Skip to main content

June 23, 2023 - July 14, 2023

Here are reading recommendations with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars for the contest period of June 23 - July 14.

When you go on vacation, what do you do about books? Please check all that apply.

June 23, 2023, 705 voters

June 20, 2023

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of June 19th and June 26th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to our tribute to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy, who passed away at the age of 89 last week. Joe Hartlaub, our Senior Writer Emeritus, returned last year to review what would be McCarthy’s final two novels: THE PASSENGER and STELLA MARIS, interconnected books that question the notions of God, truth and existence. Joe is back again, this time to reflect on McCarthy’s remarkable career and legacy.

Read More

June 20, 2023

This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we think is a great summer reading selection. Read more about it, and enter our Summer Reading Contest by Wednesday, June 21st at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of THE FAVOR by Adele Griffin, which is now available. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!

Read More

June 17, 2023

Earlier this month, my book group finally headed out on a long-awaited road trip together. Two others were to join us until “life got in the way.” With me at the wheel, and at certain points all of us studying Waze directions (“Um, Carol, I think we passed the exit to the Saw Mill.” And “Carol, we passed it again.”), we headed to Bethlehem, Connecticut, to see Martha Hall Kelly speak about her work and to tour the Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden.

Read More

Andre Dubus III, author of Such Kindness

Tom Lowe designed and built his family’s dream home, working extra hours to pay off the adjustable-rate mortgage he took on the property, convinced he is making every sacrifice for the happiness of his wife and son. Until, shingling a roof in too-bright sunlight, he falls. In constant pain, addicted to painkillers at the cost of his relationships with his wife and son, Tom slowly comes to realize that he can never work again. If he is not a working man, who is he? He is not, he believes, the kind of person who lives in subsidized housing, though that is where he has ended up. He is not the kind of person who hatches a scheme to commit convenience-check fraud, together with neighbors he considers lowlifes, until he finds himself stealing his banker’s trash. Who is Tom Lowe, and who will he become?

Read more »

Luis Alberto Urrea, author of Good Night, Irene

In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle. After D-Day, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Through her friendship with Dorothy and a love affair with a courageous American fighter pilot named Hans, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope is for all three of them to survive the war intact.

Read more »

S. A. Cosby, author of All the Sinners Bleed

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. Then a year to the day after Titus’ election, a schoolteacher is killed by a former student, and the student is fatally shot by Titus’ deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.

Read more »

Fiona Davis, author of The Spectacular

New York City, 1956: When 19-year-old Marion Brooks comes across an opportunity to audition for the Radio City Rockettes, she jumps at the chance to exchange her predictable future for the dazzling life of a performer. Meanwhile, the city is reeling from a string of bombings orchestrated by a person the press has nicknamed the “Big Apple Bomber." With the public in an uproar, the police turn to Peter Griggs, a young doctor who espouses a radical new technique: psychological profiling. As both Marion and Peter find themselves unexpectedly pulled into the police search for the bomber, Marion realizes that if she hopes to catch the culprit, she’ll need to stand out and take a terrifying risk. In doing so, she may be forced to sacrifice everything she’s worked for, as well as the people she loves the most.

Read more »

Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Five-Star Weekend

Hollis Shaw’s life seems picture-perfect. She’s the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis’ perfect life --- her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline --- grow deeper. So when Hollis hears about something called a “Five-Star Weekend” --- one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her life: her teenage years, her 20s, her 30s and midlife --- she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend. But the weekend doesn’t turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie.

Read more »