John McMahon, author of Inside Man: A Head Cases Novel

FBI Agent Gardner Camden is an analytical genius with an affinity for puzzles. He and his squad of brilliant yet quirky agents make up the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit, the FBI’s hidden edge, brought in for cases that no one else can solve. PAR’s latest case involves a militia group stockpiling weapons. When their confidential informant in the case is killed, it quickly becomes clear that the militia did not kill him. As the squad looks into the evidence surrounding his murder, an unidentified man is caught on camera with their informant. This mystery man’s picture is connected to another case at the FBI, an unsolved series of murdered women, buried in the ground in north Florida. As PAR juggles an investigation into both the dead women and the militia, they enroll a new informant, only to find the case escalating in dangerous ways.

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Jennifer Niven, author of Meet the Newmans

For two decades, Del and Dinah Newman and their sons, Guy and Shep, have ruled television as America’s Favorite Family. Millions of viewers tune in every week to watch them play flawless, black-and-white versions of themselves. But now it’s 1964, and the Newmans’ idealized apple-pie perfection suddenly feels woefully out of touch. Ratings are in free fall, as are the Newmans themselves. Del is keeping an explosive secret from his wife, and Dinah is slowly going numb --- literally. Steady, stable Guy is hiding the truth about his love life, and the charmed luck of rock ‘n’ roll idol Shep may have finally run out. When Del is in a mysterious car accident, Dinah hires Juliet Dunne, an outspoken, impassioned young reporter, to help her write the final episode. But Dinah and Juliet have wildly different perspectives about what it means to be a woman, and a family, in 1964.

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Stefan Merrill Block, author of Homeschooled: A Memoir

Stefan Merrill Block was nine when his mother pulled him from school, certain that his teachers were “stifling his creativity.” Hungry for more time with her boy, she began to instruct Stefan in the family’s living room. Beyond his formal lessons in math, however, Stefan was largely left to his own devices and his mother’s erratic whims, such as her project to recapture her 12-year-old son's early years by bleaching his hair and putting him on a crawling regimen. Years before homeschooling would become a massive nationwide movement, at a time when it had just become legal in his home state of Texas, Stefan vanished into that unseen space and into his mother’s increasingly eccentric theories and projects. But when, after five years away from the outside world, Stefan reentered the public school system in Plano as a freshman, he was in for a jarring awakening.

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Belle Burden, author of Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage

In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha’s Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together --- building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whiskey sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of 20 years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume. In STRANGERS, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal.

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Ashley Elston, author of Anatomy of an Alibi

Camille Bayliss appears to have the picture-perfect life. She is married to hotshot lawyer Ben and is the daughter of a wealthy Louisiana family. Only nothing is as it seems: Camille believes that Ben has been hiding dirty secrets for years, but she can’t find proof because he tracks her every move. Aubrey Price has been haunted by the terrible night that changed her life a decade ago, and she’s convinced Benjamin Bayliss knows something about it. Living in a house full of criminals, Aubrey understands there’s more than one way to get to the truth --- and she may have found the best way in. Aubrey and Camille hatch a plan. For 12 hours, Aubrey will take Camille’s place. Camille will spy on Ben, and the two women will get the answers they desperately seek. Except the next morning, Ben is found murdered. Both women need an airtight alibi, but only one of them has it.

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The First Time I Saw Him by Laura Dave

January 2026

When I pick up a Laura Dave book, I always know I am in for a treat. That certainly happened with THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME when it came out in 2021. Laura never meant to write a sequel; she thought the story was done with the epilogue.

However, after the success of the series adaptation on Apple TV+ --- which Laura and her husband, Josh Singer, had written and produced --- it was clear that more could be told, and fans wanted it. Even before she wrote the second book, Laura was doing script notes for Josh and the program’s writers to let them know where she saw the story heading for season two. Readers may recall that in the epilogue, Hannah sees Owen at a show where her work is being presented. Immediately there was a “what’s next?” feeling there.

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