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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of January 12th and January 19th 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 Winter Reading Contests and Feature, which we have brought back for an 11th year. On select days in January and February, we are hosting a series of 24-hour contests spotlighting a book releasing this winter and giving five lucky readers the chance to win it.
Our first Winter Reading contest is now up. Enter by TOMORROW, Wednesday, January 14th at noon ET for your chance to win a copy of STRANGERS by Belle Burden, which is an upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On pick. This gorgeous memoir about the sudden end to a seemingly happy marriage is an aching, love-filled and transcendent account of surviving betrayal and discovering joy.
Join Us Tomorrow Afternoon!
This is your last newsletter reminder to sign up for our first “Bookaccino Live” book preview event of 2026, which will take place TOMORROW, Wednesday, January 14th at 2pm ET.
Carol Fitzgerald will present books releasing between now and February 3rd, as well as some March titles, that we think will appeal to you. Those attending the live event will be asked to answer a survey about the books from the presentation that they are most interested in reading and will be eligible to win a prize.
Last Chance to Enter Our
End-of-the-Year Contest on Reading Group Guides!
You also have a chance to win STRANGERS in our latest Word of Mouth contest, along with ANATOMY OF AN ALIBI, which will be a Bets On selection. Ashley Elston's tense, feverish thriller is about two women’s lives that are forever intertwined when a murder threatens to expose them both. You may remember Ashley as the author of FIRST LIE WINS, which was a Bets On pick.
Let us know by Friday, January 23rd at noon ET what books you’ve read, and you’ll be in the running to win both these titles.
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:
Bookreporter.com's 11th Annual
Winter Reading Contests and Feature
At Bookreporter.com, we are kicking off 2026 with our 11th annual Winter Reading Contests and Feature! On select days in January and February, we are hosting a series of 24-hour contests spotlighting a book releasing this winter and giving five lucky readers the chance to win it. We also are sending a special newsletter to announce the day's title, which you can sign up for here.
This year's featured titles are:
Click here to read all the contest details
and learn more about our featured titles.
Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events
Here are nine upcoming virtual book and author events that you may be interested in attending. Click on the links for more info and to register.
Wednesday, January 14th at 2pm ET: “Bookaccino Live” Book Preview Afternoon Event: Carol Fitzgerald will present titles releasing between January 13th and February 3rd, along with a few from March, that we would like to get on your radar. Included will be fiction; historical fiction; thrillers and mysteries; and memoirs, biographies and other nonfiction.
Wednesday, January 14th at 3pm ET: Barnes & Noble: Join Barnes & Noble as they welcome Jennie Godfrey for a live virtual discussion of THE LIST OF SUSPICIOUS THINGS as part of their B&N Midday Mystery Virtual Event series. Jennie will be in conversation with the New York Times bestselling author of ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, Chris Whitaker.
Wednesday, January 14th at 7pm ET: “Friends & Fiction”: Join “Friends & Fiction” for a conversation with Jayne Ann Krentz about THE SHOP ON HIDDEN LANE, an enthralling new romantic suspense novel filled with deeply entrenched grudges, psychic dangers, and a conspiracy that threatens not only two families but also the entire paranormal community.
Thursday, January 15th at 3pm ET: Barnes & Noble: Join Barnes & Noble as they welcome #1 New York Times bestselling author Ross Montgomery for a live virtual discussion of THE MURDER AT WORLD'S END as part of their B&N Midday Mystery Virtual Event series. Ross will be in conversation with the author of THE LIST OF SUSPICIOUS THINGS, Jennie Godfrey.
Sunday, January 18th at 6pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Jim Butcher will talk about his latest novel, TWELVE MONTHS. Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard, has always managed to save the day. But in this powerful entry in the Dresden Files series, can he save himself?
Monday, January 19th at 8pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Jenna Blum will talk to special guest host Karen Odden about her latest thriller, MURDER YOUR DARLINGS, a wickedly witty look at today’s literary landscape and a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of how far people will go for love.
Tuesday, January 20th at 7pm ET: Buzz Books Spring Summer 2026 Fiction Panel: Seven authors will chat with their editors about their upcoming books: Evelyn Clarke (THE ENDING WRITES ITSELF), LJ Ross (IMPOSTOR), Jan Saenz (200 MONAS), Emma Straub (AMERICAN FANTASY), Douglas Stuart (JOHN OF JOHN), Tia Williams (THE MISSED CONNECTION), and Kelly Yang (THE TAKE).
Tuesday, January 20th at 8pm ET: The Poisoned Pen Bookstore: Matthew Quirk will talk to special guest host Joseph Finder about his new book, THE METHOD, an edge-of-your-seat thriller about a young actress who must go undercover in a deadly world of espionage to save her best friend…and herself.
Tuesday, January 20th at 9pm ET: Killer Author Club: Kimberly Belle, Heather Gudenkauf and Kaira Rouda will talk to Jenna Blum about her new novel, MURDER YOUR DARLINGS. For every woman who’s ever fallen for a bad man comes a hilarious and eviscerating tale of love, loss and deadlines.
On Sale the Week of January 12th in Hardcover
January 13th
ANATOMY OF AN ALIBI by Ashley Elston (Psychological Thriller)
Camille Bayliss appears to have the picture-perfect life. She is married to hotshot lawyer Ben and is the daughter of a wealthy Louisiana family. Only nothing is as it seems: Camille believes that Ben has been hiding dirty secrets for years, but she can’t find proof because he tracks her every move. Aubrey Price has been haunted by the terrible night that changed her life a decade ago, and she’s convinced Benjamin Bayliss knows something about it. Living in a house full of criminals, Aubrey understands there’s more than one way to get to the truth --- and she may have found the best way in. Aubrey and Camille hatch a plan. For 12 hours, Aubrey will take Camille’s place. Camille will spy on Ben, and the two women will get the answers they desperately seek. Except the next morning, Ben is found murdered. Both women need an airtight alibi, but only one of them has it.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780593834459
THE BOOKBINDER'S SECRET by A. D. Bell (Historical Fiction)
Lilian ("Lily") Delaney, apprentice to a master bookbinder in Oxford in 1901, chafes at the confines of her life. She is trapped between the oppressiveness of her father’s failing bookshop and still being an apprentice in a man’s profession. But when she’s given a burned book during a visit to a collector, she finds a 50-year-old letter speaking of love, fortune and murder. Lily is pulled into the mystery of the young lovers, a story of forbidden love, and discovers there are more books and more hidden pages telling their story. Lilian becomes obsessed with the story, but she is not the only one looking for the remaining books. With sinister forces closing in, willing to do anything for the books, Lilian’s world begins to fall apart, and she must decide if uncovering the truth is worth the risk to her own life.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250412645
THE BRIARS by Sarah Crouch (Literary Thriller)
Desperate to escape a relationship gone bad, Annie Heston flees north to accept a job as a game warden in Lake Lumin, a picturesque town in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. A cougar has been spotted in the area. As Annie warns the community of the threat, she quickly discovers that not everyone in the tight-knit town is welcoming of outsiders, except for Daniel Barela, a reclusive carpenter who lives in the shadow of the mountain. They form an instant bond, though Annie soon comes to realize there is more to his past than meets the eye. When the body of a young woman is found in the briars that border Daniel’s property, the peace Annie has found in Lake Lumin shatters. As she assists the local sheriff with the investigation, Annie must rely on her wilderness training and intuition to find a murderer hiding in plain sight.
Atria Books | 9781668091883
DANDELION IS DEAD: A Novel About Life by Rosie Storey (Fiction)
When Poppy discovers unanswered messages from a charming stranger in her late sister's dating app, she makes an impulsive choice: She'll meet him, just once, on what would have been Dandelion's 40th birthday. Jake is ready to find something real --- and not least because his ex-wife's twentysomething boyfriend has moved into their old family home. When he meets the intriguing woman who calls herself Dandelion, their connection is undeniable, and he can think of little else. As their relationship deepens, Poppy finds herself trapped in a double life she never meant to create. Every moment with Jake feels genuine, electric and totally right --- despite the fact they're tangled in deceit. As the lines between grief and love blur, Poppy faces a choice: keep her sister's memory alive through her lies, or risk everything for a chance at her own happiness.
Berkley | 9780593954348
DARKROOMS by Rebecca Hannigan (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
On the night of the Summer Solstice in 1999, nine-year-old Roisin O’Halloran marched into the Hanging Woods, the mysterious copse that had inspired fear in decades of children in the small Irish town of Bannakilduf. She was never seen again. Twenty years later, two women are drawn together to discover the truth of what happened to Roisin: Roisin’s older sister, Deedee, a rookie cop who’s barely hanging on to the appearance of keeping it all together, and Roisin’s childhood best friend, Caitlin, a petty criminal who was the last person to see the young girl before she disappeared, now returned to her hometown after her mother’s death. Reluctantly brought together after decades of mistrust, Caitlin and Deedee must reckon with their shadowy pasts, the monsters that still haunt them, and the role they each may have played in Roisin’s disappearance.
William Morrow | 9780063419599
DETOUR by Jeff Rake and Rob Hart (Science Fiction/Thriller)
When Ryan Crane, a cop, spots a gunman emerging from an unmarked van, he leaps into action and unknowingly saves John Ward, a billionaire with presidential aspirations, from an assassination attempt. As thanks for Ryan’s quick thinking, Ward offers him the chance of a lifetime: to join a group of lucky civilians chosen to accompany three veteran astronauts on the first manned mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. As the ship is circling Titan, it is rocked by an unexplained series of explosions. The crew works together to get back on course, and they return to Earth as heroes. When the fanfare dies down, Ryan and his fellow astronauts notice that things are different. Some changes are good, but others are more disconcerting. Before the group can connect, mysterious figures start tailing them, and their communications are scrambled.
Random House Worlds | 9780593871379
THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Graduating magna cum laude from MIT is the happiest day of Billie Banks’ life, although her family is not part of it. Her mother, who always supported her, died when Billie was 17. Since then, her father has been slowly drinking himself to death on the family farm in Iowa, and she and her younger sister, Mickie, have grown even more estranged. Despite Billie’s attempts to look after Mickie following their mother’s death, her sister consistently treated her with cruelty. So when Mickie invites Billie to move in with her in Los Angeles, Billie is both wary and hopeful. Taking a leap of faith, she joins her sister on the West Coast. While Mickie lands a questionable modeling job and falls in with a fast crowd, Billie begins working at a pathology lab and starts dating a warm, supportive reporter at the Los Angeles Times. But then the siblings’ difficult history once again rises to the surface.
Delacorte Press | 9780593498859
DIVINE RUIN: A Sister Holiday Mystery by Margot Douaihy (Mystery)
It’s a steamy, restless end of the school year in New Orleans. Sister Holiday is finishing her music classes and preparing for her permanent vow ceremony, a pivotal moment in her journey of faith. But when one of her favorite students is found dead of a fentanyl overdose, Sister Holiday and her partner-in-PI, Magnolia Riveaux, are determined to track down the drug dealers. As students continue to fall prey to this sinister drug, Sister Holiday becomes more desperate to stop the epidemic --- while facing her own past with addiction, a demon that is never too far.
Gillian Flynn Books | 9781638931980
ENOUGH: Your Health, Your Weight, and What It's Like to Be Free by Ania M. Jastreboff, MD, PhD and Oprah Winfrey (Self-Help/Health & Fitness)
Obesity is a disease. It’s a question of biology, created by our bodies' need to survive and the environment we created and now live in. And it’s treatable. The new medications can lower our body fat set point (our brain’s “Enough Point”), so that we lose weight without battling biology with willpower. Dr. Ania Jastreboff describes strategies to optimize health and manage side effects, all with the reassuring perspective of decades of experience treating patients with obesity and leading studies with these medications. Oprah says she’s learned so much from Dr. Jastreboff about how, when it comes to weight, our bodies work with us --- and also against us. How each of our struggles are different and each of our choices in living with obesity also may be different.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781668217283
FIRE SWORD AND SEA by Vanessa Riley (Historical Fiction)
The Caribbean Sea, 1675. Jacquotte Delahaye is the mixed-race daughter of a wealthy tavern owner on the island of Tortuga. Instead of marriage, Jacquotte dreams of joining the seafarers and smugglers whose tall-masted ships cluster in the turquoise waters around Tortuga. She falls in love with a pirate, but when he returns to the sea, Jacquotte decides to make her own way. In Haiti she becomes Jacques, a dockworker, earning the respect of those around her while hiding her gender. She forms a deep bond with Bahati, an African-born woman who has escaped slavery and also disguises herself as a man. They join forces with Dirkje De Wulf, a fearless adventurer who also lives as a man at sea. For the next 20 years, Jacquotte raids the Caribbean, making enemies and amassing a fortune in stolen gold. Risking her life in one deadly skirmish after another, she begins to plot a war of liberation.
William Morrow | 9780063271043
FUNDAMENTALS OF BEING A GOOD GIRL by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone (Romantic Comedy)
When rookie lecturer Maddie Kowalczk lands at Astra University, she’s looking to start fresh after a messy breakup. But her first night in town takes a twist when she bumps into Bram Loe, who she (not so accidentally) stole a parking spot from earlier that day. The unspoken chemistry as he locks eyes with her while she gets a birthday spanking at a local bar is hotter than a Bunsen burner at full flame. Bram is looking for a break from his hectic life as an ecology professor and dad to rambunctious twins and a busy teenager. So when his college friend’s divorce celebration brings him face to face with the same delectable brat who stole his parking spot, he’s ready for a night to remember. But the next morning, Bram’s world turns upside down. His new nanny? None other than Maddie, who also happens to be the new poli-sci adjunct at the university where he teaches.
Avon | 9780063338371
HOLLOW by Celina Myers (Paranormal Romance/Horror)
As a kid, Mia Adair experienced a strange sort of fame within the paranormal community thanks to her inclusion in a book that revealed Mia’s ability to talk with the dead. But that was then, and Mia’s “gift” dried up once adolescence set in. These days, she feels like she’s nobody special. Until she dies in a tragic car crash and reawakens as a vampire. Forced to leave behind everything she knew, Mia must choose to live with one of two rival vampire families. The Bellamy and Sutton clans share a dark, complicated history that spans centuries. As Mia learns about their age-old traditions and extraordinary powers, along with their forbidden romances and betrayals, she’s drawn toward two very different loves. And as she feels her gift returning, more potent than ever before, Mia realizes she’ll need it to protect innocent lives --- and save the only family she has left.
Hanover Square Press | 9780778387855
INSIDE MAN: A Head Cases Novel by John McMahon (Mystery/Thriller)
FBI Agent Gardner Camden is an analytical genius with an affinity for puzzles. He and his squad of brilliant yet quirky agents make up the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit, the FBI’s hidden edge, brought in for cases that no one else can solve. PAR’s latest case involves a militia group stockpiling weapons. When their confidential informant in the case is killed, it quickly becomes clear that the militia did not kill him. As the squad looks into the evidence surrounding his murder, an unidentified man is caught on camera with their informant. This mystery man’s picture is connected to another case at the FBI, an unsolved series of murdered women, buried in the ground in north Florida. As PAR juggles an investigation into both the dead women and the militia, they enroll a new informant, only to find the case escalating in dangerous ways.
Minotaur Books | 9781250348326
IS THIS A CRY FOR HELP? by Emily Austin (Fiction/Dark Humor)
Darcy’s life turned out better than she ever could have imagined. She is a librarian at the local branch, while her wife, Joy, runs a book binding service. Between the two of them, there is no more room on their shelves with their ample book collections, various knickknacks and bobbles, and dried bouquets. Rounding out their ideal life is two cats and a sun-soaked house by the lake. But when Darcy receives the news that her ex-boyfriend, Ben, has passed away, she spirals into a pit of guilt and regret, resulting in a mental breakdown and medical leave from the library. When she returns to work, she is met by unrest in her community and protests surrounding intellectual freedom, resulting in a call for book bans and a second look at the branch’s upcoming DEI programs.
Atria Books | 9781668200230
IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU by Andrea Mara (Domestic Thriller)
You press send, and your message disappears. Full of secrets about your neighbors, it’s meant for your sister. But it doesn’t reach her --- it goes to the entire local community WhatsApp group instead. As rumor spreads like wildfire through the picture-perfect neighborhood, you convince yourself that people will move on, that this quickly will be forgotten. But then you receive the first death threat. The next day, a woman has been murdered. And what’s even more chilling is that she had the same address as you --- 26 Oakpark --- but in a different part of town. Did the killer get the wrong house? It won’t be long before you find out.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780593832097
JEAN by Madeleine Dunnigan (Historical Fiction)
Seventeen-year-old Jean, a troubled Jewish boy caught in the countercultural swirl of 1970s London, arrives at Compton Manor, a rural alternative boarding school for boys with “problems.” Dyslexic, antisocial and prone to violent outbursts, Jean has never made friends easily, and school has never been a place of safety or enjoyment. All of a sudden, he is befriended by Tom --- confident, charming, buoyed by years of good breeding and privilege --- and it seems as if Jean’s world might change. When things turn romantic, Jean is tipped into a heady, overwhelming infatuation. Now Jean skips class to venture into the woods, or sneaks across moonlit fields to see Tom, wondering if the relationship might offer a way out of a life marked by alienation. But what if the only true path to freedom is to disappear altogether?
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324105640
THE LAST OF EARTH by Deepa Anappara (Historical Fiction)
1869. Tibet is closed to Europeans, an infuriating obstruction for the rapidly expanding British Empire. In response, Britain begins training Indians to undertake illicit, dangerous surveying expeditions into Tibet. Balram is one such surveyor-spy, an Indian schoolteacher who has worked for the British, often alongside his dearest friend, Gyan. But Gyan went missing on his last expedition and is rumored to be imprisoned within Tibet. Desperate to rescue his friend, Balram agrees to guide an English captain on a foolhardy mission. The captain, disguised as a monk, wants to personally chart a river that runs through southern Tibet. Their path will cross fatefully with that of another Westerner in disguise, 50-year-old Katherine. Denied a fellowship in the all-male Royal Geographical Society in London, she intends to be the first European woman to reach Lhasa.
Random House | 9780593731352
LOST LAMBS by Madeline Cash (Fiction)
The Flynn family is coming undone. Catherine and Bud's open marriage has reached its breaking point as their daughters spiral in their own chaotic orbits: Abigail, the eldest, is dating a man in his 20s nicknamed War Crime Wes; Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist; the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone --- or something --- is monitoring the town’s citizens. Casting a shadow across their lives, and their small coastal town, is Paul Alabaster, a billionaire shipping magnate. Rumors of corruption circulate, but no one dares to dig too deep. No one except Harper, whose obsession with a mysterious shipping container sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy --- one that may just bring them closer together.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374619237
MURDER YOUR DARLINGS by Jenna Blum (Psychological Thriller/Romantic Suspense)
Simone “Sam” Vetiver is a mid-career novelist finishing a lukewarm publicity tour while facing a deadline for a new book on which she’s totally blocked. Recently divorced, Sam is worrying where her life is going when she receives glowing fan mail from stratospherically successful author William Corwyn, renowned for his female-centric novels. When William and Sam meet and his literary sympathy is as intense as their chemistry, both writers think they’ve found The One. But as in their own novels, things between Sam and William are not what they seem. William has multiple stalkers, including a scarily persistent one named The Rabbit. When writers turn up dead, including from The Darlings support group William runs, Sam has to ask: Is it The Rabbit --- William’s #1 Stalker? Another woman scorned? Can William be everything he seems?
Harper | 9780063448087
NOTHING RANDOM: Bennett Cerf and the Publishing House He Built by Gayle Feldman (Biography)
At midcentury, everyone knew Bennett Cerf: the witty, beloved, middle-aged panelist on “What’s My Line?” whom TV brought into America’s homes each week. But they didn’t know that the handsome, driven, paradoxical young man of the 1920s had vowed to become a great publisher and, a decade later, was. By then, he’d signed Eugene O’Neill, Gertrude Stein and William Faulkner, and had fought the landmark censorship case that gave Americans the freedom to read James Joyce’s ULYSSES. Using interviews with more than 200 individuals, deeply researched archival material, and letters from private collections not previously available, NOTHING RANDOM brings Bennett Cerf to vibrant life, drawing book lovers into his world, finally laying open the page on a quintessential American original.
Random House | 9781400060276
SCAVENGERS by Kathleen Boland (Fiction)
After being fired for taking an uncharacteristic risk at her commodities trading job, Bea Macon sublets her New York apartment and books a one-way ticket to stay with her mother, Christy. Usually the responsible one, Bea isn't about to admit exactly why she's suddenly decided to visit, but she isn’t the only one keeping secrets: Christy has a man. She has a map. She has…a username on a forum devoted to unearthing $1 million in buried treasure that an antiquities dealer claims to have hidden somewhere in the western U.S.? Bea is convinced this is just another one of her mother’s wild larks, an elaborate way to refuse to finally grow up. But Christy believes she’s onto something --- and she’s arranged a rendezvous in a rural town called Mercy with the guy she’s been obsessively trading theories with online to prove it.
Viking | 9780593834480
THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT written by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Martin Aitken (Fiction)
Kristian Hadeland, young and ambitious, has moved to London to study photography. He knows that he and his art are destined for more. His family never understood him, and his fellow photography students bore him. But when he meets Hans, an eccentric Dutch artist, the future he yearns for becomes possible --- as long as he is willing to sacrifice everything and stop at nothing. Twenty-four years later, Kristian sees his dreams come to fruition when a major retrospective of his work is held in New York City. As his past catches up to him, Kristian’s world begins to crumble. Success comes at a price, but is he prepared to pay it?
Penguin Press | 9780593832806
SHEER by Vanessa Lawrence (Fiction)
It’s 2015, and Maxine Thomas, the founder and creative director of the cult makeup company Reveal, has just been suspended by her own Board for a scandalous transgression. Housebound in her New York City apartment, where she awaits the verdict on her future, Max recounts her version of the events that have brought her to this moment. From her start as a precocious suburban child in the '80s to her decades as a workaholic visionary, Max proselytizes a sheer, dewy look --- cosmetics through a female gaze --- all while battling sexist investors, the whiplash of cultural change, and the mounting pressure to keep her sexuality a secret. But when Max’s story catches up to her present, she must contend with the cost of true transparency. Who has she become in her relentless pursuit of success? And what will happen if she loses it all?
Dutton | 9780593854860
STRANGERS: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden (Memoir)
In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha’s Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together --- building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whiskey sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of 20 years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume. In STRANGERS, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal.
The Dial Press | 9780593733318
A VOW IN VENGEANCE by Jaclyn Rodriguez (Fantasy/Romance)
Rune Ryker has nothing left to lose. Everything has been stolen by the Immortals --- her family, her home, her freedom. Each year, humans are forced to journey into the Immortal Realms, but 20-year-old Rune orchestrates her own selection, determined to find her family and destroy anyone who stands in her way. Rune is used to doing whatever it takes to survive, and now she must endure the Forge, a cutthroat college for the Immortal druids’ elusive tarot magic. When Rune’s magic reveals itself to be the rarest and most powerful, she must live with its only other wielder: Prince Draven. As arrogant as he is ruthlessly ambitious, he’s the last person she can trust. Rune’s abilities also draw the eyes of the most dangerous druids in the realms. Some want to use her. More want her dead. Draven offers to train her…for a price.
Slowburn | 9781638932543
WINTER: The Story of a Season by Val McDermid (Memoir/Essays)
Val McDermid has always had a soft spot for winter: the bitter clarity of a crisp cold day, the crunch of frost on fallen leaves, and the chance to be enveloped in big jumpers and thick socks. In WINTER, McDermid takes us on an adventure through the season, from the frosty streets of Edinburgh to the windblown Scottish coast, from Bonfire Night and Christmas to Burns Night and Up Helly Aa. Recalling in parallel memories from her own childhood --- of skating over frozen lakes and carving a “neep” (rutabaga) for Halloween to being taken to see her first real Christmas tree in the town square --- McDermid offers a wise and enchanting meditation on winter and its ever-changing, sometimes ephemeral, traditions.
Atlantic Monthly Press | 9780802167811
On Sale the Week of January 12th in Paperback
January 13th
BABYLONIA by Costanza Casati (Historical Fiction)
Babylonia across the centuries has become the embodiment of lust, excess and dissolute power that ruled Ancient Assyria. In this world you had to kill to be king. Or, in the case of Semiramis, an orphan raised on the outskirts of an empire: Queen. When she meets a young representative of the new Assyrian king, a prophecy unfolds before her, one that puts her in the center of a brutal world and in the hearts of two men --- one who happens to be king. Now a risen lady in a court of vipers, Semiramis becomes caught in the politics and viciousness of ancient Assyria. Instead of bartering with fate, Semiramis trains in war and diplomacy. And with each move, she rises in rank, embroiled in a game of power, desire, love and betrayal, until she can ascend to the only position that will ever keep her safe.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781464228209
BROOKE SHIELDS IS NOT ALLOWED TO GET OLD: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman by Brooke Shields with Rachel Bertsche (Memoir)
Brooke Shields has spent a lifetime in the public eye. Growing up as a child actor and model, her every feature was scrutinized, her every decision judged. Today she faces a different kind of scrutiny: that of being a “woman of a certain age.” And yet, for Brooke, the passage of time has brought freedom. At 60, she feels more comfortable in her skin, more empowered and confident than she did decades ago in those famous Calvin Kleins. Now, in BROOKE SHIELDS IS NOT ALLOWED TO GET OLD, she’s changing the narrative about women and aging. This is an era, she insists, when women are reclaiming agency and power, not receding into the shadows. With remarkable candor, Brooke paints a vibrant and optimistic picture of being a woman in the prime of her life, while dismantling the myths that have dimmed that perception for too long.
Flatiron Books | 9781250346971
CLEVER LITTLE THING by Helena Echlin (Psychological Thriller)
Charlotte’s daughter, Stella, is sensitive and brilliant, but a recent change in her behavior has alarmed her mother. Following the sudden death of Stella’s babysitter, Blanka, the once disruptive and anti-social child has become docile and agreeable. But what’s unsettling is that she has begun to mirror Blanka’s personality --- from Blanka’s repetitive phrases to her accent, to fierce cravings for Armenian meat stew after being raised a vegetarian. Charlotte is pregnant with her second child, and depleted and sick with the pregnancy. She is convinced that Blanka herself is somehow responsible for Stella’s transformation. But how could Blanka, dead, still be entwined in their lives? As Charlotte becomes increasingly obsessed, she is sure that only she can save her daughter…even though it’s soon clear that her husband believes this is all in Charlotte’s head.
Penguin Books | 9780593656099
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 | 9781538781241
FAMOUS LAST WORDS by Gillian McAllister (Domestic Thriller)
It is June 21st, the longest day of the year, and new mother Camilla’s life is about to change forever. After months of maternity leave, she will drop her infant daughter off at daycare for the first time and return to her job as a literary agent. Finally. But when she wakes, her husband Luke isn’t there, and in his place is a cryptic note. Then it starts. Breaking news: there's a hostage situation developing in London. The police arrive and tell her that Luke is involved. But he isn't a hostage. Her husband --- doting father, eternal optimist --- is the gunman. What she does next is crucial. Because only she knows what the note he left behind that morning says.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063338432
GOOD GIRL by Aria Aber (Fiction)
In Berlin’s artistic underground, where techno and drugs fill warehouses still pockmarked from the wars of the 20th century, 19-year-old Nila at last finds her tribe. Born in Germany to Afghan parents, raised in public housing graffitied with swastikas, drawn to philosophy, photography and sex, Nila has spent her adolescence disappointing her family while searching for her voice as a young woman and artist. Then in the haze of Berlin’s legendary nightlife, Nila meets Marlowe, an American writer whose fading literary celebrity opens her eyes to a life of personal and artistic freedom. But as Nila finds herself pulled further into Marlowe’s controlling orbit, ugly, barely submerged racial tensions begin to roil Germany --- and Nila’s family and community. After a year of running from her future, Nila stops to ask herself the most important question: Who does she want to be?
Hogarth | 9780593731130
HEAD CASES by John McMahon (Mystery/Thriller)
FBI Agent Gardner Camden is an analytical genius with an affinity for puzzles. He also has a blind spot on the human side of investigations, a blindness that sometimes even includes people in his own life, like his beloved seven-year-old daughter, Camila. Gardner and his squad of brilliant yet quirky agents make up the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit, the FBI’s hidden edge, brought in for cases that no one else can solve. When DNA links a murder victim to a serial killer long presumed dead, the team springs into action. A second victim establishes a pattern, and the murderer begins leaving a trail of clues and riddles especially for Gardner. And while the PAR team is usually relegated to working cold cases from behind a desk, the investigation puts them on the road and into the public eye, following in the footsteps of a killer.
Minotaur Books | 9781250348319
THE HUMAN SCALE by Lawrence Wright (Thriller)
Tony Malik, a half-Irish, half-Arab FBI agent based in New York, specializes in tracking money from drug and arms deals. His life takes a dramatic turn when a long-term relationship ends and his job hangs in the balance. Amid personal turmoil, Malik becomes intrigued by his Palestinian father's past. He decides to visit his ancestral homeland for his niece's wedding, accepting a seemingly simple FBI assignment along the way. Upon arrival in the West Bank, Malik's world is upended when the Israeli police chief is murdered. Initially a suspect, Malik's investigative prowess soon earns him a place in the Israeli investigation. At the heart of the story is Malik's complex relationship with Yossi, the hardline anti-Arab Israeli police officer leading the case.
Vintage | 9780593686249
I WAS A TEENAGE SLASHER by Stephen Graham Jones (Thriller/Horror)
1989, Lamesa, Texas. A small west Texas town driven by oil and cotton --- and a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. So it goes for 17-year-old Tolly Driver, a good kid with more potential than application, who is about to be cursed to kill for revenge. Here Stephen Graham Jones explores the Texas he grew up in, the unfairness of being on the outside, through the slasher horror he lives but from the perspective of the killer, Tolly, writing his own autobiography. Find yourself rooting for a killer in this summer teen movie of a novel gone full blood-curdling tragic.
S&S/Saga Press | 9781668022269
THE JACKAL’S MISTRESS by Chris Bohjalian (Historical Thriller)
Virginia, 1864. Libby Steadman’s husband has been away for so long that she can barely conjure his voice in her dreams. While she longs for him in the night, fearing him dead in a Union prison camp, her days are spent running a gristmill with her teenage niece, a hired hand and his wife. It’s an uneasy life in the Shenandoah Valley, and Libby awakens every morning expecting to see her land a battlefield. And then she finds a gravely injured Union officer left for dead in a neighbor’s house. Captain Jonathan Weybridge of the Vermont Brigade is her enemy --- but he’s also a human being, and Libby must make a terrible decision: Does she leave him to die alone? Or does she risk treason and try to nurse him back to health? And if she succeeds, does she try to secretly bring him across Union lines, where she might negotiate a trade for news of her own husband?
Vintage | 9780593315019
THE JFK CONSPIRACY: The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy — and Why It Failed by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch (History)
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is often ranked among Americans’ most well-liked presidents. Yet what most Americans don’t know is that JFK’s historic presidency almost ended before it began --- at the hands of a disgruntled sociopathic loner armed with dynamite. On December 11, 1960, shortly after Kennedy’s election and before his inauguration, a retired postal worker named Richard Pavlick waited in his car on a quiet street in Palm Beach, Florida. Pavlick knew the president-elect’s schedule. He knew when Kennedy would leave his house. He knew where Kennedy was going. From there, Pavlick had a simple plan --- one that could’ve changed the course of history.
Flatiron Books | 9781250790590
THE JILTED COUNTESS by Loretta Ellsworth (Historical Romance)
Paperback Original
The war stole Roza Meszaros’ dreams of becoming a ballerina and her aristocratic family’s fortune. But the penniless Hungarian countess’s fate takes a hopeful turn when she meets an American soldier named Joe, who promises to marry her and take her to the States. After two years of waiting to obtain the necessary money and paperwork to emigrate, Roza finally arrives in Minnesota --- and discovers that Joe has married someone else. Determined to stay in America, Roza turns to popular newspaper columnist Cedric Adams to help her find a suitable husband. Sharing Roza’s story and her picture, Adams makes a special plea to his military readers. The response is overwhelming. Roza ultimately chooses Finn Erickson, a former soldier and railroad locomotive engineer. But when she unexpectedly runs into her former fiancé, things quickly become complicated.
Harper Perennial | 9780063457140
THE LUST CRUSADE by Jo Segura (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Daniela Guiterrez has been in love with her brother’s best friend for as long as she can remember --- until he went missing a year ago during an archaeological expedition. But on a solo trip to Greece, the intrepid librarian discovers that Theo is very much alive. An expert in Ancient Greek archaeology, Dr. Theo Galanis has been abducted by artifact smugglers in search of a priceless gemstone --- the Eye of the Minotaur. When a little white lie spirals into his captors believing that Theo and Dani are engaged, they must utilize her research skills and his expertise to solve the centuries-old Minoan mystery. Now with less than six days to find the jewel, underground societies, mythological beings and pesky abductors are only half the battle. Because among the ancient ruins and temples they explore is an even bigger danger: falling in love for real.
Berkley | 9780593953280
THE NAYSAYERS by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke (Romance/Magical Realism)
Paperback Original
At Naysay Inc., Megan’s job is to whisper negative thoughts straight into the minds of clients in the Real World. It’s all in a day’s dirty work in Naysayland, the parallel reality where your negativity is manufactured and self-doubt is a commodity. But when she is assigned to sabotage a romance between lifestyle influencer Lily and author Jasper, Megan’s carefully constructed reality begins to unravel. The project teams her with Ben, the smug but cute whisperer in the next cubicle. As they work to tear down Lily and Jasper’s situationship, Megan and Ben are catching feelings for each other. As their empathy grows, and they start rooting for the relationship they’re tasked with destroying, dreaded HR is sniffing around. Now they’re facing a choice: keep crushing dreams for a paycheck, or risk everything for their own fairy tale.
Little A | 9781662535185
PEDRO THE VAST written by Simón López Trujillo, translated by Robin Myers (Fiction)
Paperback Original
In the disorienting, devastatingly tense world of Simón López Trujillo, a eucalyptus farm worker named Pedro starts coughing. Several of his coworkers die of a strange fungal disease, which has jumped to humans for the first time. But Pedro, miraculously, awakes. His survival fascinates a foreign mycologist, as well as a local priest, who dubs his mysterious mutterings to be the words of a prophet. Meanwhile, Pedro's kids are left to fend for themselves: the young Cata, whose creepy art projects are getting harder and harder to decipher, and Patricio, who wasn't ready to be thrust into the role of father. Their competing efforts to reckon with Pedro’s condition eventually meet in a horrifying climax that readers will never forget.
Algonquin Books | 9781643757100
PICKS AND SHOVELS: A Martin Hench Novel by Cory Doctorow
(Science Fiction/Thriller)
San Francisco, 1986. Martin Hench will invent the forensic accountant, but for now he's an MIT dropout odd-jobbing his way around a city still reeling from the invention of a revolutionary new technology that will change everything about crime forever. When Marty finds himself hired by Silicon Valley PC startup Fidelity Computing to investigate a group of disgruntled ex-employees who've founded a competitor startup, he quickly realizes he's on the wrong side. Marty ditches Fidelity Computing, utterly infatuated with the electric atmosphere of Computing Freedom. This group of brilliant young women found themselves exhausted by the predatory business practices of Fidelity Computing and set out to beat them at their own game. But this optimistic startup has no idea the depth of the evil they're seeking to unroot or the risks they run.
Tor Books | 9781250865915
PRIVATE ROME: A Private Novel by James Patterson and Adam Hamdy (Thriller)
Paperback Original
Jack Morgan, ex-Marine helicopter pilot and CIA agent, is in Italy to open the latest outpost of his international private investigation firm. Its wealthy client base demands maximum force and maximum discretion. But when a priest is murdered at the firm’s opening party, Morgan and Matteo Ricci --- a decorated former Rome police inspector, now Morgan’s newly appointed deputy --- come under intense scrutiny. As Morgan and Ricci work the case, they discover that eight priests have died, all under watch of the Swiss Guard and the Vatican Police. Private relies on the world’s most advanced forensic tools to make and break cases. This one rests on breaking the secret hold of the Holy See’s all-powerful, all-knowing inner circle.
Little, Brown and Company | 9781538758557
SWEET FURY by Sash Bischoff (Thriller)
Lila Crayne is America’s sweetheart: she’s generous and kind, gorgeous and magnetic. She and her fiancé, visionary filmmaker Kurt Royall, have settled into a stunning new West Village apartment and are set to begin filming their feminist adaptation of Fitzgerald’s TENDER IS THE NIGHT. To prepare for the leading role, Lila begins working with charming and accomplished therapist Jonah Gabriel to dig into the trauma of her past. Soon, Lila’s impeccably manicured life begins to unravel on the therapy couch --- and Jonah is just the man to pick up the pieces. But everyone has a secret, and no one is quite who they seem.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668043264
TARTUFO by Kira Jane Buxton (Fiction)
After nearly losing the election to a geriatric donkey, newly installed Mayor Delizia Miccuci can’t help but feel like the sun has finally set on the rural Italian village of Lazzarini Boscarino. All that’s left is Bar Celebrità, a rustic establishment where weary locals gather to quibble over decades-long disputes, submit their poor stomachs to bartender Giuseppina’s volcanic espresso, and wonder what will become of the place where together they’ve spent their entire lives. Little do the villagers know that local truffle hunter Giovanni Scarpazza has just happened upon something that could change everything. A truffle --- un tartufo, that is --- sits beneath the soil with the power to either be the greatest gift or the foulest curse the village has ever seen.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538770825
TOO SOON by Betty Shamieh (Fiction)
Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theater director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic --- which might garner international attention --- in the West Bank. Her mother, Naya, and grandmother, Zoya, hatch a plot to match her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz, since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theater designer, seem destined for disaster. Upon learning that one of them is living on borrowed time, the three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781668046555
THE UNDEAD: A Novel of Modern Russia by Svetlana Satchkova (Fiction)
Paperback Original
When Maya, a young Russian filmmaker, makes a low-budget horror movie with her friends, it seems like a promising start to a career in indie film. Little does she know that her jokey lo-fi film will soon attract the attention of the autocratic censors at the highest levels of the Russian police state. What follows is a propulsive narrative of an artist being crushed by state power, and the choices that one makes within a system where free expression is literally illegal.
Melville House | 9781685892197
VANTAGE POINT by Sara Sligar (Domestic Thriller)
The old-money Wieland family has it all --- wealth, status, power. They’re also famously cursed. Clara and her brother, Teddy, grew up on a small island in Maine in the shadow of their parents’ tragic deaths, haunted by rumors and paparazzi. Fourteen years later, they’ve mostly put their turbulent past to rest. Teddy has married Clara’s best friend, Jess, and the three of them have moved back home to take over the sprawling, remote family mansion known as Vantage Point. Then Teddy decides to run for the Senate --- an unnerving prospect made much worse when intimate videos of Clara are leaked online. The most frightening part is that she doesn't remember filming any of them. Everyone thinks Clara is losing her grasp on reality. But she knows the videos are only the beginning. Years ago, the curse destroyed her parents. Now it’s coming for her.
Picador | 9781250397515
WHO I ALWAYS WAS: A Memoir by Theresa Okokon (Memoir/Essays)
When Theresa Okokon was nine, her father traveled to his hometown in Nigeria to attend his mother’s funeral…and never returned. His mysterious death shattered Theresa as her family’s world unraveled. Now a storyteller and television cohost, Okokon sets out to explore the ripple effects of that profound loss and the way heartache shapes our sense of self and of the world --- for the rest of our lives. Using her grief and her father’s death as a backdrop, Okokon delves deeply into intrinsic themes of Blackness, African spirituality, family, abandonment, belonging, and the seemingly endless, unrequited romantic pursuits of a Black woman who came of age as a Black girl in the Wisconsin suburbs where she was --- in many ways --- always an anomaly.
Atria Books | 9781668008966
WITCHCRAFT FOR WAYWARD GIRLS by Grady Hendrix (Gothic Thriller/Horror)
They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption and forget any of it ever happened. Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970; she’s pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. Everything they eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely.
Berkley | 9780593548998
WITNESS 8 by Steve Cavanagh (Psychological Thriller)
A former resident of the ultra-elite Manhattan upper class, Ruby Johnson now works as a maid in the type of houses she used to live in. Unassuming, she sees everyone’s dirty secrets from the inside of their beautiful, renovated brownstones. But when Ruby witnesses a murder, she has wicked plans in mind that don’t involve telling the authorities the truth. Eddie Flynn, a streetwise ex-con-artist-turned-defense attorney, is the only lawyer in New York City willing to take on hopeless cases. And none is more hopeless than John Jackson’s --- the gun that killed his neighbor was found, with Jackson’s DNA, in his own home. Flynn and his unconventional team will need to use every trick they know to keep an innocent man from being locked up. But to save his client’s life, Eddie must first protect his own, as the scariest organized criminals in the city are out for his head.
Atria Books | 9781668049389
WOMAN DOWN by Colleen Hoover (Romantic Suspense)
Paperback Original
A viral backlash over her latest film adaptation forced Petra Rose to take a hiatus, resulting in missed deadlines and an overdue mortgage. Branded a fraud and fame-hungry opportunist, she learned the hard way what happens when the internet turns on you. And she’s been uninspired to write ever since. Now, with her next suspense novel outlined and savings nearly gone, she retreats to a secluded lakeside cabin, hoping to find inspiration. Then he shows up. Detective Nathaniel Saint arrives with disturbing news, his presence igniting a creativity in her she thought long since burned out. Petra’s words return in a rush, and her fictional cop character begins to mirror the very real cop who’s becoming her muse. But when Saint starts taking his role in her career a little too seriously, Petra is forced to confront the chaos she created.
Montlake | 9781542025614
On Sale the Week of January 19th in Hardcover
January 20th
ALL THE LITTLE HOUSES by May Cobb (Domestic Thriller)
It's the mid-1980s in the tiny town of Longview, Texas. Nellie Anderson, the beautiful daughter of the Anderson family dynasty, has burst onto the scene. She always gets what she wants. What she can't get for herself… well, that's what her mother is for. Because Charleigh Andersen --- blond, beautiful and ruthlessly cunning --- remembers all too well having to claw her way to the top. When she was coming of age on the poor side of East Texas, she was a loser and an outcast, humiliated and shunned by the in-crowd, whose approval she'd so desperately thirsted for. When a prairie-kissed family moves to town --- all trad wife, woodworking dad, wholesome daughter vibes --- Charleigh's entire self-made social empire threatens to crumble. Who will be left standing when the dust settles?
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781464245794
A BOX FULL OF DARKNESS by Simone St. James (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
Strange things happen in Fell, New York. A mysterious drowning at the town’s roadside motel. The unexplained death of a young girl whose body is left by the railroad tracks. For the Esmie siblings --- Violet, Vail and Dodie --- the final straw was the shocking disappearance of their little brother. It started as a normal game of hide-and-seek. The three closed their eyes and counted to 10 while Ben went to hide. But this time, they never found their brother. As their parents grew increasingly distant, Violet, Vail and Dodie were each haunted by visions and frightening events that made them leave town and never look back. Violet still sees dead people --- spirits who remind her of Sister, the menacing presence that terrorized her for years. And now, after two decades running from their past, it’s time for a homecoming.
Berkley | 9780593200414
CRUCIBLE by John Sayles (Historical Fiction)
Already the gateway for illegal Canadian liquor during Prohibition, the Motor City becomes a crucible for American class conflict during the Great Depression, with an army of laid-off Ford workers drifting into the ranks of the burgeoning union movement. To keep the hundreds of thousands still employed by Henry Ford in thrall, he recruits black laborers migrating from the deep South to serve as “strike insurance.” The Model T mogul also has bought a sizable chunk of Brazil's Amazonian rainforest, vowing to grow his own rubber for tires, but stubbornly refusing to include a botanist in his troop of would-be jungle tamers. As a series of biological plagues descend on the Fordlandia plantation, the racial melting pot he has created in Detroit begins to boil over, and not even the Sage of Dearborn can control the forces that have been unleashed.
Melville House | 9781685892272
CRUX by Gabriel Tallent (Fiction)
Dan and Tamma are two teenagers in their last year of high school in the southern Mojave Desert. One is a gifted golden child, the other a mouthy burnout. Climbing boulders in trash-strewn parking lots during cold desert nights, they seal their unique bond and dream of a life of adventure. As the year progresses and adult reality looms, they are rocked by change and pulled apart by irreconcilable obligations. Differences of class, talent and prospects take on new importance; options dwindle, and their decisions grow ever more consequential and perilous. It feels inevitable, finally, that something must give.
Riverhead Books | 9780593714188
DEPARTURE(S) by Julian Barnes (Fiction)
Shortly after our narrator, a writer named Julian, begins this compact book by discussing the workings of involuntary memory, he interrupts himself with a bulletin to the reader: "There will be a story --- or a story within the story --- but not just yet.” Of course, whether DEPARTURE(S) is mostly fiction or not, there is a lot of its author in it, including Julian Barnes' reckoning with the blood disorder he has been living with since he was diagnosed in 2020, his long preoccupation with dying and grief, and his mordant sense of the indignities and lost opportunities we're prey to in love. The story he promises to deliver is a love story, that of two friends he met at university in the 1960s, that time of touted but rarely experienced sexual freedom.
Knopf | 9780593804506
DISCIPLINE by Larissa Pham (Fiction)
Christine is on tour for her novel, a revenge fantasy based on a real-life relationship gone bad with an older professor 10 years prior. Now on the road, she’s seeking answers --- about how to live a good life and what it means to make art --- through intimate conversations with strangers, past lovers and friends. But when the antagonist of her novel --- her old painting professor --- reaches out in a series of sly communiques after years of silence to tell her that he’s read her book, Christine must reckon with what it means to lose the reins of a narrative she wrote precisely to maintain control. When her professor invites her to join him at his house, on a remote island off the coast of Maine, their encounter threatens to change the very foundations of her life as she’s imagined it.
Random House | 9780593979648
EATING ASHES written by Brenda Navarro, translated by Megan McDowell (Fiction)
Alone and adrift in Barcelona, an unnamed narrator is haunted by the death of her teenage brother, Diego. Diego, the little boy she helped raise in Mexico while their mother struggled to make a living in Spain. Diego, who loved Vampire Weekend and dreamed of becoming a pilot. Diego, who hated Madrid as much as she did. Now, his ashes in hand, she must return to Mexico. Plagued by memories, she recounts their young lives leading up to tragedy in blistering detail: the acute loneliness that accompanied their emigration; the siblings’ first separation, when she left for Barcelona to make her own way in the world; her activism against labor abuses, which is threatened by her tumultuous relationship with an entitled lover; and the final, heavyhearted confrontation with her brother.
Liveright | 9781324096085
THE ELSEWHERE EXPRESS by Samantha Sotto Yambao (Fantasy/Romance)
You can’t buy a ticket for the Elsewhere Express. Appearing only to those whose lives are adrift, it’s a magical train seeming to carry very rare and special cargo: a sense of purpose, peace and belonging. Raya is one of those lost souls. She had dreamed of being a songwriter, but when her brother died, she gave up on her dream and started living his instead. One day on the subway, as her thoughts wander, she’s swept off to the Elsewhere Express. There she meets Q, an intriguing artist who, like her, has lost his place in the world. Together they find a train full of wonders. Over the course of their long, strange night on the train, they also discover that it harbors secrets --- and danger: A mysterious stranger has stowed away and brought with him a dark, malignant magic that threatens to destroy the train.
Del Rey | 9780593725023
EVELYN IN TRANSIT by David Guterson (Fiction)
Radically open-minded, formidably strong, and unusually clear-eyed about herself and others, Evelyn Bednarz has always been a misfit. She's easily bored, unsuited to life at school, asks odd questions about faith and time, and sees through conventions that others take for granted. Seeking to be true to herself, she hitchhikes across the American West taking odd jobs. In distant Tibet, another life unfolds as remote from Evelyn’s as can be: the life of a boy named Tsering, raised as a Buddhist monk in the mountains of Tibet, who eventually becomes a high lama. And yet, their lives are strangely linked --- as Evelyn discovers when a trio of Buddhist lamas show up at her door to announce that her five-year-old son, Cliff, is the seventh reincarnation of the illustrious Norbu Rinpoche, recently deceased. The lamas’ visit sets off a family crisis and a media firestorm over Cliff’s future.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324111054
THE FAIR WEATHER FRIEND by Jessie Garcia (Domestic Thriller)
It's always sunny in Detroit for Faith Richards. The popular TV meteorologist, endearingly referred to as "The Fair Weather Friend" by her viewers, has the world by the tail. But one night, Faith leaves work on a dinner break and never returns. Her body is found the next morning. The town is reeling, suspects emerge, and long-buried secrets are uncovered. While her allies rally, her list of adversaries also grows. Little does anyone know that only the deepest secrets will expose the truth.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250364456
THE FLOWER BEARERS: A Memoir by Rachel Eliza Griffiths (Memoir)
On September 24, 2021, Rachel Eliza Griffiths married her husband, the novelist Salman Rushdie. On the same day, hundreds of miles away, Griffiths’ closest friend and chosen sister, the poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who was expected to speak at the wedding, died suddenly. Eleven months later, as Griffiths attempted to piece together her life as a newlywed with heartbreak in one hand and immense love in the other, a brutal attack nearly killed her husband. As trauma compounded trauma, Griffiths realized that in order to survive her grief, she would need to mourn not only her friend, but the woman she had been on her wedding day, a woman who had also died that day.
Random House | 9780593730218
FOOTBALL by Chuck Klosterman (Sports)
Chuck Klosterman did not write this book to deepen your appreciation of football. He’s not trying to help you become that person at the party, or to teach you how to make better bets, or to validate any preexisting views you might have about the sport (positive or negative). Football does, in fact, do all of those things. But not in the way such things have been done in the past. Cultural theorists talk about hyperobjects --- phenomena that bulk so large that their true dimensions are hidden in plain sight. In 2023, 93 of the 100 most-watched programs on U.S. television were NFL football games. This is not an anomaly. This is how society is best understood. Football is not merely the country’s most popular sport; it is ingrained in almost everything that explains what America is, even for those who barely pay attention. Klosterman gets to the bottom of all of it.
Penguin Press | 9780593490648
THE FRIEND OF THE FAMILY by Dean Koontz (Historical Thriller)
The human “oddities” in the Museum of the Strange are less wondrous than the gawking rubes had been promised. But Alida is something else. The real thing. Traveling Depression-era America from carnival midways to speakeasies, Alida is resigned to an exploited and lonely life on the road as the museum’s golden ticket. Until she’s rescued by two compassionate strangers. Franklin and Loretta Fairchild see in Alida a gifted and uncannily well-read girl in need of a loving touch and a family. With the openhearted couple and their three precociously imaginative children, Alida finds it. Yet despite everyone’s overwhelming generosity and acceptance, Alida knows she is still a very different kind of girl. Her dreams bear that out. They’re vivid, unsettling and threatening. Alida fears that they’re also warnings. And that it’s the Fairchilds who may need rescue from a bad, bad world.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662533297
THE FUTURE SAINTS by Ashley Winstead (Fiction)
When record executive Theo meets the Future Saints, they’re bombing at a dive bar in their hometown. Since the tragic death of their manager, the band has been in a downward spiral. Theo has been dispatched to coax a new --- and successful --- album out of them, or else let them go. He is immediately struck by Hannah, the group’s impetuous lead singer, who replaces their California pop with gut-wrenching rock. When this new music goes viral, striking an unexpected chord with fans, Theo puts his career on the line to give the Saints one last shot at success with a new tour, new record and new start. But Hannah’s grief has larger consequences for the group, and her increasingly destructive antics become a distraction as she and her sister, Ginny --- her lifelong partner in crime --- undermine Theo at every turn.
Atria Books | 9781668024669
HALF HIS AGE by Jennette McCurdy (Fiction)
Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Forceful. Hurting. Perceptive. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of all: Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher with the wife and the kid and the mortgage and the bills, with the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. She doesn’t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? The fact that he knows books and films and things that she doesn’t? Or is it purer than that, rooted in their unlikely connection, their kindred spirits, the similar filter with which they each take in the world around them? Or, perhaps, it’s just enough that he sees her when no one else does.
Ballantine Books | 9780593723739
HOW TO COMMIT A POSTCOLONIAL MURDER by Nina McConigley (Fiction)
Summer, 1986. The Creel sisters, Georgie Ayyar and Agatha Krishna, welcome their aunt, uncle and young cousin --- newly arrived from India --- into their house in rural Wyoming where they’ll all live together. Because this is what families do. That is, until the sisters decide that it’s time for their uncle to die. According to Georgie, the British are to blame. And to understand why, you need to hear her story. She details the violence hiding in their house and history, her once-unshakeable bond with Agatha Krishna, and her understanding of herself as an Indian-American in the heart of the West. Her account is, at every turn, cheeky, unflinching and infectiously inflected with the trappings of teendom, including the magazine quizzes that help her make sense of her life.
Pantheon | 9780593702246
KINGS AND PAWNS: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America by Howard Bryant (Biography)
KINGS AND PAWNS is the untold story of sports and fame, Black America, and the promise of integration through the Cold War lens of two transformative events. The first occurred on July 18, 1949 in Washington, D.C., when a reluctant Jackie Robinson, the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball star who integrated the game, appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee to discredit Paul Robeson, the legendary athlete, baritone and actor --- himself once the most famous Black man in America. The testimony would be a defining moment in Robinson’s life and contribute heavily to the destruction of his iconic reputation in the eyes of America. The second occurred on June 12, 1956, when a battered, defiant Robeson --- prohibited from leaving the United States --- faced off in a final showdown with HUAC in the same setting that Robinson appeared in seven years earlier.
Mariner Books | 9780063308169
THE METHOD by Matthew Quirk (Thriller)
Actress Anna Vaughn is fearless --- on screen, at least. She likes to believe she is as tough as her characters, but off-camera she leads a far quieter life. When her best friend Natalie, her rock, disappears after a night out with a mysterious new man, the signs point to foul play and a circle of spies operating in Manhattan. Anna must use all the tricks she’s learned for her roles to hunt for her missing friend. She crosses paths with Kevin Matthews, an FBI agent on the same trail, tracking a string of killings and disappearances and a powerful clique of oligarchs. With Matthews as her handler, she has only days to prepare for the greatest performance of her life --- going undercover. As the killers close in, her only chance for survival is to become as lethal as the characters she once played.
William Morrow | 9780063393028
MY HUSBAND'S WIFE by Alice Feeney (Psychological Thriller)
Eden Fox, an artist on the brink of her big break, sets off for a run before her first exhibition. When she returns to the home she recently moved into, Spyglass, an enchanting old house in Hope Falls, nothing is as it should be. Her key doesn’t fit. A woman, eerily similar to her, answers the door. And her husband insists that the stranger is his wife. One house. One husband. Two women. Someone is lying. Six months earlier, a reclusive Londoner called Birdy, reeling from a life-changing diagnosis, inherits Spyglass. This unexpected gift from a long-lost grandmother brings her to the pretty seaside village of Hope Falls. But then Birdy stumbles upon a shadowy London clinic that claims to be able to predict a person's date of death, including her own. Secrets start to unravel, and as the line between truth and lies blurs, Birdy feels compelled to right some old wrongs.
Flatiron Books: Pine & Cedar | 9781250337818
NINE GOBLINS: A Tale of Low Fantasy and High Mischief by T. Kingfisher
(Fantasy/Adventure)
No one knows exactly how the Goblin War began, but folks will tell you that goblins are stinking, slinking, filthy, sheep-stealing, henhouse-raiding, obnoxious, rude and violent. Goblins would actually agree with all of this, and they might throw in “cowardly” and “lazy” for good measure. But goblins don't go around killing people for fun, no matter what the propaganda posters say. And when a confrontation with an evil wizard lands a troop of nine goblins deep behind enemy lines, goblin sergeant Nessilka must figure out how to keep her hapless band together and get them home in one piece. Unfortunately, between them and safety lies a forest full of elves, trolls, monsters, and that most terrifying of creatures: a human being.
Tordotcom | 9781250400116
ONE ALADDIN TWO LAMPS by Jeanette Winterson (Memoir/Literary Criticism)
A woman is filibustering for her life. Every night she tells a story. Every morning, she lives one more day. ONE ALADDIN TWO LAMPS cracks open the legendary story of Shahrazad in ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS to explore new and ancient questions. Who should we trust? Is love the most important thing in the world? Does it matter if you are honest? What makes us happy? In her guise as Aladdin --- the orphan who changes his world --- Jeanette Winterson asks us to reread what we think we know. To look again. Especially to look again at how fiction works in our lives, giving us the courage to change our own narratives and alter endings we wish to subvert. As a young working-class woman, with no obvious future beyond factory work or marriage, Winterson realizes through the power of books that she can read herself as fiction as well as a fact.
Grove Press | 9780802167118
ROBERT LUDLUM'S THE BOURNE REVENGE by Brian Freeman (Thriller/Adventure)
Shadow --- the head of Treadstone --- has found evidence of massive Chinese espionage activity in the U.S. The spy running the operations is a shadowy American known only by the codename Bai Ze. No one knows who he is, but when Shadow consults the Files --- the hacked AI database she stole from the Chinese --- she discovers that Jason Bourne encountered Bai Ze during an operation eight years earlier. The trouble is, Bourne doesn’t remember him. As Bourne hunts for the elusive spy, he meets a reporter named Laney Reese, who shares his strange affliction: eight years ago, Laney lost her entire memory, too. Bourne is convinced that whatever happened to both of them is at the heart of the Chinese espionage operation. With Laney at his side, Bourne follows a zigzagging trail of clues to a quirky billionaire and his ex-wife, both of whom may have ties to Bai Ze.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9798217046218
ROOM 706 by Ellie Levenson (Fiction)
Kate’s children and her husband are her whole world. Since marrying young, she’s dedicated her life to making her little family grow. But in the last few years, she’s carved out something just for herself: hours stolen away with another man. After one midday tryst with her lover, Kate’s double life is thrown into chaos when she turns on the TV to find their hotel has been overtaken by an unnamed, dangerous group. As Kate’s life hangs in the balance, she is faced with “a gripping exploration of the murky grey areas of marriage, relationships, and womanhood” (Hazel Hayes).
SJP Lit | 9781638932321
TWELVE MONTHS: A Novel of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (Urban Fantasy)
Harry Dresden has been through a lot, and so has his city. After Harry and his allies narrowly managed to save Chicago from being razed to the ground, everything is different --- and it’s not just the current lack of electricity. In the battle, Harry lost people he cared about. And that's the kind of loss that takes a toll. Harry being Harry, he’s doing his level best to help the city and his friends recover and rebuild. But it’s a heavy load, and he needs time. But time is one thing Harry doesn’t have. Ghouls are prowling Chicago and taking out innocent civilians. Harry’s brother is dying, and Harry doesn’t know how to help him. And last but certainly not least, the Winter Queen of the Fae has allied with the White Court of vampires --- and Harry has been betrothed to the seductive, deadly vampire Lara Raith to seal the deal.
Ace | 9780593199336
TWO WOMEN LIVING TOGETHER written by Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo, translated by Gene Png (Memoir)
When most of their peers were moving in with romantic partners and having children, Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo chose independence. But in their 40s, something shifted, and they were met with a new, unexpected loneliness. Refusing to settle for the outdated choice between marriage or isolation, Hana and Sunwoo made a radical decision: to buy a home and live together --- not as lovers or roommates, but as chosen family. Now a bustling household of two women and four cats, Hana and Sunwoo still value solitude, but can do so while sharing a life and its meaning with someone else. Together they navigate the challenges and comforts of cohabiting in midlife, the growing pains of interdependence, and the unexpected rewards of compromise when you’ve grown set in your ways.
Ecco | 9780063473362
UPSIDE-DOWN LOVE: A Memoir in Two Voices by Sari Bashi (Memoir)
Osama is a Palestinian professor, originally from Gaza, who cannot leave the West Bank city of Ramallah. Sari is an Israeli-American lawyer and long-distance runner who petitions Israel's Supreme Court for his right to travel freely. When the case began, neither expected to fall in love --- and when it was over, nobody expected their love to endure. First published in Hebrew in 2021, Osama and Sari's star-crossed romance --- an intimate, vulnerable portrait of an astoundingly resilient Israeli-Palestinian relationship --- has since become a beacon of hope in the aftermath of October 7, 2023. UPSIDE-DOWN LOVE speaks to the unique circumstances of this specific moment in history, while also illustrating a timeless truth: Love will triumph over bigotry and destruction.
Blackstone Publishing | 9798228590052
WHEN WE WERE BRILLIANT by Lynn Cullen (Historical Fiction)
In 1952, Norma Jeane Baker follows documentary photographer Eve Arnold into a powder room on the night they first meet. She has a proposition for her. Norma Jeane created Marilyn Monroe to be photographed, and she wants Eve to do it. Eve is better than anyone she’s seen at revealing a person’s inner truth. Together they can help each other. Together, she says, they can make something brilliant. Skeptical of this cipher of a young woman, Eve demurs. She’s looking for more serious subjects than this ambitious starlet. But she keeps getting drawn back into Marilyn’s orbit, and the women come to recognize something in each other --- something fundamental. Nothing will get in the way of what they want, and when Marilyn’s star takes off to teetering heights, neither will ever be the same.
Berkley | 9780593815854
On Sale the Week of January 19th in Paperback
January 20th
THE AMERICAN NO: Stories by Rupert Everett (Fiction/Short Stories)
In his first collection of stories --- drawn from the wealth of film and TV ideas that he has worked on over the course of his illustrious career --- Rupert Everett takes us on exhilarating journeys with a cast of extraordinary characters. From Oscar Wilde’s last night in Paris to the ferociously unforgiving world of a Los Angeles talent agency and beyond, these stories will delight and surprise his many fans.
Atria Books | 9781668076460
THE BUSINESS TRIP by Jessie Garcia (Psychological Thriller)
Stephanie and Jasmine have nothing and everything in common. The two women don’t know each other but are on the same plane. Stephanie is on a business trip, and Jasmine is fleeing an abusive relationship. After a few days, they text their friends the same exact messages about the same man --- the messages becoming stranger and more erratic. And then the two women vanish. The texts go silent, the red flags go up, and the panic sets in. When Stephanie and Jasmine are each declared missing and in danger, it begs the questions: Who is Trent McCarthy? What did he do to these women --- or what did they do to him?
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250364432
CATCH HER IF YOU CAN by Tessa Bailey (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Madden Donahue, the newest catcher for the Yankees, has been in love with Eve Mitchell since high school. Although the burlesque club owner always turns him down, that never stopped him from being her self-appointed protector. Now that Eve’s sister has left Eve with her two children indefinitely, Madden steps in with a proposition --- marry him for the much-needed health benefits. Eve has secretly harbored feelings for Madden all along, but there’s one problem --- her best friend, Skylar, called dibs on him when they were 14. With Skylar happily paired off, though, Eve accepts Madden’s proposal --- on the condition that their marriage remains strictly private. What starts as a marriage of convenience soon ignites into something much hotter, and now it’s up to Madden to convince Eve that their connection is far more than a business arrangement.
Avon | 9780063380882
DEAD IN THE WATER by John Marrs (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
When Damon survives a near-drowning, his life flashes before his eyes. Every memory is crystal clear --- except one. A dead boy. A face he can’t place. A moment he doesn’t remember living. At first he tells himself it’s a trick of the mind. But everything else he saw was real. So why not this? With his waking life stalked by the disturbing scene, confusion quickly turns to obsession. Desperate for answers, Damon digs into his fractured past and becomes convinced that the only way to remember is to die again. And again. And again. When he meets a perfect stranger who’s all too willing to help, the stage is set for his dice with death. But if this is what it takes to uncover the truth, maybe some memories are better left buried.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662527708
DREAM STATE by Eric Puchner (Fiction)
Cece is in love. She has arrived early at her future in-laws’ lake house in Salish, Montana, to finish planning her wedding to Charlie, a young doctor with a brilliant life ahead of him. Charlie has asked Garrett, his best friend from college, to officiate the ceremony, though Cece can’t imagine anyone more ill-suited for the task --- an airport baggage handler haunted by a tragedy from his and Charlie’s shared past. But as Cece spends time with Garrett, his gruff mask slips, and she grows increasingly uncertain about her future. And why does Garrett, after meeting Cece, begin to feel, well, human again? As a contagious stomach flu threatens to scuttle the wedding, and Charlie and Garrett’s friendship is put to the ultimate test, Cece must decide between the life she’s dreamed of and a life she’s never imagined.
Vintage | 9780593687789
A FORTY YEAR KISS by Nickolas Butler (Fiction)
Charlie and Vivian parted ways after just four years of marriage. Too many problems, too many struggles, even though the love didn't quite die. When Charlie returns to Wisconsin 40 years later, he's not sure what he'll find. He is sure of one thing --- he must try to reconnect with Vivian to pick up the broken pieces of their past. But 40 years is a long time. It's 40 years of other relationships, 40 years of building new lives, and 40 years of long-held regrets, mistakes and painful secrets.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781464221279
KINGDOM OF CLAW: The Ashen Series, Book Two by Demi Winters (Historical Fantasy/Romance)
In the aftermath of a harrowing journey, Silla Nordvig’s dreams of a simple life have been shattered. Beaten, betrayed and reeling from the revelation of her true name, she flees Kopa with Reynir Galtung, the ruthless leader of the Bloodaxe Crew. But when they're forced into hiding together, Silla soon discovers that Rey has been keeping secrets of his own. Stuck in a shield-home with the murderous man she thought she knew, Silla forms a new plan: master the magic flowing through her veins to save her sister. But before she can do that, Silla must face her most formidable opponent yet --- her own inner demons. Saga Volsik has nothing to lose. They’ve murdered her family. Stolen her throne. And now they expect her to marry their son, but not if she can dismantle Queen Signe’s plans first. The only problem? The handsome Zagadkian dignitary who knows far too many of her secrets.
Dell | 9780593975640
NEMESIS: An Orphan X Novel by Gregg Hurwitz (Thriller)
Evan Smoak is a highly trained former government assassin who has survived for years by keeping his circle to a few trusted confidants and a strict code he calls “The Ten Commandments.” Tommy Stojack might be Evan's best friend in the world. He is a gifted gunsmith who has created much of Evan's own weapons and combat gear. But now he apparently has crossed one of Evan's hardest lines, and their argument explodes into open warfare. Now Evan has no choice but to track and face down his only friend. In the meantime, Tommy has left town in order to honor his own promise to help a dead friend's son. While Tommy is fighting to save the son with everything he has, Evan arrives with vengeance in mind. But as deadly as the former Orphan X is, there is an even more dangerous threat about to arrive on the scene. Will any of them get out alive?
Minotaur Books | 9781250420954
NO ONE WOULD DO WHAT THE LAMBERTS HAVE DONE by Sophie Hannah (Mystery)
Paperback Original
You think it will never happen to you. The doorbell. The policeman. The words that turn your world inside out: I'm afraid there's been an incident. For Sally Lambert, those words mean only one thing --- danger. Not just for her family, but for Champ, their loyal and beloved dog. A single accusation, a neighbor's grudge, and suddenly the Lamberts are trapped in a nightmare with no escape. Unless they make one. Most people would never run. Most people would never leave behind everything they know to protect an animal who can't defend himself. But for Sally, Champ is more than a dog --- he's one of her children. And most people aren't the Lamberts. No one has ever done this before. No one has ever gone this far. But the Lamberts have never been quite like any other family.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781464264306
THE OLIGARCH’S DAUGHTER by Joseph Finder (Thriller)
Paul Brightman is a man on the run, living under an assumed name in a small New England town with a million-dollar bounty on his head. When his security is breached, Paul is forced to flee into the New Hampshire wilderness to evade Russian operatives who seemingly can predict his every move. Six years ago, Paul was a rising star on Wall Street who fell in love with a beautiful photographer named Tatyana --- unaware that her father was a Russian oligarch and the object of considerable interest from several U.S. intelligence agencies. Now, to save his own life, Paul must unravel a decades-old conspiracy that extends to the highest reaches of the government.
Harper Perennial | 9780063396036
RAISED BY A SERIAL KILLER: Discovering the Truth About My Father by April Balascio (Memoir)
One evening in 2009, April Balascio was searching online, as she had been every night, for unsolved murders in the towns her family had lived growing up, when she stumbled across the latest investigations into the “Sweetheart Murders” cold case. All at once, the buried memories of her father’s dark history were awakened, and she knew she had to take action. She picked up the phone to call a detective, and the rest is infamous true-crime history. In RAISED BY A SERIAL KILLER, Balascio bravely reveals an astonishing tale of a lifetime of manipulation, unexplained upheavals and silent fear. Some part of her had always known what her father, Edward Wayne Edwards, was capable of, but the full truth of how she came to these revelations is as riveting as it is quietly terrifying.
Gallery Books | 9781982177041
SHADOW OF THE SOLSTICE: A Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito Novel by Anne Hillerman (Mystery)
The Navajo Nation police are on high alert when a U.S. Cabinet Secretary schedules an unprecedented trip to the little Navajo town of Shiprock, New Mexico. The visit coincides with a plan to resume uranium mining along the Navajo Nation border. Tensions around the official’s arrival escalate when the body of a stranger is found in an area restricted for the disposal of radioactive uranium waste. Is it a coincidence that a cult with a propensity for violence arrives at a private camp group outside Shiprock the same week to celebrate the summer solstice? Assigned to monitor the situation, Officer Bernadette Manuelito finds a young boy at grave risk, abused women, and other shocking discoveries that plunge her and Lt. Jim Chee into a volatile and deadly scenario.
Harper Perennial | 9780063344860
THE SOCIETY by Karen Winn (Literary Thriller)
Paperback Original
Vivian Lawrence was born into old-money Boston, but when her family fortune vanishes so does her carefully curated life. Desperate, she turns to an old family legend that ties her to the Knox and its inheritance, seeking a way into the exclusive secret society. She doesn’t expect that entry to come in the form of Peter, a Knox insider with movie star good looks and just enough roughness to his charm to make Vivian weak in the knees for the first time in her life. Far from Boston’s glittering elite is newcomer Taylor Adams, a young nurse eager to leave her humble past behind. When the effortlessly glamorous Vivian lands in her ER after a suspicious fall, Taylor is instantly captivated. But then Vivian abruptly disappears without a trace, sending Taylor on a search for answers that pulls her into the Knox itself --- as their new employee.
Dutton | 9780593475362
SUCH A CLEVER GIRL by Darby Kane (Domestic Thriller)
Paperback Original
Fifteen years ago, the Tanner family vanished without a trace. As rumors fade into local folklore, the mystery of their disappearance seems destined to remain unsolved --- until Aubrey Tanner returns. Now a hardened 30-year-old, Aubrey arrives in town with secrets etched in her silence. Why did she come back? Was she a victim of the night that changed everything, or does she hold the truth of what happened to her family? The town is rife with theories, but three women share a dangerous bond: they know more than they’ve ever confessed. As the past resurfaces, old alliances fray. A teacher, a café owner and a psychologist are drawn together by memories they’d rather forget. Each holds a piece of the puzzle --- and a dark secret of their own. When a new disappearance sends shock waves through the town, blackmail begins, and the stakes climb higher.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063352018
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