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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of January 6th and January 13th 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 Sounding Off on Audio contest for January. This month's prizes are the audio versions of Liz Moore's LONG BRIGHT RIVER, read by Allyson Ryan, and Joseph Finder's HOUSE ON FIRE, read by Holter Graham. Submit your comments about the audiobooks you've listened to by Monday, February 3rd at noon ET, and you'll be in the running to win both these audio titles.
Also, we have updated our Books on Screen feature for this month. January's roundup includes the feature films Just Mercy, The Informer, The Turning and The Rhythm Section; the series premieres of “Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector” on NBC and "The Outsider" on HBO, along with the first season of "The Stranger" on Netflix, the season five premiere of "The Magicians" on Syfy, and the season one finale of "Truth Be Told" on Apple TV+; and the DVD releases of Britt-Marie Was Here, Motherless Brooklyn, Joker and The Addams Family.
Finally, we are giving you a preview of Susan Mallery’s upcoming novel, SISTERS BY CHOICE, which releases on February 11th. This fourth entry in her Blackberry Island series is a heartfelt tale of love, family and the friendships that see us through.
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
Coming February 11th:
SISTERS BY CHOICE by Susan Mallery
SISTERS BY CHOICE: A Blackberry Island Novel by Susan Mallery (Fiction)
Life is anything but easy for three cousins who grew up on Blackberry Island as they help each other navigate the joys --- and frustrations --- of family life, the stress of marital trouble, and the courage it takes to rebuild your life in this emotional, humorous and heartfelt story from #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery.
- Click here to read an excerpt.
- Click here to read Susan Mallery's bio.
- Click here to visit Susan Mallery's website.
- Connect with Susan Mallery on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.
Click here to read more about the book.
Special Preview of Friday's Bookreporter Update
Carol Fitzgerald shares a video preview of what you will see in the January 10th Weekly Update newsletter 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 Cara Wall
is available on video and as a podcast.
Click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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This Week's Bonus News:
January's Sounding Off on Audio Contest
Tell us about the audiobooks you’ve finished listening to with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars for both the performance and the content. During the contest period from January 6th to February 3rd at noon ET, two lucky readers each will be randomly chosen to win the audio versions of Liz Moore's LONG BRIGHT RIVER, read by Allyson Ryan, and Joseph Finder's HOUSE ON FIRE, read by Holter Graham.
To make sure other readers will be able to find the audiobook, please include the full title and correct author names (your entry must include these to be eligible to win). For complete rules and guidelines, click here.
- To see reader comments from previous contest periods, click here.
Click here to enter the contest.
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
On Sale the Week of January 13th in Hardcover
January 13th
LOST by James Patterson and James O. Born (Thriller)
The city of Miami is Detective Tom Moon's backyard. He's always kept it local, attending University of Miami on a football scholarship and, as a Miami PD officer, protecting the city's most vulnerable. Now, as the new leader of an FBI task force called "Operation Guardian," it's his mission to combat international crime. Moon's investigative team discovers that the opportunistic "Blood Brothers" --- Russian nationals Roman and Emile Rostoff --- have evaded authorities while building a vast, powerful and deadly crime syndicate throughout Europe and metropolitan Miami. Moon played offense for U of M, but he's on the other side of the field this time. And as the Rostoffs zero in on a target dear to Tom, they're not playing by anyone's rules.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316420327
January 14th
ALL THE WAYS WE SAID GOODBYE: A Novel of the Ritz Paris by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White (Historical Fiction)
The New York Times bestselling authors of THE GLASS OCEAN and THE FORGOTTEN ROOM return with a glorious historical adventure that moves from the dark days of two World Wars to the turbulent years of the 1960s, in which three women with bruised hearts find refuge at Paris's legendary Ritz hotel.
William Morrow | 9780062931092
A BEGINNING AT THE END by Mike Chen (Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction)
Six years after a global pandemic wiped out most of the planet’s population, the survivors are rebuilding the country, split between self-governing cities, hippie communes and wasteland gangs. In post-apocalyptic San Francisco, former pop star Moira has created a new identity to finally escape her past --- until her domineering father launches a sweeping public search to track her down. Jaded event planner Krista navigates the world on behalf of those too traumatized to go outside, determined to help everyone move on. Rob survived the catastrophe with his daughter, Sunny, but lost his wife. When strict government rules threaten to separate parent and child, Rob needs to prove himself worthy in the city’s eyes by connecting with people again.
Mira | 9780778309345
THE BETTER LIAR by Tanen Jones (Psychological Thriller)
Robin Voigt is dead. If Leslie had arrived at her sister’s apartment just hours earlier, this would have been their first reunion in a decade. In the years since Robin ran away from home as a teenager, Leslie has stayed in New Mexico, taking care of their dying father. But when he passed away, Leslie received a rude awakening: She and Robin would receive the inheritance he left them together --- or not at all. Now her half of the money may be beyond her grasp. When she meets a charismatic young woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Robin, the two make a reckless bargain: Mary will impersonate Robin for a week in exchange for Robin’s half of the cash. But neither realizes how high the stakes will become when Mary takes a dead woman’s name.
Ballantine Books | 9781984821225
BIG LIES IN A SMALL TOWN by Diane Chamberlain (Fiction)
North Carolina, 2018: Taking the fall for a crime she did not commit, Morgan Christopher finds herself serving a three-year stint in the North Carolina Women's Correctional Center. But then a mysterious visitor makes her an offer that will see her released immediately. Her assignment: restore an old post office mural in a sleepy southern town. North Carolina, 1940: Anna Dale, an artist from New Jersey, wins a national contest to paint a mural for the post office in Edenton, North Carolina. But what she doesn't expect is to find herself immersed in a town where prejudices run deep and the price of being different might just end in murder. What happened to Anna Dale? Are the clues hidden in the decrepit mural? Can Morgan overcome her own demons to discover what exists beneath the layers of lies?
St. Martin's Press | 9781250087331
CLEANNESS by Garth Greenwell (Fiction)
Sofia, Bulgaria, a landlocked city in southern Europe, stirs with hope and impending upheaval. Soviet buildings crumble, wind scatters sand from the far south, and political protesters flood the streets with song. In this atmosphere of disquiet, an American teacher navigates a life transformed by the discovery and loss of love. As he prepares to leave the place he’s come to call home, he grapples with the intimate encounters that have marked his years abroad, each bearing uncanny reminders of his past. A queer student’s confession recalls his own first love, a stranger’s seduction devolves into paternal sadism, and a romance with another foreigner opens, and heals, old wounds. Each echo reveals startling insights about what it means to seek connection.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374124588
COMEBACK CAREERS: Rethink, Refresh, Reinvent Your Success — at 40, 50, and Beyond by Mika Brzezinski with Ginny Brzezinski (Careers/Business & Economics)
So many women hit midlife and realize that it's time for a career change. Maybe you're yearning to try something new, or you're sensing that layoffs are coming and you need a backup plan. Perhaps you paused, or downsized your career to raise children, and you're ready to rejoin the workforce. How do you reboot, relaunch, return to or reinvent a career at age 40? Or 50? Or 60? And how can you create a career and life that will provide you with purpose and financial security for years to come? In COMEBACK CAREERS, New York Times bestselling author and co-host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Mika Brzezinski and her sister-in-law, Ginny Brzezinski, have teamed up to show you that career reinvention is possible at any age.
Hachette Books | 9781602865907
THE COMPANION by Kim Taylor Blakemore (Historical/Psychological Mystery)
1855, New Hampshire. Lucy Blunt is set to hang for a double murder. She reflects on the events that led to her bitter downfall --- from the moment she arrived at the rambling Burton mansion to the grisly murders themselves. In a mysterious household of locked doors and forbidden affections, Lucy slips comfortably into the shadows, where she believes the indiscretions of her past will remain hidden. But when Lucy’s rising status becomes a threat to the mistress’s current companion, the delicate balance of power and loyalty begins to shift, setting into motion a brewing storm of betrayal, suspicion and rage. Now, Lucy’s allies fight to have her sentence overturned as the tale she’s spinning nears its conclusion. But how much of her story can we trust?
Lake Union Publishing | 9781542009669
THE END OF THE OCEAN written by Maja Lunde, translated by Diane Oatley (Dystopian Fiction)
In 2019, 70-year-old Signe sets sail alone on a hazardous voyage across the ocean in a sailboat. On board is a cargo that can change lives. Signe is haunted by memories of the love of her life, whom she’ll meet again soon. In 2041, David and his young daughter, Lou, flee from a drought-stricken Southern Europe that has been ravaged by thirst and war. Separated from the rest of their family and desperate to find them, they discover an ancient sailboat in a dried-out garden, miles away from the nearest shore. Signe’s sailboat. As David and Lou discover Signe’s personal effects, her long-ago journey becomes inexorably linked to their own.
HarperVia | 9780062951366
FABULOUS: Stories by Lucy Hughes-Hallett (Fiction/Short Stories)
It's in the nature of myth to be infinitely adaptable. Each of these startlingly original stories is set in modern Britain. Their characters include a people-trafficking gangmaster and a prostitute, a migrant worker and a cocksure estate agent, an elderly musician doubly befuddled by dementia and the death of his wife, a pest controller suspected of pedophilia, and a librarian so well-behaved that her parents wonder anxiously whether she’ll ever find love. They’re ordinary people, preoccupied by the deficiencies of the health service, by criminal gangs and homelessness, by the pitfalls of dating in the age of #MeToo. All of their stories, though, are inspired by ones drawn from Graeco-Roman myth, from the Bible or from folklore.
Harper | 9780062940094
FOLLOWERS by Megan Angelo (Fiction)
Orla Cadden is a budding novelist stuck in a dead-end job, writing clickbait about movie-star hookups and influencer yoga moves. Then Orla meets Floss --- a striving, wannabe A-lister --- who comes up with a plan for launching them both into the high-profile lives they dream about. Thirty-five years later, in a closed California village where government-appointed celebrities live every moment of the day on camera, a woman named Marlow discovers a shattering secret about her past. Despite her massive popularity, Marlow dreams of fleeing the corporate sponsors who would do anything to keep her on-screen. When she learns that her whole family history is based on a lie, Marlow finally summons the courage to run in search of the truth, no matter the risks.
Graydon House | 9781525836268
HITTING A STRAIGHT LICK WITH A CROOKED STICK: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston (Fiction/Short Stories)
In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston --- the sole black student at the college --- was living in New York, “desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world.” During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. HITTING A STRAIGHT LICK WITH A CROOKED STICK is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston’s “lost” Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives.
Amistad | 9780062915795
THE HOLLOWS by Jess Montgomery (Historical Mystery)
Ohio, 1926: For many years, the railroad track in Moonvale Tunnel has been used as a shortcut through the Appalachian hills. When an elderly woman is killed walking along the tracks, the brakeman tells tales of seeing a ghostly female figure dressed all in white. Newly elected Sheriff Lily Ross is called on to the case to dispel the myths. With the help of her friends, Marvena Whitcomb and Hildy Cooper, Lily follows the woman’s trail to The Hollows --- a notorious asylum --- and they begin to expose dark secrets long-hidden by time and the mountains.
Minotaur Books | 9781250184542
HOW QUICKLY SHE DISAPPEARS by Raymond Fleischmann (Literary Thriller)
It's been 20 years since Elisabeth’s twin sister, Jacqueline, disappeared without a trace. Now 30-year-old Elisabeth is living far from home in a small Alaskan town. She is in a loveless marriage and has a precocious young daughter she loves more than anything but who reminds her too much of her long-missing sister. But then Alfred, a dangerous stranger with a plan of his own, arrives in town and commits an inexplicable act of violence. And he offers a startling revelation: He knows exactly what happened to Elisabeth's sister, but he'll reveal this truth only if she fulfills his three requests. Elisabeth can almost hear Jacqueline's voice saying, Come and find me. And so she will, even if it means putting herself --- and her family --- in danger.
Berkley | 9781984805171
KINGDOMTIDE by Rye Curtis (Fiction)
The sole survivor of a plane crash, 72-year-old Cloris Waldrip finds herself lost and alone in the unforgiving wilderness of Montana's rugged Bitterroot Range, exposed to the elements with no tools beyond her wits and ingenuity. Intertwined with her narrative is the story of Debra Lewis, a park ranger struggling with addiction and a recent divorce who is galvanized by her mission to find and rescue Cloris. As Cloris wanders mountain forests and valleys, subsisting on whatever she can find, her hold on life ever more precarious, Ranger Lewis and her motley group of oddball rescuers follow the trail of clues she's left behind. Days stretch into weeks, and hope begins to fade. But with nearly everyone else giving up, Ranger Lewis stays true until the end.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316420105
THE LAST SISTER by Kendra Elliot (Psychological Thriller)
Emily Mills’ father was murdered 20 years ago, and she found his body hanging in the backyard. Her younger sister, Madison, claims she was asleep in her room. Her older sister, Tara, says she was out with friends. The tragedy drove their mother to suicide and Tara to leave town forever. The killer was caught. The case closed. Ever since, Emily and Madison have tried to forget what happened that night --- until an eerily similar murder brings it all back. It also brings FBI special agent Zander Wells to the Oregon logging town. As eager as he is to solve the brutal double slaying, he is just as intrigued with the mystery of Emily’s and her sisters’ past. When more blood is shed, Zander suspects there’s a secret buried in this town no one wants unearthed.
Montlake | 9781542006729
LITTLE GODS by Meng Jin (Fiction)
On the night of June 4th, a woman gives birth in a Beijing hospital alone. Thus begins the unraveling of Su Lan, a brilliant physicist who until this moment has successfully erased her past, fighting what she calls the mind’s arrow of time. When Su Lan dies unexpectedly 17 years later, it is her daughter Liya who inherits the silences and contradictions of her life. Liya, who grew up in America, takes her mother’s ashes to China. In a territory inhabited by the ghosts of the living and the dead, Liya’s memories are joined by those of two others: Zhu Wen, the woman last to know Su Lan before she left China, and Yongzong, the father Liya has never known.
Custom House | 9780062935953
A LONGER FALL by Charlaine Harris (Fantasy/Thriller)
In this second installment of the Gunnie Rose series, Lizbeth Rose is hired onto a new crew for a seemingly easy protection job: transporting a crate into Dixie, just about the last part of the former United States of America she wants to visit. But what seemed like a straightforward job turns into a massacre as the crate is stolen. Up against a wall in Dixie, where social norms have stepped back into the last century, Lizbeth has to go undercover with an old friend to retrieve the crate as what’s inside can spark a rebellion...if she can get it back in time.
Gallery/Saga Press | 9781481494953
MANY RIVERS TO CROSS: A DCI Banks Novel by Peter Robinson (Mystery/Thriller)
In Eastvale, a young Middle Eastern boy is found dead. Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his team know they must tread carefully to solve this sensitive case. But tensions rise when they learn that the victim was stabbed somewhere else and dumped. Who is the boy, and where did he come from? Then, in a decayed area of Eastvale scheduled for redevelopment, a heroin addict is found dead. Was this just another tragic overdose or something darker? Just when he needs to be his sharpest, the seasoned detective finds himself distracted by a close friend’s increasingly precarious situation. He needs a break --- and gets one when he finds a connection to a real estate developer that could be key to finding the truth.
William Morrow | 9780062847492
THE MISSING AMERICAN: The First Emma Djan Investigation by Kwei Quartey (Mystery)
When her dreams of rising through the Accra police ranks crash around her, 26-year-old Emma Djan is unsure what will become of her career. Through a sympathetic former colleague, she gets an interview with a private detective agency that takes on cases of missing persons, theft and infidelity. Meanwhile, Gordon Tilson, a middle-aged widower in Washington, DC, has found solace in an online community after his wife’s passing. Through the support group, he’s even met a young Ghanaian widow he’s come to care about. When her sister gets into a car accident, he sends her thousands of dollars to cover the hospital bill --- to the horror of his only son, Derek. Then Gordon decides to surprise his new love by paying her a visit --- and disappears.
Soho Crime | 9781641290708
THE PRIZED GIRL by Amy K. Green (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Days after a young pageant queen named Jenny is found murdered, her small town grieves the loss alongside her picture-perfect parents. At first glance, Jenny's tragic death appears clear-cut for investigators. The most obvious suspect is one of her fans, an older man who may have gotten too close for comfort. But Jenny's half-sister, Virginia --- the sarcastic black sheep of the family --- isn't so sure of his guilt and takes matters into her own hands to find the killer. But for Jenny's case and Virginia's investigation, there's more to the story. Virginia, still living in town and haunted by her own troubled teenage years, suspects that a similar darkness lay beneath the sparkling veneer of Jenny's life.
Dutton | 9781524745103
THE RABBIT HUNTER written by Lars Kepler, translated by Neil Smith (Mystery/Thriller)
A masked stranger stands in the shadows. He watches his victim through the window. He will kill him slowly --- make him pay. Soon the Rabbit Hunter has claimed another three victims. This predator will stop at nothing to reap his ultimate revenge. It’s up to Joona Linna and Saga Bauer to untangle one of the most complex cases of their career, and follow the killer’s trail of destruction back to one horrific night of violence.
Knopf | 9781524732288
THE SECRET GUESTS by Benjamin Black (Historical Fiction)
Ahead of the German Blitz during World War II, English parents from every social class sent their children to the countryside for safety. In THE SECRET GUESTS, the British royal family takes this evacuation a step further, secretly moving the princesses to the estate of the Duke of Edenmore in “neutral” Ireland. A female English secret agent, Miss Celia Nashe, and a young Irish detective, Garda Strafford, are assigned to watch over “Ellen” and “Mary” at Clonmillis Hall. Soon suspicions about the guests’ true identities percolate, a dangerous boredom sets in for the princesses, and, within and without Clonmillis acreage, passions as well as stakes rise.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250133014
THE TENANT by Katrine Engberg (Literary Thriller/Mystery)
When a young woman is discovered brutally murdered in her own apartment, with an intricate pattern of lines carved into her face, Copenhagen police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner are assigned to the case. In short order, they establish a link between the victim, Julie Stender, and her landlady, Esther de Laurenti, who’s a bit too fond of drink and the host of raucous dinner parties with her artist friends. Esther also turns out to be a budding novelist --- and when Julie turns up as a murder victim in the still-unfinished mystery she’s writing, the link between fiction and real life grows both more urgent and more dangerous. But Esther’s role in this twisted scenario is not quite as clear as it first seems. Is she the culprit --- or just another victim, trapped in a twisted game of vengeance?
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781982127572
UNCANNY VALLEY: A Memoir by Anna Wiener (Memoir)
In her mid-20s, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener --- stuck, broke and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial --- left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She moved from New York to San Francisco, where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: a world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory and, of course, progress. Anna arrived during a massive cultural shift, as the tech industry rapidly transformed into a locus of wealth and power rivaling Wall Street. But a new Silicon Valley began to emerge: one in far over its head, one that enriched itself at the expense of the idyllic future it claimed to be building.
MCD | 9780374278014
THE VANISHED BIRDS by Simon Jimenez (Science Fiction/Adventure)
Nia Imani is a woman out of place. Traveling through the stars condenses decades into mere months for her, though the years continue to march steadily onward for everyone she has ever known. Her friends and lovers have aged past her. She lives only for the next paycheck, until the day she meets a mysterious boy, fallen from the sky. The scarred boy does not speak, his only form of communication the haunting music he plays on an old wooden flute. Captured by his songs and otherworldly nature, Nia decides to take the boy in to live amongst her crew. Soon, these two outsiders discover in each other the things they lack. But Nia is not the only one who wants the boy.
Del Rey | 9780593128985
WE WISH YOU LUCK by Caroline Zancan (Fiction)
It doesn't take long for the students on Fielding campus to become obsessed with Hannah, Leslie and Jimmy. The three graduate students are mysterious, inaccessible and brilliant. After Simone --- young, bestselling author and erstwhile model --- shows up as a visiting professor, and after everything that happened with her, the trio only become more notorious. Love. Death. Revenge. These age-old tropes come to life as the semesters unfold. The threesome came to study writing, to be writers, and this is the story they've woven together: of friendship and passion, of competition and envy, of creativity as life and death.
Riverhead Books | 9780525534938
THE WHISPERS OF WAR by Julia Kelly (Historical Fiction)
In August of 1939, as Britain watches the headlines in fear of another devastating war with Germany, three childhood friends must choose between friendship or country. Erstwhile socialite Nora is determined to find her place in the Home Office’s Air Raid Precautions Department, matchmaker Hazel tries to mask two closely guarded secrets with irrepressible optimism, and German expat Marie worries that she and her family might face imprisonment in an internment camp if war is declared. When Germany invades Poland and tensions on the home front rise, Marie is labeled an enemy alien, and the three friends find themselves fighting together to keep her free at any cost.
Gallery Books | 9781982107796
THE WILD ONE: A Peter Ash Novel by Nick Petrie (Thriller)
A grieving woman asks war veteran Peter Ash to find her eight-year-old grandson. The woman's daughter has been murdered. Erik, the dead daughter's husband, is the sole suspect, and he has taken his young son and fled to Iceland for the protection of Erik's lawless family. Finding the boy becomes more complicated when Peter is met at the airport by a man from the United States Embassy. For reasons both unknown and unofficial, it seems that Peter's own government doesn't want him in Iceland. The police give Peter two days of sightseeing in Reykjavik before he must report back for the first available seat home. But when they realize Peter isn't going home until he accomplishes his mission, they start hunting him, too.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780525535447
WILL: A Memoir by Will Self (Memoir)
Will Self is one of Britain’s best-known contemporary writers, a public intellectual whose novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and translated into over 20 languages. In WILL, his first-ever memoir, he turns his attention fully to his own self --- in particular, his addictions as a young man. The book spins the reader from Self’s childhood in a North London suburb to his mind-expanding education at Oxford, to a Burroughsian trip to Morocco, an outback vision in Australia, and, finally, a surreal turn in rehab.
Grove Press | 9780802128461
ZED by Joanna Kavenna (Fiction/Satire)
One corporation has made a perfect world based on a perfect algorithm. Now what to do with all these messy people? Lionel Bigman is dead. Murdered by a robot. Guy Matthias, the philandering founder and CEO of the mega-corporation Beetle, insists it was human error. But was it? Either the predictive algorithms of Beetle's supposedly omniscient “lifechain” don't work, or they've been hacked. Both scenarios are impossible to imagine and signal the end of Beetle's technotopia and life as we know it.
Doubleday | 9780385545471
On Sale the Week of January 13th in Paperback
January 14th
THE BETRAYALS by Fiona Neill (Fiction)
Best friends Rosie and Lisa's families had always been inseparable. But that summer, Lisa had an affair with Rosie's husband, Nick. None of them would forget that week on the wild Norfolk seacoast. Relationships were torn apart, friendships shattered and childish innocence destroyed. Now, after years of silence, a letter arrives that begs for help --- a letter that exposes dark secrets. Then Rosie’s daughter Daisy's fragile hold on reality begins to unravel. Teenage son Max blames himself for everything that happened that long hot summer, and Nick must confront his own version of events. As long-repressed memories bubble to the surface, the past has never seemed more present and the truth murkier.
Pegasus Books | 9781643133393
THE CARE AND FEEDING OF RAVENOUSLY HUNGRY GIRLS by Anissa Gray (Fiction)
The Butler family has had their share of trials --- as sisters Althea, Viola and Lillian can attest --- but nothing prepared them for the literal trial that will upend their lives. Althea, the eldest sister and substitute matriarch, is a force to be reckoned with, and her younger sisters have alternately appreciated and chafed at her strong will. They are as stunned as the rest of the small community when she and her husband, Proctor, are arrested, and in a heartbeat the family goes from one of the most respected in town to utter disgrace. As Althea awaits her fate, Lillian and Viola must come together in the house they grew up in to care for their sister’s teenage daughters.
Berkley | 9781984802446
CHEER UP, MR. WIDDICOMBE by Evan James (Fiction/Humor)
The inimitable --- some might say incorrigible --- Frank Widdicombe is suffering from a deep depression. Or so his wife, Carol, believes. But Carol is convinced that their new island home --- Willowbrook Manor on the Puget Sound --- is just the thing to cheer her husband up. And so begins a whirlwind summer as their house becomes the epicenter of multiple social dramas involving the family, their friends and a host of new acquaintances. When this alternately bumbling and clever cast of characters comes together, Willowbrook transforms into a circus of uncovered secrets, preposterous misunderstandings and irrepressible passions.
Washington Square Press | 9781501199622
CROSS HER HEART by Sarah Pinborough (Psychological Thriller)
Lisa lives for her daughter Ava, her job and her best friend Marilyn. But when a handsome client shows an interest in her, Lisa starts daydreaming about sharing her life with him, too. Maybe she’s ready now. Maybe it's time to let her terrifying secret past go. However, when her daughter rescues a boy from drowning and their pictures are all over the news, Lisa's world explodes. As she finds everything she has built threatened, and not knowing who she can trust, it's up to Lisa to face her past in order to save what she holds dear. But someone has been pulling all their strings and is determined to see Lisa and Ava suffer. Because long ago Lisa broke a promise. And some promises aren't meant to be broken.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062856807
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 | 9781501111624
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 | 9780316505437
A GOOD MAN by Ani Katz (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Thomas Martin was a devoted family man who had all the trappings of an enviable life: a beautiful wife and daughter, a well-appointed home on Long Island's north shore, a job at a prestigious Manhattan advertising firm. He was also a devoted son and brother, shielding the women in his orbit from the everyday brutalities of the world. But what happens when Thomas’ fragile ego is rocked? After committing a horrific deed --- that he can never undo --- Thomas grapples with his sense of self. Sometimes he casts himself as a victim and, at other times, a monster. All he ever did was try to be a good man, but maybe if he tells his version of the story, he might uncover how and why things unraveled so horribly.
Penguin Books | 9780143134985
THE HIDING PLACE by C. J. Tudor (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
After the way things ended with his old gang and after what happened when his sister went missing, the last thing Joe wanted to do was return to his hometown of Arnhill. But he doesn’t have a choice, not after a chilling email surfaces in his inbox: I know what happened to your sister. It’s happening again... Lying his way into a teaching job at his former high school is the easy part. Facing off with onetime friends who aren’t too happy to have him back in town --- while avoiding the enemies he’s made in the years since --- is tougher. But the hardest part of all will be returning to the abandoned mine where his life changed forever, and finally confronting the horrifying truth about Arnhill, his sister and himself. Because for Joe, the worst moment of his life wasn’t the day his sister went missing. It was the day she came back.
Ballantine Books | 9781524761028
THE LAST ROMANTICS by Tara Conklin (Fiction)
When the renowned poet Fiona Skinner is asked about the inspiration behind her iconic work, The Love Poem, she tells her audience a story about her family and a betrayal that reverberates through time. It begins in a big yellow house with a funeral, an iron poker, and a brief variation forever known as the Pause: a free and feral summer in a middle-class Connecticut town. The Skinner siblings emerge from the Pause staunchly loyal and deeply connected. Two decades later, they find themselves once again confronted with a family crisis that tests the strength of these bonds, forcing them to question the life choices they’ve made and ask what, exactly, they will do for love.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062358219
NEAR PROSPECT PARK: A Mary Handley Mystery by Lawrence H. Levy (Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
It’s December 1896, and after marrying a muckraking reporter, detective Mary Handley turns her focus from pursuing new cases to raising her newborn daughter. But when her husband turns up dead, Mary knows her next case must be solving his death. Harper was working on a big story. Did it get him killed? She sets out to solve his murder, soon discovering that the investigation goes all the way to the top of the New York food chain. Realizing she’s outgunned, Mary turns to the one person who might be able to help: Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt. As the two dig deep into the underbelly of New York’s social scene, they uncover a sinister plot exploiting the city’s most vulnerable citizens.
Ballantine Books | 9780451498465
NULL SET: A Cas Russell Novel by S. L. Huang (Science Fiction/Thriller)
Math-genius mercenary Cas Russell has decided to Fight Crime. After all, with her extraordinary mathematical ability, she can neuter bombs or out-shoot an army. And the recent outbreak of violence in the world’s cities is Cas’ fault --- she’s the one who crushed the organization of telepaths keeping the world’s worst offenders under control. But Cas’ own power also has a history, one she can’t remember --- or control. One that's creeping into her mind and fracturing her sanity...just when she’s gotten herself on the hit list of every crime lord on the West Coast. And her best, only, sociopathic friend. Cas won’t be able to save the world. She might not even be able to save herself.
Tor Books | 9781250180322
A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF HEAVEN by Mathangi Subramanian (Fiction)
In the tight-knit community known as Heaven, a ramshackle slum hidden between luxury high-rises in Bangalore, India, five girls on the cusp of womanhood forge an unbreakable bond. Muslim, Christian and Hindu; queer and straight; they are full of life, and they love and accept one another unconditionally. Whatever they have, they share. Marginalized women, they are determined to transcend their surroundings. When the local government threatens to demolish their tin shacks in order to build a shopping mall, the girls and their mothers refuse to be erased. Together they wage war on the bulldozers sent to bury their homes and, ultimately, on the city that wishes that families like them would remain hidden forever.
Algonquin Books | 9781643750422
SCRUBLANDS by Chris Hammer (Mystery/Thriller)
In Riversend, an isolated rural community afflicted by an endless drought, a young priest kills five parishioners before being taken down himself. A year later, journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend. His assignment is simple: describe how the townspeople are coping as the anniversary of their tragedy approaches. But as Martin meets the locals and hears their version of events, he begins to realize that the accepted wisdom --- that the priest was a pedophile whose imminent exposure was the catalyst for the shooting --- may be wrong. Then the bodies of two German backpackers --- missing since the time of the church shootings --- are discovered. As the media flocks to the scene, Martin finds himself thrown into a whole new mystery.
Atria Books | 9781501196751
THE SOURCE OF SELF-REGARD: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations by Toni Morrison (Essays)
Here is Toni Morrison in her own words: a rich gathering of her most important essays and speeches, spanning four decades. These pages give us her searing prayer for the dead of 9/11, her Nobel lecture on the power of language, her searching meditation on Martin Luther King Jr., her heart-wrenching eulogy for James Baldwin. She looks deeply into the fault lines of culture and freedom: the foreigner, female empowerment, the press, money, “black matter(s),” human rights, the artist in society, the Afro-American presence in American literature. And she turns her incisive critical eye to her own work (THE BLUEST EYE, SULA, TAR BABY, JAZZ, BELOVED, PARADISE) and that of others.
Vintage | 9780525562795
THAT CHURCHILL WOMAN by Stephanie Barron (Historical Fiction)
Wealthy, privileged and fiercely independent New Yorker Jennie Jerome took Victorian England by storm when she landed on its shores. As Lady Randolph Churchill, she gave birth to a man who defined the 20th century: her son Winston. But Jennie --- reared in the luxury of Gilded Age Newport and the Paris of the Second Empire --- lived an outrageously modern life all her own, filled with controversy, passion, tragedy and triumph. Breathing new life into Jennie’s legacy and the glittering world over which she reigned, Stephanie Barron's novel paints a portrait of the difficult --- and sometimes impossible --- balance among love, freedom and obligation, while capturing the spirit of an unforgettable woman, one who altered the course of history.
Ballantine Books | 9781524799588
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 | 9780393357653
THE VANISHING MAN: A Charles Lenox Mystery by Charles Finch (Historical Mystery)
Having earned some renown by solving a case that baffled Scotland Yard, young Charles Lenox is called upon by the Duke of Dorset, one of England’s most revered noblemen, for help. A painting of the Duke’s great-grandfather has been stolen from his private study. But the Duke’s concern is not for his ancestor’s portrait. Hiding in plain sight nearby is another painting of infinitely more value, one that holds the key to one of the country’s most famous and best-kept secrets. Dorset believes the thieves took the wrong painting and may return when they realize their error --- and when his fears result in murder, Lenox must act quickly to unravel the mystery behind both paintings before tragedy can strike again.
Minotaur Books | 9781250311375
WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU BLACKER: A Memoir in Essays by Damon Young (Memoir/Essays)
For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as “How should I react here, as a professional black person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant. WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU BLACKER chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him.
Ecco | 9780062684318
WHEN THEY CALL YOU A TERRORIST: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha Bandele (Memoir)
Raised by a single mother in an impoverished neighborhood in Los Angeles, Patrisse Khan-Cullors experienced firsthand the prejudice and persecution Black Americans endure at the hands of law enforcement. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin’s killer went free, Patrisse’s outrage led her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, these loving women founded a hashtag that birthed the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of Black and Brown skin. WHEN THEY CALL YOU A TERRORIST is an empowering account of survival, strength and resilience, and a call to action to change the culture that declares innocent Black life expendable.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250306906
THE WIFE BEFORE ME by Laura Elliot (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
One evening as the sun is setting, Amelia Madison's car slides into the sea off Mason's Pier. Her body is never found. Two years later, Elena Langdon meets Nicholas Madison. She is grieving the loss of her mother, he is grieving for his wife. Together they can help each other. Now Elena is living with Nicholas. But Elena doesn't really know him. She doesn't know what he's capable of. And she doesn't know what really happened to Amelia. Until the day she discovers the torn page of a letter, and the words she reads chill her to the bone. Elena must find the person who wrote these letters if she is to save herself.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538750261
WOLF PACK: A Joe Pickett Novel by C. J. Box (Mystery/Thriller)
Joe Pickett has come to learn that a drone is killing wildlife --- and it belongs to a mysterious and wealthy man whose son is dating Joe's own daughter, Lucy. When Joe tries to lay down the rules for the drone operator, he's asked by the FBI and the DOJ to stand down, which only makes him more suspicious. Meanwhile, bodies are piling up in and around Joe's district in shocking numbers. He begins to fear that a pack of four vicious killers working on behalf of the Sinaloa cartel known as the Wolf Pack has arrived. Their target seems to be the mystery man and everyone --- including Joe, Nate and others --- who is associated with him.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780525538226
THE WOMAN INSIDE by E. G. Scott (Psychological Thriller)
Paul and Rebecca are drowning as the passion that first ignited their love has morphed into duplicitous secrecy, threatening to end their marriage, freedom and sanity. Rebecca, in the throes of opioid addiction, uncovers not only her husband’s affair but also his plan to build a new life with another woman. Spiraling desperately, she concocts a devious plot of her own --- one that could destroy absolutely everything.
Dutton | 9781524744533
THE WRONG HEAVEN by Amy Bonnaffons (Fiction/Short Stories)
In the darkly magical realm of THE WRONG HEAVEN, inanimate objects come to life, supernatural beings move among humans, and conflicted female characters seek answers to their sexual and spiritual dilemmas in all the wrong places. In "Horse," a woman considers transforming herself into an animal through a series of injections reminiscent of IVF. In "The Cleas," a young babysitter struggles to reconcile her feminist ideals with her confounding urges, while the dying protagonist of "Black Stones" finds herself strangely attracted to the angel of death. As provocative as they are deeply affecting, these stories reckon with the inescapable confusion of living in a mortal body, laying bare the heart of our deepest longings while teasing out new possibilities for what fiction can do.
Back Bay Books | 9780316516181
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