September 13, 2022

September 13, 2022

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of September 12th and September 19th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to our review of Jamie Fiore Higgins' eye-opening memoir, BULLY MARKET, which will be a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick. This rare, riveting insider’s account on Wall Street is an updated LIAR'S POKER, where greed coupled with misogyny and discrimination enforces a culture of exclusion in the upper echelons of Goldman Sachs.

Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events

As many book and author events are still 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, September 14th at 2pm ET: "Bookaccino Live: A Lively Talk About Books": Carol Fitzgerald will present titles releasing between September 13th and October 4th, along with a few from November, that she would like to get on your radar.

Wednesday, September 14th 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 Sarah Addison Allen and Lauren K. Denton about their new novels: Allen's THE OTHER BIRDS (this month's Barnes & Noble Book Club pick) and Denton's A PLACE TO LAND.

Thursday, September 15th at 3pm ET: Murder By The Book: Lizz Schumer, the books editor for Good Housekeeping, moderates a discussion between three of the 12 contributors to MARPLE: Twelve New Mysteries: Alyssa Cole, Lucy Foley and Jean Kwok.

Thursday, September 15th at 4pm ET: Harvard Book Store: Harvard Book Store and Oblong Books, in partnership with Books & Books, Book Hampton, Politics & Prose and RJ Julia, welcome Man Booker Prize-winning author Julian Barnes for a discussion of his new novel, ELIZABETH FINCH. He will be joined in conversation by radio host Joe Donahue.

Monday, September 19th at 7pm ET: Murder By The Book: Deanna Raybourn will talk about her new novel, KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE, with Mystery & Thriller Maven’s Sara DiVello. They’ve spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they're 60 years old, four women friends can’t just retire.

Monday, September 19th at 8pm ET: Random House Studio Sessions: Random House Studio Sessions is Random House's new event series featuring live conversations with the biggest names on your bookshelf, filmed in their studio and broadcast virtually to wherever you are. Join Nicholas Sparks as he discusses his new novel, DREAMLAND, with Allison Pataki, author of THE MAGNIFICENT LIVES OF MARJORIE POST.

Tuesday, September 20th at 6pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Anne Perry will discuss her new mystery, A TRUTH TO LIE FOR, in which a lethal new weapon endangers all of Europe --- unless Elena Standish can rescue an ingenious scientist from Hitler’s clutches.

Tuesday, September 20th at 8pm ET: Random House Studio Sessions: Elizabeth Strout will be in conversation with essayist and novelist Pico Iyer about her new novel, LUCY BY THE SEA. She will discuss returning to the beloved characters of Lucy Barton and her ex-husband, William, and why their dynamic continues to be such a rich source of inspiration.

This Week's Bonus News: Our Review of
BULLY MARKET by Jamie Fiore Higgins
An Upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On Title

On Sale the Week of September 12th in Hardcover

September 12th

BLOWBACK by James Patterson and Brendan DuBois (Political Thriller)
US President Keegan Barrett has swept into office on his success as Director of the CIA. Six months into his first term, he devises a clandestine power grab with deadly consequences. Barrett personally orders CIA agents Liam Grey and Noa Himel to execute his plan, but their loyalties are divided. The CIA serves at the pleasure of the president, yet they’ve sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. When the threat comes directly from the Oval Office, that’s where the blowback begins.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316499637

September 13th

ACT OF OBLIVION by Robert Harris (Historical Thriller)
1660 England. General Edward Whalley and his son-in law, Colonel William Goffe, board a ship bound for the New World. They are on the run, wanted for the murder of King Charles I --- a brazen execution that marked the culmination of the English Civil War, in which parliamentarians successfully battled royalists for control. But now, 10 years after Charles’ beheading, the royalists have returned to power. Under the provisions of the Act of Oblivion, the 59 men who signed the king’s death warrant and participated in his execution have been found guilty in absentia of high treason. Some of the Roundheads, including Oliver Cromwell, are already dead. Others have been captured, hung, drawn and quartered. A few are imprisoned for life. But two have escaped to America by boat.
Harper | 9780063248007

AN AFFAIR OF SPIES by Ronald H. Balson (Historical Thriller)
Nathan Silverman’s idyllic childhood in Berlin is soon marred by increasing levels of bigotry against his family and the rest of the Jewish community. After his uncle is arrested on Kristallnacht, he leaves Germany for New York City with only his mother’s wedding ring to sell for survival. While attending an evening course at Columbia in 1942, Nathan notices a recruitment poster on a university wall and decides to enlist in the military and help fight the Nazi regime. The Allies are racing to develop a nuclear weapon before the Nazis, and a German theoretical physicist is hoping to defect. The physicist was a friend of his father's, and Nathan's mission is to return to Berlin via France and smuggle him out of Europe.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250282460

ALL THAT'S LEFT UNSAID by Tracey Lien (Fiction)
Just let him go. These are the words Ky Tran will forever regret. The words she spoke when her parents called to ask if they should let her younger brother, Denny, out to celebrate his high school graduation with friends. That night, Denny is brutally murdered inside a busy restaurant in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta, a refugee enclave facing violent crime, an indifferent police force and the worst heroin epidemic in Australian history. The police are stumped by Denny’s case. A dozen people were at Lucky 8 restaurant when Denny died, but each of the bystanders claim to have seen nothing. Desperately hoping that understanding what happened might ease her suffocating guilt, Ky sets aside her grief and determines to track down the witnesses herself.
William Morrow | 9780063227736

THE BEST FRIEND by Jessica Fellowes (Domestic Thriller)
Bella and Kate. Kate and Bella. From childhood they were bosom friends --- Bella sensible and cautious, Kate gregarious and just a little dangerous. Yet, in spite of their intimacy, their trust is fragile. Men came into their lives, and things changed: a black seed was set in the heart of their relationship. Over decades, acts of both cruelty and love ferment until one shocking event tests them more than ever. Neither will escape unscathed.
Minotaur Books | 9781250831804

BLISS MONTAGE: Stories by Ling Ma (Fiction/Short Stories)
What happens when fantasy tears the screen of the everyday to wake us up? Could that waking be our end? In BLISS MONTAGE, Ling Ma brings us eight wildly different tales of people making their way through the madness and reality of our collective delusions: love and loneliness, connection and possession, friendship, motherhood, the idea of home. A woman lives in a house with all her ex-boyfriends. A toxic friendship grows up around a drug that makes you invisible. An ancient ritual might heal you of anything --- if you bury yourself alive. These and other scenarios investigate the ways that the outlandish and the ordinary are shockingly, deceptively, heartbreakingly alike.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374293512

BLOOD & INK: The Scandalous Jazz Age Double Murder That Hooked America on True Crime by Joe Pompeo (True Crime/History)
On September 16, 1922, the bodies of Reverend Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills were found on an abandoned farm outside of New Brunswick, New Jersey. The killer had arranged the bodies in a pose conveying intimacy. The murder of Hall --- a prominent clergyman whose wife, Frances Hall, was a proud heiress with illustrious ancestors and ties to the Johnson & Johnson dynasty --- would have made headlines on its own. But when authorities identified Eleanor Mills as a choir singer from his church married to the church sexton, the story shocked locals and sent the scandal ricocheting around the country, fueling the nascent tabloid industry. BLOOD & INK freshly chronicles what remains one of the most electrifying but forgotten murder mysteries in U.S. history.
William Morrow | 9780063001732

THE ENIGMA OF ROOM 622 written by Joël Dicker, translated by Robert Bononno (Mystery/Thriller)
A writer named Joël, Switzerland’s most prominent novelist, flees to the Hôtel de Verbier, a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. Disheartened over a recent breakup and his longtime publisher’s death, Joël hopes to rest. However, his plans quickly go awry. It all starts with a seemingly innocuous detail: at the Verbier, there is no room 622. Before long, Joël and fellow guest Scarlett uncover a long-unsolved murder that transpired in the hotel's room 622. The attendant circumstances: the succession of Switzerland’s largest private bank, a mysterious counterintelligence operation called P-30, and a most disreputable sabotage of hotel hospitality.
HarperVia | 9780063098817

THE GUEST HOUSE by Robin Morgan-Bentley (Psychological Thriller)
Jamie and Victoria are off for a last quick vacation before the arrival of their first baby. The remote country guesthouse Victoria chose seems like the perfect retreat --- miles away from the distractions of work and their regular life. And the older couple that run the establishment, Barry and Fiona, are more than accommodating. But when Jamie and Victoria awake on their first morning, they find the house deserted. Barry and Fiona are nowhere to be seen. All the doors are locked. And their cell phones and car keys have disappeared. They have no way out and no way to call for help, and the contractions are getting stronger.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781728256061

HOW NOT TO DROWN IN A GLASS OF WATER by Angie Cruz (Fiction)
Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life. Over the course of 12 sessions, Cara recounts her tempestuous love affairs, her alternately biting and loving relationships with her neighbor Lulu and her sister Angela, her struggles with debt, gentrification and loss, and, eventually, what really happened between her and her estranged son, Fernando. As Cara confronts her darkest secrets and regrets, we see a woman buffeted by life but still full of fight.
Flatiron Books | 9781250208453

I WALK BETWEEN THE RAINDROPS: Stories by T.C. Boyle (Fiction/Short Stories)
In the title story of WALK BETWEEN THE RAINDROPS, a woman sits down next to a man at a bar and claims she has ESP. In “Thirteen Days,” passengers on a cruise line are quarantined, to horrifying and hilarious effect. And “Hyena” begins simply: “That was the day the hyena came for him, and never mind that there were no hyenas in the South of France, and especially not in Pont-Saint-Esprit --- it was there and it came for him.” A virtuoso of the short form, T.C. Boyle returns with an inventive, uproarious and masterfully told collection of short stories characterized by biting satire, resonant wit and a boundless, irrepressible imagination.
Ecco | 9780063052888

LESSONS by Ian McEwan (Fiction)
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, 11-year-old Roland Baines' life is turned upside down. Two thousand miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade. Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl spreads across Europe, he begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life.
Knopf | 9780593535202

LIFE'S WORK: A Memoir by David Milch (Memoir)
From the start, David Milch’s life seems destined to echo that of his father, a successful if drug-addicted surgeon. Almost every achievement is accompanied by an act of self-immolation, but the deepest sadnesses also contain moments of grace. Betting on racehorses and stealing booze at eight years old, mentored by Robert Penn Warren and excoriated by Richard Yates at 21, Milch never did anything by half. He got into Yale Law School only to be expelled for shooting out streetlights with a shotgun. He paused his studies at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop to manufacture acid in Cuernavaca. He created and wrote some of the most lauded television series of all time, made a family and pursued sobriety, then lost his fortune betting horses just as his father had taught him.
Random House | 9780525510741

LIKE A ROLLING STONE: A Memoir by Jann S. Wenner (Memoir)
Rolling Stone founder, co-editor and publisher Jann Wenner’s deeply personal memoir vividly describes and brings you inside the music, the politics and the lifestyle of a generation, an epoch of cultural change that swept America and beyond. He takes us into the life and work of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Bono and Bruce Springsteen, to name a few. He was instrumental in the careers of Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe and Annie Leibovitz. His journey took him to the Oval Office with his legendary interviews with Bill Clinton and Barak Obama, leaders to whom Rolling Stone gave its historic, full-throated backing. The people Wenner chose to be seen and heard in the pages of Rolling Stone tried to change American culture, values and morality.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316415194

MARPLE: Twelve New Mysteries by various authors (Mystery/Short Stories)
Agatha Christie’s legendary sleuth, Jane Marple, returns to solve 12 baffling cases in this brand-new collection, penned by a host of acclaimed authors skilled in the fine art of mystery and murder. Join Marple as she travels through her sleepy English village and around the world. In St Mary Mead, a Christmas dinner is interrupted by unexpected guests; the Broadway stage in New York City is set for a dangerous improvisation; bad omens surround an untimely death aboard a cruise ship to Hong Kong; and a bestselling writer on holiday in Italy is caught in a nefarious plot. These and other crimes committed in the name of love, jealousy, blackmail and revenge are ones that only the indomitable Jane Marple can solve.
William Morrow | 9780063136052

THE MOSQUITO BOWL: A Game of Life and Death in World War II by Buzz Bissinger (History)
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, college football was at the height of its popularity. As the nation geared up for total war, one branch of the service dominated the aspirations of college football stars: the United States Marine Corps. Which is why, on Christmas Eve of 1944, when the 4th and 29th Marine regiments found themselves in the middle of the Pacific Ocean training for what would be the bloodiest battle of the war, their ranks included one of the greatest pools of football talent ever assembled. The two regiments would play each other in a football game as close to the real thing as you could get in the dirt and coral of Guadalcanal. The bruising and bloody game that followed became known as “The Mosquito Bowl.”
Harper | ‎9780062879929

NATURAL HISTORY: Stories by Andrea Barrett (Fiction/Short Stories)
The six exquisite stories in NATURAL HISTORY are set largely in a small community in central New York State and portray some of Andrea Barrett’s most beloved characters, spanning the decades between the Civil War to the present day. In “Henrietta and Her Moths,” a woman tends to an insect nursery as her sister’s life follows a different path. In “Open House,” a young man grapples with a choice between a thrilling life spent discovering fossils and a desire to remain close to home. And in the magnificent title novella, “Natural History,” Barrett deepens the connection between her characters, bringing us through to the present day and providing an unforgettable capstone.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324035190

NONA THE NINTH by Tamsyn Muir (Science Fiction/Space Opera)
In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona is not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger's body, and she's afraid she might have to give it back. The whole city is falling to pieces. A monstrous blue sphere hangs on the horizon, ready to tear the planet apart. Blood of Eden forces have surrounded the last Cohort facility and wait for the Emperor Undying to come calling. Their leaders want Nona to be the weapon that will save them from the Nine Houses. Nona would prefer to live an ordinary life with the people she loves, with Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes, but she also knows that nothing lasts forever. And each night, Nona dreams of a woman with a skull-painted face.
Tordotcom | 9781250854117

OATH OF LOYALTY: A Mitch Rapp Novel by Vince Flynn and Kyle Mills (Political Thriller)
With President Anthony Cook convinced that Mitch Rapp poses a mortal threat to him, CIA Director Irene Kennedy is forced to construct a truce between the two men. The terms are simple: Rapp agrees to leave the country and stay in plain sight for as long as Cook controls the White House. In exchange, the administration agrees not to make any moves against him. This fragile détente holds until Cook’s power-hungry security adviser convinces him that Rapp has no intention of honoring their agreement. In an effort to put him on the defensive, they leak the true identity of his partner, Claudia Gould. As Rapp races to neutralize the enemies organizing against her, he discovers that a new generation of assassins is on her trail.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781982164911

PEOPLE PERSON by Candice Carty-Williams (Fiction)
Dimple Pennington knows of her half siblings, but she doesn’t really know them. Five people who don’t have anything in common except for faint memories of being driven through Brixton in their dad’s gold jeep, and some pretty complex abandonment issues. Dimple has bigger things to think about. She’s 30, and her life isn’t really going anywhere. An aspiring lifestyle influencer with a terrible and wayward boyfriend, Dimple’s life has shrunk to the size of a phone screen. And despite a small but loyal following, she’s never felt more alone in her life. That is, until a dramatic event brings her half siblings crashing back into her life. And when they’re all forced to reconnect with Cyril Pennington, the absent father they never really knew, things get even more complicated.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781501196041

A PLACE CALLED HOME: A Memoir by David Ambroz (Memoir)
There are millions of homeless children in America today. In A PLACE CALLED HOME, award-winning child welfare advocate David Ambroz writes about growing up homeless in New York for 11 years and his subsequent years in foster care, offering a window into what so many kids living in poverty experience every day. David and his siblings should be in elementary school, but instead they are walking the streets seeking shelter while their mother is battling mental illness. When David is placed in foster care, at first it feels like salvation but soon proves to be just as unsafe. He finds hope and opportunities in libraries, schools and the occasional kind-hearted adult; he harnesses an inner grit to escape the all-too-familiar outcome for a kid like him.
Legacy Lit | 9780306903540

PRISONERS OF THE CASTLE: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison by Ben Macintyre (History)
During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend. But as Ben Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape. Its population represented a society in miniature, full of heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and the full range of human joy and despair. PRISONERS OF THE CASTLE traces the war’s arc from within Colditz’s stone walls, where the stakes rose as Hitler’s war machine faltered and the men feared that liberation would not come soon enough to spare them a grisly fate at the hands of the Nazis.
Crown | 9780593136331

THE SEARCH FOR THE GENUINE: Nonfiction, 1970-2015 by Jim Harrison (Essays)
New York Times bestselling author Jim Harrison (1937-2016) was a writer with a poet's economy of style and trencherman's appetites and ribald humor. In THE SEARCH FOR THE GENIUINE, a collection of new and previously published essays, the giant of letters muses on everything from grouse hunting fishing to Zen Buddhism and matters of the spirit, including reported pieces on Yellowstone and shark-tagging in the open ocean, commentary on writers from Bukowski to Neruda to Peter Matthiessen, and a heartbreaking essay on life --- and, for those attempting to cross in the ever-more-dangerous gaps, death --- on the US/Mexico border.
Grove Press | 9780802157218

THE SKI JUMPERS by Peter Geye (Fiction)
A brilliant ski jumper has to be fearless --- Jon Bargaard remembers this well. His memories of daring leaps and risks might be the key to the book he’s always wanted to write: a novel about his family, beginning with Pops, once a champion ski jumper himself, who also took Jon and his younger brother, Anton, to the heights. But Jon has never been able to get past the next, ruinous episode of their history, and now that he has received a terrible diagnosis, he’s afraid he never will. In THE SKI JUMPERS, Peter Geye follows Jon deep into the past he tried so hard to leave behind, telling the story he spent his life escaping.
University of Minnesota Press | 9781517913496

SUGAR STREET by Jonathan Dee (Fiction)
An unnamed male narrator has hit the road. Rid of any possible identifiers, his possessions amount to $168,548 in cash stashed in an envelope under his car seat. Vigilantly avoiding security cameras, he drives until he hits a city where his past is unlikely to track him down, and finds a room to rent from a less-than-stable landlady whose need for money outweighs her desire to ask questions. He seems to have escaped his former self. But can he? In a story that moves with swift dark humor and insight, Jonathan Dee takes us through his narrator’s attempt to disavow his former life of privilege and enter a blameless new existence.
Grove Press | 9780802160003

WISE GALS: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage by Nathalia Holt (Biography)
In the wake of World War II, four agents were critical in helping build a new organization that we now know as the CIA. Adelaide Hawkins, Mary Hutchison, Eloise Page and Elizabeth Sudmeier, called the “wise gals” by their male colleagues, were not the stereotypical femme fatales of spy novels. They were smart, courageous and groundbreaking agents at the top of their class, instrumental in both developing innovative tools for intelligence gathering --- and insisting (in their own unique ways) that they receive the credit and pay their expertise deserved. In WISE GALS, Nathalia Holt uses firsthand interviews with past and present officials and declassified government documents to uncover the stories of these four inspirational women.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593328484

On Sale the Week of September 12th in Paperback

September 13th

ASSEMBLY by Natasha Brown (Fiction)
Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment. Go to college, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things. Buy an apartment. Buy art. Buy a sort of happiness. But above all, keep your head down. Keep quiet. And keep going. The narrator of ASSEMBLY is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend’s family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can’t escape the question: Is it time to take it all apart?
Back Bay Books | 9780316268363

BAD DAY BREAKING: A Bad Axe County Novel by John Galligan (Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
A strange religious sect has arrived in Bad Axe County, Wisconsin. Armed with guns, an enigmatic spiritual leader and his followers set up their compound in an abandoned storage lot. It’s not long before rumors start to spread of sadistic rituals and a planned takeover of the local government. But when one of the followers is found dead in the river, that’s when full-on panic sets in. Sheriff Heidi Kick may not be a fan of the new group, but she is also dismayed by the hostile reaction of the Bad Axe community. With a murder investigation on her hands, the situation becomes more complicated when Sheriff Kick finds out that an ex-boyfriend from her youth is out on parole early and looking to hunt her down.
Atria Books | 9781982166564

THE BOOK HATERS’ BOOK CLUB by Gretchen Anthony (Fiction/Humor)
Paperback Original
All it takes is the right book to turn a Book Hater into a Book Lover. That was what Elliot, the beloved co-owner of Over the Rainbow Bookshop, believed before his untimely passing. He always had the perfect book suggestion for the self-proclaimed Book Hater. Now his grief-ridden business partner, Irma, has agreed to sell Over the Rainbow to condo developers. But others won’t give up the bookshop without a fight. When Irma breaks the news to her daughters, Bree and Laney, and Elliot’s romantic partner, Thom, they are aghast. Over the Rainbow has been Bree and Laney’s sanctuary since childhood, and Thom would do anything to preserve Elliot’s legacy. Together they conspire to save the bookshop, even if it takes some snooping, gossip and minor sabotage.
Park Row | 9780778333067

THE BRIDES OF MARACOOR by Gregory Maguire (Fantasy)
Twenty-five years after WICKED first flew into our lives, THE BRIDES OF MARACOOR finds Elphaba’s granddaughter, Rain, washing ashore on a foreign island. Comatose from crashing into the sea, Rain is taken in by a community of single women committed to obscure devotional practices. As the mainland of Maracoor sustains an assault by a foreign navy, the island’s civil-servant overseer struggles to understand how an alien arriving on the shores of Maracoor could threaten the stability and well-being of an entire nation. Is it myth or magic at work, for good or for ill?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063093973

DEFENDING BRITTA STEIN by Ronald H. Balson (Legal Thriller)
Ole Henryks, a popular restaurateur, is set to be honored by the Danish/American Association for his many civic and charitable contributions. Ninety-year-old Britta Stein levels public accusations against Henryks by spray-painting “Coward,” “Traitor,” “Collaborator” and “War Criminal” on the walls of his restaurant. Mrs. Stein is ultimately taken into custody and charged with criminal defacement of property. She also becomes the target of a bitter lawsuit filed by Henryks and his son, accusing her of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. With the help of her investigator husband, Liam Taggart, attorney Catherine Lockhart must reach back into wartime Denmark and locate evidence that proves Mrs. Stein's innocence.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250852649

DIAMOND AND THE EYE: A Peter Diamond Investigation by Peter Lovesey (Mystery)
If there's one thing Bath detective Peter Diamond has no patience for, it's a dumb git trying to get involved in one of his investigations --- for example, a Philip Marlowe-wannabe private investigator like the self-styled Johnny Getz (his card claims he Getz results). But fate has saddled Diamond with this trial. A Bath antiques dealer, Septimus "Seppy" Hubbard, has disappeared without a trace, and his daughter, Ruby, has hired Johnny Getz to find him. When a dead body is discovered in Seppy's locked-up store, the missing persons case becomes a murder investigation, and now Diamond has to collaborate with the insufferable private eye.
Soho Crime | 9781641294027

FEAR NO EVIL: An Alex Cross Thriller by James Patterson (Thriller)
Dr. Alex Cross and Detective John Sampson venture into the rugged Montana wilderness --- where they will be the prey. They’re not on the job, but on a personal mission. Until they’re attacked by two rival teams of assassins, controlled by the same mastermind who has stalked Alex and his family for years. Darkness falls. The river churns into rapids. Shots ring out through the forest. No backup. No way out. Fear no evil.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538752807

THE FINAL EQUINOX: A Theo Cray and Jessica Blackwood Thriller by Andrew Mayne (Thriller)
Paperback Original
A signal is detected at the outer edge of the solar system. Computational biologist Dr. Theo Cray and magician-turned-FBI-agent Jessica Blackwood are looking --- and listening --- a little closer. The man at the center of this cosmic mystery is billionaire Thomas T. Theismann. He’s spent a lifetime --- and a fortune --- trying to find out if we’re alone in the universe. Highly skeptical, Theo joins the effort to find the source of the signal, and he quickly enlists Jessica to look into the suspicious death of another academic at the lab. As their investigations converge, they uncover curious connections to the otherworldly contact, including a 1970s science-fiction writer and the body of an astronaut found buried in an ancient tomb.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781542033992

FIVE DECEMBERS by James Kestrel (Hard-boiled Historical Thriller)
December 1941. America teeters on the brink of war, and in Honolulu, Hawaii, police detective Joe McGrady is assigned to investigate a homicide that will change his life forever. Because the trail of murder he uncovers will lead him across the Pacific, far from home and the woman he loves. And though the U.S. doesn't know it yet, a Japanese fleet is already steaming toward Pearl Harbor.
Hard Case Crime | 9781789098679

GO TELL THE BEES THAT I AM GONE by Diana Gabaldon (Historical Fantasy/Romance)
Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1746, and it took them 20 years of loss and heartbreak to find each other again. Now it’s 1779, and Claire and Jamie are finally reunited with their daughter, Brianna; her husband, Roger; and their children, and are rebuilding their home on Fraser’s Ridge --- a fortress that may shelter them against the winds of war as well as weather. But tensions in the Colonies are great: Battles rage from New York to Georgia, and even in the mountains of the backcountry, feelings run hot enough to boil Hell’s teakettle. Jamie knows that loyalties among his tenants are split, and it won’t be long before the war is on his doorstep.
Bantam | 9781101885703

HAO: Stories by Ye Chun (Fiction/Short Stories)
By turns reflective and visceral, the stories in HAO examine the ways in which women can be silenced as they grapple with sexism and racism, and how they find their own language to define their experience. In “Gold Mountain,” a young mother hides above a ransacked store during the San Francisco anti-Chinese riot of 1877. In “A Drawer,” an illiterate mother invents a language through drawing. And in “Stars,” a graduate student loses her ability to speak after a stroke.
Catapult | 9781646221554

HOLD ME DOWN by Clea Simon (Psychological Thriller)
Gal, a middle-aged musician, is back in Boston to play a memorial for her late drummer/best friend, when she finds herself freezing on stage at the sight of a face in the crowd. The next day, she learns that the man she saw has been killed --- beaten to death behind the venue --- and her friend's widower is being charged in connection with his death. When the friend refuses to defend himself, Gal wonders why and starts her own informal investigation. As she does so, she must reexamine her own wild life, her perception of the past, and an industry that monetizes dysfunction in a dark tale of love, music and murder.
Polis Books | 9781957957036

INSEPARABLE written by Simone de Beauvoir, translated by Sandra Smith (Fiction)
From the moment Sylvie and Andrée meet in their Parisian day school, they see in each other an accomplice with whom to confront the mysteries of girlhood. For the next 10 years, the two are the closest of friends and confidantes as they explore life in a post-World War I France, and as Andrée becomes increasingly reckless and rebellious, edging closer to peril. Sylvie sees a France of clashing ideals and religious hypocrisy --- and at an early age is determined to form her own opinions. Andrée is inclined to melodrama and romance. Despite their different natures, they rely on each other to safeguard their secrets while entering adulthood in a world that did not pay much attention to the wills and desires of young women.
Ecco | 9780063075054

LANDSLIDE by Susan Conley (Fiction)
After a fishing accident leaves her husband hospitalized across the border in Canada, Jill is left to look after her teenage boys --- "the wolves" --- alone. Nothing comes easy in their remote corner of Maine: money is tight; her son, Sam, is getting into more trouble by the day; her eldest, Charlie, is preoccupied with a new girlfriend; and Jill begins to suspect her marriage isn't as stable as she once believed. As one disaster gives way to the next, she begins to think that it's not enough to be a caring wife and mother anymore --- not enough to show up when needed, to nudge her boys in the right direction, to believe everything will be okay. But how to protect this life she loves, this household, this family?
Vintage | 9781984898005

THE MITFORD VANISHING: A Mitford Murders Mystery by Jessica Fellowes (Historical Mystery)
1937. War with Germany is dawning, and a civil war already rages in Spain. Split across political lines, the six Mitford sisters are more divided than ever. Meanwhile, their former maid, Louisa Cannon, is now a private detective, working with her policeman husband, Guy Sullivan. Louisa and Guy are surprised when a call comes in from novelist Nancy Mitford requesting that they look into the disappearance of her Communist sister, Jessica, in Spain. But one case leads to another as they are also asked to investigate the mysterious vanishing of a soldier. As the two cases come together, Louisa and Guy discover that every marriage has its secrets --- but some are deadlier than others.
Minotaur Books | 9781250848727

NO ONE WILL MISS HER by Kat Rosenfield (Psychological Thriller)
On a beautiful October morning in rural Maine, a homicide investigator from the state police pulls into the hard-luck town of Copper Falls. The local junkyard is burning, and the town pariah Lizzie Oullette is dead --- with her husband, Dwayne, nowhere to be found. As scandal ripples through the community, Detective Ian Bird’s inquiries unexpectedly lead him away from small-town Maine to a swank city townhouse several hours south. Adrienne Richards, the blonde and fabulous social media influencer and wife of a disgraced billionaire, had been renting Lizzie’s tiny lake house as a country getaway. As her connection to the case becomes clear, so too does her connection to Lizzie, who narrates their story from beyond the grave.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063057029

AN OBSERVANT WIFE by Naomi Ragen (Fiction)
From the joy of their wedding day, Yaakov and Leah are soon plunged into the complex reality of their new lives together. Yaakov leaves his beloved yeshiva to work in the city, and Leah confronts the often agonizing restrictions imposed by religious laws governing even the most intimate moments of their married lives. Adding to their difficulties is the hostility of some in the community who continue to view Leah as a dangerous interloper, questioning her sincerity and adherence to religious laws. In the midst of their heartfelt attempts to reach a balance between their human needs and their spiritual obligations, the discovery of a secret, forbidden relationship between troubled teenage daughter Shaindele and a local boy precipitates a maelstrom of life-changing consequences for all.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250853578

OUR FIRST CIVIL WAR: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution by H. W. Brands (History)
What causes people to forsake their country and take up arms against it? In his powerful new history of the American Revolution, this is the question that H. W. Brands answers. George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were the unlikeliest of rebels, with Washington standing at the apex of Virginia society and Franklin more successful still, having risen from humble origins to world fame. John Adams, known for his cantankerous temperament, might have seemed a more obvious candidate for rebellion, but even so, he revered the law. Yet all three men became rebels against the British empire that fostered their success.
Anchor | 9780593082560

THE REAL MRS. TOBIAS by Sally Koslow (Fiction)
Paperback Original
It’s 2015 in New York City, and three women all known as Mrs. Tobias --- Veronika, the matriarch; her daughter-in-law, Mel; and Mel’s daughter-in-law, Birdie --- are trying to navigate personal difficulties, some of which are with one another. Veronika and Mel are both psychotherapists who are more skilled at helping other people than solving their own problems. Birdie, still dealing with the culture shock of moving to New York City and marrying into the Tobias clan, is pushed to her limit when her husband gets into trouble. Overwhelmed, she bolts --- along with the couple’s young daughter --- to her Midwestern hometown, hoping that space, warmth and wisdom from her own feisty grandmother will help her find a path forward.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780063223745

A SINGLE ROSE written by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson (Fiction)
Rose is called to Kyoto for the reading of her estranged father’s will. Once there, she encounters acquaintances of her father --- including a potter and poet, an old lady friend, his housekeeper and chauffeur, and Paul, her guide through Kyoto. As the reading of the will gets closer, through her encounters and peregrinations in Kyoto, Rose reaches a poignant understanding of her father’s love and an acceptance of loss.
Europa Editions | 9781609457945

STILL LIFE by Sarah Winman (Fiction)
Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs sink villages, a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian intent on salvaging paintings from the ruins. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amidst the rubble of war-torn Italy, and paint a course of events that will shape Ulysses’ life for the next four decades. Returning home to London, Ulysses reimmerses himself in his crew at The Stoat and Parot --- a motley mix of pub crawlers and eccentrics --- all the while carrying with him his Italian evocations. So, when an unexpected inheritance brings him back to where it all began, Ulysses knows better than to tempt fate: he must return to the Tuscan hills.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593330760

UNBOUND: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement by Tarana Burke (Memoir)
As a child, Tarana Burke reeled from her sexual assault, believing she was responsible. Unable to confess what she thought of as her own sins for fear of shattering her family, her soul split in two. One side was the bright, intellectually curious third-generation Bronxite steeped in Black literature and power, and the other was the bad, shame-ridden girl who thought of herself as a vile rule breaker, not of a victim. Tarana fought to reunite her fractured soul, through organizing, pursuing justice and finding community. In her debut memoir, she shares her extensive work supporting and empowering Black and brown girls, and the devastating realization that to truly help these girls she needed to help that scared, ashamed child still in her soul.
Flatiron Books: An Oprah Book | 9781250621740

WHERE THEY WAIT by Scott Carson (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
Recently laid-off from his newspaper and desperate for work, war correspondent Nick Bishop takes a humbling job: writing a profile of a new mindfulness app called Clarity. It’s easy money, and a chance to return to his hometown for his first visit in years. The app itself seems like a retread of old ideas, but then there are the “Sleep Songs.” A woman’s hauntingly beautiful voice sings a ballad that is anything but soothing --- it’s disturbing, more of a warning than a relaxation --- but it works. Deep, refreshing sleep follows. So do nightmares. Vivid and chilling, they feature a dead woman who calls Nick by name and whispers guidance. Or are they threats? And soon her voice follows him long after the song is done.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781982104634

On Sale the Week of September 19th in Hardcover

September 20th

ABOMINATIONS: Selected Essays from a Career of Courting Self-Destruction by Lionel Shriver (Essays)
Novelist, cultural observer and social satirist Lionel Shriver is among the sharpest talents of our age. A writer who embraces “under-expressed, unpopular or downright dangerous” points of view, she filets cherished shibboleths and the conformity of thought and attitude that has overtaken us. Bringing together 35 works curated from her many columns, features, essays and op-eds, along with some unpublished pieces, ABOMINATIONS reveals Shriver at her most iconoclastic and personal. Relentlessly skeptical, cutting and contrarian, this collection showcases Shriver’s piquant opinions on a wide range of topics --- including religion, politics, illness, mortality, family and friends, tennis, gender, immigration, consumerism, health care and taxes.
Harper | 9780063094291

THE BOOK OF GOOSE by Yiyun Li (Fiction)
Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised --- the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape 10 years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story. As children in a war-ravaged, backwater town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves --- until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune and terrible loss.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374606343

THE BULLET THAT MISSED: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery by Richard Osman (Mystery)
It is an ordinary Thursday, and things finally should be returning to normal. Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club is concerned. A decade-old cold case --- their favorite kind --- leads them to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers. Then a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit. Her mission? Kill or be killed. Suddenly the cold case has become red hot. While Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim chase down the clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780593299395

THE COMPLICITIES by Stacey D'Erasmo (Fiction)
After her husband Alan’s decades of financial fraud are exposed, Suzanne’s wealthy, comfortable life shatters. Alan goes to prison. Suzanne files for divorce, decamps to a barely middle-class Massachusetts beach town, and begins to create a new life and identity. Then Alan is released early, and the many people whose lives he ruined demand restitution. But when Suzanne finds herself awestruck at a major whale stranding, she makes an apparently high-minded decision that ripples with devastating effect not only through Alan’s life as he tries to rebuild but also through the lives of Suzanne and Alan’s son, Alan’s new wife, his estranged mother and, ultimately, Suzanne herself. When damage is done, who pays? Who loses? Who is responsible?
Algonquin Books | 9781643751962

DAPHNE by Josh Malerman (Thriller/Horror)
It’s the last summer for Kit Lamb: The last summer before college. The last summer with her high school basketball team, and with Dana, her best friend. The last summer before her life begins. But the night before the big game, one of the players tells a ghost story about Daphne, a girl who went to their school many years ago and died under mysterious circumstances. Some say she was murdered, others that she died by her own hand. And some say that Daphne is a murderer herself. They also say that she is still out there and will appear to kill again anytime someone thinks about her. After Kit hears the story, her teammates vanish, one by one, and she begins to suspect that the stories about Daphne are real…and fears that her own mind is conjuring the killer.
Del Rey | 9780593157015

DREAMLAND by Nicholas Sparks (Romance)
Colby Mills once felt destined for a musical career until tragedy grounded his aspirations. Now the head of a small family farm in North Carolina, he spontaneously takes a gig playing at a bar in St. Pete Beach, Florida. But when he meets Morgan Lee, his world is turned upside down, making him wonder if the responsibilities he has shouldered need to dictate his life forever. Fleeing an abusive husband with her six-year-old son, Beverly is trying to piece together a life for them in a small town far off the beaten track. With money running out and danger seemingly around every corner, she makes a desperate decision that will rewrite everything she knows to be true. Fate will draw Colby, Morgan and Beverly together in a web of life-altering connections.
Random House | 9780593449554

FORSAKEN COUNTRY by Allen Eskens (Mystery/Thriller)
Max Rupert has left his position as a Minneapolis homicide detective to live in solitude. Mourning the tragic death of his wife, he's also racked by guilt --- he alone knows what happened to her killer. But then the former local sheriff, Lyle Voight, arrives with a desperate plea: Lyle’s daughter, Sandy, and his six-year-old grandson, Pip, have disappeared. Lyle is certain that Sandy's ex-husband, Reed, is behind it, but the new sheriff is refusing to investigate. When Max reluctantly looks into their disappearance, he too becomes convinced something has gone very wrong. But the closer Max and Lyle get to finding proof, the more slippery Reed becomes, until he makes a break for the beautiful but formidable Boundary Waters wilderness with vulnerable Pip in tow.
Mulholland Books | 9780316703543

THE HOSTAGE by A. F. Carter (Mystery/Thriller)
A new Nissan plant is coming to the depressed Rust Belt town of Baxter, and Captain Delia Mariola has been busy cleaning up the crime-addled city ever since the deal was announced. But when the 15-year-old daughter of the lead bidder on the construction project --- a wealthy out-of-towner --- suddenly disappears, and it becomes clear that a professional kidnapping ring may be responsible, Delia realizes that the factory’s influx of cash could bring with it an entirely new sort of danger, never before considered in this working class milieu. Though Elizabeth’s abduction was well-planned and bearing the mark of an experienced team, her captors could not have anticipated the quick and clever brilliance of the exceptionally smart teen.
Mysterious Press | 9781613163467

KILL ME IF YOU CAN by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Hard-boiled Mystery)
Mike Hammer is on the case, this time hunting the murderer of his old friend and bootlegger-turned-legit-businessman, Packy Paragon. Already torn up by the disappearance of Velda, his beloved secretary, Hammer carves a brutal path for vengeance. Drinking heavily, his relationships fraying and his behavior self-destructive, he has to track down Paragon's secret ledger, with the names of every corrupt official in town. With deception everywhere, and a whole host of reasons to want the ledger, Hammer has to pull himself together and solve the case before all hell breaks loose.
Titan Books | 9781789097641

LANDSLIDE by Adam Sikes (Thriller/Adventure)
U.S. Marine veteran Mason Hackett moved to London to start his life over, and he’s done his best to convince himself that what happened 15 years ago doesn’t matter --- the people he killed, the men he lost, the lives he ruined. But when Mason sees the face of a dead friend flash on a television screen and then receives a mysterious email referencing a CIA operation gone bad, no longer can he ignore his inner demons. Driven by loyalty and a need to uncover the truth, Mason launches on a perilous journey to honor a 15-year-old promise. The answers he seeks --- the fate of a friend and his connection to the underworld of international arms dealers and defense corporations --- throw him into the cauldron of a covert war where no one can be trusted.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608095049

THE LAST DREAMWALKER by Rita Woods (Fiction/Magical Realism)
In the wake of her mother's passing, Layla Hurley unexpectedly reconnects with her mother's sisters. Her aunts reveal to Layla that a Gullah-Geechee island off the shore of South Carolina now belongs to her. As Layla digs deeper into her mother’s past and the mysterious island’s history, she discovers that the terrifying nightmares that have plagued her throughout her life and tainted her relationship with her family is actually a power passed down through generations of her Gullah ancestors. She is a Dreamwalker, able to inhabit the dreams of others and manipulate them. As Layla uncovers increasingly dark secrets about her family's past, she finds herself thrust into the center of a potentially deadly, decades-old feud fought in the dark corridor of dreams.
Forge Books | 9781250805614

LESS IS LOST by Andrew Sean Greer (Fiction/Humor)
Arthur Less is a moderately accomplished novelist in a steady relationship with his partner, Freddy Pelu. But the death of an old lover and a sudden financial crisis has Less running away from his problems yet again as he accepts a series of literary gigs that send him on a zigzagging adventure across the US. Less roves across the “Mild Mild West,” through the South and to his mid-Atlantic birthplace, with an ever-changing posse of writerly characters and his trusty duo --- a human-like black pug, Dolly, and a rusty camper van nicknamed Rosina. We cannot, however, escape ourselves. From his estranged father and strained relationship with Freddy, to the reckoning he experiences in confronting his privilege, Less must eventually face his personal demons.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316498906

LUCY BY THE SEA by Elizabeth Strout (Fiction)
As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and on-again, off-again friend, William. For the next several months, it’s just Lucy, William and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody, swirling sea. At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we’re apart --- the pain of a beloved daughter’s suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love.
Random House | 9780593446065

THE MATCHMAKER'S GIFT by Lynda Cohen Loigman (Historical Fiction)
Even as a child in 1910, Sara Glikman knows her gift: she is a maker of matches and a seeker of soulmates. But among the pushcart-crowded streets of New York’s Lower East Side, Sara’s vocation is dominated by devout older men --- men who see a talented female matchmaker as a dangerous threat to their traditions and livelihood. After making matches in secret for more than a decade, Sara must fight to take her rightful place among her peers. Two generations later, Sara’s granddaughter, Abby, is a successful Manhattan divorce attorney. When her beloved Grandma Sara dies, Abby inherits her collection of handwritten journals recording the details of Sara’s matches. But among the faded volumes, Abby finds more questions than answers.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250278098

A MERRY LITTLE MEET CUTE by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone (Romantic Comedy)
Bee Hobbes (aka Bianca Von Honey) has a successful career as a plus-size adult film star. But when her favorite producer casts her to star in a Christmas movie he’s making for the squeaky-clean Hope Channel, Bee’s career is about to take a more family-friendly direction. Her co-star is none other than childhood crush Nolan Shaw, an ex-boy band member in desperate need of career rehab. It isn’t long before Bee and Nolan are sneaking off for quickies on set, keeping their new relationship a secret from the Hope Channel’s execs. Things only get trickier when the reporter who torpedoed Nolan’s singing career comes snooping around --- and takes an instant interest in mysterious newcomer Bee.
Avon | 9780063222571

MISTBORN: Secret History by Brandon Sanderson (Fantasy/Adventure)
Kelsier, sentenced to die mining the Pits of Hathsin after attempting to rob the Lord Ruler’s palace, arose as a powerful Mistborn and inspired the revolution that shook the foundations of the Final Empire. His name and deeds passed into legend. But was that truly the end of his tale? Whispered hints to those he called friends suggested there was a lot more going on. If you think you know the story of the Mistborn trilogy, think again --- but to say anything more here risks revealing too much. Even knowing of this tale’s existence could be heresy.
Tor Books | 9781250859143

NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT: Leopold & Loeb and the Truth Behind the Murder That Rocked 1920s America by Greg King and Penny Wilson (True Crime/History)
Nearly a hundred years ago, two wealthy and privileged teenagers --- Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb --- were convicted of murdering 14-year-old Bobby Franks. The trial was made even more sensational by the revelation of a love affair between the defendants and by defense attorney Clarence Darrow, who delivered one of the most famous defense summations of all time to save the boys from the death penalty. The story of their mad folie à deux, with Loeb portrayed as the psychopathic mastermind and Leopold as his infatuated disciple, has been accepted by history as fact. But none of it is true. Using 21st-century investigative tools, forensics and a modern understanding of the psychology of these infamous killers, NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT turns history on its head.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250272669

SOMETIMES PEOPLE DIE by Simon Stephenson (Medical Thriller)
Returning to practice after a suspension for stealing opioids, a young doctor takes the only job he can find: a post as a physician at the struggling St. Luke's Hospital in east London. Amid the maelstrom of sick patients, overworked staff and underfunded wards, a more insidious secret soon declares itself: too many patients are dying. And a murderer may be lurking in plain sight. Drawing on his experiences as a physician, Simon Stephenson takes readers into the dark heart of life as a hospitalist to ask the question: Who are the people we gift the power of life and death, and what does it do to them?
Hanover Square Press | 9781335429254

A TRUTH TO LIE FOR: An Elena Standish Novel by Anne Perry (Historical Mystery)
It is the summer of 1934, and Hitler is nearing the summit of supreme power in Germany. When Britain’s MI6 gets word that a pair of German scientists have made breakthroughs in germ warfare, they send Elena Standish on a dangerous mission to get one of them out of Germany before he’s forced to share his knowledge and its devastating power with Hitler’s elite. But the new head of Germany’s germ warfare division is an old enemy of Elena’s grandfather Lucas, the former head of MI6. And he’s bent on using any means at his disposal to avenge his defeat at Lucas’ hands 20 years before. What starts as an effort to save Europe from the devastation of disease soon becomes an intensely personal fight.
Ballantine Books | 9780593359075

UNCULTURED: A Memoir by Daniella Mestyanek Young (Memoir)
Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional and sexual abuse --- masked as godly discipline and divine love --- and is forbidden from getting a traditional education. At 15 years old, Daniella escapes and bravely enrolls herself in high school. After graduating as valedictorian of her college class, she elects to join the military to begin a career as an intelligence officer. But she soon learns that her new world --- surrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistan --- looks remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250280114

WEALTH MANAGEMENT by Edward Zuckerman (Thriller)
In the lush world banking capital of Geneva, Switzerland, three young wealth managers (Catherine, Majid and Rafe) are handling investments for clients with dubious pedigrees. When problems with troubled investments are “fixed” by murders and bombs, they come to suspect that their clients are Mafiosi and terrorists. But by then they are accomplices, and under threat, and have no easy way to back out. Their efforts to save themselves --- and innocent lives --- are complicated by their being in a love triangle, by one of them secretly working with the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence to investigate the other two, and by the unexpected appearance of a detective from Nigeria who may or may not be in league with terrorists himself.
Arcade Crimewise | 9781956763058

On Sale the Week of September 19th in Paperback

September 20th

ACID FOR THE CHILDREN: A Memoir by Flea (Memoir)
In ACID FOR THE CHILDREN, Flea takes readers on a deeply personal and revealing tour of his formative years. Through hilarious anecdotes, poetical meditations and occasional flights of fantasy, the iconic bassist and co-founder of the Red Hot Chili Peppers deftly chronicles the experiences that forged him as an artist, a musician and a young man. His dreamy, jazz-inflected prose makes the Los Angeles of the 1970s and ’80s come to gritty, glorious life. It is here that young Flea, looking to escape a turbulent home, found family in a community of musicians, artists and junkies who also lived on the fringe. He spent most of his time partying and committing petty crimes. But it was in music where he found a higher meaning, a place to channel his frustration, loneliness and love.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781455530540

THE AMERICAN ADVENTURESS by C. W. Gortner (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
The daughter of New York financier Leonard Jerome, Jennie Jerome Churchill was born into wealth --- and scandal. Upon her parents’ separation, her mother took Jennie and her sisters to Paris, where Mrs. Jerome was determined to marry her daughters into the most elite families. Fleeing to Queen Victoria’s England after Paris fell to revolt, Jennie soon caught the eye of aristocrat Randolph Spencer-Churchill, son of the Duke of Marlborough. It was love at first sight, their unconventional marriage driven by mutual ambition and the birth of two sons. She brashly carried on a lifelong intimate friendship with Edward, Prince of Wales, and had two later marriages to younger men. When her son Winston launched his brilliant political career, Jennie guided him to success, his most vocal and valuable supporter.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063035805

THE BOYS: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family by Ron Howard and Clint Howard (Memoir)
“What was it like to grow up on TV?” Ron Howard has been asked this question throughout his adult life. In THE BOYS, he and his younger brother, Clint, examine their childhoods in detail for the first time. For Ron, playing Opie on "The Andy Griffith Show" and Richie Cunningham on "Happy Days" offered fame, joy and opportunity --- but also invited stress and bullying. For Clint, a fast start on such programs as "Gentle Ben" and "Star Trek" petered out in adolescence, with some tough consequences and lessons. With the perspective of time and success --- Ron as a filmmaker, producer and Hollywood A-lister, Clint as a busy character actor --- the Howard brothers delve deep into an upbringing that seemed normal to them yet was anything but.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063065253

BROTHERS AND WIVES: Inside the Private Lives of William, Kate, Harry, and Meghan by Christopher Andersen (Biography)
DIANA’S BOYS revealed the powerful bond between Princes William and Harry, and how it strengthened even more in the wake of their mother’s tragic death. Now, 20 years later, Queen Elizabeth II is in her mid-90s, Prince Charles is in his 70s, and all eyes are turned increasingly toward William and Harry again. Christopher Andersen picks up where he left off, covering everything that has happened to the brothers as they have grown up, gotten married to two remarkable women, and had children --- all while facing continual waves of controversy and questions about the ways their relationship has shifted.
Gallery Books | 9781982159733

DRUNK ON LOVE by Jasmine Guillory (Romance)
Paperback Original
Margot Noble needs some relief from the stress of running the family winery with her brother. Enter Luke Williams: sexy, charming and, best of all in the too-small world of Napa, a stranger. The chemistry between them is undeniable, and Margot is delighted that she lucked into the perfect one-night stand she’ll never have to see again. That is, until the winery’s newest hire, Luke, walks in the next morning. Margot is determined to keep things purely professional, but when their every interaction reminds her of the attraction still bubbling between them, it proves to be much more challenging than she expects.
Berkley | 9780593100882

DUNE: THE LADY OF CALADAN by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (Science Fiction/Space Opera)
Lady Jessica, mother of Paul and consort to Leto Atreides. The choices she made shaped an empire, but first the Lady of Caladan must reckon with her own betrayal of the Bene Gesserit. She has already betrayed her ancient order, but now she must decide if her loyalty to the Sisterhood is more important than the love of her own family. Meanwhile, events in the greater empire are accelerating beyond the control of even the Reverend Mother, and Lady Jessica's family is on a collision course with destiny.
Tor Books | 9781250765086

THE FAMILY CHAO by Lan Samantha Chang (Literary Mystery)
The residents of Haven, Wisconsin, have dined on the Fine Chao restaurant’s delicious Americanized Chinese food for 35 years, content to ignore any unsavory whispers about the family owners. Whether or not Big Leo Chao is honest, or his wife, Winnie, is happy, their food tastes good and their three sons earned scholarships to respectable colleges. But when the brothers reunite in Haven, the Chao family’s secrets and simmering resentments erupt at last. Before long, brash, charismatic and tyrannical patriarch Leo is found dead --- presumed murdered --- and his sons find that they’ve drawn the exacting gaze of the entire town. The ensuing trial brings to light potential motives for all three brothers.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324050469

FEMLANDIA by Christina Dalcher (Dystopian Thriller)
Miranda Reynolds always thought she would rather die than live in Femlandia. But that was before the country sank into total economic collapse and her husband walked out, leaving her and her 16-year-old daughter with nothing. The streets are full of looting, robbing and killing, and Miranda and Emma no longer have much choice --- either starve and risk getting murdered, or find safety. And so they set off to Femlandia, the women-only colony that Miranda's mother established decades ago. There are no men allowed in the colony, but babies are being born --- and they're all girls. Miranda discovers just how the all-women community is capable of enduring, and it leads her to question how far her mother went to create this perfect, thriving, horrifying society.
Berkley | 9780593201114

IN THE SHADOW OF THE EMPRESS: The Defiant Lives of Maria Theresa, Mother of Marie Antoinette, and Her Daughters by Nancy Goldstone (History)
Out of the thrilling and tempestuous 18th century comes the sweeping family saga of beautiful Maria Theresa, a sovereign of uncommon strength and vision, the only woman ever to inherit and rule the vast Habsburg Empire in her own name, and three of her remarkable daughters: lovely, talented Maria Christina, governor-general of the Austrian Netherlands; spirited Maria Carolina, the resolute queen of Naples; and the youngest, Marie Antoinette, the glamorous, tragic queen of France, and perhaps the most famous princess in history. This epic history of Maria Theresa and her daughters is a tour de force of desire, adventure, ambition, treachery, sorrow and glory.
Back Bay Books | 9780316449304

THE KILLING KIND by Jane Casey (Thriller)
As a barrister, Ingrid Lewis is used to dealing with tricky clients, but no one has ever come close to John Webster. After Ingrid defended Webster against a stalking charge, he then turned on her --- following her, ruining her relationship, even destroying her home. Now, Ingrid believes she has finally escaped his clutches. But when one of her colleagues is run down on a busy London road, Ingrid is sure she was the intended victim. And then Webster shows up at her door. Webster claims Ingrid is in danger --- and that only he can protect her. Stalker or savior? Murderer or protector? The clock is ticking for Ingrid to decide. Because the killer is ready to strike again.
HarperCollins | 9780008529222

THE LAST HOUSE ON NEEDLESS STREET by Catriona Ward (Psychological Thriller/Horror)
In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three. A teenage girl who isn’t allowed outside, not after last time. A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory. And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible. An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all.
Tor Nightfire | 9781250812643

LIGHTNING DOWN: A World War II Story of Survival by Tom Clavin (History)
On August 13, 1944, Joe Moser set off on his 44th combat mission over occupied France. Soon, he would join almost 170 other Allied airmen as prisoners in Buchenwald, one of the most notorious and deadly of Nazi concentration camps. Tom Clavin's LIGHTNING DOWN tells this largely untold and riveting true story. Moser was just 22 years old, a farm boy from Washington State who fell in love with flying. During the War he realized his dream of piloting a P-38 Lightning, one of the most effective weapons the Army Air Corps had against the powerful German Luftwaffe. But on that hot August morning, he had to bail out of his damaged, burning plane. Captured immediately, Moser’s journey into hell began.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250830388

THE MAGICIAN by Colm Tóibín (Historical Fiction)
THE MAGICIAN opens in a provincial German city at the turn of the 20th century, where the boy, Thomas Mann, hides his artistic aspirations from his father and his homosexual desires from everyone. He is infatuated with one of the richest, most cultured Jewish families in Munich, and marries the daughter Katia. They have six children. On a holiday in Italy, he longs for a boy he sees on a beach and writes the story DEATH IN VENICE. He is the most successful novelist of his time, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature. He is expected to lead the condemnation of Hitler, whom he underestimates. His oldest daughter and son, leaders of Bohemianism and of the anti-Nazi movement, share lovers. He flees Germany for Switzerland, France and, ultimately, America, living first in Princeton and then in Los Angeles.
Scribner | 9781476785097

NEVER SAW ME COMING by Vera Kurian (Psychological Thriller)
Chloe Sevre is a freshman honor student, a legging-wearing hot girl next door who also happens to be a psychopath. She spends her time on yogalates, at frat parties and plotting to kill Will Bachman, a childhood friend who grievously wronged her. Chloe is one of seven students at her DC-based college who are part of an unusual clinical study of psychopaths --- students like herself who lack empathy and can’t comprehend emotions like fear or guilt. The study, led by a renowned psychologist, requires them to wear smart watches that track their moods and movements. When one of the students in the study is found murdered in the psychology building, a dangerous game of cat and mouse begins, and Chloe goes from hunter to prey.
Park Row | 9780778333241

NICE GIRLS by Catherine Dang (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Mary used to be such a nice girl. She was the resident whiz kid of Liberty Lake, Minnesota --- the quiet, chubby teen with the scholarship to an Ivy League school. But three years later, “Ivy League Mary” is back --- a thinner, cynical, restless failure who was kicked out of Cornell at the beginning of her senior year and won’t tell anyone why. Then rising social media star Olivia Willand goes missing. Once Olivia’s best friend, Mary knows better than anyone that behind the Instagram persona hides a willful, manipulative girl with sharp edges. As the town obsesses over perfect, lovely Olivia, Mary wonders if her disappearance might be tied to another missing person: 19-year-old DeMaria Jackson, whose case has been widely dismissed as a runaway.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063027565

THE NINE: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany by Gwen Strauss (History)
THE NINE follows the true story of Gwen Strauss' great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a 10-day journey across the front lines of WWII from Germany back to Paris. Arrested by French police, they were interrogated and tortured by the Gestapo. They were subjected to a series of French prisons and deported to Germany. The group formed along the way, meeting at different points --- in prison, in transit and at Ravensbrück. By the time they were enslaved at the labor camp in Leipzig, they were a close-knit group of friends. During the final days of the war, forced onto a death march, the nine chose their moment and made a daring escape.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250853561

A PLAY FOR THE END OF THE WORLD by Jai Chakrabarti (Fiction)
Jaryk Smith, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, and Lucy Gardner, a southerner, are in the first bloom of love when they receive word that Jaryk's oldest friend has died under mysterious circumstances in eastern India. Traveling there alone to collect his friend's ashes, Jaryk soon finds himself enmeshed in the chaos of local politics and efforts to stage a play in protest against the government --- the same play that he performed as a child in Warsaw as an act of resistance against the Nazis. Torn between the survivor's guilt he has carried for decades and his feelings for Lucy (who, unbeknownst to him, is pregnant with his child), Jaryk must decide how to honor both the past and the present, and how to accept a happiness he is not sure he deserves.
Vintage | 9780593081808

THE ROAD TO CHRISTMAS by Sheila Roberts (Romance)
Paperback Original
Michelle and Max are not planning on a happy holiday. Their marriage is in shambles, and the D word has entered their vocabulary. But now their youngest daughter, Julia, wants everyone to come to her new house in Idaho for Christmas. Their other daughters, Audrey and Shyla, are driving up from California and hoping to meet a sexy rancher for Audrey along the way. What they don’t plan on is getting stranded on a ranch when the car breaks down. The ones with the shortest drive are Grandma and Grandpa. They have a reliable car --- and snow tires and chains if they need them. They’ll be fine. Surprises lie in store for all three sets of intrepid travelers as they set out on three very different adventures, all leading to one memorable family Christmas.
Mira | 9780778386568

SNOWED IN FOR CHRISTMAS by Sarah Morgan (Romance)
Paperback Original
This Christmas the Miller siblings have one goal --- to avoid their well-meaning family’s endless stream of prying questions. Ross, Alice and Clemmie have secrets that they don’t intend to share, and they are relying on each other to deflect attention. Lucy Clarke is facing a Christmas alone and the prospect of losing her job. Unless she can win a major piece of business from Ross Miller, the season promises to be anything but festive. She’ll just deliver her proposal to his family home and then leave. When Lucy appears on the Miller family’s snow-covered Highland doorstep, she's mistaken for Ross’ girlfriend. By the time the confusion is cleared up, they're snowed in. She can’t leave, even if she wants to! But does she want to?
HQN | 9781335630940

THINGS I HAVE WITHHELD: Essays by Kei Miller (Essays)
In a deeply moving, critical and lyrical collection of interconnected essays, award-winning writer Kei Miller explores the silences in which so many important things are kept. He examines the experience of discrimination through this silence and what it means to breach it --- "to risk words, to risk truth; and through the body and the histories those bodies inherit" the crimes that haunt them, and how the meanings of our bodies can shift as we move through the world, variously assuming privilege or victimhood. Through letters to James Baldwin, encounters with Soca, Carnival, family secrets, love affairs, questions of aesthetics and more, Miller powerfully and imaginatively recounts everyday acts of racism and prejudice from a black, male, queer perspective.
Grove Press | 9780802160331

TRIPLE CROSS by Tom Bradby (Thriller)
Attempting to rebuild her shattered life on vacation in the South of France, former MI6 operative Kate Henderson receives an unexpected and most unwelcome visit from an old adversary: the UK Prime Minister. He has an extraordinary story to tell --- and he needs her help. A Russian agent has come forward with news that the PM has been the victim of the greatest misinformation play in the history of MI6. It's run out of a special KGB unit that exists for one purpose alone: to process the intelligence from “Agent Dante,” a mole right at the heart of MI6 in London. Against her better judgment, Kate is forced back into the fray in a top-secret, deeply flawed and dangerous investigation. But now she's damaged goods.
Grove Press | 9780802160317

VANDERBILT: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe (History)
When 11-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the 19th century, no one could have imagined that one day he would build two empires --- one in shipping and another in railroads --- that would make him the richest man in America. His staggering fortune was fought over by his heirs after his death in 1877, sowing familial discord that would never fully heal. Though his son Billy doubled the money left by “the Commodore,” subsequent generations competed to find new and ever more extraordinary ways of spending it. Now, the Commodore’s great-great-great-grandson, Anderson Cooper, joins with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and their outsized influence.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062964625

Please visit the other websites in TheBookReportNetwork.com: ReadingGroupGuides.com and AuthorsOnTheWeb.com.

And be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.