Coming Soon in 2026

Some of my favorite authors have new releases coming out in 2026. 

I can't wait!!

Coming Soon!

 

I loved both A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility, so I'm super excited about this upcoming release by Amor Towles. Have you read his novels? Click on the titles to read my reviews. 

Publisher's Blurb:

The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America.

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.

Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.

Publication date: October 5, 2021

Wordless Wednesday

 

Looking Back - The Honk and Holler Opening Soon

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals. 

The Honk and Holler Opening Soon by Billie Letts

Fiction

1999 Grand Central Publishing (first published 1998)

Read in March 2000

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Caney Paxton wanted his cafe to have the biggest and brightest sign in Eastern Oklahoma-the "opening soon" part was supposed to be just a removable, painted notice. But a fateful misunderstanding gave Vietnam vet Caney the flashiest joke in the entire state. 

Twelve years later, the once-busy highway is dead and the sign is as worn as Caney, who hasn't ventured outside the diner since it opened. Then one blustery December day, a thirtyish Crow woman blows in with a three-legged dog in her arms and a long-buried secret on her mind. Hiring on as a carhop, Vena Takes Horse is soon shaking up business, the locals, and Caney's heart...as she teaches them all about generosity of spirit, love, and the possibility of promise-just like the sign says.

My Original Thoughts (2000):

Fantastic book! I think I enjoyed it even more than Where the Heart Is. Wonderful, quirky characters. Memorable and humorous. Letts is a great storyteller.

My Current Thoughts:

While I don't remember the details of this novel, I do remember that it was one I loved and one that I have always planned to read again. This is my year for rereading, so it's going on the stack!

I have read all four of Billie Letts' novels and would love to read more, but sadly, she passed away in 2014. Click on the titles for my reviews of her later books.

Where the Heart Is

Shoot the Moon

Made in the U.S.A.

Lucky Us

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

Fiction

2014 Random House

Finished on December 23, 2019

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

"My father's wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us."

Brilliantly written, deeply moving, fantastically funny, Lucky Us introduces us to Eva and Iris. Disappointed by their families, Iris, the hopeful star, and Eva, the sidekick, journey across 1940s America in search of fame and fortune. Iris's ambitions take them from small-town Ohio to an unexpected and sensuous Hollywood, across the America of Reinvention in a stolen station wagon, to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island.

With their friends in high and low places, Iris and Eva stumble and shine through a landscape of big dreams, scandals, betrayals, and war. Filled with gorgeous writing, memorable characters, and surprising events, Lucky Us is a thrilling and resonant novel about success and failure, good luck and bad, the creation of a family, and the pleasures and inevitable perils of family life. From Brooklyn's beauty parlors to London's West End, a group of unforgettable people love, lie, cheat, and survive in this story of our fragile, absurd, heroic species.

What an odd story with quirky characters. Lucky Us is the first book I've read by Amy Bloom and I'm not sure I'll read more. Part epistolary, part coming-of-age, I found the writing uneven and the ever-changing cast of characters difficult to keep track of. 

Coming Soon - The Starless Sea

I listened to The Night Circus in 2012 (reviewed here) and thought it was a beautifully crafted and imaginative tale about love and illusions. As it often happens, I forgot all about the author until I recently read a glowing review of Morgenstern's debut novel, which got me to wondering if she had written any other books. Lo and behold, I stumbled on this article from Entertainment Weekly:

Erin Morgenstern is finally ready for her encore.

The best-selling author of The Night Circus will next publish The Starless Sea, a sweeping new novel interweaving romantic and fantastical elements, in late 2019, EW can announce exclusively. The book is Morgenstern’s first in seven years, and publisher Doubleday is planning an ambitious rollout, with a first printing of 500,000 copies.

The Night Circus, a fantasy told in nonlinear form from multiple viewpoints, marked a smash debut for Morgenstern, going on to award-winning acclaim and drawing the immediate interest of Hollywood. The book has sold 3 million copies since its 2011 publication and has been translated into 37 languages; in addition, both film and stages adaptations are in development.

Here’s the official synopsis for The Starless Sea: “Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a strange book hidden in the library stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues — a bee, a key, and a sword — that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to a subterranean library, hidden far below the surface of the earth.

“What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians — it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose — in both the mysterious book and in his own life.”

Several years in the making, The Starless Sea is a much-anticipated second novel from Morgenstern. “When I started working on my new novel, I thought I was writing a book about books, but as it turns out I was writing a book about stories,” the author said in a statement. “Stories and choices and change and also time and fate and video games. It took quite a while to get it all to fit in a single book, even down to the bees.”

The Starless Sea will publish Nov. 5, 2019.

I don't know about you, but I plan to read this as soon as it hits the shelves. Read or listen, a book about books (or stories) is bound to be a winner!

Coming Soon!

Well, in April, but who's counting?

I have read and loved all of Lisa's books and so I am very excited to see that her latest publication will be released on April 3rd. I haven't bought a book in ages, but this is one I plan to pre-order!

Publisher's Blurb:

From neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice comes a powerful and heartbreaking exploration of regret, forgiveness, freedom, and what it means to be alive.

An accomplished concert pianist, Richard received standing ovations from audiences all over the world in awe of his rare combination of emotional resonance and flawless technique. Every finger of his hands was a finely calibrated instrument, dancing across the keys and striking each note with exacting precision. That was eight months ago.

Richard now has ALS, and his entire right arm is paralyzed. His fingers are impotent, still, devoid of possibility. The loss of his hand feels like a death, a loss of true love, a divorce—his divorce.

He knows his left arm will go next.

Three years ago, Karina removed their framed wedding picture from the living room wall and hung a mirror there instead. But she still hasn’t moved on. Karina is paralyzed by excuses and fear, stuck in an unfulfilling life as a piano teacher, afraid to pursue the path she abandoned as a young woman, blaming Richard and their failed marriage for all of it.

When Richard becomes increasingly paralyzed and is no longer able to live on his own, Karina becomes his reluctant caretaker. As Richard’s muscles, voice, and breath fade, both he and Karina try to reconcile their past before it’s too late.

As poignant and powerful as Jojo Moyes’s Me Before You, Every Note Played is a masterful exploration of redemption and what it means to find peace inside of forgiveness.

Waiting on Wednesday - The Tresspasser

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event that highlights a book that we can't wait to be published.  It's hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

The Trespasser 
(Dublin Murder Squad #6)

 by Tana French

Available on October 4, 2016

Overview

Antoinette Conway, the tough, abrasive detective from The Secret Place, is still on the Murder squad, but only just. She's partnered up with Stephen Moran now, and that's going well - but the rest of her working life isn't. Antoinette doesn't play well with others, and there's a vicious running campaign in the squad to get rid of her. She and Stephen pull a case that at first looks like a slam-dunk lovers' tiff, but gradually they realise there's more going on: someone on their own squad is trying to push them towards the obvious solution, away from nagging questions. They have to work out whether this is just an escalation in the drive to get rid of her - or whether there's something deeper and darker going on.

Well, I didn't care for The Secret Place, but I've enjoyed all of Tana French's other books, so I'm planning to grab a copy of The Trespasser just as soon as it hits the shelves. How about you? Which is your favorite Dublin Murder Squad book? Mine? The Likeness. Faithful Place. In the Woods. Broken Harbor. Yep. All but The Secret Place. :)

Waiting on Wednesday - The City of Mirrors

City of Mirrors is the 3rd and final installment in the Passage Trilogy by Justin Cronin. The book is set to be released this May and I am more than excited! I've listened to the first two books (The Passage and The Twelve), both of which were read by Scott Brick. City of Mirrors weighs in at a whopping 624 pages, so I definitely plan to stick with the audio version. I gave The Passage a near-perfect rating of 4.75/5, but The Twelve dropped down to 3.5/5. Fingers crossed that the grand finale ends on a high note!

Overview

In The Passage and The Twelve, Justin Cronin brilliantly imagined the fall of civilization and humanity’s desperate fight to survive. Now all is quiet on the horizon—but does silence promise the nightmare’s end or the second coming of unspeakable darkness? At last, this bestselling epic races to its breathtaking finale.

The world we knew is gone. What world will rise in its place?

The Twelve have been destroyed and the hundred-year reign of darkness that descended upon the world has ended. The survivors are stepping outside their walls, determined to build society anew—and daring to dream of a hopeful future.

But far from them, in a dead metropolis, he waits: Zero. The First. Father of the Twelve. The anguish that shattered his human life haunts him, and the hatred spawned by his transformation burns bright. His fury will be quenched only when he destroys Amy—humanity’s only hope, the Girl from Nowhere who grew up to rise against him.

One last time light and dark will clash, and at last Amy and her friends will know their fate.

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event that highlights a book we can't wait to be published.  It is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Waiting on Wednesday - Our Souls at Night

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event that highlights a book that we can't wait to be published.  It's hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

I have read all of Kent Haruf's novels and was so saddened to learn of his death last November. While I didn't love Benediction (his most recent book), I have always held out hope for another brilliant novel like Plainsong and Eventide. The characters from those two poignant books have remained with me since the day I finished the last page of each story. Now I have another chance to re-visit Holt County, Colorado.

From The Atlantic:

Kent Haruf died last fall, at the age of 71, shortly after finishing a novel in which he slyly, and triumphantly, succeeds in having the last word. Our Souls at Night gives Haruf fans a lovely dose of his signature spare style and plainspoken characters. At the same time, it delivers a retort to critics who yawned that Haruf was stuck in his homespun ways. The 70-something protagonists of his sixth novel—set, like its predecessors, in the fictional small town of Holt, Colorado—hook up more boldly than most online daters would dare to.

“And then there was the day when Addie Moore made a call on Louis Waters.” With that old-fashioned first sentence, a match is in the making. The lonely widow has arrived with a startling proposal for the widower down the street, whom she barely knows: Will he come to her house sometimes and sleep with her? Addie has in mind companionable talk, she explains, rather than sex. Help “getting through the night” is her hope. The visits start, and their lives become intimately enmeshed. Their fretful children and the townsfolk quickly let them know they disapprove: news, and unease, spreads more efficiently in Holt than on Facebook.

If the premise sounds improbable—two oldsters jumping into bed like that—so did the plot pivot in Haruf’s breakout best seller, Plainsong: two aging bachelor farmers deciding to take in a pregnant teenager. But Haruf once again banishes doubts. Our souls, as Addie and Louis know, can surprise us. Beneath the surface of reticent lives—and of Haruf’s calm prose—they prove unexpectedly brave.

Publication Date: May 26, 2015

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

About Kent Haruf (from Wikipedia):

Haruf was born in Pueblo, Colorado, the son of a Methodist minister. He graduated with a BA from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1965, where he would later teach, and earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1973.

Before becoming a writer, Haruf worked in a variety of places, including a chicken farm in Colorado, a construction site in Wyoming, a rehabilitation hospital in Denver, a hospital in Phoenix, a presidential library in Iowa, an alternative high school in Wisconsin, as an English teacher with the Peace Corps in Turkey, and colleges in Nebraska and Illinois. He lived with his wife, Kathy, in Salida, Colorado until his death in 2014. He had three daughters from his first marriage.

All of Haruf's novels take place in the fictional town of Holt, in eastern Colorado. Holt is based on Yuma, Colorado, one of Haruf's residences in the early 1980s. His first novel, The Tie That Binds (1984), received a Whiting Foundation Award and a special Hemingway Foundation/PEN citation. Where You Once Belonged followed in 1990. A number of his short stories have appeared in literary magazines.

Plainsong was published in 1999 and became a U.S. bestseller. Verlyn Klinkenborg called it "a novel so foursquare, so delicate and lovely, that it has the power to exalt the reader." Plainsong won the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Award and the Maria Thomas Award in Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.

Eventide, a sequel to Plainsong, was published in 2004. Library Journal described the writing as "honest storytelling that is compelling and rings true." Jonathan Miles saw it as a "repeat performance" and "too goodhearted."

On November 30, 2014, Kent Haruf died at his home in Salida, Colorado at the age of 71. He died of interstitial lung disease.

Coming Attractions

Joy For Beginners
by Erica Bauermeister
Coming June 9, 2011

Advance Praise for Joy For Beginners:


“Moving, touching, wonderfully written; inspiring to read.”
–Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain

“A literary confirmation of the power of friendship.”
–Carol Cassella, author of Oxygen

“This book is a joy to read. Bauermeister gives us characters who revel in the best of what life has to offer--loving relationships, fine food, good books, and travel--and she writes with keen observance and a wry wit.”
–Stephanie Kallos, author of Broken for You

“A warm and elegant portrayal of what makes women, well, women: strength, succor, healing, forgiveness, and ultimately, connection.”
–Jennie Shortridge, author of When She Flew
Erica Bauermeister is the author of the national bestseller The School of Essential Ingredients. Click here to read my review.

Click here to pre-order Joy for Beginners.

Coming Attractions

Doc
by Mary Doria Russell
Due out on May 3, 2011

From Mary's blog:

At this very moment, sitting on my desk, just to my left, there is an unopened Fed Ex package containing a copy of Doc, almost warm from the printing press. I’ve worked hard on all my novels, but I have not loved a book so much since The Sparrow. I have not loved a character so much since Emilio Sandoz. If anything, I love John Henry Holliday more.

In a recent interview, John Connelly remarked, “Obviously it is different to write about, say, the real Doc Holliday than about an imaginary Jesuit in space like Emilio Sandoz. How does writing about a historical figure compare to writing about a fictional one?”

“Well,” I answered, “as terribly as I treated Emilio Sandoz in The Sparrow, I was able to bring his crisis of faith to some resolution. At the end of Children of God, Emilio has gotten past his anger and bitterness. He has learned to put his pain to work on behalf of others. [Spoiler removed] I could leave him with the prospect of a contented and useful old age.

“John Henry Holliday spent 15 years – his entire adult life – dying of a debilitating and painful disease. Nothing I wrote could change that.

“It comes down to this: John Henry Holliday didn’t have a mother to love him when he was grown, so I have taken him for my own. I couldn’t give him a better life or a longer one. So I’ve told the story of a single season of happiness – the summer of 1878 – when he felt well enough to resume the practice of a profession that gave him great satisfaction in a place where he made a few good friends. I have tried to win him the compassion and respect I think he deserves.”

I've read all of Mary's novels and I'm very excited about her upcoming release. The Sparrow is my favorite, but I have a feeling this one is going to be a winner, too.

You can preorder a copy of Doc here.

You can read my interview with Mary (for Dreamers of the Day) here.

My review for The Sparrow can be found here.

My review for Dreamers of the Day can be found here.

Left Neglected Reminder

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova goes on sale next Tuesday (January 4th)! In case you missed it, my review can be found here. This may be the best book I read in 2010. Don't miss it!

Mark Your Calendars!

Don't forget!

Faithful Place hits the shelves this coming Tuesday!

Click here to read my review.

Damaged

Damaged by Alex Kava
Thriller
2010 Doubleday
Finished 6/1/10
Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)
ARC - Due out on July 13, 2010
FTC Disclosure: Received ARC from a friend



Product Description

On Pensacola Beach, the Coast Guard prepares for a Category 5 hurricane that has entered the Gulf of Mexico. When the air crew patrols the waterways, they spot a huge fishing cooler about a mile offshore. Drug traffickers have been known to dump coolers with smuggled product to avoid detection and pay fishermen to retrieve them. But when the crew open this cooler, they’re shocked by what they find: body parts tightly wrapped in plastic.

Though she is putting herself in the projected path of the hurricane, Special Agent Maggie O’Dell is sent to investigate. Eventually, she’s able to trace the torso in the cooler back to a man who mysteriously disappeared weeks earlier after a hurricane hit Port St. Lucie, Florida. Only Port St. Lucie is on the Atlantic side. How did his body end up six hundred miles away in the Gulf of Mexico?

Cliffhanger chapters, behind-the-scenes forensic details, colorful characters, and satisfying twists have become the trademarks of Kava’s psychological thrillers. In Damaged, she ratchets up the suspense a notch by sending Maggie into the eye of an impending monster hurricane to track down a killer.

A voracious reader and a knowledgeable fan of well-crafted thrillers and mysteries, my sister-in-law has been talking about Alex Kava for almost a decade. The author divides her time between Omaha and Pensacola, so she's known as one of our local authors. I'm not sure why I haven't followed Jen's advice to give Kava's Maggie O'Dell novels a chance, but after reading her upcoming release (#8 in the series), I'm ready to dive into the backlist.

My husband and I flew out to San Diego for Memorial Day weekend and I started in on my ARC of Damaged as soon as we boarded our flight. This is the perfect kind of book for traveling--short chapters, snappy dialogue, and enough suspense to keep me reading even during take-off and landing. In Damaged, Kava refers to previous cases involving FBI special agent and profiler, Maggie O'Dell, yet it didn't bother me to start with the last in this series. I read it knowing I might discover a spoiler or two, but since I have several other books lined up to read this summer, those details will probably be forgotten by the time I get around to reading the very first Maggie O'Dell novel, A Perfect Evil. However, knowing how quickly I was engrossed in this book, I may want to get a couple more in the series for my travels in July. While not quite as gritty as John Sandford's Prey series, Damaged has piqued my interest and I look forward to working my way through Kava's backlist. Thanks for the recommendation, Jen!

About the author (from her website):

ALEX KAVA GREW UP IN THE COUNTRY just outside of Silver Creek, Nebraska, and earned a bachelor’s degree in art and English from College of Saint Mary in Omaha, Nebraska. She has done a variety of jobs, from working as a hospital tech, cleaning and sterilizing utensils from surgery, pathology and the morgue; to running her own graphic design firm, designing national food labels and directing television and radio commercials.

IN 1996 SHE QUIT HER JOB as a public relations director to dedicate herself to writing a novel and getting published. To pay the bills, she refinanced her home, maxed out her credit cards and even took on a newspaper delivery route.

A YEAR AND A HALF LATER A PERFECT EVIL WAS FINISHED. In July 1998 she landed an agent and in February 1999, she signed a three-book contract with MIRA Books. In June 2000 she was in Chicago, sitting next to Barbara Kingsolver at BookExpo America, and signing advanced reader copies.

TODAY, ALEX IS A NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR of psychological suspense novels. Her Maggie O’Dell series, comprised of A Perfect Evil, Split Second, The Soul Catcher, At the Stroke of Madness, A Necessary Evil, Exposed and Black Friday along with her stand-alone novels, One False Move and Whitewash, have been widely praised by critics and fans. They have appeared on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. Her books have been published in twenty-four countries and have hit the bestseller lists in Australia, Germany, Poland, Italy and the UK. She is also one of the featured writers in the anthology Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night, edited by James Patterson.

ONE FALSE MOVE WAS SELECTED AS Nebraska’s 2006 One Book One Nebraska. (My Antonia by Willa Cather was the 2005 selection). In 2007 Alex was awarded the Mari Sandoz Award by the Nebraska Library Association. Whitewash made January Magazine’s list of best thrillers for 2007. Both Exposed and Black Friday received starred reviews by Publishers Weekly.

2010 marks Alex’s ten year anniversary as an author with the publication of her tenth novel, Damaged (Doubleday, July 13th). She also has co-authored two short stories in anthologies to be published in June and August: First Thrills, edited by Lee Child (After Dark, co-authored with Deb Carlin) and Florida Heat Wave, edited by Michael Lister (A Breath of Hot Air, co-authored with Patricia Bremmer).

ALEX WRITES FULL-TIME AND LIVES IN Omaha, Nebraska and Pensacola, Florida (where her new book, Damaged is set). She is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the International Thrillers Writers.

Looks like Kava and her dog are both Husker fans. Go Big Red! :)



More information about Alex Kava can be found here. Be sure to check out this link to Behind the Scenes of Damaged.

Dreamers of the Day

I am so excited!! I just learned that Mary Doria Russell has a new book due out in March! It's been almost ten years since I met Ms. Russell at a small book conference in Cleveland and I've been anxiously awaiting word of a new publication. The Sparrow remains one of my all-time favorite books ever. It's one I love to hand sell to customers and currently have it on an end cap (display) with eleven other favorites. A Thread of Grace is another memorable novel that I simply must make time to read a second time.

You can read more about the author and her books here and, of course, pre-order a copy of Dreamers of the Day here.

Coming Attractions

THURSDAY THIRTEEN

Wow! There are so many new books coming out this year. My TBR list just keeps growing! Check 'em out:

1. Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott (available March 20th)

2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (available May 22nd)

3. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (available June 5th)

4. The Woods by Harlan Coben (available April 17th)

5. High Profile by Robert Parker (a Jesse Stone/Sunny Randall book; available February 6th)

6. Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland (available May 3rd)

7. Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier (available March 20th)

8. Body Surfing by Anita Shreeve (available April 24th)

9. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult (available March 6th)

10. Dream When You're Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg (available May 1st)

11. The Double Blind by Chris Bohjalian (available February 13th)

12. Invisible Prey by John Sandford (available May 15th)

13. The Face of Death by Cody Mcfadyen (available May 29th)

Extras:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (available May 1st)

Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly (available Spring 2007)

The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty (available August 7th)