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In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of July 8th and July 15th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.
This week, we are calling attention to Carol Fitzgerald's latest Bookreporter.com Bets On selection: M.T. Edvardsson’s A NEARLY NORMAL FAMILY, a gripping legal thriller in which a horrific crime makes a seemingly normal family question everything they thought they knew about their life --- and one another.
Also, please click on the covers above for our reviews of three books that we featured in last week's Bookreporter.com Weekly Update newsletter: LOCK EVERY DOOR, Riley Sager’s latest psychological thriller, which follows a young woman whose new job apartment sitting in one of New York’s oldest and most glamorous buildings may cost more than it pays; FALL; OR, DODGE IN HELL, a science fiction thriller from Neal Stephenson that unfolds in the near future, in parallel worlds; and Marjan Kamali's THE STATIONERY SHOP, a powerful love story exploring loss, reconciliation and the quirks of fate --- and a recent Bets On pick.
For those of you who are doing online shopping, if you use the store links below, Bookreporter.com gets a small affiliate fee on your purchases. We would appreciate your considering this!
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound
This Week's Bonus News:
Bookreporter.com "Bets On"
A NEARLY NORMAL FAMILY by M.T. Edvardsson
A NEARLY NORMAL FAMILY written by M.T. Edvardsson, translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles (Psychological/Legal Thriller)
A NEARLY NORMAL FAMILY by M.T. Edvardsson has been well translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles --- and it’s a complete page-turner. It is set in Sweden and opens at the end of summer with 18-year-old Stella Sandell having been accused of murdering Christopher Olsen, a man in his early 30s. From the start, she garners empathy from readers, mostly due to their age gap. If she is not the older adult in this scenario, how can she be guilty? But let’s face it, she is not a little darling; she’s a teen rebel. Could she have done it?
For those who were fans of William Landay’s DEFENDING JACOB, you will catch the same kind of edginess and familial tension with A NEARLY NORMAL FAMILY.
- Click here to read more about the book.
- Click here to read a review.
- Click here to read an excerpt.
Click here to read more of Carol's commentary.
On Sale the Week of July 8th in Hardcover
July 9th
AMERICA'S RELUCTANT PRINCE: The Life of John F. Kennedy Jr. by Steven M. Gillon (Biography)
Through the lens of their decades-long friendship and including exclusive interviews and details from previously classified documents, noted historian Steven M. Gillon examines John F. Kennedy Jr.’s life and legacy from before his birth to the day he died. Gillon covers the highs, the lows and the surprising incidents, viewpoints and relationships that John never discussed publicly, revealing the full story behind JFK Jr.’s complicated and rich life. In the end, Gillon proves that John’s life was far more than another tragedy --- rather, it’s the true key to understanding both the Kennedy legacy and how America’s First Family continues to shape the world we live in today.
Dutton | 9781524742386
BETHLEHEM by Karen Kelly (Historical Fiction)
A young woman arrives at the grand ancestral home of her husband’s family, hoping to fortify her cracking marriage. But what she finds is not what she expected: tragedy haunts the hallways, whispering of heartache and a past she never knew existed. Inspired by the true titans of the steel-boom era, BETHLEHEM is a story of temptation and regret, a story of secrets and the cost of keeping them, a story of forgiveness. It is the story of two complex women --- thrown together in the name of family --- who, in coming to understand each other, finally come to understand themselves.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250201492
THE CHAIN by Adrian McKinty (Psychological Thriller)
Your phone rings. A stranger has kidnapped your child. To free them, you must abduct someone else’s child. Your child will be released when your victim’s parents kidnap another child. If any of these things don’t happen, your child will be killed. You are now part of The Chain.
Mulholland Books | 9780316531269
THE CODE: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America by Margaret O'Mara (History)
Long before Margaret O'Mara became one of our most consequential historians of the American-led digital revolution, she worked in the White House of Bill Clinton and Al Gore in the earliest days of the commercial Internet. There she saw firsthand how deeply intertwined Silicon Valley was with the federal government --- and always had been --- and how shallow the common understanding of the secrets of the Valley's success actually was. Now, after almost five years of pioneering research, O'Mara has produced the definitive history of Silicon Valley for our time, the story of mavericks and visionaries, but also of powerful institutions creating the framework for innovation, from the Pentagon to Stanford University.
Penguin Press | 9780399562181
COPPERHEAD by Alexi Zentner (Fiction)
Jessup's stepfather gave him almost everything good in his life --- a sober mother, a sister, a sense of home and the game of football. But during the years that David John spent in prison for his part in a brutal hate crime, Jessup came to realize that his stepfather is also a source of lethal poison for his family. Now it's Jessup's senior year, and all he wants to do is lay low until he can accept one of the football scholarships that will be his ticket out of town. So when his stepfather is released from prison, Jessup is faced with an impossible choice: condemn the man who saved his family or accept his part in his family's legacy of bigotry. Before he can choose a side, Jessup will cause a terrible accident and cover it up --- a mistake with the power to ruin them all.
Viking | 9781984877284
DRAGONFLY by Leila Meacham (Historical Fiction)
At the height of World War II, a handful of idealistic young Americans receive a mysterious letter from the government, asking them if they are willing to fight for their country. The men and women from very different backgrounds all answer the call of duty, but each for a secret reason of her or his own. They bond immediately, in a group code-named Dragonfly. Thus begins a dramatic cat-and-mouse game, as the group seeks to stay under the radar until a fatal misstep leads to the capture and the firing-squad execution of one of their team. But is everything as it seems, or is this one more elaborate act of spycraft?
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538732229
FOUR FRIENDS: Promising Lives Cut Short by William D. Cohan (Biography)
In his masterful pieces for Vanity Fair and in his bestselling books, William D. Cohan has proven to be one of the most meticulous and intrepid journalists covering the world of Wall Street and high finance. In his utterly original new book, FOUR FRIENDS, he brings all of his brilliant reportorial skills to a subject much closer to home: four friends of his who died young. All four attended Andover, the most elite of American boarding schools, before spinning out into very different orbits. Indelibly, using copious interviews from wives, girlfriends, colleagues and friends, Cohan brings these men to life on the page.
Flatiron Books | 9781250070524
THE GOLDEN HOUR by Beatriz Williams (Historical Fiction)
Newly widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in the Bahamas to investigate the Governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires? But as she infiltrates the Duke and Duchess’s social circle, and the powerful cabal that controls the islands’ political and financial affairs, Lulu uncovers evidence that beneath the glister of Wallis and Edward’s marriage lies an ugly --- and even treasonous --- reality.
William Morrow | 9780062834751
A HOUSE DIVIDED: A Lincoln and Speed Mystery by Jonathan F. Putnam (Historical Mystery)
In the winter of 1839, a sensational disappearance rocks Springfield, Illinois, as headlines announce a local man has accused his two brothers of murder. Not one to pass up an opportunity, Abraham Lincoln takes up the case of the accused with the assistance of his best friend, Joshua Speed, to search for evidence of innocence. But just as soon as they begin, Lincoln and Speed find their friendship at grave risk of rupture as they vie for the hand of a beautiful new arrival in town: an ambitious, outspoken young woman named Mary Todd. As the trial arrives, can Lincoln and Speed put aside their differences to work together for justice once more? An innocent man’s life may be in the balance --- and nothing is as it seems.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781643850375
IF: The Untold Story of Kipling's American Years by Christopher Benfey (Biography)
At the turn of the 20th century, Rudyard Kipling towered over not just English literature, but the entire literary world. At the height of his fame in 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming its youngest winner. His influence on figures --- including the likes of Freud and William James --- was vast and profound. But in recent decades, Kipling’s reputation has suffered a strange eclipse. Though his body of work still looms large, and his monumental poem “If—” is quoted and referenced by politicians, athletes and professors, he himself is treated with profound unease as a man on the wrong side of history. In IF, scholar Christopher Benfey brings this fascinating writer to life and gives full attention to his intense engagement with the United States.
Penguin Press | 9780735221437
IN THE FULL LIGHT OF THE SUN by Clare Clark (Historical Fiction)
Hedonistic and politically turbulent, Berlin in the 1920s is a city of seedy night clubs and sumptuous art galleries. It is home to millionaires and mobs storming bakeries for rationed bread. These disparate Berlins collide when Emmeline, a young art student; Julius, an art expert; and a mysterious dealer named Rachmann all find themselves caught up in the astonishing discovery of 32 previously unknown paintings by Vincent van Gogh. IN THE FULL LIGHT OF THE SUN explores the trio’s complex relationships and motivations, their hopes, their vanities and their self-delusions --- for the paintings are fakes, and they are in their own ways complicit.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9780544147577
KILLING WITH CONFETTI: A Detective Peter Diamond Investigation by Peter Lovesey (Mystery)
As a New Year begins in Bath, Ben Brace proposes to his long-term girlfriend, Caroline, the daughter of notorious crime baron Joe Irving, who is coming to the end of a prison sentence. The problem is that Ben’s father, George, is the Deputy Chief Constable. A wedding in the Abbey and reception in the Roman Baths are arranged before the career-obsessed DCC can step in. Peter Diamond, Bath’s head of CID, is appalled to be put in charge of security on the day. Will the photo session be a literal shoot? Will Joe Irving’s speech as father of the bride be his last words? Can Diamond pull off a miracle, avert a tragedy and send the happy couple on their honeymoon?
Soho Crime | 9781641290593
KNIFE: A Harry Hole Novel by Jo Nesbø (Mystery/Thriller)
Harry Hole is not in a good place. Rakel --- the only woman he's ever loved --- has ended it with him, permanently. He's been given a chance for a new start with the Oslo Police, but it's in the cold case office. What he really wants is to be investigating cases he suspects have ties to Svein Finne, the serial rapist and murderer who Harry helped put behind bars. And now, Finne is free after a decade-plus in prison --- free and, Harry is certain, unreformed and ready to take up where he left off. But things will get worse. When Harry wakes up the morning after a blackout, drunken night with blood that's clearly not his own on his hands, it's only the very beginning of what will be a waking nightmare the likes of which even he never could have imagined.
Knopf | 9780525655398
THE LAST BOOK PARTY by Karen Dukess (Fiction)
In the summer of 1987, 25-year-old Eve Rosen is an aspiring writer languishing in a low-level assistant job. With her professional ambitions floundering, Eve jumps at the chance to attend an early summer gathering at the Cape Cod home of famed New Yorker writer Henry Grey and his poet wife, Tillie. Dazzled by the guests and her burgeoning crush on the hosts’ artistic son, Eve lands a new job as Henry Grey’s research assistant and an invitation to Henry and Tillie’s exclusive and famed "Book Party" --- where attendees dress as literary characters. But by the night of the party, Eve discovers uncomfortable truths about her summer entanglements and understands that the literary world she so desperately wanted to be a part of is not at all what it seems.
Henry Holt and Co. | 9781250225474
LET'S HOPE FOR THE BEST by Carolina Setterwall (Fiction)
In her debut novel, Carolina Setterwall recounts the intensity of falling in love with her partner Aksel, and the shock of finding him dead in bed one morning. Carolina and Aksel meet at a party, and their passionate first encounter leads to months of courtship during which she struggles to find her place. Perhaps to impose some order on the chaos, Carolina devotedly chronicles the months after Aksel's passing. She unpacks with forensic intensity the small details of life before tragedy, eager to find some explanation for the bad hand she's been dealt. When new romance rushes in, Carolina finds herself assuming the reticent role Aksel once played. She's been given the gift of love again. But can she make it work?
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316489621
THE LIGHTEST OBJECT IN THE UNIVERSE by Kimi Eisele (Dystopian Fiction)
What if the end times allowed people to see and build the world anew? In this new world, Carson, on the East Coast, is desperate to find Beatrix, a woman on the West Coast who holds his heart. Working his way along a cross-country railroad line, he encounters lost souls, clever opportunists, and those who believe they’ll be saved by an evangelical preacher in the middle of the country. While Carson travels west, Beatrix and her neighbors begin to construct the kind of cooperative community that suggests the end could be, in fact, a bright beginning. Without modern means of communication, will Beatrix and Carson find their way to each other, and what will be left of the old world if they do?
Algonquin Books | 9781616207939
THE NEED by Helen Phillips (Speculative Thriller)
When Molly, home alone with her two young children, hears footsteps in the living room, she tries to convince herself it’s the sleep deprivation. But then the footsteps come again, and she catches a glimpse of movement. Suddenly she finds herself face-to-face with an intruder who knows far too much about her and her family. As she attempts to protect those she loves most, Molly must also acknowledge her own frailty. She slips down an existential rabbit hole where she must confront the dualities of motherhood --- the ecstasy and the dread; the languor and the ferocity; the banality and the transcendence --- as the book hurtles toward a mind-bending conclusion.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982113162
NULL SET: A Cas Russell Novel by S. L. Huang (Science Fiction/Thriller)
Math-genius mercenary Cas Russell has decided to Fight Crime. After all, with her extraordinary mathematical ability, she can neuter bombs or out-shoot an army. And the recent outbreak of violence in the world’s cities is Cas’ fault --- she’s the one who crushed the organization of telepaths keeping the world’s worst offenders under control. But Cas’ own power also has a history, one she can’t remember --- or control. One that's creeping into her mind and fracturing her sanity...just when she’s gotten herself on the hit list of every crime lord on the West Coast. And her best, only, sociopathic friend. Cas won’t be able to save the world. She might not even be able to save herself.
Tor Books | 9781250180308
ONE LITTLE SECRET by Cate Holahan (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
The glass beach house was supposed to be the getaway that Susan needed. Eager to help her transplanted family set down roots in their new town --- and desperate for some kid-free conversation --- she invites her new neighbors to join in on a week-long sublet with her and her workaholic husband. But someone says too much. And the next morning, one of the women is discovered dead on the private beach. Town detective Gabby Watkins must figure out who permanently silenced the deceased. As she investigates, she learns that everyone in the glass house was hiding something that could tie them to the murder, and that the biggest secrets of all are often in plain sight for anyone willing to look.
Crooked Lane Books | 9781683319726
A PRAYER FOR TRAVELERS by Ruchika Tomar (Fiction)
Cale Lambert, a bookish loner of mysterious parentage, lives in a dusty town near the California-Nevada border. She was raised by her grandfather in a loving, if codependent, household, but as soon as she's left high school his health begins an agonizing decline. Set adrift for the first time, Cale starts waitressing at the local diner, where she reconnects with Penélope Reyes, a charismatic former classmate running mysterious side-hustles to fund her dreams. Penny exposes Cale to the reality that exists beyond their small town, and the girls become inseparable --- until one terrifying act of violence shatters their world. When Penny vanishes without a trace, Cale must set off on a dangerous quest across the desert to find her friend, and discover herself.
Riverhead Books | 9780525537014
THE REUNION by Guillaume Musso (Psychological Thriller)
Twenty-five years ago, on a campus paralyzed by a snowstorm, beautiful 19-year-old Vinca Rockwell ran away with her philosophy teacher after they began a secret affair. She is never seen again. The once-inseparable Manon, Thomas and Maxime --- Vinca's best friends --- have not spoken since graduation. Twenty-five years earlier, under terrible circumstances, the three of them committed a murder and buried the body in the gymnasium wall, the same wall that is about to be demolished to make way for an ultramodern new building. Now, the three friends are about to meet again at their reunion. Will decades of lies unravel to reveal what really happened on that deadly winter night?
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316490146
SAY SAY SAY by Lila Savage (Fiction)
Ella is nearing 30 and not yet living the life she imagined. Her artistic ambitions as a student in Minnesota have given way to an unintended career in caregiving. One spring, Bryn --- a retired carpenter --- hires her to help him care for Jill, his wife of many years. A car accident caused a brain injury that has left Jill verbally diminished. As Ella is drawn ever deeper into the couple's household, she is profoundly moved by the tenderness Bryn shows toward the wife he still fiercely loves. Ella is startled by the yearning this awakens in her, one that complicates her feelings for her girlfriend, Alix, and causes her to look at relationships of all kinds --- between partners, between employer and employee, and between men and women --- in new ways.
Knopf | 9780525655923
THE SHAMELESS: A Quinn Colson Novel by Ace Atkins (Thriller)
Twenty years ago, Brandon Taylor was thought to be just another teen boy who ended his life too soon. That's what almost everyone in Tibbehah County, Mississippi, said after his body and hunting rifle were found in the Big Woods. Now two New York-based reporters show up asking Sheriff Quinn Colson questions about the Taylor case. What happened to the evidence? Where are the missing files? Who really killed Brandon? But Quinn is trying to shut down the criminal syndicate that's had a stranglehold on Tibbehah for years, trafficking drugs, stolen goods and young women through the MidSouth. Quinn has been fighting evil and corruption since he was a kid, at home or as a U.S. Army Ranger in Afghanistan and Iraq. This time, evil may win out.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780525539469
STAY AND FIGHT by Madeline ffitch (Fiction)
Helen arrives in Appalachian Ohio full of love and her boyfriend’s ideas for living off the land. But with winter coming, he calls it quits. Helped by Rudy --- her government-questioning, wisdom-spouting, seasonal-affective-disordered boss --- and a neighbor couple, Helen makes it to spring. Those neighbors, Karen and Lily, are awaiting the arrival of their first child, which means their time at the Women’s Land Trust must end. So Helen invites the new family to throw in with her --- they’ll make a life that sustains them (if barely) for years. Then young Perley decides he wants to go to school. And Rudy sets up a fruit-tree nursery on the pipeline easement edging their land. The outside world is brought clamoring into their makeshift family.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 9780374268121
THE SUBSTITUTION ORDER by Martin Clark (Legal Thriller)
Kevin Moore, once a high-flying Virginia attorney, hits rock bottom after an inexplicably tumultuous summer leaves him disbarred and separated from his wife. Short on cash and looking for work, he lands in the middle of nowhere with a job at SUBstitution, the world's saddest sandwich shop. His closest confidants are a rambunctious rescue puppy and the 20-year-old computer whiz manning the restaurant counter beside him. He's determined to set his life right again, but the troubles keep coming. And when a bizarre, mysterious stranger wanders into the shop armed with a threatening "invitation" to join a multimillion-dollar scam, Kevin will need every bit of his legal savvy just to stay out of prison.
Knopf | 9780525656326
THE SUM OF ALL SHADOWS: A Testament Novel by Eric Van Lustbader (Supernatural Thriller)
For millennia, Lucifer --- the Sum of All Shadows --- has been rebuilding his influence. At long last, he is ready to enact his ultimate revenge against Heaven. To do that, he must first annihilate the world and its inhabitants. Standing in his way is the Shaws. To save the world, Bravo and Emma Shaw have recovered the lost Testament, battled across continents, and fought adversaries both powerful and terrifying. But nothing that has come before can prepare them for the Final Battle. As predicted centuries ago, the End Times has arrived. Lucifer intends to destroy the Shaws once and for all. Now, racing to find the lost treasure of King Solomon’s alchemical gold, Bravo and Emma must put their trust in strangers in strange lands.
Forge Books | 9780765388636
SUPPER CLUB by Lara Williams (Fiction)
Roberta spends her life trying not to take up space. At almost 30, she is adrift and alienated from life. Stuck in a mindless job and reluctant to pursue her passion for food, she suppresses her appetite and recedes to the corners of rooms. But when she meets Stevie, a spirited and effervescent artist, their intense friendship sparks a change in Roberta, a shift in her desire for more. Together, they invent the Supper Club, a transgressive and joyous collective of women who gather to celebrate, rather than admonish, their hungers. Yet as the club expands, growing in both size and rebellion, Roberta is forced to reconcile herself to the desire and vulnerabilities of the body --- and the past she has worked so hard to repress.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780525539582
THREE WOMEN by Lisa Taddeo (Biography)
It thrills us and torments us. It controls our thoughts, destroys our lives, and it’s all we live for. Yet we almost never speak of it. And as a buried force in our lives, desire remains largely unexplored --- until now. Over the past eight years, journalist Lisa Taddeo has driven across the country six times to embed herself with ordinary women from different regions and backgrounds. The result, THREE WOMEN, is a groundbreaking portrait of erotic longing in today’s America, exposing the fragility, complexity and inequality of female desire with unprecedented depth and emotional power.
Simon & Schuster | 9781451642292
UNDER CURRENTS by Nora Roberts (Romantic Suspense)
Zane Bigelow grew up in a beautiful, perfectly kept house in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Strangers and even Zane’s own aunt across the lake see his parents as a successful surgeon and his stylish wife. Only Zane and his sister know the truth, until one brutal night finally reveals cracks in the facade, and Zane escapes for college without a thought of looking back. Years later, Zane returns to his hometown determined to reconnect with the place and people that mean so much to him. As he resumes life in the colorful town, he meets a gifted landscape artist named Darby, who is on the run from ghosts of her own. Together they will have to teach each other what it means to face the past, and stand up for the ones they love.
St. Martin's Press | 9781250207098
THE VAGABONDS: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip by Jeff Guinn (History)
In 1914, Henry Ford and naturalist John Burroughs visited Thomas Edison in Florida and toured the Everglades. The following year, Ford, Edison and tire maker Harvey Firestone joined together on a summer camping trip and decided to call themselves the Vagabonds. They would continue their summer road trips until 1925, when they announced that their fame made it too difficult for them to carry on. Although the Vagabonds traveled with an entourage of chefs, butlers and others, this elite fraternity also had a serious purpose: to examine the conditions of America’s roadways and improve the practicality of automobile travel. In THE VAGABONDS, Jeff Guinn shares the story of this pivotal moment in American history.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501159305
On Sale the Week of July 8th in Paperback
July 9th
THE BOOKISH LIFE OF NINA HILL by Abbi Waxman (Fiction)
Paperback Original
The only child of a single mother, Nina Hill has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book. When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! It's time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn't convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It's going to take a brand-new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page.
Berkley | 9780451491879
THE BOOKWORM by Mitch Silver (Thriller)
Europe, 1940: Belgium has been overrun by the German army. Posing as a friar, a British operative talks his way into a monastery just before Nazi art thieves plan to sweep through the area and whisk everything of value back to Berlin. The ersatz man of the cloth adds an old leather Bible to the monastery’s library and then escapes. London, 2017: A construction worker makes a grisly discovery --- a skeletal arm-bone with a rusty handcuff attached to the wrist. It’s all that remains of a courier who died in a V-2 rocket attack. The woman who will put these two disparate events together --- and understand the looming tragedy she must hurry to prevent --- is Russian historian and former Soviet chess champion Larissa Mendelovg Klimt.
Pegasus Books | 9781643131481
THE CAREGIVER by Samuel Park (Fiction)
With no other family or friends her own age, Ana eclipses her little girl Mara’s entire world. They take turns caring for each other --- in ways big and small. However, their arrangement begins to unravel when Ana becomes involved with a civilian rebel group attempting to undermine the city's torturous Police Chief, who rules over 1980s Rio de Janeiro with terrifying brutality. Ana makes decisions that indelibly change their shared life. When Mara is forced to escape, she emigrates to California where she finds employment as a caregiver to a young woman dying of stomach cancer. It’s here that she begins to grapple with her turbulent past and starts to uncover vital truths --- about her mother, herself, and what it means to truly take care of someone.
Simon & Schuster | 9781501178795
THE FIFTH TO DIE: A 4MK Thriller by J. D. Barker (Thriller)
Detective Porter and the team have been pulled from the hunt for Anson Bishop, the Four Monkey Killer, by the feds. When the body of a young girl is found beneath the frozen waters of Jackson Park Lagoon, she is identified as Ella Reynolds, missing three weeks. But how did she get there? The lagoon froze months earlier. More baffling? She’s found wearing the clothes of another girl, missing less than two days. Obsessed with catching Bishop, Porter follows a single grainy photograph from Chicago to the streets of New Orleans and stumbles into a world darker than he could have possibly imagined, where he quickly realizes that the only place more frightening than the mind of a serial killer is the mind of the mother from which he came.
Mariner Books | 9781328589811
FREEFALL by Adam Hamdy (Thriller)
Eight months after confronting Pendulum, John Wallace is losing himself in a dangerous warzone in a misguided attempt at penance for what he has done. But an assassination attempt makes Wallace realize that he has been targeted for death once again. This time, Wallace is prepared; tracking down his would-be assassin, he discovers a link to his nemesis, Pendulum. The link is the missing piece of a puzzle that has tormented FBI Agent Christine Ash ever since they confronted Pendulum, but with no Bureau support she has been unable to pursue her case. Wallace's proof breaks it, but also exposes them both to terrible danger.
Quercus | 9781635060010
HOW TO WALK AWAY by Katherine Center (Fiction)
Margaret Jacobsen is just about to step into the bright future she’s worked for so hard and so long: a new dream job, a fiancé she adores, and the promise of a picture-perfect life just around the corner. Then, suddenly, everything she worked for is taken away in a brief, tumultuous moment. In the hospital and forced to face the possibility that nothing will ever be the same again, Maggie must confront the unthinkable. First, there is her fiancé, Chip, who wallows in self-pity while simultaneously expecting to be forgiven. Then, there's her sister Kit, who shows up after pulling a three-year vanishing act. Finally, there's Ian, her physical therapist, who won't let her give in to her pity, and who sees her like no one has seen her before.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250047311
IF YOU SEE ME, DON’T SAY HI: Stories by Neel Patel (Fiction/Short Stories)
In his sharp, surprising debut, Neel Patel gives voice to our most deeply held stereotypes and then slowly undermines them. His characters, almost all of whom are first-generation Indian Americans, subvert our expectations that they will sit quietly by. We meet two brothers caught in an elaborate web of envy and loathing; a young gay man who becomes involved with an older man whose secret he could never guess; three women who almost gleefully throw off the pleasant agreeability society asks of them; and, in the final pair of linked stories, a young couple struggling against the devastating force of community gossip.
Flatiron Books | 9781250183217
JELL-O GIRLS: A Family History by Allie Rowbottom (Memoir)
In 1899, Allie Rowbottom's great-great-great-uncle bought the patent to Jell-O from its inventor for $450. The sale would turn out to be one of the most profitable business deals in American history, and the generations that followed enjoyed immense privilege --- but they were also haunted by suicides, cancer, alcoholism and mysterious ailments. More than 100 years later, Allie's mother Mary was diagnosed with the same cancer that had claimed her own mother's life. Determined to combat what she had come to consider the "Jell-O curse," Mary started researching her family's past. Before she died, Mary began to send Allie boxes of her research and notes, hoping that her daughter might write what she could not. JELL-O GIRLS is the liberation of that story.
Back Bay Books | 9780316510622
THE LAST LIST OF MISS JUDITH KRATT by Andrea Bobotis (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Judith Kratt inherited all the Kratt family had to offer --- the pie safe, the copper clock, the murder no one talks about. She knows it's high time to make an inventory of her household and its valuables, but she finds that cataloging the family belongings --- as well as their misfortunes --- won't contain her family's secrets, not when her wayward sister suddenly returns, determined to expose skeletons the Kratts had hoped to take to their graves. Interweaving the present with chilling flashbacks from one fateful evening in 1929, Judith pieces together the influence of her family on their small South Carolina cotton town, learning that the devastating effects of dark family secrets can last a lifetime and beyond.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781492678861
LEAVE NO TRACE by Mindy Mejia (Mystery/Thriller)
There is a place in Minnesota with hundreds of miles of glacial lakes and untouched forests called the Boundary Waters. Ten years ago, a man and his son trekked into this wilderness and never returned. They were presumed dead until a decade later when the son appeared. He was violent and uncommunicative and sent to a psychiatric facility. Maya Stark, the assistant language therapist, is charged with making a connection with him, but he refuses to answer questions about his father or the last 10 years of his life. As she’s drawn closer to her high-profile patient, she’ll risk everything to reunite him with his father who has disappeared from the known world.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781501177378
THE LINE THAT HELD US by David Joy (Fiction)
When Darl Moody went hunting after a monster buck he's chased for years, he never expected he'd accidentally shoot a man digging ginseng. Worse yet, he's killed a Brewer, a family notorious for vengeance and violence. With nowhere to turn, Darl calls on the help of the only man he knows will answer: his best friend, Calvin Hooper. But when Dwayne Brewer comes looking for his missing brother and stumbles onto a blood trail leading straight back to Darl and Calvin, a nightmare of revenge rips apart their world.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780425280287
THE MASTERPIECE by Fiona Davis (Historical Fiction)
For Clara Darden, Grand Central Terminal is the stepping stone to her future. It is 1928, and she is teaching at the lauded Grand Central School of Art. But Clara and her bohemian friends have no idea that they'll soon be blindsided by the looming Great Depression. Nearly 50 years later, the terminal has declined almost as sharply as Virginia Clay's life. Recently divorced, Virginia has just accepted a job in the information booth to support herself and her college-age daughter. But when Virginia discovers a striking watercolor hidden under the dust, she embarks on a quest to find the artist, drawing her deep into the mystery of Clara Darden, the famed 1920s illustrator who disappeared from history in 1931.
Dutton | 9781524742973
ONLY EVER YOU by Rebecca Drake (Psychological Thriller)
Jill Lassiter’s three-year-old daughter disappears from a playground only to return after 40 frantic minutes of searching, but the mother’s relief is short-lived --- there’s a tiny puncture mark on Sophia’s arm. When doctors can find no trace of drugs in Sophia’s system, Jill accepts she’ll never know what happened, but at least her child is safe. Except Sophia isn’t. Someone is watching the Lassiter home in an affluent Pennsylvania suburb, infiltrating the family’s personal and professional lives. As Jill faces every parent’s worst nightmare a second time, she must find out who has taken her daughter and why. Someone doesn’t just want Sophia for her own --- she’s out to destroy Jill’s entire family.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250215536
THE SATURDAY NIGHT GHOST CLUB by Craig Davidson (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Growing up in 1980s Niagara Falls --- a seedy but magical, slightly haunted place --- Jake Baker spends most of his time with his uncle Calvin, a kind but eccentric enthusiast of occult artifacts and conspiracy theories. The summer Jake turns 12, he befriends a pair of siblings new to town, and so Calvin decides to initiate them all into the "Saturday Night Ghost Club." But as the summer goes on, what begins as a seemingly light-hearted project may ultimately uncover more than any of its members had imagined.
Penguin Books | 9780143133933
A TERRIBLE COUNTRY by Keith Gessen (Fiction)
Andrei Kaplan leaves New York to care for his ailing grandmother in Moscow. He learns to navigate Putin’s Moscow, still the city of his birth, but with more expensive coffee. Over the course of the year, his grandmother’s health declines, and his feelings of dislocation from both Russia and America deepen. Andrei knows he must reckon with his future and make choices that will determine his life and fate. When he becomes entangled with a group of leftists, Andrei’s politics and his allegiances are tested, and he is forced to come to terms with the Russian society he was born into and the American one he has enjoyed since he was a kid.
Penguin Books | 9780735221338
On Sale the Week of July 15th in Hardcover
July 15th
SOPHIA, PRINCESS AMONG BEASTS by James Patterson with Emily Raymond (Fantasy/Adventure)
Sophia is smart, beautiful and accomplished, a beloved princess devoted to the people and to reading books. The kingdom is hers, until she is plunged into a nightmarish realm populated by the awful beasts she read about as a child. The beasts are real. And so is the great army marching on her castle. The people look to Sophia for protection. They will all perish unless she can unlock an ancient secret as profound as life and death itself.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316417471
July 16th
BARK OF NIGHT: An Andy Carpenter Mystery by David Rosenfelt (Mystery)
Truman, a healthy French bulldog, was dropped off at the veterinarian’s office days ago with instructions to be euthanized by a man everyone thought was his owner. But now the owner is nowhere to be found. Defense lawyer Andy Carpenter is furious. Who would want to euthanize a perfectly healthy dog with no explanation? He is willing to whisk Truman away to the Tara Foundation, the dog-rescue organization that is Andy’s true passion. They will find a home for Truman. But thanks to Truman’s chip, it’s discovered that the man wasn’t Truman’s owner at all. Truman's real owner has been murdered. It’s now up to Andy --- with help from his loyal sidekick Tara, Truman and the rest of the gang --- to solve this case.
Minotaur Books | 9781250133090
BODY LEAPING BACKWARD: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood by Maureen Stanton (Memoir)
For Maureen Stanton’s proper Catholic mother, the town’s maximum security prison was a way to keep her seven children in line. But as the 1970s brought upheaval to America, and the lines between good and bad blurred, Stanton’s once-solid family lost its way. A promising young girl with a smart mouth, Stanton turns watchful as her parents separate and her now-single mother descends into shoplifting, then grand larceny --- anything to keep a toehold in the middle class for her children. No longer scared by threats of Walpole Prison, Stanton also slips into delinquency, all while nearly erasing herself through addiction to angel dust, a homemade form of PCP that swept through her hometown in the wake of Nixon’s “total war” on drugs.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9781328900234
COSTALEGRE by Courtney Maum (Historical Fiction)
It is 1937, and Europe is on the brink of war. In the haute-bohemian circles of Austria, Germany and Paris, Hitler is circulating a most-wanted list of “cultural degenerates” --- artists, writers and thinkers whose work is deemed antithetical to the new regime. To prevent the destruction of her favorite art (and artists), the impetuous American heiress and modern art collector, Leonora Calaway, begins chartering boats and planes for an elite group of surrealists to Costalegre, a mysterious resort in the Mexican jungle, where she has a home. The story of what happens to these artists when they reach their destination is told from the point of view of Lara, Leonora’s neglected 15-year-old daughter, who has been pulled out of school to follow her mother to Mexico.
Tin House Books | 9781947793361
THE EXPECTATIONS by Alexander Tilney (Fiction)
St. James is an exclusive New England boarding school known for grooming generations of leaders. Ben Weeks is a true insider --- his ancestors helped found St. James, his older brother taught him all the slang, and he's just won a national championship in squash. But after 14 long years of waiting, Ben arrives at school only to find that the reality of St. James doesn't quite match up with his imaginings. At the same time, his new roommate, Ahmed Al-Khaled, the son of a fabulously wealthy Emirati sheik, can't navigate the unspoken rules of New England blue bloods. Even as Ben and Ahmed struggle to prove themselves in the place they have revered for so long, each of them must face losing it forever.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316450379
HOWLING DARK: The Sun Eater, Book Two by Christopher Ruocchio (Space Opera/Fantasy)
For half a century, Hadrian Marlowe has searched the farther suns for the lost planet of Vorgossos, hoping to find a way to contact the elusive alien Cielcin. He has not succeeded, and for years has wandered among the barbarian Normans as captain of a band of mercenaries. Determined to make peace and bring an end to nearly 400 years of war, Hadrian must venture beyond the security of the Sollan Empire and among the Extrasolarians who dwell between the stars. There, he will contend with creatures that once were human, with traitors in his midst, and with a meeting that will bring him face to face with no less than the oldest enemy of mankind. If he succeeds, he will usher in a peace unlike any in recorded history. If he fails, the galaxy will burn.
DAW | 9780756413033
IF YOU WANT TO MAKE GOD LAUGH by Bianca Marais (Fiction)
In a squatter camp on the outskirts of Johannesburg, 17-year-old Zodwa lives in desperate poverty, under the shadowy threat of a civil war and a growing AIDS epidemic. Eight months pregnant, Zodwa carefully guards secrets that jeopardize her life. Across the country, wealthy socialite Ruth appears to have everything her heart desires, but it's what she can't have that leads to her breakdown. Meanwhile, in Zaire, a disgraced former nun, Delilah, grapples with a past that refuses to stay buried. When these personal crises send both middle-aged women back to their rural hometown to heal, the discovery of an abandoned newborn baby upends everything, challenging their lifelong beliefs about race, motherhood and the power of the past.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780735219311
MIDNIGHT AT THE BLACKBIRD CAFÉ by Heather Webber (Magical Realism/Romance)
Nestled in the mountain shadows of Alabama lies the little town of Wicklow. It is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Café. It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and settle her grandmother’s estate, but despite her best intentions to avoid forming ties or even getting to know her father’s side of the family, Anna Kate finds herself inexplicably drawn to the quirky Southern town her mother ran away from so many years ago, and the mysterious blackbird pie everybody can’t stop talking about. As the truth about her past slowly becomes clear, Anna Kate will need to decide if this lone blackbird will finally be able to take her broken wings and fly.
Forge Books | 9781250198594
THE NEW GIRL by Daniel Silva (Thriller/Adventure)
Gabriel Allon, the legendary chief of Israeli intelligence, has spent most of his life fighting terrorists, including the murderous jihadists financed by Saudi Arabia. Prince Khalid --- or KBM, as he is known --- has pledged to finally break the bond between the Kingdom and radical Islam. For that reason alone, Gabriel regards him as a valuable if flawed partner. Together they will become unlikely allies in a deadly secret war for control of the Middle East. The life of a child, and the throne of Saudi Arabia, hang in the balance. Both men have made their share of enemies. And both have everything to lose.
Harper | 9780062834836
THE NICKEL BOYS by Colson Whitehead (Historical Fiction)
Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood Curtis is about to enroll in Tallahassee’s local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy. In reality, it is a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear "out back." The tension between Elwood's ideals and his friend Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.
Doubleday | 9780385537070
THE OTHER MRS. MILLER by Allison Dickson (Psychological Thriller)
Phoebe Miller isn't sure when the rusty car started showing up in the cul-de-sac she calls home, or why its driver would be spying on her. What could be interesting about an unhappy housewife who drowns her sorrows in ice cream and wine and barely leaves her house? When a new family moves in across the street --- the exuberant Vicki, who just might become the gossipy best friend Phoebe's always wanted, and her handsome college-bound son, Jake, who offers companionship of a different variety --- Phoebe finds her dull routine infused with the excitement she's been missing. But with her head turned, she's no longer focused on the woman in the car. And she really should be.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780525539247
THE PHILOSOPHER'S WAR by Tom Miller (Historical Fantasy)
Robert Canderelli Weekes’ lifelong dream has come true: he’s the first male allowed to join the US Sigilry Corps’s Rescue and Evacuation service, an elite, all-woman team of flying medics. He soon discovers, though, that his comrades are plotting to end the Great War by outlawed philosophical means and becomes caught up in their conspiracy, running raids in enemy territory and uncovering vital intelligence. Friends old and new will need his help with a dangerous scheme that just might win the war overnight and save a few million lives. But the German smokecarvers have plans of their own: a devastating all-out attack that threatens to destroy the Corps and France itself. Naturally, Robert is trapped right in the thick of it.
Simon & Schuster | 9781476778181
RAISED IN CAPTIVITY: Fictional Nonfiction by Chuck Klosterman (Fiction/Short Stories)
A man flying first class discovers a puma in the lavatory. A new coach of a small-town Oklahoma high school football team installs an offense comprised of only one, very special, play. A college professor discusses with his friend his difficulties with the new generation of students. A woman interviews a hit man about killing her husband but is shocked by the method he proposes. Fair warning: RAISED IN CAPTIVITY does not slot into a smooth preexisting groove. If Saul Steinberg and Italo Calvino had adopted a child from a Romanian orphanage and raised him on Gary Larsen and Thomas Bernhard, he would still be nothing like Chuck Klosterman. They might be good company, though.
Penguin Press | 9780735217928
RED METAL by Mark Greaney and LtCol H. Ripley Rawlings IV, USMC (Thriller/Adventure)
A desperate Kremlin takes advantage of a military crisis in Asia to simultaneously strike into Western Europe and invade east Africa in a bid to occupy three Rare Earth mineral mines that will give Russia unprecedented control for generations over the world's hi-tech sector. Pitted against the Russians are a Marine lieutenant colonel pulled out of a cushy job at the Pentagon and thrown into the fray in Africa, a French Special Forces captain and his intelligence operative father, a young Polish female partisan fighter, an A-10 Warthog pilot, and the commander of an American tank platoon who, along with his German counterpart, fight from behind enemy lines in Germany all the way into Russia.
Berkley | 9780451490414
RULES OF WAR by Matthew Betley (Thriller/Adventure)
The vice president of the United States is missing, the director of the National Security Agency has been assassinated, and the mysterious organization orchestrating global instability is in tatters. While John Quick recovers from a gunshot wound that nearly killed him, Logan West is on the hunt to bring the vice president back to the US to face justice for his treason. The final stakes have never been higher, and Logan and his task force are left with little to no options. Will it be this warrior’s end?
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781501162022
SEARCHING FOR STONEWALL JACKSON: A Quest for Legacy in a Divided America by Ben Cleary (History)
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was the embodiment of Southern contradictions. He was a slave owner who fought and died, at least in part, to perpetuate slavery, yet he founded an African-American Sunday School and personally taught classes for almost a decade. In a deeply religious age, Jackson was revered for a piety that was far beyond the norm. How did one man meld his religion with the institution of slavery? How did he reconcile it with the business of killing, at which he so excelled? In SEARCHING FOR STONEWALL JACKSON, historian Ben Cleary examines not only Jackson's life, but his own, contemplating what it means to be a white Southerner in the 21st century.
Twelve | 9781455535804
THE SECOND-WORST RESTAURANT IN FRANCE by Alexander McCall Smith (Fiction/Humor)
Renowned Scottish cookbook writer Paul Stuart is hard at work on his new book, The Philosophy of Food, but complicated domestic circumstances are making that difficult. So when Paul's eccentric cousin Chloe suggests that he join her at the house she's rented in the French countryside, he jumps at the chance. The two quickly befriend the locals, including their twin-sister landladies, who also own the infamous local restaurant known to be the second-worst eatery in all of France. With all kinds of local drama to deal with, Paul finds it next to impossible to focus on his writing, and that's before he learns that Chloe's past is far more complicated than he'd ever imagined.
Pantheon | 9781524748296
SHAMED by Linda Castillo (Mystery/Thriller)
The peaceful town of Painters Mill is shattered when an Amish grandmother is brutally murdered on an abandoned farm. When Chief of Police Kate Burkholder arrives on the scene, she learns that the woman’s seven-year-old granddaughter is gone, abducted in plain sight. The girl’s family is a pillar of the Amish community, well-respected by all. But Kate soon realizes they’re keeping secrets --- and the sins of their past may be coming back to haunt them. What are they hiding and why? Kate’s investigation brings her to an isolated Old Order Amish settlement along the river, a community where family is everything and tradition is upheld with an iron fist. But the killer is close behind, drawing more victims into a twisted game of revenge.
Minotaur Books | 9781250142863
TELL ME EVERYTHING by Cambria Brockman (Psychological Thriller)
In her first weeks at Hawthorne College, Malin is swept up into a tight-knit circle that will stick together through all four years. But Malin isn’t like the rest of her friends. She’s an expert at hiding her troubled past. She acts as if she shares the preoccupations of those around her, all while using her extraordinary insight to detect their deepest vulnerabilities and weaknesses. By Senior Day, Malin’s secrets --- and those of her friends --- are revealed. While she scrambles to maintain her artfully curated image, her missteps set in motion a devastating chain of events that ends in a murder. And as fragile relationships hang in the balance and close alliances shift, Malin must test the limits of what she’s capable of to stop the truth from coming out.
Ballantine Books | 9781984817211
THIS SIDE OF NIGHT by J. Todd Scott (Thriller)
In the Mexican borderlands, a busload of student protesters is gunned down in broad daylight, a violent act blamed on the Nemesio cartel. But its aging leader, Fox Uno, sees the attack for what it is: another salvo in the long-running battle for control of Nemesio itself. Across the Rio Grande, Sheriff Chris Cherry and his deputies America Reynosa and Danny Ford find themselves caught in Fox Uno's escalating war with the recent discovery of five dead men at the river's edge. El Paso DEA agent Joe Garrison's own Nemesio investigation leads him into the heart of the Big Bend. Not only does he suspect that a high-profile drug task force in a neighboring county is corrupt, he can't shake lingering doubts about the loyalty and motives of the young deputy, Ame Reynosa.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780735212916
TURBULENCE by David Szalay (Fiction)
A woman strikes up a conversation with the man sitting next to her on a plane after some turbulence. He returns home to tragic news that also has impacted another stranger, a shaken pilot on his way to another continent who seeks comfort from a journalist he meets that night. Her life shifts subtly as well, before she heads to the airport on an assignment that will shift more lives in turn. In TURBULENCE, David Szalay’s diverse protagonists circumnavigate the planet in 12 flights en route to see lovers or estranged siblings, aging parents, baby grandchildren or nobody at all. Along the way, they change each other in one brief, electrifying interaction after the next.
Scribner | 9781982122737
WINDOW ON THE BAY by Debbie Macomber (Romance)
After a messy divorce from her surgeon husband nearly 20 years ago, Jenna Boltz raised her two children on her own, juggling motherhood with her beloved job as a Seattle intensive-care nurse. Now that Paul and Allie have gone to college and moved out, Jenna can’t help but wonder what her future holds. Her best friend, Maureen, is excited for Jenna’s newfound independence. Now is the perfect time to finally book the trip to Paris they’ve been dreaming of since their college days. But when it comes to life’s other great adventure --- dating --- Jenna still isn’t sure she’s ready to let love in…until an unexpected encounter begins to change her mind.
Ballantine Books | 9780399181337
On Sale the Week of July 15th in Paperback
July 16th
AMBUSH: A Detective Michael Bennett Thriller by James Patterson and James O. Born (Thriller)
An anonymous tip about a crime in Upper Manhattan proves to be a setup. An officer is taken down --- and, despite the attackers' efforts, it's not Michael Bennett. New York's top cop is not the only one at risk. One of Bennett's children sustains a mysterious injury. And a series of murders follows, each with a distinct signature, alerting Bennett to the presence of a professional killer with a flair for disguise. Bennett taps his best investigators and sources, and they fan out across the five boroughs. But the leads they're chasing turn out to be phantoms. The assassin takes advantage of the chaos, enticing an officer into compromising Bennett, then luring another member of Bennett's family into even graver danger.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538713785
BABY TEETH by Zoje Stage (Psychological Thriller)
Seven-year-old Hanna is a sweet-but-silent angel in the eyes of her adoring father Alex. He’s the only person who understands her. But her mother Suzette stands in her way, and she’ll try any trick she can think of to get rid of her. Ideally for good. Suzette loves her daughter, but after years of expulsions and strained home schooling, her precarious health and sanity are weakening day by day. She’s also becoming increasingly frightened by Hanna’s little games, while her husband Alex remains blind to the failing family dynamics. Soon, Suzette starts to fear that maybe their supposedly innocent baby girl may have a truly sinister agenda.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250170767
THE DIARY OF A BOOKSELLER by Shaun Bythell (Memoir)
When Shaun Bythell first thought of taking over The Bookshop, it seemed like a great idea: The Bookshop is Scotland's largest second-hand store, with over 100,000 books in a glorious old house with twisting corridors and roaring fireplaces, set in a tiny, beautiful town by the sea. It seemed like a book-lover's paradise. Until Bythell did indeed buy the store. In THE DIARY OF A BOOKSELLER, he tells us what happened next --- the trials and tribulations of being a small businessman; of learning that customers can be, um, eccentric; and of wrangling with his own staff of oddballs. And perhaps none are quirkier than the charmingly cantankerous bookseller Bythell himself turns out to be.
Melville House | 9781612198163
EAGLE & CRANE by Suzanne Rindell (Historical Mystery)
Louis Thorn and Harry Yamada are boyhood friends divided by family differences. But their childhood camaraderie reignites when they are convinced to perform death-defying tricks as Eagle & Crane in Earl Shaw’s Flying Circus --- until their mutual attraction to Shaw’s stepdaughter, smart and beautiful Ava Brooks, complicates things anew. Then Pearl Harbor is bombed in December 1941, and Harry is imprisoned in a Japanese American internment camp. When a Shaw stunt plane crashes soon after Harry and his father leave the camp without permission, the two bodies discovered are assumed to be theirs. But the details don’t add up, and no one involved seems willing to tell the truth.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons | 9780399184307
THE FAMILY TABOR by Cherise Wolas (Fiction)
Harry Tabor is about to be named Man of the Decade. Gathering together in Palm Springs for the celebration are his wife, Roma, and their children: Phoebe, Camille and Simon. But immediately, cracks begin to appear in this smooth façade: Simon hasn’t been sleeping through the night, Camille can’t decide what to do with her life, and Phoebe is a little too cagey about her new boyfriend. Roma knows her children are hiding things. What she doesn’t know --- what none of them know --- is that Harry is suddenly haunted by the long-buried secret that drove him to relocate his young family to the California desert. As the ceremony nears, the family members are forced to confront the falsehoods upon which their lives are built.
Flatiron Books | 9781250081476
THE HEART KEEPER by Alex Dahl (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
When Alison's beloved daughter Amalie drowns, her world turns impenetrably dark. Alison tries to hold it together throughout the bleak Fall, but in the darkest days of the Norwegian Winter, she completely falls apart. In another family, Amalie's passing is a new beginning. After years of severe health problems, young Kaia receives a new heart on the morning after Amalie drowns. Her mother Iselin has struggled to raise Kaia on her own, and now things are finally looking up. She's even made an affluent new friend who's taken a special interest in her and her daughter. As her grief transforms into a terrifying obsession, Alison won't let anything stop her from getting back what she has lost.
Berkley | 9780451491817
HER ONE MISTAKE by Heidi Perks (Psychological Thriller)
Charlotte was supposed to be looking after the children, and she swears she was. But when her three kids are all safe and sound at the school fair, and Alice, her best friend Harriet’s daughter, is nowhere to be found, Charlotte panics. Harriet, devastated by this unthinkable, unbearable loss, can no longer bring herself to speak to Charlotte again, much less trust her. Now more isolated than ever and struggling to keep her marriage afloat, Harriet believes nothing and no one. But as the police bear down on both women trying to piece together the puzzle of what happened to this little girl, dark secrets begin to surface --- and Harriet discovers that confiding in Charlotte again may be the only thing that will reunite her with her daughter.
Gallery Books | 9781501198328
INTO THE NIGHT by Sarah Bailey (Mystery)
Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock finds herself lost and alone after a recent move to Melbourne, brokenhearted by the decisions she's had to make. Her new workplace is a minefield, and Detective Sergeant Nick Fleet, the partner she has been assigned, is uncommunicative and often hostile. When a homeless man is murdered and Gemma is put on the case, she can't help feeling a connection with the victim and his lonely, isolated existence. Then Sterling Wade, an up-and-coming actor filming his breakout performance in a closed-off city street, is murdered in the middle of an action-packed shot, and Gemma and Nick have to put aside their differences to unravel the mysteries surrounding the actor's life and death.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538759943
JOHN WOMAN by Walter Mosley (Fiction)
At 12 years old, Cornelius, the son of an Italian-American woman and an older black man from Mississippi named Herman, secretly takes over his father’s job at a silent film theater in New York’s East Village. Five years later, following his father’s death and his mother’s disappearance, Cornelius sets about reinventing himself --- as Professor John Woman, a man who will spread Herman’s teachings into the classrooms of his unorthodox southwestern university and beyond. But there are other individuals who are attempting to influence the narrative of John Woman and who might know something about the facts of his hidden past.
Grove Press | 9780802129680
KATERINA by James Frey (Fiction)
KATERINA is a sweeping love story alternating between 1992 Paris and Los Angeles in 2018. At its center are a young writer and a young model on the verge of fame --- both reckless, impulsive, addicted and deeply in love. Twenty-five years later, the writer is rich, famous and numb, and he wants to drive his car into a tree, when he receives an anonymous message that draws him back to the life, and possibly the love, he abandoned years prior.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781982101459
LAST LOOKS: A Charlie Waldo Novel by Howard Michael Gould (Thriller)
Former detective Charlie Waldo now lives in solitude deep in the woods. He has left behind his career and his girlfriend, Lorena, to pay self-imposed penance for an awful misstep on an old murder case. But the old ghosts are about to come roaring back. Alastair Pinch is a onetime Royal Shakespeare Company thespian who now slums it as the "wise" Southern judge on a tacky network show. He's absurdly rich, often belligerent and typically drunk --- a damning combination when Alastair's wife is found dead on their living room floor and he can't remember what happened. Waldo's old flame Lorena, hiding peril of her own, draws him toward the case, and Alastair's greedy network convinces Waldo to take it on.
Dutton | 9781524742508
NIGHT SOIL by Dale Peck (Fiction)
A century and a half of family secrets are written on Judas Stammers’ body, painted purple by a birthmark that covers half his face and abdomen. Judas is the last descendant of a 19th-century robber baron who made his fortune off the slaves who died in his coal mines. The money is gone, but the legacy lives on in the form of an all-male, all-black private school founded by the family patriarch in atonement for his sins. Ostracized for his name as much as his appearance, Judas’ lust for his classmates is matched only by their contempt for him, until finally he’s driven to seek out sex in places where his identity means nothing to the anonymous men he gives himself to. Hovering over everything is Judas’ mother, Dixie, an acclaimed potter whose obsession with creating the perfect vessel over and over again leaves her son that much more isolated.
Soho Press | 9781641290654
SOMEONE LIKE ME by M. R. Carey (Psychological Thriller)
Liz Kendall wouldn't hurt a fly. Even when times get tough, she's devoted to bringing up her two kids in a loving home. But there's another side to Liz --- one that's dark and malicious. She will do anything to get her way, no matter how extreme. And when this other side of her takes control, the consequences are devastating.
Orbit | 9780316477468
UNEASY LIES THE CROWN: A Lady Emily Mystery by Tasha Alexander (Historical Mystery)
The year is 1901, and the death of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch has sent the entire British Empire into mourning. But for Lady Emily and her dashing husband, Colin Hargreaves, the grieving is cut short as another death takes center stage. A body has been found in the Tower of London, posed to look like the murdered medieval king Henry VI. When a second dead man turns up in London's exclusive Berkeley Square, his mutilated remains staged to evoke the violent demise of Edward II, it becomes evident that the mastermind behind the crimes plans to strike again. With the killer leaving a trail of dead kings in his wake, will Edward be the next victim?
Minotaur Books | 9781250164711
VOX by Christina Dalcher (Dystopian Thriller)
On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed more than 100 words per day, Dr. Jean McClellan is in denial. This can't happen here. Not in America. Not to her. Soon women are not permitted to hold jobs. Girls are not taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke 16,000 words each day, but now women have only 100 to make themselves heard. For herself, her daughter and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice.
Berkley | 9780440000815
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