Editorial Content for Nolan: The Singular Life of an American Original
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Being able to watch videos of the baseball heroes of my youth from the 1960s and ’70s makes it hard for me to reconcile that they are now old men, and, by extension, so am I. Some, like 90-year-old Sandy Koufax, look like they still could sneak one by the hitter. But unlike Koufax, who retired at the age of 30 because of arm troubles, Nolan Ryan lasted until he was almost AARP-eligible, retiring in 1993 at the age of 46. Read More
Teaser
NOLAN is an exploration of God, family, baseball and America --- and a tribute to one of the greatest pitchers to ever step on the mound. Nolan Ryan grew up in the small, hard town of Alvin, Texas, was graced with a fastball, and fell in love with a woman named Ruth. He then honored all three in his pursuit of hardball perfection. Alongside Nolan’s personal story, renowned sportswriter Tim Brown offers a thoughtful, deeply researched history of baseball in the Lone Star State, and an unforgettable account of three glorious decades in the Major Leagues.
Promo
NOLAN is an exploration of God, family, baseball and America --- and a tribute to one of the greatest pitchers to ever step on the mound. Nolan Ryan grew up in the small, hard town of Alvin, Texas, was graced with a fastball, and fell in love with a woman named Ruth. He then honored all three in his pursuit of hardball perfection. Alongside Nolan’s personal story, renowned sportswriter Tim Brown offers a thoughtful, deeply researched history of baseball in the Lone Star State, and an unforgettable account of three glorious decades in the Major Leagues.
About the Book
The definitive biography of Nolan Ryan, arguably the greatest pitcher in the history of baseball, from New York Times bestselling sportswriter Tim Brown.
Nolan Ryan was the hero to two of America’s biggest institutions: Texas and baseball. NOLAN is an exploration of God, family, baseball and America --- and a tribute to one of the greatest pitchers to ever step on the mound. He grew up in the small, hard town of Alvin, Texas, was graced with a fastball, and fell in love with a woman named Ruth. He then honored all three in his pursuit of hardball perfection.
Alongside Nolan’s personal story, renowned sportswriter Tim Brown offers a thoughtful, deeply researched history of baseball in the Lone Star State, and an unforgettable account of three glorious decades in the Major Leagues.
Nolan Ryan’s story is about dominating on the field, then growing old in the game, then just plain growing old. It's about the man who has become a symbol of the game at its best, the way it used to be. It’s about deeds over words. About cattle matching the hat. About fastballs over all else.
NOLAN makes the case that there has never been another like him. And there won’t be again.
Audiobook available, read by Jim Seybert
Editorial Content for The Girl with a Thousand Faces
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Sunyi Dean has achieved something special with her latest novel. THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND FACES blends gothic horror, historical fantasy, mystical realism and Chinese cultural elements, making it perhaps the most unique book you will read this year.
The story itself and the way it is told will keep readers’ heads spinning as the outcome feels like a Russian doll in its plot creation. Dean uses this style to play with your feelings as you seek to unravel the riddles within to determine what is actually going on and which characters are worth pulling for. Read More
Teaser
When Mercy Chan washes up on the shores of Hong Kong with no family, no money and no memories, the only refuge she finds is the infamous, ghost-infested slum of Kowloon Walled City. Since then, she has rebuilt her life, working for the local triad as a ghost talker and dealing with the angry and bitter spirits who haunt the district. But the past Mercy can’t remember isn't done with her. An unusually powerful ghost has infested Kowloon’s waterways, drowning innocents and threatening the district. It claims to know Mercy --- and secrets from her past that are best left forgotten. As Mercy is drawn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with this malignant spirit, she begins to realize that the monster she fights within these walls may well be one of her own making.
Promo
When Mercy Chan washes up on the shores of Hong Kong with no family, no money and no memories, the only refuge she finds is the infamous, ghost-infested slum of Kowloon Walled City. Since then, she has rebuilt her life, working for the local triad as a ghost talker and dealing with the angry and bitter spirits who haunt the district. But the past Mercy can’t remember isn't done with her. An unusually powerful ghost has infested Kowloon’s waterways, drowning innocents and threatening the district. It claims to know Mercy --- and secrets from her past that are best left forgotten. As Mercy is drawn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with this malignant spirit, she begins to realize that the monster she fights within these walls may well be one of her own making.
About the Book
From the USA Today bestselling author of THE BOOK EATERS comes THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND FACES, a stunning Gothic tale set in a historical Hong Kong that meshes ancient myths and local legends into a haunting story of ghosts, grief and women who will not forgive.
When Mercy Chan washes up on the shores of Hong Kong with no family, no money and no memories, the only refuge she finds is the infamous, ghost-infested slum of Kowloon Walled City. Since then, she has rebuilt her life, working for the local triad as a ghost talker and dealing with the angry and bitter spirits who haunt the district. The filthy gutters and cramped alleyways of Kowloon have become her home.
But the past Mercy can’t remember isn't done with her. An unusually powerful ghost has infested Kowloon’s waterways, drowning innocents and threatening the district. It claims to know Mercy --- and secrets from her past that are best left forgotten.
As Mercy is drawn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with this malignant spirit, she begins to realize that the monster she fights within these walls may well be one of her own making.
Editorial Content for The May House
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Jillian Cantor, the bestselling author of BEAUTIFUL LITTLE FOOLS and THE FICTION WRITER, delivers the quintessential beach read with THE MAY HOUSE. Read More
Teaser
No matter what’s going on in the May sisters’ lives, the one thing they can rely on is seeing each other for one week in May at their grandmother’s beachside home in gorgeous Coronado. As adults, Julia, Emily and Nora aren’t particularly close, but their promise to return each year keeps them anchored together. Until one May when Julia, the oldest and most dependable sister, doesn’t show. Suddenly, Nora and Emily start to question how much they truly know about their sister’s life. Told in alternating points of view, spanning from their time together with Grandma Vera as kids into their adult lives, THE MAY HOUSE explores how a decades-long family secret has unknowingly shaped each sister and, ultimately, how it brings them closer together.
Promo
No matter what’s going on in the May sisters’ lives, the one thing they can rely on is seeing each other for one week in May at their grandmother’s beachside home in gorgeous Coronado. As adults, Julia, Emily and Nora aren’t particularly close, but their promise to return each year keeps them anchored together. Until one May when Julia, the oldest and most dependable sister, doesn’t show. Suddenly, Nora and Emily start to question how much they truly know about their sister’s life. Told in alternating points of view, spanning from their time together with Grandma Vera as kids into their adult lives, THE MAY HOUSE explores how a decades-long family secret has unknowingly shaped each sister and, ultimately, how it brings them closer together.
About the Book
In this shimmering new novel from USA Today bestselling author Jillian Cantor, three adult sisters inherit a beach house on the condition they spend one week together every May, leading to the discovery of family secrets, unexpected romance, and a deeper understanding of each other.
No matter what’s going on in the May sisters’ lives, the one thing they can rely upon is seeing each other for one week in May at their grandmother’s beachside home in gorgeous Coronado. As adults, Julia, Emily, and Nora aren’t particularly close, their homes spread out across the country and them busy with careers, relationships and the minutia of life. But their promise to return each year keeps them anchored together.
Until one May when Julia, the oldest and most dependable sister, doesn’t show. Suddenly, Nora and Emily start to question how much they truly know about their sister’s life. Told in alternating points of view, spanning from their time together with Grandma Vera as kids into their adult lives, THE MAY HOUSE explores how a decades-long family secret has unknowingly shaped each sister and, ultimately, how it brings them closer together.
Funny, poignant and brimming with heart, THE MAY HOUSE is an irresistible story about the special bond between sisters who are figuring out what matters most in life, in all its ups and downs.
Audiobook available, read by Cassandra Campbell
Editorial Content for The Author Weekend
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Laura Zigman pairs a delightfully wicked locked-room mystery with a searing satire of the publishing world in THE AUTHOR WEEKEND. Read More
Teaser
Everything needs to be just right for bestselling mystery writer Faye Wader's first-ever fan weekend. Her sales might be slipping --- only a little! --- but her readers still love her enough to pony up for three days and two nights on Great Misery Island. The retreat is precisely planned by Faye and her beleaguered assistant, Jade. Faye's longtime agent and editor will be there, as well as Faye's number one fan, Peggy Mercer. When news comes that the weekend will be crashed by rival novelist Abby Schuss, Faye thinks things can't get worse…until one of the attendees is found dead in her room, setting off an unexpectedly murderous chain of events that make pre-pub anxiety seem like a day at the beach. How far is Faye willing to go to get exactly what she wants from her author weekend?
Promo
Everything needs to be just right for bestselling mystery writer Faye Wader's first-ever fan weekend. Her sales might be slipping --- only a little! --- but her readers still love her enough to pony up for three days and two nights on Great Misery Island. The retreat is precisely planned by Faye and her beleaguered assistant, Jade. Faye's longtime agent and editor will be there, as well as Faye's number one fan, Peggy Mercer. When news comes that the weekend will be crashed by rival novelist Abby Schuss, Faye thinks things can't get worse…until one of the attendees is found dead in her room, setting off an unexpectedly murderous chain of events that make pre-pub anxiety seem like a day at the beach. How far is Faye willing to go to get exactly what she wants from her author weekend?
About the Book
The Devil Wears Prada meets “White Lotus” in a story of colliding egos and shocking betrayal, as intoxicatingly ice-cold as the pink Prosecco that flows all weekend.
Everything needs to be just right for bestselling mystery writer Faye Wader's first-ever fan weekend. Her sales might be slipping --- only a little! --- but her readers still love her enough to pony up for three days and two nights on Great Misery Island. The retreat is precisely planned, from the small batch artisanal donuts to the perimenopausal Mermaid Meditation, by Faye and her beleaguered assistant, Jade --- an aspiring author who can't seem to finish her own novel.
Faye's longtime agent and editor will be there, as well as Faye's number one fan, Peggy Mercer, who has been first in line at every one of Faye's events. When news comes that the weekend will be crashed by glamorous, charismatic, rival novelist Abby Schuss, Faye thinks things can't get worse...until one of the attendees is found dead in her room, setting off an unexpectedly murderous chain of events that make pre-pub anxiety seem like a day at the beach. How far is Faye willing to go to get exactly what she wants from her author weekend?
THE AUTHOR WEEKEND is a thrilling and hilarious dive into the dark heart of envy, and a glorious exploration of a woman of a certain age desperate to survive the dog-eat-dog world of publishing and control her own narrative.
Audiobook available; read by Gabra Zackman, Carol Monda, Joel Froomkin and Emily Lawrence
Editorial Content for New Skin
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Linli Feng was eight years old the first time her mother, Fanny, got plastic surgery. She is now in her mid-20s, and Fanny has since subjected her face to more and more extreme treatments, many of which were conducted by unlicensed practitioners or using unregulated processes. When Linli thinks back over her life, she feels like her mother was only really hers until that first surgery. Now, it's like Fanny is a stranger, each successive surgery taking her further and further away. Read More
Teaser
At 26, Linli Feng is still trying to escape her mother Fanny’s orbit. But after three years of estrangement, she is dragged back by Fanny’s latest medical catastrophe and forced to return home. For decades, Fanny has been addicted to plastic surgery. Now her disfigured face is in dangerous revolt, infected and collapsing yet again from black-market injectables. But Fanny has another secret in store. She has won a spot on “America’s Beauty Extreme,” a reality television competition in which botched plastic surgery addicts compete for reconstructive surgery as riveted audiences tune in. When Linli attempts to rescue Fanny from the sinister subculture that already has claimed her mother’s face, she must confront the corrosive reality of the American Dream that is at the fraught heart of their relationship.
Promo
At 26, Linli Feng is still trying to escape her mother Fanny’s orbit. But after three years of estrangement, she is dragged back by Fanny’s latest medical catastrophe and forced to return home. For decades, Fanny has been addicted to plastic surgery. Now her disfigured face is in dangerous revolt, infected and collapsing yet again from black-market injectables. But Fanny has another secret in store. She has won a spot on “America’s Beauty Extreme,” a reality television competition in which botched plastic surgery addicts compete for reconstructive surgery as riveted audiences tune in. When Linli attempts to rescue Fanny from the sinister subculture that already has claimed her mother’s face, she must confront the corrosive reality of the American Dream that is at the fraught heart of their relationship.
About the Book
A scalding, darkly humorous debut following an enmeshed mother-daughter duo, both best friends and enemies, and the plastic surgery addiction that warps their lives into a perilous spiral.
At 26, Linli Feng is still trying to escape her mother Fanny’s orbit. But after three years of estrangement, just when Linli has been accepted into a prestigious graduate program, she is dragged back by Fanny’s latest medical catastrophe and forced to return home.
For decades, Fanny has been addicted to plastic surgery, getting bargain procedures in the basements of LA’s bootleg beauty industry. Now Fanny’s disfigured face is in dangerous revolt, infected and collapsing yet again from black-market injectables.
But even as Linli wades through the wreck of family finances and juggles her mother’s medical care, Fanny has another secret in store. Fanny has won a spot on “America’s Beauty Extreme,” a reality television competition in which botched plastic surgery addicts compete for reconstructive surgery as riveted audiences tune in. When Linli attempts to rescue Fanny from the sinister subculture that already has claimed her mother’s face, she must confront the corrosive reality of the American Dream that is at the fraught heart of their relationship.
Audiobook available, read by Jen Zhao
Editorial Content for Last Seen
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
LAST SEEN is set amidst the cabana huts of a British beach along an isolated sandbank peninsula. Here, Lucy Clarke introduces us to Sarah and Isla, who are such good friends that they gave birth to their sons a month apart and named them Jacob and Marley as a tongue-in-cheek homage to the ghostly spirit from A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Read More
Teaser
Seven years ago, two boys went missing at sea --- and only one was brought to shore. The Sandbank, a remote stretch of coast dotted with beach huts, was scarred forever. Sarah’s son survived all those years ago. But on the anniversary of the accident, he disappears without a trace. As new secrets begin to surface, The Sandbank hums with tension and unanswered questions. Sarah’s search grows more desperate, and she starts to mistrust everyone she knows. Someone saw everything on that fateful day seven years ago. And they’ll do anything to keep the truth buried.
Promo
Seven years ago, two boys went missing at sea --- and only one was brought to shore. The Sandbank, a remote stretch of coast dotted with beach huts, was scarred forever. Sarah’s son survived all those years ago. But on the anniversary of the accident, he disappears without a trace. As new secrets begin to surface, The Sandbank hums with tension and unanswered questions. Sarah’s search grows more desperate, and she starts to mistrust everyone she knows. Someone saw everything on that fateful day seven years ago. And they’ll do anything to keep the truth buried.
About the Book
THE SURVIVORS meets DISAPPEARING EARTH in this psychologically acute thriller about a seaside community grappling with its dark past as long-hidden secrets begin to inflict new wounds, from million-copy and internationally bestselling author Lucy Clarke.
Seven years ago, two boys went missing at sea --- and only one was brought to shore. The Sandbank, a remote stretch of coast dotted with beach huts, was scarred forever.
Sarah’s son survived all those years ago. But on the anniversary of the accident, he disappears without a trace. As new secrets begin to surface, The Sandbank hums with tension and unanswered questions. Sarah’s search grows more desperate, and she starts to mistrust everyone she knows. Someone saw everything on that fateful day seven years ago. And they’ll do anything to keep the truth buried.
A taut, pulse-pounding tale of a community on the brink of mayhem, LAST SEEN is an explosive addition to Lucy Clarke’s masterful oeuvre.
Audiobook available, read by Clare Corbett and Harriet Carmichael
Editorial Content for The Great Houses of Pill Hill
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Hanna “Cookie” Cooke is a young woman with an interior design business in New Preston, a small New England town. She has a side gig doing crime-scene dioramas, which are highly detailed, right down to leather book volumes, handmade curtains and blood spatter. Read More
Teaser
Hannah “Cookie” Cooke, an interior decorator with a sideline making miniature reproductions of crime scenes for the local police department, lands her dream job when New Preston’s wealthiest couple hires her to renovate their historic New England home. But things go spectacularly wrong when her client, Chuck --- with whom she is having an affair --- is murdered at the housewarming party. The detective on the case commissions one of Cookie’s miniatures to help solve the baffling murder. While grappling with her own complicated role in Chuck’s life --- and the thorny layers of her own envies, resentments and ambitions --- Cookie delves into the strange details of his death. In untangling the mystery, Cookie reveals an ugly truth about New Preston’s elite that might prove deadly.
Promo
Hannah “Cookie” Cooke, an interior decorator with a sideline making miniature reproductions of crime scenes for the local police department, lands her dream job when New Preston’s wealthiest couple hires her to renovate their historic New England home. But things go spectacularly wrong when her client, Chuck --- with whom she is having an affair --- is murdered at the housewarming party. The detective on the case commissions one of Cookie’s miniatures to help solve the baffling murder. While grappling with her own complicated role in Chuck’s life --- and the thorny layers of her own envies, resentments and ambitions --- Cookie delves into the strange details of his death. In untangling the mystery, Cookie reveals an ugly truth about New Preston’s elite that might prove deadly.
About the Book
A scintillating, wickedly intricate locked-room mystery following an unconventional woman who makes miniatures of murder scenes and finds herself entangled in a real one when the client of her dream job turns up dead.
Hannah “Cookie” Cooke, an interior decorator with a sideline making miniature reproductions of crime scenes for the local police department, lands her dream job when New Preston’s wealthiest couple hires her to renovate their historic New England home. But things go spectacularly wrong when her client, Chuck --- with whom she is having an affair --- is murdered at the housewarming party.
The detective on the case commissions one of Cookie’s miniatures to help solve the baffling murder. While grappling with her own complicated role in Chuck’s life --- and the thorny layers of her own envies, resentments and ambitions --- Cookie delves into the strange details of his death, including his overly involved therapist, his wife’s nebulous textile empire, and a room decorated in 19th-century Egyptian kitsch hidden on the premises. In untangling the mystery, Cookie reveals an ugly truth about New Preston’s elite that might prove deadly.
At once an irreverent interpretation of the hard-boiled genre and a skewering of traditional domesticity, this show-stopping work of crime fiction is crackling with narrative voice, resulting in a read that is equally engrossing and electrifying.
Audiobook available, read by Mia Barron
May 22, 2026
Our company was incorporated 30 years ago this month; in fact, I think it might be 30 years ago today. Our first website launched in August 1996. Every time we hit a milestone, we celebrate. We hit another big one this week with 1,000,000 views/listens to our video/podcast series.
Thanks to all of you who have watched or listened. We are very proud of the programming that we have created with our “Bookreporter Talks To” interviews, our “Bookaccino Live” book preview events, and our “Bookaccino Live” Book Group events. We are excited that our podcasts are now on Spotify. We love how we have come to know so many of you through your emails and comments during and after our events. And we love seeing that readers join us from across the country. Whenever I interview an author, I try to ask the questions that I think you would want answered.
May 20, 2026
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 Thursday, May 21st at noon ET for a chance to win one of five copies of YOU BELONG HERE by Megan Miranda, which is now available in paperback. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!





