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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of January 8th and January 15th 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 Paperback Spotlight of GINNY MOON by Benjamin Ludwig, a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick when it released in hardcover last year. We are featuring a review, an interview with the author, and a discussion guide, as well as a contest on ReadingGroupGuides.com that will give three book groups an opportunity to win 12 copies of the book.
Book groups also will want to take note of a contest that Susan Wiggs has posted on her Facebook page. To celebrate the paperback release of FAMILY TREE, Susan would like to join one book club for their discussion of the book and treat them to a real taste of Vermont. One lucky winner will win a book club Skype session with Susan, 12 paperback copies of FAMILY TREE, and an assortment of Vermont foods. Be sure to enter by Wednesday, January 24th at noon ET.
Our Sneak Peek contest is back! This time, we're giving away THE DEVIL'S REWARD by Emmanuelle de Villepin. Thirty-five readers will have the chance to win an advance copy of the book, which releases on May 1st, and share their comments on it. The deadline for your entries is Thursday, January 18th at noon ET.
Also, we encourage you to enter our Word of Mouth and Sounding Off on Audio contests for an opportunity to win some fabulous hardcovers and audiobooks. And be sure to vote in our latest poll, which asks: Are you planning to keep track of the books you read this year?
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
Enter for a Chance to Win a Book Club Skype Session
with Susan Wiggs, Copies of FAMILY TREE,
and an Assortment of Vermont Foods!
Enter for your chance to win a book club meeting complete with a Skype visit from Susan Wiggs, copies of FAMILY TREE for your book club, and a Vermont food buffet!
Love. Success. A handsome husband, a beautiful home. These are the foundations of Annie Rush’s charmed life in Los Angeles. When a tragic turn of events takes all that away, Annie retreats to her family home in Switchback, Vermont. There, surrounded by a maple farm generations old, her brother, their divorced mother, and young nieces and nephews, Annie begins to rediscover herself and the true wealth of her family’s history.
Pick FAMILY TREE by Susan Wiggs for your next book club read, and enter for a chance to Skype with the author.
This Week's Bonus News:
Bookreporter.com's Paperback Spotlight for
GINNY MOON by Benjamin Ludwig
GINNY MOON by Benjamin Ludwig (Fiction)
Meet Ginny Moon.
She’s mostly your average teenager --- she plays flute in the school band, has weekly basketball practice, and reads Robert Frost poems for English class. But Ginny is autistic. So what’s important to her might seem a bit…different: starting every day with exactly nine grapes for breakfast, Michael Jackson, taking care of her baby doll…and crafting a secret plan of escape.
Ginny has been in foster care for years, and for the first time in her life she has found her “forever home.” After being traumatically taken from her abusive birth mother and moved around to different homes, she is finally in a place where she’ll be safe and protected, with a family who will love and nurture her.
This is exactly what all foster kids are hoping for. But Ginny has other plans. She’ll steal and lie and exploit the good intentions of those who love her --- anything it takes to get back what’s missing in her life. She’ll even try to get herself kidnapped.
Told in an extraordinary and original voice, GINNY MOON is at once quirky, charming, bighearted and poignant. It’s a story of a journey, about being an outsider trying to find a place to belong and about making sense of a world that just doesn’t seem to add up.
ReadingGroupGuides.com is celebrating the paperback release of GINNY MOON with a special contest that will give three readers the chance to win 12 copies of the book for their book group. To enter, please fill out this form by Wednesday, February 7th at noon ET.
- Click here to read a review.
- Click here to read an excerpt.
- Click here for the discussion guide.
- Click here to read Carol Fitzgerald’s Bookreporter.com Bets On commentary.
- Click here to read our interview with Benjamin Ludwig.
- Click here to enter the ReadingGroupGuides.com contest.
Click here to read more in our Paperback Spotlight.
On Sale the Week of January 8th in Hardcover
January 9th
THE AFTERLIVES by Thomas Pierce (Fiction)
Jim Byrd died. Technically. For a few minutes. The diagnosis: heart attack at age 30. Revived with no memory of any tunnels, lights or angels, Jim wonders what, if anything, awaits us on the other side. Then a ghost shows up. Maybe. Jim and his new wife, Annie, find themselves tangling with holograms, psychics, messages from the beyond, and a machine that connects the living and the dead. As Jim and Annie journey through history and fumble through faith, they confront the specter of loss that looms for anyone who dares to fall in love.
Riverhead Books | 9781594632532
BENEATH THE SUGAR SKY by Seanan McGuire (Fantasy)
When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest --- not when she has an entire world to save! If she can't find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she never will have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away.
Tor.com | 9780765393586
THE BLACK PAINTING by Neil Olson (Fiction)
There are four cousins in the Morse family, and their grandfather has summoned them to his mansion at Owl’s Point. None of them have visited the family estate since they were children, when a prized painting disappeared: a self-portrait by Goya, rumored to cause madness or death upon viewing. Afterward, the family split apart amid the accusations and suspicions that followed its theft. Any hope that their grandfather planned to make amends evaporates when Teresa arrives to find the old man dead. As the family gathers and suspicions mount, Teresa hopes to find the reasons behind her grandfather’s death and the painting’s loss. But to do so, she must uncover ugly family secrets and confront those who would keep them hidden.
Hanover Square | 9781335953810
THE BOAT PEOPLE by Sharon Bala (Fiction)
When a rusty cargo ship carrying Mahindan and 500 fellow refugees from Sri Lanka's bloody civil war reaches Vancouver's shores, the young father thinks he and his six-year-old son can finally start a new life. Instead, the group is thrown into a detention processing center, with government officials and news headlines speculating that among the "boat people" are members of a separatist militant organization responsible for countless suicide attacks --- and that these terrorists now pose a threat to Canada's national security. As the refugees become subject to heavy interrogation, Mahindan begins to fear that a desperate act taken in Sri Lanka to fund their escape may now jeopardize his and his son's chance for asylum.
Doubleday | 9780385542296
THE CHALK MAN by C. J. Tudor (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code: little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same. In 2016, Eddie is fully grown and thinks he has put his past behind him. But then he gets a letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out that his friends got the same message, they think it could be a prank…until one of them turns up dead.
Crown | 9781524760984
DANGEROUS CROSSING by Rachel Rhys (Historical Mystery)
In 1939, Europe is on the brink of war when young Lily Shepherd boards an ocean liner in Essex, bound for Australia. She is ready to start anew, leaving behind the shadows in her past. With stops at exotic locations along the way, the voyage shows Lily places she’d only ever dreamed of and enables her to make friends with those above her social station. She even allows herself to hope that a man she couldn’t possibly have a future with outside the cocoon of the ship might return her feelings. But Lily soon realizes that she’s not the only one hiding secrets. Her newfound friends are also running away from their pasts. By the time the ship docks, two passengers are dead, war has been declared, and Lily’s life will be changed irrevocably.
Atria Books | 9781501162725
THE DAYS WHEN BIRDS COME BACK by Deborah Reed (Fiction)
June is in transition, reeling from her divorce, trying to stay sober, and faced with a completely stalled career. She returns to the beautiful Oregon coast where she grew up, and must decide what to do with her late and much-loved grandparents’ charming cedar-shingled home. Jameson comes highly recommended to renovate the old house to sell. He too is unmoored as he struggles to redefine his marriage in the aftermath of tragic loss, and over the course of the summer, his conversations with June about the house quickly turn to the personal. Sensing connection, June and Jameson can’t seem to stop circling each other, shying away from hurt. But what can the future hold as long as they are gripped so firmly by the past?
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9780544817357
THE DEVIL'S CLAW by Lara Dearman (Mystery)
Following a traumatic incident in London, journalist Jennifer Dorey has returned home to Guernsey, taking a job as a local newspaper reporter. When she finds a drowned woman on a beach, Jennifer uncovers something much bigger and more sinister than she first thought. Jennifer enlists the help of DCI Michael Gilbert, an officer on the verge of retirement, to investigate a pattern of similar deaths over the last 50 years. They follow a dark trail of island myths and folklore to the illegitimate son of a Nazi soldier, whose painstakingly executed work has gone undetected so far. But as Jennifer gets closer to the truth of the killer’s identity, she finds herself stepping deeper into his grasp.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781683314561
THE ENGLISH WIFE by Lauren Willig (Historical Mystery)
Annabelle and Bayard Van Duyvil live a charmed life in New York. Yes, there are rumors that she's having an affair with the architect, but rumors are rumors and people will gossip. But then Bayard is found dead with a knife in his chest on the night of their Twelfth Night Ball, and Annabelle goes missing, presumed drowned. Bay's sister, Janie, forms an unlikely alliance with a reporter to uncover the truth, convinced that Bay would never have killed his wife, but the more she learns about her brother and his wife, the more everything she thought she knew about them starts to unravel. Who were her brother and his wife, really? And why did her brother die with the name George on his lips?
St. Martin's Press | 9781250056276
FIRE SERMON by Jamie Quatro (Fiction)
Maggie is entirely devoted to her husband Thomas, their two beautiful children, and to God --- until what begins as a platonic intellectual and spiritual exchange between writer Maggie and poet James transforms into an erotically charged bond that challenges Maggie’s sense of loyalty and morality, drawing her deeper into the darkness of desire.
Grove Press | 9780802127044
FOOLS AND MORTALS by Bernard Cornwell (Historical Fiction)
In the heart of Elizabethan England, Richard Shakespeare dreams of a glittering career in one of the London playhouses, a world dominated by his older brother, William. But he is a penniless actor, making ends meet through a combination of a beautiful face, petty theft and a silver tongue. As William’s star rises, Richard’s onetime gratitude is souring and he is sorely tempted to abandon family loyalty. So when a priceless manuscript goes missing, suspicion falls upon Richard, forcing him onto a perilous path through a bawdy and frequently brutal London. Entangled in a high-stakes game of duplicity and betrayal, Richard has to call on all he has now learned from the brightest stages and the darkest alleyways of the city. To avoid the gallows, he must play the part of a lifetime.
Harper | 9780062250872
GRIST MILL ROAD by Christopher J. Yates (Thriller)
The year is 1982. The setting: an Edenic hamlet some 90 miles north of New York City. There, among the craggy rock cliffs and glacial ponds of timeworn mountains, three friends --- Patrick, Matthew and Hannah --- are bound together by a terrible and seemingly senseless crime. Twenty-six years later, in New York City, living lives their younger selves never could have predicted, the three meet again --- with even more devastating results.
Picador | 9781250150288
HEART SPRING MOUNTAIN by Robin MacArthur (Fiction)
It’s August 2011, and Tropical Storm Irene has just wreaked havoc on Vermont, flooding rivers and destroying homes. One thousand miles away, Vale receives a call and is told that her mother, Bonnie, has disappeared. Despite a years-long estrangement from Bonnie, Vale drops everything and returns home to look for her. As she begins her search, the narrative opens up and pitches back and forth in time to follow three generations of women --- a farming widow, a back-to-the-land dreamer and an owl-loving hermit --- as they seek love, bear children and absorb losses. All the while, Vale’s search has her unwittingly careening toward a family origin secret more stunning than she ever imagined.
Ecco | 9780062444424
THE IMMORTALISTS by Chloe Benjamin (Fiction)
It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children --- four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness --- sneak out to hear their fortunes. Their prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in '80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11, hoping to control fate; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780735213180
THE MAZE AT WINDERMERE by Gregory Blake Smith (Historical Fiction)
A reckless wager between a tennis pro with a fading career and a drunken party guest --- the stakes are an antique motorcycle and an heiress’s diamond necklace --- launches a narrative odyssey that braids together three centuries of aspiration and adversity. A witty and urbane bachelor of the Gilded Age embarks on a high-risk scheme to marry into a fortune; a young writer soon to make his mark turns himself to his craft with harrowing social consequences; an aristocratic British officer during the American Revolution carries on a courtship that leads to murder; and, in Newport’s earliest days, a tragically orphaned Quaker girl imagines a way forward for herself and the slave girl she has inherited.
Viking | 9780735221925
THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD by Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis (History)
On September 12, 1970, an ex-Harvard professor with a genius I.Q. studies a 12-foot high fence topped with barbed wire. A few months earlier, Dr. Timothy Leary, the High Priest of LSD, had been running a gleeful campaign for California governor against Ronald Reagan. Now, Leary is six months into a 10-year prison sentence for the crime of possessing two marijuana cigarettes. Aided by the radical Weather Underground, Leary's escape from prison is the counterculture's union of "dope and dynamite," aimed at sparking a revolution and overthrowing the government. Inside the Oval Office, President Richard Nixon drinks his way through sleepless nights as he expands the war in Vietnam and plots to unleash the United States government against his ever-expanding list of domestic enemies.
Twelve | 9781455563586
OPERATOR DOWN: A Pike Logan Thriller by Brad Taylor (Thriller/Adventure)
It was to be a simple mission. Nothing more than assessing whether a merchant in the fabled Israeli Diamond Exchange was involved in a scheme that could potentially embarrass the state of Israel. But nothing is ever simple in the world of intelligence, as Aaron Bergman --- a former leader of an elite direct action team under the Mossad --- should have known. Executing the operation as a contractor, he disappears without a trace. Pike Logan and his team know none of this, but he’s tracking an American arms dealer in Tel Aviv who may be attempting to sell sensitive nuclear weapons components to the highest bidder. When Pike’s team breaks up an attempt at killing Shoshana, Aaron’s partner, they stumble upon a concerted conspiracy to topple a democratic African country.
Dutton | 9781101984819
PECULIAR GROUND by Lucy Hughes-Hallett (Historical Fiction)
It is the 17th century, and a wall is being raised around Wychwood, transforming the great house and its park into a private realm of ornamental lakes, grandiose gardens, and majestic avenues designed by Mr. Norris, a visionary landscaper. In this enclosed world everyone has something to hide after decades of civil war. Dissenters shelter in the woods, lovers rendezvous in secret enclaves, and outsiders --- migrants fleeing the plague --- find no mercy. Three centuries later, far away in Berlin, another wall is raised, while at Wychwood, an erotic entanglement over one sticky, languorous weekend in 1961 is overshadowed by news of historic change. In 1989, as the Cold War peters out, a threat from a different kind of conflict reaches Wychwood’s walls.
Harper | 9780062684196
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam by Max Boot (Biography)
Historian Max Boot demonstrates how Edward Lansdale pioneered a “hearts and mind” diplomacy --- first in the Philippines, then in Vietnam. It was a visionary policy that, as Boot reveals, was ultimately crushed by America’s giant military bureaucracy, steered by elitist generals and blueblood diplomats who favored troop build-ups and napalm bombs over winning the trust of the people. Through dozens of interviews and access to never-before-seen documents --- including long-hidden love letters --- Boot recasts this cautionary American story, tracing the bold rise and the crashing fall of the roguish “T. E. Lawrence of Asia” from the battle of Dien Bien Phu to the humiliating American evacuation in 1975.
Liveright | 9780871409416
SAY MY NAME by Allegra Huston (Fiction)
Years ago, frightened by passion, Eve settled for less: marrying safely, building a solid, ordinary life. Now she longs for more. One day, while treasure hunting for a friend’s antiques shop, she finds a mysterious instrument, carved with twining vines. It sends her on a quest --- and into a compelling connection with a young man, the son of an old flame. He is 20 years younger than she is, a musician, a seeker, a bohemian --- and, to her amazement, he’s pursuing her. Can this euphoric connection last? Eve finds herself defenseless against the force of her fantasies. But she cannot retreat back to safety; she is no longer the woman she was. And even now, she can hardly imagine the woman she will become.
Mira | 9780778330714
SHROUD OF ETERNITY: Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles, Volume II by Terry Goodkind (Fantasy)
The formidable sorceress Nicci and her companions --- the newly powerless Nathan and the youthful Bannon --- set out on another quest after driving ruthless Norukai slavers out of Renda Bay. Their mission: restore Nathan’s magic and, for Nicci, save the world. Guided by the witch-woman Red's mysterious prophecy, the trio makes their way south of Kol Adair towards a wondrous city shrouded behind time, Ildakar. But the grotesque omens on their path to Nathan's salvation --- severed Norukai heads on pikes, a genetically modified monster, and a petrified army of half a million --- are just a taste of the unimaginable horrors that await within the Shroud of Eternity.
Tor Books | 9780765388247
TELL ME MORE: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning to Say by Kelly Corrigan (Essays/Personal Growth)
It’s a crazy idea: trying to name the phrases that make love and connection possible. But that’s just what Kelly Corrigan has set out to do here. In her bestselling memoirs, Corrigan distilled our core relationships to their essences. Now, in TELL ME MORE, she’s back with a deeply personal and often hilarious examination of the essential phrases that turn the wheel of life. With refreshing candor, a deep well of empathy, and her signature desire to understand “the thing behind the thing,” Corrigan swings between meditations on life with a preoccupied husband and two mercurial teenage daughters to profound observations on love and loss.
Random House | 9780399588372
THIS COULD HURT by Jillian Medoff (Fiction)
Rosa Guerrero beat the odds as she rose to the top of the corporate world. A leader who wields power with grace and discretion, she has earned the devotion and loyalty of her staff. No one admires Rosa more than her doting lieutenant Leo Smalls, a benefits vice president whose whole world is Ellery. While Rosa is consumed with trying to address the needs of her staff within the ever-constricting limits of the company’s bottom line, her associate director, Rob Hirsch, a happily married father of two, finds himself drawing closer to his "work wife," Lucy Bender, an enterprising single woman searching for something to fill the vacuum in her personal life. For Kenny Verville, a senior manager with an MBA, Ellery is a temporary stepping-stone to bigger and better places --- that is, if his high-powered wife has her way.
Harper | 9780062660763
THE TRANSITION by Luke Kennard (Dystopian Fiction/Satire)
Do you or your partner spend more than you earn? Have your credit card debts evolved into collection letters? Has either of you considered turning to a life of a crime? You are not alone. We know. We can help. Welcome to the Transition. While taking part in the Transition, you and your partner will spend six months living under the supervision of your mentors, two successful adults of a slightly older generation. Freed from your financial responsibilities, you will be coached through the key areas of the scheme --- Employment, Nutrition, Responsibility, Relationship, Finances and Self-respect --- until you are ready to be reintegrated into adult society. At the end of your six months, who knows what discoveries you’ll have made about yourself?
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374278717
TWO GIRLS DOWN by Louisa Luna (Thriller)
When two young sisters disappear from a strip mall parking lot, their devastated mother hires an enigmatic bounty hunter, Alice Vega, to help find the girls. Immediately shut out by a local police department already stretched thin by budget cuts and the growing OxyContin and meth epidemic, Vega enlists the help of a disgraced former cop, Max Caplan. Cap is a man trying to put the scandal of his past behind him and move on, but Vega needs his help to find the girls, and she will not be denied. With little to go on, Vega and Cap will go to extraordinary lengths to untangle a dangerous web of lies, false leads and complex relationships to find the girls before time runs out, and they are gone forever.
Doubleday | 9780385542494
THE WIDOWS OF MALABAR HILL: A Mystery of 1920s Bombay by Sujata Massey (Historical Mystery)
Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father’s law firm. Mistry Law has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen examines the paperwork, she notices something strange: all three of the wives have signed over their full inheritance to a charity. The Farid widows live in full purdah --- in strict seclusion, never leaving the women’s quarters or speaking to any men. Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian? Perveen tries to investigate and realizes her instincts were correct when tensions escalate to murder.
Soho Crime | 9781616957780
THE WIFE BETWEEN US by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen (Psychological Thriller)
When you read this book, you will make many assumptions. You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife. You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement --- a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love. You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle. Assume nothing. THE WIFE BETWEEN US exposes the secret complexities of an enviable marriage --- and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250130921
WINTER by Ali Smith (Fiction)
Winter. Bleak. Frosty wind, earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes. And now Art’s mother is seeing things. Come to think of it, Art is seeing things himself. When four people, strangers and family, converge on a 15-bedroom house in Cornwall for Christmas, will there be enough room for everyone? Winter. It makes things visible. Ali Smith’s shapeshifting WINTER casts a warm, wise, merry and uncompromising eye over a post-truth era in a story rooted in history and memory and with a taproot deep in the evergreens, art and love.
Pantheon | 9781101870754
WOMAN AT 1,000 DEGREES written by Hallgrímur Helgason, translated by Brian FitzGibbon (Fiction)
From her childhood in the remote islands of Iceland, where she was born the granddaughter of Iceland’s first president, to teen years spent living by her wits alone in war-torn Europe while her father fought on the side of the Nazis, to love affairs on several continents, Herra Björnsson moved Zelig-like through the major events and locales of the 20th century. She wed and lost husbands, had children, fled a war, kissed a Beatle, weathered the Icelandic financial crash, and mastered the Internet. She has experienced luck and betrayal and upheaval and pain, and --- with a bawdy, uncompromising spirit --- she has survived it all. Now, as she awaits death in a garage in Reykjavík, she shows us a woman unbowed by the forces of history.
Algonquin Books | 9781616206239
On Sale the Week of January 8th in Paperback
January 9th
BETWEEN ME AND YOU by Allison Winn Scotch (Fiction)
Paperback Original
When their paths first cross, Ben Livingston is a fledgling screenwriter on the brink of success; Tatum Connelly is a struggling actress tending bar in a New York City dive. They fall in love, marry, become parents, and think only of the future. But as the years go by, Tatum’s stardom rises while Ben’s fades. Now all they can do is think back. A life of passion, joy, tragedy and loss --- once shared --- becomes one as shifting and unpredictable as a memory. As the pieces of their past come together, as they explore the ways love can bend and break, Ben and Tatum come to see how it all went wrong --- and wonder what they can do now to make it all right.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781503941229
THE BOY WHO ESCAPED PARADISE written by J. M. Lee, translated by Chi-Young Kim (Fiction)
An unidentified body is discovered in New York City, with numbers and symbols written in blood near the corpse. Gilmo, a North Korean national who interprets the world through numbers, formulas and mathematical theories, is arrested on the spot. He used to have a quiet life back in Pyongyang. But when his father, a preeminent doctor, is discovered to be a secret Christian, he is subsequently incarcerated in a political prison overseen by a harsh, cruel warden. There, Gilmo meets the spirited Yeong-ae, who becomes his only friend. When Yeong-ae manages to escape, Gilmo flees to track her down. He uses his peculiar gifts to navigate betrayal and the criminal underworld of east Asia --- a world wholly alien to everything he's ever known.
Pegasus Books | 9781681776231
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: From Enlightenment to Tyranny by Ian Davidson (History)
The French Revolution casts a long shadow, one that reaches into our own time and influences our debates on freedom, equality and authority. Its significance morphs according to the sympathies of the viewer, who may see it as a series of gory tableaux, a regrettable slide into uncontrolled anarchy --- or a radical reshaping of the political landscape. Ian Davidson provides a fresh look at this vital moment in European history. He reveals how it was an immensely complicated and multifaceted revolution, and how subsequently it became weighted with political, social and moral values.
Pegasus Books | 9781681776170
ILL WILL by Dan Chaon (Psychological Thriller)
A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his 40s when he hears the news: his adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt and uncle. Despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning. Meanwhile, one of Dustin’s patients has been plying him with stories of the drowning deaths of a string of drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses his patient's suggestions that a serial killer is at work as paranoid thinking, but eventually he starts to believe that there’s more to the deaths than coincidence.
Ballantine Books | 9780345476050
THE KING IS DEAD: The Last Will and Testament of Henry VIII by Suzannah Lipscomb (History)
On January 28, 1547, King Henry VIII died at Whitehall. Just hours before his passing, his last will and testament had been read, stamped and sealed. The will confirmed the line of succession as Edward, Mary and Elizabeth; and, following them, the Grey and Suffolk families. It also listed bequests to the king's most trusted councillors and servants. Historians have disagreed over the will’s intended meaning, its authenticity and validity, and the circumstances of its creation. Along with examining the background to the drafting of the will and describing Henry's last days, Suzannah Lipscomb offers her own illuminating interpretation of one of the most significant constitutional documents of the Tudor period.
Pegasus Books | 9781681776217
LAST STOP IN BROOKLYN: A Mary Handley Mystery by Lawrence H. Levy (Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
It's the summer of 1894, and an infidelity case has brought PI Mary Handley to a far corner of Brooklyn: Coney Island. In the midst of her investigation, Mary is contacted by a convicted man's brother to reopen a murder case. A prostitute was killed by a Jack the Ripper copycat years ago in her New York hotel room, but her true killer was never found. New York City's untouchable head of detectives, Thomas Byrnes, swears he put the right man behind bars, but as Mary digs deeper, she finds corruption at the heart of New York's justice system, involving not only the police, but the most powerful of stock titans.
Broadway Books | 9780451498441
LONG BLACK VEIL by Jennifer Finney Boylan (Thriller)
In 1980, six college students sneak into the dilapidated ruins of Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, looking for a thrill. But it’s not long before they realize they are locked in --- and not alone. When the friends get lost and separated, the terrifying night ends in tragedy, and the unexpected, far-reaching consequences reverberate through the survivors’ lives. Decades later, the dogged detective investigating the cold case charges one of them --- celebrity chef Jon Casey --- with murder. Only Casey’s old friend, Judith Carrigan, can testify to his innocence. But Judith is protecting long-held secrets of her own --- secrets that, if brought to light, could destroy her career as a travel writer and tear her away from her fireman husband and teenage son.
Broadway Books | 9780451496331
MAY by Marietta Miles (Thriller)
Paperback Original
May, a lonely drifter and small-time weed dealer, has spent years running from her ugly past. However, as a damaging nor’easter takes aim at her sleepy island home of Folly, she rushes to shore up, settle in and keep safe. Though most of the islanders have evacuated, May is not entirely alone. Spoiled city kid Curtis, fleeing his own dark secrets, and naïve local boy Tommy are also stuck on the island. Both are tweaking, and both are desperate, but only one grows vile and violent. To save the boy and to save herself, May must learn to be bad.
Down & Out Books | 9781946502179
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 | 9781501116858
THE MIDNIGHT COOL by Lydia Peelle (Historical Fiction)
A middle-aged Irish immigrant, Billy has a gift for illusion --- making damaged objects look new. His companion, Charles, the smooth-tongued teenage son of a prostitute, is a natural salesman, just like the mythical father he’s never met. Longtime horse traders and partners, they’ve recently turned their talents to trading mules. But in the summer of 1916, these seasoned grifters skilled in the art of the underhanded deal have just been swindled themselves. They’re saddled with the one thing they may not be able to unload: a gorgeous, murderous black mare named The Midnight Cool.
Harper Perennial | 9780062475473
MRS. SHERLOCK HOLMES: The True Story of New York City's Greatest Female Detective and the 1917 Missing Girl Case That Captivated a Nation by Brad Ricca (Biography)
MRS. SHERLOCK HOLMES tells the true story of Grace Humiston, the lawyer, detective and first woman U.S. District Attorney who turned her back on New York society life to become one of the nation's greatest crime-fighters during an era when women were still not allowed to vote. After agreeing to take the sensational case of missing 18-year-old Ruth Cruger, Grace and her partner, the hard-boiled detective Julius J. Kron, navigated a dangerous web of secret boyfriends, two-faced cops, underground tunnels, rumors of white slavery, and a mysterious pale man, in a desperate race against time.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250160836
ON TURPENTINE LANE by Elinor Lipman (Romantic Comedy)
At 32, Faith Frankel has returned to her claustro-suburban hometown, where she writes institutional thank-you notes for her alma mater. It's a peaceful life, and surely with her recent purchase of a sweet bungalow on Turpentine Lane, her life is finally on track. Never mind that her fiancé is off on a crowdfunded cross-country walk, too busy to return her texts (but not too busy to post photos of himself with a different woman in every state). And never mind her witless boss, or a mother who lives too close, or a philandering father who thinks he's Chagall. When she finds some mysterious artifacts in the attic of her new home, she wonders whether anything in her life is as it seems.
Mariner Books | 9781328745583
THE PERFECT NANNY by Leila Slimani (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
When Myriam, a French-Moroccan lawyer, decides to return to work after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for their two young children. They never dreamed they would find Louise: a quiet, polite, devoted woman who sings to the children, cleans the family’s chic apartment in Paris’s upscale 10th arrondissement, stays late without complaint, and hosts enviable kiddie parties. But as the couple and the nanny become more dependent on one another, jealousy, resentment and suspicions mount, shattering the idyllic tableau.
Penguin Books | 9780143132172
THE SONG AND THE SILENCE: A Story about Family, Race, and What Was Revealed in a Small Town in the Mississippi Delta While Searching for Booker Wright by Yvette Johnson (Memoir)
“Have to keep that smile,” Booker Wright said in the 1966 NBC documentary “Mississippi: A Self-Portrait.” The ripple effect from his remarks would cement Booker as a civil rights icon because he did the unthinkable: before a national audience, Wright described what life truly was like for the Black people of Greenwood, Mississippi. Four decades later, Yvette Johnson, Wright’s granddaughter, finds footage of the controversial documentary. Compelled to learn more about her roots, she travels to Greenwood, Mississippi. As she uncovers her grandfather’s compelling story and gets closer to the truth behind his murder, she also confronts her own conflicted feelings surrounding race, family and forgiveness.
Atria Books | 9781476754956
THE STRAYS by Emily Bitto (Historical Fiction)
On her first day at a new school, Lily befriends Eva and her sisters Beatrice and Heloise, daughters of the infamous avant-garde painter Evan Trentham. An only child from an unremarkable, working-class family, Lily has never experienced a household like the Trenthams' --- a community of like-minded artists Evan and his wife have created, all living and working together to escape the stifling conservatism of 1930s Australia. And Lily has never met anyone like Eva, whose unabashed confidence and worldly knowledge immediately draw her in. But as seductive as the artists' utopian vision appears, behind it lies both darkness and dysfunction. And the further the girls are pulled in, the greater the consequences become.
Twelve | 9781455537716
SUNDAY SILENCE by Nicci French (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Lover of London, gifted psychologist, frequent police consultant --- Frieda Klein is many things. And now she's a person of interest in a murder case. A body has been discovered in the most unlikely and horrifying of places: beneath the floorboards of Frieda's house. The corpse is only months old, but the chief suspect appears to have died more than seven years ago. Except as Frieda knows all too well, he's alive and well and living in secret. And it seems he's inspired a copycat. As the days pass and the body count rises, Frieda finds herself caught in a fatal tug-of-war between two killers: one who won't let her go, and another who can't let her live.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062676689
UNDER A CLOUDLESS SKY by Chris Fabry (Fiction)
Paperback Original
In the mining town of Beulah Mountain, West Virginia, in 1933, two young girls form an unbreakable bond against the lush Appalachian landscape. Ruby and Bean thrive under the tender care of Bean’s mama, blissfully unaware of the rising conflict in town and the coming tragedy that will tear them apart forever. In 2004, neighbors up and down the hollow have sold their land to Coleman Coal and Energy, but Hollis Beasley is determined to hold on to his family legacy on Beulah Mountain. Standing in his way is Buddy Coleman, an upstart mining executive who hopes to revitalize the dying town by increasing coal production and opening the Company Store Museum. What surprises them all is how their stories will intersect with a feisty octogenarian living hundreds of miles away.
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. | 9781414387789
On Sale the Week of January 15th in Hardcover
January 16th
CARNEGIE'S MAID by Marie Benedict (Historical Fiction)
Clara Kelley is not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, and pretending to be her just might get Clara some money to send back home. Serving as a lady's maid in the household of Andrew Carnegie requires skills he doesn't have, answering to an icy mistress who rules her sons and her domain with an iron fist. What Clara does have is a strong resolve coupled with an uncanny understanding of business, and Andrew begins to rely on her. But Clara can't let her guard down, not even when Andrew becomes something more than an employer.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781492646617
CITY OF ENDLESS NIGHT: A Pendergast Novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Thriller)
It begins as a manhunt for Grace Ozmian, the missing daughter of a wealthy tech billionaire. At first, the NYPD assumes that Grace has simply sped off on another wild adventure. But the case becomes something altogether different when the young woman's body is discovered, the head nowhere to be found. Lieutenant CDS Vincent D'Agosta quickly takes the lead. D'Agosta knows his investigation will attract fierce scrutiny, so he is delighted when FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast shows up at the crime scene also assigned to the case. But neither are prepared for what lies ahead, as it quickly becomes clear that a diabolical presence is haunting the greater metropolitan area.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781455536948
EVERYTHING HERE IS BEAUTIFUL by Mira T. Lee (Fiction)
When their mother dies and Lucia starts hearing voices, Miranda must find a way to reach her sister. But Lucia impetuously plows ahead, marrying a bighearted, older man only to leave him, suddenly, to have a baby with a young Latino immigrant. She moves her new family from the States to Ecuador and back again, but the bitter constant is that she is, in fact, mentally ill. Lucia lives life on a grand scale until, inevitably, she crashes to earth. Miranda leaves her own self-contained life in Switzerland to rescue her sister again, but only Lucia can decide if she wants to be saved. The bonds of sisterly devotion stretch across oceans --- but what does it take to break them?
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780735221963
THE GIRLS IN THE PICTURE by Melanie Benjamin (Historical Fiction)
It is 1914, and 25-year-old Frances Marion has left her (second) husband and her Northern California home for the lure of Los Angeles. But the word on everyone’s lips these days is “flickers,” the silent moving pictures enthralling theatergoers. In this fledgling industry, Frances finds her true calling: writing stories for this wondrous new medium. She also makes the acquaintance of actress Mary Pickford, and they hit it off instantly --- their kinship fomented by their mutual fever to create, move audiences to a frenzy and start a revolution. But their ambitions are challenged by both the men around them and the limitations imposed on their gender --- and their astronomical success could come at a price.
Delacorte Press | 9781101886809
I KNOW MY NAME by C. J. Cooke (Psychological Thriller)
On a small Greek island, a woman comes ashore with no memory of who she is, where she's from, or how she came to be shipwrecked there. As she's nursed back to health by the island's only inhabitants, four friends on an annual retreat, she detects tensions between the group that suggest not all is quite as it seems. Her new acquaintances each appear to be hiding something --- something that may relate to the mystery of her identity. Meanwhile, in a pretty suburb on the outskirts of London, Eloise vanishes into thin air. Her husband, Lochlan, is desperate to find her --- but as the police look into the disappearance, it becomes clear that Lochlan and Eloise's marriage was not the perfect union it appeared.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538744444
THE LARGESSE OF THE SEA MAIDEN: Stories by Denis Johnson (Fiction/Short Stories)
THE LARGESSE OF THE SEA MAIDEN is the long-awaited new story collection from Denis Johnson. Written in the luminous prose that made him one of the most beloved and important writers of his generation, this collection finds Johnson in new territory, contemplating the ghosts of the past and the elusive and unexpected ways the mysteries of the universe assert themselves. Finished shortly before Johnson’s death, this collection is the last word from a writer whose work will live on for many years to come.
Random House | 9780812988635
LIGHT IT UP: A Peter Ash Novel by Nick Petrie (Thriller)
Combat veteran Peter Ash leaves a simple life rebuilding hiking trails in Oregon to help his good friend Henry Nygaard, whose daughter runs a Denver security company that protects cash-rich cannabis entrepreneurs from modern-day highwaymen. Henry’s son-in-law and the company’s operations manager were carrying a large sum of client money when their vehicle vanished without a trace, leaving Henry’s daughter and her company vulnerable. When Peter is riding shotgun on another cash run, the cargo he’s guarding comes under attack and he narrowly escapes with his life. As the assaults escalate, Peter has to wonder: for criminals this sophisticated, is it really just about the cash?
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780399575631
LULLABY ROAD by James Anderson (Mystery/Thriller)
Local truck driver Ben Jones, still in mourning over a heartbreaking loss, is just trying to get through another season of treacherous roads and sudden snowfall without an accident. But then he finds a mute Hispanic child who has been abandoned at a seedy truck stop along his route, far from civilization and bearing a note that simply reads “Please Ben. Watch my son. His name is Juan.” And then at the bottom, a few more hastily scribbled words: “Bad Trouble. Tell no one.” Despite deep misgivings, and without any hint of who this child is or the grave danger he’s facing, Ben takes the child with him in his truck and sets out into an environment that is as dangerous as it is beautiful and silent. From that moment forward, nothing will ever be the same.
Crown | 9781101906545
MUNICH by Robert Harris (Historical Thriller)
Hugh Legat is a rising star of the British diplomatic service, serving at 10 Downing Street as a private secretary to the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. Rikard von Holz is on the staff of the German Foreign Office --- and secretly a member of the anti-Hitler resistance. The two men were friends at Oxford in the 1920s, but have not been in contact since. Now, when Hugh flies with Chamberlain from London to Munich, and Rikard travels on Hitler's train overnight from Berlin, their paths are set on a disastrous collision course.
Knopf | 9780525520269
THE NIGHT MARKET by Jonathan Moore (Psychological Thriller)
It’s late Thursday night, and Inspector Ross Carver is at a crime scene in one of the city’s last luxury homes. The dead man on the floor is covered by an unknown substance that’s eating through his skin. Before Carver can identify it, six FBI agents burst in and remove him from the premises. He’s pushed into a disinfectant trailer, forced to drink a liquid that sends him into seizures, and then is shocked unconscious. On Sunday he wakes in his bed to find his neighbor, Mia, reading aloud to him. She says she saw him being carried into their building by plainclothes police officers, who told her he’d been poisoned. Carver doesn’t really know this woman and has no way of disproving her, but his gut says to keep her close.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9780544671898
OLIVER LOVING by Stefan Merrill Block (Fiction)
A shy boy named Oliver Loving attends his school’s annual dance, hoping for a glimpse of the object of his unrequited affections, Rebekkah Sterling. But as the music plays, a troubled young man sneaks in through the school’s back door. The dire choices this man makes that evening will tear the town of Bliss, Texas apart. Nearly 10 years later, Oliver still lies wordless and paralyzed at an assisted care facility. Orbiting the stillpoint of his hospital bed is a family transformed. And then there is Rebekkah, who left Texas long ago and still refuses to speak about her own part in that tragic night. When a new medical test promises a key to unlock Oliver’s trapped mind, the town’s unanswered questions resurface with new urgency.
Flatiron Books | 9781250169730
RED CLOCKS by Leni Zumas (Fiction)
Abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty and property to every embryo. In a small Oregon fishing town, five very different women navigate these new barriers. Ro, a single high-school teacher, is trying to have a baby on her own, while also writing a biography of Eivør, a little-known 19th-century female polar explorer. Susan is a frustrated mother of two, trapped in a crumbling marriage. Mattie is the adopted daughter of doting parents and one of Ro's best students, who finds herself pregnant with nowhere to turn. And Gin is the gifted, forest-dwelling herbalist, or "mender," who brings all their fates together when she's arrested and put on trial in a frenzied modern-day witch hunt.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316434812
THE SILENT ROOM by Mari Hannah (Thriller)
Detective Sergeant Matthew Ryan wants to clear the name of his former boss, who stands accused of official corruption. But before he can do so, his boss disappears. Did he escape from police custody, or was he kidnapped? Or did something even worse happen to him?
Minotaur Books | 9781250115669
THE STOWAWAY: A Young Man’s Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica by Laurie Gwen Shapiro (History)
It was 1928: a time of illicit booze, of Gatsby and Babe Ruth, of freewheeling fun. The Great War was over, and American optimism was higher than the stock market. What better moment to launch an expedition to Antarctica, the planet’s final frontier? This was the moon landing before the 1960s. Everyone wanted to join the adventure. Rockefellers and Vanderbilts begged to be taken along as mess boys, and newspapers across the globe covered the planning’s every stage. The night before the expedition’s flagship launched, first generation New York City high schooler Billy Gawronski jumped into the Hudson River and snuck aboard. Could he get away with it?
Simon & Schuster | 9781476753867
THE TAKE by Christopher Reich (Thriller)
Simon Riske is a freelance industrial spy who, despite his job title, lives a mostly quiet life above his auto garage in central London. He is hired to perform the odd job for a bank, an insurance company, or the British Secret Service, when he isn't expertly stealing a million-dollar watch off the wrist of a crooked Russian oligarch. Riske has maintained his quiet life by avoiding big, messy jobs --- until now. A gangster by the name of Tino Coluzzi has orchestrated the greatest street heist in the history of Paris: a visiting Saudi prince had his pockets lightened of millions in cash, and something else. Hidden within a stolen briefcase is a secret letter that could upend the balance of power in the Western world.
Mulholland Books | 9780316342353
A TREACHEROUS CURSE: A Veronica Speedwell Mystery by Deanna Raybourn (Historical Mystery)
Victorian adventuress Veronica Speedwell can’t resist the allure of an exotic mystery --- particularly one involving her enigmatic colleague, Stoker. His former expedition partner has vanished from an archaeological dig with a priceless diadem unearthed from the newly discovered tomb of an Egyptian princess. This disappearance is just the latest in a string of unfortunate events that have plagued the controversial expedition, and rumors abound that the curse of the vengeful princess has been unleashed as the shadowy figure of Anubis himself stalks the streets of London. But the perils of an ancient curse are not the only challenges Veronica must face as sordid details and malevolent enemies emerge from Stoker’s past.
Berkley | 9780451476173
THE VOICE INSIDE by Brian Freeman (Psychological Thriller)
Four years after serial killer Rudy Cutter was sent away for life, San Francisco homicide inspector Frost Easton uncovers a terrible lie: his closest friend planted false evidence to put Cutter behind bars. When he’s forced to reveal the truth, his sister’s killer is back on the streets. Desperate to take Cutter down again, the detective finds a new ally in Eden Shay, who wrote a book about Cutter and knows more about him than anyone. For four years, Cutter has been nursing revenge day after stolen day. Staying ahead of the game of a killer who’s determined to strike again is not going to be easy. Not when Frost is battling his own demons. Not when the game is becoming so personal. And not when the killer’s next move is unlike anything Frost expected.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781542049047
THE WEIGHT OF AN INFINITE SKY by Carrie La Seur (Fiction)
The only son of a cattle rancher, Anthony Fry chafed against the expectation that he would take over the business that had belonged to his family for generations. While his ancestors planted deep roots in the unforgiving Montana soil, Anthony wanted nothing more than to leave Billings for the excitement, sophistication and culture of city life. After college he fled to New York, hoping to turn his lifelong love of the theater into a career. But New York wasn’t the dream Anthony thought it would be. Now, with the unexpected death of his father, Anthony suddenly finds himself back in the place he swore he’d left behind. His uncle Neal, always the black sheep of the Fry family, has become alarmingly close with Anthony’s mother, and a predatory mining company covets the Fry land.
William Morrow | 9780062323477
WHEN THEY CALL YOU A TERRORIST: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele (Memoir)
From one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement comes a poetic memoir and reflection on humanity. Patrisse Cullors’ story asks us to remember that protest in the interest of the most vulnerable comes from love. Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement have been called terrorists, a threat to America. But in truth, they are loving women whose life experiences have led them to seek justice for those victimized by the powerful. Here, Patrisse Cullors and asha bandele seek to change the culture that declares innocent black life expendable.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250171085
On Sale the Week of January 15th in Paperback
January 15th
BLACKCHURCH FURNACE by Nathan Singer (Fiction/Satire)
Paperback Original
Blackchurch is not the sort of place where folks are inclined to be up in each other’s business, and strange house guests at a neighbor’s pad are not likely to be noticed, let alone remarked upon. So on a day in early October, when two beat-up-looking crackers, a pregnant teenage whore, and a small, androgynous Japanese woman in a large-brimmed sombrero, sunglasses and wrapped in a patchwork down comforter came to call on D’antre Philips with heads full of prophetic visions and tales of the apocalypse already in progress, nary an eye was blinked. When the end times do come to Blackchurch, it’ll be a day like any other day. And the next day will be too.
Down & Out Books | 9781946502186
January 16th
THE ARRANGEMENT by Sarah Dunn (Fiction)
Lucy and Owen have taken the plunge, trading in their crazy life in a cramped apartment for Beekman, a bucolic Hudson Valley exurb. When friends at a wine-soaked dinner party reveal they've made their marriage open, sensible Lucy balks. There's a part of her, though, that's intrigued. Why not try a short marital experiment? Six months, clear ground rules, zero questions asked. When an affair with a man in the city begins to seem more enticing than the happily-ever-after she's known for the past nine years, Lucy must decide what truly makes her happy --- "real life" or the "experiment"?
Back Bay Books | 9780316013611
FIND ME by J.S. Monroe (Thriller)
Five years ago, Rosa walked to the pier in the dead of night, looked into the swirling water and jumped. She was a brilliant young Cambridge student who had just lost her father. Her death was ruled a suicide. But Rosa’s boyfriend, Jar, still can’t let go. He sees Rosa everywhere and is obsessed with proving that she is still alive. Then he gets an email: “Find me, Jar. Find me, before they do…” As Jar digs into the past, he enters a dark underworld where nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted. He is soon thrust into the heart of a larger intrigue that may finally shed some light on Rosa’s death…even as it dangerously threatens his own life.
Park Row | 9780778330813
THE GIRL IN GREEN by Derek B. Miller (Thriller)
1991. Near Checkpoint Zulu, 100 miles from the Kuwaiti border, British journalist Thomas Benton meets Arwood Hobbes, an American private. Desert Storm is over and peace has been declared, but as they argue about whether it makes sense to cross the nearest border in search of an ice cream, they become embroiled in a horrific attack in which a young local girl in a green dress is killed as they are trying to protect her. The two men walk away into their respective lives. But something has cracked for them both. Twenty-two years later, in another place, in another war, they meet again and are offered an unlikely opportunity to redeem themselves when that same girl in green is found alive and in need of salvation. Or is she?
Mariner Books | 9781328745507
A HORSE WALKS INTO A BAR written by David Grossman, translated by Jessica Cohen (Fiction)
In a little dive in a small Israeli city, Dov Greenstein, a comedian a bit past his prime, is doing a night of standup. In the audience is a district court justice, Avishai Lazar, whom Dov knew as a boy, along with a few others who remember Dov as the awkward, scrawny kid who walked on his hands to confound the neighborhood bullies. Gradually, teetering between hilarity and hysteria, Dov's patter becomes a kind of memoir, taking us back into the terrors of his childhood. Finally, recalling his week at a military camp for youth --- where Lazar witnessed what became the central event of Dov's childhood --- Dov describes the indescribable while Lazar wrestles with his own part in the comedian's story of loss and survival.
Vintage | 9781101973493
INDELIBLE by Adelia Saunders (Fiction)
Magdalena has an unsettling gift. She sees the truth about people written on their skin --- names, dates, details both banal and profound --- and her only relief from the onslaught of information is to take off her glasses and let the world recede. Mercifully, her own skin is blank. In Adelia Saunders' debut, secrets are revealed among forgotten texts in the old archives of Paris, on a dusty cattle ranch in the American West, along ancient pilgrim paths, and in a run-down apartment in post-Soviet Lithuania. By chance, or perhaps by fate, the novel's characters converge, and Magdalena's uncanny ability may be the key to their happiness.
Bloomsbury USA | 9781632863959
INSOMNIAC CITY: New York, Oliver Sacks, and Me by Bill Hayes (Memoir)
Bill Hayes came to New York City in 2009 with a one-way ticket and only the vaguest idea of how he would get by. But, at 48 years old, having spent decades in San Francisco, he craved change. Grieving over the death of his partner, he quickly discovered the profound consolations of the city's incessant rhythms, the sight of the Empire State Building against the night sky, and New Yorkers themselves, kindred souls that Hayes, a lifelong insomniac, encountered on late-night strolls with his camera. And he unexpectedly fell in love again, with his friend and neighbor, the writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose exuberance is captured in funny and touching vignettes throughout.
Bloomsbury USA | 9781620404942
KISS CARLO by Adriana Trigiani (Historical Fiction)
It’s 1949, and South Philadelphia bursts with opportunity during the post-war boom. The Palazzini Cab Company & Western Union Telegraph Office, owned and operated by Dominic Palazzini and his three sons, is flourishing. But a decades-long feud that split Dominic and his brother, Mike, and their once-close families sets the stage for a re-match. Amidst the hoopla, the arrival of an urgent telegram from Italy upends the life of Nicky Castone (Dominic and his wife’s orphaned nephew) who lives and works with his Uncle Dom and his family. Nicky decides, at 30, that he wants more.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062319234
THE LAST DAYS OF NEW PARIS by China Miéville (Fantasy/Alternate History)
1941. In the chaos of wartime Marseille, American engineer --- and occult disciple --- Jack Parsons stumbles onto a clandestine anti-Nazi group. What he unwittingly unleashes is the power of dreams and nightmares, changing the war and the world forever. Nine years later, a lone Surrealist fighter, Thibaut, walks a new, hallucinogenic Paris, where Nazis and the Resistance are trapped in unending conflict, and the streets are stalked by living images and texts --- and by the forces of Hell. To escape the city, he must join forces with Sam, an American photographer intent on recording the ruins. But Sam is being hunted. And new secrets will emerge that will test all their loyalties --- to each other, to Paris old and new, and to reality itself.
Del Rey | 9781524797485
NIGHT OF FIRE by Colin Thubron (Fiction)
A house is burning, threatening the existence of its six tenants --- including a failed priest; a naturalist; a neurosurgeon; an invalid dreaming of his anxious boyhood; and their landlord, whose relationship to the tenants is both intimate and shadowy. In NIGHT OF FIRE, the passions and obsessions in a dying house loom and shift, from those of the hallucinating drug addict in the basement to the landlord training his rooftop telescope on the night skies. As the novel progresses, the tenants’ diverse stories take us through an African refugee camp, Greek Orthodox monasteries, and the cremation grounds of India. Haunting the edges of their lives are memories. Will these remembrances be consumed forever by the flames? Or can they survive in some form?
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062499769
THE SECOND WINTER by Craig Larsen (Historical Thriller)
In occupied Denmark, an uneasy relationship between the Danish government and the Germans allows the country to function under the protection of Hitler’s army, while Danish resistance fighters wage a bloody, covert battle against the Nazis. Fredrik Gregersen, a brutish, tormented caretaker of a small farm, profits from helping Jewish fugitives cross the border into Sweden. Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, Polina, a young refugee from Krakow, finds herself impressed into prostitution by Germans and Danes alike. When Fredrik steals a precious necklace from a helpless family of Jews, his own family’s fate becomes intertwined with Polina’s, triggering a ripple effect that will take decades and the fall of the Berlin Wall to culminate.
Other Press | 9781590518953
THE SWAN BOOK by Alexis Wright (Dystopian Fiction)
Oblivia Ethelyne was given her name by an old woman who found her deep in the bowels of a gum tree, the victim of a brutal assault by wayward local youths. These are the years leading up to Australia’s third centenary, and the woman who finds her, Bella Donna of the Champions, is a refugee from climate change wars that devastated her country in the northern hemisphere. Bella Donna takes Oblivia to live with her on an old warship in a polluted dry swamp, and there she fills Oblivia’s head with story upon story of swans. When Warren Finch, the first Aboriginal president of Australia, invades the swamp with the promise of salvation, Oblivia agrees to marry him, becoming First Lady, a role that has her confined to a tower in a flooded and lawless southern city.
Washington Square Press | 9781501124792
THE UNDESIRED by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (Mystery/Thriller)
Aldis hates her job working in a juvenile detention center in rural Iceland. The boys are difficult, the owners are unpleasant, and there are mysterious noises at night. And then two of the boys go astray. Decades later, single father Odinn is looking into alleged abuse at the center. The more he finds out, though, the more it seems the odd events of the 1970s are linked to the accident that killed his ex-wife. Was her death something more sinister?
Minotaur Books | 9781250152220
THE WORLD TO COME: Stories by Jim Shepard (Fiction/Short Stories)
In THE WORLD TO COME, Jim Shepard traverses both borders and centuries. Seamlessly inhabiting a multitude of disparate men and women, he gives voice to visionaries, pioneers and secret misfits --- from 19th-century explorers departing on one of the Arctic’s most nightmarish expeditions to 20th-century American military wives maintaining hope at home. Shepard’s characters confront everything from the emotional pitfalls of everyday life to colossal catastrophes, battling natural forces, the hazards of new technology, and their own implacable shortcomings.
Vintage | 9780525432319
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