The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

October 2025

There are times when the buzz about a book seems to be everywhere. But in this case, it was from our readers, none of whom I knew personally. They were passionate about THE CORRESPONDENT by Virginia Evans, which came out in April. Their drumbeats about the book encouraged me to explore it. I confess that the two birds on the cover did nothing to draw me in, but reading these declarations of how good it was spurred me to read it in September.

I was going to be on the road a lot, so I decided to listen to the audiobook. I think it was a brilliant choice as it is a completely fabulous production and listening experience. Even if you have never listened to an audiobook before, this could be an easy gateway one. Each narrator reading the letters feels perfectly cast. And with the voice changes, you know exactly which character is speaking.

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Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely? by Sarah McCoy

October 2025

I spent 16 years in Catholic school, so a book about a Hollywood starlet who becomes a nun would grab my attention, the same way that trick-or-treating at the convent would as we hoped we would see what nuns wore when they didn’t have their habits on. We never found out anything about the latter. But with Sarah McCoy’s latest novel, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO LORI LOVELY?, we get to learn what happened to Lucille Lorianne Hickey, who first became Lori Lovely when she hit the stage, and then was christened to be Sister Jude and later Mother Lori.

The story of Mother Lori is based partially on the life of Mother Dolores Hart, who acted alongside Elvis Presley before becoming a nun.

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The Nobel Prize in Literature 2025

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2025 has been awarded to László Krasznahorkai “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.” Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess. But there are more strings to his bow, and he also looks to the East in adopting a more contemplative, finely calibrated tone.

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Nathan Harris, author of Amity

The Civil War might be over, but formerly enslaved Coleman and June have yet to find the freedom they’ve been promised. Two years ago, the siblings were separated when their old master, Mr. Harper, took June away to Mexico. Coleman stayed behind in Louisiana, clinging to the hope that one day June would return. When an unexpected letter from Mr. Harper arrives, summoning Coleman to Mexico, Coleman thinks that finally his prayers have been answered. What Coleman cannot know is the tangled truth of June’s tribulations under Mr. Harper out on the frontier. And when disaster strikes Coleman’s journey, he is forced on the run with Mr. Harper's daughter, Florence. Together, they venture into the Mexican desert to find June, all the while evading two crooked brothers who will stop at nothing to capture Coleman and Florence and collect the money they're owed. 

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Week of October 27, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of October 27th include BLOOD MOON, a sexy thriller from Sandra Brown in which an unruly detective and an ambitious TV show producer work against the clock to prevent another young woman from disappearing before the next blood moon --- while trying to resist the attraction between them; Mike Lupica's HOT PROPERTY, the 52nd installment in Robert B. Parker's beloved series starring the iconic Spenser, who investigates a case that hits dangerously close to home; THE GOD OF THE WOODS, a thought-provoking and chilling literary mystery from Liz Moore that finds two worlds colliding when a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp; and AN INSIGNIFICANT CASE by Phillip Margolin, a brilliant stand-alone legal thriller in the tradition of John Grisham, which Kate Ayers praised in her Bookreporter review: “We all know that sex trafficking takes a toll on lives every day, so spotlighting it in this novel while writing such a readable story is a commendable feat for Phillip Margolin.”

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Week of October 20, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of October 20th include THIS BOOK WILL BURY ME by Ashley Winstead, a chilling, compulsive story of five amateur sleuths, whose hunt for an elusive killer catapults them into danger as the world watches; Mark Haddon's DOGS AND MONSTERS, a collection of eight mesmerizingly imaginative, deeply humane stories that use Greek myths and contemporary dystopian narratives to examine mortality, moral choices and the many variants of love; ROMAN YEAR, a deeply romantic memoir of André Aciman's time in Rome while on the cusp of adulthood; Tom Clavin's BANDIT HEAVEN, the thrilling true story of the most infamous hangout for bandits, thieves and murderers of all time --- and the lawmen tasked with rooting them out; and the paperback original THE DEADLY BOOK CLUB by Lyn Liao Butler, a twisty thriller in which a virtual book club listens in horror when the screen freezes and one of their members is murdered.

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Week of October 13, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of October 13th include THE DROWNED by John Banville, a richly atmospheric mystery about a woman’s sudden disappearance in a small coastal town in Ireland, where nothing is as it seems; Kelley Armstrong's I'LL BE WAITING,   a spellbinding tale of supernatural horror involving a haunted house, seances, lost loved ones and a sinister spirit out for blood;  SHOCK INDUCTION by Chuck Palahniuk, a dark, satirical parable about a string of mysterious high school disappearances, the seedy underbellies of billionaires, and the tough choices we make in the face of an uncertain future; LIFEFORM, a wild, soulful, hilarious collection of genre-bending essays from Jenny Slate depicting the journey into motherhood as you’ve never seen it before; and the paperback original THE TOURISTS by Christopher Reich, a heart-stopping thriller about a man who returns to a life of espionage to save the woman he loves and the City of Light.

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Week of October 6, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of October 6th include TO DIE FOR, David Baldacci's third 6:20 Man thriller, in which Travis Devine is sent to the Pacific Northwest to aid in a complicated FBI case --- and he’s about to come face to face with his nemesis, the girl on the train; SAFE ENOUGH, a collection of 20 pulse-pounding stories from Lee Child that are intimate portraits of humanity at its best and worst; PRECIPICE by Robert Harris, a spellbinding novel of passion, intrigue and betrayal set in England in the months leading up to the Great War; JOHN LEWIS, David Greenberg’s profoundly insightful biography of the Civil Rights icon, which draws on interviews with Lewis and approximately 275 others who knew him at various stages of his life, as well as never-before-used FBI files and documents; and Wade Rouse's MAGIC SEASON, an unforgettable story of love, family and forgiveness set against the backdrop of America's favorite pastime.

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