August 11, 2026

August 11, 2026

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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of August 10th and August 17th 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 Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks feature for August, which includes Indie Next, LibraryReads, the Barnes & Noble Book Club, the “Good Morning America” Book Club, the PBS Books Readers Club, the “Read with Jenna” Book Club, Reese's Book Club, and the Target Book Club.

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This Week's Bonus News:
Our Favorite Monthly Lists & Picks for August

Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events

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

ON THE MARK: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World by Florence Hazrat (Language Arts/History)
You know the lively exclamation mark, the controversial semicolon, and the often-omitted apostrophe. But would you recognize a percontation point? How about an obelus? In ON THE MARK, Florence Hazrat argues that all punctuation marks, from the most forgotten to the most ubiquitous, are worthy of our attention. After all, the history of punctuation is the history of humankind. The first punctuation mark was a triangular symbol pressed into clay somewhere in Mesopotamia. Spaces between words were unknown for millennia, until a group of Irish monks pioneered them in the eighth century. Across ages and cultures, amid technological revolutions and radical changes in communication, these dots and dashes have reshaped the societies that created them.
Basic Books | 9781541606494 

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 

THEM by W.H. Chizmar (Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction/Horror)
A top-secret government project hits upon a revolutionary idea for transporting matter across the vast reaches of the universe, and it succeeds in bringing something back. Something alive. Soon, mankind’s reign comes to an abrupt halt when a truck hauling a very special shipping container overturns and rolls off the highway, unleashing an otherworldly horror upon an unsuspecting New England countryside. Several years later, an unidentified man emerges from the rubble of humanity. He travels by night up the rural East Coast, discovering Americana ruins and encountering monsters the likes of which no one has survived. Scarred and molded by the cruel horrors of this new natural order, he must face his own dwindling humanity and pray that any others out there have not become monsters themselves.
Gallery Books | 9781668204900

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

On Sale the Week of August 17th in Hardcover

August 17th

DELUSIONAL: A Michael Bennett Thriller by James Patterson and James O. Born (Thriller) 
In New York City, a series of deadly bombs explodes. Across the river, a military base is burglarized for munitions. In Montana, violence and arson rock a small town outside of Bozeman. Are the incidents related? Detective Michael Bennett, army sniper turned NYPD officer Rob Trilling and the ATF investigate. A single-minded group angry with the government keeps turning up in unexpected places, insisting that they’re only trying to make the world a better place. To law enforcement, their claims seem delusional. Will words or gunpowder light the next fuse?
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316569835 

August 18th

THE CALAMITIES by Chuck Wendig (Dark Urban Fantasy/Horror) 
Mourning Mayne knows he’ll one day bear the duty of managing his family’s vast empire of wealth and power. But the feckless Mourning has always struggled to accept this legacy of cruelty, domination and exploitation…and something even darker. Because the Maynes are no ordinary family. Hidden in our world are the fiends --- half-human, half-demon, and possessed of a dark magic born from buying human souls --- and the Maynes are one of the oldest and most influential fiendish families. But when Mourning’s estranged father, the formidable and terrifying Hadrian Mayne, demands that Mourning return to the fold, he has to decide whether to accept his legacy and embrace his role in the family or to forge his own destiny…and, with it, change the course of the world. 
Del Rey | 9798217091812 

FIRST SUMMER by Ekin Oklap (Fiction)
One afternoon at the start of summer, a teenage girl watches a new girl move in across the street. In Clara, she recognizes the same loneliness that she feels herself, but finds tenderness and laughter, too. Over hot, languid days spent talking and reading side by side in the garden, the narrator is awakened to the possibility of a true connection with another human being, free of the self-consciousness she feels with others. Meanwhile, in a distant fictional galaxy, Nadia the space explorer --- the protagonist of a childhood book series beloved by both girls --- traverses the known universe with her companion, Rosa. Their imagined adventures make sense of new and powerful feelings.
S&S/Summit Books | 9781668225790 

GOD'S COUNTRY by William Kent Krueger (Mystery)
Preparing for a family trip into the Boundary Waters, Cork O’Connor is troubled by ominous visions about his future. Ignoring the warnings, he uncovers signs of violence while searching for his missing friend, Cordell Bishop. Soon, he is forced to negotiate with dangerous criminals, the Kennedy brothers, who are seeking their late father’s hidden stash. Facing escalating danger and difficult choices, Cork grapples with his darkest instincts as he helps others escape and eventually takes justice into his own hands.
Atria Books | 9781668231869 

THE LONELIEST TREE IN THE WORLD written by Mariana Salomão Carrara, translated by Alison Entrekin and Julia Sanches (Fiction)
On a small tobacco farm in the south of Brazil, a family of five tries to keep up with the economic tribulations and environmental threats of modern rural life. The father, Carlos, is reckoning with a depression that has hollowed his soul. His wife, Guerlinda, must cope with her husband's mental absence from family life while raising three children. Alice, the eldest daughter, rebels against her mother and traditional gender standards. Her younger sister, Maria, struggles to reconcile her book smarts with the harsh manual labor demanded by the farm. And two-year-old Pedrinho is already being put to work tending the tobacco. As the harvesting and burning season approaches, big tobacco companies, unpredictable conditions and consequences of pesticide treatments threaten the family’s livelihood and mental well-being.
Catapult | 9781646223190 

THE MINIMALIST by Kailee Pedersen (Psychological Thriller/Horror)
As the last and greatest student of famed minimalist composer Ryder Wakefield, Mia Voss’ rise to prominence in the insular world of classical music has long been assured. When Ryder dies unexpectedly, she inherits everything --- including the unfinished manuscript of his final composition. Haunted by memories of her tragic romance with Ryder’s late son, Oliver, Mia leaves her girlfriend behind and returns to Ryder’s home to finish his last work. There, she is forced to confront her complex relationship with Ryder, who hid his Jewish and gay identities to become one of the most important 20th-century American composers; her lingering guilt over Oliver’s suicide; and her own musical ambition as the manuscript begins to exert a disturbing, mesmerizing hold over her.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250328274 

MY SISTER IS GOING TO KILL ME by Nina Simon (Mystery)
Liv and Mandy Chisholm’s yearly sister trip is an attempt to bond as their lives increasingly diverge. This year, they take off for a rafting adventure through the breathtaking depths of the Grand Canyon with a group of strangers. But beyond the terrors of whitewater rapids, sibling squabbles and rogue reptiles, the ferocious beauty of the river carries a darker undercurrent and an unexpected guest: a murderer in their midst. When a fellow traveler is found dead and another corpse hits the water, the rafting trip flips from idyllic sister vacation to high-stakes murder investigation. Every suspect has a secret, every clue is drenched in mystery, and Liv and Mandy can hardly trust each other, let alone their own instincts. 
William Morrow | 9780063478022 

PROMISE ME NEVER by Liv Constantine (Psychological Thriller)
Aspiring writer Savannah’s scheme to meet superstar horror novelist Bennett Bryson turns out better than she ever imagined. Not only does her charming and handsome literary idol offer to read her work, he is instantly smitten with her. After a whirlwind romance, Savannah says “yes” to marriage, and the two settle into Bennett's secluded upstate home. But then cracks appear in her perfect new life. Bennett's behavior becomes dark and controlling. And Savannah cannot escape the shadow of Bennett's first wife, the free-spirited and passionate artist Poppy, who died in a tragic accident but still seems to be Savannah’s rival for Bennett's affection. Then comes an enigmatic warning: Bennett is not who he seems. The women who came before Savannah have disappeared. And Savannah could be next.
Bantam | 9780593875230

THE SALT KING by Natasha Pulley (Apocalyptic Science Fiction/Romance)
Jesuit priest Avelyn Brocken was born into a mining family in Hreodwater, a small, totally isolated salt town in the Fens of England. At age 16, he fled, abandoning his faith in the god of the mine --- the Salt King --- and the mythology that killed his whole family. When a fellow priest is miraculously healed only to then be turned to salt after a visit to Hreodwater, Avelyn is sent by the Vatican to investigate. But in Hreodwater, the town's gentle doctor, Jericho, tells him that the priest is not the only one experiencing strange cures --- and may not be the only one in danger from a substance in the mine that the locals call “salt light.” As salt light spreads, devastating cities around the world, Avelyn must decide what and who to believe --- and if his faith is strong enough to withstand an apocalypse.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781639737291 

THE SECRET DINNER by Raphael Montes (Literary Thriller/Horror)
Dante, Piglet, Miguel and Hugo are your average students trying to make ends meet with part-time jobs, excited about the bright futures at their fingertips. So when their rent skyrockets, they struggle to keep their new lives and big dreams afloat. They need to make money however they can. In order to keep their apartment, the friends adopt an unorthodox plan and are soon sucked into a dark world of secret dinner parties catering to the twisted fantasies of Rio’s elite. What starts as a joke quickly spirals out of their control. As the four friends fall deeper into this dark underworld and earn more money, the stakes get higher and the consequences deadlier, revealing the devious depths that lurk within each of them and threatening not only their friendship but also their lives.
Celadon Books | 9781250442413 

SIREN SAYS by Jennifer Michelle Herrera (Fantasy/Romance)
Twenty-five-year-old Raven Wynn knows that the ancient plant magic running through her veins brings nothing but destruction. It’s the reason she’s now bound by a painful curse --- one that will destroy her if she can’t find a way to break its hold. When her estranged Aunt Delilah bursts into her life promising a cure, Raven seizes the chance. Once her magic is fully unleashed, she is more powerful --- and more dangerous --- than anyone thought possible. In exchange for learning to control her magic, Raven will capture one of the spirits that roam Delilah’s hometown on May’s Eve so that it may grant Delilah’s secret wish. With the help of an enigmatic new friend, Cherry, as well as an infuriatingly handsome stoneworker, Idris, Raven learns that her task is even more perilous than she imagined.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593714386 

STRIP RULES by Martin Limón (Thriller) 
Blackjack pro Ronnie “the Technician” Redfield has his life blown up when a casino owner decides to take him down. Card counting isn’t illegal, but the court battle costs Ronnie his livelihood, his sobriety and his family. His wife is dead, and his teenage daughter, Margot, has disappeared. Now, three years later, he’s just about dug himself out of his hole when his old army buddy, “Wild” Bill Grimsley --- now a casino handler for high rollers --- shows up to drag Ronnie back into the action. Bill has a revenge plot to take down Rodrigo Gwynne, the nastiest, most exploitative casino owner on the Strip. All Ronnie has to do is what he does best: make money off the house. If he succeeds, his share of the take will be enough to get his life back on track --- and hire a detective to track down Margot.
Soho Crime | 9781641298308 

A VERY SPECIAL EPISODE by Camille Acker (Fiction)
Nina Johnson has always taken pride in belonging to The Tenth. Her great-great-grandmother founded the prestigious DC society --- a space for influential African Americans --- just 40 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Nina has been elected to helm the organization, but she is determined to escape the influence of her mother and forge her own path. To realize her ambitions, Nina needs funding. So when a wealthy white benefactor named Sienna Masters offers financial support in exchange for her participation in a mysterious project at a former public housing complex, The Orchard, Nina ignores her initial skepticism and agrees to a partnership. But as Nina and those closest to her piece together Sienna's true motives, they discover far more sinister forces at play.
Random House | 9780593597507 

On Sale the Week of August 17th in Paperback

August 18th

AND THE SEA GAVE UP THE DEAD by William Friend (Psychological Thriller/Horror)
Paperback Original
When Morwenna receives a troubling call from her reclusive Aunt Bethan, she reluctantly returns to the family's crumbling chateau by the French seaside. Bethan has lived there alone for years, ever since her husband vanished in circumstances the locals are still gripped by. Some whisper she killed him. Others claim something older, and far worse, took him. What Morwenna finds is a house warped by grief. And the deeper she digs, the more the chateau seems aware of her presence. Worse, it seems drawn to her children. As strange events escalate, Morwenna must uncover the truth about her uncle's fate and the beings the villagers believe still haunt the estate --- before history repeats itself. Because if the tales are true, something long buried is stirring…and it has been waiting for her family to return.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464259951

AUTOMATIC NOODLE by Annalee Newitz (Science Fiction)
You don’t have to eat food to know the way to a city’s heart is through its stomach. So when a group of deactivated robots come back online in an abandoned ghost kitchen, they decide to make their own way doing what they know: making food --- the tastiest hand-pulled noodles around --- for the humans of San Francisco, who are recovering from a devastating war. But when their robot-run business starts causing a stir, a targeted wave of one-star reviews threatens to boil over into a crisis. To keep their doors open, they’ll have to call on their customers, their community and each other --- and find a way to survive and thrive in a world that wasn’t built for them.
Tordotcom | 9781250450982

AWAKE IN THE FLOATING CITY by Susanna Kwan (Dystopian Fiction)
Bo knows she should go. Years of rain have drowned the city, and almost everyone else has fled. Her mother was carried away in a storm surge, and Bo has been alone ever since. She is stalled: an artist unable to make art, a daughter unable to give up the hope that her mother may still be alive. Half-heartedly, she allows her cousin to plan for her escape --- but as the departure day approaches, she finds a note slipped under her door from Mia, an elderly woman who lives in her building and wants to hire Bo to be her caregiver. Suddenly, Bo has a reason to stay. Mia can be prickly, but they forge a connection deeper than any Bo has had with a client. Then Mia’s health turns, and Bo determines to honor their disappearing world and this woman who has brought her back to it.
Vintage | 9780593687260

THE BLONDE WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD by Ally Carter
(Romantic Comedy/Suspense)
Ten years ago, they joined the CIA. Six years ago, he left the game. Five years ago, they fell in love. One year ago, she ran out into the cold with absolutely no intention of ever coming back. And two minutes ago, they woke up, bloody and bruised and handcuffed together in the dark. They don’t know where they are. They don’t know how they got there. And they have absolutely no idea who is after them or what this nameless, faceless villain wants. The only thing that’s clear is that, after 10 years of covers and chemistry, secrets and lies, these two rival spies have been sucked into their greatest mission yet, and now they’re going to have to team up to stay alive (if they don’t kill each other first).
Avon | 9780063386983

BRAIN DAMAGE by Freida McFadden (Psychological Thriller)
First Publication by Poisoned Pen Press
Dr. Charly McKenna had the perfect life: a thriving dermatology practice, a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park, and a handsome husband who adored her. Until the night a bullet tore through her skull…and stole everything. Now Charly wakes in a rehabilitation hospital unable to walk, speak or remember her own name. All she knows is that someone tried to kill her. As fragments of memory surface, so do unsettling questions about the people around her. The truth of what happened that night lives somewhere inside her brain. And as Charly pieces together the jagged edges of her past, she begins to realize the most terrifying possibility: the person who wants her dead might be the one she once trusted most.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781464249617

THE CRYING KILLER by Jess Lourey (Domestic Thriller)
Paperback Original
Tuesday Hendrickson has spent eight years running from memories of that night. Her sister’s screams. Blood on the walls. And Arsen Bauer, a monster known as the Crying Killer, shot down in a barrage of bullets as he fled. Tuesday changed her last name and moved away. She’s now a private investigator who guards herself and her daughter, Julia, like their lives depend on it. And maybe they do. Because unless she’s imagining things, Tuesday has seen Arsen on the streets of Saint Paul. When bodies begin surfacing bearing the Crying Killer’s brutal and unmistakable signature, Tuesday is certain he’s coming for them. As her paranoia intensifies, she is left with a terrible choice: unearth the shocking secret she buried with her sister, or become the Crying Killer’s next victim.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662531491

HOW TO FIND ROMANCE IN A BOOKSHOP by Poppy Alexander (Romance)
Paperback Original
Petra's career as a literary agent has imploded. Now she is stuck for six months babysitting a little bookshop by the sea. Ross McCloud’s award-winning debut novel blew the minds of the world’s literati, but now he and his keenly awaited second work have vanished. When Petra discovers Ross lurking, incognito, in the secondhand books section, a kinship tentatively forms. She also is finding time to help her new best friend, Jess --- owner of a local telephone box library --- to launch the inaugural Portneath Literary Festival. What better opportunity to put the Festival on the map, says Ross, than for Petra to unveil his second novel to the world there, before relaunching her career representing him at the Frankfurt book fair? But can Petra find the courage to help the man she loves?
Avon | 9780063463424

THE LOST BAKER OF VIENNA by Sharon Kurtzman (Historical Fiction)
In 2018, Zoe Rosenzweig is reeling after the loss of her beloved grandfather, a Holocaust survivor. She becomes obsessed with finding out what really happened to her family during the war. Vienna, 1946: Chana Rosenzweig has endured the horrors of war to find herself, her mother and her younger brother finally free in Vienna. But freedom doesn’t look like they’d imagined it would, as they struggle to make a living and stay safe. Despite the danger, Chana sneaks out most nights to return to the hotel kitchen where she works as a dishwasher, using the quiet nighttime hours to bake her late father’s recipes. Soon, Chana finds herself caught in a dangerous love triangle, torn between the black-market dealer who has offered marriage and protection, and the apprentice baker who shares her passions. How will Chana balance her love of baking against her family’s need for security?
Penguin Books | 9780593830888

OUR LAST WILD DAYS by Anna Bailey (Thriller)
Living in a shack out in the swamps, the Labasques made do by hunting down alligators and other animals. To the good people of Jacknife, Louisiana, they are troublemakers and outcasts, the kind of people you wouldn’t want in your community. So when Cutter Labasque is found face down in the muddy swamp, no one seems to care, not even her two brothers. The only person who questions the official verdict of suicide is Cutter’s childhood friend, Loyal May, who has just returned home to care for her mother. When she left town at 18 years old, she betrayed Cutter. Now with a ragtag group from the local paper where she works, Loyal goes in search of answers, uncovering a web of deceit and corruption that implicates those in town.
Atria Books | 9781982157203

PARKIE by Michael S. Bregman (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Stanley and Ernie are best friends who couldn’t be more unalike. The common denominator holding their friendship together besides skateboarding is selling drugs to the affluent scions of Manhattan’s Upper East Side at the Central Park Bandshell. As Stanley and Ernie come of age, they claim Bandshell as their turf and transform it into their own personal fiefdom. But as their influence grows, the pair must decide which lines to cross --- or not. While Ernie forges one path, Stanley discovers tarot and the Aleister Crowley system of Magick. He becomes obsessed with the dark side of mysticism and withdraws from all vestiges of morality. Meanwhile, the 1980s unfold while Stanley and Ernie carry on as formidable players --- until ill-fated events ensue and everything reaches a breaking point.
Seventh Street Books | 9781645061618

THE POSSESSION OF ALBA DÍAZ by Isabel Cañas (Gothic Thriller/Horror)
In 1765, plague sweeps through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancé, Carlos, to his family’s isolated mine for refuge. But she begins suffering from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking and violent convulsions. She senses something cold lurking beneath her skin. Something angry. Something wrong. Elías, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune and escape his family’s legacy of greed. Alba, as his cousin’s betrothed, is none of his business. Which, of course, is why he can’t help but notice the growing tension between them every time she enters the room…and why he notices her deteriorate when the demon’s thirst for blood gets stronger. In the fight for her life, Alba and Elías become entangled with the occult, the Church, long-kept secrets and each other.
Berkley | 9780593641088

ROSE IN CHAINS by Julie Soto (Fantasy/Romance)
The war is over, the dark forces have won, and the hero who was supposed to save them is dead.  Captured as her castle is overrun by the enemy, the world as Briony Rosewood knows it is changed forever. Evil has won, and her people face imminent servitude, imprisonment or death. Stripped of her Magic and her freedom, Briony and the other survivors are quickly sold off to the highest bidders in an auction --- and as Evermore's princess, she fetches the highest price. After a fierce bidding war, she’s sold to none other than Toven Hearst, scion of a family known for their cruelty. Yet despite the horrors of her new world and the role she must learn to play within it, all is not lost. Help --- and hope --- may yet arise in the most unlikely of places.
Forever | 9781538771235

THE SOCIETY OF UNKNOWABLE OBJECTS by Gareth Brown (Fantasy/Thriller)
The world of unknowable objects --- magical items that most people have no idea possess powers --- has been quiet for decades. But the three current members of a secret society have remained watchful, meeting every six months in the basement of a bookshop in London. They are pledged to protect their archive of magical items hidden away, safe from the outside world --- and the world safe from them. But when Frank Simpson, the longest-standing member of the Society of Unknowable Objects, hears of a new artifact coming to light in Hong Kong, he sends Magda Sparks to investigate. Within hours of arriving in Hong Kong, Magda is confronted by a professional killer who seems to know all about unknowable objects, specifically one that was stolen from him a decade before. Magda is forced to flee, using an artifact that not even the rest of the Society knows about.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063324046

SPREAD ME by Sarah Gailey (Science Fiction/Horror)
Kinsey has the perfect job as the team lead in a remote research outpost. She loves the isolation and the way the desert keeps temptations from the civilian world far out of reach. When her crew discovers a mysterious specimen buried deep in the sand, Kinsey breaks quarantine and brings it inside. But the longer it's there, the more her carefully controlled life begins to unravel. Temptation has found her after all, and it can't be ignored any longer. One by one, Kinsey's team realizes the thing they're studying is in search of a new host --- and one of them is the perfect candidate.
Tor Nightfire | 9781250445742

THAT NIGHT by Gillian McAllister (Domestic Thriller)
First Publication in the US
On vacation in Europe, Frannie makes two urgent phone calls. One to her sister, and one to her brother. The siblings come running, and they find their sister covered in blood, kneeling over an unmoving body. There’s been an accident: Frannie has hit a man with her car, and she needs their help. They bury the body, and they make a promise. They’ll never tell anyone. But when the police come calling, the siblings’ lies start to spiral. They begin to doubt their trust in each other. What really happened that night? And who will be the first to crack?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063488953

THE UNSTOPPABLES by David Biro (Crime Fiction)
Paperback Original
Soon after Ivy League-educated physician Richard Kline returns to his hometown of Bay Ridge to take over his father’s medical practice, his dreams of a steady, conventional life begin to crumble. His wife leaves him; health insurance vultures have descended on his practice; a mysterious Russian woman becomes his new bookkeeper; and a patient holds him at gunpoint in his own waiting room. Kline seeks help from two long-lost childhood friends: Sal Bondini, the son of a notorious mob boss, and Sean O’Toole, a police officer at the local precinct. As boys, the three friends were constantly up to their necks in trouble. As adults, they now may be in over their heads.
Regalo Press | 9798895656259

WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE? by Sophie Kinsella (Fiction)
Eve is a successful novelist who wakes up one day in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there. Her husband explains that she has had an operation to remove the large, malignant tumor growing in her brain. As Eve learns to walk, talk and write again --- and as she wrestles with her diagnosis, and how and when to explain it to her beloved children --- she begins to recall what’s most important to her: long walks with her husband’s hand clasped firmly around her own, family game nights, and always buying that dress when she sees it. Recounted in brief anecdotes, each one is an attempt to answer the type of impossible questions recognizable to anyone navigating the labyrinth of grief.
Dial Press Trade Paperback | 9798217199846

WHAT HUNGER by Catherine Dang (Horror)
The thought of her brother, Tommy, leaving for college fills Ronny Nguyen with dread, as she contemplates the quiet house she will be left alone in with her parents, Me and Ba. They rarely speak of their past in Vietnam, except through the lens of food. In the aftermath of the war, Me and Ba taught Ronny and Tommy that meat was a dangerous luxury, a symbol of survival that should never be taken for granted. But when tragedy strikes, Ronny's world is upended. Her sense of self and her understanding of her family are shattered. A few nights later, at her first high school party, a boy crosses the line, and Ronny is overtaken by a force larger than herself. This newfound power comes with an insatiable hunger for raw meat, a craving that is both a saving grace and a potential destroyer.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668065587

WRECK by Catherine Newman (Fiction/Humor)
If you loved Rocky and her family on vacation on Cape Cod, wait until you join them at home two years later. (And if this is your first meeting with this crew, get ready to laugh and cry --- and relate.) Rocky, still anxious, nostalgic and funny, is living in Western Massachusetts with her husband, Nick, and their daughter, Willa, who's back home after college. Their son, Jamie, has taken a new job in New York, and Mort, Rocky’s widowed father, has moved in. It all couldn’t be more ridiculously normal…until Rocky finds herself obsessed with a local accident that only tangentially affects them --- and with a medical condition that, she hopes, won’t affect them at all.
Harper Perennial | 9780063453920

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