October 5, 2021

October 5, 2021

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of October 4th and October 11th 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 Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks feature for October, which includes Indie Next, LibraryReads, Oprah's Book Club, the Barnes & Noble Book Club, Reese's Book Club, the "Read with Jenna" Today Show Book Club, the "Good Morning America" Book Club, and more.

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, October 6th at 4pm ET: Warwick's: Warwick's, in partnership with Penguin Random House, will host Richard Osman as he discusses his new book, THE MAN WHO DIED TWICE, with Jeffery Deaver.

Wednesday, October 6th 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 to Kwame Alexander, a poet, educator, publisher and New York Times bestselling author of 35 books.

Wednesday, October 6th at 7pm ET: Harlequin Trade Publishing: Harlequin will be hosting a launch event for Lisa Unger's new psychological thriller, LAST GIRL GHOSTED. Lisa will be in conversation with fellow New York Times bestselling author Caroline Kepnes, whose You novels are the basis for the Netflix series of the same name.

Wednesday, October 6th at 8pm ET: Parnassus Books: Parnassus Books is proud to present Amor Towles discussing his new book, THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY, with Ann Patchett.

Thursday, October 7th at 8pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Alice Hoffman will talk about her latest novel, THE BOOK OF MAGIC, the conclusion to her Practical Magic series.

Thursday, October 7th at 9pm ET: Warwick's: Warwick's will host Amor Towles as he discusses his new book, THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY, with John Grisham.

Friday, October 8th at 7pm ET: An Unlikely Story Bookstore and Café: An Unlikely Story is thrilled to welcome back Lisa Unger for another virtual event to celebrate the release of her latest thriller, LAST GIRL GHOSTED. She will be in conversation with Abby Endler, creator of the wildly successful Crime by the Book blog.

Saturday, October 9th at 6pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Lisa Unger will discuss her new novel, LAST GIRL GHOSTED, with special guest host Karin Slaughter.

Tuesday, October 12th at 3pm ET: Barnes & Noble Book Club: Barnes & Noble will host a Facebook Live discussion for their September Book Club selection, MATRIX, featuring Lauren Groff in conversation with Jamie Quatro.

Tuesday, October 12th at 7pm ET: Warwick's: Warwick's will host Alice Hoffman, in conversation with Kristin Hannah, as she discusses her new book, THE BOOK OF MAGIC.

This Week's Bonus News:
Our Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks for October

Each month, we share top book picks from Indie Next and LibraryReads, as well as the Target Book Club title and Costco's "Buyer's Pick." We also feature a number of other prominent picks, including Oprah’s Book Club, the Barnes & Noble Book Club, Reese's Book Club, Jenna Bush Hager's "Read with Jenna" Today Show Book Club, the "Good Morning America" Book Club, and Simon & Schuster’s Book Club Favorites.

Below is a preview of October's "Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks." For the complete Indie Next and LibraryReads lists, as well as additional links pertaining to this month's selections, please click here.

Indie Next
#1 Pick: CLOUD CUCKOO LAND by Anthony Doerr
THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY by Amor Towles
A SPINDLE SPLINTERED by Alix E. Harrow
UNDER THE WHISPERING DOOR by TJ Klune
THE LAST GRADUATE by Naomi Novik

LibraryReads
Top Pick: ALL THE FEELS by Olivia Dade
CACKLE by Rachel Harrison
DEATH AT GREENWAY by Lori Rader-Day
THE DEATH OF JANE LAWRENCE by Caitlin Starling
LAST GIRL GHOSTED by Lisa Unger

Target Book Club
BLACK GIRLS MUST DIE EXHAUSTED by Jayne Allen

Costco's "Buyer's Pick"
THE BEATLES: GET BACK edited by John Harris, photographs by Ethan Russell

Oprah's Book Club
BEWILDERMENT by Richard Powers

Barnes & Noble Book Club
THE DEATH OF JANE LAWRENCE by Caitlin Starling

Reese's Book Club
SANKOFA by Chibundu Onuzo

Jenna Bush Hager's "Read with Jenna" Today Show Book Club
THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY by Amor Towles

"Good Morning America" Book Club
WE ARE NOT LIKE THEM by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

Simon & Schuster's Book Club Favorites
CLOUD CUCKOO LAND by Anthony Doerr

On Sale the Week of October 4th in Hardcover

October 5th

1979: An Allie Burns Novel by Val McDermid (Thriller)
For journalist Allie Burns, someone else's bad news is the unmistakable sound of opportunity knocking, an opportunity to get away from the "women's stories" her editors at the Scottish daily The Clarion keep assigning her. Striking up an alliance with budding investigative journalist Danny Sullivan, Allie begins covering international tax fraud, then a group of Scottish ultranationalists aiming to cause mayhem ahead of a referendum on breaking away from the United Kingdom. Their stories quickly get attention and create enemies for the two young up-and-comers. As they get closer to the bleeding edge of breaking news, Allie and Danny may find their lives on the line.
Atlantic Monthly Press | 9780802159021

APRIL IN SPAIN by John Banville (Mystery)
On the idyllic coast of San Sebastian, Spain, Dublin pathologist Quirke is struggling to relax. When he glimpses a familiar face in the twilight at Las Acadas bar, it's hard at first to tell if his imagination is just running away with him. Because this young woman can't be April Latimer. She was murdered by her brother years ago --- the conclusion to an unspeakable scandal that shook one of Ireland's foremost political dynasties. Unable to ignore his instincts, Quirke makes a call back home to Ireland, and soon Detective St. John Strafford is dispatched to Spain. But he's not the only one en route. A relentless hit man is on the hunt for his latest prey, and the next victim might be Quirke himself.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335471406

THE BUTLER by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Joachim von Hartmann was born and raised in Buenos Aires by his loving German mother, inseparable from his identical twin. When Joachim moves to Paris with his mother in his late teens, his twin stays behind and enters a dark world. Meanwhile, Joachim begins training to be a butler, fascinated by the precision and intense demands, and goes on to work in some of the grandest homes in England. His brother never reappears. Olivia White has given 10 years of her life to her magazine, which failed, taking all her dreams with it. A bequest from her mother allows her a year in Paris to reinvent herself. She needs help setting up a home in a charming Parisian apartment. It is then that her path and Joachim’s cross.
Delacorte Press | 9781984821522

CACKLE by Rachel Harrison (Thriller/Horror)
After being unceremoniously dumped by her longtime boyfriend, Annie seeks a fresh start. She accepts a teaching position that moves her from Manhattan to a small village upstate. There she meets Sophie, who wants to be her friend. Sophie also wants her to stop apologizing and start living for herself. That’s how Sophie lives. Annie can’t help but gravitate toward the self-possessed Sophie, wanting to spend more and more time with her, despite the fact that the rest of the townsfolk seem a little afraid of her. Sophie’s appearance is uncanny and ageless, her mansion in the middle of the woods feels a little unearthly, and she does seem to wield a certain power. But she couldn’t be. Could she?
Berkley | 9780593202029

A CARNIVAL OF SNACKERY: Diaries (2003-2020) by David Sedaris (Humor/Essays)
There’s no right way to keep a diary, but if there’s an entertaining way, David Sedaris seems to have mastered it. If it’s navel-gazing you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong place; ditto treacly self-examination. Rather, his observations turn outward: a fight between two men on a bus, a fight between two men on the street, pedestrians being whacked over the head or gathering to watch as a man considers leaping to his death. There’s a dirty joke shared at a book signing, then a dirtier one told at a dinner party. Lots of jokes here. Plenty of laughs.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316558792

CROSSROADS by Jonathan Franzen (Fiction)
It’s December 23, 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless --- unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem’s sister, Becky, long the social queen of her high-school class, has sharply veered into the counterculture, while their brilliant younger brother Perry, who’s been selling drugs to seventh graders, has resolved to be a better person. Each of the Hildebrandts seeks a freedom that each of the others threatens to complicate.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374181178

DAMASCUS STATION by David McCloskey (Political Thriller)
CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian Palace official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, which supercharges Haddad’s recruitment and creates unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy. But the cat-and-mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Assad’s spy catcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the feared Republican Guard.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393881042

THE DEATH OF JANE LAWRENCE by Caitlin Starling (Gothic Fantasy/Horror)
Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town. Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man --- one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears that Jane is an apparition that has come to haunt him.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250272584

AN ELDERLY LADY MUST NOT BE CROSSED: Stories written by Helene Tursten, translated by Marlaine Delargy (Dark Humor/Short Stories)
Just when things have finally cooled down for 88-year-old Maud after the disturbing discovery of a dead body in her apartment in Gothenburg, a couple of detectives return to her doorstep. Though Maud dodges their questions with the skill of an Olympic gymnast a fifth of her age, she wonders if suspicion has fallen on her. The truth is, ever since Maud was a girl, death has seemed to follow her. In these six interlocking stories, memories of unfortunate incidents from Maud’s past keep bubbling to the surface. Meanwhile, certain Problems in the present require immediate attention. Luckily, Maud is no stranger to taking matters into her own hands, even if it means she has to get a little blood on them in the process.
Soho Crime | 9781641291675

FIGHT NIGHT by Miriam Toews (Fiction)
Swiv's Grandma, Elvira, has been fighting all her life. From her upbringing in a strict religious community, she has fought those who wanted to take away her joy, her independence and her spirit. She has fought to make peace with her loved ones when they have chosen to leave her. And now, even as her health fails, Grandma is fighting for her family: for her daughter, partnerless and in the third term of a pregnancy; and for her granddaughter Swiv, a spirited nine-year-old who has been suspended from school. Cramped together in their Toronto home, on the precipice of extraordinary change, Grandma and Swiv undertake a vital new project, setting out to explain their lives in letters they will never send.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635578171

FOUL PLAY: A Stone Barrington Novel by Stuart Woods (Thriller/Adventure)
Stone Barrington is nearing his New York City abode when he stumbles into trouble. As it turns out, a new client is in danger --- and with both business and the safety of the city at stake, he has no choice but to get involved. When it soon becomes clear that a complicated scheme is being hatched, Stone will need to use his expertise and connections to unravel the clever plot. Though the source remains unknown, it’s just a matter of time before he and Stone must each show their hands. From ritzy Manhattan high-rises to the lush serenity of the Connecticut countryside, the game of cat and mouse can end with only one victor.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593331699

I LOVE YOU BUT I'VE CHOSEN DARKNESS by Claire Vaye Watkins (Fiction)
Leaving behind her husband and their baby daughter, a writer gets on a flight for a speaking engagement in Reno, not carrying much besides a breast pump and a spiraling case of postpartum depression. Her temporary escape from domestic duties and an opportunity to reconnect with old friends mutates into an extended romp away from the confines of marriage and motherhood, and a seemingly bottomless descent into the past. Deep in the Mojave Desert where she grew up, she meets her ghosts at every turn: the first love whose self-destruction still haunts her; her father, a member of the most famous cult in American history; her mother, whose native spark gutters with every passing year. She can’t go back in time to make any of it right, but what exactly is her way forward?
Riverhead Books | 9780593330210

THE JEALOUSY MAN AND OTHER STORIES written by Jo Nesbø, translated by Robert Ferguson (Mystery & Thriller/Short Stories)
Famed for his deft characterization, hair-raising suspense and shocking twists, Jo Nesbø’s dexterity with the dark corners of the human heart is on full display in these inventive and enthralling stories.  A detective with a nose for jealousy is on the trail of a man suspected of murdering his twin; a bereaved father must decide whether vengeance has a place in the new world order after a pandemic brings about the collapse of society; a garbage man fresh off a bender tries to piece together what happened the night before; a hired assassin matches wits against his greatest adversary in a dangerous game for survival; and an instantly electric connection between passengers on a flight to London may spell romance, or something more sinister.
Knopf | 9780593321003

LAST GIRL GHOSTED by Lisa Unger (Psychological Thriller)
She met him through a dating app. An intriguing picture on a screen, a date at a downtown bar. What she thought might be just a quick hookup quickly became much more. She fell for him --- hard. It happens sometimes, a powerful connection with a perfect stranger takes you by surprise. Could it be love? But then, just as things were getting real, he stood her up. Then he disappeared --- profiles deleted, phone disconnected. She was ghosted. Maybe it was her fault. She shared too much, too fast. Soon she learns there were others. Girls who thought they were in love. Girls who later went missing. Chasing a digital trail into his dark past --- and hers --- she finds herself on a dangerous hunt. And she's not sure whether she's the predator --- or the prey.
Park Row | 9780778311041

THE LAST GUEST by Tess Little (Mystery)
When Elspeth Bell attends the 50th birthday party of her ex-husband, Richard Bryant, the Hollywood director who launched her acting career, all she wants is to pass unnoticed through the glamorous crowd in his sprawling Los Angeles mansion. Instead, there are only seven other guests and his pet octopus, Persephone. Come morning, Richard is dead --- and all of them are suspects. Dark stories from Richard's past begin to surface, colliding with memories of their marriage that Elspeth vowed never to revisit. She begins to wonder not just who killed Richard, but why these eight guests were invited --- and what sort of man would desire to possess a creature as mysterious and unsettling as Persephone.
Ballantine Books | 9780593238073

THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY by Amor Towles (Historical Fiction)
In June 1954, 18-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served 15 months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett's future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction --- to the City of New York.
Viking | 9780735222359

MY MONTICELLO: Fiction by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson (Fiction/Short Stories)
Set in the near future, the book's eponymous novella, “My Monticello,” tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. Led by Da’Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson’s historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation. Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s characters all seek out home as a place and an internal state, whether in the form of a Nigerian widower who immigrates to a meager existence in the city of Alexandria, finding himself adrift; a young mixed-race woman who adopts a new tongue and name to escape the landscapes of rural Virginia and her family; or a single mother who seeks salvation through “Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse.”
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250807151

THE OC: A Jake Longly Thriller by D.P. Lyle (Mystery/Thriller)
Restaurant owner and former professional baseball player Jake Longly is hoping for a few weeks of fun with Nicole Jamison in the warm Orange County, CA sun. After that, they’ll be on their way to LA for the filming of Nicole’s sure-to-be-a-hit screenplay. On arrival, they discover that Nicole’s friend Megan Weatherly, a local TV reporter, has picked up an anonymous stalker. Megan downplays any real danger, but her new intern Abby, as well as Jake and Nicole, don’t agree. Bit by bit, as the harassment escalates and the shadowy man invades Megan’s world, Jake calls in the big guns from back home in Alabama: Ray and Pancake. But will Ray’s military black ops experience and Pancake’s technical skills be enough to expose the predator in time?
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608094608

ONCE UPON A TIME IN QUEENS: An Oral History of the 1986 Mets by Nick Davis (Sports)
October 2021 marks the 35th anniversary of the 86 Mets’ World Series win. ESPN recently aired a multi-part "30 for 30" documentary series on the subject, which was produced by ESPN Films, Jimmy Kimmel, Cousin Sal Iacono and Major League Baseball and directed by Nick Davis. The show features never-before-seen footage, as well as remembrances from almost all of the key players. This tie-in book is an oral history with new contributions from Keith Hernandez, Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Lenny Dykstra and many others. Also included are unique photographs of the team and the era. A foreword by Kimmel, discussing what the Mets and their triumph means to him, rounds out this fantastic package.
Hyperion Avenue | 9781368077651

THE REDEMPTION OF BOBBY LOVE: A Story of Faith, Family, and Justice by Bobby Love and Cheryl Love, with Lori L. Tharps (Memoir)
Bobby and Cheryl Love were living in Brooklyn, happily married for decades, when the FBI and NYPD appeared at their door and demanded to know from Bobby, in front of his shocked wife and children, “What is your name? No, what’s your real name?” Bobby’s 38-year secret was out. As a Black child in the Jim Crow South, Bobby found himself in legal trouble before his 14th birthday. Sparked by the desperation he felt in the face of limited options and the pull of the streets, Bobby became a master thief. He soon found himself facing a 30-year prison sentence. But Bobby was smarter than his jailers. He escaped, fled to New York, changed his name and started a new life as “Bobby Love.”
Mariner Books | 9780358566052

REPRIEVE by James Han Mattson (Fiction)
On April 27, 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln, Nebraska, made famous for its monstrosities, booby-traps and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can endure these horrors without shouting the safe word, “reprieve,” they’ll win a substantial cash prize. But before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants. Those who were present on that fateful night lend their points of view. As each character’s journey unfurls and overlaps, deceit and misunderstandings fueled by obsession and prejudice are revealed, forcing all to reckon with the ways in which their beliefs and actions contributed to a horrifying catastrophe.
William Morrow | 9780063079915

SANKOFA by Chibundu Onuzo (Fiction)
Anna is at a stage of her life when she's beginning to wonder who she really is. She has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother is dead. Searching through her mother's belongings one day, Anna finds clues about the African father she never knew. His student diaries chronicle his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. Anna discovers that he eventually became the president --- some would say dictator --- of a small nation in West Africa. And he is still alive. When Anna decides to track her father down, a journey begins that is disarmingly moving, funny and fascinating.
Catapult | 9781646220830

SMILE: The Story of a Face by Sarah Ruhl (Memoir)
With a play opening on Broadway, and every reason to smile, Sarah Ruhl has just survived a high-risk pregnancy when she discovers the left side of her face is completely paralyzed. She is assured that 90 percent of Bell’s palsy patients see spontaneous improvement and experience a full recovery. Like Ruhl’s own mother. But Sarah is in the unlucky 10 percent. And for a woman, wife, mother and artist working in theater, the paralysis and the disconnect between the interior and exterior bring significant and specific challenges. So Ruhl begins an intense decade-long search for a cure while simultaneously grappling with the reality of her new face --- one that, while recognizably her own, is incapable of accurately communicating feelings or intentions.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982150945

A SPINDLE SPLINTERED by Alix E. Harrow (Fantasy/Adventure)
It's Zinnia Gray's 21st birthday, which is extra special because it's the last birthday she'll ever have. When she was young, an industrial accident left Zinnia with a rare condition. Not much is known about her illness, just that no one has lived past 21. Her best friend Charm is intent on making Zinnia's last birthday special with a full sleeping beauty experience, complete with a tower and a spinning wheel. But when Zinnia pricks her finger, something strange and unexpected happens, and she finds herself falling through worlds, with another sleeping beauty, just as desperate to escape her fate.
Tordotcom | 9781250765352

THE SURVIVORS by Alex Schulman (Psychological Thriller)
Three estranged brothers return to the Swedish lakeside cottage where, more than two decades before, an unspeakable accident forever altered their family and changed the course of their lives. There is Nils, who couldn't escape his suffocating home soon enough, and Pierre, easily bullied and quick to lash out. And then there is Benjamin, always the family's nerve center, perpetually on the lookout for triggers and trap doors in a volatile home where the children were left to fend for themselves, competing for their father's favor and their mother's elusive love. But as the years have unfolded, Benjamin has grown increasingly untethered from reality. And among the brothers a dangerous current now vibrates. What really happened that summer day when everything was blown to pieces?
Doubleday | 9780385547567

THE TAKING OF JEMIMA BOONE: Colonial Settlers, Tribal Nations, and the Kidnap That Shaped America by Matthew Pearl (History)
On a quiet midsummer day in 1776, 13-year-old Jemima Boone and her friends Betsy and Fanny Callaway disappear near the Kentucky settlement of Boonesboro. A Cherokee-Shawnee raiding party has taken the girls as the latest salvo in the blood feud between American Indians and the colonial settlers who have decimated native lands and resources. Hanging Maw, the raiders’ leader, recognizes one of the captives as Jemima Boone, daughter of Kentucky's most influential pioneers, and realizes she could be a valuable pawn in the battle to drive the colonists out of the contested Kentucky territory for good. But ultimately the raiding party is ambushed by Daniel Boone and the rescuers in a battle with reverberations that nobody could predict.
Harper | 9780062937780

TASTE: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci (Memoir)
Stanley Tucci grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the kitchen table. He shared the magic of those meals with us in THE TUCCI COOKBOOK and THE TUCCI TABLE, and now he takes us beyond the savory recipes and into the compelling stories behind them. TASTE is a reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about his growing up in Westchester, New York; preparing for and shooting the foodie films Big Night and Julie & Julia; falling in love over dinner; and teaming up with his wife to create meals for a multitude of children. Each morsel of this gastronomic journey through good times and bad, five-star meals and burned dishes is as heartfelt and delicious as the last.
Gallery Books | 9781982168018

THREE SISTERS by Heather Morris (Historical Fiction)
Against all odds, three Slovakian sisters have survived years of imprisonment in the most notorious death camp in Nazi Germany: Auschwitz. Livia, Magda and Cibi have clung together, nearly died from starvation and overwork, and the brutal whims of the guards in this place of horror. But now the allies are closing in, and the sisters have one last hurdle to face: the death march from Auschwitz, as the Nazis try to erase any evidence of the prisoners held there. Due to a last-minute stroke of luck, the three of them are able to escape formation and hide in the woods for days before being rescued. And this is where the story begins. From there, the three sisters travel to Israel, to their new home, but the battle for freedom takes on new forms.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250276896

WE ARE NOT LIKE THEM by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza (Fiction)
Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young and is finally pregnant after years of trying. Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia. But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six months pregnant, Jen is in freefall as her future, her husband’s freedom and her friendship with Riley are thrown into uncertainty.
Atria Books | 9781982181031

WHAT STORM, WHAT THUNDER by Myriam J. A. Chancy (Fiction)
At the end of a long, sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster --- including Richard, an expat and wealthy water-bottling executive with a secret daughter; the daughter, Anne, an architect who drafts affordable housing structures for a global NGO; a small-time drug trafficker, Leopold, who pines for a beautiful call girl; Sonia and her business partner, Dieudonné, who are followed by a man they believe is the vodou spirit of death; and Didier, an emigrant musician who drives a taxi in Boston.
Tin House Books | 9781951142766

WOLF POINT: An Ashe Cayne Novel by Ian K. Smith (Mystery)
A Cadillac, a pistol and a corpse make for another morning in Chicago. The body belongs to Walter Griffin, a prominent Black Chicagoan insider hailing from the city’s West Side. He ascended to the upper echelons of the mayor’s office only to meet his end in a watery grave at Wolf Point. Forensics finds his prints on the gun; it’s ruled a suicide. But grizzled private investigator Ashe Cayne knows better. Griffin’s children plead with a reluctant Ashe to hunt their father’s killer. She decides to take on the case and navigate a city rotting with corruption, racial tensions and sketchy backroom deals. On the bleak streets of Chicago, it’s every man for himself --- and that makes everyone a suspect.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781542027861

On Sale the Week of October 4th in Paperback

October 5th

2 SISTERS DETECTIVE AGENCY by James Patterson and Candice Fox (Thriller)
Paperback Original
Attorney Rhonda Bird returns home after a long estrangement when she learns her father has died. There she makes two important discoveries: her father stopped being an accountant and had opened up a private detective agency, and she has a teenage half sister named Baby. Baby brings in a client to the detective agency, a young man who claims he was abducted. During the course of the investigation, Rhonda and Baby become entangled in a dangerous case involving a group of overprivileged young adults who break laws for fun, their psychopath ringleader, and an ex-assassin victim who decides to hunt them down for revenge.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538704585

ATTACK SURFACE by Cory Doctorow (Science Fiction/Thriller)
In her day job as a counterterrorism wizard for a transnational cybersecurity firm, Masha Maximow made the hacks that allowed repressive regimes to spy on dissidents and manipulate their every move. The perks were fantastic, and the pay was obscene. Just for fun, and to piss off her masters, Masha sometimes used her mad skills to help those same troublemakers evade detection, if their cause was just. When her targets were strangers in faraway police states, it was easy to compartmentalize, to ignore the collateral damage of murder, rape and torture. But when it hits close to home, and the hacks and exploits she’s devised are directed at her friends and family, Masha realizes she has to choose. And whatever choice she makes, someone is going to get hurt.
Tor Books | 9781250757517

THE AWAKENING: The Dragon Heart Legacy, Book 1 by Nora Roberts (Paranormal Fantasy/Romance)
When Breen Kelly was a girl, her father would tell her stories of magical places. Now she’s an anxious twentysomething mired in student debt and working a job she hates. But one day she stumbles upon a shocking discovery: her mother has been hiding an investment account in her name. It has been funded by her long-lost father --- and it’s worth nearly four million dollars. This newfound fortune would be life-changing for anyone. But little does Breen know that when she uses some of the money to journey to Ireland, it will unlock mysteries she couldn’t have imagined.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250770486

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 | 9781635577846

DAUGHTER OF BLACK LAKE by Cathy Marie Buchanan (Historical Fantasy/Romance)
It's the season of Fallow, in the era of iron. In a northern misty bog surrounded by woodlands and wheat fields, a settlement lies far beyond the reach of the Romans invading hundreds of miles to the southeast. A girl named Devout comes of age, sweetly flirting with the young man she's tilled alongside all her life, and envisions a future of love and abundance. Seventeen years later, though, the settlement is a changed place. Famine has brought struggle, and outsiders have arrived at the doorstep. For Devout's young daughter, life is more troubled than her mother ever anticipated. But this girl has an extraordinary gift. As worlds collide and peril threatens, it will be up to her to save her family and community.
Riverhead Books | 9780735216174

THE FORTUNATE ONES by Ed Tarkington (Fiction)
When Charlie Boykin was young, he thought his life with his single mother on the working-class side of Nashville was perfectly fine. But when she arranges for him to be admitted as a scholarship student to an elite private school, he is suddenly introduced to what the world can feel like to someone cushioned by money. That world is an almost irresistible place where one can bend --- and break --- rules and still end up untarnished. As he gets drawn into a friendship with a charismatic upperclassman, Archer Creigh, and an affluent family that treats him like an adopted son, Charlie quickly adapts to life in the upper echelons of Nashville society. But over time, he is increasingly pulled into covering for Archer’s constant deceits and his casual bigotry.
Algonquin Books | 9781643752006

GOOD NEIGHBORS by Sarah Langan (Psychological Suspense/Mystery)
When the Wilde family moves to the suburbs of Long Island, they trigger their neighbors’ worst fears. Dad Arlo is a gruff has-been rock star with track marks. Mom Gertie has a thick Brooklyn accent, with high heels and tube tops to match. Their weird kids cuss like sailors. They don’t fit with the way Maple Street sees itself. Though Maple Street’s Queen Bee, Rhea Schroeder, welcomed Gertie and her family at first, relations went south during one spritzer-fueled summer evening, when the new best friends shared too much. The Wildes are now outcasts. As tensions mount, a sinkhole opens in a nearby park, and Rhea’s daughter Shelly falls inside. The search for Shelly brings a shocking accusation against the Wildes.
Washington Square Press | 9781982144371

THE HOLIDAY SWAP by Maggie Knox (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
When chef Charlie Goodwin gets hit on the head on the L.A. set of her reality baking show, she loses a lot more than consciousness; she also loses her ability to taste and smell --- both critical to her success as show judge. Meanwhile, Charlie's identical twin, Cass, is frantically trying to hold her own life together back in their quaint mountain hometown while running the family's bustling bakery and dealing with her ex, who won't get the memo that they're over. With only days until Christmas, a desperate Charlie asks Cass to do something they haven't done since they were kids: switch places. Looking for her own escape from reality, Cass agrees. But temporarily trading lives proves more complicated than they imagined.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593330739

IN ANOTHER LIGHT by A. J. Banner (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Three years ago, mortuary cosmetologist Phoebe Glassman lost her husband in a tragic accident. No longer the hopeful wife and mother she once was, Phoebe is disappearing into her grief and into the quietude of her job --- restoring to the dead the illusion of life. Then the body of a woman named Pauline Steele arrives in the mortuary, and for Phoebe, everything changes. Pauline is unmistakably Phoebe’s mirror image and bears an alarmingly familiar tattoo. Even more startling is that among Pauline’s effects is a faded photograph of Phoebe. Aided by an eccentric colleague, her curiosity sparked, Phoebe investigates her doppelgänger’s life and death --- and uncovers surprising clues to a shared past.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781542031103

INFINITE COUNTRY by Patricia Engel (Fiction)
Talia is being held at a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia after committing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been warranted. She urgently needs to get out and get back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she also might miss her chance to finally be reunited with her family. How this family came to occupy two different countries, two different worlds, comes into focus like twists of a kaleidoscope.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781982159474

THE KEEPERS OF METSAN VALO by Wendy Webb (Gothic Thriller/Mystery)
Paperback Original
In Metsan Valo, her family home on Lake Superior, Anni Halla’s beloved grandmother has died. Among her fond memories, what Anni remembers most vividly is her grandmother’s eerie yet enchanting storytelling. The reading of the will now occasions a family reunion. Whispers wind through the woods. Laughter bursts from bubbling streams. Raps from unseen hands rupture on the walls. Fireflies swarm and nightmares stir. With each odd occurrence, Anni fears that her return has invited less a welcoming and more a warning. When another tragedy strikes near home, Anni must dive headfirst into the mysterious happenings to discover the truth about her home, her family and the wooded island’s ancient lore.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781542021623

THE LAST PROTECTOR by Andrew Taylor (Historical Thriller)
No one in England wants a return to the bloody days of the Civil War. But Oliver Cromwell’s son, Richard, has abandoned his exile and slipped back into England. The consequences could be catastrophic. James Marwood, a traitor’s son turned government agent, is tasked with uncovering Cromwell’s motives. But his assignment is complicated by his friend --- the regicide’s daughter, Cat Lovett --- who knew the Cromwells as a child, and who now seems to be hiding a secret of her own about the family. Both Marwood and Cat know they are putting themselves in great danger. And when they find themselves on a top secret mission in the Palace of Whitehall, they realize they are risking their lives…and could even be sent to the block for treason.
HarperCollins | 9780008483678

THE LOST SHTETL by Max Gross (Fiction)
For decades, the tiny Jewish shtetl of Kreskol existed in happy isolation, virtually untouched and unchanged. That all changes when Pesha Lindauer, who has just suffered an ugly, acrimonious divorce, suddenly disappears. Her husband goes after her, setting off a panic among the town elders. They send a woefully unprepared outcast named Yankel Lewinkopf out into the wider world to alert the Polish authorities. When the truth eventually surfaces, his story and the existence of Kreskol make headlines nationwide. Returning Yankel to Kreskol, the Polish government plans to reintegrate the town that time forgot. Yet in doing so, the devious origins of its disappearance come to the light. And what has become of the mystery of Pesha and her former husband?
HarperVia | 9780062991133

MISSIONARIES by Phil Klay (Fiction)
For Mason, a U.S. Army Special Forces medic, and Lisette, a foreign correspondent, America's long post-9/11 wars in the Middle East exerted a terrible draw that neither is able to shake. All roads lead to Colombia, where the U.S. has partnered with local government to keep predatory narco gangs at bay. Mason, now a liaison to the Colombian military, is ready for the good war, and Lisette is more than ready to cover it. Juan Pablo, a Colombian officer, must juggle managing the Americans' presence and navigating a viper's nest of factions bidding for power. Meanwhile, Abel, a lieutenant in a local militia, has lost almost everything in the seemingly endless carnage of his home province, where the lines between drug cartels, militias and the state are semi-permeable.
Penguin Books | 9781984880673

THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE by Marie Benedict (Historical Mystery)
In December 1926, Agatha Christie goes missing. Investigators find her empty car on the edge of a deep, gloomy pond, the only clues some tire tracks nearby and a fur coat left in the car --- strange for a frigid night. Her World War I veteran husband and her daughter have no knowledge of her whereabouts, and England unleashes an unprecedented manhunt to find the up-and-coming mystery author. Eleven days later, she reappears, just as mysteriously as she disappeared, claiming amnesia and providing no explanations for her time away. The puzzle of those missing 11 days has persisted. Acclaimed author Marie Benedict brings us into the world of Agatha Christie, imagining why such a brilliant woman would find herself at the center of such murky historical mysteries.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728234304

THE NIGHTWORKERS by Brian Selfon (Thriller)
Shecky Keenan’s family is under fire --- or at least it feels that way. Bank accounts have closed unexpectedly, a strange car has been parked near the house at odd hours, and Emil Scott, an enigmatic artist and the family’s new runner, is missing --- along with the $250,000 of dirty money he was carrying. Shecky moves money for an array of unsavory clients, and his nephew Henry is his bagman. His niece Kerasha, the famed former child-thief of Bushwick, is still learning the family trade, but her quick mind and quicker fingers are already being put to use. They love one another, but trust is thin when secrets are the family trade. And someone will be coming for that missing money --- soon.
Picador | 9781250800190

PAYBACK’S A WITCH by Lana Harper (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Emmy Harlow is a witch but not a very powerful one --- in part because she hasn't been home to the magical town of Thistle Grove in years. Her self-imposed exile has a lot to do with a complicated family history and a desire to forge her own way in the world, and only the very tiniest bit to do with Gareth Blackmoore, heir to the most powerful magical family in town and casual breaker of hearts and destroyer of dreams. But when a spellcasting tournament for which her family serves as arbiters approaches, it turns out the pull of tradition (or the truly impressive parental guilt trip that comes with it) is strong enough to bring Emmy back.
Berkley | 9780593336069

PLAIN BAD HEROINES written by emily m. danforth, with illustrations by Sara Lautman (Gothic Fiction)
Our story begins in 1902, at the Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it the Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them. Less than five years later, the school closes its doors forever --- but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property. Over a century later, Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer Merritt Emmons publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded Age institution.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062942869

THE REMOVED by Brandon Hobson (Fiction)
In the 15 years since their teenage son, Ray-Ray, was killed in a police shooting, the Echota family has been suspended in private grief. The mother, Maria, increasingly struggles to manage the onset of Alzheimer’s in her husband, Ernest. Their adult daughter, Sonja, leads a life of solitude, punctuated only by spells of dizzying romantic obsession. And their son, Edgar, fled home long ago, turning to drugs to mute his feelings of alienation. With the family’s annual bonfire approaching, Maria attempts to call the family together from their physical and emotional distances once more. But as the bonfire draws near, each of them feels a strange blurring of the boundary between normal life and the spirit world.
Ecco | 9780062997555

THE RUSSIAN CAGE by Charlaine Harris (Dark Fantasy/Thriller)
Picking up right where A LONGER FALL left off, this thrilling third installment of the Gunnie Rose series follows Lizbeth Rose as she takes on one of her most dangerous missions yet: rescuing her estranged partner, Prince Eli, from the Holy Russian Empire. Once in San Diego, Lizbeth is going to have to rely upon her sister, Felicia, and her growing Grigori powers to navigate her way through this strange new world of royalty and deception in order to get Eli freed from jail where he’s being held for murder.
Gallery/Saga Press | 9781481495004

THE SILENCE by Don DeLillo (Fiction)
It is Super Bowl Sunday in the year 2022. Five people, dinner, an apartment on the east side of Manhattan. The retired physics professor and her husband and her former student waiting for the couple who will join them from what becomes a dramatic flight from Paris. The conversation ranges from a survey telescope in North-central Chile to a favorite brand of bourbon to Einstein’s 1912 Manuscript on the Special Theory of Relativity. Then something happens, and the digital connections that have transformed our lives are severed. What follows is a dazzling and profoundly moving conversation about what makes us human.
Scribner | 9781982164560

A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES: An Inspector Rebus Novel by Ian Rankin (Mystery)
When his daughter, Samantha, calls in the dead of night, John Rebus knows it’s not good news. Her husband has been missing for two days. Rebus fears the worst --- and knows from his lifetime in the police that his daughter will be the prime suspect. He wasn’t the best father --- the job always came first --- but now his daughter needs him more than ever. But is he going as a father or a detective? As he leaves at dawn to drive to the windswept coast --- and a small town with big secrets --- he wonders if this might be the first time in his life where the truth is the one thing he doesn’t want to find.
Back Bay Books | 9780316479240

THE SUN COLLECTIVE by Charles Baxter (Fiction)
Once a promising actor, Tim Brettigan has gone missing. His father thinks he may have seen him among some homeless people. And though she knows he left on purpose, his mother has been searching for him all over their home city of Minneapolis. She checks the usual places --- churches, storefronts, benches --- and stumbles upon a local community group with lofty goals and an enigmatic leader. Christina, a young woman rapidly becoming addicted to a boutique drug that gives her a feeling of blessedness, is inexplicably drawn to the same collective by a man who’s convinced he may start a revolution.
Vintage | 9781984899712

THE TRAVELLER AND OTHER STORIES by Stuart Neville (Crime Fiction/Short Stories)
Since his debut novel, the modern classic THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, was published a decade ago, Stuart Neville has published eight other critically acclaimed novels and achieved international recognition as one of crime fiction’s great living writers. Now, for the first time, Neville offers readers a collection of his short fiction --- 12 chilling stories that traverse and blend the genres of noir, horror and speculative fiction, and bring the history and lore of Neville’s native Northern Ireland to glittering life. The collection concludes with the long-awaited novella “The Traveller,” the companion piece to THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST and COLLUSION.
Soho Crime | 9781641292955

TROUBLES IN PARADISE by Elin Hilderbrand (Fiction)
After uprooting her life in the States, Irene Steele has just settled in at the villa on St. John where her husband, Russ, had been living a double life. But a visit from the FBI shakes her foundations, and Irene once again learns just how little she knew about the man she loved. With help from their friends, Irene and her sons set up their lives while evidence mounts that the helicopter crash that killed Russ may not have been an accident. Meanwhile, the island watches this drama unfold --- including the driver of a Jeep with tinted windows who seems to be shadowing the Steele family. As a storm gathers strength in the Atlantic, surprises are in store for the Steeles: help from a mysterious source, and a new beginning in the paradise that has become their home.
Back Bay Books | 9780316435628

WHALE DAY: And Other Poems by Billy Collins (Poetry)
This new collection brings together more than 50 poems and showcases the deft mixing of the playful and the serious that has made Billy Collins one of our country’s most celebrated and widely read poets. Here are poems that leap with whimsy and imagination, yet stay grounded in the familiar, common things of everyday experience. Collins takes us for a walk with an impossibly ancient dog, discovers the original way to eat a banana, meets an Irish spider, and even invites us to his own funeral. Sensitive to the wonders of being alive as well as the thrill of mortality, WHALE DAY builds on and amplifies Collins’ reputation as one of America’s most interesting and durable poets.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780399589775

On Sale the Week of October 11th in Hardcover

October 11th

E.R. NURSES: True Stories from America's Greatest Unsung Heroes by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann, with Chris Mooney (Medicine/Biography)
James Patterson and Matt Eversmann powerfully present the medical frontline heroes who work to save our lives every day: E.R. nurses. Around the clock, across the country, these highly skilled and compassionate men and women sacrifice and struggle for us and our families. You have never heard their true stories. Not like this. From big-city and small-town hospitals. From behind the scenes. From the heart. This book will make you laugh, make you cry, make you understand. When we’re at our worst, E.R. nurses are at their best.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780759554269

October 12th

12 BYTES: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next by Jeanette Winterson (Essays)
In 12 BYTES, the New York Times bestselling author of WHY BE HAPPY WHEN YOU CAN BE NORMAL? draws on her years of thinking and reading about artificial intelligence in all its bewildering manifestations. In her brilliant, laser-focused, uniquely pointed and witty style of storytelling, Jeanette Winterson looks to history, religion, myth, literature, the politics of race and gender, and computer science to help us understand the radical changes to the way we live and love that are happening now.
Grove Press | 9780802159250

ALL OF THE MARVELS: A Journey to the Ends of the Biggest Story Ever Told by Douglas Wolk (Memoir/Popular Culture)
The superhero comic books that Marvel Comics has published since 1961 are, as Douglas Wolk notes, the longest continuous, self-contained work of fiction ever created. The Marvel story is a gigantic mountain smack in the middle of contemporary culture. Thousands of writers and artists have contributed to it. Everyone recognizes its protagonists. Eighteen of the hundred highest-grossing movies of all time are based on parts of it. Yet not even the people telling the story have read the whole thing. So, of course, that’s what Wolk did: he read all 27,000+ comics that make up the Marvel Universe thus far. And then he made sense of it --- seeing into the ever-expanding story, in its parts and as a whole, and seeing through it, as a prism through which to view the landscape of American culture.
Penguin Press | 9780735222168

ALL THESE ASHES by James Queally (Thriller)
Russell Avery, the laid-off reporter turned private investigator, is almost out of clients after he stood up against the Newark police officers whose problems he used to fix for a paycheck, exposing a scandal that left him on the wrong side of one of those thin blue lines. Desperate for work, Russell is as elated as he is skeptical when a detective shows up on his doorstep, asking him to look into one of the Brick City's most haunting mysteries: The Twilight Four killings. As Russell starts untangling the complications of a decades-old murder, he runs into opposition from City Hall and finds himself in the middle of a contentious Mayoral race that could impact Newark for generations to come, all while trying to stay one step ahead of the real Twilight Four killer, who wouldn't mind reducing Russell to ash.
Polis Books | 9781951709501

ALONG THE SALTWISE SEA by A. Deborah Baker (Fantasy/Adventure)
After climbing OVER THE WOODWARD WALL and making their way across the forest, Avery and Zib found themselves acquiring some extraordinary friends in their journey through the Up-and-Under. After staying the night, uninvited, at a pirate queen’s cottage in the woods, the companions find themselves accountable to its owner and reluctantly agree to work off their debt as her ship sets sail, bound for lands unknown. But the queen and her crew are not the only ones on board, and the monsters at sea aren’t all underwater. The friends will need to navigate the stormy seas of obligation and honor on their continuing journey along the improbable road.
Tordotcom | 9781250768285

THE APOLLO MURDERS by Chris Hadfield (Thriller)
NASA is about to launch Apollo 18. While the mission has been billed as a scientific one, flight controller Kazimieras "Kaz" Zemeckis knows there is a darker objective. Intelligence has discovered a secret Soviet space station spying on America, and Apollo 18 may be the only chance to stop it. But even as Kaz races to keep the NASA crew one step ahead of their Russian rivals, a deadly accident reveals that not everyone involved is quite who they were thought to be. With political stakes stretched to the breaking point, the White House and the Kremlin can only watch as their astronauts collide on the lunar surface, far beyond the reach of law or rescue.
Mulholland Books | 9780316264532

THE BOOK OF MAGIC by Alice Hoffman (Fiction/Magical Realism)
The Owens family has been cursed in matters of love for over 300 years, but all of that is about to change. The novel begins in a library, the best place for a story to be conjured, when beloved aunt Jet Owens hears the deathwatch beetle and knows she has only seven days to live. Jet is not the only one in danger --- the curse is already at work. A frantic attempt to save a young man’s life spurs three generations of the Owens women, and one long-lost brother, to use their unusual gifts to break the curse as they travel from Paris to London to the English countryside where their ancestor Maria Owens first practiced the Unnamed Art. The younger generation discovers secrets that have been hidden from them in matters of both magic and love by Sally, their fiercely protective mother.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982151485

THE BOYS: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family by Ron Howard and Clint Howard (Memoir)
“What was it like to grow up on TV?” Ron Howard has been asked this question throughout his adult life. In THE BOYS, he and his younger brother, Clint, examine their childhoods in detail for the first time. For Ron, playing Opie on "The Andy Griffith Show" and Richie Cunningham on "Happy Days" offered fame, joy and opportunity --- but also invited stress and bullying. For Clint, a fast start on such programs as "Gentle Ben" and "Star Trek" petered out in adolescence, with some tough consequences and lessons. With the perspective of time and success --- Ron as a filmmaker, producer and Hollywood A-lister, Clint as a busy character actor --- the Howard brothers delve deep into an upbringing that seemed normal to them yet was anything but.
William Morrow | 9780063065246

THE BRIDES OF MARACOOR by Gregory Maguire (Fantasy)
Twenty-five years after WICKED first flew into our lives, THE BRIDES OF MARACOOR finds Elphaba’s granddaughter, Rain, washing ashore on a foreign island. Comatose from crashing into the sea, Rain is taken in by a community of single women committed to obscure devotional practices. As the mainland of Maracoor sustains an assault by a foreign navy, the island’s civil-servant overseer struggles to understand how an alien arriving on the shores of Maracoor could threaten the stability and well-being of an entire nation. Is it myth or magic at work, for good or for ill?
William Morrow | 9780063093966

CAPOTE'S WOMEN: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer (Biography)
Barbara "Babe" Paley, Gloria Guinness, Marella Agnelli, Slim Hayward, Pamela Churchill, C. Z. Guest, Lee Radziwill --- they were the toast of midcentury New York, each beautiful and distinguished in her own way. These women captivated and enchanted Truman Capote --- and at times, they infuriated him as well. He befriended them, received their deepest confidences, and ingratiated himself into their lives. Then, in one fell swoop, he betrayed them in the most surprising and shocking way possible. Laurence Leamer delves into the years following the acclaimed publication of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S in 1958 and IN COLD BLOOD in 1966, when Capote struggled with a crippling case of writer's block.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593328088

FAN FICTION: A Mem-Noir: Inspired by True Events by Brent Spiner (Thriller/Humor)
Set in 1991, just as "Star Trek: The Next Generation" has rocketed the cast to global fame, the young and impressionable actor Brent Spiner receives a mysterious package and a series of disturbing letters that take him on a terrifying and bizarre journey that enlists Paramount Security, the LAPD and even the FBI in putting a stop to the danger that has his life and career hanging in the balance. Featuring a cast of characters from Patrick Stewart to Levar Burton to "Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry, to some completely imagined, this is the fictional autobiography that takes readers into the life of Brent Spiner, and tells an amazing tale about the trappings of celebrity and the fear he has carried with him his entire life.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250274366

GOD REST YE, ROYAL GENTLEMEN: A Royal Spyness Mystery by Rhys Bowen (Historical Mystery)
Darcy’s aunt Ermintrude has moved to a house on the edge of the Sandringham estate, near the royal family, and wants to invite her nephew and his new bride, Georgie, for Christmas. Georgie soon learns that the notorious Mrs. Simpson, mistress to the Prince of Wales, also will be in attendance. It is now crystal clear to Georgie that the Queen expects her to do a bit of spying. There have been a couple of strange accidents at the estate recently. Two gentlemen of the royal household have died under mysterious circumstances, and another has been shot by mistake during a hunt. Georgie begins to suspect that a member of the royal family is the real target, but her investigation will put her new husband and love of her life in the crosshairs of a killer.
Berkley | 9780440000082

HOOKED: How Crafting Saved My Life by Sutton Foster (Memoir)
Whether she’s playing an “age-defying” book editor on television or dazzling audiences on the Broadway stage, Sutton Foster manages to make it all look easy. How? Crafting. From the moment she picked up a cross stitch needle to escape the bullying chorus girls in her early performing days, she was hooked. Cross stitching led to crocheting, crocheting led to collages, which led to drawing and so much more. Channeling her emotions into her creations centered Sutton as she navigated the significant moments in her life and gave her tangible reminders of her experiences. Now, in this charming and poignant collection, Sutton shares those moments, along with crochet patterns, recipes and so much more.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538734285

MacARTHUR PARK by Judith Freeman (Fiction)
Jolene and Verna share complicated ties that have crystallized over time. Beginning when they were girls discovering their needs and desires, their ongoing stories have been inextricably linked. But when Verna marries Vincent, Jolene’s ex-husband, their paths may have finally, permanently diverged. A successful and provocative feminist artist, Jolene travels the world, attracting attention wherever she goes. Verna, a writer, works from her home near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, where she and Vincent plan to spend the rest of their lives in a contemplative, intimate routine. Then Jolene asks one more favor of Verna --- to take a road trip with her to their small hometown in Utah.
Pantheon | 9780593315958

NO ONE WILL MISS HER by Kat Rosenfield (Psychological Thriller)
On a beautiful October morning in rural Maine, a homicide investigator from the state police pulls into the hard-luck town of Copper Falls. The local junkyard is burning, and the town pariah Lizzie Oullette is dead --- with her husband, Dwayne, nowhere to be found. As scandal ripples through the community, Detective Ian Bird’s inquiries unexpectedly lead him away from small-town Maine to a swank city townhouse several hours south. Adrienne Richards, the blonde and fabulous social media influencer and wife of a disgraced billionaire, had been renting Lizzie’s tiny lake house as a country getaway. As her connection to the case becomes clear, so too does her connection to Lizzie, who narrates their story from beyond the grave.
William Morrow | 9780063057012

ON ANIMALS by Susan Orlean (Nature/Essays)
“How we interact with animals has preoccupied philosophers, poets, and naturalists for ages,” writes Susan Orlean. Since the age of six, when Orlean wrote and illustrated a book called HERBERT THE NEAR-SIGHTED PIGEON, she’s been drawn to stories about how we live with animals and how they abide by us. Now, in ON ANIMALS, she examines animal-human relationships through the compelling tales she has written over the course of her celebrated career. These stories consider a range of creatures --- the household pets we dote on, the animals we raise to end up as meat on our plates, the creatures who could eat us for dinner, the various tamed and untamed animals we share our planet with who are central to human life.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781982181536

OSCAR WILDE: A Life by Matthew Sturgis (Biography)
Drawing on material that has come to light in the past 30 years, including newly discovered letters, documents, first draft notebooks, and the full transcript of the libel trial, Matthew Sturgis meticulously portrays the key events and influences that shaped Oscar Wilde's life, returning the man "to his times, and to the facts," giving us his own experience as he experienced it. Here, fully and richly portrayed, is Wilde's Irish childhood; his years at Oxford and arrival in London; his 10-year marriage to Constance Lloyd, who unwittingly welcomed young men into the household who became Oscar's lovers; his development as a playwright; and, in later years, his irresistible pull toward another --- double --- life, and the tragic story of his fall that sent him to prison for two years of hard labor.
Knopf | 9780525656364

THE PARTY CRASHER by Sophie Kinsella (Fiction/Humor)
It’s been over two years since Effie’s beloved parents got divorced. Since then, she’s become estranged from her father and embarked on a feud with his much younger girlfriend, Krista. And now Greenoaks, the rambling Victorian country house Effie called home her whole life, has been sold. When Krista decides to throw a grand “house cooling” party, Effie is originally left off the guest list --- and then receives a last-minute “anti-invitation.” Effie declines, but then remembers a beloved childhood treasure is still hidden in the house. Her only chance to retrieve it is to break into Greenoaks while everyone is busy celebrating. As Effie sneaks around the house, she realizes the secrets Greenoaks holds aren’t just in the dusty passageways and hidden attics she grew up exploring.
The Dial Press | 9780593449172

PEARL by Josh Malerman (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
There's something strange about Walter Kopple's farm. At first it seems to be his grandson, who cruelly murders one of Walter's pigs in an act of seemingly senseless violence. But then the rumors begin --- people in town whisper that Walter's grandson heard a voice that commanded him to kill. And that the voice belongs to a most peculiar creature: Walter's pig, Pearl. Walter is not sure what to believe. He knows that he's always been afraid of the strangely malevolent Pearl. But as madness and paranoia grip the town and the townspeople descend on Walter's farm with violent wrath, they begin to discover that true evil wears a human face.
Del Rey | 9780593237830

SILVERVIEW by John le Carré (Mystery)
Julian Lawndsley has renounced his high-flying job in the city for a simpler life running a bookshop in a small English seaside town. But only a couple of months into his new career, Julian’s evening is disrupted by a visitor. Edward, a Polish émigré living in Silverview, the big house on the edge of town, seems to know a lot about Julian’s family and is rather too interested in the inner workings of his modest new enterprise. When a letter turns up at the door of a spy chief in London warning him of a dangerous leak, the investigations lead him to this quiet town by the sea.
Viking | 9780593490594

SMALL PLEASURES by Clare Chambers (Historical Fiction)
1957: Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper in the southeast suburbs of London. Clever but with limited career opportunities and on the brink of 40, Jean lives a dreary existence that includes caring for her demanding widowed mother, who rarely leaves the house. It’s a small life with little joy and no likelihood of escape. That all changes when a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth. Jean seizes onto the bizarre story and sets out to discover if Gretchen is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys.
Custom House | 9780063094727

STATE OF TERROR by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny (Political Thriller)
What begins as a series of apparent terrorist attacks on the United States is revealed to be the beginning of an international chess game involving the volatile and Byzantine politics of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran; the race to develop nuclear weapons in the region; the Russian mob; a burgeoning rogue terrorist organization; and an American government set back on its heels in the international arena. As the horrifying scale of the threat becomes clear, Secretary of State Ellen Adams and her team realize it has been carefully planned to take advantage of four years of an American government out of touch with international affairs, out of practice with diplomacy, and out of power in the places where it counts the most.
Simon & Schuster/St. Martin's Press | 9781982173678

TALES FROM THE CAFÉ by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Fiction/Magical Realism)
In a back alley in Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than a hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee --- the chance to travel back in time. With faces both familiar and new, TALES FROM THE CAFÉ follows the story of four patrons who visit to take advantage of café Funiculi Funicula's time-traveling offer and revisit moments with family, friends and lovers. Each one must face up to the past to move on with their lives.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335630988

WHEN TWO FEATHERS FELL FROM THE SKY by Margaret Verble (Historical Fiction)
Two Feathers, a young Cherokee horse-diver on loan to Glendale Park Zoo from a Wild West show, is determined to find her own way in the world. Two’s closest friend at Glendale is Hank Crawford, who loves horses almost as much as she does. He is part of a high-achieving, land-owning Black family. Neither Two nor Hank fit easily into the highly segregated society of 1920s Nashville. When disaster strikes during one of Two’s shows, strange things start to happen at the park. Vestiges of the ancient past begin to surface, apparitions appear, and then the hippo falls mysteriously ill. At the same time, Two dodges her unsettling, lurking admirer and bonds with Clive, Glendale’s zookeeper and a World War I veteran, who is haunted --- literally --- by horrific memories of war.
Mariner Books | 9780358554837

On Sale the Week of October 11th in Paperback

October 11th

CHARLOTTE'S STORY by Carolyn Korsmeyer (Historical Romance)
Paperback Original
Charlotte Lucas has made an unfortunate marriage to the loquacious William Collins, reckoning that his tedious conversation is a small price to pay for the prosperous home and family she hopes to gain. However, trouble brews within the first months of marriage, and she is upset and angered by his presumptuous tendency to interfere with her friendships. To ease the strain of their relationship, Charlotte leaves her husband to visit the fashionable city of Bath with several women companions. Although the marital frost between Charlotte and William begins to thaw, that tranquility lasts only briefly, for events in Bath have resulted in an unfortunate, even calamitous, consequence. Charlotte devises a solution to the advantage of all that combines bold connivance and compassionate duplicity.
‎TouchPoint Press | 9781952816581

October 12th

AND THE BRIDGE IS LOVE by David Biro (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Every week for 20 years, three friends meet in a leafy enclosure under the Verrazzano Bridge: Gertie, a feisty Norwegian divorcée and former athlete; Maria, a family-obsessed Italian American widow; and Corinna, a book-loving, hash-smoking eccentric. Together they sit and watch the sea as the ships --- and the last years of their lives --- sail by. On the eve of Gertie’s 80th birthday, they realize that time is running out. Gertie decides she wants to travel the world. Maria secretly plots to reunite Gertie and Corinna with their estranged families. And Corinna falls in love. As the three women strike out in different directions, a series of events unfolds that threatens to destroy the most precious thing of all: their friendship.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781542027229

DARK HORSES by Susan Mihalic (Fiction)
Fifteen-year-old equestrian prodigy Roan Montgomery has only ever known two worlds: inside the riding arena, and outside of it. Both, for as long as she can remember, have been ruled by her father, who demands strict obedience in all areas of her life. The warped power dynamic of coach and rider extends far beyond the stables, and Roan's relationship with her father has long been inappropriate. She has been able to compartmentalize that dark aspect of her life, ruthlessly focusing on her ambitions as a rider heading for the Olympics, just as her father had done. However, her developing relationship with Will Howard, a boy her own age, broadens the scope of her vision.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781982133856

DEATH AT GREENWAY by Lori Rader-Day (Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
Bridey Kelly has come to Greenway House, the beloved holiday home of Agatha Christie, in disgrace. A terrible mistake at St. Prisca’s Hospital in London has led to her dismissal as a nurse trainee, and her only chance for redemption is a position in the countryside caring for children evacuated to safety from the Blitz. Greenway is a beautiful home full of riddles, but the biggest mystery might be the other nurse, Gigi, who is like no one Bridey has ever met. When a body washes ashore near the estate, Bridey is horrified to realize this is a victim not of war, but of a brutal killing. As the local villagers look among themselves, Bridey and Gigi discover they each harbor dangerous secrets about what has led them to Greenway.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062938046

FAYE, FARAWAY by Helen Fisher (Fiction/Magical Realism)
Every night, as Faye puts her daughters to bed, she thinks of her own mother, Jeanie, who died when she was eight. The pain of that loss has never left her, and that’s why she wants her own girls to know how very much they are loved by her --- and always will be, whatever happens. Then one day, Faye gets her heart’s desire when she is whisked back into the past and is reunited not just with her mother but with her own younger self. Jeanie doesn’t recognize grown-up Faye as her daughter, but the two women become close friends and share all kinds of secrets --- except for the deepest secret of all, the secret of who Faye really is. Faye worries that telling the truth may prevent her from being able to return to the present day, to her dear husband and beloved daughters.
Gallery Books | 9781982142681

HOW THE ONE-ARMED SISTER SWEEPS HER HOUSE by Cherie Jones (Fiction)
In Baxter’s Beach, Barbados, Lala’s grandmother Wilma tells the story of the one-armed sister. It’s a cautionary tale, about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers and go into the Baxter’s Tunnels. When she’s grown, Lala lives on the beach with her husband, Adan, a petty criminal with endless charisma whose thwarted burglary of one of the beach mansions sets off a chain of events with terrible consequences. A gunshot no one was meant to witness. A new mother whose baby is found lifeless on the beach. A woman torn between two worlds and incapacitated by grief. And two men driven into the Tunnels by desperation and greed who attempt a crime that will risk their freedom --- and their lives.
Back Bay Books | 9780316536998

LOVED AND WANTED: A Memoir of Choice, Children, and Womanhood by Christa Parravani (Memoir)
Christa Parravani was 40 years old, in a troubled marriage and in bad financial straits when she learned she was pregnant with her third child. Six weeks into the pregnancy, she requested an abortion. And in the weeks and months that followed, nurses and doctors became unavailable to provide Christa with reproductive choice. By the time she understood that she would need to leave West Virginia to obtain a safe, legal abortion, Christa had run out of time. So she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Keats. And another frightening education began: available healthcare was dangerously inadequate to her newborn son’s needs. Indeed, environmental degradations and poor health care endangered Christa’s older children as well.
Picador | 9781250813862

THE MOTHER NEXT DOOR by Tara Laskowski (Domestic Thriller)
Paperback Original
The annual Halloween block party is the pinnacle of the year on idyllic suburban cul-de-sac Ivy Woods Drive. An influential group of neighborhood moms, known as the Ivy Five, plans the event for months. Except the Ivy Five has been four for a long time. When a new mother moves to town, eager to fit in, the moms see it as an opportunity to make the group whole again. This year’s block party should be the best yet...until the women start receiving anonymous messages threatening to expose the quiet neighborhood’s dark past --- and the lengths they’ve gone to hide it. As secrets seep out and the threats intensify, the Ivy Five must sort the loyal from the disloyal, the good from the bad.
Graydon House | 9781525804700

NO WORDS by Meg Cabot (Romance)
Paperback Original
Jo Wright always swore she’d never step foot on Little Bridge Island --- not as long as her nemesis, bestselling author Will Price, is living there. Then Jo is given an offer she can’t refuse: an all-expense paid trip to speak and sign at the island’s first-ever book festival. Even though arrogant Will is the last person Jo wants to see, she could really use the festival’s more-than-generous speaking fee. Will is not only at the festival, he seems genuinely sorry for his past actions --- and more than willing not only to make amends, but to prove to Jo that he’s a changed man. Things seem to be looking up until disaster strikes, causing Jo to wonder: Do any of us ever really know anyone?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062890092

SILENT BITE: An Andy Carpenter Mystery by David Rosenfelt (Mystery)
Lawyer Andy Carpenter can finally take a breath; he’s almost back on dry land after a family Caribbean cruise forced on him by his wife, Laurie, to get into the Christmas spirit. Andy can’t wait to get back to the Tara Foundation, the dog rescue organization that’s always been his true passion. But before the boat even docks, Andy gets several calls from his partner, Willie Miller. He needs to see Andy as soon as the Carpenters are back on solid ground. When Andy arrives home, he finds that all is not calm or bright, and Willie needs his help. Willie’s old cellmate, Tony Birch, has been arrested for murder. Andy doesn’t necessarily believe in Tony, but Willie does. And Andy believes in Willie, which is why Andy decides to take the case.
Minotaur Books | 9781250801210

WE RUN THE TIDES by Vendela Vida (Fiction)
Teenage Eulabee and her magnetic best friend, Maria Fabiola, own the streets of Sea Cliff, their foggy oceanside San Francisco neighborhood. They know Sea Cliff’s homes and beaches, its hidden corners and eccentric characters --- as well as the upscale all-girls’ school they attend. One day, walking to school with friends, they witness a horrible act. Or do they? Eulabee and Maria Fabiola vehemently disagree on what happened, and their rupture is followed by Maria Fabiola’s sudden disappearance --- a potential kidnapping that shakes the quiet community and threatens to expose unspoken truths.
Ecco | 9780062936240

THE ZEALOT AND THE EMANCIPATOR: John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, and the Struggle for American Freedom by H. W. Brands (History)
John Brown was a charismatic and deeply religious man who heard the God of the Old Testament speaking to him, telling him to destroy slavery by any means. When Congress opened Kansas territory to slavery in 1854, Brown raised a band of followers to wage war. His men tore pro-slavery settlers from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords. Brown’s violence pointed ambitious Illinois lawyer and former officeholder Abraham Lincoln toward a different solution to slavery: politics. Lincoln spoke cautiously and dreamed big, plotting his path back to Washington and perhaps to the White House. Yet his caution could not protect him from the vortex of violence Brown had set in motion.
Anchor | 9780525563457

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