THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  A  PROPOSAL TO DIE FOR (Berkley) is a fast-paced, witty, and delightful new mystery about a marriage proposal planner whose biggest job yet is threatened by a dead body (or two). Jessamine Bricker loves a plan. Contingency plans and pros-and-cons lists are her love language, and because of that, her proposal planning business is thriving. But with rent costs rising at her office building, Jess jumps at the chance to plan a proposal between her snobby high school classmate, Diana, and her very wealthy boyfriend, Trenton Tillard…the Fourth. Roped into joining Diana’s ”pre-bridal” retreat at the exclusive Golden Ash resort, Jess hopes to fade into the background, get some work done, and maybe find some time to unwind. Their first day is anything but relaxing: Diana is furious about the mountain spa’s lack of cell phone reception, the couple next door argues constantly, and Jess swears she just saw a drug deal go down. To top it all off, she’s warned to stay out of the wood...

  The paths of four family members diverge drastically when the U.S. government begins detaining Vietnamese Americans, in this sharp and touching novel about coming of age at the intersection of ambition and assimilation. “Funny, powerful, and propulsive . . . a moving portrait of the kind of people we become when we are trying to survive.”—Cathy Park Hong,  New York Times  bestselling author of  Minor Feelings Ursula, Alvin, Jen, and Duncan grew up as cousins in the sprawling Nguyen family. As young adults, they’re on the precipice of new ventures: Ursula as a budding journalist in Manhattan, Alvin as an engineering intern for Google, Jen as a naïve freshman at NYU, and Duncan as a promising newcomer on his high school football team. Their lives are upended when a series of violent, senseless attacks across America creates a national panic, prompting a government policy that pushes Vietnamese Americans into internment camps. Jen and Duncan are sent with their mother...

  FAGIN THE THIEF (Doubleday) is a thrilling reimagining of the world of Charles Dickens  seen through the eyes of the infamous Jacob Fagin, London’s most gifted pickpocket, liar, and rogue. Long before Oliver Twist stumbled onto the scene, Jacob Fagin was scratching out a life for himself in the dark alleys of nineteenth-century London. Born in the Jewish enclave of Stepney shortly after his father was executed as a thief, Jacob's whole world is his open-minded mother, Leah. But Jacob’s prospects are forever altered when a light-fingered pickpocket takes Jacob under his wing and teaches him a trade that pays far better than the neighborhood boys could possibly dream. Striking out on his own, Jacob familiarizes himself with London's highest value neighborhoods while forging his own path in the shadows. But everything changes when he adopts an aspiring teenage thief named Bill Sikes, whose mercurial temper poses a danger to himself and anyone foolish enough to cross him. Along ...

  VILLAGE WEAVERS has been chosen A  TIME  Best Book of April From award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy comes an extraordinary and enduring story of two families. VILLAGEWEAVERS (TinHouseBooks) tells the story of two girls with long-held secrets and a bond that refuses to be broken. In 1940s’ Port-au-Prince, Gertie and Sisi become fast childhood friends, despite being on opposite ends of the social and economic ladder. As young girls, they build their unlikely friendship―until a deathbed revelation ripples through their families and tears them apart. After François Duvalier’s rule turns deadly in the 1950s, Sisi moves to Paris, while Gertie marries into a wealthy Dominican family. Across decades and continents, through personal success and failures, they are parted and reunited, slowly learning the truth of their singular relationship. Finally, six decades later, with both women in the United States, a sudden phone call brings them back together once more to reckon wi...

  From the #1  New York Times  bestselling author, AbbyJimenez comes a playful yet deeply emotional romance where one date is all it takes for two people to know they're perfect for each other . . . until one of them moves 2,000 miles away the next day. It's Abby's new novel, SAY YOU'LL LOVE ME (ForeverPress) There's no such thing as a perfect guy, but Xavier Rush comes disastrously close. A gorgeous veterinarian giving Greek god vibes—all while cuddling a tiny kitten? Immediate yes. That is until Xavier opens his mouth and proves that even sculpted gods can say the absolute wrong thing. Like, really wrong. Of course, there’s nothing Samantha loves more than proving an asshole wrong . . . unless, of course, he can admit he made a mistake. But after one incredible and seemingly endless date, Samantha is forced to admit the truth, that her family is in crisis and any kind of relationship would be impossible. Samantha begs Xavier to forget her. To remember their night ...

Let me start by saying I loved* All That Life Can Afford* (Putnam) by Emily Everett. I remember in my late teens and twenties hoping to distance myself from my family. I wanted to be everything they weren't, and I spent most of my time chasing that goal. I would arrive, blank like a sheet of notebook paper, and write myself new. Anna first fell in love with London at her hometown library—its Jane Austen balls a far cry from her life of food stamps and hand-me-downs. But when she finally arrives after college, the real London is a moldy flat and the same paycheck-to-paycheck grind—that fairy-tale life still out of reach. Then Anna meets the Wilders, who fly her to Saint-Tropez to tutor their teenage daughter. Swept up by the sphinxlike elder sister, Anna soon plunges herself into a heady whirlpool of parties and excess, a place where confidence is a birthright. There she meets two handsome young men—one who wants to whisk her into his world in a chauffeured car, the other who sees t...

  THE SAVAGE NOBLE DEATH of BABS DIONNE (GPPutnam'sSon) is a mythic, propulsive novel about the tangled fates of a matriarchal crime family in Maine. Your ancestors breathe through you. Sometimes, they call for vengeance. Babs Dionne, proud Franco-American, doting grandmother, and vicious crime matriarch, rules her small town of Waterville, Maine, with an iron fist. She controls the flow of drugs into Little Canada with the help of her loyal lieutenants, girlfriends since they were teenagers, and her eldest daughter, Lori, a Marine vet struggling with addiction. When a drug kingpin discovers that his numbers are down in the upper northeast, he sends a malevolent force, known only as The Man, to investigate. At the same time, Babs's youngest daughter, Sis, has gone missing, which doesn't seem at all like a coincidence. In twenty-four hours, Sis will be found dead, and the whole town will seek shelter from Babs’s wrath. The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne  is a crime saga ...