The man who brutally murdered Uncle Harry is dead. In an effort to recover from the confrontation and collect himself, Jack Dana takes refuge on Torcello, a small island in the Venetian lagoon, to return to his writing career. Even more urgently, he wants to win back Kerry, the beautiful lawyer who rejected him after the bloody episode with Harry's assassin. But events beyond Jack's control intervene: Kerry loses her life in circumstances that contradict everything Jack thinks he knew about her. Soon death begins to stalk Jack himself. It is impossible not to recognize in its drumbeat the machinations of Abner Brown, the man who orchestrated Harry's demise.
The Johannssens are a sailing family: adventurous, fanatical, and, for now, a complete and total mess. Ruby, a prodigiously talented skipper, has taken off for Africa. Bernard is god-knows-where at sea. And at 31 years old, Josh Johannssen, the middle child, is fixing up an old family boat and trying to figure out where it all went wrong. When Josh’s father coaxes his children home for one last yacht race, the Johannssens find themselves reunited under thrilling circumstances that will change the course of their lives.
A New Yorker endures a romantic getaway with a cash-strapped pot grower to a “clothing optional resort” in California; a nerdy high-schooler has her first sexual experience at Geology Camp; an unemployed college grad returns to her childhood home after her father’s funeral and encounters a surprise in his browser history. With bone-dry humor and unexpected tenderness, Rebecca Schiff’s stories offer a singular view of growing up (or not) and finding love (or not) in today’s ever-uncertain landscape. THE BED MOVED is a wry and irreverent take on the human connections --- no matter how fleeting --- that make us who we are.
New York, 1993. Alice Culvert is a caring wife, a doting new mother, a loyal friend and a soulful artist --- a fashion designer who wears a baby carrier and haute couture with equal aplomb. In their loft in Manhattan’s gritty Meatpacking District, Alice and her husband, Oliver, are raising their infant daughter, Doe, delighting in the wonders of early parenthood. Their life together feels so vital and full of promise, which makes Alice’s sudden cancer diagnosis especially staggering. In the span of a single day, the couple’s focus narrows to the basic question of her survival.
Meet Will Rhodes: travel writer, recently married, barely solvent, his idealism rapidly giving way to disillusionment and the worry that he’s living the wrong life. Then one night, on assignment for the award-winning Travelers magazine in the wine region of Argentina, a beautiful woman makes him an offer he can’t refuse. As he’s drawn further into a tangled web of international intrigue, it becomes clear that nothing about Will Rhodes was ever ordinary, that the network of deception ensnaring him is part of an immense and deadly conspiracy with terrifying global implications --- and that the people closest to him may pose the greatest threat of all.
On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Over the course of minutes, they would kill 12 students and a teacher and wound 24 others before taking their own lives. For the last 16 years, Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. In A MOTHER’S RECKONING, she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible.
On one side, there is Grace: prize-winning author Diana Abu-Jaber’s tough, independent sugar-fiend of a German grandmother, wielding a suitcase full of holiday cookies. On the other, Bud: a flamboyant, spice-obsessed Arab father, full of passionate argument. The two could not agree on anything: not about food, work, or especially about what Diana should do with her life. Grace warned her away from children. Bud wanted her married above all --- even if he had to provide the ring. Caught between cultures and lavished with contradictory “advice” from both sides of her family, Diana spent years learning how to ignore others’ well-intentioned prescriptions.
What if you could live multiple lives simultaneously; have constant, perfect companionship; and never die? That’s the promise of Join, a revolutionary technology that allows small groups of minds to unite, forming a single consciousness that experiences the world through multiple bodies. But as two best friends discover, the light of that miracle may be blinding the world to its horrors. Chance and Leap are jolted out of their professional routines by a terrifying stranger --- a remorseless killer who freely manipulates the networks that regulate life in the post-Join world.
Los Angeles’s most talented burglar, Junior Bender, is in the middle of stealing one of the world’s rarest stamps from a professional killer when his luck suddenly turns sour. It takes an unexpected assist to get him out alive, but his escape sets off a chain reaction of blackmail, strong-arming and escalating crime. By the time Junior is forced to commit his third burglary of the week --- in the impregnable fortress that’s home to the ruthless studio mogul called King Maybe --- he’s beginning to wish he’d just let the killer take a crack at him.
In 1945, with no homes to return to, Jewish refugees by the tens of thousands set out for Palestine. Those who made it were hunted as illegals by the British mandatory authorities there and relied on the underground to shelter them. Taking fake names, they blended with the population, joining the wildly different factions fighting for the independence of Israel. CITY OF SECRETS follows one survivor, Brand, as he tries to regain himself after losing everyone he's ever loved.
We have listed 13 of Carol’s previous 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.
Tell us about the books you’ve finished reading with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars. During the contest period from July 24th to August 7th at noon ET, three lucky readers each will be randomly chosen to win a copy of THE AMATEUR by Chris Bohjalian and CITY OF WIDOWS by Nadia Hashimi.
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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.
July's Books on Screen roundup includes the films The Odyssey and Reading Lolita in Tehran; the series premieres of "The Five Star Weekend" on Peacock, "Little House on the Prairie" on Netflix, and "Elle" on Prime Video; the season premieres of AMC's "The Walking Dead: Dead City" and Apple TV's "Silo"; the conclusion of "Cape Fear" on Apple TV and "The Listeners" on STARZ; the season finale of AMC's "The Vampire Lestat"; the continuation of "House of the Dragon" on HBO; and the DVD/Blu-ray releases of The Devil Wears Prada 2, Animal Farm and All You Need Is Kill.