Buzz Books 2022: Spring/Summer

By Publishers Lunch

Buzz Books 2022: Spring/Summer is the 20th (!) volume in our popular sampler series. As always, Buzz Books presents passionate readers with an insider’s look at the buzziest books due out this season. Such major bestselling authors as Geraldine Brooks, Sloane Crosley, Chris Pavone, Emma Straub, and Adriana Trigiani are featured, along with literary greats Abdulrazak Gurnah (our first Nobel Prize in Literature winner), NoViolet Bulawayo, Mohsin Hamid, and Marianne Wiggins. Other sure-to-be readers’ favorites are by Denny Bryce, Karne Joy Fowler, Jane Green, plus 14 more.
Buzz Books has had a particularly stellar track record with highlighting the most talented, exciting and diverse debut authors, and this edition is no exception. Co-creator of the Emmy-winning series How I Met Your Mother, Carter Bays’ first novel is featured, along with Nishant Batsha, Jumi Bello, Melissa Chadburn, and Sopan Deb, and 13 other debut writers.
Our nonfiction selections cover such fascinating subjects as a symbolic World War 11 Marine Corps football game by Pulitzer-Prize winner Buzz Bissinger; a literary memoir of recovery from opioid addiction; a true crime story; and a primer on brain health.
Be sure to look out for Buzz Books 2022: Fall/Winter, coming in May.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishers Lunch
• Release date: Jan 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781948586474

Book preview

Logo: lunch box

Contents

Introduction

The Spring/Summer 2022 Publishing Preview

Part One: Fiction

Debbie Babitt, First Victim (Scarlet)

Kimberly Brock, The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare (Harper Muse)

Geraldine Brooks, Horse (Viking)

Denny S. Bryce, In the Face of the Sun (Kensington)

NoViolet Bulawayo, Glory (Viking)

Matt Cain, The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle, (John Scognamiglio/Kensington)

Sloane Crosley, Cult Classic (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Fallon DeMornay, Stiletto Sisterhood (W by Wattpad Books)

Megan Edwards, A Coin For the Ferryman (Imbrifex Books)

Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance (Henry Holt)

Karen Joy Fowler, Booth (GP Putnam’s)

David R. Gillham, Shadows of Berlin (Sourcebooks Landmark)

Jane Green, Sister Stardust (Hanover Square)

Abdulrazak Gurnah, Afterlives (Riverhead)

Mohsin Hamid, The Last White Man (Riverhead)

Susannah Lewis, Bless Your Heart, Rae Sutton (Thomas Nelson)

Diane C. McPhail, The Seamstress of New Orleans, (John Scognamiglio/Kensington)

Jillian Medoff, When We Were Bright and Beautiful (Harper)

J.M. Miro, Ordinary Monsters (Flatiron)

Chris Pavone, Two Nights in Lisbon (MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand (Berkley)

Clare Pooley, Iona Iverson’s Rules For Commuting, (Pamela Dorman Books/Viking)

Gina Sorell, The Wise Women (Harper)

Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow (Riverhead)

Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone (Dutton)

Marianne Wiggins, Properties of Thirst (Simon & Schuster)

Part Two: Debut

Nishant Batsha, Mother Ocean Father Nation (Ecco)

Carter Bays, The Mutual Friend (Dutton)

Jumi Bello, The Leaving (Riverhead)

Jane Campbell, Cat Brushing (Grove Press)

Isabel Cañas, The Hacienda (Berkley)

Melissa Chadburn, A Tiny Upward Shove (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Elaine Hsieh Chou, Disorientation (Penguin Press)

Sopan Deb, Keya Das’s Second Act (Simon & Schuster)

Salma El-Wardany, These Impossible Things (Grand Central)

Oscar Hokeah, Calling For A Blanket Dance (Algonquin)

Zain Khalid, Brother Alive (Grove Press)

Tom Mead, Death And The Conjuror (The Mysterious Press)

Annabel Monaghan, Nora Goes Off Script (GP Putnam’s)

Zarqa Nawaz, Jameela Green Ruins Everything (Mariner)

Robin Peguero, With Prejudice (Grand Central)

Deb Rogers, Florida Woman (Hanover Square)

Shelby Van Pelt, Remarkably Bright Creatures (Ecco)

Alejandro Varela, The Town of Babylon (Astra House)

Part Three: Nonfiction

Buzz Bissinger, The Mosquito Bowl (Harper)

Melissa Bond, Blood Orange Night (Gallery)

Terry Crews, Tough: My Journey to True Power (Portfolio)

Vonetta M. Dotson, Keep Your Wits About You (APA LifeTools)

Casey Sherman, Helltown (Sourcebooks)

Part Four: Young Adult

Gina Chen, Violet Made of Thorns (Delacorte)

Dhonielle Clayton and Sona Charaipotra, The Rumor Game (Hyperion)

Loridee De Villa, How to Be the Best Third Wheel (Wattpad Books)

Jasmine Guillory, By the Book: A Meant to Be Novel (Hyperion Avenue)

Daniel José Older, Ballad & Dagger: An Outlaw Saints Novel (Rick Riordan)

Kelis Rowe, Finding Jupiter (Crown Books for Young Readers)

Sabaa Tahir, All My Rage (Razorbill)

Credits

Copyright

Introduction

Buzz Books 2022: Spring/Summer is the 20th (!) volume in our popular sampler series. As always, Buzz Books presents passionate readers with an insider’s look at the buzziest books due out this season. Such major bestselling authors as Geraldine Brooks, Sloane Crosley, Chris Pavone, Emma Straub, and Adriana Trigiani are featured, along with literary greats Abdulrazak Gurnah (our first Nobel Prize in Literature winner), NoViolet Bulawayo, Mohsin Hamid, and Marianne Wiggins. Other sure-to-be readers’ favorites are by Denny Bryce, Karne Joy Fowler, Jane Green, plus 14 more.

Buzz Books has had a particularly stellar track record with highlighting the most talented, exciting and diverse debut authors, and this edition is no exception. Co-creator of the Emmy-winning series How I Met Your Mother, Carter Bays’ first novel is featured, along with Nishant Batsha, Jumi Bello, Melissa Chadburn, and Sopan Deb, and 13 other debut writers.

Our nonfiction selections cover such fascinating subjects as a symbolic World War II Marine Corps football game by Pulitzer-Prize winner Buzz Bissinger; a literary memoir of recovery from opioid addiction; a true crime story; and a primer on brain health.

Finally, we present early looks at new work from both established and up-and-coming young adult authors, among them: Dhonielle Clayton and Sona Charaipotra, the authors of Tiny Pretty Things, a Netflix original series; Sabaa Tahir, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Ember in the Ashes series, which has been translated into over thirty-five languages; and Jasmine Guillory, New York Times best-selling author of six romance novels.

Be sure to look out for Buzz Books 2022: Fall/Winter, coming in May.

The Spring/Summer 2022 Publishing Preview

It’s another exciting season of new books ahead. Readers will find their way to many of the books previewed here and others yet to be discovered. To help you sift through the many thousands of planned spring and summer titles, we’ve selected what we think are among the most noteworthy literary, commercial, and breakout titles for adults, separated into four key categories.

You’ll be able to sample many of the highlighted titles right now in Buzz Books 2022: Spring/Summer; they are noted with an asterisk. And please remember: because we prepare this preview many months in advance, titles, content, and publication dates are all subject to change.

Fiction

As usual, our free ebook begins with an overview of the upcoming publishing season, featuring hundreds of notable titles on the way. We’ll be presenting excerpts from this season preview in the coming days.

There are plenty of noteworthy new books out next year, including those by Emily St. John Mandel, Ottessa Moshfegh, Hernan Diaz, and Akwaeke Emezi, as well as work by emerging voices Bolu Babaloloa and David Yoon. Meanwhile, our sampler features excerpts from Mohsin Hamid, Emma Straub, Sloane Crosley, and 2021 Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah.

Here is our full list of literary fiction for the spring and summer season, alphabetically by author. Titles excerpted in Buzz Books are noted with an asterisk. (Please remember: Because we prepared this preview many months in advance, titles, content, and publication dates are all subject to change.)

The Notables

Geraldine Brooks, Horse (Viking, 6/14)*

Hernan Diaz, Trust (Riverhead, 5/3)

Tove Ditlevsen, Michael Favala Goldman (trans.), The Trouble with Happiness: And Other Stories (Farrar, Straus, 4/19)

Emma Donoghue, Haven (Little, Brown, 8/23)

Jennifer Egan, The Candy House (Scribner, 4/5)

Julia Glass, Vigil Harbor (Pantheon, 5/3)

Abdulrazak Gurnah, Afterlives (Riverhead, 8/23)*

Mohsin Hamid, The Last White Man (Riverhead, 8/2)*

Peter Handke, The Fruit Thief: or, One-Way Journey into the Interior (Farrar, Strauss, 3/15)

Emily St. John Mandel, Sea of Tranquility (Knopf, 4/19)

Hilary Mantel, Learning to Talk: Stories (Holt, 6/21)

Ottessa Moshfegh, Lapvona (Penguin Press, 6/21)

Tom Perrotta, Tracy Flick Can’t Win (Scribner, 6/7)

Maggie Shipstead, You Have a Friend in 10A: Stories (Knopf, 5/17)

Ali Smith, Companion Piece (Pantheon, 5/3)

Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo (Grove/Atlantic, 4/5)

Anne Tyler, French Braid (Knopf, 3/22)

Marianne Wiggins, Properties of Thirst (Simon & Schuster, 8/2)*

Lidia Yuknavitch, Thrust (Riverhead, 6/28)

Highly Anticipated

Elisa Albert, Human Blues (Avid Reader, 5/10)

Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange Tree (Catapult, 5/10)

Monica Ali, Love Marriage (Scribner, 5/3)

Steve Almond, All the Secrets of the World (Zando, 4/19)

Elif Batuman, Either/Or (Penguin Press, 5/24)

Megan Mayhew Bergman, How Strange a Season (Scribner, 3/29)

Dan Chaon, Sleepwalk (Holt, 4/5)

Sloane Crosley, Cult Classic (MCD, 6/7)*

Leesa Cross-Smith, Half-Blown Rose (Grand Central, 7/5)

Alice Elliott Dark, Fellowship Point (Scribner/Marysue Rucci Books, 7/5)

Akwaeke Emezi, You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty (Atria, 5/24)

Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Woman of Light (One World, 6/7)

Karen Joy Fowler, Booth (Putnam, 3/8)*

Grant Ginder, Let’s Not Do That Again (Holt, 4/5)

Jane Green, Sister Stardust (Hanover Square, 4/5)*

Anne Griffin, Listening Still (St. Martin’s, 3/1)

James Hannaham, Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta (Little, Brown, 6/28)

Werner Herzog, The Twilight World (Penguin Press, 6/14)

Adam Langer, Cyclorama (Bloomsbury, 8/2)

Jillian Medoff, When We Were Bright and Beautiful (Harper, 7/5)*

Pankaj Mishra, Run and Hide (Farrar, Straus, 3/1)

Christopher Moore, Razzmatazz (William Morrow, 5/17)

Sarah Moss, The Fell (Farrar, Straus, 3/1)

Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Evening Hero (Simon & Schuster, 5/10)

Leigh Newman, Nobody Gets Out Alive: Stories (Scribner, 4/12)

Joyce Carol Oates, Babysitter (Knopf, 8/23)

Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Take My Hand (Berkley, 4/12)*

Alex Segura, Secret Identity (Flatiron, 3/15)

Susan Straight, Mecca (Farrar, Strauss, 3/15)

Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow (Riverhead, 5/17)*

Lisa Taddeo, Ghost Lover (Avid Reader, 6/14)

Jess Walter, The Angel of Rome: And Other Stories (Harper, 6/28)

Teddy Wayne, The Great Man Theory (Bloomsbury, 7/12)

Nell Zink, Avalon (Knopf, 5/24)

Emerging Voices

Bolu Babalola, Honey and Spice (William Morrow, 6/21)

Shashi Bhat, The Most Precious Substance on Earth (Grand Central, 6/28)

Chelsea Bieker, Heartbroke (Catapult, 4/5)

NoViolet Bulawayo, Glory (Viking, 3/8)*

Tara Isabella Burton, The World Cannot Give (Simon & Schuster, 3/8)

Adrienne Celt, End of the World House (Simon & Schuster, 4/19)

Louis Edwards, Ramadan Ramsey (Amistad, 7/5)

Alison Espach, Notes from Your Sudden Disappearance (Holt, 5/17)*

Amy Feltman, All the Things We Don’t Talk About (Grand Central, 5/24)

Karen Jennings, An Island (Hogarth, 7/5)

Alexander MacLeod, Animal Person (Farrar, Straus, 4/5)

Francesca Momplaisir, The Garden of Broken Things (Knopf, 5/10)

Noor Naga, If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English (Graywolf, 4/5)

Daniel Nieh, Take No Names (Ecco, 7/5)

Paraic O’Donnell, The Maker of Swans (Tin House, 6/7)

Joe Mungo Reed, Hammer (Simon & Schuster, 3/22)

Etaf Rum, Evil Eye (Harper, 7/12)*

Alexis Schaitkin, Elsewhere (Celadon, 6/28)

Jennifer E. Smith, The Unsinkable Greta James (Ballantine, 3/1)

Gina Sorell, The Wise Women (Harper, 4/5)*

Francesca Stanfill, The Falcon’s Eyes (Harper, 7/5)

Nina Stibbe, One Day I Shall Astonish the World (Little, Brown, 5/3)

Miguel Syjuco, I Was the President’s Mistress!! (Farrar, Strauss, 4/5)

Sarai Walker, The Cherry Robbers (Mariner, 5/17)

David Yoon, City of Orange (Putnam, 5/24)

Debut Fiction

It’s a big season for debuts, including Afrofuturist stories by Janelle Monae and a comic novel by How I Met Your Mother co-creator Carter Bays. Our sampler features first novels by Sopan Deb, Jumi Bello, Oskar Hokeah, Isabel Cañas, and more.

Maria Adelmann, How to Be Eaten (Little, Brown, 5/17)

Kasim Ali, Good Intentions (Holt, 3/8)

Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, When We Were Birds (Doubleday, 3/1)

Nishant Batsha, Mother Ocean Father Nation (Ecco, 5/11)*

Carter Bays, The Mutual Friend (Dutton, 6/7)*

Jumi Bello, The Leaving (Riverhead, 7/12)*

Felicia Berliner, Shmutz (Atria, 7/19)

Hanna Bervoets, We Had to Remove This Post (Mariner, 3/15)

Lisa Bird-Wilson, Probably Ruby (Hogarth, 4/5)

Jane Campbell, Cat Brushing (Grove, 8/9)*

Isabel Cañas, The Hacienda (Berkley, 5/10)*

Melissa Chadburn, A Tiny Upward Shove (Farrar, Strauss, 4/12)*

Elaine Hsieh Chou, Disorientation (Penguin Press, 3/22)*

Lydia Conklin, Rainbow Rainbow (Catapult, 5/31)

J K Chukwu, The Unfortunates (Mariner, 8/2)

Sopan Deb, Keya Das’s Second Act (Simon & Schuster, 7/5)*

David Santos Donaldson, Greenland (Amistad, 6/7)

Salma El-Wardany, These Impossible Things (Grand Central, 6/7)*

Blair Fell, The Sign for Home (Atria/Emily Bestler Books, 4/5)

Lillian Fishman, Acts of Service (Hogarth, 5/3)

Sidik Fofana, Stories from The Tenants Downstairs (Scribner, 8/16)

Henry Fry, First Time for Everything (Ballantine, 5/10)

Leigh N. Gallagher, Who You Might Be (Holt, 6/21)

Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry (Doubleday, 4/5)

Kimberly Garza, The Last Karankawas (Holt, 8/9)

Francesca Giacco, Six Days in Rome (Grand Central, 5/3)

Joseph Han, Nuclear Family (Counterpoint, 6/7)

Jo Harkin, Tell Me an Ending (Scribner, 3/1)

Michelle Hart, We Do What We Do in the Dark (Riverhead, 5/3)

Virginia Hartman, The Marsh Queen (Gallery, 5/10)

Oscar Hokeah, Calling for a Blanket Dance (Algonquin, 7/26)*

Kevin Jared Hosein, Hungry Ghosts (Ecco, 8/2)

Colleen Hubbard, Housebreaking (Berkley, 4/19)

Tsering Yangzom Lama, We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies (Bloomsbury, 5/17)

Isabel Kaplan, NSFW (Holt, 7/5)

Zain Khalid, Brother Alive (Grove, 7/12)*

Claire Kohda, Woman, Eating (HarperVia, 4/12)

Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief (Tiny Reparations, 4/5)

Sarah Thankam Mathews, All This Could Be Different (Viking, 8/2)

Moses McKenzie, An Olive Grove in Ends (Little, Brown, 5/31)

Tom Mead, Death and the Conjuror (The Mysterious Press, 7/12)*

Janelle Monáe, The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer (Harper Voyager, 4/19)

Annabel Monaghan, Nora Goes Off Script (Putnam, 6/7)*

Maddie Mortimer, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies (Scribner, 6/28)

Leila Mottley, Nightcrawling (Knopf, 5/24)

Zarqa Nawaz, Jameela Green Ruins Everything (Mariner, 5/10)*

Tomi Obaro, Dele Weds Destiny (Knopf, 6/28)

Okwiri Oduor, Things They Lost (Scribner, 4/12)

Robin Peguero, With Prejudice (Grand Central, 5/17)*

Clare Pollard, Delphi (Avid Reader, 8/2)

Deb Rogers, Florida Woman (Hanover Square, 7/5)*

Kelsey Ronan, Chevy in the Hole (Holt, 3/15)

Katie Runde, The Shore (Scribner, 5/10)

Christine Simon, The Patron Saint of Second Chances (Atria, 4/12)

Gustaf Skördeman, Geiger (Grand Central, 5/10)

Alyssa Songsiridej, Little Rabbit (Bloomsbury, 5/3)

Claire Stanford, Happy For You (Viking, 4/19)

Nell Stevens, Briefly, A Delicious Life (Scribner, 6/21)

Tara M. Stringfellow, Memphis (Dial, 3/1)

Morgan Talty, Night of the Living Rez: Stories (Tin House, 7/5)

Belinda Huijuan Tang, A Map for the Missing (Penguin Press, 8/9)

Shelby Van Pelt, Remarkably Bright Creatures (Ecco, 5/3)*

Alejandro Varela, The Town of Babylon (Astra House, 3/22)*

LaToya Watkins, Perish (Tiny Reparations, 8/23)

Soon Wiley, When We Fell Apart (Dutton, 4/26)

Jacqueline Winspear, A Sunlit Weapon (Harper, 3/22)

Jenny Tinghui Zhang, Four Treasures of the Sky (Flatiron, 4/5)

Jeannie Zusy, The Frederick Sisters Are Living the Dream (Atria, 8/2)

Commercial Fiction

The spring/summer season promises books from some of the biggest names in fiction. For fantasy fans there is new work by George R. R. Martin. Books by Chris Bohjalian, Riley Sager, Anthony Horowitz, Jennifer Weiner, Elin Hilderbrand, and many more, ensure that there’s something for everyone across every genre. In our sampler, check out excerpts from Denny S. Bryce, Chris Pavone, Claire Pooley, and others.

Jeff Abbott, Traitor’s Dance (Grand Central, 8/23)

V.C. Andrews, Becoming My Sister (Gallery, 3/15)

Debbie Babitt, First Victim (Scarlet, 6/14)*

David Baldacci, The 6:20 Man (Grand Central, 7/26)

Linwood Barclay, Take Your Breath Away (William Morrow, 5/17)

Don Bentley, Tom Clancy Zero Hour (Putnam, 6/7)

Steve Berry, The Omega Factor (Grand Central 6/7)

Chris Bohjalian, The Lioness (Doubleday, 5/10)

C.J. Box, Shadows Reel (Putnam, 3/8)

Dale Brown, Countdown to Midnight (William Morrow, 4/20)

Kimberly Brock, The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare (Harper Muse, 4/12)*

Rita Mae Brown, Thrill of the Hunt (Ballantine, 5/17)

Sandra Brown, Untitled (Grand Central, 8/16)

Denny S. Bryce, In the Face of the Sun (Kensington, 4/26)*

Robin Burcell, Clive Cussler’s The Serpent’s Eye (Putnam, 7/5)

James Lee Burke, Every Cloak Rolled in Blood (Simon & Schuster, 5/17)

Matt Cain, The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle (John Scognamiglio/Kensington, 5/22)*

Lorenzo Carcaterra, Nonna Maria and the Case of the Missing Bride (Bantam, 5/3)

Jack Carr, In the Blood (Atria/Emily Bestler, 5/31)

Robyn Carr, A Family Affair (Mira, 4/5)

Lincoln Child, Chrysalis (Doubleday, 7/12)

Catherine Coulter, Reckoning (William Morrow, 8/16)

Nelson DeMille, The Maze (Simon & Schuster, 6/7)

Fallon DeMornay, Stiletto Sisterhood (W by Wattpad Books, 4/12)*

Megan Edwards, A Coin for the Ferryman (Imbrifex Books, 3/1)*

Erica Ferencik, Girl in Ice (Gallery/Scout Press, 3/1)

Tarryn Fisher, An Honest Lie (Graydon House, 4/26)

Tess Gerritsen, Rizzoli & Isles: Listen to Me (Ballantine, 7/5)

Emily Giffin, Meant to Be (Ballantine, 5/31)

David R. Gillham, Shadows of Berlin (Sourcebooks Landmark, 4/19)*

Jane Green, Sister Stardust (Harper, 4/5)*

Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen, The Golden Couple (St. Martins, 3/8)

Lana Harper, From Bad to Cursed (Berkley, 5/17)

Chris Hauty, Storm Rising (Atria/Emily Bestler, 5/3)

Emily Henry, Book Lovers (Berkley, 5/3)

Elin Hilderbrand, The Hotel Nantucket (Little, Brown, 6/14)

Anne Hillerman, The Sacred Bridge (Harper, 3/16)

Chuck Hogan, Gangland (Grand Central, 8/2)

Anthony Horowitz, Untitled (Harper, 5/17)

Gabino Iglesias, The Devil Takes You Home (Mulholland, 8/2)

Greg Iles, Southern Man (William Morrow, 4/27)

J.A. Jance, Collateral Damage (Gallery, 8/9)

Lisa Jewell, The Family Remains (Atria, 8/9)

Iris Johansen, A Face to Die For (Grand Central, 6/14)

Guy Gavriel Kay, All the Seas of the World (Berkley, 5/17)

Faye Kellerman, The Hunt (William Morrow, 8/23)

Steven Kotler, The Devil’s Dictionary (St. Martin’s, 4/19)

William Kent Krueger, Fox Creek (Atria, 8/23)

Susannah Lewis, Bless Your Heart, Rae Sutton (Thomas Nelson, 5/3)*

Louisa Luna, Hideout (Doubleday, 3/1)

Mike Lupica, Robert B. Parker’s Revenge Tour (Putnam 5/3)

Sherrilyn Kenyon, Shadow Fallen (Tor, 4/12)

Robert Knott, Robert B. Parker’s Opium Rose (Putnam, 6/28)

Debbie Macomber, The Best is Yet to Come (Ballantine, 7/12)

George R. R. Martin, Three Kings (Tor, 3/15)

Diane C. McPhail, The Seamstress of New Orleans (John Scognamiglio/Kensington, 5/31)*

Megan Miranda, The Last to Vanish (Scribner/Marysue Rucci Books, 7/26)

J. M. Miro, Ordinary Monsters (Flatiron, 6/7)*

Sara Paretsky, Overboard (William Morrow, 5/10)

James Patterson, James O. Born, Shattered (Little, Brown, 7/18)

James Patterson, David Ellis, Escape (Little, Brown, 6/20)

James Patterson, Maxine Paetro, 22 Seconds (Little, Brown, 5/2)

Chris Pavone, Two Nights In Lisbon (MCD, 5/24)*

Sarah Pearse, The Retreat (Viking, 4/12)

Heidi Perks, The Whispers (Gallery, 3/8)

Anne Perry, Three Debts Paid (Ballantine, 4/12)

Clare Pooley, Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting (Viking/Pamela Dorman Books, 6/7)*

Kathy Reichs, Cold, Cold Bones (Scribner, 7/5)

Rebecca Roanhorse, Fevered Star (Gallery/Saga Press, 4/19)

James Rollins, Kingdom of Bones (William Morrow, 3/23)

Jennifer Ryan, The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle (Ballantine, 5/31)

Riley Sager, The House Across the Lake (Dutton, 6/21)

John Scalzi, The Kaiju Preservation Society (Tor, 3/15)

Lisa Scottoline, What Happened to the Bennetts (Putnam, 3/29)

Rebecca Serle, One Italian Summer (Atria, 3/1)

Daniel Silva, Untitled (Harper, 7/19)

Zoe Sivak, Mademoiselle Revolution (Ballantine, 8/2)

Karin Slaughter, Girl, Forgotten (William Morrow, 8/2)

Alexander McCall Smith, The Sweet Remnants of Summer (Pantheon, 7/19)

Danielle Steel, High Stakes (Delacorte, 3/8)

Danielle Steel, Beautiful (Delacorte, 4/19)

Danielle Steel, Suspects (Delacorte, 6/28)

Nancy Thayer, Summer Love (Ballantine, 5/3)

Brad Thor, Rising Tiger (Atria/Emily Bestler, 7/19)

Adriana Trigiani, The Good Left Undone (Dutton, 4/26)*

Sarah Vaughan, Reputation (Atria/Emily Bestler Books, 7/5)

Martin Walker, Bruno’s Challenge: And Other Stories of the French Countryside (Knopf, 3/15)

Rosie Walsh, The Love of My Life (Viking, 3/1)

Catriona Ward, Sundial (Tor Nightfire, 3/1)

J.R. Ward, Lover Arisen (Gallery, 4/5)

Jennifer Weiner, The Summer Place (Atria, 5/3)

Alison Weir, The Last White Rose (Ballantine, 5/3)

Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt (William Morrow, 6/15)

Stuart Woods, A Safe House (Putnam, 3/22)

Nonfiction

Keeping with the zeitgeist, this season’s nonfiction is chock-full of the biggest issues of today, including the race for the COVID-19 vaccine in Albert Bourla’s Moonshot, the push for unionization in Daisy Pitkin’s On The Line, and the continued efforts of Black Lives Matter in Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa’s His Name Is George Floyd. Autobiographical works dominate the scene once again, with titles from Senator Raphael Warnock, Frank Bruni, Will Jawando and Mary Laura Philpott. Also of note: a new book from Gifford Prize–winner Patrick Radden Keefe, and essays from Margaret Atwood and Phil Klay. In our sampler, check out new books from Buzz Bissinger, Melissa Bond, Terry Crews, and more.

Essays, Criticism, & More

Emmanuel Acho, Illogical: Saying Yes to a Life Without Limits (Flatiron, 3/22)

Margaret Atwood, Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004-2021 (Doubleday, 3/1)

Elaine Castillo, How to Read Now: Essays (Viking, 7/26)

Phillip Done, The Art of Teaching Children: All I Learned from a Life in the Classroom (Avid Reader, 7/26)

Keith Gessen, Raising Raffi: The First Five Years (Viking, 6/7)

CJ Hauser, The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays (Doubleday, 7/12)

Phil Klay, Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War (Penguin Press, 5/17)

Jessi Klein, I’ll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood (Harper, 4/12)

Robert M. Pirsig, Wendy K. Pirsig, On Quality: An Inquiry into Excellence: Unpublished and Selected Writings, (Custom House, 3/20)

Evan Puschack, Escape Into Meaning: Essays on Superman, Public Benches, and Other Obsessions (Atria, 5/10)

Erika L. Sanchez, Crying in the Bathroom: A Memoir (Viking, 7/12)

Tom Segura, I’d Like to Play Alone, Please: Essays (Grand Central, 6/14)

David Shields, The Very Last Interview (New York Review Books, 3/1)

Politics & Current Events

Russ Feingold and Peter Prindiville, The Constitution in Jeopardy: The Unprecedented Effort to Rewrite Our Fundamental Law and What We Can Do About It (Public Affairs, 8/30)

Francis Fukuyama, Liberalism and Its Discontents (Farrar, Straus, 5/10)

Sally Hayden, My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route (Melville, 3/22)

Marc Lamont Hill, Todd Brewster, Seen and Unseen (Atria, 5/3)

Michael Kazin, What it Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party (Farrar, Straus, 3/1)

Jefferson Morley, Scorpions’ Dance: The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate (St. Martin’s, 6/7)

Malcolm Nance, They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency (St. Martin’s, 7/12)

William Neuman, Things Are Never So Bad They Can’t Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela (St. Martin’s, 3/15)

Dan Pfeiffer, Disinformation Nation: How the Right Wing and Silicon Valley are Waging War on Truth (Twelve, 6/7)

Jedadiah Purdy, Two Cheers for Politics: Why Democracy is Flawed, Frightening—And Our Best Hope (Basic Books, 8/30)

Nick Seabrook, One Person, One Vote: A Surprising History of Gerrymandering in America (Pantheon, 6/14)

Will Sommer, Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy that Reshaped America (Harper, 3/8)

Nick Timaraos, Trillion Dollar Triage: How Jay Powell and the Fed Battled a President and a Pandemic—and Prevented Economic Disaster (Little, Brown, 3/1)

Social Issues

Elizabeth Alexander, The Trayvon Generation: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (Grand Central, 4/5)

Anonymous, Cheatingland: The Secret Confessions of Men Who Stray (Atria, 3/22)

Julissa Arce, You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation (Flatiron, 3/22)

Daisy Auger-Dominguez, Inclusion Revolution: The Essential Guide to Dismantling Racial Inequity in the Workplace, (Basic Books, 3/15)

Valena Betty, Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights (Citadel, 5/31)

Christopher Blattman, Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace (Viking, 4/19)

Elizabeth Cummins Muñoz, Mothercoin: The Stories of Immigrant Nannies (Beacon, 4/19)

Mark Follman, Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America (Dey Street, 4/5)

Andre Henry, All the White Friends I Couldn’t Keep: Hope—and Hard Pills to Swallow—About Fighting for Black Lives (Convergent, 3/22)

Scott Herschovitz, Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with Kids (Penguin Press, 5/3)

Anya Kamenetz, The Stolen Year: How COVID Changed Children’s Lives, and Where We Go Now (Public Affairs, 8/23)

Sarah Krasnostein, The Believer: Encounters with the Beginning, the End, and our Place in the Middle (Tin House, 3/1)

Jorja Leap, Entry Lessons: The Stories of Women Fighting for Their Place, Their Children, and Their Futures After Incarceration (Beacon, 4/26)

Wesley Lowery, Whitelash: Hope and Horror in a Changing America (Mariner, 3/1)

Azar Naisi, Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times (Dey Street, 3/8)

Maya Phillips, Nerd: Adventures in Fandom from this Universe to the Multiverse (Atria, 7/12)

Daisy Pitkin, On the Line: A Story of Class, Solidarity, and Two Women’s Epic Fight to Build a Union (Algonquin, 3/9)

Lauren Rankin, Bodies on the Line: At the Front Lines of the Fight to Protect Abortion in America (Catapult, 4/5)

Hugh Ryan, The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of A Forgotten Prison (Bold Type, 5/10)

Reshma Saujani, Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work (and Why It’s Different Than You Think) (Atria/OneSignal, 3/1)

Jennifer D. Sciubba, 8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World (Norton, 3/8)

Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, The Sex Lives of African Women: Self-Discovery, Freedom and Healing (Astra House, 3/1)

Jarrod Shanahan, Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Captive (Verso, 5/17)

Gregory D. Smithers, Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal & Sovereignty in Native America (Beacon, 4/26)

Leah Thomas, The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People and the Planet (Voracious, 3/8)

Business, Science & Technology

Albert Bourla, Moonshot: Inside Pfizer’s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible (Harper, 3/8)

Sarah Doyle Byock, Quarterlife: The Search for Self in Early Adulthood (Random House, 7/26)

Stephanie Cacioppo, Wired For Love: A Neuroscientist’s Journey Through Romance, Loss, and the Essence of Human Connection (Flatiron, 4/5)

Susan Cain, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Can Make Us Whole (Crown, 4/5)

Tyler Cowen, Daniel Gross, Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World (St. Martin’s, 5/10)

Jack E. Davis, The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America’s Bird (Liveright, 3/1)

Vonetta M. Dotson, Keep Your Wits About You: The Science of the Brain Maintenance As You Age (APA LifeTools, 3/8)*

Sarah Fay, Pathological: The True Story of Six Misdiagnoses (HarperOne, 3/15)

Kathryn Finney, Build the Damn Thing: How to Start a Successful Business if You’re Not a Rich White Guy (Portfolio, 6/14)

Max Fisher, The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our Worlds (Little, Brown, 5/17)

Clyde W. Ford, Of Blood and Sweat: Black Lives and the Making of White Power and Wealth (Amistad, 3/8)

David Gergen, Hearts Touched With Fire: How Great Leaders Are Made (Simon & Schuster, 5/10)

Rohan Grey, Digitizing the Dollar: The Future of Public Money in the Age of Cryptocurrency (Melville, 4/19)

Cameron Hanes, Endure: How to Work Hard, Outlast, and Keep Hammering (St. Martin’s, 5/17)

Juliette Kayyem, The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in the Age of Disaster (Public Affairs, 3/29)

Andrew H. Knoll, A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters (Custom House, 3/22)

Jeff Lieberman, A Once Malignant Malady: Schizophrenia and the Path to Prevention (Scribner, 5/17)

Eugene Linden, Fire and Flood: The True History of Our Epic Failure to Confront the Climate Crisis—and Our Narrow Path from Here (Penguin Press, 4/5)

Oliver Millman, The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires that Run the World (Norton, 3/1)

Pedro Moura, How to Beat a Broken Game: The Rise of the Dodgers in a League on the Brink (Public Affairs, 3/29)

Alan Murray, Tomorrow’s Capitalist: My Search for the Soul of Business (Public Affairs, 5/10)

Antonio Padilla, Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them: A Cosmic Quest from Zero to Infinity (Farrar, Straus, 6/21)

Daniela Pierre-Bravo, The Other: How to Own Your Power at Work as a Women of Color (Legacy Lit, 8/23)

Matt Richtel, Inspired: Understanding Creativity: A Journey Through Art, Science, and the Soul (Custom House, 4/19)

Carlo Rovelli, There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness: And Other Thoughts on Physics, Philosophy and the World (Riverhead, 5/10)

Adam Seessel, Where the Money Is: Value Investing in the Digital Age (Avid Reader, 5/24)

Michael Shur, How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question (Simon & Schuster, 3/1)

Chloe Sorvino, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed, and the Fight for the Future of Meat (Atria, 8/16)

Steven W. Thrasher, The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide (Celadon, 8/2)

Danny Warshay, See, Solve, Scale: How Anyone Can Turn An Unsolved Problem Into a Breakthrough Success (St. Martin’s, 3/22)

Victoria Wellman, Before You Say Anything: The Untold Stories and Failproof Strategies of a Very Discreet Speechwriter (St. Martin’s, 4/12)

Alexander Zaitchik, Owning the Sun: A People’s History of Monopoly Medicine from Aspirin to COVID-19 Vaccines (Counterpoint, 3/1)

Biography & Memoir

Rafael Agustin, Illegally Yours: A Memoir (Grand Central, 7/12)

Kendra Allen, Fruit Punch: A Memoir (Ecco, 4/5)

Zain E. Asher, Where The Children Take Us: How One Family Achieved the Unimaginable (Amistad, 4/26)

Ken Auletta, Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence (Penguin Press, 7/12)

Garcelle Beauvais, Finding My G-Spot (Amistad, 4/12)

Chris Belcher, Pretty Baby: A Memoir (Avid Reader, 7/12)

Valerie Biden Owens, Growing Up Biden: A Memoir (Celadon, 4/12)

Chris Blackwell with Paul Morley, The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond (Gallery, 5/31)

Melissa Bond, Blood Orange Night: My Journey to the Edge of Madness (Gallery, 6/14)*

Dana Brown, Dilettante: True Tales of Excess, Triumph, and Disaster (Ballantine, 3/22)

Theresa Brown, Healing: When A Nurse Becomes a Patient (Algonquin, 3/29)

Bill Browder, Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath (Simon & Schuster, 6/14)

Frank Bruni, The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found (Avid Reader, 3/1)

Chloé Cooper Jones, Easy Beauty: A Memoir (Avid Reader, 4/5)

Terry Crews, Tough: My Journey to True Power (Portfolio, 4/26)*

Geoff Dyer, The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings (Farrar, Straus, 5/3)

Delia Ephron, Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life: A Memoir (Little, Brown, 4/12)

Harvey Fierstein, I Was Better Last Night: A Memoir (Knopf, 3/1)

Thomas Fisher, The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER (One World, 3/22)

Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional (Bloomsbury, 7/19)

Stephen Galloway, Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and the Romance of the Century (Grand Central, 3/22)

Melissa Gilbert, Back to the Prairie: A Home Remade, A Life Rediscovered (Gallery, 5/10)

Jennifer Grey, Out of the Corner: A Memoir (Ballantine, 5/3)

Tamar Haspel, To Boldly Grow: Finding Joy, Adventure, and Dinner in Your Own Backyard (Putnam, 3/8)

Colton L. Haynes, Miss Memory Lane: A Memoir (Atria, 5/31)

Paul Holes, Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases (Celadon, 4/26)

Michelle D. Hord, The Other Side of Yet: Finding Light in the Midst of Darkness (Atria, 3/15)

Cindy House, Mother Noise: A Memoir (Scribner/Marysue Rucci Books, 5/17)

A.J. Jacobs, The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life (Crown, 4/26)

Steph Jagger, Everything Left to Remember: My Mother, Our Memories, and a Journey Through the Rocky Mountains (Flatiron, 4/26)

Will Jawando, My Seven Black Fathers (Farrar, Straus, 5/3)

Jake Keiser, Daffodil Hill: Uprooting My Life, Buying a Farm, and Learning to Bloom (Dial, 6/7)

Tim Kennedy, Scars and Stripes (Atria, 5/24)

Alicia Keys, More Myself: A Journey (Flatiron, 3/29)

Henry Kissinger, Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy (Penguin Press, 5/3)

Kathy Kleinman, Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer (Grand Central, 7/26)

Sarah Kruzan, I Cried to Dream Again: Trafficking, Murder, and Deliverance—A Memoir (Pantheon, 5/10)

Sasha LaPointe, Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk (Counterpoint, 3/8)

Patrick Leahy, The Road Taken: A Memoir (Simon & Schuster, 8/23)

Keanon Lowe, Justin Spizman, Hometown Victory: A Coach’s Story of Football, Fate, and Coming Home (Flatiron, 5/10)

Brianna Madia, Nowhere for Very Long: The Unexpected Road to An Unconventional Life (HarperOne, 4/5)

Janet Malcolm, Pictures: A Memoir (Farrar, Straus, 8/23)

David Maraniss, Path Lit By Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe (Simon & Schuster, 8/9)

Nora McInerny, Bad Vibes Only: ...and Other Things I Bring to the Table (Atria/One Signal, 7/19)

Bill McKibben, The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened (Holt, 5/31)

Eloise Moran, The Lady Di Look Book: What Diana Was Trying to Tell Us Through Her Clothes (St. Martin’s, 6/21)

Emi Nietfeld, Acceptance: A Memoir (Penguin Press, 8/2)

Amy Odell, Anna: The Biography (Gallery, 5/3)

Bob Odenkirk, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama: A Memoir (Random House, 3/1)

Efrén C. Oliveres, My Boy Will Die of Sorrow: A Memoir of Immigration from the Front Lines (Hachette, 7/12)

Julie Pace, Diane Superville, Jill: A Biography of the First Lady (Little, Brown, 4/19)

Casey Parks, Diary of a Misfit (Knopf, 5/31)

Cecilia Paul, Letters to Gwen John (New York Review Books, 4/26)

Kyle Petty, Ellis Henican, Swerve or Die: Life at My Speed in the First Family of NASCAR Racing (St. Martin’s, 8/9)

Mary Laura Philpott, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives (Atria, 4/12)

Mary Pipher, A Life in Light: Meditations on Impermanence (Bloomsbury, 5/31)

Ric Prado, Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior (St. Martin’s, 3/1)

Ari Rabin-Havt, The Fighting Soul: On the Road with Bernie Sanders (Liveright, 4/26)

Randy Rainbow, Playing With Myself (St. Martin’s, 4/19)

Steve Reich, Conversations (Hanover Square, 3/8)

Danica Roem, Burn the Page: A True Story of Torching Doubts, Blazing Trails, and Igniting Change (Viking, 4/26)

Yusef Salaam, Better, Not Bitter: The Power of Hope and Living on Purpose (Grand Central, 5/17)

Robert Samuels, Toluse Olorunnipa, His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice (Viking, 5/17)

Liz Scheir, Never Simple: A Memoir (Holt, 3/1)

Laurie Segall, Special Characters: My Adventures with Tech’s Titans and Misfits (Dey Street, 3/8)

Pat Simmons, Tom Johnston, Chris Epting, Long Train Runnin’: Our Story of The Doobie Brothers (St. Martin’s, 7/26)

Ben Shattuck, Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau (Tin House, 4/19)

Danyel Smith, Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop (Rock Lit 101, 4/19)

Michelle Tea, Knocking Myself Up: A Memoir of My (In)Fertility (Dey Street, 6/14)

Katie Tur, Rough Draft: A Memoir (Atria/One Signal, 6/14)

Alice Walker, Valerie Boyd (ed.), Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journalism of Alice Walker, 1965-2000 (Simon & Schuster, 4/12)

Pyae Moe Thet War, You’ve Changed: Fake Accents, Feminism, and Other Comedies from Myanmar (Catapult, 5/3)

Marina Warner, Esmond and Ilsa (New York Review Books, 4/19)

Raphael G. Warnock, A Way Out of No Way: A Memoir of Truth, Transformation, and the New American Story (Penguin Press, 6/14)

D. Watkins, Black Boy Smile: A Memoir in Moments (Legacy Lit, 5/17)

Gary White and Matt Damon, The Worth of Water: Our Story of Chasing Solutions to the World’s Greatest Challenge (Portfolio, 3/1)

Carmen Rita Wong, Why Didn’t You Tell Me?: A Memoir (Crown, 7/12)

Marie Yovanavitch, Lessons from the Edge: A Memoir (Mariner, 3/15)

Lori Zabar, Zabars: A Family Story, with Recipes (Schocken, 5/3)

History and Crime

Corban Addison, Wastelands: The True Story of Farm Country of Trial (Knopf, 5/3)

William Alexander, Ten Tomatoes That Changed the World (Grand Central, 6/7)

Nona Willis Aronowitz, Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure, and an Unfinished Revolution (Plume, 8/9)

Buzz Bizzinger, The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II (Harper, 6/7)*

Lyndsie Bourgon, Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America’s Woods (Little, Brown Spark, 6/21)

Rinker Buck, Live on the Mississippi: An Epic American Voyage (Avid Reader, 5/31)

Matthew Campbell, Kit Chellel, Dead in the Water: A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy (Portfolio, 5/3)

Mona Challet, Sophie R. Lewis (trans.), In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial (St. Martin’s, 3/8)

Max Culter with Kevin Conley, Cults: Inside the World’s Most Notorious Groups and Understanding the People Who Joined Them (Gallery, 7/12)

James Fox, The World According to Color: A Cultural History (St. Martin’s, 4/12)

Ron Franscell, Shadowman: An Elusive Psycho Killer and the Birth of FBI Profiling (Berkley, 3/1)

Gus Garcia-Roberts, Jimmy the King: Murder, Vice, and the Reign of a Dirty Cop (Public Affairs, 5/3)

Caleb Gayle, We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power (Riverhead, 6/7)

Benjamin Gilmer, The Other Dr. Gilmer: Two Men, A Murder, And An Unlikely Fight for Justice (Ballantine, 3/1)

John Gleeson, The Gotti Wars: Taking Down America’s Most Notorious Mobster (Scribner, 5/3)

David Hackett Fischer, African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Freedom (Simon & Schuster, 5/31)

David Hendy, The BBC: A Century on Air (Public Affairs, 3/29)

Scott Higham, Sari Horowitz, American Cartel: Inside the Battle to Bring Down the Opioid Industry (Twelve, 5/3)

Patrick Radden Keefe, Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks (Doubleday, 6/28)

Shawn Levy, In On the Joke: The Original Queens of Standup Comedy (Doubleday, 4/5)

Roger Lowenstein, Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War (Penguin Press, 3/8)

Michael Loynod, The Watermen: A Young Swimmer’s Fight for America’s First Gold and the Birth of the Modern Olympics (Ballantine, 6/7)

Kevin Maurer, Damn Lucky: One Man’s Courage During the Bloodiest Military Campaign in Aviation History (St. Martin’s, 4/19)

Kathryn Miles, Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders (Algonquin, 5/3)

Megan Kate Nelson, Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America (Scribner, 3/1)

Keith O’Brien, Paradise Falls: The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe (Pantheon, 3/29)

Bill O’Reilly, Martin Dugard, Killing the Killers: The Secret War Against Terrorists (St. Martin’s, 5/3)

Fintan O’Toole, We Don’t Know Ourselves: A History of Modern Ireland (Liveright, 3/15)

S.J. Peddie, Sonny: The Last of the Old Time Mafia Bosses, John Sonny Franzese (Citadel, 3/29)

Paul Pringle, Bad City: Peril and Power in the City of Angels (Celadon, 6/7)

Helen Rappaport, After the Romanovs: Russian Exiles in Paris from the Belle Époque Through Revolution and War (St. Martin’s, 3/8)

Tom Sancton, The Last Baron: The Paris Kidnapping That Brought Down an Empire (Dutton, 4/5)

Troy Senik, The Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland (Threshold, 6/21)

Casey Sherman, Helltown: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer on Cape Cod (Sourcebooks, 7/12)*

Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases (Berkley, 3/15)

Jyoti Thottam, Sisters of Mokama: The Pioneering Women Who Brought Hope and Healing to India (Viking, 4/12)

Mark K. Updegrove, Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency (Dutton, 4/12)

Levi Vonk, Border Hacker: A Tale of Treachery, Trafficking, and Two Friends on the Run (Bold Type, 4/26)

Gary Weiss, Retail Gangest: The Insane, Real-Life Story of Crazy Eddie (Hachette, 8/23)

Elizabeth Williamson, Sandy Hook: How an American Tragedy Became a Battle for Truth (Dutton, 3/8)

Part One: Fiction

SUMMARY

When Judge Alice D. McKerrity presides over the trial of a man accused of murder, the familiar circumstances of the case awaken long-repressed demons from her past, forcing her to relive the memory of a violent encounter from her teenage years as her present mental state unravels. From the author of Saving Grace, praised by Bookreporter as a tense and promising debut.

EXCERPT

Do you believe everything happens for a reason? That our lives are predetermined before we’re born?

Or do you believe in karmic destiny? That we’re the masters of our fate and our actions have consequences none of us can escape?

What goes around comes around?

This wasn’t part of some preordained plan. Nor was it an accident of fate. No great cosmic mistake or tragic misalignment of the stars. Only a savage vendetta of violence that was the result of human thought and cunning.

Violence that shatters lives and drives good people to commit bad acts.

To do evil in return.

Is that justice? Or revenge? The instinct that reduces us to our most primal impulses. Exposing us for the bloodthirsty beasts we are. Isn’t the evolution of our brains what separates us from the animal kingdom?

Our ability to think. To reason. To make choices.

There’s always a choice.

And a cost.

She hears it now.

Under the sound of the water.

It reverberates in her head, drowning out everything else.

A plaintive wail that rips at her heart.

There is another primal impulse.

A mother’s need to protect her child.

She looks down.

She doesn’t have much time.

There won’t be a second chance.

She thinks about karmic destiny.

What goes around…

Slowly, she lowers the gun until it’s level with his heart.

Part One

Crime

Chapter 1

"All rise. Part Seventy-One to come to order. Please put away all reading material and turn off your cell phones. Case on trial. The People versus William Henry Young. Indictment number 02954-19. The Honorable Alice D. McKerrity presiding."

Alice waves everyone back into their seats as she takes the bench. She detests pomp and circumstance. Bad enough judges still have to wear robes, a throwback to some archaic custom. But she has another reason to dispense with formalities.

Time.

The original judge on the case was hit by a car and is in critical condition. As one of the few trial judges working in August, a notoriously dead month, she agreed to help out. On one condition. That the trial be moved to her courtroom, which at the moment is erupting as prosecutor and defense attorney simultaneously leap to their feet.

Your Honor, I have a matter before the —

Due to an unforeseen circumstance, the People request—

Alice holds up a hand. One at a time. Her tone is sharper than she intended. But lately, she’s been finding it increasingly difficult to hold on to her patience. She takes a breath, turns to the defense attorney, a man she hasn’t seen in her courtroom before.

Mitchell Laszlow. Legal Aid Society for the defendant. I am requesting an adjournment. I was only assigned this matter late yesterday afternoon and my client’s former attorney hasn’t sent me the case file.

Which means he hasn’t seen Rosario material, the discovery documents all attorneys are entitled to before trial. What happened to the defendant’s prior attorney?

He asked to be relieved.

Do you know why?

No, Your Honor.

Maybe he couldn’t work out a deal for his client.

William Henry Young was charged with first-degree murder for killing a woman during the course of committing two other crimes: rape and torture.

What made the case complicated was that the victim was pregnant. Before New York enacted the Reproductive Health Act, the defendant could have been charged with double homicide. But the bill gives a woman the right to choose, which effectively removes abortion from the state’s penal code. The bill also means that unborn babies are no longer recognized as potential homicide victims.

With abortion a hot-button issue, the Manhattan DA tried to pacify pro-lifers by releasing a statement that the charge in this case was still Murder One, and her office would be asking for the maximum—Life Without the Possibility of Parole. Which the jury is likely to vote for after they find the defendant guilty. Then it will be up to Alice to either sentence the defendant to the maximum or find for mitigating factors and reduce the prison term. Not likely with a defendant who committed the ultimate offense against women, one that strikes at the very core of who they are.

God help him if there’s a female majority on the jury. Not that a God exists who would ever answer his prayer.

…I’m only asking for a couple of days, Your Honor. To meet with my client and get up to speed on the case.

You and me both, counselor. Then Alice realizes what Laszlow just said. Didn’t you see the defendant before court this morning?

Attorneys typically meet with their clients in the interview room on the thirteenth floor of the courthouse after the defendants are brought in from Rikers Island. New York City’s maximum-security jail, Rikers sits on four-hundred-plus acres in the middle of the East River between the Bronx and Queens. But not for much longer. It’s projected to close over the next few years, to be replaced with smaller prisons scattered throughout the boroughs.

I didn’t see my client today, Your Honor.

Why not?

He wasn’t there. The prominent Adam’s apple in Laszlow’s neck bobs furiously as he talks. A strand of hair flops over his forehead despite his efforts to brush it away. He doesn’t look old enough to shave, let alone defend a brutal rapist-murderer.

Tom. Alice addresses the court clerk, who’s seated at his desk against the far wall. Is the defendant on your list?

Tom glances at his sheet. Yes, Your Honor.

Which means he should have been on the bus that transports prisoners from Rikers to 100 Centre Street.

So where is he?

If you’ll allow me, Your Honor, I can explain.

Alice looks over at the prosecution table. Katharine Forster is senior assistant to the bureau chief for the sex crimes unit. She’s a good lawyer who has appeared in Alice’s courtroom many times.

That was the unforeseen circumstance I was trying to tell you about. The defendant is still at Rikers. He’s in solitary confinement. Early this morning he attacked another inmate with a plexiglass shank. Almost took out his eye.

The gallery explodes. Alice shoots them a warning glance. Everyone knows that she runs a tight courtroom. She won’t abide lateness, laziness, or anyone trying to subvert the system or interfere with the process, whether it’s a defendant or a lawyer.

After the courtroom quiets down, she again addresses Forster. You say the defendant’s in isolation? Not the prison hospital?

No, Your Honor.

Was he wounded in this attack?

Not as far as I know.

Alice turns to Laszlow. Did your client waive his right to appear at his own trial?

No, Your Honor.

Then I demand that the defendant be produced. Today.

Now both prosecutor and defense attorney are looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. Forster finds her voice first. But Your Honor, that will take hours.

I’m well aware of that fact.

But— She’s scrambling, which is unusual. At trial, she’s never at a loss. The man he attacked could lose his eyesight. What if the defendant tries something like that again?

Not in my courtroom.

Then I request for him to be cuffed and shackled.

Not in my courtroom, Alice repeats. You know as well as I do that seeing a defendant in chains is too prejudicial for the jury. She turns to Tom. We need Mr. Young sitting at the defense table this afternoon. Order a special bus if you have to.

Your request is denied, Alice tells Laszlow. We’re adjourned until two-fifteen.

She brings down the gavel.

Chapter 2

Back in her chambers, Alice disrobes and checks her phone.

Less than forty minutes have passed since the last time she looked, right before court started. Since then, three new texts have come in, each one more frantic than the last.

She lets out a sigh and hits a number on speed dial. When Larry answers, Alice tells him that if Charles is refusing to bathe, he shouldn’t force the issue. She’ll give him his bath when she gets home. A bath in the morning isn’t essential, although Charles frequently sweats through his pajamas overnight, especially when he’s in the throes of nightmares that Alice can’t even begin to imagine. But she can’t keep running home every time there’s a new fire to put out.

Twice in the past few weeks, she had to adjourn early. Once in the middle of a hearing about search warrants after Charles threw a tantrum and wouldn’t stop crying. The second time was during a bail application in front of two extremely irate lawyers. Charles was refusing to eat, which was far more worrisome than his unwillingness to take a bath.

Something’s got to give. Things can’t go on this way.

Judge?

She looks up from her phone.

Her court attorney is standing in the doorway.

Alice feels vaguely guilty, like a child who has been caught out. What’s up?

I’m going out for coffee. Can I get you anything?

Alice gives the question her usual measured thought, debating whether she should go home after all, which is bound to be stressful. Or she could take advantage of some much-needed downtime in the privacy of her chambers before the craziness begins.

I’d love an iced cappuccino, she hears herself say. Thanks, Shavonne.

Sure. The younger woman makes no move to leave, concern wrinkling her features. Is everything okay?

Did she really think that her court attorney wouldn’t notice? When the two of them aren’t in court, where Shavonne always sits to the right of the bench, she’s at her desk in her tiny anteroom in front of chambers, guarding Alice’s private sanctuary. She’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to not know that something’s going on. Which makes Alice question how many of her other colleagues are wondering the same thing.

Shavonne’s waiting for her answer.

No! Alice feels like shouting. Everything is not okay.

If what’s happening in her life is the new normal, she has no idea how she’s going to cope.

What she really wants is a cigarette.

She’s tempted to ask Shavonne, who’s a pack-a-day smoker with no intention of giving up the habit. Unlike Alice, who quit four years ago and is feeling the craving more and more lately and would like nothing better than to share a smoke and exchange confidences the way she used to do as a girl with her best friend.

But as much as she’d like to, this is one secret that she can never divulge. Sometimes it feels as if most of her life has been about keeping secrets. Even if in this instance she has a very good reason, it doesn’t make her feel less guilty.

Everything’s fine, she says now, the lie leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. She watches Shavonne turn and walk away, the look on her face letting Alice know that she doesn’t believe her for a second.

Shavonne has been with her almost three years, longer than any of Alice’s other court attorneys. But their days together are numbered. Sometime soon, a white-shoe firm is going to snap her up, the lure of a fatter paycheck a temptation most young lawyers can’t resist or afford to pass up.

Alice will be sorry to see her go, something she’ll have to chalk up to yet another loss in her life. Soon she’s going to have to accept the fact that someone else she loves is in the process of leaving her too.

She questions now whether taking on a major trial was a wise decision. She, who makes decisions on the bench every day of the week. And the biggest one is hanging over her like a Damoclean sword.

She’d hoped that the trial would be a distraction from her increasingly chaotic personal life. An escape, if she were being brutally honest. But maybe she should be doing just the opposite—spending more time at home. Charles always seems better when she’s there.

Maybe after this trial is over. She has four weeks’ vacation owed to her that she hasn’t used. All she has to do is ask another judge to take over her calendar after Labor Day.

And beyond that? She doesn’t know. If things at home go from bad to worse, she could always arrange for an extended leave of absence. Short of stepping down from the bench altogether, which would mean forfeiting her pension that she isn’t eligible to collect until she turns seventy.

More decisions.

Alice feels another powerful craving for a cigarette.

She’s still fighting the urge three hours later when she gets the call.

The defendant is in the courthouse.

Chapter 3

A hush falls over the courtroom as a door to the right of the bench opens.

The defendant stands there, flanked on either side by the two corrections officers who escorted him from the pens. From here Luiz Ramos, the court officer standing guard nearest the door, takes up the slack. Accompanied by Luiz, who’s been with Alice for years, the defendant walks into the courtroom.

Hobbles in would be more accurate, constrained as he is by the cuffs and shackles binding his wrists and ankles. The chains seem incongruous against the off-the-rack blue suit that looks a size too small for him. Even from the bench, Alice can see that he’s built, his linebacker shoulders straining through the material of his suit jacket.

With a salt-and-pepper mustache and a beard that matches his thick head of wavy gray hair that’s partially held back in a ponytail, he looks like an aging biker. That’s a surprise. It’s rare that an older defendant passes through her courtroom. Criminals who stand trial are usually in their teens or early twenties, a time in their lives when they possess the least amount of impulse control.

William Henry Young appears to be completely in control. Alice isn’t the only one who can feel all that coiled energy beneath his submissive posture. Katharine Forster looks nervous as he’s liberated from his chains, despite the six officers—four males and two females—strategically positioned throughout the courtroom, the maximum number due to the violent nature of the crime. All armed and ready to act should the defendant attempt a repeat of what he did at Rikers.

As if sensing the judge’s eyes on him, Young raises his head. The smile transforms his face, making him appear almost human.

They rarely look like the monsters they are.

He’s looking at the floor again as the last of the shackles are removed, making Alice wonder if she imagined the smile. Or maybe he’s just trying to score points with her. Not that he’ll get away with anything in her courtroom, not with two of the six court officers seated a few feet behind the defense table.

The male officer has been in Alice’s courtroom once or twice before. She doesn’t recognize the woman seated next to him, but officers typically rotate between courtrooms. The female officer is almost as tall as her male counterpart, with a gaze that’s watchful and alert. If the need arose, she looks more than capable of restraining the defendant.

After Young takes his seat at the table, Luiz resumes his position by the door.

The corrections officers will return when it’s time for the defendant to be taken back to the pens. From there, another set of officers will escort him to the Manhattan Detention Complex, aka the Tombs.

An underground jail excavated during the era of the infamous Five Points, the Tombs’ official address is 125 White Street. Mazes of tunnels run beneath the stairways, and a bridge on the twelfth floor connects the building to the North Tower of 100 Centre Street so defendants can be transported to the courthouse without ever seeing daylight.

No elevator stops there. For civilians, that is. Only officers with keys can access the elevators that run down to the Tombs.

It’s the temporary prison of choice for defendants deemed too violent to be taken back to Rikers every night. Less likelihood of escape. Or attacking a fellow inmate. No doubt this defendant will spend the rest of the trial there.

As the first group of prospective jurors file in, Alice glances at the defense table. Young is rubbing his wrists where the chains dug into his skin. He barely acknowledges his attorney. Mitchell Laszlow sits rigid next to his client, no doubt wishing he were anywhere but here.

You and me both.

Once the jurors are seated, Alice introduces herself and gives her speech welcoming them to her courtroom. Then she tells them how jury selection, also known as voir dire, is part of our system of law. She motions to Tom, who has risen and has his hand on a large drum in the center of his desk. Inside the drum is a wheel containing the names of potential jurors. Tom spins the wheel. When it stops, he calls out the names and directs each juror to a specific seat in the jury box. Once they have their first panel of twelve, Alice introduces the lawyers. She nods to the prosecutor, who’s always first up. Katharine Forster picks up her legal pad as she gets to her feet.

They’re off and running.

Forster is asking Juror #3—a retired Navy SEAL—if he’s aware of the Reproductive Health Act that repealed the state fetal homicide law and doesn’t recognize unborn babies as potential murder victims. When he answers in the affirmative, she asks if he could follow the law in this case and judge the defendant based solely on the evidence.

Alice glances at the defendant again as the juror ponders the question.

He’s doodling on the yellow legal pad on the table in front of him, as if he has no interest in the proceedings. As if it isn’t his freedom being weighed in the balance.

The retired SEAL tells Forster that his conscience wouldn’t allow him to follow the law because he thinks the law is a crime itself and a travesty of justice for unborn children everywhere. The ex-SEAL is dismissed for cause.

The next juror, a single mother, calls the defendant the worst kind of predator because his victim is dead and can’t tell the world how he murdered her and her unborn child. In her mind, he took two lives; she doesn’t care what the law says. She, too, is excused.

Two other jurors—#5 and #8—a middle school librarian and a mattress salesman, are dismissed because they can’t accept a law that offends their religious beliefs.

Forster moves on to a woman in the back row. Juror #11.

She’s a waitress at a wine bar in lower Manhattan. She tells Forster she isn’t sure she can be objective because she’s also responsible for taking a life.

Once again, the courtroom erupts. Alice is as surprised by her response as everyone else. One of the first things prospective jurors are asked on their questionnaire is whether they have ever been a victim of a violent crime.

Or convicted of one.

Juror #11 apparently wasn’t asked.

Looking as if she’s about to burst into tears, the woman goes on to say that she killed her child in cold blood. While he was still growing inside me. And the law makes my crime legal. So I can never be punished for what I did.

Do you think you should be punished? Alice hears herself asking.

The woman nods. A hush comes over the courtroom as she shares the story of finding herself pregnant at seventeen with no money or family. I didn’t think I had a choice. But I did. You always have a choice.

Alice thinks about choices as she gazes around the courtroom. There isn’t a female here who hasn’t been confronted with a life-altering decision at some point. Who can’t understand this young woman’s anguish.

Young has stopped doodling. He puts down the crayon, the only implement violent defendants are allowed to use in court, a pen or pencil considered too dangerous.

He looks at the juror.

There’s something in the way he’s watching her.

The woman stares back at him like someone transfixed.

As if sensing her distress, his mouth curls up in a parody of his earlier smile. One without a trace of empathy. A smile devoid of all human emotion.

The woman shrinks back in her seat.

After she’s excused, Alice watches the prospective juror hurry out of the courtroom as if she couldn’t get away quickly enough. The courtroom is so quiet you can hear the proverbial pin drop.

At the defense table, Young’s head is down. The crayon once again in his hand.

He has gone back to his doodling.

You’ve just read an excerpt from FIRST VICTIM.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Debbie Babitt was copy director for two major Manhattan publishing companies. She has worked as an actresås, playwright, and drama critic. Debbie is the daughter of a former federal judge and is married to a criminal defense attorney. She and her husband divide their time between New York and Florida.

IMPRINT: Scarlet

PRINT ISBN: 9781613163023

PRINT PRICE: $25.95

EBOOK ISBN: 9781613163030

EBOOK PRICE: $22.73

PUBLICATION DATE: 6/14/22

SUMMARY

Based on real history and alternating between the story of war widow Alice searching for identity in the 1940s and excerpts from Eleanor Dare’s Commonplace Book and the tale of her harrowing survival, The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare explores the meaning of female history and the sacrifices every mother makes for her daughter.

EXCERPT

Prologue

The summer I turned thirteen, my mother took me into the forest to work a charm that was my right from birth. They say what happened there might have killed me. I think I might have killed her instead.

I thought I would be like her and all the women before me in my mother’s family. For generations they’d come of age by inheriting a vision and learning of a myth, whispered from mother to daughter. But no vision had ever come. The charm that had been uttered for generations turned to poison in my hands. And when my mother died, the myth and all it meant went with her.

The story I was left with is one I’ve never told.

The truth is, things had taken a wrong turn even before the trail faded beneath the palmetto fronds, flooding out into swampy ponds as the light