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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of May 28th and June 4th 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 the hardcovers and paperbacks releasing in June, which you can find in our Coming Soon feature.
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, where we ask how many books you typically take with you on a weekend trip.
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This Week's Bonus News:
Bookreporter.com's Coming Soon Feature for June
In this newsletter, you will find some of the hardcovers and paperbacks that will be available the first week of June. But since we always love looking ahead --- and there are lots of noteworthy books to look forward to in June --- we want to give you a sneak peek at the entire month's worth of releases. Below are some highlights, but for a much more comprehensive list, take a look at June's Coming Soon feature here.
Hardcovers:
Paperbacks:
Click here for more June hardcovers and paperbacks.
On Sale the Week of May 28th in Hardcover
May 29th
ANOTHER SIDE OF PARADISE by Sally Koslow (Historical Fiction)
In 1937 Hollywood, gossip columnist Sheilah Graham’s star is on the rise, while literary wonder boy F. Scott Fitzgerald’s career is slowly drowning in booze. But the once-famous author, desperate to make money penning scripts for the silver screen, is charismatic enough to attract the gorgeous Miss Graham. Like Fitzgerald’s hero, Jay Gatsby, Graham has meticulously constructed a life far removed from the poverty of her childhood in London’s slums. A notorious drunk famously married to the doomed Zelda, Fitzgerald fell hard for his “Shielah” (he never learned to spell her name), who would stay with him and help revive his career until his tragic death three years later.
Harper | 9780062696762
CALYPSO by David Sedaris (Humor/Essays)
When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, David Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. With CALYPSO, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation toward middle age and mortality.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316392389
THE DANTE CHAMBER by Matthew Pearl (Historical Mystery)
Five years after a series of Dante-inspired killings stunned Boston, a politician is found in a London park with his neck crushed by an enormous stone device etched with a verse from the "Divine Comedy." When other shocking deaths erupt across the city, all in the style of the penances Dante memorialized in "Purgatory," poet Christina Rossetti fears that her missing brother, the artist and writer Dante Gabriel Rossetti, will be the next victim. The unwavering Christina enlists poets Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson and Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes to decipher the literary clues, and together these unlikely investigators unravel the secrets of Dante’s verses to find Gabriel and stop the killings.
Penguin Press | 9781594204937
THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY by Ruth Ware (Psychological Thriller)
On a day that begins like any other, Hal receives a mysterious letter bequeathing her a substantial inheritance. She realizes very quickly that the letter was sent to the wrong person --- but also that the cold-reading skills she’s honed as a tarot card reader might help her claim the money. Soon, Hal finds herself at the funeral of the deceased…where it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation and the inheritance at the center of it.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781501156212
THE GRAY GHOST: A Sam and Remi Fargo Adventure by Clive Cussler and Robin Burcell (Thriller/Adventure)
In 1906, a groundbreaking Rolls-Royce prototype known as the Gray Ghost vanishes from the streets of Manchester, England, and it is only the lucky intervention of an American detective named Isaac Bell that prevents it from being lost forever. However, not even he can save the good name of Marcus Peyton, the man wrongly blamed for the theft. More than a hundred years later, it is his grandson who turns to Sam and Remi Fargo to help prove his grandfather's innocence. But there is even more at stake than any of them know. For the car has vanished again, and in it is an object so rare that it has the capacity to change lives.
G. P. Putnam's Sons | 9780735218734
THE HONEY FARM by Harriet Alida Lye (Fiction)
The drought has discontented the bees. Soil dries into sand; honeycomb stiffens into wax. But Cynthia knows how to breathe life back into her farm: offer it as an artists’ colony with free room, board and “life experience” in exchange for backbreaking labor. Silvia, a wide-eyed graduate and would-be poet, and Ibrahim, a painter distracted by constant inspiration, are drawn to Cynthia’s offer and, soon, to each other. But something lies beneath the surface. The Edenic farm is plagued by events that strike Silvia as ominous: taps run red, scalps itch with lice, frogs swarm the pond. One by one, the other residents leave. As summer tenses into autumn, Cynthia’s shadowed past is revealed and Silvia becomes increasingly paralyzed by doubt.
Liveright | 9781631494345
PROBABLE CLAWS: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown (Mystery)
With the New Year just around the corner, winter has transformed the cozy Blue Ridge Mountain community of Crozet, Virginia, into a living snow globe. It’s the perfect setting for Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen to build a new work shed designed by her dear friend, local architect Gary Gardner. But the natural serenity is shattered when out of the blue, right in front of Harry and Deputy Cynthia Cooper, Gary is shot to death by a masked motorcyclist. Outraged by the brazen murder, Harry begins to burrow into her friend’s past --- and unearths a pattern of destructive greed reaching far back into Virginia’s post-Revolutionary history. When Harry finds incriminating evidence, the killer strikes again.
Bantam | 9780425287156
THE SHADOW KILLER by Arnaldur Indridason (Mystery/Thriller)
A man is found murdered in a small apartment in Reykjavík, shot in the head with a pistol. The police’s attention is immediately drawn to the foreign soldiers who are on every street corner in the summer of 1941. So begins officers Flóvent and Thorson’s investigation, which will lead them down a path darker than either of them expected, and force them to reckon with their own demons.
Minotaur Books | 9781250124043
SHELTER IN PLACE by Nora Roberts (Romantic Suspense)
It was a typical evening at a mall outside Portland, Maine, until the shooters arrived. The chaos and carnage lasted only eight minutes before the killers were taken down. But for those who lived through it, the effects would last forever. In the years that followed, one would dedicate himself to a law enforcement career. Another would close herself off, until she finally found a way to pour her emotions into her art. But one person wasn't satisfied with the shockingly high death toll at the DownEast Mall. And as the survivors slowly heal, find shelter and rebuild, they will discover that another conspirator is lying in wait --- and this time, there might be nowhere safe to hide.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250161598
​THERE ARE NO GROWN-UPS: A Midlife Coming-of-Age Story by Pamela Druckerman (Memoir/Humor)
When Pamela Druckerman turns 40, waiters start calling her "Madame," and she detects a disturbing new message in men's gazes: I would sleep with her, but only if doing so required no effort whatsoever. Yet 40 isn't even technically middle-aged anymore. And after a lifetime of being clueless, Druckerman can finally grasp the subtext of conversations, maintain (somewhat) healthy relationships, and spot narcissists before they ruin her life. What are the modern 40s, and what do we know once we reach them? What makes someone a "grown-up" anyway? And why didn't anyone warn us that we'd get cellulite on our arms?
Penguin Press | 9781594206375
June 1st
SUPERHERO ETHICS: 10 Comic Book Heroes; 10 Ways to Save the World; Which One Do We Need Most Now? by Travis Smith (Popular Culture/Sociology)
Millions of people around the world are heavily invested in the motivations, decisions and destinies of their favorite superheroes. In SUPERHERO ETHICS, Travis Smith investigates what they are saying and what messages about life they are communicating. Throughout the book, Smith frames his analysis around a single question: Which superhero embodies the kind of ethical character we should strive to emulate in today’s society? He arrives at his choice by structuring the book as a contest. He takes 10 top superheroes and pits them one against another, chapter by chapter. The hero who better exemplifies how we ought to live advances to the final round. By the end of the book, a single superhero emerges victorious and is crowned most exemplary for our times.
Templeton Press | 9781599474540
On Sale the Week of May 28th in Paperback
May 29th
THE ALMOST SISTERS by Joshilyn Jackson (Fiction)
A one-night stand produces a baby boy for 38-year-old Leia Birch Briggs. But before she can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional, Southern family, her stepsister Rachel’s marriage implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved 90-year-old grandmother, Birchie, is losing her mind and has been hiding her dementia. Tucked in the attic of the family’s big Victorian is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family’s freedom and future, and it will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her son and his missing father, and the world she thinks she knows.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062105721
DEAD GIRLS by Graeme Cameron (Thriller)
Paperback Original
It’s been two months since a serial killer brutally attacked police detective Alisha Green and left her for dead. Two months since she could effortlessly recall simple things, since her mind felt remotely sound. The nameless killer thinks he knows her, thinks she’s just another dead girl among many. Ali Green plans to show him he’s dead wrong about that. Ali has two enemies now: the dangerous man she’s hunting and her own failing memory. As explosive new evidence comes to light and conflicting accounts from a witness and a surviving victim threaten both her investigation and her credibility, she begins to question what is and isn’t real. And now Ali has no choice but to remember the past...before it buries her.
Park Row | 9780778319887
THE DINNER PARTY AND OTHER STORIES by Joshua Ferris (Fiction/Short Stories)
Each of these 11 stories, many of which were first published in The New Yorker, burrows deep into the often awkward and hilarious misunderstandings that pass between strangers and lovers alike, and that turn ordinary lives upside down. Joshua Ferris shows to what lengths we mortals go to coax human meaning from our very modest time on earth, an effort that skews ever-more desperately in the direction of redemption. The stories in THE DINNER PARTY are about lives changed forever when the reckless gives way to possibility and the ordinary cedes ground to mystery.
Back Bay Books | 9780316465960
EVERY LAST LIE by Mary Kubica (Psychological Thriller)
Clara Solberg’s world shatters when her husband and their four-year-old daughter are in a car crash, killing Nick while Maisie is remarkably unharmed. The crash is ruled an accident…until the coming days, when Maisie starts having night terrors that make Clara question what really happened on that fateful afternoon. Who would have wanted Nick dead? And why? Clara will stop at nothing to find out --- and the truth is only the beginning of this twisted tale of secrets and deceit.
Park Row | 9780778330929
FAIRYTALE by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Camille Lammenais’ parents, Christophe and Joy, have built a renowned winery and château modeled after Christophe’s ancient family estate in his native Bordeaux. After graduating from Stanford, Camille returns to help manage Château Joy, her lifetime goal. But their fairytale ends suddenly with her mother’s death from cancer. Six months after losing his wife, the devastated Christophe is easy prey for a mysterious, charming Frenchwoman visiting the valley. Within weeks they are a clandestine couple, and Camille is shocked by the news that her father intends to remarry. When tragedy strikes again, Camille is at her stepmother’s mercy, and that of the two evil stepbrothers who appear.
Dell | 9781101884089
THE FOURTH MONKEY by J. D. Barker (Thriller)
For over five years, the Four Monkey Killer has terrorized the residents of Chicago. When his body is found, the police quickly realize he was on his way to deliver one final message, one that proves he has taken another victim who may still be alive. When Detective Sam Porter, the lead investigator on the 4MK task force, discovers a personal diary in the jacket pocket of the body, he finds himself caught up in the mind of a psychopath, unraveling a twisted history in hopes of finding one last girl, all while struggling with personal demons of his own. With only a handful of clues, the elusive killer’s identity remains a mystery. Time is running out, and the Four Monkey Killer taunts from beyond the grave.
Mariner Books | 9781328915399
THE HOUSE OF UNEXPECTED SISTERS: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (18) by Alexander McCall Smith (Mystery)
Mr. Polopetsi tells Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi a troubling story about a woman who has been wrongly dismissed from her job. Never one to let an injustice go unanswered, Mma Ramotswe begins to investigate, but she soon discovers that the case is more complicated than she initially suspected. Other surprises await our intrepid proprietress. Mma Ramotswe happens to hear of a local nurse named Mingie Ramotswe. Who is this mystery lady? Then she finds out that an unpleasant figure from her past has recently been spotted in town.
Anchor | 9781101972823
INTO THE DROWNING DEEP by Mira Grant (Science Fiction/Thriller)
Seven years ago, the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a mockumentary bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a tragedy. Now a new crew has been assembled. But this time they're not out to entertain. Some seek to validate their life's work. Some seek the greatest hunt of all. Some seek the truth. But for the ambitious young scientist Victoria Stewart, this is a voyage to uncover the fate of the sister she lost. Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the waves. But the secrets of the deep come with a price.
Orbit | 9780316379373
MADAGASCAR by Stephen Holgate (Mystery)
Paperback Original
An American diplomat --- reformed alcoholic, unreformed gambler and inveterate smart-ass --- finds himself under threat of disgrace and murder, even as he seeks love and redemption on the strange and spirit-ridden island of Madagascar. Author Stephen Holgate brings the mystery and mysticism of Madagascar to life in his haunting and exciting second novel.
Blank Slate Press | 9781943075485
THE ONLY CHILD by Andrew Pyper (Gothic Horror/Thriller)
Dr. Lily Dominick has evaluated the mental states of some of the country’s most dangerous psychotics. But the strangely compelling client she interviewed today struck her as somehow different from the others, despite the two impossible claims he made. First, that he is more than 200 years old and personally inspired Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson and Bram Stoker in creating the three novels of the 19th century that define the monstrous in the modern imagination. Second, that he’s Lily’s father. To discover the truth --- behind her client, her mother’s death and herself --- Dr. Dominick must embark on a journey that will threaten her career, her sanity and ultimately her life.
Simon & Schuster | 9781476755236
THE PAINTED QUEEN: An Amelia Peabody Novel of Suspense by Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess (Mystery)
Arriving in Cairo for another thrilling excavation season, Amelia Peabody is relaxing in a well-earned bubble bath in her elegant hotel suite in Cairo, when a man with a knife protruding from his back staggers into the bath chamber and utters a single word --- "Murder" --- before collapsing on the floor. Among the few possessions he carried was a sheet of paper with Amelia’s name and room number, and a curious piece of pasteboard the size of a calling card bearing one word: "Judas." Most peculiarly, the stranger was wearing a gold-rimmed monocle in his left eye. It quickly becomes apparent that someone saved Amelia from a would-be assassin --- someone who is keeping a careful eye on the intrepid Englishwoman.
William Morrow | 9780062086341
QUIET UNTIL THE THAW by Alexandra Fuller (Fiction)
Two Native American cousins, Rick Overlooking Horse and You Choose Watson, though bound by blood and by land, find themselves at odds as they grapple with the implications of their shared heritage. When escalating anger toward the injustices inflicted upon the Lakota people leads to tribal divisions and infighting, the cousins go in separate directions: Rick chooses the path of peace; You Choose, violence. Years pass, and as You Choose serves time in prison, Rick finds himself raising twin baby boys orphaned at birth in his meadow. As the twins mature from infants to young men, Rick immerses the boys in their ancestry. But when You Choose returns to the reservation after three decades behind bars, his anger manifests, forever disrupting the lives of Rick and the boys.
Penguin Books | 9780735223363
THE RED HUNTER by Lisa Unger (Thriller)
Claudia Bishop’s perfect life fell apart when the aftermath of a brutal assault left her with a crumbling marriage, a newborn daughter, and a constant sense of anxiety about the world around her. Now, looking for a fresh start with a home restoration project and a growing blog, Claudia takes on a crumbling old house --- one that unbeknownst to her has an ugly history and may hide long-buried secrets. For Zoey Drake, the defining moment of her childhood was the horrific home invasion murder of her parents. Years later, she has embraced the rage that fuels her and is ready to face the demons from the past. These two women are on a collision course, because Zoey’s past nightmare and Claudia’s dreams for her future take place in the very same house.
Touchstone | 9781501101687
SAINTS FOR ALL OCCASIONS by J. Courtney Sullivan (Fiction)
Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan --- a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand. Fifty years later, Nora is the matriarch of a big Catholic family with four grown children. Estranged from her sister, Theresa is a cloistered nun, living in an abbey in rural Vermont. Until, after decades of silence, a sudden death forces Nora and Theresa to confront the choices they made so long ago.
Vintage | 9780307949806
THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Fiction)
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated. Regardless of why Evelyn has chosen her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career. As Evelyn’s life unfolds and catches up with the present, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.
Washington Square Press | 9781501161933
A STRANGER IN THE HOUSE by Shari Lapena (Psychological Thriller)
Karen and Tom Krupp are happy. They have a lovely home in upstate New York, they’re practically newlyweds, and they have no kids to interrupt their comfortable life together. But one day, Tom returns home to find that Karen has vanished. There’s a knock on the door --- the police are there to take Tom to the hospital where his wife has been admitted. She had a car accident, and lost control as she sped through the worst part of town. She’s mostly okay --- except that she can’t remember what she was doing or where she was when she crashed. Karen returns home with Tom, determined to heal and move on with her life. Then she realizes something’s been moved. Something’s not quite right. Someone’s been in her house. And the police won’t stop asking questions.
Penguin Books | 9780735221130
THEFT BY FINDING: Diaries (1977-2002) by David Sedaris (Humor/Essays)
David Sedaris has kept a diary for 40 years. In them, he has recorded everything that has captured his attention --- overheard comments, salacious gossip, soap opera plot twists, secrets confided by total strangers. These observations are the source code for his finest work, and with them he has honed his self-deprecation and learned to craft his cunning, surprising sentences. Now, for the first time, Sedaris shares his private writings with the world. This is the first-person account of how a drug-abusing dropout with a weakness for the International House of Pancakes and a chronic inability to hold down a real job became one of the funniest people on the planet.
Back Bay Books | 9780316154734
THE TRIAL OF ADOLF HITLER: The Beer Hall Putsch and the Rise of Nazi Germany by David King (History)
THE TRIAL OF ADOLF HITLER tells the true story of the monumental criminal proceeding that thrust Hitler into the limelight after the failed beer hall putsch provided him with an unprecedented stage for his demagoguery, and set him on his improbable path to power. Reporters from as far away as Argentina and Australia flocked to Munich for the sensational, four-week spectacle. By the end, Hitler would transform a fiasco into a stunning victory for the fledgling Nazi Party.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393356151
TWELVE DAYS by Steven Barnes (Paranormal Thriller)
Olympia Dorsey is a journalist and mother, with a cynical teenage daughter and an autistic son named Hannibal, all trying to heal from a personal tragedy. Across the street, Ex–Special Forces soldier Terry Nicolas and his wartime unit have reunited Stateside to carry out a risky heist that will not only right a terrible injustice, but also set them up for life --- at the cost of their honor. Terry and the family's visit to an unusual martial arts exhibition brings them into contact with Madame Gupta, a teacher of singular skill who offers not just a way for Terry to tap into mastery beyond his dreams, but also for Hannibal to transcend the limits of his condition. But to see these promises realized, Terry will need to betray those with whom he fought and bled.
Tor Books | 9780765375988
USE OF FORCE by Brad Thor (Thriller)
As a storm rages across the Mediterranean Sea, a terrifying distress call is made to the Italian Coast Guard. Days later, a body washes ashore. Identified as a missing high value terrorism suspect, his name sends panic through the Central Intelligence Agency. Where was he headed? What was he planning? In a race against time, the CIA taps an unorthodox source to get answers: Navy SEAL turned covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath. Hired on a black contract, Harvath will provide the deniability the United States needs, while he breaks every rule along the way.
Pocket Books | 9781476789392
On Sale the Week of June 4th in Hardcover
June 4th
THE PRESIDENT IS MISSING by Bill Clinton and James Patterson (Political Thriller)
THE PRESIDENT IS MISSING confronts a threat so huge that it jeopardizes not just Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street, but all of America. Uncertainty and fear grip the nation. There are whispers of cyberterror and espionage and a traitor in the Cabinet. Even the President himself becomes a suspect, and then he disappears from public view. Set over the course of three days, Bill Clinton and James Patterson's political thriller sheds a stunning light upon the inner workings and vulnerabilities of our nation.
Little, Brown and Company and Knopf | 9780316412698
June 5th
BROKEN GROUND: A Jay Porter Novel by Joe Clifford (Mystery/Thriller)
At an AA meeting, handyman and part-time investigator Jay Porter meets a recovering addict who needs his help. Amy Lupus’ younger sister, Emily, has gone missing from the Coos County Center, the newly opened rehab run by Jay’s old nemeses, Adam and Michael Lombardi. When Jay learns of a “missing” hard drive, he is flung back to five years ago when his own junkie brother, Chris, found a hard drive belonging to Lombardi Construction. For years, Jay assumed that the much-sought-after hard drive contained incriminating photos of Adam and Michael’s father, which contributed to Chris’ death. But now he believes that hard drive may have harbored a secret far more sinister, which the missing Lupus sister may have unwittingly discovered.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608092437
CAN YOU HEAR ME? by Elena Varvello (Fiction)
A young boy is murdered, shaking a small community to its core. A girl climbs into a van and vanishes in the deep, dark woods. Elia Furenti is 16, living in a secluded house with his parents in Ponte, Northern Italy, a life so unremarkable that even unhappiness has been accepted as normal. Elia's father lost his job, and now he begins to lose himself in the darkest corners of his mind. Then a new friend arrives in Ponte, firmly propelling Elia to the edge of adulthood, and everything starts to unravel.
Quercus | 9781635060515
THE CAPTIVES by Debra Jo Immergut (Psychological Thriller)
As an inmate psychologist at a state prison, Frank Lundquist has had his fair share of surprises. But nothing could possibly prepare him for the day when his high school object of desire walks into his office for an appointment. Still reeling from the scandal that cost him his Manhattan private practice, Frank knows he has an ethical duty to reassign Miranda Greene’s case. But Miranda is just as beguiling as ever, and he’s insatiably curious: How did a beautiful high school sprinter and the promising daughter of a congressman end up incarcerated for a shocking crime? Even more compelling: Though Frank remembers every word Miranda ever spoke to him, she gives no indication of having any idea who he is.
Ecco | 9780062747549
DARKNESS LANE: A Geneva Chase Mystery by Thomas Kies (Mystery)
The newshound in reporter Geneva Chase spurs her to bad, if not downright dangerous, choices as two unrelated crimes unexpectedly collide. A 15-year-old-girl at her ward's high school has vanished along with her English teacher. Is this same-old, same-old, or something more? And then there's the abused woman who torched her sadistic husband, and how to keep her out of the clutches of powerful mobsters --- and thus, out of the news. Out on the crime beat, Geneva works to unravel the connection, if any, between these two disparate stories while her newspaper is put up for sale, a high-flying Hollywood production lights up the town, and her personal battles accelerate.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464210013
DAYS OF AWE: Stories by A. M. Homes (Fiction/Short Stories)
A.M. Homes exposes the heart of an uneasy America in her new collection --- exploring our attachments to each other through characters who aren't quite who they hoped to become, though there is no one else they can be. In "A Prize for Every Player," a man is nominated to run for president by the customers of a big box store, while he and his family do their weekly shopping. At a conference on genocide(s) in the title story, old friends rediscover themselves and one another --- finding spiritual and physical comfort in ancient traditions. And in "Hello Everybody" and "She Got Away," Homes revisits a Los Angeles family obsessed with the surfaces and frightened of what lives below.
Viking | 9780670025497
DISTRICT VIII by Adam LeBor (Mystery/Thriller)
Life is tough for a Gypsy detective in Budapest. The cops don’t trust you because you’re a Gypsy. Your fellow Gypsies, even your own family, shun you because you’re a cop. The dead, however, don't care. So when Balthazar Kovacs, a detective in the city's murder squad, gets a mysterious text message on his phone, he goes to work. The message has two parts: a photograph and an address. The photograph shows a man, in his early 30s, lying on his back with his eyes open, half-covered by a blue plastic sheet. The address is 26 Republic Square, the former Communist Party headquarters, and once the most feared building in the country. But when Kovacs arrives at Republic Square, the body is gone.
Pegasus Books | 9781681777344
DREAMS OF FALLING by Karen White (Mystery)
Nine years ago, a humiliated Larkin Lanier fled Georgetown, South Carolina, knowing she could never go back. But when she finds out that her mother has disappeared, she realizes she has no choice but to return to the place she both loves and dreads --- and to the family and friends who never stopped wishing for her to come home. Ivy, Larkin's mother, is discovered badly injured and unconscious in the burned-out wreckage of her ancestral plantation home. No one knows why Ivy was there, but as Larkin digs for answers, she uncovers secrets kept for nearly 50 years --- whispers of love, sacrifice and betrayal --- that lead back to three girls on the brink of womanhood who found their friendship tested in the most heartbreaking ways.
Berkley | 9780451488411
THE EMPEROR OF SHOES by Spencer Wise (Fiction)
Alex Cohen, a 26-year-old Jewish Bostonian, is living in southern China, where his father runs their family-owned shoe factory. Alex reluctantly assumes the helm of the company, but as he explores the plant’s vast floors and assembly lines, he comes to a grim realization: employees are exploited, regulatory systems are corrupt, and Alex’s own father is engaging in bribes to protect the bottom line. When Alex meets a seamstress named Ivy, his sympathies begin to shift. She is an embedded organizer of a pro-democratic Chinese party, secretly sowing dissonance among her fellow laborers. Will Alex remain loyal to his father and his heritage? Or will the sparks of revolution ignite?
Hanover Square Press | 9781335145901
FIRST IN LINE: Presidents, Vice Presidents, and the Pursuit of Power by Kate Andersen Brower (Politics)
Vice presidents occupy a unique and important position, living partway in the spotlight and part in the wings. Of the 48 vice presidents who have served the United States, 14 have become president; eight of these have risen to the Oval Office because of a president’s death or assassination, and one became president after his boss’s resignation. But things have changed dramatically in recent years. In interviews with more than 200 people, including former vice presidents, their family members, and insiders and confidants of every president since Jimmy Carter, Kate Andersen Brower pulls back the curtain and reveals the sometimes cold, sometimes close and always complicated relationship between our modern presidents and their vice presidents.
Harper | 9780062668943
FLORIDA by Lauren Groff (Fiction/Short Stories)
Lauren Groff brings readers into a physical world that is at once domestic and wild --- a place where the hazards of the natural world lie waiting to pounce, yet the greatest threats and mysteries are still of an emotional, psychological nature. Among those navigating this place are a resourceful pair of abandoned sisters; a lonely boy, grown up; a restless, childless couple; a searching, homeless woman; and an unforgettable, recurring character --- a steely and conflicted wife and mother. The stories in this collection span characters, towns, decades, even centuries, but Florida becomes its gravitational center: an energy, a mood, as much as a place of residence.
Riverhead Books | 9781594634512
GENTLEMEN FORMERLY DRESSED: A Rowland Sinclair Mystery by Sulari Gentill (Historical Mystery)
In GENTLEMEN FORMERLY DRESSED, Rowland Sinclair and his friends travel to England, where they feel safe. Then Viscount Pierrepont is discovered in his club, impaled by a sword, and sporting a frilly negligée and makeup. His murder, and the suspicion falling on his young niece, quickly plunge the Australians into a queer world of British aristocracy, Fascist Blackshirts, illicit love, scandal, and spies ranging from London and its suburbs to Bletchley Park and Oxford, and inevitably drawing in Wil Sinclair as well as players like H.G. Wells and Winston Churchill. It's a world where gentlemen are not always what they are dressed up to be.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464206931
GOODBYE, SWEET GIRL: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival by Kelly Sundberg (Memoir)
Kelly Sundberg’s husband, Caleb, was a funny, warm, supportive man and a wonderful father to their little boy Reed. He was also vengeful and violent. But Sundberg did not know that when she fell in love, and for years told herself he would get better. It took a decade for her to ultimately accept that the partnership she desired could not work with such a broken man. In GOODBYE, SWEET GIRL, Sundberg offers an intimate record of the joys and terrors that accompanied her long, difficult awakening, and presents a haunting, heartbreaking glimpse into why women remain too long in dangerous relationships.
Harper | 9780062497673
HOW HARD CAN IT BE? by Allison Pearson (Fiction/Humor)
Kate Reddy is facing her 50th birthday. Her children have turned into impossible teenagers; her mother and in-laws are in precarious health; and her husband is having a midlife crisis that leaves her desperate to restart her career after years away from the workplace. Will Kate reclaim her rightful place at the very hedge fund she founded, or will she strangle in her new “shaping” underwear? Will she rekindle an old flame, or will her house burn to the ground when a rowdy mob shows up for her daughter’s surprise (to her parents) Christmas party? Surely it will all work out in the end. After all, how hard can it be?
St. Martin's Press | 9781250086082
IN SEARCH OF MARY SHELLEY: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein by Fiona Sampson (Biography)
We know the facts of Mary Shelley’s life in some detail. But there has been no literary biography written this century, and previous books have ignored the real person, despite the fact that Mary and her group of second-generation Romantics were extremely interested in the psychological aspect of life. In this probing narrative, Fiona Sampson pursues Mary Shelley through her turbulent life, much as Victor Frankenstein tracked his monster across the arctic wastes. Sampson has written a book that finally answers the question of how it was that a 19-year-old came to write a novel so dark, mysterious, anguished and psychologically astute that it continues to resonate two centuries later.
Pegasus Books | 9781681777528
INVITATION TO A BONFIRE by Adrienne Celt (Psychological Thriller)
In the 1920s, Zoya Andropova, a young refugee from the Soviet Union, finds herself in the alien landscape of an elite all-girls New Jersey boarding school. Having lost her family, her home and her sense of purpose, Zoya struggles to belong. When she meets the visiting writer and fellow Russian émigré Leo Orlov --- whose books Zoya has privately obsessed over for years --- her luck seems to have taken a turn for the better. But she soon discovers that Leo is not the solution to her loneliness: he's committed to his art and bound by the sinister orchestrations of his brilliant wife, Vera. As the reader unravels the mystery of Zoya, Lev and Vera's fate, Zoya is faced with mounting pressure to figure out who she is and what kind of life she wants to build.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635571523
KUDOS by Rachel Cusk (Fiction)
A woman writer visits a Europe in flux, where questions of personal and political identity are rising to the surface and the trauma of change is opening up new possibilities of loss and renewal. Within the rituals of literary culture, Faye finds the human story in disarray amid differing attitudes toward the public performance of the creative persona. She begins to identify among the people she meets a tension between truth and representation. In this conclusion to her Outline trilogy, Rachel Cusk explores the nature of family and art, justice and love, and the ultimate value of suffering.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374279868
THE LOST FAMILY by Jenna Blum (Fiction)
Peter Rashkin, the owner of Masha’s and its head chef, is a survivor of Auschwitz. Running the restaurant consumes him, as does his terrible guilt over surviving the horrors of the Nazi death camp while his wife, Masha, and two young daughters perished. Then June Bouquet, an up-and-coming young model, appears at the restaurant, piercing Peter’s guard. Though she is 20 years his junior, the two begin a passionate, whirlwind courtship. When June unexpectedly becomes pregnant, Peter proposes. But over the next 20 years, the indelible sadness of his horrific memories of the past will overshadow Peter, June and their daughter Elsbeth, transforming them in shocking, heartbreaking and unexpected ways.
Harper | 9780062742162
MY GIRLS: A Lifetime with Carrie and Debbie by Todd Fisher (Memoir)
In December 2016, the world was shaken by the sudden deaths of Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds, which occurred in less than 24 hours. The stunned public turned for solace to Debbie’s only remaining child, Todd Fisher, who somehow retained his grace and composure under the glare of the media spotlight as he struggled with his own overwhelming grief. Now, Todd shares his heart and his memories of Debbie and Carrie with deeply personal stories from his earliest years to those last unfathomable days. His book celebrates their legacies through a more intimate, poignant and often hilarious portrait of these two remarkable women than has ever been revealed before.
William Morrow | 9780062792310
NEVER ANYONE BUT YOU by Rupert Thomson (Historical Fiction)
In the years preceding World War I, two young women meet in a provincial town in France. Suzanne Malherbe, a shy 17-year-old with a talent for drawing, is completely entranced by the brilliant but troubled Lucie Schwob, who comes from a family of wealthy Jewish intellectuals. They embark on a clandestine love affair, but then, in an astonishing twist of fate, the mother of one marries the father of the other. As “sisters” they are finally free of suspicion and move to Paris at a moment when art, literature and politics blend in an explosive cocktail. In the 1930s, with the rise of anti-Semitism and threat of fascism, they leave Paris for Jersey, creating a campaign of propaganda against Hitler’s occupying forces that will put their lives in jeopardy.
Other Press | 9781590519134
NIGHT-GAUNTS AND OTHER TALES OF SUSPENSE by Joyce Carol Oates (Mystery/Short Stories)
Joyce Carol Oates’ new fiction collection opens with a woman, naked except for her high-heeled shoes, seated in front of the window in an apartment she cannot afford on her own. In this exquisitely tense narrative reimagining of Edward Hopper’s Eleven A.M., 1926, the reader enters the minds of both the woman and her married lover, each consumed by alternating thoughts of disgust and arousal, as he rushes --- amorously, murderously --- to her door. NIGHT-GAUNTS AND OTHER TALES OF SUSPENSE stands at the crossroads of sex, violence and longing --- and asks us to interrogate the intersection of these impulses within ourselves.
Mysterious Press | 9780802128102
THE PATCHWORK BRIDE by Sandra Dallas (Historical Fiction)
Ellen is putting the finishing touches on a wedding quilt made from scraps of old dresses when the bride-to-be --- her granddaughter June --- unexpectedly arrives and announces she’s calling off the marriage. With the tending of June’s uncertain heart in mind, Ellen tells her the story of Nell, a Kansas-born woman who goes to the High Plains of New Mexico Territory in 1898 in search of a husband. Working as a biscuit-shooter, Nell falls for a cowboy named Buddy. She sees a future together, but she can’t help wondering if his feelings for her are true. When Buddy breaks her heart, she runs away. In her search for a soul mate, Nell will run away from marriage twice more before finding the love of her life.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250174031
A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE UPRISING by Raymond A. Villareal (Supernatural Thriller)
The body of a young woman found in an Arizona border town, presumed to be an illegal immigrant, disappears from the town morgue. Then more bodies, dead from an inexplicable disease that solidified their blood, are brought to the morgue, only to also vanish. Soon, the U.S. government must come to terms with what they're too late to stop: an epidemic of vampirism. These changed people, or "Gloamings," rapidly rise to prominence in all aspects of modern society. Soon people are beginning to be "re-created," willingly accepting the risk of death if their bodies can't handle the transformation. But when a charismatic and wealthy businessman who recently has been turned, runs for political office, all hell breaks loose.
Mulholland Books | 9780316561686
PLUM RAINS by Andromeda Romano-Lax (Science Fiction)
In 2029, Angelica Navarro, a Filipina nurse, works as caretaker for Sayoko Itou, who is about to turn 100 years old. One day, Sayoko receives a cutting-edge robot “friend” that will teach itself to anticipate Sayoko’s every need. Angelica wonders if she is about to be forced out of her much-needed job by an inanimate object --- one with a preternatural ability to uncover the most deeply buried secrets of the humans around it. The old woman has been hiding secrets of her own for almost a century. What she reveals is a hundred-year saga of forbidden love, hidden identities, and the horrific legacy of WWII and Japanese colonialism --- a confession that will tear apart her own life and Angelica’s.
Soho Press | 9781616959012
ROUGH BEAUTY: Forty Seasons of Mountain Living by Karen Auvinen (Memoir)
During a difficult time, Karen Auvinen flees to a primitive cabin in the Rockies to live in solitude as a writer and to embrace all the beauty and brutality nature has to offer. When a fire incinerates every word she has ever written and all of her possessions --- except for her beloved dog Elvis, her truck and a few singed artifacts --- Karen embarks on a heroic journey to reconcile her desire to be alone with her need for community.
Scribner | 9781501152283
THE SECRET TOKEN: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke by Andrew Lawler (History)
In 1587, 115 men, women and children arrived at Roanoke Island on the coast of North Carolina to establish the first English settlement in the New World. But when the new colony's leader returned to Roanoke from a resupply mission, his settlers had vanished, leaving behind only a single clue --- a "secret token" etched into a tree. What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? That question has consumed historians, archaeologists and amateur sleuths for 400 years. In THE SECRET TOKEN, Andrew Lawler sets out on a quest to determine the fate of the settlers, finding fresh leads as he encounters a host of characters obsessed with resolving the enigma.
Doubleday | 9780385542012
THE SHIMMER by Carsten Stroud (Supernatural Thriller)
A police pursuit kicks Sergeant Jack Redding and his trainee, Julie Karras, into a shoot-out that ends with one girl dead and another in cuffs, and the driver of the SUV. Redding stays on the hunt, driven by the trace memory that he knows that running woman --- and he does, because his grandfather, a cop in Jacksonville, was hunting the same woman in 1957. Redding and his partner, Pandora Jansson, chase a seductive serial killer who can ride The Shimmer across decades. The stakes turn brutal when Jack, whose wife and child died in a crash the previous Christmas Eve, faces a terrible choice: help his grandfather catch the killer, or change time itself and try to save his wife and child.
Mira | 9780778331223
SIDE BY SIDE: A Novel of Bonnie and Clyde by Jenni L. Walsh (Historical Fiction)
Texas: 1931. It’s the height of the Great Depression, and Bonnie is miles from Clyde. He’s locked up, and she’s left waiting, their dreams of a life together dwindling every day. When Clyde returns from prison damaged and distant, unable to keep a job and dogged by the cops, Bonnie knows the law will soon come for him. But there’s only one road forward for her. If the world won't give them their American Dream, they'll just have to take it.
Forge Books | 9780765398451
SMALL COUNTRY by Gaël Faye (Fiction)
Burundi, 1992. For 10-year-old Gabriel, life in his comfortable expatriate neighborhood of Bujumbura with his French father, Rwandan mother and little sister Ana is something close to paradise. These are carefree days of laughter and adventure --- sneaking Supermatch cigarettes and gorging on stolen mangoes --- as he and his mischievous gang of friends transform their tiny cul-de-sac into their kingdom. But dark clouds are gathering over this small country, and soon their peaceful existence will shatter when Burundi, and neighboring Rwanda, are brutally hit by civil war and genocide.
Hogarth | 9781524759872
SOCIAL CREATURE by Tara Isabella Burton (Psychological Thriller)
They go through both bottles of champagne right there on the High Line, with nothing but the stars over them... They drink and Lavinia tells Louise about all the places they will go together, when they finish their stories, when they are both great writers --- to Paris and to Rome and to Trieste...Lavinia will never go. She is going to die soon. Louise has nothing. Lavinia has everything. After a chance encounter, the two spiral into an intimate, intense and possibly toxic friendship.
Doubleday | 9780385543521
SOMEBODY I USED TO KNOW: A Memoir by Wendy Mitchell (Memoir)
Wendy Mitchell had a busy job with the British National Health Service, raised her two daughters alone, and spent her weekends running and climbing mountains. Then, slowly, a mist settled deep inside the mind she once knew so well, blurring the world around her. She didn’t know it then, but dementia was starting to take hold. In 2014, at age 58, she was diagnosed with young-onset Alzheimer’s. In SOMEBODY I USED TO KNOW, Mitchell shares the heartrending story of her cognitive decline and how she has fought to stave it off. What lay ahead of her after the diagnosis was scary and unknowable, but Mitchell was determined and resourceful, and she vowed to outwit the disease for as long as she could.
Ballantine Books | 9781524797911
SOMETHING IN THE WATER by Catherine Steadman (Psychological Thriller)
Erin is a documentary filmmaker on the brink of a professional breakthrough, and Mark is a handsome investment banker with big plans. Passionately in love, they embark on a dream honeymoon to the tropical island of Bora Bora, where they enjoy the sun, the sand and each other. Then, while scuba diving in the crystal blue sea, they find something in the water. Suddenly the newlyweds must make a dangerous choice: to speak out or to protect their secret. After all, if no one else knows, who would be hurt? Their decision will trigger a devastating chain of events.
Ballantine Books | 9781524797188
SOUTHERNMOST by Silas House (Fiction)
In the aftermath of a flood that washes away much of a small Tennessee town, evangelical preacher Asher Sharp offers shelter to two gay men. In doing so, he starts to see his life anew --- and risks losing everything. With no way out but ahead, Asher takes his son, Justin, and flees to Key West, where he hopes to find his brother, Luke, whom he’d turned against years ago after Luke came out. And it is there, at the southernmost point of the country, that Asher and Justin discover a new way of thinking about the world, and a new way of understanding love.
Algonquin Books | 9781616206253
THE SUN DOES SHINE: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton with Lara Love Hardin (Memoir)
In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused and only 29 years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free. But with no money and a different system of justice for a poor black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution. As he realized and accepted his fate, Hinton resolved not only to survive, but find a way to live on Death Row. For the next 27 years he was a beacon --- transforming not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates. With the help of civil rights attorney and bestselling author of JUST MERCY, Bryan Stevenson, Hinton won his release in 2015.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250205797
THERE THERE by Tommy Orange (Fiction)
THERE THERE tells the story of 12 characters, each of whom has private reasons for traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life back together after his uncle’s death and has come to work at the powwow to honor his uncle’s memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and has come to the powwow to dance in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion, and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and unspeakable loss.
Knopf | 9780525520375
THE TRAVELING FEAST: On the Road and at the Table with My Heroes by Rick Bass (Memoir)
From his bid to become Eudora Welty's lawn boy to the time George Plimpton offered to punch him in the nose, lineage has always been important to Rick Bass. Now at a turning point --- in his mid-50s, with his long marriage dissolved and his grown daughters out of the house --- Bass strikes out on a journey of thanksgiving. His aim: to make a memorable meal for each of his mentors, to express his gratitude for the way they have shaped not only his writing but his life. The result, an odyssey to some of America's most iconic writers, is also a record of self-transformation as Bass seeks to recapture the fire that drove him as a young man.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316381239
TREEBORNE by Caleb Johnson (Fiction)
Janie Treeborne lives on an orchard at the edge of Elberta, Alabama, and in time, she has become its keeper. Elberta has seen fierce battles, violent storms and frantic change --- and when the town is once again threatened from without, Janie realizes it won’t withstand much more. So she tells the story of its people: of Hugh, her granddaddy, determined to preserve Elberta’s legacy at any cost; of his wife, Maybelle, the postmaster, whose sudden death throws the town into chaos; of her lover, Lee Malone, a black orchardist harvesting from a land where he is less than welcome; of the time when Janie kidnapped her own Hollywood-obsessed aunt and tore the wrong people apart.
Picador | 9781250169082
TURBULENCE: A Stone Barrington Novel by Stuart Woods (Thriller/Adventure)
Stone Barrington and several friends are vacationing in Florida when an extreme weather event puts a damper on their trip. Even worse, the hurricane-force winds blow a powerful, noxious politician straight onto Stone's doorstep. Though they part ways before long, Stone soon learns that he hasn't seen the last of his new acquaintance. It turns out that this official has some shady associates who may have destructive plans afoot, and Stone needs an entrée to the inside to figure out their scheme. With the fate of nations at stake, Stone must summon all of his fearless daring to put an end to the audacious plot…but this time he may be in over his head.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780735219199
US AGAINST YOU by Fredrik Backman (Fiction)
Beartown is home to tough, hardworking people who don’t expect life to be easy or fair. No matter how difficult times get, they’ve always been able to take pride in their local ice hockey team. So it’s a cruel blow when they hear that Beartown ice hockey might soon be disbanded. What makes it worse is the obvious satisfaction that all the former Beartown players, who now play for a rival team, take in that fact. But then a newcomer arrives who gives Beartown hockey a surprising new coach and a chance at a comeback. As the big game approaches, the not-so-innocent pranks and incidents between the communities pile up and their mutual contempt intensifies. By the time the last goal is scored, a resident of Beartown will be dead.
Atria Books | 9781501160790
VISIBLE EMPIRE by Hannah Pittard (Historical Fiction)
Chateau de Sully, a Boeing 707 chartered to ferry home more than a hundred of Atlanta’s most prominent citizens from a European jaunt, crashed in Paris shortly after takeoff. Left behind are children, spouses, lovers and friends faced with renegotiating their lives. Robert, a newspaper editor, must decide if he can reconnect with his beloved but estranged wife, whose swindler parents have left her penniless. Nineteen-year-old Piedmont Dobbs, recently denied admission to an integrated school, senses a moment of uncertain opportunity. And Mayor Ivan Allen is tasked with the job of moving Atlanta forward --- the hedonism of the ’60s and the urgency of the Civil Rights movement at his city’s doorstep.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9780544748064
WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LULULEMONS by Lauren Weisberger (Fiction/Humor)
Welcome to Greenwich, Connecticut, where everyone has something to say about the infamous new neighbor. After leaving Miranda Priestly, Emily Charlton has been working in Hollywood as an image consultant to the stars, but recently, Emily has lost a few clients. She’s hopeless with social media. The new guard is nipping at her heels. She needs a big opportunity, and she needs it now. When Karolina Hartwell, a gorgeous former supermodel, is arrested for a DUI, her fall from grace is merciless. Her senator-husband leaves her, her Beltway friends disappear, and the tabloids pounce. In Karolina, Emily finds her comeback opportunity. But she quickly learns that Greenwich is a world apart and this comeback needs a team approach.
Simon & Schuster | 9781476778440
THE WORD IS MURDER by Anthony Horowitz (Mystery)
Diana Cowper, the wealthy mother of a famous actor, enters a funeral parlor to plan her own service. Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home. Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to document his life and chooses Anthony Horowitz. Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself at the center of a story he cannot control. Hawthorne is brusque, temperamental and annoying, but his latest case --- with its many twists and turns --- proves irresistible. The writer and the detective form an unusual partnership. At the same time, it soon becomes clear that Hawthorne is hiding some dark secrets of his own.
Harper | 9780062676788
On Sale the Week of June 4th in Paperback
June 5th
THE ACCOMPLISHED GUEST: Stories by Ann Beattie (Fiction/Short Stories)
Set along the East Coast from Maine to Key West, Ann Beattie’s latest collection explores unconventional friendships, frustrated loves, mortality and aging. One theme of THE ACCOMPLISHED GUEST is people paying visits or receiving visitors, traveling to see old friends, the joys and tolls of hosting company (and of being hosted). The occasion might be a wedding, a birthday, a reunion, an annual Christmas party, or another opportunity to gather and attempt to bond with biological relatives or chosen families. In some stories, as in life, what begins as a benign social event becomes a situation played for high stakes.
Scribner | 9781501111396
THE ANSWERS by Catherine Lacey (Fiction)
Mary Parsons is a young woman living in New York City and struggling to cope with a body that has betrayed her. All but paralyzed with pain, she seeks relief from a New Agey treatment called Pneuma Adaptive Kinesthesia, PAKing for short. And, remarkably, it works. But PAKing is prohibitively expensive and Mary is dead broke. So she scours Craigslist for fast-cash jobs and finds herself applying for the “Girlfriend Experiment,” the brainchild of an eccentric actor, Kurt Sky, who is determined to find the perfect relationship --- even if that means paying different women to fulfill distinctive roles. Mary is hired as the “Emotional Girlfriend” and pulled into Kurt’s ego-driven and messy attempt at human connection.
Picador | 9781250183088
A BEAUTIFUL, TERRIBLE THING: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal by Jen Waite (Memoir)
What do you do when you discover that the person you've built your life around never existed? When "it could never happen to me" does happen to you? These are the questions facing Jen Waite when she begins to realize that her loving husband --- the father of her infant daughter, her best friend, the love of her life --- fits the textbook definition of psychopath. In a raw, first-person account, Waite recounts each heartbreaking discovery, every life-destroying lie, and reveals what happens once the dust finally settles on her demolished marriage.
Plume | 9780735216518
THE BURNING GIRL by Claire Messud (Fiction)
Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace, the quiet town of Royston, Massachusetts. But as the two girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put her life in danger and shatter her oldest friendship. THE BURNING GIRL is a complex examination of the stories we tell ourselves about youth and friendship, and straddles childhood’s imaginary worlds and painful adult reality.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393356052
THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGES by Siobhan Fallon (Fiction)
Both Cassie Hugo and Margaret Brickshaw dutifully followed their soldier husbands to the U.S. embassy in Jordan, but that’s about all the women have in common. After two years, Cassie has become an expert on the rules, but newly arrived Margaret sees only her chance to explore. So when a fender-bender sends Margaret to the local police station, Cassie reluctantly agrees to watch Margaret’s toddler son. But as the hours pass, Cassie’s boredom and frustration turn to fear: Why isn’t Margaret answering her phone, and why is it taking so long to sort out a routine accident? Snooping around Margaret’s apartment, Cassie begins to question not only her friend’s whereabouts but also her own role in Margaret’s disappearance.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780399576416
THE CUBAN AFFAIR by Nelson DeMille (Thriller)
Daniel Graham MacCormick is living in Key West, the proud owner of a 42-foot charter fishing boat, The Maine. But truth be told, his finances are more than a little shaky. Carlos, a hotshot Miami lawyer heavily involved with anti-Castro groups, wants to hire Mac and The Maine for a 10-day fishing tournament to Cuba. After meeting Carlos’ clients --- a beautiful Cuban-American woman named Sara Ortega, and a mysterious older Cuban exile, Eduardo Valazquez --- Mac learns there is 60 million American dollars hidden in Cuba by Sara’s grandfather when he fled Castro’s revolution. With the “Cuban Thaw” underway between Havana and Washington, Carlos, Eduardo and Sara know it’s only a matter of time before someone finds the stash --- by accident or on purpose.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501199011
A DARING VENTURE by Elizabeth Camden (Historical Romance)
Paperback Original
As a biochemist in early 1900s New York, Doctor Rosalind Werner has dedicated her life to the crusade against waterborne diseases. She is at the forefront of a groundbreaking technology that will change the way water is delivered to every household in the city --- but only if she can get people to believe in her work. Newly appointed Commissioner of Water for New York Nicholas Drake is highly skeptical of Rosalind and her team’s techniques. When a brewing court case throws him into direct confrontation with her, he is surprised by his reaction to the lovely scientist. While Rosalind and Nick wage a private war against their own attraction, they stand firmly on opposite sides of a battle that will impact far more than just their own lives.
Bethany House Publishers | 9780764218828
DO NOT BECOME ALARMED by Maile Meloy (Thriller)
When Liv and Nora decide to take their husbands and children on a holiday cruise, everyone is thrilled. But when they all go ashore for an adventure in Central America, a series of minor misfortunes and miscalculations leads the families farther from the safety of the ship. One minute the children are there, and the next they’re gone. The disintegration of the world the families knew --- told from the perspectives of both the adults and the children --- is riveting and revealing. The parents, accustomed to security and control, turn on each other and blame themselves, while the seemingly helpless children discover resources they never knew they possessed.
Riverhead Books | 9780735216532
ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE by Gail Honeyman (Fiction)
Eleanor Oliphant struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.
Penguin Books | 9780735220690
THE EVER AFTER by Sarah Pekkanen (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Josie and Frank Moore are happy…at least Josie thinks they are. Frank is a phenomenal father and still looks at his wife like she’s the beautiful woman he married more than a decade ago. Josie isn’t just happy, she’s lucky. Until one Saturday morning when Josie borrows her husband’s phone to make a quick call --- and sees nine words that shatter her world. Now Josie feels as if she is standing at the edge of a sharp precipice. As she looks back at pivotal moments in the relationship she believed would last forever, she is also plunging ahead, surprising everyone (especially herself) with how far she will go to uncover the extent of her husband’s devastating secret.
Washington Square Press | 9781501106989
EVERYBODY’S SON by Thrity Umrigar (Fiction)
During a terrible heat wave in 1991, 10-year-old Anton has been locked in an apartment in the projects alone for seven days. Hot, hungry and desperate, he shatters a window and climbs out. Juanita, his mother, is discovered in a crack house less than three blocks away, nearly unconscious and half-naked. Though the bond between mother and son is extremely strong, Anton is placed with child services while Juanita goes to jail. Desperate to have a child in the house again after the tragic death of his teenage son, Judge David Coleman uses his power and connections to keep his new foster son, Anton, with him and his wife --- actions that will have devastating consequences in the years to come.
Harper Perennial | 9780062442260
THE FAIRFAX INCIDENT by Terrence McCauley (Historical Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
Mrs. Fairfax, a wealthy widow, hires Charlie Doherty to prove that her husband’s suicide was actually murder. He expects to pocket a nice chunk of change to prove what everyone already knows: Walter Fairfax walked into his office in the Empire State Building one morning, took a phone call and shot himself. But he quickly finds out that there is more to the Fairfax incident than a simple suicide. Before long, he discovers that Mr. Fairfax was leading a double life. In an investigation that quickly involves global implications, Doherty finds himself against not only some of the most powerful people in New York City, but against the most evil men in the world.
Polis Books | 9781947993051
THE GOLDEN HOUSE by Salman Rushdie (Fiction)
On the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration, an enigmatic billionaire from foreign shores takes up residence in the architectural jewel of “the Gardens,” a cloistered community in New York’s Greenwich Village. Along with his improbable name, untraceable accent, and unmistakable whiff of danger, Nero Golden has brought along his three adult sons. There is no mother, no wife. At least not until Vasilisa, a sleek Russian expat, snags the septuagenarian Nero, becoming the queen to his king --- a queen in want of an heir. Our guide to the Goldens’ world is their neighbor René, an ambitious young filmmaker. Researching a movie about the Goldens, he ingratiates himself into their household.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780399592829
THE GOOD SON by You-Jeong Jeong (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Early one morning, 26-year-old Yu-jin wakes up to a strange metallic smell, and a phone call from his brother asking if everything's all right at home --- he missed a call from their mother in the middle of the night. Yu-jin soon discovers her murdered body, lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs of their stylish Seoul duplex. He can't remember much about the night before; having suffered from seizures for most of his life, Yu-jin often has trouble with his memory. All he has is a faint impression of his mother calling his name. But was she calling for help? Or begging for her life?
Penguin Books | 9780143131953
THE GYPSY MOTH SUMMER by Julia Fierro (Fiction)
It is the summer of 1992, and a gypsy moth invasion blankets Avalon Island. It is also the summer Leslie Day Marshall --- the only daughter of Avalon's most prominent family --- returns with her husband, a botanist, and their children to live in "The Castle," the island's grandest estate. Leslie's husband Jules is African-American, their children are bi-racial, and islanders from both sides of the tracks form fast and dangerous opinions about the new arrivals. Maddie Pencott LaRosa falls in love with Brooks, their son, and that love feels as urgent to Maddie as the questions about the new and deadly cancers showing up across the island. Could Grudder Aviation, the pride of the island --- and its patriarch, the Colonel --- be to blame?
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250087522
HELLO, SUNSHINE by Laura Dave (Fiction)
Sunshine Mackenzie is living the dream. She’s a culinary star with millions of fans, a line of #1 bestselling cookbooks, and a devoted husband happy to support her every endeavor. And then she gets hacked. When Sunshine’s secrets are revealed, her fall from grace is catastrophic. She loses her husband, her show, her fans and her apartment. She’s forced to return to the childhood home --- and the estranged sister --- she’s tried hard to forget. But what Sunshine does amid the ashes of her own destruction may well save her life.
Simon & Schuster | 9781476789330
THE HISTORY OF BEES by Maja Lunde (Fiction)
THE HISTORY OF BEES follows three generations of beekeepers and their relationship to the bees --- and to their children and one another --- against the backdrop of an urgent, global crisis. England, 1852. William is a biologist and seed merchant, who sets out to build a new type of beehive --- one that will give both him and his children honor and fame. United States, 2007. George is a beekeeper fighting an uphill battle against modern farming, but hopes that his son can be their salvation. China, 2098. Tao hand paints pollen onto the fruit trees now that the bees have long since disappeared. When Tao’s young son is taken away by the authorities after a tragic accident, she sets out on a grueling journey to find out what happened to him.
Touchstone | 9781501161384
IN THE DISTANCE WITH YOU written by Carla Guelfenbein, translated by John Cullen (Literary Thriller)
Paperback Original
Vera Sigall, now 80 years old, has lived a mysterious, ascetic life far from the limelight of literary circles. This powerful character has a profound effect on those around her --- Daniel, an architect and her neighbor and friend, unhappy in his marriage and career; Emilia, a Franco-Chilean student who travels to Santiago to write a thesis on the elusive Vera; and Horacio, an acclaimed poet with whom Vera had a tumultuous, passionate affair in her youth. As Daniel, Emilia and Horacio tell their stories, they reconstruct Vera’s past and search for their own identities.
Other Press | 9781590518700
THE LAST BALLAD by Wiley Cash (Historical Fiction)
Twelve times a week, 28-year-old Ella May Wiggins makes the two-mile trek to and from her job on the night shift at American Mill No. 2 in Bessemer City, North Carolina. The insular community expects them to pay Ella May and other workers less because they toil alongside African Americans. But the mill owners claim the union is nothing but a front for the Bolshevik menace sweeping across Europe. To maintain their control, the owners will use every means in their power to prevent workers from banding together. On the night of the county’s biggest rally, Ella May makes up her mind to join the movement --- a decision that will have lasting consequences for her children, her friends and her town.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062313126
LIGHTNING MEN by Thomas Mullen (Historical Thriller)
Officer Denny Rakestraw and “Negro Officers” Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith have their hands full in an overcrowded and rapidly changing Atlanta. It’s 1950 and racial tensions are simmering as black families, including Smith’s sister, begin moving into formerly all-white neighborhoods. When Rake’s brother-in-law launches a scheme to rally the Ku Klux Klan to “save” their neighborhood, his efforts spiral out of control, forcing Rake to choose between loyalty to family or the law. Across town, Boggs and Smith try to shut down the supply of white lightning and drugs into their territory, finding themselves up against more powerful foes than they’d expected.
Atria / 37 INK | 9781501138805
MANHATTAN BEACH by Jennifer Egan (Historical Fiction)
Anna Kerrigan accompanies her father to visit Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. She is mesmerized by the sea beyond the house and by some charged mystery between the two men. Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that once belonged to men, now soldiers abroad. She becomes the first female diver, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. One evening at a nightclub, she meets Dexter Styles again, and begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life and the reasons he might have vanished.
Scribner | 9781476716749
MATCHUP edited by Lee Child (Thriller/Short Stories)
This follow-up to FACEOFF features 22 of the world’s bestselling and critically acclaimed thriller writers pairing their series characters in an 11-story anthology curated by the International Thriller Writers. MATCHUP takes the never-before-seen bestseller pairings of FACEOFF and adds a delicious new twist: gender. Eleven of the world’s best female thriller writers, from Diana Gabaldon to Kathy Reichs to Charlaine Harris, are paired with 11 of the world’s best male thriller writers, including John Sandford, C.J. Box and Nelson DeMille, among others.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501141607
MURDER TO THE METAL: A Somebody's Bound to Wind Up Dead Mystery by Annie Hogsett (Mystery)
Paperback Original
Ten months after the events detailed in TOO LUCKY TO LIVE, Allie Harper and Thomas Bennington III reside in a rented 9,000-square-foot lakeside mansion. Otis Johnson, Allie's deliverer from last summer's would-be-kidnapper, is now their live-in bodyguard and gourmet chef. Allie's dream of creating the T&A Detective Agency to solve "mysteries of the heart" now has its first case. Lloyd Bunker's obsession with avoiding stoplights has run him and his '67 Pontiac GTO off the road. T&A recruits Allie's former nemesis, Officer Tony Valerio, plus her best friend and ex-landlady Margo and television reporter Lisa Cole, to help them follow a lethal trail of escalating crimes ranging from scrapping to pushing opioids to multiple murders.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464209994
THE PEOPLE WE HATE AT THE WEDDING by Grant Ginder (Fiction)
Paul and Alice’s half-sister, Eloise, is getting married. There will be fancy hotels, dinners at “it” restaurants, and a reception at a country estate. They couldn’t hate it more. THE PEOPLE WE HATE AT THE WEDDING is the story of a less than perfect family. Donna, the clan’s mother, is now a widow living in the Chicago suburbs. Alice is stuck in a dead-end job where she is mired in a rather predictable, though enjoyable, affair with her married boss. Her brother Paul lives in Philadelphia with his tenured track professor boyfriend who eyes undergrads. And then there’s Eloise, who has spent her school years at the best private boarding schools and a post-college life cushioned by a fat, endless trust fund. To top it off, she’s infuriatingly kind and decent.
Flatiron Books | 9781250095220
SALT HOUSES by Hala Alyan (Fiction)
On the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding, Salma reads the girl’s future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. Salma is forced to leave her home in Nablus; Alia’s brother gets pulled into a politically militarized world he can’t escape; and Alia and her gentle-spirited husband move to Kuwait City. When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait in 1990, Alia and her family once again lose their home. Soon Alia’s children begin families of their own, once again navigating the burdens (and blessings) of assimilation in foreign cities.
Mariner Books | 9781328915856
THE SPY ACROSS THE TABLE: A Jim Brodie Thriller by Barry Lancet (Thriller)
When two theater friends are murdered backstage at a Kennedy Center performance, Jim Brodie is devastated --- and determined to hunt down the killer. The First Lady was the college roommate of one of the victims, and she enlists Brodie to track down the assassin. Brodie flies to Tokyo to attend the second of two funerals, when his friend’s daughter Anna is kidnapped during the ceremony. It is at this point that he realizes the murders were simply bait to draw her out of hiding. Anna, it seems, is the key architect of a top-secret NSA program that gathers the personal secrets of America’s most influential leaders --- secrets so damaging that North Korea and China will stop at nothing to get them.
Simon & Schuster | 9781476794921
SULFUR SPRINGS by William Kent Krueger (Mystery/Thriller)
Cork O’Connor and his new bride, Rainy Bisonette, listen to a desperate voicemail left by Rainy's son, Peter, who confesses to the murder of someone named Rodriguez. After unsuccessfully trying to contact him, they fly to Coronado County in southern Arizona, where Peter has been working as a counselor in a drug rehab center. They learn that Peter was fired six months earlier and hasn’t been heard from since. So they head to the little desert town of Sulfur Springs where Peter has been receiving his mail. But no one in Sulfur Springs seems to know him. They do, however, recognize the name Rodriguez. Carlos Rodriguez is the head of a cartel that controls everything illegal crossing the border from Mexico into Coronado County.
Atria Books | 9781501147432
SWELL by Jill Eisenstadt (Fiction)
When Sue Glassman's family needs a new home, Sue relents and agrees to convert to Judaism. In return, Sue's father-in-law, Sy, buys the family a capacious but ramshackle beachfront house in Rockaway, Queens. The catch? Sy is moving in, too. And the house is haunted. On the weekend of Sue's conversion party, 90-year-old Rose, who (literally) got away with murder on the premises years earlier, shows up uninvited and seems intent on moving back in. Enter neighbor Tim --- a former lifeguard, former firefighter and reformed alcoholic --- who feels, for reasons even he can't explain, inordinately protective of the Glassmans.
Back Bay Books | 9780316316880
THE VINEYARD by Maria Duenas (Historical Fiction)
Mauro Larrea’s fortune, the result of years of hardship and toil, comes crashing down on the heels of a calamitous event. Swamped by debt and uncertainty, he gambles the last of his money in a daring play that wins him an abandoned house and a vineyard an ocean away. Mauro travels to Andalusia de Jerez in Spain with every intention of selling the property and returning to Mexico. That is, until he meets the unsettling Soledad Montalvo, the wife of a London wine merchant, who bursts into his life unannounced, determined to protect her family’s legacy. Before long, Larrea finds himself immersed in the rich culture of the sherry trade. As his feelings for Soledad ripen into a consuming passion, he seeks to restore the vineyard to its former glory.
Washington Square Press | 9781501124549
THE VISITORS by Catherine Burns (Psychological Thriller)
Marion Zetland lives with her domineering older brother, John, in a crumbling mansion on the edge of a northern seaside resort. A timid spinster who still sleeps with teddy bears, Marion does her best to live by John’s rules, even if it means turning a blind eye to the noises she hears coming from behind the cellar door...and ignoring the women’s laundry in the hamper that isn’t hers. For years, she’s buried the signs of John’s devastating secret deep into the recesses of her mind --- until the day John is crippled by a heart attack, and Marion must face what he has kept hidden. Forced to go down to the cellar, Marion discovers more about herself than she ever thought possible.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781501164026
THE WANTED: An Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Novel by Robert Crais (Thriller)
When single mother Devon Connor hires Elvis Cole, it’s because her troubled teenage son Tyson is flashing cash and she’s afraid he’s dealing drugs. But the truth is devastatingly different. With two others, he’s been responsible for a string of high-end burglaries, a crime spree that takes a deadly turn when one of them is murdered and Tyson and his girlfriend disappear. They stole the wrong thing from the wrong man, and, determined to get it back, he has hired two men who are smart and brutal and the best at what they do. To even the odds, Cole brings in his friend, Joe Pike, but even the two of them together may be overmatched.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780735218710
A WAR IN CRIMSON EMBERS by Alex Marshall (Fantasy/Adventure)
Former warrior queen and now pariah, Cold Zosia wakes in the ashes of a burning city. Her vengeance has brought her to this --- her heroic reputation in tatters, her allies scattered far and wide, and her world on the cusp of ruin. General Ji-Hyeon has vanished into the legendary First Dark, leaving her lover Sullen alone to carry out the grim commands of a dead goddess. The barbarian Maroto is held captive by a demonic army hell-bent on the extermination of the Crimson Empire, and only his protégé Purna believes he can be saved. Zosia must rally her comrades and old enemies one last time, for what will prove the greatest battle of her many legends...if anyone lives to tell it.
Orbit | 9780316340717
WEDDING TOASTS I’LL NEVER GIVE by Ada Calhoun (Memoir/Essays)
We hear plenty about whether or not to get married, but much less about what it takes to stay married. Clichés around marriage --- eternal bliss, domestic harmony, soul mates --- leave out the real stuff. After marriage you may still want to sleep with other people. Sometimes your partner will bore the hell out of you. And when stuck paying for your spouse’s mistakes, you might miss being single. In WEDDING TOASTS I’LL NEVER GIVE, Ada Calhoun presents an unflinching but also loving portrait of her own marriage, opening a long-overdue conversation about the institution as it truly is.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393356007
THE WEIGHT OF THIS WORLD by David Joy (Thriller)
A combat veteran returned from war, Thad Broom can’t leave the hardened world of Afghanistan behind, nor can he forgive himself for what he saw there. His mother, April, is haunted by her own demons, a secret trauma she has carried for years. Between them is Aiden McCall, loyal to both but unable to hold them together. Connected by bonds of circumstance and duty, friendship and love, these three lives are blown apart when Aiden and Thad witness the accidental death of their drug dealer and a riot of dope and cash drops in their laps. On a meth-fueled journey to nowhere, they will either find the grit to overcome the darkness or be consumed by it.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780399574245
WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT by Sandra Block (Thriller)
Paperback Original
She doesn't remember that night. But she will never be the same. One moment, Dahlia is a successful Harvard student; the next, she wakes up from a party, the victim of a brutal assault. Her life veers into a tailspin, and what's worse, her memory of the attack has been ripped away, leaving a cold rage in its wake. Now, years later, Dahlia is a tattooed paralegal suffering from PTSD and still haunted by that night. Until one day, a video surfaces online, and Dahlia sees her attack for the first time. Now she knows what happened to her. And she knows who is to blame. Her rage is no longer cold, but burning, red hot. And she is about to make everyone pay.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781492660293
WHAT WE LOSE by Zinzi Clemmons (Fiction)
Raised in Pennsylvania, Thandi views the world of her mother’s childhood in Johannesburg as both impossibly distant and ever present. She is an outsider wherever she goes, caught between being black and white, American and not. She tries to connect these dislocated pieces of her life, and as her mother succumbs to cancer, Thandi searches for an anchor --- someone, or something, to love. In WHAT WE LOSE, we watch Thandi’s life unfold, from losing her mother and learning to live without the person who has most profoundly shaped her existence, to her own encounters with romance and unexpected motherhood.
Penguin Books | 9780735221734
WOLF ON A STRING by Benjamin Black (Historical Mystery)
Christian Stern, an ambitious young scholar and alchemist, arrives in Prague intent on making his fortune at the court of the eccentric Rudolf II. The night of his arrival, he stumbles upon the body of a young woman whose throat has been slashed. Christian quickly finds himself entangled in the machinations of several ruthless courtiers, and before long he comes to the attention of the Emperor himself. Rudolf sets Christian the task of solving the mystery of the woman’s murder. But Christian soon realizes that he has blundered into the midst of a power struggle that threatens to subvert the throne itself. And as he gets ever nearer to the truth of what happened that night, he finally sees that his own life is in grave danger.
Picador | 9781250182524
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