August 4, 2026

August 4, 2026

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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of August 3rd and August 10th 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 THE MUNICH AFFAIR by James Patterson and David Ellis, which releases on September 21st and will be a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection. We are awarding a copy of the book to 25 readers and giving them the chance to share their comments about it with us.

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This Week's Bonus News:
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THE MUNICH AFFAIR by James Patterson and David Ellis
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On Sale the Week of August 3rd in Hardcover

August 4th

THE AMATEUR by Chris Bohjalian (Psychological Thriller)
1978: Temperatures are flirting with 90 on an August day when 18-year-old Mira Winston drives a golf ball from her tee toward the practice net near the clubhouse and caddy shack. The golf ball tears through the net, traveling 150 miles per hour, and slams into the temple of high school junior Kenny Foster, rupturing an artery and unleashing a torrent of blood. He’s dead before the ambulance even arrives. In the wake of this terrible accident, Mira looks for comfort in all the wrong places. But when the investigators look more closely at the torn net, when a detective recalls Mira’s history of recklessness, and when Kenny’s father spies Mira with her married lover, the affluent and mannered community turns on this once-promising young woman.
Doubleday | 9780385551298

APPRAISALS by Claire Boyles (Fiction)
Maggie Brandt, a third-generation farmer, is cultivating a few acres of organic vegetables in rural Colorado when the Great Recession hits. After months of unemployment, her husband, Fish, takes a job with an oil and gas company, a decision that threatens their once happy marriage and alienates their teenage daughter, Ozzie, a budding environmental crusader. As the wider community organizes against a billionaire outsider who is buying farmland and water rights in the moisture-starved county, Maggie’s grandmother, Flora, grapples with the painful echoes of her own past. Flora and Ozzie’s already close bond deepens as they join a local activist group, but Fish and Maggie’s conflicting approaches to surviving circumstances that are out of their control drive them further apart.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9780393531800 

AWAKE AWAKE by Fiona Mozley (Fiction) 
A writer in her 30s struggling to make rent, Mary has moved back to her childhood town to bartend and save money, when she starts remembering absurd events, clear and visceral as if they’d really happened to her. But she knows they’re too wild to be possible. Flashing back to her school years, she searches the past for what could have caused this split in her reality. The lives of their close group of school friends have since diverged, as life choices and politics, partners and children, have taken them to different places and placed them into other stories. But Mary must reconnect with them to find solid ground again.
Algonquin Books | 9781523537143 

THE BLUE FLAME by George Pelecanos (Hard-boiled Mystery/Thriller)
The neon “Strange Investigations” sign may be flickering in disrepair outside his office, but private investigator Derek Strange is still accepting new cases. When a flashy drug lawyer hires him to prove an alibi for an accused murderer, Strange can’t help getting drawn into the darkness. In his hunt for answers, he stands his ground against some of Washington, D.C.’s most dangerous criminals, and a police department that doesn’t entirely welcome his interference. As the violence escalates and claims another victim, the raised stakes force Strange to question his own moves. Are his instincts still intact?
Cardinal | 9781538779101 

THE CRUELEST GAME: Chasing Greatness in Professional Tennis by Matthew Futterman (Sports)
The story of modern tennis shines with immense fortune and glamour --- as well as unrelenting high stakes --- like the game has never seen before. Players excel and implode under excruciating pressure, alone on the court for the world to see. With legends like Rafa, Roger and Serena retired and Novak trying to figure out when to go, a new generation of electric stars has burst onto the scene and begun their quest for the secret codes that will allow them to thrive at the top of a brutal game. In THE CRUELEST GAME, Matthew Futterman sits us down with the stars whose relentless drive leads them to battle against a game of millimeters, and explains the off-court tensions that can both lift and destroy them.
Doubleday | 9780385550727 

DECEPTIONS by Jeffery Deaver (Thriller/Short Stories)
Jeffery Deaver returns with a devious collection, featuring two never-before published stories in which fan favorites Colter Shaw and Lincoln Rhyme are united by the layers of deception taking over New York City. A murder at a crime writers' conference. The method is entirely literary, and the motive seems obvious. But can the detective who was first on the scene puzzle out what needs reading between the lines? A mysterious woman has gone into hiding, and Colter Shaw is tasked with bringing her to a safe house. But with a hitman on his trails, the race toward safety takes on a whole new meaning. A serial killer with a motive never before seen in the history of crime challenges Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs to rethink everything they know about the nature of evil --- and the evidence its perpetrators leave at the scenes. 
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9798217186129

DRAGONLANCE: WAR WIZARD by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
(Fantasy/Adventure)
The boy with a rare gift for magic was born in Solamnia, a nation that despised and distrusted mages. His father tried to beat the magic out of him. The knights threatened him with imprisonment and exile. He endured tragedy and heartbreak. Yet he persisted with his magic, for the sake of the magic. One friend stood by him when others persecuted him, a young man who was studying for the knighthood. No one could understand this unlikely friendship. The knight was Huma. The boy took the name Magius. The two would one day become famous in Solamnic history, fighting together to defeat the Queen of Darkness. But that future is distant, far down the River of Time. For now, this is the story of an unlikely friendship that one day would change the world.
Random House Worlds | 9798217090716 

EMPIRE OF ASHES: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War by James M. Scott (History)
At 9:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, an American bomber pierced the skies over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The single bomb it dropped unleashed an atomic hurricane that toppled homes, vaporized birds in flight, and carbonized humans. Three days later, a second bomb flattened the port city of Nagasaki. In the span of a mere 75 hours, the United States --- a nation once morally opposed to the bombing of civilians --- killed 120,000 men, women and children, dooming tens of thousands more to agonizing death in the weeks and months ahead. EMPIRE OF ASHES explores the final brutal months of the war in the Pacific, featuring the voices of never-before-heard victims of the atomic bombs. 
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324065487 

ETNA by Paul Yoon (Fiction)
Set in a fictional country in the present day, this is a story told through the eyes of an ex-military dog, Etna. After surviving years of a devastating war, Etna decides one night to leave the men he has fought alongside for years and return home --- to the place where he was taken from when he was young, in the thin but persistent hope that if a home exists for him, it might be there. Thus begins an exhilarating odyssey told through the eyes of a dog as he traverses across ruined landscapes and fights to survive in a world that, even in peacetime, proves to be just as precarious. Along the way, he encounters other animals and humans who are attempting to figure out how to start again. What makes a life when there is no home to go back to? How do we begin to trust each other again after such profound loss?
Scribner | 9781668020821 

EYES OF KINGS by Chloe Gong (Fantasy/Adventure)
War beckons in the kingdom of Talin. On one side sits Calla Tuoleimi and Anton Makusa, and on the other, the recently dethroned August Shenzhi and Calla's own predecessor, Sinoa Tuoleimi. Neither will rest until the opposition is buried. Calla assumed victory would be easy. She wears the divine crown after a violent coup, wielding the most powerful weapon in the kingdom. Then the provinces start to whisper of the old gods returning to earth, and suddenly the game board is flipped upside down. Anton thought he aligned himself with victory. When he swore to serve as Calla’s general, he understood the battle they were waging. But he fears Calla is no longer herself with the crown. Rather, he fears that Calla is returning to who she once was.
S&S/Saga Press | 9781668000298 

FREYJA by Margrét Ann Thors (Mystery/Thriller)
A single mother to a beloved daughter, Unnur lives a deliberately quiet life in Reykjavík, where she works at a bakery under an assumed last name. She has spent years pushing away haunting half-remembrances of the last summer of her childhood, when her otherworldly friend, Freyja, disappeared. When her ex-husband returns to Iceland and brings with him a new girlfriend who seems to know more about Unnur than she’s letting on, Unnur may finally have to face the chilling possibility that she is responsible for her friend’s presumed death. As a cold case investigation reopens and the intricate threads of past and present begin to tangle, Unnur must race to recover the broken memory of what happened all those years ago, or risk losing her daughter.
Spiegel & Grau | 9781966302230 

THE HOUSE OF BOLEYN by Tracy Borman (Historical Fiction)
When nobleman Thomas Boleyn, lord of Hever Castle, is called to London in 1509 to present himself to a newly anointed King Henry VIII, he sets in motion events that ensure the Boleyn name will never be forgotten. His daughters, Mary and Anne, were young then, and though he was ambitious for his family to prosper, he could not imagine what would transpire in the two decades to come. Blending the history she knows so well with the creativity of her imagination, Tracy Borman brings the Boleyn family’s three-decade rise and precipitous fall to vivid life. She surrounds the main dramatic events of the Boleyn saga with a colorful tableau in which familial and inter-familial rivalries threaten, and true love often loses out to keen ambition.
Atlantic Monthly Press | 9780802167859 

THE IRON HEX by Victoria S. Walsh (Fantasy/Romance)
Eira Eckhart has spent years building a quiet life in a small town at the edge of a recently overthrown kingdom. Her memory is fractured, her past a blur. But with her shop, her loyal rabbit familiar, and practicing only the potions magic still legal under the watchful eye of the Iron Empire, she’s managed to remain unnoticed by the empire’s witch hunters. Until Hugo Venton walks through her door. Brash, clever and infuriatingly handsome, Hugo is searching for something…and seems to know more about Eira than she knows about herself. But when a terrifying encounter with an unnatural, deadly new breed of soldier puts a price on her head, she has no choice but to join Hugo on his quest. Their hunt for a missing princess pulls Eira across the continent --- and deeper into a past she can’t recall.
Mira | 9780778306696 

MAJESTIC HILLS by Dawn Turner (Fiction)
Tired of the daily drama in his emergency room, Dr. Langdon Blaque is in search of a place where he can leave the world behind. His wife Josephine, a lawyer, grew up listening to her father’s stories about the Jim Crow South and sundown towns. She prefers the city. Still, she agrees to move with the caveat that they stay for a year and reassess. The tight-knit, predominantly white group of neighbors in Majestic Hills initially welcomes them with open arms. But beneath the veneer of privileged harmony, tensions simmer. When a horrifying crime rocks the community, the illusion of safety is shattered, and Josephine and Langdon find themselves at the heart of a brewing storm that pits neighbor against neighbor, exposes deeply ingrained prejudices, and threatens to implode into violence.
Scribner | 9781668049310 

MEET ME IN THE GARDEN by Nina LaCour (Historical Fiction)
New Orleans, 1944. Odette has always been one of the Honore sisters, glamorous and admired in their Creole community. But while Odette’s older sisters are content to be wives and mothers, Odette has always wanted something else. It is only with her beloved cousin, Delphine, that Odette can tell her secret: she is in love with a woman, and she longs to be an artist. Delphine has a secret lover, too, a white man. In the hidden garden they’ve discovered, Odette and Delphine can dream of futures full of passion and freedom. But five years later, Odette's life is nothing like what she'd planned. She's a widowed mother, and she and Delphine have spiraled away from each other. When Delphine reaches a breaking point, Odette must make a shattering choice to try to hold her family together.
Flatiron Books | 9781250810472 

MY INNER CHILD WANTS TO KILL: A Mindful Murder Novel written by Karsten Dusse, translated by Florian Duijsens (Crime Fiction/Dark Humor)
Björn Diemel, once an overworked defense lawyer for very nasty organized criminals, has mastered the principles of mindfulness, and he only had to kill a couple of people to pull it off. Now, running his own practice, spending more time with his daughter, and arguing less with his wife, he should be sitting pretty, but he keeps losing his cool --- with deadly results. Why can’t Björn just enjoy his new mindful life? Over the course of one outrageous week, Björn and his inner child confront overzealous helicopter moms, hypocritical startup bros, and mysterious blackmailers as they race to solve all their problems at once before the criminal empire Björn has built for himself comes crumbling down.
Soho Crime | 9781641298445 

ONE OF THE FAMILY by Mark Edwards (Psychological Thriller)
When Patrick is invited by his girlfriend to join her and her family on a luxury holiday in a remote and beautiful part of Scotland, he has no idea that he is about to be plunged into a nightmare of a family and a plot to murder the patriarch’s younger fiancée. Arriving at the house, Patrick meets Holly’s dad, self-made-millionaire Charles, along with her brother Lewis and older sister Miranda. Also on the trip is the widowed Charles’ bride-to-be, Jasmine, who --- in her 30s --- is around the same age as the three siblings. Lewis and Miranda are horrified by their dad’s impending marriage to this younger woman. Surely, she is just after his money and is going to steal their inheritance from them. Patrick starts to suspect that Lewis has dark plans for Jasmine, putting himself in peril as a potential witness who could mess up his scheme.
Atria Books | 9781668204801 

PLANT LADY written by Kang Minyoung, translated by Shanna Tan (Psychological Thriller/Horror)
Tucked away in the corner of a neighborhood in Dosan, South Korea, is the Plant Shop. Shop owner Yoohee has started anew, and her meticulously grown foliage thrives under her tender care. By day, Yoohee dispenses advice on gardening, but she also finds herself offering a special service off the clock. Women who are at their wits’ end come to her about a man they hope might disappear from their lives. So as night falls, Yoohee trades her apron for a shovel and a hoe and disappears into her moonlit garden. There, she buries not just the remains of the day, but also the bloody remnants of a few unfortunate encounters. As men begin to disappear, will anyone ever suspect the Plant Lady?
Berkley | 9798217187577 

THE POSTMISTRESS OF PUDDLINGTON by Laura Jensen Walker (Historical Fiction)
1934, Dorset. Nothing gives postmistress Hester Smith greater joy than cycling through the idyllic village of Puddlington, delivering the mail to her neighbors. Bookish Hester has always felt privileged to witness the highs and lows a single letter can bring. But when war comes to Puddlington’s shores five years later, Hester suddenly finds herself in the devastating position of delivering news that no one should hear. As the community is directly impacted by tragedy on the battlefield and a shocking death occurs in the village, Hester’s spirit and resolve are tested like never before. Can she and her fellow Puddlington women, including the vicar’s wife and the bohemian lady of the manor, find the courage to face their darkest times and come through a storm that will change their lives forever?
Severn House | 9781448317332 

THE PROJECT by Annie Lord (Romantic Comedy)
When 26-year-old Daisy wakes up next to James Stanley, she can’t believe what she’s done. But sleeping with him is a casualty of a Much Larger Problem --- there is not a decent, single man to be found in London. Fed up with the dating scene, Daisy and her best friend, Maya, decide to stop waiting and take matters into their own hands with “The Project.” Their goal? To build the perfect, eligible match out of some of the most lackluster, raw material. And who better to start with than their embarrassingly uncivilized (yet frustratingly attractive) friend, James? Embarking on a series of social and cultural lessons --- from art exhibitions to feminist book clubs, designer clothing stores to house parties --- Daisy and Maya chaperone James on a journey of discovery. But which of them will change more?
Harper | 9780063467392 

THE SEEKERS OF DEER CREEK by Thao Thai (Fiction)
Sisters Vivi and Calla Nguyễn have little in common. Vivi lives an orderly and predictable life. She works as an art conservator at a museum in Chicago, but she refuses to examine her own dark history. Calla leads a much bolder, if occasionally reckless, existence. She’s an accomplished artist with a flair for the dramatic. She’s also a recovering addict. Months after the two fall out in the wake of their father’s death, Calla appears on the steps of the museum with a sketch and a letter she found in their father’s belongings. The sketch is an exact copy of Blue Mirror, a striking painting by a Vietnamese painter named K.P. Lý. In the letter, Lý writes about a mysterious lost work of art. Calla is convinced it is meant for their family, and that it was their father’s deathbed wish for her and Vivi to find it together.
Mariner Books | 9780063381599

SOFT SPOTS by Leila Renee (Fiction)
After miraculously securing a teaching job at a dysfunctional high school, loner Robin moves to South Bend, Indiana, where she’s paired with an eerily perfect roommate: Naomi. Freshly estranged from her abusive parents, Robin obsesses over two absurd goals: to be the best teacher at the school and to become best friends with Naomi. Meanwhile, back home, Robin’s brother must decide between being loyal to his sister or to their parents. Just as Robin grows closer to her students and Naomi, she receives earth-shattering news from her brother. Desperate to cope, Robin redoubles her efforts to befriend Naomi, spiraling even deeper into obsession and self-sabotage. Everything comes to a head when one of Robin’s many bad choices come back to bite her.
Amistad | 9780063438378 

SPLIT SIGNAL by Davis Bunn (Science Fiction/Thriller)
Peyton isn't convinced when Miami police declare her sister Evelyn’s death part of a multiple suicide pact and close the case. So when the FBI reveal they believe Evelyn was murdered, and there could be a link to the recent FBI sting operation the sisters took part in, she agrees to work undercover at Etico, a California start-up turning the world of social media upside down. But Peyton is also experiencing uncontrollable migraines…and they're becoming more frequent. Scientists are perplexed that her brain doesn't follow normal activity during a migraine attack; in fact, the two sides appear to be working independently of each other. As alarming discoveries are made at Etico, Peyton is sure these are connected not only to her sister's death but also to her migraines.
Severn House | 9781448319954 

SUNLIGHT FINDS YOU by Laura Moriarty (Historical Fiction)
It’s 1949, early in the Cold War, but St. Petersburg, Florida is warm, lush, and booming with newcomers seeking sunshine and opportunity. For 17-year-old Nora, St. Pete feels like paradise, especially after she meets and wins over Leonard, the shy, brilliant son of transplanted New Yorkers. Nora and Leonard are soon spending balmy days and evenings together, and in her adoring, encouraging company, he grows more confident. His sophisticated mother welcomes Nora into their lives, but his father distrusts her motives. When his suspicions are seemingly confirmed, Nora is forced to cut contact. In her longing and fear, she takes a chance that changes her life, exiling her from the family she loves and setting off a chain of secrets and betrayals that will follow her into adulthood.
Riverhead Books | 9781594487170 

TAKE WHAT YOU CAN by Naima Coster (Fiction)
Val and Milly fell in love with France at the same time they fell in love with each other and became immediate best friends. Then they bonded as the only Black students on a study-abroad trip. Now they are in their 30s, each married and with a baby girl on the way. When Milly suggests Val move to New York so they can raise their daughters together, it’s a resounding yes. Despite their excitement, the pair secretly wonders if their friendship has always worked best as a trio. On that first trip to France, these two motherless daughters were taken under the wing of an older woman named Helene. She showered them with money, love and attention and showed them the possibilities of an independent and abundant future. But now, without Helene and her guidance, who are Milly and Val?
Pamela Dorman Books | 9780593833278 

TIME TO BURN by Ellery Lloyd (Mystery/Thriller)
Mercurial tech entrepreneur Inigo Frank has perfected commercial time travel. His company, Tempus Tours, has been approved for just one route so far: a journey back to London in 1941, to the days of the Blitz, allowing the super-rich to experience the awesome sights and sounds of the aerial bombardment of the capital during World War II. To immortalize his achievement, Frank enlists award-winning filmmaker Phoebe Hunt to create a fly-on-the-wall documentary. On her first day shadowing Inigo, she is set to witness the return of a billionaire property developer and his family from their trip to the past. But instead of their awe-filled return, she captures the group arriving bloodied and traumatized, with one of their number missing. Phoebe recognizes the missing woman, who is not who she claims to be and has every reason to harbor a grudge against her.
Harper | 9780063323056 

TIME TRAVEL FOR BEGINNERS by Jaclyn Moriarty (Fiction)
On a bustling road in Sydney, Australia, lies a nondescript storefront known simply as the Time Travel Agency. Inside, you’ll be welcomed by the smell of fresh-brewed coffee, a selection of baked goods…and a question: Where in time do you wish to go? You can go whenever you wish into the past, and there’s no fear of altering the present. Is it a hoax? And if it’s real, what’s the catch? When single mother Anna is offered a job at the agency, she glimpses the possibility of happiness. Meanwhile, Teddy is a customer hoping to untangle his recently imploded marriage. And Jade, who has a deeply buried secret, despises the agency for offering false hope. Anna, Teddy and Jade leap headlong into time, hurtling on a crash course toward one another.
Berkley | 9780593820339

THE UNKNOWN by Riley Sager (Psychological Thriller/Horror)
Struggling actress Marin Keane is shocked when she lands a role in a major motion picture about the unsolved mystery of New Avalon, an island on sprawling Lake Faraday in Vermont. She’s even more surprised when she learns that the role requires a weeklong research trip to that very spot. A century ago, New Avalon was a commune for spiritual mediums --- until they all vanished in 1926. The only trace of them was five dresses hanging from the branches of an old oak tree in the middle of the island. Not long after arriving, Marin and her castmates --- including legendary actress Violet Wright and white-hot director Ronan Peters --- begin to realize that all is not right with New Avalon. And after a sudden health emergency leaves Marin, Ronan and the other actors stranded on the island, the disappearances begin again.
Dutton | 9798217044092 

THE WILD BENEATH by Kelly Anderson (Romance/Magical Realism)
Annie MacLeod always knew she was different, growing up on a sailboat in the Pacific Northwest, navigating by stars and swimming with sea creatures alongside her parents and best friend, Evan. But when a tsunami shatters her world, Annie is stranded on land and forced to confront how eccentric she is. In the wreckage, she rescues a wordless man named Walker, who emits a hum only she can hear. His touch gives her visions of the ocean’s hidden world. Yet, even as she is pulled toward him, Evan remains on dry land, offering the stability she may have to leave behind. But then Walker vanishes, along with the answers she needs about who she really is. Six years later, Annie has left the sea and buried the past --- until Walker’s otherworldly sound returns, pulling her back toward the ocean and the life she abandoned.
Park Row | 9780778306061 

THE WOMEN IN WHITE by Sarah Pekkanen (Psychological/Historical Thriller)
In 1964, four remarkable young women at a prestigious university became the subjects of parapsychology experiments by a visionary scientist. On the cusp of a historic breakthrough, the women mysteriously vanished and the program was erased from history. Decades later, Riley Bell accepts a caretaker job for an elderly widow named Betty. Riley steps into a home that is frozen in another era --- no microwaves, televisions or cell phones, and Betty has never heard of the internet. As the story unfolds across two timelines --- Betty’s 1960s era of 5:00 martinis and high-stakes experiments, and Riley’s quest to uncover the truth about the missing women --- old secrets rise to the surface. And the only way to survive is to confront the mystery that has lingered for 60 years.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250349552

THE WOUND IS WHERE THE LIGHT ENTERS: A Memoir of Resilience by Chris Young (Memoir)
If our world were more just, Chris Young would have been crossing a stage at college graduation at the age of 22. Instead, he was marched into a maximum-security federal prison, facing life under mandatory drug sentencing laws. Like far too many young Black men from his neighborhood in Clarksville, Tennessee, this was where his story was supposed to end. But one day in the prison library, a book caught his eye: an encyclopedia. As he began to turn the pages, Chris felt himself transported. He began to confront the nihilism around him, the trauma of his past, and the cruelty of a system determined to confine him. At his sentencing hearing, Chris gave such a moving speech that the judge resigned from his lifetime appointment to the bench and fought to free him.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316565288 

YOU'LL BE SORRY by Lisa Gardner (Mystery/Thriller)
Raquel, a renowned interior designer, and Theo, a brash financial wizard, met and married in a matter of months, only to confront a terrible tragedy. Now, they’ve come to a remote town in New Hampshire to begin anew. Perched on a ledge with stunning views, the Dixons’ family lodge was once a crown jewel of the mountains. Until late one August night, when both parents and their four children vanished, leaving behind a trail of bloody footprints and a mystery that has endured for 30 years. Its latest occupants, Raquel and Theo, are arriving, and the former grand lodge is once more stirring to life. When a stray dog leads to the discovery of a skeleton on the property, Raquel and Theo face a daunting choice of what to believe, who to trust, and how to survive.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538765142 

YOUR FELLOW AMERICANS: Dispatches from Across the Country We Call Home by Peter Santenello (Travel Memoir)
Have you ever swapped stories on a porch with Amish snowbirds in Florida? Searched for reindeer with the Siberian Yupik in Alaska? Been a guest on a houseboat deep in the Louisiana bayou? Peter Santenello hadn’t either until, after years spent traveling through 85 countries and living abroad, he realized the most unfamiliar territory was often his own American backyard. And so, with a camera in hand and an open mind, he began visiting communities across the country, places that most of the media overlooks or misrepresents, from tiny towns in Appalachia to the streets of East LA. What began as curiosity became --- one story at a time --- an intimate, revealing portrait of America today.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668214343 

On Sale the Week of August 3rd in Paperback

August 4th

BOLELYN TRAITOR by Philippa Gregory (Historical Fiction)
Jane Boleyn watches from the shadows of the Tudor court, where secrets are currency, every choice is dangerous, and even the faintest whisper can seal the fate of queens. For Jane, survival demands playing every role required of her: a loving wife who conceals her doubts, a devoted sister to Anne Boleyn at the height of her power, and an obedient spy who carefully wields her words. But in a court ruled by ambition and a tyrant’s sword, Jane must rely on her sharp wit and skillful maneuvering to outthink those around her, knowing that one wrong move could cost her everything.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063439696

THE BREAK-IN by Katherine Faulkner (Domestic Thriller)
Alice, a professional mother of one, is hosting a playdate with friends at her upscale London home when a disturbed man breaks in. With her child in the next room, Alice panics and kills him --- an act later ruled to have been in self-defense. Everyone tries to encourage Alice to move on with her life. But with strange comments appearing online, a mysterious phone call telling her all is not as it seems, and her husband, nanny and friends behaving strangely, Alice finds herself drawn to the mystery of who her intruder really was. As she digs deeper, she discovers a trail of dark secrets that spiral closer to home than she ever could have imagined.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781668024829

BRIGANDS & BREADKNIVES by Travis Baldree (Fantasy/Humor)
Fern has weathered the stillness and storms of a bookseller’s life for decades. But now, in the face of crippling ennui, she transplants herself to the city of Thune to hang out her shingle beside a long-absent friend’s coffee shop. But it turns out that fixing your life isn’t a one-time prospect, nor as easy as a change of scenery and a lick of paint. A drunken and desperate night sees the rattkin waking far from home in the company of a legendary warrior, an imprisoned chaos-goblin with a fondness for silverware, and an absolutely thumping hangover. As together they fend off a rogue’s gallery of ne’er-do-wells trying to claim the bounty the goblin represents, Fern may finally reconnect with the person she actually is when nothing seems inevitable.
Tor Books | 9781250334909

THE CASTLE IN THE GLEN by Rhys Bowen (Historical Mystery/Romance)
Paperback Original
Australian writer Emma Callander has been recruited to complete the final historical mystery in a series by celebrated author Iris Blackburn. It’s 1965, and Iris’ memory is fading. She’s certain that only Emma can do justice to her novel about a murder on the Isle of Skye. When Emma ventures to Scotland for research, she discovers the story is not fiction at all but rather a true crime, unsolved for more than 50 years. It was 1904 when a couple’s suspicious drowning led to the disappearance of a mysterious young woman the locals called the Wild Girl. To this day the mystery is unforgettable, especially among the descendants of an aristocratic family who will do anything to keep their secrets buried. From the misty Highlands to a medieval castle, Emma and Tony Gordon, Iris’ handsome lawyer, work ever more closely to uncover them.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781662527227

CLEAN SLATE by Brianna Labuskes (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Olive Hunt is a crime scene cleaner who channels her childhood traumas into erasing the suffering of others. After nearly 10 years, she’s seen it all. Nothing rattles her anymore. Until now. Two back-to-back suicides. A seedy motel. An upscale Atlanta hotel. Olive discovers the same strange item at each scene. Then a third body drops. Olive knows what the police refuse to see: These aren’t suicides. They’re murders staged to perfection. Then the roses arrive. A vase of bloodred blooms on her doorstep. An anonymous note: Thank you. She’s found him. A serial killer who’s been leaving breadcrumbs only she can see. A killer who’s been cleaning up his work --- knowing she’ll clean up after him. A killer who wants her to follow. And follow she must. No matter how terrifying the trail becomes.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662533150

CLOWN TOWN by Mick Herron (Thriller)
David Cartwright has left his library to the Spooks’ College in Oxford, and now one of the books is missing. Or perhaps it never existed. River, once a “slow horse” of Slough House, MI5’s outpost for demoted and disgraced spies, starts investigating the secrets of his grandfather’s library. Over at the Park, MI5 First Desk Diana Taverner is in a pickle. An operation carried out during the height of the Troubles laid bare the ugly side of state security, and those involved are threatening to expose details. But every threat hides an opportunity, and Taverner has come up with a scheme. Jackson Lamb, the enigmatic and odiferous head of Slough House, has no plans to send in the clowns. On the other hand, if the clowns ignore his instructions, any harm that befalls them is hardly his fault. But they’re his clowns. And if they don’t all make it home, there will be a reckoning.
Soho Crime | 9781641298360

DEATH ROW by Freida McFadden (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Talia Kemper is on death row for murdering her husband. She had an alibi and no known motive, yet her unwavering protestations of innocence have always been ignored. Then one day in the visiting area, she sees a man she's certain is her husband. The person she's been convicted of killing may not be dead after all. But as the days tick away toward Talia's execution, what will it take for her to be believed?
Poisoned Pen Press | 9798256510381

THE DEVIL IN OXFORD: A Ruby Vaughn Mystery by Jess Armstrong
(Gothic/Historical Mystery)
American heiress Ruby Vaughn and her octogenarian housemate and employer, Mr. Owen, run a rare bookshop in Exeter. His penchant for arcane, unusual --- and occasionally illegal --- books has been known to get Ruby into her fair share of trouble. And after the last year, she is looking forward to spending a quiet holiday in picturesque Oxford while Mr. Owen attends the annual meeting of his antiquarian society. When he secures two tickets to an upcoming exhibition of artifacts amassed by disgraced scholar Julius Harker, she reluctantly agrees to attend. Harker’s dead body is discovered amongst the collection, and his business partner is hastily arrested. The murder case is suspicious at best, but the last thing Ruby wants is another investigation. That is, until an old friend comes begging for her help.
Minotaur Books | 9781250374677

A DOG IN GEORGIA by Lauren Grodstein (Fiction)
Amy Webb is a chef. Or rather, she was a chef. Somewhere along the way, she also became a wife and a stepmother and an emergency contact, and the part of her that was a chef disappeared entirely --- along with her sense of self. Which is why she is currently in the republic of Georgia, on a mission to find a lost dog named Angel, and, more importantly, the life’s purpose she once took for granted. For months, Amy has escaped by watching YouTube videos of Angel walking the children of Tbilisi to school. When Angel goes missing, Amy volunteers to go find him. But Angel proves elusive, and while she does make friends with a number of stray dogs, what she finds in Tblisi is entirely human. Is she happy in her marriage? What happened to her career? Why doesn’t she ever cook anymore, even just for herself? 
Algonquin Books | 9781643757353

DYING CRY: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery by Margaret Mizushima (Mystery)
Newlyweds Mattie and Cole Walker are teaching Cole’s daughters how to snowshoe in a remote canyon when a shattering scream pierces the air. From a distance, Mattie and Robo see a shadowy figure at the base of a cliff, but a rockslide buries the person under layers of stone and shale before they can provide help. Desperate to uncover the individual in case they’re still alive under the rock, their efforts are in vain. The victim is already dead. When they investigate the canyon rim from which the person fell, they discover evidence that indicates the fall was no accident. To make matters worse, the victim was one of Cole’s friends. The Timber Creek County investigative team springs into action, uncovering a trail of greed that leads to a killer who threatens Mattie’s cherished new family.
Crooked Lane Books | 9798892427784

THE ELEVENTH HOUR: A Quintet of Stories by Salman Rushdie (Fiction/Short Stories)
Salman Rushdie turns his extraordinary imagination to life’s final act with a quintet of stories that span the three countries in which he has made his work: India, England and America. “In the South” introduces a pair of quarrelsome old men and their private tragedy at a moment of national calamity. In “The Musician of Kahani,” a musical prodigy from the Mumbai neighborhood featured in MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN uses her magical gifts to wreak devastation on the wealthy family she marries into. In “Late,” the ghost of a Cambridge don enlists the help of a lonely student to enact revenge upon the tormentor of his lifetime. “Oklahoma” plunges a young writer into a web of deceit and lies as he tries to figure out whether his mentor killed himself or faked his own death. And “The Old Man in the Piazza” is a powerful parable for our times about freedom of speech.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9798217154203

FADE IN by Kyle Mills (Political Thriller)
When ex-navy SEAL Salam al-Fayed --- Fade to his friends --- steps in front of a sniper’s bullet, he assumes all his problems are solved. Having already been declared clinically dead twice in his career, he’s hoping the third time will be the charm. Instead, he wakes in a hospital having gone from being one of the deadliest operatives in US history to a man incapable of even standing without assistance. Alone and wanted by authorities, he’s destined to spend the rest of his life lying in a prison infirmary. So when a shadowy organization offers him a new identity and next-generation medical care, he has no choice but to agree. Nothing’s free, though. After a grueling rehabilitation, he’s drafted into an elite paramilitary unit. But who’s in charge? When a dire threat explodes out of China, his question is quickly answered.
Authors Equity | 9798893311792

FLESH by David Szalay (Fiction)
Teenaged István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. Shy and new in town, he is a stranger to the social rituals practiced by his classmates and is soon isolated, drawn instead into a series of events that leave him forever a stranger to his peers, his mother and himself. In the years that follow, István is borne along by the goodwill, or self-interest, of strangers, charting a rocky yet upward trajectory that lands him further from his childhood, and the defining events that abruptly ended it, than he possibly could have imagined. Shadowed by the specter of past tragedy and the apathy of modernity, the tension between István and all that alienates him hurtles forward until sudden tragedy again throws life as he knows it in jeopardy.
Scribner | 9781982122805

GOOD AND EVIL AND OTHER STORIES written by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell (Fiction/Short Stories)
The characters of GOOD AND EVIL find themselves at a point of no return, dazzled by the glare of impending tragedy. Vulnerable and profoundly human, they become trapped in the instant in which the uncanny has lurched into their lives. Some are transformed, some are isolated, others waver between guilt or tenderness. All of them are riven by uncertainty. Samanta Schweblin’s prose uses tension and truth to construct a literary universe in which the monsters of everyday life come so close to us that we can almost feel their breath. Her writing provokes awe and disquiet, a state of alarm that at the same time transports us to a hypnotic world as recognizable as it is strange.
Vintage | 9780593689059

HOT DESK by Laura Dickerman (Romantic Comedy)
In the post-pandemic publishing industry, two rival editors are forced to share a “hot desk” on alternating days of the week. Having never set eyes on each other, Rebecca Blume and Ben Heath begin leaving passive-aggressive Post-it notes on the pot of their shared cactus. But when revered literary legend Edward David Adams (known as “the Lion”) dies, leaving his estate up for grabs, they compete to land this career-making opportunity. As the battle heats up, Rebecca learns of a surprising connection between her mother, Jane, and the Lion from 40 years earlier. The story travels back to the early 1980s, when Jane arrives in Manhattan and meets the glamorous Rose, who soon becomes her best friend. But one fateful day during the April blizzard of 1982 will change the course of Jane’s life, and their friendship, forever.
Gallery Books | 9781668081105

THE HOUNDING by Xenobe Purvis (Gothic/Historical Fiction)
Even before the rumors about the Mansfield girls begin, Little Nettlebed is a village steeped in the uncanny, from strange creatures that wash up on the riverbank to portentous ravens gathering on the roofs of people about to die. But when the villagers start to hear barking, and one claims to see the Mansfield sisters transform before his very eyes, the allegations spark fascination and fear like nothing has before. The truth is that, though the inhabitants of Little Nettlebed have never much liked the Mansfield girls, they’ve always had plenty to say about them. Even if local belief in witchcraft is waning, an aversion to difference is as widespread as ever, and these conflicting narratives all point to the same ultimate conclusion: Something isn’t right in Little Nettlebed, and the sisters will be the ones to pay for it.
Holt Paperbacks | 9781250366405

THE IMPOSSIBLE FORTUNE: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery by Richard Osman (Mystery)
It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles. And Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favorite criminal. But when Elizabeth meets Nick, a wedding guest asking for her help, she finds that the thrill of the chase is ignited once again. And when Nick disappears without a trace, his cagey business partner becomes the gang’s next stop. It seems the duo has something valuable --- something worth killing for. Joyce’s daughter, Joanna, jumps into the fray to help the gang as they seek answers. Has someone kidnapped Nick? And what’s this uncrackable code they keep hearing about? Plunged back into action once more, can the four friends solve the puzzle and a murder in time?
Penguin Books | 9780593653272

IN THE TIME OF FIVE PUMPKINS: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (26) by Alexander McCall Smith (Mystery)
Mma Ramotswe can sense the rain long before it comes. It’s been a long, dry summer, but the first downpour of the season tends to bring with it new growth. In this case, it also brings a new client, who suspects his wife of having an affair. Mma Ramotswe is on the case, and she decides to bring Charlie along. But as they look further into the matter, they begin to suspect their client may not have been entirely truthful in explaining his predicament. Meanwhile, Mr. J.L.B.’s Matekoni has struck up a new friendship with a man named Mr. Mogorosi, a prominent figure in the motor trade business. Mma Ramotswe is concerned that Mr. Mogorosi may have ulterior motives for his attentions. When the two go on a fishing trip in waters teeming with dangerous crocodiles, she begins to worry for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s safety.
Vintage | 9780593688779

LIKE FAMILY by Erin O. White (Fiction)
Ruth and her wife, Wyn, are living with their four children on their small farm in Radclyffe, New York. It’s a sweet life, but there’s a secret at its center, one that not even Ruth’s best friend, Caroline, knows. What Caroline does know is that she loves and depends on Ruth, and on the bond between their families. More than anything, she wants her tenderhearted son not to grow up lonely the way she did. Unfortunately, no one can assure her of that, especially not her husband. He just wants things to be easy and drama-free --- which is impossible, as he has donated his sperm to his cousin, Tobi, and her wife so that they could have kids of their own. Now those children are asking unanswerable questions. After an unexpected death in their community, all three couples are forced to confront the tensions that have long been buried beneath the surfaces of their lives.
Dial Press Trade Paperback | 9780593978566

MODERATION by Elaine Castillo (Fiction)
Girlie Delmundo is the greatest content moderator in the world. Despite the setbacks of financial crises, climate catastrophe and a global pandemic, she’s getting a promotion. Now, thanks to her parent company Paragon’s purchase of Fairground --- the world’s preeminent virtual reality content provider --- she’s on the way to becoming an elite VR moderator. Despite the isolation that virtual reality requires from colleagues, friends and family, the unbelievable perks of her new job mean she can solve a lot of her family's problems with money and mobility. But when she meets William Cheung, Playground’s wry, reticent co-founder (now Chief Product Officer), slowly unearths some of his secrets, and finds herself somehow falling in love, she’ll learn that history might be impossible to moderate and the future utterly impossible to control.
Penguin Books | 9780593489680

MONA ACTS OUT by Mischa Berlinski (Fiction)
Celebrated stage actress Mona Zahid wakes up on Thanksgiving morning to the clamor of guests packed into her Manhattan apartment and to a wave of dread. Her in-laws are lurking on the other side of the bedroom door; she’s still fighting with her husband; and in just a few weeks she will begin rehearsals as Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, the hardest role in theater. In an impulsive burst, Mona bounds out the door with the family dog in tow to find her estranged mentor, Milton Katz, who recently was forced out of the legendary theater company he founded amid accusations of sexual misconduct. Mona’s escape turns into an overnight adventure that brings her face to face with her past, with her creative power and its limitations, and ultimately, with all the people she has ever loved.
Liveright | 9781324098539

MY OTHER HEART by Emma Nanami Strenner (Fiction)
In June 1998, Mimi Truang is on her way home to Vietnam when her toddler daughter vanishes in the Philadelphia airport. Seventeen years later, two best friends in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, discuss their summer plans before college. Kit, with the support of her white adoptive parents, will travel to Tokyo to explore her Japanese roots. This dizzying adventure offers her a taste of first love and a new understanding of what it means to belong. Sabrina had hoped to take a similar trip to China, but money is tight. Her disappointment subsides, however, when she meets a bold, uncompromising new mentor who prompts Sabrina to ask questions she’s avoided all her life. Meanwhile, Mimi purchases a plane ticket to Philadelphia. She finally has a lead in her search for her daughter. When Mimi, Kit and Sabrina come face to face, they will confront the people they truly are.
Penguin Books | 9780593831038

OTHERWISE ENGAGED by Susan Mallery (Fiction)
When Shannon gets engaged, her beloved mom, Cindy, is the first person she wants to tell --- and the last. Cindy is engaged, too, and already has hinted at a double wedding. The image of a synchronized bouquet toss with her mom fills Shannon with horror. She’ll keep her engagement a secret until Cindy’s I-dos are done. Victoria has never been proper enough for her mother, Ava, so she stopped trying. She lives on her own terms and amuses herself by pushing Ava’s buttons. Ava loves but doesn’t understand her stuntwoman daughter. When a movie-set mishap brings Victoria home, Ava longs to finally connect. Chance brings the four women together at a wedding venue, where a shocking secret comes tumbling out. As Shannon and Victoria deal with the fallout from the decisions their mothers made, they wrestle with whether who they are is different from who they might have become.
Mira | 9780778307044

PEOPLE LIKE US by Jason Mott (Fiction)
In PEOPLE LIKE US, two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world riven with violence. One is on a global book tour after winning a big prize; the other is set to speak at a school that has suffered a tragedy. As the authors’ storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure. From tiny French cars and melancholy winter hotel rooms, from humble family land to the wealthiest estates, this book asks us to witness people and their dreams enduring against all odds.
Dutton | 9798217047123

PLAY NICE by Rachel Harrison (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
Clio Louise Barnes leads a picture-perfect life as a stylist and influencer, but beneath the glossy veneer she harbors a not-so glamorous secret: she grew up in a haunted house. Well, not haunted. Possessed. After Clio’s parents' messy divorce, her mother, Alex, moved Clio and her sisters into a house occupied by a demon. Or so Alex claimed. That’s not what Clio’s sisters remember or what the courts determined when they stripped her of custody after she went off the deep end. But Alex was insistent; she even wrote a book about her experience in the house. After Alex’s sudden death, the supposedly possessed house passes to Clio and her sisters. Where her sisters see childhood trauma, Clio sees an opportunity for house-flipping content. But as the home makeover process begins, Clio discovers there might be some truth to her mother’s claims.
Berkley | 9780593642597

UNDER THE GHOST MOON by Lyn Liao Butler (Fiction)
Paperback Original
When Joey Zhang’s brother, Sam, drowns off the coast of Kauai, she must return to the island to piece together the clues he left behind. In the process, Joey unearths secrets Sam had kept from her all her life, along with their mother’s journal, which reveals what really happened the night their parents died when Joey was only 11. With the help of Sam’s best friend, Ethan, Joey embarks on a journey to unveil long-buried family trauma that reaches back to a Taiwan plagued with mass violence and totalitarian rule during the White Terror. Moved by her mother’s heartbreaking confessions and following the cherished mythology of the Old Man Under the Moon, who unites all predestined couples with a silken cord, Joey becomes a witness to a past she never imagined.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781662539312

THE WIDOW by John Grisham (Legal Thriller/Mystery)
Simon Latch is a lawyer in rural Virginia, making just enough to pay his bills while his marriage slowly falls apart. Then into his office walks Eleanor Barnett, an elderly widow in need of a new will. Apparently, her husband left her a small fortune, and no one knows about it. Once he hooks the richest client of his career, Simon works quietly to keep her wealth under the radar. But soon her story begins to crack. When she is hospitalized after a car accident, Simon realizes that nothing is as it seems, and he finds himself on trial for a crime he swears he didn’t commit: murder. Simon knows he’s innocent. But he also knows the circumstantial evidence is against him, and he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. To save himself, he must find the real killer.
Vintage | 9780593685297

On Sale the Week of August 10th in Hardcover

August 11th

DAYS OF MIRACLE AND WONDER: Paul Simon and the Trials and Triumphs of Graceland by Ashley Kahn (Music/History)
In 1984, Paul Simon was at a professional and personal crossroads. Driving around that summer, a bootleg cassette of “township jive” --- the street music of South Africa --- kept him company. He began to invent his own lyrics to the groove and became drawn to the idea of recording with the musicians on that tape. But South Africa was in the thrall of a racist apartheid system, and such an undertaking was risky. Simon took a fateful trip to Johannesburg in 1985. It would turn out to be the first step on a musical journey that would lead him to New York, Los Angeles, Louisiana and London, and eventually to the release of Graceland, a critical and commercial triumph that spawned a five-year worldwide tour. DAYS OF MIRACLE AND WONDER is the first book to tell the full story of Graceland.
Atria Books | 9781668206751 

DREAMLAND by Olivie Blake (Gothic Fantasy)
The headlines are calling it the "summer of exsanguination" in LA. Girls are being murdered, the Santa Ana winds are blowing a strange energy into the city, and all signs point to fire season. Anya Morris receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, an invitation to work for the de Witt family, one of LA’s most influential film dynasties. Soon, she’s spending her days and nights at their strange villa high in the Hollywood Hills, where she meets Jude, a recluse who is both the family’s heir apparent and its most closely guarded secret. There’s a magnetism to Jude that Anya cannot resist, despite warning signs that scream like sirens in the night. Because the villa holds generations of bloodstained history, and an occult family curse may even live within its walls --- or within Jude himself. 
Tor Books | 9781250368935

HANNAH ARENDT: A Life of the Mind written by Thomas Meyer, translated by Shelley Frisch (Biography)
Drawing on newly discovered archival materials and previously overlooked documents, Thomas Meyer tells the story of an intellectual icon whose character and ideas continue to captivate and challenge us to this day. Tracing anew Hannah Arendt’s journey from Königsberg to Paris, where she fled after being imprisoned in 1933, and finally to New York in 1941, Meyer illuminates her formative years and the development of her radical and brilliant books, as well as her lifelong philosophical debate with Martin Heidegger, whose Nazism was a permanent challenge for her. Meyer’s account centers on two pivotal phases: Arendt’s years in Paris after fleeing Nazi Germany and her time in the United States leading up to the landmark publication of THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM in 1951.
Penguin Press | 9781984878434 

RELIQUARY by Hannah Whitten (Gothic Horror/Dark Fantasy)
When Claire’s fiancé mysteriously dies of an unknown neurological illness, she’s prepared to sink back into the lonely life she lived before. Orphaned by a freak boating accident in her childhood, she never expected to find connection like she did with Elias. When Elias’ family reaches out and invites her to a three-day wake at Harrow Point, their family home on a private island, Claire is given the chance to find family again. Even if that family is a little strange. Even if their coastal home stirs up memories of the accident that killed her parents and sister. Even if Ash, Elias’ older brother, seems insistent on Claire leaving as soon as possible. As she dives deeper into the world of Harrow Point, she will uncover the nature of her own traumatic connection to the ocean. There is something swimming in the bowels of Harrow Point, and it is hungry.
Run For It | 9780316579537 

THE SECRETS WE HIDE by Karin Slaughter (Mystery/Thriller)
1601 Iris Drive looks like any other house on the quiet, residential street. But rumors are rampant about the Vickery family and what goes on behind closed doors. When gunshots ring out, Sheriff Emmy Clifton and her sister, ex-federal agent Jude Archer, discover a devastating crime scene. Allison Vickery has been murdered in her own kitchen, and her teenage daughter is bleeding upstairs, left for dead. Everyone thinks they know what happened. But secrets are buried everywhere in this small town. And it’s up to Emmy Clifton to uncover the truth.
William Morrow | 9780063458789 

STAY BURIED by Jennifer McMahon (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
1919: Frankie O’Massey has always been the black sheep of isolated Boone’s Ferry, Vermont. Her uncle, Dr. Thomas Endicott, has been training her in the science of medicine. When a mysterious illness strikes the town, and the community suspects supernatural forces, the two desperately search for a logical explanation. Patient zero seems to be the town’s knackerman --- a recluse who collects dead and dying farm animals to make use of their parts. 2016: Siblings Ashley and Malcolm lost their mother two years ago. When their grandmother dies, they inherit a property in Boone’s Ferry and embark on a trip to their ancestral home. But some of the townspeople aren’t very welcoming --- and they have some unsettling traditions, like leaving offerings to a vengeful spirit four times a year.
Gallery Books | 9781668069455 

SUNRISE by Téa Obreht (Fiction)
In 2024, Nina’s small-engine plane crashes into a lake in the Wyoming mountains. She stumbles upon Sunrise, a town of the Old West that holds the missing link to a ghost story 100 years in the making. In 2003, Sand Daw’s golden boy, Coll, is putting the finishing touches on the town’s annual historical reenactment. But when an upstart would-be author comes to him with questions about one of Sunrise’s most beloved figures, it threatens to upend everything he thought he knew about the city --- and himself. In 1902, town founder, gunslinger and legendary pulp hero Anton Vargas returns to Sunrise and quickly takes charge of a group searching for a missing boy. But who really is Vargas? These three strangers are separated by time and circumstance. But Sunrise’s many secrets are like gunpowder: quiet and contained until they encounter a spark.
Random House | 9781984855534 

A TENDER AGE by Chang-rae Lee (Fiction)
The natural descendent of characters like Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caufield, Korean-American Jeon-Gi is torn between competing ideas of himself. At home, his working-class parents dote on him. Outside, he is part of a roving pack of kids with dominion over a derelict baseball field, weedy parking lot and rusty jungle gym. Getting into and out of trouble is all-consuming. But the summer he turns 11, he becomes embroiled in a staggering series of events reverberating far beyond himself and his family.
Riverhead Books | 9798217048441 

THREE TENSES: A Transmission from the Nineties by Ed Park (Memoir)
In 1998, Ed Park wrote a memoir and saved it to the vanishing technology of the floppy disk, losing it for more than 20 years. Until one day, emptying out an old, unmarked box in his family’s cramped New York City home, he came across a hefty manila folder. Out slid the only remaining copy of THREE TENSES. The piece of writing that Park found was an assemblage of beguiling anecdotes, sly observations and collected esoterica, produced within the confines of the shoebox apartment of his 20s and only now allowed to see the light of day. Two Ed Parks emerge on the page: within the prose of the young, struggling writer arises the voice of the artist he would become.
Random House | 9798217154944 

THE TRUE MEANING OF LOVE by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
February 24th is the 18th birthday of a Ukrainian ballet school student named Vlad. It also happens to be the day that the first bombs of the 2022 Russian attack land on his homeland, and he is immediately called up to serve in the military. But Vlad is desperate to get his girlfriend, Tatyanna, out of the country. With their home under siege, Tatyanna tries to make her way to safety in Poland. Also joining the refugees is Yulya, who is torn between getting her young children across the border and staying at the side of her husband, Symon, and her elderly parents, Petro and Oxana, who refuse to abandon their home. Sasha, an obstetrician, and Anton, a surgeon, who are secretly lovers, stay behind to treat the never-ending waves of wounded. When the Russians bomb hospitals, the heroic couple finds themselves delivering babies in bomb shelters.
Delacorte Press | 9780593973141 

UNDER THE FALLS by Richard Russo (Literary Mystery/Thriller) 
When Tyler Sinclair left Stone Mountain at 18, he had no plans of returning. Armed with a guitar, his most prized possession, he disappeared without so much as a goodbye. Eighteen years later, Tyler, now the frontman of a famous band aptly named Stone Mountain, finds himself returning to his hometown for a one-night-only benefit concert to support his old friend, Doc, who lost feeling in his legs following a childhood accident. As Tyler ascends the mountain, memories of his childhood come rushing back --- memories of his abusive father and despondent mother, of the friends he left behind. And he quickly learns that, for many people on Stone Mountain, the past does not feel like so long ago, and not everyone has been eagerly awaiting his return.
Knopf | 9780593805107

YOU'LL LOVE IT HERE by Natalie Sue (Fiction/Humor)
After years of climbing at her marketing firm, Mona was supposed to be getting promoted and finally moving out of her crumbling apartment building. Instead, she’s jobless, aimless, and still stuck in a space barely big enough for a yoga mat. Then her eccentric landlady takes a tumble and asks Mona to step in as the building’s reluctant super. The deal is simple: help prep the place for sale, and she can secure the upgrade she’s been chasing. But that’s easier said than done when the neighbors treat “boundaries” as optional. As Mona gets pulled deeper into the building’s chaos --- and closer to the people inside it --- she’s forced to confront what, and who, she’s really been trying to outrun.
William Morrow | 9780063320437

On Sale the Week of August 10th in Paperback

August 11th

ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Psychological Thriller)
Debut sensation Tessa Calloway is on a whirlwind book tour for her instant bestseller, All This Could Be Yours. She receives standing ovations from adoring fans while her husband, Henry, and their two children cheer her on from their brand-new dream house. But there's a chilling problem with Tessa's triumphant book tour. She soon discovers she is being stalked by someone who's obsessed not only with sabotaging her career, but also with destroying her perfect family back home. Tessa fears that the fallout from an impossible decision she once made appears to be coming due. And she’s realizing that every high-stakes bargain comes with a high-stakes price. If Tessa can't untangle who's threatening to expose her darkest secrets, she'll lose her career, her family --- and possibly her life.
Minotaur Books | 9781250416834

BLACK MALE written by Elgas, translated by Lisa Sinclair (Fiction)
Paperback Original
A Senegalese anthropologist living in France drifts through Paris in the aftermath of his PhD, caught between casual relationships, intellectual ambition, and a deepening sense of emotional distance. Estranged from Senegal yet unable to fully belong in France, he navigates desire, loneliness, and the racialized expectations placed on his body and identity. A long-awaited visit from his mother forces him to confront family ties he has kept at arm’s length, while his relationships with women --- both Black and white --- bring questions of intimacy, power and self-understanding into sharp focus. As love begins to feel possible, he must decide what kind of life, and what kind of man, he is willing to claim. 
Europa Editions | 9798889662020

BURY OUR BONES IN THE MIDNIGHT SOIL by V. E. Schwab (Historical Fantasy)
1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada. A young girl grows up wild and wily. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice. 1827. London. A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family’s estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte’s tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow --- but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined. 2019. Boston. College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That’s why Alice moved halfway across the world. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, present and future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers…and revenge.
Tor Books | 9781250320544

DEAR MISS LAKE by AJ Pearce (Historical Fiction)
London, July 1944. After nearly five years of war, the readers of Woman’s Friend magazine are relying on the support of Emmy Lake and her team more than ever. With the city under attack, the magazine staff decamps to the countryside for the summer. Determined to help the women of Britain carry on, Emmy and friends are hard at work finding new ways to inspire resilience. With her army officer husband Charles posted close to home, and best friend Bunty by her side, Emmy happily throws herself into rural life, juggling children, magazine assignments and plans for a very important wedding. And then a call comes that means she may finally fulfill her long-held dream of becoming a war correspondent. But when disaster strikes, Emmy needs her friends, her community and her readers more than ever.
Scribner | 9781668007754

DEVIL INSIDE by Clay McLeod Chapman (Paranormal Horror/Romance)
Paperback Original
After a traumatic accident that almost cost him his life, Jordan is finally starting to feel normal again. Well, maybe not normal. Everything tastes like ash, and when he looks at the people around him, their faces start to melt. His friends are doing their best to get him back on his feet and maybe even find someone to take his mind off his last failed relationship. Then he meets Lilith. The two share an instant connection, but after a wild and passionate night together, she ghosts him. Jordan searches the city for Lilith, desperate to see her again. But when a woman claiming to be Lilith shows up, wearing a different face but knowing intimate details about Jordan, he worries he’s losing his grip on reality. As he grows closer to this mysterious woman, he discovers that happily ever afters sometimes come at a cost.
Mira | 9780778306214

FONSECA by Jessica Francis Kane (Historical Fiction)
Penelope Fitzgerald’s charming husband is a struggling alcoholic, the London literary magazine they edit together is on the brink of bankruptcy, and she is pregnant with their third child. When she receives a mysterious letter dangling the possibility of an inheritance, Penelope sees a creative and practical lifeline that might save them. Based on Fitzgerald’s momentous 1952 trip to northern Mexico before she was famous, Jessica Francis Kane’s brilliantly imagined FONSECA is both a treasure hunt and a love story.
Penguin Books | 9780593298879

GIRL DINNER by Olivie Blake (Horror/Dark Humor)
Every member of The House --- the most exclusive sorority on campus --- and all its alumni are beautiful, high-achieving and universally respected. After a freshman year she would like to forget, sophomore Nina Kaur knows that being one of the chosen few accepted into The House is the first step in her path to the brightest possible future. Meanwhile, adjunct professor Dr. Sloane Hartley is struggling to return to work after accepting a demotion to support her partner's new position at the cutthroat University. When invited to be The House’s academic liaison, Sloane enviously drinks in the way the alumnae seem to have it all, achieving a level of collective perfection that she so desperately craves. As Nina and Sloane each get drawn deeper into the arcane rituals of the sisterhood, they learn that living well comes with bloody costs.
Tor Books | 9781250883483

I AM YOU by Victoria Redel (Historical Fiction)
At eight years old, Gerta Pieters is forced to disguise herself as a boy and sent to work for a genteel Dutch family. When their brilliant and beautiful daughter, Maria, sees through Gerta’s ruse, she insists that Gerta accompany her to Amsterdam and help her enter the elite, male-dominated art world. While Maria rises in the ranks of society as a painting prodigy, Gerta makes herself invaluable in every way: confidante, muse, lover. But as Gerta steps into her own talents, their relationship fractures into a complex web of obsession and rivalry --- and the secrets they keep threaten to unravel everything.
SJP Lit | 9781638934745

LESSONS IN MAGIC AND DISASTER by Charlie Jane Anders (Fantasy)
Jamie is basically your average New England academic in-training. She has a strong queer relationship, an esoteric dissertation proposal, and inherited generational trauma. But she has one extraordinary secret: she's also a powerful witch. Serena, Jamie's mother, has been hiding from the world in an old one-room schoolhouse for several years, grieving the death of her wife and the simultaneous explosion in her professional life. Jamie is busy digging into a 300-year-old magical book, but she still finds time to teach Serena to cast spells and help her come out of her shell. But Jamie doesn't know the whole story of what happened to her mom years ago. Now it's up to her to understand the secrets behind this mysterious novel from 1749, unearth a long-buried scandal hinted therein, and learn the true nature of magic before her mother ruins both of their lives.
Tor Books | 9781250867339

RETURN OF THE SPIDER: An Alex Cross Thriller by James Patterson (Thriller)
ALONG CAME A SPIDER introduced Detective Alex Cross to readers around the globe and delivered an unsurpassed rivalry: Cross versus Gary Soneji. But that wasn’t their first meeting. Police discover that Soneji kept a murder book, Profiles in Homicidal Genius, detailing his transformation from substitute teacher to hardened serial killer --- including clues that imply missteps that Alex Cross may have made as a rookie homicide detective. Now, Alex must retrace the steps of that long-ago investigation and face…the RETURN OF THE SPIDER.
Little, Brown and Company | 9781538758762

STORYKNIFE by Jess Row (Fiction/Short Stories)
Paperback Original
In his first story collection in 15 years, Jess Row evokes white America --- specifically liberal, educated white Northeasterners --- awkwardly and hilariously poised on the precipice of cultural and global collapse. In “The Empties,” a woman questions if the writing skills she acquired at a liberal arts college can be useful in the face of an apocalypse. In “Summer Song,” a chorus of bourgeois voices sings out its privileged discontent. “Reading Group Guide” satirizes book-club chatter with questions that veer from the absurd to the obscene. Each story turns a lens on its own machinery, exposing the quiet politics encoded in literary convention. Row pierces through the stories white America tells itself --- and the narrative structures that make them seem natural, inevitable and true.
Ecco | 9780062400673

THE UNSEEN by Ania Ahlborn (Domestic Thriller/Horror)
Isla Hansen, a mother reeling from a devastating loss, is beside herself when a mysteriously orphaned child appears on the outskirts of the Hansens’ secluded Colorado property. Although strange and unexplainable, the child’s presence breathes new life into Isla. But as the child settles in, Isla’s husband, Luke, and their five children notice peculiarities that hint at something far beyond the ordinary --- anomalies that challenge the very fabric of reality itself. The tension within the Hansen household grows, and with it, the sense that there is something very wrong with the new kid in the house.
Gallery Books | 9781668057674

WORLD’S OKAYEST ORACLE (RELUCTANTLY) SEEKS DEMON by Olivia Dade (Paranormal Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Gwen Wexloff’s visions invariably involve piddling issues, which means --- unlike most oracles --- she’s spent her life predicting for everyday humans instead of international power brokers. But after a clutch of brain-slurping zombies escapes from their walled-off compound, Gwen experiences the first genuinely world-altering vision of her life…and now she needs help. Unfortunately, that help comes from Hugh Blacke, the same demon who watched her bomb her oracle verification test years ago. To Gwen's dismay, they will need to work together to unravel the deadly conspiracy behind the zombie breach. Even with her newfound power, she couldn't have foreseen how quickly they'd both want more than a simple partnership. But with the fate of humanity at stake, Gwen and Hugh will have to decide how much they’re willing to risk for an unexpected, passionate love.
Berkley | 9780593818220

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