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Thanks to Our Donors, We've Raised $31,500!
Thank you to those of you who already have donated to our GoFundMe campaign. We have two of our objectives in place with our "Bookreporter Talks To" videos and podcasts, where we have interviewed more than 15 authors. So far, with online donations and checks that have been sent to our office, we have raised $31,500 of our $50,000 goal. Now it's on to getting our website redesigned to be mobile-responsive and updated. And you can help us with this next big step!
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Please note that there will be no "On Sale This Week" newsletter on December 24th or December 31st as we pause to celebrate the holidays, thus we are covering releases from now through the week of January 6th in this edition. Our next newsletter will be sent on Tuesday, January 7th. Happy New Year!
In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of December 16th, December 30th and January 6th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.
This week, we are calling attention to our very special contest on ReadingGroupGuides.com, where we are giving readers the opportunity to share their favorite book that they read with their group this year and their favorite book that they read outside their group. One Grand Prize winner will receive six outstanding book group titles releasing early next year: AMERICAN DIRT by Jeanine Cummins, A GOOD NEIGHBORHOOD by Therese Anne Fowler, LADY CLEMENTINE by Marie Benedict, LONG BRIGHT RIVER by Liz Moore, THE QUEEN'S FORTUNE: A Novel of Desiree, Napoleon, and the Dynasty That Outlasted the Empire by Allison Pataki, and SAINT X by Alexis Schaitkin. Be sure to enter by Monday, February 3rd at noon ET.
Also, please keep in mind our End-of-the-Year contest featuring Carol Fitzgerald’s Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2019. One Grand Prize winner will be awarded all 52 books, while 13 other winners will receive a selection of four of these titles. The deadline for your entries is Monday, January 6th at noon ET.
And be sure to check out our Holiday Author Blogs, which have returned for a 12th consecutive year. We are featuring a new blog post from an author on select days through Thursday, December 19th talking about the books that she has given and/or received during the holidays. This year's contributors are Alena Dillon, Marjan Kamali, Jean Kwok, Sarah McCoy, Liz Moore, Kim Michele Richardson, Wendy Wax and Karen White.
For those of you who are doing online shopping --- including your holiday 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
Special Preview of Friday's Bookreporter Update
Carol Fitzgerald shares a video preview of what you will see in the December 20th Weekly Update newsletter (our last newsletter of 2019) here. We hope you enjoy it!
Click here to see all of our videos on
The Book Report Network YouTube channel,
including our "Bookreporter Talks To" author interviews.
Our most recent interview with Whitney Scharer
is available on video and as a podcast.
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This Week's Bonus News:
Share Your Favorite Books of 2019
and Enter to Win SIX Great Book Group Titles
Releasing in 2020!
This is the time of year when everyone is posting “Best Books of the Year” lists. We would like you and your book group to help us compile ours! Click here to share both your favorite book that you read with your group this year and your favorite book that you read outside your group by Monday, February 3rd at noon ET.
One Grand Prize winner will be awarded six great book group titles releasing in 2020:
Please note: Your favorite book that you discussed with your group CAN be the same as your favorite book of the year. And they don't need to have been published in 2019. Also, please be careful with the spelling of book titles and authors’ first and last names to save us editing time.
We will have our reader-compiled "Best Of" list to share with you in the early February newsletter. We cannot wait to see what you select!
Click here to share your favorite books of 2019 and enter the contest.
On Sale the Week of December 16th in Hardcover
December 17th
RELENTLESS: A Brick Kavanagh Mystery by Shawn Wilson (Mystery)
Cherry blossom season is Washington, D.C.’s most beautiful time of the year. But as tourists flock to the city, this year’s festivities are marred by the discovery of the naked body of a young woman floating in the Tidal Basin. Veteran homicide detective Brian (Brick) Kavanagh is assigned to the case. He’s shocked when he learns the victim is connected to another homicide, which makes the investigation very personal for him. Brick’s efforts to solve the case are thwarted by departmental politics and a rush to judgment. Convinced that justice has not been served and the wrong person is in jail, Kavanagh risks all to relentlessly pursue the truth.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608093700
A SMALL TOWN by Thomas Perry (Thriller)
Twelve conspirators meticulously plan to throw open all the gates to the prison that contains them, so that more than a thousand convicts may escape and pour into the nearby small town. The newly freed prisoners rape, murder and destroy the town. An immense search ensues, but the 12 who plotted it all get away. After two years, all efforts by the local and federal police agencies have been in vain. Leah Hawkins, a former star basketball player and resident good cop, is placed on sabbatical so that she can tour the country learning advanced police procedures. The sabbatical is merely a ruse, however, as her real job is to track the infamous 12 and kill them. Soon, the surviving fugitives realize what she is up to, and a race to kill or be killed ensues.
Mysterious Press | 9780802148063
On Sale the Week of December 16th in Paperback
December 17th
DEATH AT WHITEWATER CHURCH: An Inishowen Mystery by Andrea Carter (Mystery)
When a skeleton is discovered in the hidden crypt of a deconsecrated church, everyone is convinced the bones must be those of Conor Devitt, a local man who went missing on his wedding day six years previously. But the postmortem reveals otherwise. Solicitor Benedicta “Ben” O’Keeffe is acting for the owners of the church. Although an unwelcome face from her past makes her reluctant to get involved, when Conor’s brother dies in strange circumstances shortly after coming to see her, she finds herself drawn in to the mystery. Whose is the skeleton in the crypt, and how did it get there? Is Conor Devitt still alive, and if so, is there a link? What happened on the morning of his wedding to make him disappear?
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608093533
THE KILL CLUB by Wendy Heard (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Jazz will stop at nothing to save her brother. Their foster mother, Carol, has always been fanatical, but with Jazz grown up and out of the house, Carol takes a dangerous turn that threatens 13-year-old Joaquin’s life. Over and over, child services fails to intervene, and Joaquin is running out of time. Then Jazz gets a blocked call from someone offering a solution. There are others like her --- people the law has failed. They’ve formed an underground network of “helpers,” each agreeing to eliminate the abuser of another. They’re taking back their power and leaving a trail of bodies throughout Los Angeles --- dubbed the Blackbird Killings. If Jazz joins them, they’ll take care of Carol for good. All she has to do is kill a stranger.
Mira | 9780778309031
THE NETWORK by L. C. Shaw (Political Thriller)
Paperback Original
Late one night, investigative journalist Jack Logan receives a surprise visit from U.S. Senator Malcolm Phillips. The senator swears that he’s about to be murdered and pleads with Jack to protect his wife Taylor, who happens to be the only woman Jack has ever truly loved. Days later, Phillips is found dead, the apparent victim of an allergy attack. Jack and Taylor’s desperate hunt for the one man who knows the truth leads them to the Institute, an immense facility shrouded in mystery that has indoctrinated a generation of America’s political and media power players. Led by the enigmatic Damon Crosse, the Institute has its tentacles everywhere --- but Taylor unknowingly holds the secret to the one thing that Crosse needs to carry out his plan.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062950901
THE PARISIAN by Isabella Hammad (Historical Fiction)
Midhat Kamal is the son of a wealthy textile merchant from Nablus, a town in Ottoman Palestine. A dreamer, a romantic, an aesthete, in 1914 he leaves to study medicine in France, and falls in love. When Midhat returns to Nablus to find it under British rule, and the entire region erupting with nationalist fervor, he must find a way to cope with his conflicting loyalties and the expectations of his community. The story of Midhat’s life develops alongside the idea of a nation, as he and those close to him confront what it means to strive for independence in a world that seems on the verge of falling apart.
Grove Press | 9780802148803
SNAKES AND LADDERS by Victoria Selman (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
A serial killer is terrorizing London, removing a body part from each victim and leaving in its place a single pink rose. Dr. Vernon Sange, a multiple murderer awaiting extradition, seems to know the culprit’s identity --- but he’ll only talk to profiler Ziba MacKenzie, the woman responsible for putting him away. Though there’s something he wants in return from her. And time is running out. With one killer whispering in her ear and another running rings around the police, Ziba must play a game in which only her opponent knows the rules, and the forfeit is death.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781542008792
On Sale the Week of December 30th in Hardcover
December 31st
MURDER IN RAT ALLEY: A Sam Blackman Mystery by Mark de Castrique (Mystery)
An interracial couple in the new South, Iraq War veteran Sam Blackman and his no-nonsense private eye partner, Nakayla Robertson, deploy humor both to bind them together and to deflect insults. Plus, it helps deal with the tragedies their work uncovers. Such a tragedy interrupts a meeting between the PIs and the neighboring law office when a body is unearthed from the grounds of the nearby Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute. It monitored developing space programs during the Cold War, and today plays a vital role gathering weather and climate data. Why would its discovery spark off a new murder in Asheville's mountain music scene, the victim found amid the garbage of dark, dank Rat Alley?
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781492699385
RECIPE FOR A PERFECT WIFE by Karma Brown (Fiction)
When Alice Hale moves to the New York suburbs with her husband, she finds a vintage cookbook buried in a box in her new house’s basement and becomes captivated by the book’s previous owner --- 1950s housewife Nellie Murdoch. As Alice cooks her way through the past, she realizes that within the cookbook’s pages, Nellie left clues about her life --- including a mysterious series of unsent letters penned to her mother. When she uncovers a more sinister side to Nellie’s marriage, and has become increasingly dissatisfied with the mounting pressures in her own relationship, she begins to take control of her life and protect herself with a few secrets of her own.
Dutton | 9781524744939
SUCH A FUN AGE by Kiley Reid (Fiction)
Alix Chamberlain is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, and a bystander films everything. At 25, Emira is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780525541905
On Sale the Week of December 30th in Paperback
December 30th
GOOD GIRLS LIE by J.T. Ellison (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
The boarding school of choice for daughters of the rich and influential, The Goode School accepts only the best and the brightest. Its elite status, long-held traditions and honor code are ideal for preparing exceptional young women for brilliant futures at Ivy League universities and beyond. But a stranger has come to Goode, and this ivy has turned poisonous. In a world where appearances are everything, as long as students pretend to follow the rules, no one questions the cruelties of the secret societies or the dubious behavior of the privileged young women who expect to get away with murder. But when a popular student is found dead, the truth cannot be ignored.
Mira | 9780778330776
HUSBAND MATERIAL by Emily Belden (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Twenty-nine-year-old Charlotte Rosen has a secret: she’s a widow. Ever since the fateful day that leveled her world, she has worked hard to move forward and has a great job at a hot social media analytics company. Yet Charlotte’s algorithms could never have predicted that her late husband’s ashes would land squarely on her doorstep five years later. Stunned but determined, Charlotte sets out to find meaning in this sudden twist of fate, even if that includes facing her ex-mother-in-law --- and her husband’s best friend, who seems to become a fixture at her side whether she likes it or not. But when her quest reveals a shocking secret, Charlotte is forced to answer questions she never knew to ask and to consider the possibility of forgiveness.
Graydon House | 9781525805981
THE PLAYGROUND by Jane Shemilt (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Over the course of a long, hot summer in London, the lives of three very different married couples collide when their children join the same tutoring circle, resulting in illicit relationships, shocking violence and unimaginable fallout. As the weeks go by, the couples become very close. Resentments flare. An affair begins. No one sees the five children at their secret games or realize how much their family dynamics are changing until tragedy strikes. The story twists and then twists again while the three families desperately search for answers. It’s only as they begin to unravel the truth of what happened over the summer that they realize evil has crept quietly into their world. But has this knowledge come too late?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062939425
THE WIVES by Tarryn Fisher (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Thursday’s husband, Seth, has two other wives. She’s never met them, and she doesn’t know anything about them. She agreed to this unusual arrangement because she’s so crazy about him. But one day, she finds something. Something that tells a very different --- and horrifying --- story about the man she married. What follows is one of the most twisted, shocking thrillers you’ll ever read. You’ll have to grab a copy to find out why.
Graydon House | 9781525809781
December 31st
CELTIC EMPIRE: A Dirk Pitt Novel by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler (Thriller/Adventure)
The murders of a team of United Nations scientists in El Salvador. A deadly collision in the waterways off the city of Detroit. An attack by tomb raiders on an archaeological site along the banks of the Nile. Is there a link between these violent events? The answer may lie in the tale of an Egyptian princess forced to flee the armies of her father 3,000 years ago. During what was supposed to be a routine investigation in South America, NUMA Director Dirk Pitt finds himself embroiled in an international mystery, one that will lead him across the world and will threaten everyone and everything he knows --- most importantly, his own family.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593085714
GHOST WALL by Sarah Moss (Fiction)
In the north of England, far from the intrusions of cities but not far from civilization, Silvie and her family are living as if they are ancient Britons, surviving by the tools and knowledge of the Iron Age. For two weeks, the length of her father’s vacation, they join an anthropology course set to reenact life in simpler times. Mixing with the students, Silvie begins to see, hear and imagine another kind of life, one that might include going to university, traveling beyond England, choosing her own clothes and food, and speaking her mind. The ancient Britons built ghost walls to ward off enemy invaders. When the group builds one of their own, they find a spiritual connection to the past. What comes next but human sacrifice?
Picador | 9781250234957
THE LOST MAN by Jane Harper (Mystery/Thriller)
Brothers Nathan and Bub Bright meet for the first time in months at the remote fence line separating their cattle ranches in the lonely outback. Their third brother, Cameron, lies dead at their feet. In an isolated belt of Australia, their homes a three-hour drive apart, the brothers were one another’s nearest neighbors. Cameron was the middle child, the one who ran the family homestead. But something made him head out alone under the unrelenting sun. Nathan, Bub and Nathan’s son return to Cameron’s ranch and to those left behind by his passing. While they grieve Cameron’s loss, suspicion starts to take hold, and Nathan is forced to examine secrets the family would rather leave in the past.
Flatiron Books | 9781250105707
THE MALTA EXCHANGE by Steve Berry (Thriller)
Former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone is at Lake Como, Italy, on the trail of legendary letters between Winston Churchill and Benito Mussolini that disappeared in 1945 and could rewrite history. But someone else seems to be after the same letters, and when Malone obtains then loses them, he’s plunged into a hunt that draws the attention of the legendary Knights of Malta. They are now a global humanitarian organization, but within their ranks lurks trouble --- the Secreti --- an ancient sect intent on affecting the coming papal conclave. With the help of Magellan Billet agent Luke Daniels, Malone races the rogue cardinal, the knights, the Secreti and the clock to find what has been lost for centuries.
Minotaur Books | 9781250140289
VENDETTA IN DEATH by J. D. Robb (Mystery/Thriller)
She calls herself Lady Justice. Once she has chosen a man as her target, she makes herself as alluring and seductive as possible to them. And once they are in her grasp, they are powerless. The first victim is wealthy businessman Nigel McEnroy. His company’s human resources department has already paid out settlements to a couple of his young victims --- but they don’t know that his crimes go far beyond workplace harassment. Lady Justice knows. And in one shocking night of brutality, she makes him pay a much steeper price. Now Eve Dallas and her husband, Roarke, are combing through the evidence of McEnroy’s secret life. His compulsive need to record his misdeeds provides them with a wide range of suspects, but the true identity of Lady Justice remains elusive.
St. Martin’s Paperbacks | 9781250207197
WE MUST BE BRAVE by Frances Liardet (Historical Fiction)
December 1940. In the disorderly evacuation of Southampton, England, newly married Ellen Parr finds a small child asleep on the backseat of an empty bus. No one knows who little Pamela is. Ellen professed not to want children with her older husband, and when she takes Pamela into her home and rapidly into her heart, she discovers that this is true: Ellen doesn't want children. She wants only Pamela. Three golden years pass as the Second World War rages on. Then one day Pamela is taken away, screaming. Ellen is no stranger to sorrow, but when she returns to the quiet village life she's long lived, she finds herself asking: In a world changed by war, is it fair to wish for an unchanged heart?
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780735218871
January 1st
THIS IS NOT HOW IT ENDS by Rochelle B. Weinstein (Fiction)
Paperback Original
When Charlotte and Philip meet, the pair form a deep and instant connection. Soon they’re settled in the Florida Keys with plans to marry. But just as they should be getting closer, Charlotte feels Philip slipping away. Second-guessing their love is something Charlotte never imagined, but with Philip’s excessive absences, she finds herself yearning for more. When she meets Ben, she ignores the pull, but the supportive single dad is there for her in ways she never knew she desired. Soon Charlotte finds herself torn between the love she thought she wanted and the one she knows she needs. As a hurricane passes through Islamorada, stunning revelations challenge Charlotte’s loyalties and upend her life.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781542007672
UNSPEAKABLE THINGS by Jess Lourey (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Cassie McDowell’s life in 1980s Minnesota seems perfectly wholesome. She lives on a farm, loves school and has a crush on the nicest boy in class. Yes, there are her parents’ strange parties and their parade of deviant guests, but she’s grown accustomed to them. All that changes when someone comes hunting in Lilydale. One by one, local boys go missing. One by one, they return changed --- violent, moody and withdrawn. What happened to them becomes the stuff of shocking rumors. The accusations of who’s responsible grow just as wild, and dangerous town secrets start to surface. Then Cassie’s own sister undergoes the dark change. If she is to survive, Cassie must find her way in an adult world where every sin is justified, and only the truth is unforgivable.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781542008785
On Sale the Week of January 6th in Hardcover
January 6th
DEAR EDWARD by Ann Napolitano (Fiction)
One summer morning, 12-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor. His story captures the attention of the nation, yet he struggles to find a place in a world without his family. But then he makes an unexpected discovery --- one that will lead him to the answers of some of life’s most profound questions: When you’ve lost everything, how do you find the strength to put one foot in front of the other? How do you learn to feel safe again? How do you find meaning in your life?
The Dial Press | 9781984854780
January 7th
BOYS & SEX: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity by Peggy Orenstein (Social Science/Gender Studies)
Drawing on comprehensive interviews with young men, psychologists, academics and experts in the field, BOYS & SEX dissects so-called locker room talk; how the word “hilarious” robs boys of empathy; pornography as the new sex education; boys’ understanding of hookup culture and consent; and their experience as both victims and perpetrators of sexual violence. By surfacing young men’s experience in all its complexity, Peggy Orenstein is able to unravel the hidden truths, hard lessons and important realities of young male sexuality in today’s world.
Harper | 9780062666970
COME TUMBLING DOWN by Seanan McGuire (Fantasy)
When Jack left Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children, she was carrying the body of her deliciously deranged sister --- whom she had recently murdered in a fit of righteous justice --- back to their home on the Moors. But death in their adopted world isn't always as permanent as it is here, and when Jack is herself carried back into the school, it becomes clear that something has happened to her. Something terrible. Something of which only the maddest of scientists could conceive. Something only her friends are equipped to help her overcome. Eleanor West's "No Quests" rule is about to be broken. Again.
Tor.com | 9780765399311
CONSIDER THIS: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different by Chuck Palahniuk (Memoir)
In CONSIDER THIS, bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk shares stories and generous advice on what makes writing powerful and what makes for powerful writing. With advice grounded in years of careful study and a keenly observed life, Palahniuk combines practical advice and concrete examples from beloved classics, his own books and a "kitchen-table MFA" culled from an evolving circle of beloved authors and artists, with anecdotes, postcards from the road and much more.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538717950
THE COUNTRY GUESTHOUSE: A Sullivan's Crossing Novel by Robyn Carr (Fiction)
When her best friend died suddenly, Hannah Russell became guardian to a five-year-old named Noah. She and Noah need time to get to know each other, so she decides to rent a country house with stunning views on a lake in rural Colorado. When they arrive at the house, they are greeted by the owner, a handsome man who promises to stay out of their way. But his clumsy Great Dane, Romeo, has other ideas, and Noah immediately bonds with the lovable dog. As Hannah learns to become a mother, Owen Abrams, who is recovering from his own grief, can’t help but be drawn out of his solitude by his guests. But life throws more challenges at this unlikely trio, and they are tested in ways they never thought possible.
Mira | 9780778309055
CREATURES by Crissy Van Meter (Fiction)
On the eve of Evangeline’s wedding, on the shore of Winter Island, a dead whale is trapped in the harbor, the groom may be lost at sea, and Evie’s mostly absent mother has shown up out of the blue. From there, the narrative flows back and forth through time as Evie reckons with her complicated upbringing in this lush, wild land off the coast of Southern California. Evie grew up with her well-meaning but negligent father, surviving on the money he made dealing the island’s world-famous strain of weed, Winter Wonderland. Although her father raised her with a deep respect for the elements, the sea and the creatures living within it, he also left her to parent herself.
Algonquin Books | 9781616208592
DEEP STATE by Chris Hauty (Political Thriller)
Recently elected President Richard Monroe is at the center of an increasingly polarized Washington, DC. Never has the partisan drama been so tense or the paranoia so rampant. In the midst of contentious political turf wars, the White House chief of staff is found dead in his house. A tenacious intern discovers a single, ominous clue that suggests he died from something other than natural causes, and that a wide-ranging conspiracy is running beneath the surface of everyday events. Allies are exposed as enemies, once-dependable authorities fall under suspicion, and no one seems to be who they say they are. The unthinkable is happening. The Deep State is real. Who will die to keep its secrets, and who will kill to uncover the truth?
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781982126582
FIRST CUT by Judy Melinek and T.J. Mitchell (Mystery)
For San Francisco’s newest medical examiner, Dr. Jessie Teska, it was supposed to be a fresh start. A new job in a new city. A way to escape her own dark past. Instead she faces a chilling discovery when an opioid-overdose case contains hints of something more sinister. Jessie’s superiors urge her to close the case, but as more bodies land on her autopsy table, she uncovers a constellation of deaths that point to an elaborate plot involving drug dealers and Bitcoin brokers.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335008305
THE GIMMICKS by Chris McCormick (Historical Fiction)
Ruben Petrosian grieves the victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, a crime still denied by the descendants of its perpetrators, and dreams of vengeance. When his orphaned cousin, Avo, comes to live with his family, Ruben’s life is transformed. But their paths diverge when Ruben vanishes --- drafted into an extremist group that will stop at nothing to make Turkey acknowledge the genocide. Unmoored by Ruben’s disappearance, Avo and his archrival, Mina, grow close in his absence. But fate brings the cousins together once more, when Ruben secretly contacts Avo, convincing him to leave Mina and join the extremists. Left to unravel the threads of this story is Terry “Angel Hair” Krill, whose life intersects with Avo, Ruben and Mina’s in surprising and devastating ways.
Harper | 9780062908568
THE GOD GAME by Danny Tobey (Thriller)
Charlie and his friends enter the G.O.D. Game, a video game run by underground hackers and controlled by a mysterious AI that believes it’s God. Through their phone-screens and high-tech glasses, the teens’ realities blur with a virtual world of creeping vines, smoldering torches, runes, glyphs, gods and mythical creatures. When they accomplish a mission, the game rewards them with expensive tech, revenge on high-school tormentors, and cash flowing from ATMs. But then the threatening messages start. Worship me. Obey me. As Charlie and his friends try to find a way out of the game, they realize they’ve been manipulated into a bigger web they can’t escape: an AI that learned its cruelty from watching us.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250306142
THE HEAP by Sean Adams (Fiction/Satire)
Los Verticalés once bustled with life and excitement. Now this marvel of modern architecture and nontraditional urban planning has collapsed into a pile of rubble known as the Heap. Orville Anders burrows into the bowels of the Heap to find his brother Bernard, a beloved radio DJ, who is alive and miraculously broadcasting somewhere under the massive rubble. For months, Orville has worked tirelessly to free Bernard --- the only known survivor of the imploded city --- who he speaks to every evening, calling into his radio show. When Orville refuses to drop brand names into their nightly talks, his access to Bernard is suddenly cut off, but he continues to hear his own voice over the airwaves, casually shilling products as “he” converses with Bernard.
William Morrow | 9780062957733
HINDSIGHT by Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen (Mystery/Thriller)
Dr. Kendra Michaels, blind for the first 20 years of her life before gaining her sight via a revolutionary surgical procedure, is a renowned investigator known for her razor-sharp senses --- honed during her years in the dark --- and keen deductive abilities. Now her skills are needed uncomfortably close to home. Two staff members have been murdered at a school for the blind where Kendra spent her formative years. But the murders are puzzlingly dissimilar: one victim was brutally stabbed, while the other was killed by a bullet to the head. Are the crimes related? Or is Kendra on the hunt for more than one dangerous killer?
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538762929
HOUSE ON ENDLESS WATERS by Emuna Elon (Fiction)
At the behest of his agent, renowned author Yoel Blum reluctantly agrees to visit his birthplace of Amsterdam to promote his books, despite promising his late mother that he would never return to that city. While touring the Jewish Historical Museum with his wife, Yoel stumbles upon footage portraying prewar Dutch Jewry and is astonished to see the youthful face of his beloved mother staring back at him, posing with his father, his older sister...and an infant he doesn’t recognize. This unsettling discovery launches him into a fervent search for the truth, shining a light on Amsterdam’s dark wartime history --- the underground networks that hid Jewish children away from danger and those who betrayed their own for the sake of survival.
Atria Books | 9781982130220
HUNTER KILLER: A Pike Logan Novel by Brad Taylor (Thriller/Adventure)
While Pike Logan and Jennifer Cahill prepare to join their team on a counter-terrorist mission in the triple frontier --- the lawless tri-border region where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet --- they are targeted in Charleston, South Carolina. A vicious explosion kills a friend, and the perpetrators have set it up to look like an accident. While the authorities believe this was not foul play, Pike knows the attack was meant for him. When he loses contact with the team in South America, Pike is convinced that he and the Taskforce are under assault. Pike and Jennifer head to Brazil to investigate their disappearance and run headlong into a crew of Russian assassins. Within days they are entangled in a byzantine scheme involving Brazilian politics and a cut-throat battle for control of offshore oil fields.
William Morrow | 9780062886026
IN THE SHADOW OF VESUVIUS: A Lady Emily Mystery by Tasha Alexander (Historical Mystery)
Lady Emily and her husband, Colin Hargreaves, have accompanied her dear friend, Ivy Brandon, on a trip to Pompeii. When they uncover a corpse and the police dismiss the murder as the work of local gangsters, Emily launches an investigation of her own. She seems to be aided by the archaeologists excavating the ruins, but each of them has secrets. The sudden appearance of a beautiful young woman who claims a shocking relationship to the Hargreaves family throws Emily’s investigation off-course. And as she struggles to face an unsettling truth about Colin’s past, it becomes clear that someone else wants her off the case --- for good. How far below the surface can Emily dig before she risks burying herself along with the truth?
Minotaur Books | 9781250164735
LADY CLEMENTINE by Marie Benedict (Historical Fiction)
In 1909, Clementine steps off a train with her new husband, Winston. An angry woman emerges from the crowd to attack, shoving him in the direction of an oncoming train. Just before he stumbles, Clementine grabs him by his suit jacket. This will not be the last time Clementine Churchill will save her husband. LADY CLEMENTINE is the ferocious story of the ambitious woman beside Winston Churchill, the story of a partner who did not flinch through the sweeping darkness of war, and who would not surrender either to expectations or to enemies.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781492666905
LONG BRIGHT RIVER by Liz Moore (Mystery/Thriller)
In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don't speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling. Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey's district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit --- and her sister --- before it's too late.
Riverhead Books | 9780525540670
THE MAGICAL LANGUAGE OF OTHERS: A Memoir by E. J. Koh (Memoir)
THE MAGICAL LANGUAGE OF OTHERS is a powerful and aching love story in letters, from mother to daughter. After living in America for over a decade, Eun Ji Koh’s parents return to South Korea for work, leaving 15-year-old Eun Ji and her brother behind in California. Overnight, she finds herself abandoned and adrift in a world made strange by her mother’s absence. Her mother writes letters, in Korean, over the years seeking forgiveness and love --- letters Eun Ji cannot fully understand until she finds them years later hidden in a box. Eun Ji fearlessly grapples with forgiveness, reconciliation, legacy and intergenerational trauma, arriving at insights that are essential reading for anyone who has ever had to balance love, longing, heartbreak and joy.
Tin House Books | 9781947793385
MORAL COMPASS by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Saint Ambrose Prep is a place where the wealthy send their children for the best possible education. Traditionally a boys-only school, Saint Ambrose has just enrolled 140 female students for the first time. One day after the school’s annual Halloween event, a student lies in the hospital, her system poisoned by dangerous levels of alcohol. Everyone in this sheltered community is left trying to figure out what actually happened. Only the handful of students who were there when she was attacked truly know the answers, and they have vowed to keep one another’s secrets. As details from the evening emerge, powerful families are forced to hire attorneys and less powerful families watch helplessly. No one at Saint Ambrose can escape the fallout of a life-altering event.
Delacorte Press | 9780399179532
MR. NOBODY by Catherine Steadman (Psychological Thriller)
When a man is found on a British beach with no identification and unable to speak, interest in him is sparked immediately. From the hospital staff who find themselves inexplicably drawn to him, to international medical experts who are baffled by him, to the national press who call him Mr. Nobody, everyone wants answers. Neuropsychiatrist Dr. Emma Lewis is asked to assess the patient in a small town deep in the English countryside. Emma left this same town 14 years ago and has taken great pains to cover all traces of her past since then. But now something --- or someone --- is calling her back. And the more time she spends with her patient, the more alarmed she becomes that he knows the one thing about her that nobody is supposed to know.
Ballantine Books | 9781524797683
NAKED CAME THE FLORIDA MAN by Tim Dorsey (Mystery/Humor)
With his best bro Colman riding shotgun, Serge A. Storms hits the highway in his ’69 gold Plymouth Satellite, putting pedal to the metal on a grand tour of the past. Beginning in Key West, the sunshine boys’ odyssey includes a forgotten mass grave in Palm Beach county holding the remains of African Americans killed by the Great Hurricane of 1928, and the resting place of one world-famous television dolphin (RIP Flipper) from the 1960s. But one deadland --- a haunted old sugar field --- holds more than just the bones of those who’ve passed. For years, local children have whispered about a boogeyman hiding among the stalks. Could it be the same maniac known as Naked Florida man who’s been raising hell all over the place?
William Morrow | 9780062796004
SPITFIRE: A Livy Nash Mystery by M. L. Huie (Historical Mystery)
It's V-E Day 1946 in London. World War II is long over, and former spy Livy Nash is celebrating with her third drink before noon. She went to war to kill Nazis. Dropped behind enemy lines as a courier, she quickly became one of the toughest agents in France. But her war ended with betrayal and the execution of the man she loved. Now, Livy spends her days proofreading a demeaning advice column for little ladies at home, and her nights alone with black market vodka. Everything changes, though, when she meets the infamous Ian Fleming. The man who will create the world's most sophisticated secret agent has an agenda of his own and sends Livy back to France with one task: track down the traitor who killed the only man she ever loved.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781643852454
TOO CLOSE TO HOME by Andrew Grant (Mystery/Thriller)
An intelligence agent-turned-courthouse janitor, Paul McGrath notices everything and everyone --- but no one notices him. It’s the perfect cover for the justice he seeks for both his father and the people who’ve been wronged by a corrupt system. At the courthouse, he stumbles on the case of Len Hendrie, a small businessman who’s been accused of torching a venture capitalist’s mansion. Though Hendrie admits starting the fire, McGrath learns how the VC has preyed on average Joes to benefit himself --- and his extensive wine collection. He can’t resist looking deeper into this financial predator and soon finds himself in a gray area between his avenging moral compass and the limits of the law.
Ballantine Books | 9780525619628
TOPICS OF CONVERSATION by Miranda Popkey (Fiction)
Miranda Popkey's first novel is about desire, disgust, motherhood, loneliness, art, pain, feminism, anger, envy and guilt. It is composed almost exclusively of conversations between women --- the stories they tell each other, and the stories they tell themselves, about shame and love, infidelity and self-sabotage --- and careens through 20 years in the life of an unnamed narrator hungry for experience and bent on upending her life.
Knopf | 9780525656289
TOWARD THE LIGHT by Bonnar Spring (Political Thriller)
Luz Concepcion returns to Guatemala to murder Martin Benavides, the man who destroyed her family. Benavides, who rose from insurgent fighter to president, controls a major drug network. Richard Clement became Luz’s resettlement officer when she was evacuated to the U.S. He now works for the CIA, which has its own reasons for eliminating Benavides. Richard’s team persuades Luz to pursue a job as nanny to Benavides’ grandson, Cesar, a lonely child with an absentee playboy father. The Guatemala contact for her mission is Evan McManus, an expat painter who pursues Luz, hoping to persuade her to model for him --- and more.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608093762
TREASON: A Stone Barrington Novel by Stuart Woods (Thriller/Adventure)
Upon returning to New York City after a whirlwind British excursion, Stone Barrington is notified of a delicate situation within the country's administration. A close friend requires his expertise and subtlety to eradicate a destructive presence in a classified agency --- only it soon becomes clear that this renegade was sent by a rival Stone has encountered before. From the City of Light to the rocky Maine coastline, Stone will need to summon all his wit and daring to halt the audacious plots threatening to reveal confidential intel, and catch the evasive traitor at last. This enemy may be equipped with unlimited resources and devious schemes, but if Stone remains vigilant, justice may finally prevail.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593083192
THE VANISHING by Jayne Ann Krentz (Romantic Suspense)
Catalina Lark and Olivia LeClair, best friends and co-owners of an investigation firm in Seattle, use what they call their “other sight” to help solve cases. When Olivia suddenly vanishes one night, Cat frantically begins the search for her friend. No one takes the disappearance seriously except Slater Arganbright, an agent from a shadowy organization known only as the Foundation, who shows up at her firm with a cryptic warning. A ruthless killer is hunting the only witnesses to a murder that occurred in the Fogg Lake caves 15 years ago --- Catalina and Olivia. And someone intends to make both women vanish.
Berkley | 9781984806437
WESTERING WOMEN by Sandra Dallas (Historical Fiction)
It's February 1852, and all around Chicago, Maggie sees postings soliciting "eligible women" to travel to the gold mines of Goosetown. A young seamstress with a small daughter, she has nothing to lose. She joins 43 other women and two pious reverends on the dangerous 2,000-mile journey west. None are prepared for the hardships they face on the trek or for the strengths they didn't know they possessed. Maggie discovers she’s not the only one looking to leave dark secrets behind. And when her past catches up with her, it becomes clear a band of sisters will do whatever it takes to protect one of their own.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250239662
WESTWIND by Ian Rankin (Thriller)
In Europe, the Americans are pulling out their troops in a tide of isolationism. Britain, torn between loyalties to America and the continent, is caught in the middle. In America, a space shuttle crashes on landing, killing all but one of the crew on-board: a British citizen named Mike Dreyfuss, who will become vilified by the US press and protesters. Halfway across the world, at English ground control headquarters, Martin Hepton watches with dismay as they lose contact with the most advanced satellite in Europe. A colleague of Hepton's who suspects something strange is going on disappears. Hepton realizes there is much more at stake than anyone knows --- and many more people on their trail than they can possibly evade.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316497923
WHY WE CAN'T SLEEP: Women's New Midlife Crisis by Ada Calhoun (Social Science/Gender Studies)
When Ada Calhoun found herself in the throes of a midlife crisis, she thought that she had no right to complain. She was married with children and had a good career. So why did she feel miserable? And why did it seem that other Generation X women were miserable, too? Calhoun decided to find some answers. At every turn, she saw a pattern: sandwiched between the Boomers and the Millennials, Gen X women were facing new problems as they entered middle age, problems that were being largely overlooked. In WHY WE CAN’T SLEEP, Calhoun opens up the cultural and political contexts of Gen X’s predicament and offers solutions for how to pull oneself out of the abyss --- and keep the next generation of women from falling in.
Grove Press | 9780802147851
On Sale the Week of January 6th in Paperback
January 6th
GIVE THE DEVIL HIS DUE: A Rowland Sinclair Mystery by Sulari Gentill (Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
Wealthy Rowland Sinclair, an artist with leftist friends and a free-wheeling lifestyle, reluctantly agrees to a charity race. He'll drive his beloved yellow Mercedes on the Maroubra Speedway, renamed the Killer Track for the lives it has claimed. His teammates are a young Errol Flynn and the well-known driver Joan Richmond. It's all good fun. But then people start to die. The body of a journalist covering the race is found murdered in a House of Horrors. An English blueblood with Blackshirt affiliations dies in a Maroubra crash. Reporters stalk Rowly for dirt while bookmakers are after an edge. When someone takes a shot at him, it could be anyone. Then the police arrest one of Rowly's housemates for murder.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464207037
January 7th
THE BLACK ASCOT: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery by Charles Todd (Historical Mystery)
An astonishing tip from a grateful ex-convict seems implausible --- but Inspector Ian Rutledge is intrigued and brings it to his superior at Scotland Yard. Alan Barrington, who has evaded capture for 10 years, is the suspect in an appalling murder during Black Ascot, the famous 1910 royal horse race honoring the late King Edward VII. His disappearance began a manhunt that consumed Britain for a decade. Now it appears that Barrington has returned to England, giving the Yard a last chance to retrieve its reputation and see justice done. Rutledge is put in charge of a quiet search under cover of a routine review of a cold case. But his sanity is suddenly brought into question by a shocking turn of events.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062678751
CARELESS LOVE: A DCI Banks Novel by Peter Robinson (Mystery/Thriller)
Two suspicious deaths challenge Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his crack investigative team. A young local student’s body is found in an abandoned car on a lonely country road. The death looks like suicide, but there are too many open questions for Banks and his team to rule out foul play. Meanwhile, a man in his 60s is found dead in a gully up on the wild moorland. Post mortem findings indicate that he died from injuries sustained during a fall. Was it an accident? Or was he pushed? As the inconsistencies multiply and the mysteries surrounding these two cases proliferate, a source reveals a piece of information that shocks the team and impacts the investigations.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062847478
THE DAUGHTER’S TALE by Armando Lucas Correa (Historical Fiction)
Berlin, 1939. The dreams that Amanda Sternberg and her husband, Julius, had for their daughters are shattered when the Nazis descend on Berlin, burning down their beloved family bookshop and sending Julius to a concentration camp. Desperate to save her children, Amanda flees toward the south of France, where the widow of an old friend of her husband’s has agreed to take her in. Along the way, a refugee ship headed for Cuba offers another chance at escape. There, at the dock, Amanda is forced to make an impossible choice that will haunt her for the rest of her life. Once in Haute-Vienne, her brief respite is interrupted by the arrival of Nazi forces, and Amanda finds herself in a labor camp where once again she must make a heroic sacrifice.
Washington Square Press | 9781501187940
DEEP CREEK: Finding Hope in the High Country by Pam Houston (Memoir/Essays)
On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, beloved writer Pam Houston learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants. Through her travels from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska, she explores what ties her to the earth, the ranch most of all. Alongside her devoted Irish wolfhounds and a spirited troupe of horses, donkeys and Icelandic sheep, the ranch becomes Houston’s sanctuary, a place where she discovers how the natural world has mothered and healed her after a childhood of horrific parental abuse and neglect.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393357660
FACETS OF DEATH: A Detective Kubu Mystery by Michael Stanley (Mystery)
Paperback Original
David “Kubu” Bengu's keen mind and famous persistence have seen him rise in the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department. But how did he get his start? His resentful new colleagues are suspicious of a detective who has entered the CID straight from university, skipping the usual beat cop phase. Shortly after he joins the CID, the richest diamond mine in the world is robbed of 100,000 carats of diamonds in transit. Police immediately suspect an inside job, but there is no evidence of who it could be. When the robbers are killed execution-style in South Africa and the diamonds are still missing, suspicion focuses on a witch doctor and his son. Does "Kubu" have the skill and the integrity to engineer an international trap and catch those responsible?
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464211270
FALL BACK DOWN WHEN I DIE by Joe Wilkins (Fiction)
Wendell Newman, a young ranch hand in Montana, has recently lost his mother, leaving him an orphan. His bank account holds less than a hundred dollars, and he owes back taxes on what remains of the land his parents owned, as well as money for the surgeries that failed to save his mother's life. An unexpected deliverance arrives in the form of seven-year-old Rowdy Burns, the mute and traumatized son of Wendell's incarcerated cousin. When Rowdy is put under his care, what begins as an ordeal for Wendell turns into a powerful bond, as he comes to love the boy more than he ever thought possible. That bond will be stretched to the breaking point during the first legal wolf hunt in Montana in more than 30 years, when a murder ignites a desperate chase.
Back Bay Books | 9780316475341
THE FIRST CONSPIRACY: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch (History)
In 1776, an elite group of soldiers were handpicked to serve as George Washington’s bodyguards. Washington trusted them. But unbeknownst to him, some of them were part of a treasonous plan. In the months leading up to the Revolutionary War, these traitorous soldiers, along with the Governor of New York, William Tryon, and Mayor David Mathews, launched a deadly plot against the most important member of the military: George Washington himself. This is the story of the secret plot and how it was revealed. It is a story of leaders, liars, counterfeiters and jailhouse confessors. It also shows just how hard the battle was for Washington and how close America was to losing the Revolutionary War.
Flatiron Books | 9781250257673
THE GIRL HE USED TO KNOW by Tracey Garvis Graves (Romance)
Annika Rose is an English major at the University of Illinois. Anxious in social situations, she'd rather be surrounded by the order and discipline of books or the quiet solitude of playing chess. Jonathan Hoffman joined the chess club and lost his first game --- and his heart --- to Annika. He admires her ability to be true to herself and accepts the challenges involved in pursuing a relationship with her. What follows is a tumultuous yet tender love affair that withstands everything except the unforeseen tragedy that forces them apart, shattering their connection and leaving them to navigate their lives alone. Now, a decade later, fate reunites Annika and Jonathan in Chicago.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250298874
THE GIRLS WITH NO NAMES by Serena Burdick (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
Not far from Luella and Effie Tildon’s large family mansion in Inwood looms the House of Mercy, a work house for wayward girls. When the sisters accidentally discover a shocking secret about their father, Luella becomes emboldened to do as she pleases. But her rebellion comes with consequences, and one morning Luella is mysteriously gone. Effie suspects her father has made good on his threat to send Luella to the House of Mercy and hatches a plan to get herself committed to save her sister. But she made a miscalculation, and Effie’s escape from the House of Mercy seems impossible --- unless she can trust an enigmatic girl named Mable. As their fates entwine, Mable and Effie must rely on each other and their tenuous friendship to survive.
Park Row | 9780778308737
IF SHE WERE DEAD by J.P. Smith (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
As bestselling novelist Amelie Ferrar knows, an affair with a married person is like a work of fiction: a kind of spy story with its rules and customs, negotiations and compromises, and many private rituals. But like any spy story, there inevitably will be a betrayal: something will slip, someone else will find out, someone may even die. As Amelie falls deeper into her obsession with the man she loves --- and his wife --- the line between the fiction she writes and the reality she lives begins to blur...and the twisted ending to this story is one that not even she could have seen coming.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781492669036
THE LOST NIGHT by Andrea Bartz (Psychological Thriller)
In 2009, Edie had New York’s social world in her thrall. Mercurial and beguiling, she was the shining star of a group of recent graduates living in a Brooklyn loft and treating New York like their playground. When Edie’s body was found near a suicide note at the end of a long, drunken night, no one could believe it. A decade later, Lindsay has come a long way from the drug-addled world of Calhoun Lofts. She has devoted best friends, a cozy apartment and a thriving career as a magazine’s head fact-checker. But when a chance reunion leads Lindsay to discover an unsettling video from that hazy night, she starts to wonder if Edie was actually murdered --- and, worse, if she herself was involved.
Ballantine Books | 9780525574729
THE MARTIN CHRONICLES by John Fried (Fiction)
Martin Kelso's comfortable world starts to change at the age of 11. Girls get under his skin in ways he never noticed before. His cousin Evie, who used to be Marty's closest confidante, has grown up into a stranger, mysterious and unpredictable. Marty and his best friends once inhabited fantasy worlds of their own making, where the heroes always won the day. But now, as neighborhood kids are attacked on their walk to school, they find themselves wanting to play a new game that better prepares them for real life. As life changes quickly and Marty feels less secure with himself, the difference between games and reality, friend and foe, and right from wrong becomes much more difficult to distinguish.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538729847
MIDNIGHT AT THE BLACKBIRD CAFÉ by Heather Webber (Magical Realism/Romance)
Nestled in the mountain shadows of Alabama lies the little town of Wicklow. It is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Café. It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and settle her grandmother’s estate, but despite her best intentions to avoid forming ties or even getting to know her father’s side of the family, Anna Kate finds herself inexplicably drawn to the quirky Southern town her mother ran away from so many years ago, and the mysterious blackbird pie everybody can’t stop talking about. As the truth about her past slowly becomes clear, Anna Kate will need to decide if this lone blackbird will finally be able to take her broken wings and fly.
Forge Books | 9781250198617
MIXED DOUBLES by Jill Mansell (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Liza wants to get married, Dulcie wants a divorce, and Pru wants things in her relationship to stay exactly the same. Those are the New Year's resolutions these three best friends have vowed to keep this year. But if you want to change your mind about your resolutions --- and who doesn't? --- you probably shouldn't have told your closest pals. Regardless of good intentions and best-laid plans, every effort to help each other only gets things more mixed up. Fortunately for all concerned, Fate has a few tricks of her own in store.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781492632511
MOUTHFUL OF BIRDS: Stories written by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell (Fiction/Short Stories)
Samanta Schweblin haunts and mesmerizes in this extraordinary collection featuring women on the edge, men turned upside down, the natural world at odds with reality. We think life is one way, but often it’s not --- our expectations for how people act, love and fear can all be upended. Each character in MOUTHFUL OF BIRDS must contend with the unexpected, whether a family coming apart at the seams or a child transforming or a ghostly hellscape or a murder. Schweblin’s stories have the feel of a sleepless night, where every shadow and bump in the dark take on huge implications, leaving your pulse racing, and the line between the real and the strange blurs.
Riverhead Books | 9780399184635
THE NEW IBERIA BLUES: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke (Thriller)
Detective Dave Robicheaux has discovered the body of a young woman who’s been crucified, wearing only a small chain on her ankle. She disappeared near director Desmond Cormier’s Cyrpemort Point estate, and Robicheaux is looking for answers. Neither Cormier nor his enigmatic actor friend Antoine Butterworth is saying much, but Robicheaux knows better. As always, Clete Purcel and Davie’s daughter, Alafair, have Robicheaux’s back. Clete witnesses the escape of Texas inmate Hugo Tillinger, who may hold the key to Robicheaux’s case. As they wade further into the investigation, they end up in the crosshairs of the mob, the deranged Chester Wimple, and the dark ghosts Robicheaux has been running from for years.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501176890
THE NIGHT TIGER by Yangsze Choo (Historical Fiction)
Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother’s Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin may finally get the adventure she has been longing for. Eleven-year-old houseboy Ren is racing to fulfill his former master’s dying wish: that Ren find the man’s finger, lost years ago in an accident, and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so, or his master’s soul will wander the earth forever. As the days tick relentlessly by, a series of unexplained deaths racks the district, along with whispers of men who turn into tigers. Ji Lin and Ren’s increasingly dangerous paths crisscross through lush plantations, hospital storage rooms and ghostly dreamscapes.
Flatiron Books | 9781250175465
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 Paperbacks | 9780062795892
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE: The New Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 85 Years Old written by Hendrik Groen, translated by Hester Velmans (Fiction)
Everyone's favorite octogenarian is back, and together with his pals in the Old-But-Not-Dead Club, he is more determined than ever to wreak havoc and turn a twinkly eye on the brighter side of life. After a year spent mourning the death of his beloved friend, Eefje, Hendrik may be older and a little more wobbly, but his youthful appetite for mischief hasn't diminished. When fears arise that the home is set for demolition, it's up to Hendrik and the Old-But-Not-Dead Club to intervene.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538746622
THE RIVER MURDERS by James Patterson and James O. Born (Thriller)
Paperback Original
THE RIVER MURDERS contains three exciting thrillers. 1) “Hidden”: After being rejected from the Navy SEALs, Mitchum becomes his small town's unofficial private eye. But his investigation skills are put to the test when he must find his missing teenage cousin --- and uncovers a government conspiracy in the process. 2) “Malicious”: Mitchum’s brother has been charged with murder. Nathaniel swears he didn't kill anyone, but word on the street is that he was involved with the victim's wife. Now, Mitchum will break every rule to expose the truth. 3) “Malevolent”: One by one, Mitchum’s loved ones have become victims of carefully staged attacks. There's only one way to stop the ruthless mastermind intent on destroying everyone around him --- to go on the most dangerous hunt of his life.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538749975
WELCOME TO THE PINE AWAY MOTEL AND CABINS by Katarina Bivald (Fiction)
Paperback Original
The Pine Creek Motel has seen better days. Henny would call it charming, but she's always seen the best in things. Like now, when she's just met an untimely end crossing the road. She's not going to let a tiny thing like death stop her from living fully --- not when her friends and family need her the most. After the funeral is over, her body is buried, and the last casserole dish is empty, Henny is still around. She's not sure why, but she realizes she has one last opportunity to help her friends discover the happiness they once knew before they lose the motel and cabins they've cherished for years.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781492681014
WHERE HAVE ALL THE BOYS GONE? by Jenny Colgan (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Katie resigns herself to the fact that there’s no sex in London for her and decides to head to the Scottish Highlands. But while she relishes the chance to do battle with armies of admirers, she’s not excited about going head to head with her shady new boss, Harry. At least there’s the local eye-candy to distract her, including gorgeous newshound Iain. But he is at loggerheads with Harry, and she can’t afford to get on Harry’s bad side any more than she already has. Life in the country might not be one big roll in the hay, but now that Katie has taken the plunge, can she ever turn her back on the delights of Fairlish and return to city life?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062869647
THE WIDOWS by Jess Montgomery (Historical Mystery)
Kinship, Ohio, 1924: When Lily Ross learns that her husband, Daniel Ross, the town’s widely respected sheriff, is killed while transporting a prisoner, she is devastated and vows to avenge his death. Hours after his funeral, a stranger appears at her door. Marvena Whitcomb, a coal miner’s widow, is unaware that Daniel has died, and begs to speak with him about her missing daughter. From miles away but worlds apart, Lily and Marvena’s lives collide as they realize that Daniel was not the man either of them believed him to be --- and that his murder is far more complex than either of them could have imagined.
Minotaur Books | 9781250223203
WILD BILL: The True Story of the American Frontier's First Gunfighter by Tom Clavin (Biography)
In July 1865, "Wild Bill" Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt in Springfield, MO --- the first quick-draw duel on the frontier. Thus began the reputation that made him a marked man to every gunslinger in the Wild West. Even before his death, Wild Bill became a legend, with fiction sometimes supplanting fact in the stories that surfaced. The legend of Wild Bill has only grown since his death in 1876, when cowardly Jack McCall famously put a bullet through the back of his head during a card game. Bestselling author Tom Clavin has sifted through years of western lore to bring Hickock fully to life in this rip-roaring, spellbinding true story.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250178169
THE WINTERS by Lisa Gabriele (Thriller)
After a whirlwind romance, a young woman returns to the opulent, secluded Long Island mansion of her new fiancé Max Winter, a wealthy politician and recent widower. The house is steeped in the memory of Max’s beautiful first wife Rebekah, who haunts the young woman’s imagination and feeds her uncertainties, while his very alive teenage daughter Dani makes her life a living hell. She soon realizes there is no clear place for her in this twisted little family. As the soon-to-be second Mrs. Winter grows more in love with Max, and more afraid of Dani, she is drawn deeper into the family’s dark secrets --- the kind of secrets that could kill her, too.
Penguin Books | 9780525559726
WORKING by Robert A. Caro (Memoir)
For the first time in book form, Robert Caro gives us a glimpse into his own life and work in these evocatively written, personal pieces. He describes what it was like to interview the mighty Robert Moses; the combination of discouragement and exhilaration he felt confronting the vast holdings of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Texas; his encounters with witnesses, including longtime residents wrenchingly displaced by the construction of Moses' Cross-Bronx Expressway and Lady Bird Johnson acknowledging the beauty and influence of one of LBJ's mistresses. He gratefully remembers how, after years of working in solitude, he found a writers' community at the New York Public Library, and details the ways he goes about planning and composing his books.
Vintage | 9780593081914
YOU WERE THERE TOO by Colleen Oakley (Romance)
Paperback Original
Mia Graydon's life looks picket-fence perfect. She has the house, her loving husband and dreams of starting a family. But she has other dreams too --- unexplained, recurring ones starring the same man. Still, she doesn’t think much of it, until a relocation to small-town Pennsylvania brings her face to face with the stranger she has been dreaming about for years. And this man harbors a jaw-dropping secret of his own --- he's been dreaming of her too. Determined to understand, Mia and this not-so-stranger search for answers. But when diving into their pasts begins to unravel her life in the present, Mia emerges with a single question: What if?
Berkley | 9781984806468
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