February 10, 2020
This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we know people will be talking about this winter. Read more about it, and enter our Winter Reading Contest by Tuesday, February 11th at 11:59am ET for a chance to win one of five copies of MERCY HOUSE by Alena Dillon, which releases tomorrow. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!
Billy Crystal
Nothing can take the sting off the world's economic problems like watching millionaires present each other golden statues.
Attribution
Kate Chopin
There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint of an oar upon the water.
Attribution
February 7, 2020
Last Friday night, as we were getting ready to send the newsletter, we heard the sad news that Mary Higgins Clark passed away at the age of 92. We reviewed so many of her books throughout the years, including countless stand-alone mysteries and her Under Suspicion series, which she co-wrote with Alafair Burke. Our own Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum, a frequent reviewer of her work, shared this with us: “Mary Higgins Clark was one of the world's best mystery writers. She had a sharp and clear writing style combined with a talent for creating characters who were finely limned. Her ability to create plots that kept readers on the edge of their seat is well known, and her stellar reputation grew with each of her many books regardless of genre.”
Editorial Content for Cleaning the Gold: A Jack Reacher and Will Trent Short Story
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
This short story by Karin Slaughter and Lee Child first saw life as an e-book tale in May 2019. It documents a momentous meeting between Child’s Jack Reacher and Slaughter’s Will Trent, which explains why someone apparently thought it would be a good idea to publish the piece as a physical book months after its digital appearance. The trade paperback, like the e-book, contains a short story of 79 pages, as well as excerpts from the authors’ latest novels: Child’s BLUE MOON and Slaughter’s THE LAST WIDOW. Read More
Teaser
Will Trent is undercover at Fort Knox. His assignment: to investigate a 22-year-old murder. His suspect’s name: Jack Reacher. Jack Reacher is in Fort Knox on his own mission: to bring down a dangerous criminal ring operating at the heart of America’s military. Except now Will Trent is on the scene. But there’s a bigger conspiracy at play --- one that neither the special agent nor the ex-military cop could have anticipated. And the only option is for Jack Reacher and Will Trent to team up and play nicely. If they can...
Promo
Will Trent is undercover at Fort Knox. His assignment: to investigate a 22-year-old murder. His suspect’s name: Jack Reacher. Jack Reacher is in Fort Knox on his own mission: to bring down a dangerous criminal ring operating at the heart of America’s military. Except now Will Trent is on the scene. But there’s a bigger conspiracy at play --- one that neither the special agent nor the ex-military cop could have anticipated. And the only option is for Jack Reacher and Will Trent to team up and play nicely. If they can...
About the Book
From New York Times bestselling authors Karin Slaughter and Lee Child comes this electrifying short story featuring their iconic characters Will Trent and Jack Reacher.
Jack Reacher and Will Trent
Twice the action.
Twice the drama.
Double the trouble.
Will Trent is undercover at Fort Knox. His assignment: to investigate a 22-year-old murder. His suspect’s name: Jack Reacher.
Jack Reacher is in Fort Knox on his own mission: to bring down a dangerous criminal ring operating at the heart of America’s military. Except now Will Trent is on the scene.
But there’s a bigger conspiracy at play --- one that neither the special agent nor the ex-military cop could have anticipated. And the only option is for Jack Reacher and Will Trent to team up and play nicely. If they can…
Audiobook available, read by Eric Jason Martin and Jeff Harding
Editorial Content for Interior Chinatown
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Charles Yu is the award-winning author of three books, and has written for shows on FX, AMC and HBO. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and he was nominated by the Writers Guild of America for his work on HBO’s “Westworld.” Read More
Teaser
Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where "Black and White," a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy --- the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it? After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family.
Promo
Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where "Black and White," a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy --- the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it? After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family.
About the Book
Soon to be a Hulu series: From the infinitely inventive author of HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE, a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation and escaping the roles we are forced to play.
Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where "Black and White," a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy --- the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it?
After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation and immigration, INTERIOR CHINATOWN is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring and masterful novel yet.
Audiobook available, read by Joel de la Fuente
Editorial Content for The Authenticity Project
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
In an author’s note at the end of THE AUTHENTICITY PROJECT, Clare Pooley reveals how her debut novel grew out of her earlier blog-turned-bestselling nonfiction book, THE SOBER DIARIES: “What I discovered is that telling the truth about your life really can work magic and change the lives of many other people for the better.” Pooley relates how her experience of publishing a blog-turned-book about her own struggles with addiction and recovery had a ripple effect in the lives of friends, acquaintances and complete strangers. Read More
Teaser
Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian, believes that most people aren't really honest with each other. But what if they were? And so he writes --- in a plain, green journal --- the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It's run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves --- and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica's Café.
Promo
Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian, believes that most people aren't really honest with each other. But what if they were? And so he writes --- in a plain, green journal --- the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It's run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves --- and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica's Café.
About the Book
The story of a solitary green notebook that brings together six strangers and leads to unexpected friendship, and even love
Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian, believes that most people aren't really honest with each other. But what if they were? And so he writes --- in a plain, green journal --- the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It's run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves --- and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica's Café.
THE AUTHENTICITY PROJECT's cast of characters --- including Hazard, the charming addict who makes a vow to get sober; Alice, the fabulous mommy Instagrammer whose real life is a lot less perfect than it looks online; and their other new friends --- is by turns quirky and funny, heartbreakingly sad and painfully true-to-life. It's a story about being brave and putting your real self forward --- and finding out that it's not as scary as it seems. In fact, it looks a lot like happiness.
THE AUTHENTICITY PROJECT is just the tonic for our times that readers are clamoring for --- and one they will take to their hearts and read with unabashed pleasure.
Audiobook available, read by Anna Cordell
Editorial Content for Perfect Little Children
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
I have to admit that this novel’s premise is one of the most unique I have ever come across. The Leesons haven't seen their former best friends, the Braids, in over a dozen years. One day, when Beth Leeson takes a wrong turn while driving her son, Ben, to a football game, she passes by Flora and Lewis Braid’s new house. Coming upon the residence quite by accident isn't the most interesting thing that happens, though. It's when Beth sees Flora leave her SUV and head up the driveway with two small children. Read More
Teaser
All Beth has to do is drive her son to his soccer game, watch him play and then return home. Just because she knows her ex-best friend lives near the field, that doesn’t mean she has to drive past her house and try to catch a glimpse of her. Why would Beth do that and risk dredging up painful memories? Nevertheless, she parks outside the open gates of Newnham House, watches from across the road as Flora arrives, and calls to her children, Thomas and Emily, to get out of the car. But there’s something terribly wrong. Flora looks the same, only older. Twelve years ago, Thomas and Emily were five and three years old. Today, they look precisely as they did then. Why haven’t they grown? How is it possible that they haven’t grown up?
Promo
All Beth has to do is drive her son to his soccer game, watch him play and then return home. Just because she knows her ex-best friend lives near the field, that doesn’t mean she has to drive past her house and try to catch a glimpse of her. Why would Beth do that and risk dredging up painful memories? Nevertheless, she parks outside the open gates of Newnham House, watches from across the road as Flora arrives, and calls to her children, Thomas and Emily, to get out of the car. But there’s something terribly wrong. Flora looks the same, only older. Twelve years ago, Thomas and Emily were five and three years old. Today, they look precisely as they did then. Why haven’t they grown? How is it possible that they haven’t grown up?
About the Book
The New York Times bestselling author of THE MONOGRAM MURDERS and WOMAN WITH A SECRET returns with a sharp, captivating and expertly plotted tale of psychological suspense.
All Beth has to do is drive her son to his soccer game, watch him play and then return home. Just because she knows her ex-best friend lives near the field, that doesn’t mean she has to drive past her house and try to catch a glimpse of her.
Why would Beth do that and risk dredging up painful memories? She hasn’t seen Flora for 12 years. She doesn’t want to see her today --- or ever again. But she can’t resist. She parks outside the open gates of Newnham House, watches from across the road as Flora arrives and calls to her children, Thomas and Emily, to get out of the car.
Except... There’s something terribly wrong. Flora looks the same, only older. Twelve years ago, Thomas and Emily were five and three years old. Today, they look precisely as they did then. They are Thomas and Emily without a doubt, but they haven’t changed at all. They are no taller, no older. Why haven’t they grown? How is it possible that they haven’t grown up?
Audiobook available, read by Laura Kirman





