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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 $35,755 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.
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Thank you again for your consideration and your donation.
Carol Fitzgerald (Carol@bookreporter.com)
In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of September 14th and September 21st 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 Fall Preview Contests and Feature, a series of 24-hour giveaways that are taking place on select days in September and October. Enter for your chance to win a number of outstanding books that we know people will be talking about this fall.
Also, be sure to check out Carol Fitzgerald's latest "Bookreporter Talks To" interviews with Ruth Ware and Wendy Walker.
Ruth Ware's new "locked-in" mystery, ONE BY ONE, is an upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On pick. Eight coworkers from a booming tech company and a former colleague find themselves stranded in a luxury ski cabin after a devastating avalanche. As panic and the desire to escape increases, something more sinister is in the works: members of the group are found dead...one by one. Along with delving into the specifics of the book, Ruth talks to Carol about the trials involved in "relaxing" ski trips, how renowned mystery writers influenced her writing of the book, and what she is working on next. Click here to watch the video and here to listen to the podcast.
DON'T LOOK FOR ME, Wendy Walker's latest psychological thriller, also will be a Bets On selection. Molly Clarke has disappeared, leaving behind only an empty car at the edge of town and a note at a hotel. She's not the first to leave this way, following the same behaviors that police call a "walk away." But her family is skeptical about this. Molly was last seen getting into a car with a stranger who offered her a ride. So what really happened? Wendy and Carol talk about these "walk aways" and how often they occur in real life. Wendy also shares a personal story that sparked her idea for the novel and explains the camaraderie she has with her fellow thriller authors. Click here to watch the video and here to listen to the podcast.
This Month's "Bookaccino Live" Event: This is your last newsletter reminder to sign up for our fourth "Bookaccino Live” event, which will take place via Zoom TOMORROW, Wednesday, September 16th at 2pm ET. Carol will present titles releasing from mid-September to early October, along with five from November, that she would like to get on your radar. Click here to register. Our room holds up to 500 attendees, so feel free to invite friends! If you already signed up for this session, please do not sign up again. This will help us keep an accurate audience count. Registration will close at 10am ET so we have time to get leave behinds out before the event.
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
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.
Wednesday, September 16th at 2pm ET: Bookaccino Live: A Lively Talk About Books: Carol Fitzgerald will present titles releasing from mid-September to early October, along with five from November, that she would like to get on your radar.
Wednesday, September 16th at 5pm ET: Dallas Museum of Art Virtual Event: Dallas Arts & Letters Live presents a virtual event with #1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman. Backman will be in conversation with Angela Haupt of US News to discuss his new novel, ANXIOUS PEOPLE.
Wednesday, September 16th 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. This week's special guest will be Signe Pike, whose latest novel is THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM.
Thursday, September 17th at 7pm ET: Midtown Scholar Books Virtual Event: Bestselling authors Wendy Walker and Mary Kubica will be in conversation about Walker's new thriller, DON'T LOOK FOR ME.
Thursday, September 17th at 7pm ET: Watermark Books & Café Virtual Event: Watermark Books & Café invites you to attend a virtual event with New York Times bestselling authors Mike Lupica and Harlan Coben. Both will be on hand for a virtual Q&A and discussion of their new novels, ROBERT B. PARKER'S FOOL'S PARADISE and THE BOY FROM THE WOODS.
Friday, September 18th at 6:30pm ET: BookTowne Virtual Event: Join BookTowne on Zoom with Wendy Walker, author of DON'T LOOK FOR ME, in conversation with Karen Dionne, whose latest novel is THE WICKED SISTER.
Tuesday, September 22nd at 1pm ET: Simon & Schuster's Book Club Favorites Online Event: Alice Hoffman will join members of the Simon & Schuster team for a Facebook Live Book Club chat about THE WORLD THAT WE KNEW, which is now in paperback and is this month's pick for S&S's Book Club Favorites.
Tuesday, September 22nd at 8pm ET: Norwich Bookstore Virtual Event: Join Norwich Bookstore for "An Evening with Jodi Picoult." Picoult, whose new novel is THE BOOK OF TWO WAYS, will be in conversation with Brit Bennett, author of THE VANISHING HALF.
This Week's Bonus News:
Bookreporter.com's 10th Annual
Fall Preview Contests and Feature
Fall is known as the biggest season of the year for books. The titles that release during this latter part of the year often become holiday gifts, and many are blockbusters. To celebrate the arrival of fall, we are spotlighting a number of outstanding books that we know people will be talking about in the days and months to come.
We are hosting a series of 24-hour contests for these titles on select days in September and October, so you will have to check the site each day to see the featured prize book and enter to win. We also are sending a special newsletter to announce the day's title, which you can sign up for here.
This year's featured titles are:
Click here to read all the contest details
and learn more about our featured titles.
On Sale the Week of September 14th in Hardcover
September 15th
AGENT SONYA: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy by Ben Macintyre (History)
In 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy English Cotswolds, a thin, elegant woman lived in a small cottage with her three children and her husband, who worked as a machinist nearby. Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple, unassuming life. Her neighbors in the village knew little about her. They didn’t know that she was a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer. They didn’t know that her husband was also a spy, or that she was running powerful agents across Europe. Behind the facade of her picturesque life, Burton was a dedicated Communist, a Soviet colonel and a veteran agent, gathering the scientific secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the bomb.
Crown | 9780593136300
THE AWKWARD BLACK MAN: Stories by Walter Mosley (Fiction/Short Stories)
Bestselling author Walter Mosley has proven himself a master of narrative tension, with both his extraordinary fiction and gripping writing for television. THE AWKWARD BLACK MAN collects 17 of his most accomplished short stories to showcase the full range of his remarkable talent. Mosley presents distinct characters as they struggle to move through the world in each of these stories --- heroes who are awkward, nerdy, self-defeating, self-involved and, on the whole, odd. He overturns the stereotypes that corral black male characters and paints a subtle, powerful portrait of each of these unique individuals.
Grove Press | 9780802149565
DON'T LOOK FOR ME by Wendy Walker (Psychological Thriller)
They called it a “walk away.” The car abandoned miles from home. The note found at a nearby hotel. The shattered family. It happens all the time. Women disappear, desperate to start over. But what really happened to Molly Clarke? When a new lead comes in two weeks after the search has ended, Molly’s daughter, Nicole, begins to wonder. Against her father’s wishes, she returns to the small, desolate town where her mother was last seen, determined to find the truth. The locals are sympathetic and eager to help. Until secrets begin to reveal themselves. When Nicole learns about another woman who vanished from town, then discovers a small hole cut into a fence guarding a mysterious, secluded property, she comes closer to the truth about that night --- and the danger surrounding her.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250198709
THE EVENING AND THE MORNING by Ken Follett (Historical Fiction)
It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined. Thirty years ago, Ken Follett published his most popular novel, THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH. Now, his new prequel, THE EVENING AND THE MORNING, takes us on an epic journey into a historical past rich with ambition and rivalry, death and birth, love and hate, that will end where THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH begins.
Viking | 9780525954989
THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM by Signe Pike (Historical Fiction)
AD 573. Imprisoned in her chamber, Languoreth awaits news in torment. Her husband and son have ridden off to wage war against her brother, Lailoken. She doesn’t yet know that her young daughter, Angharad, who was training with Lailoken to become a Wisdom Keeper, has been lost in the chaos. As one of the bloodiest battles of early medieval Scottish history scatters its survivors to the wind, Lailoken and his men must flee to exile in the mountains of the Lowlands, while nine-year-old Angharad must summon all that Lailoken has taught her and follow her own destiny through the mysterious, mystical land of the Picts. In the aftermath of the battle, old political alliances unravel, opening the way for the ambitious adherents of the new religion: Christianity.
Atria Books | 9781501191459
THE GLASS HOUSE by Beatrice Colin (Historical Fiction)
Scotland, 1912. Antonia McCulloch’s life hasn’t gone the way she planned. She and her husband, Malcolm, have drifted apart; her burgeoning art career came to nothing; and when she looks in the mirror, she sees disappointment. But at least she will always have Balmarra, her family’s grand Scottish estate, and its exquisite glass house, filled with exotic plants that can take her far away. When her estranged brother’s wife, Cicely Pick, arrives unannounced, with her young daughter and enough trunks to last the summer, Antonia is instantly suspicious. What besides an inheritance dispute could have brought her glamorous sister-in-law all the way from India?
Flatiron Books | 9781250152503
HOMELAND ELEGIES by Ayad Akhtar (Fiction)
HOMELAND ELEGIES blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son and the country they both call home. Ayad Akhtar forges a new narrative voice to capture a country in which debt has ruined countless lives and the gods of finance rule, where immigrants live in fear, and where the nation’s unhealed wounds wreak havoc around the world. Akhtar attempts to make sense of it all through the lens of a story about one family, from a heartland town in America to palatial suites in Central Europe to guerrilla lookouts in the mountains of Afghanistan, and spares no one --- least of all himself --- in the process.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316496421
HOW I BUILT THIS: The Unexpected Paths to Success from the World’s Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs by Guy Raz (Business & Economics)
Great ideas often come from a simple spark: A soccer player on the New Zealand national team notices all the unused wool his country produces and figures out a way to turn them into shoes (Allbirds). A former Buddhist monk decides the very best way to spread his mindfulness teachings is by launching an app (Headspace). A sandwich cart vendor finds a way to reuse leftover pita bread and turns it into a multimillion-dollar business (Stacy’s Pita Chips). Award-winning journalist and NPR host Guy Raz has interviewed more than 200 highly successful entrepreneurs to uncover amazing true stories like these. In HOW I BUILT THIS, he shares tips for every entrepreneur’s journey: from the early days of formulating your idea, to raising money and recruiting employees, to fending off competitors, to finally paying yourself a real salary.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9780358216766
IF THEN: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future by Jill Lepore (History)
The Simulmatics Corporation, launched during the Cold War, mined data, targeted voters, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics and disordered knowledge --- decades before Facebook, Google and Cambridge Analytica. Jill Lepore, the bestselling author of THESE TRUTHS, came across the company’s papers in MIT’s archives and set out to tell this forgotten history, the long-lost backstory to the methods --- and the arrogance --- of Silicon Valley.
Liveright | 9781631496103
THE KILLINGS AT KINGFISHER HILL: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Sophie Hannah (Historical Mystery)
Hercule Poirot is traveling by luxury passenger coach to the exclusive Kingfisher Hill estate. Richard Devonport has summoned the renowned detective to prove that his fiancée, Helen, is innocent of the murder of his brother, Frank. Poirot will have only days to investigate before Helen is hanged, but he must conceal his true reason for being there from the rest of the Devonport family. The coach is forced to stop when a distressed woman demands to get off, insisting that if she stays in her seat, she will be murdered. Although the rest of the journey passes without anyone being harmed, Poirot’s curiosity is aroused, and his fears are later confirmed when a body is discovered with a macabre note attached.
William Morrow | 9780062792372
PIRANESI by Susanna Clarke (Dark Fantasy)
Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. There is one other person in the house --- a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635575637
THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS by Micah Nemerever (Fiction)
When Paul enters university in early 1970s Pittsburgh, it’s with the hope of moving past the recent death of his father. When he meets the worldly Julian in his freshman ethics class, he is immediately drawn to his classmate’s effortless charm. Paul will stop at nothing to prove himself worthy of their friendship, because with Julian life is more invigorating than he ever could have imagined. But as charismatic as he can choose to be, Julian is also volatile and capriciously cruel. As their friendship spirals into all-consuming intimacy, they each learn the lengths to which the other will go in order to stay together, their obsession ultimately hurtling them toward an act of irrevocable violence.
Harper | 9780062963635
TO SLEEP IN A SEA OF STARS by Christopher Paolini (Science Fiction/Space Opera)
Kira Navárez dreamed of life on new worlds. Now she has awakened a nightmare. During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move. As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human. While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope.
Tor Books | 9781250762849
TOTAL POWER: A Mitch Rapp Novel by Vince Flynn and Kyle Mills (Political Thriller)
When Mitch Rapp captures ISIS’s top technology expert, he reveals that he was on his way to meet a man who claims to have the ability to bring down America’s power grid. Rapp is determined to eliminate this shadowy figure, but the CIA’s trap fails. The Agency is still trying to determine what went wrong when ISIS operatives help this cyber terrorist do what he said he could --- plunge the country into darkness. With no concept of how this unprecedented act was accomplished, the task of getting the power back on could take months. Perhaps even years. Rapp and his team embark on a desperate search for the only people who know how to repair the damage. But his operating environment is like nothing he’s experienced before.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781501190650
THE TROUBLE WITH PEACE by Joe Abercrombie (Historical Fantasy)
Savine dan Glokta, once Adua's most powerful investor, finds her judgment, fortune and reputation in tatters. But she still has all her ambitions, and no scruple will be permitted to stand in her way. For heroes like Leo dan Brock and Stour Nightfall, only happy with swords drawn, peace is an ordeal to end as soon as possible. But grievances must be nursed, power seized and allies gathered first, while Rikke must master the power of the Long Eye…before it kills her. Unrest worms into every layer of society. The Breakers still lurk in the shadows, plotting to free the common man from his shackles, while noblemen bicker for their own advantage. Orso struggles to find a safe path through the maze of knives that is politics, only for his enemies, and his debts, to multiply.
Orbit | 9780316187183
TROUBLED BLOOD: A Cormoran Strike Novel by Robert Galbraith (Mystery)
Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he is approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough, who went missing under mysterious circumstances in 1974. Despite the slim chance of success, he takes it on --- adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency, Robin Ellacott, are currently working on. And Robin herself is also juggling a messy divorce and unwanted male attention, as well as battling her own feelings about Strike. As Strike and Robin investigate Margot’s disappearance, they come up against a fiendishly complex case with leads that include tarot cards, a psychopathic serial killer and witnesses who cannot all be trusted.
Mulholland Books | 9780316498937
WILD THING: The Short, Spellbinding Life of Jimi Hendrix by Philip Norman (Music/Biography)
Over 50 years after his death, Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) is celebrated as the greatest rock guitarist of all time. But before he was setting guitars and the world aflame, James Marshall Hendrix was a shy kid in Seattle, plucking at a broken ukulele and in fear of a father who would hit him for playing left-handed. Bringing Jimi’s story to vivid life against the backdrop of mid-century rock, and with a wealth of new information, acclaimed music biographer Philip Norman delivers a captivating and definitive portrait of a musical legend.
Liveright | 9781631495892
On Sale the Week of September 14th in Paperback
September 15th
AFTER THE FLOOD by Kassandra Montag (Dystopian Fiction/Adventure)
A little more than a century from now, our world has been utterly transformed. After years of slowly overtaking the continent, rising floodwaters have obliterated America’s great coastal cities and then its heartland, leaving nothing but an archipelago of mountaintop colonies surrounded by a deep expanse of open water. For seven years, Myra has grieved the loss of her oldest daughter, Row, who was stolen by her father after a monstrous deluge overtook their home in Nebraska. Then, in a violent confrontation with a stranger, Myra suddenly discovers that Row was last seen in a far-off encampment near the Arctic Circle. She and her younger daughter, Pearl, embark on a perilous voyage into the icy northern seas, hoping against hope that Row will still be there.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062889386
ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS by Jami Attenberg (Fiction)
Now that her father is on his deathbed, strong-headed lawyer Alex Tuchman feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. As her mother Barbra fends off Alex’s unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous life with Victor. Meanwhile, Gary, Alex’s brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary’s wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drugstores around New Orleans and bursting into crying fits. As each family member grapples with Victor’s history, they must figure out a way to move forward --- with one another, for themselves and for the sake of their children.
Mariner Books | 9780358361336
CHANCE OF A LIFETIME: A Providence Falls Novel by Jude Deveraux and Tara Sheets (Romance/Magical Realism)
Paperback Original
In 1844 Ireland, Liam O’Connor, a rogue and a thief, fell madly in love with a squire’s daughter and unwittingly altered the future. Shy and naive Cora McLeod thought Liam was the answer to her prayers. But the angels disagreed, and they’ve been waiting for the right moment in time to step in. Now Liam finds himself reunited with his beloved Cora in Providence Falls, North Carolina. The angels have given Liam a task. He must make sure Cora falls in love with another man --- the one she was supposed to marry before Liam interfered. But this Cora is very different from the innocent girl who fell for Liam in the past. Liam wants Cora for himself, but with his soul hanging in the balance, he must choose between a stolen moment in time or an eternity of damnation.
Mira | 9780778309932
CHASING THE BEAR: How Bear Bryant and Nick Saban Made Alabama the Greatest College Football Program of All Time by Lars Anderson (Sports/Biography)
Both Bear Bryant and Nick Saban are undeniable kings of college football, two coaches at Alabama who have each won more national championships --- six apiece --- than anyone else in the history of the game. CHASING THE BEAR examines how they did it, revealing along the way their similarities in style, background, football philosophy and recruiting methods, while providing readers a rare inside look at two of the greatest leaders in the history of sports. Separated by two generations, Bryant and Saban are mythic figures linked by a school, a town and a barroom debate centering on one question: Which is the greatest college coach of all time?
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538716472
DESK 88: Eight Progressive Senators Who Changed America by Sherrod Brown (History/Politics)
Since his election to the U.S. Senate in 2006, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown has sat on the Senate floor at a mahogany desk with a proud history. In DESK 88, he tells the story of eight of the Senators who were there before him. They range from Hugo Black, who helped to lift millions of American workers out of poverty, to Robert F. Kennedy, whose eyes were opened by an undernourished Mississippi child and who then spent the rest of his life afflicting the comfortable. Brown revives forgotten figures such as Idaho’s Glen Taylor, a singing cowboy who taught himself economics and stood up to segregationists, and offers new insights into George McGovern, who fought to feed the poor around the world even amid personal and political calamities. He also writes about Herbert Lehman of New York, Al Gore Sr. of Tennessee, Theodore Francis Green of Rhode Island, and William Proxmire of Wisconsin.
Picador | 9781250758101
THE FURIES by Katie Lowe (Thriller)
A new student, Violet, steps on the campus of Elm Hollow Academy, an all-girl’s boarding school on the outskirts of a sleepy coastal town. This is her fresh start, her chance to begin again in the wake of tragedy. She is soon invited to an advanced study group, led by her alluring and mysterious art teacher, Annabel. There, with three other girls, the five of them delve into the school’s long-buried grim history. Violet quickly finds herself wrapped up in this heady new world of lawless power --- except she is needled by the disappearance of a former member of the group, one with whom she shares an uncanny resemblance. As her friends’ actions take a turn for the darker and spiral out of control, she begins to wonder who she can trust, all the while becoming more deeply entangled.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250297907
THE ROAD HOME by Richard Paul Evans (Fiction)
Chicago celebrity and pitchman Charles James is supposed to be dead. Everyone believes he was killed in a fiery plane crash, a flight he narrowly missed. But thanks to that remarkable twist of fate, he’s very much alive and ready for a second chance at life and love. In this final installment of the provocative series that began with THE BROKEN ROAD and THE FORGOTTEN ROAD, Charles is still on his pilgrimage across the iconic Route 66. He intends to finish his trek from Amarillo to Santa Monica, despite learning that his ex-wife is now planning to marry another man. With the initial reason for his trip in jeopardy, he still has lessons to learn along the way before he discovers --- and arrives at --- his true destination.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501111839
SARAH JANE by James Sallis (Mystery)
Sarah Jane Pullman is a good cop with a complicated past. From her small-town chicken-farming roots through her runaway adolescence, court-ordered Army stint, ill-advised marriage, and years slinging scrambled eggs over greasy spoon griddles, Sarah Jane unfolds her life story, a parable about memory, atonement and finding shape in chaos. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she is named the de facto sheriff of a rural town, investigating the mysterious disappearance of the sheriff whose shoes she’s filling --- and the even more mysterious realities of the life he was hiding from his own colleagues and closest friends.
Soho Crime | 9781641292108
SONTAG: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser (Biography)
Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Susan Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture. She was there when the Cuban Revolution began, and when the Berlin Wall came down; in Vietnam under American bombardment, in wartime Israel, in besieged Sarajevo. She was in New York when artists tried to resist the tug of money --- and when many gave in. SONTAG tells these stories and examines the work upon which her reputation was based.
Ecco | 9780062896407
WHAT HAPPENS IN PARADISE by Elin Hilderbrand (Fiction)
A year ago, Irene Steele had the shock of her life: her loving husband, father to their grown sons and successful businessman, was killed in a helicopter crash. But that wasn't Irene's only shattering news: he also had been leading a double life on the island of St. John, where another woman loved him, too. Now Irene and her sons are back on St. John, determined to learn the truth about the mysterious life --- and death --- of a man they thought they knew. Along the way, they're about to learn some surprising truths about their own lives, and their futures.
Back Bay Books | 9780316435543
On Sale the Week of September 21st in Hardcover
September 21st
THE COAST-TO-COAST MURDERS by James Patterson and J. D. Barker (Psychological Thriller)
Michael and Megan Fitzgerald’s parents are public intellectuals, an Ivy League clinical psychologist and a renowned psychiatrist, and they brought up their adopted children in a rarefied, experimental environment. It forced secrets upon them that they keep at all costs. In Los Angeles, Detective Garrett Dobbs and FBI Agent Jessica Gimble have joined forces to work a murder that seems like a dead cinch. Their chief suspect is quickly identified and apprehended. But then there's another killing just like the one they've been investigating. And another. And not just in Los Angeles. The Fitzgerald family comes to the investigators' attention, but Dobbs and Gimble are at a loss. If one of the four is involved, which Fitzgerald might it be?
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316457422
September 22nd
ADRIANNE GEFFEL: A Fiction by David Hajdu (Fiction)
Adrianne Geffel was a one-of-a-kind artist, a pianist and composer with a rare neurological condition that enabled her to make music that was nothing less than pure, unmediated emotional expression. She and her sensibility are now fully integrated into the cultural lexicon; her music has been portrayed, represented and appropriated endlessly in popular culture. But what do we really know about her? Despite her renown, Geffel vanished from public life, and her whereabouts remain a mystery to this day. David Hajdu cuts through the noise to tell the full story of Geffel’s life and work, piecing it together through the memories of those who knew her, inspired her and exploited her --- her parents, teachers, best friend, manager, critics and lovers.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393634228
AND NOW SHE'S GONE by Rachel Howzell Hall (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Isabel Lincoln is gone. But is she missing? It’s up to Grayson Sykes to find her. Although she is reluctant to track down a woman who may not want to be found, Gray’s search for Isabel Lincoln becomes more complicated and dangerous with every new revelation about the woman’s secrets and the truth she’s hidden from her friends and family. Featuring two complicated women in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game, Rachel Howzell Hall's AND NOW SHE'S GONE explores the nature of secrets --- and how violence and fear can lead you to abandon everything in order to survive.
Forge Books | 9781250753175
THE BOOK OF TWO WAYS by Jodi Picoult (Fiction)
Dawn Edelstein is on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement: Prepare for a crash landing. She braces herself as thoughts flash through her mind. The shocking thing is, the thoughts are not of her husband, but of a man she last saw 15 years ago: Wyatt Armstrong, who is now somewhere in Egypt working as an archaeologist. After the crash landing, the airline offers transportation to wherever they want to go. The obvious option for Dawn is to continue down the path she is on and go home to her family. The other is to return to the archaeological site she left years before, reconnect with Wyatt and their unresolved history, and maybe even complete her research on The Book of Two Ways --- the first known map of the afterlife.
Ballantine Books | 9781984818355
CONDITIONAL CITIZENS: On Belonging in America by Laila Lalami (Memoir/Essays)
Pulitzer Prize finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of the rights, liberties and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship. Tapping into history, politics and literature, she elucidates how accidents of birth --- such as national origin, race and gender --- that once determined the boundaries of Americanness still cast their shadows today. Lalami poignantly illustrates how white supremacy survives through adaptation and legislation, with the result that a caste system is maintained that keeps the modern equivalent of white male landowners at the top of the social hierarchy. Conditional citizens, she argues, are all the people with whom America embraces with one arm and pushes away with the other.
Pantheon | 9781524747169
DANCING WITH THE OCTOPUS: A Memoir of a Crime by Debora Harding (Memoir)
When Debora Harding was just 14, she was abducted at knifepoint from a church parking lot. She was thrown into a van, assaulted, held for ransom and left to die. Debora survived. She identified her attacker to the police and then returned to her teenage life in a dysfunctional home where she was expected to simply move on. Denial became the family coping strategy offered by her fun-loving, conflicted father and her cruelly resentful mother. It wasn't until decades later --- when beset by the symptoms of PTSD --- that Debora undertook a radical project: she met her childhood attacker face-to-face in prison and began to reconsider and reimagine his complex story.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635576122
DAUGHTERS OF THE WILD by Natalka Burian (Fiction/Magical Realism)
In rural West Virginia, Joanie and her foster siblings live on a farm tending a mysterious plant called the vine. The older girls are responsible for cultivating the vine, performing sacred rituals to make it grow. After Joanie’s arranged marriage goes horribly wrong, leaving her widowed and with a baby, she plots her escape with the help of her foster brother, Cello. But before they can get away, her baby goes missing, and Joanie --- desperate to find him --- turns to the vine, understanding it to be far more powerful than her siblings realize. She begins performing generations-old rituals to summon the vine’s power and goes on a perilous journey into the wild, pushing the boundaries of her strength and sanity to bring her son home.
Park Row | 9780778310013
ELI'S PROMISE by Ronald H. Balson (Historical Fiction)
1939: Eli Rosen lives with his wife, Esther, and their young son in the Polish town of Lublin, where his family owns a construction company. As a consequence of the Nazi occupation, Eli’s company is Aryanized, appropriated and transferred to Maximilian Poleski, an unprincipled profiteer who will keep the Rosen family safe if Eli will manage the business. 1946: Eli resides with his son in a displaced persons camp in Allied-occupied Germany hoping for a visa to America. His wife has been missing since the war. One man is sneaking around the camps selling illegal visas. Might he know what has happened to her? 1965: Eli rents a room in Albany Park, Chicago. He navigates unfamiliar streets and dangerous political backrooms, searching for the truth.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250271464
THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU'LL MEET IN PRISON: A Memoir of Addiction, Mania & Hope by Brandon M. Stickney (Memoir)
After years of hedonism in the literary life, journalist Brandon M. Stickney is caught in an opiate epidemic drug sting and sentenced to prison. Surrounded by society's most troubled individuals and hostile guards, Stickney faces his addiction and mental illness behind the razor wire. Searching for answers, he befriends four inmates and a guard who help change his life. Haunted by severe cravings, nights of mania and threatened by prison's evils, he clings to hope, learning that recovery is possible, even in the darkest of places. Startling yet humorous, THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU'LL MEET IN PRISON is part memoir, part exposé on the largest of America's industries: prison.
Bancroft Press | 9781610881968
FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND: A Jonathan Stride Novel by Brian Freeman (Mystery/Thriller)
Jonathan Stride's best friend, Steve Garske, makes a shocking deathbed confession: he protected Stride by covering up a murder. Hours later, the police dig up Steve's yard and find a body with a bullet hole in its skull. Stride is pretty sure he knows who it is. Seven years ago, an out-of-town reporter disappeared while investigating anonymous allegations of rape against a prominent politician. Back then, the police believed that the reporter drowned at a dangerous swimming hole called the Deeps, but the discovery of the body changes everything. Now Stride's partner, Maggie Bei, is forced to ask Stride an uncomfortable question: Did you kill him? Stride is obviously hiding things. He was the last person to see the reporter alive. And he admits lying to Maggie about that meeting, but he won't tell her why.
Blackstone Publishing | 9781982663728
GODS AT PLAY: An Eyewitness Account of Great Moments in American Sports by Tom Callahan (Sports/History)
As a columnist for Time magazine, among many other publications, Tom Callahan witnessed an extraordinary number of defining moments in American sport across four decades. He takes us from Roberto Clemente clinching his 3,000th, and final, regular-season hit in Pittsburgh; to ringside for the Muhammad Ali–George Foreman fight in Zaire; and to Arthur Ashe announcing, at a news conference, that he’d tested positive for HIV. There are also little-known private moments: Joe Morgan whispering thank you to a virtually blind Jackie Robinson on the field at the 1972 World Series, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar saying he was more interested in being a good man than in being the greatest basketball player.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324004271
HENCH by Natalie Zina Walschots (Science Fiction/Adventure)
Anna does boring things for terrible people because even criminals need office help and she needs a job. Working for a monster lurking beneath the surface of the world isn’t glamorous. But is it really worse than working for an oil conglomerate or an insurance company? In this economy? As a temp, she’s just a cog in the machine. But when she finally gets a promising assignment, everything goes very wrong, and an encounter with the so-called “hero” leaves her badly injured. So, of course, then she gets laid off. When people start listening to the story that her data tells, she realizes she might not be as powerless as she thinks. It’s not too long before she’s employed once more, this time by one of the worst villains on earth. As she becomes an increasingly valuable lieutenant, she might just save the world.
William Morrow | 9780062978578
HERE WE ARE by Graham Swift (Historical Fiction)
It's the summer of 1959, and something magical can be witnessed at the end of the pier in beach town Brighton, England. Jack Robbins, Ronnie Deane and Evie White are performing in a seaside variety show. By the end of the summer, Evie's engagement ring will be flung to the bottom of the ocean and one of the trifecta will vanish forever. All three friends begin their path toward the end of Brighton's pier early in life. Ronnie's mother sends her son out in the child evacuations to Penny and Eric Lawrence for safety from the London blitz. It's within the safety and love of Evergrene, the Lawrences' estate, that magic creeps into Ronnie's life for the first time and starts the intricate intertwining of fate, chance and show business.
Knopf | 9780525658054
THE LAST AGENT by Robert Dugoni (Thriller)
Former spy Charles Jenkins, who survived an undercover Russian operation gone wrong, learns of a woman isolated in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison. If it’s Paulina Ponomayova, the agent who sacrificed her life to save his, Jenkins can’t leave her behind. But there’s no guarantee it’s her. Or proof Paulina is still alive. To find out, Jenkins must return to Russia. Next move: blackmail Viktor Federov, a former Russian officer with his own ax to grind, into helping him infiltrate Lefortovo. The enemy who once pursued Jenkins across three continents is now the only man Jenkins can trust. Every step of the way, they’re hunted by a brutal Russian agent on a killer quest of his own.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781542014984
MAKE THEM CRY by Smith Henderson and Jon Marc Smith (Thriller)
A former prosecutor notorious for her aggressive tactics, Diane Harbaugh is now a DEA agent. But when she hears from Gustavo, a high-ranking cartel member with an invaluable secret about the international black market, her entire understanding of justice and duty is thrown into question. Gustavo sends her down a rabbit hole that leads to a criminal conspiracy more pervasive than anything she and the DEA ever suspected. She teams up with Ian Carver, a disillusioned CIA agent, and begins to unravel layers of deceptions, grifts and schemes that date back to the beginnings of the Afghanistan War. As they learn more, they become the target of cartel assassins, embittered spies and even their own
government.
Ecco | 9780062825179
NEXT TO LAST STAND: A Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson (Mystery)
One of the most viewed paintings in American history, Custer's Last Fight, copied and distributed by Anheuser-Busch at a rate of over two million copies a year, was destroyed in a fire at the 7th Cavalry Headquarters in Fort Bliss, Texas, in 1946. Or was it? When Charley Lee Stillwater dies of an apparent heart attack at the Wyoming Home for Soldiers & Sailors, Walt Longmire is called in to try and make sense of a piece of a painting and a Florsheim shoebox containing a million dollars, sending the good sheriff on the trail of a dangerous art heist.
Viking | 9780525522539
SEX WITH PRESIDENTS: The Ins and Outs of Love and Lust in the White House by Eleanor Herman (History)
While Americans have a reputation for being strait-laced, many of the nation’s leaders have been anything but puritanical. In this entertaining and eye-opening book, Eleanor Herman revisits some of the sex scandals that have rocked the nation's capital and shocked the public, while asking the provocative questions: Does rampant adultery show a lack of character or the stamina needed to run the country? Or perhaps both? While Americans have judged their leaders' affairs harshly compared to other nations, did they mostly just hate being lied to? And do they now clearly care more about issues other than a politician’s sex life?
William Morrow | 9780062970565
THREE-RING CIRCUS: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty by Jeff Pearlman (Sports)
In the history of modern sport, there have never been two high-level teammates who loathed each other the way Shaquille O’Neal loathed Kobe Bryant, and Kobe Bryant loathed Shaquille O’Neal. From public sniping and sparring, to physical altercations and the repeated threats of trade, it was warfare. And yet, despite eight years of infighting and hostility, by turns mediated and encouraged by coach Phil Jackson, the Shaq-Kobe duo resulted in one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history. Together, the two led the Lakers to three straight championships and returned glory and excitement to Los Angeles.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9781328530004
THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB by Richard Osman (Mystery)
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes. Together they call themselves The Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?
Pamela Dorman Books | 9781984880963
TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH by Gilly Macmillan (Psychological Thriller)
Lucy Harper’s talent for writing bestselling novels has given her fame, fortune and millions of fans. It’s also given her Dan, her needy, jealous husband whose own writing career has gone precisely nowhere. Now Dan has vanished. But this isn’t the first time that someone has disappeared from Lucy’s life. Three decades ago, her little brother Teddy also went missing and was never found. Lucy, the only witness, helplessly spun fantasy after fantasy about Teddy’s disappearance. But now Lucy is a grown woman who can’t hide behind fiction any longer. The world is watching, and her whole life is under intense scrutiny. Could she have hurt Teddy? Did she kill Dan? Finally, now, Lucy Harper is going to tell the truth.
William Morrow | 9780062875587
THE VIRGINIA DYNASTY: Four Presidents and the Creation of the American Nation by Lynne Cheney (History)
From a small expanse of land on the North American continent came four of the nation's first five presidents --- a geographic dynasty whose members led a revolution, created a nation and ultimately changed the world. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe were born, grew to manhood, and made their homes within a 60-mile circle east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Friends and rivals, they led in securing independence, hammering out the United States Constitution and building a working republic. Acting together, they doubled the territory of the United States. From their disputes came American political parties and the weaponizing of newspapers, the media of the day.
Viking | 9781101980040
On Sale the Week of September 21st in Paperback
September 22nd
CARI MORA by Thomas Harris (Thriller)
Twenty-five million dollars in cartel gold lies hidden beneath a mansion on the Miami Beach waterfront. Ruthless men have tracked it for years. Leading the pack is Hans-Peter Schneider. Driven by unspeakable appetites, he makes a living fleshing out the violent fantasies of other, richer men. Cari Mora, caretaker of the house, has escaped from the violence in her native country. She stays in Miami on a wobbly Temporary Protected Status, subject to the iron whim of ICE. She works at many jobs to survive. Beautiful and marked by war, Cari catches the eye of Hans-Peter as he closes in on the treasure. But Cari Mora has surprising skills, and her will to survive has been tested before.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538750124
THE CHAIN by Adrian McKinty (Psychological Thriller)
Rachel Klein drops her daughter at the bus stop and heads into her day. But a cell phone call from an unknown number changes everything. It's a woman on the line, informing her that she has Kylie bound and gagged in her back seat, and the only way Rachel will see her again is to follow her instructions exactly: pay a ransom and find another child to abduct. This is no ordinary kidnapping: the caller is a mother herself, whose son has been taken, and if Rachel doesn't do as she's told, the boy will die. Rachel is now part of The Chain, an unending and ingenious scheme that turns victims into criminals --- and is making someone else very rich in the process.
Mulholland Books | 9780316531238
CLEAR MY NAME by Paula Daly (Psychological Thriller)
When Carrie was accused of brutally murdering her husband’s lover, she denied it. Now she’s three years into her 15-year sentence, gradually losing hope and separated from her pregnant daughter, but she is still maintaining her innocence. Tess is the only paid employee of Innocence UK, a charity that helps clear people wrongfully convicted of crimes, and accepts Carrie’s case. Meanwhile, Tess is also paired with Avril, a naïve young investigator-in-training, but unexpectedly bolts when she’s tipped off to a witness who could possibly prove Carrie didn’t commit the crime. While Tess and Avril work the case, re-interviewing witnesses and testing assumptions made at the time of the arrest, the tension ratchets up in both the case and Tess’ personal life.
Grove Press | 9780802157317
ELEMENTS OF FICTION by Walter Mosley (Writing/Reference)
In his essential writing guide, THIS YEAR YOU WRITE YOUR NOVEL, Walter Mosley supplied aspiring writers with the basic tools to write a novel in one year. In this complementary follow-up, he guides the writer through the elements of not just any fiction writing, but the kind of writing that transcends convention and truly stands out. In a series of instructive and conversational chapters, Mosley demonstrates how to master fiction's most essential elements: character and character development, plot and story, voice and narrative, context and description, and more. The result is a vivid depiction of the writing process from the blank page to the first draft to rewriting and rewriting again.
Grove Press | 9780802157355
FENTANYL, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic by Ben Westhoff (Social Science/Current Affairs)
A deeply human story, FENTANYL, INC. is the first deep-dive investigation of a hazardous and illicit industry that has created a worldwide epidemic, ravaging communities and overwhelming and confounding government agencies that are challenged to combat it. Drugs like fentanyl, K2 and Spice --- and those with arcane acronyms like 25i-NBOMe --- were all originally conceived in legitimate laboratories for proper scientific and medicinal purposes. Their formulas were then hijacked and manufactured by rogue chemists, largely in China, who change their molecular structures to stay ahead of the law, making the drugs’ effects impossible to predict. Ben Westhoff has infiltrated this shadowy world.
Grove Press | 9780802157379
FRANKISSSTEIN: A Love Story by Jeanette Winterson (Horror/Romance)
Lake Geneva, 1816. Nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley is inspired to write a story about a scientist who creates a new life-form. In Brexit Britain, a young transgender doctor called Ry is falling in love with Victor Stein, a celebrated professor leading the public debate around AI and carrying out some experiments of his own in a vast underground network of tunnels. Meanwhile, Ron Lord, just divorced and living with his mom again, is set to make his fortune launching a new generation of sex dolls for lonely men everywhere. Across the Atlantic, in Phoenix, Arizona, a cryogenics facility houses dozens of bodies of men and women who are medically and legally dead… but waiting to return to life. What will happen when homo sapiens is no longer the smartest being on the planet?
Grove Press | 9780802149398
MORTMAIN HALL: A Rachel Savernake Golden Age Mystery by Martin Edwards (Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
In 1930, a chilling encounter on London's Necropolis Railway leads to murder, and a man escapes the gallows after a witness gives sensational evidence. After this string of strange, fatal events, journalist Jacob Flint discovers that he has been framed for murder. To save himself, he flees to Mortmain Hall, a remote estate on the northern coast. There, an eccentric female criminologist hosts a gathering of eclectic people who have all escaped miscarriages of cruel justice. When a body is found beneath the cliffs near the house, it seems this gathering might be an ingenious plot to get away with murder. Jacob must now set out to uncover the labyrinthine of secrets within Mortmain Hall, alongside Rachel Savernake, a woman whose relentless quest for the truth might just bring down the British establishment.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464214059
MR. DICKENS AND HIS CAROL by Samantha Silva (Historical Fiction)
Charles Dickens is not feeling the Christmas spirit. His newest book is an utter flop, the critics have turned against him, and relatives near and far hound him for money. While his wife plans a lavish holiday party for their ever-expanding family and circle of friends, Dickens has visions of the poor house. But when his publishers try to blackmail him into writing a Christmas book to save them all from financial ruin, he refuses. And a serious bout of writer’s block sets in. Frazzled and filled with self-doubt, Dickens seeks solace in his great palace of thinking, the city of London itself. On one of his long night walks, in a once-beloved square, he meets the mysterious Eleanor Lovejoy, who might be just the muse he needs.
Flatiron Books | 9781250154057
THE NOBODIES by Liza Palmer (Fiction/Humor)
If there's one thing Joan Dixon knows about herself, it's that she is a damn good journalist. But when she is laid off from yet another soon-to-be-shuttered newspaper, and even the soulless, listicle-writing online jobs have dried up, she is left with few options. So she goes to work as a junior copywriter at Bloom, a Los Angeles startup where her bosses are all a decade younger. For once, Joan has a steady paycheck and a stable job. She befriends a group of misfit coworkers and even begins a real relationship. But once a journalist, always a journalist, and as Joan starts to poke beneath Bloom’s bright surface, she realizes that she may have accidentally stumbled onto the scoop of her lifetime. Is it worth risking everything for the sake of the story?
Flatiron Books | 9781250751232
RAG AND BONE: A Jay Porter Novel by Joe Clifford (Mystery/Thriller)
Having spent 10 months on the run after he was framed for the murder of an estate-clearing associate, handyman Jay Porter returns to his hometown of Ashton, New Hampshire. During his time as a fugitive, he searched for a hard drive --- evidence that would put his longtime nemeses Adam and Michael Lombardi behind bars. But he came up empty-handed. With his reputation tarnished and employment opportunities nonexistent, Jay takes a charity assignment from old friend/flame Alison Rodgers and learns of a fire at Alison’s former rehab farm. Jay is convinced that the Lombardis started the fire as a scare tactic to pressure Alison to sell. But he soon discovers that evil isn’t so easy to define, and sometimes we need to take the law into our own hands if we want justice.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608093915
THE WHISPERS OF WAR by Julia Kelly (Historical Fiction)
In August of 1939, as Britain watches the headlines in fear of another devastating war with Germany, three childhood friends must choose between friendship or country. Erstwhile socialite Nora is determined to find her place in the Home Office’s Air Raid Precautions Department, matchmaker Hazel tries to mask two closely guarded secrets with irrepressible optimism, and German expat Marie worries that she and her family might face imprisonment in an internment camp if war is declared. When Germany invades Poland and tensions on the home front rise, Marie is labeled an enemy alien, and the three friends find themselves fighting together to keep her free at any cost.
Gallery Books | 9781982107802
WILL MY CAT EAT MY EYEBALLS?: And Other Questions About Dead Bodies by Caitlin Doughty (Sociology)
Everyone has questions about death. In WILL MY CAT EAT MY EYEBALLS?, bestselling author and mortician Caitlin Doughty answers the most intriguing questions she’s ever received about what happens to our bodies when we die. She explores everything from ancient Egyptian death rituals and the science of skeletons to flesh-eating insects and the proper depth at which to bury your pet if you want Fluffy to become a mummy. Now featuring an interview with a clinical expert on discussing these issues with young people --- the source of some of our most revealing questions about death --- the book confronts our common fear of dying with candid, honest and hilarious facts about what awaits the body we leave behind.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393358490
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