February 27, 2024

February 27, 2024

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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of February 26th and March 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 our review of END OF STORY, A. J. Finn’s long-awaited second novel following his international bestseller, THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW. This spellbinding thriller, which has been described as part Knives Out and part Agatha Christie, is now in stores and will be a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick.

This is your last newsletter reminder to sign up for this month’s “Bookaccino Live” Book Group event, which will take place TOMORROW, Wednesday, February 28th at 8pm ET.

Our guest will be Shelby Van Pelt, and she will be talking to Carol Fitzgerald about her 2022 debut novel, the instant New York Times bestseller REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES. You can register for the event by clicking here.

If you would like to ask Shelby a question about the book on camera during the event and chat with her in our virtual green room before the event, please email Carol with your question using the subject line “Shelby” by Wednesday at noon ET. Be sure to include your name, city and state, as well as your question. If you do not want to appear on camera but still would like to ask a question, please note that you want to be off camera, and share your question --- adding your name, city and state.

Please keep in mind our LIVE “Bookreporter Talks To” interview with Kristin Hannah next Wednesday, March 6th at 7pm ET.

Kristin will be talking about her latest novel, THE WOMEN (a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick), and answering questions from those who won a copy of the book in a Bookreporter contest last November. Some of these winners will be asking their question on camera, and Carol will be asking questions on behalf of those who are camera-shy or are unable to join us live.

We also thought it would be fun to open this up to a wider group so they can listen in on the interview. Sign up here if you would like to be part of this very special evening.

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, February 28th 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 Pulitzer Prize finalist Tommy Orange about WANDERING STARS, the highly anticipated follow-up to his 2018 debut novel, THERE THERE.

Wednesday, February 28th at 8pm ET: "Bookaccino Live" Book Group: Carol Fitzgerald will talk to Shelby Van Pelt about her novel, REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES, which is a "Read with Jenna" pick. Shelby 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 Shelby a question on camera, please email Carol with the subject line “Shelby” by February 28th at noon ET.

Monday, March 4th at 3pm ET: Barnes & Noble: Join Barnes & Noble as they welcome Simone St. James for a live virtual discussion of MURDER ROAD as part of their Midday Mystery Virtual Event series. Simone will be in conversation with the bestselling author of THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE, Riley Sager.

Tuesday, March 5th at 3pm ET: Barnes & Noble Book Club: Join Barnes & Noble as they welcome Dolly Alderton for a live virtual event to discuss GOOD MATERIAL, February's B&N Book Club pick. Dolly will be in conversation with Lexie Smyth, B&N's Fiction Category Manager, and Jenna Seery, the Associate Producer of B&N's "Poured Over" podcast.

Tuesday, March 5th at 6pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Yangsze Choo will talk about her latest novel, THE FOX WIFE, with fellow New York Times bestselling author Lisa See. This stunning novel is about old loves and second chances, the depths of maternal love, and ancient folktales that may very well be true.

Tuesday, March 5th at 7pm ET: Brookline Booksmith, Copperfield’s Books, and Elliott Bay Book Company: Celebrate the release of THE HUNTER with New York Times bestselling author Tana French, who will appear live online at a cross-indie bookstore event. Bestselling author Lev Grossman will join Tana in conversation.

This Week's Bonus News:
Our Review of END OF STORY by A. J. Finn
An Upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On Title

On Sale the Week of February 26th in Hardcover

February 27th

AFTER ANNIE by Anna Quindlen (Fiction)
When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, children and closest friend are left to find a way forward without the woman who has been the linchpin of all their lives. Bill is overwhelmed without his beloved wife, and Annemarie wrestles with the bad habits her best friend had helped her overcome. And Ali, the eldest of Annie’s children, has to grow up overnight, to care for her younger brothers and even her father and to puzzle out for herself many of the mysteries of adult life. Over the course of the next year, what saves them all is Annie --- ever-present in their minds, loving but not sentimental, caring but nobody’s fool, a voice in their heads that is funny, sharp and remarkably clear. The power she has given to those who loved her is the power to go on without her. The lesson they learn is that no one beloved is ever truly gone.
Random House | 9780593229804

THE AMERICAN DAUGHTERS by Maurice Carlos Ruffin (Historical Fiction)
Ady, a curious, sharp-witted girl, and her fierce mother, Sanite, are inseparable. Enslaved to a businessman in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the pair spend their days dreaming of a loving future and reminiscing about their family’s rebellious and storied history. When mother and daughter are separated, Ady is left hopeless and directionless until she stumbles into the Mockingbird Inn and meets Lenore, a free Black woman with whom she becomes fast friends. Lenore invites Ady to join a clandestine society of spies called the Daughters. With the courage instilled in her by Sanite --- and with help from these strong women --- Ady learns how to put herself first. So begins her journey toward liberation and imagining a new future.
One World | 9780593729397

BURN BOOK: A Tech Love Story by Kara Swisher (Business & Economics/Memoir)
While covering the explosion of the digital sector in the early 1990s, Kara Swisher developed a long track record of digging up and reporting the facts about this new world order. Swisher has interviewed everyone who matters in tech over three decades, right when they presided over an explosion of world-changing innovation that has both helped and hurt our world. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Sheryl Sandberg, Bob Iger, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Meg Whitman, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg are just a few whom Swisher made sweat --- figuratively and, in Zuckerberg’s case, literally. Despite the damage she chronicles, Swisher remains optimistic about tech’s potential to help solve problems and not just create them.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982163891

CARSON McCULLERS: A Life by Mary V. Dearborn (Biography)
She was born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia. Her dream was to become a concert pianist, though she’d been writing since she was 16, and the influence of music was evident throughout her work. At 20, she married Reeves McCullers, a fellow southerner, ex-soldier and aspiring writer. They had a fraught, tumultuous marriage lasting 12 years and ending with his suicide in 1953. Her first novel, THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, was published in 1940 when she was 23. Overnight, Carson McCullers became the most widely talked about writer of the time. With unprecedented access to the cache of materials that has surfaced in the past decade, Mary Dearborn gives us the first full picture of this brilliant, complex artist who was decades ahead of her time, a writer who understood --- and captured --- the heart and longing of the outcast.
Knopf | 9780525521013

THE DEERFIELD MASSACRE: A Surprise Attack, a Forced March, and the Fight for Survival in Early America by James L. Swanson (History)
In an obscure, 200-year-old museum in a little town in western Massachusetts, there stands what once was the most revered relic from the history of early New England: the massive, tomahawk-scarred door that came to symbolize the notorious Deerfield Massacre of 1704. This impregnable barricade, known to early Americans as “The Old Indian Door,” is the sole surviving artifact from one of the most dramatic moments in colonial American history. In the leap year of 1704, on the cold, snowy night of February 29th, hundreds of Indians and their French allies swept down on an isolated frontier outpost to slaughter or capture its inhabitants. The sacking of Deerfield led to one of the greatest sagas of survival, sacrifice, family and faith ever told in North America.
Scribner | 9781501108167

A FATE INKED IN BLOOD: Book One of the Saga of the Unfated by Danielle L. Jensen (Historical Fantasy/Romance)
Bound in an unwanted marriage, Freya dreams of becoming a warrior. When her husband betrays her to the region’s jarl, she is involved in a fight to the death against his son, Bjorn. To survive, Freya is forced to reveal her deepest secret: She possesses a drop of a goddess’s blood, which makes her a shield maiden with magic capable of repelling any attack. And it’s been foretold that such magic will unite the fractured nation of Skaland beneath the one who controls the shield maiden’s fate. Believing he’s destined to rule Skaland as king, the fanatical jarl binds Freya with a blood oath and orders Bjorn to protect her from their enemies. Desperate to prove her strength, Freya must train to fight and learn to control her magic, all while facing perilous tests set by the gods. The greatest test of all, however, may be resisting her forbidden attraction to Bjorn.
Del Rey | 9780593599839

GREEN DOT by Madeleine Gray (Fiction/Humor)
At 24, Hera is a clump of unmet potential. To her, the future is nothing but an exhausting thought exercise, one depressing hypothetical after another. She’s sharp in more ways than one, adrift in her own smug malaise, until her new job moderating the comments section of an online news outlet --- a role even more mind-numbing than it sounds --- introduces her to Arthur, a middle-aged journalist. Though she's preferred women to men for years now, she soon finds herself falling into an all-consuming affair with him. She is coming apart with want and loving every second of it. Well, except for the tiny hiccup that Arthur has a wife --- and she has no idea Hera exists.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250890597

GRIEF IS FOR PEOPLE by Sloane Crosley (Memoir)
For most of her adult life, Sloane Crosley and her closest friend, Russell, worked together and played together as they navigated the corridors of office life, the literary world, and the dramatic cultural shifts in New York City. One day, while Russell is still alive, Sloane’s apartment is broken into. Along with her most prized possessions, the thief makes off with her sense of security, leaving a mystery in its place. When Russell dies exactly one month later, his suicide propels her on a wild quest to right the unrightable, to explore what constitutes family and possession as the city itself faces the staggering toll brought on by the pandemic.
MCD | 9780374609849

LEAVE NO TRACE: A National Parks Thriller by A. J. Landau (Thriller)
In a daring, brutal act of terrorism, an explosion rocks and topples the Statue of Liberty. Special Agent Michael Walker of the National Park Service is sent to New York as the agent-in-charge. Gina Delgado of the FBI has been placed in charge of the investigation as the lead of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and threats of a second terrorism attack are already being called into the media. While barred from the meetings of the Joint Task Force for his lack of security clearance, Walker finds a young boy among the survivors with a critical piece of information --- a video linking the attackers to the assault. As a radical domestic terrorist group threatens further attacks against America's cultural symbols, powerful forces within the government are misleading the investigation to further their own radical agenda.
Minotaur Books | 9781250877338

MY NAME WAS EDEN by Eleanor Barker-White (Psychological Thriller)
When her daughter Eden came home from the hospital, Lucy was profoundly relieved. Eden had survived a drowning incident and had no apparent brain damage or serious injuries. Lucy fervently welcomed having a second chance at being the good mother she should have been before her teenager’s accident. Until Eden tells her that Eden isn’t her name. Until she starts calling herself Eli. The name Lucy had reserved for Eden’s unborn twin. Don’t worry, says the doctor. Eden is completely fine, says her husband. Of course I’m fine, Eden says, with that strange new smile of hers. I didn’t die. I’m here. But Lucy knows something is very wrong with Eden. She’s not her maddening, complicated teenage girl anymore --- this even-tempered, steady-eyed child is someone else entirely. Eden, it seems, is the twin who disappeared.
William Morrow | 9780063341296

NO BETTER TIME: A Novel of the Spirited Women of the Six Triple Eight Central Postal Directory Battalion by Sheila Williams (Historical Fiction)
In the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Dorothy Thom joins the Women’s Army Corps. Women from all levels of society work together to navigate a military segregated by race and gender. In early 1945, Dorothy and 800 African American WACs cross the turbulent North Atlantic to their post in England. Their orders are to process the mail sent to GIs from their loved ones back home. They arrive to find mail stockpiled for over two years in warehouses and airplane hangars. Many pieces are in poor condition, and the names are illegible. In England and France, the WACs traverse a landscape of unimagined possibilities. With their outlooks changed forever, they return to the United States as the catalysts for change in America and build lives that transcend anything their ancestors ever dreamed of.
Amistad | 9780063307933

NORMAL WOMEN: Nine Hundred Years of Making History by Philippa Gregory (History)
In this ambitious and groundbreaking book, Philippa Gregory tells the story of England over 900 years, for the very first time placing women --- some 50 percent of the population --- center stage. Using research skills honed in her work as one of our foremost historical novelists, Gregory trawled through court records, newspapers and journals to find highwaywomen and beggars, murderers and brides, housewives and pirates, female husbands and hermits. The “normal women” you will meet in these pages went to war, plowed the fields, campaigned, wrote and loved. They rode in jousts, flew Spitfires, issued their own currency, and built ships, corn mills and houses. They committed crimes or treason, worshipped many gods, cooked and nursed, invented things and rioted. A lot.
HarperOne | 9780063304321

THE OTHER VALLEY by Scott Alexander Howard (Science Fiction)
Sixteen-year-old Odile is vying for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she’ll decide who may cross her town’s heavily guarded borders. On the other side, it’s the same valley, the same town. Except to the east, the town is 20 years ahead in time. To the west, it’s 20 years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness. When Odile recognizes two visitors she wasn’t supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her friend Edme have been escorted across the border from the future, on a mourning tour, to view their son while he’s still alive in Odile’s present. Edme, the only person to truly see Odile, is about to die. Sworn to secrecy in order to preserve the timeline, Odile now becomes the Conseil’s top candidate. Yet she finds herself drawing closer to the doomed boy, imperiling her entire future.
Atria Books | 9781668015476

THE PAINTER'S DAUGHTERS by Emily Howes (Historical Fiction)
Peggy and Molly Gainsborough, the daughters of one of England’s most famous portrait artists of the 1700s, are best friends. From a young age, Molly periodically experiences bouts of mental confusion, even forgetting who she is, and Peggy instinctively knows she must help cover up her sister’s condition. When the family moves to Bath, it’s not so easy to hide Molly’s slip-ups. There, the sisters are thrown into the whirlwind of polite society, where the codes of behavior are crystal clear. Molly dreams of a normal life but slides deeper and more publicly into her delusions. By now, Peggy knows the shadow of an asylum looms for women like Molly. But when Peggy unexpectedly falls in love with her father’s friend, the charming composer Johann Fischer, the sisters’ precarious situation is thrown catastrophically off course.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668021385

PIGLET by Lottie Hazell (Fiction)
An up-and-coming cookbook editor at a London publishing house, Piglet has lovely, loyal friends and a handsome fiancé, Kit. One of the many things Kit loves about Piglet is the delicious, unfathomably elaborate meals she’s always cooking. But when Kit confesses a horrible betrayal two weeks before they’re set to be married, Piglet finds herself suddenly…hungry. The couple decides to move forward with the wedding as planned, but as it nears and Piglet balances family expectations, pressure at work and her quest to make the perfect cake, she finds herself increasingly unsettled, behaving in ways even she can’t explain. By the day of her wedding, Piglet is undone but is also ready to look beyond the lies we sometimes tell ourselves to get by.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250289841

THE RUMOR GAME by Thomas Mullen (Historical Thriller)
Reporter Anne Lemire writes the Rumor Clinic, a newspaper column that disproves the many harmful rumors floating around town, some of them spread by Axis spies and others just gossip mixed with fear and ignorance. Tired of chasing silly rumors about Rosie Riveters' safety on the job, she wants to write about something bigger. Special Agent Devon Mulvey, one of the few Catholics at the FBI, spends his weekdays preventing industrial sabotage and his Sundays spying on clerics with suspect loyalties --- and he spends his evenings wooing the many lonely women whose husbands are off at war. When Anne’s story about Nazi propaganda intersects with Devon’s investigation into the death of a factory worker, the two are led down a dangerous trail of espionage, organized crime and domestic fascism.
Minotaur Books | 9781250842770

SHARING TOO MUCH: Musings from an Unlikely Life by Richard Paul Evans (Essays)
Before he was the #1 New York Times bestselling author of holiday classics such as THE CHRISTMAS BOX, Richard Paul Evans was a young boy being raised by a suicidal mother and dealing with relentless bullying. He could not fathom what the future held for him. Now, in this intimate and heartfelt collection of personal essays, Evans shares his moving journey from childhood to beloved author. Here, he offers the insightful lessons he’s learned and engaging advice about everything from marriage to parenthood and even facing near-death experiences.
Gallery Books | 9781982177461

THREE-INCH TEETH: A Joe Pickett Novel by C. J. Box (Mystery/Thriller)
A rogue grizzly bear has gone on a rampage --- killing, among others, the potential fiancé of Joe Pickett’s daughter. At the same time, Dallas Cates, who Joe helped lock up years ago, is released from prison with a special list tattooed on his skin. He wants revenge on the people who sent him away: the six people he blames for the deaths of his entire family and the loss of his reputation and property. Using the grizzly attacks as cover, Cates sets out to methodically check off his list. The problem is, both Nate Romanowski and Joe Pickett are on it.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593331347

WANDERING STARS by Tommy Orange (Fiction)
Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.
Knopf | 9780593318256

On Sale the Week of February 26th in Paperback

February 27th

ALL THAT IS HIDDEN: A Molly Murphy Mystery by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles (Historical Mystery)
Former private detective Molly Murphy Sullivan and her policeman husband, Daniel, have built quite a life for themselves in Greenwich Village. They have a good marriage, a true partnership where they value each other’s opinions in all things. So when he tells her they’re moving to a fancy home on Fifth Avenue --- and that he’s running for the sheriff of New York --- Molly is left reeling. Daniel begs Molly to trust him. But why would he run for sheriff on the Tammany ticket? A party known more for kickbacks and quid pro quo than anything else, it used to be everything Daniel despised. So what’s changed? And why didn’t he discuss it with her beforehand? Molly can’t help but wonder what Daniel has gotten himself tangled up in…and if he needs her help to get out.
Minotaur Books | 9781250808110

AMERICAN MERMAID by Julia Langbein (Fiction/Humor)
Broke English teacher Penelope Schleeman is as surprised as anyone when her feminist, eco-warrior novel American Mermaid becomes a bestseller. But when Hollywood insists she convert her fierce, androgynous protagonist into a teen sex object in a clamshell bra, strange things start to happen. Is Penelope losing her mind, or has her fictional mermaid come to life, enacting revenge against society’s limited view of what a woman can and should be? AMERICAN MERMAID follows a young woman braving the casual slights and cruel calculations of a winner-take-all society and discovering a beating heart in her own fiction: a new kind of mermaid who will fight to keep her voice and choose her place.
Vintage | 9780593470145

COLD PEOPLE by Tom Rob Smith (Dystopian Thriller/Science Fiction)
The world has fallen. Without warning, a mysterious and omnipotent force has claimed the planet for their own. There are no negotiations, no demands, no reasons given for their actions. All they have is a message: humanity has 30 days to reach the one place on Earth where they will be allowed to exist --- Antarctica. COLD PEOPLE follows the perilous journeys of a handful of those who endure the frantic exodus to the most extreme environment on the planet. But their goal is not merely to survive the present. Because as they cling to life on the ice, the remnants of their past swept away, they also must confront the urgent challenge: Can they change and evolve rapidly enough to ensure humanity’s future? Can they build a new society in the sub-zero cold?
Scribner | 9781982198411

THE EXCEPTIONS: Nancy Hopkins and the Fight for Women in Science by Kate Zernike (History)
In 1999, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admitted to discriminating against women on its faculty, forcing institutions across the country to confront a problem they had long ignored: the need for more women at the top levels of science. Written by the journalist who broke the story for The Boston Globe, THE EXCEPTIONS is the untold story of how 16 highly accomplished women on the MIT faculty came together to do the work that triggered the historic admission. It centers on the life of Nancy Hopkins, a reluctant feminist who became the leader of the 16 and a hero to two generations of women in science.
Scribner | 9781982131845

GHOST ISLAND: A Ghosts of the Past Novel by Max Seeck (Mystery)
Paperback Original
Jessica Niemi is put on leave after a violent altercation between her and a belligerent man makes headlines. To escape the unwanted scrutiny, Jessica travels to a remote island in the Åland archipelago and rents a room at a small seaside inn. There she meets three elderly visitors who are the remaining “birds of spring,” former refugees who fled Finland as children during World War II and lived together for a few months in an orphanage on the island. The orphanage no longer exists, but the local legend about one of its inhabitants still haunts the surviving orphans. Every evening a girl named Maija would stand on the pier, but one night she disappeared and was never seen again. When one of the “birds of spring” is found dead, drowned alongside the same pier, Jessica tries to put the pieces of this terrifying mystery together.
Berkley | 9780593438862

HOMESTEAD by Melinda Moustakis (Historical Fiction)
Anchorage, 1956. When Marie and Lawrence first lock eyes at the Moose Lodge, they are immediately drawn together. But when they decide to marry, days later, they are more in love with the promise of homesteading than anything. For Lawrence, his parcel of 150 acres is an opportunity to finally belong in a world that has never delivered on its promise. For Marie, the land is an escape from the empty future she sees spinning out before her, and a risky bet is better than none at all. But over the next few years, as they work the land in an attempt to secure a deed to their homestead, they must face everything they don’t know about each other. As the Territory of Alaska moves toward statehood and inexorable change, can Marie and Lawrence create something new, or will they break apart trying?
Flatiron Books | 9781250845573

MARVELOUS by Molly Greeley (Historical Fiction)
1547: Pedro Gonzales, a young boy living on the island of Tenerife, understands that he is different from the other children in his village. He is mercilessly ridiculed for the hair covering his body from head to toe. When he is kidnapped off the beach near his home, he finds himself delivered by a slave broker into the dangerous and glamorous world of France’s royal court. Catherine de’ Medici is fascinated by Pedro and determined to find him a bride. Catherine Raffelin is a beautiful 17-year-old girl whose merchant father has fallen on hard times and offers up his daughter to Queen Catherine. The queen will pay his debts, and his daughter will marry Pedro. Catherine must learn to navigate this strange new world and the unusual man who is now her husband.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063244108

THE MOSTLY TRUE STORY OF TANNER & LOUISE by Colleen Oakley (Fiction)
Twenty-one-year-old Tanner Quimby needs a place to live. Since she has no credit or money to speak of, her options are limited. So when an opportunity to work as a live-in caregiver for an elderly woman falls into her lap, she takes it. One slip on the rug. That’s all it took for Louise Wilt’s daughter to demand that Louise have a full-time nanny living with her. The two start off their living arrangement happily ignoring each other until Tanner starts to notice things. Why does Louise keep her garden shed locked up tighter than a prison? Why is the local news fixated on the suspect of one of the biggest jewelry heists in American history who looks eerily like Louise? And why does Louise suddenly appear in her room, with a packed bag at 1 a.m., insisting that they leave town immediately?
Berkley | 9780593549094

ONCE UPON A TOME: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller by Oliver Darkshire (Memoir)
Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd to apply for a job. Allured by the smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap, Darkshire was soon unteetering stacks of first editions and placating the store’s resident ghost (the late Mr. Sotheran, hit by a tram). A novice in this ancient, potentially haunted establishment, Darkshire describes Sotheran’s brushes with history (Dickens, the Titanic), its joyous disorganization, and the unspoken rules of its gleefully old-fashioned staff. As Darkshire gains confidence and experience, he shares trivia about ancient editions and explores the strange space that books occupy in our lives --- where old books often have strong sentimental value, but rarely a commercial one.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324074786

THE QUEEN OF DIRT ISLAND by Donal Ryan (Fiction)
The Aylward women of Nenagh, Tipperary, are mad about each other, but you wouldn’t always think it. You’d have to know them to know that --- in spite of what the neighbors might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes --- their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world. Their story begins at an end and ends at a beginning. It involves wives and widows, gunrunners and gougers, sinners and saints. It’s a story of terrible betrayals and fierce loyalties, of isolation and togetherness, of transgression, forgiveness, desire and love. Of all the things family can be and all the things it sometimes isn’t.
Penguin Books | 9780593652954

THE SECRETS OF HARTWOOD HALL by Katie Lumsden (Historical Gothic Mystery)
It’s 1852, and Margaret Lennox, a young widow, attempts to escape the shadows of her past by taking a position as governess to an only child, Louis, at an isolated country house in the west of England. But Margaret soon starts to feel that something isn’t quite right. There are strange figures in the dark, tensions between servants and an abandoned east wing. Even stranger is the local gossip surrounding Mrs. Eversham, Louis’ widowed mother, who is deeply distrusted in the village. Lonely and unsure whom to trust, Margaret finds distraction in a forbidden relationship with the gardener, Paul. But as Margaret’s history threatens to catch up with her, it isn’t long before she learns the truth behind the secrets of Hartwood Hall.
Dutton | 9780593186947

STONE BLIND by Natalie Haynes (Historical Fiction)
The only mortal in a family of gods, Medusa is the youngest of the Gorgon sisters. Unlike her siblings, Medusa grows older, experiences change and feels weakness. Her mortal lifespan gives her an urgency that her family will never know. When the sea god Poseidon assaults Medusa in Athene’s temple, the goddess is enraged. Furious by the violation of her sacred space, Athene takes revenge --- on the young woman. Punished for Poseidon’s actions, Medusa is forever transformed. Writhing snakes replace her hair, and her gaze will turn any living creature to stone. Cursed with the power to destroy all she loves with one look, Medusa condemns herself to a life of solitude. Until Perseus embarks upon a fateful quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon.
Harper Perennial | 9780063258402

TAKE WHAT YOU NEED by Idra Novey (Fiction)
Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia, TAKE WHAT YOU NEED traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, who's sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leah’s urban life with her young family, she‘s revealed little about Jean, how much she misses her stepmother’s hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition. But with Jean’s death, Leah must return to sort through what’s been left behind. What Leah discovers is staggering: Jean has filled her ramshackle house with giant sculptures she’s welded from scraps of the area’s industrial history. There’s also a young man now living in the house who played an unknown role in Jean’s last years and in her art.
Penguin Books | 9780593652879

UNDER THE STORM written by Christoffer Carlsson, translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles (Mystery)
Paperback Original
On a cold November night, a farmhouse burns to the ground. Inside a young woman is found dead --- not from the fire but murdered. To the people in the rural community of Marbäck, this becomes a reference point: a before and after. For 10-year-old Isak Nyqvist, it sets in motion something he cannot control, igniting his future into an unpredictable inferno. The police focus their attention on Edvard Christensson, the boyfriend of the murdered woman and Isak’s beloved uncle. After a quick investigation, Edvard is found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Vidar Jörgensson, the rookie officer who first responded to the fire, prides himself on helping solved the murder. Little does he know this will drive him to the brink of professional and personal disaster --- and link his fate to young Isak's.
Hogarth | 9780593449387

WEYWARD by Emilia Hart (Historical Fiction/Magical Realism)
2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from her great-aunt. The cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great-aunt had a secret. 1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer. Her mother taught her their magic, which is rooted in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom. 1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Her mother was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250842725

ZIG-ZAG BOY: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood by Tanya Frank (Memoir)
One night in 2009, Tanya Frank finds her 19-year-old son, Zach, in the grip of what the psychiatrists would label a psychotic break. In the years following Zach’s shifting psychiatric diagnoses, Tanya is desperate to find the right answer, the right drug, the right doctor to bring him back to reality. She struggles to navigate archaic mental healthcare systems, first in California and then in her native London during lockdown. Meanwhile, the boy she raised suffers the effects of multiple hospitalizations, powerful drugs that blunt his emotions, therapies that don’t work, and torturous nights on the streets. Holding on to startling moments of hope and seeking solace in nature and community, Tanya learns how to abandon her fears for the future and accept the mysteries of her son’s altered states.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324074625

March 1st

BLANK by Zibby Owens (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Pippa Jones is a fortyish former literary sensation who fears she will be a one-hit wonder. After the follow-up book she was almost done writing, Podlusters, had to be tossed, she couldn’t write a thing. Months of staring at a blank page made her confidence vanish like a one-night stand. When she finds out that she has only five days left to finish (or rather, start) or repay an advance she’s already spent, Pippa has a brilliantly original idea. Okay, fine, her 12-year-old son came up with it as a joke, but Pippa and her teenage daughter approved. Pippa is not only going to make a bold statement, she’ll change the book world while she’s at it! Can she pull it off? At this point, she doesn’t have a choice. When Pippa’s publisher gets intimately involved, it unlocks a series of plot twists she never saw coming.
Little A | 9781662516702

DON’T FORGET ME by Rea Frey (Domestic Thriller)
Paperback Original
All Ruby wanted was a fresh start. But after an early retirement and a relocation to a tight-knit community with her husband, Tom, and her daughter, Lily, her new beginning takes a turn. First her troubled daughter and then her husband disappear without a trace. Unsure how to cope, grief-ridden Ruby turns to her neighborhood friends to find a way forward with new hobbies, including a murder club where they try to solve cold cases. But just as unexpectedly as her family vanished, a body floats to the surface of the nearby lake. And everyone is sure the body belongs to Tom...everyone except Ruby. Determined to find out what happened to her family once and for all, Ruby digs into her neighbors’ lives, and her own, only to uncover secrets that raise more questions than they answer.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662513237

HYPNOTIZED BY LOVE by Sariah Wilson (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Hypnotist Savannah Sinclair is known for helping clients overcome their deep-rooted issues. But her nontraditional approach also attracts plenty of skeptics --- including her high school nemesis and rival, Mason Beckett, who just so happens to be the boy who broke her heart. Mason’s life hasn’t gone according to plan, and the only gig he can land is writing a scathing exposé of his hometown hypnotist, Savannah. But in order to write an authentic article, he has to be a willing participant. Hypnosis is the last thing he expected. When a fire alarm interrupts their session, Mason walks out into the real world entranced and sporting a sunny disposition. Hypnotized Mason reveals things he’s never told a soul and leads Savannah on a frantic chase to keep him safe. He likes his new self. The problem is, so does Savannah.
Montlake | 9781662514227

On Sale the Week of March 4th in Hardcover

March 5th

3 SHADES OF BLUE: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool by James Kaplan (Music/History)
The myth of the ’60s depends on the 1950s being the “before times” of conformity, segregation and straightness. This all carries some truth, but it does nothing to explain how, in 1959, America’s great indigenous art form, jazz, reached the height of its power and popularity, thanks to a number of Black geniuses so legendary they go by one name --- Monk, Mingus, Rollins, Coltrane and, above all, Miles. 1959 saw Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and more come together to record what is widely considered the greatest jazz album of all time, and certainly the bestselling: Kind of Blue. 3 SHADES OF BLUE is James Kaplan’s magnificent account of the paths of the three giants to the mountaintop of 1959 and beyond.
Penguin Press | 9780525561002

AMERICAN SPIRITS by Russell Banks (Fiction)
A husband sells property to a mysterious, temperamental stranger and is hounded on social media when he publicly questions the man’s character. A couple grows concerned when an enigmatic family moves next door, and the children start sneaking over to beg for help. Two dangerous criminals kidnap an elderly couple and begin blackmailing their grandson, demanding that he pay back what he owes. AMERICAN SPIRITS explores the hostile undercurrents of our communities and American politics at large, as well as the ways local tragedies can be both devastating and, somehow, everyday.
Knopf | 9780593536773

ANITA DE MONTE LAUGHS LAST by Xochitl Gonzalez (Fiction)
1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City. But by 1998, Anita’s name has been all but forgotten --- certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student, is preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by privileged students whose futures are already paved out for them, Raquel feels like an outsider. Students of color, like her, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret. But when Raquel becomes romantically involved with a well-connected older art student, she finds herself unexpectedly rising up the social ranks. As she attempts to straddle both worlds, she stumbles upon Anita’s story, raising questions about the dynamics of her own relationship, which eerily mirrors that of the forgotten artist.
Flatiron Books | 9781250786210

BABY X by Kira Peikoff (Speculative Thriller)
In the near-future United States, where advanced technology can create egg or sperm from any person’s cells, celebrities face the alarming potential of meeting biological children they never conceived. Famous singer Trace Thorne is tired of being targeted by the Vault, a black market site devoted to stealing DNA. Sick of paying ransom money for his own cell matter, he hires bio-security guard Ember Ryan to ensure his biological safety. Ember will do anything she can to protect her clients. She knows all the Vault’s tricks and has prevented countless DNA thefts. Working for Thorne, her focus becomes split when she begins to fall for him, but she knows she hasn’t let anything slip --- love or not, his DNA is safe. But then she and Thorne are confronted by a pregnant woman who claims that Thorne is the father of her baby, and all bets are off.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781639106332

BIG TIME by Ben H. Winters (Mystery/Thriller)
Grace Berney is a mid-level bureaucrat in the Food and Drug Administration, a woman who once brimmed with purpose but somehow turned into a middle-aged single mom with a dull government job and a melancholy sense that life has passed her by. Until the night a strange photo comes across her desk, of a young woman in a hospital bed who has been subjected to a mysterious procedure. Against orders and against common sense, Grace sets out to bring the girl to safety, and finds herself risking her job, her future and her life on whether or not she can find the missing girl before an obsessive and violent mercenary who’s also looking.
Mulholland Books | 9780316305778

BYE, BABY by Carola Lovering (Domestic Thriller)
On a brisk fall night in a New York apartment, 35-year-old Billie West hears terrified screams. It's her lifelong best friend Cassie Barnwell, one floor above, and she's just realized her infant daughter has gone missing. Billie is shaken as she looks down into her own arms to see the baby, remembering --- with a jolt of fear --- that she is responsible for the kidnapping that has instantly shattered Cassie’s world. Once fiercely bonded by their secrets, Cassie and Billie have drifted apart in adulthood. Cassie is married to a wealthy man, has recently become a mother, and is building a following as a lifestyle influencer. She is desperate to leave her past behind --- including Billie, who no longer fits into her world. But Billie knows the worst thing Cassie has ever done, and she will do whatever it takes to restore their friendship.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250289360

EVERY SINGLE SECRET by Christina Dodd (Thriller)
In an isolated lighthouse on the California coast, Rowan Winterbourne lives a solitary life with only her secrets for company. For she has a mission that drives her --- to avenge herself against Gregory Torval, the powerful drug and arms dealer who murdered her mother and vowed to eliminate everyone in her family. Then Joe Grantham arrives at her door, and for the first time Rowan lets her guard down --- a dangerous mistake when he blackmails her to go with him to Torval's private island. There Torval’s decadent birthday celebration rages, and while Joe pursues his own agenda, she’ll provide the perfect distraction. On Raptor Island, Torval’s will is law, and Joe, the closest she has to an ally, is an enigma she can’t trust. One false move, one careless word, and Rowan will die.
Canary Street Press | 9781335008503

THE EXTINCTION OF IRENA REY by Jennifer Croft (Literary Mystery)
Eight translators arrive at a house in a primeval Polish forest on the border of Belarus. It belongs to the world-renowned author Irena Rey, and they are there to translate her magnum opus, Gray Eminence. But within days of their arrival, Irena disappears without a trace. The translators, who hail from eight different countries but share the same reverence for their beloved author, begin to investigate where she may have gone while proceeding with work on her masterpiece. They explore this ancient wooded refuge with its intoxicating slime molds and lichens and study her exotic belongings and layered texts for clues. But doing so reveals secrets --- and deceptions --- of Irena Rey's that they are utterly unprepared for.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781639731701

THE FAR SIDE OF THE DESERT by Joanne Leedom-Ackerman
(Political Thriller/Mystery)
Sisters Samantha and Monte Waters are vacationing together in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, enjoying a festival and planning to meet with their brother, Cal. But the idyllic plans are short-lived. When terrorists’ attacks rock the city around them, Monte, a U.S. foreign service officer, and Samantha, an international television correspondent, are separated, and one of them is whisked away in the frenzy. The family mobilizes, using all their contacts to try to find their missing sister, but to no avail. She has vanished. As time presses on, the outlook darkens. Can she be found, or is she a lost cause? And even if she returns, will the damage to her and those around her be irreparable?
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608095353

FINDING SOPHIE by Imran Mahmood (Domestic Thriller)
For the last 17 years, Harry and Zara King’s lives have revolved around their only daughter, Sophie. One day, Sophie leaves the house and doesn’t come home. Six weeks later, the police are no closer to finding her than when they started. Harry and Zara have questioned everyone who has ever had any connection to Sophie, to no avail. Except there’s one house on their block --- number 210, across the street --- whose occupant refuses to break his silence. As the question mark over number 210 devolves into obsession, Harry and Zara are forced to examine their own lives. They realize they have grown apart, suffering in separate spheres of grief. And as they try to find their way back to each other, they must face the truth about their daughter: who she was, how she changed and why she disappeared.
Bantam | 9780593723586

FINLAY DONOVAN ROLLS THE DICE by Elle Cosimano (Mystery/Humor)
Finlay Donovan and her nanny/partner-in-crime, Vero, plan a trip to Atlantic City. But odds are it won’t be all fun and games --- seeing as it’s actually a cover story to negotiate a deal with a dangerous loan shark; save Vero’s childhood crush, Javi, from a kidnapper, Marco; and hunt down a stolen car. When they sneak into the loan shark’s suite to search for clues, they find more than they bargained for: Marco is already dead. They don’t know who murdered him, only that they themselves have a very convincing motive. Will Finlay fold under the pressure and come clean about the things she’s done, or be forced to double down?
Minotaur Books | 9781250846006

FRUIT OF THE DEAD by Rachel Lyon (Fiction)
Camp counselor Cory Ansel --- who is 18 and aimless, and afraid to face her high-strung single mother in New York --- is no longer sure where home is when the father of one of her campers offers an alternative. The CEO of a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company, Rolo Picazo is middle-aged, divorced and magnetic. He is also intoxicated by Cory. When Rolo proffers a childcare job (and an NDA), Cory quiets an internal warning and allows herself to be ferried to his private island. Plied with luxury and opiates manufactured by his company, she continues to tell herself she’s in charge. Her mother, Emer, who is head of a teetering agricultural NGO, senses otherwise. With her daughter seemingly vanished, Emer crosses land and sea to heed a cry for help she alone is convinced she hears.
Scribner | 9781668020852

GALWAY CONFIDENTIAL: A Jack Taylor Mystery by Ken Bruen (Mystery/Thriller)
Jack Taylor wakes up from a coma to discover that much of the world has changed since he last walked the streets of Galway. The pandemic had hit while he was under, devastating the lives of many in his beloved city and beyond. Now, as Jack tries to recover from the attack that put him in the hospital and absorb the incredible changes in the world around him, a woman approaches him with a distressing case. Two local nuns have been bludgeoned by a mysterious man wielding a hammer, and more are sure to follow. Initially wary of becoming involved in the investigation, Jack finds he cannot stay away from the mystery surrounding these vicious attacks. He also cannot shake a feeling of darkness that has haunted him since he awoke from his coma --- a darkness that is far too close for comfort.
Mysterious Press | 9781613164792

GHOST DOGS: On Killers and Kin by Andre Dubus III (Memoir/Essays)
During childhood summers in Louisiana, Andre Dubus III’s grandfather taught him that men’s work is hard. As an adult, whether tracking down a drug lord in Mexico as a bounty hunter or grappling with privilege while living with a rich girlfriend in New York City, Dubus worked --- at being a better worker and a better human being. GHOST DOGS is Dubus’ retelling of his own successes, failures, triumphs and pain. In his longest essay, “If I Owned a Gun,” Dubus reflects on the empowerment and shame he felt in keeping a gun and his decision, ultimately, to give it up. Elsewhere, he writes of a violent youth and of settled domesticity and fatherhood, about the omnipresent expectations and contradictions of masculinity, about the things writers remember and those they forget.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324000440

A GOOD BAD BOY: Luke Perry and How a Generation Grew Up by Margaret Wappler (Biography)
Best known for playing loner rebel Dylan McKay on “Beverly Hills 90210,” Luke Perry was 52 years old when he died of a stroke in 2019. There have been other deaths of ’90s stars, but this one hit different. Gen X was reminded of their own inescapable mortality and robbed of an exciting career resurgence for one of their most cherished icons --- with recent roles in the hit series “Riverdale” and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood bringing him renewed attention and acclaim. Only upon his death, as stories poured out online about his authenticity and kindness, did it become clear how little was known about the exceedingly humble actor and how deeply he impacted popular culture. In A GOOD BAD BOY, Margaret Wappler attempts to understand who Perry was and why he was unique among his Hollywood peers.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668006269

THE GREAT DIVIDE by Cristina Henríquez (Fiction)
It is said that the Panama Canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. Ada Bunting is a bold 16-year-old from Barbados who arrives in Panama as a stowaway alongside thousands of other West Indians seeking work. When she sees Omar, who has collapsed after a grueling shift, she is the only one who rushes to his aid. John Oswald has dedicated his life to scientific research and has journeyed to Panama with the goal of eliminating malaria. But his wife, Marian, has fallen ill herself, and when he witnesses Ada’s bravery and compassion, he hires her on the spot as a caregiver. This fateful decision sets in motion a sweeping tale of ambition, loyalty and sacrifice.
Ecco | 9780063291324

THE HEARING TEST by Eliza Barry Callahan (Fiction)
When the narrator of THE HEARING TEST, an artist in her late 20s, awakens one morning to a deep drone in her right ear, she is diagnosed with Sudden Deafness but is offered no explanation for its cause. As the specter of total deafness looms, she keeps a record of her year --- a score of estrangement and enchantment, of luck and loneliness, of the chance occurrences to which she becomes attuned --- while living alone in a New York City studio apartment with her dog. Through a series of fleeting and often humorous encounters --- with neighbors, an ex-lover, doctors, strangers, family members, faraway friends, and with the lives and works of artists, filmmakers, musicians and philosophers --- making meaning becomes a form of consolation and curiosity, a form of survival.
Catapult | 9781646222131

HELP WANTED by Adelle Waldman (Fiction)
Every day at 3:55 a.m., members of Team Movement clock in for their shift at big-box store Town Square in a small upstate New York town. Under the eyes of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before the store opens and customers arrive. Their lives follow a familiar if grueling routine, but their real problem is that Town Square doesn’t schedule them for enough hours --- most of them are barely getting by, even while working second or third jobs. When store manager Big Will announces he is leaving, the members of Movement spot an opportunity. If they play their cards right, one of them just might land a management job, with all the stability and possibility for advancement that that implies.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324020448

HERE AFTER: A Memoir by Amy Lin (Memoir)
Amy Lin never expected to find a love like the one she shares with her husband, Kurtis, a gifted young architect who pulls her toward joy, adventure and greater self-acceptance. On a sweltering August morning, only a few months shy of the newlyweds’ move to Vancouver, 32-year-old Kurtis heads out to run a half-marathon with Amy’s family. It’s the last time she sees her husband alive. What follows is a rich and unflinchingly honest portrayal of her life with Kurtis, the vortex created by his death, and the ongoing struggle Amy faces as she attempts to understand her own experience in the context of commonly held “truths” about what the grieving process looks like.
Zibby Books | 9781958506325

THE HUNTER by Tana French (Thriller)
It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die. Cal Hooper took early retirement from the Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or less: he’s built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he’s gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey’s long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge.
Viking | 9780593493434

ISLAND RULE: Stories by Katie M. Flynn (Dystopian Fiction/Short Stories)
An angry mother turns into a literal monster. A company in San Francisco can scrub your entire reputation and create a new one…for a price. A failed actor on a reality show turns into an unlikely world savior. And much more. Through each of these 12 interconnected stories, Katie Flynn masterfully blends people, places and even realities. From a powerful new literary voice to be reckoned with, this collection will stay with you long after you turn the final page.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781982122201

THE LAST VERSE by Caroline Frost (Fiction)
When aspiring musician Twyla Finch arrives in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1977, the 19-year-old Texan is dazzled by the fringe-and-rhinestones country music scene. As Twyla finds her way in this vibrant town, she soon falls for Chet Wilton, a country music hopeful and the son of blue-blooded Nashvillians. When a night out with Chet goes terribly wrong, Twyla finds herself involved in a shocking crime. Hoping to process what happened that fateful night, she composes a haunting ballad that she performs only once in an empty bar. But weeks later, when she turns on the radio, she hears another woman singing her song. Twyla must decide: Should she claim her ballad and secure the fame she’s always wanted? Or stay quiet and avoid implicating herself in the terrible crime she’s desperate to put in the past?
William Morrow | 9780063265486

LISTEN FOR THE LIE by Amy Tintera (Mystery)
After Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer. Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all and, if you believe the rumors, was especially popular with the men in town. It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA. But now the phenomenally huge hit true-crime podcast "Listen for the Lie" and its too-good looking host, Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy’s murder for the show’s second season. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend’s murder, even if she is the one who did it.
Celadon Books | 9781250880314

MONA OF THE MANOR: A Tales of the City Novel by Armistead Maupin (Fiction)
When Mona Ramsey married Lord Teddy Roughton to secure his visa --- allowing him to remain in San Francisco to fulfill his wildest dreams --- she never imagined that by age 48, she would be the sole owner of Easley House, Teddy’s grand, romantic country manor in the UK. She also didn't imagine that she’d need to open the manor’s doors to paying guests to afford the electric bill and repair the leaking roof. Yet somehow, she and her young friend, Wilfred --- whom guests assume is serving as Easley’s charming-but-clumsy butler --- and the loopy old gardener, Mr. Hargis, are making it work. This delicate equilibrium is upended when Americans Rhonda and Ernie Blaylock arrive for a weekend vacation at Easley, and Wilfred stumbles onto their terrible secret.
Harper | 9780062973597

MURDER AT LA VILLETTE: An Aimée Leduc Investigation Set in Paris by Cara Black (Mystery)
Parisian private investigator Aimée Leduc doesn’t know that her life is about to be upended. Her ex, Melac, has been hounding her to move their daughter, Chloé, to Brittany. Aimée has stopped answering his calls, which is why she doesn’t know he’s waiting for her by the Bassin de la Villette as she leaves a client’s office late one night. When she finds him, he has just been stabbed by an assailant, who knocks Aimée unconscious and plants the bloody knife in her hands. Now Aimée is in police custody, debilitated by a concussion, with overwhelming evidence pointing to her as Melac’s killer. In an attempt to figure out who the real culprit is, she goes deep into the underbelly of Paris’s 19th arrondissement, where she rubs shoulders with biker gangs, paranoid journalists, grieving parents and frustratingly tight-lipped ex-cops on her hunt for justice.
Soho Crime | 9781641294478

MURDER ROAD by Simone St. James (Supernatural Thriller)
April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to be a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them. When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years, and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work.
Berkley | 9780593200384

NEVER TOO LATE by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Kezia Cooper Hobson, who is recently widowed, arrives in New York from San Francisco. Determined to make a fresh start, she has just completed the sale of her Pacific Heights home, not to mention her husband’s venture capital firm. As Kezia settles into her new apartment, she meets her movie-star next-door neighbor, Sam Stewart, whose terrace borders hers. Just a couple of weeks after she arrives, however, a devastating crisis strikes New York City. Kezia and Sam find themselves connecting over their strong impulse to help those in need. As they share a life-changing experience of volunteering, a bond is sparked and a friendship is formed. Kezia’s daughters are taken aback by their mother’s new friendship but are more focused on their own love lives than hers.
Delacorte Press | 9780593498408

THE NEW COUPLE IN 5B by Lisa Unger (Psychological Thriller)
Rosie and Chad Lowan are barely making ends meet in New York City when they receive life-changing news: Chad’s late uncle has left them his luxury apartment at the historic Windermere in glamorous Murray Hill. With its prewar elegance and impeccably uniformed doorman, the Windermere is the epitome of old New York charm. At first, the building and its eclectic tenants couldn’t feel more welcoming. But as the Lowans settle into their new home, Rosie starts to suspect that there’s more to the Windermere than meets the eye. Why is the doorman ever-present? Why are there cameras everywhere? And why have so many gruesome crimes occurred there throughout the years? When one of the neighbors turns up dead, Rosie must get to the truth about the Windermere before she, too, falls under its dangerous spell.
Park Row | 9780778333340

THE NEW YORK GAME: Baseball and the Rise of a New City by Kevin Baker
(Sports/History)
Baseball is “the New York game” because New York is where the diamond was first laid out, where the bunt and the curveball were invented, and where the home run was hit. It’s where the game’s first stars were born, and where everyone came to play or watch the game. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all vividly back to life: the still-controversial, indelible moments. Did the Babe call his shot? Was Merkle out? Did they fix the 1919 World Series? In Baker's hands, the city and the game emerge from the murk of 19th-century American life --- driven by visionaries and fixers, heroes and gangsters. He details how New York and its favorite sport came to mirror one another, expanding, bumbling through catastrophe and corruption, and rising out of these trials stronger than ever.
Knopf | 9780375421839

PARASOL AGAINST THE AXE by Helen Oyeyemi (Fiction/Magical Realism)
For reasons of her own, Hero Tojosoa accepts an invitation she was half expected to decline and finds herself in Prague on a bachelorette weekend hosted by her estranged friend, Sofie. Little does she know she has arrived in a city with a penchant for playing tricks on the unsuspecting. A book Hero has brought with her seems to be warping her mind: the text changes depending on when it’s being read and who’s doing the reading, revealing startling new stories of fictional Praguers past and present. Uninvited companions appear at bachelorette activities and at city landmarks, offering opinions, humor and even a taste of treachery. When a third woman from Hero and Sofie’s past appears unexpectedly, the tensions between the friends’ different accounts of the past reach a new level.
Riverhead Books | 9780593192368

STARRY FIELD: A Memoir of Lost History by Margaret Juhae Lee (Memoir)
As a young girl growing up in Houston, Margaret Juhae Lee never heard about her grandfather, Lee Chul Ha. His history was lost in early 20th-century Korea and guarded by Margaret’s grandmother, who Chul Ha left widowed in 1936 with two young sons. To his surviving family, Lee Chul Ha was a criminal, and his granddaughter was determined to figure out why. STARRY FIELD chronicles Chul Ha’s untold story. Combining investigative journalism, oral history and archival research, Margaret reveals the truth about the grandfather she never knew. But reclaiming his legacy, in the end, isn’t what Margaret finds the most valuable. It is through the series of three long-form interviews with her grandmother that Margaret finally finds a sense of recognition she’s been missing her entire life.
Melville House | 9781685890933

THE SUNLIT MAN: A Cosmere Novel by Brandon Sanderson (Fantasy/Adventure)
Running. Putting distance between himself and the relentless Night Brigade has been Nomad’s strategy for years. Staying one or two steps ahead of his pursuers by skipping through the Cosmere from one world to the next. But now, his powers too depleted to escape, Nomad finds himself trapped on Canticle, a planet that will kill anyone who doesn’t keep moving. Fleeing the fires of a sunrise that melts the very stones, he is instantly caught up in the struggle between a heartless tyrant and the brave rebels who defy him. Failure means a quick death, incinerated by the sun…or a lifetime as a mindless slave. Tormented by the consequences of his past, Nomad must fight not only for his survival but for his very soul.
Tor Books | 9781250899712

THE TRUTH OF THE ALEKE by Moses Ose Utomi (Fantasy/Adventure)
Five-hundred years after the events of THE LIES OF THE AJUNGO, the City of Truth stands as the last remaining free city of the Forever Desert. A bastion of freedom and peace, the city has successfully weathered near-constant attacks from the Cult of Tutu, who have besieged it for three centuries, attempting to destroy its warriors and subjugate its people. Seventeen-year-old Osi is a Junior Peacekeeper in the City. When the mysterious leader of the Cult, known only as the Aleke, commits a massacre in the capitol and steals the sacred God's Eyes, Osi steps forward to valiantly defend his home. For his bravery he is tasked with a tremendous responsibility --- destroy the Cult of Tutu, bring back the God's Eyes, and discover the truth of the Aleke.
Tordotcom | 9781250849052

WOMEN OF GOOD FORTUNE by Sophie Wan (Fiction)
Lulu has always been taught that money is the ticket to a good life. So when Shanghai’s most eligible bachelor surprises her with a proposal, the only acceptable answer is yes, even if the voice inside her head is saying no. His family’s fortune would solve all her parents’ financial woes, but Lulu isn’t in love or ready for marriage. The only people she can confide in are her two best friends: Rina, who is tired of being passed over for promotion while her male colleagues are rewarded; and Jane, a sharp-tongued, luxury-chasing housewife desperate to divorce her husband and trade up. Each of them desires something different: freedom, time, beauty. None of them can get it without money. Lulu’s wedding is their golden opportunity. The social event of the season, it means more than enough cash gifts to transform the women’s lives.
Graydon House | 9781525804304

On Sale the Week of March 4th in Paperback

March 5th

AFTERMARKET AFTERLIFE: An InCryptid Novel by Seanan McGuire (Urban Fantasy)
Paperback Original
Mary Dunlavy didn't intend to become a professional babysitter. Of course, she didn't intend to die, either, or to become a crossroads ghost. As a babysitting ghost, she's been caring for the Price family for four generations. With her first charge finally back from her decades-long cross-dimensional field trip, with a long-lost husband and adopted daughter in tow, it's time for Mary to oversee the world's most chaotic family reunion. And that's before the Covenant of St. George launches a full-scale strike against the cryptids of Manhattan, followed quickly by an attack on the Campbell Family Carnival. It's going to take every advantage and every ally they have for the Prices to survive what's coming --- and for Mary to avoid finding out what happens to a babysitting ghost if she loses the people she's promised to protect.
DAW | 9780756418618

THE BALL IN THE AIR: A Golfing Adventure by Michael Bamberger (Sports)
Over Michael Bamberger’s celebrated writing career, he has written a handful of books and hundreds of Sports Illustrated stories about professional golf and those who play it --- that is, the .001 percent. Now, in a delightful turn of events, Bamberger has decided to train his eye on the rest of us. In his most personal book yet, Bamberger takes the lid off a game that is both quasi-religious and a nonstop party, posing an age-old question early that is answered over its pages: Why does the game cast such a spell on us? Here is the story of modern golf that is not on TV. This is our story, we who pay to play, who can’t wait to get another crack at the game, even when golf doesn’t love us back.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781668009833

THE BERLIN LETTERS: A Cold War Novel by Katherine Reay (Historical Thriller)
Paperback Original
Luisa Voekler is expected to quickly climb the career ladder at the CIA. But while her coworkers have moved on to thrilling Cold War assignments, Luisa’s work remains stuck in the past, decoding messages from World War II. Journalist Haris Voekler grew up a proud East Berliner but realizes that the Soviet promises of a better future are not coming to fruition. After the Berlin Wall goes up, Haris finds himself separated from his young daughter and all alone after his wife dies. There’s only one way to reach his family --- by sending coded letters to his father-in-law, who lives on the other side of the Iron Curtain. When Luisa discovers a secret cache of letters written by the father she has long presumed dead, she journeys to Berlin and risks everything to free him. As Luisa and Haris take turns telling their stories, events speed toward the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Harper Muse | 9781400243068

BIRNAM WOOD by Eleanor Catton (Psychological Thriller)
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place: he has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker, or so he tells Birnam’s founder, Mira, when he catches her on the property. He’s intrigued by Mira, and by Birnam Wood. Although they’re poles apart politically, it seems Lemoine and the group might have enemies in common. But can Birnam trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust one another?
Picador | 9781250321718

CAN’T WE BE FRIENDS: A Novel of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe by Denny S. Bryce and Eliza Knight (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
1952: Ella Fitzgerald is a renowned jazz singer whose only roadblock to longevity is society’s attitude toward women and race. Marilyn Monroe’s star is rising despite ongoing battles with movie studio bigwigs and boyfriends. When she needs help with her singing, she wants only the best --- and the best is the brilliant Ella Fitzgerald. But Ella isn’t a singing teacher and declines. Then the two women meet, and to everyone’s surprise but their own, they become fast friends. On the surface, what could they have in common? Yet each was underestimated by the men in their lives --- husbands, managers, hangers-on. And both were determined to gain. Each fought for professional independence and personal agency in a time when women were expected to surrender control to those same men.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063282902

CLYTEMNESTRA by Costanza Casati (Historical Fiction)
You were born to a king, but you marry a tyrant. You stand by helplessly as he sacrifices your child to placate the gods. You watch him wage war on a foreign shore, and you comfort yourself with violent thoughts of your own. Because this was not the first offense against you. This was not the life you ever deserved. And this will not be your undoing. Slowly you plot. But when your husband returns in triumph, you become a woman with a choice. Acceptance or vengeance, infamy follows both. So you bide your time and force the gods' hands in the game of retribution. For you understood something long ago that the others never did. If power isn't given to you, you have to take it for yourself.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728279374

DARK ANGEL: A Letty Davenport Novel by John Sandford (Mystery/Thriller)
Letty Davenport’s previous actions at a gunfight in Texas --- and her incredible skills with firearms --- draw the attention of several branches of the US government. The Department of Homeland Security and the NSA have tasked her with infiltrating a hacker group, known only as Ordinary People, that is intent on wreaking havoc. Letty and her reluctant partner from the NSA pose as free-spirited programmers for hire and embark on a cross-country road trip to the group’s California headquarters. While the two work to make inroads with Ordinary People and uncover their plans, they begin to suspect that the hackers are not their only enemy. Someone within their own circle may have betrayed them and has ulterior motives that place their mission --- and their lives --- in grave danger.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593714812

A DAY OF FALLEN NIGHT: A Roots of Chaos Novel by Samantha Shannon (Fantasy)
Tunuva Melim is a sister of the Priory. For 50 years, she has trained to slay wyrms. But none have appeared since the Nameless One, and the younger generation is starting to question the Priory's purpose. To the north, in the Queendom of Inys, Sabran the Ambitious has married the new King of Hróth, narrowly saving both realms from ruin. Their daughter, Glorian, trails in their shadow --- exactly where she wants to be. The dragons of the East have slept for centuries. Dumai has spent her life in a Seiikinese mountain temple, trying to wake the gods from their long slumber. Now someone from her mother's past is coming to upend her fate. When the Dreadmount erupts, bringing with it an age of terror and violence, these women must find the strength to protect humankind from a devastating threat.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781639732999

DELIVER ME written by Malin Persson Giolito, translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles (Noir/Legal Thriller)
Paperback Original
Unlikely best friends since the age of six, Billy and Dogge live in suburbs separated only by a highway, yet a world apart. From the outside, Dogge looks privileged: his family has a large home and plenty of money --- at first. But his parents are addicts whose negligence becomes a form of abuse. Meanwhile, Billy’s family are poor first-generation immigrants unable to escape the no-go zone where they live, but their cramped apartment is nonetheless a bastion of love. A ruthless small-time crime boss seeks recruits, and both Billy and Dogge become runners by the time they’re 12. Fast cash, easy access to drugs, and dreams of gaining status draw them in. But when Billy wants to leave the gang and finds himself trapped, the boys must face the violent rules of the adult game they tried to play.
Other Press | 9781635423686

DOUBLE OR NOTHING: A Double O Novel by Kim Sherwood (Thriller/Adventure)
007 has been captured --- and perhaps killed --- by a sinister private military company. His status is unknown. MI6 will do everything in their power to recover their most lethal agent. But in the meantime, the rest of the Double O division has a job to do. Johanna Harwood, 003. Joseph Dryden, 004. Sid Bashir, 009. They represent the very best and brightest of MI6. Supremely skilled, ruthless and with a license to kill, they will do anything to protect their country. Tech billionaire Sir Bertram Paradise claims he has developed new cutting-edge technology capable of reversing climate change and saving the planet. But can his ambitious promises be trusted, and are his motives as noble as they appear? The new spies must uncover the truth because the stakes could not be higher --- for humanity… and for James Bond himself.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063236523

DRAGONS OF FATE: Dragonlance Destinies, Volume 2 by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (Fantasy/Adventure)
A clash of powerful magical forces sets off the Graygem of Gargath, sending Destina Rosethorn and her companions deeper into the past than she intended --- to the age of Huma Dragonsbane and the Third Dragon War. Now, with the Device of Time Journeying shattered, they must find another way back to their own era before the Graygem irrevocably alters history and the Third Dragon War ends in defeat for the forces of good. While the battle rages on, Destina tries desperately to make amends and prevent disaster. Raistlin and Sturm encounter their heroes, Huma and Magius, and must reconcile the myths with the men. And Tasslehoff, shocked that the Knights of Solamnia have never heard of dragonlances, sets out to find the famed weapons.
Random House Worlds | 9781984819413

DUST CHILD by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai (Fiction)
In 1969, sisters Trang and Quỳnh, desperate to help their parents pay off debts, leave their rural village and become “bar girls” in Sài Gòn. The once-innocent Trang eventually gets swept up in an irresistible romance with a charming American helicopter pilot. Decades later, an American veteran, Dan, returns to Việt Nam with his wife, Linda, hoping to find a way to heal from his PTSD and reckon with secrets from his past. At the same time, Phong --- the son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman --- embarks on a search to find his parents and a way out of Việt Nam. Past and present converge as these characters come together to confront decisions made during a time of war --- decisions that force them to look deep within and find common ground across race, generation, culture and language.
Algonquin Books | 9781643755786

GAMES AND RITUALS: Stories by Katherine Heiny (Fiction/Short Stories)
Katherine Heiny brings us glittering stories of love --- friendships formed at the airport bar, ex-husbands with benefits, mothers of suspiciously sweet teenagers, ill-advised trysts --- in all its forms, both ridiculous and sublime. The games and rituals performed by Heiny’s characters range from mischievous to tender. In “Bridesmaid, Revisited,” Marlee, suffering from a laundry and life crisis, wears a massive bridesmaid’s dress to work. In “Twist and Shout,” Erica’s elderly father mistakes his $4,000 hearing aid for a cashew and eats it. In “Turn Back, Turn Back,” a bedtime story coupled with a receipt for a Starbucks babyccino reveal a struggling actor’s deception. And in “561,” Charlene pays the true price of infidelity and is forced to help her husband’s ex-wife move out of the family home.
Vintage | 9780593082737

THE GIRLS WE SENT AWAY by Meagan Church (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
It's the 1960s, and Lorraine Delford has it all --- an upstanding family, a perfect boyfriend and a white picket fence home in North Carolina. Yet every time she looks through her father's telescope, she dreams of the stars. It's ambitious, but Lorraine has always been exceptional. But when this darling girl-next-door gets pregnant, she's forced to learn firsthand the realities that keep women grounded. To hide their daughter's secret shame, the Delfords send Lorraine to a maternity home for wayward girls. But this is no safe haven --- it's a house with dark secrets and suffocating rules. And as Lorraine begins to piece together a new vision for her life, she must decide if she can fight against the powers that aim to take her child or submit to the rules of a society she once admired.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728257181

THE GOLDEN SPOON by Jessa Maxwell (Mystery)
Every summer for the past 10 years, six awestruck bakers have descended on the grounds of Grafton, the leafy and imposing Vermont estate that is not only the filming site for “Bake Week” but also the childhood home of the show’s famous host, celebrated baker Betsy Martin. The author of numerous bestselling cookbooks and hailed as “America’s Grandmother,” Betsy Martin isn’t as warm off-screen as on, though no one needs to know that but her. She has always demanded perfection and gotten it with a smile, but this year something is off. As the baking competition commences, things begin to go awry. At first, it’s merely sabotage --- sugar replaced with salt, a burner turned to high --- but when a body is discovered, everyone is a suspect.
Atria Books | 9781668008010

HAPPY PLACE by Emily Henry (Romantic Comedy)
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college. But they broke up five months ago and still haven’t told their best friends. This is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. The cottage is for sale, and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?
Berkley | 9780593441190

HEART SUTRA written by Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas (Fiction)
At the Religious Training Center on the campus of Beijing’s National Politics University, disciples of China’s five main religions gather for a year of intensive study and training. In this hallowed yet jovial atmosphere, the institute’s two youngest disciples --- Yahui, a Buddhist jade nun, and Gu Mingzheng, a Daoist master --- fall into a fast friendship that might bloom into something more. This year, however, the worldly Director Gong has organized tug-of-war competitions between the religions. Soon it becomes clear that corruption is seeping ever more deeply into the foundation of the institute under Director Gong’s watch, and Yahui and Gu Mingzheng will be forced to ask themselves if it is better to stay committed to an increasingly fraught faith or return to secular life forever.
Grove Press | 9780802162748

THE INMATE by Freida McFadden (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
As a new nurse practitioner at a maximum-security prison, Brooke Sullivan is taught three crucial rules: 1) Treat all prisoners with respect. 2) Never reveal any personal information. 3) Never EVER become too friendly with the inmates. But nobody knows that Brooke has already broken the rules. Nobody knows about her intimate connection to Shane Nelson, one of the penitentiary's most notorious and dangerous inmates. They certainly don't know that Shane was Brooke's high school sweetheart --- the star quarterback, the golden boy who's serving a life sentence for a series of grisly murders. Or that Brooke's testimony was what put him there. But Shane knows. He knows more than anyone. And he will never forget.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781728296173

THE LAST TALE OF THE FLOWER BRIDE by Roshani Chokshi
(Magical Realism/Romance)
Once upon a time, a man who believed in fairy tales married a beautiful, mysterious woman named Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada. In exchange for her love, Indigo extracted a promise: that her bridegroom would never pry into her past. But when Indigo learns that her estranged aunt is dying and the couple is forced to return to her childhood home, the House of Dreams, the bridegroom will soon find himself unable to resist. For within the crumbling manor’s extravagant rooms and musty halls, there lurks the shadow of another girl: Azure, Indigo’s dearest childhood friend who suddenly disappeared. As the house slowly reveals his wife’s secrets, the bridegroom will be forced to choose between reality and fantasy, even if doing so threatens to destroy their marriage…or their lives.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063206519

LED ZEPPELIN: The Biography by Bob Spitz (Biography)
Rock star. Whatever that term means to you, chances are it owes a debt to Led Zeppelin. No one before or since has lived the dream quite like Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. From the opening notes of their first album, the band announced itself as something different, a collision of grand artistic ambition and brute primal force, of English folk music and African American blues. But the music is only part of the legend: LED ZEPPELIN is also the story of how the '60s became the '70s, of how innocence became decadence, of how rock took over. Led Zeppelin wasn’t the first band to let loose on the road, but as with everything else, they took it to an entirely new level. Not all the legends are true, but in Bob Spitz’s careful accounting, what is true is astonishing and sometimes disturbing.
Penguin Books | 9780399562440

LYING BESIDE YOU: A Cyrus Haven Novel by Michael Robotham (Psychological Thriller)
Twenty years ago, Cyrus Haven survived a family massacre. The killer? His brother, Elias. Now Elias is applying for release from a secure psychiatric hospital --- and Cyrus is expected to forgive and welcome him home. In LYING BESIDE YOU, Elias is returning to a very different world. Cyrus is now a successful psychologist, working with the police, sharing his house with Evie Cormac, a damaged and gifted teenager who can tell when someone is lying. When a man is murdered and his daughter, Maya Kirk, disappears, Cyrus is called in to profile the killer and help piece together Maya’s last hours. Soon, a second victim is taken, and Evie is the only person who glimpsed the man behind the wheel. But there’s a problem. Only two people believe her. One is Cyrus. The other is the killer.
Scribner | 9781982166496

OLD BABES IN THE WOOD: Stories by Margaret Atwood (Fiction/Short Stories)
Margaret Atwood’s collection of 15 stories --- some of which have appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine --- looks deeply into the heart of family relationships, marriage, loss and memory, and what it means to spend a life together. The two intrepid sisters of the title story grapple with loss and memory on a perfect summer evening; “Impatient Griselda” explores alienation and miscommunication with a fresh twist on a folkloric classic; and “My Evil Mother” touches on the fantastical, examining a mother-daughter relationship in which the mother purports to be a witch. At the heart of the collection are seven stories that follow a married couple across the decades, the moments big and small that make up a long life of uncommon love --- and what comes after.
Vintage | 9780593468418

ONLY THE BEAUTIFUL by Susan Meissner (Historical Fiction)
California, 1938. When she loses her parents in an accident, 16-year-old Rosanne is taken in by the owners of the vineyard where she has lived her whole life as the vinedresser’s daughter. She moves into Celine and Truman Calvert’s spacious house with a secret, however: Rosie sees colors when she hears sound. She promised her mother she’d never reveal her little-understood ability to anyone, but the weight of her isolation and grief prove too much for her. Driven by her loneliness, she not only breaks the vow to her mother, but in a desperate moment she lets down her guard and ends up pregnant. Banished by the Calverts, Rosanne believes she is bound for a home for unwed mothers. But she soon finds out she is not going to a home of any kind, but to a place far worse than anything she could have imagined.
Berkley | 9780593332849

THE OTHER FAMILY DOCTOR: A Veterinarian Explores What Animals Can Teach Us About Love, Life, and Mortality by Karen Fine, DVM (Memoir)
Karen Fine always knew that she wanted to be a vet and wasn't going to let anything stop her: not her allergy to cats, and not the fact that in the '80s veterinary medicine was still a mostly male profession. Inspired by her grandfather, a compassionate doctor who paid house calls to all his (human) patients, Dr. Fine persevered and brought her Oupa's principles into her own practice, which emphasizes the need to understand her patients’ stories to provide the best possible care. And in THE OTHER FAMILY DOCTOR, Dr. Fine shares all these touching, joyful, heartbreaking and life-affirming tales that make up her career as a vet.
Vintage | 9780593466919

OZARK DOGS by Eli Cranor (Noir Thriller)
After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt. Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye.
Soho Crime | 9781641295680

RIPE by Sarah Rose Etter (Fiction/Magical Realism)
A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley start-up, Cassie finds herself trapped in a corporate nightmare. Between the long hours, toxic bosses and unethical projects, she also struggles to reconcile the glittering promise of a city where obscene wealth lives alongside abject poverty and suffering. Though isolated, Cassie is never alone. From her earliest memory, a miniature black hole has been her constant companion. It feeds on her depression and anxiety, growing or shrinking in relation to her distress. Its relentless pull draws Cassie ever closer as the world around her unravels. When she ends up unexpectedly pregnant at the same time that her CEO’s demands cross into illegal territory, Cassie must decide if the tempting fruits of Silicon Valley are really worth it.
Scribner | 9781668011645

THE SENATOR’S WIFE by Liv Constantine (Psychological Thriller)
After a tragic chain of events led to the deaths of their spouses two years ago, D.C. philanthropist Sloane Chase and Senator Whit Montgomery are finally starting to move on --- with each other. They decide that hiring a home health aide will give Sloane the support and independence she needs after her upcoming hip replacement surgery. And they find the perfect fit in Athena Karras. Athena tends to Sloane and even helps her run her charitable foundation. But Sloane slowly begins to deteriorate, and her uncertainty quickly turns to paranoia as she begins to suspect the worst. Why is Athena asking her so many probing questions about her foundation --- as well as about her past? And could Sloane be imagining the sultry looks between Athena and her new husband?
Bantam | 9780593599914

THE SOULMATE by Sally Hepworth (Domestic Thriller)
Picture a lovely cottage on a cliff, with sloping lawns, walking paths and beautiful flowers. It’s Gabe and Pippa Gerard’s dream home in a sleepy coastal town. But their perfect house hides something sinister. The tall cliffs have become a popular spot for people to end their lives. Over the past several months, Gabe comes to their rescue, literally talking them off the ledge. Until one day, he doesn’t. When Pippa discovers that Gabe knew the victim, the questions spiral. Did the victim jump? Was she pushed? And would Gabe, the love of Pippa’s life, her soulmate...lie? As the perfect façade of their marriage begins to crack, the deepest and darkest secrets begin to unravel. Because sometimes, the most convincing lies are the ones we tell ourselves.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250229717

THE SPITE HOUSE by Johnny Compton (Gothic Thriller/Horror)
Eric Ross is on the run from a mysterious past with his two daughters in tow. When he comes across an ad for a caretaker for the Masson House, Eric hopes they have finally caught a lucky break. The owner of the “most haunted place in Texas” is looking for proof of paranormal activity. All they need to do is stay in the house and keep a detailed record of everything that happens there --- provided the house’s horrors don’t drive them all mad, like the caretakers before them. The job calls to Eric, not just because of the huge payout, but because he needs access to the secrets of the spite house. If it is indeed haunted, maybe it will help him understand the uncanny power that clings to his family, driving them from town to town, too afraid to stop running.
Tor Nightfire | 9781250861665

STARS IN AN ITALIAN SKY by Jill Santopolo (Historical Romance)
Genoa, Italy, 1946. Vincenzo and Giovanna fall in love at 21. The son of a count and the daughter of a tailor, they belong to opposing worlds. Despite this, the undeniable spark between them quickly burns into a deep and passionate relationship spent exploring each other’s minds, bodies and their city --- until shifts in political power force them each to choose a side and commit what the other believes is a betrayal, shattering the bright future they dreamed of together. New York, 2017. Cassandra and Luca are in love. Although neither quite fits with the other's family, Cass and Luca have always felt like a perfect match for each other. But when Luca, an artist, convinces his grandfather and Cass’ grandmother to pose for a painting, past and present collide and reveal a secret that changes everything.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593419199

TAKE TWO, BIRDIE MAXWELL by Allison Winn Scotch (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
After an on-set feud goes viral, rom-com star Birdie Robinson leaves L.A. for the one place where no one would think to find her: her hometown. She’s startled to stumble upon a love letter from a former boyfriend asking for a second chance. And there’s just one issue: the letter was unsigned, and she’s not sure which ex sent it. Still, a public reunion with an ex-boyfriend could turn the wave of public opinion back in her favor. Elliot O’Brien knows that life isn’t an actual rom-com. Case in point, he’s spent two decades repressing his long-simmering feelings for his twin sister’s best friend, Birdie. But with his journalism career cratering and Birdie back in their hometown at the same time he is, he realizes that chronicling her search for her long-ago ex may be his opportunity to right some wrongs.
Berkley | 9780593546550

THIS BIRD HAS FLOWN by Susanna Hoffs (Romantic Comedy)
Jane Start is 33, broke and recently single. Ten years prior, she had a hit song --- written by world-famous superstar Jonesy --- but Jane hasn’t had a breakout since. Now she's living out of four garbage bags at her parents’ house, reduced to performing to Karaoke tracks in Las Vegas. Rock bottom. But when her longtime manager Pippa sends Jane to London to regroup, she’s seated next to an intriguing stranger on the flight --- the other Tom Hardy, an elegantly handsome Oxford professor of literature. Jane is instantly smitten by Tom and soon truly inspired. But it’s not Jane’s past alone that haunts her second chance at stardom and at love. Is Tom all that he seems? And can Jane emerge from the shadow of Jonesy's earlier hit and into the light of her own?
Back Bay Books | 9780316409414

THE WOMAN IN THE SABLE COAT by Elizabeth Brooks (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
At the height of the Second World War in England, 22-year-old Nina Woodrow joins the British Royal Air Force and rebels against her careful upbringing by embarking on an illicit affair with an officer. She risks losing everything for Guy Nicholson: her comfortable home, her childhood friends and, especially, the love of her father, an enigmatic widower. Meanwhile, in the sleepy village where Nina grew up, where the upheavals of war seem far away and divorce remains taboo, Kate Nicholson struggles to cope with her new role as the wronged wife. She finds an unlikely confidant in Nina’s father, Henry. As they grow closer, Kate finds that she's embroiled in something much murkier, and more menacing, than a straightforward friendship.
Tin House Books | 9781959030355

THE WORLD AND ALL THAT IT HOLDS by Aleksandar Hemon (Historical Fiction)
As the Archduke Franz Ferdinand arrives in Sarajevo one June day in 1914, Rafael Pinto is busy crushing herbs and grinding tablets behind the counter at the pharmacy he inherited from his estimable father. It’s not quite the life he had expected during his poetry-filled student days in libertine Vienna, but it’s nothing a dash of laudanum from the high shelf, a summer stroll and idle fantasies about passersby can’t put in perspective. And then the world explodes. War devours all that they have known, and the only thing Pinto has to live for are the attentions of Osman, a fellow soldier who is his protector and lover. Together, they will escape the trenches, survive near-certain death, and tangle with spies and Bolsheviks.
Picador | 9781250321893

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