In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of June 5th and June 12th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.
This week, we are calling attention to our Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks feature for June, which includes Indie Next, LibraryReads, the Barnes & Noble Book Club, Reese's Book Club, the "Read with Jenna" Today Show Book Club, the "Good Morning America" Book Club, and more.
We hosted our latest “Bookaccino Live” Book Group event last Tuesday night, and it was such fun. Laura Dave joined us to discuss her #1 New York Times bestseller, THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME, a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick that is now available in paperback and is a limited series on Apple TV+ starring Jennifer Garner.
Laura had the idea for this book for a while, and she wrote it from different perspectives before finding the first-person story told by Hannah that we read. She talks about how she needs time to settle in with her characters and her plot, and then turns to what serves the book most. She also shares some of the research that she did about houseboat life, as well as the scenes set in Texas. And, to the delight of our readers, she previews what’s next. Click here to watch the video or here to listen to the podcast.
Oh, and for the video of Jennifer Garner making Hannah’s Brown Butter & Sage Pasta that Laura mentioned during the event, you can see it here on Instagram.
We are excited to tell you about a very special "Bookaccino Live" evening event coming up later this month. On Wednesday, June 28th at 8pm ET, Carol will present a number of titles releasing this summer that we think you will enjoy reading over the next few months. You can register for the program by clicking here.
Please note: We will not be doing any "Bookaccino Live" Book Group events in June, July or August as we know that many people are traveling. But we already have our September author scheduled. We will share more details about what promises to be a fabulous event over the next couple of weeks.
For those of you who are doing online shopping, if you use the store links below, Bookreporter.com gets a small affiliate fee on your purchases. We would appreciate your considering this!
Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events
Here are five upcoming virtual book and author events that you may be interested in attending. Click on the links for more info and to register.
Wednesday, June 7th at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": The "Friends and Fiction" authors --- Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey and Patti Callahan Henry --- will celebrate the launch of Kristin's new book, THE PARIS DAUGHTER. This gripping historical novel is about two mothers who must make unthinkable choices in the face of the Nazi occupation.
Wednesday, June 7th at 7pm ET: Titcomb's Bookshop: Join Titcomb's as they welcome Kathleen Grissom to the virtual stage to talk about her new book, CROW MARY. This sweeping saga is inspired by the true story of Crow Mary, an indigenous woman torn between two worlds in 19th-century North America.
Thursday, June 8th at 6pm ET: Viola Shipman's Sizzlin' Summer Book Bash: Visit Viola Shipman's Facebook page for a live virtual author telethon to celebrate the launch of Viola's FAMOUS IN A SMALL TOWN and the hottest summer reads. The all-star author lineup includes Robyn Carr, Kristy Woodson Harvey, Nancy Thayer and Zibby Owens. FoxTale Bookshoppe is serving as the indie bookseller for the telethon.
Monday, June 12th at 4pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Fiona Davis will talk about her latest novel, THE SPECTACULAR. Set amidst the glamour and glitz of Radio City Music Hall in its mid-century heyday, this thrilling story is about love, sacrifice and the pursuit of dreams.
Tuesday, June 13th at 5pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Kristan Higgins will talk about her latest novel, A LITTLE RAY OF SUNSHINE. Here's the premise: A kid walks into your bookstore and... Guess what? He’s your son. The one you put up for adoption 18 years ago. The one you never told anyone about. Surprise!
This Week's Bonus News:
Our Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks for June
Each month, we share top book picks from Indie Next and LibraryReads, as well as the Target Book Club title and Costco's "Buyer's Pick." We also feature a number of other prominent picks, including Oprah’s Book Club, the Barnes & Noble Book Club, Reese's Book Club, Jenna Bush Hager's "Read with Jenna" Today Show Book Club, the "Good Morning America" Book Club, and Simon & Schuster’s Book Club Favorites.
Below is a preview of June's "Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks." For the complete Indie Next and LibraryReads lists, as well as additional links pertaining to this month's selections, please click here.
Indie Next
#1 Pick: YELLOWFACE by R. F. Kuang
GOOD NIGHT, IRENE by Luis Alberto Urrea
LOVE, THEORETICALLY by Ali Hazelwood
LADY TAN'S CIRCLE OF WOMEN by Lisa See
WITCH KING by Martha Wells
LibraryReads
Top Pick: THE QUIET TENANT by Clémence Michallon
ALL THE SINNERS BLEED by S. A. Cosby
THE BRIGHTEST STAR by Gail Tsukiyama
A CROWN OF IVY AND GLASS: The Middlemist Trilogy, Book One by Claire Legrand
THE FIRST LADIES by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
Target Book Club
HOW DO I UN-REMEMBER THIS?: Unfortunately True Stories, by Danny Pellegrino
Costco's "Buyer's Pick"
LADY TAN'S CIRCLE OF WOMEN by Lisa See
Barnes & Noble Book Club
GOOD NIGHT, IRENE by Luis Alberto Urrea
Reese's Book Club
CASSANDRA IN REVERSE by Holly Smale
Jenna Bush Hager's "Read with Jenna" Today Show Book Club
THE CELEBRANTS by Steven Rowley
"Good Morning America" Book Club
INK BLOOD SISTER SCRIBE by Emma Törzs
Simon & Schuster's Book Club Favorites
LADY TAN'S CIRCLE OF WOMEN by Lisa See
On Sale the Week of June 5th in Hardcover
June 5th
CROSS DOWN: An Alex Cross and John Sampson Thriller by James Patterson and Brendan DuBois (Thriller)
The brilliant crime-solving duo of Washington, DC’s Metro PD and the FBI has a proven MO: Detective Alex Cross makes his own rules. Detective John Sampson enforces them. When military-style attacks erupt, brutally sidelining Cross, Sampson is sent reeling. The patterns are too random --- Sampson’s friend, his partner, his brother --- have told him. Don’t trust anyone. As a shadow force advances on the nation’s capital, Sampson alone must protect the Cross family, his own young daughter and every American, including the president.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316404594
June 6th
ALL THE SINNERS BLEED by S. A. Cosby (Thriller)
Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. Then a year to the day after Titus’ election, a schoolteacher is killed by a former student, and the student is fatally shot by Titus’ deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.
Flatiron Books | 9781250831910
AND THEN HE SANG A LULLABY by Ani Kayode Somtochukwu (Fiction)
August is a God-fearing track star who leaves Enugu City to attend university and escape his overbearing sisters. Pressures aside, he is making friends and doing well in his classes. He even almost has a girlfriend. There’s only one problem: he can’t stop thinking about Segun, an openly gay student who works at a local cybercafé. Despite their differences, August and Segun forge a tender intimacy that defies the violence around them. But there is only so long Segun can stand being loved behind closed doors, while August lives a life beyond the world they’ve created together. And when a sweeping anti-gay law is passed, they must find a way for their love to survive in a Nigeria that was always determined to eradicate them.
Roxane Gay Books | 9780802160751
AUGUST BLUE by Deborah Levy (Fiction)
At the height of her career, the piano virtuoso Elsa M. Anderson --- former child prodigy who is now in her 30s --- walks off the stage in Vienna, mid-performance. Now she is in Athens, watching an uncannily familiar woman purchase a pair of mechanical dancing horses at a flea market. Elsa wants the horses too, but there are no more for sale. She drifts to the ferry port, on the run from her talent and her history. So begins her journey across Europe, shadowed by the elusive woman who seems to be her double.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374602048
THE BATTLE OF MALDON: Together with the Homecoming of Beorhtnoth written by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Peter Grybauskas (Fantasy/Adventure)
In 991 AD, Vikings attacked an Anglo-Saxon defense-force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the banks of the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of 10th-century England, due to it being immortalized in the poem “The Battle of Maldon.” Written shortly after the battle, the poem would inspire J.R.R. Tolkien to compose his own dramatic verse-dialogue, “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son,” which imagines the aftermath of the great battle. Leading Tolkien scholar Peter Grybauskas presents for the very first time Tolkien’s own prose translation of “The Battle of Maldon,” together with the definitive treatment of “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth” and its accompanying essays.
William Morrow | 9780063338180
BETWEEN TWO MOONS by Aisha Abdel Gawad (Fiction)
It’s the holy month of Ramadan, and twin sisters Amira and Lina are about to graduate high school in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. On the precipice of adulthood, they plan to embark on a summer of teenage revelry, trying on new identities, and testing the limits of what they can get away with while still under their parents’ roof. But the twins' expectations of a summer of freedom collide with their older brother's return from prison, whose mysterious behavior threatens to undo the delicate family balance. Meanwhile, a storm is brewing in Bay Ridge. A raid on a local business sparks a protest that brings the Arab community together, and a senseless act of violence threatens to tear them apart. Everyone’s motives are called into question as an alarming sense of disquiet pervades the neighborhood.
Doubleday | 9780385548618
CASSANDRA IN REVERSE by Holly Smale (Fiction)
Cassandra Penelope Dankworth is a creature of habit. She likes what she likes (museums, jumpsuits, her boyfriend, Will) and strongly dislikes what she doesn't (mess, change, her boss drinking out of her mug). Her life runs in a pleasing, predictable order…until now. She's just been dumped. She's just been fired. Her local café has run out of banana muffins. Then, something truly unexpected happens: Cassie discovers she can go back and change the past. One small rewind at a time, Cassie attempts to fix the life she accidentally obliterated. But soon she'll discover she's trying to fix all the wrong things.
Mira | 9780778334538
CLIVE CUSSLER FIRE STRIKE: A Novel of the Oregon Files by Mike Maden (Thriller/Adventure)
When Juan Cabrillo is hired to extract an undercover operative in Kenya, he finds himself on the trail of a deadly international plot. A Saudi Prince seeks to unleash a deadly assault on U.S. forces, sparking a new war in the Middle East and ultimately destroying Israel. Cabrillo’s crew have met their most fearsome adversaries yet: a force of bio-hacked soldiers endowed with extreme strength and stamina and an unquenchable appetite for violence. The Oregon team must journey from the Amazon rainforest to an abandoned monastery in Eritrea before a final showdown in the mountains of Yemen, using every shred of courage and cunning they can muster to disable the ship-killer missile before the Arabian Sea becomes a mass grave.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593543931
CROW MARY by Kathleen Grissom (Historical Fiction)
In 1872, 16-year-old Goes First, a Crow Native woman, marries Abe Farwell, a white fur trader. He gives her the name Mary, and they set off on the long trip to his trading post in the Cypress Hills of Saskatchewan, Canada. Along the way, she finds a fast friend; makes a lifelong enemy; and, despite learning a dark secret of Farwell’s past, falls in love with her husband. Then, on the eve of their return to Montana, a group of drunken whiskey traders slaughters 40 Nakota. Mary sees the murderers take five Nakota women back to their fort. She begs Farwell to save them, and when he refuses, she takes two guns, creeps into the fort and saves the women from certain death. Thus, she sets off a whirlwind of colliding cultures that pushes the love between Farwell and Crow Mary to the breaking point.
Atria Books | 9781476748474
A DISAPPEARANCE IN FIJI by Nilima Rao (Historical Mystery)
1914, Fiji: Akal Singh would rather be anywhere but this tropical paradise. After a promising start to his police career in Hong Kong, Akal has been sent to Fiji as punishment for a humiliating professional mistake. Lonely and grumpy, Akal plods through his work and dreams of getting back to Hong Kong or his native India. When an indentured Indian woman goes missing from a sugarcane plantation and Fiji’s newspapers scream “kidnapping,” the inspector-general reluctantly assigns Akal the case. Akal, eager to achieve redemption, agrees --- but soon finds himself far more invested than he ever could have expected. Not only is he now investigating a disappearance, he is confronting the brutal realities of the indentured workers’ existence and the racism of the British colonizers in Fiji.
Soho Crime | 9781641294294
THE DISSIDENT by Paul Goldberg (Historical Mystery/Thriller)
On his wedding day in 1976, Viktor Moroz stumbles upon a murder scene: two gay men, one of them a U.S. official, have been axed to death in Moscow. Viktor, a Jewish refusenik, is stuck in the Soviet Union because the government has denied his application to leave for Israel. But the KGB spots him leaving the murder scene. Plucked off the street, he’s given a choice: find the murderer or become the suspect of convenience. His deadline is nine days later, when Henry Kissinger will be arriving in Moscow. To help solve the case, Viktor ropes in his community. As he struggles to determine whom to trust, he’s forced to question not only the KGB’s murky motives but also those of his fellow refuseniks --- and the man he admires above all: Kissinger himself.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9781250208590
EMPIRE: A Novel of the Golden Age by Conn Iggulden (Historical Fiction/Adventure)
Pericles returns home more than a hero: he's the leader of Athens, the empire's beacon of light. But even during times of peace, the threat of Sparta --- Athens's legendary rival --- looms large on the horizon. When a sudden catastrophe brings Sparta to its knees, Pericles sees a golden opportunity to forever shift the balance of power in his city's favor. For sometimes, the only way to win lasting peace is to wage war. Sparta may be weak, but their power is far from extinguished. Soon a ruthless young boy steps forward to lead the Spartans back to greatness. As the drums of battle draw closer, can Pericles rise to victory once more --- or will the world's greatest empire fall under his watch?
Pegasus Books | 9781639364015
THE ENDLESS VESSEL by Charles Soule (Dystopian Thriller/Mystery)
A few years from now, in a world similar to ours, there exists a sort of “depression plague” that people refer to simply as “The Grey.” No one can predict whom it will afflict, or how, but once infected, there’s no coming back. A young Hong Kong-based scientist, Lily Barnes, is trying to maintain her inner light in an increasingly dark world. The human race is dwindling, and people fighting to push forward are increasingly rare. One day, Lily comes across something that seems to be addressing her directly, calling to her, asking her to follow a path to whatever lies at its end. Is this the Endless Vessel to happiness? She leaves her life behind and sets out through time and space to find out.
Harper Perennial | 9780063043046
EVERYTHING'S FINE by Cecilia Rabess (Fiction)
On Jess’ first day at Goldman Sachs, she’s less than thrilled to learn she’ll be on the same team as Josh, her white, conservative sparring partner from college. But when Jess finds herself the sole Black woman on the floor, overlooked and underestimated, it’s Josh who shows up for her in surprising --- if imperfect --- ways. Before long, an unlikely friendship forms between the two that gradually turns into an electrifying romance. Despite their differences, the force of their attraction propels the relationship forward, and Jess begins to question if it’s more important to be happy than right. But then it’s 2016, and the cultural and political landscape shifts underneath them. And Jess is forced to ask herself what she’s willing to compromise for love and if, in fact, everything’s fine.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982187705
GEORGE: A Magpie Memoir by Frieda Hughes (Memoir)
When Frieda Hughes moved to the depths of the Welsh countryside, she was expecting to take on a few projects: planting a garden, painting, writing her poetry column for The Times (London), and possibly even breathing new life into her ailing marriage. But instead, she found herself rescuing a baby magpie, the sole survivor of a nest destroyed in a storm --- and embarking on an obsession that would change the course of her life. As the magpie, George, grows from a shrieking scrap of feathers and bones into an intelligent, unruly companion, Frieda finds herself captivated --- and apprehensive of what will happen when the time comes to finally set him free.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781668016503
GIRLS AND THEIR HORSES by Eliza Jane Brazier (Psychological Thriller)
When the nouveau riche Parker family moves to an exclusive community in the heart of Southern California, they believe it’s their chance at a fresh start. Heather Parker is determined to give her daughters the life she never had. So she signs them up for riding lessons at Rancho Santa Fe Equestrian, where horses are a lifestyle. Heather becomes a “Barn Mom,” part of a group of wealthy women who hang at the stables, drink wine and prepare their daughters for competition. It’s not long before the Parker family is fully enmeshed in the horse world. With the end-of-summer horse show fast approaching, these mothers will stop at nothing to give their daughters everything they deserve. Before the summer is over, lies will turn lethal, accidents will happen --- and someone will end up dead.
Berkley | 9780593438886
THE GIRLS OF SUMMER by Katie Bishop (Psychological Thriller)
Rachel has been in love with Alistair for 15 years. Even though she’s now married to someone else. Even though she was a teenager when they met. Even though he is 20 years older than her. Rachel and Alistair’s summer love affair on a remote, sun-trapped Greek island has consumed her since she was 17, obliterating everything in its wake. But as Rachel becomes increasingly obsessed with reliving the events of so long ago, she reconnects with the other girls who were similarly drawn to life on the island, where everyone acted in ways they never would at home. And as she does so, dark and deeply suppressed secrets about her first love affair begin to rise to the surface, as well as the truth about her time working for an enigmatic and wealthy man who controlled so much more than she ever could have realized.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250283917
THE HOUSE OF LINCOLN by Nancy Horan (Historical Fiction)
THE HOUSE OF LINCOLN tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's ascendance from rumpled lawyer to U.S. president to Great Emancipator through the eyes of a young immigrant who arrives in Lincoln's home of Springfield, Illinois, from Madeira, Portugal. Showing intelligence beyond society's expectations, 14-year-old Ana Ferreira is offered a job in the Lincoln household assisting Mary Lincoln with their boys and with the hosting duties borne by the wife of a rising political star. Ana bears witness to the evolution of Lincoln's views on equality and the Union, and observes in full complexity the psyche and pain of his bold, polarizing wife. Yet, alongside her dearest friend in the Black community, she also directly experiences how slavery contradicts the promise of freedom in her adopted country.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728260549
KILLINGLY by Katharine Beutner (Historical Mystery)
Massachusetts, 1897: Bertha Mellish, “the most peculiar, quiet, reserved girl” at Mount Holyoke College, is missing. As a search team dredges the pond where Bertha might have drowned, her panicked father and sister arrive desperate to find some clue to her fate or state of mind. Bertha’s best friend, Agnes, a scholarly loner studying medicine, might know the truth, but she is being unhelpfully tight-lipped, inciting the suspicions of Bertha’s family, her classmates, and the private investigator hired by the Mellish family doctor. As secrets from Agnes’ and Bertha’s lives come to light, so do the competing agendas driving each person who is searching for Bertha. Where did Bertha go? Who would want to hurt her? And could she still be alive?
Soho Crime | 9781641294379
LADY TAN'S CIRCLE OF WOMEN by Lisa See (Historical Fiction)
According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine. Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom. But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife --- embroider bound-foot slippers, pluck instruments, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.
Scribner | 9781982117085
LAST CALL AT COOGAN'S: The Life and Death of a Neighborhood Bar by Jon Michaud (Memoir)
Coogan’s Bar and Restaurant opened in New York City’s Washington Heights in 1985 and closed its doors for good in the pandemic spring of 2020. Sometimes called Uptown City Hall, it became a staple of neighborhood life during its 35 years in operation --- a place of safety and a bulwark against prejudice in a multi-ethnic, majority-immigrant community undergoing rapid change. LAST CALL AT COOGAN’S tells the story of this beloved saloon --- from the challenging years of the late ’80s and early ’90s, when Washington Heights suffered from the highest crime rate in the city, to the 2010s, when gentrification pushed out longtime residents and nearly closed Coogan's itself. Only a massive community mobilization including local politicians and Lin-Manuel Miranda kept the doors open.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250221780
THE LAST DROP OF HEMLOCK by Katharine Schellman (Historical Mystery)
Life as a working-class girl in Prohibition-era New York isn’t safe or easy. But Vivian Kelly has a new job at the Nightingale, an underground speakeasy. Things are finally looking up for her and her sister, Florence...until the night Vivian learns that her friend Bea's uncle, a bouncer at the Nightingale, has died. His death is ruled a suicide, but Bea isn’t so convinced. She knew her uncle was keeping a secret: a payoff from a mob boss that was going to take him out of the tenements and into a better life. Now, the money is missing. Vivian and Bea uncover more than they expected when rumors surface of a mysterious letter writer who's blackmailing Vivian's poorest neighbors for their most valuable possessions, threatening poison if they don't comply.
Minotaur Books | 9781250831842
LUCKY DOGS by Helen Schulman (Fiction)
On a sultry summer night in Paris, two women meet in line at an ice cream kiosk on the Ile de la Cité. One is tall, fair and striking, with an indeterminate accent. The other, a troubled American TV star, is hiding her beauty and identity under a shapeless sweatshirt, wearing sunglasses even in the darkness. When leering male tourists hassle the pair, the blonde pulls out a knife and a sisterhood is born. Both women have been victims of male violence, and both are warriors --- one trained and calculating, one instinctually ferocious. They each think they know who they are dealing with. But both are very, very wrong.
Knopf | 9780593536230
MAEVE FLY by CJ Leede (Horror)
By day, Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world as every child’s favorite ice princess. By the neon night glow of the Sunset Strip, Maeve haunts the dive bars with a drink in one hand and a book in the other, imitating her misanthropic literary heroes. But when Gideon Green --- her best friend’s brother --- moves to town, he awakens something dangerous within her, and the world she knows suddenly shifts beneath her feet. Untethered, Maeve ditches her discontented act and tries on a new persona. A bolder, bloodier one, inspired by the pages of AMERICAN PSYCHO. Step aside Patrick Bateman, it’s Maeve’s turn with the knife.
Tor Nightfire | 9781250857859
THE MEMORY OF ANIMALS by Claire Fuller (Dystopian Fiction)
In the face of a pandemic, an unprepared world scrambles to escape the mysterious disease causing sensory damage, nerve loss and, in most cases, death. Neffy, a disgraced and desperately indebted 27-year-old marine biologist, registers for an experimental vaccine trial in London --- perhaps humanity’s last hope for a cure. Though isolated from the chaos outside, she and the other volunteers cannot hide from the mistakes that led them there. As London descends into chaos outside the hospital windows, Neffy befriends Leon, who before the pandemic had been working on a controversial technology that allows users to revisit their memories. The lines between past, present and future begin to blur. Who can Neffy trust? Why can’t she forgive herself? How should she live, if she survives?
Tin House Books | 9781953534873
MY MAGNOLIA SUMMER by Victoria Benton Frank (Fiction)
In New York City, winter never seems to loosen its hold. And for South Carolina transplant Maggie, the balmy beach weather of April back home on Sullivan’s Island feels like a distant memory. Until a phone call from her sister, Violet, changes everything. Gran, the treasured matriarch, has fallen into a coma after a car accident caused by Maggie’s troubled mother, Lily. But once Maggie returns, she finds that Sullivan’s Island holds even more secrets. The Magic Lantern, the restaurant owned and run by generations of women in her family, is now rudderless, and her sister seems headed for a savage breakup. When the three generations of South Carolina women join forces --- the family pillar Gran, troubled Lily, impulsive Violet and redoubtable Maggie --- anything is possible.
William Morrow | 9780063286153
NEAR MISS: A Stone Barrington Novel by Stuart Woods and Brett Battles (Thriller/Adventure)
Following a string of adventures, Stone Barrington is enjoying some downtime in New York City when a chance encounter introduces him to a charming new companion. Too bad she also comes with the baggage of a persistent ex-boyfriend intent on retribution. As Stone skillfully dodges each disturbance, it becomes clear that there's an even more treacherous game being played behind the scenes. When long-standing grudges resurface, Stone is brought back into the orbit of some familiar enemies. He must use all of his tricks --- as well as those of a few old friends --- to evade trouble before it's too late. But this time, danger just might catch up with him.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593540060
PAGEBOY: A Memoir by Elliot Page (Memoir)
“Can I kiss you?” It was two months before the world premiere of Juno, and Elliot Page was in his first ever queer bar. The hot summer air hung heavy around him as he looked at her. And then it happened. In front of everyone. A previously unfathomable experience. Here he was on the precipice of discovering himself as a queer person, as a trans person. But for Elliot, two steps forward had always come with one step back. With Juno’s massive success, Elliot became one of the world’s most beloved actors. His dreams were coming true, but the pressure to perform suffocated him. As he navigated criticism and abuse from some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, a past that snapped at his heels, and a society dead set on forcing him into a binary, Elliot often stayed silent. Until enough was enough.
Flatiron Books | 9781250878359
THE PARIS DAUGHTER by Kristin Harmel (Historical Fiction)
Paris, 1939: Young mothers Elise and Juliette become fast friends the day they meet in the beautiful Bois de Boulogne. Though there is a shadow of war creeping across Europe, neither woman suspects that their lives are about to irrevocably change. When Elise becomes a target of the German occupation, she entrusts Juliette with the most precious thing in her life --- her young daughter, playmate to Juliette’s own little girl. But nowhere is safe in war, not even a quiet little bookshop like Juliette’s Librairie des Rêves. When a bomb falls on their neighborhood, Juliette’s world is destroyed along with it. More than a year later, with the war finally ending, Elise returns to reunite with her daughter, only to find her friend’s bookstore reduced to rubble --- and Juliette nowhere to be found.
Gallery Books | 9781982191702
RETRIBUTION: A Koa Kane Hawaiian Mystery by Robert McCaw (Mystery/Thriller)
In the back alley of a bar on Hawaii Island, a young man is found stabbed to death. When Hilo Chief Detective Koa Kane begins investigating the crime, the murder weapon is recovered only a few feet away from the body. Crime scene technicians find fingerprints on the knife --- they are a perfect match for Koa’s younger brother, Ikaika. As the brothers scramble to prove Ikaika’s innocence, another crime sends shockwaves through the Hilo police force. A sniper tries to take out Makanui, Koa’s closest colleague. As Koa tries to figure out if these crimes are linked, the sinister force continues their killing spree, threatening Koa and his loved ones at every turn. Could Koa be the real target? If so, who is behind this trail of retribution?
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608095568
SUCH KINDNESS by Andre Dubus III (Fiction)
Tom Lowe designed and built his family’s dream home, working extra hours to pay off the adjustable-rate mortgage he took on the property, convinced he is making every sacrifice for the happiness of his wife and son. Until, shingling a roof in too-bright sunlight, he falls. In constant pain, addicted to painkillers at the cost of his relationships with his wife and son, Tom slowly comes to realize that he can never work again. If he is not a working man, who is he? He is not, he believes, the kind of person who lives in subsidized housing, though that is where he has ended up. He is not the kind of person who hatches a scheme to commit convenience-check fraud, together with neighbors he considers lowlifes, until he finds himself stealing his banker’s trash. Who is Tom Lowe, and who will he become?
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324000464
THE SURVIVOR: An Eve Duncan Novel by Iris Johansen (Thriller)
When archaeologist Riley Smith comes to ask Eve Duncan for help, Eve has to say no. Yet she is intrigued by the prospect of an isolated island that holds a secret locked in time. Traveling to Southeast Asia, Riley is aware of the threat from treasure hunters who are already searching and have no qualms about killing to get what they want. When she successfully evades them and finds the perfectly preserved body of a female warrior, it is just what she needs to entice Eve to help unlock the mystery. As these two strong women seek answers about this extraordinary past life, Riley makes a living, breathing discovery that will change history. If she can escape the island and survive long enough to share it with the world.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538726372
WATCH US SHINE by Marisa de los Santos (Fiction)
Cornelia Brown is reeling from a terrifying act of violence when she gets word that her mother, Ellie, has been badly injured in an accident. She returns to Virginia, to the house she grew up in, and in the weeks that follow, she watches her mother struggle to recover. In grief-stricken tones, Ellie begs Cornelia to bring her the Northern Lights, and despite her confusion at this mysterious plea, Cornelia vows to do so. With the help of her prickly sister, Ollie, Cornelia embarks on a mission to piece together the lost years of their mother’s life. Their quest takes them to unexpected places and into the worlds of strangers whose lives Ellie touched and irrevocably changed.
William Morrow | 9780063095601
THE WHISPERS by Ashley Audrain (Domestic Thriller)
The Loverlys’ young son is in a coma after falling from his bedroom window in the middle of the night. His mother, Whitney, will not speak to anyone. Back home, their friends and neighbors are left in shock, each confronting their own role in the events that led up to what happened that terrible night: the Parks, the Loverlys' best friends; the Goldsmiths, who are struggling to start a family of their own; and the Portuguese couple who care for their adult son with a developmental disability and watch their neighbors go about their busy lives. The story spins out over the course of one week, in the alternating voices of the women in each family as they are forced to face the secrets within the walls of their own homes, and the uncomfortable truths that connect them all to one another.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9781984881694
THE WIND KNOWS MY NAME by Isabel Allende (Historical Fiction)
Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht --- the night his family loses everything. As her child’s safety becomes ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on a Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Díaz and her mother flee looming danger in El Salvador and seek refuge in the United States. But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination. Meanwhile, Selena Durán, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita’s mother.
Ballantine Books | 9780593598108
On Sale the Week of June 5th in Paperback
June 6th
AURORA by David Koepp (Dystopian/Medical Thriller)
In Aurora, Illinois, Aubrey Wheeler is just trying to get by after her semi-criminal ex-husband split, leaving behind his unruly teenage son. Then the lights go out --- not just in Aurora but across the globe. A solar storm has knocked out power almost everywhere. Across the country lives Aubrey’s estranged brother, Thom. A fantastically wealthy, neurotically over-prepared Silicon Valley CEO, he plans to ride out the crisis in a gilded desert bunker he built for maximum comfort and security. But the complicated history between the siblings is far from over, and what feels like the end of the world is just the beginning of several long-overdue reckonings --- which not everyone will survive.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062916488
BABYSITTER by Joyce Carol Oates (Domestic Thriller)
In the waning days of the turbulent 1970s, in the wake of unsolved child killings that have shocked Detroit, the lives of several residents are drawn together with tragic consequences. There is Hannah, wife of a prominent local businessman, who has begun an affair with a darkly charismatic stranger whose identity remains elusive; Mikey, a canny street hustler who finds himself on a chilling mission to rectify injustice; and the serial killer known as Babysitter, an enigmatic and terrifying figure at the periphery of elite Detroit. As Babysitter continues his rampage of abductions and killings, these individuals intersect with one another in startling and unexpected ways.
Vintage | 9780593468623
BACK TO THE GARDEN by Laurie R. King (Mystery)
A magnificent house, vast formal gardens, a golden family that shaped California, and a colorful past filled with now-famous artists: the Gardener Estate was a 12th-century Eden. And now, just as the Estate is preparing to move into a new future, restoration work on some of its art digs up a grim relic of the home’s past: a human skull, hidden away for decades. Inspector Raquel Laing has her work cut out for her. Fifty years ago, the Estate’s young heir, Rob Gardener, turned his palatial home into a counterculture commune of peace, love and equality. But that was also a time when serial killers preyed on innocents --- monsters like The Highwayman, whose case has just surged back into the public eye. Could the skull belong to one of his victims?
Bantam | 9780593496589
BARK TO THE FUTURE: A Chet & Bernie Mystery by Spencer Quinn (Mystery)
When Chet the dog and his human partner, PI Bernie Little, are approached by a down-and-out older man with a cardboard sign at an exit ramp, Bernie is shocked to discover the man is a former teammate from his high school baseball team. Chet and Bernie take Rocket out for a good meal, and later, Bernie investigates Rocket’s past, trying to figure out what exactly went wrong. Then, Rocket goes suspiciously missing. Bernie goes back to his old high school for answers, where much that he remembers turns out not to be true --- and there are powerful and dangerous people not happy with the questions Bernie is asking. Now, Chet and Bernie are plunged into a dangerous case where the past isn’t dead and the future could be fatal.
Forge Books | 9781250843296
THE BLAME GAME by Sandie Jones (Psychological Thriller)
As a psychologist specializing in domestic abuse, Naomi has found it hard to avoid becoming overly invested in her clients’ lives. But after helping Jacob make the decision to leave his wife, Naomi worries that she’s taken things too far. Then Jacob goes missing, and her files on him vanish. But as the police start asking questions about Jacob, Naomi’s own dark past emerges. And as the truth comes to light, it seems that it’s not just her clients who are in danger.
Minotaur Books | 9781250836922
BROTHER ALIVE by Zain Khalid (Fiction)
In 1990, three boys are born, unrelated but intertwined by circumstance: Dayo, Iseul and Youssef. They are adopted as infants and share a bedroom perched atop a mosque in one of Staten Island’s most diverse and underserved neighborhoods. The three boys are an inseparable trio, but conspicuous: Dayo is of Nigerian origin, Iseul is Korean, and Youssef is indeterminately Middle Eastern. Youssef shares everything with his brothers, except for one secret: he sees a hallucinatory double, an imaginary friend who seems absolutely real, a shapeshifting familiar he calls Brother. Brother persists as a companion into Youssef’s adult life, supporting him but also stealing his memories and shaking his grip on the world.
Grove Press | 9780802161727
CARRIE SOTO IS BACK by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Fiction)
By the time she retires from tennis, Carrie Soto is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed 20 Grand Slam titles. And if you ask Carrie, she is entitled to every one. But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning player named Nicki Chan. At 37 years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked “the Battle-Axe” anyway. Even if her body doesn’t move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley.
Ballantine Books | 9780593158708
CHRYSALIS by Lincoln Child (Technothriller)
Like millions of people around the world, Jeremy Logan (famed enigmalogist, or investigator of unexplained things) has grown to rely on his incredible new tech device. Made by Chrysalis, the global multibillion-dollar tech company, the small optical device connects people in a stunning new way, tapping into virtual reality for the first time on a wide scale. And yet, when Logan is summoned by Chrysalis to investigate a disturbing anomaly in the massive new product rollout, Logan is shocked to see the true scope of the massive company. He also quickly realizes that something in Chrysalis’s technology is very wrong and could be potentially devastating. The question is what, and where, is the danger coming from?
Anchor | 9780525562481
CORRECTIONS IN INK: A Memoir by Keri Blakinger (Memoir)
Growing up, Keri Blakinger threw herself into competitive figure skating with an all-consuming passion that led her to nationals. But when her skating career suddenly fell apart, that meant diving into self-destruction with the intensity she once saved for the ice. For the next nine years, Keri ricocheted from one dark place to the next. Then, on a cold day during her senior year, the police caught her walking down the street with a Tupperware full of heroin. Her arrest made the front page of the local news and landed her behind bars for nearly two years. After she walked out of her cell for the last time, Keri became a reporter dedicated to exposing our flawed prisons as only an insider could.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250774354
CRAZY BAO YOU by Lyn Liao (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Kimmie Park has finally met a man who gets her and laughs at her jokes. Matt West is kind, compassionate and a smoking hot FDNY firefighter. But they’ve never met in person. He doesn’t know that her life recently imploded when she very publicly quit her retail job and became a meme in a viral video, known as the woman who twerked as she tells off her boss. Kimmie now focuses on her Etsy shop designing purses and accessories. She’d posted pictures of her best friend Alicia with her merchandise, not realizing that people would assume Alicia was Kim from My Crafty Bao. As the chemistry between her and Matt sizzles, she knows that she needs to tell him the truth. Especially since Matt’s father, the CEO of a huge retail store, sees Kimmie’s shop and wants to partner with her.
LLB | 9798987686003
CULT CLASSIC by Sloane Crosley (Literary Fantasy/Humor)
One night in New York City's Chinatown, a woman is at a work reunion dinner with former colleagues when she excuses herself to buy a pack of cigarettes. On her way back, she runs into a former boyfriend. And then another. And…another. Soon nothing is quite what it seems as the city becomes awash with ghosts of heartbreaks past. What would normally pass for coincidence becomes something far stranger as our heroine, the recently engaged Lola, must contend not only with the viability of her current relationship but the fact that both her best friend and her former boss, a magazine editor turned mystical guru, might have an unhealthy investment in the outcome. Is it possible to have a happy ending in an age when the past is ever at your fingertips and sanity is for sale?
Picador | 9781250867179
DESERT STAR: A Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch Novel by Michael Connelly (Thriller)
A year has passed since LAPD detective Renée Ballard quit the force. But after the chief of police himself tells her she can write her own ticket within the department, Ballard takes back her badge, leaving “the Late Show” to rebuild and lead the cold case unit at the elite Robbery-Homicide Division. For years, Harry Bosch has been working a case that haunts him --- the murder of an entire family by a psychopath who still walks free. Ballard makes Bosch an offer: come volunteer as an investigator in her new Open-Unsolved Unit, and he can pursue his “white whale” with the resources of the LAPD behind him. The first priority for Ballard is to clear the unsolved rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538725016
FAIRY TALE by Stephen King (Supernatural Thriller/Dark Fantasy)
Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, but he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was 10, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself --- and his dad. When Charlie is 17, he meets a dog named Radar and her aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from it. Charlie starts doing jobs for Mr. Bowditch and loses his heart to Radar. Then, when Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie a cassette tape telling a story no one would believe. What Bowditch knows, and has kept secret all his long life, is that inside the shed is a portal to another world.
Scribner | 9781668002193
THE FAMILY REMAINS by Lisa Jewell (Psychological Thriller)
DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery and learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead 30 years ago. Rachel Rimmer’s husband, Michael, has been found dead in his cellar. The French police need Rachel to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn’t want to answer. After fleeing London 30 years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is coming home. While she settles in with her children and is just about to purchase their first-ever house, her brother takes off to find the boy from their shared past whose memory haunts their present. As they all race to discover answers to these convoluted mysteries, they will come to find that they’re connected in ways they never could have imagined.
Atria Books | 9781982178901
THE GAME SHE PLAYS by Siena Sterling (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
To everyone else it was “just” a weekend house party. But for American Nicola Harris, swept off her feet by aristocratic Englishman James Shuttleworth, the weekend is her first chance to penetrate his close-knit circle of posh friends. She is eager to fit in, but she can’t seem to navigate this insular world. Just as she begins to feel welcome, Juliet arrives. Mysterious, stunning, charismatic Juliet is also James’ first love. Although it seems she can do no wrong, outsider Nicola senses something poisonous in her presence, something that sparks insecurity, jealousy, betrayal and violence. Because Juliet is a champion game player, able to lure you into her circle by finding your most vulnerable spot. And when the game she plays turns deadly, everyone is a suspect.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063161849
GHOST EATERS by Clay McLeod Chapman (Supernatural Gothic Thriller/Horror)
Erin hasn’t been able to set a single boundary with her charismatic but reckless college ex-boyfriend, Silas. When he asks her to bail him out of rehab --- again --- she knows she needs to cut him off. But days after he gets out, Silas turns up dead of an overdose in their hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and Erin’s world falls apart. Then a friend tells her about Ghost, a new drug that allows users to see the dead. Wanna get haunted? he asks. Grieving and desperate for closure with Silas, Erin agrees to a pill-popping “séance.” But the drug has unfathomable side effects --- and once you take it, you can never go back.
Quirk Books | 9781683693789
HANDS DOWN: A Dick Francis Novel by Felix Francis (Thriller)
Sid Halley, a private investigator, has a new left hand, having had a transplant since his last appearance in REFUSAL. After receiving death threats, an ex-jockey trainer friend calls Sid to ask for his help, but Sid has his own problems to deal with --- like recovering from surgery and saving his crumbling marriage. When his friend’s stable yard is torched, horses killed, and the friend is found dead, Sid can only blame himself for not helping sooner. The police think it’s suicide, but Sid is not convinced after his friend’s terrified phone calls. Heavy with a guilty heart, Sid starts to investigate and soon finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy that cuts to the very heart of the integrity of British horse racing.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781639105533
HAS ANYONE SEEN MY TOES? by Christopher Buckley (Fiction/Humor)
During the pandemic, an aging screenwriter is holed up in a coastal South Carolina town with his beloved second wife, Peaches. He’s been binge-eating for a year and developed a notable rapport with the local fast-food chain Hippo King. He struggles to work --- on a ludicrous screenplay about a Nazi attempt to kidnap FDR and, naturally, an article for Etymology Today on English words of Carthaginian origin. He’s told Peaches so often about the origins of the world mayonnaise that she’s developed an aversion to using the condiment. He thinks he has COVID. His wife thinks he is losing his mind. Things were going from bad to worse even before his doctor suggested a battery of brain tests. He knows what that means: dementia!
Simon & Schuster | 9781982198053
HEDGE by Jane Delury (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Maud is a talented garden historian and devoted mom to daughters Ella and Louise. Motivated to reignite her career and escape her troubled marriage, she accepts a summer job restoring the garden of a lush 19th-century estate in the Hudson Valley. Reveling in her work and temporary independence, Maud relishes her days in the sun. While waiting for her daughters to join her at the end of their school year, she strikes up a friendship with a coworker, archaeologist Gabriel Crews. As the two share nightly dinners, their relationship grows more intimate, and Maud starts to imagine a future outside of her stifling marriage. Once Ella and Louise arrive, however, she is torn by her desire for Gabriel, her obligations to her daughters, and her growing concern for Ella’s dark moods.
Zibby Books | 9781958506042
HIDDEN PICTURES by Jason Rekulak (Supernatural Thriller)
Fresh out of rehab, Mallory Quinn takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy. Mallory immediately loves it and sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s lifeless body. Then, Teddy’s artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to wonder if these are glimpses of a long-unsolved murder, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force. Knowing just how crazy it all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it’s too late.
Flatiron Books | 9781250819352
THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE by Riley Sager (Psychological Thriller)
Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress, has retreated to her family’s lake house in Vermont. She passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple living in the house across the lake. One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other --- and the longer Casey watches --- it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage isn’t as perfect as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey immediately suspects Tom of foul play. What she doesn’t realize is that there’s more to the story than meets the eye --- and that shocking secrets can lurk beneath the most placid of surfaces.
Dutton | 9780593183212
THE INVESTIGATOR: A Letty Davenport Novel by John Sandford (Mystery/Thriller)
A recent Stanford grad, Letty Davenport is restless and bored in a desk job for U.S. Senator Colles. But then Colles offers her a carrot: feet-on-the-ground investigative work, in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security. Several oil companies in Texas have reported thefts of crude. Rumor has it that a fairly ugly militia group --- led by a woman known only as Lorelai --- might be involved. Colles wants to know if the money is going to them, and if so, what they’re planning. Letty is partnered with a DHS investigator, John Kaiser, and they head to Texas. When the case quickly turns deadly, they know they’re on the track of something bigger. Lorelai and her group have set in motion an explosive plan...and the clock is ticking down.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593714805
LAST CALL AT THE NIGHTINGALE by Katharine Schellman (Historical Mystery)
New York, 1924. Vivian Kelly's days are filled with drudgery, from the tenement lodging she shares with her sister to the dress shop where she sews for hours every day. But at night, she escapes to The Nightingale, an underground dance hall where illegal liquor flows and the band plays the Charleston with reckless excitement. With a bartender willing to slip her a free glass of champagne and friends who know the owner, Vivian can lose herself in the music. But then she discovers a body behind the club. With too many people assuming she knows more about the crime than she does, Vivian finds herself caught between the dangers of New York's underground and the world of the city's wealthy and careless.
Minotaur Books | 9781250888228
THE LATECOMER by Jean Hanff Korelitz (Fiction)
THE LATECOMER follows the story of the wealthy, New York City-based Oppenheimer family, from the first meeting of parents Salo and Johanna, under tragic circumstances, to their triplets born during the early days of IVF. As children, the three siblings --- Harrison, Lewyn and Sally --- feel no strong familial bond and cannot wait to go their separate ways, even as their father becomes more distanced and their mother more desperate. When the triplets leave for college, Johanna, faced with being truly alone, makes the decision to have a fourth child. What role will the “latecomer” play in this fractured family?
Celadon Books | 9781250790781
THE LITTLE ITALIAN HOTEL by Phaedra Patrick (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Acclaimed radio host and advice expert Ginny Splinter is sure that her husband, Adrian, will love the special trip to Italy she’s planned for their 30th wedding anniversary. But when Ginny presents the gift to Adrian, he surprises her with a divorce. Beside herself with heartache, Ginny impulsively invites four heartbroken listeners to join her in Italy instead while live on air. From hiking the hills of Bologna to riding a gondola in Venice to sharing stories around the dining table of the little Italian hotel, Ginny and her newfound company embark on a vacation of healing. However, when Adrian starts to rethink their relationship, Ginny must decide whether to commit to her marriage or start afresh, alone. And an unexpected stranger may hold the key to a very different future.
Park Row | 9780778387121
A LITTLE RAY OF SUNSHINE by Kristan Higgins (Fiction)
Paperback Original
A kid walks into your bookstore and… Guess what? He’s your son. The one you put up for adoption 18 years ago. The one you never told anyone about. Surprise! It’s a huge surprise to his adoptive mother, Monica, who thought she had a close relationship with Matthew, her nearly adult son. But apparently, he felt the need to secretly arrange a vacation to Cape Cod for the summer so he could meet his birth mother…without a word to either her or his dad. It’s also a surprise to Harlow, the woman who secretly placed her baby for adoption so many years ago. When Matthew walks into Harlow’s store, she faints. Monica panics. And all their assumptions --- about what being a parent really means --- explode. This summer will be full of more surprises as both their families are redefined.
Berkley | 9780593547618
LOOK CLOSER by David Ellis (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Simon and Vicky couldn’t seem more normal: a wealthy Chicago couple, he a respected law professor, she an advocate for domestic violence victims. But one thing’s for sure: absolutely nothing is what it seems. The pair are far from normal, and one of them just may be a killer. When the body of a beautiful socialite is found hanging in a mansion in a nearby suburb, Simon and Vicky’s secrets begin to unravel. A secret whirlwind affair. A 20-million-dollar trust fund about to come due. A decades-long grudge and obsession with revenge. These are just a few of the lies that make up the complex web...and they will have devastating consequences. And while both Vicky and Simon are liars, just who exactly is conning who?
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780425280867
MARION LANE AND THE RAVEN’S REVENGE by T.A. Willberg (Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
London, 1960. Marion Lane, a 25-year-old apprentice detective at the elusive Miss Brickett’s Investigations & Inquiries, is busier than ever and determined to prove herself worthy of an official Inquirer badge. But when her close friend's girlfriend, Darcy, is targeted by a dangerous gang leader and seeks out the Inquirers’ assistance, Marion cannot help but get involved. Just when Marion thinks she has the situation under control, Darcy disappears and the agency receives a package containing a dead raven. Everyone is puzzled by what the threat could mean, except for Marion. She recognizes it as the same calling card left on her mother's doorstep just before she died.
Park Row | 9780778334194
MOTHER OCEAN FATHER NATION by Nishant Batsha (Fiction)
On a small Pacific island, a brother and sister tune in to a breaking news radio bulletin. It is 1985, and an Indian grocer has just been attacked by nativists aligned with the recent military coup. Bhumi hears this news from her locked-down dorm room in the capital city. But when her friendship with the daughter of a prominent government official becomes a liability, she must flee her unstable home for California. Jaipal is stuck working in the family store, avoiding their father’s wrath, with nothing but his hidden desires to distract him. Desperate for money and connection, he seizes a sudden opportunity to take his life into his own hands for the first time. But his decision may leave him vulnerable to the island’s escalating volatility.
Ecco | 9780063211797
PATH LIT BY LIGHTNING: The Life of Jim Thorpe by David Maraniss (Sports/Biography)
Jim Thorpe rose to world fame as a mythic talent who excelled at every sport. He won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, was an All-American football player at the Carlisle Indian School, the star of the first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and played major league baseball for John McGraw’s New York Giants. Even in a golden age of sports celebrities, he was one of a kind. But despite his colossal skills, Thorpe’s life was a struggle against the odds. For all his travails, though, Thorpe did not succumb. The man survived, complications and all, and so did the myth.
Simon & Schuster | 9781476748429
THE RADCLIFFE LADIES’ READING CLUB by Julia Bryan Thomas (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
Massachusetts, 1954. With bags packed alongside her heavy heart, Alice Campbell escaped halfway across the country and found herself in front of a derelict building tucked among the cobblestone streets of Cambridge. She turns it into the enchanting bookshop of her dreams, knowing firsthand the power of books to comfort the brokenhearted. The Cambridge Bookshop soon becomes a haven for Tess, Caroline, Evie and Merritt, who are all navigating the struggles of being newly independent college women in a world that seems to want to keep them in the kitchen. But when a member of the group finds herself shattered, everything they know about themselves will be called into question.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728248578
REBELS AT SEA: Privateering in the American Revolution by Eric Jay Dolin (History)
The heroic story of the founding of the U.S. Navy during the Revolution has been told many times, yet largely missing from maritime histories of America’s first war is the ragtag fleet of private vessels that truly revealed the new nation’s character ---- above all, its ambition and entrepreneurial ethos. In REBELS AT SEA, bestselling historian Eric Jay Dolin corrects that significant omission and contends that privateers, as they were called, were in fact critical to the American victory.
Liveright | 9781324093640
RELENTLESS MELT by Jeremy P. Bushnell (Supernatural Historical Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
By day, Artie Quick holds down a job as a salesgirl in women’s accessories at Filene’s. By night, she disguises herself as a man to pursue studies in Criminal Investigation at the YMCA's Evening Institute for Younger Men. Artie sets out in search of something to investigate with her pal Theodore, an upper-crust young bachelor whose interest in Boston's occult counterculture has drawn him into the study of magic. Their journey begins on Boston Common --- where the tramps and the groundskeepers swap rumors about unearthly screams and other unsettling anomalies --- but soon they uncover a series of violent abductions that take them on an adventure from the highest corridors of power to the depths of an abandoned mass transit tunnel, its excavation suspiciously never completed.
Melville House | 9781685890322
ROGUES: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe (True Crime)
ROGUES brings together a dozen of Patrick Radden Keefe’s most celebrated articles from The New Yorker. Here, he brilliantly explores the intricacies of forging $150,000 vintage wines, examines if a whistleblower who dared to expose money laundering at a Swiss bank is a hero or a fabulist, spends time in Vietnam with Anthony Bourdain, chronicles the quest to bring down a cheerful international black market arms merchant, and profiles a passionate death penalty attorney who represents the “worst of the worst,” among other bravura works of literary journalism.
Anchor | 9780593467732
SAME TIME NEXT SUMMER by Annabel Monaghan (Romance)
Paperback Original
Sam’s life is on track. She has the perfect doctor fiancé, Jack, a great job in Manhattan, and is about to tour a wedding venue near her family’s Long Island beach house. Yet the minute she arrives, Sam senses something is off. Wyatt is here. Her Wyatt. But there’s no reason for a 30-year-old engaged woman to feel panicked around the guy who broke her heart when she was 17. Right? Yet being back at this beach, hearing notes from Wyatt’s guitar float across the night air from next door as if no time has passed --- Sam’s memories come flooding back: the feel of Wyatt’s skin on hers, their nights in the treehouse, and the truth behind their split. Sam remembers who she used to be, and as Wyatt reenters her life their connection is as undeniable as it always was. She will have to make a choice.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593544969
THE SERPENT IN HEAVEN by Charlaine Harris (Dark Fantasy/Thriller)
Felicia, Lizbeth Rose’s half-sister and a student at the Grigori Rasputin school in San Diego --- capital of the Holy Russian Empire --- is caught between her own secrets and powerful family struggles. As a granddaughter of Rasputin, she provides an essential service to the hemophiliac Tsar Alexei, providing him the blood transfusions that keep him alive. Felicia is treated like a nonentity at the bedside of the tsar, and at the school she's seen as a charity case with no magical ability. But when Felicia is snatched outside the school, the facts of her heritage begin to surface. Felicia turns out to be far more than the Russian-Mexican Lizbeth rescued. As Felicia’s history unravels and her true abilities become known, she comes under attack from all directions. Only her courage will keep her alive.
Gallery/Saga Press | 9781982182502
SOLITO: A Memoir by Javier Zamora (Memoir)
Nine-year-old Javier Zamora embarks on a 3,000-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He leaves behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone amid a group of strangers and a “coyote” hired to lead them to safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks. But he cannot foresee the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns, arrests and deceptions that await him. Nor can he know that those two weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside fellow migrants who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family.
Hogarth | 9780593498088
THE SPY WHO KNEW TOO MUCH: An Ex-CIA Officer's Quest Through a Legacy of Betrayal by Howard Blum (True Crime)
Tennent “Pete” Bagley was once a rising star in America’s spy aristocracy. But the star that burned so brightly exploded when Bagley --- who suspected a mole had burrowed deep into the agency’s core --- was believed himself to be the mole. After a year-long investigation, Bagley was finally exonerated, but the accusations tarnished his reputation and tainted his career. When Bagley’s daughter Christina, a CIA analyst, married another intelligence officer who was the son of the man who had played a key role in the investigation into Bagley, it caused a painful rift between the two. But then came former CIA officer John Paisley’s strange death. Pete launches his own investigation that takes him deep into his own past and his own longtime hunt for a mole.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780063054226
TAKING BERLIN: The Bloody Race to Defeat the Third Reich by Martin Dugard (History)
Fall, 1944. Paris has been liberated, but this diversion on the road to Berlin has given the Germans time to regroup. The American and British armies press on from the west, facing the enemy time and again, all while American general George Patton and British field marshal Bernard Montgomery vie for supremacy as the Allies’ top battlefield commander. Meanwhile, the Soviets begin to squeeze Hitler’s crumbling Reich from the east. Led by Generals Zhukov and Konev, the Red Army launches millions of soldiers against the Germans. As both the Anglo-American alliance and the Soviets set their sights on claiming the capital city of Nazi Germany, Churchill seeks to ensure Britain’s place in a new world divided by Roosevelt’s America and Stalin’s Soviet Union.
Dutton Caliber | 9780593187449
THESE IMPOSSIBLE THINGS by Salma El-Wardany (Fiction)
It’s always been Malak, Kees and Jenna against the world. Since childhood, under the watchful eyes of their parents, aunties and uncles, they’ve learned to live their own lives alongside the expectations of being good Muslim women. With growing older and the stakes of love and life growing higher, the delicate balancing act between rebellion and religion is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate. As their lives begin to take different paths, Malak, Kees and Jenna --- now on the precipice of true adulthood --- must find a way back to each other as they reconcile faith, family and tradition with their own needs and desires.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538709313
TIME IS A MOTHER by Ocean Vuong (Poetry)
In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother’s death, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel ON EARTH WE’RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS, Vuong contends with personal loss, the meaning of family, and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave and propulsive, Vuong’s poems circle fragmented lives to find restoration as well as the epicenter of the break.
Penguin Books | 9780593300251
THE TWO LIVES OF SARA by Catherine Adel West (Historical Fiction)
Sara King boards the bus to Memphis, hoping to outrun her past in Chicago. She is welcomed with open arms by Mama Sugar, a kindly matriarch and owner of the popular boardinghouse The Scarlet Poplar. Like many cities in early 1960s America, Memphis is still segregated, but change is in the air. Black literature and music provide the stories and soundtrack for these turbulent and hopeful times, and Sara finds herself drawn in by conversations of education, politics and a brighter tomorrow with Jonas, a local schoolteacher. Romance blooms between them, but secrets from Mama Sugar’s past threaten their newfound happiness. Sara and Jonas are soon caught in the crosshairs, leading Sara to make decisions that will reshape the rest of their lives.
Park Row | 9780778387077
UNFORTUNATELY YOURS by Tessa Bailey (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
After losing her job and her fiancé in one fell swoop, Natalie Vos returned home to lick her wounds. A few months later, she has sufficiently drowned her sorrows in cabernet and is ready to get back on her feet. She just needs her trust fund to finance her new business venture. Unfortunately, the terms require she marry before she can have the money. And well, dumped, remember? But Natalie is desperate enough to propose to a man who makes her want to kill him --- and kiss him, in equal measure. August Cates may own a vineyard, but he doesn’t know jack about making wine. He’s determined to do his late best friend proud, no matter what it takes. But no bank will give him the loan he needs to turn the business around. And then the gorgeous, feisty heiress knocks on his door.
Avon | 9780063239036
On Sale the Week of June 12th in Hardcover
June 13th
BE MINE: A Frank Bascombe Novel by Richard Ford (Fiction)
Over the course of four celebrated works of fiction and almost 40 years, Richard Ford has crafted an ambitious, incisive and singular view of American life as lived. Unconstrained, astute, provocative and often laugh-out-loud funny, Frank Bascombe is once more our guide to the great American midway. Now in the twilight of life, a man who has occupied many colorful lives --- sportswriter, father, husband, ex-husband, friend, real estate agent --- Bascombe finds himself in the most sorrowing role of all: caregiver to his son, Paul, diagnosed with ALS. On a shared winter odyssey to Mount Rushmore, Frank, in typical Bascombe fashion, faces down the mortality that is assured each of us. In doing so, he confronts what happiness might signify at the end of days.
Ecco | 9780061692086
THE BOOK OF PET LOVE AND LOSS: Words of Comfort and Wisdom from Remarkable People by Sara Bader (Self-Help/Quotations)
An animal’s love is deep, uncomplicated, unconditional and forgiving. Our lives are intricately intertwined with our pets, and together, over time, we establish rituals that are as steady as a metronome. It’s no wonder that the grief is crushing when they depart. Even those who’ve had time to prepare describe feeling stunned, devastated and cracked in two. THE BOOK OF PET LOVE AND LOSS is a collection of quotations --- poignant thoughts and memories discovered in letters, journals, diaries, memoirs and other original sources --- from beloved cultural figures who understood this singular experience so deeply, they felt compelled to write about it. Their comforting and wise words are what every animal lover needs on this journey of heartbreak and healing.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982134310
CODE OF THE HILLS: A Mick Hardin Novel by Chris Offutt (Literary Thriller)
Mick Hardin is back in the hills of Kentucky. He’d planned to touch down briefly before heading to France, marking the end to his 20-year Army career. In Rocksalt, his sister Linda the sheriff is investigating the murder of Pete Lowe, a sought-after mechanic at the local racetrack. After another body is found, Linda and her deputy Johnny Boy Tolliver wonder if the two murders are related. Linda steps into harm’s way just as a third body turns up and Mick ends up being deputized again, uncovering evidence of illegal cockfighting and trying to connect all the crimes.
Grove Press | 9780802161918
THE DROWNING WOMAN by Robyn Harding (Psychological Thriller)
Early one morning, Lee Gulliver sees a sobbing woman throw herself into the ocean. She hauls the woman back to the surface, but instead of appreciation, she is met with fury. Hazel tells her that she wanted to die, that she’s trapped in a toxic, abusive marriage, that she’s a prisoner in her own home. Out of options, Hazel retreats to her gilded cage, and Lee thinks she’s seen the last of her --- until her unexpected return the next morning. Bonded by disparate but difficult circumstances, the women soon strike up a close and unlikely friendship. And then one day, Hazel makes a shocking request: she wants Lee to help her disappear. It’ll be easy, Hazel assures her, but Lee soon learns that nothing is as it seems and Hazel may not be the friend Lee thought she was.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538726761
THE FAVOR by Adele Griffin (Fiction)
At I'll Have Seconds, a high-end fairy tale vintage dress shop in Manhattan, Nora Hammond loves nothing better than pairing a rare find with the perfect client. At home, Nora grapples with the bleaker reality of enormous debt, a tiny apartment, and an ever-dwindling hope that she and her husband Jacob will have a family of their own. When socialite Evelyn Elliot charges into Nora's life, the women spark an immediate connection, and Nora is jettisoned into the heady whirl of New York's moneyed elite. As Evelyn's stylist and confidante, Nora needs to learn all new rules of engagement for the uber-wealthy. But it isn't until Evelyn decides her next cause is to carry a baby for Nora that these rules --- and this unlikely friendship --- are tested.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728264059
THE FIVE-STAR WEEKEND by Elin Hilderbrand (Fiction)
Hollis Shaw’s life seems picture-perfect. She’s the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis’ perfect life --- her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline --- grow deeper. So when Hollis hears about something called a “Five-Star Weekend” --- one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her life: her teenage years, her 20s, her 30s and midlife --- she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend. But the weekend doesn’t turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316258777
FORGIVING IMELDA MARCOS by Nathan Go (Fiction)
After suffering a serious heart injury, Lito Macaraeg reaches out to his estranged son --- a journalist who lives in the United States --- to promise him a scoop: the story of a secret meeting between Imelda Marcos and Corazon Aquino. Imelda was the flamboyant wife of the late Philippine dictator; Corazon was the wife of the opposition politician who was allegedly killed by the Marcoses. An unassuming housewife, Corazon rose up after her husband’s death to lead the massive rallies that eventually toppled the Marcos dictatorship. Lito was Corazon’s personal driver for many years, and her only companion on the journey from Manila to Baguio City to meet Imelda. Throughout the long drive, Lito’s loyalty to his employer is pitted against his own moral uncertainty about her desire to forgive Imelda.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374606947
GIRLFRIEND ON MARS by Deborah Willis (Fiction/Satire)
Amber Kivinen is moving to Mars. Or at least she will be if she wins a chance to join “MarsNow.” She and 23 reality TV contestants from around the world are competing for two seats on the first human-led mission to Mars, sponsored by billionaire Geoff Task. Meanwhile, Amber’s boyfriend, Kevin, was content going nowhere until Amber left him --- and their hydroponic weed business --- behind. As he tends to (and smokes) the plants growing in their basement apartment, Kevin tunes in to find out why the love of his life is so determined to leave the planet with somebody else. On screen, Amber competes in globe-trotting, “Survivor”-meets-“Star Trek” challenges and seems like she might be falling for fellow contestant Adam. But is that real, or is it just a tactic to keep from being voted off?
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393285918
INSIDE THREAT by Matthew Quirk (Political Thriller)
The White House has been breached, and the President is forced to flee to a massive doomsday bunker outside DC to defend against whatever comes next. Only the most trusted agents and officials are allowed in with him. Among them is Erik Hill, who has given his life to the Secret Service. Despite his growing disillusionment from seeing Washington corruption up close, Erik can’t ignore years of instincts honed on the job. The government is under attack, and no one is better equipped to face down the threat than he is. The evidence leads him to a conspiracy at the highest levels of power. As the killers strike inside the bunker, it will take everything Erik has to save his people, himself and his country.
William Morrow | 9780063051683
KISS ME IN THE CORAL LOUNGE: Intimate Confessions from a Happy Marriage by Helen Ellis (Humor/Essays)
Welcome to the Coral Lounge, a room in Helen Ellis’ New York City apartment painted such an exuberant shade that a Peeping Tom left a sticky note asking for the color. It is in the Coral Lounge where all the parties happen. A game called “What’s in the box?” makes its uproarious debut, the Puzzle Posse pounces on a 500-piece jigsaw of a beheaded priest, and guests don blindfolds for a raucous bridal shower. When the pandemic shuts down the city, the Coral Lounge becomes a place of refuge, where Helen and her husband binge-watch Joan Collins’ “Dynasty,” dote on two spoiled cats, and where Helen discovers that even 20 years into marriage, her husband still makes her heart pitter patter.
Doubleday | 9780385548205
MADDALENA AND THE DARK by Julia Fine (Gothic Historical Fiction)
Venice, 1717. Fifteen-year-old Luisa has only wanted one thing: to be the best at violin. As a student at the Ospedale della Pietà, she hopes to join the highest ranks of its illustrious girls’ orchestra and become a protégé of the great Antonio Vivaldi. Luisa is good at violin, but she is not the best. She has peers, but she does not have friends. Until Maddalena. After a scandal threatens her noble family’s reputation, Maddalena is sent to the Pietà to preserve her marriage prospects. When she meets Luisa, Maddalena feels the stirrings of a friendship unlike anything she has known. But Maddalena has a secret: she has hatched a dangerous plot to rescue her future her own way.
Flatiron Books | 9781250867872
NEVER GIVE UP: A Prairie Family's Story by Tom Brokaw (Memoir)
Tom Brokaw’s father, Red, left school in the second grade to work in the family hotel --- the Brokaw House, established in Bristol, South Dakota, by R. P. Brokaw in 1883. Eventually, through work on construction jobs, Red developed an exceptional talent for machines. Tom’s mother, Jean, was the daughter of a farmer who lost everything during the Great Depression. Although they didn’t have much money early in their marriage, Red’s philosophy of “Never give up” served them well. His big break came after World War II, when he went to work for the Army Corps of Engineers building great dams across the Missouri River. Late in life, Red surprised his family by recording his memories of the hard times of his early life, reflections that inspired this book.
Random House | 9780593596371
NIGHTBLOOM by Peace Adzo Medie (Fiction)
When Selasi and Akorfa were young girls in Ghana, they were more than just cousins; they were inseparable. They would do anything for each other, imploring their parents to let them be together, sharing their secrets, desires and private jokes. Then Selasi begins to change, becoming hostile and quiet; her grades suffer, and she builds a space around herself, shutting Akorfa out. Meanwhile, Akorfa is accepted to an American university with the goal of becoming a doctor. Although hopeful that she can create a fuller life as a woman in America, she discovers the insidious ways that racism places obstacles in her path once she leaves Ghana. It takes a crisis to bring the friends back together, with Selasi’s secret revealed and Akorfa forced to reckon with her role in their estrangement.
Algonquin Books | 9781643752846
THE PUZZLE MASTER by Danielle Trussoni (Supernatural/Literary Thriller)
Once a promising Midwestern football star, Mike Brink was transformed by a traumatic brain injury that caused a rare medical condition: acquired savant syndrome. The injury left him with a mental superpower --- he can solve puzzles in ways ordinary people can’t. But it also left him deeply isolated. Everything changes after Brink meets Jess Price, a woman serving 30 years in prison for murder who hasn’t spoken a word since her arrest five years before. When Price draws a perplexing puzzle, her psychiatrist believes it will explain her crime and calls Brink to solve it. What begins as a desire to crack an alluring cipher quickly morphs into an obsession with Price herself. She soon reveals that there is something more urgent and dangerous, behind her silence, thrusting Brink into a hunt for the truth.
Random House | 9780593595299
REPRODUCTION by Louisa Hall (Fiction)
A novelist attempts to write a book about Mary Shelley, author of FRANKENSTEIN, a mother and artist whose harrowing pregnancies reveal the cost of human reproduction. Soon, however, the novelist’s own painful experiences of pregnancy and childbirth, as well as her increasing awareness of larger threats from climate change to the pandemic, force her to give up on the book and turn instead to writing a contemporary FRANKENSTEIN, based on the story of an old friend who mysteriously reappears in her life.
Ecco | 9780063283626
RETURN TO VALETTO by Dominic Smith (Historical Fiction)
On a hilltop in Umbria sits Valetto. Once a thriving village, centuries of earthquakes, landslides and the lure of a better life have left it neglected. Only 10 residents remain, including the widows Serafino --- three eccentric sisters and their steely centenarian mother --- who live quietly in their medieval villa. Then their nephew and grandson, Hugh, returns. But someone else has arrived before him, laying claim to the cottage where Hugh spent his childhood summers. The captivating and no-nonsense Elisa Tomassi asserts that the family patriarch, Aldo Serafino, a resistance fighter whom her own family harbored, gave the cottage to them in gratitude. This revelation unravels a secret that has impacted Valetto across generations. Who will answer for the crimes of the past?
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374607685
ROBERT B. PARKER'S BAD INFLUENCE: A Sunny Randall Novel by Alison Gaylin (Mystery)
Sunny Randall’s newest client, Blake, seems to have it all: he is an Instagram influencer, with all the perks the lifestyle entails --- a beautiful girlfriend, wealth and adoring fans. But one of those fans has turned ugly, and Sunny is brought on board by Blake’s manager, Bethany, to protect him and to uncover who is out to kill him. In doing so, she investigates a glamorous world rife with lies and schemes…and ties to a dangerous criminal scene. When Bethany goes missing and the threats against Blake escalate, Sunny realizes that in order to solve this case, she has to find out exactly who Blake and Bethany are, behind the Instagram filters. While digging into their pasts, she is also forced to confront her own, as old friends --- and ex-husbands --- reappear.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593540527
ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH: A Tale of Boom and Bust in the New Wild West by Finn Murphy (Memoir)
After decades as a long-haul trucker, Finn Murphy left the road and settled in Boulder County, Colorado. Before long he noticed that many of his neighbors were captivated by the prospect of vast riches in “the Hemp Space.” When hemp was legalized, after 80 years in federal exile, Colorado became the center of a hemp growing and processing boom. Figuring he’d harvest some of that easy money, Murphy bought a 36-acre farm. What could go wrong? Well, pretty much everything. ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH is the comic chronicle of a wild year as Murphy follows his Great American Dream, gradually losing his shirt but not his spirit.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324006107
SALLY BRADY'S ITALIAN ADVENTURE by Christina Lynch (Historical Fiction)
What if you found yourself in the middle of a war armed only with lipstick and a sense of humor? Abandoned as a child in Los Angeles in 1931, Dust Bowl refugee Sally Brady convinces a Hollywood movie star to adopt her, and she grows up to be an effervescent gossip columnist secretly satirizing Europe’s upper crust. By 1940, saucy Sally is conquering Fascist-era Rome with cheek and charm. A good deed leaves Sally stranded in wartime Italy, brandishing a biting wit, a fake passport, and an elastic sense of right and wrong. To save her friends and find her way home through a land of besieged castles and villas, Sally must combat tragedy with comedy, tie up pompous bureaucrats in their own red tape, force the cruel to be kind, and unravel the mystery, weight and meaning of family.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250286154
THE SPECTACULAR by Fiona Davis (Historical Fiction)
New York City, 1956: When 19-year-old Marion Brooks comes across an opportunity to audition for the Radio City Rockettes, she jumps at the chance to exchange her predictable future for the dazzling life of a performer. Meanwhile, the city is reeling from a string of bombings orchestrated by a person the press has nicknamed the “Big Apple Bomber." With the public in an uproar, the police turn to Peter Griggs, a young doctor who espouses a radical new technique: psychological profiling. As both Marion and Peter find themselves unexpectedly pulled into the police search for the bomber, Marion realizes that if she hopes to catch the culprit, she’ll need to stand out and take a terrifying risk. In doing so, she may be forced to sacrifice everything she’s worked for, as well as the people she loves the most.
Dutton | 9780593184042
TRIAL by Richard North Patterson (Legal Thriller)
Malcolm Hill, a Black 18-year-old voting rights worker, is stopped by a white sheriff’s deputy on a dark country road in rural Georgia. His single mother, Allie, America’s leading voting rights advocate, restlessly awaits his return before police inform her that Malcolm has been arrested for murder. In Washington, D.C., the rising, young white congressman Chase Brevard of Massachusetts is watching the morning news with his girlfriend, only to find his life transformed in a single moment by the appearance of Malcolm’s photograph. Suddenly all three are enveloped in a media firestorm that threatens their lives --- especially Malcolm’s.
Post Hill Press | 9781637588062
WHAT REMAINS by Wendy Walker (Thriller)
Detective Elise Sutton has dedicated her life to creating a sense of order --- at work with her ex-marine partner; at home with her husband and two young daughters; and within, battling her own demons. Elise has everything under control, until one afternoon, when she walks into a department store and is forced to make a terrible choice: to save one life, she will have to take another. Elise is hailed as a hero, but she doesn't feel like one. Steeped in guilt, and on a leave of absence from work, she's numb, even to her husband and daughters, until she connects with Wade Austin, the tall man whose life she saved. But Elise soon realizes that he isn't who he says he is. In fact, Wade Austin isn't even his real name. The tall man is a ghost, one who will set off a terrifying game of cat and mouse, threatening Elise and the people she loves most.
Blackstone Publishing | 9798200872527
THE WOMAN INSIDE by M.T. Edvardsson (Domestic Thriller)
Bill Olsson, recently widowed, is desperate to provide for his daughter, Sally. Struggling to pay rent, he welcomes a lodger into their home: Karla, a law student and aspiring judge, who works as a housekeeper to make ends meet. Her clients are the Rytters, an incredibly wealthy couple who hide behind closed doors. The wife is ill and hasn’t left the house in months. The husband is controlling and obsessive. Is he just a worried husband, concerned for his wife’s health? Or is there something more sinister at play? As Bill’s situation becomes more dire, Karla is forced to make a difficult choice. And when the Rytters wind up dead, and Karla is pulled in for questioning, she’s made to defend some parts of her past she’d rather not revisit.
Celadon Books | 9781250204622
YOU CAN TRUST ME by Wendy Heard (Psychological Thriller)
Summer and Leo travel around sunny California in Summer’s tricked-out Land Cruiser. It’s not a glamorous life, but it gives them the freedom they crave from the painful pasts they’ve left behind. Summer is a skilled pickpocket, a small-time thief and a con artist --- and Leo has learned a trick or two. Eager for a big score, Leo catches in her crosshairs Michael Forrester, a self-made billionaire and philanthropist. When her charm wins him over, Leo is rewarded with an invitation to his private island off the California coastline for a night of fabulous excess. But when Leo disappears, Summer infiltrates Michael’s island to find out what really happened. Trapped in a scheme she helped initiate, could Summer have met her match?
Bantam | 9780593599310
YOU WERE ALWAYS MINE by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza (Fiction)
Cinnamon Haynes has fought hard for a life she never thought was possible. Her life’s mantra is to be good, quiet and grateful. Until something shifts, and Cinnamon is suddenly haunted by a terrifying question: “Is this all there is?” Daisy Dunlap has had her own share of problems in her 19 years on earth. Her hopes for her future are threatened when she gets unexpectedly pregnant. She hides this development from everyone close to her and then makes a drastic decision with devastating consequences. When Cinnamon finds an abandoned baby in a park and takes the newborn into her home, the ripple effects of this decision risk exposing the truth about Cinnamon’s own past, which she has gone to great pains to portray as idyllic to everyone…even herself.
Atria Books | 9781668005507
On Sale the Week of June 12th in Paperback
June 13th
BIG GIRL by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan (Fiction)
Eight-year-old Malaya Clondon hates when her mother drags her to Weight Watchers meetings in the church’s stuffy basement community center. For Malaya, the pressures of going to a predominantly white Upper East Side prep school are compounded by the high expectations passed down over generations from her sharp-tongued grandmother and her mother. But their relentless prescriptions don’t work on her. As Malaya comes of age in a rapidly gentrifying 1990s Harlem, she strains to understand “ladyness” and fit neatly within the suffocating confines of a so-called “femininity” that holds no room for her body. Meanwhile, tensions at home mount as rapidly as Malaya’s weight. Nothing seems to help --- until a family tragedy forces her to finally face the source of her hunger on her own terms.
Liveright | 9781324093596
THE BODYGUARD by Katherine Center (Romantic Comedy)
Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindergarten teacher than somebody who could kill you with a wine bottle opener. Or a ballpoint pen. Or a dinner napkin. But the truth is, she’s an Executive Protection Agent (aka "bodyguard"), and she just got hired to protect superstar actor Jack Stapleton from his middle-aged, corgi-breeding stalker. When Jack’s mom gets sick, he comes home to the family’s Texas ranch to help out. There's only one catch: He doesn’t want his family to know about his stalker. Or the bodyguard thing. And so Hannah --- against her will and her better judgment --- finds herself pretending to be Jack’s girlfriend as a cover. But the more time she spends with Jack, the more real it all starts to seem.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250219411
THE BONE RIDDLE: An Alexa Glock Forensics Mystery by Sara E. Johnson (Mystery)
Paperback Original
Cape Kidnappers, New Zealand: On a cliff overlooking the ocean and one of the largest gannet bird colonies in the world, American CEO Harlan Quinn has built his "Plan B" --- a lavish estate, complete with an underground doomsday bunker. The cleaning staff finds a body in the house. It appears the victim died of natural causes, but advanced facial decomposition leaves him unidentifiable. Forensic odontologist Alexa Glock is called in to identify the body via dental records. Teeth never lie. But something odd in the deceased's mouth sets Alexa and the team on a new track --- to find the murderer. As they work to narrow the suspect field, a second homicide --- and a stolen cache of weapons from a locked room in the bunker --- means they're deathly close to the truth.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781728257341
THE CAFÉ AT BEACH END by RaeAnne Thayne (Fiction)
Paperback Original
When Meredith Collins was a child, the little beach town of Cape Sanctuary lived up to its name. Now she’s returning in disgrace. Her late ex-husband swindled investors out of millions of dollars and made Meredith a figure of scorn --- though she knew nothing about his scheme. But she still has the beach cottage she inherited from her grandmother and half ownership of the local café. That’s if her cousin, Tori, will let her through the door. Tori and Meredith were once as close as sisters --- until Meredith chose her neglectful parents’ expectations over their bond. Now widowed with a teenage daughter, Tori isn’t setting out a welcome mat for the woman who let her down so badly. While Meredith tries to make a fresh start, she is drawn to a mysterious writer renting the cottage next door.
Canary Street Press | 9781335458162
COUNTERFEIT by Kirstin Chen (Fiction)
Ava Wong is a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son and a beautiful home. But beneath this façade, Ava’s world is crumbling. Enter Winnie Fang, Ava’s enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. Now, 20 years later, Winnie is looking to reconnect with her old friend. She has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury handbags and now needs someone with a U.S. passport to help manage her business. But when their spectacular success is threatened and Winnie vanishes once again, Ava is left to face the consequences.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063119550
DEATH AND THE CONJUROR: A Joseph Spector Locked-Room Mystery by Tom Mead (Historical Mystery)
In 1930s London, celebrity psychiatrist Anselm Rees is discovered dead in his locked study. There are no clues, no witnesses and no evidence of the murder weapon. The Scotland Yard detective on the case calls on retired stage magician-turned-part-time sleuth Joseph Spector, who has a knack for explaining the inexplicable, but even he finds that there is more to this mystery than meets the eye. When the investigation dovetails into that of an apparently impossible theft, the detectives consider the possibility that the two transgressions are related. And when a second murder occurs, this time in an impenetrable elevator, they realize that the crime wave will become even more deadly unless they can catch the culprit soon.
Mysterious Press | 9781613164235
DeFORD BAILEY: A Black Star in Early Country Music by David C. Morton, with Charles K. Wolfe (Music/Biography)
Paperback Original
A founding member of the Grand Ole Opry and the program’s first Black star, DeFord Bailey (1899-1982) was among the Opry’s most popular early performers. Known as the “Harmonica Wizard” for his virtuosity on the instrument, he was also a singer, guitarist, banjoist and composer. For decades following his departure from the Opry, Bailey’s story was shrouded in mystery. This meticulously researched biography, long out of print, tells the story of a pioneering Black star in early country music in rich and fascinating detail. The book’s original publication in 1991 helped pave the way for Bailey’s election to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005.
University of Illinois Press | 9780915608393
DELE WEDS DESTINY by Tomi Obaro (Fiction)
Funmi, Enitan and Zainab first meet at university in Nigeria and become friends for life despite their differences. Their friendship is complicated but enduring, and over the course of the book, the reader learns about their loves and losses. Now, some 30 years later, the three women are reunited for the first time, in Lagos. The occasion: Funmi’s daughter, Destiny, is getting married. But as the big day approaches, it becomes clear that something is not right. As the novel builds powerfully, the complexities of the mothers’ friendship --- and the private wisdom each has earned --- come to bear on a riveting, heartrending moment of decision.
Vintage | 9780593314500
FAMOUS IN A SMALL TOWN by Viola Shipman (Fiction)
Paperback Original
For most of her 80 years, Mary Jackson has endured the steady invasion of tourists, influencers and real estate developers who have discovered the lakeside charm of Good Hart, Michigan, waiting patiently for the arrival of a stranger she’s believed since childhood would one day carry on her legacy --- the Very Cherry General Store. Becky Thatcher came to Good Hart to forget that she’s just turned 40 with nothing to show for it. Ending up at the general store with Mary is not the beach vacation she expected, but the more the feisty octogenarian talks about destiny, the stronger Becky’s memories of her own childhood holidays become, and the strange visions over the lake she was never sure were real. As she works under Mary’s wing for the summer, she starts to believe that destiny could be real.
Graydon House | 9781525804854
THE FIRST DEATH by Kendra Elliot (Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
Rowan Wolff was five years old when she, her brother and their babysitter were kidnapped by a serial killer. The babysitter was murdered. Rowan was saved. Her brother was killed and buried in the forest. The convicted killer refuses to say where he buried the boy. Twenty-five years later, Rowan is obsessed with finding her brother’s grave --- and closure. Detective Evan Bolton’s latest case is disturbing. There’s another serial killer hunting in Deschutes County, Oregon, and the crimes are identical to those committed by the sociopath languishing in prison. Each victim is linked to Rowan. When skeletal remains of several bodies are exhumed in the forest, Rowan’s connection becomes more entwined and impossible to ignore.
Montlake | 9781542006828
GHOST LOVER: Stories by Lisa Taddeo (Fiction/Short Stories)
Behind anonymous screens, an army of cool and beautiful girls manage the dating service Ghost Lover, a forwarding system for text messages that promises to spare you the anguish of trying to stay composed while communicating with your crush. At a star-studded political fundraiser in a Los Angeles mansion, a trio of women compete to win the heart of the slick guest of honor. In a tense hospital waiting room, an inseparable pair of hard-partying friends crash into life’s responsibilities, but the magic of their glory days comes alive again at the moment they least expect it. In these nine riveting stories, Lisa Taddeo brings to life the fever of obsession, the blindness of love and the mania of grief.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781982122195
GILT by Jamie Brenner (Fiction)
The Pavlin family built an empire on love. As the first jewelers to sell diamond rings exclusively for proposals, they started a tradition that has defined engagements ever since. But when an ill-fated publicity stunt pits the three Pavlin sisters against one another for a famous family jewel, their bond is broken. No ordinary diamond ring, the Electric Rose splinters the sisters, leaving one unlucky in love, one escaping to the shores of Cape Cod, and the other, ultimately, dead. Now, over a decade later, Gemma Maybrook is still reconciling the reality of her mother's death. Left orphaned and cast out by her family after the tragic accident, Gemma is ready to reclaim what should have been hers: the Electric Rose.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593087848
I WALK BETWEEN THE RAINDROPS: Stories by T.C. Boyle (Fiction/Short Stories)
In the title story of WALK BETWEEN THE RAINDROPS, a woman sits down next to a man at a bar and claims she has ESP. In “Thirteen Days,” passengers on a cruise line are quarantined, to horrifying and hilarious effect. And “Hyena” begins simply: “That was the day the hyena came for him, and never mind that there were no hyenas in the South of France, and especially not in Pont-Saint-Esprit --- it was there and it came for him.” A virtuoso of the short form, T.C. Boyle returns with an inventive, uproarious and masterfully told collection of short stories characterized by biting satire, resonant wit and a boundless, irrepressible imagination.
Ecco | 9780063052895
THE ISLAND by Adrian McKinty (Thriller)
After moving from a small country town to Seattle, Heather Baxter marries Tom, a widowed doctor with a young son and teenage daughter. A working vacation overseas seems like the perfect way to bring the new family together, but once they’re deep in the Australian outback, the jet-lagged and exhausted kids are so over their new mom. When they discover remote Dutch Island, off-limits to outside visitors, the family talks their way onto the ferry, taking a chance on an adventure far from the reach of iPhones and Instagram. But as soon as they set foot on the island, which is run by a tightly knit clan of locals, everything feels wrong. Then a shocking accident propels the Baxters from an unsettling situation into an absolute nightmare.
Back Bay Books | 9780316531290
THE ISLAND OF LOST GIRLS by Alex Marwood (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
1985. To 12-year-old Mercedes, La Kastellana is home, an island with deep-rooted traditions untouched by the modern world. But this secluded paradise is upended with the arrival of multimillionaire Matthew Meade and his pampered young daughter, Tatiana. The price that Mercedes and the rest of the islanders will pay is more than they ever could have imagined. 2016. Robin has been desperately searching for her missing 17-year-old daughter, Gemma. Finding herself on La Kastellana, Robin quickly realizes she’s out of her depth. No one is willing to help, and she fears she’s running out of time to find her child. But someone has been watching, silently waiting for the moment to expose the dark truth of what really happens on the island of lost girls.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780063282230
JACKIE & ME by Louis Bayard (Historical Fiction)
In 1951, former debutante Jacqueline Bouvier is hard at work as the Inquiring Camera Girl for a Washington newspaper. Her mission in life is “not to be a housewife,” but when she meets the charismatic congressman Jack Kennedy at a Georgetown party, her resolution begins to falter. As Jackie is drawn deeper into the Kennedy orbit, and as Jack himself grows increasingly elusive and absent, she begins to question what life at his side would mean. For answers, she turns to his best friend and confidant, Lem Billings, a closeted gay man who has been instructed by the Kennedy family to seal the deal with Jack’s new girl. But as he gets to know her, a deep and touching friendship emerges, leaving him with painfully divided alliances and a troubling dilemma: Is this the marriage she deserves?
Algonquin Books | 9781643753898
THE LAST KARANKAWAS by Kimberly Garza (Fiction)
A popular tourist destination and major shipping port, Galveston attracts millions of visitors each year. Yet of those who come to drink by the beach, few stray from the boulevards to Fish Village, the neighborhood home to individuals who for generations have powered the island. Carly Castillo has only ever known Fish Village. Her grandmother claims that they descend from the Karankawas, an extinct indigenous Texan tribe, thereby tethering them to Galveston. But as Carly ages, she begins to imagine a life elsewhere. When word spreads of a storm gathering strength offshore, building into Hurricane Ike, each Galveston resident must make a difficult decision: board up the windows and hunker down, or flee inland and abandon their hard-won homes.
Holt Paperbacks | 9781250871527
THE LAST LIFEBOAT by Hazel Gaynor (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
1940, Kent: As the threat of German invasion looms, a plane crash near her home awakens a strength in Alice King she’d long forgotten. She finds a role perfectly suited to her experience as a schoolteacher --- to help evacuate Britain’s children overseas. 1940, London: Lily Nicols’ humble home is her world until war tears everything asunder. She is faced with an impossible choice: keep her son and daughter close, knowing she may not be able to protect them, or enroll them in a risky evacuation scheme. When a Nazi U-boat torpedoes the S. S. Carlisle carrying a ship of children to Canada, a single lifeboat is left adrift in the storm-tossed Atlantic. Alice and Lily, strangers to each other, will quickly become one another’s very best hope as their lives are fatefully entwined.
Berkley | 9780593440315
THE LAST WHITE MAN by Mohsin Hamid (Fiction)
One morning, a man wakes up to find himself transformed. Overnight, Anders’ skin has turned dark, and the reflection in the mirror seems a stranger to him. At first he shares his secret only with Oona, an old friend turned new lover. Reports of similar events soon begin to surface. Across the land, people are awakening in new incarnations, uncertain how their neighbors, friends and family will greet them. Some see the transformations as the long-dreaded overturning of the established order that must be resisted to a bitter end. In many, like Anders’ father and Oona’s mother, a sense of profound loss and unease wars with profound love. As the bond between Anders and Oona deepens, change takes on a different shading.
Riverhead Books | 9780593538821
THE LONG WAY BACK by Nicole Baart (Domestic Thriller)
Paperback Original
Mother and daughter Charlie and Eva never sought social media fame, but when a stunning photo of Eva went viral, fame found them. Now, after more than two years documenting life on the road, the duo has temporarily settled on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Eva is happily finishing her senior year of high school and applying to college, but Charlie longs for the adventures they left behind. When Eva goes missing less than a week before her graduation, it’s Charlie who is immediately suspected of foul play --- not just by their fans, but also by the police and the FBI. As a fight about one more road trip comes to light, and the truth about their relationship is questioned, Charlie realizes the rosy facade they portrayed online hid a complicated and potentially dangerous reality.
Atria Books | 9781982115104
LOVE, THEORETICALLY by Ali Hazelwood (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend. It’s a pretty sweet gig --- until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and arrogant older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And he’s the same Jack Smith who rules over the physics department at MIT, standing right between Elsie and her dream job. Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?
Berkley | 9780593336861
THE MAZE: A John Corey Novel by Nelson DeMille (Thriller)
Nelson DeMille introduced readers to NYPD Homicide Detective John Corey in PLUM ISLAND, who we first meet sitting on the back porch of his uncle’s waterfront estate on Long Island, recovering from wounds incurred in the line of duty. Six novels later, THE MAZE opens with Corey on the same porch, having survived new law enforcement roles and romantic relationships --- wiser and more sarcastic than ever. Corey is restless and looking for action, so when his former lover, Detective Beth Penrose, appears with a job offer, Corey once again has to make some decisions about his career --- and about reuniting with Beth.
Scribner | 9781668002797
MOONLIGHT AND THE PEARLER’S DAUGHTER by Lizzie Pook (Historical Mystery/Adventure)
Western Australia, 1886. After months at sea, a slow boat makes its passage from London to the shores of Bannin Bay. From the deck, young Eliza Brightwell and her family eye their strange, new home. Here is an unforgiving land where fortune sits patiently at the bottom of the ocean, waiting to be claimed by those brave enough to venture into its depths. An ocean where pearl shells bloom to the size of soup plates, where men are coaxed into unthinkable places and unspeakable acts by the promise of unimaginable riches. Then, years later, the pearl-diving boat captained by Eliza’s eccentric father returns after months at sea --- without Eliza’s father on it. Headstrong Eliza knows it’s up to her to discover who, or what, is really responsible.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982180508
PRIVATE MOSCOW by James Patterson and Adam Hamdy (Thriller)
Paperback Original
On a cold January morning, Jack Morgan stands inside the New York Stock Exchange with his former US Marine comrade whose company is being launched onto the market, eagerly awaiting the opening bell. But before the bell rings, a bullet rips through the air and finds its mark. In the aftermath of the murder, the victim's wife hires Jack to find the killer. As the head of Private, Jack has at his disposal the world's largest investigation agency. What he discovers shakes him to his core. Jack identifies another murder in Moscow that appears to be linked. So he heads to Russia and begins to uncover a conspiracy that could have global consequences. With powerful forces plotting against him, will Jack Morgan make it out alive?
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538752661
RICKEY: The Life and Legend of an American Original by Howard Bryant (Sports/Biography)
Few names in the history of baseball evoke the excellence and dynamism that Rickey Henderson’s does. He holds the record for the most stolen bases in a single game, and he’s scored more runs than any player ever. But perhaps even more than his prowess on the field, Henderson’s is a story of Oakland, California, the town that gave rise to so many legendary athletes like him. And it’s a story of a sea change in sports, when athletes gained celebrity status and Black players finally earned equitable salaries. Now, in the hands of critically acclaimed sportswriter and culture critic Howard Bryant, one of baseball’s greatest and most original stars finally gets his due.
Mariner Books | 9780063268661
SHIFTY’S BOYS: A Mick Hardin Novel by Chris Offutt (Literary Thriller)
Army-CID-officer-cum-unofficial-PI Mick Hardin is home on leave, recovering from an IED attack, when a body is found in the center of town. It’s Barney Kissick, the local heroin dealer, and the city police see it as an occupational hazard. But when Barney’s mother, Shifty, asks Mick to take a look, it appears there’s more to the killing than meets the eye. Mick should be rehabbing his leg, signing his divorce papers and getting out of town --- and, most of all, staying out of the way of his sister Linda’s reelection as Sheriff. But he keeps on looking, and suddenly he’s getting shot at himself.
Grove Press | 9780802161758
SISTER FRIENDS FOREVER by Kimberla Lawson Roby (Fiction)
Serena, Michelle, Kenya and Lynette have been best friends since they were small children. And as sister friends forever, they have always been there for one another, through good times and bad. This year is a crucial turning point for each woman. Serena, still single, is questioning why love hasn’t found her yet. Michelle is engaged and ready to walk down the aisle --- until an old flame strolls back into her life. Kenya is happily married, but at the same time, her husband’s ex-wife won’t allow them or their family to live in peace. And Lynette’s divorce from her cheating husband has her nervously dating for the first time in well over a decade. During this difficult period, their friendship will be tested like never before.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538708965
SWITCHBOARD SOLDIERS: A Novel of the Heroic Women Who Served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps During World War I by Jennifer Chiaverini (Historical Fiction)
In June 1917, General John Pershing arrived in France to establish American forces in Europe. He immediately found himself unable to communicate with troops in the field. Pershing needed operators who could swiftly and accurately connect multiple calls, speak fluent French and English, remain steady under fire, and be utterly discreet. At the time, nearly all well-trained American telephone operators were women --- but women were not permitted to enlist, or even to vote in most states. Nevertheless, the U.S. Army Signal Corps promptly began recruiting them. More than 7,600 women responded; they served with honor and played an essential role in achieving the Allied victory. Their story has never been the focus of a novel…until now.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063080706
TRACY FLICK CAN’T WIN by Tom Perrotta (Fiction)
Tracy Flick is a hardworking assistant principal at a public high school in suburban New Jersey. Still ambitious but feeling a little stuck and underappreciated in midlife, she gets a jolt of good news when the longtime principal, Jack Weede, abruptly announces his retirement, creating a rare opportunity for Tracy to ascend to the top job. Energized by the prospect of her long-overdue promotion, Tracy throws herself into her work with renewed zeal, determined to prove her worth while also managing her personal life --- a 10-year-old daughter, a needy doctor boyfriend and a burgeoning meditation practice. But nothing ever comes easily to Tracy Flick, no matter how diligent or qualified she happens to be. As she considers the past, Tracy becomes aware of storm clouds brewing in the present.
Scribner | 9781501144073
VENOMOUS LUMPSUCKER by Ned Beauman (Dystopian Thriller/Dark Humor)
The near future. Tens of thousands of species are going extinct every year. And a whole industry has sprung up around their extinctions. Karin Resaint and Mark Halyard are concerned with one species in particular: the venomous lumpsucker, a small, ugly bottom-feeder that happens to be the most intelligent fish on the planet. Resaint is an animal cognition scientist consumed with existential grief over what humans have done to nature. Halyard is an exec from the extinction industry, complicit in the mining operation that destroyed the lumpsucker’s last-known habitat. Resaint and Halyard hunt for a surviving lumpsucker, and the further they go, the deeper they’re drawn into the mystery of the attack on the biobanks.
Soho Press | 9781641294843
YOU MADE A FOOL OF DEATH WITH YOUR BEAUTY by Akwaeke Emezi (Romance)
Feyi Adekola wants to learn how to be alive again. It’s been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life. Feyi isn’t ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she never could have imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career. She’s even started dating the perfect guy, but their new relationship might be sabotaged before it has a chance by the overwhelming desire Feyi feels every time she locks eyes with the one person in the house who is most definitely off-limits --- his father.
Atria Books | 9781982188719
|