With starred reviews from publications including Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal—your patrons will want to read these much-anticipated books that reviewers are raving about.
FICTION
The Bride Wore White by Amanda Quick
“With her usual storytelling panache, Quick (When She Dreams, 2022) gracefully returns to the glamour-tinged, wit-infused world of her 1930s Burning Cove books with another spot-on story that flawlessly fuses danger, deception, and desire into the literary equivalent of catnip for both romance and mystery readers.” —Booklist, starred review
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On sale May 2, 2023 | Available in hardcover and eBook editions
The Celebrants by Steven Rowley
“Beautifully written and culminating in a phenomenally well-realized concluding set-piece, Rowley’s tale wonderfully captures how deeply important friendships are. Like Ron Currie Jr.’s Everything Matters! (2009) this is a life-affirming work, one that is both hilarious and richly affecting, with an unforgettable cast of engaging characters that readers will wish they could spend more time with.” —Booklist, starred review
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On sale May 30, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
Countries of Origin by Javier Fuentes
“Fuentes’ first novel is a marvel of verisimilitude with a superbly realized setting and a perfectly apposite tone. His treatment of his complex, empathetic characters is psychologically acute, and their evolving relationship is believable and always engrossing. Add the inherent element of suspense (will the boys finally get together?) and you have a singularly successful debut.” —Booklist, starred review
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On sale June 6, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
The Ferryman by Justin Cronin
“Fans of the Passage series have been waiting for a new Cronin since 2016, and thankfully, it was worth it; he delivers a chilling, original, and immersive standalone sf tale perfectly rendered for our tumultuous times.” —Booklist, starred review
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On sale May 2, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, audio download, cd and large print editions
The Golden Doves by Martha Hall Kelly
“Once again Kelly weaves a fascinating tale of lesser-known heroes, inspired by true events, to enhance our understanding of history. Offer it to fans of plucky women, found family, and beating the odds..” —Booklist, starred review
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On sale April 18, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, audio download, cd and large print editions
Happy Place by Emily Henry
“Once again, Henry (Book Lovers, 2022) dazzles and delights by brilliantly deploying her considerable skills in comic timing and crafting characters with relatable, realistically messy lives. Effortlessly toggling between the present-day fauxmance playing out between her protagonists and the origins of their love a decade earlier, Happy Place is a romance that delivers on both style and substance.” —Booklist, starred review of the day, March, 15, 2023
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On sale April 25, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, audio download, and cd editions
I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore
“A curious spin on Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, with frissons of George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), Moore’s unnerving, gothic, acutely funny, lyrically metaphysical, and bittersweet tale is an audacious, mind-bending plunge into the mysteries of illness, aberration, death, grief, memory, and love.” —Booklist, starred review
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On sale June 20, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and large print editions
Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens
“Cravens smacks the reader in the face with a genderqueer coming-of-age story that culminates in three sex workers tracking down a posse for romantic and financial revenge…Cravens peppers the novel with enough foreshadowing that an astute reader could figure out the big reveal quickly. But it’s just as much fun to willfully ignore the clues and hang on for dear life.”—Booklist, starred review
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On sale June 20, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks
We all knew he could act, but the publication of Hanks’ Uncommon Type, his excellent 2017 short-story collection, proved he could write, too. Now he’s followed that with a full-length novel, and it is superb. ..The writing is spot-on, bringing to the novel all the passion Hanks feels about his profession.”—Booklist, starred review
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On sale May 9, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, audio download, cd and large print editions
The Private Life of Spies and The Exquisite Art of Getting Even by Alexander McCall Smith
“His latest is a double collection of short stories. The “Revenge” section’s stories, which include one about an envy-inspiring gangster and another about backbiting actors, have nicely twisty plots and offer wryly wise reasons not to seek revenge. Massively entertaining and thought-provoking.”—Booklist, starred review
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On sale May 9, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and large print editions
Summer Reading by Jenn McKinlay
“Readers will find much to adore in McKinlay’s (Wait for It, 2021) latest fetching mix of romance and women’s fiction, beginning with the empathic and insightful ways in which she integrates the challenges someone with dyslexia faces into the engaging story line of this comic charmer. Add to this McKinlay’s flair for capturing just how family and friends can make us feel both vulnerable and strong, conveyed in breezy writing buoyed by quippy banter and sizzling sexual chemistry, and you have a book that is pure reading bliss in any season.” —Booklist, starred review
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On sale May 16, 2023 | Available in paperback, eBook, and audio download editions
NONFICTION
George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy by Sally Bedell Smith
“Veteran royal biographer Smith (Prince Charles, 2017) focuses on the marriage of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, calling their union absolutely central to the survival of the British monarchy…They assiduously cultivated their relationships with the British and Commonwealth people, passing on their devotion to duty to their daughter, the future queen. Smith writes in great detail, notably sharing revealing intimacies of the couple’s letters to one another.”—Booklist, starred review
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On sale April 4, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse by Howard Fishman
“Fishman—musician, writer, and frequent contributor to the New Yorker—is part of a small but passionate Converse fan base and has recorded her songs, produced an album of her art music, and written a play about her life (A Star Has Burnt My Eye). Now his deeply researched and absorbing biography interweaves the story of her complicated life with his own obsession with her accomplishments and frustrations, some of which mirror his own… Fishman’s book will resonate with Converse devotees and introduce others to this fascinating and overlooked artist.”—Booklist, starred review
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On sale May 2, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar
“Grabar presents the overarching story of how the unquenchable infrastructure required by parking has determined nearly every aspect of urban planning…All library shelves will benefit from having this definitive account of an everyday drudgery that deeply affects drivers and nondrivers alike.”—Booklist, starred review
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On sale May 9, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
A Renaissance of Our Own by Rachel E. Cargle
“Activist and lecturer Cargle shares how she transformed her life by reimagining herself in terms of faith, relationships, feminism, education, work, and rest… Cargle’s self-help memoir is highly recommended for DEI and LGTBQ+ collections and women of all ages who want to renew and rethink their purpose in life..”—Booklist, starred review
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On sale May 16, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
Tomorrow Perhaps the Future: Writers, Outsiders, and the Spanish Civil War by Sarah Watling
“Watling delves into the motivations that drew these women to Spain and how their experiences there were transformative…This book belongs in all library collections next.”—Booklist, starred review
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On sale May 9, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
True West: Sam Shepard’s Life, Work, and Times by Robert Greenfield
“Drawing on extensive archives and conducting revelatory interviews, Greenfield tracks the influence of rock ’n’ roll on Shepard’s writing, the interplay between his plays and films, his notoriety, passion for horses, persistent solo cross-country drives, sustaining friendship with Johnny Dark, and great loves: O-Lan Jones, Patti Smith, and Jessica Lange. Sardonic, haunted, brilliant, and elusive, Shepard needed to be free and loved, while his dramatic quest was at once personal, reflective of the times, and steeped in humankind’s ceaseless paradoxes.”—Booklist, starred review
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On sale April 11, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
You: The Story: A Writer’s Guide to Craft Through Memory by Ruta Sepetys
“Much like Stephen King did in On Writing, Sepetys describes each layer of writing, incorporating examples from her life….Part writing guide, part memoir, Sepetys’ fresh, fun handbook is all inspiration.”—Booklist, starred review
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On sale May 16, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
AUDIOBOOKS
Blue Horses by Mary Oliver; Read by Kimberly Farr
“Moments of reflection come across like the glow of a sunset. Moments of humor feel slyly effervescent. And for poems in which Oliver sinks into a deeper and more pensive mode, Farr’s voice embraces the listener like a warm hug. Typically, listeners seek out author-narrated poetry collections to gain the most benefit from the poet’s own phrasing and expressions. But the match here between Oliver’s plainspoken poems, with their broad appeal and accessibility, and Farr’s blend of empathy, intuition, and warm tones elevate the audio version of the collection and expand its reach. Highly recommended.” Booklist, starred “Review of the Day”, March 13, 2023
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