Authors I love have been working hard…

Chris Bohjalian, Marcy Dermansky, Jaqueline Friedland, Charlotte McConaghy, Patti Callahan Henri and Jill Santopolo all have new books out this month! And don’t miss Boris Fishman’s new one (he wrote A Replacement Life), and Emma Donoghue’s (she wrote The Room)…and I really want to check out A Girl Within A Girl Within A Girl by Nanda Reddy. What will you read?

Counting Backwards by Jaqueline Friedland (historical fiction)

Inspired by true events revealing America’s troubling past involving Pre-War eugenics practices, this emotionally riveting dual timeline novel brings together the lives of two inspiring women while exploring the timely and important themes of immigration, fertility, and motherhood. A revelatory tale of heartbreak and hope, it is an unputdownable story that will stay with readers long after the final page.

Jessa Gidney is a woman on the edge. Passed over for partner at her Manhattan law firm, she reevaluates her priorities, focusing on her deep desire to become a mother and her newfound interest in pro bono work. Her first case? An incarcerated woman named Isobel Perez fighting against a deportation order. An unsettling revelation about Isobel’s health leads Jessa to uncover a horrifying pattern of medical malpractice within the detention facility. With her corporate law firm unsupportive and her husband, Vance, only concerned about the added stress while they’re trying for a baby, Jessa is torn about whether to intervene. But when a shocking secret about her own family history comes to light, she is propelled to fight for these women, no matter the cost.

Nearly a century earlier in Virginia, seventeen-year-old, real-life Carrie Buck dreams of escaping her life as an unpaid laborer for her foster family. She yearns for a family of her own, a dream that seems within reach when she attracts the attention of her foster mother’s handsome nephew. But he soon abandons her, and she’s cast out, pregnant and completely alone. As a ward of the State, she is designated “feebleminded” and left to the mercy of a corrupt and heartless legal system. Her courageous fight for her own destiny leads to a landmark Supreme Court case.

As the novel alternates between these two women’s stories, a startling connection is revealed. Tackling complex topics such as reproductive injustice, immigration law, eugenics, and societal expectations of women, the story is a compelling exploration of empowerment and self-determination. With a gripping investigation reminiscent of Erin Brockovich woven throughout, the tale is a testament to the courage it takes to stay true to oneself.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (fiction/mystery)

A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A rising storm on the horizon.

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.

The Love We Found by Jill Santopolo (romance)

The long-awaited follow-up to the Reese’s Book Club pick and New York Timesbestselling global phenomenon The Light We Lost: a thrilling love story about the roles fate and choice play in shaping a life

It’s been ten years. In case you’re out there somewhere—in case you’re listening, I’m here. And I have so much to tell you.

It’s been nearly ten years since Gabe’s been gone when Lucy finds a tiny piece of paper in a box of his old photos. An address in Rome. Why did Gabe keep it, and what was he doing in Italy? Lucy buys a last-minute ticket. Impulsive, but Gabe always brought that out in her.

Lucy’s journey to uncover Gabe’s secret leads her to Dr. Dax Amstrong, a New Yorker in Italy working with an NGO. His broad shoulders and sad, intense eyes draw Lucy in. His touch reaches her in a forgotten place—one that no one has neared since Gabe.

But her old life awaits, along with an earth-shattering decision—whether she and Darren should tell their son Samuel the truth about his real father. How can Lucy move forward while she’s rooted in regret? Fate broke her heart in the past. Can finding new love set her free?

The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry (historical fiction)

Inspired by a true literary mystery, New York Times bestselling author of the mesmerizing The Secret Book of Flora Lea returns with the sweeping story of a legendary book, a lost mother, and a daughter’s search for them both.

In 1927, eight-year-old Clara Harrington’s magical childhood shatters when her mother, renowned author, Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, disappears off the coast of South Carolina. Bronwyn stunned the world with a book written in an invented language that became a national sensation when she was just twelve years old. Her departure leaves behind not only a devoted husband and heartbroken daughter, but also the hope of ever translating the sequel to her landmark work. As the headlines focus on the missing author, Clara yearns for something far deeper and more her beautiful mother.

By 1952, Clara is an illustrator raising her own daughter, Wynnie. When a stranger named Charlie Jameson contacts her from London claiming to have discovered a handwritten dictionary of her mother’s lost language. Clara is skeptical. Compelled by the tragedy of her mother’s vanishing, she crosses the Atlantic with Wynnie only to arrive during one of London’s most deadly natural disasters—the Great Smog. With asthmatic Wynnie in peril, they escape the city with Charlie and find refuge in the Jameson’s family retreat nestled in the Lake District. It is there that Clara must find the courage to uncover the truth about her mother and the story she left behind.

Told in Patti Callahan Henry’s lyrical, enchanting prose, The Story She Left Behind is a captivating novel of mystery and family legacy that captures the profound longing for a mother and the evergreen allure of secrets.

Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky (fiction)

A joyfully unhinged story of money, marriage, sex, and revenge unspools when a billionaire crashes his hot air balloon into the middle of a post-pandemic first date.

Joannie hasn’t been on a date in seven years when Johnny invites Joannie and her daughter to dinner. His house is beautiful, his son is sweet, and their first kiss is, well, it’s not the best, but Joannie could convince herself it was nice enough. But when Joannie’s childhood crush, a summer camp fling turned famous billionaire, crash lands his hot air balloon in Johnny’s swimming pool, Joannie dives in. 

Soon she finds herself alighting on a lost weekend with Johnny the bad kisser, Jonathan the billionaire, and Julia his smart, stunning wife. Does Joannie want Jonathan? Does Julia want her husband? Or Joannie? Or Joannie’s beautiful little girl? Does Johnny want Julia? Does Jonathan want Joannie, or Julia, or maybe, his much younger personal assistant, Vivian, who is tasked to fix it all? A tale of lust and money and lust for money, Hot Air is as astonishing as it is blisteringly funny, a delirious, delicious story for our billionaire era.

Summer in the City by Alex Aster (romance)

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Alex Aster comes her adult debut novel Summer in the City—a swoony, fast-paced rom-com set in New York City in which a screenwriter and a sexy tech CEO go from lovers to enemies and back to lovers again…

Twenty-seven-year-old screenwriter Elle has the chance of a lifetime to write a big-budget movie set in New York City. The only problem? She’s had writer’s block for months, and her screenplay is due at the end of the summer. 

In a desperate attempt at inspiration, Elle ends up back in the city she swore she would never return to, in an apartment she could never afford (floor-to-ceiling windows, skyline views, and a new coffee shop to haunt included). It’s the perfect place to write her screenplay…until she realizes her new neighbor is tech “Billionaire Bachelor” Parker Warren, her stairwell hookup from two years ago. It’s been a lovers-to-enemies situation ever since. 

When seeing him again turns into a full night of hate-fueled writing, Elle realizes her enemy/twisted muse might just be the key to finishing her screenplay… if she can stand being around her polar opposite. She writes anonymously, and he’s on the cover of every business magazine. He frequents fancy red carpeted events, and she doesn’t like leaving her emotional support five block radius. 

One summer. One wall apart. He needs to fake a buzzy relationship during his company’s precarious acquisition. She needs to write a movie around a list of NYC locations. Both need a break from their unrelenting schedules, and a chance to rediscover the skyscraper glimmering, pizza crusted, sunlit charms of the city.  

Summers always end, and so will this agreement. It’s all pretend. Promise. 

Until it isn’t.

The Unwanted by Boris Fishman (fiction)

Award-winning, New York Times Notable author of A Replacement Life—“a born storyteller with a tremendous gift for language” (San Francisco Chronicle)— delivers a fierce and staggering new page-turner full of cruelty, tenderness, and heroism, about a young girl and her parents fleeing civil war and the brutal dictatorship that has targeted their family.

Susanna, George, and their eight-year-old daughter, Dina, have been lucky, so far, in these four years since war broke out in their country. Even as their fellow “minority-sect” neighbors and classmates are murdered or imprisoned, George’s loyal work teaching “dominant-sect” literature has kept them fed and protected. But then the day the university fires George—despite his years of collaboration, he is no longer safe. Left without money or allies, it is time for the family to run.

Embarking on a harrowing trip through refugee camps and across the sea, both George and Susanna are forced in their own ways to make sacrifices to keep Dina safe, while Dina fights to understand the chaotic world crashing down around her. But with each member of the family struggling to survive in circumstances beyond their control, lies and betrayals multiply until it seems impossible for any of them to reach across the abyss. The Unwanted is a stunning story of what the most powerless among us will do for dignity and safety.

The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue (fiction)

Emma Donoghue, the “soul-stirring” (Oprah Daily) nationally bestselling author of Room, returns with a sweeping historical novel about an infamous 1895 disaster at the Paris Montparnasse train station. 

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia. Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl may be dying; a secretary tries to convince her boss of the potential of moving pictures; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more. 

From an author whose “writing is superb alchemy” (Audrey Niffenegger, New York Times bestselling author), The Paris Express is an evocative masterpiece that effortlessly captures the politics, glamour, chaos, and speed that marked the end of the 19th century.

One Good Thing by Georgia Hunter (historical fiction)

From the New York Times–bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones, an unforgettable story of hardship and hope, courage and resilience, that follows one young woman’s journey through war-torn Italy

1941, Emilia Romagna. Lili and Esti have been best friends since meeting at the University of Ferrara; when Esti’s son Theo is born, they become as close as sisters. There is a war being fought across borders, and in Italy, Mussolini’s Racial Laws have deemed Lili and Esti descendants of an ‘inferior’ Jewish race, but life somehow goes on—until Germany invades northern Italy, and the friends find themselves in occupied territory.

Esti, older and fiercely self-assured, convinces Lili to flee first to a villa in the countryside to help hide a group of young war orphans, then to a convent in Florence, where they pose as nuns and forge false identification papers for the Underground. When disaster strikes at the convent, a critically wounded Esti asks Lili to take a much bigger step: To go on the run with Theo. Protect him while Esti can’t.

Terrified to travel on her own, Lili sets out on an epic journey south toward Allied territory, through Nazi-occupied villages and bombed-out cities, doing everything she can to keep Theo safe.

A remarkable tale of friendship, motherhood, and survival, One Good Thing is a tender reminder that love for another person, even amidst darkness and uncertainty, can be reason to keep going.

The Sirens by Emilia Hart (historical fiction/fantasy)

A story of sisters separated by hundreds of years but bound together in more ways than they can imagine

2019: Lucy awakens in her ex-lover’s room in the middle of the night with her hands around his throat. Horrified, she flees to her sister’s house on the coast of New South Wales hoping Jess can help explain the vivid dreams that preceded the attack—but her sister is missing. As Lucy waits for her return, she starts to unearth strange rumours about Jess’s town—tales of numerous missing men, spread over decades. A baby abandoned in a sea-swept cave. Whispers of women’s voices on the waves. All the while, her dreams start to feel closer than ever.

1800: Mary and Eliza are torn from their loving home in Ireland and forced onto a convict ship heading for Australia. As the boat takes them farther and farther away from all they know, they begin to notice unexplainable changes in their bodies.

A breathtaking tale of female resilience, The Sirens is an extraordinary novel that captures the sheer power of sisterhood and the indefinable magic of the sea.

Blood Moon by Sandra Brown (thriller/romantic suspense)

#1 New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown returns with a sexy thriller where an unruly detective and an ­­­­ambitious tv show producer work against the clock to prevent another young woman from disappearing before the next blood moon—while trying to resist the attraction between them.

Detective John Bowie is one misstep away from being fired from the Auclair Police Department in coastal Louisiana. Recently divorced and slightly heavy-handed with his liquor, Bowie does all that he can to cope with the actions taken (or not taken) during the investigation of Crissy Mellin, a teenage girl who disappeared more than three years prior. But now, Crisis Point, a long-running true crime television series, is soon to air an episode documenting the unsolved Mellin case. Bowie has been instructed by his unscrupulous boss to keep to himself his grievances and criticisms over the mishandling of the investigation.

Beth Collins, a senior producer on Crisis Point, knows what classifies as a great story and when there’s something more to be told. After working on the show for seven years researching, fact checking, and editing dozens of episodes, Collins is convinced that Crissy Mellin’s disappearance was not an isolated incident. A string of disappearances of teenage girls in nearby areas have only one thing in common: They took place on the night of a blood moon. In a last-ditch effort to find out the truth, Beth leaves New York City for Louisiana to enlist Detective Bowie in helping her figure out what happened to Crissy and find the true culprit before he acts on the next blood moon—in four days’ time.

At the risk of their jobs and lives, Bowie and Collins band together to identify and capture a canny perpetrator, while fighting an irresistible spark between them that threatens to upend everything.

The Jackal’s Mistress by Chris Bohjalian (historical fiction)

In this Civil War love story, inspired by a real-life friendship across enemy lines, the wife of a missing Confederate soldier discovers a wounded Yankee officer and must decide what she’s willing to risk for the life of a stranger, from the New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical fiction as Hour of the Witch and The Sandcastle Girls.

    Virginia, 1864—Libby Steadman’s husband has been away for so long that she can barely conjure his voice in her dreams. While she longs for him in the night, fearing him dead in a Union prison camp, her days are spent running a gristmill with her teenage niece, a hired hand, and his wife, all the grain they can produce requisitioned by the Confederate Army. It’s an uneasy life in the Shenandoah Valley, the territory frequently changing hands, control swinging back and forth like a pendulum between North and South, and Libby awakens every morning expecting to see her land a battlefield. 
    And then she finds a gravely injured Union officer left for dead in a neighbor’s house, the bones of his hand and leg shattered. Captain Jonathan Weybridge of the Vermont Brigade is her enemy – but he’s also a human being, and Libby must make a terrible Does she leave him to die alone? Or does she risk treason and try to nurse him back to health? And if she succeeds, does she try to secretly bring him across Union lines, where she might negotiate a trade for news of her own husband? 
    A vivid and sweeping story of two people navigating the boundaries of love and humanity in a landscape of brutal violence, The Jackal’s Mistress is a heart-stopping new novel, based on a largely unknown piece of American history, from one of our greatest storytellers.

Saltwater by Katy Hays (mystery)

In 1992 Sarah Lingate is found dead below the cliffs of Capri, leaving behind her three-year-old daughter, Helen. Despite suspicions that the old-money Lingates are involved, Sarah’s death is ruled an accident, and every year the family returns to prove it’s true. But on the thirtieth anniversary of Sarah’s death, the Lingates arrive at the villa to find a surprise waiting for them—the necklace Sarah was wearing the night she died.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi (science fiction)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Starter Villain comes an entirely serious take on a distinctly unserious subject: what would really happen if suddenly the moon were replaced by a giant wheel of cheese.

It’s a whole new moooooon.

One day soon, suddenly and without explanation, the moon as we know it is replaced with an orb of cheese with the exact same mass. Through the length of an entire lunar cycle, from new moon to a spectacular and possibly final solar eclipse, we follow multiple characters — schoolkids and scientists, billionaires and workers, preachers and politicians — as they confront the strange new world they live in, and the absurd, impossible moon that now hangs above all their lives.

Just Want You Here by Meredith Turits (fiction)

An intimate and deeply moving coming-of-age novel about second chances and the inextricable bonds between lovers and friends.

The only love Ari has known is Morgan. Engaged and planning a life with him in New York, Ari is shocked when Morgan sits her down one rainy afternoon and tells her their decade-long relationship is over. They’ve been over for a long time now, he says—and Ari knows he’s right.

Twenty-eight years old and suddenly alone, Ari throws herself into a new job in Boston, as assistant to a tech CEO. Wells is British, twelve years her senior, a devoted husband and father. He’s also captivated by Ari, in a way neither of them can explain. Ignoring every warning signal from friends and their own instincts, they dive into a fiery affair, which becomes more dangerous as Ari finds herself intricately tangled with his wife, Leah.

Nothing can prepare Ari for the choices she must make as she tries to uncover what’s right for herself, and for the people she can’t let go. As a new path opens—a journey of lies and the twisted calculus of protecting them—Ari’s second chance at happiness forces her to consider who she really is. Can you love someone without dragging them under? What does it take to start over again?

Taking Manhattan by Russell Shorto (nonfiction)

The thrilling narrative of how New York came to be, by the author of the beloved classic The Island at the Center of the World.

In 1664, England decided to invade the Dutch-controlled city of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, had dreams of empire, and their archrivals, the Dutch, were in the way. But Richard Nicolls, who led the English flotilla bent on destruction, changed his strategy once he began parleying with Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch leader on Manhattan.

Bristling with vibrant characters, Taking Manhattan reveals the founding of New York to be an the result not of an English military takeover but of clever negotiations that led to a fusion of the multiethnic capitalistic society the Dutch had pioneered to the power of the rising English empire. But the birth of what might be termed the first modern city is also a story of the brutal dispossession of Native Americans and of the roots of American slavery. Taking Manhattan shows how the paradox of New York’s origins—boundless opportunity coupled with subjugation and displacement—reflect America’s promise and failure to this day. Russell Shorto, whose work has been described as “astonishing” (New York Times) and “revelatory” (New York magazine), has once again mined newly translated sources to offer a vibrant tale and a fresh and trenchant argument about American beginnings.

All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman (mystery)

“The missing boy is 10-year-old Alfie Risby, and to be perfectly honest with you, he’s a little shit.”

Florence Grimes, age thirty-one, always takes the easy way out. Single, broke and unfulfilled after the humiliating end to her girl-band career, she has only one reason to get out of bed each day: her ten-year-old son Dylan. But then Alfie Risby, her son’s bully and the heir to a vast frozen-food empire, mysteriously vanishes during a class trip, and Dylan becomes the prime suspect. 

Florence, for once, is faced with a task she can’t quit: She’s got to find Alfie and clear her son’s name or risk losing Dylan forever—never mind that she has no useful skills (let alone investigative ones) and that all the other school moms hate her. Oh, and she has a reason to suspect Dylan might not be as innocent as she’d like to believe.

The Women on Platform Two by Laura Anthony (historical fiction)

In 1970s Dublin, all forms of contraception are strictly forbidden, but an intrepid group of women will risk everything to change that in this sweeping, timely novel inspired by a remarkable and little-known true story.

Dublin, 1969: Maura has just married Dr. Christy Davenport and they look forward to growing their family. But as her husband’s vicious temper emerges, Maura worries that her home might never be safe for a child. Meanwhile, her close friend Bernie, a mother of three, learns the devastating news that if she conceives again, her health complications could prove fatal.

Dublin, 2023: A close call makes Saoirse realize that she may never want to be a mother. Little does she know that only a few decades ago, a group of women made this option possible for her. And she’s about to meet one of them…

The Women on Platform Two is a haunting, powerful story of feminine resistance and resilience that reminds us all of where we started—and how far we still have to go.

A Girl Within A Girl Within A Girl by Nanda Reddy (fiction)

A girl takes on a series of identities to survive, shrouding herself in layer upon layer of secrets, until one morning years later when she is forced to reckon with her past.

On an ordinary day in an upscale Atlanta suburb, Maya is making breakfast for her two sons, when her husband drops a red-and-blue striped envelope on the counter and asks a devastating Who is Sunny?

Maya is sent reeling back to her childhood in Guyana—a time when Sunny was her only name. Unbeknownst to her husband, Maya is not who she claims to be. The letter, from her long-lost sister Roshi, now threatens to expose her true identity and shatter the seemingly perfect existence Maya worked so hard to build.

As she frantically weighs the impact of the truth on her future, Maya relives the harrowing details of her past—her journey to America on the “backtrack,” the shock of being delivered into the hands of an abusive family while being severed from her own, and her many evolutions of self as she struggles to find a path forward against all odds.

Steeped in sensory detail, this striking debut transports the reader from the sugar cane fields of Guyana to the world of immigrant laborers in Miami to the affluent suburbs of Atlanta. Nanda Reddy takes us on a wrenching journey of assimilation, survival, and reinvention that explores the very construct of identity—all the while underscoring the strength of chosen family, love, and the resilience of the human spirit.

The Usual Family Mayhem by Helenkay Dimon (mystery/romance)

Revenge is a dish best served cold—especially when it comes in the form of one of Grandma’s “special” pies. Get the best of family hijinks, girl power, and hilariously justifiable crime in the latest novel from award-winning author HelenKay Dimon.

Kasey Nottingham needs a splashy idea at her company where they find and develop the next big thing for investors—her job depends on it. Impulsively, she pitches Mags’ Desserts, a beloved small-town business run by her grandma Mags and live-in “best friend” Celia, two women who overcame deadbeat husbands and financial ruin to build a word-of-mouth clientele. Kasey expects her boss to say no. Instead, he sends her home to North Carolina to land the deal…and now she has a problem.

Mags and Celia aren’t interested, which isn’t a surprise, but something else is going on in their kitchen. Locked cabinets. Cryptic conversations. Unexpected notations on business records. The ladies have secrets and whatever they’re hiding is big. As reports of mysterious deaths of abusive men in the area surface—all in households that recently received a delivery from Mags’ Desserts—Kasey worries Gram and Celia have gone into the poison pie business.

As investors start circling, Kasey enlists Jackson Quaid, Celia’s nephew and Kasey’s long-time crush, as her reluctant investigation assistant. Jackson is practical. Kasey has a wild imagination. Together, they dodge Kasey’s boss and gather intel. And kiss. Lots of kissing, though probably not the best idea to start an unexpected romance. Doing it while keeping two feisty ladies from going to jail for knocking off bad husbands—even if those husbands deserve it—might be impossible…but Kasey never shied away from a challenge. 

Jane and Dan at the End of the World by Colleen Oakley (fiction)

Date night goes off the rails in this hilariously insightful take on midlife and marriage when one unhappy couple find themselves at the heart of a crime in progress, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise.

Jane and Dan have been married for nineteen years, but Jane isn’t sure they’re going to make it to twenty. The mother of two feels unneeded by her teenagers, and her writing career has screeched to an unsuccessful halt. Her one published novel sold under five hundred copies. Worse? She’s pretty sure Dan is cheating on her. When the couple goes to the renowned upscale restaurant La Fin du Monde to celebrate their anniversary, Jane thinks it’s as good a place as any to tell Dan she wants a divorce.

But before they even get to the second course, an underground climate activist group bursts into the dining room. Jane is shocked—and not just because she’s in a hostage situation the likes of which she’s only seen in the movies. Nearly everything the disorganized and bumbling activists say and do is right out of the pages of her failed book. Even Dan (who Jane wasn’t sure even read her book) admits it’s eerily familiar.

Which means Dan and Jane are the only ones who know what’s going to happen next. And they’re the only ones who can stop it. This wasn’t what Jane was thinking of when she said “’til death do us part” all those years ago, but if they can survive this, maybe they can survive anything—even marriage.

Upon the Corner of the Moon by Valerie Nieman (fiction)

At the dawn of the second millennium, two royal Scottish children are swept away from their families— Macbeth to the perilous royal court of his grandfather, and Gruach to the remnants of the goddess-worshiping Picts. Macbeth learns that blood bonds are easily severed while Gruach finds her path only to lose it when she’ s summoned back to the patriarchal world. Each struggle with gaining and losing power, guided and misguided by prophecy and politics as their paths converge in a fiery bid for royal succession.Upon the Corner of the Moon separates literary legend from reality, immersing readers in a story about the real rulers who changed the face of Scotland. Some legends are true, and the truth sometimes becomes a legend— or a lie. This novel masterfully dovetails the Macbeth legend and the truth without sacrificing either.

The Girl from Greenwich Street by Lauren Willig (historical fiction/mystery)

Based on the true story of a famous trial, this novel is Law and 1800, as Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr investigate the shocking murder of a young woman who everyone—and no one—seemed to know.

At the start of a new century, a shocking murder transfixes Manhattan, forcing bitter rivals Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr to work together to save a man from the gallows. 

Just before Christmas 1799, Elma Sands slips out of her Quaker cousin’s boarding house—and doesn’t come home. Has she eloped? Run away? No one knows—until her body appears in the Manhattan Well.

Her family insists they know who killed her. Handbills circulate around the city accusing a carpenter named Levi Weeks of seducing and murdering Elma. 

But privately, quietly, Levi’s wealthy brother calls in a special favor….

Aaron Burr’s legal practice can’t finance both his expensive tastes and his ambition to win the 1800 New York elections. To defend Levi Weeks is a double a hefty fee plus a chance to grab headlines.

Alexander Hamilton has his own political aspirations; he isn’t going to let Burr monopolize the public’s attention. If Burr is defending Levi Weeks, then Hamilton will too. As the trial and the election draw near, Burr and Hamilton race against time to save a man’s life—and destroy each other.

Part murder mystery, part thriller, part true crime, The Girl From Greenwich Street revisits a dark corner of history—with a surprising twist ending that reveals the true story of the woman at the center of the tale.