Eager to be an obedient daughter, Princess Margot accepts her role as a marriage pawn, even as she is charmed by the powerful, charismatic Duc de Guise. Though Margot's heart belongs to Guise, her hand will be offered to Henri of Navarre, a Huguenot leader and a notorious heretic looking to seal a tenuous truce. But the promised peace is a mirage: her mother's schemes are endless, and her brothers plot vengeance in the streets of Paris. When Margot's wedding devolves into the bloodshed of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, she will be forced to choose between her family and her soul.
Ever since Antietam, when he lay delirious among the dead and dying, Trace has been haunted by the country's restless spirits. The curse cost him his family, his calling to the church and damn near his sanity. Then wealthy and reclusive Sabine Fairweather admits to knowing about Trace's curse, and suggests she might be able to help him. As she steers him into one macabre situation after another, his powers flourish. But her meddling has brought Trace to the attention of something much older and more dangerous than any ghost.
In THE BLIZZARD, we are immersed in the atmosphere of a 19th-century Russia. Garin, a district doctor, is desperately trying to reach the village of Dolgoye, where a mysterious epidemic is turning people into zombies. He carries with him a vaccine that will prevent the spread of this terrible disease but is stymied in his travels by an all-consuming snowstorm, an impenetrable blizzard that turns a drive that should last only a few hours into a voyage of days and, finally, a journey into eternity.
In 1668, hangman Jakob Kuisl, his daughter Magdalena, and her husband Simon travel to the town of Bamberg. But what was planned as a family vacation soon becomes a nightmare: a murderer in Bamberg is leaving the severed limbs of victims in the trash outside the city. When rumors quickly spread that the deaths are the work of a werewolf, Jakob must prove the superstition wrong and embarks on a search for the “devil of Bamberg.”
Rachel Jenner is walking in a Bristol park with her eight-year-old son, Ben, when he asks if he can run ahead. It’s an ordinary request on an ordinary Sunday afternoon, and Rachel has no reason to worry --- until Ben vanishes. As hours and then days pass without a sign of Ben, everyone who knew him is called into question. Inevitably, media attention focuses on Rachel, and the public’s attitude toward her begins to shift from sympathy to suspicion. As she desperately pieces together the threadbare clues, Rachel realizes that nothing is quite as she imagined it to be, not even her own judgment.
On Venice’s popular Lido beach, a man is found lying on the shore, his throat slit and his tongue viciously torn out, and his face covered by an unusual antique mask. Superiors inside the Venice Carabinieri have finally given Captain Kat Tapo permission to run her first murder case. But when she learns that the mask is a Masonic “hoodwink” --- and that the circumstances of the man’s death are eerily similar to the Masonic punishment for betrayal --- she suspects that her appointment has darker implications.
Former combat medic Camaro Espinoza earns her living running night charter catch-and-release fishing trips off the coast of Miama. Trouble comes knocking in the form of Parker Story, a man in over his head with all the wrong people. Parker wants to book Camaro's boat to run a small errand off the coast of Cuba. Camaro knows she shouldn't get involved. But Parker's got a teenaged daughter named Lauren, and Parker's associates have threatened to harm her if the mission doesn't go off without a hitch.
Anne Forestier finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time when she is trapped in the middle of a bank robbery. Shot three times, she is lucky to survive --- and morbidly unlucky to remember the face of her assailant. Followed home from her hospital bed, Anne is in grave danger. But one thing stands in her favor --- a dangerously vengeful partner, carrying the scars of devastating loss, who will break all the rules to protect the woman he loves: Commandant Camille Verhoeven.
A wealthy businesswoman disappears from her Glasgow home without a trace, leaving her husband and children panicked but strangely resistant to questioning. Tracing the woman's cell phone, police detective Alex Morrow discovers a call made from an unlikely location. A sleepy seaside community, Helensburgh is the last place you'd go looking for violence. But Morrow's investigation uncovers disturbing clues and a dead body in a nearby lake. When a connection to someone close to her surfaces, the case gets more personal than she could have imagined.
In Jeff Lindsay's long-awaited sequel to his debut novel, TROPICAL DEPRESSION, Billy Knight wants to ride out Key West’s slow season with the occasional charter and the frequent beer. But when he discovers a dead body floating in the gulf, Billy gets drawn into a deadly plot of dark magic and profound evil. Along with his plucky, gun-happy friend, Nicky, and Anna, a resilient and mysterious survivor of her own horrors, Billy sets out to right the wrongs the police won’t, putting himself in mortal peril on the high seas.
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 Reading Lolita in Tehran and The Odyssey; 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.