Favorite authors like Emily Henry, David Baldacci, Jennifer Weiner and Sara Penner all have new books out this month! Pick a few and enjoy over spring break or dive in on the next rainy weekend!
The Griffin Sisters’ Greaetest Hits by Jennifer Weiner (fiction)
One of the most anticipated books of the year, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Weiner, a glimmering novel set in the world of pop music about sisters, motherhood, young love, and the dreams we chase.
Sisters Cassie and Zoe Grossberg were born just a year apart but could not have been more different. Zoe, blessed with charm and beauty, yearned for fame from the moment she could sing into a hairbrush. Cassie was a musical prodigy who never felt at home in her own skin and preferred the safety of the shadows.
On the brink of adulthood in the early 2000s, destiny intervened, catapulting the sisters into the spotlight as the pop sensation the Griffin Sisters, hitting all the touchstones of early aughts fame—SNL, MTV, Rolling Stone magazine—along the way.
But after a whirlwind year in the public eye, the band abruptly broke up.
Two decades later, Zoe’s a housewife; Cassie’s off the grid. The sisters aren’t speaking, and the real reason for the Griffin Sisters’ breakup is still a mystery. Zoe’s teenage daughter, Cherry, who’s determined to be a star in spite of Zoe’s warnings, is on a quest to learn the truth about what happened to the band all those years ago.
As secrets emerge, all three women must face the consequences of their choices: the ones they made and the ones the music industry made for them. Can they forgive each other—and themselves? And will the Griffin Sisters ever make music again?
The Eights by Joanna Miller (historical fiction)
They knew they were changing history.
They didn’t know they would change each other.
Following the unlikely friendship of four of the first ever women to matriculate at Oxford University in the aftermath of the First World War, a captivating debut novel about sisterhood, self-determination and the many forms courage can take.
Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms. Beatrice, Dora, Marianne and Otto (collectively known as The Eights) have come here from all walks of life, and they are thrown into an unlikely, life-affirming friendship.
Dora was never meant to go to university, but, after losing both her brother and her fiancé on the battlefield, has arrived in their place. Politically-minded Beatrice, daughter of a famous suffragette, sees Oxford as a chance to make her own way – and some friends her own age. Otto was a nurse during the war but is excited to return to her socialite lifestyle in Oxford – where she hopes to find distraction from the memories that haunt her. And finally Marianne, the quiet, clever daughter of a village pastor, who has a shocking secret she must hide from everyone, even her new friends, if she is to succeed.
But Oxford’s dreaming spires cast a dark shadow: in 1920, misogyny is still rife, influenza is still a threat, and the ghosts of the Great War are still very real indeed. And as the group navigate this tumultuous moment in time, their friendship will become more important than ever.
The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Elise Hooper
When a young librarian discovers historic dollhouses in a hidden room, she embarks on an unexpected journey that reveals surprising secrets about the lost miniatures.
Tildy Barrows, Head Curator of a beautiful archival library in San Francisco, is meticulously dedicated to the century’s worth of inventory housed in her beloved Beaux Art building. She loves the calm and order in the shelves of books and walls of art. But Tildy’s uneventful life takes an unexpected turn when she, first, learns the library is on the verge of bankruptcy and, second, discovers two exquisite never-before-seen dollhouses. After finding clues hidden within these remarkable miniatures, Tildy starts to believe that Belva Curtis LeFarge, the influential heiress who established the library a century ago, is conveying a significant final message.
With a newfound sense of spontaneity, Tildy sets out to decipher the secret history of the dollhouses, aiming to salvage her cherished library in the process. Her journey to understand introduces her to a world of ambitious and gifted women in Belle Époque Paris, a group of scarred World War I veterans in the English countryside, and Walt Disney’s bustling Burbank studio in the 1950s. As Tildy unravels the mystery, she finds not only inspiring, overlooked history, but also a future for herself, filled with exciting possibilities—and an astonishing familial revelation.
Spanning the course of a century, The Library of Lost Dollhouses is a warm, bright, and captivating story of secrets and love that embraces the importance of illuminating overlooked women of the past.
The Boxcar Librarian by Brianna Labuskes
Inspired by true events, a thrilling Depression-era novel from the author of The Librarian of Burned Books about a woman’s quest to uncover a mystery surrounding a local librarian and the Boxcar Library—a converted mining train that brought books to isolated rural towns in Montana.
When Works Progress Administration (WPA) editor Millie Lang finds herself on the wrong end of a potential political scandal, she’s shipped off to Montana to work on the state’s American Guide Series—travel books intended to put the nation’s destitute writers to work.
Millie arrives to an eclectic staff claiming their missed deadlines are due to sabotage, possibly from the state’s powerful Copper Kings who don’t want their long and bloody history with union organizers aired for the rest of the country to read. But Millie begins to suspect that the answer might instead lie with the town’s mysterious librarian, Alice Monroe.
More than a decade earlier, Alice Monroe created the Boxcar Library in order to deliver books to isolated mining towns where men longed for entertainment and connection. Alice thought she found the perfect librarian to staff the train car in Colette Durand, a miner’s daughter with a shotgun and too many secrets behind her eyes.
Now, no one in Missoula will tell Millie why both Alice and Colette went out on the inaugural journey of the Boxcar Library, but only Alice returned.
The three women’s stories dramatically converge in the search to uncover what someone is so desperately trying to what happened to Colette Durand.
Inspired by the fascinating, true history of Missoula’s Boxcar Library, the novel blends the story of the strong, courageous women who survived and thrived in the rough and rowdy West with that of the power of standing together to fight for workers’ lives. And through it all shines the capacity of books to provide connection and light to those who need it most.
“A riveting wilderness suspense novel by a novelist at the height of her powers” (Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Candy House), Heartwood takes you on a gripping journey as a search and rescue team race against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.
In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping.
At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.
Heartwood is a “gem of a thousand facets—suspenseful, transporting, tender, and ultimately soul-mending,” (Megan Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning) that tells the story of a lost hiker’s odyssey and is a moving rendering of each character’s interior journey. The mystery inspires larger questions about the many ways in which we get lost, and how we are found. At its core, Heartwood is a redemptive novel, written with both enormous literary ambition and love.
The Sublet by Greer Hendricks (kindle only)
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Greer Hendricks comes a chilling story about the hidden cost of perfection.
Anne is barely keeping it together. A frazzled ghostwriter and aspiring novelist, she juggles nine-year-old twins and a listless marriage from an overcrowded Manhattan apartment, spreading herself thinner each day. Just as Anne is about to give up on her dreams, she lands her biggest client Melody Wells.
Melody paints a picture of serenity and empowerment in the lavender haze of her visualization workshops—however, the one thing she can’t manifest are the pages her publisher is demanding for her new motivational book. Enter Anne.
As Melody invites Anne deeper into her magical world, Anne finds herself working impossibly long days and traveling far beyond her comfort zone.
When Melody passes along a lead on a spacious sublet complete with East River views, built-in closets, and three bedrooms, Anne can’t believe her luck. Melody seems to know just what her family needs. But as small, unsettling incidents begin to accumulate, Anne starts to wonder what price she’s willing to pay for the good life.
Fun for the Whole Family by Jennifer E. Smith Apr 15
A breathtaking, joy-filled novel about the people we love, the secrets we keep, and the enduring power of family, from the bestselling author of The Unsinkable Greta James.
The four Endicott siblings—Gemma, Connor, Roddy, and Jude—were once inseparable, a bond created by the absence of their dazzling, mercurial mother, who would return for a few weeks each summer to whisk them off on sprawling road trips around the country.
Decades later, the unthinkable has happened: the Endicotts haven’t spoken in years . . . until an out-of-the-blue text arrives from Jude, now a famous actress, summoning them to a small town in North Dakota. They’re each at a crossroads: Gemma, who put her own ambitions aside to raise the others, now isn’t sure if she wants to be a mother herself; Connor, a celebrated novelist, is floundering after his recent divorce and suffering from an epic case of writer’s block; and Roddy, at the tail end of a professional soccer career, is dangerously close to losing his future husband for the chance at one last season.
Jude is the only Endicott who seems to have it all together—but appearances can be deceiving. As the weekend unfolds, and the siblings wrestle with their shared past and uncertain futures, they’ll discover that Jude has been keeping three secrets . . . each of which could change everything.
A captivating journey and an ode to forgiveness that takes readers across all fifty states, Fun for the Whole Family brims with heart and resonates long after the final page.
Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Just for the Summer comes a new playful yet deeply emotional contemporary romance.
There might be no such a thing as a perfect guy, but Xavier Rush comes disastrouslyclose. A gorgeous veterinarian giving Greek god vibes—all while cuddling a tiny kitten? Immediately yes. That is until Xavier opens his mouth and proves that even sculpted gods can say the absolute wrong thing. Like, really wrong. Of course, there’s nothing Samantha loves more than proving an asshole wrong…
. . . unless, of course, he can admit he made a mistake. But after one incredible and seemingly endless date—possibly the best in living history—Samantha is forced to admit the truth, that her family is in crisis and any kind of relationship would be impossible. Samantha begs Xavier to forget her. To remember their night together as a perfect moment, as crushing as that may be.
Only no amount of distance or time is nearly enough to forget that something between them. And the only thing better than one single perfect memory is to make a life—and even a love—worth remembering.
The Maid’s Secret by Nita Prose (mystery)
When a daring art heist takes place at the Regency Grand, Molly’s life is threatened. The question is who’s out to get her, and why? Long-buried secrets will be revealed in this intriguing and heartwarming novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest
A wedding. A heist. A secret.
Molly Gray’s life is about to change in ways she could never have imagined. As the esteemed Head Maid and recently promoted Special Events Manager of the Regency Grand Hotel, good things are just around the corner, including her marriage to her beloved fiancé, Juan Manuel, only two months away.
But Molly’s entire existence is upended when a film crew descends upon the hotel to shoot the hit reality TV show Hidden Treasures, starring popular art appraisers Brown and Beagle. On a whim, Molly brings in a shoebox containing a few of her gran’s old things for appraisal, and much to everyone’s surprise, one item turns out to be a rare and priceless treasure. Instantly, Molly is both a multi-millionaire and a media sensation—the world’s rags-to-riches darling—until the priceless piece vanishes from the hotel in the boldest, brashest antiquities heist in recent memory.
The key to the mystery lies in the past, in a long-forgotten diary written by Molly’s gran. For the first time ever, Molly learns about Gran’s true-to-life fairytale, a young girl to the manor born, the only child of a wealthy magnate. But when Gran falls head over heels in love with a young man her parents deem below her station, her life is thrown into turmoil. As fate would have it, the greatest love of Gran’s life is someone Molly knows quite well….
Together with her friends, Molly combs the past and the present to catch the thief before looming threats against her become real.
A spirited heist caper and an epic love story, The Maid’s Secret is a spellbinding whodunnit that will capture and warm your heart.
The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig (horror)
A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods in this mesmerizing horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.
Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.
Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something a mysterious staircase to nowhere.
One friend walks up—and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.
Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . .
The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff (fiction)
One family. Four generations. A secret son. A devastating addiction. A Texas family is met with losses and surprises of inheritance, but they’re unable to shake the pull back toward each other in this big-hearted family saga perfect for readers of Mary Beth Keane and Claire Lombardo.
Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married, and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn’t told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn’t told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall.
When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian’s son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family’s history, and decide whether she can open up to love for them—or herself—while there’s still time.
Told from three intimate points of view, The Bright Years is a tender, true-to-life novel that explores the impact of each generation in a family torn apart by tragedy but, over time, restored by the power of grace and love.
I See You Called in Dead by John Kenney (fiction/humor)
The Office meets Six Feet Under meets About a Boy in this coming-of-middle-age tale about having a second chance to write your life’s story.
Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who is afraid to live. Yes, his wife recently left him for a “far more interesting” man. Yes, he goes on a particularly awful blind date with a woman who brings her ex. And yes, he has too many glasses of Scotch one night and proceeds to pen and publish his own obituary. The newspaper wants to fire him. But now the company’s system has him listed as dead. And the company can’t fire a dead person. The ensuing fallout forces him to realize that life may be actually worth living.
As Bud awaits his fate at work, his life hangs in the balance. Given another shot by his boss and encouraged by his best friend, Tim, a worldly and wise former art dealer, Bud starts to attend the wakes and funerals of strangers to learn how to live.
Thurber Prize-winner and NYTimes bestselling author John Kenney tells a funny, touching story about life and death, about the search for meaning, about finding and never letting go of the preciousness of life.
The Unseen Goddess by Sangeetha Shinde
The inspiring and heartbreaking story of one of India’s unsung heroes.
Madhuri lives with her entire family in a tiny room in the cramped slums of Chennai, India, finding joy in her family despite their poverty. When tragedy strikes and her father dies, her mother has no choice but to send her away. What remains of Madhuri’s childhood is a harrowing journey that will test her incredible spirit’s ability to triumph over adversity.
Moving from unpaid labor in a charitable institution to servitude for a wealthy family, Madhuri’s life is marked by drudgery and cruelty until news of the unwelcome attentions of her male boss reaches the ears of her mother. Her mother strikes a desperate bargain in order to rescue her through marriage, but the cost is unimaginable. Can Madhuri break free of the heartbreaking promise that has been made on her behalf and take control of her destiny?
“The Unseen Goddess” is a powerful tale of one woman’s fight against the generational trauma and injustices facing India’s marginalized women. Madhuri’s journey embodies the ongoing struggle for equality in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
What if I Never Get Over You by Paige Toon (romance)
One Day meets a contemporary Bridgerton in this high-drama, escapist wonder of a love story, Paige Toon’s best yet.
Three days to fall in love. Six years to try to forget.
Ellie didn’t expect to fall in love while interrailing through Europe. But she also didn’t expect to meet a man like Ash. Three blistering days in Lisbon is all it takes to form an unforgettable connection—a bond deep enough for them to scrap their itineraries and plan to meet again in Spain. But Ellie arrives late, and Ash is nowhere to be found.
Six years later, Ellie has landed her dream job working as a gardener for a viscount and viscountess on their sprawling five-hundred-year-old estate in Wales. She finds peace amongst the towering topiary hedges and colorful gardens, but her idyll is shattered when Ash crashes back into her life. And when it becomes clear why he didn’t show in Madrid, her heart breaks anew—for what the truth means for her, and for his fate.
But they have never been able to resist each another, and when the sparks of their attraction fly, Ellie’s life will catch flame. She will have to make a choice.
A Very Bad Thing by J.T. Ellison (mystery)
From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a taut thriller about one author at the pinnacle of her career, whose past threatens to destroy everything she has—and everyone she knows.
A great writer knows when to deliver a juicy plot twist. But for one author, the biggest twist of all is her own murder.
With a number of hit titles and a highly anticipated movie tie-in, celebrated novelist Columbia Jones is at the top of her game. Fans around the world adore her. But on the final night of her latest book tour, one face in the crowd makes the author collapse. And by the next morning, she’s lying dead in a pool of blood.
Columbia’s death shocks the world and leaves Darian, her daughter and publicist, reeling. The police have nothing to go on—at first. But then details emerge, pointing to the author’s illicit past. Turns out many people had motive to kill Columbia. And with a hungry reporter and frustrated cop on the trail, her secrets won’t stay buried long. But how many lives will they shatter as the truth comes out?
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker (horror)
In this explosive horror novel, a woman is haunted by inner trauma, hungry ghosts, and a serial killer as she confronts the brutal violence experienced by East Asians during the pandemic.
Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. But none of that seems so terrible when she’s already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister, Delilah, being pushed in front of a train.
Before fleeing the scene, the murderer shouted two words: bat eater.
So the bloody messes don’t really bother Cora—she’s more bothered by the germs on the subway railing, the bare hands of a stranger, the hidden viruses in every corner, and the bite marks on her coffee table. Of course, ever since Delilah was killed in front of her, Cora can’t be sure what’s real and what’s in her head.
She pushes away all feelings and ignores the advice of her aunt to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, when the gates of hell open. But she can’t ignore the dread in her stomach as she keeps finding bat carcasses at crime scenes, or the scary fact that all her recent cleanups have been the bodies of East Asian women.
As Cora will soon learn, you can’t just ignore hungry ghosts.
For fans of Stephen Graham Jones and Gretchen Felker-Martin, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng is a wildly original, darkly humorous, and subversive contemporary novel from a striking new voice in horror.
Terrestrial History by Joe Mungo Reed (science fiction)
A family saga following four generations on a time-bending journey from coastal Scotland to a colony on Mars.
Hannah is a fusion scientist working in a cottage off the coast of Scotland when she’s approached by a visitor from the future, a young man from a human settlement on Mars, traveling backward through time to intervene in the fate of a warming planet.
Roban lives in the Colony, a sterile outpost of civilization, where he longs for the wonders of a home planet he never knew. Between Hannah and Roban, two generations, a father and a daughter, face down an uncertain future. Andrew believes there is still time for the human spirit to triumph. For his rationalist daughter Kenzie, such idealism is not enough to keep the rising floods at bay, so she signs on to work for a company that would abandon Earth for the promise of a world beyond.
In exploring the question “What if you could come back to the past and somehow change it with technology?” Joe Mungo Reed has written an immersive story of hope, hubris, and sacrifice in the face of a frighteningly precarious present.
Stranger in Time by David Baldacci (historical fiction)
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Calamity of Souls comes David Baldacci’s newest novel, set in London in 1944, about a bereaved book shop owner and two teenagers scarred by the second world war, and the healing and hope they find in one another.
Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters is up to no good, but for a very good reason. Without parents, peerage, or merit, ducking school but barred from actual work, he steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he’s old enough to enlist to fight the Germans. After barely surviving the Blitz, Charlie knows there’s no telling when a falling bomb might end his life.
Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of people to have been evacuated to the countryside via “Operation Pied Piper,” Molly has been away from her parents—from her home—for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she’d hoped for as she’s confronted by a devastating reality: both her parents are gone.
Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his book shop, The Book Keep, where A book a day keeps the bombs away. Mourning the recent loss of his wife, Ignatius forms a kinship with both children, and in each other—over the course of the greatest armed conflict the world had ever seen—they rediscover the spirit of family each has lost.
But Charlie’s escapades in the city have not gone unnoticed, and someone’s been following Molly since she returned to London. And Ignatius is still reeling from a secret Imogen long kept from him while she was alive—something so shocking it resulted in her death, and his life being turned upside down.
As bombs continue to bear down on the city, Charlie, Molly, and Ignatius learn that while the perils of war rage on, their coming together and trusting one another may be the only way for them to survive.
Destructively Mine by Krista & Becca Ritchie (Romance)
FROM THE AUTHORS OF THE TIKTOK SENSATION, ADDICTED TO YOU!
Ex-grifter Phoebe Graves’ new life threatens to come crashing down around her in the next unputdownable novel from the New York Times bestselling authors of the Addicted series.
As the daughter of a con artist, Phoebe Graves only knew a life of swindling the rich until her best friend and fellow grifter, Hailey Tinrock, proposed an idea to start a new, honest life in a wealthy college town of Connecticut. Once there, they decided to leave behind their deceitful tricks and be truthful for once. But you know what they say about best intentions. . . .
While Phoebe is fake-dating Jake Waterford, the third-born son to an uber-wealthy and influential family, she’s actually dating and falling deeper in love with Brayden “Rocky” Tinrock—Hailey’s older brother. To make matters more complicated, Phoebe’s mother shows up out of the blue with conniving match-making designs of her own.
Her mother’s arrival threatens to unravel Phoebe’s plans. To keep her love, her friends, and her newfound happiness, Phoebe will have to return to her old games . . . and win.
The Wildelings by Lisa Harding (fiction)
Jessica and Linda have been best friends since the first day of school. Both are from broken, but different, homes, and willful Jessica has always ensured their survival. Now eighteen, the two have come to Wilde—an elite university in the heart of Dublin, far away from their troubled childhoods. Jessica thrives immediately and, with the faithful Linda by her side, finds herself at the heart of a new friend circle.
Then Mark enters the picture. A philosophy student a few years older than them, he has strange and compelling ideas about self-discovery. When Linda and Mark start dating, Jessica is disturbed by the change in her friend—and how quickly she seems to have fallen under the charismatic man’s control.
But Mark’s influence is not limited to Linda. Soon Jessica’s group of friends are keeping secrets for him, and it will culminate in ways that change their lives forever.
All That Life Can Afford by Emily Everett (fiction)
A taut and lyrical coming-of-age debut about a young American woman navigating class, lies, and love amid London’s jet-set elite.
“Languid, escapist, romantic, and just so fun to read…Jane Austen would be proud.” – Vanessa Chan, internationally bestselling author of The Storm We Made
I would arrive, blank like a sheet of notebook paper, and write myself new.
Anna first fell in love with London at her hometown library—its Jane Austen balls a far cry from her life of food stamps and hand-me-downs. But when she finally arrives after college, the real London is a moldy flat and the same paycheck-to-paycheck grind—that fairy-tale life still out of reach.
Then Anna meets the Wilders, who fly her to Saint-Tropez to tutor their teenage daughter. Swept up by the sphinx-like elder sister, Anna soon finds herself plunged into a heady whirlpool of parties and excess, a place where confidence is a birthright. There she meets two handsome young men—one who wants to whisk her into his world in a chauffeured car, the other who sees through Anna’s struggle to leave her old life behind. It’s like she’s stepped into the pages of a glittering new novel, but what will it cost her to play the part?
Children of Radium by Joe Dunthorne (history/nonfiction)
In the tradition of When Time Stopped and The Hare with Amber Eyes, this extraordinary family memoir investigates the dark legacy of the author’s great-grandfather, a talented German-Jewish chemist specializing in radioactive household products who wound up developing chemical weapons and gas mask filters for the Nazis.
When novelist and poet Joe Dunthorne began researching his family history, he expected to write the account of their heroic escape from Nazi Germany in 1935. Instead, what he found in his great-grandfather’s voluminous, unpublished, partially translated memoir was a much darker, more complicated story. “I confess to my descendants who will read these lines that I made a grave error. I betrayed myself, my most sacred principles,” he wrote. “I cannot shake off the great debt on my conscience.”
Siegfried Merzbacher was a German-Jewish chemist living in Oranienburg, a small town north of Berlin, where he developed various household items, including a radioactive toothpaste called Doramad. But then he was asked by the government to work on products with a strong military connection—first he made and tested gas-mask filters, and then he was invited to establish a chemical weapons laboratory. Between 1933 and 1935, he was a Jewish chemist making chemical weapons for the Nazis. While he and his nuclear family escaped safely to Turkey before the war, Siegfried never got over his complicity, particularly after learning that members of his extended family were murdered in Auschwitz.
Armed only with his great-grandfather’s rambling, 2,000-page deathbed memoir and a handful of archival clues, Dunthorne traveled to Munich, Ammendorf, Berlin, Ankara, and Oranienburg—a place where hundreds of unexploded bombs remain hidden in the irradiated soil—to reckon with the remarkable, unsettling legacy of his family’s past.
Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (romance)
Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.
Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years–or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.
When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.
One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.
Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication
Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.
But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.
And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.
Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner (historical fiction)
Powerful witchcraft. A hunt for sunken treasure. Forbidden love on the high seas. Beware the Amalfi Curse…
Haven Ambrose, a trailblazing nautical archaeologist, has come to the sun-soaked village of Positano to investigate the mysterious shipwrecks along the Amalfi Coast. But Haven is hoping to find more than old artifacts beneath the azure waters; she is secretly on a quest to locate a trove of priceless gemstones her late father spotted on his final dive. Upon Haven’s arrival, strange maelstroms and misfortunes start plaguing the town. Is it nature or something more sinister at work?
As Haven searches for her father’s sunken treasure, she begins to unearth a centuries-old tale of ancient sorcery and one woman’s quest to save her lover and her village by using the legendary art of stregheria, a magical ability to harness the ocean. Could this magic be behind Positano’s latest calamities? Haven must unravel the Amalfi Curse before the region is destroyed forever…
Against the dazzling backdrop of the Amalfi Coast, this bewitching novel shimmers with mystery, romance and the untamed magic of the sea.
The Guilt Pill by Saumya Dave (fiction/thriller)
The Other Black Girl meets The Push in this taut psychological drama about a CEO on maternity leave who goes missing after she becomes addicted to an experimental, guilt-erasing pill, exploring themes of motherhood, privilege, race, and how the world treats women who dare to “have it all.”
What if women could get rid of their guilt?
Maya Patel has it all—her own start-up, a sexy, doting husband, influencer status, and now, a new baby. Or does she? Because behind closed doors, Maya’s drowning. Her newborn’s taking a toll on her marriage, her best friend won’t return her calls, and her company’s hanging on by a thread. The worst part? It’s all her fault. If she could just be a better boss, mother, wife, daughter, friend… Maybe she wouldn’t feel so guilty all the time.
Enter: #Girlboss Liz Anderson, who introduces her to the “guilt pill,” an experimental supplement that erases female guilt. At first, it’s the perfect antidote to Maya’s self-blame and imposter syndrome, and she finally becomes the unapologetic woman she’s always wanted to be. But there’s a catch: for Maya to truly “have it all,” she needs to be ready to risk it all. And as Maya falls deeper and deeper down the pill’s guilt-free rabbit hole, her growing ruthlessness could threaten everything she’s built for herself—and the family she’s worked so hard to protect.
Electric, taut, and sharply observed, The Guilt Pill is a feminist exploration of motherhood, race, ambition, and how the world treats women who dare to go after everything they want.
The Page Turner by Viola Shipman (fiction/romance)
A young romance writer makes a discovery that throws her elitist family into chaos.
Emma Page grew up the black sheep in a bookish household, raised to believe fine literature is the only worthy type of fiction. Her parents, self-proclaimed “serious” authors who run their own vanity press, The Mighty Pages, mingle in highbrow social circles that look down on anything too popular or mainstream, while her sister, Jess, is a powerful social-media influencer whose stylish reviews can make or break a novel.
Hiding her own romance manuscript from her disapproving parents, Emma finds inspiration at the family cottage among the “fluff” they despise: the juicy summer romances that belonged to her late grandmother. But a chance discovery unearthed from her Gigi’s belongings reveals a secret that has the power to ruin her parents’ business and destroy their reputation in the industry—a secret that has already fallen into the hands of an unscrupulous publishing insider with a grudge to settle. Now Emma must decide: As much as she’s dreamed of the day her parents are forced to confront their own egos, can she really just sit back and watch The Mighty Pages be exposed and their legacy destroyed?
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