May 6, 2025

May 6, 2025

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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of May 5th and May 12th 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 Summer Reading Contests and Feature, which we have brought back for a 21st year. On select days through mid-August, we are hosting a series of 24-hour contests spotlighting a book that we know people will be talking about this summer and giving five lucky readers the chance to win it.

Enter by Next Monday at Noon ET!

This Week's Bonus News:
Bookreporter.com's 21st Annual
Summer Reading Contests and Feature

Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events

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

Wednesday, May 7th at 7pm ET: “Friends & Fiction”: Join “Friends & Fiction” for a conversation with Mary Alice Monroe about her new book, WHERE THE RIVERS MERGE, the first of two epic and triumphant novels celebrating one intrepid woman's life across multiple generations in the American South.

Thursday, May 8th at 3pm ET: Barnes & Noble: Join Barnes & Noble as they welcome Andromeda Romano-Lax for a live virtual discussion of THE DEEPEST LAKE, which is now available in paperback, as part of their B&N Midday Mystery Virtual Event series. Andromeda will be in conversation with Edgar Award–winning author Erin Flanagan.

Monday, May 12th at 7:30pm ET: “Lisa Live”: Join Lisa Scottoline on Facebook every Monday night through July 7th as she reveals her inspirations behind her upcoming novel, THE UNRAVELING OF JULIA, and shows videos from her research trip to Tuscany. Then, on July 14th, join “Lisa Live” for her Virtual Publication Celebration.

And be sure to enter the Pre-Order Sweepstakes for THE UNRAVELING OF JULIA, where you have a chance to win prizes such as an iPad mini or the Grand Prize of a Gucci Mini Bag. Lisa will be giving away an exciting prize each week during her “Lisa Live” events, leading up to the book’s publication on July 15th.

Tuesday, May 13th at 7pm ET: Buzz Books Editors & Authors Fiction Panel: Leigh Haber will host the Buzz Books Editors & Authors Fiction Panel, a virtual event sponsored by Publishers Lunch and the American Booksellers Association. Five authors will chat with their editors about their forthcoming titles.

On Sale the Week of May 5th in Hardcover

May 6th

ALL THE MOTHERS by Domenica Ruta (Fiction)
Sandy thought she was making her greatest mistake yet when she got unexpectedly pregnant in her mid-30s by a dating-app flop. Now, her baby Rosie is the love of her life. But trying to co-parent with her daughter’s dad, a wannabe rock star, is a challenge --- and seems to be veering into catastrophe territory when Sandy finds out through social media that her daughter has a half-sibling Sandy doesn’t know anything about. Enter her ex’s ex, Stephanie, the other mother. When the two women meet, they are shocked to learn how much they have in common. Now Sandy needs to figure out what her and Rosie’s family looks like with all these new additions. Could life in a “mommune” be the answer to her prayers, or just a new brand of chaos?
Random House | 9780593734056

AUSTEN AT SEA by Natalie Jenner (Historical Fiction)
Inspired by the works of Jane Austen, sisters Charlotte and Henrietta Stevenson start a secret correspondence with Sir Francis Austen, her last surviving brother. He sends them an original letter from his sister and invites them to visit him in England. In Philadelphia, brothers Nicholas and Haslett Nelson are also in correspondence with Sir Francis Austen, who lures them to England with the promise of a never-before-seen, rare Austen artifact to be evaluated. On the ship with the Stevenson sisters and the Nelson brothers are writer Louisa May Alcott; Sara-Beth Gleason, the wealthy daughter of a Pennsylvania state senator; and Justice Thomas Nash. It's a voyage and trip that will dramatically change each of their lives in ways that are unforeseen.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250349590

THE CHILDREN OF EVE: A Charlie Parker Novel by John Connolly (Supernatural Thriller)
Wyatt Riggins, the boyfriend of rising Maine artist Zetta Nadeau, has gone missing, leaving behind a cell phone containing a single-word message: RUN. Private investigator Charlie Parker is hired to find out why Riggins has fled, and from whom. Parker discovers that Riggins, an ex-soldier, has been involved in the abduction of four children from Mexico, all belonging to the cartel boss Blas Urrea --- except Urrea’s family is safe and well in Mexico, which means the abductees cannot be his children. Yet whoever they are, Urrea wants them back and has dispatched his agents to secure them, even if it means butchering everyone who stands in their way. Every child has a mother. Now Parker will face one unlike any other and learn the terrifying truth about the Children of Eve.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781668083949

THE END IS THE BEGINNING: A Personal History of My Mother by Jill Bialosky (Memoir)
When Iris Yvonne Bialosky died in an assisted care facility on March 29, 2020, it unleashed a torrent of emotions in her daughter, Jill Bialosky. Grief, of course, but also guilt, confusion and doubt, all of which were compounded by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, which made it impossible for Jill to be with her mother as she was dying and to attend her mother’s funeral. Starting with her mother’s end and the physical/cognitive decline that led her to a care home, THE END IS THE BEGINNING explores Iris’ battle with depression, the tragedy of a daughter’s suicide, a failed second marriage, the death of her beloved first husband only five years into their young marriage, her joyful teenage years, and the trauma of losing her own mother at just eight years old.
Washington Square Press | 9781451677928

HOME OF THE AMERICAN CIRCUS by Allison Larkin (Fiction)
After an emergency leaves her short on rent, 30-year-old Freya Arnalds bails on her lackluster life as bartender in Maine and returns to her suburban hometown of Somers, New York, to live in the house she inherited from her estranged parents. Despite attempts to lay low, Freya encounters childhood friends, familial enemies and old flames --- as well as her 15-year-old niece, Aubrey, who is secretly living in the derelict home. As they reconnect, Freya and Aubrey lean on each other, working to restore the house and come to terms with the devastating events that pulled them apart years ago.
Gallery Books | 9781668008416

I REGRET ALMOST EVERYTHING: A Memoir by Keith McNally (Memoir)
I REGRET ALMOST EVERYTHING is a memoir by the legendary proprietor of Balthazar, Pastis, Minetta Tavern and Morandi. Keith McNally takes us from his gritty London childhood in the ’50s to his serendipitous arrival in New York, where he founded the era-defining establishments the Odeon, Cafe Luxembourg and Nell’s. Eloquent and opinionated, McNally writes about the angst of being a child actor, his lack of insights from traveling overland to Kathmandu at 19, the instability of his two marriages and family relationships, his devastating stroke, and his Instagram notoriety.
Gallery Books | 9781668017647

I WILL BLOSSOM ANYWAY by Disha Bose (Fiction)
The third of four children born to a middle-class Calcutta family, quiet Durga is surprisingly the first to leave the nest of her loving, overbearing family. But when she arrives in Ireland to work at a tech company, she finds that for the first time ever she is free --- to have fun, to stay out, to sample everything that life has to offer. Suddenly, Durga can be whoever she wants to be. And she wants it all. But freedom comes at a price. Durga falls in love with handsome, charismatic Jacob and grows close with his sister, Joy. But when Jacob breaks up with Durga, she’s unmoored. Will she stay in Ireland with her newfound identity and livelihood, or will she return to India, where she is comfortable? Perhaps neither option is enough.
Ballantine Books | 9780593875322

LESSONS FROM MY TEACHERS: From Preschool to the Present by Sarah Ruhl (Memoir/Essays)
Based on her popular class at Yale, Sarah Ruhl’s essay collection is a testament to the singular impact of teachers across every stage of our lives. Drawing on Sarah’s experiences with her parents and children, with schoolteachers, creative influences and beyond, LESSONS FROM MY TEACHERS offers an uplifting perspective on our basic human need to teach and learn from each other as we navigate the surprising paths that shape our lives. Meant to be shared with loved ones and role models alike, and perfect for marking important seasons and milestones, the book provides an opportunity to reflect on the human connection between teacher and student and the times in which we ourselves have assumed each role.
S&S/Marysue Rucci Books | 9781668034965

THE MANOR OF DREAMS by Christina Li (Gothic Fiction)
Vivian Yin is dead. The first Chinese actress to win an Oscar, the trailblazing ingénue rose to fame in the ’80s, only to disappear from the spotlight to live out the rest of her life as a recluse. Now her remaining family members are gathered for the reading of her will, and her daughters expect to inherit their childhood home: Vivian’s grand, sprawling, Southern California garden estate. But due to a last-minute change to the will, the house is passed on to another family instead --- one that has suddenly returned after decades of estrangement. In hopes of staking their claim, both families move into the mansion. As Vivian’s daughters race to piece together what happened in the last weeks of their mother’s life, disturbing visions and bizarre behaviors start to take hold of everyone in the house.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781668051726

THE MISSING HALF by Ashley Flowers with Alex Kiester (Mystery/Thriller)
At 24, Nicole “Nic” Monroe lives alone in a dinky apartment in her hometown of Mishawaka, Indiana, she’s just gotten a DWI, and she works the same dead-end job she’s been working since high school. Everyone has felt sorry for her for the last seven years --- since the day her older sister, Kasey, vanished without a trace. The only real clue in her disappearance was Jules Connor, another young woman from the same area who disappeared in the same way, two weeks earlier. But with so little for the police to go on, both cases eventually went cold. Nic wants nothing more than to move on from her sister’s disappearance and the state in which it has left her. But then one day, Jules’ sister, Jenna Connor, walks into Nic’s life and offers her something she hasn’t felt in a long time: hope.
Bantam | 9780593726983

MY FRIENDS by Fredrik Backman (Fiction)
Most people don’t even notice them --- three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that unexpectedly will be placed into 18-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it.
Atria Books | 9781982112820

MY NAME IS EMILIA DEL VALLE by Isabel Allende (Historical Fiction)
In San Francisco in 1866, an Irish nun, abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman. At the age of 17, she begins to publish pulp fiction using a man’s pen name. When these fictional worlds can no longer satisfy her sense of adventure, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at The Daily Examiner to hire her. There she is paired with another talented reporter, Eric Whelan. As Emilia proves herself, her restlessness returns, until an opportunity arises to cover a brewing civil war in Chile. While there, she meets her estranged father and delves into the violent confrontation in the country where her roots lie.
Ballantine Books | 9780593975091

THE NAMES by Florence Knapp (Fiction)
In the wake of a catastrophic storm, Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son's birth. Her husband, Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to name the infant after him. But when the registrar asks what she'd like to call the child, Cora hesitates. Spanning 35 years, what follows are three alternate and alternating versions of Cora's and her young son's lives, shaped by her choice of name. THE NAMES explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780593833902

THE NIGHT BIRDS by Christopher Golden (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
After their love ended in heartbreak years ago, Charlie Book and Ruby Cahill never expected to see each other again. Now, as part of his work for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Book lives aboard the Christabel, a 19th-century freighter half-sunken off the shore of Galveston. But when he arrives at the dock, he’s stunned to find Ruby there waiting for him. With her are a mysterious woman and her infant child, asking Book to hide them safely aboard the Christabel while they're on the run. Only it isn’t the police who are after them. It’s a coven of witches that the woman, Mae, has fled, stealing away the helpless infant for whom the coven had hideous plans…or so Mae claims.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250285911

OLD SCHOOL INDIAN by Aaron John Curtis (Fiction)
Abe Jacobs is Kanien’kehá:ka from Ahkwesáhsne --- or, as white people say, a Mohawk Indian from the Saint Regis Tribe. At 18, Abe left the reservation where he was raised and never looked back. Now 43, Abe is suffering from a rare disease that his doctors in Miami believe will kill him. Running from his diagnosis and a failing marriage, Abe returns to the Rez, where he’s persuaded to undergo a healing at the hands of his Great Uncle Budge. But Budge --- a wry, recovered alcoholic --- isn’t all that convincing. And Abe’s time off the Rez has made him a thorough skeptic. To heal, Abe will undertake a revelatory journey, confronting the parts of himself he’s hidden ever since he left home and learning to cultivate hope, even at his darkest hour.
Zando – Hillman Grad Books | 9781638931454

THE ONES WE LOVE by Anna Snoekstra (Domestic Thriller)
Since the weekend of the party --- the one that 22-year-old Liv can’t remember, the one that left her covered in bruises --- she’s been locked out of her bedroom by a padlock. Her parents are behaving oddly, and her best friend won’t respond to her texts. Maybe she really was out of control that night? Meanwhile, her father, Janus, is not sure he can do what is necessary to keep this secret hidden. Her brother, Casper, was away that weekend, but he knows something isn’t right. His parents don’t look each other in the eye anymore. His father’s hands tremble for no reason. And where does Liv keep disappearing to in the middle of the night? Casper decides to find out what no one will tell him about that weekend. What lies behind the padlocked door?
Dutton | 9780593475720

THE ORIGINAL DAUGHTER by Jemimah Wei (Fiction)
Living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in working-class Bedok, Genevieve Yang is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin appears. As the two girls grow closer, they must navigate the intensity of life in a place where the urgent insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice. Knowing that failure is not an option, the sisters learn to depend entirely on one another in pursuit of academic perfection and passage to a better future. When a stinging betrayal violently estranges Genevieve and Arin, Genevieve must weigh the value of ambition versus familial love, home versus the outside world, and allegiance to herself versus allegiance to the people who made her who she is.
Doubleday | 9780385551014

OVERGROWTH by Mira Grant (Science Fiction/Horror)
Since she was three years old, Anastasia Miller has been telling anyone who would listen that she's an alien disguised as a human being, and that the armada that left her on Earth is coming for her. Since she was three years old, no one has believed her. Now, with an alien signal from the stars being broadcast around the world, humanity is finally starting to realize that it's already been warned, and it may be too late. The invasion is coming, Stasia's biological family is on the way to bring her home, and very few family reunions are willing to cross the gulf of space for just one misplaced child.
Tor Nightfire | 9781250768230

PARENTS WEEKEND by Alex Finlay (Psychological Thriller)
In the glow of their children’s exciting first year of college at a small private school in Northern California, five families plan on a night of dinner and cocktails for the opening festivities of Parents Weekend. As the parents stay out way past their bedtimes, their kids --- five residents of Campisi Hall --- never show up at dinner. As the hours click by and another night falls with not so much as a text from the students, panic ensues. Libby, Blane, Mark, Felix and Stella --- The Five, as the podcasters, bloggers and TikTok sleuths call them --- come from five very different families. What led them out on that fateful night? Could it be the sins of their mothers and fathers that have come to cause them peril, or a threat to the friend group from within?
Minotaur Books | 9781250360724

SHOPGIRLS by Jessica Anya Blau (Fiction)
Nineteen-year-old Zippy is the newest and youngest salesgirl at I. Magnin, “San Francisco’s Finest Department Store.” For a girl who grew up in a one-bedroom apartment above a liquor store with her mother and her mother’s madcap boyfriend, Howard, and who wanted to go to college but had no help in figuring out how, I. Magnin represents a real chance for a better and more elegant life. Or, at the very least, a more interesting one. Zippy may not be in school, but she’s about to get an education that will stick with her for decades. However, just when she thinks she’s getting a handle on how to be an adult woman in 1985, two surprises threaten both her sense of self and her coveted position at I. Magnin.
Mariner Books | 9780063052352

SOUTH OF NOWHERE: A Colter Shaw Novel by Jeffery Deaver (Thriller)
When a levee collapses in Hinowah, a small town in Northern California, Colter Shaw is brought on by his sister, Dorion, a disaster response specialist, to help locate a family swept away by the raging water, with mere hours to survive. But after a surprise attack along the river obstructs Colter's urgent search, the siblings are forced to consider a new reality: Is the levee at risk of failing from natural causes, or is someone sabotaging it? Colter and Dorion must race against a ticking clock to uncover the truth and save the citizens before the village washes out completely, destroying everything and everyone in its path.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593717493

SPITFIRES: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II by Becky Aikman (History)
They were crop dusters and debutantes, college girls and performers in flying circuses --- all of them trained as pilots. Because they were women, they were denied the opportunity to fly for their country when the United States entered the Second World War. But Great Britain, desperately fighting for survival, would let anyone transport warplanes. Thus, 25 daring young aviators bolted for England in 1942, becoming the first American women to command military aircraft. In SPITFIRES, Becky Aikman follows the stories of nine of the women who served, drawing on unpublished diaries, letters and records, along with her own interviews, to bring these forgotten heroines fully to life.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635576566

THIS IS YOUR MOTHER: A Memoir by Erika J. Simpson (Memoir)
When Erika Simpson was growing up, her mother loomed large, almost biblical in her life. A daughter of sharecroppers and the middle child of 10, her origin story served as a Genesis. Her departure from home and a cheating husband, pursuing higher education along the way, a kind of Exodus. Her rules for survival, often repeated like the Ten Commandments, guided Erika’s own journey into adulthood. And the most important rule? Throughout her life, Sallie Carol preached the power of a testimony --- which often proved useful in talking her way out of a bind with bill collectors. But where does a mother’s story end and a daughter’s begin? In THIS IS YOUR MOTHER, Erika offers a joint recollection of their lives as they navigate the realities of destitution often left undiscussed.
Scribner | 9781668024034

TWELVE POST-WAR TALES by Graham Swift (Historical Fiction/Short Stories)
Here are the soldiers and doctors and veterans, wives and lovers and children, who have been affected in ways both subtle and profound by the cataclysms of our times. In the aftermath of World War II, a young Jewish private, stationed in Germany, seeks the truth about lost family members. In the 1960s, a father focuses on his daughter’s wedding even as the Cuban Missile Crisis approaches the brink of global disaster. On September 11th, a maid working for U.S. Embassy staff in London wonders if her birth on the day of the Kennedy assassination determined the course of her life. And at the height of the pandemic lockdown, a respiratory disease specialist comes out of retirement and is faced with a formative childhood memory.
Knopf | 9780593803387

THE WANDERER'S CURSE: A Memoir by Jennifer Hope Choi (Memoir)
When Jennifer Hope Choi first stumbled upon the “curse” known as yeokmasal --- an allegedly inheritable affliction causing one to roam farther and farther from home --- she immediately consulted her mother. “Oh yeah,” Umma quipped. “I have that.” Technically this wasn’t a revelation. Since 2007, the no-nonsense open-heart surgery nurse had moved suddenly from the Golden State to the Last Frontier, shuttling over the next decade through seven states. For much of her adulthood, Choi had fancied herself nothing like her immigrant mother --- until life in Brooklyn imploded, spurring her to relocate to South Carolina and reckon with startling truths. This probing memoir follows Choi through her many former homes, from a crumbling Chinatown tenement to a haunted museum in Georgia.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324035510

WARHOL'S MUSES: The Artists, Misfits, and Superstars Destroyed by the Factory Fame Machine by Laurence Leamer (Biography)
“Now and then, someone would accuse me of being evil,” Andy Warhol confessed, “of letting people destroy themselves while I watched, just so I could film them.” Obsessed with celebrity, the silver-wigged artistic icon created an ever-evolving entourage of stunning women he dubbed his “Superstars” --- Baby Jane Holzer, Edie Sedgwick, Nico, Ultra Violet, Viva, Brigid Berlin, Ingrid Superstar, International Velvet, Mary Woronov and Candy Darling. He gave several of them new names and manipulated their beauty and talent for his art and social status with no regard for their safety, their dignity or their lives. In WARHOL’S MUSES, Laurence Leamer shines a spotlight on the complex women who inspired and starred in Warhol’s legendary underground films.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593716663

THE WORDS OF DR. L: And Other Stories by Karen E. Bender
(Speculative Fiction/Short Stories)
Grounded in both the contemporary United States and a variety of dystopias, Karen E. Bender’s otherworldly collection examines the evolving dynamics of the nuclear family during adolescence, motherhood, the empty nest, and caring for an aging parent. A young woman seeks to learn the magical words that can terminate her unwanted pregnancy. A mother discovers an extra child in her home she had forgotten about. A couple is separated from their son and encased in globes orbiting the Earth. Society develops a terrible plan to leave the burning planet for a life on Mars. Each story honors the emotional force of its situation by grappling with themes of freedom, self-definition, youth, aging, control and power.
Counterpoint | 9781640095700

On Sale the Week of May 5th in Paperback

May 6th

THE BLACK BIRD ORACLE by Deborah Harkness (Paranormal Romance/Fantasy)
Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, an Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clermont in A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two otherworldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family’s future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It’s time you came home, Diana.
Ballantine Books | 9780593724798

THE CLEARING by Simon Toyne (Psychological Thriller)
Adele Friar knows better than most that something dangerous lurks in the forest. So when her sister, Maddie goes missing, she fears that the woods may hold the answers. Locals put the unusually high number of missing persons in the area down to inexperienced hikers getting lost in the forest’s depths, or girls abandoning their sleepy rural town for the excitement of city life. Some even blame the Cinderman, a legend who haunts the woods looking for unsuspecting victims. With help from Adele and DCI Tannahill Khan back in London, forensic specialist Laughton Rees is determined to find Maddie and dispel the dangerous ghost stories once and for all. But what if the monster in the woods isn’t a myth after all, and a cold-blooded killer is stalking his victims from the shadowy safety of the trees?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063390744

CLIVE CUSSLER GHOST SOLDIER: A Novel of the Oregon Files by Mike Maden (Thriller/Adventure)
When African jihadis attack a Nigerian regiment using American weapons, Juan Cabrillo and the Oregon crew are on the case, investigating from Afghanistan to Kuala Lumpur to track a mysterious arms dealer known only as the Vendor. Cabrillo goes undercover to find the Vendor’s base, but his adversary isn’t just an arms smuggler. He’s an arms maker, and Cabrillo just walked into a lethal military game alongside the most dangerous mercenaries in the world, designed to test the Vendor’s cutting-edge AI arsenal. And yet, surviving an arena full of flame-throwing robots isn’t even his biggest problem. The Vendor has an army of high-speed drones headed for a pivotal military site, and if the Oregon crew can’t stop them from releasing a deadly neurotoxin, the entire globe will erupt in conflict.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593719268

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 | 9780063336568

THE COVENANT OF WATER by Abraham Verghese (Historical Fiction)
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, THE COVENANT OF WATER follows three generations of a Christian family in Kerala, South India, that suffers a peculiar affliction. In every generation, at least one person dies by drowning. As the novel opens, a 12-year-old girl is sent by boat to her wedding, where she meets her husband for the first time. She joins a prosperous household and becomes known as Big Ammachi, the matriarch of an extraordinary family that will endure hardship, celebrate triumph, and witness unthinkable changes over the coming decades.
Grove Press | 9780802162731

DAUGHTERS OF SHANDONG by Eve J. Chung (Historical Fiction)
In 1948, civil war ravages the Chinese countryside, but in rural Shandong, the wealthy, landowning Angs are more concerned with their lack of an heir. Hai is the eldest of four girls and spends her days looking after her sisters. Headstrong Di learns to hide in plain sight, and their mother --- abused by the family for failing to birth a boy --- finds her own small acts of rebellion in the kitchen. As the Communist army closes in on their town, the rest of the prosperous household flees, leaving behind the girls and their mother because they view them as useless mouths to feed. Without an Ang male to punish, the land-seizing cadres choose Hai to stand trial for her family’s crimes. She barely survives their brutality. Realizing the worst is yet to come, the women plan their escape, embarking on a thousand-mile journey to confront the family that abandoned them.
Berkley | 9780593640548

DEAD TIRED: An Expectant Detectives Novel 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 | 9781250322753

DETECTIVE AUNTY by Uzma Jalaluddin (Mystery)
Paperback Original
After her husband’s unexpected death 18 months ago, Kausar Khan never thought she’d receive another phone call as heartbreaking --- until her thirty-something daughter, Sana, phones to say that she's been arrested for killing the unpopular landlord of her clothing boutique. Determined to help her child, Kausar heads to Toronto for the first time in nearly 20 years. Returning to the Golden Crescent suburb where she raised her children and where her daughter still lives, Kausar finds that the thriving neighborhood she remembered has changed. The murder of Sana’s landlord is only the latest in a wave of local crimes that have gone unsolved. With the help of some old friends and her plucky teenage granddaughter, Kausar digs into the investigation to uncover the truth.
Harper Perennial | 9780063434875

FIVE-STAR STRANGER by Kat Tang (Fiction)
In an age where online ratings are all-powerful, FIVE-STAR STRANGER follows the adventures of a top-rated man on the Rental Stranger app as he navigates New York City under the guise of characters he plays, always maintaining a professional distance from his clients. But when an eccentric patron threatens to upend his long-term role as father to a young girl, Stranger begins to reckon with his attachment to his pretend daughter, her mother, and his own fraught past. Now, he must confront the boundaries he has drawn and explore the legacy of abandonment that shaped his life.
Scribner | 9781668050156

THE GARDEN AGAINST TIME: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing (Memoir/Nature)
In 2020, Olivia Laing began to restore an 18th-century walled garden in Suffolk, an overgrown Eden of unusual plants. The work brought to light a crucial question for our age: Who gets to live in paradise, and how can we share it while there’s still time? Moving between real and imagined gardens, from Milton’s PARADISE LOST to John Clare’s enclosure elegies, from a wartime sanctuary in Italy to a grotesque aristocratic pleasure ground funded by slavery, Laing interrogates the sometimes shocking cost of making paradise on earth. But the story of the garden doesn’t always enact larger patterns of privilege and exclusion. It’s also a place of rebel outposts and communal dreams.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324110385

THE GENIUS OF JUDY: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us by Rachelle Bergstein (Biography/Popular Culture)
Judy Blume’s books have garnered her fans of all ages for decades and sold tens of millions of copies. But why were people so drawn to them? And why are we still talking about them now in the 21st century? In THE GENIUS OF JUDY, her remarkable story is revealed as never before, beginning with her as a mother of two searching for purpose outside of her home in 1960s suburban New Jersey. The books she wrote starred regular children with genuine thoughts and problems. But behind those deceptively simple tales, she explored the pillars of the growing women’s rights movement, in which girls and women were entitled to careers, bodily autonomy, fulfilling relationships, and even sexual pleasure. In doing so, she created a cohesive, culture-altering vision of modern adolescence.
Atria/One Signal Publishers | 9781668010914

I NEED YOU TO READ THIS by Jessa Maxwell (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Years ago, Alex Marks escaped to New York City for a fresh start. But her carefully cultivated world is upended when her childhood hero, Francis Keen, is brutally murdered. Francis was the woman behind the famous advice column "Dear Constance," and her words helped Alex through some of her darkest times. When Alex sees an advertisement searching for her replacement, she impulsively applies. Against all odds, she is given the position and quickly proves herself skilled at solving other people’s problems. But she soon begins to receive strange, potentially threatening letters at the office. Francis’ murderer was never identified, turning everyone around her into a threat. As Alex is drawn into the details surrounding her predecessor’s murder, her own dark secrets begin to rise to the surface.
Atria Books | 9781668008041

I WILL RUIN YOU by Linwood Barclay (Psychological Thriller)
English teacher Richard Boyle certainly never thought he would find himself talking down a former student intent on harming others. But when Mark LeDrew shows up at Richard’s school with a bomb strapped to his chest, Richard immediately jumps into action. Thanks to some quick thinking, he averts a major tragedy and is hailed as a hero. However, Richard’s brief moment in the spotlight puts him in the sights of a deranged blackmailer with a score to settle. The situation rapidly spirals out of control, drawing Richard into a fraught web of salacious accusations and deadly secrets. As he tries to uncover the truth, he discovers that there’s something deeply wrong in the town --- something that ties together Mark, the blackmailer, and a gang of ruthless drug dealers, and Richard has landed smack in the middle of it. What price will he pay for one good deed?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063276321

THE INSTRUMENTS OF DARKNESS by John Connolly (Supernatural Thriller)
In Maine, Colleen Clark stands accused of the worst crime a mother can commit: the abduction and possible murder of her child. Everyone --- ambitious politicians in an election season, hardened police, ordinary folk --- has an opinion on the case, and most believe she is guilty. Defending Colleen is the lawyer Moxie Castin, and working alongside him is the private investigator Charlie Parker, who senses the tale has another twist --- one involving a husband too eager to accept his wife’s guilt, a group of fascists arming for war, a disgraced psychic seeking redemption, and an old, twisted house deep in the Maine woods, a house that never should have been built.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781668022320

LADY MACBETH by Ava Reid (Gothic Historical Fantasy)
The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men. The Lady knows that she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed. The Lady knows that his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive. But the Lady does not know that her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that prophecy girds him like armor. She does not know that her magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world. She does not know this yet. But she will.
Del Rey | 9780593722589

THE LAST OF HIS KIND: Clayton Kershaw and the Burden of Greatness by Andy McCullough (Sports/Biography)
Clayton Kershaw has embodied the burden of athletic greatness, the prizes and perils that await those who strive for it all. He is a three-time Cy Young award winner, the first pitcher to win National League MVP since Bob Gibson, and a surefire, first-ballot Hall of Famer. In an age when baseball became more impersonal, a sport altered by adherence to algorithms and actuarial tables, Kershaw personified the game’s lingering humanity. THE LAST OF HIS KIND traces Kershaw’s path from a boyhood fractured by divorce to his development as one of the most heralded pitching prospects in Texas history to his emergence in Los Angeles as the spiritual heir to Sandy Koufax. But the book also charts Kershaw’s place in baseball’s changing landscape, as his own stubbornness butted against the game’s evolution.
Grand Central Publishing | 9780306832604

LISTEN FOR THE LIE by Amy Tintera (Mystery)
After Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer. Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all and, if you believe the rumors, was especially popular with the men in town. It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA. But now the phenomenally huge hit true-crime podcast "Listen for the Lie" and its too-good-looking host, Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy’s murder for the show’s second season. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend’s murder, even if she is the one who did it.
Celadon Books | 9781250880338

A LOVELY LIE by Jaime Lynn Hendricks (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
The night of their senior picnic in 1999, Scarlett Russo and her best friend, Pepper, were involved in a car accident that left two of their classmates dead. Afterward, they lied to the police, protecting each other from the consequences. Then Pepper left town, and Scarlett never heard from her again. Twenty-two years later, Scarlett has buried that deadly incident deep in her mind and built a comfortable life for herself. However, her peace is disrupted when Pepper’s daughter shows up with news of Pepper’s death. Zoey has a cryptic letter from Pepper addressed to Scarlett that alludes to the events of that fateful night and Pepper’s initial intentions to get an abortion. Now Zoey wants answers about her mother’s past. Who is Zoey’s father? And what really happened after the senior picnic?
Scarlet | 9781613166703

MICHAEL WITHOUT APOLOGY by Catherine Ryan Hyde (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Michael Woodbine was seven years old when a near-fatal fireworks accident scarred him and led to his placement in foster care. Now a college freshman, he is still trying to hide the effects of his trauma. When Michael signs up for a film class, he meets Robert Dunning, a teacher who wears his own scars unapologetically. Robert encourages Michael to make a documentary that explores body image and self-perception. Michael places an ad seeking people who feel unattractive and rejected by society. As he collects their stories --- and finally tells his own --- Michael feels more connected to the world than he ever has before. But he knows his journey of self-acceptance has one more obstacle: his crushing doubts about why his birth parents wouldn’t fight to keep him.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781662522291

THE MIDNIGHT FEAST by Lucy Foley (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
It’s the opening night of The Manor, the newest and hottest luxury resort, and no expense, small or large, has been spared. The infinity pool sparkles. The “Manor Mule” cocktail (grapefruit, ginger, vodka and a dash of CBD oil) is being poured with a heavy hand. Everyone is wearing linen. But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. Just outside the Manor’s immaculately kept grounds, an ancient forest bristles with secrets. And it’s not too long before the local police are called. It turns out that the past has crashed the party, with deadly results.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063003118

MIND GAMES by Nora Roberts (Romantic Suspense)
Thea Fox has become a renowned video game designer, a job that allows her to move back to her childhood home in Redbud Hollow, Kentucky. Now she lives in her own cozy cottage, down the road from her beloved Grammie and the house where she grew up. But Thea carries the burden of a special ability, one that she shares with her Grammie. They can both see into people's minds and souls. Sometimes, they can even see the future. Grammie calls it a gift, but ever since the day when Thea saw her parents get murdered in a dream, it’s felt like a curse. Thanks to her vision, the police caught the man who did it. But no matter how far away the killer is, Thea can still hear his twisted thoughts and witness his evil acts. He knows it because he can see into her mind too --- and now he's made it his mission to get the ultimate revenge.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250911032

THE NEXT MRS. PARRISH by Liv Constantine (Psychological Thriller)
Hard work and immaculate planning turned Amber Patterson Parrish from invisible wallflower to prominent socialite. Less than a year after her husband Jackson’s tax-evasion scandal, Amber reigns supreme over the Bishops Harbor community. But with Jackson being released from prison, Amber’s free time --- and money --- is vanishing. Meanwhile, Daphne Parrish left Bishops Harbor after her divorce from Jackson, swearing she would never go back. But when one of her daughters runs away from home, desperate to see her father, Daphne agrees to return for the summer for their daughters’ sake. When a ghost from Amber’s past emerges looking for revenge, these three figures find unlikely allies in one another. But who is playing who?
Bantam | 9780593599945

OTHER PEOPLE’S SUMMERS by Sarah Morgan (Fiction)
Paperback Original
In school, Milly Beckett and Nicole Raven were as close as sisters. Now, years later, a gulf separates them. Nicole is a global superstar, but when scandal breaks, she turns to the only person she trusts. Fresh from a painful divorce, Milly is tempted to refuse her friend’s plea for help. Nicole wasn’t there for her when she needed her most, and that’s hard to forgive. But Nicole is desperate, and Milly agrees to give her the sanctuary she needs. Against a stunning Lake District backdrop, stilted small talk gradually gives way to soul-deep revelations as the two women slowly find their way back to one another. But Nicole can’t stay hidden forever --- and neither can the secret she’s been keeping from Milly, a secret that threatens both her future happiness and the fragile bond between them.
Canary Street Press | 9781335147011

THE PASSIONATE TUDOR: A Novel of Queen Mary I by Alison Weir (Historical Fiction)
Born from young King Henry’s first marriage, his elder daughter, Princess Mary, is raised to be queen once it becomes clear that her mother, Katherine of Aragon, will bear no more children. However, Henry’s passion for Anne Boleyn has a devastating influence on the young princess’s future when, determined to sire a male heir, he marries Anne, has his marriage to Katherine declared unlawful, brands Mary illegitimate, and banishes them both from the royal court. But when Anne also fails to produce a son, she is beheaded and Mary is allowed to return to court as the default heir. Mary eventually triumphs and becomes queen, but any hopes that she will show religious toleration are dashed when she embarks on a ruthless campaign to force Catholicism on the English by burning hundreds of Protestants at the stake.
Ballantine Books | 9780593355121

PHANTOM ORBIT by David Ignatius (Thriller)
Ivan Volkov is a Russian student in Beijing who discovers an unsolved puzzle in the writings of the 17th-century astronomer Johannes Kepler. He takes the puzzle to a senior scientist in the Chinese space program and declares his intention to solve it. Volkov returns to Moscow and continues his secret work. The puzzle holds untold consequences for space warfare. The years pass, and they are not kind to Volkov. After the loss of his son, a prosecutor who had been too tough on corruption, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Volkov makes the fraught decision to contact the CIA. He writes: Satellites are your enemies, especially your own.... Hidden codes can make time stop and turn north into south.... If you are smart, you will find me.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324110514

A PLACE CALLED HOME: A Memoir by David Ambroz (Memoir)
As young children, David Ambroz and his siblings should have been focused on school, but instead they wandered the streets searching for shelter, food and warmth while their mother struggled with mental illness. When David is placed into foster care, he initially sees it as a beacon of hope, only to find that it brings its own set of dangers. Shuffled between abusive homes and enduring the cruelty of those who rejected him for his emerging sexuality, David's experience paints a stark picture of systemic failure. Amid the turmoil, David found refuge and hope in libraries, schools and the kindness of a few compassionate adults. His unyielding determination and resilience earned him a scholarship to Vassar College, marking the beginning of his escape from poverty.
Legacy Lit | 9780306923036

THE SEVENTH VEIL OF SALOME by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Historical Fiction)
1950s Hollywood: Every actress wants to play Salome, the star-making role in a big-budget movie about the legendary woman whose story has inspired artists since ancient times. So when the film’s mercurial director casts Vera Larios, an unknown Mexican ingenue, in the lead role, she quickly becomes the talk of the town. Vera also becomes an object of envy for Nancy Hartley, a bit player who will do anything to win the fame she believes she richly deserves. Two actresses, both determined to make it to the top in Golden Age Hollywood, make for a sizzling combination. But this is the tale of three women, for it is also the story of the princess Salome herself, consumed with desire for the fiery prophet who foretells the doom of her stepfather, Herod: a woman torn between the decree of duty and the yearning of her heart.
Del Rey | 9780593600283

SKIN & BONES by Renée Watson (Fiction)
With her wedding weeks away, Lena Baker feels excited for the next chapter. She’s built a steady life in Portland, and between wine nights with her two best friends, a loving relationship, and a rewarding job, she’s happy --- until a devastating confession from her fiancé on their wedding day shakes her world. Unmoored and grieving, Lena questions everything she thought she knew about love, friendship and motherhood. In this stirring exploration of who society makes room for, one mother resolves to teach her daughter self-love even as she herself struggles with it --- and learns how to shine her bold, brilliant light in a world that wants to dim it.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316570893

SOCIETY OF LIES by Lauren Ling Brown (Domestic Thriller/Mystery)
Maya has returned to Princeton for her college reunion. This visit is special because Maya also will be attending the graduation of her little sister, Naomi. But what should have been a dream weekend becomes Maya’s worst nightmare when she receives the news that Naomi is dead. The police are calling it an accident, but Maya suspects that there is more to the story than they are letting on. As Maya pieces together what happened in the months leading up to her sister’s death, she begins to realize how much Naomi hid from her. Despite Maya’s warnings, Naomi had joined Sterling Club, the most exclusive social club on campus --- the same one Maya belonged to. And if she had to guess, Naomi was likely tapped for the secret society within it. The more Maya uncovers, the more terrified she becomes that Naomi’s decision to follow in her footsteps might have been what got her killed.
Bantam | 9780593723371

THE STOLEN CHILD by Ann Hood (Historical Fiction)
For decades, Nick Burns has been haunted by a decision he made as a young soldier in World War I, when a French artist he’d befriended thrust both her paintings and her baby into his hands --- and disappeared. In 1974, with only months left to live, Nick enlists Jenny, a college dropout desperate for adventure, to help him unravel the mystery. The journey leads them from Paris galleries and provincial towns to a surprising place: the Museum of Tears, the life’s work of a lonely Italian craftsman. Determined to find the baby and the artist, hopeless romantic Jenny and curmudgeonly Nick must reckon with regret, betrayal and the lives they’ve left behind.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324110392

STORM CHILD: A Cyrus Haven Novel by Michael Robotham (Psychological Thriller)
The mystery of Evie Cormac’s background has followed her into adulthood. As a child, she was discovered hiding in a secret room where a man had been tortured to death. Many of her captors and abusers escaped justice, unseen but not forgotten. Now, on a hot summer’s day, the past drags Evie back as she watches the bodies of 17 migrants wash up on a Lincolnshire beach. There is only one survivor, a teenage boy, who tells police their small boat was deliberately rammed and sunk. Psychologist Cyrus Haven is recruited by the police to investigate the murders --- but recognizes immediately that Evie has some link to the tragedy. By solving this crime, he could finally unlock the secrets of her past. But what dark forces will he set loose? And who will pay the price?
Scribner | 9781668031001

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 | 9781668027929

THE TENANT by Freida McFadden (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Blake Porter is riding high, until he's not. Fired abruptly from his job as a VP of marketing and unable to make the mortgage payments on the new brownstone he shares with his fiancée, he's desperate to make ends meet. Enter Whitney. Beautiful, charming, down-to-earth, and looking for a room to rent. She's exactly what Blake is looking for. Or is she? Because something isn't quite right. The neighbors start treating Blake differently. The smell of decay permeates his home, no matter how hard he scrubs. Strange noises jar him awake in the middle of the night. And soon Blake fears that someone knows his darkest secrets. Danger lives right at home, and by the time Blake realizes it, it'll be far too late. The trap is already set.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464227318

WESTPORT by James Comey (Mystery/Thriller)
It’s been two years since Nora Carleton left the job she loved at the US Attorney’s Office to become lead counsel at Saugatuck Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund. The career change also meant a change of scenery, relocating her to Westport, Connecticut, 50 miles north of New York City. But it was worth it to get her daughter, Sophie, away from the city. Plus, she likes the people she works with. Especially Helen, who recruited Nora because of her skills as an investigator. Then Nora's new life falls apart when a coworker is murdered and she becomes the lead suspect. Nora calls in her old colleagues from the US Attorney’s Office, Mafia investigator Benny Dugan and attorney Carmen Garcia. To clear Nora’s name, Benny and Carmen hunt for the true killer's motive, but it seems nearly everyone at Saugatuck has secrets worth killing for.
Mysterious Press | 9781613166710

WHEN WOMEN RAN FIFTH AVENUE: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion by Julie Satow (History)
The 20th-century American department store: a palace of consumption where women, shopper and shopgirl alike, could stake out a newfound independence. Whether in New York, Chicago or on Main Street, USA, men owned the buildings, but inside, women ruled. In this hothouse atmosphere, three women rose to the top. In the 1930s, Hortense Odlum of Bonwit Teller came to her husband's department store as a housewife and 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 and inspired a devoted following of ultra-chic shoppers, as well as decades of copycats.
Vintage | 9780593468012

THE WITCHES OF BELLINAS by J. Nicole Jones (Gothic Fiction)
Tansy and her husband, Guy, are the newest arrivals in Bellinas, a lush oasis tucked into the coast of northern California where a reclusive, creative community is beginning to take shape. Helmed by Guy’s cousin Mia, a famous model-turned-wellness-luminary, and her tech mogul husband, the group renounces the outside world in pursuit of purity, fashioning their own rules about what to eat and how to live. Everything seems perfect in Bellinas: food is abundant, flowers are always in bloom, and nearby wildfires leave the town remarkably unscathed. While Guy is happy in their new lives, Tansy becomes more and more suspicious of the community and increasingly desperate to save her already-fragile marriage. And as lonely women have throughout the ages, she wants to believe in what may only be a beautiful lie.
Catapult | 9781646222728

WIVES LIKE US by Plum Sykes (Fiction)
Welcome to the rose-strewn county of Oxfordshire and the tony Cotswold villages of Little Bottom, Middle Bottom, Great Bottom and Monkton Bottom, recently annexed by a glittering new breed of female: the Country Princess. Following a ghastly row about a missing suite of diamonds, Tata Hawkins has flounced out of Monkton Bottom Manor with her daughter, Minty, and Executive Butler Ian Palmer in tow, decamping to The Old Coach House to teach her husband, Bryan, a lesson. But things don’t go according to plan: Bryan disappears to Venice with a bikini designer; Selby Fairfax, the glamorous American divorcée who has inherited the beautiful estate next door, is refusing Tata’s overtures of friendship; Tata’s best friends are distracted by their own heartache, and the posh Pennybacker-Hoare sisters are plotting to prevent Tata from regaining her crown as Queen of the Bottoms.
Harper Perennial | 9780062429124

WOMAN OF INTEREST: A Memoir by Tracy O'Neill (Memoir)
In 2020, Tracy O’Neill began to rethink her ideas of comfort and safety. Just out of a 10-year relationship and thirty-something, she was driven by an acute awareness that the mysterious mother she’d never met might be dying somewhere in South Korea. After contacting a grizzled private investigator, O’Neill took his suggested homework to heart when he disappeared before the job was done, picking up the trail of clues and becoming her own hell-bent detective. Despite COVID-19, the promise of what she might discover --- the possibility that her biological mother was her kind of outlaw, whose life could inspire her own --- was too tempting.
HarperOne | 9780063309876

THE YEAR OF LIVING CONSTITUTIONALLY: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution's Original Meaning by A.J. Jacobs (Memoir)
A.J. Jacobs tries to get inside the minds of the Founding Fathers by living as closely as possible to the original meaning of the Constitution. He asserts his right to free speech by writing his opinions on parchment with a quill and handing them out to strangers in Times Square. He consents to quartering a soldier, as is his Third Amendment right. He turns his home into a traditional 1790s household by lighting candles instead of using electricity, boiling mutton, and --- because women were not allowed to sign contracts --- feebly attempting to take over his wife’s day job, which involves a lot of contract negotiations. The book blends unforgettable adventures --- delivering a handwritten petition to Congress, battling redcoats as part of a Revolutionary War reenactment group --- with dozens of interviews from constitutional experts from both sides.
Crown | 9780593136768

On Sale the Week of May 12th in Hardcover

May 12th

THE #1 DAD BOOK: Be the Best Dad You Can Be in 1 Hour by James Patterson (Parenting/Self-Help)
I did the homework, so you don’t have to do as much. I talked to lots of experts, and lots of dads, and lots of experts who are also dads. I read everything I could. Then I wrote and rewrote this book, filled with steps you can take to become a better dad. Start with a hug. Talk to them before they can speak. Then talk about everything. Read to your kids. Then flip things around. Let them read to you. Tell your kids your story. Help them discover who they are. Deep down inside. Have your kids’ backs. One day, they’ll have yours. Every day, just show up.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316585071

May 13th

ANIMA RISING by Christopher Moore (Historical Fantasy/Humor)
Vienna, 1911. Gustav Klimt, the most famous painter in the Austrian Empire, spots a woman’s nude body in the Danube canal. He knows he should summon a policeman, but he can’t resist stopping to make a sketch first. And as he draws, the woman coughs. She’s alive! Back at his studio, Klimt and his model-turned-muse, Wally, tend to the formerly drowned girl. She is nearly feral and doesn’t remember who she is. Klimt names her Judith, after one of his most famous paintings, and resolves to help her find her memory. With a little help from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Judith recalls being stranded in the arctic 100 years ago, locked in a crate by a man named Victor Frankenstein, and visiting the Underworld. So how did she get here? And why are so many people chasing her?
William Morrow | 9780062434159

AWAKE IN THE FLOATING CITY by Susanna Kwan (Dystopian Fiction)
Bo knows she should go. Years of rain have drowned the city, and almost everyone else has fled. Her mother was carried away in a storm surge, and Bo has been alone ever since. She is stalled: an artist unable to make art, a daughter unable to give up the hope that her mother may still be alive. Half-heartedly, she allows her cousin to plan for her escape --- but as the departure day approaches, she finds a note slipped under her door from Mia, an elderly woman who lives in her building and wants to hire Bo to be her caregiver. Suddenly, Bo has a reason to stay. Mia can be prickly, but they forge a connection deeper than any Bo has had with a client. Then Mia’s health turns, and Bo determines to honor their disappearing world and this woman who has brought her back to it.
Pantheon | 9780593701409

CLASS CLOWN: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass: How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up by Dave Barry (Memoir/Humor)
How does the son of a Presbyterian minister wind up winning a Pulitzer Prize for writing a wildly inaccurate newspaper column read by millions of people? Dave Barry takes us on a hilarious ride, starting with a childhood largely spent throwing rocks for entertainment --- there was no internet --- and preparing for nuclear war by hiding under a classroom desk. After literally getting elected class clown in high school, he went to college, where, as an English major, he read snippets of great literature when he was not busy playing in a rock band (it was the ’60s). CLASS CLOWN isn’t just a memoir; it’s a vibrant celebration of a life rich with humor, absurdity, joy and sadness.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668021781

A CURSE CARVED IN BONE: Book Two of the Saga of the Unfated by Danielle L. Jensen (Historical Fantasy/Romance)
The secret of her divine heritage revealed, Freya finds herself on a path that will see thousands of lives lost to the magic in her blood. Desperate to avoid this dark fate, she risks an alliance with Skaland’s greatest enemy to seek answers from the seer who foretold her future --- the same seer who sent Bjorn to kill her. The blood oaths that bind Freya demand that she keep him close as she hunts for a way to avert the looming war. Her magic draws her to the front lines of an old enmity, embroiling her with Nordeland’s Unfated --- children of the gods who serve the king she was raised to fear. The same king who is now willing to fight at her back. Despite the desire that burns hot between Bjorn and Freya, his growing distrust of her chosen path threatens to drag them further apart.
Del Rey | 9780593599860

THE DARK MAESTRO by Brendan Slocumb (Mystery/Thriller)
Growing up in the Southeast D.C. projects with a drug dealer for a father, Curtis Wilson is a cello prodigy who rises to unimagined heights in the classical music world. But then his life suddenly disintegrates. His father, Zippy, turns state’s evidence, implicating his old bosses. Now the family must enter the witness protection program if they want to survive. This means that Curtis must give up the very thing he loves the most. When Zippy’s bosses prove too elusive for law enforcement, Curtis, Zippy, and Zippy’s girlfriend, Larissa, realize that their only chance of survival is to take on the criminals themselves. They must create new identities and draw on their unique talents, including Curtis’ musical ability, to go after the people who want them dead.
Doubleday | 9780593687611

THE DEVIL THREE TIMES by Rickey Fayne (Historical Fiction)
Yetunde awakens aboard a slave ship en route to the United States with the spirit of her dead sister as her only companion. Desperate to survive the hell that awaits her at their destination, Yetunde finds help in an unexpected form --- the Devil himself. The Devil, seeking a way to reenter the pearly gates of heaven, decides to prove himself to an indifferent God by protecting Yetunde and granting her a piece of his supernatural power. In return, Yetunde makes an incredible sacrifice. Their bargain extends far beyond Yetunde's mortal lifespan. Over the next 175 years, the Devil visits Yetunde's descendants in their darkest hour of need. He offers each of them his own version of salvation, all the while wondering: Can he save himself, too?
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316575171

THE DEVILS by Joe Abercrombie (Historical Fantasy)
Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain that a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends. Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it's a good thing that Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.
Tor Books | 9781250880055

THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS by Ocean Vuong (Fiction)
One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, 19-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family and a community on the brink.
Penguin Press | 9780593831878

FEVER BEACH by Carl Hiaasen (Mystery/Humor)
“The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Shores, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said he’d take him there after finishing an errand.” Thus begins FEVER BEACH, with an errand that leads --- in pure Carl Hiaasen style --- into the depths of Florida at its most Floridian: a sun-soaked bastion of right-wing extremism, white power, greed and corruption.
Knopf | 9780593320945

THE INCANDESCENT by Emily Tesh (Dark Fantasy)
Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood School and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school's boundaries from demonic incursions. Walden is good at her job --- no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its 600 students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity that Walden most needs to keep her school safe from…is herself.
Tor Books | 9781250835017

ISABELLA NAGG AND THE POT OF BASIL by Oliver Darkshire (Fantasy/Humor)
In a tiny farm on the edge of the miserable village of East Grasby, Isabella Nagg is trying to get on with her tiny, miserable existence. Dividing her time between tolerating her feckless husband, caring for the farm’s strange animals, cooking up “scrunge,” and crooning over her treasured pot of basil, Isabella can’t help but think that there might be something more to life. When Mr. Nagg returns home with a spell book purloined from the local wizard, she thinks: What harm could a little magic do? This debut novel by beloved rare bookseller and memoirist Oliver Darkshire reimagines a heroine of Giovanni Boccaccio’s THE DECAMERON in a delightfully deranged world of talking plants, walking corpses, sentient animals and shape-shifting sorcerers.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324105916

LIFE AND ART: Essays by Richard Russo (Essays)
Richard Russo’s masterful new essays consider how life and art inform each other and how the stories we tell shape our understanding of the world around us. In “The Lives of Others,” Russo reflects on the implacable fact that writers use people, insisting that what matters, in the end, is how and for what purpose. In “Stiff Neck,” he writes of the exasperating fault lines exposed within his own family as his wife’s sister and her husband --- proudly unvaccinated --- develop COVID. In “Triage,” he details the terror of seeing his seven-year-old grandson in critical condition. And in “Ghosts,” he revisits Gloversville, the town that gave rise to the now-legendary fictional town of North Bath, and confronts the specter of its richly populated past and its ghostly present.
Knopf | 9780593802168

MAKE ME FAMOUS written by Maud Ventura, translated by Gretchen Schmid (Fiction)
Ever since she was a child, Cléo, the French-American daughter of two academics, has had only one obsession: becoming a famous singer. Over the years, she overcomes every obstacle and becomes a global superstar. But as any celebrity will tell you, getting to the top is one thing; staying there is another. Now 33 years old, Cléo is taking her first real vacation in years, on a remote island with no one else in sight. With the never-ending spin cycle of her life finally on pause and no paparazzi peeking out from behind the coconut palms, she can work on her fourth album in peace. Except that with so much time to think, she can’t help but ruminate on her past --- including how, just six months earlier, things started to go very, very wrong.
HarperVia | 9780063427518

THE MAN MADE OF SMOKE by Alex North (Thriller)
Dan Garvie’s life has been haunted by the crime he witnessed as a child --- narrowly escaping an encounter with a notorious serial killer. He has dedicated his life since to becoming a criminal profiler, eager to seek justice for innocent victims. So when his father passes away under suspicious circumstances, Dan revisits his small island community, determined to uncover the truth about his death. Is it possible that the monster he remembers from his childhood nightmares has returned after all these years?
Celadon Books | 9781250757890

MARBLE HALL MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz (Mystery)
Freelancing for a London publisher, editor Susan Ryeland has been given the last job she wants: working on an Atticus Pünd continuation novel called Pünd’s Last Case. Worse still, she knows the new writer. Eliot Crace is the troubled grandson of legendary children’s author Miriam Crace, who died 20 years ago. Eliot is convinced that she was poisoned. To her surprise, Susan enjoys reading the manuscript, which is set in the South of France and revolves around the mysterious death of Lady Margaret Chalfont, days before she was about to change her will. But when it is revealed that Lady Margaret was also poisoned, alarm bells begin to ring. The more Susan reads, the clearer it becomes that Eliot has deliberately concealed clues about his grandmother’s death inside the book.
Harper | 9780063305700

MARK TWAIN by Ron Chernow (Biography)
Before he was Mark Twain, he was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Born in 1835, the man who would become America’s first, and most influential, literary celebrity spent his childhood dreaming of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi. But when the Civil War interrupted his career on the river, the young Twain went west to the Nevada Territory and accepted a job at a local newspaper. It wasn’t long before the former steamboat pilot from Missouri was recognized across the country for his literary brilliance, writing under a pen name that he would immortalize. In this richly nuanced portrait of Mark Twain, acclaimed biographer Ron Chernow brings his considerable powers to bear on a man who shamelessly sought fame and fortune, and crafted his persona with meticulous care.
Penguin Press | 9780525561729

NO ONE WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE AT THIS WEDDING by Catherine Mack
(Mystery/Humor)
Attending your best friend’s wedding should be a piece of (wedding) cake, but not for Eleanor Dash, the bestselling author of the Vacation Mysteries series. Because murder seems to follow her every time she goes on vacation. Emma Wood, Eleanor’s best friend since childhood, is starring in the movie adaptation of When in Rome, Eleanor’s first novel. Emma is also marrying Fred Winters, a major movie star and Emma’s co-star, who just happens to be playing Connor Smith, Eleanor’s ex and leading man of the series. Filming wraps, and they invite the whole cast and crew to their wedding at nearby Catalina Island. There may be a storm headed their way, but nothing will stop their nuptials. That is, until Emma receives a note that says “Someone is going to die at the wedding.”
Minotaur Books | 9781250326133

QUEEN OF ALL MAYHEM: The Blood-Soaked Life and Mysterious Death of Belle Starr, the Most Dangerous Woman in the West by Dane Huckelbridge (Biography)
On February 3, 1889, just two days shy of her 41st birthday, Myra Maybelle Shirley --- better known at that point by her outlaw sobriquet “Belle Starr” --- was blown from her horse saddle and killed by a pair of shotgun blasts, delivered by an unseen assailant, only a few miles away from her home in the Indian Territory of present-day Oklahoma. Thus ended the life of one of the most colorful, authentic and dangerous women in the history of the American West. In QUEEN OF ALL MAYHEM, Dane Huckelbridge probes a life rich in contradictions and intrigue. Why did a woman who had considerable advantages in life --- a good family, a decent education, solid marriage prospects, a clear path to financial security --- choose to pursue a life of crime?
William Morrow | 9780063307018

THE RED HOUSE by Mary Morris (Fiction)
Thirty years ago, Laura’s mother, Viola, went missing. She left behind her purse, her keys, and her mysterious paintings of a red house. Laura, an artist herself, held on to the paintings. On the back of each work, her mother scrawled in Italian, “I will not be here forever.” The family never understood what Viola meant. Decades later, Laura returns to Italy, where her parents met after World War II. Laura spent the earliest years of her childhood there before the family moved to New Jersey and settled into an American dream that eventually became a nightmare. Viola, who claimed to be an orphan, staunchly refused to speak of her life before marriage. In Italy, Laura finds herself on a strange scavenger hunt to solve the puzzle of her mother’s lost years.
Doubleday | 9780385544986

RUN FOR THE HILLS by Kevin Wilson (Fiction)
Ever since her dad left them 20 years ago, it’s been just Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While it’s a bit lonely and a less exciting life than what she imagined for herself, it’s mostly okay. Then one day, Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she’s his half-sister. Reuben, who was left behind by their dad 30 years ago, has hired a detective to track down their father and a string of other half-siblings. And he wants Madeline to leave her home and join him for the craziest kind of road trip imaginable to find them all. As Madeline and Reuben --- and eventually the others --- share stories of their father, who behaved so differently in each life he created, they begin to question what he was looking for with every new incarnation.
Ecco | 9780063317512

THE SILVERSMITH'S PUZZLE by Nev March (Historical Mystery)
In 1894 colonial India, Lady Diana's family has lost their fortune in a global financial slump. But even worse, her brother, Adi, is accused of murder. Desperate to save him from the gallows, Captain Jim and Lady Diana rush back to Bombay. However, the traditional Parsi community finds Jim and Diana's marriage taboo and shuns them. The dying words of Adi’s business partner, a silversmith, are perplexing. As Captain Jim peels back the curtains on this man's life, he finds a trail of unpaid bills, broken promises, lies and secrets. Why was the silversmith so frantic for gold, and where is it? What awful truth does it represent?
Minotaur Books | 9781250348036

SKIPPER: Why Baseball Managers Matter and Always Will by Scott Miller (Sports)
SKIPPER takes on an ambitious Moneyball-esque premise: a deep dive into the ongoing struggle for control that often takes place behind the scenes between Major League Baseball managers and the ownership groups, and now, their data analysts. In a culture still attempting to come to terms with the Digital Age, there’s a bigger story behind the evolution of authority of managing inside the major leagues. Packed with baseball history, interviews with dozens of MLB's current stars and veterans, and an exclusive, inside look at the day-to-day life of LA Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, SKIPPER is a fascinating look into the highs, the lows and the inner workings of the changing world of professional baseball.
Grand Central Publishing | 9780306832703

SLAYING YOU by Michelle Gagnon (Thriller/Humor)
Grace and Amber’s first encounter was anything but ordinary. They bonded over being stalked by the same psychopath. After narrowly escaping that ordeal, they went their separate ways, determined to get back to their lives. Surprise: neither of them is very good at being "normal." Despite their best efforts, they both feel an irresistible pull toward the dark side. So when they reunite for a Vegas wedding and discover that an even more dangerous killer is targeting their friends, it’s time to get the gang back together. Grace and Amber have outrun a murderer before. But can they do it again?
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593540770

SLEEP by Honor Jones (Fiction)
Ten-year-old Margaret hides beneath a blackberry bush in her family’s verdant backyard while her brother hunts for her in a game of flashlight tag. Her family life requires careful maintenance. Her mother can be as brittle and exacting as she is loving, and her father and brother assume familiar, if uncomfortable, models of masculinity. Then late one summer, everything changes. After a series of confusing transgressions, the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away. Twenty-five years later, Margaret hides under her parents’ bed, waiting for her young daughters to find her in a game of hide and seek. She’s newly divorced and navigating her life as a co-parent, while discovering the pleasures of a new lover. But some part of her is still under the blackberry bush, punched out of time.
Riverhead Books | 9780593851982

SOMETHING I KEEP UPSTAIRS by J.D. Barker (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
In the sleepy coastal town of New Castle, New Hampshire, 17-year-old Billy Hasler's life is about to take a terrifying turn. When his best friend, David Spivey, inherits a mysterious house on a nearby island, it seems like the perfect place to spend their final summer before heading off to college. No parents. No police. No responsibilities. As they dig into the island's dark past, they awaken an ancient evil that has influenced generations. What begins as an innocent summer adventure quickly descends into a nightmare.
Hampton Creek Press | 9798989265480

SPEAK TO ME OF HOME by Jeanine Cummins (Fiction)
On her wedding day in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1968, Rafaela Acuña y Daubón has mild misgivings, but she marries Peter Brennan Jr. anyway in a blaze of romantic optimism. She has no way of knowing how dramatically her life will change when she uproots her young family to start over in the American Midwest, unleashing a fleet of disappointments. In the 1980s, against the backdrop of her mother’s isolation in St. Louis, Missouri, Rafaela’s daughter, Ruth, wants only to belong. Eager to fit in, Ruth lets go of her language, habits and childhood memories of Puerto Rico. It’s not until decades later when Ruth’s own daughter, Daisy, returns to San Juan that her mother and grandmother begin to truly reflect on the choices that have come to define their lives.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250759368

THE WARRIOR: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay by Christopher Clarey (Sports/Biography)
Christopher Clarey illuminates the skill and determination it took to accomplish Rafael Nadal’s most mind-blowing achievement: 14 French Open titles. Nadal has won big on tennis's many surfaces en route to becoming one of the greatest players of all time: securing two Wimbledon titles on grass and four U.S. Open titles on cushioned acrylic hardcourts. But clay, the slowest and grittiest of the game’s playgrounds, is where it all comes together best for his tactical skills, whipping topspin forehand and gladiatorial mindset. Clay is to Rafael Nadal what water is to Michael Phelps, which helps explain one of the most impressive individual sports achievements of the 21st century. Clarey draws on interviews over many years with Nadal and his team and with rivals like Roger Federer.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538759134

WHERE THE RIVERS MERGE by Mary Alice Monroe (Historical Fiction)
1908: The Lowcountry of South Carolina is at the cusp of change. Mayfield, the grand estate held for generations by the Rivers family, is the treasured home of young Eliza. A free spirit, she refuses to be confined by societal norms. But the Great War, coastal storms and family turmoil bring unexpected challenges to Eliza, putting her on a collision course with the patriarchal traditions of a bygone era. 1988: At 88, Eliza is the scion of the Rivers/DeLancey family. She has fought a lifetime to save her beloved Mayfield and is too independent and committed to quietly retire and leave the fate of the estate to her greedy son. She must make decisions that will assure the future of the land and her family --- or watch them both be split apart.
William Morrow | 9780063249424

On Sale the Week of May 12th in Paperback

May 13th

ALL FOURS by Miranda July (Fiction)
A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from Los Angeles to New York. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, checks into a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in an entirely different journey. With Miranda July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, ALL FOURS tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic and domestic life of a 45-year-old female artist, the book transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman.
Riverhead Books | 9780593190272

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 | 9781668034385

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.” But beneath this polished surface was a powder keg of unresolved trauma and chronic overwork. It was all about to blow. AMBITION MONSTER is a gutsy and powerful look at workaholism, the lingering effect of childhood trauma, and the failures of our modern rat race. This is a Cinderella story of success and a brutal appraisal of the cost of capitalism --- perfect for people pleasers, overachievers, and those whose traumas have driven them to be perfect, no matter the cost.
Atria Books | 9781668056592

ASH DARK AS NIGHT: A Harry Ingram Mystery by Gary Phillips (Historical Mystery)
Los Angeles, August 1965. Anger and pent-up frustrations boil over in the Watts neighborhood after a traffic stop of two Black motorists. As the Watts riots explode, crime photographer Harry Ingram snaps photos at the scene. When he captures the image of an unarmed activist being shot down by the cops, he winds up in the hospital, beaten, his camera missing. Proof of the unjust killing seems lost --- until Ingram’s girlfriend, Anita Claire, retrieves the hidden film in a daring rescue. A recuperating Ingram is approached by Betty Payton, a comrade of Anita’s mother, who wants Ingram’s help tracking down her business associate, Moses “Mose” Tolbert, who was last seen during the riots. Ingram follows the investigation down a rabbit hole of burglary rings, bank robberies, looted cash and clandestine agendas.
Soho Crime | 9781641296762

THE COUNTRY UNDER HEAVEN by Frederic S. Durbin (Western)
Paperback Original
Set in the 1880s, THE COUNTRY UNDER HEAVEN follows Ovid Vesper, a former Union soldier who has been having enigmatic visions after surviving the Battle of Antietam. As he travels across the country following those visions, he finds himself in stranger and increasingly more dangerous encounters with other worlds hidden in the spaces of his own mind, not to mention the dangers of the Wild West. Ovid brings his steady calm and compassion as he helps the people of a broken country still reeling and wounded from the war. He assists with matters of all sorts, from odd jobs around the house, to guiding children back to their own universe, to hunting down unnatural creatures that stalk the night --- all the while seeking his own personal resolution and peace from his visions.
Melville House | 9781685891695

DEATH ON THE ISLAND by Eliza Reid (Mystery)
Paperback Original
A group of international players has gathered in a tiny village off the coast of Iceland for a diplomatic dinner. There's Kristján, the mayor, who is reeling from a personal tragedy; Graeme, the ambassador, who has an agenda to push; Jane, his wife, who is along for the ride on another one of her husband's many business trips; and several others, from Iceland and from abroad, each with their own reason for being there, their own loyalties and grievances. By the end of the night, one of them will be dead. And it will be up to the ambassador's wife to figure out how --- and why. What Jane soon comes to realize is that small communities can be the most dangerous of them all…and no one in their group is safe.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781728292410

DON’T LET THE DEVIL RIDE by Ace Atkins (Thriller)
Addison McKellar knows she and her husband, Dean, don’t have the perfect marriage, but she’s still shocked when he completely vanishes from her life. As days stretch into a week and she’s repeatedly stonewalled by Dean’s friends and associates, her frustration turns into genuine alarm. When even the police seem dismissive of her concerns, Addison turns to her father’s old friend, legendary Memphis PI Porter Hayes. Porter and Addison quickly discover that Dean was never the hardworking business owner and family man he pretended to be. As they piece together the connections between a hook-handed mercenary, one of Elvis’ former leading ladies, and a man posing as an FBI agent, it becomes clear that Dean was deeply enmeshed in a high-stakes web of international intrigue, and Porter and Addison aren’t the only ones looking for him.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063293397

DREAM ON, RAMONA RILEY by Ashley Herring Blake (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Once upon a time, Ramona Riley was a student at a prestigious art school, with dreams of landing in Hollywood as a costume designer to the stars. But after her father’s car accident, she had to quit and return to her small New Hampshire town, Clover Lake, to help take care of her younger sister. Twelve years later, Ramona is still working at the town’s café, all but given up on her dream. But when a big-budget romantic comedy comes to Clover Lake to film, she wonders if this could be her chance. There’s only one problem: Dylan Monroe, her first kiss and Hollywood’s favorite wild child, is the star. Ultimately, both women must decide if the spark between them can fan the flames of their individual dreams, or if it will extinguish their light.
Berkley | 9780593815991

A FAREWELL TO ARFS: A Chet & Bernie Mystery by Spencer Quinn (Mystery)
Chet the dog and his human partner, PI Bernie Little, are on to a new case, and this time they're entangled in a web of crime unlike anything they've ever seen before. Their elderly next-door neighbor, Mr. Parsons, thought he was doing the right thing by loaning his ne'er do well son, Billy, some money to help get himself settled. But soon, Mr. Parsons discovers that his entire life savings is gone. A run-of-the-mill scam? Bernie isn’t so sure that the case is that simple, but it's Chet who senses what they're really up against. Only Billy knows the truth, but he's disappeared. Can Chet and Bernie track him down before it's too late? Someone else is also in the hunt, an enemy with a mysterious, cutting-edge power who will test Chet and Bernie to their limit --- or maybe beyond.
Forge Books | 9781250331823

THE JAZZMEN: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America by Larry Tye (Music/History)
This is the story of three revolutionary American musicians --- Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie --- the maestro jazzmen who orchestrated the chords that throb at the soul of 20th-century America. What is far less known about these groundbreakers is that they were bound not just by their music or even the discrimination that they, like nearly all Black performers of their day, routinely encountered. Each defied and ultimately overcame racial boundaries by opening America’s eyes and souls to the magnificence of their music. In the process they wrote the soundtrack for the civil rights movement. Based on more than 250 interviews, THE JAZZMEN brings alive the history of Black America in the early-to-mid-1900s through the singular lens of the country’s most gifted, engaging and enduring African-American musicians.
Mariner Books | 9780063444867

LEFT FOR DEAD: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World by Eric Jay Dolin (History)
In LEFT FOR DEAD, Eric Jay Dolin tells the true story of a wild and fateful encounter between an American sealing vessel, a shipwrecked British brig and a British warship in the Falkland archipelago during the War of 1812. Fraught with misunderstandings and mistrust, the incident left three British sailors and two Americans, including the captain of the sealer, Charles H. Barnard, abandoned in the barren, windswept and inhospitable Falklands for a year and a half. With deft narrative skill and unequaled knowledge of the very pith of the seafaring life, Dolin describes in vivid and harrowing detail the increasingly desperate existence of the castaways during their 18-month ordeal --- an all-too-common fate in the Great Age of Sail.
Liveright | 9781324096740

LIARS by Sarah Manguso (Fiction)
When Jane, an aspiring writer, meets filmmaker John Bridges, they both want the same things: to be in love, to live a successful, creative life, and to be happy. When they marry, Jane believes she has found everything she was looking for, including --- a few years later --- all the attendant joys and labors of motherhood. But it’s not long until Jane finds herself subsumed by John’s ambitions, whims and ego; in short, she becomes a wife. As Jane’s career flourishes, their marriage starts to falter. Throughout the upheavals of family life, Jane tries to hold it all together. That is, until John leaves her.
Hogarth | 9780593241271

LONG HAUL: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers by Frank Figliuzzi (True Crime)
In 2004, the FBI was tipped off to a gruesome pattern of unsolved murders along American roadways. Today at least 850 homicides have been linked to a solitary breed of predators: long-haul truck drivers. They have been given names like the “Truck Stop Killer,” who rigged a traveling torture chamber in the rear of his truck and is suspected to have killed 50 women, and “The Interstate Strangler,” who once answered a phone call from his mother while killing one of his dozen victims. The crisis was such that the FBI opened a special unit, the Highway Serial Killings Initiative. The transient nature of the offenders and multiple jurisdictions involved make these cases incredibly difficult to solve. Based on his own on-the-ground research and drawing on his 25-year career as an FBI special agent, Frank Figliuzzi investigates the most terrifying of these cases.
Mariner Books | 9780063265165

THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD by Michael Callahan (Historical Fiction)
In 1959, Hollywood ingenue Mercy Welles seems to have the world at her feet. Far removed from her Nebraska roots, she has crafted herself into a glamorous Oscar-nominated actress engaged to an up-and-coming director. Until she shockingly vanishes without a trace. Almost 60 years later, Kit O’Neill, a junior television producer in Manhattan, is packing up her recently deceased grandmother’s attic, only to discover a long-lost box of souvenirs that reveal that the grandmother who raised her and her sister was, in fact, the mysterious Mercy Welles. Kit is determined to solve the riddle of her grandmother’s missing life, and the trail eventually leads to Martha’s Vineyard. Mercy retreats to the island nursing a broken heart, only to be drawn to the roguish Ren Sewards, who is not just the simple oysterman he appears to be but a scion of one of the island’s wealthy founding families.
Mariner Books | 9780063282612

MAINE CHARACTERS by Hannah Orenstein (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Every summer, Vivian Levy and Lucy Webster spend a month with their father at his lake house --- separately. Raised in New York City, Vivian is an ambitious sommelier with a secret that could derail her future. Lucy grew up in a tiny Maine town, where she now teaches high school English while watching her marriage unravel. They’ve never met. While Lucy envied her half-sister from afar, their father kept Vivian in the dark. When Vivian arrives at the lake to spread his ashes and sell his cabin, she's shocked to find Lucy there, awaiting his return. In an ideal world, they’d help each other through their grief. Instead, forced to spend the summer together, they fight through a storm of suspicion and hostility to untangle the messy truth about their parents’ pasts.
Dutton | 9780593851555

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 | 9781335983640

THE RETURN OF ELLIE BLACK by Emiko Jean (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
It’s been 20 years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work. Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State. But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken --- and who, unlike Ellie, might never return.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668023945

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 Griffin | 9781250382825

THE SHADOW OF WAR: A Novel of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Jeff Shaara (Historical Fiction)
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy inherited an ill-conceived, poorly executed invasion of Cuba that failed miserably and set in motion the events that put the U.S. and the Soviet Union on a collision course that nearly started a war that would have enveloped much of the world. THE SHADOW OF WAR brings to life the many threads that lead to the building crisis between the Soviet Union and the United States in 1962. It is told from a multitude of perspectives and voices --- from the Russian engineer attempting the nearly impossible task of building the missile launch facilities in Cuba, to the U.S. Navy commanders whose ships are sent to "quarantine" Cuba, to the Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, desperately trying to maintain a challenging balancing act between the conflicting demands of various powerful forces.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250387370

A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE by April Asher (Paranormal Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
At the age of 18, witch Harlow “Harry” Pierce attended her first Fates Festival Finding Ceremony, certain that the Blue Willow Wisp would lead her to her Fated match: her cougar shifter boyfriend, Jaxon Atwood. But Fate had other plans, guiding her best friend to him instead. Thirteen years later, she returns to her magical hometown --- with her half-human, half-shifter goddaughter in tow --- hoping that the town would work its magic on the troubled teenager. Jaxon Atwood was a shifter of few words and even less patience…until his mother retired as Alpha of the Rocky Mountain Pack and left the running of things to him. It’s a headache he didn’t need, and one that brought the witch who’d ripped his heart from his chest knocking on his door.
St. Martin's Griffin | 9781250357854

THIS STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY by Claire Messud (Historical Fiction)
Over seven decades, from 1940 to 2010, the pieds-noirs Cassars live in an itinerant state --- separated in the chaos of World War II, running from a complicated colonial homeland, and, after Algerian independence, without a homeland at all. THIS STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY is above all a family story: of patriarch Gaston and his wife, Lucienne, whose myth of perfect love sustains them and stifles their children; of François and Denise, devoted siblings connected by their family’s strangeness; of François’ union with Barbara, a woman so culturally different they can barely comprehend one another; and of Chloe, the result of that union, who believes that telling these buried stories will bring them all peace.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324110408

THE UNDERHANDED by Adam Sikes (Thriller/Adventure)
Professor William Dresden has found solitude in the south of France to grapple with his troubled past --- a neglected upbringing, failed romances, the recent demolition of his life’s work in academia, and even witnessing genocide. But he soon learns that he has much larger problems when an adrift MI6 officer, Adeline Parker, insists on a meeting, revealing shocking information about his family. Then a bomb explodes. William and Adeline narrowly escape the attempt on their lives and find themselves battling a group of neofascists and extreme nationalists who are inciting violent divisions across Europe. They are pulled into a shadowy war against a cabal called the Strasbourg Executive and pushed to the brink by family betrayals, corrupt institutions, and the Executive’s subversive plots against the fabric of Western society.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608096428

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?
Penguin Books | 9780593653241

THE WEALTH OF SHADOWS by Graham Moore (Historical Thriller)
1939. Ansel Luxford has everything a person could want --- a comfortable career, a brilliant spouse, a beautiful new baby. But he is obsessed by a belief that Europe is on the precipice of a war that will grow to consume the world. The United States is officially proclaiming neutrality in any foreign conflict, but when Ansel is offered an opportunity to move to Washington, D.C., to join a clandestine project within the Treasury Department that is working to undermine Nazi Germany, he uproots his family overnight and takes on the challenge of a lifetime. How can they defeat the enemy without firing a bullet? To thwart the Nazis, Ansel and his team invent a powerful new theater of battle: economic warfare. Money is a dangerous weapon, and Ansel’s efforts will plunge him into a world full of peril and deceit.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780593731949

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