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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of May 20th and May 27th 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 Father's Day contest, which we have brought back for a 19th year. From now through Friday, June 14th at noon ET, readers can enter to win one of our five prize packages, which includes all seven of our featured titles. Click here to read more about the books and enter the contest.
For our latest "Bookreporter Talks To" interview, Terah Shelton Harris joins Carol Fitzgerald to talk about her second novel, LONG AFTER WE ARE GONE, our current Fiction Author Spotlight title and an upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On selection.
Terah explains what heir property is and the research she did about it to inform her story. She talks about developing the plot from four different points of view and her inspiration for that. Terah always knows how a book will end when she begins writing, and she crafts the story towards that conclusion. She reveals who the easiest character was to write --- and who challenged her the most. Terah also shares the meaning of the dedication in the front of the book (which gave both her and Carol a good laugh) and what’s next for her.
Our latest Summer Reading prize book is SUCH A LOVELY FAMILY by Aggie Blum Thompson, a heart-pounding journey into the deep and dark underbelly of seemingly perfect suburban Washington, DC.
The contest is now up, so be sure to enter for your chance to win one of five copies. Typically these are 24-hour giveaways, but we are extending the deadline to TOMORROW, Wednesday, May 22nd at 11:59pm ET. That gives you 12 extra hours to submit your entries!
We will be hosting next month's “Bookaccino Live” book preview event on Wednesday, June 12th at 2pm ET.
Carol will present titles releasing between June 11th and July 2nd, in addition to a few from August, that we think will appeal to you. Those attending the live event will be asked to answer a survey about the books from the presentation that they are most interested in reading and will be eligible to win a prize.
P.S. For those of you who shop online, if you use the store links that appear on our site for shopping, Bookreporter.com gets a small affiliate fee on your purchases from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and IndieBound. As you read our reviews and features, we would appreciate your considering this as you buy!
Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events
Here are three upcoming virtual book and author events that you may be interested in attending. Click on the links for more info and to register.
Wednesday, May 22nd 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 Steven Rowley about his latest novel, THE GUNCLE ABROAD. Patrick O'Hara is called back to his guncle duties, this time for a big family wedding in Italy.
Thursday, May 23rd at 7pm ET: Barnes & Noble: Join Barnes & Noble as they welcome Ann Napolitano, the bestselling and award-winning author of HELLO BEAUTIFUL and DEAR EDWARD, to discuss WITHIN ARM'S REACH, the debut novel that put her on the map and is the B&N Fiction Monthly selection for May. Ann will be in conversation with J. Courtney Sullivan for this special event.
Thursday, May 23rd at 8pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Daniel Weizmann will discuss CINNAMON GIRL, a neo-noir dive into the dark side of LA’s rock scene that marks the return of Lyft driver-turned-sleuth Adam Zantz, whom readers first met in THE LAST SONGBIRD.
This Week's Bonus News:
Bookreporter.com's 19th Annual
Father's Day Contest: Best Books for Dad
Father’s Day is a time to celebrate the men in our lives who have raised and loved us. Why not show him your appreciation by inspiring him with a great book? In our 19th annual "Best Books for Dad" contest, we have a selection of books that are perfect gift-giving suggestions for Dad, keeping him busy through the rest of the year. Five readers will be awarded a copy of each of our seven featured titles. To enter, please fill out this form by Friday, June 14th at noon ET.
This year's prize books are:
Click here to enter the contest.
On Sale the Week of May 20th in Hardcover
May 21st
AND THEN? AND THEN? WHAT ELSE? by Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket (Memoir)
Writing as Lemony Snicket, Daniel Handler has led several generations of young readers into that special and curious space of being hopelessly lost, and joyfully finding yourself, in the essential strangeness of literature. The wondrous and perilous journey of the Baudelaire orphans sprung from the author’s own path, from his childhood discovery of Baudelaire’s poetry through the countless peculiarities of his pursuit of a literary life --- abject failure and startling success, breakthrough and breakdown, concordance and controversy --- lit along the way by the books and culture he loved best. AND THEN? AND THEN? WHAT ELSE? is a book not just for anyone curious about the creator of Lemony Snicket, but for anyone who loved books when they were a child and still loves them now.
Liveright | 9781324090601
BUTCHER by Joyce Carol Oates (Historical Fiction)
In this harrowing story based on authentic historical documents, we follow the career of Dr. Silas Weir, “Father of Gyno-Psychiatry,” as he ascends from professional anonymity to national renown. Humiliated by a procedure gone terribly wrong, Weir is forced to take a position at the New Jersey Asylum for Female Lunatics, where he reigns. There, he is allowed to continue his practice, unchecked for decades, making a name for himself by focusing on women who have been neglected by the state --- women he subjects to the most grotesque modes of experimentation. As he begins to establish himself as a pioneer of 19th-century surgery, Weir’s ambition is fueled by his obsessive fascination with a young Irish indentured servant named Brigit, who becomes not only his primary experimental subject, but also the agent of his destruction.
Knopf | 9780593537770
EXHIBIT by R. O. Kwon (Fiction)
At a lavish party, Jin Han meets Lidija Jung. A brilliant young photographer, Jin is at a crossroads in her work, in her marriage to her college love, and in who she is and who she wants to be. Lidija is an alluring, injured world-class ballerina on hiatus from her ballet company under mysterious circumstances. Drawn to each other by their intense artistic drives, the two women talk all night. Jin finds herself telling Lidija about an old familial curse, breaking a lifelong promise. She's been told that if she doesn’t keep the curse a secret, she risks losing everything; death and ruin could lie ahead. As Jin and Lidija become more entangled, they realize they share more than the ferocity of their ambition, and they begin to explore hidden desires. Something is ignited in Jin, but can she avoid the specter of the curse?
Riverhead Books | 9780593190029
THE GUNCLE ABROAD by Steven Rowley (Fiction)
It’s been five years since Patrick O’Hara’s summer as his niece Maisie and nephew Grant’s caretaker after their mother’s passing. The kids are back in Connecticut with their dad, and Patrick has relocated to New York to remain close by and relaunch his dormant acting career. After the run of his second successful sitcom comes to a close, Patrick feels on top of the world…professionally. He is single again after breaking things off with Emory. But at least he has a family to lean on. Until that family needs to lean on him again. When Patrick's brother, Greg, announces he’s getting remarried in Italy, Maisie and Grant are not thrilled. Patrick feels drawn to take the two back under his wing. As they travel through Europe on their way to the wedding, Patrick tries his best to help them understand love, much as he once helped them comprehend grief.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593540459
I HOPE THIS FINDS YOU WELL by Natalie Sue (Fiction/Humor)
As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text color to white so no one can see. That is until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions. When an IT mix-up grants her access to her entire department’s private emails and DMs, Jolene knows she should report it. But who could resist reading what their coworkers are really saying? And when she discovers layoffs are coming, she realizes this just might be the key to saving her job.
William Morrow | 9780063320369
I WANT YOU MORE by Swan Huntley (Domestic Thriller/Dark Humor)
Reeling from her father’s death, Zara Pines accepts a ghostwriting gig for celebrity chef Jane Bailey. Jane, star of the wildly popular cooking show “30 Bucks Tops,” invites Zara to live in her East Hampton home for the summer. Zara doesn’t want to go, but Jane insists. As the two women create Jane’s book, their attachment grows stronger. Zara, who’s lost and in search of an identity, finds one in the shadow of Jane. She starts wearing Jane’s clothes. And speaking like Jane. And adopting Jane’s mannerisms. Eventually, the line between them blurs, and Zara starts to see the side Jane keeps hidden from the cameras.
Zibby Books | 9781958506714
IN MY TIME OF DYING: How I Came Face-to-Face with the Idea of an Afterlife by Sebastian Junger (Memoir)
For years as an award-winning war reporter, Sebastian Junger traveled to many front lines and frequently put his life at risk. Yet the closest he ever came to death was the summer of 2020 while spending a quiet afternoon with his wife and two young children. Crippled by abdominal pain, Junger was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Once there, he began slipping away. As blackness encroached, he was visited by his dead father, inviting Junger to join him. That was the last thing Junger remembered until he came to the next day when he was told he had suffered a ruptured aneurysm that he should not have survived. This experience spurred Junger --- a confirmed atheist raised by his physicist father to respect the empirical --- to undertake a scientific, philosophical and deeply personal examination of mortality and what happens after we die.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668050835
THE LAST MURDER AT THE END OF THE WORLD by Stuart Turton (Dystopian Mystery/Thriller)
Outside the island, there is nothing. The world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island, it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists are living in peaceful harmony. Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn't solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island --- and everyone on it. But the security system also has wiped everyone's memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer --- and they don't even know it. And the clock is ticking.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728254654
LIES AND WEDDINGS by Kevin Kwan (Fiction)
Rufus Leung Gresham, future Earl of Greshambury and son of a former Hong Kong supermodel, has a problem: the legendary Gresham Trust has been depleted by decades of profligate spending, resulting in a gargantuan mountain of debt. The only solution is for Rufus to attend his sister’s wedding at a luxury eco-resort and seduce a woman with money. Should he marry Solène de Courcy, a French hotel heiress with honey blond tresses and a royal bloodline? Should he pursue Martha Dung, the tattooed venture capital genius who passes out billions like lollipops? Or should he follow his heart, betray his family, squander his legacy, and finally confess his love to the humble daughter of a doctor? When a volcanic eruption burns through the nuptials and a hot mic exposes a secret tryst, the Gresham family plans --- and their reputation --- go up in flames.
Doubleday | 9780385546294
LONG TIME GONE by Charlie Donlea (Mystery/Thriller)
On the first day of an elite two-year fellowship, Sloan Hastings receives a research assignment in the emerging field of forensic genealogy. When she enthusiastically begins her research by submitting her own DNA to an online genealogy site, the results she receives are shocking. Sloane’s DNA profile suggests her true identity is that of Charlotte Margolis, aka “Baby Charlotte,” who captured the nation’s attention when she and her affluent parents mysteriously vanished. There were never any suspects in the family’s disappearance, and the case has been cold for decades. Sloan’s search for answers leads her to Cedar Creek, Nevada, a small town north of Lake Tahoe. Her birth relatives are mysterious and tight-lipped, and not everyone seems happy about her return or the questions she’s asking.
Kensington | 9781496727183
THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA'S VINEYARD by Michael Callahan (Historical Fiction)
In 1959, Hollywood ingenue Mercy Welles seems to have the world at her feet. Far removed from her Nebraska roots, she has crafted herself into a glamorous Oscar-nominated actress engaged to an up-and-coming director. Until she shockingly vanishes without a trace. Almost 60 years later, Kit O’Neill, a junior television producer in Manhattan, is packing up her recently deceased grandmother’s attic, only to discover a long-lost box of souvenirs that reveal that the grandmother who raised her and her sister was, in fact, the mysterious Mercy Welles. Kit is determined to solve the riddle of her grandmother’s missing life, and the trail eventually leads to Martha’s Vineyard. Mercy retreats to the island nursing a broken heart, only to be drawn to the roguish Ren Sewards, who is not just the simple oysterman he appears to be but a scion of one of the island’s wealthy founding families.
Mariner Books | 9780063282605
MIND GAMES by Nora Roberts (Romantic Suspense)
The Foxes have driven the winding roads of Appalachia to drop off their children for a two-week stay at their grandmother’s. But as 12-year-old Thea’s parents head back to suburban Virginia, they have no idea they’re about to cross paths with a ticking time bomb. Back in Kentucky, Thea and her grandmother, Lucy, both awaken from the same nightmare. And though the two have never discussed the special kind of sight they share, they know as soon as their tearful eyes meet that something terrible has happened. The kids will be staying with Grammie, and thanks to Thea’s vision, their parents’ killer will spend his life in supermax. Over time, Thea will make friends, build a career and find love. But that ability to see into minds and souls still lurks within her --- and the inmate who shattered her childhood has the same ability.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250289698
ONE PERFECT COUPLE by Ruth Ware (Psychological Thriller)
Lyla’s post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, “One Perfect Couple,” she decides to try out with him. A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla finds herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, where they will compete against four other couples to win a cash prize. But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real --- and the stakes are life or death.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781668025598
RETURN TO BLOOD: A Hana Westerman Thriller by Michael Bennett (Thriller)
After the perils of a case that landed much too close to home, Hana Westerman turned in her badge and abandoned her career as a detective in the Auckland CIB. Hoping that civilian life will offer her the opportunity to rest and recalibrate, she returns to her hometown of Tātā Bay, where she moves back in with her beloved father, Eru. Yet the memories of the past are everywhere, and as she goes for her daily run on the beach, Hana passes a local monument to Paige, a high school classmate who was murdered more than 20 years ago and hidden in the dunes overlooking the sea. A Māori man with a previous record was convicted of the crime, although Eru never believed he was guilty. When her daughter finds another young woman’s skeleton in the sands, Hana soon finds herself awkwardly involved.
Atlantic Monthly Press | 9780802163059
SHAE by Mesha Maren (Fiction)
When 16-year-old Shae meets Cam, she thinks she has found someone who is everything she has ever wanted in a companion. The two become fast friends, and then more. When Shae ends up pregnant, Cam begins a different transition --- trying on clothes that Shae can no longer fit into and using female pronouns. After a traumatic C-section and the birth of their daughter, Eva, Shae is given opioids to manage the intense pain. During the first year of Eva’s life, Shae’s dependence shifts from pain management to addiction, and her days begin to revolve around getting more pills. In the heart of West Virginia, opioids are dispensed as freely as candy, and Shae is just one of many to fall victim to addiction. Meanwhile, as Cam continues to transition, she embraces new relationships and faces the reality of being a trans woman in rural America.
Algonquin Books | 9781643755663
TOM CLANCY ACT OF DEFIANCE: A Jack Ryan Novel by Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson (Thriller/Adventure)
US intelligence is reporting turmoil in the Russian navy. Their deadliest submarine, the Belgorod, has unexpectedly launched and taken along with it a long list of questions. Who authorized the departure? What mission is it on? And, most disturbing of all, what weapons do the giant doors on the sub’s bow hide? It's been four decades since a similar incident with the Soviet sub Red October ended happily, thanks to a young CIA analyst named Jack Ryan. Now, President Jack Ryan finds himself with fleets of ships, squadrons of jets and teams of SEALs at his command, but what he doesn’t have is insight into the plans of the Belgorod’s commander. It falls to a younger generation of Ryans to do the dangerous work that will reveal that information. But there’s always a price to be paid.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593422878
THE WEALTH OF SHADOWS by Graham Moore (Historical Thriller)
1939. Ansel Luxford has everything a person could want --- a comfortable career, a brilliant spouse, a beautiful new baby. But he is obsessed by a belief that Europe is on the precipice of a war that will grow to consume the world. The United States is officially proclaiming neutrality in any foreign conflict, but when Ansel is offered an opportunity to move to Washington, D.C., to join a clandestine project within the Treasury Department that is working to undermine Nazi Germany, he uproots his family overnight and takes on the challenge of a lifetime. How can they defeat the enemy without firing a bullet? To thwart the Nazis, Ansel and his team invent a powerful new theater of battle: economic warfare. Money is a dangerous weapon, and Ansel’s efforts will plunge him into a world full of peril and deceit.
Random House | 9780593731925
WESTPORT by James Comey (Mystery/Thriller)
It’s been two years since Nora Carleton left the job she loved at the US Attorney’s Office to become lead counsel at Saugatuck Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund. The career change also meant a change of scenery, relocating her to Westport, Connecticut, 50 miles north of New York City. But it was worth it to get her daughter, Sophie, away from the city. Plus, she likes the people she works with. Especially Helen, who recruited Nora because of her skills as an investigator. Then Nora's new life falls apart when a coworker is murdered and she becomes the lead suspect. Nora calls in her old colleagues from the US Attorney’s Office, Mafia investigator Benny Dugan and attorney Carmen Garcia. To clear Nora’s name, Benny and Carmen hunt for the true killer's motive, but it seems nearly everyone at Saugatuck has secrets worth killing for.
Mysterious Press | 9781613165249
THE YANKEE WAY: The Untold Inside Story of the Brian Cashman Era by Andy Martino (Sports)
When Brian Cashman arrived in the Bronx as an intern in 1986, he discovered a team in chaos, run on impulse and emotion, and lacking the sheen that had defined the Yankees in earlier eras. Decades later, Cashman had risen through the ranks of the front office, earned the trust of the Steinbrenner family, and become the longest-serving GM in the Yankees’ storied history, helping to transform the Yankees to glory with a string of World Series championships and an unmatched streak of winning seasons. With unprecedented inside access and featuring exclusive interviews with Cashman, owner Hal Steinbrenner, top front-office executives, and current Yankee stars and coaches, award-winning baseball journalist Andy Martino gives fans a view from the GM’s seat that we would never normally see.
Doubleday | 9780385549998
YOU LIKE IT DARKER: Stories by Stephen King (Supernatural Thriller/Short Stories)
“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,” writes Stephen King in the afterword to his new collection of 12 stories (many never-before-published) that delve into the darker part of life --- both metaphorical and literal. For half a century, King has been a master of the form, and these stories --- about fate, mortality, luck and the folds in reality where anything can happen --- are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel “the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,” and in YOU LIKE IT DARKER, readers also will feel that exhilaration, again and again.
Scribner | 9781668037713
On Sale the Week of May 20th in Paperback
May 21st
ALL THE DAYS OF SUMMER by Nancy Thayer (Fiction)
When her marriage fizzles out, Heather Willette decides to leave her husband and rent a cottage on Nantucket. Her plan is going perfectly --- until her son, Ross, announces he’s moving to Nantucket to work at his girlfriend’s family’s construction business instead of going back home to work with his own father. Worst of all for Heather, this means having to get along with her. Kailee Essex is thrilled that Ross is willing to move to her hometown. She has big hopes for their happily ever after, especially now that her parents are finally showing interest in her career. She’s less thrilled, however, about his mother living nearby. Kailee has clashed with Heather since the day they met. But anything is possible in the summer sun and sea breezes of Nantucket --- even reconciliation.
Ballantine Books | 9780593358474
BAD, BAD SEYMOUR BROWN: A Corie Geller Novel by Susan Isaacs (Mystery)
When Corie Geller asked her parents to move from their apartment into the suburban McMansion she shares with her husband and teenage daughter, she assumed they'd fit right in with the placid life she’d opted for when she left the Joint Anti-terrorism Task Force of the FBI. But then her retired NYPD detective father gets a call from good-natured and slightly nerdy film professor April Brown --- one of the victims of a case he was never able to solve. When April was a five-year-old, she’d emerged unscathed from the arson that killed her parents. Now, two decades later, April is asking for help. Someone has made an attempt on her life. Corie and her dad immediately say yes and jump into a full-fledged investigation. If they don’t move fast, whoever attacked April is sure to strike again.
Grove Press | 9780802163349
THE BEACH AT SUMMERLY by Beatriz Williams (Historical Fiction)
Beatriz Williams’ novels inhabit a category all their own: nuanced yet propulsive, innovative yet addictive, packed with human truth and told in an incomparable narrative voice that evokes a stunning sense of period while still feeling new and immediate. Now the beloved author returns with another remarkable summer novel. In these gorgeous sun-washed pages, Williams sets THE BEACH AT SUMMERLY in the exclusive New England summer enclave readers first discovered in THE SUMMER WIVES and fills it with new love, old rivalries and the Cold War intrigue of the 1960s.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063020856
BLUE SKIES by T.C. Boyle (Thriller/Satire)
Denied a dog, a baby and even a faithful fiancé, Cat suddenly craves a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like “jewelry, living jewelry” to match her black jeans. But when the budding social media star promptly loses the young “Burmie” she buys from a local pet store, she inadvertently sets in motion a chain of increasingly dire and outrageous events that comes to threaten her very survival. In BLUE SKIES, T.C. Boyle transports us to water-logged and heat-ravaged coastal America, where Cat and her hapless, nature-loving family is struggling to adapt to the “new normal,” in which once-in-a-lifetime natural disasters happen once a week and drinking seems to be the only way to cope.
Liveright | 9781324095187
THE BOOK OF CHARLIE: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man by David Von Drehle (Self-Help/Personal Growth)
Born before radio, Charlie White lived long enough to use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, he mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom. Thus armored, Charlie’s sense of adventure carried him on an epic journey across the continent, and later found him swinging across bandstands of the Jazz Age, racing aboard ambulances through Depression-era gangster wars, improvising techniques for early open-heart surgery, and cruising the Amazon as a guest of Peru’s president. David Von Drehle came to understand that Charlie’s resilience and willingness to grow made this remarkable neighbor a master in the art of thriving through times of dramatic change. As a gift to his children, he set out to tell Charlie’s secrets.
Simon & Schuster | 9781476773933
THE COLLECTED REGRETS OF CLOVER by Mikki Brammer (Fiction)
From the day she watched her kindergarten teacher drop dead during a dramatic telling of PETER RABBIT, Clover Brooks has felt a stronger connection with the dying than she has with the living. After the beloved grandfather who raised her dies alone while she is traveling, Clover becomes a death doula in New York City, dedicating her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process. Clover spends so much time with the dying that she has no life of her own, until the final wishes of a feisty old woman send Clover on a trip across the country to uncover a forgotten love story --- and perhaps her own happy ending.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250870247
DYKETTE by Jenny Fran Davis (Fiction/Dark Humor)
Sasha and Jesse are professionally creative, erotically adventurous and passionately dysfunctional twentysomethings making a life together in Brooklyn. When a pair of older, richer lesbians invites Sasha and Jesse to their country home for the holidays, they’re quick to accept. Even if the trip includes a third couple: Jesse’s best friend, Lou, and their cool-girl flame, Darcy. As the late December afternoons blur together in a haze of debaucherous homecooked feasts and sweaty sauna confessions, so too do the guests’ secret and shifting motivations. When Jesse and Darcy collaborate on an ill-fated livestream performance, a complex web of infatuation and jealousy emerges, sending Sasha down a spiral of destructive rage that threatens each couple’s future.
Holt Paperbacks | 9781250843173
THE ENCHANTED HACIENDA by J.C. Cervantes (Fiction/Magical Realism)
When Harlow Estrada is abruptly fired from her dream job and her boyfriend proves to be a jerk, her world turns upside down. She flees New York City to the one place she can always call home --- the enchanted Hacienda Estrada. The Estrada family farm in Mexico houses an abundance of charmed flowers cultivated by Harlow’s mother, sisters, aunt and cousins. By harnessing the magic in these flowers, they can heal hearts, erase memories and interpret dreams. But not Harlow. So when her mother and aunt give her a special task involving the family’s magic, she panics. How can she rise to the occasion when she is magicless? But maybe it’s not magic she’s missing, but belief in herself.
Park Row | 9780778310433
AN EVIL HEART by Linda Castillo (Mystery/Thriller)
On a crisp autumn day in Painters Mill, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder responds to a call only to discover an Amish man who has been violently killed with a crossbow, his body abandoned on a dirt road. Aden Karn was just 20 years old, well liked and from an upstanding Amish family. Who would commit such a heinous crime against a young man whose life was just beginning? The more Kate gets to know his devastated family and the people --- both English and Amish --- who loved him, the more determined she becomes to solve the case. But as she delves into Karn’s past, Kate begins to hear whispers about a dark side. What if Aden Karn wasn’t the wholesome young man everyone admired? Is it possible that the rumors are a cruel campaign to blame the victim?
Minotaur Books | 9781250342843
FRACTAL NOISE: A Fractalverse Novel by Christopher Paolini (Science Fiction/Space Opera)
July 25, 2234: The crew of the Adamura discovers the anomaly. On the seemingly uninhabited planet Talos VII: a circular pit, 50 kilometers wide. Its curve not of nature, but design. Now, a small team must land and journey on foot across the surface to learn who built the hole and why. But they all carry the burdens of lives carved out on disparate colonies in the cruel cold of space. For some the mission is the dream of a lifetime, for others a risk not worth taking, and for one it is a desperate attempt to find meaning in an uncaring universe. Each step they take toward the mysterious abyss is more punishing than the last. And the ghosts of their past follow.
Tor Books | 9781250292100
THE GOD OF GOOD LOOKS by Breanne Mc Ivor (Fiction)
Bianca Bridge is like an eyeshadow palette. She's a vibrant kaleidoscope of big personality and even bigger dreams, with a tendency towards messiness and fallout. Case in point: losing her job and ruining her reputation by having an affair with a married government official. Her fiercely confident and tyrannical new boss, Obadiah Cortland --- a legend in Trinidad's beauty scene --- is like a statement red lipstick. Dubbed the God of Good Looks, Obadiah has perfected his hotshot façade after years of navigating the island's rigid class barriers. He knows as well as Bianca that the tiniest smudge can ruin your image. When Bianca's ex threatens both their futures, they must find a way to work together to save everything they care about. But as they put their differences aside, will they find they actually bring out the best in each other?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063278820
HAPPINESS by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Sabrina Brooks is a wildly successful bestselling author of gripping thrillers. Unlike her fictional characters, Sabrina lives a quiet life in the Berkshires with her two beloved dogs. But behind this peaceful exterior is a dark, painful past. As a child raised by an emotionally distant father, Sabrina rarely felt love. And as an adult, her marriage twisted into an abusive relationship from which she had to escape. Sabrina channeled that fear into her writing, and now she has everything she’s ever wanted. Until the arrival of a mysterious letter disrupts it all, declaring that Sabrina is now the heir to her recently deceased uncle’s title and estate outside London. This shocking news forces her to cross the Atlantic and see the manor for herself, stirring up her father’s past and the secrets he kept.
Dell | 9781984821942
I AM HOMELESS IF THIS IS NOT MY HOME by Lorrie Moore (Fiction)
A teacher visiting his dying brother in the Bronx. A mysterious journal from the 19th century stolen from a boarding house. A therapy clown and an assassin, both presumed dead, but perhaps not dead at all. With her distinctive, irresistible wordplay, and singular wry humor and wisdom, Lorrie Moore has given us a magic box of longing and surprise as she writes about love and rebirth and the pull towards life. Bold, meditative and theatrical, I AM HOMELESS IF THIS IS NOT MY HOME is an inventive, poetic portrait of lovers and siblings as it questions the stories we have been told that may or may not be true.
Vintage | 9780307740878
IF WE’RE BEING HONEST by Cat Shook (Fiction)
When Gerry, the beloved Williams patriarch, dies suddenly, his grandchildren flock from across the country to the family home in Eulalia, Georgia. But when Gerry’s best friend steps up to the microphone to deliver his eulogy, the funeral turns out unlike anyone expected. The cousins cope with their fresh grief and various private dramas. Delia refuses to shut up about her ex. Her sister, Alice, flusters when she spots her high school sweetheart, hiding a secret that will change both of their lives. Grant is preening in the afterglow of his recent appearance on “The Bachelorette” and looking to reignite an old flame with the least available person in town. Meanwhile, his younger brother, Red, desperately searches for a place in the boisterous family.
Celadon Books | 9781250847560
THE INVISIBLE HOUR by Alice Hoffman (Historical Fiction)
One June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. THE SCARLET LETTER was written almost 200 years earlier, but it seems to tell the story of Mia’s mother, Ivy, and their life inside the Community --- an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts where contact with the outside world is forbidden, and books are considered evil. But how could this be? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have so perfectly captured the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her? Through a journey of heartbreak, love and time, Mia must abandon the rules she was raised with at the Community. As she does, she realizes that reading can transport you to other worlds or bring them to you, and that readers and writers affect one another in mysterious ways.
Atria Books | 9781982175382
A LINE IN THE SAND by Kevin Powers (Thriller)
One early morning on a Norfolk beach in Virginia, a dead body is discovered by a man taking his daily swim. After narrowly surviving an assassination attempt that killed his wife and child, Arman Bajalan has been given lonely sanctuary in the US. Convinced that the body is connected to his past, he knows he is still not safe. Seasoned detective Catherine Wheel and her newly minted partner have little to go on beyond a bus ticket in the dead man’s pocket. It leads them to Sally Ewell, a local journalist who is investigating a corporation on the cusp of landing a multi-billion-dollar government defense contract. As victims mount around Arman, they find themselves in a race, committed to unraveling the truth and keeping Arman alive --- even if it costs them absolutely everything.
Back Bay Books | 9780316507431
LUCKY DOGS by Helen Schulman (Fiction)
On a sultry summer night in Paris, two women meet in line at an ice cream kiosk on the Ile de la Cité. One is tall, fair and striking, with an indeterminate accent. The other, a troubled American TV star, is hiding her beauty and identity under a shapeless sweatshirt, wearing sunglasses even in the darkness. When leering male tourists hassle the pair, the blonde pulls out a knife and a sisterhood is born. Both women have been victims of male violence, and both are warriors --- one trained and calculating, one instinctually ferocious. They each think they know who they are dealing with. But both are very, very wrong.
Vintage | 9780593469866
MALIBU SUMMER by Libby Gill (Romance)
Paperback Original
Ivy Bauer is a young, bright soil scientist and inventor of a game-changing organic irrigation system. She’s on top of the world when, suddenly, her husband is killed in a biking accident. Needing space to grieve, she takes a summer job as a gardener in Malibu. Conrad Reed is a wealthy Hollywood has-been who, after the death of his wife, feels overwhelmed by the care of his anxious stepson Hudson, massive cliffside estate and deteriorating career. He hopes Ivy will help take at least one thing off his plate. But the bossy, opinionated Ivy isn’t making things any easier for him. Sparks fly --- and not the good kind. But it’s when Ivy finds the key to Hudson’s heart that Conrad’s own heart begins to melt as well --- and then the sparks that fly are the ones that kindle the best kind of love affair.
Penguin Books | 9780143137924
NIGHT WILL FIND YOU by Julia Heaberlin (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Vivvy Bouchet was only 10 when she saved a boy’s life by making an impossible prediction. She doesn’t want to explain it. A wunderkind scientist, she just wants to be left in peace to scan the desert Texas sky with her telescopes in one of the darkest places on earth. But when the boy she saved, now a Fort Worth cop, begs for her help on a cold case, she can’t turn him down. In the past decade, Lizzie Solomon and the Victorian mansion where she disappeared have taken on almost mythic status. Conspiracy theorists feed the frenzy that Lizzie is still buried in the crumbling walls while her mother, who sits in prison convicted of killing her, loudly proclaims her innocence. When a vicious podcaster takes aim at Vivvy’s own secrets --- and those of the vanished girl --- Vivvy’s life unravels like the mysterious galaxies she chases.
Flatiron Books | 9781250877093
OBSESSION: A Teddy Fay Novel Featuring Stone Barrington by Stuart Woods and Brett Battles (Thriller/Adventure)
While filming on location in scenic Santa Barbara, California, Peter Barrington and Ben Bacchetti look to expand Centurion Studios' business by making a deal with a young Croatian tech billionaire. But when the magnate’s wife is kidnapped, Teddy Fay is brought in to assess the threat and recover the young woman. As Teddy unravels the threads of her disappearance, he quickly comes to find an old vendetta seething at the center, one that puts them all at risk. And danger is lurking even nearer to home as an obsessive fan with perilous intentions weasels his way onto the film set. It’s only Teddy who can stop him from getting too close for comfort.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593188491
THE ONLY ONE LEFT by Riley Sager (Gothic Thriller/Horror)
The Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume 17-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Lenora has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred. It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora. Confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer: I want to tell you everything. As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know.
Dutton | 9780593183243
THE RIVER WE REMEMBER by William Kent Krueger (Historical Mystery)
On Memorial Day, as the people of Jewel, Minnesota, gather to remember and honor the sacrifice of so many sons in the wars of the past, the half-clothed body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. The investigation of the murder falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who recently has returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife. As suspicions and accusations mount and the town teeters on the edge of more violence, Dern struggles not only to find the truth of Quinn’s murder but also to put to rest the demons from his own past.
Atria Books | 9781982179229
ROBERT LUDLUM’S THE BOURNE DEFIANCE by Brian Freeman (Thriller/Adventure)
From the glacial waters of Alaska to a sexy nightclub in the Bahamas, Treadstone agents are being hunted down and murdered. Someone high up in the U.S. government will stop at nothing to cover up a secret Treadstone mission from the past known as Defiance. With a team of killers hot on his trail, Jason Bourne chases the mystery of Defiance around the world. But as he closes in on the shocking truth, Bourne realizes that one man holds the key --- his archenemy, the assassin known as Lennon. The Russian hitman has been at the heart of Defiance from the very beginning, and his next target will put Bourne --- and the woman he loves --- in the crosshairs. As Bourne races to stop the ruthless conspiracy behind Defiance, he must come face to face with Lennon one last time.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593419908
SEVEN SUMMERS by Paige Toon (Romance)
Paperback Original
Liv and Finn meet six summers ago working in a bar on the rugged Cornish coastline, their futures full of promise. When a night of passion ends in devastating tragedy, they are bound together inextricably. But Finn’s life is in LA with his band, and Liv’s is in Cornwall with her family, so they make a promise. Finn will return every year, and if they are single they will spend the summer together. This summer, Liv crosses paths with Tom, a mysterious new arrival in her hometown. As the wildflowers and heather come into bloom, they find themselves falling for one another. For the first time, Liv can imagine a world where her heart isn’t broken every autumn. Now Liv must make an impossible choice. And when she discovers the shocking reason that Tom has left home, she’ll need to trust her heart even more.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593544358
SILVER NITRATE by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
Montserrat is a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star. Then Tristán discovers that his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives --- even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed. Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse. But Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend.
Del Rey | 9780593355381
THE SISTER EFFECT by Susan Mallery (Fiction)
Finley McGowan is determined that the niece she’s raising will always feel loved and wanted. Unlike how she felt after her mom left to pursue a dream of stardom, and when the grandfather who was left to raise them abandoned her and her sister, Sloane, when they needed him most. Finley reacted to her chaotic childhood by walking the straight and narrow. Sloane went the other way. Now Sloane is back, as beautiful and as damaged as ever…and she wants a relationship with her daughter. She says she’s changed, but Finley’s heart has been burned once too often for her to trust easily. But is her reluctance to forgive really about Sloane or worry over losing what she loves the most?
Canary Street Press | 9781335012685
STILL WATERS by Matt Goldman (Domestic Thriller)
Paperback Original
Liv and Gabe Ahlstrom are estranged siblings who haven’t seen each other in years, but that’s about to change when they receive a rare call from their older brother’s wife. “Mack is dead,” she says. “He died of a seizure.” Five minutes after they hang up, Liv and Gabe each receive a scheduled email from their dead brother, claiming that he was murdered. The siblings return to their family-run resort in the Northwoods of Minnesota to investigate Mack's claims, but Leech Lake has more in store for them than either could imagine. Drawn into a tangled web of lies and betrayal that spans decades, they put their lives on the line to unravel the truth about their brother, their parents, themselves and the small town in which they grew up.
Forge Books | 9781250325693
TIDES OF FIRE by James Rollins (Thriller/Adventure)
The Titan Project, an international research station off the coast of Australia, discovers a thriving zone of life in an otherwise dead sea. The area teems with a strange bioluminescent coral that defies science yet holds great promise for the future. But the loss of a military submarine in the area triggers a brutal attack and sets in motion a geological disaster that destabilizes an entire region. Massive quakes, volcanic eruptions and deadly tsunamis herald a greater cataclysm to come --- for something is stirring miles under the ocean, a threat hidden for millennia. As seas turn toxic and coastlines burn, can Sigma Force stop what has been let loose --- especially as an old adversary returns, hunting them and thwarting their every move?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062893086
UNDER THE PALMS by Kaira Rouda (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Under the direction of the Kingsleys’ new president, Paige, the family has gathered for a weekend retreat at a luxurious Laguna Beach resort. Still clinging to the hope of succession are the sons of Richard Kingsley, the family patriarch and CEO: John, the oldest, who’s clawed his way back from a dark tragedy, and Paige’s estranged husband, Ted, the golden boy. When Richard’s ex and his wayward daughter join the fray, Paige finds herself with two fast allies. They know a secret that could shatter the family legacy. Call it leverage, call it revenge, the Kingsley women believe they have the upper hand. But as the power games begin, greater threats than the howling Santa Ana winds are coming. Because this weekend, amid so much greed and betrayal, no Kingsley is safe.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662511936
On Sale the Week of May 27th in Hardcover
May 28th
ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF by Onyi Nwabineli (Fiction)
Anuri Chinasa was the unwilling star of her stepmother’s social media empire before “momfluencers” were even a thing. For years, Ophelia documented every birthday, skinned knee, milestone and meltdown for millions of strangers to fawn over and pick apart. Now, at 25, Anuri is desperate to put her way-too-public past behind her and start living on her own terms. But she can barely walk down the street without someone recognizing her, and the fraught relationship with her father has fallen apart. Then there’s her PhD application (still unfinished) and her drinking problem (still going strong). Plus, Ophelia is never far away and has made it clear she won’t go down without a fight. With Noelle, Anuri’s five-year-old half-sister now being forced down the same path, Anuri discovers she has a new mission in life: to take back control of the family narrative.
Graydon House | 9781525896033
THE CALL TO SERVE: The Life of an American President, George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meacham (Biography)
In honor of the 100th anniversary of George H. W. Bush’s birth, THE CALL TO SERVE is an intimate, illuminating portrait of a man who was so much more than just his politics. In words and images --- many found in a lifetime of scrapbooks kept by Barbara Pierce Bush --- Jon Meacham brings George H. W. Bush vividly to life. From the values of integrity, empathy and grace that Bush learned in childhood to his leadership at the highest levels in tumultuous times, the 41st president embodied an ideal of service that warrants attention in our own divided time. Set against the background of America during the 20th and 21st centuries, this book commemorates the legacy of a man who was far from perfect --- he could be cutthroat on the campaign trail --- but whose ambition was not an end unto itself.
Random House | 9780593729458
CAMINO GHOSTS by John Grisham (Thriller)
In John Grisham’s third thriller set on Camino Island, popular bookseller Bruce Cable tells Mercer Mann an irresistible tale that might be her next novel. A giant resort developer is using its political muscle and deep pockets to claim ownership of a deserted island between Florida and Georgia. Only the last living inhabitant of the island, Lovely Jackson, stands in its way. What the developer doesn’t know is that the island has a remarkable history, and locals believe it is cursed…and the past is never the past.
Doubleday | 9780385545990
FIRST FROST: A Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson (Mystery)
It’s the summer of 1964, and recent college graduates Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear enlist to serve in the Vietnam War. As they catch a few final waves in California before reporting for duty, a sudden storm assaults the shores and capsizes a nearby cargo boat. Walt and Henry jump to action, but it’s soon revealed by the police who greet them ashore that the sunken boat carried valuable contraband from underground sources. The boys head out on Route 66. The question, of course, is how far they will get before the consequences of their actions catch up to them. Back in the present day, Walt is forced to speak before a judge following the fatal events of THE LONGMIRE DEFENSE. With powerful enemies lurking behind the scenes, the sheriff of Absaroka County must consider his options if he wishes to finish the fight he started.
Viking | 9780593830673
A GOOD LIFE written by Virginie Grimaldi, translated by Hildegarde Serle (Fiction)
Emma and Agathe are sisters. They were thick as thieves when they were young but have always been as different as can be. Agathe, the younger sister, is disorderly, chaotic and fiery. Five years older, Emma has always been the more mature sister --- the defender, the protector, the worrier. Their relationship as adults is scarred by a tragedy that transformed their happy, ordinary childhoods into something much more complex and challenging. For a long time, Emma hasn’t wanted to be involved in Agathe’s life. But then they must return together to the Basque Country --- to the house of their adored grandmother, to empty out her home and in the process to reconcile, to remember, and to pour out what is in their hearts.
Europa Editions | 9798889660248
IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME by Alex Finlay (Mystery/Thriller)
For the past five years, Ryan Richardson has relived that terrible night. The car door ripping open. The crushing blow to the head. The hands yanking him from the vehicle. His girlfriend Ali’s piercing scream as she is taken. With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. He’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name and entered law school. While on a summer trip abroad to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali's car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali’s handwriting: If something happens to me… Then, halfway around the world, Ryan sees the man who has haunted his dreams since that night.
Minotaur Books | 9781250863799
JACK'S BOYS by John Katzenbach (Thriller)
Connected through a secure internet location, five serial killers communicate in a unique chat room they have named Jack's Special Place in homage to their ultimate model: Jack the Ripper. And so they are Jack's Boys. They delight in each other's crimes. They relish in taunting police around the world with odd clues and deep confusion --- the modern version of the Victorian-era killer they emulate. They feed on each other's killings and think they're untouchable. Until one day they are hacked. Two teenagers are fascinated by the world of the dark web, where they accidentally stumble upon Jack's Boys in their private space and immediately mock them. This triggers a landslide of anger and revenge as the killers decide to teach the teens a lesson in humility and respect for their betters.
Blackstone Publishing | 9798200894079
KNIFE RIVER by Justine Champine (Literary Mystery)
When Jess was 13, her mother went for a walk and never returned. Jess and her older sister, Liz, never found out what happened. As soon as she was old enough, Jess fled their small town of Knife River, aimless in her attempts to outrun grief and confusion. But 15 years after their mother’s disappearance, she gets the call she’s been bracing for: Her mother’s remains have been found. Jess returns to find Knife River --- and her sister --- frozen in time. Jess plans to stay only until they get some answers, but their mother’s bones, exposed to the elements for so long, just leave them with more questions. As Jess gets caught up in the case and falls back into an entanglement with her high school girlfriend, her understanding of the past, of Liz, of their mother and of herself becomes more complicated --- and the list of theories more ominous.
The Dial Press | 9780593447208
LONG HAUL: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers by Frank Figliuzzi (True Crime)
In 2004, the FBI was tipped off to a gruesome pattern of unsolved murders along American roadways. Today at least 850 homicides have been linked to a solitary breed of predators: long-haul truck drivers. They have been given names like the “Truck Stop Killer,” who rigged a traveling torture chamber in the rear of his truck and is suspected to have killed 50 women, and “The Interstate Strangler,” who once answered a phone call from his mother while killing one of his dozen victims. The crisis was such that the FBI opened a special unit, the Highway Serial Killings Initiative. The transient nature of the offenders and multiple jurisdictions involved make these cases incredibly difficult to solve. Based on his own on-the-ground research and drawing on his 25-year career as an FBI special agent, Frank Figliuzzi investigates the most terrifying of these cases.
Mariner Books | 9780063265158
A LOVELY LIE by Jaime Lynn Hendricks (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
The night of their senior picnic in 1999, Scarlett Russo and her best friend, Pepper, were involved in a car accident that left two of their classmates dead. Afterward, they lied to the police, protecting each other from the consequences. Then Pepper left town, and Scarlett never heard from her again. Twenty-two years later, Scarlett has buried that deadly incident deep in her mind and built a comfortable life for herself. However, her peace is disrupted when Pepper’s daughter shows up with news of Pepper’s death. Zoey has a cryptic letter from Pepper addressed to Scarlett that alludes to the events of that fateful night and Pepper’s initial intentions to get an abortion. Now Zoey wants answers about her mother’s past. Who is Zoey’s father? And what really happened after the senior picnic?
Scarlet | 9781613165188
NERO by Conn Iggulden (Historical Thriller)
The story begins with a hand curled around another man’s throat. This is Roman justice: Emperor Tiberius first dispatches a traitor --- a friend he once trusted with the city --- then the man's whole family and all of his friends. It is as if he never existed. Into this fevered forum, a child is born. His mother is Agrippina, the granddaughter of Emperor Augustus. But their imperial blood is neither balm nor protection. Rather, it is a liability. As the aging, paranoid Tiberius becomes blind to the ignoble end awaiting him, Agrippina sees the future. Her once-exiled brother, Caligula, is next in succession, which brings her another step closer to the heart of the empire --- to power, ambition and danger. One mistake risks exile, incarceration, execution…or, worst of all, perhaps the loss of her infant son.
Pegasus Books | 9781639366545
THE PASSIONATE TUDOR: A Novel of Queen Mary I by Alison Weir (Historical Fiction)
Born from young King Henry’s first marriage, his elder daughter, Princess Mary, is raised to be queen once it becomes clear that her mother, Katherine of Aragon, will bear no more children. However, Henry’s passion for Anne Boleyn has a devastating influence on the young princess’s future when, determined to sire a male heir, he marries Anne, has his marriage to Katherine declared unlawful, brands Mary illegitimate, and banishes them both from the royal court. But when Anne also fails to produce a son, she is beheaded and Mary is allowed to return to court as the default heir. Mary eventually triumphs and becomes queen, but any hopes that she will show religious toleration are dashed when she embarks on a ruthless campaign to force Catholicism on the English by burning hundreds of Protestants at the stake.
Ballantine Books | 9780593355107
THE SAFEKEEP by Yael van der Wouden (Historical Fiction)
It is 1961, and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be --- led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother, Louis, brings his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season. Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house, Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation --- leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781668034347
THE SECOND COMING by Garth Risk Hallberg (Fiction)
Spring, 2011. When 13-year-old Jolie Aspern goes down onto the subway tracks to retrieve her dropped phone --- and nearly gets hit by a train --- the last thing she wants is sympathy from her estranged dad, Ethan. A recovering addict and felon, Ethan has long struggled to see beyond himself. But when news of Jolie’s accident reaches him, Ethan comes to fear she’s in more serious trouble than anyone realizes. And believing he’s the only one who can save her, he decides to return home. So begins the journey of Jolie and Ethan. It will stretch from Manhattan in the midst of the Great Recession to a remote beach on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where their lives really began. In time, it will push Jolie out past her depth with a mysterious stranger, and Ethan in over his head with his first love --- Jolie’s mom.
Knopf | 9780593536926
SOUTHERN MAN by Greg Iles (Political Thriller)
Fifteen years after the events of the Natchez Burning trilogy, Penn Cage carries a mortal secret that separates him from the world. But his exile comes to an end when a brawl at a Mississippi rap festival triggers a bloody mass shooting that nearly takes the life of his daughter. Antebellum plantation homes continue to burn, and the deadly attacks are claimed by a Black radical group as historic acts of justice. Panic sweeps through the tourist communities, driving them inexorably toward a race war. But what might have been only a regional sideshow of the 2024 Presidential election explodes into national prominence, thanks to the stunning ascent of Robert E. Lee White, a Southern war hero who seizes the public’s imagination as a third-party candidate. To triumph over the national party machines, Bobby evolves a plan of unimaginable daring.
William Morrow | 9780062824691
SUMMER ON HIGHLAND BEACH by Sunny Hostin (Fiction)
Founded in the late 1800s by the son of Frederick Douglass, Highland Beach along the Chesapeake Bay is the oldest Black resort community in America. Inside this proud and secluded beach community of about 100 private homes is Olivia Jones’ legacy. But Oliva’s legacy comes with thorns --- intertwined are secrets of her aunt’s death; a controlling grandmother who is determined to crush anyone or anything that will interfere with her son’s political career; and a father who wants to rebuild the family he rejected decades ago. In the midst of tense family drama, Olivia must decide if she wants to return to the beautiful life she’s created in Sag Harbor --- with the neighbors and wonderful man who have become central to her happiness --- or finally achieve her dream of having a family and home to call her own in Highland Beach.
William Morrow | 9780062994257
A WALK IN THE PARK: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon by Kevin Fedarko (Travel/Memoir)
A few years after quitting his job to follow an ill-advised dream of becoming a guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his best friend, the National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon --- a journey that McBride promised would be “a walk in the park.” Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed to the scheme, unaware that the small cluster of experts who had completed the crossing billed it as “the toughest hike in the world.” The ensuing ordeal, which lasted more than a year, revealed a place that was deeper, richer and far more complex than anything the two men had imagined --- and came within a hair’s breadth of killing them both.
Scribner | 9781501183058
THE WINNER by Teddy Wayne (Literary Thriller/Dark Humor)
Conor O’Toole has never been anywhere as casually glamorous as Cutters Neck, a gated community near Cape Cod. It’s a sweet deal for the summer: free lodging in a guest cottage in exchange for tennis lessons. In this oceanfront paradise, however, new clients prove hard to come by, and Conor has bills to pay. Then a sharp-tongued divorcée appears, offering him double his usual rate. Soon he realizes Catherine is expecting additional, off-the-court services for her money, and Conor tumbles into a secret erotic affair unlike anything he’s experienced before. Despite his steamy flings with a woman twice his age, he simultaneously finds himself falling for the artsy, outspoken girl he met on the beach. Conor somehow finds a way to manage this tangled web --- until he makes one final, irreversible mistake.
Harper | 9780063353596
YOU ARE HERE by David Nicholls (Romance/Humor)
Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house. Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by. When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of 10-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.
Harper | 9780063394056
On Sale the Week of May 27th in Paperback
May 28th
THE ACT OF DISAPPEARING by Nathan Gower (Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
Julia White is struggling. Her bartending job isn’t cutting it, and her first book has sold hardly any copies. She’s barely able to make ends meet while drowning in her late mother’s medical bills and reeling after a one-night stand with her ex-boyfriend, who’s now completely ghosted her. Enter world-renowned photographer Johnathan Aster with a proposal: he has a never-before-seen photograph of a woman falling from a train bridge, clutching what appears to be a baby. And he wants Julia to research the story. Alternating between present-day Brooklyn and Kentucky as it enters the 1960s, the story unfolds as Julia races to find answers: Who was the woman in the photograph? Why was she on the bridge? And what happened to the baby? Each detail is more propulsive than the last as Julia discovers a story more staggering than anything she could have imagined.
Mira | 9780778369547
ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR by Virginia Heath (Historical Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
When Harry Kincaid’s older sister decides to join her husband on an Egyptian expedition, Harry is left minding her three unruly children and giant, mad dog. But Harry has a busy career at the Admiralty that requires all his attention. In desperation, he goes to Miss Prentice’s School for Young Ladies prepared to pay whatever it takes to hire an emergency governess. Thanks to her miserable, strict upbringing, fledgling governess Georgie Rowe believes childhood should be everything hers wasn’t. Thankfully, the three Pendleton children she has been tasked with looking after instantly embrace her unconventional educational approach. However, their staid, stickler-for-the-rules uncle is another matter entirely. Georgie and Harry continue to butt heads over their differences, but with time it seems that their attraction is undeniable.
St. Martin's Griffin | 9781250896070
BIG GAY WEDDING by Byron Lane (Fiction/Humor)
Barnett Durang has a secret. No, not THAT secret. His widowed mother has long known he’s gay. The secret is that Barnett is getting married. At his mother’s farm. In their small Louisiana town. She just doesn’t know it yet. It’ll be an intimate affair. Just 200 or so of the most fabulous folks Barnett is shipping in from the “heathen coasts,” as Mom likes to call them, turning her quiet rescue farm for misfit animals into a most unlikely wedding venue. But there are forces, both within this modern new family and in the town itself, that really don’t want to see this handsome couple march down the aisle. It’ll be the biggest, gayest event in the town’s history if they can pull it off. After a glitter-filled week, nothing will ever be the same.
Holt Paperbacks | 9781250267160
CINNAMON GIRL: A Pacific Coast Highway Mystery by Daniel Weizmann (Neo-Noir Mystery)
Paperback Original
Adam Zantz is still driving for Lyft, struggling to make ends meet, when his beloved former piano teacher makes a deathbed request: He wants Zantz to prove his son’s innocence in a decades-earlier murder case. There doesn’t seem to be much hope of solving such a cold case --- until Zantz stumbles onto a test pressing of a never-released vinyl LP. The recording is of a high school garage band lost to the tides of the Paisley Underground, the acid-fueled early ’80s music scene that spawned the Bangles and the Three O'Clock. Down the psychedelic rabbit hole Adam falls, tracing the band's journey from the middle-class garage to the precipice of fame --- a twisted tale marked by crooked DJs, elder-scammers, wellness hucksters, a teen cult, and the woman who held the key to the band’s triumph and ruin.
Melville House | 9781685891152
DEEP AS THE SKY, RED AS THE SEA by Rita Chang-Eppig
(Historical Fiction/Adventure)
When Shek Yeung sees a Portuguese sailor slay her husband, a feared pirate, she knows she must act swiftly or die. Instead of mourning, Shek Yeung launches a new plan: immediately marrying her husband's second-in-command, and agreeing to bear him a son and heir, in order to retain power over her half of the fleet. But as Shek Yeung vies for control over the army she knows she was born to lead, larger threats loom. The Chinese Emperor has charged a brutal, crafty nobleman with ridding the South China Seas of pirates, and the Europeans --- tired of losing ships, men and money to Shek Yeung's alliance --- have new plans for the area. Even worse, Shek Yeung's cutthroat retributions create problems all their own.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781639734085
DROWNING: The Rescue of Flight 1421 by T. J. Newman (Thriller)
Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors --- but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with 12 passengers trapped inside. More than 200 feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his 11-year-old daughter, Shannon, are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives. Their only chance at survival is an elite rescue team on the surface led by professional diver Chris Kent --- Shannon’s mother and Will’s soon-to-be ex-wife --- who must work together with Will to find a way to save their daughter and rescue the passengers from the sealed airplane, which is now teetering on the edge of an undersea cliff. There’s not much time. There’s even less air.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781982177928
FAMILY LORE by Elizabeth Acevedo (Fiction)
Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake --- a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led --- her sisters are surprised. Has Flor foreseen her own death, or someone else’s? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters: Matilde, Pastora and Camila. But Flor isn’t the only person with secrets: her sisters are hiding things, too. And the next generation, cousins Ona and Yadi, face tumult of their own. Spanning the three days prior to the wake, FAMILY LORE traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City.
Ecco | 9780063207271
THE GHOSTS OF BEATRICE BIRD by Louisa Morgan (Historical Fantasy)
Beatrice Bird is haunted by ghosts --- a gift she's had since she was a small child. Unfortunately, it's an ability that has now grown more intense, shifting from flashes and feelings to physical manifestations she can't escape. In a desperate attempt to find relief, Beatrice flees her home, her partner and her psychology practice in San Francisco for a remote island with only nuns and a few cows for company. She doesn’t call home. She sees as few people as she possibly can. Then she meets Anne Iredale, a timid woman who has lost everything that matters to her. For the first time in a long time, Beatrice's gift will be called on to help someone in need. But the ghosts have taken on an even darker edge --- and there is something sinister lurking in the shadows.
Redhook | 9780316628785
THE GIRLS OF SUMMER by Katie Bishop (Psychological Thriller)
Rachel has been in love with Alistair for 15 years. Even though she’s now married to someone else. Even though she was a teenager when they met. Even though he is 20 years older than her. Rachel and Alistair’s summer love affair on a remote, sun-trapped Greek island has consumed her since she was 17, obliterating everything in its wake. But as Rachel becomes increasingly obsessed with reliving the events of so long ago, she reconnects with the other girls who were similarly drawn to life on the island, where everyone acted in ways they never would at home. And as she does so, dark and deeply suppressed secrets about her first love affair begin to rise to the surface, as well as the truth about her time working for an enigmatic and wealthy man who controlled so much more than she ever could have realized.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250863935
HELLO STRANGER by Katherine Center (Romantic Comedy)
Struggling artist Sadie Montgomery has been named a finalist in the national portrait competition of her dreams. But then she winds up with a rare condition where human faces look like jumbled puzzle pieces. With only a few weeks to paint the best portrait of her entire life, Sadie will do anything to reverse her condition and get back to work, but it’s anyone’s guess when (or even if) that will happen. Enter her dog’s charming veterinarian (who may or may not be Sadie’s daydream fiancé) and her bowling-jacket-wearing, Vespa-riding neighbor (who she can’t seem to stay away from) --- both vying for her attention and adding to the chaos. The truth is, seeing the world differently has its upsides. And love has an undeniable way of giving us courage. And the best way of looking is always, always with the heart.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250336156
A HOUSE WITH GOOD BONES by T. Kingfisher (Gothic Horror/Fantasy)
Sam Montgomery is excited for a rare extended visit with his mother and looking forward to nights with just the two of them, drinking boxed wine and watching murder mystery shows. But stepping inside, she quickly realizes that home isn’t what it used to be. Gone is the warm, cluttered charm her mom is known for; now the walls are painted a sterile white. Her mom jumps at the smallest noises and looks over her shoulder even when she’s the only person in the room. And when Sam steps out back to clear her head, she finds a jar of teeth hidden beneath the magazine-worthy rose bushes, and vultures are circling the garden from above. To find out what has her mom so frightened in her own home, Sam will go digging for the truth. But some secrets are better left buried.
Tor Nightfire | 9781250829818
THE LAUGHTER by Sonora Jha (Fiction)
Dr. Oliver Harding, a tenured professor of English, is long settled into the routines of a divorced, aging academic. But his quiet, staid life is upended by his new colleague, Ruhaba Khan, a dynamic Pakistani Muslim law professor. Ruhaba unexpectedly ignites Oliver’s long-dormant passions, a secret desire that quickly tips towards obsession after her teenaged nephew, Adil Alam, arrives from France to stay with her. Drawn to them, Oliver tries to reconcile his discomfort with the worlds from which they come, and to quiet his sense of dismay at the encroaching change they represent. After protests break out demanding diversity across the university, Oliver finds himself and his beliefs under fire, even as his past reveals a picture more complicated than it seems.
HarperVia | 9780063240261
LEARNED BY HEART by Emma Donoghue (Historical Romance)
Drawing on years of investigation and Anne Lister’s five-million-word secret journal, LEARNED BY HEART is the long-buried love story of Eliza Raine, an orphan heiress banished from India to England at age six, and Anne Lister, a brilliant, troublesome tomboy. Eliza and Anne meet at the Manor School for young ladies in York in 1805 when they are both 14.
Back Bay Books | 9780316564441
THE LEAVING SEASON: A Memoir by Kelly McMasters (Memoir/Essays)
Kelly McMasters found herself in her mid-30s living her fantasy: she’d moved with her husband from New York City to rural Pennsylvania, where their children roamed idyllic acres. The pastoral landscape and the bookshop they opened were restorative at first, for her and her marriage. But soon she was quietly plotting her escape. In THE LEAVING SEASON, McMasters chronicles the heady rush of falling in love and carving out a life in the city, the slow dissolution of her relationship in an isolated farmhouse, and the complexities of making a new home for herself and her children as a single parent. She delves into the tricky and often devastating balance between seeing and being seen; loss and longing; desire and doubt; and the paradox of leaving what you love in order to survive.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324076056
LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE by Kristan Higgins (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Lark Smith has always had a plan for her life: find a fantastic guy, create a marriage as blissful as her parents’, pop out a couple of kids, and build a rewarding career as an oncologist. Things aren’t going so well. For one, the guy didn’t work out. Two, she’s just been transferred out of oncology for being too emotional. Three, her parents just split up. A potential solution comes from the foul-tempered and renowned surgeon Lorenzo Santini (aka Dr. Satan), who needs a date this summer for his sister’s wedding. In exchange, he could make a few introductions and maybe get Lark back into the field of her choice. As a sucker for old people and fake relationships, Lark agrees. But she instantly falls for his big, warm family. Especially his estranged brother. Meanwhile, Lark’s mom has moved in with Lark’s colorful landlady, Joy, and an unlikely friendship blossoms.
Berkley | 9780593547656
THE MADWOMEN OF PARIS by Jennifer Cody Epstein (Historical Fiction)
When Josephine arrives at the Salpêtrière asylum, she is covered in blood, badly bruised and suffering from amnesia. She is quickly diagnosed with what the Paris papers are calling “the epidemic of the age”: hysteria, a disease so baffling and widespread that Doctor Jean-Martin Charcot, the asylum’s famous director, devotes many of his popular public lectures to the malady. But as Josephine’s fame grows, her memory starts to return --- and, with it, images of a terrible crime she’s convinced she’s committed. Haunted by these visions, she starts spiraling into seeming insanity. Laure, a ward assistant, begins to plot their escape from the Salpêtrière and its doctors. First, though, she must confirm whether Josephine is truly a madwoman, doomed to die in the asylum --- or a murderer, destined for the guillotine.
Ballantine Books | 9780593158029
MAKING A SCENE by Constance Wu (Memoir/Essays)
Growing up in the friendly suburbs of Richmond, Virginia, Constance Wu was often scolded for having big feelings or strong reactions. “Good girls don’t make scenes,” people warned her. And while she spent most of her childhood suppressing her bold, emotional nature, she found an early outlet in local community theater. At 18 she moved to New York, where she’d spend the next 10 years of her life auditioning, waiting tables and struggling to make rent before her two big breaks: the TV sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat” and the hit film Crazy Rich Asians. Through raw and relatable essays, Constance shares private memories of childhood, young love and heartbreak, sexual assault and harassment, and how she “made it” in Hollywood.
Scribner | 9781982188559
THE MEASURE by Nikki Erlick (Fiction/Magical Realism)
It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee and head out. But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live. From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise? As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063204218
MISTER MAGIC by Kiersten White (Supernatural Thriller)
Thirty years after a tragic accident shut down production of the classic children’s program “Mister Magic,” the five surviving cast members --- known as the Circle of Friends --- have spent their lives searching for the happiness they felt while they were on it. Then a twist of fate brings them back together at the remote desert filming compound. Even though they haven’t seen each other for years, they understand one another better than anyone has since. After all, they’re the only ones who hold the secret of that circle, the mystery of the magic man in his infinitely black cape, and, maybe, the answers to what really happened on that deadly last day. But as the Circle of Friends reclaim parts of their past, they begin to wonder: Are they here by choice, or have they been lured into a trap?
Del Rey | 9780593359280
THE RACHEL INCIDENT by Caroline O'Donoghue (Fiction)
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate, and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them. When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife.
Vintage | 9780593469446
RESURRECTION WALK: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel by Michael Connelly (Legal Thriller)
After getting a wrongfully convicted man out of prison, defense attorney Mickey Haller is inundated with pleas from incarcerated people claiming innocence. He enlists his half-brother, retired LAPD Detective Harry Bosch, to weed through the letters, knowing most claims will be false. Bosch pulls a needle from the haystack: a woman in prison for killing her husband, a sheriff’s deputy, but who still maintains her innocence. Bosch reviews the case and sees elements that don’t add up, and a sheriff’s department intent on bringing quick justice in the killing of one of its own. The path for both lawyer and investigator is fraught with danger from those who don’t want the case reopened and will stop at nothing to keep the Haller-Bosch dream team from finding the truth.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538767153
RETRIBUTION: A Koa Kane Hawaiian Mystery by Robert McCaw (Mystery/Thriller)
In the back alley of a bar on Hawaii Island, a young man is found stabbed to death. When Hilo Chief Detective Koa Kane begins investigating the crime, the murder weapon is recovered only a few feet away from the body. Crime scene technicians find fingerprints on the knife --- they are a perfect match for Koa’s younger brother, Ikaika. As the brothers scramble to prove Ikaika’s innocence, another crime sends shockwaves through the Hilo police force. A sniper tries to take out Makanui, Koa’s closest colleague. As Koa tries to figure out if these crimes are linked, the sinister force continues their killing spree, threatening Koa and his loved ones at every turn. Could Koa be the real target? If so, who is behind this trail of retribution?
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608096176
SING HER DOWN by Ivy Pochoda (Thriller)
Florence "Florida" Baum is not the hapless innocent she claims to be when she arrives at the Arizona women's prison --- or so her ex-cellmate, Diosmary Sandoval, keeps insinuating. Dios knows the truth about Florida's crimes, understands the truth that Florence hides even from herself: that she wasn't a victim of circumstance, an unlucky bystander misled by a bad man. Dios knows that darkness lives in women too, despite the world's refusal to see it. And she is determined to open Florida's eyes and unleash her true self. When an unexpected reprieve gives both women their freedom, Dios' fixation on Florida turns into a dangerous obsession, and a deadly cat-and-mouse chase ensues from Arizona to the desolate streets of Los Angeles.
Picador | 9781250335791
SUMMER FRIDAYS by Suzanne Rindell (Romance)
Paperback Original
Summer 1999: Twentysomething Sawyer is striving to make it in New York. Between her assistant job in publishing, her secret dreams of becoming a writer, and her upcoming wedding to her college boyfriend, her plate is full. But she is facing an incredibly lonely summer as her fiancé has been spending longer and longer hours at work ---- with an all-too-close female colleague, Kendra. When Kendra's boyfriend, Nick, invites Sawyer to meet up and compare notes about their suspicions, the meeting goes awry. But then Nick seeks out Sawyer online to apologize, and a friendship develops. They begin an unofficial ritual --- exploring New York City together every summer Friday --- and soon enough they are living for their Friday afternoons together. But what happens when the summer is over?
Dutton | 9780593473917
TRAITORS GATE by Jeffrey Archer (Mystery/Thriller)
The Tower of London is impenetrable, well-protected, secure, and home to the most valuable jewels on earth. But once a year, the Metropolitan Police must execute the most secret operation in their armory as they transport the Crown Jewels across London. For four years, Chief Superintendent William Warwick --- together with his second-in-command, Inspector Ross Hogan --- has been in charge of the operation. And for four years, it’s run like clockwork. But this year, everything is about to change. Because master criminal Miles Faulkner has set his heart on pulling off the most outrageous theft in history --- and with a man on the inside, the odds are in his favor. Unless Warwick and Hogan can stop him before it’s too late.
HarperCollins | 9780008666873
THE WIND KNOWS MY NAME by Isabel Allende (Historical Fiction)
Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht --- the night his family loses everything. As her child’s safety becomes ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on a Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Díaz and her mother flee looming danger in El Salvador and seek refuge in the United States. But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination. Meanwhile, Selena Durán, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita’s mother.
Ballantine Books | 9780593598122
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