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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of January 22nd and January 29th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.
This week, we are calling attention to our Women's Fiction Author Spotlight & Contest for THE MASTERPIECE by Francine Rivers, which releases on February 6th. Twenty-five readers will win a copy of the book and share their comments on it. The deadline for your entries is Thursday, February 1st 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 please be sure to vote in our latest poll: Do you read or listen to author interviews?
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This Week's Bonus News:
Our Women's Fiction Author Spotlight & Contest for
THE MASTERPIECE by Francine Rivers
THE MASTERPIECE by Francine Rivers is a story of two lost souls, bound by guilt to their pasts, who discover that the very wounds that hold them captive can lead to the incredible grace needed to set them free. We have 25 copies to give away to readers who would like to read the book, which releases on February 6th, and share their comments on it. To enter, please fill out this form by Thursday, February 1st at noon ET.
THE MASTERPIECE by Francine Rivers (Romance)
In this unexpected and redemptive love story, successful LA artist Roman Velasco appears to have everything he could possibly want --- money, women, fame. Only Grace Moore, his reluctant, newly hired personal assistant, knows how little he truly has. The demons of Roman’s past seem to echo through the halls of his empty mansion and out across his breathtaking Topanga Canyon view. But Grace doesn’t know how her boss secretly wrestles with those demons: by tagging buildings as the Bird, a notorious but unidentified graffiti artist --- an alter ego that could destroy his career and land him in prison.
Like Roman, Grace is wrestling with ghosts and secrets of her own. After a disastrous marriage threw her life completely off course, she vowed never to let love steal her dreams again. But as she gets to know the enigmatic man behind the reputation, it’s as if the jagged pieces of both of their pasts slowly begin to fit together...until something so unexpected happens that it changes the course of their relationship --- and both their lives --- forever.
New York Times bestselling author Francine Rivers returns to her romance roots with this probing tale that reminds us that mercy can shape even the most broken among us into an imperfect yet stunning masterpiece.
Click here to read more in our Women's Fiction Author Spotlight
and enter the contest.
On Sale the Week of January 22nd in Hardcover
January 22nd
ALL-AMERICAN MURDER: The Rise and Fall of Aaron Hernandez, the Superstar Whose Life Ended on Murderers' Row by James Patterson and Alex Abramovich, with Mike Harvkey (True Crime)
He was a college All-American who became the youngest player in the NFL and later a Super Bowl veteran. He was a star tight end on the league-dominant New England Patriots, who extended his contract for a record $40 million. Aaron Hernandez's every move as a professional athlete played out in the headlines, yet he led a secret life --- one that ended in a maximum security prison. What drove him to go so wrong, so fast? ALL-AMERICAN MURDER is the first book to investigate --- from the unique vantage point of thriller writer James Patterson --- Hernandez's first-degree murder conviction and the mystery of his own untimely and shocking death.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316412650
January 23rd
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?
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781501172168
BEST FRIENDS FOREVER by Margot Hunt (Psychological Thriller)
Though they’re very different women --- the artsy socialite and the struggling suburbanite --- Kat Grant and Alice Campbell are each other’s rocks. But even rocks crumble under pressure. Like when Kat’s financier husband, Howard, plunges to his death from the second-floor balcony of their South Florida mansion. Howard was a jerk, a drunk, a bully and, police say, a murder victim. The questions begin piling up. Like why Kat has suddenly gone dark: no calls, no texts and no chance her wealthy family will let Alice see her. Why investigators are looking so hard in Alice’s direction. Who stands to get hurt next. And who is the cool liar --- the masterful manipulator behind it all.
Mira | 9780778331131
ETERNAL LIFE by Dara Horn (Fiction)
Rachel is a woman with a problem: she can’t die. Her recent troubles --- widowhood, a failing business, an unemployed middle-aged son --- are only the latest in a litany spanning dozens of countries, scores of marriages and hundreds of children. In the 2,000 years since she made a spiritual bargain to save the life of her first son back in Roman-occupied Jerusalem, she has tried everything to free herself, and only one other person in the world understands: a man she once loved passionately, who has been stalking her through the centuries. But as the 21st century begins, and her children and grandchildren develop new technologies that could change her fate and theirs, Rachel knows she must find a way out.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393608533
FALL FROM GRACE by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Sydney Wells’ perfect life with her wealthy, devoted husband vanishes when he dies suddenly in an accident. Widowed at 49, she discovers he has failed to include her in his will. With Andrew’s vicious daughters in control of his estate, and no home or money, Sydney finds a job in fashion, despite her own designer daughters’ warnings. Naïve, out of her element, and alone in a world of shady international deals and dishonest people, she is set up by her boss and finds herself faced with criminal prosecution. What happens when you lose everything? Faced with prison, Sydney must rebuild her life from the bottom to the top again, with honor, resourcefulness and dignity.
Delacorte Press | 9781101884003
THE MITFORD MURDERS by Jessica Fellowes (Historical Mystery)
It's 1920, and Louisa Cannon dreams of escaping her life of poverty in London. Louisa's salvation is a position within the Mitford household at Asthall Manor, in the Oxfordshire countryside. There she will become nursemaid, chaperone and confidante to the Mitford sisters, especially 16-year-old Nancy, an acerbic, bright young woman in love with stories. But then a nurse --- Florence Nightingale Shore, goddaughter of her famous namesake --- is killed on a train in broad daylight, and Louisa and Nancy find themselves entangled in the crimes of a murderer who will do anything to hide their secret.
Minotaur Books | 9781250170781
NEED TO KNOW by Karen Cleveland (Thriller)
Vivian Miller is a dedicated CIA counterintelligence analyst assigned to uncover the leaders of Russian sleeper cells in the United States. On track for a much-needed promotion, she has developed a system for identifying Russian agents, seemingly normal people living in plain sight. After accessing the computer of a potential Russian operative, Vivian stumbles on a secret dossier of deep-cover agents within America’s borders. A few clicks later, everything that matters to her --- her job, her husband, even her four children --- is threatened. Vivian has vowed to defend her country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But now she’s facing impossible choices. Torn between loyalty and betrayal, allegiance and treason, love and suspicion, who can she trust?
Ballantine Books | 9781524797027
THE NIGHT TRADE by Barry Eisler (Thriller)
For sex-crimes detective Livia Lone, a position with a government anti-trafficking task force is a chance to return to Thailand to ferret out Rithisak Sorm, the kingpin behind her own childhood ordeal. But after a planned takedown in a nightclub goes violently awry, Livia discovers that she’s not the only one hunting Sorm. Former marine sniper Dox also has a score to settle, and working together is the only way to take Sorm out. Livia and Dox couldn’t be less alike. But they share a single-minded creed: the law has to serve justice. And if it doesn’t, justice has to be served another way. What they don’t know is that in threatening Sorm, they’re also threatening a far-reaching conspiracy --- one involving the highest levels of America’s own intelligence apparatus.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781477820049
OUR LADY OF THE PRAIRIE by Thisbe Nissen (Fiction)
In the space of a few torrid months on the Iowa prairie, Phillipa Maakestad --- long-married theater professor and mother of an unstable daughter --- grapples with a life turned upside down. After falling headlong into a passionate affair during a semester spent teaching in Ohio, Phillipa returns home to Iowa for her daughter Ginny’s wedding. There, Phillipa must endure (among other things) a wedding-day tornado, a menace of a mother-in-law who may or may not have been a Nazi collaborator, and the tragicomic revenge fantasies of her heretofore docile husband. Naturally, she does what any newly liberated woman would do: she takes a match to her life on the prairie and then steps back to survey the wreckage.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9781328662071
PEACH by Emma Glass (Fiction)
Staggering around the town streets in the aftermath of an assault, Peach feels a trickle of blood down her legs, a lingering smell of her anonymous attacker on her skin. It hurts to walk, but she manages to make her way to her home, where she stumbles into another oddly nightmarish reality: Her parents can't seem to comprehend that anything has happened to their daughter. The next morning, Peach tries to return to the routines of her ordinary life. And yet, as she struggles through the next few days, she is stalked by the memories of her unacknowledged trauma. Though she tries to close her eyes to what has happened, Peach at last begins to understand the drastic, gruesome action she must take.
Bloomsbury USA | 9781635571301
POINTS NORTH: Stories by Howard Frank Mosher (Fiction/Short Stories)
In POINTS NORTH, completed just weeks before his death, Howard Frank Mosher presents a collection of stories that center around the Kinneson family, ranging over decades of their history in Vermont’s fabled Northeast Kingdom. From a loquacious itinerant preacher who beguiles the reticent farmers and shopkeepers of a small New England town, to a proposed dam that threatens the river that Kinneson men have fished for generations, the scandalous secret of a romance and its violent consequences, and a young man’s seemingly fruitless search for love, POINTS NORTH is a full-hearted and gently comic last gift to those who treasure Howard Frank Mosher.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250161932
THE WIFE by Alafair Burke (Psychological Thriller)
When Angela met Jason Powell, a brilliant economics professor at NYU, while catering a dinner party in East Hampton, she assumed their romance would be a short-lived fling. To her surprise, they married the following summer. Six years later, thanks to a bestselling book and a growing media career, Jason has become a cultural lightning rod, placing Angela near the spotlight she worked so carefully to avoid. When a college intern makes an accusation against Jason, and another woman, Kerry Lynch, comes forward with an even more troubling allegation, their perfect life begins to unravel. Jason insists he is innocent, and Angela believes him. But when Kerry disappears, Angela is forced to take a closer look at the man she married.
Harper | 9780062390516
WINTER by Karl Ove Knausgaard (Memoir)
In WINTER, we rejoin Karl Ove Knausgaard as he waits for the birth of his daughter. In preparation for her arrival, he takes stock of the world, seeing it as if for the first time. He writes about the moon, water, messiness, owls, birthdays --- to name just a handful of his subjects. He fills these oh-so-familiar objects and ideas with new meaning, taking nothing for granted or as given. New life is on the horizon, but the earth is also in hibernation, waiting for the warmer weather to return, and so a contradictory melancholy inflects his gaze.
Penguin Press | 9780399563331
On Sale the Week of January 22nd in Paperback
January 23rd
AGAINST ALL ODDS by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Taking chances is part of life, but when you bet your future against the odds, it’s a high-risk game. Kate Madison’s stylish resale shop has been a big SoHo success, supporting her and her four kids since her husband’s untimely death. Now they are grown and ready to forge lives of their own. And they all choose to play against the odds, to their mother’s dismay. Can the odds be beaten? Not often, as her children have to learn for themselves. For Kate, the hardest lesson will be that she can’t protect the children she loves from the choices they make --- but can only love them as they make them.
Dell | 9781101883938
AUGUST SNOW by Stephen Mack Jones (Mystery/Thriller)
August Snow joined the police force only to be drummed out by a conspiracy of corrupt cops and politicians. It’s not long before he’s summoned to the palatial Grosse Pointe Estates, home of business magnate Eleanore Paget. Powerful and manipulative, Paget wants August to investigate the increasingly unusual happenings at her private wealth management bank. But detective work is no longer August’s beat, and he declines. A day later, Paget is dead of an apparent suicide --- which August isn’t buying for a minute. What begins as an inquiry into Eleanore Paget’s death soon drags August into a rat’s nest of Detroit’s most dangerous criminals, from corporate embezzlers to tattooed mercenaries.
Soho Crime | 9781616958688
FINAL GIRLS by Riley Sager (Psychological Thriller)
Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls --- which includes Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout's knife, and Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn. But when Lisa is found dead in her bathtub with her wrists slit, Sam appears on Quincy's doorstep. She seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out.
Dutton | 9781101985380
HOUSE OF ECHOES by Brendan Duffy (Thriller)
Ben and Caroline Tierney and their two young boys are hoping to start over. Ben has hit a dead end with his new novel, Caroline has lost her banking job, and eight-year-old Charlie is being bullied at his Manhattan school. When Ben inherits land in the village of Swannhaven, in a remote corner of upstate New York, the Tierneys believe it’s just the break they need, and they leave behind all they know to restore a sprawling estate. But as Ben uncovers Swannhaven’s chilling secrets and Charlie ventures deeper into the surrounding forest, strange things begin to happen. The Tierneys realize that their new home isn’t the fresh start they needed...and that the village’s haunting saga is far from over.
Ballantine Books | 9780804178136
THE KING OF BONES AND ASHES: A Witches of New Orleans Novel by J. D. Horn (Dark Fantasy/Horror)
Paperback Original
Magic is seeping out of the world, leaving the witches who have relied on it for countless centuries increasingly hopeless. Young Alice Marin is using magic’s waning days to delve into the mystery of numerous disappearances in the occult circles of New Orleans. Alice disappeared once, too --- caged in an asylum by blood relatives. Recently freed, she fears her family may be more involved with the growing crisis than she ever dared imagine. Yet the more she seeks the truth about her family’s troubled history, the more she realizes her already-fragile psyche may be at risk.
47North | 9781542047104
THE LATE SHOW by Michael Connelly (Thriller)
Renée Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none, as each morning she turns everything over to the day shift. A once up-and-coming detective, she's been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor. But one night she catches two assignments she doesn't want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Against orders and her partner's wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night. As the investigations entwine, they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won't give up her job.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781455524235
MY LAST LOVE STORY by Falguni Kothari (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Simi Desai is 30 years old, and her husband is dying of cancer. He has two last wishes in his final months: that she’ll have his baby so that a piece of him lives on, and that she’ll reconcile with her old flame, who just happens to be their mutual best friend. And so over the course of their last summer together, Simi’s husband plans a series of big and small adventures for this unlikely trio, designed to help them say goodbye to each other and prove to Simi that it’s okay to move on without him --- and even find love again.
Graydon House | 9781525811395
SISTERS LIKE US: A Mischief Bay Novel by Susan Mallery (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Divorce left Harper Szymanski with a name no one can spell, a house she can't afford, and a teenage daughter who's pulling away. With her fledgling virtual-assistant business, she's scrambling to maintain her overbearing mother’s ridiculous Susie Homemaker standards and still pay the bills. Spending half her life in school hasn't prepared Dr. Stacey Bloom for her most daunting challenge --- motherhood. Her mother will be horrified to learn that Stacey's husband plans to be a stay-at-home dad…assuming Stacey can first find the courage to tell Mom she's already six months pregnant. Separately Harper and Stacey may be a mess, but together these sisters can survive anything.
Mira | 9780778330905
THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS by Laurie Frankel (Fiction)
This is Claude. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress and dreams of being a princess. When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl. Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes.
Flatiron Books | 9781250088567
THIS LOVE STORY WILL SELF-DESTRUCT by Leslie Cohen (Romance)
Paperback Original
Eve is a dreamer, a feeler, a careening well of sensitivities who can’t quite keep her feet on the ground or steer clear of trouble. She’s a laugher, a crier, a quirky and quick-witted bleeding-heart-worrier. Ben is an engineer, an expert at leveling floors who likes order, structure and straight lines. He doesn’t opine, he doesn’t ruminate, he doesn’t simmer until he boils over. So naturally, when the two first cross paths, sparks don’t exactly fly. But then they meet again. And again. And then, finally, they find themselves with a deep yet fragile connection that will change the course of their relationship --- possibly forever.
Gallery Books | 9781501168536
THE TRUE FLAG: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire by Stephen Kinzer (History)
How should the United States act in the world? Americans cannot decide. Sometimes we burn with righteous anger, launching foreign wars and deposing governments. Then we retreat --- until the cycle begins again. No matter how often we debate this question, none of what we say is original. Every argument is a pale shadow of the first and greatest debate, which erupted more than a century ago. Its themes resurface every time Americans argue whether or not to intervene in a foreign country. Revealing a piece of forgotten history, Stephen Kinzer transports us to the dawn of the 20th century, when the United States first found itself with the chance to dominate faraway lands.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250159687
TWO NIGHTS by Kathy Reichs (Thriller)
Meet Sunday Night, a woman with physical and psychological scars, and a killer instinct. Sunnie has spent years running from her past, burying secrets and building a life in which she needs no one and feels nothing. But a girl has gone missing, lost in the chaos of a bomb explosion, and the family needs Sunnie’s help. Is the girl dead? Did someone take her? If she’s out there, why doesn’t she want to be found? It’s time for Sunnie to face her own demons --- because they just might lead her to the truth about what really happened all those years ago.
Bantam | 9780345544094
VICIOUS CIRCLE: A Joe Pickett Novel by C. J. Box (Mystery/Thriller)
The Cates family had always been a bad lot. Game warden Joe Pickett had been able to strike a fierce blow against them when the life of his daughter April had been endangered, but he’d always wondered if there’d be a day of reckoning. He’s not wondering any longer. Joe knows they’re coming after him and his family now. He has his friend Nate by his side, but will that be enough this time? All he can do is prepare...and wait for them to make the first move.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780735218512
On Sale the Week of January 29th in Hardcover
January 30th
1947: Where Now Begins written by Elisabeth Åsbrink, translated by Fiona Graham (History)
The year 1947 marks a turning point in the 20th century. Peace with Germany becomes a tool to fortify the West against the threats of the Cold War. The CIA is created, Israel is about to be born, Simone de Beauvoir experiences the love of her life, an ill George Orwell is writing his last book, and Christian Dior creates the hyper-feminine New Look as women are forced out of jobs and back into the home. In the midst of it all, a 10-year-old Hungarian-Jewish boy resides in a refugee camp for children of parents murdered by the Nazis. This year he has to make the decision of a lifetime, one that will determine his own fate and that of his daughter yet to be born, Elisabeth.
Other Press | 9781590518960
BLOOD SISTERS by Jane Corry (Psychological Thriller)
Three little girls set off to school one sunny morning. Within an hour, one of them is dead. Fifteen years later, Kitty can't speak and has no memory of the accident that's to blame. She lives in an institution and is unlikely ever to leave. But that doesn't keep her from being frightened when she encounters an eerily familiar face. Art teacher Alison is struggling to make ends meet and to forget the past. When a teaching job at a prison opens up, she takes it, despite her fears. Then she starts to receive alarming notes; next, her classroom erupts in violence. Meanwhile, someone is watching both Kitty and Alison. Someone who never forgot what happened that day. Someone who wants revenge. And only another life will do.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780525522188
THE BLOODY SPUR: A Caleb York Western by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Western)
The Santa Fe Railroad wants to build a spur through Trinidad, New Mexico, linking the town to the cattle trade. Only one man stands against it --- rancher George Cullen. At the request of the town council, Sheriff Caleb York rides out to the Bar-O to reason with his old friend. But the stubborn blind rancher won’t budge. Cullen’s former partner, Burt O’Malley, has recently returned from a 20-year stint in the pen for manslaughter. And hired gun Alver Hollis, the much-feared Preacherman, has also shown up with two cronies, claiming they’re in town for the biggest poker game in the territory. With murder in the wind, the whole town is in danger. Who will be the next target?
Kensington | 9781617735981
BUILDING THE GREAT SOCIETY: Inside Lyndon Johnson's White House by Joshua Zeitz (History)
LBJ's towering political skills and his ambitious slate of liberal legislation are the stuff of legend: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start and environmental reform. But what happened after the bills passed? One man could not and did not go it alone. Joshua Zeitz reanimates the creative and contentious atmosphere inside Johnson's White House as a talented and energetic group of advisers made LBJ's vision a reality. Bill Moyers, Jack Valenti, Joe Califano, Harry McPherson and the other staff members who comprised LBJ's inner circle were men as pragmatic and ambitious as Johnson, equally skilled in the art of accumulating power or throwing a sharp elbow.
Viking | 9780525428787
THE BURIAL SOCIETY by Nina Sadowsky (Psychological Thriller)
Catherine doesn’t bury the dead. She rescues the living --- from intolerable, abusive, dangerous lives. Her darknet-based witness protection program, the Burial Society, is the last hope for people who desperately need to disappear. Catherine takes care of them and provides new identities. She is effective and efficient --- until she discovers that her slip-up may have compromised a client and maybe even killed her. Powerless to help without exposing her shadowy profession, Catherine makes a drastic move. With her covert service relocated to Paris, she has done her best to move on. But when a dark part of her past suddenly appears in the City of Light, she refuses to run --- and her life takes a harrowing turn.
Ballantine Books | 9780425284377
DARK IN DEATH by J. D. Robb (Mystery/Thriller)
On a chilly February night, during a screening of Psycho in midtown, someone sunk an ice pick into the back of Chanel Rylan’s neck. As Eve Dallas puzzles over a homicide that seems carefully planned and yet oddly personal, she receives a tip from an unexpected source: an author of police thrillers who recognizes the crime --- from the pages of her own book. The good news is that Eve and her billionaire husband, Roarke, have an excuse to curl up in front of the fireplace with their cat, Galahad, reading mystery stories for research. The bad news is that time is running out before the next victim plays an unwitting role in a murderer’s deranged private drama.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250161536
THE GIRLFRIEND by Michelle Frances (Psychological Thriller)
Laura has it all. A successful career, a long marriage to a rich husband, and a 23-year-old son, Daniel, who is kind, handsome and talented. Then Daniel meets Cherry. Cherry is young, beautiful and smart but hasn’t led Laura’s golden life. And she wants it. When tragedy strikes, a decision is made and a lie is told. A lie so terrible it changes their lives forever.
Kensington | 9781496712462
THE GRAVE’S A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE: A Flavia de Luce Novel by Alan Bradley (Historical Mystery)
In the wake of an unthinkable family tragedy, 12-year-old Flavia de Luce is struggling to fill her empty days. For a needed escape, Dogger, the loyal family servant, suggests a boating trip for Flavia and her two older sisters. As their punt drifts past the church where a notorious vicar had recently dispatched three of his female parishioners by spiking their communion wine with cyanide, Flavia, an expert chemist with a passion for poisons, is ecstatic. Suddenly something grazes her fingers as she dangles them in the water. She clamps down on the object, which turns out to be a human head, attached to a human body. If anything could take Flavia’s mind off sorrow, it is solving a murder --- although one that may lead the young sleuth to an early grave.
Delacorte Press | 9780345539991
HELLBENT: An Orphan X Novel by Gregg Hurwitz (Thriller)
Taken from a group home at age 12, Evan Smoak was raised and trained as an off-the-books government assassin: Orphan X. After he broke with the Orphan Program, Evan disappeared and reinvented himself as the Nowhere Man, a man spoken about only in whispers and dedicated to helping the truly desperate. But this time, the voice on the other end is Jack Johns, the man who raised and trained him, the only father Evan has ever known. Secret government forces are busy trying to scrub the remaining assets and traces of the Orphan Program, and they have finally tracked down Jack. With little time remaining, Jack gives Evan his last assignment: find and protect his last protégé and recruit for the program.
Minotaur Books | 9781250119179
IN EVERY MOMENT WE ARE STILL ALIVE written by Tom Malmquist, translated by Henning Koch (Fiction)
When Tom's heavily pregnant girlfriend Karin is rushed to the hospital, doctors are able to save the baby. But they are helpless to save Karin from what turns out to be acute leukemia. And in a cruel, fleeting moment, Tom gains a daughter but loses his soulmate. IN EVERY MOMENT WE ARE ALIVE is the story of the year that changes everything, as Tom must reconcile the fury and pain of loss with the overwhelming responsibility of raising his daughter, Livia, alone.
Melville House | 9781612197111
INTO THE BLACK NOWHERE: An UNSUB Novel by Meg Gardiner (Psychological Thriller)
In southern Texas, on Saturday nights, women are disappearing. Rookie FBI agent Caitlin Hendrix, newly assigned to the FBI's elite Behavioral Analysis Unit, fears that a serial killer is roaming the dark roads outside Austin. Caitlin and the FBI's serial crime unit discover the first victim's body in the woods. She is laid out in a bloodstained, white baby-doll nightgown. A second victim in a white nightie lies deeper in the forest's darkness. Both bodies are surrounded by Polaroid photos, stuck in the earth like headstones. As Saturday night approaches, Caitlin and the FBI enter a desperate game of cat and mouse, racing to capture the cunning predator before he claims more victims.
Dutton | 9781101985557
JACKIE, JANET & LEE: The Secret Lives of Janet Auchincloss and Her Daughters, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill by J. Randy Taraborrelli (Biography)
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill followed in their mother Janet’s footsteps after her marriages to the philandering socialite “Black Jack” Bouvier and the fabulously rich Standard Oil heir Hugh D. Auchincloss. Jacqueline would marry John F. Kennedy and the story of their marriage is legendary, as is the story of her second marriage to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Less well known is the story of her love affair with a world renowned architect and a British peer. Jackie's sister, Lee, had liaisons with one and possibly both of Jackie's husbands, in addition to her own three marriages --- to an illegitimate royal, a Polish prince and a Hollywood director.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250128010
KILLER CHOICE by Tom Hunt (Thriller)
Gary Foster’s life is finally heading in the right direction. After years of trying, his wife, Beth, is pregnant, and he recently opened a business with his brother. But one phone call changes everything. After collapsing suddenly, Beth has been rushed to the hospital. Tests reveal a devastating diagnosis: an inoperable brain tumor. Their only hope is an expensive experimental treatment available abroad, with a cost that’s out of their reach. And Beth’s time is running out. Then a strange man approaches Gary and offers the money he needs, on one condition: that he kill someone, no questions asked. End one life to save another.
Berkley | 9780399586408
THE MONK OF MOKHA by Dave Eggers (Biography)
Mokhtar Alkhanshali is 24 and working as a doorman when he discovers the astonishing history of coffee and Yemen’s central place in it. He leaves San Francisco and travels deep into his ancestral homeland to tour terraced farms high in the country’s rugged mountains and meet beleaguered but determined farmers. But when war engulfs the country and Saudi bombs rain down, Mokhtar has to find a way out of Yemen without sacrificing his dreams or abandoning his people.
Knopf | 9781101947319
MOTHERS OF SPARTA: A Memoir in Pieces by Dawn Davies (Memoir)
This is a book about a young girl who moves to a new town every couple of years; a misfit teenager who finds solace in a local music scene; an adrift twenty-something who drops out of college to pursue her dream of making cheesecake on a stick a successful business franchise. Alone in a new city, she summons her inner strength as she holds the hand of a dying stranger. Dawn Davies is a woman who finds humor in difficult pregnancies and postpartum depression. She is a divorcee who unexpectedly finds second love. She is a happily married suburban wife who nevertheless makes a mental list of all the men she would have slept with. And she is a parent who finds herself tested in ways she never could imagine.
Flatiron Books | 9781250133700
NOW WE ARE DEAD by Stuart MacBride (Mystery)
Detective Chief Inspector Roberta Steel got caught fitting up Jack Wallace --- that’s why they demoted her and quashed his sentence. Now he’s back on the streets and women are being attacked again. Wallace has to be responsible, but if Detective Sergeant Steel goes anywhere near him, his lawyers will get her thrown off the force for good. The Powers That Be won’t listen to her, not after what happened last time. According to them, she has more than enough ongoing cases to keep her busy. Perhaps she could try solving a few instead of harassing an innocent man? Steel knows Wallace is guilty. And the longer he gets away with it, the more women will suffer. The question is: How much is she willing to sacrifice to stop him?
HarperCollins | 9780008257088
THE POPE OF PALM BEACH by Tim Dorsey (Mystery/Humor)
Perpetually hunting Floridian arcana and lore, Serge A. Storms and his sidekick, Coleman, are on a frenzied literary pilgrimage that leads them back to Riviera Beach, the cozy seaside town where the boys spent their formative years. Growing up, Serge was enthralled by the Legend of Riviera Beach, aka Darby, a welder at the port who surfed the local waves long before the hot spots were hot. Meanwhile, there was a much murkier legend that made the rounds of the schoolyards from Serge’s youth --- that of the crazy hermit living in a makeshift jungle compound farther up the mysterious Loxahatchee River than anyone dared to venture. Serge moved away but never forgot, and is back now, with those legends looming larger than ever in the rearview mirror of his memory.
William Morrow | 9780062429254
STILL ME by Jojo Moyes (Romance)
Louisa Clark arrives in New York ready to start a new life, confident that she can embrace this new adventure and keep her relationship with Ambulance Sam alive across several thousand miles. She is thrown into the world of the superrich Gopniks: Leonard and his much younger second wife, Agnes, and a never-ending array of household staff and hangers-on. Lou is determined to get the most out of the experience and throws herself into her job and New York life within this privileged world. Before she knows what's happening, Lou is mixing in New York high society, where she meets Joshua Ryan, a man who brings with him a whisper of her past.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780399562457
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED by Mick Herron (Thriller)
Twenty-six-year-old Maggie Barnes is someone you would never look at twice. Living alone in a month-to-month sublet in the huge city of London, with no family but an estranged sister, no boyfriend or partner, and not much in the way of friends, Maggie is just the kind of person who could vanish from the face of the earth without anyone taking notice. Or just the kind of person MI5 needs to infiltrate the establishment and thwart an international plot that puts all of Britain at risk. Now one young woman has the chance to be a hero --- if she can think quickly enough to stay alive.
Soho Crime | 9781616958619
WHITE CHRYSANTHEMUM by Mary Lynn Bracht (Historical Fiction)
Korea, 1943. Hana has lived her entire life under Japanese occupation. As a haenyeo, a female diver of the sea, she enjoys an independence that few other Koreans can still claim. Until the day Hana saves her younger sister from a Japanese soldier and is herself captured and transported to Manchuria. There she is forced to become a “comfort woman” in a Japanese military brothel. But haenyeo are women of power and strength. She will find her way home. South Korea, 2011. Emi has spent more than 60 years trying to forget the sacrifice her sister made, but she must confront the past to discover peace. Seeing the healing of her children and her country, can Emi move beyond the legacy of war to find forgiveness?
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780735214439
THE WINTER STATION by Jody Shields (Historical Fiction)
In 1910, people are mysteriously dying at an alarming rate in the Russian-ruled city of Kharbin, a major railway outpost in Northern China. Strangely, some of the dead bodies vanish before they can be identified. During a dangerously cold winter in a city gripped by fear, the Baron, a wealthy Russian aristocrat and the city's medical commissioner, is determined to stop this mysterious plague. Battling local customs, an occupying army and a brutal epidemic with no name, the Baron is torn between duty and compassion, between Western medical science and respect for Chinese tradition. His greatest refuge is the intimacy he shares with his young Chinese wife --- but she has secrets of her own.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316385343
On Sale the Week of January 29th in Paperback
January 30th
AMERICAN WAR by Omar El Akkad (Fiction)
Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike.
Vintage | 9781101973134
BANANA CREAM PIE MURDER: A Hannah Swensen Mystery with Recipes! by Joanne Fluke (Mystery)
After an extravagant honeymoon, Hannah is eager to settle down in Lake Eden and turn domestic daydreams into reality. But when her mother’s neighbor is discovered murdered in the condo downstairs, reality becomes a nightmarish investigation. Victoria Bascomb, once a renowned stage actress, was active in the theater community during her brief appearance in town…and made throngs of enemies along the way. Did a random intruder murder the woman as police claim, or was a deadlier scheme at play? As Hannah peels through countless suspects and some new troubles of her own, solving this crime --- and living to tell about it --- might prove trickier than mixing up the ultimate banana cream pie.
Kensington | 9781617732225
BEHIND HER EYES by Sarah Pinborough (Psychological Thriller)
On a rare night out, single mom Louise meets a man in a bar and sparks fly. When she arrives at work on Monday, she meets her new boss, David --- the man from the bar. David is married and says the kiss was a terrible mistake, but he still can’t keep his eyes off her. And then Louise bumps into Adele, who’s new to town and in need of a friend. But she also just happens to be married to David. David and Adele look like the picture-perfect husband and wife. But then why is David so controlling? And why is Adele so scared of him? As Louise is drawn into David and Adele’s orbit, she uncovers more puzzling questions than answers.
Flatiron Books | 9781250111197
BURNTOWN by Jennifer McMahon (Thriller)
Eva Sandeski, known as “Necco” on the street, has been a part of an underworld known as “Burntown” for years, ever since the night her father Miles drowned in a flood. A respected professor, Miles was also an inventor of fantastic machines, including one so secret that the plans were said to have been stolen from Thomas Edison’s workshop. According to Necco’s mother, Lily, it’s this machine that got Miles murdered. Necco has always written off this claim as the fevered imaginings of a woman consumed by grief. But when Lily dies under mysterious circumstances, and Necco’s boyfriend is murdered, she’s convinced her mother was telling the truth. Now, on the run from the man called “Snake Eyes,” Necco must rely on other Burntown outsiders to survive.
Anchor | 9781101971857
HERE WE LIE by Paula Treick DeBoard (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Megan Mazeros and Lauren Mabrey are complete opposites on paper. Megan is a girl from a modest Midwest background, and Lauren is the daughter of a senator from an esteemed New England family. When they become roommates at a private women’s college, they forge a strong, albeit unlikely, friendship. The summer before senior year, Megan joins Lauren and her family on their private island off the coast of Maine. But late one night, something unspeakable happens, searing through the framework of their friendship and tearing them apart. Many years later, Megan publicly comes forward about what happened that fateful night, revealing a horrible truth and threatening to expose long-buried secrets.
Park Row | 9780778330264
THE HONORABLE TRAITORS by John Lutz (Thriller)
Paperback Original
Officially, Thomas Laker is an employee of the NSA. His real employer, known as the Gray Outfit, is not listed --- anywhere. When a Washington, D.C., insider is killed in a bomb explosion, Laker teams up with cryptographer Ava North on a desperate search for clues. The only thing certain is that another act of terrorism is imminent. Delving into the dangerous past when America was drawn into global conflict, they discover one of history’s greatest --- and deadliest --- secrets. In the wrong hands it can unleash unimaginable destruction. Now, to keep his homeland from plunging into its darkest hour, Laker will have to defend everything he believes in.
Pinnacle | 9780786040933
THE MEN IN MY LIFE: A Memoir of Love and Art in 1950s Manhattan by Patricia Bosworth (Memoir)
From acclaimed biographer Patricia Bosworth comes a series of vivid confessions about her remarkable journey into womanhood. Married and divorced from an abusive husband before she’s 20, she joins the famed Actors Studio. She takes classes with Lee Strasberg alongside Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman and others; she works on Broadway opposite Paul Muni, Helen Hayes and Elaine Stritch; Gore Vidal and Elia Kazan become her mentors. Her anecdotes of theatre’s Golden Age have never been told before. At the zenith of her career, about to film The Nun’s Story with Audrey Hepburn, Patricia faces a decision that changes her forever.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062287915
THE MOTHER’S PROMISE by Sally Hepworth (Fiction)
All their lives, Alice Stanhope and her daughter, Zoe, have been a family of two. Zoe has always struggled with crippling social anxiety, and her mother has been her constant and fierce protector. With no family to speak of, and the identity of Zoe’s father shrouded in mystery, their team of two works until it doesn’t. Until Alice gets sick and needs to fight for her life. Desperate to find stability for Zoe, Alice reaches out to two women who are practically strangers, but who are her only hope: Kate, a nurse, and Sonja, a social worker. As the four of them come together, they must confront their sharpest fears and secrets about abandonment, abuse, estrangement and the deepest longing for family.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250077769
THE ORIGINAL BLACK ELITE: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor (Biography)
In the wake of the Civil War, Daniel Murray, born free and educated in Baltimore, was in the vanguard of Washington, D.C.’s black upper class. Though Murray and other black elite of his time were primed to assimilate into the cultural fabric as Americans first and people of color second, their prospects were crushed by Jim Crow segregation and the capitulation to white supremacist groups by the government, which turned a blind eye to their unlawful --- often murderous --- acts. Elizabeth Dowling Taylor traces the rise, fall and disillusionment of upper-class African Americans, revealing that they were a representation not of hypothetical achievement but what could be realized by African Americans through education and equal opportunities.
Amistad | 9780062346100
A PIECE OF THE WORLD by Christina Baker Kline (Historical Fiction)
To Christina Olson, the entire world was her family’s remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life. Instead, for more than 20 years, she was host and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and became the subject of one of the best known American paintings of the 20th century.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062356277
THE STRANGER IN THE WOODS: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel (Biography)
Many people dream of escaping modern life. Most will never act on it --- but in 1986, 20-year-old Christopher Knight did just that when he left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine and disappeared into the woods. He would not have a conversation with another person for the next 27 years. Drawing on extensive interviews with Knight himself, journalist Michael Finkel shows how Knight lived in a tent in a secluded encampment, developing ingenious ways to store provisions and stave off frostbite during the winters. A former alarm technician, he stealthily broke into nearby cottages for food, books and supplies. Since returning to the world, he has faced unique challenges --- and compelled us to reexamine our assumptions about what makes a good life.
Vintage | 9781101911532
SYCAMORE by Bryn Chancellor (Psychological Thriller)
A newcomer to the town of Sycamore, Arizona, stumbles across what appear to be human remains embedded in the wall of a dry desert ravine. As news of the discovery makes its way around town, Sycamore’s longtime residents fear the bones may belong to Jess Winters, the teenage girl who disappeared suddenly some 18 years earlier. In the days it takes the authorities to make an identification, the residents rekindle stories, rumors and recollections both painful and poignant as they revisit Jess’ troubled history. In resurrecting the past, the people of Sycamore will find clarity, unexpected possibility, and a way forward for their lives.
Harper Perennial | 9780062661104
THINGS WE HAVE IN COMMON by Tasha Kavanagh (Psychological Thriller)
When 15-year-old Yasmin --- obese, obsessive and deemed a freak by her peers --- sees a sinister man watching Alice Taylor from the school fence, she becomes convinced he’s planning to take her. After all, who wouldn’t want the popular and perfect Alice? Then Yasmin realizes if she can find out who he is before he acts, she’ll be the only one who can tell the police, save Alice and become Alice’s heroine. But as Yasmin discovers more about this man, her affections begin to shift. Perhaps she was wrong about him. Perhaps she doesn’t need Alice after all. And then Alice vanishes.
Park Row | 9780778330332
THE THIRST: A Harry Hole Novel by Jo Nesbø (Mystery/Thriller)
The murder victim is a self-declared Tinder addict. Two days later, there’s a second murder: a woman of the same age, a Tinder user, an eerily similar scene. The chief of police knows there’s only one man for this case. But Harry Hole is no longer with the force. He promised the woman he loves --- and himself --- that he’d never go back: not after his last case, which put the people closest to him in grave danger. But there’s something about these murders that catches his attention, something in the details that the investigators have missed. Now, despite his promises, despite everything he risks, Harry throws himself back into the hunt for a figure who haunts him, the monster who got away.
Vintage Crime/Black Lizard | 9780804170222
THE TWELVE LIVES OF SAMUEL HAWLEY by Hannah Tinti (Literary Thriller)
A loner who spent years living on the run, Samuel Hawley raised his daughter, Loo, on the road, always watching his back. Now that Loo is a teenager, Hawley wants only to give her a normal life. In his late wife’s hometown, he finds work as a fisherman, while Loo struggles to fit in at the local high school. She also grows more and more curious about the death of the mother she never knew. Soon, everywhere she turns, she encounters the mysteries of her parents’ lives before she was born. As Loo uncovers a history that’s darker than she could have known, the demons of her father’s past spill over into the present --- and together both Hawley and Loo must face a reckoning yet to come.
Dial Press Trade Paperback | 9780812989908
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD by Colson Whitehead (Historical Fiction)
Cora is a young slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood --- where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop.
Anchor | 9780345804327
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