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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of June 16th and June 23rd 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 ReadingGroupGuides.com's 14th Annual Book Group Speed Dating event, which is now available for viewing. Last Friday, representatives from eight publishers presented 35 titles perfect for book groups that are being published between now and November.
Join Us Next Tuesday Evening!
This is your last “On Sale This Week” newsletter reminder to sign up for this month’s “Bookaccino Live” Book Group event, which will take place on Tuesday, June 24th at 8pm ET.
Our guest will be Fiona Davis, and she will be talking about her novel, THE STOLEN QUEEN, which is a New York Times bestseller and a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection.
If you have a question for Fiona, please email it to Carol Fitzgerald using the subject line “Fiona” by June 24th at noon ET. Be sure to also include your name, city and state, and indicate if you’d like to be on camera during the event so you can ask Fiona the question yourself, or if you’d prefer Carol to ask it for you. Those who appear on camera will be able to chat with Fiona in our virtual green room before the program starts.
We have two new “Bookreporter Talks To” interviews to share with you in this newsletter.
First up is Julie Clark, whose latest thriller, THE GHOSTWRITER, will be a Bets On pick. Julie shares how she approached writing this book, including how a ghostwriter tackles a subject and handles the storytelling. She also talks about her process, which includes early mornings of writing, and why she will never be a book-a-year author. Julie’s character had some unexpected challenges that derailed her career, and she explains how these obstacles upped the stakes for her.
Carol also had the pleasure of speaking with Lori Foster about her new novel, THE GUEST COTTAGE, our current Women’s Fiction Author Spotlight title and the first installment in her Firefly Summer series.
Lori explains how she developed the book, including the first idea that came to her, and where she sees the series headed. Quite fittingly, she and Carol talk about their mutual fascination with fireflies. Lori also shares information about her very successful “Reader & Author Get Together” event, and how it has grown and changed through the years.
The 24-hour contest is now up, so be sure to enter for your chance to win one of five copies of the book. The deadline for your entries is TOMORROW, Wednesday, June 18th at noon ET.
Next month's “Bookaccino Live” book preview afternoon event will take place on Wednesday, July 9th at 2pm ET. The focus will be on books releasing between July 8th and August 5th, as well as some September titles, that we think will appeal to you.
P.S. For those of you who shop online, if you use the store links that appear on our site for shopping, Bookreporter.com gets a small affiliate fee on your purchases from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and IndieBound. As you read our reviews and features, we would appreciate your considering this as you buy!
This Week's Bonus News:
ReadingGroupGuides.com’s 14th Annual Book Group
Speed Dating Event: Great Books for Book Groups
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, June 18th at 7pm ET: “Friends & Fiction”: Join “Friends & Fiction” for a conversation with Julie Clark about her latest novel, THE GHOSTWRITER. This dazzling thriller revolves around a ghostwriter who is hired to write the last book for her estranged father --- and finds herself investigating the brutal murders of his two siblings in the summer of 1975.
Thursday, June 19th at 3pm ET: Barnes & Noble: Join Barnes & Noble as they welcome New York Times bestselling authors Megan Abbott and Laura Lippman for a live virtual discussion of their latest novels: Megan's EL DORADO DRIVE and Laura's MURDER TAKES A VACATION.
Monday, June 23rd 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 be sure to enter the Pre-Order Sweepstakes for the book. Lisa will be giving away an exciting prize each week during her “Lisa Live” events, leading up to the book's July 15th publication.
Tuesday, June 24th at 8pm ET: “Bookaccino Live” Book Group: Carol Fitzgerald will talk to Fiona Davis about her most recent novel, THE STOLEN QUEEN, which is a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick. Fiona also will answer questions from guests who will be “on stage,” as well as from other members of the audience.
On Sale the Week of June 16th in Hardcover
June 17th
BEACH READS AND DEADLY DEEDS by Allison Brennan (Mystery)
Between her high-demand job and taking care of her grandmother and her cats, Mia Crawford has little time for anything else. What time she does have, she pours into reading. Now, forced into taking a long-overdue vacation, she finds herself on a luxurious private island where she just might have a chance to reinvent herself --- for a little while, anyway. She can explore the island. Flirt shamelessly with a cute bartender. Have a vacation fling. Live like a heroine in one of her favorite novels. Or she can curl up with a good book on the beach. It turns out that reinventing yourself is easier planned than done. But when gossipy notes written in the margins of an old book turn out to be clues to the disappearance of another guest, Mia finds herself diving headfirst into a dangerous adventure.
Mira | 9780778387251
BUG HOLLOW by Michelle Huneven (Fiction)
When Sally Samuelson was eight years old, her golden boy brother, Ellis, went missing the summer he graduated high school. Ellis finally turned up at the bucolic Bug Hollow, a last gasp of the beautiful Northern California counterculture in the ’70s. He had found joy in the communal life there, but he died in a freak accident weeks later. From that point, the world of the Samuelsons never spins on the same axis, especially after Julia, Ellis’ girlfriend from Bug Hollow, shows up pregnant on their doorstep.
Penguin Press | 9780593834879
DON'T OPEN YOUR EYES by Liv Constantine (Psychological Thriller)
Annabelle Reynolds has everything she’s ever wanted. So why is she suddenly plagued by disturbing dreams of a future where she hates her husband and her daughters’ lives are at risk? When details from her dreams begin to materialize, she realizes these aren’t just dreams but rather premonitions of a terrifying future. They all point to a singular choice, an unknown moment that holds Annabelle’s life in the balance. Then Annabelle has a dream that her daughter, Scarlett, is in immediate danger. Someone wants Scarlett dead, and Annabelle has no idea who or why. Suddenly, every choice she makes is fraught with peril. As Annabelle’s present life starts to collide with the future in her dreams, she wrestles with how much control she really has over her destiny and whether she can change what is meant to be.
Bantam | 9780593875209
ECSTASY by Ivy Pochoda (Psychological Thriller/Horror)
Lena’s wealthy, controlling, humorless husband has just died, and now she contends with her controlling, humorless son, Drew. She lands in Naxos with her best friend in tow for the unveiling of her son's pet project --- the luxurious Agape Villas. Here, she yearns to rediscover her true nature and remember the exuberant dancer and party girl she once was. But Drew tightens his grip, keeping her cloistered inside the hotel and demanding that she fall in line. Lena is intrigued by a group of women living in tents on the beach in front of the Agape. She can feel their drums at night and hear their seductive leader calling her to dance. Soon she'll find that an ancient God stirs on the beach, awakening dark desires of women across the island. The only questions left will be whether or not Lena will join them and what it will cost her.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593851173
FOX by Joyce Carol Oates (Literary/Psychological Thriller)
Who is Francis Fox? A charming English teacher new to the idyllic Langhorne Academy, Fox beguiles many of his students, their parents, and his colleagues at the elite boarding school, while leaving others wondering where he came from and why his biography is so enigmatic. When two brothers discover Fox’s car half-submerged in a pond in a local nature preserve and parts of an unidentified body strewn about the nearby woods, the entire community --- including Detective Horace Zwender and his deputy --- begins to ask disturbing questions about Francis Fox and who he might really be.
Hogarth | 9780593978085
FULFILLMENT by Lee Cole (Fiction)
FULFILLMENT tells the story of two half-brothers --- Joel, a successful academic and author, whose marriage is in deep trouble, and his younger sibling, Emmett, paralyzed by indecision and working in a shipping warehouse --- who find themselves at their family home in Kentucky and upend each other’s lives in devastating ways. Between them is Alice, Joel's wife, a wry, passionate young woman whose dream of a small farm feels unattainable, and whose longing for a more authentic life collides with Emmett's hunger for connection and desire to escape a sense of burgeoning failure. As the chemistry between them escalates, the family is plunged into a violent crucible, each character brought to the precipice of immutable catastrophe.
Knopf | 9780593802861
HAZEL SAYS NO by Jessica Berger Gross (Fiction)
When Hazel Blum’s father gets a tenured job at a prestigious college, she and her family relocate from the hustle and bustle of Brooklyn to a middle-of-nowhere college town in Maine. With her mother, Claire, a clothing designer, and her father, Gus, an American Studies professor, Hazel and her 11-year-old brother, Wolf, spend the summer at the town pool, where they acclimate to their new lives and connect with the town’s sprawling community. That is, until a dramatic fallout on the very first day of her senior year tips the fickle balance of idyllic Riverburg and impacts everyone in her family.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335015129
HOW TO DODGE A CANNONBALL by Dennard Dayle (Historical Fiction/Satire)
Anders is a teenage idealist who enlists and reenlists in the Civil War to shape the American Future --- as soon as he figures out what that is, who it includes, and why everyone wants him to die for it. Escaping his violently insane mother is a bonus. Anders finds honor as a proud Union flag twirler --- until he’s captured. Then he tries life as a diehard Confederate --- until fate asks him to die hard for the Confederacy at Gettysburg. Barely alive, Anders limps into a Black Union regiment in a stolen uniform. His new brothers include a science-fiction playwright, a Haitian double agent, and a former slave feuding with God. Despite his best efforts, Anders starts seeing the war through their eyes, sparking ill-timed questions about who gets to be American or exploit the theater of war.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250345677
LAST DANCE BEFORE DAWN by Katharine Schellman (Historical Mystery)
Vivian Kelly has finally created a home and a family at the glamorous speakeasy known as The Nightingale. When a stranger from Chicago shows up there looking to settle old scores, Vivian and the Nightingale's owner, the mysterious and alluring Honor Huxley, send him packing. They soon discover, though, that the stranger was just a warning. Slowly, the people who have made The Nightingale their home realize that someone is following them --- and won’t stop until they unravel a mystery that’s been cold for years: a missing girl, a boy out for revenge, and a truck full of cash that disappeared in a job gone horribly wrong. Vivian just wants to protect the people she loves and is willing to dig into the dirt of the past to make it happen. But she has more to lose than ever before.
Minotaur Books | 9781250325822
THE LOST MASTERPIECE by B.A. Shapiro (Historical Thriller)
B.A. Shapiro embeds us in a circle of famous painters in late-19th-century Paris, centering on the anguished Impressionist artist Berthe Morisot --- the one woman in their midst who never got her due --- and the story of Morisot’s great-great-great-great granddaughter, Tamara Rubin, who has inherited Édouard Manet’s Party on the Seine, a painting that completely upends her life. Tamara discovers a long-hidden family history replete with unanswered questions: How had it been stolen by the Nazis? How had the painting managed to survive three disasters that destroyed every other artwork around it? And why had she never known about her ancestor, Berthe Morisot? As the painting begins to metamorphose into darker and more terrifying versions of itself, Tamara’s ordinary life is thrown into turmoil.
Algonquin Books | 9781643756370
THE MÖBIUS BOOK by Catherine Lacey (Memoir & Fiction)
Adrift in the winter of 2021 after a sudden breakup and the ensuing depression, the novelist Catherine Lacey began cataloguing the wreckage of her life and the beauty of her friendships, a practice that eventually propagated fiction both entirely imagined and strangely true. Betrayed by the mercurial partner she had trusted with a shared mortgage and suddenly catapulted into the unknown, Lacey’s appetite vanished completely, a visceral reminder of the teenage emaciation that came when she stopped believing in God. Through relationships, travel, reading and memories of her religious fanaticism, Lacey charts the contours of faith’s absence and reemergence. Bending form, she and her characters recall gnostic experiences with animals, close encounters with male anger, grief-driven lust, and the redemptive power of platonic love and narrative itself.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374615406
MURDER TAKES A VACATION by Laura Lippman (Mystery)
Mrs. Blossom has a knack for blending into the background, which was an asset during her days assisting private investigator Tess Monaghan. But when she finds a winning lottery ticket in a parking lot, everything changes. She is determined to see the world that she sometimes feels is passing her by. When Mrs. Blossom booked her cruise through France on the MS Solitaire, she did not expect to meet Allan on her transatlantic flight. He is the first man who has sparked something inside her since her beloved husband passed. She also didn’t expect Allan to be found dead 24 hours later in Paris, a city he wasn’t supposed to be in. Now Mrs. Blossom doesn’t know who to trust on board the ship, especially when a mystifying man, Danny, keeps popping up around every corner, always present when things go awry.
William Morrow | 9780062998101
NEXT TO HEAVEN by James Frey (Domestic Thriller/Mystery)
New Bethlehem, Connecticut. Picture-perfect lawns, manicured hedges, multi-million-dollar homes. But beneath the designer yoga gear and country club memberships lies a darker reality. In this world of excess, Devon and Belle have it all --- beauty, money, status. But they want something more. Something dangerous. Something that makes them feel alive. Their solution? A party --- a meticulously curated gathering of New Bethlehem’s elite, from a desperate ex-NFL quarterback to a hockey coach with a penchant for married women, and a ruthless Wall Street “closer” who wields his wealth like a weapon. One night. Multiple betrayals. And a murder that will shatter New Bethlehem’s carefully constructed facade.
Authors Equity | 9798893310269
THE POPPY FIELDS by Nikki Erlick (Speculative Fiction/Magical Realism)
Welcome to the Poppy Fields, where there’s hope for even the most battered hearts to heal. Here, in a remote stretch of the California desert, lies an experimental and controversial treatment center that allows those suffering from the heartache of loss to sleep through their pain...and keep on sleeping. After patients awaken from this prolonged state of slumber, they finally will be healed. But only if they’re willing to accept the potential shadowy side effects. On a journey to this mystical destination are four very different strangers and one little dog. As they attempt to make their way to the Poppy Fields --- where they hope to find Ellis, its brilliant, enigmatic founder --- each of their past secrets and mysterious motivations threaten to derail their voyage.
William Morrow | 9780063349339
A PROMISE TO ARLETTE by Serena Burdick (Historical Fiction)
Sidney and Ida Whipple are living the suburban 1950s American dream, which didn’t seem possible when they met at the height of WWII in France. But when their neighbors show off a newly purchased Man Ray photograph, Ida comes face to face with the person she loved and lost in the war: Arlette. Only Ida knows the truth about the photograph and why it can’t possibly be authentic. In an attempt to right past wrongs, she travels to California vowing to confront Man Ray. Sidney wakes to find his wife is missing, the photograph in question stolen, and all the secrets they’ve tried to bury come rushing back. With his daughters in tow, he travels after Ida, hoping to forge a new path together. Instead, their sojourn leads to a shocking discovery that could pull their family apart.
Atria Books | 9781668070307
THE SCRAPBOOK by Heather Clark (Fiction)
Harvard, 1996. Anna is about to graduate when she falls hard for Christoph, a visiting German student. Captivated by his beauty and intelligence, she follows him to Germany, where charming squares and grand facades belie the nation’s recent history and the war’s destruction. Christoph condemns his country’s actions but remains cryptic about the part his own grandfather played. Anna, meanwhile, cannot forget the photos taken by her American GI grandfather at the end of the war, preserved in a scrapbook only she has seen. As Anna travels back and forth to Germany to deepen her relationship with the elusive Christoph, her perspective is powerfully interrupted by chapters that follow both of their grandfathers during the war. Their fragmented stories haunt Anna and her lover two generations later --- and may still tear them apart.
Pantheon | 9780593701904
THE STOLEN LIFE OF COLETTE MARCEAU by Kristin Harmel (Historical Fiction)
Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, Annabel: take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance. But one night in 1942, Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette’s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane’s body was found floating in the Seine --- but the bracelet was nowhere to be found. Seventy years later, Colette’s life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston.
Gallery Books | 9781982191733
TONI AT RANDOM: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship by Dana A. Williams (Biography)
A multifaceted genius, Toni Morrison transcended her role as an author, helping to shape an important period in American publishing and literature as an editor at one of the nation’s most prestigious publishing houses. While Morrison's literary achievements are widely celebrated, her editorial work is little known. Drawing on extensive research and firsthand accounts, this comprehensive study discusses Morrison's remarkable journey from her early days at Random House to her emergence as one of its most important editors. During her tenure in editorial, Morrison refashioned the literary landscape, working with important authors, including Toni Cade Bambara, Leon Forrest and Lucille Clifton, and empowering cultural icons such as Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali to tell their stories on their own terms.
Amistad | 9780063011977
On Sale the Week of June 16th in Paperback
June 17th
BEFORE DOROTHY by Hazel Gaynor (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
Chicago, 1924: Emily and her new husband, Henry, yearn to leave the bustle of Chicago for the promise of their own American dream among the harsh beauty of the prairie. But leaving the city means leaving Emily’s beloved sister, Annie. Kansas, 1932: Emily and Henry have established their new home among the warmth of the farming community in Kansas. Their lives hold a precarious and hopeful purpose, until tragedy strikes and their orphaned niece, Dorothy, lands on their doorstep. Meanwhile, drought and devastating dust storms threaten to destroy everything, and Emily's much-loved home becomes a place of uncertainty and danger. When the past catches up with the present and old secrets are exposed, Emily fears she will lose the most cherished thing of all: Dorothy.
Berkley | 9780593440339
BEN & ME: In Search of a Founder's Formula for a Long and Useful Life by Eric Weiner (Biography/Travelogue)
Ben Franklin lingers in our lives and in our imaginations. One of only two non-presidents to appear on US currency, Franklin was a founder, statesman, scientist, inventor, diplomat, publisher, humorist and philosopher. He believed in the American experiment, but Ben Franklin’s greatest experiment was…Ben Franklin. In that spirit of betterment, Eric Weiner embarks on an ambitious quest to live the way Ben lived. Not a conventional biography, BEN & ME is a guide to living and thinking well, as Ben Franklin did. It is also about curiosity, diligence and, most of all, the elusive goal of self-improvement. As Weiner follows Franklin from Philadelphia to Paris, Boston to London, he attempts to uncover Ben’s life lessons, large and small.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781501129056
BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Memoir)
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of Black women and men --- bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME is Coates’ attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son.
One World | 9780812983814
BURIED DEEP AND OTHER STORIES by Naomi Novik (Fantasy/Short Stories)
From the dragon-filled Temeraire series and the gothic magical halls of the Scholomance trilogy, through the realms next door to SPINNING SILVER and UPROOTED, this stunning collection takes us from fairy tale to fantasy, myth to history, and mystery to science fiction as we travel through Naomi Novik’s most beloved stories. Here, among many others, we encounter a mushroom witch who learns that sometimes the worst thing in the Scholomance can be your roommate; the start of the Dragon Corps in ancient Rome, after Mark Antony hatches a dragon’s egg and bonds with the hatchling; and a young bride in the Middle Ages who finds herself gambling with Death for the highest of stakes.
Del Rey | 9780593600375
BURY YOUR GAYS by Chuck Tingle (Horror)
Misha knows that chasing success in Hollywood can be hell. But finally, after years of trying to make it, his big moment is here: an Oscar nomination. And the executives at the studio for his long-running streaming series know just the thing to kick his career to the next level: kill off the gay characters, "for the algorithm," in the upcoming season finale. Misha refuses, but he soon realizes that he’s just put a target on his back. And what’s worse, monsters from his horror movie days are stalking him and his friends through the hills above Los Angeles. Haunted by his past, Misha must risk his entire future --- before the horrors from the silver screen find a way to bury him for good.
Tor Nightfire | 9781250874665
THE CLIFFS by J. Courtney Sullivan (Fiction)
On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother. Twenty years later, Jane returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career as an archivist and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, has gutted it and is convinced that it’s haunted. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers is even older than Maine itself.
Vintage | 9780593312841
THE EXTINCTION OF IRENA REY by Jennifer Croft (Literary Mystery)
Eight translators gather in the primeval forest home of the world-renowned Irena Rey. They are there to translate her magnum opus together, but within days of their arrival, Irena disappears. The translators embark on a frantic search, delving into ancient woods filled with strange flora, fauna and fungi and examining her enigmatic texts and belongings for clues. But doing so reveals secrets they are utterly unprepared for, and they quickly find themselves tangled up in a web of rivalries and desires that threaten not only their work, but the fate of their beloved author herself.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781639736393
THE FALL OF ROE: The Rise of a New America by Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer (Politics)
In June 2022, Americans watched in shock as the Supreme Court reversed one of the nation’s landmark rulings. For nearly a half-century, Roe v. Wade was synonymous with women’s rights and freedoms. Then, suddenly, it was gone. In their groundbreaking book, THE FALL OF ROE, acclaimed New York Times journalists Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer reveal the explosive inside story of how it happened. Their investigation charts the shocking political and religious campaign to take down abortion rights and remake American families, womanhood and the nation itself. In doing so, Dias and Lerer go beyond the traditional political narrative into the most personal reaches of American life.
Flatiron Books | 9781250881427
THE GLASSMAKER by Tracy Chevalier (Historical Fiction)
It is 1486, and Venice is a wealthy, opulent center for trade. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers on Murano, the island revered for the craft. As a woman, she is not meant to work with glass --- but she has the hands for it, the heart and a vision. When her father dies, she teaches herself to make glass beads in secret, and her work supports the Rosso family fortunes. Skipping like a stone through the centuries, in a Venice where time moves as slowly as molten glass, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss --- from a plague devastating Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano and its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists.
Penguin Books | 9780525558293
GOD BLESS YOU, OTIS SPUNKMEYER by Joseph Earl Thomas (Fiction)
After a deployment in the Iraq War dually defined by threat and interminable mundanity, Joseph Thomas is fighting to find his footing. Now a doctoral student at The University and an EMS worker at the hospital in North Philly, he encounters round-the-clock friends and family from his past life and would-be future at his job, including contemporaries of his estranged father, a man he knows little about, serving time at Holmesburg prison for the statutory rape of his then-teenage mother. Meanwhile, he and his best friend Ray, a fellow vet, are alternatingly bonding over and struggling with their shared experience and return to civilian life, locked in their own rhythms of lust, heartbreak and responsibility.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538740996
HOUSE OF GLASS by Sarah Pekkanen (Domestic Thriller)
Rose Barclay is a nine-year-old girl who witnessed the possible murder of her nanny --- in the midst of her parents' bitter divorce --- and immediately stopped speaking. Stella Hudson is a best interest attorney, appointed to serve as counsel for children in custody cases. From the moment Stella passes through the iron security gate and steps into the gilded, historic DC home of the Barclays, she realizes the case is even more twisted, and the Barclay family far more troubled, than she feared. And there's something eerie about the house itself: It's a plastic house, with not a single bit of glass to be found. As Stella comes closer to uncovering the secrets the Barclays are desperate to hide, danger wraps around her like a shroud, and her past and present are set on a collision course in ways she never expected.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250382832
I’VE TRIED BEING NICE: Essays by Ann Leary (Essays)
Having arrived at a certain age (her prime), Ann Leary casts a wry backward glance at a life spent trying --- and often failing --- to be nice. With wit and surprising candor, Leary recounts the bedlam of home bat invasions, an obsession with online personality tests, and the mortification of taking ballroom dance lessons with her actor husband. She describes hilarious red-carpet fiascos and other observations from the sidelines of fame, while also touching upon her more poignant struggles with alcoholism, her love for her family, her dogs, and so much more.
S&S/Marysue Rucci Books | 9781982120368
LAST HOUSE by Jessica Shattuck (Historical Fiction)
It’s 1953, and for Nick Taylor, a WWII veteran turned company lawyer, oil is the key to the future. Nick comes from humble origins, but thanks to his work for American Oil, he can provide every comfort for his family, including Last House, a secluded country escape. It’s 1968, and America is on the brink of change. Protestors fill the streets to challenge everything from the Vietnam War to racism in the wake of MLK’s shooting --- to the country's reliance on Big Oil. As Nick’s daughter, Katherine, makes her first forays into adult life, she’s caught up in the current of the time and struggles to reconcile her ideals with the stable and privileged childhood her parents worked so hard to provide. But when the Movement shifts in a more radical direction, each member of the Taylor family will be forced to reckon with the consequences of the choices they’ve made for the causes they believed in.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062979902
A LETHAL QUESTION by Mark Rubinstein (Thriller)
Manhattan psychiatrist Bill Madrian takes pride in the level of trust he establishes with his patients. For a patient to open up, they must truly believe that everything said in a therapy session remains confidential. But Bill has never realized the complications this confidentiality could present --- until he treats Alex Bronzi. One day, in a session with Alex, the young man asks, “Hey Doc, ya wanna know who clipped Boris Levenko?” Boris Levenko was a major crime boss who had been executed a few days prior. The question gives Bill information he desperately did not want to hear. With this knowledge, Bill’s life is upended, and he begins a fight for survival that takes him and his loved ones on a nightmarish journey far beyond the realm of anything he ever could have imagined.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608096435
LITTLE ROT by Akwaeke Emezi (Fiction)
Aima and Kalu are a longtime couple who have just split. When Kalu, reeling from the breakup, visits an exclusive sex party hosted by his best friend, Ahmed, he makes a decision that will plunge them all into chaos, brutally and suddenly upending their lives. Ola and Souraya, two Nigerian sex workers visiting from Kuala Lumpur, collide into the scene just as everything goes to hell. Sucked into the city’s corrupt and glittering underworld, they’re all looking for a way out, fueled by a desperate need to escape the dangerous threat that looms over them.
Riverhead Books | 9780525541653
NOW OR NEVER: A Stephanie Plum Novel by Janet Evanovich (Mystery)
She said yes to Morelli. She said yes to Ranger. Now Stephanie Plum has two fiancés and no idea what to do about it. But the way things are going, she might not live long enough to marry anyone. While Stephanie stalls for time, she buries herself in her work as a bounty hunter, tracking down an unusually varied assortment of fugitives from justice. With timely assists from her stalwart supporters Lula, Connie and Grandma Mazur, Stephanie uses every trick in the book to reel in these men. But only she can decide what to do about the two men she actually loves. She can’t hold Ranger and Morelli at bay for long, and she’s keeping a secret from them that is the biggest bombshell of all. Now or never, she has to make the decision of a lifetime.
Atria Books | 9781668003152
PARADE by Rachel Cusk (Fiction)
Midway through his life, the artist G begins to paint upside down. Eventually, he paints his wife upside down. He also makes her ugly. The paintings are a great success. In Paris, a woman is attacked by a stranger in the street. Her attacker flees, but not before turning around to contemplate her victim, like an artist stepping back from a canvas. At the age of 22, the painter G leaves home for a new life in another country, far from the disapproval of her parents. Her paintings attract the disapproval of the man she later marries. When a mother dies, her children confront her legacy: the stories she told, the roles she assigned to them, the ways she withheld her love. Her death is a kind of freedom.
Picador | 9781250390493
THE ROYAL FREE by Carl Shuker (Fiction/Dark Humor)
Paperback Original
James Ballard is a recently widowed father to a baby daughter. And he is a copy editor tasked with saving the Royal London Journal of Medicine from the mistakes no one else notices --- misplaced apostrophes, Freudian misspellings, the wrong influenza strain. This job is utterly boring but --- he tells himself --- totally crucial. The Royal London is a stronghold of care for the human body and a bastion of humanism in a disintegrating world. In London, outside the office, the prognosis for the body politic is grim: there are riots in the streets. While attempting to balance a six-month-old baby, his grief, and his work with a cast of mad and lovably eccentric medical editors, he finds himself the target of a violent gang of North London teenagers.
Counterpoint | 9781640097056
SOMEONE KNOWS by Vi Keeland (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
As a college English professor, Elizabeth looks forward to the start of each new semester teaching her creative writing seminar. At least until she reads chapter one of The Reckoning, a tale about a high school senior who has an affair with her teacher. To anyone else it would be the beginning of a great page-turner, but to Elizabeth it is the beginning of the end. She knows this story. It’s all familiar because she lived it. The girl in the story was her best friend, Jocelyn, and Elizabeth knows exactly how the story will end --- with the professor dead. Because she was the one who killed him. Someone knows what Elizabeth did 20 years ago, and her secret is about to be exposed. But who is the mystery student submitting the chapters?
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781668047491
SOUNDS LIKE LOVE by Ashley Poston (Paranormal Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Joni Lark is one of the most coveted songwriters in LA, yet she can’t write. There’s an emptiness inside her, and nothing seems to fill it. When she returns to her hometown of Vienna Shores, North Carolina, she hopes it will spark inspiration. But when she gets there, nothing is how she left it. How can Joni write when her world is leaving her behind? Until she hears it. A melody in her head, lyric-less and half-formed, and an alluring and addictive voice to go with it --- belonging, apparently, to a wry musician with an emptiness of his own. Surely, he’s a figment of Joni’s overworked imagination. Then a very real man shows up in Vienna Shores. He’s arrogant and guarded, and he has a plan for breaking their inconvenient telepathic connection: finish the song haunting them both and hope they don’t risk their hearts --- or their secrets --- in the process.
Berkley | 9780593641002
VILLA E by Jane Alison (Historical Fiction)
Along the glittering coast of southern France, a white villa rose from an earthen terrace. Eileen, a new architect previously known for her elegant chairs and furniture, built it as a haven for her and her lover. She realized each detail, designing the villa around their movements and habits. When the outspoken Le G, a founder of Modernist architecture, first laid eyes on the house, he could see his influence in the sleek lines. Affronted and impassioned, he took a paintbrush to the villa’s clean, white walls. Now, Le G is in the final week of his life. He has spent the last 30 years infiltrating Eileen’s house, erasing her presence and forgetting her name. But finally, the tide has come in, and Eileen is called back to her beloved coastline, where both artists will contend with the transformative power of memory.
Liveright | 9781324096719
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? by Shari Lapena (Domestic Thriller)
Nothing ever happens in sleepy little Fairhill, Vermont. But this morning that will change. And one innocent question could be deadly. What have you done? The teenagers get their kicks telling ghost stories in the old graveyard. The parents trust that their kids will arrive home safe from school. Everyone knows everyone. Curtains rarely twitch. Front doors are left unlocked. But Diana Brewer isn’t lying safely in her bed where she belongs. Instead she lies in a hayfield, circled by vultures, discovered by a local farmer. How quickly a girl becomes a ghost. How quickly a town of friendly, familiar faces becomes a town of suspects, a place of fear and paranoia. Someone in Fairhill did this. Everyone wants answers.
Penguin Books | 9780593489987
On Sale the Week of June 23rd in Hardcover
June 24th
THE ACCIDENTAL FAVORITE by Fran Littlewood (Fiction)
Vivienne and Patrick Fisher have done an excellent job raising their three daughters. They’re well-adjusted women with impressive careers, caring partners, exciting hobbies and sweet children. So it’s with great anticipation that three generations of Fishers gather at a beautiful glass house in the English countryside for a weeklong celebration of Vivienne’s 70th birthday. But when Patrick’s reaction to a freak accident on the first day of the trip inadvertently reveals that he has a favorite daughter, no one is prepared for the shock waves it sends through the family. Decades-old unresolved sibling rivalries are suddenly unmasked. And be it newly uncovered smoking habits, ancient crushes, or private doubts about life decisions both big and small, no one’s secrets are safe.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250857118
AMONG FRIENDS by Hal Ebbott (Fiction)
It’s an autumn weekend at a comfortable New York country house where two deeply intertwined families have gathered to mark the host’s 52nd birthday. Together, the group forms an enviable portrait of middle age. The wives and husbands have been friends for over 30 years, their teenage daughters have grown up together, and the dinners, games and rituals forming their days all reflect the rich bonds between them. This weekend, however, something is different. An unforeseen curdling of envy and resentment will erupt in an unspeakable act, the aftermath of which exposes treacherous fault lines upon which they have long dwelt.
Riverhead Books | 9780593854198
THE BLACK HIGHWAY by Simon Toyne (Psychological Thriller)
Forensic specialist Laughton Rees is not ashamed of her checkered past. After all, her youthful indiscretions led to the birth of her daughter, Gracie. But when Gracie’s father unexpectedly turns up in their lives again, Laughton is automatically wary. Shelby Facer is a dangerous man, formerly imprisoned for his involvement in an international drug trafficking ring. But when Shelby claims that he has information about an especially difficult murder case she is working, she can’t turn him down. A body with no head or hands has recently turned up in the river Thames, and the police are at a loss until Shelby identifies the man. The victim was part of a highly secretive smuggling ring Shelby was involved with during his and Laughton’s youth --- which Laughton’s father was investigating before he died.
William Morrow | 9780062329851
THE DALLERGUT DREAM-MAKING DISTRICT written by Miye Lee, translated by Sandy Joosun Lee (Fiction/Magical Realism)
It's been a year since Penny first walked through the doors of the Dallergut Dream Department Store. She is now an official employee of the dream industry! She can finally take the express commuter train to the Company District, where all the dream-production companies are located, and discover how all raw dream materials and testing equipment are produced. But the Company District is not quite what she expected. Instead it hides a secret underbelly of the magical industry that she thought she was a part of. Penny discovers the Civil Complaint Center, full of people filing complaints about their dreams. As she gets to the bottom of each complaint, she begins to expand her horizons, moving beyond the role of dreamseller to understanding what lies in the hearts of their lost regulars.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335015358
THE DEATH MASK: An Eve Duncan Novel by Iris Johansen (Thriller)
World-renowned forensic sculptor Eve Duncan’s skills frequently make her a target. And in this epic adventure, they make her the first choice to create an Egyptian death mask for a nefarious potential client. But Eve cannot be bought, not for all the riches in a gold mine. Her would-be employer soon realizes that he must threaten the lives of those she holds dear to procure Eve’s services and force her to travel to Africa to mold the priceless mask. Eve knows that her husband, Joe Quinn, is out there somewhere, searching tirelessly for a way to help. Joe has back-up from Alex Dominic, a mercenary for hire, but nothing will make it easier to set his emotions aside in order to navigate the impenetrable jungle and mastermind a breathtaking escape.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538726334
DON'T LET HIM IN by Lisa Jewell (Domestic Thriller)
Nick Radcliffe is a man of substance and good taste. He’s just what Nina Swann needed in her life after her husband’s unexpected death. But to Nina’s adult daughter, Ash, Nick seems too good to be true. Without telling her mother, Ash begins digging into Nick’s past. What she finds is more than unsettling. Martha is a florist living in a neighboring town with her infant daughter and her devoted husband, Alistair. But lately, Alistair has been traveling more and more frequently for work, disappearing for days at a time. When Martha questions him about his frequent absences, he always has a legitimate explanation, but Martha can’t shake the feeling that something isn't right. Nina, Martha and Ash are on a collision course with a shocking truth that is far darker than anyone could have imagined.
Atria Books | 9781668033876
EL DORADO DRIVE by Megan Abbott (Thriller)
The three Bishop sisters grew up in privilege in the moneyed suburbs of Detroit. But as the auto industry declined, so did their fortunes. Harper, the youngest, is barely making ends meet when her beloved, charismatic sister, Pam --- currently in the middle of a contentious battle with her ex-husband --- and her eldest sister, Debra, approach her about joining an exciting new club. The Wheel offers women like themselves --- middle-aged and of declining means --- a way to make their own money, independent of husbands or families. Quickly, however, the Wheel’s success, and their own addiction to it, leads to greater and greater risks --- and a crime so shocking that it threatens to bring everything down with it.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593084960
THE GIRLS WHO GREW BIG by Leila Mottley (Fiction)
Adela Woods is 16 years old and pregnant. Her parents banish her from her comfortable upbringing in Indiana to her grandmother’s home in the small town of Padua Beach, Florida. When she arrives, Adela meets Emory, who brings her newborn to high school, determined to graduate despite the odds; Simone, mother of four-year-old twins, who weighs her options when she finds herself pregnant again; and the rest of the Girls, a group of outcast young moms who raise their growing brood in the back of Simone’s red truck. The town thinks the Girls have lost their way, but really they are finding it: looking for love, making and breaking friendships, and navigating the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood.
Knopf | 9780593801123
GLASS GIRLS by Danie Shokoohi (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
Alice Haserot thought she’d escaped the curse. For 16 years, she’s lived far from her family and the ghosts she used to conjure. But her past isn’t so easily left behind. When Alice discovers she’s pregnant and her estranged sister, Bronwyn, turns up on her doorstep, her carefully built new life begins to unravel. Bronwyn offers an ultimatum: one of her daughters is trying to possess the other, and only Alice has the power to save them. If Alice refuses, Bronwyn will go to their abusive mother and expose her location. Forced to confront the terrors of her childhood, Alice returns home to face the inheritance of her family curse.
Zando – Gillian Flynn Books | 9781638931904
THE HOUSE ON BUZZARDS BAY by Dwyer Murphy (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
As they hurtle into midlife, Jim and his closest college friends get together to rekindle the bonds of their friendship in his family’s beautiful, generations-old vacation home along Buzzards Bay. But what begins as a quiet and restorative seaside escape takes a darker turn when Bruce, an aloof but successful writer, disappears from the house without a trace. Meanwhile, a series of mysterious break-ins besets the town, which is the site of an old Spiritualist campground turned idyllic fishing village. After a series of uncanny disturbances at the house, Jim can’t help but feel that someone --- or something --- is watching them from the other side of the marsh. And with the arrival of a strange, seductive guest at their home, the group begins to question the very nature of their experiences --- along with their already precarious ties with one other.
Viking | 9780593833179
I'LL BE RIGHT HERE by Amy Bloom (Fiction)
Immigrating alone from Paris to New York after the crucible of World War II, young Gazala becomes friends with two spirited sisters, Anne and Alma. When Gazala’s lost, beloved brother, Samir, joins her in Manhattan, this contentious, inseparable foursome makes their way into the 21st century, becoming the beating heart of a multigenerational found family. The passing years are marked by the business of everyday existence and the inevitable surprises of erupting passions, of great and small waves of joy and despair, from the beginning of life to its end. Gazala and Samir make a home together, Anne leaves her husband for his sister, and Anne’s restless daughter grows up to raise a child on her own and to join a throuple, becoming who she wants to be.
Random House | 9781984801722
IT'S ONLY DROWNING: A True Story of Learning to Surf and the Search for Common Ground by David Litt (Memoir/Humor)
David, the Yale-educated writer with a fear of sharks, and Matt, the daredevil electrician with a shed full of surfboards, had never been close. But as America’s crises piled up and David spiraled into existential dread, he noticed that his brother-in-law was thriving. He began to suspect Matt’s favorite hobby had something to do with it. David started taking surf lessons. For months, he wiped out on waves the height of daffodils. Yet, after realizing that surfing could change him both in and out of the water, he set an audacious goal: riding a big wave in Hawaii. He searched for an expert he could trust to guide and protect him --- and when he couldn’t find one, he asked Matt. Together, they set out on a journey that spanned coasts, and even continents, before taking them to Oahu’s famously dangerous North Shore.
Gallery Books | 9781668035351
THE MEDUSA PROTOCOL by Rob Hart (Thriller)
When Astrid, known in her assassin days as Azrael, stopped showing up to Assassins Anonymous, the group assumed her past had caught up with her. Only her sponsor Mark, formerly the deadliest killer in the world, holds out hope that she’s okay. Then, during a meeting, the group gets a sign…or rather, a pizza delivery. Is there another psychopath out there who actually likes olives on their pizza, or is Astrid trying to send Mark a message? Meanwhile, Astrid wakes up in the cell of a black site prison on a remote island. A doctor subjects her to mysterious experiments, plumbing the depths of her memory and looking for a vital clue from her past. She’ll do anything to escape, except…killing anyone. It turns out it’s not easy to blow this joint without blowing anything, or anyone, up.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593717424
MISBEHAVING AT THE CROSSROADS: Essays & Writings by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Social Science/Essays)
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is at a crossroads. Traditional African/Black American cultures present the crossroads as a place of simultaneous difficulty and possibility. In contemporary times, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the phrase “intersectionality” to explain the unique position of Black women in America. In many ways, they are at a third crossroads: attempting to fit into notions of femininity and respectability primarily assigned to white women, while inventing improvisational strategies to combat oppression. In MISBEHAVING AT THE CROSSROADS, Jeffers explores the emotional and historical tensions in Black women’s public lives and her own private life.
Harper | 9780063246638
A MOTHER'S LOVE by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
On the occasion of her daughter Valerie’s wedding and her upcoming 50th birthday, bestselling author Halley Holbrook finds herself reflecting. Raising twins Valerie and Olivia is her proudest accomplishment. Halley has been able to give them the loving and safe home she never had, having survived a traumatic childhood. After Valerie moves to Los Angeles with her producer husband, and Olivia follows to remain close to her sister, Halley is empty-nesting in her Fifth Avenue apartment. Facing her first holiday alone in years, she books a trip to Paris. On the flight over, she meets charming Bart Warner, and the two become fast friends. But when a cunning thief makes off with her handbag and then begins to harass her, it reawakens old ghosts from her past. Vowing not to be a victim, and with Bart’s help, she chooses a bold course of action.
Delacorte Press | 9780593498736
PROOF by Jon Cowan (Legal Thriller)
As a disgraced lawyer with a drinking problem, Jake West is coasting on what’s left of his charm and money. He used to be the kind of lawyer who could convince anyone of anything --- until he decided to take on his father’s biggest client and prove his dad was corrupt. Now Jake finds himself almost at rock bottom, and that’s before his ex-best friend is murdered and Jake is accused of the crime. In a desperate bid to save himself, Jake must sober up and search for the real killer, whom he suspects might be hidden in one of the case files of his father’s illustrious law firm. As he delves into a labyrinth of lies and corruption, Jake teams up with an eclectic group of equally broken people as they all must skirt the law in order to find the proof he needs…no matter the personal or professional cost.
Gallery Books | 9781668051139
RANDY TRAVIS: Storms of Life by Diane Diekman (Music/Biography)
Randy Travis’ 1986 breakthrough put him at the forefront of Nashville’s new traditionalist sound and, in the words of Garth Brooks, saved country music. The singer’s warm baritone and all-time classic songs landed him atop the charts 16 times. His cross-genre appeal brought a level of multiplatinum success that no country artist before him had ever achieved. Diane Diekman’s biography follows the life and career of one of country music’s most beloved figures. She uses dozens of interviews and in-depth research to fill in the details of Travis’ pre-fame life and his enormous impact on country, popular and gospel music. From there, she pivots to telling the story of the singer’s difficult divorce, subsequent problems with alcohol and run-ins with the law, and the challenges he overcame in the aftermath of a devastating 2013 stroke.
University of Illinois Press | 9780252046667
ROOM ON THE SEA: Three Novellas by André Aciman (Fiction)
The short fictions in ROOM ON THE SEA deal with the heart-wrenching vicissitudes of amorous ambivalence. "The Gentleman from Peru" tells the story of the life-changing encounter of a group of friends with an enigmatic solitary guest in a hotel on the Amalfi Coast. "Room on the Sea" is a dialogue between a man and a woman who meet on jury duty and embark on a complex relationship. "Mariana" is a modern retelling of a famous 17th-century novel about a love affair between a nun and a swashbuckling, unreliable aristocrat.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374613419
A TERRIBLY NASTY BUSINESS: A Beatrice Steele Novel by Julia Seales (Historical Mystery)
Beatrice Steele has traded her etiquette-obsessed community of Swampshire for the big city of London, accompanied by her ever-trusty chaperone, Miss Bolton. They’ve settled in a lovely neighborhood, Sweetbriar, which is home to DS Investigations, the new office she opened with the prickly, annoyingly logical Inspector Drake to solve the city’s brutally thrilling crimes. However, nothing is turning out how Beatrice imagined it would, and she begins to wonder if she can become a true detective in a city that feels full of false promises. That is, until a string of murders thrusts Beatrice and Drake into the center of a scandal that pits the neighborhood’s wealthiest against the arts community. Beatrice must survive threats to her partnership, her business, and her place in society to break the case --- before it’s too late.
Random House | 9780593450017
THUS WITH A KISS I DIE by Christina Dodd (Historical Mystery)
I, Rosie Montague of Verona, am 20 years old, and I’ve never been wed. I’m beautiful but without conceit, for Juliet, my legendary Mamma, is the most gorgeous creature to ever walk the earth. Just ask Romeo, my legendary Papà. (Rumors of their deaths were premature.) I was heartwhole until I fell (literally) in love with Lysander of the House of Beautiful. But our love was not to be, for I was thwarted by Escalus, the Prince of Verona…who had designs on me. I’m trapped. Then I’m presented with a solution. Escalus’ father, Prince Escalus the Elder, appears to me. He tasks that I find his killer. Did I mention Elder is a ghost? Meanwhile, revolution threatens, for beneath Verona society’s glittering surface lurk dark shadows --- and an enemy eager to make me a tragic heroine in my own right.
A John Scognamiglio Book | 9781496750198
On Sale the Week of June 23rd in Paperback
June 24th
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE: The Beatles in Their Own Words by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines (Oral History/Music)
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE is a groundbreaking oral history of one of the most enduring musical acts of all time. The material is comprised of intimate interviews with Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, their families, friends and business associates that were conducted by Beatles intimate Peter Brown and author Steven Gaines in 1980-1981 during the preparation of their international bestseller, THE LOVE YOU MAKE, which spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list in 1983 and remains the biggest selling biography worldwide about the Beatles. Only a small portion of the contents of these transcribed interviews have ever been revealed. Among other sought-after information, the interviews contribute definitively as to why the Beatles broke up.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250872395
AS YOU WISH by Leesa Cross-Smith (Romance/Magicial Realism)
Paperback Original
For Lydia, Jenny and Selene, au pairing in Seoul is the opportunity of a lifetime. During a combined family vacation with their host families, the women visit an enchanted waterfall on Jeju Island and make a wish under a full moon. Suddenly, Lydia is the girl everyone wants --- except, strangely, her mysterious art class partner from Spain. Jenny is having secret, no-strings-attached fun with her host mom’s irresistible younger brother. And Selene is finally getting somewhere in her search for her mother thanks to a research-savvy photographer. But when Jenny’s romantic feelings begin to deepen, she realizes her wish is standing in the way of true, lasting love. Her decision to return to the waterfall will have unexpected consequences and force the au pairs to confront the hardest question of all.
Tiny Reparations Books | 9780593476185
BEAR by Julia Phillips (Fiction)
Sam and Elena dream of another life. On the island off the coast of Washington where they were born and raised, they and their mother struggle to survive. Sam works on the ferry that delivers wealthy mainlanders to their vacation homes, while Elena bartends at the local golf club. But even together they can’t earn enough to get by, stirring their frustration about the limits that shape their existence. Then one night on the boat, Sam spots a bear swimming the dark waters of the channel. Where is it going? What does it want? When the bear turns up by their home, a terrified Sam is more convinced than ever that it’s time to leave the island. But Elena responds differently to the massive beast. Enchanted by its presence, she throws into doubt the desire to escape and puts their long-held dream in danger.
Hogarth | 9780525436232
BLACK IS THE NIGHT: Stories Inspired by Cornell Woolrich edited by Maxim Jakubowski (Mystery/Short Stories)
This anthology of exclusive new short stories offers tribute to the master of the pulp era --- Cornell Woolrich, who stands with Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and Dashiell Hammett as a legend in the genre. Enter a world of vengeful brides and black widows, where cold-blooded killers watch from every window and every sin shall be paid for, no matter how deep you bury them. See the chilling fate of a young woman, and the darkness in every family, in Joe R. Lansdale’s “Missing Sister”; the cold, calculating mind of an ambitious wife and her cheating husband in Samantha Lee Howe’s “Trophy Wife”; a reunion dinner ripped apart by conspiracies and violence in Susi Holliday’s “The Invitation”; and the tight-knit family of a New York dive bar explode into violence in William Boyle’s “New York Blues Redux.”
Titan Books | 9781803360003
THE DARK LIBRARY by Mary Anna Evans (Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
Estella Ecker has returned to Rockfall House. Years after she ran away from her overbearing father, she has been forced back home to walk in his footsteps, teaching at the college he dominated, and living in the fabulous home where he entertained artists and scholars for decades. And perhaps she owns it now, because her mercurial mother has disappeared. At the center of everything is her father's library of rare books, which she had been forbidden to touch while he was alive to stop her. Everyone in town is watching Estella, with her dead father's name on their lips, and no one seems to care about her missing mother. Who were her parents, really, and is the answer hidden somewhere in the depths of Rockfall House? What she will discover is that no one can escape the secrets hidden in this dark library.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781728293677
EXPOSURE by Ava Dellaira (Fiction)
Annie, Jesse, Noah and Juliette are tied together by their experiences of grief. They are separated by their own versions of the truth of what happened on a single night 12 years ago, when Juliette, a college freshman grieving her mother, and Noah, a high school senior fighting for a place in a world that told him he didn’t matter, found each other. Spanning decades, this complex, captivating story pulls back the curtains of cancel culture to explore ambition, empathy, art, desire, consent, motherhood, and what it really means to lose everything.
Zibby Publishing | 9781958506660
THE FINAL EPISODE by Lori Roy (Domestic Thriller)
Paperback Original
Jennifer Jones and her best friends spend every summer at Big Cypress Swamp, and this summer, Jennifer finally will turn 11. She hopes to gain the “second sight” foretold by family legend and fulfill her destiny. Instead, the swamp serves up dangers greater than the gators lurking on Halfway Creek. Little Francie Farrow vanishes --- and Jennifer’s father goes to prison. Twenty years later, Jennifer has almost shed the label of Paul Jones’ daughter when her past comes barreling back. “Inspired by True Events,” a TV series that solves the unsolvable, is recreating that fateful summer. As the series plays out, Jennifer wonders: Did the show finally find Francie Farrow? And is Jennifer’s father truly guilty? Someone else wants answers even more than Jennifer does, and they won’t let her forget it.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662526923
A HAPPY MARRIAGE by A. R. Torre (Domestic Thriller)
Paperback Original
Los Angeles homicide detective Dinah Marino may have a complicated relationship with her family, but her psychiatrist husband, Joe, makes her feel safe, secure and happy. But throughout their 10-year marriage, she’s been keeping a secret from him --- a secret she’d take to the grave. Dr. Joe Marino loves his wife more than anything in this world, but there are things he’s learned to keep close to the chest --- including a few dead bodies. When a missing woman tied to his wife’s latest case is admitted to his hospital, doctor-patient confidentiality lands their marriage on some new and uneven ground. Now the carefully constructed lies between them don’t just simply threaten the delicate balance of their marriage. They could kill.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662519598
THE HEART IN WINTER by Kevin Barry (Historical Fiction)
October 1891. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city of Butte, Montana, is rich on copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers. Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and ballad-maker of the town, but also a doper, a drinker and a fearsome degenerate. Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the extremely devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington. A thunderbolt love affair takes spark between Tom and Polly, and they strike out west on a stolen horse. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunmen are soon in hot pursuit and closing in fast. With everything to lose and the safety and anonymity of San Francisco still a distant speck on their horizon, the choices they make will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Vintage | 9780593687383
LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP by Virginia Heath (Historical Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Nine years ago, Lord Guy Harrowby, Viscount Wennington, was publicly humiliated by a failed and reckless romantic gesture. Despite this, his mother clings to the promise he made her then: that she would have a house full of grandchildren by his 30th birthday. Still single, embittered and swiftly approaching 30, Guy's work is his life. In desperation, his mother blindsides him with a weeklong house party at his estate filled with annoying debutantes, all competing to be his wife. After failing as a governess, Lottie Travers is struggling as a lady’s companion. But with the family farm in trouble, and her father now in dire need of her wages, she’s determined to conquer her wildness once and for all. Even with his home full of eligible women, there is only one who catches Guy’s eye --- though he tries to deny it.
St. Martin's Griffin | 9781250896094
THE PRESIDENT’S SHADOW: A Shadow Thriller by James Patterson and Richard DiLallo (Thriller)
Paperback Original
For over 150 years, Lamont Cranston, and his alter ego, The Shadow, has possessed an array of mental and physical powers: scientific skills, shape-shifting ability and mind control. When a series of deadly natural disasters strike the planet, the Shadow immediately sets out to identify who’s responsible. A disgruntled graduate student? The power-hungry president of the Americas? Or could it be Shiwan Khan, the Shadow’s fiercest enemy? The Shadow’s latest adventure is also his, Maddy’s and Margo’s most dangerous. Triumph or perish, they’ll rise or fall…together.
Little, Brown and Company | 9781538721940
TALKING TO STRANGERS by Fiona Barton (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
When Karen Simmons is murdered on Valentine’s Day, Detective Elise King wonders if she was killed by a man she met online. Karen was all over the dating apps, leading some townspeople to blame her for her own death, while others band together to protest society’s violence against women. Into the divide comes Kiki Nunn, whose aggressive newsgathering once again antagonizes Elise. A single mother of a young daughter, Kiki is struggling to make a living in the diminished news landscape. Getting a scoop in the Simmons murder would do a lot for her career, and she’s willing to go up against not just Elise but the killer himself to do it.
Berkley | 9781984803092
TELEVISION FOR WOMEN by Danit Brown (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Estie isn’t sure she likes being eight months pregnant. She isn’t even sure she likes her husband anymore, especially after he hid that he’s been fired from his job. Now, she’s stranded and bloated and alone. Her cat is not a people person, and on top of it all, her best friend has been ignoring her calls ever since Estie told her about the baby. After Estie gives birth, she begins to suspect that all the stories she’s been told about motherhood might not be true. Having a child does not “complete” her. And that mythical connection with her baby? Well, she’s still waiting. In fact, Estie fears she is destined to end up like her own mother --- divorced and crying in the bathroom while her daughter stands outside the door and wonders if she’s okay.
Melville House | 9781685891831
TRINITY by Zelda Lockhart (Historical Fiction)
Lottie Rebecca Lee is spoken into the world in Fayetteville, North Carolina, by a Black nurse who declares, “Lord Jesus, if that ain’t the blackest little baby born this side of heaven.” Later, Lottie will prove that she is the ancestors’ promise to unearth the Mississippi and Ghanaian atrocities that have tormented Benjamin Lee, her grandfather who was born during the Great Depression in Mississippi’s red clay tobacco fields, and Benjamin Junior, his son and Lottie Rebecca’s father, born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where the post-Korean War GI Bill promises prosperity. These two generations of men are haunted by the Mother-Spirit, who did not survive enslavement’s post-traumatic stress violence.
Amistad | 9780063160965
TRUST HER by Flynn Berry (Thriller)
Three years after they narrowly escaped the IRA's worst punishment for informing, Northern Irish sisters Tessa and Marian Daly have built a new life in Dublin with their young children. It's a small island, though, and just as quickly as they disappeared, figures from their past surface to drag them back into the conflict. Tessa is told she must track down her old handler from MI5, Eamonn, and attempt to turn him into an IRA informant, or lose everything. Tessa's reunion with Eamonn revives a host of feelings she has long attempted to bury. As their relationship intensifies and the pressure mounts, long-held secrets rise to the surface, and Tessa must navigate a treacherous landscape of shifting loyalties, all while trying to protect her beloved son.
Penguin Books | 9780593490341
THE UNDERCURRENT by Sarah Sawyer (Domestic Thriller/Mystery)
It’s 2011, and Deecie Jeffries’ missing person’s case in Austin, Texas, is still cold. New mom Bee, struggling with postpartum depression, is living in Portland, Maine, having left Austin --- and those memories --- far behind. Until Leo, her childhood crush and her estranged twin Gus’ best friend, suddenly resurfaces, drawing Bee back into their shared past. Bee’s predictable life is upended, pushing her to return to her childhood home and piece together a neighborhood’s shattered history. Bee becomes consumed with a need to uncover the truth about Deecie’s disappearance and what happened to the families who lived across the field from one another --- Gus, Leo and their mothers: Mary, a homemaker, whose only escape is the local community theater, and Diana, a serious academic dedicated to her studies.
Zibby Publishing | 9781958506431
WRITING MR. WRONG by Kelley Armstrong (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Debut author Gemma Stanton knows romance readers love a bad boy --- and she has the perfect prototype for her novel: Mason Moretti. A high school hockey god-turned-pro player, Mason was Gemma's first crush, but she couldn't forget the sting of his very public rejection. So she casts him as a hot-headed Highlander in her spicy new historical romance. She never expected readers would find out on live TV when a morning show host invites Mason for a surprise on-air reunion. An aging hockey player, Mason has an image problem. So when his meet-cute with Gemma goes viral, he proposes that they build on the momentum with a few fake dates to boost her book sales...and his sagging profile. But when the fictional flirting gets a little too real, Mason realizes Gemma actually makes him want to become a better man.
Forever | 9781538742761
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