant spiders that suddenly wanted out. Now, tens of millions of people around the world are dead. According to Dr. Guyer, the crisis may soon be over. But in Japan, a giant, glowing egg sac gives a shocking preview of what is to come, even as survivors in Los Angeles panic and break the quarantine zone.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781501125089
SNOWBLIND by Ragnar Jonasson (Mystery/Thriller)
Siglufjörður is an idyllically quiet fishing village in Northern Iceland, where no one locks their doors. Ari Thór Arason is a rookie policeman on his first posting, far from his girlfriend in Reykjavik --- with a past that he’s unable to leave behind. When a young woman is found lying half-naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed, elderly writer falls to his death in the local theater, Ari is dragged straight into the heart of a community where he can trust no one, and secrets and lies are a way of life. Past plays tag with the present and the claustrophobic tension mounts, while Ari is thrust ever deeper into his own darkness --- blinded by snow, and with a killer on the loose.
A Thomas Dunne Book for St. Martin's Griffin | 9781250144683
SOMEONE YOU LOVE IS GONE by Gurjinder Basran (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Simran’s mother has died but is not gone. Haunted by her mother’s spirit and memories of the past, she struggles to make sense of her world. Faced with disillusion in her marriage, growing distance from her daughter and sister, and the return of her long-estranged brother, she is troubled by questions to which she has no answers. As the life Simran has carefully constructed unravels, she must confront the truth of why her brother was separated from the family at a young age, and in doing so she uncovers an ancestral inheritance that changes everything.
Harper Perennial | 9780062674609
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