January 14, 2025
This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we know people will be talking about this winter. Read more about it, and enter our Winter Reading Contest by Wednesday, January 15th at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of BEAUTIFUL UGLY by Alice Feeney, which is now available and will be a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!
Special Preview: Bookreporter.com's Winter Reading 2025
This Bookreporter.com SPECIAL PREVIEW Newsletter brings you a sneak peek at the titles that are included in our Winter Reading feature.
Each title below will be featured in a contest where you will have a 24-hour window of opportunity to enter for your chance to win a copy of the book being featured that day. You will need to act quickly! Learn more about the feature here.
We encourage you to scroll down and click on each image to read more about that book on our site.
If you have friends who you think may be interested in these 24-hour contests, please forward this newsletter to them so they can sign up for it.
Our first feature and contest kicks off TOMORROW, Tuesday, January 14th at noon ET. Best of luck to you, and Happy Winter Reading!
Editorial Content for Holmes Is Missing: A Holmes, Margaret & Poe Mystery
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Fans of classic mysteries may do a double take at their local bookstore when they pass by this book and see that it is a Holmes, Marple & Poe novel. The subtitle actually refers to Brendan Holmes, Margaret Marple and Auguste Poe, who bear the surnames of two memorable characters and a legendary author. They run their own investigation firm based in Brooklyn and possess abilities not far off from their namesakes. Read More
Teaser
Success has come quickly to Holmes, Marple & Poe Investigations. The New York City agency led by three detectives --- Brendan Holmes, “the brain”; Margaret Marple, “the eyes”; and Auguste Poe, the “muscle” --- with famous names and mysterious pasts is one major case away from cementing its professional reputation. But as a series of child abductions tests the PIs’ legendary skills, the cerebral Holmes’ absence leaves a gaping hole in the agency roster. Only by closing ranks and solving the mystery within can they recover all that’s been lost.
Promo
Success has come quickly to Holmes, Marple & Poe Investigations. The New York City agency led by three detectives --- Brendan Holmes, “the brain”; Margaret Marple, “the eyes”; and Auguste Poe, the “muscle” --- with famous names and mysterious pasts is one major case away from cementing its professional reputation. But as a series of child abductions tests the PIs’ legendary skills, the cerebral Holmes’ absence leaves a gaping hole in the agency roster. Only by closing ranks and solving the mystery within can they recover all that’s been lost.
About the Book
“Best-selling author James Patterson populates his murder-mystery novels with cold-blooded killers and smart detectives” (USA Today). In HOLMES IS MISSING, PI Brendan Holmes has committed the perfect crime --- he’s made himself disappear.
Success has come quickly to Holmes, Marple & Poe Investigations. The New York City agency led by three detectives --- Brendan Holmes, “the brain”; Margaret Marple, “the eyes”; and Auguste Poe, the “muscle” --- with famous names and mysterious pasts is one major case away from cementing its professional reputation.
But as a series of child abductions tests the PIs’ legendary skills, the cerebral Holmes’ absence leaves a gaping hole in the agency roster.
Only by closing ranks and solving the mystery within can they recover all that’s been lost.
Audiobook available, read by Christine Lakin
Editorial Content for Mothers and Sons
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
A friend of mine recommended Adam Haslett's earlier work to me, mentioning that his portrayal of depression in IMAGINE ME GONE is the most authentic one she has ever read. Haslett continues to excel at depicting complicated emotional responses in his latest novel, MOTHERS AND SONS. Read More
Teaser
At 40, Peter, an asylum lawyer in New York City, is overworked and isolated. He spends his days immersed in the struggles of immigrants only to return to an empty apartment and occasional hook-ups with a man who wants more than Peter can give. But when the asylum case of a young gay man pierces Peter's numbness, the event that he has avoided for 20 years returns to haunt him. Ann, his mother, who runs a women's retreat center she founded after leaving his father, is hurt by the estrangement from Peter but cherishes the world she has built. She long ago put behind her the decision that divided her from her son. But as Peter’s case plunges him further into the fraught memory of his first love and the night of violence that changed his life, he and his mother must confront the secret that tore them apart.
Promo
At 40, Peter, an asylum lawyer in New York City, is overworked and isolated. He spends his days immersed in the struggles of immigrants only to return to an empty apartment and occasional hook-ups with a man who wants more than Peter can give. But when the asylum case of a young gay man pierces Peter's numbness, the event that he has avoided for 20 years returns to haunt him. Ann, his mother, who runs a women's retreat center she founded after leaving his father, is hurt by the estrangement from Peter but cherishes the world she has built. She long ago put behind her the decision that divided her from her son. But as Peter’s case plunges him further into the fraught memory of his first love and the night of violence that changed his life, he and his mother must confront the secret that tore them apart.
About the Book
A mother and son, estranged for years, must grapple with the shared secret that drove their lives apart in this enthralling story about family, forgiveness and how a fleeting act of violence can change a life forever, by "one of the country's most talented writers" (Wall Street Journal).
At 40, Peter, an asylum lawyer in New York City, is overworked and isolated. He spends his days immersed in the struggles of immigrants only to return to an empty apartment and occasional hook-ups with a man who wants more than Peter can give. But when the asylum case of a young gay man pierces Peter's numbness, the event that he has avoided for 20 years returns to haunt him.
Ann, his mother, who runs a women's retreat center she founded after leaving his father, is hurt by the estrangement from Peter but cherishes the world she has built. She long ago put behind her the decision that divided her from her son. But as Peter’s case plunges him further into the fraught memory of his first love and the night of violence that changed his life, he and his mother must confront the secret that tore them apart.
With unsurpassed emotional depth, MOTHERS AND SONS reveals all that is lost by looking away from the past and the love that might be restored by facing it. In his spellbinding new novel, Adam Haslett demonstrates yet again his mastery of “a rich assortment of literary gifts” (New York Times).
Audiobook available, read by Andrew Gibson and Janet Metzger
Editorial Content for Invisible Helix: A Detective Galileo Novel
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
INVISIBLE HELIX is one of the twistiest, most brilliant mysteries involving familial relations tied into a murder that I have ever read. Keigo Higashino once again has elevated the genre to a level worthy of the greats like Dame Agatha Christie. Read More
Teaser
The body of a young man is found floating in Tokyo Bay. But his death was no accident; Ryota Uetsuji was shot. He'd been reported missing the week before by his live-in girlfriend, Sonoka Shimauchi. But when detectives from the Homicide Squad go to interview her, she is nowhere to be found. When they learn that she was the victim of domestic abuse, they presume she was the killer. But her alibi is airtight; she was hours away in Kyoto when Ryota disappeared, forcing Detectives Kusanagi and Utsumi to restart their investigation. But if Sonoko didn't kill her abusive lover, then who did? A thin thread of association leads them to their old consultant, brilliant physicist Manabu Yukawa, known in the department as "Detective Galileo." With Sonoko still missing, the detectives investigate other threads of association.
Promo
The body of a young man is found floating in Tokyo Bay. But his death was no accident; Ryota Uetsuji was shot. He'd been reported missing the week before by his live-in girlfriend, Sonoka Shimauchi. But when detectives from the Homicide Squad go to interview her, she is nowhere to be found. When they learn that she was the victim of domestic abuse, they presume she was the killer. But her alibi is airtight; she was hours away in Kyoto when Ryota disappeared, forcing Detectives Kusanagi and Utsumi to restart their investigation. But if Sonoko didn't kill her abusive lover, then who did? A thin thread of association leads them to their old consultant, brilliant physicist Manabu Yukawa, known in the department as "Detective Galileo." With Sonoko still missing, the detectives investigate other threads of association.
About the Book
Detective Galileo, Keigo Higashino’s best-loved character from THE DEVOTION OF SUSPECT X, returns in a case where hidden history and an impossible crime are linked by nearly invisible threads in surprising ways.
The body of a young man is found floating in Tokyo Bay. But his death was no accident; Ryota Uetsuji was shot. He'd been reported missing the week before by his live-in girlfriend, Sonoko Shimauchi. But when detectives from the Homicide Squad go to interview her, she is nowhere to be found. She's taken time off from work, clothes and effects are missing from the apartment she shared. And when the detectives learn that she was the victim of domestic abuse, they presume that she was the killer. But her alibi is airtight; she was hours away in Kyoto when Ryota disappeared, forcing Detectives Kusanagi and Utsumi to restart their investigation.
But if Sonoko didn't kill her abusive lover, then who did? A thin thread of association leads them to their old consultant, brilliant physicist Manabu Yukawa, known in the department as "Detective Galileo." With Sonoko still missing, the detectives investigate other threads of association --- an eccentric artist, who was Sonoko's mother figure after her own single mother passed; and an older woman who is the owner of a hostess club. And how is Sonoko continuing to stay one step ahead of the police searching for her?
It's up to Galileo to find the nearly hidden threads of history and coincidence that connect the people around the bloody murder --- which, surprisingly, connect to his own traumatic past --- to unravel not merely the facts of the crime but the helix that ties them all together.