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Last Wednesday afternoon, we hosted our first-ever LIVE “Bookreporter Talks To” program. Our guest was William Kent Krueger, who talked about his latest novel, THE RIVER WE REMEMBER, a Bets On pick that was just named a Barnes & Noble Best Mystery of 2023 Selection. Six of the 25 readers who won a copy of the book in a contest we ran over the summer appeared on camera to ask Kent questions that they submitted to us ahead of time. There were a number of contest winners who either were camera-shy or couldn’t make it to the live event, so Carol Fitzgerald shared their questions with Kent on their behalf.
We covered a variety of topics during the interview, including Kent’s inspiration for the book, his choice of setting, his writing process, why he is able to write such strong female characters, how the book’s title came about, what’s next for him, and so much more. Click here to watch the video or here to listen to the podcast.
Carol recently talked to Sharon Virts about her latest novel, VEIL OF DOUBT, a mystery set in 1872. Sharon shares how her love of history helped her to discover this story. She talks about the character of Emily, who is accused of poisoning her daughter, and how she had to learn not only the legalese of the day, but also about chemistry and how poisoning may have happened in that time frame. Sharon needed to stay grounded in what information was available. She also researched the trial and learned some interesting things about what went on in court then as opposed to now.
Sharon discusses how this post-Civil War time period was important to the story, explaining what the times meant as men returned home with emotional as well as physical scars. She also reveals the novel’s original title and shares what she loves about the cover. Like Sharon’s first book, MASQUE OF HONOR, VEIL OF DOUBT is a Bets On selection. Click here to watch the video or here to listen to the podcast.
This is your last newsletter reminder to sign up for this month’s “Bookaccino Live” Book Group event, which will take place TOMORROW, Wednesday, October 25th at 8pm ET.
Our guests will be Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, and they will be talking about their novel, MAD HONEY, a Bets On title that is newly released in paperback. Click here to register for the event. If you would like to ask Jodi and Jennifer a question about the book on camera during the event and chat with them in our virtual green room before the event, please email Carol with your question using the subject line “Honey” by Wednesday at noon ET. Be sure to include your name, city and state, as well as your question.
We also will announce our November “Bookaccino Live” Book Group author at this event.
Next month's “Bookaccino Live” book preview event --- our last afternoon program of 2023 --- will take place on Wednesday, November 8th at 2pm ET. Carol will present titles releasing between November 7th and the end of the year, in addition to a few from January and February 2024, that we think will appeal to you. Click here to sign up. Those attending the live event will be asked to answer a survey about the books from the presentation that they are most interested in reading and will be eligible to win a prize.
P.S. For those of you who shop online, if you use the store links that appear on our site for shopping, Bookreporter.com gets a small affiliate fee on your purchases from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and IndieBound. As you read our reviews and features, we would appreciate your considering this as you buy!
Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events
Here are four upcoming virtual book and author events that you may be interested in attending. Click on the links for more info and to register.
Wednesday, October 25th 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 Lori Rader-Day about her latest book, THE DEATH OF US, a chilling suspense novel in which the discovery of a submerged car in a murky pond reveals betrayals and family secrets that will tear a small town apart.
Wednesday, October 25th at 8pm ET: "Bookaccino Live" Book Group: Carol Fitzgerald will talk to Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan about their novel, MAD HONEY, a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick that is now available in paperback. Jodi and Jennifer also will answer questions from guests who will be "on stage," as well as from other members of the audience. If you would like to be one of our featured audience guests and ask Jodi and Jennifer a question on camera, please send Carol an email with the subject line “Honey” by October 25th at noon ET.
Thursday, October 26th at 1pm ET: Simon & Schuster's Book Club Favorites: Jessica Knoll will join members of the Simon & Schuster team to discuss her latest novel, BRIGHT YOUNG WOMEN, which is October's pick for S&S's Book Club Favorites.
Friday, October 27th at 8pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Lisa Unger will talk about her new book, CHRISTMAS PRESENTS, a chilling seasonal novella that couples a picturesque, cozy setting with a deeply unsettling suspenseful plot.
This Week's Bonus News:
Our "What's Your Book Group Reading This Month?" Contest on ReadingGroupGuides.com
Enter to Win 12 Paperback Copies of SIGNAL FIRES
by Dani Shapiro for Your Group
Each month in our "What's Your Book Group Reading This Month?" feature, we ask book groups to share the titles they are reading that month and rate them. From all entries, three winners will be selected, and each will win 12 copies of that month’s prize book for their group. Note: To be eligible to win, let us know the title of the book that YOUR book group is CURRENTLY reading, NOT the title we are giving away.
SIGNAL FIRES by Dani Shapiro (Fiction)
An ancient majestic oak stands beneath the stars on Division Street. And under the tree sits Ben Wilf, a retired doctor, and 10-year-old Waldo Shenkman, a brilliant, lonely boy who is pointing out his favorite constellations. Waldo doesn’t realize it, but he and Ben have met before. And they will again, and again. Across time and space, and shared destiny. Division Street is full of secrets. An impulsive lie begets a secret --- one that will forever haunt the Wilf family. And the Shenkmans, who move into the neighborhood many years later, bring secrets of their own. Spanning 50 kaleidoscopic years, on a street --- and in a galaxy --- where stars collapse and stories collide, these two families become bound in ways they never could have imagined.
- Click here to read more about the book.
- Click here to read our review.
- Click here to read an excerpt.
- Click here to read Carol's Bookreporter.com Bets On commentary.
- Click here for the discussion guide on ReadingGroupGuides.com.
- Click here to watch Carol's "Bookreporter Talks To" interview with Dani Shapiro.
- Click here to listen to a podcast of the interview.
On Sale the Week of October 23rd in Hardcover
October 24th
AMERICA FANTASTICA by Tim O’Brien (Fiction/Satire)
Boyd Halverson --- star journalist turned notorious online disinformation troll turned JCPenney manager --- robs a bank and takes the teller, Angie Bing, as a hostage and for a ride. Haunted by his past and weary of his present, Boyd has one goal before the authorities catch up with him: settle a score with the man who destroyed his life. By Monday, Boyd and Angie reach Mexico; by winter, they are in a lakefront mansion in Minnesota. On their trail are hitmen, jealous lovers, ex-cons, an heiress, a billionaire shipping tycoon, a three-tour veteran of Iraq, and the ghosts of Boyd’s past. Everyone, it seems, except the police.
Mariner Books | 9780063318502
THE CHRISTMAS APPEAL by Janice Hallett (Mystery)
The Christmas season has arrived in Lower Lockwood, and the Fairway Players are busy rehearsing their festive holiday production of “Jack and the Beanstalk” to raise money for a new church roof. But despite the season, goodwill is distinctly lacking among the amateur theater enthusiasts with petty rivalries, a possibly asbestos-filled beanstalk, and some perennially absent players behind the scenes. Of course, there’s also the matter of the dead body onstage. Who possibly could have had the victim on their naughty list? Join lawyers Femi and Charlotte as they investigate Christmas letters, examine emails and pore over police transcripts to identify both the victim and killer before the curtain closes on their holiday production --- for good.
Atria Books | 9781668035887
CHRISTMAS PRESENTS by Lisa Unger (Mystery/Thriller)
Madeline Martin is the young owner of a thriving business, The Next Chapter Bookshop. When Harley Granger, a failed novelist turned true crime podcaster, drifts into her shop in the days before Christmas, he seems intent on digging up events that Madeline would much rather forget. She’s the only surviving victim of Evan Handy, the man who was convicted of murdering her best friend, Steph, and is suspected in the disappearance of two sisters, also good friends of Madeline’s. Since Evan Handy went to jail, three other young women have gone missing, most recently a young college dropout named Lolly. Five young women missing in the same area in a decade. Are they connected? Was Evan Handy innocent after all? Or was there someone else there that night? Someone who is still satisfying his dark appetites?
Mysterious Press | 9781613164518
THE COMFORT OF CROWS: A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl (Memoir/Essays)
In THE COMFORT OF CROWS, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: 52 chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons --- from a crow spied on New Year’s Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring --- what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer. Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life.
Spiegel & Grau | 9781954118461
EVERYTHING IS NOT ENOUGH by Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström (Fiction)
Powerful marketing executive Kemi Adeyemi has finally found the man she needs, but Tobias Wikström thinks she's the most selfish woman he has ever met for asking him to give up his life in Sweden and move to the US for her own comfort. Former model-turned-flight attendant Brittany-Rae von Lundin gave up her career and came with nothing into Jonny’s kingdom. Having had a child with him, her greatest fear for Maya includes being cut off from the resources to which she has become accustomed. After fleeing her home through a client to seek a new life in Sweden, Yasmiin finds love in the arms of Yagiz Çelik. But someone from her past forces her to become a caretaker before she’s ready. EVERYTHING IS NOT ENOUGH follows the loosely intertwined and messy lives of Kemi, Brittany and Yasmiin as they interrogate themes of place, prejudice and patriarchy in Europe.
William Morrow | 9780063316973
GEORGE HARRISON: The Reluctant Beatle by Philip Norman (Music/Biography)
Despite being hailed as one of the best guitarists of his era, George Harrison, particularly in his early decades, battled feelings of inferiority. He was often the butt of jokes from his bandmates owing to his lower-class background and, typically, was allowed to contribute only one or two songs per Beatles album out of the dozens he wrote. Now, acclaimed Beatles biographer Philip Norman examines Harrison through the lens of his numerous self-contradictions. This rich biography captures him at his most multifaceted: devoted friend, loyal son, master guitar player, brilliant songwriter, cocaine addict, serial philanderer, global philanthropist, student of Indian mysticism, self-deprecating comedian, and, ultimately, iconic artist and man beloved by millions.
Scribner | 9781982195861
HERCULE POIROT'S SILENT NIGHT: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Sophie Hannah (Historical Mystery)
Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool are looking forward to Christmas when they are called upon to investigate the murder of a man in a Norfolk hospital ward. Cynthia Catchpool, Edward’s mother, insists that Poirot stay with her in a crumbling mansion by the coast so they all can be together for the festive period while he solves the case. The local constabulary’s investigation failed to uncover how someone could have entered a hospital room and killed him under the noses of the staff. Cynthia’s friend, Arnold, is soon to be admitted to that same hospital, and his wife is convinced he will be the killer’s next victim, though she refuses to explain why. Meanwhile, an utterly ruthless individual has ideas about what ought to happen to Hercule Poirot.
William Morrow | 9780062991638
I MUST BE DREAMING by Roz Chast (Graphic Memoir)
Ancient Greeks, modern seers, Freud, Jung, neurologists, poets, artists, shamans. Humanity has never ceased trying to decipher one of the strangest unexplained phenomena we all experience: dreaming. Now, in her new book, Roz Chast illustrates her own dream world, a place that is sometimes creepy but always hilarious, accompanied by an illustrated tour through “Dream-Theory Land” guided by insights from poets, philosophers and psychoanalysts alike. Illuminating, surprising, funny and often profound, I MUST BE DREAMING explores Chast's newest subject of fascination --- and promises to make it yours, too.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781620403228
IF YOU WOULD HAVE TOLD ME: A Memoir by John Stamos (Memoir)
If you would have told a young John Stamos flipping burgers at his dad’s fast-food joint that one day he’d be a household name and that, at the height of his success, he’d be living alone, divorced, with no kids, high on a cocktail of forgetting, he might’ve asked, “You want fries with that?” John burst onto the scene in “General Hospital,” propelling him into the teen idol stratosphere, a place that’s often a point of no return. But he beat the odds and over the past four decades has proved himself to be one of his generation’s most successful and beloved actors. Whether showing off his comedic chops on “Full House” or his dramatic skills on “ER,” pushing the boundaries on Broadway or living out his youthful dreams as an honorary Beach Boy, John has surprised everyone, most of all himself.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250890979
JANE AND THE FINAL MYSTERY: Being a Jane Austen Mystery by Stephanie Barron (Historical Mystery)
March 1817: As winter turns to spring, Jane Austen’s health is in slow decline and threatens to cease progress on her latest manuscript. But when her nephew, Edward, brings chilling news of a death at his former school, Winchester College, not even her debilitating ailment can keep Jane from seeking out the truth. Arthur Prendergast, a senior pupil at the prestigious all-boys’ boarding school, has been found dead in a culvert near the schoolgrounds --- and in the pocket of his drenched waistcoat is an incriminating note penned by the young William Heathcote, the son of Jane’s dear friend, Elizabeth. Winchester College is a world unto itself, with its own language and rites of passage, cruel hazing and dangerous pranks. Can Jane clear William’s name before her illness gets the better of her?
Soho Crime | 9781641295055
THE JOLLIEST BUNCH: Unhinged Holiday Stories by Danny Pellegrino (Humor/Essays)
For many families, the holiday season is --- quite frankly --- unhinged. Whether that involves inappropriately improvised monologues at the children's Christmas pageant, gifts that land someone in the emergency room, or just sitting through the emotional rollercoaster of a Hallmark movie marathon, the holidays are a chaotic and magical time. And nobody knows this better than Danny Pellegrino. For Danny, the holidays are always accompanied by both merriment and mayhem. And like the gay Ghost of Christmas Past, he's here to take you on a nostalgic trip through his most festive memories in a collection of stories that are heartfelt, hilarious and (unfortunately) true.
Sourcebooks | 9781728278216
JULIA by Sandra Newman (Dystopian Fiction)
Julia Worthing is a mechanic, working in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. It’s 1984, and Britain (now called Airstrip One) has long been absorbed into the larger trans-Atlantic nation of Oceania. Oceania has been at war for as long as anyone can remember and is ruled by an ultra-totalitarian Party, whose leader is a quasi-mythical figure called Big Brother. In short, everything about this world is as it is in Orwell’s 1984. One day, Julia finds herself walking toward Winston Smith in a corridor and impulsively slips him a note, setting in motion the devastating, unforgettable events of the classic story. Julia takes us on a surprising journey through Orwell’s now-iconic dystopia, with twists that reveal unexpected sides not only to Julia, but to other familiar figures in the 1984 universe.
Mariner Books | 9780063265332
LET US DESCEND by Jesmyn Ward (Historical Fiction)
LET US DESCEND is a reimagining of American slavery --- a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take.
Scribner | 9781982104498
LOST & HOUND by Rita Mae Brown (Mystery)
Fox hunting season is “Sister” Jane Arnold’s favorite time of year. The Jefferson Hunt Club is organizing a fundraising drive to help with the upkeep of their beloved hunting grounds. But the festive season is interrupted by the appearance of a dead body, tied to a chair and placed directly in the path of an early-season hunt. The intentional placement makes it clear that someone is sending a message. Then, one huntsman’s valuable stamp collection is stolen, and they discover the victim was also a stamp collector. Sister suspects a connection, which is confirmed when just one stamp is found taped to the garage door of her friend and treasurer of the hunt club, Ronnie Haslip. Could Ronnie have been involved in either the murder or the theft, or has he been marked as the next victim?
Ballantine Books | 9780593357576
A MEMOIR OF MY FORMER SELF: A Life in Writing by Hilary Mantel (Memoir)
In addition to her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel contributed for years to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. A MEMOIR OF MY FORMER SELF collects the finest of this writing over four decades. Her subjects are wide-ranging, sharply observed and beautifully rendered. She discusses nationalism and her own sense of belonging; our dream life popping into our conscious life; the many themes that feed into her novels --- revolutionary France, psychics, Tudor England; and other novelists, from Jane Austen to V.S. Naipaul. She writes fiercely and heartbreakingly about the battles with her health that she endured as a young woman, and the stifling years she found herself living in Saudi Arabia.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250342225
MURDER IN DRURY LANE: A Lady Worthing Mystery by Vanessa Riley (Historical Mystery)
Pressed into a union of convenience, Lady Abigail Worthing knew better than to expect love. Her marriage to an absent lord does at least provide some comforts, including a box at the Drury Lane theater, owned by the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Abigail has always found respite at the theater, away from the ton’s judgmental stares and the risks of her own secret work to help the cause of abolition --- and her fears that someone from her past wants her permanently silenced. But on one particular June evening everything collides, and the performance takes an unwelcome turn. Abigail soon discovers a tangled drama that rivals anything brought to the stage, involving gambling debts, a beautiful actress with a parade of suitors, and the very future of the Drury Lane theater.
Kensington | 9781496738677
NIGHT SIDE OF THE RIVER: Ghost Stories by Jeanette Winterson (Supernatural Fiction/Short Stories)
In this delightfully chilling collection, the iconic Jeanette Winterson turns her fearless gaze to the realm of ghosts, interspersing her own encounters with the supernatural alongside hair-raising fictions. Lifting the veil between the living and the dead, Winterson spirits us away to a haunted estate that ensnares a nomadic young couple in its own dark past, a staged immersive ghost tour gone awry, a West Village séance that threatens the bounds between AI and reality, and a vacation home in the metaverse where a widow visits an improved version of her deceased husband. Gloriously gothic and unnervingly contemporary, Winterson examines grief, revenge, and the myriad ways in which technology can disrupt the boundary between life and death.
Atlantic Monthly Press | 9780802161512
THE SECRET LIFE OF JOHN LE CARRÉ by Adam Sisman (Biography)
Secrecy came naturally to John le Carré, and there were some secrets that he fought fiercely to keep. Adam Sisman's definitive biography, published in 2015, provided a revealing portrait of this fascinating man. Yet some aspects of his subject remained hidden. Nowhere was this more so than in his private life. Apparently content in his marriage, the novelist conducted a string of love affairs over five decades. To these relationships, he brought much of the tradecraft that he had learned as a spy. In trying to manage his biography, the novelist engaged in a succession of skirmishes with his biographer. While he could control what Sisman wrote about him in his lifetime, he accepted that the truth would eventually become known. Following his death in 2020, what had been withheld can now be revealed.
Harper | 9780063341043
THE SECRET: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child and Andrew Child (Thriller)
1992. All across the United States, respectable, upstanding citizens are showing up dead. These deaths could be accidents, and they don’t appear to be connected --- until a fatal fall from a high-floor window attracts some unexpected attention. That attention comes from the Secretary of Defense. All of a sudden, he wants an interagency task force to investigate. And he wants Jack Reacher as the army’s representative. If Reacher gets a result, great. If not, he’s a convenient fall guy. But office politics isn’t Reacher’s thing. Three questions quickly emerge: Who’s with him, who’s against him, and will the justice he dispenses be the official kind...or his own kind?
Delacorte Press | 9781984818584
SISTERS UNDER THE RISING SUN by Heather Morris (Historical Fiction)
In the midst of World War II, English musician Norah Chambers places her eight-year-old daughter, Sally, on a ship leaving Singapore, desperate to keep her safe from the Japanese army. Sister Nesta James, a Welsh Australian nurse, has enlisted to tend to Allied troops. But as Singapore falls to the Japanese, she joins the terrified cargo of people, including the heartbroken Norah, crammed aboard the Vyner Brooke merchant ship. Only two days later, they are bombarded from the air off the coast of Indonesia. After surviving a brutal 24 hours in the sea, Norah and Nesta are captured by the Japanese and held in one of their notorious POW camps. These sisters in arms fight side by side every day, discovering in themselves and each other extraordinary reserves of courage, resourcefulness and determination.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250320551
WEST HEART KILL by Dann McDorman (Mystery)
When private detective Adam McAnnis joins an old college friend for the Bicentennial weekend at the exclusive West Heart club in upstate New York, he finds himself among a set of not-entirely-friendly strangers. Then the body of one of the members is found at the lake’s edge; hours later, a major storm hits. By the time power is restored on Sunday, two more people will be dead.
Knopf | 9780593537572
WHAT WILD WOMEN DO by Karma Brown (Fiction)
Rowan is stuck. Her dream of becoming a Hollywood screenwriter is stalled, and so she and her novelist fiancé, Seth, retreat to an isolated cabin in the Adirondacks to hopefully get out of their creative ruts. There, Rowan finds herself drawn into a mysterious and unsettling story --- that of socialite-turned-feminist-crusader Eddie Callaway, who vanished in these same woods the summer of 1975 and was never heard from again. A handbook found in the abandoned ruins of the Callaway camp gives Rowan glimpses into who Eddie was, and then a fateful discovery offers clues about what might have happened to her. Soon, Rowan finds herself with a story potentially more shocking than Eddie’s notes about sun salutations and pineapple upside-down cake would indicate.
Dutton | 9780593186350
THE WOMAN IN ME by Britney Spears (Memoir)
In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice --- her truth --- was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. THE WOMAN IN ME reveals for the first time her incredible journey --- and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history. Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’ groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love --- and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.
Gallery Books | 9781668009048
On Sale the Week of October 23rd in Paperback
October 24th
ABOUT FACE by William Giraldi (Fiction/Dark Humor)
Val Face is a charismatic self-help guru who captivates multitudes with his uncanny ability to heal adherents using only the power of his words, the mysterious touch of his hands, and the transcendent beauty of his face. Assigned to write a profile of Face during his much-hyped New England tour, 30-year-old impoverished journalist Seger Jovi pens a brutal hatchet job. But Seger, at once curious and incredulous, is soon sucked into the mystic’s vortex of fame, becoming a devotee himself as he contends with the machinations and absurdities of Face’s many protectors. Just as the exalted guru appears to be reaching the apex of his powers, danger threatens from the periphery in the form of an obsessive stalker who wants Face dead.
Liveright | 9781324094128
ALONE WITH YOU IN THE ETHER: A Love Story by Olivie Blake (Romance)
Two people meet in the Art Institute by chance. Prior to their encounter, he is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist, undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy. By the end of the story, these things will still be true. But this is not a story about endings. For Regan and Aldo, life has been a matter of resigning themselves to the blueprints of inevitability --- until the two meet. Could six conversations with a stranger be the variable that shakes up the entire simulation?
Bramble | 9781250888181
THE CHOICE: The Dragon Heart Legacy, Book 3 by Nora Roberts (Paranormal Fantasy/Romance)
Breen Siobhan Kelly grew up in the world of Man and was once unaware of her true nature. Now she is in Talamh, trying to heal after a terrible battle and heartbreaking losses. Her grandfather, the dark god Odran, has been defeated in his attempt to rule over Talamh, and over Breen --- for now. With the enemy cast out and the portal sealed, this is a time to rest and to prepare. Breen spreads her wings and realizes a power she’s never experienced before. Keegan, who has trained her as a warrior and whom she has grown to love, is at her side when the enemy’s witches --- traitorous and power-mad --- appear to her in her sleep, practicing black magick, sacrificing the innocent, and plotting a brutal destruction for Breen.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250771803
COLLATERAL DAMAGE: An Ali Reynolds Mystery by J.A. Jance (Mystery/Thriller)
After spending 20 years behind bars, Frank Muñoz, a disgraced former cop, is out on parole and focused on just one thing: revenge. For Ali Reynolds, the first Christmas without her father is riddled with grief and uncertainty. And with her husband and founding partner of High Noon Enterprises, B. Simpson, preoccupied by an upcoming New Year’s trip to London, she is ready for a break. But when Stu Ramey barges into her home with grave news about a suspicious accident on the highway to Phoenix involving B.’s car, things reach a breaking point. At the hospital, a groggy, post-op B. insists that Ali take his place at a ransomware conference in London as troubles brimming around High Noon come to light. Who would go to such lengths to cut the tech company from the picture?
Pocket Books | 9781982189167
DANGEROUS WOMEN: A Secret Lives Mystery by Mark de Castrique (Political Thriller/Mystery)
Paperback Original
In a case deciding the future of clean energy, everything hinges on how the chief justice of the Supreme Court will lean. DANGEROUS WOMEN stirs up the perfect cocktail of ingenious spy-craft and the political intrigue of Thomas Perry's THE OLD MAN brightened with the charming, uncanny energy of KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE. This urgent, cleverly plotted high-stakes thriller is set in motion by a botched attack on two law clerks that leaves one dead and the other in a coma. The ensuing cover-up leaves a string of bodies and too many players at cross-purposes. It also leaves Chief Justice Clarissa Baxter with a target on her back.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781728258331
DARTMOUTH PARK by Rupert Thomson (Fiction)
Paperback Original
It’s February 2019. Philip Notman, an acclaimed historian with a German wife and a troubled 19-year-old son, is on his way back from a conference in Norway when he has an unexpected and disturbing experience that completely alters his view of the life that he has been living and the world that surrounds him. Believing that Inés, an attractive Spanish sociologist whom he met at the conference, can shed light on what he is feeling, he travels to Cádiz to see her. But his journey doesn’t end there. Is he thinking of leaving his wife, whom he still loves, or is he trying to change a reality that he appears to find unbearable? Is he on a quest for a simpler and more authentic existence, or is he utterly self-deluded? And if he is in denial about what he is doing, how far will he go to avoid facing the truth?
Other Press | 9781635421675
DUPLICITY: A Brick Kavanagh Mystery by Shawn Wilson (Mystery)
After the trauma of his last case, and after three months spent recovering in Ireland, life is looking up for newly retired homicide detective Brian (Brick) Kavanagh. Back home in Washington, D.C., a new job shows promise when he’s asked to train criminology students in cold case techniques. Then he’s off to a whirlwind weekend in Chicago with Nora, an Aer Lingus flight attendant he’d met in Ireland. There he receives shocking news that his former partner’s wife and twin infants have been kidnapped. Brick rushes to D.C. to support Ron, the man who’s always had his back. But as days pass, Brick questions how well he really knows this man.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608095810
FATTY FATTY BOOM BOOM: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family by Rabia Chaudry (Memoir)
Rabia Chaudry was raised with a lot of love. And that love looked like food. Delicious Pakistani dishes --- fresh roti, chaat, pakoras and shorba --- and also Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen and an abundance of American processed foods, as her family discovered its adopted country through its (fast) food. In FATTY FATTY BOOM BOOM, Chaudry chronicles the dozens of times she tried and failed to achieve what she was told was her ideal weight. The truth is, she always loved food too much to hold a grudge against it. This memoir is at once an ode to Pakistani cuisine, including Chaudry’s favorite recipes; a love letter to her Muslim family, both here and in Lahore; and a courageously honest portrait of a woman making peace with a body that gets the job done but refuses to meet the expectations of others.
Algonquin Books | 9781643755380
THE HOUSE IN THE ORCHARD by Elizabeth Brooks (Gothic Thriller)
When a World War II widow inherits a dilapidated English estate, she uncovers a diary written by an adolescent girl named Maude Gower. Looking for answers, she begins reading, only to unravel more questions about the mysterious past and many secrets hidden deep within the walls of Orchard House. In 1876, orphaned Maude is forced to leave London, and her adored brother, Frank, to live with a stranger. Everyone tells her not to trust Miss Greenaway, the enigmatic owner of Orchard House, but Maude can’t help warming to her new guardian. She finds herself discovering who she is for the first time and learning to love her new home. But when Frank comes for an unexpected visit, the delicate balance of Maude’s life is thrown into disarray.
Tin House Books | 9781959030140
IRIS KELLY DOESN’T DATE by Ashley Herring Blake (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Everyone wants Iris Kelly to settle down, but she holds firmly to her no dating rule. There’s only one problem: Iris is a romance author facing an imminent deadline for her second book, and she’s completely out of ideas. Perfectly happy to ignore her problems, Iris goes to a bar and meets a sexy stranger, Stefania. A night of dancing and making out turns into the worst one-night stand Iris has ever had. To get her mind off everything, Iris tries out for the lead role in a local play, a queer retelling of “Much Ado About Nothing,” but comes face-to-face with Stefania, whose real name turns out to be Stevie. Desperate to save face in front of her friends, Stevie asks Iris to play along as her girlfriend. As the two women play the part of a happy couple, lines start to blur, and they’re left wondering who will make the real first move.
Berkley | 9780593550571
LADYPARTS: A Memoir by Deborah Copaken (Memoir)
Twenty years after her iconic memoir SHUTTERBABE, Deborah Copaken is at her darkly comedic nadir: battered, broke, divorcing, dissected and dying --- literally --- on sexism’s battlefield as she scoops up what she believes to be her internal organs into a glass container before heading off to the hospital…in an UberPool. LADYPARTS is her irreverent inventory of both the female body and the body politic of womanhood in America, the story of one woman brought to her knees by the 1-2-12 punch of divorce, solo motherhood, healthcare Frogger, unaffordable childcare, shady landlords, her father’s death, college tuitions, sexual harassment, corporate indifference, ageism, sexism and plain old bad luck.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9781984855497
LAWS OF ANNIHILATION: A Martyr Maker Novel by Eriq La Salle (Thriller)
Paperback Original
It's another blistering summer in New York City, and a sweltering heat wave stifles the area. Hostility between the Hasidic and Black communities has been steadily increasing since a tragic incident left a Black teenager dead. When two rabbis are killed in a gruesome attack on their synagogue, it has all the signs of retaliation. The entire city is on edge. Through it all, Agent Janet Maclin's dreams of becoming the FBI's first female director come crashing down when she receives some devastating news. In spite of it all, she's determined to help NYPD detectives Quincy Cavanaugh and Phee Freeman find the rabbis' killer as more hate crimes put the city on the brink of all-out war. As the body count climbs with the temperature and the tensions, time is running out for Maclin in more ways than one.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781728261065
MARMEE: A Novel of Little Women by Sarah Miller (Historical Fiction)
In 1861, war is raging in the South, but in Concord, Massachusetts, Margaret March has her own battles to fight. With her husband serving as an army chaplain, the comfort and security of Margaret’s four daughters --- Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy --- now rest on her shoulders alone. Yet even with all that weighs upon her, Margaret longs to do more, so she fills her days with humdrum charity work. All of that is interrupted when she receives a telegram from the War Department, summoning her to her husband’s bedside in Washington, D.C. While she is away, Beth falls dangerously ill, forcing Margaret to confront the possibility that the price of her own generosity toward others may be her daughter’s life.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063041882
MURDER AT BLACK OAKS: A Robin Lockwood Novel by Phillip Margolin (Legal Thriller)
Defense Attorney Robin Lockwood is summoned by retired District Attorney Francis Melville to meet with him at Black Oaks, the manor he owns up in the Oregon mountains. Originally built in 1628 in England, there's a murderous legend and curse attached to the mansion. Melville wants Lockwood's help in righting a wrongful conviction from his days as a DA. Successful in their efforts, Melville invites Lockwood up to Black Oaks for a celebration. She finds herself among an odd group of invitees --- including the bitter, newly released Jose Alvarez. When Melville is found murdered, with a knife connected to the original curse, Lockwood finds herself faced with a conundrum: Who is the murderer among them, and how can she stop that person before there's another victim?
Minotaur Books | 9781250896414
ORGAN MEATS by K-Ming Chang (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Best friends Anita and Rainie find refuge by an old sycamore tree with its neighboring lot of stray dogs who have a mysterious ability to communicate with humans. The girls learn that they are preceded by generations of dog-headed women and woman-headed dogs whose bloodlines bind them together. Anita convinces Rainie to become a dog with her, tying a collar of red string around each of their necks to preserve their kinship forever. But when the two girls are separated, Anita sinks into a dreamworld that only Rainie knows how to rescue her from. As Anita’s body begins to rot, it is up to Rainie to rebuild Anita’s body and keep her friend from being lost forever.
One World | 9780593447345
PEOPLE PERSON by Candice Carty-Williams (Fiction)
Dimple Pennington knows of her half-siblings, but she doesn’t really know them. Five people who don’t have anything in common except for faint memories of being driven through Brixton in their dad’s gold jeep, and some pretty complex abandonment issues. Dimple has bigger things to think about. She’s 30, and her life isn’t really going anywhere. An aspiring lifestyle influencer with a terrible and wayward boyfriend, Dimple’s life has shrunk to the size of a phone screen. And despite a small but loyal following, she’s never felt more alone in her life. That is, until a dramatic event brings her half-siblings crashing back into her life. And when they’re all forced to reconnect with Cyril Pennington, the absent father they never really knew, things get even more complicated.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781501196058
THE REVOLUTIONARY: Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff (Biography)
Thomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the Revolution, “Samuel Adams was the man.” John Adams thought his cousin was “the most sagacious politician” of all. With high-minded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history. Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Stacy Schiff returns Adams to his seat of glory, introducing us to the shrewd, eloquent and intensely disciplined man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution.
Back Bay Books | 9780316441094
THE SHARDS by Bret Easton Ellis (Psychological/Literary Thriller)
Seventeen-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is shielding a secret from Bret and his friends even as he becomes a part of their tightly knit circle. Bret’s obsession with Mallory is equaled only by his increasingly unsettling preoccupation with the Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends. The coincidences are uncanny, but they are also filtered through the imagination of a teenager whose gifts for constructing narrative from the filaments of his own life are about to make him one of the most explosive literary sensations of his generation. Can he trust his friends --- or his own mind --- to make sense of the danger they appear to be in?
Vintage | 9780593469163
SIGNAL FIRES by Dani Shapiro (Fiction)
An ancient majestic oak stands beneath the stars on Division Street. And under the tree sits Ben Wilf, a retired doctor, and 10-year-old Waldo Shenkman, a brilliant, lonely boy who is pointing out his favorite constellations. Waldo doesn’t realize it, but he and Ben have met before. And they will again, and again. Across time and space, and shared destiny. Division Street is full of secrets. An impulsive lie begets a secret --- one that will forever haunt the Wilf family. And the Shenkmans, who move into the neighborhood many years later, bring secrets of their own. Spanning 50 kaleidoscopic years, on a street --- and in a galaxy --- where stars collapse and stories collide, these two families become bound in ways they never could have imagined.
Vintage | 9780593467961
SLEEP NO MORE by Jayne Ann Krentz (Romantic Suspense)
An earthquake and a fire partially destroyed the Lucent Springs Hotel, but Pallas, Talia and Amelia have no memory of their time there. Now close friends, they co-host a podcast where they investigate cold cases and hope to connect with others who may have had a similar experience to theirs. Ambrose Drake is certain he’s a witness to a murder, but without a body, everyone thinks he’s having delusions caused by extreme sleep deprivation. But Ambrose is positive something terrible happened at the Carnelian Sleep Institute the night he was there. Unable to find proof on his own, he approaches Pallas for help, only for her to realize that Ambrose also has a lost night that he can’t remember --- one that may be connected to Pallas.
Berkley | 9780593337844
TOM CLANCY RED WINTER: A Jack Ryan Novel by Marc Cameron (Thriller/Adventure)
1985. A top-secret F117 aircraft crashes into the Nevada desert. The Nighthawk is the most advanced fighting machine in the world, and the Soviets will do anything to get their hands on its secrets. In East Berlin, a mysterious figure contacts the CIA with an incredible offer --- invaluable details of his government’s espionage plans in return for asylum. It’s an offer they can’t pass up...if it’s genuine. But the risks are too great to blindly stumble into a deal. With the East German secret police closing in, someone will have to go behind the Berlin Wall to investigate the potential defector. It’s a job Deputy Director James Greer can only trust to one man --- Jack Ryan. Can Ryan get the right answers before the Cold War turns into a Red Winter?
Berkley | 9780593422779
WHITE CAT, BLACK DOG: Stories by Kelly Link (Fiction/Short Stories)
Finding seeds of inspiration in the Brothers Grimm, 17th-century French lore and Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers --- characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge or their own sense of purpose. In “The White Cat’s Divorce,” an aging billionaire sends his three sons on a series of absurd goose chases to decide which child will become his heir. In “Skinder’s Veil,” a young man agrees to take over a remote house-sitting gig for a friend. But what should be a chance to focus on his long-avoided dissertation instead becomes a wildly unexpected journey, as the house seems to be a portal for otherworldly travelers --- or perhaps a door into his own mysterious psyche.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780593449974
THE WIDOWMAKER: A Black Harbor Novel by Hannah Morrissey (Mystery/Thriller)
Ever since business mogul Clive Reynolds disappeared 20 years ago, the name "Reynolds" has become synonymous with "murder" and "mystery." And now, lured by a cryptic note, down-on-her-luck photographer Morgan Mori returns home to Black Harbor and into the web of their family secrets and double lives. The same night she photographs the Reynolds holiday get-together, Morgan becomes witness to a homicide of a cop that triggers the discovery of a long-buried clue. This finally could be the thing to crack open the chilling cold case, and Investigator Ryan Hudson has a chance to prove himself as lead detective. But as Morgan exposes her own dark demons, could her sordid history be the key to unlocking more than one mystery?
Minotaur Books | 9781250905505
WITHOUT A TRACE by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Charles Vincent is trapped in a loveless marriage, and his job is simply a paycheck. But his life changes forever one night when he falls asleep at the wheel and veers off the road. Miraculously, he survives and happens upon a cabin where he meets the kind and beautiful Aude Saint-Martin. They have an instant connection, and as she nurses him back to health, Charles begins to discover the passion he’s been missing for so many years. In the aftermath of the crash, Charles has a startling realization: He doesn’t have to go back. He could simply choose to disappear, to walk away from his old life. But Aude has secrets of her own, and before long their pasts catch up to them, threatening everything they have fought to build.
Dell | 9781984821881
THE WORLD WE MAKE by N. K. Jemisin (Urban Fantasy)
Even though the avatars of New York City have temporarily managed to stop the Woman in White from invading --- and destroying the entire universe in the process --- the mysterious capital "E" Enemy has more subtle powers at her disposal. A new candidate for mayor wielding the populist rhetoric of gentrification, xenophobia and "law and order" may have what it takes to change the very nature of New York itself and take it down from the inside. In order to defeat him, and the Enemy who holds his purse strings, the avatars will have to join together with the other Great Cities of the world in order to bring her down for good and protect their world from complete destruction.
Orbit | 9780316509909
THE YEAR’S BEST DARK FANTASY & HORROR: Volume 4 edited by Paula Guran (Dark Fantasy/Horror Anthology)
Paperback Original
From paranormal plots to stories of the supernatural, tales of the unfamiliar have always fascinated us humans. To keep the tradition alive, fantasy aficionado Paula Guran has gathered the most delightfully disturbing work from some of today’s finest writers of the fantastique. No two mysterious shadows are alike, and the same can be said for the books in this series. Volume 4 contains more than 300 pages of mystical fiction. Reader beware and indulge if you dare, because these chilling tales are sure to spook and surprise!
Pyr | 9781645060673
On Sale the Week of October 30th in Hardcover
October 31st
ABSOLUTION by Alice McDermott (Historical Fiction)
Tricia is a shy newlywed, married to a rising attorney on loan to navy intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three. In Saigon in 1963, the two women form a wary alliance as they balance the era’s mandate to be “helpmeets” to their ambitious husbands with their own inchoate impulse to “do good” for the people of Vietnam. Sixty years later, Charlene’s daughter, spurred by an encounter with an aging Vietnam vet, reaches out to Tricia. Together, they look back at their time in Saigon, taking wry account of that pivotal year and of Charlene’s altruistic machinations. They discover how their own lives as women on the periphery have been shaped and burdened by the same sort of unintended consequences that followed America’s tragic interference in Southeast Asia.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374610487
BEING HENRY: The Fonz...and Beyond by Henry Winkler (Memoir)
Henry Winkler, who was launched into prominence as “The Fonz” in “Happy Days,” has transcended the role that made him who he is. In this achingly vulnerable memoir, Henry shares the disheartening truth of his childhood, the difficulties of a life with severe dyslexia, the pressures of a role that takes on a life of its own, and the path forward once your wildest dream seems behind you. Since the glorious era of “Happy Days” fame, Henry has endeared himself to a new generation with roles in such adored shows as “Arrested Development,” “Parks and Recreation” and “Barry,” where he’s been revealed as an actor with immense depth and pathos, a departure from the period of his life when he was so distinctly typecast as The Fonz, he could hardly find work.
Celadon Books | 9781250888099
THE BERRY PICKERS by Amanda Peters (Fiction)
July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her --- and she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.
Catapult | 9781646221950
BLOOD SISTERS by Vanessa Lillie (Mystery/Thriller)
As an archaeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Syd Walker spends her days in Rhode Island trying to protect the land's indigenous past. While Syd is dedicated to her job, she’s haunted by a night of violence she barely escaped in her Oklahoma hometown 15 years ago. Though she swore she’d never go back, the past comes calling. When a skull is found near the crime scene of her youth, just as her sister, Emma Lou, vanishes, Syd knows she must return home. She refuses to let her sister's disappearance, or the remains, go ignored --- as so often happens in cases of missing Native women. But not everyone is glad to have Syd home, and she can feel the crosshairs on her. Still, the deeper Syd digs, the more she uncovers about a string of missing indigenous women cases going back decades.
Berkley | 9780593550113
DIRTY THIRTY: A Stephanie Plum Novel by Janet Evanovich (Mystery)
Stephanie Plum, Trenton’s hardest working, most underappreciated bounty hunter, is offered a freelance assignment that seems simple enough. Local jeweler Martin Rabner wants her to locate his former security guard, Andy Manley (aka Nutsy), who he is convinced stole a fortune in diamonds out of his safe. Stephanie is also looking for another troubled man, Duncan Dugan, a fugitive from justice arrested for robbing the same jewelry store on the same day. As the body count rises and witnesses start to disappear, it won’t be easy for Stephanie to keep herself clean when everyone else is playing dirty. It’s a good thing Stephanie isn’t afraid of getting a little dirty, too.
Atria Books | 9781668003091
EDITH HOLLER by Edward Carey (Historical Fiction)
The year is 1901. England’s beloved queen has died, and her aging son has finally taken the throne. In the eastern city of Norwich, bright and inquisitive young Edith Holler spends her days among the boisterous denizens of the Holler Theatre, warned by her domineering father that the playhouse will literally tumble down if she should ever leave its confines. She decides to write a play of her own: a stage adaptation of the legend of Mawther Meg, a monstrous figure said to have used the blood of countless children to make the local delicacy known as Beetle Spread. But when her father suddenly announces his engagement to a peculiar, imposing woman --- heir to the actual Beetle Spread fortune --- Edith scrambles to protect her father, the theatre and her play from the newcomer’s sinister designs.
Riverhead Books | 9780593188903
FROM A FAR AND LOVELY COUNTRY: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (24) by Alexander McCall Smith (Mystery)
Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni are approached by an American woman who seeks the help of Botswana’s premier detective. Julia’s beloved late grandfather was Botswanan, and he instilled in her an abiding love of his homeland. Now, years after his passing, Julia has come to visit the land he had spoken of so often and to find her relatives. Meanwhile, a second case leads Mma Ramotswe to look for assistance from an unexpected quarter. For the first time, Charlie leads his own investigation at the detective agency, going undercover into a dubious, word-of-mouth get-together known as the Cool Singles Evening Club, where married men are encouraged to pretend to be single and meet women under false pretenses. Who could be behind such a distasteful venture?
Pantheon | 9780593316993
THE HOUSE OF LOVE AND DEATH: A Cameron Winter Mystery by Andrew Klavan (Hard-boiled Mystery)
Three members of a wealthy family, along with their live-in nanny, are pulled from their burning mansion, already dead from gunshot wounds. The only survivor is a young boy whose memory of the event raises more questions than answers. The police seem happy to settle on a simple explanation and arrest the most obvious suspect, but Cameron Winter knows that obvious solutions are seldom the correct ones, and all too often they hide a darker truth. While Winter’s investigation is welcomed by many who knew the victims, the lead detective makes it clear he wants Winter not only to stop looking for answers, but to stay out of his town altogether. Winter begins to understand why as he slowly uncovers crimes and unsavory behavior that had been ignored long before the killings.
Mysterious Press | 9781613164464
A JOURNEY TO ST. THOMAS: Tales for Our Time by Josiah Hatch III (Fiction)
A JOURNEY TO ST. THOMAS is a modern reimagining of Geoffrey Chaucer’s THE CANTERBURY TALES. Hoping for an adventure (at a discounted price), two dozen strangers set sail for balmy St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. As different from one another as strangers can be, they agree to pass the time by telling stories. As the passengers share their stories, they begin to learn some astonishing things about their neighbors. Then, partway through the voyage, they are notified about a virus that has spread across the United States and their destination. The ship is quarantined, and they are destined to loll on the waves of the open sea until a port welcomes them. Stuck together in the confines of the ship, the group continues to regale each other with ingenious tales.
Fulcrum Publishing | 9781682753347
THE REFORMATORY by Tananarive Due (Historical Fiction/Horror)
Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory. Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781982188344
THE SUN SETS IN SINGAPORE by Kehinde Fadipe (Fiction)
For Dara, a workaholic lawyer from the UK, Singapore is opportunity. Every day, brokering deals for her firm’s wealthy clientele, she gets closer to her ultimate goal: making partner. For Amaka, a sharp-tongued banker from Nigeria, Singapore is extravagance. Gucci, Prada, Hermès --- she loves nothing more than to luxuriate in the major department stores that call her name on Orchard Road. And for Lillian, a former pianist turned “trailing spouse” from the U.S., Singapore is reinvention. In a stunning apartment with 360° views, the island seems to glitter as far as the eye can see. But complications are looming in the form of an enigmatic stranger, whose presence exposes cracks in Singapore’s beguiling façade.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538741498
WHEN I'M DEAD: A Black Harbor Novel by Hannah Morrissey (Mystery/Thriller)
On a bone-chilling October night, Medical Examiner Rowan Winthorp investigates the death of her daughter’s best friend. Hours later, the tragedy hits even closer to home when she makes a devastating discovery --- her daughter, Chloe, is gone. But not without a trace. A morbid mosaic of clues forces Rowan and her husband to question how deeply they really knew their daughter. As they work closely to peel back the layers of this case, they begin to unearth disturbing details about Chloe and her secret transgressions…details that threaten to tear them apart. Amidst the noise of navigating her newfound grief and reconciling the sins of her past, an undeniable fact rings true for Rowan: karma has finally come to collect.
Minotaur Books | 9781250872340
November 1st
THE SPY COAST by Tess Gerritsen (Thriller)
Former spy Maggie Bird came to the seaside village of Purity, Maine, eager to put the past behind her after a mission went tragically wrong. These days, she’s living quietly on her chicken farm, still wary of blowback from the events that forced her early retirement. But when a body turns up in Maggie’s driveway, she knows it’s a message from former foes who haven’t forgotten her. Maggie turns to her local circle of old friends --- all retirees from the CIA --- to help uncover the truth about who is trying to kill her, and why. This “Martini Club” of former spies may be retired, but they still have a few useful skills that they’re eager to use again, if only to spice up their rather sedate new lives.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662515125
On Sale the Week of October 30th in Paperback
October 31st
THE DEVIL YOU KNOW by P. J. Tracy (Mystery/Thriller)
Los Angeles has many faces: the real LA where regular people live and work, the degenerate underbelly of any big city, and the rarefied world of wealth, power and celebrity. LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan’s latest case plunges her into this insular realm of privilege and gives her a glimpse of the decay behind the glitter. Beloved actor Evan Hobbes is found in the rubble of a Malibu rockslide, a day after a fake video ruins his career. It’s not clear to Nolan if it’s an accident, a suicide or a murder, and things get murkier as the investigation expands to his luminary friends and colleagues. Meanwhile, Hobbes’ agent is dealing with damage control, his psychotic boss and a woman he’s scorned.
Minotaur Books | 9781250859969
FLIGHT by Lynn Steger Strong (Fiction)
It’s December 22nd, and siblings Henry, Kate and Martin have converged with their spouses on Henry’s house in upstate New York. This is the first Christmas the siblings are without their mother, the first not at their mother’s Florida house. Over the course of the next three days, old resentments and instabilities arise as the siblings, with a gaggle of children afoot, attempt to perform familiar rituals, while also trying to decide what to do with their mother’s house, their sole inheritance. As tensions rise, the whole group is forced to come together unexpectedly when a local mother and daughter need help.
Mariner Books | 9780063135154
A HEART THAT WORKS by Rob Delaney (Memoir)
In 2018, Rob Delaney’s two-year-old son, Henry, died of a brain tumor. A HEART THAT WORKS is Delaney’s intimate, unflinching and at times fiercely funny exploration of Henry’s beautiful, bright life and the devastation of his loss --- from the harrowing illness to the vivid, bodily impact of grief and the blind, furious rage that followed through to the forceful, unstoppable love that remains. In the madness of his grief, Delaney grapples with the fragile miracle of life, the mysteries of death, and the question of purpose for those left behind. Profound, painful, full of emotion and bracingly honest, Delaney’s memoir offers solace to those who have faced devastation and shows us how grace may appear even in the darkest times.
Spiegel & Grau | 9781954118560
THE HOSTAGE by A. F. Carter (Mystery/Thriller)
A new Nissan plant is coming to the depressed Rust Belt town of Baxter, and Captain Delia Mariola has been busy cleaning up the crime-addled city ever since the deal was announced. But when the 15-year-old daughter of the lead bidder on the construction project --- a wealthy out-of-towner --- suddenly disappears, and it becomes clear that a professional kidnapping ring may be responsible, Delia realizes that the factory’s influx of cash could bring with it an entirely new sort of danger, never before considered in this working class milieu. Though Elizabeth’s abduction was well-planned and bearing the mark of an experienced team, her captors could not have anticipated the quick and clever brilliance of the exceptionally smart teen.
Mysterious Press | 9781613164693
ILLUMINATION: A Guide to the Buddhist Method of No-Method by Rebecca Li (Spirituality/Personal Growth)
Paperback Original
Silent illumination, a way of penetrating the mind through curious inquiry, is an especially potent, accessible and portable meditation practice perfectly suited for a time when there is so much fear, upheaval and sorrow in our world. It is a method of reconnecting with our true nature, which encompasses all that exists and where suffering cannot touch us. The practice of silent illumination is simple, allowing each moment to be experienced as it is in order to manifest our innate wisdom and natural capacity for compassion. After guiding readers through the history and practice of silent illumination, Rebecca Li shows us how we can recognize and unlearn our “modes of operation” --- habits of mind that get in the way of being fully present and engaged with life.
Shambhala | 9781645470892
THE PALEONTOLOGIST by Luke Dumas (Literary Thriller/Horror)
Paperback Original
Curator of paleontology Dr. Simon Nealy never expected to return to his Pennsylvania hometown, let alone the Hawthorne Museum of Natural History. He was just a boy when his six-year-old sister, Morgan, was abducted from the museum under his watch. After a recent breakup and the death of the aunt who raised him, Simon feels drawn back to the place where Morgan vanished. But from the moment he arrives, things aren’t what he expected. The Hawthorne is a crumbling ruin and plummeting toward financial catastrophe. Worse, Simon begins seeing and hearing things he can’t explain. Terrified he’s losing his grasp on reality, Simon turns to the handwritten research diaries of his predecessor and uncovers a blood-soaked mystery 150 million years in the making that could be the answer to everything.
Atria Books | 9781668018262
THE RESEMBLANCE by Lauren Nossett (Mystery/Thriller)
On a chilly November morning at the University of Georgia, a fraternity brother steps off a busy crosswalk and is struck dead by an oncoming car. More than a dozen witnesses all agree on two things: the driver looked identical to the victim, and he was smiling. Detective Marlitt Kaplan is first on the scene. An Athens native and the daughter of a UGA professor, she knows all its shameful histories, from the skull discovered under the foundations of Baldwin Hall to the hushed-up murder-suicide in Waddel. But in the course of investigating this hit-and-run, she will uncover more chilling secrets as she explores the sprawling, interconnected Greek system that entertains and delights the university’s most elite and connected students.
Flatiron Books | 9781250843265
A STRANGE HABIT OF MIND: A Cameron Winter Mystery by Andrew Klavan (Hard-boiled Mystery)
The world of Big Tech is full of eccentric characters, but shamanic billionaire Gerald Byrne may be the strangest of the bunch. The founder of Byrner, a global social media platform, Byrne is known for speaking with vague profundity and dabbling in esoteric spiritual practices. And every person who gets in the way of his good work seems to die. When a former student commits suicide, English professor and ex-spy Cameron Winter takes it upon himself to understand why. The young man was expelled from the university in an unfortunate episode that left Winter sympathetic to his plight. After a prolonged silence, he reached out to his teacher with two words just before taking the fatal plunge from the roof of his San Francisco apartment: “Help me.”
Mysterious Press | 9781613164679
TOAD by Katherine Dunn (Fiction/Dark Humor)
Sally Gunnar spends her days alone at home, reading drugstore mysteries, polishing the doorknobs and waxing the floors. Her only companions are a vase of goldfish, a garden toad, and the door-to-door salesman who sells her cleaning supplies once a month. She broods over her deepest regrets: her blighted romances with self-important men, her lifelong struggle to feel at home in her own body, and her wayward early 20s, when she was a fish out of water among a group of eccentric, privileged young people at a liberal arts college. There was Sam, an unabashed collector of other people’s stories; Carlotta, a troubled free spirit; and Rennel, a self-obsessed philosophy student. Self-deprecating and sardonic, Sally recounts their misadventures, up to the tragedy that tore them apart.
Picador | 9781250872296
TRESPASSES by Louise Kennedy (Historical Fiction)
Amid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast, teaching at a parochial school and moonlighting at her family’s pub. There she meets Michael Agnew, a Protestant barrister who has made a name for himself defending IRA members. Against her better judgment, Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and an affair ignites. Then the father of a student is savagely beaten, setting in motion a chain reaction that will threaten everything, and everyone, Cushla most wants to protect.
Riverhead Books | 9780593540909
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