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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.

Amanda Eyre Ward, author of The Lifeguards

Austin’s Zilker Park neighborhood is a wonderland of greenbelt trails, live music and moms who drink a few too many margaritas. Whitney, Annette and Liza have grown thick as thieves as they have raised their children together for 15 years, believing that they can shelter them from an increasingly dangerous world. Their friendship is unbreakable --- as safe as the neighborhood where they've raised their sweet little boys. Or so they think. One night, the three women have been enjoying happy hour when their boys, lifeguards for the summer, come back on bicycles from a late-night dip in their favorite swimming hole. The boys share a secret --- news that will shatter the perfect world their mothers have so painstakingly created.

The Lifeguards by Amanda Eyre Ward

December 2022

Amanda Eyre Ward draws her latest work of domestic suspense, THE LIFEGUARDS, from a time of life that many of us know well --- when your friends are the parents of your children’s friends.

Here we have three women --- suburban moms Liza, Whitney and Annette --- who live in Austin’s Zilker Park neighborhood. Their boys --- Charlie, Xavier and Bobcat (Robert) --- are close friends and lifeguards at the same pool. These Three Musketeers, as they refer to themselves, are finally off on their own, or at least their version of this. Their moms hang out enjoying margaritas and conversation. Life is placid and good until one night when the boys ride their bikes to where their moms are drinking. While they were hanging out at one of Zilker Park’s watering holes, they found the body of a young woman. They are quick to note that they have no idea who she is. But something sounds just a bit fishy here.

Week of April 24, 2023

Paperback releases for the week of April 24th include NO PLAN B by Lee Child and Andrew Child, the chilling 27th installment in the Jack Reacher series, in which two homicides are part of something much larger and more far-reaching than Reacher ever suspects; THE LIFEGUARDS, a gripping novel from Amanda Eyre Ward that sees the bonds between three picture-perfect --- but viciously protective --- mothers and their close-knit sons tested during one unforgettable summer; Debbie Macomber's THE BEST IS YET TO COME, an intimate novel about two lost souls who have a new chance at belonging when a woman alone in the world bravely chooses to open her heart; THE PUZZLER, A.J. Jacobs' account of the rollicking journey he embarked on to understand the enduring power of puzzles --- why we love them, what they do to our brains and how they can improve our world; and ALL IN by Billie Jean King, an inspiring self-portrait of the champion of equality that encompasses her brilliant tennis career, unwavering activism, and an ongoing commitment to fairness and social justice.