Skip to main content

May 26, 2026

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, May 27th at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of THE LAKE HOUSE: A Firefly Summer Novel by Lori Foster, which is now available. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!

Jamie Lynn Sigler, author of And So It Is...: A Memoir of Acceptance and Hope

Tapped at the young age of 16 to star as Meadow Soprano, by the time “The Sopranos” ended in 2007, Jamie Lynn Sigler suffered from an eating disorder, kept private her diagnosis of MS, and entered a disastrous early marriage. Over the next years, Jamie would remarry, become a mother, launch a hugely popular podcast, and, most recently, nearly lose her beloved son to a mysterious illness. Amidst the stardust showered and all the slings and arrows that life has thrown, Jamie emerges with grace and a generosity of spirit that she is ready to share. In this moving and fiercely honest memoir, she reflects on her life and her years on “The Sopranos.” But this is no tale of woe. Jamie guides us through her darkest moments and comes out the other side emboldened and not embittered.

Rosie Walsh, author of The One Day You Were My Husband

Carrie and Johan marry on a beach in Thailand only months into their whirlwind romance. But as the wedding festivities stretch into the night, a group of armed men suddenly swarm the beach, taking Johan away. She never sees him again. Twelve years later, Carrie is living in the English countryside with her husband, Robin, and their six-year-old twins. One night, she stumbles across an online post in which she discovers that Johan escaped from Thailand years ago and has been living in Stockholm ever since. As the memories of their passionate relationship flood her, she becomes obsessed with discovering what happened on their wedding day all those years ago. But just when Carrie thinks she knows what she must do, a shocking twist tears apart everything she thought she knew.

Sarah Damoff, author of The Burning Side

When April and Leo’s house burns in the middle of the night, they escape with their two young children. They retreat to April’s childhood home in Dallas, where her spirited parents and siblings provide both comfort and complication. As the family reckons with the aftermath, the fire exposes the cracks already forming in April and Leo’s marriage. The novel unfolds in alternating perspectives: from April, who feels the crushing weight of motherhood, marriage and self-blame; from Leo, a high school history teacher shaped by a lonely, fractured childhood; from Deb, April’s generous and no-nonsense mother who has to contend with her husband’s recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis; and from flashbacks that trace April and Leo’s relationship from its earliest days of connection to the devastating decisions that led them here.

Katherine Center, author of The Shippers

After a lifetime of being bad at love, JoJo Burton vows to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister’s destination wedding on a cruise ship. Armed with pop psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighborhood guy who was her first crush and first kiss (and who just happens to be a newly divorced wedding guest). Determined to woo him for closure, she ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, as her wingman. Cooper: who RSVPed no but showed up anyway. Cooper: who moved to London without a word four years ago. Cooper: who broke her heart.

Michael Connelly, author of Ironwood: A Catalina Novel

Detective Sergeant Stilwell knows that his posting on Catalina Island is no paradise. Acting on a tip from a confidential informant, Stilwell and his deputies watch a plane land in the middle of the night at the Airport in the Sky, a remote airstrip in the mountains. A duffel bag of drugs is dropped and the deputies move in, but things quickly go sideways. While Stilwell chases the fleeing pickup man into the mountainside brush, shots are fired on the runway and the plane flies off. An internal inquiry follows, putting Stilwell on the bench until he is cleared of responsibility for the disastrous operation. But he is determined to find out who brought deadly violence to his island, so he begins his own secret investigation into the drug deal gone wrong.

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

May 2026

There are books where the voices ring so true that they stay with you. This is what happened when I read Kathryn Stockett's debut novel, THE HELP. Now, with THE CALAMITY CLUB, I feel the same way about Meg, Birdie and the other women who populate this story.

The setting is Oxford, Mississippi, in the early 1930s. The Depression has brought challenges to people across the country. Birdie has come to town to ask her sister, Frances, who has married well, to give her money so they do not lose their family home in southern Mississippi. But she arrives to find that her sister’s life is not as brilliant as she thought it was. In fact, Frances has troubles of her own and somehow has not accepted her new reality.

Editorial Content for Enormous Wings

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Pamela Kramer

Laurie Frankel’s new novel, ENORMOUS WINGS, should come with a warning: This book will make you angry on behalf of women who are treated as second-class citizens and denied their rights. But the story of Pepper Mills, a septuagenarian who recently has moved to Vista View Retirement Community in Austin, Texas, also will have you smiling as you admire her spunk and wry sense of humor --- and, of course, the incredibly ridiculous situation in which she finds herself enmeshed.  Read More

Teaser

At 77, Pepper Mills is too old to be a stranger in a strange land. She didn’t choose the Vista View Retirement Community of Austin, Texas --- that would be her three grown children --- but when she grudgingly moves in, she not only makes new friends, she falls in love. Then the exhaustion, vomiting and confusion start. She fears it’s cancer, dementia, a stroke. But a raft of tests later, the news is even more shocking: She’s pregnant. As word gets out, everyone wants a piece of her: the press and paparazzi, activists and medical researchers, belly-rubbers and rubberneckers all descending on Vista View while Pepper struggles to determine her next move. Soon she has some hard decisions to make --- and some she’s not allowed to make.

Promo

At 77, Pepper Mills is too old to be a stranger in a strange land. She didn’t choose the Vista View Retirement Community of Austin, Texas --- that would be her three grown children --- but when she grudgingly moves in, she not only makes new friends, she falls in love. Then the exhaustion, vomiting and confusion start. She fears it’s cancer, dementia, a stroke. But a raft of tests later, the news is even more shocking: She’s pregnant. As word gets out, everyone wants a piece of her: the press and paparazzi, activists and medical researchers, belly-rubbers and rubberneckers all descending on Vista View while Pepper struggles to determine her next move. Soon she has some hard decisions to make --- and some she’s not allowed to make.

About the Book

From beloved New York Times bestselling author Laurie Frankel comes an exuberant and timely new novel.

At 77, Pepper Mills is too old to be a stranger in a strange land. She didn’t choose the Vista View Retirement Community of Austin, Texas --- that would be her three grown children --- but when she grudgingly moves in, she not only makes new friends, she falls in love. Then the exhaustion, vomiting and confusion start. She fears it’s cancer, dementia, a stroke. But a raft of tests later, the news is even more shocking: She’s pregnant.

As word gets out, everyone wants a piece of her: the press and paparazzi, activists and medical researchers, belly-rubbers and rubberneckers all descending on Vista View while Pepper struggles to determine her next move. Soon she has some hard decisions to make --- and some she’s not allowed to make.

ENORMOUS WINGS is an urgent novel about female agency and bodily autonomy, morality and mortality. It’s about what happens when you don’t get to choose anymore. It’s about motherhood and family, sex and love and friendship, and how those bedrocks --- even so late in the day --- can still change and then change everything.

Audiobook available, read by Becky Ann Baker

Editorial Content for The Dorians

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Sarah Rachel Egelman

Myths of the fountain of youth span the globe, from the ancient world to contemporary literary and pop-culture examples. Nick Cutter draws on these tropes (and directly references Oscar Wilde’s THE PORTRAIT OF DORIAN GRAY) as he takes readers on a wild ride of aging, ethics and monsters in his latest horror novel, THE DORIANS, a book that is as gory as it is thoughtful. Read More

Teaser

On a remote island in the Canadian wilderness, five elderly volunteers from different walks of life are given a tantalizing offer: to stall their biological clocks or even reverse them, restoring their lost youth. The chance to put death on pause --- forever, perhaps. The remarkable secret lies in the high-tech harnessing of an ancient and extraordinary biological agent…one with no conscience yet possessed with a single-minded purpose that has helped it persist for eons: the will to survive. The dark heart of unbridled human ambition finds its apex in an unholy experiment that now tests the limits of both creator and subject, eclipsing all bounds of morality and sanity.

Promo

On a remote island in the Canadian wilderness, five elderly volunteers from different walks of life are given a tantalizing offer: to stall their biological clocks or even reverse them, restoring their lost youth. The chance to put death on pause --- forever, perhaps. The remarkable secret lies in the high-tech harnessing of an ancient and extraordinary biological agent…one with no conscience yet possessed with a single-minded purpose that has helped it persist for eons: the will to survive. The dark heart of unbridled human ambition finds its apex in an unholy experiment that now tests the limits of both creator and subject, eclipsing all bounds of morality and sanity.

About the Book

The all-new novel of terror from “one of the hottest horror authors on the planet” (Paste) and writer of the #HorrorBookTok sensation THE TROOP.

On a remote island in the Canadian wilderness, five elderly volunteers from different walks of life are given a tantalizing offer: to stall their biological clocks or even reverse them, restoring their lost youth. The chance to put death on pause --- forever, perhaps. The remarkable secret lies in the high-tech harnessing of an ancient and extraordinary biological agent…one with no conscience yet possessed with a single-minded purpose that has helped it persist for eons: the will to survive.

The dark heart of unbridled human ambition finds its apex in an unholy experiment that now tests the limits of both creator and subject, eclipsing all bounds of morality and sanity.

Audiobook available, read by Corey Brill 

Editorial Content for American Patriarch: The Life of George Washington

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Philip Zozzaro

George Washington was born into a world trying to find its identity --- 13 disparate colonies situated in North America, overseen by royal governors who took their marching orders from across the Atlantic Ocean in England. Colonists struggled to build sustainable development amidst disease, famine and war with indigenous tribes. Read More

Teaser

From his early military career and role among the Virginia gentry, to his leadership during the American Revolution and reluctant return to public service as the first president of the United States, AMERICAN PATRIARCH brings to life the man who was called on time and again by his peers to lead. It casts George Washington as the icon of American virtue who wrested America free from British control, gave credibility to the Constitution, and crafted the norms that would steady America as a nation for generations to follow.

Promo

From his early military career and role among the Virginia gentry, to his leadership during the American Revolution and reluctant return to public service as the first president of the United States, AMERICAN PATRIARCH brings to life the man who was called on time and again by his peers to lead. It casts George Washington as the icon of American virtue who wrested America free from British control, gave credibility to the Constitution, and crafted the norms that would steady America as a nation for generations to follow.

About the Book

From historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands comes an inspiring portrait of George Washington that examines his unrivaled leadership in the birth of America.

From his early military career and role among the Virginia gentry, to his leadership during the American Revolution and reluctant return to public service as the first president of the United States, AMERICAN PATRIARCH brings to life the man who was called on time and again by his peers to lead.

With a dazzling cast of characters --- from the French and Indians on the Ohio frontier; to the Marquis de Lafayette, Benedict Arnold and Baron von Steuben on the revolutionary battlefield; to Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton locked in conflict during his presidency --- AMERICAN PATRIARCH casts Washington as the icon of American virtue who wrested America free from British control, gave credibility to the Constitution, and crafted the norms that would steady America as a nation for generations to follow.

Arriving in time for the 250th anniversary of American independence, this is a masterful portrait of Washington as the unrivaled leader of his times.

Audiobook available, read by Robert Fass