Indicating anticipation for two of the titles arriving next week, Megan Abbott‘s sixth crime novel, Dare Me and M.L. Stedman‘s debut The Light Between Oceans, have already received strong mainstream reviews. New novels by Margaret Dilloway, Fiona Neill and Jennie Fields also have solid trade reviews behind them. Usual suspects include Dean Koontz, Kay Hooper, Susan Wiggs and YA author Sara Shepard. In nonfiction, Gretchen Rubin is back with a followup to the Happiness Project, historian Ben McIntyre takes a fresh look at D-Day, crime writer Stuart Woods republishes his 1977 sailing memoir, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame weighs in with a celebration of the game for its 50th Anniversary.

Watch List

Dare Me by Megan Abbott (Hachette/Little,Brown/Reagan Arthur; Hachette Audio) is the story of a varsity cheer leading squad whose pecking order is overturned by a new coach, who then becomes a suspect in a murder investigation. It’s a summer reading pick by Entertainment Weekly (“It feels groundbreaking when Abbott takes noir conventions — loss of innocence, paranoia, the manipulative sexuality of newly independent women — and suggests that they’re rooted in high school, deep in the hearts of all-American girls.” Grade: A-). The new issue of People says, “If cheerleaders scared you in high school, you’ll finish the haunting Dare Me convinced you were right.” Holds, while not yet heavy, are building in many libraries. Her sixth novel, this one may be Abbott’s breakout.

The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway (Putnam Adult) is the author’s second novel, in which a solitary, prickly woman who grows roses competitively must unexpectedly make room in her life for her wayward niece. It was a BEA Librarians’s Shout ‘n’ Share title. LJ says, “engaging, enlightening, thoughtful, this is a winner.”

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman (S&S/Scribner; S&S Audio) is set in 1926 Australia, where a childless couple in a lighthouse claim a baby they find in a boat, with ensuing complications. This one gets an early review in the New York Times, which warns that it “does occasionally dip into the melodrama pot; Isabel at one point screams, ‘Don’t take my baby away!’ It’s a moving tale, regardless. Prepare to weep.” This week’s People magazine declares, “Stedman’s debut signals a career certain to deliver future treasures.” We’ve already issued a holds alert for this one.

What the Nanny Saw by Fiona Neill (Penguin/Riverhead; Tantor Media) is the tale of a London investment banker’s unraveling during the 2008 financial crisis, told by the nanny, who holds his family together but has secrets of her own. It’s the second novel by British newspaper columnist Neill. LJ says, “this biting drama is filled with tension and remarkably flawed characters. Neill’s engrossing tale makes for an addictive read, and one can only keep turning the pages to get to the inescapable conclusion.”

The Age of Desire by Jennie Fields (Penguin/Viking/Pamela Dorman) imagines a middle-aged Edith Wharton in her first physically passionate affair, with a younger American journalist. LJ says the author’s fourth novel should “appeal to those who enjoyed Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife or other stories focusing on the stormy romantic lives of creative people from past eras.”

Usual Suspects

Odd Apocalypse by Dean Koontz (RH/Bantam; RH Large Print; Brilliance Audio) is the fifth Odd Thomas novel about a short-order cook who can see dead people, and helps them when he can. LJ says, “Odd’s fanbase with fantasy-horror devotees is certain to grow, while previous admirers of his quirky charms will not be disappointed. Odd’s screen debut, starring Anton Yelchin and Willem Dafoe, later this fall is certain to attract new readers.”

Haven by Kay Hooper (Penguin/Berkley; Brilliance Audio) is the 13th thriller featuring the Special Crimes Unit, this time sending a paranormal investigator to a small North Carolina mountain town. PW says, “the juxtaposition of the idyllic town and the sadistic sociopath makes the horrors of the crimes stand out, but the basic investigative errors made by just about all of the characters seem to come straight from a schlock horror film with the audience yelling, ‘Don’t go in there!'”

Return to Willow Lake by Susan Wiggs (Harlequin/Mira; Brilliance Audio) the next in the Lakeshore Chronicles is the story of a woman whose near-perfect life is derailed when her mother unexpectedly gets pregnant.

Young Adult

Hide and Seek (Lying Game Serious #4) by Sara Shepard (Harper Teen) is told from beyond the grave by an adopted daughter whose long-lost twin sister has taken her place, but faces the same potentially fatal perils.

Nonfiction

Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life by Gretchen Rubin (RH/Crown/Archetype; RH Audio) is the sequel to the author’s hit debut The Happiness Project. PW says, “although it lacks the freshness and originality of her earlier book, this perceptive sequel offers elegant musings about the nature of happiness combined with concrete ways to make the place where we sleep, eat, and watch TV truly a home.”

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre (RH/Crown; RH Large Print Publishing; RH Audio) explains how the D-Day landings became the most well-kept secrets of WWII. PW says that it “effortlessly weaves the agents’ deliciously eccentric personalities with larger wartime events to shape a tale that reads like a top-notch spy thriller.”

Blue Water, Green Skipper by Stuart Woods (Penguin/Putnam) is a republication of the crime author’s memoir of how he single-handedly sailed across the Atlantic in 1973 after quitting his job in advertising, before he finished the first of his 50 novels. PW says, “casual readers will enjoy the adventurous portions of the tale, but sailing aficionados will get the most out of Woods’s journey.”

The Pro Football Hall of Fame 50th Anniversary Book: Where Greatness Lives editedby John Thorn and Joe Horrigan, (Hachette/Grand Central) features commentaries by every living Hall of Famer, and quotes or bios from those who are gone.

Debuting at #10 on the new Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Best Seller list is Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety by Daniel Smith, a book that was called a classic in the making by the Psychiatric Times and named a People pick last week.

Many libraries are showing growing holds on light ordering.

Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety Daniel Smith Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2012-07-03) ISBN / EAN: 1439177309/9781439177303

Blackstone Audio

Bill Moyers dedicates his most recent show to a book of “graphic journalism,” Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (Nation Books, 6/12/12), a collaboration between Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges and cartoonist Joe Sacco. It covers what the authors call ” sacrifice zones, those areas in America that have been offered up for exploitation in the name of profit, progress, and technological advancement.”

The book is now at #24 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Sam Kean managed to make the periodic table sexy in his book, The Disappearing Spoon. In his new book, The Violinist’s Thumb, (Hachette/Little,Brown), he takes on an already sexy subject, DNA.

After he appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday, Thumb rose from #248 to #43 and Spoon from #886 to #228 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

Cleveland isn’t the only place where things are hot; Wendy Bartlett, from Cuyahoga County reports that several titles are taking off there. Holds for he forthcoming debut The Light Between Oceans by Australian writer, M.L. Stedman (S&S, 7/31) have risen so quickly that she just placed an order for six times the original number. So far, it hasn’t received much review attention, other than the lead in O Magazine’s Summer Reading List. It’s been mentioned on GalleyChat and Wendy herself featured it during the BEA librarian’s Shout and Share panel. Several other libraries are showing heavy holds on light ordering.

As we reported in “New Title Radar,” Bailout; An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street by Neil Barofsky (S&S/Free Press; 7/24) is due for major media attention this week. The New York Times, in yesterday’s Business Section, calls it a “must read.” Below, the author is interviewed on CBS This Morning today. Dozens of other appearances are scheduled on media outlets from NPR to Fox News.

Barofsky was scheduled to appear on Face the Nation yesterday, but that appears to have been bumped by coverage of the Aurora shooting.

The last summer reading picks are trickling in. Next week brings two buzz titles from Book Expo and ALA:  British author Rachel Joyce‘s quirky tale of friendship and loyalty, and John Verdon‘s third NYPD detective mystery, plus the latest Dublin mystery from Tana French. Usual suspects include Danielle Steel, J.A. Jance, Brad Thor and Emily Griffin.

Watch List

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (Random House; RH Audio; BOT) is a debut novel by an acclaimed BBC scriptwriter, about a man who decides to walk 600 miles to visit a terminally ill old friend who has written him out of the blue. Booklist says, “a gentle and genteel charmer, brimming with British quirkiness yet quietly haunting in its poignant and wise examination of love and devotion. Sure to become a book-club favorite.” This one was featured on the Editor’s Buzz Panel at Book Expo, a Wall St. Journal Hot Title for July and is on O Magazine‘s Summer Reading List.

Let the Devil Sleep by John Verdon (RH/Crown; Dreamscape Audio; Overdrive ebook and audio) is the third mystery featuring retired NYPD Detective Dave Gurney, who is seeking some R&R in upstate New York when there’s a break in a 10-year old serial killer case. PW says, “the tension is palpable on virtually every page of a story that perfectly balances the protagonistas complex inner life with an elaborately constructed puzzle.” This was a librarians Shout ‘n’ Share title at ALA. 70,000-copy printing.

Returning Favorites

Broken Harbor by Tana French (Penguin/Viking; Thorndike Large Print) is the author’s fourth Dublin mystery featuring Detective Mick ‘Scorcher’ Kennedy, this time about an attack on a family that only the mother survives. It’s on most of the summer reading lists, including FlavoreWire’s “Must Reads” for July, which offers this recommendation: “If you’re going to read this book, you probably already know it — if not, we recommend starting with In the Woods and thanking us later. [Broken Harbor] is as fierce and eloquently pulse-intensifying as the others.” 200,000-copy printing.

Usual Suspects

Friends Forever by Danielle Steel (RH/Delacorte; Brilliance Audio; Thorndike Large Print) is about a group of friends at a private high school who part ways for college and are torn apart by tragedy.

Judgment Call by J.A. Jance (HarperCollins/ Morrow; Harperluxe; HarperAudio) is the 15th novel featuring Cochise County, Ariz., sheriff Joanna Brady, whose daughter discovers the body of her school principal.  PW says, “Jance smoothly intertwines the threads of multiple subplots, complete with a red herring or two. The solution to a 25-year-old mystery surrounding the death of Joanna’s father is a bonus.”

Black List by Brad Thor (S&S/Emily Bestler; S&SAudio; Thorndike Large Print) features Scot Harvath, a former Navy SEAL Team 6 member turned covert counterterrorism operative, who must evade a stream of assassins until he can figure out why he’s on the president’s black list.

Where We Belong by Emily Giffin (Macmillan/ St. Martin; Thorndike Large Print; Macmillan Audio) is the author’s fifth novel, about a 36-year-old New York City TV producer whose stable life is unsettled by the daughter she gave up 18 years before. Entertainment Weekly picked it as a “Hot Read” of summer 2012. It follows Heart of the Matter, which hit the NYT list at #2. The author’s first book, Something Borrowed, was made into a movie in 2011.

Major Media Attention

Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street by Neil Barofsky (S&S/Free Press) is, according to the publisher, is “An irrefutable indictment, from an insider of both the Bush and Obama administrations, of the mishandling of the $700 billion TARP bailouts and the extreme degree to which our government officials from both parties served the interests of Wall Street at the expense of the public.” It will be featured in dozens of media outlets, including CBS Face the Nation this Sunday, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, and NPR’s Marketplace.

The quirky debut, Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer (Macmillan/St. Martin’s; Macmillan Audio) is the tenth People magazine pick of the year. Several librarians on GalleyChat have noted it as a favorite.

The only other review at this point is from Janet Maslin in the New York Times. She calls it “chick lit a metaphysical spin.” Why? It’s  a portrait of a marriage (a subject Netzer is clearly interested in; she’s written essays on the subject for The Huffington Post) with the complication that the husband is an astronaut now living on the moon, the wife, a seemingly perfect blonde, has suddenly removed her wig and is totally bald, and their son is autistic, with the unfortunate name of Bubber. People acknowledges, “The set-up sounds comical, but the story that unfolds is not only entertaining but nuanced and wise.”

Library ordering is light, despite mostly enthusiastic prepub reviews. Holds at this point are also light.

An eager audience was clearly awaiting Deborah Harkness’s second book in her All Souls trilogy. Shadow of Night (Penguin/Viking; Thorndike Large Print; Penguin Audiobooks) arrives at #4 (immediately after the Fifty Shades of Grey titles) on the new USA Today best selling books list, making it the top-selling hardcover fiction title. It also arrives at #1 on the Indie Best Seller list.

The new James Patterson title, I Michael Bennett (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Large Print; Hachette Audio) arrives at #5. As a result, the breakout novel of the summer Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl moves down to #6, from #4 last week.

That doesn’t indicate interest is slipping, however, but rather the strength of the first-week sales for both Patterson and Harkness. Library holds are higher for Gone Girl (RH/Crown; Audio, BOT; audio and ebook on OverDrive; Thorndike Large Print, Sept.) than the other two titles and they continue to mount, with some libraries showing a total of 1,600. We expect Gone Girl to continue to attract readers throughout the summer; it’s not too late to buy additional copies.

USA Today‘s “Book Buzz” column notes that the rise of Laura Moriarty’s The Chaperone (Penguin/Riverhead; Thorndike Large Print; Blackstone Audio; Penguin Audio) to #21 from #155 last week is a result of Amazon’s special single-day sale of the Kindle version for $2.99. The column also notes, perhaps unwittingly breaking news, that Downton Abbey‘s Elizabeth McGovern “will star in the film adaptation.” She also reads the audio version.

It’s already been covered in a wide range of publications, from The Jewish Daily Forward to the Psychiatric Times. Now Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety by Daniel Smith (S&S, July; Blackstone Audio) gets the lead, four-star review in the new issue of People magazine and is named one of 8 People picks of the year. The reviewer calls it an “unforgettable, surprisingly hilarious memoir, [in which] journalist and professor Smith chronicles his head-changing, flop sweating battles with acute anxiety.”

The Psychiatric Times predicts it “will be recognized in the years to come as the preeminent first-person narrative of the anxiously lived life,” adding,”it is wonderful to have a narrative of Generalized Anxiety Disorder that can join the classic narratives already written for our other major diagnoses; William Styron’s Darkness Visible for depression, Redfield Jamison’s Unquiet Mind for bipolar disorder and Elyn Saks’s The Center Cannot Hold for schizophrenia.”

Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl is #1 on the Indie Fiction Best Seller list  for the fifth week in a row. Sales are still climbing, as indicated by the USA Today list, where it rises to #4, from #6 last week, breaking through the Hunger Games blockade. Now all that stands between it and #1 on that list are the three Fifty Shades titles.

USA Today‘s Bob Minzesheimer looks into the reason Flynn’s third novel is her breakout, quoting Jackie Blem of  Denver’s revered Tattered Cover bookstore,

What is different about Gone Girl is she creates one story, carefully, with great detail, all very believable, and then turns all of it on its ear. The magic of this book, for the reader, is that there is actually two unreliable narrators and multiple versions of every event.

Holds continue to climb in libraries, with some showing over 1,500. Holds on the audio are also high. Large print coming from Thorndike in September.

Gone Girl Gillian Flynn Retail Price: $25.00 Hardcover: 412 pages Publisher: RH/Crown – (2012-06-05) ISBN: 9780307588364

Audio, BOT; audio and ebook on OverDrive; Thorndike Large Print, Sept.

The Today Show took a skeptical look at a new diet book that just arrived in the US after becoming a big success in the UK. Six Weeks to OMG: Get Skinnier Than All Your Friends by Vince Fulton (yes, it’s a pseudonym) was covered in two segments, each featuring a bathtub.

The hosts of the segments sounded unconvinced by the author’s recommendations, but a significant number of viewers felt otherwise. The book jumped into the Amazon Top Fifty, rising from #5,012 to #44. Library holds, however, are very light.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Brian Castner, who writes about his three tours in Iraq and his difficult re-entry into life at home, in The Long Walk, was featured on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross yesterday. As a result, the book rose to #261 on Amazon’s sales rankings.

The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows Brian Castner Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 240 pages Publisher: RH/Doubleday – (2012-07-10) ISBN / EAN: 9780385536202/ 0385536208

Audio; RH Audio and Books on Tape

Next week brings a comic sci-fi debut from Internet entrepreneur Rob Reid, along with new novels from breakout authors John Boyne and Deborah Harkness. In nonfiction, there’s a harrowing Iraq war memoir by Air Force veteran Brian Castner, and James Carville and Stan Greenberg talk Democratic strategy for November. Returning literary favorites include Carlos Ruoz Zafón, Stephen Carter and Kurt Anderson. And usual suspects include Gigi Levangie Grazer, Susan Elizabeth Phillips,  Catherine Coulter, Linda Fairstein, James Patterson, Andrew Gross and Meg Cabot, plus YA author Eoin Colfer.

Watch List

Year Zero by Rob Reid (RH/Del Rey; RH digital-only audio on OverDrive) is a satire about the movie industry, by someone who knows the business intimately (he’s the founder of the online music company, Listen.com).

It’s recommended by Entertainment Weekly for those who love The Hitchhiker”s Guide to the Galaxy. They also offer an exclusive interview with the author by John Hodgman, who reads the audio, a digital-only release (on OverDrive).

That interview isn’t revealing, but the trailer gives a good sense of the book’s tone.

The Absolutist by John Boyne (Other Press) is an novel about a WWI veteran’s reflections over 60 years on his brief, forbidden love affair in the trenches with a fellow soldier who died, by the Irish author of the YA hit The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. PW calls it “a relentlessly tragic yet beautifully crafted novel.” It got several shouts from librarians at the BEA Shout ‘n’ Share program, with Barbara Genco noting that the WWI setting makes it a good bet for fans of Downton Abbey. The publisher has a different take, comparing it to Atonement and Brokeback Mountain.

Hot Sequel

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness (Penguin/Viking; Thorndike Large Print; Penguin Audiobooks) is the highly anticipated sequel to the hit debut A Discovery of Witches. This time, the action is set in Elizabethan England, where vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont and witch historian Diana Bishop search for an enchanted manuscript. Entertainment Weekly gives it a B+, a mixed grade because the story takes a while to gain momentum, but when it does, “it enchants.” People magazine concurs, giving it 3 of a possible 4 stars, saying there are “too many story lines, too many shifting time periods and a confusing slew of new characters.” Even so, it “delivers enough romance and excitement to keep the pages turning. Readers will devout it, chaos and all.”

Literary Favorites

The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe) brings together characters from The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel’s Game, who must face a mysterious stranger who visits the Sempere bookshop, and threatens to reveal a secret.

The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen Carter (RH/Knopf; Random House Audio) is a work of alternate history by the Yale Law professor and bestselling author of The Emperor of Ocean Park that explores what would have happened if President Abraham Lincoln had not been assassinated. (Hint: Lincoln is accused of violating the Constitution in his conduct of the Civil War and faces impeachment.) PW says, “this is Lincoln by way of Dan Brown, complete with ciphers and conspiracies and breathless escapes, only not so breathless, since Carter lacks Brown’s talent for narrative momentum.”

True Believers by Kurt Anderson (Random House; Random House Audio) is a cultural study of a judge who opts out of consideration for a Supreme Court seat because of events in her youth, giving the novelist and host of the award-winning Studio 360 public radio show ample ground for exploring the cultural contradictions of the last 50 years. LJ says, “a good read both for those who remember the [60s] era and for those who wish to better understand that time and its social and political connections to today.”

Usual Suspects

The After Wife by Gigi Levangie Grazer (RH/Ballantine; Center Point Large Print; Random House Audio) is the story of a recently widowed woman who discovers she can talk to the dead. It got a hearty endorsement on the Librarians’ Shout ‘n’ Share panel at BEA this year  from Wendy Bartlett, head of collection development at Cuyahoga County PL. As we noted earlier, Wendy found The After Wife so hilarious that she ordered extra copies.

The Great Escape by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (HarperCollins/Morrow; Thorndike Large Print; HarperAudio) recounts the further adventures of Lucy Jorik, daughter of the former U.S. President, who left her perfect fiance at the altar to explore her alter ego, a biker chick named Viper. LJ says, “with brilliant dialog, sassy humor, and laserlike insight into what makes people tick, Phillips gifts readers with an engrossing, beautifully written romance that satisfies on all levels.”

Backfire (FBI Series #16) by Catherine Coulter (Penguin/Putnam; Thorndike Large Print; Brilliance Audio) finds husband-and-wife FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock pursuing a killer who shoots a San Francisco judge. PW says, “Coulter mixes romance, strong family ties, narrow misses, and narrower escapes as well as some twists that strain credulity to the breaking point. Series fans will applaud the strong female leads and the nifty teamwork of Savich and Sherlock.”

Night Watch by Linda Fairstein (Penguin/Dutton; Thorndike Large Print; Penguin Audio) has Manhattan Sex Crimes prosecutor Alexandra Cooper probing the underside of New York’s fanciest restaurants, based on evidence in a rape case involving director of the World Economic Bureau and a hotel maid. Kirkus says, “not surprisingly, the case ripped from the headlines is much more absorbing than the tale of restaurant malfeasance and [Cooper’s] imperiled love. Alex’s 14th is distinctly below average for this bestselling series.”

I, Michael Bennett by James Patterson (Hachette/Little, Brown; Hachette Large Print; Hachette Audio)  is the fifth installment in the series featuring Detective Michael Bennett,  this time featuring South American crime lord who brings new violence to Manhattan.

15 Seconds by Andrew Gross (HarperCollins/Morrow; Harperluxe) is a stand-alone thriller that explores an accidental shooting that leaves an innocent participant as the target of a huge police manhunt. Booklist says “Gross, who has collaborated with James Patterson on five best-sellers, turns out a page-turning, roller-coaster of a novel with a likable if sometimes foolish protagonist.”

 Size 12 and Ready to Rock: A Heather Wells Mystery by Meg Cabot (HarperCollins/Morrow; Audio, Dreamscape Media) is latest installment in this ongoing paperback original series.  Here, New York College Resident Dorm Director Heather Wells investigates a case with her fiance that involves her ex’s new wife. PW says, “Readers of Cabot’s blog will recognize Heather, with her hilarious pop culture references and dry humor. A good read, though fans might find the plot disappointing in the context of the big picture.”

Children

Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian by Eoin Colfer (Disney/Hyperion; Audio, RH/Listening Library) is the eighth and final installment in the popular series, in which the evil pixie Opal Koboi infuses Artemis’s brothers with the spirits of dead warriors, making them more annoying than ever.

Nonfiction

The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows by Brian Castner (RH/Doubleday; Center Point Large Print; Random House Audio) recounts the author’s years as an air force officer in Saudi Arabia in 2001, and Iraq in 2005 and 2006, where he earned a Bronze Star and performed the “long walk” to dismantle bombs by hand and in short order, when robots failed. Kirkus calls it, “scarifying stuff, without any mawkishness or dumb machismo–not quite on the level of Jarhead, but absolutely worth reading.”

It’s The Middle Class, Stupid! by James Carville and Stan Greenberg (Penguin/Blue Rider Press; Penguin Audio) brings together liberal talking head Carville and pollster Greenberg to discuss why Democrats must focus on the middle class to win in November. Kirkus says, “they are refreshingly specific in some of their policy recommendations in areas such as energy investment and campaign finance reform. For Democratic political junkies who enjoy straight-talk policy discussion.” 125,000 copy first printing.