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David Baldacci's Latest Thriller Revolves Around a Racially Charged Murder Case

Two lawyers --- one white, one Black --- work together to defend their wrongfully accused Black defendant in 1968 southern Virginia.

Hazel Unexpectedly Inherits Her Family Home in the Small Town of Mirror Lake, NC

But as the lake level behind the house continues to fall, long-buried secrets suddenly begin to emerge in DAUGHTER OF MINE.

THE WIVES is a Profoundly Intimate Look at Marriage, Friendship and Today’s America

This captivating memoir tells the story of one woman’s experience of joining a community of army wives after leaving her New York City job.

DID I EVER TELL YOU? is Filled with Unexpected Twists and Powerful Life Lessons

Through her mother’s fierce and courageous love, Genevieve Kingston was granted the tools not only to move through grief but to cherish life.

Enter to Win a Mother's Day Prize Package for You or the Special Lady in Your Life

Each package includes six wonderful titles that we think moms will love. The deadline for your entries is Monday, May 13th at noon ET.

Latest Features and Contests


Bookreporter.com's 19th Annual Mother's Day Contest


Mother’s Day is a time to recognize the woman who raised and nurtured us. To celebrate, we're giving you the opportunity to win books for yourself or the special lady in your life in our 19th annual "Books Mom Will Love" contest. From now through Monday, May 13th at noon ET, readers can enter to win one of our five prize packages, which includes six great titles that we think moms will love.

» Click here to enter the contest.


Special Contest: Enter to Win One of 25 Advance Copies of THE STOLEN CHILD by Ann Hood, Releasing May 7th


In THE STOLEN CHILD, an unlikely duo ventures through France and Italy to solve the mystery of a child’s fate. Ann Hood's latest book is an engaging, timeless novel of secrets, love lost and found, and the nature of forgiveness.

We have 25 advance copies of THE STOLEN CHILD to give away to those who would like to read the book, which releases on May 7th. The deadline for your entries is Friday, April 26th at noon ET.

» Click here to enter the contest.


Fantasy Author Spotlight: THE FAMILIAR by Leigh Bardugo


In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers that the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to improve the family's social position. What begins as simple amusement for the nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. The king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen --- and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain his favor. As Luzia's notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath.

» Click here to read more in our Fantasy Author Spotlight.
» Click here to read our review.


An Interview with Steven Hale, Author of DEATH ROW WELCOMES YOU: Visiting Hours in the Shadow of the Execution Chamber


In the vein of WAITING FOR AN ECHO and DEAD MAN WALKING, DEATH ROW WELCOMES YOU is a deeply immersive look at justice in America, told through the interwoven lives of condemned prisoners and the men and women who come to visit them. In this interview conducted by Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, award-winning journalist Steven Hale talks about his inspiration for the book and the challenges he faced during the writing process, the lessons he has learned from befriending death row inmates, and his thoughts on the fate of capital punishment.

» Click here to read the interview.

Bookreporter Talks To...

As part of our mission to expand The Book Report Network, we have been shooting video interviews with authors and posting them on our YouTube channel. We also have been making them available as podcasts. Carol loves interviewing authors, so this feels like a natural.

Megan Miranda returns to “Bookreporter Talks To” to discuss her new thriller, DAUGHTER OF MINE. When Hazel unexpectedly inherits her family home, she’s drawn back to the place --- and people --- she left behind years earlier. But as the lake level behind the house continues to fall, long-buried secrets suddenly begin to emerge, including evidence that may finally explain the mystery at the heart of her family. Megan shares her inspiration for the novel, which will be a Bets On selection, as well as insight into her creative process. She also explains how she laid out the twists that make this story so special. Megan loves the narrator of the audio edition, Inés del Castillo, as she feels Inés sets the right tone for the book. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.

THE WIVES is Simone Gorrindo's debut memoir and an upcoming Bets On pick. In this interview, Simone explains how she found her way to writing this book when her husband, an Army Special Ops team member, was assigned to a base in Columbus, Georgia. There she found herself with a group of women who had followed their husbands to this area. These wives had one thing in common: their husbands and their work as soldiers. When the men left town, the women would gather together for support, and any of the typical social lines between them would drop as they commiserated about both their day-to-day lives and the larger role that their husbands were playing on a bigger stage. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.

Carol had the pleasure of talking to Anna Quindlen about her new novel, AFTER ANNIE. The idea for the opening of the book came to Anna in a moment, which she explains. She thought for a while about just writing from the point of view of Ali, Annie’s 13-year-old daughter, but she changed her mind as she realized that she could not see the complete purview of a person that age. Instead, she layered in Annie’s husband, Bill, and her best friend, Annemarie, to give readers a fuller picture of the impact of Annie’s life even after her death. Surprisingly, AFTER ANNIE was not always the title, and the cover was not an immediate choice either. Anna also talks about what she does every day when she ends a writing session. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.

» Click here for a complete list of our "Bookreporter Talks To" videos and podcasts, along with upcoming interviews.

Latest Reviews

She's Not Sorry by Mary Kubica - Psychological Thriller

Meghan Michaels is trying to find balance between being a single mom and working full time as an ICU nurse when a patient named Caitlin arrives in her ward with a traumatic brain injury. They say she jumped from a bridge and plunged over 20 feet to the train tracks below. When a witness comes forward with new details about Caitlin’s fall, it calls everything they know into question. Was Caitlin actually pushed? And if so, by whom and why? Meghan lets herself get close to Caitlin until she’s deeply entangled in Caitlin’s and her family’s lives. Only when it’s too late does she realize that she and her daughter could be the next victims.

Gaia is dying. That, at least, is what Dr. Lionel Scott believes. A renowned expert in tropical and infectious diseases, Scott has witnessed the devastating impact of illness and turmoil at critical scale. Society as it exists is untenable and is the direct link to Earth’s death spiral; population levels are out of control, and people have allowed disarray and disorder to run rampant. While most are concerned about deadly disease, Scott knows that it is truly humanity itself that will destroy Gaia. When he disappears without a trace, Letty Davenport is tasked with tracking down any and all leads. As the web around Scott becomes more tangled, Letty calls in her father, Lucas, to help her lead a group of specialists to find Scott as soon as possible. It quickly becomes a race to find him before the virus he created becomes the perfect weapon.

Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from the noise and grime of city life, allowing the residents to enjoy beautiful gardens, pleasant birdsong and tranquility from behind the security of a locked gate. It is the perfect idyll, until the Kentworthy family arrives, with their four giant, gas-guzzling cars, gaggle of shrieking children, and plans for a garish swimming pool in the backyard. The Kentworthys do not belong in Riverside Close and quickly offend every last one of the neighbors. When Giles Kentworthy is found dead on his own doorstep, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, Detective Hawthorne is the only investigator they can call to solve the case. Because how do you solve a murder when everyone is a suspect?

Caleb Carr has had special relationships with cats since he was a young boy in a turbulent household, where his steadiest companions were the adopted cats that lived with him in both the city and the country. As an adult, he has had many close feline companions, with relationships that have outlasted most of his human ones. But only after building a three-story home in rural, upstate New York did he enter into the most extraordinary of all of his cat pairings: Masha, a Siberian Forest cat who had been abandoned as a kitten and was languishing in a shelter when Caleb met her. She had hissed and fought off all previous carers and potential adopters, but somehow she chose Caleb as her savior. For the 17 years that followed, Caleb and Masha were inseparable.

Indian Burial Ground by Nick Medina - Supernatural Thriller/Horror

All Noemi Broussard wanted was a fresh start. With a new boyfriend who actually treats her right and a plan to move from the reservation she grew up on --- just like her beloved Uncle Louie before her --- things are finally looking up for Noemi. Until the news of her boyfriend’s apparent suicide brings her world crumbling down. But the facts about Roddy’s death just don’t add up, and Noemi isn’t the only one who suspects that something menacing might be lurking within their tribal lands. After over a decade away, Uncle Louie has returned to the reservation, bringing with him a past full of secrets, horror and what might be the key to determining Roddy’s true cause of death. Together, Noemi and Louie set out to find answers. But as they get closer to the truth, Noemi begins to wonder if it might be best for some secrets to remain buried.

An autobiography usually requires a justification. The great autobiographies --- those by Benvenuto Cellini, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Brooks Adams --- were justified by their authors living in interesting times, harboring radically new ideas or participating in great events. Joseph Epstein qualifies on none of these counts. His life has been quiet, lucky in numerous ways and far from dramatic. But it also has been emblematic of the great changes in our country since World War II. NEVER SAY YOU'VE HAD A LUCKY LIFE is an intimate look at one life steeped in radical change: from a traditionally moral culture to a therapeutic one, from an era when the extended family was strong to its current diminished status, from print to digital life featuring the war of pixel on print, and on.

Baseball is “the New York game” because New York is where the diamond was first laid out, where the bunt and the curveball were invented, and where the home run was hit. It’s where the game’s first stars were born, and where everyone came to play or watch the game. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all vividly back to life: the still-controversial, indelible moments. Did the Babe call his shot? Was Merkle out? Did they fix the 1919 World Series? In Baker's hands, the city and the game emerge from the murk of 19th-century American life --- driven by visionaries and fixers, heroes and gangsters. He details how New York and its favorite sport came to mirror one another, expanding, bumbling through catastrophe and corruption, and rising out of these trials stronger than ever.

After 23 years of building careers and raising kids together, Jason and Nicole Elswick are ready for a break from their daily lives. Jason has spent years planning his dream sabbatical --- ditching work for a nine-month-long motorcycle trip through South America. But that’s Jason’s dream, not Nicole’s. After years working retail and parenting in Portland, Nicole craves the sun of the Southwest and the artistic community in Santa Fe, where she wants to learn jewelry design. A chance encounter at a dinner party presents a surprising --- and intriguing --- way out of their dilemma. Over a little too much wine, Jason and Nicole’s married neighbors sing the praises of the 500 Mile Rule: their policy of enjoying themselves however they wish --- and with whomever they wish --- when they’re temporarily far apart.

NEGATIVE SPACE follows a week in the life of an English teacher at a New York private school. At home, her two increasingly restless children ask constant questions about mortality and find hidden wisdom in the cartoons they watch on television. Her husband tends to his plants and offers occasional counsel between Zoom calls to Hong Kong and Australia. And at school, as she navigates the currents between wealthy, increasingly disconnected students and bewildered faculty, she accidentally witnesses an ambiguous, possibly inappropriate interaction between a teacher and a student. She feels compelled to say something, but how can she be sure of what she saw?

Max's War by Libby Fischer Hellmann - Historical Thriller

As the Nazis sweep across Europe, Jewish teen Max and his parents flee persecution in Germany for Holland. But when Hitler invades in 1940, Max must escape to Chicago, leaving his parents and friends behind. When he learns of his parents' deportation and murder, Max immediately enlists in the US Army. After basic training, he is sent to Camp Ritchie, Maryland, where he is trained in interrogation and counterintelligence. Deployed to the OSS as well, Max carries out dangerous missions in occupied countries. Post-war, he works for the Americans in the German denazification program, bringing him back to his Bavarian childhood home of Regensburg. Though the city avoided large-scale destruction, the Jewish community has been decimated. While there, he reunites with someone from his past. Can they rebuild their lives…together?

Begin Again by Helly Acton - Romantic Comedy

Frankie McKenzie dies in a freak kebab-related accident after what she sees as yet another dud of a first date. But life isn’t over for Frankie. Instead, she is miraculously offered a second chance: Frankie can revisit key moments from her past to see if different choices will lead her to the fulfilling life she’s always dreamt of. Should she decide to languidly lounge by warm Mexican waters with sexy Raphael? Or say yes to the proposal of earnestly reliable university-sweetheart Toby? Perhaps a worry-free gilded cage with Callum is the solution! Or what about that high-powered media career she thought she wanted? Soon, Frankie will see what her life would have been if only she’d caught that one-way flight, accepted the marriage proposal, or attended the intimidating job interview.