Last Wednesday night, we hosted our latest "Bookaccino Live" Book Group event. Our guest was Miranda Cowley Heller, and we had a wonderful conversation about THE PAPER PALACE. She talked about the depth of her characters and the need to see the situation through their eyes in order to grasp the complexity of their choices. She also explained her decision to write in first person and set the book in a specific time frame. During the event, we conducted a poll where we asked our attendees what they thought about the ending, and Miranda discussed her choice to write it the way she did. If you missed the event, or would like to revisit any part of it, you can watch it here and listen to the podcast here.
We are thrilled to announce that Janet Skeslien Charles will be our next “Bookaccino Live” Book Group guest. The event will be held on Wednesday, May 25th at 8pm ET, and you can sign up for it here. We will be talking about Janet’s novel, THE PARIS LIBRARY, an instant New York Times bestseller and a Bets On selection. The hardcover released last year, and the paperback is now available.
Just as we did last Wednesday night, there will be a two-part Q&A session after Carol talks to Janet. For the first part, those who are asking a question “on camera” will be featured. This includes spending time with Janet backstage in our virtual green room before the show starts. If you would like to ask your question "live on screen" this way, please email it to Carol using the subject line “Question for Janet.” For those who are camera shy, there will be a traditional Q&A segment as well.
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, April 27th 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 Jane Green about her new novel, SISTER STARDUST. Kimberly Brock, author of THE LOST BOOK OF ELEANOR DARE, will be featured on the Aftershow.
Wednesday, April 27th at 7pm ET: Mystery to Me: Libby Fischer Hellman will introduce not one but two new books to Mystery to Me readers! In conversation with author Michelle Cox, Hellman will bring you both the sixth installment in her Georgia Davis mystery series, DOUBLEBLIND, and her historical fiction novel, A BEND IN THE RIVER.
Wednesday, April 27th at 7pm ET: Warwick's: Warwick's will host Deborah Goodrich Royce as she discusses her book, RUBY FALLS (now available in paperback), with Kimberly Belle.
Wednesday, April 27th at 9pm ET: Chaucer's Books: Chaucer's Books is pleased to virtually host award-winning author Alma Katsu to talk about her new horror novel, THE FERVOR, a deep excavation of how we decide who gets to be human when being human matters most.
Thursday, April 28th at 7:30pm ET: Barnes & Noble: Join Barnes & Noble as they welcome acclaimed author Adriana Trigiani for a live virtual discussion of her new book, THE GOOD LEFT UNDONE, with bestselling author Mitch Albom.
Thursday, April 28th at 8pm ET: Powell's Books: Powell's Books will present a virtual event featuring A.J. Jacobs, whose latest book is THE PUZZLER. He will be joined in conversation by David Kwong, a magician, puzzle creator and author of SPELLBOUND.
Sunday, May 1st at 3pm ET: Madison Books: Join Books in Common NW for a laugh-out-loud look at LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY, a "Good Morning America" Book Club pick, with authors Bonnie Garmus and Claire Lombardo.
Monday, May 2nd at 1pm ET: Simon & Schuster's Book Club Favorites: Jennifer Egan will join members of the Simon & Schuster team to discuss her new novel, THE CANDY HOUSE, which is April's pick for S&S's Book Club Favorites.
Monday, May 2nd at 3:30pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Jennifer McMahon will discuss her latest novel, THE CHILDREN ON THE HILL, which brilliantly explores the eerie mysteries of childhood and the evils perpetrated by the monsters among us.
Monday, May 2nd at 7pm ET: Cuyahoga Public Library: Join Cuyahoga Public Library for a conversation with A.J. Jacobs about his new book, THE PUZZLER: One Man's Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life.
Monday, May 2nd at 7pm ET: Joseph-Beth Booksellers: Emily Henry will be in conversation with Laura Hankin about her new romantic comedy, the insightful and delightful BOOK LOVERS.
Tuesday, May 3rd at 7pm ET: Phoenix Books: Phoenix Books will welcome Jennifer McMahon to their Zoom stage for a discussion of THE CHILDREN ON THE HILL, her genre-defying new novel inspired by Mary Shelley’s masterpiece, FRANKENSTEIN. She will be in conversation with fellow author Alma Katsu.
This Week's Bonus News:
"What's Your Book Group Reading This Month?"
Contest on ReadingGroupGuides.com
Enter to Win Up to 12 Copies of THE PAPER PALACE
by Miranda Cowley Heller for Your Group
Each month in our "What's Your Book Group Reading This Month?" feature, we ask book groups to share the titles they are reading that month and rate them. From all entries, three winners will be selected, and each will win up to 12 copies of that month’s prize book for their group. Note: To be eligible to win, let us know the title of the book that YOUR book group is CURRENTLY reading, NOT the title we are giving away.
Our latest prize book is THE PAPER PALACE by Miranda Cowley Heller, an instant #1 New York Times bestseller and a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick that releases in paperback on April 19th. In the course of a singular day on Cape Cod, one woman must make a life-changing decision that has been brewing for decades. To enter, please fill out the form on this page by Wednesday, May 11th at noon ET.
THE PAPER PALACE by Miranda Cowley Heller (Fiction)
Elle, a 50-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at “The Paper Palace” --- the family summer place that she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: Last night, Elle and her oldest friend, Jonas, crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next 24 hours, Elle will have to decide between the life she has made with her genuinely beloved husband, Peter, and the life she always imagined she would have had with her childhood love, Jonas, if a tragic event hadn’t forever changed the course of their lives. As Miranda Cowley Heller colors in the experiences that have led Elle to this day, we arrive at her ultimate decision with all its complexity.
- Click here to read more about the book.
- Click here for the discussion guide.
- Click here to read our review.
- Click here to read an excerpt.
- Click here to read Carol's Bookreporter.com Bets On commentary.
- Click here to watch our "Bookaccino Live" Book Group event with Miranda Cowley Heller.
- Click here to listen to a podcast of the event.
Click here to enter the contest.
On Sale the Week of April 25th in Hardcover
April 26th
BLOOD WILL TELL by Heather Chavez (Psychological Thriller)
Frankie Barrera has always been fiercely protective of her younger sister, Izzy. But over the years, Izzy’s risky choices have tested Frankie’s loyalty. Never so much as on a night five years ago, when a frantic phone call led Frankie to the scene of a car accident --- and a drunk and disoriented Izzy who couldn’t remember a thing. Though six friends partied on the outskirts of town that night, one girl was never seen again. Now, an AMBER alert puts Frankie in the sights of the local police. Her truck has been described as the one used in the abduction of a girl from a neighboring town. And the only other person with access to Frankie’s truck is Izzy. This time around, Frankie will have to decide to what lengths she’s willing to go in order to protect Izzy.
William Morrow | 9780062936202
THE CHILDREN ON THE HILL by Jennifer McMahon (Supernatural Thriller)
1978: At her renowned treatment center in Vermont, psychiatrist Helen Hildreth is acclaimed for her compassionate work with the mentally ill. But when she’s home with her grandchildren, Vi and Eric, she’s just Gran. Then one day, Gran brings home a child to stay with the family. Although Iris does not behave like a normal girl, Vi and Eric invite her to join their Monster Club, where they catalogue all kinds of monsters and dream up ways to defeat them. 2019: Lizzy Shelley, the host of the popular podcast “Monsters Among Us,” is traveling to Vermont, where a young girl has been abducted, and a monster sighting has the town in an uproar. Lizzy knows better than anyone that monsters are real --- and one of them is her very own sister.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781982153953
CHOSEN: A Memoir of Stolen Boyhood by Stephen Mills (Memoir)
At 13 years old, Stephen Mills is chosen for special attention by the director of his Jewish summer camp, who first grooms and then molests him for two years. Stephen tells no one, but the aftershocks rip through his adult life, as intense as his denial: self-loathing, drug abuse, petty crime and horrific nightmares, all made worse by the discovery that his abuser is moving from camp to camp, state to state, molesting other boys. Only physical and mental collapse bring Stephen to confront the truth of his boyhood and begin the painful process of recovery --- as well as a decades-long crusade to stop a serial predator, find justice and hold to account those who failed the children in their care.
Metropolitan Books | 9781250823212
CITY ON FIRE by Don Winslow (Thriller)
Two criminal empires together control all of New England. Until a beautiful modern-day Helen of Troy comes between the Irish and the Italians, launching a war that will see them kill each other, destroy an alliance and set a city on fire. Danny Ryan yearns for a more “legit” life and a place in the sun. But as the bloody conflict stacks body on body and brother turns against brother, Danny has to rise above himself. To save his family and friends, he becomes a leader, a ruthless strategist, and a master of a treacherous game in which the winners live and the losers die. From the gritty streets of Providence to the glittering screens of Hollywood to the golden casinos of Las Vegas, Danny Ryan will forge a dynasty.
William Morrow | 9780062851192
THE DISCORD OF GODS by Jenn Lyons (Fantasy)
Relos Var's final plans to enslave the universe are on the cusp of fruition. He believes there's only one being in existence that might be able to stop him: the demon Xaltorath. As these two masterminds circle each other, neither is paying attention to the third player on the board, Kihrin. Unfortunately, keeping himself classified in the “pawn” category means that Kihrin must pretend to be everything the prophecies threatened he'd become: the destroyer of all, the sun eater, a mindless, remorseless plague upon the land. It also means finding an excuse to not destroy the people he loves (or any of the remaining Immortals) without arousing suspicion.
Tor Books | 9781250175687
THE FERVOR by Alma Katsu (Supernatural/Historical Thriller)
As World War II rages on, the threat has come to the home front. In a remote corner of Idaho, Meiko Briggs and her daughter, Aiko, are desperate to return home. Following Meiko's husband's enlistment as an air force pilot in the Pacific, Meiko and Aiko were taken from their home in Seattle and sent to one of the internment camps in the Midwest. Mother and daughter attempt to hold on to elements of their old life in the camp when a mysterious disease begins to spread among those interned. When a disconcerting team of doctors arrive, Meiko and Aiko team up with a newspaper reporter and widowed missionary to investigate. It becomes clear to them that something more sinister is afoot.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593328330
FINDING ME: A Memoir by Viola Davis (Memoir)
“In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever. This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me. As I wrote FINDING ME, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love.”
HarperOne | 9780063037328
THE GOOD LEFT UNDONE by Adriana Trigiani (Fiction)
In the halcyon days of the past, Domenica Cabrelli thrives in the coastal town of Viareggio until the day her beloved home becomes unsafe as Italy teeters on the brink of World War II. As her journey takes her from the rocky shores of Marseille to the mystical beauty of Scotland to the dangers of wartime Liverpool --- where Italian Scots were imprisoned without cause --- Domenica experiences love, loss and grief as she longs for home. A hundred years later, her daughter, Matelda, and her great-granddaughter, Anina, face the same big questions about life and their family’s legacy as Matelda contemplates what is worth fighting for, and when to let go. The Cabrellis have survived so much, and it is only through the transformative power of love that they can hope to truly heal.
Dutton | 9780593183328
I'LL BE YOU by Janelle Brown (Mystery/Thriller)
As children, Sam and Elli were gorgeous identical twins. Once Hollywood discovered them, they became B-list child TV stars, often inhabiting the same role. But as adults, their lives have splintered. After leaving acting, Elli reinvented herself as the perfect homemaker. Meanwhile, Sam has never recovered from her failed Hollywood career, or from her addiction to pills and booze. Sam hasn't spoken to her sister since her destructive behavior finally drove a wedge between them. So when her father calls out of the blue, Sam is shocked to learn that Elli’s life has been in turmoil. Now she’s stopped answering her phone and checked in to a mysterious spa in Ojai. Is Elli just decompressing, or is she in trouble? Could she have possibly joined a cult?
Random House | 9780525479185
I'LL SHOW MYSELF OUT: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood by Jessi Klein (Humor/Essays)
In New York Times bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Jessi Klein’s second collection, she hilariously explodes the cultural myths and impossible expectations around motherhood and explores the humiliations, poignancies and possibilities of midlife. In interconnected essays like “Listening to Beyoncé in the Parking Lot of Party City,” “Your Husband Will Remarry Five Minutes After You Die,” “Eulogy for My Feet” and “An Open Love Letter to Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent,” Klein explores this stage of life in all its cruel ironies, joyous moments and bittersweetness.
Harper | 9780062981592
KAIKEYI by Vaishnavi Patel (Historical Fiction)
The only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya, Kaikeyi is raised on tales of the gods. Yet she watches as her father unceremoniously banishes her mother, and listens as her own worth is reduced to how great a marriage alliance she can secure. And when she calls upon the gods for help, they never seem to hear. Desperate for some measure of independence, she turns to the texts she once read with her mother and discovers a magic that is hers alone. With this power, Kaikeyi transforms herself from an overlooked princess into a warrior, diplomat and most favored queen. But as the evil from her childhood stories threatens the cosmic order, the path she has forged clashes with the destiny the gods have chosen for her family.
Redhook | 9780759557338
LITTLE SOULS by Sandra Dallas (Historical Fiction)
Sisters Helen and Lutie have moved to Denver from Iowa after their parents’ deaths. They share a small, neat house and make a modest income from a rental apartment in the basement. When their tenant dies from the Spanish Flu, they are thrust into caring for the woman’s small daughter, Dorothy. Soon after, Lutie comes home from work and discovers a dead man on their kitchen floor and Helen standing above the body. She has no doubt Helen killed the man --- Dorothy’s father --- in self-defense, but she knows that will be hard to prove. Meanwhile, Lutie also worries about her fiancé “over there.” As it happens, his wealthy mother harbors a secret of her own and helps the sisters as the danger deepens.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250277886
LUCKY TURTLE by Bill Roorbach (Fiction)
When 16-year-old Cindra Zoeller is sent to a reform camp in Montana after being involved in an armed robbery, she is thrust into a world of mountains, cowboys, prayers, miscreants, and people from all walks of life like she’s never seen in suburban Massachusetts. At Camp Challenge, she becomes transfixed by Lucky, a camp employee of mysterious origin, and the chemistry between them is instant and profound. The pair escape together into the wilderness to create an idyllic life far from the reach of the law. But they can run from the outside world for only so long, and the consequences of their naïve fantasy of a future together --- and circumstances shaped by skin color --- will keep them apart for decades.
Algonquin Books | 9781643750972
MARIA, MARIA: & Other Stories by Marytza K. Rubio (Fiction/Short Stories)
Set against the tropics and megacities of the Americas, MARIA, MARIA takes inspiration from wild creatures, tarot, and the porous borders between life and death. Motivated by love and its inverse, grief, the characters who inhabit these stories negotiate boldly with nature to cast their desired ends. As the enigmatic community college professor in “Brujería for Beginners” reminds us, “There’s always a price for conjuring in darkness. You won’t always know what it is until payment is due.” This commitment drives the disturbingly faithful widow in “Tijuca,” who promises to bury her husband’s head in the rich dirt of the jungle, and the sisters in “Moksha,” who are tempted by a sleek obsidian dagger once held by a vampiric idol.
Liveright | 9781324090540
MARRYING THE KETCHUPS by Jennifer Close (Fiction/Humor)
Here are the three things the Sullivan family knows to be true: the Chicago Cubs will always be the underdogs; historical progress is inevitable; and their grandfather, Bud, founder of JP Sullivan’s, will always make the best burgers in Oak Park. But when, over the course of three strange months, the Cubs win the World Series, Trump is elected president and Bud drops dead, suddenly everyone in the family finds themselves doubting all they hold dear. How can any of them be expected to make the right decisions when the world feels sideways --- and the bartender at JP Sullivan’s makes such strong cocktails?
Knopf | 9780525658870
NETTLE & BONE by T. Kingfisher (Fantasy/Adventure)
Marra never wanted to be a hero. As the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter, she escaped the traditional fate of princesses, to be married away for the sake of an uncaring throne. But her sister wasn’t so fortunate --- and after years of silence, Marra is done watching her suffer at the hands of a powerful and abusive prince. Seeking help for her rescue mission, Marra is offered the tools she needs, but only if she can complete three seemingly impossible tasks: build a dog of bones, sew a cloak of nettles, and capture moonlight in a jar. But, as is the way in tales of princes and witches, doing the impossible is only the beginning.
Tor Books | 9781250244048
THE PALACE PAPERS: Inside the House of Windsor — the Truth and the Turmoil by Tina Brown (Biography)
“Never again” became Queen Elizabeth II’s mantra shortly after Princess Diana’s tragic death. More specifically, there could never be “another Diana” --- a member of the family whose global popularity upstaged, outshone and posed an existential threat to the British monarchy. Picking up where Tina Brown’s THE DIANA CHRONICLES left off, THE PALACE PAPERS reveals how the royal family reinvented itself after the traumatic years when Diana’s blazing celebrity ripped through the House of Windsor like a comet. Brown takes readers on a tour de force journey through the scandals, love affairs, power plays and betrayals that have buffeted the monarchy over the last 25 years.
Crown | 9780593138090
THE PUZZLER: One Man's Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life written by A.J. Jacobs, with original puzzles by Greg Pliska (Memoir)
What makes puzzles --- jigsaws, mazes, riddles, sudokus --- so satisfying? A.J. Jacobs --- New York Times bestselling author, master of immersion journalism and nightly crossworder ---- set out to determine their myriad benefits. And maybe, in the process, solve the puzzle of our very existence. Well, almost. In THE PUZZLER, Jacobs meets the most zealous devotees, enters (sometimes with his family in tow) any puzzle competition that will have him, unpacks the history of the most popular puzzles, and aims to solve the most impossible head-scratchers, from a mutant Rubik’s Cube, to the hardest corn maze in America, to the most sadistic jigsaw.
Crown | 9780593136713
SEARCH by Michelle Huneven (Fiction/Humor)
Dana Potowski is a restaurant critic and food writer, and a longtime member of a progressive Unitarian Universalist congregation in Southern California. Just as she’s finishing the book tour for her latest bestseller, Dana is asked to join the church search committee for a new minister. Under pressure to find her next book idea, she agrees, and resolves to secretly pen a memoir, with recipes, about the experience. That memoir, Search, follows the travails of the committee and their candidates --- and becomes its own media sensation. Ultimately, the committee faces a stark choice between two very different paths forward for the congregation. And Dana will fight the entire committee, if necessary, to win the day for her side.
Penguin Press | 9780593300053
TIGER & PHIL: Golf's Most Fascinating Rivalry by Bob Harig (Sports)
For more than two decades, there have been two golfers who have captivated, bemused, inspired, frustrated, fascinated and entertained us, and in doing so have demanded our attention --- Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Even with all the ink that has been spilled on Tiger, no one has ever written about his relationship with Phil and how their careers have been inextricably intertwined. Furthermore, very little has been written about Phil Mickelson, who is more than just an adversary. He is a fascinating Hall of Fame golfer in his own right. These two biggest names (and draws) in golf have, for better and for worse, been the ultimate rivals. But it is so much more complicated than that.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250274465
UNMASKED: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases by Paul Holes (True Crime/Memoir)
In UNMASKED, cold case investigator Paul Holes takes us through his memories of a storied career and provides an insider account of some of the most notorious cases in contemporary American history, including the hunt for the Golden State Killer, Laci Peterson's murder and Jaycee Dugard's kidnapping. This is also a revelatory profile of a complex man and what makes him tick: the drive to find closure for victims and their loved ones, the inability to walk away from a challenge --- even at the expense of his own happiness. Holes opens up the most intimate scenes of his life: his moments of self-doubt and the impact that detective work has had on his marriage.
Celadon Books | 9781250622792
WHEN WE FELL APART by Soon Wiley (Literary Thriller/Mystery)
When the Seoul police inform Min that his girlfriend Yu-jin has committed suicide, he’s sure it can't be true. She was successful, ambitious, happy, just on the cusp of graduating from university, and claiming the future she’d always dreamed of. Min, on the other hand, born to an American father and Korean mother, has never felt quite the same certainty as Yu-jin about his life’s path. Devastated by her death, Min throws himself into finding out why she could have secretly wanted to die. Or did she? With a controlling and powerful government official father, and a fraught friendship with her alluring and destructive roommate So-ra, Yu-jin’s life was much more complex than she chose to reveal to Min.
Dutton | 9780593185148
WHERE THE CHILDREN TAKE US: How One Family Achieved the Unimaginable by Zain E. Asher (Memoir)
Awaiting the return of her husband and young son from a road trip, Obiajulu Ejiofor receives shattering news. There’s been a fatal car crash, and one of them is dead. In WHERE THE CHILDREN TAKE US, Obiajulu’s daughter, Zain E. Asher, tells the story of her mother’s harrowing fight to raise four children as a widowed immigrant in South London. There is tragedy in this tale, but it is not a tragedy. Drawing on tough-love parenting strategies, Obiajulu teaches her sons and daughters to overcome the daily pressures of poverty, crime and prejudice --- and much more. With her relentless support, the children exceed all expectations --- becoming a CNN anchor, an Oscar-nominated actor (Asher’s older brother, Chiwetel Ejiofor, from 12 Years a Slave), a medical doctor and a thriving entrepreneur.
Amistad | 9780063048836
THE WRONG VICTIM by Allison Brennan (Mystery/Thriller)
A bomb explodes on a sunset charter cruise out of Friday Harbor at the height of tourist season and kills everyone on board. Now this fishing and boating community is in shock and asking who would commit such a heinous crime. Was the explosion an act of domestic terrorism, or was one of the dead the primary target? That is the first question Special Agent Matt Costa, Detective Kara Quinn and the rest of the FBI team need to answer, but they have few clues and no witnesses. Accused of putting profits before people after leaking fuel endangered an environmentally sensitive preserve, the West End Charter company may itself have been the target. As Matt and his team get closer to answers, they find one of their own caught in the crosshairs of a determined killer.
Mira | 9780778312307
On Sale the Week of April 25th in Paperback
April 26th
ANYWHERE FOR YOU by Abbie Greaves (Fiction)
Mary O’Connor appears at Ealing Broadway station every day and holds out a sign bearing a heartrending message: Come Home Jim. While others pass her by without a thought, Alice, a junior reporter at the Ealing Bugle, asks Mary to tell her story. Many years ago, Mary met the charming and romantic Jim Whitnell. She was certain she’d found her other half, until one day he vanished without any explanation. But Mary believes that Jim truly loved her and will return --- especially because she’s recently received grainy phone calls from him saying he misses her. Alice quietly begins her own investigation into Jim’s disappearance, unraveling a decade-long story filled with desire, heartbreak and hope.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062933881
BETTER OFF DEAD: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Thriller)
Reacher is heading west, walking under the merciless desert sun --- until he comes upon a curious scene. A Jeep has crashed into the only tree for miles around. A woman is slumped over the wheel. Dead? No, nothing is what it seems. The woman is Michaela Fenton, an army veteran turned FBI agent trying to find her twin brother, who might be mixed up with some dangerous people. Most of them would rather die than betray their terrifying leader, who has burrowed his influence deep into the nearby border town. The mysterious Dendoncker rules from the shadows, out of sight and under the radar, keeping his dealings in the dark. Bringing him down will be the riskiest job of Reacher's life.
Bantam | 9781984818522
BLOODLESS: A Pendergast Novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Thriller)
On the evening of November 24, 1971, D. B. Cooper hijacked Flight 305 with a fake bomb, collected a ransom of $200,000, and then parachuted from the rear of the plane, disappearing into the night…and into history. Fifty years later, Agent Pendergast takes on a bizarre and gruesome case: in the ghost-haunted city of Savannah, Georgia, bodies are found with no blood left in their veins --- sowing panic and reviving whispered tales of the infamous Savannah Vampire. As the mystery rises along with the body count, Pendergast and his partner, Agent Coldmoon, race to understand how --- or if --- these murders are connected to the only unsolved skyjacking in American history.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538736722
BRING YOUR BAGGAGE AND DON’T PACK LIGHT: Essays by Helen Ellis (Humor/Essays)
When Helen Ellis and her lifelong friends arrive for a reunion on the Redneck Riviera, they unpack more than their suitcases: stories of husbands and kids; lost parents and lost jobs; dirty jokes and sunscreen with SPF higher than they hair-sprayed their bangs senior year; and a bad mammogram. It's a diagnosis that scares them, but could never break their bond. Because women pushing 50 won't be pushed around. In these 12 gloriously comic and moving essays, Helen Ellis dishes on married middle-age sex, sobs with a theater full of women as a psychic exorcises their sorrows, gets 20 shots of stomach bile to the neck to get rid of her double chin, and gathers up the courage to ask, "Are you there, Menopause? It's Me, Helen."
Anchor | 9780593081686
CLASS ACT: A Stone Barrington Novel by Stuart Woods (Thriller/Adventure)
After a rocky jaunt in Maine, Stone Barrington is settling back in New York City when an old client reaches out for help with a delicate matter. A feud they thought was put to rest long ago has reemerged with a vengeance, and reputations --- and money --- are now on the line. As Stone sets out to unravel a tangled web of crime and secrets, his mission becomes even more complicated when he makes an irresistible new acquaintance. In both the underbelly and upper echelons of New York, everyone has something to hide --- and if Stone has learned anything, it’s that history has a way of repeating itself.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593331682
COME FLY THE WORLD: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am by Julia Cooke (History)
Required to have a college education, speak two languages and possess the political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a jet-age stewardess serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between 5′3" and 5′9", between 105 and 140 pounds, and under 26 years of age at the time of hire. Julia Cooke’s intimate storytelling weaves together the real-life stories of a memorable cast of characters --- from small-town girl Lynne Totten, a science major who decided life in a lab was not for her, to Hazel Bowie, one of the relatively few Black stewardesses of the era --- as they embraced the liberation of their new jet-set life.
Mariner Books | 9780358699187
DOWN RANGE: A Garrett Kohl Novel by Taylor Moore (Thriller/Adventure)
As a decorated undercover DEA special agent, Garrett Kohl has traveled the world --- and fought in most of it --- but it’s the High Plains of northwest Texas he calls home and dreams of returning to one day. Kohl is in the middle of an assignment in Afghanistan when his commander orders him back to Texas on a short mission expected to take a week at most. The once-peaceful ranching community he loves is under attack by a band of criminals who have infiltrated law enforcement and corrupted local businesses, and are now terrorizing Kohl’s own family. Hoping to prevent bloodshed, Kohl tries to resolve matters peacefully. But when the group strikes first, he has no choice but to go on the attack.
William Morrow | 9780063111578
EVERYTHING MUST GO by Camille Pagán (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Laine Francis believes there’s a place for everything --- and New York, where her family lives, isn’t her place. But no sooner does the professional organizer’s marriage begin to unravel than her sisters drop another bomb on her: their mother, Sally, may have dementia, and they need Laine to come home. Laine agrees to briefly return to Brooklyn. To Laine’s relief, Sally seems no more absentminded than usual. So Laine vows to help her mother maintain her independence, then hightail it back to Michigan. Except Laine’s plans go awry when she runs into her former best friend, Ben, and realizes she finally has a chance to repair their fractured relationship. Then she discovers that memory loss isn’t the only thing Sally has been hiding.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781542037426
FALLEN by Linda Castillo (Mystery/Thriller)
When a young woman is found murdered in a Painters Mill motel, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is shocked to discover she once knew the victim. Rachael Schwartz was a charming but troubled Amish girl who left the fold years ago and fled Painters Mill. Why was she back in town? And who would kill her so brutally? Kate remembers Rachael as the only girl who was as bad at being Amish as Kate was --- and those parallels dog her. But the more Kate learns about Rachael's life, the more she's convinced that her dubious reputation was deserved. As the case heats to a fever pitch and long-buried secrets resurface, a killer haunts Painters Mill. Someone doesn’t want Rachael’s past --- or the mysteries she took with her to the grave --- coming to light.
Minotaur Books | 9781250845436
FOR YOUR OWN GOOD by Samantha Downing (Psychological Thriller)
Teddy Crutcher has won Teacher of the Year at the prestigious Belmont Academy, home to the best and brightest. He says his wife couldn’t be more proud --- though no one has seen her in a while. Teddy really can’t be bothered with a few mysterious deaths on campus that are looking more and more like murder or the student digging a little too deep into Teddy’s personal life. His main focus is pushing these kids to their full academic potential. All he wants is for his colleagues --- and the endlessly meddlesome parents --- to stay out of his way. If not, well, they’ll get what they deserve. It’s really too bad that sometimes excellence can come at such a high cost.
Berkley | 9780593100981
HELL AND OTHER DESTINATIONS: A 21st-Century Memoir by Madeleine Albright (Memoir)
In 2001, when Madeleine Albright was leaving office as America’s first female Secretary of State, interviewers asked her how she wished to be remembered. “I don’t want to be remembered,” she answered. “I am still here and have much more I intend to do. As difficult as it might seem, I want every stage of my life to be more exciting than the last.” In that time of transition, the former Secretary considered the possibilities: she could write, teach, travel, give speeches, start a business, fight for democracy, help to empower women, campaign for favored political candidates, spend more time with her grandchildren. Instead of choosing one or two, she decided to do it all.
Harper Perennial | 9780062802279
HIGH STAKES by Iris Johansen (Thriller)
Logan Tanner lives the exhilarating life of a professional gambler. But all the glitz and glamour hide a dark and violent past as an extractor --- a world that comes rushing back to him when Lara Balkon enters his life. Soon Logan is drawn into the conflict between two Russian mafia bosses over Lara, whose life now hangs in the balance. Logan has been offered something more valuable to him than money --- information he desperately needs --- in exchange for getting Lara out of Russia and to safety. Once together, Tanner discovers that Lara is a force to be reckoned with in her own right. Tanner’s search for the truth leads them to the bright lights of Las Vegas, where the person who was hunting Lara now lies in wait for them.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538713112
AN HONEST LIE by Tarryn Fisher (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Lorraine --- “Rainy” --- lives at the top of Tiger Mountain. Remote, moody, cloistered in pine trees and fog, it’s a sanctuary, a new life. She can hide from the disturbing past she wants to forget. If she’s allowed to. When Rainy reluctantly agrees to a girls’ weekend in Vegas, she’s prepared for an exhausting parade of shots and slot machines. But after a wild night, her friend Braithe doesn’t come back to the hotel room. And then Rainy gets the text message, sent from Braithe’s phone: someone has her. But Rainy is who they really want, and Rainy knows why. What follows is a twisted, shocking journey on the knife-edge of life and death. If she wants to save Braithe --- and herself --- the only way is to step back into the past.
Graydon House | 9781525811579
KNOCK KNOCK by Anders Roslund (Thriller)
Seventeen years ago, Criminal Inspector Ewert Grens was called to the scene of a brutal crime. A family had been murdered, and the only survivor --- and witness --- was the five-year-old daughter. The girl was placed in the witness protection program, and the case went cold. But years later, Grens is still haunted by the seemingly random slaying and the little girl who was spared. So when he learns that the apartment where the crime occurred is now the scene of a mysterious break-in, Grens immediately fears that someone is intent on silencing the only witness. He races to find her...before they do.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593188231
THE LIVING SEA OF WAKING DREAMS by Richard Flanagan (Dystopian Fiction)
Anna's aged mother is dying. Condemned by her children's pity to living, subjected to increasingly desperate medical interventions, she turns her focus to her hospital window, through which she escapes into visions of horror and delight. When Anna's finger vanishes and a few months later her knee disappears, Anna too feels the pull of the window. She begins to see that all around her, others are similarly vanishing, yet no one else notices. All Anna can do is keep her mother alive. But the window keeps opening wider, taking Anna and the reader ever deeper into an eerily beautiful story of grief and possibility, of loss and love and orange-bellied parrots.
Vintage | 9780593313701
LOVE IN COLOR: Mythical Tales from Around the World, Retold by Bolu Babalola (Romance/Short Stories)
A high-born Nigerian goddess, who has been beaten down and unappreciated by her gregarious lover, longs to be truly seen. A young businesswoman attempts a great leap in her company, and an even greater one in her love life. A powerful Ghanaian spokeswoman is forced to decide whether she should uphold her family’s politics or be true to her heart. In her debut collection, internationally acclaimed writer Bolu Babalola retells the most beautiful love stories from history and mythology with incredible new detail and vivacity. Focusing on the magical folktales of West Africa, Babalola also reimagines Greek myths, ancient legends from the Middle East, and stories from long-erased places.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063078505
THE MUSIC OF BEES by Eileen Garvin (Fiction)
Forty-four-year-old Alice Holtzman is reeling from the unexpected death of her husband. Even the beloved honeybees she raises in her spare time aren't helping her feel better these days. In the grip of a panic attack, she nearly collides with Jake, a troubled, paraplegic teenager. Charmed by his sincere interest in her bees, Alice surprises herself by inviting Jake to her farm. And then there's Harry, a 24-year-old with debilitating social anxiety who is brought on to be Alice’s part-time farm help. As an unexpected friendship blossoms among Alice, Jake and Harry, a nefarious pesticide company moves to town, threatening the local honeybee population and illuminating deep-seated corruption in the community.
Dutton | 9780593183939
THE NEWCOMER by Mary Kay Andrews (Fiction)
After discovering her sister Tanya dead on the floor of her fashionable New York City townhouse, Letty Carnahan is certain that the culprit is Tanya’s ex: sleazy real estate entrepreneur Evan Wingfield. So she grabs Tanya’s Mercedes and hits the road with her four-year-old niece, Maya. Letty sheds her old life and checks into an uncertain future at The Murmuring Surf Motel, the winter home of a close-knit flock of retirees and snowbirds who regard this odd-duck newcomer with suspicion and downright hostility. As Letty settles into the motel’s former storage room, she tries to heal Maya’s heartache and unravel the key to her sister’s shady past, all while dodging the attention of the owner’s dangerously attractive son Joe, who just happens to be a local police detective.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250256959
OH WILLIAM! by Elizabeth Strout (Fiction)
Lucy Barton is a writer, but her ex-husband, William, remains a hard man to read. William, she confesses, has always been a mystery to me. Another mystery is why the two have remained connected after all these years. They just are. So Lucy is both surprised and not surprised when William asks her to join him on a trip to investigate a recently uncovered family secret --- one of those secrets that rearrange everything we think we know about the people closest to us.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780812989441
ON THE BUS WITH BILL MONROE: My Five-Year Ride with the Father of Blue Grass by Mark Hembree (Memoir)
Paperback Original
A backstage audition led Mark Hembree into a five-year stint (1979–1984) as the bassist for Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. Hembree’s journey included playing at the White House and on the acclaimed album Master of Bluegrass. But it also put him on a collision course with the rigors of touring, the mysteries of Southern culture, and the complex personality of bandleader legend Bill Monroe. Whether it’s figuring out the best time for breakfast (early) or for beating the boss at poker (never), Hembree gives readers an up-close look at the occasionally exalting, often unglamorous life of a touring musician in the sometimes baffling, always colorful company of a bluegrass icon.
University of Illinois Press | 9780252086496
REUNION BEACH: Stories Inspired by Dorothea Benton Frank by Elin Hilderbrand, Adriana Trigiani, Patti Callahan Henry, Mary Alice Monroe, and more (Fiction/Short Stories)
Inspired by the title Dorothea Benton Frank planned for her next book --- REUNION BEACH --- Elin Hilderbrand, Adriana Trigiani, Patti Callahan, Mary Alice Monroe and other bestselling authors and writers channeled their creativity, admiration and grief into stories and poems that celebrate this remarkable woman and her abiding love for the Lowcountry of her native South Carolina --- a land of beauty, history, charm and Gullah magic she so brilliantly brought to life in her acclaimed novels.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063048942
THE SABOTEURS: An Isaac Bell Adventure by Clive Cussler and Jack Du Brul (Historical Thriller/Adventure)
Detective Isaac Bell thwarts the assassination of a U.S. Senator shortly after meeting the man. This heroic rescue is just the start of the mystery for Bell, who suspects that the would-be assassins have a much larger and more dangerous agenda --- one involving the nearly constructed Panama Canal. While the senator supports the building of the canal, there are many, including a local Panamanian insurgency known as the Red Vipers, who never want to see its completion. With millions of dollars and the fates of two nations at stake, Bell heads to Panama to find answers. After a deadly bombing at the canal's construction site, he is determined to stop the insurgents --- or whoever is funding them --- before they can attack again.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593191248
SLEEPLESS by Romy Hausmann (Psychological Thriller)
It's been years since Nadja Kulka was convicted of a cruel crime. After being released from prison, she's wanted nothing more than to live a normal life: nice flat, steady job, even a few friends. But when one of those friends, Laura von Hoven --- free-spirited beauty and wife of Nadja's boss --- kills her lover and begs Nadja for her help, Nadja can't seem to refuse. The two women make for a remote house in the woods, the perfect place to bury a body. But their plan quickly falls apart, and Nadja finds herself outplayed, a pawn in a bizarre game in which she is both the perfect victim and the perfect murderer.
Flatiron Books | 9781250824806
THINGS WE LOST TO THE WATER by Eric Nguyen (Fiction)
When Huong arrives in New Orleans with her two young sons, she is jobless, homeless and worried about her husband, Cong, who remains in Vietnam. With time, Huong realizes she will never see him again. While she attempts to come to terms with this loss, her sons, Tuan and Binh, grow up in their absent father's shadow, haunted by a man and a country trapped in their memories and imaginations. As they push forward, the three adapt to life in America in different ways. Their search for identity threatens to tear them apart, until disaster strikes the city they now call home and they are suddenly forced to find a new way to come together and honor the ties that bind them.
Vintage | 9780593311035
THREE DREAMERS: A Memoir of Family by Lorenzo Carcaterra (Memoir)
Standing with his children near his grandmother’s grave on a recent trip to Ischia, an island off the coast of Naples, Lorenzo Carcaterra realized how much of his life has been shaped by the women who taught him how to look for joy and overcome sorrow. This book is his tribute to them. Nonna Maria, his grandmother, gave him his first taste of a loving home during the summers he spent with her as a teenager on Ischia. His mother, Raffaela, dealt with daily hardships: a loveless and abusive marriage, the burden of debt and a life of dread. The third woman is his wife, Susan, a gifted editor and his professional champion. Their marriage lasted three decades before her death from lung cancer in 2013.
Ballantine Books | 9780593156735
UNSETTLED GROUND by Claire Fuller (Fiction)
At 51 years old, twins Jeanie and Julius still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation in the English countryside. The cottage they have shared their entire lives is their only protection against the modernizing world around them. Inside its walls, they make music, and in its garden, they grow everything they need to survive. To an outsider, it looks like poverty; to them, it is home. But when Dot dies unexpectedly, the world they’ve so carefully created begins to fall apart. The cottage they love, and the security it offered, is taken back by their landlord, exposing the twins to harsh truths and even harsher realities.
Tin House Books | 9781953534170
On Sale the Week of May 2nd in Hardcover
May 2nd
22 SECONDS by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (Thriller)
SFPD Sergeant Lindsay Boxer has guns on her mind. There’s buzz of a last-ditch shipment of drugs and weapons crossing the Mexican border ahead of new restrictive gun laws. Before Lindsay can act, her top informant tips her to a case that hits disturbingly close to home. Former cops. Professional hits. All with the same warning scrawled on their bodies: You talk, you die. Now it’s Lindsay’s turn to choose.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316499378
May 3rd
ACTS OF SERVICE by Lillian Fishman (Fiction)
Eve has an adoring girlfriend, an impulsive streak, and a secret fear that she’s wasting her brief youth with just one person. So one evening she posts some nudes online. This is how Eve meets Olivia and, through Olivia, the charismatic Nathan. Despite her better instincts, the three soon begin a relationship --- one that disturbs Eve as much as it enthralls her. As each act of their affair unfolds across a cold and glittering New York, Eve is forced to confront the questions that most consume her: What do we bring to sex? What does it reveal of ourselves, and one another? And how do we reconcile what we want with what we think we should want?
Hogarth | 9780593243763
BOOK OF NIGHT by Holly Black (Supernatural Thriller/Dark Fantasy)
Charlie Hall has spent half her life working for gloamists, magicians who manipulate shadows to peer into locked rooms, strangle people in their beds, or worse. Gloamists guard their secrets greedily, creating an underground economy of grimoires. And to rob their fellow magicians, they need Charlie Hall. Now, she’s trying to distance herself from past mistakes, but getting out isn’t easy. Bartending at a dive, she’s still entirely too close to the corrupt underbelly of the Berkshires. Not to mention that her sister, Posey, is desperate for magic and that Charlie's shadowless, and possibly soulless, boyfriend has been hiding things from her. When a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie descends into a maelstrom of murder and lies.
Tor Books | 9781250812193
THE CHANGE by Kirsten Miller (Fantasy/Thriller)
In the Long Island oceanfront community of Mattauk, three different women discover that midlife changes bring a whole new type of empowerment. After Nessa James’ husband dies and her twin daughters leave for college, the former nurse begins to hear voices. It doesn’t take long for Nessa to realize that the voices calling out to her belong to the dead. On the cusp of 50, suave advertising director Harriett Osborne has just witnessed the implosion of her lucrative career and her marriage. But her life is far from over --- in fact, she has undergone a stunning and very welcome metamorphosis. Ambitious former executive Jo Levison has spent 30 long years at war with her body. The free-floating rage and hot flashes that arrive with the beginning of menopause feel like the very last straw --- until she realizes she has the ability to channel them.
William Morrow | 9780063144040
COMPANION PIECE by Ali Smith (Fiction)
Following her astonishing Seasonal Quartet, award-winning author Ali Smith again lights a way for us through the nightmarish now with a provocative novel grounded both in the contemporary era and in the uncannily familiar era of the Black Plague. This is a vital celebration of companionship in all its timeless and present, legendary and unpindownable, spellbinding and shapeshifting forms.
Pantheon | 9780593316375
DARLING GIRL: A Novel of Peter Pan by Liz Michalski (Fiction/Magical Realism)
Life is looking up for Holly Darling, the granddaughter of Wendy. She's running a successful skincare company; her son, Jack, is happy and healthy; and the tragedy of her past is well behind her. That is, until she gets a call that her daughter, Eden, who has been in a coma for nearly a decade, has gone missing from the estate where she's been long tucked away. And, worst of all, Holly knows who must be responsible: Peter Pan, who is more dangerous than anyone could imagine. Eden has a rare condition that causes her to age rapidly, which also makes her blood incredibly valuable. It’s a secret that Holly is desperate to protect, especially from Eden's half-brother, Jack, who knows nothing about his sister or the crucial role she plays in his life.
Dutton | 9780593185636
DISAPPEARED by Bonnar Spring (Mystery/Thriller)
Julie Welch’s sister, Fay Lariviere, disappears from their hotel in Morocco. Although she leaves a note that she’ll be back in two days, Fay doesn’t return. Julie’s anger shifts to worry --- and to fear when she discovers a stalker. Then, an attack meant for Julie kills another woman. Searching Fay’s luggage and quizzing the hotel staff, Julie discovers Fay’s destination --- a remote village in the Saharan desert. Convinced her sister is in danger and propelled by her own jeopardy, Julie rushes to warn Fay. By the time she reaches the village, Julie finds that Fay has traveled deeper into the desert. With a villager as her guide, Julie follows, only to be stranded in the Sahara when the guide abandons her. Julie is eventually reunited with Fay --- in a prison cell --- and learns the reasons for Fay’s secrecy.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608094882
ELEKTRA by Jennifer Saint (Historical Fiction/Mythology)
When Clytemnestra marries Agamemnon, she ignores the insidious whispers about his family line, the House of Atreus. But when, on the eve of the Trojan War, Agamemnon betrays Clytemnestra in the most unimaginable way, she must confront the curse that has long ravaged their family. In Troy, Princess Cassandra has the gift of prophecy but carries a curse of her own: no one will ever believe what she sees. When she is shown what will happen to her beloved city when Agamemnon and his army arrives, she is powerless to stop the tragedy from unfolding. Elektra, Clytemnestra and Agamemnon’s youngest daughter, wants only for her beloved father to return home from war. But can she escape her family’s bloody history, or is her destiny bound by violence, too?
Flatiron Books | 9781250773616
FLY GIRL: A Memoir by Ann Hood (Memoir)
In 1978, in the tailwind of the golden age of air travel, flight attendants were the epitome of glamour and sophistication. Fresh out of college and hungry to experience the world, Ann Hood joined their ranks. After a grueling job search, Hood survived TWA’s rigorous Breech Training Academy and learned to evacuate seven kinds of aircraft, deliver a baby, mix proper cocktails, administer oxygen, and stay calm no matter what the situation. In the air, Hood found both the adventure she’d dreamt of and the unexpected realities of life on the job. As the airline industry changed around her, she began to write --- even drafting snatches of her first novel from the jump-seat. She reveals how the job empowered her, despite its roots in sexist standards.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324006237
THE HACIENDA by Isabel Cañas (Supernatural/Historical Thriller)
During the overthrow of the Mexican government, Beatriz’s father was executed and her home destroyed. When handsome Don Rodolfo Solórzano proposes, Beatriz ignores the rumors surrounding his first wife’s sudden demise, choosing instead to seize the security that his estate in the countryside provides. But Hacienda San Isidro is not the sanctuary she imagined. When Rodolfo returns to work in the capital, visions and voices invade Beatriz’s sleep. The weight of invisible eyes follows her every move. Rodolfo’s sister, Juana, scoffs at Beatriz’s fears. But why does she refuse to enter the house at night? Why does the cook burn copal incense at the edge of the kitchen and mark the doorway with strange symbols? What really happened to the first Doña Solórzano?
Berkley | 9780593436691
THE HAWK'S WAY: Encounters with Fierce Beauty by Sy Montgomery (Nature/Memoir)
When Sy Montgomery went to spend a day at falconer Nancy Cowan’s farm, home to a dozen magnificent birds of prey, it was the start of a deep love affair. Nancy allowed her to work with Jazz, a feisty, four-year-old, female Harris’s hawk with a wingspan of more than four feet. Not a pet, Jazz was a fierce predator with talons that could pierce skin and bone, yet she was willing to work with a human to hunt. From the first moment Jazz swept down from a tree and landed on her leather gloved fist, Sy fell under the hawk’s magnetic spell. Over the next few years, she spent more time with these magnificent creatures, getting to know their extraordinary abilities and instincts.
Atria Books | 9781668001967
HERE GOES NOTHING by Steve Toltz (Fiction/Dark Humor)
Angus is a reformed ne'er-do-well looking forward to the birth of his first child when he's murdered by a man who's in love with his pregnant wife, Gracie. Having never believed in God, heaven or hell, Angus finds himself in the afterlife --- a place that provides more questions than answers. As a worldwide pandemic finally reaches the shores of Australia, the afterlife starts to get very crowded. Angus finds a way to reconnect with Gracie and maybe even seek revenge on his murderer.
Melville House | 9781612199719
THE HOMEWRECKERS by Mary Kay Andrews (Fiction)
Hattie Kavanaugh went to work restoring homes for Kavanaugh & Son Restorations at 18, married the boss’s son at 20, and became a widow at 25. When Hattie falls head-over-heels for a money pit of a house, she’s determined to make it work. But disaster after disaster occurs, and her dream might cost Kavanaugh & Son their livelihood. When a slick Hollywood producer shows up in her hometown of Savannah, she gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: star in a beach house renovation reality show, cast against a male lead who may be a love interest or the ultimate antagonist. But during the demolition, evidence comes to light that points to the mysterious disappearance of a young wife and mother years before.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250278364
HOSTILE INTENT: A Matt Drake Novel by Don Bentley (Political Thriller)
When a mysterious walk-in to the US embassy in Vienna claims to have critical information about a Russian intelligence operation, he raises eyebrows. But when he asks for Matt Drake by name and calls himself the Irishman, he gets the DIA’s premier case officer on a one-way flight. Matt arrives to find Austria’s charming capital lousy with intelligence officers, all swirling around Nolan Burke --- a one-time member of the real IRA. But before Matt can debrief Nolan, the Irishman is kidnapped by a Russian direct action team. Now, Matt must find a way to repay the debt of honor he owes Nolan while stopping World War III in the process.
Berkley | 9780593333532
THE IMMORTAL KING RAO by Vauhini Vara (Dystopian Fiction)
In an Indian village in the 1950s, a precocious child is born into a family of Dalit coconut farmers. King Rao will grow up to be the most accomplished tech CEO in the world and, eventually, the leader of a global, corporate-led government. In a future in which the world is run by the Board of Corporations, King’s daughter, Athena, reckons with his legacy --- literally, for he has given her access to his memories, among other questionable gifts. With climate change raging, Athena has come to believe that saving the planet and its Shareholders will require a radical act of communion --- and so she sets out to tell the truth to the world’s Shareholders about King’s life.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393541755
KILLING THE KILLERS: The Secret War Against Terrorists by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard (History)
As the World Trade Center buildings collapsed, the Pentagon burned, and a small group of passengers fought desperately to stop a third plane from completing its deadly flight plan, America went on war footing. KILLING THE KILLERS narrates America's intense global war against extremists who planned and executed not only the 9/11 attacks, but hundreds of others in America and around the world, and who eventually destroyed entire nations in their relentless quest for power. The book moves from Afghanistan to Iraq, Iran to Yemen, Syria, Libya and elsewhere, as the United States fought Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, as well as individually targeting the most notorious leaders of these groups.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250279255
LOVE MARRIAGE by Monica Ali (Fiction)
Yasmin Ghorami is 26, in training to be a doctor (like her Indian-born father), and engaged to the charismatic, upper-class Joe Sangster, whose formidable mother, Harriet, is a famous feminist. The gulf between families is vast. So, too, is the gulf in sexual experience between Yasmin and Joe. As the wedding day draws near, misunderstandings, infidelities and long-held secrets upend both Yasmin’s relationship and that of her parents, a “love marriage,” according to the family lore that Yasmin has believed all her life.
Scribner | 9781982181475
MAGIC SEASON: A Son's Story by Wade Rouse (Memoir)
Before his success in public relations, his loving marriage and his storied writing career, Wade Rouse was simply Ted Rouse's son. A queer kid in a conservative Ozarks community, Wade struggled at a young age to garner his father's approval and find his voice. For his part, Ted was a hard-lined engineer, offering little emotional support or encouragement. But Wade and Ted had one thing in common: an undying love of the St. Louis Cardinals. For decades, baseball offered Wade and his father a shared vocabulary --- a way to stay in touch, to connect and to express their emotions. But when his father's health takes a turn for the worse, Wade returns to southwest Missouri to share one final season with his father.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335475176
MAGPIE by Elizabeth Day (Domestic Thriller)
Marisa and Jake are a perfect couple. And Kate, their new lodger, is the perfect roommate --- and not just because her rent payments will give them the income they need to start trying for the baby of their dreams. Except --- no one is truly perfect. Sure, Kate doesn’t seem to care much about personal boundaries and can occasionally seem overly familiar with Jake. But Marisa doesn’t let it concern her, knowing that soon Kate will be gone. Conceiving a baby is easier said than done, though, and Jake and Marisa’s perfect relationship is put to the test through months of fertility treatments and false starts. To make matters worse, Kate’s boundary-pushing turns into an all-out obsession --- with Jake, with Marisa and with their future child.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982187606
MY SEVEN BLACK FATHERS: A Young Activist's Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole by Will Jawando (Memoir)
Will Jawando tells a deeply affirmative story of hope and respect for men of color at a time when Black men are routinely stigmatized. As a boy growing up outside DC, Will, who went by his Nigerian name, Yemi, was shunted from school to school, never quite fitting in. He was a Black kid with a divorced white mother, a frayed relationship with his biological father, and teachers who scolded him for being disruptive in class and on the playground. Eventually, he became close to Kalfani, a kid he looked up to on the basketball court. Years after he got the call telling him that Kalfani was dead, another sickening casualty of gun violence, Will looks back on the relationships with an extraordinary series of mentors that enabled him to thrive.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374604875
NONNA MARIA AND THE CASE OF THE MISSING BRIDE by Lorenzo Carcaterra (Mystery)
Nonna Maria has lived on Ischia, an island in the Gulf of Naples, her entire life. Everyone knows her, and she knows everyone’s business. When a recently engaged woman confesses that she’s afraid her fiancé, a stranger to Ischia with a murky past, might not be who he seems, Nonna Maria helps her disappear so she can investigate the true nature of her betrothed. The stranger has also raised the suspicions of Captain Murino of the carabinieri, but he’s occupied investigating the death of a tour boat captain who drowned in the wee hours of the morning. Captain Murino believes it was an accident, but Nonna Maria knows the man was a born sailor and too good a swimmer to drown, no matter how much wine he might have drunk.
Bantam | 9780399177620
ONE DAY I SHALL ASTONISH THE WORLD by Nina Stibbe (Fiction/Humor)
Susan and Norma have been best friends for years, at first thrust together by force of circumstance (a job at The Pin Cushion, a haberdashery shop in 1990s Leicestershire) and then by force of character (neither being particularly inclined to make friends with anyone else). But now, 30 years later, faced with a husband seeking immortality and Norma out of reach on a wave of professional glory, Susan begins to wonder if she has made the right choices about life, love, work and, most importantly, friendship.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316430340
OUR LITTLE WORLD by Karen Winn (Fiction)
July 1985. It’s a normal, sweltering New Jersey summer for soon-to-be seventh grader Bee Kocsis. Her thoughts center only on sunny days spent at Deer Chase Lake, on evenings chasing fireflies around her cul-de-sac with the neighborhood kids, and on Max, the boy who just moved in across the street. There's also the burgeoning worry that she'll never be as special as her younger sister, Audrina, who seems to effortlessly dazzle wherever she goes. But when Max’s little sister, Sally, goes missing at the lake, Bee’s long-held illusion of stability is shattered in an instant. As the families in her close-knit community turn inward, suspicious and protective, things in Bee’s own home become increasingly strained, most of all with Audrina, when a shameful secret surfaces.
Dutton | 9780593184493
OUT OF THE CORNER: A Memoir by Jennifer Grey (Memoir)
Jennifer Grey takes readers on a vivid tour of the experiences that have shaped her --- from her childhood as the daughter of Broadway and film legend Joel Grey, to the surprise hit with Patrick Swayze that made her America’s sweetheart, to her inspiring season 11 win on ABC’s "Dancing with the Stars." Throughout this intimate narrative, Grey richly evokes places and times that were defining for a generation --- from her wild child nights in New York’s club scene, to her roles in quintessential movies of the 1980s. With self-deprecating humor and frankness, she looks back on her unbridled, romantic adventures in Hollywood. And with enormous bravery, she shares the devastating fallout from a plastic surgery procedure that caused the sudden and stunning loss of her professional identity and career.
Ballantine Books | 9780593356708
REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES by Shelby Van Pelt (Fiction)
After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her 18-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over 30 years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors --- until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now he must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.
Ecco | 9780063204157
ROBERT B. PARKER'S REVENGE TOUR: A Sunny Randall Novel by Mike Lupica (Mystery)
PI Sunny Randall owes a favor. Her landlord and former client, famous novelist Melanie Joan Hall, is being threatened and blackmailed, and it is up to Sunny and her best friend Spike to ensure her protection. But as Sunny looks into the identity of Melanie Joan’s stalker, she learns that much of the author’s past is a product of her amazing imagination, and her loyalty to her old friend is challenged as she searches for the truth. At the same time, Sunny springs into action when her aging ex-cop father, Phil, is threatened by a shady lawyer with a desire to settle an old score. Fighting crimes on two fronts, Sunny must use all of her savvy, and the help of her friends, in order to protect those she loves.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593419762
SEASONAL FEARS by Seanan McGuire (Dark Fantasy)
Melanie has a destiny, though it isn’t the one everyone assumes it to be. She’s delicate; she’s fragile; she’s dying. Now, truly, is the winter of her soul. Harry doesn’t want to believe in destiny, because that means accepting the loss of the one person who gives his life meaning, who brings summer to his world. So, when a new road is laid out in front of them --- a road that will lead through untold dangers toward a possible lifetime together --- walking down it seems to be the only option. But others are following behind, with violence in their hearts. It looks like Destiny has a plan for them, after all.
Tordotcom | 9781250768261
STORM RISING: A Hayley Chill Thriller by Chris Hauty (Political Thriller)
Former White House intern turned intelligence operative Hayley Chill is filling her time by training as an MMA fighter. When she’s convinced to pursue the truth about her father’s mysterious fate, she stumbles upon a ciphered document under the floorboards of her father’s house. With permission from her handler to probe deeper, she is led into a terrifying subculture of white supremacy within the United States military. As her investigation intensifies, she uncovers an expansive conspiracy to bring about the secession of several states from the country. It’s up to Hayley to stop a second Civil War before it starts, while also confronting the ultimate truth about her own father’s role in this harrowing chapter of American history.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781982175856
SUMMER LOVE by Nancy Thayer (Fiction)
When four strangers rent bargain-basement rooms in an old hotel near the beach, they embark on the summer of their lives. Despite their differences, the four bond over trips to the beach, Wednesday night dinners and everything that Nantucket has to offer. Twenty-six years after that amazing summer, Ariel, Sheila, Wyatt and Nick reunite at the hotel where they first met. Life hasn’t exactly worked out the way they had all hoped. Being back together again will mean confronting the past and finding themselves. Meanwhile, the next generation discovers Nantucket. Their children explore the island together, experiencing love and heartbreak and forging lifelong bonds, just as their parents did all those years ago.
Ballantine Books | 9780593358429
TRAILED: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders by Kathryn Miles (True Crime)
In May 1996, two skilled backcountry leaders, Lollie Winans and Julie Williams, entered Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park for a week-long backcountry camping trip. During their final days in the park, they descended the narrow remnants of a trail and pitched their tent in a hidden spot. After the pair didn’t return home as planned, park rangers found a scene of horror at their campsite --- their tent slashed open, their beloved dog missing and both women dead in their sleeping bags. The unsolved murders of Winans and Williams continue to haunt all who had encountered them or knew their story. When award-winning journalist and outdoors expert Kathryn Miles begins looking into the case, she discovers conflicting evidence, mismatched timelines and details that just don’t add up.
Algonquin Books | 9781616209094
TRUST by Hernan Diaz (Historical Fiction)
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth --- all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
Riverhead Books | 9780593420317
VIGIL HARBOR by Julia Glass (Fiction)
A decade from now, in the historic town of Vigil Harbor, there is a rash of divorces among the yacht-club set, a marine biologist despairs at the state of the world, a spurned wife is bent on revenge, and the renowned architect Austin Kepner pursues a passion for building homes designed to withstand the escalating fury of relentless storms. Austin’s stepson, Brecht, has dropped out of college in New York and returned home after narrowly escaping one of the terrorist acts that have become increasingly common. Then two strangers arrive: a stranded traveler with subversive charms and a widow seeking clues about a past lover with ties to Austin --- a woman who may have been more than merely human.
Pantheon | 9781101870389
WE DO WHAT WE DO IN THE DARK by Michelle Hart (Fiction)
Mallory is a freshman in college when she meets the woman. She sees her for the first time at the university’s gym, immediately entranced by this elegant, older person, whom she later learns is married and works at the school. Before long, they begin a clandestine affair. Mallory retreats from the rest of the world and into a relationship with this melancholy, elusive woman she admires so much yet who can never be fully hers, solidifying a sense of solitude that has both haunted and soothed her as long as she can remember. Years after the affair has ended, Mallory must decide whether to stay safely in this isolation, this constructed loneliness, or to step fully into the world and confront what the woman meant to her, for better or worse.
Riverhead Books | 9780593329672
THE YEAR OF THE HORSES: A Memoir by Courtney Maum (Memoir)
At the age of 37, Courtney Maum finds herself in an indoor arena in Connecticut, moments away from stepping back into the saddle. For her, this is not just a riding lesson, but a last-ditch attempt to pull herself back from the brink even though riding is a relic from the past she walked away from. Although Maum does know what depression looks like, she finds herself refusing to admit, at this point in her life, that it could look like her: a woman with a privileged past, a mortgage, a husband, a healthy child and a published novel. When both therapy and medication fail, Courtney returns to her childhood passion of horseback riding as a way to recover the joy and fearlessness she once had access to as a young girl.
Tin House Books | 9781953534156
On Sale the Week of May 2nd in Paperback
May 1st
THE GIRLS WHO STEPPED OUT OF LINE: Untold Stories of the Women Who Changed the Course of World War II by Major General Mari K. Eder (History)
THE GIRLS WHO STEPPED OUT OF LINE are the heroes of the Greatest Generation that you hardly ever hear about. These women who did extraordinary things didn't expect thanks and shied away from medals and recognition. Despite their amazing accomplishments, they've gone mostly unheralded and unrewarded. No longer. These are the women of World War II who served, fought, struggled and made things happen --- in and out of uniform. Retired U.S. Army Major General Mari K. Eder wrote this book because she knew their stories needed to be told --- and the sooner the better. For theirs is a legacy destined to embolden generations of women to come.
Sourcebooks | 9781728242729
May 3rd
THE BONE CODE: A Temperance Brennan Novel by Kathy Reichs (Thriller)
On the way to hurricane-ravaged Isle of Palms, a barrier island off the South Carolina coast, Tempe receives a call from the Charleston coroner. The storm has tossed ashore a medical waste container. Inside are two decomposed bodies wrapped in plastic sheeting and bound with electrical wire. Tempe recognizes many of the details as identical to those of an unsolved case she handled in Quebec years earlier. With a growing sense of foreboding, she travels to Montreal to gather evidence. Meanwhile, health authorities in South Carolina become increasingly alarmed as a human flesh-eating contagion spreads. Someone is protecting a dark secret --- and willing to do anything to keep it hidden.
Scribner | 9781982139971
BOOK LOVERS by Emily Henry (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Nora Stephens, a cutthroat literary agent, agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when her little sister, Libby, begs her for a sisters’ trip away. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute. But as they are thrown together again and again --- in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow --- what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.
Berkley | 9780593334836
THE BOOK WOMAN’S DAUGHTER by Kim Michele Richardson (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned, Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good. Picking up her mother's old packhorse library route, Honey begins to deliver books to the remote hollers of Appalachia. Honey is looking to prove that she doesn't need anyone telling her how to survive. But the route can be treacherous, and some folks aren't as keen to let a woman pave her own way.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728242590
BROKEN (IN THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY) by Jenny Lawson (Humor/Essays)
As Jenny Lawson’s hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In BROKEN, she brings readers along on her mental and physical health journey, offering heartbreaking and hilarious anecdotes along the way. With people experiencing anxiety and depression now more than ever, Jenny humanizes what we all face in an all-too-real way, reassuring us that we’re not alone and making us laugh while doing it. From the business ideas that she wants to pitch to “Shark Tank” to the reason why she can never go back to the post office, BROKEN leaves nothing to the imagination in the most satisfying way. And, of course, Jenny’s long-suffering husband Victor --- the Ricky to Jenny’s Lucille Ball --- is present throughout.
Holt Paperbacks | 9781250812483
BY THE BOOK: A Meant to Be Novel by Jasmine Guillory (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Isabelle is completely lost. When she first began her career in publishing after college, she did not expect to be 25, still living at home and one of the few Black employees at her publishing house. Overworked and underpaid, constantly torn between speaking up or stifling herself, Izzy thinks there must be more to this publishing life. So when she overhears her boss complaining about a beastly high-profile author who has failed to deliver his long-awaited manuscript, Isabelle sees an opportunity to finally get the promotion she deserves. All she has to do is go to the author’s Santa Barbara mansion and give him a pep talk or three. How hard could it be? But Izzy quickly finds out she is in over her head.
Hyperion Avenue | 9781368053389
THE CODE BREAKER: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson (Science/Biography)
When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled THE DOUBLE HELIX on her bed. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his co-discovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982115869
DAMNATION SPRING by Ash Davidson (Fiction)
Colleen and Rich Gundersen are raising their young son, Chub, on the rugged California coast. It’s 1977, and life in this Pacific Northwest logging town isn’t what it used to be. For generations, the community has lived and breathed timber; now that way of life is threatened. Colleen is an amateur midwife. Rich is a tree-topper. It’s a dangerous job that requires him to scale trees hundreds of feet tall. Colleen and Rich want a better life for Chub, and they take steps to assure their future. Rich secretly spends their savings on a swath of ancient redwoods. But when Colleen, grieving the loss of a recent pregnancy, challenges the logging company’s use of the herbicides she believes are responsible for the many miscarriages in the community, she and Rich find themselves on opposite sides of a budding conflict.
Scribner | 9781982144418
THE DICTIONARY OF LOST WORDS by Pip Williams (Historical Fiction)
Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. One day, a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath their sorting table. Esme rescues the slip, and when she learns that the word means “slave girl,” she begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men. As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so, she must venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.
Ballantine Books | 9781984820747
DREAMING OF FLIGHT by Catherine Ryan Hyde (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Never knowing his parents, 11-year-old Stewie Little and his brother have been raised on a farm by their older sister. Stewie steadfastly tends the chickens left by his beloved late grandmother. And every day he goes door to door selling fresh eggs from his wagon --- a routine with a surprise just around the corner. It’s his new customer, Marilyn. Prickly and guarded, yet comfortably familiar, she reminds the grieving Stewie so much of the grandmother he misses more than he can express. Marilyn has a reason for keeping her distance: a secret no one knows about. Her survival tactic is to draw a line between herself and other people --- one that Stewie is determined to cross.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781542021586
EVA AND EVE: A Search for My Mother's Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind by Julie Metz (Memoir/History)
To Julie Metz, her mother, Eve, was the quintessential New Yorker. Eve rarely spoke about her childhood, and it was difficult to imagine her living anywhere else except Manhattan, where she could be found attending Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera or inspecting a round of French triple crème at Zabar’s. In truth, Eve had endured a harrowing childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna. After her mother passed, Julie discovered a keepsake book filled with farewell notes from friends and relatives addressed to a 10-year-old girl named Eva. This long-hidden memento was the first clue to the secret pain that Julie’s mother had carried as a refugee and immigrant, shining a light on a family that had to persevere at every turn to escape the antisemitism and xenophobia that threatened their survival.
Atria Books | 9781982127992
FAMILY LAW by Gin Phillips (Fiction)
Set in Alabama in the early '80s, FAMILY LAW follows a young lawyer, Lucia, who is making a name for herself at a time when a woman in a courtroom is still a rarity. When her mother's pending divorce brings teenaged Rachel into Lucia's orbit, Rachel finds herself captivated not only with Lucia, but with the change Lucia represents. Rachel is outspoken and curious, and she chafes at the rules her mother lays down as the bounds of acceptable feminine behavior. In Lucia, Rachel sees the potential for a new path into womanhood. When a moment of violence --- a threat made good --- puts Rachel in danger, Lucia has to decide how much her work means to her and what she's willing to sacrifice to keep moving forward.
Penguin Books | 9781984880642
THE FOREST OF VANISHING STARS by Kristin Harmel (Historical Fiction)
After being stolen from her wealthy German parents and raised in the unforgiving wilderness of eastern Europe, a young woman finds herself alone in 1941 after her kidnapper dies. Her solitary existence is interrupted, however, when she happens upon a group of Jews fleeing the Nazi terror. Stunned to learn what’s happening in the outside world, she vows to teach the group all she can about surviving in the forest --- and in turn, they teach her some surprising lessons about opening her heart after years of isolation. But when she is betrayed and escapes into a German-occupied village, her past and present come together in a shocking collision that could change everything.
Gallery Books | 9781982158941
THE GIRLS ARE ALL SO NICE HERE by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn (Psychological Thriller)
Ambrosia Wellington receives in the mail an invitation to her 10-year reunion, along with an anonymous note that reads “We need to talk about what we did that night.” It seems that the secrets of Ambrosia’s past aren’t as buried as she’d believed. Amb can’t stop fixating on what she did or who she did it with: larger-than-life Sloane “Sully” Sullivan, her former best friend, who could make anyone do anything. At the reunion, Amb and Sully receive increasingly menacing messages, and it becomes clear that they’re being pursued by someone who wants more than just the truth of what happened that first semester. This person wants revenge for what they did and the damage they caused --- the extent of which Amb is only now fully understanding.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982144630
LEGACY by Nora Roberts (Romantic Suspense)
Adrian Rizzo was seven when she met her father for the first time. That was the day he nearly killed her --- before her mother, Lina, stepped in. Soon after, Adrian was dropped off at her grandparents’ house in Maryland. A decade later, Adrian has created her own line of yoga and workout videos. While Lina dismisses the death threats that Adrian starts getting as a routine part of her daughter’s growing celebrity, Adrian can’t help but find the vicious rhymes unsettling. They continue after she returns to Maryland and becomes reacquainted with Raylan, her childhood crush. Sometimes it even seems like the terrifying messages are indeed routine, like nothing will come of them. Until the murders start, and the escalation begins.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250775016
THE NIGHT SHE DISAPPEARED by Lisa Jewell (Psychological Thriller)
On a beautiful summer night in a charming English suburb, a young woman and her boyfriend disappear after partying at the massive country estate of a new college friend. One year later, a writer moves into a cottage on the edge of the woods that border the same estate. Known locally as the Dark Place, the dense forest is the writer’s favorite area for long walks, and it’s on one such walk that she stumbles upon a mysterious note that simply reads “DIG HERE.” Could this be a clue towards what has happened to the missing young couple? And what exactly is buried in this haunted ground?
Atria Books | 9781982137373
THE NIGHT THEY VANISHED by Vanessa Savage (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Hanna has barely spoken to her family since the tragedy that rocked their lives 14 years ago. The tragedy for which they held Hanna responsible. Then she sees her family home listed as the scene of a horrific crime. Number of victims: three. Date of crime: today. Frantic, Hanna tries to contact her family, only to find they have disappeared. To find them, Hanna will have to confront what happened all those years ago. And the person determined to make her pay for it.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538708231
ONCE THERE WERE WOLVES by Charlotte McConaghy (Fiction)
Inti Flynn arrives in Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, to lead a team of biologists tasked with reintroducing 14 gray wolves into the remote Highlands. She hopes to heal not only the dying landscape, but Aggie, too, unmade by the terrible secrets that drove the sisters out of Alaska. Inti is not the woman she once was either, changed by the harm she’s witnessed. Yet, as the wolves surprise everyone by thriving, Inti begins to let her guard down, even opening herself up to the possibility of love. But when a farmer is found dead, Inti knows where the town will lay blame. Unable to accept that her wolves could be responsible, Inti makes a reckless decision to protect them. But if the wolves didn’t make the kill, then who did? And what will Inti do when the man she is falling for seems to be the prime suspect?
Flatiron Books | 9781250244154
THE PLOT by Jean Hanff Korelitz (Psychological Thriller)
Once a promising young novelist, Jacob Finch Bonner is now teaching in a third-rate MFA program. Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn’t need Jake’s help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing. Jake braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker’s first novel, but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that. In a few short years, all of Evan Parker’s predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an email arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says.
Celadon Books | 9781250790750
PUNCH ME UP TO THE GODS: A Memoir by Brian Broome (Memoir)
Brian Broome’s early years growing up in Ohio as a dark-skinned Black boy harboring crushes on other boys propel forward PUNCH ME UP TO THE GODS. Brian’s recounting of his experiences --- in all their cringe-worthy, hilarious and heartbreaking glory --- reveal a perpetual outsider awkwardly squirming to find his way in. Indiscriminate sex and escalating drug use help to soothe his hurt, young psyche, usually to uproarious and devastating effect. A no-nonsense mother and broken father play crucial roles in our misfit’s origin story. But it is Brian’s voice in the retelling that shows the true depth of vulnerability for young Black boys that is often quietly near to bursting at the seams.
Mariner Books | 9780358695257
SOMEBODY’S DAUGHTER: A Memoir by Ashley C. Ford (Memoir)
Through poverty, adolescence and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley Ford wishes she could turn to her father for hope and encouragement. But he’s in prison, and she doesn’t know what he did to end up there. She doesn’t know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men. In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates. When the relationship turns sour, he assaults her. Still reeling from the rape, Ashley desperately searches for meaning in the chaos. Then her grandmother reveals the truth about her father’s incarceration…and Ashley’s entire world is turned upside down.
Flatiron Books: An Oprah Book | 9781250203229
SORROWLAND by Rivers Solomon (Gothic Fiction)
Vern --- seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised --- flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes. To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past and, more troublingly, the future --- outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.
Picador | 9781250849267
STRANGER CARE: A Memoir of Loving What Isn't Ours by Sarah Sentilles (Memoir)
After their decision not to have a biological child, Sarah Sentilles and her husband, Eric, decide to adopt via the foster care system. Despite knowing that the system’s goal is the child’s reunification with the birth family, Sarah opens their home to a flurry of social workers who question them, evaluate them, and ultimately prepare them to welcome a child into their lives. After years of starts and stops, and endless navigation of the complexities and injustices of the foster care system, a phone call finally comes: a three-day-old baby girl named Coco, in immediate need of a foster family. A love letter to Coco and to the countless children like her, STRANGER CARE chronicles Sarah’s discovery of what it means to mother --- in this case, not just a vulnerable infant but the birth mother who loves her, too.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780593230046
SUNSHINE GIRL: An Unexpected Life by Julianna Margulies (Memoir)
As an apple-cheeked bubbly child, Julianna Margulies was bestowed with the family nickname “Sunshine Girl.” Raised in fairly unconventional ways in various homes in Paris, England, New York and New Hampshire, Julianna found that her role among the surrounding turmoil and uncertainty was to comfort those around her, seeking organization among the disorder, making her way in the world as a young adult and eventually an award-winning actress. Throughout, there were complicated relationships, difficult choices and overwhelming rejections. But there were also the moments where fate, faith and talent aligned.
Ballantine Books | 9780525480341
THE SWEETNESS OF WATER by Nathan Harris (Historical Fiction)
In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry --- freed by the Emancipation Proclamation --- seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm. Meanwhile, Prentiss and Landry plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Parallel to their story runs a forbidden romance between two Confederate soldiers. When their secret is discovered, the resulting chaos, including a murder, unleashes convulsive repercussions on the entire community.
Back Bay Books | 9780316461245
A THEATER FOR DREAMERS by Polly Samson (Historical Fiction)
It’s 1960, and the world teeters on the edge of cultural, political, sexual and artistic revolution. On the Greek island of Hydra, a proto-commune of poets, painters and musicians revel in dreams at the feet of their unofficial leaders, the writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston, troubled queen and king of bohemia. At the center of this circle of misfit artists are the captivating and inscrutable Axel Jensen, his magnetic wife Marianne Ihlen, and a young Canadian ingenue poet named Leonard Cohen. When 18-year-old Erica stumbles into their world, she’s fresh off the boat from London. Among these artists, she will find an unraveling utopia where everything is tested --- the nature of art, relationships and her own innocence.
Algonquin Books | 9781643752594
THREE ROOMS by Jo Hamya (Fiction)
Set in one year, THREE ROOMS follows a young woman as she moves from a rented room at Oxford, where she’s working as a research assistant; to a stranger’s sofa, which is all she can afford as a copyediting temp at a society magazine; to her childhood home, where she’s been forced to return, jobless, even a room of her own out of reach. As politics shift to nationalism, the streets fill with protestors, and news drip-feeds into her phone, she struggles to live a meaningful life on her own terms, unsure if she’ll ever be able to afford to do so.
Mariner Books | 9780358695318
THE TURNOUT by Megan Abbott (Thriller)
With their long necks, sheer tights and taut buns, Dara and Marie Durant have only known the course of a well-bred dancer. Not much changes when their parents face death in a tragic accident. As Dara and Marie take over their mother's duty of running the Durant School of Dance, along with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student, the sisters perfect a fine dance, circling around one another, six days a week, keeping the studio thriving. But when another eerily suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of "The Nutcracker" --- a season of tense competition, provoked anxiety and wild exhilaration --- an interloper arrives and threatens the sisters' delicate balance.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593084922
TWO LITTLE GIRLS by Laura Jarratt (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
When Lizzie's car crashes with her two daughters inside, she faces a terrible choice. And when she recovers from her injuries, she must deal with the impact of that tragedy and the police investigation into it. As Lizzie and her family struggle to come to terms with the events of that night, things take an even darker turn. What exactly happened on that remote country road? Who is responsible? And can the family get through this together...or will the truth finally tear them apart?
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728250366
VELVET WAS THE NIGHT by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Noir Thriller)
Mexico in the 1970s is a dangerous country, even for Maite, a secretary who spends her life seeking the romance found in cheap comic books and ignoring the activists protesting around the city. When her next-door neighbor, the beautiful art student Leonora, disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman --- and journeying deeper into Leonora’s secret life of student radicals and dissidents. Mexico in the 1970s is a politically fraught land, even for Elvis, a goon with a passion for rock ’n’ roll who knows more about kidney-smashing than intrigue. When Elvis is assigned to find Leonora, he begins a blood-soaked search for the woman --- and his soul.
Del Rey | 9780593356845
WHAT’S DONE IN DARKNESS by Laura McHugh (Literary Thriller)
Seventeen-year-old Sarabeth has become increasingly rebellious since her parents found God and moved their family to a remote Arkansas farmstead. She’s all but given up on escaping the farm when a masked man appears one summer morning and snatches her out of the cornfield. A week after her abduction, she’s found alongside a highway, but her family treats her like she’s tainted. There’s little hope of finding her captor, who kept Sarabeth blindfolded in the dark, never uttering a word. Five years later, Sarabeth is struggling to keep her past buried when investigator Nick Farrow calls. Convinced that her case is connected to the strikingly similar disappearance of another young girl, Farrow wants Sarabeth’s help.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780399590320
THE WORLD GIVES WAY by Marissa Levien (Dystopian Fiction)
In 50 years, Myrra will be free. Until then, she's a contract worker. Ever since she was five, her life and labor have belonged to the highest bidder on her contract --- butchers, laundries and now the powerful, secretive Carlyles. But when one night finds the Carlyles dead, Myrra is suddenly free a lot sooner than she anticipated --- and at a cost she never could have imagined. Burdened with the Carlyles' orphaned daughter and the terrible secret they died to escape, she runs. With time running out, Myrra must come face to face with the truth about her world --- and embrace what's left before it's too late.
Orbit | 9780316592376
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