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End-of-the-Year Contest 2023

Congratulations to the winners of our 2023 End-of-the-Year Contest! One reader received all 44 of Carol Fitzgerald's Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2023, while 11 others won four of these titles. You can see all the winners below, along with 2023's Bets On selections.

If you would like to know more about these books, be sure to check out this video and podcast where Carol talks about each of her 44 picks.

Fiona Davis, author of The Spectacular

New York City, 1956: When 19-year-old Marion Brooks comes across an opportunity to audition for the Radio City Rockettes, she jumps at the chance to exchange her predictable future for the dazzling life of a performer. Meanwhile, the city is reeling from a string of bombings orchestrated by a person the press has nicknamed the “Big Apple Bomber." With the public in an uproar, the police turn to Peter Griggs, a young doctor who espouses a radical new technique: psychological profiling. As both Marion and Peter find themselves unexpectedly pulled into the police search for the bomber, Marion realizes that if she hopes to catch the culprit, she’ll need to stand out and take a terrifying risk. In doing so, she may be forced to sacrifice everything she’s worked for, as well as the people she loves the most.

The Spectacular by Fiona Davis

December 2023

When I heard that Fiona Davis had written a book set at Radio City Music Hall, I decided to hold off on reading it until November when the Christmas Spectacular kicked off there. Pun intended. I am glad I did. THE SPECTACULAR opens in 1956 when 19-year-old Marion Brooks seizes an opportunity and auditions for the Rockettes. And she is selected. Her father, Simon, is furious. He had plans for her --- she would marry her boyfriend, Nathaniel, and they would continue to live in Bronxville. Instead, she moves into a rooming house with other Rockettes and theater folks and embarks on a grueling yet invigorating schedule to perfect the tightly choreographed routines.

Week of July 22, 2024

Paperback releases for the week of July 22nd include THE SPECTACULAR by Fiona Davis, a thrilling story about love, sacrifice and the pursuit of dreams, set amidst the glamour and glitz of Radio City Music Hall in its mid-century heyday; Michael Cunningham’s first novel in nearly a decade, DAY, an exploration of love and loss, the struggles and limitations of family life --- and how we all must learn to live together and apart; J. Randy Taraborrelli's JACKIE, a fresh and often startling look at the life of legendary former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; ALL THE DEAD SHALL WEEP by Charlaine Harris, a family drama of murderous and magical thrills that marks the return of young gunslinging mercenary Lizbeth Rose; and JUST ANOTHER MISSING PERSON, a heart-stopping thriller from Gillian McAllister in which a missing person case unravels deeper, darker secrets that lead a detective to an impossible moral choice.

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