Next week is a big one for memoir and biography, with the much-anticipated fourth installment in Robert Caro‘s biography of Lyndon Johnson, plus memoirs by Dan Rather and Ryan O’Neal, and an oral history of NBC-TV’s triumphant turnaround in the 1990s by former executive Warren Littlefield. It also brings a debut novel by Brandon Jones about human trafficking in North Korea and Nell Freudenberger‘s sophomore novel of cross-cultural marriage. And, new titles are soming from usual suspects Charlayne Harris and Ace Atkins filling in for Robert Spenser, and the latest installments in popular YA series by Kristin Cashore and Rick Riordan.

Watch List

All Woman and Springtime by Brandon Jones (Workman/Algonquin; Highbridge Audio) is a debut novel about two North Korean girls who form an immutable bond when they meet in an orphanage, but are betrayed and sold into prostitution at age 17, taking them on a damaging journey to South Korea and ultimately a brothel in Seattle. LJ calls it “impossible to put down,” adding “this work is important reading for anyone who cares about the power of literature to engage the world and speak its often frightening truths.”

Critical Success

The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger (RH/Knopf; Random House Audio) is the author’s second novel of cultural confrontation, this time featuring Amina, a 24 year old Bangladeshi woman who becomes the e-mail bride of George, an electrical engineer in Rochester, NY. It’s heavily anticipated by the critics, as indicated by the number of early reviews in the consumer press. It gets the cover of the NYT Book Review this coming Sunday, Ron Charles reviewed it earlier this week in the Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly gives it a solid A.

Usual Suspects

Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel (Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood #12) by Charlaine Harris (Penguin/Ace Books; Recorded Books; Wheeler Large Print) is the penultimate title in this popular supernatural series, as Sookie Stackhouse and her friends struggle with the consequences of the death of the powerful vampire Victora. PW says, “as loyalties realign and betrayals are unmasked, Harris ably sets the stage for the ensembleas last hurrah.”

Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby: A Spenser Novel by Ace Atkins (Penguin/Putnam; Random House Audio) finds Parker’s PI invesigating a women’s death at the request of her 14 year old daughter. PW says that “Atkins hits all the familiar marks – bantering scenes with Spenseras girlfriend, fisticuffs, heavy-duty backup from the dangerous Hawk – as he offers familiar pleasures. At the same time, he breaks no new ground, avoiding the risk of offending purists and the potential rewards of doing something a bit different with the characters.”

Young Adult

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore (Penguin/Dial Books; Penguin Audiobooks) arrives to the sound of YA librarians and their readers screams of “at last!”  Kirkus says of this followup to Graceling (2008) and Fire (2009), “devastating and heartbreaking, this will be a disappointment for readers looking for a conventional happy ending. But those willing to take the risk will — like Bitterblue — achieve something even more precious: a hopeful beginning.”

The Serpent’s Shadow (Kane Chronicles Series #3) by Rick Riordan (Disney/Hyperion; Thorndike Large Print; Brilliance Audio) is the conclusion to this bestselling YA fantasy series, in which Carter and Sade Kane risk death and the fate of the world to tame the chaos snake with an ancient spell.

Embargoed

Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News by Dan Rather (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Large Print; Hachette Audio) reveals that the TV news anchor felt “his lawsuit against his former network was worth it, even though the $70 million breach-of-conduct case was rejected by New York courts,” according to the Associated Press, which broke the embargo on this book, on sale May 1. Kirkus calls it “an engaging grab-bag: part folksy homage to roots, part expose of institutional wrongdoing and part manifesto for a truly free press.”

Nonfiction

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro (RH/Knopf; Brilliance Audio) is the fourth volume in Caro’s series on Lyndon Johnson, focusing on the years between his senatorship and presidency, when he battled Robert Kennedy for the 1960 Democratic nomination for president, and undertook his unhappy vice presidency. Caro is the subject of a New York Times Magazine profile, and will doubtless get an avalanche of coverage, starting with Entertainment Weekly‘s review (it gets an A-). Kirkus notes, “the fifth volume is in the works, and it is expected to cover Johnson’s election to the White House and his full term, with the conduct of the Vietnam War ceaselessly dogging him.”

Both of Us: My Life with Farrah by Ryan O’Neal (RH/Crown Archtype; Center Point Large Print; Random House Audio) is the story of film actor O’Neal’s enduring love for TV actress Fawcell – from the love that flared when she was married to Lee Major, to their marriage that ended in 1997, and their eventual reunion for three years before Fawcell died from cancer in 2009. The book is excerpted in the new issue of People magazine (5/7).

Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV by Warren Littlefield and T.R. Pearson (RH/Doubleday; RH Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is an oral history by NBC’s former president of entertainment, with a chorus of voices including Jerry Seinfeld, Kelsey Grammar and Sean Hayes, as they discuss the ups and downs of turning NBC into a multi-billion dollar broadcasting company in the 1990’s. PW says, “these revelatory glimpses of those glory days make this one of the more entertaining books published about the television industry.”

The nominees for the Edgars in the Best Fact Crime category demonstrate how much the category of narrative nonfiction has grown in the last few years. Fact Crime, once dominated by lurid tales of bloody murders, now features books that look at history through the lens of crime. A prime example is the winner, announced last night, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard (RH/Doubleday; Thorndike large print). It is also a 2011 ALA Notable Book and was included on many of the year’s best books lists. Most libraries are still showing holds, despite heavy buying.

The winner in the Best Novel category is Mo Hayder, for the fifth book in her Jack Caffery series, Gone, now available in trade paperback.

Grove/Atlantic is in the process of publishing this British author’s books in trade paperback in the U.S. The first in the series, Birdman (9780802146120), will be published in May (also in audio by Dreamscape). The second, The Treatment (9780802146137; Dreamscape audio) is coming in July. Downloadable audio available on OverDrive.

Author Web site: MoHayder.net

Gone Mo Hayder Retail Price: $14.00 Paperback: 416 pages Publisher: Grove Press – (2012-02-14) ISBN / EAN: 0802145701 / 9780802145703

The full list of nominees and winners is here.

NPR’s Fresh Air featured the novels of the “absurdist noir” Ukrainian writer, Andrey Kurkov yesterday, calling him the “most sheerly enjoyable of the new Russian authors” and his books, “short, sly page-turners.” Although the author is little-known in the US, he is “already a cult writer in Europe.” His works have not been available in the US until Melville House recently began publishing them under their International Crime imprint (Brooklyn-based Melville House got its own sly reference in the 4/15 premiere of HBO’s new series, The Girls).

The most recent title released here is The Case of the General’s Thumb, (reviewed in Shelf Awareness),”a sardonically amusing romp that’s well worth reading,” but the reviewer suggests starting with Kurkov’s 1996 novel Death and the Penguin. The book nearly cracked the Amazon  Top 100 list as a result, rising to #108 (from #479,549).

Excerpts are available on the book’s title pages on the Melville House site.

All the Melville House  editions of Kurkov’s book are available as eBooks via OverDrive.

Death and the Penguin (Melville International Crime) Andrey Kurkov Retail Price: $10.99 Paperback: 242 pages Publisher: Melville International Crime – (2011-06-07) ISBN: 9781935554554

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The Case of the General’s Thumb (Melville International Crime) Andrey Kurkov Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 194 pages Publisher: Melville International Crime – (2012-02-21) ISBN: 9781612190600

Melville House offers a simple but frightening book trailer for Penguin Lost, the sequel to Death and the Penguin (both books feature a penguin that the main character adopts when the local zoo can no longer afford to keep it).

Next week, Stephen King returns with a surprise installment in the Dark Tower series that supposedly ended in 2004, and Jonathan Franzen returns with a new essay collection. Meanwhile, British author Rosamond Lupton follows up on her hit debut with a tearjearker thriller, and Sandra Dallas makes her debut by exploring a dark chapter in Mormon history.

In nonfiction, President Obama’s half-sister releases a memoir as does Anna Quindlen and a book about the House of Representatives is set to grab headlines.

Watch List

True Sisters by Sandra Dallas (Macmillan/St. Martin’s) is a work of historical fiction about four women, recruited to Mormonism with Brigham Young’s promise of a handcart to wheel across the desert to Salt Lake City, who help each other survive what turns out to be a harrowing journey. Kirkus says, “readers enticed by the HBO program Big Love will be particularly interested in the origins of this insular community. This fact-based historical fiction, celebrating sisterhood and heroism, makes for a surefire winner.”

Rising Star

Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton (RH/Crown) is the UK author’s followup to Sister, her popular debut. This one is narrated by Grace, a mother whose spirit hovers above her brain-dead body in the hospital after she rescues her 17-year-old daughter Jenny from a school fire set by an arsonist, while her sister-in-law leads the police investigation. LJ calls it “a wonderful mix of smart thriller with tear-provoking literature; a fine blend of Jodi Picoult and P.D. James.”

Usual Suspects

The Wind Through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel by Stephen King (S&S/Scribner; Simon & Schuster Audio) adds a short, eighth installment to the Dark Tower series that appeared to end in 2004. Largely a flashback to hero Roland Deschain’s gunslinger days, it can stand alone or fit between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla. Kirkus says, “If it weren’t for the profanity which liberally seasons the narrative, it could pass as a young adult fantasy, a foul-mouthed Harry Potter (with nods toward The Wizard of Oz and C.S. Lewis). It even ends with a redemptive moral, though King mainly concerns himself here with spinning a yarn.”

Crystal Gardens by Amanda Quick (Penguin/Putnam; Brilliance Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is a paranormal historical romance featuring an undercover psychic investigator and fiction writer who finds herself fleeing from an assassin for the second time – and into the arms of a man who may be far more dangerous. LJ raves: “Quick infuses her own addictive brand of breathless, sexy adventure with dashes of vengeance, greed, and violence and a hefty splash of delectable, offbeat humor.”

Young Adult

Rebel Fire: Sherlock Holmes: The Legend Begins, Book 2 by Andrew Lane (Macmillan/FSG; Macmillan Young Listeners) pits 14-year-old Sherlock Holmes against assassin John Wilkes Booth, who is apparently alive and well in England, and mixed up with Holmes’s American tutor Amyus Crowe. Kirkus says, “abductions, frantic train rides, near-death experiences and efforts of [Holmes and] friends to save one another increase suspense with each chapter. A slam-bang climax and satisfying conclusion will please readers while leaving loose threads for further volumes.”

Nonfiction

Farther Away: Essays by Jonathan Franzen ((Macmillan/FSG; Macmillan Audio) gathers essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years, including his account of dispersing some of David Foster Wallace’s ashes on the remote island of Masafuera, excerpted in the New Yorker. Kirkus says, “Franzen can get a bit schoolmarmish and crotchety in his caviling against the horrors of modern society, and he perhaps overestimates the appeal of avian trivia to the general reader, but anyone with an interest in the continued relevance of literature and in engaging with the world in a considered way will find much here to savor. An unfailingly elegant and thoughtful collection of essays from the formidable mind of Franzen, written with passion and haunted by loss.”

And Then Life Happens: A Memoir by Auma Obama (Macmillan/St. Martin’s) is a memoir by President Obama’s half-sister, who was born a year before her brother to Barack Obama Sr.’s first wife, Kezia. Auma’s meeting with her brother in Chicago in 1984 “marks the brightest moment in this eager-to-please work,” according to Kirkus, “and paved the way for his subsequent trips to Kenya and warmly unfolding relationship with his African family.”

My Happy Days in Hollywood: A Memoir by Garry Marshall (RH/Crown Archetype; Random House Large Print; Random House Audio) expands on film and television producer Marshall’s 1997 memoir, Wake Me When It’s Funny, but Kirkus complains that Marshall “isn’t very funny. Or at least this book isn’t. Nor is it serious, mean, scandalous or particularly revelatory. It’s just nice. Marshall has gotten along fine with some difficult actors–including his sister, Penny, and the beleaguered Lindsay Lohan–and has apparently remained friends with everyone with whom he has ever worked…This is a Fudgsicle of a showbiz memoir.”

Sweet Designs: Bake It, Craft It, Style It by Amy Atlas (Hyperion Books) interwines baking and crafting, showing home cooks how to make beautiful sweets, based on the author’s award-winning blog, Sweet Designs.

Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives, Robert Draper, (S&S), is by the author of Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush. This one is described by the publisher as “a revealing and riveting look at the new House of Representatives.” No pre-pub reviews indicate it’s embargoed. It will be featured on many news shows next week, including NPR’s Weekend Edition, CBS This Morning, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen (RH/Crown; RH Large Print; BOT Audio) will, of course, be featured on many shows next week, including CBS This Morning and The Charlie Rose Show (PBS). An NPR Fresh Air interview is in the works.

Here’s an interesting readers advisory hook; “Downton Abbey with SS.”

That’s how British novelist, Philip Kerr describes his new thriller, Prague Fatale on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday. He says it’s a “traditional country house sort of mystery.”

It’s the eighth in the author’s series about Bernie Gunther, a cynical Berlin detective. Excerpt available here. Tom Hanks and producing partner Gary Goetzman are in talks to acquire the series for HBO.

Kerr’s about to begin his US book tour, which includes an appearance at the St. Louis (Missouri) County Library.

Official Author Site: PhilipKerr.org

Prague Fatale (Bernie Gunther) Philip Kerr Retail Price: $26.95 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: Penguin/Putnam/Marian Wood – (2012-04-17) ISBN / EAN: 0399159029 / 9780399159022

Thorndike Large Print

Among the books you’ll need to know about next week is The President’s Club, which is already moving up Amazon’s sales rankings. A title to watch is Wiley Cash‘s novel about a North Carolina holy roller (join us for a chat with the author on April 24th), and the second and third installments in E.L. James’ bestselling erotica series. UK favorites William Boyd and Graham Swift also return, along with usual suspects David Baldacci, Iris Johansen, Nora Roberts, and Stuart Woods. In nonfiction, Jenny Lawton, a.k.a. “The Bloggess,” delivers a tongue-in-cheek memoir of her Texas upbringing.

WATCH LIST

A Land More Kind than Home by Wiley Cash (HarperCollins/Morrow; Blackstone Audiobooks) is a debut novel set in a small North Carolina town, where an ex-con and born-again pastor who uses snakes and poison in his ministry sends the town into a religious frenzy. PW calls it “compelling, with an elegant structure and a keen eye for detail, matched with compassionate attention to character.” Cash was on the debut novelists’ panel at PLA. NOTE:  EarlyWord AuthorChat with Wiley Cash is scheduled for April 24th.

ALREADY A WORD-OF-MOUTH HIT

Fifty Shades Darker: Fifty Shades Trilogy #2 and Fifty Shades Freed: Fifty Shades Trilogy #2 by E L James (RH/Vintage) are the middle and final volumes in the bestselling erotica trilogy, republished by Vintage after it the series became a huge word-of-mouth success. The e-books are available from OverDrive.

LITERARY FAVORITES

Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd (Harper; Thorndike Large Print; Audio, Recorded Books) is the Costa/Whitbread Award winner’s latest novel, about a young English actor seeking psychoanalysis in 1913 Vienna, who enters an affair with a woman who cures his sexual problem, but accuses him of rape. British diplomatic authorities come to his rescue, leading to further mysteries and complications. PW says, “as in all of his novels, Boyd speculates about luck and chance and the unpredictable events that can determine a persons life. With its adroit plot twists and themes of deception and betrayal, this is an absorbing spy novel that raises provocative questions.” Following in the footsteps of Sebastian Faulks and Jeffrey Deaver, it was just announced that Boyd has been chosen by the Ian Fleming estate to write the next in the Bond series, to be published some time next year.

Wish You Were Here by Graham Swift (RH/Knopf; Blackstone Audio) is set on the Isle of Wight in 2006, when caravan park proprietor Jack Luxton discovers that his brother Tom, not seen for years, has been killed in combat in Iraq, and makes the journey to receive his brother’s remains. LJ says, “Swift has written a slow-moving but powerful novel about the struggle to advance beyond grief and despair and to come to grips with the inevitability of change. Recommended for fans of Ian McEwan, Michael Ondaatje, and Kazuo Ishiguro, authors with a similar method of slowly developing an intense interior narrative.”

USUAL SUSPECTS

The Innocent by David Baldacci (Hachette/ Grand Central; Hachette Audio) features hitman Will Robi, who is usually called in when the FBI and the military can’t stop an enemy – but this time, he may have made the first mistake of his career.

What Doesn’t Kill Youby Iris Johansen (Macmillan/ St. Martin’s Press; Brilliance Audio; Thorndike Large Print) features Catherine Ling, the CIA agent introduced in the Eve Duncan novel Chasing the Night (2010), as she tracks a Chinese master herbalist who has disappeared with the formula to his potent and untraceable poison. PW says, “the intrigue spans the globe and involves superhuman characters from earlier Johansen novels with long histories together. The authors trademark dry wit bolsters the bombastic story line.”

The Witness by Nora Roberts (Penguin/Putnam; Putnam Large Print; Brilliance Audio) is the tale of a woman living under an assumed identity to avoid the Russian mob after witnessing a double murder – but attracts the interest of the local police chief. LJ says, “a brilliant, slightly socially awkward heroine meets a puzzle-loving, protective hero in a taut, riveting drama that’s guaranteed to keep the adrenaline flowing.”

Unnatural Acts by Stuart Woods (Penguin/Putnam; Penguin Audio; Thorndike Large Print) finds the usual cast – lawyer Stone Barrington, senior associate Herbie Fisher, and NYPD Lt. Dino Bacchetti – overcoming obstacles with aplomb. However, Baldacci can’t bring himself to arrest a former FBI director who turns out to be a serial killer and a great lover. PW says, “Woods’s well-tested formula ensures that the action purrs along fueled by good food, good liquor, good sex, and plenty of wealth.”

MOVIE TIE-IN

Snow White and the Huntsman by Lily Blake, Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock, Hossein Amini (Hachette/LBYR/Poppy) is a novelization tying into the film release slated for June 1, 2012, starring Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron. The book cover, which features Stewart as a knife-wielding warrior princess, ran on Entertainment Weekly in an exclusive “cover peek,” in which they felt they had to explain the concept of novelization: “a kind of reverse-adaptation.” Guess they haven’t seen one in a while.

NONFICTION

The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity, by Nancy Gibb and Michael Duffy, (S&S) will be getting strong media attention, including this week’s Time magazine cover; no surprise, since the writers are at the top of that publication’s masthead. Networks are competing for “exclusives” about it; CBS This Morning looked at the four-story D.C. brownstone that serves as the ex-presidents’ “clubhouse” (Barbara Bush characterized it as “a dump”). NBC begins its coverage with the Andrea Mitchell Reports today. The book has already moved to #41 on Amazon sales rankings.

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson (Penguin/Einhorn; Penguin Audio), by the popular internet personality “The Bloggess,” makes hay out of her mostly uneventful upbringing in rural Texas, which involved taxidermy, panic attacks, and a 15-year marriage. Kirkus says, “While Lawson fails to strike the perfect balance between pathos and punch line, she creates a comic character that readers will engage with in shocked dismay as they gratefully turn the pages.”

 Looks like #21 is lucky for author Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti mysteries. Beastly Things, (Atlantic Monthly; Thorndike Large Print; AudioGo), the 21st title   in the series, arrives at #9 on the Indie Bestseller list and at #10 on the NYT Fiction list; the first time Leon has broken in to the top ten.

For those not familiar with the series, long-time fan, NYT mystery columnist, Marilyn Stasio, offers a succinct readers advisory; “Donna Leon is the ideal author for people who vaguely long for a ‘good mystery’. That Leon is also a brilliant writer should only add to the consistently comforting appeal of her Venetian procedurals featuring Commissario Guido Brunneti. Leon allows her warmhearted detective to take what solace he can from the beauty of his city and the homely domestic rituals that give him the strength to go on.”

Leon has also written nonfiction about her adopted home, Venice; book about Venice’s myths and legends, Venetian Curiosities and a book on Venetian cooking, Brunetti’s Cookbook (her fictional detective is an avid cook).

Author’s Web Site: Grove Atlantic/Leon

Ron Rash’s The Cove, goes on sale next week, but critics have already been vying to review the latest novel from the author of the acclaimed Serena. Two buzzed-about debuts will also arrive: Regina O’Melveny‘s historical novel The Book of Madness and Cures and Patrick Flanery‘s exploration of contemporary South Africa Absolution, plus a new novel from Katherine Howe.  Usual suspects include John Grisham, Seth Grahame-Smith and Barbara Taylor Bradford. In nonfiction, there are new books from economist and foodie Tyler Cowen, Brad Meltzer and Edward O. Wilson.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

The Cove by Ron Rash (Harper/Ecco; Thorndike Large Print) features a love affair doomed by the turmoil of WWI, set in Appalachia. Critics have been competing to review it early: People gives it 4 out of 4 stars, saying “In Rash’s skilled hands, even farm chores take on a meditative beauty” and Entertainment Weekly gives it a straight A. However, the Washington Post‘s Ron Charles expresses disappointment: “Maybe anything Ron Rash published after Serena would seem pale… Only at the very end do these pages ignite, and suddenly we’re racing through a conflagration of violence that no one seems able to control except Rash.” The New York Times‘ Janet Maslin also doesn’t find it as good as the ” dazzling” Serena. In any case, the attention offers readers advisors the opportunity to lead people to the earlier book, which is being made into a movie, starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.

WATCH LIST

The Book of Madness and Cures by Regina O’Melveny (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is a debut novel about a female doctor in 16th-century Italy that is one of BookPage’s most-buzzed about releases. As the Boston Globe‘s early review notes: “Women physicians playing the sleuth in hostile terrain have been a burgeoning club in the recent field of fiction, led by popular new works from Ann Patchett and Téa Obreht…. [This] story makes for a confounding hybrid, one that speaks to devotees of high-end historical romance from one side of its mouth and the fan base of Dr. Oliver Sacks from the other.”

Absolution by Patrick Flanery (Penguin/Riverhead) is a debut about a celebrated novelist in contemporary Cape Town, South Africa who believes she betrayed her anti-apartheid activist sister. It’s part literary detective story, part portrait of an uncertain society new to freedom. LJ notes that the author, an American living in London, has been called “the next J.M. Coetzee,” and declares that this “assured, atmospheric novel perfectly reflects the tenuous trust being forged among South Africans as they look to the future.”

The House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe (Hyperion Books; Hyperion Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is a historical mystery with a romantic twist by the author of the 2009 debut hit The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. Set in Boston in 1915, Boolklist says, “it offers a poignant look at spiritualism during the Great War and the comfort it brought to people who had lost loved ones.” LJ recommends it  for fans of Tracy Chevalier and Diana Gabaldon.

USUAL SUSPECTS

Calico Joe by John Grisham (RH/Doubleday; Random House Large Print; Random House Audio) is a baseball-themed book timed for the opening of the season.  Booklist calls it  “a solid baseball story but one that never delivers the emotional payoff readers will expect.”

Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith (Hachette/Grand Central; Hachette Audio) is the latest from the “master of the mashup,” as the Wall Street Journal calls him in a long feature today. Not so much a mashup, this new title plays with history, turning the Three Kings into escaped thieves who happen upon the manger and reluctantly help the Holy family escape to Egypt.  Entertainment Weekly calls it “a fantasy action-adventure akin to fusing Game of Thrones with the Gospel of Luke…Grahame-Smith’s depiction of sacred figures as flawed humans that makes the book feel like a secret account of events that have been sanitized by legend.” Following in the footsteps of the author’s other books, this one has been optioned for the movies. The 3-D film based on his Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter arrives in theaters in June.

Letter from a Stranger by Barbara Taylor Bradford (St. Martin’s Press; Center Point Large Print; Macmillan Audio) is another of the author’s signature multigenerational novel. PW says, “Gardens, food, clothing, and accessories – everything in Bradford’s world shows taste. If the plot turns simplistic at times, loyal fans will still tear up at the descriptions of enduring friendship and familial love.”

YOUNG ADULT

The Calling (Darkness Rising Series #2) by Kelley Armstrong (HarperCollins) is the second installment in a teen fantasy series. Booklist says, “the lightning-fast plot leaves little room for character development, and Armstrong keeps the focus on the motion rather than the emotion while paving the way for the series finale. Fans of the first book, The Gathering (2011), won’t find any reason not to stay on board.”

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict (Mysterious Benedict Society Series) by Trenton Lee Stewart (Hachette/LBYR; Listening Library) is a prequel to the popular series, focusing on the backstory of the narcoleptic genius founder of the Mysterious Benedict Society. Booklist says, “The novel is long, true, but many readers will find themselves reluctant to reach the end; and while Stewart leaves an opening for sequels about Nicholas as a child, this invigorating novel stands on its own.”

NONFICTION

An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies by Tyler Cowen (RH/Dutton) is a gastronomic treatise by an economist best known for The Great Stagnation. PW says, “Cowen writes like your favorite wised-up food maven, folding encyclopedic knowledge and piquant food porn… into a breezy, conversational style; the result is mouth-watering food for thought.” According to Forbes, Cowen is “America’s hottest economist” (remember when that would have been an oxymoron?). Maybe it’s true; he’s spoken at TED. FastCompany recently listed a few of his intriguing “new rules.”

Heroes for My Daughter by Brad Meltzer (Harper) is a compilation by the popular thriller author, of stories of 55 people who dedicated their lives to improving the world, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Amelia Earhart, Anne Frank to Randy Pausch, Theodore Roosevelt to Lucille Ball, Rosa Parks to the passengers on United Flight 93. His Heroes for My Son was published in 2010.

The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson (Norton) is the Pulitzer Prize winning Harvard scientist’s answer to life’s big questions; “Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” Kirkus says, “Group selection–as opposed to kin selection, i.e., the ‘selfish gene’ a la Richard Dawkins–is the author’s big idea…Wilson succeeds in explaining his complex ideas, so attentive readers will receive a deeply satisfying exposure to a major scientific controversy.”

Jacqueline Winspear’s ninth book in the Maisie Dobbs series, Elegy for Eddie, debuts at number one on the 4/5 Indie Bestseller list.

The series has been steadily rising (the most recent title, A Lesson in Secrets, debuted at #4 on the Indie list and at #6 on the NYT list), based on strong support from independent booksellers (eight of the titles, including this one, were chosen by booksellers for the Indie Next list) and librarians.

About a former WW I nurse turned detective in London, the series may also be gaining traction from the Downton Abbey-fueled interest in that period. The full series list is available on the author’s web site.

Unfortunately, Winspear, who is in the middle of her U.S. book tour, has had to cancel upcoming appearances due to a family emergency.

Elegy for Eddie: A Maisie Dobbs Novel Jacqueline Winspear Retail Price: $25.99 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Harper – (2012-03-27) ISBN / EAN: ISBN10: 0062049577/ 9780062049575

AudioGo and HarperAudio; Thorndike large print

Next week, another historical novel arrives that’s well-timed for the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic; Charlotte Rogan’s debut, The Lifeboat. Usual suspects include Christopher Moore, Adriana Trigiani, Anne Tyler, Mary Higgins Clark and Lisa Scottoline. And there’s a TV tie-in to the BBC film adaptation of Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks that will air on PBS in April. In nonfiction, there’s a warm reminiscence of Yogi Berra‘s friendship with Yankees pitcher Ron Guildry by Harvey Araton, plus new memoirs from Eloisa James on living in Paris and journalist A.J. Jacobs on living healthy.

Watch List 

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan (Hachette/Little, Brown/Reagan Arthur; Hachette Audio) begins on an elegant ocean liner carrying a woman and her new husband across the Atlantic at the start of WWI, when there is a mysterious explosion. Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize is over capacity. PW calls it “a complex and engrossing psychological drama.” This one was picked by Waterstones as one of 11 debuts expected to win awards and have strong sales in the UK.

Usual Suspects

Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d’Art by Christopher Moore (Harper/Morrow; Harperluxe; HarperAudio) mixes humor and mystery in a romp through the 19th century French countryside when Vincent van Gogh famously shot himself in a French wheat field. Library Journal says, “Don’t let Moore’s quirky characters and bawdy language fool you. His writing has depth, and his peculiar take on the Impressionists will reel you in. One part art history (with images of masterpieces interspersed with the narrative), one part paranormal mystery, and one part love story, this is a worthy read.” Moore will be interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday.

The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani (HarperCollins) begins in the Italian Alps, where two teenagers, Enza and Ciro, share a kiss that will linger across continents and time. Both land in New York City, where Enza makes a name for herself as a seamstress, eventually sewing for the great Caruso at the Metropolitan Opera, while Ciro develops into a skilled shoemaker and rake of Little Italy. Booklist calls it “an irresistible love story.”

The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler (RH/Knopf; RH Large Print; RH Audio) explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances — in their house, on the roadway, in the market. PW calls it “an uplifting tale of love and forgiveness. By the end of this wonderful book, you’ve lived the lives and loves of these characters in the best possible way.”

The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster; Thorndike Press; S&S Audio) follows Mariah Lyons’s investigation of the brutal murder of her father, a well-respected academic, who comes into the possession of an ancient and highly valuable parchment stolen from the Vatican in the 15th century. Mary and her daughter, Carol Higgins Clark, will both appear on the Today Show on Wednesday. Carol’s book Gypped: A Regan Reilly Mystery, also published by S&S, is coming out on the same day.

Come Home by Lisa Scottoline (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Thorndike Press; MacMillan Audio) is the Edgar-winning author’s second character-driven standalone thriller with a family saga at its core. LJ says it “deftly speeds readers through a dizzying labyrinth of intrigue with more hairpin turns and heart-pounding drops than a theme-park ride.”

Sidney Sheldon’s Angel of the Dark, Tilly Bagshawe, (Harper/Morrow; Dreamscape Audio) is the third in the series written by Bagshawe in Sheldon’s style. Says Booklist, “Although clearly aimed at Sheldon’s legion of fans, the book should appeal equally to the broader range of thriller readers.”

TV & Movie Tie-Ins

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks (RH/Vintage) ties in to the BBC version starring Eddie Redmayne, Clémence Poésy and Matthew Goode, which will air on PBS on April 22 and April 29, 2012. When it was shown in the UK, the British tabloid, The Daily Star, referred to it as a “raunchy adaptation” and an “X-rated hit.” Critics applauded the first episode, but were divided over the second. Audiences, while strong, was not a large as those for Downton Abbey. Check out the trailer here.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits by Gideon Defoe (RH/Vintage) ties into the animated feature by those wonderful folks who gave us Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit, with voiceovers by Hugh Grant, Salma Hayek and Jeremy Piven. The first stop-motion clay animated feature film to be shot in Digital 3D, it’s based the first two books in a series by British author Dafoe (collected in this tie-in edition), which has had a stronger following in the UK than here.  Treat yourself; watch the trailer. The movie opens on April 27th.

Nonfiction

Driving Mr. Yogi: Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Baseball’s Greatest Gift by Harvey Araton (Houghton Mifflin) is the story of a unique friendship between a pitcher and catcher, starting in 1999, when Berra was reunited with the Yankees after a long self-exile after being fired by George Steinbrenner 14 years before. It’s already picking up buzz from the Wall St. Journal, which mentions Houghton’s television ads for the book within the VIP areas of Yankee Stadium, as well as ads during the live game feed, and in the New York Times. The authors will appear on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday as well as on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight.

Paris in Love: A Memoir by Eloisa James (Random House; Books on Tape) finds the bestselling author of 24 historical romances (who is actually Mary Bly, daughter of poet Robert Bly and associate professor and head of the creative writing department at Fordham University) living in Paris with her family after she survived both cancer and the death of her mother. LJ says, “Not just for Francophiles or even James’s legion of fans, this delectable confection, which includes recipes, is more than a visit to a glorious city: it is also a tour of a family, a marriage, and a love that has no borders. Tres magnifique!”

Drop Dead Healthy: One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection by A. J. Jacobs (Simon & Schuster; Thorndike Press; Simon & Schuster Audio) is the fourth book in the One Man’s Humble Quest series, and finds the experieintial journalist trying to become the healthiest man in the world by following a web of diet and exercise advice, most which is nonsensical, unproven, and contradictory. LJ says it’s “engrossing and will have readers chuckling.”

Trickle Down Tyranny: Crushing Obama’s Dream of the Socialist States of America by Michael Savage (Harper/Morrow; Thorndike Press Large Press; Brilliance Audio) is a rant against “Barack Lenin” by the host of the No. 3 radio program in the nation, heard by nearly eight million listeners a week and syndicated across the United States in over 300 markets. “Not a book to make everyone happy,” says LJ, “but the 250,000-copy first printing and one-day laydown on April 3 indicates that the audience will be large.”

British author Grace McCleen gets major early reviews, but a mixed reaction to her much-anticipated fiction debut with The Land of Decoration, while Nobel-winner Nadine Gordimer probes the lives of a biracial couple in post-Apartheid South Africa and National Book Award finalist Lioner Shriver delivers a satire about terrorism. Usual suspects include James Patterson & David Ellis, and Danielle Steel. Plus there’s a memoir by New York Mets starting pitcher and former English major R.A. Dickey.

WATCH LIST

The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen (Macmillan/Holt) focuses on a 10 year-old daughter of Armageddon-fearing Christian fundamentalists, who starts to believe in her own omnipotence and becomes bolder as her efforts seem to work. In a New York Times review that ran this week, slightly ahead of the book’s publication on 3/27, Janet Maslin says that young Judith’s “voice of God evolves into a slangy, wise cracking, child’s-eye version of divinity, and that the book’s tensions mount in a simple and schematic way.” Ron Charles, reviewing it in the Washington Post on Tuesday, saying, “alas, The Land of Decoration is not in the same room as Donoghue’s great novel [Room]. ” The book is getting a better reception in the UK, where the Times of London picked it as one of four “must-read titles of 2012” and the Waterstones bookstore chain tagged it as one of 11 debuts expected to win awards.

The Unruly Passions of Eugenie R. by Carole DeSanti (HMH) is a historical novel by a Penguin Group USA vice president and editor at large, about a woman who follows her love to Paris, only to find herself marooned, pregnant, penniless and trying to survive in France’s Second Empire. PW says, “though its hard to care for such a self-centered heroine, the sweeping, fascinating epic is full of drama and beauty.”

LITERARY FAVORITES

No Time Like the Present by Nadine Gordimer (Macmillan/FSG) focuses on Steve and Jabulile, an interracial couple living in a newly, tentatively, free South Africa. In a starred review, Booklist says, “Gordimer dramatizes with acute specificity, wit, and sympathy the mix of guilt and conviction her freedom-fighter characters experience as they admit, The Struggle is not over. Still, isn’t it time to simply live their lives and give up the fight? Literary warrior Gordimer writes, There is only one time, all time, for principles you live by.”

The New Republic by Lionel Shriver (HarperCollins; HarperLuxe; Dreamscape Media) is the National Book Award finalist’s fictional exploration of the intimate relationship between terrorism and cults of personality. People magazine says, “dramatically different from her chilling 2003 bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin…Shriver’s new novel is a blowsy, cynical romp about journalists sent to cover a mysterious terrorist movement…While Shriver’s urge to entertain can be exhausting, her whip-smart observations… are funny and on the mark.”  LJ was more sanguine: “While the characters are forgettable and the satire doesn’t go quite far enough, this is still an interesting read that might appeal to fans of Tom Perrotta.”

USUAL SUSPECTS

Guilty Wives by James Patterson and David Ellis (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Audio) is a thriller in which the family vacation of a lifetime becomes the fight of a lifetime–for survival.

Betrayal by Danielle Steel (RH/Delacorte Press; RH Large Print; Brilliance Audio) focuses on an eccentric movie director who falls prey to a sociopath sidekick and a feckless producer/lover. Kirkus call it “a methodical Hollywood morality tale.”

Elegy for Eddie: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear (HarperCollins) is the ninth novel featuring London investigator and psychologist Maisie Dobbs, who investigates the brutal killing of a street peddler that will take her from the working-class neighborhoods of her childhood into London’s highest circles of power. Kirkus says, “Certainly not Winspear’s strongest mystery. But newcomers will enjoy the exploration of class-bound Britain between the wars, and fans will relish the continued development of Maisie’s complicated character.”

NONFICTION

Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball by R.A. Dickey (Penguin/Blue Rider Press) is a memoir by the starting pitcher for the New York Mets – and a former English major. PW says, “The author emerges as one of baseball’s good guys, and someone who can write as well as he pitches. Dickey has set a new standard for athlete autobiographies.” The publisher offers this hook; “The Glass Castle meets Ball Four as Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey weaves searing honesty and baseball insight in this memoir about his unlikely journey to the big leagues.”

CHILDRENS

Chomp by Carl Hiassen (RH/Knopf Young Readers; Listening Library; Audio on OverDrive); Hiasson’s fourth book for kids is a guaranteed best seller. In a starred review, Booklist says its the author’s “best for a young audience since Newbery Honor Hoot (2002)” and Hornbook couldn’t resist saying,  “Chomp is a story for readers to sink their teeth into.”

On NPR’s Fresh Air, reviewer Maureen Corrigan says she is often asked to recommend a suspense story like Caleb Carr’s The Alienist. Nearly twenty years after that book was a best seller, she has finally discovered “one of the worthiest successors yet,” Lyndsay Faye’s The Gods of Gotham.

The NYT review notes, this is the “riveting first installment of a planned series of crime thrillers.”

It is also available on audio from Dreamscape, which is downloadable from OverDrive.

The Gods of Gotham Lyndsay Faye Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 432 pages Publisher: Penguin/Putnam/Amy Einhorn Books – (2012-03-15) ISBN / EAN: 0399158375 / 9780399158377

Next week’s notable titles include Noah Hawley‘s The Good Father, a novel of parental remorse and love that’s been an EarlyWord Galley Chat favorite, and Joyce Carol Oates‘ latest masterpiece. There are also two much-anticipated memoirs: Cheryl Strayed‘s Wild, about her journey of self-discovery while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and new grandmother Anne Lamott‘s Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son.

Usual suspects include Harlan Coben, Richard North Patterson and Suzanne Brockman.

Watch List

The Good Father by Noah Hawley (RH/Doubleday; Thorndike Press; Random House Audio; OverDrive) is a favorite on our own Galley Chat, in which the father of a man who assassinates a presidential candidate tries to make sense of his son’s crime. Publishers Weekly says, “Hawley’s complicated protagonist is a fully fathomed and beautifully realized character whose emotional growth never slows a narrative that races toward a satisfying and touching conclusion.”

Literary Favorite

Mudwoman by Joyce Carol Oates (HarperCollins/Ecco; HarperLuxe; BOT Audio; OverDrive) explores the price of repression in the life of a respected university president struggling against a nervous breakdown as she confronts her brutal past in an area of epic poverty in the shadow of the Adirondacks. In a starred review, Booklist calls it “an extraordinarily intense, racking, and resonant novel, a giant among Oates’ big books, including The Gravedigger’s Daughter (2007).” Oates speaks at PLA today.

Usual Suspects

Stay Close by Harlan Coben (Penguin/Dutton Adult; Thorndike Press; Brilliance Audio) is a stand-alone thriller, where three people are haunted by the disappearance of Stewart Green 17 years earlier in Atlantic City, hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect. Booklist gives it a starred review, “Coben excels in descriptions of his characters’ tortured, ruminative inner lives. He also can pull out of their psychological nosedives to deliver some of the most shocking action scenes in current crime fiction… Satisfying on every level.”

Fall from Grace by Richard North Patterson (S&S/Scribner; Simon & Schuster Audio) is a family mystery, in which covert CIA operative Ben Blaine seeks the truth surrounding his father’s violent death, even if it means exposing one of his own family members as the killer. PW says, “readers will enjoy unraveling the tangled mystery right up until the last revelation.”

Force of Nature (A Joe Pickett Novel) by C. J. Box (Penguin/Putnam; Center Point Large Print) is the Edgar-winning author’s 12th Joe Pickett novel, in which Pickett’s friend Nate Romanowski’s hidden past ain a secret Special Forces unit finally catches up with him. Booklist’s starred review calls it “a very different Pickett novel, more a pure thriller and much more violent. Fans who love the books for their thoughtfulness may find this one a bit bloody, but those who love Box’s stunning set pieces will be in heaven.”

Born to Darkness by Suzanne Brockmann (RH/Ballantine; Brilliance Audio) launches a new series featuring former Navy SEAL Shane Laughlin, and involving a highly addictive longevity drug, human trafficking, and torture. PW says, “While a departure from Brockmann’s romantic military suspense novels, this story does contain some of her trademark elements a military hero, a same-sex romance between secondary characters, and sizzling connections to explore in future titles but never feels formulaic or stale, and the drama pulls readers in from page one.”

Young Adult

The Kane Chronicles Survival Guide by Rick Riordan (Disney/Hyperion) is a primer on the people, places, gods, and creatures found in Rick Riordan’s series.

Movie Tie-In

The World of the Hunger Games by Kate Egan (Scholastic) is a full-color guide to all the districts of Panem and all the participants in the Hunger Games, with photographs from the movie, a glossary and new quotes from Suzanne Collins. Releasing on the day the movie opens (making you suspect that it contains spoilers), the cover has already been teased by Entertainment Weekly. It follows The Hunger Games Tribute Guide by Emily Seife  (Scholastic, $7.99.), which continues at #2 on the upcoming NYT Paperback Advice & Miscellaneous list after five weeks, and The Hunger Games, the official illustrated movie companion by Kate Egan (Scholastic, $18.99), at #4 on the same list.

Memoirs

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed (RH/Knopf; Random House Audio; OverDrive) is a memoir of a 26 year-old young woman’s emotional devastation after the death of her mother and the weeks she spent hiking the 1,100-mile Pacific Crest Trail in 1995 as her family, marriage, and sanity unravel. Kirkus calls it “a candid, inspiring narrative of the author’s brutal physical and psychological journey through a wilderness of despair to a renewed sense of self.” Reese Witherspoon just purchased the film rights and will star as Strayed, who also wrote the novel Torched. It’s People magazine’s lead review this week, with 4 of a possible 4 stars; “with grace, wild humor and transcendent insights..Strayed’s language is so vivid, sharp and compelling that you feel the heat of the desert, the frigid ice of the High Sierra and the breathtaking power of one remarkable woman finding her way — and herself — one brave step at a time.”

Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son by Anne Lamott (Penguin/Riverhead; Thorndike Press; Penguin Audiobooks) is a new memoir, in which the author of the parenting classic Operating Instructions learns that her son, Sam, is about to become a father at nineteen, and writes a journal about the first year of her grandson Jax’s life. Booklist says, “Funny, frantic, and frustrating, Lamott enthusiastically embraces this new chapter in her life, learning that she is a wiser grandparent than parent who, nevertheless, managed to produce one pretty remarkable son.” It receives 3.5 stars in the new issue of People magazine.

Debuting on the Indie Fiction Best Seller list at #10 is The Expats by Chris Pavone (it is also lands at #47 on the USA Today list; you can expect it to appear on the upcoming NYT list).

The author’s first novel, about Kate, a CIA agent who packs it in to be a stay-at-home Mom when her husband moves the family to Luxembourg, is a March 2012 Indie Next List Great Read. It got strong pre-pub reviews, but the NYT‘s Janet Maslin nearly damned it with faint praise, noting its “well-calibrated monotony. This book’s abundant treacheries and tricks arise from the fact that its heroine, Kate Moore, is bored stiff.”

As Kate’s husband begins to behave strangely, her instincts go on red alert. In the NYT Book Review‘s mystery columnist Marilyn Stasio says,

Pavone is full of sharp insights into the parallels between political espionage and marital duplicity, and he understands the disorientation Kate shares with other expats — including Pavone himself, who joined that community when he gave up a career in publishing after his wife took a job in Luxembourg.

The UK’s Guardian, calls it “Expertly and intricately plotted, with a story spiralling into disaster and a satisfyingly huge amount of double crossing, The Expats certainly doesn’t feel like a first novel. This is an impressively assured entry to the thriller scene.”

Several libraries are showing holds as high as 20/1 on fairly strong ordering.

The Expats Chris Pavone Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: RH/Crown – (2012-03-06) ISBN 9780307956354

RH Audio; Thorndike Large Print; OverDrive eBook and audio

Next week, Lyndsay Faye‘s historical novel about a serial killer in 1845 New York, The Gods of Gotham, builds on her breakout debut, while Mark Allen Smith‘s debut thriller The Inquisitor features a professional torturer who unexpectedly breaks character. There are also two notable magical realist novels: Tiffany Baker‘s The Gilly Salt Sisters and Heidi Julavit‘s The Vanishers. And in nonfiction, Marilynne Robinson returns with an essay collection about her Christian faith and “Pioneer Woman” Ree Drummond delivers a new recipe collection.

Watch List

The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye (Penguin/Putnam/Amy Einhorn Books; audio from Dreamscape is also downloadable from OverDrive) is set in 1845 New York, where an officer in the newly organized police force, encounters a blood-soaked girl who leads him to evidence of an anti-Irish serial killer at work. Library Journal raves, “vivid period details, fully formed characters, and a blockbuster of a twisty plot put Faye in a class with Caleb Carr. Readers will look forward to the sequel.” PW adds, “this one “improves on her impressive debut, Dust and Shadow.”

The Gilly Salt Sisters by Tiffany Baker (Hachette/Grand Central Publishing; Thorndike Press) follows two sisters whose family has always harvested salt and who that may or may not have magical powers over their Cape Cod community, and the wealthy bachelor who forces his way into their lives. LJ says, “fans of Baker’s acclaimed The Little Giant of Aberdeen County won’t be disappointed with this quirky, complex, and original tale. It is also sure to enchant readers who enjoy Alice Hoffman and other authors of magical realism.”

The Inquisitor by Mark Allen Smith (Macmillan/ Holt; Macmillan Audio) is a thriller about a professional torturer in the “information retrieval” business, who instills fear rather than pain and has a gift for recognizing when he hears the truth. But this time, he must interrogate a 12-year-old boy, whom he decides to protect. LJ says “this is not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. But Geiger, who’s seeing a psychiatrist and suffers disabling migraines, is a fascinating protagonist with a revealing backstory. A compelling debut thriller that blurs the lines between the good and bad guys.”

Literary Favorite

The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits (RH/Doubleday; Audio, Dreamscape Media) is set at an elite school for psychics, where a young student surpasses her troubled mentor, unleashing much wrath, in this novel (after The Uses of Enchantment) by the editor of the literary magazine The Believer. LJ calls it “reminiscent of Arthur Phillips’s The Egyptologist: clever, humorous, with supernatural elements. While one can easily get confused about what is real and what is imagined, readers who surrender to the narrative may be rewarded with rich insights about losing a parent.”

Usual Suspects

Another Piece of My Heart by Jane Green (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press; Wheeler Publishing; MacMillan Audio) focuses on a just-married woman whose angry new stepdaughter is determined to undermine her, and what motherhood truly means. LJ says, “Green is at her finest with this compelling novel. Deeper, more complicated, and more ambitious than her previous books, it will keep readers on edge as they wait to see how these tense family dynamics play out.”

Deep Fathom by James Rollins (HarperCollins Morrow; Harperluxe) finds ex-Navy SEAL Jack Kirkland surfacing from an aborted salvage mission to find the United States on the brink of a nuclear apocalypse.

Young Adult

Infamous(Chronicles of Nick Series #3) by Sherrilyn Kenyon (Macmillan/St. Martin’s Griffin; Macmillan Audio) follows the further adventures of teenager Nick Gautier, whose first mandate is to stay alive while everyone, even his own father, tries to kill him. He’s learned to annihilate zombies and raise the dead, as well as divination and clairvoyance, so why is learning to drive and keep a girlfriend so hard, let alone survival? Kenyon’s books and fans keep mounting: there are 23 million copies of her books in print in over 30 countries,

Out of Sight, Out of Time (Gallagher Girls Series #5) by Ally Carter (Hyperion Books; Brilliance Corporation) is the latest installment in the popular spy-girl series, in which Cammie wakes up in an alpine convent and discovers months have passed since she left the Gallagher Academy to protect her friends and family, and her memory is a black hole.

Starters, Lissa Price, (RH/Delacorte Young Readers; Listening Library) is a new entry in the crowded field of YA dystopian novels. This one imagines a world in which teens rent their bodies to seniors who want to be young again. Kirkus wasn’t impressed with the writing, but predicted, “twists and turns come so fast that readers will stay hooked.” In its spring preview, the L.A. Times called it “the next, best entry” in the genre. It comes with a book trailer that makes you wonder how quickly it will be snapped up by Hollywood.

Nonfiction

When I Was a Child I Read Books:  Essays by Marilynne Robinson (Macmillan/FSG) is a new collection that returns to her major themes: the role of faith in modern life, the inadequacy of fact, and the contradictions inherent in human nature. Kirkus says, “Robinson is a splendid writer, no question–erudite, often wise and slyly humorous (there is a clever allusion to the birther nonsense in a passage about Noah Webster). Articulate and learned descriptions and defenses of the author’s Christian faith.”

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier by Ree Drummond (HarperCollins/Morrow) intersperses recipes with photographs of the author’s life on her ranch. Kirkus says, “some readers may delight in Drummond’s down-home way of speaking directly to the reader, while others may find the interaction a bit snarky and annoying. A collection of basic recipes to guarantee a full belly and an empty plate.”