THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

In this stunning debut by South Carolina attorney @CarolineCleveland, a lawyer with a past, and  his indomitable detective and lover, find themselves entangled in secrets, lies, and murder in a small Southern town. #WHENCICADASCRY (UnionSquare&Co.) is a suspenseful thriller that will give you a front row seat into the judicial system. A high-profile murder case— A white woman has been bludgeoned to death with an altar cross in a rural church on Cicada Road in Walterboro, South Carolina. Sam Jenkins, a Black man, is found covered in blood, kneeling over the body. In a state already roiling with racial tension, this is not only a murder case, but a powder keg. A haunting cold case— Two young women are murdered on quiet Edisto Beach, an hour southeast of Walterboro, and the killer disappears without a trace. Thirty-four years later the mystery remains unsolved. Could there be a connection to Stander's case? A killer who's watching— Stander takes on Jenkins's defense, but h...

  Award-winning author @AliSmith shines a guiding light through the nightmarish provocative novel, #COMPANIONPIECE (VintageBooks) that intertwines our atomized present and the uncannily parallel era of the Black Plague. A story is never an answer. A story is always a question.   A day spent locked in a room by border officials without any explanation as to why. A riddle that seemingly has no answer:  curlew or curfew, you choose.  A phone call from a college friend who hasn't been in touch in years.  And all of it is somehow inextricably linked to the life of a young blacksmith hounded from her trade and branded a vagrant nearly 500 years ago. Companion Piece  is a kaleidoscope of human history and experience, and a stunning addition to  Ali Smith's gorgeous canon. Ali Smith CBE FRSL (born August 1962 in Inverness) is a Scottish writer. She was born to working-class parents, raised in a council house in Inverness and now lives in Cambridge. S...

  A stunning new novel, The Limits (Penguin/RandomHouse) by author Nell Freudenberger set in French Polynesia and New York City about three characters who undergo massive transformations over the course of a single year. From Mo’orea, a tiny volcanic island off the coast of Tahiti, a French biologist obsessed with saving Polynesia’s imperiled coral reefs sends her teenage daughter to live with her ex-husband in New York. By the time fifteen-year-old Pia arrives at her father Stephen’s luxury apartment in Manhattan and meets his new, younger wife, Kate, she has been shuttled between her parents’ disparate lives—her father’s consuming work as a surgeon at an overwhelmed New York hospital, her mother’s relentless drive against a ticking ecological clock—for most of her life. Fluent in French, intellectually precocious, moving between cultures with seeming ease, Pia arrives in New York poised for a rebellion, just as COVID sends her and her stepmother together into near total isolation...

  For a disgraced reporter, unraveling a conspiracy of murder could mean redemption in the powerful new suspense novel, LOST TO DUNE ROAD (Thomas&Mercer) by bestselling author, Kara Thomas. Reporter Lee Ellerin’s investigation into a young woman’s unsolved murder gained national attention—only for her to lose everything due to a tragic mistake. After being publicly ridiculed for causing a suspect’s death, Lee is forced to leave her career behind. Five years later, pregnant college student Amanda Hartley lies in a coma. The police say she attempted suicide, but the details don’t add up. Where is the father? Who was paying for Amanda’s Manhattan penthouse? Why did Amanda have a note with Lee’s name in her backpack? There’s also one alarming coincidence: Amanda was last seen on Dune Road in the Hamptons—where the murder victim in Lee’s previous investigation disappeared. As she’s pulled back into the still-unsolved case that destroyed her career, Lee sees the chance to amend the m...

  In Nick Medina's new novel, INDIAN BURIAL GROUND (Berkley) on this Indian Reservation nothing is what it seems. Summer 1986.  An elderly woman silently drowns herself. A corpse sits up in its coffin and speaks. A vampire stalks a reservation, hunting for its next victim. During the course of one eerie summer, sixteen-year-old Louie will discover that not all is what it seems on the Takoda reservation. After a series of unexplainable deaths leaves the reservation reeling, Louie becomes convinced that a profound evil has infiltrated his home—but is it the Takoda vampire that has haunted Louie since his childhood, or something much more sinister?   In the present day, Noemi Broussard’s life swiftly comes crumbling down after the news of her boyfriend Roddy’s apparent suicide and the return of her Uncle Louie, who she has not seen in over a decade. Noemi knows that the facts surrounding Roddy’s death don’t add up, and she isn’t the only one convinced that something menacing...

  Just when she thought she’d gotten far enough away . . . a life-changing phone call throws an antisocial scientist back into her least favorite place—the spotlight. A hilarious and insightful new novel from the  USA Today  bestselling author of  The Bookish Life of Nina Hill . After a tumultuous childhood, Christa Liddle has hidden away, both figuratively and literally. Happily studying sea snails in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Christa finds her tranquil existence thrown into chaos when her once-famous father—long thought dead after a plane crash—turns out to be alive, well, and ready to make amends. The world goes wild, fascinated by this real-life saga, pinning Christa and her family under the spotlight. As if that weren’t enough, her reunion with an old childhood friend reveals an intense physical attraction neither was expecting and both want to act on . . . if they can just keep a lid on it. When her father’s story starts to develop cracks, Chris...

       PROMISE of PERIDOT is the second book in Kate Golden's, THE Sacred Stones Series. A prophecy of death. A weapon of hope. A sacrifice of love. Arwen Valondale is sailing for the mysterious Kingdom of Citrine after the battle of Siren’s Bay. Still reeling from the loss of her mother and the shock of her newfound powers, Arwen directs all of her pain and rage toward the man who betrayed her: King Kane Ravenwood. But Kane’s presence is unavoidable as he leads Arwen and her friends on an expedition to recover the Blade of the Sun—a legendary weapon with the power to kill tyrannical Fae King Lazarus. Their uneasy truce proves difficult to maintain, as Arwen battles her unresolved feelings, and Kane is willing to become darkness itself to protect her. Arwen knows failure to fulfill the prophecy will seal both her own fate as well as the fates of those she loves most. But as Arwen faces creatures, foes, and magic beyond her wildest imaginings, her resolve is tested in...

  Klara thinks of herself as a little different: a sneaker in a world full of kitten heels and polished boots. She has type 1 diabetes, currently works in a dead-end job, and is in desperate need of a change, whether she knows it or not. When her dad is diagnosed with cancer, Klara begrudgingly agrees to run his construction company while he undergoes treatment, even though it means moving back home and pushing the boundaries of her comfort zone. Alex has depression. He’s been a shell of himself since his brother was killed in a hit-and-run bicycle accident. He’s unemployed, has bills piling up, and is distant from his friends and family. But his therapist encourages him set up a calendar, checking off tasks each day, and looking for work to help get him back on his feet. When an ad pops up for a carpenter position with a small construction company, he jumps at the chance to take this seemingly small step forward. Klara and Alex’s stories unfold in parallel as they navigate life, f...