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to Expand The Book Report Network
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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of January 14th and January 21st 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 Winter Reading Contests and Feature, which we have brought back for a fifth year. On select days between now and Friday, February 15th at noon ET, we are hosting a series of 24-hour contests spotlighting a book releasing this winter (or a book publishing in the spring that we would like to bring to your attention now) and giving five lucky readers a chance to win it.
We also have three contests to tell you about on ReadingGroupGuides.com.
We are celebrating the January 22nd release of MAID: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive (an upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On pick) with a special contest that will give five groups the chance to win 12 copies of Stephanie Land's eye-opening memoir, plus the opportunity to chat with the author. Ten additional readers will be awarded a copy of the book, which exposes the reality of pursuing the American dream from below the poverty line. The deadline for your entries is Wednesday, February 6th at noon ET.
January's "What's Your Book Group Reading This Month?" contest book is THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT by Chris Bohjalian, which is now available in paperback. In this spellbinding psychological thriller, a flight attendant wakes up in the wrong hotel, in the wrong bed, with a dead man --- and no idea what happened. In a book group? Then tell us what your group is currently reading to be eligible to win. Three winners will be selected, and each will be awarded 12 copies of the book for their group. Be sure to enter by Wednesday, February 6th at noon ET.
Finally, we are asking book groups to help us compile ReadingGroupGuides.com's "Best Books of the Year" list for 2018. Click here to share both your favorite book that you read with your group last year and your favorite book that you read outside your group by Thursday, January 31st at noon ET, and you will be eligible to win six titles releasing this year that are perfect for book group discussions: THE AGE OF LIGHT by Whitney Scharer, THE GIRLS AT 17 SWANN STREET by Yara Zgheib, THE HUNTRESS by Kate Quinn, THE ISLAND OF SEA WOMEN by Lisa See, LOST ROSES by Martha Hall Kelly, and THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE ROOM by Marie Benedict.
For those of you who are doing online shopping, if you use the store links below, Bookreporter.com gets a small affiliate fee on your purchases. We would appreciate your considering this!
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound
This Week's Bonus News:
Bookreporter.com's Fifth Annual
Winter Reading Contests and Feature
At Bookreporter.com, we are kicking off 2019 with our fifth annual Winter Reading Contests and Feature. On select days between now and Friday, February 15th at noon ET, we are hosting a series of 24-hour contests spotlighting a book releasing this winter (or a book publishing in the spring that we would like to get on your radar now) and giving five lucky readers a chance to win it. We also are sending a special newsletter to announce the day's title, which you can sign up for here.
This year's featured titles are:
Click here to read all the contest details
and learn more about our featured titles.
On Sale the Week of January 14th in Hardcover
January 14th
LIAR LIAR by James Patterson and Candice Fox (Thriller)
Detective Harriet Blue is a very good cop…gone very bad. In the space of a week, she has committed theft and fraud, resisted arrest, assaulted a police officer, and is considered a dangerous fugitive from the law. It's all because of one man, Regan Banks. He viciously killed the only person in the world who matters to Harriet --- and he plans to kill her next. As she recklessly speeds toward the dark side --- and finally crosses it --- Harriet won't stop until Regan pays for the many lives he has taken.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316418249
January 15th
ANNELIES by David R. Gillham (Historical Fiction)
The year is 1945, and Anne Frank is 16 years old. Having survived the concentration camps, but lost her mother and sister, she reunites with her father, Pim, in newly liberated Amsterdam. But it’s not as easy to fit the pieces of their life back together. Anne is adrift, haunted by the ghosts of the horrors they experienced, while Pim is fixated on returning to normalcy. Her beloved diary has been lost, and her dreams of becoming a writer seem distant and pointless now. As Anne struggles to overcome the brutality of memory and build a new life for herself, she grapples with heartbreak, grief and ultimately the freedom of forgiveness.
Viking | 9780399162589
AS LONG AS WE BOTH SHALL LIVE by JoAnn Chaney (Psychological Thriller)
Matt frantically tells park rangers that he and his wife, Marie, were hiking when she fell off a cliff into the raging river below. They start a search, but they aren’t hopeful: no one could have survived that fall. It was a tragic accident. But Matt’s first wife also died under suspicious circumstances. And when the police pull a body out of the river, they have a lot more questions for Matt. Detectives Loren and Spengler want to know if Matt is a grieving, twice-unlucky husband or a cold-blooded murderer. They dig into the couple’s lives to see what they can unearth. And they find that love’s got teeth, it’s got claws, and once it hitches you to a person, it’s tough to rip yourself free. So what happens when you’re done making it work?
Flatiron Books | 9781250076397
THE DREAMERS by Karen Thompson Walker (Fiction)
One night in an isolated college town, a first-year student stumbles into her dorm room, falls asleep --- and doesn’t wake up. Her roommate, Mei, cannot rouse her. Neither can the paramedics, nor the perplexed doctors at the hospital. When a second girl falls asleep, and then a third, Mei finds herself thrust together with an eccentric classmate as panic takes hold of the college and spreads to the town. A young couple tries to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. Two sisters turn to each other for comfort as their survivalist father prepares for disaster. Those affected by the illness are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, higher than has ever been recorded before. They are dreaming heightened dreams --- but of what?
Random House | 9780812994162
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America by Tommy Tomlinson (Memoir)
When he was almost 50 years old, Tommy Tomlinson weighed 460 pounds, at risk for heart disease, diabetes and stroke. Raised in a family that loved food, he had been aware of the problem for years, seeing doctors and trying diets from the time he was a preteen. But nothing worked, and every time he tried to make a change, it didn’t go the way he planned --- in fact, he wasn’t sure that he really wanted to change. He was only one of millions of Americans struggling with weight, body image and a relationship with food that puts them at major risk. THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM is Tomlinson’s chronicle of meeting those people, taking the first steps towards health, and trying to understand how, as a nation, we got to this point.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501111617
ELSEY COME HOME by Susan Conley (Fiction)
When Elsey's husband, Lukas, hands her a brochure for a weeklong mountain retreat, she knows he is really giving her an ultimatum: Go, or we're done. Once a successful painter, Elsey set down roots in China after falling passionately for Lukas, the tall, Danish MC at a warehouse rave in downtown Beijing. Now, with two young daughters and unable to find a balance between her identities as painter, mother and, especially, wife, Elsey fills her days worrying, drinking and descending into desperate unhappiness. So, brochure in hand, she agrees to go and confront the ghosts of her past. There, she meets a group of men and women who will forever alter the way she understands herself.
Knopf | 9780525520986
THE FAR FIELD by Madhuri Vijay (Fiction)
In the wake of her mother’s death, Shalini, a privileged and restless young woman from Bangalore, sets out for a remote Himalayan village in the troubled northern region of Kashmir. Certain that the loss of her mother is somehow connected to the decade-old disappearance of Bashir Ahmed, a charming Kashmiri salesman who frequented her childhood home, she is determined to confront him. But upon her arrival, Shalini is brought face to face with Kashmir’s politics, as well as the tangled history of the local family that takes her in. And when life in the village turns volatile and old hatreds threaten to erupt into violence, Shalini finds herself forced to make a series of choices that could hold dangerous repercussions for the very people she has come to love.
Grove Press | 9780802128409
THE FIRE COURT by Andrew Taylor (Historical Thriller)
The Great Fire has ravaged London, wreaking destruction and devastation wherever its flames spread. Now, guided by the incorruptible Fire Court, the city is slowly rebuilding. James Marwood, son of a traitor, is thrust into this treacherous environment when his ailing father claims to have stumbled upon a murdered woman --- in the very place where the Fire Court sits. Then his father is run down and killed. Determined to uncover the truth, Marwood turns to the one person he can trust --- Cat Lovett, the daughter of a despised regicide. But then comes a third death…and Marwood and Cat are forced to confront a vicious and increasingly desperate killer whose actions threaten the future of the city itself.
HarperCollins | 9780008309954
THE FLIMFLAM AFFAIR: A Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery by Bill Pronzini (Historical Mystery)
Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services is a fixture in San Francisco at the dawn of a new century. While the future is unclear, Sabina and John know one thing for certain: they will protect their clients from flimflammers, thieves and murderers, and do whatever it takes to run these dregs of society into the arms of the law. Professor A. Vargas, self-styled medium extraordinaire, and his partner Annabelle use guile and trickery to swindle bereaved men and women eager to contact the spirits of deceased loved ones. John and Sabina must not only unmask these charlatans, but also solve the riddle of an impossible murder in the midst of a séance.
Forge Books | 9780765394378
HARK by Sam Lipsyte (Fiction/Satire)
In an America convulsed by political upheaval, cultural discord, environmental collapse and spiritual confusion, many folks are searching for peace, salvation and --- perhaps most immediately --- just a little damn focus. Enter Hark Morner, an unwitting guru whose technique of “Mental Archery” --- a combination of mindfulness, mythology, fake history, yoga and, well, archery --- is set to captivate the masses and raise him to near-messiah status. It’s a role he never asked for, and one he is woefully underprepared to take on. But his inner circle of modern pilgrims have other plans, as do some suddenly powerful fringe players.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501146060
INHERITANCE: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro (Memoir)
In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had whimsically submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her father was not her biological father. INHERITANCE is a book about secrets --- secrets within families, kept out of shame or self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love. It is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of her own identity, a story that has been scrupulously hidden from her for more than 50 years. It is a book about the extraordinary moment we live in --- a moment in which science and technology have outpaced not only medical ethics but also the capacities of the human heart to contend with the consequences of what we discover.
Knopf | 9781524732714
LAST WOMAN STANDING by Amy Gentry (Psychological Thriller)
Dana Diaz is an aspiring stand-up comedian. When she meets a tough computer programmer named Amanda Dorn, the two bond over their struggles in boys’ club professions. Dana confides that she’s recently been harassed and assaulted while in L.A., and Amanda comes up with a plan: they should go after each other’s assailants. But Dana finds that revenge, however sweet, draws her into a more complicated series of betrayals. Soon her distrust turns to paranoia, encompassing strangers, friends --- and even herself. At what cost will she get her vengeance? Who will end up getting hurt? And when it’s all over, will there be anyone left to trust?
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9780544962538
LATE IN THE DAY by Tessa Hadley (Fiction)
Alexandr, Christine, Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their 20s. Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer’s evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: she is at the hospital. Zach is dead. In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. But instead of loss bringing them closer, the three of them find over the following months that it warps their relationships, as old entanglements and grievances rise from the past, and love and sorrow give way to anger and bitterness.
Harper | 9780062476692
THE NIGHT AGENT by Matthew Quirk (Political Thriller)
No one was more surprised than FBI Agent Peter Sutherland when he’s tapped to work in the White House Situation Room. Staffing the night action desk, his job is monitoring an emergency line for a call that has not --- and might never --- come. Until tonight. At 1:05am the phone rings. A terrified young woman named Rose tells Peter that her aunt and uncle have just been murdered and that the killer is still in the house with her. The call thrusts Peter into the heart of a conspiracy years in the making, involving a Russian mole at the highest levels of the government. Anyone in the White House could be the traitor. Anyone could be corrupted. To save the nation, Peter must take the rules into his own hands and do the right thing, no matter the cost.
William Morrow | 9780062875464
NO EXIT by Taylor Adams (Psychological Thriller)
On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside are some vending machines, a coffee maker and four complete strangers. Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate. Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her? There is no cell phone reception, no telephone and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?
William Morrow | 9780062875655
NO MERCY by Joanna Schaffhausen (Mystery/Thriller)
Police officer Ellery Hathaway is on involuntary leave from her job because she shot a murderer in cold blood and refuses to apologize for it. Forced into group therapy for victims of violent crime, Ellery immediately finds higher priorities than "getting in touch with her feelings." For one, she suspects a fellow group member may have helped to convict the wrong man for a deadly arson incident years ago. For another, Ellery finds herself in the desperate clutches of a woman who survived a brutal rape. He is still out there, this man with the Spider-Man-like ability to climb through bedroom windows, and his victim beseeches Ellery for help in capturing her attacker.
Minotaur Books | 9781250297365
NO SUNSCREEN FOR THE DEAD by Tim Dorsey (Mystery/Humor)
Serge and Coleman are back on the road, ready to hit the next stop on their list of obscure and wacky points of interest in the Sunshine State. This time, Serge’s interest is drawn to one of the largest retirement villages in the world --- also known as the site of an infamous sex scandal between a retiree and her younger beau that rocked the community. What starts out as an innocent quest to observe elders in their natural habitats, sample the local cuisine, and scope out a condo to live out the rest of their golden years, soon becomes a Robin Hood-like crusade to recover the funds of swindled residents. But as the residents rally for Serge to seek justice on their behalves, two detectives are hot on the heels of Serge and Coleman’s murderous trail.
William Morrow | 9780062795885
THE PERFECT LIAR by Thomas Christopher Greene (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Susannah, a young widow and single mother, has remarried well: to Max, a charismatic artist and popular speaker whose career took her and her 15-year-old son out of New York City and to a quiet Vermont university town. One morning, though, she finds a note on her door: I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. Max dismisses the note as a prank. But days after a neighborhood couple comes to dinner, the husband mysteriously dies in a tragic accident while on a run with Max. Soon thereafter, a second note appears on their door: DID YOU GET AWAY WITH IT? Both Susannah and Max are keeping secrets from the world and from each other --- secrets that could destroy their family and everything they have built.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250128218
TEAR IT DOWN: A Peter Ash Novel by Nick Petrie (Thriller)
Iraq war veteran Peter Ash heads to Memphis to help Wanda Wyatt, a photographer and war correspondent who's been receiving peculiar threats. Upon his arrival, however, he finds that the situation has gone downhill fast --- someone has just driven a dump truck into Wanda's living room. But neither Wanda nor Peter can figure out why. At the same time, a young homeless street musician finds himself roped into a plan to rob a jewelry store. The heist doesn't go as planned, and the young man finds himself holding a sack full of Rolexes and running for his life. Peter likes the skinny kid's smarts and attitude, but he soon discovers that the desperate musician is in far worse trouble than he knows. And Wanda's troubles are only beginning.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780399575662
UNQUIET by Linn Ullmann (Fiction)
He is a renowned Swedish filmmaker and has a plan for everything. She is his daughter, the youngest of nine children. Every summer, since she was a little girl, she visits him at his beloved stony house. Now that she’s grown up and he’s in his late 80s, he envisions a book about old age that they will write together. When she finally comes to the island, bringing her tape recorder with her, old age has caught up with him in ways neither could have foreseen. UNQUIET follows the narrator as she unearths these taped conversations seven years later. Swept into memory, she reimagines the story of a father, a mother and a girl --- a child who can’t wait to grow up and parents who would rather be children.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393609943
YOU KNOW YOU WANT THIS: "Cat Person" and Other Stories by Kristen Roupenian (Fiction/Short Stories)
Kristen Roupenian's highly anticipated debut short story collection explores the ways in which women are horrifying as much as it captures the horrors that are done to them. Among its pages are a couple who becomes obsessed with their friend hearing them have sex, then seeing them have sex…until they can’t have sex without him; a 10-year-old whose birthday party takes a sinister turn when she wishes for “something mean”; a woman who finds a book of spells half hidden at the library and summons her heart’s desire --- a nameless, naked man; and a self-proclaimed “biter” who dreams of sneaking up behind and sinking her teeth into a green-eyed, long-haired, pink-cheeked coworker.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781982101633
On Sale the Week of January 14th in Paperback
January 15th
THE ACCIDENTAL FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN by Jonas Jonasson (Fiction/Humor)
Paperback Original
It all begins with a hot air balloon trip and three bottles of champagne. Allan Karlsson and Julius are ready for some spectacular views, but they’re not expecting to land in the sea and be rescued by a North Korean ship, and they never could have imagined that the captain of the ship would be harboring a suitcase full of contraband uranium, on a nuclear weapons mission for Kim Jong-un. Yikes! Soon Allan and Julius are at the center of a complex diplomatic crisis involving world figures from the Swedish foreign minister to Angela Merkel and President Trump. Needless to say, things are about to get very, very complicated.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062838551
ADÈLE written by Leila Slimani, translated by Sam Taylor (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Adèle appears to have the perfect life: She is a successful journalist in Paris who lives in a beautiful apartment with her surgeon husband and their young son. But underneath the surface, she is bored --- and consumed by an insatiable need for sex. Driven less by pleasure than compulsion, Adèle organizes her day around her extramarital affairs, arriving late to work and lying to her husband about where she's been, until she becomes ensnared in a trap of her own making.
Penguin Books | 9780143132189
THE ELIZAS by Sara Shepard (Psychological Thriller)
When Eliza Fontaine is rescued from the bottom of a hotel pool just a few weeks before her first novel is going to be published, her family assumes that it’s another failed suicide attempt. But Eliza swears she was pushed. The problem is she remembers little of that night, a result of the large quantity of alcohol she consumed and a worsening struggle with memory loss due to a brain tumor. As she searches for answers, something very peculiar begins to happen: The people closest to her start to confuse the events in her novel with those in her real life. The dividing line between fact and fiction seems to be dissolving, and even Eliza is becoming uncertain about where her protagonist’s story ends and hers begins.
Atria Books | 9781501162787
EVERYTHING HERE IS BEAUTIFUL by Mira T. Lee (Fiction)
Two Chinese-American sisters --- Miranda, the older, responsible one, always her younger sister’s protector; Lucia, the headstrong, unpredictable one, whose impulses are huge and, often, life-changing. When Lucia starts hearing voices, it is Miranda who must find a way to reach her sister. Lucia impetuously plows ahead, but the bitter constant is that she is, in fact, mentally ill. Lucia lives life on a grand scale, until, inevitably, she crashes to earth. Miranda leaves her own self-contained life in Switzerland to rescue her sister again --- but only Lucia can decide if she wants to be saved. The bonds of sisterly devotion stretch across oceans --- but what does it take to break them?
Penguin Books | 9780735221970
THE LEGACY by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (Mystery/Thriller)
The only person who might have the answers to a baffling murder case is the victim’s seven-year-old daughter, found hiding in the room where her mother died. And she’s not talking. Newly promoted, out of his depth, detective Huldar turns to Freyja, a psychologist, for her expertise with traumatized young people. Freyja, who distrusts the police in general and Huldar in particular, isn’t best pleased. But she’s determined to keep little Margret safe. It may prove tricky. The killer is leaving them strange clues, but can they crack the code? And if they do, will they be next?
Minotaur Books | 9781250308382
THE LIAR’S ROOM by Simon Lelic (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Paperback Original
Susanna Fenton has a secret. Fourteen years ago she left her identity behind, reinventing herself as a therapist and starting a new life. It was the only way to keep her daughter safe. But when a young man, Adam Geraghty, walks into her office, claiming he needs Susanna's help but asking unsettling questions, she begins to fear that her secret has been discovered. Who is Adam, really? What does he intend to do to Susanna? And what has he done to her daughter?
Berkley | 9780440000433
LOVE AND RUIN by Paula McLain (Historical Fiction)
In 1937, 28-year-old Martha Gellhorn travels alone to Madrid to report on the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War and becomes drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught in the devastating conflict. It’s the adventure she’s been looking for and her chance to prove herself a worthy journalist in a field dominated by men. But she also finds herself unexpectedly falling in love with Ernest Hemingway, a man on his way to becoming a legend. When Ernest publishes the biggest literary success of his career, FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, they are no longer equals, and Martha must make a choice: surrender to the confining demands of being a famous man’s wife, or risk losing Ernest by forging a path as her own woman and writer.
Ballantine Books | 9781101967393
MADNESS IS BETTER THAN DEFEAT by Ned Beauman (Historical/Literary Thriller)
In 1938, two rival expeditions descend on an ancient temple recently discovered in the jungles of Honduras --- one intending to shoot a screwball comedy on location there, the other to disassemble the temple and ship it back to New York. A seemingly endless stalemate ensues, and 20 years later a rogue CIA agent sets out to exploit it for his own ends, unaware that the temple is a locus of conspiracies far grander than anyone could have ever guessed.
Vintage | 9780804172189
THE MILK LADY OF BANGALORE: An Unexpected Adventure by Shoba Narayan (Memoir)
When Shoba Narayan --- who has just returned to India with her husband and two daughters after years in the United States --- asks whether a cow she sees in her elevator might bless her apartment, it is the beginning of a beautiful friendship between our author and the cow’s owner, Sarala, who also sells fresh milk right across the street from that thoroughly modern apartment building. The two women connect over not only cows but also family, food and life. When Shoba agrees to buy Sarala a new cow, they set off looking for just the right heifer, and what was at first a simple economic transaction becomes something much deeper, though never without a hint of slapstick.
Algonquin Books | 9781616208677
NO TIME TO SPARE: Thinking About What Matters by Ursula K. Le Guin (Essays)
Ursula K. Le Guin took readers to imaginary worlds for decades. In the last great frontier of life, old age, she explored a new literary territory: the blog, a forum where she shined. The collected best of Ursula’s blog, NO TIME TO SPARE presents perfectly crystallized dispatches on what mattered to her late in life, her concerns with the world, and her wonder at it: “How rich we are in knowledge, and in all that lies around us yet to learn. Billionaires, all of us.”
Mariner Books | 9781328507976
OLIVER LOVING by Stefan Merrill Block (Fiction)
A shy boy named Oliver Loving attends his school’s annual dance, hoping for a glimpse of the object of his unrequited affections, Rebekkah Sterling. But as the music plays, a troubled young man sneaks in through the school’s back door. The dire choices this man makes that evening will tear the town of Bliss, Texas apart. Nearly 10 years later, Oliver still lies wordless and paralyzed at an assisted care facility. Orbiting the stillpoint of his hospital bed is a family transformed. And then there is Rebekkah, who left Texas long ago and still refuses to speak about her own part in that tragic night. When a new medical test promises a key to unlock Oliver’s trapped mind, the town’s unanswered questions resurface with new urgency.
Flatiron Books | 9781250122872
PARIS BY THE BOOK by Liam Callanan (Fiction)
When eccentric novelist Robert Eady abruptly vanishes, he leaves behind his wife, Leah, their daughters, and, hidden in an unexpected spot, plane tickets to Paris. Hoping to uncover clues --- and her husband --- Leah sets off for France with her girls. Upon their arrival, she discovers an unfinished manuscript, one Robert had been writing without her knowledge…and that he had set in Paris. The Eady women follow the path of the manuscript to a small, floundering English-language bookstore whose weary proprietor is eager to sell. But a series of startling discoveries forces Leah to consider that she may not be ready for what solving this mystery might do to her family --- and the Paris she thought she knew.
Dutton | 9781101986295
THE RECOVERING: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison (Memoir/Cultural Studies)
Leslie Jamison deftly excavates the stories we tell about addiction --- both her own and others' --- and examines what we want these stories to do and what happens when they fail us. All the while, she offers a fascinating look at the larger history of the recovery movement, and at the complicated bearing that race and class have on our understanding of who is criminal and who is ill. At the heart of the book is Jamison's ongoing conversation with literary and artistic geniuses whose lives and works were shaped by alcoholism and substance dependence --- including Raymond Carver, Denis Johnson and David Foster Wallace --- as well as brilliant lesser-known figures, lost to obscurity but newly illuminated here.
Back Bay Books | 9780316259583
TAKE-OUT: And Other Tales of Culinary Crime by Rob Hart (Crime Fiction/Short Stories)
Paperback Original
In TAKE-OUT, Rob Hart has collected 16 stories of culinary crime and noir that will have you savoring every deadly bite. In the title story, a gambler falls into debt with the enigmatic owner of a Chinatown gambling parlor, and must run odd --- and sometimes dangerous --- deliveries to clear his ledger. In "How to Make the Perfect New York Bagel," the owner of one of New York City's last old-school bagel shops has to defend his storefront --- in the past, from the mob, and in the present, from a bank. In "Creampuff," a bakery with the hottest pastry in town has to hire a bouncer to control the unruly line, with tragic results.
Polis Books | 9781947993426
THIS MESSY MAGNIFICENT LIFE: A Field Guide to Mind, Body, and Soul by Geneen Roth (Self-Help/Motivational)
With an introduction by Anne Lamott, THIS MESSY MAGNIFICENT LIFE is a personal and exhilarating read on freeing ourselves from daily anxiety, lack and discontent. It’s a deep dive into what lies behind our self-criticism, whether it is about the size of our thighs, the expression of our thoughts or the shape of our ambitions. And it’s about stopping the search to fix ourselves by realizing that on the other side of the “Me Project” is spaciousness, peace, and the capacity to reclaim one’s power and joy.
Scribner | 9781501182471
VINDICATION: A Matt Royal Mystery by H. Terrell Griffin (Mystery)
Matt Royal, the retired lawyer-turned-beach-bum, is called back into the courtroom to defend his girlfriend J.D. Duncan's Aunt Esther. A bestselling author has been murdered after a book signing, and Aunt Esther has been arrested. Matt reluctantly suits up for the courtroom, and J.D. takes a leave from the police department to go undercover. A bizarre specter from the past haunts their investigation every step of the way. As they delve further into the case, the pieces of the puzzle refuse to fall into any kind of coherent pattern. Jock Algren arrives with his special skill set to expose the real murderer and free Aunt Esther, but to no avail. Not until the case goes to trial and the evidence is revealed does the truth emerge --- and a strange kind of justice prevails.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608093328
THE WOMAN IN THE WATER: A Prequel to the Charles Lenox Series by Charles Finch (Historical Mystery)
London, 1850: A young Charles Lenox struggles to make a name for himself as a detective…without a single case. But when an anonymous writer sends a letter to the paper claiming to have committed the perfect crime --- and promising to kill again --- Lenox is convinced that this is his chance to prove himself. The writer’s first victim is a young woman whose body is found in a naval trunk. With few clues to go on, Lenox endeavors to solve the crime before another innocent life is lost. When the killer’s sights are turned toward those whom Lenox holds most dear, the stakes are raised and Lenox is trapped in a desperate game of cat and mouse.
Minotaur Books | 9781250139474
On Sale the Week of January 21st in Hardcover
January 22nd
THE ALARMING PALSY OF JAMES ORR by Tom Lee (Fiction)
James Orr --- husband, father, reliable employee and all-around model citizen --- awakes one morning to find half his face paralyzed. Waiting for the affliction to pass, he stops going to work and wanders his idyllic estate, with its woodland, uniform streets and perfectly manicured lawns. But there are cracks in the veneer. And as his orderly existence begins to unravel, it appears that James himself may not be the man he thought he was.
Soho Press | 9781641290043
CAMELOT'S END: Kennedy vs. Carter and the Fight that Broke the Democratic Party by Jon Ward (Politics/History)
The Carter presidency was on life support. The Democrats, desperate to keep power and yearning to resurrect former glory, turned to Ted Kennedy. It was the last time an American president received a serious reelection challenge from inside his own party, the last contested convention, and the last all-out floor fight, where political combatants fought in real time to decide who would be the nominee. It was the last gasp of an outdated system, an insider's game that old Kennedy hands thought they had mastered, and the year that marked the unraveling of the Democratic Party as America had known it. CAMELOT'S END details the incredible drama of Kennedy's challenge --- what led to it, how it unfolded and its lasting effects.
Twelve | 9781455591381
CRUCIBLE by James Rollins (Thriller/Adventure)
Arriving home on Christmas Eve, Commander Gray Pierce discovers his house ransacked, his pregnant lover missing, and his best friend’s wife, Kat, unconscious on the kitchen floor. With no shred of evidence to follow, his one hope to find the woman he loves and his unborn child is Kat, the only witness to what happened. But the injured woman is in a semi-comatose state and cannot speak --- until a brilliant neurologist offers a radical approach to "unlock" her mind long enough to ask a few questions. What Pierce learns from Kat sets Sigma Force on a frantic quest for answers that are connected to mysteries reaching back to the Spanish Inquisition and to one of the most reviled and blood-soaked books in human history.
William Morrow | 9780062381781
THE CURRENT by Tim Johnston (Thriller)
In the dead of winter, state troopers pull two young women and their car from an icy river. One is found downriver, drowned, while the other is found at the scene --- half frozen but alive. What happened was no accident, and news of the crime awakens the community’s memories of another young woman who lost her life in the same river 10 years earlier, and whose killer may still live among them. Determined to find answers, the surviving young woman soon realizes that she’s connected to the earlier unsolved case by more than just a river. The deeper she plunges into her own investigation, the closer she comes to dangerous truths, and to the violence that simmers just below the surface of her hometown.
Algonquin Books | 9781616206772
GOLDEN STATE by Ben H. Winters (Dystopian Thriller)
In a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else, Laszlo Ratesic is a 19-year veteran of the Speculative Service. He lives in the Golden State, a nation standing where California once did, a place where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life and governance impossible. In the Golden State, knowingly contradicting the truth is the greatest crime --- and stopping those crimes is Laz's job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths, to "speculate" on what might have happened. When those in control of the facts twist them for nefarious means, the Speculators are the only ones with the power to fight back.
Mulholland Books | 9780316505413
THE GOLDEN TRESSES OF THE DEAD: A Flavia de Luce Novel by Alan Bradley (Historical Mystery)
Although it is autumn in the small English town of Bishop’s Lacey, the chapel is decked with exotic flowers. Yes, Flavia de Luce’s sister, Ophelia, is at last getting hitched. An expert in the chemical nature of poisons, Flavia has solved many mysteries, sharpening her considerable detection skills to the point where she had little choice but to turn professional. So Flavia and dependable Dogger, estate gardener and sounding board extraordinaire, set up shop at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, eager to serve. Little does she know that their first case will be extremely close to home, beginning with an unwelcome discovery in Ophelia’s wedding cake: a human finger.
Delacorte Press | 9780345540027
THE INBETWEEN DAYS by Eva Woods (Fiction)
Rosie Cooke is “in between.” In between consciousness and oblivion. Life and death. And though some say that when you’re near death your entire life flashes before your eyes, Rosie can’t remember anything at all --- not even how she ended up in a coma. Then something strange starts to happen. Rosie finds herself revisiting scattered moments from her past: a beach vacation, a play rehearsal, the day her brother was born. But why these memories? And what do they mean? As each piece of the puzzle comes into focus, Rosie struggles to face the picture of her life that forms. But with every look backward comes a glimpse of what might be: A relationship with her sister. The opportunity to pursue her passion. A second chance at love.
Graydon House | 9781525830471
THE KINGDOM OF COPPER by S. A. Chakraborty (Historical Fantasy)
Nahri’s life changed forever the moment she accidentally summoned Dara, a formidable, mysterious djinn, during one of her schemes. Whisked from her home in Cairo, she was thrust into the dazzling royal court of Daevabad --- and quickly discovered she would need all her grifter instincts to survive there. Now, with Daevabad entrenched in the dark aftermath of a devastating battle, Nahri must forge a new path for herself. But even as she embraces her heritage and the power it holds, she knows she’s been trapped in a gilded cage, watched by a king who rules from the throne that once belonged to her family --- and one misstep will doom her tribe.
Harper Voyager | 9780062678133
A LABYRINTH OF SCIONS AND SORCERY: Book Two in the Risen Kingdoms by Curtis Craddock (Historical Fantasy)
Isabelle des Zephyrs has always been underestimated throughout her life, but after discovering the well of hidden magic within her, unveiling a centuries-long conspiracy, and stopping a war between rival nations, she has gained a newfound respect amongst the cutthroat court. All that is quickly taken away when Isabelle is unfairly convicted of breaking the treaty she helped write and has her political rank and status taken away. Now bereft, she nevertheless finds herself drawn into a mystery when her faithful musketeer Jean-Claude uncovers a series of gruesome murders by someone calling themselves the Harvest King.
Tor Books | 9780765389626
MAID: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land (Memoir)
At 28, Stephanie Land turned to housekeeping to make ends meet. With a tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible, Stephanie worked days and took classes online to earn a college degree, and began to write relentlessly. She wrote the true stories that weren't being told: the stories of overworked and underpaid Americans. Of living on food stamps to eat. Of the government programs that provided her housing, but that doubled as halfway houses. The aloof government employees who called her lucky for receiving assistance. She wrote to remember the fight, to eventually cut through the deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor. MAID explores the underbelly of upper-middle-class America and the reality of what it's like to be in service to them.
Hachette Books | 9780316505116
THE NOWHERE CHILD by Christian White (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Kimberly Leamy is a photography teacher in Melbourne, Australia. Twenty-six years earlier, Sammy Went, a two-year-old girl, vanished from her home in Manson, Kentucky. An American accountant who contacts Kim is convinced she was that child, kidnapped just after her birthday. On April 3, 1990, Jack and Molly Went’s daughter, Sammy, disappeared from their Kentucky home. Jack did his best to raise and protect his other daughter and son while Molly found solace in her faith. The Church of the Light Within, a Pentecostal fundamentalist group, provided that faith. Now, with proof that she and Sammy are in fact the same person, Kim travels to America to reunite with a family she never knew she had.
Minotaur Books | 9781250293718
RESTORATION HEIGHTS by Wil Medearis (Mystery)
Reddick, a young, white artist, lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a historically black Brooklyn neighborhood besieged by gentrification. He makes rent as an art handler in Manhattan and spends his free time playing basketball at the local Y. He is also the last person to see Hannah before she disappears. When Hannah’s fiancé, scion to a wealthy Upper East Side family, refuses to call the police, Reddick sets out to discover what happened to her. The search pulls him through a dramatic cross section of New York, taking him to the heart of a many-layered mystery that, in its unraveling, shakes Reddick’s convictions and lays bare the complex power dynamics of the city.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335218728
THE RULE OF LAW: A Dismas Hardy Novel by John Lescroart (Legal Thriller)
Dismas Hardy knows something is amiss with his trusted secretary, Phyllis. Her out-of-character behavior and sudden disappearances concern Hardy, especially when he learns that her convict brother --- a man who had served 25 years in prison for armed robbery and attempted murder --- has just been released. Things take a shocking turn when Phyllis is suddenly arrested at work for allegedly being an accessory to the murder of Hector Valdez, a coyote who’d been smuggling women into this country from El Salvador and Mexico. That is, until recently, when he was shot to death --- on the very same day that Phyllis first disappeared from work.
Atria Books | 9781501115738
RUPTURE: An Ari Thor Thriller by Ragnar Jonasson (Mystery/Thriller)
Young policeman Ari Thór tries to solve a 50-year-old murder when new evidence surfaces. But the case proves difficult in a town where no one wants to know the truth, where secrets are a way of life. He's assisted by Ísrún, a news reporter in Reykjavik who is investigating an increasingly chilling case of her own. Things take a sinister turn when a child goes missing in broad daylight. With a stalker on the loose, and the town in quarantine, the past just might come back to haunt them.
Minotaur Books | 9781250193346
THE SMILING MAN by Joseph Knox (Thriller)
Aidan Waits and his partner are called to investigate a break-in at The Palace, an immense, empty hotel in the center of the city. There they find the body of a man. He is dead. The tags have been cut from his clothes, his teeth have been filed down, and even his fingertips have been replaced. And he is smiling. But as Waits begins to unravel the mystery of the smiling man, he becomes a target. Someone wants very badly to make this case disappear, and as their threats escalate, Aidan realizes that the answers may lie not only with the wealthy families and organized criminals connected to the Palace, but with a far greater evil from his own past.
Crown | 9781524763190
THE SUSPECT by Fiona Barton (Psychological Thriller)
When two 18-year-old girls go missing in Thailand, their families are thrust into the international spotlight: desperate, bereft and frantic with worry. What were the girls up to before they disappeared? Journalist Kate Waters always does everything she can to be first to the story, first with the exclusive, first to discover the truth --- and this time is no exception. But she can’t help but think of her own son, whom she hasn’t seen in two years, since he left home to go travelling. As the case of the missing girls unfolds, they all will find that even this far away, danger can lie closer to home than you might think.
Berkley | 9781101990513
THE WARTIME SISTERS by Lynda Cohen Loigman (Historical Fiction)
Two estranged sisters, raised in Brooklyn and each burdened with her own shocking secret, are reunited at the Springfield Armory in the early days of WWII. While one sister lives in relative ease on the bucolic Armory campus as an officer’s wife, the other arrives as a war widow and takes a position in the Armory factories as a “soldier of production.” Resentment festers between the two, and secrets are shattered when a mysterious figure from the past reemerges in their lives.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250140708
THE WEIGHT OF A PIANO by Chris Cander (Fiction)
In 1962, in the Soviet Union, eight-year-old Katya is bequeathed what will become the love of her life: a Blüthner piano on which she discovers everything that she herself can do with music and what music, in turn, does for her. Yet after marrying, she emigrates with her young family from Russia to America, and her piano is lost in the shuffle. In 2012, in Bakersfield, California, 26-year-old Clara Lundy loses another boyfriend and again has to find a new apartment, which is complicated by the gift her father had given her for her 12th birthday: a Blüthner upright she has never learned to play. When her hand gets broken while the piano is being moved, Clara chooses to sell it. And what becomes crucial is who the most interested party turns out to be.
Knopf | 9780525654674
THE WOMAN INSIDE by E. G. Scott (Psychological Thriller)
Rebecca didn’t know that love was possible until she met Paul, a successful, charismatic, married man with a past as dark as her own. But 20 years later, they are drowning as the damage and secrets that ignited their love begin to consume their marriage. Paul is cheating on Rebecca, and his affair gets messy fast. His mistress is stalking them with growing audacity when Rebecca discovers Paul’s elaborate plan to build a new life without her. And though Rebecca is spiraling into an opiate addiction, it doesn’t stop her from coming up with a devious plot of her own, which could end absolutely everything.
Dutton | 9781524744526
On Sale the Week of January 21st in Paperback
January 22nd
AS BRIGHT AS HEAVEN by Susan Meissner (Historical Fiction)
In 1918, Philadelphia was a city teeming with promise. Even as its young men went off to fight in the Great War, there were opportunities for a fresh start. Into this bustling town came Pauline Bright and her husband, filled with hope that they could now give their three daughters a chance at a better life. But just months after they arrive, the Spanish Flu reaches the shores of America. As the pandemic claims more than 12,000 victims in their adopted city, they find their lives left with a world that looks nothing like the one they knew. But even as they lose loved ones, they take in a baby orphaned by the disease who becomes their single source of hope.
Berkley | 9780399585975
DAUGHTERS OF THE WINTER QUEEN: Four Remarkable Sisters, the Crown of Bohemia, and the Enduring Legacy of Mary, Queen of Scots by Nancy Goldstone (Biography/History)
Young Elizabeth Stuart was thrust into a life of wealth and splendor when her godmother, Queen Elizabeth I, died and her father, James I, ascended to the illustrious throne of England. At 16 she was married to a dashing German count far below her rank, with the understanding that James would help her husband achieve the crown of Bohemia. Her father's terrible betrayal of this promise would ruin "the Winter Queen," as Elizabeth would be forever known, imperil the lives of those she loved, and launch a war that would last for 30 years. Forced into exile, the Winter Queen and her growing family found refuge in Holland, where the glorious art and culture of the Dutch Golden Age formed the backdrop to her daughters' education.
Back Bay Books | 9780316387897
FREEDOM ROAD by William Lashner (Thriller)
Paperback Original
Oliver Cross is fresh out of jail. When he finds out that his granddaughter, a wild child who reminds him of his late wife, has vanished, Oliver jumps parole. With a sketchy teen and an abandoned dog, he hits the blacktop to find her. On the road and on the run from a vengeful Russian drug dealer, Oliver finds himself on a trip across America and into his own past, fueled by fumes from a Ford F-250 and a reason to live. But from an exclusive club in Chicago to a seedy commune in the Rockies, a series of disastrous choices sends Oliver spiraling further from his goal and deeper into danger. It’s a journey that could all end in redemption or a hail of bullets. And either is okay by him.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781503904460
THE GIRLS IN THE PICTURE by Melanie Benjamin (Historical Fiction)
It is 1914, and 25-year-old Frances Marion has left her (second) husband and her Northern California home for the lure of Los Angeles. But the word on everyone’s lips these days is “flickers,” the silent moving pictures enthralling theatergoers. In this fledgling industry, Frances finds her true calling: writing stories for this wondrous new medium. She also makes the acquaintance of actress Mary Pickford, and they hit it off instantly --- their kinship fomented by their mutual fever to create, move audiences to a frenzy and start a revolution. But their ambitions are challenged by both the men around them and the limitations imposed on their gender --- and their astronomical success could come at a price.
Bantam | 9781101886823
HAPPINESS by Aminatta Forna (Fiction)
Attila, a Ghanaian psychiatrist, has arrived in London with two tasks: to deliver a keynote speech on trauma, and to contact the daughter of friends, his “niece” who hasn’t called home in a while. Ama has been swept up in an immigration crackdown, and now her young son Tano is missing. When, by chance, Attila runs into Jean again, she mobilizes the network of rubbish men she uses as volunteer fox spotters. Security guards, hotel doormen, traffic wardens --- mainly West African immigrants who work the myriad streets of London --- come together to help. Meanwhile, a consulting case causes Attila to question the impact of his own ideas on trauma, the values of the society in which he finds himself, and a grief of his own.
Grove Press | 9780802129185
HEADS OF THE COLORED PEOPLE: Stories by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (Fiction/Short Stories)
In HEADS OF THE COLORED PEOPLE, Nafissa Thompson-Spires grapples with black identity and the contemporary middle class. Some stories in this collection are darkly humorous --- from two mothers exchanging snide remarks through notes in their kids’ backpacks, to the young girl contemplating how best to notify her Facebook friends of her impending suicide. Others are devastatingly poignant --- a new mother and funeral singer who is driven to madness with grief for the young black boys who have fallen victim to gun violence, or the teen who struggles between her upper middle class upbringing and her desire to fully connect with black culture.
Atria/37 INK | 9781501168000
LEARNING TO SEE: A Novel of Dorothea Lange, the Woman Who Revealed the Real America by Elise Hooper (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
In 1918, a fearless 22-year-old arrives in bohemian San Francisco. Renaming herself Dorothea Lange, she is soon the celebrated owner of the city’s most prestigious and stylish portrait studio. By the early 1930s, as America’s economy collapses, her marriage founders and Dorothea must find ways to support her two young sons single-handedly. Determined to expose the horrific conditions of the nation’s poor, she takes to the road with her camera. And when the United States enters World War II, Dorothea chooses to confront another injustice --- the incarceration of thousands of innocent Japanese Americans. At a time when women were supposed to keep the home fires burning, Dorothea Lange dares to be different. But her choices came at a steep price.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062686534
MARY VENTURA AND THE NINTH KINGDOM: A Story by Sylvia Plath (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Never before published, this newly discovered story by literary legend Sylvia Plath stands on its own and is remarkable for its symbolic, allegorical approach to a young woman’s rebellion against convention and forceful taking control of her own life. Written while Plath was a student at Smith College in 1952, MARY VENTURA AND THE NINTH KINGDOM tells the story of a young woman’s fateful train journey. Lips the color of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like “guilt, and guilt, and guilt”: these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom. “But what is the ninth kingdom?” she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. “It is the kingdom of the frozen will,” comes the reply. “There is no going back.”
Harper Perennial | 9780062940834
THE MAZE AT WINDERMERE by Gregory Blake Smith (Historical Fiction)
A reckless wager between a tennis pro with a fading career and a drunken party guest --- the stakes are an antique motorcycle and an heiress’s diamond necklace --- launches a narrative odyssey that braids together three centuries of aspiration and adversity. A witty and urbane bachelor of the Gilded Age embarks on a high-risk scheme to marry into a fortune; a young writer soon to make his mark turns himself to his craft with harrowing social consequences; an aristocratic British officer during the American Revolution carries on a courtship that leads to murder; and, in Newport’s earliest days, a tragically orphaned Quaker girl imagines a way forward for herself and the slave girl she has inherited.
Penguin Books | 9780735221932
OUR LADY OF THE PRAIRIE by Thisbe Nissen (Fiction)
For Phillipa Maakestad --- theater professor and mother to a troubled, volatile daughter --- life is finally, miraculously calm. What better moment, then, to fall headlong into a passionate affair, fly off to France with her new lover, and effectively take a match to her life on the Iowa prairie? As she steps back to survey the damage and determine her way forward, Phillipa must contend with 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 otherwise docile husband. Which is to say: the damage is not easily contained, and the path ahead is not clear.
Mariner Books | 9781328507983
THREE DAUGHTERS OF EVE by Elif Shafak (Fiction)
Peri, a married, wealthy, beautiful Turkish woman, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground --- an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor. Peri arrives at the party and navigates the tensions that simmer in this crossroads country between East and West, religious and secular, rich and poor. Over the course of the dinner, and amidst an opulence that is surely ill-begotten, terrorist attacks occur across the city. Competing in Peri's mind, however, are the memories invoked by her almost-lost polaroid, of the time years earlier when she was sent abroad for the first time, to attend Oxford University.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781632869968
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