Features

End-of-the-Year Contest 2022

Congratulations to the winners of our 2022 End-of-the-Year Contest! One Grand Prize winner received all 40 of Carol Fitzgerald's Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2022, while eight others won a selection of five of these titles. You can see all the winners below, along with 2022's Bets On books.

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Thrity Umrigar, author of Honor

Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly. Long ago, she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena --- a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man --- Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment.

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Week of October 17, 2022

Paperback releases for the week of October 17th include EMPIRE OF PAIN, Patrick Radden Keefe's grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin; THE ANSWER IS..., longtime "Jeopardy!" host and television icon Alex Trebek's reflection on his life and career through illuminating personal anecdotes and his thoughts on a range of topics, including marriage, parenthood, education, success, spirituality and philanthropy; Alice Hoffman's conclusion to her Practical Magic series, THE BOOK OF MAGIC, a spellbinding and enchanting final Owens novel brimming with lyric beauty and vivid characters; A LINE TO KILL, Anthony Horowitz's third literary whodunit featuring former Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, author Anthony Horowitz; and HONOR by Thrity Umrigar, a riveting and immersive novel that tells the story of two couples and the sometimes dangerous and heartbreaking challenges of love across a cultural divide.

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Honor by Thrity Umrigar

October 2022

I discovered Thrity Umrigar’s work back in 2006 when I read THE SPACE BETWEEN US. It’s a book from which I drew so much meaning; I still know exactly where it is on my bookshelf. Her latest novel, HONOR, once again brought me memorable characters and a lot to think about.

In it, Smita, an Indian American journalist, has been asked by her colleague, Shannon, to cover the verdict of a trial in a small Indian village for her. For years, Smita has traveled the world working on stories but with one proviso: she will not go to India. However, Shannon convinces her that this assignment is urgent. Meena, a young Hindu woman, married a Muslim man. Her family is so shamed by this union that a horrific act of violence was committed on the couple by her brothers. And they are on trial.

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