This weeks looks to leave readers with the best kind of problem to have in that there are simply too many exciting titles being released at the same time. Many of the year’s most anticipated books come out today, and if the reviews are any indication, it looks they live up to the hype. The latest historical suspense novel from the recently-deceased Philip Kerr has arrived, as has another sweeping period piece by Charles Frazier. We also get riveting true stories about a father looking for his daughters in Syria and a neuroscientist’s personal brush with mental illness. Readers looking for something lighter can savor Nancy Thayer’s newest beach read or the twisty suspense of Michael Kardos’ magician mystery. Literary fiction lovers will find themselves especially overwhelmed, with buzzy new books focusing on topics like gun violence, the opioid crisis, and cultural discrimination; though the amount of press Meg Wolitzer’s timely new book examining modern feminism has been getting may help propel it to the top of many readers’ lists.
FICTION
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
To be admired by someone we admire – we all yearn for this: the private, electrifying pleasure of being singled out by someone of esteem. But sometimes it can also mean entry to a new kind of life, a bigger world.
Greer Kadetsky is a shy college freshman when she meets the woman she hopes will change her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly persuasive and elegant at sixty-three, has been a central pillar of the women’s movement for decades, a figure who inspires others to influence the world. Upon hearing Faith speak for the first time, Greer- madly in love with her boyfriend, Cory, but still full of longing for an ambition that she can’t quite place- feels her inner world light up. And then, astonishingly, Faith invites Greer to make something out of that sense of purpose, leading Greer down the most exciting path of her life as it winds toward and away from her meant-to-be love story with Cory and the future she’d always imagined.
Charming and wise, knowing and witty, Meg Wolitzer delivers a novel about power and influence, ego and loyalty, womanhood and ambition. At its heart, The Female Persuasion is about the flame we all believe is flickering inside of us, waiting to be seen and fanned by the right person at the right time. It’s a story about the people who guide and the people who follow (and how those roles evolve over time), and the desire within all of us to be pulled into the light.
Description from Goodreads.
“[Wolitzer] writes in warm, specific prose that neither calls attention to itself nor ignores the mandate of the best books: to tell us things we know in ways we never thought to know them… [She] is an infinitely capable creator of human identities that are as real as the type on this page.” – The New York Times Book Review
“It takes readers to that sweet spot where fiction mirrors reality . . . Filled with lighthearted moments and romantic detours, it’s equal parts cotton candy and red meat, in the best way.” – People
“Wolitzer’s engrossing new novel, The Female Persuasion, is something of a rebel yell, slapping gender right in the title and confronting the question, What does a feminist look like?…So when you’re done binge-reading your copy, hand it off to a fellow literature lover. He’ll thank you for it.” – Elle
“Finally, a novel about a complicated relationship that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: that between mentor and mentee. Full of Meg Wolitzer’s signature acumen and insight.” – Esquire
“An engrossing novel…[Raises] profound questions about responsibility, loyalty and what it means to be a strong woman—all with a masterfully subtle touch.” – AARP Magazine
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Varina by Charles Frazier
With her marriage prospects limited, teenage Varina Howell agrees to wed the much-older widower Jefferson Davis, with whom she expects a life of security as a Mississippi landowner. He instead pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy, placing Varina at the white-hot center of one of the darkest moments in American history—culpable regardless of her intentions.
The Confederacy falling, her marriage in tatters, and the country divided, Varina and her children escape Richmond and travel south on their own, now fugitives with “bounties on their heads, an entire nation in pursuit.”
Intimate in its detailed observations of one woman’s tragic life and epic in its scope and power, Varina is a novel of an American war and its aftermath. Ultimately, the book is a portrait of a woman who comes to realize that complicity carries consequences.
Description from Goodreads.
“Varina portrays a prescient, conflicted heroine. . . Slyly paced . . . When [Frazier] is at full-throttle, incredible declarations are tossed off as mere jottings.” – Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Frazier’s interjection of historical detail is richly informative, and his descriptions of the natural world of the South are lyrical . . . A sharp, evocative novel.” – Publishers Weekly
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Print Book | Audiobook | eBook
How to Be Safe by Tom McAllister
“Former Teacher Had Motive.” Recently suspended for a so-called outburst, high school English teacher Anna Crawford is stewing over the injustice at home when she is shocked to see herself named on television as a suspect in a shooting at the school where she works. Though she is quickly exonerated, and the actual teenage murderer identified, her life is nevertheless held up for relentless scrutiny and judgment as this quiet town descends into media mania. Gun sales skyrocket, victims are transformed into martyrs, and the rules of public mourning are ruthlessly enforced. Anna decides to wholeheartedly reject the culpability she’s somehow been assigned, and the rampant sexism that comes with it, both in person and online.
A piercing feminist howl written in trenchant prose, How to Be Safe is a compulsively readable, darkly funny exposé of the hypocrisy that ensues when illusions of peace are shattered.
Description from Goodreads.
“Explosive, senseless, and utterly chaotic, Tom McAllister’s How to Be Safe depicts the aftermath of a school shooting in a way that sadly befits the times. His book centers on Anna, an English teacher stunned to see herself named as a suspect. Her anger, which threads the book, is cathartic.” – Entertainment Weekly
“Combining a deep character study, prescient satire, and an unfortunately all-too-timely evisceration of U.S. gun culture, McAllister’s well-voiced and remarkably observed page-turner is in almost all ways an anti-thriller―itself a comment on the current, terrifying mundanity of similar events.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Tom McAllister’s How to Be Safe is as startling as the crack of a bullet. The story’s volatile tone tears through the despair of our era’s devotion to guns. . . . Like nothing else I’ve read, How to Be Safe contains within its slim length the rubbed-raw anxieties, the slips of madness, the gallows humor and the inconsolable sorrow of this national pathology that we have nursed to monstrous dimensions.” – The Washington Post
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Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison
For Mike Muñoz, a young Chicano living in Washington State, life has been a whole lot of waiting for something to happen. Not too many years out of high school and still doing menial work—and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew—he knows that he’s got to be the one to shake things up if he’s ever going to change his life. But how?
In this funny, angry, touching, and ultimately deeply inspiring novel, bestselling author Jonathan Evison takes the reader into the heart and mind of a young man on a journey to discover himself, a search to find the secret to achieving the American dream of happiness and prosperity. That’s the birthright for all Americans, isn’t it? If so, then what is Mike Muñoz’s problem? Though he tries time and again to get his foot on the first rung of that ladder to success, he can’t seem to get a break. But then things start to change for Mike, and after a raucous, jarring, and challenging trip, he finds he can finally see the future and his place in it. And it’s looking really good.
Lawn Boy is an important, entertaining, and completely winning novel about social class distinctions, about overcoming cultural discrimination, and about standing up for oneself.
Description from Goodreads.
“[A] deeply real portrait of an everyday Joe just trying to find his way. Evison combines humor, honesty, and anger with an insightful commentary on class that’s also an effective coming-of-age novel.” – Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“Evison brings genuine humor to Mike’s trials and tribulations. The writing is razor-sharp, and Evison has an unerring eye for the small details that snap a scene or a character into focus. The first-person narration turns Mike into a living, breathing person, and the reader can’t help but get pulled into his worldview.” – Kirkus Reviews
“In Evison’s tough and wry novel, Mike Muñoz is every person who wants a living wage and a little dignity, ‘the opportunity to think beyond sustenance long enough to dream.’ Jonathan Evison has written a fierce and funny novel about a young man’s attempts to transcend class and poverty.” – Shelf Awareness
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Before I Let You Go by Kelly Rimmer
The 2:00 a.m. call is the first time Lexie Vidler has heard her sister’s voice in years. Annie is a drug addict, a thief, a liar—and in trouble, again. Lexie has always bailed Annie out, given her money, a place to sleep, sent her to every kind of rehab. But this time, she’s not just strung out—she’s pregnant and in premature labor. If she goes to the hospital, she’ll lose custody of her baby—maybe even go to prison. But the alternative is unthinkable.
As weeks unfold, Lexie finds herself caring for her fragile newborn niece while her carefully ordered life is collapsing around her. She’s in danger of losing her job, and her fiancé only has so much patience for Annie’s drama. In court-ordered rehab, Annie attempts to halt her downward spiral by confronting long-buried secrets from the sisters’ childhood, ghosts that Lexie doesn’t want to face. But will the journey heal Annie, or lead her down a darker path?
Both candid and compassionate, Before I Let You Go explores a hotly divisive topic and asks how far the ties of family love can be stretched before they finally break.
Description from Goodreads.
“Rimmer’s timely novel captures the unbreakable bond of two sisters and humanizes the difficult intersection of the opioid epidemic and the justice system.” – Publishers Weekly
“Annie is manipulative and has issues with authority, Lexie is an enabler, their mother is distant, and Sam is annoyingly needy. But their flaws make them realistic, and their struggles will engage and touch readers…For fans of contemporary family fiction.” – Library Journal
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A Nantucket Wedding by Nancy Thayer
A few years after losing her beloved husband, Alison is doing something she never thought she would do again: getting married. While placing the finishing touches on her summer nuptials, Alison is anxious to introduce her fiancé, David, to her grown daughters: Felicity, a worried married mother of two, and Jane, also married but focused on her career. The sisters have a somewhat distant relationship and Alison hopes that the wedding and the weeks leading up to the ceremony will give the siblings a chance to reconnect, as well as meet and get to know David’s grown children.
As the summer progresses, it is anything but smooth sailing. Felicity stumbles upon a terrible secret that could shatter her carefully cultivated world. Jane finds herself under the spell of her soon-to-be stepbrother, Ethan, who is as charming as he is mysterious. And even Alison is surprised (and slightly alarmed) by her new blended family. Revelations, intrigue, resentments—as the Big Day approaches, will the promise of bliss be a bust?
Against the gorgeous backdrop of the sunswept island of Nantucket, Nancy Thayer sets the stage for a walk down the aisle no one will ever forget.
Description from Goodreads.
“A delightful beach-town tale about family relationships and second chances.” – Kirkus Reviews
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MYSTERY & SUSPENSE
Bluff by Michael Kardos
At twenty-seven, magician Natalie Webb is already a has-been. A card-trick prodigy, she started touring at seventeen, took first place at the World of Magic competition at eighteen, and never reached such heights again.
Shunned by the magic world after a disastrous liaison with an older magician, she now lives alone with her pigeons and a pile of overdue bills in a New Jersey apartment. In a desperate ploy to make extra cash, she follows up on an old offer to write a feature magazine article―on the art of cheating at cards. But when she meets the perfect subject for her article, what begins as a journalistic gamble brings into question everything Natalie thinks she knows about her talent, and herself. Natalie is dazzled by the poker cheat’s sleight of hand and soon finds herself facing a proposition that could radically alter her fortune―to help pull off a $1.5 million magic trick that, if done successfully, no one will ever even suspect happened. With Kardos raising the stakes chapter after chapter, Bluff is a breathtaking work of suspense from a writer at the top of his game.
Description from Goodreads.
“Truly gasp-worthy.” – Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“Michael Kardos is a master at ratcheting up the suspense, and Bluff combines poker, a brilliant con game, and two terrific women who run the show. If you haven’t read Kardos yet, Bluff is the perfect place to start!” – Lisa Scottoline
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HISTORICAL FICTION
Greeks Bearing Gifts by Philip Kerr
It is 1956 and Bernie Gunther has a new name (Christoph Ganz), a clean passport, a chip on his shoulder, and a menial low-paying job in Munich. And then an old friend arrives to repay a debt. He encourages Bernie to take a job as a claims adjuster in a major German insurance company.
Which is why Bernie, as Christoph, finds himself in Athens investigating a claim by Siegfried Witzel, a brutish former Wehrmacht soldier who served in Greece during the war. Witzel’s supposed losses are immense, and, even worse, they may have originally belonged to Greek Jews deported to Auschwitz. But when Bernie tries to confront Witzel, he finds that somebody else has gotten to him first. What he has now is a dead man: both his eyes have been shot out.
Enter Lieutenant Leventis, who is working on a recent case with the same MO. Both deaths match the highly particular style of a killing 15 years prior, during the height of the war. Back then, a young Leventis suspected an S.S. officer whose connection to the German government made him untouchable. He’s kept that name on his lips all these years, waiting for his second chance at justice.
And while a pattern like this may be Leventis’s best opportunity to close an old case, there’s a much more sinister truth to acknowledge: A killer has returned to Athens, or even worse, he may never have left.
Description from Goodreads.
“In typical top form, Kerr provides valuable insights into the times … Inspired by real people and events, the latest novel by the celebrated author of the Berlin Noir trilogy is a deep but breezy work in which even the most trustworthy characters can harbor dark secrets. ” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“An outstanding historical thriller steeped in intrigue with a superb narrative, pace, and characterization.” – Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
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The Wolf by Leo Carew
Violence and death have come to the land under the Northern Sky.
The Anakim dwell in the desolate forests and mountains beyond the black river, the land under the Northern Sky. Their ancient ways are forged in Unthank silver and carved in the grey stone of their heartland, their lives measured out in the turning of centuries, not years.
By contrast, the Sutherners live in the moment, their vitality much more immediate and ephemeral than their Anakim neighbors.
Fragile is the peace that has existed between these very different races – and that peace is shattered when the Suthern armies flood the lands to the north. These two races revive their age-old hatred and fear of each other. Within the maelstrom of war, two leaders will rise to lead their people to victory.
Only one will succeed.
Description from Goodreads.
“Gripping and ambitious . . . twisty in its political maneuverings, gritty in its battle descriptions, and rich with a sense of heroism and glory.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Carew’s worldbuilding skills are strong and his ability to infuse even the grittiest battle scene with emotion and drive is impressive.” – RT Book Reviews
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NONFICTION
Two Sisters: A Father, His Daughters, and Their Journey into the Syrian Jihad by Asne Seierstad
Two Sisters, by the international bestselling author Asne Seierstad, tells the unforgettable story of a family divided by faith. Sadiq and Sara, Somali immigrants raising a family in Norway, one day discover that their teenage daughters Leila and Ayan have vanished–and are en route to Syria to aid the Islamic State. Seierstad’s riveting account traces the sisters’ journey from secular, social democratic Norway to the front lines of the war in Syria, and follows Sadiq’s harrowing attempt to find them.
Employing the same mastery of narrative suspense she brought to The Bookseller of Kabul and One of Us, Seierstad puts the problem of radicalization into painfully human terms, using instant messages and other primary sources to reconstruct a family’s crisis from the inside. Eventually, she takes us into the hellscape of the Syrian civil war, as Sadiq risks his life in pursuit of his daughters, refusing to let them disappear into the maelstrom–even after they marry ISIS fighters. Two Sisters is a relentless thriller and a feat of reporting with profound lessons about belief, extremism, and the meaning of devotion.
Description from Goodreads.
“Two Sisters is a modern tragedy. And a universal one ― the sisters, like any other young person, were seeking purpose and meaning.” – The Times
“Remarkable . . . hauntingly written, this book is both a masterpiece and a masterclass in investigative journalism” – Sunday Times
“Meticulously documented . . . Complex and compelling . . . This is a tale fluently told, and a thriller as well, about two young girls who left Norway one evening and were last heard of in the city of Raqqa.” – Literary Review
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The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery by Barbara K. Kipska & Elaine McArdle
In January 2015, Barbara Lipska—a leading expert on the neuroscience of mental illness—was diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to her brain. Within months, her frontal lobe, the seat of cognition, began shutting down. She descended into madness, exhibiting dementia- and schizophrenia-like symptoms that terrified her family and coworkers. But miraculously, just as her doctors figured out what was happening, the immunotherapy they had prescribed began to work. Just eight weeks after her nightmare began, Lipska returned to normal. With one difference: she remembered her brush with madness with exquisite clarity.
In The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind, Lipska describes her extraordinary ordeal and its lessons about the mind and brain. She explains how mental illness, brain injury, and age can change our behavior, personality, cognition, and memory. She tells what it is like to experience these changes firsthand. And she reveals what parts of us remain, even when so much else is gone.
Description from Goodreads.
“What is it like to have your mind thrust into the depths of madness and pulled back out again? In startling detail and with keen insight, Barbara Lipska, leading neuroscientist and mental illness expert, describes her own harrowing, albeit temporary, descent into extreme mental illness in her moving new memoir. While her nightmare only lasted eight weeks, Lipska’s experience — one she fully remembers — upended the way she looked at mental illness, in herself and others. A remarkable story about strength, endurance, and human’s capacity for recovery, The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind truly captures what it is like to struggle with mental illness.” – Bustle
“Lipska’s evolution as scientist, patient, and person explores the physiological basis of mental illness, while uplifting the importance of personal identity…. Lipska’s prose soars when narrating her experiences… her story is evidence that rich personal narratives offer value to an empirical pursuit of neuroscientific investigation.” – Science Magazine
“A harrowing, intimately candid survivor’s journey.” – Kirkus Reviews