July 14, 2026

July 14, 2026

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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of July 13th and July 20th 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 current Word of Mouth contest. Let us know by Friday, July 24th at noon ET what books you’ve read, and you’ll have a chance to win THE HALF LIFE by Rachel Beanland and THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING by Lisa Scottoline, both of which will be Bookreporter.com Bets On picks.

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This Week's Bonus News:
Bookreporter.com's Word of Mouth Contest
Win a Copy of THE HALF LIFE by Rachel Beanland
and THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING by Lisa Scottoline

Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events

On Sale the Week of July 13th in Hardcover

July 13th

THE COUNTRY ROAD MURDERS by James Patterson and Mike Lupica (Thriller)
After a shocking accident, Silas Tucker’s legendary football career is suddenly over. Humbled but never defeated, he returns to his backwoods hometown, Cross Rivers, North Carolina, where his father was murdered. He goes back to what’s left of his family and their small, struggling farm. He reunites with his best friend in the world --- Taylor McCarter Webb, who is now married. Then Silas is pulled into a deadly battle with the Southern Mafia who control drugs, trafficking and murder. As the suspense crescendos, Silas follows one rule for survival: you don’t ride these country roads alone, or in the dead of night.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316599870

July 14th

ASTRONAUT! by Oana Aristide (Fiction/Dark Humor)
Romania, 1989, the twilight of Ceaușescu’s dictatorship: Daily news flashes of seemingly random murders grip the nation. The suspect? A man-eating bear. Amid the fear of informants, official lies and daily rationing, two bright lives collide. Constantin, an idealistic police detective prone to scribbling fairy tales in his notebook, is tasked with solving the string of mysterious deaths. Lia, a rebellious, inquisitive schoolgirl pining for more color in her life, is unwittingly drawn into an eccentric elderly neighbor’s secret plot against the regime. While everyone around them is flattened into submission, the two find the spirit to carry out small acts of defiance. Their decisions will have sweeping consequences --- for themselves, for their families, and for their country.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324123897 

CATCH THE DEVIL: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast by Pamela Colloff (True Crime)
For more than three decades, Paul Skalnik roamed the Gulf Coast lying about who he was. He passed himself off as a fighter pilot, a high-rolling oilman, a criminal defense attorney, an undercover agent, and a terminal cancer patient. In these guises, he married nine women --- some at the same time. When Skalnik got caught, he would run a different con. Locked up with other men awaiting trial, he claimed they confessed their crimes to him. In 1985, Jim Dailey, a down-on-his-luck Vietnam veteran, was implicated in the murder of a 14-year-old girl and landed in the Pinellas County Jail with Skalnik. No forensic evidence or motive linked Dailey to the killing, but Skalnik’s account of his "confession" helped put Dailey on death row. More than three decades later, another man took responsibility for the killing, but Skalnik refused to recant his testimony.
Knopf | 9780593230862 

CHOSEN FAMILY by Madeleine Gray (Fiction/Humor)
When they meet on the brutal battlefield that is their posh all-girls’ high school during their first year there, the lives of Nell Argall and Eve Bowman are changed forever. Their relationship is a life raft that is also a poison apple that is also a Medusan stare, frozen in time. When the passion, guilt, shame and joy that perpetually twists and turns between them finally implodes, Nell abruptly walks away, leaving Eve alone at the helm of the gloriously unorthodox family they’ve built with their seven-year-old daughter, Lake. Eve finds herself left wondering: Can the wounds of adolescent betrayal ever really heal? Can we ever really understand what’s going on in someone else’s head? And what’s love got to do, got to do with it?
Mariner Books | 9780063485709

CONVICTION by Elizabeth H. Winthrop (Fiction) 
In the aftermath of 9/11, 11-year-old Maggie’s first instinct was rage. But when her parents took her to an open house at a mosque, she glimpsed a faith of beauty and peace --- and over time came to embrace Islam as her own. A decade later, Maggie has left Maine for the life in New York she always dreamed of. Yet her joy is shadowed by images from Syria: civilians starving, children buried under rubble. Then she meets Ahmet, the handsome and headstrong son of a neighborhood baker. Ahmet leaves his life behind to join a new rebel group emerging in Syria, electrified by its sweeping vision to fight Assad and create a Muslim utopia. The group is ISIS. Maggie slowly gleans the brutal nature of the group she has joined, one that does not share her vision of Islam.
Grove Press | 9780802167217

THE DEATH ROW CLUB by V. A. Vazquez (Psychological Thriller)
When Nicola Fischer’s father is arrested for the murder of five women --- including her best friend --- the entire world watches it unfold on “To Catch a Killer,” the hit true-crime TV show hosted by Greer Woods. Overnight, Nicola becomes a pariah. And to make matters worse, Greer --- once a budding friend and fellow child of a serial killer --- hasn’t returned a single call since the show aired. Then comes an unexpected invitation to the Death Row Club, a secret retreat for the adult children of serial killers, founded by none other than Greer herself. Desperate for answers and human connection, Nicola agrees to go. But when a mysterious girl arrives, claiming her father is a killer too, the club’s fragile peace is shattered, unraveling the buried secrets at its core. By morning, the girl has vanished. By afternoon, one of the club members is dead.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781668217627

THE DEVOTED by Catherine Cho (Fiction) 
Raised in Hong Kong by their Korean grandmother, Eunha and her brother, Solomon, live a sheltered life. Their father is a Dragon Head, a leader within the infamous criminal organization of the Triads. While their beloved grandmother does her best to shield the children from the constant hum of violence and fear that surrounds their father and his world, Eunha only has Solomon and their one permitted companion, a boy named Kai, for company. But as Eunha grows up and marries into a supposedly respectable Hong Kong family, the veneer of her careful life begins to crack. When her young son is kidnapped, she is cast into the city’s criminal underground and back into the orbit of Kai, now a Dragon Head himself. Will Eunha finally give in to the life she has strived so hard to rise above, or was her future always fated?
Washington Square Press | 9781668099469 

DOMINION: The Silk and Iron Trilogy, Book One by Jean Kwok (Fantasy/Romance) 
In a world divided into four rival dominions, power is everything --- and Rubi Morningtail has almost none. Three years after the Annihilation destroyed her homeland and shattered her memories, she lives as an Azure refugee in the Dominion of the Silver Tyger. When Rubi wounds a massive battle tyger on her doorstep, she draws the notice of Blake Axefire --- supreme metal mage and leader of the royal Tyger Warriors. His sentence? Cast her into the Bonding, a brutal trial where tygers choose their riders and slaughter the rest. Surviving is unthinkable. But survive she does. Now she’s stuck on Blake’s elite team racing to reseal the Anchors to the Demon Realm. Rubi must unlock the truth of her magic and her past…while resisting her dangerous attraction to the ruthless warrior who could be her redemption --- or her ruin.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9798217044368

FAMOUS MEN by Julie Buntin (Fiction)
Will Miles is trapped in tiny Greening, Michigan, where a toxic high school rumor has turned her into a social exile. But when she stumbles across the early poems of Nathaniel Fellow, a famous writer 40 years her senior who also grew up in Greening, she feels she has found a kindred spirit. A passing comment from her mother only adds to Will’s fascination: Is Nathaniel the father she's never known? Will orchestrates a plan to track Nathaniel down, and their meeting sparks a complicated, consuming relationship that gives her sidelong access to a world she’s only ever imagined. But when a torrent of information about his past threatens not just her life with Nathaniel but the story she tells herself about him, Will is faced with a choice that will change everything.
Random House | 9780593229958 

THE FOREST BECOMES HER by Julie Carrick Dalton (Fiction/Magical Realism)
In historic, bucolic Concord, Massachusetts, a centuries-old forest has been removed to make way for a new, eco-friendly housing development. The locals are upset by the destruction, but out-of-towners like Hazel Stoddard are flocking to put down roots in their new guilt-free dream homes. Soon a tragedy leaves Hazel unmoored in her new life, and she begins to feel the pull of the absent forest. Hazel is not alone. Her neighbors, real estate agent Stella Flint and teenage environmentalist Polly Bauer, each have their own trauma and relationship to the land. The three women are drawn together to save the last remaining oak tree, or they risk losing themselves to lingering shadows that only they can see.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250889751 

THE HALF LIFE by Rachel Beanland (Historical Fiction)
When 23-year-old Eileen O'Malley meets charismatic naval officer Paul Archer in a Charleston department store, she doesn’t expect to fall so hard, so fast. But soon she has a ring on her finger and is following him to La Maddalena. Eileen joins a makeshift community of navy wives who are hell-bent on making the island feel a little more like home. But for Eileen, whose brother died in Vietnam, home is a loaded word, and she begins to love the place for all the ways it is not like where she comes from. Still, it doesn’t take long for her to be confronted with the complexities of being an American abroad. Soon, Eileen’s marriage falters and her loyalties begin to shift as she is drawn into a web of secrets --- and to a local journalist who forces her to imagine a life beyond the one she’s been handed.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668069134 

THE HAUL: A Heist Novel by Gary Phillips (Thriller)
After years of close calls, O’Conner --- the former “Warlord of Willow Ridge” --- spends most of his time in semi-retirement, running his legitimate businesses and playing pickleball. Except for his longtime girlfriend, no one in his middle-class neighborhood is the wiser to his double life. But O’Conner’s past refuses to stay dead. When he’s approached with a job he can’t resist, he agrees to mastermind his biggest heist yet: a multi-million-dollar raid of a tech billionaire’s secret bunker, hidden beneath his newly constructed basketball arena. As the job goes down, testing O’Conner’s mettle with new challenges, the promise of the score attracts ghosts from his past he thought were long buried.
Soho Crime | 9781641296649 

HOT GIRL MURDER CLUB by Ashley Winstead (Psychological Thriller)
Ten years ago, aspiring singer-actress Scout Sage lost the only thing that mattered: her sister, Georgia. Ever since Georgia’s mysterious death at a Hollywood party, Scout has done her best to honor her memory. But when a slew of targeted murders makes headlines across L.A., all pointing to Scout as the killer, she turns overnight from a mid-tier pop star into the world’s most famous (alleged) murderer. Now everything she’s worked to build --- including the justice she wants for Georgia --- will fall apart unless Scout can prove she’s not guilty. Meanwhile, the young and unusual detective assigned to her case, herself no stranger to tragedy, begins to unearth secrets not even Scout knows, let alone her millions of new fans.
Minotaur Books | 9781250401212 

HUSTLE, BABY by Priya Guns (Fiction/Dark Humor) 
On top of juggling school and caring for her baby cousin, Maysha, Dilo is tasked with hustling to help her family get by. After Dilo’s born-again Christian mother, Mary, and Aunt Anji relocated the family from Sri Lanka fleeing the civil war, one thing has become blindingly clear --- the “rags-to-riches” fairy tale they were promised is bogus. They work constantly to earn just enough to pay off their last meal. But when both matriarchs unexpectedly lose their jobs, desperation begins to set in. With eviction imminent, they are thrown a lifeline when they meet Mark, a swaggering day-trader, who promises to turn their small initial investment into thousands of dollars overnight on the stock exchange. But they soon discover what really fuels Mark’s seemingly endless generosity.
Doubleday | 9780385550482 

THE INTRIGUE by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Historical/Noir Thriller)
Handsome con artist Ulises has long charmed lonely women via letters in order to steal their money. But money is hard to come by in 1940s Mexico. Ulises knows his looks won’t last forever, and he’s desperate to get his hands on a real fortune. He thinks he’s found it when he captivates his newest correspondent, Perla, the owner of a small-town boardinghouse in picturesque Veracruz. But when he meets her, he finds something he didn’t expect. The woman has a niece, Inés, who is as observant as she is desperate to escape her aunt’s household. When Inés discovers Ulises’ true intentions, she wants in on the scheme. They’ll convince her aunt that Ulises is a great catch, Perla will marry him, and her money will vanish. But Perla is not the desperate, silly spinster Ulises imagines.
Del Rey | 9780593874356

IT WILL COME BACK TO YOU: Collected Stories by Sigrid Nunez (Fiction/Short Stories)
Over the course of 30 years, Sigrid Nunez has become one of contemporary fiction’s most distinctive voices, producing nine penetrating, profound novels celebrated by fans and critics alike. But she has not, until now, produced a book of stories. In IT WILL COME BACK TO YOU, Nunez brings together 13 of her best stories from the decades-long sweep of her career, tracing the origins of her style and her remarkable artistic range. Moving from the momentous to the mundane, Nunez maintains her expert balance between gravity and levity while probing the philosophical questions that illuminate her work.
Riverhead Books | 9798217179152 

KILLER VIBES: The First Peter Key Mystery by Jack Friday (Mystery/Humor)
Meet Peter Key, a self-proclaimed “laziest private investigator in Texas” (it’s harder than it looks), an unapologetic bisexual, a dedicated stoner, and the surprised recipient of a windfall inheritance from an uncle he barely knew. Peter’s life was a mess before, but now ---  as the owner of a dilapidated house in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Austin --- he has a mountain of debt to deal with and pressure to sell from every side. But Peter doesn’t like to be pushed around. And when he discovers a bag full of cash, he starts to suspect that his uncle’s death wasn’t an accident. He soon finds himself pulled into a lethal game where not everybody plays by the rules. Fortunately, Peter never has been good at following rules.
Minotaur Books | 9781250428615 

MAKE NICE by Ryan Effgen (Fiction/Humor)
When the Pickford siblings arrive at The Grand Hotel, a nostalgic tourist paradise, they have every intention of spending the long weekend making nice. Pete, the nation’s foremost expert on gastropods (mollusks), is keen to wade around the lake in search of a rare and exciting Carthusian snail. Viv, reeling from the secret revelation that her husband is gay, is determined to put on a brave face for her daughter. And Corey, a charming, handsome grifter, has lucked into five pounds of cocaine he plans to sell to the first dumb rich guy he can find. But when Pete falls for the alluring mother of a local kid, when Viv’s daughter gets up to teenage trouble, and when Corey finds the wealthy guests less interested in party drugs than golf clubs and waffle cones, the long weekend of family bonding veers into disaster.
Knopf | 9798217208128 

MEN LIKE US by Carson Markland (Historical Fiction)
The seventh of nine children, Bobby Kennedy has long been overlooked by his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., who governs his children with the same firm hand that earned him a fortune, an ambassadorship, and enough clout to plant the seeds of an American political dynasty. But when Bobby’s eldest brother, the anointed heir, dies in a wartime mission, the burden to become the first Kennedy in Congress shifts to Jack, the next in line. Bobby is forced to step up, especially as debilitating chronic pain threatens Jack’s Senate seat and aspirations to higher office. With their sights eventually set on the White House, Bobby evolves into the ruthless operative behind the scenes. But at what personal cost?
Algonquin Books | 9781643757599 

THE NOVEL DETECTIVE: A Detective Novel by Teresa Dovalpage (Mystery) 
2020: Teresa, a Cuban-born mystery writer now living in America, gets an unexpected call from her childhood best friend, Estrella, inviting her to Havana. Estrella is determined to get answers about a case that has haunted them for decades: the purported dual suicides of a teacher and student at their high school. Teresa is along for the ride as she always wanted to write a novel about this case. 1980: Fourteen-year-old Teresita knows who’s been skimming off the top of the amphetamine stash in her mother’s pharmacy, which teacher keeps cyanide in his cabinet at school, and that their classmate, Yoyi, is sleeping with their English teacher. Over the course of one fateful day, Teresita gets closer than ever to learning the “Truth of Life” --- even if it means coming face to face with death.
Soho Crime | 9781641298285 

THE PARISIAN HEIST by Jo Piazza (Historical Mystery/Thriller)
Emma, a struggling American artist in Paris, meets Stella Swanson, the widow of one of the most notorious art dealers in the business. She becomes both a player and a pawn in a family battle to protect their empire and conceal its crimes. In the late 1800s, young widow Jo van Gogh inherits hundreds of paintings from her brother-in-law, Vincent, that the art world deems worthless. Determined to prove their genius, she becomes consumed by Vincent’s legacy. As her devotion deepens, a vanished painting and a thwarted love affair leave her unsure who she can trust and how much of herself she’s willing to lose in the process. The lives of these two women converge as Emma uncovers the Swanson family’s darkest secrets and agrees to mastermind a daring heist inside the Musée d’Orsay. 
Dutton | 9798217046492

PLEASE DON'T TOUCH THE BODY: Stories by Emily Doyle (Fiction/Short Stories) 
By turns tender and irreverent, the 11 genre-bending stories in PLEASE DON’T TOUCH THE BODY are thrillingly concerned with the devastation --- and power --- of being alive today. In the collection's first story, a Japanese woman finds healing in a secret life as a sex advice columnist after being fetishized by her white husband for decades. In the fourth story, Ronald Reagan is reincarnated as a puppy and must cope with being squeezed, dropped and controlled by his young, queer owner. And in “Thank You No Thank You,” a young woman grapples with the rules she learned in her religious childhood, the freedoms of her new and more liberal life, and her actual desires as she vacations with her long-term boyfriend.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781639736256

RANSOM by Daniel Silva (Thriller/Adventure)
Alice Winter, one of Britain’s most dazzling socialites, seemingly has the perfect life --- a lavish home in posh Knightsbridge, a grand estate in Devon, millions of followers on social media who eagerly await her next post. But when she disappears without a trace while on holiday with three old friends from Cambridge, her desperate husband, the real estate baron Edward Knight, turns to none other than Gabriel Allon to find her. Gabriel soon discovers that Alice Winter is not the woman she appears to be. She has a reckless side, and she has secrets. But Edward Knight has a secret too, a secret so dangerous that Gabriel will have no choice but to return to the life he thought he had left behind. An old enemy lurks there, waiting for him to make one misstep, waiting for the perfect moment to exact vengeance.
Harper | 9780063384224 

THE ROMANCE REVIVAL by Christina Lauren (Romantic Comedy)
Three years ago, scientist Emery Finch did something completely out of character: She got married. To Luca --- the impossibly charming landscaper she met on one blistering night in Vegas. But now, Emery is consumed by her top research, missing dinners, forgetting anniversaries, and promising herself Luca will understand once her cutting-edge discoveries come to light. Until the unthinkable happens: A tragic accident takes Luca from her. Desperate not to lose him, Emery breaks every rule, using the classified technology she’s developed to bring him back to life. And Luca would probably thank her for it, if only he could remember her. It may be a miracle of science, but for Emery it’s her one shot at a second chance. This time, she won’t waste it.
Gallery Books | 9781668017753 

SHOULD THE WATERS TAKE US by Stephanie Soileau (Fiction) 
When an offshore rig explodes and unleashes a catastrophic spill, the people of Pelerin Parish, a Louisiana bayou community, face a reckoning that tests the bonds of family and the survival of their way of life. Boy Broussard is raising a daughter he barely knows. His dying aunt, Rosa Terrebonne, tries to right the misdeeds of the past yet is thwarted by her husband, Jacot, a retired landman for big oil who refuses to give up claim to the plot of ground where Boy makes his living. Meanwhile, Father Fabian lends his assistance to Boy’s all-but-motherless daughter, only to be met with suspicion and hostility. When a powerful hurricane threatens to turn an already dire situation into a total cataclysm, this sharp-edged cast of characters collides in a thunderclap of resentment and violence. 
Doubleday | 9780385551786 

SISTERS OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN: A Murder in Arctic Alaska by Rebecca Wright Stevens (True Crime)
Rebecca Wright is a defense attorney living in the Lower 48 when she suddenly finds herself a widow and an empty nester. In need of a radical change, she accepts a public defender position in Utqiagvik on Alaska’s North Slope. When two well-known sisters, Bernice and Wanda Ipalook, are found murdered, Wright is tasked with representing Amos Lane, a drifter on the short list of murder suspects. Criminal charges are looming. But this is summer in northern Alaska, the season of the midnight sun, when 24-hour sunlight makes it difficult for witnesses to confirm the time --- or even the day --- they last saw anyone. Wright must navigate, among other things, an unreliable client and a prosecution willing to entrap her to get a conviction.
Counterpoint | 9781640097711 

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING by Lisa Scottoline (Psychological Thriller)
Julia Pritzker loves her new life as a wife and mother in beautiful Tuscany --- except that she misses her best friend, Courtney, back in the States. One night, Julia calls Courtney and reaches her as she’s arriving at her grandmother’s farm in Pennsylvania. A dreadful premonition overwhelms Julia as Courtney enters the house --- and makes a heartbreaking discovery. Her beloved grandmother has been murdered, and the killer is escaping out the back door. Rushing to support Courtney, Julia flies home the next morning. The local police believe the murder was a botched burglary, but the women suspect something much more sinister and enlist hotshot Philly lawyer Bennie Rosato to assist. But events take a deadly turn, and Julia becomes the target of a murderous conspiracy.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538770030 

UNRELIABLE NARRATOR by Araminta Hall (Psychological Thriller)
When 23-year-old Hope Jenkins arrives at the isolated, otherworldly Shadowlands estate, she’s certain her life is finally about to begin. Hope is eager to spend her summer assisting up-and-coming literary star Ambrose “Rosie” Glencourt. Rosie and his enigmatic wife, Delia, preside over a circle of glittering guests with morals as questionable as their wealth. Hope is transfixed --- by their beauty, their brilliance, and by Tom, the elusive young man who resides on the sprawling property. Hope quickly realizes she’s willing to do anything to secure her place among them --- even if it ends in fatal disaster. Ten years later, Hope lives in self-imposed exile. She has no family, friends or future…until she opens Rosie’s runaway bestseller and discovers it’s an almost exact retelling of her story.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9798217180172 

On Sale the Week of July 13th in Paperback

July 14th

THE BIG HOP: The First Non-stop Flight Across the Atlantic Ocean and Into the Future by David Rooney (History)
In 1919, in Newfoundland, four teams of aviators came from Britain to compete in “the Big Hop”: an audacious race to be the first to fly, nonstop, across the Atlantic Ocean. One pair of competitors was forced to abandon the journey halfway, and two pairs never made it into the air. Only one team, after a death-defying 16-hour flight, made it to Ireland. Celebrated on both continents, the transatlantic contest offered a surge of inspiration --- and a welcome distraction --- to a public reeling from the Great War and the influenza pandemic. But the seven airmen who made the attempt were quickly forgotten, their achievement overshadowed by the solo Atlantic flights of Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart years later. In THE BIG HOP, David Rooney grants the pioneering aviators of 1919 the spotlight they deserve.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324130635

THE BLACK HIGHWAY by Simon Toyne (Psychological Thriller)
Forensic specialist Laughton Rees' youthful indiscretions led to the birth of her daughter, Gracie. But when a new murder case she is working unexpectedly leads to Gracie’s father turning up in their lives again, Laughton is automatically wary. Shelby Facer is a dangerous man, formerly imprisoned for his involvement in an international drug trafficking ring. But when he claims he can identify the victim, she can't turn down his help. The headless body that has been discovered in the river Thames seems to belong to a man who was part of a highly secretive smuggling ring Shelby was involved with during his and Laughton’s youth --- which Laughton’s father was investigating before he died. Laughton throws herself into her father’s old files to try to trace the connections between past and present.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062329875

THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER by Stephen Graham Jones
(Historical Fantasy/Horror)
A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor, is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER is told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits.
S&S/Saga Press | 9781668075098

CARVED IN BLOOD: A Hana Westerman Thriller by Michael Bennett (Thriller)
When Detective Inspector Jaye Hamilton stops at an Auckland liquor store for a bottle of champagne, it is supposed to be celebratory: his daughter, Addison, has just gotten engaged. Instead, he is suddenly gunned down at the register by a balaclava-clad assailant in what appears at first to be a random act. The getaway car is quickly recovered, containing the cell phone of a young Māori man, Toa Davis, who is immediately the object of an all-out police search. Jaye’s ex-wife, former Māori detective Hana Westerman, asks in on the investigation. The gun used in the assault is distinctive, and she learns that a local gang leader, Erwin Rendall --- who had threatened Hana in the past --- owns such a weapon. After Davis turns up dead, the hunt for Rendall is on.
Atlantic Crime | 9780802167491

A DARK PATH: And Other Kate Burkholder Short Stories by Linda Castillo
(Mystery/Short Stories)
Paperback Original
For the first time in print comes a collection of five short stories in Linda Castillo’s Edgar Award-winning Kate Burkholder series: “The Pact,” “Disappeared,” “Blood Moon,” “Hallowed Ground” and “Dark Storm Rising.” In “Dark Path,” a brand-new story, an Amish couple disappears while en route to town. They recently had been threatened by their granddaughter’s troubled boyfriend --- and heavy weather is moving in. Kate rushes toward their remote farm, but a dog on the road causes her to crash into a ravine, where she discovers a shattered buggy. Together, she and her new canine friend must find the couple before it's too late.
Minotaur Books | 9781250427052

DENIED ACCESS: A Mitch Rapp Novel by Don Bentley (Political Thriller)
The Central Intelligence Agency is in crisis. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Congress is questioning the organization’s necessity. Interim CIA director Thomas Stansfield must fight for his agency’s survival while explaining why the previous candidate for his job was found murdered in a French hotel --- surrounded by booze, cash and dead men. Worst yet, a brilliantly run sting operation in Moscow has resulted in the arrest of America’s most prized Russian asset and the expulsion of his CIA handler. With the CIA’s Moscow Station now paralyzed by the catastrophic intelligence failure, Stansfield seeks help from Mitch Rapp, a newly minted assassin in the secretive Orion program. But Rapp has problems of his own, and he finds himself on the frontlines in a war between the American and Russian intelligence services.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781668045893

THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS by Ocean Vuong (Fiction)
One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, 19-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family and a community on the brink.
Penguin Books | 9780593831892

THE ENCHANTED GREENHOUSE by Sarah Beth Durst (Fantasy/Romance)
Terlu Perna broke the law because she was lonely. She cast a spell and created a magically sentient spider plant. As punishment, she was turned into a wooden statue and tucked away into an alcove in the North Reading Room of the Great Library of Alyssium. This should have been the end of her story. Yet one day, Terlu wakes in the cold of winter on a nearly deserted island full of hundreds of magical greenhouses. The only other human on the island is Yarrow, a grumpy gardener who offers her a place to sleep and clean clothes. As she grows closer with him, she learns that the magic that sustains the greenhouses is failing --- causing the death of everything within them. Assisted by Yarrow and a sentient rose, Terlu must unravel the secrets of a long-dead sorcerer if she wants to save the island --- and have a fresh chance at happiness and love.
Bramble | 9781250324627

FINE YOUNG PEOPLE by Anna Bruno (Literary Mystery)
Frankie is a good daughter, a loyal best friend and a model student, coasting through her final semester at an elite Catholic prep school in a wealthy Pittsburgh enclave. But acceptance to her dream college leaves her unmoored. When a classmate takes his life after posting a cryptic message about Woolf Whiting --- a former student hockey player who died in a presumed suicide years earlier --- Frankie and her best friend, Shiv, decide to investigate Woolf’s death as part of their journalism class project. As the community mourns, a muffled conversation between Frankie's mom, who teaches history at the school, and the priest who teaches her philosophy class draws the girls further into unraveling the mysterious life and death of Woolf.
Algonquin Books | 9781643757018

THE GRAND PALOMA RESORT by Cleyvis Natera (Fiction)
Laura is a local Dominican woman who has risen through the ranks to become manager at the Grand Paloma Resort. Her idea to pair a “platinum” guest with their own resort employee to attend to their every whim has been wildly successful. If only her younger sister, Elena, could get with the program. Elena has tried to live up to her sister’s expectations, but to escape the drudgery of waiting on rich tourists, she’s become increasingly dependent on pills and partying. Now, after an accident, a child left in her charge is believed dead, and Elena knows she'll be held responsible. When Elena runs into the child’s father, he offers her an obscene amount of money for private time with two young local girls. Elena pockets the cash to fund her escape and prays she’s gotten the girls out of harm’s way. But then the girls are reported missing.
Ballantine Books | 9780593873274

THE HEIR APPARENT by Rebecca Armitage (Fiction)
It’s New Year’s Day in Australia, and the life Lexi Villiers has carefully built is working out nicely. She’s in the second year of her medical residency, she lives on a beautiful farm with her two best friends, Finn and Jack, and she’s about to finally become more than friendly with Jack --- when a helicopter abruptly lands. Out steps her grandmother’s right-hand man with the tragic news that her father and older brother have been killed in a skiing accident. Lexi’s grandmother happens to be the Queen of England, and Lexi must now accept the reality that she is suddenly next in line for the throne --- a role she has publicly disavowed. Returning to London as the heir apparent Princess Alexandrina, Lexi is greeted by a skeptical public not ready to forgive her defection, a grieving sister-in-law harboring an explosive secret, and a scheming uncle determined to claim the throne himself.
Cardinal | 9781538776315

THE HOUSE AT DEVIL’S NECK: A Joseph Spector Locked-Room Mystery by Tom Mead (Historical Mystery)
An apparent suicide in a London townhouse uncannily mirrors a similar incident from 25 years ago, prompting Scotland Yard's George Flint to delve deep into the past in search of the solution to a long-forgotten mystery. Meanwhile, Joseph Spector travels with a coach party through the rainy English countryside to visit an allegedly haunted house on a lonely island called Devil’s Neck. The visitors hold a seance to conjure the spirit of a long-dead soldier, but a storm causes them to be stranded in the haunted house. Before long, the guests begin to die one by one, and it seems that the only possible culprit is the phantom soldier. Flint's and Spector's investigations are in fact closely linked, but it is only when the duo are reunited at the storm-lashed Devil's Neck that the truth is finally revealed.
The Mysterious Press | 9781613168035

IF YOU LOVE IT, LET IT KILL YOU by Hannah Pittard (Fiction/Humor)
A novelist learns that an unflattering version of herself will appear prominently --- and soon --- in her ex-husband’s debut. For a week, her life continues largely unaffected by the news --- she cooks, runs, teaches, entertains --- but the morning after baking mac and cheese from scratch for her nephew’s sixth birthday, she wakes up changed. The contentment she’s long enjoyed is gone. In its place: nothing. A remarkably ridiculous midlife crisis ensues, featuring a talking cat and a game called Dead Body.
Holt Paperbacks | 9781250910257

IN STORMY WEATHER by Chelsea Curto (Romance)
Paperback Original
Quincy Monroe is a woman in STEM with a PhD in atmospheric sciences, is the host of a successful online weather show, and has one million followers on her meteorology Instagram. And with a new job opportunity, nothing can derail her success. Except for the ill-timed arrival of Sebastian Dunn. Sebastian is her best friend’s brother, her longtime academic and professional rival, and a flashy TV weatherman from New York City who everyone swoons over. Everyone but Quincy.. Over a scorching Florida summer and record-breaking hurricane season, Sebastian and Quincy are forced into close proximity. Setting aside their grudges to chase storms and stay alive is one thing. But can they weather the inevitable collision of their hearts?
Atria Books | 9781668217436

IN WONDERLAND by Joyce Maynard (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Frances believes she has found a ticket to paradise when a wealthy couple hires her for the summer as their mother’s helper at their lakefront summer home in Maine. Best of all, she gets to spend the summer with Forrest Emerson, her father's charismatic childhood friend who escaped their neighborhood when he married into money. But below the glittering surface of Lake Catherine, nothing is what it seems. When Forrest’s wife, Regina, pulls Frances into her private obsession, the girl finds herself witness to the intimate secrets of adult lives. As the summer heat builds, so do the tensions within Wonderland’s walls. By Labor Day, a death will shatter the seemingly perfect family, leaving Frances to question everything she thought she knew about privilege, power and the price of belonging.
Little A | 9781662541230

THE LOCKED WARD by Sarah Pekkanen (Psychological Thriller)
It’s the Crime of the Decade when glamorous Georgia Cartwright, who was adopted as a newborn, is accused of killing the biological daughter of her wealthy, Southern family. Georgia is locked in a psychiatric institution where the most violent offenders are held while she awaits trial. The only words she whispers when her estranged twin sister, Amanda, visits are “I didn’t do it. You’ve got to get me out of here.” Amanda doesn't trust Georgia, but she can't abandon her in a place so eerie and menacing that it seems to exist in another dimension. Is Georgia the victim of a powerful family that's so depraved murder is the least of their crimes? Or is Amanda being led down a path of madness into the web of a master manipulator?
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250349538

THE MOTHER NEXT DOOR: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy by Andrea Dunlop and Mike Weber (True Crime)
No one is more sympathetic than a mother whose child faces a life-threatening illness. But what if the mother is the cause of the illness? What if the sympathy is the point? Munchausen by proxy (MBP) has fascinated and horrified both professionals and the general public since this disturbing form of child abuse was first identified. But even as the public has been captivated by these tales of abuse and deception, there remains widespread misinformation and confusion about MBP. Are these mothers unfeeling psychopaths, or sick women who need help? And how can we protect the children whose lives are at stake? THE MOTHER NEXT DOOR offers a groundbreaking look at MBP from an unlikely duo: a Seattle novelist whose own family was torn apart by it, and the Texas detective who has worked on more medical child abuse cases than anyone in the nation.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250867926

OUR LAST VINEYARD SUMMER by Brooke Lea Foster (Historical Fiction)
After suffering through her first year of graduate school at Columbia following her senator father’s death, Betsy Whiting is hoping to spend the summer with her boyfriend…and hopefully end the summer as his fiancée. Instead, her mother --- a longtime feminist and leader in the women’s movement --- calls Betsy and her sisters back home to Martha’s Vineyard, announcing that they need to sell their beloved summer house to pay off their father’s debts. When Betsy arrives on the island a week later, she must reckon with her strained familial relationships, a long-ago forbidden romance, and the complicated legacy of her parents, who divided the family even as they did good for the world.
Gallery Books | 9781668034415

PARADISE PAWN by Meg Richardson (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Teenage best friends Jackie and Kayla can sell anything. Alongside their fathers, they work at a pawn shop in Cherry Beach, Florida, handling everything from luxury jewelry to chainsaws and more. When the girls learn that Kayla’s family can’t afford a private school opportunity that Jackie’s can, Jackie becomes distraught about losing her best friend. With their sharp minds but youthful lack of foresight, they scheme a way to embezzle money from the pawn shop. As the hot Florida summer unfolds, the girls steal thousands of dollars from the shop. But when their heist is discovered, Jackie is faced with a situation that no amount of negotiating or charisma can fix.
Tin House | 9781963108736

SHEEPDOGS by Elliot Ackerman (Thriller/Humor)
Skwerl, once an elite member of the CIA's paramilitary unit, was cast out after a raid gone wrong in Afghanistan. Big Cheese Aziz, a former Afghan pilot of legendary skill, now works the graveyard shift at a gas station. Recruited into a shadowy network of "sheepdogs," they embark on a mission to repossess a multi-million-dollar private jet stranded on a remote African airfield. But as they wind through a labyrinth of lies and hidden agendas, they discover that nothing is as it seems. Their contact vanishes, their handler's motives are suspect, and the true source of their payday remains a mystery. With the stakes skyrocketing and the women in their lives drawn into the fray, this unlikely spy duo find themselves deep in the underbelly of modern war and intelligence.
Vintage | 9780593689776

THE SINS OF SUMMER DAUGHTERS by Lo Patrick (Mystery)
Paperback Original
Meg Gregory never wanted to return to Tuskin, the small Georgia town in which she grew up. But after her divorce left her wounded, she knew she had to quit running. Now, years later, Meg is bent on hiding from the memories that haunt her. Because she skipped town for a reason, and that reason runs deep. But when Meg's unassuming granddaughter, Lucy, is suddenly charged with the murder of her boyfriend, everything changes. Meg knows Lucy couldn't have done it. As she fights for Lucy's innocence, memories from the past threaten to break free, and she's left to contemplate a different murder, a different dead boy, a different summer under the hot Georgia sun. And soon enough, Meg isn't quite sure what is memory and who is innocent.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781464260506

UNTIL ALISON by Kate Russo (Literary Thriller)
When Rachel Nardelli finds out that her childhood rival, Alison Petrucci, is found dead in Pleasant Pond, the same place the two girls had first said goodbye to each other back in eighth grade, the town of Waterbury is outraged by the fear of losing one of their own --- the heir to Maine’s largest construction company. But it’s a little more complicated for Rachel. She saw Alison the night she died. Callous, she said something she shouldn’t have. She stirred up the past. The next morning, Alison was gone. Plagued by the complicated memories around Alison, Rachel joins her journalism crew to investigate the murder. But as she revisits their fraught relationship, she falls into a web of cruelties that threaten to undo everything she understood about her past.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780593850695

THE WASP TRAP by Mark Edwards (Psychological Thriller)
Six friends reunite in London to celebrate the life of their recently deceased ex-employer, a professor who brought them together in 1999 to help build a dating website based on psychological testing. But what is meant to be a night of bittersweet nostalgia soon becomes a twisted and deadly game. The old friends are given an ultimatum: reveal their darkest secrets to the group or pick each other off one by one. It soon becomes clear that their current predicament is related to their shared past. The love questionnaire they helped develop in 1999 for the dating site was also turned into a tool for weeding out psychopaths: The Wasp Trap. This experiment and the other tragic events of that summer long ago may help reveal the truth behind a killer hiding in plain sight.
Atria Books | 9781668204788

WE ARE ALL GUILTY HERE by Karin Slaughter (Mystery/Thriller)
Welcome to North Falls, a small town where everyone knows everyone. Or so they think. Until the night of the fireworks. When two teenage girls vanish, and the town ignites. For Officer Emmy Clifton, it’s personal. She turned away when her best friend's daughter needed help --- and now she must bring her home. But as Emmy combs through the puzzle the girls left behind, she realizes she never really knew them. Nobody did. Every teenage girl has secrets. But who would kill for them? And what else is the town hiding?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063336780

WE LIVE HERE NOW by Sarah Pinborough (Gothic Thriller/Horror)
After an accident that nearly kills her, Emily and her husband, Freddie, move from London to a beautiful Dartmoor country house called Larkin Lodge. The house is gorgeous and striking, but something about it feels deeply wrong to Emily. Old boards creak at night, fires go out, and books fall from the shelves. But these things happen only when Emily is alone. Her postsepsis condition can cause hallucinatory side effects, which means she can’t fully trust her own senses. Although Freddie doesn’t notice anything odd, Emily starts to believe that the house is being haunted by someone who was murdered in it. As bizarre events pile up and her marriage starts to crumble, Emily becomes obsessed with discovering the truth about Larkin Lodge. But if the house has secrets, so do Emily and Freddie.
Flatiron Books: Pine & Cedar | 9781250343871

On Sale the Week of July 20th in Hardcover

July 21st

CARRY ME TO MY GRAVE by Christopher Golden (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
Maggie Wise will take your eyes. When Malcolm was growing up, the local kids made up that chant about his mother, claiming she was a witch. He and his siblings did their best to ignore it. Now, Maggie is dying, and those same siblings have left Malcolm and his sister-in-law, Violet, to hold a vigil at her bedside. A dark figure waits and watches from beneath the willow tree across the street. Hundreds of miles away, an ancient evil stirs in its burrow under a farmer’s cornfield. Across the country, other buried things begin to dream in anticipation of Maggie’s demise. On her deathbed, the old woman elicits a promise from Malcolm: When she dies, he and Violet must return her body to her birthplace. From the moment she takes her last breath, there are forces trying to stop Malcolm from fulfilling that promise.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250404527 

COOL MACHINE by Colson Whitehead (Historical Fiction)
1981. In Harlem, Ray Carney has just been named Sterling Furniture’s Dealer of the Month. But when the banks won’t give his beloved wife, Elizabeth, a loan for her new travel agency, Carney gambles on one last heist. 1983. To some, Carney’s friend and partner in crime, Pepper, is a stone-cold sociopath. To others, a top thief with questionable people skills. Either way, he’s feeling his age in his troubled gut and aching bones. 1986. Carney has always been haunted by his inability to save his cousin, Freddie. Now, 20 years after Freddie’s death, he has a chance to rescue Freddie’s son from the violent forces of the city. But coming out of retirement and teaming up with Pepper again will mean risking the safety and security he’s spent decades building for his family, with only one shot to get it right.
Doubleday | 9780385550505 

DAD, LOVE, ME: A Memoir by Matthew Quick (Memoir)
Matthew Quick traveled all over the world advocating for mental health awareness, standing before crowds as a success story. But secretly, he was depressed. And some days, he didn’t want to live. Years earlier, when he first told his father that he wanted to be a novelist, the response was immediate and brutal: “Idiot!” Quick channeled his pain into his debut novel, THE SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, which became a New York Times bestseller and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film. Still, the approval he longed for never came. His father remained cold and withholding. The deeper the rift between them grew, the deeper he sank into anxiety and addiction. In this book, Quick takes readers deep into his psyche, as he wrestles with both his own mental health and his father’s cognitive decline.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster | 9781668091753

THE MORTONS by Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld (Fiction)
The Mortons are a modern-day, old-money dynasty with impeccable taste --- from their exquisitely crafted cocktails to their expertly tailored vintage garments. They are also stone-cold killers. For the Mortons, homicide is heritage. They, along with the other crime families, send their progeny to Helshire College, where legacy students learn to exercise control over their wealthy peers. Jessica Morton has always excelled at Helshire, secure in the knowledge that she is the prodigy of her generation. Now, having committed her first kill, it should be Jessica’s moment, her honor. But that kill will cut more ways than one, unknotting a series of revelations spanning the Mortons’ country estate, the New York City art world, and Helshire itself.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9798217059492 

RISE ABOVE: A Memoir by Matthew Schnipper (Memoir)
Renzo Rollins Schnipper was born in February 2020, a split second before the beginning of the pandemic. To his parents, he was the reason for the universe’s existence at a time when there was little hope to be found in the world. Then, on Christmas Eve 2021, a rare medical event suddenly took Renzo from them. RISE ABOVE begins with an account of Renzo’s short but blazingly full life from his father’s perspective. Even as it is an account of grief, Matthew Schnipper’s memoir is about resilience in the face of the unexpected turns life takes and how to chart a path forward. Schnipper chronicles the tragic, frustrating and sometimes dumb ways that grief manifests, and how he tried to rise above the pain.
Random House | 9780593730690 

SAVVY SUMMERS AND THE PO'BOY PERILS by Sandra Jackson-Opoku (Mystery)
An old friend hires Savvy Summers to cater a company luncheon at a nearby office building on Chicago's South Side. Stepping out of her traditional soul food comfort zone, Savvy whips together a menu of Creole classics --- with her own spin, of course. But when someone is found dead in the company’s conference room, Savvy’s culinary creations are suddenly in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Caught within a messy web of gossip, miscommunication and fraught coworker relationships, Savvy will have to settle the confusion to clear her name. Somebody is hiding something, and with the help of her trusty assistant manager, Penny Lopés, Savvy sets out to uncover exactly who is to blame.
Minotaur Books | 9781250428066 

THE SHADOW STEP: A Detective Miller Novel by Mark Billingham (Mystery/Thriller)
The Shadow Step: One taken simultaneously by a pair of dancers facing the same direction, one of them behind and slightly shifted leftwards (“in the shadow”). A perfectly executed shadow step demonstrates synchronized elegance. It showcases a couple in near telepathic harmony with one another. It normally does not end with someone stone-dead in a lake. DS Declan Miller is a magnet for strange cases, but an innocent man confessing to the crime? That’s a first. Things rapidly escalate when the murder that isn’t really a murder attracts the unwanted attention of a drug Queenpin, a deranged ex-squaddie, and a lovesick gangland enforcer. And when a real murder follows --- and a student is kidnapped --- all evidence points back to the same innocent man.
Atlantic Crime | 9780802167354 

THE SUBTLE PLEASURES OF INDISCRETION: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel by Alexander McCall Smith (Mystery)
When Isabel Dalhousie receives a surprise visit from a friend who recently has discovered the existence of a long-lost brother, she will have to face this quandary in her usual deft and thoughtful way. The friend has always held her father in high regard and is worried that knowledge of his affair will tarnish her siblings’ perception of him. Meanwhile, Isabel’s husband, Jamie, has been offered the gig of his dreams --- the opportunity to play in a series of concerts at a prestigious venue in London. After meeting the series coordinator, it becomes clear to Isabel that the woman has a massive crush on Jamie. Should she tell Jamie of her suspicions, or would that mean calling his talent into question? As always, Isabel will have to use her pragmatic sensibility and kindness to navigate tricky situations.
Pantheon | 9798217207336 

THE TALKING BONE by Rene Denfeld (Mystery/Thriller)
Ruby Spencer is known as “the exonerator.” Her job as an investigator is to free innocent men from death row, and she’s good at what she does. What many people don’t know is that she spends her time finding missing women, too. The orphaned daughter of an orphaned mother, Ruby feels a natural affinity for those who have been mistreated by the world at large. Her newest case takes her to Georgia and involves a man set to be executed in two weeks. What begins as a routine exoneration unexpectedly sends Ruby down a winding path. Pursuing the truth, she begins to uncover crimes that lead to startling revelations about her own life. With time running out, will Ruby’s search for answers ultimately lead her to danger?
Harper | 9780063396890 

TENDERNESS by Rowan Beaird (Historical Fiction)
On a remote island off the coast of Virginia, family and friends gather to celebrate the wedding of Shay O’Connor and Andrew Pruitt. From the moment the guests arrive, all they can whisper about is the bride, who recently left the headline-making cult Synanon. Why would someone like Shay, an Ivy League graduate with a wealthy, doting fiancée, join Synanon? And has she really escaped their grasp? Told from the interwoven perspectives of Shay’s brother William, her longtime friend Joel, and Shay herself, TENDERNESS excavates dark family histories and romantic regrets. As the wedding day approaches, Joel and William pull at the loose threads of Shay’s story, and it becomes clear there is an even greater threat on the island than the secrets each character is keeping from one another.
Flatiron Books | 9781250386694 

THREE REASONS FOR REVENGE by Dervla McTiernan
(Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Alexis Turner walks into the police station to report an assault. By the end of the day, she is nowhere to be found. Soon after she disappears, three identical packages arrive at three very different doors: a respected psychologist's home, a socialite's mansion, and a struggling single father's run-down apartment. Inside, each gift is perfectly tailored to its recipient --- and each will tear apart the life of its intended victim. Someone with intimate knowledge of their targets is orchestrating these attacks. Someone who knows exactly how to hurt each victim where they're most vulnerable. As Detective Sergeant Judith Lee races to uncover the connection between three unrelated people, she discovers she's no longer just investigating the game --- she's being forced to play.
William Morrow | 9780063042292 

UNSAYABLE: A Life in Writing by Michael Cunningham (Memoir)
At the age of three, Michael Cunningham began obsessively collecting the names of things: oak, Chevrolet, finch, tulip, Tupperware. Each word rendered the world ever so slightly more understandable, more describable, kicking off a lifelong love affair with language --- one that would, eventually, maybe inevitably, lead him to become a writer. In UNSAYABLE, Cunningham’s memories spill forth, and with them reflections on the craft of writing. He is 15, in a swimming pool at night, gazing at the first boy he ever fell in love with. He is a new college graduate, setting off for nowhere in a Dodge Dart, hoping to pull meaning (and a novel) from the expanse of America. He is in an art gallery, unwittingly having the first in a lifetime of conversations with the man he would marry. 
Random House | 9798217198337 

VERA STEIN IS FINE by Julie Murphy (Romantic Comedy)
Starlight Palms, a favorite retirement facility among Hollywood actors and industry professionals, has a brand-new resident: 40-year-old Vera Stein. Vera knows she’s missed her chance at a life worthy of the silver screen, just like she missed her chance at ever finding true love. She has spent most of her adult years caretaking for her dying mother and her movie star boss’s ego. Now abruptly houseless and jobless, Vera has nowhere to land, so to grandmother’s house we go! The Starlight Palms Senior Living Center isn’t lacking in saucy plot twists or a leading man: Elias Buckley, the on-site doctor and Vera’s former ill-fated college fling. It’s not long before Vera falls into a job as the activities coordinator and under the spell of a certain smart-mouthed doctor.
Avon | 9780063386839 

YELLOW PINE by Claire Vaye Watkins (Fiction) 
In her homestead deep in the Mojave, Rose has found a way to live “on the other side of the portal,” with an intentionality that’s brought her hard-won peace and freedom. She’s navigating single parenthood, and she’s found a community out at Yellow Pine, where a group of spirited misfits have mounted a stand against the “green energy gold rush” Rose is certain will destroy her beloved desert. When she accepts an overture from Miles, an old flame, their passion proves as intense --- and unsteady --- as ever. But even as their rekindled romance flickers, it fuels a deeper, more consuming drive in Rose: to birth not only another child but a fuller, more intact way of being in the face of rapacious consumerism, industrialization and misanthropy.
Riverhead Books | 9798217045020 

On Sale the Week of July 20th in Paperback

July 21st

BADLANDS: A Nora Kelly Novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Thriller)
In the New Mexico badlands, the skeleton of a woman is found --- and the case is assigned to FBI Agent Corrie Swanson. The victim walked into the desert, shedding clothes as she went, and died in agony of heatstroke and thirst. Two rare artifacts are found clutched in her bony hands --- lightning stones used by the ancient Chaco people to summon the gods. Is it suicide or…sacrifice? Agent Swanson brings in archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate. When a second body is found --- exactly like the other --- the two realize the case runs deeper than they imagined. As Corrie and Nora pursue their investigation into remote canyons, haunted ruins and long-lost rituals, they find themselves confronting a dark power that, disturbed from its long slumber, threatens to exact an unspeakable price.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538765845

DEADLY DOES IT: A Mason & Mann Mystery by Abbi Waxman (Mystery)
Paperback Original
Mason, a Gen Z adrenaline junkie, and Mann, an ex-con, ex-actress and lawyer turned sleuth, have already solved one murder together. Now they face a second crime that’s way too close to home. Alexa Rousso keeps having accidents, and no one but her thinks it’s a coincidence. Could her checkered past be coming back to get her? Mason and Mann’s investigation takes them to the Bay Area, the Central Coast, and --- of course --- the hippest spots in Los Angeles. Will the Berkeley boho vibe convert Mann from vintage couture? Will the wine snobs of Ojai drive Mason to drink (or to vinicide, which isn’t even a thing)? More importantly, will they solve the mystery before the murderer’s sights settle on the detectives themselves. Or will this new challenge also be their last?
Berkley | 9780593816691

A FATE WORSE THAN DROWNING by Sarah L. Hawthorn (Historical Fantasy)
Paperback Original
A year ago, Elle made a deal with the devil to save her sister. Now, they live on a desolate spit of land beyond Halifax harbor. Elle, as lighthouse keeper, steers unsuspecting sailors to their destruction. Those are the terms of her bargain. Liney need never know the cost. Her safety is worth every drop of blood. But a sinner's pact is not so simple. When the devil returns, demanding more --- more shipwrecks, no survivors --- Elle knows what she must do to keep Liney safe. Then a woman washes ashore. Is she a soul to be sacrificed, or part of a darker design? As Liney and the stranger grow closer, Elle faces an impossible choice: kill, and break Liney's heart, or forfeit her own soul.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464238147

FORGET ME NOT by Stacy Willingham (Psychological Thriller)
Twenty-two years ago, Claire Campbell’s older sister, Natalie, disappeared shortly after her 18th birthday. Days later, her blood was found in a car, a man was arrested, and the case was swiftly closed. In the decades since, Claire has attempted to forget her traumatic past by moving to the city and climbing the ranks as an investigative journalist. Until an unexpected call from her father forces her to come back home and face it all anew. Claire decides on a whim to accept a seasonal job at Galloway Farm, a muscadine vineyard in coastal South Carolina. There, she stumbles across an old diary written by one of the vineyard's owners that describes details of various unsolved crimes. As the days stretch on, Claire starts to obsess over the diary's contents, as well as the lingering feeling that her own sister's disappearance may be somehow tied to it all.
Minotaur Books | 9781250887993

THE FRIEND OF THE FAMILY by Dean Koontz (Historical Thriller)
The human “oddities” in the Museum of the Strange are less wondrous than the gawking rubes had been promised. But Alida is something else. The real thing. Traveling Depression-era America from carnival midways to speakeasies, Alida is resigned to an exploited and lonely life on the road as the museum’s golden ticket. Until she’s rescued by two compassionate strangers. Franklin and Loretta Fairchild see in Alida a gifted and uncannily well-read girl in need of a loving touch and a family. With the openhearted couple and their three precociously imaginative children, Alida finds it. Yet despite everyone’s overwhelming generosity and acceptance, Alida knows she is still a very different kind of girl. Her dreams bear that out. They’re vivid, unsettling and threatening. Alida fears that they’re also warnings. And that it’s the Fairchilds who may need rescue from a bad, bad world.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662533303

FULL BLOOM by Francesca Serritella (Fiction)
Reeling from a breakup and overlooked at her job as a lighting designer, Iris Sunnegren finds herself stuck, disconnected and lonely in crowded New York City. Then a mysterious neighbor, an older Frenchwoman, makes her a gift: a bespoke perfume. One spritz, a dab behind the ears, and Iris feels like a different woman. Suddenly, she is the object of every man’s desire. She can cast off her inhibitions and use her newfound allure to dazzle the high-profile client, attract a man who excites her like no other, and access all the rarified spaces that once excluded her. Invigorated by the perfume, Iris embodies her maximum power --- a flower fully bloomed. But there is danger in connecting to our primal emotions. Scent awakens buried memories, and nightmares of the childhood house fire Iris barely survived return to haunt her.
Ballantine Books | 9780525510413

THE HAMPTONS LAWYER: A Jane Smith Thriller by James Patterson and Mike Lupica (Legal Thriller)
The Hamptons on Long Island is known for its beautiful beaches, its luxury lifestyle --- and its exclusive legal advice. When Jane Smith takes on a famous celebrity client, she’s armed and ready: with brilliant arguments, hard evidence --- and two Glocks. Yet she is chased down and shot at, and she risks contempt of court. That’s when mounting a legal defense turns into self-defense. Knowing every day in court could be her last, she’s a survivor. For now.
Little, Brown and Company | 9781538759172

IF BOOKS COULD KILL by Kate Eberle (Romantic Comedy/Mystery & Thriller)
Paperback Original
When Roxie makes a tongue-in-cheek wish to live out the plot of her favorite author’s next novel, she has romance in mind --- namely, the sweet, safe, swoon-worthy storylines Anna Matthews is known for. It should be a dream come true when her wish is granted and she finds herself swept into a first date with a handsome stranger who seems designed to take her breath away. Except for one little hiccup: That handsome stranger tries to take her breath away. Literally. With a knife. Thrown into a perilous genre she’s never read, Roxie is desperate for help. So when her escape takes her straight into the path of Grant Hoffman, an anxious English professor with a convenient love of crime novels, she decides that kidnapping a grown man is a small price to pay for her own survival.
Penguin Books | 9780143139102

INK RIBBON RED by Alex Pavesi (Mystery/Thriller)
Anatol invites five of his oldest friends to his family home in the Wiltshire countryside to celebrate his 30th birthday. At his request, they play a game of his invention called Motive Method Death. The rules are simple: Everyone chooses two players at random, then writes a short story in which one kills the other. Points are awarded for making the murders feel real. Of course, it’s only natural for each friend to use what they know. But once they’ve put it in a story, each secret is out. It’s not long before the game reawakens old resentments and brings private matters into the light of day. With each fictional crime, someone new gets a very real motive. Can all six friends survive the weekend, or will truth turn out to be deadlier than fiction?
Holt Paperbacks | 9781250755971

THE KILLER QUESTION by Janice Hallett (Mystery)
Sue and Mal Eastwood run an isolated rural pub called The Case is Altered, where a weekly trivia game has revived its flagging fortunes --- that is, until a body is found in the nearby river. Soon after, a mysterious new team arrives and shakes up the diverse field of regulars by scoring top marks in every round...every week. Meanwhile, Sue and Mal have a secret of their own. Before arriving here, they were caught up in a secret police operation that meant they had to leave town --- and whatever happened back then seems to have finally caught up with them. Five years later, the pub lies derelict, and their nephew, Dominic, is determined to make a documentary about their story. What happened at this unassuming pub? And can a single question really kill?
Atria Books | 9781668083543

LOVED ONE by Aisha Muharrar (Fiction)
When her first-love-turned-close-friend, Gabe, dies unexpectedly at 29, 30-year-old Julia is launched into an intercontinental quest to recover his lost possessions. Her journey takes her from Los Angeles to London and into the murky realm of the past. It also sets Julia on a collision course with the last woman he loved, a guarded, self-possessed florist and restaurateur named Elizabeth, who insists on withholding Gabe’s beloved guitar --- one of the departed indie rock musician’s dearest belongings --- for reasons Julia can’t understand. Both women, it turns out, have something to hide and soon find themselves engaged in a complex dance of withholding and revelation.
Penguin Books | 9780593655863

MAGGIE; OR, A MAN AND A WOMAN WALK INTO A BAR by Katie Yee
(Fiction/Humor)
A man and a woman walk into a restaurant. The woman expects a lovely night filled with endless plates of samosas. Instead, she finds out her husband is having an affair with a woman named Maggie. A short while after, her chest starts to ache. She walks into an examination room, where she finds out the pain in her breast isn’t just heartbreak --- it’s cancer. She decides to call the tumor Maggie. Unfolding in fragments over the course of the ensuing months, MAGGIE; OR, A MAN AND A WOMAN WALK INTO A BAR follows the narrator as she embarks on a journey of grief, healing and reclamation.
S&S/Summit Books | 9781668084229

MY FRIENDS by Fredrik Backman (Fiction)
Most people don’t even notice them --- three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that unexpectedly will be placed into 18-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it.
Atria Books | 9781982112837

AN ORAL HISTORY OF ATLANTIS: Stories by Ed Park (Fiction/Short Stories)
In “Machine City,” a college student’s chance role in a friend’s movie blurs the line between his character and his true self. (Is he a robot?) In “Slide to Unlock,” a man comes to terms with his life via the passwords he struggles to remember in extremis. (What’s his mom’s name backward?) And in “Weird Menace,” a director and faded movie star gab about science fiction, bad costume choices and lost loves on a commentary track for a B-film from the ’80s that neither remembers all that well. In Ed Park’s utterly original collection, characters bemoan their fleeting youth, focus on their breathing, meet cute, break up, write book reviews, translate ancient glyphs, bid on stuff online, whale watch, and once in a while find solace in the sublime.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9780812988345

OUR MARRIAGE IS MURDER by Carol Goodman (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Paperback Original
Fred and Thea Morgan-Lane coauthor the wildly successful Death Takes a Holiday series, and they’ve been invited to the Italian castle where it all began for a mystery conference celebrating their first novel, Death Takes the Castle. But 20 years and 20 books after they met, Thea wants out. Shortly after their arrival at the beautiful Castellarosa, a shocking death takes place when the wrong person drinks a cocktail meant for Thea. Could someone be trying to kill her? When a second death occurs, a disturbing pattern emerges. These deaths aren’t random --- they’re following the murders in Death Takes a Castle exactly. In order to save the day --- and maybe even their marriage --- the unhappy couple will have to work together to figure out who is using their book as a blueprint for a killing spree.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063398788

POSITIVE OBSESSION: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler by Susana M. Morris (Biography)
As the first Black woman to consistently write and publish in the field of science fiction, Octavia Butler was a trailblazer. With her deft pen, she created stories speculating the devolution of the American empire, using it as an apt metaphor for the best and worst of humanity --- our innovation and ingenuity, our naked greed and ambition, our propensity for violence and hierarchy. Her fiction charts the rise and fall of the American project --- the nation’s transformation from a provincial backwater to a capitalist juggernaut (made possible by chattel slavery) to a bloated imperialist superpower on the verge of implosion. In POSITIVE OBSESSION, Susana M. Morris places Butler’s story firmly within the cultural, social and historical context that shaped her life.
Amistad | 9780063211834

SAVVY SUMMERS AND THE SWEET POTATO CRIMES by Sandra Jackson-Opoku (Mystery)
When Savvy Summers first opened Essie's soul food café, she never expected her customer-favorite sweet potato pie to become the center of a murder investigation. But when Grandy Jaspers, the 75-year-old neighborhood womanizer, drops dead at table two, she suddenly has more to worry about than just maintaining Essie's reputation for the finest soul food in the Chicagoland area. Even as the police deem Grandy’s death an accident, Savvy quickly finds herself --- and her beloved café --- in the middle of an entire city’s worth of bad press. Desperate to clear her name and keep her business afloat, Savvy and her snooping assistant manager, Penny Lopés, take it upon themselves to find who really killed Grandy.
Minotaur Books | 9781250351920

THE STORY KEEPER by Kelly Rimmer (Gothic/Historical Mystery)
Paperback Original
In the aftermath of a tumultuous year, Fiona Winslow finds solace in the decaying grandeur of Wurimbirra, the rambling family estate she once called home. Intent on restoring it, she discovers the keys to more than just the dilapidated mansion. Beneath the crumbling plaster and dust are secrets that have been buried for a generation. When a curious book, The Midnight Estate, catches her attention in her late uncle’s library, Fiona is plunged into a tale that mirrors her own --- a story of love, loss and betrayal. But as the lines between fiction and reality blur, Fiona must ask herself: Is the true mystery the one hidden within the walls of her ancestral home, or is it within the pages of a book that chose her as much as she chose it?
Mira | 9781525805110

SUGAR AND SPITE: An Agatha Raisin Mystery by M. C. Beaton with R.W. Green (Mystery)
When a series of deaths within the small Cotswolds birdwatching community begins to unravel her village, Agatha and her team at Raisin Investigators are certain there has been foul play involved. Now, they must dig up decades' worth of tempestuous relationships and simmering secrets among the birdwatching enthusiasts of the village in order to prevent any further deaths. But with Agatha's own relationship with John Glass on the rocks after he is called away on his job as a cruise ship dance instructor, and Sir Charles Fraith now attempting to step into John’s shoes as her lover, Agatha has her work cut out for her. She will have to break out her binoculars and embrace her bitter side to solve the murders and wrangle the sickly-sweet temptations in her own life.
Minotaur Books | 9781250378583

WHAT THE NIGHT BRINGS: A Tom Thorne Novel by Mark Billingham
(Mystery/Thriller)
The targeted murder of four officers is only the first in a series of attacks that leaves police scared, angry and, most disturbingly of all, vengeful. As Tom Thorne and Nicola Tanner dig into the reasons for the violence, a deeper darkness begins to emerge: the possibility that these murders are payback. The price paid for an unspeakable betrayal. To uncover the truth, Thorne will be forced to question everything he stands for. He can trust nobody, and the shocking secrets revealed by one terrible night will fracture his entire world.
Atlantic Crime | 9780802167484

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