Skip to main content

December 12, 2023

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of December 11th and December 18th 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 End-of-the-Year Contest featuring Carol Fitzgerald’s Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2023. One Grand Prize winner will be awarded all 44 books, while 11 other readers will receive four of these titles. The deadline for your entries is Friday, January 12th at noon ET.

December 12, 2023

This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we know people will be talking about this holiday season. Read more about it, and enter our Holiday Cheer Contest by Wednesday, December 13th at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of THE BERRY PICKERS by Amanda Peters --- the 2023 Barnes & Noble Discover Prize winner, one of three finalists for the Carnegie Medal for Fiction, and an upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On pick. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!

Jonathan Santlofer is an author and artist whose new thriller, THE LOST VAN GOGH, releases on January 2nd and is a stand-alone sequel to 2021’s THE LAST MONA LISA. This time, he spins a riveting tale based on rumors that Van Gogh completed a final self-portrait before his death, one that has since been lost to time --- or the black market. Before Jonathan became a writer, he studied art and was a painter, so he tends to have a visual memory and sees his favorite gift books in images. Here, he looks back on a few unforgettable books he has been gifted, including one he received as a Christmas present that is among his all-time favorites.

Jonathan Santlofer

Jonathan Santlofer is a writer and an artist. His debut novel, THE DEATH ARTIST, was an international bestseller translated into 17 languages, a People Magazine "Page-Turner of the Week," and is currently in development at FOX, along with his second and third novels. His fourth novel, ANATOMY OF FEAR, won the Nero Award for best crime novel of 2009. Jonathan created the Crime Fiction Academy as The Center for Fiction.

The author of six young adult novels, Ashley Elston will make her adult fiction debut on January 2nd with the release of FIRST LIE WINS, an upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On title. This cat-and-mouse thriller is about a picket-fence Southern belle living a double life as a professional con woman. As a youngster, Ashley and her entire family would spend Christmas Eve nights at a family member’s house, which sounds like the best kind of sleepover. In her holiday blog post, Ashley looks back fondly on the book that her grandfather would read to all the kids each year before Santa came down the chimney. It’s a clever twist on a beloved holiday classic and produced one of Ashley’s favorite memories.

Ashley Elston

Ashley Elston worked for many years as a wedding photographer before turning her hand to writing. She lives in Louisiana with her husband and three sons. Elston has written six young adult novels; FIRST LIE WINS is her adult debut.

Editorial Content for The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Jana Siciliano

Apocalypse Now is regarded as one of the best anti-war films ever made. Based on Joseph Conrad’s HEART OF DARKNESS, it tells the story of one military man’s mission to locate a veteran who has gone mad, giving in to the craziness of jungle life in the name of finding a more authentic and honored way of life. In Francis Ford Coppola’s cinematic version, the war is Vietnam, the soldier is played by a young Martin Sheen, and the madman in the jungle is played by Marlon Brando. Read More

Teaser

Francis Ford Coppola is one of the great American dreamers, and his most magnificent dream is American Zoetrope, the production company he founded in San Francisco years before his gargantuan success, when he was only 30. Through Zoetrope’s experimental, communal utopia, Coppola attempted to reimagine the entire pursuit of moviemaking. Now, more than 50 years later, despite myriad setbacks, the visionary filmmaker’s dream persists, most notably in the production of his decades-in-the-making film and the culmination of his utopian ideals, Megalopolis. Granted total and unprecedented access to Coppola’s archives, conducting hundreds of interviews with the artist and those who have worked closely with him, Sam Wasson weaves together an extraordinary portrait.

Promo

Francis Ford Coppola is one of the great American dreamers, and his most magnificent dream is American Zoetrope, the production company he founded in San Francisco years before his gargantuan success, when he was only 30. Through Zoetrope’s experimental, communal utopia, Coppola attempted to reimagine the entire pursuit of moviemaking. Now, more than 50 years later, despite myriad setbacks, the visionary filmmaker’s dream persists, most notably in the production of his decades-in-the-making film and the culmination of his utopian ideals, Megalopolis. Granted total and unprecedented access to Coppola’s archives, conducting hundreds of interviews with the artist and those who have worked closely with him, Sam Wasson weaves together an extraordinary portrait.

About the Book

The New York Times bestselling author of FIFTH AVENUE, FIVE A.M. and THE BIG GOODBYE returns with the definitive account of Academy Award-winning director Francis Ford Coppola’s decades-long dream to reinvent American filmmaking, if not the entire world, through his production company, American Zoetrope.

Francis Ford Coppola is one of the great American dreamers, and his most magnificent dream is American Zoetrope, the production company he founded in San Francisco years before his gargantuan success, when he was only thirty. Through Zoetrope’s experimental, communal utopia, Coppola attempted to reimagine the entire pursuit of moviemaking. Now, more than 50 years later, despite myriad setbacks, the visionary filmmaker’s dream persists, most notably in the production of his decades-in-the-making film and the culmination of his utopian ideals, Megalopolis.

Granted total and unprecedented access to Coppola’s archives, conducting hundreds of interviews with the artist and those who have worked closely with him, Sam Wasson weaves together an extraordinary portrait. Here is Coppola, charming, brilliant, given to seeing life and art in terms of family and community, but also plagued by restlessness, recklessness and a desire to operate perpetually at the extremes.

As Wasson makes clear, the story of Zoetrope is also the story of Coppola’s wife, Eleanor Coppola, and their children, and of personal lives inseparable from artistic passion. It is a story that charts the divergent paths of Coppola and his co-founder and onetime apprentice, George Lucas, and of their very different visions of art and commerce. And it is a story inextricably bound up in the making of one of the greatest, quixotic masterpieces ever attempted, Apocalypse Now, and of what Coppola found in the jungles of the Philippines when he walked the razor’s edge. That story, already the stuff of legend, has never been fully told, until this extraordinary book.

Audiobook available, read by Timothy Andrés Pabon

Editorial Content for The Kingdom of Sweets: A Novel of the Nutcracker

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Rebecca Munro

Erika Johansen, the bestselling author of the Queen of the Tearling series, returns with her first stand-alone novel, THE KINGDOM OF SWEETS. And just in time, too, since this dark, atmospheric fantasy retells Tchaikovsky’s holiday classic, “The Nutcracker.” Read More

Teaser

Light and dark. This is the cursed birthright placed upon Clara and Natasha by their godfather, Drosselmeyer. Charming Clara grows into a life of beauty and ease, while Natasha is relegated to her sister’s shadow. But Natasha seizes the opportunity for revenge one Christmas Eve, when Drosselmeyer arrives at the family gala with the Nutcracker, an enchanted gift that offers entry into an alternate world: the Kingdom of Sweets. Following Clara into the glittering land of snow and sugar, Natasha discovers a source of power far greater than Drosselmeyer: the Sugar Plum Fairy. But as Natasha uncovers the truth about a dark destiny crafted long before her birth, she must reckon with forces both earthly and magical, human and diabolical, and decide to which world she truly belongs.

Promo

Light and dark. This is the cursed birthright placed upon Clara and Natasha by their godfather, Drosselmeyer. Charming Clara grows into a life of beauty and ease, while Natasha is relegated to her sister’s shadow. But Natasha seizes the opportunity for revenge one Christmas Eve, when Drosselmeyer arrives at the family gala with the Nutcracker, an enchanted gift that offers entry into an alternate world: the Kingdom of Sweets. Following Clara into the glittering land of snow and sugar, Natasha discovers a source of power far greater than Drosselmeyer: the Sugar Plum Fairy. But as Natasha uncovers the truth about a dark destiny crafted long before her birth, she must reckon with forces both earthly and magical, human and diabolical, and decide to which world she truly belongs.

About the Book

This gloriously transportive reimagining of "The Nutcracker" tells the tale of twin sisters, divided by envy and magic, set against each other one fateful Christmas Eve.

Light and dark. This is the cursed birthright placed upon Clara and Natasha by their godfather, Drosselmeyer, whose power and greed hold an entire city in his sway. Charming Clara, the favorite, grows into a life of beauty and ease, while Natasha is relegated to her sister’s shadow, ignored and unloved.

But Natasha seizes the opportunity for revenge one Christmas Eve, when Drosselmeyer arrives at the family gala with the Nutcracker, an enchanted gift that offers entry into an alternate world: the Kingdom of Sweets.

Following Clara into the glittering land of snow and sugar, Natasha discovers a source of power far greater than Drosselmeyer: the Sugar Plum Fairy, who offers her own wondrous gifts...and chilling bargains. But as Natasha uncovers the truth about a dark destiny crafted long before her birth, she must reckon with forces both earthly and magical, human and diabolical, and decide to which world she truly belongs.

Audiobook available, read by Grace Gray

Editorial Content for God Save Benedict Arnold: The True Story of America's Most Hated Man

Reviewer (text)

Barbara Bamberger Scott

Award-winning author Jack Kelly has set his sights on a man whose very name traditionally has been synonymous with betrayal: Benedict Arnold.

Arnold was born in the American colonies to a family of British immigrants. His father inherited little but gained much as a merchant. However, he later slipped into alcohol addiction, which forced Arnold to abandon his hopes for higher education and work as a tradesman, at which he seemed destined to succeed. Much of his youthful years were filled with a sense of tension about what seemed like an inevitable revolution. Read More

Teaser

Benedict Arnold committed treason. For more than two centuries, that’s all that most Americans have known about him. Yet Arnold was much more than a turncoat --- his achievements during the early years of the Revolutionary War defined him as the most successful soldier of the era. GOD SAVE BENEDICT ARNOLD tells the gripping story of Arnold’s rush of audacious feats --- his capture of Fort Ticonderoga, his Maine mountain expedition to attack Quebec, the famous artillery brawl at Valcour Island, the turning-point battle at Saratoga --- that laid the groundwork for our independence.

Promo

Benedict Arnold committed treason. For more than two centuries, that’s all that most Americans have known about him. Yet Arnold was much more than a turncoat --- his achievements during the early years of the Revolutionary War defined him as the most successful soldier of the era. GOD SAVE BENEDICT ARNOLD tells the gripping story of Arnold’s rush of audacious feats --- his capture of Fort Ticonderoga, his Maine mountain expedition to attack Quebec, the famous artillery brawl at Valcour Island, the turning-point battle at Saratoga --- that laid the groundwork for our independence.

About the Book

Benedict Arnold committed treason --- for more than two centuries, that’s all that most Americans have known about him.

Yet Arnold was much more than a turncoat --- his achievements during the early years of the Revolutionary War defined him as the most successful soldier of the era. GOD SAVE BENEDICT ARNOLD tells the gripping story of Arnold’s rush of audacious feats --- his capture of Fort Ticonderoga, his Maine mountain expedition to attack Quebec, the famous artillery brawl at Valcour Island, the turning-point battle at Saratoga --- that laid the groundwork for our independence.

Arnold was a superb leader, a brilliant tactician and a supremely courageous military officer. He was also imperfect, disloyal and villainous. One of the most paradoxical characters in American history, and one of the most interesting. GOD SAVE BENEDICT ARNOLD does not exonerate him for his treason --- the stain on his character is permanent. But Kelly’s insightful exploration of Arnold’s career as a warrior shines a new light on this gutsy, fearless and enigmatic figure. In the process, the book offers a fresh perspective on the reasons for Arnold’s momentous change of heart.

Audiobook available, read by Jim Seybert

Editorial Content for Night Owl: A Trasker Thriller

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

Brad Trasker, who some say resembles Kevin Costner, retired after three decades in the counterintelligence game for the U.S. Along the way, he became sour with his duties and has had a tough time getting over a tragedy while on the job. He now works independently and was contacted by aerospace CEO Kylie Connor to do some security and background work for her company. This all changes when she is nearly killed in the explosion of her latest project during the start of launch on the tarmac. Read More

Teaser

After three decades in counterintelligence, Brad Trasker is retired, disillusioned and dealing with a tragic loss. Spy games are behind him until he attends the launch of a next-generation aircraft. When the project of innovative aerospace CEO Kylie Connor explodes on the tarmac --- nearly killing her in the process --- Trasker is pulled back into the line of fire. The mystery of the sabotage quickly deepens. All of Kylie’s data has been wiped from the server. One of her engineers has disappeared. A seed investor has died in a suspicious car accident. And a cold-blooded murder raises the stakes even higher. To discover who’s pulling the strings behind a dangerous conspiracy, Trasker needs to find a motive. Corporate espionage, revenge or something he can’t yet see?

Promo

After three decades in counterintelligence, Brad Trasker is retired, disillusioned and dealing with a tragic loss. Spy games are behind him until he attends the launch of a next-generation aircraft. When the project of innovative aerospace CEO Kylie Connor explodes on the tarmac --- nearly killing her in the process --- Trasker is pulled back into the line of fire. The mystery of the sabotage quickly deepens. All of Kylie’s data has been wiped from the server. One of her engineers has disappeared. A seed investor has died in a suspicious car accident. And a cold-blooded murder raises the stakes even higher. To discover who’s pulling the strings behind a dangerous conspiracy, Trasker needs to find a motive. Corporate espionage, revenge or something he can’t yet see?

About the Book

A shocking act of sabotage draws a retired spy into a deadly conspiracy in an explosive thriller by an Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author.

After three decades in counterintelligence, Brad Trasker is retired, disillusioned and dealing with a tragic loss. Spy games are behind him until he attends the launch of a next-generation aircraft. When the project of innovative aerospace CEO Kylie Connor explodes on the tarmac --- nearly killing her in the process --- Trasker is pulled back into the line of fire.

The mystery of the sabotage quickly deepens. All of Kylie’s data has been wiped from the server. One of her engineers has disappeared. A seed investor has died in a suspicious car accident. And a cold-blooded murder raises the stakes even higher.

To discover who’s pulling the strings behind a dangerous conspiracy, Trasker needs to find a motive. Corporate espionage, revenge or something he can’t yet see? Targeted by assassins, he finds himself overmatched when he realizes he can’t trust anyone --- including Kylie. Too long out of a game he no longer understands, Trasker must adapt or die.

Audiobook available, read by James Anderson Foster