March 3, 2026

March 3, 2026

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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of March 2nd and March 9th 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 special contest for WHEN THE CRANES FLY SOUTH, the runaway international bestseller by debut novelist Lisa Ridzén and a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection from last year. We have 25 copies to give away to those who would like to read the book, answer some questions about it, share their comments, and submit a question for Lisa that she may answer during an upcoming “Bookaccino Live” Book Group program.

This Week's Bonus News: Our Special Contest for
WHEN THE CRANES FLY SOUTH by Lisa Ridzén
Enter to Win One of 25 Copies, Share Your Feedback
on the Book, and Ask Lisa a Question!

Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events

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

Wednesday, March 4th at 7pm ET: “Friends & Fiction”: Join “Friends & Fiction” for a conversation with Joshilyn Jackson about her latest psychological thriller, MISSING SISTER, a chilling story of sisters and revenge.

Thursday, March 5th at 7pm ET: Barnes & Noble: Join Barnes & Noble as they welcome bestselling author Allen Levi for a live virtual discussion of THEO OF GOLDEN, a beautifully crafted novel about the power of creative generosity, the importance of wonder to a purposeful life, and the invisible threads of kindness that bind us to one another.

On Sale the Week of March 2nd in Hardcover

March 3rd

200 MONAS by Jan Saenz (Fiction)
Tantalizingly close to leaving her college years at Westheimer University behind, all Arvy Keening has to do is pass her finals, pack up her life, and ship off to San Francisco for a prestigious Big Pharma internship. The problem? Arvy just found 200 hits of Molly in her dead mother’s closet. And when two drug dealers come to collect what they are owed, they reveal that the pills are not Molly, but Mona --- a rare pharmaceutical that induces intense orgasms. The dealers give Arvy an ultimatum: Sell 200 Monas in 48 hours or die. To aid in her seemingly impossible quest, Arvy recruits Wolf, Westheimer's resident drug dealer who also happens to be infuriatingly charming and distractingly sexy. In a race against the clock, Arvy and Wolf barrel through their college town, leaving a series of erotic shenanigans in their wake.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316595889 

A BAD, BAD PLACE by Frances Crawford (Mystery)
Glasgow, 1979: If it hadn’t been for her wee stupid dog, Sid Vicious, 12-year-old Janey Devine might never have stumbled upon the corpse of Samantha Watson. And then maybe she’d still be able to sleep at night. And maybe her nana wouldn’t be so worried all the time. And maybe Billy “The Ghost” Watson, a notorious gangster, wouldn’t be on her tail --- for it’s Billy’s daughter who was left for dead on those train tracks, and now Billy wants answers. Fear and gossip have spread through the tight-knit community of Possilpark, and while Janey swears she can’t remember the details of that morning, the cops think she’s hiding something. And indeed, there’s something she knows that she’s not quite ready to tell anyone, not even her nana, who won’t rest until this whole thing is behind them.
Soho Crime | 9781641297851

THE BOOKSTORE DIARIES by Susan Mallery (Fiction)
Jax has a slight issue with control --- as in, she needs it. Always. Too bad she only has power over the Painted Lady Bookstore, the Victorian mansion turned bookshop she inherited. No one else listens to a word she says. Her ex gets engaged for questionable reasons. Her beloved sister, Ryleigh, wants to move away to find a husband. And the handsome contractor Jax has chosen to convince Ryleigh to stay is only interested in Jax. Still, she’s living the bookworm dream --- until an unhappy accident erases the names from the bookshop lockboxes where the town keeps their diaries. Which means the only way to find a diary’s owner is…to read it. As secrets spill and scandals surface, life at the Painted Lady Bookstore gets a lot more colorful and chaotic.
Mira | 9781335629708 

THE DISAPPOINTMENT by Scott Broker (Fiction)
It’s the night before a much-needed vacation, and Jack --- a former playwright mourning his failed career --- catches his husband, Randy, packing his mother’s urn. They had agreed: no mother on this trip. But Randy has been carrying his mother’s remains everywhere since her death, and he isn’t ready to let go now. Despite its natural beauty and kitschy charm, the Oregon coast does not provide the respite the couple seeks. Instead, their surroundings and encounters with locals grow increasingly surreal as the days pass. An overly dedicated Method actor, tantra-obsessed neighbors, and a child environmentalist who may be able to communicate with the dead are but a few of the characters whose presence exposes long-simmering tensions that threaten to undo Jack and Randy’s marriage --- to say nothing of their hold on reality.
Catapult | 9781646222858 

THE EX-WIVES MURDER CLUB by Mette Ivie Harrison (Domestic Thriller/Humor)
For Meg (wife #1), Jenny (#2) and Amelia (#3), the term “a woman scorned” isn’t strong enough. They want more than revenge for the years of their life they wasted with their pitiful excuse for a husband. They want him dead. As they carry out their lethal plan, they soon realize they’re thinking too small. What about all the other men (and women) who cause immeasurable suffering and get away with it? Thus “the business” is born. A dazzling new female-owned venture that will change the course of their lives --- and shorten many others! And for Meg and Jenny, it could allow them to experience a love they never thought possible.
Severn House | 9781448316472 

A FAR-FLUNG LIFE by M. L. Stedman (Historical Fiction)
Remote Western Australia, 1958. Here, for generations, the MacBrides have lived on a vast sheep station, Meredith Downs. It is a million acres, an ocean of arid land. On an ordinary day, on a lonely road, under the unending blue sky, patriarch Phil MacBride swerves to avoid a kangaroo. In seconds, the lives of the entire MacBride family are shattered. And then, tragedy revisits when a twist of consequences claims the life of one sibling and leads another to give up everything for the sake of an innocent child. Matt, the youngest MacBride, is plunged into a moral and emotional journey for which there is no map, no guide. The secrets at the heart of A FAR-FLUNG LIFE force him to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness.
Scribner | 9781668219614 

FELICIA'S FAVORITES by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
After the unexpected death of their mother, Felicia Morgan Weston, her five daughters are summoned to a historic Connecticut farmhouse for the reading of her will. Still reeling from shock, they hear revelations that potentially will change their lives --- and they realize there was much more to their mother than they ever knew. Each sister is about to receive a gift beyond her wildest dreams from their very private but loving mother, who considered all her girls her favorites.
Delacorte Press | 9780593973059

A GHASTLY CATASTROPHE: A Veronica Speedwell Mystery by Deanna Raybourn (Historical Mystery)
When the corpse of an entitled young man is found entirely drained of blood in a carriage next to Highgate Cemetery, Veronica Speedwell’s interest is piqued. And then a second victim is found, his death made to look like a suicide --- and Veronica and her intrepid beau, Stoker, know the hunt is on. The two men share one link: they were both members of a society so secretive that only a singular mention of it can be found anywhere. Thirsty for more clues, Veronica and Stoker hear that a young Romany boy may know more about their first victim, and the only way to the boy is through an old acquaintance of Stoker’s, Lady Julia Brisbane. But as it becomes clear that the secret society is a dangerous sect looking to entice immortality seekers, Veronica and Stoker find themselves ensnared by a decidedly more sinister couple.
Berkley | 9780593815731 

GREEN & DEADLY THINGS by Jenn Lyons (FantasyAdventure)
Mathaiik has trained all his life to join the sacred order of the Idallik Knights, charged with defending their world from the forces of necromancy. Only vestiges of that cursed magic remain, nothing like the fabled days of the Grim Lords, the undead wizards who once nearly destroyed the world. But when an even stranger kind of monster begins to wake, the Knights quickly prove powerless to stop them. Whole forests are coming alive and devouring anyone so foolish as to trespass. It’s a good thing, then, that the Grim Lords were never truly destroyed. One of their number sleeps below the Knights' very fortress. And when an army of twisted tree monsters attacks the young initiates in his charge, Math decides to do the unthinkable: he wakes her up. This is only the beginning of his problems. Because said necromancer, Kaiataris, knows something history has forgotten.
Tor Books | 9781250342188 

HEARTLAND: A Forgotten Place, an Impossible Dream, and the Miracle of Larry Bird by Keith O'Brien (Sports)
In the fall of 1974, Larry Bird dropped out of Indiana University; returned home to the tiny town of French Lick, Indiana; and got a job hauling trash. It could have ended right there for Bird were it not for two men: Bob King, an old coach with bad knees, and Bill Hodges, a man who knew what it was like to be poor and overlooked. In the spring of 1975, King and Hodges convinced Bird to play basketball at Indiana State University. Four years later, this unheralded team would put together one of the greatest seasons in American sports history. More than 50 million people would tune in to watch the Indiana State Sycamores play in the NCAA finals against Magic Johnson and Michigan State. What happened that night would change college basketball and the NBA. Perhaps more importantly, it would change the members of this hardscrabble team, binding them together forever.
Atria Books | 9781668211700

IF A FACE COULD KILL: A Brigid Quinn Thriller by Becky Masterman (Domestic Thriller)
Former FBI agent Brigid Quinn hasn’t forgiven herself for the testimony that led to young mother Nicole Gleason being convicted for the manslaughter of her abusive husband. Now out of jail early on parole, Nicole is living in a group home for felons in Brigid’s Arizona neighborhood. But while Brigid hopes to make amends with Nicole, not everyone in the community is happy to have criminals on their doorstep. When outspoken local resident Dorita Gordino is grotesquely murdered, suspicion soon falls on Nicole. Brigid is determined to catch Dorita’s killer and prove Nicole’s innocence --- even if it means one of her own darkest secrets comes to light.
Severn House | 9781448317899

LADY TREMAINE by Rachel Hochhauser (Fiction)
Twice-widowed, Lady Etheldreda Verity Isolde Tremaine Bramley is solely responsible for her two children, a priggish stepdaughter, a razor-taloned peregrine falcon, and a crumbling manor. Fierce and determined, Ethel clings to the respectability her deceased husband’s title affords her, hoping it will secure her daughters’ future through marriage. When a royal ball offers the chance to change everything, Ethel risks her pride in pursuit of an invitation for all three of her daughters --- only to see her hopes fulfilled by the wrong one. As an engagement to the future king unfolds, Ethel discovers a sordid secret hidden in the depths of the royal family, forcing her to choose between the security she craves and the well-being of the stepdaughter who has rebuffed her at every turn.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250396341 

LAKE EFFECT by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney (Fiction)
It’s 1977, and an air of restlessness has settled on the residents of Cambridge Road in Rochester, New York. When Nina Larkin is given a copy of THE JOY OF SEX by her newly divorced friend, she no longer can dismiss the nearly nonexistent intimacy of her marriage. Just as her oldest child, Clara, is falling in love for the first time, Nina finds herself longing for the forbidden: a midlife awakening. An intoxicating fling with a prominent neighbor brings Nina a freedom she never thought possible --- but also risks the reputations of both families and unravels Clara’s world. Years later, Clara, now a successful food stylist in New York City, has never been able to move past the long-ago scandal. Drawn back home by the pull of a family wedding and wrestling with her own demons, she makes a pivotal decision that turns her life upside down.
Ecco | 9780063377684 

MISSING SISTER by Joshilyn Jackson (Psychological Thriller)
Twins Penny and Nix Albright grew up doing everything together. But when Nix dies in a tragic accident soon after college, she leaves behind a cryptic voicemail that has Penny guilt-ridden. Five years later, Penny has found new purpose as a rookie cop. She’s working to fulfill Nix’s dream of making the world a safer place. But following that dream becomes a nightmare when she’s called to her first murder scene. When she sees the victim, she knows him instantly: Danny Bowery, one of three men she’s long blamed for Nix’s death. A stunned Penny discovers a blonde in blood-drenched clothes gripping a box cutter. Before Penny can arrest her, the woman reveals that Bowery’s murder is part of a larger story that is far from over. Then she disappears. Now, Penny will stop at nothing to pursue this dangerous woman and learn why she’s avenging Nix’s death.
William Morrow | 9780063158719 

NIGHT NIGHT FAWN by Jordy Rosenberg (Fiction)
In a cluttered rent-controlled apartment in the middle of Manhattan, Barbara Rosenberg is terminally ill, high on opioids, and writing the story of her life. She has opinions about her smutty late husband, her career as the receptionist for a disreputable plastic surgeon, her glory days as an accomplished jazzerciser, and her failed aspirations to be a film noir actress. But what she really wants to talk about are unhinged thoughts on gender, Karl Marx, Zionism, and her two great disappointing loves: an estranged trans son and a long-lost best friend whose betrayal still haunts Barbara. As she descends further into delirium and illness, Barbara finds herself in a nightmare from which she cannot escape, and her circumstances put her on a crash course with these intimates --- or are they avenging nemeses? --- once again.
One World | 9780593448007 

RUBY FALLS by Gin Phillips (Historical Mystery)
In 1928, a Chattanooga man disappears down a hole in the ground and discovers a 150-foot waterfall in the middle of a mountain that he names after his wife: Ruby Falls. Within months, visitors can buy tickets to see the falls for themselves. Ada Smith has been sneaking into the caves at night, entranced by the natural wonders around her. As the country flounders in the Great Depression, a shrewd public relations ploy seems like the only way to save Ruby Falls. A famous mind reader and mystic agrees to launch himself into the Ruby Falls caverns where he will attempt to locate a hidden hatpin using only his psychic abilities. Ada and another guide, Quinton, have been asked to follow the mind reader’s party at a distance, staying out of sight. One of them will be dead before the end of the day.
Atlantic Crime | 9780802166920 

THE SECRET LIVES OF MURDERERS' WIVES by Elizabeth Arnott (Historical Mystery)
Beverley, Elsie and Margot are wives of convicted killers. During the sun-drenched summer of 1966, they form an unlikely friendship after the discoveries of their husbands’ brutal crimes. With their exes --- some of California’s most infamous murderers --- dead or behind bars, they are attempting to forge a new future for themselves. They know people look at them and think only one thing: How could they not have known what their husbands were doing? How much are they to blame? And yet, when a string of local killings hits the news, the three women --- underestimated, overlooked, shrewd --- decide to get to work. After all, who better to catch a killer than those who have shared their lives and homes with one?
Berkley | 9780593952993 

THE SOCIAL CIRCLE by Sophie Wan (Fiction)
When Maggie Tang arrives as a transfer student at UC Berkeley in 2005, she has no idea how her life is about to change. In the hallway of her dingy apartment building, she meets Adam, Charles and Hari, the friends with whom she’ll create Circle, the world’s first major social media platform. But navigating her ambitions alongside love and friendship isn’t so simple, and when they inevitably collide, Maggie exits Circle in dramatic fashion. A decade later, Maggie is struggling with a new professional venture when she receives an invitation to celebrate Circle’s 10th anniversary on a private island in Norway with the three people she has tried hardest to forget. When a new truth is revealed about their fallout all those years ago, Maggie will have to decide whether to run again or fight for a second chance with the people she once loved most.
Park Row | 9781525800061 

THE STAR FROM CALCUTTA: A Mystery of 1920s India by Sujata Massey (Historical Mystery)
India, 1922: Perveen Mistry, the only female lawyer in Bombay, has secured her biggest client yet: Champa Films, a movie studio run by director Subhas Ghoshal and his wife, Rochana. Behind the scenes, Rochana recently has left the studio in Calcutta that made her famous, and the studio owner is enraged by what he claims is a breach of contract. Rochana needs Perveen’s legal help to extricate Champa Films from the impending controversy. To study Rochana’s glamorous world, Perveen attends a special screening and brings her film fanatic best friend, Alice Hobson-Jones. But in the aftermath of the event, one of the guests is found dead, and Rochana has disappeared. To protect her clients, Perveen begins to investigate the developing murder case. And for the first time in their friendship, Alice seems to be keeping a secret from Perveen.
Soho Crime | 9781641295093 

STORIES: The Collected Short Fiction by Helen Garner (Fiction/Short Stories) 
A woman sends postcards to a former lover from the idyllic Gold Coast. A chorus of hometown voices gossip about a wayward friend returned. A young girl discovers a hidden box of horrors. Helen Garner is best known for her frank, unsparing and intricate portraits of Australian life. Now, in STORIES, comes the collected short fiction of a singular literary voice. These stories delve into the complexities of love and longing, of the pain, darkness and joy of life, and all told with Garner's characteristic sharpness, honesty and humor. Each one is a perfect piece, but together they showcase a rare talent and a master of many literary forms.
Pantheon | 9780553387476

THE STORY OF MARCEAU MILLER written by Marceau Miller, translated by Howard Curtis (Psychological Thriller)
In the beautiful and dangerous landscape of Lake Geneva, in the shadow of the Swiss Alps, renowned writer Marceau Miller is found dead. In the wake of the tragedy, his wife, Sarah, discovers a manuscript he's left behind, entitled The Story of Marceau Miller. With the support of close friends, Sarah struggles to hold herself together while caring for her two children and coping with the mounting questions surrounding her famous husband's death. Was it an accident or part of some darker game? Compelled to find the truth, Sarah unravels secrets that make her question everything --- and everyone --- around her. Who can she possibly trust? Her journey from grief to revelation captures the nuance of marriage to a man who remains an enigma. Who is Marceau Miller, really?
Blackstone Publishing | 9798228365230 

STRANGERS IN THE VILLA by Robyn Harding (Psychological Thriller)
Sydney Lowe’s life in New York is shattered when her husband, Curtis, admits to a meaningless affair with a client. Begging for forgiveness and vowing to prove his devotion, Curtis suggests the couple retreat to a remote hilltop house in Spain to repair their marriage. High above the Mediterranean, Sydney and Curtis are working on the isolated property and their relationship when a pair of Australian travelers turns up at their door in dire need of help. Lonely for companionship and desperate for free labor, Sydney and Curtis invite the attractive young couple to stay. But as the days pass, dark secrets come to light, the Lowes’ bond is tested, and not everyone will leave the villa alive.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538774007 

THAT'S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR by Wade Rouse (Fiction)
Theodore Copeland has created a fabulous life in the desert oasis of Palm Springs, where he shares a fabulous pink mid-century home with three fabulous friends: Barry, a former actor still clinging to the memory of the dream role that killed his career; Ron, an uprooted Christian with a big heart but no one to give it to; and Sid, who, after coming out late in life, has never found love. Teddy is the caustic, unspoken leader of “The Golden Gays,” the foursome’s monthly drag tribute to “The Golden Girls.” But the harmony of their desert enclave becomes a carousel of emotional baggage when Teddy’s estranged sister, Trudy, shows up on their doorstep, her dramatic teenage granddaughter in tow. While Teddy keeps Trudy at arm’s length, she manages to wheedle her way into the lives of the Golden Gays, until the real reason for her visit is revealed.
Mira | 9781525800054 

THE TREE OF LIGHT AND FLOWERS: A Jane Whitefield Novel by Thomas Perry (Thriller)
A violent car crash brings on the premature birth of the baby that Jane Whitefield and her husband have hoped for. But within weeks, Jane’s peaceful time as a new mother in a safe, harmonious home starts to revert to her harrowing previous life. She had spent over a decade rescuing and sheltering people from dangerous foes, taking them to new locations, and teaching them to live under new identities. Nearly simultaneously, as though the events were connected, people who are thousands of miles apart in vastly different circumstances start to move. All of these travelers are soon on their way to the old house in western New York. Suddenly the people requiring Jane’s special skills include not only multiple fugitives, but also Jane herself, her husband and their newborn, as the danger she faces comes from people who know how to find her.
The Mysterious Press | 9781613167298

WAIT FOR ME by Amy Jo Burns (Fiction)
Young folk singer Elle Harlow reaches the height of her prowess in 1973, with two wildly beloved albums to her name and a hidden history of impossible heartbreak. When she sets foot on the famed Grand Ole Opry stage, Elle gives the biggest performance of her life. Then she vanishes. Almost two decades later, 18-year-old Marijohn Shaw is spending her summer pumping gas, writing songs on her broken mandolin, and longing for a mother. Her father, Abe, has always sworn he was the last person to see Elle Harlow alive. But when a meteor strikes the woods of their sleepy Pennsylvania town and a piece of Elle’s past emerges from the wreckage, the truth of her disappearance sets fire to everything Marijohn believes about herself, her music, and her ability to love with abandon.
Celadon Books | 9781250399304 

WHERE THE GIRLS WERE by Kate Schatz (Historical Fiction)
It’s 1968, and the future is bright for 17-year-old Elizabeth “Baker” Phillips. But the seductive free-spirited San Francisco atmosphere seeps into her carefully planned, strait-laced life in the form of a hippie named Wiley. At first, letting loose and letting herself fall in love for the first time feels incredible. But pregnancy hits Baker with the force of whiplash. In the blink of an eye, she goes from good girl to fallen woman, from her family’s shining star to their embarrassing secret. Without any other options, Baker is sent to a home for unwed mothers, and finds herself trapped in an old Victorian house packed with pregnant girls who share her shame and fear. As she grapples with her changing body, lack of choice, and uncertain future, Baker finds unexpected community and empowerment among the “girls who went away.”
The Dial Press | 9780593736975 

YOU CAN'T CATCH US: Lady Bird Johnson's Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode with Her by Shannon McKenna Schmidt (History)
At a time when political candidates' wives were expected to be seen and not heard, Lady Bird Johnson made history as the first presidential spouse to take a leading role on the campaign trail. Her mission: to aid her husband, Lyndon B. Johnson, in his reelection bid. Proud of her southern heritage and what her husband had done for civil rights, Lady Bird undertook an eight-state whistle-stop tour in October 1964, both to garner votes for Lyndon and to help ease the animosity that arose from the signing of the Civil Rights Act three months earlier. The "Lady Bird Special," a custom, 19-car train, forged headlong into the powder keg of Southern politics, making 47 stops in only four days. Despite the potential dangers, the First Lady --- aided by a team of pioneering women --- pressed forward, making speeches, shaking hands and breaking ground.
Sourcebooks | 9781464244384 

YOU WITH THE SAD EYES: A Memoir by Christina Applegate (Memoir)
Christina Applegate came of age on sets and stages. What started as a financial necessity soon became an emotional escape from a tumultuous home life. She rocketed to stardom on the sitcom “Married...with Children” and went on to captivate audiences in classics like Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, Anchorman and Dead to Me. Then it all stopped. A multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2021 confined her to a king-sized bed and the company of memories she’d rather forget: memories of the self-doubt and body dysmorphia that stalked her meteoric rise, of her mother’s fight against addiction and abuse after her father left, and of the tax life had taken on her body and mind that was suddenly coming due. Now, at her most intimate and vulnerable, she unveils a story not even those closest to her fully know.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316594929

On Sale the Week of March 2nd in Paperback

March 1st

I CAME BACK FOR YOU by Kate White (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Ten years after her daughter, Melanie, was murdered, Bree Winter is finally moving on with a new love, a new home and a new beginning. Then a deathbed confession from the convicted killer throws Bree’s life into a tailspin all over again. He readily confesses to murdering four girls. But not Melanie. At first, Bree and her ex-husband don’t buy a word of it. Until inconsistencies about the crime emerge. So does the dreadful feeling that the monster who shattered Bree’s family isn’t lying. The only way she can get to the truth is to power through the trauma and return to the town in upstate New York where Melanie’s life came to a brutal end. Not only could the real killer still be in their midst, but as Bree begins to dig through Melanie’s past, what she discovers calls into question everything she has believed --- about the crime and about Melanie herself.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662533990

March 3rd

BLACK WOODS, BLUE SKY written by Eowyn Ivey, illustrated by Ruth Hulbert (Fiction/Magical Realism)
Although Birdie gets a little hungover sometimes and has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, she’s getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature. Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie, he represents everything she’s ever longed for. She finds herself falling for Arthur and the land he knows so well. Against the warnings of those who care about them, Birdie and Emaleen move to his isolated cabin in the mountains. But soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she ever could have imagined.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780593231043

DEATH TAKES ME written by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Robin Myers and Sarah Booker (Literary Mystery)
A professor named Cristina Rivera Garza stumbles upon the corpse of a mutilated man in a dark alley and reports it to the police. When shown a crime scene photo, she finds a stark warning written in tiny print with coral nail polish on the brick wall beside the body: “Beware of me, my love / beware of the silent woman in the desert.” The professor becomes the first informant on the case, which is led by a detective newly obsessed with poetry and trailed by a long list of failures. But what has the professor really seen? As the bodies of more castrated men are found alongside lines of verse, the detective tries to decipher the meaning of the poems to put a stop to the violence spreading throughout the city.
Hogarth | 9780593737026

DEEP CUTS by Holly Brickley (Fiction)
It’s a Friday night in a campus bar in Berkeley, fall of 2000, and Percy Marks is pontificating about music again. Hall and Oates is on the jukebox, and Percy --- who has no talent for music, just lots of opinions about it --- can’t stop herself from overanalyzing the song, indulging what she knows to be her most annoying habit. But something is different tonight. The guy beside her at the bar, fellow student Joe Morrow, is a songwriter. And he could listen to Percy talk all night. Joe asks Percy for feedback on one of his songs --- and the results kick off a partnership that will span years, ignite new passions in them both, and crush their egos again and again. Is their collaboration worth its cost? Or is it holding Percy back from finding her own voice?
Crown | 9780593799109

ELEANORE OF AVIGNON by Elizabeth DeLozier (Historical Fiction)
Avignon, 1347. Eleanore is a young midwife and herbalist with remarkable skills. But as she learned the day her mother died, the most dangerous thing a woman can do is draw attention to herself. In a chance encounter, Eleanore meets the enigmatic personal physician to the powerful Pope Clement and strikes a deal with him to take her on as his apprentice. Then, two pieces of earth-shattering news: the Black Death has made landfall in Europe, and the disgraced Queen Joanna is coming to Avignon. She is pregnant and in need of a midwife, a role only Eleanore can fill. The plague spreads like wildfire, leaving half the city dead in its wake. Desperate for a scapegoat, the people of Avignon follow a group of religious fanatics on a witch hunt, one that could cost Eleanore --- an intelligent, unwed woman; a talented healer --- everything.
Dutton | 9780593475058

ELPHIE: A Wicked Childhood by Gregory Maguire (Fantasy)
Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, will grow to have a feisty and somewhat uncompromising character in adult life. But she is always a one-off, from her infancy. Young Elphie is shaped and molded by the behaviors of her promiscuous mother, Melena, and her pious father, Frex. She suffers ordinary childhood jealousies when her sister, saintly Nessarose, and her brother, junior felon Shell, arrive. She first encounters the mistreatment of the Animal populations of Oz, which live adjacent to but not intertwined with human settlements, haunted by a Monkey and receiving aid from Dwarf Bears. She thrashes through her first bruising attempts at friendship, a possible lifeline from her tricky family life. And she gleans the benefits of an education --- until she arrives at the doors of Shiz University, about to meet the radiant creature that is Galinda.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063377028

THE ENCORE by Juliet Izon (Fiction)
Paperback Original
In 2003, at the prestigious Brookfield Conservatory in Boston, a chance encounter sparks an inimitable friendship between driven pianist and singer Anna Buckley and composer wunderkind Will Pendleton. But soon after graduation, one night forever alters the trajectory of their lives, destroying their relationship in the process. Twenty years later in New York, 16-year-old piano virtuoso Lottie Thomas is grappling with the rigors of her elite prep school and the confounding disappearance of the woman who gave her up at birth. When Lottie suddenly discovers the startling truth of her identity, the revelation catalyzes a chain of events that not only reunites Lottie with her birth parents, but forces them together on a rock tour bus for a careening cross-country journey, where they finally must reconcile with irrevocable choices from the past.
Union Square & Co. | 9781454961222

GALWAY’S EDGE: A Jack Taylor Mystery by Ken Bruen (Mystery/Thriller)
Edge, a shadow organization made up of the most powerful figures in Galway society, exists to rid the city of criminals and abusers who have evaded the law. Long wary of the organization, the Vatican is not pleased when rumors start swirling that one of the Catholic Church’s own priests has joined its ranks. An envoy to the Archdiocese shows up at private detective Jack Taylor’s door, asking him to go speak to a priest named Kevin Whelan and dissuade him from any involvement with Edge. Jack accepts the mission, but the next day Father Whelan is found dead. As more Edge members are murdered, the Vatican grows alarmed that someone even worse will take their place. It’s up to Jack Taylor to nail the culprit before Edge is dissolved completely and Galway is thrown into chaos.
The Mysterious Press | 9781613167526

THE GIRL FROM GREENWICH STREET: A Novel of Hamilton, Burr, and America’s First Murder Trial by Lauren Willig (Historical Mystery/Legal Thriller)
Just before Christmas 1799, Elma Sands slips out of her Quaker cousin’s boarding house --- and doesn’t come home. Her body is eventually found in the Manhattan Well. Handbills circulate around the city accusing a carpenter named Levi Weeks of seducing and murdering Elma. But privately, quietly, Levi’s wealthy brother calls in a special favor. Aaron Burr’s legal practice can’t finance both his expensive tastes and his ambition to win the 1800 New York elections. To defend Levi Weeks is a double win: a hefty fee plus a chance to grab headlines. Alexander Hamilton has his own political aspirations; he isn’t going to let Burr monopolize the public’s attention. If Burr is defending Levi Weeks, then Hamilton will too. As the trial and the election draw near, Burr and Hamilton race against time to save a man’s life --- and destroy each other.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063306127

GRAVITY: Poems by Elizabeth Rosner (Poetry)
Paperback Original
Composed over a period of some 20 years, GRAVITY is Elizabeth Rosner's profoundly searching account of her experience as the daughter of Holocaust survivors. In an extraordinarily powerful mix of poetry and prose, Rosner traces the earliest remembered resonances of her parents' past and her dawning awareness of the war history that colored her family home during her youth in Schenectady, New York. She recounts her false starts in raising the subject with her father (a survivor of Buchenwald concentration camp), his piecemeal revelations, and their eventual travels together to the sites of the nightmare in Germany. And she evokes, courageously and heart-wrenchingly, her search for identity against the gravitational pull of her parents' experience and the traditional upbringing they've given her.
Counterpoint | 9781640097865

THE GREAT WHEN: A Long London Novel by Alan Moore (Historical Fantasy)
In 1949, amidst the smog of London, Dennis Knuckleyard, a hapless 18-year-old employed by a secondhand bookshop, discovers a novel that simply does not exist. It is a fictitious book, one only existing within another novel. Yet it is physically there in his hands. How? Dennis has stumbled on a book from the Great When, a magical version of London beyond time and space, where reality blurs with fiction and concepts such as Crime and Poetry are incarnated as wondrous, terrible beings. But this other, magical London must remain a secret. If Dennis cannot find a way to return this book to where it belongs, he risks facing gruesome and grave repercussions. Soon he finds himself at the center of an explosive series of events that may alter and endanger both Londons forever.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781639737345

THE HALF-HEARTED QUEEN by Charlie N. Holmberg (Historical Fantasy/Romance)
Paperback Original
Nym never told Prince Renn she loved him. And now, as a captive and political pawn to the ruthless King Nicosia, Nym finds herself guarding more than her forbidden feelings for Renn as the kingdoms of Cansere and Sesta clash and the bloodshed of war rages. King Nicosia will stop at nothing to find Renn’s weakness and claim the kingdoms as his. Now Nym must find a way to escape the cruel and twisted fate of imprisonment as she faces the unimaginable horrors and dangerous secrets hidden within King Nicosia’s palace walls. With the succession of kings on the line and a dangerous prophecy unfolding, Prince Renn faces his own impossible choice. The future of the throne hinges on a political alliance that means forsaking his love for Nym. If he can’t fulfill his destiny and unite the kingdoms, King Nicosia will destroy them all.
47North | 9781662531187

HANG ON ST. CHRISTOPHER: A Sean Duffy Novel by Adrian McKinty
(Mystery/Thriller)
It's July 1992, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland are still grinding on after 25 apocalyptic years. Detective Inspector Sean Duffy got his family safely over the water to Scotland, to "Shortbread Land." Duffy is a part-timer now, only returning to Belfast six days a month to get his pension. It's an easy gig, if he can keep his head down. But then a murder case falls into his lap while his protege is on holiday in Spain. A carjacking gone wrong and the death of a solitary, middle-aged painter. But something is not right, and as Duffy probes, he discovers that the painter was an IRA assassin. So the question becomes: Who hit the hitman, and why? This is Duffy's most violent and dangerous case yet, and the whole future of the burgeoning "peace process" may depend upon it.
Blackstone Publishing | 9781504762519

HAPPY LAND by Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Historical Fiction)
Nikki hasn’t seen her grandmother in years. So when the elder calls out of the blue with an urgent request for Nikki to visit her in the hills of western North Carolina, Nikki hesitates only for a moment. After years of silence in her family, due to a mysterious estrangement between her mother and grandmother, she’s determined to learn the truth while she still can. But instead of answers about the recent past, Mother Rita tells Nikki an incredible story of a kingdom on this very mountain, and of her great-great-great grandmother, Luella, who would become its queen. The more Nikki learns about the Kingdom of the Happy Land, and the lives of those who dwelled in the ruins she discovers in the woods, the more she realizes how much of her identity and her family’s secrets are wrapped up in these hills.
Berkley | 9780593337745

HOW SIMI GOT HER GROOM BACK by Sonali Dev (Fiction)
Paperback Original
The Naik sisters escaped their traumatic past in Mumbai to come to the States, but their journeys have been vastly different. Simi is working toward a bright future as a pediatric nurse in a small town in Kentucky when Rupi shows up at her door in distress, on the run, and dragging trouble in her wake. With Rupi’s safety in jeopardy, the sisters hatch a desperate plan to keep her in the country: Rupi must get married --- and fast --- even if it means Simi recruiting the man she’s been secretly dating as her sister’s groom. As the big day inches closer, Simi and Rupi face a storm of wedding shenanigans and romantic surprises, not to mention sisterly jealousies. As the stakes and tensions rise, will their secrets tear them apart, or will they find a way to risk everything for love?
Lake Union Publishing | 9781662524295

THE HUNTER by Jennifer Herrera (Thriller)
After reckless behavior costs NYPD detective Leigh O’Donnell her job and her marriage, she returns with her four-year-old daughter to her beautiful hometown of Copper Falls, Ohio. While the town may seem idyllic, something rotten lies at its core. Three men in town have drowned in what Leigh suspects to be a triple homicide. She hopes that by finding out who killed them, she just might get her life back on course. Headstrong and intuitive, Leigh isn’t afraid to face a killer, but she has to do more than that to discover the truth about what happened to those men. She must unravel a web of secrets going back generations, and, in doing so, plumb the darkness within herself.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593540237

I LEAVE IT UP TO YOU by Jinwoo Chong (Fiction)
A coma can change a man, but the world Jack Jr. awakens to is one he barely recognizes. His advertising job is history, his Manhattan apartment is gone, and the love of his life has left him behind. He’s been asleep for two years; with no one to turn to, he realizes it’s been 10 years since he last saw his family. Lost and disoriented, he makes a reluctant homecoming back to the bustling Korean American enclave of Fort Lee, New Jersey; back into the waiting arms of his parents, who are operating under the illusion that he never left; and back to Joja, their ever-struggling sushi restaurant that he was set to inherit before he ran away from it all. There is value in the joyous rhythms of this once-abandoned life. But second chances are an even messier business than running a restaurant, and the lure of a self-determined path might prove too hard to resist.
Ballantine Books | 9780593870785

INGENIOUS: A Biography of Benjamin Franklin, Scientist by Richard Munson (Biography)
Benjamin Franklin was one of the preeminent scientists of his time. Driven by curiosity, he conducted cutting-edge research on electricity, heat, ocean currents, weather patterns, chemical bonds and plants. But today, Franklin is remembered more for his political prowess and diplomatic achievements than his scientific creativity. In INGENIOUS, Richard Munson recovers this vital part of Franklin’s story, reveals his modern relevance, and offers a compelling portrait of a shrewd experimenter, clever innovator and visionary physicist whose fame opened doors to negotiate French support and funding for American independence. Munson’s riveting narrative explores how science underpins Franklin’s entire story and argues that his political life cannot be understood without giving proper credit to his scientific accomplishments.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324123545

INTO THE GRAY ZONE: A Pike Logan Novel by Brad Taylor (Thriller/Adventure)
While on a routine security assessment in India, Taskforce operator Pike Logan foils an attempted attack on a meeting between the CIA and India’s intelligence service. After another terrorist operation at the Taj Mahal, Pike begins to believe that outside powers are attacking India in the gray zone between peace and war, leveraging terrorist groups for nothing more than economic gain. But the separatists conducting the operations have their own agenda. After a massive slaughter and kidnapping of hostages during an elaborate Indian pre-wedding party, two global powers are destabilized, and only Pike Logan and his team can de-escalate the tension by rescuing the captives.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063358621

THE MAID’S SECRET: A Maid Novel by Nita Prose (Mystery)
As the esteemed Head Maid and Special Events Manager of the Regency Grand Hotel, two good things are just around the corner for Molly Gray --- a taping of the hit antiquities TV show “Hidden Treasures” and her wedding to Juan Manuel. When Molly brings in some old trinkets to be appraised on the show, one item is revealed to be a rare and coveted artifact worth millions. Molly becomes a rags-to-riches sensation, and a media frenzy swirls as she prepares to sell her priceless treasure. Then, on auction day, the treasure suddenly vanishes, and Molly and her friends find themselves at the center of the boldest art heist in recent memory. But the key to this mystery lies in the past, in a long-forgotten diary written by Molly’s Gran. For the first time ever, Molly learns about her grandmother’s secrets. As fate would have it, Gran’s greatest love was someone Molly knows quite well.
Ballantine Books | 9780593875438

MEDIUM RARE by A. Natasha Joukovsky (Fiction/Satire)
Paperback Original
Phil is ordinary. A mid-level Washington lobbyist for a decidedly unsexy organization, unhappy in the way all mildly successful, minimally influential men are. That is until the spring of 2019, when Phil’s picks for the NCAA March Madness Tournament start panning out. He really may do it: predict a perfect bracket for a billion-dollar prize. At first, Cassandra is just along for Phil’s soaring rise --- she had foreseen it happening, after all. Despite moving in different circles since their shared university days and Cassandra never much liking him, she recognizes in Phil the making of a legend worthy of the highest art. What Cassandra fails to predict, though, is just how much she’d grow to care about Phil’s wife, Raleigh --- and that the grandest narrative arcs sometimes unfold at the steepest of personal costs.
Melville House | 9781685892470

NESTING by Roisín O'Donnell (Fiction)
Grabbing an armful of clothes off the clothesline, Ciara Fay straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. All she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe. On the surface, she has a perfect life. Her husband, Ryan, is a good provider, and they have another baby on the way. But he also monitors Ciara's every move, flies into unpredictable rages where he convinces her she can do nothing right, and has isolated her from work, friends and her beloved family. With no job and no support, Ciara struggles to provide a sense of normalcy for her little girls. Facing a broken housing system, they move into a hotel room on a floor reserved for women like her. Ryan, meanwhile, wages a relentless campaign to win her back, and Ciara wavers. He never hit her, after all. And don't the girls need a stable home?
Algonquin Books | 9781643755717

NO MATTER WHAT by Cara Bastone (Romance)
Paperback Original
It’s been a year since Roz and Vin survived a life-altering accident, and their marriage hasn’t been the same. But Roz has held out hope that they can fix things, until she discovers Vin has signed a new lease. So she does what any soon-to-be-divorced Manhattanite would do: sign up for a figure-drawing class. Between Roz’s determined attempts to improve her artistic skills and her adventures with her best friend, Raffi, she can almost ignore Vin’s impending move-out date. But it all would be a lot easier if Vin wasn’t Raffi’s older brother, and if she didn’t still find him incredibly attractive and kind. In fact, Vin is so kind that he offers to let Roz draw him. As Roz works to capture the wholeness of the person she fell in love with, will they both be able to draw upon the feelings they buried deep inside to finally heal together?
Dial Press Trade Paperback | 9780593977675

THE PRETENDER by Jo Harkin (Historical Fiction)
In 1480, the arrival of a well-dressed stranger from London upends John Collan’s life forever. John is not John Collan, the son of Will Collan, but Lambert Simnel, the son of the long-deceased Duke of Clarence. Lambert has been hidden in the countryside after a brotherly rift over the crown --- and because Richard III has a habit of making his nephews disappear. He is removed from his humble origins and sent to Oxford to be educated in a manner befitting the throne’s rightful heir. There he encounters the intractable Joan, the delightfully strong-willed daughter of his Irish patrons, who is imbued with both extraordinary political savvy and occasional murderous tendencies. Together Lambert and Joan form an alliance that will change the fate of the English monarchy.
Vintage | 9780593689165

THE QUEENS OF CRIME by Marie Benedict (Historical Mystery)
London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second-class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment. As they embark on their own investigation, the Queens of Crime discover that they’re stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250842602

THE RAILWAY CONSPIRACY: A Dee and Lao Mystery by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan (Historical Mystery)
Following several months abroad, Judge Dee Ren Jie has returned to London to foil a transaction between a Russian diplomat and a Japanese mercenary. Aided by Lao She, Dee stops the illicit sale of an extremely valuable “dragon-taming” mace. The mace’s owner is a Chinese businesswoman who thanks Dee for its retrieval by throwing a lavish dinner party. In attendance is British banking official A. G. Stephen, who argues with the group about the tenuous state of Chinese nationalism --- and is poisoned two days later. Dee knows this cannot be a coincidence and suspects Stephen won’t be the only victim. Sure enough, a young Chinese communist of Lao’s acquaintance is killed not long after --- and a note with a strange symbol is found by his body. What could connect these murders? Could it be related to rumors of a conspiracy regarding the Chinese Eastern Railway?
Soho Crime | 9781641297929

RED DOG FARM by Nathaniel Ian Miller (Fiction)
Growing up on his family’s cattle farm in western Iceland, young Orri has gained an appreciation for the beauty found in everyday things. But the outer world still beckons, so he leaves his no-nonsense Lithuanian Jewish mother and his taciturn father, Pabbi, to attend university in Reykjavík. No longer able to find joy in his way of life, Pabbi falls into a depression soon after Orri goes away to school. Feeling adrift and aimless at the end of his first semester, Orri comes home. For the first time, Pabbi allows Orri to help him run the farm. Meanwhile, Orri meets a kindred spirit on the internet: Mihan, a part-time student. Over time, their connection deepens. By year’s end, Orri must decide if he wants to --- or should --- return to university, and what a future with Mihan would hold, if she’ll have him.
Back Bay Books | 9780316575157

RED SCARE: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America by Clay Risen (History)
For the first time in a generation, Clay Risen delivers a narrative history of the anti-Communist witch hunt that gripped America in the decade following World War II. This period, known as the Red Scare, was an outgrowth of the conflict between social conservatives and New Deal progressives, and the terrifying onset of the Cold War. Marked by an unprecedented degree of political hysteria, this was a defining moment in American history, completely unlike any that preceded it. Drawing upon newly declassified documents, journalist Clay Risen recounts how politicians like Joseph McCarthy, with the help of an extended network of other government officials and organizations, systematically ruined thousands of lives in their deluded pursuit of alleged Communist conspiracies.
Scribner | 9781982141813

THE SISTERS OF BOOK ROW by Shelley Noble (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
1915: Manhattan’s Book Row, an eclectic jumble of 40 bookshops along Fourth Avenue, is the mecca for rare book buyers from around the world, and the haunt of locals looking for a bargain. It is also the target of the most vicious censor in American history --- Anthony Comstock --- and home to three sisters who vow to stop him. For the three Applebaum sisters, the Arcadia Rare Bookshop is the only home they’ve ever known. Unbeknownst to her older sisters, Celia has joined a group of young people who secretly print and distribute articles on women’s health by hiding them within the pages of ordinary cookbooks, household hints and sewing patterns. Meanwhile, the Comstock Laws threaten anybody who owns or circulates “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” publications. Secrets and a mysterious stranger mean that the fate of the famed Book Row is anything but secure.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063423916

THE SOUL OF A WOMAN by Isabel Allende (Memoir)
As a child, Isabel Allende watched her mother, abandoned by her husband, provide for her three small children without “resources or voice.” She became a fierce and defiant little girl, determined to fight for the life her mother couldn’t have. As a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s, she rode the second wave of feminism. Among a tribe of like-minded female journalists, Allende for the first time felt comfortable in her own skin, as they wrote “with a knife between our teeth” about women’s issues. She has seen what the movement has accomplished in the course of her lifetime. And over the course of three passionate marriages, she has learned how to grow as a woman while having a partner, when to step away, and the rewards of embracing one’s sexuality.
Ballantine Books | 9780593355640

THE STAIRCASE IN THE WOODS by Chuck Wendig (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what. Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere. One friend walks up --- and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears. Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy --- and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods.
Del Rey | 9780593156582

THE STORY SHE LEFT BEHIND by Patti Callahan Henry (Historical Fiction)
In 1927, Clara Harrington’s magical childhood shatters when her mother, renowned author Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, disappears off the coast of South Carolina. Bronwyn stunned the world with a book written in an invented language that became a national sensation when she was just 12 years old. Her departure leaves behind not only a devoted husband and heartbroken daughter, but also the hope of ever translating the sequel to her landmark work. By 1952, Clara is an illustrator raising her own daughter, Wynnie. One day, a stranger named Charlie Jameson contacts her from London claiming to have discovered a handwritten dictionary of her mother’s lost language. At the Jameson family’s retreat, Clara must find the courage to uncover the truth about her mother and the story she left behind.
Atria Books | 9781668011881

STRANGE BUILDINGS written by Uketsu, translated by Jim Rion (Mystery/Horror)
Paperback Original
After receiving multiple tips from his devoted readership, a writer fascinated by the occult put together 11 case files, each featuring its very own strange building. Each of the 11 structures in this book has a floor plan that conceals a disturbing architectural quirk: from disappearing rooms to apartments with no means of escape. Each building tells its own chilling story. And each is part of a grander puzzle. Look closely…and you'll see that everything is connected. All leading to a revelation so horrifying you won't want to believe it.
HarperVia | 9780063514096

TRAVELING: On the Path of Joni Mitchell by Ann Powers (Music/Biography)
For decades, Joni Mitchell’s life and music have enraptured listeners. One of the most celebrated artists of her generation, Mitchell has inspired countless musicians --- from peers like James Taylor, to inheritors like Prince and Brandi Carlile --- and authors, who have dissected her music and her life in their writing. At the same time, Mitchell has always been a force beckoning us still closer, as --- with the other arm --- she pushes us away. Given this, music critic Ann Powers wondered if there was another way to draw insights from the life of this singular musician who never stops moving, never stops experimenting. In TRAVELING, Powers seeks to understand Mitchell through her myriad journeys.
Dey Street Books | 9780062463739

THE VALLEY OF VENGEFUL GHOSTS by Kim Fu (Literary/Psychological Horror)
Paperback Original
In the aftermath of her mother's death, Eleanor is unmoored. For years, her mother orchestrated every detail of her life, so that Eleanor could focus on her career as a therapist. Left to navigate the world on her own, Eleanor clings to her mother’s final directive: use her inheritance to buy a house. She impulsively buys a model home in a valley-turned-construction site, a picturesque development steeped in a shadowy history. It feels like a fresh start until the rain comes --- an endless, torrential downpour. As water seeps in through the house’s cracks, the line between what is real and what is not begins to blur, Eleanor’s reality unravels, and she is forced to reckon with the secrets she’s buried and the dark choices she’s made.
Tin House | 9781963108699

WANT TO KNOW A SECRET? by Freida McFadden (Psychological Thriller)
First Publication by Poisoned Pen Press
Influencer and baking sensation April Masterson knows the secret to the perfect gooey brownies. Or how to make key lime squares that will melt in your mouth. But if you keep watching her offline, you may find out some other secrets about April. Secrets she'd rather you didn't know. Where did her son go when he snuck out late at night? What was she doing with the local soccer coach behind fogged windows? And what's buried in her backyard? April's secrets are enough to destroy her. I'll make sure of that.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464249600

WELCOME TO MURDER WEEK by Karen Dukess (Mystery/Humor)
When 34-year-old Cath loses her mostly absentee mother, she is ambivalent. With days of quiet, unassuming routine in Buffalo, New York, Cath consciously avoids the impulsive, thrill-seeking lifestyle that her mother once led. But when she’s forced to go through her mother’s things one afternoon, Cath is perplexed to find tickets for an upcoming “murder week” in England’s Peak District. A whole town has come together to stage a fake murder mystery to attract tourism to their quaint hamlet. Baffled but helplessly intrigued by her mother’s secret purchase, Cath decides to go on the trip herself --- and begins a journey she never could have anticipated. Teaming up with her two cottage-mates, Cath sets about solving the “crime” and begins to unravel shocking truths about her mother along the way.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781668079782

THE WORLD’S FAIR QUILT: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel by Jennifer Chiaverini (Fiction)
As Sylvia Bergstrom Compson contends with financial setbacks at Elm Creek Quilt Camp, her friend and colleague Summer Sullivan, curator of the Waterford Historical Society’s quilt gallery, asks a special favor. When Sylvia and her elder sister were teenagers, they entered a quilt in the Sears National Quilt Contest for the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition. The unprecedented competition offered its 25,000 participants the opportunity for artistic expression, with the finalists’ quilts prominently displayed at the Chicago World’s Fair. If Sylvia lent the Bergstrom sisters’ World’s Fair Quilt to Summer’s exhibit, it would illuminate a forgotten chapter of women’s history during the difficult years of the Great Depression. Sylvia grants Summer’s request, but with misgivings. The fragile antique requires careful cleaning and repair --- and not all of the memories it evokes are pleasant.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063381742

On Sale the Week of March 9th in Hardcover

March 9th

JUDGE STONE by Viola Davis and James Patterson (Legal Thriller)
The most respected citizen in Union Springs, Alabama (population 3,314), is Judge Mary Stone. She holds two responsibilities sacred: running her family farm and presiding over her courtroom. It's there she draws the most controversial case in the history of the South. Criminally, it’s open-and-shut. Ethically, there is no middle ground. Essentially, it’s a choice between life and death. No judge can satisfy everyone. It would be dangerous to try. But Judge Stone is willing to fight to bring justice to the people and place she loves. 
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316579834 

March 10th

ADULT BRACES: Driving Myself Sane by Lindy West (Memoir/Humor)
Through SHRILL --- the book and then the Hulu series --- Lindy West became an inspiration. To this day, she is stopped on the street and hailed as a beacon of empowerment by women who felt badly for not conforming to a narrow set of societal norms --- thin, straight, compliant. But behind the scenes, Lindy never felt like she was the self-actualized woman fans made her out to be. When she found herself in the throes of a deep depression, with her marriage and sense of self-worth hanging in the balance, she knew she needed to make a change. In ADULT BRACES, Lindy shares the story of her rock bottom and the journey she took to claw her way out of it.
Grand Central Publishing | 9780306831836 

ALL THE WORLD CAN HOLD by Jung Yun (Fiction)
It’s Sunday, September 16, 2001. Franny and her husband have traded in their elegant Park Avenue co-op for a suite on board the Sonata, a once-glittering cruise ship with a complicated history now long past its prime. Though they’re not “cruise people,” Franny is determined to host the trip as planned because it’s her mother’s 70th birthday, or chilsun, a major rite of passage celebrated by Korean families. But as her husband keeps pointing out, Franny and her mother aren’t close, and it is surreal --- even wrong --- to be on a cruise as the death toll from the attacks on 9/11 continues to rise. ALL THE WORLD CAN HOLD explores how we balance our needs and our wants, as well as the regrets we live with and the chances to set them right.
37 Ink | 9781668200599 

THE BEST DOG IN THE WORLD: Essays on Love edited by Alice Hoffman (Essays)
Anyone who has ever been fortunate enough to share their life with a dog knows that the experience is both profound and transformative. Here, in this charming collection of essays, 15 celebrated authors share unforgettable tales of the dogs who left their pawprints on their hearts. With contributions from Isabel Allende, Chris Bohjalian, Bonnie Garmus, Roxane Gay, Emily Henry, Ann Leary, Tova Mirvis, Jodi Picoult, Elizabeth Strout, Amy Tan, Adriana Trigiani, Nick Trout, Paul Yoon and Laura Zigman, THE BEST DOG IN THE WORLD captures the full range of the canine-human connection, from the joy of welcoming a new puppy to the heartache of saying goodbye to a beloved friend.
Scribner | 9781668209028 

THE COMPLEX by Karan Mahajan (Fiction)
In a sprawling complex in Delhi, the sons and daughters of SP Chopra, one of India's political architects, live together vying for influence in a family shaped by the great man's legacy. By the late 1970s, his descendants are scrambling to define their own futures in a still-young nation on the brink of transformation. Sachin Chopra leaves for America, with his bride Gita following not long after, as the newlyweds are eager to forge their own lives beyond the pressures of the family compound. Yet Delhi remains an inescapable force, one that keeps pulling them back, even as Gita is menaced by Sachin’s predatory uncle, Laxman. Meanwhile, Vibha, his sister, tries to keep the peace and the reputation of the family intact even as she wrestles with her own exile.
Viking | 9780593832905 

THE DARK TIME: A Peter Ash Novel by Nick Petrie (Thriller)
Katelyn Thorsen, known as KT to her friends and enemies, is an independent journalist who receives a very specific death threat. Fortunately, Peter Ash has arrived in town to protect KT at the request of his girlfriend, June Cassidy. From the moment of his arrival, he’s thrown into a maelstrom of violence trying to protect KT and her daughter and discover the source of the death threat. Even after June and Peter’s best friend, Lewis, arrive in Seattle to help, this challenge may be too much for them --- with enormous consequences should they fail.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593540589 

DARKENING SONG by Delphine Seddon (Fiction)
Eva is just 18 years old and interning at a record label when she discovers 16-year-old Alora online. Never has she heard a voice like Alora’s, and when it’s clear there isn’t anyone at the label interested in hearing this phenomenal talent, Eva takes matters into her own hands. On a whim, Eva offers Alora representation as her manager without knowing the first thing about artist management or what’s about to happen to both of them. Alora is swiftly catapulted into the spotlight of major superstardom, and as the two navigate the whirling vortex of fame, they form a deep bond. But when Alora’s dark and mysterious past begins to infiltrate her present, and Eva’s ambition and success blind her to the obvious signs that her client and, most importantly, her friend is in trouble, their lives unravel with disastrous consequences.
Saturday Books | 9781250373229 

A DAY OF JUDGMENT: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery by Charles Todd (Historical Mystery)
July, 1921: England is suffering a heatwave, and the coast of Northumberland, just across the border from Scotland, is filled with holiday-makers bird watching and enjoying the beaches. Pilgrims also come to visit the home of Saints Cuthbert and Aiden --- the founders of Christianity in England --- located on the “Holy Island” of Lindisfarne, accessible by a causeway at low tide. When the murdered body of a local man washes ashore just south of Lindisfarne, the government and the Church of England are concerned about protecting both the reputation of the Church and the sacred sites that are a destination for hundreds of pilgrims at this time of year. With his ability to move in the highest social and political circles, Inspector Ian Rutledge is sent by Scotland Yard to solve this crime and dispel any association with the Church.
The Mysterious Press | 9781613167236 

FATHERLAND by Victoria Shorr (Historical Fiction)
Martin and Lora Brier, with three young children, possess all the trappings of a perfect life…except Martin is having yet another affair. Without warning, he abandons the family for his mistress and a new house on the other side of town. Set in a prosperous midwestern town in the 1950s, FATHERLAND is a story about the effect of convenient lies and discovered truths. While Martin’s abandonment throws up new difficulties for bewildered Lora, a housewife who now must find a way to nurture and provide for herself and their children, it unleashes a swirl of emotions in their daughter, Josie, who struggles to come to term with his absence. The novel follows Josie from this fateful event, across many decades and milestones and through the phases of her tenuous, emotionally fraught relationship with Martin.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324117551

THE FOX AND THE DEVIL by Kiersten White (Gothic Fantasy/Historical Romance)
Anneke has a complicated relationship with her father, Abraham Van Helsing --- doctor, scientist and madman devoted to the study of vampires --- until the night she comes home to find him murdered, with a surreally beautiful woman looming over his body. A woman who leaves no trace behind, other than the dreams and nightmares that now plague Anneke every night. Spurred by her desire for vengeance and armed with the latest forensic and investigatory techniques, Anneke puts together a team of detectives to catch this mysterious serial killer. There’s a trail of victims across Europe, and Anneke is certain they’re all connected. But during the years spent relentlessly hunting the killer, Anneke keeps crucial evidence to herself: infuriatingly coy letters, addressed only to her, occasionally soaked in blood, and always signed Diavola.
Del Rey | 9780593724439 

THE GOLDEN BOY by Patricia Finn (Fiction)
After an involuntary retirement from his high-flying Hollywood career, Stafford Hopkins has retreated to a luxury estate on Maui, along with his wife Agnes, both grimly resigned to life in a paradise where neither feels fully at home. Stafford is ready to retreat into himself, too, when a letter arrives with shocking news. He has been named guardian of four children he didn’t know existed: the grandchildren of his late childhood friend, Bobby Shepherd, whose ghost he can no longer ignore. Returning to both the hardscrabble farming town and the dark secret he’d tried to forget for decades, Stafford is forced to confront his past in order to rebuild his future --- and to redirect the fates of his family and the four young people suddenly in his care.
Cardinal | 9781538776186 

HOW TO SURVIVE IN THE WOODS by Kat Rosenfield (Psychological Thriller)
Raised by a doomsday prepper and hardened by the startup world, Emma Sharp has learned how to endure --- especially in her marriage to Logan Grant, a charismatic tyrant who keeps her under tight control. When Emma forms an unexpected bond with Logan’s former girlfriend, the two women devise a plan to help Emma take her life back. Destination: the punishing final stretch of the Appalachian Trail known as the Hundred Mile Wilderness. After all, bad things happen in the woods all the time. As the three venture deeper into Maine’s backcountry, desire and dread curdle into something unpredictable, dark and deadly. Someone is lying. Someone is watching. And in the remote heart of the forest, someone is about to be lost…or found.
Harper | 9780063467484 

IT GIRL by Allison Pataki (Historical Fiction)
At the dawn of the 20th century, New York’s streets teem with change: electricity, automobiles, the brash young President Teddy Roosevelt --- and the It Girls. As artists’ muses and working models, these independent young women soar to stardom because of their talent, charisma and irresistible beauty. While working as a shopgirl, the young Evelyn Talbot is recruited as a studio model and soon catches the eye of the preeminent artists of the age. When Broadway comes calling, Evelyn solidifies her status as the first self-made American female celebrity: the iconic Gibson Girl. When Evelyn finds herself at the center of a murder of passion declared “the Crime of the Century,” she is blamed for the acts of the men in her life. In the media frenzy that spirals around her, Evelyn realizes that to survive, she will have to write her own ending.
Ballantine Books | 9780593873410 

JUDY BLUME: A Life by Mark Oppenheimer (Biography)
Judy Blume’s influential novels turned classics touched the lives of tens of millions of readers. For more than 55 years, her work has done something revolutionary: it rewired the world’s expectations of what literature for young people can be --- frank, candid, earthy, and unafraid to show the messier sides of humanity. But little is known about the real woman behind the iconic persona, and the unlikely journey of her literary ascension, until now. In JUDY BLUME, longtime Blume aficionado Mark Oppenheimer pens a beautiful, multidimensional portrait of the acclaimed author through extensive interviews with Blume herself, invaluable access to her papers and correspondence, and thoughtful analysis of Blume’s beloved novels, including early, unpublished works that shed light on the pathbreaking writer she would become. 
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593714447 

KIDS, WAIT TILL YOU HEAR THIS!: My Memoir by Liza Minnelli, as told to Michael Feinstein (Memoir)
KIDS, WAIT TILL YOU HEAR THIS! is the autobiography of EGOT icon Liza Minnelli. This fascinating, untold story reveals the intimate truth of the only child born to Hollywood legends Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland. For the first time, here is Liza up close. Liza decided at the age of 16 that “sympathy is my mother’s business. I give people joy.” That veil of joy, however, masks a lifelong struggle with Substance Use Disorder, boundless love to give and an equal need to receive it, broken marriages, multiple miscarriages and hospitalizations. Despite every challenge, Liza’s is a life wrapped in laughter and her tremendous capacity to give and receive love. Today at nearly 80, she opens her heart, mind and memories, sharing secrets we never knew.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538773666

NO FRIEND TO THIS HOUSE by Natalie Haynes (Historical Fiction)
Jason and his Argonauts set sail to find the Golden Fleece. The journey is filled with danger, for him and everyone he meets. But if he ever reaches the distant land he seeks, he faces almost certain death. Medea --- priestess, witch, and daughter of a brutal king --- has the power to save the life of a stranger. Will she betray her family and her home, and what will she demand in return? Medea and Jason seize their one chance of a life together, as the gods intend. But their love is steeped in vengeance from the beginning, and no one --- not even those closest to them --- will be safe. Based on the classic tragedy by Euripides, this is Medea as you've never seen her before.
Harper | 9780063258440 

NONESUCH by Francis Spufford (Historical Fiction)
It’s the summer of 1939, and the air in London is thick with the tension of impending war. Iris Hawkins, a fiery young financial secretary, has a chance encounter with Geoff, a genius engineer from the new technology of television. What was supposed to be one night of abandon draws her instead into a nightmare of otherworldly pursuit --- into a reality where time bends, spirits can be summoned, and history hangs by a thread. Soon there are Nazi planes droning overhead. In a time when all the men are away in uniform, the defense of the city is in the hands of its women. But Iris has more to contend with than just the terrors of the Blitz. Over the rooftops of burning London, a fascist fanatic is traveling with a gun in her hand, and only Iris can stop her from altering the course of history forever.
Scribner | 9781668214374 

NORTH OF ORDINARY: How One Woman Left It All Behind for Wilderness and Wonder in Alaska's Frozen Frontier by Sue Aikens with Michael Vlessides (Memoir)
In the raw, untamed wilds of Alaska, only a rare few figure out how to survive. Sue Aikens, the breakout star of National Geographic's long-running TV show “Life Below Zero,” is one of them. At her remote outpost 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, she weathers more than just brutal winters and hungry bears. Sue battles isolation, injury and the ghosts of a turbulent past, forging a life in a place most people wouldn't last a day. Left to fend for herself as a child, Sue's fight to survive began long before she ever set foot in Alaska. In NORTH OF ORDINARY, she tells the unforgettable story of abandonment, grit and fierce independence --- from navigating deadly storms and surviving a horrific bear attack to learning how to build a life, a home and a sense of self where most would see only desolation.
Sourcebooks | 9781464242564 

ONCE AND AGAIN by Rebecca Serle (Fiction)
The women of the Novak family were each born with a gift: they can, just once, turn back time. Lauren has known since she was 15 that her mother, Marcella, saved Lauren’s father from a deadly car accident. Dave is alive and happy, and out on the Malibu waves. But ever since, Marcella has lived in fear of what she won’t be able to reverse. One summer, Lauren’s husband takes a job in New York, and she moves back into her childhood home. Lauren looks forward to surfing with her dad again and perhaps repairing an unspoken fracture in her relationship with her mother. What she doesn’t expect is for the boy next door to return home as well: Stone, who broke her heart nearly a decade before. As Lauren falls into familiar patterns, she finds herself thinking about all the choices that have brought her to this moment. And wondering, finally, if one of them should be undone.
Atria Books | 9781668025918 

PARTIALLY DEVOURED: How Night of the Living Dead Saved My Life and Changed the World by Daniel Kraus (Performing Arts/Memoir)
Daniel Kraus first saw George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead when he was five years old. Through watching it approximately 300 times since, Kraus discovered the many ways the film is tied to his childhood trauma and how its influence has carried into his adulthood. He couldn't help but wonder: Are there other admirers of the movie out there who feel the same? PARTIALLY DEVOURED uses a frame-by-frame deep dive into Night of the Living Dead to produce a kaleidoscopic cultural investigation of the film's importance and to examine the author's early life of rural isolation and local violence.
Counterpoint | 9781640097155 

SERVED HIM RIGHT by Lisa Unger (Psychological Thriller) 
Ana Blacksmith has gathered her closest friends and sister, Vera, for a brunch to celebrate her recent breakup from her boyfriend, Paul. But when shocking news about Paul arrives, all eyes are on Ana, the angry ex with a bad reputation. Suspicions only intensify when Ana’s best friend falls deathly ill after the brunch. But Ana is not the only one who had a score to settle with Paul. As the investigation unfolds, rumors of a secret network that uses ancient methods to obtain justice begin to emerge. Vengeance is sweet, but it also can be deadly. Ana and Vera are determined to find the truth before Ana takes the fall and their own long-buried history comes to light.
Park Row | 9780778360056 

THE SHADOW CARVER: An Inspector Anjelica Henley Thriller by Nadine Matheson (Mystery/Thriller) 
When a string of grisly murders begins painting the city in terror, DI Anjelica Henley soon realizes that a vigilante killer is scalping their victims before leaving them for dead. Henley is thrust into a web of secrets, unraveling connections between the victims while battling demons from her own past. As the killer raises the stakes, the line between predator and prey begins to blur. With time slipping away and her own life in jeopardy, Henley must outwit a psychopath who views murder as an art form. Can she hunt them down before the final stroke of the scalpel closes the case forever?
Hanover Square Press | 9781335000354 

THIS STORY MIGHT SAVE YOUR LIFE by Tiffany Crum (Domestic Thriller/Mystery)
Benny Abbott and Joy Moore host one of the most beloved podcasts in the world. Each week, they delight listeners with a different “against all odds” survival story, gleefully finding the weird, life-affirming humor in near-death experiences. Since their first episode on Joy’s experience with severe narcolepsy, they’ve been the best friends everyone wants to befriend --- and thanks to the meticulous management of Joy’s husband, Xander, they’ve built a lucrative empire. When Benny arrives at Joy and Xander’s one morning to record, he finds shattered glass and an empty house. The one clue shedding light on the couple’s disappearance is the incomplete, previously unseen first draft of Joy’s memoir. Benny is desperate to find them, even when the police soon zero in on him as their prime suspect.
Flatiron Books: Pine & Cedar | 9781250395238 

VANISHED IN THE CROWD: A Molly Murphy Mystery by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles (Historical Mystery)
New York is busier than ever as two million visitors come to the city to witness the Hudson-Fulton celebration in 1909, marking the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson's discovery of the Hudson River. Molly Murphy Sullivan and her family, along with their friends Sid and Gus, are excited to enjoy the festivities. But Molly is secretly dealing with financial troubles. She is too proud to ask her friends for a loan, but when they want to hire her as a detective, she jumps at the chance. Sid and Gus are hosting fellow Vassar graduates to take part in one of the parades, but one of the women, a brilliant scientist, never shows up. When Daniel asks Molly to spy on her friends and find out just what they are planning, she finds her loyalties horribly divided. Then the parade turns deadly, and only Molly has the tools to find out the truth.
Minotaur Books | 9781250399359 

WHIDBEY by T Kira Madden (Fiction)
Birdie Chang didn’t know anything about Whidbey Island when she chose it. She’s a woman on the run, desperate for an escape from the headlines back home and the look of concern in her girlfriend’s eyes --- and from Calvin Boyer, the man who abused her as a child and now has resurfaced. But Birdie isn’t the only girl Calvin harmed back then. There’s also Linzie King, a former reality TV star who recently wrote all about it in her bestselling memoir. Though the two women have never met, their stories intertwine. Once Birdie arrives on Whidbey, she finally cracks the book’s spine, only to find too much she recognizes in its pages. Soon after, Calvin’s mother, Mary-Beth, receives a shocking phone call from the police: her only son has been murdered. Calvin’s death sets into motion a series of events that sends each woman on a desperate search for answers.
Mariner Books | 9780063289680 

On Sale the Week of March 9th in Paperback

March 10th

33 PLACE BRUGMANN by Alice Austen (Historical Fiction)
On the eve of the Nazi occupation, in the heart of Brussels, life for the residents of 33 Place Brugmann is about to change forever. Charlotte Sauvin knows all the details of the building and its people --- including the distinct knock of her dear friend, Julian Raphaël. Then the Raphaëls disappear, leaving everything behind but their priceless art collection, which has simply vanished. All else that’s familiar fractures when whispers of German occupation become reality, and the lives of the residents grow increasingly intertwined. Charlotte’s godmother, Masha, deepens her risky affair with a wartime compatriot of Colonel Warlemont --- a man far more calculating than his neighbors believe. When a Nazi functionary with an interest in the Raphaëls moves into the building, knowing who can and cannot be trusted becomes a matter of life and death.
Grove Press | 9780802166982

ALL THE WATER IN THE WORLD by Eiren Caffall (Science Fiction/Dystopian Thriller)
ALL THE WATER IN THE WORLD is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents, and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250353542

ATAVISTS: Stories by Lydia Millet (Fiction/Short Stories)
The word atavism, coined by a botanist and popularized by a criminologist, refers to the resurfacing of a primitive evolutionary trait or urge in a modern being. This inventive collection from Lydia Millet offers overlapping tales of urges ranging from rage to jealousy to yearning. The titular atavists include an underachieving, bewildered young bartender; a middle-aged mother convinced that her gentle son-in-law is fixated on geriatric porn; a bodybuilder with an incel’s fantasy life; an arrogant academic accused of plagiarism; and an empty-nester dad determined to host refugees in a tiny house in his backyard. As they pick away at the splitting seams in American culture, Millet’s characters shimmer with the sense of powerlessness we share in an era of mass overwhelm.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324123552 

THE DEMON OF UNREST: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson (History)
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter --- a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, inflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”
Crown | 9780385348768

FLOAT UP, SING DOWN: Stories by Laird Hunt (Fiction/Short Stories)
Candy Wilson has forgotten to buy the paprika. Turner Davis needs to get his zinnias in. Della Dorner told her mother she was going to the Galaxy Swirl, but that's not where she's really headed on her new Schwinn five-speed. FLOAT UP, SING DOWN is the story of a single day. But in that day, how much teeming life! The residents of this rural town have their routines, preferences, joys, grudges and regrets. Gossip is paramount. Lives are entwined. Retired sheriffs climb corn bins and muse on lost love, French teachers throw firecrackers out of barn windows, and teenagers borrow motorcycles to ride the back roads. Each of these 14 stories follows one character's day in the life in one of Laird Hunt's most beloved and enduring landscapes.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781639738274

GIRL FALLING by Hayley Scrivenor (Mystery/Thriller)
Torn between her girlfriend, Magdu, and her best friend, Daphne, Finn is looking forward to a day of rock climbing and bonding for the three women on the soaring cliffs near their Australian town. But nothing goes as she planned, and in a horrific accident, Magdu falls to her death. Rocked by grief, Finn tries to pinpoint where it all went wrong. Did Magdu die because of Finn’s friendship with overbearing Daphne, who has never wanted Finn to change or leave her? Can Finn trace it all the way back to the tragic childhood loss of her sister? What about Magdu’s family, who never would have accepted their relationship? When the police suspect foul play in Magdu’s death, Finn begins to search for the shocking truth about her relationships and what has been in front of her all along.
Flatiron Books: Pine & Cedar | 9781250362193

GODDESS COMPLEX by Sanjena Sathian (Fiction)
Sanjana Satyananda is trying to recover her life. It’s been a year since she walked out on her husband, a struggling actor named Killian, at a commune in India, after a disagreement about whether to have children. Now, Sanjana is struggling to resurrect her busted anthropology dissertation and crashing at her annoyingly perfect sister’s while her well-adjusted peers obsess over marriages, mortgages and motherhood. Sanjana needs to move forward --- and finalize her divorce ASAP. There’s just one problem: Killian is missing. As Sanjana tries to track him down, she’s bombarded with unnerving calls from women seeking her advice on pregnancy and fertility. Soon, Sanjana comes face to face with what her life might have been if she’d chosen parenthood. And the road not taken turns out to be wilder, stranger and more tempting than she imagined.
Penguin Books | 9780593489796

KATE & FRIDA: A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Books by Kim Fay (Fiction)
Twenty-something Frida Rodriguez, the daughter of LOVE & SAFFRON’s own Joan Bergstrom, comes to Paris in 1991, relishing the city’s butter-soaked cuisine and seeking her future as a war correspondent. But when she writes to a bookshop in Seattle, she receives more than just the book she requests. A friendship begins that will redefine the person she thought she wanted to become. Seattle bookseller Kate Fair is transformed by Frida’s free spirit, spurred to kiss her handsome coworker, to believe in herself as a writer, and to find beauty even in loss. Through the most tumultuous years of their young lives --- personally and globally --- Kate and Frida’s friendship sustains and nourishes them as they show each other how to overcome self-doubt and the necessity of embracing joy even through our darkest hours.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593852408

A LADY FOR ALL SEASONS by TJ Alexander (Historical Romance)
Paperback Original
Verbena Montrose must marry to save herself and her odious family from abject poverty. When she hears an alarming rumor about her very dear, very queer friend Étienne that could ruin him, she comes to his aid with a proposal --- for a marriage of convenience, that is. But when Verbena discovers that a mysterious and celebrated poet by the name of Flora Witcombe has been publishing verses that hint she is onto their scheme, Verbena has no choice but to pretend to be a poet herself to confront her in a local salon. And --- unexpectedly --- be charmed by her. Flora, in turn, is terrified by and smitten with Verbena in equal measure. But she holds a secret of her own: he is also William Forsyth, a struggling novelist and fifth son of a minor noble family. And if circumstances don’t allow Flora to woo Verbena, perhaps William can.
Vintage | 9798217007288

THE MAILMAN by Andrew Welsh-Huggins (Thriller)
Mercury Carter is a deliveryman who takes his job very seriously. When a parcel is under his care, he will stop at nothing to deliver it directly to its intended recipient. Not even, as in the current case, when he finds a crew of violent men at the indicated address who threaten his life and take the woman who lives there hostage. That’s because Carter has special skills from his former life as a federal agent with the postal inspection service. After Carter dispatches the goons sent to kill him, he enters a home besieged by criminals --- but the leader of the gang escapes with attorney Rachel Stanfield before the mailman can complete his assignment. With Rachel’s husband, Glenn, in tow, Carter takes off in pursuit of the kidnapper and his quarry. Along the way, he slowly picks off members of the crew and uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy and a powerful crime syndicate.
The Mysterious Press | 9781613167519

THE MAN NOBODY KILLED: Life, Death, and Art in Michael Stewart's New York by Elon Green (True Crime)
At 25 years old, Michael Stewart was a young Black aspiring artist, deejay and model, looking to make a name for himself in the vibrant downtown art scene of the early 1980s New York City. On September 15, 1983, he was brutally beaten by New York City Transit Authority police for allegedly tagging a 14th Street subway station wall. Witnesses reported officers beating him with billy clubs and choking him with a nightstick. Stewart arrived at Bellevue Hospital hog-tied with no heartbeat and died after 13 days in a coma. This was, at that point, the most widely noticed act of police brutality in the city's history. THE MAN NOBODY KILLED recounts the cultural impact of Michael Stewart’s life and death.
Celadon Books | 9781250898241

O SINNERS! by Nicole Cuffy (Fiction)
After the death of his father, a young journalist named Faruq Zaidi takes the opportunity to embed himself in a mysterious cult based in the California redwoods and known as “the nameless,” whose strikingly attractive members adhere to the 18 Utterances, including teachings such as “all suffering is distortion” and “see only beauty.” Shepherding them is Odo, an enigmatic Vietnam War veteran who received “the sight” --- the movement’s foundational principles --- during his time as an infantryman. Through flashbacks that recount the cult’s wartime origins, we see four soldiers contend with the existential struggles of combat and with their responsibilities to each other. By the end of the novel, we learn which one becomes Odo.
One World | 9780593597460

SILENT AS THE GRAVE: A Molly Murphy Mystery by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles (Historical Mystery)
With a newborn and two children, Molly Murphy Sullivan is tackling motherhood. Her husband, Daniel, is off to work in Washington as Easter break begins in New York. Her dear friend and writer, Ryan O’Hara, is shooting a movie and invites her and the children to visit the set. When one of the actresses is fired, Molly’s adopted daughter, Bridie, is called to replace her in the scene. It turns out she is a natural and is asked to star in the rest of the film. The movie industry is still experimenting with ways to get the best shot. But soon, their special effects start to malfunction. After a few mishaps where no one is hurt, the special effects turn deadly. With rumors of a feud between studios, Molly believes these malfunctions are sabotage. She is invited to go undercover on set to investigate the burgeoning film war.
Minotaur Books | 9781250890832

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