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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of February 3rd and February 10th 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 February. This month's prizes are the audio versions of J. D. Robb's GOLDEN IN DEATH, read by Susan Ericksen, and Steve Berry's THE WARSAW PROTOCOL, read by Scott Brick. Submit your comments about the audiobooks you've listened to by Monday, March 2nd at noon ET, and you'll be in the running to win both these audio titles.
Also, please click on the covers above for our reviews of three books that we featured in last Friday's Weekly Update newsletter: WHEN YOU SEE ME by Lisa Gardner, which finds Detective D. D. Warren, Flora Dane and Kimberly Quincy investigating a mysterious murder from the past --- which points to a dangerous and chilling present-day crime; INTO THE FIRE, the fifth installment in Gregg Hurwitz’s Orphan X series featuring Evan Smoak, who this time is facing his deadliest job yet; and our current New Release Spotlight title, WHEN WE WERE VIKINGS, Andrew David MacDonald's uplifting debut about an unlikely heroine whose journey will leave you wanting to embark on a quest of your own.
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
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This Week's Bonus News:
February'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 February 3rd to March 2nd at noon ET, one lucky reader will be randomly chosen to win the audio versions of J. D. Robb's GOLDEN IN DEATH, read by Susan Ericksen, and Steve Berry's THE WARSAW PROTOCOL, read by Scott Brick.
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 February 3rd in Hardcover
February 4th
18 TINY DEATHS: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics by Bruce Goldfarb (Biography)
Frances Glessner Lee, born a socialite to a wealthy and influential Chicago family in the 1870s, developed a fascination with the investigation of violent crimes. She was best known for creating the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, a series of dollhouses that appear charming --- until you notice the macabre little details: an overturned chair, or a blood-spattered comforter. And then there are the bodies --- splayed out on the floor, draped over chairs --- clothed in garments that Lee lovingly knit with sewing pins. 18 TINY DEATHS delves into Lee's journey from grandmother without a college degree to leading the scientific investigation of unexpected death out of the dark confines of centuries-old techniques and into the light of the modern day.
Sourcebooks | 9781492680475
THE AUTHENTICITY PROJECT by Clare Pooley (Fiction)
Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian, believes that most people aren't really honest with each other. But what if they were? And so he writes --- in a plain, green journal --- the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It's run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves --- and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica's Café.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9781984878618
BROTHER & SISTER: A Memoir by Diane Keaton (Memoir)
When they were children in the suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1950s, Diane Keaton and her younger brother, Randy, were best friends and companions. Their mother captured their American-dream childhoods in her diaries, and on camera. But as they grew up, Randy became troubled, then reclusive. By the time he reached adulthood, he was divorced, an alcoholic, a man who couldn't hold on to full-time work --- his life a world away from his sister's, and from the rest of their family. Now Diane is delving into the nuances of their shared, and separate, pasts to confront the difficult question of why and how Randy ended up living his life on "the other side of normal."
Knopf | 9780451494504
THE CACTUS LEAGUE by Emily Nemens (Fiction)
Jason Goodyear is the star outfielder for the Los Angeles Lions, stationed with the rest of his team in the punishingly hot Arizona desert for their annual spring training. Handsome, famous and talented, Goodyear is nonetheless coming apart at the seams. And the coaches, writers, wives, girlfriends, petty criminals and diehard fans following his every move are eager to find out why --- as they hide secrets of their own. Narrated by a sportscaster, Goodyear’s story is interspersed with tales of Michael Taylor, a batting coach trying to stay relevant; Tamara Rowland, a resourceful spring-training paramour, looking for one last catch; and Herb Allison, a legendary sports agent grappling with his decline.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374117948
CROOKED RIVER: A Pendergast Novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Thriller)
Appearing out of nowhere to horrify the quiet resort town of Sanibel Island, Florida, dozens of identical, ordinary-looking shoes float in on the tide and are washed up on the tropical beach --- each one with a crudely severed human foot inside. In short order, Agent Pendergast finds himself facing the most complex and inexplicable challenge of his career: a tangled thread of evidence that spans seas and traverses continents, connected to one of the most baffling mysteries in modern medical science. Through shocking twists and turns, all trails lead back to a powerful adversary with a sadistic agenda and who --- in a cruel irony --- ultimately sees in Pendergast the ideal subject for their malevolent research.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538747254
A DIVIDED LOYALTY: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery by Charles Todd (Historical Mystery)
Chief Inspector Brian Leslie is sent to Avebury, a village set inside a great prehistoric stone circle not far from Stonehenge. A young woman has been murdered next to a mysterious, hooded, figure-like stone, but no one recognizes her --- or admits to it. Despite a thorough investigation, it appears that her killer has simply vanished. Asked to take a second look at Leslie’s inquiry, Ian Rutledge also finds very little to go on in Avebury, slowly widening his search beyond the village --- only to discover that unlikely (possibly even unreliable) clues are pointing him toward an impossible solution, one that will draw the wrath of the Yard down on him, and very likely see him dismissed if he pursues it.
William Morrow | 9780062905536
DJINN PATROL ON THE PURPLE LINE by Deepa Anappara (Mystery/Suspense)
Nine-year-old Jai drools outside sweet shops, watches too many reality police shows, and considers himself to be smarter than his friends Pari (though she gets the best grades) and Faiz (though Faiz has an actual job). When a classmate goes missing, Jai decides to use the crime-solving skills he has picked up from TV to find him. He asks Pari and Faiz to be his assistants, and together they draw up lists of people to interview and places to visit. But what begins as a game turns sinister as other children start disappearing from their neighborhood. Jai, Pari and Faiz have to confront terrified parents, an indifferent police force and rumors of soul-snatching djinns. As the disappearances edge ever closer to home, the lives of Jai and his friends will never be the same again.
Random House | 9780593129197
EVERYWHERE YOU DON'T BELONG by Gabriel Bump (Fiction)
Claude McKay Love is an average kid coping with abandonment, violence, riots, failed love and societal pressures as he steers his way past the signposts of youth. As a young black man born on the South Side of Chicago, he is raised by his civil rights-era grandmother, who tries to shape him into a principled actor for change. Yet when riots consume his neighborhood, he hesitates to take sides, unwilling to let race define his life. He decides to escape Chicago for another place --- to go to college, to find a new identity, to leave the pressure cooker of his hometown behind. But as he discovers, he cannot; there is no safe haven for a young black man in this time and place called America.
Algonquin Books | 9781616208790
FRAMED by S. L. McInnis (Psychological Thriller)
Beth Montgomery seems to have the perfect life. So it doesn't occur to her to worry when the news breaks of a quadruple homicide across town, a botched drug deal that leaves an undercover officer among the dead. Beth certainly would never think to tie the murders to the sudden reappearance in her life of wild, sexy Cassie Ogilvy, the estranged best friend she hasn't seen since they were college roommates. As Cassie confidently settles into Beth's new life, it becomes increasingly clear that her old friend has a lot to hide. But it isn't until a shocking late-night phone call, and Cassie's even more startling disappearance, that Beth begins to understand that her world, as she knew it, is gone forever.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538732090
THE GIRL WITH THE LOUDING VOICE by Abi Daré (Fiction)
Adunni is a 14-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. This, her mother has told her, is the only way to get a “louding voice” --- the ability to speak for herself and decide her own future. But instead, Adunni's father sells her to be the third wife of a local man who is eager for her to bear him a son and heir. When Adunni runs away to the city, hoping to make a better life, she finds that the only other option before her is servitude to a wealthy family. As a yielding daughter, a subservient wife and a powerless slave, Adunni is told, by words and deeds, that she is nothing. But while misfortunes might muffle her voice for a time, they cannot mute it.
Dutton | 9781524746025
GOLDEN IN DEATH by J. D. Robb (Mystery/Thriller)
Pediatrician Kent Abner received the package on a beautiful April morning. Inside was a cheap trinket, a golden egg that could be opened into two halves. When he pried it apart, highly toxic airborne fumes entered his body --- and killed him. After Eve Dallas calls the hazmat team --- and undergoes testing to reassure both her and her husband that she hasn’t been exposed --- it’s time to look into Dr. Abner’s past and relationships. While the lab tries to identify the deadly toxin, Eve hunts for the sender. But when someone else dies in the same grisly manner, it becomes clear that she’s dealing with either a madman --- or someone who has a hidden and elusive connection to both victims.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250207203
THE GOOD KILLER by Harry Dolan (Thriller)
Sean Tennant and Molly Winter are living quietly and cautiously in Houston when a troubled, obsessive stranger shatters the safety they have carefully constructed for themselves. Sean is at a shopping mall when Henry Alan Keen, scorned by a woman he’s been dating, pulls out a gun at the store where she works and begins shooting everyone in sight. A former soldier, Sean rushes toward Keen and ends the slaughter with two well-placed shots --- becoming a hero with his face plastered across the news. But Sean’s newfound notoriety exposes him to the wrath of two men he thought he had left safely in his past. One of them blames Sean for his brother’s death. The other wants to recover a treasure that Sean and Molly stole from him.
Mysterious Press | 9780802148414
THE GREAT BLUE HILLS OF GOD: A Story of Facing Loss, Finding Peace, and Learning the True Meaning of Home by Kreis Beall (Memoir)
Born with the gift of hospitality, Kreis Beall helped create one of the nation’s most renowned resort destinations, Blackberry Farm, in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountain foothills. For decades, she was a fixture in the travel and entertaining world. But at the pinnacle of her success, Kreis faced a series of challenges that reframed her life, including a brain injury that permanently impaired her hearing and the conclusion of her 36-year marriage to her best friend and business partner, Sandy Beall. Alone and uncertain as her world shifts and marriage ends, Kreis begins a new journey to find her faith and find God. After spending years on her beautiful exterior life and work, she begins the hardest undertaking of all: reclaiming and redesigning her interior life and soul.
Convergent Books | 9781984822246
HEATHCLIFF REDUX: A Novella and Stories by Lily Tuck (Fiction/Short Stories)
This new collection from critically acclaimed writer Lily Tuck explores the hidden dynamics and unspoken conflicts at the heart of human relationships. In the novella, a married woman reads WUTHERING HEIGHTS at the same time that she falls under the erotic and destructive spell of her own Heathcliff. In the stories that follow, a single photograph illuminates the intricate web of connections between friends at an Italian café; a forgotten act of violence in New York’s Carl Schurz Park returns to haunt the present; and a woman is prompted by a flurry of mysterious emails to recall her time as a member of the infamous Rajneesh cult.
Atlantic Monthly Press | 9780802147592
THE LAST DAY by Andrew Hunter Murray (Dystopian Thriller)
It is 2059, and the world has crashed. Forty years ago, a solar catastrophe began to slow the planet's rotation to a stop. Now, one-half of the globe is permanently sunlit, the other half trapped in an endless night. The United States has colonized the southern half of Great Britain, lucky enough to find itself in the narrow habitable region left between frozen darkness and scorching sunlight. Ellen Hopper is a scientist who wants nothing more to do with her country after its slide into casual violence and brutal authoritarianism. Yet when two government officials arrive, demanding she return to London to see her dying college mentor, she accepts --- and begins to unravel a secret that threatens not only the nation's fragile balance, but the future of the whole human race.
Dutton | 9781524745813
THE LIGHT AFTER THE WAR by Anita Abriel (Historical Fiction)
It is 1946 when Vera Frankel and her best friend, Edith Ban, arrive in Naples. Refugees from Hungary, they managed to escape from a train headed for Auschwitz and spent the rest of the war hiding on an Austrian farm. Now, the two young women must start new lives abroad. Armed with a letter of recommendation from an American officer, Vera finds work at the United States embassy where she falls in love with Captain Anton Wight. But as Vera and Edith grapple with the aftermath of the war, so too does Anton, and when he suddenly disappears, Vera is forced to change course. Their quest for a better life takes Vera and Edith from Naples to Ellis Island to Caracas as they start careers, reunite with old friends and rebuild their lives after terrible loss.
Atria | 9781982122973
THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU by Michael Zapata (Fiction)
In 1929 in New Orleans, a Dominican immigrant named Adana Moreau writes a science fiction novel. The novel earns rave reviews, and Adana begins a sequel. Then she falls gravely ill. Just before she dies, she destroys the only copy of the manuscript. Decades later in Chicago, Saul Drower is cleaning out his dead grandfather’s home when he discovers a mysterious manuscript written by none other than Adana Moreau. With the help of his friend Javier, Saul tracks down an address for Adana’s son in New Orleans, but as Hurricane Katrina strikes, they must head to the storm-ravaged city for answers.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335010124
MINOR DRAMA & OTHER CATASTROPHES by Kathleen West (Fiction)
Isobel Johnson is a devoted teacher who has spent her career in Liston Heights sidestepping the community’s high-powered families. But when she receives a threatening voicemail accusing her of Anti-Americanism and a liberal agenda, she’s in the spotlight. Meanwhile, Julia Abbott, a helicopter mom obsessed with the casting of Liston Heights High's winter musical, makes an error in judgment that has far-reaching consequences for her entire family. Brought together by the sting of public humiliation, Isobel and Julia learn firsthand how entitlement and competition can go too far, thanks to a secret Facebook page created as an outlet for parent grievances.
Berkley | 9780593098400
MOLLY BIT by Dan Bevacqua (Fiction)
Molly Bit is a great actress. From her first acting classes to her big break, she is different from the others struggling to make it. But fame is perilous. She uses --- and is used by --- the Hollywood system. Her collaborator is an addict. The producer who promises her stardom is ruthless and unhinged by grief. Fans, friends, strangers --- they want and want. And one dangerously obsessed fan wants to take away everything.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982104580
THE MUSEUM OF DESIRE: An Alex Delaware Novel by Jonathan Kellerman (Psychological Thriller)
LAPD Lieutenant Milo Sturgis has solved a lot of murder cases. On many of them --- the ones he calls “different” --- he taps the brain of brilliant psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware. But neither Alex nor Milo are prepared for what they find on an early morning call to a deserted mansion in Bel Air. This is predation, premeditation and cruelty on a whole new level. Four people have been slaughtered and left displayed bizarrely and horrifically in a stretch limousine. Confounding the investigation, none of the victims seems to have any connection to any other, and a variety of methods have been used to dispatch them. As Alex and Milo make their way through blind alleys and mazes baited with misdirection, they encounter a crime so vicious that it stretches the definitions of evil.
Ballantine Books | 9780525618522
MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CARSON McCULLERS: A Memoir by Jenn Shapland (Memoir)
While working as an intern in the archives at the Harry Ransom Center, Jenn Shapland encounters the love letters of Carson McCullers and a woman named Annemarie. Shapland recognizes herself in the letters’ language, but does not see Carson as history has portrayed her. So Shapland is compelled to undertake a recovery of the full narrative and language of Carson's life: She wades through the therapy transcripts, stays at Carson’s childhood home, and relives Carson’s days at her beloved Yaddo. As Shapland reckons with the expanding and collapsing distance between her and Carson, she sees the way that Carson’s story has become a way to articulate something about herself.
Tin House Books | 9781947793286
PERFECT LITTLE CHILDREN by Sophie Hannah (Psychological Thriller)
All Beth has to do is drive her son to his soccer game, watch him play and then return home. Just because she knows her ex-best friend lives near the field, that doesn’t mean she has to drive past her house and try to catch a glimpse of her. Why would Beth do that and risk dredging up painful memories? Nevertheless, she parks outside the open gates of Newnham House, watches from across the road as Flora arrives, and calls to her children, Thomas and Emily, to get out of the car. But there’s something terribly wrong. Flora looks the same, only older. Twelve years ago, Thomas and Emily were five and three years old. Today, they look precisely as they did then. Why haven’t they grown? How is it possible that they haven’t grown up?
William Morrow | 9780062978202
RACE AGAINST TIME: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era by Jerry Mitchell (True Crime/Memoir)
On June 21, 1964, more than 20 Klansmen murdered three civil rights workers. The killings, in what would become known as the “Mississippi Burning” case, were among the most brazen acts of violence during the civil rights movement. And even though the killers’ identities, including the sheriff’s deputy, were an open secret, no one was charged with murder in the months and years that followed. It took 41 years before the mastermind was brought to trial and finally convicted for the three innocent lives he took. Investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell takes readers on the twisting, pulse-racing road that led to the reopening of four of the most infamous killings from the days of the civil rights movement, decades after the fact.
Simon & Schuster | 9781451645132
THE REGRETS by Amy Bonnaffons (Fiction)
For weeks, Rachel has been noticing the same golden-haired young man sitting at her Brooklyn bus stop, staring off with a melancholy air. When, one day, she finally musters the courage to introduce herself, the chemistry between them is undeniable: Thomas is wise, witty, handsome, mysterious, clearly a kindred spirit. There's just one tiny problem: He's dead. Stuck in a surreal limbo governed by bureaucracy, Thomas is unable to "cross over" to the afterlife until he completes a 90-day stint on earth, during which time he is forbidden to get involved with a member of the living --- lest he incur "regrets." When Thomas and Rachel break this rule, they unleash a cascade of bizarre, troubling consequences.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316516167
THE RESISTERS by Gish Jen (Dystopian Fiction/Humor)
The time: not so long from now. The place: AutoAmerica. The land: half under water. The Internet: one part artificial intelligence, one part surveillance technology, and oddly human --- even funny. The people: Divided. The angel-fair "Netted" have jobs and literally occupy the high ground. The "Surplus" live on swampland if they're lucky, on water if they're not. The story: To a Surplus couple --- he once a professor, she still a lawyer --- is born a Blasian girl with a golden arm. Her teens find her happily playing in an underground baseball league. When AutoAmerica rejoins the Olympics, though --- with a special eye on beating ChinRussia --- Gwen attracts interest. Soon she finds herself playing ball with the Netted even as her mother challenges the very foundations of this divided society.
Knopf | 9780525657217
THE SCIENTIST AND THE SPY: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage by Mara Hvistendahl (True Crime)
In September 2011, sheriff’s deputies in Iowa encountered three ethnic Chinese men near a field where a farmer was growing corn seed under contract with Monsanto. What began as a simple trespassing inquiry mushroomed into a two-year FBI operation in which investigators bugged the men’s rental cars, used a warrant intended for foreign terrorists and spies, and flew surveillance planes over corn country --- all in the name of protecting trade secrets of corporate giants Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer. Mara Hvistendahl gives a gripping account of this unusually far-reaching investigation, which pitted a veteran FBI special agent against Florida resident Robert Mo, who after his academic career foundered took a questionable job with the Chinese agricultural company DBN --- and became a pawn in a global rivalry.
Riverhead Books | 9780735214286
THINGS IN JARS by Jess Kidd (Gothic Mystery)
Bridie Devine --- female detective extraordinaire --- is confronted with the most baffling puzzle yet: the kidnapping of Christabel Berwick, secret daughter of Sir Edmund Athelstan Berwick, and a peculiar child whose reputed supernatural powers have captured the unwanted attention of collectors trading curiosities in this age of discovery. Winding her way through the labyrinthine, sooty streets of Victorian London, Bridie won’t rest until she finds the young girl, even if it means unearthing a past that she’d rather keep buried. Luckily, her search is aided by an enchanting cast of characters, including a seven-foot-tall housemaid; a melancholic, tattoo-covered ghost; and an avuncular apothecary. But secrets abound in this foggy underworld where spectacle is king and nothing is quite what it seems.
Atria Books | 9781982121280
THE THIRD TO DIE by Allison Brennan (Mystery/Thriller)
Detective Kara Quinn, on leave from the LAPD, is on an early morning jog in her hometown of Liberty Lake when she comes upon the body of a young nurse. The manner of death shows a pattern of highly controlled rage. Meanwhile, in DC, FBI special agent Mathias Costa is staffing his newly minted Mobile Response Team. Word reaches Matt that the Liberty Lake murder fits the profile of the compulsive Triple Killer. It will be the first case for the MRT. This time they have a chance to stop this zealous if elusive killer before he strikes again. But only if they can figure out who he is and where he is hiding before he disappears for another three years.
Mira | 9780778309444
UPRIGHT WOMEN WANTED by Sarah Gailey (Science Fiction/Adventure)
Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself away in the Librarian’s book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her --- a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda. The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing.
Tor.com | 9781250213587
VERGE: Stories by Lidia Yuknavitch (Fiction/Short Stories)
An eight-year-old trauma victim is enlisted as an underground courier, rushing frozen organs through the alleys of Eastern Europe. A young janitor transforms discarded objects into a fantastical, sprawling miniature city until a shocking discovery forces him to rethink his creation. A brazen child tells off a pack of schoolyard tormentors with the spirited invention of an 11th commandment. A wounded man drives eastward, through tears and grief, toward an unexpected transcendence. In VERGE, her first collection of short fiction, Lidia Yuknavitch turns her eye to life on the margins, in all its beauty and brutality.
Riverhead Books | 9780525534877
WHEN TIME STOPPED: A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains by Ariana Neumann (Memoir)
Of 34 Neumann family members, 25 were murdered by the Nazis. One of the survivors was Hans Neumann, who traveled to Berlin and hid in plain sight under the Gestapo’s eyes. What Hans experienced was so unspeakable that, when he built an industrial empire in Venezuela, he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it. All his daughter Ariana knew was that something terrible had happened. When Hans died, he left Ariana a small box filled with letters, diary entries and other memorabilia. Ten years later, Ariana finally summoned the courage to have the letters translated, and she began reading. What she discovered launched her on a worldwide search that would deliver indelible portraits of a family loving, finding meaning, and trying to survive amid the worst that can be imagined.
Scribner | 9781982106379
YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST: A Biography of George Washington by Alexis Coe (Biography)
Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident and never backed down. But after he married Martha, everything changed. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other way, though he lost more battles than he won. After an unlikely victory in the Revolutionary War cast him as the nation's hero, he was desperate to retire, but the founders pressured him into the presidency --- twice. When he returned to his plantation upon his retirement, the man who fought for liberty must confront his greatest hypocrisy --- what to do with the men, women and children he owns --- before he succumbs to death.
Viking | 9780735224100
On Sale the Week of February 3rd in Paperback
February 4th
BEHIND EVERY LIE by Christina McDonald (Domestic Thriller/Mystery)
Paperback Original
Eva Hansen wakes in the hospital after being struck by lightning and discovers that her mother, Kat, has been murdered. Eva was found unconscious down the street. She can’t remember what happened, but the police are highly suspicious of her. Determined to clear her name, Eva heads from Seattle to London --- Kat’s former home --- for answers. But as she unravels her mother’s carefully held secrets, Eva soon realizes that someone doesn’t want her to know the truth. And with violent memories beginning to emerge, Eva doesn’t know who to trust. Least of all herself.
Gallery Books | 9781501184031
BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF by Marlon James (Historical Fantasy)
Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. As Tracker follows his scent, he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying?
Riverhead Books | 9780735220188
THE BORDER by Don Winslow (Thriller)
Art Keller’s obsession to defeat the world’s most powerful, wealthy and lethal kingpin --- the godfather of the Sinaloa Cartel, Adán Barrera --- has left him bloody and scarred, and cost him the people he loves. Now Keller is elevated to the highest ranks of the DEA, only to find that in destroying one monster he has created 30 more that are wreaking even more chaos and suffering in his beloved Mexico. But Barrera’s final legacy is the heroin epidemic scourging America. Throwing himself into the gap to stem the deadly flow, Keller finds himself surrounded by men who want to kill him and an incoming administration that’s in bed with the very drug traffickers Keller is trying to bring down.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062664495
A COLD TRAIL by Robert Dugoni (Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
The last time homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite was in Cedar Grove, it was to see her sister’s killer put behind bars. Now she’s returned for a respite and the chance to put her life back in order for herself, her attorney husband, Dan, and their new daughter. But tragic memories soon prove impossible to escape. Dan is drawn into representing a local merchant whose business is jeopardized by the town’s revitalization. And Tracy is urged by the local PD to put her own skills to work on a new case: the brutal murder of a police officer’s wife and local reporter who was investigating a cold-case slaying of a young woman. As Tracy’s and Dan’s cases crisscross, Tracy’s trail becomes dangerous.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781542093224
DAISY JONES & THE SIX by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Fiction)
Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late '60s, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she’s 20, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things. Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road. Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.
Ballantine Books | 9781524798642
A DANGEROUS MAN: An Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Novel by Robert Crais (Thriller)
Joe Pike didn't expect to rescue a woman during his trip to the bank. So when Isabel Roland, the young teller who helped him, steps out of the bank, Joe is on hand when two men abduct her. Joe chases them down, and the kidnappers are arrested. But instead of putting the drama to bed, the arrests are only the beginning of the trouble for Joe and Izzy. After posting bail, the two men are murdered and Izzy disappears. Pike calls on his friend, Elvis Cole, to help learn the truth. What Elvis uncovers is a twisted family story that involves corporate whistleblowing, huge amounts of cash, the Witness Relocation Program, and a long line of lies. Is Izzy a perpetrator or a victim? And how far will Joe go to find out?
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780525535690
DAUGHTER OF A DAUGHTER OF A QUEEN by Sarah Bird (Historical Fiction)
Born into bondage on a “miserable tobacco farm” in Little Dixie, Missouri, Cathy Williams’ chance at freedom presents itself with the arrival of Union general Phillip Henry “Smash ‘em Up” Sheridan, the outcast of West Point who takes the rawboned, prideful young woman into service. At war’s end, having tasted freedom, Cathy refuses to return to servitude and makes the monumental decision to disguise herself as a man and join the Army’s legendary Buffalo Soldiers. Alone now in the ultimate man’s world, Cathy not only must fight for her survival and freedom, she also vows to never give up on finding her mother, her little sister, and the love of the only man strong enough to win her heart.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250193179
THE DEEPEST BLUE: Tales of Renthia by Sarah Beth Durst (Dark Fantasy)
Life is precious and precarious on the islands of Belene. Besieged by a capricious ocean full of malicious spirits, the people of the islands seek joy where they can. Mayara, one of the island’s fearless oyster divers, has found happiness in love. But on the day of her wedding to the artist Kelo, a spirit-driven storm hits the island with deadly force. To save her loved ones, Mayara reveals a dangerous secret: she has the power to control the spirits. When the storm ends, she is taken into custody by the queen’s soldiers and imprisoned with other women like her. Whoever survives the Island of Testing will be declared heirs to the queen. But no matter if she wins or loses, Mayara knows that the life she dreamed of is gone.
Harper Voyager | 9780062955418
THE DEPARTMENT OF SENSITIVE CRIMES: A Detective Varg Novel by Alexander McCall Smith (Mystery/Humor)
In the Swedish criminal justice system, certain cases are considered especially strange and difficult. In Malmö, the dedicated detectives who investigate these crimes are members of an elite squad known as the Sensitive Crimes Division. These are their stories. The first case: the small matter of a man stabbed in the back of the knee. Who would perpetrate such a crime and why? Next: a young woman's imaginary boyfriend goes missing. But how on earth do you search for someone who doesn't exist? And in the final investigation: eerie secrets that are revealed under a full moon may not seem so supernatural in the light of day.
Anchor | 9780525565673
THE GOOD DETECTIVE by John McMahon (Thriller)
Detective P.T. Marsh, the former rising star of the Mason Falls, Georgia, police force, decides to help out a woman by giving her abusive boyfriend a taste of his own medicine. The next morning he gets called to the scene of his newest murder case, and is stunned to arrive at the house of a dead man, the very man he beat up the night before. As P.T. and his partner, Remy, begin to suspect the murder is connected to a local arson and the lynching of a teenage boy, P.T. realizes he might have killed the top suspect of this horrific crime. Amid rising racial tension and media scrutiny, P.T. uncovers a conspiracy leading all the way back to the time of the Civil War.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780525535546
GOOD RIDDANCE by Elinor Lipman (Romantic Comedy)
Daphne Maritch doesn't quite know what to make of the heavily annotated high school yearbook she inherits from her mother. The late June Winter Maritch was the teacher to whom the class of '68 had dedicated its yearbook, and in turn she went on to attend every reunion, scribbling notes and observations after each one --- not always charitably --- and noting who overstepped boundaries of many kinds. In a fit of decluttering, she discards it when she moves to a small New York City apartment. But when it's found in the recycling bin by a busybody neighbor/documentary filmmaker, the yearbook's mysteries --- not to mention her own family's --- take on a whole new urgency, and Daphne finds herself entangled in a series of events both poignant and absurd.
Mariner Books | 9780358108559
IF, THEN by Kate Hope Day (Speculative Fiction)
In the quiet haven of Clearing, Oregon, four neighbors find their lives upended when they begin to see themselves in parallel realities. At first the visions are relatively benign, but they grow increasingly disturbing --- and, in some cases, frightening. When a natural disaster threatens Clearing, it becomes obvious that the visions were not what they first seemed and that the town will never be the same.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780525511243
I.M.: A Memoir by Isaac Mizrahi (Memoir)
Isaac Mizrahi offers a poignant, candid and touching look back on his life so far. Growing up gay in a sheltered Syrian Jewish Orthodox family, Isaac had unique talents that ultimately drew him into fashion and later into celebrity circles that read like a who’s who of the 20th and 21st centuries: Richard Avedon, Audrey Hepburn, Anna Wintour, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Meryl Streep and Oprah Winfrey, to name only a few. In I.M., Isaac delves into his lifelong battles with weight, insomnia and depression. He tells what it was like to be an out gay man in a homophobic age and to witness the ravaging effects of the AIDS epidemic.
Flatiron Books | 9781250077820
LABYRINTH by Catherine Coulter (Thriller)
Agent Sherlock is driving in downtown Washington when her Volvo is suddenly T-boned at an intersection. As her car spins out of control, a man’s body slams against her windshield. No one knows yet who he is or where he is because he ran away. From DNA, they discover his name is Justice Cummings and he’s a CIA analyst at Langley. Meanwhile, Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith rescues a kidnapped woman claiming her captor had probably murdered three missing teenage girls. However, the man she accuses is the local sheriff’s nephew and a member of a very powerful family. When the sheriff arrests Griffin and the rescued woman, he calls Savich for help. Together they have to weave their way through a labyrinth of lies to find the truth of a terrible secret.
Gallery Books | 9781501193675
LIGHTS ALL NIGHT LONG by Lydia Fitzpatrick (Fiction)
Fifteen-year-old Ilya arrives in Louisiana from his native Russia for what should be the adventure of his life: a year in America as an exchange student. But all is not right in Ilya's world: he's consumed by the fate of his older brother Vladimir, the magnetic rebel to Ilya's dutiful wunderkind, back in their tiny Russian hometown. The two have always been close, spending their days dreaming of escaping to America. But when Ilya was tapped for the exchange, Vladimir disappeared into their town's seedy, drug-plagued underworld. Just before Ilya left, the murders of three young women rocked the town's usual calm, and Vladimir found himself in prison. With the help of Sadie, who has secrets of her own, Ilya embarks on a mission to prove Vladimir's innocence.
Penguin Books | 9780525558750
LOST CHILDREN ARCHIVE by Valeria Luiselli (Fiction)
An artist couple set out with their two children on a road trip from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. As the family travels west, the bonds between them begin to fray: a fracture is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet. Through ephemera such as songs, maps and a Polaroid camera, the children try to make sense of both their family’s crisis and the larger one engulfing the news: the stories of thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States but getting detained --- or lost in the desert along the way.
Vintage | 9780525436461
THE MISFORTUNES OF FAMILY by Meg Little Reilly (Fiction)
Paperback Original
As the four adult sons of retired senator John Bright head with their partners to the annual family reunion, they have everything they need, except self-awareness. This year, the senator has agreed to let a producer document the reunion at the lake house. As petty jealousies surface, Philip, the youngest, reveals a surprising personal decision that earns the ribbing --- or is it scorn? --- of his brothers, JJ, Spencer and Charlie. Then the senator unexpectedly announces his desire for another political run. Not everyone is on board, especially matriarch Patty, who is keenly aware of the toll it will take on their private lives. Suddenly closely held family secrets start tumbling out and keep coming, including the biggest one that will rock this family to the core.
Mira | 9780778369424
MORE THAN WORDS by Jill Santopolo (Fiction)
Nina Gregory has always been a good daughter. Raised by her father, owner of New York City's glamorous Gregory Hotels, Nina was taught that family, reputation and legacy are what matter most. And Tim --- her devoted boyfriend and best friend since childhood --- feels the same. But when Nina's father dies, he leaves behind a secret that shocks Nina to her core. As her world falls apart, Nina begins to see the men in her life --- her father, her boyfriend and, unexpectedly, her boss, Rafael --- in a new light. Soon Nina finds herself caught between the world she loves and a passion that could upend everything.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780735218314
THE MOROCCAN GIRL by Charles Cumming (Thriller)
Renowned author Kit Carradine is approached by an MI6 officer with a seemingly straightforward assignment: to track down a mysterious woman hiding somewhere in the exotic, perilous city of Marrakesh. Lara Bartok is a leading figure in Resurrection, a violent revolutionary movement whose brutal attacks on prominent right-wing public figures have spread hatred and violence across the world. Caught between increasingly dangerous forces who want Bartok dead, Carradine soon faces an awful choice: to abandon this brilliant, beautiful and profoundly complex woman to her fate, or to risk everything trying to save her.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250129963
MURDER BY THE BOOK: The Crime That Shocked Dickens's London by Claire Harman (True Crime/History)
Early on the morning of May 6, 1840, the elderly Lord William Russell was found in his London house with his throat so deeply cut that his head was nearly severed. The crime soon had everyone, including Queen Victoria, feverishly speculating about motives and methods. But when the prime suspect claimed to have been inspired by a sensational crime novel, it sent shock waves through literary London and drew both Dickens and Thackeray into the fray. Could a novel really lead someone to kill?
Vintage | 9780525436157
MURDER IN BEL-AIR: An Aimée Leduc Investigation by Cara Black (Mystery)
Parisian private investigator Aimée Leduc gets an emergency phone call from her daughter’s playgroup: Aimée’s own mother, who was supposed to pick Chloe up, never showed. As Aimée and Chloe leave the playground, Aimée witnesses the body of a homeless woman being wheeled away from the neighboring convent, where nuns run a soup kitchen. The last person anyone saw the dead woman talking to was Aimée’s mother, who has vanished. Trying to figure out what happened to Sydney Leduc, Aimée tracks down the dead woman’s possessions, which include a huge amount of cash. What did Sydney stumble into? Is she in trouble?
Soho Crime | 9781641291347
ONE DAY YOU’LL BURN by Joseph Schneider (Mystery)
Paperback Original
A body so badly burned that it could be mistaken for a movie prop...except for the smell. That's not something the LAPD finds lying on the street every day. And when Detective Tully Jarsdel is called to the scene, it's clear to him that something about the placement of the corpse is intentional, even ritualistic. Jarsdel's former career in academia finally seems to be coming in handy. But nothing Jarsdel learned in school can prepare him for the deep evil behind this case, which appears to be as hopeless as it is violent. As Jarsdel and his partner, Morales, attempt to uncover the motive behind the horrendous crime, they find themselves dragged into the underbelly of a city notorious for chewing up and spitting out anyone dumb enough to turn their back on survival.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781492684442
OUTFOX by Sandra Brown (Psychological Thriller/Romantic Suspense)
FBI agent Drex Easton is relentlessly driven by a single goal: to outmaneuver the conman once known as Weston Graham. Over the past 30 years, Weston has assumed many names and countless disguises, enabling him to lure eight wealthy women out of their fortunes before they disappeared without a trace, their families left without answers and the authorities without clues. Drex is convinced that these women have been murdered, and that the man he knows as Weston Graham is the sociopath responsible. But each time Drex gets close to catching him, Weston trades one persona for another and disappears again. Now, for the first time in their long game of cat and mouse, Drex has a suspect in sight.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781478916871
THE PARIS DIVERSION by Chris Pavone (Thriller)
American expat Kate Moore drops her kids at the international school, makes her shopping rounds, and meets her husband Dexter at their regular café. Across the Seine, tech CEO Hunter Forsyth stands on his balcony, perplexed that his police escort just departed, and frustrated that his cell service has cut out; Hunter has important calls to make, not all of them technically legal. And on the nearby rue de Rivoli, Mahmoud Khalid climbs out of an electrician’s van, and elbows his way into the crowded courtyard of the world’s largest museum, in the epicenter of Western civilization. He sets down his metal briefcase and removes his windbreaker. That’s when people start to scream.
Ballantine Books | 9781524761516
RESISTANCE WOMEN by Jennifer Chiaverini (Historical Fiction)
After Wisconsin graduate student Mildred Fish marries brilliant German economist Arvid Harnack, she accompanies him to his German homeland, where a promising future awaits. In the thriving intellectual culture of 1930s Berlin, the newlyweds create a rich new life filled with love, friendships and rewarding work --- but the rise of a malevolent new political faction inexorably changes their fate. As Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party wield violence and lies to seize power, Mildred, Arvid and their friends resolve to resist. For years, Mildred’s network stealthily fights to bring down the Third Reich from within. But when Nazi radio operatives detect an errant Russian signal, the Harnack resistance cell is exposed, with fatal consequences.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062841124
SAVING MEGHAN by D.J. Palmer (Medical Thriller)
Some would say Becky Gerard is a devoted mother. Others, including her husband, would say she's obsessed with her daughter. Fifteen-year-old Meghan is constantly, inexplicably ill. Her doctors are starting to suspect Munchausen syndrome by proxy --- they believe Meghan's mother is seeking medical help for symptoms that don't exist. But when Meghan's illness takes a sharp turn, it is no longer clear if her mother is lying, or if something even more sinister is at hand. Becky must race against time to prove her daughter is in danger. But first, she must confront secrets that threaten to not only upend her life, but destroy it.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250252838
THE SCENT KEEPER by Erica Bauermeister (Fiction)
Emmeline lives an enchanted childhood on a remote island with her father, who teaches her about the natural world through her senses. What he won’t explain are the mysterious scents stored in the drawers that line the walls of their cabin, or the origin of the machine that creates them. As Emmeline grows, however, so too does her curiosity, until one day the unforeseen happens, and Emmeline is vaulted out into the real world --- a place of love, betrayal, ambition and revenge. To understand her past, Emmeline must unlock the clues to her identity, a quest that challenges the limits of her heart and imagination.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250622624
SEPARATE: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America's Journey from Slavery to Segregation by Steve Luxenberg (History)
SEPARATE is a myth-shattering narrative of one of the most consequential Supreme Court cases of the 19th century, Plessy v. Ferguson. The 1896 ruling embraced racial segregation, and its reverberations are still felt today. Drawing on letters, diaries and archival collections, Steve Luxenberg reveals the origins of racial separation and its pernicious grip on American life. He tells the story through the lives of the people caught up in the case: Louis Martinet, who led the resisters from the mixed-race community of French New Orleans; Albion Tourgée, a bestselling author and the country’s best-known white advocate for civil rights; Justice Henry Billings Brown, whose majority ruling sanctioned separation; and Justice John Harlan, whose singular dissent cemented his reputation as a steadfast voice for justice.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393357691
SURVIVAL MATH: Notes on an All-American Family by Mitchell Jackson (Memoir)
SURVIVAL MATH explores gangs and guns, near-death experiences, sex work, masculinity, composite fathers, the concept of “hustle” and the destructive power of addiction --- all framed within the story of Mitchell Jackson, his family and his community. The primary narrative, focused on understanding the antecedents of Jackson’s family’s experience, is complemented by survivor files, which feature photographs and riveting short narratives of several of Jackson’s male relatives.
Scribner | 9781501131738
WOMAN 99 by Greer Macallister (Historical Thriller)
When Charlotte Smith's wealthy parents commit her beloved sister Phoebe to the infamous Goldengrove Asylum, Charlotte knows there's more to the story than madness. She risks everything and follows her sister inside, surrendering her real identity as a privileged young lady of San Francisco society to become a nameless inmate, Woman 99. The longer she stays, the more she realizes that many of the women of Goldengrove aren't insane, merely inconvenient --- and that her search for the truth threatens to dig up secrets that some very powerful people would do anything to keep.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781492693710
A WOMAN IS NO MAN by Etaf Rum (Fiction)
Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra finds herself quickly betrothed and married. She struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law Fareeda and strange new husband Adam, a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children --- four daughters instead of the sons Fareeda tells Isra she must bear. Brooklyn, 2008. Eighteen-year-old Deya, Isra’s oldest daughter, must meet with potential husbands at her grandmother Fareeda’s insistence. She can’t help but wonder if her options would have been different had her parents survived the car crash that killed them when she was only eight. Soon, however, Deya will find herself on an unexpected path that leads her to shocking truths about her family.
Harper Perennial | 9780062699770
THE WORST BEST MAN by Mia Sosa (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
A wedding planner left at the altar? Yeah, the irony isn’t lost on Carolina Santos, either. But despite that embarrassing blip from her past, Lina is offered an opportunity that could change her life. There’s just one hitch: she has to collaborate with the best (make that worst) man from her own failed nuptials. Marketing expert Max Hartley is determined to make his mark with a coveted hotel client looking to expand its brand. Then he learns he’ll be working with his brother’s whip-smart, stunning --- absolutely off-limits --- ex-fiancée. And she loathes him. If they can nail their presentation without killing each other, they’ll both come out ahead. Except Max has been public enemy number one ever since he encouraged his brother to jilt the bride, and Lina is ready to dish out a little payback of her own.
Avon | 9780062909879
On Sale the Week of February 10th in Hardcover
February 11th
ABOVE THE BAY OF ANGELS by Rhys Bowen (Historical Mystery)
Isabella Waverly only means to comfort the woman felled on a London street. In her final dying moments, she thrusts a letter into Bella’s hand. It’s an offer of employment in the kitchens of Buckingham Palace, and everything the budding young chef desperately wants: an escape from the constrictions of her life as a lowly servant. In the stranger’s stead, Bella can spread her wings. Arriving as Helen Barton from Yorkshire, she pursues her passion for creating culinary delights, served to the delighted Queen Victoria herself. Best of all, she’s been chosen to accompany the queen to Nice. What fortune! Until the threat of blackmail shadows Bella to the Riviera, and a member of the queen’s retinue falls ill and dies.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781542008266
THE ABSOLUTION by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (Mystery/Thriller)
The police find out about the crime the way everyone does: on Snapchat. The video shows a terrified young woman begging for forgiveness. When her body is found, it is marked with a number “2”. Detective Huldar joins the investigation, bringing child psychologist Freyja on board to help question the murdered teenager's friends. Soon, they uncover that Stella was far from the angel people claim, but who could have hated her enough to kill? Then another teenager goes missing, more clips are sent to social media, and the body with a “3” is found. Freyja and Huldar can agree on two things at least: the truth is far from simple. The killer is not done yet. And is there an undiscovered body carrying the number “1” out there?
Minotaur Books | 9781250136305
ALL THE BEST LIES by Joanna Schaffhausen (Mystery/Thriller)
FBI agent Reed Markham is haunted by one painful unsolved mystery: Who murdered his mother? Camilla was brutally stabbed to death more than 40 years ago while baby Reed lay in his crib mere steps away. The trail went so cold that the Las Vegas Police Department has given up hope of solving the case. But then a shattering family secret changes everything Reed knows about his origins, his murdered mother and his powerful adoptive father, state senator Angus Markham. Unable to trust his family with the details of his personal investigation, Reed enlists his friend, suspended cop Ellery Hathaway, to join his quest in Vegas. They discover that young Camilla had snared the attention of dangerous men, any of whom might have wanted to shut her up for good.
Minotaur Books | 9781250297389
AMERICAN SHERLOCK: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI by Kate Winkler Dawson (True Crime/Biography)
Known as the "American Sherlock Holmes," Edward Oscar Heinrich was one of America's greatest --- and first --- forensic scientists, with an uncanny knack for finding clues, establishing evidence, and deducing answers with a skill that seemed almost supernatural. Heinrich was one of the nation's first expert witnesses, working in a time when the turmoil of Prohibition led to sensationalized crime reporting and only a small, systematic study of evidence. However, with his brilliance, and commanding presence in both the courtroom and at crime scenes, Heinrich spearheaded the invention of a myriad of new forensic tools that police still use today. His work, though not without its serious --- some would say fatal --- flaws, changed the course of American criminal investigation.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780525539551
THE BURN by Kathleen Kent (Mystery/Thriller)
Betty Rhyzyk’s wounds are still fresh from an encounter with an apocalyptic cult known as The Family. She's back at work as a narcotics detective, but something isn't right --- at work, where someone has been assassinating confidential informants, or at home, where she struggles to connect with her loving wife, Jackie. To make matters worse, Betty's partner seems to be increasingly dependent on the prescription painkillers he was prescribed for the injuries he sustained rescuing her. Betty decides to go rogue, investigating her own department and chasing down phantom sightings of the cult leader who took her hostage. The chase will lead her to the dark heart of a drug cartel terrorizing Dallas, and straight to the crooked cops who plan to profit from it all.
Mulholland Books | 9780316450584
THE CHILL by Scott Carson (Supernatural Thriller)
Far upstate, in New York’s ancient forests, a drowned village lays beneath the dark, still waters of the Chilewaukee reservoir. Early in the 20th century, the town was destroyed for the greater good: bringing water to the millions living downstate. Or at least that’s what the politicians from Manhattan insisted at the time. The local families, settled there since America’s founding, were forced from their land, but they didn’t move far…and some didn’t move at all. Now, a century later, an inspector assigned to oversee the dam witnesses something inexplicable. It turns out that more than the village was left behind in the waters of the Chill when it was abandoned. The townspeople didn’t evacuate without a fight. A dark prophecy remained, too, and the time has come for it to be fulfilled.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781982104597
DEAD TO HER by Sarah Pinborough (Psychological Thriller)
Marcie’s affair with Jason Maddox catapulted her into the world of the elite. Old money, old ties, old secrets. Marcie may have married into this world, but she’ll never be part of it. Then Jason’s boss brings back a new wife from his trip to London. Young, attractive, reckless --- nobody can take their eyes off Keisha. Including Marcie’s husband. Some people would kill for the life Marcie has. What will she do to keep it?
William Morrow | 9780062856821
THE ESCAPE ARTIST: A Memoir by Helen Fremont (Memoir)
Helen Fremont writes with wit and candor about growing up in a household held together by a powerful glue: secrets. Her parents, profoundly affected by their memories of the Holocaust, pass on --- to both Helen and her older sister --- a penchant for keeping their lives neatly, even obsessively compartmentalized, and a zealous determination to protect themselves from what they see as danger from the outside world. She delves deeply into the family dynamic that produced such a startling devotion to secret keeping, beginning with the painful and unexpected discovery that she has been disinherited in her mother’s will.
Gallery Books | 9781982113605
THE FALCON THIEF: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird by Joshua Hammer (True Crime)
On May 3, 2010, an Irish national named Jeffrey Lendrum was apprehended at Britain’s Birmingham International Airport with a suspicious parcel strapped to his stomach. Inside were 14 rare peregrine falcon eggs snatched from a remote cliffside in Wales. So begins a tale almost too bizarre to believe, following the parallel lives of a globe-trotting smuggler who spent two decades capturing endangered raptors worth millions of dollars as race champions --- and Detective Andy McWilliam of the United Kingdom’s National Wildlife Crime Unit, who’s hell bent on protecting the world’s birds of prey.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501191886
FRANKLIN & WASHINGTON: The Founding Partnership by Edward J. Larson (Biography)
Theirs was a three-decade-long bond that, more than any other pairing, would forge the United States. Benjamin Franklin, an abolitionist freethinker from the urban north, and George Washington, a slaveholding general from the agrarian south, were the indispensable authors of American independence and the two key partners in the attempt to craft a more perfect union at the Constitutional Convention. Yet their teamwork has been little remarked upon in the centuries since. Illuminating Franklin and Washington’s relationship with striking new detail and energy, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward J. Larson shows that theirs was truly an intimate working friendship that amplified the talents of each for collective advancement of the American project.
William Morrow | 9780062880154
THE ILLNESS LESSON by Clare Beams (Historical Fiction)
At their newly founded school, Samuel Hood and his daughter, Caroline, promise a groundbreaking education for young women. But Caroline has grave misgivings. After all, her own unconventional education has left her unmarriageable and isolated, unsuited to the narrow roles afforded women in 19th-century New England. When a mysterious flock of red birds descends on the town, Caroline alone seems to find them unsettling. It's not long, though, before the assembled students begin to manifest bizarre symptoms: rashes, seizures, headaches, verbal tics, night wanderings. Fearing ruin for the school, Samuel overrules Caroline's pleas to inform the girls' parents and turns instead to a noted physician, a man whose sinister ministrations --- based on a shocking historic treatment --- horrify Caroline.
Doubleday | 9780385544665
IN THE LAND OF MEN: A Memoir by Adrienne Miller (Memoir)
A naive and idealistic 22-year-old from the Midwest, Adrienne Miller got her lucky break when she was hired as an editorial assistant at GQ magazine in the mid-’90s. Three years later, she forged her own path, becoming the first woman to take on the role of literary editor of Esquire. This was also a unique moment in history that saw the rise of a new literary movement, as exemplified by McSweeney’s and the work of David Foster Wallace. The mercurial Wallace would become the defining voice of a generation and the fiction writer Miller would work with most. Their intellectual and artistic exchange grew into a highly charged professional and personal relationship between the most prominent male writer of the era and a young woman still finding her voice.
Ecco | 9780062682413
INDELICACY by Amina Cain (Fiction)
In INDELICACY, a cleaning woman at a museum of art nurtures aspirations to do more than simply dust the paintings around her. She dreams of having the liberty to explore them in writing, and so must find a way to win herself the time and security to use her mind. She escapes her lot by marrying a rich man, but having gained a husband, a house, high society and a maid, she finds that her new life of privilege is no less constrained. Not only has she taken up different forms of time-consuming labor --- social and erotic --- but she is now, however passively, forcing other women to clean up after her. Perhaps another and more drastic solution is necessary?
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374148379
THE LAST NEGROES AT HARVARD: The Class of 1963 and the 18 Young Men Who Changed Harvard Forever by Kent Garrett and Jeanne Ellsworth (Memoir/History)
In the fall of 1959, Harvard recruited an unprecedented 18 “Negro” boys as an early form of affirmative action. Four years later, they would graduate as African Americans. Some 50 years later, one of these trailblazing Harvard grads, Kent Garrett, would begin to reconnect with his classmates and explore their vastly different backgrounds, lives and what their time at Harvard meant. Garrett and his partner, Jeanne Ellsworth, recount how these 18 youths broke new ground, with ramifications that extended far past the iconic Yard. By the time they were seniors, they would have demonstrated against national injustice and grappled with the racism of academia, had dinner with Malcolm X, and fought alongside their African national classmates for the right to form a Black students’ organization.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9781328879974
THE MERCIES by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Historical Fiction)
Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardø must fend for themselves. Three years later, Absalom Cornet arrives from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband's authority and terrified by it. As Maren and Ursa are drawn to one another in ways that surprise them both, the island begins to close in on them, with Absalom's iron rule threatening Vardø's very existence.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316529259
THE ONLY CHILD by Mi-ae Seo (Psychological Thriller)
Criminal psychologist Seonkyeong receives an unexpected call one day. Yi Byeongdo, a serial killer whose gruesome murders shook the world, wants to be interviewed. Refusing to speak to anyone until now, he asks specifically for her. Seonkyeong agrees out of curiosity. That same day, Hayeong, her husband’s 11-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, shows up at their door after her grandparents, with whom she lived after her mother passed away, die in a sudden fire. Seonkyeong wants her to feel at home, but is gradually unnerved as the young girl says very little and acts strangely. At work and at home, Seonkyeong starts to unravel the pasts of the two new arrivals in her life and begins to see startling similarities.
Ecco | 9780062905048
PLAY THE RED QUEEN by Juris Jurjevics (Mystery)
Vietnam, 1963. A female Viet Cong assassin is trawling the boulevards of Saigon, catching US Army officers off-guard with a single pistol shot, then riding off on the back of a scooter. Although the US military is not officially in combat, 16,000 American servicemen are stationed in Vietnam “advising” the military and government. Among them are Ellsworth Miser and Clovis Robeson, two army investigators who have been tasked with tracking down the daring killer.
Soho Crime | 9781641291378
POSTSCRIPT by Cecelia Ahern (Fiction)
Seven years after her husband's death --- six since she read his final letter --- Holly Kennedy has moved on with her life. When Holly's sister asks her to tell the story of the "PS, I Love You" letters on her podcast --- to revisit the messages Gerry wrote before his death to read after his passing --- she does so reluctantly, not wanting to reopen old wounds. But after the episode airs, people start reaching out to Holly, and they all have one thing in common: they are terminally ill and want to leave their own missives behind for loved ones. Suddenly, Holly finds herself drawn back into a world she's worked tirelessly to leave behind --- but one that leads her on another incredible, life-affirming journey.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538746592
THE QUEEN'S FORTUNE: A Novel of Desiree, Napoleon, and the Dynasty That Outlasted the Empire by Allison Pataki (Historical Fiction)
As the French Revolution ravages the country, Desiree Clary is faced with the life-altering truth that the world she has known and loved is gone, and it’s fallen on her to save her family from the guillotine. A chance encounter with Napoleon Bonaparte, the ambitious and charismatic young military prodigy, provides her answer. When her beloved sister Julie marries his brother Joseph, Desiree and Napoleon’s futures become irrevocably linked. Quickly entering into their own passionate, dizzying courtship that leads to a secret engagement, they vow to meet in the capital once his career has been secured. But her newly laid plans with Napoleon turn to sudden heartbreak, thanks to the rising star of Parisian society, Josephine de Beauharnais. Once again, Desiree’s life is turned on its head.
Ballantine Books | 9780593128183
SALT RIVER: A Doc Ford Novel by Randy Wayne White (Thriller/Adventure)
Marine biologist and former government agent Doc Ford is sure he's beyond the point of being surprised by his longtime pal Tomlinson's madcap tales of his misspent youth. But he's stunned anew when avowed bachelor Tomlinson reveals that as a younger man strapped for cash, he'd unwittingly fathered multiple children via for-profit sperm bank donations. Thanks to genealogy websites, Tomlinson's now-grown offspring have tracked him down, seeking answers about their roots --- but Doc quickly grows suspicious that one of them might be planning something far more nefarious than a family reunion. With recent history on his mind, Doc is unsurprised when his own dicey past is called into question.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780735212725
THE UNSPOKEN NAME by A. K. Larkwood (Fantasy/Adventure)
What if you knew how and when you will die? Csorwe does --- she will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice. But on the day of her foretold death, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Leave with him, and live. Turn away from her destiny and her god to become a thief, a spy, an assassin --- the wizard's loyal sword. Topple an empire, and help him reclaim his seat of power. But Csorwe will soon learn that gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.
Tor Books | 9781250238900
UNTAMED SHORE by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Thriller)
Baja California, 1979. Viridiana spends her days watching the dead sharks piled beside the seashore, as the fishermen pull their nets. Her head is filled with dreams of Hollywood films, of romance, of a future beyond the drab town where her only option is to marry and have children. Three wealthy American tourists arrive for the summer, and Viridiana is magnetized. She immediately becomes entwined in the glamorous foreigners’ lives. When one of them dies, Viridiana lies to protect her friends. Soon enough, someone is asking questions, and Viridiana has some of her own about the identity of her new acquaintances. Sharks may be dangerous, but there are worse predators nearby, ready to devour a naïve young woman who is quickly being tangled in a web of deceit.
Agora Books | 9781947993921
THE UNWILLING by Kelly Braffet (Historical Fantasy)
Judah is a foundling born with a special gift and raised inside Highfall castle along with Gavin, the son and heir to Lord Elban’s vast empire. As Gavin is groomed for his future role, Judah comes to realize that she has no real position within the kingdom and no hope at all of ever traveling beyond its castle walls. Elban --- a lord as mighty as he is cruel --- has his own plans for her, for all of them. But outside the walls, a magus, a healer with his own secret power unlike anything Highfall has seen in years, is newly arrived from the provinces. He, too, has plans for the empire, and at the heart of those plans lies Judah. The girl who started life with no name and no history will soon uncover more to her story than she ever imagined.
Mira | 9780778309406
WASHINGTON'S END: The Final Years and Forgotten Struggle by Jonathan Horn (History)
WASHINGTON’S END begins where most biographies of George Washington leave off, with the first president exiting office after eight years and entering what would become the most bewildering stage of his life. Embittered by partisan criticism and eager to return to his farm, Washington assumed a role for which there was no precedent at a time when the kings across the ocean yielded their crowns only upon losing their heads. In a different sense, Washington would lose his head, too. Bestselling author Jonathan Horn reveals that the quest to surrender power proved more difficult than Washington imagined and brought his life to an end he never expected.
Scribner | 9781501154232
WEATHER by Jenny Offill (Fiction)
For years Lizzie Benson has tended to her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but Lizzie has little chance to spend her new free time with husband and son before her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. She's become famous for her prescient podcast, “Hell and High Water,” and wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives: from left-wingers worried about climate change and right-wingers worried about the decline of western civilization. As Lizzie dives into this polarized world, she begins to wonder what it means to keep tending your own garden once you've seen the flames beyond its walls.
Knopf | 9780385351102
WILDLAND by Rebecca Hodge (Fiction)
When Kat Jamison retreats to the Blue Ridge Mountains, she's counting on peace and solitude to help her make a difficult decision. Her breast cancer has returned, but after the death of her husband, her will to fight is dampened. Now she has a choice to make: face yet another round of chemotherapy or surrender gracefully. Self-reflection quickly proves impossible as her getaway is complicated by a pair of abandoned dogs and two friendly children staying nearby, Lily and Nirav. But when lightning ignites a deadly wildfire, Kat's cabin is cut off from the rest of the camp, separating Lily and Nirav from their parents. Left with no choice, Kat, the children and the dogs must flee on foot through the drought-stricken forest, away from the ravenous flames.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781643852928
On Sale the Week of February 10th in Paperback
February 11th
AT THE WOLF’S TABLE by Rosella Postorino (Historical Fiction)
Twenty-six-year-old Rosa Sauer’s parents are gone, and her husband Gregor is far away, fighting on the front lines of WWII. Impoverished and alone, she makes the fateful decision to leave war-torn Berlin to live with her in-laws in the countryside. But one morning, the SS informs her that she has been conscripted to be one of Hitler’s tasters: twice a day, she and nine other women go to his secret headquarters to eat his meals before he does. Forced to eat what might kill them, the tasters begin to divide into The Fanatics, those loyal to Hitler, and the women like Rosa who insist they aren’t Nazis, even as they risk their lives every day for Hitler’s. As secrets and resentments grow, this unlikely sisterhood reaches its own dramatic climax.
Flatiron Books | 9781250179166
BANDBOX by Thomas Mallon (Historical Fiction)
Bandbox is a hugely successful magazine, a glamorous monthly cocktail of 1920s obsessions from the stock market to radio to gangland murder. Edited by the bombastic Jehoshaphat “Joe” Harris, the magazine has a masthead that includes, among many others, a grisly, alliterative crime writer; a shy but murderously determined copyboy; and a burned-out vaudeville correspondent who’s lovesick for his loyal, dewy assistant. As the novel opens, the defection of Harris’ most ambitious protégé has plunged Bandbox into a death struggle with a new competitor on the newsstand. But there’s more to come: a sabotaged fiction contest, the NYPD vice squad, a subscriber’s kidnapping, and a film-actress cover subject who makes the heroines of Fosse’s Chicago look like the girls next door.
Vintage | 9781984899743
THE BOATMAN’S DAUGHTER by Andy Davidson (Supernatural Thriller)
Paperback Original
Ever since her father was killed when she was just a child, Miranda Crabtree has kept her head down and her eyes up, ferrying contraband for a mad preacher and his declining band of followers to make ends meet and to protect an old witch and a secret child from harm. But dark forces are at work in the bayou, both human and supernatural, conspiring to disrupt the rhythms of Miranda’s peculiar and precarious life. And when the preacher makes an unthinkable demand, it sets Miranda on a desperate, dangerous path, forcing her to consider what she is willing to sacrifice to keep her loved ones safe.
MCD x FSG Originals | 9780374538552
BOOK OF THE JUST: Book Three of the Bohemian Trilogy by Dana Chamblee Carpenter (Supernatural Thriller)
Hiding among a tribe of the Martu in the isolation of the Australian outback near the edges of Lake Disappointment, Mouse and her lover, Angelo, have seemingly evaded at least one of the predators hunting them. Carefully dropping bogus breadcrumbs across Europe, they misdirect the Novus Rishi, a ruthless cult that wants Mouse as the ultimate weapon in their battle against evil. But when unnerving dreams start to plague Angelo, and the ancient beings of the Martu’s Dreaming send prophetic warnings that include visions of Mouse at her father’s side, the two lovers realize it’s time to act. With nowhere left to run, Mouse and Angelo prepare for a last showdown with their enemies.
Pegasus Books | 9781643133454
THE CITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT by Charlie Jane Anders (Science Fiction)
Humanity clings to life on January --- a colonized planet divided between permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other. Two cities, built long ago in the meager temperate zone, serve as the last bastions of civilization --- but life inside them is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside. Sophie, a young student from the wrong side of Xiosphant city, is exiled into the dark after being part of a failed revolution. But she survives --- with the help of a mysterious savior from beneath the ice. Burdened with a dangerous, painful secret, Sophie and her ragtag group of exiles face the ultimate challenge --- and they are running out of time.
Tor Books | 9780765379979
COURTING MR. LINCOLN by Louis Bayard (Historical Fiction)
When Mary Todd meets Abraham Lincoln, he is on no one's shortlist to be president. Rough and reticent, he’s a country lawyer lacking money and manners, living above a dry goods shop, but with a gift for oratory. Mary, a quick, self-possessed debutante with a tireless interest in debates and elections, at first finds him an enigma. It’s not long, though, before she sees the Lincoln that his roommate, Joshua Speed, knows: a man who, despite his awkwardness, is amiable and profound, with a gentle wit to match his genius and a respect for her keen political mind. But as her relationship with Lincoln deepens, she must confront his inseparable friendship with Speed, who has taught his roommate how to dance, dress and navigate the polite society of Springfield.
Algonquin Books | 9781643750446
A DANGEROUS COLLABORATION: A Veronica Speedwell Mystery by Deanna Raybourn (Historical Mystery)
Lured by the promise of a rare and elusive butterfly, the intrepid Veronica Speedwell is persuaded by Lord Templeton-Vane, the brother of her colleague Stoker, to pose as his fiancée at a house party on a Cornish isle owned by his oldest friend, Malcolm Romilly. But Veronica soon learns that one question hangs over the party: What happened to Rosamund? Three years ago, Malcolm’s bride vanished on their wedding day, and no trace of her has ever been found. Now those who were closest to her have gathered, each a possible suspect in her disappearance. Determined to discover Rosamund’s fate, Veronica and Stoker match wits with a murderer who already has struck once and will not hesitate to kill again.
Berkley | 9780451490728
DIARY OF A DEAD MAN ON LEAVE by David Downing (Historical Thriller)
In April 1938, Josef Hofmann arrives at a boarding house in Hamm, Germany, and lets a room from the widow who owns it. Fifty years later, Walter Gersdorff, the widow’s son, discovers the carefully hidden diary that the boarder had kept during his stay. What Walter finds is a chronicle of one of the most tumultuous years in German history, narrated by a secret agent on a deadly mission. Josef Hofmann was not the returned Argentinian immigrant he’d said he was --- he was a communist spy under Moscow’s command trying to reconnect with remaining members of Germany’s suppressed communist party. But as he grew close to the Gersdorffs, accidentally stepping into the role of the father Walter never had, Hofmann began to wish for another kind of hope in his life.
Soho Crime | 9781641291293
EARLY RISER by Jasper Fforde (Fantasy/Humor)
Your name is Charlie Worthing, and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams that you dismiss as nonsense. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling. When you get the dreams too, it's weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity. But teasing truth from the Winter is never easy. You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping and stamp collecting; ensure you aren't eaten by Nightwalkers, whose thirst for human flesh can only be satisfied by comfort food; and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical WinterVolk.
Penguin Books | 9780143111276
FRATERNITY: An Inside Look at a Year of College Boys Becoming Men by Alexandra Robbins (Sociology/Gender Studies)
Two real-life stories. One stunning twist. Meet Jake, a studious freshman weighing how far to go to find a brotherhood that will introduce him to lifelong friends and help conquer his social awkwardness; and Oliver, a hardworking chapter president trying to keep his misunderstood fraternity out of trouble despite multiple run-ins with the police. Their year-in-the-life stories help explain why students are joining fraternities in record numbers despite scandalous headlines. To find out what it’s like to be a fraternity brother in the 21st century, Alexandra Robbins contacted hundreds of brothers whose chapters don’t make headlines --- and who suggested that many fraternities can be healthy safe spaces for men.
Dutton | 9781101986745
GHOSTS OF THE MISSING by Kathleen Donohoe (Mystery)
Paperback Original
Culleton, New York has a long history --- of writers, of artists and of unsolved mysteries. It’s where Adair grew up before she moved to Brooklyn to try to make it as an artist. But after years away from her hometown and little to show for it, Adair decides to return. She moves back into Moye House, the old mansion and current writer’s retreat, imbued with her family's legacy. Ciaran is a writer staying at Moye House in the hopes of finally solving the mystery of what happened to Rowan Kinnane --- his sister, and Adair’s childhood best friend. As the two begin investigating, secrets long buried rise to the surface, complicating their sense of themselves and their understanding of what happened on that fateful day.
Mariner Books | 9780544557178
HANGMAN by Daniel Cole (Thriller)
Detective Emily Baxter is still reeling from the Ragdoll case, and from the disappearance of her friend, William “Wolf” Fawkes. Despite her reluctance to jump into another gruesome case, she’s summoned to a meeting of a new FBI/CIA/UK law enforcement task force in New York. There, she is presented with photographs of the latest copycat murder: a body contorted into a familiar pose, strung up from the Brooklyn Bridge, the word “BAIT” carved deep into its chest. As the media pressure intensifies, Baxter is ordered to assist with the investigation and attend the scene of another murder, again with a victim inscribed with a word: “PUPPET.” Baxter must shake off the grief and fear that have paralyzed her for the last year so she can stop another terrible killer before it’s too late.
Ecco | 9780062653994
I KNOW YOU KNOW WHO I AM: Stories by Peter Kispert (Fiction/Short Stories)
Paperback Original
Throughout Peter Kispert’s debut collection, we meet characters who have lied, who have sometimes created elaborate falsehoods, and who now must cope with the way that those deceptions eat at the very fabric of their lives and relationships. In the title story, the narrator, desperate to save a love affair on the rocks, hires an actor to play a friend he invented in order to seem less lonely. In "Aim for the Heart," a man's lies about a hunting habit leave him with an unexpected deer carcass and the need to parse unsettling high school memories. And in "Rorschach," a theater producer runs a show in which death row inmates are crucified in an on-stage rendering of the New Testament, while being haunted daily by an unrequited love and nightly by ghosts of his own creation.
Penguin | 9780143134282
kaddish.com by Nathan Englander (Fiction/Humor)
When his father dies, it falls to Larry --- the secular son in a family of Orthodox Brooklyn Jews --- to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, every day for 11 months. But to the horror and dismay of his sister, Larry refuses, imperiling the fate of his father’s soul. To appease her, he hires a stranger through a website called kaddish.com to say the prayer instead --- a decision that will have profound, and very personal, repercussions.
Vintage | 9780525434054
LANDFALL by Thomas Mallon (Fiction)
LANDFALL is set during the tumultuous middle of the George W. Bush years, amid the twin catastrophes of the Iraq insurgency and Hurricane Katrina. The president possesses a personality whose high-speed alternations between charm and petulance, resoluteness and self-pity, continually energize and mystify the panoply of characters around him. They include his acerbic, crafty mother, former First Lady Barbara Bush; his desperately correct and eager-to-please secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice; the gnomic and manipulative Donald Rumsfeld; foreign leaders from Tony Blair to Vladimir Putin; and the caustic one-woman chorus of Ann Richards, Bush's predecessor as governor of Texas.
Vintage | 9781101971352
THE LIBRARY OF LOST AND FOUND by Phaedra Patrick (Fiction)
Librarian Martha Storm has always found it easier to connect with books than people --- though not for lack of trying. She keeps careful lists of how to help others in her superhero-themed notebook. And yet, sometimes it feels like she’s invisible. All of that changes when a book of fairy tales arrives on her doorstep. Inside, Martha finds a dedication written to her by her best friend --- her grandmother Zelda --- who died under mysterious circumstances years earlier. When Martha discovers a clue within the book that her grandmother may still be alive, she becomes determined to discover the truth. As she delves deeper into Zelda’s past, she unwittingly reveals a family secret that will change her life forever.
Park Row | 9780778309826
ME FOR YOU by Lolly Winston (Fiction)
Rudy never expected to be a widower at 54 years old. Now, 10 months after the untimely death of his beloved wife, he’s still struggling with how to move on from the overwhelming tragedy --- but at least his new job is helping. After being downsized from his finance position, Rudy turned to his first love: the piano. As the piano player at Nordstrom, Rudy finds immense joy in bringing a little music into the world. And it doesn’t hurt that Sasha, the men’s watch clerk who is finally divorcing her no-good husband, finds time to join him at the bench every now and then. Just when Rudy and Sasha’s relationship begins to deepen, the police reveal a shocking update about Rudy’s wife’s untimely death, and now they want a second look at him, too.
Gallery Books | 9781501179136
MERCY HOUSE by Alena Dillon (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Inside a century-old row house in Brooklyn, renegade Sister Evelyn and her fellow nuns preside over a safe haven for the abused and abandoned. Gruff and indomitable on the surface, warm and wry underneath, little daunts Evelyn, until she receives word that Mercy House will be investigated by Bishop Hawkins, a man with whom she shares a dark history. In order to protect everything they’ve built, the nuns must conceal many of their methods, which are forbidden by the Catholic Church. Evelyn will go to great lengths to defend all that she loves. She confronts a gang member, defies the church, challenges her own beliefs and faces her past.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062914804
NEON PREY: A Lucas Davenport Novel by John Sandford (Mystery/Thriller)
Clayton Deese looks like a small-time criminal, muscle for hire when his loan shark boss needs to teach someone a lesson. Now, seven months after a job that went south and landed him in jail, Deese has skipped out on bail, and the U.S. Marshals come looking for him. They don't much care about a low-level guy --- it's his boss they want --- but Deese might be their best chance to bring down the whole operation. Then, they step onto a dirt trail behind Deese's rural Louisiana cabin and find a jungle full of graves. Lucas Davenport is now on the trail of a serial killer who has been operating for years without notice. His quarry is ruthless, and --- as Davenport will come to find --- full of surprises.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593085738
THE NIGHT SWIMMERS by Peter Rock (Fiction)
Beneath the surface of Lake Michigan, there are vast systems: crosscutting currents, sudden drop-offs, depths of absolute darkness, shipwrecked bodies, hidden places. Peter Rock’s autobiographical novel begins in the ’90s on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin. The narrator, a recent college graduate, and a young widow, Mrs. Abel, swim together at night, making their way across miles of open water. The nature of these night swims, and of his relationship to Mrs. Abel, becomes increasingly mysterious to the narrator as the summer passes, until the night that Mrs. Abel disappears. Twenty years later, the narrator tries to understand those months, his forgotten obsessions and dreams, and looks for clues to the fate of Mrs. Abel.
Soho Press | 9781641291279
THE PANDORA ROOM by Christopher Golden (Supernatural Thriller)
In one ancient variation on the myth of Pandora’s Box, there were two jars: one for Pandora and one for her sister, Anesidora. One contained all the blessings of the gods, the other all the world’s curses. Now, in a subterranean city in Northern Iraq, archaeologist Sophie Durand has discovered a secret chamber covered in writing that confirms that version of the tale --- a chamber that contains a single jar. Those who believe the myth want to know which jar has been found in the Pandora Room: the one containing blessings, or the one full of curses. Governments rush to lay claim, but jihadi forces aren’t waiting for the dust to settle. Whatever the jar contains, they want it, no matter who they have to kill…or what will emerge when they open it.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250252920
PARKLAND: Birth of a Movement by Dave Cullen (Social Science/Current Affairs)
Dave Cullen unfolds the story of Parkland through the voices of key participants whose diverse personalities and outlooks comprise every facet of their grassroots #neveragain movement. Instead of taking us into the minds of the killer, he takes us into the hearts of the Majory Stoneman Douglas students as they cope with the common concerns of high school students everywhere --- awaiting college acceptance letters, studying for mid-term exams, competing against their athletic rivals, putting together the yearbook, staging the musical "Spring Awakening," enjoying prom and graduation --- while moving forward from a horrific event that has altered them forever.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062882967
THE SECRETARY by Renée Knight (Psychological Thriller)
From her first day as Personal Assistant to the celebrated Mina Appleton, Christine Butcher understands what is expected of her. For 20 years, she has been a most devoted servant, a silent witness to everything in Mina’s life. Day after day, year after year, Christine has been there, invisible --- watching, listening, absorbing all the secrets floating around her. Keeping them safe. Christine is trusted. But those years of loyalty and discretion come with a high price. And eventually Christine will pay. But it would be a mistake to underestimate such a steadfast woman as Christine. Because as everyone is about to discover, there’s a dangerous line between obedience and obsession.
Harper Perennial | 9780062362360
SISTERS BY CHOICE: A Blackberry Island Novel by Susan Mallery (Fiction)
Paperback Original
After her cat toy empire goes up in flames, Sophie Lane returns to Blackberry Island, determined to rebuild. Until small-town life reveals a big problem: she can’t grow unless she learns to let go. If Sophie relaxes her grip even a little, she might lose everything. Or she might finally be free to reach for the happiness and love that have eluded her for so long. Kristine has become defined by her relationship to others. As much as she adores her husband and sons, she wants something for herself --- a sweet little bakery just off the waterfront. Like the mainland on the horizon, Heather’s goals seem beyond her grasp. Every time she manages to save for college, her mother has another crisis. Can she break free, or will she be trapped in this tiny life forever?
Mira | 9780778309390
SMOKESCREEN by Iris Johansen (Thriller)
A journalist shows up on Eve Duncan's doorstep with a plea for help. Jill Cassidy has just come from a small African village with a heartwrenching story: half the villagers --- many of them children --- have been killed in a horrific attack by guerilla soldiers, the bodies burned beyond recognition. Now, the families desperately need Eve's help to get closure and begin to heal. But when Eve arrives in the remote jungle, she begins to suspect that Jill's plea may have been a cover story for a deeper, more sinister plot. Isolated and unsure who she can trust, Eve finds herself stranded in an unstable country where violence threatens to break out again at any moment.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538713075
THE STATIONERY SHOP by Marjan Kamali (Fiction)
Roya is a dreamy, idealistic teenager who finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr. Fakhri’s neighborhood book and stationery shop. When Mr. Fakhri introduces Roya to Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi’s poetry, she loses her heart at once. A few months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square, but violence suddenly erupts --- a result of the coup d’etat that forever changes their country’s future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. More than 60 years later, though, an accident of fate leads Roya back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did he leave? Where did he go? How was he able to forget her?
Gallery Books | 9781982107499
SUMMER OF ’69 by Elin Hilderbrand (Historical Fiction)
It's 1969, and for the Levin family, the times they are a-changing. Every year the children have looked forward to spending the summer at their grandmother's historic home in downtown Nantucket. But like so much else in America, nothing is the same. Blair, the oldest sister, is marooned in Boston, pregnant with twins and unable to travel. Middle sister Kirby, caught up in the thrilling vortex of civil rights protests and determined to be independent, takes a summer job on Martha's Vineyard. Only-son Tiger is an infantry soldier, recently deployed to Vietnam. Thirteen-year-old Jessie suddenly feels like an only child, marooned in the house with her out-of-touch grandmother and her worried mother, each of them hiding a troubling secret.
Back Bay Books | 9780316420006
UNSOLVED by James Patterson and David Ellis (Thriller)
FBI agent Emmy Dockery is young and driven, and her unique skill at seeing connections others miss has brought her an impressive string of arrests. But a shocking new case has left her utterly baffled. The victims all appear to have died by accident and seemingly have nothing in common. But this many deaths can't be a coincidence. And the killer is somehow one step ahead of every move Dockery makes. To FBI special agent Harrison "Books" Bookman, everyone in the FBI is a suspect --- particularly Emmy Dockery (the fact that she's his ex-fiancee doesn't make it easier). But someone else is watching Dockery. Studying, learning, waiting. Until it's the perfect time to strike.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538731635
THE WOMEN IN BLACK by Madeleine St John (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
The women in black, so named for the black frocks they wear while working at an upscale department store called Goode’s, are run off their feet selling ladies’ cocktail dresses during the busy season. But in Sydney in the 1950s, there’s always time to pursue other goals. By the time the last marked-down dress has been sold, all of their lives will be forever changed in Madeleine St John’s debut novel, which is perfect for fans of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Scribner | 9781982134082
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