Reeling from her husband’s death and best friend’s dementia diagnosis, 76-year-old Linda Davidson feels lost and alone. Eager to escape the tension at home, Linda goes to visit her friend at Legacy Place, a memory care facility for the elderly, where she meets Jenny Cooper, a 92-year-old dementia patient who makes a shocking confession: she kills people. Linda dismisses the so-called secret as the confusion of an ailing mind, but Jenny seems strangely lucid during their visits as she recounts stories of her many victims --- mostly men who hurt her. Then a fellow patient at Legacy Place dies. Everyone else sees it as the natural death of a sick old man, but Linda can’t help but wonder: Is there any chance Jenny is telling the truth?
After working as the head designer for Oscar de la Renta, Eugenia Ward started her own company when she turned 40. She is now a major name in evening gowns and wedding gowns, ready-to-wear and haute couture. But with the fashion business in a major downturn, she recently has suffered heavy losses and desperately needs new investors --- and new ideas. At the same time, she is the matriarch and guiding light for her five adult children, a single mother for more than a decade. Patrick Hughes, a successful real estate developer, is also going through a rough patch and gives Eugenia valuable advice about her business challenges. But as her family gathers for her daughter’s big wedding, tensions are running high, money may be running out, and a hurricane is looming on the horizon.
Tasha and her older sister, Alice, may look alike, but they couldn’t be more different. Tasha is married with two children and still lives in their hometown near Bristol. Alice is a high-flying scientist who travels the world with her equally successful husband. Yet each sister would trust the other with her life. When Tasha and her husband, Aaron, need a break and Alice offers to stay in their home with the kids, Tasha knows her family is in safe hands. She couldn’t be more wrong. The call from home is devastating. Alice and her husband, Kyle, have been attacked, leaving Alice in intensive care and Kyle dead. Rushing to the hospital, Tasha finds the police trying to piece events together. She can’t think why anyone would attack her sister. Then the note arrives, addressed to Tasha: It was supposed to be you.
Notting Hill, London: One May evening, 17-year-old Maggie Parker's mother walks out of their front door and doesn't return. With her little brother in tow, Maggie is drawn into a labyrinthine world of secondhand shops and shadowy figures. As she struggles to maintain a stable life for herself and her brother, she befriends Wolf, another young person also living on his wits alone. But can he help solve the mystery of her mother’s disappearance? When she discovers that her beloved house now holds a dangerous new secret, and Wolf is involved, a heartbroken Maggie makes her escape. Twenty-one years later, Maggie gets a phone call that shatters her hard-won new life. While in London, the incoming owner of the Parkers' old Notting Hill house is excavating the basement, unaware of what might lie beneath --- and the clock starts ticking on buried secrets.
Skwerl, once an elite member of the CIA's paramilitary unit, was cast out after a raid gone wrong in Afghanistan. Big Cheese Aziz, a former Afghan pilot of legendary skill, now works the graveyard shift at a gas station. Recruited into a shadowy network of "sheepdogs," they embark on a mission to repossess a multi-million-dollar private jet stranded on a remote African airfield. But as they wind through a labyrinth of lies and hidden agendas, they discover that nothing is as it seems. Their contact vanishes, their handler's motives are suspect, and the true source of their payday remains a mystery. With the stakes skyrocketing and the women in their lives drawn into the fray, this unlikely spy duo find themselves deep in the underbelly of modern war and intelligence.
In 1969, 23-year-old starlet Lori Lovely shocks the world by ditching a promising film career to take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as a Benedictine nun. Why would such a beautiful girl take the veil? Did it have anything to do with the tragic death of her costar, heartthrob singer Lucas Wesley? In 1990, Lu Tibbott is under the gun to complete her senior thesis in modern American history. Instead of spending weeks in dusty archives, Lu decides to dig into a true 20th-century mystery and write about her aunt Lori, now the Mother Abbess at a cloistered convent in rural New England. Mother Lori has refused all requests for interviews --- until Lu arrives at the abbey with a tape recorder in hand. To her delight, Mother Lori announces she’s finally ready to talk...but only if Lu is truly ready to listen.
Jo Jones can't seem to catch a break. Trading in city life for the cozy, peaceful hills of North Yorkshire should have been a "fresh start.” Instead, she's been driven further into the past than she thought possible --- and not just her own. Then there’s the gossipy town politics Jo must constantly navigate as a neurodivergent transplanted American. And of course, the whole murder business. When prickly town detective James MacAdams discovers a body in the moors with coincidental ties to Jo Jones, they're forced to team up on the case. The clues will lead them into the wealthiest locales of Yorkshire, from sparkling glass hotels to luxury property sites to elite country clubs. But what begins as bizarre murder case quickly plunges them both into the blackmarket world of rare artifacts and antique trading...and a murderer who will do anything to cover it up.
Ten years ago, they joined the CIA. Six years ago, he left the game. Five years ago, they fell in love. One year ago, she ran out into the cold with absolutely no intention of ever coming back. And two minutes ago, they woke up, bloody and bruised and handcuffed together in the dark. They don’t know where they are. They don’t know how they got there. And they have absolutely no idea who is after them or what this nameless, faceless villain wants. The only thing that’s clear is that, after 10 years of covers and chemistry, secrets and lies, these two rival spies have been sucked into their greatest mission yet, and now they’re going to have to team up to stay alive (if they don’t kill each other first).
When the Cassidy-Shaws’ autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, 17-year-old Charlie is in the driver’s seat, with his father, Noah, riding shotgun. In the back seat, tweens Alice and Izzy are on their phones, while their mother, Lorelei, a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence, is absorbed in her work. Yet each family member harbors a secret, implicating each of them in the accident. During a weeklong recuperation on the Chesapeake Bay, the family confronts the excruciating moral dilemmas triggered by the crash. But Lorelei’s odd behavior tugs at Noah’s suspicions that there is a darker truth behind the incident --- suspicions heightened by the sudden intrusion of Daniel Monet, a tech mogul whose mysterious history with Lorelei hints at betrayal.
Fannie Flagg once said that what the world needs now is a good laugh. And that is what she gives us in these warmhearted, always surprising stories about people who are finding clever ways to deal with the curveballs life sometimes throws at us. Velma in Kansas, a loving great-grandmother, struggles to bridge generational gaps with her family. We cheer for Helen, in Ithaca, New York, who takes an audacious course of action when her husband leaves her for a younger woman. In towns and cities all across America, people figure out inventive ways to overcome obstacles to happiness. And in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Special Agent Frawley is studying the mysteries of being human from an original perspective.
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.