June 10, 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 11th at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of THE NANTUCKET RESTAURANT by Pamela Kelley, which is now available in a newly edited and repackaged edition. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!
Editorial Content for How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
“I am the only child of a once-famous woman…. To say my mother and I are close doesn’t really express the full magnitude of the relationship. We are painfully, inexorably, chronically close, the way magnets are. Sometimes when I lie in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, I’m not even sure I exist without her. She created me and I enabled her.” Read More
Teaser
Molly Jong-Fast is the only child of a famous woman, writer Erica Jong, whose sensational book FEAR OF FLYING launched her into second-wave feminist stardom. She grew up yearning for a connection with her dreamy, glamorous, just-out-of-reach mother, who always seemed to be heading somewhere that wasn’t with Molly. When, in 2023, Erica was diagnosed with dementia just as Molly’s husband discovered he had a rare cancer, Jong-Fast was catapulted into a transformative year. HOW TO LOSE YOUR MOTHER is a compulsively readable memoir about an intense mother–daughter relationship, a sometimes chaotic upbringing with a fame-hungry parent, and the upheavals that challenge our hard-won adulthood.
Promo
Molly Jong-Fast is the only child of a famous woman, writer Erica Jong, whose sensational book FEAR OF FLYING launched her into second-wave feminist stardom. She grew up yearning for a connection with her dreamy, glamorous, just-out-of-reach mother, who always seemed to be heading somewhere that wasn’t with Molly. When, in 2023, Erica was diagnosed with dementia just as Molly’s husband discovered he had a rare cancer, Jong-Fast was catapulted into a transformative year. HOW TO LOSE YOUR MOTHER is a compulsively readable memoir about an intense mother–daughter relationship, a sometimes chaotic upbringing with a fame-hungry parent, and the upheavals that challenge our hard-won adulthood.
About the Book
From the political writer and podcaster, a ferociously honest and disarmingly funny memoir about her elusive mother’s encroaching dementia and a reckoning with her complicated childhood.
Molly Jong-Fast is the only child of a famous woman, writer Erica Jong, whose sensational book FEAR OF FLYING launched her into second-wave feminist stardom. She grew up yearning for a connection with her dreamy, glamorous, just-out-of-reach mother, who always seemed to be heading somewhere that wasn’t with Molly. When, in 2023, Erica was diagnosed with dementia just as Molly’s husband discovered he had a rare cancer, Jong-Fast was catapulted into a transformative year.
HOW TO LOSE YOUR MOTHER is a compulsively readable memoir about an intense mother-daughter relationship, a sometimes chaotic upbringing with a fame-hungry parent, and the upheavals that challenge our hard-won adulthood. A pitch-perfect balance of acceptance and rage, humor and heart, HOW TO LOSE YOUR MOTHER tells a universal story of loss alongside a singular story of a literary life. This is a memoir that will stand alongside the classics of the genre.
Audiobook available, read by Molly Jong-Fast
Editorial Content for Return to Sender: A Longmire Mystery
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Sheriff Walt Longmire will never refuse a favor, especially when the request comes from a family member. When his late wife’s cousin asks him to look into the disappearance of letter carrier Blair McGowan, Walt takes a temporary leave from his jurisdiction to go undercover as a mailman. He has his work cut out for him, as Blair has a postal route spanning 300+ miles in a sparsely populated area of Wyoming encompassing the Red Desert. In addition to Blair being a self-professed hippie and rebel, she claims to be a UFO abductee. Read More
Teaser
When Blair McGowan, the mail person with the longest postal route in the country of over 300 miles a day, goes missing, the question becomes: Where do you look for her? The Postal Inspector for the State of Wyoming elicits Sheriff Walt Longmire to mount an investigation into her disappearance, and Walt does everything but mail it in. Posing as a letter carrier himself, the good sheriff follows her trail and finds himself enveloped in the intrigue of an otherworldly cult.
Promo
When Blair McGowan, the mail person with the longest postal route in the country of over 300 miles a day, goes missing, the question becomes: Where do you look for her? The Postal Inspector for the State of Wyoming elicits Sheriff Walt Longmire to mount an investigation into her disappearance, and Walt does everything but mail it in. Posing as a letter carrier himself, the good sheriff follows her trail and finds himself enveloped in the intrigue of an otherworldly cult.
About the Book
Walt Longmire is back after the escapades of FIRST FROST and encounters one of his most baffling cases in Wyoming’s brutal and unforgiving Red Desert.
When Blair McGowan, the mail person with the longest postal route in the country of over 300 miles a day, goes missing, the question becomes: Where do you look for her? The Postal Inspector for the State of Wyoming elicits Sheriff Longmire to mount an investigation into her disappearance, and Walt does everything but mail it in. Posing as a letter carrier himself, the good sheriff follows her trail and finds himself enveloped in the intrigue of an otherworldly cult.
Packed to the brim with twists and turns, the 21st novel in the New York Times bestselling Longmire series pushes Walt to his absolute limits, forcing him to wrestle with the impossible question: What good are your morals, if you’re marked for the dead letter office?
Audiobook available, read by George Guidall
Editorial Content for FDR Drive
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Waterside Pier, which is located off the FDR Drive in New York City, is rocked one day by the sound of explosions --- the result of suicide bombers with connections to Middle Eastern terrorist groups. Law enforcement and the military fear that they are heading to the United Nations and targeting a global unity parade taking place there with thousands of unsuspecting civilians. Read More
Teaser
After a stint in the private sector, working at the largest hedge fund in the world, Nora Carleton has returned to her former role as a New York City federal prosecutor. A threat is building in the city, with far-right extremism powered by internet demagogues and funded by shadowy organizations. Together with legendary investigator Benny Dugan and aided by colleagues at the FBI, Nora builds a case against one of the key players in this burgeoning movement, arguing before a jury that some speech is actually a deadly crime. But the menace taking root is far bigger than any courtroom, and as the militants target an upcoming United Nations rally, Nora and her team must race to disrupt the plans and minimize casualties.
Promo
After a stint in the private sector, working at the largest hedge fund in the world, Nora Carleton has returned to her former role as a New York City federal prosecutor. A threat is building in the city, with far-right extremism powered by internet demagogues and funded by shadowy organizations. Together with legendary investigator Benny Dugan and aided by colleagues at the FBI, Nora builds a case against one of the key players in this burgeoning movement, arguing before a jury that some speech is actually a deadly crime. But the menace taking root is far bigger than any courtroom, and as the militants target an upcoming United Nations rally, Nora and her team must race to disrupt the plans and minimize casualties.
About the Book
In a new legal thriller by the former director of the FBI, federal prosecutor Nora Carleton and legendary investigator Benny Dugan confront a deadly sect of political extremists.
After a stint in the private sector, working at the largest hedge fund in the world, Nora Carleton has returned to her former role as a New York City federal prosecutor. And she has arrived just in time to face one of the most dangerous domestic terror attacks in the history of the city.
A threat is building in the city, with far-right extremism powered by internet demagogues and funded by shadowy organizations. Together with legendary investigator Benny Dugan and aided by colleagues at the FBI, Nora builds a case against one of the key players in this burgeoning movement, arguing before a jury that some speech is actually a deadly crime. But the menace taking root is far bigger than any courtroom, and as the militants target an upcoming United Nations rally, Nora and her team must race to disrupt the plans and minimize casualties.
At once a fast-paced legal thriller and a close look at the very real perils of political extremism, FDR DRIVE harnesses former FBI director James Comey’s life experience to tell an authentic and compelling narrative that readers won’t soon forget.
Audiobook available, read by Cassandra Campbell
Editorial Content for Life and Art: Essays
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
I feel a certain connection to Richard Russo. In addition to enjoying a number of his books, I have had the opportunity to hear him speak in person at his alma mater, the University of Arizona. He was educated in Tucson, a city that I visit annually for the Tucson Festival of Books. I was part of a large audience when Russo was the guest discussing his writing life, including EMPIRE FALLS, the novel for which he received the Pulitzer Prize. Read More
Teaser
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.
Promo
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.
About the Book
A marvelous new essay collection from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of SOMEBODY'S FOOL and THE DESTINY THIEF.
Life and Art. These are the twin subjects considered in Richard Russo’s 12 masterful new essays --- how they 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. How do you bridge the gap between what you know and what you don’t, and sometimes can’t, know? Why tell a story in the first place? What we don’t understand, Russo opines, is in fact the very thing that beckons to us.
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 with heartbreaking vividness 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.
Sharp, tender, extraordinarily intimate reflections on work, culture, love and family from one of the great writers of our time.
Audiobook available, read by Richard Russo
Editorial Content for The Expat Affair
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Take a trip to Amsterdam in this action-filled novel about two Americans whose lives are upended when a diamond merchant is killed.
Kimberly Belle provides just enough information to give us hints that something else is going on when Xander is brutally murdered in his luxe penthouse apartment while Rayna Dumont is sleeping in his bed. The other expat, Willow Prins, is married to Xander's former employer, but we also get hints that Willow has some dealings with Xander. We aren't privy to what they are; we just know they will be important. Read More
Teaser
Following a nasty divorce, Rayna Dumont came to Amsterdam for a fresh start. She’s never been the type for a one-night stand, but Xander is more than willing to go along for the ride. Until the morning after, when Rayna finds him dead on the shower floor and millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds missing from his safe. From her lavish home in the heart of the city, Willow Prins is captivated by the news. Her husband is Xander’s former boss and heir to a diamond house, and the scandal strains their already-rocky marriage. As the house comes under scrutiny, Willow wonders if her life is about to implode --- and how much of the blame she can place on Rayna. Soon, Willow and Rayna are dragged into the dark and dangerous underbelly of the diamond market, where they’ll have to uncover the truth to survive.
Promo
Following a nasty divorce, Rayna Dumont came to Amsterdam for a fresh start. She’s never been the type for a one-night stand, but Xander is more than willing to go along for the ride. Until the morning after, when Rayna finds him dead on the shower floor and millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds missing from his safe. From her lavish home in the heart of the city, Willow Prins is captivated by the news. Her husband is Xander’s former boss and heir to a diamond house, and the scandal strains their already-rocky marriage. As the house comes under scrutiny, Willow wonders if her life is about to implode --- and how much of the blame she can place on Rayna. Soon, Willow and Rayna are dragged into the dark and dangerous underbelly of the diamond market, where they’ll have to uncover the truth to survive.
About the Book
An American expat's startling discovery plunges her into the glamorous but deadly world of Amsterdam’s diamond industry.
Following a nasty divorce, Rayna Dumont came to Amsterdam for a fresh start. She’s never been the type for a one-night stand, but this move is all about adventure, and Xander is handsome and successful and more than willing to go along for the ride. Until the morning after, when Rayna finds him dead on the shower floor and millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds missing from his safe.
From her lavish home in the heart of the city, Willow Prins is captivated by the news. Her husband is Xander’s former boss and heir to a diamond house, and the scandal strains their already-rocky marriage. As the house comes under scrutiny, Willow wonders if her life is about to implode --- and how much of the blame she can place on Rayna. Soon, Willow and Rayna are dragged into the dark and dangerous underbelly of the diamond market, where they’ll have to uncover the truth to survive.
Who killed Xander? Where are the missing diamonds? And who can you trust in a strange and unfamiliar city thousands of miles from home?
Audiobook available, read by Jennifer Jill Araya and Marni Penning