Books Publishing This Week
Books Publishing This Week: June 9 - 15
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Imagine this:
On this June afternoon, with the sun casting a warm glow through the window, you find yourself craving the companionship of a new book. The air is alive with the hum of summer, carrying with it the promise of lazy afternoons spent lost in the pages of a captivating story.
With a sigh of contentment, you settle into your favorite reading spot, a cozy corner of the couch bathed in sunlight. The world outside seems to slow its pace, as if anticipating the quiet magic that is about to unfold within the confines of the book in your hands.
As you crack open the cover, there's a sense of anticipation that dances along your skin, like the gentle caress of a summer breeze. The first few pages are a blank canvas, waiting to be filled with the vibrant colors of imagination and possibility. With each turn of the page, you feel yourself being drawn deeper into the world crafted by the author's words.
The prose flows effortlessly, painting vivid scenes that come alive in your mind's eye. You can almost feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, hear the distant chirping of birds in the trees, and smell the sweet fragrance of flowers carried on the breeze. It's as if you've been transported to another place and time, where anything is possible and adventure awaits just around the corner.
Time seems to lose all meaning as you lose yourself in the labyrinth of the story. Hours slip by unnoticed, the outside world fading into oblivion as you immerse yourself in the lives of the characters. With each passing page, you become more entangled in their hopes and dreams, their fears and desires becoming your own.
The afternoon sun begins its descent towards the horizon, casting long shadows that dance across the room like playful spirits. And yet, you remain oblivious to the passage of time, so enraptured are you by the world unfolding before you. Every word is a breadcrumb leading you further down the winding path of the plot, each chapter a new discovery waiting to be unearthed.
As the afternoon melts into evening, you find yourself nearing the end of the book. The journey has been exhilarating, filled with twists and turns that kept you on the edge of your seat. And yet, as you approach the final pages, there's a twinge of sadness in your heart, knowing that soon you will have to bid farewell to the characters who have become like old friends.
But even as you close the book and set it aside, its pages still echo with the whispers of the adventures you've shared. The characters linger in your thoughts, their stories etched into the fabric of your being. And as you gaze out the window at the fading light of the June evening, you can't help but feel a sense of gratitude for the journey you've been on, and the new worlds you've discovered within the pages of a single book.
Scroll down to find out what book you might be reading…
Klara's Truth by Susan Weissbach Friedman
It is May 2014, and Dr. Klara Lieberman—forty-nine, single, professor of archaeology at a small liberal arts college in Maine, a contained person living a contained life—has just received a letter from her estranged mother, Bessie, that will dramatically change her life. Her father, she learns—the man who has been absent from her life for the last forty-three years, and about whom she has long been desperate for information—is dead. Has been for many years, in fact, which Bessie clearly knew. But now the Polish government is giving financial reparations for land it stole from its Jewish citizens during WWII, and Bessie wants the money. Klara has little interest in the money—but she does want answers about her father. She flies to Warsaw, determined to learn more.
In Poland, Klara begins to piece together her father’s, and her own, story. She also connects with extended family, begins a romantic relationship, and discovers her calling: repairing the hundreds of forgotten, and mostly destroyed, pre-War Jewish cemeteries in Poland. Along the way, she becomes a more integrated, embodied, and interpersonally connected individual—one with the tools to make peace with her past and, for the first time in her life, build purposefully toward a bigger future.
The Vixen Amber Halloway by Carol LaHines
Ophelia, a professor of Dante, is stricken when she discovers that her husband Andy has been cheating on her with a winsome colleague. What follows is Ophelia' s figurative descent into hell as she obsessively tracks her subjects, performs surveillance in her beat-up Volvo, and moves into the property next door to Amber' s, which has gone into foreclosure. She spies on the lovers, growing more and more estranged from reality. Andy' s betrayal reawakens the earlier trauma of abandonment by her mother at the age of eight. When Andy and Amber become engaged, Ophelia snaps. Carol Lahines has penned a thrilling and a moving portrait of one woman' s psychological breakdown.
Jackpot Summer by Elyssa Friedland
Author Interview with Elyssa Friedland
After the Potter siblings win a life-changing fortune in the lottery, they assume their messy lives will transform into sleek, storybook perfection—but they couldn’t be more wrong in the new laugh-out-loud novel from beloved author Elyssa Friedland.
The four Potter children were raised to respect the value of a dollar. Their mother reused tea bags and refused to pay retail; their father taught them to budget before he taught them to ride a bike. And yet, as adults, their financial lives—as well as their personal lives—are in complete disarray.
The siblings reunite when their newly widowed father puts their Jersey Shore home on the market. Packing up their childhood isn’t easy, especially when they’ve all got drama brewing back home. Matthew is miserable at his corporate law job and wishes he had more time with his son; Laura’s marriage is imploding in spectacular fashion; Sophie’s art career is stalled while her boyfriend’s is on the rise; and Noah’s total failure to launch has him doing tech repair for pennies.
So when Noah sees an ad for a Powerball drawing, he and his sisters go in on a ticket. Matthew passes but the ticket is a winner and all hell breaks loose as the infusion of cash causes sibling rivalries and family secrets to resurface. Without their mother, and with their father busy playing pickleball in a Florida retirement village, the once close-knit siblings search for comfort in shiny new toys instead of each other.
It’s not long before the Potters start to realize that they’ll never feel rich unless they can pull their family back together.
A Love Like the Sun by Riss M. Neilson
Lifelong best friends spend a fateful summer discovering what might happen if they were to be something more in this radiant, heart-clenching adult debut.
Laniah Thompson is a homebody who craves privacy. Issac Jordan is internet famous and spends his days followed by paparazzi. She runs a small business with her mom in her hometown. He runs an international brand.
And they’ve been best friends since childhood.
When Issac comes home to Providence for the first time in months and discovers Laniah’s dream is slipping out of reach as she and her mom struggle to pay the bills at Wildly Green, their natural hair store, she refuses to take a dime from him. And so, he does what any self-respecting best friend would do: tells the world they’re dating.
Suddenly business is booming, and Laniah agrees to his ridiculous plan to pretend to be lovers for the course of the summer. Just long enough to catch the eye of an investor and get her dream back on track, like she helped him do so many years ago, he reminds her.
Too soon, though, Laniah knows she’s playing with fire, because for as long as they’ve been friends there’s an undeniable pull they’ve never given in to. And as the lines between art and life—real and pretend—blur, it becomes harder and harder to see where friendship ends and something else begins....
Told over the course of three sizzling summer months, A Love Like the Sun is about shared history, those who make us our bravest selves, and love in its many forms.
Bitter and Sweet by Rhonda McKnight
From the beloved author of The Thing About Home comes a dual timeline tale of family, grief, secrets, and the sweet redemption that lies within the bonds of sisterhood.
-The Present-
When summoned to Georgetown, South Carolina, sisters Mariah Clark and Sabrina Holland both assume their ailing grandfather's health has gotten worse. Neither expects their grandmother's undeniable request--save the family restaurant.
Mariah is at a crossroad in her life. After being dumped by her husband and forced to walk away from their diner that she helped rescue from bankruptcy, bitter feelings consume her. Even though the restaurant has been in the family for eighty-six years, giving her all to another struggling business isn't something she wants to do.
Living out of her van and striving for a fresh start, Sabrina yearns for stability for herself and her daughter and a chance to turn her baking hustle into a bona-fide business. The family restaurant may be just the blessing she needs--but as old tensions and angry disagreements resurface, Sabrina wonders if her sister will let her have a say.
-The Past-
After falling victim to a love she thought would last a lifetime, Tabitha Cooper finds herself away from home and struggling to survive in Charleston in the early twentieth century. She is determined to turn corn into cornbread and to take care of her children the best way she knows how--by serving food that's good for the soul--and along the way forges a path that leaves a legacy of success for generations to come.
Through letters that reveal Tabitha's complicated past, the sisters discover truths that just might be the right recipe to mend their hearts--if they can find a way to savor the blessing of today and leave the bitter aftertaste of old memories behind them.
The Forgotten Names by Mario Escobar
In August 1942, French parents were faced with a horrible choice: watch their children die, or abandon them forever. Fifty years later, it becomes one woman's mission to match the abandoned names with the people they belong to.
Five years after the highly publicized trial of Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon," law student Valérie Portheret began her doctoral research into the 108 children who disappeared from Vénissieux fifty years earlier, children who somehow managed to escape deportation and certain death in the German concentration camps. She soon discovers that their rescue was no unexplainable miracle. It was the result of a coordinated effort by clergy, civilians, the French Resistance, and members of other humanitarian organizations who risked their lives as part of a committee dedicated to saving those most vulnerable innocents.
Theirs was a heroic act without precedent in Nazi-occupied Europe, made possible due to a loophole in the Nazi agenda to deport all Jewish immigrants from the country: a legally recognized exemption for unaccompanied minors. Therefore, to save their children, the Jewish mothers of Vénissieux were asked to make the ultimate sacrifice of abandoning them forever.
Told in dual timelines, The Forgotten Names is a reimagined account of the true stories of the French men and women who have since been named Righteous Among the Nations, the children they rescued, the stifled cries of shattered mothers, and a law student, whose twenty-five-year journey allowed those children to reclaim their heritage and remember their forgotten names.
That Night in the Library by Eva Jurczyk
One night locked in the library. What could go wrong?
On the night before graduation, seven students gather in the basement of their university's rare books library. They're not allowed in the library after closing time, but it's the perfect place for the ritual they want to perform―one borrowed from the Greeks, said to free those who take part in it from the fear of death. And what better time to seek the wisdom of ancient gods than in the hours before they'll scatter in different directions to start their real lives?
But just a few minutes into their celebration, the lights go out―and one of them drops dead. As the body count rises, with nothing but the books to protect them, the group must figure out how to survive the night while trapped with a murderer. That Night in the Library is a chilling literary mystery that transports readers to a world where secrets live in the dark, books breathe fears to life, and the only way out is to wait until morning.
The Sons of El Rey by Alex Espinoza
A timeless, epic novel about a family of luchadores contending with forbidden love and secrets in Mexico City, Los Angeles, and beyond.
Ernesto Vega has lived many lives, from pig farmer to construction worker to famed luchador El Rey Coyote, yet he has always worn a mask. He was discovered by a local lucha libre trainer at a time when luchadores—Mexican wrestlers donning flamboyant masks and capes—were treated as daredevils or rock stars. Ernesto found fame, rapidly gaining name recognition across Mexico, but at great expense, nearly costing him his marriage to his wife Elena.
Years later, in East Los Angeles, his son, Freddy Vega, is struggling to save his father’s gym while Freddy’s own son, Julian, is searching for professional and romantic fulfillment as a Mexican American gay man refusing to be defined by stereotypes.
With alternating perspectives, Ernesto and Elena take you from the ranches of Michoacán to the makeshift colonias of Mexico City. Freddy describes life in the suburban streets of 1980s Los Angeles and the community their family built, as Julian descends deep into our present-day culture of hook-up apps, lucha burlesque shows, and the dark underbelly of West Hollywood. The Sons of El Rey is an intimate portrait of a family wading against time and legacy, yet always choosing the fight.
The Paris Widow by Kimberly Belle
Author Interview with Kimberly Belle
A dream vacation turns deadly when secrets from the past catch up to a married couple in Paris in this new edge-of-your-seat thriller from USA Today bestselling author, Kimberly Belle.
When Stella met Adam, she thought she had finally found a nice, normal guy—a welcome change from her previous boyfriend and her precarious jetsetter lifestyle with him. But her secure world comes crashing down when Adam goes missing after an explosion in the city square. Unable to reach him, she panics.
As the French police investigate, it’s revealed that Adam was on their radar as a dealer of rare and stolen antiquities with a long roster of criminal clients. Reeling from this news, Stella is determined not to leave Paris until she has the full story. Was Adam a random victim or the target of the explosion? And why is someone following her through the streets of Paris?
An irresistible, fast-paced read set in some of Europe’s most inviting locales, The Paris Widow explores how sinister secrets of the past stay with us—no matter how far we travel.
Not In Love by Ali Hazelwood
A forbidden, secret affair proves that all’s fair in love and science—from New York Times bestselling author Ali Hazelwood.
Rue Siebert might not have it all, but she has enough: a few friends she can always count on, the financial stability she yearned for as a kid, and a successful career as a biotech engineer at Kline, one of the most promising start-ups in the field of food science. Her world is stable, pleasant, and hard-fought. Until a hostile takeover and its offensively attractive front man threatens to bring it all crumbling down.
Eli Killgore and his business partners want Kline, period. Eli has his own reasons for pushing this deal through—and he’s a man who gets what he wants. With one burning exception: Rue. The woman he can’t stop thinking about. The woman who's off-limits to him.
Torn between loyalty and an undeniable attraction, Rue and Eli throw caution out the lab and the boardroom windows. Their affair is secret, no-strings-attached, and has a built-in deadline: the day one of their companies will prevail. But the heart is risky business—one that plays for keeps.
The Summer Escape by Jill Shalvis
Author Interview with Jill Shalvis
Secrets are revealed and forbidden sparks ignited in this sizzling Sunrise Cove tale of enemies to lovers, redemption, missing treasures, and love—by romance superstar and New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis.
Anna Moore didn’t just wake up one day and decide to go on a wild quest—especially since her life no longer lends itself to wild anything—so how in the world does she end up racing against the clock with Owen Harris, a sexy, enigmatic adventurist, to prove her beloved dad innocent of stealing a million-dollar necklace?
It’s all Wendy’s fault. Her older, bossy sister, who’s seven months pregnant and on bed rest in their small Lake Tahoe hometown, is desperate to clear their departed dad’s name. Owen, though, is convinced he’s guilty as hell and wants to return the jewelry back to its rightful owner—his elderly great aunt. Together Anna and Owen go on a scavenger hunt for clues to the past (with Wendy remotely along for the ride via an earbud, supplying a running wry commentary to boot).
On opposing sides and suspicious of each other as they are, Anna and Owen still can’t deny the inexplicable and explosive chemistry between them on this heart-stopping adventure, the outcome of which will prove the necklace isn’t the only thing stolen—their hearts have been as well.
What Fire Brings by Rachel Howzell Hall
Author Interview with Rachel Howzell Hall
Bailey Meadows has just moved into the remote Topanga Canyon home of thriller author Jack Beckham. As his writer-in-residence, she’s supposed to help him once again reach the bestseller list. But she’s not there to write a thriller―she’s there to find Sam Morris, a community leader dedicated to finding missing people, who has disappeared in the canyon surrounding Beckham’s property.
The missing woman was last seen in the drought-stricken forest known for wildfires and mountain lions. Each new day, Bailey learns just how dangerous these canyons are―for the other women who have also gone missing here…and for her. Could these missing women be linked to strange events that occurred decades ago at the Beckham estate?
As fire season in the canyons approaches, Bailey must race to unravel the truth from fiction before she becomes the next woman lost in the forest.
The Phoenix Ballroom by Ruth Hogan
From the wildly popular bestselling author of The Keeper of Lost Things: a heartfelt and inspiring story about a wealthy widow who revives a beloved famous local landmark—and restores joy and sparkle to her own life in the process.
It’s never too late to start dancing again...
For fifty years, Venetia Hargreaves’s world revolved around her husband. She built their life around his big career, with dinner on the table at six, a lovely home, and a dutiful son just as business-minded as his father. Now Venetia’s a wealthy widow left with a beautiful but empty home, an enviable bank balance, and a distinct feeling that she missed the boat. Once upon a time, she was a dance instructor who dreamed of opening her own ballroom school with a fellow teacher who won her heart. Instead, Venetia chose the safer path.
So, at seventy-four years of age, Venetia declares her independence, first with a makeover, and then by adopting a new dog. But something is still missing...until on one of her dog walks by the river she passes by a building she remembers all too well. In her youth it was the spectacular Phoenix Ballroom, where she used to teach waltzes and tangos. These days it’s a community center and spiritualist church, funded by a mysterious benefactor who only pays for the upkeep.
Eager to revive at least one meaningful thing from her past, Venetia buys the Phoenix Ballroom, and finds a supportive and loving community of lost souls who become a delightful multigenerational family-by-choice.
As the ballroom regains its former glory, the community and Venetia’s humdrum life are revived as well...proving wonderful things can come from the darkest of places.
Assassins Anonymous by Rob Hart
Mark was the most dangerous killer-for-hire in the world. But after learning the hard way that his life’s work made him more monster than man, he left all of that behind, and joined a twelve-step group for reformed killers.
When Mark is viciously attacked by an unknown assailant, he is forced on the run. From New York to Singapore to London, he chases after clues while dodging attacks and trying to solve the puzzle of who’s after him. All without killing anyone. Or getting killed himself. For an assassin, Mark learns, nonviolence is a real hassle.
Bodies to Die for by Lori Brand
Perfect for fans of You Shouldn't Have Come Here and None of This Is True, Bodies to Die For is a brilliant psychological thriller that will have readers wondering whether the perfect body really is worth dying for ...
Popular fitness influencer Gemma has transformed herself from a Before into an After, complete with washboard abs, thriving business, and gorgeous husband. But social media can be deceiving. Offline, the cutthroat world of bikini bodybuilding may just eat her alive. That's if she's not first devoured by the secret nemesis that lurks beneath her polished surface, waiting to destroy her.
Software engineer Ashley is fat and frustrated. Frustrated with failed diets. With a world that wants her to shrink. With biased doctors, online trolls, and even her own mother. Until Ashley falls in with a mysterious and radical sect of Fat Activists who are fighting back ... by any means necessary. She's never felt so alive, so full of purpose. She'll do whatever it takes to ride this high, destroy Diet Culture, and win the approval of her charismatic leader.
But when Gemma's toughest rival turns up dead, and more fitness girls fall like dominoes, it's beginning to look like the body image war has gone too far.
With breakneck pace and keen insights, Bodies to Die For takes a hard look at social media, the $70 billion diet industry, and the war on women's bodies--the wars we wage with each other, and with ourselves.
She Serves the Realm by Lee Swanson
While King Edward II threatens to bring England to ruin, Christina Kohl risks she and her beloved Lady Cecily’s life to preserve it.
In a man’s guise, Christina Kohl seeks King Edward’s permission to marry her beloved Lady Cecily, but the king is more concerned with preserving his kingdom than in Christina’s happiness. Civil war seems inevitable. Rebellious barons demand banishment of the Earl of Cornwall, while Edward is adamant to keep him close. Who will prevail in these battles of swords and hearts?
Rogue Sequence by Zac Topping
It's 2091 and independent contract companies around the world are producing genetically modified soldiers…to be sold to the highest bidders.
Ander Rade is a super-soldier, a genetically engineered living weapon, and has been dutifully following orders since he gave himself to Xyphos Industries’ Gene-Mod Program several years ago. But when a mission goes sideways, he’s captured, imprisoned, and forced into brutally violent fighting pits for the better part of the next decade…until agents from the Genetic Compliance Department of the United American Provinces appear in the visiting room.
Things have changed since Rade was captured. Shortly after his incarceration, the World Unity Council banned human genetic engineering and deemed all modified individuals a threat to society. Overnight, an entire subculture of people became outlaws simply for existing. But instead of leaving Rade locked behind bars, the GCD agents have come with an offer: Freedom in exchange for his help tracking down one of his former teammates from that ill-fated mission all those years ago.
It's an offer Rade can't refuse, but he soon realizes that the situation is far more volatile than anyone had anticipated, and is forced to take matters into his own hands as he tries to figure out whose side he’s really on, and why.
Things I Want Back From You by Elizabeth Stix
Set in the fictional California town of San Encanto--a place where suburban angst coexists with the astonishing--a lonely wife finds her oppressive husband has become a dirigible who follows her from the sky, a neglected boy spends his summer unwinding a parasitic Guinea worm from his little sister's belly, and an aspiring life coach attends a self-actualization seminar that goes wildly off the rails. In THINGS I WANT BACK FROM YOU, Elizabeth Stix's hilarious and poignant debut of 20 linked stories, hopelessly flawed characters flail against their own insecurities, seeking one true moment of connection, and if they're lucky, winning that rarest of gifts--a second chance.
"Funny and poignant, this collection will resonate with any reader who has felt trapped by something inexplicable, what Stix calls 'the fishbowl of our circumstance.' She takes on love, alienation, betrayal, and recriminations with wit and wisdom, and a generosity of spirit. Her tight cast of characters is frequently smothered by longing, doubt, and sometimes each other in a California landscape that shimmers with possibilities just out of reach. Elizabeth Stix is a true bard of modern life."--Elizabeth Gonzalez James, author of The Bullet Swallower and Mona at Sea
