June 13, 2023

June 13, 2023

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

This week, we are calling attention to our Historical Fiction Author Spotlight of THE HOUSE OF LINCOLN, which is now available and will be a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick. Here, Nancy Horan tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's ascendance from rumpled lawyer to U.S. president to Great Emancipator and presents Lincoln's Midwestern home as a complex third home front of the Civil War.

Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events

Here are three 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 14th at 2pm ET: "Bookaccino Live: A Lively Talk About Books": Carol Fitzgerald will present titles releasing between June 13th and July 4th, along with a few from August, that she would like to get on your radar.

Wednesday, June 14th at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": The "Friends and Fiction" authors --- Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey and Patti Callahan Henry --- will talk to Fiona Davis and Heather Webb about their latest works of historical fiction: Fiona's THE SPECTACULAR and Heather's STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT: A Novel of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner. Appearing on the Aftershow will be Victoria Benton Frank, whose debut novel is MY MAGNOLIA SUMMER.

Saturday, June 17th at 1pm ET: Warwick's: Warwick's will host Hazel Gaynor as she discusses her new book, THE LAST LIFEBOAT, with Susan Meissner. Inspired by a remarkable true story, this moving and triumphant novel is about a young teacher who evacuates children to safety across perilous waters.

This Week's Bonus News:
Our Historical Fiction Author Spotlight of
THE HOUSE OF LINCOLN by Nancy Horan
An Upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On Title

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

On Sale the Week of June 19th in Hardcover

June 20th

ANNE BOLEYN & ELIZABETH I: The Mother and Daughter Who Forever Changed British History by Tracy Borman (History)
The future Queen Elizabeth was not yet three when her mother, Anne Boleyn, was beheaded on May 19, 1536, on Henry’s order, incensed that she had not given him a son and tired of her contentious nature. Elizabeth had been raised away from court, rarely even seeing Anne. After her death, Henry tried in every way to erase Anne’s presence and memory. At that moment in history, few could have predicted that mother and daughter would each leave enduring, and interlocked, legacies. Yet as Tracy Borman reveals in this first-ever joint portrait, both women broke the mold for British queens and for women in general at the time.
Atlantic Monthly Press | 9780802162069

THE BRIGHTEST STAR by Gail Tsukiyama (Historical Fiction)
At the dawn of a new century, America is falling in love with silent movies, including young Wong Liu Tsong. By 11, Wong Liu is determined to become an actress and already has chosen a stage name: Anna May Wong. At 16, Anna May leaves high school to pursue her Hollywood dreams, defying her disapproving father and her Chinese traditional upbringing. After a series of nothing parts, 19-year-old Anna May gets her big break --- and her first taste of Hollywood fame --- starring opposite Douglas Fairbanks in The Thief of Bagdad. Yet her beauty and talent isn’t enough to overcome the racism that relegates her to supporting roles. Though she suffers professionally and personally, Anna May fights to win lead roles, accept risqué parts, financially support her family, and keep her illicit love affairs hidden.
HarperVia | 9780063213753

THE BUCHAREST LEGACY: The Rise of the Oligarchs by William Maz (Thriller)
The CIA is rocked to its core when a KGB defector divulges that there is a KGB mole inside the Agency. They learn that the mole’s handler is a KGB agent known as Boris. CIA analyst Bill Hefflin recognizes that name --- Boris is the code name of Hefflin’s longtime KGB asset. If the defector is correct, Hefflin realizes that Boris must be a triple agent, and his supposed mole has been passing false intel to Hefflin and the CIA. What’s more, this makes Hefflin the prime suspect as the KGB mole inside the Agency. Hefflin is given a chance to prove his innocence by returning to his city of birth, Bucharest, Romania, to find Boris and track down the identity of the mole. But Hefflin has a secret that no one else knows --- Boris has been dead for over a year.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608095681

THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND by Craig Russell (Historical Thriller)
1927: Mary Rourke --- a Hollywood studio fixer --- is called urgently to the palatial home of Norma Carlton, one of the most recognizable stars in American silent film. Norma has been working on the secret film everyone is openly talking about: a terrifying horror picture called The Devil’s Playground that is rumored to have unleashed a curse on everyone involved in the production. Mary finds Norma’s cold, dead body, and she wonders for just a moment if these dark rumors could be true. 1967: Paul Conway, a journalist and self-professed film aficionado, is on the trail of a tantalizing rumor. He has heard that a single copy of The Devil’s Playground may exist. He knows his Hollywood history, and he knows the film endured myriad tragedies and ended up lost to time.
Doubleday | 9780385549011

THE GLASS CHÂTEAU by Stephen P. Kiernan (Historical Fiction)
One month after the end of World War II, there are throngs of people in France stunned by the recovery work ahead. Asher lost his family during the war, and in revenge he served as an assassin in the Resistance. Burdened by grief and guilt, he wanders through the blasted countryside, stunned by what has become of his life. When he arrives at le Chateau Guerin, all he seeks is a decent meal. Instead he finds a sanctuary, an oasis despite being filled with people every bit as damaged as him. But they are calming themselves, and recovering inch by inch, by turning sand into glass, and glass into windows for the bombed cathedrals of France. As the secrets of the chateau’s residents become known one by one, they experience more heated conflict and greater challenges.
William Morrow | 9780063227316

HOTEL LAGUNA by Nicola Harrison (Historical Fiction)
In 1942, Hazel Francis left Wichita, Kansas, for California, determined to do her part for the war effort. At Douglas Aircraft, she became one of many “Rosie the Riveters,” helping to construct bombers for the U.S. military. But now the war is over, men have returned to their factory jobs, and women like Hazel have been dismissed. Unwilling to be forced into a traditional woman’s role in the Midwest, Hazel finds herself in the bohemian town of Laguna Beach. Desperate for work, she accepts a job as an assistant to famous artist Hanson Radcliff. But Hazel still wants to work with airplanes and maybe even learn to fly one someday. Torn between pursuing her dream and the dream life she has been granted, she is unsure if giving herself over to Laguna is what her heart truly wants.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250277381

I AM HOMELESS IF THIS IS NOT MY HOME by Lorrie Moore (Fiction)
A teacher visiting his dying brother in the Bronx. A mysterious journal from the 19th century stolen from a boarding house. A therapy clown and an assassin, both presumed dead, but perhaps not dead at all. With her distinctive, irresistible wordplay, and singular wry humor and wisdom, Lorrie Moore has given us a magic box of longing and surprise as she writes about love and rebirth and the pull towards life. Bold, meditative and theatrical, I AM HOMELESS IF THIS IS NOT MY HOME is an inventive, poetic portrait of lovers and siblings as it questions the stories we have been told that may or may not be true.
Knopf | 9780307594143

NIGHT WILL FIND YOU by Julia Heaberlin (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Vivvy Bouchet, daughter of a known psychic, was 10 when she saved a boy’s life by making an impossible prediction. Now she’s an astrophysicist in Texas, devoted to science, but the boy she saved has become a cop who continues to believe she can see things no one else can. When he begs for help on the high-profile cold case of a kidnapped girl, Vivvy steps back into the ocean of voices that once nearly drowned her. She is forced to team up with detective Jesse Sharp, a skeptic of anything but fact. When Vivvy becomes the target of a conspiracy theorist podcaster, she fights back with both her scientific mind and her inexplicable gifts, hoping to lure a kidnapper, find a child who haunts her, and lay some of her own ghosts to rest.
Flatiron Books | 9781250877079

THE ONLY ONE LEFT by Riley Sager (Gothic Thriller/Horror)
The Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume 17-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Lenora has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred. It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora. Confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer: I want to tell you everything. As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know.
Dutton | 9780593183229

THE QUIET TENANT by Clémence Michallon (Psychological Thriller)
Aidan Thomas is a hard-working family man and a somewhat beloved figure in the small upstate town where he lives. He’s also a kidnapper and serial killer. Aidan has murdered eight women, and there’s a ninth he has earmarked for death: Rachel, who is imprisoned in a backyard shed. When Aidan’s wife dies, he and his 13-year-old daughter, Cecilia, are forced to move. Aidan has no choice but to bring Rachel along, introducing her to Cecilia as a “family friend” who needs a place to stay. As Rachel tests the boundaries of her new living situation, she begins to form a tenuous connection with Cecilia. And when Emily, a local restaurant owner, develops a crush on the handsome widower, she finds herself drawn into Rachel and Cecilia’s orbit, coming dangerously close to discovering Aidan’s secret.
Knopf | 9780593534649

THE SPARE ROOM by Andrea Bartz (Domestic Thriller)
Kelly’s new life in Philadelphia has turned into a nightmare. The only bright spot is her newly rekindled friendship with her childhood friend, Sabrina --- now a glamorous bestselling author with a handsome, high-powered husband. When Sabrina and Nathan offer Kelly an escape hatch, volunteering the spare room of their remote Virginia mansion, she jumps at the chance to run away from her old life. There, Kelly secretly finds herself falling for both her enchanting hosts --- until one night, a wild and unexpected threesome leads the couple to open their marriage for her. At first, Kelly loves being part of this risqué new world. But when she discovers that the last woman they invited into their marriage is missing, she starts to wonder if they could be dangerous…and if she might be next.
Ballantine Books | 9781984820495

A STOLEN CHILD: A Maggie D'arcy Mystery by Sarah Stewart Taylor (Mystery)
After months of training, former Long Island homicide detective Maggie D’arcy is now officially a Garda. She’s finally settling into life in Ireland, and so is her teenage daughter, Lilly. Maggie may not be a detective yet, but she’s happy with her community policing assignment in Dublin's Portobello neighborhood. When she and her partner find former model and reality TV star Jade Elliot murdered, days after responding to a possible domestic violence disturbance at her apartment, they also discover Jade's toddler daughter missing. Amidst a nationwide manhunt, Maggie and her colleagues must look deep into Jade’s life --- both personal and professional --- to find a ruthless killer.
Minotaur Books | 9781250826688

WATCH US DANCE written by Leila Slimani, translated by Sam Taylor (Historical Fiction)
It’s the 1960s, and the air is electric. On the cusp of adulthood, two biracial siblings search for their place in a newly independent Morocco brimming with both possibility and peril. Aicha aspires to become a doctor and spends most of her time studying. Her younger brother, Selim, falls in with the American and European hippies to do drugs and practice free love. Now dreaming of a radiant future and experiencing the ecstatic first flush of desire against the backdrop of a country intoxicated by its own sense of freedom, Aicha and Selim soon find the ideals of their youth colliding with the realities of racism and corruption, as Moroccans once united against their colonizer make a grab for wealth and influence, and the national spirit of communal celebration gives way to elites telling everyone else to “watch us dance.”
Viking | 9780593493304

WELCOME TO BEACH TOWN by Susan Wiggs (Fiction)
In idyllic Alara Cove, a California beach town, it’s graduation day at the elite Thornton Academy. At Thornton, the students are the worldly and overindulged children who live in gated enclaves with spectacular views. But the class valedictorian is Nikki Graziola, a surfer’s daughter who is there on scholarship. To the shock of everyone in the audience, Nikki veers off script while giving her commencement address and reveals a secret that breaks open the whole community. Her accusation shakes the foundation of Alara Cove, pitting her against the wealthy family whose money runs the town. Her new notoriety sends Nikki into exile for years, where she finds fame --- but not fortune --- overseas as a competition surfer...until a personal tragedy compels her to return to Alara Cove.
William Morrow | 9780062914163

ZERO DAYS by Ruth Ware (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Hired by companies to break into buildings and hack security systems, Jack and her husband, Gabe, are the best penetration specialists in the business. But after a routine assignment goes horribly wrong, Jack arrives home to find her husband dead. To add to her horror, the police are closing in on their suspect --- Jack. Suddenly on the run and quickly running out of options, Jack must decide who she can trust as she circles closer to the real killer.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781982155292

On Sale the Week of June 19th in Paperback

June 20th

THE 6:20 MAN by David Baldacci (Thriller)
Every day without fail, Travis Devine puts on a cheap suit, grabs his faux-leather briefcase, and boards the 6:20 commuter train to Manhattan, where he works as an entry-level analyst at the city's most prestigious investment firm. Then one morning, Devine's tedious routine is shattered by an anonymous email: She is dead. Sara Ewes, Devine's coworker and former girlfriend, has been found hanging in a storage room of his office building, prompting the NYPD to come calling on him. If that wasn't enough, before the day is out, Devine receives another ominous visit, a confrontation that threatens to dredge up grim secrets from his past in the army unless he participates in a clandestine investigation into his firm.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538719855

BITTERSWEET: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain (Psychology/Personal Growth)
With QUIET, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an un­tapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she em­ploys the same mix of research, storytelling and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, con­nection and transcendence. Cain shows how a bittersweet state of mind is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain, whether from a death or breakup, addiction or illness. If we don’t acknowledge our own heartache, she says, we can end up inflicting it on others via abuse, domination or neglect. But if we realize that all humans know --- or will know --- loss and suffering, we can turn toward one another.
Crown | 9780451499790

THE BULLET THAT MISSED: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery by Richard Osman (Mystery)
It is an ordinary Thursday, and things finally should be returning to normal. Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club is concerned. A decade-old cold case --- their favorite kind --- leads them to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers. Then a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit. Her mission? Kill or be killed. Suddenly the cold case has become red hot. While Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim chase down the clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?
Penguin Books | 9780593299418

THE CHURCH OF BASEBALL: The Making of Bull Durham by Ron Shelton (Performing Arts/Sports)
Bull Durham, the breakthrough 1988 film about a minor league baseball team, is widely revered as the best sports movie of all time. But back in 1987, Ron Shelton was a first-time director, and no one was willing to finance a movie about baseball --- especially a story set in the minors. The jury was still out on Kevin Costner’s leading-man potential, while Susan Sarandon was already a has-been. But something miraculous happened, and THE CHURCH OF BASEBALL attempts to capture why. From organizing a baseball camp for the actors and rewriting key scenes while on set, to dealing with a short production schedule and overcoming the challenge of filming the sport, Shelton brings to life the making of this beloved American movie.
Vintage | 9780593313961

COLD, COLD BONES: A Temperance Brennan Novel by Kathy Reichs (Mystery/Thriller)
Freed from a heavy work schedule, Tempe Brennan is content to dote on her daughter, Katy, finally returning to civilian life from the army. But when mother and daughter meet at Tempe’s place one night, they find a box on the back porch with a very fresh human eyeball in it. GPS coordinates etched into the eyeball lead to a Benedictine monastery where an equally macabre discovery awaits. Soon after, Tempe examines a mummified corpse in a state park. There seems to be no pattern to the subsequent killings uncovered, except that each mimics in some way a homicide that a younger Tempe had been called in to analyze. Could this elaborately staged skein of mayhem be the prelude to a twist that is even more shocking?
Scribner | 9781982190033

DAPHNE by Josh Malerman (Thriller/Horror)
It’s the last summer for Kit Lamb: The last summer before college. The last summer with her high school basketball team, and with Dana, her best friend. The last summer before her life begins. But the night before the big game, one of the players tells a ghost story about Daphne, a girl who went to their school many years ago and died under mysterious circumstances. Some say she was murdered, others that she died by her own hand. And some say that Daphne is a murderer herself. They also say that she is still out there and will appear to kill again anytime someone thinks about her. After Kit hears the story, her teammates vanish, one by one, and she begins to suspect that the stories about Daphne are real…and fears that her own mind is conjuring the killer.
Del Rey | 9780593157039

DELIBERATE CRUELTY: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century by Roseanne Montillo (True Crime/History)
When Ann Woodward shot her husband, banking heir Billy Woodward, in the middle of the night in 1955, her life changed forever. Though she claimed she thought he was a prowler, few believed the woman who had risen from charismatic showgirl to popular socialite. Everyone had something to say about the scorching scandal afflicting one of the most rich and famous families of New York City, but no one was more obsessed with the tale than Truman Capote. Capote decided that the story of Ann’s turbulent marriage would be the basis of his masterpiece --- a novel about the dysfunction and sordid secrets revealed to him by his high society “swans” --- never thinking that it eventually would lead to Ann’s suicide and his own scandalous downfall.
Atria Books | 9781982153748

THE DROWNING SEA: A Maggie D'arcy Mystery by Sarah Stewart Taylor (Mystery)
For the first time in her adult life, former Long Island homicide detective Maggie D’arcy is unemployed. But her summer vacation on a remote West Cork peninsula takes a dangerous turn when human remains wash up below the steep cliffs of Ross Head. When construction worker Lukas Adamik disappeared months ago, everyone assumed he had gone home to Poland. Now that his body has been found, the guards seem to think he threw himself from the cliffs. But as Maggie gets to know the residents of the nearby village and learns about the history of the peninsula and its abandoned Anglo Irish manor house, once home to a famous Irish painter who died under mysterious circumstances, she starts to think there's something else going on. Something deadly.
Minotaur Books | 9781250826671

FLYING SOLO by Linda Holmes (Fiction)
Smarting from her recently canceled wedding and about to turn 40, Laurie Sassalyn returns to her Maine hometown of Calcasset to handle the estate of her great-aunt Dot, a spirited adventurer who lived to be 93. Alongside boxes of Polaroids and pottery, a mysterious wooden duck shows up at the bottom of a cedar chest. Laurie’s curiosity is piqued, especially after she finds a love letter to the never-married Dot that ends with the line “And anyway, if you’re ever desperate, there are always ducks, darling.” Laurie is told that the duck has no financial value. But after it disappears under suspicious circumstances, she feels compelled to figure out why anyone would steal a wooden duck --- and why Dot kept it hidden away in the first place.
Ballantine Books | 9780525619291

GODS OF WANT: Stories by K-Ming Chang (Fiction/Short Stories)
In “Auntland,” a steady stream of aunts adjust to American life by sneaking surreptitious kisses from women at temple, buying tubs of vanilla ice cream to prepare for citizenship tests, and hatching plans to name their daughters “Dog.” In “Xífù,” a mother-in-law tortures a wife in increasingly unsuccessful attempts to rid the house of her. In “Mariela,” two girls explore one another’s bodies for the first time in the belly of a plastic shark. And in “Resident Aliens,” a former slaughterhouse serves as a residence to a series of widows, each harboring her own calamitous secrets. With each tale, K-Ming Chang gives us her own take on a surrealism that mixes myth and migration, corporeality and ghostliness, queerness and the quotidian.
One World | 9780593241608

THE HAPPINESS PLAN by Susan Mallery (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Heather has a successful business, a cute but contemptuous cat, and best friends Daphne and Tori. So why does she feel crushed when her ex gets serious about someone new? More connections will hold her together while her world falls apart, so she finally reaches out to the stranger who might be her dad. Daphne isn’t having an emotional affair, despite what her husband believes. He started the rift in their marriage when he said they weren’t ready for a baby. Can they find their way back to one another before it’s too late? When Tori forms an inconvenient crush on Daphne’s brother-in-law, she suppresses her feelings. Until her apartment floods, and she moves in with the dog-loving doctor. If things go wrong, she could lose her friends. But if they go right, she could lose her heart.
Mira | 9780778333555

THE INK BLACK HEART: A Cormoran Strike Novel by Robert Galbraith (Mystery)
When a frantic Edie Ledwell appears in the office begging to speak to her, private detective Robin Ellacott doesn’t know quite what to make of the situation. The cocreator of a popular cartoon, The Ink Black Heart, Edie is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie. Edie is desperate to uncover Anomie’s true identity. Robin decides that the agency can’t help with this --- and thinks nothing more of it until a few days later, when she reads the shocking news that Edie has been tasered and then murdered in Highgate Cemetery, the location of The Ink Black Heart. Robin and her business partner, Cormoran Strike, find themselves embroiled in a case that threatens them in new and horrifying ways.
Mulholland Books | 9780316413138

JOAN: A Novel of Joan of Arc by Katherine J. Chen (Historical Fiction)
1412. France is mired in a losing war against England. Its people are starving. Its king is in hiding. From this chaos emerges a teenage girl who will turn the tide of battle and lead the French to victory, becoming an unlikely hero whose name will echo across the centuries. This meticulously researched novel is a sweeping narrative of Joan of Arc's life, from a childhood steeped in both joy and violence, to her meteoric rise to fame at the head of the French army, where she navigates the perils of the battlefield and the equally treacherous politics of the royal court. Many are threatened by a woman who leads, and Joan draws wrath and suspicion from all corners, while her first taste of fame and glory leaves her vulnerable to her own powerful ambition.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9781984855824

JOBS FOR GIRLS WITH ARTISTIC FLAIR by June Gervais (Fiction)
Introvert Gina Mulley is determined to become a tattoo artist, and to find somewhere she belongs in her conventional Long Island town. But this is 1985, when tattooing is still a gritty, male-dominated fringe culture, and Gina’s funky flash is not exactly mainstream tattoo fare. The good news is that her older brother Dominic owns a tattoo shop, and he reluctantly agrees to train her. Gina has a year to prove herself, but her world is turned upside down when a mysterious psychic and his striking assistant, Anna, arrive on the scene. With Anna’s help, Gina recognizes that the only way she has a shot at becoming a professional tattoo artist is to embrace her quirkiness both in her art and her life.
Penguin Books | 9780593298817

LAPVONA by Ottessa Moshfegh (Historical Fantasy)
Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, believes his mother died giving birth to him. One of Marek’s few consolations is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina. For some people, Ina’s ability to receive transmissions of sacred knowledge from the natural world is a godsend. For others, Ina’s home in the woods is a godless place. The people’s desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by their depraved lord and governor, especially in this year of record drought and famine. But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord’s family, new and occult forces arise to upset the old order. By year’s end, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, and the natural world and the spirit world will prove to be very thin indeed.
Penguin Books | 9780593300282

THE MEN by Sandra Newman (Science Fiction)
Deep in the California woods, Jane Pearson is camping with her husband, Leo, and their five-year-old son, Benjamin. As dusk sets in, she drifts softly to sleep in a hammock strung outside the tent where Leo and Benjamin are preparing for bed. At that moment, every single person with a Y chromosome vanishes around the world. Leo and Benjamin are gone. After the Disappearance, Jane forces herself to enter a world she barely recognizes, one where women must create new ways of living. Meanwhile, strange video footage called “The Men” is being broadcast online showing images of the vanished men marching through barren, otherworldly landscapes. Is this just a hoax, or could it hold the key to the Disappearance?
Grove Press | 9780802161765

MORE THAN YOU’LL EVER KNOW by Katie Gutierrez (Literary Thriller/Mystery)
In 1985, Lore Rivera marries Andres Russo in Mexico City, even though she is already married to Fabian Rivera in Laredo, Texas, and they share twin sons. Through her career as an international banker, Lore splits her time between two countries and two families --- until the truth is revealed and one husband is arrested for murdering the other. In 2017, struggling true-crime writer Cassie Bowman encounters an article on the internet detailing that tragic final act. Cassie is immediately enticed by what is not explored: Why would a woman --- a mother --- risk everything for a secret double marriage? But the more time she spends with Lore, the more Cassie questions the facts surrounding the murder itself.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063118461

MR. BREAKFAST by Jonathan Carroll (Fiction/Magical Realism)
Graham Patterson’s life has hit a dead end. His career as a comedian is failing. The love of his life recently broke up with him, and he literally has no idea what to do next. With nothing to lose, he buys a new car and hits the road, planning to drive across the country and hopefully figure out his next moves before reaching California. But along the way, Patterson does something his old self would never have even considered: he gets tattooed by a brilliant tattoo artist in North Carolina. The decision sets off a series of extraordinary events that changes his life forever. Among other things, Patterson is gifted with the ability to see in real time three different lives that are available to him. The choice is his: The life he is leading right now, or two very different ones.
Melville House | 9781685890889

SISTER MOTHER WARRIOR by Vanessa Riley (Historical Fiction)
Vanessa Riley, the acclaimed author of ISLAND QUEEN, brings readers a vivid, sweeping novel of the Haitian Revolution based on the true-life stories of two extraordinary women: Marie-Claire Bonheur, the first Empress of Haiti, and Gran Toya, a West African-born warrior who helped lead the rebellion that drove out the French and freed the enslaved people of Haiti. SISTER MOTHER WARRIOR tells the often-overlooked history of the most successful Black uprising in history. Riley celebrates the tremendous courage and resilience of the revolutionaries, and the formidable strength and intelligence of Toya, Marie-Claire and the countless other women who fought for freedom.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063073555

SUMMER’S GIFT by Jennifer Ryan (Fiction)
Paperback Original
All her life, Summer Sutherland felt like the missing piece in a puzzle, left out and looking for the place she truly belongs. And when an at-home DNA test reveals her selfish mother and well-meaning grandfather lied about her father, Summer sets out to discover the truth. Her new instant family comes with two half-sisters: one who accepts her with open arms, the other resistant to the stranger staying in their house. Somehow Summer senses this is where she is meant to be, so she settles into her father’s Carmel home. But while her newfound parent is thrilled to get to know Summer --- and her romantic connection to his business partner, Cody, heats up --- tensions rise within the family. Will she ever fit in? Or should she return to her other life before tearing all their lives apart?
Avon | 9780063094154

THE ZERO NIGHT: A Jonathan Stride Novel by Brian Freeman (Mystery/Thriller)
After nearly dying of a gunshot wound, Jonathan Stride has been on leave from the Duluth Police for more than a year. When his partner, Maggie Bei, gets called about a suspicious abduction involving a local lawyer, she tells Stride it's time for him to come back. Attorney Gavin Webster says he paid $100,000 in ransom money to the men who kidnapped his wife. Now they've disappeared with the cash, and she's still missing. Gavin claims to be desperate to find her --- but Stride discovers that the lawyer had plenty of motive to be the mastermind behind the crime. Even as Stride digs for the truth about Gavin Webster and his wife, he also must deal with a crisis in his own marriage.
Blackstone Publishing | 9798212173469

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