THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  THE GROVE (VikingBooksForYoungReaders) is set in the socioeconomic tinderbox of the 1960s, two sisters in a struggling and damaged family only have each other to rely on . . . until an ugly secret tears them apart and threatens the cause of justice in their small town. Fifteen-year-old Pip and seventeen-year-old Sissy aren't just sisters, they're best friends. Every year, they wait eagerly for the traveling carnival to put its stakes down in their tiny Florida town. It's the only time when the girls can abandon their endless chores on the family's orange grove and give in to pure joy. And the only time Pip and Sissy can forget their many troubles . . . living on the brink of poverty, Mama's despair, and Daddy's perpetual anger. With the arrival of the carnival, the girls’ slow, small lives suddenly feels bigger and brighter. But this year, something is different. Once the carnival leaves, with the charming young sword-swallower with it, Sissy grows increasingl...

  When a restaurateur and serial philanderer turns up stone-cold dead, his trio of exes falls under suspicion in a sharp-witted and suspenseful short story by the  New York Times  bestselling author, Sally Hepworth. Celebrity chef Ian Curley is found dead in his walk-in freezer. The prime suspects are his three ex-wives, who meet up every Friday evening in their favorite corner booth of his restaurant. It’s a tradition for Anita, Mary-Jane, and Rosie to drink, dine, and commiserate. But commit murder? All aggrieved, each one has a motive and an alibi. And a brilliant detective has reservations. Who did it? The night will tell. Sally Hepworth’s  The Ex-Wives Club  is part of  Alibis , a collection of stories about lies, truth, and deception. It’s just a matter of what you can get away with. They can be read or listened to in one sitting. Sally Hepworth is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, most recently Darling Girls. Sally’s novels have b...

  Long before Dorothy visits Oz, her aunt, Emily Gale, sets off on her own grand adventure, leaving gritty Chicago behind for Kansas and a life that will utterly change her. In this transporting novel, BEFORE DOROTHY (Berkley)  Hazel Gaynor takes us on her life-changing adventure. Chicago, 1924: Emily and her new husband, Henry, yearn to leave the bustle of Chicago for the promise of their own American dream among the harsh beauty of the prairie. But leaving the city means leaving Emily’s beloved sister, Annie, who was once closer to her than anyone in the world. Kansas, 1932: Emily and Henry have established their new home among the warmth of the farming community in Kansas. Aligned to the fickle fortunes of nature, their lives hold a precarious and hopeful purpose, until tragedy strikes and their orphaned niece, Dorothy, lands on their doorstep. The wide-eyed child isn’t the only thing to disrupt Emily’s world. Drought and devastating dust storms threaten to destroy everythi...

  In the sun-dappled mystery, BEACH READS AND DEADLY DEEDS (MIRA) from  New York Times  bestselling author Allison Brennan, a risk-averse bibliophile gets in over her head when strange notes in a book draw her into a real-life investigation. Mia Crawford is responsible to a fault. She has to be. Between her high-demand job and taking care of her grandmother and her cats, she has little time for anything else. What time she does have, she pours into reading. Mysteries, romances, thrillers…books filled with women who are far more impulsive than she would ever dream of being. Now, forced into taking a long-overdue vacation, she finds herself on a luxurious private island where she just might have a chance to reinvent herself—for a little while, anyway. She can explore the island. Flirt shamelessly with a cute bartender. Have a vacation fling. Live like a heroine in one of her favorite novels. Or she can curl up with a good book on the beach. Turns out reinventing yourse...

  In   this debut memoir from the bestselling author of  The Bear  and  The Last Neanderthal , Claire Cameron confronts the rare genetic mutation that gave her cancer by investigating an equally rare and terrifying event—a predatory bear attack. When Claire Cameron was nine years old, her father, a professor of Old English, told her he was dying. In the years after he was gone, she found a way to overcome her grief among the rivers and lakes of Algonquin Park, a vast Canadian wilderness area. Around that same time, in 1991, a couple was killed by a black bear in a rare predatory attack in the park. Claire was shocked and, never fully sure of what happened, the attack haunted her.       Now older, with children of her own, Cameron was diagnosed with the same kind of deadly skin cancer as her father. Caught in a second wave of grief, she was told by her doctor, “the ideal exposure to UV light is none.” No longer able to venture into the wilderness a...

  Set in the art world of 1970s London,  The English Masterpiece (HarperMuse)  is a fast-paced read to the end, full of glamour and secrets, tensions and lies, as one young woman races against the clock to uncover the truth about a Picasso masterpiece.  As the recently promoted assistant to the Tate's Modern Collections keeper, Diana Gilden, Lily helps plan a world-class Picasso exhibit to honor the passing of the great artist--and she's waited her whole life for this moment. The opening is beyond anyone's expectations--the lighting, the champagne, the glittering crowd, and the international acclaim--until Lily does the unthinkable. She stops in front of a masterpiece and hears her own voice say,  "It's a forgery."  The gallery falls silent. Lily's boss, Diana, is polished perfection, schooled in art, and descends from European high society. She's worked hard to become the trusted voice in London's modern art scene and is respected across the Conti...

  Emmy finds solace in the text-flirting relationship that started as a wrong number exchange—unaware that the man she’s texting is the one she’s fighting for the promotion at work. Emmy Jameson lives by three rules: no dating, no sharing personal news at work, and baseball above everything. As the only female data analyst for a professional baseball team, Emmy is constantly trying to prove herself. Especially when she’s put up for a senior analyst position against her arrogant, infuriating coworker Gabe Olson. Sure, he’s gorgeous and smart and he was a baseball star in college who knows the sport inside and out, but so does Emmy. She is not going to lose to him again. There will be no distractions this summer. Not even her sister’s pending destination wedding in Mexico for which she needs to find a plus one. But then she receives a text from an unknown number with a simple message: “Last night was fun.” When she strikes up a conversation with the mystery texter...

  Indie Next pick for June 2025 • Library Reads pick for June 2025 • Book of the Month Club pick • Starred  Library Journal  • Starred  Kirkus  •  Los Angeles Times  30 Must-Read Books for Summer •  NPR’s  10 books we're looking forward to this spring •  New York Post’s  Must-Read New Thriller Books •  New York Times’s  12 Summer Books We’re Looking Forward To •  USA TODAY’s  Most Anticipated Books of summer 2025 •  The Atlantic’s  24 Books to Read This Summer •  TIME’s  16 Most Anticipated Books to Read This Summer •  People’s  The 15 Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2025 •  Vulture’s  28 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Summer •  New York Times’s  Books to Read This Summer •  New York Times’s  4 Summer Books We’re Looking Forward To •  Washington Post’s  30 Books to Read This Summer •  New York Post’s  30 Best Beach Reads When eldes...

  An ill-fated road trip resurrects a married couple’s darkest secrets in Kaira Rouda's new thriller, JILL IS NOT HAPPY (Scarlet). Some secrets keep a couple together. If you ask Jill Tingley, she’ll tell you she and her husband Jack are college sweethearts living the dream in Southern California. Wealthy, popular, and genetically blessed, theirs is an enviable life, though they’ve grown distant in recent years. Newly empty-nesting with their daughter Maggie away at college, Jill suggests a road trip to reconnect. Jack would rather do anything else than drive to Utah with his wife. He’s only stayed in this marriage because of a shared secret, a tragedy in the past he wanted to keep buried. And for his daughter’s sake. But Jack is finished with the charade of his marriage. He’s filing for divorce as soon as they return, no matter what. But he doesn’t realize what else Jill is hiding. So begins a cat-and-mouse road trip as a cunning wife―think Ripley in yoga pants―and a reluctant hus...

  In this charming, delightfully original rom-com, a struggling writer’s muse suddenly comes to life, but can they create their own happily-ever-after? Legal secretary by day, aspiring novelist by night, Ziya Khan pours herself into writing stories featuring the kinds of diverse characters she loves. In exchange, she’s got a growing pile of rejection letters. When yet another “thanks but no thanks” arrives on the eve of her thirtieth birthday, Ziya decides to throw her novel and her dreams in the trash. End of story. Except that when Ziya wakes up, there’s a flesh-and-blood version of her muse standing in her kitchen. His name is Aashiq, and it’s his job to inspire Ziya to write again. From singing karaoke to standing up for herself at work, he’s pushing Ziya out of the sidelines and into the world, showing her how to live and love fully. Even more impossibly, something starts to blossom between them. But as Ziya rediscovers the joy of writing, Aashiq starts to disappear. His job i...

A former actress in need of a reset reunites with her grandmother, her first crush, and the ladies of Ten Beach Road in this escapist novel, JUST BEACHY (Berkley) from bestselling author Wendy Wax. After losing her longtime acting gig on the hit show  Murder 101 , Sydney Ryan decides she needs a break from Hollywood politics. She heads to Treasure Island, Florida, where her grandmother has been visiting and now refuses to leave. Sydney’s plan to lie low for a bit quickly goes awry, though, as she is swept up in her grandmother’s now-flourishing social life—Grand not only bought a new house in Casas de Flores, she’s also helping her neighbor Myra open a bookstore in Pass-a-Grille. But when someone breaks into Grand’s house repeatedly, Sydney realizes her grandmother is keeping something from her.  Determined to ferret out the truth and protect her grandmother, Sydney enlists the help of the Ten Beach Road ladies and Luke, a local police officer who was once her high school...

  When a very personal cold case murder is reopened, a detective’s secrets come to light in the novel HER FIRST MISTAKE (Montlake) by bestselling author, Kendra Elliot. Thirteen years ago, Assemblyman Derrick Bell was murdered in his home by an intruder. His wife, Noelle Marshall, was left for dead. The crime was unsolved, but it wasn’t forgotten. Today the FBI is tackling a fresh perspective on the case and looking to Noelle, now a detective for the Deschutes County sheriff’s office, for new clues. It is reopening everything Noelle thought was behind her. Memories of her escape from a traumatic childhood. A marriage that wasn’t the perfect love story she’d been promised. And a husband whose charm and privilege hid a dark side. But Noelle has been hiding something too: a secret about the night Derrick died that she has never told anyone. As past and present and leads and misleads collide, one thing is frighteningly clear. Derrick’s murder wasn’t just unsolved. It’s unfinished. And ...