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Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of The Seventh Veil of Salome

1950s Hollywood: Every actress wants to play Salome, the star-making role in a big-budget movie about the legendary woman whose story has inspired artists since ancient times. So when the film’s mercurial director casts Vera Larios, an unknown Mexican ingenue, in the lead role, she quickly becomes the talk of the town. Vera also becomes an object of envy for Nancy Hartley, a bit player who will do anything to win the fame she believes she richly deserves. Two actresses, both determined to make it to the top in Golden Age Hollywood, make for a sizzling combination. But this is the tale of three women, for it is also the story of the princess Salome herself, consumed with desire for the fiery prophet who foretells the doom of her stepfather, Herod: a woman torn between the decree of duty and the yearning of her heart.

Week of May 5, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of May 5th include THE COVENANT OF WATER by Abraham Verghese, a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith and medicine that follows three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret; Lucy Foley's THE MIDNIGHT FEAST, a deliciously twisty locked-room mystery set at a luxe coastal retreat; I WILL RUIN YOU, an intriguing psychological thriller from Linwood Barclay, in which a teacher’s act of heroism inadvertently makes him the target of a dangerous blackmailer; Ann Hood's THE STOLEN CHILD, a moving, page-turning novel about   an unlikely duo venturing through France and Italy to solve the mystery of a child’s fate; and THE YEAR OF LIVING CONSTITUTIONALLY, which chronicles A.J. Jacobs'  hilarious adventures in attempting to follow the original meaning of the Constitution, as he searches for answers to one of the most pressing issues of our time: How should we interpret America’s foundational document?