These are all the titles you would currently find on our New Fiction bookshelf by author A-Z. Mouse over the "i" button to read the jacket flap and click on the book to place a copy on hold.
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MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK of 2022 by TIME, HipLatina, Parade, The Rumpus, Angela Lashbrook, Vogue.com, Goodreads, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Bustle, Kirkus, Book Riot, Popsugar, Barnes & Noble, The Stacks, Russh, Boston Globe, and more! "Don't underestimate this new novelist. She's jump-starting the year with a smart romantic comedy that lures us in with laughter and keeps us hooked with a fantastically engaging story." --The Washington Post A blazing talent debuts with the tale of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother, and Puerto Rican roots--all in the wake of Hurricane Maria It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro "Prieto" Acevedo, are boldfaced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn, while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan's power brokers. Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1 percent but she can't seem to find her own. . . until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets. Olga and Prieto's mother, Blanca, a Young Lord turned radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives. Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico's history, Xochitl Gonzalez's Olga Dies Dreaming is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife, and the very notion of the American dream--all while asking what it really means to weather a storm.
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2021 NED KELLY AWARD NOMINEE, BEST CRIME FICTION Hell hath no fury like a family disinherited... American millionaire Daniel Cartwright has been shot dead: three times in the chest, and once in the head. His body is found in Harvard Yard, dressed in evening attire. No one knows who he planned to meet there, or why the staunch Oxford man would be caught dead at Harvard--literally. Australian Rowland Sinclair, his mate from Oxford and longtime friend, is named executor of the will, to his great surprise--and that of Danny's family. Events turn downright ugly when the will all but disinherits Danny's siblings in favor of one Otis Norcross, whom no one knows or is able to locate. Amidst assault, kidnapping, and threats of slander, Rowly struggles to understand Danny's motives, find the missing heir, and identify his friend's killer before the clock--and his luck--run out. A deft blend of history and mystery, WHERE THERE'S A WILL offers an alternately charming and chilling snapshot of Boston and New York in the 1930s, with cameo appearances by luminaries of the day including Marion Davies, Randolph Hearst, Errol Flynn, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and an arrogantly ardent Joe Kennedy, who proves no match for Rowly's sculptress friend Edna...
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From the award-winning, best-selling author of Snow Falling on Cedars--a moving father-son story that is also a taut courtroom drama and a bold examination of privilege, power, and how to live a meaningful life. A girl dies one late, rainy night a few feet from the back door of her home. The girl, Abeba, was born in Ethiopia. Her adoptive parents, Delvin and Betsy Harvey--conservative, white fundamentalist Christians--are charged with her murder. Royal, a Seattle criminal attorney in the last days of his long career, takes Betsy Harvey's case. An octogenarian without a driver's license, he leans on his son--the novel's narrator--as he prepares for trial. So begins The Final Case, a bracing, astute, and deeply affecting examination of justice and injustice--and familial love. David Guterson's first courtroom drama since Snow Falling on Cedars, it is his most compelling and heartfelt novel to date.
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Diana Gabaldon returns with the newest novel in the epic Outlander series. The past may seem the safest place to be . . . but it is the most dangerous time to be alive. . . . Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1746, and it took them twenty years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same. It is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser's Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible. Yet even in the North Carolina backcountry, the effects of war are being felt. Tensions in the Colonies are great and local feelings run hot enough to boil Hell's teakettle. Jamie knows loyalties among his tenants are split and it won't be long until the war is on his doorstep. Brianna and Roger have their own worry: that the dangers that provoked their escape from the twentieth century might catch up to them. Sometimes they question whether risking the perils of the 1700s--among them disease, starvation, and an impending war--was indeed the safer choice for their family. Not so far away, young William Ransom is still coming to terms with the discovery of his true father's identity--and thus his own--and Lord John Grey has reconciliations to make, and dangers to meet . . . on his son's behalf, and his own. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War creeps ever closer to Fraser's Ridge. And with the family finally together, Jamie and Claire have more at stake than ever before.
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Rick and Frank are recovering addicts and accomplished house thieves whose partnership extends beyond their professional lives. They do not steal randomly they steal according to order, hired by a mysterious handler. The jobs run routinely until they re tasked with taking a seemingly worthless trophy: an object that generates interest and obsession out of proportion to its apparent value. Just as the robbery is completed, the two are involved in a freak car accident that sets off a chain of events and Frank disappears with the trophy. As Rick tries to find Frank, he is forced to confront his past, upending both his livelihood and his sense of reality. The narrative builds steadily into a powerful and shocking climax. Revelling in its con-artistry and double-crosses, Just Thieves is a nail-biting, noir-ish exploration of the working lives of two unforgettable crooks and the hidden forces that rule and ruin their lives.
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An instant New York Times bestseller! Two people realize that it's no longer an act when they veer off-script in this sizzling romantic comedy by New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Guillory. Ben Stephens has never bothered with serious relationships. He has plenty of casual dates to keep him busy, family drama he's trying to ignore and his advertising job to focus on. When Ben lands a huge ad campaign featuring movie star, Anna Gardiner, however, it's hard to keep it purely professional. Anna is not just gorgeous and sexy, she's also down to earth and considerate, and he can't help flirting a little... Anna Gardiner is on a mission: to make herself a household name, and this ad campaign will be a great distraction while she waits to hear if she's booked her next movie. However, she didn't expect Ben Stephens to be her biggest distraction. She knows mixing business with pleasure never works out, but why not indulge in a harmless flirtation? But their light-hearted banter takes a turn for the serious when Ben helps Anna in a family emergency, and they reveal truths about themselves to each other, truths they've barely shared with those closest to them. When the opportunity comes to turn their real-life fling into something more for the Hollywood spotlight, will Ben be content to play the background role in Anna's life and leave when the cameras stop rolling? Or could he be the leading man she needs to craft their own Hollywood ending?
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"Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease. At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her: devotion to her sisters, and a conviction in her own divine visions. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. But in a world that is shifting and corroding in frightening ways, one that can never reconcile itself with her existence, will the sheer force of Marie's vision be bulwark enough? Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around. Lauren Groff's new novel, her first since Fates and Furies, is a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world"--
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A remarkable novel of suffering, love, and healing--the story of three generations of women on an unlikely journey to a Croatian island and a secret that needs to be told--from the internationally best-selling author of To the End of the Land "A magnificent book . . . The way Grossman writes about these regions is unique, with a deep understanding of our experience." --Josip Mlakić, Express (Croatia) More Than I Love My Life is the story of three strong women: Vera, age ninety; her daughter, Nina; and her granddaughter, Gili, who at thirty-nine is a filmmaker and a wary consumer of affection. A bitter secret divides each mother and daughter pair, though Gili--abandoned by Nina when she was just three--has always been close to her grandmother. With Gili making the arrangements, they travel together to Goli Otok, a barren island off the coast of Croatia, where Vera was imprisoned and tortured for three years as a young wife after she refused to betray her husband and denounce him as an enemy of the people. This unlikely journey--filtered through the lens of Gili's camera, as she seeks to make a film that might help explain her life--lays bare the intertwining of fear, love, and mercy, and the complex overlapping demands of romantic and parental passion. More Than I Love My Life was inspired by the true story of one of David Grossman's longtime confidantes, a woman who, in the early 1950s, was held on the notorious Goli Otok ("the Adriatic Alcatraz"). With flashbacks to the stalwart Vera protecting what was most precious on the wretched rock where she was held, and Grossman's fearless examination of the human heart, this swift novel is a thrilling addition to the oeuvre of one of our greatest living novelists, whose revered moral voice continues to resonate around the world.
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"A masterfully crafted, brutally compelling Norse-inspired epic." --Anthony Ryan THE GREATEST SAGAS ARE WRITTEN IN BLOOD. A century has passed since the gods fought and drove themselves to extinction. Now only their bones remain, promising great power to those brave enough to seek them out. As whispers of war echo across the land of Vigrid, fate follows in the footsteps of three warriors: a huntress on a dangerous quest, a noblewoman pursuing battle fame, and a thrall seeking vengeance among the mercenaries known as the Bloodsworn. All three will shape the fate of the world as it once more falls under the shadow of the gods. Set in a brand-new, Norse-inspired world, and packed with myth, magic, and vengeance, The Shadow of the Gods begins an epic new fantasy saga from bestselling author John Gwynne. For more from John Gwynne, check out: Of Blood and Bone A Time of Dread A Time of Blood A Time of Courage The Faithful and the Fallen Malice Valor Ruin Wrath
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From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner, a chilling thriller about a young man gone missing in the wilderness of Wyoming...and the secrets uncovered by the desperate effort to find him Timothy O'Day knew the woods. Yet when he disappeared on the first night of a bachelor party camping trip with his best friends in the world, he didn't leave a trace. What he did leave behind were two heartbroken parents, a crew of guilt-ridden groomsmen, and a pile of clues that don't add up. Frankie Elkin doesn't know the woods, but she knows how to find people. So when she reads that Timothy's father is organizing one last search, she heads to Wyoming. Despite the rescue team's reluctance, she joins them. But as they hike into the mountains, it becomes clear that there's something dangerous at work in the woods...or someone who is willing to do anything to stop them from going any further. Running out of time and up against the worst man and nature have to offer, Frankie and the search party will discover what evil awaits those who go one step too far...
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Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers and Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley are back in the next Lynley novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George. When a police detective is taken off life support after falling into a coma, only an autopsy reveals the murderous act that precipitated her death. She'd been working on a special task force within North London's Nigerian community, and Acting Detective Superintendent Thomas Lynley is assigned to the case, which has far-reaching cultural associations that have nothing to do with life as he knows it. In his pursuit of a killer determined to remain hidden, he's assisted by Detective Sergeants Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata. They must sort through the lies and the secret lives of people whose superficial cooperation masks the damage they do to one another.
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A father and daughter living in the remote Appalachian mountains must reckon with the ghosts of their past in Kimi Cunningham Grant's These Silent Woods, a mesmerizing novel of suspense. No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world. For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that's exactly the way Cooper wants it, because he's got a lot to hide. Finch has been raised on the books filling the cabin's shelves and the beautiful but brutal code of life in the wilderness. But she's starting to push back against the sheltered life Cooper has created for her--and he's still haunted by the painful truth of what it took to get them there. The only people who know they exist are a mysterious local hermit named Scotland, and Cooper's old friend, Jake, who visits each winter to bring them food and supplies. But this year, Jake doesn't show up, setting off an irreversible chain of events that reveals just how precarious their situation really is. Suddenly, the boundaries of their safe haven have blurred--and when a stranger wanders into their woods, Finch's growing obsession with her could put them all in danger. After a shocking disappearance threatens to upend the only life Finch has ever known, Cooper is forced to decide whether to keep hiding--or finally face the sins of his past. Vividly atmospheric and masterfully tense, These Silent Woods is a poignant story of survival, sacrifice, and how far a father will go when faced with losing it all.
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"I Was Never The First Lady stitches together threads of island and identity until they became one and the same...Guerra's own unpredictable book is haunting, complicated, [and] linguistically beautiful." -- The New York Times A lush, sensuous, and original tale of family, love, and history, set against the backdrop of the Cuban Revolution and its aftermath. Nadia Guerra's mother, Albis Torres, left when Nadia was just ten years old. Growing up, the proponents of revolution promised a better future. Now that she's an adult, Nadia finds that life in Havana hasn't quite matched its promise; instead it has stifled her rebellious and artistic desires. Each night she DJs a radio show government censors block from broadcasting. Frustrated, Nadia finds hope and a way out when she wins a scholarship to study in Russia. Leaving Cuba offers her the chance to find her long lost mother and her real father. But as she embarks on a journey east, Nadia soon begins to question everything she thought she knew and understood about her past. As Nadia discovers more about her family, her fate becomes entwined with that of Celia Sanchez, an icon of the Cuban Revolution--a resistance fighter, ingenious spy, and the rumored lover of Fidel Castro. A tale of revolutionary ideals and promise, Celia's story interweaves with Nadia's search for meaning, and eventually reveals secrets Nadia could never have dreamed. Translated from the Spanish by Achy Obejas
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The USA Today bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author of Never Look Back and If I Die Tonight plumbs the dark side of justice and the depths of diabolical revenge in this propulsive novel of psychological suspense that melds the driving narrative of Then She Was Gone with the breathtaking twists of The Chain and the violent fury of Kill Bill "Alison Gaylin's The Collective is an astonishing feat. In the tradition of Ira Levin's unforgettable social thrillers (Rosemary's Baby, Stepford Wives), it's a nerve-shredding, emotionally harrowing ride that also speaks volumes about our current moment, the dangers of our digital world, the potency of female rage. Don't miss it." --Megan Abbott Just how far will a grieving mother go to right a tragic wrong? Camille Gardener is a grieving--and angry--mother who, five years after her daughter's death, is still obsessed with the privileged young man she believes to be responsible. When her rash actions draw the attention of a secret group of women--the collective-- Camille is drawn into a dark web where these mothers share their wildly different stories of loss as well as their desire for justice in a world where privilege denies accountability. Fueled by mutual rage, the collective members devise and act out retribution fantasies via precise, anonymous, highly coordinated revenge killings. As Camille struggles to comprehend whether this is a role-playing exercise or terrifying reality, she must decide if these women are truly avenging angels or monsters. Becoming more deeply enmeshed in the group, Camille learns truths about the collective--and about herself--that she may not be able to survive
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Discover what makes Lucy Gilmore an instant fan favorite with this unforgettably funny enemies-to-lovers romcom starring: a grumpy dog show judge a determined former beauty queen and a Golden Retriever more interested in stealing bacon than winning Best in Show. Ruby Taylor gave up pageantlife the day she turned eighteen and figured she'd never look back. But when an old friend begs her to show beloved Golden Retriever Weezy at the upcoming Canine Classic, Ruby doggedly straps on her heels and gets to work. If only she knew exactly what the adorably lazy lump of a dog was getting her into. If there's one thing veterinarian Spencer Wilson knows in this world, it's dogs. Human beings are a different story. Especially gorgeous women clearly in way over their heads. As judge for the local dog show, Spencer advises Ruby to quit while she still can, but her old fervor for winning has returned--and she wants to show the stern, broody-eyed judge that she's more than just a pretty face. In the end, she'll show him who's best in show. "AS APPEALING AS A PUPPY."--Publishers WeeklySTARRED for Puppy Christmas
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From Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb, the bestselling authors of Meet Me in Monaco, comes a coming-of-age novel set in pre-WWII Europe, perfect for fans of Jennifer Robson, Beatriz Williams, and Kate Quinn. Three cities, two sisters, one chance to correct the past . . . New York, 1937: When estranged sisters Clara and Madeleine Sommers learn their grandmother is dying, they agree to fulfill her last wish: to travel across Europe--together. They are to deliver three letters, in which Violet will say goodbye to those she hasn't seen since traveling to Europe forty years earlier; a journey inspired by famed reporter, Nellie Bly. Clara, ever-dutiful, sees the trip as an inconvenient detour before her wedding to millionaire Charles Hancock, but it's also a chance to embrace her love of art. Budding journalist Madeleine relishes the opportunity to develop her ambitions to report on the growing threat of Hitler's Nazi party and Mussolini's control in Italy. Constantly at odds with each other as they explore the luxurious Queen Mary, the Orient Express, and the sights of Paris and Venice,, Clara and Madeleine wonder if they can fulfil Violet's wish, until a shocking truth about their family brings them closer together. But as they reach Vienna to deliver the final letter, old grudges threaten their reconciliation again. As political tensions rise, and Europe feels increasingly volatile, the pair are glad to head home on the Hindenburg, where fate will play its hand in the final stage of their journey.
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In the remote and unpredictable Aleutians, danger comes without warning in an adrenaline rush of a novel by USA Today bestselling author Rachel Grant. Archaeologist Fiona Carver has unfinished business in the Aleutian Islands. After an emergency evacuation cut her first expedition short, she's finally back. But time is not on her side as she races to finish documenting the remnants of a prehistoric village, recover missing artifacts, and track down missing volcanologist Dylan Slater. Having bluffed his way onto Fiona's team with fake credentials, wildlife photographer Dean Slater is willing to risk more than federal prison to find his missing brother, but he needs Fiona's help. She knows the inhospitable terrain better than anyone. When the two set out together on a perilous journey, it becomes more than a recovery mission. In their fight for survival, nature isn't the only threat. They aren't the only ones on the hunt. Mile by dangerous mile, someone is hunting them.
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A twisty thriller by "a very exciting new voice from the North" (Ragnar Jónasson, bestselling author of the Dark Iceland series) In the snow-covered silence of Swedish midwinter, a terrible accident and a deadly secret draws several strangers together... January in Gotland. The days are short, the air is cold, and all the roads are covered in snow. On a deserted, icy backroad, these wintery conditions will soon bring together a group of strangers with a force devastating enough to change their lives forever when, in the midst of a brief period, a deadly accident and two separate crimes leave victims in their wake. Four years later a single phone call is all it takes to bring back the terror of that day and to set in motion a plot for revenge. For Sandra it started as an unremarkable wintery day of shopping followed by a kind gesture from a stranger. For Jeanette it began with the thrill of an illicit rendezvous with her lover. Both women had driven past the same icy ravine, but only one was in the car that caused a deadly crash, and only one left a man to die alone in the snow. Each carried a secret from that day, a secret that, if revealed, could connect them to a larger, more terrible transgression... And there is someone out there who knows the whole picture, and who would rather kill than allow it all to come to light. Chilling and atmospheric, Black Ice is a gripping standalone novel of suspense from the author of the internationally-bestselling Hammarby series.
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WINNER OF THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE A modern family saga written in gorgeous prose by three-time Booker Prize-shortlisted author Damon Galgut. Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life's unfulfilled potential; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt. Reunited by four funerals over three decades, the dwindling family reflects the atmosphere of its country--one of resentment, renewal, and, ultimately, hope. The Promise is an epic drama that unfurls against the unrelenting march of national history, sure to please current fans and attract many new ones. "Simply: you must read it."--Claire Messud, Harper's Magazine
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In the shadowy back alleys and opulent homes of Paris, hard-nosed police inspector Paul Mazarelle of The Paris Directive sets out on the trail of a serial killer. A murdered man is discovered dangling inside the tunnels of a Paris canal--the only clue, the tarot card in his pockets: the Hanged Man. When an innocent suspect is railroaded into prison for the homicide, Mazarelle sets off on the hunt for the real killer. For the charming, hot-tempered, impulsive Frenchman--now back from the provinces and leading his own homicide unit out of Paris's famed Quai des Orfevres--it's an investigation that takes him far from the comforts of Beaujolais and bouillabaisse, and plunges him into an underworld of ruthless white supremacists looking for scapegoats in Paris's growing immigrant community, corrupt cops eager to cover up a shady side business, and a conspiracy of secrets that threaten his own life. Meanwhile, Claire Girard, an irresistible and ambitious journalist at a popular tabloid, is wrapped up in the same story. On the trail of the Tarot Card killer, Mazarelle finds himself blindsided by their growing attraction. And when his team's case collides with Girard's latest scoop, and the body count keeps rising, Mazarelle himself becomes a prime suspect who must clear his own name. Gerald Jay's latest Mazarelle adventure is a riveting, fast-paced thriller about a classic French detective making his way through the dangerous streets of a very modern world.
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The Brighton police force is on the hunt for another killer, but this time they have some competition--a newly formed all-women's private eye firm, led by none other than the police chief's wife. Newly minted PI Emma Holmes and her partner Sam Collins are just settling into their business when they're chosen for a high-profile case: retired music-hall star Verity Malone hires them to find out who poisoned her husband, a theater impresario. Verity herself has been accused of the crime. The only hitch--the Brighton police are already on the case, putting Emma in direct competition with her husband, police superintendent Edgar Stephens. Soon Emma realizes that Verity's life intersects closely with her own--most notably in their mutual connection, Max Mephisto, who has returned to England from America with his children and famous wife, Hollywood star Lydia Lamont. Lydia, desperately bored in the countryside, catches wind of what Emma and Sam are up to and offers her services. What secret does Lydia know about Verity's past? The team of female PIs circle closer to the killer, with the Brighton police hot on their tail. The clues suggest they're looking for a criminal targeting the old music-hall crew. How long will it be before that trail leads straight back to Max?
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A Romeo & Juliet tale for Hamilton! fans. In post-American Revolution New York City, Theodosia Burr, a scholar with the skills of a socialite, is all about charming the right people on behalf of her father--Senator Aaron Burr, who is determined to win the office of president in the pivotal election of 1800. Meanwhile, Philip Hamilton, the rakish son of Alexander Hamilton, is all about being charming on behalf of his libido. When the two first meet, it seems the ongoing feud between their politically opposed fathers may be hereditary. But soon, Theodosia and Philip must choose between love and family, desire and loyalty, and preserving the legacy their flawed fathers fought for or creating their own. Love, Theodosia is a smart, funny, swoony take on a fiercely intelligent woman with feminist ideas ahead of her time who has long-deserved center stage. A refreshing spin on the Hamiltonian era and the characters we have grown to know and love. It's also a heartbreaking romance of two star-crossed lovers, an achingly bittersweet "what if." Despite their fathers' bitter rivalry, Theodosia and Philip are drawn to each other and, in what unrolls like a Jane Austen novel of manners, we find ourselves entangled in the world of Hamilton and Burr once again as these heirs of famous enemies are driven together despite every reason not to be.
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A simple sting operation takes a violent and unexpected turn for Detective Eve Ronin in a gripping thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Goldberg. Los Angeles County Sheriff's detective Eve Ronin and her soon-to-retire partner, Duncan Pavone, are running a 24-7 sting in a guard-gated enclave of palatial homes in Calabasas. Their luxury McMansion is a honey trap, set to lure in the violent home invaders terrorizing the community. The trap works, leaving three intruders dead, a body count that nearly includes Eve and Duncan. Eve's bosses are eager to declare the case closed, but there are too many unanswered questions for her to let go. Was the trap actually for her, bloody payback for Eve's very public takedown of a clique of corrupt deputies? Or is there an even deadlier secret lurking behind those opulent gates? Eve's refusal to back down and her relentless quest for the truth make her both the hunter...and the prey.
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Shortlisted for the 2020 Goldsmiths Prize Based on the German composer's own correspondence, this inventive, counterfactual work of historical fiction imagines Beethoven traveling to America to write an oratorio based on the Book of Job. It is a matter of historical record that in 1823 the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston (active to this day) sought to commission Beethoven to write an oratorio. The premise of Paul Griffiths's ingenious novel is that Beethoven accepted the commission and traveled to the United States to oversee its first performance. Griffiths grants the composer a few extra years of life and, starting with his voyage across the Atlantic and entry into Boston Harbor, chronicles his adventures and misadventures in a new world in which, great man though he is, he finds himself a new man. Relying entirely on historically attested possibilities to develop the plot, Griffiths shows Beethoven learning a form of sign language, struggling to rein in the uncertain inspiration of Reverend Ballou (his designated librettist), and finding a kindred spirit in the widowed Mrs. Hill, all the while keeping his hosts guessing as to whether he will come through with his promised composition. (And just what, the reader also wonders, will this new piece by Beethoven turn out to be?) The book that emerges is an improvisation, as virtuosic as it is delicate, on a historical theme.
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * Nonstop suspense from the #1 New York Times bestselling author: Investigator Lacy Stoltz follows the trail of a serial killer, and closes in on a shocking suspect--a sitting judge. In The Whistler, Lacy Stoltz investigated a corrupt judge who was taking millions in bribes from a crime syndicate. She put the criminals away, but only after being attacked and nearly killed. Three years later, and approaching forty, she is tired of her work for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct and ready for a change. Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby's father was murdered twenty years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades. Along the way, she has discovered other victims. Suspicions are easy enough, but proof seems impossible. The man is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law. He is a judge, in Florida--under Lacy's jurisdiction. He has a list, with the names of his victims and targets, all unsuspecting people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. How can Lacy pursue him, without becoming the next name on his list? The Judge's List is by any measure John Grisham's most surprising, chilling novel yet.
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Two-time Mary Higgins Clark Award-Winning Author! In the tradition of Daphne du Maurier and Shari Lapena, comes the newest mystery thriller from New York Times bestselling author Carol Goodman--a twisty, chilling story set in a former Magdalen Laundry in Manhattan that explores today's #MeToo complexities. "In a twisting, mesmerizing story that is as beautifully written as it is utterly propulsive, Goodman keeps us breathlessly turning the pages right to the shocking and poignant end. I absolutely loved this layered and moving novel!" --Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Confessions on the 7:45 You're never really alone Journalist Joan Lurie has written a seething article exposing a notorious newspaper tycoon as a sexual predator. But the night it goes live, she is brutally attacked. Traumatized and suffering the effects of a concussion, she moves into a highly secure apartment in Manhattan called the Refuge, which was at one time a Magdalen Laundry. Joan should be safe here, so how can she explain the cryptic incidents that are happening? Lillian Day is Joan's new 96-year-old neighbor at the Refuge. In 1941, Lillian witnessed a mysterious murder that sent her into hiding at the Magdalen Laundry, and she hasn't come out since. As she relates to Joan her harrowing story, Joan sees striking similarities to her own past. Melissa Osgood, newly widowed and revengeful, has burning questions about her husband's recent death. When she discovers a suspicious paper trail that he left behind, she realizes how little she knew about her marriage. But it seems Joan Lurie might be the one who has the answers. As these three lives intersect, each woman must stay one step ahead of those who are desperate to make sure the truth is never uncovered.
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As Marie Antoinette took her last breath as Queen of France in Paris, another formidable monarch--Antoinette's dearly beloved sister, Charlotte--was hundreds of miles away, in Naples, fighting desperately to secure her release from the revolutionaries who would take her life. Little did Charlotte know, however, that her sister's execution would change the course of history--and bring about the end of her own empire. "You are the queen. You are the queen that Antoinette wanted to be." Austria 1767: Maria Carolina Charlotte--tenth daughter and one of sixteen children of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria--knows her position as a Habsburg archduchess will inevitably force her to leave her home, her family, and her cherished sister, Antoinette, whose companionship she values over all else. But not yet. The Habsburg family is celebrating a great triumph: Charlotte's older sister, Josepha, has been promised to King Ferdinand IV of Naples and will soon take her place as queen. Before she can journey to her new home, however, tragedy strikes. After visiting the family crypt, Josepha contracts smallpox and dies. Shocked, Charlotte is forced to face an unthinkable new reality: she must now marry Ferdinand in her sister's stead. Bereft and alone, Charlotte finds that her life in Naples is more complicated than she could ever have imagined. Ferdinand is weak and feckless, and a disastrous wedding night plunges her into despair. Her husband's regent, Tanucci, a controlling and power-hungry man, has pushed the country to the brink of ruin. Overwhelmed, she asks her brother Leopold, now the Holy Roman Emperor, to send help--which he does in the form of John Acton, a handsome military man twenty years Charlotte's senior who is tasked with overseeing the Navy. Now, Charlotte must gather the strength to do what her mother did before her: take control of a country. In a time of political uprisings and royal executions and with the increasingly desperate crisis her favorite sister, Queen Marie Antoinette, is facing in France, how is a young monarch to keep hold of everything--and everyone--she loves? Find out in this sweeping, luxurious tale of family, court intrigue, and power.
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Shortlisted for the 2021 Costa Novel Award In this powerful, highly anticipated novel from an award-winning author, four people attempt to make a home in the midst of environmental disaster. Perched on a sloping hill, set away from a small town by the sea, the High House has a tide pool and a mill, a vegetable garden, and, most importantly, a barn full of supplies. Caro, Pauly, Sally, and Grandy are safe, so far, from the rising water that threatens to destroy the town and that has, perhaps, already destroyed everything else. But for how long? Caro and her younger half-brother, Pauly, arrive at the High House after her father and stepmother fall victim to a faraway climate disaster--but not before they call and urge Caro to leave London. In their new home, a converted summer house cared for by Grandy and his granddaughter, Sally, the two pairs learn to live together. Yet there are limits to their safety, limits to the supplies, limits to what Grandy--the former village caretaker, a man who knows how to do everything--can teach them as his health fails. A searing novel that takes on parenthood, sacrifice, love, and survival under the threat of extinction, The High House is a stunning, emotionally precise novel about what can be salvaged at the end of the world.
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With the verve and bite of Ottessa Moshfegh and the barbed charm of Nancy Mitford, Marlowe Granados's stunning debut brilliantly captures a summer of striving in New York City. Isa Epley, all of twenty-one years old, is already wise enough to understand that the purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure. She arrives in New York with her newly blond best friend looking for adventure. They have little money, but that's hardly going to stop them. By day, the girls sell clothes on a market stall, pinching pennies for their Bed-Stuy sublet and bodega lunches. By night, they weave between Brooklyn, the Upper East Side, and the Hamptons among a rotating cast of celebrities, artists, Internet entrepreneurs, stuffy intellectuals, and bad-mannered grifters. Resources run ever tighter and the strain tests their friendship as they try to convert social capital into something more lasting than precarious gigs as au pairs, nightclub hostesses, paid audience members, and aspiring foot fetish models. Through it all, Isa's bold, beguiling voice captures the precise thrill of cultivating a life of glamour and intrigue as she juggles paying her dues with skipping out on the bill. Happy Hour is a novel about getting by and having fun in a system that wants you to do neither.
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Set in the richly drawn art world of nineteenth-century Paris, this stunning historical novel imagines Édouard Manet's last days in an indelible snapshot of genius, illness, and the dying embers of passion. Suffering from the complications of syphilis toward the end of his life, Édouard Manet begins to jot down his daily impressions, reflections, and memories in a notebook. He travels for healing respites in the French countryside and finds inspiration in nature--a cloud of dragonflies, peonies blanketed by the morning dew. Back in Paris, the artist holds court in his studio and meets a mysterious muse, Suzon. Entranced by Suzon's cool blue eyes, he decides to paint his final masterpiece, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, life-sized--and wagers his health to complete it. In a sensual portrait of Manet's last years, illustrated with his own sketches, Maureen Gibbon offers a vibrant testament to the endurance of the artistic spirit.
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"The Bookseller's Secret is a delight from start to finish, a literary feast any booklover will savor!" --Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code ARISTOCRAT, AUTHOR, BOOKSELLER, WWII SPY--A THRILLING NOVEL ABOUT REAL-LIFE LITERARY ICON NANCY MITFORD In 1942, London, Nancy Mitford is worried about more than air raids and German spies. Still recovering from a devastating loss, the once sparkling Bright Young Thing is estranged from her husband, her allowance has been cut, and she's given up her writing career. On top of this, her five beautiful but infamous sisters continue making headlines with their controversial politics. Eager for distraction and desperate for income, Nancy jumps at the chance to manage the Heywood Hill bookshop while the owner is away at war. Between the shop's brisk business and the literary salons she hosts for her eccentric friends, Nancy's life seems on the upswing. But when a mysterious French officer insists that she has a story to tell, Nancy must decide if picking up the pen again and revealing all is worth the price she might be forced to pay. Eighty years later, Heywood Hill is abuzz with the hunt for a lost wartime manuscript written by Nancy Mitford. For one woman desperately in need of a change, the search will reveal not only a new side to Nancy, but an even more surprising link between the past and present... "With a vivid cast of unforgettable characters, Gable expertly and cleverly delivers wit, humor, and intrigue on every page. What a delightful escape." --Susan Meissner, bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things "A triumphant tale that highlights the magic of bookshops and literature to carry people through even the darkest days of war." --Kristina McMorris, New York Times bestselling author of Sold on a Monday
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"Full of rebellious comedy and vitality... Goldman's autobiographical immersion answers the urgent cry of memory... [He] is a natural storyteller--funny, intimate, sarcastic, all-noticing." --James Wood, New Yorker Francisco Goldman's first novel since his acclaimed, nationally bestselling Say Her Name (winner of the Prix Femina étranger), Monkey Boy is a sweeping story about the impact of divided identity-- whether Jewish/Catholic, white/brown, native/expat--and one misfit's quest to heal his damaged past and find love. Our narrator, Francisco Goldberg, an American writer, has been living in Mexico when, because of a threat provoked by his journalism, he flees to New York City, hoping to start afresh. His last relationship ended devastatingly five years before, and he may now finally be on the cusp of a new love with a young Mexican woman he meets in Brooklyn. But Francisco is soon beckoned back to his childhood home outside Boston by a high school girlfriend who witnessed his youthful humiliations, and to visit his Guatemalan mother, Yolanda, whose intermittent lucidity unearths forgotten pockets of the past. On this five-day trip, the specter of Frank's recently deceased father, Bert, an immigrant from Ukraine - pathologically abusive, yet also at times infuriatingly endearing -- as well as the dramatic Guatemalan woman who helped raise him, and the high school bullies who called him "monkey boy," all loom. Told in an intimate, irresistibly funny, and passionate voice, this extraordinary portrait of family and growing up "halfie," unearths the hidden cruelties in a predominantly white, working-class Boston suburb where Francisco came of age, and explores the pressures of living between worlds all his life. Monkey Boy is a new masterpiece of fiction from one of the most important American voices in the last forty years.
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The startling, witty, highly anticipated second novel from the critically acclaimed author of Atmospheric Disturbances. The story begins in 1618, in the German duchy of Württemberg. Plague is spreading. The Thirty Years' War has begun, and fear and suspicion are in the air throughout the Holy Roman Empire. In the small town of Leonberg, Katharina Kepler is accused of being a witch. Katharina is an illiterate widow, known by her neighbors for her herbal remedies and the success of her children, including her eldest, Johannes, who is the Imperial Mathematician and renowned author of the laws of planetary motion. It's enough to make anyone jealous, and Katharina has done herself no favors by being out and about and in everyone's business. So when the deranged and insipid Ursula Reinbold (or as Katharina calls her, the Werewolf) accuses Katharina of offering her a bitter, witchy drink that has made her ill, Katharina is in trouble. Her scientist son must turn his attention from the music of the spheres to the job of defending his mother. Facing the threat of financial ruin, torture, and even execution, Katharina tells her side of the story to her friend and next-door neighbor Simon, a reclusive widower imperiled by his own secrets. Drawing on real historical documents but infused with the intensity of imagination, sly humor, and intellectual fire for which Rivka Galchen is known, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch will both provoke and entertain. The story of how a community becomes implicated in collective aggression and hysterical fear is a tale for our time. Galchen's bold new novel touchingly illuminates a society and a family undone by superstition, the state, and the mortal convulsions of history.
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'I very much enjoyed this moving and absorbing book. In her compassionate depiction of one man's struggle to live with the aftermath of trauma and loss, Maria Goodin weaves together a compelling cast of characters, drawing the reader into Jay's quest to seek the forgiveness of others - and be able to forgive himself.'Fiona Valpy, best-selling author of The Dressmaker's Gift and The Beekeeper's Promise. Jay Lewis is a troubled soul. A single father, just trying to keep everything together, he knows he sabotages any real chance of happiness. Tormented by nightmares and flashbacks, he can't forget the events from one fateful night that steered the course of the rest of his life. Struggling against the crushing weight of guilt, Jay knows there are wrongs he needs to put right. Determined to get closure, he seeks out old friends and a past love. But in his quest for a more peaceful future, is he ready to face the trauma of his past? Praise for Nutmeg: 'A delicious confection. A tender fable about love and the power of the imagination to both sustain and heal us' Laura Harrington 'A beautifully quirky gem of a novel' Laissez Faire '...a heartwarming story about love and the reasons why it's sometimes easier and kinder to tell lies rather than the truth... simply enchanting' Bookish Magpie '[A] quirky and touching tale' Woman's Weekly
