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 Best Possible Experience: Stories by Nishanth Injam
“Eleven gems make up Injam’s stellar debut short-story collection showcasing exquisite quotidian beauty haunted by seemingly inevitable loss—of home, family, lovers, identity—among contemporary citizens of a global diaspora.” —Booklist, starred review
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On sale July 11, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
Between Two Moons by Aisha Abdel Gawad
“Gawad’s engrossing, propulsive novel evokes the heat of summer, the sharp pangs that come with fasting, the oppressive climate of fear and distrust, and the insurmountable bond between sisters. An exceptional, not-to-be-missed debut.” —Booklist, starred review
“A young Muslim woman comes of age in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, during a period of heightened anti-Arab prejudice in Gawad’s astonishing debut…A knockout…This is a winner.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review)
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On sale June 6, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
Charm City Rocks: A Love Story by Matthew Norman
Norman (All Together Now) has created a compulsively readable rom-com with nostalgic flair, unexpected twists, and affable characters whom readers will care about. Highly recommended.—Library Journal, starred review
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On sale June 6, 2023 | Available in trade paperback, eBook, cd, audio download, and large print editions
The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
“The second collaborative effort by Benedict and Murray, following The Personal Librarian (2021), follows the 30-year friendship between civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt… the novel really shines in the behind-the-scenes moments when the women support each other during personal struggles with marital infidelity, illness, and loss. This impeccably researched, relevant novel is a must-read and destined to be a book-club favorite.” —Booklist, starred review
“Those who enjoy stirring historical fiction, as well as fans of The Personal Librarian, will find Benedict and Murray’s latest collaboration compelling.”— Library Journal, starred review
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On sale June 27, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, audio download, cd, and large print editions
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
“Funny, tender, knockabout, gritty, and suspenseful, McBride’s microcosmic, socially critiquing, and empathic novel dynamically celebrates difference, kindness, ingenuity, and the force that compels us to move heaven and earth to help each other.” —Booklist, starred review
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On sale August 8, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, cd, audio download, and large print editions
How Can I Help You by Laura Sims
“Librarians especially will enjoy this unique take on the psychological thriller. Give this unputdownable title to readers who revel in messy and complicated characters.”— Library Journal, starred review
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On sale July 18, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
“This banter-filled opposites-attract romance from Hazelwood (Loathe To Love You) is upbeat and realistic, with instant chemistry between the protagonists and an intricate plot.” — Library Journal, starred review
“The reigning queen of STEMinist rom-coms returns with a tale set in the cutthroat world of elite academia full of delightful humor, realistic emotions, and the messy search for self-acceptance.” —Booklist, starred review
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On sale June 13, 2023 | Available in trade paperback, eBook, and audio download editions
Medusa’s Sisters by Lauren J.A. Bear
“Bear’s feminist reimagining of Greek myth allows Medusa’s forgotten fellow Gorgon sisters, Stheno and Euryale, to powerfully reclaim their voices and individuality… A must-read for Greek mythology fans seeking new depth in their tales and those who enjoyed Madeline Miller’s Circe or Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls.”— Library Journal, starred review
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On sale August 8, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
Promise by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
“As the Montgomery bus boycott and the Little Rock Nine crisis unfold, Ezra, Cinthy, Lindy, and their families band together to fight racial hostility, echoing the tragic events that drove the Kindreds north a generation ago. Griffiths excels at creating a seemingly innocuous small town never more than a hair trigger away from racial violence yet a place of safety and community for white people who “never got to think of what the trees must feel like down home when our bodies be swinging from their branches.” Powerful.” —Booklist, starred review
“Griffiths’ considerable talent as a poet creates space for descriptions of otherwise unspeakable horrors. . . . A stunning and evocative portrait of love, pride, and survival.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
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On sale July 11, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
Much Ado about Nada by Uzma Jalaluddin
“Jalaluddin (Hana Khan Carries On, 2021) updates Jane Austen’s Persuasion for modern Muslim life in the fictional Golden Crescent neighborhood in Toronto, where Muslims from all over the world worry about their children getting married and becoming too modern. It’s a lively, romantic story with rich side characters and a convincingly heartbreaking backstory for Nada and Baz.” —Booklist, starred review
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On sale June 13, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue
“Adult and YA author O’Donoghue gives readers a quick-reading slow build that rests comfortably on strong characters, Rachel’s conversational narration, and a crisp capture of the 2010s, from recession through Ireland’s legalization of abortion and all the many shifts, mini to tectonic, therein.” —Booklist, starred review
“The real love story of this novel is not between James and Dr. Byrne, or Rachel and her own paramour, but between Rachel and James, whose codependent glee in each other’s company will remind many readers of their own college friendships, especially those between women and queer men…. Sensational.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
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On sale June 27, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson
“After the events of Her Majesty’s Royal Coven (2022), what is left of the group of childhood friends (Niamh, Ciara, Elle, Helena, and Leonie) and the new generation (Theo, Holly, and Snow) must continue to fight the established system of the Coven, evil forces, and those that would control them. The characters that were so carefully and diligently created in the first book are given their own stories in the second book, and it is a blast to read.” —Booklist, starred review
Magic seamlessly weaves with pop culture references, fun soap-operatic twists, and an incisive look at the psychology of violent misogyny. This is the work of a master storyteller.”–Publisher’s Weekly, starred review
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On sale June 20, 2023 | Available in trade paperback, eBook, and audio download editions
Wanderlust by Elle Everhart
“Set against the backdrop of gorgeous international locales, this slow-burn rom-com will appeal to fans of travel and social media story lines as well as the forced proximity trope. Pair with Love and Other Flight Delays by Denise Williams.”—Library Journal, starred review
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On sale July 4, 2023 | Available in trade paperback, eBook, and audio download editions
NONFICTION
The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel
“Finkel will have art history and true crime lovers obsessively turning the pages of this suspenseful, smartly written work until its shocking conclusion.” —Library Journal, starred review
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On sale June 27, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, large print, and audio download editions
Country of the Blind by Andrew Leland
“Leland delivers a masterful exploration of disability in his brilliant debut. . . . Enriched by its sparkling prose, this is an extraordinary and intellectually rigorous account of adapting to change.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
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On sale July 25, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, large print, and audio download editions
Easily Slip into Another World: A Life in Music by Henry Threadgill and Brent Hayes Edwards
“With coauthor Edwards, Threadgill recounts his key collaborations with many prominent musicians in Chicago, New York, and around the worl, and shares his unique perspective on how music is created, taught, and shared. A remarkably eloquent memoir by a Chicago jazz giant.” —Booklist, starred review
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On sale May 16, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
Sofreh: A Contemporary Approach to Classic Persian Cuisine by Nasim Alikhani and Theresa Gambacorta
“An exemplar for cookbooks as cultural ambassadors, this merits pride of place on bookshelves as a warm guide for cooks new to Persian cuisine or returning to familiar favorites, with the added zest of the upscale restaurant’s signature flair.” —Booklist, starred review
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On sale June 27, 2023 | Available in hardcover and eBook editions
A Thread of Violence: A Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder by Mark O’Connell
“Down-on-his-luck Dublin socialite Malcolm Macarthur’s senseless murders of two strangers in 1982, when author O’Connell was a child, has long been an object of national and personal fascination…Relating Macarthur’s crimes and everything written about them, obsessing over details true and imagined, O’Connell compares himself to “a prospector who had struck a rich vein of crude oil.” —Booklist, starred review
“[A] true crime gem…. Swirling together dogged reporting with questions about the media’s coverage of crime, O’Connell manages a gripping account that casts a skeptical eye on its own genre. Even readers put off by profiles of killers will be piqued.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A vividly written account…. The resulting picture of the killer is seen as if through a proverbial dark glass—and it’s as chilling, in the end, as any Hitchcock film. A superb study of real-life crime and punishment.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
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On sale June 27, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
When the World Didn’t End: A Memoir by Guinevere Turner
“Screenwriter/director/actress Turner (Charlie Says) states at the beginning of her memoir that it attempts to simply document the events of her childhood as they happened, as well as the feelings she experienced at the time, without letting her adult perspective color her descriptions. She has done this successfully, recalling growing up in the Lyman Family Commune until the age of 11, when her mother chose to leave and take her children with her.”—Library Journal, starred review
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On sale May 23, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage by Johnny Steinberg
“South African scholar and award-winning author Steinberg (A Man of Good Hope) presents an engrossing joint biography of Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, his wife of nearly 40 years…This is a superb addition to the history of South Africa and the struggle against apartheid.”—Library Journal, starred review
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On sale May 2, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
The World: A Family History of Humanity by Simon Sebag Montefiore
“History buffs and novices will appreciate this extensive, accessible, highly recommended work; it may inspire them to dig into lesser-known areas of global history.”—Library Journal, starred review
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On sale May 16, 2023 | Available in hardcover, eBook, and audio download editions
AUDIOBOOKS
Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain by Sathnam Sanghera; narrated by Homer Todiwala and Marlon James
“This essential and illuminating book nicely connects with Caroline Pennock’s On Savage Shores, Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer’s Myth America, and Nikole Hannah-Jones’s The 1619 Project.”—Library Journal, starred review
Listen to a clip here.
Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome by Anthony Everitt & Roddy Ashworth; Narrated by Greg Patmore
“ A commendable study of the disinformation, gossip, and faulty scholarship that has clouded this infamous Roman Caesar, who just wanted to be a musician and poet. Highly recommended for large public and academic library collections.” —Library Journal, starred review
Listen to a clip here.