The April 2023 Prepub Alert posts are also available as a downloadable spreadsheet of titles.  

Fiction

Mystery

Allen, Samantha Jayne. Hard Rain. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. (Annie McIntyre Mysteries, Bk. 2). Apr. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9781250863812. $27.99. MYSTERY/PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

In Allen’s LJ-starred, Tony Hillerman Prize–winning Pay Dirt Road, Annie McIntyre returned home to Garnett, TX, and was swept up in her family’s private eye firm. Here, she’s got her own case: find the savior who pulled a woman from the floodwaters that had engulfed the town before being swept away himself. Instead, she discovers a shooting victim and begins to wonder whether her Good Samaritan is actually a killer. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Cranor, Eli. Ozark Dogs. Soho Crime. Apr. 2023. 312p. ISBN 9781641294539. $26.95. MYSTERY/CRIME

Cranor follows up his debut, the Peter Lovesey–winning Don’t Know Tough, with another gritty Arkansas-set mystery. Ozark junkyard owner Jeremiah Fitzjurls has been taking care of granddaughter Joanna since his son’s murder conviction, and all’s well until the Ledfords, a nasty bunch of meth-dealing white supremacists, come visiting. They seek payback for an injury done them back when by the Fitzjurls family, and Joanna is the price. Based on real-life events in the author’s hometown.

Harris, C. S. Who Cries for the Lost. Berkley. (St. Cyr Mystery, Bk. 18). Apr. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9780593102725. $27. MYSTERY/HISTORICAL

In When Blood Lies, last in the enduringly popular series starring Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, St. Cyr traveled to Paris to unearth disturbing secrets about his past. Now he’s back in 1814 London, confronting fishy doings along the fish-stinky Thames, though no more plot details are available.

Hillerman, Anne. The Way of the Bear. Harper. (Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito Novel). Apr. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780062908391. $28.99. lrg. prnt. CD. MYSTERY/POLICE PROCEDURAL

An experienced paleontologist is found frozen to death inexplicably close to his car in Utah’s Bear Ears National Park, which borders the Navajo Nation, and Navajo Nation Police officers Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito are trying to figure out what happened. Their caseload is amplified by continuing violence, suggestions of illicit fossil hunting, and a disappearance during a ferocious snowstorm. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Perry, Anne. The Fourth Enemy: A Daniel Pitt Novel. Ballantine. (Daniel Pitt, Bk. 6). Apr. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780593359129. $28.99. MYSTERY/HISTORICAL

Daniel Pitt’s law firm is fighting public perception when it launches a fraud case against rich philanthropist Malcolm Vayne, with Daniel named as second prosecutor. When a key witness is found dead, forensic scientist Miriam fford Croft, Daniel’s new wife, discovers more evidence against Vayne, and her kidnapping drives Daniel and the plot to the suspenseful end readers expect of the New York Times best-selling Perry.

Literary Fiction

Appanah, Nathacha. The Sky Above the Roof. Graywolf. Apr. 2023. 144p. tr. from French by Geoffrey Strachan. ISBN 9781644452257. pap. $15. LITERARY

Mauritian-born, French-based Appanah follows up her LJ best-booked Tropic of Violence with what promises to be another sterling study of personal and familial crisis. When unlicensed 17-year-old Wolf steals his mother’s car and heads out in search of his estranged sister, he causes an accident that lands him in jail and brings together his mother and sister in an effort to heal. With a 10,000-copy first printing.

Ausubel, Ramona. The Last Animal. Riverhead. Apr. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780593420522. $27. LITERARY

In Siberia with their scientist mother, Jane, who’s part of a team intent on bringing back the woolly mammoth from extinction, teenagers Eve and Vera discover the body of a 4,000-year-old baby mammoth, pristinely preserved. Their discovery upends the contentious team, with Jane suddenly in opposition to her colleagues and deciding to strike out on her own. From PEN Literary/VCU Cabell First Novelist award winner Ausubel.

Geary, Karl. Juno Loves Legs. Catapult. Apr. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781646221134. $27. LITERARY

Whip-smart Juno is scorned by her peers for her empty pockets, while "Legs" is scorned for his sexuality; they’ve grown up on the same housing estate in 1980s Dublin, bonding over their outsider status. Their story unfolds from the perspective of Juno, who’s beginning to see the possibilities of a life lived differently as Ireland shrugs off the stranglehold of rigid Catholicism. Geary follows up his debut, Montpelier Parade, an Irish Times Book of the Year.

Harding, Lisa. Cloud Girls. HarperVia. Apr. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780063270282. $27.99. LITERARY

Failed by her alcoholic mother and miserable at school, rebellious Dublin-based teenager Sammy is looking for comfort; the Eastern European family of beautiful 13-year Nico is so impoverished that they agree to her marriage to a friendly stranger. The two girls end up at a suburban Irish brothel, where they become fast friends. This is Harding’s Kate O'Brien Award–winning first novel; her second work, Bright Burning Things, received U.S. publication—and multiple raves—in 2021. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Kang, Han. Greek Lessons. Hogarth: Crown. Apr. 2023. tr. from Korean by Deborah Smith & Emily Yae Won. 144p. ISBN 9780593595275. $26. Downloadable. LITERARY

A teacher of Greek in Seoul and one of his students are bound together by sadness. She can no longer speak, having lost both her mother and custody of her nine-year-old son, while he is losing his eyesight and possibly his independence even as he struggles with having grown up between the cultures of the two countries, Korea and Germany, where he was raised. From the author of the International Booker Prize–winning The Vegetarian.

Lichtman, Johannes. Calling Ukraine. Marysue Rucci: Scribner. Apr. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9781982156817. $26. CD. LITERARY

Escaping his messy life by taking a job in Ukraine teaching custom service agents to sound as if they came from the United States, thirtyish John Turner finds that his students are perfectly fluent but don’t get small talk. Meanwhile, he doesn’t understand the Ukrainian language or culture, and hearing his next-door neighbor beating his wife puts him in an ethical quandary. From National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, author of Such Good Work.

Prentiss, Molly. Old Flame. Gallery: Scout: S. & S. Apr. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781501121586. $17.99. CD. LITERARY

Stuck scribbling for women’s catalogs rather than writing her own books and uncertain of her future with her handsome photographer boyfriend, Emily is further upended by an unplanned pregnancy. Should she keep this new life, and how will her life change if she does? From the author of Tuesday Nights in 1980, long-listed for Center for Fiction and PEN/Robert W. Bingham honors for first fiction.

Slocumb, Brendan. Symphony of Secrets. Anchor. Apr. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780593315446. $28. lrg. prnt. LITERARY/THRILLER

Asked to authenticate a recently unearthed work thought to be by the distinguished white 20th-century composer Frederick Delaney, Delaney expert Bern Hendricks makes an uncomfortable discovery. Delaney apparently lifted much of his music from gifted Black jazz singer Josephine Reed, whom he befriended in 1920s Manhattan. Following Slocumb’s attention-getting debut, The Violin Conspiracy.

Smith, Katy Simpson. The Weeds. Farrar. Apr. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780374605476. $27. LITERARY

In contemporary times, a woman from Mississippi conscientiously catalogs plants in the ruins of the Roman Colosseum while looking for meaning in her own life. In 1855, an Englishwoman indentured to botanist Richard Deakin after having been caught stealing also searches the Colosseum for plants, knowing that the woman she loves is far, far away. As with her luscious The Everlasting, a New York Times Best Historical Fiction Book of 2020, Smith parallels time frames to illuminate human desire.

Smith, Michael Farris. Salvage This World. Little, Brown. Apr. 2023. 272p. ISBN 9780316413633. $28. Downloadable. LITERARY

In hurricane-drenched, job-scarce southern Mississippi, a zealous preacher promises salvation to her flock while encouraging violence on the side. Meanwhile, Jessie and toddler son Jace head desperately toward her childhood home as Jace’s father runs from an angry mob. It’s a savage world; can it be salvaged? From the author of attention getters like Desperation Road and the multi-best-booked Blackwood; with a 45,000-copy first printing.

Yehoshua, A.B. The Only Daughter. HarperVia. Apr. 2023. 208p. tr. from Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman. ISBN 9780358670445. $26.99. LITERARY

At age 12, Rachele Luzzato of Padua, Italy, heartbrokenly learns that her father is seriously ill, even as she prepares for her Bat-Mitzvah—and her role as the Madonna in her school’s Christmas play. She’s helped by her Jewish grandfather, her maternal Catholic grandparents, and a teacher who believes that literature will bring her solace. From Israeli award winner Yehoshua, author most recently of The Tunnel.

Story Collections

Orhan, Kenan. I Am My Country: And Other Stories. Random. Apr. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9780593449462. $27. LITERARY/SHORT STORIES

Setting his stories in a Turkey submerged in oppression yet rimmed with absurdist, even magical touches, O. Henry Award winner Orhan debuts with a collection of new and previously published stories, one of which appeared in 2022 Best American Short Stories. Here, a florist trains a stray dog to blow up a corrupt president, and a garbagewoman who finds banned instruments and eventually their players dumped in the trash brings them home to form a secret orchestra.

Porter, Andrew. The Disappeared: Stories. Knopf. Apr. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9780593534304. $27. Downloadable. LITERARY/SHORT STORIES

Pushcart and Flannery O’Connor honoree Porter follows up his debut novel, In Between Days, with a collection featuring characters dealing with loss, loneliness, and troubled relationships. Among them are a father missing the closeness he once shared with his son and a troubled soul who becomes dangerously intertwined with a married couple

Varela, Alejandro. The People Who Report More Stress: Stories. Astra House. Apr. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9781662601071. $26. LITERARY/SHORT STORIES

Having debuted with The Town of Babylon, recently long-listed for the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction, Varela returns with a collection of interconnected stories focusing with bite and humor on parenting, relationships, racism, and class conflict. Among its characters are a queer man hunting for a partner and a childcare worker in Sweden trying to teach his charges Spanish while carefully observing the well-to-do in his employees’ coop building.

Veteran Thrills

Baldacci, David. Simply Lies. Grand Central. Apr. 2023. 416p. ISBN 9781538750636. $30. lrg. prnt. CD. THRILLER

Clark, Mary Higgins & Alafair Burke. Where Are the Children Now? S. & S. Apr. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781982189419. $27.99. CD. THRILLER

Graham, Heather. Shadow of Death: A Suspense Novel. Mira: Harlequin. Apr. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780778333494. $27.99. THRILLER

Hood, Joshua. Robert Ludlum’s The Treadstone Rendition. Putnam. (Treadstone Novel, Bk. 4). Apr. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9780593419823. $28. CD. THRILLER

Lehane, Dennis. Small Mercies. Harper. Apr. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780062129482. $28.99. lrg. prnt. CD. THRILLER

Robinson, Peter. Standing in the Shadows. Morrow. (Inspector Banks Novel, Bk. 28). Apr. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780062994981. $28.99. lrg. prnt. THRILLER

Sandford, John. Dark Angel. Putnam. (Letty Davenport, Bk. 2). Apr. 2023. 416p. ISBN 9780593422410. $29.95. lrg. prnt. CD. THRILLER

Winslow, Don. City of Dreams. Morrow. Apr. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780062851239. $29.99. lrg. prnt. THRILLER

Blockbuster Baldacci takes a break with Simply Lies, forsaking his various series for the moment to write a stand-alone (a million-copy first printing). In Where Are the Children Now? Burke springboards from the Higgins Clark classic Where Are the Children? as a grown-up Missy and Mike rely on what they learned during their own childhood abduction to rescue Missy’s snatched stepdaughter. In Graham’s Shadow of Death, Amy Larson of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and FBI special agent Hunter Forrest head to Denver to find the lethal doomsday cult they tracked through Danger in Numbers and Crimson Summer. In Robert Ludlum's The Treadstone Rendition, Hood brings back Adam Hayes, who rushes in to help former partner Abdul Nassir and his family, who are terrified of both the Taliban and the rogue CIA contractors gone violent as the United States withdraws from Afghanistan. Mary Pat Fennessey’s teenage daughter goes missing and a young Black man is struck and killed by a subway train on the same steamy night in 1974 Boston, and there are no Small Mercies as Mary Pat’s hunt for Jules riles the Irish mob; following Lehane’s multi-best-booked Since We Fell (150,000-copy first printing). Two cold cases are Standing in the Shadows in this latest from Edgar and CWA Dagger in the Library honoree Robinson; in 1980, Nick Hartley is suspected of killing his ex-girlfriend and spends a lifetime seeking the killer, while in 2019 a modern-day skeleton found at an archaeological dig keeps Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his Yorkshire team busy. In Sandford’s Dark Angel, Lucas Davenport’s adopted daughter Letty poses as a rogue programmer for hire to help the Department of Homeland Security forestall the takeover of Minneapolis’s power grid by some ominous hackers. While facing down angry competitors when he moves to the West Coast and its City of Dreams, young, widowed mob underboss Danny Ryan visits the set of a movie depicting his crew’s involvement in the New England crime war and encounters the actress playing his late wife; following Winslow’s New York Times best-selling series launcher, City on Fire (250,000-copy first printing).

More Top Thrills

Adams, Taylor. The Last Word. Morrow. Apr. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780063222892. $28.99. lrg. prnt. THRILLER

While housesitting on Washington State’s rain-soaked coast, Emma Carpenter writes a highly disparaging review of a horror novel she’s annoyed to have read and gets angry pushback from the author himself. Then weird things start happening that make her wonder if the author is stalking her. The author’s No Exit is now an original HULU film; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Brennan, Allison. Seven Girls Gone. Mira: Harlequin. (Quinn & Costa Thriller, Bk. 4). Apr. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780778333470. $27.99. THRILLER

When St. Augustine, LA, police detective Beau Hebert arrests drug-addled Jean Paul LeBlanc for murder, Jean Paul tries to wriggle off the hook by claiming that he has information about the six women whose disappearance Beau is investigating. Then another woman disappears, Jean Paul is found dead in his cell, and Beau calls in an old Navy Seal friend, now with the FBI, who brings in LAPD detective Kara Quinn and his FBI team manager, Matt Costa. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Hepworth, Sally. The Soulmate. St. Martin’s. Apr. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781250229700. $28.99. CD. THRILLER

Gabe and Pippa Gerard’s new cliffside cottage outside Melbourne seems ideal, except it’s near a spot where people choose to jump to their deaths, and Gabe has talked several people away from the edge. But one jumper succeeds, and Pippa saw Gabe just afterward with arms stretched forward and palms flat out. Could he really have pushed the victim? From the New York Times best-selling author of The Younger Wife; with a 300,000-copy first printing.

Jackson, Joshilyn. With My Little Eye. Morrow. Apr. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780063158658. 28.99. lrg. prnt. THRILLER

Fabulous film star Meribel Mills isn’t bothered by the obsessive letters she receives from a fan writing in scented magic marker—until objects disappear from her house and the letters start featuring images of a tied-up, chopped-up Meribel. She moves herself and her daughter from the West Coast to Atlanta, but to no avail—she knows she’s being watched. From the New York Times best-selling Jackson; with a 150,000-copy first printing.

Jennett, Meagan. You Know Her. MCD: Farrar. Apr. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9780374607098. $28. CD. THRILLER

New to the Bellair (VA) Police Department, Officer Nora Martin is on a case involving a mutilated customer found outside a bar and trying to prove herself to a squad room full of men. She suspects insouciant bartender Sophie Braam, even as other bodies are found, but can’t convince her colleagues that the serial killer haunting their town is a woman. From bartender-turned-novelist Jennett; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Kepnes, Caroline. For You and Only You: A Joe Goldberg Novel. Random. (You, Bk. 4). Apr. 2023. 448p. ISBN 9780593133811. $28. lrg. prnt. THRILLER

Joe Goldberg is back again, involved in the same kind of creepy obsessing that made You a huge hit—and the basis of a Netflix series. Now he’s at Harvard on a writing fellowship, enthusiastic and hopeful until he learns just how elitist the mostly published students in his classes really are. At least there’s Wonder, also unpreppie and unpublished, but why can’t she commit to the writing life?

McLaughlin, James A. Panther Gap. Flatiron: Macmillan. Apr. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9781250821003. $28.99. CD. THRILLER

McLaughlin follows up the Edgar Award–winning Bearskin with the story of two brothers, raised by their father and two uncles on an isolated Colorado ranch, who have grown apart but must reconnect in their thirties owing to a promised inheritance from their grandfather. The inheritance is both illegal and a lot of trouble, bringing on ruthless criminal elements who want it for themselves. With a 125,000-copy first printing.

Medina, Nick. Sisters of the Lost Nation. Berkley. Apr. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780593546857. $27. THRILLER/SUPERNATURAL

Bullied by classmates, Anna Horn must also put up with condescending visitors at her reservation’s casino. But she has worse things on her mind: the reservation is being stalked by some unknown horror, and girls (including her little sister) are rapidly disappearing. Now Anna must act to counter evils old and new threatening those around her. A debut from Medina, of Louisiana’s Tunica-Biloxi Tribe; with a 55,000-copy first printing.

Miranda, Megan. The Only Survivors. Marysue Rucci: Scribner. Apr. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9781668010419. $28; pap. ISBN 9781668020449. $17.99. CD. THRILLER

Ten years after a tragic accident, a group of former classmates gathers to comfort one another and commemorate the event. But when the survivors start disappearing, the remaining classmates start wondering whether that long-ago event didn’t happen by chance. From the New York Times best-selling author of All the Missing Girls.

Mofina, Rick. Everything She Feared: A Suspense Novel. Mira: Harlequin. Apr. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780778333401. pap. $17.99. THRILLER

A teenager plummets to her death, and the mother of the little girl she’s been babysitting wonders whether it was really an accident; the girl’s recent behavior hints at the history of family violence the mother has long denied. Meanwhile, a true-crime podcaster investigating a serial killer just released from prison learns that she left behind a daughter. Any connection? From the USA TODAY best-selling Mofina; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Mullen, Thomas. Blind Spots. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Apr. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781250842749. $ CD. THRILLER

After a virus blinds the world’s entire population, people must rely on a new technology that mimics vision, downloading visual data directly to their brains. But someone is tampering with the technology, blacking out a killer’s actions from witnesses’ “sight.” It’s happened to homicide detective Mark Owens, and now his investigations hinge on the invisible. Mullen’s Lightning Men was short-listed for a CWA Dagger Award; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Sternbergh. Adam. The Eden Test. Flatiron: Macmillan. Apr. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781250855664. $27.99. THRILLER

The Eden Test: it’s a weeklong retreat helping couples undo the knots in their marriage. Daisy is signed up with husband Craig, who’s secretly planning to leave her for another woman, regardless. But Daisy has secrets of her own, with a burner phone to prove it, and the retreat reveals the lies that have underlain this marriage all along. From the author of the Edgar finalist Shovel Ready; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Historical Fiction

Beanland, Rachel. The House Is on Fire. S. & S. Apr. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9781982186142. $27.99. CD. HISTORICAL

In 1811, on the day after Christmas, a theater in Richmond, VA, exploded in flames, as told here from the perspectives of four people. There’s recently widowed Sally Henry Campbell; Cecily Patterson, sitting in what was called the colored gallery; young stagehand Jack Gibson; and, across town, blacksmith Gilbert Hunt, who had hoped to take his wife to the theater once he bought her freedom. Following the NPR best-booked, National Jewish Book Award–winning Florence Adler Swims Forever.

Frazier, Charles. The Trackers. Ecco. Apr. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780062948083. $29.99. lrg. prnt. HISTORICAL

Grateful for a New Deal assignment to create a mural for the Dawes, WY, post office, struggling painter Val Welch is staying at the ranch of wealthy art lover and underhanded political aspirant John Long and his wife, Eve. Eve has a slippery past, having led a transient life singing with a western swing band, and when she vanishes with a pricey painting, John sends Val after her. From famed Cold Mountain author Frazier; with a 150,000-copy first printing.

Joseph, Paterson. The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho. Holt. Apr. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781250880376. $27.99. HISTORICAL

Having survived the Middle Passage on a ship where both his parents died, a young Black man named Charles Ignatius Sancho ends up in 1740s London, studiously avoiding slave catchers while placing his faith in the benevolent duke who taught him to read. Eventually, he will meet the king, compose and play praiseworthy music, become the first Black person to vote in Britain, and lead the fight for abolition. A debut based on real-life events; actor Joseph wrote and starred in a play about Sancho. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Keith, Ellen. The Dutch Orphan. Park Row: Harlequin. Apr. 2023. 352p ISBN 9780778334309. $28.99; pap. ISBN 9780778311966. $17.99. CD. HISTORICAL

During World War II, Dutch singer Johanna Vos helps Jewish musicians by setting up an underground network that facilitates performances in safe settings; she also surreptitiously takes in a Jewish orphan who had been set for deportation. Meanwhile, she’s drawing apart from her sister, Liesbeth, whose husband supports the Nazis. A No. 1 best-selling debut in Canada; with a 150,000-copy paperback and a 10,0000-copy hardcover first printing.

Kelly, Martha Hall. The Golden Doves. Ballantine. Apr. 2023. 528p. ISBN 9780593354889. $28.99. lrg. prnt. CD. HISTORICAL

U.S.-born Josie Anderson and Parisian Arlette LaRue earn the nickname Golden Doves while stealing Nazi secrets for the French Resistance, though they finish off the war at the Ravensbrück concentration camp. After the war, they’re asked to track down the Nazi doctor who tortured Josie’s mother even as they learn that the son taken from Arlette during the war may still be alive. From the author of Lilac Girls, which has sold 1.8 million copies in the United States alone; with a 200,000-copy first printing.

Mackintosh, Sophie. Cursed Bread. Doubleday. Apr. 2023. 208p. ISBN 9780385548304. $28. lrg. prnt. Downloadable. HISTORICAL

In 1951, the residents of the French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit seems collectively to have lost their minds, an event that some historians have attributed to fungus-infected bread. Mackintosh, author of the Man Booker long-listed The Water Cure, reveals her own ideas in her first historical, which centers on the taut relationship between baker’s wife Elodie and the new-in-town ambassador and his wife. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai. Dust Child. Algonquin. Mar. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781643752754. $28. CD. HISTORICAL

In 1969, after Trang and sister Quỳnh become bar girls in Sài Gòn to help their parents pay off debts, Trang becomes involved with a U.S. helicopter pilot. Decades later, a U.S. veteran travels to Việt Nam to face the past, even as Phong—the son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman and therefore disparaged by the Vietnamese as “the dust of life”—wants to find a way to leave his country for the United States. From the author of the internationally best-selling The Mountains Sing; with a 60,000-copy first printing.

Penner, Sarah. The London Séance Society. Park Row: Harlequin. Mar. 2023. 328p. ISBN 9780778387114. $28.99. HISTORICAL

In 1870s Paris, spiritualist Vaudeline D’Allaire famously summons the spirits of murder victims to help identify their killers, and Lenna Wickes seeks her help regarding her own sister’s death. She ends up joining Vaudeline as understudy on an important trip to London, where they join forces with the Séance Society—and realize that they might actually be part of a crime instead of just investigating one. Following the New York Times best-selling The Lost Apothecary; with a 300,000-copy first printing.

Robson, Jennifer. Coronation Year. Morrow. Apr. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780063297104. $28.99; pap. Morrow Paperbacks. ISBN 9780063074149. $17.99. lrg. prnt. HISTORICAL

In 1953 London, Edie Howard has hatched a plan to save her beloved Blue Lion hotel: on the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, her coach will pass directly by the Blue Lion, and Edie can charge her guests exorbitant fees. Already there: Stella Donati, a young Italian photographer and Holocaust survivor in town for work, and James Geddes, an artist and war hero scorned for his Indian ancestry. But anonymous threats could wreck the day. Following the multi-starred Out Darkest Night; with a 150,000 paperback and 30,000 hardcover first printing.

Family, friends, and Lovers

Deveraux, Jude. My Heart Will Find You. Mira: Harlequin. Apr. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780778333487. $27.99. CD. CONTEMPORY

Gray, Anissa. Life and Other Love Songs. Berkley. Apr. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781984802460. $27. FAMILY LIFE

Henry, Emily. Happy Place. Berkley. Apr. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780593441275. $27. CD. ROMANCE

Janowitz, Brenda. The Audrey Hepburn Estate. Graydon House: Harlequin. Apr. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781525819575. $28.99; pap. ISBN 9781525811487. $17.99. CD. CONTEMPORY

McCall Smith, Alexander. The Enigma of Garlic. Anchor. (44 Scotland Street. Bk. 16). Apr. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780593685198. pap. $16. FAMILY LIFE

Novak, Brenda. The Seaside Library. Mira: Harlequin. Apr. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780778334330. $28.99; pap. ISBN 9780778333517. $17.99. CD. CONTEMPORARY

Patterson, Susan, Susan DiLallo, & James Patterson. Things I Wish I Told My Mother. Little, Brown. Apr. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780316406208. $27. lrg. prnt. Downloadable. CONTEMPORARY

Smith, Lee. Silver Alert. Algonquin. Apr. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9781643752419. $27. Downloadable. CD. FAMILY LIFE

Stradal, J. Ryan. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club. Pamela Dorman: Viking. Apr. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9781984881076. $27. lrg. prnt. FAMILY LIFE

In perennial New York Times best-selling Deveraux’s My Heart Will Find You, a young woman stranded in Kansas City by the pandemic agrees to serve as caretaker for an isolated older man and finds a book in his library that leads to vibrant dreams of a life and love in the 1870s that could be real (125,000-copy first printing). Gray’s Life and Other Love Songs, which tracks a Black family from the Great Migration to 1990s New York, opens with Ozro Armstead taking a walk on his 37th birthday when he inexplicably vanishes; following the LibraryReads pick The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls (60,000-copy first printing). Henry features the couple Harriet and Wyn, who aren’t in a Happy Place; they have reluctantly broken up but agree to the pretense that they are still together for their annual getaway with best friends (750,000-copy first printing). Caterer Emma Jansen returns to the bulldozer-ready Long Island estate where she grew up as the estate manager’s daughter and encounters both the family's grandson, whom she loved, and chauffeur’s son Leo, her best buddy; just like Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, hence Janowitz’s title, The Audrey Hepburn Estate (75,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). Beloved author McCall Smith set out to solve The Enigma of Garlic as he revisits the residents of 44 Scotland Street, Edinburgh, with shenanigans set off by excitement over Big Lou and Fat Bob's wedding. Novak convenes three friends at The Seaside Library 20 years after a tragedy altered their lives—but not, it seems, their rediscovered commitment to one another (100,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). Susan Patterson (Big Words for Little Geniuses) and lyricist/librettist DiLallo are joined by mega-best-selling James Patterson with Things I Wish I Told My Mother, the story of a mother and daughter opening up to each other on a Paris vacation (150,000-copy first printing). Celebrated Southern author Smith returns with Silver Alert, featuring a curmudgeonly older man who refuses to let his life dim, instead setting off on a last glorious journey up the Florida Keys with a younger friend bearing secrets of her own (40,000-copy first printing). After the beloved best sellers Kitchens of the Great Midwest and The Lager Queen of Minnesota, Stradal stays Midwestern culinary with Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, featuring husband-and-wife Ned and Mariel Praeger and the crises they face regarding the Minnesota family restaurant businesses each has inherited (100,000-copy first printing).

Nonfiction

Current events

Doyle, Michael W. Cold Peace: Avoiding the New Cold War. Liveright: Norton. Apr. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781631496066. $30. GEOPOLITICS

A professor at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, Doyle highlights cyberwarfare, interventions in foreign elections, and the divisiveness in U.S. politics to show that the United States, China, and Russia are moving toward a second Cold War. He also explains not just why this state of affairs must be avoided—nations worldwide need to work with China on climate change and Russia on nuclear disengagement—but, as his subtitle suggests, how.

Frankopan, Peter. Climate: A Lost History. Knopf. Apr. 2023. 656p. ISBN 9780525659167. $37.50. SCIENCE/WORLD HISTORY

The collapse of South America’s Moche civilization in 700 C.E. owing to El Niño. The advent of the Vikings owing to massive crop failure. Colonial expansion in 1700s North America linked to burgeoning solar flares. Volcanic eruptions that led to the end of the Ottoman Empire. Oxford professor Frankopan (The New Silk Roads) shows how climate change has shaped world history while also arguing that many empires fell because they failed to act sustainably.

Gable, Mona. Searching for Savanna: The Murder of One Native American Woman and the Violence Against the Many. Atria. Apr. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781982153687. $28.99. TRUE CRIME

After pregnant 22-year-old Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind disappeared, the white couple living upstairs from her was spotted with an infant baby girl and subsequently arrested for Savanna’s death; her body was later found in a nearby river. Freelance writer Gable, whose grandmother was a citizen of the Chickasaw Tribe, uses Savanna’s story to highlight the sexual and other physical violence that Indigenous women and girls have faced since colonization and that continues unaddressed today.

Kelly, Mary Louise. It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs. Holt. Apr. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9781250859853. $26.99. PARENTING

When NPR reporter Kelly recalls her efforts to commit more time to her son in his year before going off to college, it’s not just personal. (And not easy; how do you choose between interviewing the secretary of state and attending a soccer game?) The work-life balance she’s addressing is of current concern, particularly with mothers still held to higher standards than fathers. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

Potts, Monica. The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America. Random. Apr. 2023. 272p. ISBN 9780525519911. $28. MEMOIR

Growing up in an impoverished working-class community in the foothills of the Arkansas Ozarks, Potts and best friend Darci dreamed of escape. In the end, only Potts left, returning as a journalist to investigate the steep drop in life expectancy among Arkansas women (and the general collapse of living standards in the rural South). Reconnecting with her old friend, a jobless single mother dependent on meth and prescription drugs, she considers how their lives could have turned out so differently.

Sharpe, Christina. Ordinary Notes. Farrar. Apr. 2023. 392p. ISBN 9780374604486. $35. SOCIAL SCIENCE/BLACK STUDIES

Sharpe follows up In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, a Guardian best-booked title of 2016, with a compendium of 248 notes plumbing the past, the present, and future possibilities, both public and personal, to represent contemporary Black life. While In the Wake was published by an academic press, this new book comes from a commercial press and should win Sharpe more readers. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Slobodian, Quinn. Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy. Metropolitan: Holt. Apr. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9781250753892. $29.99. ECONOMIC HISTORY

Globalization has remapped the world, and with free ports, tax havens, and special economic zones now abounding, ultracapitalists are closer to getting what they want: spaces where they can operate without the control of democratically elected governments. Award-winning author Slobodian (Globalists) moves from the medieval City of London and frontier-day U.S. West to 1970s Hong Kong and right-wing billionaires to track the relentless charge toward free markets without oversight. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Sundaram, Anjan. Breakup: A Marriage in Wartime. Catapult. Apr. 2023. 208p. ISBN 9781646221158. $26. POLITICAL SCIENCE/AFRICA

A multi-award-winning journalist who authored the Amazon best-booked Bad News and Royal African Society best-booked Stringer, Sundaram was at home in Canada in 2013 after 10 years of reporting from central Africa for the New York Times when he heard rumors of the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the Central African Republic following sectarian violence that involved atrocities on both sides. He hastened to the country, where he bore witness to massacre and flight involving hundreds of thousands of Muslims. His book illuminates the ongoing horror of genocides worldwide and the idealism of those reporting them, who often pay a personal price—in Sundaram’s case, the breakup of his marriage.

Zuckoff, Mitchell. The Secret Gate: A True Story of Courage and Sacrifice During the Collapse of Afghanistan. Random. Apr. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9780593594841. $28.99. POLITICAL SCIENCE/WORLD

The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan left author and women’s rights advocate Homeira Qaderi dangerously stranded, and her literary agent reached out to U.S. diplomat Sam Aronson, who had volunteered to help rescue the more than 100,000 Americans and their Afghan helpers still in the country. Aronson had learned about a special entrance established by the CIA two miles from the crowds at Kabul Airport and managed to usher Homeira and her young son through with the help of night-vision goggles, a Dari-speaking colleague, and two security contract “shooters.” Zuckoff, a Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting, is author of the New York Times best-selling 13 Hours.

World History

Carroll, Rory. There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History. Putnam. Apr. 2023. 416p. ISBN 9780593419496. $28. TRUE CRIME

Gordis, Daniel. Impossible Takes Longer: 75 Years After Its Creation, Has Israel Fulfilled Its Founders’ Dreams? Ecco. Apr. 2023. 224p. ISBN 9780063239449. $28.99. HISTORY/MIDDLE EAST

Grann, David. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder. Doubleday. Apr. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780385534260. $30. lrg. prnt. CD/downloadable. TRUE CRIME

Heather, Peter. Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300–1300. Knopf. Apr. 2023. 736p. ISBN 9780451494306. $35. Downloadable. EUROPE

Kundera, Milan. A Kidnapped West: The Tragedy of Central Europe. Harper. Apr. 2023. 112p. tr. from French by Linda Asher. ISBN 9780063272958. $24.99. EUROPE/WESTERN

Larman, Alexander. The Windsors at War: The King, His Brother, and a Family Divided. St. Martin’s. Apr. 2023. 432p. ISBN 9781250284587. $28.99. HISTORY/ROYALTY

Malala, Justice. The Plot to Save South Africa: The Week Mandela Averted Civil War and Forged a New Nation. S. & S. Apr. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9781982149734. $28.99. HISTORY/AFRICA

Mikanowski, Jacob. Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land. Pantheon. Apr. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9781524748500. $30. Downloadable. HISTORY/EUROPE/WESTERN

Smith, Sally Bedell. George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy. Random. 720p. ISBN 9780525511632. $40. CD. HISTORY/ROYALTY

Simon, Steven. Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East. Penguin Pr. Apr. 2023. 480p. ISBN 9780735224247. $32. POLITICAL SCIENCE/MIDDLE EASTERN

Winchester, Simon. Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic. Harper. Apr. 2023. 464p. ISBN 9780063142886. $32.50. lrg. prnt. HISTORY/MODERN

The Guardian’s Ireland correspondent, Carroll chronicles the IRA’s attempt to assassinate Margaret Thatcher in October 1984 in There Will Be Fire. Published on Israel’s 75th anniversary, two-time National Jewish Book Award winner Gordis’s Impossible Takes Longer considers whether Israel’s founders achieved their goal of creating a national homeland that would transform Jewish life (60,000-copy first printing). In 1742, a ship landed on Brazil’s coast with 30 starving men feted as survivors of the wrecked British warship the Wager—until three months later, when three stragglers on another ship landing in Chile claimed the Wager’s men were mutineers; from the No. 1 New York Times best-selling Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon). Chair of medieval history at King's College, London, Heather offers new reasons why Christendom grew from a tiny sect persecuted within foundering fourth-century CE Rome to the religion dominating Europe 1,000 years later. Celebrated Czech novelist Kundera, who has lived in France since 1975, argues that the “small nations” of Europe—e.g., Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Ukraine—are culturally rooted in Europe and under Soviet rule constituted A Kidnapped West (40,000-copy first printing). Following the LJ-starred The Crown in Crisis, which chronicled the Abdication Crisis of 1936, British historian Larman’s The Windsors at War moves on to King George VI and the conflict within the Windsor family during World War II as the Duke of Windsor cozied up to Hitler (40,000-copy first printing). From leading South African political commentator Malala, The Plot To Save South Africa covers the 1993 assassination of Nelson Mandela’s protégé Chris Hani by a white supremacist hoping to ignite a war, even as Mandela had begun power-sharing discussions with President FW de Klerk. Good-bye, Eastern Europe broadly documents the region briefly called Eastern Europe, moving from pre-Christian times through the great empires (Ottoman, Hapsburg, and Russian), the rise of communism and fascism, and the post-Soviet era to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; A Polish-born contributor to the Atlantic, has a PhD in Eastern European history from Berkeley (25,000-copy first printing). Granted special access by Queen Elizabeth II to her parents’ letters and diaries and to the papers of close friends and family, Smith, the New York Times best-selling author of Elizabeth the Queen, aims to show how a loving marriage helped George VI and Elizabeth lead a nation through war (50,000-copy first printing). From Simon, a former senior director for Middle Eastern and North African Affairs on the National Security Council, Grand Delusion tracks the four decades of oil-driven U.S. involvement in the Middle East, begun by the Reagan administration and moving through Desert Storm (which he challenges) to the Obama administration’s step back. The acclaimed Winchester leaps nimbly from cuneiform writings through Gutenberg to Google and Wikipedia as he examines Knowing What We Know—that is, how we acquire, retain, and pass on information—and how technology’s current capability to do those things for us might be threatening our ability to think (100,000-copy first printing).

U.S. History

Cozzens, Peter. A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South. Knopf. 464p. ISBN 9780525659457. $35. lrg. prnt. Downloadable. HISTORY

Egan, Timothy. A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot To Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them. Viking. Apr. 2023. 432p. ISBN 9780735225268. $30. HISTORY

May, Gregory. A Madman’s Will: John Randolph, Four Hundred Slaves, and the Mirage of Freedom. Liveright: Norton. Apr. 2023. 384p. ISBN 9781324092216. $30. HISTORY

Seletzky, Leta McCollough. The Kneeling Man: My Father’s Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Counterpoint. Apr. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781640094727. $27. HISTORY

A retired U.S. Foreign Service officer and prolific author of books about the wars between Indigenous peoples and the U.S. government, Cozzens recounts the early 1800s fighting between the Creek Nation and U.S. government forces (led by first-time combat leader Andrew Jackson)— A Brutal Reckoning that ended with the infamous Trail of Tears. Egan, a New York Times best-selling author, National Book Award winner, and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, examines the terrifying 1920s rise of the Ku Klux Klan, spearheaded by Indiana Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson, and the bravery of Madge Oberholtzer, who countered the Klan at great personal cost inA Fever in the Heartland (75,000-copy first printing). InA Madman’s Will, lawyer/author May ( Jefferson's Treasure) tells the story of Virginia senator John Randolph’s manumission in his will of all 383 people enslaved to him, revealing the senator’s ever-changing attitudes toward slavery and how prejudice from the North blocked freedmen from possessing the land Randolph had promised them. Marrell McCollough, the Black man seen in photographs kneeling next to Martin Luther King Jr. when he was assassinated at Memphis’s Lorraine Motel in 1968, was a member of an activist group in discussion with King—and, as daughter Seletzky painfully reveals in The Kneeling Man, an undercover Memphis police officer reporting on the group’s activities (50,000-copy first printing).

Biography

de Courcy, Anne. Magnificent Rebel: Nancy Cunard in Jazz Age Paris. St. Martin’s. Apr. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781250272560. $29.99. BIOGRAPHY

Draycott, Jane. Cleopatra's Daughter: From Prisoner to Egyptian Queen. Liveright: Norton. Apr. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9781324092599. $32.50. BIOGRAPHY

Rohter, Larry. Into the Amazon: The Life of Cândido Rondon, Trailblazing Explorer, Scientist, Statesman, and Conservationist. Norton. Apr. 2023. 448p. ISBN 9781324021261. $38. BIOGRAPHY

Smith, Richard Norton. An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. Harper. Apr. 2023. 848p. ISBN 9780062684165. $40. BIOGRAPHY

Wallace, Max. After the Miracle: The Political Crusades of Helen Keller. Grand Central. Apr. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9781538707685. $30. Downloadable. BIOGRAPHY

Williams, Chad L. The Wounded World: W.E.B. Du Bois and the First World War. Farrar. Apr. 2023. 544p. ISBN 9780374293154. $30. BIOGRAPHY

In Magnificent Rebel, prolific biographer de Courcy (Chanel’s Riviera) focuses on the 13 years celebrated English socialite, poet, and publisher Nancy Cunard spent in Paris and the five men (among many) with whom she had affairs: writers Ezra Pound, Aldous Huxley, Michael Arlen, and Louis Aragon and jazz pianist Henry Crowder (50,000-copy first printing). Archaeologist and University of Glasgow lecturer Draycott reconstructs the life of Cleopatra’s Daughter, born to Roman Triumvir Marc Antony and Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII and eventually queen of Mauretania, an ancient African kingdom. A former Rio de Janeiro bureau chief for the New York Times, Rohter revisits the life of Indigenous Brazilian explorer, scientist, statesman, and conservationist Cândido Rondon, who guided Theodore Roosevelt Into the Amazon, lay a 1,200-mile telegraph line through the region’s heart, and was thrice nominated for a Nobel Prize. A director of five presidential libraries and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Thomas E. Dewey and His Times, Smith reassesses President Gerald Ford in An Ordinary Man, praising his basic decency and considered decision making as qualities needed in U.S. politics today (40,000-copy first printing). Wallace tells readers plenty they probably don’t know about Helen Keller in After the Miracle: among other things, she blasted Jim Crow laws, Hitler’s rise to power, and Joseph McCarthy; sided with the antifascists during the Spanish Civil War; and raised money to defend Nelson Mandela (50,000-copy first printing). In The Wounded World, Brandeis professor Williams (Torchbearers of Democracy) recounts W.E.B. Du Bois’s two-decade effort to write an account of Black soldiers during World War I; he was bitterly disappointed that supporting the war (which he had urged) did not win Black Americans full rights (50,000-copy first printing).

Memoir

Auder, Alexandra. Don’t Call Me Home: A Memoir. Viking. Apr. 2023. 336p. ISBN 9780593299951. $27. MEMOIR

Born to Warhol star Viva and filmmaker Michel Auder (in the lobby of the famed Chelsea Hotel, no less), Auder spent her childhood swinging from the hotel to her father’s Tribeca loft and her mother’s conservative, upper-crust Connecticut family home while often joining Viva on her gigs. Now an actress and performance artist, Auder recalls a life lived between two magnetic personalities amid New York’s fabled downtown arts scene. With a 25,000-copy first printing.

Aziz, Omer. Brown Boy: A Memoir. Scribner. Apr. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781982136314. $28. CD. MEMOIR

The son of working-class Pakistani Canadian parents, Aziz proved his love of books and belief in education by winning scholarships to Queen’s University in Ontario, Sciences Po in Paris, Cambridge University in England, and Yale Law School in the United States. But as he explains here, he never got over the sense of shame, uncertainty, and powerlessness that comes from being a brown-skinned boy in an elitist white world.

Bilger, Burkhard. Fatherland: A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets. Random. Apr. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780385353984. $28.99. Downloadable. MEMOIR

After World War II, Bilger’s family moved from Germany to Oklahoma, and his mother never spoke of her father. Finally, Bilger, a New Yorker staff writer, learned that his grandfather had been a Nazi Party member, sent to occupied France to turn one village’s children into “proper Germans,” though eventually he sought to protect them. In 1946, he was accused of war crimes. Through research, interviews, and travel, Bilger reconstructs his grandfather’s war activities while asking key questions about truth and responsibility. Big buzz.

Chin, Ava. Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming. Penguin Pr. Apr. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780525557371. $28. MEMOIR

The only child of a single mother who knew nothing about her forebears, Chin spent decades reconstructing her family history. Here, she traces their emigration from China’s Pearl River delta, their work on the transcontinental railroad while facing the racism of frontier towns, and their arrival in New York’s Chinatown, all the while exploring the brutal consequences of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Chin’s LJ best-booked Eating Wildly won the M.F.K. Fisher Award; with a 50,000-copy first printing.

Chin-Quee, Anthony. I Can’t Save You: A Memoir. Riverhead. Apr. 2023. 304p. ISBN 9780593418888. $27. MEMOIR

Chin-Quee describes himself as a "not white, mostly Black, and questionably Asian man" and explains that he grew up dealing with a family history of depression and his own sense of inadequacy. But succeed he did; he’s now a board-certified otolaryngologist. He’s also an award-winning storyteller with the Moth, and as he relates his own life, he argues for the healing and instructive power of storytelling.

Lee, Julia. Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America. Holt. Apr. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9781250824677. $26.99. MEMOIR

The daughter of Korean immigrant store owners in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Los Angeles, Lee was compelled to question issues of identity and complicity following the 1992 race riots, the acquittal of the white police officers who beat Rodney King, and the killing of Black teenager Latasha Harlins by a Korean shopkeeper. She started getting answers as a PhD student in English literature who found her inspiration not in Jane Austen but in authors like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

McDonell, Terry. Irma: The Education of a Mother’s Son. Harper. Apr. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9780063277977. $24.99. MEMOIR

Over the last five decades, McDonnell has proved himself as a publishing executive (e.g., as editor in chief of Esquire) a writer (e.g., the novel California Bloodstock). Here he relates his realization that all these accomplishments were made possible by his mother, Irma, who was widowed young and raised him self-effacingly but with toughness and smarts to make his own life. With a 35,000-copy first printing.

Rosen, Jonathan. The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions. Penguin Pr. Apr. 2023. 560p. ISBN 9781594206573. $32. MEMOIR

Rosen tells the story of his closest childhood friend, Michael Laudor, who graduated summa cum laude from college, then suffered a psychotic break that landed him in a psychiatric hospital with the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. As reported in the New York Times and a memoir whose film rights were acquired by Ron Howard, Michael overcame adversity and graduated from Yale Law School. Then, as his illness resurfaced, he stabbed his devoted girlfriend Carrie Costello to death. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Wallace, Daniel. This Isn’t Going To End Well: The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew. Algonquin. Apr. 2023. 224p. ISBN 9781643752105. $28. Downloadable. CD. MEMOIR

Author of the celebrated Big Fish, basis of the movie and musical, novelist Wallace turns to nonfiction in this account of his gifted friend and brother-in-law, William Nealy. Both devastated and angry when famed cartoonist/outdoorsman Nealy took his own life at age 48, Wallace committed his own act of betrayal, which finally led him to Nealy’s hidden pain and a new view of Nealy’s life. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Fine Arts, Performing Arts & Literature

Balint, Benjamin. Bruno Schulz: An Artist, a Murder, and the Hijacking of History. Norton. Apr. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780393866575. $30. BIOGRAPHY/FINE ARTS

Bellamy, Bill. Top Billin’: Stories of Laughter, Lessons, and Triumph. Amistad: Harper Collins. Apr. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9780063237629. $27.99. MEMOIR

Dederer, Claire. Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma. Knopf. Apr. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780525655114. $28. LITERARY CRITICISM

Dern, Laura & Diane Ladd. Honey, Baby, Mine. Grand Central. Apr. 2023. 272p. ISBN 9781538720370. $30. lrg. prnt. CD. MEMOIR/PERFORMING ARTS

Durkee, Lee. Stalking Shakespeare: A Memoir of Madness, Murder, and My Search for the Poet Beneath the Paint. Scribner. Apr. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9781982127145. $28. CD. MEMOIR/LITERARY

Greenfield, Robert. True West: Sam Shepard’s Life, Work, and Times. Crown. Apr. 2023. 464p. ISBN 9780525575955. $30. Downloadable. BIOGRAPHY/PERFORMING ARTS

Jowitt, Deborah. Errand into the Maze: The Life and Works of Martha Graham. Farrar. Apr. 2023. 480p. ISBN 9780374280628. $35. BIOGRAPHY/DANCE

Schoenberger, Nancy. Blanche: The Life and Times of Tennessee Williams’s Greatest Creation. Harper. Apr. 2023. 240p. ISBN 9780062947178. $28.99. LITERARY CRITICISM

Spiegelman, Willard. Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt. Knopf. Feb. 2023. 432p. ISBN 9780525658269. $35. BIOGRAPHY/LITERATURE

With Bruno Schulz, the Sami Rohr Prize–winning Balint revisits the celebrated Polish Jewish author/artist, focusing on the rediscovery of murals Schulz was compelled to paint at an SS villa and the question raised when they were smuggled to Jerusalem: who can claim the legacy of those, like Schulz, who perished in the Holocaust? Actor, stand-up comedian, and significant MTV player since its inception, Bellamy talks about quitting his corporate job and smashing race and class barriers as he rose to Top Billin’ in the entertainment industry (100,000-copy first printing). An expansion of New York Times best-selling memoirist Dederer’s viral Paris Review essay, "What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?" Monsters considers whether genius gives male artists from Polanski to Picasso the license for malicious behavior and whether male and female monstrosity are the same (35,000-copy first printing). With Honey, Baby, Mine, celebrated actress Dern and her equally celebrated mother Ladd share intimate conversations they’ve had, sparked by Ladd’s illness (500,000-copy first printing). After his divorce, Mississippi novelist Durkee sneaked off to a fishing shack in Vermont and started Stalking Shakespeare, facing down know-it-all curators as he looked for a portrait of the Bard that could verifiably be shown to have been painted from life. A novelist, playwright, and biographer of Jerry Garcia and Timothy Leary, Greenfield takes a long look at multi-Obie-winning playwright, actor, and director Sam Shepard in True West (40,000-copy first printing). An esteemed dance critic who wrote for the Village Voice for over four decades, Jowitt limns the life and works of groundbreaking modern dance choreographer Martha Graham in the smartly named Errand into the Maze; it’s the title of one of Graham’s best-known pieces (20,000-copy first printing). Prize-winning poet Schoenberger, also author of Dangerous Muse: The Life of Lady Caroline Blackwood, does a deep dive into the character of Tennessee Williams’s iconic Blanche from A Streetcar Named Desire (40,000-copy first printing). In Nothing Stays Put, Wall Street Journal contributor Spiegelman unearths the life of Amy Clampitt, a celebrated poet (and personal favorite) who published her first of five acclaimed collections when she was 63 and went on to win a MacArthur fellowship.