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Please note: There will be no "On Sale This Week" newsletter on December 28th as we pause to celebrate the holidays, thus we are covering releases from now through the week of January 3rd in this edition. Our next newsletter will be sent on January 4th. Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, and a very, very Happy New Year!
In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of December 20th, December 27th and January 3rd 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 Reviewer Picks for 2021, where our reviewers reveal their favorite books of the year, and various "Best Of" lists that we've compiled from around the web. Let us know how many print books and e-books you've read, and how many audiobooks you've listened to, in 2021 in our latest poll.
And please keep in mind our very special End-of-the-Year Contest featuring Carol Fitzgerald’s Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2021. One Grand Prize winner will be awarded all 44 books, while 11 other winners will receive a selection of four of these titles. The deadline for your entries is Friday, January 7th at noon ET.
Instead of just talking about her Bets On books, Carol decided to do something different this year for our year-end video and podcast. Austin Ruh, our fabulous producer, joined Carol on camera and acted as a talk show host, teeing up selections as she talked about why they resonated with her. They had fun shooting this, and even if her memory is not perfect with every little detail about every title, she thinks you will enjoy this wrap-up to Bets On for 2021. Click here to watch the video and here to listen to the podcast. It is worth noting that Carol interviewed the authors of 38 of her 44 Bets On picks!
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, December 22nd at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": The "Friends and Fiction" authors --- Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey and Patti Callahan Henry --- will talk to María Amparo Escandón, whose latest novel is L.A. WEATHER, a Reese's Book Club pick.
Wednesday, December 29th at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": The "Friends and Fiction" authors will talk to Sarah MacLean, whose latest novel, BOMBSHELL, is the opening installment of her Hell's Belles series.
Thursday, December 30th at 9pm ET: Warwick's: Warwick's will host Darby Kane as she discusses her new book, THE REPLACEMENT WIFE, a thrilling domestic suspense novel that asks: How many wives and girlfriends need to disappear before your family notices?
Tuesday, January 4th at 7pm ET: Books Are Magic: Jean Chen Ho will be in conversation with Cathy Park Hong about her debut novel, FIONA AND JANE, which traces the lives of two young Taiwanese American women as they navigate friendship, sexuality, identity and heartbreak over two decades.
This Week's Bonus News: Reviewer Picks for 2021,
"Best Of" Lists from Around the Web,
and Our Year-End Poll
Bookreporter.com Reviewers' Favorite Books of 2021
Recently we asked our reviewers to provide us with a list of some of their favorite books from 2021. Included is a mix of fiction and nonfiction titles, all published this year. Take a moment to read these varied lists of titles and see if you agree with any of their selections! Please note that due to personal and professional commitments, some reviewers were not able to participate in this feature.
As part of Bookreporter's 25th anniversary celebration, we brought together 10 of our longtime reviewers --- Sarah Rachel Egelman, Megan Elliott, Pauline Finch, Harvey Freedenberg, Bronwyn Miller, Rebecca Munro, Eileen Zimmerman Nicol, Ray Palen, Norah Piehl and Stuart Shiffman --- each of whom talked about his or her three favorite books of 2021. Click here to watch the presentation and here to listen to the podcast. See a list of the titles they presented here, and click here for a blog post about the event where we include picks from Jana Siciliano, who was to be our 11th reviewer guest but was unable to join us.
2021 “Best Of” Lists from Around the Web
This is the time of year when “Best Of” lists are everywhere. These annual roundups always seem to spark lively discussions among readers as they reflect on their favorite books of the year. Although we at Bookreporter.com don’t have a “Best Of” list of our own, we’ve compiled a number of them for you here. See which of your top picks appear on these lists and which titles you feel should've been included but weren't. Perhaps you’ll even find some books to add to your reading list as we head into the new year!
Bookreporter.com's Year-End Poll
How many print books and e-books did you read in 2021? How many audiobooks did you listen to? Click here to cast your votes!
On Sale the Week of December 20th in Hardcover
December 21st
OBSERVATIONS BY GASLIGHT: Stories from the World of Sherlock Holmes by Lyndsay Faye (Mystery/Short Stories)
OBSERVATIONS BY GASLIGHT is a thrilling volume of both new and previously published short stories and novellas narrated by those who knew the Great Detective, Sherlock Holmes. Beloved adventuress Irene Adler teams up with her former adversary in a near-deadly inquiry into a room full of eerily stopped grandfather clocks. Learn of the case that cemented the lasting friendship between Holmes and Inspector Lestrade, and of the tragic crime that haunted the Yarder into joining the police force. And witness Stanley Hopkins’ first meeting with the remote logician he idolizes, who one day will become his devoted mentor.
Mysterious Press | 9781613162613
On Sale the Week of December 20th in Paperback
December 21st
SLEEP WELL, MY LADY: An Emma Djan Investigation by Kwei Quartey (Mystery)
Hard-hitting talk show host Augustus Seeza has become a household name in Ghana, though notorious for his lavish overspending, alcoholism and womanizing. He’s dating the imposing, beautiful Lady Araba, who leads a self-made fashion empire. Fearing Augustus is only after her money, Araba’s religious family intervenes to break them up. A few days later, Araba is found murdered in her bed. Her driver is arrested after a hasty investigation, but Araba’s favorite aunt, Dele, suspects Augustus Seeza was the real killer. Almost a year later, Dele approaches Emma Djan, the only female PI at her agency. To solve Lady Araba’s murder, Emma must not only go on an undercover mission that dredges up trauma from her past, but navigate a long list of suspects with strong motives.
Soho Crime | 9781641293105
On Sale the Week of December 27th in Hardcover
December 28th
CRIMINAL MISCHIEF: A Stone Barrington Novel by Stuart Woods (Thriller/Adventure)
After a dangerous adventure has him traveling up and down the coast, Stone Barrington is looking forward to some down time at his Manhattan abode. But when an acquaintance alerts him to a hinky plot being hatched across the city, he finds himself eager to pursue justice. After the mastermind behind it all proves more evasive than anyone was expecting, Stone sets out on an international chase to places he's never gone before. With the help of old friends --- and alluring new ones --- Stone is determined to see the pursuit through to the end, even if it means going up against a foe more unpredictable than he has ever faced.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593331729
CURSE OF SALEM: A Bishop/Special Crimes Unit Novel by Kay Hooper (Supernatural Thriller)
The small town of Salem has been quiet for months --- or so Bishop and his elite Special Crimes Unit believe. But then Hollis Templeton and Diana Hayes receive a warning in Diana's eerie "gray time" between the world of the living and the realm of the dead that a twisted killer is stalking Salem, bent on destroying in the most bloody and horrifying way possible the five families that founded the town. The stakes are high, especially for new friends Nellie Cavendish and Finn Deverell, both members of the Five. This time Bishop and his wife, Miranda, will lead the team to hunt down a vicious killer and uncover a dark and ancient curse haunting Salem.
Berkley | 9781984802927
A MAN OF HONOR by Barbara Taylor Bradford (Historical Fiction)
Opening five years before the start of A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE, A MAN OF HONOR begins with 13-year-old Blackie O’Neill facing an uncertain future in rural County Kerry. Orphaned and alone, he has just buried his sister, Bronagh, and must leave his home to set sail for England, in search of a better life with his mother’s brother in Leeds. There, he learns his trade as a navvy, amid the grand buildings and engineering triumphs of one of England’s most prosperous cities, and starts to dream of greater things. And then, high on the Yorkshire moors, in the mists of a winter morning he meets a kitchen maid called Emma Harte. In A MAN OF HONOR, the true Blackie O'Neill is revealed.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250187451
TWENTY YEARS LATER by Charlie Donlea (Mystery/Thriller)
Avery Mason, host of "American Events," knows the subjects that grab a TV audience’s attention. Her latest story --- a murder mystery laced with kinky sex, tragedy and betrayal --- is guaranteed to be ratings gold. New DNA technology has allowed the New York medical examiner’s office to make its first successful identification of a 9/11 victim in years. The twist: the victim, Victoria Ford, had been accused of the gruesome murder of her married lover. In a chilling last phone call to her sister, Victoria begged her to prove her innocence. Emma Kind has waited 20 years to put her sister to rest, but closure won’t be complete until she can clear Victoria’s name. Alone she’s had no luck, but she’s convinced that Avery’s connections and fame will help. But the twisted puzzle of Victoria’s private life is just the beginning.
Kensington | 9781496727169
On Sale the Week of December 27th in Paperback
December 28th
THE AFFAIR by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
When Rose McCarthy’s staff at Mode magazine pitches a cover shoot with Hollywood’s hottest young actress, the actress’s sizzling affair with a bestselling French author is exposed. The author happens to be Rose’s son-in-law, which creates a painful dilemma for her. Her daughter Nadia, a talented interior designer, has been struggling to hold her marriage together, and conceal the truth from their young daughters, her family and the world. But Nicolas, her straying husband, is blinded by passion for a younger woman, who is pregnant with his child. Nadia’s three sisters fly to Paris to lend support and offer their widely divergent advice. In the end, though, Nadia needs to figure out what she herself thinks and what to do next.
Dell | 9781984821423
AND NOW SHE’S GONE by Rachel Howzell Hall (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Isabel Lincoln is gone. But is she missing? It’s up to Grayson Sykes to find her. Although she is reluctant to track down a woman who may not want to be found, Gray’s search for Isabel Lincoln becomes more complicated and dangerous with every new revelation about the woman’s secrets and the truth she’s hidden from her friends and family. Featuring two complicated women in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game, Rachel Howzell Hall's AND NOW SHE'S GONE explores the nature of secrets --- and how violence and fear can lead you to abandon everything in order to survive.
Forge Books | 9781250833518
DON’T LOOK FOR ME by Wendy Walker (Psychological Thriller)
They called it a “walk away.” The car abandoned miles from home. The note found at a nearby hotel. The shattered family. It happens all the time. Women disappear, desperate to start over. But what really happened to Molly Clarke? The night Molly disappeared began with a storm, running out of gas, and a man offering her a ride to safety. But when the doors lock shut, Molly begins to suspect she has made a terrible mistake. A new lead brings Molly’s daughter, Nicole, back to the small, desolate town where her mother was last seen to renew the desperate search. The locals are sympathetic and eager to help. The innkeeper. The bartender. Even the police. Until secrets begin to reveal themselves and Nicole comes closer to the truth about that night --- and the danger surrounding her.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250198716
FAST ICE: A Novel from the NUMA Files by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown (Thriller/Adventure)
In the early days of World War II, the infamous German Luftwaffe embarks upon an expedition to Antarctica, hoping to set up a military base to support their goal of world domination. Though the military outpost never comes to fruition, what the Nazis find on the icy continent indeed proves dangerous...and will have implications far into the future. In the present day, Kurt Austin and his assistant, Joe Zavala, embark for the freezing edge of the world after a former NUMA colleague disappears in Antarctica. While there, they discover a photo of the Luftwaffe expedition of 1939, and are drawn into a decades-old conspiracy. Even as they confront perilous waters and frigid temperatures, they also are up against a terrifying man-made weapon --- a fast-growing ice that could usher in a new Ice Age.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593419465
FORGOTTEN IN DEATH by J. D. Robb (Mystery/Thriller)
The body was left in a dumpster, the victim a woman known for offering paper flowers in return for spare change --- and for keeping the cops informed of any infractions she witnessed on the street. But the notebook where she scribbled her intel on litterers and other such offenders is nowhere to be found. Then Eve Dallas is summoned away to a nearby building site to view more remains unearthed by recent construction work. She isn’t happy when she realizes that the scene of the crime belongs to her husband, Roarke. Now Eve must enter a complex world of real estate development, family history, shady deals and shocking secrets to find justice for two women whose lives were thrown away.
St. Martin’s Paperbacks | 9781250774149
HAIRPIN BRIDGE by Taylor Adams (Psychological Thriller)
Three months ago, Lena Nguyen’s estranged twin sister, Cambry, drove to a remote bridge and jumped 200 feet to her death. That is the official police version, but Lena isn’t buying it. Now she’s come to that very bridge, driving her dead twin’s car and armed with a cassette recorder, determined to find out what really happened by interviewing the highway patrolman who allegedly discovered her sister’s body. But Corporal Raymond Raycevic’s story seems a bit off. Perhaps most troubling of all, he is referred to by name in Cambry’s final enigmatic text to her sister: Please Forgive Me. As her twin’s final hours come into focus, Lena’s search turns into a harrowing tooth-and-nail fight for her own survival --- one that will test everything she thought she knew about her sister and herself.
William Morrow | 9780063066984
THE HANGED MAN OF CONAKRY written by Jean-Christophe Rufin, translated by Alison Anderson (Mystery)
Paperback Original
Aurel Timescu’s French is tinged with a Romanian accent, he has the disheveled air of a character from between the wars, and a past as a performer in piano bars. Nobody can quite understand how he got to be Consul. Now, he’s taken a position in French Guinea. He passes his time perspiring, drinking gallons of Tokay and composing librettos. Until, that is, a vacationer is found hanging from the mast of a sailboat. How did he end up dead, on a mast, on Aurel Timescu’s watch? Had his personal life been hanging by a thread? Was he hanging around waiting for love to be reciprocated? Had he been hanging out with the wrong crowd? Had he hung his hat on the peg of some quixotic dream?
Europa Editions | 9781609457334
THE LAST STORY OF MINA LEE by Nancy Jooyoun Kim (Fiction)
The suspicious death of her mother, Mina, sends Margot Lee digging through the past, unraveling the tenuous invisible strings that held together her single mother's life as a Korean War orphan and an undocumented immigrant, only to realize how little she truly knew about her mother. Interwoven with Margot's present-day search is Mina's story of her first year in Los Angeles as she navigates the promises and perils of the American myth of reinvention. While she's barely earning a living by stocking shelves at a Korean grocery store, the last thing Mina ever expects is to fall in love. But that love story sets in motion a series of events that have consequences for years to come, leading up to the truth of what happened the night of her death.
Park Row | 9780778388036
ONE IN ME I NEVER LOVED written by Carla Guelfenbein, translated by Neil Davidson (Fiction)
Paperback Original
In present-day New York, Margarita grapples with insecurities on her 56th birthday. She feels neglected by her husband and suspects he’s having an affair with one of his students. Mysteries surrounding two friends offer both a distraction and unexpected insight: Anne, the concierge of her apartment building, has suddenly vanished without a trace, leaving Anne’s mother to confront a long-held secret. Juliana, now in her 80s, is eager to find the woman who changed the course of her life more than 60 years ago.
Other Press | 9781590518724
THE PARIS DETECTIVE by James Patterson and Richard DiLallo (Thriller)
Paperback Original
The most revered detective in Paris puts his skills to the test in three thrilling cases. Very handsome and charming French detective Luc Moncrief joined the NYPD for a fresh start, but in “French Kiss,” someone wants to make his first big case his last. In the heart of the holiday season, priceless paintings have vanished from a Park Avenue murder scene. Now, Moncrief must become a quick study in the art of the steal --- before a coldblooded killer paints the town red --- in “The Christmas Mystery.” And in “French Twist,” gorgeous women are dropping dead at upscale department stores in New York City. Moncrief and Detective Katherine Burke are close to solving the mystery, but looks can be deceiving.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538749968
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.
St. Martin’s Paperbacks | 9781250253231
THE REDEMPTION OF PHILIP THANE: The Penhallow Dynasty by Lisa Berne (Historical Romance)
Paperback Original
Philip Thane --- rogue, rake and scoundrel extraordinaire --- hadn’t wanted to visit some dumpy provincial town to give a speech, but he’d struck a devil’s bargain with old Henrietta Penhallow, the imperious family matriarch. Nor did he expect that once he got there, he’d somehow be living the same day over and over again. It’s strange! It’s terrible! On the other hand, it is giving him time to cozy up to the delectable and brainy Margaret Allen, in town to research the book she’s writing. Philip is sure she’ll fall starry-eyed into his arms, just as women always do. But to his amazement, Miss Allen stands firm against his wiles, day after day. How can she resist his seductive charm? Why won’t she change her mind? What must he do to win her heart?
Avon | 9780062852403
THE REPLACEMENT WIFE by Darby Kane (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Elisa Wright is convinced that her brother-in-law is a murderer. Josh has one dead wife and one missing fiancée, and he starts dating someone new. Elisa fears for that woman’s safety, and she desperately wants to know what happened to her friend, Josh’s missing fiancée. Searching for clues means investigating her own family. And she doesn’t like what she finds. But when Elisa becomes friends with Josh’s new girlfriend and starts to question things she thinks are true, Elisa wonders if the memories of a horrible incident a year ago have finally pushed her over the edge and Josh is really innocent. With so much at stake, Elisa fights off panic attacks and a strange illness. Is it a breakdown or something more?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063117808
RUN FOR COVER by Michael Ledwidge (Mystery/Thriller)
Fresh from a lethal entanglement with some of the darkest players in the global intelligence services, Michael Gannon heads to the safest place he can think of: deep in the wilds of Utah on the ranch of one of his oldest and closest war buddies. But when his friend’s brother is found dead in the rocky foothills of Grand Teton, Gannon realizes there are some things more important than keeping your head down. Is his death just one in a string of grisly murders mysteriously occurring around national parks --- or a part of something even more sinister?
Mira | 9781335509970
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 | 9780593187845
THE SPANISH DAUGHTER by Lorena Hughes (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
As a child in Spain, Puri always knew her passion for chocolate was inherited from her father. But it’s not until his death that she learns of something else she’s inherited --- a cocoa estate in Vinces, Ecuador, a town nicknamed “París Chiquito.” Eager to claim her birthright and filled with hope for a new life after the devastation of World War I, she and her husband, Cristóbal, set out across the Atlantic Ocean. But it soon becomes clear that someone is angered by Puri’s claim to the estate. When a mercenary sent to murder her aboard the ship accidentally kills Cristóbal instead, Puri dons her husband’s clothes and assumes his identity, hoping to stay safe while she searches for the truth of her father’s legacy in Ecuador.
Kensington | 9781496736246
SUNFLOWER SISTERS by Martha Hall Kelly (Historical Fiction)
The 2016 bestseller LILAC GIRLS introduced readers to Caroline Ferriday. Now, in SUNFLOWER SISTERS, Martha Hall Kelly tells the story of Ferriday’s ancestor Georgeanna Woolsey, a Union nurse during the Civil War whose calling leads her to cross paths with Jemma, a young enslaved girl who is sold off and conscripted into the army, and Anne-May Wilson, a Southern plantation mistress whose husband enlists. Inspired by true accounts, the novel provides a vivid, detailed look at the Civil War experience --- from the barbaric and inhumane plantations, to a war-torn New York City, to the horrors of the battlefield. It’s a sweeping story of women caught in a country on the brink of collapse, in a society grappling with nationalism and unthinkable racial cruelty.
Ballantine Books | 9781524796426
THE THREE MOTHERS: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs (Biography)
Berdis Baldwin, Alberta King and Louise Little were all born at the beginning of the 20th century and forced to contend with the prejudices of Jim Crow as Black women. These three extraordinary women passed their knowledge to their children with the hope of helping them to survive in a society that would deny their humanity from the very beginning --- from Louise teaching her children about their activist roots, to Berdis encouraging James to express himself through writing, to Alberta basing all of her lessons in faith and social justice. They used their strength and motherhood to push their children toward greatness, all with a conviction that every human being deserves dignity and respect despite the rampant discrimination they faced.
Flatiron Books | 9781250756138
WINTER’S ORBIT by Everina Maxwell (Science Fiction/Space Opera)
Prince Kiem, a famously disappointing minor royal and the Emperor's least favorite grandchild, has been called upon to be useful for once. He's commanded to fulfill an obligation of marriage to the representative of the Empire's newest and most rebellious vassal planet. His future husband, Count Jainan, is a widower and murder suspect. Neither wants to be wed, but with a conspiracy unfolding around them and the fate of the empire at stake, they will have to navigate the thorns and barbs of court intrigue, the machinations of war and the long shadows of Jainan's past. And they'll have to do it together. So begins a legendary love story amid the stars.
Tor Books | 9781250758842
YELLOW WIFE by Sadeqa Johnson (Historical Fiction)
Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the estate’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world. She’d been promised freedom on her 18th birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil’s Half Acre, a jail in Richmond, Virginia, where the enslaved are broken, tortured and sold every day. To survive, Pheby will have to outwit her Jailer, and soon she faces the ultimate sacrifice.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982149116
On Sale the Week of January 3rd in Hardcover
January 4th
ANTHEM by Noah Hawley (Literary Thriller)
Something is happening to teenagers across America, spreading through memes only they can parse. At the Float Anxiety Abatement Center, in a suburb of Chicago, Simon Oliver is trying to recover from his sister’s tragic passing. He breaks out to join a woman named Louise and a man called The Prophet on a quest as urgent as it is enigmatic. Who lies at the end of the road? A man known as The Wizard, whose past encounter with Louise sparked her own collapse. Their quest becomes a rescue mission when they join up with a man whose sister is being held captive by the Wizard, impregnated and imprisoned in a tower.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538711514
BIBLIOLEPSY by Gina Apostol (Fiction)
It is the mid-’80s, two decades into the kleptocratic, brutal rule of Ferdinand Marcos. The Philippine economy is in deep recession, and civil unrest is growing by the day. But Primi Peregrino has her own priorities: tracking down books and pursuing romantic connections with their authors. For Primi, the nascent revolution means that writers are gathering more often, and with greater urgency, so that every poetry reading she attends presents a veritable “Justice League” of authors for her to choose among. As the Marcos dictatorship stands poised to topple, Primi remains true to her fantasy: that she, “a vagabond from history, a runaway from time,” can be saved by sex, love and books.
Soho Press | 9781641292511
BROWN GIRLS by Daphne Palasi Andreades (Fiction)
Welcome to Queens, where streets echo with languages from all over the globe, subways rumble above dollar stores, and trees bloom and topple over sidewalks. Within one of New York City’s most vibrant and eclectic boroughs, young women of color like Nadira, Gabby, Naz, Trish, Angelique and countless others attempt to reconcile their immigrant backgrounds with the American culture in which they come of age. Here, they become friends for life --- or so they vow. But as they age, their paths diverge and rifts form between them, as some choose to remain on familiar streets, while others find themselves ascending in the world, beckoned by existences foreign and seemingly at odds with their humble roots.
Random House | 9780593243428
CUTTHROAT DOGS: An Amos Walker Mystery by Loren D. Estleman (Hard-boiled Mystery)
CUTTHROAT DOGS is a new Amos Walker novel from Grand Master Loren D. Estleman. Nearly 20 years ago, college freshman April Goss was found dead in her bathtub, an apparent suicide, but suspicion soon fell on her boyfriend. Dan Corbeil was convicted of her murder and sent to prison. Case closed. Or is it?
Forge Books | 9781250258656
DANTE: A Life written by Alessandro Barbero, translated by Allan Cameron (Biography)
Dante Alighieri’s DIVINE COMEDY has defined how people imagine and depict heaven and hell for over seven centuries. However, outside of Italy, his other works are not well known, and less still is generally known about the context in which he wrote them. In DANTE, Alessandro Barbero brings the legendary author’s Italy to life, describing the political intrigue, battles, city and society that shaped his life and work. The son of a shylock who dreams of belonging to the world of writers and nobles, we follow Dante into the dark corridors of politics where ideals are shattered by rampant corruption, and then into exile as he travels Italy and discovers the extraordinary color and variety of the countryside, the metropolises and the knightly courts.
Pegasus Books | 9781643139135
FIONA AND JANE by Jean Chen Ho (Fiction/Short Stories)
Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, surviving unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carrying with them the scars of their families' tumultuous pasts. When Fiona moves to New York and cares for a sick friend through a breakup with an opportunistic boyfriend, Jane remains in California and grieves her estranged father's sudden death, in the process alienating an overzealous girlfriend. Strained by distance and unintended betrayals, the women float in and out of each other's lives, their friendship both a beacon of home and a reminder of all they've lost.
Viking | 9780593296042
HONOR by Thrity Umrigar (Fiction)
Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly. Long ago, she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena --- a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man --- Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment.
Algonquin Books | 9781616209957
INVISIBLE by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Antonia Adams is the product of a loveless marriage between a beautiful young model and an aristocrat. In her isolation, books are her refuge and movies her escape. Her love of the movies turns into a dream to become a screenwriter, and a summer job at a Hollywood studio. There, a famous British filmmaker notices her and wants to put her in a movie. She is suddenly thrust into the public eye --- and even more so when they fall in love. She will never let go of her true dream of becoming a filmmaker, though, and if she wants to make that leap, she will have to expose herself in ways she never has before. When tragedy strikes, she must decide whether she will remain center stage or become invisible again, where she feels safest.
Delacorte Press | 9781984821584
THE LAST DANCE OF THE DEBUTANTE by Julia Kelly (Historical Fiction)
When it’s announced that 1958 will be the last year debutantes are to be presented at court, thousands of eager mothers and hopeful daughters flood the palace with letters seeking the year’s most coveted invitation: a chance for their daughters to curtsey to the young Queen Elizabeth and officially come out into society. In an effort to appease her traditional mother, aspiring university student Lily Nichols agrees to become a debutante and do the Season, a glittering and grueling string of countless balls and cocktail parties. But the glorious effervescence of the Season evaporates once Lily learns a devastating secret that threatens to destroy her entire family.
Gallery Books | 9781982171636
THE LATINIST by Mark Prins (Psychological Thriller)
Tessa Templeton has thrived at Oxford University under the tutelage and praise of esteemed classics professor Christopher Eccles. Yet shortly before her thesis defense, Tessa learns that Chris has sabotaged her career --- and realizes their relationship is not at all what she believed. Driven by what he mistakes as love for Tessa, Chris has ensured that no other institution will offer her a position, keeping her at Oxford with him. His tactics grow more invasive as he determines to prove he has her best interests at heart. Meanwhile, Tessa scrambles to undo the damage --- and in the process makes a startling discovery about an obscure second-century Latin poet who could launch her into academic stardom, finally freeing her from Chris’ influence.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393541274
THE MAID by Nita Prose (Mystery)
Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by. Since Gran died a few months ago, 25-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter --- she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. But her orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle.
Ballantine Books | 9780593356159
A NARROW DOOR by Joanne Harris (Psychological Thriller)
It's an incendiary moment for St Oswald's school. For the first time in its history, a headmistress is in power, the gates opening to girls. Rebecca Buckfast has spilled blood to reach this position. Barely 40, she is just starting to reap the harvest of her ambition. As the new regime takes on the old guard, the ground shifts. And with it, the remains of a body are discovered. But Rebecca is here to make her mark. She'll bury the past so deep it will evade even her own memory, just like she has done before. After all, you can't keep a good woman down.
Pegasus Crime | 9781643139050
NO LAND TO LIGHT ON by Yara Zgheib (Fiction)
Hadi and Sama are a young Syrian couple flying high on a whirlwind love. She had come to Boston years before chasing dreams of a bigger life; he’d landed there as a sponsored refugee from a bloody civil war. When Sama is five months pregnant, Hadi’s father dies suddenly in Jordan, the night before his visa appointment at the embassy. Hadi flies back for the funeral, promising his wife that he’ll only be gone for a few days. On the day his flight is due to arrive in Boston, Sama is waiting for him at the airport, unaware that he has been stopped at the border and detained for questioning, trapped in a timeless, nightmarish limbo. Hadi and Sama yearn for a way back to each other, and to the life they’d dreamed up together. But does that life exist anymore, or was it only an illusion?
Atria Books | 9781982187422
OLGA DIES DREAMING by Xochitl Gonzalez (Fiction)
It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo, are boldfaced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn, while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan’s power brokers. Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the one percent, but she can’t seem to find her own...until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets. Olga and Prieto’s mother, Blanca, a Young Lord turned radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives.
Flatiron Books | 9781250786173
RECKLESS GIRLS by Rachel Hawkins (Gothic Thriller)
Beautiful, wild and strange, Meroe Island is a desolate spot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a mysterious history of shipwrecks, cannibalism and even rumors of murder. Six stunning twentysomethings are about to embark on a blissful, free-spirited journey --- one filled with sun-drenched days and intoxicating nights. But as it becomes clear that the group is even more cut off from civilization than they initially thought, it starts to feel like the island itself is closing in, sending them on a dangerous spiral of discovery. When one person goes missing and another turns up dead, the remaining friends wonder what dark currents lie beneath this impenetrable paradise --- and who else will be swept under its secluded chaos.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250274250
THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS by Jessamine Chan (Fiction)
Frida Liu doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough. Until Frida has a very bad day. The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982156121
SEASONAL WORK: Stories by Laura Lippman (Mystery/Short Stories)
In the never-before-published “Just One More,” a married couple --- longing for that old romantic spark --- creates a playful diversion that comes with unexpected consequences. Laura Lippman's beloved Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan keeps a watchful eye on a criminally resourceful single father in “Seasonal Work,” while her mother, Judith, realizes that the life of “The Everyday Housewife” is an excellent cover for all kinds of secrets. In “Slow Burner,” a husband’s secret cell phone proves to be a dicey temptation for a suspicious wife. A father’s hidden past piques the curiosity of a young snoop in “The Last of Sheila-Locke Holmes.” SEASONAL WORK includes seven other brilliantly crafted stories of deception, murder, dangerous games and love gone wrong.
William Morrow | 9780063000032
THE STARLESS CROWN by James Rollins (Fantasy/Adventure)
A gifted student foretells an apocalypse. Her reward is a sentence of death. Fleeing into the unknown, she is drawn into a team of outcasts: A broken soldier, who once again takes up the weapons he’s forbidden to wield and carves a trail back home. A drunken prince, who steps out from his beloved brother's shadow and claims a purpose of his own. An imprisoned thief, who escapes the crushing dark and discovers a gleaming artifact --- one that will ignite a power struggle across the globe. On the run, hunted by enemies old and new, they must learn to trust each other in order to survive in a world evolved in strange, beautiful and deadly ways, and uncover ancient secrets that hold the key to their salvation. But with each passing moment, doom draws closer.
Tor Books | 9781250816771
TREACHERY TIMES TWO: A Koa Kane Hawaiian Mystery by Robert McCaw (Mystery)
On Hawaii Island, a volcanic earthquake disrupts an abandoned cemetery --- unearthing the body of a woman mutilated by her killer to conceal her identity. The search for her identity leads Hilo Hawaii’s Chief Detective Koa Kane to a mysterious defense contractor with a politically connected board of directors. Defying his chief of police, Koa pursues the killer, only to become entangled in an FBI espionage investigation of Deimos, a powerful secret military weapon. Is the FBI telling all it knows --- or does it, too, have a duplicitous agenda? At the same time, Koa --- a cop who 30 years earlier killed his father’s nemesis and covered up the murder --- faces exposure by the dead man’s grandson.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608094646
VELORIO by Xavier Navarro Aquino (Fiction)
Camila is haunted by the death of her sister, Marisol, who was caught by a mudslide during the huracán. Unable to part with Marisol, Camila carries her through town, past the churchyard and, eventually, to the supposed utopia of Memoria. Urayoán, the idealistic yet troubled cult leader of Memoria, has a vision for this new society, one that in his eyes is peaceful and democratic. The paradise he preaches lures in the young, including Bayfish, a boy on the cusp of manhood, and Morivivi, a woman whose outward toughness belies an inner tenderness for her friends. But as the different members of Memoria navigate Urayoán’s fiery rise, they will need to confront his violent authoritarian impulses in order to find a way to reclaim their home.
HarperVia | 9780063071377
WHEN YOU ARE MINE by Michael Robotham (Psychological Thriller)
When police officer Philomena McCarthy responds to a domestic violence call, she finds the victim, Tempe Brown, trying to protect her abuser, Darren Goodall, a decorated Scotland Yard detective. As Philomena pursues the case against him, she not only encounters resistance from her police force colleagues but also becomes dangerously entangled with the victim --- who is not at all whom she appears to be --- much to the increasing endangerment of herself and her fiancée. Complicating matters is Philomena’s estranged father, Edward McCarthy, a powerful man who has built a criminal empire along with his brothers. As she falls under suspicion of stalking and harassing Goodall, her father becomes involved.
Scribner | 9781982166458
WHERE THE DROWNED GIRLS GO by Seanan McGuire (Fantasy)
There is another school for children who fall through doors and fall back out again. It isn't as friendly as Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. And it isn't as safe. When Eleanor West decided to open her school, her sanctuary, her "Home for Wayward Children," she knew from the beginning that there would be children she couldn’t save. When Cora decides she needs a different direction, a different fate, a different prophecy, Miss West reluctantly agrees to transfer her to the other school, where things are run very differently by Whitethorn, the Headmaster. She will soon discover that not all doors are welcoming.
Tordotcom | 9781250213624
On Sale the Week of January 3rd in Paperback
January 4th
AFTERSHOCK: A Dr. Jessie Teska Mystery 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 | 9781335425706
THE BURNING GIRLS by C. J. Tudor (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
A dark history lingers in Chapel Croft. Five hundred years ago, Protestant martyrs were betrayed --- then burned. Thirty years ago, two teenage girls disappeared without a trace. And a few weeks ago, the vicar of the local parish hanged himself in the nave of the church. Reverend Jack Brooks, a single parent with a 14-year-old daughter and a heavy conscience, arrives in the village hoping for a fresh start. Instead, Jack finds a town rife with conspiracies and secrets, and is greeted with a strange welcome package: an exorcism kit and a note that warns, “But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known.”
Ballantine Books | 9781984825049
THE COAST-TO-COAST MURDERS by James Patterson and J. D. Barker (Psychological Thriller)
Michael and Megan Fitzgerald’s parents are public intellectuals, an Ivy League clinical psychologist and a renowned psychiatrist, and they brought up their adopted children in a rarefied, experimental environment. It forced secrets upon them that they keep at all costs. In Los Angeles, Detective Garrett Dobbs and FBI Agent Jessica Gimble have joined forces to work a murder that seems like a dead cinch. Their chief suspect is quickly identified and apprehended. But then there's another killing just like the one they've been investigating. And another. And not just in Los Angeles. The Fitzgerald family comes to the investigators' attention, but Dobbs and Gimble are at a loss. If one of the four is involved, which Fitzgerald might it be?
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538753187
A CROOKED TREE by Una Mannion (Fiction)
It is the early 1980s, and 15-year-old Libby is obsessed with The Field Guide to the Trees of North America, a gift her Irish immigrant father gave her before he died. She finds solace in “The Kingdom,” a stand of red oak and thick mountain laurel near her home in suburban Pennsylvania, where she can escape from her large and unruly family and share menthol cigarettes and lukewarm beers with her best friend. One night, while driving home, Libby’s mother, exhausted and overwhelmed with the fighting in the backseat, pulls over and orders Libby’s little sister, Ellen, to walk home. What none of this family knows, as they drive off leaving a 12-year-old girl on the side of the road, is what will happen next.
Harper Perennial | 9780063049833
A DEADLY AFFAIR: Unexpected Love Stories from the Queen of Mystery by Agatha Christie (Mystery/Short Stories)
Paperback Original
Love can propel us to our greatest heights…and darkest depths. In this new collection of Agatha Christie short stories, witness the dark side of love --- crimes of passion, games of the heart and deadly affairs. This pulse-pounding compendium features beloved detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, master of charades Parker Pyne, the enigmatic Harley Quin, and the adventurous Tommy and Tuppence, all on the ready to solve a tantalizing mystery.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063142343
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, Josephine now 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 Paperbacks | 9780063012202
THE DROWNING KIND by Jennifer McMahon (Supernatural Thriller)
When Jax receives nine missed calls from Lexie, she assumes that it’s just another one of her sister’s episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmother’s estate. Jax learns that Lexie was researching the history of their family and the property --- and discovers that the land holds a far darker past than she ever could have imagined. In 1929, 37-year-old newlywed Ethel Monroe hopes desperately for a baby. Her husband whisks her away on a trip to Vermont, where a natural spring is showcased by the newest and most modern hotel in the Northeast. Once there, Ethel learns that the water is rumored to grant wishes, never suspecting that the spring takes in equal measure to what it gives.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781982153939
FINLAY DONOVAN IS KILLING IT by Elle Cosimano (Mystery/Humor)
Finlay Donovan is a stressed-out single mom of two and struggling novelist. The new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors. When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she is mistaken for a contract killer and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet. Soon, Finlay discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation.
Minotaur Books | 9781250830449
A LIE SOMEONE TOLD YOU ABOUT YOURSELF by Peter Ho Davies (Fiction)
A LIE SOMEONE TOLD YOU ABOUT YOURSELF traces the complex consequences of one of the most personal yet public, intimate yet political experiences a family can have: to have a child and, conversely, the decision not to have a child. A first pregnancy is interrupted by test results at once catastrophic and uncertain. A second pregnancy ends in a fraught birth, a beloved child, the purgatory of further tests --- and questions that reverberate down the years. When does sorrow turn to shame? When does love become labor? When does chance become choice? When does a diagnosis become destiny? And when does fact become fiction?
Mariner Books | 9780358572879
MARION LANE AND THE MIDNIGHT MURDER by T.A. Willberg (Historical Mystery)
A mysterious group of detectives recruited for Miss Brickett’s Investigations & Inquiries use their cunning and gadgets to solve crimes that have stumped Scotland Yard. Late one night in April 1958, a filing assistant for Miss Brickett’s receives a letter warning her that a heinous act is about to occur. She goes to investigate, but at the stroke of midnight, she is murdered by a killer she can’t see --- her death the only sign she wasn’t alone. Marion Lane, a first-year Inquirer-in-training, finds herself being drawn ever deeper into the investigation. When her colleague is framed for the crime, she must sort through the hidden alliances at Miss Brickett’s and secrets dating back to WWII to uncover the real killer.
Park Row | 9780778311911
MIRRORLAND by Carole Johnstone (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Cat lives in Los Angeles, far away from 36 Westeryk Road, the imposing gothic house in Edinburgh where she and her estranged twin sister, El, grew up. As girls, they invented Mirrorland, a dark, imaginary place under the pantry stairs full of pirates, witches and clowns. These days Cat rarely thinks about their childhood home, or the fact that El now lives there with her husband, Ross. But when El mysteriously disappears after going out on her sailboat, Cat is forced to return to 36 Westeryk Road, which has scarcely changed in 20 years. The grand old house is still full of shadowy corners, and at every turn Cat finds herself stumbling on long-held secrets and terrifying ghosts from the past.
Scribner | 9781982136369
THE NATURE OF FRAGILE THINGS by Susan Meissner (Historical Fiction)
Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant who answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a San Francisco widower named Martin Hocking, a man she knows nothing about. She quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right. Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. The fates of Sophie and two other women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake of 1906, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear.
Berkley | 9780451492197
OF WOMEN AND SALT by Gabriela Garcia (Fiction)
In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. She is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother, a Cuban immigrant named Carmen, and makes the snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE. Still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, Carmen must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise a wayward Jeanette. Steadfast in her quest for understanding, Jeanette travels to Cuba to see her grandmother and reckon with secrets from the past destined to erupt.
Flatiron Books | 9781250776709
THE OPIUM PRINCE by Jasmine Aimaq (Literary Thriller)
After years in Los Angeles, Daniel Sajadi is returning home to Kabul at the helm of a US foreign aid agency dedicated to eradicating the poppy fields that feed the world’s opiate addiction. But on the drive out of Kabul for an anniversary trip with his wife, Daniel accidentally hits and kills a young Kochi girl named Telaya. He is let off with a nominal fine, in part because nomad tribes are ignored in the eyes of the law, but also because a mysterious witness named Taj Maleki intercedes on his behalf. Wracked with guilt and visions of Telaya, Daniel begins to unravel, running from his crumbling marriage and escalating threats from Taj, who turns out to be a powerful opium khan willing to go to extremes to save his poppies.
Soho Crime | 9781641293112
THE PUSH by Ashley Audrain (Psychological Thriller)
Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby, Violet, that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter --- she doesn’t behave like most children do. Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well. Then their son, Sam, is born --- and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fallout forces Blythe to face the truth.
Penguin Books | 9781984881687
A REGISTRY OF MY PASSAGE UPON THE EARTH: Stories by Daniel Mason (Fiction/Short Stories)
On a fateful flight, a balloonist makes a discovery that changes her life forever. A telegraph operator finds an unexpected companion in the middle of the Amazon. A doctor is beset by seizures, in which he is possessed by a second, perhaps better, version of himself. And in Regency London, a bare-knuckle fighter prepares to face his most fearsome opponent, while a young mother seeks a miraculous cure for her ailing son. From the Nile's depths to the highest reaches of the atmosphere, from volcano-racked islands to an asylum on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, these are tales of ecstasy, epiphany, and what the New York Times Magazine called the "struggle for survival…hand to hand, word to word."
Back Bay Books | 9780316477628
THE STILLS by Jess Montgomery (Historical Mystery)
Ohio, 1927: Moonshining is a way of life in rural Bronwyn County, and even the otherwise upstanding Sheriff Lily Ross has been known to turn a blind eye when it comes to stills in the area. But when 13-year-old Jebediah Ranklin almost dies after drinking tainted moonshine, Lily knows that someone has gone too far. With the help of organizer and moonshiner Marvena Whitcomb, she is determined to find out who. But then Lily’s nemesis, the businessman George Vogel, reappears in town with his new wife, Fiona. Along with them is her former brother-in-law, Luther Ross, now an agent for the newly formed Bureau of Prohibition. To Lily, it seems too much of a coincidence that they should arrive now.
Minotaur Books | 9781250830456
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 Paperbacks | 9780062967510
AN UNEXPECTED PERIL: A Veronica Speedwell Mystery by Deanna Raybourn (Historical Mystery)
As the newest member of the Curiosity Club --- an elite society of brilliant, intrepid women --- Veronica Speedwell is excited to put her many skills to good use. As she assembles a memorial exhibition for pioneering mountain climber Alice Baker-Greene, Veronica discovers evidence that the recent death was not a tragic climbing accident but murder. She and her natural historian beau, Stoker, tell the patron of the exhibit, Princess Gisela of Alpenwald, of their findings. With Europe on the verge of war, Gisela's chancellor, Count von Rechstein, does not want to make waves --- and before Veronica and Stoker can figure out their next move, the princess disappears.
Berkley | 9780593197288
THE UNFAMILIAR GARDEN by Benjamin Percy (Science Fiction/Dystopian Thriller)
Paperback Original
The night the sky fell, Jack and Nora Abernathy’s daughter vanished in the woods. And Mia’s disappearance broke her parents’ already fragile marriage. Unable to solve her own daughter’s case, Nora lost herself in her work as a homicide detective. Jack’s promising career as a biologist crumbled alongside the meteor strikes that altered weather patterns and caused a massive drought. It isn’t until five years later that the rains finally return to nourish Seattle. In this period of sudden growth, Jack uncovers evidence of a new parasitic fungus, while Nora investigates several brutal, ritualistic murders. Soon they will be drawn together by a horrifying connection between their discoveries.
Mariner Books | 9781328544889
THE VINEYARD AT PAINTED MOON by Susan Mallery (Fiction)
Mackenzie Dienes seems to have it all: a beautiful home, close friends and a successful career as an elite winemaker with the family winery. There’s just one problem --- it’s not her family, it’s her husband’s. So when she and her husband admit their marriage is over, her pain goes beyond heartbreak. She’s on the brink of losing everything. Her job, her home, her friends and, worst of all, her family. Staying is an option. She can continue to work at the winery, be friends with her mother-in-law, hug her nieces and nephews --- but as an employee, nothing more. Or she can surrender every piece of her heart in order to build a legacy of her own. If she can dare to let go of the life she thought she wanted, she might discover something even more beautiful waiting for her beneath a painted moon.
HQN | 9781335418784
WHILE PARIS SLEPT by Ruth Druart (Historical Fiction)
Santa Cruz, 1953. Jean-Luc is a man on the run from his past. The scar on his face is a small price to pay for surviving the horrors of Nazi occupation in France. Now, he has a new life in California, a family. He never expected the past to come knocking on his door. Paris, 1944. A young Jewish woman's past is torn apart in a heartbeat. Herded onto a train bound for Auschwitz, in an act of desperation she entrusts her most precious possession to a stranger. All she has left now is hope. On a darkened platform, two destinies become intertwined, and the choices each person makes will change the future in ways neither could have imagined.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538735190
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