Titles to Know and Recommend, Week of June 27, 2016
Holds Leaders
The Games, James Patterson, Mark Sullivan, (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Hachette Large Print; OverDrive Sample)
Currently, Patterson has only 4 books on NYT Best seller lists — the first two titles in his new trade paperback original series BookShots, which debuted last week on the combined list, 15th Affair at #14 on the hardcover fiction list after 7 weeks and Jacky Ha-Ha on the Childrens Middle Grade list after 13 weeks. So it’s high time to publish a new title.
Next week’s title is the next in the Private series about a private security agency cleverly named Private. Head of the agency Jack Morgan heads to Rio to provide security for the Summer Olympics, as he did the 2012 Olympics in London in Private Games.
First Comes Love, Emily Giffin, (PRH/Ballantine; RH Audio; BOT; OverDrive Sample)
Griffin comes off her #1 NYT best seller of last year with a new title told from the perspective of two very different sisters, one who has a traditional family, but envies her sister’s single life. Of course, the single sister is desperate for a child. This one is described by PW as “Giffin at her finest, a fantastic, memorable story.” Kirkus agrees, “Giffin’s fans will be pleased with this fast-paced, witty, and thoughtful new offering.”
The titles covered here, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of June 27, 2016
Advance Attention
Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate, Gary J. Byrne, (Hachette/Center Street; Hachette Audio)
As we wrote earlier this month, this embargoed title, the latest in a line of books aimed at discrediting Hillary Clinton, has topped Amazon’s sales rankings for weeks. Byrne is a former Secret Service officer who was assigned to the White House when Bill Clinton was in office. Politico reports that Secret Service veterans “blast writer Gary Byrne for having ‘underlying motives.'”
Consumer Media Picks
We Are Not Such Things: The Murder of a Young American, a South African Township, and the Search for Truth and Reconciliation, Justine van der Leun (PRH/Spiegel & Grau; OverDrive Sample)
Free-lance journalist van der Leun discovers some uncomfortable truths about a story that made headlines in its day. During the Clinton administration, a young American activist was murdered in South Africa. Her parents, in an amazing act of grace, forgave the killers.The only book reviewed in the current issue of Entertainment Weekly, which gives it and A- and says, it is “a story steeped in extraordinary characters and circumstances …a dense and nuanced portrait of a country whose confounding, convoluted past is never quite history”
Peer Picks
Two June LibraryReads titles come to the shelves this week.
We Could Be Beautiful, Swan Huntley (RH/Doubleday; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), has already appeared on several summer book previews and is this week’s People magazine’s “Book of the Week,” which calls it a “riveting psychological thriller [that] takes you inside the world of Manhattan’s elite — and keeps you on tenterhooks.”
“Wealthy art collector Catherine spends her time fussing over her tiny boutique card shoppe so that she can feel like a productive member of society. She meets the handsome and refined William Stockton, yet something seems just a little too good to be true. The plot thickens as long hidden family secrets emerge. Huntley certainly knows how to build up the suspense. This debut novel includes some nice plot twists and Catherine’s character evolves favorably. Recommended for fans of psychological fiction.” — Mary Vernau, Tyler Public Library, Tyler, TX
Missing, Presumed, Susie Steiner (PRH/Random House; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).
“This is a thoughtful police procedural about a missing person case and the secrets that come to the surface when a feisty detective becomes relentless in finding the truth. Edith is a successful college student from a well-known family, but all is not what it seems. Detective Manon Bradshaw is feeling the pressure to quickly resolve the case. What sets this apart from other detective stories is how the lead character is brought to life; she exposes her melancholy and it adds a satisfying mix to the thrills. Recommended for fans of Tana French.” — Andrienne Cruz, Azusa City Library, Azusa, CA
Three titles booksellers enjoyed also publish this week:
A Certain Age, Beatriz Williams (HC/William Morrow; HarperAudio).
“Open the pages of A Certain Age and be drawn into Williams’ rich, atmospheric world of Manhattan in the 1920s — a world where society pages hint at gossip, speakeasies tease with gin, and secrets and hidden desires lie just below the polished veneer of the fashionably dressed and well-bred families of the city. This deft retelling of Richard Strauss’ comic opera Der Rosenkavalier is simply exquisite.” —Dawn Rennert, The Concord Bookshop, Concord, MA
A Hundred Thousand Worlds, Bob Proehl (PRH/Viking; Penguin Audio/BOT).
“Nine-year-old Alex and his mom, Valerie — the ex-star of a superhero TV show — make their way across the country, Comic-Con by Comic-Con, toward a future of inevitable loss. They visit the fallen heroes, wise women, and wizards of pen-and-ink who have all shaped the story of their lives. Pushed and pulled by so many other people’s stories, can Alex and Valerie learn to write their own?” —Cat Nichols, Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA
Soft in the Head, Marie-Sabine Roger, translated by Frank Wynne (PRH/Pushkin Press; OverDrive Sample).
“Two disparate individuals pass the time counting pigeons in the town park and finally make each other’s acquaintance: Marguerite, a retired and lonely 80-something plant scientist, and Germain, an unemployed, undereducated, dim-witted 45-year-old who lives in a trailer behind his mother’s house. Soon, Marguerite is reading to Germain, who eventually overcomes his childhood aversion and begins to read himself. This is a lovely story of the redeeming qualities of civil conversation, the possibility of friendship bridging many years and inquiring minds, and the worlds opened up through reading.” —Darwin Ellis, Books on the Common
Tie-ins
Pete’s Dragon Junior Novel: With 8 Pages of Photos From The Movie!, Disney Book Group (Hachette/Disney Press) ties in to the new Disney re-vamp of their 1977 musical film of the same name, about a young boy and his friendly (and often invisible) dragon.
The new film changes the story and stars Bryce Dallas Howard, Robert Redford, and Karl Urban. It opens Aug. 12.
For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.