It’s been a pretty great Summer so far, especially in regards to quality books, and this week is going to continue the trend! We have exciting new novels of domestic drama, edgy suspense, epic fantasy, history, and everyday life, with the perfect blend of thought-provoking stories and pure escapism. Is your next favorite book arriving at the library this week? Check out this list of the week’s best and find out!
FICTION
Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson ★
In this game, even winning can be deadly…
Amy Whey is proud of her ordinary life and the simple pleasures that come with it—teaching diving lessons, baking cookies for new neighbors, helping her best friend, Charlotte, run their local book club. Her greatest joy is her family: her devoted professor husband, her spirited fifteen-year-old stepdaughter, her adorable infant son. And, of course, the steadfast and supportive Charlotte. But Amy’s sweet, uncomplicated life begins to unravel when the mysterious and alluring Angelica Roux arrives on her doorstep one book club night.
Sultry and magnetic, Roux beguiles the group with her feral charm. She keeps the wine flowing and lures them into a game of spilling secrets. Everyone thinks it’s naughty, harmless fun. Only Amy knows better. Something wicked has come her way—a she-devil in a pricey red sports car who seems to know the terrible truth about who she is and what she once did.
When they’re alone, Roux tells her that if she doesn’t give her what she asks for, what she deserves, she’s going to make Amy pay for her sins. One way or another.
To protect herself and her family and save the life she’s built, Amy must beat the devil at her own clever game, matching wits with Roux in an escalating war of hidden pasts and unearthed secrets. Amy knows the consequences if she can’t beat Roux. What terrifies her is everything she could lose if she wins.
A diabolically entertaining tale of betrayal, deception, temptation, and love filled with dark twists leavened by Joshilyn Jackson’s trademark humor, Never Have I Ever explores what happens when the transgressions of our past come back with a vengeance.
Description from Goodreads.
“[A] nail-biter… Winner takes all in this addictive, heart-thumping read.” – Family Circle
“Joshilyn Jackson’s newest novel weaves a wicked tale right from its opening pages… With excellent pacing, clever character development, fun plot twists and a palpable setting, Never Have I Ever is a binge-worthy read. Jackson brings her first thriller to the table this summer, and you don’t want to miss it.” – BookPage
“Jackson’s novel is chock-full of dramatic reveals and twisty turns… Be warned: It’s a stay-up-all-night kind of book. Compulsively readable.” – Kirkus Reviews
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook | eAudiobook
Chances Are… by Richard Russo ★
One beautiful September day, three sixty-six-year-old men convene on Martha’s Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college circa the sixties. They couldn’t have been more different then, or even today–Lincoln’s a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher, and Mickey a musician beyond his rockin’ age. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since a Memorial Day weekend right here on the Vineyard in 1971.
Now, forty-four years later, as this new weekend unfolds, three lives and that of a significant other are displayed in their entirety while the distant past confounds the present like a relentless squall of surprise and discovery. Shot through with Russo’s trademark comedy and humanity, Chances Are… also introduces a new level of suspense and menace that will quicken the reader’s heartbeat throughout this absorbing saga of how friendship’s bonds are every bit as constricting and rewarding as those of family or any other community.
For both longtime fans and lucky newcomers, Chances Are.. is a stunning demonstration of a highly acclaimed author deepening and expanding his remarkable achievement.
Description from Goodreads.
“[Russo’s] first novel in ten years hits the ball out of the park… Along with his wry eye for irony and regret, [Russo] offers up a compelling mystery… When the denouement comes, it’s a stunner. Nevertheless, all bombshells feel earned. If you’re on a hammock in the Vineyard or under a tent in Acadia, or slumped over the fire escape of your hot city apartment, chances are your chances are awfully good that you’ll lap up this gripping, wise, and wonderful summer treat.” – Boston Globe
“No one understands men better than Russo, and no one is more eloquent in explaining how they think, suffer, and love. At a rough time for masculinity, Russo’s flawed but always decent characters are repositories of the classic virtues of their gender… [Chances Are…] blends everything we love about this author with something new. Yes, this is a novel about male friendship, fathers and sons, small-town class issues, and lifelong crushes, and it provides the familiar pleasure of immersion in the author’s distinctive, richly observed world and his inimitable ironic voice. But this is also a mystery about a 1971 cold case.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“For his first stand-alone novel in 10 years, Russo has written a bewitching tale of male friendship with thriller elements… This is vintage Russo with a cunning twist.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook
Marilou Is Everywhere by Sarah Elaine Smith
Fourteen-year-old Cindy and her two older brothers live in rural Pennsylvania, in a house with occasional electricity, two fierce dogs, one book, and a mother who comes and goes for months at a time. Deprived of adult supervision, the siblings rely on one another for nourishment of all kinds. As Cindy’s brothers take on new responsibilities for her care, the shadow of danger looms larger and the status quo no longer seems tolerable.
So when a glamorous teen from a more affluent, cultured home goes missing, Cindy escapes her own family’s poverty and slips into the missing teen’s life. As Jude Vanderjohn, Cindy is suddenly surrounded by books and art, by new foods and traditions, and most important, by a startling sense of possibility. In her borrowed life she also finds herself accepting the confused love of a mother who is constitutionally incapable of grasping what has happened to her real daughter. As Cindy experiences overwhelming maternal love for the first time, she must reckon with her own deceits and, in the process, learn what it means to be a daughter, a sister, and a neighbor.
Marilou Is Everywhere is a powerful, propulsive portrait of an overlooked girl who finds for the first time that her choices matter.
Description from Goodreads.
“Smith’s writing is feral. It’s alert, skittish, and hungry… A poignant story of accountability.” – Bust Magazine
“‘Amusing’ doesn’t feel like the right term for the period after a teenage girl goes missing, but that’s just one of many surprises Sarah Elaine Smith sprinkles throughout her debut novel… Grab this coming-of-age-story if you’ve ever wanted to escape your own life, or if you simply want to see how delightfully a mystery can be written.” – Hypebae
“Smith, who never insults her characters by pitying them, captures this unstable world with matter-of-fact poetry, spare and sensual and surprisingly funny. Bleak and vivid; Smith’s characters are as rich as her prose.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
Print Book
SUSPENSE
The Escape Room by Megan Goldin
Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are ruthlessly ambitious high-flyers working in the lucrative world of Wall Street finance where deception and intimidation thrive. Getting rich is all that matters, and they’ll do anything to reach the top.
When they are ordered to participate in a corporate team-building exercise that requires them to escape from a locked elevator, dark secrets of their team begin to be laid bare.
The biggest mystery to solve in this lethal game: What happened to Sara Hall? Once a young shining star—”now gone but not forgotten”.
This is no longer a game.
They’re fighting for their lives.
Description from Goodreads.
“The pages turn themselves… The Escape Room delivers all that it promises. It is a sleek, well-crafted ride to a surprisingly twisty conclusion.” – New York Times Book Review
“Cancel all your plans and call in sick; once you start reading, you’ll be caught in your own escape room―the only key to freedom is turning the last page!” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“A shrewd, brilliantly structured thriller doubling as a takedown of corporate culture.” – Shelf Awareness
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook | eAudiobook
Someone We Know by Shari Lapena
Maybe you don’t know your neighbors as well as you thought you did…
“This is a very difficult letter to write. I hope you will not hate us too much… My son broke into your home recently while you were out.”
In a quiet, leafy suburb in upstate New York, a teenager has been sneaking into houses–and into the owners’ computers as well–learning their secrets, and maybe sharing some of them, too.
Who is he, and what might he have uncovered? After two anonymous letters are received, whispers start to circulate, and suspicion mounts. And when a woman down the street is found murdered, the tension reaches the breaking point. Who killed her? Who knows more than they’re telling? And how far will all these very nice people go to protect their own secrets?
In this neighborhood, it’s not just the husbands and wives who play games. Here, everyone in the family has something to hide…
You never really know what people are capable of.
Description from Goodreads.
“Slyly plotted… Lapena skillfully maximizes suspense with her dual story lines that eventually collide, as well as some deft misdirection… many fans of domestic suspense will be satisfied.” – Publishers Weekly
“Highly suspenseful… Sure to delight fans of Liane Moriarty and Louise Candlish.” – Booklist
“Expert plotting and perfect pacing keeps the tension racked high in this story. Characters are drawn in shades of dark and light, some more likeable than others; all very believable; all perhaps capable of murder… And the denouement, when it comes, will leave you gasping.” – My Weekly
Available Formats:
Print Book
The Arrangement by Robyn Harding
Natalie, a young art student in New York City, is struggling to pay her bills when a friend makes a suggestion: Why not go online and find a sugar daddy—a wealthy, older man who will pay her for dates, and even give her a monthly allowance? Lots of girls do it, Nat learns. All that’s required is to look pretty and hang on his every word. Sexual favours are optional.
Though more than thirty years her senior, Gabe, a handsome corporate finance attorney, seems like the perfect candidate, and within a month, they are madly in love. At least, Nat is… Gabe already has a family, whom he has no intention of leaving.
So when he abruptly ends things, Nat can’t let go. She begins drinking heavily and stalking him: watching him at work, spying on his wife, even befriending his daughter, who is not much younger than she is. But Gabe’s not about to let his sugar baby destroy his perfect life. What was supposed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement devolves into a nightmare of deception, obsession, and, when a body is found near Gabe’s posh Upper East Side apartment, murder.
Description from Goodreads.
“Pretty Woman’s creepy counterpart… Throw a little murder in there, and you have yourself a page-turner.” – 29 Secrets
“No list of thrillers is complete without Robyn Harding. If you liked The Party and Her Pretty Face, you’ll devour The Arrangement, a must-read novel.” – Real Simple
“A potboiler that will appeal to readers who enjoy twisty thrillers and are looking for a bit of a soap opera.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
Print Book
MYSTERY
Speaking of Summer by Kalisha Buckhanon ★
On a cold December evening, Autumn Spencer’s twin sister Summer walks to the roof of their shared Harlem brownstone and is never seen again—the door to the roof is locked, and no footsteps are found. Faced with authorities indifferent to another missing woman, Autumn must pursue answers on her own, all while grieving her mother’s recent death.
With her friends and neighbors, Autumn pretends to hold up through the crisis. She falls into an affair with Summer’s boyfriend to cope with the disappearance of a woman they both loved. But the loss becomes too great, the mystery too inexplicable, and Autumn starts to unravel, all the while becoming obsessed with murdered women and the men who kill them.
In Speaking of Summer, critically acclaimed author Kalisha Buckhanon has created a postmodern, fast-paced story of urban peril and victim invisibility, and the fight to discover truth at any cost.
Description from Goodreads.
“Speaking of Summer is an absolutely riveting thriller about a woman who’s desperate to find her missing twin sister amid a criminal justice system that’s weighted against people of color. Come for Kalisha Buckhanon’s addictive writing and stay for a truly mind-blowing twist.” – Cosmopolitan
“What do you do when your twin, your other half, disappears, and no one seems to notice?… Buckhanon captures Autumn’s frustration at the undervaluing of Black women, accompanied by the creeping gentrification of her Harlem neighborhood. Not only are individual Black women disappearing, so are the communities that keep them safe.” – Booklist
“Boldly drawn characters and a strong sense of place distinguish this sinuous, slow-burning fusion of mystery and literary fiction… The sisters’ story beguiles and intrigues all the way through to the insightful, hope-filled epilogue.” – Mystery Scene
“This is social justice noir meets psycho-noir, with an end twist you’ll never see coming.” – CrimeReads
Available Formats:
Print Book
Smokescreen by Iris Johansen
A journalist shows up on Eve Duncan’s doorstep with a plea for help. Jill Cassidy has just come from a small African village with a heart wrenching story: half the villagers–many of them children–have been killed in a horrific attack by guerilla soldiers, the bodies burned beyond recognition. Now, the families desperately need Eve’s help to get closure and begin to heal.
But when Eve arrives in the remote jungle, she begins to suspect that Jill’s plea may have been a cover story for a deeper, more sinister plot. Isolated and unsure who she can trust, Eve finds herself stranded in an unstable country where violence threatens to break out again at any moment and with only her own instincts to rely on if she hopes to get home to her family alive…
Description from Goodreads.
“Riveting… Readers will keep guessing about the complex characters’ underlying motivations as the plot races toward the stunning conclusion.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“From thriller writer extraordinaire Iris Johansen comes a pulse-pounding excursion into a war torn nation, where forensic sculpture Eve Duncan heeds a journalist’s call to assist in identifying a village’s dead after a horrific massacre, only to discover more sinister plots may be lurking behind the journalist’s call for assistance.” – CrimeReads
“Propelled by a muscular narrative and elaborate subplots, Johansen’s latest complex Eve Duncan thriller reliably pivots on the cerebral battle of wills among its robust characters.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook
HISTORICAL FICTION
The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis
From the dramatic redbrick facade to the sweeping staircase dripping with art, the Chelsea Hotel has long been New York City’s creative oasis for the many artists, writers, musicians, actors, filmmakers, and poets who have called it home—a scene playwright Hazel Riley and actress Maxine Mead are determined to use to their advantage. Yet they soon discover that the greatest obstacle to putting up a show on Broadway has nothing to do with their art, and everything to do with politics.
A Red scare is sweeping across America, and Senator Joseph McCarthy has started a witch hunt for Communists, with those in the entertainment industry in the crosshairs. As the pressure builds to name names, it is more than Hazel and Maxine’s Broadway dreams that may suffer as they grapple with the terrible consequences, but also their livelihood, their friendship, and even their freedom.
Spanning from the 1940s to the 1960s, The Chelsea Girls deftly pulls back the curtain on the desperate political pressures of McCarthyism, the complicated bonds of female friendship, and the siren call of the uninhibited Chelsea Hotel.
Description from Goodreads.
“The glitz and glamour of the Chelsea Hotel provides a perfect backdrop for Davis’s story of friendship, ambition and behind-the-scenes theatrical intrigue. Hazel and Maxine are complex characters struggling with conflicting questions of loyalty, love and professional success in a turbulent time. Their story is both a sharp-eyed commentary on female friendship and a vivid glimpse into the life of a New York City icon.” – Shelf Awareness
“The theme of McCarthyism threads through this intricately woven novel, which highlights the politics of 1950s Broadway… It’s a fascinating and at times heartbreaking look at an era in which lives were upended and careers derailed.” – Christian Science Monitor
“Featuring vibrant, witty characters who not only weather but thrive in a dark period of American history, Davis’s tale of one friendship’s strength will stun and satisfy readers.” – Publishers Weekly
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook | eAudiobook
SCI-FI & FANTASY
Dark Age by Pierce Brown
For a decade Darrow led a revolution against the corrupt color-coded Society. Now, outlawed by the very Republic he founded, he wages a rogue war on Mercury in hopes that he can still salvage the dream of Eo. But as he leaves death and destruction in his wake, is he still the hero who broke the chains? Or will another legend rise to take his place?
Lysander au Lune, the heir in exile, has returned to the Core. Determined to bring peace back to mankind at the edge of his sword, he must overcome or unite the treacherous Gold families of the Core and face down Darrow over the skies of war-torn Mercury.
But theirs are not the only fates hanging in the balance.
On Luna, Mustang, Sovereign of the Republic, campaigns to unite the Republic behind her husband. Beset by political and criminal enemies, can she outwit her opponents in time to save him?
Once a Red refugee, young Lyria now stands accused of treason, and her only hope is a desperate escape with unlikely new allies.
Abducted by a new threat to the Republic, Pax and Electra, the children of Darrow and Sevro, must trust in Ephraim, a thief, for their salvation—and Ephraim must look to them for his chance at redemption.
As alliances shift, break, and re-form—and power is seized, lost, and reclaimed—every player is at risk in a game of conquest that could turn the Rising into a new Dark Age.
Description from Goodreads.
“They say good things come to those who wait, and Dark Age is no exception to that rule.” – The Geekiary