Features

End-of-the-Year Contest 2024

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Jean Hanff Korelitz, author of The Sequel

Anna Williams-Bonner has taken care of business. That is to say, she’s taken care of her husband, bestselling novelist Jacob Finch Bonner, and laid to rest those anonymous accusations of plagiarism that so tormented him. Now she is living the contented life of a literary widow, enjoying her husband’s royalty checks in perpetuity. But for the second time in her life, a work of fiction intercedes, and this time it’s her own debut novel, The Afterword. When Anna publishes her book and indulges in her own literary acclaim, she begins to receive excerpts of a novel she never expected to see again, a novel that should no longer exist. Someone out there knows far too much: about her late brother, her late husband, and just possibly...Anna herself. What does this person want, and what are they prepared to do?

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The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz

October 2024

There are times when you would love for an author to write a sequel, but that often does not happen. So when I saw that Jean Hanff Korelitz had written a sequel to THE PLOT (which also was a Bets On selection when it came out in May 2021), I was looking forward to seeing what came next. If you have not read the first book and are planning to do so, stop right here as there is a plot spoiler ahead.

Anna Williams-Bonner is the widow of Jacob Finch Bonner, who came to one swift demise in THE PLOT. Now, in THE SEQUEL, she has taken on the mantle of literary widow. With persuasion, she has written a book of her own called The Afterword, which sees its own success.

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Week of September 29, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of September 29th include REVENGE OF THE TIPPING POINT, a brand-new volume from Malcolm Gladwell that reframes the lessons of his groundbreaking first book, THE TIPPING POINT, in a startling and revealing light; PLAYGROUND by Richard Powers, a sweeping, panoramic novel set in the world’s largest ocean where four lives are drawn together; Paula Hawkins' THE BLUE HOUR, a masterful work of fiction that is as page-turning as it is unsettling and recalls the sophisticated suspense of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith; THE SEQUEL, the eagerly awaited follow-up to THE PLOT, in which Jean Hanff Korelitz gives readers an antihero to root for while illuminating and satirizing the world of publishing; and FIRE AND BONES by Kathy Reichs, a twisty, unputdownable thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who finds herself at the center of an arson investigation that spawns deepening levels of mystery and, ultimately, violence.

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