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Eleni Karavoussianis

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September 20, 2022

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of September 19th and September 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 "What's Your Book Group Reading This Month?" contest on ReadingGroupGuides.com. Three book groups will win up to 12 copies of HONOR by Thrity Umrigar, an upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On pick that releases in paperback on October 18th. The deadline for your entries is Wednesday, October 12th at noon ET.

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September 17, 2022

Fall is creeping up on us. But that also means there are a number of great book festivals on the calendar. We try to stay on top of these here, so take a peek to see if any are in your area.

In New Jersey, we are lucky enough that the Morristown Festival of Books will be taking place on Saturday, October 8th, with a special opening event featuring New York Times columnist Frank Bruni on the night of Friday, October 7th. I love this festival since it is close to home! I will be interviewing Nita Prose, the author of THE MAID, at 11am, followed by Jamie Fiore Higgins, the author of BULLY MARKET: My Story of Money and Misogyny at Goldman Sachs, at 1:20pm. Both of these books are Bookreporter.com Bets On selections, and I am looking forward to conversations with both of them!
 

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Sally Koslow, author of The Real Mrs. Tobias

It’s 2015 in New York City, and three women all known as Mrs. Tobias --- Veronika, the matriarch; her daughter-in-law, Mel; and Mel’s daughter-in-law, Birdie --- are trying to navigate personal difficulties, some of which are with one another. Veronika and Mel are both psychotherapists who are more skilled at helping other people than solving their own problems. Birdie, still dealing with the culture shock of moving to New York City and marrying into the Tobias clan, is pushed to her limit when her husband gets into trouble. Overwhelmed, she bolts --- along with the couple’s young daughter --- to her Midwestern hometown, hoping that space, warmth and wisdom from her own feisty grandmother will help her find a path forward.

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Kristina McMorris, author of The Ways We Hide

As a little girl raised amid the hardships of Michigan's Copper Country, Fenna Vos learned to focus on her own survival. Though she performs onstage as the assistant to an unruly escape artist, behind the curtain she's the mastermind of their act. Ultimately, controlling her surroundings and eluding traps of every kind helps her keep a lingering trauma at bay. Yet for all her planning, Fenna doesn't foresee being called upon by British military intelligence. Tasked with designing escape aids to thwart the Germans, MI9 seeks those with specialized skills for a war nearing its breaking point. But when a test of her loyalty draws her deep into the fray, Fenna discovers that no mission is more treacherous than escaping one's past.

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Michael Frank, author of One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World

With nearly a century of life behind her, Stella Levi had never before spoken in detail about her past. Then she met Michael Frank. He came to her Greenwich Village apartment to ask her a question about the Juderia, the neighborhood in Rhodes where she’d grown up in a Jewish community that had thrived there for half a millennium. Neither of them could know this was the first of 100 Saturdays that they would spend in each other’s company as Stella traveled back in time to conjure what it felt like to come of age on this luminous, legendary island in the eastern Aegean, which the Italians began governing as an official possession in 1923 and transformed over the next two decades until the Germans seized control and deported the entire Juderia to Auschwitz.

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Javier Zamora, author of Solito: A Memoir

Nine-year-old Javier Zamora embarks on a 3,000-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He leaves behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone amid a group of strangers and a “coyote” hired to lead them to safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks. But he cannot foresee the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns, arrests and deceptions that await him. Nor can he know that those two weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside fellow migrants who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family.

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Maggie O'Farrell, author of The Marriage Portrait

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf. Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?

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Ian McEwan, author of Lessons

When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, 11-year-old Roland Baines' life is turned upside down. Two thousand miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade. Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl spreads across Europe, he begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life.

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September 16, 2022

It’s been one super busy week as I’m juggling current projects, noodling new ideas, and writing sympathy thank you notes. I have the world’s worst handwriting, so I’m inserting typed notes into cards for the latter!

I am bemoaning loudly that my days in the pool when it was in the 80s are behind me...and, ah, the weeks when it was 88 were really blissful. I am not ready for fall this week. I am ready to start gluing leaves back on the trees. The cooler temperatures mean that the garden is looking a lot better. Yowser, the heat this summer fried a lot. We refreshed all the herb pots, and those should carry us through at least part of the winter. Tom and I were at the garden center last week in the pouring rain; he’s happy as this meant we were not trudging around looking for more perennials. Twenty percent off did not give me enough incentive to walk in a downpour.

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