Skip to main content

J. Courtney Sullivan Event Signup

June 24, 2025

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of June 23rd and June 30th 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 current Word of Mouth contest. Let us know by Friday, July 11th at noon ET what books you’ve read, and you’ll have a chance to win DON'T LET HIM IN by Lisa Jewell (on sale now) and THE VIEW FROM LAKE COMO by Adriana Trigiani (which releases on July 8th).

June 24, 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, June 25th at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of GLASS GIRLS by Danie Shokoohi, which is now available. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!

RGG Speed Dating June 2025 Event

Kristina McMorris, author of The Girls of Good Fortune

Oregon, 1888. Amid the subterranean labyrinth of Portland's notorious Shanghai Tunnels, a woman awakens in an underground cell, drugged and disguised. Celia soon realizes she's a "shanghaied" victim on the verge of being shipped off as forced labor. Although well accustomed to adapting for survival --- being half-Chinese, passing as white during an era fraught with anti-Chinese sentiment --- she fears that far more than her own fate hangs in the balance. As she pieces together the twisting path that led to her abduction, revelations emerge of a child left in peril. Desperate, Celia must find a way to escape and return to a place where unearthed secrets can prove deadlier than the dark recesses of Chinatown.

Janelle Brown, author of What Kind of Paradise

Growing up in an isolated cabin in Montana in the mid-1990s, Jane knows only the world that she and her father live in: the woodstove that heats their home, the vegetable garden where they try to eke out a subsistence, the books of 19th-century philosophy that her father gives her to read in lieu of going to school. Her father is elusive about their pasts, giving Jane little beyond the facts that they once lived in the Bay Area and that her mother died in a car accident. But when Jane realizes that her devotion to him has made her an accomplice to a horrific crime, she flees Montana to the only place she knows to look for answers about her mysterious past and her mother’s death: San Francisco. It is here where she will come to question everything she values.

Liv Constantine, author of Don't Open Your Eyes

Annabelle Reynolds has everything she’s ever wanted. So why is she suddenly plagued by disturbing dreams of a future where she hates her husband and her daughters’ lives are at risk? When details from her dreams begin to materialize, she realizes these aren’t just dreams but rather premonitions of a terrifying future. They all point to a singular choice, an unknown moment that holds Annabelle’s life in the balance. Then Annabelle has a dream that her daughter, Scarlett, is in immediate danger. Someone wants Scarlett dead, and Annabelle has no idea who or why. Suddenly, every choice she makes is fraught with peril. As Annabelle’s present life starts to collide with the future in her dreams, she wrestles with how much control she really has over her destiny and whether she can change what is meant to be.

Joyce Carol Oates, author of Fox

Who is Francis Fox? A charming English teacher new to the idyllic Langhorne Academy, Fox beguiles many of his students, their parents, and his colleagues at the elite boarding school, while leaving others wondering where he came from and why his biography is so enigmatic. When two brothers discover Fox’s car half-submerged in a pond in a local nature preserve and parts of an unidentified body strewn about the nearby woods, the entire community --- including Detective Horace Zwender and his deputy --- begins to ask disturbing questions about Francis Fox and who he might really be.

Laura Lippman, author of Murder Takes a Vacation

Mrs. Blossom has a knack for blending into the background, which was an asset during her days assisting private investigator Tess Monaghan. But when she finds a winning lottery ticket in a parking lot, everything changes. She is determined to see the world that she sometimes feels is passing her by. When Mrs. Blossom booked her cruise through France on the MS Solitaire, she did not expect to meet Allan on her transatlantic flight. He is the first man who has sparked something inside her since her beloved husband passed. She also didn’t expect Allan to be found dead 24 hours later in Paris, a city he wasn’t supposed to be in. Now Mrs. Blossom doesn’t know who to trust on board the ship, especially when a mystifying man, Danny, keeps popping up around every corner, always present when things go awry.

Editorial Content for The Poppy Fields

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Rebecca Munro

Nikki Erlick, whose debut, THE MEASURE, blew readers away with its poignant exploration of life, free will and death, makes a triumphant return with THE POPPY FIELDS. In this meditative work of speculative fiction, four characters each seek out an experimental therapeutic facility that promises to ease its patients through the worst of their grief by putting them to sleep for four to eight weeks.  Read More

Teaser

Welcome to the Poppy Fields, where there’s hope for even the most battered hearts to heal. Here, in a remote stretch of the California desert, lies an experimental and controversial treatment center that allows those suffering from the heartache of loss to sleep through their pain...and keep on sleeping. After patients awaken from this prolonged state of slumber, they finally will be healed. But only if they’re willing to accept the potential shadowy side effects. On a journey to this mystical destination are four very different strangers and one little dog. As they attempt to make their way to the Poppy Fields --- where they hope to find Ellis, its brilliant, enigmatic founder --- each of their past secrets and mysterious motivations threaten to derail their voyage.

Promo

Welcome to the Poppy Fields, where there’s hope for even the most battered hearts to heal. Here, in a remote stretch of the California desert, lies an experimental and controversial treatment center that allows those suffering from the heartache of loss to sleep through their pain...and keep on sleeping. After patients awaken from this prolonged state of slumber, they finally will be healed. But only if they’re willing to accept the potential shadowy side effects. On a journey to this mystical destination are four very different strangers and one little dog. As they attempt to make their way to the Poppy Fields --- where they hope to find Ellis, its brilliant, enigmatic founder --- each of their past secrets and mysterious motivations threaten to derail their voyage.

About the Book

From the New York Times bestselling author of the smash-hit THE MEASURE --- a runaway bestseller and a "Read with Jenna" pick --- comes a stunning speculative story of healing, self-discovery, forgiveness and found friendship.

What if there were a cure for the broken-hearted?

Welcome to the Poppy Fields, where there’s hope for even the most battered hearts to heal.

Here, in a remote stretch of the California desert, lies an experimental and controversial treatment center that allows those suffering from the heartache of loss to sleep through their pain...and keep on sleeping. After patients awaken from this prolonged state of slumber, they finally will be healed. But only if they’re willing to accept the potential shadowy side effects.

On a journey to this mystical destination are four very different strangers and one little dog: Ava, a book illustrator; Ray, a fireman; Sasha, an occupational therapist; Sky, a free spirit; and a friendly pup named PJ. As they attempt to make their way from the Midwest all the way west to the Poppy Fields --- where they hope to find Ellis, its brilliant, enigmatic founder --- each of their past secrets and mysterious motivations threaten to derail their voyage.

A high-concept speculative novel about heartache, hope and human resilience, THE POPPY FIELDS explores the path of grief and healing, a journey at once profoundly universal and unique to every person, posing the questions: How do we heal in the wake of great loss? And how far are we willing to go in order to be healed?

Audiobook available, read by a full cast