THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  Debut author, Kimberly King Parsons has written WE WERE THE UNIVERSE (Knopf), a story about a young mother, in denial after the death of her sister who navigates the landscapes of desire, guilt and grief. The trip was supposed to be  fun . When Kit’s best friend gets dumped by his boyfriend, he begs her to ditch her family responsibilities for an idyllic weekend in the Montana mountains. They’ll soak in hot springs, then sneak a vape into a dive bar and drink too much, like old times. Instead, their getaway only reminds Kit of everything she’s lost lately: her wildness, her independence, and—most heartbreaking of all—her sister, Julie, who died a few years ago. When she returns home to the Dallas suburbs, Kit tries to settle in to her routine—long afternoons spent caring for her irrepressible daughter, going on therapist-advised dates with her concerned husband, and reluctantly taking her mother’s phone calls. But in the secret recesses of Kit’s mind, she’s reminiscing about...

  Caroline O'Donoghue's novel THE RACHEL INCIDENT (Vintage) is all about friends and lovers set in a very chaotic Ireland. bRachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever.  Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them. When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor,  Th...

  I just finished Annabelle Tometich's memoir, THE MANGO TREE (LittleBrownBooks) and what fun it is. One moment, I was laughing silly and the next, dabbing my eyes. THE MANGO TREE is also full of cultural Filipino information that I'm glad I didn't miss out on. At the first sentence you are hooked. "Rows of orange people sit handcuffed in a beige room. One of them is my mother." So begins THE MANGO TREE, a memoir about growing up a mixed-race Filipina "nobody" in the mostly lily-white suburban Fort Myers, Florida. Mom was the first one in her family to emigrate from the Philippines to the United States and her "American" children don't appreciate the hard work it has taken for her to be a brown person with a wide nose in Florida. Of course living with mom, a bitter manic-depressive is no picnic for Annabelle and her siblings. Annabelle's family is anything but "normal" and that's all Annabelle wants - to be normal and to b...

  THE MIDNIGHT NEWS (VintageBooks) by bestselling author, Jo Baker is a story of intrigue, love and danger during WWII. It is 1940 and twenty-year-old Charlotte Richmond watches from her attic window as enemy planes fly over London. Still grieving her beloved brother, who never returned from France, she is trying to keep herself out of trouble: holding down a typist job at the Ministry of Information, sharing gin and confidences with her best friend, Elena, and dodging her overbearing father. On her way to work she often sees the boy who feeds the birds—a source of unexpected joy amid the rubble of the Blitz. But every day brings new scenes of devastation, and after yet another heartbreaking loss Charlotte has an uncanny sense of foreboding. Someone is stalking the darkness, targeting her friends. And now he’s following her. As grief and suspicion consume her, Charlotte’s nerves become increasingly frayed. She no longer knows whom to trust. She can’t even trust herself . . . Jo Bak...

  Whale Fall (Pantheon) by debut author Elizabeth O'Connor   tells the story of what happens when one person's ambitions threaten the fabric of a community, and what can happen when they are realized. In 1938, a dead whale washes up on the shores of remote Welsh island. For Manod, who has spent her whole life on the island, it feels like both a portent of doom and a symbol of what may lie beyond the island's shores. A young woman living with her father and her sister (to whom she has reluctantly but devotedly become a mother following the death of their own mother years prior), Manod can't shake her welling desire to explore life beyond the beautiful yet blisteringly harsh islands that her hardscrabble family has called home for generations. The arrival of two English ethnographers who hope to study the island culture, then, feels like a boon to her—both a glimpse of life outside her community and a means of escape. The longer the ethnographers stay, the more she feels ...

  From the Pulitzer Prize winning author Jane Smiley comes LUCKY (Knopf). A story about a woman who becomes a folk music star during the nation's changing times. Before Jodie Rattler became a star, she was a girl growing up in St. Louis. One day in 1955, when she was just six years old, her uncle Drew took her to the racetrack, where she got lucky—and that roll of two-dollar bills she won has never since left her side. Jodie thrived in the warmth of her extended family, and then—through a combination of hard work and serendipity—she started a singing career, which catapulted her from St. Louis to New York City, from the English countryside to the tropical beaches of St. Thomas, from Cleveland to Los Angeles, and back again. Jodie comes of age in recording studios, backstage, and on tour, and she tries to hold her own in the wake of Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Joni Mitchell. Yet it feels like something is missing. Could it be true love? Or is that not actually what Jo...

    A lost mother A legendary book And a daughter searching for both Patti Callahan Henry's new novel, 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 the evergreen allure of secrets. @Simonandschuster @Atria @Megtandemliteray @Patticallahanhenry

  Maid of honor and struggling novelist Natalie is different as can be from best man and ivory-tower academic Rob. In  Laura Hankin's novel, ONE- STAR ROMANCE (Berkley), what should be the melding of friend groups at the wedding of their favorite couple turns into a rivalry when Natalie finds out minutes before walking down the aisle that Rob rated her book one star on Goodreads.  When the reception ends, they hope they’ll never meet again. But as Rob and Nat  slip from their twenties into their thirties, they’re forced together whenever their fast-track best friends celebrate another milestone.  Through housewarmings and christenings, life-changing triumphs and failures, Natalie and Rob grapple with their own choices—and learn that your harshest critic can become your perfectly imperfect match. I'm an author, screenwriter, and performer who writes novels that you can read on a beach but also for a book club. My books include the upcoming rom-com  ONE-STAR ...

  A propulsive, layered novel about the meteoric rise of a legendary pop star and the secret she’s kept hidden for fifteen years, for fans of Megan Abbott and  Daisy Jones & the Six. Everyone in America knows Dylan Read, or at least has heard her music. Since releasing her debut album her senior year of high school, Dylan’s spent fifteen years growing up in the public eye. She’s not only perfected her skills when it comes to lyrics and melody; she’s also learned how to craft a public narrative that satisfies her fans, her label, and the media. In the circles of fame and celebrity in which she now travels, the careful maintenance of Dylan Read pop star is often more important than the songs themselves. And so lots of people think they understand everything about Dylan Read. But what no one knows is the part of her origin story she has successfully kept hidden: her childhood best friend Kelsey vanished the year before Dylan became famous. Now, as Dylan’s at the height of her...

  A dream vacation turns deadly in THE PARIS WIDOW (ParkRow).  Secrets from the past catch up to a married couple in Paris in this new edge-of-your-seat thriller from  USA Today  bestselling author, Kimberly Belle.   When Stella met Adam, she thought she had finally found a nice, normal guy—a welcome change from her previous boyfriend and her precarious jetsetter lifestyle with him. But her secure world comes crashing down when Adam goes missing after an explosion in the city square. Unable to reach him, she panics.    As the French police investigate, it’s revealed that Adam was on their radar as a dealer of rare and stolen antiquities with a long roster of criminal clients. Reeling from this news, Stella is determined not to leave Paris until she has the full story. Was Adam a random victim or the target of the explosion? And why is someone following her through the streets of Paris?   An irresistible, fast-paced read set in some of Europe’s mos...