June 17, 2025
In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of June 16th and June 23rd 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 ReadingGroupGuides.com's 14th Annual Book Group Speed Dating event, which is now available for viewing. Last Friday, representatives from eight publishers presented 35 titles perfect for book groups that are being published between now and November.
June 17, 2025
This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we think is a great summer reading selection. Read more about it, and enter our Summer Reading Contest by Wednesday, June 18th at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of SPIRIT CROSSING by William Kent Krueger, a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick that releases in paperback on July 1st. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!
Editorial Content for Jill Is Not Happy
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
College sweethearts Jack and Jill Tingley, an enviable couple from all appearances, seem to have it all. Living the good life --- successful, wealthy, gorgeous --- what more could anyone ask for? They have been together for 20 years. And if you ask Jill, she’ll tell you it’s because they were meant for each other. Jack and Jill, just like the nursery rhyme. How adorable! Read More
Teaser
If you ask Jill Tingley, she’ll tell you that she and her husband, Jack, are college sweethearts living the dream in Southern California. Theirs is an enviable life, though they’ve grown distant in recent years. With their daughter, Maggie, away at college, Jill suggests a road trip to reconnect. Jack would rather do anything else than drive to Utah with his wife. He’s only stayed in this marriage because of a shared secret, a tragedy in the past that he wanted to keep buried. And for his daughter’s sake. But Jack is finished with the charade of his marriage. He’s filing for divorce as soon as they return, no matter what. But he doesn’t realize what else Jill is hiding. So begins a cat-and-mouse road trip as a cunning wife and a reluctant husband match wits and drive each other to the edge.
Promo
If you ask Jill Tingley, she’ll tell you that she and her husband, Jack, are college sweethearts living the dream in Southern California. Theirs is an enviable life, though they’ve grown distant in recent years. With their daughter, Maggie, away at college, Jill suggests a road trip to reconnect. Jack would rather do anything else than drive to Utah with his wife. He’s only stayed in this marriage because of a shared secret, a tragedy in the past that he wanted to keep buried. And for his daughter’s sake. But Jack is finished with the charade of his marriage. He’s filing for divorce as soon as they return, no matter what. But he doesn’t realize what else Jill is hiding. So begins a cat-and-mouse road trip as a cunning wife and a reluctant husband match wits and drive each other to the edge.
About the Book
BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES meets WAR OF THE ROSES in this latest thriller from the USA Today bestselling author of BEST DAY EVER and THE NEXT WIFE, in which an ill-fated road trip resurrects a married couple's darkest secrets.
Some secrets keep a couple together.
If you ask Jill Tingley, she’ll tell you she and her husband, Jack, are college sweethearts living the dream in Southern California. Wealthy, popular and genetically blessed, theirs is an enviable life, though they’ve grown distant in recent years. Newly empty nesting with their daughter, Maggie, away at college, Jill suggests a road trip to reconnect.
Jack would rather do anything else than drive to Utah with his wife. He’s only stayed in this marriage because of a shared secret, a tragedy in the past he wanted to keep buried. And for his daughter’s sake. But Jack is finished with the charade of his marriage. He’s filing for divorce as soon as they return, no matter what.
But he doesn’t realize what else Jill is hiding.
So begins a cat-and-mouse road trip as a cunning wife --- think Ripley in yoga pants --- and a reluctant husband match wits and drive each other to the edge. But everything will be fine. Jill still loves Jack and believes he’s the only one for her. She’ll do anything to keep him. Anything. She always has.
Audiobook available, read by Marnye Young
Editorial Content for Knave of Diamonds: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
In this era of public domain, there has been no literary character more written about in fictional adventures than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. One of the cleverest and best written of these new Holmes series has come from the mind of Laurie R. King, who has had enormous success with her tales starring an older Holmes and his young wife, Mary Russell. Read More
Teaser
When Mary Russell was a child, she adored her black sheep Uncle Jake. But she hasn’t heard from him in many years --- until he presents himself at her Sussex door. Yes, Jake is back, and with a load of problems for his clever niece. Not the least of which is the reason the family rejected him in the first place: He was involved --- somehow --- in the infamous disappearance of the Irish Crown Jewels from an impregnable safe in Dublin Castle. It was a theft that baffled not only the Dublin police and Scotland Yard, but Sherlock Holmes himself. And now, Jake expects Russell to step into the middle of it all? Conflicting loyalties and international secrets, blatant lies and blithe deceptions: sounds like another case for Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.
Promo
When Mary Russell was a child, she adored her black sheep Uncle Jake. But she hasn’t heard from him in many years --- until he presents himself at her Sussex door. Yes, Jake is back, and with a load of problems for his clever niece. Not the least of which is the reason the family rejected him in the first place: He was involved --- somehow --- in the infamous disappearance of the Irish Crown Jewels from an impregnable safe in Dublin Castle. It was a theft that baffled not only the Dublin police and Scotland Yard, but Sherlock Holmes himself. And now, Jake expects Russell to step into the middle of it all? Conflicting loyalties and international secrets, blatant lies and blithe deceptions: sounds like another case for Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.
About the Book
Mary Russell’s allegiances are tested by the reappearance of her long-lost uncle --- and a tantalizing case not even Sherlock Holmes could solve.
When Mary Russell was a child, she adored her black sheep Uncle Jake. But she hasn’t heard from him in many years, and she assumed that his ne’er-do-well ways had brought him to a bad end somewhere --- until he presents himself at her Sussex door. Yes, Jake is back, and with a load of problems for his clever niece. Not the least of which is the reason the family rejected him in the first place: He was involved --- somehow --- in the infamous disappearance of the Irish Crown Jewels from an impregnable safe in Dublin Castle.
It was a theft that shook a government, enraged a king, threatened the English establishment --- and baffled not only the Dublin police and Scotland Yard, but Sherlock Holmes himself. And, now, Jake expects Russell to step into the middle of it all? To slip away with him, not telling Holmes what she’s up to? Knowing that the theft --- unsolved, hushed-up, scandalous --- must have involved Mycroft Holmes as well?
Naturally, she can do nothing of the sort. Siding with her uncle, even briefly, could only place her in opposition to both her husband-partner and his secretive and powerful brother. She has to tell Jake no.
On the other hand, this is Jake --- her father’s kid brother, her childhood hero, the beloved and long-lost survivor of a much-diminished family.
Conflicting loyalties and international secrets, blatant lies and blithe deceptions: sounds like another case for Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.
Audiobook available; read by Amy Scanlon, Jefferson Mays and Steven Crossley
Editorial Content for Her First Mistake
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
HER FIRST MISTAKE is the start of a new series, which is based on a minor character from Kendra Elliot’s Columbia River series. If you have not read those books, rest assured that you still will completely enjoy this novel. Read More
Teaser
Thirteen years ago, Assemblyman Derrick Bell was murdered in his home by an intruder. His wife, Noelle Marshall, was left for dead. The crime was unsolved, but it wasn’t forgotten. Today the FBI is tackling a fresh perspective on the case and looking to Noelle, now a detective for the Deschutes County sheriff’s office, for new clues. It is reopening everything Noelle thought was behind her. Memories of her escape from a traumatic childhood. A marriage that wasn’t the perfect love story she’d been promised. And a husband whose charm and privilege hid a dark side. But Noelle has been hiding something too: a secret about the night Derrick died that she has never told anyone.
Promo
Thirteen years ago, Assemblyman Derrick Bell was murdered in his home by an intruder. His wife, Noelle Marshall, was left for dead. The crime was unsolved, but it wasn’t forgotten. Today the FBI is tackling a fresh perspective on the case and looking to Noelle, now a detective for the Deschutes County sheriff’s office, for new clues. It is reopening everything Noelle thought was behind her. Memories of her escape from a traumatic childhood. A marriage that wasn’t the perfect love story she’d been promised. And a husband whose charm and privilege hid a dark side. But Noelle has been hiding something too: a secret about the night Derrick died that she has never told anyone.
About the Book
When a very personal cold case murder is reopened, a detective’s secrets come to light in a novel of shocking twists and suspense by a Wall Street Journal bestselling author.
Thirteen years ago, Assemblyman Derrick Bell was murdered in his home by an intruder. His wife, Noelle Marshall, was left for dead. The crime was unsolved, but it wasn’t forgotten.
Today the FBI is tackling a fresh perspective on the case and looking to Noelle, now a detective for the Deschutes County sheriff’s office, for new clues. It is reopening everything Noelle thought was behind her. Memories of her escape from a traumatic childhood. A marriage that wasn’t the perfect love story she’d been promised. And a husband whose charm and privilege hid a dark side. But Noelle has been hiding something too: a secret about the night Derrick died that she has never told anyone.
As past and present and leads and misleads collide, one thing is frighteningly clear. Derrick’s murder wasn’t just unsolved. It’s unfinished. And only the truth --- no matter the risk --- can save the next victim.
Audiobook available, read by Stephanie Németh-Parker