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July 22, 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, July 23rd at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of THAT LAST CAROLINA SUMMER by Karen White, which is now available. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!

July 19, 2025

I love when I share a book with someone and tell them that I think they will enjoy it --- and the next time I see them, they hand it back to me with a big smile and huge raves. That is what happened when I shared THE DOORMAN by Chris Pavone, a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick, with our book group leader, Kathleen. She enjoyed it and suggested that we read it for our August discussion. I am looking forward to this meeting!

Gary Shteyngart, author of Vera, or Faith

The Bradford-Shmulkin family is falling apart as the pressures of life in an unstable America are fraying their bonds. There's Daddy, a struggling, cash-thirsty editor whose Russian heritage gives him a surprising new currency in the upside-down world of 21st-century geopolitics; his wife, Anne Mom, a progressive, underfunded blue blood from Boston who's barely holding the household together; their son, Dylan, whose blond hair and Mayflower lineage provide him pride of place in the newly forming American political order; and young Vera, half-Jewish, half-Korean and wholly original. Vera wants only three things in life: to make a friend at school; for Daddy and Anne Mom to stay together; and to meet her birth mother, Mom Mom, who at last will tell Vera the secret of who she really is and how to ensure love's survival in this great, mad, imploding world.

Kristin Harmel, author of The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau

Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, Annabel: take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance. But one night in 1942, Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette’s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane’s body was found floating in the Seine --- but the bracelet was nowhere to be found. Seventy years later, Colette’s life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston.

Martin Cruz Smith, author of Hotel Ukraine: The Final Arkady Renko Novel

In the final installment of Martin Cruz Smith’s celebrated Arkady Renko series, the legendary Moscow investigator seeks to solve the murder of a diplomat as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine wears on and the effects of Arkady’s Parkinson’s disease worsen. Helped by his lover, journalist Tatiana Petrovna, Arkady traces the murder to a Russian paramilitary group aided by a government official who also used to be a romantic partner of Arkady. Before long, those responsible for the killing look to similarly dispatch Arkady and Tatiana --- all of it leading to a thrilling and action-packed climax. 

Daniel Silva, author of An Inside Job

Gabriel Allon has been awarded a commission to restore one of the most important paintings in Venice. But when he discovers the body of a mysterious woman floating in the waters of the Venetian Lagoon, he finds himself in a desperate race to recover a lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci. The painting, a portrait of a beautiful young girl, has been gathering dust in a storeroom at the Vatican Museums for more than a century, misattributed and hidden beneath a worthless picture by an unknown artist. Because no one knows that the Leonardo is there, no one notices when it disappears one night during a suspicious power outage. No one but the ruthless mobsters and moneymen behind the theft --- and the mysterious woman whom Gabriel found in a watery grave in Venice. A woman without a name. A woman without a face.

Lisa Scottoline, author of The Unraveling of Julia

Lately, Julia Pritzker is beginning to think she’s cursed. She’s lost her adoptive parents, then her husband is murdered. When she realizes that her horoscope essentially foretold his death, she begins to spiral. Then a letter arrives out of the blue, informing her that she has inherited a Tuscan villa and vineyard --- but her benefactor is a total stranger named Emilia Rossi. In Tuscany, Julia is horrified to discover that Rossi was a paranoid recluse with delusions of grandeur, who believed herself to be a descendant of Duchess Caterina Sforza, a legendary Renaissance ruler. Julia is stunned by her uncanny resemblance to Rossi, and even to Caterina. Then she unearths eerie parallels between them. Before long, Julia suspects that she’s being followed, and strange things begin to happen.

Editorial Content for The Compound

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Rebecca Munro

Whether you’re staunchly against reality television and its vapid stars and plotlines, or you can’t stop tuning into the latest group of hotties paired in unusual and startling ways, you can’t deny the pull of the genre and how it highlights and amplifies our worst qualities. In THE COMPOUND by debut novelist Aisling Rawle, readers are invited into perhaps the most dystopian reality show yet: a remote desert compound inhabited by 19 of America’s sexiest men and women, and the increasingly depraved acts they must perform to win. Read More

Teaser

Lily --- a bored, beautiful twentysomething --- wakes up on a remote desert compound, alongside 19 other contestants competing on a massively popular reality show. To win, she must outlast her housemates to stay in the Compound the longest, while competing in challenges for luxury rewards, plus communal necessities to outfit their new home. Cameras are catching all her angles, good and bad, but Lily has no desire to leave. Why would she, when the world outside is falling apart? As the competition intensifies, intimacy between the players deepens, and it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between desire and desperation. When the unseen producers raise the stakes, forcing contestants into upsetting, even dangerous situations, the line between playing the game and surviving it begins to blur.

Promo

Lily --- a bored, beautiful twentysomething --- wakes up on a remote desert compound, alongside 19 other contestants competing on a massively popular reality show. To win, she must outlast her housemates to stay in the Compound the longest, while competing in challenges for luxury rewards, plus communal necessities to outfit their new home. Cameras are catching all her angles, good and bad, but Lily has no desire to leave. Why would she, when the world outside is falling apart? As the competition intensifies, intimacy between the players deepens, and it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between desire and desperation. When the unseen producers raise the stakes, forcing contestants into upsetting, even dangerous situations, the line between playing the game and surviving it begins to blur.

About the Book

Nothing to lose. Everything to gain. Winner takes all.

Lily --- a bored, beautiful twentysomething --- wakes up on a remote desert compound, alongside 19 other contestants competing on a massively popular reality show. To win, she must outlast her housemates to stay in the Compound the longest, while competing in challenges for luxury rewards like champagne and lipstick, plus communal necessities to outfit their new home, like food, appliances and a front door.

Cameras are catching all her angles, good and bad, but Lily has no desire to leave. Why would she, when the world outside is falling apart? As the competition intensifies, intimacy between the players deepens, and it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between desire and desperation. When the unseen producers raise the stakes, forcing contestants into upsetting, even dangerous situations, the line between playing the game and surviving it begins to blur. If Lily makes it to the end, she’ll receive prizes beyond her wildest dreams. But what will she have to do to win?

Addictive and prescient, THE COMPOUND is an explosive debut from a major new voice in fiction and will linger in your mind long after the game ends.

Audiobook available, read by Lucy Boynton

Editorial Content for Do Not Disturb

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

In Freida McFadden’s dedication at the beginning of DO NOT DISTURB, she thanks her parents, “who let me watch way too many scary movies when I was a child.” As such, you will see touches of Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of Robert Bloch’s novel, PSYCHO, among others. Read More

Teaser

Quinn Alexander has committed an unthinkable crime. To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she's done. But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night. Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn't the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past. And in the dilapidated house across the way, the silhouette of Nick's ailing wife is always at the window. Always watching.

Promo

Quinn Alexander has committed an unthinkable crime. To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she's done. But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night. Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn't the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past. And in the dilapidated house across the way, the silhouette of Nick's ailing wife is always at the window. Always watching.

About the Book

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden comes a story of sinister secrets.

Quinn Alexander has committed an unthinkable crime.

To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she's done.

But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night.

Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn't the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past. And in the dilapidated house across the way, the silhouette of Nick's ailing wife is always at the window. Always watching.

In the morning, Quinn must leave the motel. She'll pack up her belongings and get back on the road to freedom.

Audiobook available, read by Holly Adams and Daniel Thomas May

Editorial Content for The Möbius Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Jana Siciliano

Losing faith seems to be the most salient topic in our post-COVID world. The suffering of the pandemic and the isolation brought on by lockdown changed the lives of every human being on the planet. And the loss of faith came in so many different shapes and sizes --- religious faith, faith in people, and faith in the systems we thought could protect us and care for us. Read More

Teaser

Adrift in the winter of 2021 after a sudden breakup and the ensuing depression, the novelist Catherine Lacey began cataloguing the wreckage of her life and the beauty of her friendships, a practice that eventually propagated fiction both entirely imagined and strangely true. Betrayed by the mercurial partner she had trusted with a shared mortgage and suddenly catapulted into the unknown, Lacey’s appetite vanished completely, a visceral reminder of the teenage emaciation that came when she stopped believing in God. Through relationships, travel, reading and memories of her religious fanaticism, Lacey charts the contours of faith’s absence and reemergence. Bending form, she and her characters recall gnostic experiences with animals, close encounters with male anger, grief-driven lust, and the redemptive power of platonic love and narrative itself.

Promo

Adrift in the winter of 2021 after a sudden breakup and the ensuing depression, the novelist Catherine Lacey began cataloguing the wreckage of her life and the beauty of her friendships, a practice that eventually propagated fiction both entirely imagined and strangely true. Betrayed by the mercurial partner she had trusted with a shared mortgage and suddenly catapulted into the unknown, Lacey’s appetite vanished completely, a visceral reminder of the teenage emaciation that came when she stopped believing in God. Through relationships, travel, reading and memories of her religious fanaticism, Lacey charts the contours of faith’s absence and reemergence. Bending form, she and her characters recall gnostic experiences with animals, close encounters with male anger, grief-driven lust, and the redemptive power of platonic love and narrative itself.

About the Book

A genre-bending story about breaking --- both of the heart and form itself --- from the author of BIOGRAPHY OF X.

Adrift in the winter of 2021 after a sudden breakup and the ensuing depression, the novelist Catherine Lacey began cataloguing the wreckage of her life and the beauty of her friendships, a practice that eventually propagated fiction both entirely imagined and strangely true. Betrayed by the mercurial partner she had trusted with a shared mortgage and suddenly catapulted into the unknown, Lacey’s appetite vanished completely, a visceral reminder of the teenage emaciation that came when she stopped believing in God.

Through relationships, travel, reading and memories of her religious fanaticism, Lacey charts the contours of faith’s absence and reemergence. Bending form, she and her characters recall gnostic experiences with animals, close encounters with male anger, grief-driven lust, and the redemptive power of platonic love and narrative itself.

A hybrid work across fiction and nonfiction with no beginning or ending, THE MÖBIUS BOOK troubles the line between memory and fiction with an openhearted defense of faith’s inherent danger.

Audiobook available, read by Gabra Zackman