1942. Everywhere around the world, the Allies are losing the war. Nowhere is this felt more completely than in the Pacific, where Japanese sea and ground forces claim victory after victory. Meanwhile, in Honolulu, a brilliant young naval officer is determined to break Japan's top secret codes. Lt. Commander Joseph Rochefort is inches away from cracking the code by April but is startled to learn that the Japanese are planning yet another major invasion somewhere in the Pacific. What ensues is the cat-and-mouse adventure that will become the epic fight known as the Battle of Midway. The dramatic battle will involve strategy, luck, heartbreak --- and will change the course of World War II.
Every summer, Vivian Levy and Lucy Webster spend a month with their father at his lake house --- separately. Raised in New York City, Vivian is an ambitious sommelier with a secret that could derail her future. Lucy grew up in a tiny Maine town, where she now teaches high school English while watching her marriage unravel. They’ve never met. While Lucy envied her half-sister from afar, their father kept Vivian in the dark. When Vivian arrives at the lake to spread his ashes and sell his cabin, she's shocked to find Lucy there, awaiting his return. In an ideal world, they’d help each other through their grief. Instead, forced to spend the summer together, they fight through a storm of suspicion and hostility to untangle the messy truth about their parents’ pasts.
Since the weekend of the party --- the one that 22-year-old Liv can’t remember, the one that left her covered in bruises --- she’s been locked out of her bedroom by a padlock. Her parents are behaving oddly, and her best friend won’t respond to her texts. Maybe she really was out of control that night? Meanwhile, her father, Janus, is not sure he can do what is necessary to keep this secret hidden. Her brother, Casper, was away that weekend, but he knows something isn’t right. His parents don’t look each other in the eye anymore. His father’s hands tremble for no reason. And where does Liv keep disappearing to in the middle of the night? Casper decides to find out what no one will tell him about that weekend. What lies behind the padlocked door?
Cristina Jiménez’s family fights to stay afloat as Ecuador falls into a political and economic crisis. When she is 13, her parents courageously decide to seek a better life in the U.S., landing in a one-bedroom apartment in Queens, New York. There are many challenges, but eventually, Cristina discovers she is not alone. She finds her calling within a community of social justice organizers. With deep candor and humor, Cristina opens the door to what it’s like to grow up undocumented and the reality that being a “good” immigrant doesn’t shield you from systematic racism, danger, or even the confusion of falling in love.
Natural Resources police officer Sloan Cooper and her partner had just taken down three men preying on hikers in the Western Maryland mountains. Driving back, she pulled in at a convenience store --- and walked right into a robbery in progress. One gunshot from a jittery thief was about to change her world. After being shocked back to life on the operating table, she has a long recovery ahead. When a woman vanishes, leaving her car behind in a supermarket parking lot, Sloan searches online for similar cases. She finds them, spread across three states. The missing seem to have nothing in common. And the abductions keep happening. Luckily, the new man in her life shares her passion for solving this mystery. But it will take every ounce of endurance to get to the dark heart of this bizarre case.
When his grandfather dies, Jay travels south with his family to the property they’ve inherited, a once flourishing farm that has fallen into disrepair. The trees are diseased, the fields parched from months of drought. Jay’s father, Jack, sends him out to work the land, or whatever land is left. Over the course of these hot, dense days, Jay finds himself drawn to Chuan, the son of the farm’s manager, different from him in every way except for one. Out in the fields, and on the streets into town, the charge between the boys intensifies. Inside the house, the other family members begin to confront their own secrets and regrets.
In the midst of the woods stands a house called Lichen Hall. This place is shrouded in folklore --- old stories of ghosts, of witches, of a child who is not quite a child. Now the woods are creeping closer, and something has been unleashed. Pearl Gorham arrives in 1965, one of a string of young women sent to Lichen Hall to give birth. And she soon suspects the proprietors are hiding something. Then she meets the mysterious mother and young boy who live on the grounds --- and together they begin to unpack the secrets of this place. As the truth comes to the surface and the darkness moves in, Pearl must rethink everything she knew --- and risk what she holds most dear.
Rhonda and Barbara “Baby” Bird are half-sisters --- and full partners in their Los Angeles detective agency. They agree on nothing. Rhonda, a former attorney, takes a by-the-book approach to solving crimes, while teenage Baby relies on her street smarts. But when they take a controversial case of a loner whose popular wife has gone missing, they’re accused of being PIs who can’t tell a client from a killer. The Bird sisters share a late father, but not much else…except their willingness to fight. Fight the system. Fight for the underdog. Fight for the truth. If they can stop fighting each other long enough to work together.
Swiss homicide detective Giuliana Linder of the Bern Police and her investigating partner, Renzo Donatelli, are facing cases that may not be what they appear. Renzo is on the scene near the Bern cathedral when a young man repairing a medieval window is injured by falling from a scaffold --- a fall deliberately caused by a teenage boy. Finding evidence that the boy’s attack on the glassworker is linked to his mother’s suicide 15 years earlier, Renzo decides to reexamine the woman’s death, hoping his work on the case will help get him promoted to homicide detective. He learns that the apparent suicide still haunts the injured glassworker, although he was a child of 10 when the boy’s mother died. Now that Renzo has left his wife, Giuliana knows she has to choose what she wants from their future together. Frustrated by her own case, she can’t help getting involved in Renzo’s investigation.
Rose’s cousin is eloping to Miami, and Rose is playing host. If she can't balance the groom’s family’s snobbery against the traditional St. Olaf wedding week guidelines, her hometown may never accept her cousin again! Dorothy quickly realizes she needs a date with whom she can exchange wedding-related wisecracks. Turning to a newfangled VHS dating service, she believes she’s found the ideal conversationalist. Unfortunately, what looks good on TV can actually be a total jerk in real life. It seems she’ll just have to enjoy the company of Sophia, Blanche, and whomever Blanche has targeted for a hookup. But then Dorothy’s date is found dead --- face-planted in an otherwise scrumptious-looking cheesecake. The four besties must ID the real killer, get the should-be-happy couple down the aisle, and make sure nobody from St. Olaf gets lost in the wilds of Miami.
Is a book that has been chosen for one of the major book clubs something you consider when looking for your next read? Which of the following book club selections do you follow and act upon the most?
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Coming Soon
Curious about what books will be released in the months ahead so you can pre-order or reserve them? Then click on the months below.
June's Books on Screen roundup includes the series premieres of Prime Video's "We Were Liars" and Netflix's "The Survivors"; the season premieres of "Grantchester" on PBS "Masterpiece" and "The Buccaneers" on Apple TV+; the season finale of "The Walking Dead: Dead City" on AMC; the continuation of Hulu's "Nine Perfect Strangers" and Max's "And Just Like That..."; the films The Life of Chuck and How to Train Your Dragon in theaters and Pie to Die For: A Hannah Swensen Mystery on Hallmark Mystery; and the DVD/Blu-ray releases of Snow White, The Friend, The Monkey, In the Lost Lands and A Working Man.