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August 19, 2025

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of August 18th, August 25th and September 1st 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 Fall Reading Contests and Feature, a series of 24-hour giveaways that are taking place on select days through October. Enter for your chance to win titles that we think will be great fall reading picks.

Special Preview: Bookreporter.com's Fall Reading 2025

This Bookreporter.com SPECIAL PREVIEW Newsletter brings you a sneak peek at the titles that are included in this year's Fall 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.

Juliette Fay, author of The Harvey Girls

Charlotte Crowninshield was born into one of the finest Boston society families. Now she’s on the run from a brutal husband. Billie MacTavish is the oldest of nine children born to Scottish immigrants in Nebraska. She quit school in the sixth grade to help with her mother’s washing and mending business, but even that isn’t enough to keep the family afloat. Desperate, both women join the ranks of the Harvey Girls, waitresses who serve in America’s first hospitality chain on the Santa Fe railroad. Hired on the same day, they share three things: a room, a heartfelt dislike of each other…and each has a secret that certainly will get them fired. But when they’re sent to work at the luxurious El Tovar hotel at the Grand Canyon, Billie struggles to hide her young age from would-be suitors, and Charlotte discovers the little-known dark side of the national park’s history.

Jason Mott, author of People Like Us

Two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. As their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds.

Michael M. Grynbaum, author of Empire of the Elite: Inside Condé Nast, the Media Dynasty That Reshaped America

For decades, Condé Nast and its glittering magazines defined how to live the good life in America. The brilliant, complicated, striving characters behind Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, GQ, Architectural Digest and many other titles manufactured a vision of luxury and sophistication that shaped consumer habits, cultural trends, intellectual attitudes and political beliefs the world over. Condé’s billionaire owner, Si Newhouse, and his stable of star editors, photographers and writers were the gatekeepers who decided what and who mattered, and they offered those opinions to tens of millions of readers every month. EMPIRE OF THE ELITE is full of fresh behind-the-scenes reporting about a plethora of boldface names and sets out to explain how Condé Nast established itself as a de facto American aristocracy, anointing an elite and dictating the culture they presided over.

Kate Price, author of This Happened to Me: A Reckoning

Kate Price, who grew up in a small mill town in central Pennsylvania, was able to escape the unbroken cycles of poverty, violence, addiction, mental illness and abuse that had plagued her family for generations. She started a new life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in pursuit of her master’s and PhD. But despite having left this dark world behind, it still kept a firm grip on her. Overcome with unexplainable grief and sadness, Price sought out Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a trauma specialist to help heal her constant emotional pain through EMDR therapy. When Price felt safe enough, she discovered what that darkness that lay within her was. Her father had abused and trafficked her as a child. Price grappled with what had been revealed. And so began a 10-year quest alongside a journalist to prove what Price knew to be her truth.

Karin Slaughter, author of We Are All Guilty Here

Welcome to North Falls, a small town where everyone knows everyone. Or so they think. Until the night of the fireworks. When two teenage girls vanish, and the town ignites. For Officer Emmy Clifton, it’s personal. She turned away when her best friend's daughter needed help --- and now she must bring her home. But as Emmy combs through the puzzle the girls left behind, she realizes she never really knew them. Nobody did. Every teenage girl has secrets. But who would kill for them? And what else is the town hiding?

Editorial Content for Jenny Cooper Has a Secret

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Pamela Kramer

I've been a fan of Joy Fielding's novels for decades, although I hadn't read any recently. JENNY COOPER HAS A SECRET reminded me of why I love her books and why I need to catch up with the ones I've missed. Fielding is a master at creating characters who are regular people with whom we truly connect. They aren't spies, detectives, superheroes, law enforcement officials or famous folks. In her latest effort, the protagonist is Linda Davidson, a 76-year-old retired teacher and a widow of two years who lives in Florida. Read More

Teaser

Reeling from her husband’s death and best friend’s dementia diagnosis, 76-year-old Linda Davidson feels lost and alone. Eager to escape the tension at home, Linda goes to visit her friend at Legacy Place, a memory care facility for the elderly, where she meets Jenny Cooper, a 92-year-old dementia patient who makes a shocking confession: she kills people. Linda dismisses the so-called secret as the confusion of an ailing mind, but Jenny seems strangely lucid during their visits as she recounts stories of her many victims --- mostly men who hurt her. Then a fellow patient at Legacy Place dies. Everyone else sees it as the natural death of a sick old man, but Linda can’t help but wonder: Is there any chance Jenny is telling the truth?

Promo

Reeling from her husband’s death and best friend’s dementia diagnosis, 76-year-old Linda Davidson feels lost and alone. Eager to escape the tension at home, Linda goes to visit her friend at Legacy Place, a memory care facility for the elderly, where she meets Jenny Cooper, a 92-year-old dementia patient who makes a shocking confession: she kills people. Linda dismisses the so-called secret as the confusion of an ailing mind, but Jenny seems strangely lucid during their visits as she recounts stories of her many victims --- mostly men who hurt her. Then a fellow patient at Legacy Place dies. Everyone else sees it as the natural death of a sick old man, but Linda can’t help but wonder: Is there any chance Jenny is telling the truth?

About the Book

In this riveting psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of ALL THE WRONG PLACES, a dementia patient reveals a deadly secret --- and one woman must decide whether to believe her.

Reeling from her husband’s death and best friend’s dementia diagnosis, 76-year-old Linda Davidson feels lost and alone. Her beloved daughter, Kleo, and son-in-law, Mick, have moved into her house to keep her company, but the constant bickering quickly turns their presence into yet another worry on Linda’s long list.

Eager to escape the tension at home, Linda goes to visit her friend at Legacy Place, a memory care facility for the elderly, where she meets Jenny Cooper, a 92-year-old dementia patient who makes a shocking confession: she kills people.

Linda dismisses the so-called secret as the confusion of an ailing mind, but Jenny seems strangely lucid during their visits as she recounts stories of her many victims --- mostly men who hurt her. Then a fellow patient at Legacy Place dies. Everyone else sees it as the natural death of a sick old man, but Linda can’t help but wonder: Is there any chance Jenny is telling the truth?

Audiobook available, read by Carol Monda

Editorial Content for Departure 37

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

Scott Carson, the pseudonym for New York Times bestselling author Michael Koryta, dedicates DEPARTURE 37 to three of my personal heroes: Dean Koontz, Richard Matheson and Rod Serling. Even if you have never read Carson’s work before, just knowing that you are stepping into a story inspired by these legendary figures should make you aware that you are about to read something special. Read More

Teaser

On a clear October day, the American skies empty after hundreds of pilots refuse to fly, triggering a complete ground stop as authorities seek to explain an act of baffling coordination that the pilots insist was anything but planned. The pilots received disturbing, middle-of-the-night calls from their mothers, and each mother had a simple and urgent request: Do not fly today. But none of the mothers remember making them --- and some of them are dead. While the nation’s military chiefs and artificial intelligence experts mobilize in search of answers, a 16-year-old girl named Charlie on the coast of Maine watches a strange, silvery balloon drift across the water and toward her home. Her father’s dream of opening a craft brewery on an old airfield has been a disaster, and all she wants is an escape back to Brooklyn. She’s about to get much more than that.

Promo

On a clear October day, the American skies empty after hundreds of pilots refuse to fly, triggering a complete ground stop as authorities seek to explain an act of baffling coordination that the pilots insist was anything but planned. The pilots received disturbing, middle-of-the-night calls from their mothers, and each mother had a simple and urgent request: Do not fly today. But none of the mothers remember making them --- and some of them are dead. While the nation’s military chiefs and artificial intelligence experts mobilize in search of answers, a 16-year-old girl named Charlie on the coast of Maine watches a strange, silvery balloon drift across the water and toward her home. Her father’s dream of opening a craft brewery on an old airfield has been a disaster, and all she wants is an escape back to Brooklyn. She’s about to get much more than that.

About the Book

Horror meets coming-of-age in this thrilling novel in which forgotten Cold War mysteries make a terrifying reappearance, from a writer Stephen King has called “a master.”

On a clear October day, the American skies empty after hundreds of pilots refuse to fly, triggering a complete ground stop as authorities seek to explain an act of baffling coordination that the pilots insist was anything but planned. The pilots received disturbing, middle-of-the-night calls from their mothers, and each mother had a simple and urgent request: Do not fly today.

There are a few concerning elements to the calls. None of the mothers remember making them --- and some of the mothers are dead.

While the nation’s military chiefs and artificial intelligence experts mobilize in search of answers, a 16-year-old girl named Charlie on the coast of Maine watches a strange, silvery balloon drift across the water and toward her home --- a place she loathes. Her father’s dream of opening a craft brewery on an old airfield has been a disaster and all she wants is an escape back to Brooklyn.

She’s about to get much more than that.

Her new home is ground zero for a story that begins at a remote naval base in Indiana during the winter of 1962, when a physicist named Martin Hazelton discovered something extraordinary --- and deadly. All Hazelton wanted was time to seek an explanation, but pressure from both American and Russian actors forced him into a perilous race.

Moving between the two characters and timelines, Scott Carson deftly weaves Cold War espionage with contemporary terror in a story that explains why #1 New York Times bestseller Joe Hill has declared himself “a fan for life.”

Audiobook available; read by Mia Barron, Johnny Heller and Catherine Ho

Editorial Content for A Dog in Georgia

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Pamela Kramer

When there's a dog in the title, I'm hooked. In A DOG IN GEORGIA, Lauren Grodstein has provided not only the titular dog, Angel --- who acted as a school crossing guard for children, for heaven's sake, before she disappeared --- but a plethora of street dogs who live, apparently mostly happily, in Georgia (the country, not the state). When Amy Webb finds herself in need of something meaningful to accomplish, she decides to travel to Georgia and find the missing Angel. Read More

Teaser

Amy Webb is a chef. Or rather, she was a chef. Somewhere along the way, she also became a wife and a stepmother and an emergency contact, and the part of her that was a chef disappeared entirely --- along with her sense of self. Which is why she is currently in the republic of Georgia, on a mission to find a lost dog named Angel, and, more importantly, the life’s purpose she once took for granted. For months, Amy has escaped by watching YouTube videos of Angel walking the children of Tbilisi to school. When Angel goes missing, Amy volunteers to go find him. But Angel proves elusive, and while she does make friends with a number of stray dogs, what she finds in Tblisi is entirely human. Is she happy in her marriage? What happened to her career? Why doesn’t she ever cook anymore, even just for herself? 

Promo

Amy Webb is a chef. Or rather, she was a chef. Somewhere along the way, she also became a wife and a stepmother and an emergency contact, and the part of her that was a chef disappeared entirely --- along with her sense of self. Which is why she is currently in the republic of Georgia, on a mission to find a lost dog named Angel, and, more importantly, the life’s purpose she once took for granted. For months, Amy has escaped by watching YouTube videos of Angel walking the children of Tbilisi to school. When Angel goes missing, Amy volunteers to go find him. But Angel proves elusive, and while she does make friends with a number of stray dogs, what she finds in Tblisi is entirely human. Is she happy in her marriage? What happened to her career? Why doesn’t she ever cook anymore, even just for herself? 

About the Book

In this beautiful story of connection and self-reflection, a missing dog in Georgia sets Amy Webb on an adventure away from her tumultuous marriage and lack-luster personal life and towards a journey of self-discovery and joy.

Amy Webb is a chef. Or rather, she was a chef. Somewhere along the way, she also became a wife and a stepmother and an emergency contact, and the part of her that was a chef disappeared entirely --- along with her sense of self. Which is why she is currently in the republic of Georgia, on a mission to find a lost dog named Angel, and, more importantly, the life’s purpose she once took for granted.
 
For months, Amy has escaped by watching YouTube videos of Angel walking the children of Tbilisi to school. When Angel goes missing, Amy volunteers to go find him. The fact that her husband may be having (another) affair and her stepson is away at college probably has something to do with it.  Who is Amy, after all, if she’s not taking care of other people?
 
But to her surprise, Angel proves elusive, and while she does make friends with a number of stray dogs, what she finds in Tblisi is entirely human. Is she happy in her marriage? What happened to her career? Why doesn’t she ever cook anymore, even just for herself? 
 
Helping her on this journey of self-discovery is a rebellious teenager, a mysterious and attractive Russian, and several post-Soviet grandmothers. And, of course, the rich food and culture and complicated politics of Georgia itself.
 
After a lifetime of looking away from her own needs and appetites, Amy is forced to confront what she really wants and how to finally find herself —
 
And a dog.

Audiobook available, read by Katie Koster