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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of December 11th and December 18th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.
This week, we are calling attention to our End-of-the-Year Contest featuring Carol Fitzgerald’s Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2023. One Grand Prize winner will be awarded all 44 books, while 11 other readers will receive four of these titles. The deadline for your entries is Friday, January 12th at noon ET.
PLEASE NOTE: One contest entry per person!
First row: Carol Fitzgerald, Eileen Zimmerman Nicol, Tom Donadio, Kate Ayers
Second row: Stuart Shiffman, Harvey Freedenberg, Pamela Kramer, Norah Piehl
Third row: Ray Palen, Rebecca Munro
Last Wednesday night, we hosted our year-end “Bookaccino Live” event featuring eight Bookreporter reviewers: Kate Ayers, Harvey Freedenberg, Pamela Kramer, Rebecca Munro, Eileen Zimmerman Nicol, Ray Palen, Norah Piehl and Stuart Shiffman. Each of them talked about their three favorite books of 2023. Their selections cover a wide variety of genres, and there may be a few titles you haven’t heard of that you will want to check out.
Click here to watch the event or here to listen to the podcast. A list of all the books that were presented, along with their covers, can be found here.
Pictured above is Carol with our Editorial Director, Tom Donadio, and all eight reviewers as we appeared on Zoom “Brady Bunch”-style. We had more than 300 attendees, and they came from 31 states, DC and Canada. To those of you who attended live, thank you. To all others, enjoy the video or the podcast!
We have two new “Bookreporter Talks To” interviews to share with you in this newsletter.
First up is with Fiona Davis, who joins Carol to discuss THE SPECTACULAR, which is a Bets On pick. Radio City Music Hall is the latest iconic New York City building that Fiona explores. This time, she layers in an additional element as she unearths a story about a habitual bomber who terrorized the city for a more than a decade, targeting well-known locations.
A Rockette reached out to Fiona with the idea for the book, and she researched it from there. Adding the bomber pegged the book as a thriller, and Fiona discusses how she approached working to keep the action advancing. She also talks about her upcoming Audible original and the subject of her 2025 novel. Click here to watch the video or here to listen to the podcast.
Carol also had the pleasure of catching up with Gilly Macmillan, whose latest thriller, THE MANOR HOUSE, is a Bets On selection as well. The premise is a fun one as a couple wins the lottery, and they set out to spend their winnings wisely. They first build a beautiful glass house with all the bells and whistles that one might want. It’s just brilliant. But mere pages into the book, one of them is found dead in the swimming pool. What happened? Was it foul play, or was it an accident?
This is a book with so many twists and turns, and Gilly had lots of fun writing them. Plus, all that tech talk as the house performs as planned (or does not) just adds to the intrigue. Carol and Gilly talk about yoga for a bit. Also, Gilly shares that there is one question that Carol brings up that no one else has asked her about. And it just might surprise you! Click here to watch the video or here to listen to the podcast.
Our final Holiday Cheer prize book of the year is THE BERRY PICKERS by Amanda Peters --- the 2023 Barnes & Noble Discover Prize winner, one of three finalists for the Carnegie Medal for Fiction, and an upcoming Bets On title. It also was the top pick from November's “Bookaccino Live” book preview event --- the book that our attendees most wanted to read from the 44 titles Carol presented.
The 24-hour contest is now up, so be sure to enter for your chance to win one of five copies of this much-talked-about debut novel. The deadline for your entries is TOMORROW, Wednesday, December 13th at noon ET.
PLEASE NOTE: One contest entry per person!
Our first “Bookaccino Live” book preview event of 2024 will take place on Wednesday, January 10th at 2pm ET. Carol will present titles releasing between January 2nd and February 6th, in addition to a few from March, 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 three upcoming virtual book and author events that you may be interested in attending. Click on the links for more info and to register.
Wednesday, December 13th at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": Join the "Friends and Fiction" authors --- Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey and Patti Callahan Henry --- for a special Christmas show.
Saturday, December 16th at 1pm ET: Book Passage: The hit Netflix movie Nyad is inspiring viewers worldwide. The story of 64-year-old Diana Nyad and her relentless pursuit of an epic dream, becoming the first to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage, is portrayed brilliantly by Annette Bening. Diana’s coach, Bonnie Stoll, is brought to life by the inimitable Jodie Foster. Join the real Diana and Bonnie for a lively conversation about their real-life ocean crossing and the movie.
Monday, December 18th at 7pm ET: Murder By The Book: Luke Dumas will talk to Mystery & Thriller Maven’s Sara DiVello about his latest chilling novel, THE PALEONTOLOGIST, in which a haunted paleontologist returns to the museum where his sister was abducted years earlier and is faced with a terrifying and murderous spirit.
This Week's Bonus News:
Enter to Win Our End-of-the-Year Celebration,
Featuring All 44 "Bets On" Titles from 2023
We are thrilled to announce our End-of-the-Year Contest featuring Carol Fitzgerald’s Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2023. One Grand Prize winner will be awarded all 44 books, while 11 other readers will receive four of these titles.
To enter, please fill out this form by Friday, January 12th at noon ET.
Here are this year's Bets On selections:
Click here to enter the contest.
On Sale the Week of December 11th in Hardcover
December 12th
THE FINAL CURTAIN written by Keigo Higashino, translated by Giles Murray (Mystery)
A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, only to die alone in an apartment far away. Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. She lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo --- and neither her family nor her friends have any idea why she would have gone there. Hers is the second strangulation death in that approximate area of Tokyo --- the other was a homeless man, killed and his body burned in a tent by the river. As the case unfolds, an unexpected connective emerges between the murder (or murders) now and the long-ago case of Detective Kaga's missing mother.
Minotaur Books | 9781250767523
HOW TO DRAW A NOVEL by Martín Solares (Literary Criticism/Essays)
In this finely wrought collection of essays, Martín Solares examines the novel in all its forms, exploring the conventions of structure, the novel as a house that one must build brick by brick, and the objects and characters that build out the world of the novel in unique and complex ways. With poetic, graceful prose that reflects the power of fascination with literary fiction, Solares uses line drawings to realize the ebb and flow of the novel. A novelist, occasional scholar and former acquiring editor in Mexican publishing, Solares breaks out of the Anglo-American-dominated canon of many craft books, ranging across Latin and South America as well. He considers how writers invent (or discover) their characters, the importance of place (or not) in the novel, and the myriad forms the novel may take.
Grove Press | 9780802159304
THE LACE WIDOW: An Eliza Hamilton Mystery by Mollie Ann Cox (Historical Mystery)
New York, 1804. Alexander Hamilton lies dead after a duel with Aaron Burr. Eliza Hamilton’s 18-year-old son, Alexander Jr., was seen fighting with a man in a tavern the night before his father’s duel and quickly comes under suspicion for murder when the man turns up dead. Eliza searches for ways to clear her son’s name, but as she combs through her late husband’s papers, she finds evidence of a plot to steal money from the government during his tenure as secretary of state. Deep in debt and despair, with eight children to support, Eliza turns to selling her handmade lace --- and is drawn into a mysterious network of widow lacemakers who are intimately connected to New York’s high-society families. They know their dead husbands’ secrets --- and Eliza soon begins to piece together the truth.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781639105281
On Sale the Week of December 11th in Paperback
December 12th
THE BIG BUNDLE by Max Allan Collins (Historical Thriller/Mystery)
A millionaire’s son is kidnapped, and private eye Nathan Heller is called in to help. But when half of the record $600,000 ransom goes missing, Heller must wade through a morass of deception and depravity to blow the lid off a notorious crime, the consequences of which reach into the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., where Bobby Kennedy works tirelessly to take down crooked union boss Jimmy Hoffa.
Hard Case Crime | 9781789098549
BOMBAY MONSOON by James W. Ziskin (Historical Thriller)
The year is 1975. Danny Jacobs is an ambitious, young American journalist who’s just arrived in Bombay for a new assignment. He’s soon caught up in the chaos of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s domestic “Emergency.” Willy Smets is Danny’s enigmatic expat neighbor. He’s a charming man but with suspicious connections. As a monsoon drenches Bombay, Danny falls hard for Sushmita, Smets’ beguiling and clever lover --- and the infatuation is mutual. "The Emergency," a virtual coup by the prime minister, is only the first twist in the high-stakes drama of Danny’s new life in India. The assassination of a police officer by a Marxist extremist, as well as Danny’s obsession with the inscrutable Sushmita, conspire to put his career --- and life --- in jeopardy.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608095841
A DEATH IN TOKYO written by Keigo Higashino, translated by Giles Murray (Mystery)
In the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo, an unusual statue of a Japanese mythic beast --- a kirin --- stands guard over the district from the classic Nihonbashi Bridge. In the evening, a man who appears to be very drunk staggers onto the bridge and collapses right under the statue of the winged beast. The patrolman who sees this scene unfold goes to rouse the man, only to discover that the man is dead and was stabbed in the chest. The key to solving the crime is to find out where he was attacked and why he made such a superhuman effort to carry himself to the Nihonbashi Bridge. That same night, a young man named Yashima is injured in a car accident while attempting to flee from the police. Found on him is the wallet of the murdered man.
Minotaur Books | 9781250905291
ESSEX DOGS by Dan Jones (Historical Thriller)
July 1346. Ten men land on the beaches of Normandy. They call themselves the Essex Dogs: an unruly platoon of archers and men-at-arms led by a battle-scarred captain whose best days are behind him. The fight for the throne of the largest kingdom in Western Europe has begun. Heading ever deeper into enemy territory toward Crécy, this band of brothers knows they are off to fight a battle that will forge nations and shape the very fabric of human lives. But first they must survive a bloody war in which rules are abandoned and chivalry itself is slaughtered.
Penguin Books | 9780143137634
A LIFE IN LIGHT: Meditations on Impermanence by Mary Pipher (Memoir/Essays)
In her luminous new memoir in essays, Mary Pipher --- as she did in her New York Times bestseller WOMEN ROWING NORTH --- taps into a cultural moment, to offer wisdom, hope and insight into loss and change. Drawing from her own experiences and expertise as a psychologist specializing in women, trauma and the effect of our culture on our mental health, she looks inward in A LIFE IN LIGHT to what shaped her as a woman, one who has experienced darkness throughout her life but was always drawn to the light. Her plainspoken depictions of her hard childhood and life's difficulties are dappled with moments of joy and revelation, tragedies and ordinary miseries, glimmers and shadow.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781639731633
MURDER, SHE WROTE: DEATH ON THE EMERALD ISLE by Jessica Fletcher and Terrie Farley Moran (Mystery)
Jessica Fletcher is quick to accept an invitation to replace a speaker who couldn’t attend a book festival in Belfast, Ireland. When her Cabot Cove neighbor, Maeve O'Bannon, hears about the trip, she asks Jessica to deliver some paintings to her family in the village of Bushmills. Happy to extend her travels and see more of the Irish countryside, Jessica agrees. The festival goes off without a hitch, and it seems like Jessica is in for a relaxing vacation. But then Maeve’s cousin, Michael, is discovered dead under suspicious circumstances. Jessica finds herself once again in the midst of a murder investigation, and she’ll have to dig into the O'Bannon family’s secrets to unmask the killer.
Berkley | 9780593333709
NO ONE LEFT TO COME LOOKING FOR YOU by Sam Lipsyte (Mystery/Dark Humor)
Manhattan’s East Village, 1993. Crime is high, but rent is low, luring hopeful, creative kids from sleepy suburbs around the country. One of these is Jack S., a young New Jersey rock musician. Just a few days before his band’s biggest gig, their lead singer goes missing with Jack’s prized bass, presumably to hock it to feed his junk habit. Jack’s search for his buddy uncovers a sinister entanglement of crimes tied to local real estate barons looking to remake New York City --- and who also might be connected to the recent death of Jack’s punk rock mentor. Along the way, Jack encounters a cast of colorful characters, including a tough-talking cop who fancies himself a retro-cool icon of the homicide squad but is harboring a surprising secret.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501146138
NO WAY OUT: A DI Adam Fawley Thriller by Cara Hunter (Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
It's Christmas in Oxford, and firefighters have pulled two children from the smoking ruin of their home. The mystery deepens when it becomes clear that the parents are nowhere to be found. Why were the children left in the house alone? Why is neither parent answering their phone? Were they kidnapped? Murdered? From the start, DI Adam Fawley knows that this house fire is the scene of a crime, not an accident. Then new evidence comes to light and confirms the team’s worst suspicions. The blaze was arson. Who would have torched a seemingly happy family’s home on Christmas? As DI Fawley and his team of detectives sift through the evidence, old tensions and new problems in the family are slowly revealed. Something terribly out of the ordinary has happened, and the truth slowly begins to reveal itself.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063260894
WINTER WORK by Dan Fesperman (Thriller)
On a chilly early morning walk on the wooded outskirts of Berlin, Emil Grimm finds the body of his neighbor, a fellow Stasi officer named Lothar, with a gunshot wound to the temple and a pistol in his right hand. Despite appearances, Emil suspects murder. A few months earlier he would have known just what to do, but now, as East Germany disintegrates, being a Stasi colonel is more of a liability than an asset. More troubling still is that Emil and Lothar were involved in a final clandestine mission, one that has clearly turned deadly. Now Emil must finish the job alone, on uncertain ground where old alliances seem to be shifting by the day.
Vintage | 9780593466957
WOLF TRAP by Connor Sullivan (Thriller)
Under the direction of the Special Activities Center in the Operations Directorate of the CIA, over 300 highly trained agents operate in the darkest shadows of the country’s covert wars. Plucked from the highest echelons of America’s special mission units, these individuals go through rigorous training by the Agency to perfect the arts of assassination, sabotage, infiltration and guerrilla warfare. When diplomacy and military intervention fails, the President of the United States calls upon them to solve America’s most dangerous crises. Brian Rhome thought his time within this elite group was over. But now he’s on a desperate race against time around the globe as he confronts the traumas of his past and unravels a deadly conspiracy that threatens the highest levels of American democracy.
Pocket Books | 9781982166434
On Sale the Week of December 18th in Hardcover
December 19th
THE BLACK JOY PROJECT: A Literary and Visual Love Letter to How We Thrive by Kleaver Cruz (Ethnic Studies/Essays)
Black Joy is everywhere. From the bustling streets of Lagos to hip-hop blasting through apartment windows in the Bronx. From the wide-open coastal desert of Namibia to the lush slopes of Jamaica’s Blue Mountains. From the thriving tradition of Candomblé in Bahia to the innovative and trendsetting styles of Soweto, and beyond, Black Joy is present in every place that Black people exist. Now, at last, is a one-of-a-kind celebration of this truth and a life-giving testament to one of the most essential forces that fuels Black life. International in the scale, fist-raising in the prose, and full of gorgeous works by dozens of acclaimed artists, THE BLACK JOY PROJECT does what no other book has ever done. In words and art, it puts joy on the same track as protest and resistance...because that is how life is actually lived.
Mariner Books | 9780358588757
THE WALTZ OF REASON: The Entanglement of Mathematics and Philosophy by Karl Sigmund (History/Mathematics & Philosophy)
“Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here,” Plato warned would-be philosophers. Mathematician Karl Sigmund agrees. In THE WALTZ OF REASON, he shows how mathematics and philosophy together have shaped our understanding of space, chance, logic, cooperation, voting and the social contract. Sigmund shows how game theory is integral to moral philosophy, how statistics shaped the meaning of reason, and how the search for a logical basis for math leads to deep questions about the nature of truth itself. But this is no dry tome: Sigmund’s wit and humor shine as brightly as his erudition.
Basic Books | 9781541602694
On Sale the Week of December 18th in Paperback
December 19th
DIAMONDS AND DEADLINES: A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in New York City’s Gilded Age by Betsy Prioleau (Biography)
For 20 years Miriam Leslie ran the country’s largest publishing company, Frank Leslie Publishing, which chronicled postbellum America in dozens of weeklies and monthlies. A pioneer in an all-male industry, she made a fortune and became a national celebrity and tastemaker in the process. But she also flouted feminine convention, took lovers, married four times, and harbored unsavory secrets that she concealed through a skein of lies and multiple personas. DIAMONDS AND DEADLINES reveals the unknown, sensational life of the brilliant and brazen “empress of journalism,” who dropped a bombshell at her death: She left her entire multimillion-dollar estate to women’s suffrage --- a never-equaled amount that guaranteed passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Abrams Press | 9781419770890
LANDSCAPE OF SHADOWS by Kevin Doherty (Historical Thriller)
France, 1941. The small town of Dinon is under German occupation. Max Duval, its mayor, appears to have accepted the German presence and encourages his citizens to do the same. He owns the Hotel Picardie, whose most important resident is Major Egon Wolff --- German commandant. Then a Resistance team kills two German troopers, and the uneasy calm of Dinon is shattered. One of the assassins, the headstrong and beautiful Sophie Carriere, takes refuge in the Hotel Picardie. Despite his disapproval of the assassinations, Max keeps her safe. Sophie accuses Max of conspiring the attacks, but Max is no collaborator --- he has his own secret methods of resistance, which Sophie has now jeopardized.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608095858
THIS OTHER EDEN by Paul Harding (Historical Fiction)
In 1792, formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discover an island where they can make a life together. Over a century later, the Honeys’ descendants and a diverse group of neighbors are desperately poor, isolated and often hungry, but nevertheless protected from the hostility awaiting them on the mainland. During the tumultuous summer of 1912, Matthew Diamond, a retired, idealistic but prejudiced schoolteacher-turned-missionary, disrupts the community’s fragile balance through his efforts to educate its children. His presence attracts the attention of authorities on the mainland who decide to forcibly evacuate the island, institutionalize its residents and develop the island as a vacation destination.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324074526
THE VACATION by John Marrs (Thriller)
Paperback Original
Venice Beach, Los Angeles. A paradise on earth. Tourists flock to the golden coast and the promise of Hollywood. But for eight strangers at a beach-front hostel, there is far more on their minds than an extended vacation. All of them are running from something. And they all have secrets they’d kill to keep.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335006042
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