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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 $38,509 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)
We have two new "Bookreporter Talks To" interviews to share with you this week.
First up is Melanie Benjamin, who talked to Carol about her latest historical novel,
THE CHILDREN'S BLIZZARD, which is a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick.
Click on the image above for the video and here for the podcast.
Carol had a wonderful conversation with Liese O'Halloran Schwarz about her new novel,
WHAT COULD BE SAVED, which will be a Bets On pick.
Click on the image above for the video and here for the podcast.
Our second “Bookaccino Live” Book Group event will take place this Thursday, January 21st at 8pm ET. Our guest will be William Kent Krueger, who will talk about THIS TENDER LAND.
Click on the image above to sign up. If you would like to be one of our “live panelists”
and ask Kent a question, please also fill out this form.
In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of January 18th and January 25th 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 two new contests on ReadingGroupGuides.com, both of which have a deadline of Wednesday, February 3rd at noon ET for your entries.
We have a BIG contest where we’re giving 30 book groups the chance to win up to 12 digital copies of the audiobook edition of Kristin Hannah's THE FOUR WINDS, read by Julia Whelan, and share their comments on it. The book releases on February 2nd and will be a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick.
In our latest "What's Your Book Group Reading This Month?" contest, three book groups will win 12 copies of Jacqueline Winspear's memoir, THIS TIME NEXT YEAR WE'LL BE LAUGHING, which is a Bets On selection.
Scroll further down the newsletter for more details on these contests!
Also, be sure to check out Carol's latest "Bookreporter Talks To" interviews with Melanie Benjamin and Liese O'Halloran Schwarz.
A Bets On pick, Melanie Benjamin's new historical novel, THE CHILDREN’S BLIZZARD, is a story of courage on the prairie, inspired by the devastating storm that struck the Great Plains in 1888 and threatened the lives of hundreds of immigrant homesteaders, especially schoolchildren. In the interview, Melanie talked about her research, the level of realism at play in the novel, and the deeply personal stories she was able to explore that are so often lost in history books. She also shared how the characters here relate to her own life and the sources of inspiration that led her to write the book. Click here to watch the video and here to listen to the podcast. Also, you can read Carol's Bets On commentary here.
Liese O'Halloran Schwarz's latest novel, WHAT COULD BE SAVED, is about a family shattered by loss and betrayal, and the beauty that can exist even in the midst of brokenness. An upcoming Bets On selection, the book alternates between past and present as all of the family's secrets are revealed. Liese, who worked for decades as an emergency room doctor, talked with Carol about how writing was always a part of her life --- even as she was practicing medicine. Her relationship with her sister, fellow author Carla Buckley, was much different from that of her main characters but has found its way into her books. She also spoke at length about her writing process, but especially about the elements that make her fiction both engrossing and powerful. Click here to watch the video and here to listen to the podcast. Don't miss Carol's Bets On commentary in the January 22nd Bookreporter Weekly Update newsletter.
Our Next "Bookaccino Live" Book Group Event:
Thursday, January 21st at 8pm ET
We've Expanded Our Zoom Room, So Sign Up Now!
A reminder that this Thursday, January 21st at 8pm ET, we will host our second "Bookaccino Live" Book Group Event. Our guest will be William Kent Krueger, who will talk about his most recent novel, THIS TENDER LAND. With over 760 people already signed up for this event, we've increased the maximum number of participants in our Zoom room to 1,000! So if you haven't registered yet, be sure to sign up here by Thursday at 10am ET. If you would like to be one of our “live panelists” and ask Kent a question, please also fill out this form; we will feature those who have questions "on stage."
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
New Special Contest on ReadingGroupGuides.com:
Enter to Win Up to 12 Digital Copies of the
Audiobook Edition of Kristin Hannah’s THE FOUR WINDS
for Your Group and Share Your Comments on It
ReadingGroupGuides.com is proud to host a very special audiobook contest for THE FOUR WINDS by Kristin Hannah, which releases on February 2nd. This upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On pick is an epic novel of love, heroism and hope, set against the backdrop of one of America’s most defining eras --- the Great Depression.
Thirty (30) book groups will win up to 12 digital copies of the audiobook, which includes a bonus conversation between Kristin Hannah and narrator Julia Whelan. To enter, please fill out this form by Wednesday, February 3rd at noon ET.
In order to qualify as a winning group, your group must be able to commit to listening to and discussing THE FOUR WINDS, and sharing your group's feedback with us, by late May. We strongly encourage all winners to share their listening experiences on social media, including reviews on Amazon, Goodreads and Bookreporter.com’s “Word of Mouth” feature.
THE FOUR WINDS (Audiobook) written by Kristin Hannah, read by Julia Whelan (Historical Fiction)
Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work, and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance.
In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli --- like so many of her neighbors --- must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. THE FOUR WINDS is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.
Click here to enter the contest.
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.
Tuesdays at 7:30pm ET: "Talking ETERNAL with Lisa Scottoline": Join Lisa Scottoline every Tuesday night at 7:30pm ET on Facebook as she premieres a new episode from her video series, "Behind the Book: Talking ETERNAL," which reveals behind-the-scenes looks at the inspirations of her upcoming historical fiction book, ETERNAL, releasing on March 23rd. And stay tuned because immediately following each video premiere, Lisa hosts a Facebook Live to talk about the video.
Wednesday, January 20th at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": The "Friends and Fiction" authors --- Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey, Patti Callahan Henry and Mary Alice Monroe --- will talk about their debuts. They also will be hosting three debut authors for pop-ins to talk about their new books: Sarah Penner (THE LOST APOTHECARY), Nancy Johnson (THE KINDEST LIE) and Pamela Terry (THE SWEET TASTE OF MUSCADINES).
Wednesday, January 20th at 7pm ET: Warwick's Virtual Event: Warwick's will host Melanie Benjamin as she discusses her new book, THE CHILDREN'S BLIZZARD, in conversation with fellow bestselling author Elizabeth Letts.
Thursday, January 21st at 7pm ET: Books & Books Virtual Event: Join Robert Jones, Jr. and Deesha Philyaw as they discuss Jones' debut novel, THE PROPHETS.
Thursday, January 21st at 7pm ET: Cuyahoga County Public Library Virtual Event: Lisa Gardner will discuss her new thriller, BEFORE SHE DISAPPEARED, with fellow New York Times bestselling author Lee Child.
Thursday, January 21st at 7pm ET: Darien Library Virtual Event: Darien Library and Barrett Bookstore are delighted to welcome authors Marie Benedict (THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE), Melanie Benjamin (THE CHILDREN'S BLIZZARD) and Greer Macallister (THE ARCTIC FURY) for a historical fiction panel.
Thursday, January 21st at 8pm ET: "Bookaccino Live" Book Group Event: William Kent Krueger will talk about his latest novel, THIS TENDER LAND. Click here to register. If you would like to be one of our “live panelists” and ask Kent a question, please also fill out this form; we will feature those who have questions "on stage."
Friday, January 22nd at 7pm ET: Quail Ridge Books Virtual Event: Quail Ridge Books presents a virtual event with debut author and Whiting Award winner Nadia Owusu, who will discuss her memoir, AFTERSHOCKS, with author Angela Belcher Epps.
Sunday, January 24th at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": In a special Sunday evening episode, the "Friends and Fiction" authors will talk to writers Susan Zurenda (BELLS FOR ELI) and Alison Hammer (LITTLE PIECES OF ME).
Monday, January 25th at 3pm ET: Simon & Schuster's Book Club Favorites Online Event: Susie Yang will join members of the Simon & Schuster team for a Facebook Live Book Club chat about WHITE IVY, which is January's pick for S&S's Book Club Favorites.
Monday, January 25th at 7:30pm ET: Free Library of Philadelphia Virtual Event: Join Sadeqa Johnson to discuss the creation and research of her latest novel, YELLOW WIFE, with bestselling author Jennifer Weiner.
This Week's Bonus News:
"What's Your Book Group Reading This Month?" Contest
on ReadingGroupGuides.com for THIS TIME NEXT YEAR WE’LL BE LAUGHING by Jacqueline Winspear
Each month, we ask book groups to share the titles they are reading that month and rate them. From all entries, three winners will be selected, and each will win 12 copies of that month’s prize book for their group. Note: To be eligible to win, let us know the title of the book that YOUR book group is CURRENTLY reading, NOT the title we are giving away.
Our latest prize book is THIS TIME NEXT YEAR WE'LL BE LAUGHING, a deeply personal memoir of Jacqueline Winspear's Kentish childhood and her family’s resilience in the face of war and privation. To enter, please fill out the form on this page by Wednesday, February 3rd at noon ET.
THIS TIME NEXT YEAR WE'LL BE LAUGHING: A Memoir by Jacqueline Winspear (Memoir)
After 16 novels, Jacqueline Winspear has taken the bold step of turning to memoir, revealing the hardships and joys of her family history. Both shockingly frank and deftly restrained, her story tackles the difficult, poignant and fascinating family accounts of her paternal grandfather’s shellshock; her mother’s evacuation from London during the Blitz; her soft-spoken animal-loving father’s torturous assignment to an explosives team during WWII; her parents’ years living with Romany Gypsies; and Winspear’s own childhood picking hops and fruit on farms in rural Kent, capturing her ties to the land and her dream of being a writer at its very inception.
An eye-opening and heartfelt portrayal of a post-War England we rarely see, THIS TIME NEXT YEAR WE'LL BE LAUGHING is the story of a childhood in the English countryside, of working class indomitability and family secrets, of artistic inspiration and the price of memory.
- Click here for the discussion guide.
- Click here to read our review.
- Click here to read Carol's Bookreporter.com Bets On commentary.
- Click here to watch Carol's "Bookreporter Talks To" interview with Jacqueline Winspear.
- Click here to listen to a podcast of the interview.
Click here to enter the contest.
On Sale the Week of January 18th in Hardcover
January 19th
AFTERSHOCK by Judy Melinek and T.J. Mitchell (Mystery)
There’s a body crushed under a load of pipes on a San Francisco construction site, and medical examiner Dr. Jessie Teska is on call. So it’s her job to figure out who it is --- and her headache when the autopsy reveals that the death is a homicide staged as an accident. Jessie is hot on the murderer’s trail, then an earthquake sends her and her whole city reeling. When the dust clears, her case has fallen apart and an innocent man is being framed. Jessie knows she’s the only one who can prove it, and she races to piece together the truth --- before it gets buried and brings her down in the rubble.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335147295
AT THE EDGE OF THE HAIGHT by Katherine Seligman (Fiction)
Maddy Donaldo, homeless at 20, has made a family of sorts in the dangerous spaces of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. She knows whom to trust, where to eat, when to move locations, and how to take care of her dog. It’s the only home she has. When she unwittingly witnesses the murder of a young homeless boy and is seen by the perpetrator, her relatively stable life is upended. Suddenly, everyone from the police to the dead boys’ parents want to talk to Maddy about what she saw. As adults pressure her to give up her secrets and reunite with her own family before she meets a similar fate, Maddy must decide if she wants to stay lost or be found.
Algonquin Books | 9781643750231
BEFORE SHE DISAPPEARED by Lisa Gardner (Mystery/Thriller)
Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will --- searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier. Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim's wary family tells Frankie she's on her own --- and she soon learns she's asking questions someone doesn't want answered. But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing could be her.
Dutton | 9781524745042
THE CITY OF TEARS by Kate Mosse (Historical Thriller)
August 1572: Minou Joubert and her husband, Piet, travel to Paris to attend a royal wedding that, after a decade of religious wars, is intended to finally bring peace between the Catholics and the Huguenots. Also in Paris is their oldest enemy, Vidal, in pursuit of an ancient relic that will change the course of history. Within days of the marriage, thousands will lie dead in the street, and Minou’s family will be scattered to the four winds.
Minotaur Books | 9781250202185
THE DIVINES by Ellie Eaton (Fiction)
The girls of St John the Divine, an elite English boarding school, were notorious for flipping their hair, harassing teachers, chasing boys and chain-smoking cigarettes. For Josephine, now in her 30s, the years at St John were a lifetime ago. She hasn’t spoken to another Divine in 15 years, not since the day the school shuttered its doors in disgrace. Yet now Josephine inexplicably finds herself returning to her old stomping grounds. The visit provokes blurry recollections of those doomed final weeks that rocked the community. With each memory that resurfaces, she circles closer to the violent secret at the heart of the school’s scandal. But the more Josephine recalls, the further her life unravels.
William Morrow | 9780063012196
THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine by Janice P. Nimura (Biography)
Elizabeth Blackwell believed from an early age that she was destined for a mission beyond the scope of "ordinary" womanhood. Though the world at first recoiled at the notion of a woman studying medicine, her intelligence and intensity ultimately won her the acceptance of the male medical establishment. In 1849, she became the first woman in America to receive an M.D. She was soon joined in her iconic achievement by her younger sister, Emily, who was actually the more brilliant physician. Exploring the sisters’ allies, enemies and enduring partnership, Janice P. Nimura presents a story of trial and triumph.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393635546
HOMO IRREALIS: Essays by André Aciman (Essays)
André Aciman returns to the essay form to explore what the present tense means to artists who cannot grasp the here and now. Irrealis is not about the present, or the past, or the future, but about what might have been but never was --- but could in theory still happen. From meditations on subway poetry and the temporal resonances of an empty Italian street, to considerations of the lives and work of Sigmund Freud, Constantine Cavafy, W. G. Sebald, John Sloan, Éric Rohmer, Marcel Proust and Fernando Pessoa, and portraits of cities such as Alexandria and St. Petersburg, HOMO IRREALIS is a deep reflection of the imagination’s power to shape our memories under time’s seemingly intractable hold.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374171872
KNOCK KNOCK by Anders Roslund (Thriller)
Seventeen years ago, Criminal Inspector Ewert Grens was called to the scene of a brutal crime. A family had been murdered, and the only survivor --- and witness --- was the five-year-old daughter. The girl was placed in the witness protection program, and the case went cold. But years later, Grens is still haunted by the seemingly random slaying and the little girl who was spared. So when he learns that the apartment where the crime occurred is now the scene of a mysterious break-in, Grens immediately fears that someone is intent on silencing the only witness. He races to find her...before they do.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593188217
LAND: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World by Simon Winchester (History/Economics)
Land --- whether meadow or mountainside, desert or peat bog, parkland or pasture, suburb or city --- is central to our existence. It quite literally underlies and underpins everything. In LAND, Simon Winchester examines what we human beings are doing --- and have done --- with the billions of acres that together make up the solid surface of our planet. The book examines in depth how we acquire land, how we steward it, how and why we fight over it, and finally, how we can, and on occasion do, come to share it. Ultimately, Winchester confronts the essential question: Who actually owns the world’s land --- and why does it matter?
Harper | 9780062938336
MEET ME IN BOMBAY by Jenny Ashcroft (Historical Romance)
It's New Year's Eve in Bombay, 1913, and Madeline Bright is yearning for all she has left behind in England. Then, at the stroke of midnight, Maddy meets Luke Devereaux --- and as the year changes, so do both their lives. Bold and charismatic, Luke opens her eyes to the wonders of Bombay, while Maddy's beauty and vivacity capture his heart. Only her mother disapproves, preferring the devoted Guy Bowen as a match for her daughter. But while Maddy and Luke are falling in love, the world is falling apart. World War I is on the horizon, and Luke will be given no choice but to fight. They will be continents apart, separated by danger and devastating loss, but bound by Luke's promise that they will meet again in Bombay.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250270269
THE MITFORD TRIAL: A Mitford Murders Mystery by Jessica Fellowes (Historical Mystery)
It's lady's maid Louisa Cannon's wedding day, but the fantasy is shattered shortly after when she is approached by a secretive man asking her to spy on Diana Mitford --- who is having an affair with the infamous Oswald Mosley --- and her sister, Unity. Thus, as summer 1933 dawns, Louisa finds herself accompanying the Mitfords on a glitzy cruise, full of the starriest members of Society. But the waters run red when a man is found attacked. Back in London, the case is taken by lawyer Tom Mitford, and Louisa finds herself caught between worlds: of a love lost, a family divided and a country caught in conflict.
Minotaur Books | 9781250316837
OUT OF HOUNDS by Rita Mae Brown (Mystery)
Although the hunting season is coming to a close, the foxes seem determined to put the members of the Jefferson Hunt Club through their paces. “Sister” Jane Arnold and her friends are enjoying some of the best chases they’ve had all season when the fun is cut short by the theft of Crawford Howard’s treasured Sir Alfred Munnings painting of a woman in hunting attire riding sidesaddle. When another painting goes missing five days later, Sister Jane knows it’s no coincidence. Someone is stealing paintings of foxhunters from foxhunters. But why? Then Delores Buckingham, once a formidable foxhunter, is strangled to death after her own Munnings sidesaddle painting is stolen. Now Sister is not just up against a thief --- she’s on the hunt for a killer.
Ballantine Books | 9780593130063
PIANOS AND FLOWERS: Brief Encounters of the Romantic Kind by Alexander McCall Smith (Historical Fiction/Short Stories)
Pictures capture moments in time, presenting the viewer with a window into another life. But a picture can go only so far. Who are the people in the image? What are their fears? What are their dreams? In the 14 delightful tales in this collection, Alexander McCall Smith imagines the lives and loves of some of the everyday people pictured in these 20th-century photographs. A young woman finds unexpected love while perusing Egyptian antiquities. A family is forever fractured when war comes to Penang, in colonial Malaysia. Iron Jelloid tablets help to reveal a young man’s inner strength. And twin sisters discover that it’s never too late to forge a new path --- even when standing at the altar.
Pantheon | 9780593315750
REMOTE CONTROL by Nnedi Okorafor (Science Fiction/Adventure)
The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From here on in, she would be known as Sankofa --- a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past. Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks --- alone, except for her fox companion --- searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged, searching for answers. But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?
Tordotcom | 9781250772800
THE RIB KING by Ladee Hubbard (Historical Fiction)
For 15 years, August Sitwell has worked for the Barclays, a well-to-do white family who plucked him from an orphan asylum. The groundskeeper is part of the household’s all-black staff, along with “Miss Mamie,” the talented cook, pretty new maid Jennie Williams, and three young kitchen apprentices. But the Barclays’ fortunes have fallen, and their money is almost gone. When a prospective business associate proposes selling Miss Mamie’s rib sauce to local markets under the brand name “The Rib King” --- using a caricature of a wildly grinning August on the label --- Mr. Barclay agrees. Yet neither Miss Mamie nor August will see a dime. August grows increasingly distraught, his anger building to a rage that explodes in shocking tragedy.
Amistad | 9780062979063
SHIVER by Allie Reynolds (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
When Milla accepts an off-season invitation to Le Rocher, a cozy ski resort in the French Alps, she's expecting an intimate weekend of catching up with four old friends. It might have been a decade since she saw them last, but she's never forgotten the bond they forged on this very mountain during a winter spent fiercely training for an elite snowboarding competition. Yet no sooner do Milla and the others arrive for the reunion than they realize something is horribly wrong. Detailed instructions await them inside the hotel: an icebreaker game designed to draw out their secrets and remind them of Saskia, the enigmatic sixth member of their group, who vanished the morning of the competition years before and has long been presumed dead.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593187838
TRIO by William Boyd (Historical Fiction/Satire)
A producer. A novelist. An actress. It's summer 1968 --- a time of war and assassinations, protests and riots. While the world is reeling, our trio is involved in making a disaster-plagued, Swingin' Sixties British movie in sunny Brighton. All are leading secret lives. As the movie shoot zigs and zags, these layers of secrets become increasingly more untenable. Pressures build inexorably. The FBI and CIA get involved. Someone is going to crack --- or maybe they all will. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, TRIO asks the vital questions: What makes life worth living? And what do you do if you find it isn't?
Knopf | 9780593318232
On Sale the Week of January 18th in Paperback
January 19th
18 TINY DEATHS: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Invented Modern Forensics by Bruce Goldfarb (Biography)
As America ramps up efforts toward victory in World War II, Frances Glessner Lee stands at the front of a wood-paneled classroom within Harvard Medical School and addresses the young men attending her seminar on the developing field of forensic science. A grandmother without a college degree, Lee may appear better suited for a life of knitting than of investigation of unexpected death. Her colleagues and students, however, know her to be an extremely intelligent and exacting researcher and teacher --- the perfect candidate, despite her gender, to push the scientific investigation of unexpected death out of the dark confines of centuries-old techniques and into the light of the modern day.
Sourcebooks | 9781728217543
DARLING ROSE GOLD by Stephanie Wrobel (Psychological Thriller)
For the first 18 years of her life, Rose Gold Watts believed she was seriously ill. She was allergic to everything, used a wheelchair and practically lived at the hospital. But no matter how many doctors, tests or surgeries, no one could figure out what was wrong with her. It turns out that her mom, Patty Watts, was just a really good liar. After serving five years in prison, Patty gets out with nowhere to go and begs her daughter to take her in. The entire community is shocked when Rose Gold says yes. Patty insists all she wants is to reconcile their differences. Unfortunately for Patty, Rose Gold is no longer her weak little darling, and she's waited such a long time for her mother to come home.
Berkley | 9780593100073
FIGHT OF THE CENTURY: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman (Essays)
The American Civil Liberties Union began as a small group of idealists and visionaries, including Helen Keller and Jane Addams. A century after its founding, the ACLU remains the nation’s premier defender of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. In collaboration with the ACLU, prize-winning authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman have curated an anthology of essays about landmark cases in the ACLU’s 100-year history. In FIGHT OF THE CENTURY, bestselling and award-winning authors --- including Michael Cunningham, Jennifer Egan, Dave Eggers, Ann Patchett, Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth Strout --- present unique literary takes on historic decisions like Brown v. Board of Education, the Scopes trial, Roe v. Wade and more.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781501190414
THE HEAP by Sean Adams (Fiction/Satire)
Los Verticalés once bustled with life and excitement. Now this marvel of modern architecture and nontraditional urban planning has collapsed into a pile of rubble known as the Heap. Orville Anders burrows into the bowels of the Heap to find his brother Bernard, a beloved radio DJ, who is alive and miraculously broadcasting somewhere under the massive rubble. For months, Orville has worked tirelessly to free Bernard --- the only known survivor of the imploded city --- who he speaks to every evening, calling into his radio show. When Orville refuses to drop brand names into their nightly talks, his access to Bernard is suddenly cut off, but he continues to hear his own voice over the airwaves, casually shilling products as “he” converses with Bernard.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062957757
A HOUSE AT THE BOTTOM OF A LAKE by Josh Malerman (Fiction/Magical Realism)
Paperback Original
Young lovers who are anxious to connect agree to a first date, thinking outside of the box. At 17 years old, James and Amelia can feel the rest of their lives beginning. They have this summer and this summer alone to experience the extraordinary. But they didn’t expect to find it in a house at the bottom of a lake. The house is cold and dark, but it’s also their own. Caution be damned, until being carefree becomes dangerous. For the teens must decide: swim deeper into the house --- all the while falling deeper in love? Whatever they do, they will never be able to turn their backs on what they discovered together. And what they learned: Just because a house is empty doesn’t mean nobody’s home.
Del Rey | 9780593237779
I HEART OKLAHOMA! by Roy Scranton (Fiction/Humor)
When Suzie is offered the chance to work with a maverick cinematographer on his road-trip movie about Donald Trump’s America, she’s pretty sure it’s a bad idea. But she signs up anyway, hoping it might help her start over and find something she’s lost: a sense of the future. A provocative, genderqueer, shapeshifting musical romp through the brain-eating nightmare of contemporary America, I HEART OKLAHOMA! moves from our bleeding-edge present to a furious Faulknerian retelling of the Charlie Starkweather killings in the 1950s, capturing in its fragmented, mesmerizing form the violence at the heart of the American dream.
Soho Press | 9781641291897
LAST ONES LEFT ALIVE by Sarah Davis-Goff (Dystopian Fiction)
Raised in isolation by her mother and Maeve on a small island off the coast of a post-apocalyptic Ireland, Orpen’s life has revolved around training to fight a threat she’s never seen. More and more she feels the call of the mainland, and the prospect of finding other survivors. But that is where danger lies, too, in the form of the flesh-eating menace known as the skrake. Then disaster strikes. Alone, pushing an unconscious Maeve in a wheelbarrow, Orpen decides her last hope is abandoning the safety of the island and journeying across the country to reach the legendary banshees, the rumored all-female fighting force that battles the skrake. But the skrake are not the only threat.
Flatiron Books | 9781250235237
THE MAGICAL LANGUAGE OF OTHERS: A Memoir by E. J. Koh (Memoir)
THE MAGICAL LANGUAGE OF OTHERS is a powerful and aching love story in letters, from mother to daughter. After living in America for over a decade, Eun Ji Koh’s parents return to South Korea for work, leaving 15-year-old Eun Ji and her brother behind in California. Overnight, she finds herself abandoned and adrift in a world made strange by her mother’s absence. Her mother writes letters, in Korean, over the years seeking forgiveness and love --- letters Eun Ji cannot fully understand until she finds them years later hidden in a box. Eun Ji fearlessly grapples with forgiveness, reconciliation, legacy and intergenerational trauma, arriving at insights that are essential reading for anyone who has ever had to balance love, longing, heartbreak and joy.
Tin House Books | 9781951142278
NEVER ASK ME by Jeff Abbott (Psychological Thriller)
In the wealthy Austin suburb of Lakehaven, the body of Danielle Roberts is discovered on a park bench. Danielle was an adoption consultant who delivered the joy of parenthood to a number of local families. Perhaps no other family is as crushed as the Pollitts, and her death becomes the catalyst for a maelstrom of suspicion and intrigue. You have been told a huge lie, an anonymous email charges the son, Grant. No one can learn the truth now, thinks the father, Kyle. Never ask me what I'd do to protect my family, resolves the wife, Iris. I'll do whatever it takes to save him, vows the daughter, Julia, of Danielle's grieving teenage son. When each begins to suspect the others of the unimaginable, the strength of their bonds will be tested in extraordinary new ways.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538717011
RUN ME TO EARTH by Paul Yoon (Historical Fiction)
Alisak, Prany and Noi --- three orphans united by devastating loss --- must do what is necessary to survive the perilous landscape of 1960s Laos. When they take shelter in a bombed-out field hospital, they meet Vang, a doctor dedicated to helping the wounded at all costs. Soon the teens are serving as motorcycle couriers, delicately navigating their bikes across the fields filled with unexploded bombs, beneath the indiscriminate barrage from the sky. We follow their grueling days of rescuing civilians and searching for medical supplies, until Vang secures their evacuation on the last helicopters leaving the country. It’s a move with irrevocable consequences --- and sets them on disparate and treacherous paths across the world.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501154058
SHIPPED by Angie Hockman (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Henley Evans, a marketing manager for a cruise line, is shortlisted for the promotion of her dreams. The only problem? Graeme Crawford-Collins, the remote social media manager and the bane of her existence, is also up for the position. Their boss tasks each of them with drafting a proposal on how to boost bookings in the Galápagos. The best proposal wins the promotion. There’s just one catch: they have to go on a company cruise to the Galápagos Islands...together. But when the two meet on the ship, Henley is shocked to discover that the real Graeme is nothing like she imagined. As they explore the Islands together, she soon finds the line between loathing and liking thinner than a postcard.
Gallery Books | 9781982151591
SMALL DAYS AND NIGHTS by Tishani Doshi (Fiction)
Escaping her failing marriage in the United States, Grace Marisola has returned to Pondicherry to cremate her mother. Once there, she receives an unexpected inheritance --- a house on the beaches of Madras --- and discovers an older sister she never knew she had: Lucia, who has spent her life in a residential facility. Grace’s attempts to leave her old self behind prove first a struggle, then a strain, as she discovers the chaos, tenderness, fury and bewilderment of life with Lucia.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393541397
STRIKE ME DOWN by Mindy Mejia (Psychological Thriller)
An anti-corporate, feminist athletic empire, Strike is owned by Logan Russo, a brash and legendary kickboxer, and her marketing genius husband, Gregg Abbott. They’re about to host a major kickboxing tournament with $20 million in prize money, and the chance for the champion to become the new face of the company. But Gregg suspects his wife already has a new face in mind in the form of a young trainer. When the prize money goes missing days before the tournament begins, Gregg hires Nora’s firm to find both the thief and the money --- but Nora has a secret connection to Strike. Her partner pressures her into taking the case anyway, hinting he has information that could change the course of the investigation in a shocking and deadly way.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781982133245
THE THIRD RAINBOW GIRL: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg (True Crime)
On June 25, 1980, in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two middle-class outsiders named Vicki Durian and Nancy Santomero were murdered in an isolated clearing. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived. For 13 years, no one was prosecuted for the "Rainbow Murders," though deep suspicion was cast on a succession of local residents in the community. In 1993, a local farmer was convicted, only to be released when a known serial killer and diagnosed schizophrenic named Joseph Paul Franklin claimed responsibility. In THE THIRD RAINBOW GIRL, Emma Copley Eisenberg uses the Rainbow Murders case as a starting point for a thought-provoking tale of an Appalachian community bound by the false stories that have been told about it.
Hachette Books | 9780316449212
THIS IS BIG: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World --- and Me by Marisa Meltzer (Memoir)
Marisa Meltzer began her first diet at the age of five. Growing up an indoors-loving child in Northern California, she learned from an early age that weight was the one part of her life she could neither change nor even really understand. Fast forward nearly four decades. Marisa comes across an obituary for Jean Nidetch, the Queens, New York housewife who founded Weight Watchers in 1963. Weaving Jean's incredible story as weight loss maven and pathbreaking entrepreneur with Marisa's own journey through Weight Watchers, she chronicles the deep parallels, and enduring frustrations, in each woman's decades-long efforts to lose weight and keep it off.
Back Bay Books | 9780316413985
WEATHER by Jenny Offill (Fiction)
Lizzie works in the library of a university where she was once a promising graduate student. Her side hustle is answering the letters that come in to "Hell and High Water," the doom-laden podcast hosted by her former mentor. At first it suits her, this chance to practice her other calling as an unofficial shrink --- she has always played this role to her divorced mother and brother recovering from addiction --- but soon Lizzie finds herself struggling to strike the obligatory note of hope in her responses. The reassuring rhythms of her life as a wife and mother begin to falter as her obsession with disaster psychology and people preparing for the end of the world grows.
Vintage | 9780345806901
WESTWIND by Ian Rankin (Thriller)
In Europe, the Americans are pulling out their troops in a tide of isolationism. Britain, torn between loyalties to America and the continent, is caught in the middle. In America, a space shuttle crashes on landing, killing all but one of the crew on-board: a British citizen named Mike Dreyfuss, who will become vilified by the US press and protesters. Halfway across the world, at English ground control headquarters, Martin Hepton watches with dismay as they lose contact with the most advanced satellite in Europe. A colleague of Hepton's who suspects something strange is going on disappears. Hepton realizes there is much more at stake than anyone knows --- and many more people on their trail than they can possibly evade.
Back Bay Books | 9780316497930
WHAT’S WORTH KEEPING by Kaya McLaren (Fiction)
Paperback Original
The day her doctor says the one word that no one wants to hear, Amy Bergstrom discovers a secret that her husband of 25 years has been keeping from her. Now that the months of treatment and surgeries are behind her, she seeks healing, peace and clarity in an ancient forest. After dropping off his daughter at Amy’s Aunt Rae’s horse ranch, Officer Paul Bergstrom visits the fixer-upper he had bought years ago as a place to retire with his family and lovingly repairs it. Witnessing her mother’s health crisis had been terrifying enough, but learning the cause was genetic leaves Carly with the sense that all of her dreams are pointless. With the help of her eccentric great aunt and a Clydesdale named T. Rex, Carly just may find her faith in her future again.
St. Martin's Griffin | 9781250145093
WHY WE CAN’T SLEEP: Women's New Midlife Crisis by Ada Calhoun (Social Science/Gender Studies)
When Ada Calhoun found herself in the throes of a midlife crisis, she thought that she had no right to complain. She was married with children and had a good career. So why did she feel miserable? And why did it seem that other Generation X women were miserable, too? Calhoun decided to find some answers. At every turn, she saw a pattern: sandwiched between the Boomers and the Millennials, Gen X women were facing new problems as they entered middle age, problems that were being largely overlooked. In WHY WE CAN’T SLEEP, Calhoun opens up the cultural and political contexts of Gen X’s predicament and offers solutions for how to pull oneself out of the abyss --- and keep the next generation of women from falling in.
Grove Press | 9780802148575
WILL: A Memoir by Will Self (Memoir)
Unflinching, intoxicating, heartfelt and propelled by an exceptional energy, WILL is the long-awaited memoir by Will Self, whose works have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and translated into over 20 languages. It spins the reader from Self’s childhood in a quiet North London suburb to his mind-expanding education at Oxford, to a Burroughsian trip to Morocco, an outback vision in Australia, and, finally, a surreal turn in rehab. Echoing the great Modernist writers of the early 20th century in its psychedelic stream of consciousness, WILL is vividly imagistic and mordantly witty. It is both kunstlerroman and confessional, a tale of excess and degradation, a karmic cycle that leads back to the author’s own lack of...will.
Grove Press | 9780802158284
On Sale the Week of January 25th in Hardcover
January 25th
THE RUSSIAN: A Detective Michael Bennett Thriller by James Patterson and James O. Born (Thriller)
Weeks before NYPD Detective Michael Bennett is to marry his longtime love, Mary Catherine, an assassin announces his presence in the city with a string of grisly murders. Each victim is a young woman. And each has been killed in a manner as precise as it was gruesome. Tasked with working alongside the FBI, Bennett and his gung-ho new partner uncover multiple cold-case homicides across the country that fit the same distinctive pattern --- proving the perpetrator they seek is as experienced at ending lives as he is at evading detection. Bennett promises Mary Catherine that the case won't affect their upcoming wedding, but the killer has a lethal vow of his own to fulfill.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316420389
January 26th
EVERY WAKING HOUR by Joanna Schaffhausen (Mystery/Thriller)
After surviving a serial killer’s abduction as a young teenager, Ellery Hathaway is finally attempting a normal life. She has a new job as a rookie Boston detective and a fledgling relationship with Reed Markham, the FBI agent who rescued her years ago. But when a 12-year-old girl disappears on Ellery’s watch, the troubling case opens deep wounds that never fully healed. Chloe Lockhart walked away from a busy street fair and vanished into the crowd. Maybe she was fleeing the suffocating surveillance her parents put on her from the time she was born, or maybe the evil from her parents’ past finally caught up to her. For Chloe, as Ellery learns, is not the first child Teresa Lockhart has lost.
Minotaur Books | 9781250249654
FAYE, FARAWAY by Helen Fisher (Fiction/Magical Realism)
Faye is a 37-year-old happily married mother of two young daughters. But one day, her life is turned upside down when she finds herself in 1977, the year before her mother died. Suddenly, she has the chance to reconnect with her long-lost mother, and even meets her own younger self, a little girl she can barely remember. Jeanie doesn’t recognize Faye as her daughter, of course, even though there is something eerily familiar about her. As the two women become close friends, they share many secrets --- but Faye is terrified of revealing the truth about her identity. Will it prevent her from returning to her own time and her beloved husband and daughters? What if she’s doomed to remain in the past forever?
Gallery Books | 9781982142674
THE GOOD AMERICAN: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government's Greatest Humanitarian by Robert D. Kaplan (Biography)
In his long career as an acclaimed journalist covering the “hot” moments of the Cold War and its aftermath, Robert D. Kaplan often found himself crossing paths with Bob Gersony, a consultant for the U.S. State Department whose quiet dedication and consequential work made a deep impression on Kaplan. Gersony, a high school dropout later awarded a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, conducted on-the-ground research for the U.S. government in virtually every war and natural-disaster zone in the world. Kaplan saw in Gersony a powerful example of how American diplomacy should be conducted. Set during the State Department’s golden age, THE GOOD AMERICAN is a story about the loneliness, sweat and tears, and the genuine courage, that characterized Gersony’s work in far-flung places.
Random House | 9780525512301
IDA B. THE QUEEN: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells by Michelle Duster (Biography)
Ida B. Wells committed herself to the needs of those who did not have power. In the eyes of the FBI, this made her a “dangerous negro agitator.” In the annals of history, it makes her an icon. IDA B. THE QUEEN tells the awe-inspiring story of an inspirational woman who was often overlooked and underestimated --- a woman who refused to exit a train car meant for white passengers; a woman who brought to light the horrors of lynching in America; a woman who cofounded the NAACP. Written by Wells’ great-granddaughter Michelle Duster, this book is a unique visual celebration of Wells’ life and of the Black experience.
Atria/One Signal Publishers | 9781982129811
IF I DISAPPEAR by Eliza Jane Brazier (Psychological Thriller)
Sera loves true crime podcasts. They give her a sense of control in a world where women just like her disappear daily. She’s sure they’re preparing her for something. So when Rachel, her favorite podcast host, goes missing, Sera knows it's time to act. Rachel has always taught her to trust her instincts. Sera follows the clues hidden in the episodes to an isolated ranch outside Rachel's small hometown to begin her search. She's convinced her investigation will make Rachel so proud. But the more Sera digs into this unfamiliar world, the more off things start to feel. Because Rachel is not the first woman to vanish from the ranch, and she won't be the last. Rachel did try to warn her.
Berkley | 9780593198223
JUST AS I AM: A Memoir by Cicely Tyson with Michelle Burford (Memoir)
"JUST AS I AM is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. In these pages, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn for which this book is named. I am a daughter and mother, a sister, and a friend. I am an observer of human nature and the dreamer of audacious dreams. I am a woman who has hurt as immeasurably as I have loved, a child of God divinely guided by His hand. And here in my ninth decade, I am a woman who, at long last, has something meaningful to say.” –Cicely Tyson
HarperCollins Publishers | 9780062931061
LET ME TELL YOU WHAT I MEAN by Joan Didion (Essays)
These 12 pieces from 1968 to 2000, never before gathered together, offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary figure. Here, Joan Didion touches on topics ranging from newspapers ("the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as to whether one finds it"), to the fantasy of San Simeon, to not getting into Stanford. In "Why I Write," Didion ponders the act of writing: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." From her admiration for Hemingway's sentences to her acknowledgment that Martha Stewart's story is one "that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men," these essays are acutely and brilliantly observed.
Knopf | 9780593318485
THE MASK FALLING: A Bone Season Novel by Samantha Shannon (Dystopian/Urban Fantasy)
Dreamwalker Paige Mahoney has eluded death again. Snatched from the jaws of captivity and consigned to a safe house in the Scion Citadel of Paris, she finds herself caught between those factions that seek Scion's downfall and those who would kill to protect the Rephaim's puppet empire. The mysterious Domino Program has plans for Paige, but she has ambitions of her own in this new citadel. With former enemy Arcturus Mesarthim at her side, she embarks on an adventure that will lead her from the catacombs of Paris to the glittering hallways of Versailles. Her risks promise high reward: the Parisian underworld could yield the means to escalate her rebellion to outright war.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635570328
MY BRILLIANT LIFE written by Ae-ran Kim, translated by Chi-Young Kim (Fiction)
Areum lives life to its fullest, vicariously through the stories of his parents, conversations with Little Grandpa Jang --- his 60-year-old neighbor and best friend --- and through the books he reads to visit the places he otherwise would never see. For several months, Areum has been working on a manuscript, piecing together his parents’ often embellished stories about his family and childhood. He hopes to present it on his birthday, as a final gift to his mom and dad --- their own falling-in-love story. Through it all, Areum and his family will have you laughing and crying, for all the right reasons.
Forge Books | 9781250750556
THE NARROWBOAT SUMMER by Anne Youngson (Fiction)
Eve has left her 30-year career to become a Free Spirit; Sally has waved goodbye to her indifferent husband and two grown-up children; and Anastasia, a defiantly independent narrowboat-dweller is suddenly landlocked and vulnerable. Before they quite know what they’ve done, Sally and Eve agree to drive Anastasia’s narrowboat on a journey through the canals of England, as she awaits a life-saving operation. As they glide through the countryside, the eccentricities and challenges of narrowboat life draw them inexorably together, and a tender and unforgettable story unfolds. At summer’s end, all three women must decide whether to return to the lives they left behind, or forge a new path forward.
Flatiron Books | 9781250764614
NO HEAVEN FOR GOOD BOYS by Keisha Bush (Fiction)
When six-year-old Ibrahimah is approached in his rural village one day by Marabout Ahmed, a seemingly kind stranger and highly regarded teacher, the tides of his life turn forever. Ibrahimah is sent to the capital city of Dakar to join his cousin, Étienne, in studying the Koran under Marabout Ahmed for a year. But instead of the days of learning that Ibrahimah’s parents imagine, the young boys, called Talibé, are forced to beg in the streets in order to line their teacher’s pockets. To make it back home, Étienne and Ibrahimah must help each other survive both the dangers posed by their Marabout, and the darker sides of Dakar: threats of black-market organ traders, rival packs of Talibé, and mounting student protest on the streets.
Random House | 9780399591969
THE PARADISE AFFAIR: A Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery by Bill Pronzini (Historical Mystery)
John Quincannon’s pursuit of two con men who have absconded to Hawaii with a considerable sum of his employer’s assets dovetails nicely with Sabina Carpenter’s vision of a second honeymoon. But neither is wont to stay out of trouble, and Sabina inadvertently becomes involved in a locked room/dying message murder in Honolulu.
Forge Books | 9781250216502
PRODIGAL SON: An Orphan X Novel by Gregg Hurwitz (Thriller)
The highest power in the country has made Evan Smoak a tempting offer --- in exchange for an unofficial pardon, he must stop his clandestine activities as The Nowhere Man. But then he gets a call for help from a woman claiming to have given him up for adoption. Her unlikely request: help Andrew Duran, a man whose life has gone off the rails and who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, bringing him to the deadly attention of very powerful figures. Now a brutal brother and sister assassination team are after him. With no one to turn to, and no safe place to hide, Evan is Duran’s only option. But when the hidden cabal catches on to what Evan is doing, everything he has fought for is on the line --- including his own life.
Minotaur Books | 9781250252289
SOPHOMORES by Sean Desmond (Fiction)
It's fall 1987, and life as normal is ending for the Malone family. With their sterile Dallas community a far cry from the Irish-American Bronx of their youth, Pat and Anne Malone have reached a breaking point. Pat, faced with a debilitating MS diagnosis, has fallen into his drinking. Anne, his devoutly Catholic wife, is selected as a juror for a highly publicized attempted murder trial, one that raises questions --- about God, and about men in power --- she has buried her entire life. Together, they try to raise their only son, Daniel, a bright but unmotivated student who is shocked into actual learning by an enigmatic English teacher. For once, Dan is unable to fly under the radar, and is finally asked to consider what he might want to make of his life.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780525542681
THE SWALLOWED MAN by Edward Carey (Historical Fantasy)
A lonely woodcarver longs for the companionship of a son. One day, Giuseppe --- better known as Geppetto --- carves for himself a pinewood boy, a marionette he hopes to take on tour worldwide. But when his handsome new creation comes magically to life, Geppetto screams…and the boy, Pinocchio, escapes into the night. Though he returns the next day, the wily boy torments his father, challenging his authority and making up stories --- whereupon his nose, the very nose his father carved, grows before his eyes. When the boy disappears after one last fight, the father follows a rumor to the coast and out into the sea, where he is swallowed by a great fish. He hunkers in the creature’s belly awaiting the day when he will reconcile with the son he drove away.
Riverhead Books | 9780593188873
A THOUSAND SHIPS by Natalie Haynes (Historical Fiction)
In the middle of the night, a woman wakes to find her beloved city engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over. Troy has fallen. From the Trojan women whose fates now lie in the hands of the Greeks, to the Amazon princess who fought Achilles on their behalf, to Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus, to the three goddesses whose feud started it all, these are the stories of the women whose lives, loves and rivalries were forever altered by this long and tragic war.
Harper | 9780063065390
TROPIC OF STUPID by Tim Dorsey (Mystery/Humor)
Serge Storms has decided to investigate his own history using one of those DNA services from late-night TV. Excited to construct a family tree, he and Coleman hit the road to meet his kin. Serge is thrilled to discover he may be related to a notorious serial killer who’s terrorized the state for 20 years and never been caught. Which of his newfound relatives will be the one to help him hunt down this deranged maniac? Serge doesn’t know that a dogged investigator from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is also hot on the trail. Then he meets a park ranger who’s also longing to make a family reconnection. But all is not as it appears on the surface, and Serge’s newfound friendship in the mysterious swamps of Florida may lead to deadly results.
William Morrow | 9780062967503
WE COULD BE HEROES by Mike Chen (Science Fiction/Adventure)
Jamie woke up in an empty apartment with no memory and only a few clues to his identity, but with the ability to read and erase other people’s memories --- a power he uses to hold up banks to buy coffee, cat food and books. Zoe is also searching for her past, and using her abilities of speed and strength…to deliver fast food. And she’ll occasionally put on a cool suit and beat up bad guys, if she feels like it. When the archrivals meet in a memory-loss support group, they realize the only way to reveal their hidden pasts might be through each other. As they uncover an ongoing threat, suddenly much more is at stake than their fragile friendship.
Mira | 9780778331391
On Sale the Week of January 25th in Paperback
January 25th
INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH BLUEGRASS: Southwestern Ohio’s Musical Legacy edited by Fred Bartenstein and Curtis W. Ellison (Music/History)
Paperback Original
In the 20th century, Appalachian migrants seeking economic opportunities relocated to southwestern Ohio, bringing their music with them. Between 1947 and 1989, they created an internationally renowned capital for the thriving bluegrass music genre, centered on the industrial region of Cincinnati, Dayton, Hamilton, Middletown and Springfield. Fred Bartenstein and Curtis W. Ellison edit a collection of eyewitness narratives and in-depth analyses that explore southwestern Ohio’s bluegrass musicians, radio broadcasters, recording studios, record labels and performance venues, along with the music’s contributions to religious activities, community development and public education.
University of Illinois Press | 9780252085604
January 26th
AGENCY by William Gibson (Science Fiction/Thriller)
Verity Jane, gifted app whisperer, takes a job as the beta tester for a new product: a digital assistant, accessed through a pair of ordinary-looking glasses. “Eunice,” the disarmingly human AI in the glasses, manifests a face, a fragmentary past and a canny grasp of combat strategy. Meanwhile, a century ahead in London, Wilf Netherton works amid plutocrats and plunderers, survivors of the slow and steady apocalypse known as the jackpot. His boss, the enigmatic Ainsley Lowbeer, can look into alternate pasts and nudge their ultimate directions. Verity and Eunice are her current project. Wilf can see what Verity and Eunice can’t: their own version of the jackpot, just around the corner, and the roles they both may play in it.
Berkley | 9781101986943
THE BODY: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson (Science/Humor)
Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body --- how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Brysonesque anecdotes, THE BODY will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular.
Anchor | 9780804172721
BRIDE OF THE SEA by Eman Quotah (Fiction)
Paperback Original
During a snowy Cleveland February, newlywed university students Muneer and Saeedah are expecting their first child, and he is harboring a secret: the word divorce is whispering in his ear. Soon, their marriage will end, and Muneer will return to Saudi Arabia, while Saeedah remains in Cleveland with their daughter, Hanadi. Consumed by a growing fear of losing her daughter, Saeedah disappears with the little girl, leaving Muneer to desperately search for his daughter for years. The repercussions of the abduction ripple outward, not only changing the lives of Hanadi and her parents, but also their interwoven family and friends --- those who must choose sides and hide their own deeply guarded secrets.
Tin House Books | 9781951142452
COCONUT LAYER CAKE MURDER: A Hannah Swensen Mystery with Recipes! by Joanne Fluke (Mystery)
When Hannah Swensen learns that her sister Michelle’s boyfriend, Detective Lonnie Murphy, is the prime suspect in a murder case, she goes straight from a movie studio sound stage to the Los Angeles airport. Back in frigid Minnesota, she discovers that proving Lonnie’s innocence will be harder than figuring out what went wrong with a recipe. Lonnie remembers only parts of the night he went out to a local bar and ended up driving a very impaired woman home. He knows he helped her to her bedroom, but he doesn’t recall anything else until he woke up on her couch the following morning. When he went to the bedroom to check on her, he was shocked to discover she was dead. Hannah doesn’t know what to believe --- only that exonerating a suspect who can’t remember is almost impossible.
Kensington | 9781496718907
DANCE AWAY WITH ME by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Romance)
When life throws her one setback too many, midwife and young widow Tess Hartsong takes off for Runaway Mountain. In this small town high in the Tennessee mountains, surrounded by nature, she hopes to outrun her heartbreak and find the solace she needs to heal. But instead of peace and quiet, she encounters an enigmatic artist with a craving for solitude, a fairy-tale sprite with too many secrets, a helpless infant, a passel of curious teens, and a town suspicious of outsiders, especially one as headstrong as Tess. Just as headstrong is Ian North, a difficult, gifted man with a tortured soul --- a man who makes Tess question everything.
Avon | 9780062973078
EIGHT PERFECT MURDERS by Peter Swanson (Psychological Thriller)
Years ago, bookseller and mystery aficionado Malcolm Kershaw compiled a list of the genre’s most unsolvable murders --- which he titled “Eight Perfect Murders” --- chosen from among the best of the best. But no one is more surprised than Mal, now the owner of the Old Devils Bookstore in Boston, when an FBI agent comes looking for information about a series of unsolved murders that look eerily similar to the killings on Mal’s old list. And the FBI agent isn’t the only one interested in this bookseller who spends almost every night at home reading. A killer is out there, watching his every move --- a diabolical threat who knows way too much about Mal’s personal history, especially the secrets he’s never told anyone, even his recently deceased wife.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062838193
EMPIRE CITY by Matt Gallagher (Fiction)
Thirty years after its great triumph in Vietnam, the United States has again become mired in an endless foreign war overseas. Stories of super soldiers known as the Volunteers tuck in little American boys and girls every night. Yet domestic politics are aflame. Violent protests erupt throughout the nation. An ex-military watchdog group clashes with police, while radical terrorists threaten to expose government experiments within the veteran rehabilitation colonies. Halfway between war and peace, the Volunteers find themselves waiting for orders in the vast American city-state, Empire City. There they encounter a small group of civilians who know the truth about their powers. Through it all, a controversial retired general emerges as a frontrunner in the presidential campaign, promising to save the country from itself.
Washington Square Press | 9781501177804
HI FIVE: An IQ Novel by Joe Ide (Mystery)
Cristiana is the daughter of the biggest arms dealers on the West Coast, Angus Byrne. She's also the sole witness and number one suspect in the murder of her boyfriend, found dead in her Newport Beach boutique. Isaiah Quintabe is coerced into taking the case to prove her innocence. If he can't, Angus will harm the brilliant PI's new girlfriend, ending her career. The catch: Christiana has multiple personalities. Five radically different ones. Among them, a naïve, beautiful shopkeeper, an obnoxious drummer in a rock band, and a wanton seductress. Isaiah's dilemma: no one personality saw the entire incident. To find out what really happened the night of the murder, Isaiah must piece together clues from each of the personalities --- before the cops catch up.
Mulholland Books | 9780316509541
THE JERUSALEM ASSASSIN: A Marcus Ryker Novel by Joel C. Rosenberg (Political Thriller)
President Andrew Clarke is determined to announce his historic peace plan from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. But when senior American officials who support the plan begin violently dying, Clarke orders Marcus Ryker and his team of CIA operatives to hunt down those responsible and bring the killing spree to an end. When the Palestinians denounce the American plan, the Saudis signal they may be ready to forge a historic treaty with Israel. Could the Saudi king’s support be the missing ingredient that will lead to peace at long last? Ryker soon uncovers a chilling plot to kill the American president. With all eyes on Jerusalem and the president in the crosshairs, it’s up to Ryker to eliminate the terrible evil that’s been set in motion.
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. | 9781496437853
KINGDOMTIDE by Rye Curtis (Fiction)
The sole survivor of a plane crash, 72-year-old Cloris Waldrip finds herself lost and alone in the unforgiving wilderness of Montana's rugged Bitterroot Range, exposed to the elements with no tools beyond her wits and ingenuity. Intertwined with her narrative is the story of Debra Lewis, a park ranger struggling with addiction and a recent divorce who is galvanized by her mission to find and rescue Cloris. As Cloris wanders mountain forests and valleys, subsisting on whatever she can find, her hold on life ever more precarious, Ranger Lewis and her motley group of oddball rescuers follow the trail of clues she's left behind. Days stretch into weeks, and hope begins to fade. But with nearly everyone else giving up, Ranger Lewis stays true until the end.
Back Bay Books | 9780316420112
THE LAST TRIAL by Scott Turow (Legal Thriller)
At 85 years old, Alejandro "Sandy" Stern, a brilliant defense lawyer with his health failing but spirit intact, is on the brink of retirement. But when his old friend Dr. Kiril Pafko, a former Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, is faced with charges of insider trading, fraud and murder, his entire life's work is put in jeopardy, and Stern decides to take on one last trial. In a case that will be the defining coda to both men's accomplished lives, Stern probes beneath the surface of his friend's dazzling veneer as a distinguished cancer researcher. As the trial progresses, he will question everything he thought he knew about his friend. Despite Pafko's many failings, is he innocent of the terrible charges laid against him? How far will Stern go to save his friend, and --- no matter the trial's outcome --- will he ever know the truth?
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538748091
THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS by Stephen Graham Jones (Horror)
Seamlessly blending classic horror and a dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary, THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in violent, vengeful ways.
Gallery/Saga Press | 9781982136468
REMEMBRANCE by Rita Woods (Historical Fiction)
Remembrance… It’s a rumor, a whisper passed in the fields and veiled behind sheets of laundry. A hidden stop on the underground road to freedom, a safe haven protected by more than secrecy…if you can make it there. Ohio, present day. An elderly woman who is more than she seems warns against rising racism as a young woman grapples with her life. Haiti, 1791, on the brink of revolution. When the slave Abigail is forced from her children to take her mistress to safety, she discovers New Orleans has its own powers. 1857 New Orleans --- a city of unrest: Following tragedy, house girl Margot is sold just before her 18th birthday and her promised freedom. Desperate, she escapes and chases a whisper... Remembrance.
Forge Books | 9781250298461
SALT RIVER: A Doc Ford Novel by Randy Wayne White (Thriller/Adventure)
Marine biologist and former government agent Doc Ford is sure he's beyond the point of being surprised by his longtime pal Tomlinson's madcap tales of his misspent youth. But he's stunned anew when avowed bachelor Tomlinson reveals that as a younger man strapped for cash, he'd unwittingly fathered multiple children via for-profit sperm bank donations. Thanks to genealogy websites, Tomlinson's now-grown offspring have tracked him down, seeking answers about their roots --- but Doc quickly grows suspicious that one of them might be planning something far more nefarious than a family reunion. With recent history on his mind, Doc is unsurprised when his own dicey past is called into question.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780735212732
THE SEA GLASS COTTAGE by RaeAnne Thayne (Fiction)
Olivia Harper's 16-hour workdays are unfulfilling, and so are things with her ex-fiancé, who suddenly wants to take up where they left off. Then her estranged mother, Juliet, is seriously injured in a car accident, forcing Liv to head home to beautiful Cape Sanctuary on the Northern California coast. But as she gets closer to home, the painful memories start flooding back: Natalie, her vibrant older sister who spiraled into addiction. The endless arguments with her mother, who enabled her sister at every turn. The overdose that took Natalie, leaving her daughter, Caitlin, an orphan. As Liv tries to balance her own needs with those of her injured mother and resentful 15-year-old niece, it becomes clear that all three Harper women must come clean about the heartbreaking secrets they’ve been keeping from each other.
HQN | 9781335502964
THE TRUANTS by Kate Weinberg (Literary Thriller)
Jess Walker has come to a concrete campus under the flat gray skies of East Anglia for one reason: to be taught by the mesmerizing and rebellious Dr. Lorna Clay, whose seminars soon transform Jess' thinking on life, love and Agatha Christie. Swept up in Lorna's thrall, Jess falls in with a tightly knit group of rule-breakers --- until the dynamic among the friends begins to darken. When a tragedy shatters their friendships and love affairs and reveals a terrible secret, Jess must face the question she fears most: What is the true cost of an extraordinary life?
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780525541974
THE UNSPOKEN NAME by A. K. Larkwood (Fantasy/Adventure)
What if you knew how and when you will die? Csorwe does --- she will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice. But on the day of her foretold death, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Leave with him, and live. Turn away from her destiny and her god to become a thief, a spy, an assassin --- the wizard's loyal sword. Topple an empire, and help him reclaim his seat of power. But Csorwe will soon learn that gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.
Tor Books | 9781250238924
THE VANISHED BIRDS by Simon Jimenez (Science Fiction/Adventure)
A ship captain, unfettered from time. A mute child, burdened with unimaginable power. A millennia-old woman, haunted by lifetimes of mistakes. In this captivating debut of connection across space and time, these outsiders will find in each other the things they lack: A place of love and belonging. A safe haven. A new beginning. But the past hungers for them, and when it catches up, it threatens to tear this makeshift family apart.
Del Rey | 9780593129005
WESTERING WOMEN by Sandra Dallas (Historical Fiction)
It's February 1852, and all around Chicago, Maggie sees postings soliciting "eligible women" to travel to the gold mines of Goosetown. A young seamstress with a small daughter, she has nothing to lose. She joins 43 other women and two pious reverends on the dangerous 2,000-mile journey west. None are prepared for the hardships they face on the trek or for the strengths they didn't know they possessed. Maggie discovers she’s not the only one looking to leave dark secrets behind. And when her past catches up with her, it becomes clear a band of sisters will do whatever it takes to protect one of their own.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250781413
THE WIFE STALKER by Liv Constantine (Psychological Thriller)
When gorgeous thirtysomething Piper Reynard meets lawyer Leo Drakos, the wedding ring on his finger is the only thing she doesn’t like about him. Joanna has been waiting patiently for her husband to re-emerge from the severe depression that has engulfed him. Though thankful when Leo returns to his charming, energetic self, she is shocked to discover that it’s not her loving support that has sparked his renewed happiness. Leo has fallen head over heels for the flaky, New Age-y newcomer and is more than willing to leave his wife behind. As a devastated Joanna digs deeper into Piper’s past, she begins to unearth disturbing secrets and fears for the lives of her ex-husband and children. Can she find the proof she needs in time to save them?
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062967299
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