Jada Townsend-Matthews is the most reviled woman in America after turning down a proposal on a reality dating show. When she comes home to lick her wounds, Jada finds herself working at San Diego's newest cupcake bakery, Sugar Blitz, alongside the uptight owner and professional football player Donovan Dell. When a reporter mistakenly believes Jada and Donovan are an item, they realize they can use the misunderstanding to their advantage to help the struggling bakery and rehabilitate Jada's image. Faking a relationship should be simple, but sometimes love is the most unexpected ingredient.
After moving from a small country town to Seattle, Heather Baxter marries Tom, a widowed doctor with a young son and teenage daughter. A working vacation overseas seems like the perfect way to bring the new family together, but once they’re deep in the Australian outback, the jet-lagged and exhausted kids are so over their new mom. When they discover remote Dutch Island, off-limits to outside visitors, the family talks their way onto the ferry, taking a chance on an adventure far from the reach of iPhones and Instagram. But as soon as they set foot on the island, which is run by a tightly knit clan of locals, everything feels wrong. Then a shocking accident propels the Baxters from an unsettling situation into an absolute nightmare.
Agatha Christie is the bestselling novelist of all time, and nearly every story she ever wrote involves one --- or, more commonly, several --- dead bodies. And the cause of death, the motives behind violent crimes, the clues that inevitably are left behind, and the people who put the pieces together to solve the mystery invite the reader to analyze the evidence and race to find the answer before the detective does. Christie wouldn't have talked of "forensics" as it is understood today, but in each tale she harnesses the power of human observation, ingenuity and scientific developments of the era. A fascinating, science-based deep dive, THE SCIENCE OF MURDER examines the use of fingerprints, firearms, handwriting, blood spatter analysis, toxicology and more in Christie's beloved works.
Nora Hamilton, a romance channel screenwriter, turns her marriage’s collapse into cash and writes the best script of her life. No one is more surprised than her when it’s picked up for the big screen and set to film on location at her 100-year-old-home. When former Sexiest Man Alive Leo Vance is cast as her ne’er-do-well husband, Nora’s life will never be the same. The morning after shooting wraps, Leo has a proposition. He will pay a thousand dollars a day to stay for a week. The extra seven grand would give Nora breathing room, but it’s the need in his eyes that makes her say yes. Seven days: it’s the blink of an eye or an eternity depending on how you look at it. Enough time to fall in love. Enough time to break your heart.
On a small Pacific island, a brother and sister tune in to a breaking news radio bulletin. It is 1985, and an Indian grocer has just been attacked by nativists aligned with the recent military coup. Bhumi hears this news from her locked-down dorm room in the capital city. But when her friendship with the daughter of a prominent government official becomes a liability, she must flee her unstable home for California. Jaipal is stuck working in the family store, avoiding their father’s wrath, with nothing but his hidden desires to distract him. Desperate for money and connection, he seizes a sudden opportunity to take his life into his own hands for the first time. But his decision may leave him vulnerable to the island’s escalating volatility.
In 1985, Lore Rivera marries Andres Russo in Mexico City, even though she is already married to Fabian Rivera in Laredo, Texas, and they share twin sons. Through her career as an international banker, Lore splits her time between two countries and two families --- until the truth is revealed and one husband is arrested for murdering the other. In 2017, struggling true-crime writer Cassie Bowman encounters an article on the internet detailing that tragic final act. Cassie is immediately enticed by what is not explored: Why would a woman --- a mother --- risk everything for a secret double marriage? But the more time she spends with Lore, the more Cassie questions the facts surrounding the murder itself.
Lillie Silva knew life as an empty nester would be hard, but when her husband abruptly dumps her for another woman, her world comes crashing down. Now, alone for the first time in her life, she finds herself going a little rogue. Is it over the top to crash her ex-husband’s wedding dressed like the angel of death? Sure! Should she release a skunk into his perfect new home? Probably not! But it beats staying home and moping. She finds an unexpected ally in her glamorous sister, with whom she’s had a tense relationship all these years. And an unexpected babysitter in, of all people, Ben Hallowell, the driver in a car accident that nearly killed Lillie 20 years ago. And then there’s Ophelia, her ex-husband’s oddly lost niece, who could really use a friend.
Red and the Wolf have finally contained the threat of the Old Kings but at a steep cost. Red's beloved sister Neve, the First Daughter, is lost in the Shadowlands, an inverted kingdom where the vicious gods of legend have been trapped for centuries, and the Old Kings have slowly been gaining control. But Neve has an ally, though it's one she'd rather never have to speak to again: the rogue king Solmir. Solmir wants to bring an end to the Shadowlands, and he believes helping Neve may be the key to its destruction. But to do that, they will both have to journey across a dangerous landscape in order to find a mysterious Heart Tree, and finally to claim the gods' dark, twisted powers for themselves.
The U.S. attorney general, Susan D. Kenny, is missing. She walked out of the DOJ building in D.C. without a word to anyone, caught a taxi, and...vanished. A week later, Mortimer Angel, private eye (in training) and reluctant finder of famous missing persons, is surreptitiously contacted by a Secret Service agent and asked to fly to the nation’s capital to use his ineffable brand of skill, talent or just plain luck to help find the still-missing attorney general. Mort declines that dubious honor, but less than 12 hours later he is taken at gunpoint by --- who else? --- a gorgeous girl and dragged into the most risqué and improbable case of his career.
All chef Nina Lyon wants is to make a name for herself in the culinary world and inspire young women everywhere to do the same. Now, as co-host of the competitive reality TV series “The Next Cooking Champ!”, she finally has a real shot at being top tier in the foodie scene. Too bad her co-host happens to be Hollywood’s smarmiest jerk. Restaurateur Leo O’Donnell never means to get under Nina’s skin. So nothing prepares him for the fallout after he takes one joke a smidge too far and Nina quits --- on live TV. To make matters worse, the two are caught in what looks like a compromising situation by the paparazzi. It turns out that a “secret romance” between Nina and Leo may be just what their careers need most.
We have listed 12 of Carol’s Bookreporter.com Bets On picks that are now or soon to be in paperback. Which of these books have you read or do you plan to read? Please check all that apply.
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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.
August's Books on Screen roundup includes the films The Thursday Murder Club, My Oxford Year and Night Always Comes on Netflix, the Providence Falls trilogy on Hallmark, The Map That Leads to You on Prime Video, and She Rides Shotgun in theaters; the conclusion of "And Just Like That..." on HBO Max and "The Institute" on MGM+; the series premieres of "Outlander: Blood of My Blood" on STARZ and "The Terminal List: Dark Wolf" on Prime Video; the season premieres of "The Marlow Murder Club" on PBS "Masterpiece" and "My Life with the Walter Boys" on Netflix; and the DVD/Blu-ray releases of The King of Kings and How to Train Your Dragon.