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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.

Ashley Audrain, author of The Whispers

The Loverlys’ young son is in a coma after falling from his bedroom window in the middle of the night. His mother, Whitney, will not speak to anyone. Back home, their friends and neighbors are left in shock, each confronting their own role in the events that led up to what happened that terrible night: the Parks, the Loverlys' best friends; the Goldsmiths, who are struggling to start a family of their own; and the Portuguese couple who care for their adult son with a developmental disability and watch their neighbors go about their busy lives. The story spins out over the course of one week, in the alternating voices of the women in each family as they are forced to face the secrets within the walls of their own homes, and the uncomfortable truths that connect them all to one another.

The Whispers by Ashley Audrain

September 2023

A couple of years ago, I read Ashley Audrain’s debut novel, THE PUSH, and joked that I never will look at little pink mittens the same way again. I read THE WHISPERS over our summer holiday break, and once again she has nailed the young mother domestic thriller. It’s set in an upscale neighborhood where there are oversized new houses that were teardowns, as well as original homes that are smaller-sized, all on the same block. Harlow Street is the kind of place where you know your neighbors and socialize with them, then talk about them.

Week of May 13, 2024

Paperback releases for the week of May 13th include GONE TONIGHT by Sarah Pekkanen, an emotionally thrilling powerhouse of a novel about the things we do for love, and what we’re capable of when pushed to the limit; Ashley Audrain's THE WHISPERS, a propulsive page-turner about four families whose lives are changed when the unthinkable happens --- and what is lost when we give in to our own worst impulses; PAGEBOY, Oscar-nominated star Elliot Page's groundbreaking and inspiring memoir about love, family, fame --- and stepping into who we truly are with strength, joy and connection; LIFE B, a bracing and fresh look at a lifelong struggle with depression and mental illness from writer and book critic Bethanne Patrick; and the paperback original THE LAST TIME SHE SAW HIM by Kate White, a head-spinning psychological thriller in which a woman is left reeling when her former fiancé appears to take his own life, and she becomes desperate to prove it was actually murder.