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Week of April 17, 2017

New in Paperback

Week of April 17, 2017

Paperback releases for the week of April 17th include ELIGIBLE, Curtis Sittenfeld's modern retelling of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, which tackles gender, class, courtship and family; AS TIME GOES BY, a thrilling mystery from Mary Higgins Clark about a news reporter who tries to find her birth mother just as she is assigned to cover the high-profile trial of a woman accused of murdering her wealthy husband; THE THIRD WAVE, in which Steve Case, one of America’s most accomplished entrepreneurs, shares a roadmap for how anyone can succeed in a world of rapidly changing technology; and APPROVAL JUNKIE, a collection of daring, funny essays chronicling the adventures of comedian and journalist Faith Salie during her lifelong quest for approval.

Alice & Oliver by Charles Bock - Fiction

April 18, 2017

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.

Approval Junkie: My Heartfelt (and Occasionally Inappropriate) Quest to Please Just About Everyone, and Ultimately Myself by Faith Salie - Humor/Essays

April 18, 2017

Faith Salie has done it all in the name of validation. Whether it’s trying to impress her parents with a perfect GPA, undergoing an exorcism in the hopes of saving her toxic marriage, or maintaining the BMI of “a flapper with a touch of dysentery,” Salie is the ultimate approval seeker --- an “approval junkie,” if you will. With thoughtful irreverence, Salie reflects on why she tries so hard to please others, and herself, highlighting a phenomenon that many people --- especially women --- experience at home and in the workplace.

As Time Goes By by Mary Higgins Clark - Thriller

April 18, 2017

Television journalist Delaney Wright is on the brink of stardom after she begins covering a sensational murder trial. She should be thrilled, yet her growing desire to locate her birth mother consumes her thoughts. When Delaney’s friends, Alvirah Meehan and her husband, Willy, offer to look into the mystery surrounding her birth, they uncover a shocking secret they do not want to reveal. On trial for murder is Betsy Grant, widow of a wealthy doctor who has been an Alzheimer’s victim for eight years. As the trial unfolds, and the damning evidence against Betsy piles up, Delaney is convinced that Betsy is not guilty and frantically tries to prove her innocence.

Ashes of Fiery Weather by Kathleen Donohoe - Fiction

April 18, 2017

Firefighters walk boldly into battle against the most capricious of elements. Their daughters, mothers, sisters and wives walk through the world with another kind of strength and another kind of sorrow, and no one knows that better than the women of the Keegan-O’Reilly clan. In ASHES OF FIERY WEATHER, debut novelist Kathleen Donohoe takes us from famine-era Ireland to New York City a decade after 9/11, illuminating the passionate loves and tragic losses of six generations of women in a firefighting family.

Asylum: A Survivor's Flight from Nazi-Occupied Vienna Through Wartime France by Moriz Scheyer - Memoir

April 18, 2017

As arts editor for one of Vienna's principal newspapers, Moriz Scheyer knew many of the city's foremost artists, and was an important literary journalist. With the advent of the Nazis, he was forced from both job and home. In 1943, in hiding in France, Scheyer began drafting what was to become this book. Tracing events from the Anschluss in Vienna, through life in Paris and unoccupied France, including a period in a French concentration camp, contact with the Resistance, and clandestine life in a convent caring for mentally disabled women, he gives an extraordinarily vivid account of the events and experience of persecution.

The Color of Our Sky by Amita Trasi - Fiction

April 18, 2017

India, 1986: Mukta, a 10-year-old village girl, has come of age and must fulfill her destiny of becoming a temple prostitute. In an attempt to escape her fate, Mukta is sent to be a house girl for an upper-middle class family in Mumbai. There she discovers a friend in the daughter of the family, eight-year-old Tara, who helps her recover from the wounds of her past. But one night in 1993, Mukta is kidnapped from Tara’s family home and disappears. Eleven years later, Tara returns to India determined to find Mukta. As her search takes her into the brutal underground world of human trafficking, Tara begins to uncover long-buried secrets in her own family that might explain what happened to Mukta --- and why she came to live with Tara’s family in the first place.

A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker - Historical Fiction

April 18, 2017

In 1939 Paris, the ground rumbles with the footfall of Nazi soldiers marching along the Champs-Élysées, and a young, unknown writer, recently arrived from Ireland to make his mark, smokes one last cigarette with his lover before the city they know is torn apart. Soon he will put them both in mortal danger by joining the Resistance. Through the years that follow, we are witness to the workings of a uniquely brilliant mind struggling to create a language to express a shattered world.

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld - Fiction

April 18, 2017

This version of the Bennet family --- and Mr. Darcy --- is one that you have and haven’t met before. Liz is a magazine writer in her late 30s who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help --- and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray.

Fever at Dawn by Péter Gárdos - Historical Fiction

April 18, 2017

It’s 1945, and Miklós is looking for a wife. The fact that he has six months left to live doesn’t discourage him --- he isn’t one to let small problems like that stand in the way, especially not after he’s survived a concentration camp. Currently marooned in an all-male sanatorium in Sweden, and desperate to get out, he acquires the names of the 117 Hungarian women also recovering in Sweden and writes each of them a letter in his beautiful cursive hand. Luckily for him, Lili decides to write back.

Filthy Rich: The Billionaire's Sex Scandal — The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein by James Patterson and John Connolly, with Tim Malloy - True Crime

April 18, 2017

Jeffrey Epstein rose from humble origins to the rarefied heights of New York City's financial elite. A college dropout with an instinct for numbers --- and for people --- Epstein amassed his wealth through a combination of access and skill. But even after he had it all, Epstein wanted more. And that unceasing desire --- especially a taste for young girls --- resulted in his stunning fall from grace. From Epstein himself, to the girls he employed as masseuses at his home, to the cops investigating the appalling charges against him, FILTHY RICH examines all sides of a case that scandalized one of America's richest communities.

Forks, Knives, and Spoons by Leah DeCesare - Fiction

April 18, 2017

There are three kinds of guys: forks, knives and spoons. That is the final lesson that Amy York’s father sends her off to college with, never suspecting just how far his daughter will take it. Clinging to the Utensil Classification System as her guide, Amy tries to convince her skeptical roommate, Veronica Warren, of its usefulness as they navigate the heartbreaks and soul mates of college and beyond. Beginning in 1988, their freshman year at Syracuse University, Amy and Veronica meet an assortment of guys --- from slotted spoons and shrimp forks to butter knives and sporks --- all while trying to learn if the UCS holds true.

Gone Without a Trace by Mary Torjussen - Psychological Thriller

April 18, 2017

Hannah Monroe's boyfriend, Matt, is gone. His belongings have disappeared from their house. Every call she ever made to him, every text she ever sent, every photo of him and any sign of him on social media have vanished. It's as though their last four years together never happened. As Hannah struggles to get through the next few days, with humiliation and recriminations whirring through her head, she knows that she'll do whatever it takes to find him again and get answers. But as soon as her search starts, she realizes she is being led into a maze of madness and obsession. Step by suspenseful step, Hannah discovers her only way out is to come face to face with the shocking truth.

Granite Mountain: The Firsthand Account of a Tragic Wildfire, Its Lone Survivor, and the Firefighters Who Made the Ultimate Sacrifice by Brendan McDonough with Stephan Talty - Memoir

April 18, 2017

Brendan McDonough was on the verge of becoming a hopeless, inveterate heroin addict when he, for the sake of his young daughter, decided to turn his life around. He enlisted in the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a team of elite firefighters based in Prescott, Arizona. On June 30, 2013, a freak, 3,000-degree inferno ultimately trapped his hotshot brothers, tragically killing all 19 of them. GRANITE MOUNTAIN traces McDonough's story of finding his way out of the dead end of drugs and the minute-by-minute account of the fateful day he lost the very men who had saved him.

I Am Your Judge written by Nele Neuhaus, translated by Steven T. Murray - Mystery

April 18, 2017

An elderly woman has been shot and killed while walking her dog. A short while later, another murder is committed, and the modus operandi is eerily similar. Two more murders follow in short order. None of the victims had enemies, and no one knows why they were singled out. As fear of the Taunus Sniper grows among the local residents, the pressure rises on Police Detective Pia Kirchhoff. She and her partner, Oliver von Bodenstein, search for a suspect who appears to murder at will, but as the investigation progresses, the police officers uncover a human tragedy.

Joe Gould's Teeth by Jill Lepore - Biography/History

April 18, 2017

Digging through archives all over the country, New Yorker staff writer and Harvard historian Jill Lepore unearthed evidence that “The Oral History of Our Time” did in fact once exist. Relying on letters, scraps, and Gould’s own diaries and notebooks --- including volumes of his lost manuscript --- Lepore argues that Joe Gould’s real secret had to do with sex and the color line, with modernists’ relationship to the Harlem Renaissance, and, above all, with Gould’s terrifying obsession with the African American sculptor Augusta Savage. In ways that even Gould himself could not have imagined, what Gould wrote down really is a history of our time: unsettling and ferocious.

The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter - Psychological Thriller

April 18, 2017

With the discovery of a murder at an abandoned construction site, Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is brought in on a case that becomes much more dangerous when the dead man is identified as an ex-cop. Studying the body, Sara Linton --- the GBI’s newest medical examiner and Will’s lover --- realizes that the extensive blood loss didn't belong to the corpse. Sure enough, bloody footprints leading away from the scene indicate there is another victim who has vanished and will die soon if she isn’t found. Evidence soon links Will’s troubled past to the case, and the consequences will tear through his life with the force of a tornado, wreaking havoc for Will and everyone around him.

The Measure of the Moon by Lisa Preston - Mystery/Thriller

April 18, 2017

Eight-year-old Greer Donner witnesses a man beating a woman. He stops the assault, but is left to face the man, who turns his wrath into an ominous threat: If the boy ever reveals what he has seen, his family will pay the ultimate price. Gillian Trett is a photographer with a troubled marriage and a childhood she’s trying to forget. Domestic tension mounts when her husband’s stepsister arrives. Desperate for a distraction, and a way to advance her career, Gillian throws herself into uncovering the history behind an old man’s Holocaust photo of boys in a forest. Then a horrifying revelation entangles Gillian’s path with young Greer’s, and each confronts the terrible power of harbored secrets.

The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood - Fiction

April 5, 2016

The story of your life never starts at the beginning. Don't they teach you anything at school? So says 104-year-old Ona to the 11-year-old boy who's been sent to help her out every Saturday morning. As he refills the bird feeders and tidies the garden shed, Ona tells him about her long life, from first love to second chances. Soon she's confessing secrets she has kept hidden for decades. One Saturday, the boy doesn't show up. Ona starts to think he's not so special after all, but then his father arrives on her doorstep, determined to finish his son's good deed. The boy's mother is not so far behind. Ona is set to discover that the world can surprise us at any age, and that sometimes sharing a loss is the only way to find ourselves again.

The Risen: A Novel of Spartacus by David Anthony Durham - Historical Fiction

April 18, 2017

It is one of the most storied uprisings of classical times. Spartacus, the visionary captive and gladiator, used his toughness and charisma to turn a prison break into a revolt that would threaten the Roman empire. Now, David Anthony Durham brings us a thrilling retelling that gives voice not only to Spartacus himself, but also to Astera, Spartacus’ oracle consort; Nonus, a Roman soldier working both sides of the conflict; Laelia and Hustus, two slave children drawn into the ranks of the rebellion; Kaleb, secretary to the Roman senator and commander saddled with the task of quashing the insurrection; and many others in a vast spectacle of bloodshed, heroism and treachery.

The Second Life of Nick Mason by Steve Hamilton - Thriller

April 18, 2017

Nick Mason has already spent five years inside a maximum security prison when an offer comes that will grant his release 20 years early. He accepts, but the deal comes with a terrible price. Whenever his cell phone rings, day or night, he must answer it and follow whatever order he is given. It’s the deal he made with Darius Cole, a criminal mastermind serving a double-life term who runs an empire from his prison cell. Forced to commit increasingly more dangerous crimes, hunted by the relentless detective who put him behind bars, and desperate to go straight and rebuild his life with his daughter and ex-wife, Nick ultimately will have to risk everything to finally break free.

Sunday's on the Phone to Monday by Christine Reilly - Fiction

April 18, 2017

Claudio and Mathilde Simone, once romantic bohemians hopelessly enamored with each other, find themselves nestled in domesticity in New York, running a struggling vinyl record store and parenting three daughters as best they can: Natasha, an overachieving prodigy; sensitive Lucy, with her debilitating heart condition; and Carly, adopted from China and quietly fixated on her true origins.

The Thing About Love by Julie James - Romance

April 18, 2017

FBI agents Jessica Harlow and John Shepherd have a past. The former lawyer and cocky Army Ranger clashed during their training at Quantico and gladly went their separate ways after graduating from the Academy. Six years later, the last thing either of them expects is to be assigned to work as partners in a high-profile undercover sting. Jessica is eager to prove herself at her new field office, and John is just one case away from his dream assignment to the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team. They’ll have to find a way to work together --- a task that becomes even trickier when they’re forced to hole up at a romantic beachfront resort as part of the investigation.

The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future by Steve Case - Business & Economics

April 18, 2017

Steve Case --- a pioneer who made the Internet part of everyday life --- was on the leading edge of a revolution in 1985 when he co-founded AOL, the first Internet company to go public and the most successful business of the 1990s. Back then Case was an entrepreneur in an industry that hadn’t really been invented yet, but he had a sense how dramatically the Internet would transform business and society. In THE THIRD WAVE, he uses his insights garnered from nearly four decades of working as an innovator, investor and businessman to argue the importance of entrepreneurship and to chart a path for future innovators.

The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett - Fiction

April 18, 2017

Cambridge, 1958. Late for class, Eva Edelstein swerves to miss a dog and crashes her bike. Jim Taylor hurries to help her. In that brief moment, three outcomes are born for Eva and Jim. As the strands of their lives weave together and apart across the decades from college through wildly different successes and disappointments, seductions and betrayals, births and funerals, joys and sorrows, the only constant is the power of their connection.

What's Become of Her by Deb Caletti - Mystery/Romance

April 18, 2017

Isabelle Austen returns to her hometown on a small, isolated Pacific Northwest island to take over the family tourism business after the death of her mother. Feeling lost, Isabelle is also struggling with a recent divorce and wondering if she’ll ever come into her own. Then her life takes a surprising turn: The mysterious Henry North arrives on Parrish Island and changes her world forever. From the beginning, their relationship is heady and intense. But then Isabelle learns of Henry’s disturbing past, involving the death of a fiancée and the disappearance of a wife. Suddenly Isabelle is caught between love and suspicion, paranoia and passion, as she searches for the truth she may not want to find --- and is swept into a dangerous game she may not survive.