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Elizabeth Wetmore, author of Valentine

It’s February 1976, and Odessa, Texas, stands on the cusp of the next great oil boom. While the town’s men embrace the coming prosperity, its women intimately know and fear the violence that always seems to follow. In the early hours of the morning after Valentine’s Day, 14-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead’s ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager had been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field --- an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law. When justice is evasive, the stage is set for a showdown with potentially devastating consequences.

Week of March 1, 2021

Paperback releases for the week of March 1st include BECOMING, the deeply personal memoir by the former First Lady of the United States, featuring a new introduction by Michelle Obama, a letter from the author to her younger self, and a book club guide with 20 discussion questions and a five-question Q&A; HIDDEN VALLEY ROAD, Robert Kolker's fascinating account of a midcentury American family with 12 children, six of whom were diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease; Therese Anne Fowler's A GOOD NEIGHBORHOOD, which asks big questions about life in America today as it explores the effects of class, race and heartrending love in a story that’s as provocative as it is powerful; and IN FIVE YEARS by Rebecca Serle, a striking and moving love story following an ambitious lawyer who experiences an astonishing vision that could change her life forever.