Books Coming Out in April
Book Roundup - Books Coming Out in April
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The Rise and Fall of Ava Arcana by Jennifer Banash
Inspired by a twisted Lady Gaga conspiracy theory, Jennifer Banash transports us to the gritty exhilarating streets of New York City where two young talented women hope to be noticed, loved, and transformed into stars. THE RISE AND FALL OF AVA ARCANA explores how a tight but fragile friendship grows, thrives, and then ultimately crashes when the ugly pressures of promise and fame take control.
When Rolling Stone journalist Kayla McCray is assigned a cover story on pop icon Lexi Mayhem, Kayla stumbles across a startling new angle to the exposé. Years ago, another rising star from Lexi’s past mysteriously leaped to her death. Some things are better off forgotten, Lexi says. Kayla disagrees. It’s 2005 and Ava Petrova moves to New York with a notebook full of songs and a dream. Then she meets Lexi, an up-and-coming singer who brands Ava with an enigmatic new stage name and introduces her to an intoxicating city alive with possibilities. From fast friends and kindred spirits to creative muses and inseparable soul mates, Ava and Lexi embark on a parallel journey to stardom, but there is room for only one at the top. As past and present converge, Kayla chases the ghost of a young woman doomed by betrayal and erased by a secret and unravels the truth that it takes more than ambition to become a star.
Mid-Flight by Lisa Wilkes
2037 was a really bad year.
Lexi Brennan’s best friend was killed in a plane crash. Two weeks later, an intergalactic crisis threatened the fate of humanity. Authorities responded by launching a genocide.
Lexi opposed this vicious attack. Then again, what could she do? An eccentric flight attendant drawn to glamorous trysts, she felt powerless to incite change.
Until tragedy struck close to home. Suddenly, Lexi was forced to acknowledge the widespread atrocities. She uncovered a network of lies along with an opportunity to restore basic human rights. To protect others, Lexi would have to launch a movement that could destroy everything important to her, including her promising new romance.
Because I Loved You: A Novel by Donnaldson Brown
Sixteen-year-old aspiring artist Leni O’Hare loves brainy, gentle Caleb McGrath so much so that she keeps from him a secret she fears would prevent their escape from their crumbling families and the remote Texas town that will surely crush their dreams. But the choice she makes casts a shadow that follows them both for generations from Vietnam-era East Texas to New York City’s downtown art scene in the 1980s, up to the present day. What will it take for the secret to be revealed?
The Hidden Life of Aster Kelly by Katherine A. Sherbrooke
When a runway model in 1940s Hollywood makes a split-second decision intended to protect those she loves, she triggers a cascade of secrets that threatens to upend her daughter’s life decades later.
After winning a prestigious fashion design contest in 1948, Aster Kelly flees the world of modeling in New York and arrives in Beverly Hills to claim her prize: a design apprenticeship with Fernando Tivoli. But Fernando has no such job available. He’s busily preparing for the opportunity of a lifetime—proving to Galaxy Studios that he is the perfect couturier for their A-list stars. The moment he meets Aster, though, he knows she’s the missing ingredient he needs and asks her to be his stand-in model for Lauren Bacall. Aster is dismayed to once again have her creative potential sidelined, but when Fernando promises to mentor her if he wins the contract, she agrees.
Aster and Fernando quickly become romantically entangled with Hollywood insiders—Aster with the head of Galaxy Studios, Fernando with their biggest up-and-coming star, Christopher Page—and Aster and Fernando’s friendship becomes essential as they navigate a glamorous and complicated existence where what’s real must often be hidden, and no one is quite who they seem. As Aster’s ambitions grow and she faces a crisis, and Fernando’s future is threatened by the judgmental Hollywood machine, Aster makes a decision that changes the trajectory of their lives forever.
Twenty-five years later, despite knowing little of her mother’s time in Hollywood and being raised well outside the reaches of fame, Aster’s daughter Lissy is poised to become a Broadway star. But when the musical gets off to a rocky start, Lissy makes a rash decision of her own in an attempt to save the show. And when long-buried secrets blindside them both, mother and daughter are forced to question everything they thought they knew.
The Hidden Life of Aster Kelly is a story about the bonds of chosen family, the cost of fame and the enduring strength of love that will keep you guessing until the last page.
I'll Stop the World by Lauren Thoman
The end and the beginning become one in a heart-pounding coming-of-age mystery about the power of friendship, fate, and inexplicable second chances.
Is it the right place at the wrong time? Or the wrong place at the right time?
Trapped in a dead-end town, Justin Warren has had his life defined by the suspicious deaths of his grandparents. The unsolved crime happened long before Justin was born, but the ripple effects are still felt after thirty-eight years. Justin always knew he wouldn’t have much of a future. He just never imagined that his life might take him backward.
In a cosmic twist of fate, Justin’s choices send him crashing into the path of determined optimist Rose Yin. Justin and Rose live in the same town and attend the same school, but have never met—because Rose lives in 1985. Justin won’t be born for another twenty years. And his grandparents are still alive—for now.
In a series of events that reverberate through multiple lifetimes, Justin and Rose have a week to get Justin unstuck in time and put each of them in control of their futures—by solving a murder that hasn’t even happened yet.
This Bird Has Flown by Susanna Hoffs
Jane Start is thirty-three, broke, and recently single. Ten years prior, she had a hit song—written by world-famous superstar Jonesy—but Jane hasn’t had a breakout since. Now she’s living out of four garbage bags at her parents’ house, reduced to performing to Karaoke tracks in Las Vegas. Rock bottom.
But when her longtime manager Pippa sends Jane to London to regroup, she’s seated next to an intriguing stranger on the flight—the other Tom Hardy, an elegantly handsome Oxford professor of literature. Jane is instantly smitten by Tom, and soon, truly inspired. But it’s not Jane’s past alone that haunts her second chance at stardom and at love. Is Tom all that he seems? And can Jane emerge from the shadow of Jonesy’s earlier hit, and into the light of her own?
Hoffs says, “I decided to make my protagonist a musician and songwriter because it’s a job I know well. I’ve experienced the joy of making music, the thrill of performing, but also the challenges of being in the music business. I also wanted to give readers a peek behind the curtain of what it’s like to face an audience with your heart thumping so loudly you fear they can hear it too, and then somehow, to find your voice!”
In THIS BIRD HAS FLOWN, Hoffs expands her repertoire as an artist and brings readers the vicarious thrills of the first sexy blush of love, channeling your heartbreak and joy into songs that move people to tears and to dance, confronting your demons and forging your own path. This novel is a gift you didn’t know you needed but will be so happy you have.
Pride by Victoria Christopher Murray
The 7 Deadly Sins series that inspired several Lifetime original movies continues with this unputdownable novel following mortgage broker Journee Alexander as she tries to escape the secrets of her past without losing all she has worked to build in the present.
Journee Alexander grew up believing that the only person she could depend on was herself. After being abandoned by her mother, burning bridges with friends, and narrowly escaping bad business dealings with her first mentor, her trust is hard to earn and harder to keep. But she has overcome all of that and now, as a successful mortgage broker at the top of her game in Houston’s booming real estate market, she has every reason to be proud of her accomplishments. She achieved this massive success on her own—there’s no need to put her trust in anyone else.
But when Journee starts receiving cryptic text messages from an unknown number threatening to destroy everything she has worked to build, she is out of her depth for the first time. Forced to consider accepting help from someone, Journee turns to the first man she loved, the one who got away. But old habits are hard to break and after trusting only her own instincts for so long, can she put her pride aside and accept advice from an old flame? Or should she put her trust in a brand-new love who is in sync with all that she wants to do?
Journee is forced to confront the secrets of her past, the old hurts that never seem to heal, and the fact that sometimes a meteoric rise is just the first step in a devastating fall that will change her life forever.
Hollyland by Patricia Leavy
What happens when a seemingly ordinary woman with a passion for the arts falls in love with a Hollywood star known for his bachelor status and quick temper with the paparazzi? Something extraordinary.
Dee Schwartz is a writer and arts researcher. Ryder Field is a famous actor descended from Hollywood royalty. On the night they meet outside a bar, their connection is palpable. Ryder’s mother—legendary actress Rebecca Field, half of Hollywood’s golden couple when she died—was kidnapped and murdered by a crazed fan in a shocking event that forever tarnished Tinseltown. Dee’s mother, too, died when she was young. Bonded by this loss, the two embark on a love story that explores their search for magic—or “gold dust”—in their lives. Everything changes, however, when Dee mysteriously disappears after an awards ceremony. Is history repeating itself? Can there truly be a happily ever after in Hollywood?
Set against the backdrop of contemporary Los Angeles, Hollyland is a poignant novel that moves fluidly between romance, humor, suspense, and joy.
Justice is Served by Leslie Karst
Leslie was a small-town lawyer who was good at a job she hated and had taken up cooking as a way to spice up the daily grind. Spice is exactly what she got when her offer to cook for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her husband was accepted. Leslie was terrified – she had never thrown a high-stakes dinner before!
What follows is a lighthearted account of Leslie’s journey following this challenge – including a new unexpected connection with her partner and her parents, an inspiring trip to Paris, mouthwatering recipes, Ginsburg’s transformation from Jewish girl from Flatbush to one of the most celebrated justices in our nation’s history, and the dinner itself. A heartfelt story of simultaneously searching for delicious recipes and purpose in life, Justice is Served is an inspiring reminder that it’s never too late to discover—and follow—your deepest passion.
Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Manifestor Prophecy (Nic Blake and the Remarkables, 1) by Angie Thomas
Internationally bestselling superstar author Angie Thomas makes her middle grade debut with the launch of an inventive, hilarious, and suspenseful new contemporary fantasy trilogy inspired by African American history and folklore.
It’s not easy being a Remarkable in the Unremarkable world. Some things are cool—like getting a pet hellhound for your twelfth birthday. Others, not so much—like not being trusted to learn magic because you might use it to take revenge on an annoying neighbor.
All Nic Blake wants is to be a powerful Manifestor like her dad. But before she has a chance to convince him to teach her the gift, a series of shocking revelations and terrifying events launch Nic and two friends on a hunt for a powerful magic tool she’s never heard of...to save her father from imprisonment for a crime she refuses to believe he committed.
House of Cotton by Monica Brashears
A stunning, contemporary Black southern gothic novel about what it means to be a poor woman in the God- fearing south. Perfect for readers of The Other Black Girl and Luster
“Every page, every scene, every sentence of Monica Brashears’s debut novel House of Cotton dazzles and surprises. An intense, enthralling, and deeply satisfying read!” ―Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
"A new, dazzling, and essential American voice." ―George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo
Magnolia Brown is nineteen years old, broke, and effectively an orphan. She feels stuck and haunted: by her overdrawn bank account, her predatory landlord, and the ghost of her late grandmother Mama Brown.
One night, while working at her dead-end gas station job, a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton walks in and offers to turn Magnolia’s luck around with a lucrative “modeling” job at his family’s funeral home. She accepts. But despite things looking up, Magnolia’s problems fatten along with her wallet. When Cotton’s requests become increasingly weird, Magnolia discovers there’s a lot more at stake than just her rent.
Sharp as a belted knife, this sly social commentary cuts straight to the bone. House of Cotton will keep you mesmerized until the very last page.
Before We Were Innocent by Ella Berman
Ten years ago, after a sun-soaked summer spent in Greece, best friends Bess and Joni were cleared of having any involvement in their friend Evangeline’s death. But that didn’t stop the media from ripping apart their teenage lives like vultures.
While the girls were never convicted, Joni, ever the opportunist, capitalized on her newfound infamy to become a motivational speaker. Bess, on the other hand, resolved to make her life as small and controlled as possible so she wouldn’t risk losing everything all over again. And it almost worked. . . .
Except now Joni is tangled up in a crime eerily similar to that one fateful night in Greece. And when she asks Bess to come back to LA to support her, Bess has a decision to make.
Is it finally time to face up to what happened that night, exposing herself as the young woman she once was and maybe still is? And what happens if she doesn’t like what she finds?
Lost in Paris by Betty Webb
No one can hurt you like family.
PARIS, 1922: Zoe Barlow knows the pain of loss. By the age of eighteen, she'd already lost her father to suicide, and her reputation to an ill-fated love affair—not to mention other losses, too devastating for words. Exiled from her home and her beloved younger sister by their stepmother, she was unceremoniously dumped in Paris without a friend to help her find her way.
Four years later, Zoe has forged a new life as a painter amidst fellow artists, expats, and revolutionary thinkers struggling to make sense of the world in the aftermath of war. She's adopted this Lost Generation as her new family, so when her dear friend Hadley Hemingway loses a valise containing all of her husband Ernest's writings, Zoe happily volunteers to track it down. But her search for the bag keeps leading to murder victims, and Zoe must again face hard losses—this time among her adopted tribe. If she persists in her reckless quest to find the killer, the next life lost may be her own.
Half-Life of a Secret: Reckoning with a Hidden History by Emily Strasser
Half-Life of a Secret is a deeply researched memoir that traces the author's journey to reckon with the toxic legacies of secrecy—familial, environmental, international--arising from her grandfather’s work building nuclear weapons in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It weaves the personal and the political, the researched and the lyric, to ask questions about guilt, responsibility, mental illness, complicity, and love. (Longer synopsis available if needed!)
Hollow Beasts by Alisa Lynn Valdés
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Dirty Girls Social Club comes a wilderness thriller featuring Jodi Luna, a rookie game warden who takes on a terrorist group in rugged New Mexico.
After a long stint in academia, Jodi Luna leaves Boston for the wilds of New Mexico to start a new life as a game warden. Jodi is no stranger to the wilderness; her family has lived here for generations. Determined to protect her homeland, she nabs a poacher in her first week on the job.
But when he retaliates by stalking Jodi and her teenage daughter, a cat and mouse game leads Jodi to a white supremacist group deep in the mountains. She learns that new recruits are kidnapping women of color to prove their mettle to the organization’s leader.
When the local sheriff refuses to assist, Jodi joins up with young deputy Ashley Romero. Together, they set out to take down a terrorist network that will test not just their skills as investigators but also their knowledge of the land and commitment to its people.
But will Jodi’s fierce resolve to protect the voiceless put her loved ones in harm’s way?
Breaking New Ground by Amy Clipston
Korey Bontrager and Savannah Zook are just pretending to date—but could their feelings turn into something more?
Korey Bontrager knows he’s been an immature dummkopp. When his widowed dad remarried, Korey was unwelcoming to his kindhearted stepmother. Then he became estranged from his older brother. But after fourteen months in Ohio, God called Korey back to Pennsylvania.
Easier said than done. Back home, Korey feels left behind by his family and friends, who want to see him also happily married. Instead of looking for a new relationship, he finds himself spending time with Savannah Zook: the most outspoken maedel he’s ever met. She’s also confident and brave, having raised her younger brother from a young age. And she’s a natural beauty. But, hard as her friends try to convince her otherwise, she has no interest in dating. Her priority is looking out for her bullied brother.
So when Savannah suggests they pretend to date as a way to get her friends—and his family—off their backs, Korey readily agrees. Soon, he can’t imagine life without her. But could Savannah ever truly be part of his future? And after feeling betrayed by his brother and his last girlfriend, Korey isn’t quite ready to trust another woman with his heart.
Set in the faithful Amish community of Lancaster County, Breaking New Ground gives the most stubborn Bontrager a chance to redeem his story.
To Swoon and to Spar by Martha Waters
The Regency Vows series that is “sure to delight Bridgerton fans” (USA TODAY) returns with this story about a viscount and his irascible new wife who hopes to chase her husband from their shared home so that she can finally get some peace and quiet—only to find that his company is not as onerous as she thought.
The Half of It by Juliette Fay
One perfect night. Forty years of buried hurt. One chance to make it right. Can the past ever be fixed? With humor, heart, and grace, USA Today bestselling author Juliette Fay delivers a poignant, propulsive novel about settling the past, rekindling lost friendships, and discovering love when you least expect it.
“I’m wondering if we can be friends again.”
When 58-year-old Helen Spencer reviews her life, what she sees are the mistakes. Over the years, things seemed to go sideways incrementally, one little wrong decision at a time. She can even pinpoint where it all started to go awry: a wonderous, romantic night in the woods her senior year of high school with a boy named Cal Crosby. A night she would soon work hard to forget.
Forty years, one marriage, three children, and one grandbaby later, suddenly there he is—Cal Crosby!—right in front of her with grandchildren of his own in tow. The chance to finally get some answers and sort out what happened is within reach. But Helen would much prefer to keep that night and all the fury, hurt, and sorrow that followed tightly locked away where she doesn’t have to face it.
Cal Crosby, however, is ready to talk. He has no idea of the can of worms he’s about to open. In fact, he doesn’t know the half of it.
The Seaside Library by Brenda Novak
There are secrets that bring friends together, and others that drive them apart…
Mariners Island is barely ten miles long, but when Ivy, Ariana and Cam were teenagers, it was their whole world. Beyond the pristine beaches and iconic lighthouse lies the beautiful old library that belongs to Ivy’s family. While that bound Ivy to the island as an adult, Ariana could not leave Mariners behind fast enough. The town holds too many…memories. Not only her unrequited feelings for Cam, but the tragedy that left a scar on the community.
When a young girl went missing, a teenage Cam was unthinkably the prime suspect. Ariana and Ivy knew he couldn’t have hurt anyone, and they promised to protect him—even if it meant lying on his behalf.
Now, twenty years later, Ariana returns to Mariners just as new evidence emerges on the case, calling into question everything the three friends thought they knew—and everyone they thought they could trust. What really happened that night? Over the course of one eventful summer, Ariana, Ivy and Cam will learn the truth—about their pasts, their futures and the ties that still bind them as closely as the pages of a book…
Pomegranate by Helen Elaine Lee
The acclaimed author of The Serpent’s Gift returns with this gripping and powerful novel of healing, redemption, and love, following a queer Black woman who works to stay clean, pull her life together, and heal after being released from prison.
Ranita Atwater is “getting short.”
She is almost done with her four-year sentence for opiate possession at Oak Hills Correctional Center. With three years of sobriety, she is determined to stay clean and regain custody of her two children.
My name is Ranita, and I’m an addict, she has said again and again at recovery meetings. But who else is she? Who might she choose to become? As she claims the story housed within her pomegranate-like heart, she is determined to confront the weight of the past and discover what might lie beyond mere survival.
Ranita is regaining her freedom, but she’s leaving behind her lover Maxine, who has inspired her to imagine herself and the world differently. Now she must steer clear of the temptations that have pulled her down, while atoning for her missteps and facing old wounds. With a fierce, smart, and sometimes funny voice, Ranita reveals how rocky and winding the path to wellness is for a Black woman, even as she draws on family, memory, faith, and love in order to choose life.
Perfect for fans of Jesmyn Ward and Yaa Gyasi, Pomegranate is a complex portrayal of queer Black womanhood and marginalization in America: a story of loss, healing, redemption, and strength. In lyrical and precise prose, Helen Elaine Lee paints a humane and unflinching portrait of the devastating effects of incarceration and addiction, and of one woman’s determination to tell her story.
Unearthed: A Lost Actress, a Forbidden Book, and a Search for Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust by Meryl Frank
As a child, Meryl Frank was the chosen inheritor of family remembrance. Her aunt Mollie, a formidable and cultured woman, insisted that Meryl never forget who they were, where they came from, and the hate that nearly destroyed them. Over long afternoons, Mollie told her about the city, the theater, and, above all else, Meryl’s cousin, the radiant Franya Winter. Franya was the leading light of Vilna’s Yiddish theater, a remarkable and precocious woman who cast off the restrictions of her Hasidic family and community to play roles as prostitutes and bellhops, lovers and nuns. Yet there was one thing her aunt Mollie would never tell Meryl: how Franya died. Before Mollie passed away, she gave Meryl a Yiddish book containing the terrible answer, but forbade her to read it. And for years, Meryl obeyed.
Unearthed is the story of Meryl’s search for Franya and a timely history of hatred and resistance. Through archives across four continents, by way of chance encounters and miraculous discoveries, and eventually, guided by the shocking truth recorded in the pages of the forbidden book, Meryl conjures the rogue spirit of her cousin—her beauty and her tragedy. Meryl’s search reveals a lost world destroyed by hatred, illuminating the cultural haven of Vilna and its resistance during World War II. As she seeks to find her lost family legacy, Meryl looks for answers to the questions that have defined her life: what is our duty to the past? How do we honor such memories while keeping them from consuming us? And what do we teach our children about tragedy?
Serendipity by the Sea by Jennifer Vido
Will a hopeless romantic on the verge of landing her dream job reconnect with her wanderlust ex-boyfriend for a second chance at love?
Cate Ainsworth is poised to land her dream job when an ex-boyfriend-the guy she once loved who left town with no explanation-returns to their Lowcountry hometown. Their long-denied attraction tugs her in a new direction, but will she risk everything for a second chance at love?
A freelance photographer, Knox Price seeks adventure, not commitment. Back in town to care for his uncle gets complicated when he crosses paths with Cate, igniting a spark he can't ignore. But can he confess the truth about why he walked away?
Man on the Run by Charles Salzberg
Francis Hoyt, a daunting career criminal, is on the loose. Having masterfully escaped from his court appearance, Hoyt, now a fugitive, relocates to the West Coast to lick his wounds. Meanwhile, former newspaper journalist Dakota Richards embarks on her passion project: a true crime podcast. A year into her new career, she takes a deep dive into the life of the elusive Francis Hoyt. Hoyt, arrogant and desperate to get back in the limelight, taunts Dakota, dangling the possibility of cooperating with her project. Meanwhile, Hoyt is approached by a shady mob lawyer who offers him a lucrative job: breaking into a “mob bank” and liberating the contents. As Hoyt meticulously plans the break-in, Dakota unearths Hoyt's past and crosses paths with his nemesis: retired state investigator Charlie Floyd, who is on the hunt for Hoyt. As the lives of the fugitive, cop, and journalist become entangled, it's only a matter of time before their dangerous game turns lethal.
The Swiss Nurse by Mario Escobar
Based on the true story of an astonishingly brave woman who saved hundreds of mothers and their children during the Spanish Civil War and World War II.
Elisabeth Eidenbenz left Switzerland in 1937 to aid children orphaned during the Spanish Civil War. Now, her work has led her to France, where she’s determined to provide expectant mothers and their unborn children a refuge amid one of the worst humanitarian crises of the twentieth century.
Desperate to escape the invasion of Franco’s Fascist troops, Isabel Dueñas becomes one of many Spanish patriots fleeing their country. She leaves behind her husband as he fights for democracy, and she seeks asylum in a refugee camp across the border in France. Without adequate shelter, clean drinking water, or medical care, Isabel’s future looks bleak—until she meets Elisabeth.
When Germany invades Poland, a new avalanche of humanity enters France. And soon, fate binds Elisabeth and Isabel together in the most important work of their lives.
Based on the true stories of refugees and the woman who risked everything to save them, The Swiss Nurse shares a message of love and strength amid one of the darkest moments in history.
Hopefully Ever After by Beth Wiseman
In the third and final novel of Beth Wiseman’s Amish Bookstore series, two young people must find the courage to defy expectations and become who they’re meant to be.
Sixteen-year-old Eden Hale doesn’t want to be defined by her current circumstances. Her mother is in prison, she doesn’t know her father, and she’s had her own run-ins with the law, but Eden refuses to become what people expect. When she is sent to live with an Amish cousin she’s never met in Montgomery, Indiana, she welcomes the chance to become the person she wants to be without the burden of anyone’s judgment. Her hopes are confirmed when she meets Samuel, a young Amish man who seems to like her for who she really is.
Samuel Byler has grown up with strict Amish parents, and they aren’t happy that their only son is choosing to spend his free time with an outsider. As Eden and Samuel grow closer, assumptions close in around the young couple. It isn’t long before Eden starts to doubt herself and wonders if she is doomed to follow in her mother’s footsteps, whether she wants to or not. Meanwhile, Samuel finds himself slipping further and further from his faith—to Eden’s dismay.
Both Eden and Samuel’s futures hang in the balance as they face decisions about who they are—both as individuals and together.
The Tapestry of Grace by Kim Vogel Sawyer
When a group of Kansas women start a Frauenverein, a benevolent society devoted to aiding widows and orphans, life changes for more than just the hurting people they seek to help in this heartwarming romance inspired by historical events—from the bestselling author of Freedom’s Song.
With classes paused for the planting season, Alexandertol’s schoolteacher Augusta Dyck is glad for some meaningful work to occupy her time. She even knows exactly who their town’s benevolence society should help first: quiet, reserved widower Konrad Rempel and his young twin sons.
Konrad Rempel, however, is adamant that he doesn’t want help. His boys are mischievous but good-hearted. And though Konrad may be struggling, he doesn’t want anyone else sticking their nose in and telling him what his sons need. Or what he needs.
For her part, the charity’s founder Martina Krahn is relieved to have a reason to spend time outside her unhappy home. It even occurs to her that she may, through her work, encounter a boy in need of a family and so find a son for her husband since they have no children of their own.
Augusta, Konrad, and Martina each have deep needs and desires, and each imagines how they should be met: by reaching out or by being left alone. But God, indeed, knows best. Will the competing agendas of Alexandertol’s residents prevent them from receiving God’s help? Or will the members of this small Mennonite community find the answers to their prayers in the very last place they expect—in one another?
Sisters of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina
Part gripping thriller and part mythological horror, a young Native girl hunts for answers about a string of disappearances, all while being haunted herself.
Anna Horn is always looking over her shoulder. For the bullies who torment her, for the entitled visitors at the reservation’s casino…and for the nameless, disembodied entity that stalks her every step—an ancient tribal myth come to life, one that’s intent on devouring her whole.
With strange and sinister happenings occurring around the casino, Anna starts to suspect that not all the horrors on the reservation are old. As girls begin to go missing and the tribe scrambles to find answers, Anna struggles with her place on the rez, desperately searching for the key she’s sure lies in the legends of her tribe’s past.
When Anna’s own little sister also disappears, she’ll do anything to bring Grace home. But the demons plaguing the reservation—both old and new—are strong, and sometimes, it’s the stories that never get told that are the most important.
In this stunning and timely debut, author Nick Medina spins a tale of life as an outcast, the cost of forgetting tradition, and the courage it takes to become who you were always meant to be.
If We're Being Honest by Cat Shook
When Gerry, the beloved Williams family patriarch, dies suddenly, his grandchildren flock home to rural Georgia for the funeral. But when Gerry’s best friend steps up to the microphone, he delivers a eulogy—and a confession—that sends the family reeling. Shocked, heartbroken, and full of grief, the Williamses are forced to reckon with everything they thought they knew about their big, messy family.
The Golden Ticket by Irena Smith
Irena Smith lives and works in Palo Alto, California: home to high expectations and highly ambitious students. As a private college counselor, she advises them on how to be successful and how to get into the college of their dreams (or their parents’). As a parent, she navigates the same process. Told as a series of responses to college application essay prompts, Irena combines sharp social commentary, family history, and the lessons of great (and not so great) literature to offer a broader, more generous vision of what it means to succeed.
Kismet by Becky Chalsen
A sun-soaked debut about love, sisterhood, and destiny, set in the glorious beach town of Kismet, Fire Island . . . Can Amy’s marriage survive Jo’s wedding?
For as long as anyone can remember, it has been Amy, Jo, and Ben. Amy and Jo, the inseparable Sharp twins who couldn’t be more different; and Ben, Amy’s childhood sweetheart turned husband.
But as this year’s Fourth of July weekend approaches, something feels off. Jo’s whirlwind engagement and wedding ceremony now eclipses the twins’ long-awaited thirtieth birthday. Recent arguments between Amy and Ben have left their marriage feeling more like make-believe than ever-after. And as the family beach town transforms for Jo’s wedding weekend, Amy’s trusted trio will be tested by the most unexpected hurdle yet: the arrival of a handsome, mysterious newcomer in a best man suit. One with a strikingly familiar face. A face that Amy had planned to never see again.
This holiday weekend, even the strongest SPF won’t protect the Sharp twins from all the secrets about to take center stage.
Who Cries for the Lost by C.S. Harris
Sebastian St. Cyr must confront a savage killer and save his closest friend from the hangman’s noose in this heart-pounding new historical mystery from the USA Today bestselling author of When Blood Lies.
June 1815. The people of London wait, breathlessly, for news as Napoleon and the forces united against him hurtle toward their final reckoning at Waterloo. Among them is Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, frustrated to find himself sidelined while recovering from a dangerous wound he recently received in Paris. When the mutilated corpse of Major Miles Sedgewick surfaces from the murky waters of the Thames, Sebastian is drawn into the investigation of a murder that threatens one of his oldest and dearest friends, Irish surgeon Paul Gibson.
Gibson’s lover, Alexi Sauvage, was tricked into a bigamous marriage with the victim. But there are other women who may have wanted the cruel, faithless Major dead. His mistress, his neglected wife, and their young governess who he seduced all make for compelling suspects. Even more interesting to Sebastian is one of Sedgewick’s fellow officers, a man who shared Sedgewick’s macabre interest in both old English folklore and the occult. And then there’s a valuable list of Londoners who once spied for Napoleon that Sedgewick was said to be transporting to Charles, Lord Jarvis, the Regent’s powerful cousin who also happens to be Sebastian’s own father-in-law.
The deeper Sebastian delves into Sedgewick’s life, the more he learns about the Major’s many secrets and the list of people who could have wanted him dead grows even longer. Soon others connected to Sedgewick begin to die strange, brutal deaths and more evidence emerges that links Alexi to the crimes. Certain that Gibson will be implicated alongside his lover, Sebastian finds himself in a desperate race against time to stop the killings and save his friends from the terror of the gallows.
Fireborn: Phoenix and the Frost Palace (Fireborn, 2) by Aisling Fowler
Twelve journeys to new lands and embarks on even more perilous adventures in this sequel to Fireborn, which B.B. Alston praised as "the best kind of children's fantasy story."
Twelve is now a full-fledged hunter, with a new name worthy of her fiery powers: Phoenix.
But with her new powers come new responsibilities. When a plea for help arrives from the long-lost witch clan, it’s clear Phoenix’s newfound fire is their only hope. Phoenix and her friends must travel to Icegaard, the witches’ home, to combat the mysterious darkness there—one that grows stronger each day.
But deep within this darkness lies an enemy that could destroy Ember entirely . . . unless Phoenix can find the strength to stop it.
A thrilling adventure and poignant journey all in one, this second novel in the Fireborn trilogy—perfect for fans of The School for Good and Evil and the His Dark Materials series—will take Phoenix and her readers to enchanting new worlds, where unexpected friends, untold dangers, and a treacherous new enemy await.
The Golden Doves by Martha Hall Kelly
Two former female spies, bound together by their past, risk everything to hunt down an infamous Nazi doctor in the aftermath of World War II—an extraordinary novel inspired by true events from the New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls
American Josie Anderson and Parisian Arlette LaRue are thrilled to be working in the French resistance, stealing so many Nazi secrets that they become known as the Golden Doves, renowned across France and hunted by the Gestapo. Their courage will cost them everything. When they are finally arrested and taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, along with their loved ones, a reclusive Nazi doctor does unspeakable things to Josie’s mother, a celebrated Jewish singer who joined her daughter in Paris when the world seemed bright. And Arlette’s son is stolen from her, never to be seen again.
A decade later the Doves fall headlong into a dangerous dual mission: Josie is working for U.S. Army intelligence and accepts an assignment to hunt down the infamous doctor, while a mysterious man tells Arlette he may have found her son. The Golden Doves embark on a quest across Europe and ultimately to French Guiana, discovering a web of terrible secrets, and must put themselves in grave danger to finally secure justice and protect the ones they love.
Martha Hall Kelly has garnered acclaim for her stunning combination of empathy and research into the stories of women throughout history and for exploring the terrors of Ravensbrück. With The Golden Doves, she has crafted an unforgettable story about the fates of Nazi fugitives in the wake of World War II—and the unsung females spies who risked it all to bring them to justice.
Twelve Hours in Manhattan by Maan Gabriel
Bianca Maria Curtis is at the brink of losing it all when she meets Eric at a bar in Manhattan. Eric, as it turns out, is the famous Korean drama celebrity Park Hyun Min, and he’s in town for one night to escape the pressures of fame. From walking along Fifth Avenue to eating ice cream at Serendipity to sharing tender moments on top of the Empire State building, sparks fly as Bianca and Eric spend twelve magical hours far away from their respective lives. In that time, they talk about the big stuff: love, life, and happiness, and the freedom they both seek to fully exist and not merely survive.
But real life is more than just a few exhilarating stolen moments in time.
As the clock strikes the twelfth hour, Bianca returns back to the life she detests to face a tragedy that will test her strength and resolve—and the only thing she has to keep going is the memory of a man she loves in secret from a world away.
The Tip Line by Vanessa Cuti
Perfect for fans of Hannah Morrissey and May Cobb, Vanessa Cuti’s debut is an unsettling thriller that asks just how far you should go to find love.
Eager to get married, thirty-year-old Virginia Carey lands a job as an operator at a police tip line, where she thinks finding a husband will be easy. There’s Charlie Ford, a surprisingly sweet homicide detective, and charming police chief Declan “Deck” Brady. But just as Virginia’s plans begin to fall into place and she can almost picture a ring on her finger, she answers a call from Verona—a mysterious woman who provides a tip about four bodies on a remote local beach.
Verona, a sex worker, also gives Virginia details on sordid and raucous parties attended by law enforcement officers, and on the strange fetishes of cops she has been involved with. Then comes an explosive tip: Verona thinks it’s a police officer who is responsible for the killings.
But it can’t be true—the cops Virginia works with are marriage material, even if they are a little rough around the edges. While Verona trusts that her tips are being heard because she and Virginia have formed an unusual connection, Virginia realizes that the key to solving the case is ultimately in her hands.
The tip line will reveal the truth about those murders. So long as Virginia is willing to hear it.
Year of No Garbage by Eve O. Schaub
"Eve’s brave and honest experiment reveals the shocking impact of the throwaway society we’ve become and at the same time showing small ways we can all do better.” —Rebecca Prince-Ruiz, founder of Plastic Free July
Year of No Garbage is Super Size Me meets the environmental movement.
In this book Eve O. Schaub, humorist and stunt memoirist extraordinaire, tackles her most difficult challenge to date: garbage. Convincing her husband and two daughters to go along with her, Schaub attempts the seemingly impossible: living in the modern world without creating any trash at all. For an entire year. And- as it turns out- during a pandemic.
In the process, Schaub learns some startling things: that modern recycling is broken, and single stream recycling is a lie. That flushable wipes aren’t flushable and compostables aren’t compostable. That plastic drives climate change, fosters racism, and is poisoning the environment and our bodies at alarming rates, as microplastics are being found everywhere, from the top of Mount Everest to the placenta of unborn babies.
If you’ve ever thought twice about that plastic straw in your drink, you’re gonna want to read this book.
The Cherished by Patricia Ward
For fans of White Smoke, The Hazel Wood, and Wilder Girls comes an original, hypnotizing horror thriller in the vein of Midsommar, as one girl inherits a mysterious house from her estranged grandmother—and a letter with sinister instructions.
Jo never expected to be placed in her absent grandmother’s will—let alone be left her house, her land, and a letter with mysterious demands.
Upon arriving at the inherited property, things are even more strange.
The tenants mentioned in the letter are odd, just slightly…off. Jo feels something dark and decrepit in the old shack behind the house. And the things that her father used to talk about, his delusions… Why is Jo starting to believe they might be real?
But what Jo fears most is the letter from her grandmother. Because if it’s true, then Jo belongs here, in this strange place. And she has no choice but to stay.
I Ducking Love You by Kira Archer
Successful advertising exec Chloe Thomas is sick of getting the short end of the stick. No matter how hard she works, she keeps losing her promotion to rich, young, dudes. But not this year. Instead, Chloe’s going to pull up her waterproof waders (after she buys a pair) and attend her boss’s annual duck-hunting excursion. All she needs are some hunting lessons from a very delicious shooting instructor... there’s arm porn and then there’s this guy.
As the owner of a gun range, ex-SEAL Joshua “Cord” McCordrick is used to seeing terrible shots. Chloe, however, is a whole new level of safety hazard. It would take a miracle to turn her into an expert overnight. But after hearing her story, Cord is just as put off by her boss as she is, and he’s confident that if he went along, he could pull off some trickery to make her look good.
Now Chloe and Cord are posing as a newly-engaged couple with their eyes on the prize. And the heat between them is sizzling enough to convince everyone—including themselves. But when it comes to the heart, playing fowl might completely throw them off their game…
Out of the Ashes by Kara Thomas
A woman’s investigation into her family’s murders uncovers lies, secrets, and dangerous truths in a heart-wrenching novel of suspense.
When she was thirteen years old, Samantha Newsom’s family was murdered and their Catskills farmhouse set ablaze in an unsolved crime that left nothing behind but ashes.
Twenty-two years later, Sam is pulled back to her hometown of Carney, New York, under the shadows of the grim tragedy she’s never forgotten or forgiven. Authorities mishandled the evidence, false rumors were seeded about her family, suspects yielded nothing, and the case went cold. Not anymore. Investigator Travis Meacham has been assigned to the case, and he has news for Sam: a prison inmate has come forward with a shocking admission. Sam’s baby sister, presumed dead in the fire, made it out of the house that night.
It’s not the only reveal that upends everything Sam thinks she knows about the crime and her family. But Carney protects its secrets. And this time, Sam might not be able to escape the town alive.
Out of Ireland: A Novel by Marian O’Shea Wernicke
In the late 1860s in Bantry, Ireland, sixteen-year-old Eileen O’Donovan is forced by her family to marry an older widower whom she barely knows and does not love. Her brother Michael, at age nineteen, becomes involved with the outlawed Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of British rule in Ireland. Their fates intertwine when they each decide to emigrate to America, where both tragedy and happiness await them. An exciting coming-of-age story of a brother and sister in an Ireland still under the harsh rule of the British, Out of Ireland brings alive the story of our ancestors who braved the dangers of immigration in order to find a better life for themselves and their families.
The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths
The discovery of a missing woman’s bones force Ruth and Nelson to finally confront their feelings for each other as they desperately work to exonerate one of their own in this not-to-be-missed Ruth Galloway mystery from USA Today bestselling author Elly Griffiths.
When builders discover a human skeleton during a renovation of a café, they call in archeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway, who is preoccupied with the threatened closure of her department and by her ever-complicated relationship with DCI Nelson. The bones turn out to be modern—the remains of Emily Pickering, a young archaeology student who went missing in 2002. Suspicion soon falls on Emily’s Cambridge tutor and also on another archeology enthusiast who was part of the group gathered the weekend before she disappeared—Ruth’s friend Cathbad.
As they investigate, Nelson and his team uncover a tangled web of relationships within the archeology group and look for a link between them and the café where Emily’s bones were found. Then, just when the team seem to be making progress, Cathbad disappears. The trail leads Ruth a to the Neolithic flint mines in Grimes Graves. The race is on, first to find Cathbad and then to exonerate him, but will Ruth and Nelson uncover the truth in time to save their friend?
The Other Side of Infinity by Joan F. Smith
They Both Die at the End meets The Butterfly Effect in this YA novel by Joan F. Smith, where a teen uses her gift of foreknowledge to help a lifeguard save a drowning man―only to discover that her actions have suddenly put his life at risk.
It was supposed to be an ordinary day at the pool, but when lifeguard Nick hesitates during a save,
seventeen-year-old December uses her gift of foreknowledge to rescue the drowning man instead. The action comes at a cost. Not only will Nick and December fall in love, but also, she envisions that his own life is now at risk. The other problem? They’re basically strangers.
December embarks on a mission to save Nick’s life, and to experience what it feels like to fall in love―something she’d formerly known she’d never do. Nick, battling the shame of screwing up the rescue when he’s heralded as a community hero, resolves to make up for his inaction by doing December a major solid and searching for her mother, who went missing nine years ago.
As they grow closer, December’s gift starts playing tricks, and Nick’s family gets closer to an ugly truth about him. They both must learn what it really means to be a hero before time runs out.
The Weaving of Life by Linda Byler
The first in a new series about an independent Amish woman and her struggles in career and romance.
Susan Lapp is a hardworking Amish woman in her early twenties. She enjoys the financial independence that working two jobs—as a housecleaner and at the local deli in Lancaster—affords her. And based on her sisters' tumultuous experiences with their husbands, she has no interest in dating or marriage. She's perfectly content with her life as it is, thank you very much.
When Susan's best friend Beth begins to date Susan's brother Mark, the couple is determined to play matchmaker for Susan. Susan begrudgingly agrees to humor them and soon finds herself caught between an undeniable attraction for one of Mark's coworkers and her unflinching commitment to staying single. Soon, her complicated feelings take her in directions she once couldn't have imagined. She experiences hardship like she never has before—homesickness, miserable weather in a place that feels so foreign, and an incredibly challenging job. And despite her attempts to escape romantic entanglements, she finds herself longing for the stability and familiarity of a committed relationship back home. Still, she wrestles with fear and uncertainty. How is she to know God's will for her life?
Murder on Bedford Street by Victoria Thompson
Midwife Sarah Malloy and her private investigator husband, Frank, must stop a killer lurking among a young family in the newest installment of the USA Today bestselling Gaslight Mysteries.
Hugh Breedlove is far from the most agreeable client private investigator Frank Malloy has ever had, but his case is impossible to refuse: his young niece, Julia, has been wrongfully committed to an insane asylum by her cruel and unfaithful husband, Chet Longly. Though Breedlove and his wife seem more interested in protecting the family reputation than their niece’s safety, Frank and Sarah agree to help for the sake of Julia and the young son she left behind.
Frank and Sarah’s investigation reveals a dark secret—a maid at the Longly home died suspiciously under Chet’s watch, and now it seems Julia’s son might also be in danger. The Malloys fear they are dealing with a man more dangerous than they had anticipated, one who will do anything to defame his wife. But all is not as it seems in the Longly family, and perhaps another monster is hiding in plain sight....
Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater
In this "utterly unforgettable" debut (Catherine Ryan Howard), a disaffected, true crime-obsessed bookseller develops a dangerous obsession with a colleague.
Roach would rather be listening to the latest episode of her favorite true crime podcast than assisting the boring and predictable customers at her local branch of the bookstore Spines, where she’s worked her entire adult life. A serious true crime junkie, Roach looks down her nose at the pumpkin-spice-latte-drinking casual fans who only became interested in the genre once it got trendy. But when Laura, a pretty and charismatic children’s bookseller, arrives to help rejuvenate the struggling bookstore branch, Roach recognizes in her an unexpected kindred spirit.
Despite their common interest in true crime, Laura keeps her distance from Roach, resisting the other woman’s overtures of friendship. Undeterred, Roach learns everything she can about her new colleague, eventually uncovering Laura’s traumatic family history. When Roach realizes that she may have come across her very own true crime story, interest swiftly blooms into a dangerous obsession.
A darkly funny suspense novel, Death of a Bookseller raises ethical questions about the fervor for true crime and how we handle stories that don’t belong to us.
I Got it From Here by Francesca Miracola
Francesca Miracola was trained from an early age to keep up appearances at all costs; but behind closed doors, her parents’ toxic marriage served as a blueprint for dysfunction. Raw and illuminating, I Got It from Here is one woman’s story of saving herself and her children from the grips of her husband posing as a family man–and from the inherited trauma passed down by her own family of birth–while learning to trust in the inner voice that’s been trying to guide her all along.
