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Editorial Content for Beyond Her Reach

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Pamela Kramer

A really good series has books that stand alone but also has characters who grow and change from the first installment through the procession and the progression of stories. This arc, combined with the individual gripping novels, is what keeps us coming back to read book after book.

With her Bree Taggert series, Melinda Leigh manages to accomplish all of that and more. In addition to a really likable, vulnerable but strong protagonist, there is a romantic partner and a family. And what I especially love about this series is the dogs. Read More

Teaser

In a quiet suburban neighborhood in upstate New York, single mom Kelly Gibson is slain in her home --- the victim of a rage killing. Right away, Sheriff Bree Taggert has three persons of interest: an angry soon-to-be ex-husband, a furtive rebound boyfriend, and an obsessive neighbor. But as Bree and investigator Matt Flynn work together to narrow the field, there’s a shocking twist in the case: a second woman is murdered in the same brutal fashion. While investigating, Bree is attacked and left for dead. When another woman is kidnapped, Bree and Matt must act quickly to unravel the deceptions in Kelly’s life and death and find a killer before someone else dies.

Promo

In a quiet suburban neighborhood in upstate New York, single mom Kelly Gibson is slain in her home --- the victim of a rage killing. Right away, Sheriff Bree Taggert has three persons of interest: an angry soon-to-be ex-husband, a furtive rebound boyfriend, and an obsessive neighbor. But as Bree and investigator Matt Flynn work together to narrow the field, there’s a shocking twist in the case: a second woman is murdered in the same brutal fashion. While investigating, Bree is attacked and left for dead. When another woman is kidnapped, Bree and Matt must act quickly to unravel the deceptions in Kelly’s life and death and find a killer before someone else dies.

About the Book

In the wake of a woman’s savage murder, the suspects and motives are only mounting for Sheriff Bree Taggert in a twisting novel of suspense by #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author Melinda Leigh.

In a quiet suburban neighborhood in upstate New York, single mom Kelly Gibson is slain in her home --- the victim of a rage killing. Right away, Sheriff Bree Taggert has three persons of interest: an angry soon-to-be ex-husband, a furtive rebound boyfriend, and an obsessive neighbor.

But as Bree and investigator Matt Flynn work together to narrow the field, there’s a shocking twist in the case: a second woman is murdered in the same brutal fashion.

While investigating, Bree is attacked and left for dead. When another woman is kidnapped, Bree and Matt must act quickly to unravel the deceptions in Kelly’s life and death and find a killer before someone else dies.

Audiobook available, read by Christina Traister 

Editorial Content for Make Me Commissioner: I Know What's Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ron Kaplan (www.RonKaplansBaseballBookshelf.com)

Back around the turn of the century --- especially in the wake of the 1994 strike that resulted in the cancellation of the remainder of the season --- several former baseball players and pundits published books on the problems with the game. Among them were a dwindling fan base due in part to competition from other diversions and starting times for games that were too late for the younger crowd, as well as feelings that the games were just too long. Read More

Teaser

As a pioneering female sportswriter, Jane Leavy eventually turned her talent to books, penning three of the all-time best baseball biographies about three of the all-time best players: Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth. But when she went searching for a fourth biographical subject, she realized that baseball had faltered. The Moneyball era of the last two decades obsessed over data and slowed the game down to a crawl. Major League Baseball has begun to address issues too long ignored, yet the questions linger: How much have these efforts helped to improve the game and reassert its place in American culture? Leavy takes a whirlwind tour of the country seeking answers to these questions. What she uncovers is not only what’s wrong with baseball --- and how to fix it --- but also what’s right with baseball.

Promo

As a pioneering female sportswriter, Jane Leavy eventually turned her talent to books, penning three of the all-time best baseball biographies about three of the all-time best players: Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth. But when she went searching for a fourth biographical subject, she realized that baseball had faltered. The Moneyball era of the last two decades obsessed over data and slowed the game down to a crawl. Major League Baseball has begun to address issues too long ignored, yet the questions linger: How much have these efforts helped to improve the game and reassert its place in American culture? Leavy takes a whirlwind tour of the country seeking answers to these questions. What she uncovers is not only what’s wrong with baseball --- and how to fix it --- but also what’s right with baseball.

About the Book

A New York Times bestselling biographer and lifelong baseball devotee takes readers on an epic journey through the game that baseball has become --- a heartfelt manifesto that's perfect for lovers of the sport.

Jane Leavy has always loved baseball. Her grandmother lived one long, loud foul ball away from Yankee Stadium --- the same grandmother who took young Jane to Saks Fifth Avenue and bought her her first baseball glove. It's no coincidence that Leavy was covering the game she loved for the Washington Post by the late 1970s. As a pioneering female sportswriter, she eventually turned her talent to books, penning three of the all-time best baseball biographies about three of the all-time best players: Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle, and Babe Ruth.

But when she went searching for a fourth biographical subject, Leavy realized that baseball had faltered. The Moneyball era of the last two decades obsessed over data and slowed the game down to a crawl, often at the expense of thrills, skills, and surprise. Major League Baseball has begun to address issues too long ignored, yet the questions linger: How much have these efforts helped to improve the game and reassert its place in American culture?

Leavy takes a whirlwind tour of the country seeking answers to these questions, talking with luminaries like Joe Torre, Dave Roberts, Jim Palmer, Dusty Baker and more. What Leavy uncovers is not only what’s wrong with baseball --- and how to fix it --- but also what’s right with baseball, and how it illuminates characters, tells stories, and fires up the imagination of those who love it and everyone who could discover it anew. 

Audiobook available, read by Jane Leavy

Editorial Content for The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

Ragnar Jónasson is a huge fan of Dame Agatha Chrisite. In fact, he often has modeled his work after Christie and enjoys paying homage to her whenever he can. That has never been more apparent than in his latest novel, THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE MISSING CRIME WRITER. Here, he takes an infamous part of Christie’s past and incorporates it into a new mystery featuring a missing Icelandic crime writer who is being pursued by a young detective. Read More

Teaser

One winter evening, bestselling crime author Elín S. Jónsdóttir goes missing. There are no clues to her disappearance, and it is up to young detective Helgi to crack the case before its leaked to the press. As Helgi interviews the people closest to her --- a publisher, an accountant, a retired judge --- he realizes that Elín’s life wasn’t what it seemed. In fact, her past is even stranger than the fiction she wrote. As the case of the missing crime writer becomes more mysterious by the hour, Helgi must uncover the secrets of the writer's very unexpected life.

Promo

One winter evening, bestselling crime author Elín S. Jónsdóttir goes missing. There are no clues to her disappearance, and it is up to young detective Helgi to crack the case before its leaked to the press. As Helgi interviews the people closest to her --- a publisher, an accountant, a retired judge --- he realizes that Elín’s life wasn’t what it seemed. In fact, her past is even stranger than the fiction she wrote. As the case of the missing crime writer becomes more mysterious by the hour, Helgi must uncover the secrets of the writer's very unexpected life.

About the Book

The next thrilling golden-age-style mystery from #1 Icelandic bestseller Ragnar Jónasson, author of DEATH AT THE SANATORIUM and REYKJAVÍK.

One winter evening, bestselling crime author Elín S. Jónsdóttir goes missing.

There are no clues to her disappearance and it is up to young detective Helgi to crack the case before its leaked to the press.

As Helgi interviews the people closest to her --- a publisher, an accountant, a retired judge --- he realizes that Elín’s life wasn’t what it seemed. In fact, her past is even stranger than the fiction she wrote.

As the case of the missing crime writer becomes more mysterious by the hour, Helgi must uncover the secrets of the writer's very unexpected life.

Audiobook available; read by Cicely Whitehead, Jane Slavin and Rufus Wright

Editorial Content for Hot Wax

Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Sarah Rachel Egelman

On tour with a hard-living rock ‘n’ roll band is no place for the faint of heart, the easily offended, or a 10-year-old girl. But what if your dad is the frontman, and life on the road usually keeps you apart? What begins as an exciting family adventure just might end in violence and result in decades of bad memories and emotional turmoil. Read More

Teaser

Summer, 1989: Ten-year-old Suzanne is drawn like a magnet to her father’s forbidden world of electric guitars and tricked-out cars. When her mother remarries, she jumps at the chance to tag along on the concert tour that just might be Gil and the Kills’ wild ride to glory. But as the band blazes up the charts, internal power struggles set Gil and his group on a collision course destined for a bloody reckoning --- one shrouded in mystery and lore for decades to come. The only witness to a desperate act of violence, Suzanne spends the next 29 years trying to disappear. She trades the music and mayhem of her youth for the quiet of the suburbs and the company of her mild-mannered husband, Rob. But when her father’s sudden death resurrects the troubled past she tried so hard to bury, she leaves it all behind and hits the road in search of answers.

Promo

Summer, 1989: Ten-year-old Suzanne is drawn like a magnet to her father’s forbidden world of electric guitars and tricked-out cars. When her mother remarries, she jumps at the chance to tag along on the concert tour that just might be Gil and the Kills’ wild ride to glory. But as the band blazes up the charts, internal power struggles set Gil and his group on a collision course destined for a bloody reckoning --- one shrouded in mystery and lore for decades to come. The only witness to a desperate act of violence, Suzanne spends the next 29 years trying to disappear. She trades the music and mayhem of her youth for the quiet of the suburbs and the company of her mild-mannered husband, Rob. But when her father’s sudden death resurrects the troubled past she tried so hard to bury, she leaves it all behind and hits the road in search of answers.

About the Book

The new novel from the bestselling author of IF WE WERE VILLAINS and GRAVEYARD SHIFT --- a vivid and immersive tale of one woman’s reckless mission to make sense of the events that shattered her childhood, and made her who she is.

Summer, 1989: Ten-year-old Suzanne is drawn like a magnet to her father’s forbidden world of electric guitars and tricked-out cars. When her mother remarries, she jumps at the chance to tag along on the concert tour that just might be Gil and the Kills’ wild ride to glory. But fame has sharper fangs than anybody realized, and as the band blazes up the charts, internal power struggles set Gil and his group on a collision course destined for a bloody reckoning --- one shrouded in mystery and lore for decades to come.

The only witness to a desperate act of violence, Suzanne spends the next 29 years trying to disappear. She trades the music and mayhem of her youth for the quiet of the suburbs and the company of her mild-mannered husband, Rob. But when her father’s sudden death resurrects the troubled past she tried so hard to bury, she leaves it all behind and hits the road in search of answers. Hitching her fate and Gil’s beloved car to two vagabonds who call an old Airstream trailer home, she finds everything she thought she’d lost forever: desire, adventure and the woman she once wanted to be. But Rob refuses to let her go. Determined to bring her back where she belongs, he chases her across the country --- and drives her to a desperation all her own.

Drenched in knock-down drag-out rock and roll, HOT WAX is a raucous, breakneck ride to hell and back --- where getting lost might be the only way to find yourself and save your soul.

Audiobook available, read by Helen Laser

Editorial Content for A New New Me

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Jana Siciliano

The fast-paced, tech-heavy world in which we live, the 24-hour news cycle, and the constant streaming tend to do weird things to our brains. At work, you’re thinking about home; at home, you’re working while also wondering if your passport will allow you back into the country after a trip, or if you need to have a copy of your birth certificate on you in case someone asks you to prove who you are. It’s enough to cause serious meltdowns. Add in menopause, and it reaches critical levels. Read More

Teaser

Kinga is a woman who is just trying to make it through the week. There’s a Kinga for every day. On Mondays, you can catch Kinga-A deleting food delivery apps. By Friday, Kinga-E is happy to spend the days soaking, wine-drunk, in the bath. Kingas A–G, perhaps unsurprisingly, live a varied life. Between them is a professional matchmaker, a scent-crazed perfumer, and a window cleaner, all with varying degrees of apathy, anger, introversion and bossiness. At least three of them are Team Toxic. It’s an arrangement that’s not without its fair share of admin, grudges and half-truths. But when Kinga-A discovers a man tied up in their apartment, the Kingas have to reckon with the possibility that one of them might be planning to destroy them all.

Promo

Kinga is a woman who is just trying to make it through the week. There’s a Kinga for every day. On Mondays, you can catch Kinga-A deleting food delivery apps. By Friday, Kinga-E is happy to spend the days soaking, wine-drunk, in the bath. Kingas A–G, perhaps unsurprisingly, live a varied life. Between them is a professional matchmaker, a scent-crazed perfumer, and a window cleaner, all with varying degrees of apathy, anger, introversion and bossiness. At least three of them are Team Toxic. It’s an arrangement that’s not without its fair share of admin, grudges and half-truths. But when Kinga-A discovers a man tied up in their apartment, the Kingas have to reckon with the possibility that one of them might be planning to destroy them all.

About the Book

From the award-winning, bestselling “literary pied piper” (The New York Times) who brought us BOY, SNOW, BIRD comes a masterful story that asks: What if the different sides of your personality had trust issues with each other?

New Day, New You!

Kinga is a woman who is just trying to make it through the week. There’s a Kinga for every day. On Mondays, you can catch Kinga-A deleting food delivery apps. By Friday, Kinga-E is happy to spend the days soaking, wine-drunk, in the bath.

Kingas A–G, perhaps unsurprisingly, live a varied life. Between them is a professional matchmaker, a scent-crazed perfumer, and a window cleaner, all with varying degrees of apathy, anger, introversion and bossiness. At least three of them are Team Toxic.

It’s an arrangement that’s not without its fair share of admin, grudges and half-truths. But when Kinga-A discovers a man tied up in their apartment, the Kingas have to reckon with the possibility that one of them might be planning to destroy them all.

How many versions of oneself can one self safely contain?

Audiobook available, read by Fleur De Wit

Editorial Content for Crazy Spooky Love: A Melody Bittersweet Novel

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Rebecca Munro

Josie Silver, the New York Times bestselling author of ONE DAY IN DECEMBER and THE TWO LIVES OF LYDIA BIRD, kicks off her first series with CRAZY SPOOKY LOVE. This spellbinding, laugh-out-loud rom-com features Melody Bittersweet, a young woman who can see ghosts and communicate with them. Read More

Teaser

In the leafy, charming town of Chapelwick, the Bittersweet family has been a fixture on High Street for as long as anyone can remember. Their rambling black-and-white building houses all three generations of ghost-sensitive Bittersweet women and their business, Blithe Spirits. On her 27th birthday, Melody Bittersweet converts the disused back storeroom into her office and opens her own business. Right away, the freshly minted Girls’ Ghostbusting Agency takes on its first case: a grand old house that won’t sell because a trio of incumbent ghost brothers raise merry hell whenever prospective owners arrive to view it. Leo Dark, Melody’s rakish ex and business rival, is also on the case, along with the TV crew that trails him. To make matters worse, the sarcastic and skeptical (and annoyingly good-looking) local reporter Fletcher Gunn has his nose in the story as well.

Promo

In the leafy, charming town of Chapelwick, the Bittersweet family has been a fixture on High Street for as long as anyone can remember. Their rambling black-and-white building houses all three generations of ghost-sensitive Bittersweet women and their business, Blithe Spirits. On her 27th birthday, Melody Bittersweet converts the disused back storeroom into her office and opens her own business. Right away, the freshly minted Girls’ Ghostbusting Agency takes on its first case: a grand old house that won’t sell because a trio of incumbent ghost brothers raise merry hell whenever prospective owners arrive to view it. Leo Dark, Melody’s rakish ex and business rival, is also on the case, along with the TV crew that trails him. To make matters worse, the sarcastic and skeptical (and annoyingly good-looking) local reporter Fletcher Gunn has his nose in the story as well.

About the Book

A plucky medium, her fame-chasing ex, and an infuriatingly handsome skeptic reporter make for a complicated love triangle --- and that's before the ghosts get involved. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of ONE DAY IN DECEMBER comes the first novel in a ghost-hunting series full of romance and humor.

Ghosts and spirits are business as usual, but love just might be enough to scare Melody Bittersweet.

In the leafy, charming town of Chapelwick, the Bittersweet family has been a fixture on High Street for as long as anyone can remember. Their rambling black-and-white building houses all three generations of ghost-sensitive Bittersweet women and their business, Blithe Spirits.

On her 27th birthday, Melody Bittersweet converts the disused back storeroom into her office and opens her own business. Unlike the rest of her family, she’s not taking down messages from ghosts, she’s taking them out.

Right away, the freshly minted Girls’ Ghostbusting Agency takes on its first case: a grand old house that won’t sell because a trio of incumbent ghost brothers raise merry hell whenever prospective owners arrive to view it.

It soon becomes clear that there’s a whole heap of unfinished business between the Scarborough brothers --- including murder --- and Melody isn’t the only one trying to unravel the mystery. Leo Dark, her rakish ex and business rival, is also on the case, along with the TV crew that trails him.

To make matters worse, the sarcastic and skeptical (and annoyingly good-looking) local reporter Fletcher Gunn has his nose in the story as well. Sniffing out a way to publicly discredit the Bittersweets is his favorite assignment --- and has absolutely nothing to do with his inability to resist Melody.

With her business on the line, it’s up to Melody to work out the brothers’ issues, but can she protect her own very susceptible heart from Fletcher’s charm? Does she even want to?

Last week was the first week back from Bouchercon in New Orleans. It also was Joe Hartlaub’s birthday. All three of those things --- Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention; New Orleans, the Crescent City of Jazz and Mardi Gras; and birthdays in general --- were beloved by my late and much-lamented friend. Joe was a reviewer for Bookreporter.com, and he was one of the best. He loved crime fiction. And as an entertainment lawyer who was part of the music scene for decades, he knew a lot about where the actual bodies were buried. With his porkpie hat, twinkle and cherubically “wise guy” smile, he could have stepped out of the pages of Damon Runyon or “The Sopranos” with equal verve.

Kelli Stanley

Kelli Stanley is the critically acclaimed and multiple-award winning bestselling author of the Miranda Corbie literary noir series set in 1940 San Francisco, including CITY OF DRAGONS, CITY OF SECRETS, CITY OF GHOSTS and CITY OF SHARKS. Her other works include historical mysteries set in Roman Britain and numerous short stories and essays.

Which of the following titles releasing in paperback in September have you read or do you plan to read? Please check all that apply.

September 19, 2025, 490 voters

September 19, 2025 - October 3, 2025

Here are reading recommendations with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars for the contest period of September 19 - October 3.