August 22, 2023

August 22, 2023

Never Miss a Contest or a Promotion!
Follow and Like Us on Social Media

Please note: There will be no "On Sale This Week" newsletter on Tuesday, August 29th as we take our annual summer break, so we are covering releases from now through the week of September 4th in this edition. Our next "On Sale This Week" newsletter will be sent on Tuesday, September 5th.

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of August 21st, August 28th and September 4th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to Carol Fitzgerald's two latest Bookreporter.com Bets On picks: EVERYONE HERE IS LYING, a thrilling work of domestic suspense from Shari Lapena in which everyone on a seemingly safe neighborhood street becomes a suspect when a young girl goes missing; and Sarah Pekkanen's GONE TONIGHT, a chilling and twisty novel about a mother's secrets to protect her daughter and what happens when they begin to unravel.

Carol recently chatted with Shari Lapena about EVERYONE HERE IS LYING for a "Bookreporter Talks To" interview. She has christened Shari “the Queen of the One-Sit Read,” as every time she starts reading one of her books, she does not stop until she finishes. And she is not alone; we are hearing this from other readers.

Shari talks about how the book opens and sets the story up, and from there how the neighbors all become part of the plot. The ending will make you stop and say, “That is so perfect.” Shari discusses her writing process, her drafts and early passes on her books, and how she works with her agent and editor. She also shares what she is hearing from readers about the audiobook, which is narrated by January LaVoy…and, yes, some hints about the next book, which will be her eighth. Click here to watch the video or here to listen to the podcast.

Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events

Here are six upcoming virtual book and author events that you may be interested in attending. Click on the links for more info and to register.

Wednesday, August 23rd at 1pm ET: Simon & Schuster's Book Club Favorites: Jessica Ward will join members of the Simon & Schuster team to discuss her latest novel, THE ST. AMBROSE SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, which is August's pick for S&S's Book Club Favorites.

Wednesday, August 23rd at 4pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: AJ Pearce will talk about her new book, MRS. PORTER CALLING, a charming and irresistible novel featuring journalist Emmy Lake as she fights for her readers, her friends and her found family in London during World War II.

Wednesday, August 23rd at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": The "Friends and Fiction" authors --- Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey and Patti Callahan Henry --- will talk to Ann Garvin about THERE'S NO COMING BACK FROM THIS and Ally Carter about THE BLONDE IDENTITY.

Thursday, August 24th at 8:30pm ET: Book Passage: Alice Hoffman will be in conversation with Luisa Smith about her new book, THE INVISIBLE HOUR, an enchanting novel about love, heartbreak, self-discovery and the enduring magic of books.

Tuesday, August 29th at 8pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Angie Kim will talk to special guest host Chris Bohjalian about her latest novel, HAPPINESS FALLS, a riveting page-turner and a deeply moving portrait of a family in crisis from the award-winning author of MIRACLE CREEK.

Wednesday, August 30th at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": The "Friends and Fiction" authors will talk to Tracey Lange and Aimie K. Runyan about their latest novels: Tracey's THE CONNELLYS OF COUNTY DOWN and Aimie's A BAKERY IN PARIS.

This Week's Bonus News:
Bookreporter.com "Bets On"
EVERYONE HERE IS LYING by Shari Lapena
and GONE TONIGHT by Sarah Pekkanen

On Sale the Week of August 21st in Hardcover

August 22nd

AFTER THAT NIGHT by Karin Slaughter (Mystery/Thriller)
Fifteen years ago, Sara Linton’s life changed forever when a celebratory night out ended in a violent attack that tore her world apart. Since then, Sara has remade her life. A successful doctor, engaged to a man she loves, she has finally managed to leave the past behind her. Until one evening, on call in the ER, everything changes. Sara battles to save a broken young woman who’s been brutally attacked. But as the investigation progresses, led by GBI Special Agent Will Trent, it becomes clear that Dani Cooper’s assault is uncannily linked to Sara’s. And the past isn’t going to stay buried forever.
William Morrow | 9780063157781

THE CONTINENTAL AFFAIR by Christine Mangan (Historical/Literary Thriller)
Meet Henri and Louise. Two strangers, traveling alone, on the train from Belgrade to Istanbul. Except this isn't the first time they have met. It's the 1960s, and Louise is running. From her past in England, from the owners of the money she has stolen --- and from Henri, the person who has been sent to collect it. Across the Continent Henri follows, desperate to leave behind his own troubles. The memories of his past life as a gendarme in Algeria that keep resurfacing. His inability to reconcile the growing responsibilities of his current criminal path with this former self. But Henri soon realizes that Louise is no ordinary mark. As the train hurtles toward its final destination, Henri and Louise must decide what the future will hold --- and if it involves one another.
Flatiron Books | 9781250788481

DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON: Anna May Wong's Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang (Biography)
Born into the steam and starch of a Chinese laundry, Anna May Wong (1905–1961) emerged from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles to become Old Hollywood’s most famous Chinese American actress, a screen siren who captivated global audiences and signed her publicity photos --- with a touch of defiance --- “Orientally yours.” Now, more than a century after her birth, Yunte Huang narrates Wong’s tragic life story, retracing her journey from Chinatown to silent-era Hollywood, and from Weimar Berlin to decadent, prewar Shanghai, and capturing American television in its infancy. As Huang shows, Wong’s rendezvous with history features a remarkable parade of characters, including a smitten Walter Benjamin and (an equally smitten) Marlene Dietrich.
Liveright | 9781631495809

DEAD MOUNTAIN: A Nora Kelly Novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Thriller)
In 2008, nine mountaineers failed to return from a winter backpacking trip in the New Mexico mountains. At their final campsite, searchers found a bizarre scene: something had appeared at the door of their tent so terrifying that it impelled them to slash their way out and flee barefoot to certain death in a blizzard. Despite a diligent search, only six bodies were found, two violently crushed and inexplicably missing their eyes. The case, given the code name “Dead Mountain” by the FBI, was never solved. Now, two more bodies from the lost expedition are unexpectedly discovered in a cave, one a grisly suicide. Young FBI Agent Corrie Swanson teams up with archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate what really happened on that fateful trip 15 years ago --- and to find the ninth victim.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538736821

HE WHO DROWNED THE WORLD by Shelley Parker-Chan (Historical Fantasy)
Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor. But Zhu’s neighbor in the south, the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband --- and she’s strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map. To stay in the game, Zhu will have to gamble everything on a risky alliance with the talented but unstable eunuch general Ouyang, who already has sacrificed everything for a chance at revenge on his father’s killer, the Great Khan. Unbeknownst to the southerners, a new contender is even closer to the throne. The scorned scholar Wang Baoxiang has maneuvered his way into the capital, and his lethal court games threaten to bring the empire to its knees.
Tor Books | 9781250621825

HOUSE OF ODYSSEUS by Claire North (Historical Fiction)
On the isle of Ithaca, queen Penelope maintains a delicate balance of power. Many years ago, her husband Odysseus sailed to war with Troy and never came home. In his absence, Penelope uses all her cunning to keep the peace --- a peace that is shattered by the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra. Orestes' hands are stained with his mother's blood. Not so long ago, the son of Agamemnon took Queen Clytemnestra's life on Ithaca's sands. Now, wracked with guilt, he is slowly losing his mind. But a king cannot be seen to be weak, and Elektra has brought him to Ithaca to keep him safe from the ambitious men of Mycenae. His uncle Menelaus, the battle-hungry king of Sparta, longs for Orestes' throne --- and if he can seize it, no one will be safe from his violent whims.
Redhook | 9780316444002

I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU YET by Jesse Q. Sutanto (Psychological Thriller)
A struggling midlist writer, Jane feels trapped in an underwhelming marriage. There's only ever been one person she cared about: Thalia, her best and only friend nearly a decade ago during their Creative Writing days at Oxford. But then one night ruined everything. The blood-soaked night that should have bound Thalia to Jane forever instead made her lose her completely. Thalia disappeared without a trace, and Jane has been unable to find her since. Until now. Because there she is, her name at the top of the New York Times bestseller list: A Most Pleasant Death by Thalia Ashcroft. When she discovers a post from Thalia on her website about attending a book convention in New York City in a week --- “Can’t wait to see you there!” --- Jane can’t wait either. Jane won’t lose Thalia again.
Berkley | 9780593546918

LUNATIC CARNIVAL by D.W. Buffa (Legal Thriller)
T.J. Allen, a professional athlete, is charged with the murder of Matthew Stanton, the owner of the team. Renowned lawyer Joseph Antonelli agrees to take the case only after the trial court judge tells him that Allen is innocent and that “All of America contributed to the making of Matthew Stanton.” The evidence is firmly stacked against Allen: he was found standing over Stanton’s dead body, the murder weapon still in hand. The only way to prove Allen is innocent is to find the real killer and their motive. Who had a reason to kill Matthew Stanton? What had he done, or what was he planning to do, that made the real killer think he had no choice? As Antonelli prepares for the most difficult case of his career, he will learn that the answer to that question not only will change the outcome of this trial, but could change the world as we know it.
Polis Books | 9781951709839

SIR HEREWARD AND MISTER FITZ: Stories of the Witch Knight and the Puppet Sorcerer by Garth Nix (Fantasy/Short Stories)
Sir Hereward: the only male child of an ancient society of witches. Knight, artillerist, swordsman. Mercenary for hire. Ill-starred lover. Mister Fitz: puppet, sorcerer, loremaster. Practitioner of arcane arts and wielder of sorcerous needles. Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: godslayers. Agents of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, charged with the location and removal of listed extra-dimensional entities, more commonly known as gods. Together, they are relentless travelers in a treacherous world of magic, gunpowder and adventure. Compiled for the first time ever, these eight magical stories --- plus an all-new tale, “The Field of Fallen Foe” --- comprise a must-have adult fantasy collection for fans and those about to discover the witch knight and his puppet sorcerer for the first time.
Harper Voyager | 9780063291966

THE WATER OUTLAWS by S. L. Huang (Fantasy/Adventure)
Lin Chong is an expert arms instructor, training the Emperor's soldiers in sword and truncheon, battle axe and spear, lance and crossbow. Unlike bolder friends who flirt with challenging the unequal hierarchies and values of Imperial society, she believes in keeping her head down and doing her job. Until a powerful man with a vendetta rips that carefully built life away. Disgraced, tattooed as a criminal, and on the run from an Imperial Marshall who will stop at nothing to see her dead, Lin Chong is recruited by the Bandits of Liangshan. Mountain outlaws on the margins of society, the Liangshan Bandits proclaim a belief in justice --- for women, for the downtrodden, for progressive thinkers a corrupt Empire would imprison or destroy. They’re also murderers, thieves, smugglers and cutthroats.
Tordotcom | 9781250180421

On Sale the Week of August 21st in Paperback

August 22nd

48 HOURS TO KILL by Andrew Bourelle (Thriller)
Serving a 10-year sentence in a Nevada prison for armed robbery, Ethan Lockhart hopes that he can one day become a productive, law-abiding member of society. But society has other plans for Ethan. When he’s given a 48-hour furlough to attend his sister Abby’s funeral, he learns that her body was never found --- just enough blood to declare her dead instead of missing --- and he begins to suspect that there’s more to her death than was reported. Ethan decides to use his 48-hour window to find out what happened. But to get to the bottom of the mystery, he’ll have to return to his unsavory past.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781639104482

THE CHANGE by Kirsten Miller (Fantasy/Thriller)
In the Long Island oceanfront community of Mattauk, three different women discover that midlife changes bring a whole new type of empowerment. After Nessa James’ husband dies and her twin daughters leave for college, the former nurse begins to hear voices. It doesn’t take long for Nessa to realize that the voices calling out to her belong to the dead. On the cusp of 50, suave advertising director Harriett Osborne has just witnessed the implosion of her lucrative career and her marriage. But her life is far from over --- in fact, she has undergone a stunning and very welcome metamorphosis. Ambitious former executive Jo Levison has spent 30 long years at war with her body. The free-floating rage and hot flashes that arrive with the beginning of menopause feel like the very last straw --- until she realizes she has the ability to channel them.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063144057

CLIVE CUSSLER’S HELLBURNER: A Novel of the Oregon Files by Mike Maden (Thriller/Adventure)
When Juan Cabrillo fails to capture the leader of Mexico’s most dangerous drug cartel and loses an Oregon crew member in the process, he’s determined to get revenge. Little does he know that the explosion he just narrowly escaped was merely the latest flash of violence from a machine of war that has existed for decades. Cabrillo’s Corporation of mercenaries may have finally met its match in The Pipeline, a criminal syndicate passed down from father to son across generations. A group that sits with its finger on the trigger of a torpedo so deadly it could level entire cities. With millions of innocent civilians hanging in the balance, the Oregon’s crew must unravel a tangle of drug-smuggling routes and international conspiracies.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593540664

COME WITH ME by Erin Flanagan (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Gwen Maner is a widowed single mom, returning to her Ohio hometown with her daughter. And thanks to former acquaintance Nicola Kimmel, this is the start of Gwen’s new and promising life. Nicola has secured Gwen a lucrative job, rented Gwen a house on her same street, and won the heart of Gwen’s daughter. But she almost seems too good to be true. Gwen is sure Nicola is yearning only for someone to get close to. After all, according to Nicola, her marriage is falling apart, and her best friend just up and left one day. But how well does Gwen really know Nicola? What does Nicola ultimately want? As their lives become more entwined, Gwen begins to think that Nicola isn’t helping Gwen and her daughter but vying for control of every aspect of her life. And the consequences may be deadly.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662510328

DINOSAURS by Lydia Millet (Fiction)
DINOSAURS is the story of a man named Gil who walks from New York to Arizona to recover from a failed love. After he arrives, new neighbors move into the glass-walled house next door, and his life begins to mesh with theirs. In this warmly textured, dryly funny and philosophical account of Gil’s unexpected devotion to the family, Lydia Millet explores the uncanny territory where the self ends and community begins --- what one person can do in a world beset by emergencies.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324066125

THE ENEMY AT HOME by Kevin O'Brien (Historical Thriller/Mystery)
Paperback Original
1943, Seattle. While raging war reshapes the landscape of Europe, its impact is felt thousands of miles away. With her doctor husband stationed in North Africa, Nora Kinney learns to wield a heavy riveting gun amid the deafening noise of the assembly line. But she worries that she is neglecting her children, especially her withdrawn teenage son. Amid this turmoil, though, a sinister tragedy occurs: One of Nora’s coworkers is found strangled in her apartment, dressed in an apron, with a lipstick smile smeared on her face. It’s the beginning of a terrifying pattern, as women war-plant workers like Nora are targeted throughout Seattle and murdered in the same ritualistic manner. And eclipsing Nora’s fear for her safety is her secret, growing conviction that she and the killer are connected.
Kensington | 9781496738509

EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES: Stories of Crime and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates (Crime Fiction/Short Stories)
Two hitmen in a depressed rust belt town struggle with a job gone wrong. A girl witnesses a horrifying accident and carries it with her for the rest of her life. Medical students bring a severed foot to a college party. Five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Joyce Carol Oates has made a career of exploring the forbidden corners of human experience, and the stories collected here, spanning her first three decades as a writer, are among her most unsettling and unforgettable works to date. Originally published in long out-of-print volumes, these tales have not appeared in any form this century --- until now.
Mysterious Press | 9781613164259

HARM’S WAY: A Jonathan Grave Thriller by John Gilstrap (Political Thriller)
Paperback Original
Henchmen of a vicious drug syndicate have snatched 10 missionaries in a remote area of Venezuela and are holding them for ransom. The high-priority rescue op comes as a personal plea from FBI Director Irene Rivers, who has a very special interest in one of the hostages. The mission is strictly off the books, and there can be no international incident. Just get in and get out --- and keep the precious cargo safe. With his key operatives Gunslinger and Boxers, Grave infiltrates the enemy camp. Right away, the rescue mission morphs into something far more dangerous --- not just to Jonathan and his team, but to the whole world.
Pinnacle | 9780786050086

HOLMES COMING by Kenneth Johnson (Mystery)
While checking on a former patient at her isolated Victorian house, Dr. Amy Winslow discovers in the cellar a secret, cobweb-covered 1899 electrochemical laboratory containing a Jules Verne-esque steam-punk sarcophagus out of which springs a wild-eyed, half-mummified, crypt-keeper-like man. He claims to be a real-life Victorian master chemist and detective named Holmes, who allowed Conan Doyle to write stories based on his cases. Holmes and his reluctant new Watson, Amy, find themselves unexpectedly attracted to each other while perilously involved in reclaiming his proof of identity. It’s all connected to a horrific death-by-tiger, only the first of several bizarre, mystifying murders being committed by an exquisitely fiendish descendant of Holmes’ Victorian archenemy, Professor Moriarty.
Blackstone Publishing | 9798212175128

THE HUNDRED WATERS by Lauren Acampora (Fiction)
Formerly a model and photographer trying to make it in New York, Louisa Rader is back in her affluent hometown of Nearwater, Connecticut, where she's married to a successful older architect, raising a preteen daughter, and trying to vitalize the provincial local art center. As the years pass, she's grown restless in her safe and comfortable routine, haunted by the flash of the life she used to live. When intense and intriguing young artist-environmentalist Gabriel arrives in town with his aristocratic family, his impact on the Raders has hothouse effects. As Gabriel pushes to realize his artistic vision for the world, he pulls both Louisa and her daughter, Sylvie, under his spell, with consequences that disrupt the Raders’ world forever.
Grove Press | 9780802161802

IN CHARM’S WAY: A Witches of Thistle Grove Novel by Lana Harper (Paranormal Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Six months after having been hit by a power surge that nearly obliterated her memory, Delilah Harlow is still picking up the pieces. Her once diamond-sharp mind has become shaky and unreliable, and bristly, self-sufficient Delilah is forced to rely on friends, family and her raven familiar for help. In an effort to reclaim her wits and former independence, she casts a dangerous blood spell meant to harness power with healing capacities. While the spell does restore clarity, it also unexpectedly turns Delilah into an irresistible beacon for the kind of malevolent supernatural creatures that have never before ventured into Thistle Grove. One night --- just as things are about to go terribly sideways with a rogue succubus --- a mysterious stranger appears in the nick of time to save Delilah’s soul.
Berkley | 9780593637968

LARK ASCENDING by Silas House (Dystopian Fiction)
With fires devastating much of America, Lark and his family secure a place on a crowded boat headed to Ireland, the last place on earth rumored to be accepting American refugees. Upon arrival, it turns out that the safe harbor of Ireland no longer exists either --- and Lark, the sole survivor of the trans-Atlantic voyage, must disappear into the countryside. As he runs for his life, Lark finds two equally lost and desperate souls: one of the last remaining dogs, who becomes his closest companion, and a fierce, mysterious woman in search of her lost son. Together they form a makeshift family and attempt to reach Glendalough, a place they believe will offer protection. But can any community provide the safety that they seek?
Algonquin Books | 9781643753935

LITTLE SOULS by Sandra Dallas (Historical Fiction)
Sisters Helen and Lutie have moved to Denver from Iowa after their parents’ deaths. They share a small, neat house and make a modest income from a rental apartment in the basement. When their tenant dies from the Spanish Flu, they are thrust into caring for the woman’s small daughter, Dorothy. Soon after, Lutie comes home from work and discovers a dead man on their kitchen floor and Helen standing above the body. She has no doubt Helen killed the man --- Dorothy’s father --- in self-defense, but she knows that will be hard to prove. Meanwhile, Lutie also worries about her fiancé “over there.” As it happens, his wealthy mother harbors a secret of her own and helps the sisters as the danger deepens.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250889706

LONG SHADOWS: A Memory Man Thriller by David Baldacci (Thriller)
When Amos Decker is called to South Florida to investigate a double homicide, the case appears straightforward: A federal judge and her bodyguard have been found dead, the judge’s face sporting a blindfold with two eye holes crudely cut out. What at first seems cut and dry is anything but: Not only did the judge have more enemies than Decker can count, the bodyguard presents additional conundrums that muddy the waters even further. Who was the real target in this vicious attack? Meanwhile, Decker must contend with a series of unsettling changes, including a new partner --- Special Agent Frederica “Freddie” White --- and a devastating event that brings Decker’s own tragic past back to the present and forces him to reckon with his future.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538719800

MALICE HOUSE by Megan Shepherd (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
Of all the things aspiring artist Haven Marbury expected to find while clearing out her late father’s remote seaside house, Bedtime Stories for Monsters was not on the list. This secret handwritten manuscript is disturbingly different from his Pulitzer-winning works: its interweaving short stories crawl with horrific monsters and enigmatic humans that exist somewhere between this world and the next. The stories unsettle but also entice Haven, practically compelling her to illustrate them while she stays in the house that her father warned her was haunted. But when a monstrous creature appears under Haven’s bed right as grisly deaths are reported in the nearby woods, she must race to uncover dark, otherworldly family secrets.
Hyperion Avenue | 9781368090643

OUR MISSING HEARTS by Celeste Ng (Fiction)
Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn’t know what happened to her --- only that her books have been banned --- and he resents that she cared more about her work than about him. Then one day, Bird receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, and soon he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of heroic librarians, and finally to New York City, where he will learn the truth about what happened to his mother and what the future holds for them both.
Penguin Books | 9780593492666

A PLACE IN THE WORLD: Finding the Meaning of Home by Frances Mayes (Memoir)
Though Frances Mayes is known for her travels, she has always sought a sense of home wherever she goes. In this poetic testament to the power of place in our lives, Mayes reflects on the idea of home, from the earliest imprint of four walls to the startling discoveries of feeling the strange ease of homes abroad, friends’ homes, and even momentary homes that spark desires for other lives. Her musings are all the more poignant after so many have spent their long pandemic months at home. From her travels across Italy --- Tuscany, of course, but also Venice and Capri --- to the American South, France and Mexico, Mayes examines the connective tissue among them through the homes she’s inhabited.
Crown | 9780593443354

ROBERT B. PARKER’S FALLOUT: A Jesse Stone Novel by Mike Lupica (Mystery)
The small town of Paradise is devastated when a star high-school baseball player is found dead at the bottom of a bluff just a day after winning the team’s biggest game. For Jesse, the loss is doubly difficult --- the teen was the nephew of his colleague, Suitcase Simpson, and Jesse had been coaching the young shortstop. As he searches for answers about how the boy died and why, he is stonewalled at every turn. Suddenly he must divide his attention between two cases after the shocking murder of former Paradise police chief Charlie Farrell. Both old and new enemies come into play, and in the end, Jesse and his team must discover the common factor between the two deaths in order to prevent a third.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593717165

SCHOOL DAYS by Jonathan Galassi (Fiction)
Sam Brandt is a long-term denizen of Connecticut’s renowned Leverett School. As an English teacher, he has dedicated his life to providing his students with the same challenges, encouragement and sense of possibility that helped him and his friends become themselves here half a lifetime ago. Then Leverett’s headmaster asks Sam to help investigate a charge brought by one of his classmates that he was abused by a teacher. Sam is flooded with memories, above all of his overwhelming love for his friend Eddie and the support of his most inspiring mentor, Theodore Gibson. Sam’s search for the truth becomes a quest to get at the heart of Leverett, then and now.
Other Press | 9781635424126

SLEEPING BEAR by Connor Sullivan (Thriller)
After her young husband’s untimely death, Army veteran Cassie Gale decides to take a few days of solitude in the Alaska wilderness before she starts her new job. But when she fails to show up on her first day and her dog is discovered injured at her wrecked campsite, her father knows that this is much more than a camping trip gone awry. As it turns out, Cassie is not the first person to disappear without a trace in Alaska’s northern interior. But not all disappearances can be explained. Cassie’s is one of them, along with a number of other outdoor enthusiasts who have vanished in recent years. Regaining consciousness in a Russian prison, Cassie finds herself trapped in a system designed to ensure that no one ever escapes alive.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781668032138

WAGING A GOOD WAR: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968 by Thomas E. Ricks (History)
In WAGING A GOOD WAR, Thomas E. Ricks offers a fresh perspective on America’s greatest moral revolution --- the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s --- and its legacy today. While the Movement has become synonymous with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ethos of nonviolence, Ricks, a Pulitzer Prize–winning war reporter, draws on his deep knowledge of tactics and strategy to advance a surprising but revelatory idea: the greatest victories for Black Americans of the past century were won not by idealism alone, but by paying attention to recruiting, training, discipline and organization --- the hallmarks of any successful military campaign.
Picador | 9781250872524

WHEN THEY TELL YOU TO BE GOOD: A Memoir by Prince Shakur (Memoir)
After immigrating from Jamaica to the United States, Prince Shakur’s family is rocked by the murder of Prince’s biological father in 1995. Behind the murder is a sordid family truth, scripted in the lines of a diary by an outlawed uncle hell-bent on avenging the murder of Prince’s father. As Shakur begins to unravel his family’s secrets, he must navigate the strenuous terrain of coming to terms with one’s inner self while confronting the steeped complexities of the Afro-diaspora. WHEN THEY TELL YOU TO BE GOOD charts Shakur’s political coming-of-age from closeted queer kid in a Jamaican family to radicalized adult traveler, writer and anarchist in Obama’s and Trump’s America.
Tin House Books | 9781953534934

THE WHITTIERS by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Preston and Constance Whittier have built a happy life together, with a brood of six children raised in a beautiful historic Manhattan mansion. Now, with a nearly empty nest, it’s easier than ever for the Whittiers to maintain their tradition of a solo romantic “Wintermoon” ski trip. But with this year’s trip comes tragedy, and suddenly the Whittiers' adult children find themselves reuniting in the family home without their parents for the first time ever. The eldest four are forced to put aside their personal issues and their grief to keep the family together and support each other and their two youngest siblings. Selling the house, along with all the memories that live in its walls, feels like yet another devastating loss. Could there be another way, as unconventional as it seems?
Dell | 9781984821850

THE WITCH IN THE WELL by Camilla Bruce (Supernatural Thriller)
Centuries ago, beautiful young Ilsbeth Clark was accused of witchcraft after several children disappeared. Her acquittal did nothing to stop her fellow townsfolk from drowning her in the well where the missing children were last seen. When author and social media influencer Elena returns to the summer paradise of her youth to get her family's manor house ready to sell, the last thing she expected was connecting with --- and feeling inspired to write about --- Ilsbeth’s infamous spirit. The very historical figure that her ex-childhood friend, Cathy, has been diligently researching and writing about for years. What begins as a fiercely competitive sense of ownership over Ilsbeth and her story soon turns both women’s worlds into something more haunted and dangerous than they ever could imagine.
Tor Books | 9781250302076

On Sale the Week of August 28th in Hardcover

August 29th

THE BREAKAWAY by Jennifer Weiner (Fiction)
Thirty-three-year-old Abby Stern is mostly at peace with her plus-size body and is on track to marry her childhood sweetheart, Mark. Yet Abby can’t escape the feeling that something isn’t right…or the memories of one mind-blowing night spent with a man named Sebastian two years ago. So when Abby gets a last-minute call to lead a group bike trip, she’s happy to have time away from Mark and a chance to make up her mind. But on the first day, Abby is shocked to see Sebastian in the tour group. And then there’s a last-minute addition to the trip --- Abby’s mother, Eileen, whom Abby blames for a lifetime of insecurities she’s still trying to undo. Over the next two weeks, strangers become confidantes, hidden truths come to light, and a teenage girl with a secret will unite all the riders in surprising ways.
Atria Books | 9781668033425

THE DEADLINE: Essays by Jill Lepore (Essays)
Few, if any, historians have brought such insight, wisdom and empathy to public discourse as Jill Lepore. Arriving at The New Yorker in 2005, Lepore brought a transporting freshness and a literary vivacity to everything from profiles of long-dead writers to urgent constitutional analysis to an unsparing scrutiny of the woeful affairs of the nation itself. The astonishing essays collected in THE DEADLINE offer a prismatic portrait of Americans’ techno-utopianism, frantic fractiousness and unprecedented --- but armed --- aimlessness. From lockdowns and race commissions to Bratz dolls and bicycles, to the losses that haunt Lepore’s life, these essays again and again cross what she calls the deadline, the “river of time that divides the quick from the dead.”
Liveright | 9781631496127

THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BIG BAD WOLF: A Detective Varg Novel by Alexander McCall Smith (Mystery/Humor)
The Department of Sensitive Crimes is downsizing in light of a recent downturn of sensitive crime, and staff members are wondering who among them will be transferred elsewhere. As the bickering between colleagues intensifies, Ulf Varg tries his best to stay above the fray. But when Anna, a longtime friend and coworker, appears to blame him for an old case that went sideways, it seems she may be putting her own job prospects above their friendship. In the midst of all this, Ulf embarks on an important inquiry: a man's cabin has mysteriously disappeared, and Ulf is tasked with finding out what happened. How exactly does one steal a house? And, more to the point, how does one track down a stolen house?
Pantheon | 9780593700839

EVERY DROP IS A MAN'S NIGHTMARE: Stories by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto (Fiction/Short Stories)
Megan Kamalei Kakimoto's wrenching debut story collection follows a cast of mixed native Hawaiian and Japanese women through a contemporary landscape thick with inherited wisdom and the ghosts of colonization. This is a Hawaii where unruly sexuality and generational memory overflow the postcard image of paradise and the boundaries of the real, where the superstitions born of the islands take on the weight of truth. A childhood encounter with a wild pua'a (pig) on the haunted Pali highway portends one young woman's fraught relationship with her pregnant body. An elderly widow begins seeing her deceased lover in a giant flower. A kanaka writer, mid-manuscript, feels her raw pages quaking and knocking in the briefcase.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781639731169

THE GIRL IN THE EAGLE'S TALONS: A Lisbeth Salander Novel written by Karin Smirnoff, translated by Sarah Death (Thriller)
Change is coming to Sweden’s far north: its untapped natural resources are sparking a gold rush, with the criminal underworld leading the charge. But it’s not the prospect of riches that brings Lisbeth Salander to the small town of Gasskas. She has been named guardian to her niece Svala, whose mother has disappeared. Two things soon become clear: Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager --- and she’s being watched. Mikael Blomkvist is also heading north. He has seen better days. Millennium magazine is in its final print issue, and relations with his daughter are strained. Worse still, there are troubling rumors surrounding the man she’s about to marry. When the truth behind the whispers explodes into violence, Salander emerges as Blomkvist’s last hope.
Knopf | 9780593536698

GOOD BAD GIRL by Alice Feeney (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Twenty years after a baby is stolen from a stroller, a woman is murdered in a care home. The two crimes are somehow linked, and a good bad girl may be the key to discovering the truth. Edith may have been tricked into a nursing home, but she’s planning her escape. Patience works there, cleaning messes and bonding with Edith, a kindred spirit. But Patience is lying to Edith about almost everything. Edith’s own daughter, Clio, won’t speak to her. And someone new is about to knock on Clio’s door…and their intentions aren’t good. With every reason to distrust each other, the women must solve a mystery with three suspects, two murders and one victim. If they do, they just might find out what happened to the baby who disappeared, the mother who lost her and the connections that bind them.
Flatiron Books | 9781250843968

HAPPINESS FALLS by Angie Kim (Mystery/Thriller)
Mia, the irreverent, hyperanalytical 20-year-old daughter of a biracial Korean American family in Virginia, has an explanation for everything --- which is why she isn’t initially concerned when her father and younger brother, Eugene, don’t return from a walk in a nearby park. They must have lost their phone. Or stopped for an errand somewhere. But by the time Mia’s brother runs through the front door bloody and alone, it becomes clear that the father in this tight-knit family is missing and the only witness is Eugene, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome and cannot speak. What follows is both a ticking-clock investigation into the whereabouts of a father and an emotionally rich portrait of a family whose most personal secrets just may be at the heart of his disappearance.
Hogarth | 9780593448205

THE HIKE by Lucy Clarke (Psychological Thriller)
Burned out by both her marriage and work, Liz is desperate for an escape. More than that, she craves an adventure, a total reset. So when she plans a vacation with her three best friends, she persuades them to spend four nights camping in the stunning mountains of Norway. Following a trail that climbs through lush valleys, towering peaks and past jewel-blue lakes, Liz is sure that the hike is just what they need. But as they stride farther from civilization, it becomes clear that the women are not the only ones looking to lose themselves in the mountains. The wilderness hides secrets darker than they ever could have imagined, and if they’re not careful, not all of them will return.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593422670

LEARNED BY HEART by Emma Donoghue (Historical Romance)
Drawing on years of investigation and Anne Lister’s five-million-word secret journal, LEARNED BY HEART is the long-buried love story of Eliza Raine, an orphan heiress banished from India to England at age six, and Anne Lister, a brilliant, troublesome tomboy. Eliza and Anne meet at the Manor School for young ladies in York in 1805 when they are both 14.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316564434

THE MYSTERY AT DUNVEGAN CASTLE by T. L. Huchu (Supernatural Thriller/Fantasy)
Everyone’s favorite 15-year-old ghostalker, Ropa, arrives at the worldwide Society of Skeptical Enquirers’ biennial conference just in time to be tied into a mystery --- a locked room mystery, if an entire creepy haunted castle on lockdown counts. One of the magical attendees has stolen a valuable magical scroll. Caught between Qozmos, the high wizard of Ethiopian magic; the larger-than-life Lord Sashvindu Samarasinghe; England’s Sorcerer Royal; and Scotland’s own Edmund MacLeod, it’s up to Ropa (and Jomo and Priya) to sort through the dangerous secret politics and alliances to figure out what really happened. But she has a special tool --- the many ghosts tied to the ancient, powerful castle.
Tor Books | 9781250883063

RICOCHET: A Garrett Kohl Novel by Taylor Moore (Thriller/Adventure)
After hunting down a rogue spy as part of an elite CIA counterespionage unit, Garrett Kohl returns home to Texas. But it isn’t long before he’s approached in secret by an engineer working at a nearby nuclear weapons plant. Utilizing a unique skill set, Garrett embarks on an off-the-books investigation and learns that Iranian operatives are blackmailing weapons facility employees and potentially planning a devastating act of sabotage and destruction. Already engaged in an intense shadow war with Tehran and their Quds Force spies, Garrett’s CIA team rallies to take down the extortionists and dismantle their operation. But before they can get their mission underway, enemy commandos hijack a train carrying nuclear weapons and activate a lone wolf assassin to murder the visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense.
William Morrow | 9780063292376

THE SUNSET YEARS OF AGNES SHARP written by Leonie Swann, translated by Amy Bojang (Mystery/Dark Humor)
It has been an eventful morning for Agnes Sharp and the other inhabitants of Sunset Hall, a house share for the old and unruly in the sleepy English countryside. Although they have had some issues (misplaced reading glasses, conflicting culinary tastes, decreasing mobility and gluttonous grandsons), nothing prepares them for an unexpected visit from a police officer. A body has been discovered next door. Everyone puts on a long face for show, but they are secretly relieved the body in question is not the one they’re currently hiding in the shed (sorry, Lillith). It seems the answer to their little problem with Lillith may have fallen right into their laps. All they have to do is find out who murdered their neighbor, so they can pin Lillith’s death on them, thus killing two (old) birds with one stone (cold killer).
Soho Crime | 9781641294331

TERRACE STORY by Hilary Leichter (Fiction)
Annie, Edward and their young daughter, Rose, live in a cramped apartment. One night, without warning, they find a beautiful terrace hidden in their closet. It wasn’t there before, and it seems to only appear when their friend Stephanie visits. But every extra bit of space has a hidden cost, and the terrace sets off a seismic chain of events, forever changing the shape of their tiny home, and the shape of the world. TERRACE STORY follows the characters who suffer these repercussions and reverberations. How far can the mind travel when it’s looking for something that is gone? Where do we put our loneliness, longing and desire? What do we do with the emotions that seem to stretch beyond the body, beyond the boundaries of life and death?
Ecco | 9780063265813

WHERE THERE WAS FIRE by John Manuel Arias (Fiction)
Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, the future of Teresa Cepeda Valverde’s family is changed forever. Now, 27 years later, Teresa and her daughter, Lyra, are still picking up the pieces. Lyra wants nothing to do with Teresa, but is desperate to find out what happened to her family that fateful night. Teresa, haunted by a missing husband and the bitter ghost of her mother, Amarga, is unable to reconcile the past. What unfolds is a story of a mother and daughter trying to forgive what they do not yet understand, and the mystery at the heart of one family’s rupture, steeped in machismo, jealousy, labor uprisings, and the havoc wreaked by banana plantations in Central America.
Flatiron Books | 9781250817389

On Sale the Week of August 28th in Paperback

August 29th

BABEL: An Arcane History by R. F. Kuang (Historical Fantasy)
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation --- also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion.
Harper Voyager | 9780063021433

CAPOTE’S WOMEN: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer (Biography)
Barbara "Babe" Paley, Gloria Guinness, Marella Agnelli, Slim Hayward, Pamela Churchill, C. Z. Guest, Lee Radziwill --- they were the toast of midcentury New York, each beautiful and distinguished in her own way. These women captivated and enchanted Truman Capote --- and at times, they infuriated him as well. He befriended them, received their deepest confidences, and ingratiated himself into their lives. Then, in one fell swoop, he betrayed them in the most surprising and shocking way possible. Laurence Leamer delves into the years following the acclaimed publication of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S in 1958 and IN COLD BLOOD in 1966, when Capote struggled with a crippling case of writer's block.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593328101

DANGEROUS RHYTHMS: Jazz and the Underworld by T. J. English (True Crime/History)
DANGEROUS RHYTHMS tells the symbiotic story of jazz and the underworld: a relationship fostered in some of 20th-century America’s most notorious vice districts. For the first half of the century, mobsters and musicians enjoyed a mutually beneficial partnership. By offering artists like Louis Armstrong, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald a stage, the mob --- including major players Al Capone, Meyer Lansky and Charlie “Lucky” Luciano --- provided opportunities that would not otherwise have existed. Even so, at the heart of this relationship was a festering racial inequity. The musicians were mostly African American, and the clubs and means of production were owned by white men.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063031425

END CREDITS: How I Broke Up with Hollywood by Patty Lin (Memoir)
Paperback Original
What if achieving your professional dreams comes at too high a personal cost? That’s what screenwriter Patty Lin started to ask herself after years in the cutthroat TV industry. One minute she was a tourist, begging her way into the audience of “Late Night with David Letterman.” Just a few years later, she was an insider who --- through relentless hard work and sacrifice --- had earned a seat in the writers’ rooms of the hottest TV shows of all time. While writing for “Friends,” “Freaks and Geeks,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Breaking Bad,” Patty steeled herself against the indignities of a chaotic, abusive, male-dominated work culture, not just as one of the few women in the room, but as the only Asian person.
Zibby Books | 9781958506066

HEART OF THE SUN WARRIOR by Sue Lynn Tan (Fantasy)
After winning her mother’s freedom from the Celestial Emperor, Xingyin thrives in the enchanting tranquility of her home. But her fragile peace is threatened by the discovery of a strange magic on the moon and the unsettling changes in the Celestial Kingdom as the emperor tightens his grip on power. While Xingyin is determined to keep clear of the rising danger, the discovery of a shocking truth spurs her into a perilous confrontation. Forced to flee her home once more, Xingyin and her companions venture to unexplored lands of the Immortal Realm, encountering legendary creatures and shrewd monarchs, beloved friends and bitter adversaries.
Harper Voyager | 9780063031371

KISSING KOSHER by Jean Meltzer (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Chronic pelvic pain has forced Avital Cohen to sideline her photography dreams and her love life. It’s all she can do to manage her family’s kosher bakery, Best Babka in Brooklyn, without collapsing. She needs hired help. And distractingly handsome Ethan Lippmann seems to be the perfect fit. Except Ethan isn’t there to work --- he’s undercover, at the behest of his grandfather. Though Lippmann’s is a household name when it comes to mass-produced kosher baked goods, they don’t have the charm of Avital’s bakery. Or her grandfather’s world-famous pumpkin spice babka recipe. As they bake side by side, Ethan soon finds himself more interested in Avital than in stealing family secrets, especially as he helps her find the chronic pain relief --- and pleasure --- she’s been missing.
Mira | 9780778334408

MY ROOMMATE IS A VAMPIRE by Jenna Levine (Paranormal Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Cassie Greenberg loves being an artist, but it’s a tough way to make a living. On the brink of eviction, she’s desperate when she finds a too-good-to-be-true apartment in a beautiful Chicago neighborhood. Cassie knows there has to be a catch --- only someone with a secret to hide would rent out a room for that price. Of course, her new roommate Frederick J. Fitzwilliam is far from normal. He sleeps all day, is out at night on business, and talks like he walked out of a regency romance novel. He also leaves Cassie heart-melting notes around the apartment, cares about her art, and asks about her day. But when Cassie finds bags of blood in the fridge that definitely weren’t there earlier, Frederick has to come clean. Cassie’s sexy new roommate is a vampire. And he has a proposition for her.
Berkley | 9780593548912

REGRETS ONLY by Kieran Scott (Domestic Thriller)
Paige Lancaster has returned to the East Coast from her prestigious, well-paid job in Los Angeles, writing for the smartest detective series on television. Something terrible happened to her, leaving her broke, homeless, and living with her widowed mother and eight-year-old daughter, Izzy. Paige meets the movers and shakers of Izzy’s school’s Parent Booster Association, run by the intimidatingly gorgeous Ainsley Anderson, who just happens to be married to Paige’s old high school flame, John. Then she shows up at the annual Parents and Pinot fundraiser, held at Ainsley and John’s dazzling mansion, where she’s caught in a compromising position with John. Later that night, Ainsley turns up dead at the bottom of her own driveway. Did she fall? Or was she pushed?
Gallery Books | 9781982154028

A SONG OF COMFORTABLE CHAIRS: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (23) by Alexander McCall Smith (Mystery)
Grace Makutsi’s husband, Phuti, is in a bind. An international firm is attempting to undercut his prices in the office furniture market. Phuti has always been concerned with quality and comfort, but this new firm seems interested only in profits. To make matters worse, they have a slick new advertising campaign that seems hard to beat. Nonetheless, with Mma Ramotswe’s help, Phtui comes up with a campaign that may just do the trick. Meanwhile, Mma Makutsi is approached by an old friend who has a troubled son. Grace and Phuti agree to lend a hand, but the boy proves difficult to reach. It will require not only all of their patience and dedication, but also the help of Mma Ramotswe and the formidable Mma Potokwani in order to help the child.
Anchor | 9780593468364

September 1st

MALIBU BURNING by Lee Goldberg (Thriller)
Paperback Original
Hell comes to Southern California every October. It rides in on searing Santa Ana winds that blast at near hurricane force, igniting voracious wildfires. Master thief Danny Cole longs for the flames. A tsunami of fire is exactly what he needs to pull off a daring crime and avenge a fallen friend. As the most devastating firestorms in Los Angeles’s history scorch the hills of Malibu, relentless arson investigator Walter Sharpe and his new partner, former US marshal Andrew Walker, suspect that someone set the massive blazes intentionally. While the flames rage out of control, Danny pursues his brilliant scheme, unaware that Sharpe and Walker are closing in. But when they all collide in a canyon of fire, everything changes, pitting them against an unexpected enemy within an inescapable inferno.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662500688

On Sale the Week of September 4th in Hardcover

September 5th

ALL THE DEAD SHALL WEEP by Charlaine Harris (Dark Fantasy/Thriller)
Following the murderous events of SERPENT OF HEAVEN, Lizbeth Rose is awaiting the arrival of her sister, Felicia, and her husband’s younger brother, Eli, in Texoma. Both needed to leave the seat of the Holy Russian Empire in San Diego after Felicia’s burgeoning wizardly power in death magic became the reason for kidnapping and assassination attempts from her mother’s family of high-powered wizards in Mexico. Yet bad news has traveled ahead of them, as Eli is called back to San Diego, taking Peter along with him, splitting them apart in more ways than one as their enemies’ plans for revenge come to fruition.
Gallery/Saga Press | 9781982182526

AMAZING GRACE ADAMS by Fran Littlewood (Fiction)
Grace Adams gave birth, blinked, and now suddenly she is 45, perimenopausal and stalled --- the unhappiest age you can be, according to the Guardian. And today she’s really losing it. Stuck in traffic, she finally has had enough. To the astonishment of everyone, Grace gets out of her car and simply walks away. Grace sets off across London, armed with a £200 cake, to win back her estranged teenage daughter on her 16th birthday. Today is the day she’ll remind her daughter that no matter how far we fall, we can always get back up again. Because Grace Adams used to be amazing. Her husband thought so. Her daughter thought so. Even Grace thought so. But everyone seems to have forgotten. Grace is about to remind them...and, most important, remind herself.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250334152

CLIVE CUSSLER'S CONDOR'S FURY: A Novel from the NUMA Files by Graham Brown (Thriller/Adventure)
On a NUMA training mission in the Caribbean, Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala catch a distress call from a nearby freighter. Leaping into action, they locate a damaged vessel and a dead captain clutching a shotgun. While searching the freighter for clues, Kurt and Joe are ambushed by crew members who seem terrified and disoriented, almost brainwashed. The trawler they were hauling has vanished, taken --- the men say --- by baffling lights that circled the ship. Kurt and Joe deduce that the men are suffering from Havana Syndrome, which deepens the mystery and raises the stakes. Soon they’re confronting Cuban mercenaries who plan to use magnificent modern airships to hijack a nuclear submarine --- culminating in a life-or-death showdown in the skies.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593543979

COLEMAN HILL by Kim Coleman Foote (Historical Fiction)
In 1916, during the early days of the Great Migration, Celia Coleman and Lucy Grimes flee the racism and poverty of their homes in the South for the “Promised Land” of Vauxhall, New Jersey. But the North possesses its own challenges and bigotries that will shape the fates of the women and their families over the next 70 years. Within 10 years of arriving in Vauxhall, both Celia and Lucy’s husbands are dead, and they turn to one another for support. Encouraged by their mothers’ friendship, their children’s lives become enmeshed as well. As the children grow into adolescence, two are caught in an impulsive act of impropriety, and Celia and Lucy find themselves at irreconcilable odds over who’s to blame. The ensuing fallout has dire consequences that reverberate through the next two generations of their families.
SJP Lit | 9781638931140

CREEP: Accusations and Confessions by Myriam Gurba (Sociology/Essays)
A creep can be a singular figure, a villain who makes things go bump in the night. Yet creep is also what the fog does --- it lurks into place to do its dirty work, muffling screams, obscuring the truth, and providing cover for those prowling within it. CREEP is Myriam Gurba’s informal sociology of creeps, a deep dive into the dark recesses of the toxic traditions that plague the United States and create the abusers who haunt our books, schools and homes. Gurba studies the ways in which oppression is collectively enacted, sustaining ecosystems that unfairly distribute suffering and premature death to our most vulnerable. She also examines how we as individuals, communities and institutions can challenge creeps and rid ourselves of the fog that seeks to blind us.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781982186470

DEAD WEST by Linda L. Richards (Thriller)
Taking lives has taken its toll. Her moral justifications have faltered. Do any of the people she has killed --- some of them heinous, but all of them human --- deserve to die? Her next target is Cameron Walker, a rancher in Arizona. When she arrives at his remote desert estate to carry out her orders, she discovers that he is a kind and beautiful man. After a lengthy tour of the ranch, not only has she not killed him --- she’s wondering who might want him dead. She procrastinates, instead growing closer to Cameron. She learns that he is passionate about wild horses and has been fighting a losing political battle to save mustangs that live on protected land near his ranch --- he’s even received death threats from his opponents. Suddenly, she’s faced with protecting the man she was sent to kill.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608095124

EVIL EYE by Etaf Rum (Fiction)
Raised in a conservative and emotionally volatile Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she finally would feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur who took her to the suburbs. With her family balanced with her professional ambitions, Yara knows that her life is infinitely more rewarding than her own mother’s. So why doesn’t it feel like enough? After her dream of chaperoning a student trip to Europe evaporates and she responds to a colleague’s racist provocation, Yara is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counseling to keep her position. To save herself, Yara must reckon with the reality that the difficulties of the childhood she thought she left behind have very real --- and damaging --- implications not just on her own future but that of her daughters.
Harper | 9780062987907

FOOTBALL DONE RIGHT: Setting the Record Straight on the Coaches, Players, and History of the NFL by Michael Lombardi (Sports)
From “Monday Night Football” to Super Bowl Sunday, the NFL is a dominating force in the lives of millions of fans who tune in and passionately cheer for their favorite teams. And when the games are over, the conversation is just getting started. Who's the greatest player of all time? Which coaches truly shaped the game we know and love today? What was the most unforgettable game? Why is professional football such an undeniable part of our culture? Three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Lombardi has done it all --- from scout to executive to coach --- and now he sets the record straight on these questions and more. With FOOTBALL DONE RIGHT, Lombardi tackles all aspects of the sport, discussing the best of the best.
Running Press Adult | 9780762479535

THE FRAUD by Zadie Smith (Historical Fiction)
It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper --- and cousin by marriage --- of a once-famous novelist, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for 30 years. Mrs. Touchet suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems. The “Tichborne Trial” --- wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title --- captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud?
Penguin Press | 9780525558965

HOLLY by Stephen King (Thriller/Horror)
When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly Gibney is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has COVID. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down. Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability, but they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.
Scribner | 9781668016138

HUSH HARBOR by Anise Vance (Dystopian Fiction)
After the murder of an unarmed Black teenager by the hands of the police, protests spread like wildfire in Bliss City, New Jersey. A full-scale resistance group takes control of an abandoned housing project and decides to call it Hush Harbor, in homage to the secret spaces their enslaved ancestors would gather to pray. Jeremiah Prince, alongside his sister Nova, are leaders of the revolution, but have ideological differences regarding how the movement should proceed. When a new mayor with ties to white supremacists threatens the group’s pseudo-sanctuary and locks the city down, the collective must come to a decision for their very survival.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335449528

THE LONGMIRE DEFENSE: A Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson (Mystery)
Deep in the heart of the Wyoming countryside, Walt Longmire, Sheriff of Absaroka County, is called to a crime scene like few others that he has seen. This crime brings up issues that go back to Walt’s grandfather’s time in Wyoming, as the revelations he learns about his grandfather come back to offer clues and motives for Walt’s investigation.
Viking | 9780593297315

MOTHER-DAUGHTER MURDER NIGHT by Nina Simon (Mystery)
High-powered businesswoman Lana Rubicon has a lot to be proud of. But when she finds herself trapped 300 miles north of the city, convalescing in a sleepy coastal town with her adult daughter Beth and teenage granddaughter Jack, Lana hopes that boredom won’t kill her before the cancer does. Then Jack happens upon a dead body while kayaking and quickly becomes a suspect in the homicide investigation. Beth thinks Lana should focus on recovery, but Lana has a better idea. She’ll pull on her wig, find the true murderer, protect her family and prove she still has power. With Jack and Beth’s help, Lana uncovers a web of lies, family vendettas and land disputes lurking beneath the surface of a community populated by folksy conservationists and wealthy ranchers.
William Morrow | 9780063315044

NO CRYING IN BASEBALL: The Inside Story of A League of Their Own: Big Stars, Dugout Drama, and a Home Run for Hollywood by Erin Carlson (Performing Arts/History)
Before A League of Their Own, few American girls could imagine themselves playing professional ball (and doing it better than the boys). But Penny Marshall's genre outlier became an instant classic and significant aha moment for countless young women who saw that throwing like a girl was far from an insult. Part fly-on-the-wall narrative, part immersive pop nostalgia, NO CRYING IN BASEBALL is for readers who love stories about subverting gender roles, as well as fans of the film who remain passionate 30 years after its release. With key anecdotes from the cast, crew and diehard fanatics, Erin Carlson presents the definitive, first-ever history of the making of the treasured film that inspired generations of Dottie Hinsons to dream bigger and aim for the sky.
Hachette Books | 9780306830181

NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW by Chuck Palahniuk (Horror/Satire)
Meet Otto and Cecil. Two brothers growing up privileged in the Welsh countryside. They enjoy watching nature shows, playing with their pet pony, impersonating their Grandfather...and killing the help. Murder is the family business after all. “Downton Abbey,” this is not. However, it’s not so easy to continue the family legacy with the constant stream of threats and distractions seemingly leaping from the hedgerow. With Grandfather putting pressure on Otto to step up, it becomes clear that this will all end in only two ways: a nuclear apocalypse or just another day among the creeping thistle and tree peonies. And in a novel written by Chuck Palahniuk, either is equally possible.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668021415

ONE BLOOD by Denene Millner (Fiction)
Potent, poetic, powerful, told with deep love, and spanning from the Great Migration to the civil unrest of the 1960s to the quest for women’s equality in the early 2000s, Denene Millner’s beautifully wrought novel explores three women’s intimate --- and often complicated --- struggle with what it truly means to be family. According to author Tara M. Stringfellow, “In delicious, decadent prose, Denene Millner does what few authors can --- compose a sprawling multigenerational tale that is necessary American reading. ONE BLOOD sings the song of the South in a voice that is heartbreaking, hopeful, and resilient. A masterpiece.”
Forge Books | 9781250276193

PAYBACK IN DEATH by J. D. Robb (Mystery/Thriller)
Lt. Eve Dallas is just home from a long-overdue vacation when she responds to a call of an unattended death. The victim is Martin Greenleaf, retired Internal Affairs Captain. At first glance, the scene appears to be suicide, but the closer Eve examines the body, the more suspicious she becomes. An unlocked open window, a loving wife and family, a too-perfect suicide note --- Eve's gut says it's a homicide. After all, Greenleaf put a lot of dirty cops away during his 47 years in Internal Affairs. It could very well be payback --- and she will not rest until the case is closed.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250284099

THE RAGING STORM: A Detective Matthew Venn Novel by Ann Cleeves (Mystery)
When Jem Rosco --- sailor, adventurer and legend --- blows into town in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone, Devon, are delighted to have a celebrity in their midst. But just as abruptly as he arrived, Rosco disappears again, and soon his lifeless body is discovered in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own. This is an uncomfortable case for Detective Inspector Matthew Venn. Greystone is a place he visited as a child, a community he parted ways with. Superstition and rumor mix with fact as another body is found, and Venn finds his judgment clouded. As the winds howl, and Venn and his team investigate, he realizes that no one --- including himself --- is safe from Scully Cove’s storm of dark secrets.
Minotaur Books | 9781250836779

REYKJAVÍK: A Crime Story by Ragnar Jónasson and Katrín Jakobsdóttir (Mystery)
Iceland, 1956. Fourteen-year-old Lára decides to spend the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace. Time passes, and the mystery becomes Iceland‘s most infamous unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there? Thirty years later, as the city of Reykjavík celebrates its 200th anniversary, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lára's case. But as he draws closer to discovering the secret, and with the eyes of Reykjavík upon him, it soon becomes clear that Lára's disappearance is a mystery that someone will stop at nothing to keep unsolved.
Minotaur Books | 9781250907332

THE RIVER WE REMEMBER by William Kent Krueger (Historical Mystery)
On Memorial Day, as the people of Jewel, Minnesota, gather to remember and honor the sacrifice of so many sons in the wars of the past, the half-clothed body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. Investigation of the murder falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who recently has returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife. As suspicions and accusations mount and the town teeters on the edge of more violence, Dern struggles not only to find the truth of Quinn’s murder but also to put to rest the demons from his own past.
Atria Books | 9781982179212

THE SEPTEMBER HOUSE by Carissa Orlando (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
When Margaret and her husband, Hal, bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street, they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee. Margaret is not most people. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine --- who knows nothing about the hauntings --- arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.
Berkley | 9780593548615

THE SQUARE OF SEVENS by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Historical Mystery)
Cornwall, 1730: A young girl known only as Red travels with her father making a living predicting fortunes using the ancient Cornish method of the Square of Sevens. Shortly before he dies, her father entrusts Red’s care to a gentleman scholar, along with a document containing the secret of the Square of Sevens technique. Raised as a lady amidst the Georgian splendor of Bath, Red’s fortune-telling delights in high society. But she cannot ignore the questions that gnaw at her soul: Who was her mother? How did she die? And who are the mysterious enemies her father was always terrified would find him? While Red’s pursuit of these mysteries brings her the possibility of great reward, it also leads to grave danger.
Atria Books | 9781668031124

SURE, I'LL JOIN YOUR CULT: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere by Maria Bamford (Memoir/Humor)
Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about every method possible to not only be a part of the world, but to want to be a part of it. In Bamford’s signature voice, SURE, I’LL JOIN YOUR CULT brings us on a quest to participate in something. It explores what it means to keep going and to be a member of society (or any group she’s invited to), despite not being very good at it.
Gallery Books | 9781982168568

TOM CLANCY WEAPONS GRADE: A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel by Don Bentley (Thriller/Adventure)
The quiet of a Texas night is shattered by the sounds of screeching brakes, crumpling metal and, most shockingly, rapid gunfire. The auto accident Jack Ryan Jr. thought he witnessed turned out to be a professional hit. Jack may be too late to save the victim, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to let the hitters escape justice. He has just one lead --- a meeting the victim was going to. When Jack shows up instead, he’s drawn into the seedy underbelly of a small Texas town and the cold case of a college student who vanished from its streets. Jack is left with nothing but questions. Who wants it to look like the victim was drunk? Why does someone want an innocent witness killed? And most of all, what’s a team of South African hitmen doing in the Lone Star State?
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593422816

WEDNESDAY'S CHILD: Stories by Yiyun Li (Fiction/Short Stories)
A grieving mother makes a spreadsheet of everyone she’s lost. Elsewhere, a professor develops a troubled intimacy with her hairdresser. And every year, a restless woman receives an email from a strange man twice her age and several states away. In Yiyun Li’s stories, people strive for an ordinary existence until doing so becomes unsustainable, until the surface cracks and the grand mysterious forces --- death, violence, estrangement --- come to light. And even everyday life is laden with meaning, studded with indelible details: a filched jar of honey, a mound of wounded ants, a photograph kept hidden for many years, until it must be seen.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374606374

WHILE YOU WERE OUT: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence by Meg Kissinger (Memoir)
Growing up in the 1960s, Meg Kissinger’s family seemed to live a charmed life. With eight kids and two loving parents, the Kissingers radiated a warm, boisterous energy. But behind closed doors, a harsher reality was unfolding --- a heavily medicated mother hospitalized for anxiety and depression, a manic father prone to violence, and children in the throes of bipolar disorder and depression, two of whom would take their own lives. Through it all, the Kissingers faced the world with their signature dark humor and the unspoken family rule: never talk about it. WHILE YOU WERE OUT begins as the personal story of one family’s struggles and then opens outward, as Kissinger details how childhood tragedy catalyzed a journalism career focused on exposing our country’s flawed mental health care.
Celadon Books | 9781250793775

WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL: A History in 50 Moments by Joe Posnanski (Sports/History)
In WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL, Joe Posnanski writes of major moments that created legends, and of forgotten moments almost lost to time. It's Willie Mays’ catch, Babe Ruth’s called shot and Kirk Gibson’s limping home run; the slickest steals; the biggest bombs; and the most triumphant no-hitters. But these are also moments raw with the humanity of the game, the unheralded heroes and the mesmerizing mistakes drenched in pine tar. Every story, from the immortal to the obscure, is told from a unique perspective. Whether of a real fan who witnessed it, or the pitcher who gave up the home run, the umpire, the coach, the opposing player --- these are fresh takes on moments so powerful they almost feel like myth.
Dutton | 9780593472675

On Sale the Week of September 4th in Paperback

September 5th

AN AFFAIR OF SPIES by Ronald H. Balson (Historical Thriller)
Nathan Silverman’s idyllic childhood in Berlin is soon marred by increasing levels of bigotry against his family and the rest of the Jewish community. After his uncle is arrested on Kristallnacht, he leaves Germany for New York City with only his mother’s wedding ring to sell for survival. While attending an evening course at Columbia in 1942, Nathan notices a recruitment poster on a university wall and decides to enlist in the military and help fight the Nazi regime. The Allies are racing to develop a nuclear weapon before the Nazis, and a German theoretical physicist is hoping to defect. The physicist was a friend of his father's, and Nathan's mission is to return to Berlin via France and smuggle him out of Europe.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250906014

AFTERLIVES by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Historical Fiction)
When he was just a boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents on the coast of east Africa by German colonial troops. After years away, fighting against his own people, he returns home to find his parents gone and his sister, Afiya, abandoned into de facto slavery. Hamza, too, returns home from the war, scarred in body and soul and with nothing but the clothes on his back --- until he meets the beautiful, undaunted Afiya. As these young people live and work and fall in love, their fates knotted ever more tightly together, the shadow of a new war on another continent falls over them, threatening once again to carry them away.
Riverhead Books | 9780593541890

A BEAUTIFUL RIVAL: A Novel of Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden by Gill Paul (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein each founded empires built on grit and determination. Yet they became locked in a feud spanning three continents, two world wars and the Great Depression. Brought up in poverty, Canadian-born Elizabeth Arden changed popular opinion, persuading women from all walks of life to buy skincare products that promised them youth and beauty. Helena Rubinstein left her native Poland, and launched her company with scientific claims about her miracle creams made with anti-aging herbs. And when it came to business, nothing was off-limits: poaching each other’s employees, copying each other’s products, planting spies, hiring ex-husbands, and one-upping each other every chance they had.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063245112

BENEATH THE SURFACE by Kaira Rouda (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
You are cordially invited to an overnight voyage on the Splendid Seas. An invitation to Catalina Island from billionaire CEO Richard Kingsley. For his sons, Ted and John, and their wives, it’s an opportunity to curry favor, gain control of a real estate empire, and secure their family’s futures. For the controlling patriarch, succession is a contest. He and his newest wife won’t make it an easy win. Then Richard’s estranged live-wire daughter, Sibley, crashes the party. She’s the least of the night’s surprises. As the stakes for the inheritance of the Kingsley legacy are raised, the beautiful waters of the Pacific look more like a menacing illusion. Let the games begin for a family who has everything money can buy and has used lies, deception and more to keep it.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662511929

THE BOOK OF GOTHEL: Memoir of a Witch by Mary McMyne (Historical Fantasy)
Germany, 1156. Shunned by her village for her unusual fainting spells and black eyes, young Haelewise's only solace lies in her mother's stories of witches, magic wolf-skins and ancient mist-cloaked towers. When her mother dies, she sets off through the woods for the mysterious tower of fable: Gothel. There, Haelewise discovers a haven, a safe refuge for women like her and those who have lost their way in the harsh world of men. A place where magic lives and where fairy tales of her mother's stories have more truth than she'd ever imagined.
Redhook | 9780316393218

BURNING QUESTIONS: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004 to 2022 by Margaret Atwood (Essays)
In more than 50 pieces, Margaret Atwood aims her prodigious intellect and impish humor at the world, and reports back to us on what she finds. This rollercoaster period brought the end of history, a financial crash, the rise of Trump and a pandemic. From when to dispense advice to the young (answer: only when asked) to Atwood’s views on the climate crisis, we have no better guide to the many and varied mysteries of our universe.
Vintage | 9780593314074

THE CABINET OF DR. LENG: A Pendergast Novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Thriller)
Astoundingly, Constance Greene has found a way back to the place of her origins, New York City in the late 1800s, leaping at the chance, although it means leaving the present forever. Constance sets off on a quest to prevent the events that lead to the deaths of her sister and brother. But along the road to redemption, Manhattan’s most infamous serial killer, Dr. Enoch Leng, lies in wait, ready to strike at the slightest provocation. Meanwhile, in contemporary New York, FBI Special Agent Pendergast feverishly searches for a way to reunite with Constance. But will he discover a way back to her before it’s too late?
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538736791

CAPTIVE: An Eve Duncan Novel by Iris Johansen (Thriller)
Jane MacGuire is enjoying a period of domestic bliss as she focuses on her art, and her partner, Seth Caleb, uses his unique abilities as an agent for the MI6 intelligence service. But when Seth crosses crime lord Hugh Bohdan, he incurs the wrath of one of the world’s most powerful criminal empires, and Jane is soon on the run. With that peril, though, comes an astonishing discovery: a 200-year-old secret on the brink of becoming lost to history. Jane and Seth must join forces to unlock the fascinating puzzle, even as they hurtle toward a lethal final confrontation in the Highlands. But before their adventure is over, they will encounter their biggest shock of all…and realize nothing can be the same for them ever again.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538726303

DEAD MAN’S HAND: The Unorthodox Chronicles, Book 1 by James J. Butcher (Urban Fantasy)
On the streets of Boston, the world is divided into the ordinary Usuals and the paranormal Unorthodox. And in the Department of Unorthodox Affairs, the Auditors are the magical elite, government-sanctioned witches with spells at their command. Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby is not one of those witches. After flunking out of the Auditor training program and being dismissed as “not Department material,” Grimsby tried to resign himself to life as a mediocre witch. But he can’t help hoping he’ll somehow get another chance to prove his skill. That opportunity comes with a price when his former mentor, aka the most dangerous witch alive, is murdered down the street from where he works, and Grimsby is the Auditors’ number one suspect.
Ace | 9780593547083

DEARBORN: Stories by Ghassan Zeineddine (Fiction/Short Stories)
Paperback Original
Ghassan Zeineddine’s debut collection examines the diverse range and complexities of the Arab American community in Dearborn, Michigan. In 10 tragicomic stories, Zeineddine explores themes of identity, generational conflicts, war trauma, migration, sexuality, queerness, home and belonging, and more. A father teaches his son how to cheat the IRS and hide their cash earnings inside of frozen chickens. Tensions heighten within a close-knit group of couples when a mysterious man begins to frequent the local gym pool, dressed in Speedos printed with nostalgic images of Lebanon. And a failed stage actor attempts to drive a young Lebanese man with ambitions of becoming a Hollywood action hero to LA, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have other plans.
Tin House Books | 9781959030294

THE DECEPTIONS by Jill Bialosky (Fiction)
An unnamed narrator’s life is unraveling. Her only child has left home, and her 20-year marriage is strained. Anticipation about her soon-to-be-released book of poetry looms. She seeks answers to the paradoxes of love, desire and parenthood among the Greek and Roman gods at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As she passes her days teaching at a boys’ prep school, spending her off-hours sequestered in the museum's austere galleries, she is haunted by memories of a yearlong friendship with a colleague, a fellow poet struggling with his craft. As secret betrayals and deceptions come to light and rage threatens to overwhelm her, the pantheon of gods assume remarkably vivid lives of their own, forcing her to choose between reality and myth.
Counterpoint | 9781640092259

THE FERVOR by Alma Katsu (Supernatural/Historical Thriller)
As World War II rages on, the threat has come to the home front. In a remote corner of Idaho, Meiko Briggs and her daughter, Aiko, are desperate to return home. Following Meiko's husband's enlistment as an air force pilot in the Pacific, Meiko and Aiko were taken from their home in Seattle and sent to one of the internment camps in the Midwest. Mother and daughter attempt to hold on to elements of their old life in the camp when a mysterious disease begins to spread among those interned. When a disconcerting team of doctors arrive, Meiko and Aiko team up with a newspaper reporter and widowed missionary to investigate. It becomes clear to them that something more sinister is afoot.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593328354

FORSAKEN COUNTRY by Allen Eskens (Mystery/Thriller)
Max Rupert has left his position as a Minneapolis homicide detective to live in solitude. Mourning the tragic death of his wife, he's also racked by guilt --- he alone knows what happened to her killer. But then the former local sheriff, Lyle Voight, arrives with a desperate plea: Lyle’s daughter, Sandy, and his six-year-old grandson, Pip, have disappeared. Lyle is certain that Sandy's ex-husband, Reed, is behind it, but the new sheriff is refusing to investigate. When Max reluctantly looks into their disappearance, he too becomes convinced something has gone very wrong. But the closer Max and Lyle get to finding proof, the more slippery Reed becomes, until he makes a break for the beautiful but formidable Boundary Waters wilderness with vulnerable Pip in tow.
Mulholland Books | 9780316703536

FROM DUST TO STARDUST by Kathleen Rooney (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
Chicago, 1916. Doreen O’Dare is 14 years old when she hops a Hollywood-bound train with her beloved Irish grandmother. Within a decade, her trademark bob and insouciant charm make her the preeminent movie flapper of the Jazz Age. But her success story masks one of relentless ambition, tragedy and the secrets of a dangerous marriage. Her professional life in flux, Doreen trades one dream for another. She pours her wealth and creative energy into a singular achievement: the construction of a one-ton miniature Fairy Castle, the likes of which the world has never seen. So begins Doreen’s public tour to lift the nation’s spirits during the Great Depression --- and a personal journey worth remembering.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781662510595

THE FURIES by John Connolly (Supernatural Thriller)
John Connolly pits private investigator Charlie Parker against two separate --- but vitally connected --- investigations, which prove to be among the most complicated of his entire career. In “The Sisters Strange,” criminal Raum Buker arrives in Portland, only for a shocking act of theft to threaten not only his own existence but those of his former lovers --- the enigmatic sisters Strange. And in the title novel, “The Furies,” Parker must protect two women under threat as Portland shuts down in the face of a global pandemic. Unbeknownst to him, however, these clients are more capable of taking care of themselves than anyone could have imagined.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781982177010

THE GUEST HOUSE by Robin Morgan-Bentley (Psychological Thriller)
Jamie and Victoria are off for a last quick vacation before the arrival of their first baby. The remote country guesthouse Victoria chose seems like the perfect retreat --- miles away from the distractions of work and their regular life. And the older couple that run the establishment, Barry and Fiona, are more than accommodating. But when Jamie and Victoria awake on their first morning, they find the house deserted. Barry and Fiona are nowhere to be seen. All the doors are locked. And their cell phones and car keys have disappeared. They have no way out and no way to call for help, and the contractions are getting stronger.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781728280356

HELL AND BACK: A Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson (Mystery)
What if you woke up lying in the middle of the street in the infamous town of Fort Pratt, Montana, where 30 young Native boys perished in a tragic 1896 boarding-school fire? What if every person you encountered in that endless night was dead? What if you were covered in blood and missing a bullet from the gun holstered on your hip? What if there was something out there in the yellowed skies, along with the deceased and the smell of ash and dust, something the Northern Cheyenne refer to as the Éveohtsé-heómėse, the Wandering Without, the Taker of Souls? What if the only way you know who you are is because your name is printed in the leather sweatband of your cowboy hat. And what if it says your name is Walt Longmire…but you don’t remember him?
Penguin Books | 9780593297308

THE HOUSE BEYOND THE DUNES by Mary Burton (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Lane McCord wakes up in a hospital having survived a near-fatal fall at a North Carolina beach cottage. Her boyfriend, Kyle, wasn’t so lucky. A senseless tragedy on their first romantic getaway. All Lane remembers is lying at the bottom of the stairs in Kyle’s pooling blood. Confused and grieving, Lane plans to return to the cottage, collect her personal belongings and get out. Until a winter rainstorm leaves her stranded and vulnerable, but not alone. A concerned neighbor, who claims he heard a violent argument before the accident, has come out of the storm. So has a suspicious detective on the trail of a missing woman, whose diary deepens the mystery --- and raises more questions that fill Lane with dread. How well did she know Kyle? How well does she know herself?
Montlake | 9781542038676

HOW NOT TO DROWN IN A GLASS OF WATER by Angie Cruz (Fiction)
Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life. Over the course of 12 sessions, Cara recounts her tempestuous love affairs, her alternately biting and loving relationships with her neighbor Lulu and her sister Angela, her struggles with debt, gentrification and loss, and, eventually, what really happened between her and her estranged son, Fernando. As Cara confronts her darkest secrets and regrets, we see a woman buffeted by life but still full of fight.
Flatiron Books | 9781250208460

I AM THE LIGHT OF THIS WORLD by Michael Parker (Fiction)
In the early 1970s, in Stovall, Texas, 17-year-old Earl meets Tina, the new girl in town. Tina convinces Earl to drive her to see her mother in Austin, where Earl and Tina are quickly separated. Two days later, Earl is being questioned by the police about Tina’s disappearance and the blood in the trunk of his car. But Earl can’t remember what happened in Austin, and with little financial support from his working-class family, he is sentenced for a crime he did not commit. Forty years later, Earl is released into a world he can barely navigate. Settling in a small town on the Oregon coast, he attempts to establish a sense of freedom. But just as Earl finds the rhythm he’s always sought, his past returns to endanger the new life he’s built.
Algonquin Books | 9781643755359

IF I SURVIVE YOU by Jonathan Escoffery (Fiction/Short Stories)
In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what their younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.” The linked stories in IF I SURVIVE YOU center on Trelawny as he struggles to carve out a place for himself amid financial disaster, racism and flat-out bad luck.
Picador | 9781250872210

JACQUELINE IN PARIS by Ann Mah (Historical Fiction)
In September 1949, Jacqueline Bouvier arrives in postwar Paris to begin her junior year abroad. She’s 20 years old, socially poised but financially precarious, and all too aware of her mother’s expectations that she make a brilliant match. Before relenting to family pressure, she has a year to explore and absorb the luminous beauty of the City of Light. But beneath the glitter and rush, France is a fragile place still haunted by the Occupation. In the aftermath of World War II, Paris has become a nest of spies, and suspicion, deception and betrayal lurk around every corner. Jacqueline is stunned to watch the rise of communism, never guessing she is witnessing the beginning of the political environment that will shape the rest of her life --- and that of her future husband.
Mariner Books | 9780062997029

KILLING THE KILLERS: The Secret War Against Terrorists by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard (History)
As the World Trade Center buildings collapsed, the Pentagon burned, and a small group of passengers fought desperately to stop a third plane from completing its deadly flight plan, America went on war footing. KILLING THE KILLERS narrates America's intense global war against extremists who planned and executed not only the 9/11 attacks, but hundreds of others in America and around the world, and who eventually destroyed entire nations in their relentless quest for power. The book moves from Afghanistan to Iraq, Iran to Yemen, Syria, Libya and elsewhere, as the United States fought Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, as well as individually targeting the most notorious leaders of these groups.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250905994

THE LONG GAME by Elena Armas (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Adalyn Reyes has spent years perfecting her daily routine: wake up at dawn, drive to the Miami Flames FC offices, try her hardest to leave a mark, go home and repeat. But her routine is disrupted when a video of her in an altercation with the team’s mascot goes viral. Rather than fire her, the team’s owner --- who happens to be her father --- sends Adalyn to middle-of-nowhere North Carolina, where she’s tasked with turning around the struggling local soccer team. Her plans crumble upon discovering that the players wear tutus to practice, keep pet goats, are terrified of her, and are nine-year-old kids. To make things worse, also in town is goalkeeping prodigy Cameron Caldani. Cam is the perfect candidate to help Adalyn, but after one very unfortunate first encounter, he’s also set on running her out of town.
Atria Books | 9781668011300

MAD HONEY by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan (Fiction)
Olivia McAfee’s picture-perfect life was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown with her son, Asher. Meanwhile, Lily Campanello and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school for what they hope will be a fresh start. For just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.
Ballantine Books | 9781984818409

MARPLE: Twelve New Mysteries by Agatha Christie and various authors (Mystery/Short Stories)
Agatha Christie’s legendary sleuth, Jane Marple, returns to solve 12 baffling cases in this brand-new collection, penned by a host of acclaimed authors skilled in the fine art of mystery and murder. Join Marple as she travels through her sleepy English village and around the world. In St Mary Mead, a Christmas dinner is interrupted by unexpected guests; the Broadway stage in New York City is set for a dangerous improvisation; bad omens surround an untimely death aboard a cruise ship to Hong Kong; and a bestselling writer on holiday in Italy is caught in a nefarious plot. These and other crimes committed in the name of love, jealousy, blackmail and revenge are ones that only the indomitable Jane Marple can solve.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063136069

THE MATCHMAKER’S GIFT by Lynda Cohen Loigman (Historical Fiction)
Even as a child in 1910, Sara Glikman knows her gift: she is a maker of matches and a seeker of soulmates. But among the pushcart-crowded streets of New York’s Lower East Side, Sara’s vocation is dominated by devout older men --- men who see a talented female matchmaker as a dangerous threat to their traditions and livelihood. After making matches in secret for more than a decade, Sara must fight to take her rightful place among her peers. Two generations later, Sara’s granddaughter, Abby, is a successful Manhattan divorce attorney. When her beloved Grandma Sara dies, Abby inherits her collection of handwritten journals recording the details of Sara’s matches. But among the faded volumes, Abby finds more questions than answers.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250819499

THE MITFORD AFFAIR by Marie Benedict (Historical Fiction)
Between the World Wars, the six Mitford sisters dominate the English scenes. Though they've weathered scandals before, the family falls into disarray when Diana divorces her wealthy husband to marry a fascist leader and Unity follows her sister's lead all the way to Munich, inciting rumors that she's become Hitler's mistress. As the Nazis rise in power, novelist Nancy Mitford grows suspicious of her sisters' constant visits to Germany and the high-ranking fascist company they keep. When she overhears alarming conversations and uncovers disquieting documents, Nancy must make excruciating choices as Great Britain goes to war with Germany.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728282091

NATURAL HISTORY: Stories by Andrea Barrett (Fiction/Short Stories)
The six exquisite stories in NATURAL HISTORY are set largely in a small community in central New York State and portray some of Andrea Barrett’s most beloved characters, spanning the decades between the Civil War to the present day. In “Henrietta and Her Moths,” a woman tends to an insect nursery as her sister’s life follows a different path. In “Open House,” a young man grapples with a choice between a thrilling life spent discovering fossils and a desire to remain close to home. And in the magnificent title novella, “Natural History,” Barrett deepens the connection between her characters, bringing us through to the present day and providing an unforgettable capstone.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324066118

ON JAVA ROAD by Lawrence Osborne (Literary Thriller/Mystery)
After two decades as a journalist in Hong Kong, ex-pat Englishman Adrian Gyle is ready to turn his back on the city he knew so well. But as Hong Kong erupts in violence with pro-democracy demonstrations hitting ever closer to home, could this be the final assignment Gyle was looking for? Watching from the skyrises is his old friend, Jimmy Tang, the scion of one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest families. Through him, Gyle uncovers an intriguing lead: the mysterious Rebecca, a student involved in the protests and the latest of Jimmy’s reckless dalliances. But when Rebecca goes missing and Jimmy hides, it rekindles in Gyle an old urge to investigate. Piecing together Rebecca’s final days and hours, Gyle must tread carefully through a volatile world of friendship and betrayal.
Hogarth | 9780593242346

ON THE ROOFTOP by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton (Historical Fiction)
At home they are just sisters, but on stage they are The Salvations. Ruth, Esther and Chloe have been singing and dancing in harmony since they could speak. Thanks to the rigorous direction of their mother, Vivian, they’ve become a bona fide girl group whose shows are the talk of the Jazz-era Fillmore. Now Vivian has scored a once-in-a-lifetime offer from a talent manager, who promises to catapult The Salvations into the national spotlight. Vivian knows this is the big break she’s been praying for. But sometime between the hours of rehearsal on their rooftop and the weekly gigs at the Champagne Supper Club, the girls have become women --- women with dreams that their mother cannot imagine.
Ecco | 9780063139954

OTHER BIRDS by Sarah Addison Allen (Fiction/Magical Realism)
Down a narrow alley in the small coastal town of Mallow Island, South Carolina, lies a stunning cobblestone building comprised of five apartments. It’s called The Dellawisp, and it is named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy. When Zoey Hennessey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at The Dellawisp, she meets her quirky, enigmatic neighbors. Each with their own story. Each with their own longings. Each whose ending isn’t yet written. When one of them dies under odd circumstances the night Zoey arrives, she is thrust into the mystery of The Dellawisp, which involves missing pages from a legendary writer whose work might be hidden there.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250019875

THE QUEEN: Her Life by Andrew Morton (Biography)
Painfully shy, Elizabeth Windsor’s personality was well suited to her youthful ambition of living quietly in the country, raising a family, and caring for her dogs and horses. But when her uncle, King Edward VIII, abdicated, she became heir to the throne --- embarking on a journey that would test her as a woman and queen. In THE QUEEN, renowned biographer Andrew Morton takes an in-depth look at Britain’s longest reigning monarch, exploring the influence that Queen Elizabeth had on both Britain and the rest of the world for much of the last century. From leading a nation struggling to restore itself after the devastation of the second World War to navigating the divisive political landscape of the present day, Queen Elizabeth was a reluctant but resolute queen.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538700426

RIGHTEOUS PREY: A Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers Novel by John Sandford (Mystery/Thriller)
“We’re going to murder people who need to be murdered.” So begins a press release from a mysterious group known only as “The Five” shortly after a vicious predator is murdered in San Francisco. The Five is believed to be made up of vigilante killers who are very bored…and very rich. They target the worst of society --- rapists, murderers and thieves --- and then use their unlimited resources to offset the damage done by those who they’ve killed, donating untraceable Bitcoin to charities and victims via the dark net. The Five soon become the most popular figures on social media, a modern-day Batman, though their motives may not be entirely pure. After a woman is murdered in the Twin Cities, Virgil Flowers and Lucas Davenport are sent in to investigate. And they soon have their hands full.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593422502

THE SIGHT by Melanie Golding (Supernatural Thriller)
Paperback Original
As a child, Faith acquired the ability to see when and how people would die. After foreseeing a family tragedy and being ostracized, Faith learns to control her visions and returns to perform in her family’s traveling carnival. But when an unruly customer attacks her, she has a vision in full view of a crowd. She is banned from the carnival she loves --- and loses her only source of income to support her dying mother. Desperate to support her mother and with only one friend standing by her, she sees no reason to continue hiding her ability and goes to dangerous lengths to earn money. But when she sees herself in a man’s future death, Faith must face her own fears of her powers and tune into her gift to fight against a future that would ruin her life --- and end someone else’s.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781639104611

THE SINGULARITIES by John Banville (Fiction)
A man with a borrowed name steps from a flashy red sports car --- also borrowed --- onto the estate of his youth. But all is not as it seems. There is a new family living in the drafty old house: the Godleys, descendants of the late, world-famous scientist Adam Godley, whose theory of existence threw the universe into chaos. And this mystery man, who has just completed a prison sentence, feels as if time has stopped, or was torn, or was opened in new and strange ways. He must now vie with the idiosyncratic Godley family, their harried housekeeper who becomes his landlady, his recently commissioned biographer of Godley Sr., and a wealthy and beautiful woman from his past who comes bearing an unusual request.
Vintage | 9780525564348

SUGAR STREET by Jonathan Dee (Fiction)
An unnamed male narrator has hit the road. Rid of any possible identifiers, his possessions amount to $168,548 in cash stashed in an envelope under his car seat. Vigilantly avoiding security cameras, he drives until he hits a city where his past is unlikely to track him down, and finds a room to rent from a less-than-stable landlady whose need for money outweighs her desire to ask questions. He seems to have escaped his former self. But can he? In a story that moves with swift dark humor and insight, Jonathan Dee takes us through his narrator’s attempt to disavow his former life of privilege and enter a blameless new existence.
Grove Press | 9780802161192

THEY’RE GOING TO LOVE YOU by Meg Howrey (Fiction)
Throughout her childhood, Carlisle Martin got to see her father, Robert, for only a few precious weeks a year when she visited the brownstone apartment in Greenwich Village he shared with his partner, James. Brilliant but troubled, James gave Carlisle an education in all that he held dear in life. Seduced by the heady pull of mentorship and hoping to follow in the footsteps of her mother, Carlisle’s aspiration to become a professional ballet dancer bloomed. However, a passionate love affair created a rift between the family, with shattering consequences that reverberated for decades to come. Nineteen years later, when Carlisle receives a phone call that unravels the events of that fateful summer, she sees with new eyes how her younger self has informed the woman she’s become.
Anchor | 9780593468005

THE UNFOLDING by A.M. Homes (Alternate History/Humor)
The Big Guy loves his family, money and country. Undone by the results of the 2008 presidential election, he taps a group of like-minded men to reclaim their version of the American Dream. As they build a scheme to disturb and disrupt, the Big Guy also faces turbulence within his family. His wife, Charlotte, grieves a life not lived, while his 18-year-old daughter, Meghan, begins to realize that her favorite subject --- history --- is not exactly what her father taught her.
Penguin Books | 9780735225374

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

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