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Week of August 7, 2023

New in Paperback

Week of August 7, 2023

Paperback releases for the week of August 7th include DREAMLAND by Nicholas Sparks, a powerful novel about risking everything for a dream --- and whether or not it’s possible to leave the past behind; BURNER, the 12th installment in Mark Greaney's electrifying Gray Man series, which finds Court Gentry caught between the Russian mafia and the CIA; B. A. Paris' THE PRISONER, a stunning thriller about a woman wed into a family with deadly intentions; THE NIGHT SHIP by Jess Kidd, an epic historical novel that illuminates the lives of two characters --- a girl shipwrecked on an island off Western Australia and, 300 years later, a boy finding a home with his grandfather on the very same island; KOSHERSOUL, a remarkable book by Michael W. Twitty, who explores the cultural crossroads of Jewish and African diaspora cuisine and issues of memory, identity and food; and the paperback original A DAY OF FIRE, a vividly imagined novel from six bestselling authors that follows the lives of those in ancient Pompeii on the fateful day that Mount Vesuvius erupts.

Between Us by Mhairi McFarlane - Romantic Comedy

August 8, 2023

When Roisin and Joe join their friends for a weekend at a country house, it’s a triple celebration --- a birthday, an engagement, and the launch of Joe’s shiny new TV show. But as the weekend unfolds, tensions come to light in the group, and Roisin begins to question her own relationship. And as they watch the first episode of Joe’s drama, she realizes that the private things she told him are right there on the screen. With her friend group in chaos and her messy love life on display for the whole world to see, Roisin returns home to avoid the unwanted attention and help run her family’s pub. But drama still follows, in the form of her dysfunctional family. Yet the most unexpected twist of all is an old friend, who is suddenly there for Roisin in ways she never knew she needed.

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li - Fiction

August 8, 2023

Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised --- the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape 10 years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story. As children in a war-ravaged, backwater town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves --- until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune and terrible loss.

Burner: A Gray Man Novel by Mark Greaney - Thriller

August 8, 2023

When you kick over a rock, you never know what's going to crawl out. Alex Velesky is about to discover that the hard way. He's stolen records from the Swiss bank that employs him, thinking that he'll uncover a criminal conspiracy. But he soon finds that he's tapped into the mother lode of corruption. Before he knows it, he's being hunted by everyone from the Russian mafia to the CIA. Court Gentry and his erstwhile lover, Zoya Zakharova, find themselves on opposite poles when it comes to Velesky. They both want him but for different reasons. That's a problem for tomorrow. Today they need to keep him and themselves alive. Right now, it's not looking good.

A Day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii by Kate Quinn, Stephanie Dray, Ben Kane, Eliza Knight, Sophie Perinot, and Victoria Alvear - Historical Fiction

August 8, 2023

Pompeii was a lively resort flourishing in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius at the height of the Roman Empire. When Vesuvius erupted in an explosion of flame and ash, the entire town would be destroyed. Some of its citizens died in the chaos, some escaped the mountain’s wrath…and these are their stories: A boy loses his innocence in Pompeii’s flourishing streets. An heiress dreads her wedding day, not knowing it will be swallowed by fire. An ex-legionary stakes his entire future on a gladiator bout destined never to be finished. A crippled senator welcomes death, until a tomboy on horseback comes to his rescue. A young mother faces an impossible choice for her unborn child as the ash falls. A priestess and a prostitute seek redemption and resurrection as the town is buried.

Dreamland by Nicholas Sparks - Romance

August 8, 2023

Colby Mills once felt destined for a musical career until tragedy grounded his aspirations. Now the head of a small family farm in North Carolina, he spontaneously takes a gig playing at a bar in St. Pete Beach, Florida. But when he meets Morgan Lee, his world is turned upside down, making him wonder if the responsibilities he has shouldered need to dictate his life forever. Fleeing an abusive husband with her six-year-old son, Beverly is trying to piece together a life for them in a small town far off the beaten track. With money running out and danger seemingly around every corner, she makes a desperate decision that will rewrite everything she knows to be true. Fate will draw Colby, Morgan and Beverly together in a web of life-altering connections.

The Handyman Method: A Story of Terror by Nick Cutter and Andrew F. Sullivan - Domestic Thriller/Supernatural Horror

August 8, 2023

When a young family moves into an unfinished development community, cracks begin to emerge in both their new residence and their lives, as a mysterious online DIY instructor delivers dark subliminal suggestions about how to handle any problem around the house. The trials of home improvement, destructive insecurities and haunted house horror all collide in this thrilling story perfect for fans of Nick Cutter’s bestsellers THE TROOP and THE DEEP.

In a Quiet Town by Amber Garza - Domestic Thriller

August 8, 2023

Tatum hasn’t seen her daughter, Adrienne, in years, not since Tatum’s husband --- the pastor in their small California town --- all but disowned her. When she finally gathers the courage to secretly reconnect with Adrienne, Tatum is thrilled she is even willing to talk to her. But then Adrienne disappears. Tatum tries desperately to get the police or her husband to take her daughter’s disappearance seriously, but no one will listen, until a mysterious man shows up claiming to be Adrienne’s fiancé. It’s a relief to finally have someone who believes her, someone who’s trying as hard as she is to find out where Adrienne is. But can she trust that this stranger is who he says he is? And can she find her daughter before it’s too late?

Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley - Fiction

August 8, 2023

Every day, Iona, a larger-than-life magazine advice columnist, travels the 10 stops from Hampton Court to Waterloo Station by train, accompanied by her dog, Lulu. She sees the same people, whom she knows only by nickname. Of course, they never speak. Seasoned commuters never do. Then one morning, the man she calls Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader chokes on a grape right in front of her. He’d have died were it not for the timely intervention of Sanjay, a nurse, who gives him the Heimlich maneuver. This single event starts a chain reaction, and an eclectic group of people with almost nothing in common except their commute discover that a chance encounter can blossom into much more.

A Killer in the Family by Gytha Lodge - Mystery/Thriller

August 8, 2023

When the police found the first body, left on a bonfire in the forest, they worried it had the hallmarks of a serial killer. Now, as they find the second, they know for sure. Panic about the “Bonfire Killer” quickly spreads through the sedate suburban area of Southampton. But single mom Aisling Cooley has a lot to distract her: two beloved teenage sons and a quest to find her long-lost father, whom she hasn’t seen since she was a teenager. After much debate, she decides to upload her DNA to an ancestry website. When she gets a match, she is filled with an anxious excitement that her questions about her father’s disappearance from her life might finally be answered. But to her horror, it’s not her father who’s found her. It’s a detective. And they say her DNA is a close match for the Bonfire Killer.

Koshersoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew by Michael W. Twitty - Cooking/History

August 8, 2023

In KOSHERSOUL, Michael W. Twitty considers the marriage of two of the most distinctive culinary cultures in the world today: the foods and traditions of the African Atlantic and the global Jewish diaspora. To Twitty, the creation of African-Jewish cooking is a conversation of migrations and a dialogue of diasporas offering a rich background for inventive recipes and the people who create them. The question that most intrigues him is not just who makes the food, but how the food makes the people. Jews of Color are not outliers, Twitty contends, but significant and meaningful cultural creators in both Black and Jewish civilizations. The book also explores how food has shaped the journeys of numerous cooks, including Twitty’s own passage to and within Judaism.

Leech by Hiron Ennes - Gothic Science Fiction/Horror

August 8, 2023

In an isolated chateau, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies. For hundreds of years, the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed. In the frozen north, the Institute's body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron's castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again.

Long Gone: A Detective Annalisa Vega Novel by Joanna Schaffhausen - Mystery

August 8, 2023

Chicago detective Annalisa Vega shattered her life, personally and professionally, when she turned in her ex-cop father for his role in a murder. Her family can’t forgive her. Her fellow officers no longer trust her. So when detective Leo Hammond turns up dead in a bizarre murder, Annalisa thinks she has nothing to lose by investigating whatever secrets he hid behind the thin blue line. Annalisa quickly zeroes in on someone who had good reason to want Hammond dead: a wealthy, fast-talking car salesman who’d gotten away with murder once and wasn’t about to let Hammond take a second shot. Moe Bocks remains the number one suspect in his girlfriend’s brutal unsolved death, and now he has a new woman in his sights --- Annalisa’s best friend.

A Map for the Missing by Belinda Huijuan Tang - Fiction

August 8, 2023

Tang Yitian has been living in America for almost a decade when he receives an urgent phone call from his mother: his father has disappeared from the family’s rural village in China. Though they have been estranged for years, Yitian promises to come home. When Yitian attempts to piece together what may have happened, he struggles to navigate China’s impenetrable bureaucracy as an outsider, and his mother’s evasiveness only deepens the mystery. So he seeks out a childhood friend who may be in a position to help: Tian Hanwen. Reuniting for the first time as adults, Yitian and Hanwen embark on the search for Yitian’s father, all the while grappling with the past --- who Yitian’s father really was, and what might have been.

Mika in Real Life by Emiko Jean - Fiction

August 8, 2023

At 35, Mika Suzuki is at the lowest point of her life when she receives a phone call from Penny, the daughter she placed for adoption 16 years ago. Penny is determined to forge a relationship with her birth mother; in turn, Mika longs to be someone Penny is proud of. Faced with her own inadequacies, Mika embellishes a fact about her life. What starts as a tiny white lie slowly snowballs into a fully fledged fake life. The harder-won heart belongs to Thomas Calvin, Penny’s adoptive widower father. What starts as a rocky, contentious relationship slowly blossoms into a friendship and, over time, something more. But can Mika really have it all --- love, her daughter, the life she’s always wanted --- or will her deceptions ultimately catch up to her?

Next in Line: A William Warwick Novel by Jeffrey Archer - Mystery/Thriller

August 8, 2023

London, 1988. Royal fever sweeps the nation as Britain falls in love with the “people’s princess.” Which means for Scotland Yard, the focus is on the elite Royalty Protection Command and its commanding officer. Entrusted with protecting the most famous family on earth, they quite simply have to be the best. Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick and his Scotland Yard squad are sent in to investigate the team. Maverick ex-undercover operative Ross Hogan is charged with a very sensitive --- and unique --- responsibility. But it soon becomes clear the problems in Royalty Protection are just the beginning. A renegade organization has the security of the country --- and the Crown --- in its sights. The only question is which target is next in line.

The Night Ship by Jess Kidd - Historical Fiction

August 8, 2023

1629: A newly orphaned young girl named Mayken is bound for the Dutch East Indies on the Batavia, one of the greatest ships of the Dutch Golden Age. Curious and mischievous, Mayken spends the long journey going on misadventures above and below the deck, searching for a mythical monster. But the true monsters might be closer than she thinks. 1989: A lonely boy named Gil is sent to live off the coast of Western Australia among the seasonal fishing community where his late mother once resided. There, on the tiny reef-shrouded island, he discovers the story of an infamous shipwreck.

The Paris Assignment by Rhys Bowen - Historical Fiction

August 8, 2023

Londoner Madeleine Grant is studying at the Sorbonne in Paris when she marries charismatic French journalist Giles Martin. As they raise their son, Olivier, they hold on to a tenuous promise for the future. Until the thunder of war sets off alarms in France. Staying behind to join the resistance, Giles sends Madeleine and Olivier to the relative safety of England, where Madeleine secures a job teaching French at a secondary school. Yet nowhere is safe. After a devastating twist of fate resulting in the loss of her son, Madeleine accepts a request from the ministry to aid in the war effort. Seizing the smallest glimmer of hope of finding Giles alive, she returns to France. If Madeleine can stop just one Nazi, it will be the start of a valiant path of revenge.

The Prisoner by B. A. Paris - Psychological Thriller

August 8, 2023

Amelie has always been a survivor, from losing her parents as a child in Paris to making it on her own in London. As she builds a life for herself, she is swept up into a glamorous lifestyle where she married the handsome billionaire Ned Hawthorne. But then Amelie wakes up in a pitch-black room, not knowing where she is. Why has she been taken? Who are her mysterious captors? And why does she soon feel safer here, imprisoned, than she had begun to feel with her husband?

Robert Ludlum's The Blackbriar Genesis by Simon Gervais - Thriller/Adventure

August 8, 2023

A car explodes along a quiet Prague side street. Among the dead is an undercover Treadstone agent. It's not unusual for such men to meet their fates on an operation, but in this case there's one catch. None of his superiors know what he was doing there. Two Blackbriar operatives, Helen Jouvert and Donovan Wade, are sent to investigate. Their search for answers will take them deeper into the world of conspiracy and fake news than they ever expected. Treadstone and Blackbriar may be two sides of the same coin, intelligence and counterintelligence, but they have one thing in common: answers can be the deadliest commodity of all.

Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young - Mystery/Romance

August 8, 2023

Emery Blackwood’s life changed forever the night her best friend was found dead and the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her. Years later, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence on the misty, remote shores of Saoirse Island and running the family’s business, Blackwood’s Tea Shoppe Herbal Tonics & Tea Leaf Readings. But when the island, rooted in folklore and magic, begins to show signs of strange happenings, Emery knows that something is coming. The morning she wakes to find that every single tree on Saoirse has turned color in a single night, August returns for the first time in 14 years and unearths the past that the town has tried desperately to forget.

Tomb Sweeping: Stories by Alexandra Chang - Fiction/Short Stories

August 8, 2023

TOMB SWEEPING probes the loyalties we hold: to relatives, to strangers and to ourselves. In stories set across the US and Asia, Alexandra Chang immerses us in the lives of immigrant families, grocery store employees, expecting parents and guileless lab assistants. A woman known only to her neighbors as “the Asian recycling lady” collects bottles from the streets she calls home. A young college grad ponders the void left from a broken friendship. An unfulfilled housewife in Shanghai finds a secret outlet for her ambitions in an undercover gambling den. Two strangers become something more through the bond of mistaken identity. These characters, adeptly attuned to the mystery of living, invite us to consider if it is possible for anyone to entirely do right by another.

Under the Golden Sun by Jenny Ashcroft - Historical Romance

August 8, 2023

Answering a newspaper advertisement for a companion to accompany an orphaned child to Australia, Rose Hamilton becomes enchanted with four-year-old Walter Lucknow. The boy lost his parents and has been living in near seclusion with his elder great aunt. As heir to a wealthy Australian cattle station, Walter must return to his homeland and his mother’s family. Upon arrival, Rose learns the truth about Walter’s relationship to the Lucknows and the land he’s supposed to inherit, a truth that haunts the boy’s Uncle Max, a wounded pilot scarred inside and out. As Max opens his heart up to Walter, Rose is drawn to the man’s strength and compassion, finding herself torn between returning to England and staying with the child and man she’s grown to love.

The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings - Dystopian Fiction

August 8, 2023

Josephine Thomas has heard every conceivable theory about her mother's disappearance. The most worrying charge is that she was a witch. In a world where witches are real, peculiar behavior raises suspicions, and a woman --- especially a Black woman --- can find herself on trial for witchcraft. Fourteen years have passed, and Jo is finally ready to let go of the past. Yet her future is in doubt. The State mandates that all women marry by the age of 30 --- or enroll in a registry that allows them to be monitored, effectively forfeiting their autonomy. At 28, Jo is ambivalent about marriage. When she’s offered the opportunity to honor one last request from her mother's will, Jo leaves her regular life to feel connected to her one last time.