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Rob Franklin, author of Great Black Hope

An arrest for cocaine possession on the last day of a sweltering New York summer leaves Smith, a queer Black Stanford graduate, in a state of turmoil as he is pulled into the court system and mandated treatment. It’s just weeks after the death of his beloved roommate, Elle, the daughter of a famous soul singer, and he’s still reeling from the tabloid spectacle --- as well as lingering questions around how well he really knew his closest friend. He flees to his hometown of Atlanta, only to buckle under the weight of expectations from his family of doctors and lawyers and their history in America. But when Smith returns to New York, it’s not long before he begins to lose himself to his old life --- drawn back into the city’s underworld, where his search for answers may end up costing him his freedom and his future.

Week of February 9, 2026

Paperback releases for the week of February 9th include WE ALL LIVE HERE by Jojo Moyes, a fresh, contemporary story of a woman and her unruly blended family; SEEKING SHELTER, in which Jeff Hobbs follows a single mother of six in Los Angeles who courageously struggles to keep her family together and her children in school amid the devastating housing crisis; FINLAY DONOVAN DIGS HER OWN GRAVE, the fifth installment in Elle Cosimano's fan-favorite Finlay Donovan series --- Finlay may have skeletons in her closet...but at least there's not a body in her backyard; JFK JR. by RoseMarie Terenzio and Liz McNeil, the first oral biography of John F. Kennedy Jr. and an extraordinarily intimate, comprehensive look at the real man behind the myth; and WAITING FOR THE LONG NIGHT MOON, Amanda Peters' debut collection of short fiction that describes the Indigenous experience from an astonishingly wide spectrum in time and place.