June 4, 2024

June 4, 2024

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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of June 3rd and June 10th 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 Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks feature for June, which includes Indie Next, LibraryReads, the Barnes & Noble Book Club, the "Good Morning America" Book Club, the PBS Books Readers Club, the "Read with Jenna" Today Show Book Club, Reese's Book Club, and the Target Book Club.

Now Available: THE FALL OF ROE
by Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer

Now Available: THE PECAN CHILDREN
by Quinn Connor

Join Us THIS Friday for Our
13th Annual Book Group Speed Dating Event!

Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events

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

Tuesday, June 4th at 9pm ET: Killer Author Club: The Killer Author Club was established in 2022 by Kimberly Belle, Heather Gudenkauf and Kaira Rouda as a unique platform for suspense and mystery fans to hear from their favorite authors. In this latest episode, Kimberly will be talking about her new thriller, THE PARIS WIDOW.

Wednesday, June 5th at 3pm ET: Barnes & Noble: Join Barnes & Noble as they welcome Ivy Pochoda for a live virtual discussion of her thriller, SING HER DOWN (which is now available in paperback), as part of their Midday Mystery Virtual Event series. Ivy will be in conversation with New York Times bestselling author Danielle Trussoni.

Wednesday, June 5th 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 Annabel Monaghan about her latest novel, SUMMER ROMANCE. It's the romantic and hilarious story of a professional organizer whose life is a mess, and the summer she gets unstuck with the help of someone unexpected from her past.

Monday, June 10th at 5pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: James Lee Burke will talk about his new book, CLETE. In this 24th installment of the Dave Robicheaux series, Dave and his partner and friend, Clete Purcel, attempt to stop ruthless smugglers of a dangerous new drug.

Tuesday, June 11th at 8pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Steve Berry and Grant Blackwood will talk about their new thriller, RED STAR FALLING, an action-packed adventure that finds Luke Daniels embarking on a quest in search of the legendary library of Ivan the Terrible.

This Week's Bonus News:
Our Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks for June

On Sale the Week of June 3rd in Hardcover

June 3rd

ERUPTION by Michael Crichton and James Patterson (Thriller)
Michael Crichton, the creator of Jurassic Park, “ER,” Twister and Westworld, had a passion project he’d been pursuing for years, ahead of his untimely passing in 2008. Knowing how special it was, his wife, Sherri Crichton, held back his notes and the partial manuscript until she found the right author to complete it: James Patterson. A history-making eruption is about to destroy the Big Island of Hawaii. But a secret held for decades by the US military is far more terrifying than any volcano.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316565073

June 4th

ALL THE SUMMERS IN BETWEEN by Brooke Lea Foster (Historical Fiction)
When wealthy, impulsive summer girl Margot meets hardworking and steady local girl Thea in the summer of 1967, the unlikely pair become fast friends, working alongside one another in a record store and spending every spare moment together. But after an unspeakable incident on one devastating August night, they don’t see one another for 10 years…until Margot suddenly reappears in Thea’s life, begging for help and harboring more than one dangerous secret. Thea can’t bring herself to refuse her beloved friend, but she also knows she can’t fully trust her either. Unfulfilled as a housewife, Thea enjoys the dazzling sense of adventure Margot brings to her life. But will the truth of what happened to them that fateful summer ruin everything?
Gallery Books | 9781668034378

AMBITION MONSTER: A Memoir by Jennifer Romolini (Memoir)
After years of relentlessly racing up the professional ladder, Jennifer Romolini reached the kind of success many crave: a high-profile, C-suite dream job, a book well-received enough that reporters wanted to know the secrets to her success, and a gig traveling around the country giving speeches on “making it.” She had a handsome and clever husband, and a precocious child. But beneath this polished surface was a powder keg of unresolved trauma and chronic overwork. It was all about to blow. Written with self-deprecation and wit, AMBITION MONSTER is a gutsy and powerful look at workaholism and the addictive nature of achievement, the lingering effect of childhood trauma, and the failures of our modern rat race.
Atria Books | 9781668056585

BECOMING TED by Matt Cain (Fiction)
If Ted Ainsworth were to compare himself to one of the ice cream flavors made by his family’s company, it might be vanilla --- sweet, inoffensive and pleasantly predictable. At 43, Ted is convinced there’s nothing remotely remarkable about him, except perhaps his luck in having landed handsome, charismatic Giles as a husband. Then Giles suddenly leaves him for another man, filling his social media feed with posts about #newlove and adventure. And Ted, who has spent nearly 20 years living with, and often for, another person, must reimagine the future he has happily taken for granted. But perhaps there is another Ted slowly blossoming now that he’s no longer in Giles’ shadow --- one who is funny, sassy and more uninhibited. Someone willing to take chances on new friendships and even new love.
A John Scognamiglio Book | 9781496745941

THE COAST ROAD by Alan Murrin (Fiction)
Set in 1994, THE COAST ROAD tells the story of two women --- Izzy Keaveney, a housewife, and Colette Crowley, a poet. Colette has left her husband and sons for a married man in Dublin. When she returns to her home in County Donegal to try to pick up the pieces of her old life, her husband, Shaun, a successful businessman, denies her access to her children. The only way she can see them is with the help of neighbor Izzy, who is acting as a go-between. Izzy also feels caught in a troubled marriage. The friendship that develops between them ultimately will lead to tragedy for one, and freedom for the other.
HarperVia | 9780063336520

THE COMFORT OF GHOSTS: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear (Historical Mystery)
London, 1945: Four adolescent orphans with a dark wartime history are squatting in a vacant Belgravia mansion --- the owners having fled London under heavy Luftwaffe bombing. Psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs visits the mansion on behalf of the owners and discovers that a demobilized soldier, gravely ill and reeling from his experiences overseas, has taken shelter with the group. Maisie’s quest to bring comfort to the youngsters and the ailing soldier brings to light a decades-old mystery concerning Maisie’s first husband, James Compton, who was killed while piloting an experimental fighter aircraft. As Maisie unravels the threads of her dead husband’s life, she is forced to examine her own painful past and question beliefs she has always accepted as true.
Soho Press | 9781641296069

DEAD TIRED: An Expectant Detectives Mystery by Kat Ailes (Mystery/Humor)
Alice didn’t think her maternity leave would involve so much, well, murder. Before becoming proud new moms, she and her friends bonded more than members of a prenatal group usually would, as they became accidental amateur sleuths and solved a crime together. Now, with all this behind them, Alice is keen to finally catch up on some sleep. So when an opportunity presents itself in the unlikely form of an eco-protest, Alice and her friends willingly chain themselves to trees and settle in as an excuse to get some overdue rest. However, the next morning one of their fellow protesters is found strangled, and any hope of a peaceful interlude is suddenly swept away. Soon Alice and her friends become entangled in a plot involving rogue artists, an enigmatic local entrepreneur and nude (optional) protesting.
Minotaur Books | 9781250322739

ENLIGHTENMENT by Sarah Perry (Gothic Mystery/Romance)
Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits --- torn between their commitment to religion and their desire to explore the world beyond their small Baptist community. It is two romantic relationships that will rend their friendship, and in the wake of this rupture, Thomas develops an obsession with a vanished 19th-century astronomer said to haunt a nearby manor, and Grace flees Aldleigh entirely for London. Over the course of 20 years, by coincidence and design, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as the mystery of the vanished astronomer unfolds into a devastating tale of love and scientific pursuit.
Mariner Books | 9780063352612

THE FALL OF ROE: The Rise of a New America by Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer (Politics)
In June 2022, Americans watched in shock as the Supreme Court reversed one of the nation’s landmark rulings. For nearly a half-century, Roe was synonymous with women’s rights and freedoms. Then, suddenly, it was gone. In their groundbreaking book, THE FALL OF ROE, Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer reveal the explosive inside story of how it happened. Their investigation charts the shocking political and religious campaign to take down abortion rights and remake American families, womanhood and the nation itself. In doing so, Dias and Lerer go beyond the traditional political narrative into the most personal reaches of American life.
Flatiron Books | 9781250881397

FAREWELL, AMETHYSTINE: An Easy Rawlins Mystery by Walter Mosley (Mystery)
January 1970. Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, LA’s premier Black detective, has a loving family, a beautiful home and a thriving investigation agency at 50 years old. All is right with the world…and then Amethystine Stoller, his own personal Helen of Troy, arrives. Her ex-husband is missing, which is a simple enough case. But even as Easy takes his first step in the investigation, he trips. He falls into the memory of things past --- little things, like loss, love, a world war, and a hunger that has eaten at him since he was a Black boy on his own on the streets of Fifth Ward, Houston, Texas. The missing ex, a young white man named Curt Fields, is found dead. Easy’s only real friend in the LAPD, Melvin Suggs, has gone into hiding rather than allow his femme fatale wife to go to the gas chamber. And that’s only the beginning. Easy finds himself pressed into a reckoning.
Mulholland Books | 9780316491112

FIRE EXIT by Morgan Talty (Fiction)
From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation. On the far bank, he caught brief moments of his neighbor Elizabeth’s life --- from the day she came home from the hospital to her early 20s. But there’s always been something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from her and the rest of the tribal community. It’s the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep. Now, it’s been weeks since he’s seen Elizabeth, and Charles is worried. As he attempts to hold on to and care for what he can, he becomes increasingly haunted by his past and contends with questions he’s long been afraid to ask.
Tin House Books | 9781959030553

GODWIN by Joseph O'Neill (Fiction)
Mark Wolfe, a brilliant if self-thwarting technical writer, lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Sushila, and their toddler daughter. His half-brother Geoff, born and raised in the United Kingdom, is a desperate young soccer agent. He pulls Mark across the ocean into a scheme to track down an elusive prospect known only as “Godwin” --- an African teenager Geoff believes could be the next Lionel Messi. Narrated in turn by Mark and his work colleague, Lakesha Williams, GODWIN is a tale of family and migration, as well as an international adventure story that implicates the brothers in the beauty and ugliness of soccer, the perils and promises of international business, and the dark history of transatlantic money-making.
Pantheon | 9780593701324

HOLY CITY by Henry Wise (Thriller)
After a decade of exile precipitated by the tragic death of his mother, Will Seems returns home from Richmond to rural Southern Virginia, taking a job as deputy sheriff in a landscape given way to crime and defeat. His efforts to go about his life are wrecked when a mysterious, brutal homicide claims the life of an old friend, Tom Janders, forcing Will to face the true impetus for his return: not to honor his mother's memory, but to pay a debt to a Black friend who, in an act of selfless courage years ago, protected Will and suffered permanent disfigurement for it. Meanwhile, a man Will knows to be innocent is arrested for Tom's murder. Will must weigh his personal guilt against his public duty when the local Black community hires Bennico Watts, an unpredictable private detective from Richmond, to help him find the real killer.
Atlantic Monthly Press | 9780802162915

I'VE TRIED BEING NICE: Essays by Ann Leary (Essays)
Having arrived at a certain age (her prime), Ann Leary casts a wry backward glance at a life spent trying --- and often failing --- to be nice. With wit and surprising candor, Leary recounts the bedlam of home bat invasions, an obsession with online personality tests, and the mortification of taking ballroom dance lessons with her actor husband. She describes hilarious red-carpet fiascos and other observations from the sidelines of fame, while also touching upon her more poignant struggles with alcoholism, her love for her family, her dogs and so much more.
S&S/Marysue Rucci Books | 9781982120344

THE LAST NOTE OF WARNING by Katharine Schellman (Historical Mystery)
Prohibition is a dangerous time to be a working-class woman in New York City, but Vivian Kelly has finally found some measure of stability and freedom. By day, she’s a respectable shop assistant, delivering luxurious dresses to the city’s wealthy and elite. At night, she joins the madcap revelry of New York’s underworld, serving illegal drinks and dancing into the morning at a secretive, back-alley speakeasy known as the Nightingale. She's found, if not love, then something like it with her bootlegger sweetheart, Leo, even if she can't quite forget the allure of the Nightingale's sultry owner, Honor Huxley. Then the husband of a wealthy client is discovered dead in his study, and Vivian was the last known person to see him alive. With the police and the press both eager to name a culprit in the high-profile case, she finds herself the primary murder suspect.
Minotaur Books | 9781250325792

THE LAST SONG OF PENELOPE by Claire North (Historical Fiction)
Many years ago, Odysseus sailed to war and never returned. For 20 years, his wife, Penelope, and the women of Ithaca have guarded the isle against suitors and rival kings. But peace cannot be kept forever, and the balance of power is about to break. A beggar has arrived at the Palace. Salt-crusted and ocean-battered, he is scorned by the suitors --- but Penelope recognizes in him something terrible: her husband, Odysseus, returned at last. Yet this Odysseus is no hero. By returning to the island in disguise, he is not merely plotting his revenge against the suitors --- vengeance that will spark a civil war --- he's testing the loyalty of his queen. Has she been faithful to him all these years? And how much blood is Odysseus willing to shed to be sure?
Redhook | 9780316444101

MALAS by Marcela Fuentes (Fiction)
In 1951, a mysterious old woman confronts Pilar Aguirre in the small border town of La Cienega, Texas. The old woman is sure Pilar stole her husband and, in a heated outburst, lays a curse on Pilar and her family. More than 40 years later, Lulu Muñoz is dodging chaos at every turn: her troubled father’s moods, his rules, her secret life as singer in a punk band, but most of all her upcoming quinceañera. When her beloved grandmother passes away, Lulu finds herself drawn to the glamorous stranger who crashed the funeral and who lives alone and shunned on the edge of town. Their unexpected kinship picks at the secrets of Lulu’s family’s past. As the quinceañera looms --- and we move between these two strong, irascible female voices --- one woman must make peace with the past, and one girl pushes to embrace her future.
Viking | 9780593655788

MIRRORED HEAVENS by Rebecca Roanhorse (Historical Fantasy)
Serapio, avatar of the Crow God Reborn and the newly crowned Carrion King, rules Tova. But his enemies gather both on distant shores and within his own city as the matrons of the clans scheme to destroy him. And deep in the alleys of the Maw, a new prophecy is whispered, this one from the Coyote God. It promises Serapio certain doom if its terrible dictates are not fulfilled. Meanwhile, Xiala is thrust back amongst her people as war comes first to the island of Teek. With their way of life and their magic under threat, she is their last best hope. And in the far northern wastelands, Naranpa, avatar of the Sun God, seeks a way to save Tova from the visions of fire that engulf her dreams. But another presence has begun stalking her nightmares, and the Jaguar God is on the hunt.
S&S/Saga Press | 9781534437708

OLD KING by Maxim Loskutoff (Historical Fiction)
In the summer of 1976, Duane Oshun finds himself stranded in a remote Montana town beset by a series of strange and menacing events. He takes a job as a logger and builds a cabin on an isolated road near a reclusive neighbor --- a hermit named Ted Kaczynski. The two men are captivated by the valley’s endangered old-growth forest, but Kaczynski’s violent grievances against modern society soon threaten the lives of all those around him. As Kaczynski’s bombs crescendo to the book’s devastating conclusion, OLD KING wrestles with the birth of the modern environmental movement, the accelerating dominion of technology in American life, and a new kind of violence that lives next door.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393868197

ONE DEADLY EYE: A Doc Ford Novel by Randy Wayne White (Thriller/Adventure)
A Russian diplomat disappears while Doc Ford is tagging great white sharks in South Africa, and members of a criminal brotherhood, Bratva, don’t think it’s a coincidence. They track the biologist to Dinkin’s Bay Marina on the west coast of Florida, where Brotherhood mercenaries have already deployed, prepared to pillage and kill in the wake of an approaching hurricane. No one, however, is prepared for a cataclysmic event that will forever change the island and leaves Doc to deal with escapees from Russia’s most dangerous prison, including a serial killer --- the Vulture Monk --- who has a taste for blood. His only ally is an enigmatic British inventor whose decision to ride out the storm might have more to do with revenge than protecting a priceless art collection.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335013606

THE ROAD TO THE COUNTRY by Chigozie Obioma (Historical Fiction)
Set in Nigeria in the late 1960s, THE ROAD TO THE COUNTRY is the epic story of a shy, bookish student haunted by long-held guilt who must go to war to free himself. When his younger brother disappears as the country explodes in civil war, Kunle must set out on an impossible rescue mission. Kunle’s search for his brother becomes a journey of atonement that will see him conscripted into the breakaway Biafran army and forced to fight a war he hardly understands, all while navigating the prophecies of a local Seer, he who marks Kunle as an abami eda --- one who will die and return to life.
Hogarth | 9780593596975

SERVICE MODEL by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Science Fiction/Adventure)
Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into its core programming, they murder their owner. The robot discovers they can also do something else they never did before: They can run away. Fleeing the household, they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating into ruins and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to human well-being is having to find a new purpose.
Tordotcom | 9781250290281

SHELTERWOOD by Lisa Wingate (Historical Fiction)
Oklahoma, 1909. Eleven-year-old Olive Augusta Radley knows that her stepfather doesn’t have good intentions toward the two Choctaw girls boarded in their home as wards. When the older girl disappears, Ollie flees to the woods, taking six-year-old Nessa with her. Together they begin a perilous journey to the remote Winding Stair Mountains, the notorious territory of outlaws, treasure hunters and desperate men. Oklahoma, 1990. Law enforcement ranger Valerie Boren-Odell arrives at newly minted Horsethief Trail National Park seeking a quiet place to balance a career and single parenthood. But no sooner has Valerie reported for duty than she’s faced with local controversy over the park’s opening, a teenage hiker gone missing from one of the trails, and the long-hidden burial site of three children unearthed in a cave.
Ballantine Books | 9780593726501

STUART WOODS' SMOLDER: A Stone Barrington Novel by Brett Battles
(Thriller/Adventure)
Finally enjoying some downtime in Santa Fe, Stone Barrington agrees to attend an art exhibit with a dear friend. There, he encounters an intriguing woman who is on the trail of a ring of art thieves. Always one to please, Stone offers his help. From Santa Fe to Los Angeles, it quickly becomes clear that her investigation has links to Stone --- particularly to rare Matilda Stone art, his mother’s paintings. And when old grudges come to light, Stone is forced to reckon with a familiar enemy. Stone must act fast before whoever is out to get him finally closes in on him…for good.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593540091

SWIFT RIVER by Essie Chambers (Historical Fiction)
It’s the summer of 1987 in Swift River, and Diamond Newberry is learning how to drive. Ever since her Pop disappeared seven years ago, she and her mother hitchhike everywhere they go. But that’s not the only reason Diamond stands out: she’s teased relentlessly about her weight, and since Pop has been gone, she’s the only Black person in all of Swift River. This summer, Ma is determined to declare Pop legally dead so that they can collect his life insurance money, get their house back from the bank, and finally move on. But when Diamond receives a letter from a relative she’s never met, key elements of Pop’s life are uncovered. She is introduced to two generations of African American Newberry women, whose lives span the 20th century and reveal a much larger picture of prejudice and abandonment, of love and devotion.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668027912

TELL ME WHO YOU ARE by Louisa Luna (Psychological Thriller)
Brooklyn psychiatrist Dr. Caroline Strange is certain she knows what's best for her patients, her family and pretty much everyone else. But that all changes when a troubled young man arrives for his appointment and makes a pair of alarming confessions: I am going to kill someone, and I know who you really are. It seems Nelson Schack may be one step ahead when detectives show up later that day, inquiring about a missing woman. It looks like Nelson has made good on his threat --- yet somehow it’s Dr. Caroline who becomes the prime suspect. Convinced the police are incompetent, Dr. Caroline takes matters into her own hands, chasing down the elusive Nelson and running headlong into a past she has spent her entire life trying to forget.
MCD | 9780374612795

TIDAL CREATURES by Seanan McGuire (Dark Fantasy)
All across the world, people look up at the moon and dream of gods. Gods of knowledge and wisdom, gods of tides and longevity. Over time, some of these moon gods incarnated into the human world alongside the other manifest natural concepts. Their job is to cross the sky above the Impossible City --- the heart of all creation --- to keep it connected to reality. And someone is killing them. There are so many of them that it's easy for a few disappearances to slip through the cracks. But they aren't limitless. In the name of the moon, the lunar divinities must uncover the roots of the plot and thwart the true goal of those behind these attacks --- control of the Impossible City itself.
Tordotcom | 9781250333551

THE UNWEDDING by Ally Condie (Mystery/Thriller)
Ellery Wainwright and her husband, Luke, were supposed to spend their 20th wedding anniversary together at the luxurious Resort at Broken Point in Big Sur, California. But now she’s traveling solo. To add insult to injury, there’s a wedding at Broken Point scheduled during her stay. Ellery isn’t certain of anything except for her love for her kids and her growing realization that this place, though beautiful, is unsettling. When Ellery discovers the body of the groom floating in the pool in the rain, she realizes that she is not the only one whose future is no longer guaranteed. Before the police can reach Broken Point, a mudslide takes out the road to the resort, leaving the guests trapped. When another guest dies, it’s clear something horrible is brewing.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538757581

WHEN THE SEA CAME ALIVE: An Oral History of D-Day by Garrett M. Graff (Oral History)
D-Day is one of history’s greatest and most unbelievable military and human triumphs. Though the full campaign lasted just over a month, the surprise landing of over 150,000 Allied troops on the morning of June 6, 1944, is understood to be the moment that turned the tide for the Allied forces and ultimately led to the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II. Now, bestselling author and historian Garrett M. Graff explores the full impact of this world-changing event --- from the secret creation of landing plans by top government and military officials and organization of troops, to the moment the boat doors opened to reveal the beach where men fought for their lives and the future of the free world.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781668027813

WHEN WOMEN RAN FIFTH AVENUE: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion by Julie Satow (History)
In the 1930s, Hortense Odlum of Bonwit Teller came to her husband's department store as a housewife tasked with attracting more shoppers like herself, and she wound up running the company. Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor championed American designers during World War II --- before which US fashions were almost exclusively Parisian copies --- becoming the first businesswoman to earn a $1 million salary. And in the 1960s, Geraldine Stutz of Henri Bendel reinvented the look of the modern department store. With a preternatural sense for trends, she inspired a devoted following of ultra-chic shoppers as well as decades of copycats. In WHEN WOMEN RAN FIFTH AVENUE, journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain on three visionaries who took great risks, forging new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps.
Doubleday | 9780385548755

On Sale the Week of June 3rd in Paperback

June 1st

SUNSET LAKE RESORT by Joanne Jackson (Mystery)
Paperback Original
When Ruby’s father passes away but fails to leave her the millions some expected, Steve, her husband of 35 years, moves out. Alone, but in control of her own affairs for the first time in her life, Ruby is torn between panic and relief. When she investigates the remote beach cabin her father had left her instead of his estate, she discovers a dilapidated beach resort in a remote location, seemingly untouched since its former owner, Cecelia Johansen, died under mysterious circumstances. Despite the condition of the property and rumors it is haunted, Ruby decides to move to Sunset Lake Resort, determined to find out why her father bought it and why he left it to her.
Stonehouse Publishing | 9781988754567

June 4th

BANYAN MOON by Thao Thai (Fiction)
When Ann Tran gets the call that her fiercely beloved grandmother, Minh, has passed away, her life is already at a crossroads. In the years since she’s last seen Minh, Ann has built a seemingly perfect life, but it all crumbles with one positive pregnancy test. Now she returns home to Florida to face her estranged mother, Huơng. Huơng is simultaneously mourning her mother and resenting her for having the relationship with Ann that she never did. Then Ann and Huơng learn that Minh has left them both the Banyan House, the crumbling old manor that was Ann’s childhood home. Under the same roof for the first time in years, mother and daughter must face the simmering questions of their past and their uncertain futures, while trying to rebuild their relationship without the one person who’s always held them together.
Mariner Books | 9780063267145

THE BEAST YOU ARE: Stories by Paul Tremblay (Supernatural Thriller & Horror/Short Stories)
The 15 pieces in THE BEAST YOU ARE are all monsters of a kind, ready to loudly (and lovingly) smash through your head and into your heart. In “The Dead Thing,” a middle-schooler struggles to deal with the aftermath of her parents’ substance addictions and split. One day, her little brother claims he found a shoebox with “the dead thing” inside, but he won’t show it to her. In “The Last Conversation,” a person wakes in a sterile, white room and begins to receive instructions via intercom from a woman named Anne. When they are finally allowed to leave the room to complete a task, what they find is as shocking as it is heartbreaking. The title novella is a mini epic in which the destinies and secrets of a village, a dog and a cat are intertwined with a giant monster that returns to wreak havoc every 30 years.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063069978

THE BELL IN THE FOG by Lev AC Rosen (Historical Mystery)
San Francisco, 1952. Detective Evander “Andy” Mills has started a new life for himself as a private detective, but his business hasn’t exactly taken off. It turns out that word spreads fast when you have a bad reputation, and no one in the queer community trusts him enough to ask an ex-cop for help. When James, an old flame from the war who had mysteriously disappeared, arrives in his offices above the Ruby, Andy wants to kick him out. But the job seems to be a simple case of blackmail, and Andy’s debts are piling up. He agrees to investigate, despite everything it stirs up. The case will take him back to the shadowy, closeted world of the Navy, and then out into the gay bars of the city, where the past rises up to meet him, like the swell of the ocean under a warship.
Forge Books | 9781250834270

BLACK BIRD: A Nik Byron Investigation by Mark Pawlosky (Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
Something --- or someone --- is killing residents in a remote religious compound in Idaho, and Newshound reporter Nik Byron is determined to find out what's behind the deaths. Could Xion Labs' top-secret vaccine program be connected? Nik suspects so, but he's being stonewalled at every turn. As he inches closer to the truth, Nik's professional enemies move to quash his investigation, threaten his career and destroy his personal life. With his world crumbling, Nik finds one last lead: Puck Hall, a resolute, free-spirited young woman and Xion Labs researcher, who is soloing the Appalachian Trail. It's only when Puck, barely clinging to life after eluding trained killers, crawls out of the wilderness that Nik and a rookie reporter cobble together the nightmarish facts that bring the story into focus.
Ramblin' House Press | 9798218330033

THE BULLET GARDEN: An Earl Swagger Novel by Stephen Hunter (Historical Thriller)
July, 1944: The lush, rolling hills of Normandy are dotted with a new feature --- German snipers. From their vantage points, they pick off hundreds of Allied soldiers every day, bringing the D-Day invasion to its knees. It’s clear that someone is tipping off these snipers with the locations of American GIs. But who? And how? General Eisenhower demands his intelligence service to find the best shot in the Allied military to counter this deadly SS operation. Enter Pacific hero Earl Swagger, who is assigned this crucial and bloody mission. With crosshairs on his back, Swagger can’t trust anyone as he infiltrates the shadowy corners of London and France for answers.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781668061237

CROOK MANIFESTO by Colson Whitehead (Historical Fiction)
1971. Ray Carney’s days moving stolen goods are over. It’s strictly the straight-and-narrow for him --- until he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter and decides to hit up his old police contact, Munson, fixer extraordinaire. But Munson has his own favors to ask of Carney. 1973. Pepper is Carney’s endearingly violent partner in crime who takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem. He finds himself in a freaky world of Hollywood stars, up-and-coming comedians, celebrity drug dealers, hustlers, mobsters and hit men. 1976. Carney's wife, Elizabeth, is campaigning for her childhood friend, the former assistant D.A. and rising politician Alexander Oakes. When a fire severely injures one of Carney’s tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it.
Vintage | 9780525567288

DEVIL’S KITCHEN by Candice Fox (Thriller)
Paperback Original
The firefighting crew of Engine 99 has spent years rushing fearlessly into the hot zone of major fires across New York City. This tight-knit, four-person unit has faced danger head-on, saving countless lives and stopping raging fires before they can cause major destruction. They've also stolen millions from banks, jewelry stores and art galleries. Under the cover of saving the city, these men have used their knowledge and specialist equipment to become the most successful heist crew on the East Coast. Andy Nearland, the newest member of Engine 99, is good at keeping secrets. She's been brought on to help with their biggest job ever --- hitting New York's largest private storage facility, an expensive treasure trove for the rich and famous. She's also an undercover operative, charged with bringing the crew to justice.
Forge Books | 9781250345752

THE DISSIDENT by Paul Goldberg (Historical Mystery/Thriller)
On his wedding day in 1976, Viktor Moroz stumbles upon a murder scene: two gay men, one of them a U.S. official, have been axed to death in Moscow. Viktor, a Jewish refusenik, is stuck in the Soviet Union because the government has denied his application to leave for Israel. But the KGB spots him leaving the murder scene. Plucked off the street, he’s given a choice: find the murderer or become the suspect of convenience. His deadline is nine days later, when Henry Kissinger will be arriving in Moscow. To help solve the case, Viktor ropes in his community. As he struggles to determine whom to trust, he’s forced to question not only the KGB’s murky motives but also those of his fellow refuseniks --- and the man he admires above all: Kissinger himself.
Picador | 9781250208583

DON’T ASK, DON’T FOLLOW by Mary Keliikoa (Domestic Thriller/Mystery)
Paperback Original
Beth Ralston, a paralegal in Portland, Oregon, would rather be racking up billable hours than mingling at an office party --- especially when her sister Lindsay, aka her plus one, is a no-show. After making her obligatory rounds, Beth returns to her office to find that her boss has been murdered. She sees a woman fleeing the scene. Was that Lindsay? Unable to catch up to her in time, Beth waits for the police to arrive and notices that Lindsay has left her phone behind with an unsent text message to Beth displayed on the screen: “Don’t ask. Don’t follow.” While retracing Lindsay’s steps, determined to bring her home, Beth uncovers what her sister, an investigative reporter bent on changing the world, was trying to expose --- corruption, secrets and betrayal on an unimaginable level.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608096091

EVENTIDE, WATER CITY by Chris McKinney (Noir Science Fiction/Thriller)
2150: Eight years after the murder of Akira Kimura, Water City’s renowned scientist and anointed “God,” the nameless antihero who tracked down Akira’s killer is no longer a detective. While his wife climbs the corporate ladder of the city’s police department, he raises their now nine-year-old daughter and occasionally takes the odd job as a bounty hunter. His domestic bliss is threatened when Ascalon’s Scar --- the mark left by Akira’s destruction of Sessho-seki, the asteroid that nearly wiped out life on Earth --- vanishes from the sky and a familiar face thought dead returns from the ocean depths to exact revenge on humanity. On a journey to the moon and back, Water City’s antihero will risk everything, including his family, to save the last of the human race.
Soho Crime | 9781641295949

THE EXPECTANT DETECTIVES by Kat Ailes (Mystery/Humor)
For Alice and her partner, Joe, moving to the sleepy village of Penton is a chance to embrace country life and prepare for the birth of their first child. But the rural idyll they’d hoped for doesn’t quite pan out when a dead body is discovered at their local prenatal class, and they find themselves suspects in a murder investigation. With a cloud of suspicion hanging over the heads of the whole group, Alice and her new-found pregnant friends set out to solve the mystery and clear their names, with the help of her troublesome dog, Helen. However, there are more secrets and tensions in the heart of Penton than first meet the eye. Between the discovery of a shady commune up in the woods, the unearthing of a mysterious death years earlier, and the near-tragic poisoning of Helen, Alice is soon in way over her head.
Minotaur Books | 9781250322722

A FEVER IN THE HEARTLAND: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan (History)
The Roaring Twenties has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson. Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman --- Madge Oberholtzer --- who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees.
Penguin Books | 9780735225282

THE FIRST LADIES by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray (Historical Fiction)
The daughter of formerly enslaved parents, Mary McLeod Bethune refuses to back down as white supremacists attempt to thwart her work. She marches on as an activist and an educator, and as her reputation grows, she becomes a celebrity. Eleanor Roosevelt is eager to make Mary's acquaintance. Initially drawn together because of their shared belief in women’s rights and the power of education, Mary and Eleanor become fast friends. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected president, the two women begin to collaborate more closely. Eleanor becomes a controversial First Lady for her outspokenness, particularly on civil rights. And when she receives threats because of her strong ties to Mary, it only fuels the women’s desire to fight together for justice and equality.
Berkley | 9780593440292

FLAGS ON THE BAYOU by James Lee Burke (Historical Fiction)
In the fall of 1863, the Union army is in control of the Mississippi River. Much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is occupied. The Confederate army is retreating toward Texas and being replaced by Red Legs, irregulars commanded by a maniacal figure, and enslaved men and women are beginning to glimpse freedom. When Hannah Laveau, an enslaved woman working on the Lufkin plantation, is accused of murder, she goes on the run with Florence Milton, an abolitionist schoolteacher, dodging the local constable and the slavecatchers who prowl the bayous. Wade Lufkin, haunted by what he observed --- and did --- as a surgeon on the battlefield, has returned to his uncle’s plantation to convalesce, where he becomes enraptured by Hannah.
Grove Press ‎| 9780802163387

FOR THE LOVE OF SUMMER by Susan Mallery (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Erica is terrified that she’s losing her teen daughter, Summer, to her “other” family, especially to her stepmom, Allison. All it takes to blow up Allison’s happy life is one collect call. From prison. Her beloved husband, Peter, has been arrested, leaving Allison pregnant, broke, scared and alone with a toddler. But when her stepdaughter ferrets out the truth, the teen rushes to the last person Allison wants to ask for help --- her husband’s battle-ax ex. Erica would do anything for Summer, even take in the woman her daughter loves like a second mom. Allison feels intimidated by Erica --- a woman who would never let herself become so dependent on a man. But the more time they spend together, the more Allison realizes what Erica truly needs is a friend.
Mira ‎| 9780778305521

GOOD NIGHT, IRENE by Luis Alberto Urrea (Historical Fiction)
In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle. After D-Day, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Through her friendship with Dorothy and a love affair with a courageous American fighter pilot named Hans, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope is for all three of them to survive the war intact.
Back Bay Books ‎| 9780316265959

HALF-LIFE OF A STOLEN SISTER: A Novel of the Brontës by Rachel Cantor (Fiction)
How did sisters Emily, Charlotte and Anne write literary landmarks JANE EYRE, WUTHERING HEIGHTS and AGNES GREY? What in their lives and circumstances, in the choices they made, and in their close but complex relationships with one another made such greatness possible? In her new novel, Rachel Cantor melds biographical fact with unruly invention to illuminate the siblings’ genius, their bonds of love and duty, periods of furious creativity, and the ongoing tolls of illness, isolation and loss. As it tells the story of the Brontës, HALF-LIFE OF A STOLEN SISTER itself perpetually transforms and renews its own style and methods, sometimes hewing close to the facts of the Brontë lives as we know them (or think we know them), and at others radically reimagining the siblings.
Soho Press | 9781641296014

HOW CAN I HELP YOU by Laura Sims (Psychological Thriller)
No one knows Margo’s real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small-town public library know only her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of premature deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges. That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist, joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margo’s subtly sinister edge and watches her carefully. When a tragic incident in the library bathroom gives her a hint of Margo’s mysterious past, Patricia can’t resist digging deeper --- even as her new fixation becomes all-consuming and sends both women hurtling toward disaster.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593543719

KILLING THE LEGENDS: The Lethal Danger of Celebrity by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard (Biography)
Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Muhammad Ali. These three icons changed not only the worlds of music, film and sports, but the world itself. Their faces were known everywhere, in every nation, across every culture. And their stories became larger than life --- until their lives spun out of control at the hands of those they most trusted. In KILLING THE LEGENDS, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard explore the lives, legacies and tragic deaths of three of the most famous people of the 20th century. Each experienced immense success, then failures that forced them to change; each faced the challenge of growing old in fields that privilege youth; and finally, each became isolated, cocooned by wealth but vulnerable to the demands of those in their innermost circles.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250322111

THE LIGHT OVER LAKE COMO by Roland Merullo (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
It’s 1945. The Nazi occupation of Italy is in its closing days. But risk is ever present. It’s been nearly two years since Sarah Zinsi found tenuous sanctuary in Switzerland. Unmoored in a foreign land, she heeds a rumor that her village on the Lake Como shore has been liberated. Clutching her young daughter, Sarah navigates the arduous mountain trek back home to be with Luca Benedetto, the father of her child. A resister to the end, Luca has one last assignment: assassinate Mussolini, the man who destroyed everything Luca cherished and who forced the love of his life to flee. Sarah’s path crosses that of a charismatic and kindly black marketeer turned partisan spy. He vows to keep mother and child safe as Luca’s perilous mission escalates and the Nazis’ final moves devolve into chaos.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781662510786

MAYBE NEXT TIME by Cesca Major (Fiction)
It is an ordinary Monday, and harried literary agent Emma is flying out of the door. Preoccupied with work and her ever-growing to-do list, she fails to notice that her lovely husband Dan seems bereft, her son can barely meet her eye, and her daughter won’t go near her. As she rushes back through the door for dinner, Dan is still upset. They fight, and he walks out. Just as she realizes it is their anniversary, she hears the screech of brakes. Dan is dead. The next day Emma wakes up…and Dan is alive. It’s Monday again. And again. And again. Emma tries desperately to change the course of fate by doing different things each time she wakes up. But will she have the chance to find herself again, remember what she likes about her job, reconnect with her children and love her husband?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063239975

MOTHERHOOD SO WHITE: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America by Nefertiti Austin (Memoir)
Nefertiti Austin shares her story of starting a family through adoption as a single Black woman. In this unflinching account of her parenting journey, Nefertiti examines the history of adoption in the African American community, faces off against stereotypes of single Black moms, and confronts the reality of what it looks like to raise children of color and answer their questions about racism in modern-day America. This great book club read explores social and cultural bias, gives a new perspective on a familiar experience, and sparks meaningful conversations about what it looks like for Black families in white America today.
Sourcebooks | 9781464227264

THE PECAN CHILDREN by Quinn Connor (Gothic Horror/Magical Realism)
Paperback Original
In a small southern pecan town, the annual harvest is a time of both celebration and heartbreak. Even as families are forced to sell their orchards and move away, Lil Clearwater, keeper of a secret covenant with her land, swears she never will. When her twin Sasha returns to the dwindling town in hopes of reconnecting with the girl her heart never forgot, the sisters struggle to bridge their differences and share the immense burden of protecting their home from hungry forces intent on uprooting everything they love. But there is rot hiding deep beneath the surface. Ghostly fires light up the night, and troubling local folklore is revealed to be all too true. Confronted with the phantoms of their pasts and the devastating threat to their future, the sisters come to the stark realization that in the kudzu-choked South, nothing is ever as it appears.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728263908

SEVEN SUMMER WEEKENDS by Jane L. Rosen (Fiction)
Paperback Original
When a Zoom disaster upends Addison Irwin’s decade-long career at a posh Manhattan advertising agency, things look bleak for the thirty-something mid-western transplant. But an unexpected inheritance from an aunt she barely remembers --- a property on Fire Island, complete with guest house and artist’s studio --- changes everything. While debating whether to stay or sell, Addison learns that she’s also inherited her aunt’s list of eclectic guests, tying her to the island for seven summer weekends. Eager to convince Addison to keep the house rather than let a new buyer build a monstrosity in its place, the neighbors welcome her to their laid-back community. Well, all except the moody guy next door, who seems intent on glowering his way through life. Addison is determined not to let this detour on Fire Island throw her off track.
Berkley | 9780593640913

SHARK HEART: A Love Story by Emily Habeck (Fiction/Magical Realism)
For Lewis and Wren, their first year of marriage is also their last. A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis. He will retain most of his consciousness, memories and intellect, but his physical body will gradually turn into a great white shark. As Lewis develops the features and impulses of one of the most predatory creatures in the ocean, his complicated artist’s heart struggles to make peace with his unfulfilled dreams. At first, Wren internally resists her husband’s fate. Then a glimpse of Lewis’ developing carnivorous nature activates long-repressed memories for Wren, whose story vacillates between her childhood living on a houseboat in Oklahoma, her time with a college ex-girlfriend, and her unusual friendship with a woman pregnant with twin birds.
S&S/Marysue Rucci Books | 9781668006504

SUMMER ROMANCE by Annabel Monaghan (Romance)
Paperback Original
Ali Morris is a professional organizer whose own life is a mess. Her mom died two years ago, then her husband left, and she hasn’t worn pants with a zipper in longer than she cares to remember. No one is more surprised than Ali when the first time she takes off her wedding ring and puts on pants with hardware --- overalls count, right? --- she meets someone. Or rather, her dog claims a man for her...by peeing on him. Ethan smiles at Ali like her pants are just right --- like he likes what he sees. He looks at her like she’s a younger, braver version of herself. The last thing newly single mom Ali needs is to make her life messier, but there’s no harm in a little summer romance. Is there?
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593714089

THE SURVIVOR: An Eve Duncan Novel by Iris Johansen (Thriller)
When archaeologist Riley Smith comes to ask Eve Duncan for help, Eve has to say no. Yet she is intrigued by the prospect of an isolated island that holds a secret locked in time. Traveling to Southeast Asia, Riley is aware of the threat from treasure hunters who are already searching and have no qualms about killing to get what they want. When she successfully evades them and finds the perfectly preserved body of a female warrior, it is just what she needs to entice Eve to help unlock the mystery. As these two strong women seek answers about this extraordinary past life, Riley makes a living, breathing discovery that will change history. If she can escape the island and survive long enough to share it with the world.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538726389

TIANANMEN SQUARE by Lai Wen (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
As a child in Beijing in the 1970s, Lai lives with her family in a lively, working-class neighborhood near the heart of the city. Only Lai’s grandmother seems to really see Lai and believe that she can blossom beyond their circumstances. A gifted student, Lai wins a scholarship to study at the prestigious Peking University, where she soon falls in with a theatrical band of individualists and misfits dedicated to becoming their authentic selves, despite the Communist Party’s insistence on conformity. When student resistance hardens under the increasingly restrictive policies of the state, the group joins the masses of demonstrators and dreamers who display remarkable courage and loyalty in the face of danger. As 1989 unfolds, the spirit of change is in the air.
Spiegel & Grau | 9781954118393

TRIPLE SEC by TJ Alexander (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
As a bartender at Terror & Virtue, a swanky New York City cocktail lounge known for its romantic atmosphere and Insta-worthy drinks, Mel has witnessed plenty of disastrous dates. That, coupled with her own romantic life being in shambles, has Mel convinced love doesn’t exist. Everything changes when Bebe walks into the bar. She is beautiful, funny, knows her whiskeys --- and is happily married to her partner, Kade. Mel is resigned to forget the whole thing, but Bebe makes her a unique offer. Since she and Kade have an open marriage, she’s interested in taking Mel on a date. What starts as a fun romp turns into a burgeoning relationship, and soon Mel is trying all sorts of things she’d been avoiding. In the chaotic whirl of all these new experiences, she realizes there might be a spark between her and Kade as well.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781668021989

THE UNSETTLED by Ayana Mathis (Fiction)
Bonaparte, Alabama --- once 10,000 glorious Black-owned acres – is now a ghost town vanishing to depopulation, crooked developers and an eerie mist closing in on its shoreline. Dutchess Carson, Bonaparte's fiery, tough-talking protector, fights to keep its remaining 1,000 acres in the hands of the last five residents. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, her estranged daughter, Ava, is drawn into Ark --- a seductive, radical group with a commitment to Black self-determination in the spirit of the Black Panthers and MOVE, with a dash of the Weather Underground’s violent zeal. Ava’s 11-year-old son, Toussaint, wants out. His future awaits him on his grandmother’s land, where the sounds of cicada and frog song might save him if only he can make it there.
Vintage | 9780525435617

WATCH US SHINE by Marisa de los Santos (Fiction)
Cornelia Brown is reeling from a terrifying act of violence when she gets word that her mother, Ellie, has been badly injured in an accident. She returns to Virginia, to the house she grew up in, and in the weeks that follow, she watches her mother struggle to recover. In grief-stricken tones, Ellie begs Cornelia to bring her the Northern Lights, and despite her confusion at this mysterious plea, Cornelia vows to do so. With the help of her prickly sister, Ollie, Cornelia embarks on a mission to piece together the lost years of their mother’s life. Their quest takes them to unexpected places and into the worlds of strangers whose lives Ellie touched and irrevocably changed.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063095618

WHAT KIND OF MOTHER by Clay McLeod Chapman (Supernatural Horror/Domestic Thriller)
After striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her 17-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmers market. It’s there that she connects with old high school flame Henry McCabe, now a reclusive local fisherman whose infant son, Skyler, went missing five years ago. Everyone in town is sure Skyler is dead, but when Madi reads Henry’s palm, she’s haunted by strange and disturbing visions that suggest otherwise. As she follows the thread of these visions, Madi discovers a terrifying nightmare waiting at the center of the labyrinth --- and it’s coming for everyone she holds dear.
Quirk Books | 9781683694335

YOU COULD MAKE THIS PLACE BEAUTIFUL: A Memoir by Maggie Smith (Memoir)
In her memoir YOU COULD MAKE THIS PLACE BEAUTIFUL, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she’s known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work and patriarchy.
Atria/One Signal Publishers | 9781982185862

On Sale the Week of June 10th in Hardcover

June 11th

ALL FRIENDS ARE NECESSARY by Tomas Moniz (Fiction)
Efren “Chino” Flores has just moved back to the Bay Area from Seattle, jumping from sublet to sublet. In Washington, he was an adored middle school biology teacher with a loving wife, and a child on the way --- that is, until a stunning loss upended his life. Now he’s working temp jobs, terrified of commitment, and struggling to put himself back out into the world. But there to nurture Chino is a coterie of new and old friends and lovers who form a protective web around him. As he begins to date more men and women --- and to open himself up again to love --- Chino’s bonds with those around him grow both rich and profound. Like a fern blooming in the wake of a forest fire, new life comes after even the most devastating upheaval.
Algonquin Books | 9781643755816

ASSASSINS ANONYMOUS by Rob Hart (Thriller)
Mark was the most dangerous killer-for-hire in the world. But after learning the hard way that his life’s work made him more monster than man, he left all of that behind and joined a 12-step group for reformed killers. When Mark is viciously attacked by an unknown assailant, he is forced on the run. From New York to Singapore to London, he chases after clues while dodging attacks and trying to solve the puzzle of who’s after him. All without killing anyone. Or getting killed himself. For an assassin, Mark learns, nonviolence is a real hassle.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593717394

BEN & ME: In Search of a Founder's Formula for a Long and Useful Life by Eric Weiner (Biography/Travelogue)
Ben Franklin lingers in our lives and in our imaginations. One of only two non-presidents to appear on US currency, Franklin was a founder, statesman, scientist, inventor, diplomat, publisher, humorist and philosopher. He believed in the American experiment, but Ben Franklin’s greatest experiment was…Ben Franklin. In that spirit of betterment, Eric Weiner embarks on an ambitious quest to live the way Ben lived. Not a conventional biography, BEN & ME is a guide to living and thinking well, as Ben Franklin did. It is also about curiosity, diligence and, most of all, the elusive goal of self-improvement. As Weiner follows Franklin from Philadelphia to Paris, Boston to London, he attempts to uncover Ben’s life lessons, large and small.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781501129049

BURMA '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East by James Holland (History)
In February 1944, a ragtag collection of British clerks, drivers, doctors, muleteers and other base troops managed to defeat a much larger and sophisticated contingent of some of the finest infantry in the Japanese army on their march towards India. What became known as the Battle of the Admin Box turned the battle for Burma. Not only was it the first decisive victory for Allied troops against the Japanese, it demonstrated how the Japanese could be defeated. Lessons learned in this otherwise insignificant corner of the Far East set up the campaign in Burma that would follow, as General William Slim’s Fourteenth Army finally turned the tide of the war in the East. In BURMA ’44, acclaimed World War II historian James Holland offers a dramatic tale of victory against incredible odds.
Atlantic Monthly Press | 9780802160584

CLETE: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke (Thriller)
Clete Purcel is Dave Robicheaux’s longtime friend and partner in detective work. But he has a troubled past. When Clete leaves his car at the local car wash, only to return to find it ransacked by a group of thugs tied to the drug trade from Mexican cartels to Louisiana, it feels personal. Just as Clete starts to trail the culprits, Clara Bow hires Clete to investigate her scheming ex-husband, and a string of brutal deaths all link back to a heavily tattooed man who seems to lurk around every corner. Clete is experiencing shockingly lifelike hallucinations and questioning Clara’s ulterior motives when he and Dave start to hear rumors of a dangerous substance with potentially catastrophic effects. The thugs who destroyed his car might have been pawns in a scheme far darker than they could have imagined.
Atlantic Monthly Press | 9780802163073

DAD CAMP by Evan S. Porter (Fiction/Humor)
After his daughter, Avery, was born, John gave it all up to be a super dad. Since then, he’s spent nearly every waking second with Avery, who’s his absolute best bud. Or, at least, she was. When now-11-year-old Avery begins transforming into an eye-rolling zombie of a preteen who dreads spending time with him, a desperate John whisks her away for a weeklong father-daughter retreat to get their relationship back on track. But John’s attempts to bond only seem to drive his daughter further away, and his instincts tell him Avery is hiding something more than just preteen angst. Even worse, the camp is far from the idyllic getaway he had in mind. John finds himself navigating a group of toxic dads who can’t seem to get along, cringeworthy forced bonding activities, and a camp director who has it out for him.
Dutton | 9780593474402

FAMILIARIS by David Wroblewski (Historical Fiction)
It is spring 1919, and John Sawtelle's imagination has gotten him into trouble…again. Now John and his newlywed wife, Mary, along with their two best friends and their three dogs, are setting off for Wisconsin's north woods, where they hope to make a fresh start --- and, with a little luck, discover what it takes to live a life of meaning, purpose and adventure. But the place they are headed for is far stranger and more perilous than they realize, and it will take all their ingenuity, along with a few new friends --- human, animal and otherworldly --- to realize their dreams.
Blackstone Publishing | 9798212194297

THE FINAL ACT OF JULIETTE WILLOUGHBY by Ellery Lloyd (Mystery/Thriller)
Everybody knows that in 1938, runaway heiress artist Juliette Willoughby perished in an accidental studio fire in Paris, alongside her masterpiece Self Portrait As Sphinx. Fifty years later, two Cambridge art history students are confounded when they stumble across proof that the fire was no accident but something more sinister. What they uncover threatens the very foundation of Juliette’s aristocratic family and revives rumors of the infamous curse that has haunted the Willoughbys for generations. But what does their discovery mean? And how is it connected to a brutal murder in present-day Dubai?
Harper | 9780063323001

THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON CLUB: A Family Memoir by Griffin Dunne (Memoir)
Griffin Dunne’s memoir of growing up among larger-than-life characters in Hollywood and Manhattan finds wicked humor and glimmers of light in even the most painful of circumstances. In the midst of it all, Griffin’s 22-year-old sister, Dominique, was brutally strangled to death by her ex-boyfriend, leading to one of the most infamous public trials of the 1980s. The outcome was a travesty of justice that marked the beginning of their father Dominick Dunne’s career as a crime reporter for Vanity Fair and a victims' rights activist. But THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON CLUB is no mere celebrity memoir. It is, down to its bones, a family story that embraces the poignant absurdities and best and worst efforts of its lovable, infuriating, funny and moving characters --- its author most of all.
Penguin Press | 9780593652824

GETTING TO KNOW DEATH: A Meditation by Gail Godwin (Memoir)
Ingmar Bergman once said that an artist should always have one work between himself and death. When renowned author Gail Godwin tripped and broke her neck while watering the dogwood tree in her garden at age 85, a lifetime of writing and publishing behind her and a half-finished novel in tow, Bergman's idea quickly unfurled in front of her, forcing her to confront a creative life interrupted. In GETTING TO KNOW DEATH, Godwin shares what spoke to her while in a desperate place. Remembering those she has loved and survived, including a brother and father lost to suicide, and finding meaning in the encounters she has with other patients as she heals, she takes stock of a life toward the end of its long graceful arc, finding her path through the words she has written and the people she has loved.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781639734443

HORROR MOVIE by Paul Tremblay (Psychological Thriller/Horror)
In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick. Only three of the film’s scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fan base. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big-budget reboot. The man who played “The Thin Kid” is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. Still, he’s going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors and surreal fan conventions --- demons of the past be damned. But at what cost?
William Morrow | 9780063070011

HOW TO AGE DISGRACEFULLY by Clare Pooley (Fiction/Humor)
When Lydia takes a job running the Senior Citizens’ Social Club three afternoons a week, she assumes she’ll be spending her time drinking tea and playing gentle games of cards. The members of the Social Club, however, are not at all what Lydia was expecting. From Art, a failed actor turned kleptomaniac; to Daphne, who has been hiding from her dark past for decades; to Ruby, a Banksy-style knitter who gets revenge in yarn, these seniors look deceptively benign. But when age makes you invisible, secrets are so much easier to hide. When the city council threatens to sell the doomed community center building, the members of the Social Club join forces with their tiny friends in the daycare next door --- as well as the teenage father of one of the toddlers and a geriatric dog --- to save the building.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780593831496

MARGO'S GOT MONEY TROUBLES by Rufi Thorpe (Fiction/Humor)
The child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet enrolls at her local junior college. She is still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor or get pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby. Now, at 20, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed and on the verge of eviction. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon she finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Before she knows it, she has turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?
William Morrow | 9780063356580

MIDDLETIDE by Sarah Crouch (Literary Thriller)
In the small, Puget Sound town of Point Orchards, the lifeless body of Dr. Erin Landry is found hanging from a tree on the property of prodigal son and failed writer Elijah Leith. Sheriff Jim Godbout’s initial investigation points to an obvious suicide, but upon closer inspection, there seem to be clues of foul play when he discovers that the circumstances of the beautiful doctor’s death were ripped straight from the pages of Elijah Leith’s own novel. Out of money and motivation, Elijah throws himself into restoring the ramshackle cabin his father left behind and rekindling his relationship with Nakita, whom he betrayed but was never able to forget. As the town turns against him, Elijah must fight for his innocence against an unexpected foe who is close and cunning enough to flawlessly frame him for murder.
Atria Books | 9781668035092

MOONBOUND by Robin Sloan (Science Fiction/Adventure)
It is 11,000 years from now. A lot has happened, and yet a lot is still very familiar. Ariel is a boy in a small town under a wizard’s rule. Like many adventurers before him, Ariel is called to explore a world full of unimaginable glories and challenges: unknown enemies, a mission to save the world, a girl. Here, as they say, be dragons. But none of this happens before Ariel comes across an artifact from an earlier civilization, a sentient, record-keeping artificial intelligence that carries with it the perspective of the whole of human history --- and becomes both Ariel’s greatest ally and the narrator of our story.
MCD | 9780374610609

ONE LAST SUMMER by Kate Spencer (Romantic Comedy)
Clara Millen’s life is spiraling out of control: her dream job is a nightmare, she’s resoundingly single, and it’s been years since she’s taken some time off. Thankfully, this year she’ll join her friends on their annual summer vacation to their beloved childhood sleepover camp for a much-needed escape. But when Clara arrives at Pine Lake Camp, she faces yet another unwelcome change: the owners are retiring and selling the property. The news turns her plans for revelry into a night of reminiscing…and prompts a surprise heart-to-heart between Clara and Mack, her old camp nemesis and constant competitor. Soon the campfires aren't all that's throwing off sparks. And when one wildly passionate night turns into two (then too many to count!), Clara begins to wonder if she and Mack could have a future together.
Forever | 9781538737668

ONE OF OUR KIND by Nicola Yoon (Psychological Thriller)
Jasmyn and King Williams move their family to the planned Black utopia of Liberty, California, hoping to find a community of like-minded people. King settles in at once, embracing the Liberty ethos, including the luxe wellness center at the top of the hill. But Jasmyn struggles to find her place. She expected to find liberals and social justice activists striving for racial equality, but Liberty residents seem more focused on booking spa treatments and ignoring the world’s troubles. Jasmyn’s only friends in the community are equally perplexed and frustrated by most residents' outlook. Then Jasmyn discovers a terrible secret about Liberty and its founders. Frustration turns to dread as their loved ones start embracing the Liberty way of life. Will the truth destroy her world in ways she never could have imagined?
Knopf | 9780593470671

PLAYING FROM THE ROUGH: A Personal Journey through America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses by Jimmie James (Sports/Memoir)
Jimmie James spent his entire life defying the odds. He was born invisible. His birth certificate, long since filed away in some clerk’s office in East Texas, recorded facts about him that were deemed most relevant in the late 1950s: “colored” and “illegitimate.” His great-great-grandmother was enslaved, and his early life was confined by the privation and segregation of the late Jim Crow-era South. Four decades later, he embarked on his journey to play the 100 greatest golf courses in the United States. In a single year. From the first tee at Augusta National, the distance between the world he grew up in and the world of extreme privilege to which he’d now managed to gain access was impossible to ignore.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668005972

RED STAR FALLING: A Luke Daniels Thriller by Steve Berry with Grant Blackwood (Thriller/Adventure)
Luke Daniels receives a surprise visit from the head of a former CIA operation --- a failed attempt to assemble an espionage network within the Ukraine on the eve of the Russian invasion. It was during this mission that his friend, CIA case officer John Vince, was captured by Russian operatives and supposedly executed. But Luke is provided some shocking news. Vince is alive, in failing health, locked behind the walls of Russia’s brutal Solovetsky Island prison, and has a critical message he’ll give to no one but Luke. However, just as he manages to extract his friend from prison, Vince tragically dies, and his final words are rambling and incoherent. But they’re enough to plunge Luke into a hunt for something lost since the 15th century --- the legendary library of the first Tsar of All Russia, Ivan the Terrible.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538721117

THE ROM-COMMERS by Katherine Center (Romantic Comedy)
Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to rewrite a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates, it’s a break too big to pass up. Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for the writing gig of a lifetime. But Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone --- much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.” Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus, he doesn’t even care about the script; it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. But Emma is not going down without a fight. She will convince him that love stories matter --- even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But what if that kiss is accidentally amazing?
St. Martin's Press | 9781250283801

THE SONS OF EL REY by Alex Espinoza (Fiction)
Ernesto Vega has lived many lives, from pig farmer to construction worker to famed luchador El Rey Coyote, yet he has always worn a mask. He was discovered by a local lucha libre trainer at a time when luchadores --- Mexican wrestlers donning flamboyant masks and capes --- were treated as daredevils or rock stars. Ernesto found fame, rapidly gaining name recognition across Mexico, but at great expense, nearly costing him his marriage to his wife, Elena. Years later, in East Los Angeles, his son, Freddy Vega, is struggling to save his father’s gym, while Freddy’s own son, Julian, is searching for professional and romantic fulfillment as a Mexican American gay man refusing to be defined by stereotypes.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668032787

SWAN SONG by Elin Hilderbrand (Fiction)
Chief of Police Ed Kapenash is about to retire. Blond Sharon is going through a divorce. But when a 22-million-dollar summer home is purchased by the mysterious Richardsons --- how did they make their money, exactly? --- Ed, Sharon and everyone in the community are swept up in high drama. The Richardsons throw lavish parties, flirt with multiple locals, flaunt their wealth with not one but two yachts, and raise impossible hopes of everyone they meet. When their house burns to the ground and their most essential employee goes missing, the entire island is up in arms. The last of Elin Hilderbrand's bestselling Nantucket novels, SWAN SONG is a propulsive medley of glittering gatherings, sun-soaked drama, wisdom and heart, featuring the return of some of her most beloved characters.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316258876

TAKING LONDON: Winston Churchill and the Fight to Save Civilization by Martin Dugard (History)
Great Britain, summer 1940. The Battle of France is over, and the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Adolf Hitler’s powerful armies control Europe, and England stands alone against this juggernaut. In London, a new prime minister named Winston Churchill is determined to defeat the Nazi menace. Luckily for Churchill, one quirky Englishman has seen the future. Air Vice-Marshall Hugh Dowding, head of the Royal Air Force Fighter Command, has spent years preparing his nation's aerial defenses, utilizing the new technology of radar, training hundreds of hand-picked young pilots, and overseeing the design and purchase of the world's most up-to-date fighter aircraft. For the first time in history, the battlefield will not be land or water but entirely contested in the blue skies above. Nazi victory depends upon their overwhelming air power.
Dutton | 9780593473214

A TALENT FOR MURDER by Peter Swanson (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Martha Ratliff conceded long ago that she’d likely spend her life alone. She was fine with it, happy with her solo existence, stimulated by her work as a librarian in Maine. But then she met Alan, a charming and sweet-natured salesman whose job took him on the road for half the year. When he asked her to marry him, she said yes, even though he still felt a little bit like a stranger. A year in and the marriage was good, except for that strange blood streak on the back of one of his shirts he’d worn to a conference in Denver. Her curiosity turning to suspicion, Martha investigates the cities Alan visited over the past year and uncovers a disturbing pattern --- five unsolved cases of murdered women. Is she married to a serial killer? Or could it merely be a coincidence?
William Morrow | 9780063205031

TEHRANGELES by Porochista Khakpour (Fiction)
Iranian-American multimillionaires Ali and Homa Milani have it all --- a McMansion in the hills of Los Angeles, a microwaveable snack empire and four spirited daughters. There’s Violet, the big-hearted aspiring model; Roxanna, the chaotic influencer; Mina, the chronically online overachiever; and the impressionable health fanatic Haylee. On the verge of landing their own reality TV show, the Milanis realize their deepest secrets are about to be dragged out into the open before the cameras even roll. Each of the Milanis --- even their aloof Persian cat, Pari --- has something to hide, but the looming scrutiny of fame also threatens to bring the family closer than ever.
Pantheon | 9781524747909

TRAVELING: On the Path of Joni Mitchell by Ann Powers (Music/Biography)
For decades, Joni Mitchell’s life and music have enraptured listeners. One of the most celebrated artists of her generation, Mitchell has inspired countless musicians --- from peers like James Taylor, to inheritors like Prince and Brandi Carlile --- and authors, who have dissected her music and her life in their writing. At the same time, Mitchell has always been a force beckoning us still closer, as --- with the other arm --- she pushes us away. Given this, music critic Ann Powers wondered if there was another way to draw insights from the life of this singular musician who never stops moving, never stops experimenting. In TRAVELING, Powers seeks to understand Mitchell through her myriad journeys.
Dey Street Books | 9780062463722

THE UPTOWN LOCAL: Joy, Death, and Joan Didion: A Memoir by Cory Leadbeater (Memoir)
As an aspiring novelist in his early 20s, Cory Leadbeater was presented with an opportunity to work for a well-known writer whose identity was kept confidential. Since the tumultuous days of childhood, Cory had sought refuge from the rougher parts of life in the pages of books. Suddenly, he found himself the personal assistant to a titan of literature: Joan Didion. In the nine years that followed, Cory shared Joan’s rarefied world, transformed not only by her blazing intellect but also by her generous friendship and mentorship. But secretly, Cory was spiraling. He reeled from the death of a close friend. He spent his weekends at a federal prison visiting his father, who was serving time for fraud. He struggled day after day to write the novel that would validate him as a real writer. And meanwhile, the forces of addiction and depression loomed large.
Ecco | 9780063371576

On Sale the Week of June 10th in Paperback

June 11th

THE BLOCK PARTY by Jamie Day (Domestic Thriller)
The residents of the exclusive cul-de-sac on Alton Road are entangled in a web of secrets and scandal utterly unknown to the outside world, and even to each other. On the night of the annual summer block party, there has been a murder. But who did it and why takes readers back one year earlier, as rivalries and betrayals unfold --- discovering that the real danger lies within their own block. Nothing, and no one, is ever as it seems.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250336149

THE DIG by Anne Burt (Thriller)
Antonia King has a complicated relationship with the past. She and her brother were found amid the rubble of a bombed-out apartment in Sarajevo and taken in by a family of contractors in Thebes, Minnesota. Eager to escape the constraints of her adopted town, Antonia embarks on a high-powered legal career. But it isn’t long before her brother’s mysterious disappearance pulls her back home. There, over the course of a single day, Antonia unearths decades of secrets and lies, leading to shocking revelations about her adoptive family --- and the sinister truth behind her biological mother’s death --- that will alter the course of her life and change her definition of family forever.
Counterpoint | 9781640096479

EVERYTHING’S FINE by Cecilia Rabess (Fiction)
Jess is a senior in college, ambitious but aimless, when she meets Josh. He’s a privileged preppy in chinos, ready to inherit the world. She’s not expecting to inherit anything. A year later, they’re both working at the same investment bank. And when Jess finds herself the sole Black woman on the floor, overlooked and underestimated, Josh shows up for her in surprising --- if imperfect --- ways. Before long, an unlikely friendship forms. It gradually, and then suddenly, turns into an electrifying romance that shocks them both. Despite their differences, the force of their attraction propels the relationship forward. But as the cultural and political landscape shifts underneath them, Jess is forced to consider if their disagreements run deeper than she can bear, what she’s willing to compromise for love, and if, in fact, everything’s fine.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982187750

FIND ME IN CALIFORNIA by Kerry Lonsdale (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Raised by her fiercely passionate and free-spirited grandmother, Julia Hope has never gone without love. But as she tends to her only living relative during her final days, Julia struggles to overcome her fear of being alone. A thousand miles away, Matt Gatlin has managed to avoid the coldhearted grandmother with whom he once lived. But after 12 years of her being blessedly out of sight, she needs him. His resentments still raw, Matt packs up his car and reluctantly heads to California to confront a bitter past he thought was long gone. Over the next six days, Julia’s and Matt’s fates intersect. An old diary exposes the tragedy of a long-lost love. A history of secrets in two families comes to light. And on a lonely back road, Matt picks up an unusual yet captivating hitchhiker with a secret of her own.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781662514821

FORGIVING IMELDA MARCOS by Nathan Go (Fiction)
After suffering a serious heart injury, Lito Macaraeg reaches out to his estranged son --- a journalist who lives in the United States --- to promise him a scoop: the story of a secret meeting between Imelda Marcos and Corazon Aquino. Imelda was the flamboyant wife of the late Philippine dictator; Corazon was the wife of the opposition politician who was allegedly killed by the Marcoses. An unassuming housewife, Corazon rose up after her husband’s death to lead the massive rallies that eventually toppled the Marcos dictatorship. Lito was Corazon’s personal driver for many years, and her only companion on the journey from Manila to Baguio City to meet Imelda. Throughout the long drive, Lito’s loyalty to his employer is pitted against his own moral uncertainty about her desire to forgive Imelda.
Picador | 9781250335753

GOODBYE EARL: A Revenge Novel by Leesa Cross-Smith (Fiction)
In 2004, Rosemarie, Ada, Caroline and Kasey are in their final days of high school and on the precipice of all the things teenagers look forward to when anything in life seems possible. In 2019, Kasey has returned to her small Southern hometown of Goldie for the first time since high school --- and she still hasn’t told even her closest friends the truth of what really happened that summer after graduation, or what made her leave so abruptly. Now reunited with her friends in Goldie for a wedding, she’s determined to focus on the simple joy of being together again. But when she notices troubling signs that one of them might be in danger, she is catapulted back to that fateful summer. This time, Kasey refuses to let the worst moments of her past define her.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538707661

HOPE TO DIE: A DI Adam Fawley Thriller by Cara Hunter (Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
Midnight. A grisly murder scene at an isolated farm on the outskirts of Oxford. A man lies dead in the kitchen, shot point blank. The farm’s elderly owners claim the shooting was self-defense against a burglar. But something about the crime scene doesn’t sit right with DI Adam Fawley, whose gut tells him there’s more to their story. If the victim came to rob the house, why wasn’t he wearing gloves or carrying tools? Why didn’t the owner of the house call the police right after the shooting? Why did his wife wash his blood-splattered clothes immediately? Digging deeper, the police realize this is no ordinary burglary gone wrong. There’s an unmistakable link to an infamous case from years earlier involving a child’s murder and an alleged miscarriage of justice.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063263819

THE HOUSEKEEPERS by Alex Hay (Historical Fiction)
Mrs. King is no ordinary housekeeper. Born into a world of con artists and thieves, she’s made herself respectable, running the grandest home in Mayfair. The place is packed with treasures, a glittering symbol of wealth and power, but dark secrets lurk in the shadows. When Mrs. King is suddenly dismissed from her position, she recruits an eclectic group of women to join her in revenge. Their plan? On the night of the house’s highly anticipated costume ball --- set to be the most illustrious of the year --- they will rob it of its every possession, right under the noses of the distinguished guests and their elusive heiress host. But there’s one thing Mrs. King wants even more than money: the truth. And she’ll run any risk to get it.
Graydon House | 9781525804298

THE HOUSEMAID IS WATCHING by Freida McFadden (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
I used to clean other people's houses. Now, I can't believe this home is actually mine. My husband and I saved for years to give our children the life they deserve. Even though I'm wary of our new neighbor Mrs. Lowell, when she invites us over for dinner it's our chance to make friends. Her maid opens the door wearing a white apron, her hair in a tight bun. I know exactly what it's like to be in her shoes. But her cold stare gives me chills. The Lowells' maid isn't the only strange thing on our street. I'm sure I see a shadowy figure watching us. My husband leaves the house late at night. And when I meet a woman who lives across the way, her words chill me to the bone: Be careful of your neighbors. Did I make a terrible mistake moving my family here?
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464221132

THE HUNGRY BONES: An Alexa Glock Forensics Mystery by Sara E. Johnson (Mystery)
Paperback Original
Alexa Glock throws her hat in the ring for a position at Abertay University in Scotland. Her professional crush, Dr. Ben Odden, is interested in her expertise in teeth. Meanwhile, a human skeleton has been exhumed in a quaint former gold rush town in New Zealand. A benefactor believes that the bones are that of a Chinese gold miner, and she wants to repatriate the "hungry ghost" of her ancestor to China. Alexa is called in to examine the teeth and the secrets they contain. She didn't expect to discover a hole in the skull. When another skeleton is unearthed nearby and also shows evidence of a violent death, she heads to the police station to open a cold case. Then, the town's beloved school principal goes missing, and Alexa is quickly recruited to assist with the search.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781728257372

INK BLOOD SISTER SCRIBE by Emma Törzs (Fantasy/Thriller)
For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements. Half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect these books of magic. All magic comes with a price, though, and for years they have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna has isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book that Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy. In the process, they’ll uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063253476

INSIDE THREAT by Matthew Quirk (Political Thriller)
The White House has been breached, and the President is forced to flee to a massive doomsday bunker outside DC to defend against whatever comes next. Only the most trusted agents and officials are allowed in with him. Among them is Erik Hill, who has given his life to the Secret Service. Despite his growing disillusionment from seeing Washington corruption up close, Erik can’t ignore years of instincts honed on the job. The government is under attack, and no one is better equipped to face down the threat than he is. The evidence leads him to a conspiracy at the highest levels of power. As the killers strike inside the bunker, it will take everything Erik has to save his people, himself and his country.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063051706

JACKPOT SUMMER by Elyssa Friedland (Fiction)
Paperback Original
The four Jacobson children were raised to respect the value of a dollar. But now that they’re adults, their financial lives are in disarray. The siblings reunite when their newly widowed father puts their Jersey Shore beach house on the market. Packing up childhood memories isn’t easy, especially when there’s other drama brewing. Matthew is miserable at his corporate law job and wishes he had more time with his son; Laura’s marriage is imploding in spectacular fashion; Sophie’s art career is stalled while her boyfriend’s is on the rise; and Noah’s total failure to launch has him doing tech repair for pennies. When Noah sees an ad for a Powerball drawing, he and his sisters go in on tickets while Matthew passes. All hell breaks loose when one of the tickets is a winner, and three of the four Jacobsons become overnight millionaires.
Berkley | 9780593638545

LADY TAN’S CIRCLE OF WOMEN by Lisa See (Historical Fiction)
According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine. Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom. But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife --- embroider bound-foot slippers, pluck instruments, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.
Scribner | 9781982117092

MADDALENA AND THE DARK by Julia Fine (Gothic Historical Fiction)
Venice, 1717. Fifteen-year-old Luisa has only wanted one thing: to be the best at violin. As a student at the Ospedale della Pietà, she hopes to join the highest ranks of its illustrious girls’ orchestra and become a protégé of the great Antonio Vivaldi. Luisa is good at violin, but she is not the best. She has peers, but she does not have friends. Until Maddalena. After a scandal threatens her noble family’s reputation, Maddalena is sent to the Pietà to preserve her marriage prospects. When she meets Luisa, Maddalena feels the stirrings of a friendship unlike anything she has known. But Maddalena has a secret: she has hatched a dangerous plot to rescue her future her own way.
Flatiron Books | 9781250867902

THE MURDER WHEEL: A Joseph Spector Locked-Room Mystery by Tom Mead (Historical Mystery)
When a sensational killing rocks 1938 London, local newspaper ads offer a hefty sum to the person who can say whodunnit. A man has been shot dead at the top of a Ferris wheel, and his wife --- the only other person in their carriage --- insists on her innocence. But who else could have fired the deadly bullet and escaped unseen? The sheer implausibility of the claim is enough to whip the press into a frenzy. For young and idealistic Edmund Ibbs, the lawyer representing the accused, that frenzy may be his only hope at discovering the truth of the mysterious murder. As he digs into the case, Ibbs unwittingly enters a shadowy web of conspiracy and murder, soon finding himself implicated in not one but two seemingly impossible crimes.
Mysterious Press | 9781613165485

NIGHTBLOOM by Peace Adzo Medie (Fiction)
When Selasi and Akorfa were young girls in Ghana, they were more than just cousins; they were inseparable. They would do anything for each other, imploring their parents to let them be together, sharing their secrets, desires and private jokes. Then Selasi begins to change, becoming hostile and quiet; her grades suffer, and she builds a space around herself, shutting Akorfa out. Meanwhile, Akorfa is accepted to an American university with the goal of becoming a doctor. Although hopeful that she can create a fuller life as a woman in America, she discovers the insidious ways that racism places obstacles in her path once she leaves Ghana. It takes a crisis to bring the friends back together, with Selasi’s secret revealed and Akorfa forced to reckon with her role in their estrangement.
Algonquin Books | 9781643756301

NOT IN LOVE by Ali Hazelwood (Romance)
Paperback Original
Rue Siebert has a few friends she can always count on, the financial stability she yearned for as a kid, and a successful career as a biotech engineer at Kline, one of the most promising start-ups in the field of food science. Her world is stable, pleasant and hard-fought. Until a hostile takeover and its offensively attractive front man threatens to bring it all crumbling down. Eli Killgore and his business partners want Kline, period. Eli has his own reasons for pushing this deal through --- and he’s a man who gets what he wants. With one burning exception: Rue. The woman he can’t stop thinking about. The woman who's off-limits to him. Torn between loyalty and an undeniable attraction, Rue and Eli throw caution out the lab and the boardroom windows. Their affair is secret and has a built-in deadline: the day one of their companies will prevail.
Berkley | 9780593550427

OBSESSED: A Michael Bennett Psychological Thriller by James Patterson and James O. Born (Psychological Thriller)
A killer is obsessed with Detective Michael Bennett’s oldest daughter. Michael Bennett is obsessed with keeping his family safe. New York City is obsessed with cracking the killer’s code. You will be obsessed with James Patterson and James O. Born’s startling psychological thriller. Obsessed.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538752975

THE PARIS WIDOW by Kimberly Belle (Thriller)
Paperback Original
When Stella met Adam, she thought she finally had found a nice, normal guy --- a welcome change from her previous boyfriend and her precarious jetsetter lifestyle with him. But her secure world comes crashing down when Adam goes missing after an explosion in the city square. Unable to reach him, she panics. As the French police investigate, it’s revealed that Adam was on their radar as a dealer of rare and stolen antiquities with a long roster of criminal clients. Reeling from this news, Stella is determined not to leave Paris until she has the full story. Was Adam a random victim or the target of the explosion? And why is someone following her through the streets of Paris?
Park Row | 9780778307976

THE PHOENIX BALLROOM by Ruth Hogan (Fiction)
Paperback Original
For 50 years, Venetia Hargreaves’ world revolved around her husband. Now she’s a wealthy widow left with a beautiful but empty home. Once upon a time, she was a dance instructor who dreamed of opening her own ballroom school with a fellow teacher who won her heart. Instead, she chose the safer path. So, at 74, Venetia declares her independence. But something is still missing...until on one of her dog walks by the river, she passes by a building she remembers all too well. In her youth it was the spectacular Phoenix Ballroom, where she used to teach waltzes and tangos. These days it’s a community center and spiritualist church. Eager to revive at least one meaningful thing from her past, Venetia buys the Phoenix Ballroom and finds a supportive and loving community of lost souls who become a delightful multigenerational family-by-choice.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063348745

QUEEN OF EXILES by Vanessa Riley (Historical Fiction)
In 1810, Marie-Louise Christophe is crowned queen as her husband, Henry I, begins his reign over the first and only free Black nation in the Western Hemisphere. But despite their newfound freedom, Haitians still struggle under mountains of debt to France and indifference from former allies in Britain and the new United States. Louise desperately tries to steer the country’s political course as King Henry descends into a mire of mental illness. In 1820, King Henry is overthrown and dies by his own hand. Louise and her daughters manage to flee to Europe with their smuggled jewels. In exile, the resilient Louise redefines her role, recovering the fortune that Henry had lost and establishing herself as an equal to the kings of European nations.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063271005

RED MEMORY: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution by Tania Branigan (History)
“It is impossible to understand China today without understanding the Cultural Revolution,” Tania Branigan writes. During this decade of Maoist fanaticism between 1966 and 1976, children turned on parents, students condemned teachers, and as many as two million people died for their supposed political sins, while tens of millions were hounded, ostracized and imprisoned. Yet in China this brutal and turbulent period exists, for the most part, as an absence; official suppression and personal trauma have conspired in national amnesia. RED MEMORY uncovers 40 years of silence through the stories of individuals who lived through the madness.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324076285

RETURN TO VALETTO by Dominic Smith (Historical Fiction)
On a hilltop in Umbria sits Valetto. Once a thriving village, centuries of earthquakes, landslides and the lure of a better life have left it neglected. Only 10 residents remain, including the widows Serafino --- three eccentric sisters and their steely centenarian mother --- who live quietly in their medieval villa. Then their nephew and grandson, Hugh, returns. But someone else has arrived before him, laying claim to the cottage where Hugh spent his childhood summers. The captivating and no-nonsense Elisa Tomassi asserts that the family patriarch, Aldo Serafino, a resistance fighter whom her own family harbored, gave the cottage to them in gratitude. This revelation unravels a secret that has impacted Valetto across generations. Who will answer for the crimes of the past?
Picador | 9781250335777

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH: A Tale of Boom and Bust in the New Wild West by Finn Murphy (Memoir)
After decades as a long-haul trucker, Finn Murphy left the road and settled in Boulder County, Colorado. Before long he noticed that many of his neighbors were captivated by the prospect of vast riches in “the Hemp Space.” When hemp was legalized, after 80 years in federal exile, Colorado became the center of a hemp growing and processing boom. Figuring he’d harvest some of that easy money, Murphy bought a 36-acre farm. What could go wrong? Well, pretty much everything. ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH is the comic chronicle of a wild year as Murphy follows his Great American Dream, gradually losing his shirt but not his spirit.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324078913

SOMEBODY’S FOOL by Richard Russo (Fiction)
Ten years after the death of the magnetic Donald “Sully” Sullivan, the town of North Bath is going through a major transition as it is annexed by its much wealthier neighbor, Schuyler Springs. Peter, Sully’s son, is still grappling with his father’s tremendous legacy as well as his relationship to his own son, Thomas, wondering if he has been all that different a father than Sully was to him. Meanwhile, the towns’ newly consolidated police department falls into the hands of Charice Bond, after the resignation of Doug Raymer, the former North Bath police chief and Charice’s ex-lover. When a decomposing body turns up in the abandoned hotel situated between the two towns, Charice and Raymer are drawn together again and forced to address their complicated attraction to one another.
Vintage | 9780593310977

THAT NIGHT IN THE LIBRARY by Eva Jurczyk (Literary Mystery)
Paperback Original
On the night before graduation, seven students gather in the basement of their university's rare books library. They're not allowed in the library after closing time, but it's the perfect place for the ritual they want to perform --- one borrowed from the Greeks, said to free those who take part in it from the fear of death. And what better time to seek the wisdom of ancient gods than in the hours before they'll scatter in different directions to start their real lives? But just a few minutes into their celebration, the lights go out --- and one of them drops dead. As the body count rises, with nothing but the books to protect them, the group must figure out how to survive the night while trapped with a murderer.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781728295695

THE WEAVER AND THE WITCH QUEEN by Genevieve Gornichec
(Historical Fantasy/Romance)
Oddny and Gunnhild meet as children in 10th-century Norway. After a visiting wisewoman makes an ominous prophecy that involves Oddny, her sister Signy, and Gunnhild, the three girls take a blood oath to always help one another. When Oddny’s farm is destroyed and Signy is kidnapped by Viking raiders, Oddny is set adrift from the life she imagined --- but she's determined to save her sister, even as she finds herself drawn to one of the raiders who participated in the attack. And in the far north, Gunnhild, who fled her home years ago to learn the ways of a witch, is surprised to find that her destiny seems to be linked with that of the formidable King Eirik. But the bonds that hold the two women together are strong, and when they find their way back to each other, these bonds will be tested in ways they never could have foreseen.
Ace | 9780593438251

WHAT FIRE BRINGS by Rachel Howzell Hall (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Bailey Meadows has just moved into the remote Topanga Canyon home of thriller author Jack Beckham. As his writer-in-residence, she’s supposed to help him once again reach the bestseller list. But she’s not there to write a thriller --- she’s there to find Sam Morris, a community leader dedicated to finding missing people, who has disappeared in the canyon surrounding Beckham’s property. The missing woman was last seen in the drought-stricken forest known for wildfires and mountain lions. Each new day, Bailey learns just how dangerous these canyons are --- for the other women who also have gone missing here…and for her. Could these missing women be linked to strange events that occurred decades ago at the Beckham estate?
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662504167

YOU WERE ALWAYS MINE by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza (Fiction)
Cinnamon Haynes has fought hard for a life she never thought was possible. Her life’s mantra is to be good, quiet and grateful. Until something shifts, and Cinnamon is suddenly haunted by a terrifying question: “Is this all there is?” Daisy Dunlap has had her own share of problems in her 19 years on earth. Her hopes for her future are threatened when she gets unexpectedly pregnant. She hides this development from everyone close to her and then makes a drastic decision with devastating consequences. When Cinnamon finds an abandoned baby in a park and takes the newborn into her home, the ripple effects of this decision risk exposing the truth about Cinnamon’s own past, which she has gone to great pains to portray as idyllic to everyone…even herself.
Atria Books | 9781668005521

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