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April 3, 2020

Greetings from our homes to yours. I have been making notes for this newsletter all week, of things I am reading, seeing and watching. We appreciate that you are reading this --- and also that you are reading so many books. I have gotten notes about how book groups are meeting via Zoom and how people are buying from indies, and borrowing e-books from libraries. I am getting ---- and trying to answer as many as I can --- notes from readers.

Editorial Content for Texas Outlaw

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

Rory Yates is one of my favorite characters from the James Patterson House of Ideas. We first met him in 2018’s TEXAS RANGER, which Patterson wrote with Andrew Bourelle. The newly published TEXAS OUTLAW is a contemporary western that fulfills and exceeds every promise that its predecessor made. It has everything you want and need in a thriller. Read More

Teaser

Texas Ranger Rory Yates is not keen for hero status. But it's unavoidable once his girlfriend, country singer Willow Dawes, writes a song about his bravery. Rory escapes his newfound fame when he's sent to the remote West Texas town of Rio Lobo, a municipality with two stoplights. And now, according to the Chief of Police, it has one too many Texas Rangers. Rio Lobo Detective Ariana Delgado is the one who requested Rory, and the only person who believes that a local councilwoman's seemingly accidental death is a murder. Then Rory begins to uncover a tangle of small-town secrets, favors and lies as crooked as Texas law is straight. To get to the truth before more people die, Rory is forced to take liberties with the investigation.

Promo

Texas Ranger Rory Yates is not keen for hero status. But it's unavoidable once his girlfriend, country singer Willow Dawes, writes a song about his bravery. Rory escapes his newfound fame when he's sent to the remote West Texas town of Rio Lobo, a municipality with two stoplights. And now, according to the Chief of Police, it has one too many Texas Rangers. Rio Lobo Detective Ariana Delgado is the one who requested Rory, and the only person who believes that a local councilwoman's seemingly accidental death is a murder. Then Rory begins to uncover a tangle of small-town secrets, favors and lies as crooked as Texas law is straight. To get to the truth before more people die, Rory is forced to take liberties with the investigation.

About the Book

To Rory Yates being a Texas Ranger is about justice, but all of that changes when he is brought to a small southern town to help uncover the mysteries behind a local woman's death --- only to discover corruption and lies.

Texas Ranger Rory Yates is not keen for hero status. But it's unavoidable once his girlfriend, country singer Willow Dawes, writes a song about his bravery. Rory escapes his newfound fame when he's sent to the remote West Texas town of Rio Lobo, a municipality with two stoplights. And now, according to the Chief of Police, it has one too many Texas Rangers.

Rio Lobo Detective Ariana Delgado is the one who requested Rory, and the only person who believes a local councilwoman's seemingly accidental death is a murder. Then Rory begins to uncover a tangle of small-town secrets, favors and lies as crooked as Texas law is straight.

To get to the truth before more people die, Rory is forced to take liberties with the investigation. The next ballad of Rory Yates may not be about a hero, but rather an outlaw song.

Audiobook available, read by Christopher Ryan Grant

Editorial Content for The City We Became

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Maya Gittelman

N. K. Jemisin always brings it, and in THE CITY WE BECAME --- the kickoff to her Great Cities trilogy --- she brings it hard, sparking a fresh adventure that will appeal not only to her many fans and New Yorkers, but also to most lovers of innovative genre fiction. Jemisin is well-loved and established as an expert worldbuilder of the fantastical, which she wields to interrogate real power structures. Her work comes to a more intimate place in this novel, in which the world she’s building is the living incarnation of New York City itself. Read More

Teaser

In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history and feel its power. In the Bronx, a Lenape gallery director discovers strange graffiti scattered throughout the city, so beautiful and powerful it's as if the paint is literally calling to her. In Brooklyn, a politician and mother finds she can hear the songs of her city, pulsing to the beat of her Louboutin heels. And they're not the only ones.

Promo

In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history and feel its power. In the Bronx, a Lenape gallery director discovers strange graffiti scattered throughout the city, so beautiful and powerful it's as if the paint is literally calling to her. In Brooklyn, a politician and mother finds she can hear the songs of her city, pulsing to the beat of her Louboutin heels. And they're not the only ones.

About the Book

Three-time Hugo Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author N.K. Jemisin crafts her most incredible novel yet, a "glorious" story of culture, identity, magic, and myths in contemporary New York City.

In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history, and feel its power.

In the Bronx, a Lenape gallery director discovers strange graffiti scattered throughout the city, so beautiful and powerful it's as if the paint is literally calling to her.

In Brooklyn, a politician and mother finds she can hear the songs of her city, pulsing to the beat of her Louboutin heels.

And they're not the only ones.

Audiobook available, read by Robin Miles

Editorial Content for The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home: A Welcome to Night Vale Novel

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Sarah Rachel Egelman

In the town of Night Vale, there is a Faceless Old Woman who secretly lives in your home. Or maybe it is not a secret. Perhaps you hear her whispering to you, or you come home to find that she has set your refrigerator on fire or sent your girlfriend terrible text messages for no apparent reason. If you have wondered about this Woman, where she comes from and why she haunts Night Vale, many, but not all, of your questions are about to be answered. Read More

Teaser

In the town of Night Vale, there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone’s home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from...until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Faceless Old Woman goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood in the early 19th century, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe, a nautical adventure with a mysterious organization of smugglers, her plot for revenge on the ones who betrayed her, and ultimately her death and its aftermath, as her spirit travels the world for decades until settling in modern-day Night Vale. Interspersed throughout is a present-day story in Night Vale, as The Faceless Old Woman guides, haunts and sabotages a man named Craig.

Promo

In the town of Night Vale, there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone’s home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from...until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Faceless Old Woman goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood in the early 19th century, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe, a nautical adventure with a mysterious organization of smugglers, her plot for revenge on the ones who betrayed her, and ultimately her death and its aftermath, as her spirit travels the world for decades until settling in modern-day Night Vale. Interspersed throughout is a present-day story in Night Vale, as The Faceless Old Woman guides, haunts and sabotages a man named Craig.

About the Book

From the New York Times bestselling authors of WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE and IT DEVOURS! and the creators of the hit podcast, comes a new novel set in the world of Night Vale and beyond.

In the town of Night Vale, there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone’s home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from... until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Faceless Old Woman goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood on a Mediterranean Estate in the early 19th century, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe, a nautical adventure with a mysterious organization of smugglers, her plot for revenge on the ones who betrayed her, and ultimately her death and its aftermath, as her spirit travels the world for decades until settling in modern-day Night Vale.

Interspersed throughout is a present-day story in Night Vale, as The Faceless Old Woman guides, haunts and sabotages a man named Craig. In the end, her current day dealings with Craig and her swashbuckling history in 19th-century Europe will come together in the most unexpected and horrifying way.

Part THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, part THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, THE FACELESS OLD WOMAN WHO SECRETLY LIVES IN YOUR HOME is a lively tale of loyalty, betrayal and revenge that will have you looking around the corners of your own home...just in case.

Audiobook available, read by Mara Wilson

Editorial Content for Beheld

Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Tanya Bush

Increasingly, writers are turning to creative modes in order to address the silences, gaping voids and smaller concealments that plague our historical record. Historical fiction, in its unconstrained ability to imagine and fill these gaps, has emerged as a critical part of this endeavor. Read More

Teaser

Ten years after the Mayflower pilgrims arrived on rocky, unfamiliar soil, Plymouth is not the land its residents had imagined. Seemingly established on a dream of religious freedom, in reality the town is led by fervent puritans who prohibit the residents from living, trading and worshipping as they choose. By the time an unfamiliar ship, bearing new colonists, appears on the horizon one summer morning, Anglican outsiders have had enough. In BEHELD, TaraShea Nesbit reframes the story of the pilgrims in the previously unheard voices of two women of very different status and means.

Promo

Ten years after the Mayflower pilgrims arrived on rocky, unfamiliar soil, Plymouth is not the land its residents had imagined. Seemingly established on a dream of religious freedom, in reality the town is led by fervent puritans who prohibit the residents from living, trading and worshipping as they choose. By the time an unfamiliar ship, bearing new colonists, appears on the horizon one summer morning, Anglican outsiders have had enough. In BEHELD, TaraShea Nesbit reframes the story of the pilgrims in the previously unheard voices of two women of very different status and means.

About the Book

From the bestselling author of THE WIVES OF LOS ALAMOS comes the riveting story of a stranger's arrival in the fledgling colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts --- and a crime that shakes the divided community to its core.

Ten years after the Mayflower pilgrims arrived on rocky, unfamiliar soil, Plymouth is not the land its residents had imagined. Seemingly established on a dream of religious freedom, in reality the town is led by fervent puritans who prohibit the residents from living, trading and worshipping as they choose. By the time an unfamiliar ship, bearing new colonists, appears on the horizon one summer morning, Anglican outsiders have had enough.

With gripping, immersive details and exquisite prose, TaraShea Nesbit reframes the story of the pilgrims in the previously unheard voices of two women of very different status and means. She evokes a vivid, ominous Plymouth, populated by famous and unknown characters alike, each with conflicting desires and questionable behavior.

Suspenseful and beautifully wrought, BEHELD is about a murder and a trial, and the motivations --- personal and political --- that cause people to act in unsavory ways. It is also an intimate portrait of love, motherhood, and friendship that asks: Whose stories get told over time, who gets believed --- and subsequently, who gets punished?

Audiobook available; read by Bea Holland, Crystal Clarke, Lance C. Fuller and Laurel Lefkow

Editorial Content for Hex

Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Harvey Freedenberg

While it would be accurate to describe Rebecca Dinerstein Knight’s second novel, HEX, as a story of deadly plants and romantic obsession, that ominous, provocative capsule summary, unfortunately, would leave a misleading impression. Though Knight again displays some of the talent that made her debut novel, the exotic and wistful THE SUNLIT NIGHT, so appealing, this effort doesn’t deliver on its promise to either unsettle or entertain. Read More

Teaser

Nell Barber, an expelled PhD candidate in biological science, is exploring the fine line between poison and antidote, working alone to set a speed record for the detoxification of poisonous plants. Her mentor, Dr. Joan Kallas, is the hero of Nell's heart. Nell frequently finds herself standing in the doorway to Joan's office despite herself, mesmerized by Joan's elegance, success and spiritual force. Surrounded by Nell's ex, her best friend, her best friend's boyfriend and Joan's buffoonish husband, the two scientists are tangled together at the center of a web of illicit relationships, grudges and obsessions. All six are burdened by desire and ambition, and as they collide on the university campus, their attractions set in motion a domino effect of affairs and heartbreak.

Promo

Nell Barber, an expelled PhD candidate in biological science, is exploring the fine line between poison and antidote, working alone to set a speed record for the detoxification of poisonous plants. Her mentor, Dr. Joan Kallas, is the hero of Nell's heart. Nell frequently finds herself standing in the doorway to Joan's office despite herself, mesmerized by Joan's elegance, success and spiritual force. Surrounded by Nell's ex, her best friend, her best friend's boyfriend and Joan's buffoonish husband, the two scientists are tangled together at the center of a web of illicit relationships, grudges and obsessions. All six are burdened by desire and ambition, and as they collide on the university campus, their attractions set in motion a domino effect of affairs and heartbreak.

About the Book

A breathtaking and hypnotic novel about poison, antidotes and obsessive love

Nell Barber, an expelled PhD candidate in biological science, is exploring the fine line between poison and antidote, working alone to set a speed record for the detoxification of poisonous plants. Her mentor, Dr. Joan Kallas, is the hero of Nell's heart. Nell frequently finds herself standing in the doorway to Joan's office despite herself, mesmerized by Joan's elegance, success and spiritual force.

Surrounded by Nell's ex, her best friend, her best friend's boyfriend and Joan's buffoonish husband, the two scientists are tangled together at the center of a web of illicit relationships, grudges and obsessions. All six are burdened by desire and ambition, and as they collide on the university campus, their attractions set in motion a domino effect of affairs and heartbreak.

Meanwhile, Nell slowly fills her empty apartment with poisonous plants to study, and she begins to keep a series of notebooks, all dedicated to Joan. She logs her research and how she spends her days, but the notebooks ultimately become a painstaking map of love. In a dazzling and unforgettable voice, Rebecca Dinerstein Knight has written a spellbinding novel of emotional and intellectual intensity.

Audiobook available, read by Jenny Slate

Editorial Content for And They Called It Camelot: A Novel of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Cindy Burnett

AND THEY CALLED IT CAMELOT chronicles Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis’ life from the time she first met John F. Kennedy until she worked at Viking as a book editor. Tackling a larger-than-life person such as Jackie Kennedy is a daunting undertaking, and Stephanie Marie Thornton handles that challenge splendidly. Read More

Teaser

Few of us can claim to be the authors of our fate. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy knows no other choice. With the eyes of the world watching, Jackie uses her effortless charm and keen intelligence to carve a place for herself among the men of history and weave a fairy tale for the American people, embodying a senator’s wife, a devoted mother, a First Lady --- a queen in her own right. But all reigns must come to an end. Once JFK travels to Dallas and the clock ticks down those thousand days of magic in Camelot, Jackie is forced to pick up the ruined fragments of her life and forge herself into a new identity that is all her own, that of an American legend.

Promo

Few of us can claim to be the authors of our fate. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy knows no other choice. With the eyes of the world watching, Jackie uses her effortless charm and keen intelligence to carve a place for herself among the men of history and weave a fairy tale for the American people, embodying a senator’s wife, a devoted mother, a First Lady --- a queen in her own right. But all reigns must come to an end. Once JFK travels to Dallas and the clock ticks down those thousand days of magic in Camelot, Jackie is forced to pick up the ruined fragments of her life and forge herself into a new identity that is all her own, that of an American legend.

About the Book

An intimate portrait of the life of Jackie O

Few of us can claim to be the authors of our fate. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy knows no other choice. With the eyes of the world watching, Jackie uses her effortless charm and keen intelligence to carve a place for herself among the men of history and weave a fairy tale for the American people, embodying a senator’s wife, a devoted mother, a First Lady --- a queen in her own right.

But all reigns must come to an end. Once JFK travels to Dallas and the clock ticks down those thousand days of magic in Camelot, Jackie is forced to pick up the ruined fragments of her life and forge herself into a new identity that is all her own, that of an American legend.

Audiobook available, read by Cassandra Campbell

Editorial Content for Undercover Bromance

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Rebecca Munro

In UNDERCOVER BROMANCE, the second installment in the Bromance Book Club series, author Lyssa Kay Adams once again employs men reading romance as clever and thought-provoking advice to explore what women want and how society fights against them getting it. Rather than returning to the love life of Gavin and Thea, this time Adams turns her eye to fan-favorite Braden Mack, a pseudo-playboy who thinks he knows everything there is to know about love. Read More

Teaser

Liv Papandreas has a dream job as a sous chef at Nashville’s hottest restaurant. Too bad the celebrity chef owner is less than charming behind kitchen doors. After she catches him harassing a young hostess, she confronts him and gets fired. Liv vows revenge, but she’ll need assistance to take on the powerful chef. Unfortunately, that means turning to Braden Mack. When Liv is blackballed from the restaurant scene, the charismatic nightclub entrepreneur offers to help expose her ex-boss, but she is suspicious of his motives. He’ll need to call in reinforcements: the Bromance Book Club. Inspired by the romantic suspense novel they’re reading, the book club assists Liv in setting up a sting operation to take down the chef.

Promo

Liv Papandreas has a dream job as a sous chef at Nashville’s hottest restaurant. Too bad the celebrity chef owner is less than charming behind kitchen doors. After she catches him harassing a young hostess, she confronts him and gets fired. Liv vows revenge, but she’ll need assistance to take on the powerful chef. Unfortunately, that means turning to Braden Mack. When Liv is blackballed from the restaurant scene, the charismatic nightclub entrepreneur offers to help expose her ex-boss, but she is suspicious of his motives. He’ll need to call in reinforcements: the Bromance Book Club. Inspired by the romantic suspense novel they’re reading, the book club assists Liv in setting up a sting operation to take down the chef.

About the Book

Braden Mack thinks reading romance novels makes him an expert in love, but he’ll soon discover that real life is better than fiction. 

Liv Papandreas has a dream job as a sous chef at Nashville’s hottest restaurant. Too bad the celebrity chef owner is less than charming behind kitchen doors. After she catches him harassing a young hostess, she confronts him and gets fired. Liv vows revenge, but she’ll need assistance to take on the powerful chef.

Unfortunately, that means turning to Braden Mack. When Liv is blackballed from the restaurant scene, the charismatic nightclub entrepreneur offers to help expose her ex-boss, but she is suspicious of his motives. He’ll need to call in reinforcements: the Bromance Book Club.

Inspired by the romantic suspense novel they’re reading, the book club assists Liv in setting up a sting operation to take down the chef. But they’re just as eager to help Mack figure out the way to Liv’s heart...even though she’s determined to squelch the sparks between them before she gets burned.

Audiobook available, read by Andrew Eiden

Editorial Content for Gone by Midnight: A Crimson Lake Novel

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

One day in the area of Crimson Lake, Australia, 13-year-old Claire Bingley is waiting at a bus stop while police detective Ted Conkaffey parks his car there for an unrelated reason. Claire is never seen again, and Ted is stripped of his badge and put on trial for child abduction and possible murder. He swears he is innocent, and his attorney puts private investigator Amanda Pharrell on the case. Even though Ted is cleared of all charges, many still consider him to be a pedophile. Read More

Teaser

When Sara Farrow’s son goes missing from a locked hotel room, she frantically turns for help to Crimson Lake’s unlikeliest private investigators --- disgraced cop Ted Conkaffey and convicted killer Amanda Pharrell. Just the sort of twisted puzzle that gets Amanda’s blood pumping, the disappearance couldn’t have come at a worse time for Ted. He has just this one week with Lillian, the daughter he barely knows…but the clock is ticking for the lost boy. Amanda and Ted’s search dredges up the area’s worst characters, and the danger they uncover could well put Ted’s own child in deadly peril.

Promo

When Sara Farrow’s son goes missing from a locked hotel room, she frantically turns for help to Crimson Lake’s unlikeliest private investigators --- disgraced cop Ted Conkaffey and convicted killer Amanda Pharrell. Just the sort of twisted puzzle that gets Amanda’s blood pumping, the disappearance couldn’t have come at a worse time for Ted. He has just this one week with Lillian, the daughter he barely knows…but the clock is ticking for the lost boy. Amanda and Ted’s search dredges up the area’s worst characters, and the danger they uncover could well put Ted’s own child in deadly peril.

About the Book

#1 New York Times and Globe and Mail bestselling author Candice Fox delivers a compulsive new crime thriller with GONE BY MIDNIGHT.

Crimson Lake is where people with dark pasts come to disappear --- and where others vanish into thin air…

When Sara Farrow’s son goes missing from a locked hotel room, she frantically turns for help to Crimson Lake’s unlikeliest private investigators --- disgraced cop Ted Conkaffey and convicted killer Amanda Pharrell.

Just the sort of twisted puzzle that gets Amanda’s blood pumping, the disappearance couldn’t have come at a worse time for Ted. He has just this one week with Lillian, the daughter he barely knows…but the clock is ticking for the lost boy.

Amanda and Ted’s search dredges up the area’s worst characters, and the danger they uncover could well put Ted’s own child in deadly peril.

Audiobook available, read by Euan Morton

Editorial Content for The Eighth Girl

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

I must admit that I was a bit intimidated going into this review. Mind you, I have decades of experience reading psychological thrillers to the point where it takes a lot to surprise me. However, my many years as a reader and huge fan of this genre put me nowhere near the impressive curriculum vitae that Maxine Mei-Fung Chung brings to the table. She is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and clinical supervisor. In other words, she can pretty much create any character she wants you to believe in, while already fully understanding them much better than anyone else does. Read More

Teaser

Beautiful. Damaged. Destructive. Meet Alexa Wú, a brilliant yet darkly self-aware young woman whose chaotic life is controlled by a series of alternate personalities. When Alexa’s friend, Ella, gets a job at a high-end gentlemen’s club, she catches the attention of its shark-like owner and is gradually drawn into his inner circle. As Alexa’s world becomes intimately entangled with Ella’s, she soon finds herself the unwitting keeper of a nightmarish secret as she follows Ella into London’s cruel underbelly. Threatened and vulnerable, Alexa will discover if her multiple personalities are her greatest asset or her most dangerous obstacle.

Promo

Beautiful. Damaged. Destructive. Meet Alexa Wú, a brilliant yet darkly self-aware young woman whose chaotic life is controlled by a series of alternate personalities. When Alexa’s friend, Ella, gets a job at a high-end gentlemen’s club, she catches the attention of its shark-like owner and is gradually drawn into his inner circle. As Alexa’s world becomes intimately entangled with Ella’s, she soon finds herself the unwitting keeper of a nightmarish secret as she follows Ella into London’s cruel underbelly. Threatened and vulnerable, Alexa will discover if her multiple personalities are her greatest asset or her most dangerous obstacle.

About the Book

In this unsettling, seductive psychological thriller, a young woman with multiple personalities is drawn into London’s hellish underworld when she becomes entangled with a man who has an abominable secret, for fans of Caroline Kepnes and Clare Mackintosh.

One woman, multiple personas. But which one is telling the truth?

Beautiful. Damaged. Destructive. Meet Alexa Wú, a brilliant yet darkly self-aware young woman whose chaotic life is controlled by a series of alternate personalities.

When Alexa’s friend, Ella, gets a job at a high-end gentlemen’s club, she catches the attention of its shark-like owner and is gradually drawn into his inner circle. As Alexa’s world becomes intimately entangled with Ella’s, she soon finds herself the unwitting keeper of a nightmarish secret as she follows Ella into London’s cruel underbelly. Threatened and vulnerable, Alexa will discover if her multiple personalities are her greatest asset or her most dangerous obstacle.

Electrifying and breathlessly compulsive, THE EIGHTH GIRL is an omnivorous examination of life with mental illness and the acute trauma of life in a misogynist world. With bingeable prose and a clinician’s expertise, Chung’s psychological debut deftly navigates the swirling confluence of identity, innocence and the impossible fracturing weights that young women are forced to carry, causing us to question: Does the truth lead to self-discovery or self-destruction?

Audiobook available, read by Jo Mei and Frazer Douglas