In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of July 10th and July 17th 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 July, 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.
On June 29th, we hosted our first “Bookaccino Live” Summer Reading evening program. Carol Fitzgerald presented 50 books that are either out now or soon to be released this summer that we think you will enjoy reading over the next few months. Included are fiction, historical fiction, thrillers/mysteries, and memoirs/nonfiction. Click here to watch the event and here to see a list of the titles that Carol talked about.
The turnout was amazing (close to 500 people), and we were thrilled to see how enthusiastic our attendees were about the books that we shared. What we absolutely loved is that we had people there from 27 states and Canada. We pride ourselves on being a site enjoyed by people from across the country, not just from either coast.
This is your last newsletter reminder to sign up for this month's “Bookaccino Live” book preview event, which will take place TOMORROW, Wednesday, July 12th at 2pm ET. The focus will be on titles releasing between now and August 1st, in addition to a few from September, that we would like to get on your radar. Click here to register. Those attending the live event will be asked to answer a survey about the books from the presentation that they are most interested in reading and will be eligible to win a prize.
P.S. For those of you who shop online, if you use the store links that appear on our site for shopping, Bookreporter.com gets a small affiliate fee on your purchases from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and IndieBound. As you read our reviews and features, we would appreciate your considering this as you buy!
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, July 12th at 2pm ET: "Bookaccino Live: A Lively Talk About Books": Carol Fitzgerald will present titles releasing between July 11th and August 1st, along with a few from September, that she would like to get on your radar.
Wednesday, July 12th at 7pm ET: Burlington Public Library: Join Lisa See as she talks about her latest book, LADY TAN'S CIRCLE OF WOMEN, a triumphant reimagining of the life of a woman who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.
Wednesday, July 12th 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 Kristy's latest novel, THE SUMMER OF SONGBIRDS, in which four women come together to save the summer camp that changed their lives and rediscover themselves in the process.
Wednesday, July 12th at 7pm ET: Mystery Lovers Bookshop: Mystery Lovers Bookshop is excited to welcome author Bonnie Kistler to celebrate the launch of her latest thriller, HER, TOO. Bonnie will be joined in conversation with Wendy Walker, whose newly released novel is WHAT REMAINS.
Friday, July 14th at 2pm ET: Murder By The Book: James Lee Burke will be in conversation with fellow New York Times bestselling author Ace Atkins about his new thriller, FLAGS ON THE BAYOU, a story of tragic acts of war, class divisions upended, and love enduring through it all.
This Week's Bonus News:
Our Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks for July
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 July'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: THE ART THIEF: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel
RIPE by Sarah Rose Etter
THE QUIET TENANT by Clémence Michallon
LITTLE MONSTERS by Adrienne Brodeur
THE RACHEL INCIDENT by Caroline O'Donoghue
LibraryReads
Top Pick: EVERYONE HERE IS LYING by Shari Lapena
DEAD OF WINTER by Darcy Coates
THE BLOCK PARTY by Jamie Day
THE LIBRARIANIST by Patrick deWitt
A RULEBOOK FOR RESTLESS ROGUES by Jess Everlee
Target Book Club
ONE SUMMER IN SAVANNAH by Terah Shelton Harris
Costco's "Buyer's Pick"
THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT by Maggie O'Farrell
Barnes & Noble Book Club
LITTLE MONSTERS by Adrienne Brodeur
Reese's Book Club
YELLOWFACE by R. F. Kuang
Jenna Bush Hager's "Read with Jenna" Today Show Book Club
BANYAN MOON by Thao Thai
"Good Morning America" Book Club
SAVE WHAT'S LEFT by Elizabeth Castellano
Simon & Schuster's Book Club Favorites
SUNSHINE NAILS by Mai Nguyen
On Sale the Week of July 10th in Hardcover
July 10th
OBSESSED: A Michael Bennett Psychological Thriller by James Patterson and James O. Born (Psychological Thriller)
A killer is obsessed with Detective Michael Bennett’s oldest daughter. Michael Bennett is obsessed with keeping his family safe. New York City is obsessed with cracking the killer’s code. You will be obsessed with James Patterson and James O. Born’s startling psychological thriller. Obsessed.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316499576
July 11th
62: Aaron Judge, the New York Yankees, and the Pursuit of Greatness by Bryan Hoch (Sports)
Aaron Judge, the hulking superman who carried an easy aw-shucks demeanor from small-town California to stardom in the Big Apple, had long established his place as one of baseball’s most intimidating power hitters. Baseballs frequently rocketed off his bat like cannon fire, dispatching heat-seeking missiles toward the “Judge’s Chambers” seating area in right field, sending delirious fans scattering for souvenirs. But even in a high-tech universe where computers measure each swing to the nth degree, Roger Maris’ American League mark of 61 home runs seemed largely out of reach. In 62, veteran Yankees beat reporter Bryan Hoch unravels the remarkable journey of Judge’s run to shatter Maris’ beloved 61-year-old record.
Atria Books | 9781668027950
THE ABSOLUTES by Molly Dektar (Gothic Psychological Thriller)
When Nora, a withdrawn American teenager, is sent to live with relatives in Turin, she meets Nicola, the enigmatic son of the most powerful aristocratic family in Italy. Years later, the two reconnect in New York and begin a heated affair. Propelled by disorienting desire, Nora quickly becomes entangled in Nicola’s insular, menacing world of old-world luxury and family secrets. When she suspects she’s being used in a secret plot to overthrow his corrupt father, Nora willfully turns submissive to Nicola, pushing against the boundaries of her own moral limits until she finds herself spiraling on a path of self-destruction.
Mariner Books | 9780063282704
AFTER THE FUNERAL AND OTHER STORIES by Tessa Hadley (Fiction/Short Stories)
In each of these 12 stories, small events have huge consequences. Heloise’s father died in a car crash when she was a little girl; at a dinner party in her 40s, she meets someone connected to that long-ago tragedy. Two estranged sisters cross paths at a posh hotel and pretend not to recognize each other. Janie’s bohemian mother plans to marry a man close to Janie’s own age, but everything changes when an accident interrupts the wedding party. A daughter caring for her elderly mother during the pandemic becomes obsessed with the woman next door; in the wake of his best friend’s death, a man must reassess his affair with the friend’s wife. Cecilia, a teenager, wakes one morning in Florence on vacation with her parents and sees them for the first time through disenchanted eyes.
Knopf | 9780593536193
THE AIR RAID BOOK CLUB by Annie Lyons (Historical Fiction)
London, 1938: The bookstore just doesn’t feel the same to Gertie Bingham ever since the death of her beloved husband, Harry. Meanwhile, Hitler is on the rise in Germany, and Jewish families are making the heart-wrenching decision to send their children away from the growing turmoil. After a nudge from her dear friend Charles, Gertie decides to take in one of these refugees, a headstrong teenage girl named Hedy. When the Blitz begins and bombs whistle overhead, Gertie and Hedy come up with the idea to start an air raid book club. Together with neighbors and bookstore customers, they hold lively discussions. But even the best book can only provide a temporary escape. As the tragic reality of the war hits home, the book club faces unimaginable losses.
William Morrow | 9780063296190
ALL THE DEMONS ARE HERE by Jake Tapper (Political Thriller)
It’s 1977. Ike and Lucy, the kids of Senator Charlie and Margaret Marder, are grown up --- and in trouble. US Marine Ike has gone AWOL after a military operation gone horribly wrong. Now he's off the grid, working on the pit crew of the moody stunt master Evel Knievel. His sister, Lucy, has become the star reporter of a brand-new Washington, DC tabloid and has fallen in with the wealthy, shady British family that owns the newspaper. As they deal with the weirdness and menace of the time, Ike and Lucy soon realize that their worlds are full of not only compromises and bad choices, but danger as well. As their lives begin to spiral out of control, they also spiral towards one another. And the decisions they make could mean life and death not only for them --- but also for their beloved parents.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316424387
ALL-NIGHT PHARMACY by Ruth Madievsky (Fiction)
On the night of her high school graduation, a young woman follows her older sister, Debbie, to a bar. After the two share a bag of unidentified pills, the evening turns into a haze of sensual and risky interactions. Our unnamed narrator has always been under Debbie’s spell. Despite her own hesitations, she has always said yes to nights like these. That is, until Debbie disappears. Falling deeper into the life she cultivated with her sister, our narrator gets a job as an emergency room secretary where she steals pills to sell on the side. Cue Sasha, a Jewish refugee from the former Soviet Union who claims to be a psychic tasked with acting as the narrator’s spiritual guide. The nature of this relationship evolves and blurs, a kaleidoscope of friendship, sex, mysticism and ambiguous power dynamics.
Catapult | 9781646221509
THE BEAST YOU ARE: Stories by Paul Tremblay (Supernatural Thriller & Horror/Short Stories)
The 15 pieces in THE BEAST YOU ARE are all monsters of a kind, ready to loudly (and lovingly) smash through your head and into your heart. In “The Dead Thing,” a middle-schooler struggles to deal with the aftermath of her parents’ substance addictions and split. One day, her little brother claims he found a shoebox with “the dead thing” inside, but he won’t show it to her. In “The Last Conversation,” a person wakes in a sterile, white room and begins to receive instructions via intercom from a woman named Anne. When they are finally allowed to leave the room to complete a task, what they find is as shocking as it is heartbreaking. The title novella is a mini epic in which the destinies and secrets of a village, a dog and a cat are intertwined with a giant monster that returns to wreak havoc every 30 years.
William Morrow | 9780063069961
BOGIE & BACALL: The Surprising True Story of Hollywood's Greatest Love Affair by William J. Mann (Biography)
In BOGIE & BACALL, William J. Mann offers a deep and comprehensive look at Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, and the unlikely love they shared. Mann details their early years --- Bogart’s effete upbringing in New York City; Bacall’s rise as a model and actress. He paints a vivid portrait of their courtship and 12-year marriage: the fights, the reconciliations, the children, the affairs, Bogie’s illness and Bacall’s steadfastness until his death. He offers a sympathetic yet clear-eyed portrait of Bacall’s life after Bogie, exploring her relationships with Frank Sinatra and Jason Robards, who would become her second husband, and the identity crisis she faced. Surpassing previous biographies, Mann digs deep into the celebrities’ personal lives and considers their relationship from surprising angles.
Harper | 9780063026391
THE CARNIVALE OF CURIOSITIES by Amiee Gibbs (Historical Fantasy)
In Victorian London, there is no more coveted ticket than Ashe and Pretorius' Carnivale of Curiosities. However, rumors abound that the show’s proprietor, Aurelius Ashe, is more than an average magician. It's said that for the right price, he can make any wish come true. No one knows the truth of this claim better than Lucien the Lucifer, the Carnivale's star attraction. When Odilon Rose comes calling with a proposition regarding his young and beautiful charge, Charlotte, Ashe is tempted to refuse. But after revealing that Rose holds a secret that threatens the security of the troupe's most vulnerable members, Ashe has no choice but to sign an insidious contract. The stakes grow higher as Lucien finds himself drawn to Charlotte and her to him, an attraction that spurs a perilous course of events.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538723937
THE CLEARING by Simon Toyne (Psychological Thriller)
Adele Friar knows better than most that something dangerous lurks in the forest. So when her sister Maddie goes missing, she fears that the woods may hold the answers. Locals put the unusually high number of missing persons in the area down to inexperienced hikers getting lost in the forest’s depths, or girls abandoning their sleepy rural town for the excitement of city life. Some even blame the Cinderman, a legend who haunts the woods looking for unsuspecting victims. With help from Adele and DCI Tannahill Khan back in London, forensic specialist Laughton Rees is determined to find Maddie and dispel the dangerous ghost stories once and for all. But what if the monster in the woods isn’t a myth after all, and a cold-blooded killer is stalking his victims from the shadowy safety of the trees?
William Morrow | 9780062329820
DO TELL by Lindsay Lynch (Historical Fiction)
As character actress Edie O'Dare finishes the final year of her contract with FWM Studios, the clock is ticking for her to find a new gig after an undistinguished stint in the pictures. She's long supplemented her income moonlighting for Hollywood's reigning gossip columnist, providing her with the salacious details of every party and premiere. When an up-and-coming starlet hands her a letter alleging an assault from an A-list actor at a party with Edie and the rest of the industry’s biggest names in attendance, Edie helps get the story into print and sets off a chain of events that will alter the trajectories of everyone involved. And when she finds herself in the middle of the trial of the decade, Edie is forced to make an impossible choice with the potential to ruin more than one life.
Doubleday | 9780385549370
ELSEWHERE: Stories by Yan Ge (Fiction/Short Stories)
A young woman bonds with an encampment of poets after a devastating earthquake. Against her better judgment, a college student begins to fall for an acquaintance who might be dead. And a Confucian disciple returns to the Master bearing a jar full of grisly remains. Weaving between reality and dreamy surreality, these nine stories wend toward elsewhere, a comforting, frustrating, just-out-of-reach place familiar to anyone who has ever experienced longing. Through it all, Yan Ge’s protagonists peer thoughtfully at their own feelings of displacement --- physical or emotional, the result of travel, emigration or exile. ELSEWHERE explores the utility (or not) of art in the face of lonesomeness, quotidian and spectacular.
Scribner | 9781982198480
EVENTIDE, WATER CITY by Chris McKinney (Noir Science Fiction/Thriller)
2150: Eight years after the murder of Akira Kimura, Water City’s renowned scientist and anointed “God,” the nameless antihero who tracked down Akira’s killer is no longer a detective. While his wife climbs the corporate ladder of the city’s police department, he raises their now nine-year-old daughter and occasionally takes the odd job as a bounty hunter. His domestic bliss is threatened when Ascalon’s Scar --- the mark left by Akira’s destruction of Sessho-seki, the asteroid that nearly wiped out life on Earth --- vanishes from the sky and a familiar face thought dead returns from the ocean depths to exact revenge on humanity. On a journey to the moon and back, Water City’s antihero will risk everything, including his family, to save the last of the human race.
Soho Crime | 9781641294317
AN EVIL HEART by Linda Castillo (Mystery/Thriller)
On a crisp autumn day in Painters Mill, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder responds to a call only to discover an Amish man who has been violently killed with a crossbow, his body abandoned on a dirt road. Aden Karn was just 20 years old, well liked and from an upstanding Amish family. Who would commit such a heinous crime against a young man whose life was just beginning? The more Kate gets to know his devastated family and the people --- both English and Amish --- who loved him, the more determined she becomes to solve the case. But as she delves into Karn’s past, Kate begins to hear whispers about a dark side. What if Aden Karn wasn’t the wholesome young man everyone admired? Is it possible that the rumors are a cruel campaign to blame the victim?
Minotaur Books | 9781250781086
FLAGS ON THE BAYOU by James Lee Burke (Historical Fiction)
In the fall of 1863, the Union army is in control of the Mississippi River. Much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is occupied. The Confederate army is retreating toward Texas and being replaced by Red Legs, irregulars commanded by a maniacal figure, and enslaved men and women are beginning to glimpse freedom. When Hannah Laveau, an enslaved woman working on the Lufkin plantation, is accused of murder, she goes on the run with Florence Milton, an abolitionist schoolteacher, dodging the local constable and the slavecatchers that prowl the bayous. Wade Lufkin, haunted by what he observed --- and did --- as a surgeon on the battlefield, has returned to his uncle’s plantation to convalesce, where he becomes enraptured by Hannah.
Atlantic Monthly Press | 9780802161697
THE GHOST SHIP by Kate Mosse (Historical Thriller)
The Barbary Coast, 1621. A mysterious vessel floats silently on the water. It is known only as the Ghost Ship. For months it has hunted pirates to liberate those enslaved by corsairs, manned by a courageous crew of mariners from Italy and France, Holland and the Canary Islands. But the bravest men on board are not who they seem. And the stakes could not be higher. If arrested, they will be hanged for their crimes. Can they survive the journey and escape their fate?
Minotaur Books | 9781250202208
HALF-LIFE OF A STOLEN SISTER: A Novel of the Brontës by Rachel Cantor (Fiction)
How did sisters Emily, Charlotte and Anne write literary landmarks JANE EYRE, WUTHERING HEIGHTS and AGNES GREY? What in their lives and circumstances, in the choices they made, and in their close but complex relationships with one another made such greatness possible? In her new novel, Rachel Cantor melds biographical fact with unruly invention to illuminate the siblings’ genius, their bonds of love and duty, periods of furious creativity, and the ongoing tolls of illness, isolation and loss. As it tells the story of the Brontës, HALF-LIFE OF A STOLEN SISTER itself perpetually transforms and renews its own style and methods, sometimes hewing close to the facts of the Brontë lives as we know them (or think we know them), and at others radically reimagining the siblings.
Soho Press | 9781641294645
HELLO STRANGER by Katherine Center (Romantic Comedy)
One minute Sadie Montgomery is celebrating the biggest achievement of her life --- placing as a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition --- the next, she’s lying in a hospital bed diagnosed with a “probably temporary” condition known as face blindness. She can see, but every face she looks at is now a jumbled puzzle of disconnected features. But as she struggles to cope, hang on to her artistic dream, work through major family issues, and take care of her beloved dog, Peanut, she falls in love --- or is it lust, or a temporary obsession to distract from the real problems in her life? --- with not one man but two very different ones. The timing couldn’t be worse. If only her life were a little more in focus, Sadie might be able to find her way. But perceiving anything clearly right now seems impossible.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250283788
INSIDE THE WOLF by Amy Rowland (Fiction)
Rachel Ruskin never intended to return to her family’s tobacco farm in Shiloh, North Carolina. But when her academic career studying Southern folklore in New York City flames out, she has no choice. Back in her hometown in the wake of family loss, she is alone, haunted by memories, by ghosts, and by Shiloh’s buried history of racism and violence. When another child is accidentally shot and killed, however, Rachel can no longer avoid confronting her own past wrongs, nor can she continue to hold herself apart from her community. How can the people of Shiloh reconcile their love of hunting and their belief in tradition with the loss of more children? How can she find a way back to those she grew up loving?
Algonquin Books | 9781643752716
A LIKEABLE WOMAN by May Cobb (Psychological Thriller)
After her troublemaker mother’s mysterious death, Kira fled her wealthy Texas town and never looked back. Now, decades later, Kira is invited to an old frenemy’s vow renewal celebration. Though she is reluctant to go, there are things pulling her home --- but none more important are the urgent texts from her grandmother, who says she has something for Kira. Something related to her mother’s death, something that makes it look an awful lot like murder. When her grandmother gives Kira a memoir that her mother had been working on before she died, Kira is drawn into the past and all the sizzling secrets that come along with it. As she gets closer to discovering what --- and who --- might have brought about her mother’s end, it becomes clear that someone wants the past to stay buried.
Berkley | 9780593546796
THE MADWOMEN OF PARIS by Jennifer Cody Epstein (Historical Fiction)
When Josephine arrives at the Salpêtrière asylum, she is covered in blood, badly bruised and suffering from amnesia. She is quickly diagnosed with what the Paris papers are calling “the epidemic of the age”: hysteria, a disease so baffling and widespread that Doctor Jean-Martin Charcot, the asylum’s famous director, devotes many of his popular public lectures to the malady. But as Josephine’s fame grows, her memory starts to return --- and, with it, images of a terrible crime she’s convinced she’s committed. Haunted by these visions, she starts spiraling into seeming insanity. Laure, a ward assistant, begins to plot their escape from the Salpêtrière and its doctors. First, though, she must confirm whether Josephine is truly a madwoman, doomed to die in the asylum --- or a murderer, destined for the guillotine.
Ballantine Books | 9780593158005
THE MILITIA HOUSE by John Milas (Gothic Horror)
It’s 2010, and the recently promoted Corporal Loyette and his unit are finishing up their deployment at a new base in Kajaki, Afghanistan. Their duties here are straightforward --- loading and unloading cargo into and out of helicopters --- and their days are a mix of boredom and dread. The Brits they’re replacing delight in telling them the history of the old barracks just off base, a Soviet-era militia house they claim is haunted, and Loyette and his men don’t need much convincing to make a clandestine trip outside the wire to explore it. It’s a short, middle-of-the-day adventure, but the men experience a mounting agitation after their visit to the militia house. In the days that follow, they try to forget about the strange, unsettling sights and sounds from the house, but things are increasingly…not right.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250857064
THE MISTRESS OF BHATIA HOUSE: A Mystery of 1920s India by Sujata Massey (Historical Mystery)
India, 1922: Perveen Mistry is the only female lawyer in Bombay, where child mortality is high, birth control is unavailable and very few women have ever seen a doctor. Perveen is attending a lavish fundraiser for a new women’s hospital specializing in maternal health issues when she witnesses an accident. The grandson of an influential Gujarati businessman catches fire --- but a servant, Sunanda, rushes to save him, selflessly putting herself in harm’s way. Later, Perveen learns that Sunanda has been arrested on trumped-up charges made by a man who doesn’t seem to exist. When the hospital’s chief donor dies suddenly, Miriam Penkar, a Jewish-Indian obstetrician, and Sunanda become suspects. Then a second fire erupts, and Perveen realizes how much is at stake.
Soho Crime | 9781641293297
THE MURDER WHEEL: A Joseph Spector Locked-Room Mystery by Tom Mead (Historical Mystery)
When a sensational killing rocks 1938 London, local newspaper ads offer a hefty sum to the person who can say whodunnit. A man has been shot dead at the top of a Ferris wheel, and his wife --- the only other person in their carriage --- insists on her innocence. But who else could have fired the deadly bullet and escaped unseen? The sheer implausibility of the claim is enough to whip the press into a frenzy. For young and idealistic Edmund Ibbs, the lawyer representing the accused, that frenzy may be his only hope at discovering the truth of the mysterious murder. As he digs into the case, Ibbs unwittingly enters a shadowy web of conspiracy and murder, soon finding himself implicated in not one but two seemingly impossible crimes.
Mysterious Press | 9781613164099
MUST LOVE FLOWERS by Debbie Macomber (Fiction)
Now a widow and an empty-nester, Joan Sample has become something of a recluse. But now she has gathered the courage to take some long-awaited steps: hiring someone to tame her overgrown garden, joining a grief support group, and even renting out a room to a local college student. Across town, Maggie Herbert works mornings as a barista before rushing to afternoon nursing classes. She lives with her alcoholic father and struggles to pay the household bills. Her circumstances brighten when she finds a room for rent in Joan’s home. But will Maggie’s budding attraction to one of her favorite customers ruin the harmony she’s only recently found with Joan? Meanwhile, what is Joan to make of the mysterious landscaper who’s been revitalizing her garden --- a man who seems to harbor a past loss of his own?
Ballantine Books | 9780593600559
PROMISE by Rachel Eliza Griffiths (Historical Fiction)
The Kindred sisters, Ezra and Cinthy, have grown up with an abundance of love. Love from their parents. Love from their neighbors, the Junketts, the only other Black family in town. And love for their adopted hometown of Salt Point, a beautiful Maine village. But as the girls hit adolescence, their white neighbors, including Ezra’s best friend, Ruby, start to see their maturing bodies and minds in a different way. And as the news from distant parts of the country fills with calls for freedom, equality and justice for Black Americans, the white villagers of Salt Point begin to view the Kindreds and the Junketts as threats to their way of life. Amid escalating violence, prejudice and fear, Ezra and Cinthy must reach deep inside the wells of love they’ve built to commit great acts of heroism and grace on the path to survival.
Random House | 9780593241929
QUEEN OF EXILES by Vanessa Riley (Historical Fiction)
In 1810, Marie-Louise Christophe is crowned queen as her husband, Henry I, begins his reign over the first and only free Black nation in the Western Hemisphere. But despite their newfound freedom, Haitians still struggle under mountains of debt to France and indifference from former allies in Britain and the new United States. Louise desperately tries to steer the country’s political course as King Henry descends into a mire of mental illness. In 1820, King Henry is overthrown and dies by his own hand. Louise and her daughters manage to flee to Europe with their smuggled jewels. In exile, the resilient Louise redefines her role, recovering the fortune that Henry had lost and establishing herself as an equal to the kings of European nations.
William Morrow | 9780063270992
RIPE by Sarah Rose Etter (Fiction/Magical Realism)
A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley start-up, Cassie finds herself trapped in a corporate nightmare. Between the long hours, toxic bosses and unethical projects, she also struggles to reconcile the glittering promise of a city where obscene wealth lives alongside abject poverty and suffering. Though isolated, Cassie is never alone. From her earliest memory, a miniature black hole has been her constant companion. It feeds on her depression and anxiety, growing or shrinking in relation to her distress. Its relentless pull draws Cassie ever closer as the world around her unravels. When she ends up unexpectedly pregnant at the same time that her CEO’s demands cross into illegal territory, Cassie must decide if the tempting fruits of Silicon Valley are really worth it.
Scribner | 9781668011638
THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS by Vajra Chandrasekera (Urban Fantasy)
Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. He walked among invisible powers: devils and anti-gods that mock the mortal form. He learned a lethal catechism, lost his shadow and gained a habit for secrecy. After a blood-soaked childhood, Fetter escaped his rural hometown for the big city and fell into a broader world where divine destinies are a dime a dozen. Everything in Luriat is more than it seems. Group therapy is recruitment for a revolutionary cadre. Junk email hints at the arrival of a god. Every door is laden with potential, and once closed may never open again. The city is scattered with Bright Doors, looming portals through which a cold wind blows. In this unknowable metropolis, Fetter will discover what kind of man he is, and his discovery will rewrite the world.
Tordotcom | 9781250847386
SLEEPLESS CITY: A Nick Ryan Novel by Reed Farrel Coleman (Thriller)
Every cop in the city knows his name, but no one says it out loud. In fact, they don't talk about him at all. He doesn't wear a uniform, but he is the most powerful cop in New York. Nick Ryan can find a criminal who's vanished. Or he can make a key witness disappear. He has cars, safe houses, money and weapons hidden all over the city. He's the mayor's private cop, the fixer, the first call when the men and women who protect and serve are in trouble and need protection themselves. With conflicted loyalties and a divided soul, he's a veteran cop still fighting his own private war. He's a soldier of the streets with his own personal code. But what happens when the man who knows all the city's secrets becomes a threat to both sides of the law?
Blackstone Publishing | 9781982627478
THE ST. AMBROSE SCHOOL FOR GIRLS by Jessica Ward (Psychological Thriller)
When Sarah Taylor arrives at the exclusive St. Ambrose School, she’s carrying more baggage than just what fits in her suitcase. St. Ambrose’s queen bee, Greta Stanhope, picks Sarah as a target from day one. Thankfully, Sarah makes an ally out of her roommate, Ellen “Strots” Strotsberry, a cigarette-huffing, devil-may-care athlete. Also down the hall is Nick Hollis, the devastatingly handsome RA, and the object of more than one St. Ambrose student’s fantasies. Between Strots and Nick, Sarah hopes she can make it through the semester, dealing with not only her schoolwork and a recent bipolar diagnosis, but Greta’s increasingly malicious pranks. But when scandal unfolds, and someone ends up dead, her world threatens to unravel in ways she never could have imagined.
Gallery Books | 9781982194864
THE STOLEN COAST by Dwyer Murphy (Noir Thriller)
Jack might be a polished, Harvard-educated lawyer on paper, but everyone in the down-at-the-heels, if picturesque, village of Onset, Massachusetts, knows his real job: moving people on the run from powerful enemies. The family business --- co-managed with his father, a retired spy --- is smooth sailing, as they fill up Onset’s holiday homes during the town’s long, drowsy off-season and help clients shed their identities in preparation for fresh starts. But when Elena, Jack’s former flame --- a dedicated hustler who's no stranger to the fugitive life --- makes an unexpected return to town, her arrival upends Jack’s routine existence. It isn’t long before Jack finds himself enmeshed in her latest project: intercepting millions of dollars’ worth of raw diamonds before they’re shipped overseas.
Viking | 9780593653678
THE SUMMER OF SONGBIRDS by Kristy Woodson Harvey (Fiction)
Nearly 30 years ago, in the wake of a personal tragedy, June Moore bought Camp Holly Springs and turned it into a thriving summer haven for girls. But now, June is in danger of losing the place she has sacrificed everything for, and she begins to realize how much she has used the camp to avoid facing difficulties in her life. June’s niece, Daphne, met her two best friends, Lanier and Mary Stuart, during a fateful summer at camp. They’ve all helped each other through hard things, from heartbreak and loss to substance abuse and unplanned pregnancy, and the three are inseparable even in their 30s. But when attorney Daphne is confronted with a relationship from her past --- and a confidential issue at work becomes personal --- she is faced with an impossible choice.
Gallery Books | 9781668010822
THE TAO OF THE BACKUP CATCHER: Playing Baseball for the Love of the Game by Tim Brown, with Erik Kratz (Sports)
In baseball, there are superstars, stars and everyday players...and then there are the rest. Within the rest are role players, specialists and journeymen...and then there are the backup catchers. THE TAO OF THE BACKUP CATCHER is about them, the backup catchers, who exist near the bottom of the roster, the end of the bench, and between the numbers in a sport --- and a society --- increasingly driven by cold, hard analytics. It is a story of grown men who once dreamed of stardom and generational wealth. Instead, they were handed a broom and a deeper understanding of who wins and why, who stands tall and who folds, and who will invest their own lives in catching bullpens and the back ends of doubleheaders.
Twelve | 9781538726556
THICKER THAN WATER by Megan Collins (Psychological Thriller)
Julia and Sienna Larkin are sisters-in-law, connected by Julia’s husband and Sienna’s brother, Jason. More than that, the two are devoted best friends and business partners. Recently, Jason has been putting in long hours to secure a promotion at work, so when his boss is found brutally murdered --- his lips sewn shut --- the Larkins are shocked and unsettled, especially as local gossip swirls. A few days later, Julia and Sienna’s lives are upended when Jason gets into a car accident and is placed in a medically induced coma. Worse, the police arrive with news that he’s the prime suspect in the murder investigation. With Jason unable to respond --- and with Julia and Sienna working to clear his name --- the two women find their friendship threatened for the first time.
Atria Books | 9781982196240
On Sale the Week of July 10th in Paperback
July 11th
AGENT JOSEPHINE: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy by Damien Lewis (Biography)
Prior to World War II, Josephine Baker was a music-hall diva renowned for her singing and dancing, her beauty and sexuality. When the Nazis seized her adopted city, Paris, she was banned from the stage, along with all “negroes and Jews.” Yet instead of returning to America, she vowed to stay and to fight the Nazi evil. In AGENT JOSEPHINE, bestselling author Damien Lewis uncovers this little-known history of the famous singer’s life. During the war years, as a member of the French Nurse paratroopers --- a cover for her spying work --- Baker participated in numerous clandestine activities and emerged as a formidable spy. In turn, she was a hero of the three countries in whose name she served --- the US, France and Britain.
PublicAffairs | 9781541700673
THE BONES OF THE STORY by Carol Goodman (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Paperback Original
It’s been 25 years since the shocking disappearance of a female student and the distinguished Creative Writing professor who died while searching for her. Now, the president of Briarwood College is bringing together faculty, donors and alumni to honor the victims from all those years ago. Guests gather on the vacant campus for the commemorative event. But as a storm descends, people begin to depart, leaving a group of alumni who were the last ones taught by the esteemed professor. Recriminations and old rivalries flare as they recall the writing projects they shared as classmates. When an alumna dies in a shockingly similar way to the story she wrote, and then another succumbs to a similar fate, they realize that someone has decided at long last to avenge the crimes of the past.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063265240
THE CATCH by Alison Fairbrother (Fiction)
Two years out of college, Ellie Adler has a job in journalism, an older lover and a circle of smart friends. Her beloved father, James, who has children from three marriages, unites the family with his gentle humor and charisma, but Ellie has always believed she is her father's favorite. When he suddenly dies, she finds herself devastated by the unexpected loss. Then, at the reading of his will, she learns that instead of leaving her his prized possession --- a baseball that holds emotional resonance for them both --- he has left her a seemingly ridiculous, even insulting gift. Worse, he’s given the baseball to someone no one in the family has ever heard of. Setting out to track this person down, Ellie learns startling information about who her father really was and who she herself is becoming.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780593134313
CLIVE CUSSLER’S THE SEA WOLVES: An Isaac Bell Adventure by Jack Du Brul (Thriller/Adventure)
Detective Isaac Bell is asked to investigate a cache of missing rifles --- only to discover something much more sinister. Whoever broke into this Winchester Factory wasn’t looking to take weapons. They wanted to leave something in the shipping crates: a radio transmitter, set to summon a fleet of dreaded German U-boats. Someone is trying to keep American supplies from reaching British shores, and if Bell doesn’t crack the conspiracy in time, the Atlantic Ocean will run red with blood. Bell must hunt down a new piece of technology that is allowing the Germans to rule the seas from New York to England. With the outcome of the war at stake and Franklin Roosevelt’s orders on the line, Bell will risk everything to stop the U-boats before they strike again.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593714935
THE CLOISTERS by Katy Hays (Literary Thriller)
When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession when Ann discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction and ambition at The Cloisters turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs.
Atria Books | 9781668004418
CONFIDENCE by Denise Mina (Mystery/Thriller)
Anna McDonald has forced her blended family to vacation together. The weather is bad, her daughters are bored, and her ex-husband is still insufferable. So when news of a shocking kidnapping breaks, Anna and Fin Cohen take off to solve the case. Lisa Lee, a young YouTube star, has vanished after answering the door to what she thought was a pizza delivery. Police suspect her dad or the delivery guy, but in Lisa’s last known video she ventured into an abandoned chateau in France, where she uncovered a priceless artifact. Anna knows they must find this young woman before it’s too late. To do so, they need to track down that treasure, a casket that could hold answers to the greatest questions ever asked. But Anna and Fin might have misunderstood the stakes of the game.
Mulholland Books | 9780316242813
CRADLES OF THE REICH by Jennifer Coburn (Historical Fiction)
CRADLES OF THE REICH uncovers a topic rarely explored in fiction: the Lebensborn project, a Nazi breeding program to create a so-called master race. At the Heim Hochland maternity home in Bavaria, three women's lives converge as they find themselves there under very different circumstances. Gundi is a pregnant university student from Berlin. An Aryan beauty, she's secretly a member of a resistance group. Hilde, only 18, is a true believer in the cause and is thrilled to carry a Nazi official's child. And Irma, a 44-year-old nurse, is desperate to build a new life for herself after personal devastation. Despite their opposing beliefs, all three have everything to lose as they begin to realize they are trapped within Hitler's terrifying scheme to build a Nazi-Aryan nation.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728269832
CRYING IN THE BATHROOM: A Memoir by Erika L. Sánchez (Memoir)
Growing up as the daughter of Mexican immigrants in Chicago in the ’90s, Erika Sánchez was a self-described pariah, misfit and disappointment --- a foul-mouthed, melancholic rabble-rouser who painted her nails black but also loved comedy, often laughing so hard with her friends that she had to leave her school classroom. Twenty-five years later, she’s now an award-winning novelist, poet and essayist, but she still has an irrepressible laugh, an acerbic wit and singular powers of perception about the world around her. In these essays, Sánchez writes about everything from sex to white feminism to debilitating depression, revealing an interior life rich with ideas, self-awareness and perception.
Penguin Books | 9780593296950
DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS by Terry Brooks (Fantasy)
It’s been two years since Auris escaped from the sinister Goblin prison and learned of her heritage as one of the Fae. She is now happily partnered with her Fae lover, Harrow, and deeply bonded with her new family. All seems to be going perfectly --- until, surprisingly, the Goblin attacks begin again. Someone, it seems, has not forgotten that Auris exists and seems determined to retrieve her. But who? And why? As Auris begins to dig deeper into the mystery, old friends and new enemies appear, and she starts to realize that her still-shrouded past must contain the answers she needs. But even Auris does not suspect how far down the rabbit hole she is about to go, until Harrow is taken and an impossible ransom demand is issued.
Del Rey | 9780593357439
DIANA, WILLIAM, AND HARRY: The Heartbreaking Story of a Princess and Mother by James Patterson and Chris Mooney (Biography)
From the moments William and Harry are born into the House of Windsor, they become their young mother’s whole world. Diana is faced with a seemingly impossible challenge: one son destined to be King of England and another determined to find his own way. She teaches them to honor royal tradition, even while daring to break it. “Sometimes I’d like a time machine…” Diana says as William and Harry grow up, never imagining they’d have less than a lifetime together. Even after she’s gone, her sons follow their mother’s lead --- and her heart. As the years pass and William and Harry grow into adulthood and form families of their own, they carry on Diana’s name, her likeness and her incomparable spirit.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538721292
ELSEWHERE by Alexis Schaitkin (Dystopian Fiction)
Vera grows up in a small town, removed and isolated, pressed up against the mountains, cloud-covered and damp year-round. This town faces a singular affliction: some mothers vanish, disappearing into the clouds. It is the exquisite pain and intrinsic beauty of their lives; it sets them apart from people elsewhere and gives them meaning. Vera, a young girl when her own mother went, is on the cusp of adulthood herself. As her peers begin to marry and become mothers, they speculate about who might be the first to go, each wondering about her own fate. When motherhood comes for Vera, she is faced with the question: will she be able to stay and mother her beloved child, or will she disappear?
Celadon Books | 9781250219626
FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke (Fiction)
Paperback Original
When their newly engaged kids ask all four divorced parents to meet each other over brunch, everyone RSVPs yes --- secretly hoping that someone at the table will get to the bottom of the bottomless mimosas fast enough to say what they’re all thinking: that this engagement, coming after a whirlwind romance between two people barely out of college, is too much too soon. But at that brunch it’s not the impulsive couple's decisions that end up under the microscope, as it turns out that June, mother of the bride, and Amy, mother of the groom, certainly do know each other. Reeling from their unwanted reunion and eager to shift the spotlight off their past as decades-old secrets and rivalries come to light, the two moms battle it out for the prize of Most Enthusiastic About This Wedding.
Alcove Press | 9781639103522
FORGET ME NOT by Julie Soto (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Ama Torres is an optimistic wedding planner who doesn’t believe in marriage. Elliot Bloom is a brooding florist who hates owning a flower shop…until a certain bright-eyed, donut-loving workaholic shows up at his door. Once upon a time, they collaborated on events by day, and by night, Ama traced the intricate flower tattoos etched along his body. Then Ama shattered Elliot's heart and never spoke to him again. Now they’re working on an event that could make or break both of their careers --- except neither of them has gotten over what happened two years ago. Things are not helped by the two brides, who see the obvious chemistry between Ama and Elliot and are determined to set them up. But as the wedding takes on a life of its own, Ama and Elliot are about to discover that some things can survive a complete catastrophe.
Forever | 9781538740880
FRANCE: An Adventure History by Graham Robb (History)
Beginning with the Roman army’s first recorded encounter with the Gauls and ending in the era of Emmanuel Macron, FRANCE takes readers on an endlessly entertaining journey through French history. Robb’s own adventures and discoveries while living, working and traveling in France connect this tour through space and time with on-the-ground experience. There are scenes of wars and revolutions from the plains of Provence to the slums and boulevards of Paris. Robb conveys with wit and precision what it felt like to look over the shoulder of a young Louis XIV as he planned the vast garden of Versailles, and the dangerous thrill of having a ringside seat at the French Revolution.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324064695
GOING ROGUE: A Stephanie Plum Novel by Janet Evanovich (Mystery)
Stephanie Plum turns up for work at Vinnie’s Bail Bonds to find that longtime office manager Connie Rosolli hasn’t shown up. Her worst fears are confirmed when she gets a call from Connie’s abductor. He says he will only release her in exchange for a mysterious coin that a recently murdered man left as collateral for his bail. Unfortunately, this coin, which should be in the office, is nowhere to be found. The quest to discover the coin, learn its value and save Connie will require the help of Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur, her best pal Lula, her boyfriend Morelli, and hunky security expert Ranger. As they get closer to unraveling the reasons behind the kidnapping, Connie’s captor grows more threatening.
Atria Books | 9781668003077
HOME/LAND: A Memoir of Departure and Return by Rebecca Mead (Memoir)
When New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead relocated to her birth city of London with her family in the summer of 2018, she was both fleeing the political situation in America and seeking to expose her son to a wider world. With a keen sense of what she’d given up as she left New York, her home of 30 years, she tried to knit herself into the fabric of a changed London. The move raised poignant questions about place: What does it mean to leave the place you have adopted as home and country? And what is the value and cost of uprooting yourself? In HOME/LAND, Mead artfully explores themes of identity, nationality and inheritance.
Vintage | 9780593081242
KALEIDOSCOPE by Cecily Wong (Fiction)
Morgan and Riley Brighton are joint heirs to Kaleidoscope: a glittering, "global bohemian" shopping empire --- created in sleepy Oregon and catapulted into haute New York --- sourcing luxury goods from around the world. Morgan, a statuesque beauty and Kaleidoscope’s talented designer, is adored by all, especially by the Brighton parents. Yet no one loves her more than Riley, whose shy and adventurous spirit is exalted by her sister. When a catastrophic event dismantles the Brightons’ world, Riley must stand in the spotlight for the first time in her life, with questions about her family that challenge her memory, identity and loyalty. Restless and heartbroken, she sets off across the globe with the person she least expects, to seek truths about those she thought she knew best --- herself included.
Dutton | 9780593184462
A LADY’S GUIDE TO SCANDAL by Sophie Irwin (Historical Romance)
Paperback Original
When shy Miss Eliza Balfour married the austere Earl of Somerset, 20 years her senior, it was the match of the season. Now, 10 years later, Eliza is widowed. Suddenly, she is left titled, rich and, for the first time in her life, utterly in control of her own future. She’s always lived by society’s conventions, but now, Eliza has resolved to do as she wants. And what she wants is to head to Bath with her cousin Margaret, pursue painting, learn to drive, and flirt with Bath’s most alluring new resident, the infamous Lord Melville. But when the ripples of Eliza’s behavior reach her late husband’s nephew --- who broke Eliza’s heart years ago --- Eliza will learn that freedom does not come without consequences. The only way to ensure she can keep her fortune is to avoid all scandal. But where’s the fun in that?
Penguin Books | 9780593492000
THE LAST PARTY by Clare Mackintosh (Psychological Thriller)
On New Year's Eve, Rhys Lloyd has a house full of guests. His vacation homes on Mirror Lake are a success, and he's generously invited the village to drink champagne with their wealthy new neighbors. But by midnight, Rhys will be floating dead in the freezing waters of the lake. On New Year's Day, Ffion Morgan has a village full of suspects. The tiny community is her home, so the suspects are her neighbors, friends and family --- and Ffion has her own secrets to protect. With a lie uncovered at every turn, soon the question isn't who wanted Rhys dead…but who finally killed him.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728269849
LOWDOWN ROAD by Scott Von Doviak (Thriller)
Paperback Original
It’s the summer of ’74. Richard Nixon has resigned from office, CB radios are the hot new thing, and in the great state of Texas two cousins hatch a plan to drive $1 million worth of stolen weed to Idaho, where some lunatic is gearing up to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered motorcycle. But with a vengeful sheriff on their tail and the revered and feared marijuana kingpin of Central Texas out to get his stash back, Chuck and Dean are in for the ride of their lives --- if they can make it out alive.
Hard Case Crime | 9781803364131
THE MAN WHO COULD MOVE CLOUDS: A Memoir by Ingrid Rojas Contreras (Memoir)
Ingrid Rojas Contreras' maternal grandfather, Nono, was a renowned curandero, a community healer gifted with what the family called “the secrets”: the power to talk to the dead, tell the future, treat the sick and move the clouds. And as the first woman to inherit “the secrets,” Rojas Contreras’ mother was just as powerful. Mami delighted in her ability to appear in two places at once, and she could cast out even the most persistent spirits with nothing more than a glass of water. While living in the U.S. in her 20s, Rojas Contreras suffered a head injury that left her with amnesia. As she regained partial memory, her family was excited to tell her that this had happened before. Decades ago, Mami had taken a fall that left her with amnesia, too. And when she recovered, she had gained access to “the secrets.”
Anchor | 9780593311165
THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT by Maggie O'Farrell (Historical Fiction)
Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf. Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?
Vintage | 9780593315088
MEREDITH, ALONE by Claire Alexander (Fiction)
She has a full-time remote job and her rescue cat, Fred. Her best friend, Sadie, visits with her two children. There's her online support group, her jigsaw puzzles and favorite recipes, her beloved Emily Dickinson poems. Also keeping her company are treacherous memories of an unstable childhood and a traumatic event that had sent her reeling. But something is about to change. First, two new friends burst into her life. Then her long-estranged sister gets in touch. Suddenly her carefully curated home is no longer a space to hide. Whether Meredith likes it or not, the world is coming to her door.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538709955
ORDINARY MONSTERS by J. M. Miro (Historical Fantasy)
Despite surviving a brutal childhood in Mississippi, Charlie Ovid doesn't have a scar on him. His body heals itself, whether he wants it to or not. Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight car, shines with a strange bluish light. He can melt or mend flesh. When Alice Quicke, a jaded detective with her own troubled past, is recruited to escort them to safety, all three begin a journey into the nature of difference and belonging, and the shadowy edges of the monstrous. What follows is a story of wonder and betrayal, from the gaslit streets of London and the wooden theaters of Meiji-era Tokyo, to an eerie estate outside Edinburgh where other children with gifts are forced to combat the forces that threaten their safety. There, the world of the dead and the world of the living threaten to collide.
Flatiron Books | 9781250833679
THE PARIS AGENT by Kelly Rimmer (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
Twenty-five years after the end of the war, Noah Ainsworth is still preoccupied with those perilous, exhilarating years as a British SOE operative in France. A head injury sustained on his final operation has caused frustrating gaps in his memory --- in particular about the agent who saved his life during that mission gone wrong. Moved by her father’s frustration, Noah’s daughter Charlotte begins a search for answers that resurrects the stories of Chloe and Fleur, the code names for two otherwise ordinary women whose lives intersect in 1943 when they’re called up by the SOE for deployment in France. They have no idea they’re at the mercy of a double agent among them who's causing chaos within the French circuits, whose efforts will affect the outcome of their lives…and the war.
Graydon House | 9781525826689
THE POISON MACHINE: A Hunt & Hooke Novel by Robert J. Lloyd (Historical Thriller/Mystery)
London, 1679. A year has passed since the sensational attempt to murder King Charles II, but London is still a viper’s nest of rumored Catholic conspiracies, and of plots against them in turn. When Harry Hunt --- estranged from his mentor, Robert Hooke --- is summoned to the remote and windswept marshes of Norfolk, he is at first relieved to get away from the place. But in Norfolk, he finds that some Royal workers shoring up a riverbank have made a grim discovery --- the skeleton of a dwarf. Harry is able to confirm that the skeleton is that of Captain Jeffrey Hudson, a prominent member of the court once famously given to the Queen in a pie. Except no one knew Hudson was dead, because another man had been impersonating him.
Melville House | 9781685890407
RUN TIME by Catherine Ryan Howard (Psychological Thriller)
Feeling her stardom fading, struggling soap actress Adele Rafferty is ready to give up on her dreams when she gets a last-minute offer to play the lead in an upcoming horror film, Final Draft. Could this be her big break? Will she have redemption for what happened the last time she was on a film set? Adele doesn’t think twice before signing on the dotted line. Adele quickly makes her way to the set, deep into the isolated and wintry woods of West Cork, Ireland, miles away from civilization and cell service. When real life on the set starts to somehow mirror the sinister events portrayed in the script, Adele fears the real horror lies off the page. Isolated and unsure who in the crew she can trust, is there anywhere or any time left to run?
Blackstone Publishing | 9798212173407
SMELLS LIKE TWEEN SPIRIT by Laurie Gelman (Fiction/Humor)
Even with the cutthroat days of being Class Mom behind her, as a freshly minted mat mom of the Pioneer Middle School (PMS) wrestling team, Jen Dixon cannot catch a break. This year, as her son joins the ranks of the PMS wrestlers, Jen faces mystifying new social dynamics with her trademark combination of reluctance and resigned acceptance. The sights and smells of her son’s wrestling matches are more than enough for her to deal with, but Jen also finds herself fully immersed in sports-mom competitiveness. These parents all seem perfectly unassuming until their kids start to wrestle, and then some become raging momsters. Jen steels herself for the indignities of middle school life, but she cannot quite fathom the extents to which some kids (and moms) will go for the sweet taste of victory.
Holt Paperbacks | 9781250871510
SNOWSTORM IN AUGUST by Marshall Karp (Thriller)
They call him el Carnicero --- the Butcher. He is the most powerful drug lord on the planet, and when the city of New York incurs his wrath, he utters a single word: “¡Venganza!” With military precision, he strafes Central Park with 4,000 pounds of cocaine, killing hundreds of innocent people enjoying a summer afternoon. The only NYPD unit trained to go up against this level of terrorism has been disbanded, but four anonymous billionaires retaliate by recruiting a task force of highly decorated retired cops. Armed with cutting-edge technology, former NYPD captain Danny Corcoran leads his team in a pulse-pounding thriller in their battle to stop the enraged head of a Mexican cartel from raining more death on the city.
Blackstone Publishing | 9798212184786
STAY AWAKE by Megan Goldin (Psychological Thriller)
Liv Reese wakes up in the back of a taxi with no idea where she is or how she got there. When she’s dropped off at the door of her brownstone, a stranger answers --- a stranger who claims to live in her apartment. Her hands are covered in scribbled messages, like graffiti on her skin: STAY AWAKE. Two years ago, Liv was thriving as a successful writer for a trendy magazine. Now, she’s lost and disoriented in a New York City that looks nothing like what she remembers. She’s horrified to see news reports of a crime scene where the victim’s blood has been used to scrawl a message across a window, similar to the message that’s inked on her hands. What did she do last night? And why does she remember nothing from the past two years?
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250842244
THE SUMMER SKIES by Jenny Colgan (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Morag MacIntyre is a Scottish lass from the remote islands that make up the northernmost reaches of the UK. She’s also a third-generation pilot, the heir apparent to an island plane service she runs with her grandfather. The islands rely on their one hardworking prop plane to deliver mail, packages, tourists, medicine and the occasional sheep. As the keeper of this vital lifeline, Morag is used to landing on pale golden beaches and tiny grass airstrips. Down on the ground is a different matter, though. Morag wonders if she truly wants to spend the rest of her life in the islands. Her boyfriend, Hayden, wants her to move to Dubai with him, where they’ll fly A380s. Morag is on the verge of making a huge life change when an unusually bumpy landing during a storm finds her marooned on Inchborn island.
Avon | 9780063260429
THE SWELL by Allie Reynolds (Thriller)
Three years ago, passionate surfer Kenna Ward lost her two great loves. After her boyfriend drowned, she hung up her surfboard and swore off the water for good. But she is drawn back to the beach when her best friend, Mikki, announces her sudden engagement to a man Kenna has never met --- a member of a tight-knit group of surfers. Kenna travels to a remote Australian beach, entering a dangerous world far from civilization. She is tempted back into the surf, and drawn into the dazzling group and the beach they call their own. But this coastal paradise has a dark side, and members of the group begin to go missing. Kenna realizes that in order to protect Mikki and learn more about the surfers, she must become one of them…without becoming one of their victims.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593187869
WEDNESDAYS AT ONE by Sandra A. Miller (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Dr. Gregory Weber, a renowned clinical psychologist, feels increasingly disconnected. His marriage is strained, his children are distant, and he can’t stop fixating on an unforgivable mistake he made when he was 17. So when an unscheduled client named Mira starts to appear in his office every Wednesday at 1 p.m. with knowledge about his past, Gregory quickly grows obsessed with her. Is she a new patient? A secret referral from a colleague? Someone connected to his teenage transgression? As his attraction for Mira grows more intense with each session, so does her probing scrutiny of him. Soon Gregory’s professional boundaries begin to dissolve, and he becomes the patient, desperate to uncover his connection to this mysterious woman and find out what she wants from him.
Zibby Books | 9781958506035
WINDFALL by Wendy Corsi Staub (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
When three former roommates reunite for a birthday weekend in Las Vegas, the lottery ticket they buy on a whim has the winning numbers --- giving them a billion-dollar windfall. They turn to Shea Daniels, a “sudden wealth manager,” who promises to guide them through the pitfalls of having more money than they’d ever imagined. The trio travels to a secluded California mansion, where Shea and her staff cater to their every whim. The house is purportedly cursed, the last place a missing movie star was seen alive. Their weekend turns to terror when they discover they are trapped. And when history repeats itself and one of them disappears --- the one who’s holding the billion-dollar ticket --- the others must face the fact that either their friend has betrayed them…or a predator is lurking.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063235311
On Sale the Week of July 17th in Hardcover
July 18th
AFTER DEATH by Dean Koontz (Thriller)
Michael Mace, head of security at a top-secret research facility, opens his eyes in a makeshift morgue 24 hours following an event in which everyone perished --- including him and his best friend, Shelby Shrewsberry. Having awakened with an extraordinary ability unlike anything he --- or anyone else --- has ever imagined, Michael is capable of being as elusive as a ghost. He sets out to honor his late friend by helping Nina Dozier and her son, John, whom Shelby greatly admired. Although what Michael does for Nina is life-changing, his actions also evoke the wrath of John’s father, a member of one of the most violent street gangs in Los Angeles. But an even greater threat is descending: the Internal Security Agency’s most vicious assassin, Durand Calaphas.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662500466
BEHOLD THE MONSTER: Confronting America's Most Prolific Serial Killer by Jillian Lauren (True Crime)
Jillian Lauren had no idea what she was getting into when she wrote her first letter to prolific serial killer Samuel Little. All she knew was her research had led her to believe he was good for far more murders than the three for which he had been convicted. While the two exchanged dozens of letters and embarked on hundreds of hours of interviews, Lauren gained the trust of a monster. After maintaining his innocence for decades, Little confessed to the murders of 93 women. How could one man evade justice, manipulating the system for over four decades? More than a deep dive into Little's actions, Lauren's riveting and emotional accounts reveal the women who were lost to cold files, giving his victims a chance to have their stories heard for the first time.
Sourcebooks | 9781728267753
THE BLOCK PARTY by Jamie Day (Domestic Thriller)
The residents of the exclusive cul-de-sac on Alton Road are entangled in a web of secrets and scandal utterly unknown to the outside world, and even to each other. On the night of the annual summer block party, there has been a murder. But who did it and why takes readers back one year earlier, as rivalries and betrayals unfold --- discovering that the real danger lies within their own block. Nothing, and no one, is ever as it seems.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250283191
THE COLLECTOR by Daniel Silva (Thriller/Adventure)
Legendary art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon joins forces with a brilliant and beautiful master-thief to track down the world’s most valuable missing painting. But soon he finds himself in a desperate race to prevent an unthinkable conflict between Russia and the West.
Harper | 9780062834874
CROOK MANIFESTO by Colson Whitehead (Historical Fiction)
1971. Ray Carney’s days moving stolen goods are over. It’s strictly the straight-and-narrow for him --- until he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter and decides to hit up his old police contact Munson. But Munson has his own favors to ask of Carney. 1973. Pepper is Carney’s endearingly violent partner in crime who takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem. He finds himself in a freaky world of Hollywood stars, up-and-coming comedians, celebrity drug dealers, hustlers, mobsters and hit men. 1976. Carney's wife, Elizabeth, is campaigning for her childhood friend, the former assistant D.A. and rising politician Alexander Oakes. When a fire severely injures one of Carney’s tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it.
Doubleday | 9780385545150
CUTTING TEETH by Chandler Baker (Domestic Thriller/Mystery)
Darby, Mary Beth and Rhea are on personal quests to reclaim aspects of their identities subsumed by motherhood --- their careers, their sex lives, their bodies. Their children, though, disrupt their plans when an unsettling medical condition begins to go around the Little Academy preschool: the kids are craving blood. Then a young teacher is found dead, and the only potential witnesses are 10 adorable four-year-olds. Soon it becomes clear that the children are not just witnesses, but also suspects...and so are their mothers. As the police begin to look more closely, the children’s ability to bleed their parents dry becomes deadly serious.
Flatiron Books | 9781250839787
EMERGENCY: Stories by Kathleen Alcott (Fiction/Short Stories)
A professor finds a photograph of her deceased mother in a compromising position on the wall of a museum. A twenty-something’s lucrative remote work sparks paranoia and bigotry. A transplant to a new city must make a choice about who she trusts when her partner reveals a violent history. The summer after her divorce from an older man, an exiled painter’s former friends grapple with rumors that she attempted to pass as a teenager. In this long-awaited debut collection, Kathleen Alcott turns her skills as a stylist on the unfreedoms of American life --- as well as the guilt that stalks those who survive them.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324051886
FATAL LEGACY: A Flavia Albia Novel by Lindsey Davis (Historical Mystery)
Flavia Albia has taken over her father's business as a private informer. She only has two hard and fast rules --- avoid political cases and family cases because nothing good comes of either of them. Unfortunately, since Albia isn't good at avoiding either, it's really more of a guideline. So when her Aunt Junia demands Albia track down a couple of deadbeats who owe her money, it's an offer Albia can't refuse. It turns out to be a relatively easy job and leads to some new work --- tracking down some essential paperwork for the debtor family. But if Albia doesn't find the paperwork that proves that family's ancestor was a properly freed slave, the family could lose everything. The more she digs, the more skeletons she finds in their closet, until murder in the past leads to murder in the present.
Minotaur Books | 9781250799906
HOW CAN I HELP YOU by Laura Sims (Psychological Thriller)
No one knows Margo’s real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small-town public library only know her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of countless premature deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges. That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist, joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margo’s subtly sinister edge and watches her carefully. When a patron’s death in the library bathroom gives her a hint of Margo’s mysterious past, Patricia can’t resist digging deeper --- even as this new fixation becomes all-consuming.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593543702
IMMORTAL LONGINGS by Chloe Gong (Fantasy)
Every year, thousands in the kingdom of Talin flock to its capital twin cities, San-Er, where the palace hosts a set of games. Competitors fight to the death to win unimaginable riches. Five years ago, a massacre killed Princess Calla Tuoleimi's parents and left the palace of Er empty…and she was the one who did it. Before King Kasa’s forces in San can catch her, she plans to finish the job and bring down the monarchy. Her reclusive uncle always greets the victor of the games, so if she wins, she gets her opportunity at last to kill him. Calla finds both an unexpected alliance with Anton Makusa, an exiled aristocrat, and help from King Kasa’s adopted son, August, who wants to mend Talin’s ills. But before the games close, Calla must decide what she’s playing for --- her lover or her kingdom.
Gallery/Saga Press | 9781668000229
JACKIE: Public, Private, Secret by J. Randy Taraborrelli (Biography)
Based on hundreds of interviews with friends, family and lovers over a 30-year period --- as well as previously unreleased material from the JFK Library --- Kennedy historian J. Randy Taraborrelli paints an unforgettable new portrait of a woman whose flaws and contradictions only serve to make her even more iconic. “I have three lives,” Jackie told a former lover, “public, private and secret.” In this revealing biography, readers will become intimately familiar with all three.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250276216
NEVER BACK DOWN by Christopher Swann (Domestic Thriller)
For as long as she could remember, Susannah Faulkner knew that even though she lived a dangerous and violent life, she would try her best to do some good in the world. She’s hunted down evil men before, but the one man who puts fear into her heart, the one man who could destroy everything she loves, is the one man she cannot track down. And worst of all, she doesn’t know what will happen when she finds him. Or if he finds her first. Finn, an ex-soldier who served alongside Susannah’s father in Iraq, left Suzie with a simple choice a year ago: she could watch her family die one by one, or she could pursue him in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. The stubborn and skillful Suzie knows just how dangerous he is and how far he will go to complete his vengeance. And so the hunt begins.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781639103690
ONLOOKERS: Stories by Ann Beattie (Fiction/Short Stories)
ONLOOKERS is an astute new story collection about people living in the same Southern town whose lives intersect in surprising ways. Peaceful Charlottesville, Virginia, drew national attention when white nationalists held a rally there in 2017; the repercussions of this horrific event are still felt today. Confederate monuments such as General Robert E. Lee atop his horse were then still standing. The statues are a constant presence and a metaphoric refrain throughout this collection, though they represent different things to different characters. Some landmarks may have faded from consciousness but provoke fresh outrage when viewed through newly opened eyes.
Scribner | 9781668013656
SILVER NITRATE by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
Montserrat is a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star. Then Tristán discovers that his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives --- even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed. Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse. But Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend.
Del Rey | 9780593355367
STRANGE SALLY DIAMOND by Liz Nugent (Psychological Thriller)
Reclusive Sally Diamond causes outrage by trying to incinerate her dead father. Now she’s the center of attention, not only from the hungry media and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she does not remember. As she begins to discover the horrors of her early childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, big decisions, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say. But who is the man observing Sally from the other side of the world, and why does he call her Mary? And why does her new neighbor seem to be obsessed with her? Sally’s trust issues are about to be severely challenged.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781501189715
A TWISTED LOVE STORY by Samantha Downing (Psychological Thriller)
Wes and Ivy are madly in love. It's the type of romance people write stories about. But what kind of story? When it's good, it's great. Flowers. Grand gestures. Deep meaningful conversations where the whole world disappears. When it's bad, it's really bad. Vengeful fights. Damaged property. Arrest warrants. But their vicious cycle of catastrophic breakups and head-over-heels reconciliations needs to end fast. Because suddenly, Wes and Ivy have a common enemy --- and she's a detective. There's something Wes and Ivy never talk about. The night of their worst breakup, when one of them took things too far, and someone ended up dead. If they can stick together, they can survive anything --- even the tightening net of a police investigation. Because one more breakup just might be their last.
Berkley | 9780593101001
THE VIPER: A Dave Gurney Novel by John Verdon (Mystery/Thriller)
Tennis bad boy Ziko Slade is serving 20 years for the grisly murder of small-time criminal Lenny Lerman. The facts of the case --- and Slade’s checkered past --- seem indisputable. What begins as a cursory review of the case as a favor to Dave Gurney’s wife’s friend soon spirals into something much more complicated. When Gurney’s involvement threatens to expose a viper’s nest of corruption, he finds himself framed for murder and pursued by a sensational media, a ruthless district attorney and a coldblooded killer. As he evades the law and attempts to solve the case to salvage his reputation, Gurney grapples with the realization that his unshakable need for police work is costing him more than the brilliant detective ever suspected.
Counterpoint | 9781640095854
THE WONDER STATE by Sara Flannery Murphy (Supernatural Thriller)
Five friends arrive back in Eternal Springs, the small town they all fled after high-school graduation. Each of them is drawn home by a cryptic, scrawled two-word letter: You promised. It has been 15 years since that life-changing summer, and they're anxious to find out why Brandi called them back, especially when they vowed never to return. But Brandi is missing. She'd been acting erratically for months, in and out of rehab, railing at whoever might listen about magic all around them. About a power they can't see. And strange houses that appear only when you need them.
MCD | 9780374601775
ZERO-SUM: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates (Fiction/Short Stories)
A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered. Diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community. A woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover. A young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as “mother.” In the collection’s longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with “drafts” of his own suicide. In these powerfully wrought stories that hold a mirror up to our time, Joyce Carol Oates has created a world of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism and ever-shifting identities.
Knopf | 9780593535868
On Sale the Week of July 17th in Paperback
July 18th
BETWEEN A WOK AND A DEAD PLACE by Leslie Budewitz (Mystery)
Paperback Original
Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle's Pike Place Market, loves a good festival, especially one serving up tasty treats. So what could be more fun than a food walk in the city's Chinatown–International District, celebrating the Year of the Rabbit? But when her friend Roxanne stumbles across a man's body in the Gold Rush, a long-closed residential hotel, questions leap out. Who was he? What was he doing in the dust-encrusted herbal pharmacy in the hotel's basement? Why was the pharmacy closed up --- and why are the owners so reluctant to talk? With each new discovery, Pepper finds herself asking new questions and facing more brick walls.
Seventh Street Books | 9781645060611
BEYOND THE REACH OF EARTH by Ken MacLeod (Science Fiction/Space Opera)
Paperback Original
The invention of faster-than-light technology has brought great opportunity, but also great danger. The Black Horizon conspiracy is broken up, but it still has deadly assets beyond the reach of Earth. As the great powers jostle for advantage, the alien minds known as the Fermi have their own ways of dealing with humans meddling in plans vaster and more ancient than anyone can suspect. After the Venus catastrophe, John Grant’s starship Fighting Chance and the Space Station have reached Apis --- but not for long. They barely have time to mourn the dead before they’re chased out of the system. The Station begins exploring the systems that Black Horizon warned them against --- with good reason, as they soon discover.
Pyr | 9781645060659
THE BINDING ROOM: An Inspector Anjelica Henley Thriller by Nadine Matheson (Mystery/Thriller)
When Detective Anjelica Henley is called to investigate the murder of a popular preacher in his own church, she discovers a second victim, tortured and tied to a bed in an upstairs room. He is alive, but barely, and his body shows signs of a dark religious ritual. With a revolving list of suspects and the media spotlight firmly on her, Henley is left with more questions than answers as she attempts to untangle both crimes. But when another body appears, the case takes on a new urgency. Unless she can apprehend the killer, the next victim may just be Henley herself.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335455048
THE BOOK OF SAND by Mo Hayder, writing as Theo Clare (Science Fiction/Fantasy)
Sand. A hostile world of burning sun. Outlines of several once-busy cities shimmer on the horizon. Now empty of inhabitants, their buildings lie in ruins. In the distance, a group of people --- a family --- walks toward us. To survive in this alien world of shifting sand, they must find an object hidden in or near water. But other families want it too. And they are willing to fight to the death to make it theirs. It is beginning to rain in Fairfax County, Virginia, when McKenzie Strathie wakes up. An ordinary teenage girl living an ordinary life --- except that the previous night she found a sand-lizard in her bed, and now she's beginning to question everything around her, especially who she really is.
Blackstone Publishing | 9798212174909
COUNTING LOST STARS by Kim van Alkemade (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
1960, New York City: College student Rita Klein meets Jacob Nassy, who is traumatized by his childhood experience of being separated from his mother during the Holocaust. When Rita learns that Hitler’s Final Solution was organized using Hollerith punch-card computers, she sets out to find the answers that will help Jacob heal. 1941, The Hague: Cornelia Vogel is working as a punch-card operator when a census of Holland’s population is ordered by the Germans. After the Ministry acquires a Hollerith computer made in America, Cornelia is tasked with translating its instructions from English into Dutch. When Cornelia learns the census is being used to persecute Holland’s Jews, she risks everything to help Leah escape. After Rita uncovers a connection between Cornelia and Jacob’s mother, long-buried secrets come to light.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063289918
DARK EARTH by Rebecca Stott (Historical Fantasy)
The year is 500 AD. Sisters Isla and Blue live in the shadows of the Ghost City, the abandoned ruins of the once-glorious mile-wide Roman settlement Londinium on the bank of the River Thames. But the small island they call home is also a place of exile for Isla, Blue and their father, a legendary blacksmith accused of using dark magic to make his firetongue swords --- formidable blades that cannot be broken --- and cast out from the community. When he dies suddenly, the sisters find themselves facing enslavement by the local warlord and his cruel, power-hungry son. Their only option is to escape to the Ghost City, where they discover an underworld of rebel women living secretly amid the ruins.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780812989137
DAWNLANDS by Philippa Gregory (Historical Fiction)
It is 1685, and England is on the brink of a renewed civil war. Ned Ferryman cannot persuade his sister, Alinor, that he is right to return from America with his Pokanoket servant, Rowan, to join the rebel army. Instead, Alinor has been coaxed by the manipulative Livia to save the queen from the coming siege. The rewards are life-changing: the family could return to their beloved Tidelands, and Alinor could rule where she was once lower than a servant. Alinor’s son, Rob, is determined to stay clear of the war, but when he and his nephew set out to free Ned from execution for treason and Rowan from a convict deportation to Barbados, they find themselves enmeshed in the creation of an imposter Prince of Wales --- a surrogate baby to the queen.
Washington Square Press | 9781501187223
ELIZABETH FINCH by Julian Barnes (Fiction)
Julian Barnes’ novel of platonic unrequited love springs into being around the singular character of the stoic, exacting Professor Elizabeth Finch. Neil, the narrator, takes her class “Culture and Civilisation,” taught not for undergraduates but for adults of all ages. We are drawn into his intellectual crush on this private, withholding yet commanding woman. While other personal relationships and even his family drift from Neil’s grasp, Elizabeth’s application of her material to the matter of daily living remains important to him, even after her death, in a way that nothing else does.
Vintage | 9780593468920
GROUPIES by Sarah Priscus (Fiction)
After her mother’s death, Faun Novak, a naïve college dropout, grabs her Polaroid and hops a Greyhound to Los Angeles. There, she reconnects with her charismatic childhood friend Josie, now an up-and-coming model and muse. To make their reunion even sweeter, Josie is now dating Cal Holiday, the frontman of the superstar rock band Holiday Sun. Among the band's groupies are a doting high school girl at war with her mother; a drug-dealing wife and new mom who longs to be a star herself; and a cynical mover-and-shaker with a soft spot for Holiday Sun’s bassist. But just as everything is going great and her boring, old life is falling away, Faun realizes just how blind she has been to the darkest corners of this glamorous musical dreamland as the summer heats up and everything spirals out of control.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063218024
THE HOUSE AT THE END OF THE WORLD by Dean Koontz (Science Fiction/Supernatural Thriller)
In retreat from a devastating loss and crushing injustice, Katie lives alone in a fortresslike stone house on Jacob’s Ladder island. Once a rising star in the art world, she finds refuge in her painting. The neighboring island of Ringrock houses a secret: a government research facility. And now two agents have arrived on Jacob’s Ladder in search of someone --- or something --- they refuse to identify. Although an air of menace hangs over these men, an infinitely greater threat has arrived. Katie soon finds herself in an epic and terrifying battle with a mysterious enemy. But she is not alone after all: a brave young girl appears out of the violent squall. Against them is an omnipresent terror that could bring about the end of the world.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662508073
I MEANT IT ONCE: Stories by Kate Doyle (Fiction/Short Stories)
Paperback Original
In this debut collection, Kate Doyle captures precisely that time of life when so many young women are caught in between, preoccupied by nostalgia for past relationships --- with friends, roommates, siblings --- while trying to move forward into an uncertain future. In “That Is Shocking,” a college student relates a darkly funny story of romantic humiliation, one that skirts the parallel story of a friend she betrayed. In others, young women long for friends who have moved away, or moved on. In “Cinnamon Baseball Coyote” and other linked stories about siblings Helen, Evan and Grace, their years of inside jokes and brutal tensions simmer over as the three spend a holiday season in an amusing whirl of rivalry and mutual attachment, and a generational gulf widens between them and their parents.
Algonquin Books | 9781643752815
KEYA DAS’S SECOND ACT by Sopan Deb (Fiction)
Shantanu Das is living in the shadows of his past. In his 50s, he finds himself isolated from his traditional Bengali community after a devastating divorce from his wife, Chaitali; he hasn’t spoken to his older daughter, Mitali, in months. Years before, when his younger daughter, Keya, came out as gay, no one in the Das family could find the words they needed. As each worked up the courage to say sorry, fate intervened: Keya was killed in a car crash. So, when Shantanu finds an unfinished play Keya and her girlfriend had been writing, Mitali approaches the family with a wild idea: What if they were to put it on? It would be a way to honor Keya and finally apologize. Here, it seems, are the words that have escaped them over and over again.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982185480
THE KILLER’S WIFE by Susan Furlong (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
When a severed finger was found in her car four years ago, Kerry Grey was arrested as an accomplice to the brutal slayings of three young women. Unbeknownst to Kerry, her husband Lucas was not only missing, but a deranged serial killer. Finally out on parole, she is ready to start anew and reunite with her young son. However, when a vigilante group inflamed by fear and motivated by reward money sparks a fevered hunt for Lucas, the nightmares of her past return. Only one person can help Kerry evade the hysteria of the media --- her parole officer, Adam Nash. But can she trust him? Was his move to the backwoods town of Joy, Montana, coincidental, or does Nash have his own obsessive hidden agenda involving the Hatchet Killer mystery, her husband and sweet justice?
Seventh Street Books | 9781645060574
MY WIFE IS MISSING by D.J. Palmer (Domestic Thriller)
A family vacation turns into a nightmare for Michael Hart when he discovers that his wife, Natalie, and their two children have disappeared from their New York City hotel room. Horrified, he fears they’ve been kidnapped. Michael’s frantic search to find them takes a shocking turn when he discovers that Natalie appears to have left quite willingly, taking their children with her. The police want to know why, and so does Michael. But there may be a reason why Natalie ran, something Michael can’t tell the police --- the truth about his past. While untangling his deceptions might be the key to locating Natalie, Michael knows it also could be his undoing. To find his wife, he must now turn to the one person capable of exposing all that he’s been hiding.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250267900
QUEEN WALLIS by C. J. Carey (Alternate History/Dystopian Thriller)
Paperback Original
A mere woman, Rose Ransom’s role in the Leader's death has been miraculously overlooked. A government propaganda drive to promote positive images of women has just been announced ahead of a visit from Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first American president to set foot on English soil in two decades. Queen Wallis Simpson will be spearheading the campaign, and Rose has been tasked with visiting her to explain the plan. When Rose arrives at the palace, she finds Wallis in a state of paranoia, desperate to return to America and enjoy the liberty of her homeland following her husband's death. Wallis claims she has a secret document so explosive that it will blow the Protectorate apart. But will the last queen of England pull the trigger on the Alliance?
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728248479
THE RETREAT by Sarah Pearse (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
An idyllic wellness retreat has opened on an island off the English coast, promising rest and relaxation --- but the island itself, known locally as Reaper’s Rock, has a dark past. Once the playground of a serial killer, it’s rumored to be cursed. A young woman is found dead below the yoga pavilion in what seems to be a tragic fall. But Detective Elin Warner soon learns the victim wasn’t a guest --- in fact, she wasn’t meant to be on the island at all. And they would do anything to escape. The longer Elin stays, the more secrets she uncovers. When someone else drowns in a diving incident, Elin begins to suspect that there’s nothing accidental about these deaths. But why would someone target the guests at this luxury resort?
Penguin Books | 9780593489574
SINNERS OF STARLIGHT CITY by Anika Scott (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
It’s the worst year of the Great Depression, and the Chicago World’s Fair becomes a symbol of the good that’s yet to come. As the mysterious Madame Mystique, Rosa Mancuso mixes magic with a dose of bare skin burlesque, bringing customers to the home of the Fair’s carnival rides and spectacles. Rosa doesn’t perform for fame, though. She has come from Mussolini’s Italy to America, where she’s plotting her revenge for the murders of her family. The perpetrator will soon arrive at the World’s Fair via a celebrated Italian air fleet, and Rosa is determined to be prepared. But when her estranged cousin, Mina, comes to her desperate for help, with a dangerous mobster close on her heels, Rosa agrees to protect Mina and her new baby, born across the color line.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063306226
WOMEN OF THE POST by Joshunda Sanders (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
1944, New York City. Judy Washington is tired of having to work at the Bronx Slave Market, cleaning white women’s houses for next to nothing. She dreams of a bigger life, but with her husband fighting overseas, it’s up to her and her mother to earn enough for food and rent. When she’s recruited to join the Women’s Army Corps, Judy jumps at the opportunity. During training, Judy becomes fast friends with the other women in her unit: Stacy, Bernadette and Mary Alyce. Under Second Officer Charity Adams' leadership, they receive orders to sort over one million pieces of mail in England, becoming the only unit of Black women to serve overseas during WWII. However, their work becomes personal when Mary Alyce discovers a backlogged letter addressed to Judy.
Park Row | 9780778334071
THE WORK WIFE by Alison B. Hart (Fiction)
It’s the Hollywood event of the season, and anyone who’s anyone will be enjoying their evening at socialite Holly Stabler’s gorgeous hilltop estate. For personal assistant Zanne Klein, the gala is her chance at a promotion she’s chased for far too long, which means she’ll finally be able to buy a house, pay off her loans, and give her girlfriend the life she deserves. But just when the perfect party seems to be in reach, Phoebe Lee, a talented director who mysteriously disappeared decades before, shows up uninvited --- with a dark secret. As the event unfolds and truths are exposed, Zanne, Holly and Phoebe are set on a collision course that promises to make the night one Hollywood will never forget.
Graydon House | 9781525804915
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