Books Worth Waiting For
Ask again, yes
Keane, Mary Beth, author
2019
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
**The Tonight Show Summer Reads Pick**
"One of the most unpretentiously profound books I've read in a long time... modestly magnificent." --Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air
"A beautiful novel, bursting at the seams with empathy." -- Elle
How much can a family forgive?
A profoundly moving novel about two neighboring families in a suburban town, the friendship between their children, a tragedy that reverberates over four decades, the daily intimacies of marriage, and the power of forgiveness.
Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, rookie cops in the NYPD, live next door to each other outside the city. What happens behind closed doors in both houses--the loneliness of Francis's wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian's wife, Anne, sets the stage for the explosive events to come.
Ask Again, Yes is a deeply affecting exploration of the lifelong friendship and love that blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next 40 years. Luminous, heartbreaking, and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes reveals the way childhood memories change when viewed from the distance of adulthood--villains lose their menace and those who appeared innocent seem less so. Kate and Peter's love story, while haunted by echoes from the past, is marked by tenderness, generosity, and grace.
Dear wife
Belle, Kimberly, author
2019
CAN SHE ESCAPE THE PERSON SHE ONCE LOVED?
Beth Murphy is on the run...
For nearly a year, Beth has been plotting to leave her abusive husband. This is her one chance at freedom--one that requires a new look, new name and new city. Each part of her plan has to be carefully thought out, because one small slip and her violent husband will find her.
Sabine Hardison is missing...
A couple hundred miles away, Jeffrey returns home from a work trip to find his wife, Sabine, is missing. Wherever she is, she's taken almost nothing with her. Her abandoned car is the only trace of her the police have to go on, and all signs point to foul play.
The detective on the case will stop at nothing to bring this missing woman home. Where is Sabine? And who is Beth? As Beth's husband starts piecing together her whereabouts, she'll have to make a decision about her future that will leave readers breathless.
Evvie Drake starts over
Holmes, Linda (Radio talk show host), author
2019
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today * "Everything a romantic comedy should be: witty, relatable, and a little complicated."-- People
From the host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast comes a heartfelt debut about the unlikely relationship between a young woman who's lost her husband and a major league pitcher who's lost his game.
In a sleepy seaside town in Maine, recently widowed Eveleth "Evvie" Drake rarely leaves her large, painfully empty house nearly a year after her husband's death in a car crash. Everyone in town, even her best friend, Andy, thinks grief keeps her locked inside, and Evvie doesn't correct them.
Meanwhile, in New York City, Dean Tenney, former Major League pitcher and Andy's childhood best friend, is wrestling with what miserable athletes living out their worst nightmares call the "yips": he can't throw straight anymore, and, even worse, he can't figure out why. As the media storm heats up, an invitation from Andy to stay in Maine seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button on Dean's future.
When he moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie's house, the two make a deal: Dean won't ask about Evvie's late husband, and Evvie won't ask about Dean's baseball career. Rules, though, have a funny way of being broken--and what starts as an unexpected friendship soon turns into something more. To move forward, Evvie and Dean will have to reckon with their pasts--the friendships they've damaged, the secrets they've kept--but in life, as in baseball, there's always a chance--up until the last out.
A joyful, hilarious, and hope-filled debut, Evvie Drake Starts Over will have you cheering for the two most unlikely comebacks of the year--and will leave you wanting more from Linda Holmes.
Praise for Evvie Drake Starts Over
"A quirky, sweet, and splendid story of a woman coming into her own." --Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six
"Effortlessly enjoyable . . . [a] pitch-perfect . . . adult love story that is as romantic as it is real." - USA Today
"Charming, hopeful, and gently romantic . . . Evvie Drake is great company." --Rainbow Rowell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor & Park
The farm
Ramos, Joanne, author
2019
Life is a lucrative business, as long as you play by the rules.
"[Joanne] Ramos's debut novel couldn't be more relevant or timely." -- O: The Oprah Magazine (25 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2019)
Nestled in New York's Hudson Valley is a luxury retreat boasting every amenity: organic meals, personal fitness trainers, daily massages--and all of it for free. In fact, you're paid big money to stay here--more than you've ever dreamed of. The catch? For nine months, you cannot leave the grounds, your movements are monitored, and you are cut off from your former life while you dedicate yourself to the task of producing the perfect baby. For someone else.
Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines, is in desperate search of a better future when she commits to being a "Host" at Golden Oaks--or the Farm, as residents call it. But now pregnant, fragile, consumed with worry for her family, Jane is determined to reconnect with her life outside. Yet she cannot leave the Farm or she will lose the life-changing fee she'll receive on the delivery of her child.
Gripping, provocative, heartbreaking, The Farm pushes to the extremes our thinking on motherhood, money, and merit and raises crucial questions about the trade-offs women will make to fortify their futures and the futures of those they love.
The German midwife
Robotham, Mandy, author
2019
An enthralling tale from the #1 Globe and Mail and USA Today Best Selling Author.
"A powerful, haunting debut"--Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network
An enthralling new tale of courage, betrayal and survival in the hardest of circumstances that readers of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, The Secret Orphan and The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz will love.
Germany, 1944. A prisoner in the camps, Anke Hoff is doing what she can to keep her pregnant campmates and their newborns alive.
But when Anke's work is noticed, she is chosen for a task more dangerous than she could ever have imagined. Eva Braun is pregnant with the Führer's child, and Anke is assigned as her midwife.
Before long, Anke is faced with an impossible choice. Does she serve the Reich she loathes and keep the baby alive? Or does she sacrifice an innocent child for the good of a broken world?
*Published in the UK as A Woman of War*
The girl in the letter
Gunnis, Emily, author
2019
Read her letter. Remember her story...
Gripping. Mesmerising. Haunting. Heart-breaking. Once you've heard her story, you will never forget The Girl in the Letter.
Perfect for fans of Kate Morton, Rachel Hore and Kathryn Hughes, this page-turning, moving novel of separation and long-buried secrets will stay with you for ever.
In the winter of 1956 pregnant young Ivy is sent in disgrace to St Margaret's, a home for unmarried mothers in the south of England, run by nuns, to have her child. Her baby daughter is adopted. Ivy will never leave.
Sixty years later, journalist Samantha stumbles upon a series of letters from Ivy to her lover, pleading with him to rescue her from St Margaret's before it is too late. As Sam pieces together Ivy's tragic story, terrible secrets about St Margaret's dark past begin to emerge. What happened to Ivy, to her baby, and to the hundreds of children born in the home? What links a number of mysterious, sudden deaths in the area? And why are those who once worked at St Margaret's so keen that the truth should never be told? As Sam unpicks the sinister web of lies surrounding St Margaret's, she also looks deep within - to confront some unwelcome truths of her own...
The guardians : A Novel.
Grisham, John.
2019
The newest legal thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham. This masterfully plotted, perfectly paced novel confirms that Grisham remains America's favorite storytelle r.
In the small north Florida town of Seabrook, a young lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead at his desk as he worked late one night. The killer left no clues behind. There were no witnesses, no real suspects, no one with a motive. The police soon settled on Quincy Miller, a young black man who was once a client of Russo's.
Quincy was framed, convicted, and sent to prison for life. For twenty-two years he languished in prison with no lawyer, no advocate on the outside. Then he wrote a letter to Guardian Ministries, a small innocence group founded by a lawyer/minister named Cullen Post.
Guardian handles only a few innocence cases at a time, and Post is its only investigator. He travels the South fighting wrongful convictions and taking cases no one else will touch. With Quincy Miller, though, he gets far more than he bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Quincy exonerated.
They killed one lawyer twenty-two years ago, and they will kill another one without a second thought.
I'll never tell
McKenzie, Catherine, author
2019
From Catherine McKenzie, the instant bestselling author of The Good Liar, comes a riveting domestic suspense in the vein of Liane Moriarty that sees five siblings forced to confront a tragedy they thought was buried long ago.
What happened to Amanda Holmes?
After the sudden death of their parents, the MacAllister children return to the run-down summer camp where they spent their childhood. The four sisters and their elder brother haven't all been together at Camp Macaw in over twenty years--ever since a tragic and mysterious accident.
Over the course of the Labour Day weekend, the siblings must determine what to do with the property, now worth millions. But a stunning condition of their father's will compels them to face their past--and come to a decision that threatens to tear them apart forever.
A sharp and engrossing novel of suspense, I'll Never Tell reveals what happens when the secrets and lies that hold a family together are finally exposed.
The Night Fire : A Ballard and Bosch Novel.
Connelly, Michael.
2019
Harry Bosch and LAPD Detective Renée Ballard come together again on the murder case that obsessed Bosch's mentor, the man who trained him---new from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly
Back when Harry Bosch was just a rookie homicide detective, he had an inspiring mentor who taught him to take the work personally and light the fire of relentlessness for every case. Now that mentor, John Jack Thompson, is dead, but after his funeral his widow gives Bosch a murder book that Thompson took with him when he left the LAPD 20 years before -- the unsolved killing of a troubled young man in an alley used for drug deals.
Bosch brings the murder book to Renée Ballard and asks her to help him find what about the case lit Thompson's fire all those years ago. That will be their starting point.
The bond between Bosch and Ballard tightens as they become a formidable investigative team. And they soon arrive at a worrying question: Did Thompson steal the murder book to work the case in retirement, or to make sure it never got solved?
Normal people
Rooney, Sally, author
2019
THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2018
WINNER OF THE SPECSAVERS NATIONAL BOOKS AWARD 2018 (International Author)
LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018
'The best novel published this year.' The Times
Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in rural Ireland. The similarities end there; they are from very different worlds. When they both earn places at Trinity College in Dublin, a connection that has grown between them lasts long into the following years.
This is an exquisite love story about how a person can change another person's life - a simple yet profound realisation that unfolds beautifully over the course of the novel. It tells us how difficult it is to talk about how we feel and it tells us - blazingly - about cycles of domination, legitimacy and privilege. Alternating menace with overwhelming tenderness, Sally Rooney's second novel breathes fiction with new life.
One good deed
Baldacci, David, author
2019
The #1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci introduces an unforgettable new character: Archer, a straight-talking former World War II soldier fresh out of prison for a crime he didn't commit.
It's 1949. When war veteran Aloysius Archer is released from Carderock Prison, he is sent to Poca City on parole with a short list of do 's and a much longer list of don't s: do report regularly to his parole officer, don't go to bars, certainly don't drink alcohol, do get a job--and don't ever associate with loose women.
The small town quickly proves more complicated and dangerous than Archer's years serving in the war or his time in jail. Within a single night, his search for gainful employment--and a stiff drink--leads him to a local bar, where he is hired for what seems like a simple job: to collect a debt owed to a powerful local businessman, Hank Pittleman.
Soon Archer discovers that recovering the debt won't be so easy. The indebted man has a furious grudge against Hank and refuses to pay; Hank's clever mistress has her own designs on Archer; and both Hank and Archer's stern parole officer, Miss Crabtree, are keeping a sharp eye on him.
When a murder takes place right under Archer's nose, police suspicions rise against the ex-convict, and Archer realizes that the crime could send him right back to prison . . . if he doesn't use every skill in his arsenal to track down the real killer.
The Rosie result
Simsion, Graeme C., author
2019
Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are about to face their most important challenge.
Their eleven-year-old son, Hudson, is struggling at school: he's socially awkward and not fitting in. Don's spent a lifetime trying to fit in--so who better to teach Hudson the skills he needs?
The Hudson Project will require the help of friends old and new, force Don and Rosie to decide how much to guide Hudson, and raise some significant questions about Don's own identity.
Meanwhile, there is the Genetics Lecture Outrage, Rosie's troubles at work, Don's estrangement from his best friend Gene...And opening the world's best cocktail bar.
Hilarious and thought-provoking, with a brilliant cast of characters, The Rosie Result is the triumphant final installment of the internationally bestselling Don Tillman trilogy.
The winemaker's wife
Harmel, Kristin, author
2019
Instant #1 bestseller from The Globe and Mail (Toronto) and The Toronto Star
"Love and betrayal, forgiveness and redemption combine in a heady tale of the ever-present past...fantastic!" --Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Girls of Paris
The author of the "engrossing" ( People ) international bestseller The Room on Rue Amélie returns with a moving story set amid the champagne vineyards of northern France during the darkest days of World War II, perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale .
Champagne, 1940: Inès has just married Michel, the owner of storied champagne house Maison Chauveau, when the Germans invade. As the danger mounts, Michel turns his back on his marriage to begin hiding munitions for the Résistance . Inès fears they'll be exposed, but for Céline, half-Jewish wife of Chauveau's chef de cave , the risk is even greater--rumors abound of Jews being shipped east to an unspeakable fate.
When Céline recklessly follows her heart in one desperate bid for happiness, and Inès makes a dangerous mistake with a Nazi collaborator, they risk the lives of those they love--and the champagne house that ties them together.
New York, 2019: Liv Kent has just lost everything when her eccentric French grandmother shows up unannounced, insisting on a trip to France. But the older woman has an ulterior motive--and a tragic, decades-old story to share. When past and present finally collide, Liv finds herself on a road to salvation that leads right to the caves of the Maison Chauveau.