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Week of April 3, 2017

New in Paperback

Week of April 3, 2017

Paperback releases for the week of April 3rd include ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, Anthony Doerr's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II; FIRST COMES LOVE by Emily Giffin, in which a pair of sisters find themselves at a crossroads; THE NEST, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney's debut novel about four adult siblings and the fate of the shared inheritance that has shaped their choices and their lives; Jeffrey Toobin's AMERICAN HEIRESS, the definitive account of the kidnapping and trial that defined an insane era in American history; and THE RETURN by Hisham Matar, the acclaimed memoir of a son’s search for the truth behind his father’s disappearance.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr - Historical Fiction

April 4, 2017

Marie-Laure is a young blind girl living in Paris with her father, who is a master of locks at the Museum of Natural History and is in charge of some of their most valued works. When she is 12, the Germans move into the city, and they are forced to flee to the town of Saint-Malo, where a reclusive uncle lives by the sea. In a parallel story, a young orphan boy named Werner lives with his sister in Germany and is tapped to be part of the Hitler Youth, eventually given a role to teach the Resistance.

American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin - True Crime

April 4, 2017

The saga of Patty Hearst highlighted a decade in which America seemed to be suffering a collective nervous breakdown. Based on more than a hundred interviews and thousands of previously secret documents, AMERICAN HEIRESS recounts the craziness of the times (there were an average of 1,500 terrorist bombings a year in the early 1970s). Jeffrey Toobin portrays the lunacy of the half-baked radicals of the SLA and the toxic mix of sex, politics and violence that swept up Patty Hearst and re-creates her melodramatic trial. The book examines the life of a young woman who suffered an unimaginable trauma and then made the stunning decision to join her captors’ crusade. Or did she?

The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports by Jeff Passan - Sports

April 4, 2017

Every year, Major League Baseball spends more than $1.5 billion on pitchers. Their import is exceeded only by their fragility. One tiny band of tissue in the elbow, the ulnar collateral ligament, is snapping at unprecedented rates, leaving current big league players vulnerable and the coming generation of baseball-playing children dreading the three scariest words in the sport: Tommy John surgery. Jeff Passan traveled the world for three years to explore in-depth the past, present and future of the arm, and how its evolution left baseball struggling to wrangle its Tommy John surgery epidemic.

Chasing the North Star by Robert Morgan - Historical Fiction

April 4, 2017

On his 18th birthday in 1850, Jonah Williams flees the South Carolina plantation on which he was born a slave. Taking with him only a few stolen coins, a knife and the clothes on his back, he heads north, following a star that he prays will be his guide. Hiding during the day and running through the night, Jonah must elude the men sent to capture him and the bounty hunters out to claim the reward on his head. There is one person, though, who never lets him fully out of sight: Angel, herself a slave, yet with a remarkably free spirit. In Jonah, she sees her own way to freedom, so she sets out to follow him.

Crazy Blood by T. Jefferson Parker - Psychological Suspense

April 4, 2017

The Carson dynasty rules the ski resort town of Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. But when Wylie Welborn returns after a stint in Afghanistan, it reopens a dark moment in Carson family history: the murder of Wylie's father by his jealous and very pregnant wife, Cynthia. Her son Sky, born while his mother was in prison, and Wylie are half-brothers. They inherit not only superb athletic skills but an enmity that threatens to play out in a lethal drama on one of the fastest and most perilous ski slopes in the world.

Dimestore: A Writer's Life by Lee Smith - Memoir

April 4, 2017

Set deep in the mountains of Virginia, the Grundy of Lee Smith’s youth was a place of coal miners, tent revivals, mountain music, drive-in theaters and her daddy’s dimestore. It was in that dimestore --- listening to customers and inventing adventures for the store’s dolls --- that she became a storyteller. Even when she was sent off to college to earn some “culture,” she understood that perhaps the richest culture she might ever know was the one she was driving away from --- and it’s a place that she never left behind.

The Excellent Lombards by Jane Hamilton - Fiction

April 4, 2017

Mary Frances "Frankie" Lombard is fiercely in love with her family's sprawling apple orchard and the tangled web of family members who inhabit it. But she cannot help being haunted by the historical fact that some family members end up staying on the farm and others must leave. Change is inevitable, and threats of urbanization, disinheritance and college applications shake the foundation of Frankie's roots. As Frankie is forced to shed her childhood fantasies and face the possibility of losing the idyllic future she had envisioned for her family, she must decide whether loving something means clinging tightly or letting go.

Extreme Prey by John Sandford - Thriller

April 4, 2017

After the events in GATHERING PREY, Lucas Davenport finds himself in a very unusual situation --- no longer employed by the Minnesota BCA. His friend the governor is just cranking up a presidential campaign, though, and he invites Lucas to come along as part of his campaign staff. “Should be fun!” Lucas says, and it kind of is --- until they find they have a shadow: an armed man intent on killing the governor…and anyone who gets in the way.

Fall of Man in Wilmslow: A Novel of Alan Turning by David Lagercrantz - Historical Thriller

April 4, 2017

June 8, 1954. Several English nationals have defected to the USSR, while a witch hunt for homosexuals rages across Britain. In these circumstances, no one is surprised when a mathematician by the name of Alan Turing is found dead in his home in the sleepy suburb of Wilmslow. It is widely assumed that he has committed suicide, unable to cope with the humiliation of a criminal conviction for gross indecency. But a young detective constable, Leonard Corell, who once dreamed of a career in higher mathematics, suspects greater forces are involved.

First Comes Love by Emily Giffin - Fiction

April 4, 2017

Growing up, Josie and Meredith Garland shared a close relationship. But when tragedy strikes their family, they grow apart. Fifteen years later, Josie and Meredith are following different paths. Josie is a first grade teacher with the yearning to become a mother. Meredith is a successful attorney, married and raising a four-year-old-daughter, yet questions whether this is the life she truly desires. As the anniversary of their tragedy looms, they must confront the issues that divide them and also come to terms with their own choices.

The Forbidden Garden by Ellen Herrick - Fiction

April 4, 2017

At the nursery she runs with her sisters on the New England coast, Sorrel Sparrow has honed her rare gift for nurturing plants and flowers. Now that reputation, and a stroke of good timing, lands Sorrel an unexpected opportunity: reviving a long-dormant Shakespearean garden on an English country estate. Arriving at Kirkwood Hall, ancestral home of Sir Graham Kirkwood and his wife, Stella, Sorrel is shocked by the desolate state of the walled garden. Intrigued by the house’s history and increasingly drawn to Stella’s enigmatic brother, Sorrel sets to work. And though she knows her true home is across the sea with her sisters, instinct tells her that the English garden’s destiny is entwined with her own, if only she can unravel its secrets.

Foxlowe by Eleanor Wasserberg - Gothic Suspense

April 4, 2017

Foxlowe is a crumbling old house in the moors --- a wild, secluded and magical place. For Green, it is not just home, but everything she knows. Outside, people live in little square houses, with unhappy families and tedious jobs. At Foxlowe, Green runs free through the hallways and orchards, in the fields and among the Standing Stones. Outside, people are corrupted by money. At Foxlowe, the Family shares everything. Outside, the Bad is everywhere. At Foxlowe, everyone in the Family is safe --- as long as they follow Freya’s rules and perform her rituals. But as Green’s little sister, Blue, grows up, she shows more and more interest in the Outside. Before long she starts to talk about becoming a Leaver.

Game 7, 1986: Failure and Triumph in the Biggest Game of My Life by Ron Darling with Daniel Paisner - Sports/Memoir

April 4, 2017

Every little kid who's ever taken the mound in Little League dreams of someday getting the ball for Game Seven of the World Series. Ron Darling got to live that dream --- only it didn't go exactly as planned. In GAME 7, 1986, the award-winning baseball analyst looks back at what might have been a signature moment in his career, and reflects on the ways professional athletes must sometimes shoulder a personal disappointment as their teams find a way to win.

A Game for All the Family by Sophie Hannah - Psychological Thriller

April 4, 2017

You thought you knew who you were. A stranger knows better. You’ve left the city --- and the career that nearly destroyed you --- for a fresh start on the coast. But trouble begins when your daughter withdraws, after her new best friend, George, is unfairly expelled from school. You beg the principal to reconsider, only to be told that George hasn’t been expelled. Because there is, and was, no George. Who is lying? Who is real? Who is in danger? Who is in control? As you search for answers, the anonymous calls begin --- a stranger, who insists that you and she share a traumatic past and a guilty secret. And then the caller threatens your life.

The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell - Psychological Suspense

April 4, 2017

Imagine that you live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people’s houses. You’ve known your neighbors for years, and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really? On a midsummer night, as a festive neighborhood party is taking place, preteen Pip discovers her 13-year-old sister Grace lying unconscious and bloody in a hidden corner of a lush rose garden. What really happened to her? And who is responsible?

Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt - Dark Fantasy/Horror

April 4, 2017

Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a 17th-century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Muzzled, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. Everybody knows that her eyes may never be opened, or the consequences will be too terrible to bear. The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated by being kept in lockdown, the town's teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiraling into dark, medieval practices of the distant past.

I Am No One by Patrick Flanery - Psychological Suspense

April 4, 2017

After a decade living in England, Jeremy O'Keefe returns to New York, where he has been hired as a professor of German history at New York University. Though comfortable in his new life and happy to be near his daughter once again, Jeremy continues to feel the quiet pangs of loneliness. But his life soon begins taking strange turns: boxes containing records of his online activity are delivered to his apartment, a young man seems to be following him, and his elderly mother receives anonymous phone calls slandering her son. Why would anyone want to watch him so closely, and why would they alert him to the fact that he was being watched?

Just Life by Neil Abramson - Fiction

April 4, 2017

Veterinarian Samantha Lewis and her team are dedicated to providing a sanctuary for unwanted, abused and abandoned dogs in New York City. But every day it gets harder to operate her no-kill shelter. Sam is already at her breaking point when she learns of an unidentified, dangerous virus spreading through their neighborhood. Amid growing panic and a demand for immediate answers, suspicion abruptly falls on dogs as the source. Soon the governor is calling in the National Guard to enforce a quarantine --- no dog may leave the area. As questions about the source of the virus mount and clash with the pressure for a politically expedient resolution, Sam is forced to make life-altering choices.

A Killing in Amish Country: Sex, Betrayal, and a Cold-blooded Murder by Gregg Olsen and Rebecca Morris - True Crime

April 4, 2017

Thirty-year-old Barbara Weaver was content to live as the Amish have for centuries, but her husband, Eli, wanted a life beyond horses and buggies. When Barbara was found dead, shot in the chest at close range, all eyes were on Eli…and his mistress, a Conservative Mennonite named Barb Raber. The Weaver case marked only the third time an Amish man was suspected of killing his wife in more than 200 years in America. But the investigation raised almost as many questions as it answered: Was Barb Raber the one who fired the fatal shot? Or was Barbara Weaver dead before someone entered the house? What did Eli’s friends, family and church really know about him? And will life among the “Plain People” ever be the same?

The Kingdom written by Fuminori Nakamura, translated by Kalau Almony - Thriller

April 4, 2017

Yurika is a freelancer in the Tokyo underworld. She poses as a prostitute, carefully targeting potential johns, selecting powerful and high-profile men. When she is alone with them, she drugs them and takes incriminating photos to sell for blackmail purposes. She operates alone and lives a private, solitary life, doing her best to lock away painful memories. But when a figure from Yurika’s past resurfaces, she realizes there is someone out there who knows all her secrets. There are whispers of a crime lord named Kizaki, and Yurika finds herself trapped in a game of cat and mouse.

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith - Historical Fiction

April 4, 2017

In 1631, Sara de Vos is admitted as a master painter to the Guild of St. Luke's in Holland, the first woman to be so recognized. Three hundred years later, only one work attributed to de Vos is known to remain --- a haunting winter scene, At the Edge of a Wood, which hangs over the bed of a wealthy descendant of the original owner. An Australian grad student, Ellie Shipley, struggling to stay afloat in New York, agrees to paint a forgery of the landscape, a decision that will haunt her. Because now, half a century later, she's curating an exhibit of female Dutch painters, and both versions threaten to arrive.

Life Without a Recipe: A Memoir by Diana Abu-Jaber - Memoir

April 4, 2017

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.

The Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown - Fiction

April 4, 2017

Madeleine is trapped in an unhappy marriage and a life she never wanted. When she finds a diary detailing her grandmother Margie’s bold, romantic trip to Jazz Age Paris, she meets the grandmother she never knew. Despite her unhappiness, when Madeleine’s marriage is threatened, she stays with her critical, disapproving mother. In that unlikely place, shaken by the revelation of a long-hidden family secret and inspired by her grandmother’s bravery, Madeleine creates her own Parisian summer. Margie and Madeleine’s stories intertwine to explore the joys and risks of living life on our own terms, defying the rules that hold us back from our dreams, and becoming the people we are meant to be.

The Lost Girls by Heather Young - Mystery

April 4, 2017

In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family’s vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Sixty years later, Emily’s sister, Lucy, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to her grandniece, Justine. Justine’s only neighbor is a strange old man who seems to know more about the summer of 1935 than he’s telling. Soon Justine’s troubled oldest daughter becomes obsessed with Emily’s disappearance, her mother arrives to steal her inheritance, and the man she left launches a dangerous plan to get her back.

Maestra by L. S. Hilton - Psychological Thriller

April 4, 2017

By day, Judith Rashleigh is a put-upon assistant at a prestigious London art house. By night, she’s a hostess at one of the capital’s notorious champagne bars, although her work there pales against her activities on nights off. Feeling reckless, she accompanies one of the champagne bar’s biggest clients to the French Riviera, only to find herself alone again after a fatal accident. Tired of striving and the slow crawl to the top, Judith has a realization: If you need to turn yourself into someone else, loneliness is a good place to start. And she’s been lonely a long time.

The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney - Fiction

April 4, 2017

The Plumb family is spectacularly dysfunctional. Years of tensions finally reach a breaking point as Melody, Beatrice and Jack Plumb gather to confront their older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab. Months earlier, an inebriated Leo got in a car accident that has endangered the Plumbs' joint trust fund, “The Nest,” which they are months away from finally receiving. Now, the siblings must grapple with old resentments, present-day truths and the significant emotional and financial toll of the accident, as well as finally acknowledge the choices they have made in their own lives.

Repo Madness by W. Bruce Cameron - Mystery/Humor

April 4, 2017

Ruddy McCann is finally getting his life back on track. He has a beautiful fiancé, a somewhat stable job stealing cars, and a lazy, lovable basset hound. With his job suddenly in jeopardy, his fiancé wanting a break, and a new court-ordered psychiatrist insisting he take his medication or violate the terms of his probation, Ruddy finds himself missing the one thing he thought he would be happy to be rid of --- the voice of Alan Lottner, dead realtor and Ruddy's future father-in-law. When a woman tells Ruddy that the tragedy that defines his life may be a lie, Ruddy starts to investigate the disappearances of women in the area and soon discovers that his own redemption may be within reach.

The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar - Memoir

April 4, 2017

When Hisham Matar was a 19-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime’s most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells are empty and there is no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returns with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he’d go back to again. THE RETURN is the story of what he found there.

The Second Girl by David Swinson - Mystery

April 4, 2017

A decorated former police detective, Frank Marr retired early and now ekes a living as a private eye for a defense attorney. A long-functioning drug addict, Frank has devoted his considerable skills to hiding his usage from others. But after accidentally discovering a kidnapped teenage girl in the home of an Adams Morgan drug gang, Frank becomes a hero and is thrust into the spotlight. He reluctantly agrees to investigate the disappearance of another girl --- possibly connected to the first --- and the heightened scrutiny may bring his own secrets to light.

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler - Fiction

April 4, 2017

Newly arrived in New York City, 22-year-old Tess lands a job working front of house at a celebrated downtown restaurant. What follows is her education: in champagne and cocaine, love and lust, dive bars and fine dining rooms, as she learns to navigate the chaotic, enchanting, punishing life she has chosen. In SWEETBITTER, Stephanie Danler deftly conjures the nonstop and high-adrenaline world of the food industry and evokes the infinite possibilities, the unbearable beauty, and the fragility and brutality of being young and adrift.

To the Farthest Shores by Elizabeth Camden - Historical Romance

April 4, 2017

Jenny Bennett, an army nurse at the Presidio Army base, is rattled by the sudden reappearance in her life of the dashing naval officer who broke her heart six years ago. Lieutenant Ryan Gallagher is one of the few men in the world qualified to carry out a daring government mission overseas --- an assignment that destroyed his reputation and broke the heart of the only woman he ever loved. Ryan thinks he may have finally found a solution to his impossible situation, but he needs Jenny's help. When an unknown threat from Ryan's past puts everything at risk --- including his life --- can they overcome the seemingly insurmountable odds stacked against them in time?

Tom Clancy Duty and Honor: A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel by Grant Blackwood - Mystery/Thriller

April 4, 2017

Jack Ryan, Jr., is on his own. He's been ousted from his position at the Campus, the off-the-books intelligence agency that was set up by his father, the President. As if that's not bad enough, someone is out for Jack‘s blood. The police think that he was just the victim of a mugging, but he knows a professional assassin when he kills one. Using clues found on his would-be dispatcher, Jack launches his own shadow campaign to uncover the brutal truth about a world-renowned philanthropist and human rights advocate --- and a long-running false-flag war of terror that has claimed thousands of lives.

A Welcome Murder by Robin Yocum - Mystery

April 4, 2017

After his unspectacular professional baseball career ends with a knee injury in Toledo, Ohio, Johnny Earl gets busted for selling cocaine. After serving seven years in prison, all he wants to do is return to his hometown of Steubenville, retrieve the drug money he stashed before he went to jail, and start a new life where no one has ever heard of Johnny Earl. However, before he can leave town with his money, Johnny is picked up for questioning in the murder of Rayce Daubner, the FBI informant who had set him up on drug charges in the first place. Then his former prison cellmate shows up --- a white supremacist who wants the drug money to help fund an Aryan nation in the wilds of Idaho.

What We Become by Arturo Perez-Reverte - Historical Fiction

April 4, 2017

En route from Lisbon to Buenos Aires in 1928, Max and Mecha meet aboard a luxurious transatlantic cruise ship. A steamy affair ignites at sea and continues as the seedy decadence of Buenos Aires envelops the secret lovers. Still drawn to one another a decade later, Max and Mecha rekindle their dalliance. In the wake of a perilous mission gone awry, Mecha looks after her charming paramour until a deadly encounter with a Spanish spy forces him to flee. In 1966, Max once again runs into trouble --- and Mecha. She offers him temporary shelter from the KGB agents on his trail, but their undeniable attraction offers only a small glimmer of hope that their paths will ever cross again.

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg - History

April 4, 2017

Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over 400 years, Nancy Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society --- where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early 19th century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics --- a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity.