Lily --- a bored, beautiful twentysomething --- wakes up on a remote desert compound, alongside 19 other contestants competing on a massively popular reality show. To win, she must outlast her housemates to stay in the Compound the longest, while competing in challenges for luxury rewards, plus communal necessities to outfit their new home. Cameras are catching all her angles, good and bad, but Lily has no desire to leave. Why would she, when the world outside is falling apart? As the competition intensifies, intimacy between the players deepens, and it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between desire and desperation. When the unseen producers raise the stakes, forcing contestants into upsetting, even dangerous situations, the line between playing the game and surviving it begins to blur.
Rosie, Daniel and Serge met at Oxford in the early 2000s. Fifteen years later, they are guests at a lavish three-day wedding in Provence. They are also no longer on speaking terms. Rosie is dreading a weekend around her ex, Serge, and his fiancé, Isla. Serge is hiding a crippling debt --- and a secret separation. Daniel, now a successful actor, is drinking to cope with life in the limelight. And Isla is wondering why motherhood looks so much easier for everyone else. As the champagne flows, historic rivalries and infatuations surface, and old and new secrets emerge. This is a wedding to be remembered, for all the wrong reasons.
One calm night in Twickenham, a businessman named Tom Treadnor is shot off his barstool at The Queen pub. Superintendent Richard Jury is called in to investigate and quickly realizes that everyone in Treadnor’s life --- from his widow, Alice, to the staff at his manor, to his business partner --- had differing opinions of him. And to complicate things further, Jury has just happened upon a photo in a newspaper of a man in the United States who is a dead ringer for Treadnor. Meanwhile, Wiggins, Jury’s partner at New Scotland Yard, becomes sidetracked by an investigation of his own: His sister, missing for years and presumed dead, has just sent a postcard to their mother. When Wiggins takes off in search of his sister, the two investigations begin to converge.
For nearly five decades after the Second World War, the Iron Curtain divided Europe, forming the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. No physical combat would take place along this frontier. Instead, the war was fought psychologically. It was a battle for hearts, minds and intellects. Few understood this more clearly than George Minden, head of a covert intelligence operation known as the “CIA book program,” which aimed to undermine Soviet censorship and inspire revolt by offering different visions of thought and culture. Minden’s “book club” secretly sent 10 million banned titles into the East. Charlie English narrates this tale of Cold War spycraft, smuggling and secret printing operations for the first time, highlighting the work of a handful of extraordinary people who fought for intellectual freedom.
In poetry that is at once bold and lyrical, affecting and devastatingly frank, Miranda Cowley Heller --- the #1 New York Times bestselling author of THE PAPER PALACE --- takes us through childhood, marriage, motherhood and beyond. Suffused with the natural world and the landscape of Cape Cod, where many of the poems are set, WHAT THE DEEP WATER KNOWS contemplates love in all the seasons.
When criminal lawyer Justine Stone is handed the lead on her first murder case, she’s thrilled at the chance to enter the big leagues --- until she discovers that she recognizes the man on the stand: Jake Reynolds, her first love who abruptly disappeared from her life years ago and is now facing charges for a grisly double homicide. If she’s going to send Jake to prison for murder, she has to be sure, and that means heading back to their hometown to seek answers. Back home after almost two decades, Justine is haunted by memories, not only of the idyllic love she shared with Jake, but darker recollections of the death of her beloved father and the weight of the small town’s expectations. When her older brother, Max, goes missing, she starts to suspect that everything is connected.
Silent film star Venita Rost's malevolent spirit lurks spider-like in her cliffside mansion, a once-beautiful home that's claimed countless unlucky souls. Snared in her terrible web, Inspector Bartholomew Sloan --- her eternal nemesis --- watches her wreak havoc in helpless horror. Now the house has yet another new owner. This time it's Ronnie Mitchell, a grieving woman who buys the run-down place sight unseen. She arrives armed with an unexpected inheritance, a strong background in renovation, and a blissful ignorance regarding the house's blood-soaked history. In the shadows, unseen eyes watch. Then, a man comes knocking. He brings wild stories and a thinly veiled jealousy, as well as a secret connection to the house that can only lead to violence. Venita's fury awakens, and a deadly game unfolds.
Quinn Alexander has committed an unthinkable crime. To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she's done. But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night. Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn't the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past. And in the dilapidated house across the way, the silhouette of Nick's ailing wife is always at the window. Always watching.
Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade. What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.
Lizbeth Rose’s sister, Felicia, attends the Grand Wizards’ Ball, and as one of the most powerful --- and beautiful --- death wizards in a generation, she is highly sought after as one of the belles of the ball. However, war and violence are on the rise in Europe as German and Japanese wizards are also courting Felicia…and some are refusing to take no for an answer. As the façade of genteel wizard society turns deadly, Lizbeth must learn not only to protect her sister, but also to navigate the arcane world that is pulling her sister and husband into a dangerous dance with death that could change the world as they know it.
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.