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Week of July 13, 2026

Paperback releases for the week of July 13th include WE ARE ALL GUILTY HERE, the first thrilling mystery in Karin Slaughter's North Falls series, which our reviewer Ray Palen says “hits hard enough to take the breath out of you and leaves behind indelible images of depravity that are difficult to shake”; THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS by Ocean Vuong, a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive; Rebecca Armitage's THE HEIR APPARENTan irresistible modern fairy tale about a British princess who must decide between her duty to her family --- or to her own heart; and THE MOTHER NEXT DOOR by Andrea Dunlop (the host and creator of the award-winning true crime podcast “Nobody Should Believe Me”) and Mike Weber,   a groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction that investigates Munchausen by proxy.  

Joyce Maynard, author of In Wonderland

Frances believes she has found a ticket to paradise when a wealthy couple hires her for the summer as their mother’s helper at their lakefront summer home in Maine. Best of all, she gets to spend the summer with Forrest Emerson, her father's charismatic childhood friend who escaped their neighborhood when he married into money. But below the glittering surface of Lake Catherine, nothing is what it seems. When Forrest’s wife, Regina, pulls Frances into her private obsession, the girl finds herself witness to the intimate secrets of adult lives. As the summer heat builds, so do the tensions within Wonderland’s walls. By Labor Day, a death will shatter the seemingly perfect family, leaving Frances to question everything she thought she knew about privilege, power and the price of belonging.