September 15, 2026

September 15, 2026

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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of September 14th and September 21st that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to our current Word of Mouth contest. Let us know by Friday, September 25th at noon ET what books you’ve read, and you’ll have a chance to win HOLLYWOOD, ENDING by John Green (which releases on September 22nd) and THE PIRATE QUEEN by Ariel Lawhon (which is now available).

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This Week's Bonus News:
Bookreporter.com's Word of Mouth Contest
Win a Copy of HOLLYWOOD, ENDING by John Green
and THE PIRATE QUEEN by Ariel Lawhon

Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events

On Sale the Week of September 14th in Hardcover

September 15th

THE BIG CATS DANCE PARTY: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (27) by Alexander McCall Smith (Mystery)
Botswana sometimes feels like a small town, so when a client wanders into the detective agency, it comes as little surprise that Mma Ramotswe has met him once before. But Mr. B has not made the trip to Gaborone for pleasure. The animal rescue center he runs, Elephant Havens, is in peril. Someone in the surrounding villages is tarnishing its reputation, and Mr. B cannot fathom why. Determined as ever to aid a noble cause, Mma Ramotswe, her trusted associate Mma Makutsi, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni travel to Maun to restore the community’s trust in the sanctuary. In navigating this precarious situation and others in THE BIG CATS DANCE PARTY, Mma Ramotswe and her associates once again must rely on their compassion, gentle humor and good sense to win the day.
Pantheon | 9798217207480 

BODIES OF MAGIC by Freya Marske (Dark Fantasy)
At the Academie of the Grand Duchy of Sieuxerr, every mage with the healer’s gift has five years to master their power and to prepare for the infamous Grand Exam --- a five-day trial whose results will determine their entire future. The list of exam rules includes: You will perform five practical cases. Your exam group is chosen at random. You pass together, or fail together. It does not include: On the first day, your exam group will find a classmate's dead body in the exam hall. And as they will soon discover, this particular group all have something to hide...and all have a connection with the dead girl, a brilliant scholar who would have been first in their class.
Tor Books | 9781250341655 

THE BOOKSHOP WOMAN: My Year Transforming Lives — One Book at a Time written by Nanako Hanada, translated by Cat Anderson (Memoir)
Nanako Hanada is a passionate book lover who manages the Village Vanguard, an iconically eccentric bookstore in Tokyo. But her story takes a turn with the breakdown of her marriage. Spending her nights alone in Tokyo's four-hour capsules, she’s finding herself rather isolated. That's until Nanako finds the meet-up site Perfect Strangers, where people meet for 30-minute bursts to find friendship or romance, build a network, or just share ideas. She sets up her profile promising to recommend people “the book that will change their life.” In the ensuing year, Nanako meets hundreds of people, a ragtag range of strangers who happen to believe in the power of a great book.
Tiny Reparations Books | 9798217045556 

THE CHILD written by Fernando Aramburu, translated by Will Vanderhyden (Fiction) 
Based on a real-life school explosion near Bilbao that killed 50 children in 1980, THE CHILD follows one family --- parents, grandparents, and the lost boy of the novel’s title --- through the long, painful arc of grief. Fernando Aramburu’s gift lies in his ability to portray ordinary people with extraordinary humanity: small gestures, fleeting thoughts, contradictory impulses, the quiet heroism of resilience. The grandfather who refuses to believe the boy is gone; the parents determined to “be strong;” the town that both remembers and forgets --- each is rendered with exacting truth and tenderness in careful, and caring, prose.
Europa Editions | 9798889662082 

CONFRONTING AMERICA: What Has to Change by Bill O'Reilly and Josh Hammer (Political Science/History) 
America remains the world’s greatest land of opportunity, but too many Americans have lost sight of the values that made it work. Patriotism and civic responsibility have weakened. Families and schools too often fail to teach discipline, character and personal responsibility. Hard work and self-reliance are losing ground to entitlement and dependency. Drugs, destructive popular culture and social media are doing real damage. In CONFRONTING AMERICA, Bill O’Reilly argues that the answer is not nostalgia or another government program. It is a return to informed citizenship, strong families, honest education, meaningful work, generosity, self-respect, and a willingness to put country and community ahead of self. His central challenge is straightforward: “Americans need to wise up.”
St. Martin's Press | 9781250374073 

DEAD BEAT by Leigh Bardugo (Supernatural Thriller/Dark Fantasy)
Alex Stern made it to hell and back more than once, but this time she left the door open behind her. Demons are creeping through the streets of New Haven and the Yale campus, feeding on the souls of the living and terrifying the dead. Alex and her allies can hunt them, but it’s only a matter of time before the gates to the underworld open and they face a war they cannot win. To stop it, they’ll have to reach deep into the secrets of Yale and its societies, and discover the truth hidden in Alex’s own blood. While she struggles to hold onto the dream of a future Yale once offered, Alex must contend with the machinations of a corrupt Lethe Board and a deadly vampire with his own connection to the societies.
Flatiron Books | 9781250884312 

EXIT PARTY by Emily St. John Mandel (Dystopian/Speculative Mystery)
Los Angeles, 2031: The first spring after the collapse of the United States, peacekeeping troops withdraw from the city, the Jacaranda trees blossom, and the curfew is finally lifted. Ari Waker and her roommate pass the gauntlet of bomb-sniffing dogs, the shanty towns, and the Red Cross tents as they walk across Silverlake to a party. The mood is ecstatic. But then a bewildered twin, an uncanny doppelgänger, stumbles through the crowd and out into the night, and Kareem, the party’s host, vanishes into thin air. As Ari unravels the mystery of this inexplicable night, Emily St. John Mandel unfurls a story that takes us from a future America splintered by civil war to the seaside cliffs of Greece where weapons dealers hide in an elegant resort, and from the domed city of Paris to a colony on the moon.
Knopf | 9780593321461 

FALLING FOR PEACHTREE BLUFF by Kristy Woodson Harvey (Fiction)
Caroline has never been happier. The family business is thriving, her kids are great, and her sister Emerson’s hunky costar has absolutely swept her off her feet. But when her not-quite-ex-husband decides it’s high time he begged Caroline for a second chance, she is thrown into the midst of a love triangle she never saw coming. Matriarch Ansley and her new husband, Jack, have finally hit their stride. But when a scandal rips through Peachtree Bluff --- and Jack just might be at the center of it --- Ansley is left questioning if the man she has loved since she was 16, the man she fought so hard to be with, is actually who she thought he was at all.
Gallery Books | 9781668219300 

THE GATES OF MIDNIGHT: A Novel of the Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (Historical Fantasy)
In this riveting conclusion to the saga of The Golem and the Jinni, it’s 1930 and three decades have passed since wizard Yehudah Schaalman’s defeat. Chava the golem quietly tends to her house and garden in Brooklyn, hoping to create a refuge for other magical beings. Meanwhile, Ahmad has found employment as an architect in Chicago, helping to build its towering skyline above the prairie. But all is not well in the desert. Schaalman has managed to trick an unsuspecting passerby into digging up the flask, and now it passes from hand to hand as the wizard possesses his victims --- first a French soldier traveling to New York, then a small-time mobster --- all in an effort to get to Chava, the only one who can release him from his prison.
Harper | 9780062468680 

HOLLOW BONES by Jodi Picoult (Fiction)
On September 11, 2001, when Molly Fitzgerald was only two months old, her mother went to an appointment at the World Trade Center and never came home. Her father and the stepmother who raised her couldn’t have loved her more, but she still grew up with a healthy dread of disasters. Now an adult, Molly runs the Rhode Island Department for Emergency Preparedness, mapping out ways to save lives during storms, epidemics and airplane crashes. She and her husband, Jesse --- a police polygraph expert with his own history of crisis --- have found a love that is a solace in a dangerous world. But then the unexpected upends their new marriage, leading them both to question everything they thought they knew.
Ballantine Books | 9780593726259 

THE NEWER WORLD by Sebastian Barry (Historical Fiction)
Born into bondage in Union-leaning northwest Tennessee, Tennyson Bouguereau spends his days working the tobacco fields of a small farm, avoiding any action that might drive his pro-Confederate neighbors to the kind of unprovoked violence that killed his mother. But when, in the wake of emancipation, a gang of defeated rebels descends on the farm, his choice to defend it and the people within makes Tennyson a wanted man. Now he will not have the chance to till the 10 acres he and his sister, Rosalee, have been given as their own. Instead, he must leave the relative safety of the only home he’s known and venture into the newer world.
Viking | 9780593654613 

OUR NOBLE SELVES by Kate Atkinson (Historical Mystery)
When crime correspondent turned war reporter Harry Flynn returns to Britain from Singapore in 1945, he takes a quiet job with the Festival of Britain, a government-funded endeavor aimed at celebrating the nation’s creativity, grit and ingenuity. There, he joins a team of misfits and eccentrics as they help to ready the Festival for launch. When a Frenchwoman goes missing, Flynn becomes the central suspect in her disappearance --- and possible murder. He was the last person to see her alive, yet he has no memory of the evening they spent together. As evidence against him mounts, Flynn begins to wonder if he actually might be to blame. To make matters worse, he is surrounded by people who have their own secret agenda.
Doubleday | 9780385551168 

PROOF OF PROGRESS by Elizabeth Castellano (Fiction/Humor) 
Maria Astorini, once a popular character actress and a late-night talk show darling, is having a moment. The B-list actress has survived deaths, divorces, a famous mother, a Hollywood blacklist, a string of public embarrassments, an aging face, financial ruin, an empty nest, a difficult best friend, and a pandemic. Now, she’s back and bigger than ever. A small, unexpected role has heightened her celebrity status and propelled her, at age 65, into the limelight. And then, along comes the call Maria has spent decades avoiding. It’s her publisher asking, “Where is that book?” In a series of bite-sized anecdotes, she candidly recalls her past, chronicling the significant and insignificant moments of her full, funny and extraordinarily unpredictable life.
Harper | 9780063490277 

THE QUEEN OF BAD INFLUENCES: Stories by Jim Shepard (Historical Fiction/Short Stories) 
In these stories spanning six centuries, we find viscerally evoked worlds as wildly diverse as a mercenary’s corner of 16th-century Madrid, a young apprentice’s pre-Revolutionary Boston, and Edward Hyde’s London. With civil engineers and destitute veterans, we encounter the devastating 1935 Labor Day hurricane in Florida, and we read the 1864 letters between Lucy in Boon, North Carolina, and her great love, William, on the march in Tennessee. The title story introduces us to the stubborn Constance, who had “no gift for flirtation” with men, preferring Minna, her best friend and “queen of bad influences,” as their vexed devotion unfolds in part on the liner Lusitania.
Knopf | 9780593804414 

REDWOOD: The Untold Story of the Cold War's Most Extraordinary Spy by Ben Macintyre (History)
In 1981, KGB Major Vladimir Kuzichkin, codenamed “Redwood,” was the best Soviet officer in Iran, running spies in the wake of the Islamic revolution and working with a hidden network of Iranian communists to undermine the new regime. But Kuzichkin had a problem, a sexual secret that, if revealed, would humiliate him with his colleagues, cost him his job, and send him into exile. Desperate for a solution, he reached out to the only place he believed could help: Britain’s MI6. So begins one of the most astounding true spy stories of the Cold War, set against the terrifying prospect of nuclear armageddon. In REDWOOD, Ben Macintyre unfolds a world in turmoil, where no one’s motive is what it seems, and exposure means death.
Crown | 9780593728123 

THE ROUSE by China Miéville (Historical/Supernatural Thriller) 
Maur’s life has been shaped by loss: an apparently ordinary tragedy. But in its aftermath arise deeper, stranger questions. Their answers may lie within the dark heart and darker history of an old soldier who shares Maur’s obsessions and who is violently pursued by the same unknown, unquiet forces. So begins a book unlike any other: at once an encyclopedic and multitudinous saga of a bloody century and the intimate story of two lives, their loves, regrets and secrets --- and a terrifying journey into infinite mystery.
Del Rey | 9780399181092 

SOMETHING OF A CALLING by Zoje Stage (Psychological Thriller/Horror)
Detective Andy Cooper is about to retire and isn't sure what's next. She'll need to do something, if only to distract herself from how empty her life has become. Everything changes when bodies begin to turn up. Murdered, but how? Not by knife, gun or any obvious weapon. Instead: teethmarks. Chunks missing. Like they'd been chewed on. And not by humans. As she's struggling to solve her final case, an unexpected new friendship seems like just what Andy needs. Where she is detached from life, Fiona embraces it. Where she is a homebody, Fiona roams. Yet the women are drawn together by a shared love of nature and wildlife. Until Andy learns the dark truth behind Fiona's smile. A secret that threatens to unravel the world as she knows it.
Blackstone Publishing | 9798228496903 

STORY TELLING: A Writing Life by Isabel Allende (Memoir)
In this deeply personal and insightful book, Isabel Allende delves into her creative process, reflecting on nearly half a century of writing that has captivated millions of readers worldwide. For Allende, writing is more than a craft. It is an addiction, a means of preserving memory, and a way to make sense of life. She offers readers an intimate glimpse into her creative world, where stories take shape through intuition, discipline and deep connection to the human experience. It is also a glimpse into the life of a writer who views literature as a portal to understanding the chaos of life.
Ballantine Books | 9798217094639

TERRESTRIAL written by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Christina MacSweeney (Essays)
In this new collection of genre-defying stories by Cristina Rivera Garza, a woman visits what she thinks could be her old lover's hometown after being abandoned by her years earlier. Two herons hitchhike across Mexico. A group of workers build a new home, only to see it destroyed by the state. With little baggage and much bravado, the characters in TERRESTRIAL hitchhike, migrate, take trains, wander or, at times, fly to survive the mandates of patriarchy and capitalism. On dusty roads or by a lake turned suddenly ominous, they remain in close contact with the earth's surface, sensing its wild promise and capacity for violence, its degradation and enduring beauty.
Hogarth | 9780593980088 

THE THOROUGHBREDS by Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham (Fiction)
September at Tiffin Academy is always a heady time, especially for the senior class --- “sixth formers,” in Tiffin-speak. As the chapel bells ring in students and staff, everyone has something to look forward to. But nagging questions and dark secrets lurk beneath the surface. Are Tiffin’s It Couple, Charley and East, on the rocks? What sparked the rift between football star Dub and his best friend, Hakeem? Will Pippa Sacks, posh day student, topple the delicate social hierarchy --- or wreak even worse havoc? Can Head of School Audre Robinson save her job --- and the school --- after a disastrous financial mistake? And what was in that email attachment Cinnamon Peters sent to Dub before she died? 
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316567916 

WE CHASE SHADOWS: A We Solve Murders Mystery by Richard Osman (Mystery)
At sunrise, high in the Italian hills, a body is found on the steps of a beautiful private villa. On the body is a threatening note, signed by a mystery man. Back at We Solve Murders HQ, Amy, Rosie and Steve leap at the chance to take on their first proper case. So what if their new client seems to have his own reasons for avoiding the police? All they need to do is uncover who left the note and then find them. Simple. But once they start digging, the suspects keep piling up: there’s Sweden’s most-wanted criminal, a canny ex-wife and a fierce business rival --- yet the murderer keeps evading them. And as the trio chase a villain through the shadows, danger travels closer to home.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9798217060399 

On Sale the Week of September 14th in Paperback

September 15th

BREAD OF ANGELS: A Memoir by Patti Smith (Memoir)
“God whispers through a crease in the wallpaper,” writes Patti Smith in this moving account of her life. A post–World War II childhood unfolds in a condemned housing complex where we enter the child’s world of the imagination. Smith, the captain of her loyal and beloved sibling army, vanquishes bullies, communes with the king of tortoises, and searches for sacred silver pennies. The most intimate of Smith’s memoirs, BREAD OF ANGELS takes us through her teenage years where the first glimmers of art and romance take hold. Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan emerge as creative role models as she begins to write poetry and then lyrics, ultimately merging both into the songs of iconic recordings such as Horses, Wave and Easter.
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9781101910177

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS by Lisa Unger (Mystery/Thriller)
Madeline Martin is the young owner of a thriving business, The Next Chapter Bookshop. When Harley Granger, a failed novelist turned true crime podcaster, drifts into her shop in the days before Christmas, he seems intent on digging up events that Madeline would much rather forget. She’s the only surviving victim of Evan Handy, the man who was convicted of murdering her best friend, Steph, and is suspected in the disappearance of two sisters, also good friends of Madeline’s. Since Evan Handy went to jail, three other young women have gone missing, most recently a young college dropout named Lolly. Five young women missing in the same area in a decade. Are they connected? Was Evan Handy innocent after all? Or was there someone else there that night? Someone who is still satisfying his dark appetites?
The Mysterious Press | 9781613168448

DREAM COUNT by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fiction)
Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until --- betrayed and brokenhearted --- she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America --- but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.
Vintage | 9780593688625

A FIELD GUIDE TO DEATH AND DECEIT: A Harry & Emma Mystery by Michelle L. Cullen (Mystery)
Paperback Original
When an odd request leads Harry Lancaster to agree to meet his former sweetheart, Willow, at a farm on the outskirts of town, Emma’s suspicions run high, and she insists on joining him. Instead of Willow greeting them when they arrive, they discover the farm's owner dead, with a corn rake embedded in his back. After being interrogated by the police, Harry and Emma return to his home to find a bereft Willow, who admits she lost her life savings in a real estate scam involving the farm. To bring the swindlers --- and murderer --- to justice, Harry recruits his potentially shady, financial-whiz brother and a neighborhood teenage hacker. Then Willow’s realtor is declared missing, and Harry’s brother is caught up in the fray. 
Crooked Lane Books | 9798892426794

FINDING FREEDOM: A Cook's Story; Remaking a Life from Scratch by Erin French (Memoir)
Long before The Lost Kitchen became a world dining destination with every seating filled the day the reservation book opens each spring, Erin French was a girl roaming barefoot on a 25-acre farm, a teenager falling in love with food while working the line at her dad’s diner, and a young woman finding her calling as a professional chef at her tiny restaurant tucked into a 19th-century mill. This singular memoir --- a classic American story --- invites readers to Erin's corner of her beloved Maine to share the real person behind the “girl from Freedom” fairy tale, and the not-so-picture-perfect struggles that have taken every ounce of her strength to overcome, and that make Erin’s life triumphant.
Celadon Books | 9781250312358

GRIM TIDINGS by B.K. Borison (Paranormal Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Darcy Moore is tired of death. Which would be fine and good...if she wasn’t a Grim Reaper. Determined to outrun her designation as the villain, Darcy decides she won’t be dragging her next assignment to the underworld. She’ll be saving him instead. Unfortunately for Darcy, there’s a complication in her plan. Guardian Angel Gabriel Aetos doesn’t tolerate threats to his little corner of the world, and a Grim Reaper showing up at his bar is as deadly as it gets. But when he realizes Darcy is not as she seems, Gabriel must decide if he can trust his growing feelings or hold on to his long-standing grudge. But magic doesn’t come without consequences. And the Department of Hauntings & Spirits eventually will come calling for their missing Reaper.
Avon | 9780063430464

HOT WAX by M.L. Rio (Thriller)
Summer, 1989: Ten-year-old Suzanne is drawn like a magnet to her father’s forbidden world of electric guitars and tricked-out cars. When her mother remarries, she jumps at the chance to tag along on the concert tour that just might be Gil and the Kills’ wild ride to glory. But as the band blazes up the charts, internal power struggles set Gil and his group on a collision course destined for a bloody reckoning. The only witness to a desperate act of violence, Suzanne spends the next 29 years trying to disappear. She trades the music and mayhem of her youth for the quiet of the suburbs and the company of her mild-mannered husband, Rob. But when her father’s sudden death resurrects the troubled past she tried so hard to bury, she leaves it all behind and hits the road in search of answers.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668070031

KING SORROW by Joe Hill (Supernatural Thriller/Horror)
College student Arthur Oakes' idyll --- and burgeoning romance with Gwen Underfoot --- is shattered when a local drug dealer and her partner corner him into one of the worst crimes he can imagine: stealing rare books from the college library. Trapped and desperate, Arthur turns to his closest friends for comfort and help. Together they dream up a wild, fantastical scheme to free Arthur from the cruel trap in which he finds himself. Wealthy, irrepressible Colin Wren suggests using the unnerving Crane journal (bound in the skin of its author) to summon a dragon to do their bidding. But there’s nothing simple about dealing with dragons, and their pact to save Arthur becomes a terrifying bargain in which they must choose a new sacrifice for King Sorrow every year --- or become his next meal.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062200617

THE LAST WITCH by C. J. Cooke (Supernatural Thriller/Historical Horror)
Innsbruck, 1485. Helena Scheuberin should be doing what every other young wife is doing: keeping house, supporting her husband, and bearing his children. But as an outspoken, strong woman, she sometimes has difficulty fitting in. Then she draws the unwanted attention of a malign priest who is just starting his campaign to root out “witches” from among the women of her town. And when her husband’s footman dies, she finds herself accused not only of murder but of witchcraft. Helena must find the courage to risk her life and the lives of others by standing up to a man determined to paint her as the most wicked of all.
Berkley | 9798217187812

LIFE AND ART: Essays by Richard Russo (Essays)
Richard Russo’s masterful new essays consider how life and art inform each other and how the stories we tell shape our understanding of the world around us. In “The Lives of Others,” Russo reflects on the implacable fact that writers use people, insisting that what matters, in the end, is how and for what purpose. In “Stiff Neck,” he writes of the exasperating fault lines exposed within his own family as his wife’s sister and her husband --- proudly unvaccinated --- develop COVID. In “Triage,” he details the terror of seeing his seven-year-old grandson in critical condition. And in “Ghosts,” he revisits Gloversville, the town that gave rise to the now-legendary fictional town of North Bath, and confronts the specter of its richly populated past and its ghostly present.
Vintage | 9780593688274

THE ME I USED TO BE by Kristan Higgins (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Back in senior year, Audrey, Micah, Jasmine and Beck were the Core Four: the lucky one, the beautiful one, the smart one, the sporty one. They had color-coded dreams, inside jokes, and a lifelong friendship they thought would last forever. But graduation night ended in a tragic accident, followed by the kind of silence that stretches for decades. Now, they’ve returned for their reunion, each carrying a life that looks nothing like the glossy future they imagined. There are stalled careers, complicated marriages, outspoken adult children, and secrets that never fit into holiday cards. For one of them, a diagnosis of early-onset dementia turns the weekend into a ticking clock.
Lake Union Publishing | 9781662537998

MOTHER MARY COMES TO ME by Arundhati Roy (Memoir)
“Heart-smashed” by the death of the mother she ran from at age 18 and shaken by the intensity of her response, Arundhati Roy began this remarkable memoir --- a soaring account, both intimate and inspiring, of how the author became the person and the writer she is: shaped by circumstance but above all by her relationship to her extraordinary, singular mother Mary, who she describes as “my shelter and my storm.” With the scale, sweep and depth of her novels, and the passion, political clarity and warmth of her essays, MOTHER MARY COMES TO ME is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace.
Scribner | 9781668094723

ONE SPLIT SECOND by Robert Dugoni (Thriller)
Paperback Original
Detective Tracy Crosswhite is assigned to defend an old friend. Sheriff Jenny Almond has been charged with first-degree murder for shooting an unarmed veteran on a stormy night of confusion, paranoia and split-second choices. Tracy is certain there’s more to the story of Anthony Alvarez’s killing --- and her investigation draws her back to a cold case that still haunts the community. More than 40 years ago, Alvarez was the prime suspect in the unsolved disappearance of a teenage babysitter. The lead investigator, Jenny’s late father Buzz Almond, always believed Alvarez had been framed. Decades later, his suspicions of a conspiracy are driving Tracy to find answers.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781662524752

THE PREDICAMENT: A Gabriel Dax Novel by William Boyd (Historical Thriller)
1963, Guatemala. The country is in turmoil, with a presidential election looming and a charismatic, left-wing ex-priest and trade union leader predicted to win. United Fruits, a giant American corporation responsible for a large percentage of the country’s GNP, is not pleased by this prospect. Neither is the CIA. Amid the uncertainty, Gabriel Dax arrives on orders from his MI6 handler, Faith Green, who has tasked him with assessing the fallout from the election. Upon arrival, Gabriel meets Frank Sartorius, the local CIA agent. Despite Sartorius’ genial manner, Gabriel suspects something untrustworthy brewing under the surface. Soon, a political assassination with suspicions of Mafia involvement leads to riots. But when Green compels Gabriel to investigate some shady characters in West Berlin, it becomes clear that an even greater danger is afoot.
Atlantic Crime | 9780802168528

THE RIGHTEOUS by Ronald H. Balson (Historical Fiction)
By the end of 1943, nearly all of Europe’s Jewish population had fled, been deported, captured or killed by Hitler. Only Hungary, and its almost 900,000 Jews, remained free from Hitler’s subjugation. That changed in March 1944, after the Nazi defeat at Stalingrad, as an avaricious Hitler conquered Hungary and declared his plan for mass extermination of the Jewish people. In THE RIGHTEOUS, Theresa Weissbach, a professor at the University of Michigan, hasn’t heard from her parents in Budapest for over a year. Her best friend, Julia Powers, who recently was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for her OSS service in occupied Holland, joins her to locate and rescue Theresa’s family. Julia, Theresa and their colleagues take enormous risks in an effort to save thousands of innocent lives.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250373106

THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT written by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Martin Aitken (Fiction)
Kristian Hadeland, young and ambitious, has moved to London to study photography. He knows that he and his art are destined for more. His family never understood him, and his fellow photography students bore him. But when he meets Hans, an eccentric Dutch artist, the future he yearns for becomes possible --- as long as he is willing to sacrifice everything and stop at nothing. Twenty-four years later, Kristian sees his dreams come to fruition when a major retrospective of his work is held in New York City. As his past catches up to him, Kristian’s world begins to crumble. Success comes at a price, but is he prepared to pay it?
Penguin Books | 9780593832820

SOMEBODY IS WALKING ON YOUR GRAVE: My Cemetery Journeys written by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell (Travel Memoir/Essays)
Mariana Enriquez has been fascinated by the haunting beauty of cemeteries since she was a teenager. She has visited them frequently, a goth flaneur taking notes on her aesthetic obsession as she walks among the headstones, “where dying seems much more interesting than being alive.” But when the body of a friend’s mother who disappeared during Argentina’s military dictatorship was found in a common grave, Enriquez began to examine more deeply the complex meanings of cemeteries and where our bodies come to rest. In this rich book of essays, Enriquez travels through North and South America, Europe and Australia, investigating the history and architecture of various cemeteries, their saints and ghosts, their caretakers and visitors, and, of course, their dead.
Hogarth | 9780593733530

THANK YOU FOR REMEMBERING by Emily Harding (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
Growing up, Marnie Stephens believed that destiny was real and the universe had a plan. But at 30, real life has become more difficult than divine. Especially when Marnie wakes up at a hospital in Boston with no memory of how she got there...or the last year of her life. Her doctor tells her she suffered a head injury; her boyfriend, Matt, insists they broke up months ago; and her hair is somehow eight inches shorter. Before she knows it, she finds herself in an apartment she doesn’t remember with a new neighbor, Ben Morgan, she’s sure she won’t forget. As Marnie sets out to retrace the last year of her life, the last thing she needs is to start falling for Ben, the grumpy (and incredibly attractive) neighbor helping her. But the universe has other plans.
Gallery Books | 9781668225202

TOMLINSON’S WAKE: A Doc Ford Novel by Randy Wayne White (Thriller/Adventure)
In the wake of a killer hurricane, Doc Ford heads to Honduras, where his best friend, Tomlinson, crashed his beloved sailboat into a reef off the Mosquito Coast. Tomlinson swears he died in the shipwreck and was brought back to life by a runaway orphan --- the direct descendant of the last king of the ancient Mayan people. Corrupt politicians want the child out of the picture before he catalyzes a revolution among the Indigenous population. But the boy has gone underground with the help of Tomlinson and a network of street urchins. They're all on the run and in the crosshairs when Ford arrives and picks up his friend’s trail. What no one is prepared for, however, is a cataclysmic earthquake that hits the area with the impact of a meteor that nearly destroyed all life on earth more than 60 million years ago.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335001146

WINSTON AND THE WINDSORS: How Churchill Shaped a Royal Dynasty by Andrew Morton (Biography)
In WINSTON AND THE WINDSORS, Andrew Morton, one of the world’s best-known biographers and a leading authority on celebrity, presents a meticulously researched joint biography of Winston Churchill and the House of Windsor. Throughout the course of his career and life, Churchill’s connection to the Windsors fluctuated wildly. At times, he was the royal family’s trusted confidant. At others, he was their leading antagonist. In exploring the complex dynamic between the two, Morton argues that, regardless of whether the attitudes of the royal family were warm or icy toward Churchill, their relationship was central to the 20th-century history of the British monarchy.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335003041

THE WOMEN by Kristin Hannah (Historical Fiction)
Women can be heroes. When 20-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path. As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. But the real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250178640

THE WRITER by James Patterson and J. D. Barker (Psychological Thriller)
NYPD Detective Declan Shaw gets a call: How fast can you get to the Beresford building on Central Park West? In the tower apartment, Shaw finds two people. One of them is famous. One of them is dead. And only one of them knows the ending to this story. Is it the victim or the killer? 
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316580755

On Sale the Week of September 21st in Hardcover

September 21st

THE MUNICH AFFAIR by James Patterson and David Ellis (Historical Thriller)
Spanning a century, THE MUNICH AFFAIR is set in motion by the murder of Adolf Hitler's young lover by his own hand. A determined detective, Thomas Bauer, obsessively pursues Hitler --- putting Bauer’s Jewish wife and children in grave danger. A courageous journalist, Fritz Gerlich, writes story after story detailing the murder --- making Gerlich a target for Hitler’s Gestapo. An American professor, Eleanor Robbins, picks up the trail of evidence from present-day Neo-Nazis guarding the Führer’s long-held secrets to the death.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316404099 

September 22nd

AVALON, RISE by Madeline ffitch (Fiction)
Ditched on the side of the road, two friends shelter for the night in a barn. When they wake, one comes face to face with his destiny --- an antique letterpress, the Vandercook No. 4. Woody and Leroi have been friends their whole lives. But as Leroi falls in with the collective that cooks every Sunday in the park, learning about traveler symbols and how to slice a cucumber, Woody starts to snort the pills he’s been selling. He makes his art: beautiful letterpress signs for protests, and business cards commissioned by a woman he knows as Stasia but whom others know to be the leader of a white nationalist movement. Stasia bought the barn with the Vandercook in it; she says Woody can use it anytime. What does she want in return?
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374617769

CLOUD SIX by Amy Fusselman (Fiction/Dark Humor) 
Following a catastrophic plane crash, married couple Mam and Bunko have found themselves in Cloud Six. It's the newest --- and lowest --- tier of heaven, run by a slumlord demon named Widdershins who takes the form of an underwear model. With a rabbit skeleton as their guide, the pair do their best to remain hopeful and together in their quest: to navigate the strangest of places, to find help, and to catch even one glimpse of the teen daughter they left behind. While Mam and Bunko try to accept their fate, Widdershins navigates workplace politics and tries to impress an ex-lover. And Amy, who appears in the book as our guide and scribe, grapples with how to tell an honest story with Satan breathing down her neck.
Catapult | 9781646223480 

DIE FAMOUS by Michael Koryta (Historical Thriller) 
On the day Savannah Cody spots her first gray hair, she decides it’s time to murder the father of her only child. Edward “Nickel” Terhune is the getaway driver for the Brady Gang, one of the FBI’s most wanted criminals. Dragging her son, Alford, and her father, Wendell, a retired railroad detective, along for the quest, Savannah embarks to find the man she once loved and the nation now fears, journeying across an America transformed by the Great Depression. But Alford --- and soon, the FBI --- notices that the closer the family gets to Nickel, the less clear Savannah’s motivations seem to be. As the Brady Gang races to escape the law (or get rich trying), Nickel realizes he might not be able to outrun his mistakes.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316535991 

DOUBLE TAP: A Mitch Rapp Novel by Don Bentley (Political Thriller)
Mitch Rapp signed up to be an assassin, a lone wolf who hunts and kills his nation’s enemies on their turf. Now, he has a new mission. When Mitch’s target --- a Pakistani chemical weapons scientist for hire --- is snatched from the streets of Verona, the American assassin must penetrate the jihadi cell responsible for the brazen kidnapping before they can make use of the scientist’s deadly expertise. But Mitch isn’t the only one interested in the scientist. The Pakistani represents an existential threat --- a  threat that will fray alliances, force enemies to seek common ground, and resurrect long-settled vendettas. As the events triggered by the kidnapping cascade out of control, Mitch must stop the chain reaction before the Middle East reaches critical mass.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781668045916 

THE FIRST SCARLET DOOR: A 4MK Thriller by J.D. Barker (Thriller)
Before he was known as the Four Monkey Killer, he was just a boy trying to survive. Charleston, 1999. Fifteen-year-old Anson Bishop didn't mean to kill --- not the first time, anyway. Raised by parents who taught him that murder was simply survival, Anson thought he'd escaped his dark past when his home burned and his mother vanished with stolen mob money. He was wrong. Someone is hunting Charleston's forgotten children --- runaways, the addicts, the ones no one will miss. When the few people Anson has come to care about vanish into the night, he discovers a truth more horrifying than anything his parents taught him: there are monsters in the world far worse than the one he sees in the mirror.
Hampton Creek Press | 9798999350947 

HOLLYWOOD, ENDING by John Green (Fiction)
For rising talents Kai Laramie and Juniper Castillo, being cast in the buzzy biopic Andy Warhol Never Gets Old is the opportunity they’ve both been waiting for. They’re on the verge of breaking out, and maybe even falling in love. Soon, the movie is blowing up, and so are their lives --- in exciting, but also terrifying, ways. John Green artfully blends a behind-the-scenes Hollywood love story with an unflinching examination of the insatiable attention economy. Told through dual points of view, the novel brilliantly juxtaposes the on-screen study of Warhol’s life at the dawn of celebrity culture with the intimate struggles of two young people figuring out who they are, both together and alone.
Dutton | 9780525426073

INCARNATE by Alma Katsu (Psychological Thriller/Techno-Horror)
Dorothy Wagner has spent her whole life wanting nothing more than to be seen. But after failing to make her mark as an influencer, she takes a job working for a brilliant coder whose company is focused on cutting-edge deepfake technology. And there, in secret, is where she creates her salvation. Isabella. An impossibly gorgeous girl who takes social media by storm. Dorothy's artistry is brilliant, and Isabella seems so real that she garners millions of followers. But everybody knows that overnight success doesn’t just happen. And when someone gets a little too close to the truth, a violent confrontation sends Dorothy on the run, forcing her to confront what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep her secrets.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9798217177707 

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PLAYERS: What I've Learned from Baseball's Best by Peter Gammons (Sports)
Peter Gammons is the preeminent baseball writer of his generation. Nearly every significant figure in the game has shared stories with him. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PLAYERS reveals what Gammons has learned from those greats about baseball and life. He details the emergence of Latin and Asian players in Major League Baseball and the symbiotic relationships between manager and general managers, catchers and pitchers, and second basemen and shortstops. He recalls his chance childhood meeting with Roger Maris as he was falling in love with baseball. He speaks to the marriage between rock n' roll and baseball, and tells the story of how Ted Williams claimed he could smell the wood burning on his bat after smoking line drives to the outfield.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538777206

IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK by Clare Mackintosh (Psychological Thriller)
Nadeeka is certain Jamie is having an affair. She knows the tell-tale signs. She's been here before. When Jamie claims to be at work late, she knows he's lying. He's with another woman, and she's determined to catch him in the act. But when Nadeeka arrives home to confront him, Jamie can't explain himself. The house has become a crime scene. Jamie is dead. You think you know the people you love. You think you know who you can trust. You think you know how the story ends. It’s not what you think.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781464266003 

MAZYWOOD by Tananarive Due (Literary Thriller/Horror)
When Johnny --- a filmmaker and grandson of the famous Black actress Mazelle Washington --- brings his family to Mazywood, the secluded California mountain lodge left behind by his grandmother, he expects a quiet retreat. Instead, he uncovers a legacy of rage, secrets and terror that has haunted his family for generations. As a young Black actress, Mazelle brushed shoulders with giants like Lena Horne, Clark Gable and Hattie McDaniel. But beneath her public appearance, she carried a secret she had kept and nurtured since she was a child, when a dark wish came true and changed the course of her life forever. Now, 50 years after Mazelle’s death, Johnny finds himself confronting the truth she buried --- and the consequences she left behind.
S&S/Saga Press | 9781668075142 

MURDER AT THE GRAND ALPINE HOTEL: A Miss Marple Mystery by Lucy Foley (Historical Mystery)
High in the Swiss Alps, accessible only by a single, winding railway, stands the luxurious Grand Alpine Hotel. With glorious mountain views and exclusive access to powdery slopes, it draws guests from far and wide. The notorious actress. The high-flying politician. The society wife. The reckless friend. The shrewd doctor. But not everyone is here for a winter holiday. Beneath the champagne and furs, dark histories simmer. Old grudges emerge like cracks in the ice. And someone is watching from the shadows. A polite, unassuming woman with an extraordinary mind: Miss Marple. When a body is found and a blizzard cuts off all escape, only Miss Marple can connect the clues before the killer strikes again. Because it isn’t a question of who has a motive, but who’s next.
William Morrow | 9780063376694 

MURDER ON THE SACRED RIVER: A Lady Emily Mystery by Tasha Alexander (Historical Mystery)
1908: Lady Emily and her husband, Colin Hargreaves, are vacationing in India at Ahilya Fort, the old home to the Maharaja’s family, when a man is found shot along the Narmada River. Emily and Colin jump into action, but their suspect list is large. 1740: Fifteen-year-old Ahilyabai has been married to the son of Malharrao Holkar, the Lord of the Malwa territory, for seven years. Now the time has finally come to produce an heir. But though Ahilya’s in-laws have shown her nothing but kindness, her notoriously drunken husband remains a mystery to her. Her sense of loyalty is tested as she attempts to balance fulfilling her duty with forging her own destiny. Her decisions will have ripple effects across time --- including Lady Emily’s investigation almost 200 years later.
Minotaur Books | 9781250375018 

ROCK*: A Mainstream Alternative History of Alternative Mainstream Music by Chuck Klosterman (Speculative Nonfiction)
The Velvet Underground & Nico was released in the spring of 1967. For decades, the cliché has been that it initially only sold 10,000 copies, though everyone who bought it supposedly started a band. It is the definition of a record whose influence outstrips its mass popularity. But what if the opposite had transpired? What if instead of selling 10,000 copies, it had sold…10 million copies? What if it had sold 100 million copies? What would have happened if the Velvet Underground had inexplicably become the biggest group in the history of popular music, and everything about the rest of the 20th century was merely a footnote to that phenomenon? Chuck Klosterman has generated a fictitious universe where almost everything is different, except for the songs.
Da Capo | 9780306837999 

THE STRANGERS by Naomi Alderman (Fiction)
A few months after her mother dies, the novelist Naomi Alderman sets up a wildlife camera in the back garden of her parents’ home. It captures the first image of a strange new animal. Suddenly these “mimmoths” are as common as foxes or dogs. And no one knows where they’ve come from. As Alderman negotiates the territory of grief, the mimmoths spread. They seem harmless but oddly intelligent. Alderman cannot shake the feeling that she has a particular connection to the creatures. As the impact of the mimmoths increases, she is pulled into the cross currents of conspiracy theories and global power struggles. Have her deeply personal forms of mourning lent recent events a surreal air, or is our reality changing drastically and irrevocably?
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316594776 

SWAN SONG: Diana, my sister by Charles Spencer (Memoir)
In September 1997, Charles Spencer stood in Westminster Abbey before a watching world and shared his grief at losing his beloved sister, Diana. Now, nearly 30 years later, he tells the astonishing story of his life with Diana and the tragic week of her death. In childhood, Charles and Diana, the youngest Spencers, were inseparable. Yet everything changed when Diana married the Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, and overnight became a global icon. Charles saw his older sister serve the world’s marginalized and relish being mother to her treasured sons. But, pursued by a barbaric press as her royal marriage crumbled, she was left desperately alone. Charles always tried to be there for Diana --- until that black night in August 1997.
Penguin Press | 9798217379743 

TRUE NORTH: On the Road in Canada by Paul Theroux (Travel/Memoir)
For more than half a century, Paul Theroux has traveled the globe and chronicled its far corners with curiosity, wit and an unflinching eye. With TRUE NORTH, he turns that eye to a country that has long been his quiet neighbor: Canada. What begins as the completion of a North American road trip trilogy becomes something more personal. Theroux meets his Quebcois friends and relations, then travels more widely through remote villages, multicultural cities and sweeping landscapes that have defined modern Canada. Along the way, he speaks with farmers, refugees, writers like John Irving and Michael Ondaatje, and Indigenous leaders such as Tanya Talaga, listening as Canadians reckon with identity, belonging and patriotism.
Mariner Books | 9780358451303

AN UNEXPECTED LIFE: A Memoir by Gloria Steinem (Memoir)
Before she became a feminist leader, Gloria Steinem was a curious child: going on road trips with her itinerant father, caring for her mother, and devouring every book she could find. In AN UNEXPECTED LIFE, she reflects on the unlikely experiences and pivotal moments --- from a childhood rat bite that opened her eyes to the dangers of poverty to the 1970 Women’s March honoring the right to vote --- that shaped the visionary woman she would become. Steinem shares her years living in India, learning from the nonviolent movement there, and her travels around the world advocating for women’s rights. Along the way, she honors the people who influenced her most, including trailblazers, writers and thinkers who expanded her understanding of power, community, justice and solidarity.
Random House | 9780593978177 

On Sale the Week of September 21st in Paperback

September 22nd

AT LAST by Marisa Silver (Historical Fiction)
Helene Simonauer and Evelyn Turner are two formidable women whose paths cross when their children marry. Both women are sharp, cunning and unwavering in their conflicting beliefs about marriage, responsibility, family and, most pressingly, their efforts to vie for the love of their shared granddaughter. Weaving together the lives of Helene and Evelyn --- from their vastly different childhoods through the pivotal events that define them --- AT LAST paints a vivid portrait of the American Midwest, capturing the essence of a time and place where societal norms and personal aspirations often clashed.
Simon & Schuster | 9781668078976

BAD BAD GIRL by Gish Jen (Historical Fiction)
Gish’s mother, Loo Shu-hsin, is born in 1924 to a wealthy Shanghai family. Her beloved nursemaid is torn from her even as she is constantly reprimanded: “Bad bad girl! You don’t know how to talk!” Sent to a modern Catholic school by her progressive father, she receives not only an English name --- Agnes --- but a first-rate education. Agnes finds solace in books and, in 1947, announces her intention to pursue a PhD in America. As the Communist revolution looms, she sets sail --- never to return. Lonely and adrift in New York, she begins dating Jen Chao-Pe, an engineering student. But by the time Gish is born, the news from China is proving inescapable; their marriage is foundering; and Agnes recapitulates the harshness of her own childhood.
Vintage | 9780593689653

BETWEEN CHAPTERS: How I Started Over, Took Some Chances, and Found the Plot by Zibby Owens (Memoir)
Paperback Original
In BETWEEN CHAPTERS, Zibby Owens offers a front-row seat to her decade of reinvention as she goes from being an Upper East Side stay-at-home mom of four to a divorced and remarried “book-fluencer,” author, publisher, award-winning podcaster and bookstore owner. Laugh alongside Zibby as she shares moments like messing up “the birds and the bees” talk, getting stuck climbing an inflatable raft at her kids’ sleepaway camp, and traveling with her new love. Join her in the forty-something trenches as she gains and loses weight, gains and loses friends, makes a zillion mistakes, and finds ways to turn grief, divorce pain, communal tragedy and the anticipation of an empty nest into moments of connection.
Zibby Publishing | 9781968506902

BLACK BAG by Luke Kennard (Fiction/Humor)
A penniless and out-of-work actor picks up a job working for Dr. Blend, a university professor who is conducting a psychological experiment. How will Dr. Blend’s students react to someone zipped into an oversized bag, sitting at the back of the lecture hall over a series of Fall lectures? The role, eagerly accepted, soon has unexpected consequences. A professor of post-humanism develops research questions of her own --- in particular, can you love someone secreted away inside a black bag? --- and the actor’s childhood friend forms a vision for monetizing this new situation.
Zando | 9781638937388

CIRCLE OF DAYS by Ken Follett (Historical Fiction)
Seft, a talented flint miner, walks the Great Plain in the high summer heat to witness the rituals that signal the start of a new year. He is there to trade his stone at the Midsummer Fair and to find Neen, the girl he loves. Joia, Neen’s sister, is a priestess with a vision and an unmatched ability to lead. As a child, she watches the Midsummer ceremony and dreams of a miraculous new monument, raised from the biggest stones in the world. But trouble is brewing among the hills and woodlands of the Great Plain. Joia’s vision of a great stone circle, assembled by the divided tribes of the Plain, will inspire Seft and become their life’s work. But as drought ravages the earth, mistrust grows between the herders, farmers and woodlanders --- and an act of savage violence leads to open warfare.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538772782

CLIVE CUSSLER QUANTUM TEMPEST: A Novel of the Oregon Files by Mike Maden (Thriller/Adventure)
There’s a tempest brewing in Central America. A government crackdown on cartels leaves most of the drug lords locked up in an impregnable prison. In response, Amador Fierro, a brilliant, tech-savvy crime boss, forges the seven largest cartels into an allegiance called La Liga. If they are to defeat the U.S.-led offensive, they will need a powerful weapon. Thus is born Project Q: an Artificial General Intelligence computer that, when finished, will grant Fierro such overwhelming control of America. Chairman Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon are the only ones standing in his way, but they have their own problems. While two members of the team are unreachable in the Darien Gap searching for an Iranian Quds Force base, the Oregon crew have a mole in their midst. Meanwhile, other dark forces are at play.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9798217044283

THE EX-WIVES MURDER CLUB by Mette Ivie Harrison (Domestic Thriller/Dark Humor)
For Meg (wife #1), Jenny (#2) and Amelia (#3), the term “a woman scorned” isn’t strong enough. They want more than revenge for the years of their life they wasted with their pitiful excuse for a husband. They want him dead. As they carry out their lethal plan, they soon realize they’re thinking too small. What about all the other men (and women) who cause immeasurable suffering and get away with it? Thus “the business” is born. A dazzling new female-owned venture that will change the course of their lives --- and shorten many others! And for Meg and Jenny, it could allow them to experience a love they never thought possible.
Severn House | 9781448319022

FREE FALLING: A Sweetwater Peak Novel by Lyla Sage (Paranormal Romance/Western)
Paperback Original
Clarke Cartwright runs Toade’s Antiques, which is no small feat, especially considering that the roof is in shambles and half her merchandise is unsellable. But dealing with that feels easier than her other option: chatting it up with the ghost of her childhood crush’s father. Leith Wilkes has spent his life preparing to take over his family’s farm. Well, he’s actually spent most of his life flirting, but now he’s ready to buckle down, which has nothing to do with an oddly specific clause that his dad left in his inheritance. Leith is pretty sure he’s the only one who knows about it…until Clarke drunkenly spills that she knows, too, along with a bunch of other Wilkes family secrets. Leith starts to wonder if there’s more to Clarke than she lets on --- and if his dad has something to do with it.
Dial Press Trade Paperback | 9780593977798

GABRIËLE written by Anne Berest and Claire Berest, translated by Tina Kover (Historical Fiction)
Paris, 1908. At the height of the Belle Époque, Gabriële Buffet --- a brilliant young musician fresh out of Europe’s most elite conservatory --- meets Francis Picabia, a charismatic and explosive Spanish painter. Their intense love affair plunges them into a Paris alive with artistic experimentation and social rebellion. Soon after, Gabriële meets the enigmatic Marcel Duchamp. Before long, the three have embarked on a passionate and unconventional relationship that will define their personal stories --- and in the process reshape modern art. As Europe moves from exuberance to upheaval, and World War I looms, Gabriële, Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp and their milieu challenge every convention: about marriage, sexuality, authorship and artistic freedom.
Europa Editions | 9798889661924

THE GIRL FROM DEVIL’S LAKE: A Brady Novel of Suspense by J. A. Jance
(Mystery/Thriller)
Sheriff Joanna Brady is looking forward to the holidays with her busy family and celebrating her daughter’s graduation from the police academy. But the family is interrupted when a body is discovered beneath a flooded bridge in the Arizona desert. A young boy was murdered, and the details of the crime scene tell Joanna that this was not the killer’s first murder. As Joanna digs deeper into the case, she uncovers unlikely connections between cases of mysterious deaths and missing persons, having long since gone cold, that extend far beyond the confines of her small town and include the discovery of a body near Devil’s Lake, North Dakota. To get justice for the victims and to save the town of Bisbee from a predator, Joanna must chase down every dangerous lead.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063252646

IF A FACE COULD KILL: A Brigid Quinn Thriller by Becky Masterman (Domestic Thriller)
Former FBI agent Brigid Quinn hasn’t forgiven herself for the testimony that led to young mother Nicole Gleason being convicted for the manslaughter of her abusive husband. Now out of jail early on parole, Nicole is living in a group home for felons in Brigid’s Arizona neighborhood. But while Brigid hopes to make amends with Nicole, not everyone in the community is happy to have criminals on their doorstep. When outspoken local resident Dorita Gordino is grotesquely murdered, suspicion soon falls on Nicole. Brigid is determined to catch Dorita’s killer and prove Nicole’s innocence --- even if it means one of her own darkest secrets comes to light.
Severn House | 9781448318988

THE MAN NO ONE BELIEVED: The Untold Story of the Georgia Church Murders by Joshua Sharpe (True Crime)
In 1985, a white man walked into a South Georgia church and brutally murdered Harold and Thelma Swain, two pillars of the area’s Black community. The killer vanished into the night. For 15 years, the case remained unsolved. Then authorities zeroed in on Dennis Perry, a carpenter who grew up nearby. Convicted with devastatingly flawed evidence, Perry received a double life sentence. When award-winning journalist and South Georgia native Joshua Sharpe retraces the case, he discovers a winding path of corruption, devastating missteps and secrets. He eventually uncovers explosive evidence that helps prove Perry’s innocence. And he confronts a long-ignored suspect: an alleged white supremacist who had bragged about committing the murders. But the fight for the truth is not easily won.
W. W. Norton & Company | 9781324130550

MOROCCO by Norah Labiner (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Chicago, the turn of the 21st century. Our narrator --- always there and never entirely present --- recounts her decades-long relationship with the heiress Katherine Stern. Through the years since boarding school, she has seen Katherine as a daughter who wants for nothing but respect from her psychotherapist father, as a woman with a kind but fortune-hunting fiancée, and as a mystery even more confounding than the gothic horror stories she evaluates from the slush pile at her job. Sometimes, despite their estrangement, she has even seen Katherine as a friend. Inspired by the classic story WASHINGTON SQUARE by Henry James, Norah Labiner reimagines the prolific tale.
Melville House | 9781685892852

NASH FALLS by David Baldacci (Thriller)
Walter Nash has a very high-level position at Sybaritic Investments, where his innate skills and dogged tenacity have carried him to the top of the pyramid in his business career. However, following his estranged Vietnam-veteran father’s funeral, Nash is unexpectedly approached by the FBI in the middle of the night. They have an important request: become their inside man to expose an enterprise that is laundering large sums of money through Sybaritic. At the top of this illegal operation is Victoria Steers, an international criminal mastermind that the FBI has been trying to bring down for years. Nash has little choice but to accept the FBI’s demands and try to bring Steers and her partners to justice. But when Steers discovers that Nash is working with the FBI, she turns the tables on him in a way he never could have contemplated.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538758007

ONE OF US by Dan Chaon (Historical Thriller)
It’s 1915, and life is falling apart for 13-year-old twins Bolt and Eleanor. When their mother dies, they are forced to leave home under the care of a vicious con man who claims to be their long-lost uncle Charlie. During a late-night poker game, when one of his rages ends in murder, they decide to flee. Salvation arrives in the form of Mr. Jengling, founder of the Emporium of Wonders. He adopts Bolt and Eleanor, who travel by train across the vast, sometimes brutal American frontier with their new family, watching as the exhibitions spark amazement wherever they go. But as Bolt falls in deeper with their new clan, he finds Eleanor pulling further away from him. And when Uncle Charlie picks up their trail, the twins find themselves facing a peril that will forever alter the trajectory of their lives.
Holt Paperbacks | 9781250411662

PICKET LINE: The Lost Novella and Two New Stories by Elmore Leonard (Historical Fiction)
Chino and Paco Rojas seem well-mannered, at least for Chicanos, to the white cops who pull them over for littering on the long drive from California to Trinity, Texas. So well-mannered, in fact, that Captain Frank McKellan lets them off with a warning and recommends them a job at Stanzik Farms, the largest independent melon grower in the area. But Chino and Paco didn’t drive all this way for work. Instead, Chino is looking for a mysterious man, Vincent Mora, whose new Valley Agricultural Workers Association is causing a scene striking against the farm owners. Stanzik’s fields and Mora’s union bring together a cast of unlikely characters. Some are neighbors, others are just passing through. Some know each other well, or at least thought they did…before the picket line.  
Mariner Books | 9780063389380

SECOND NATURE by Joyce Carol Oates, writing as Rosamond Smith (Psychological Thriller)
Celebrating 40 years of pseudonymous suspense from Joyce Carol Oates
Four decades ago, Joyce Carol Oates penned her first novel of psychological suspense under the name “Rosamond Smith.” In the Smith books, Oates explored themes of betrayal and deception, lust and murder, through stories involving twins, doubles and hidden second identities. Hard Case Crime is proud to bring these extraordinary works of crime fiction back into print in definitive double editions, each pairing two complete novels and two never-before-collected Oates short stories. In this volume, a model suburban husband grows obsessed with a beautiful stranger in DOUBLE DELIGHT, while an eminent professor preys on a vulnerable student in NEMESIS --- and the echoes continue in the rare short stories “A Girl Worth Twenty Million” and “First Death.”
Hard Case Crime | 9781835415467

A SLOWLY DYING CAUSE: A Lynley Novel by Elizabeth George (Mystery)
Michael Lobb has just been found dead on the floor of his family’s tin and pewter workshop. It’s suspicious enough that his body was found by a representative of Cornwall EcoMining, a company keen on acquiring his family’s land, and it’s made even worse when he’s revealed to have been the majority owner of the business and the sole obstacle preventing a deal from being made. But it doesn’t take long for Inspector Beatrice Hannaford to unearth the layers of estrangement that surrounded Michael in his final days. In comes Kayla, a young woman who has just been made his widow. Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers are brought in to help solve the crime and search for justice in a community where lust, greed and family traditions collide with devastating consequences.
Penguin Books | 9780593493601

TIME OF THE CHILD by Niall Williams (Historical Fiction)
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean that he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father's shadow and remains there, having missed one chance at love --- and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man. But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy's lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter's lives, the understanding of their family and their role in their community are changed forever.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781639737581

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO LORI LOVELY? by Sarah McCoy (Historical Fiction)
In 1969, 23-year-old starlet Lori Lovely shocks the world by ditching a promising film career to take vows as a Benedictine nun. The media can’t get enough of the story. Why would such a beautiful girl take the veil? Did it have anything to do with her costar, heartthrob singer Lucas Wesley? In 1990, history student Lu Tibbott decides to dig into a true 20th-century mystery for her senior thesis and write about her aunt Lori, now the Mother Abbess at a cloistered convent in rural New England. For decades, Mother Lori has refused all requests for interviews --- until Lu arrives with a tape recorder in hand. To Lu’s delight, Mother Lori is finally ready to talk...but only if Lu is truly ready to listen.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063338753

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