February 28, 2023

February 28, 2023

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of February 27th and March 6th 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 Carol Fitzgerald's Bookreporter.com Bets On commentary for THE HOUSE OF EVE. This daring, beautiful and redemptive novel from the award-winning author of YELLOW WIFE is Reese's Book Club pick for February. This time, Sadeqa Johnson explores what it means to be a woman and a mother, and how much one is willing to sacrifice to achieve her greatest goal. Carol looks forward to speaking to Sadeqa next week for a "Bookreporter Talks To" interview.

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, March 1st at 4pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Karen Rose will talk to Hank Phillippi Ryan about her latest thriller, COLD-BLOODED LIAR, the opening installment in her scorching new series where San Diego means sun, surf, sand…and serial killers.

Wednesday, March 1st 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 Hank Phillippi Ryan about THE HOUSE GUEST and Jessica George about MAAME (the latter is February's "Read with Jenna" Today Show Book Club pick).

Wednesday, March 1st at 8pm ET: "Bookaccino Live" Book Group: Carol Fitzgerald will talk to Fiona Davis about her novel, THE MAGNOLIA PALACE, which is now in paperback. Fiona also will answer questions from guests who will be "on stage," as well as from other members of the audience. If you would like to be one of our featured audience guests and ask Fiona a question on camera, please send Carol an email with the subject line “Magnolia” by Wednesday the 1st at noon ET. Please note: This event was rescheduled from February 22nd due to tech issues.

Thursday, March 2nd at 7pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: John Sayles will be in conversation with Diana Gabaldon about his highly anticipated new novel, JAMIE MacGILLIVRAY, which spans 13 years, two continents, several wars, and many smoke-filled and bloody battlefields.

Monday, March 6th at 7:30pm ET: “Lisa Live!”: Join Lisa Scottoline every Monday night as she hosts her weekly “Talking LOYALTY” video series and Facebook Live events leading up to the publication of her historical novel, LOYALTY, on March 28th. And be sure to enter the LOYALTY Pre-order Sweepstakes!

Tuesday, March 7th at 3pm ET: Warwick's: Warwick’s, in partnership with Book Carnival, Novel Neighbor, and Roundabout Books & Cafe, will host Emilia Hart as she discusses her debut novel, WEYWARD, with Abigail Dean. Hart has penned an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.

This Week's Bonus News:
Carol's Bookreporter.com Bets On Commentary for
THE HOUSE OF EVE by Sadeqa Johnson
Reese's Book Club Pick for February

THE LEVEE, an Audio Original Novella
from William Kent Krueger, is Now Available

On Sale the Week of February 27th in Hardcover

February 28th

THE ADVENTURES OF AMINA AL-SIRAFI by Shannon Chakraborty (Historical Fantasy/Adventure)
After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, Amina al-Sirafi has survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family. But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will. Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe.
Harper Voyager | 9780062963505

THE ANGEL MAKER by Alex North (Thriller)
At the cusp of graduation, Katie Shaw had big dreams, a devoted boyfriend and a little brother she protected fiercely. Until the day a violent stranger changed the fate of her family forever. Years later, still unable to live down the guilt surrounding what happened to her brother, Chris, Katie struggles to separate the real threats from the imagined. Then she gets the phone call: Chris has gone missing and needs his big sister once more. Meanwhile, Detective Laurence Page is facing a particularly gruesome crime. A distinguished professor of fate and free will has been brutally murdered just hours after firing his staff. All the leads point back to two old cases: the gruesome attack on teenager Christopher Shaw, and the despicable crimes of a notorious serial killer who, legend had it, could see the future.
Celadon Books | 9781250757869

BLACK CANDLE WOMEN by Diane Marie Brown (Fiction)
Generations of Montrose women have lived together in their quaint two-story bungalow in California for years. They keep to themselves, and their collection of tinctures and spells is an unspoken bond between them. But when 17-year-old Nickie Montrose brings home a boy for the first time, their quiet lives are thrown into disarray. For the other women have been withholding a secret from Nickie that will end her relationship before it’s even begun: the decades-old family curse that any person they fall in love with dies. Their surprise guest forces each woman to reckon with her own past choices and mistakes. And as new truths about the curse emerge, the family is set on a collision course dating back to a Voodoo shop in 1950s New Orleans’s French Quarter.
Graydon House | 9781525899911

THE CITY BETWEEN THE BRIDGES: 1794 by Niklas Natt och Dag (Historical Thriller)
Stockholm, 1794: A young nobleman, Eric Three Roses, languishes in a hospital as the rest of the city claims that he belongs in a madhouse. Riddled with guilt, he writes down the memories of his lost love --- his beautiful wife who died on their wedding night. The young woman’s mother also mourns her death and, desperate for justice, begs for help from the only person who will listen to her: Jean Mickel Cardell, the one-armed watchman. But she isn’t the only person seeking him out. Emil, younger brother to the brilliant lawyer and detective Cecil Winge, finds the watchman to demand his late brother’s pocket watch back. Instead, Cardell enlists Emil’s help to discover what really happened at the Three Roses estate that dreaded wedding night.
Atria Books | 9781982145910

THE CRANE HUSBAND by Kelly Barnhill (Fantasy/Horror)
A 15-year-old is the backbone of her small Midwestern family, budgeting the household finances and raising her younger brother while her mom, a talented artist, weaves beautiful tapestries. For six years, it’s been just the three of them --- her mom has brought home guests at times, but none have ever stayed. Yet when her mom brings home a six-foot-tall crane with a menacing air, the girl is powerless to prevent her mom letting the intruder into her heart and her children’s lives. Utterly enchanted and numb to his sharp edges, her mom abandons the world around her to weave the masterpiece the crane demands.
Tordotcom | 9781250850973

THE DAUGHTERS OF MADURAI by Rajasree Variyar (Fiction)
Madurai, 1992. A young mother in a poor family, Janani is told she is useless if she can’t produce a son --- or worse, if she bears daughters. They let her keep her first baby girl, but the rest are taken away as soon as they are born, and murdered. But Janani can’t forget the daughters she was never allowed to love. Sydney, 2019. Nila has a secret, one she’s been keeping from her parents for too long. Before she can say anything, her grandfather in India falls ill, so she agrees to join her parents on a trip to Madurai. Nila knows little about where her family came from or who they left behind. What she’s about to learn will change her forever.
Union Square & Co. | 9781454948766

A DAY OF FALLEN NIGHT: A Roots of Chaos Novel by Samantha Shannon (Fantasy)
Tunuva Melim is a sister of the Priory. For 50 years, she has trained to slay wyrms. But none have appeared since the Nameless One, and the younger generation is starting to question the Priory's purpose. To the north, in the Queendom of Inys, Sabran the Ambitious has married the new King of Hróth, narrowly saving both realms from ruin. Their daughter, Glorian, trails in their shadow --- exactly where she wants to be. The dragons of the East have slept for centuries. Dumai has spent her life in a Seiikinese mountain temple, trying to wake the gods from their long slumber. Now someone from her mother's past is coming to upend her fate. When the Dreadmount erupts, bringing with it an age of terror and violence, these women must find the strength to protect humankind from a devastating threat.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635577921

DON'T THINK, DEAR: On Loving and Leaving Ballet by Alice Robb (Memoir)
Growing up, Alice Robb dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer. But by age 15, she had to face the reality that she would never meet the impossibly high standards of the hyper-competitive ballet world. After she quit, she tried to avoid ballet --- only to realize, years later, that she was still haunted by the lessons she had absorbed in the mirror-lined studios of Lincoln Center, and that they had served her well in the wider world. The traits ballet takes to an extreme --- stoicism, silence, submission --- are valued in girls and women everywhere. Profound, nuanced and passionately researched, DON’T THINK, DEAR is Robb’s excavation of her adolescent years as a dancer and an exploration of how those days informed her life for years to come.
Mariner Books | 9780358653332

EMPRESS OF THE NILE: The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt's Ancient Temples from Destruction by Lynne Olson (Biography)
In the 1960s, the world’s attention was focused on a nail-biting race against time. Fifty countries contributed nearly a billion dollars to save a dozen ancient Egyptian temples, built during the height of the pharaohs’ rule, from drowning in the floodwaters of the massive new Aswan High Dam. But the extensive press coverage at the time overlooked the gutsy French archaeologist who made it all happen. Without the intervention of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, the temples would now be at the bottom of a vast reservoir. It was an unimaginably large and complex project that required the fragile sandstone temples to be dismantled, stone by stone, and rebuilt on higher ground.
Random House | 9780525509479

THE EXCEPTIONS: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science by Kate Zernike (History)
In 1999, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admitted to discriminating against women on its faculty, forcing institutions across the country to confront a problem they had long ignored: the need for more women at the top levels of science. Written by the journalist who broke the story for The Boston Globe, THE EXCEPTIONS is the untold story of how 16 highly accomplished women on the MIT faculty came together to do the work that triggered the historic admission. It centers on the life of Nancy Hopkins, a reluctant feminist who became the leader of the 16 and a hero to two generations of women in science.
Scribner | 9781982131838

GO AS A RIVER by Shelley Read (Fiction)
Seventeen-year-old Victoria Nash runs the household on her family’s peach farm in the small ranch town of Iola, Colorado. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land. Victoria encounters Wil by chance on a street corner, a meeting that profoundly alters both of their young lives, unknowingly igniting as much passion as danger. When tragedy strikes, Victoria leaves the only life she has ever known. She flees into the surrounding mountains where she struggles to survive in the wilderness with no clear notion of what her future will bring. As the seasons change, she also charts the changes in herself, finding in the beautiful but harsh landscape the meaning and strength to move forward and rebuild all that she has lost, even as the Gunnison River threatens to submerge her homeland.
Spiegel & Grau | 9781954118232

HOMESTEAD by Melinda Moustakis (Historical Fiction)
Anchorage, 1956. When Marie and Lawrence first lock eyes at the Moose Lodge, they are immediately drawn together. But when they decide to marry, days later, they are more in love with the promise of homesteading than anything. For Lawrence, his parcel of 150 acres is an opportunity to finally belong in a world that has never delivered on its promise. For Marie, the land is an escape from the empty future she sees spinning out before her, and a risky bet is better than none at all. But over the next few years, as they work the land in an attempt to secure a deed to their homestead, they must face everything they don’t know about each other. As the Territory of Alaska moves toward statehood and inexorable change, can Marie and Lawrence create something new, or will they break apart trying?
Flatiron Books | 9781250845559

JAMIE MacGILLIVRAY: The Renegade's Journey by John Sayles (Historical Thriller/Adventure)
It begins in the highlands of Scotland in 1746, at the Battle of Culloden, the last desperate stand of the Stuart “pretender” to the throne of the Three Kingdoms, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and his rabidly loyal supporters. Vanquished with his comrades by the forces of the Hanoverian (and Protestant) British crown, the novel’s eponymous hero, Jamie MacGillivray, narrowly escapes a roadside execution only to be recaptured by the victors and shipped to Marshalsea Prison, where he cheats the hangman a second time before being sentenced to transportation and indentured servitude in colonial America "for the term of his natural life." His travels are paralleled by those of Jenny Ferguson, a poor village girl swept up on false charges by the English and also sent in chains to the New World.
Melville House | 9781612199887

LILIANA'S INVINCIBLE SUMMER: A Sister's Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza (Memoir)
September 2019. Cristina Rivera Garza travels from her home in Texas to Mexico City, in search of an old, unresolved criminal file. “My name is Cristina Rivera Garza,” she wrote in her request to the attorney general, “and I am writing to you as a relative of Liliana Rivera Garza, who was murdered on July 16, 1990.” It’s been 29 years. Twenty-nine years, three months and two days since Liliana was murdered by an abusive ex-boyfriend --- and Cristina knows there is only a slim chance of recovering the file. And yet, inspired by feminist movements across the world and enraged by the global epidemic of femicide and intimate partner violence, she embarks on a path toward justice. LILIANA’S INVINCIBLE SUMMER is the account --- and the outcome --- of that extraordinary quest.
Hogarth | 9780593244098

MADAME RESTELL: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York’s Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist by Jennifer Wright (Biography)
An industrious immigrant who built her business from the ground up, Madame Restell was a self-taught surgeon on the cutting edge of healthcare in pre-Gilded Age New York. Her bustling “boarding house” provided birth control, abortions and medical assistance to thousands of women --- rich and poor alike. Unfortunately for Madame Restell, her rise to the top of her field coincided with a campaign to curtail women’s power by restricting their access to both healthcare and careers of their own. By unraveling the misogynistic and misleading lies that put women’s lives in jeopardy, Jennifer Wright simultaneously restores Restell to her rightful place in history and obliterates the faulty reasoning underlying the very foundation of what has since been dubbed the “pro-life” movement.
Hachette Books | 9780306826795

THE MALTESE IGUANA by Tim Dorsey (Mystery/Humor)
After a long and arduous COVID-19 quarantine, Serge A. Storms is fully vaccinated and ready to hit the road. Along with his condo neighbors, he cooks up a wild plan to celebrate in true Serge fashion: each week, they rent a shuttle van and head out for funky Florida road trips and some serious revelry. Meanwhile, a CIA revenge operation down in Honduras goes very, very wrong. The local liaison hired to help with the mission is the only witness to the disaster, and the CIA quickly sets a black ops contractor on his trail to eliminate him. Forced to flee his home country, the witness lands in Miami with a new identity and passport. But the CIA is still on his tail, pushing him further and further south to the Florida Keys, where he runs into Serge’s convoy.
William Morrow | 9780063240629

MARVELOUS by Molly Greeley (Historical Fiction)
1547: Pedro Gonzales, a young boy living on the island of Tenerife, understands that he is different from the other children in his village. He is mercilessly ridiculed for the hair covering his body from head to toe. When he is kidnapped off the beach near his home, he finds himself delivered by a slave broker into the dangerous and glamorous world of France’s royal court. Catherine de’ Medici is fascinated by Pedro and determined to find him a bride. Catherine Raffelin is a beautiful 17-year-old girl whose merchant father has fallen on hard times and offers up his daughter to Queen Catherine. The queen will pay his debts, and his daughter will marry Pedro. Catherine must learn to navigate this strange new world and the unusual man who is now her husband.
William Morrow | 9780063244092

THE QUEEN OF DIRT ISLAND by Donal Ryan (Fiction)
The Aylward women of Nenagh, Tipperary, are mad about each other, but you wouldn’t always think it. You’d have to know them to know that --- in spite of what the neighbors might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes --- their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world. Their story begins at an end and ends at a beginning. It involves wives and widows, gunrunners and gougers, sinners and saints. It’s a story of terrible betrayals and fierce loyalties, of isolation and togetherness, of transgression, forgiveness, desire and love. Of all the things family can be and all the things it sometimes isn’t.
Viking | 9780593652930

THE SECRETS OF HARTWOOD HALL by Katie Lumsden (Gothic Historical Mystery)
It’s 1852, and Margaret Lennox, a young widow, attempts to escape the shadows of her past by taking a position as governess to an only child, Louis, at an isolated country house in the west of England. But Margaret soon starts to feel that something isn’t quite right. There are strange figures in the dark, tensions between servants and an abandoned east wing. Even stranger is the local gossip surrounding Mrs. Eversham, Louis’ widowed mother, who is deeply distrusted in the village. Lonely and unsure whom to trust, Margaret finds distraction in a forbidden relationship with the gardener, Paul. But as Margaret’s history threatens to catch up with her, it isn’t long before she learns the truth behind the secrets of Hartwood Hall.
Dutton | 9780593186923

STARS IN AN ITALIAN SKY by Jill Santopolo (Historical Romance)
Genoa, Italy, 1946. Vincenzo and Giovanna fall in love at 21. The son of a count and the daughter of a tailor, they belong to opposing worlds. Despite this, the undeniable spark between them quickly burns into a deep and passionate relationship spent exploring each other’s minds, bodies and their city --- until shifts in political power force them each to choose a side and commit what the other believes is a betrayal, shattering the bright future they dreamed of together. New York, 2017. Cassandra and Luca are in love. Although neither quite fits with the other's family, Cass and Luca have always felt like a perfect match for each other. But when Luca, an artist, convinces his grandfather and Cass’ grandmother to pose for a painting, past and present collide and reveal a secret that changes everything.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593419175

STORM WATCH: A Joe Pickett Novel by C. J. Box (Mystery/Thriller)
When a prominent University of Wyoming professor goes missing, authorities are stumped. That is, until Joe Pickett makes two surprising discoveries. First, he finds the professor’s vehicle parked on a remote mountainside. Then he finds the professor’s frozen and mutilated body. When he attempts to learn more, his investigation is obstructed by federal agents, extremists and Governor Colter Allen. Nate Romanowski is rebuilding his falconry company --- and financing this through crypto mining with the assistance of Geronimo Jones. He’s then approached by a shadowy group of local militant activists who demand that Wyoming join other western states and secede from the Union. They ask Nate to throw in with them, but he’s wary. Should he trust them, or is he being set up?
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593331309

YOUR DRIVER IS WAITING by Priya Guns (Fiction/Dark Humor)
Damani is tired. Her father just died on the job at a fast-food joint, and now she lives paycheck to paycheck in a basement, caring for her mom and driving for an app that is constantly cutting her take. The city is roiling in protests, but while she keeps hearing that they’re fighting for change on behalf of people like her, she literally can’t afford to pay attention. Then she gives a ride to Jolene, who seems like she could be the perfect girlfriend, and their chemistry is off the charts. Jolene has done the reading, goes to every protest and says all the right things. But just as their romance intensifies and Damani finally lets her guard down, Jolene does something unforgivable, setting off an explosive chain of events.
Doubleday | ‎9780385549301

ZIG-ZAG BOY: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood by Tanya Frank (Memoir)
One night in 2009, Tanya Frank finds her 19-year-old son, Zach, in the grip of what the psychiatrists would label a psychotic break. In the years following Zach’s shifting psychiatric diagnoses, Tanya is desperate to find the right answer, the right drug, the right doctor to bring him back to reality. She struggles to navigate archaic mental healthcare systems, first in California and then in her native London during lockdown. Meanwhile, the boy she raised suffers the effects of multiple hospitalizations, powerful drugs that blunt his emotions, therapies that don’t work, and torturous nights on the streets. Holding on to startling moments of hope and seeking solace in nature and community, Tanya learns how to abandon her fears for the future and accept the mysteries of her son’s altered states.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393531886

On Sale the Week of February 27th in Paperback

February 28th

THE BOOK OF COLD CASES by Simone St. James (Supernatural Thriller)
In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders. Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect, but she was acquitted and retreated to the isolation of her mansion. Oregon, 2017. Shea Collins is a receptionist who runs a true crime website, the Book of Cold Cases. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To Shea’s surprise, Beth says yes. They meet regularly at Beth’s mansion, though Shea is never comfortable there. Is she making friends with a manipulative murderer, or are there other dangers lurking in the darkness of the Greer house?
Berkley | 9780440000235

CHECKOUT 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett (Fiction)
In a working-class town in a county west of London, a schoolgirl scribbles stories in the back pages of her exercise book, intoxicated by the first sparks of her imagination. As she grows, everything and everyone she encounters become fuel for a burning talent. The large Russian man in the ancient maroon car who careens around the grocery store where she works as a checkout clerk, and slips her a copy of BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL. The growing heaps of other books in which she loses --- and finds --- herself. Even the derailing of a friendship, in a devastating violation. The thrill of learning to conjure characters and scenarios in her head is matched by the exhilaration of forging her own way in the world.
Riverhead Books | 9780593420508

THE CORRESPONDENTS: Six Women Writers on the Front Lines of World War II by Judith Mackrell (History)
On the front lines of the Second World War, a contingent of female journalists were bravely waging their own battle: Martha Gellhorn, who got the scoop on Ernest Hemingway on D-Day by traveling to Normandy as a stowaway on a Red Cross ship; Lee Miller, who went from being a Vogue cover model to the magazine’s official war correspondent; Sigrid Schultz, who hid her Jewish identity and risked her life by reporting on the Nazi regime; Virginia Cowles, a “society girl columnist” turned combat reporter; Clare Hollingworth, the first English journalist to break the news of World War II; and Helen Kirkpatrick, the first woman to report from an Allied war zone with equal privileges to men. In Judith Mackrell's THE CORRESPONDENTS, these six women are captured in all their complexity.
Vintage | 9780593471159

CROWN & SCEPTRE: A New History of the British Monarchy, from William the Conqueror to Charles III by Tracy Borman (History)
Since William the Conqueror, duke of Normandy, crossed the English Channel in 1066 to defeat King Harold II and unite England’s various kingdoms, 41 kings and queens have sat on Britain’s throne. Ironically, during very few of these 955 years has the throne’s occupant been unambiguously English. Appealing to the intrinsic fascination with British royalty, Tracy Borman lifts the veil to reveal the remarkable characters and personalities who have ruled and, since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, have more ceremonially reigned --- a crucial distinction explaining the staying power of the monarchy as the royal family has evolved and adapted to the needs and opinions of its people, avoiding the storms of rebellion that brought many of Europe’s royals to an abrupt end.
Grove Press | 9780802162328

THE FELL by Sarah Moss (Fiction)
At dusk on a November evening, a woman slips through her garden gate and turns up the hill. Kate is in the middle of a two-week mandatory quarantine period, a true lockdown, but she can’t take it anymore --- the closeness of the air in her small house, the confinement. And anyway, the moor will be deserted at this time. Nobody need ever know she’s stepped out. Kate planned only a quick walk --- a stretch of the legs, a breath of fresh air --- on paths she knows too well. But somehow she falls. Injured and unable to move, she sees that her short, furtive stroll will become a mountain rescue operation, maybe even a missing person case.
Picador | 9781250863119

GLORY by NoViolet Bulawayo (Fiction)
NoViolet Bulawayo’s novel follows the fall of the Old Horse, the long-serving leader of a fictional country, and the drama that follows for a rumbustious nation of animals on the path to true liberation. Inspired by the unexpected fall by coup in November 2017 of Robert G. Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president of nearly four decades, GLORY shows a country's imploding, narrated by a chorus of animal voices that unveil the ruthlessness required to uphold the illusion of absolute power and the imagination and bulletproof optimism to overthrow it completely. At the center of this tumult is Destiny, a young goat who returns to Jidada to bear witness to revolution --- and to recount the unofficial history and the potential legacy of the females who have quietly pulled the strings here.
Penguin Books | 9780525561156

THE GREAT STEWARDESS REBELLION: How Women Launched a Workplace Revolution at 30,000 Feet by Nell McShane Wulfhart (History)
As flying boomed in the 1960s, women from across America applied for jobs as stewardesses. They were drawn to the promise of glamour, the chance to travel, and an alternative to traditional occupations like homemaking, nursing and teaching. But as the number of “stews” grew, so did their suspicion that the job was not as picture-perfect as the ads would have them believe. “Sky girls” had to adhere to strict weight limits at all times. They couldn’t marry or have children. Their makeup, hair and teeth had to be just so. Girdles were mandatory on the clock. And, most important, stewardesses had to resign at 32. Eventually the stewardesses began to push back, and it’s thanks in part to their trailblazing efforts that working women have gotten closer to workplace equality today.
Anchor | 9780593082294

THE HIDDEN by Melanie Golding (Psychological Thriller)
One dark December night, a little girl is found abandoned. When her mother finally arrives, authorities release the pair. Gregor is found bludgeoned and left for dead in his apartment, but the discovery of children's toys raises more questions than answers. Every night, Ruby gazes into Gregor’s apartment, leading to the discovery of his secret family: his unusually silent daughter and his mentally unstable wife, Constance. DS Joanna Harper's investigation into Gregor’s assault leads her to CCTV footage of the mother-daughter pair from town. Harper realizes she knows the woman almost as well as she knows herself: it's her estranged daughter, Ruby. No matter the depth of Ruby’s involvement, she knows she will choose her daughter over her career.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781639103249

THE LAST CAROLINA GIRL by Meagan Church (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
For 14-year-old Leah Payne, life in her beloved coastal Carolina town is as simple as it is free. Devoted to her lumberjack father and running through the wilds where the forest meets the shore, Leah's country life is as natural as the Loblolly pines that rise to greet the Southern sky. When an accident takes her father's life, Leah is wrenched from her small community and cast into a family of strangers with a terrible secret. Separated from her only home, Leah is kept apart from the family and forced to act as a helpmate for the well-to-do household. When a moment of violence and prejudice thrusts Leah into the center of the state's shameful darkness, she must fight for her own future against a world that doesn't always value the wild spirit of a Carolina girl.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728257150

THE LONG WEEKEND by Gilly Macmillan (Psychological Thriller)
Dark Fell Barn is a “perfectly isolated” retreat, or so says its website when Jayne books a reservation for her friends. A quiet place, far removed from the rest of the world, is exactly what they need. The women arrive for a girls’ night ahead of their husbands. Ex-Army Jayne is hardened and serious but also damaged. Ruth is a driven doctor and new mother who is battling demons of her own. Young Emily, just wed and insecure, is the newest addition to this tight-knit band. Missing this year is Edie, who was the glue holding them together, until her husband died suddenly. But what they hoped would be a relaxing break soon turns to horror. Upon arrival at Dark Fell Barn, the women find a devastating note claiming one of their husbands will be murdered.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063074330

LUCK OF THE DRAW: My Story of the Air War in Europe by Frank Murphy, with new forewords by Chloe Melas and Elizabeth Murphy (History)
Beginning on August 17, 1942, American heavy bomber crews of the Eighth Air Force took off for combat in the hostile skies over occupied Europe. The final price was staggering. 4,300 B-17s and B-24s failed to return. Nearly 21,000 men were taken prisoner or interned in a neutral country, and a further 17,650 made the ultimate sacrifice. LUCK OF THE DRAW is more than a war story. It’s the incredible, inspiring story of Frank Murphy, one of the few survivors from the 100th Bombardment Group, who cheated death for months in a German POW camp after being shot out of his B-17 Flying Fortress.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250866899

THE MISSING HOURS by Julia Dahl (Thriller)
From a distance, Claudia Castro has it all: a famous family, a trust fund, thousands of Instagram followers, and a spot in NYU’s freshman class. But look closer, and things are messier: her parents are separating, she’s just been humiliated by a sleazy documentary, and her sister is about to have a baby with a man she barely knows. Claudia starts the school year resolved to find a path toward something positive, maybe even meaningful --- and then one drunken night everything changes. She cuts herself off from her family, seeking solace in a new friendship. But when the rest of school comes back from spring break, Claudia is missing. Suddenly, the whole city is trying to piece together the hours of that terrible night.
Minotaur Books | 9781250083746

THE NATURE OF MIDDLE-EARTH written by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Carl F. Hostetter (Fantasy/Adventure)
It is well known that J.R.R. Tolkien published THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. What may be less known is that he continued to write about Middle-earth in the decades that followed, right up until the years before his death in 1973. For him, Middle-earth was part of an entire world to be explored, and the writings in THE NATURE OF MIDDLE-EARTH reveal the journeys that he took as he sought to better understand his unique creation. From sweeping themes as profound as Elvish immortality and reincarnation, and the Powers of the Valar, to the more earth-bound subjects of the lands and beasts of Númenor, the geography of the Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor, and even who had beards!
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063269606

THE NEIGHBOR FAVOR by Kristina Forest (Romance)
Paperback Original
Lily Greene has always felt inadequate compared to the rest of her accomplished family, who strive for Black excellence. She dreams of becoming a children’s books editor, but she’s been frustratingly stuck in the nonfiction division for years. Lily finds escapism in her correspondences with her favorite fantasy author, which turns into a tentative friendship and possibly something else she won’t let herself entertain --- until he ghosts her without a word. Months later, Lily is determined to get a hold of her life, starting with finding a date to her sister’s wedding. And the perfect person to help her is Nick Brown, her charming, attractive new neighbor, who she feels drawn to for reasons she can’t explain. But little does she know that Nick is an author --- her favorite fantasy author.
Berkley | 9780593546437

NETTLE & BONE by T. Kingfisher (Fantasy/Adventure)
Marra --- a shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter --- is relieved not to be married off for the sake of her parents’ throne. Her older sister wasn’t so fortunate, though, and her royal husband is as abusive as he is powerful. From the safety of the convent, Marra wonders who will come to her sister’s rescue and put a stop to this. But after years of watching their families and kingdoms pretend that all is well, Marra realizes if any hero is coming, it will have to be Marra herself. If Marra can complete three impossible tasks, a witch will grant her the tools she needs. But, as is the way in stories of princes and the impossible, these tasks are only the beginning of Marra’s strange and enchanting journey to save her sister and topple a throne.
Tor Books | 9781250244000

NEVER NEVER by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher (Romance/Mystery)
Paperback Original
Charlie Wynwood and Silas Nash have been best friends since they could walk. They've been in love since the age of 14. But as of this morning, they are complete strangers. Their first kiss, their first fight, the moment they fell in love...every memory has vanished. Now Charlie and Silas must work together to uncover the truth about what happened to them and why. But the more they learn about the couple they used to be, the more they question why they were ever together to begin with. Forgetting is terrifying, but remembering may be worse.
Canary Street Press | 9781335004895

NORA GOES OFF SCRIPT by Annabel Monaghan (Romance)
Nora Hamilton, a romance channel screenwriter, turns her marriage’s collapse into cash and writes the best script of her life. No one is more surprised than her when it’s picked up for the big screen and set to film on location at her 100-year-old-home. When former Sexiest Man Alive Leo Vance is cast as her ne’er-do-well husband, Nora’s life will never be the same. The morning after shooting wraps, Leo has a proposition. He will pay a thousand dollars a day to stay for a week. The extra seven grand would give Nora breathing room, but it’s the need in his eyes that makes her say yes. Seven days: it’s the blink of an eye or an eternity depending on how you look at it. Enough time to fall in love. Enough time to break your heart.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593420058

O BEAUTIFUL by Jung Yun (Fiction)
Elinor Hanson is struggling to reinvent herself as a freelance writer when she receives an unexpected assignment, a chance to write for a prestigious magazine about the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota. Elinor grew up near the Bakken, raised by an overbearing father and a distant Korean mother. After decades away from home, Elinor returns to a landscape she hardly recognizes. Surrounded by roughnecks seeking their fortunes in oil and long-time residents worried about their changing community, Elinor experiences a profound sense of alienation and grief. The longer she pursues this potentially career-altering assignment, the more her past intertwines with the story she’s trying to tell, revealing disturbing new realities that will forever change her and the way she looks at the world.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250853585

PEACH BLOSSOM SPRING by Melissa Fu (Historical Fiction)
China, 1938. Meilin and her four-year-old son, Renshu, flee their burning city as Japanese forces advance. On the perilous journey that follows, across a China transformed by war, they find comfort and wisdom in their most treasured possession, a beautifully illustrated hand scroll filled with ancient fables. Years later, Renshu has settled in America as Henry Dao. Though his daughter, Lily, is desperate to understand her heritage, he refuses to talk about his childhood in China. How can he tell his story when he's left so much behind?
Back Bay Books | 9780316286879

SPARRING PARTNERS by John Grisham (Crime Fiction)
In John Grisham’s first collection of novellas, law is a common thread --- but he has several surprises in store. “Homecoming” marks the return of Jake Brigance, but he’s not in the courtroom. He’s called upon to help an old friend, Mack Stafford, a former lawyer who stole money from his clients. In “Strawberry Moon,” Cody Wallace is only three hours away from execution, and he has one final request. The “Sparring Partners” are the Malloy brothers, Kirk and Rusty, two successful young lawyers who inherited a once prosperous firm when its founder, their father, was sent to prison. As the firm disintegrates, the resulting fiasco falls into the lap of Diantha Bradshaw, the only person the partners trust.
Vintage | 9780593469491

THINK OF ME by Frances Liardet (Historical Fiction)
During the perils of World War II in Alexandria, Egypt, two people from different worlds will find their way back to each other time and time again, their love a beacon for their survival. After the war, James and Yvette establish roots in England hoping for a new beginning, until a tragic event drives a wedge between them, and the path back to each other is one they both must be brave enough to face. Decades later, and 10 years after his wife’s death, James moves to the English village of Upton seeking change. When he discovers a scarf that might have been Yvette’s, James begins to unlock revelations about his past that just might return his lost faith to him --- his faith in God, humanity, himself and, perhaps most important of all, love.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593191156

TOO WRONG TO BE RIGHT by Melonie Johnson (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
After her latest jerk of a boyfriend dumps her (and ditches her with his pet hedgehog), florist Kat Kowalski is done chasing after Mr. Wrong. With her two best friends moving on to more serious relationships, she’s ready to stop repeating the same mistakes that are leaving her stuck in the single lane. Armed with a list of qualities for her perfect Mr. Right, Kat swears off dating until she finds him. Then, in a meet-disaster involving a corpse and a salty cockatoo, she stumbles across Mick O’Sullivan at his family's funeral home. Their immediate chemistry warns Kat to keep things platonic. But can they be just friends? As she gets to know him better, the lines blur, and Kat starts to wonder if she’s gotten it wrong and Mick is exactly who she’s been looking for.
St. Martin's Griffin | 9781250768827

TRUE BIZ by Sara Nović (Fiction)
TRUE BIZ plunges readers into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they will meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who’s never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school’s golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the headmistress, who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact, but might not be able to do both. As a series of crises both personal and political threaten to unravel each of them, Charlie, Austin and February find their lives inextricable from one another --- and changed forever.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780593241523

UNLIKELY ANIMALS by Annie Hartnett (Fiction)
Natural-born healer Emma Starling once had big plans for her life, but she’s lost her way. A medical school dropout, she’s come back to Everton, New Hampshire, to care for her father, who is dying from a mysterious brain disease. Clive Starling has been hallucinating small animals, as well as having visions of the ghost of a long-dead naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes, once known for letting wild animals live in his house. This ghost has been giving Clive some ideas on how to spend his final days. Emma arrives home knowing she must face her dad’s illness, her mom’s judgment and her younger brother’s recent stint in rehab. But she’s unprepared to find that her former best friend from high school is missing, with no one bothering to look for her.
Ballantine Books | 9780593160244

WHAT JUST HAPPENED: Notes on a Long Year by Charles Finch (Memoir)
In March 2020, at the request of the Los Angeles Times, Charles Finch became a reluctant diarist: As California sheltered in place, he began to write daily notes about the odd ambient changes in his own life and in the lives around him. The result is WHAT JUST HAPPENED, where Finch brings us into his own world: taking long evening walks near his home in L.A., listening to music, and keeping virtual connections with friends across the country as they each experience the crisis. And drawing on his remarkable acuity as a cultural critic, he chronicles one endless year with delightful commentary on current events, and the things that distract him from current events: Murakami’s novels, reality television, the Beatles.
Vintage | 9780593470206

WILD IRISH ROSE: A Molly Murphy Mystery by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles (Historical Mystery)
Now that she’s no longer a private detective, Molly Murphy Sullivan is looking forward to a time of settled tranquility with friends and family. Back in New York, where her own story began, Molly decides to accompany some friends to Ellis Island to help distribute clothing to those in need. This journey quickly stirs up memories for Molly. That evening, her policeman husband, Daniel, comes home with a tale to tell: there was a murder on Ellis Island that day, and the main suspect is the spitting image of Molly. The circumstances are eerily similar to when Molly herself arrived on Ellis Island, and she can’t help but feel a sense of fate. Molly was meant to be there that day so that she can clear this woman’s name.
Minotaur Books | 9781250808073

WITH PREJUDICE by Robin Peguero (Legal Thriller)
Earl Thomas, a straight-laced taxman with his fair share of police encounters, is the begrudging foreperson in a high-stakes trial in Miami. Laura Hurtado-Perez is a physician whose unassuming manner conceals a private pain. Joseph Cole is the founder of his local neighborhood watch, unduly obsessed with the families around him. Along with four others, these jurors of varying ages and walks of life whose paths likely never would have crossed otherwise must come together to make one of the most important decisions of their lives.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538706299

THE WONDERS written by Elena Medel, translated by Lizzie Davis and Thomas Bunstead (Fiction)
Maria moved to Madrid in 1969, leaving her daughter with her family but hoping to save enough to take care of her one day. She worked as a housekeeper, then a caregiver and later a cleaner, and somehow she was always taking care of someone else. Two generations later, in 2018, Alicia was working at the snack shop in Madrid’s Atocha train station when it overflowed with protestors and strikers. All women --- and so many of them --- protesting what? Alicia wasn’t entirely sure. She couldn’t have known that Maria was among them. Alicia didn’t have time for marches; she was just trying to hang on until the end of her shift, when she might meet someone to take her away for a few hours, to make her forget.
Algonquin Books | 9781643753508

March 1st

GOOD FOR YOU by Camille Pagán (Romance)
Paperback Original
Aly Jackson has waited her whole life to become editor in chief of All Good magazine. But six months into the job, she overhears her coworkers belittling her. Aly’s clapback? A very public, career-jeopardizing meltdown. To undo the mess, she agrees to a month-long unpaid leave. Reluctant but determined to turn misfortune into opportunity, Aly retreats to the Lake Michigan beach house that her brother, Luke, left to her when he died nearly a year earlier. Except when Aly arrives, she discovers that Luke’s slacker best friend, Wyatt, inherited the place, too. As battle lines are drawn, Aly wonders if she and this wild card have more than Luke in common. But is she willing to swap her lifelong dreams for a shot at healing her broken heart?
Lake Union Publishing | 9781542038010

MOTHERED by Zoje Stage (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Grace isn’t exactly thrilled when her newly widowed mother, Jackie, asks to move in with her. They’ve never had a great relationship, and Grace likes her space --- especially now that she’s stuck at home during a pandemic. Then again, she needs help with the mortgage after losing her job. But living with Mother isn’t for everyone. Good intentions turn bad soon after Jackie moves in. Old wounds fester, and new ones open. Grace starts having nightmares about her disabled twin sister, who died when they were kids. And Jackie discovers that Grace secretly catfishes people online. When Jackie makes an earth-shattering accusation against her, Grace sees it as an act of revenge, and it sends her spiraling into a sleep-deprived madness.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662506239

On Sale the Week of March 6th in Hardcover

March 7th

ALL THAT IS MINE I CARRY WITH ME by William Landay (Domestic Thriller/Mystery)
Ten-year-old Miranda Larkin comes home from school to find her house eerily quiet. Her mother is missing. Nothing else is out of place. There is no sign of struggle. Her mom’s pocketbook remains in the front hall, in its usual spot. So begins a mystery that will span a lifetime. What happened to Jane Larkin? Investigators suspect Jane’s husband. A criminal defense attorney, Dan Larkin would surely be an expert in outfoxing the police. But no evidence is found linking him to a crime, and the case fades from the public’s memory. Jane’s three children --- Alex, Jeff and Miranda --- are left to be raised by the man who may have murdered their mother. Two decades later, the remains of Jane Larkin are found. The investigation is awakened. The children, now grown, are forced to choose sides.
Bantam | 9780345531841

AT SEA by Emma Fedor (Fiction)
Cara moves to Martha’s Vineyard after graduating from college, determined to make sense of her mother’s death and decide what direction she wants to take her life as an artist. There she meets Brendan, who sweeps her away with his humor, charisma and an intoxicating secret. When Cara gets pregnant with their son, she’s sure their happy ending is underway. But she’s thrown by Brendan’s dramatic moods, unexplained disappearances and the weight of his secrets. When he vanishes with their child, she is left desolate and questioning everything she thought was true. Five years later, Cara is married to another man and trying to rebuild her life, when she hears rumors of two people who sound a lot like her lost love and child.
Gallery Books | 9781982171544

BIRNAM WOOD by Eleanor Catton (Psychological Thriller)
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place: he has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker, or so he tells Birnam’s founder, Mira, when he catches her on the property. He’s intrigued by Mira, and by Birnam Wood. Although they’re poles apart politically, it seems Lemoine and the group might have enemies in common. But can Birnam trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust one another?
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374110338

BURNING DISTANCE by Joanne Leedom-Ackerman (Political Thriller/Mystery)
When 10-year-old Elizabeth West’s father dies in a tragic plane crash, her family moves to London. Her mother marries a knighted British businessman who has two children, and Elizabeth (Lizzy) and her two sisters move in with their new family. At age 16, while attending the American School of London, Lizzy meets and falls in love with Adil Hasan. But when Adil’s father is deported, Lizzy and Adil are separated. Lizzy’s family has also become involved with French-German industrialist Gerald Rene Wagner. Little does she know that Adil’s family has ties to the man as well. When a member of her family is murdered in Berlin under mysterious circumstances, questions surface about Wagner’s dealings, and Lizzy reexamines what really may have happened to her father.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608095339

THE CARGO REBELLION: Those Who Chose Freedom written by Jason Chang, Benjamin Barson and Alexis Dudden; illustrated by Kim Inthavong (Graphic Novel/History)
THE CARGO REBELLION tells a true story of mutiny on the high seas in which 400 indentured Chinese men overthrew their captor, the Connecticut businessman and slave trader Leslie Bryson, taking a stand against an exploitative global enterprise. The laborers learned that Bryson’s claimed destination of San Francisco was a lie to trick them into deadly servitude in the dreaded guano islands of Peru. Reaching a dramatic tipping point, the mutineers rose up and killed Bryson and several of the ship's officers and then attempted to sail back to China. This book is a history from below that does justice to the memory of hundreds of thousands of indentured workers and demonstrates how Asian migration to the Americas was rooted in slavery, colonialism and the life-and-death struggle against servitude.
PM Press | 9781629639642

THE CURATOR by Owen King (Historical Fantasy)
It begins in an unnamed city nicknamed “the Fairest.” It is distinguished by many things, from the river fair to the mountains that split the municipality in half; its theaters and many museums; the Morgue Ship; and, like all cities, its essential unmappability. Dora has a secret desire --- to find where her brother went after he died, believing that the answer lies within The Museum of Psykical Research. With the city amidst a revolutionary upheaval, Dora contrives to gain the curatorship of the half-forgotten museum only to find it all but burnt to the ground, with the neighboring museums oddly untouched. She is offered one of these, The National Museum of the Worker. However, neither this museum, nor the street it is hidden away on, nor Dora herself, are what they at first appear to be.
Scribner | 9781982196806

THE DIG by Anne Burt (Thriller)
Antonia King has a complicated relationship with the past. She and her brother were found amid the rubble of a bombed-out apartment in Sarajevo and taken in by a family of contractors in Thebes, Minnesota. Eager to escape the constraints of her adopted town, Antonia embarks on a high-powered legal career. But it isn’t long before her brother’s mysterious disappearance pulls her back home. There, over the course of a single day, Antonia unearths decades of secrets and lies, leading to shocking revelations about her adoptive family --- and the sinister truth behind her biological mother’s death --- that will alter the course of her life and change her definition of family forever.
Counterpoint | 9781640096042

THE FAREWELL TOUR by Stephanie Clifford (Fiction)
Lillian Waters is hitting the road for the very last time. Jaded from her years in the music business, perpetually hungover and diagnosed with career-ending vocal problems, Lillian cobbles together a nationwide farewell tour. She yearns to feel the rush of making live music one more time and bask in the glow of a packed house before she makes the last, and most important, stop on the tour: the farm she left behind at age 10 and the sister she is finally ready to confront about an agonizing betrayal in their childhood. As the novel crisscrosses eras, we see her striving to build a career in the male-dominated world of country music, including the hard choices she makes. Nearing her final tour stop, Lil is forced to confront those choices and how they shaped her life.
Harper | 9780063251137

THE FOXGLOVE KING by Hannah Whitten (Dark Fantasy/Romance)
When Lore was 13, she escaped a cult in the catacombs beneath the city of Dellaire. And in the 10 years since, she’s lived by one rule: don’t let them find you. Easier said than done, when her death magic ties her to the city. Mortem, the magic born from death, is a high-priced and illicit commodity in Dellaire, and Lore’s job running poisons keeps her in food, shelter and relative security. But when a run goes wrong and Lore’s power is revealed, she’s taken by the Presque Mort, a group of warrior-monks sanctioned to use Mortem working for the Sainted King. Entire villages on the outskirts of the country have been dying overnight, seemingly at random. Lore can either use her magic to find out what’s happening and who in the King’s court is responsible, or die.
Orbit | 9780316434997

THE GOD OF ENDINGS by Jacqueline Holland (Dark Fantasy)
Collette LeSange has been hiding a dark truth: She is immortal. In 1834, Colette’s grandfather granted her the gift of eternal life. Since then, she has endured centuries of turmoil and heartache. Now, almost 150 years later, Collette is a lonely artist running an elite fine art school for children in upstate New York. But her life is suddenly upended by the arrival of a gifted child from a troubled home, the return of a stalking presence from her past, and her own mysteriously growing hunger for blood.
Flatiron Books | 9781250856760

THE GOLDEN SPOON by Jessa Maxwell (Mystery)
Every summer for the past 10 years, six awestruck bakers have descended on the grounds of Grafton, the leafy and imposing Vermont estate that is not only the filming site for “Bake Week” but also the childhood home of the show’s famous host, celebrated baker Betsy Martin. The author of numerous bestselling cookbooks and hailed as “America’s Grandmother,” Betsy Martin isn’t as warm off-screen as on, though no one needs to know that but her. She has always demanded perfection and gotten it with a smile, but this year something is off. As the baking competition commences, things begin to go awry. At first, it’s merely sabotage --- sugar replaced with salt, a burner turned to high --- but when a body is discovered, everyone is a suspect.
Atria Books | 9781668008003

I AM DEBRA LEE: A Memoir by Debra Lee (Memoir)
As an incredible glass-ceiling breaker and the woman who brought timeless television shows like “The Game” and “Being Mary Jane” to cable, Debra Lee has been the visionary responsible for elevating Black images and storytelling for decades. Now she’s telling her own story in an intimate and eye-opening tale about the triumphant and tricky moments of a career in entertainment. I AM DEBRA LEE is filled with deeply personal revelations, juicy celebrity intel and electrifying behind-the-scenes stories that reveal how she went from a girl raised in the segregated South to leading the first Black company traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and how she juggled social responsibility while managing a company targeted toward the Black community.
Legacy Lit | 9780306828591

IN MEMORIAM by Alice Winn (Historical Fiction)
It’s 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. Gaunt, half German, is busy fighting his own private battle --- an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, Ellwood --- without a clue that Ellwood is pining for him in return. When Gaunt's family asks him to enlist, Gaunt does so immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood. To Gaunt's horror, Ellwood rushes to join him at the front, and the rest of their classmates soon follow. Now death surrounds them in all its grim reality, often inches away, and no one knows who will be next.
Knopf | 9780593534564

THE KIND WORTH SAVING by Peter Swanson (Mystery/Thriller)
There was always something slightly dangerous about Joan. So when she turns up at private investigator Henry Kimball’s office asking him to investigate her husband, he can’t help feeling ill at ease. Just the sight of her stirs up a chilling memory: He knew Joan in his previous life as a high school English teacher, when he was at the center of a tragedy. Now Joan needs his help in proving that her husband is cheating. But what should be a simple case of infidelity becomes much more complicated when Kimball finds two bodies in an uninhabited suburban home with a FOR SALE sign out front. Suddenly it feels like the past is repeating itself, and Henry must go back to one of the worst days of his life to uncover the truth.
William Morrow | 9780063204980

THE LAST BEEKEEPER by Julie Carrick Dalton (Post-Apocalyptic Mystery/Thriller)
It’s been more than a decade since the world has come undone, and Sasha Severn has returned to her childhood home to find the mythic research that her father, the infamous Last Beekeeper, hid before he was incarcerated. There, Sasha is confronted with a group of squatters who have claimed the quiet, idyllic farm as a way to escape the horrific conditions of state housing. While she feels threatened by their presence at first, the friends soon become her newfound family. But just as she settles into her new life, Sasha witnesses the impossible. She sees a honeybee, presumed extinct. People who claim to see bees are ridiculed and silenced for reasons Sasha doesn't understand, but she can't shake the feeling that this impossible bee is connected to her father's missing research.
Forge Books | 9781250269218

THE LONDON SÉANCE SOCIETY by Sarah Penner (Gothic Historical Mystery)
1873. At an abandoned château on the outskirts of Paris, a dark séance is about to take place, led by acclaimed spiritualist Vaudeline D’Allaire. Known worldwide for her talent in conjuring the spirits of murder victims to ascertain the identities of the people who killed them, she is highly sought after by widows and investigators alike. Lenna Wickes has come to Paris to find answers about her sister’s death, but to do so, she must embrace the unknown and overcome her own logic-driven bias against the occult. When Vaudeline is beckoned to England to solve a high-profile murder, Lenna accompanies her as an understudy. But soon they begin to suspect that they are not merely out to solve a crime, but perhaps entangled in one themselves.
Park Row | 9780778387114

THE LOST ENGLISH GIRL by Julia Kelly (Historical Fiction)
Raised in a strict Catholic family, Viv Byrne finds herself pregnant after a fling with Joshua Levinson, a Jewish man. When Joshua makes a life-changing choice on their wedding day, Viv is forced into the arms of her disapproving family. Four years later and on the eve of World War II, Viv is faced with the impossible choice to evacuate her young daughter to the countryside estate of the affluent Thompson family. In New York City, Joshua gives up his failing musical career to serve in the Royal Air Force. However, tragedy strikes when Viv learns that the countryside safe haven she sent her daughter to wasn’t immune from the horrors of war. It is only years later, with Joshua’s help, that Viv learns the secrets of their shared past and what it will take to put a family back together again.
Gallery Books | 9781982171704

MAYBE NEXT TIME by Cesca Major (Fiction)
It is an ordinary Monday, and harried literary agent Emma is flying out of the door. Preoccupied with work and her ever-growing to-do list, she fails to notice that her lovely husband Dan seems bereft, her son can barely meet her eye, and her daughter won’t go near her. As she rushes back through the door for dinner, Dan is still upset. They fight, and he walks out. Just as she realizes it is their anniversary, she hears the screech of brakes. Dan is dead. The next day Emma wakes up…and Dan is alive. It’s Monday again. And again. And again. Emma tries desperately to change the course of fate by doing different things each time she wakes up. But will she have the chance to find herself again, remember what she likes about her job, reconnect with her children and love her husband?
William Morrow | 9780063239920

THE MIMICKING OF KNOWN SUCCESSES by Malka Older (Science Fiction/Mystery)
On a remote, gas-wreathed outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, a man goes missing. The enigmatic Investigator Mossa follows his trail to Valdegeld, home to the colony’s erudite university --- and Mossa’s former girlfriend, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems. Pleiti has dedicated her research and her career to aiding the larger effort towards a possible return to Earth. When Mossa unexpectedly arrives and requests Pleiti’s assistance in her latest investigation, the two of them embark on a twisting path in which the future of life on Earth is at stake --- and, perhaps, their futures together.
Tordotcom | 9781250860507

MONSTRILIO by Gerardo Sámano Córdova (Literary Horror)
Grieving mother Magos cuts out a piece of her deceased 11-year-old son Santiago’s lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her family’s decaying Mexico City estate. Eventually, Monstrilio begins to resemble the Santiago he once was, but his innate impulses --- though curbed by his biological and chosen family’s communal care --- threaten to destroy this fragile second chance at life.
Zando | 9781638930365

A MOST INTRIGUING LADY by Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York (Historical Mystery/Romance)
Victorian London was notorious for its pickpockets. But in the country houses of the elite, gentleman burglars, art thieves and con men preyed on the rich and titled. Wealthy victims would never go to the police. What they needed was a society insider, a person of discretion and finely tuned powers of observation, adept at navigating intrigue. That person was Lady Mary Montagu Douglas Scott, the youngest child of Queen Victoria’s close friends the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch. While at a house party, Lady Mary meets Colonel Walter Trefusis, a war veteran who has a desk job in Whitehall providing a front for his role in the British Intelligence Service. The two form an unlikely alliance to solve a series of audacious crimes --- and indulge in a highly charged on-off romance.
Avon | 9780063216822

NIGHT FLIGHT TO PARIS: A Kate Rees WWII Novel by Cara Black (Historical Thriller)
October 1942: It’s been two years since Kate Rees was sent to Paris on a British Secret Service mission to assassinate Hitler. Since then, she has left spycraft behind to take a training job as a sharpshooting instructor in the Scottish Highlands. But her quiet life is violently disrupted when Colonel Stepney, her former handler, drags her back into the fray for a risky three-pronged mission in Paris. Each task is more dangerous than the next: Deliver a package of forbidden biological material. Assassinate a high-ranking German operative whose knowledge of invasion plans could turn the tide of the war against the Allies. Rescue a British agent who once saved Kate’s life --- and get out.
Soho Crime | 9781641293556

A NOBLE CUNNING: The Countess and the Tower by Patricia Bernstein (Historical Fiction)
The heroine of A NOBLE CUNNING --- Bethan Glentaggart, Countess of Clarencefield, a persecuted Catholic noblewoman --- is determined to try every possible means of saving her husband Gavin's life with the help of a group of devoted female friends. Amid the turbulence of the 1715 Rebellion against England's first German king, George I, Bethan faces down a mob attack on her home, travels alone from the Scottish Lowlands to London through one of the worst snowstorms in many years, and confronts a cruel king before his court to plead for mercy for Gavin. As a last resort, Bethan and her friends must devise and put in motion a devilishly complex scheme featuring multiple disguises and even the judicious use of poison to try to free Gavin.
History Through Fiction LLC | 9781736499061

NOW YOU SEE US by Balli Kaur Jaswal (Mystery/Humor)
Corazon, Donita and Angel are Filipina domestic workers --- part of the wave of women sent to Singapore to be cleaners, maids and caregivers. But an explosive news story shatters Singapore’s famous tranquility, sending a chill down the spine of every domestic worker. Flordeliza Martinez, a Filipina maid, has been arrested for murdering her female employer. The three women don’t know the accused well, but she could be any of them. Every worker knows stories of women who were scapegoated or even executed for crimes they didn’t commit. Shocked into action, Donita, Corazon and Angel will use their considerable moxie and insight to piece together the mystery of what really happened on the day Flordeliza’s employer was murdered.
William Morrow | 9780063161603

OLD BABES IN THE WOOD: Stories by Margaret Atwood (Fiction/Short Stories)
Margaret Atwood’s collection of 15 stories --- some of which have appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine --- looks deeply into the heart of family relationships, marriage, loss and memory, and what it means to spend a life together. The two intrepid sisters of the title story grapple with loss and memory on a perfect summer evening; “Impatient Griselda” explores alienation and miscommunication with a fresh twist on a folkloric classic; and “My Evil Mother” touches on the fantastical, examining a mother-daughter relationship in which the mother purports to be a witch. At the heart of the collection are seven stories that follow a married couple across the decades, the moments big and small that make up a long life of uncommon love --- and what comes after.
Doubleday | 9780385549073

PINEAPPLE STREET by Jenny Jackson (Fiction)
PINEAPPLE STREET follows three women in one wealthy Brooklyn clan. Darley, the eldest daughter in the well-connected old money Stockton family, followed her heart, trading her job and her inheritance for motherhood but giving up far too much in the process. Sasha, a middle-class New England girl, has married into the Brooklyn Heights family and finds herself cast as the arriviste outsider. And Georgiana, the baby of the family, has fallen in love with someone she can’t have and must decide what kind of person she wants to be.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780593490693

A SINISTER REVENGE: A Veronica Speedwell Mystery by Deanna Raybourn (Historical Mystery)
Veronica Speedwell’s natural-historian beau, Stoker, has been away in Bavaria for months, and their relationship is at an impasse. But when Veronica shows up before him with his brother, Tiberius, Lord Templeton-Vane, he is lured back home by an intriguing job offer: preparing an iguanodon for a very special dinner party. Tiberius has received a cryptic message --- along with the obituaries of two recently deceased members of his old group of friends, the Seven Sinners --- that he too should get his affairs in order. Realizing he is in grave danger but not knowing why, he plans a reunion party for the remaining Sinners at his family estate to lure the killer out while Veronica and Stoker investigate. As the guests arrive and settle in, the evening’s events turn deadly.
Berkley | 9780593545928

THE SISTER EFFECT by Susan Mallery (Fiction)
Finley McGowan is determined that the niece she’s raising will always feel loved and wanted. Unlike how she felt after her mom left to pursue a dream of stardom, and when the grandfather who was left to raise them abandoned her and her sister, Sloane, when they needed him most. Finley reacted to her chaotic childhood by walking the straight and narrow. Sloane went the other way. Now Sloane is back, as beautiful and as damaged as ever…and she wants a relationship with her daughter. She says she’s changed, but Finley’s heart has been burned once too often for her to trust easily. But is her reluctance to forgive really about Sloane or worry over losing what she loves the most?
HQN | 9781335448644

STANDING DEAD: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery by Margaret Mizushima (Mystery)
Deputy Mattie Cobb and her sister, Julia, travel to Mexico to visit their mother. But when they arrive, they discover that she and her husband have vanished without a trace. Back in Timber Creek, Mattie finds a chilling note on her front door telling her to look for “him” among the standing dead up in the high country. The sheriff’s department springs into action and sends a team to the mountains, where Mattie’s K-9 partner, Robo, makes a grisly discovery --- a body tied to a dead pine tree. Mattie is shocked when she realizes she knows the dead man. And then another note arrives, warning that Mattie’s mother is in desperate straits. In a last-ditch gambit, Mattie must go deep undercover into a killer’s lair to save her mother --- or die trying.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781639102440

STASH: My Life in Hiding by Laura Cathcart Robbins (Memoir)
After years of hiding her addiction from everyone --- from stockpiling pills in her Louboutins to elaborately scheduling withdrawals between PTA meetings, baby showers and tennis matches --- Laura Cathcart Robbins settles into a complicated purgatory. She learns the hard way that privilege doesn’t protect you from pain. Facing divorce, the possibility of a grueling custody battle, and internalized racism, Robbins wonders just how much more she can take. Now, with courage and candid openness, she reveals how she managed to begin the long journey towards sobriety and unexpectedly finding new love. Robbins harrowingly illustrates taking down the wall she built around herself brick by brick and what it means to be Black in a startingly white world.
Atria Books | 9781668005330

TINA, MAFIA SOLDIER written by Maria Rosa Cutrufelli, translated by Robin Pickering-Iazzi (Noir Thriller)
Sicily, 1980s: When she was just eight years old, Tina watched as her father, a member of Cosa Nostra, was murdered in cold blood. Now a teenager, she terrorizes her hometown of Gela, having made it her mission to join the mafia, an organization traditionally forbidden to women as made members. Nicknamed ’a masculidda, or “the tomboy,” Tina has taken charge of her own gang, and is notorious for her cruelty and reckless disregard for societal expectations. When a news article is published about Tina’s latest crimes, a teacher living in Rome feels compelled to write a novel about her --- even though it means returning to her native Sicily to gather material. She and Tina circle around each other in a dangerous dance of obsession and violence until their first, and last, explosive meeting.
Soho Crime | 9781641294249

THE WATCHMAKER'S DAUGHTER: The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom by Larry Loftis (Biography)
Corrie ten Boom was a groundbreaking, female Dutch watchmaker whose family unselfishly transformed their house into a hiding place straight out of a spy novel to shelter Jews and refugees from the Nazis during Gestapo raids. Even though the Nazis knew what the ten Booms were up to, they were never able to find those sheltered within the house when they raided it. Corrie stopped at nothing to face down the evils of her time and overcame unbelievable obstacles and odds. But even more remarkable than her heroism and survival was Corrie’s attitude when she was released. Miraculously, she was able to eschew bitterness and embrace forgiveness as she ministered to people in need around the globe.
William Morrow | 9780063234581

WEYWARD by Emilia Hart (Historical Fiction/Magical Realism)
2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from her great-aunt. The cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great-aunt had a secret. 1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer. Her mother taught her their magic, which is rooted in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom. 1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Her mother was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250280800

WHAT HAPPENED TO RUTHY RAMIREZ by Claire Jimenez (Fiction)
When 13-year-old Ruthy disappeared after track practice without a trace, it left her family scarred and scrambling. One night, 12 years later, oldest sister Jessica spots a woman on her TV screen in “Catfight,” a raunchy reality show. She rushes to tell her younger sister, Nina: This woman's hair is dyed red, and she calls herself Ruby, but the beauty mark under her left eye is instantly recognizable. Could it be Ruthy after all this time? Jessica and Nina hatch a plan to drive to where the show is filmed. When their mother Dolores catches wind of their scheme, she insists on joining, along with her best friend, Irene. What follows is a family road trip and reckoning that will force the Ramirez women to finally face the past and look toward a future --- with or without Ruthy in it.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538725962

WHAT HAVE WE DONE by Alex Finlay (Mystery/Thriller)
Twenty five years ago, Jenna, Donnie and Nico were the best of friends, having forged a bond through the abuse and neglect they endured as residents of Savior House, a group home for parentless teens. When the home was shut down --- after the disappearance of several kids --- the three were split up. Though the trauma of their childhood has never left them, each went on to live accomplished --- if troubled --- lives. They haven’t seen one another since they were teens but now are reunited for a single haunting reason: someone is trying to kill them. To survive, the group will have to revisit the nightmares of their childhoods and confront their shared past --- a past that holds the secret to why someone wants them dead.
Minotaur Books | 9781250863720

WHITE FOX by Owen Matthews (Historical Thriller)
In a desolate Russian penal colony, the radio blares the news of President Kennedy’s death. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vasin’s new post as director of a gulag camp in the middle of a frozen tundra is far from a promotion. This is where disgraced agents, like Vasin, are sent to disappear and die quietly. But when tensions in the camp mount and a violent revolt breaks out, Vasin finds himself on the run with a mysterious prisoner holding the most dangerous secret in the world: who ordered the murder of President Kennedy. In a breathless chase that leads them throughout the Soviet Union, Vasin must stay one step ahead of the deadliest spy and police organizations in the world, and keep the most wanted man in Russia alive.
Doubleday | 9780385543446

WORTHY OPPONENTS by Danielle Steel (Romance)
Spencer Brooke always knew she was destined to be CEO of her grandfather’s business --- the most respected and luxurious department store in New York City. She may be the owner of Brooke’s, but she’s also now a divorced single mother of twin boys. And with the ever-evolving landscape of the fashion industry comes new challenges for Spencer and the legacy she’s inherited. Mike Weston is known for making enormous profits by transforming small businesses into bigger, more successful ones. With his marriage at a breaking point, investing is where he thrives. And Brooke’s feels like the perfect opportunity. Yet the firm’s beautiful and savvy CEO turns down the offer before they even meet. But when bad luck strikes, suddenly she is backed into a corner.
Delacorte Press | 9781984821805

On Sale the Week of March 6th in Paperback

March 7th

ATOMIC ANNA by Rachel Barenbaum (Fiction)
In 1986, renowned nuclear scientist Anna Berkova is sleeping in her bed in the Soviet Union when Chernobyl’s reactor melts down. It’s the exact moment she tears through time --- and it’s an accident. When she opens her eyes, she’s landed in 1992 only to discover Molly, her estranged daughter, shot in the chest. Molly, with her dying breath, begs Anna to go back in time and stop the disaster, to save Molly’s daughter Raisa, and put their family’s future on a better path. As these remarkable women work together to prevent the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century, they grapple with the power their discoveries hold. Just because you can change the past, does it mean you should?
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538734872

THE BOSTON MASSACRE: A Family History by Serena Zabin (History)
The story of the Boston Massacre --- when on a late winter evening in 1770, British soldiers shot five local men to death --- is familiar to generations. But from the very beginning, many accounts have obscured a fascinating truth: the Massacre arose from conflicts that were as personal as they were political. Professor Serena Zabin draws on original sources and lively stories to follow British troops as they are dispatched from Ireland to Boston in 1768 to subdue the increasingly rebellious colonists. And she reveals a forgotten world hidden in plain sight: the many regimental wives and children who accompanied these armies.
Mariner Books | 9780063275898

BROTHERS ON THREE: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation in Montana by Abe Streep (Biography)
March 11, 2017, was a night to remember. In front of the hopeful eyes of thousands of friends, family members and fans, the Arlee Warriors would finally bring the high school basketball state championship title home to the Flathead Indian Reservation. The game would become the stuff of legend, with the boys revered as local heroes. The team’s place in Montana history was now cemented, but for starters Will Mesteth, Jr. and Phillip Malatare, life would keep moving on --- senior year was only just beginning. In BROTHERS ON THREE, we follow Phil and Will, along with their teammates, coaches and families, as they balance the pressures of adolescence, shoulder the dreams of their community, and chart their own individual courses for the future.
Celadon Books | 9781250210692

THE CAMPBELL SISTERS by Eileen Joyce Donovan (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
Helen Campbell is the eldest and most practical of three sisters, daughters of hard-working Irish emigrants living in New York City in the 1950s. She does what she can to keep the wild-child middle sister, Carolyn, in line and support the youngest, Peggy, as she pursues her dreams of becoming a doctor. Then Helen meets Charlie. While it's love at first sight for those two, Carolyn's antics threaten to derail all the sisters' future happiness. However, through thick and thin, the three sisters strive to prevail, though not necessarily in the ways they thought they wanted.
DX Varos Publishing | 9781955065702

THE CANDY HOUSE by Jennifer Egan (Fiction)
Bix Bouton's company, Mandala, is so successful that he is “one of those tech demi-gods with whom we’re all on a first name basis.” Bix is 40, with four kids, restless and desperate for a new idea, when he stumbles into a conversation group, mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memory. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, “Own Your Unconscious” --- which allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share your memories in exchange for access to the memories of others --- has seduced multitudes. In the world of Jennifer Egan’s spectacular imagination, there are “counters” who track and exploit desires, and there are “eluders,” those who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House.
Scribner | 9781476716770

A DEATH AT THE PARTY by Amy Stuart (Domestic Thriller)
Paperback Original
Nadine Walsh’s summer garden party is in full swing. But she finds herself standing over a dead body in her basement while her guests clink glasses upstairs. What happened? How did it come to this? Rewind to that morning when Nadine is in her kitchen, making last-minute preparations before she welcomes more than a hundred guests to her home to celebrate her mother’s birthday. But only her mother knows that today isn’t just a birthday party. It marks another anniversary as well. Still, Nadine will focus just on tonight. Everyone deserves a celebration after the year they’ve had. A chance for fun. A chance to forget. But it’s hard to forget when Nadine’s head is swirling with secrets, haunting memories, and concerns about what might happen when her guests unite.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668009109

FEVERED STAR by Rebecca Roanhorse (Historical Fantasy)
The great city of Tova is shattered. The sun is held within the smothering grip of the Crow God’s eclipse, but a comet that marks the death of a ruler and heralds the rise of a new order is imminent. The Meridian: a land where magic has been codified and the worship of gods suppressed. How do you live when legends come to life, and the faith you had is rewarded? As sea captain Xiala is swept up in the chaos and currents of change, she finds an unexpected ally in the former Priest of Knives. For the Clan Matriarchs of Tova, tense alliances form as far-flung enemies gather and the war in the heavens is reflected upon the earth. And for Serapio and Naranpa, both now living avatars, the struggle for free will and personhood in the face of destiny rages.
Gallery/Saga Press | 9781534437746

FRIENDLY FIRE: A Nik Byron Investigation by Mark Pawlosky (Thriller)
Paperback Original
When Geoffrey Tate, one of the world’s richest individuals and the CEO of Yukon --- the country’s preeminent artificial intelligence company --- is shot and killed by his young trophy wife, it’s going to grab headlines. And seasoned Newshound reporter Nik Byron intends to be the one generating them. But Nik’s investigation quickly leads him down a treacherous path he didn’t foresee. The sensational trial that follows Tate’s death threatens to derail Bullwhip --- the military’s next generation of AI-inspired war machines --- and scramble the fortunes of political heavyweights and Pentagon brass alike. His journalistic instincts aroused, Nik embarks on an uncertain hunt for the truth that takes him deep into the murky worlds of Washington lobbyists, the military-industrial complex and the Saudi intelligence apparatus.
Girl Friday Books | 9781954854628

THE GOODBYE COAST: A Philip Marlowe Novel by Joe Ide (Hard-boiled Mystery)
In THE GOODBYE COAST, Philip Marlowe is a quiet, lonely and remarkably capable and confident private detective. However, he lives beneath the shadow of his father, a once-decorated LAPD homicide detective who has given in to drink after the death of Marlowe’s mother. Marlowe, against his better judgment, accepts two missing person cases --- the first, a daughter of a faded, tyrannical Hollywood starlet; the second, a British child stolen from his mother by his father. At the center of the novel is Marlowe’s troubled and confounding relationship with his father, a son who despises yet respects his dad, and a dad who’s unable to hide his bitter disappointment with his grown boy.
Mulholland Books | 9780316459259

GOODNIGHT FROM PARIS by Jane Healey (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
Paris, 1939. Hollywood actress Drue Leyton, married to Frenchman Jacques Tartière, lives as an expatriate in love. But when her husband is dispatched to Brittany to work as a liaison for the British military, Drue finds herself alone with her housekeeper. With her career and fame 4,500 miles away, she accepts an opportunity that will change her life forever. Befriended by seasoned wartime journalist Dorothy Thompson and urged on by political operative Jean Fraysse, Drue broadcasts radio programs to the United States. Her duty: shake America from its apathy and, as Nazis encroach and France is occupied, push for resistance and help from the US. As Drue and Jean fall under suspicion, Hitler sends his own message: when Drue’s adopted country is conquered, she will be executed.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781662505294

THE GOSPEL OF ORLA by Eoghan Walls (Fiction)
Paperback Original
A stunning debut novel from the Northern Irish poet Eoghan Walls, THE GOSPEL OF ORLA is the coming-of-age story of a young girl, Orla, and the man she meets who has an astonishing and unique ability. It is also a road novel that takes us across the north of England after the two flee Orla’s village together. Here the mysteries of faith charge full bore into the vagaries of contemporary mores.
Seven Stories Press | 9781644212820

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 | 9780593333549

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 | 9780759557307

THE LAST SUSPICIOUS HOLDOUT: Stories by Ladee Hubbard (Fiction/Short Stories)
These 13 gripping tales deftly chronicle poignant moments in the lives of an African American community located in a “sliver of southern suburbia.” Spanning from 1992 to 2007, the stories represent a period during which the Black middle class expanded while stories of "welfare Queens," "crack babies" and "super predators" abounded in the media. Characters spotlighted in one story reappear in another, providing a stunning testament to the enduring resilience of Black people as they navigate the “post-racial” period that THE LAST SUSPICIOUS HOLDOUT so vividly portrays.
Amistad | 9780062979100

LESSONS AT THE SCHOOL BY THE SEA: The Third School by the Sea Novel by Jenny Colgan (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Beloved high school teacher Maggie Adair had been comfortably, if somewhat ambivalently, engaged to her dependable long-distance boyfriend, Stan. But in the heat of summer, Maggie’s attraction to her colleague David McDonald has caught fire. Now both are facing an uncertain future as they try to figure out how to stay committed to their careers --- and each other. Meanwhile, the girls of Downey House --- mercurial Fliss, glamorous Alice and shy, hard-working Simone --- have had long summers at home, which weren’t quite the respite they had been hoping for. But the new school year is thankfully here, and it will bring new pupils and lots of fresh challenges for students and teachers alike at the school by the sea.
Avon | 9780063141803

THE LIES I TELL by Julie Clark (Domestic Thriller)
Meg Williams. Maggie Littleton. Melody Wilde. Different names for the same person, depending on the town, depending on the job. She's a con artist who erases herself to become whoever you need her to be. A college student. A life coach. A real estate agent. Nothing about her is real. She slides alongside you and tells you exactly what you need to hear, and by the time she's done, you've likely lost everything. Kat Roberts has been waiting 10 years for the woman who upended her life to return. And now that she has, Kat is determined to be the one to expose her. But as the two women grow closer, Kat's long-held assumptions begin to crumble, leaving Kat to wonder who Meg's true target is.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728260129

MEMPHIS by Tara M. Stringfellow (Fiction)
Ten-year-old Joan, her mother and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass --- only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected. As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition.
Dial Press Trade Paperback | 9780593230503

OCEAN STATE by Stewart O’Nan (Fiction)
In the first line of OCEAN STATE, we learn that a high school student was murdered, and we find out who did it. The story that unfolds from there is thus one of the build-up to and fallout from the murder, told through the alternating perspectives of the four women at its heart. Angel, the murderer; Carol, her mother; and Birdy; the victim all converge in a climax both tragic and inevitable. Watching over it all is the retrospective testimony of Angel’s younger sister Marie, who reflects on that doomed autumn of 2009 with all the wisdom of hindsight. Angel and Birdy love the same teenage boy and are compelled by the intensity of their feelings to extremes neither could have anticipated.
Grove Press | 9780802162335

OFF THE MAP by Trish Doller (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Carla Black has been traveling the world on her own in her vintage Jeep Wrangler for nearly a decade, stopping only long enough to replenish her adventure fund. She doesn’t do love, and she doesn’t ever go home. Eamon Sullivan is a modern-day cartographer who creates digital maps. His work helps people find their way, but he’s the one who’s lost his sense of direction. He’s unhappy at work, recently dumped, and his one big dream is stalled out --- literally. Fate throws them together when Carla arrives in Dublin for her best friend’s wedding, and Eamon is tasked with picking her up from the airport. But what should be a simple drive across Ireland quickly becomes complicated with chemistry-filled detours, unexpected feelings and a chance at love --- if only they choose it.
St. Martin's Griffin | 9781250809490

ONE ITALIAN SUMMER by Rebecca Serle (Fiction)
When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. To make matters worse, their planned mother-daughter trip of a lifetime looms: to Positano, the magical town where Carol spent the summer right before she met Katy’s father. Katy has been waiting years for Carol to take her, and now she is faced with embarking on the adventure alone. But as soon as she steps foot on the Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit. And then Carol appears --- in the flesh, healthy, sun-tanned and 30 years old. Over the course of one Italian summer, Katy gets to know Carol, not as her mother, but as the young woman before her. Soon Katy must reconcile the mother who knew everything with the young lady who does not yet have a clue.
Atria Books | 9781982166809

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 | 9780593419779

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT by Stacey Abrams, writing as Selena Montgomery (Romantic Suspense)
Dr. Raleigh Foster, an operative for a top-secret intelligence organization, knows that her undercover work has its risks. So she doesn't hesitate when asked to infiltrate Scimitar, the terrorist group that has stolen lethal environmental technology. But when she's assigned a partner --- brooding, sexy Adam Grayson --- to pose as her lover, Raleigh discovers that the most dangerous risk of all...is falling in love. Adam blames himself for the botched mission that got his best friend killed by Scimitar, and he believes that Raleigh may have contributed to the man's death. But the closer he works with his alluring partner, the more his suspicions turn to trust --- and intense desire.
Berkley | 9780593439401

SUNDIAL by Catriona Ward (Gothic Horror/Psychological Thriller)
Rob has spent her life running from Sundial, the family’s ranch deep in the Mojave Desert, and her childhood memories. But she’s worried about her daughter, Callie, who collects animal bones and whispers to imaginary friends. It reminds her of a darkness that runs in her family, and Rob knows it’s time to return. Callie is terrified of her mother. Rob digs holes in the backyard late at night and tells disturbing stories about growing up on the ranch. Soon Callie begins to fear that only one of them will leave Sundial alive.
Tor Nightfire | 9781250812704

THIRST FOR SALT by Madelaine Lucas (Fiction)
Paperback Original
It’s in the water where she first sees him: a local man almost 20 years her senior. Adrift in the summer after finishing college, a young woman is on holiday with her mother in an isolated Australian coastal town. Finding herself pulled to Jude, the man in the water, she begins losing herself in the simple, seductive rhythms of his everyday life. As their relationship deepens, life at Sailors Beach offers her the stability she has been craving as the daughter of two drifters --- a loving but impulsive mother and an itinerant father. But the arrival of Maeve, a friend from Jude’s past, threatens to rock their fragile, newfound intimacy. And when she witnesses something she doesn’t fully understand, she finds herself questioning everything.
Tin House Books | 9781953534651

THRILL OF THE HUNT by Rita Mae Brown (Mystery)
It’s the start of fox-hunting season, and “Sister” Jane Arnold is training a new generation of hounds in eager anticipation of Opening Hunt. But before they make it to that exciting day, several members of the hunt club receive ominous videos in which they appear to be doing scandalous, career-ending deeds. The videos are doctored, but does it matter? The unknown blackmailer promises to publish the clips if they don’t get paid, and even the most upstanding citizen can be brought down by the court of public opinion. While Sister and her friends try to unmask the dastardly mind behind the videos, mysteries abound in their beautiful Blue Ridge Mountain town home.
Ballantine Books | 9780593357620

THE WAY FROM HERE by Jane Cockram (Fiction)
Growing up, the Anderson sisters could not have been more different. Susie had an adventurous life, while Camilla --- Mills --- followed a safer path. When Susie suddenly dies, Mills falls apart. Until she receives a bundle of mysterious letters from her estranged sister to be read in the case of her death. Each letter instructs her to visit a place special to Susie, both to spread her ashes but also to uncover some truths Susie has long kept hidden from her family. Their mother Margaret has secrets of her own. When living in Swinging Sixties London, she too made a decision about her life that not only haunts her, but will reverberate through the generations. One family, three very different women. What choices and secrets connect them?
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062939333

THE WEDDING VEIL by Kristy Woodson Harvey (Fiction)
Julia Baxter’s wedding veil, bequeathed to her great-grandmother by a mysterious woman on a train in the 1930s, has passed through generations of her family as a symbol of a happy marriage. But on the morning of her wedding day, something tells her that even the veil’s good luck isn’t enough to make her marriage last forever. Overwhelmed and panicked, she escapes to the Virgin Islands to clear her head. Meanwhile, her grandmother Babs is also feeling shaken. Still grieving the death of her beloved husband, she decides to move out of the house they once shared and into a retirement community. Though she hopes it’s a new beginning, she does not expect to run into an old flame, dredging up the same complicated emotions she felt a lifetime ago.
Gallery Books | 9781982180720

THE WORLD CANNOT GIVE by Tara Isabella Burton (Fiction)
When Laura Stearns arrives at St. Dunstan’s Academy in Maine, she dreams that life there will echo her favorite novel, All Before Them, the sole surviving piece of writing by St. Dunstan’s alum Sebastian Webster. She soon finds the intensity she is looking for among the insular, Webster-worshipping members of the school’s chapel choir, which is presided over by Virginia Strauss. A neurotic overachiever, Virginia inducts Laura into a world of transcendent music and arcane ritual, illicit cliff-diving and midnight crypt visits. But when a new school chaplain challenges Virginia’s hold on the “family” she has created, and Virginia’s efforts to wield her power become increasingly dangerous, Laura must decide how far she will let her devotion to Virginia go.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982170073

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