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Lisa Unger, author of Last Girl Ghosted

She met him through a dating app. An intriguing picture on a screen, a date at a downtown bar. What she thought might be just a quick hookup quickly became much more. She fell for him --- hard. It happens sometimes, a powerful connection with a perfect stranger takes you by surprise. Could it be love? But then, just as things were getting real, he stood her up. Then he disappeared --- profiles deleted, phone disconnected. She was ghosted. Maybe it was her fault. She shared too much, too fast. Soon she learns there were others. Girls who thought they were in love. Girls who later went missing. Chasing a digital trail into his dark past --- and hers --- she finds herself on a dangerous hunt. And she's not sure whether she's the predator --- or the prey.

Alice Hoffman, author of The Book of Magic

The Owens family has been cursed in matters of love for over 300 years, but all of that is about to change. The novel begins in a library, the best place for a story to be conjured, when beloved aunt Jet Owens hears the deathwatch beetle and knows she has only seven days to live. Jet is not the only one in danger --- the curse is already at work. A frantic attempt to save a young man’s life spurs three generations of the Owens women, and one long-lost brother, to use their unusual gifts to break the curse as they travel from Paris to London to the English countryside where their ancestor Maria Owens first practiced the Unnamed Art. The younger generation discovers secrets that have been hidden from them in matters of both magic and love by Sally, their fiercely protective mother.

Amor Towles, author of The Lincoln Highway

In June 1954, 18-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served 15 months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett's future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction --- to the City of New York.

Editorial Content for The Book of Form and Emptiness

Teaser

THE BOOK OF FORM AND EMPTINESS is a brilliantly inventive novel about loss, growing up and our relationship with things.

Promo

THE BOOK OF FORM AND EMPTINESS is a brilliantly inventive novel about loss, growing up and our relationship with things.

About the Book

A brilliantly inventive novel about loss, growing up and our relationship with things.

One year after the death of his beloved musician father, 13-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house --- a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous.

At first, Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public library, where objects are well-behaved and know to speak in whispers. There, Benny discovers a strange new world. He falls in love with a mesmerizing street artist with a smug pet ferret, who uses the library as her performance space. He meets a homeless philosopher-poet, who encourages him to ask important questions and find his own voice amongst the many.

And he meets his very own Book --- a talking thing --- who narrates Benny’s life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter.

With its blend of sympathetic characters, riveting plot and vibrant engagement with everything from jazz, to climate change, to our attachment to material possessions, THE BOOK OF FORM AND EMPTINESS is classic Ruth Ozeki --- bold, wise, poignant, playful, humane and heartbreaking.

Editorial Content for Cloud Cuckoo Land

Teaser

Dedicated to “the librarians then, now, and in the years to come,” CLOUD CUCKOO LAND is a beautiful and redemptive novel about stewardship --- of the book, of the Earth, of the human heart.

Promo

Dedicated to “the librarians then, now, and in the years to come,” CLOUD CUCKOO LAND is a beautiful and redemptive novel about stewardship --- of the book, of the Earth, of the human heart.

About the Book

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, perhaps the most best-selling and beloved literary fiction of our time, comes the highly anticipated CLOUD CUCKOO LAND.

Set in Constantinople in the 15th century, in a small town in present-day Idaho, and on an interstellar ship decades from now, Anthony Doerr’s third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope --- and a book. In CLOUD CUCKOO LAND, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness --- with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.

Thirteen-year-old Anna, an orphan, lives inside the formidable walls of Constantinople in a house of women who make their living embroidering the robes of priests. Restless and insatiably curious, Anna learns to read, and in this ancient city, famous for its libraries, she finds a book, the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to a utopian paradise in the sky. This she reads to her ailing sister as the walls of the only place she has known are bombarded in the great siege of Constantinople. Outside the walls is Omeir, a village boy, miles from home, conscripted with his beloved oxen into the invading army. His path and Anna’s will cross.

Five hundred years later, in a library in Idaho, octogenarian Zeno, who learned Greek as a prisoner of war, rehearses five children in a play adaptation of Aethon’s story, preserved against all odds through centuries. Tucked among the library shelves is a bomb, planted by a troubled, idealistic teenager, Seymour. This is another siege. And in a not-so-distant future, on the interstellar ship Argos, Konstance is alone in a vault, copying on scraps of sacking the story of Aethon, told to her by her father. She has never set foot on our planet.

Like Marie-Laure and Werner in ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, Anna, Omeir, Seymour, Zeno and Konstance are dreamers and outsiders who find resourcefulness and hope in the midst of gravest danger. Their lives are gloriously intertwined. Doerr’s dazzling imagination transports us to worlds so dramatic and immersive that we forget, for a time, our own. Dedicated to “the librarians then, now, and in the years to come,” CLOUD CUCKOO LAND is a beautiful and redemptive novel about stewardship --- of the book, of the Earth, of the human heart.

Editorial Content for Harlem Shuffle

Teaser

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD and THE NICKEL BOYS comes a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.

Promo

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD and THE NICKEL BOYS comes a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.

About the Book

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD and THE NICKEL BOYS, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.

"Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked..." To his customers and neighbors on 125th Street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. 

Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. 

Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn't ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn't ask questions, either. 

Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa --- the "Waldorf of Harlem" --- and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist doesn't go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. 

Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs? 

HARLEM SHUFFLE's ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It's a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. 

But mostly it's a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.

Editorial Content for The Man Who Died Twice: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery

Teaser

Richard Osman is back with everyone’s favorite mystery-solving quartet, and the second installment of the Thursday Murder Club series is just as clever and warm as the first --- an unputdownable, laugh-out-loud pleasure of a read.

Promo

Richard Osman is back with everyone’s favorite mystery-solving quartet, and the second installment of the Thursday Murder Club series is just as clever and warm as the first --- an unputdownable, laugh-out-loud pleasure of a read.

About the Book

The second gripping novel in the #1 internationally bestselling Thursday Murder Club series, the first of which Kate Atkinson called "A little beacon of pleasure in the midst of the gloom... SUCH FUN!"

Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim --- the Thursday Murder Club --- are still riding high off their recent real-life murder case and are looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet at Cooper’s Chase, their posh retirement village.

But they are out of luck.

An unexpected visitor --- an old pal of Elizabeth’s (or perhaps more than just a pal?) --- arrives, desperate for her help. He has been accused of stealing diamonds worth millions from the wrong men, and he’s seriously on the lam.

Then, as night follows day, the first body is found. But not the last. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim are up against a ruthless murderer who wouldn’t bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can our four friends catch the killer before the killer catches them? And if they find the diamonds, too? Well, wouldn’t that be a bonus? You should never put anything beyond the Thursday Murder Club.

Richard Osman is back with everyone’s favorite mystery-solving quartet, and the second installment of the Thursday Murder Club series is just as clever and warm as the first --- an unputdownable, laugh-out-loud pleasure of a read.

Win Up to 12 Copies of ROCK PAPER SCISSORS by Alice Feeney for Your Group

Each month, we ask book groups to share the titles they are reading that month and rate them. From all entries, three winners will be selected, and each will win up to 12 copies of that month’s prize book for their group. Note: To be eligible to win, let us know the title of the book that YOUR book group is CURRENTLY reading, NOT the title we are giving away.

Our latest prize book is ROCK PAPER SCISSORS, a new domestic thriller from the queen of the killer twist, Alice Feeney. Here's the intriguing tagline for this instant New York Times bestseller and Bookreporter.com Bets On selection: Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget. To enter, please fill out the form below by Wednesday, November 10th at noon ET.

 

September 30, 2021

Back in June 2018, I interviewed Stephanie Land at BookExpo. Her book, MAID: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive, was a BookExpo Buzz title. It came out the following January, and I picked it as a Bookreporter.com Bets On selection. It hit the New York Times bestseller list, and it was one of those books whose message stayed with me. Last night, I had the opportunity to screen the first episode of the Netflix adaptation of MAID, which drops tomorrow.

Alice Feeney, author of Rock Paper Scissors

Things have been wrong with Mr. and Mrs. Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife. Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts --- paper, cotton, pottery, tin --- and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.