September 10, 2024

September 10, 2024

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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of September 9th and September 16th 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 September, which includes Indie Next, LibraryReads, the Barnes & Noble Book Club, the "Good Morning America" Book Club, Oprah's Book Club, the PBS Books Readers Club, the "Read with Jenna" Today Show Book Club, Reese's Book Club, and the Target Book Club.

Our latest Fall Reading prize book is THE MOST FAMOUS GIRL IN THE WORLD by Iman Hariri-Kia, which is a scathing indictment of modern celebrity and a thrilling rollercoaster ride of unhinged hijinks. The 24-hour contest is now up, so be sure to enter for your chance to win one of five copies of the book. The deadline for your entries is TOMORROW, Wednesday, September 11th at noon ET.

Let us know by Friday, September 20th at noon ET what books you’ve read, and you’ll have a chance to win HERE ONE MOMENT by Liane Moriarty and THE NIGHT WE LOST HIM by Laura Dave in our Word of Mouth contest.

HERE ONE MOMENT asks: If you were told you only had a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny? In THE NIGHT WE LOST HIM, estranged siblings discover that their father has been keeping a secret for over 50 years, one that may have been fatal.

Both books will be Bets On picks.

Join Us on Tuesday, September 24th
for Our Next "Bookaccino Live" Book Group Event

Join Us TOMORROW, Wednesday, September 11th
for Our "Bookaccino Live" Book Preview Event

Join Us NEXT Wednesday, September 18th
for Our "Bookaccino Live" Fall Preview 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.

Wednesday, September 11th at 2pm ET: "Bookaccino Live" Book Preview: Carol Fitzgerald will present titles releasing between September 10th and October 1st, along with a few from November, that she would like to get on your radar. Included will be fiction; historical fiction; thrillers and mysteries; and memoirs, biographies and other nonfiction.

Wednesday, September 11th 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 Laura Dave about her highly anticipated new thriller, THE NIGHT WE LOST HIM.

Thursday, September 12th at 3pm ET: Barnes & Noble: Join Barnes & Noble as they welcome Renée Knight for a live virtual discussion of DISCLAIMER as part of their B&N Midday Mystery Virtual Event series. Renée will be in conversation with USA Today bestselling and multiple award-winning author Hank Phillippi Ryan.

Monday, September 16th at 8pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Julia Dahl will talk to special guest host Gillian Flynn about her new stand-alone thriller, I DREAMED OF FALLING, in which the death of a young mother triggers an avalanche of secrets in a small Hudson Valley town.

Tuesday, September 17th at 10pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Willy Vlautin will talk about his latest book, THE HORSE, a poignant novel --- his most personal to date --- that captures the life of a journeyman musician who is unable to escape the tragedies of his past.

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

On Sale the Week of September 9th in Hardcover

September 10th

BONE OF THE BONE: Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class by Sarah Smarsh (Essays)
In BONE OF THE BONE, National Book Award finalist Sarah Smarsh brings her graceful storytelling and incisive critique to the challenges that define our times --- class division, political fissures, gender inequality, environmental crisis, media bias, the rural-urban gulf. Smarsh, a journalist who grew up on a wheat farm in Kansas and was the first in her family to graduate from college, has long focused on cultural dissonance that many in her industry neglected until recently. Now, this thought-provoking collection of more than 30 of her highly relevant, previously published essays from the past decade (2013–2024) --- ranging from personal narratives to news commentary --- demonstrates a life and a career steeped in the issues that affect our collective future.
Scribner | 9781668055601

BREAK EVERY RULE by Brian Freeman (Thriller)
Tommy Miller is a man with deadly skills, hiding in Florida under a false identity. After being set up on an overseas mission, he's on the run from terrorists --- and from the government that betrayed him. So when his wife and daughter are violently abducted, it seems his ghosts are finally catching up with him. But Tommy isn't the only one with secrets. His wife has been concealing her own dangerous past. With a hotshot police detective, Lindy Jax, close on his trail, Tommy follows a twisted path that brings him face to face with ruthless enemies. His search for answers soon puts him on the wrong side of the law --- hunted by the police and pursued by men who want him dead. Worst of all, if he hopes to save his wife and daughter, he must become the man he once was --- a killer operating from the deepest shadows.
Blackstone Publishing | 9781665109703

BRIGHT I BURN by Molly Aitken (Historical Fiction)
Alice, the daughter of a wealthy innkeeper in Kilkenny, grows up watching her mother wither under the constraints of family responsibilities --- and she vows that she will never suffer the same fate. In time, she discovers she has a flair for making money and takes her father's flourishing business to new heights. But as her riches and stature grow, so too do rumors about her private life. By the time she marries her fourth husband --- the three earlier are dead --- a storm of local gossip and resentment culminates in a life-threatening accusation.
Knopf | 9780525658399

DEATH AT THE SANATORIUM by Ragnar Jónasson (Mystery/Thriller)
1983: At a former sanatorium in the north of Iceland that is now a hospital ward, an old nurse, Yrsa, is found murdered. Detective Hulda Hermannsdottir and her boss, Sverrir, are sent to investigate her death. There, they discover five suspects. Less than a week after the murder, the chief physician is also found dead, having apparently fallen from a balcony. Sverrir rules his death a suicide and assumes that he was guilty of the murder as well. The case is closed. 2012: Almost 30 years later, Helgi Reykdal, a young police officer, is writing his thesis on the 1983 murders in the north. As Helgi delves deeper into the past, he decides to try to meet with the original suspects. But soon he finds silence and suspicion at every turn as he tries to finally solve the mystery from years before.
Minotaur Books | 9781250770769

DEN OF INIQUITY: A J. P. Beaumont Novel by J. A. Jance (Mystery/Thriller)
Former Seattle homicide cop J. P. Beaumont faces trouble in the small town of Ashland, as both his personal and professional lives are thrown into turmoil. Beau’s daughter and son-in-law are having marital troubles, and his grandson, a senior in high school, shows up on his doorstep, wanting to live with Beau and his wife, Mel, as he finishes out the school year. Meanwhile, a friend from his past asks for Beau’s help in looking into what appears to be an accidental death. A young man died of a fentanyl overdose, but those closest to him are convinced that he would never have used the drug and that something much more sinister has happened. Beau agrees to unofficially reopen the case, and his investigation leads him to uncover similar mysterious deaths that all point to a most unlikely suspect.
William Morrow | 9780063252585

THE EXAMINER by Janice Hallett (Mystery)
University professor Gela Nathaniel must make her new master’s program in multimedia art succeed. If it doesn’t, then Royal Hastings University will cut her funding and she’ll be out of the job she loves. The six students in this inaugural course will be key to that success. But how well has she selected the team? At the end of the academic year, when the examiner arrives to grade the students’ final project, he finds himself asking what happened. Because if someone in that course isn’t in mortal danger, then they are already dead. But who, and why? He wants us to read through the students’ coursework, texts, message boards and final essays to see if we can find the answers. Only one thing is certain: nothing about this course has been left to chance, and each of these students has their own very different agenda.
Atria Books | 9781668023426

EXPOSURE by Ava Dellaira (Fiction)
In 2004, Juliette Marker, a white college freshman, and Noah King, a Black high school senior, are two lonely souls who enter each other’s orbit, forge a connection, and go home together after a night out. Twelve years later, Noah has done the impossible and made it in Hollywood. His first film is about to be released, and he and his beloved wife Jesse, a successful writer herself, have just had a baby. Meanwhile, Juliette’s best friend, Annie, is back in LA for the first time in more than a decade and makes a startling discovery about Juliette that will threaten to blow up the life Noah has struggled to build.
Zibby Books | 9781958506677

FATAL GAMBIT written by David Lagercrantz, translated by Ian Giles (Thriller)
Dead women should not show up in photos 14 years beyond the grave. But if anyone is likely to recognize Claire Lidman, it's her husband, Samuel. He brings the photo to Hans Rekke and Micaela Vargas. Their initial skepticism gives way to cautious belief. But where will this case lead them? Meanwhile, Rekke's daughter, Julia, has a new boyfriend she's determined to keep secret. When word gets out, Micaela's world collapses around her, and Rekke is forced to confront a nemesis from his youth. Plunging us back into the political upheaval and financial crisis of the 1990s, as the Iron Curtain is finally lifted, the second Rekke and Vargas investigation sees our heroes grapple with a fiendish case that affects them both in profoundly personal ways.
Knopf | 9780593319239

FATHERS AND FUGITIVES written by S.J. Naudé, translated by Michiel Heyns (Fiction)
A worldly and urbane journalist living in London, Daniel is a young gay man with no relationships outside of sexual ones. Emotionally distant from his elderly, senile father, he nonetheless returns to South Africa to care for him during his final months. Following his father’s death, Daniel learns of an unusual clause in the old man’s will: he will only inherit his half of his father’s considerable estate once he has spent time with Theon, a cousin whom he hasn’t seen since they were boys, who lives on the old family farm in the Free State. Once there, Daniel discovers that the young son of the woman Theon lives with is seriously ill. With the conditions bearing on Daniel’s inheritance shifting in real time, Theon and Daniel travel with the boy to Japan for an experimental cure and a voyage that will change their lives forever.
Europa Editions | 9798889660392

FIRST DO NO HARM by Joe Kenda (Mystery)
A string of overdoses in Colorado Springs has Detectives Joe Kenda and Lee Wilson on the lookout for a bad batch of heroin that has been cut with a drug they've never seen before. Meanwhile, at Springs General Hospital, Dr. Blair Moreland --- the notoriously unpleasant head anesthesiologist --- has found a way to feed his deepening addiction to the very same powerful new drug: Fentanyl. But when Dr. Moreland starts supplying the dangerous painkiller to dealer Lula Lopez --- planning to manufacture the drug himself --- he angers a Mexican crime syndicate and sets into motion a cycle of death and violence that threatens to engulf the entire city. Detectives Kenda and Wilson must track down the source of this killer heroin before anyone else can overdose --- and stop Moreland before he can escape the long arm of the law.
Blackstone Publishing | 9798200924363

FIRST IN THE FAMILY: A Story of Revival, Recovery, and the American Dream by Jessica Hoppe (Memoir)
During the first year of quarantine, drug overdoses spiked, the highest ever recorded. And Jessica Hoppe’s cousin was one of them. “I never learned the true history of substance use disorder in my family,” Hoppe writes. “People just disappeared.” At the time of her cousin’s death, she’d been in recovery for nearly four years, but she hadn’t told anyone. In FIRST IN THE FAMILY, Hoppe shares her journey, the first in her family to do so, and takes the reader on a remarkable investigation of her family’s history, the American Dream, and the erasure of BIPOC from recovery institutions and narratives, leaving the reader with an urgent message of hope.
Flatiron Books | 9781250865229

HERE ONE MOMENT by Liane Moriarty (Fiction)
Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed. Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future --- age 103! --- and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away at all. If you were told you only had a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny?
Crown | 9780593798607

KATHARINE, THE WRIGHT SISTER by Tracey Enerson Wood (Historical Fiction)
Engineers across the world were puzzling over how to build a powered flying machine --- and Wilbur and Orville Wright wanted in on the challenge. But their younger sister, Katharine, knew they couldn't do it without her. The three siblings made a pact: the three of them would solve the problem of human flight. As her brothers obsessed over blueprints and risked life and limb testing new models, Katharine became the mastermind behind the scenes of their inventions. And in 1903, the Wright brothers made the first controlled, sustained flight of humankind. But at the height of their success, tragedy wrenched the Wright family apart…and forced Katharine to make an impossible choice that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728257877

LUCY UNDYING: A Dracula Novel by Kiersten White (Gothic Fantasy/Romance)
Her name was written in the pages of someone else’s story: Lucy Westenra was one of Dracula’s first victims. But her death was only the beginning. Lucy rose from the grave a vampire and has spent her immortal life trying to escape from Dracula’s clutches --- and trying to discover who she really is and what she truly wants. Her undead life takes an unexpected turn in 21st-century London, when she meets another woman, Iris, who is also yearning to break free from her past. Iris’ family has built a health empire based on a sinister secret, and they’ll do anything to stay in power. Lucy has long believed she would never love again. Yet she finds herself compelled by the charming Iris, while Iris is equally mesmerized by the confident and glamorous Lucy. But their intense connection and blossoming love is threatened by outside forces.
Del Rey | 9780593724408

ONCE MORE FROM THE TOP by Emily Layden (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Since releasing her debut album her senior year of high school, Dylan Read has spent 15 years growing up in the public eye. In the circles of fame and celebrity in which she now travels, the careful maintenance of Dylan Read, the pop star, is often more important than the songs themselves. And so lots of people think they understand everything about her. But what no one knows is the part of her origin story she successfully has kept hidden: her childhood best friend, Kelsey, vanished the year before Dylan became famous. Now, as Dylan is at the height of her career, Kelsey’s body is found at the bottom of their hometown lake --- forcing Dylan to reckon with their shared past, her friend’s influence on her music, and if there’s more to their story than meets the eye.
Mariner Books | 9780063315099

PASSIONTIDE by Monique Roffey (Fiction)
Everyone on the small island of St. Colibri is sleeping peacefully. Everyone except Sora Tanaka, a young pan player lying under the cannonball tree. Sora, a professional musician, had been visiting St. Colibri to take part in the island’s famous steel pan competition. But Sora isn’t asleep; she’s dead --- brutally murdered and still in her costume. And as the women of this island know all too well, Sora is far from the first woman to be killed, and she probably won’t be the last. In PASSIONTIDE, Sora’s death is the last straw and the beginning of something much larger, a "revolution" some are calling it. The event draws together four women who have never before seen each other as allies: a friend of the victim, the organizer of a sex workers’ collective, a local activist, and the prime minister’s wife.
Knopf | 9780593802472

ROBERT B. PARKER'S BUZZ KILL: A Sunny Randall Novel by Alison Gaylin (Mystery)
After a near-death experience, Sunny Randall is ready to lighten her load as a PI --- that is until she is called upon by billionaire media magnate Bill Welch to investigate the disappearance of his son, Dylan, the cofounder of the Gonzo Energy Drink company. Lazy, unscrupulous and a notorious partier, Dylan isn’t exactly reliable. But Dylan’s mother, Lydia, believes he’s in serious danger. Unable to turn down the Welches’ life-changing offer, Sunny takes on the case, starting off by befriending Dylan's smart young business partner, Sky, who seems like his polar opposite. As Sunny traces the marks left behind by Dylan’s past, she needs to unearth all the skeletons in his closet. When bodies start to pile up, Sunny must find answers quickly before she and those she cares about get caught in the crossfire.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593715642

THE SIEGE: A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World by Ben Macintyre (History)
As the American hostage crisis in Iran boiled into its seventh month in the spring of 1980, six heavily armed gunmen barged into the Iranian embassy in London, taking 26 hostages. What followed over the next six days was an increasingly tense standoff, one that threatened at any moment to spill into a bloodbath. A story of ordinary men and women under immense pressure, THE SIEGE takes readers minute-by-thrilling-minute through an event that would echo across the next two decades and provide a direct historical link to the tragedy on 9/11. Drawing on exclusive interviews and a wealth of never-before-seen files, Ben Macintyre reconstructs a week in which every day minted a new hero and every second spelled the potential for doom.
Crown | 9780593728093

THE SING SING FILES: One Journalist, Six Innocent Men, and a Twenty-Year Fight for Justice by Dan Slepian (Memoir)
In 2002, Dan Slepian, a veteran producer for NBC’s “Dateline,” received a tip from a Bronx homicide detective that two men were serving 25 years to life in prison for a 1990 murder they did not commit. Haunted by what the detective had told him, Slepian began an investigation of the case that eventually resulted in freedom for the two men and launched him on a two-decade personal and professional journey into a deeply flawed justice system fiercely resistant to rectifying --- or even acknowledging --- its mistakes and their consequences. THE SING SING FILES is Slepian’s account of challenging that system.
Celadon Books | 9781250897701

SKY FULL OF ELEPHANTS by Cebo Campbell (Fiction/Magical Realism)
One day, all of the white people in America walk into the nearest body of water. A year later, Charlie Brunton is a Black man living in an entirely new world. Having served time in prison for a wrongful conviction, he’s now a professor of electric and solar power systems at Howard University when he receives a call from his 19-year-old daughter, Sidney, who was left behind by her white mother and stepfamily. Traumatized by the event and terrified of the outside world, Sidney has spent a year in isolation in Wisconsin. Desperate for help, she turns to the father she never met, a man she has always resented. Sidney and Charlie meet for the first time as they embark on a journey across a truly “post-racial” America in search of answers. But neither of them are prepared for this new world and how they see themselves in it.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668034927

SO THIRSTY: A Vampire Novel by Rachel Harrison (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
Sloane Parker is dreading her birthday. She doesn’t need a reminder she’s getting older, or that she’s feeling indifferent about her own life. Her husband surprises her with a birthday-weekend getaway --- not with him, but with Sloane’s longtime best friend, troublemaker extraordinaire Naomi. Sloane anticipates a weekend of wine tastings, cozy robes and strategic avoidance of issues she’d rather not confront, like her husband’s repeated infidelity. But when they arrive at their rental cottage, it becomes clear that Naomi has something else in mind. She wants Sloane to stop letting things happen to her, for Sloane to really live. So Naomi orchestrates a wild night out with a group of mysterious strangers, only for it to take a horrifying turn that changes Sloane’s and Naomi’s lives literally forever.
Berkley | 9780593642542

SOMEWHERE BEYOND THE SEA by TJ Klune (Urban Fantasy)
Arthur Parnassus is the headmaster of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six magical and so-called dangerous children who live there. He works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve. And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home --- one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from --- Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.
Tor Books | 9781250881205

SYNDICATE: A Dick Francis Novel by Felix Francis (Thriller)
Chester Newton has built his fortune organizing racehorse syndicates, where top horses are co-owned and managed by several parties. These joint enterprises are high risk and high reward --- and for Chester, it’s almost always been reward. The stakes only get higher as the syndicates grow larger, and every race means the possibility of complete failure --- or ecstatic success. After an anxious morning waiting for the results of the Epsom Derby, the premier flat race in the UK, Chester has an afternoon of explosive triumph --- and an evening of total terror. Someone tries to take over one of his syndicates by force --- and by threats of serious harm to him and his family. For the first time in Chester’s life, it’s not just a horse race or money at stake --- it’s his life and the lives of his loved ones.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781639108596

TELL ME EVERYTHING by Elizabeth Strout (Fiction)
It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He also has fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known --- “unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them --- reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.
Random House | 9780593446096

TWO-STEP DEVIL by Jamie Quatro (Fiction)
In 2014, in Lookout Mountain, Alabama, the Prophet --- a 70-year-old man who paints his visions --- lives off the grid in a cabin near the Georgia border. While scrounging for materials at the local scrapyard, the Prophet sees a car pull up to an abandoned gas station. In the back seat is a teenage girl with zip ties on her wrists, a girl he realizes he must rescue from her current life. Her name is Michael, and the Prophet feels certain that she is a messenger sent by God to take his end-time warnings to the White House. Michael finds herself in the Prophet’s remote, art-filled cabin, and as their uncertain dynamic evolves into tender friendship, she is offered a surprising opportunity to escape her past --- and perhaps change her future.
Grove Press | 9780802163134

VILEST THINGS by Chloe Gong (Fantasy/Adventure)
Despite the odds, Calla Tuoleimi has won San-Er’s bloody games and eliminated King Kasa, her tyrant uncle and the former ruler of Talin. She now serves as royal advisor to Kasa’s adopted son, August Shenzhi, who has risen to the throne. Only Calla knows it isn’t really August. Anton Makusa is still furious about Calla’s betrayal in the final round of the games. In an impossible feat, he took over August’s body to survive and has no intention of giving up this newfound power. But when his first love, the beautiful, explosive Otta Avia, awakens from a years-long coma and reveals a secret that threatens the monarchy’s authority over Talin, chaos erupts. As tensions come to a boiling point, Calla and Anton must set aside their conflicts and head to the kingdom’s far reaches to prevent anarchy...even if their empire might be better off burning.
S&S/Saga Press | 9781668000267

WILLIAM by Mason Coile (Psychological Thriller/Horror)
Henry is a brilliant engineer who, after untold hours spent in his home lab, has achieved the breakthrough of his career. He’s created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He calls the half-formed robot William. No one knows about William. Henry’s agoraphobia keeps him inside the house, and his fixation on his project keeps him up in the attic, away from everyone, including his pregnant wife, Lily. When Lily’s coworkers show up, wanting to finally meet Henry and see the new house --- the smartest of smart homes --- Henry decides to introduce them to William, and things go from strange to much worse. Soon Henry and Lily discover that the security upgrades intended to keep danger out of the house are even better at locking it in.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593719602

THE WOMEN BEHIND THE DOOR by Roddy Doyle (Fiction)
At 66, Paula Spencer --- mother, grandmother, widow, addict, survivor --- has finally started to live her life. She has a job at the dry cleaners she enjoys, her boyfriend Joe is a text away when she needs him, and her four children now have the healthy families and petty dramas that Paula could have only hoped for. But then, her eldest, Nicola, turns up on her doorstep one day. Nicola is everything Paula wasn’t --- independent, affluent, a loving wife and mother, a “success” --- but now she is suddenly determined to leave it all behind. She has left her family and come to stay. As Nicola gradually confides in Paula the secret that unleashed this moment of crisis, mother and daughter must untangle past memory, trauma and revelations to confront what they mean to each other --- and who they want to be.
Viking | 9780593831687

On Sale the Week of September 9th in Paperback

September 10th

THE ASCENT by Adam Plantinga (Thriller)
Kurt Argento is an ex-Detroit street cop who can’t let injustice go. If he sees a young girl being dragged into an alley, he's going to rescue her and cause some damage. When he does just that in a small corrupt Missouri town, he’s brutally beaten and thrown into a maximum-security prison. Julie Wakefield, a grad student who happens to be the governor's daughter, is about to take a tour of the prison. But when a malfunction in the security system releases a horde of prisoners, a fierce struggle for survival ensues. Argento must help a small band of staff and civilians, including Julie and her two state trooper handlers, make their way from the bottom floor to the roof to safety. All that stands in their way are six floors of the most dangerous convicts in Missouri.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538739884

THE BOOKLOVER’S LIBRARY by Madeline Martin (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
In Nottingham, England, Emma Taylor finds herself in desperate need of a job. But with the legal restrictions prohibiting widows with children from most employment opportunities, she’s left with only one option: persuading the manageress at Boots’ Booklover’s Library to take a chance on her with a job. When the threat of war in England becomes a reality, Emma’s daughter, Olivia, must be evacuated to the countryside. Emma seeks solace in the unlikely friendships she forms with her neighbors and coworkers, and a renewed sense of purpose through the recommendations she provides to the library’s quirky regulars. But the job doesn’t come without its difficulties. Books are mysteriously misshelved and disappearing, and the work at the lending library forces her to confront the memories of her late father and the bookstore they once owned together before a terrible accident.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335000392

CLASS: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education by Stephanie Land (Memoir)
When Stephanie Land set out to write her memoir, MAID, she never could have imagined what was to come. Handpicked by President Barack Obama as one of the best books of 2019, it was called “an eye-opening journey into the lives of the working poor.” Later it was adapted into the hit Netflix series “Maid.” MAID was a story about a housecleaner, but it also was a story about a woman with a dream. In CLASS, Land takes us with her as she finishes college and pursues her writing career. Facing barriers at every turn --- including a byzantine loan system, not having enough money for food, navigating the judgments of professors and fellow students who didn’t understand the demands of attending college while under the poverty line --- Land finds a way to survive once again.
Atria/One Signal Publishers | 9781982151409

DEAD WEST by Linda L. Richards (Thriller)
Taking lives has taken its toll. Her moral justifications have faltered. Do any of the people she has killed --- some of them heinous, but all of them human --- deserve to die? Her next target is Cameron Walker, a rancher in Arizona. When she arrives at his remote desert estate to carry out her orders, she discovers that he is a kind and beautiful man. After a lengthy tour of the ranch, not only has she not killed him --- she’s wondering who might want him dead. She procrastinates, instead growing closer to Cameron. She learns that he is passionate about wild horses and has been fighting a losing political battle to save mustangs that live on protected land near his ranch --- he’s even received death threats from his opponents. Suddenly, she’s faced with protecting the man she was sent to kill.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608096268

DOPPELGANGER: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein (Memoir)
Not long ago, celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo? In DOPPELGANGER, Klein turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical and political crises.
Picador | 9781250338143

DOUBLE EXPOSURE by Elissa R. Sloan (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Maiko Fox and Adrian Hightower were young, beautiful, in love…and famous. The latest model to grace the Valentina Posh runway show and the hottest new superhero actor were Hollywood’s breakout couple. No one could get enough of Madrian. But then their relationship crumbled. Years later, with Adrian topping the Hollywood A-list as a writer and director, dating the country’s biggest pop star, and Maiko starring in movies for her celebrated producer-director husband, they live totally different lives. But they can never be too far apart. Madrian is still a box office draw, and the studios keep throwing them together. As the two grow more and more entangled again professionally, Maiko and Adrian have to reckon with themselves: Are they happy with their current lives? Or have they grown to be better people when with each other?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063315198

THE EDGE: A 6:20 Man Thriller by David Baldacci (Thriller)
When CIA operative Jenny Silkwell is murdered in rural Maine, government officials have immediate concerns over national security. Her laptop and phone were full of state secrets that, in the wrong hands, endanger the lives of countless operatives. Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine spent his time in the military preparing to take on any scenario, so his analytical mind makes him particularly well-suited for complex, high-stakes tasks. Taking down the world’s largest financial conspiracy proved his value, and in comparison, this case looks straightforward. Except small towns hold secrets, and Devine finds himself an outsider again. As Devine gets to know the residents of Putnam, Maine, answers seem to appear and then transform into more questions.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538719893

HEMLOCK ISLAND by Kelley Armstrong (Horror)
Laney Kilpatrick has been renting her vacation home to strangers. But broken belongings and campfires that nearly burn down the house have escalated to bloody bones, hex circles, and terrified renters who have fled after finding blood and nail marks all over the guest room closet. When Laney shows up to investigate with her teenage niece in tow, she discovers that her ex, Kit, has also been informed and is there with Jayla, his sister and her former best friend. Then Sadie, another old high school friend, charters over with her brother, who’s now a cop. There are tensions and secrets, whispers in the woods and, before long, the discovery of a hand poking up from the earth. Then the body that goes with it. But by that time, someone has taken off with their one and only means off the island.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250353443

JANE AND THE FINAL MYSTERY: Being a Jane Austen Mystery by Stephanie Barron (Historical Mystery)
March 1817: As winter turns to spring, Jane Austen’s health is in slow decline and threatens to cease progress on her latest manuscript. But when her nephew, Edward, brings chilling news of a death at his former school, Winchester College, not even her debilitating ailment can keep Jane from seeking out the truth. Arthur Prendergast, a senior pupil at the prestigious all-boys’ boarding school, has been found dead in a culvert near the schoolgrounds --- and in the pocket of his drenched waistcoat is an incriminating note penned by the young William Heathcote, the son of Jane’s dear friend, Elizabeth. Winchester College is a world unto itself, with its own language and rites of passage, cruel hazing and dangerous pranks. Can Jane clear William’s name before her illness gets the better of her?
Soho Crime | 9781641296175

THE LIST by Yomi Adegoke (Fiction)
Ola Olajide, a celebrated journalist at Womxxxn magazine, is set to marry the love of her life in one month’s time. Young, beautiful and successful, she and her fiancé, Michael, are considered the “couple goals” of their social network and seem to have it all. That is, until one morning when they both wake up to the same message: “Oh my god, have you seen The List?” It began as a crowdsourced collection of names and somehow morphed into an anonymous account posting allegations on social media. Ola usually would be the first to support such a list --- she’d retweet it, call for the men to be fired, write article after article. Except this time, Michael’s name is on it.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063274884

MARY AND THE BIRTH OF FRANKENSTEIN written by Anne Eekhout, translated by Laura Watkinson (Historical Fiction)
Switzerland, 1816. A volcanic eruption in Indonesia envelops the whole of Europe in ash and cloud. Amid this “year without a summer,” 18-year-old Mary Shelley and her lover, Percy Bysshe Shelley, arrive at Lake Geneva to visit Lord Byron and his companion, John Polidori. One famous evening, Byron issues a challenge to write the best ghost story. Contemplating what to write, Mary recalls another summer, when she was 14. Scotland, 1812. A guest of the Baxter family, Mary arrives in Dundee, befriending young Isabella Baxter. As their bond deepens, Mary and Isabella’s feelings for each other intensify. But someone has been watching them --- the charismatic and vaguely sinister Mr. Booth, Isabella's older brother-in-law, who may not be as benevolent as he purports to be.
HarperVia | 9780063256750

THE MURDER OF ANDREW JOHNSON by Burt Solomon (Historical Thriller)
Andrew Johnson was called The Great Commoner, appealing to the masses, loathing the establishment and anyone he deemed elitist. Once Johnson made an enemy, you became his enemy for life. He saw insults where none were intended, and personal loyalty meant everything. He also was the first U.S. president to be impeached. Time, however, waits for no man, and even the Famous (or Infamous) must leave this world eventually. But when a man has as many enemies as the Devil, what death could really be a natural one? From political opponents to most of his own family, the suspects are endless, and the truth not really wanted. John Hay --- lawyer, sometimes governmental bureaucrat, and now journeyman investigative reporter --- is set on finding that truth. And it may wind up killing him.
Forge Books | 9780765392732

THE MUSEUM OF FAILURES by Thrity Umrigar (Fiction)
When Remy Wadia left India for the United States, he carried his resentment of his cold and inscrutable mother with him and has kept his distance from her. Years later, he returns to Bombay, planning to adopt a baby from a young pregnant girl --- and to see his elderly mother again before it is too late. She is in the hospital, has stopped talking, and seems to have given up on life. Struck with guilt for not realizing just how ill she had become, Remy devotes himself to helping her recover and return home. But one day in her apartment, he comes upon an old photograph that demands explanation. As shocking family secrets surface, Remy finds himself reevaluating his entire childhood and his relationship to his parents, just as he is on the cusp of becoming a parent himself.
Algonquin Books | 9781643755434

NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW by Chuck Palahniuk (Horror/Satire)
Meet Otto and Cecil. Two brothers growing up privileged in the Welsh countryside. They enjoy watching nature shows, playing with their pet pony, impersonating their Grandfather...and killing the help. Murder is the family business after all. “Downton Abbey,” this is not. However, it’s not so easy to continue the family legacy with the constant stream of threats and distractions seemingly leaping from the hedgerow. With Grandfather putting pressure on Otto to step up, it becomes clear that this will all end in only two ways: a nuclear apocalypse or just another day among the creeping thistle and tree peonies. And in a novel written by Chuck Palahniuk, either is equally possible.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668021422

PAST LYING: A Karen Pirie Novel by Val McDermid (Mystery/Thriller)
It’s April 2020, and Edinburgh is in lockdown. It would seem like a strange time for a cold case to go hot --- the streets all but empty, an hour’s outdoor exercise the maximum allowed --- but a mere pandemic doesn’t mean crime takes a holiday. When a source at the National Library contacts DCI Karen Pirie’s team about documents in the archive of a recently deceased crime novelist, it seems it’s game on again. At the center of it, a novel: two crime novelists facing off over a chessboard. But it quickly emerges that their real-life competition is drawing blood. What unspools is a twisted game of betrayal and revenge, and as Karen and her team attempt to disentangle fact from fiction, it becomes clear that their investigation is more complicated than they ever imagined.
Grove Press | 9780802163653

SAVING EMMA by Allen Eskens (Legal Thriller/Mystery)
When Boady Sanden first receives the case of Elijah Matthews, he’s certain there’s not much he can do. Elijah, who believes himself to be a prophet, has been locked up in a psychiatric hospital for the past four years, convicted of brutally murdering the pastor of a megachurch. But as a law professor working for the Innocence Project, Boady agrees to look into Elijah’s file. When he does, he is alarmed to find threads that lead back to the death of his colleague and friend, Ben Pruitt, a man shot to death four years earlier in Boady’s own home. Ben’s daughter, Emma, has lived with Boady and Boady’s wife, Dee, ever since that awful night. Now 14 years old, Emma has been growing distant and soon makes a fateful choice that takes her far from the safety of her godparents.
Mulholland Books | 9780316566391

SCATTERSHOT: Life, Music, Elton, and Me by Bernie Taupin (Memoir)
Half of one of the greatest creative partnerships in popular music, Bernie Taupin is the man who wrote the lyrics for Elton John, who conceived the ideas that spawned countless hits. Together they were a duo, a unit, an immovable object. Their extraordinary, half-century-and-counting creative relationship has been chronicled in biopics (like 2019's Rocketman) and even John's own autobiography, ME. But Taupin, a famously private person, has kept his own account of their adventures close to his chest, until now. SCATTERSHOT allows the reader to witness events unfolding from Taupin's singular perspective --- sometimes front and center, sometimes from the edge, yet always described vibrantly, with an infectious energy that only a vivid songwriter's prose could offer.
Hachette Books | 9780306828683

THE SHADOW KEY by Susan Stokes-Chapman (Historical/Gothic Mystery)
Paperback Original
Dismissed from his post at a prestigious London hospital, Dr. Henry Talbot has little choice but to accept a mysterious offer of employment as a private physician from an inscrutable lord in rural Wales, Lord Julian. Arriving at Plas Helyg, the isolated estate, Henry can’t speak the language and finds himself treated with hostile suspicion by superstitious villagers, whose beliefs in myths and magic he’s inclined to dismiss. But when he discovers that his predecessor died under peculiar, inexplicable circumstances, his determination to uncover the truth leads him down a path fraught with danger --- made all the more perilous by his headstrong, reluctant ally Linette, Lord Julian’s cousin.
Harper Perennial | 9780063392427

SICK TO DEATH: An Andy Hayes Mystery by Andrew Welsh-Huggins (Mystery)
Paperback Original
After years of personal and professional turmoil, things are finally looking up for Columbus, Ohio, private eye Andy Hayes. As SICK TO DEATH opens, Andy is relishing his new gig: a drama-free, family-friendly stint as a guard at the Columbus Museum of Art. However, Andy’s newfound equilibrium comes crashing down when he interrupts the theft of a painting by famed Ashcan school realist George Bellows --- and is promptly fired for breaking museum protocols. Helping him thwart the robbers is Alex Rutledge, the adult daughter he never knew he had, the result of a one-night stand during his misspent youth a quarter century earlier. Alex wants to hire her newly discovered father to find the driver who killed her mother five months earlier in a still unsolved hit-skip accident.
Swallow Press | 9780804012539

THE TRAITOR AMONG US: An Elena Standish Novel by Anne Perry (Historical Mystery)
Not far from the sprawling grounds of Wyndham Hall, the body of longtime MI6 agent John Repton is found, shot dead with a single bullet to the heart. Repton was killed while surveilling the members of a household with alleged ties to fascists who threaten the security of the country, as Hitler’s influence spreads across Europe. Elena Standish is assigned the case, thanks to her new connection to the Wyndham family: Her older sister, Margot, is being courted by Lady Wyndham’s brother. As Elena and her colleague, James Allenby, dig deeper into the Wyndham family’s nefarious connections, Margot grows suspicious. Can Elena reconcile her political and professional obligations with her loyalty and love for her sister? Will Elena and Allenby uncover their colleague’s killer?
Ballantine Books | 9780593359174

A TRAITOR IN WHITEHALL: An Evelyne Redfern Mystery by Julia Kelly (Historical Mystery)
1940, England: Evelyne Redfern, known as “The Parisian Orphan” as a child, is working on the line at a munitions factory in wartime London. When Mr. Fletcher, one of her father’s old friends, spots Evelyne on a night out, Evelyne finds herself plunged into the world of Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s cabinet war rooms. However, shortly after she settles into her new role as a secretary, one of the girls at work is murdered, and Evelyne must use all of her amateur sleuthing expertise to find the killer. But doing so puts her right in the path of David Poole, a cagey minister’s aide who seems determined to thwart her investigations. That is, until Evelyne finds out that David’s real mission is to root out a mole selling government secrets to Britain’s enemies, and the pair begrudgingly team up.
Minotaur Books | 9781250865496

WE NEED NO WINGS by Ann Dávila Cardinal (Fiction/Magical Realism)
Paperback Original
When Tere Sanchez’s husband dies unexpectedly, she finds herself completely broken. Taking a leave from the university where she works, Tere hopes that she can mourn her husband and get back on her feet, but instead she spends a year consumed by grief. Until the day she levitates. Suddenly, Tere's life is thrown into disarray, and the repeated incidents of levitation not only make her question her sanity, but also put her in danger. She decides she will do anything to stop them. So when she's reminded that her family is related to renowned levitating mystic Saint Teresa of Avila, she leaves the refuge of her home and travels to Spain, hoping to find answers. But Saints can be elusive, and not all answers are easily found.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728258508

WHALEFALL by Daniel Kraus (Science Fiction/Thriller)
Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand --- to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year. The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out --- one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.
MTV Books | 9781665918176

WORLD WALKERS by Neal Asher (Science Fiction/Space Opera)
Paperback Original
Ottanger is a rebel and mutant on an Earth governed by a ruthless Committee. But after its Inspectorate experiments on him, Ottanger realizes the mutation allows him to reach alternate worlds. The multiverse is revealed in all its glory and terror --- and he understands that he finally can flee his timeline. Then Ottanger meets the Fenris, an evolved human, visiting his Earth from the far future. He’d engineered the original world-walking mutation, so those altered could escape the Committee’s nightmarish regime. Yet this only worked for a few, and millions continued to suffer. And Ottanger sees that that Committee will become unstoppable if not destroyed. However, the Fenris has drawn yet another threat to Ottanger’s Earth. With the power of its trillion linked minds, it craves world-walking biotech and will do anything to get it.
Pyr | 9781645060888

THE YEAR’S BEST FANTASY, Volume 3 edited by Paula Guran (Fantasy/Short Stories)
Paperback Original
Award-winning fantasy editor Paula Guran invites you to join an array of accomplished authors on an extraordinary and enchanting expedition. Seventeen fantastical stories weave a wonderful web of magic, revelation and, of course, adventure. The third volume of The Year's Best Fantasy explores alternative realities that mirror a world much like our own, yet push the limits of one’s imagination. Buckle up and enjoy the ride! This is a collection of tales that fantasy fanatics won’t want to miss.
Pyr | 9781645060932

ZERO-SUM: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates (Fiction/Short Stories)
A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered. Diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community. A woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover. A young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as “mother.” In the collection’s longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with “drafts” of his own suicide. In these powerfully wrought stories that hold a mirror up to our time, Joyce Carol Oates has created a world of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism and ever-shifting identities.
Vintage | 9780593469583

On Sale the Week of September 16th in Hardcover

September 17th

THE ALASKA SANDERS AFFAIR written by Joël Dicker, translated by Robert Bononno (Mystery)
April 1999. The body of Alaska Sanders is found on the shore of a lake near the quiet town of Mount Pleasant, New Hampshire. The young woman’s death rocks the small community, but the murder is quickly solved. Within days, a suspect is identified and soon convicted. Case closed. Or so it seemed. Eleven years later, Marcus Goldman, celebrity author and amateur sleuth, picks up a thread that will unravel not only the “open and shut” case of Alaska Sanders, but the very fabric of his best friend’s life. Sergeant Perry Gahalowood, who led the original Alaska Sanders investigation, is hell-bent on finding the truth and setting the record straight. Teaming up with Marcus, he hopes to find redemption by solving the most intricate and trying case of his career.
HarperVia | 9780063324800

BITTER IS THE HEART by Mina Hardy (Domestic Thriller/Horror)
Tamar Glass fled an abusive mother when she was 18 to find a better life elsewhere. She has lived in freedom from Ruth for decades until one night she wakes to find her now-elderly mother standing over her bed, disoriented and confused. When Tamar reluctantly takes in her mother, strange events start happening inside her home. Tamar learns that Ruth has been kicked out of her assisted living home, and other facilities refuse to house her and endanger their own residents. Tamar has spent years suppressing her childhood trauma, but it comes rushing back with each strange event in her home. As Tamar copes with their disturbing past, which her mother stubbornly refuses to admit to, she can’t shake the feeling that there’s something worse than her mother lurking in the shadows.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781639108633

BRINGER OF DUST by J. M. Miro (Historical Fantasy)
Agrigento, Sicily, 1883. With the orsine destroyed, Cairndale lies in ruins, and Marlowe has vanished. His only hope of rescue lies in a fabled second orsine --- long-hidden, thought lost --- which might not even exist. But when a body is discovered in the shadow of Cairndale, a body wreathed in the corrupted dust of the drughr, Charlie and the Talents realize there is even more at stake than they'd feared. For a new drughr has arisen, ferocious, horned, seemingly able to move in their world at will --- and it is not alone. A malevolent figure, known only as the Abbess, desires the dust for her own ends. And deep in the world of the dead, a terrible evil stirs --- an evil that the corrupted dust just might hold the secret to reviving or destroying forever.
Flatiron Books | 9781250833839

BURIED DEEP AND OTHER STORIES by Naomi Novik (Fantasy/Short Stories)
From the dragon-filled Temeraire series and the gothic magical halls of the Scholomance trilogy, through the realms next door to SPINNING SILVER and UPROOTED, this stunning collection takes us from fairy tale to fantasy, myth to history, and mystery to science fiction as we travel through Naomi Novik’s most beloved stories. Here, among many others, we encounter a mushroom witch who learns that sometimes the worst thing in the Scholomance can be your roommate; the start of the Dragon Corps in ancient Rome, after Mark Antony hatches a dragon’s egg and bonds with the hatchling; and a young bride in the Middle Ages who finds herself gambling with Death for the highest of stakes.
Del Rey | 9780593600351

COLD TRAIL: A Garrett Kohl Novel by Taylor Moore (Thriller/Adventure)
On leave from the DEA, Garrett Kohl is ready to settle down and build a stable foundation for his family. But in order to give his girlfriend, Lacey, and adopted son, Asadi, the life they deserve and get out from under crippling debt, some risks have to be taken. And shocking alliances have to be formed. First, Garrett partners with an old nemesis to form his new energy venture: Savage Exploration. Then his estranged, aloof sister, Grace, reemerges, keen on brokering a contract to connect the Kohl Ranch energy play to a pipeline on the Texas coast. But the company’s earlier success is endangered when an explosion at a nearby natural gas plant injures several workers. Garrett begins to suspect foul play and embarks on a winding investigation, teaming up with his old war buddy, Kai Stoddard, and reaching out to his CIA contacts, uncovering a sinister conspiracy overseas.
William Morrow | 9780063292468

CONNIE: A Memoir by Connie Chung (Memoir)
Connie Chung is a pioneer. In 1969 at the age of 23, this once-shy daughter of Chinese parents took her first job at a local TV station in her hometown of Washington, D.C. and soon thereafter began working at CBS News as a correspondent. Profoundly influenced by her family’s cultural traditions, yet growing up completely Americanized in the United States, Chung describes her career as an Asian woman in a white male-centered world. Chung pulls no punches as she provides a behind-the-scenes tour of her singular life. From showdowns with powerful men in and out of the newsroom to the stories behind some of her career-defining reporting and the unwavering support of her husband, Maury Povich, nothing is off-limits in this sharp, witty and definitive memoir --- good, bad or ugly.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538766989

ELAINE by Will Self (Fiction)
In this brilliantly conceived novel, Will Self turns his forensic eye and technicolor imagination to the troubled life of his mother, Elaine. Standing by the mailbox outside 1100 Hemlock Street in Ithaca, New York, Elaine thinks of her husband and child inside her house and wonders: Is this…it? As she begins to push back against the strictures of her life in 1950s America, she undertakes a disastrous affair that places her marriage to an Ivy League academic and former Communist Party member in peril. Based on the intimate diaries that Self’s mother kept for over 40 years, ELAINE is a writer’s attempt to reach the almost unimaginable realm: a parent’s interior life prior to his own existence.
Grove Press | 9780802163530

ENTITLEMENT by Rumaan Alam (Fiction)
Brooke wants. She isn’t in need, but there are things she wants. A sense of purpose, for instance. She wants to make a difference in the world, to impress her mother along the way, to spend time with friends and secure her independence. Her job assisting an octogenarian billionaire in his quest to give away a vast fortune could help her achieve many of these goals. It may inspire new desires as well: proximity to wealth turns out to be nothing less than transformative. What is money, really, but a kind of belief?
Riverhead Books | 9780593718469

I DREAMED OF FALLING by Julia Dahl (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Roman Grady is the sole reporter for the local newspaper in a tiny Hudson Valley town --- a town so small that every store opening and DUI is considered newsworthy. But when Roman's longtime girlfriend, Ashley, the mother of his four-year-old son, is found dead, he realizes he had no idea what was really going on in her life. And when he starts asking questions, he’s not prepared for the answers. What was Ashley doing at the cliffside home of her troubled ex-girlfriend? How did no one in a house full of people see what happened to her? And why does it seem like everyone in town suddenly has something to hide? As Roman and his mother dig into Ashley’s last few months, the truths they uncover threaten to expose painful secrets. The kind of secrets that can get you killed.
Minotaur Books | 9781250865977

THE NIGHT WE LOST HIM by Laura Dave (Domestic Thriller/Mystery)
Liam Noone was many things to many people. To the public, he was an exacting, self-made hotel magnate fleeing his past. To his three ex-wives, he was a loving albeit distant family man who kept his finances flush and his families carefully separated. To Nora, he was a father who often loved her from afar --- notably a cliffside cottage perched on the California coast from which he fell to his death. The authorities rule the death accidental, but Nora and her estranged brother, Sam, have other ideas. As Nora and Sam form an uneasy alliance to unravel the mystery, they start putting together the pieces of their father's past --- and uncover a family secret that changes everything.
S&S/Marysue Rucci Books | 9781668002933

A PLACE TO HIDE by Ronald H. Balson (Historical Fiction)
Theodore “Teddy” Hartigan is the scion of a wealthy Washington, D.C. family who place him into a comfortable job at the State Department and a placid diplomat’s career. In 1938, as Hitler’s inexorable rise continues, Teddy is reassigned to the US Consulate in Amsterdam to replace fleeing staff. Teddy’s job is to process visa applications, and by 1939, refugees from Nazi-conquered Poland, Austria and other countries are desperate to secure safe passage to America. When Teddy and his girlfriend, Sara, are introduced to an orphaned young girl named Katy, who has been abandoned on the grounds of a nursery school, they agree to adopt her. Teddy makes the dangerous and selfless decision to join with underground groups and use his position at the Consulate to rescue those with no other avenue of escape.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250282484

PRECIPICE by Robert Harris (Historical Thriller)
In 1914 London, 26-year-old Venetia Stanley --- aristocratic, clever, bored, reckless --- is part of a fast group of upper-crust bohemians and socialites known as “The Coterie.” She’s also engaged in a clandestine love affair with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a man more than twice her age. He writes to her obsessively, sharing the most sensitive matters of state. As Asquith reluctantly leads the country into war with Germany, a young intelligence officer with Scotland Yard is assigned to investigate a leak of top-secret documents. Suddenly, what was a sexual intrigue becomes a matter of national security that could topple the British government --- and will alter the course of political history.
Harper | 9780063248052

QUESTION 7 by Richard Flanagan (Memoir/History)
By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West’s affair through 1930s nuclear physics to Richard Flanagan's father working as a slave laborer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this daisy chain of events reaches fission when Flanagan as a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river not knowing if he is to live or to die. At once a love song to his island home and to his parents, this hypnotic melding of dream, history, place and memory is about how our lives so often arise out of the stories of others and the stories we invent about ourselves.
Knopf | 9780593802335

SHE-WOLVES: The Untold History of Women on Wall Street by Paulina Bren (History)
First came the secretaries from Brooklyn and Queens --- the “smart cookies” who saw that making money, lots of it, might be within their grasp. Then came the first female Harvard Business School graduates, who were in for a rude awakening because an equal degree did not mean equal opportunity. But by the 1980s, as the market went into turbodrive, women were being plucked from elite campuses to feed the belly of a rapidly expanding beast, playing for high stakes in Wall Street’s bad-boy culture by day and clubbing by night. In SHE-WOLVES, award-winning historian Paulina Bren tells the story of how women infiltrated Wall Street from the swinging '60s to 9/11 --- starting at a time when “No Ladies” signs hung across the doors of its luncheon clubs and (more discretely) inside its brokerage houses and investment banks.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324035152

SOMETHING LOST, SOMETHING GAINED: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty by Hillary Rodham Clinton (Memoir)
What would it be like to sit down for an impassioned, entertaining conversation with Hillary Clinton? In SOMETHING LOST, SOMETHING GAINED, Hillary offers her candid views on life and love, politics, liberty, democracy, the threats we face, and the future within our reach. She describes the strength she draws from her deepest friendships, her Methodist faith, and the nearly 50 years she’s been married to President Bill Clinton --- all with the wisdom that comes from looking back on a full life with fresh eyes. She takes us along as she returns to the classroom as a college professor, enjoys the bonds inside the exclusive club of former First Ladies, moves past her dream of being president, and dives into new activism for women and democracy.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668017234

A SUNNY PLACE FOR SHADY PEOPLE: Stories written by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell (Literary Horror/Short Stories)
Welcome to Argentina and the fascinating, frightening, fantastical imagination of Mariana Enriquez. In 12 spellbinding new stories, Enriquez writes about ordinary people, especially women, whose lives turn inside out when they encounter terror, the surreal and the supernatural. A neighborhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be women --- these and other tales illuminate the shadows of contemporary life, where the line between good and evil no longer exists.
Hogarth | 9780593733257

WE SOLVE MURDERS by Richard Osman (Mystery)
Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He still does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him at home. His days of adventure are over. Adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s job now. Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. Working in private security, every day is dangerous. She’s currently on a remote island protecting mega-bestselling author Rosie D’Antonio, until a dead body and a bag of money mean trouble in paradise. So she sends an SOS to the only person she trusts. As a thrilling race around the world begins, can Amy and Steve outrun and outsmart a killer?
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780593653227

WE WILL BE JAGUARS: A Memoir of My People by Nemonte Nenquimo and Mitch Anderson (Memoir)
Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest --- one of the last to be contacted by missionaries in the 1950s --- Nemonte Nenquimo had a singular upbringing. She was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling and shamanism by her elders. At age 14, she left the forest for the first time to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city. Eventually, her ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture. She listened. Two decades later, Nemonte has emerged as one of the most forceful voices in climate change activism. In WE WILL BE JAGUARS, she partners with her husband, Mitch Anderson, founder of Amazon Frontlines, digging into generations of oral history, uprooting centuries of conquest, and hacking away at racist notions of indigenous peoples.
Harry N. Abrams | 9781419763779

WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL: A History in 100 Moments by Joe Posnanski
(Sports/History)
After his bestselling home run books WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL and THE BASEBALL 100, Joe Posnanski turns from the national pastime to the number one sport in America. WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL is Posnanski’s newest must-have deep dive into the archives and legends of the sport, and the result is a rousing tale of the 100 greatest moments in football lore. This is the best kind of sports writing. Entertaining, enlightening, heartbreaking, hilarious and always fascinating, these stories of the sport offer a panoramic look across its history. From hidden gems and classic tales to famous moments told from previously unheard perspectives, this book is the football book for even its most ardent fans.
Dutton | 9780593475522

THE WILDES: A Novel in Five Acts by Louis Bayard (Historical Fiction)
In September 1892, Oscar Wilde and his family have retreated to the idyllic Norfolk countryside for a holiday. His wife, Constance, has every reason to be happy: two beautiful sons, her own work as an advocate for feminist causes, and a delightfully charming and affectionate husband and father to her children, who also happens to be the most sought-after author in England. But with the arrival of an unexpected houseguest, the aristocratic young poet Lord Alfred Douglas, Constance gradually --- and then all at once --- comes to see that her husband’s heart is elsewhere and that the growing intensity between the two men threatens the whole foundation of their lives.
Algonquin Books | 9781643755304

On Sale the Week of September 16th in Paperback

September 17th

ABOMINATIONS: Selected Essays from a Career of Courting Self-Destruction by Lionel Shriver (Essays)
Novelist, cultural observer and social satirist Lionel Shriver is among the sharpest talents of our age. A writer who embraces “under-expressed, unpopular or downright dangerous” points of view, she filets cherished shibboleths and the conformity of thought and attitude that has overtaken us. Bringing together 35 works curated from her many columns, features, essays and op-eds, along with some unpublished pieces, ABOMINATIONS reveals Shriver at her most iconoclastic and personal. Relentlessly skeptical, cutting and contrarian, this collection showcases Shriver’s piquant opinions on a wide range of topics --- including religion, politics, illness, mortality, family and friends, tennis, gender, immigration, consumerism, health care and taxes.
Harper Perennial | 9780063094307

ALEX CROSS MUST DIE by James Patterson (Thriller)
“Drop whatever you’re doing, Detective Cross, and head to Reagan Airport,” DC Metro Police dispatch says. “A jet just crashed and exploded on the runway. The chief and the FBI want you and John Sampson there pronto.” Cross and Sampson race to the crash site. The plane didn’t fail --- it was shot down by a stolen Vietnam War–era machine gun. The list of experts who can operate the weapon is short. And time before another lethal strike runs even shorter. Especially for Alex Cross.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538710586

ANOTHER GIRL LOST by Mary Burton (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Ten years ago, 15-year-old Scarlett Crosby was held captive in a terrifying ordeal with a girl named Della. Scarlett escaped, their predator was killed, and Della simply vanished. Detective Kevin Dawson always wondered if Della even existed. A decade later, Scarlett is a successful artist. As hard as she tries to move on, the mysterious Della remains her inescapable obsession. Then a girl’s body is discovered, and all of Scarlett’s old traumas resurface. So does Della. Scarlett has seen her hiding in plain sight. As a suspicious Detective Dawson once again comes calling, and obsessions turn deadly, Scarlett fears there isn’t a living soul she can trust. As for Della, who’s watching from afar, what could she possibly want from Scarlett now? And what new nightmare lies ahead?
Montlake | 9781662516030

ASHES NEVER LIE by Lee Goldberg (Thriller)
Paperback Original
Vacant homes in a new housing development are erupting into flames in broad daylight with no apparent cause. It’s a perplexing mystery for dogged arson investigator Walter Sharpe and his restless new partner, Andrew Walker, an ex–US marshal. But as they puzzle over the blazes, another home miles away burns to the ground, leaving a man’s corpse in the ashes and homicide detectives Eve Ronin and Duncan Pavone demanding answers. The four detectives team up, which leads to one shocking discovery after another. Now they must gamble their lives to unmask a brilliant arsonist, crack open a massive swindle, track down a desperate fugitive with a terrifying secret, and race against time to save thousands of people from an agonizing death.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662512391

ASTOR: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe (History)
From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society. The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic. In ASTOR, Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe chronicle the lives of the Astors and explore what the Astor name has come to mean in America --- offering a window onto the making of America itself.
Harper Paperbacks | 9780062964663

THE BANNED BOOKS CLUB by Brenda Novak (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Despite their strained relationship, when Gia Rossi’s sister, Margot, begs her to come home to Wakefield, Iowa, to help with their ailing mother, Gia knows she has no choice. As expected, her homecoming is far from welcome. There’s the Banned Books Club she started after the PTA overzealously slashed the high school reading list, which is right where she left it. But there is also Mr. Hart, her former favorite teacher, who was fired after Gia publicly and painfully accused him of sexual misconduct. When Margot leaves town without explanation, Gia sees the cracks in her sister’s “perfect” life for the first time and plans to offer support. But as the town, including members of the book club, takes sides between Gia and Mr. Hart, everything gets harder.
Mira | 9780778369592

COLEMAN HILL by Kim Coleman Foote (Historical Fiction)
In 1916, during the early days of the Great Migration, Celia Coleman and Lucy Grimes flee the racism and poverty of their homes in the South for the “Promised Land” of Vauxhall, New Jersey. But the North possesses its own challenges and bigotries that will shape the fates of the women and their families over the next 70 years. Within 10 years of arriving in Vauxhall, both Celia and Lucy’s husbands are dead, and they turn to one another for support. Encouraged by their mothers’ friendship, their children’s lives become enmeshed as well. As the children grow into adolescence, two are caught in an impulsive act of impropriety, and Celia and Lucy find themselves at irreconcilable odds over who’s to blame. The ensuing fallout has dire consequences that reverberate through the next two generations of their families.
Zando – SJP Lit | 9781638931706

THE DEADLINE: Essays by Jill Lepore (Essays)
Few, if any, historians have brought such insight, wisdom and empathy to public discourse as Jill Lepore. Arriving at The New Yorker in 2005, Lepore brought a transporting freshness and a literary vivacity to everything from profiles of long-dead writers to urgent constitutional analysis to an unsparing scrutiny of the woeful affairs of the nation itself. The astonishing essays collected in THE DEADLINE offer a prismatic portrait of Americans’ techno-utopianism, frantic fractiousness and unprecedented --- but armed --- aimlessness. From lockdowns and race commissions to Bratz dolls and bicycles, to the losses that haunt Lepore’s life, these essays again and again cross what she calls the deadline, the “river of time that divides the quick from the dead.”
Liveright | 9781324095613

THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND by Craig Russell (Historical Thriller)
1927: Mary Rourke --- a Hollywood studio fixer --- is called urgently to the palatial home of Norma Carlton, one of the most recognizable stars in American silent film. Norma has been working on the secret film everyone is openly talking about: a terrifying horror picture called The Devil’s Playground that is rumored to have unleashed a curse on everyone involved in the production. Mary finds Norma’s cold, dead body, and she wonders for just a moment if these dark rumors could be true. 1967: Paul Conway, a journalist and self-professed film aficionado, is on the trail of a tantalizing rumor. He has heard that a single copy of The Devil’s Playground may exist. He knows his Hollywood history, and he knows the film endured myriad tragedies and ended up lost to time.
Vintage | 9780593468319

THE FRAGILE THREADS OF POWER by V. E. Schwab (Historical Fantasy/Adventure)
There were once four worlds, each pulsing with fantastical power and connected by a single city: London. Until the magic grew too fast and forced the worlds to seal the doors between them in a desperate gamble to protect their own. Now, only three Antari are known in recent memory --- Kell Maresh of Red London, Delilah Bard of Grey London, and Holland Vosijk of White London. But barely a glimpse of them have been seen in the last seven years --- and a new Antari named Kosika has appeared in White London, taking the throne in Holland's absence. The young queen is willing to feed her city with blood, including her own --- but her growing religious fervor has the potential to drown it instead. And back in Red London, King Rhy Maresh is threatened by a rising rebellion.
Tor Books | 9780765387509

THE FUTURE by Naomi Alderman (Science Fiction/Thriller)
When Martha Einkorn fled her father’s isolated compound in Oregon, she never expected to find herself working for a powerful social media mogul hell-bent on controlling everything. If the apocalyptic warnings in her father’s fox and rabbit sermon are starting to come true, how much future is actually left? Across the world, in a mall in Singapore, an internet-famous survivalist named Lai Zhen flees from an assassin. Suddenly, a remarkable piece of software appears on her phone telling her exactly how to escape. Who made it? What is it really for? And if those behind it can save her from danger, what do they want from her, and what else do they know about the future? Martha and Zhen’s worlds are about to collide. An explosive chain of events is set in motion.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668025697

HAVE YOU SEEN HER by Catherine McKenzie (Psychological Thriller)
Cassie Peters has left her hectic and secretive life in New York City for the refuge of her hometown of Mammoth Lakes, California. There, she begins working again with Yosemite Search and Rescue, where a case she worked a decade ago continues to haunt her. She joins a group of fellow seasonal workers and young adventurers who have made Yosemite their home during the summer. There, she meets Petal, a young woman living in a trailer with her much older wife, keeping a detailed diary of the goings-on of the park, and Jada, a recent college graduate on a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend, documenting their journey on Instagram. When these three women cross paths, Cassie’s past catches up with her, and the shocking consequences ripple out far beyond what any could have imagined.
Atria Books | 9781668011126

INSENSIBLE LOSS by Linda L. Richards (Thriller)
Paperback Original
After attempting to sever all ties to her life as a hired assassin, a woman struggles to understand who she has become. She knows she doesn’t want to kill again --- but it proves to be a difficult habit to break. Adrift and disconnected, she meets an old woman: Imogen O’Brien, a world-famous artist who has spent the last three decades living a hermit-like existence on a rustic desert estate in a national forest. Imogen invites her to stay and work for her, offering mentorship in return as the woman deepens her own interest in art. What quickly becomes apparent is that elements of Imogen’s past are shrouded in danger, sorrow and darkness. Rather than growing as an artist, the former hitwoman soon finds herself enmeshed in a dangerous mystery with strands that stretch decades into the past.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608095148

KING OF THE ARMADILLOS by Wendy Chin-Tanner (Historical Fiction)
Victor Chin’s life is turned upside down at the tender age of 15. Diagnosed with Hansen’s disease, otherwise known as leprosy, he’s forced to leave the familiar confines of his father’s laundry business in the Bronx --- the only home he’s known since emigrating from China with his older brother --- to quarantine alongside patients from all over the country at a federal institution in Carville. At first, Victor is scared not only of the disease, but of the confinement, and wants nothing more than to flee. Between treatments he dreams of escape and imagines his life as a fugitive. Soon, though, he finds a new sense of freedom far from home. But with the promise of a life-changing cure on the horizon, Victor’s time at Carville is running out, and he has some difficult choices to make.
Flatiron Books | 9781250843029

THE LEFTOVER WOMAN by Jean Kwok (Domestic Thriller/Mystery)
Jasmine Yang arrives in New York City from her rural Chinese village without money or family support, fleeing a controlling husband, on a desperate search for the daughter who was taken from her at birth --- another female casualty of China’s controversial One Child Policy. But with her husband on her trail, the clock is ticking, and she’s forced to make increasingly risky decisions if she ever hopes to be reunited with her daughter. Meanwhile, publishing executive Rebecca Whitney seems to have it all: a prestigious family name, a high-powered career, a handsome husband, and an adopted Chinese daughter she adores. But when an industry scandal threatens to jeopardize not only Rebecca’s job but also her marriage, this perfect world begins to crumble and her role in her own family is called into question.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063031470

MANNER OF DEATH by Robin Cook (Medical Thriller)
Due to Jack Stapleton’s ongoing recovery from his near-death confrontation with a serial killer, his wife, Laurie Montgomery, the NYC chief medical examiner, is carrying the load both at work and at home. When she insists that an underperforming pathology resident named Ryan Sullivan assist her on a suicide autopsy, Laurie unknowingly provokes an emotional storm in the trainee. So when Ryan himself appears on the medical examiner's table days later, an apparent death by suicide, Laurie’s guilt compels her to try to understand why. Jack’s autopsy on the resident opens the disturbing possibility that the manner of death wasn’t suicide but instead a staged homicide. But staged by whom?
Laurie ignores her own professional rules and responsibilities to investigate personally who might want Ryan dead...and for what reason.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593713921

THE MOST FAMOUS GIRL IN THE WORLD by Iman Hariri-Kia (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Rose Aslani is mid-bikini wax when her phone lights up with a notification: Famed scam artist Poppy Hastings will be released from prison today. It’s been two years since Rose --- a first-generation Middle Eastern American, functional trainwreck and reporter for the online journal The Shred --- wrote the investigative article that exposed Poppy as a socialite grifter. But the article and the highly publicized trial that followed only turned Poppy into the internet’s favorite celebrity. As Poppy's star rises as an influencer and pop-culture icon, Rose becomes obsessed with exposing Poppy for the monster that she is (with the help of a devilishly handsome FBI agent gone rogue, no less). But it’s not going to be easy taking down the most famous girl in the world.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728270616

MY DARLING GIRL by Jennifer McMahon (Psychological/Supernatural Thriller)
Alison has never been a fan of Christmas. But with it right around the corner and her husband busily decorating their cozy Vermont home, she has no choice but to face it. Then she gets the call. Mavis, Alison’s estranged mother, has been diagnosed with cancer and has only weeks to live. She wants to spend her remaining days with her daughter, son-in-law and two granddaughters. But Alison grew up with her mother’s alcoholism and violent abuse and is reluctant to unearth these traumatic memories. Still, she eventually agrees to take in Mavis, hoping that she and her mother could finally heal and have the relationship she’s always dreamed of. But when mysterious and otherworldly things start happening upon Mavis’ arrival, Alison begins to suspect that her mother is not quite who she seems.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781668019078

MY VAMPIRE PLUS-ONE by Jenna Levine (Paranormal Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Amelia Collins is tired of the constant questions from her family about her nonexistent dating life. When an invitation to yet another family wedding arrives, she decides to get everyone off her back once and for all by finding someone --- anyone --- to pose as her date. After a chance encounter with Reginald Cleaves, Amelia decides he's perfect for her purposes. For centuries-old vampire Reggie, posing as her plus-one sounds like the ultimate fun. And if it helps his ruse of pretending to be human, so much the better. As Amelia and Reggie practice their fauxmance, it becomes clear that Reggie is as loyal to her as the day is long, and that Amelia’s first impressions could not have been more wrong. Suddenly, being in a real relationship with Reggie sounds pretty fang-tastic.
Berkley | 9780593548936

OF TIME AND TURTLES: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell written by Sy Montgomery, with illustrations by Matt Patterson (Nature)
When acclaimed naturalist Sy Montgomery and wildlife artist Matt Patterson arrive at Turtle Rescue League, they are greeted by hundreds of turtles recovering from injury and illness. Endangered by cars and highways, pollution and poachers, these turtles --- with wounds so severe that even veterinarians would have dismissed them as fatal --- are given a second chance at life. The League’s founders, Natasha and Alexxia, live by one motto: Never give up on a turtle. Ancient and unhurried, long-lived and majestic, their lineage stretches back to the time of the dinosaurs. Some live to 200 years or longer. Others spend months buried under cold winter water. Montgomery turns to these little understood yet endlessly surprising creatures to probe the eternal question: How can we make peace with our time?
Mariner Books | 9780063394230

OMEGA FARM: A Memoir by Martha McPhee (Memoir/Humor)
In March 2020, Martha McPhee, her husband and their two children set out for her childhood home in New Jersey, where she finds herself grappling simultaneously with a mother slipping into severe dementia and a house that’s fallen into neglect. As Martha works to manage her mother’s care and the sprawling, ramshackle property --- a broken septic system, invasive bamboo, dying ash trees --- she is swept back, unwillingly, into memories of her fraught, dysfunctional childhood.
Scribner | 9781982198008

SURE, I’LL JOIN YOUR CULT: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere by Maria Bamford (Memoir)
Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about every method possible to not only be a part of the world, but to want to be a part of it. In Bamford’s signature voice, SURE, I’LL JOIN YOUR CULT brings us on a quest to participate in something. It explores what it means to keep going and to be a member of society (or any group she’s invited to), despite not being very good at it.
Gallery Books | 9781982168575

WANDERING THROUGH LIFE: A Memoir by Donna Leon (Memoir)
In a series of vignettes full of affection, irony and good humor, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned. Having celebrated her 80th birthday in 2023, Leon poignantly confronts the dual challenges and pleasures of aging. Complete with a brief letter dissuading those hoping to meet Guido Brunetti at the Questura, and always suffused with music, food and her sharp sense of humor, WANDERING THROUGH LIFE offers Donna Leon at her most personal.
Grove Press | 9780802163677

WHERE THERE WAS FIRE by John Manuel Arias (Fiction)
Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, the future of Teresa Cepeda Valverde’s family is changed forever. Now, 27 years later, Teresa and her daughter, Lyra, are still picking up the pieces. Lyra wants nothing to do with Teresa but is desperate to find out what happened to her family that fateful night. Teresa, haunted by a missing husband and the bitter ghost of her mother, Amarga, is unable to reconcile the past. What unfolds is a story of a mother and daughter trying to forgive what they do not yet understand, and the mystery at the heart of one family’s rupture, steeped in machismo, jealousy, labor uprisings, and the havoc wreaked by banana plantations in Central America.
Flatiron Books | 9781250817396

THE WITCH OF MARACOOR by Gregory Maguire (Fantasy)
Following a confrontation with her reclusive great-grandfather, the one-time Wizard of Oz, Rainary Ko --- the granddaughter of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West --- has re-upped in a mission to settle a few scores and right a wrong or two. Her memory and her passions reviving, Rain turns her gaze back to her native Oz. Though the Grimmerie, which she had cast into the sea, retains its arcane power over her, the lover she left behind in Oz proves no less haunting. Traveling companions and arrivistes can befuddle a young witch coming into her own, but Rain marshals a steely determination to stare her troubles in the eye and see who blinks first.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063094079

THE WITCHING YEAR: A Memoir of Earnest Fumbling Through Modern Witchcraft by Diana Helmuth (Memoir)
Thirty-three-year-old Diana Helmuth is skeptical of organized religion. She is also skeptical of disorganized religion. But, more than anything, she is tired of God being dead. So she decides to try on the fastest growing, self-directed faith in America: Witchcraft. The result is 366 days of observation, trial, error, wit and back spasms. Witches today are often presented as confident and finished, proud and powerful. Diana is eager to join them. She wants to follow all the rules, memorize all the incantations and read all the liturgy. But there’s one glaring problem: no Witch can agree on what the right rules, liturgy and incantations are. As with life, Diana will have to define the craft for herself, looking past the fashionable and figuring out how to define the real.
S&S/Simon Element | 9781668002995

THE WOLVES OF ETERNITY written by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Martin Aitken (Fiction)
In 1986, Syvert Løyning returns from the military to his mother’s home in southern Norway. One evening, his dead father comes to him in a dream. Realizing that he doesn’t really know who his father was, Syvert begins to investigate his life. What he learns changes his past and undermines the entire notion of who he is. But when his mother becomes ill, he no longer has time or space for lofty speculations. In present-day Russia, Alevtina Kotov, a biologist working at Moscow University, is traveling with her young son to the home of her stepfather to celebrate his 80th birthday. When she finally starts looking into her biological father, she learns that he died many years ago and left two sons, Joar and Syvert. Years later, when Syvert and Alevtina meet in Moscow, two very different approaches to life emerge.
Penguin Books | 9780593490853

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