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Latest Update on Our GoFundMe Campaign
Thank you to those of you who have donated to our GoFundMe campaign. So far, with online and snail mail donations, we have raised $35,650 of our $50,000 goal.
You can read about our plans and donate here. If you would prefer donating via check, please send to:
The Book Report, Inc.
16 Mt. Bethel Road, Suite 365
Warren, NJ 07059
Thank you again for your consideration and your donation.
Carol Fitzgerald (Carol@bookreporter.com)
Please note: There will be no "On Sale This Week" newsletter on September 1st as we take our annual summer break, so we are covering releases for the next three weeks in this edition. Our next "On Sale This Week" newsletter will be sent on Tuesday, September 8th.
In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of August 24th, August 31st and September 7th 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 review of the newly released THE EXILES by Christina Baker Kline, which will be a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick. This ambitious, emotionally resonant novel captures the hardship, oppression, opportunity and hope of a trio of women’s lives --- two English convicts and an orphaned Aboriginal girl --- in 19th-century Australia.
Carol had the pleasure of chatting with Christina Baker Kline about THE EXILES in a recent "Bookreporter Talks To" interview. They talk about the challenges of researching this part of history and Christina’s extensive reading and travel for the book. Carol brings up one of the most interesting turns she has seen in a novel, which they discuss in very guarded terms to not give anything away. The book is multilayered, and their conversation gives it even more dimension for readers as they hear about the inspiration that led to the writing of it. Click here to watch the video and here to listen to the podcast. You can read Carol's Bets On commentary in the September 11th Bookreporter Weekly Update newsletter.
Our second "Bookreporter Talks To" interview is with Fiona Davis, whose latest novel, THE LIONS OF FIFTH AVENUE, is August's "Good Morning America" Book Club pick and a Bets On selection. As with her four previous novels, Fiona focuses on a landmark building in New York City. This time it’s the New York Public Library; she chose this setting after learning that a family lived in a seven-room apartment in the library during its early years. In the interview, Fiona shares the long history of the library, along with details that most New Yorkers haven’t even heard about, as well as a few secrets that she wasn’t able to add to the book. She also shows some vintage photos in the video interview, so podcast listeners should tune in there as well. Click here to watch the video and here to listen to the podcast. And find out why Carol is betting you’ll love this book here.
We also are spotlighting A GIRL IS A BODY OF WATER, international award-winning author Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s new novel, which releases on September 1st. This much-praised book is a sweeping and powerful portrait of a young girl and her family: who they are, what history has taken from them, and --- most importantly --- how they find their way back to each other. Carol has been including it in her Fall Preview presentations!
A Special "Bookaccino Live" Event:
Celebrate Bookreporter's 24th Anniversary with Some of Our
Longtime Reviewers on Thursday, August 27th at 8pm ET
We are so excited about our next “Bookaccino Live: A Lively Talk About Books” event, which will take place this Thursday, August 27th at 8pm ET. We are celebrating the 24th anniversary of Bookreporter with nine longtime reviewers of ours, and each will talk about three of their favorite summer reads. Our guests will be Sarah Rachel Egelman, Harvey Freedenberg, Joe Hartlaub, Ron Kaplan, Eileen Zimmerman Nicol, Ray Palen, Norah Piehl, Stuart Shiffman and Katherine B. Weissman. We are so looking forward to introducing them to you, as they are such a part of the heart and soul of Bookreporter. If you would like to attend, click here to sign up by Thursday at 10am ET.
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
On Sale September 1st:
A GIRL IS A BODY OF WATER
by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
A GIRL IS A BODY OF WATER by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (Fiction)
International award-winning author Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s novel is a sweeping and powerful portrait of a young girl and her family: who they are, what history has taken from them, and --- most importantly --- how they find their way back to each other.
In her 12th year, Kirabo, a young Ugandan girl, confronts a piercing question that has haunted her childhood: Who is my mother? Kirabo has been raised by women in the small village of Nattetta --- her grandmother, her best friend and her many aunts --- but the absence of her mother follows her like a shadow. Complicating these feelings of abandonment, as Kirabo comes of age she feels the emergence of a mysterious second self, a headstrong and confusing force inside her at odds with her sweet and obedient nature.
Kirabo’s journey to reconcile her rebellious origins, alongside her desire to reconnect with her mother and to honor her family’s expectations, is rich in the folklore of Uganda and an arresting exploration of what it means to be a modern girl in a world that seems determined to silence women. Makumbi’s unforgettable novel is a sweeping testament to the true and lasting connections between history, tradition, family, friends and the promise of a different future.
Click here to read more about the book.
Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events
As so many book and author events are happening online these days, we are highlighting a number of them that you may be interested in attending. Click on the links below for more info and to register.
Now through Saturday, September 5th: Ray Bradbury Centennial Read-A-Thon: This virtual Read-A-Thon of Ray Bradbury's FAHRENHEIT 451 brings together people from across the country --- including Neil Gaiman, Susan Orlean, Marlon James and William Shatner --- to honor Bradbury on the 100th anniversary of his birth. The Read-A-Thon premiered on August 22nd, his centennial, and will be available online through September 5th.
Wednesday, August 26th at 1pm ET: Simon & Schuster's Book Club Favorites Online Event: Cara Wall will join members of the Simon & Schuster team for a Facebook Live Book Club chat about THE DEARLY BELOVED, which is now in paperback and is this month's pick for S&S's Book Club Favorites.
Wednesday, August 26th at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": Every Wednesday, Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey, Patti Callahan Henry and Mary Alice Monroe talk books and writing on their "Friends and Fiction" Facebook group page.
Thursday, August 27th at 6:30pm ET: Between the Lines: Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library will host a virtual author event featuring Tiffany McDaniel, who will talk about her latest novel, BETTY.
Thursday, August 27th at 8pm ET: Bookaccino Live: A Lively Talk About Books: To celebrate the 24th anniversary of Bookreporter.com, we have invited nine of our longtime Bookreporter reviewers to share with us three of their favorite summer reads.
Saturday, August 29th at 7:30pm ET: Murder By The Book Virtual Event: Murder By The Book presents an all-star virtual event with New York Times bestselling authors James Lee Burke and Stephen King. Burke will discuss his new book and latest installment in the Dave Robicheaux series, A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL.
Tuesday, September 1st at 5pm ET: Politics & Prose Live!: Louise Penny will discuss the newest installment in her Chief Inspector Gamache series, ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE, with moderator Hillary Clinton.
Tuesday, September 1st at 8pm ET: PEN Out Loud: Bestselling author Yaa Gyasi joins PEN Out Loud to celebrate the publication of her new novel, TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM. She will be joined in conversation with bestselling author Roxane Gay.
Wednesday, September 2nd at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": Every Wednesday, Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey, Patti Callahan Henry and Mary Alice Monroe talk books and writing on their "Friends and Fiction" Facebook group page. Their special guest on September 2nd will be Etaf Rum, author of A WOMAN IS NO MAN.
Wednesday, September 2nd at 7pm ET: Warwick's Virtual Event: Warwick's will host Christina Baker Kline, in conversation with Kristin Hannah, as she discusses her new book, THE EXILES.
Tuesday, September 8th at 7pm ET: Barnes & Noble Virtual Book Club Event: Barnes & Noble will host a Facebook Live discussion for their August book club pick, THE PULL OF THE STARS, featuring author Emma Donoghue.
This Week's Bonus News:
Our Review of THE EXILES by Christina Baker Kline
An Upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On Pick
THE EXILES by Christina Baker Kline (Historical Fiction)
Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early 19th-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.
During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel --- a skilled midwife and herbalist --- is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.
Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.
- Click here to read more about the book.
- Click here to watch Carol's "Bookreporter Talks To" interview with Christina Baker Kline.
- Click here to listen to a podcast of the interview.
Click here to read our review.
THE EXILES will be a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick.
Don't miss Carol's commentary in the September 11th
Bookreporter Weekly Update newsletter.
On Sale the Week of August 24th in Hardcover
August 25th
AGAINST THE LOVELESS WORLD by Susan Abulhawa (Fiction)
As Nahr sits, locked away in solitary confinement, she spends her days reflecting on the dramatic events that landed her in prison in a country she barely knows. Born in Kuwait in the ’70s to Palestinian refugees, she dreamed of falling in love with the perfect man, raising children and possibly opening her own beauty salon. Instead, the man she thinks she loves jilts her after a brief marriage, her family teeters on the brink of poverty, she’s forced to prostitute herself, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq makes her a refugee, as her parents had been. After trekking through another temporary home in Jordan, she lands in Palestine, where she finally makes a home, falls in love and her destiny unfolds under Israeli occupation.
Atria Books | 9781982137038
BE BAD, BE BOLD, BE BILLIE: Live Life the Billie Eilish Way by Scarlett Russell (Self-Help/Personal Growth)
With her trademark neon hair, imaginative, fashion-forward outfits, and thought-provoking lyrics, Billie Eilish refuses to conform to others’ expectations of what a young, female pop star should look and sound like. Only 18 years old, she’s already won four Grammy awards, is the youngest artist to record a James Bond theme song, and has graced the cover of Vogue magazine. BE BAD, BE BOLD, BE BILLIE captures the essence of this extraordinary artist and influencer and the values she embodies: learning to be yourself, standing up for what you believe, and dealing with haters. Scarlett Russell explores Billie’s incredible journey to stardom and offers insights and tips on how to adopt her poise and laid-back attitude to get where you want to be.
Harper Design | 9780063055278
THE EXILES by Christina Baker Kline (Historical Fiction)
Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early 19th-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. Months later, she is sentenced to Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, including Mathinna, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.
Custom House | 9780062356345
FINAL CUT by S. J. Watson (Psychological Thriller)
Blackwood Bay. An ordinary place, home to ordinary people. It used to be a buzzing seaside destination. But now, ravaged by the effects of dwindling tourism and economic downturn, it’s a ghost town --- and the perfect place for filmmaker Alex to shoot her new documentary. But the community is deeply suspicious of her intentions. After all, nothing exciting ever happens in Blackwood Bay. Or does it?
Harper | 9780062382153
HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON: John Lewis and the Power of Hope by Jon Meacham (Biography)
John Lewis, who at age 25 marched in Selma, Alabama, and was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, was a visionary and a man of faith. Drawing on decades of wide-ranging interviews with Lewis, Jon Meacham writes of how this great-grandson of a slave and son of an Alabama tenant farmer was inspired by the Bible and his teachers in nonviolence, Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr., to put his life on the line in the service of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” A believer in the injunction that one should love one's neighbor as oneself, Lewis was arguably a saint in our time, risking limb and life to bear witness for the powerless in the face of the powerful.
Random House | 9781984855022
THE MEMORY OF SOULS by Jenn Lyons (Fantasy)
Now that Relos Var’s plans have been revealed and demons are free to rampage across the empire, the fulfillment of the ancient prophecies --- and the end of the world --- is closer than ever. To buy time for humanity, Kihrin needs to convince the king of the Manol vané to perform an ancient ritual that will strip the entire race of their immortality, but it’s a ritual that certain vané will do anything to prevent. Including assassinating the messengers. Worse, Kihrin must come to terms with the horrifying possibility that his connection to the king of demons, Vol Karoth, is growing steadily in strength. How can he hope to save anyone when he might turn out to be the greatest threat of them all?
Tor Books | 9781250175571
PAYBACK by Lorenzo Carcaterra (Thriller)
Detective Eddie Kenwood is a dirty cop. He has the highest signed-confession rate in the NYPD and a distinguished career built on putting men behind bars --- whether they’re guilty or not doesn’t matter much to him. When Tank Rizzo’s partner, Pearl, tells him about an old family friend Kenwood put in jail for a murder he didn’t commit, Tank and Pearl vow to take Kenwood down. Also in need of a takedown: the money-laundering accounting firm where Tank’s brother used to work --- before he mysteriously died, leaving Tank the sole guardian of his nephew, Chris. Chris smells a rat and enlists Tank’s help to bring the men who had his father killed to justice.
Ballantine Books | 9780399177590
THE SILENCE by Kendra Elliot (Thriller)
A man is savagely murdered outside Portland, and Detective Mason Callahan finds blood-spatter evidence that tells a troubling story. Files reveal that the murder victim, Reuben Braswell, was a radical conspiracist. In his home, investigators find pages of diatribes against law enforcement, as well as ties to Mason’s fiancée, FBI special agent Ava McLane. The victim was her informant --- and had strong reasons to be paranoid. To Ava, Braswell’s rants were those of a wearying and harmless man…until they collide with her investigation into the murders of police officers and finding the connection becomes urgent. Meanwhile, Braswell’s brother and Ava’s twin sister both disappear, and disturbing acts of sabotage target Ava’s personal life.
Montlake | 9781542006767
SISTERS by Daisy Johnson (Fiction)
Born just 10 months apart, July and September are thick as thieves, never needing anyone but each other. Now, following a case of school bullying, the teens have moved away with their single mother to a long-abandoned family home near the shore. In their new, isolated life, July finds that the deep bond she has always shared with September is shifting in ways she cannot entirely understand. A creeping sense of dread and unease descends inside the house. Meanwhile, outside, the sisters push boundaries of behavior --- until a series of shocking encounters tests the limits of their shared experience, and forces shocking revelations about the girls’ past and future.
Riverhead Books | 9780593188958
THE SOCRATES EXPRESS: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers by Eric Weiner (Philosophy/Essays)
We turn to philosophy for the same reasons we travel: to see the world from a different perspective, to unearth hidden beauty, and to find new ways of being. We want to learn how to embrace wonder. Face regrets. Sustain hope. Eric Weiner combines his twin passions for philosophy and global travel in a pilgrimage that uncovers surprising life lessons from great thinkers around the world, from Rousseau to Nietzsche, Confucius to Simone Weil. Traveling by train (the most thoughtful mode of transport), he journeys thousands of miles, making stops in Athens, Delhi, Wyoming, Coney Island, Frankfurt and points in between to reconnect with philosophy’s original purpose: teaching us how to lead wiser, more meaningful lives.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781501129018
SQUEEZE ME by Carl Hiaasen (Mystery/Humor)
It's the height of the Palm Beach charity ball season. But when a prominent high-society dowager suddenly vanishes during a swank gala, and is later found dead in a concrete grave, panic and chaos erupt. Kiki Pew was notable not just for her wealth and her jewels, she was an ardent fan of the Winter White House resident just down the road, and a founding member of the POTUSSIES, a group of women dedicated to supporting their President. Never one to miss an opportunity to play to his base, the President immediately declares that Kiki was the victim of rampaging immigrant hordes. This, it turns out, is far from the truth. The truth might just lie in the middle of the highway, where a bizarre discovery brings the First Lady's motorcade to a grinding halt.
Knopf | 9781524733452
SUMMER by Ali Smith (Fiction)
In the present, Sacha knows the world is in trouble. Her brother, Robert, just is trouble. Their mother and father are having trouble. Meanwhile, the world is in meltdown --- and the real meltdown hasn’t even started yet. In the past, a lovely summer. A different brother and sister know they’re living on borrowed time. This is a story about people on the brink of change. They’re family, but they think they’re strangers. So: Where does family begin? And what do people who think they have nothing in common have in common? Summer.
Pantheon | 9781101870792
THICK AS THIEVES by Sandra Brown (Thriller)
Twenty years ago in the dead of night, four seemingly random individuals pulled the ultimate heist and almost walked away with half a million dollars. But by daybreak, one of them was in the hospital, one was in jail, one was dead, and one got away with it. Arden Maxwell, the daughter of the man who disappeared all those years ago, has never reconciled with her father's abandonment of her and her sister. After countless personal setbacks, she decides to return to her family home near mysterious Caddo Lake and finally get answers to the many questions that torment her. Little does she know that two of her father's co-conspirators --- a war hero and a corrupt district attorney --- are watching her every move.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538751947
THIS IS THE NIGHT OUR HOUSE WILL CATCH FIRE: A Memoir by Nick Flynn (Memoir)
When Nick Flynn was seven years old, his mother set fire to their house. The event loomed large in his imagination for years, but it’s only after having a child of his own that he understands why. He returns with his young daughter to the landscape of his youth, reflecting on how his feral childhood has him still in its reins, and forms his memories into lyrical bedtime stories populated by the both sinister and wounded Mister Mann. THIS IS THE NIGHT OUR HOUSE WILL CATCH FIRE unravels the story of the fire that Flynn had to escape, and the ways in which, as an adult, he has carried that fire with him until it threatens to burn down his own house.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324005544
VESPER FLIGHTS by Helen Macdonald (Nature/Essays)
In VESPER FLIGHTS, Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best-loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing the massive migration of songbirds from the top of the Empire State Building, watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary, seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk’s poplar forests. She writes with heart-tugging clarity about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds’ nests, and the unexpected guidance and comfort we find when watching wildlife.
Grove Press | 9780802128812
WINTER COUNTS by David Heska Wanbli Weiden (Thriller)
Virgil Wounded Horse is the local enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. When justice is denied by the American legal system or the tribal council, Virgil is hired to deliver his own punishment. But when heroin makes its way into the reservation and finds Virgil’s nephew, his vigilantism suddenly becomes personal. He enlists the help of his ex-girlfriend and sets out to learn where the drugs are coming from, and how to make them stop. They follow a lead to Denver and find that drug cartels are rapidly expanding and forming new and terrifying alliances. And back on the reservation, a new tribal council initiative raises uncomfortable questions about money and power. As Virgil starts to link the pieces together, he must face his own demons and reclaim his Native identity.
Ecco | 9780062968944
On Sale the Week of August 24th in Paperback
August 25th
A BOOK OF BONES by John Connolly (Supernatural Thriller)
On a lonely moor in northern England, the body of a young woman is discovered. In the south, a girl lies buried beneath a Saxon mound. To the southeast, the ruins of a priory hide a human skull. Each is a sacrifice, a summons. And something in the darkness has heard the call. Charlie Parker has also heard it, and from the forests of Maine to the deserts of the Mexican border, from the canals of Amsterdam to the streets of London, he will track those who would cast the world into darkness. Parker fears no evil --- but evil fears him.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781982127527
THE BUTCHER’S DAUGHTER: A Foundlings Novel by Wendy Corsi Staub (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Investigative genealogist Amelia Crenshaw solves clients’ genetic puzzles, while hers remains shrouded in mystery. Now she suspects that the key to her birth parents’ identities lies in an unexpected connection to a stranger who’s hired her to find his long-lost daughter. Bracing herself for a shocking truth, Amelia is blindsided by a deadly one. NYPD Detective Stockton Barnes had walked away from his only child for her own good. He’ll lay down his life to protect her if he and Amelia can find out where --- and who --- she is. But someone has beat them to it, and she has a lethal score to settle. Amelia and Stockton’s entangled roots have unearthed a femme fatale whose family tree holds one of history’s most notorious killers.
William Morrow | 9780062742094
CHIMES OF A LOST CATHEDRAL by Janet Fitch (Historical Fiction)
After the loves and betrayals of THE REVOLUTION OF MARINA M., young poet Marina Makarova finds herself alone amid the devastation of the Russian Civil War --- pregnant and adrift, forced to rely on her own resourcefulness to find a place to wait out the birth of her child and eventually make her way back to her native city, Petrograd. After two years of revolution, the city that was once St. Petersburg is almost unrecognizable, the haunted, half-emptied, starving Capital of Once Had Been, its streets teeming with homeless children. Moved by their plight, though hardly better off herself, she takes on the challenge of caring for these orphans, until they become the tool of tragedy from an unexpected direction.
Back Bay Books | 9780316510080
THE CUTTING ROOM by Ashley Dyer (Mystery/Thriller)
Lured to a “crime scene” by a mysterious digital invitation, Ruth Lake is horrified by what she finds: a bizarre and gruesome tableau surrounded by a crowd of gawkers. The deadly work is the latest “art installation” designed by a diabolical criminal dubbed the Ferryman. Not only is this criminal cold-blooded, he’s a narcissistic exhibitionist desperate for an audience. He’s also clever at promoting his deadly handiwork. Exploiting England’s current true-crime craze, he uses social media to titillate and terrorize the public. Ruth is joined in the investigation by her partner Greg Carver, who is slowly regaining his strength after a run-in with another sadistic criminal. But Greg can’t seem to shake the bewildering effects of the head wound that nearly ended him.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062797728
DOMINICANA by Angie Cruz (Historical Fiction)
Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving to America. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year’s Day, 1965, Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz. Lonely and miserable, Ana hatches a reckless plan to escape. But at the bus terminal, she is stopped by Cesar, Juan’s free-spirited younger brother, who convinces her to stay. As the Dominican Republic slides into political turmoil, Juan comes back to protect his family’s assets, leaving Cesar to take care of Ana. When Juan returns, Ana must decide once again between her heart and her duty to her family.
Flatiron Books | 9781250205940
THE FIFTH COLUMN by Andrew Gross (Historical Thriller)
February, 1939. Europe is on the brink of war. In New York City, thousands of Nazi supporters pack Madison Square Garden for a hate-filled rally. Charles Mossman is in a bar, reeling from the loss of his job and the demise of his marriage when a group draped in Nazi flags barges in. A drunk Charles takes a swing at one --- with tragic results. Two years later, America wrestles with whether or not to enter the war. Charles, newly released from prison, is wary of his estranged wife and daughter’s neighbors in the city’s German-immigrant community of Yorkville, where support for Hitler is common. Trudi and Willi Bauer seem like a kindly Swiss couple. But as the threat of war grows, so do fears of a “fifth column,” a group of German spies embedded into everyday American life. Are the Bauers part of a sinister conspiracy?
Minotaur Books | 9781250756015
FKA USA by Reed King (Science Fiction/Humor)
It is 2085, and Truckee Wallace, a factory worker in Crunchtown 407 (formerly Little Rock, Arkansas, before the secessions), has no grand ambitions besides maybe, possibly, losing his virginity someday. But when Truckee is thrust unexpectedly into the spotlight, he is tapped by the President for a sensitive political mission: to deliver a talking goat across the continent. The fate of the world depends upon it. The problem is, Truckee’s not sure it’s worth it. Joined on the road by an android who wants to be human and a former convict lobotomized in Texas, Truckee will navigate an environmentally depleted and lawless continent with devastating --- and hilarious --- parallels to our own.
Flatiron Books | 9781250108913
HEAVEN, MY HOME: A Highway 59 Novel by Attica Locke (Mystery)
Nine-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; now he's alone in the darkness of vast Caddo Lake. A sudden noise distracts him, and all goes dark. Darren Matthews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness. After the events of his previous investigation, his marriage is in a precarious state of rebuilding, and his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother. She now holds the key to his freedom, and is not above a little maternal blackmail to press her advantage. Levi's disappearance has links to Darren's last case, and to a wealthy businesswoman --- the boy's grandmother --- who seems more concerned about the fate of her business than that of her grandson.
Mulholland Books | 9780316363396
A KEEPER by Graham Norton (Mystery)
When Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland after her mother’s death, she’s focused only on saying goodbye to that dark and dismal part of her life. Her childhood home is packed solid with useless junk, her mother’s presence already fading. But within this mess, she discovers a small stash of letters --- and, ultimately, the truth. Forty years earlier, a young woman stumbles from a remote stone house, the night quiet except for the constant wind that encircles her as she hurries deeper into the darkness away from the cliffs and the sea. She has no sense of where she is going, only that she must keep on.
Washington Square Press | 9781982117771
LETHAL AGENT: A Mitch Rapp Novel by Vince Flynn and Kyle Mills (Political Thriller)
ISIS kidnaps a brilliant French microbiologist and forces him to begin manufacturing anthrax. Slickly produced videos chronicling his progress and threatening an imminent attack are posted to the internet. ISIS recruits a Mexican drug cartel to smuggle the bioweapon across the border, but it’s really just a diversion. The terrorist organization needs to keep Mitch Rapp and Irene Kennedy distracted long enough to weaponize a deadly virus that they stumbled upon in Yemen. If they succeed, they’ll trigger a pandemic that could rewrite the world order. Rapp embarks on a mission to infiltrate the Mexican cartels and track down the ISIS leader who he failed to kill during their last confrontation.
Pocket Books | 9781501190636
A LITTLE HATRED by Joe Abercrombie (Historical Fantasy)
The chimneys of industry rise over Adua, and the world seethes with new opportunities. But old scores run deep as ever. On the blood-soaked borders of Angland, Leo dan Brock struggles to win fame on the battlefield and defeat the marauding armies of Stour Nightfall. He hopes for help from the crown. But King Jezal's son, the feckless Prince Orso, is a man who specializes in disappointments. Savine dan Glokta --- socialite, investor and daughter of the most feared man in the Union --- plans to claw her way to the top of the slag-heap of society by any means necessary. But the slums boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control. With the help of the mad hillwoman Isern-i-Phail, Rikke struggles to control the blessing, or the curse, of the Long Eye.
Orbit | 9780316187176
LOVE SOLD SEPARATELY by Ellen Meister (Mystery/Romance)
Paperback Original
Dana Barry has nothing against rules. She just knows they’re meant to be bent. So it’s no wonder the single, twentysomething, aspiring actress loses her day job. Now her life is a mess…until she hears the Shopping Channel is auditioning. Relying on her knack for knowing what makes people tick, she lands a gig on air. But before she can say office politics, Dana is caught in the biggest drama of her life. The star host --- a diva who terrorized the entire staff --- is found dead. Dana knows the prime suspect is innocent. The heat is on, and Dana thinks she’s ready for it…until she tangles with the tall, dark and smoldering detective in charge.
Mira | 9780778309314
A MADNESS OF SUNSHINE by Nalini Singh (Mystery/Thriller)
On the rugged West Coast of New Zealand, Golden Cove is more than just a town where people live. The adults are more than neighbors, and the children are more than schoolmates. That is until one fateful summer --- and several vanished bodies --- shatters the trust holding Golden Cove together. All that’s left are whispers behind closed doors, broken friendships and a silent agreement not to look back. But they can’t run from the past forever. Eight years later, a beautiful young woman disappears without a trace, and the residents of Golden Cove wonder if their home shelters something far more dangerous than an unforgiving landscape. It’s not long before the dark past collides with the haunting present and deadly secrets come to light.
Berkley | 9780593099094
OFF THE GRID by Robert McCaw (Mystery/Thriller)
A scrap of cloth fluttering in the wind leads Hilo police Chief Detective Koa Kāne to the tortured remains of an unfortunate soul left to burn in the path of an advancing lava flow. For Koa, it’s the second gruesome homicide of the day, and he soon discovers the murders are linked. These grisly crimes on Hawaiʻi’s Big Island could rewrite history --- or cost Koa his career. The dead, a reclusive couple living off the grid, turn out to be mysterious fugitives. The CIA, the Chinese government and the Defense Intelligence Agency attempt to thwart Koa’s investigation and obscure the victims’ true identities. Undeterred by mounting political pressure, Koa pursues the truth only to find himself drawn into a web of international intrigue.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608093908
OVERTHROW by Caleb Crain (Fiction)
One autumn night, as a grad student named Matthew is walking home from the subway, a handsome skateboarder catches his eye. Leif, a poet as well as a skater, invites Matthew to take part in an experiment with tarot cards. It's easier to know what's in other people's minds than most people realize, Leif and his friends claim. Do they believe in telepathy? Can they actually do it? Instead of writing his dissertation, Matthew soon finds himself falling for Leif and entangled with his friends, who are as idealistic as the Occupy encampment they like to visit. When the group runs afoul of a government contractor, an avalanche of news coverage, internet outrage and legal repercussions overwhelms them.
Penguin Books | 9780525560470
PRINCE ALBERT: The Man Who Saved the Monarchy by A. N. Wilson (Biography)
For more than six decades, Queen Victoria ruled a great Empire at the height of its power. Beside her for more than 20 of those years was the love of her life, her trusted husband and father of their nine children, Prince Albert. But while Victoria is seen as the embodiment of her time, its values and its paradoxes, it was Prince Albert, A. N. Wilson expertly argues, who was at the vanguard of Victorian Britain’s transformation as a vibrant and extraordinary center of political, technological, scientific and intellectual advancement. Far more than just the product of his age, Albert was one of its influencers and architects. It is impossible to understand 19th-century England without knowing the story of this gifted visionary leader, Wilson contends.
Harper Perennial | 9780062749567
THE RECKLESS OATH WE MADE by Bryn Greenwood (Fiction)
Zee has never admitted to needing anybody. But she needs Gentry. Her tough exterior shelters a heart that’s loyal to the point of self-destruction, while autistic Gentry wears his heart on his sleeve, including his desire to protect Zee at all costs. When an abduction tears Zee’s family apart, she turns to Gentry --- and sets in motion a journey and a love that will change their lives forever.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780525541851
THE SECOND SLEEP by Robert Harris (Historical Thriller)
1468. A young priest, Christopher Fairfax, arrives in a remote Exmoor village to conduct the funeral of his predecessor. The land around is strewn with ancient artifacts --- coins, fragments of glass, human bones --- which the old parson used to collect. Did his obsession with the past lead to his death? Fairfax becomes determined to discover the truth. Over the course of the next six days, everything he believes --- about himself, his faith and the history of his world --- will be tested to destruction.
Vintage | 9780525567080
THE STRANGER INSIDE by Lisa Unger (Psychological Thriller)
Twelve-year-old Rain Winter narrowly escaped an abduction while walking to a friend’s house. Her two best friends, Tess and Hank, were not as lucky. Tess never came home, and Hank was held in captivity before managing to escape. Their abductor was sent to prison but years later was released. Then someone delivered real justice --- and killed him in cold blood. Now Rain is living the perfect suburban life, her dark childhood buried deep. But when another brutal murderer who escaped justice is found dead, Rain is unexpectedly drawn into the case. Eerie similarities to the murder of her friends’ abductor force Rain to revisit memories she’s worked hard to leave behind.
Park Row | 9780778389286
TOO CLOSE TO HOME by Andrew Grant (Mystery/Thriller)
An intelligence agent-turned-courthouse janitor, Paul McGrath notices everything and everyone --- but no one notices him. It’s the perfect cover for the justice he seeks for both his father and the people who’ve been wronged by a corrupt system. At the courthouse, he stumbles on the case of Len Hendrie, a small businessman who’s been accused of torching a venture capitalist’s mansion. Though Hendrie admits starting the fire, McGrath learns how the VC has preyed on average Joes to benefit himself --- and his extensive wine collection. He can’t resist looking deeper into this financial predator and soon finds himself in a gray area between his avenging moral compass and the limits of the law.
Ballantine Books | 9780525619642
THE VENTRILOQUISTS by E.R. Ramzipoor (Historical Thriller)
Brussels, 1943. Twelve-year-old street orphan Helene survives by living as a boy and selling copies of the country’s most popular newspaper, Le Soir, now turned into Nazi propaganda. Helene’s world changes when she befriends a rogue journalist, Marc Aubrion, who draws her into a secret network that publishes dissident underground newspapers. The Nazis track down Aubrion’s team and give them an impossible choice: turn the resistance newspapers into a Nazi propaganda bomb that will sway public opinion against the Allies, or be killed. While pretending to do the Nazis’ bidding, they will instead publish a fake edition of Le Soir that pokes fun at Hitler and Stalin. The ventriloquists have agreed to die for a joke, and they have only 18 days to tell it.
Park Row | 9780778310167
THE WAREHOUSE by Rob Hart (Science Fiction/Thriller)
Paxton never thought he’d be working for Cloud, the giant tech company that’s eaten much of the American economy. Much less that he’d be moving into one of the company’s sprawling live-work facilities. But compared to what’s left outside, Cloud’s bland chainstore life of gleaming entertainment halls, open-plan offices and vast warehouses…well, it doesn’t seem so bad. It’s more than anyone else is offering. Zinnia never thought she’d be infiltrating Cloud. But now she’s undercover, inside the walls, risking it all to ferret out the company’s darkest secrets. And Paxton, with his ordinary little hopes and fears? He just might make the perfect pawn. If she can bear to sacrifice him.
Ballantine Books | 9781984823809
WHEN I WAS YOU by Amber Garza (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Kelly Medina gets a call from her son’s pediatrician to confirm her upcoming “well-baby” appointment. It’s a cruel mistake; her son left for college a year ago, and Kelly has never felt so alone. The receptionist quickly apologizes: there’s another mother in town named Kelly Medina, and she must have gotten their numbers switched. When Kelly just happens to bump into the single mother outside that pediatrician’s office, it’s simple curiosity getting the better of her. Their unlikely friendship brings Kelly a renewed sense of purpose --- taking care of this young woman and her adorable baby boy. But that friendship quickly turns to obsession, and when one Kelly disappears, the other one may know why.
Mira | 9780778361046
WHEN WE WERE VIKINGS by Andrew David MacDonald (Fiction)
For Zelda, a 21-year-old Viking enthusiast who lives with her older brother, Gert, life is best lived with some basic rules: 1) A smile means “thank you for doing something small that I liked.” 2) Fist bumps and dabs = respect. 3) Strange people are not appreciated in her home. 4) Tomatoes must go in the middle of the sandwich and not get the bread wet. 5) Sometimes the most important things don’t fit on lists. But when Zelda finds out that Gert has resorted to some questionable --- and dangerous --- methods to make enough money to keep them afloat, Zelda decides to launch her own quest. Her mission: to be legendary. It isn’t long before Zelda finds herself in a battle that tests the reach of her heroism, her love for her brother, and the depth of her Viking strength.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781982126773
THE WOODS by Vanessa Savage (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
There's a lot from Tess' childhood that she would rather forget. The family who moved next door and brought chaos to their quiet lives. The two girls who were murdered, their killer never found. But the only thing she can't remember is the one thing she wishes she could. Ten years ago, Tess' older sister died. Ruled a tragic accident, the only witness was Tess herself, but she has never been able to remember what happened that night in the woods. Now living in London, Tess has resolved to put the trauma behind her. But an emergency call from her father forces her back to the family home, back to where her sister's body was found, and to the memories she thought were lost forever.
Mulholland Books | 9781538730126
THE WORLD DOESN’T REQUIRE YOU: Stories by Rion Amilcar Scott (Fiction/Short Stories)
Established by the leaders of America’s only successful slave revolt in the mid-19th century, the mythical town of Cross River, Maryland, still evokes the rhythms of its founding. Among its residents --- wildly spanning decades, perspectives and species --- are David Sherman, a struggling musician who just happens to be God’s last son; Tyrone, a ruthless yet charismatic PhD candidate, whose dissertation about a childhood game ignites mayhem in the neighboring, once-segregated town of Port Yooga; and Jim, an all-too-obedient robot who obeys his Master.
Liveright | 9781631497889
On Sale the Week of August 31st in Hardcover
September 1st
ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE by Louise Penny (Mystery)
On their first night in Paris, the Gamaches gather as a family for a bistro dinner with Armand’s godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. Walking home together after the meal, they watch in horror as Stephen is knocked down and critically injured in what Armand knows is no accident. When a strange key is found in Stephen’s possession, it sends Armand, his wife Reine-Marie, and his former second-in-command at the Sûreté, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, deep into the secrets that Armand’s godfather has kept for decades. A gruesome discovery in Stephen’s Paris apartment makes it clear the secrets are more rancid, the danger far greater and more imminent, than they realized. Soon the whole family is caught up in a web of lies and deceit.
Minotaur Books | 9781250145239
THE APPOINTMENT by Katharina Volckmer (Fiction)
In a well-appointed examination in London, a young woman unburdens herself to a certain Dr. Seligman. Though she can barely see above his head, she holds forth about her life and desires, her struggles with her sexuality and identity. Born and raised in Germany, she has been living in London for several years, determined to break free from her family origins and her haunted homeland. But the recent death of her grandfather, and an unexpected inheritance, make it clear that you cannot easily outrun your own shame --- whether it be physical, familial, historical, national or all of the above. Or can you? With Dr. Seligman’s help, our narrator will find out.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781982150174
THE BASS ROCK by Evie Wyld (Fiction)
Sarah, accused of being a witch, is fleeing for her life. Ruth, in the aftermath of World War II, is navigating a new marriage and the strange waters of the local community. Six decades later, Viv, still mourning the death of her father, is cataloging Ruth’s belongings in Ruth’s now-empty house. As each woman’s story unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that their choices are circumscribed, in ways big and small, by the men who seek to control them. But in sisterhood there is also the possibility of survival and a new way of life.
Pantheon | 9781101871881
THE BOOK OF HIDDEN WONDERS by Polly Crosby (Fiction)
Romilly Kemp and her eccentric painter father have happy but sheltered lives in a ramshackle mansion in the English countryside. When her father finds fame with a series of children’s books starring Romilly as the main character, everything changes: exotic foods appear on the table, her father appears on TV, and strangers appear at their door, convinced the books will lead them to a precious prize. But as time passes, Romilly’s father becomes increasingly suspicious of the outside world until he begins to disappear within himself. She returns to his illustrations, looking for a way to connect with her ailing father, and finds a series of clues he has left just for her. This treasure hunt leads her to a shocking secret that is crucial to understanding her family.
Park Row | 9780778310006
CHAOS by Iris Johansen (Thriller)
When CIA agent Alisa Flynn flaunts the rules by breaking into a mansion in the middle of the night, she skillfully circumvents alarms and outwits guards only to find herself standing in billionaire Gabe Korgan's study…busted by Korgan himself. This could cost Alisa her job unless she can turn the tables and try to convince him to join her on the most important mission of her life. Schoolgirls in Africa have been kidnapped, and Alisa knows that Korgan has the courage, financial means and high-tech weaponry to help rescue them. With so many innocent lives hanging in the balance, what she doesn't reveal is that one of those schoolgirls is like a little sister to her. But when the truth gets out, the stakes grow even higher.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538713136
DADDY: Stories by Emma Cline (Fiction/Short Stories)
An absentee father collects his son from boarding school after a shocking act of violence. A nanny to a celebrity family hides out in Laurel Canyon in the aftermath of a tabloid scandal. A young woman sells her underwear to strangers. A notorious guest arrives at a placid, not-quite rehab in the Southwest. In DADDY, Emma Cline portrays moments when the ordinary is disturbed, when daily life buckles, revealing the perversity and violence pulsing under the surface. She explores characters navigating the edge, the limits of themselves and those around them. They want connection, but what they provoke is often closer to self-sabotage. What are the costs of one’s choices? Of the moments when we act, or fail to act?
Random House | 9780812998641
THE DYNASTY: The Inside Story of the NFL's Most Successful and Controversial Franchise by Jeff Benedict (Sports/Biography)
It’s easy to forget that the New England Patriots were once the laughingstock of the NFL, a nearly bankrupt team that had never won a championship and was on the brink of moving to St. Louis. Everything changed in 1994, when Robert Kraft acquired the franchise and brought on board head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. Since then, the Patriots have become a juggernaut. How was their dynasty built, and how did it last for two decades? In THE DYNASTY, acclaimed journalist Jeff Benedict provides richly reported answers in a sweeping account based on exclusive interviews with more than 200 insiders, as well as never-before-seen recordings, documents and electronic communications.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781982134105
FIFTY WORDS FOR RAIN by Asha Lemmie (Historical Fiction)
Kyoto, Japan, 1948. “Do not question. Do not fight. Do not resist.” Such is eight-year-old Noriko “Nori” Kamiza’s first lesson. She will not question why her mother abandoned her with only these final words. She will not fight her confinement to the attic of her grandparents’ imperial estate. And she will not resist the scalding chemical baths she receives daily to lighten her skin. Obedient to a fault, Nori accepts her solitary life, despite her natural intellect and curiosity. But when chance brings her older half-brother, Akira, to the estate that is his inheritance and destiny, Nori finds in him an unlikely ally with whom she forms a powerful bond --- a bond their formidable grandparents cannot allow and that will irrevocably change the lives they were always meant to lead.
Dutton | 9781524746360
FIRE AND VENGEANCE: A Koa Kāne Hawaiian Mystery by Robert McCaw (Mystery/Thriller)
Hilo, Hawaiʻi Chief Detective Koa Kāne learns that an elementary school was placed atop a volcanic vent, which has now exploded. The subsequent murders of the school’s contractor and architect only add urgency to his search for the truth. As Koa’s investigation heats up, his brother collapses in jail from a previously undiagnosed brain tumor. Using his connections, Koa devises a risky plan to win his brother’s freedom. As Koa gradually unravels the obscure connections between multiple suspects, he uncovers a 40-year-old conspiracy. When he is about to apprehend the perpetrators, his investigation suddenly becomes entwined with his brother’s future, forcing Koa to choose between justice for the victims and his brother’s freedom.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608093687
A GIRL IS A BODY OF WATER by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (Fiction)
In her 12th year, Kirabo, a young Ugandan girl, confronts a piercing question that has haunted her childhood: Who is my mother? Complicating her feelings of abandonment, as Kirabo comes of age she feels the emergence of a mysterious second self, a headstrong and confusing force inside her at odds with her sweet and obedient nature. Seeking answers, Kirabo begins spending afternoons with Nsuuta, a local witch, trading stories and learning not only about this force inside her, but about the woman who birthed her, who she learns is alive but not ready to meet. Nsuuta also explains that Kirabo has a streak of the “first woman” --- an independent, original state that has been all but lost to women.
Tin House Books | 9781951142049
HAVING AND BEING HAD by Eula Biss (Social Science)
“My adult life can be divided into two distinct parts,” Eula Biss writes, “the time before I owned a washing machine and the time after.” Having just purchased her first home, she now embarks on a roguish and risky self-audit of the value system she has bought into. The result is a radical interrogation of work, leisure and capitalism. Described by the New York Times as a writer who “advances from all sides, like a chess player,” Biss brings her approach to the lived experience of capitalism. Playfully ranging from IKEA to Beyoncé to Pokemon, across bars and laundromats and universities, she asks, of both herself and her class, “In what have we invested?”
Riverhead Books | 9780525537458
HIS ONLY WIFE by Peace Adzo Medie (Fiction)
Afi Tekple is a young seamstress in Ghana who has been convinced by her mother to marry a man she does not know. Elikem is a wealthy businessman whose mother has chosen Afi in the hopes that she will distract him from his relationship with a woman his family claims is inappropriate. But Afi is not prepared for the shift her life takes when she is moved from her small hometown of Ho to live in Accra, Ghana’s gleaming capital, a place of wealth and sophistication where she has days of nothing to do but cook meals for a man who may or may not show up to eat them. She has agreed to this marriage in order to give her mother the financial security she desperately needs, and so she must see it through. Or maybe not?
Algonquin Books | 9781616209155
HITLER: DOWNFALL, 1939-1945 written by Volker Ullrich, translated by Jefferson Chase (Biography)
In the summer of 1939, Hitler was at the zenith of his power. The Nazis had consolidated political control in Germany, and a series of foreign-policy coups had restored Germany to the status of a major world power. He now embarked on realizing his lifelong ambition: to provide the German people with the resources they needed to flourish and to exterminate those who stood in the way. Yet, despite a series of stunning initial triumphs, Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union in 1941 turned the tide for good. Volker Ullrich vividly portrays the insecurity, obsession with minutiae and narcissistic penchant for gambling that led Hitler to embark on the annihilation of Germany itself in order to punish the people who he believed had failed to hand him victory.
Knopf | 9781101874004
INTERFERENCE by Brad Parks (Thriller)
Quantum physicist Matt Bronik is suffering from strange, violent seizures that medical science seems powerless to explain --- much to the consternation of his wife, Brigid. Matt doesn’t think these fits could be related to his research, which he has always described as benign and esoteric. That, it turns out, is not quite true: Matt has been prodding the mysteries of the quantum universe, with terrible repercussions for his health. And perhaps even for humanity as a whole. Then, in the midst of another seizure, Matt disappears. With his life in clear danger, Brigid sets out to find him. Will Matt be killed before she reaches him, or could the physics that endangered him actually be used to save his life?
Thomas & Mercer | 9781542023399
THE LAST STORY OF MINA LEE by Nancy Jooyoun Kim (Fiction)
The suspicious death of her mother, Mina, sends Margot Lee digging through the past, unraveling the tenuous invisible strings that held together her single mother's life as a Korean War orphan and an undocumented immigrant, only to realize how little she truly knew about her mother. Interwoven with Margot's present-day search is Mina's story of her first year in Los Angeles as she navigates the promises and perils of the American myth of reinvention. While she's barely earning a living by stocking shelves at a Korean grocery store, the last thing Mina ever expects is to fall in love. But that love story sets in motion a series of events that have consequences for years to come, leading up to the truth of what happened the night of her death.
Park Row | 9780778310174
THE LYING LIFE OF ADULTS written by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein (Fiction)
Giovanna’s pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, looks more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Is she turning into her Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father clearly despise? Surely there is a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is. Giovanna is searching for her reflection in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. She moves from one to the other in search of the truth, but neither city seems to offer answers or escape.
Europa Editions | 9781609455910
MILL TOWN: Reckoning with What Remains by Kerri Arsenault (Memoir)
Kerri Arsenault grew up in the rural working class town of Mexico, Maine. For over 100 years, the community orbited around a paper mill that employs most townspeople, including three generations of Arsenault’s own family. Years after she moved away, Arsenault realized the price she paid for her seemingly secure childhood. The mill, while providing livelihoods for nearly everyone, also contributed to the destruction of the environment and the decline of the town’s economic, physical and emotional health in a slow-moving catastrophe, earning the area the nickname “Cancer Valley.” In MILL TOWN, Arsenault illuminates the rise and collapse of the working class, the hazards of loving and leaving home, and the ambiguous nature of toxics and disease.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250155931
THE OTHER SIDE OF SUCCESS: Money and Meaning in the Golden State: A Memoir by Martin Sawa (Memoir)
Nearly 30, broke and with a newborn daughter in tow, Martin Sawa quits his dead-end job and vows to fulfill the aspirations of his Ukrainian parents. Thus begins a relentless pursuit of financial success in the high-stakes world of commercial real estate. Navigating the skyscrapers of San Francisco and the gritty streets of Oakland, Sawa is on the verge of making it. But his world comes crashing down around him when he suffers a devastating personal loss, causing him to reevaluate the meaning of success. In the years before and after the new millennium, Sawa takes the reader through a time of sweeping technological, social and political change in California. While grappling with apex predators on nine-figure deals in San Francisco real estate, he rides the entrepreneurial roller coaster of prosperity and ruin.
Steeple Press | 9781735046907
PAYBACK by Mary Gordon (Fiction)
In this novel of lifelong reckoning between two women, we meet Quin Archer, the revenge-loving queen of the reality-TV show “Payback.” Unbeknownst to her many fans, Quin was once an angry teen named Heidi, whose true story may be known only to Agnes, her art teacher at a private New England girls’ school in the 1970s. Then a young woman herself, Agnes saw a spark of originality in the brooding Heidi. But when she suggested that Heidi visit the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the girl returned with a disastrous account of having been picked up at the museum by an older man. Agnes’ stunned response will haunt both women for decades.
Pantheon | 9781524749224
RED PILL by Hari Kunzru (Fiction)
After receiving a prestigious writing fellowship in Germany, the narrator of RED PILL arrives in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee and struggles to accomplish anything at all. Instead of working on the book he has proposed to write, he takes long walks and binge-watches “Blue Lives” --- a violent cop show that becomes weirdly compelling in its bleak, Darwinian view of life --- and soon begins to wonder if his writing has any value at all. When some friends drag him to a party where he meets Anton, the creator of “Blue Lives,” the narrator starts to believe that the two of them are involved in a cosmic battle, and that Anton is "red-pilling" his viewers --- turning them toward an ugly, alt-rightish worldview --- ultimately forcing the narrator to wonder if he is losing his mind.
Knopf | 9780451493712
THE RESIDENCE by Andrew Pyper (Historical Fiction/Horror)
President-elect Franklin Pierce is traveling with his family to Washington, DC, when tragedy strikes. Their train runs off the rails, and the only casualty is his beloved son, Bennie. As Franklin moves into the White House, he begins to notice that something bizarre is happening. Strange sounds coming from the walls and ceiling, creepy voices that seem to echo out of time itself, and visions of spirits crushed under the weight of American history. But when First Lady Jane Pierce brings in the most noted Spiritualists of the day, the Fox sisters, for a séance, the barrier between this world and the next is torn asunder. Something horrible comes through and takes up residence alongside Franklin and Jane in the walls of the very mansion itself.
Skybound Books | 9781982149055
RUTHIE FEAR by Maxim Loskutoff (Fiction)
As a child in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, Ruthie Fear sees an apparition: a strange, headless creature near a canyon creek. Its presence haunts her throughout her youth. Raised in a trailer by her stubborn, bowhunting father, Ruthie develops a powerful connection with the natural world but struggles to find her place in a society shaped by men. Development, gun violence and her father’s vendettas threaten her mountain home. As she comes of age, her small community begins to fracture in the face of class tension and encroaching natural disaster, and the creature she saw long ago reappears as a portent of the valley’s final reckoning.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393635560
SET MY HEART TO FIVE by Simon Stephenson (Fiction)
Jared works as a dentist in small-town Michigan. His life is totally normal, except for one thing. He is a bot engineered with human DNA to look and act like a real person. One day at a screening of a classic movie, Jared feels a strange sensation around his eyes. Everyone knows that bots can’t feel emotions, but as the theater lights come on, Jared is almost certain he’s crying. Confused, he decides to watch more old movies to figure out what’s happening. The process leads to an emotional awakening that upends his existence. Overcome with a full range of emotions, Jared heads west, determined to forge real connections. But a bot with feelings is a dangerous proposition, and Jared’s new life could come to an end before it truly begins.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335551207
THREE SINGLE WIVES by Gina LaManna (Domestic Thriller/Mystery)
When Anne Wilkes, Eliza Tate and Penny Sands arrive at book club bearing bottles of wine, none of them are plotting to kill. But when the subject of a philandering husband arises, revenge is in the air. By the end of the night, someone is dead. Two women with rings on their fingers and one with stars in her eyes. All of them are hiding something. All of them are lying. What really happened that night? Only the guilty knows. Did one woman take everything too far, or is the truth really more twisted than fiction?
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728215655
TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM by Yaa Gyasi (Fiction)
Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive.
Knopf | 9780525658184
UNFORGETTING: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas by Roberto Lovato (Memoir)
The child of Salvadoran immigrants, Roberto Lovato grew up in 1970s and ’80s San Francisco as MS-13 and other notorious Salvadoran gangs were forming in California. He eventually traded the violence of the streets for human rights advocacy in wartime El Salvador, where he joined the guerilla movement against the U.S.-backed, fascist military government responsible for some of the most barbaric massacres and crimes against humanity in recent history. In UNFORGETTING, Roberto interweaves his father’s complicated history and his own with firsthand reportage on gang life, state violence and the heart of the immigration crisis in both El Salvador and the United States.
Harper | 9780062938473
On Sale the Week of August 31st in Paperback
August 31st
THE WILDWATER WALKING CLUB: STEP BY STEP by Claire Cook (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Instead of focusing on actually finding some health coach clients, Noreen is dividing her time between sabotaging her relationship with Rick and disaster-fantasizing about ending up living in a tent by the side of the road. Tess is ready to downsize, but can she really figure out how to move on and live small? Rosie is completely overwhelmed with life on the lavender farm, and it doesn’t help matters that Rosie’s dad and Noreen’s mom are conducting most of their romantic interludes at her house. They thought they’d have their lives all figured out by now. But change is blowing in along with the crisp fall air, and they’re finding out that life for 40-to-forever women is not for sissies. Hitting the road again might be just what The Wildwater Walking Club needs.
Marshbury Beach Books | 9781942671015
September 1st
DON’T EVER FORGET by Matthew Farrell (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Paperback Original
When police investigator Susan Adler is called to the roadside murder of a fellow state trooper, she is tasked with finding the people responsible for the cold-blooded act caught on the trooper’s dashboard cam. She traces the car to a nurse who, along with her elderly patient, has been missing for days. At the old man’s house, she finds disturbing evidence that instantly revives two cold cases involving long-missing children. The investigation takes a chilling turn when people involved with both the nurse and the old man begin to turn up dead, and Susan enlists the help of her friend and forensic investigator Liam Dwyer. Together they must untangle the threads of this ever-more-complicated case --- and stay ahead of whoever is trying to slash their progress.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781542019767
FLY ALREADY: Stories by Etgar Keret (Fiction/Short Stories)
In "Arctic Lizard," a young boy narrates a post-apocalyptic version of the world where a youth army wages an unending war, rewarded by collecting prizes. A father tries to shield his son from the inevitable in "Fly Already." In "One Gram Short," a guy just wants to get a joint to impress a girl and ends up down a rabbit hole of chaos and heartache. And in the masterpiece "Pineapple Crush," two unlikely people connect through an evening smoke down by the beach, only to have one of them imagine a much deeper relationship. The thread that weaves these pieces together is our inability to communicate, to see so little of the world around us and to understand each other even less.
Riverhead Books | 9780399573026
GIRL GONE MAD by Avery Bishop (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Once upon a time, Emily Bennett was part of a middle school clique called the Harpies --- six popular girls who bullied the new girl to her breaking point. The Harpies took a blood oath: never tell a soul what they did to Grace Farmer. Now, 14 years later, it seems karma has caught up to them when one member of that vicious circle commits suicide. But when a second Harpy is discovered dead shortly after, also from an apparent suicide, the deaths start to look suspicious. And when Emily begins seeing a woman who looks a lot like Grace Farmer lurking in the shadows, she is forced to wonder: Is Grace back for revenge? Or is Emily’s guilt driving her mad?
Lake Union Publishing | 9781542018715
HOUSE ON ENDLESS WATERS by Emuna Elon (Fiction)
Renowned author Yoel Blum reluctantly agrees to visit his birthplace of Amsterdam to promote his books, despite promising his late mother that he would never return to that city. While touring the Jewish Historical Museum with his wife, Yoel stumbles upon footage portraying prewar Dutch Jewry and is astonished to see the youthful face of his beloved mother staring back at him, posing with his father, his older sister...and an infant he doesn’t recognize. This unsettling discovery launches him into a fervent search for the truth, shining a light on Amsterdam’s dark wartime history --- the underground networks that hid Jewish children away from danger and those who betrayed their own for the sake of survival.
Washington Square Press | 9781982130237
THE INSTITUTE by Stephen King (Thriller)
In the middle of the night, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’ parents and load him into a black SUV. Luke wakes up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents --- telekinesis and telepathy --- who got to this place the same way Luke did. They are all in Front Half, while others graduated to Back Half. In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.
Gallery Books | 9781982110581
KILLER INSTINCT by James Patterson and Howard Roughan (Thriller)
The murder of an Ivy League professor reunites Dr. Dylan Reinhart with his old partner, Detective Elizabeth Needham. As the worst act of terror since 9/11 strikes New York City, a name on the casualty list rocks Dylan's world. Is his secret past about to be brought to light? As the terrorist attack unfolds, Elizabeth does something courageous that thrusts her into the media spotlight. Thanks to the attention, she becomes a prime target for the ruthless murderer behind the attack. Dylan literally wrote the book on the psychology of murder, and he and Elizabeth have solved cases that have baffled conventional detectives. But the sociopath they're facing this time is the opposite of a textbook case.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538731628
KINGS OF QUEENS: Life Beyond Baseball with the '86 Mets by Erik Sherman (Sports)
Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, Keith Hernandez, Lenny Dykstra, Mookie Wilson, Howard Johnson, Doug Sisk, Rafael Santana, Bobby Ojeda, Wally Backman, Kevin Mitchell, Ed Hearn, Danny Heep and the late Gary Carter were all known for their heroics on the field. For some of them --- known as the “Scum Bunch” --- their debauchery off the field was even more awe-inspiring. But when the 1986 season ended with a World Series championship for the Mets, so did their aura of invincibility. Some faced battles with addiction, some were traded, and others struggled just to keep their lives together. Through interviews with these legendary players, Erik Sherman offers fans a new perspective on a team that will forever be remembered in sports history.
Berkley | 9780593199411
THE MAN WHO SAW EVERYTHING by Deborah Levy (Fiction)
It is 1988, and Saul Adler, a narcissistic young historian, has been invited to Communist East Berlin to do research. In exchange, he must publish a favorable essay about the German Democratic Republic. As a gift for his translator's sister, a Beatles fanatic who will be his host, Saul's girlfriend will shoot a photograph of him standing in the crosswalk on Abbey Road, a homage to the famous album cover. As he waits for her to arrive, he is grazed by an oncoming car, which changes the trajectory of his life.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781632869852
NOTHING TO SEE HERE by Kevin Wilson (Fiction/Humor)
Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal, and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help. Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family, and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other --- and stay cool --- while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband.
Ecco | 9780062913494
ONE STEP BEHIND by Lauren North (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Jenna is a wife, a mother and a doctor. She is also the victim of a stalker. Frightening "gifts" are left on her doorstep, her home is broken into, and when she leaves her house to take her children to school, he’s waiting. She feels powerless, and the police are unable to help. Then her stalker is brought into the emergency room after a terrible accident, and she has to treat the man who’s been tormenting her for months. With her stalker in a coma, Jenna is desperate to understand the life of this seemingly normal man. When she finds startling images on his phone, she is consumed by her need for answers --- and her own obsession leads her down a twisting path of destruction. Just how far is Jenna willing to go to take back control of her life?
Berkley | 9781984803863
OVERTIME: Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College Football by John U. Bacon (Sports)
For the past year, John U. Bacon has received unprecedented access to Jim Harbaugh’s University of Michigan football team: coaches, players and staffers, in closed-door meetings, locker rooms, meals and classes. OVERTIME captures this storied program at the crossroads, as the sport’s winningest team battles to reclaim its former glory. But what if the price of success today comes at the cost of your soul? Do you pay it, or compete without compromising? In the spirit of HBO’s "Hardknocks," Bacon's book follows the Wolverine coaches, players and staffers through the 2018 season, including Harbaugh, offensive stars Shea Patterson and Karan Higdon, NFL-ready defensive standouts Rashan Gary, Devin Bush Jr. and Chase Winovich, and second-stringers striving to find their place on the team.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062886958
THE PARIS CHILDREN: A Novel of WWII by Gloria Goldreich (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
Paris, 1935. A dark shadow falls over Europe as Adolf Hitler's regime gains momentum, leaving the city of Paris on the brink of occupation. Young Madeleine Levy --- the granddaughter of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish World War I hero --- steps bravely into a new wave of resistance women. When Madeleine meets a young Jewish refugee from Germany, she knows that she cannot stand idly by. She offers children comfort and strength while working with other members of the resistance to smuggle them out of Paris and into safer territories. Amidst the impending horror and doubt, Madeleine and Claude, a young Jewish Resistance fighter who shares her passion for saving children, are drawn fiercely together.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728215624
RABBITS FOR FOOD by Binnie Kirshenbaum (Fiction/Dark Humor)
It’s New Year’s Eve, the holiday of forced fellowship, mandatory fun and paper hats. While dining out with her husband and their friends, Binnie Kirshenbaum’s protagonist --- an acerbic, mordantly witty and clinically depressed writer --- fully unravels. Her breakdown lands her in the psych ward of a prestigious New York hospital, where she refuses all modes of recommended treatment. Instead, she passes the time chronicling the lives of her fellow “lunatics” and writing a novel about what brought her there. Her story is a hilarious and harrowing deep dive into the disordered mind of a woman who sees the world all too clearly.
Soho Press | 9781641291934
RED AT THE BONE by Jacqueline Woodson (Fiction)
As RED AT THE BONE opens in 2001, it is the evening of 16-year-old Melody's coming-of-age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own ceremony --- a celebration that ultimately never took place. Unfurling the history of Melody's parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Jacqueline Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they've paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history.
Riverhead Books | 9780525535287
THE SACRAMENT by Olaf Olafsson (Fiction)
A young nun is sent by the Vatican to investigate allegations of misconduct at a Catholic school in Iceland. During her time there, a young student at the school watches the school’s headmaster, Father August Franz, fall to his death from the church tower. Two decades later, the child --- now a grown man --- calls the nun back to the scene of the crime. This trip brings her former visit, as well as her years as a young woman in Paris, powerfully and sometimes painfully to life. In Paris, she met an Icelandic girl who she has not seen since, but whose acquaintance changed her life, a relationship she relives all while reckoning with the mystery of August Franz’s death and the abuses of power that may have brought it on.
Ecco | 9780062899880
THE SHADOW KING by Maaza Mengiste (Historical Fiction)
With the threat of Mussolini’s army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid in Kidane and his wife Aster’s household. Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie’s army, rushes to mobilize his strongest men before the Italians invade. Hundreds of thousands of Italians --- Jewish photographer Ettore among them --- march on Ethiopia seeking adventure. When Emperor Haile Selassie goes into exile, Hirut helps disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor and soon becomes his guard, inspiring other women to take up arms against the Italians. But how could she have predicted her own personal war as a prisoner of one of Italy’s most vicious officers, who will force her to pose before Ettore’s camera?
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393358513
THE TENANT by Katrine Engberg (Literary Thriller/Mystery)
When a young woman is discovered brutally murdered in her own apartment, with an intricate pattern of lines carved into her face, Copenhagen police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner are assigned to the case. In short order, they establish a link between the victim, Julie Stender, and her landlady, Esther de Laurenti, who’s a bit too fond of drink and the host of raucous dinner parties with her artist friends. Esther also turns out to be a budding novelist --- and when Julie turns up as a murder victim in the still-unfinished mystery she’s writing, the link between fiction and real life grows both more urgent and more dangerous. But Esther’s role in this twisted scenario is not quite as clear as it first seems. Is she the culprit --- or just another victim, trapped in a twisted game of vengeance?
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781982127589
THE TESTAMENTS by Margaret Atwood (Dystopian Fiction)
More than 15 years after the events of THE HANDMAID'S TALE, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results. Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third: Aunt Lydia. Her complex past and uncertain future unfold in surprising and pivotal ways. With THE TESTAMENTS, Margaret Atwood opens up the innermost workings of Gilead, as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.
Anchor | 9780525562627
A THEORY OF EVERYTHING ELSE: Essays by Laura Pedersen (Essays)
Paperback Original
That elusive Holy Grail of modern physics, A Theory of Everything (ToE), would explain the universe in a single set of equations. Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking tackled the problem during their lifetimes, and the quest continues today in laboratories around the world. Leaving string theory, galaxy clusters and supersymmetry to the Quantum Computer and Hadron Collider crowd, Laura Pedersen has taken up the rest --- that is, A Theory of Everything Else (ToEE), based on her own groundbreaking experiences as a dog walker, camp counselor and Bingo caller. Pedersen’s essays are a series of colorful helium balloons that entertain as well as affirm and uplift.
She Writes Press | 9781631527371
TO THE LAND OF LONG LOST FRIENDS: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (20) by Alexander McCall Smith (Mystery)
Mma Ramotswe has reconnected with an old friend who has been having problems with her daughter. Though Precious feels compelled to lend a hand, she discovers that getting involved in family affairs is always a delicate affair. The young woman appears to be involved with a charismatic preacher. But are his ministrations entirely of a godly nature? Elsewhere, Charlie is also struggling with a tricky matter of the heart. He wishes to propose to his girlfriend, Queenie-Queenie, but he's struggling to come up with a bride price that will impress her father. When Queenie-Queenie's brother offers to help by giving him a job, the offer may not be quite what Charlie expected.
Anchor | 9780525564270
THE TRAVELERS by Regina Porter (Fiction)
Meet James Samuel Vincent, an affluent Manhattan attorney who shirks his modest Irish American background but hews to his father’s meandering ways. James muddles through a topsy-turvy relationship with his son, Rufus, which is further complicated when Rufus marries Claudia Christie. Claudia’s mother, Agnes Miller Christie, is a beautiful African American woman who survives a chance encounter on a Georgia road that propels her into a new life in the Bronx. Soon after, her husband, Eddie Christie, is called to duty on an aircraft carrier in Vietnam, where Tom Stoppard’s play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” becomes Eddie’s life anchor, as he grapples with mounting racial tensions on the ship and counts the days until he will see Agnes again.
Hogarth | 9780525576204
THE UNRAVELING OF CASSIDY HOLMES by Elissa R. Sloan (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Cassidy Holmes isn't just a celebrity. She is “Sassy Gloss,” the fourth member of the hottest pop group America has ever seen. Fans couldn't get enough of them, their music, and the drama that followed them like moths to a flame --- until the group’s sudden implosion in 2002. And at the center of it all was Sassy Cassy, the Texan with a signature smirk that had everyone falling for her. But now she's dead. Suicide. The world is reeling from this unexpected news, but no one is more shocked than the three remaining Glossies. Before the group split, they each had a special bond with Cassidy --- truths they told, secrets they shared. But after years apart, each of them is wondering: What could they have done?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063009448
WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING by Alyssa Cole (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block --- her neighbor Theo. But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. Their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs after all, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062982650
THE WORLD THAT WE KNEW by Alice Hoffman (Historical Fiction/Magical Realism)
At the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her 12-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. Her desperation leads her to Ettie, the daughter of a rabbi whose years spent eavesdropping on her father enables her to create a mystical Jewish creature, a rare and unusual golem, who is sworn to protect Hanni’s daughter, Lea. Once Ava is brought to life, she, Lea and Ettie become eternally entwined, their paths fated to cross, their fortunes linked. What does it mean to lose your mother? How much can one person sacrifice for love? In a world where evil can be found at every turn, we meet remarkable characters who take us on a stunning journey of loss and resistance, the fantastical and the mortal, in a place where all roads lead past the Angel of Death and love is never-ending.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501137587
YEAR OF THE MONKEY by Patti Smith (Memoir)
Following a run of New Year’s concerts at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland, in which she debates intellectual grifters and spars with the likes of a postmodern Cheshire Cat. Then, in February 2016, a surreal lunar year begins, bringing unexpected turns, heightened mischief and inescapable sorrow. For Smith --- inveterately curious, always exploring, always writing --- this becomes a year of reckoning with the changes in life’s gyre: with loss, aging and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America.
Vintage | 9781984898920
On Sale the Week of September 7th in Hardcover
September 8th
ANXIOUS PEOPLE by Fredrik Backman (Fiction)
Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them --- the bank robber included --- desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises, these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.
Atria Books | 9781501160837
BEFORE SHE WAS HELEN by Caroline B. Cooney (Domestic Thriller/Mystery)
When Clemmie goes next door to check on her difficult and unlikable neighbor, Dom, he isn't there. But something else is. Something stunning, beautiful and inexplicable. Clemmie photographs the wondrous object on her cell phone and makes the irrevocable error of forwarding it. As the picture swirls over the internet, Clemmie tries desperately to keep a grip on her own personal network of secrets. Can 50 years of careful hiding under names not her own be ruined by one careless picture? And although what Clemmie finds is a work of art, what the police find is a body...and she was the last person at the crime scene, where she left her fingerprints. Suddenly thrown into the heart of a twisted investigation, Clemmie finds herself the uncomfortable subject of intense scrutiny.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781728205120
THE BIG DOOR PRIZE by M.O. Walsh (Fiction)
What would you do if you knew your life's potential? That's the question facing the residents of Deerfield, Louisiana, when the DNAMIX machine appears in their local grocery store. Its promise is amazing: With just a quick swab of your cheek and two dollars, the device claims to use the science of DNA to tell you your life's potential. With enough credibility to make the townspeople curious, soon the former teachers, nurses and shopkeepers of Deerfield are abruptly changing course to pursue their destinies as magicians, cowboys and athletes --- including the novel's main characters, Douglas Hubbard and his wife, Cherilyn, who both believed they were perfectly happy until they realized they could dream for more.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780735218482
THE BONE SHARD DAUGHTER by Andrea Stewart (Fantasy)
The emperor's reign has lasted for decades, his mastery of bone shard magic powering the animal-like constructs that maintain law and order. But now his rule is failing, and revolution is sweeping across the Empire's many islands. Lin is the emperor's daughter and spends her days trapped in a palace of locked doors and dark secrets. When her father refuses to recognize her as heir to the throne, she vows to prove her worth by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic. Yet such power carries a great cost, and when the revolution reaches the gates of the palace, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her birthright --- and save her people.
Orbit | 9780316541428
THE BRILLIANT LIFE OF EUDORA HONEYSETT by Annie Lyons (Fiction)
Eudora Honeysett is done with this noisy, moronic world. She has witnessed the indignities and suffering of old age and has lived a full life. At 85, she isn’t going to leave things to chance. Her end will be on her terms. With one call to a clinic in Switzerland, a plan is set in motion. Then she meets 10-year-old Rose Trewidney and is soon embarking on a series of adventures with her and their affable fellow neighbor, the recently widowed Stanley. While the trio of unlikely BFFs grow closer and await the arrival of Rose’s new baby sister, Eudora is reminded of her own childhood and realizes she must come to terms with what lies ahead. But now that her joy for life has been rekindled, how can she possibly say goodbye?
William Morrow | 9780063026063
CARRY: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land by Toni Jensen (Memoir)
Toni Jensen grew up around guns. As a girl, she learned to shoot birds in rural Iowa with her father, a card-carrying member of the NRA. As an adult, she’s had guns waved in her face near Standing Rock, and felt their silent threat on the concealed-carry campus where she teaches. And she has always known that in this she is not alone. As a Métis woman, she is no stranger to the violence enacted on the bodies of indigenous women, on indigenous land, and the ways it is hidden, ignored, forgotten. In CARRY, Jensen maps her personal experience onto the historical, exploring how history is lived in the body and redefining the language we use to speak about violence in America.
Ballantine Books | 9781984821188
DEAR ANN by Bobbie Ann Mason (Fiction)
Ann Workman is a misfit who has traveled from rural Kentucky to graduate school in the transformative years of the late 1960s. Although he comes from a very different place, upper-middle class suburban Chicago, Jimmy is also a misfit, a rebel who rejects his upbringing and questions everything. Ann and Jimmy bond through music and literature and their own quirkiness, diving headfirst into what seems to be a perfect relationship. But with the Vietnam War looming and the country in turmoil, their future is uncertain. Many years later, Ann recalls this time of innocence --- and her own obsession with Jimmy --- as she faces another life crisis. Seeking escape from her problems, she tries to imagine where she might be if she had chosen differently all those years ago.
Harper | 9780062986658
EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL IN ITS TIME: Seasons of Love and Loss by Jenna Bush Hager (Memoir/Essays)
To the world, George and Barbara Bush were America’s powerful president and influential first lady. To Jenna Bush Hager, they were her beloved Gampy and Ganny, who taught her about respect, humility, kindness, and living a life of passion and meaning. Now the mother of three young children, Jenna pays homage to her grandparents in this collection of heartwarming, intimate personal essays. She reflects on the single year in which she and her family lost Barbara and George H. W. Bush, and her maternal grandmother, Jenna Welch. At the same time, she reveals how they navigated this difficult period with grace, faith and nostalgic humor, uplifted by their grandparents’ sage advice and incomparable spirits.
William Morrow | 9780062960627
THE FORGER'S DAUGHTER by Bradford Morrow (Literary Thriller)
When a scream shatters the summer night outside their country house in the Hudson Valley, reformed literary forger Will and his wife Meghan find their daughter Maisie shaken and bloodied, holding a parcel her attacker demanded she present to her father. Inside is a literary rarity the likes of which few have ever handled, and a letter laying out impossible demands regarding its future. After 20 years of living life on the straight and narrow, Will finds himself drawn back to forgery, ensnared in a plot to counterfeit the rarest book in American literature: Edgar Allan Poe’s first, TAMERLANE, of which only a dozen copies are known to have survived. Until now.
Mysterious Press | 9780802149251
HANGING FALLS: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery by Margaret Mizushima (Mystery)
Officer Mattie Cobb and her K-9 partner, Robo, stumble upon a body floating at the edge of a lake. Robo catches human scent, which leads to an enigmatic forest-dweller who quickly becomes the prime suspect. Mattie identifies the victim and discovers an odd religious cult whose dress and manners harken back to the 19th century. As the list of suspects grows, an unexpected visit from members of Mattie's long-lost family sheds new light on her childhood as they help Mattie piece together details of the fateful night when she was abducted at age two. The tangled threads of the investigation and family dynamics begin to intertwine --- but darkness threatens to claim a new victim before Mattie and Robo can track down the killers.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781643854458
JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956 by Fredrik Logevall (Biography)
Fredrik Logevall has spent much of the last decade searching for the “real” JFK. The result of this prodigious effort is a sweeping two-volume biography that properly contextualizes Kennedy amidst the roiling American Century. This first volume spans the first 39 years of JFK’s life --- from birth through his decision to run for president --- to reveal his early relationships, his formative experiences during World War II, his ideas, his writings and his political aspirations. In examining these pre–White House years, Logevall shows us a more serious, independently minded Kennedy than we’ve previously known, whose distinct international sensibility would prepare him to enter national politics at a critical moment in modern U.S. history.
Random House | 9780812997132
KILLING CRAZY HORSE: The Merciless Indian Wars in America by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard (History)
The bloody Battle of Tippecanoe was only the beginning. It’s 1811, and President James Madison has ordered the destruction of Shawnee warrior chief Tecumseh’s alliance of tribes in the Great Lakes region. But while General William Henry Harrison would win this fight, the armed conflict between Native Americans and the newly formed United States would rage on for decades. Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard venture through the fraught history of our country’s founding on already occupied lands, from General Andrew Jackson’s brutal battles with the Creek Nation to President Martin Van Buren’s cruel enforcement of a “treaty” that forced the Cherokee Nation out of their homelands along what would be called the Trail of Tears.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781627797047
MASTER OF POISONS by Andrea Hairston (Fantasy)
The world is changing. Poison desert eats good farmland. Once-sweet water turns foul. The wind blows sand and sadness across the Empire. To get caught in a storm is death. To live and do nothing is death. There is magic in the world, but good conjure is hard to find. Djola, righthand man and spymaster of the lord of the Arkhysian Empire, is desperately trying to save his adopted homeland, even in exile. Awa, a young woman training to be a powerful griot, tests the limits of her knowledge and comes into her own in a world of sorcery, floating cities, kindly beasts and uncertain men.
Tor.com | 9781250260543
MONOGAMY by Sue Miller (Fiction)
Graham and Annie have been married for nearly 30 years, and their seemingly effortless devotion has long been the envy of their circle of friends and acquaintances. Lucas, Graham’s son with his first wife, Frieda, works in New York. Annie and Graham’s daughter, Sarah, lives in San Francisco. Though Frieda is an integral part of this far-flung, loving family, Annie feels confident in the knowledge that she is Graham’s last and greatest love. When Graham suddenly dies, Annie is lost. What is the point of going on without him? Then, while she is still mourning him intensely, she discovers that Graham had been unfaithful to her. She spirals into darkness, wondering if she ever truly knew the man who loved her.
Harper | 9780062969651
NIGHTSHADE: A Livy Nash Mystery by M. L. Huie (Historical Mystery)
British spy Livy Nash has never had many friends. But fellow agent Margot Dupont was the exception to the rule. At least, until she disappeared during one of their missions in World War II, never to be heard from again. But when the British pick up Margot's call sign --- NIGHTSHADE --- years after the war, Livy can't help the glimmer of hope that she might see her old friend again. Livy has her doubts but dives headlong into finding Margot, aided by her boss, the charming Ian Fleming. When evidence arises that a handsome Russian spy might have information about Margot, Livy agrees to her most dangerous mission yet: going undercover as a double agent to spy on the infamous "Red Devil."
Crooked Lane Books | 9781643854564
ONCE TWO SISTERS by Sarah Warburton (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Zoe Hallett and her sister, Ava, have been estranged for years. When Zoe reads a news story about Ava's mysterious disappearance, she assumes it's just another of her sister's twisted fictions, designed to blame Zoe and destroy the peaceful life she's created with her husband and beautiful stepdaughter. But Zoe's email is hacked to send threatening messages to Ava, and a more sinister picture begins to emerge. Zoe returns home to prove her innocence and begins to believe that Ava is in grave danger. When her ex-boyfriend and current brother-in-law, Glenn, catches her searching for clues in Ava's home, she looks guiltier than ever. But maybe Glenn is not all he seems.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781643855257
ONE BY ONE by Ruth Ware (Psychological Thriller)
When the cofounder of Snoop, a trendy London-based tech startup, organizes a weeklong trip for the team in the French Alps, it starts out as a corporate retreat like any other. But as soon as one shareholder upends the agenda by pushing a lucrative but contentious buyout offer, tensions simmer and loyalties are tested. However, the storm brewing inside the chalet is no match for the one outside, and a devastating avalanche leaves the group cut off from all access to the outside world. Even worse, one Snooper hadn’t made it back from the slopes when the avalanche hit. As each hour passes without any sign of rescue, panic mounts, the chalet grows colder, and the group dwindles further…one by one.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781501188817
A QUESTION OF BETRAYAL: An Elena Standish Novel by Anne Perry (Historical Mystery)
Britain’s secret intelligence service, MI6, has lost contact with its informant in northern Italy, just as important information about the future plans of Austria and Nazi Germany is coming to light. And young Elena Standish is the only person who can recognize MI6’s man --- because he is her former lover. Aiden Strother betrayed her six years before, throwing shame on her entire family. Now, with so much to prove, Elena heads to Trieste to track down Aiden and find out what happened to his handler, who has mysteriously cut off contact with Britain. As Elena gets word of a secret group working to put Austria in the hands of Germany, her older sister, Margot, is in Berlin to watch a childhood friend get married --- to a member of the Gestapo.
Ballantine Books | 9780593129555
ROBERT B. PARKER'S FOOL'S PARADISE: A Jesse Stone Novel by Mike Lupica (Mystery)
When a body is discovered at the lake in Paradise, Police Chief Jesse Stone is surprised to find that he recognizes the murder victim --- the man had been at the same AA meeting as Jesse the evening before. But otherwise, Jesse has no clue as to the man's identity. Their single lead is from a taxi company that recalls dropping off the mysterious stranger outside the gate at the mansion of one of the wealthiest families in town. Meanwhile, after Jesse survives a hail of gunfire on his home, he wonders if it could be related to the mysterious murder. When both Molly Crane and Suitcase Simpson also become targets, it is clear that someone has an ax to grind against the entire Paradise Police Department.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780525542087
SAVAGE KISS written by Roberto Saviano, translated by Antony Shugaar (Fiction)
Nicolas Fiorillo and his gang of children --- his paranza --- control the squares of Forcella after their rapid rise to power. But it isn't easy being at the top. Now that the Piranhas have power in the city, Nicolas must undermine the old families of the Camorra and remain united among themselves. Every paranzino has his own vendettas and dreams to pursue --- dreams that might go beyond the laws of the gang. A new war may be about to break out in this city of cutthroat bargaining, ruthless betrayal and brutal revenge. Roberto Saviano continues the story of the disillusioned boys of Forcella, the paranzini ready to give and receive kisses that leave a taste of blood.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374107956
SHADOWS IN DEATH by J. D. Robb (Mystery/Thriller)
While Eve Dallas examines a fresh body in Washington Square Park, her husband, Roarke, spots a man among the onlookers he’s known since his younger days on the streets of Dublin. A man who claims to be his half brother. A man who kills for a living. Eve is quick to suspect that the victim’s spouse --- resentful over his wife’s affair and poised to inherit her fortune --- would have happily paid an assassin to do his dirty work. Roarke is just as quick to warn her that if Lorcan Cobbe is the hitman, she needs to be careful. Law enforcement agencies worldwide have pursued this cold-hearted killer for years, to no avail. And his lazy smirk when he looked Roarke’s way indicates that he will target anyone who matters to Roarke…and is confident he’ll get away with it.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250207234
THE SLEEPING NYMPH: A Teresa Battaglia Novel written by Ilaria Tuti, translated by Ekin Oklap (Mystery/Thriller)
A decades-old murder investigation has landed on Superintendent Teresa Battaglia's desk. DNA analysis has revealed that a painting from the final days of World War II contains matter from a human heart. Teresa is able to trace the evidence to Val Resia, one of Italy’s most isolated, untouched regions. When Teresa’s investigation hits too close to the truth, a fresh human heart is hung at the valley’s entrance, a warning not to cross its threshold. As she hunts a ruthless killer, Teresa must face down her own rapidly deteriorating physical and cognitive abilities, as well as someone she hoped never to see again --- a man who has just become her supervisor.
Soho Crime | 9781641291217
TIE DIE: A Colleen Hayes Mystery by Max Tomlinson (Mystery)
Back in London’s swinging '60s, Steve Cook was teen idol number one. But that changed when a 16-year-old fan was found dead in his hotel room bed. Steve’s career came to a crashing halt after he was dumped by his record company and arrested. Now, in 1978 San Francisco, Steve works construction, still dreaming of a comeback. Until his 11-year-old daughter is kidnapped. He turns to one person for help: Colleen Hayes, who knows what it’s like to be on the wrong side of the law and live in judgment for the rest of your life. It doesn’t take Colleen long to realize that something fishy is going on with the kidnapping of Melanie Cook. What transpires is a harrowing journey through a music industry rife with corruption and crime.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608093434
WHAT ARE YOU GOING THROUGH by Sigrid Nunez (Fiction)
A woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life: an ex she runs into by chance at a public forum, an Airbnb owner unsure how to interact with her guests, a stranger who seeks help comforting his elderly mother, a friend of her youth now hospitalized with terminal cancer. In each of these people, the woman finds a common need: the urge to talk about themselves and to have an audience to their experiences. The narrator orchestrates this chorus of voices for the most part as a passive listener, until one of them makes an extraordinary request, drawing her into an intense and transformative experience of her own.
Riverhead Books | 9780593191415
THE WRITER'S LIBRARY: The Authors You Love on the Books That Changed Their Lives by Nancy Pearl and Jeff Schwager (Literary Criticism)
Before Jennifer Egan, Louise Erdrich, Luis Alberto Urrea and Jonathan Lethem became revered authors, they were readers. In this ebullient book, America’s favorite librarian, Nancy Pearl, and noted playwright Jeff Schwager interview a diverse range of America's most notable and influential writers about the books that shaped them and inspired them to leave their own literary mark. Illustrated with beautiful line drawings, THE WRITER’S LIBRARY is a revelatory exploration of the studies, libraries and bookstores of today’s favorite authors --- the creative artists whose imagination and sublime talent make America's literary scene the wonderful, dynamic world it is.
HarperOne | 9780062968500
On Sale the Week of September 7th in Paperback
September 8th
ALL THE WAY: My Life in Four Quarters by Joe Namath, with Sean Mortimer and Don Yaeger (Sports/Memoir)
Three days before the 1969 Super Bowl, Joe Namath promised the nation that he would lead the New York Jets to a victory against the seemingly invincible Baltimore Colts. When the final whistle blew, that promise had been kept. But beneath the eccentric yet charismatic personality was a player plagued by injury and addiction, both sex and substance. When failing knees permanently derailed his career, he turned to Hollywood and endorsements, not to mention a tumultuous marriage and fleeting bouts of sobriety, to try and find purpose. Now Namath is ready to open up, brilliantly using the four quarters of Super Bowl III as the narrative backbone to a life that was anything but charmed.
Back Bay Books | 9780316421119
THE BONES REMEMBER: An Alexa Glock Forensics Mystery by Sara E. Johnson (Mystery)
Paperback Original
At first, Alexa Glock's initial case as a traveling forensic investigator seems straightforward --- her expertise in teeth helps her identify the skeletal remains of a hunter found on the remote Stewart Island in New Zealand. But when she realizes that the bullet lodged in his skull was not self-inflicted, and then a second, shark-ravaged body washes up on Ringaringa Beach, it's clear that something dangerous is lurking in the beautiful waters surrounding the island. Tensions between cagers and locals mount as Alexa dives into the harrowing case. While measuring bite patterns, she makes a shocking discovery that just might lead her to who --- or what --- is behind both deaths.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464213359
THE CHESTNUT MAN by Søren Sveistrup (Mystery/Thriller)
A psychopath is terrorizing Copenhagen. His calling card is a “chestnut man” --- a handmade doll made of matchsticks and two chestnuts --- which he leaves at each bloody crime scene. Examining the dolls, forensics makes a shocking discovery --- a fingerprint belonging to a young girl, a government minister’s daughter who had been kidnapped and murdered a year ago. A tragic coincidence, or something more twisted? To save innocent lives, a pair of detectives must put aside their differences to piece together the Chestnut Man’s gruesome clues. Because it’s clear that the madman is on a mission that is far from over. And no one is safe.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062895370
CILKA’S JOURNEY by Heather Morris (Historical Fiction)
Cilka is just 16 years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where the commandant immediately notices how beautiful she is. When the war is over and the camp is liberated, freedom is not granted to Cilka: She is charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy and sent to a Siberian prison camp. But did she really have a choice? And where do the lines of morality lie for Cilka, who was sent to Auschwitz when she was still a child? In Siberia, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, including the unwanted attention of the guards. But when she meets a kind female doctor, Cilka is taken under her wing and begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under brutal conditions.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250265692
DEATH IN FOCUS: An Elena Standish Novel by Anne Perry (Historical Mystery)
On vacation from London on the beautiful Italian coast, 28-year-old Elena Standish and her older sister, Margot, have finally been able to move on from the lasting trauma of the Great War, in which the newly married Margot lost her husband and the sisters their beloved brother. Touring with her camera in hand, Elena has found new inspiration in the striking Italian landscape, and she’s met an equally striking man named Ian. When Ian has to leave unexpectedly, Elena finds she’s not ready to part from him, and the two share a spontaneous train trip home to England. But a shocking sequence of events disrupts their itinerary, forcing Elena to personally deliver a message to Berlin on Ian’s behalf, one that could change the fate of Europe.
Ballantine Books | 9780525621003
ELLIE AND THE HARPMAKER by Hazel Prior (Romance)
Dan Hollis lives a happy, solitary life carving exquisite Celtic harps in his barn in the countryside of the English moors. Here he can be himself, away from social situations that he doesn’t always get right or completely understand. On the anniversary of her beloved father’s death, Ellie Jacobs takes a walk in the woods and comes across Dan’s barn. She is enchanted by his collection. Dan gives her a harp made of cherrywood to match her cherry socks. He stores it for her, ready for whenever she’d like to take lessons. Ellie begins visiting Dan almost daily and quickly learns that he isn’t like other people. She soon realizes that he isn’t just different; in many ways, his world is better, and he gives her a fresh perspective on her own life.
Berkley | 9781984803801
FALL AND RISE: The Story of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff (Modern History)
In the days and months after 9/11, Mitchell Zuckoff, then a reporter for the Boston Globe, wrote about the attacks, the victims and their families. After further years of meticulous reporting, Zuckoff has filled FALL AND RISE with voices of the lost and the saved --- an out-of-work actor stuck in an elevator in the North Tower of the World Trade Center; the heroes aboard Flight 93 deciding to take action; a veteran trapped in the inferno in the Pentagon; the fire chief among the first on the scene in sleepy Shanksville; a team of firefighters racing to save an injured woman and themselves; and the men, women and children flying across the country to see loved ones or for work who suddenly faced terrorists bent on murder.
Harper Perennial | 9780062275653
FULL THROTTLE: Stories by Joe Hill (Supernatural Thriller/Short Stories)
A little door that opens to a world of fairy tale wonders becomes the blood-drenched stomping ground for a gang of hunters in “Faun.” A grief-stricken librarian climbs behind the wheel of an antique Bookmobile to deliver fresh reads to the dead in “Late Returns.” And tension shimmers in the sweltering heat of the Nevada desert as a faceless trucker finds himself caught in a sinister dance with a tribe of motorcycle outlaws in “Throttle,” co-written with Stephen King. Replete with shocking chillers, including two previously unpublished stories written expressly for this volume (“Mums” and “Late Returns”) and another appearing in print for the first time (“Dark Carousel”), FULL THROTTLE is a darkly imagined odyssey through the complexities of the human psyche.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062200693
THE GLASS WOMAN by Caroline Lea (Historical Thriller)
Rósa has always dreamed of living a simple life alongside her Mamma in their remote village in Iceland. But after her father dies abruptly and her Mamma becomes ill, Rósa marries herself off to a visiting trader in exchange for a dowry. Rósa follows her new husband, Jón, across the treacherous countryside to his remote home near the sea. He forbids her to interact with the locals in the nearby settlement and tells her to stay away from his attic. When Rósa begins to hear strange noises from upstairs, she turns to the local woman in an attempt to find solace. But the villager’s words are even more troubling --- confirming many of the rumors about Jón’s first wife, Anna, including that he buried her body alone in the middle of the night.
Harper Perennial | 9780062935113
LITTLE DARLINGS by Melanie Golding (Psychological Thriller)
Everyone says Lauren Tranter is exhausted, that she needs rest. And they’re right; with newborn twins, Morgan and Riley, she’s never been more tired in her life. But she knows what she saw: that night, in her hospital room, a woman tried to take her babies and replace them with her own...creatures. Yet when the police arrived, they saw no one. A month passes. And one bright summer morning, the babies disappear from Lauren’s side in a park. But when they’re found, something is different about them. The infants look like Morgan and Riley --- to everyone else. But to Lauren, something is off. As everyone around her celebrates their return, Lauren begins to scream, These are not my babies.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781643854441
THE MISSING YEARS by Lexie Elliott (Psychological Thriller)
Ailsa Calder has inherited half of a house. The other half belongs to a man who disappeared without a trace 27 years ago --- her father. Leaving London behind to settle the inheritance, Ailsa returns to the manor, nestled amongst the craggy peaks of the Scottish Highlands, joined by the half-sister who's practically a stranger to her. Ailsa can't escape the claustrophobic feeling that the house itself watches her --- as if her dramatic past hungers to consume her. When the first nighttime intruder shows up and the locals in the isolated community pry into her plans for the manor, Ailsa grows terrified that escaping the beautiful old home will cost her everything.
Berkley | 9780399586989
MOTHERLAND: A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing by Elissa Altman (Memoir)
After surviving a traumatic childhood in 1970s New York and young adulthood living in the shadow of her flamboyant mother, Rita, a makeup-addicted former television singer, Elissa Altman has managed to build a very different life, settling in Connecticut with her wife of nearly 20 years. After much time, therapy and wine, Elissa is at last in a healthy place. Then she is confronted with the unthinkable: Rita suffers an incapacitating fall, leaving her completely dependent upon her daughter. Now Elissa is forced to finally confront their profound differences, Rita’s yearning for beauty and glamour, her view of the world through her days in the spotlight, and the money that has mysteriously disappeared in the name of preserving youth.
Ballantine Books | 9780399181603
THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff (Oral History)
Of all the books about 9/11, one has been missing until now --- a panoramic narrative from the men and women caught up in the unprecedented human drama of that terrible day. THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY is nothing less than the first comprehensive oral history of September 11th, deftly woven and told in the voices of ordinary people grappling with extraordinary events. Drawing on never-before-published transcripts, recently declassified documents, and original interviews and stories from nearly 500 government officials, first responders, witnesses, survivors, friends and family members, historian Garrett M. Graff skillfully tells the story of the day as it was lived.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781501182211
ROBERT B. PARKER’S THE BITTEREST PILL: A Jesse Stone Novel by Reed Farrel Coleman (Mystery)
When a popular high school cheerleader dies of a suspected heroin overdose, it becomes clear that the opioid epidemic has spread even to the idyllic town of Paradise. It will be up to police chief Jesse Stone to unravel the supply chain and unmask the criminals behind it, and the investigation has a clear epicenter: Paradise High School. But when it comes to drugs, the very people Jesse is trying to protect are often those with the most to lose. As he digs deeper into the case, he finds himself battling self-interested administrators, reluctant teachers, distrustful schoolkids and overprotective parents. At the end of the line are the true bad guys, the ones with a lucrative business they'd kill to protect.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780399574993
THE SAINT OF WOLVES AND BUTCHERS by Alex Grecian (Thriller)
Travis Roan and his dog, Bear, are hunters, traveling the world pursuing evildoers in order to bring them to justice. They have now come to Kansas on the trail of Rudolph Bormann, a Nazi doctor and concentration camp administrator who snuck into the U.S. under the name Rudy Goodman in the 1950s and has at last been identified. Travis quickly learns that Goodman has powerful friends who will go to any length to protect the Nazi. What he doesn't know is that Goodman has furtively continued his diabolical work, amassing a congregation of followers who believe he possesses Godlike powers.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593190470
SUPERNOVA ERA written by Cixin Liu, translated by Joel Martinsen (Science Fiction)
Eight light years away, a star has died, creating a supernova event that showers Earth in deadly levels of radiation. Within a year, everyone over the age of 13 will die. And so the countdown begins. Parents apprentice their children and try to pass on the knowledge needed to keep the world running. But when the world is theirs, the last generation may not want to continue the legacy left to them. And in shaping the future however they want, will the children usher in an era of bright beginnings or final mistakes?
Tor Books | 9781250306050
WE, THE SURVIVORS by Tash Aw (Fiction)
Born and raised in a Malaysian fishing village, Ah Hock favors stability above all, a preference at odds with his rapidly modernizing surroundings. So what brings him to kill a man? This question leads a young, privileged journalist to Ah Hock’s door. While the victim has been mourned and the killer has served time for the crime, Ah Hock's motive remains unclear, even to himself. His vivid confession unfurls over extensive interviews with the journalist, herself a local whose life has taken a very different course. The process forces both the speaker and his listener to reckon with systems of power, race and class in a place where success is promised to all yet delivered only to its lucky heirs.
Picador | 9781250757920
YOU’VE BEEN VOLUNTEERED: A Class Mom Novel by Laurie Gelman (Fiction/Humor)
If you’ve ever been a room parent or school volunteer, Jen Dixon is your hero. She says what every class mom is really thinking, whether in her notoriously frank emails or standup-worthy interactions with the micromanaging PTA President and the gamut of difficult parents. Luckily, she has the charm and wit to get away with it --- most of the time. Jen is sassier than ever but dealing with a whole new set of challenges, in the world of parental politics and at home. She’s been roped into room-parenting yet again, for her son Max’s third grade class. But as her husband buries himself in work, her older daughters navigate adulthood, and Jen’s own aging parents start to need some parenting themselves, Jen gets pulled in more directions than any one mom, or superhero, can handle.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250771254
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