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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of January 13th and January 20th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.
This week, we are calling attention to our Winter Reading Contests and Feature, which we have brought back for a sixth year. On select days in January and February, we are hosting a series of 24-hour contests spotlighting a book releasing this winter (or a recently published title that we would like to get into your hands now) and giving five lucky readers a chance to win it.
We also encourage you to enter our Word of Mouth and Sounding Off on Audio contests for an opportunity to win some fabulous hardcovers and audiobooks. And please be sure to vote in our latest poll about your reading goals for 2020.
Finally, we are giving you a preview of Gena Showalter’s upcoming paranormal romance, THE DARKEST KING, which releases on February 25th and is the latest entry in her Lords of the Underworld series. To become a king of the underworld at long last, William must resist an irresistible beauty --- or a curse will ensure his end.
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 25th:
THE DARKEST KING by Gena Showalter
THE DARKEST KING: William's Story — Lords of the Underworld by Gena Showalter (Paranormal Romance)
New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter returns with a brand new dark and sexy addition to her top-selling Lords of the Underworld series featuring William, the story her fans have been clamoring for. A merciless prince feared by all and a rare creature of myth and power. Are both forever doomed?
- Click here to read an excerpt.
- Click here to read Gena Showalter's bio.
- Click here to visit Gena Showalter's website.
- Connect with Gena Showalter on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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 17th 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 William Kent Krueger
is available on video and as a podcast.
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This Week's Bonus News:
Bookreporter.com's Sixth Annual
Winter Reading Contests and Feature
At Bookreporter.com, we are kicking off 2020 with our sixth annual Winter Reading Contests and Feature. On select days in January and February, we are hosting a series of 24-hour contests spotlighting a book releasing this winter (or a recently published title that we would like to get into your hands now) and giving five lucky readers a chance to win it. We also are sending a special newsletter to announce the day's title, which you can sign up for here.
Our first prize book will be announced on Wednesday, January 15th at noon ET.
This year's featured titles are:
Click here to read all the contest details
and learn more about our featured titles.
On Sale the Week of January 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
On Sale the Week of January 20th in Hardcover
January 21st
AGENCY by William Gibson (Science Fiction/Thriller)
Verity Jane, gifted app whisperer, takes a job as the beta tester for a new product: a digital assistant, accessed through a pair of ordinary-looking glasses. “Eunice,” the disarmingly human AI in the glasses, manifests a face, a fragmentary past and a canny grasp of combat strategy. Meanwhile, a century ahead in London, Wilf Netherton works amid plutocrats and plunderers, survivors of the slow and steady apocalypse known as the jackpot. His boss, the enigmatic Ainsley Lowbeer, can look into alternate pasts and nudge their ultimate directions. Verity and Eunice are her current project. Wilf can see what Verity and Eunice can’t: their own version of the jackpot, just around the corner, and the roles they both may play in it.
Berkley | 9781101986936
AMERICAN DIRT by Jeanine Cummins (Fiction)
Lydia Quixano Perez runs a bookstore in the Mexican city of Acapulco until one violent day changes everything. Forced to flee, Lydia and her eight-year-old son, Luca, find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia --- trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place they might feel safe. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?
Flatiron Books | 9781250209764
AND IN THE VIENNA WOODS THE TREES REMAIN: The Heartbreaking True Story of a Family Torn Apart by War written by Elisabeth Åsbrink, translated by Saskia Vogel (History)
Otto Ullman, a Jewish boy, was sent from Austria to Sweden right before the outbreak of World War II. There he became best friends with Ingvar Kamprad, who would grow up to become the founder of IKEA. Despite the huge Swedish resistance to Jews, the 13-year-old Otto was granted permission to enter Sweden --- all in accordance with the Swedish archbishop's secret plan to save Jews on condition that they converted to Christianity. With thorough research, including personal files initiated by the predecessor to today's Swedish Security Service (SÄPO) and more than 500 letters, Elisabeth Åsbrink illustrates how Swedish society was infused with anti-Semitism and how families are shattered by war and asylum politics.
Other Press | 9781590519172
THE BLAZE by Chad Dundas (Mystery/Thriller)
Having lost much of his memory from a traumatic brain injury sustained in Iraq, army veteran Matthew Rose is called back to Montana after his father's death to settle his affairs, and hopefully to settle the past as well. It's not only a blank to him, but a mystery. Why as a teen did he suddenly become sullen and vacant, abandoning the activities and people that had meant most to him? How did he, the son of hippy activists, wind up enlisting in the first place? Then on his first night back, Matthew sees a house go up in flames, and it turns out that a local college student has died inside. And this event sparks a memory of a different fire, an unsolved crime from long ago, a part of Matthew's past that might lead to all the answers he's been searching for.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780399176098
FIGHT OF THE CENTURY: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman (Essays)
The American Civil Liberties Union began as a small group of idealists and visionaries, including Helen Keller and Jane Addams. A century after its founding, the ACLU remains the nation’s premier defender of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. In collaboration with the ACLU, prize-winning authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman have curated an anthology of essays about landmark cases in the ACLU’s 100-year history. In FIGHT OF THE CENTURY, bestselling and award-winning authors --- including Michael Cunningham, Jennifer Egan, Dave Eggers, Ann Patchett, Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth Strout --- present unique literary takes on historic decisions like Brown v. Board of Education, the Scopes trial, Roe v. Wade and more.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781501190407
FOLLOW ME TO GROUND by Sue Rainsford (Fiction/Magical Realism)
Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals --- or “Cures” --- by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson. When they strike up an affair, to the displeasure of her father and Samson’s widowed, pregnant sister, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with her lover --- and eventually comes to a decision that will forever change Samson, the town and the Ground itself.
Scribner | 9781982133634
HEART OF BLACK ICE: Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles, Volume IV by Terry Goodkind (Fantasy)
In the wake of the brutal war that swept the Old World in SIEGE OF STONE, a new danger is forming along the coast. Taken captive by their enemies, King Grieve, along with Lila and Bannon, are about to discover the terrifying force that threatens to bring destruction to the Old World. The Norukai, barbarian raiders and slavers, have been gathering an immense fleet among the inhospitably rocky islands that make up their home. With numbers greater than anyone could have imagined, the Norukai are poised to launch their final and most deadly war.
Tor Books | 9781250194794
HEART OF JUNK by Luke Geddes (Fiction/Humor)
The city of Wichita, Kansas, is wracked with panic over the abduction of toddler pageant princess Lindy Bobo. However, the dealers at The Heart of America Antique Mall are too preoccupied by their own neurotic compulsions to take much notice. Rather than focus on Lindy, they are consumed by another drama: the impending arrival of Mark and Grant from the famed antiques television show “Pickin’ Fortunes,” who are planning to film an episode at The Heart of America and secretly may be the last best hope of saving the mall from bankruptcy. Yet the mall and the missing beauty queen have more to do with each other than these vendors might think, and before long, the group sets in motion a series of events that lead to surprising revelations about Lindy’s whereabouts.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982106669
HOUSE ON FIRE by Joseph Finder (Thriller)
Nick Heller is at the top of his game when he receives some devastating news: his old army buddy, Sean, has died of an overdose. Sean, who once saved Nick’s life, got addicted to opioids after returning home wounded from war. Then at Sean’s funeral, a stranger approaches Nick with a job. The woman is the daughter of a pharmaceutical kingpin worth billions. Now she wants to become a whistleblower, exposing her father and his company for burying evidence that its biggest money-maker was dangerously addictive. It was a lie that killed hundreds of thousands of people, including Sean. All Nick has to do is find the document that proves the family knew the drug’s dangers. But Nick soon realizes that the sins of the patriarch are just the beginning.
Dutton | 9781101985847
THE JANES: An Alice Vega Novel by Louisa Luna (Thriller)
On the outskirts of San Diego, the bodies of two young women are discovered. They have no names, no IDs and no family looking for them. Fearing the possibility of a human trafficking ring, the police and FBI reach out to Alice Vega, a private investigator known for finding the missing, for help in finding out who the Janes were --- and finding the others who are missing. Alice Vega is a powerful woman whose determination is matched only by her intellect, and, along with her partner Cap, she will stop at nothing to find the Janes before it is too late.
Doubleday | 9780385545518
JFK AND MARY MEYER: A Love Story by Jesse Kornbluth (Historical Fiction)
Mary Pinchot Meyer was more than a bedmate of John F. Kennedy. She was his sole female adviser, spending mornings in the Oval Office, and, at night, discussing issues. After the assassination, Mary didn’t believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, and she shared that view in Washington’s most elite circles. On October 10, 1964, a man shot her in the head and the heart. That night, Mary's best friend called her sister. “Mary had a diary,” she said. “Get it.” The diary was filled with sketches, notes for paintings --- and 10 pages about an affair with an unnamed lover. Her sister burned it. In JFK AND MARY MEYER, Jesse Kornbluth recreates the diary Mary might have written. Working from a timeline of Kennedy’s presidency and every documented account of their public relationship, he has written a high-octane thriller that tracks this secret, doomed romance --- and invites readers to solve Mary’s murder.
Skyhorse Publishing | 9781510759152
A LONG PETAL OF THE SEA by Isabel Allende (Historical Fiction)
In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them desires. Together with 2,000 other refugees, they embark on the SS Winnipeg, a ship chartered by the poet Pablo Neruda, to Chile. As unlikely partners, they embrace exile as the rest of Europe erupts in world war.
Ballantine Books | 9781984820150
THE MITFORD SCANDAL: A Mitford Murders Mystery by Jessica Fellowes (Historical Mystery)
The year is 1928, and after the death of a maid at a glamorous society party, fortune heir Bryan Guinness proposes to 18-year-old Diana, the most beautiful of the six Mitford sisters. The maid's death is ruled an accident, and the newlyweds put it behind them to begin a whirlwind life zipping between London's Mayfair, chic Paris and hedonistic Berlin. Accompanying Diana as her lady's maid is Louisa Cannon, as well as a coterie of friends, family and hangers-on, from Nancy Mitford to Evelyn Waugh. When a second victim is found in Paris in 1931, Louisa begins to see links with the death of the maid two years previously. Now she must convince the Mitford sisters that a murderer could be within their midst.
Minotaur Books | 9781250316806
PROCESSED CHEESE by Stephen Wright (Dark Humor/Satire)
A bag of money drops out of the sky, literally, into the path of a cash-starved citizen named Graveyard. He carries it home to his wife, Ambience, and they embark on the adventure of their lives, finally able to have everything they've always deserved: cars, guns, games, jewels, clothes --- and, of course, sex, travel, and time with friends and family. There is no limit except their imagination and the hours in the day, and even those seem to be subject to their control. Of course, the owner of the bag is searching for it, and will do whatever is necessary to get it back. And of course, these new riches change everything --- and nothing at all.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316043373
REMEMBRANCE by Rita Woods (Historical Fiction)
Remembrance… It’s a rumor, a whisper passed in the fields and veiled behind sheets of laundry. A hidden stop on the underground road to freedom, a safe haven protected by more than secrecy…if you can make it there. Ohio, present day. An elderly woman who is more than she seems warns against rising racism as a young woman grapples with her life. Haiti, 1791, on the brink of revolution. When the slave Abigail is forced from her children to take her mistress to safety, she discovers New Orleans has its own powers. 1857 New Orleans --- a city of unrest: Following tragedy, house girl Margot is sold just before her 18th birthday and her promised freedom. Desperate, she escapes and chases a whisper... Remembrance.
Forge Books | 9781250298454
RIOT BABY by Tochi Onyebuchi (Science Fiction/Adventure)
Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands.
Tor.com | 9781250214751
THE SEEP by Chana Porter (Speculative Fiction)
Trina Goldberg-Oneka is a 50-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle --- but nonetheless world-changing --- invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible. Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence --- until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life. Using Seeptech to make this dream a reality, Deeba moves on to a new existence, leaving Trina devastated. Heartbroken and deep into an alcoholic binge, Trina follows a lost boy she encounters, embarking on an unexpected quest.
Soho Press | 9781641290869
SMALL DAYS AND NIGHTS by Tishani Doshi (Fiction)
Escaping her failing marriage in the United States, Grace Marisola has returned to Pondicherry to cremate her mother. Once there, she receives an unexpected inheritance --- a property on the isolated beaches south of Madras --- and discovers a sister she never knew she had: Lucia, four years older, who has spent her life in a residential facility. Settling into the pink house on its spit of wild beach, Grace builds a new and precarious life with Lucia, the village housekeeper Mallika, the drily witty Auntie Kavitha, and an ever-multiplying band of dogs, led by the golden Raja. But her attempts to leave her old self behind prove first a struggle, then a strain, as she discovers the chaos, tenderness, fury and bewilderment of life with Lucia.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324005230
THE THIRD RAINBOW GIRL: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg (True Crime)
On June 25, 1980 in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two middle-class outsiders named Vicki Durian and Nancy Santomero were murdered in an isolated clearing. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived; they traveled with a third woman who lived. Thriteen years later, a local farmer was convicted, only to be released when a known serial killer and diagnosed schizophrenic, Joseph Paul Franklin, claimed responsibility. Emma Copley Eisenberg follows the threads of this crime through the complex history of Appalachia, forming a searing and wide-ranging portrait of America --- its divisions of gender and class, and of its violence.
Hachette Books | 9780316449236
THE WIFE AND THE WIDOW by Christian White (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Set against the backdrop of an eerie island town in the dead of winter, THE WIFE AND THE WIDOW is an unsettling thriller told from two perspectives: Kate, a widow whose grief is compounded by what she learns about her dead husband’s secret life; and Abby, an island local whose world is turned upside when she’s forced to confront the evidence of her husband’s guilt. But nothing on this island is quite as it seems, and only when these women come together can they discover the whole story about the men in their lives.
Minotaur Books | 9781250194374
THE WORDS I NEVER WROTE by Jane Thynne (Fiction)
New York, present day: Juno Lambert buys a 1931 Underwood typewriter that once belonged to celebrated journalist Cordelia Capel. Within its case, she discovers an unfinished novel, igniting a transatlantic journey to fill the gaps in the story of Cordelia and her sister and the secret that lies between them. Europe, 1936: Cordelia’s socialite sister, Irene, marries a German industrialist who whisks her away to Berlin. The sisters exchange letters, and Cordelia discovers that Irene’s husband is a Nazi sympathizer. As life in Nazi Germany darkens, Irene no longer dares admit what her existence is truly like. Knowing that their letters cannot tell the whole story, Cordelia decides to fill in the blanks by sitting down with her Underwood and writing the truth.
Ballantine Books | 9781524796594
On Sale the Week of January 20th in Paperback
January 21st
ALMOST JUST FRIENDS by Jill Shalvis (Romance)
Paperback Original
Piper Manning raised her siblings, and they’ve thankfully flown the coop. All she has to do is finish fixing up the lake house her grandparents left her, sell it and then she’s free. When a massive storm hits, she runs into a tall, dark and brooding stranger, Camden Reid. There’s a spark there, one that shocks her. Surprising her further, her sister and brother return, each of them holding their own secrets. The smart move would be for Piper to ignore them all, but Cam unleashes emotions deep inside of her that she can’t deny. And her siblings…well, they need each other. Only when the secrets come out, it changes everything Piper thinks she knows about her family, herself…and Cam.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062897800
A BOY AND HIS DOG AT THE END OF THE WORLD by C. A. Fletcher (Dystopian Fiction)
My name's Griz. My childhood wasn't like yours. I've never had friends, and in my whole life I've not met enough people to play a game of football. My parents told me how crowded the world used to be, but we were never lonely on our remote island. We had each other, and our dogs. Then the thief came. There may be no law left except what you make of it. But if you steal my dog, you can at least expect me to come after you. Because if we aren't loyal to the things we love, what's the point?
Orbit | 9780316449434
THE BURGLAR by Thomas Perry (Thriller)
Elle Stowell is a young woman with an unconventional profession: burglary. But Elle is no petty thief --- with just the right combination of smarts, looks and skills, she can easily stroll through ritzy Bel Air neighborhoods and pick out the perfect home for plucking the most valuable items. But after stumbling upon a grisly triple homicide while stealing from the home of a wealthy art dealer, Elle discovers that she is no longer the only one sneaking around. Somebody is searching for her. As Elle realizes that her knowledge of the high-profile murder has made her a target, she races to solve the case before becoming the next casualty.
Mysterious Press | 9780802148391
CAMELOT’S END: The Democrats' Last Great Civil War by Jon Ward (Politics/History)
The Carter presidency was on life support. The Democrats, desperate to keep power and yearning to resurrect former glory, turned to Ted Kennedy. It was the last time an American president received a serious reelection challenge from inside his own party, the last contested convention, and the last all-out floor fight, where political combatants fought in real time to decide who would be the nominee. It was the last gasp of an outdated system, an insider's game that old Kennedy hands thought they had mastered, and the year that marked the unraveling of the Democratic Party as America had known it. CAMELOT'S END details the incredible drama of Kennedy's challenge --- what led to it, how it unfolded and its lasting effects.
Twelve | 9781455591398
COUNTRY STRONG by Linda Lael Miller (Western Romance)
Paperback Original
Cord Hollister is a true cowboy at heart. As a man who has devoted his life to training horses under the big skies of Montana, he thrives on the stability of ranch life. But when a girl arrives in Painted Pony Creek with a shocking secret, Cord’s orderly life is upended. She’s the spitting image of the first woman who broke his heart --- a woman he hasn’t seen in years --- and he’ll do whatever he can to help her. Shallie Fletcher left heartbreak where it belongs --- in the past. And she’s done everything she can to reinvent herself and move on. But when an opportunity arises to partner with a therapeutic riding program for kids, Shallie can’t resist seeking out Cord for lessons. Back in school, he was the crush she couldn’t forget, even though he only had eyes for her best friend. Seeing him now floods her with memories…and fills her with hope.
HQN | 9781335474599
THE DEVIL ASPECT by Craig Russell (Historical Thriller)
Czechoslovakia, 1935: Psychiatrist Viktor Kosárek arrives at the infamous Hrad Orlu Asylum for the Criminally Insane, which houses six inmates --- the country's most treacherous killers --- known to the terrified public as the Devil's Six. Viktor intends to use a new medical technique to prove that these patients share a common archetype of evil, a phenomenon he calls The Devil Aspect. Yet as he begins to learn the stunning secrets of these patients, he must face the unnerving possibility that they may share a darker truth. Meanwhile, in Prague, fear grips the city as a phantom serial killer emerges in the dark alleys. Police investigator Lukas Smolak, desperate to locate the culprit (a copycat of Jack the Ripper), turns to Viktor and the doctors at Hrad Orlu for their expertise with the psychotic criminal mind.
Anchor | 9780525564782
FREEFALL by Jessica Barry (Mystery/Thriller)
When her fiancé’s private plane crashes in the Colorado Rockies, everyone assumes Allison Carpenter is dead. But Maggie, Allison’s mother back home in Owl Creek, Maine, refuses to believe them. Maggie knows her daughter --- or she used to, anyway. For the past two years, the two women have been estranged, and while Maggie doesn’t know anything about Allison’s life now --- not even why she was on a private plane to begin with --- she still believes in her girl’s strength, and in their love for each other. As Allison struggles across the treacherous mountain wilderness, Maggie embarks on a desperate search for answers about the world in which Allison has been involved. What was she running from? And can Maggie uncover the truth in time to save her?
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062874849
HARK by Sam Lipsyte (Fiction/Satire)
In an America convulsed by political upheaval, cultural discord, environmental catastrophe and spiritual confusion, so many of us find ourselves anxious and distracted, searching desperately for peace, salvation and focus. Enter Hark Morner, a failed stand-up comic turned mindfulness guru whose revolutionary program is set to captivate the masses. But for Fraz and Tovah, a middle-aged couple slogging through a very rough patch, it may take more than the tenets of Hark’s “Mental Archery” to solve the riddles of love, lust, work and parenthood on the eve of civilizational collapse. And given the sudden power of certain fringe players, it just might be too late. But what’s the point of a world, even a blasted-out post-apocalyptic world, if they don’t try with all their might to keep their marriage alive?
Simon & Schuster | 9781501146077
HENRY VIII: And the Men Who Made Him by Tracy Borman (Biography)
Henry VIII is best known in history for his tempestuous marriages and the fates of his six wives. However, as acclaimed historian Tracy Borman makes clear in her illuminating new chronicle of Henry’s life, his reign and reputation were hugely influenced by the men who surrounded and interacted with him as companions and confidants, servants and ministers, and occasionally as rivals --- many of whom have been underplayed in previous biographies. These relationships offer a fresh, often surprising perspective on the legendary king, revealing the contradictions in his beliefs, behavior and character in a nuanced light. They show him capable of fierce but seldom abiding loyalty, of raising men up only to destroy them later.
Grove Press | 9780802148339
A JUSTIFIED MURDER: A Medlar Mystery by Jude Deveraux (Mystery)
The small town of Lachlan, Florida, was rocked last year when two bodies were uncovered in the roots of a fallen tree. Despite their lack of investigative experience, Sara Medlar; her niece, Kate; and Jack Wyatt found themselves at the center of the mystery, working together to reveal the truth behind a decades-old secret in the sleepy town. They vowed to never again involve themselves in something so dangerous --- until Janet Beeson is murdered. The sweet little old woman has been shot, stabbed and poisoned, but no one can imagine who would want to harm one of the town’s kindest, most helpful residents. It isn’t long before Sara, Kate and Jack begin to see that there are more secrets buried in quiet Lachlan than anyone could have imagined.
Mira | 9780778360971
MAID: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land (Memoir)
At 28, Stephanie Land turned to housekeeping to make ends meet. With a tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible, Stephanie worked days and took classes online to earn a college degree, and began to write relentlessly. She wrote the true stories that weren't being told: the stories of overworked and underpaid Americans. Of living on food stamps to eat. Of the government programs that provided her housing, but that doubled as halfway houses. The aloof government employees who called her lucky for receiving assistance. She wrote to remember the fight, to eventually cut through the deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor. MAID explores the underbelly of upper-middle-class America and the reality of what it's like to be in service to them.
Hachette Books | 9780316505093
NO MERCY by Joanna Schaffhausen (Mystery/Thriller)
Police officer Ellery Hathaway is on involuntary leave from her job because she shot a murderer in cold blood and refuses to apologize for it. Forced into group therapy for victims of violent crime, Ellery immediately finds higher priorities than "getting in touch with her feelings." For one, she suspects a fellow group member may have helped to convict the wrong man for a deadly arson incident years ago. For another, Ellery finds herself in the desperate clutches of a woman who survived a brutal rape. He is still out there, this man with the Spider-Man-like ability to climb through bedroom windows, and his victim beseeches Ellery for help in capturing her attacker.
Minotaur Books | 9781250252821
THE NOWHERE CHILD by Christian White (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Kimberly Leamy is a photography teacher in Melbourne, Australia. Twenty-six years earlier, Sammy Went, a two-year-old girl, vanished from her home in Manson, Kentucky. An American accountant who contacts Kim is convinced she was that child, kidnapped just after her birthday. On April 3, 1990, Jack and Molly Went’s daughter, Sammy, disappeared from their Kentucky home. Jack did his best to raise and protect his other daughter and son while Molly found solace in her faith. The Church of the Light Within, a Pentecostal fundamentalist group, provided that faith. Now, with proof that she and Sammy are in fact the same person, Kim travels to America to reunite with a family she never knew she had.
Minotaur Books | 9781250252937
ONE GOOD DEED by David Baldacci (Historical Thriller)
When World War II veteran Aloysius Archer is released from Carderock Prison, he is sent to Poca City on parole. The small town quickly proves more complicated and dangerous than Archer's years serving in the war or his time in jail. Within a single night, his search for gainful employment --- and a stiff drink --- leads him to a local bar, where he is hired for what seems like a simple job: to collect a debt owed to a powerful local businessman, Hank Pittleman. Soon Archer discovers that recovering the debt won't be so easy. When a murder takes place right under Archer's nose, police suspicions rise against the ex-convict, and Archer realizes that the crime could send him right back to prison...if he doesn't use every skill in his arsenal to track down the real killer.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538750582
OUTSIDE LOOKING IN by T.C. Boyle (Historical Fiction)
In 1943, LSD is synthesized in Basel. Two decades later, a coterie of grad students at Harvard are gradually drawn into the inner circle of renowned psychologist and psychedelic drug enthusiast Timothy Leary. Fitzhugh Loney, a psychology Ph.D. student, and his wife, Joanie, become entranced by the drug’s possibilities such that their “research” becomes less a matter of clinical trials and academic papers and instead turns into a free-wheeling exploration of mind expansion, group dynamics and communal living. Is LSD a belief system? Does it allow you to see God? Can the Loneys’ marriage --- or any marriage, for that matter --- survive the chaotic and sometimes orgiastic use of psychedelic drugs?
Ecco | 9780062882998
THE OYSTERVILLE SEWING CIRCLE by Susan Wiggs (Fiction)
Caroline Shelby thought she’d left Oysterville, Washington, forever. Ten years ago, Caroline launched a career in the glamorous world of fashion. But her success imploded on a wave of scandal, forcing her to flee to the only safe place she knows. And in the backseat of her car are two children who were orphaned in a single chilling moment: five-year-old Addie and six-year-old Flick. She’s now their legal guardian --- a role she’s not sure she’s ready for. Caroline returns to the sewing shop where she first discovered her passion, and discovers that even in an idyllic beach town, there are women living with the deepest of secrets. Thus begins the Oysterville Sewing Circle --- where women can join forces to support one another through the troubles they keep hidden.
Avon | 9780062425591
THE SWEET INDIFFERENCE OF THE WORLD written by Peter Stamm, translated by Michael Hofmann (Fiction)
Paperback Original
In Stockholm's Woodland Cemetery, Christoph tells Lena his story, which is also somehow hers. Twenty years before, he loved a woman named Magdalena --- an actress like Lena, with her looks, her personality, her past. Their breakup inspired him to write his first novel, about the time they were together, and in its scenes Lena recognizes the uncanny, intimate details of her own relationship with an aspiring writer, Chris. Is it possible that she and Chris are living the same lives as Magdalena and Christoph two decades apart? Are they headed towards the same scripted separation? Or, in the fever of writing, has Christoph lost track of what is real and what is imagined?
Other Press | 9781590519790
TOGETHER: A Memoir of a Marriage and a Medical Mishap by Judy Goldman (Memoir)
When Judy Goldman’s husband of almost four decades has a routine spinal injection to alleviate back pain, he is instantly paralyzed from the waist down --- a phenomenon no doctor can explain or undo. She’s forced to take over, navigating the byzantine medical world they suddenly find themselves in. Her husband is forced to give in. This is the starting point for TOGETHER, which looks at the changes every couple faces --- the slow, ordinary ones brought about by time and the sudden, dramatic ones that take us by surprise. Identities shift; roles switch. How do we adjust? How do we let go of the if-onlys?
Anchor | 9780525563136
WRECKED: An IQ Novel by Joe Ide (Mystery)
Isaiah Quintabe --- IQ for short --- has never been more successful, or felt more alone. A series of high-profile wins in his hometown of East Long Beach have made him so notorious that he can hardly go to the corner store without being recognized. Dodson, once his sidekick, is now his full-fledged partner, hell-bent on giving IQ’s PI business some real legitimacy. So when a young painter approaches IQ for help tracking down her missing mother, it’s not just the case Isaiah’s looking for, but the human connection. And when his new confidant turns out to be connected to a dangerous paramilitary operation, IQ falls victim to a threat unlike anything he’s ever encountered.
Mulholland Books | 9780316509503
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