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August 4, 2015 |
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The following are lists of books releasing the weeks of August 3rd and August 10th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers.
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On Sale the Week of August 3rd in Hardcover
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August 3rd
ALERT: A Michael Bennett Novel by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Thriller)
After two inexplicable high-tech attacks, New York City is on edge. Detective Michael Bennett, along with his old pal, the FBI's Emily Parker, have to catch the shadowy criminals who claim responsibility. In the wake of a shocking assassination, Bennett begins to suspect that these mysterious events are just the prelude to the biggest threat of all. Soon he's racing against the clock to save his beloved city before everyone's worst nightmare becomes a reality.
Little, Brown and Company * 9780316407038
DRAGONFISH by Vu Tran (Literary Thriller)
Robert, an Oakland cop, still can't let go of Suzy, the enigmatic Vietnamese wife who left him two years ago. Now she's disappeared from her new husband, Sonny, a violent Vietnamese smuggler and gambler who's blackmailing Robert into finding her for him. As he pursues her through the sleek and seamy gambling dens of Las Vegas, shadowed by Sonny's sadistic son, "Junior," and assisted by unexpected and reluctant allies, Robert learns more about his ex-wife than he ever did during their marriage.
W. W. Norton & Company * 9780393077803
August 4th
THE 3rd WOMAN by Jonathan Freedland (Thriller)
The United States and China have struck a shocking bargain: In return for forgiving trillions in debt, the People’s Republic of China has established a permanent military presence on US soil. Years of decline have left America economically vulnerable, and evidence of China’s cultural and political dominance is everywhere. Journalist Madison Webb is obsessed with exposing the lies and corruption that have corroded her once great society. When her sister is savagely murdered, the police insist it’s an isolated crime. But Madison suspects the cops are hiding something.
Harper * 9780062207555
ALL THAT FOLLOWED by Gabriel Urza (Psychological Mystery)
It's 2004 in Muriga, a quiet town in Spain's northern Basque Country, a place with more secrets than inhabitants. Five years have passed since the kidnapping and murder of a young local politician, and the town's rhythms have almost returned to normal. But in the aftermath of the Atocha train bombings in Madrid, an act of terrorism that rocked a nation and a world, the townspeople want a reckoning of Muriga's own troubled past. Everyone knows who pulled the trigger five years ago, but is the young man now behind bars the only one to blame?
Henry Holt and Co. * 9781627792431
AVENUE OF SPIES: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alex Kershaw (History)
The leafy Avenue Foch, one of the most exclusive residential streets in Nazi-occupied France, was Paris's hotbed of daring spies, murderous secret police, amoral informers and Vichy collaborators. So when American physician Sumner Jackson found himself drawn into the Liberation network of the French resistance, he knew the stakes were impossibly high. Drawing upon a wealth of primary source material and extensive interviews with Sumner’s son, Phillip, Alex Kershaw recreates the City of Light during its darkest days.
Crown * 9780804140034
THE BANGKOK ASSET by John Burdett (Hard-boiled Mystery)
Sonchai Jitpleecheep --- the brash and beguiling Royal Thai Police Force detective who has been our guide through John Burdett’s five previous Bangkok novels --- is back. The former monk and devout Buddhist, forever battling to protect his karma from the assaults of morally compromising cases, is now faced with the most horrifying technological innovation to make its way to the streets of Bangkok, and a conspiracy of almost unfathomable reach.
Knopf * 9780307272683
BARBARA THE SLUT AND OTHER PEOPLE by Lauren Holmes (Fiction/Short Stories)
In “Desert Hearts,” a woman takes a job selling sex toys in San Francisco rather than embark on the law career she pursued only for the sake of her father. In “Pearl and the Swiss Guy Fall in Love,” a woman realizes she much prefers the company of her pit bull to the neurotic foreign fling who won’t decamp from her apartment. And in “Barbara the Slut,” a young woman with an autistic brother, a Princeton acceptance letter, and a love of sex navigates her high school’s toxic, slut-shaming culture with open eyes. Lauren Holmes' debut collection is about family, friends and lovers, and the flaws that make us most human.
Riverhead Books * 9781594633782
BAREFOOT TO AVALON: A Brother's Story by David Payne (Memoir)
In 2000, while moving his household from Vermont to North Carolina, author David Payne watched from his rearview mirror as his younger brother, George A., driving behind him in a two-man convoy of rental trucks, lost control of his vehicle. David’s life hit a downward spiral. He found himself haunted not only by George A.’s death, but also by his brother’s manic depression, an inherited past that now threatened David’s and his children’s futures. The only way out, he found, was to write about his brother.
Atlantic Monthly Press * 9780802123541
COMING OF AGE AT THE END OF DAYS by Alice LaPlante (Fiction)
Never one to conform, Anna always had trouble fitting in. When a sudden melancholia takes hold of her life at the age of 16, she loses her sense of self and purpose. Then the Goldschmidts move in next door. They're active members of a religious cult, and Anna is awestruck by both their son, Lars, and their fervent violent prophecies for the Tribulation at the End of Days. Within months, Anna's life will undergo profound changes. But when her newfound beliefs threaten to push her over the edge, she must find her way back to center with the help of unlikely friends.
Atlantic Monthly Press * 9780802121653
DAYS OF AWE by Lauren Fox (Fiction)
Only a year ago Isabel Moore was married, was the object of adoration for her 10-year-old daughter, and thought she knew everything about her wild, extravagant, beloved best friend, Josie. But in that one short year, her husband moved out and rented his own apartment; her daughter grew into a moody insomniac; and Josie was killed in a single-car accident. As the relationships that long defined Isabel change before her eyes, she must try to understand who she really is.
Knopf * 9780307268129
DEADLY ASSETS: A Badge of Honor Novel by W. E. B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV (Thriller/Adventure)
Homicide Sergeant Matt Payne has been investigating the murder of a young family. A reporter, working on an illicit drug series for Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Mickey O’Hara, has been killed with his wife and child, a note stapled to his chest warning that the drug stories are to stop. Period. While Payne knows that he, like his pal O’Hara, cannot back down, he also knows that they certainly could be among the next to die.
G.P. Putnam's Sons * 9780399171178
THE DOG MASTER: A Novel of the First Dog by W. Bruce Cameron (Historical Fiction)
Thirty thousand years ago, ice was storming the planet. No stranger to the experiences that make us human, our ancestors competed for scant resources in a brutal landscape. Mankind stood on the cold brink of extinction...but they had a unique advantage over other species, a new technology: domesticated wolves. Only a set of extraordinary circumstances could have transformed one of these fierce creatures into a hunting companion, a bodyguard, a soldier and a friend.
Forge * 9780765374639
FISHBOWL by Bradley Somer (Fiction)
A goldfish named Ian is falling from the 27th-floor balcony on which his fishbowl sits. He's longed for adventure, so when the opportunity arises, he escapes from his bowl, clears the balcony railing and finds himself airborne. Plummeting toward the street below, Ian witnesses the lives of the Seville on Roxy residents.
St. Martin's Press * 9781250057808
FLOOD OF FIRE by Amitav Ghosh (Historical Fiction)
It is 1839, and China has embargoed the trade of opium, yet too much is at stake in the lucrative business and the British Foreign Secretary has ordered the colonial government in India to assemble an expeditionary force for an attack to reinstate the trade. Among those consigned is Kesri Singh, a soldier in the army of the East India Company. He makes his way eastward on the Hind, a transport ship that will carry him from Bengal to Hong Kong. FLOOD OF FIRE is the final novel in Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux * 9780374174248
THE GIRL WHO SLEPT WITH GOD by Val Brelinski (Fiction)
THE GIRL WHO SLEPT WITH GOD introduces readers to three sisters: young Frances, gregarious and strong-willed Jory, and moral-minded Grace. Their father, Oren, is a respected member of the community and science professor at the local college. Yet their mother’s depression and Grace’s religious fervor threaten the seemingly perfect family, whose world is upended when Grace returns from a missionary trip to Mexico and discovers she’s pregnant with --- she believes --- the child of God.
Viking * 9780525427421
IN A DARK, DARK WOOD by Ruth Ware (Psychological Thriller)
Leonora, known to some as Lee and others as Nora, is a reclusive crime writer, unwilling to leave her “nest” of an apartment unless it is absolutely necessary. When a friend she hasn’t seen or spoken to in years unexpectedly invites Nora (Lee?) to a weekend away in an eerie glass house deep in the English countryside, she reluctantly agrees to make the trip. Forty-eight hours later, she wakes up in a hospital bed injured but alive, with the knowledge that someone is dead.
Gallery/Scout Press * 9781501112317
INFINITE HOME by Kathleen Alcott (Fiction)
Edith is a widowed landlady who rents apartments in her Brooklyn brownstone to an unlikely collection of humans, all deeply in need of shelter. Crippled in various ways --- in spirit, in mind, in body, in heart --- the renters struggle to navigate daily existence. They come to realize that Edith’s deteriorating mind, and the menacing presence of her estranged, unscrupulous son, Owen, is the greatest challenge they must confront together.
Riverhead Books * 9781594633638
INTO THE VALLEY by Ruth Galm (Fiction)
INTO THE VALLEY opens on the day in July 1967 when B. decides to pass her first counterfeit check and flee San Francisco for the Central Valley. Caught between generations and unmarried at 30, B. doesn’t understand the new counterculture youths. She likes the dresses and kid gloves of her mother’s generation, but doesn’t fit into that world either. B. is beset by a disintegrative anxiety she calls “the carsickness,” and the only relief comes in handling illicit checks and driving endlessly through the valley.
Soho Press * 9781616955090
JOY: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C. S. Lewis by Abigail Santamaria (Biography)
Joy Davidman is known, if she is known at all, as the wife of C. S. Lewis. Their marriage was immortalized in the film Shadowlands and Lewis’s memoir, A GRIEF OBSERVED. Now, through extraordinary new documents as well as years of research and interviews, Abigail Santamaria brings Joy Davidman Gresham Lewis to the page in the fullness and depth she deserves.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt * 9780151013715
LANDFALLS by Naomi J. Williams (Historical Fiction)
Naomi J. Williams reimagines the historical Lapérouse expedition, a voyage of exploration that left Brest in 1785 with two frigates, more than 200 men, and overblown Enlightenment ideals and expectations, in a brave attempt to circumnavigate the globe for science and the glory of France. LANDFALLS follows the exploits and heartbreaks not only of the men on the ships but also of the people affected by the voyage --- indigenous people and other Europeans the explorers encountered, loved ones left waiting at home, and those who survived and remembered the expedition later.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux * 9780374183158
THE LAST DAYS OF RABBIT HAYES by Anna McPartlin (Fiction)
Mia "Rabbit" Hayes has plans for the world. But the world, it turns out, has other plans for Rabbit: a devastating diagnosis. Rabbit is feisty. And with every ounce of love and strength in her, she promises that she will overcome. She will be with those who love her for as long as she can, and she will live as long as she can with music and love and so much life. And as her friends and family rally around to celebrate Rabbit's last days, they look to her for strength, support and her unyielding zest for life.
St. Martin's Press * 9781250058249
MAKE YOUR HOME AMONG STRANGERS by Jennine Capó Crucet (Fiction)
When Lizet --- the daughter of Cuban immigrants and the first in her family to graduate from high school --- secretly applies and is accepted to an ultra-elite college, her parents are furious at her decision to leave Miami. Just weeks before she's set to start school, her parents divorce and her father sells her childhood home, leaving Lizet, her mother, and her older sister Leidy --- a brand-new single mom --- without a steady income and scrambling for a place to live. Pulled between life at college and the needs of those she loves, Lizet is faced with difficult decisions that will change her life forever.
St. Martin's Press * 9781250059666
MALICE AT THE PALACE: A Royal Spyness Mystery by Rhys Bowen (Historical Mystery)
Caught between her high birth and empty purse, Lady Georgiana Ranoch is glad to get a new assignment from the Queen --- especially one that includes lodging in the supposedly haunted Kensington Palace. As companion to Princess Marina of Greece, who is to marry the King’s youngest son, Georgie expects to live the high life --- until she stumbles across a dead body.
Berkley Prime Crime * 9780425260388
THE MAN IN THE MONSTER: An Intimate Portrait of a Serial Killer by Martha Elliott (True Crime)
In THE MAN IN THE MONSTER, Martha Elliott gives us a groundbreaking look into the life and motivation of a serial killer. Drawing on a decade of conversations and letters between Michael Ross and the author, readers are given an in-depth view of a killer’s innermost thoughts and secrets, revealing the human face of a monster --- without ignoring the horrors of his crimes. Elliott takes us deep into a world of court hearings, tomblike prisons, lawyers hell-bent to kill or to save --- and families ravaged by love and hate.
Penguin Press * 9781594204906
THE MARRIAGE OF OPPOSITES by Alice Hoffman (Historical Fiction)
Growing up on idyllic St. Thomas in the early 1800s, Rachel dreams of life in faraway Paris. She is married off to a widower with three children to save her father’s business. When her husband dies suddenly and his handsome, much younger nephew, Frédérick, arrives from France to settle the estate, Rachel seizes her own life story, beginning a defiant, passionate love affair that sparks a scandal that affects all of her family --- including her favorite son, who will become one of the greatest artists of France.
Simon & Schuster * 9781451693591
MRS. SINCLAIR'S SUITCASE by Louise Walters (Fiction)
When Roberta finds a letter inside her centenarian grandmother’s battered old suitcase that hints at a dark secret, her understanding of her family’s history is completely upturned. Running alongside Roberta’s narrative is that of her grandmother, Dorothy, as a 40-year-old childless woman desperate for motherhood during the early years of World War II. After a chance encounter with a Polish war pilot, Dorothy believes she’s finally found happiness, but must instead make an unthinkable decision, the consequences of which forever change the framework of her family.
G.P. Putnam's Sons * 9780399169502
THE NIGHT SISTER by Jennifer McMahon (Psychological Suspense)
Once the thriving attraction of rural Vermont, the Tower Motel now stands in disrepair, alive only in the memories of Amy, Piper, and Piper's kid sister, Margot. The three played there as girls until the day their games uncovered something dark and twisted in the motel's past, something that ruined their friendship forever. Now adults, Piper and Margot have tried to forget what they found that fateful summer, but their lives are upended when Piper receives a panicked midnight call from Margot, with news of a horrific crime for which Amy stands accused.
Doubleday * 9780385538510
NO. 4 IMPERIAL LANE by Jonathan Weisman (Fiction)
David Heller has taken a job as a live-in aide to current quadriplegic and former playboy Hans Bromwell --- in part to extend his stay studying abroad, but in truth, he's looking to escape his own family still paralyzed by the death of his younger sister a decade ago. When David moves into the Bromwell house, his life becomes quickly entwined with those of Hans, his alcoholic sister, and her beautiful fatherless daughter. As David befriends the Bromwells, the details behind the family's staggering fall from grace are slowly revealed.
Twelve * 9781455530458
THE SECRETS OF LAKE ROAD by Karen Katchur (Fiction)
Jo has been hiding the truth about her role in her high school boyfriend's drowning for 16 years. But when rescue workers fail to uncover any sign of missing seven-year-old Sara, instead dredging up the bones Jo hoped would never be discovered, the quiet lakeside community's tranquility is shattered. As Jo’s daughter, Caroline, searches for Sara, she uncovers the secrets her mother has been concealing, unraveling the very foundation of everything she knows about herself and her family.
Thomas Dunne Books * 9781250066817
THREE MOMENTS OF AN EXPLOSION: Stories by China Miéville (Fantasy/Short Stories)
London awakes one morning to find itself besieged by a sky full of floating icebergs. Destroyed oil rigs, mysteriously reborn, clamber from the sea and onto the land, driven by an obscure but violent purpose. An anatomy student cuts open a cadaver to discover impossibly intricate designs carved into a corpse’s bones. Of such concepts and unforgettable images are made the 28 stories in this collection --- many published here for the first time.
Del Rey * 9781101884720
VILLA AMERICA by Liza Klaussmann (Historical Fiction)
On the coast of Antibes, Sara Wiborg and Gerald Murphy built Villa America, a fragrant paradise where they invented summer on the Riviera for a group of bohemian artists and writers who became deeply entwined in each other's affairs. It was a charmed life, but these were people who kept secrets and were heartbreakingly human. When a tragic accident brings Owen, a young American aviator who fought in the Great War, to the south of France, he finds himself drawn into this flamboyant circle, and the Murphys find their world irrevocably and unexpectedly transformed.
Little, Brown and Company * 9780316211369
WALKING WITH ABEL: Journeys with the Nomads of the African Savannah by Anna Badkhen (Memoir)
Anna Badkhen has forged a career chronicling life in extremis around the world, from war-torn Afghanistan to the border regions of the American Southwest. In WALKING WITH ABEL, she embeds herself with a family of Fulani cowboys --- nomadic herders in Mali’s Sahel grasslands --- as they embark on their annual migration across the savanna. Badkhen transports us from the Neolithic Sahara crisscrossed by rivers and abundant with wildlife to obelisk forests where the Fulani’s Stone Age ancestors painted tributes to cattle.
Riverhead Books * 9781594632488
WIND/PINBALL: Two Novels written by Haruki Murakami, translated by Ted Goossen (Fiction)
In the spring of 1978, a young Haruki Murakami sat down at his kitchen table and began to write. The result: two remarkable short novels --- HEAR THE WIND SING and PINBALL, 1973 --- that launched his career. These powerful, at times surreal, works about two young men coming of age are stories of loneliness, obsession and eroticism. Widely available in English for the first time ever, newly translated, and featuring a new introduction by Murakami himself, WIND/PINBALL gives us fascinating insight into a great writer’s beginnings.
Knopf * 9780385352123
WOMAN WITH A SECRET by Sophie Hannah (Psychological Thriller)
A controversial newspaper columnist named Damon Blundy has been murdered, and the detectives begin peppering Nicki Clements with questions. Why was she seen fleeing the scene? What is her connection to the victim? Why was the knife that killed him used in such a peculiar way? Why were the words “HE IS NO LESS DEAD” painted on the wall of Blundy’s study, and what do they signify? One simple answer could clear her. But she can’t explain why she fled that day without revealing the secret that could ruin her.
William Morrow * 9780062388261 |
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On Sale the Week of August 3rd in Paperback
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August 3rd
AN ITALIAN WIFE by Ann Hood (Historical Fiction)
AN ITALIAN WIFE begins in turn-of-the-century Italy, when 14-year-old Josephine Rimaldi is forced into an arranged marriage to a man she doesn't know or love who is about to depart for America, where she later joins him. Bound by tradition, Josephine gives birth to seven children. The last, Valentina, is conceived in passion, born in secret and given up for adoption. Josephine spends the rest of her life searching for her lost child, keeping her secret even as her other children go off to war, get married and make their own mistakes.
W. W. Norton & Company * 9780393351231
August 4th
THE BARTER by Siobhan Adcock (Psychological Thriller)
Bridget has given up her career to raise her daughter, but now a terrifying presence has entered their Texas home --- and only Bridget can feel it. In 1902, motherhood spurs Rebecca to turn her back on her husband, despite her own misgivings. As author Siobhan Adcock crosscuts these two women’s stories with mounting tension, each arrives at a terrible ordeal of her own making.
Plume * 9780147516367
BEOWULF: A Translation and Commentary written by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien (Fantasy/Literary Criticism)
The translation of BEOWULF was an early work, very distinctive in its mode, completed in 1926. J. R. R. Tolkien returned to it later to make hasty corrections, but seemed never to have considered its publication. This edition is twofold, for there exists an illuminating commentary on the text of the poem by the translator himself, in the written form of a series of lectures given at Oxford in the 1930s. And from these lectures a substantial selection has been made, to also form a commentary on the translation in this book.
Mariner Books * 9780544570306
BLACK CHALK by Christopher J. Yates (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
It was only ever meant to be a game played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University --- a game of consequences, silly forfeits and childish dares. But then the game changed: The stakes grew higher and the dares more personal and humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results. Now, 14 years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round. Who knows better than your best friends what would break you?
Picador * 9781250075550
THE BOSTON GIRL by Anita Diamant (Historical Fiction)
Eighty-five-year-old Addie Baum tells the story of her life to her 22-year-old granddaughter, who has asked her “How did you get to be the woman you are today?” She begins in 1915, the year she found her voice and made friends who would help shape the course of her life. From the one-room tenement apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her first, disastrous love affair, Addie recalls her adventures with compassion for the naïve girl she was and a wicked sense of humor.
Scribner * 9781439199367
FIVE DAYS LEFT by Julie Lawson Timmer (Fiction)
Mara Nichols is a successful lawyer, devoted wife and adoptive mother who has received a life-shattering diagnosis. Scott Coffman, a middle school teacher, has been fostering an eight-year-old boy while the boy’s mother serves a jail sentence. Scott and Mara both have five days left until they must say good-bye to the ones they love the most.
Berkley * 9780425277935
HAUNTED: A Hannah Smith Novel by Randy Wayne White (Thriller)
The house is historic, some say haunted. It is also slated to be razed and replaced by condos, unless Hannah Smith can do something about it. She’s been hired by a wealthy Palm Beach widow to prove that the house’s seller didn’t disclose everything he knew about the place when he unloaded it, including its role in a bloody Civil War skirmish, and the suicides --- or were they murders? --- of two previous owners.
Berkley * 9780425275160
HAUSFRAU by Jill Alexander Essbaum (Fiction)
Anna Benz lives with her husband, Bruno, and their three young children in a suburb of Zürich. Though she leads a comfortable, well-appointed life, Anna is falling apart inside. Adrift and increasingly unable to connect with the emotionally unavailable Bruno or even with her own thoughts and feelings, Anna tries to rouse herself with new experiences: German language classes, Jungian analysis, and a series of sexual affairs she enters with an ease that surprises even her.
Random House Trade Paperbacks * 9780812987294
HIROSHIMA NAGASAKI: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath by Paul Ham (History)
In this harrowing history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Paul Ham argues against the use of nuclear weapons, drawing on extensive research and hundreds of interviews to prove that the bombings had little impact on the eventual outcome of the Pacific War. HIROSHIMA NAGASAKI presents the grizzly unadorned truth about the bombings, blurred for so long by postwar propaganda, and transforms our understanding of one of the defining events of the 20th century.
Picador * 9781250070050
THE LAWS OF MURDER: A Charles Lenox Mystery by Charles Finch (Historical Mystery)
It’s 1876, and Charles Lenox, once London’s leading private investigator, has just given up his seat in Parliament, primed to return to his first love: detection. With high hopes, he and three colleagues start a new detective agency. But as the months pass, and he is the only detective who cannot find work, Lenox begins to question whether he can still play the game as he once did. Then comes a chance to redeem himself, though at a terrible price: a friend, a member of Scotland Yard, is shot near Regent’s Park.
Minotaur Books * 9781250067449
LOCK IN by John Scalzi (Thriller)
A new and highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. For most, the virus is nothing worse than the flu, but for the unlucky 1% of the population, it results in locked-in syndrome: the victim is fully awake and aware but unable to respond. Fifteen years later, integrators are able to let the locked-in borrow their bodies, when a single murder rocks this new world and everything they thought was true.
Tor Science Fiction * 9780765381323
OBSESSION IN DEATH by J. D. Robb (Mystery/Thriller)
Eve Dallas has become the object of one person’s obsession --- someone who would kill for her. With a murderer reading meanings into her every move, handling this case will be a delicate and dangerous psychological dance. And Eve knows that underneath the worship and admiration, a terrible threat lies in wait. Because the beautiful lieutenant is not at all grateful for these bloody offerings from her “true and loyal friend.” And in time, idols always fall…
Berkley * 9780425278895
THE OGALLALA ROAD: A Story of Love, Family, and the Fight to Keep the Great Plains from Running Dry by Julene Bair (Memoir)
http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/the-ogallala-road-a-memoir-of-love-and-reckoning
Julene Bair has inherited part of a farming empire and fallen in love with a rancher from Kansas’s beautiful Smoky Valley. Part of her legacy is a share of the ecological harm the Bair Farm has done: each growing season her family pumps over 200 million gallons out of the Ogallala aquifer. The rapidly disappearing aquifer is the sole source of water on the vast western plains, and her family’s role in its depletion haunts her.
Penguin Books * 9780143127079
ORPHAN #8 by Kim van Alkemade (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
Rachel Rabinowitz is confronted with her dark past when she becomes a nurse at Manhattan’s Old Hebrews Home and her patient is none other than the elderly, cancer-stricken Dr. Mildred Solomon, who subjected her to X-ray treatments that left her disfigured as a child. Rachel becomes obsessed with making Dr. Solomon acknowledge, and pay for, her wrongdoing. But each passing hour Rachel spends with the old doctor reveals to Rachel the complexities of her own nature.
William Morrow Paperbacks * 9780062338303
RECKLESS: The Racehorse Who Became a Marine Corps Hero by Tom Clavin (History)
From the racetracks of Seoul to the battlegrounds of the Korean War, Reckless was a horse whose strength, tenacity and relentless spirit made her a hero amongst a regiment of U.S. Marines fighting for their lives on the front lines. Tom Clavin, the bestselling co-author of THE HEART OF EVERYTHING THAT IS, tells the unlikely story of this racehorse who was beloved by the Marine Corps and decorated for bravery.
NAL * 9780451466518
RUTH’S JOURNEY: A Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind by Donald McCaig (Historical Fiction)
On the Caribbean island of Saint Domingue, an island consumed by the flames of revolution, a senseless attack leaves only one survivor --- an infant girl. What follows is the sweeping tale of Ruth’s life as shaped by her strong-willed mistress and other larger-than-life personalities she encounters in the South. Here is a remarkable story of fortitude, heartbreak and indomitable will --- and a tale that will forever illuminate your reading of GONE WITH THE WIND.
Atria Books * 9781451643541
SAVING SIMON: How a Rescue Donkey Taught Me the Meaning of Compassion by Jon Katz (Memoir)
When Jon Katz got a call from an animal control officer about Simon, a neglected donkey who had been found on a failing farm, he wasn't expecting to take him in. But when he made the trek out to meet Simon, he couldn't help falling in love with the skinny, mangy donkey, and ended up taking him into his home. Simon listened in the fields as Jon read and discussed philosophy, forcing Jon to confront the most difficult parts of life and bringing him to a new understanding about mercy and compassion.
Random House Trade Paperbacks * 9780345531209
THE SECRET PLACE by Tana French (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to join Dublin’s Murder Squad when 16-year-old Holly Mackey arrives in his office with a photo of a popular boy whose body was found at a girls’ boarding school a year earlier. The photo had been posted at “The Secret Place,” the school’s anonymous gossip board, and the caption says “I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM.” Stephen joins with Detective Antoinette Conway to reopen the case. The private underworld of teenage girls turns out to be more mysterious and more dangerous than the detectives imagined.
Penguin Books * 9780143127512
SOMEWHERE SAFE WITH SOMEBODY GOOD: A Mitford Novel by Jan Karon (Fiction)
After five hectic years of retirement from Lord’s Chapel, Father Tim Kavanagh returns with his wife, Cynthia, from a so-called pleasure trip to the land of his Irish ancestors. While glad to be at home in Mitford, something is definitely missing: a pulpit. But when he’s offered one, he decides he doesn’t want it. Maybe he’s lost his passion. His adopted son, Dooley, wrestles with his own passion --- for the beautiful and gifted Lace Turner, and his vision to become a successful country vet.
Berkley * 9780425276211
STRONG DARKNESS: A Caitlin Strong Novel by Jon Land (Thriller)
The son of Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong’s boyfriend is nearly beaten to death at Brown University. The investigation leads back to Texas and to the Chinese high-tech company awarded the contract to build the US’s 5G network. Li Zhen, the company’s founder, counts that as the greatest achievement of his career, but it hides his true motivations --- nothing less than China’s total domination of the United States.
Forge Books * 9780765370273
TERMINAL CITY by Linda Fairstein (Mystery/Thriller)
When the body of a young woman is found in the tower suite of the Waldorf Astoria --- one of the most prestigious hotels in Manhattan --- Assistant DA Alex Cooper and Detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace find themselves hunting for an elusive killer whose only signature is carving a carefully drawn symbol into his victims’ bodies, a symbol that bears a striking resemblance to train tracks.
Signet * 9780451417299 |
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On Sale the Week of August 10th in Hardcover
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August 10th
MESS: One Man's Struggle to Clean Up His House and His Act by Barry Yourgrau (Memoir)
Millions of Americans struggle with severe clutter and hoarding. New York writer and bohemian Barry Yourgrau is one of them. Behind the door of his Queens apartment, Yourgrau’s life is, quite literally, chaos. Confronted by his exasperated girlfriend, a globe-trotting food critic, he embarks on a heartfelt, wide-ranging, and too often uproarious project to take control of his crammed, disorderly apartment and life, and to explore the wider world of collecting, clutter and extreme hoarding.
W. W. Norton & Company * 9780393241778
August 11th
THE BEAT GOES ON: The Complete Rebus Stories by Ian Rankin (Crime Fiction/Short Stories)
Brilliant, irascible, and frequently frustrating to both his friends and his long-suffering bosses, DI John Rebus has made the dark places of Edinburgh his home for over two decades. THE BEAT GOES ON collects all of Ian Rankin's Rebus short stories for the first time, including two never-before published tales written specifically for this collection. It’s a must-have book for crime fiction aficionados and a superb introduction for anyone looking to experience Rebus and the dark, twist-filled crimes he investigates.
Little, Brown and Company * 9780316296830
THE BEAUTIFUL BUREAUCRAT by Helen Phillips (Literary Mystery)
In a windowless building in a remote part of town, the newly employed Josephine inputs an endless string of numbers into something known only as The Database. As a series of strange events build to a crescendo, the haunting truth about Josephine's work begins to take shape in her mind, even as something powerful is gathering its own form within her. She realizes that in order to save those she holds most dear, she must penetrate an institution whose tentacles seem to extend to every corner of the city and beyond.
Henry Holt and Co. * 9781627793766
BLACK-EYED SUSANS by Julia Heaberlin (Psychological Thriller)
As a 16-year-old, Tessa Cartwright was found in a Texas field, barely alive with only fragments of memory as to how she got there. Ever since, the press has pursued her as the lone surviving “Black-Eyed Susan.” Her testimony about those tragic hours put a man on death row. Now, almost two decades later, Tessa is shocked to discover a freshly planted patch of black-eyed susans just outside her bedroom window. As the clock ticks toward the execution, Tessa fears for her sanity, but even more for the safety of her teenaged daughter.
Ballantine Books * 9780804177993
COLLECTOR OF SECRETS by Richard Goodfellow (Thriller)
Max Travers, an English teacher in Japan, wants out, as his manipulative boss, Yoko, is trying to swindle the unsuspecting parents of his students. Desperate to seize his locked-up passport, he sneaks into Yoko's office in the middle of the night only to surprise the Japanese mafia's burglary in progress. Escaping with his life, Max is on the run from tattooed Yakuza, the Japanese police, and a mysterious American named Lloyd Elgin, who seems to have ties in high places. All are after the leather book Max grabbed instead of his passport.
Polis Books * 9781940610337
DEVIL'S BRIDGE by Linda Fairstein (Thriller)
The Manhattan waterfront is one of New York City’s most magnificent vistas, boasting both the majestic Statue of Liberty and the George Washington Bridge, the world’s busiest span for motor vehicles. But in DEVIL’S BRIDGE, Detective Mike Chapman will discover the peril that lurks along this seemingly benign expanse as he takes on his most personal case yet: the disappearance of Alex Cooper.
Dutton * 9780525953890
FOOL'S QUEST: Book II of the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy by Robin Hobb (Fantasy)
Long ago, Fitz and the Fool changed the world, bringing back the magic of dragons and securing both the Farseer succession and the stability of the kingdom. Or so they thought. But now the Fool is near death, maimed by mysterious pale-skinned figures whose plans for world domination hinge upon the powers the Fool may share with Fitz’s own daughter. In a horrible instant, though, Fitz’s world is undone and his beloved daughter stolen away by those who would use her as they had once sought to use the Fool --- as a weapon.
Del Rey * 9780553392920
IN THE DARK PLACES: An Inspector Banks Novel by Peter Robinson (Mystery/Thriller)
Two young men have vanished, and the investigation leads to two troubling clues in two different locations --- a scorched van and a peculiar bloodstain in an abandoned airport hangar. As Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his team scramble for answers, the inquiry takes an even darker turn when a truck careens off an icy road in a freak hailstorm. In the wreckage, rescuers find the driver, who was killed on impact, as well as another body --- a body that was dead well before the crash.
William Morrow * 9780062240545
IN THE LANGUAGE OF MIRACLES by Rajia Hassib (Fiction)
Emigrating from Egypt, Samir and Nagla Al-Menshawy were determined to live the American dream. After years of hard work, Samir set up his own medical practice and the family moved to an upscale New Jersey suburb. But when a devastating turn of events leaves their eldest son and their neighbors’ daughter dead, all their years of success begin to unravel. The Al-Menshawys become pariahs in the neighborhood, and whether through religion, work or friendship, each family member struggles to move forward in his or her own way.
Viking * 9780525428138
KATRINA: After the Flood by Gary Rivlin (Current Affairs/Economics)
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana --- on August 29, 2005 --- journalist Gary Rivlin traces the storm’s immediate damage, the city of New Orleans’s efforts to rebuild itself, and the storm’s lasting effects not just on the city’s geography and infrastructure, but on the psychic, racial and social fabric of one of this nation’s great cities.
Simon & Schuster * 9781451692228
THE LIGHTNING STONES by Jack Du Brul (Thriller/Adventure)
Sinking thousands of feet below the surface of the earth in the Leister Deep copper mine in Minnesota, Philip Mercer rides a series of heavy-duty elevators to visit his old friend and mentor, Abraham Jacobs. Jacobs has led a research team to the deepest section of the mine for a groundbreaking study into climate change and cosmic rays. But as Mercer approaches the bottom, he discovers that his dear friend --- along with the entire research team --- have been efficiently executed. Mercer is left seeking answers…and revenge.
Doubleday * 9780385527750
THE RACE FOR PARIS by Meg Waite Clayton (Historical Fiction)
Encouraged by her husband, the editor of a New York newspaper, Liv is determined to be the first photographer to reach Paris with the Allies and capture its freedom from the Nazis. However, her Commanding Officer has other ideas about the role of women in the press corps. To fulfill her ambitions, Liv must go AWOL. She persuades her reporter friend Jane to join her, and the two women find a guardian angel in Fletcher, a British military photographer who reluctantly agrees to escort them.
Harper * 9780062354631
SILVER LININGS: A Rose Harbor Novel by Debbie Macomber (Romance)
Jo Marie Rose and her handyman, Mark Taylor, are good friends --- and are becoming something more --- yet he still won’t reveal anything about his past. When Mark tells her that he’s moving out of town, Jo Marie is baffled. As she discovers the secret behind his decision to leave, she welcomes two visitors also seeking their own answers. Best friends Kellie Crenshaw and Katie Gilroy have returned to Cedar Cove for their 10-year high school reunion, looking to face down old hurts and find a sense of closure.
Ballantine * 9780553391794
THE STATE WE'RE IN: Maine Stories by Ann Beattie (Fiction/Short Stories)
“We build worlds for ourselves wherever we go,” writes Ann Beattie. THE STATE WE’RE IN, her new collection of linked stories, is about how we live in the places we have chosen --- or been chosen by. It’s about the stories we tell our families, our friends and ourselves, the truths we may or may not see, how our affinities unite or repel us, and where we look for love.
Scribner * 9781501107818
THE STORM OF THE CENTURY: Tragedy, Heroism, Survival, and the Epic True Story of America's Deadliest Natural Disaster: The Great Gulf Hurricane of 1900 by Al Roker (History)
On the afternoon of September 8, 1900, 200-mile-per-hour winds and 15-foot waves slammed into Galveston, the prosperous and growing port city on Texas’s Gulf Coast. By dawn the next day, when the storm had passed, the city that existed just hours before was gone. Shattered, grief-stricken survivors emerged to witness a level of destruction never before seen: 8,000 corpses littered the streets and were buried under the massive wreckage. In less than 24 hours, one storm destroyed a major American metropolis --- and awakened a nation to the terrifying power of nature.
William Morrow * 9780062364654
TRAP by Robert K. Tanenbaum (Legal Thriller)
When a tremendous blast rocks an old school building in East Harlem during a meeting of the New York Charter Schools, killing six and wounding a dozen others, it’s initially blamed on a natural gas explosion. However, as Butch Karp digs a little deeper, he discovers the explosion was the work of a mysterious serial arsonist in the employ of the teacher’s union president. Also involved in the planning and cover-up is a major law enforcement player and a political hack who gets caught up in the homicidal scheme. At least that’s the conclusion Karp is operating under when he indicts the pair for murder. But is it a trap?
Gallery Books * 9781476793160
WHO DO YOU LOVE by Jennifer Weiner (Fiction)
Rachel Blum and Andy Landis are just eight years old when they meet one night in an ER waiting room. Born with a congenital heart defect, Rachel is a veteran of hospitals, and she’s intrigued by the boy who shows up alone with a broken arm. He tells her his name. She tells him a story. After Andy is taken back to a doctor and Rachel is sent back to her bed, they think they’ll never see each other again. Yet, over the next three decades, they will meet again and again --- linked by chance, history, and the memory of the first time they met, a night that changed the course of both of their lives.
Atria Books * 9781451617818
WORLD WITHOUT END: Spain, Philip II, and the First Global Empire by Hugh Thomas (History)
The legacy of imperial Spain was shaped by many hands. But the dramatic human story of the extraordinary projection of Spanish might in the second half of the 16th century has never been fully told --- until now. In WORLD WITHOUT END, Hugh Thomas chronicles the lives, loves, conflicts and conquests of the complex men and women who carved up the Americas for the glory of Spain.
Random House * 9780812998115
YOU'RE NEVER WEIRD ON THE INTERNET (ALMOST): A Memoir by Felicia Day (Memoir)
Felicia Day is a violinist, filmmaker, Internet entrepreneur, compulsive gamer, hoagie specialist, and former lonely homeschooled girl who overcame her isolated childhood to become at least semi-influential in the world of Internet geeks and Goodreads book clubs. She moved to Hollywood to pursue her dream of becoming an actress and was immediately typecast as a crazy cat-lady secretary. But her misadventures in Hollywood led her to produce her own web series, own her very own production company, and become an Internet star.
Touchstone * 9781476785653
August 15th
BROWSINGS: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books by Michael Dirda (Literary Criticism/Essays)
Michael Dirda's latest volume collects 50 of his witty and wide-ranging reflections on literary journalism, book collecting, and the writers he loves. Reaching from the classics to the post-moderns, his allusions dance from Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson and M. F. K. Fisher to Marilynne Robinson, Hunter S. Thompson and David Foster Wallace. Dirda's topics are equally diverse: literary pets, the lost art of cursive writing, novelists in old age, Oberlin College, a year in Marseille, writer's block and much more, not to overlook a few rants about Washington life and American culture.
Pegasus * 9781605988443
THE DARKEST HEART by Dan Smith (Literary Thriller)
Leaving behind his life of violence in Brazil's darkest shadows, Zico is determined to become a better man. But it seems his old life isn't quite done with him yet when he's tasked with making one last kill. It's one that could get him everything he has ever wanted: a house, some land, cash in his pocket, a future for him and his girlfriend, Daniella. But this one isn't like all the others. This one comes at a much higher price.
Pegasus * 9781605988184
DEATH IN FLORENCE: The Medici, Savonarola, and the Battle for the Soul of a Renaissance City by Paul Strathern (History)
By the end of the 15th century, Florence was well established as the home of the Renaissance. As generous patrons to the likes of Botticelli and Michelangelo, the ruling Medici embodied the progressive humanist spirit of the age, and in Lorenzo de' Medici they possessed a diplomat capable of guarding the militarily weak city in a climate of constantly shifting allegiances between the major Italian powers. However, in the form of Savonarola, an unprepossessing provincial monk, Lorenzo found his nemesis. The battle between these two men would be a fight to the death, a series of sensational events featuring a cast of the most important and charismatic Renaissance figures.
Pegasus * 9781605988269 |
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On Sale the Week of August 10th in Paperback
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August 11th
BIG LITTLE LIES by Liane Moriarty (Fiction)
A murder, a tragic accident, or just parents behaving badly? What’s indisputable is that somebody is dead. BIG LITTLE LIES follows Madeline, a funny and biting divorcee; Celeste, the beautiful mother of rambunctious twin boys; and Jane, a young single mother with doubts about her son. When Madeline and Celeste take Jane under their wing, no one realizes how she and her little boy will affect them all.
Berkley * 9780425274866
BRIGHT LINES by Tanwi Nandini Islam (Fiction)
Paperback Original
For as long as she can remember, Ella has longed to feel at home. She traveled from Bangladesh to Brooklyn to live with the Saleems: her uncle Anwar, aunt Hashi, and their beautiful daughter, Charu, her complete opposite. One summer, when Ella returns home from college, she discovers Charu’s friend Maya --- an Islamic cleric’s runaway daughter --- asleep in her bedroom. As the girls have a summer of clandestine adventure and sexual awakenings, Anwar has his own secrets, threatening his 30-year marriage.
Penguin * 9780143123132
THE FINAL SILENCE by Stuart Neville (Thriller)
Rea Carlisle has inherited a house from an uncle she never knew. It doesn’t take her long to clear out the remaining possessions, but to her horror she discovers a leather-bound book, its pages filled with locks of hair and fingernails: a catalog of victims. Rea turns to the only person she can think of: an old boyfriend, police inspector Jack Lennon. He has more than enough problems already, but a gruesome murder brings the dead man’s terrifying journal to the top of the Belfast police’s priority list.
Soho Crime * 9781616956158
THE GUILTY ONE by Sophie Littlefield (Psychological Suspense)
Paperback Original
Maris’ safe suburban world was shattered the day her daughter was found murdered, presumably at the hands of the young woman’s boyfriend. Her marriage crumbling, her routine shattered, Maris walks away from her pampered life as a Bay Area mom the day she receives a call from Ron, father of her daughter’s killer. Wracked with guilt over his son’s actions (and his own possible contribution to them), he asks Maris a single question: Should he jump? With a man’s life in her hands, Maris must decide, perhaps for the first time, what she truly wants.
Gallery Books * 9781476757834
INFIDEL KINGS AND UNHOLY WARRIORS: Faith, Power, and Violence in the Age of Crusade and Jihad by Brian A. Catlos (History)
In INFIDEL KINGS AND UNHOLY WARRIORS, award-winning scholar Brian Catlos puts us on the ground in the Mediterranean world of 1050-1200. We experience the sights and sounds of the region just as enlightened Islamic empires and primitive Christendom began to contest it. We learn about the siege tactics, theological disputes and poetry of this enthralling time. And we see that people of different faiths coexisted far more frequently than we are commonly told.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux * 9780374535322
THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan by Rick Perlstein (History/Politics)
The bestselling author of NIXONLAND has written a dazzling portrait of America on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the tumultuous political and economic times of the 1970s. Against a backdrop of melodramas from the Arab oil embargo to Patty Hearst to the near-bankruptcy of America’s greatest city, THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE asks the question: What does it mean to believe in America? To wave a flag --- or to reject the glibness of the flag wavers?
Simon & Schuster * 9781476782423
LINCOLN'S GAMBLE: The Tumultuous Six Months that Gave America the Emancipation Proclamation and Changed the Course of the Civil War by Todd Brewster (History/Politics)
On July 12, 1862, Abraham Lincoln spoke for the first time of his intention to free the slaves. On January 1, 1863, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, doing precisely that. In between, however, was a tumultuous six months, an episode during which the 16th president fought bitterly with his generals, disappointed his cabinet, and sank into painful bouts of clinical depression. Todd Brewster focuses on this crucial time period to ask: Was it through will or by accident, intention or coincidence, personal achievement or historical determinism that Lincoln freed the slaves?
Scribner * 9781451693898
SOMETHING RICH AND STRANGE: Selected Stories by Ron Rash (Fiction/Short Stories)
SOMETHING RICH AND STRANGE showcases Ron Rash’s artistry and craftsmanship in 30 stories culled from his previously published collections NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY, BURNING BRIGHT, CHEMISTRY and THE NIGHT NEW JESUS FELL TO EARTH. Each work of short fiction demonstrates Rash’s dazzling ability to evoke the heart and soul of this land and its people --- men and women inexorably tethered to the geography that defines and shapes them.
Ecco * 9780062349354
August 15th
CHURCHILL AND EMPIRE: A Portrait of an Imperialist by Lawrence James (Biography)
One of our finest narrative historians, Lawrence James has written a genuinely new biography of Winston Churchill, one focusing solely on his relationship with the British Empire. As a young army officer in the late 19th century serving in conflicts in India, South Africa and the Sudan, his attitude toward the Empire was the Victorian paternalistic approach --- at once responsible and superior. This groundbreaking volume reveals the many facets of Churchill’s personality: a visionary leader with a truly Victorian attitude toward the British Empire.
Pegasus * 9781605988412
A GREAT AND GLORIOUS ADVENTURE: A History of the Hundred Years War and the Birth of Renaissance England by Gordon Corrigan (History)
The Hundred Years War was fought between 1337 and 1453 over English claims to both the throne of France by right of inheritance and large parts of the country that had been at one time Norman or, later, English. The fighting ebbed and flowed, but despite their superior tactics and great victories at Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt, the English could never hope to secure their claims in perpetuity: France was wealthier and far more populous, and while the English won the battles, they could not hope to hold forever the lands they conquered.
Pegasus * 9781605988429
RED WINTER by Dan Smith (Historical Thriller/Adventure)
Kolya has deserted his Red Army unit and returns home to bury his brother and reunite with his wife and sons. But he finds the village silent and empty. The men have been massacred in the forest, while the women and children have disappeared. So Kolya sets out on a journey in the desperate hope he will find his loved ones safe and sound. But there are very dark things in Kolya's past. As he strives to find his family, someone --- or something --- is following his trail.
Pegasus * 9781605988405 |
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