February 8, 2022

February 8, 2022

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of February 7th and February 14th 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 February, 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.

Our latest "Bookreporter Talks To" interview is with Wendy Corsi Staub, whose new book, THE OTHER FAMILY, will be a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection. In this fast-paced novel, a family making a fresh start moves into a house that was the site of an unsolved triple homicide --- and they are being watched by an unknown person.

Wendy, who has written a number of series, talks to Carol about freeing herself with a stand-alone book this time around. She walks us through the difference between suspense, thrillers and mysteries --- and this alone is worth listening for. She also discusses a Victorian-era tradition that seems macabre to us today. And yes, she leaves clues about what she's working on next. Click here to watch the video and here to listen to the podcast.

This is your last newsletter reminder to sign up for this month's “Bookaccino Live” preview event, which will take place TOMORROW, Wednesday, February 9th at 2pm ET. Carol will present a number of titles releasing between February 8th and March 1st, along with a few from April, that she thinks will be of interest to you. Please keep in mind that attendees of the live event will be invited to answer a survey about the books from the presentation that they are most interested in reading. Those who do will be eligible to win a prize! Be sure to register here by 1pm ET on Wednesday, and we will send you a list of the featured titles before the event.

For those of you who are doing online shopping, if you use the store links below, Bookreporter.com gets a small affiliate fee on your purchases. We would appreciate your considering this!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound

Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events

As so many book and author events are happening online these days, we are highlighting a number of them that you may be interested in attending. Click on the links below for more info and to register.

Wednesday, February 9th at 2pm ET: "Bookaccino Live: A Lively Talk About Books": Carol Fitzgerald will present titles releasing between February 8th and March 1st, along with a few from April, that she would like to get on your radar.

Wednesday, February 9th at 6pm ET: Politics & Prose: Brendan Slocumb will be in conversation with author, podcaster, publisher, CEO and mother of four Zibby Owens about his debut novel, THE VIOLIN CONSPIRACY, which is this month's "Good Morning America" Book Club pick.

Wednesday, February 9th 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 Marie Benedict (HER HIDDEN GENIUS) and Fiona Davis (THE MAGNOLIA PALACE).

Wednesday, February 9th at 7pm ET: Harvard Book Store: Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes playwright, professor and novelist Julia May Jonas for a discussion of her debut novel, VLADIMIR. She will be joined in conversation by Joanna Rakoff, the bestselling author of MY SALINGER YEAR and A FORTUNATE AGE.

Wednesday, February 9th at 7pm ET: Milwaukee Public Library: Join the Milwaukee Public Library as they welcome bestselling author Nick Petrie, in conversation about the latest installment in his Peter Ash series, THE RUNAWAY.

Wednesday, February 9th at 7:30pm ET: Free Library of Philadelphia: Two award-winning writers present their new works of fiction: Lan Samanthan Chang, whose debut novel, THE FAMILY CHAO, is this month's Barnes & Noble Book Club pick; and Elizabeth McCracken, whose short story collection, THE SOUVENIR MUSEUM, is now available in paperback.

Thursday, February 10th at 7pm ET: Books & Books: Books & Books and Miami Book Fair present a virtual event with Lan Samantha Chang, who will be in conversation with Curtis Sittenfeld about her debut novel, THE FAMILY CHAO.

Thursday, February 10th at 7pm ET: Orinda Books: Nina de Gramont will be in conversation with GIRLS IN THE WALL author A. J. Gnuse about her latest novel, THE CHRISTIE AFFAIR, which is this month's Reese's Book Club pick.

Thursday, February 10th at 9pm ET: The Booksmith: Booksmith is thrilled to host a virtual event with 300 ARGUMENTS author Sarah Manguso to celebrate her debut novel, VERY COLD PEOPLE. She will be in conversation with Heidi Julavits (THE VANISHERS, THE FOLDED CLOCK).

Thursday, February 10th at 9pm ET: Elliott Bay Book Company: Novelist Kim Fay will read and discuss her new book, LOVE & SAFFRON: A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Love, with Meg Waite Clayton. Independent booksellers around the US have voted this book their #1 pick of new releases for February.

Tuesday, February 15th at 7pm ET: RJ Julia Booksellers: Join RJ Julia Booksellers for an evening all about Agatha and find out what really happened to Mrs. Christie. Nina de Gramont will be in conversation with Elizabeth McCracken about her new novel, THE CHRISTIE AFFAIR.

Tuesday, February 15th at 9pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child will discuss their new thriller, DIABLO MESA, which continues their wildly popular series featuring archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Agent Corrie Swanson.

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

On Sale the Week of February 7th in Hardcover

February 8th

ABANDONED IN DEATH by J. D. Robb (Mystery/Thriller)
The woman’s body was found in the early morning, on a bench in a New York City playground. The fatal wound was hidden beneath a ribbon around her neck. And the note: Bad Mommy, written in crayon as if by a child. Eve Dallas turns to the department’s top profiler, who confirms what seems obvious to Eve: They’re dealing with a killer whose childhood involved some sort of trauma --- a situation Eve is all too familiar with herself. Yet the clues suggest a perpetrator who’d be roughly 60 years old, and there are no records of old crimes with a similar MO. When Eve discovers that other young women --- who physically resemble the first victim --- have vanished, the clock starts ticking louder.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250278210

THE ARC by Tory Henwood Hoen (Romantic Comedy)
Ursula Byrne, VP of Strategic Audacity at a branding agency in Manhattan, is successful, witty, whip-smart and single. She’s tried all the dating apps, and she’s underwhelmed by her options. You’d think that by now someone would have come up with a way for users to be more tailored about who and what they want in a life partner. Enter The Arc: a highly secretive, super-sophisticated matchmaking service that uses a complex series of emotional, psychological and physiological assessments to architect partnerships that will go the distance. Ursula is paired with 42-year-old lawyer Rafael Banks. But as their relationship unfolds in unanticipated ways, the two begin to realize that true love is never a sure thing.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250276773

CHERISH FARRAH by Bethany C. Morrow (Psychological Thriller/Social Horror)
Farrah Turner is one of two Black girls in her country club community, and the only one with Black parents. Her best friend, Cherish Whitman, was adopted by a white, wealthy family. With Brianne and Jerry Whitman as parents, Cherish is given the kind of adoration and coddling that even upper-class Black parents can’t seem to afford --- and it creates a dissonance in her best friend that Farrah can exploit. When her own family is unexpectedly confronted with foreclosure, the calculating Farrah is determined to reassert the control she’s convinced she’s always had over her life by staying with Cherish. As troubled Farrah manipulates her way further into the Whitman family, the longer she stays, the more her own parents suggest that something is wrong in the Whitman house.
Dutton | 9780593185384

CITY OF THE DEAD: An Alex Delaware Novel by Jonathan Kellerman (Psychological Thriller)
Early one morning, Homicide Lt. Detective Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware find themselves in a neighborhood of pretty houses, pretty cars and pretty people. The scene they encounter is anything but. A naked young man lies dead in the street, the apparent victim of a collision with a moving van hurtling through suburbia in the darkness. But any thoughts of accidental death vanish when a blood trail leads to a nearby home. Inside, a young woman lies butchered. The identity of the male victim and his role in the horror remain elusive, but that of the woman creates additional questions. And adding to the shock, Alex has met her while working a convoluted child custody case.
Ballantine Books | 9780525618584

CLEAN AIR by Sarah Blake (Dystopian Mystery)
The climate apocalypse has come and gone, and in the end it wasn’t the temperature climbing or the waters rising. It was the trees. The world became overgrown, creating enough pollen to render the air unbreathable. In the decade since the event known as the Turning, humanity has rebuilt, and Izabel has gotten used to the airtight domes that now contain her life. She raises her young daughter, Cami, and attempts to make peace with her mother’s death. Then someone starts slashing through the domes at night, exposing people to the deadly pollen --- a serial killer. Almost simultaneously, Cami begins sleep-talking, having whole conversations about the murders that she doesn’t remember after she wakes.
Algonquin Books | 9781643751061

CLEOPATRA AND FRANKENSTEIN by Coco Mellors (Fiction)
Twenty-four-year-old British painter Cleo has escaped from England to New York and is still finding her place in the sleepless city when, a few months before her student visa ends, she meets Frank. Twenty years older and a self-made success, Frank's life is full of all the excesses Cleo's lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint and the opportunity to apply for a Green Card. But their impulsive marriage irreversibly changes both their lives, and the lives of those close to them, in ways they never could've predicted.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635576818

DARK HORSE: An Orphan X Novel by Gregg Hurwitz (Thriller)
Aragon Urrea is a kingpin of a major drug-dealing operation in South Texas. He's also the patron of the local area --- supplying employment in legitimate operations, providing help to the helpless, rough justice to the downtrodden and a future to a people normally with little hope. However, he is helpless when one of the most vicious cartels kidnaps his innocent 18-year-old daughter, spiriting her away into the armored complex that is their headquarters in Mexico. So he turns to Evan Smoak, the Nowhere Man. Not only must Evan figure out how to get into the impregnable fortress of a heavily armed, deeply paranoid cartel leader, he must decide if he should help a very bad man --- no matter how just the cause.
Minotaur Books | 9781250252302

ECHO by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Dark Fantasy/Horror)
Travel journalist and mountaineer Nick Grevers awakes from a coma to find that his climbing buddy, Augustin, is missing and presumed dead. Nick’s own injuries are as extensive as they are horrifying, and he claims amnesia --- but he remembers everything. He remembers how he and Augustin were mysteriously drawn to the Maudit, a remote and scarcely documented peak in the Swiss Alps. He remembers how the slopes of Maudit were eerily quiet, and how they got the ominous sense that they were not alone. But it isn’t just the memory of the accident that haunts Nick. Something has awakened inside of him, something that endangers the lives of everyone around him.
Tor Nightfire | 9781250759559

HOME/LAND: A Memoir of Departure and Return by Rebecca Mead (Memoir)
When New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead relocated to her birth city of London with her family in the summer of 2018, she was both fleeing the political situation in America and seeking to expose her son to a wider world. With a keen sense of what she’d given up as she left New York, her home of 30 years, she tried to knit herself into the fabric of a changed London. The move raised poignant questions about place: What does it mean to leave the place you have adopted as home and country? And what is the value and cost of uprooting yourself? In HOME/LAND, Mead artfully explores themes of identity, nationality and inheritance.
Knopf | 9780525658719

JANE THE YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER: Being a Jane Austen Mystery by Stephanie Barron (Historical Mystery)
Jane Austen is not feeling well. She attributes her poor condition to the stress of family burdens, which even the drafting of her latest manuscript cannot alleviate. Her apothecary recommends a trial of the curative waters at Cheltenham Spa, in Gloucestershire. Jane decides to use some of the profits earned from her last novel, EMMA, and treat herself to a period of rest and reflection at the spa, in the company of her sister, Cassandra. Cheltenham Spa hardly turns out to be the relaxing sojourn Jane and Cassandra envisaged, however. It is immediately obvious that other boarders at the guest house where the Misses Austen are staying have come to Cheltenham with stresses of their own --- some of them deadly.
Soho Crime | 9781641292474

L.A. BURNING by D. C. Taylor (Thriller)
When Cody Bonner is released from prison after six years, she returns to L.A. with a purpose: to learn the truth about her twin sister Julie, who washed up on a Malibu beach a year earlier. Her search leads her to the darker alleys behind the dazzle of the film business, and into the world of high-powered agents, high-priced call girls, and men with a taste for sexual violence. As she homes in on her mother’s powerful agent, Harry Groban, a man with ugly accusations of abuse in his past, Cody becomes more deeply enmeshed in the life she left behind as a teenager: her mother’s star power, her former classmates-turned-producers, glitzy parties, and a handsome former love who knows all the players. Is Groban at the center? Could there be others who had a hand in Julie’s murder?
Crooked Lane Books | 9781643857787

THE LADY'S MINE by Francine Rivers (Historical Romance)
When Kathryn Walsh arrives in tiny Calvada, a mining town nestled in the Sierra Nevadas, falling in love is the farthest thing from her mind. Banished from Boston by her wealthy stepfather, she has come to claim an inheritance from the uncle she never knew: a defunct newspaper office on a main street overflowing with brothels and saloons, and a seemingly worthless mine. Moved by the oppression of the local miners and their families, Kathryn decides to relaunch her uncle’s newspaper --- and then finds herself in the middle of a maelstrom, pitted against Calvada’s most powerful men. Matthias Beck, owner of a local saloon and hotel, has a special interest in the new lady in town.
Tyndale House Publishers | 9781496447579

LOVE & SAFFRON: A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Love by Kim Fay (Historical Fiction)
When 27-year-old Joan Bergstrom sends a fan letter --- as well as a gift of saffron --- to 59-year-old Imogen Fortier, a life-changing friendship begins. Joan lives in Los Angeles and is just starting out as a writer for the newspaper food pages. Imogen lives on Camano Island outside Seattle, writing a monthly column for a Pacific Northwest magazine. While she can hunt elk and dig for clams, she’s never tasted fresh garlic --- exotic fare in the Northwest of the ’60s. As the two women commune through their letters, they build a closeness that sustains them through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy and the unexpected in their own lives.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593419335

THE NINETIES: A Book by Chuck Klosterman (Social Science/Popular Culture)
It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. In the beginning, almost every name and address was listed in a phone book, and everyone answered their landlines because you didn’t know who it was. By the end, exposing someone’s address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their new cell phone if they didn’t know who it was. The ’90s brought about a revolution in the human condition we’re still groping to understand. Happily, Chuck Klosterman is more than up to the job.
Penguin Press | 9780735217959

NOBODY'S MAGIC by Destiny O. Birdsong (Fiction)
Suzette, Maple and Agnes --- three Black women with albinism --- call Shreveport, Louisiana home. At the bustling crossroads of the American South and Southwest, they find themselves at the crossroads of their own lives. Told in three parts, NOBODY’S MAGIC is a searing meditation on grief, female strength and self-discovery set against a backdrop of complicated social and racial histories. The book is a testament to the power of family --- the ones you're born in and the ones you choose. And in these three narratives, among the yearning and loss, each of these women may find a seed of hope for the future.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538721391

SHADOWS OF PECAN HOLLOW by Caroline Frost (Fiction)
It was 1970 when 13-year-old runaway Kit Walker was abducted by Manny Romero, a smooth-talking, low-level criminal, who first coddled her and then groomed her into his partner-in-crime. Before long, Kit and Manny were infamous for their string of gas station robberies throughout Texas, making a name for themselves as the Texaco Twosome. Twenty years after they meet, Kit has scraped together a life for herself and her daughter amongst the pecan trees and muddy creeks of the town of Pecan Hollow, far from Manny. But when he shows up at her doorstep a new man, fresh out of prison, Kit is forced to reckon with the shadows of her past, and her community is sent into a tailspin.
William Morrow | 9780063065345

STAN LEE'S THE DEVIL'S QUINTET: THE ARMAGEDDON CODE by Jay Bonansinga (Science Fiction/Thriller)
A five-person special ops unit, composed of a diverse assortment of former Navy SEALS from all walks of life, are responding to a terrorist threat deep in the Caucasus Mountains when their mission goes south in a big way. Facing certain death and torture, they’re unexpectedly offered a Faustian bargain by the Devil himself, who grants them unearthly powers in order to send evildoers to Hell on his fiendish behalf. But “The Devil’s Quintet” do things their own way, fighting to protect America and the world, while trying their best not to let their hellish new abilities corrupt them beyond redemption.
Tor Books | 9781250776815

STEAL by James Patterson and Howard Roughan (Thriller)
Imagine everyone’s surprise when Carter von Oehson, a sophomore in Dr. Dylan Reinhart’s Abnormal Psychology class, posts on Instagram that he plans to kill himself. Twenty-four hours later, and still no one has seen him. A massive search ensues. But when Carter’s sailboat rolls in with the tide without him or anyone else on it, the worst seems to be confirmed. He really did it. Or did he? The one person convinced he’s still alive is his father, Mathias von Oehson, founder and CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund. But what Mathias knows and how he knows it ultimately would reveal a secret so damaging that it would be as if he were committing suicide himself.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538703540

VERY COLD PEOPLE by Sarah Manguso (Fiction)
For Ruthie, the frozen town of Waitsfield, Massachusetts, is all she has ever known. Once home to the country’s oldest and most illustrious families by the tail end of the 20th century, it is an unforgiving place awash with secrets. Forged in this frigid landscape, Ruthie has been dogged by feelings of inadequacy her whole life. As she grows older, she slowly learns how the town’s prim facade conceals a deeper, darker history, and how silence often masks a legacy of harm --- from the violence that runs down the family line to the horrors endured by her high school friends, each suffering a fate worse than the last. For Ruthie, Waitsfield is a place to be survived, and a girl like her would be lucky to get out alive.
Hogarth | 9780593241226

WHEN WE LOST OUR HEADS by Heather O'Neill (Historical Fiction)
Charismatic Marie Antoine is the daughter of the richest man in 19th-century Montreal. She has everything she wants, except for a best friend --- until clever, scheming Sadie Arnett moves to the neighborhood. Immediately united by their passion and intensity, Marie and Sadie attract and repel each other in ways that thrill them both. Their games soon become tinged with risk, even violence. Forced to separate by the adults around them, they spend years engaged in acts of alternating innocence and depravity. And when a singular event brings them back together, the dizzying effects will upend the city.
Riverhead Books | 9780593422908

THE WRONG WOMAN by Leanne Kale Sparks (Mystery/Thriller)
The only survivor of Denver’s notorious “Reaper” serial murders, FBI Special Agent Kendall Beck grapples with the ghosts of her past by seeking justice for victims of abuse. She’s neck deep in a particularly ugly case involving the disappearance of five-year-old Emily Williams. But her investigation is derailed when her best friend and roommate, Gwen Tavich, turns up dead floating in a nearby lake. Devastated by the news of Gwen’s death, Kendall teams up with Denver detective Adam Taylor to find the killer. With every new clue, Kendall questions how well she really knew her friend. And when Gwen’s dark secrets begin spilling out one by one, she begins to understand the devastating magnitude of her murder.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781643859415

On Sale the Week of February 7th in Paperback

February 8th

THE ABSOLUTE BOOK by Elizabeth Knox (Fantasy)
Taryn Cornick believes that the past --- her sister's violent death and her own ill-conceived revenge --- is behind her, and she can get on with her life. She has written a successful book about the things that threaten libraries: insects, damp, light, fire, carelessness and uncaring…but not all of the attention it brings her is good. A policeman, Jacob Berger, questions her about a cold case. Then there are questions about a fire in the library at her grandparents' house and an ancient scroll box known as the Firestarter, as well as threatening phone calls and a mysterious illness. Finally, a shadowy young man named Shift appears, forcing Taryn and Jacob toward a reckoning felt in more than one world.
Penguin Books | 9780593296752

ARE WE THERE YET? by Kathleen West (Fiction)
On the same day Alice Sullivan learns that her daughter is struggling in second grade, a call from her son’s school accusing him of bullying throws Alice into a tailspin. When it comes to light that the incident is part of a new behavior pattern for her son, one complete with fake social media profiles with a lot of questionable content, Alice’s social standing is quickly eroded to one of “those moms” who can’t control her kids. Soon she’s facing the very judgment she was all too happy to dole out when she thought no one was looking (or when she thought her house wasn’t made of glass). Then her mother unloads a family secret she’s kept for more than 30 years, and Alice’s entire perception of herself is shattered.
Berkley | 9780593098448

THE CONSEQUENCES OF FEAR: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear (Historical Mystery)
While on a delivery, young Freddie Hackett, a message runner for a government office, witnesses an argument that ends in murder. When he arrives at the delivery address, he’s shocked to come face to face with the killer. Dismissed by the police when he attempts to report the crime, Freddie goes in search of a woman he once met when delivering a message: Maisie Dobbs. While Maisie wants to help the boy, she must maintain extreme caution: she’s working secretly for the Special Operations Executive, assessing candidates for crucial work with the French resistance. Her two worlds collide when she spots the killer in a place she least expects. She soon realizes she’s been pulled into the orbit of a man who has his own reasons to kill --- reasons that go back to the last war.
Harper Perennial | 9780062868015

EDUCATED: A Memoir by Tara Westover (Memoir)
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she had traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780399590528

FAKE ACCOUNTS by Lauren Oyler (Fiction)
On the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, a young woman snoops through her boyfriend's phone and makes a startling discovery: he's an anonymous internet conspiracy theorist. Already fluent in internet fakery, irony and outrage, she is not exactly shocked by the revelation and plots to end their floundering relationship while on a trip to the Women's March in DC. But this is only the first in a series of bizarre twists that expose a world in which truths are shaped by online lies. Suddenly left with no reason to stay in New York and increasingly alienated from her friends and colleagues, our unnamed narrator flees to Berlin, embarking on her own cycles of manipulation in the deceptive spaces of her daily life.
Catapult | 9781646221240

FIERCE LITTLE THING by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore (Psychological Thriller)
Saskia was a damaged, lonely teenager when she arrived at the lakeside commune called Home. She was immediately taken with Abraham, Home's charismatic leader, and the four other teens who lived there, her best and only friends. Two decades later, Saskia is shuttered in her Connecticut estate, estranged from the others. Her carefully walled life is torn open by threatening letters. Unless she and her former friends return to the land in rural Maine, the terrible thing they did as teenagers --- their last-ditch attempt to save Home --- will be revealed. From vastly different lives, the five return to confront their blackmailer and reckon with the horror that split them apart. How far will they go to bury their secret forever?
Flatiron Books | 9781250779441

GEORGE WASHINGTON: The Political Rise of America's Founding Father by David O. Stewart (Biography)
George Washington's rise constitutes one of the greatest self-reinventions in history. In his mid-20s, this third son of a modest Virginia planter had ruined his own military career thanks to an outrageous ego. But by his mid-40s, that headstrong, unwise young man had evolved into an unassailable leader chosen as the commander in chief of the fledgling Continental Army. By his mid-50s, he was unanimously elected the nation's first president. How did Washington emerge from the wilderness to become the central founder of the United States of America? Award-winning historian David O. Stewart unveils the political education that made Washington a master politician --- and America's most essential leader.
Dutton | 9780451489005

GOLDEN GIRL by Elin Hilderbrand (Fiction)
Vivian Howe, author of 13 beach novels and mother of three nearly grown children, is killed in a hit-and-run car accident while jogging near her home on Nantucket. She ascends to the Beyond where she's assigned to a Person named Martha, who allows Vivi to watch what happens below for one last summer. Vivi also is granted three “nudges” to change the outcome of events on earth. From the Beyond, she watches “The Chief” Ed Kapenash investigate her death, but her greatest worry is her final book, which contains a secret from her own youth that could be disastrous for her reputation. But when hidden truths come to light, Vivi’s family will have to sort out their past and present mistakes --- with or without a nudge of help from above --- while Vivi finally lets them grow without her.
Back Bay Books | 9780316420075

I CAME AS A SHADOW: An Autobiography by John Thompson, with Jesse Washington (Autobiography)
After three decades at the center of race and sports in America, the first Black head coach to win an NCAA championship makes the private public at last. Chockful of stories and moving beyond mere stats, John Thompson’s book drives us through his childhood under Jim Crow segregation to our current moment of racial reckoning. We experience riding shotgun with Celtics icon Red Auerbach, and coaching NBA Hall of Famers like Patrick Ewing and Allen Iverson. And thawing his historically glacial stare, Thompson brings us into his negotiation with a DC drug kingpin in his players’ orbit in the 1980s, as well as behind the scenes of his years on the Nike board.
Holt Paperbacks | 9781250619365

KANT’S LITTLE PRUSSIAN HEAD AND OTHER REASONS WHY I WRITE: An Autobiography Through Essays by Claire Messud (Autobiography/Essays)
In 26 intimate, brilliant and funny essays, Claire Messud reflects on a childhood move from her Connecticut home to Australia; the complex relationship between her modern Canadian mother and a fiercely single French Catholic aunt; and a trip to Beirut, where her pied-noir father had once lived, while he was dying. She meditates on contemporary classics from Kazuo Ishiguro, Teju Cole, Rachel Cusk and Valeria Luiselli; examines three facets of Albert Camus and THE STRANGER; and tours her favorite paintings at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. In the luminous title essay, she explores her drive to write, born of the magic of sharing language and the transformative powers of “a single successful sentence.”
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393882483

THE LAST GRAND DUCHESS: A Novel of Olga Romanov, Imperial Russia, and Revolution by Bryn Turnbull (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
Grand Duchess Olga Romanov comes of age amid a shifting tide for the great dynasties of Europe. But even as unrest simmers in the capital, Olga is content to live within the confines of the sheltered life her parents have built for her and her three sisters. Her only escape comes from the grand tea parties her aunt hosts amid the shadow court of Saint Petersburg. But as war approaches, the palaces of Russia are transformed. Olga and her sisters trade their gowns for nursing habits, assisting in surgeries and tending to the wounded bodies and minds of Russia’s military officers. When tensions run high and supplies run low, calls for revolution threaten to end 300 years of Romanov rule.
Mira | 9780778311706

LET’S NEVER TALK ABOUT THIS AGAIN: A Memoir by Sara Faith Alterman (Memoir)
Twelve-year-old Sara enjoyed a G-rated existence in suburban New England, filled with over-the-top birthday cakes, Revolutionary War reenactments, and nerdy word games invented by her prudish father, Ira. But Sara's world changed for the icky when she discovered that Ira had been shielding her from the truth: that he was a campy sex writer who’d sold millions of books in multiple languages. For decades, these books remained an unspoken family secret, until Ira developed early onset Alzheimer's disease…and announced he'd be reviving his writing career. With Sara's help. In her memoir, Sara shares the profound experience of discovering new facets of her father --- once as a child, and again as an adult.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538748664

MEET ME IN BOMBAY by Jenny Ashcroft (Historical Romance)
It's New Year's Eve in Bombay, 1913, and Madeline Bright is yearning for all she has left behind in England. Then, at the stroke of midnight, Maddy meets Luke Devereaux --- and as the year changes, so do both their lives. Bold and charismatic, Luke opens her eyes to the wonders of Bombay, while Maddy's beauty and vivacity capture his heart. Only her mother disapproves, preferring the devoted Guy Bowen as a match for her daughter. But while Maddy and Luke are falling in love, the world is falling apart. World War I is on the horizon, and Luke will be given no choice but to fight. They will be continents apart, separated by danger and devastating loss, but bound by Luke's promise that they will meet again in Bombay.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250621078

MILK BLOOD HEAT: Stories by Dantiel W. Moniz (Fiction/Short Stories)
MILK BLOOD HEAT depicts the sultry lives of Floridians in intergenerational tales that contemplate human connection, race, womanhood, inheritance and the elemental darkness in us all. A 13-year-old meditates on her sadness and the difference between herself and her white best friend when an unexpected tragedy occurs; a woman recovering from a miscarriage finds herself unable to let go of her daughter --- whose body parts she sees throughout her daily life; a teenager resists her family’s church and is accused of courting the devil; servers at a supper club cater to the insatiable cravings of their wealthy clientele; and two estranged siblings take a road trip with their father’s ashes and are forced to face the troubling reality of how he continues to shape them.
Grove Press | 9780802159441

THE NEXT SHIP HOME: A Novel of Ellis Island by Heather Webb (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
A young Italian woman arrives on the shores of America, her sights set on a better life. That same day, a young American woman reports to her first day of work at the immigration center. But Ellis Island isn't a refuge for Francesca or Alma, not when ships depart every day with those who are refused entry to the country and when corruption ripples through every corridor. While Francesca resorts to desperate measures to ensure she will make it off the island, Alma fights for her dreams of becoming a translator. As the two women face the misdeeds of a system known to manipulate and abuse immigrants searching for new hope in America, they form an unlikely friendship --- and share a terrible secret.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728243146

THE NIGHT SHE WENT MISSING by Kristen Bird (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Emily, a popular but bookish prep school senior, goes missing after a night out with friends. She was last seen leaving a party with Alex, a football player with a dubious reputation. But no one is talking. Now three mothers, friends turned frenemies, have their lives turned upside down as they are forced to look to their own children --- and each other’s --- for answers to questions they don’t want to ask. Each mother is sure she knows who is responsible, but they all have their own secrets to keep and reputations to protect. And the lies they tell themselves and each other may just have the potential to be lethal.
Mira | 9780778332107

NOT THE WITCH YOU WED by April Asher (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Magic-less witch Violet Maxwell wants nothing to do with alpha wolf shifter Lincoln Thorne --- the man who broke her fragile, teenage heart. But when the two of them are forced by arcane Supernatural Laws to find mates, Violet and Lincoln agree to fake-date their way to a fake-mating in order to conjure themselves some time. The joke’s on them. When old feelings make a reappearance --- along with Violet’s magic --- they both realize there’s nothing fake about their feelings. But there are old secrets and looming threats that could snatch away their happily ever after again.
St. Martin's Griffin | 9781250807991

OCEAN PREY: A Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers Novel by John Sandford (Mystery/Thriller)
An off-duty Coast Guardsman is fishing with his family when he calls in some suspicious behavior from a nearby boat. It’s a snazzy craft, slick and outfitted with extra horsepower, and it’s zipping along until it slows to pick up a surfaced diver…a diver who was apparently alone, without his own boat, in the middle of the ocean. None of it makes sense unless there's something hinky going on, and his hunch is proved right when all three Guardsmen who come out to investigate are shot and killed. When the FBI's investigation stalls out, they call in Lucas Davenport. And when his case turns lethal, Davenport will need to bring in every asset he can claim, including a detective with a fundamentally criminal mind: Virgil Flowers.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593419700

THE OTHER FAMILY by Wendy Corsi Staub (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
As California transplants making a fresh start in Brooklyn, the Howells are expected to live in a shoebox, but the brownstone has a huge kitchen, lots of light and a backyard. The catch: its previous residents were victims of a grisly triple homicide that remains unsolved. Soon, peculiar things begin happening. Nora unearths a long-hidden rusty box in the flowerbed. Oldest daughter Stacey, obsessed with the family murdered in their house, pokes into the bloody past and becomes convinced that a stranger is watching the house. She’s right. But one of the Howells will recognize his face. Because one of them has a secret that will blindside the others with a truth that lies shockingly close to home --- and to this one’s terrifying history.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063084605

THE POWER COUPLE by Alex Berenson (Thriller)
Rebecca and Brian Unsworth appear to have it all: a nice house in the suburbs of Washington, DC, two well-behaved, healthy teenage children, and important government jobs. However, their marriage isn’t as perfect as it seems. After two decades together, they’ve drifted apart, talking little and having sex even less. Seeking to revive their strained relationship, they decide for their 20th wedding anniversary to take their two kids, Kira and Tony, on a European getaway. They have a blast…until one night in Barcelona when Kira doesn’t come home from a dance club. She’s gone. Abducted. Over the course of a single weekend, the Unsworths will do everything possible to find her --- as Kira herself discovers just how far she’ll go to break free of the trap that’s been set for her.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982103705

THE PROPHETS by Robert Jones, Jr. (Historical Fiction)
Isaiah was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man --- a fellow slave --- seeks to gain favor by preaching the master's gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel's love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation's harmony.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593085691

RED THREAD OF FATE by Lyn Liao Butler (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Two days before Tam and Tony Kwan receive their letter of acceptance for the son they are adopting from China, Tony and his estranged cousin, Mia, are killed unexpectedly in an accident. A shell-shocked Tam learns she is named the guardian to Mia’s five-year-old daughter, Angela. With no other family around, Tam has no choice but to agree to take in the girl she hasn’t seen since the child was an infant. Overwhelmed by her life suddenly being upended, Tam also must decide if she will complete the adoption on her own and bring home the son waiting for her in a Chinese orphanage. But when a long-concealed secret comes to light just as she and Angela start to bond, their fragile family is threatened.
Berkley | 9780593198742

SECRETS OF OUR HOUSE by Rea Frey (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Desi is the mastermind behind her dream getaway house, which is full of secrets. Secrets about the man she longs for, a man who is not her husband. Secrets about the roots of her family that must never see the light of day. When Desi and her family arrive from Chicago to spend the summer in the mountains, the seeds for the tumultuous months to follow are planted --- her marriage on the rocks, not knowing which way they’ll go. Her daughter Jules, falling in love for the first time with a local boy --- and forging a new path that will take her to uncharted places. And Carter --- a man Desi knew long ago, before she expunged him from her life for good. All hurtling toward events none of them can undo.
St. Martin's Griffin | 9781250241603

THE SOULMATE EQUATION by Christina Lauren (Romantic Comedy)
Single mom Jess Davis is a data and statistics wizard, but no amount of number crunching can convince her to step back into the dating world. But then she hears about GeneticAlly, a buzzy new DNA-based matchmaking company that is predicted to change dating forever. Her test shows an unheard-of 98% compatibility with another subject in the database: GeneticAlly’s founder, Dr. River Peña. This stuck-up, stubborn man is without a doubt not her soulmate. But GeneticAlly has a proposition: Get to know him and we’ll pay you. Jess is in no position to turn it down, despite her skepticism about the project and her dislike for River. However, she slowly begins to realize that there might be more to the scientist --- and the science behind a soulmate --- than she thought.
Gallery Books | 9781982171117

SPARKS LIKE STARS by Nadia Hashimi (Fiction)
Kabul, 1978: The daughter of a prominent family, Sitara Zamani lives a privileged life in Afghanistan’s thriving cosmopolitan capital. But her world is shattered when communists stage a coup, assassinating the president and Sitara’s entire family. Smuggled out of the palace by a guard named Shair, Sitara finds her way to the home of a female American diplomat, who adopts her and raises her in America. In her new country, Sitara takes on a new name --- Aryana Shepherd --- and throws herself into her studies, eventually becoming a renowned surgeon. New York, 2008: Forty years after that fatal night in Kabul, Aryana’s world is rocked again when an elderly patient appears in her examination room. It is Shair, the soldier who saved her, yet may have murdered her entire family.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063008298

SURVIVING THE WHITE GAZE: A Memoir by Rebecca Carroll (Memoir)
Rebecca Carroll grew up the only Black person in her rural New Hampshire town. Adopted at birth by artistic parents who believed in peace, love and zero population growth, her early childhood was loving and idyllic --- and yet she couldn’t articulate the deep sense of isolation she increasingly felt as she grew older. Everything changed when she met her birth mother, a young white woman, who consistently undermined Carroll’s sense of her Blackness and self-esteem. Carroll’s childhood became harrowing, and her memoir explores the tension between the aching desire for her birth mother’s acceptance, the loyalty she feels toward her adoptive parents, and the search for her racial identity.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982116279

THOSE WHO ARE SAVED by Alexis Landau (Historical Fiction)
Vera's wealth cannot protect her or her four-year-old-daughter, Lucie, once the Nazis occupy France. Ordered to report to an internment camp, Russian Jewish Vera must make an impossible choice: bring Lucie with her, or put her into hiding. Believing the war will end soon, Vera chooses to leave Lucie in safety. She cannot know that she and her husband will have an opportunity to escape, to flee to America. She cannot know that Lucie will be too far to reach in time. And so begins a heartbreaking separation and journey, a war and a continent apart. Vera's marriage will falter under the surreal sun of California. But her determination to return to France and find Lucie will only grow. Then she meets Sasha, a man on his own search for meaning. Together, they will travel to France in search of Lucie.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593190555

WHEN I RAN AWAY by Ilona Bannister (Fiction)
As the Twin Towers collapse, Gigi Stanislawski flees her office building and escapes lower Manhattan on the Staten Island Ferry. She finds someone she recognizes --- Harry Harrison, a regular at her favorite coffee shop --- and brings him to her parents' house as she waits for the phone call that will never come: the call from Frankie, her younger brother. Ten years later, Gigi, now a single mother, meets Harry (again by chance), and they fall deeply in love. But their move to London and their new baby leave her feeling isolated, raw and alone with her grief. As Gigi comes face-to-face with the anguish of her brother's death and her rage at the unspoken pain of motherhood, she must somehow find the light amid all the darkness.
Anchor | 9780593081761

WILDLAND by Rebecca Hodge (Fiction)
When Kat Jamison retreats to the Blue Ridge Mountains, she's counting on peace and solitude to help her make a difficult decision. Her breast cancer has returned, but after the death of her husband, her will to fight is dampened. Now she has a choice to make: face yet another round of chemotherapy or surrender gracefully. Self-reflection quickly proves impossible as her getaway is complicated by a pair of abandoned dogs and two friendly children staying nearby, Lily and Nirav. But when lightning ignites a deadly wildfire, Kat's cabin is cut off from the rest of the camp, separating Lily and Nirav from their parents. Left with no choice, Kat, the children and the dogs must flee on foot through the drought-stricken forest, away from the ravenous flames.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781643859699

THE WINDSOR KNOT by SJ Bennett (Mystery)
It is the early spring of 2016, and Queen Elizabeth is at Windsor Castle in advance of her 90th birthday celebrations. But the preparations are interrupted when a guest is found dead in one of the Castle bedrooms. The scene suggests the young Russian pianist strangled himself, but a badly tied knot leads MI5 to suspect foul play was involved. The Queen leaves the investigation to the professionals --- until their suspicions point them in the wrong direction. Unhappy at the mishandling of the case and concerned for her staff’s morale, the monarch decides to discreetly take matters into her own hands. The resolute Elizabeth will use her keen eye, quick mind and steady nerve to bring a murderer to justice.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063050013

THE WOLF AND THE WOODSMAN by Ava Reid (Historical Fantasy)
In her forest-veiled pagan village, Évike is the only woman without power, making her an outcast clearly abandoned by the gods. The villagers blame her corrupted bloodline --- her father was a Yehuli man, one of the much-loathed servants of the fanatical king. When soldiers arrive from the Holy Order of Woodsmen to claim a pagan girl for the king’s blood sacrifice, Évike is betrayed by her fellow villagers and surrendered. But when monsters attack the Woodsmen and their captive en route, slaughtering everyone but Évike and the cold, one-eyed captain, they have no choice but to rely on each other. Except he’s no ordinary Woodsman --- he’s the disgraced prince, Gáspár Bárány, whose father needs pagan magic to consolidate his power.
Harper Voyager | 9780062973139

On Sale the Week of February 14th in Hardcover

February 15th

BEACH WEDDING by Michael Ledwidge (Thriller)
When Terry Rourke is invited to the spare-no-expense beach wedding of his hedge fund manager brother, he thinks that his biggest worry will be flubbing the champagne toast. But this isn’t the first time Terry has been to the Hamptons. As the designer tuxedos are laid out and the flowers arranged along the glittering surf, Terry can’t help but take another look at a decades-old murder trial that rocked the very foundations of the town --- and his family. He soon learns that digging up billion-dollar sand can be a very dangerous activity. The kind of danger that can very quickly turn even the most beautiful beach wedding into a wake.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335425751

THE CAGE by Bonnie Kistler (Psychological Thriller)
On a cold, misty Sunday night, two women are alone in the offices of fashion conglomerate Claudine de Martineau International. One is the company’s human resources director. Impeccably dressed and perfectly coiffed, she sits at her desk and stares somberly out the window. Down the hall, her colleague, one of the company’s lawyers, is buried under a pile of paperwork, frantically rushing to finish. Leaving at the same time, the two women, each preoccupied by her own thoughts, enter the elevator that will take them down from the 30th floor. When they arrive at the lobby, one of the women is dead. Was it murder or suicide?
Harper | 9780063089143

DAWNSHARD: From The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson (Fantasy/Adventure)
When a ghost ship is discovered, its crew presumed dead after trying to reach the storm-shrouded island Akinah, Navani Kholin must send an expedition to make sure the island hasn't fallen into enemy hands. Knights Radiant who fly too near find their Stormlight suddenly drained, so the voyage must be by sea. Shipowner Rysn Ftori lost the use of her legs but gained the companionship of Chiri-Chiri, a Stormlight-ingesting winged larkin, a species once thought extinct. Now Rysn's pet is ill, and any hope for Chiri-Chiri’s recovery can be found only at the ancestral home of the larkin: Akinah. With the help of Lopen, the formerly one-armed Windrunner, Rysn must accept Navani's quest and sail into the perilous storm from which no one has returned alive.
Tor Books | 9781250850553

DEATH OF A GREEN-EYED MONSTER: A Hamish Macbeth Murder Mystery by M. C. Beaton with R.W. Green (Mystery)
Sergeant Hamish Macbeth's new constable, Dorothy McIver, may be the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. Completely bewitched by her sparkling blue eyes, Hamish spends the summer traveling with her up and down Sutherland until he finally can take it no longer. He gets down on one knee beside the Land Rover and begs her to marry him --- and to his amazement and delight, she says yes. But just as the town of Lochdubh gets ready to celebrate, Hamish finds himself with a new murder on his hands. If he doesn't find the killer fast, Hamish's dream wedding could become a nightmare.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538746707

DIABLO MESA by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Thriller)
Lucas Tappan, a wealthy and eccentric billionaire and founder of Icarus Space Systems, approaches the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute with an outlandish proposal --- to finance a careful, scientific excavation of the Roswell Incident site, where a UFO is alleged to have crashed in 1947. A skeptical Nora Kelly is tasked with the job. Nora's excavation immediately uncovers two murder victims buried at the site, faces and hands obliterated with acid to erase their identities. Special Agent Corrie Swanson is assigned to the case. As Nora’s excavation proceeds, uncovering things both bizarre and seemingly inexplicable, Corrie’s homicide investigation throws open a Pandora's box of espionage and violence.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538736753

THE GREAT WITCH OF BRITTANY by Louisa Morgan (Historical Fiction/Magical Realism)
Brittany, 1762. There hasn’t been a witch born in the Orchière clan for generations. Ursule Orchière has been raised on stories of the great witches of the past. But the only magic she knows is the false spells her mother weaves over the gullible women who visit their fortune-telling caravan. Everything changes when Ursule comes of age and a spark of power flares to life. Thrilled to be chosen, she has no idea how magic will twist and shape her future. Guided by an ancient grimoire and the whispers of her ancestors, Ursule is destined to walk the same path as the great witches of old. But first, the Orchière magical lineage must survive. And danger hovers over her, whether it’s the bloodlust of the mob or the flames of the pyre.
Redhook | 9780316628747

HEIRESSES: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies by Laura Thompson (History)
Heiresses surely are among the luckiest women on earth. Are they not to be envied, with their private jets, Chanel wardrobes and endless funds? Yet all too often those gilded lives have been beset with trauma and despair. Before the 20th century, a wife’s inheritance was the property of her husband, making her vulnerable to kidnap, forced marriages, even confinement in an asylum. And in modern times, heiresses fell victim to fortune-hunters who squandered their millions. HEIRESSES tells the stories of these million dollar babies.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250202734

HOUSE OF SKY AND BREATH by Sarah J. Maas (Fantasy/Romance)
Bryce Quinlan and Hunt Athalar are trying to get back to normal. They may have saved Crescent City, but with so much upheaval in their lives lately, they mostly want a chance to relax, slow down and figure out what the future holds. The Asteri have kept their word so far, leaving Bryce and Hunt alone. But with the rebels chipping away at the Asteri’s power, the threat the rulers pose is growing. As Bryce, Hunt and their friends get pulled into the rebels’ plans, the choice becomes clear: stay silent while others are oppressed, or fight for what’s right. And they’ve never been very good at staying silent.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635574074

AN IMPOSSIBLE IMPOSTER: A Veronica Speedwell Mystery by Deanna Raybourn (Historical Mystery)
Veronica Speedwell and her natural historian beau, Stoker, are summoned by Sir Hugo Montgomerie, head of Special Branch. He has a personal request on behalf of his goddaughter, Euphemia Hathaway. After years of traveling the world, her eldest brother, Jonathan, heir to Hathaway Hall, was believed to have been killed in the catastrophic eruption of Krakatoa a few years before. But now a man matching Jonathan’s description and carrying his possessions has arrived at Hathaway Hall with no memory of his identity or where he has been. Could this man truly be Jonathan, back from the dead? Or is he a devious impostor, determined to gain ownership over the family's most valuable possessions --- a legendary parure of priceless Rajasthani jewels?
Berkley | 9780593197295

THE LAST WILD HORSES written by Maja Lunde, translated by Diane Oatley (Dystopian Fiction)
Mikhail lives in Russia in 1881. When a skeleton of a rare wild horse is brought to him, the zoologist plans an expedition to Mongolia to find the fabled Przewalski horse. In 1992, Karin, alongside her troubled son Mathias and several Przewalski horses, travels to Mongolia to reintroduce the magnificent horses to their native land. Europe’s future is uncertain in 2064, but Eva is willing to sacrifice nearly everything to hold onto her family’s farm. Her teenage daughter implores her to leave the farm and Norway, but a pregnant wild mare Eva is tending is about to foal. Then, a young woman named Louise unexpectedly arrives on the farm, with mysterious intentions that will either bring them all together or devastate them one by one.
HarperVia | 9780062951410

THE MAGNIFICENT LIVES OF MARJORIE POST by Allison Pataki (Historical Fiction)
Marjorie Merriweather Post’s journey began gluing cereal boxes in her father’s barn as a young girl. No one could have predicted that C. W. Post’s Cereal Company would grow into the General Foods empire, with Marjorie as its heiress and leading lady. Not content to stay in her prescribed roles of high-society wife, mother and hostess, Marjorie dared to demand more, making history in the process. Before turning 30, she amassed millions, becoming the wealthiest woman in the United States. But it was her life-force, advocacy, passion and adventurous spirit that led to her stunning legacy. And yet Marjorie’s story, though full of beauty and grandeur, set in the palatial homes she built such as Mar-a-Lago, was equally marked by challenge and tumult.
Ballantine Books | 9780593355688

MARGARET TRUMAN'S MURDER AT THE CDC: A Capital Crimes Novel by Jon Land (Political Thriller/Mystery)
2017: A military transport on a secret run to dispose of its deadly contents vanishes without a trace. The present: A mass shooting on the steps of the Capitol nearly claims the life of Robert Brixton’s grandson. No stranger to high-stakes investigations, Brixton embarks on a trail to uncover the motive behind the shooting. On the way, he finds himself probing the attempted murder of the daughter of his best friend, who works at the Washington offices of the CDC. The connection between the mass shooting and Alexandra’s poisoning lies in that long-lost military transport that has been recovered by forces determined to change America forever.
Forge Books | 9781250238894

MOON WITCH, SPIDER KING by Marlon James (Historical Fantasy)
In BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF, Sogolon the Moon Witch proved a worthy adversary to Tracker as they clashed across a mythical African landscape in search of a mysterious boy who disappeared. In MOON WITCH, SPIDER KING, Sogolon takes center stage and gives her own account of what happened to the boy, and how she plotted and fought, triumphed and failed as she looked for him. It’s also the story of a century-long feud --- seen through the eyes of a 177-year-old witch --- that Sogolon had with the Aesi, chancellor to the king. It is said that Aesi works so closely with the king that together they are like the eight limbs of one spider. It takes brains and courage to challenge him, which Sogolon does for reasons of her own.
Riverhead Books | 9780735220201

OUR AMERICAN FRIEND by Anna Pitoniak (Thriller)
First Lady Lara Caine asks White House correspondent Sofie Morse to write her official biography, and to finally fill in the gaps of her history. Sofie begins to spend more and more time in the White House, slowly developing a bond with Lara --- and eventually a deep and surprising friendship with her. Even more surprising to Sofie is the fact that Lara is entirely candid about her mysterious past, which includes her beloved father’s work as an undercover KGB officer in Paris. As Lara’s story unfolds, Sofie can’t help but wonder why Lara is rehashing such sensitive information. Why to her? And why now? Suddenly Sofie is in the middle of a game of cat and mouse that could have explosive ramifications.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982158804

PURE COLOUR by Sheila Heti (Fiction)
Here we are, just living in the first draft of Creation, which was made by some great artist, who is now getting ready to tear it apart. In this first draft of the world, a woman named Mira leaves home to study. There, she meets Annie, whose tremendous power opens Mira’s chest like a portal --- to what, she doesn’t know. When Mira is older, her beloved father dies, and his spirit passes into her. Together, they become a leaf on a tree. But photosynthesis gets boring, and being alive is a problem that cannot be solved, even by a leaf. Eventually, Mira must remember the human world she’s left behind, including Annie, and choose whether or not to return.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374603946

SIERRA SIX: A Gray Man Novel by Mark Greaney (Thriller)
Before he was the Gray Man, Court Gentry was Sierra Six, the junior member of a CIA action team. In their first mission they took out a terrorist leader, at a terrible price. Years have passed. The Gray Man is on a simple mission when he sees a ghost: the long-dead terrorist, but he's remarkably energetic for a dead man. A decade of time hasn't changed the Gray Man. He isn't one to leave a job unfinished or a blood debt unpaid.
Berkley | 9780593098998

THE THOUSAND EYES by A. K. Larkwood (Fantasy/Adventure)
Two years after defying the wizard Belthandros Sethennai and escaping into the great unknown, Csorwe and Shuthmili have made a new life for themselves, hunting for secrets among the ruins of an ancient snake empire. Along for the ride is Tal Charossa, determined to leave the humiliation and heartbreak of his hometown far behind him, even if it means enduring the company of his old rival and her insufferable girlfriend. All three of them would be quite happy never to see Sethennai again. But when a routine expedition goes off the rails and a terrifying imperial relic awakens, they find that a common enemy may be all it takes to bring them back into his orbit.
Tor Books | 9781250238948

WALKING THE BOWL: A True Story of Murder and Survival Among the Street Children of Lusaka by Chris Lockhart and Daniel Mulilo Chama (True Crime/Biography)
Based on years of investigative reporting and unprecedented fieldwork, WALKING THE BOWL immerses readers in the daily lives of four unforgettable characters: Lusabilo, a determined waste picker; Kapula, a burned-out brothel worker; Moonga, a former rock crusher turned beggar; and Timo, an ambitious gang leader. These children navigate the violent and poverty-stricken underworld of Lusaka, one of Africa’s fastest growing cities. When the dead body of a 10-year-old boy is discovered under a heap of garbage in Lusaka’s largest landfill, a murder investigation quickly heats up. The children’s lives become more closely intertwined as each child engages in a desperate bid for survival against forces they never could have imagined.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335425744

WATERGATE: A New History by Garrett M. Graff (History/Politics)
In the early hours of June 17, 1972, a security guard named Frank Wills entered six words into the log book of the Watergate office complex that would change the course of history: 1:47 AM Found tape on doors; call police. In WATERGATE, Garrett M. Graff explores the full sweep of the scandal that would come to define all others, from the release of The Pentagon Papers in 1971 --- the first signs of trouble for the White House --- and the 1972 DNC break-in to the denials, trials, hearings and eventual downfall of the Nixon Administration three years later --- the implications of which we still feel today. Watergate, Graff shows, is a much bigger and much weirder story than America remembers.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781982139162

On Sale the Week of February 14th in Paperback

February 15th

AN AMBUSH OF WIDOWS by Jeff Abbott (Psychological Thriller)
Henry North is a down-on-his-luck cybersecurity expert from New Orleans. Adam Zhang is the cofounder of one of Austin’s most successful venture capitalist firms. These two men didn’t know each other. Yet they died together, violently, in a place neither had any business being. When Henry doesn’t return from a business trip, his wife, Kirsten, gets an anonymous phone call: “Your husband is dead in Austin.” Flora Zhang knew her husband was keeping secrets. She suspected an affair, but she had decided she could forgive him for his weakness --- until he ended up dead. And with no explanation for her husband’s murder, the police begin to suspect her. Together, these two widows will face a powerful foe determined to write a false narrative about the murders.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538719152

ASTRID SEES ALL by Natalie Standiford (Fiction)
Phoebe Hayes is in search of excitement and adventure. But the recent death of her father has so devastated her that her mother wants her to remain home in Baltimore to recover. Phoebe wants to return to New York, not only to chase the glamorous life she so desperately craves but also to confront Ivan, the older man who wronged her. With her best friend Carmen, she escapes to the East Village, disappearing into an underworld haunted by artists, It Girls and lost souls. Carmen juggles her junkie-poet boyfriend and a sexy painter, while, as Astrid the Star Girl, Phoebe tells fortunes in a nightclub and plots her revenge on Ivan. When the intoxicating brew of sex, drugs and self-destruction leads Phoebe to betray her friend, Carmen disappears, and Phoebe begins an unstoppable descent into darkness.
Atria Books | 9781982153663

BE HERE TO LOVE ME AT THE END OF THE WORLD by Sasha Fletcher (Fiction/Humor)
Paperback Original
It’s Brooklyn. It’s winter. It’s so cold outside you could execute billionaires in the street about it. Sam lives with Eleanor, and they are in love. He has three or four outstanding invoices that would each cover rent for a month. At some point, the President is going to make some absolutely wild announcements that will only end in doom. In a surreal, funny and heartbreaking version of reality, Sasha Fletcher’s highly anticipated first novel occupies that rare register that manages to speak to an increasingly incomprehensible world.
Melville House | 9781612199474

THE BONE TRACK: An Alexa Glock Forensics Mystery by Sara E. Johnson (Mystery)
Paperback Original
New Zealand's remote Milford Track seems the perfect place for forensic investigator Alexa Glock to reconnect with her brother, Charlie. But their backpacking trip seems ill-fated from the start when she must stop on the way to examine nine skeletons --- most likely Mori tribespeople --- whose graves have been unearthed by highway construction. Before she opens the first casket, a Mori elder gives her a dire warning: "The viewing of bones can unleash misfortune to the living. Or worse." When a fellow hiker goes missing and is later found dead, Alexa has all she can do to focus on the science as she investigates two murders, while trying not to become the third victim.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464213977

THE BOUNTY: A Fox and O’Hare Novel by Janet Evanovich and Steve Hamilton (Mystery)
Directly descended from the Vatican Bank priests who served Hitler during World War II, the Brotherhood is on a frantic search for a lost train loaded with $30 billion in Nazi gold, untouched for over 75 years somewhere in the mountains of Eastern Europe. Straight-as-an-arrow special agent Kate O’Hare and international con man Nick Fox know that there is only one man who can find the fortune and bring down the Brotherhood --- the same man who taught Nick everything he knows --- his father, Quentin. As the stakes get higher, they also must rely on Kate’s own father, Jake, who shares his daughter’s grit and stubbornness. Too bad they can never agree on anything.
Atria Books | 9781982157142

DEATH OF A MESSENGER: A Koa Kane Hawaiian Mystery by Robert McCaw (Mystery/Thriller)
On Hawaii Island, an anonymous 911 caller reports a body at Pohakuloa, the Army’s live-fire training area. Hilo Chief Detective Koa Kane, a cop with his own secret criminal past, finds a mutilated corpse --- bearing all the hallmarks of ancient ritual sacrifice. He encounters a host of obstacles as he pursues the murderer --- an incompetent local medical examiner, hostility from both haoles (Westerners) and sovereignty advocates, and a myriad of lies. Koa races to discover whether the victim stumbled upon a gang of high-tech archaeological thieves, or learned a secret so shocking it cost him his life and put others in mortal danger.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608094783

EVERY VOW YOU BREAK by Peter Swanson (Psychological Thriller)
Abigail Baskin never thought she’d fall in love with a millionaire. Then she met Bruce Lamb, a stable, level-headed, kind guy. But right before the wedding, Abigail has a drunken one-night stand on her bachelorette weekend. She puts the incident out of her mind and now believes she wants to be with Bruce for the rest of her life. Then the mysterious stranger suddenly appears --- and Abigail’s future life and happiness are turned upside down. He insists that their passionate night was the beginning of something much, much more --- and he’s tracked her down to prove it. To make the situation worse, Abigail sees a terrified woman in the night shadows, and no one at the resort seems to believe anything is amiss…including her perfect new husband.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062980045

EVERYTHING IS FINE: A Memoir by Vince Granata (Memoir)
Vince Granata remembers standing in front of his home the day his mother and father returned from the hospital with his three new siblings in tow. He had just finished scrawling their names in orange chalk on the driveway: Christopher, Timothy and Elizabeth. Twenty-three years later, Vince was a thousand miles away when he received the news that would change his life --- his younger brother, Tim, propelled by unchecked schizophrenia, had killed their mother in their childhood home. Devastated by the grief of losing his mother, Vince is also consumed by an act so incomprehensible that it overshadows every happy memory of life growing up in his seemingly idyllic middle-class family. In EVERYTHING IS FINE, Vince examines the disease that irrevocably changed his family’s destiny.
Atria Books | 9781982133450

FIRES OF EDO: A Hiro Hattori Novel by Susan Spann (Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
Edo, February 1566: When a samurai’s corpse is discovered in the ruins of a burned-out bookshop, master ninja Hiro Hattori and Jesuit Father Mateo must determine whether the shopkeeper and his young apprentice are innocent victims or assassins in disguise. The investigation quickly reveals dangerous ties to Hiro’s past, which threaten not only Edo’s fledgling booksellers’ guild, but the very survival of Hiro’s ninja clan. With an arsonist on the loose and a murderer stalking the narrow streets, Hiro and Father Mateo must save the guild --- and themselves --- from a conflagration that could destroy them all.
Seventh Street Books | 9781645060444

THE GOOD AMERICAN: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government's Greatest Humanitarian by Robert D. Kaplan (Biography)
In his long career as an acclaimed journalist covering the “hot” moments of the Cold War and its aftermath, Robert D. Kaplan often found himself crossing paths with Bob Gersony, a consultant for the U.S. State Department whose quiet dedication and consequential work made a deep impression on Kaplan. Gersony, a high school dropout later awarded a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, conducted on-the-ground research for the U.S. government in virtually every war and natural-disaster zone in the world. Kaplan saw in Gersony a powerful example of how American diplomacy should be conducted. Set during the State Department’s golden age, THE GOOD AMERICAN is a story about the loneliness, sweat and tears, and the genuine courage, that characterized Gersony’s work in far-flung places.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780525512318

JUST AS I AM: A Memoir by Cicely Tyson, with Michelle Burford (Memoir)
"JUST AS I AM is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. In these pages, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn for which this book is named. I am a daughter and mother, a sister, and a friend. I am an observer of human nature and the dreamer of audacious dreams. I am a woman who has hurt as immeasurably as I have loved, a child of God divinely guided by His hand. And here in my ninth decade, I am a woman who, at long last, has something meaningful to say.” –Cicely Tyson
Amistad | 9780062931078

THE LAST NIGHT IN LONDON by Karen White (Historical Fiction)
London, 1939. Eva Harlow and her best friend, Precious Dubose, are trying to make their way as fashion models. When Eva falls in love with Graham St. John, an aristocrat and Royal Air Force pilot, she can’t believe her luck. Then the Blitz devastates her world, and Eva finds herself slipping into a web of intrigue, spies and secrets. All it takes is one unwary moment to change their lives forever. London, 2019. American journalist Maddie Warner, whose life has been marked by the tragic loss of her mother, travels to London to interview Precious about her life in pre-WWII London. She finds herself drawn to both Precious and Colin, her enigmatic surrogate nephew. As Maddie gets closer to her, she begins to unravel Precious’ haunting past.
Berkley | 9780451492036

THE LOVE PROOF by Madeleine Henry (Romance)
Sophie Jones is a physics prodigy on track to unlock the secrets of the universe. But when she meets Jake Kristopher during their first week at Yale, they instantly feel a deep connection, as if they’ve known each other before. Quickly, they become a couple. Slowly, their love lures Sophie away from school. When a shocking development forces Sophie into a new reality, she returns to physics to make sense of her world. She grapples with life’s big questions, including how to cope with unexpected change and loss. Inspired by her connection with Jake, Sophie throws herself into her studies, determined to prove that true loves belong together in all realities.
Atria Books | 9781982142971

LURKERS by Sandi Tan (Fiction)
The residents of Santa Claus Lane do their best to stay out of each other’s way, but desire, fury and mischief too often propel these suburban neighbors to collide. Precocious Korean American sisters Mira and Rosemary find their world rocked by a suicide, and they must fight to keep their home; a charismatic and creepy drama teacher grooms his students; a sardonic gay horror novelist finds that aging is more terrifying than any monster; and a white hippie mom and her adopted Vietnamese daughter realize that their anger binds them rather than pushes them apart.
Soho Press | 9781641293518

NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS by Patricia Lockwood (Fiction)
A woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world. She must navigate the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats --- from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness --- begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong" and "How soon can you get here?"
Riverhead Books | 9780593189597

ONE NIGHT ON THE ISLAND by Josie Silver (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Spending her 30th birthday alone is not what dating columnist Cleo Wilder wanted, but she plans a solo retreat to a remote Irish island in the name of re-energizing herself and adding a new perspective to her column. With his life in Boston deteriorating in ways he can’t bring himself to acknowledge, Mack Sullivan’s soul-searching has brought him to the same Irish island to explore his roots and find some clarity. Unfortunately, a mix-up with the bookings means that both have reserved the same one-room hideaway on exactly the same dates. Cleo and Mack are instantly at odds. But as the days go by, they no longer seem to mind each other’s company quite as much as they thought they would.
Ballantine Books | 9781984820631

OUTLAWED by Anna North (Western/Adventure)
The day of her wedding, 17-year-old Ada's life looks good. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows. She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose and mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But to make this dream a reality, the Gang hatches a treacherous plan that may get them all killed. And Ada must decide if she's willing to risk her life for the possibility of a new kind of future for them all.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635578249

THE SECRET IN THE WALL by Ann Parker (Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
Fleeing the comfort and wealth of her East Coast upbringing, Inez Stannert became a saloon owner and card sharp in the rough silver boomtown of Leadville, Colorado. Then the teenaged daughter of a local prostitute is orphaned by her mother's murder, and Inez steps up to raise the troubled girl as her own. When a skeleton tumbles from the wall of her latest business investment, the police only seem interested in the bag of Civil War-era gold coins that fell out with it. With her trusty derringer tucked in the folds of her gown, Inez uses her street smarts and sheer will to unearth a secret that someone has already killed to keep buried. The more she digs, the muddier and more dangerous things become.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464214943

THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson (History)
On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next 12 months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally --- and willing to fight to the end. In THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless."
Crown | 9780385348737

THE TEXAS JOB by Reavis Z. Wortham (Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
Texas Ranger Tom Bell is simply tracking a fugitive killer in 1931 when he rides into Kilgore, a hastily erected shanty town crawling with oil drillers in search of work. The sheriff of the boomtown is overwhelmed, and none of the roughnecks are inclined to assist the young Ranger in his search for the wanted man. In fact, it soon becomes apparent that the lawman's presence has irritated the wrong people. When two failed attempts are made on his life, Bell knows he's getting closer to finding out who is responsible for cheating and murdering local landowners to access the rich oil fields flowing beneath their farms. When they ambush him for a third time, they make the fatal mistake of killing someone close to him and leaving the Ranger alive.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464215704

WHERE I CAN’T FOLLOW by Ashley Blooms (Fiction/Magical Realism)
Paperback Original
Maren Walker told herself she wouldn't need to sell pills for long, that it was only means to an end. But there’s always another bill for Granny's doctor, another problem with the car, another reason she's getting nowhere. She dreams of walking through her little door to leave it all behind. The doors have appeared to the people in her mountain town for as long as anyone can remember, though no one knows where they lead. All anyone knows is that if you go, you'll never come back. Maren's mother left through her door when Maren was nine, and her shadow has followed Maren ever since. When she faces the possibility of escaping her struggles for good, Maren must choose just what kind of future she wants to build.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728226392

YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU: Selected Stories, 1981-2018 by John Edgar Wideman (Fiction/Short Stories)
When John Edgar Wideman won the PEN Malamud Award in 2019, he joined a list of esteemed writers --- from Eudora Welty to George Saunders --- all of whom are acknowledged masters of the short story. Wideman’s commitment to short fiction has been lifelong, and here he gathers a representative selection from throughout his career, stories that challenge what defines, separates and unites us; dare to push form and defy convention; and, to quote Wideman, seek to “deconstruct the given formulas of African American culture and life.”
Scribner | 9781982148928

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