Here are all the February 2024 Prepub Alerts in one place, plus a downloadable spreadsheet of all titles from every post.

Fiction

Mystery

Armstrong, Kelley. The Boy Who Cried Bear: A Haven’s Rock Novel. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. (Haven’s Rock, Bk. 2). Feb. 2024. 352p. ISBN 9781250865441. $28. Downloadable. MYSTERY

The youngest resident of Haven’s Rock, an off-the grid Canadian town where Det. Casey Duncan presides, Max is certain that a bear is tracking a hiking party that’s entered the woods. As Casey and her sheriff husband know, the woods are dangerous for the uninitiated, and Max insists that this bear has human eyes. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Beaton, M.C., with R.W. Green. Death of a Spy. Grand Central. Feb. 2024. (Hamish Macbeth Mystery). 256p. ISBN 9781538743300. $28. lrg. prnt. Downloadable. MYSTERY

In the Scottish Highlands village of Lochdubh, Sgt. Hamish Macbeth has a new assistant officer: U.S. policeman James Bland. Ostensibly, he’s there to study Scottish policing methods, but actually he’s been tracking down the remaining members of a spy ring with links to Russia. Green has won praise for successfully taking over the late Beaton’s durable series; with a 60,000-copy first printing.

Dovalpage, Teresa. Last Seen in Havana. Soho Crime. (Havana Mystery, Bk. 4). Feb. 2024. 350p. ISBN 9781641295390. $27.95. MYSTERY

Newly widowed baker Mercedes Spivey returns to her native Cuba from Miami to care for an ailing grandparent with a second goal in mind: to discover what happened to her mother, who disappeared when Mercedes was a child. Paralleling Mercedes’s search is the story of her mother, a U.S. college student who fell in love with a Cuban soldier on a trip to the island and decided to stay. From the Herralde-winning Cuban American author.

Miller, C.L. The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder. Atria. Feb. 2024. 320p. ISBN 9781668032008. $27.99. MYSTERY

Former antiques hunter Freya Lockwood is estranged from her mentor, dealer Arthur Crockleford, and hasn’t returned to her English hometown in 20 years. Now Arthur has died under mysterious circumstances, and Frey joins forces with offbeat Aunt Carole to find out what’s afoot. Debuter Miller started her publishing career as assistant to her mother, Judith Miller, on The Miller’s Antique Price Guide.

Spufford, Francis. Cahokia Jazz. Scribner. Feb. 2024. 464p. ISBN 9781668025451. $28. MYSTERY

In an alternate 1920s United States, a corpse is discovered on the roof of a skyscraper. Another straightforward hunt for a killer? Not when the setting is Cahokia, the ancient Indigenous city on the Mississippi that has somehow endured, now flourishing as a vast industrial metropolis vibrant with the sound of jazz and claiming people of every race and creed.

Stevenson, Benjamin. Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect. Mariner: HarperCollins. Jan. 2024. 368p. ISBN 9780063279070. $30. lrg. prnt. MYSTERY

Following the well-received Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, Australian comedian Stevenson puts newbie mystery writer Ernest Cunningham aboard the Ghan, the train running the 1,846 miles between Darwin and Adelaide, for a crime-writing festival held by the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society. Then someone is murdered, and surely all those mystery authors, agents, editors, and fans have the chops to solve the case.

Yamashita, Iris. Village in the Dark. Berkley. Feb. 2024. 228p. ISBN 9780593336700. $28. Downloadable. MYSTERY

Over a year ago, the husband and son of Anchorage detective Cara Kennedy died while hiking, their bones eventually found and buried. Now, with evidence suggesting that they might have been victims of foul play, their remains are being unearthed. The case is connected to Mia Upash, who was raised in a remote village sheltering women and children from abusive men and has now entered the unsettling larger world carrying secrets of her own.

Literary

Crummey, Michael. The Adversary. Doubleday. Feb. 2024. 336p. ISBN 9780385550321. $29. LITERARY

On Newfoundland’s remote northern shore, the Widow Caines rushes in to sabotage Abe Strapp’s plans to marry the daughter of a rival merchant, which would have solidified his power base. It’s just the beginning of a battle to dominate the dwindling resources of the North Atlantic fishery while delivering revenge for slights past. From Giller/Governor-General’s/IMPAC shortlisted Crummey.

Gallagher, Matt. Daybreak. Atria. Feb. 2024. 256p. ISBN 9781501177859. $26.99. LITERARY

U.S. army veteran Luke “Pax” Paxton has been stumbling along for a decade when an old army buddy suggests that they go to Ukraine to help counter the Russian invasion. His motives aren’t all humanitarian: he wants to find a Ukrainian woman named Svitlana he knew from his soldiering days. From U.S. veteran Gallagher (Youngblood), the 2022 Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum writer-in-residence.

Hunt, Laird. Float Up, Sing Down: Stories. Bloomsbury. Feb. 2024. 224p. ISBN 9781639730100. $26.99. LITERARY

On a single midsummer day in 1982 rural Indiana, people go about their business, with older residents recalling the past joys and sorrows of lives shaped by the world wars and younger residents experiencing the first thrill of love or independence. Meanwhile, everyone ponders troubled but beloved outsider Irma Ray. As Hunt is a National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award finalist, plus a two-time Anisfield-Wolf Award winner, expect to be intrigued.

Johansson, Hanna. Antiquity. Catapult. Feb. 2024. NAp. tr. from Swedish by Kira Josefsson. ISBN 9781646221714. $26. LITERARY

A thirtyish unnamed narrator falls hard for a glamorous older artist she interviews for a magazine and is promptly invited to visit her on the Greek island where she summers. There, she finds herself more and more attracted to her host’s teenage daughter. Billed as a queer Lolita; Swedish author Johansson won the 2021 Katapultpris for this debut.

Kashiwai, Hisashi. The Kamogawa Food Detectives. Putnam. Feb. 2024. 240p. tr. from Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood. ISBN 9780593717714. $25. LITERARY

If you like Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s internationally best-selling “Before the Coffee Gets Cold,” you’ll likely be interested in this first in a best-selling Japanese series about a father-daughter cooking team. They don’t just deliver elegant cuisinde, they act as food detectives, re-creating meals that their customers describe from long-ago memories.

Kumar, Amitava. My Beloved Life. Knopf. Feb. 2024. 352p. ISBN 9780593536063. $29. LITERARY

Born in an Indian village in 1935 after his mother survives a cobra bite while pregnant, Jadunath Kunwar goes on to lead what might be called an ordinary life. Yet he becomes a historian; meets poets, politicians, and even the sherpa who first summited Everest; and continues learning from a daughter who becomes a television journalist in the United States. The story of how each life can be luminous; from the author of Immigrant, Montana, a New Yorker Best Book.

McCorkle, Jill. Old Crimes. Algonquin: Workman: Hachette. Jan. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9781616209735. $27. Downloadable. LITERARY

Beloved author McCorkle (the multi-starred Hieroglyphics) returns with a collection of stories about characters dealing sometimes inventively with unexpected hardship. A woman finds comfort in her slow hearing loss because it means she can avoid listening to her husband’s caustic comments, while a telephone lineman feeling lost in the digital world turns to his family for support.

Murata, Kiyoko. A Woman of Pleasure. Counterpoint. Feb. 2024. 320p. tr. from Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter. ISBN 9781640095793. pap. $17.95. LITERARY

In the early 1900s, 15-year-old Aoi Ichi is sold to the most exclusive brothel in Kumamoto, Japan, and soon becomes a protégée of an oiran, the brothel’s highest-ranking courtesan. Meanwhile, she’s trained in writing and clear thinking by a diligent teacher, and eventually the women at the brothel go on strike. Drawing on real-life events, the multi-award-winning Murata (e.g., Akutagawa Prize) gets her first English-language translation.

Theroux, Paul. Burma Sahib. Mariner: HarperCollins. Feb. 2024. 352p. ISBN 9780063297548. $30. CD. LITERARY

In Theroux’s latest, 19-year-old Eton graduate Eric Blair sets sail in 1922 for India, where (much to his consternation) he must train for three years as a servant of the British Empire, eventually overseeing the local policemen in Burma. He steers his way through the empire’s class and racial strictures and returns home to become George Orwell. One celebrated author takes on another.

Literary Debuts

Croft, Jennifer. The Extinction of Irena Rey. Bloomsbury. Feb. 2024. 288p. ISBN 9781639731701. $28.99. LITERARY

In this first novel from International Booker Prize–winning translator Croft, eight translators gather at the home of celebrated author Irena Rey in Poland’s primeval forest to work on her magnum opus, Gray Eminence. But soon she disappears, and even as they hunt for her, finding clues in her text and her elegant, enticing belongings, rivalries among them impede their efforts.

Oliver, Diane. Neighbors and Other Stories. Grove. Feb. 2024. 272p. ISBN 9780802161314. $28. LITERARY

The first Black student at a newly integrated college finds herself literally disappearing, an older sister frets over a brother set to desegregate his school, and an interracial couple struggles with the hostility of those around them. Not surprisingly, Oliver’s debut collection deals with racism in the 1950s–60s, as it was her era; tragically, she died in 1966 at age 22, with this collection resurrecting the stories she left behind to assure her a place in U.S. literary history.

Outen, Karen. Dixon, Descending. Dutton. Feb. 2024. 336p. ISBN 9780593473450. $28. LITERARY

An Olympic-level runner who missed getting on the team by two-tenths of a second, Dixon has since been careful not to become too obsessed with any project. Then his brother suggests that they seek to become the first Black American men to summit Mount Everest, and Dixon leaves behind family, friends, and his school psychologist job to face a tragedy on the mountain that will reshape his life. From Rona Jaffe recipient Outen.

Ruiz-Grossman, Sarah. A Fire So Wild. HarperCollins. Feb. 2024. 208p. ISBN 9780063305427. $25.99. CD. LITERARY

A savage wildfire is bearing down on Berkeley, CA, but it’s not the only fire raging. Social issues are surfaced here as a wealthy white woman throws a party in a hillside mansion to raise money for the city’s newest affordable housing project, even as construction worker Sunny sleeps in a van and hopes to secure an apartment in the project—as long as low-income rentals are subsidized. From a former HuffPost reporter.

Thrillers

Blake, Matthew. Anna O. Harper. Jan. 2024. 448p. ISBN 9780063314153. $30. CD. THRILLER

Forensic psychologist Benedict Prince is tending to an unusual patient: Anna Ogilvy stabbed two people to death, evidently while sleepwalking, and hasn’t awakened since. Neurologists would say she has resignation syndrome, and Benedict’s job is to rouse her so that she can stand trial. Blake, who’s been writing horror, gets a buzzy 200,00-copy first printing.

Dean, Abigail. Day One. Viking. Feb. 2024. 368p. ISBN 9780593295878. $29. THRILLER

A lone gunman blasts away during a primary-school play in a charming Lake District village, and conspiracy theories erupt thereafter. At the center of the chaos stand Marty, beloved daughter of a teacher who was killed, and outsider Trent, attracted to the conspiracies. British author Dean debuted with the New York Times best-selling Girl A.

Frick, Kit. The Split. Emily Bestler: Atria. Feb. 2024. 256p. ISBN 9781668022474. $27. THRILLER

When flighty Esme calls rock-steady older sister Jane amid a torrential storm, asking to be picked up in the city (she’s just dumped her husband), Jane refuses—and is guilt-stricken when Esme subsequently goes missing. But wait, there’s an alternative narrative, with Jane dutifully lugging home an unappreciative Esme as tensions between them streak to breakpoint. From ITW finalist Frick, for the YA novel I Killed Zoe Spanos.

Landau, A.J. Leave No Trace: A National Parks Thriller. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Feb. 2024. 320p. ISBN 9781250877338. $28. THRILLER

When the Statue of Liberty succumbs to a terrorist attack, Special Agent Michael Walker of the National Park Service is sent to New York to head the investigation but discovers that FBI agent Gina Delgado is instead in charge. Then Michael finds a young survivor of the initial attack with a crucial video that could expose the culprits. Landau is the pseudonym of prolific thriller writer Jon Land and Jeff Ayers, librarian, longtime LJ reviewer, and co-executive director of ThrillerFest.

Lief, Katia. Invisible Woman. Atlantic Monthly. Feb. 2024. 272p. ISBN 9780802161406. $27. THRILLER

Once a groundbreaking filmmaker, Joni Ackerman gave it all up to raise a family with husband Paul, a television bigwig. Now scandal is breaking around a Hollywood luminary that recalls a painful secret involving Joni’s long-estranged friend Val, and Joni, Paul, and Val have different ideas about whether that secret should will out. From Mary Higgins Clark Award nominee Lief.

Mullen, Thomas. The Rumor Game. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Feb. 2024. 368p. ISBN 9781250842770. $28. Downloadable. THRILLER

In 1943 Boston, journalist Anne Lemire decides to go beyond the rumors she’s tasked with reporting (are Nazis really poisoning the local lobsters?) by investigating whether local businesses are spreading Nazi propaganda. Her efforts bring her face to face with FBI Special Agent Devon Mulvey, and they end up wrestling with espionage, organized crime, and domestic fascism. With a 75,000-copy first printing; from the CWA short-listed author of Lightning Men.

Paris, B.A. The Guest. St. Martin’s. Feb. 2024. 320p. ISBN 9781250289421. $29. CD/downloadable. THRILLER

Iris and Gabriel should be happy at their lovely country home, but Gabriel is shaken by the death of a young man at the nearby quarry even as friend Laure arrives from Paris and spookily takes over their lives, having walked out on a cheating husband who won’t return their calls. From the New York Times best-selling Paris; with a 200,000-copy first printing.

Ryan, Hank Phillippi. One Wrong Word. Forge. Feb. 2024. 352p. ISBN 9781250849496. $28.99. Downloadable. THRILLER

Accused of having an affair with a client, public relations fixer Arden Ward has only two weeks to repair the damage before her career crumbles, and she gratefully takes on a Boston real estate mogul charged in a drunk driving accident. Though Ned was acquitted, his reputation is in ruins. Then the case takes a wicked turn. With a 50,000-copy first printing; Ryan is a six-time Agatha and 37-time Emmy award winner.

Thriller Series

Berry, Steve. The Atlas Maneuver. Grand Central. Feb. 2024. 400p. ISBN 9781538721032. $30. lrg. prnt. CD. THRILLER

Box, C.J. Three-Inch Teeth. Putnam. (Joe Pickett Bk. 24). Feb. 2024. 384p. ISBN 9780593331347. $30. lrg. prnt. THRILLER

Downing, David. Union Station. Soho Crime. Feb. 2024. 408p. ISBN 9781641293570. $27.95. THRILLER

Greaney, Mark. The Chaos Agent. Berkley. (Gray Man, Bk. 13). 528p. ISBN 9780593548141. $30. THRILLER

Grippando, James. Goodbye Girl. HarperCollins. (Jack Swyteck, Bk. 18). Jan. 2024. 352p. ISBN 9780063223844. $30. lrg. prnt. THRILLER

Hurwitz, Gregg. Lone Wolf. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. (Orphan X, Bk. 9). Feb. 2024. 400p. ISBN 9781250871732. $29. CD/downloadable. THRILLER

Kellerman, Jonathan. The Ghost Orchid: An Alex Delaware Novel. Ballantine. (Alex Delaware Novel). 304p. ISBN 9780593497678. $30. lrg. prnt. CD. THRILLER

Lawson, Mike. Kingpin. Atlantic Monthly. Feb. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9780802160881. $27. THRILLER

Patterson, James & Brian Sitts. Holmes, Miss Marple & Poe Investigations. Little, Brown. Jan. 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780316405195. $30. lrg. prnt. CD/downloadable. THRILLER

Petrie, Nick. The Price You Pay. Putnam. (A Peter Ash Novel, Bk. 8). Feb. 2024. 432p. ISBN 9780593540558. $28. THRILLER

Young, Erin. Original Sins. Flatiron: Macmillan. Feb. 2024. 352p. ISBN 9781250799425. $28.99. CD/downloadable. THRILLER

In Berry’s The Atlas Maneuver, retired Justice Department operative Cotton Malone is caught between the CIA and the world’s oldest bank in a battle involving the Black Eagle Trust, which holds treasure buried in the Philippines by Japanese soldiers at the end of World War II and recovered shortly thereafter by the U.S. government (250,000-copy first printing). A man released from prison with revenge on his mind goes after Joe Pickett (among others), using a raging grizzly bear’s multiple attacks as a cover (hence those Three-Inch Teeth in Box’s title). In Union Station, a sequel to Downing’s “Station” books (one of the publisher’s best-selling series), British journalist and former spy John Russell, now in 1950s Los Angeles, suspects he’s being followed—but is it because of something in his past or his current research on U.S. businesses that dealt with the Nazis? In Greaney’s The Chaos Agent, robotics and AI experts are being systematically dispatched—perhaps to eliminate competition, perhaps to commandeer AI military prowess—and the so-called Gray Man’s refusal to investigate doesn’t matter; he and a lover seeking to live quietly under assumed identities are still targeted by assassins. In Grippando’s Goodbye Girl, Jack Swyteck’s latest client is Grammy-winning popstar Imani Nichols, who urges fans to pirate her music because her royalties go mostly to ex-husband Shaky Nichols; the result is blazing litigation and the indictment of both for the long-ago murder of Imani’s extramarital lover (50,000-copy first printing). A former black-ops government assassin known as Orphan X, Hurwitz's Evan Smoak fled the program and now works underground to help those truly in need—in Lone Wolf, a girl searching for her dog, though this sweet little case blows up into his biggest yet (200,000-copy first printing). When the bodies of Italian playboy Gio Aggiunta and rich-as-Croesus married neighbor Meagin March are found floating in a pool on the grounds of a Bel Air estate, LAPD homicide lieutenant Milo Sturgis calls on psychologist Alex Delaware for insight in Kellerman's The Ghost Orchid. In Kingpin, the latest from Edgar and Barry Award finalist Lawson, Washington, DC, troubleshooter Joe DeMarco investigates the suspicious death of an intern for former Speaker of the House John Mahoney, who’s found dead of an apparent overdose just before releasing a report condemning a group of politicians for taking bribes. With previous coauthor Sitts, Patterson launches a new series featuring Holmes, Miss Marple & Poe Investigations, a New York detective agency boasting brainy Brendan Holmes, sly if charming Margaret Maple, and weapons expert Auguste Poe, whose headlines-grabbing endeavors also grab the attention of NYPD Detective Helene Grey. In Petrie’s The Price You Pay, veteran Peter Ash is helping loyal friend Lewis get beyond the criminal life by tracking down an associate, but all they find is a burnt-down cabin—with notebooks that could incriminate Lewis, who is now unaccounted for (originally scheduled for June 2023 as The Heavy Lift). Following Young’s The Fields, a Glamour Best Book and Amazon Editor’s Pick, Original Sins finds FBI rookie Riley Fisher intuiting a connection between death threats against the newly elected Iowa female state governor and a serial attacker called the Sin Eater who’s rampaging about Des Moines.

Thriller Debuts

Barker-White, Eleanor. My Name Was Eden. Morrow. Feb. 2024. ISBN 9780063341296. $28. THRILLER

Home from the hospital after having miraculously survived a near-drowning, teenage Eden is acting strangely. She’s well behaved and charming and suddenly starts calling herself Eli—the name her mother had intended to give Eden’s unborn twin sister. What’s happening? From British-based author Barker-White.

Hollander, Jenny. Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead. Minotaur: St. Martin’s. Feb. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9781250890849. $28. Downloadable. THRILLER

Nine years ago, Charlie Colbert fled a bloody scene at her elite journalism school on Christmas Eve, more culpable than she’s willing to admit. She’s since built a career as editor in chief of a major magazine but then learns that a film is being made that promises to reveal the truth about the event. Now she’ll protect herself at any cost. With a 200,000-copy first printing; Hollander is director of content strategy at Marie Claire.

Sierra, Tracy. Nightwatching. Pamela Dorman: Viking. Feb. 2024. 368p. ISBN 9780593654767. $29. THRILLER

One night, hearing heavy footsteps on the stairs, a mother hustles her children into a secret room in the oldest part of the house, hidden behind a wall. As the intruder hunts for them, trying to entice the children with sweet promises, she recognizes who he is and, as the survivor of a crime no one acknowledges, the gravity of the danger she faces. Preempted by Scott Free Productions, Ridley Scott’s company.

Pop Fiction

Burke, James Lee. Harbor Lights. Atlantic Monthly. Jan. 2024. 368p. ISBN 9780802160966. $28.SHORT STORIES

Hannah, Kristin. The Women. St. Martin’s. Feb. 2024. 480p. ISBN 9781250178633. $30. CD/downloadable. POP

Kapelke-Dale, Rachel. The Fortune Seller. St. Martin’s. Feb. 2024. 320p. ISBN 9781250286130. $29. Downloadable. POP

Martin, Valerie. Mrs. Gulliver. Doubleday. Feb. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9780385549950. $28. POP

Williams, Tia. A Love Song for Ricki Wilde. Grand Central. Feb. 2024. 352p. ISBN 9781538726709. $29. Downloadable. ROMANCE

In the New York Times best-selling Burke’s Harbor Lights, a story collection following the multi-starred Flags on the Bayou, characters range from a father and son watching the sinking of a German submarine to a young woman attacked outside a bar even as her father wrestles with new love and vicious threats from neo-Nazis. In No. 1 New York Times best-selling Hannah’s The Women, good-girl nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows her brother to Vietnam but finds herself unprepared for the brutality of war and the tumult of a divided United States when she returns home (one-million-copy first printing). Following the brightly received The Ingenue, Kapelke-Dale’s The Fortune Seller features middle-class Rosie Macalister, not altogether comfortable with her wealthy friends on the Yale equestrian team and further unsettled by a remarkable new rider (and tarot card reader) who suddenly appears on the team after Rosie’s junior year abroad (50,000-copy first printing). On a remote tropical island in the 1950s, beautiful, blind Carità Bercy insists on entering the brothel run by Mrs. Gulliver, where a wealthy young client falls recklessly in love with her; from Kafka/Orange–winning Martin. Following the Reese Witherspoon Bookclub pick Seven Days in June, Williams’s A Love Song for Ricki Wilde features a freewheeling young woman who leaves behind her stuffy Atlanta family for a contemporary New York still echoing with the Harlem Renaissance and meets a handsome stranger who will change her life.

Pop Fiction Debuts

Churchill, Amanda. The Turtle House. Harper. Feb. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9780063290518. $30. FAMILY

In spring 1999, young architect Lia Cope returns to her small-town Texas home with no explanation and ends up in nightly conversations with her grandmother Mineko, who came to Texas as a Japanese war bride and now speaks wistfully of the man she left behind and the Turtle House, where their relationship unfolded. Big in-house love.

Dameron, DéLana R.A. Redwood Court. Dial. Feb. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9780593447024. $28. Downloadable. FAMILY

On Redwood Court, a cul-de-sac in a Black, working-class suburb of Columbia, SC, Mika Tabor lives with a family that includes her retired grandparents, who proudly bought the house in the 1960s; her parents, burned out from working multiple jobs; and a sassy older sister. And has Mika got stories to tell. A heart-warmer from award-winning poet Dameron.

Gray, Madeleine. Green Dot. Holt. Feb. 2024. 320p. ISBN 9781250890597. $27.99. CD/downloadable. RELATIONSHIPS

Inchoate and uncertain of her future at age 24, Hera has a job moderating the comments section of an online news outlet. That’s how she meets middle-aged journalist Arthur, with whom she falls messily in love. From a multi-award finalist Australian critic, this debut was preempted in Australia, the UK, and the United States. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Love, Ryan. Arthur and Teddy Are Coming Out. HQ. Feb 2024. 336p. ISBN 9780008647636. pap. $18.99. FAMILY

At 79, Arthur Edwards is about to drop a bombshell on his family: he’s gay, and he’s not going to stay in the closet anymore. At 21, Arthur’s grandson Teddy isn’t yet ready to reveal to everyone that he’s gay, too, but he and his grandfather draw ever closer as they help each other negotiate new lives and new loves. From British journalist Love; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Reilly, Rebecca K. Greta & Valdin. Avid Reader: S. & S. Feb. 2024. 352p. ISBN 9781668028049. $28. RELATIONSHIPS

The only Maaori at his office, Valdin has been moping since his boyfriend left him and moved to Buenos Aires. Now he’s living with sister Greta, who is plagued by boyfriend problems of her own and an incomplete and possibly irrelevant master’s thesis to boot. And then work sends Valdin to Buenos Aires. A New Zealand best seller from award-winning Maaori novelist Reilly (Ngaati Hine, Ngaati Rehua Ngaatiwai ki Aotea).

Saintclare, Celine. Sugar, Baby. Bloomsbury. Jan. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9781639732463. $27.99. RELATIONSHIPS

Biracial Agnes leads a ho-hum life working as a cleaner until a chance meeting draws her into the world of sugar babies, most often women who date rich older men for money. Life is glamorous, but she’s still not feeling fulfilled. Of English and Caribbean descent, UK-based Saintclare was long-listed for the Penguin Random House WriteNow; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Tomlinson, Sarah. The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers. Flatiron: Macmillan. Feb. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9781250890481. $28.99. Downloadable. RELATIONSHIPS

Back in the day, style-setting model Anke Berben had affairs with three members of the explosively popular rock band the Midnight Ramblers and even married its founder, whose 1969 death still begs questions. Now she’s hired Mari Hawthorn to ghostwrite her memoir, and Mari is trying hard not to get sucked in by the glamour. With a 100,000-copy first printing; from former music journalist Tomlinson.

Historical Fiction

Choo, Yangsze. The Fox Wife. Holt. Feb. 2024. 400p. ISBN 9781250266019. $27.99. CD/downloadable. HISTORICAL

Howes, Emily. The Painter’s Daughters. S. & S. Feb. 2024. 320p. ISBN 9781668021385. $27.99. HISTORICAL

Livesey, Margot. The Road from Belhaven. Knopf. Feb. 2024. 272p. ISBN 9780593537046. $28. Downloadable. HISTORICAL

Oliveira, Robin. A Wild and Heavenly Place. Putnam. Feb. 2024. 416p. ISBN 9780593543856. 28. HISTORICAL

Pataki, Allison. Finding Margaret Fuller. Ballantine. Feb. 2024. 416p. ISBN 9780593600238. $30. HISTORICAL

Quin, Eilish. Medea. Atria. Feb. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9781668020760. $27. HISTORICAL

Williams, Phillip B. Ours. Viking. Feb. 2024. 592p. ISBN 9780593654828. $32. HISTORICAL

Williams, Sheila. No Better Time. Amistad: HarperCollins. Feb. 2024. 288p. ISBN 9780063307933. $30. HISTORICAL

In Choo’s 1908 Manchuria–set The Fox Wife, a young woman found dead in the snow is thought to be the victim of foxes who transform themselves into beautiful humans to lure the unsuspecting to their deaths; following the Netflix-slated The Ghost Bride and The Night Tiger, a Reese’s pick. In 1700s England, Peggy and Molly Gainsborough—The Painter’s Daughters—run wild even as Peggy struggles ever harder to hide her sister’s periodic bouts of blankness and disassociation; from debuter Howes. In 19th-century Scotland, Lizzie Craig has the gift of sight, but it doesn’t warn her away from trouble when she follows charming Louis along The Road from Belhaven; Livesey follows up The Boys in the Field, a New York Times Notable Book. Raising a younger sister in a late 1800s Glasgow tenement, Samuel Fiddes befriends wealthy Hailey MacIntyre after rescuing her brother from a runaway carriage, then follows her to nascent Seattle—reputedly A Wild and Heavenly Place—when she moves there following her family’s bankruptcy; from Oliveira, author of the New York Times best-selling My Name Is Mary Sutter. In Finding Margaret Fuller, the New York Times best-selling Pataki follows the fiery Fuller from her association with the Transcendentalists to her Boston salon for women, her work as the first female foreign news correspondent, and her dangerous liaison with a Roman count. Like many others recently, debuter Quin reimagines the women of Greek mythology, though here she takes on a tough protagonist: the witch Medea, who vengefully murdered her children. In the mid-1800s, a fierce woman named Saint sweeps through Arkansas, destroying plantations as she rescues the enslaved and hides them in a town outside St. Louis named Ours, which outsiders cannot see; from the Kate Tufts/Lambda–winning Williams. Like Kais Alderson’s Sisters in Arms, No Better Time tells the story of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only all-Black battalion of the Women’s Army Corps during World War II, with Williams following Spelman graduate and librarian Dorothy Thom from basic training through a rough North Atlantic crossing to service in England and France.

Speculative Fiction

Arden, Katharine. The Warm Hands of Ghosts. Del Rey: Ballantine. Feb. 2024. 336p. ISBN 9780593128251. $28.99. FANTASY

Clark, P. Djèlí. The Dead Cat Tail Assassins. Tor.com. Mar. 2024. 208p. ISBN 9781250767042. $20.99. FANTASY

Doctorow, Cory. The Bezzle: A Martin Hench Novel. Tor. Feb. 2024. 240p. ISBN 9781250865878. $27.99. SF

Elsbai, Hadeer. The Weavers of Alamaxa. Harper Voyager. Mar. 2024. 400p. ISBN 9780063114807. $32. FANTASY

Harrison, Kim. Three Kinds of Lucky. Ace: Penguin. Feb. 2024. 464p. ISBN 9780593437476. $28. FANTASY

Huang, Justinian. The Emperor and the Endless Palace. MIRA. Mar. 2024. 240p. ISBN 9780778305231. $28.99. FANTASY

Jayatissa, Amanda. Island Witch. Berkley. Feb. 2024. 384p. ISBN 9780593549261. $28. SUPERNATURAL THRILLER

Jones, Stephen Graham. The Angel of Indian Lake. Saga: Gallery: S. & S. Mar. 2024. 496p. ISBN 9781668011669. $28.99. HORROR

Kaner, Hannah. Sunbringer. Harper Voyager. Feb. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9780063350106. pap. $18.99. CD. FANTASY

Kingfisher, T. What Feasts at Night. Tor Nightfire. Feb. 2024. 160p. ISBN 9781250830852. $19.99. HORROR

Kiste, Gwendolyn. The Haunting of Velkwood. Saga: Gallery: S. & S. Mar. 2024. 256p. ISBN 9781982172374. $26.99. HORROR

Kristoff, Jay (text) & Bon Orthwick (illus.). Empire of the Damned. St. Martin’s. Mar. 2024. 736p. ISBN 9781250245335. $32. Downloadable. FANTASY

Link, Kelly. The Book of Love. Random. Feb. 2024. 640p. ISBN 9780812996586. $31. FANTASY

Older, Malka. The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles. Tor.com. Feb. 2024. 224p. ISBN 9781250906793. $20.99. SF

Pulley, Natasha. The Mars House. Bloomsbury. Mar. 2024. 432p. ISBN 9781639732333. $29.99. SF

Small, David. Werewolf at Dusk: And Other Stories. Liveright: Norton. Feb. 2024. 160p. ISBN 9781324092827. $25. SF/GRAPHIC

Tchaikovsky, Adrian. House of Open Wounds. Head of Zeus. Mar. 2024. 608p. ISBN 9781035901388. $27.99. FANTASY

Utomi, Moses Ose. The Truth of the Aleke. Tor.com. Feb. 2024. 112p. ISBN 9781250849052. $24.99. FANTASY

Author of the gorgeous “Winternight” series, a personal favorite, the New York Times best-selling Arden pens the story of a World War I field nurse suspicious of news about her brother’s battlefield death and soon following rumors of haunted trenches and a mysterious figure granting oblivion amid The Warm Hands of Ghost. Working for the goddess of assassins, the undead Eveen “the Eviscerator” has no memory of her living past but is disturbed that her latest target looks just like her; with The Dead Cat Tail Assassin, Nebula/Locus winner Clark enters a new world (125,000-copy first printing). Following series starter Red Team Blues, Doctorow’s The Bezzle takes self-employed forensic accountant Martin Hench to Catalina Island, where he inadvertently (and dangerously) disrupts the schemes of the uber-rich (75,000-copy first printing). Wrapping up the duology begun with The Daughters of Izdihar, Egyptian American librarian Elsbai again blends Egyptian history and mythology in the queer fantasy The Weavers of Alamaxa, featuring two young women weavers leading the fight against the fundamentalist Ziranis. In Harrison’s series-starting Three Kinds of Lucky, Petra Grady lacks her family’s gift for magic but can handle dross, i.e., dangerous magical waste, which lands her on the team of sexy but unapproachable Benedict Strom, who’s researching how to make dross harmless. Moving from 4 BCE to 1740 in China and finally to contemporary Los Angeles, The Emperor and the Endless Palace weaves together three couples into one epic love story, blending historical figures with Chinese folklore; Huang is the VP of Creative at Sony Pictures Animation (75,000-copy first printing). The third novel from ITW Debut Award winner Jayatissa, Island Witch features Amara, the daughter of a demon-priest in a 19th-century Sri Lankan village heavily under the sway of colonizers, who intervenes when villagers blame her father after something deep in the forest threatens them. With The Angel of Indian Lake, Jones concludes his Bram Stoker Award–winning trilogy by sending Jade Daniels back to Proofrock, ID, four years after the events in Don’t Fear the Reaper —it turns out that she’s the only person gutsy enough to confront the Lake Witch there. After the internationally best-selling Godkiller, which stars professional godkiller Kissen and launches a trilogy, Kaner returns with more mayhem in Sunbringer. Having survived the awful events at the Usher mansion featured in Kingfisher’s What Moves the Dead, retired soldier Alex Easton heads to their family hunting lodge in What Feasts at Night—and does not find peace of mind (150,000-copy first printing). In the Bram Stoker Award–winning Kiste’s latest, only three girls survive The Haunting of Velkwood—the night everyone else in their suburban hometown becomes ghosts—and their struggles have just begun. Following Kristoff’s New York Times best-selling series starter, Empire of the Vampire, Empire of the Damned follows Gabriel de León as he links arms with the vampire Liathe to deliver the just-rescued Grail to the Blood Esani (150,000-copy first printing). From the Pulitzer Prize–winning Link, past master of the edgy short story, The Book of Love is a debut novel features three dead teenagers who could return to their seaside Massachusetts lives if they complete a series of magical tasks. In Hugo finalist Older’s The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, Investigator Mossa and Scholar Pleiti must travel to the edge of the Jovian system to determine why 17 students and staff members have vanished unnoticed from Valdegeld University. Author of the multi-starred The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, Pulley takes us out of this world with The Mars House, with former Royal Ballet dancer January among the second-class citizens on Mars known as Earthstrongers because they haven’t adapted to its reduced gravitational pull (65,000-copy first printing). Having come to everyone’s attention with the No. 1 New York Times best-selling Stitches, multi-awarding-winning graphic novelist Small returns in Werewolf at Dusk with a passel of otherworldly stories about growing older. In House of Open Wounds, a follow-up to Tchaikovsky’s LJ-starred City of Last Chances, healer and former priest Yasnic works with a behind-the-lines unit using unsanctioned magic to save the lives of soldiers brutalized in a war meant to establish reason worldwide (30,000-copy first printing). When the Aleke-led Cult of Tutu attacks the City of Truth—the last free city still standing in the Forever Desert—Junior Peacekeeper Osi is tasked with discovering The Truth of the Aleke and destroying the cult; Nigerian American Utomi follows up his LJ-starred The Lies of the Ajungo.

Nonfiction

Current Events

Arana, Marie. LatinoLand: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority. S. & S. Feb. 2024. 544p. ISBN 9781982184896. $32.50. SOCIAL SCIENCE

Comprising 20 percent of the U.S. population and growing, Latines are a varied group, including Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens; Mexican Americans, some whose forbears lived here since before the U.S.-Mexico border shifted after the U.S. invasion in 1848; and Cuban Americans, who arrived first in Castro’s early years and then with the Mariel boatlift. They range from struggling workers to senators and celebrities, and they don’t all vote Democratic, as they once generally did. From National Book Award finalist Arana, the inaugural Literary Director of the Library of Congress.

Bitecofer, Rachel & Aaron Murphy. Hit ’Em Where It Hurts: How To Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game. Crown. Feb. 2024. 288p. ISBN 9780593727140. $30. POLITICAL SCIENCE

An election forecaster turned political strategist, Bitecofer predicted to the seat the size of the Democrats' Blue Wave in the 2018 midterms. Now she’s here to insist that arguments about issues don’t determine elections. Most people vote not for but against a candidate, and she urges Democrats to adopt the negative partisanship that Republicans use in their battle for seats. No hold barred here.

Boykin, Keith. Why Does Everything Have To Be About Race?: 25 Arguments That Won’t Go Away. Bold Type: Hachette. Jan. 2024. 288p. ISBN 9781541703315. $30. Downloadable. SOCIAL SCIENCE/CIVIL RIGHTS

The Civil War was about states’ rights, not enslavement; affirmative action is reverse discrimination; and Critical Race Theory is indoctrinating children to hate one another: these are some of the 25 arguments, speciously rooted in misinformation and the need to deny Black history and oppression, that New York Times best-selling author Boykin sets out to demolish in his latest book.

Dixon, Matt. Swamp Monsters: Trump vs. DeSantis—the Greatest Show on Earth (or at Least in Florida). Little, Brown. Jan. 2024. 320p. ISBN 9780316397223. $30. Downloadable. POLITICS

Back in 2017, when Ron DeSantis was struggling to win the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Florida, Donald Trump stepped in to praise him. Now, as DeSantis aims for the White House, Trump is his fiercest opponent. Dixon, a veteran Florida journalist and NBC News senior national politics reporter, gives us the full picture.

Gorani, Hala. But You Don’t Look Arab: And Other Tales of Unbelonging. Hachette. Feb. 2024. 288p. ISBN 9780306831645. $30. Downloadable. MEMOIR

Born in the United States to Syrian parents and raised in France, Emmy Award–winning journalist Gorani has covered the Arab Spring, the Syrian civil war, and the growth of Daesh, among other key topics. But she’s never lived in the Middle East, and as a blonde, blue-eyed woman she’s frequently told, “You don’t look Arab.” Her search for self and frustration with labels led her to track the long history of uprooted ancestors she reveals here.

Gutierrez, Elizabeth Camarillo. My Side of the River: A Memoir. St. Martin’s. Feb. 2024. 272p. ISBN 9781250277954. $29. Downloadable. MEMOIR

The U.S.-born daughter of Mexican immigrants, Gutierrez was entering high school as a top-notch student when her parents were forced to return to Mexico after their visas expired. Left to care for her younger brother and get herself through school, she eventually attended the University of Pennsylvania and is currently serving as a product manager at a Big Tech company. Here she discusses separation trauma, the opportunities and costs of staying in the United States, and the love between her and her brother, who’s pursuing his own dreams.

Hunter, Marcus. Radical Reparations: Healing the Soul of a Nation. Amistad: HarperCollins. Feb. 2024. 320p. ISBN 9780063004726. $29.99. CD. SOCIAL SCIENCE

With the idea of reparations for the descendants of enslaved Black Americans coming to the fore, Hunter, who coined the term #BlackLivesMatter, insists that strictly economic reparations are not enough. He argues for a many-faceted approach to healing the Black community, focusing on political, intellectual, legal, economic, spatial, social, and spiritual needs. Bound to stir conversation.

Klinenberg, Eric. 2020: The Year the World Cracked Open. Knopf. Feb. 2024. 446p. ISBN 9780593319482. $32. SOCIAL SCIENCE/EPIDEMIOLOGY

Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University, Klinenberg argues that Covid didn’t so much cause radical shifts in society as highlight problems already there, particularly the taut dividing lines separating people worldwide by class and race and leading to social injustice, economic inequality, and environmental degradation. With suggestions for moving forward.

Lozada, Carlos. The Washington Book. S. & S. Feb. 2024. 320p. ISBN 9781668050736. $28.99. POLITICS

A Pulitzer Prize–winning opinion columnist at the New York Times, Lozada aims to show us how people in power reveal themselves in what they write, considering not just books and speeches but commission reports, political reporting, Supreme Court decisions, congressional inquiries, letters, and more. No matter how carefully the powerful curate their words, he argues, they end up letting their true selves shine through.

Norris, Michele. Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity. S. & S. Feb. 2024. 528p. ISBN 9781982154394. $32.50. SOCIAL SCIENCE

For the Race Card Project she launched 12 years ago, Washington Post opinion columnist Norris offered readers a simple prompt: Race. Your Story. Six Words. Please Send. From “You’re Pretty for a Black girl” and “White privilege, enjoy it, earned it” to “My ancestors massacred Indians near here” and I’m only Asian when it’s convenient,” the over half a million responses she received reveal in-depth what people in the United States think about themselves and one another.

Note: The publisher has changed the title of Simon Shuster’s The Fight Is Here, featured in Prepub Alert Online, July 11, to The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky.

World History

Drabkin, Ronald. Beverly Hills Spy. Morrow. Feb. 2024. 288p. ISBN 9780063310070. $29.99. CD. HISTORY

The first pilot to take off and land on a ship, Frederick Rutland was a decorated British World War I hero. But after the war, he was not promoted within the new Royal Air Force, likely owing to class politics, and he angrily became a spy for the Japanese. Drabkin’s interest is personal; both his father and grandfather served as spies in Los Angeles.

Ghosh, Amitav. Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories. Farrar. Feb. 2024. 416p. ISBN 9780374602925. $32. HISTORY

While researching his award-winning “Ibis” trilogy, Ghosh came to understand the degree to which opium dictated trade in the 19th century. Engineered by the British to resolve a trade imbalance between India and China and further support imperialism, the opium trade was at the root of many of the world’s leading corporations, and it benefited key U.S. families like the Astors. What results here is history, travelogue, and memoir.

Kousser, Rachel. Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great. Mariner: HarperCollins. Feb. 2024. 448p. ISBN 9780062869685. $32.50. HISTORY

Chair of the Classics department at CUNY’s Graduate Center, Kousser here covers Alexander the Great’s final foray into the Persian Empire. He had already defeated the Persian ruler but wanted to reach the end of the world, pushing his troops unrelentingly on a seven-year march through the empire’s eastern reaches that culminated in his death at age 32 in 323 BCE. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Trentmann, Frank. Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942–2022. Knopf. Feb. 2024. 800p. ISBN 9781524732912. $50. HISTORY

The Whitfield Prize–winning Trentmann, a history professor at Birkbeck, University of London, who grew up in Hamburg, moves from a Germany that stood condemned for genocide during World War II to a country that welcomed over one million refugees by the end of Angela Merkel’s tenure. He asks not only how Germans managed to reinvent themselves but, pointing to the country’s ironclad fiscal stance and energy deals with Russia, how much did they change?

U.S. History

Cohen, Jared. Life After Power: Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House. S. & S. Feb. 2024. 384p. ISBN 9781982154547. $30. HISTORY

Golway, Terry. I Never Did Like Politics: How Fiorello La Guardia Became America’s Mayor, and Why He Still Matters. St. Martin’s. Feb. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9781250285782. $29. HISTORY

Guelzo, Allen C. Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment. Knopf. Feb. 2024. 272p. ISBN 9780593534441. $30. HISTORY

Holzer, Harold. Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration. Dutton. Feb. 2024. 448p. ISBN 9780451489012. $35. HISTORY

Hylton, Antonia. Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum. Legacy Lit: Hachette. Jan. 2024. 288p. ISBN 9781538723692. $30. HISTORY

Reid, Joy-Ann. Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America. Mariner: HarperCollins. Feb. 2024. 368p. ISBN 9780063068797. $30. CD. HISTORY

Rosen, Jeffrey. The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America. S. & S. Feb. 2024. 368p. ISBN 9781668002476. $28.99. HISTORY

Swanson, James L. The Deerfield Massacre: A Surprise Attack, a Forced March, and the Fight for Survival in Early America. Scribner. Feb. 2024. 384p. ISBN 9781501108167. $30. HISTORY

Ranging from Thomas Jefferson, who included his post-presidency founding of the University of Virginia on his tombstone but not the presidency itself, to Jimmy Carter’s humanitarian efforts in the longest post-presidency in U.S. history, Accidental Presidents author Cohen explores Life After Power. New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia may have proclaimed I Never Did Like Politics, but, argues Politico senior editor Golway, in his stance against nativism and bigotry, management of Depression-era economics, and outspoken opposition to rising fascism at home and abroad, La Guardia is the model municipal officer (his own phrase) we should look to now. In Our Ancient Faith, three-time Lincoln Prize winner Guelzo probes the President Abraham Lincoln’s convictions regarding democracy. Lincoln Prize winner Holzer’s Brought Forth on This Continent considers how immigration shaped U.S. society in the three decades before the Civil War (when 10 million foreign-born people settled in the United States) and Lincoln’s attitudes toward this new wave. From Peabody- and Emmy Award–winning NBC journalist Hylton, Madness relates the history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the last segregated asylums in the United States with surviving records, built in 1911 Maryland by enchained Black men who were then incarcerated there. MSNBC political analyst Reid (The Man Who Sold America) offers the dual biography Medgar and Myrlie,about assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers and his activist wife, Myrlie Evers. Recalling Thomas E. Ricks’s First Principles, National Constitution Center president and CEO Rosen looks closely at the classical Greek and Roman moral philosophers to understand the Constitution’s ringing phrase, The Pursuit of Happiness. From James L. Swanson, author of the New York Times best-selling Manhunt, The Deerfield Massacre limns the once-notorious, now largely forgotten attack on the English settlement of Deerfield in the Massachusetts colony by French and Indigenous (largely Abenaki) forces.

Memoir

Gamal, Adam & Kelly Kennedy. The Unit: My Life Fighting Terrorists as One of America’s Most Secret Military Operatives. St. Martin’s. Feb. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9781250278173. $30. Downloadable.

Arriving in the United States at age 19, short, skinny Gamal could not yet speak English but felt he owed it to his new country to serve. He ended up as one of the few Muslim Arab Americans inside the Unit, a deep-surveillance division within the Department of Defen se so secret it’s not named here. He’s since won Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Legion of Merit honors. With a 100,000-copy first printing; Gamal is a pseudonym protecting him and his family.

Jamison, Leslie. Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story.Little, Brown. Feb. 2024. 272p. ISBN 9780316374880. $29. Downloadable. MEMOIR

Jamison’s deeply personal work includes the New York Times best-selling memoir The Recovering; the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel finalist Make It Scream, Make It Burn: Essays, and the novel The Gin Closet, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. Here she explores remaking her life after the end of her marriage and drawing closer to her daughter and her work while finding new love. With a 60,000-copy first printing.

Lawson, Shayla. How To Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir. Tiny Reparations: Random. Feb. 2024. 320p. ISBN 9780593472583. $28. MEMOIR

Author of the essays collection This Is Major, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, poet/journalist Lawson takes us on a personal journey to find beauty and meaning in a fractured world. From a French castle to a charming gondolier in Venice, lost love in Mexico City, and a deep plunge into Blackness in post-dictatorship Zimbabwe, it’s a worldwide, whirlwind tour.

Nguon, Chantha, with Kim Green. Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes. Algonquin: Workman: Hachette. Feb. 2024. 272p. ISBN 9781643753492. $29. Downloadable. MEMOIR

When Pol Pot ascended to power in Cambodia, killing millions, ethnic Vietnamese like Nguon’s family were especially targeted. She escaped to Saigon with her mother and sister, who both died there, and spent decades in a Thai refugee camp until she was denied passage to the West and returned to Cambodia. Through numerous small jobs like serving drinks in a nightclub, she was sustained by one thing: the memories of her mother’s cooking. Unfathomable loss, illuminated by 20 recipes; with a 20,000-copy first printing.

Purnell, Brontez. Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt: A Memoir in Verse. MCD: Farrar. Feb. 2024. 144p. ISBN 9780374612696. pap. $17. MEMOIR

The author of the Lambda-winning 100 Boyfriends and named one of 32 Black Male Writers of Our Time by T: The New York Times Style Magazine in 2018, Purnell looks inward with 38 autobiographical vignettes ranging from a poetry-conference brawl to the blessings and curses passed on through four generations of his family. As his says, “The most high-risk homosexual behavior I engage in is simply existing.” With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Salama, Jordan. Stranger in the Desert: A Family Story.Catapult. Feb. 2024. 240p. ISBN 9781646221653. $27. MEMOIR

At his grandparents’ house, Salama discovered a binder full of tattered papers and photographs summing up the 500-year-old history of his Arab-Jewish family, ranging from Moorish Spain to Ottoman Syria to Argentina and beyond. He was especially taken with his great-grandfather, a Syrian-born, Arabic-speaking Jewish immigrant to 1920s Argentina, who worked as a traveling salesman and likely left a brood of Salamas in his wake. Following the acclaimed Every Day the River Changes.

Sante, Lucy. I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition. Penguin Pr. Feb. 2024. 240p. ISBN 9780593493762. $27. MEMOIR

Celebrated Belgian-born critic/author Sante is known for books like Low Life and contributions to the New York Review of Books. Then, in 2021, came the announcement that after living a lifetime cloaked uncomfortably in a male body, Sante intended to transition to being a woman. This memoir recounts her life overall while carefully chronicling the process of transitioning and the embrace of a new self.

Taffa, Deborah. Whiskey Tender: A Memoir.Harper. Feb. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9780063288515. $32. MEMOIR

Born on the California Yuma reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico, Taffa unfolds memories of a 1970s–80s childhood shot through with the growing realization that assimilation—with its attendant denial of her culture and her land—could never deliver on its glib promise of acceptance and success. Here she explains how she has sought her own identity while condemning ongoing refusal in the United States to integrate her ancestors’ narratives into its culture. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Zappa, Moon Unit. Earth to Moon: A Memoir. Dey Street: Morrow. Feb.2024. 288p. ISBN 9780063113343. $29.99. MEMOIR

Daughter of radical Sixties rocker Frank Zappa, Moon Unit Zappa here relates a not surprisingly unconventional upbring in 1970s–1980s Los Angeles and launching her own multifaceted career at age 14 as joint singer/songwriter of “Valley Girl,” a cult classic that became her father’s only Top 40 hit. She also examines how she coped with the loss of both parents. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Arts

Alexander, Paul. Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday’s Last Year. Knopf. Feb. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9780593315903. $32. MUSIC

Attenberg, Jami. 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round. Simon Element: S. & S. Jan. 2024. 224p. ISBN 9781668023600. $24.99. LITERATURE

Bass, Rick. With Each Great Breath: New and Selected Essays. Counterpoint. Feb. 2024. NAp. ISBN 9781640096301. $29. LITERATURE

Dearborn, Mary V. Carson McCullers: A Life. Knopf. Feb. 2024. 512p. ISBN 9780525521013. $40. LITERATURE

Gutkind, Lee. The Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting: How a Bunch of Rabble-Rousers, Outsiders, and Ne’er-Do-Wells Concocted Creative Nonfiction. Yale. Jan. 2024. 312p. ISBN 9780300251159. $35. LITERATURE

Trillin, Calvin. The Lede: Dispatches from a Life in the Press. Random. Feb. 2024. 336p. ISBN 9780593596449. $31. LITERATURE

Williams, Billy Dee. What Have We Here?: Portraits of a Life. Knopf. Feb. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9780593318607. $32. PERFORMING ARTS

In Bitter Crop, former Time reporter Alexander looks at the last, challenging years of soaring jazz singer Billie Holiday, with flashbacks to key events in her life. Challenging herself and a friend to conquer writer’s block by writing 1000 Words a day, Attenberg expanded her purvey to launch the #1000WordsofSummer movement chronicled here; also included, writing advice from more than 50 top-notch authors. A writer and environmentalist boasting Story Prize, Nelson Algren, and National Book Critics Circle finalist honors, Bass collects favorite and fresh essays in With Each Great Breath. A Mellon Fellow in the Humanities, Dearborn draws on newly discovered letters and journals to write a big new biography of Carson McCullers. The Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting details Gutkind’s pugnacious entry into academia with the determination to launch creative nonfiction as a legitimate writing genre and traces its development in the intervening years. In The Lede, the inimitable Trillin offers a portrait of journalism and its practitioners by drawing on six decades’ worth of pieces. In What Have We Here?, famed actor Williams celebrates a career spanning eight triumphant decades.