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Big Books of the Week

The Au Pair Affair by Tessa Bailey (Avon) leads holds this week. 

Other titles in demand include:

The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness (Ballantine; LJ starred review)

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman (Viking; LJ starred review)

Business Casual by B.K. Borison (Berkley; LJ starred review)

The Ex Vows by Jessica Joyce (Berkley; LJ starred review)

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer (Ballantine; LJ starred review)

These books and others publishing the week of July 15, 2024, are listed in a downloadable spreadsheet.

Librarians and Booksellers Suggest

Eight LibraryReads and eight Indie Next picks publish this week:

Hall of Fame pick, I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones (S. & S.: Saga; LJ starred review) is also an Indie Next pick:

“My heart aches for the slasher? This cannot be right. Tolly, the slasher, tells his bloody, horrific story in a voice so real and raw that you can almost hear him, as though seated right beside you, and feel every detail of his inescapable pain.”—Nancy Sims-West, Raven Book Store, Lawrence, KS

Hall of Fame pick The Au Pair Affair by Tessa Bailey (Avon) is also an Indie Next pick:

“I am head over heels in love with Burgess and Tallulah! I mean, an overprotective hockey captain that falls first and falls hard, and nicknames her gorgeous? You can’t go wrong. Tessa Bailey knows how to bring the swooning full force.”—Mandy Harris, Angel Wings Bookstore, Oxford, NC

Not Another Love Song by Julie Soto (Forever: Grand Central)

“Two rival musicians find love in this satisfying enemies-to-lovers story. Xander has everything Gwen wants, and he doesn't seem to appreciate it. When Gwen is unexpectedly given first-chair violin over him, their rivalry intensifies, reaching a crescendo that leaves Gwen wondering if this is a rivalry or an attraction. A sexy, lyrical romance.”—Magan Szwarek, LibraryReads Ambassador, IL

It is also an Indie Next pick:

“Oh. My. Gosh. This book is absolutely everything. To say that Julie Soto writes characters with chemistry that sizzles and crackles would be a wild understatement! She’s your next favorite romance author. Trust me.”—Leah Grover, Scrawl Books, Reston, VA

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer (Ballantine; LJ starred review)

“Jeremy and Rafe disappeared in a West Virginia state park only to reappear six months later without explanation. Jeremy remembers everything but can’t talk about it; Rafe remembers nothing. When a woman asks Jeremy’s help to find her sister, the two former friends are forced to work together. This character-driven story with intriguing magic should appeal to all fans of portal fantasy.”—Beth Mills, New Rochelle Public Library, NY

It is also an Indie Next pick:

The Ex Vows by Jessica Joyce (Berkley; LJ starred review)

“A sweet second chance romance, in which exes Georgia and Eli must cooperate to save their best friend’s wedding. A satisfying story of two people finding their way back to each other, either as friends or something more. An incredibly well written story!”—Erin G., Siuslaw Public Library District, OR

It is also an Indie Next pick:

“A swoony story about two best friends finding their way back to each other after breaking up five years ago. Georgia and Eli must work together for their best friend Adam’s wedding and realize they left a lot unsaid. I had butterflies the whole time!”—Claire McWhorter, River & Hill Books, Rome, GA

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman (Viking; LJ starred review) *Good for book clubs

“This mystical, action-oriented read delves into the story of King Arthur. Collum, a young knight traveling to Camelot in hopes of joining the Round Table, arrives to learn that King Arthur is dead. Adventure soon calls, and Collum and the knights set off on a quest to heal Britain. The multiple points of view and diverse characters will keep readers engrossed.”—Kristin Skinner, Flat River Community Library, MI

It is also an Indie Next pick:

“You know a book’s good when it starts with a quote from Monty Python. I utterly loved it from the first page to the last. Witty, serious, magical, and with an amazing cast of characters, this is everything an Arthurian epic should be.”—Emily Pate, Word After Word Books, Truckee, CA

Business Casual by B.K. Borison (Berkley; LJ starred review)

“Nova and Charlie belong to each other—and for more than the single spicy night they agree to spend together. This cozy, small-town, friends-to- lovers story has so much warmth and love, making this final installment of the Lovelight Farm series sheer perfection. This is the warmest cuddle of a romance that readers will never want to end.”—Laura Eckert, Clermont County Public Library, OH

The Bonus pick is The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us by Rachelle Bergstein (Atria: One Signal)

“As a woman of a certain age (ahem), I was blessed to have had Judy Blume books available as I navigated puberty and growing up. Bergstein’s literary biography covers how Blume got her start, her lasting impact, and features interviews with librarians, readers, teachers, and parents. She showcases the factors that made Blume’s relatable books such blockbusters, letting us see exactly why readers still need these books today.”—Rebecca Vnuk, LibraryReads

Two additional Indie Next picks publish this week:

Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler (Random)

“Banal Nightmare crackles with humanity. You may hate these feckless—at times ugly—characters, or recognize yourself in them (and still hate them). But it’ll thrill you in its fearlessness. Either way, this will leave a mark on you. It blisters.”—Matt Nixon, A Cappella Books, Atlanta, GA

Smothermoss  by Alisa Alering (Tin House)

“Beautiful, surreal, and otherworldly, I fully fell into Alering’s supernatural mystery. Their use of sound grounds the reader in Sheila and Angie’s strange and difficult life on the margins of society in some of the best writing I’ve seen.”—Amanda Scroggins, Watermark Books & Café, Wichita, KS

In the Media

People’s book of the week is The Briar Club by Kate Quinn (Morrow; LJ starred review). Also getting attention are Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Random; LJ starred review) and More, Please: On Food, Fat, Bingeing, Longing, and the Lust for “Enough” by Emma Specter (Harper). “Glorious Summer Novels” include Ladykiller by Katherine Wood (Bantam; LJ starred review), The Coin by Yasmin Zaher (Catapult; LJ starred review), and All This and More by Peng Shepherd (Morrow).

There is a feature on JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography by RoseMarie Terenzio & Liz McNeil (Gallery). People online has more, plus a list of new Kennedy books to read on the 25th anniversary of JFK Jr.’s death. Plus, a recipe from Camille Becerra, Bright Cooking: Recipes for the Modern Palate (Chronicle).

Reviews

NYT reviews I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones (S. & S.: Saga; LJ starred review): “Much of the story is understandably preposterous, and Jones is clearly having a fun time playing with horror-genre tropes”; Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B. Calhoun by Jon Adams & Edmund Ramsden (Melville House): “As Jon Adams and Edmund Ramsden make plain in their entertaining, phenomenally weird Rat City, there is a great deal more connecting us with our ubiquitous furry neighbors than we might imagine”; Smothermoss  by Alisa Alering (Tin House): “Smothermoss is a compulsive journey through a wild, unknowable landscape and the wilder hearts of young girls trying to understand themselves, and find their way to each other”; and Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great by Rachel Kousser (Mariner): “At the heart of this book lies the defining question asked both by Alexander’s soldiers and by generations of historians ever since: Why did he keep campaigning so relentlessly, ever farther east? Why, for instance, did he seek to conquer India in 327 B.C.?”

Washington Post reviews Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want To Run the World (Doubleday): “Autocracy, Inc. is a valuable book for many reasons, but the focus on illicit wealth creation and on those in democracies who enable it is especially timely”; JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography by RoseMarie Terenzio & Liz McNeil (Gallery): “While JFK Jr. almost certainly provides the fullest portrait of Kennedy ever written, stacked with gratifyingly gossipy details, it offers few actual scoops”; The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan (Knopf): “Exhibiting an eclectic curiosity, Sullivan writes about believably flawed and complicated characters”; Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849–1861 by Robert W. Merry (S. & S.; LJ starred review): “Intently focused on high politics, Decade of Disunion rarely escapes the confines of Washington and the obligatory recitation of speech after eloquent speech”; and In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife by Sebastian Junger (S & S.): “Junger’s experience, and the vast amount of reporting he brings to near death experiences (NDEs), could easily set off a cacophony of screams in academic medicine.” Plus, there are short reviews of five books about political conventions, including The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History by Ed Achorn (Grove).

Briefly Noted

The Shirley Jackson Award winners are announced; Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory (Gallery/Saga; LJ starred review) wins best novel. 

CrimeReads suggests 10 new books for the week. 

USA Today suggests read-alikes for Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing (Entangled: Red Tower).

People highlights the best books of July.

Reactor shares new horror, romantasy, and SFF-crossover books publishing in July.

The Atlantic’s “Books Briefing” considers “The Hidden Cost of Gardens.”

NYT reflects on 50 years of Peter Benchley’s Jaws.

People talks with Deborah Harkness, The Black Bird Oracle (Ballantine; LJ starred review), about “her writing, family connection to Salem and magic at work in her life.”

Salon talks with James Patterson about his new book about Tiger Woods, Tiger, Tiger: His Life, as It’s Never Been Told Before (Little, Brown), “book banning and George Clooney’s New York Times op-ed.”

Sex therapist and author Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer has died at the age of 96. NYT has an obituary. Her forthcoming The Joy of Connections: 100 Ways To Beat Loneliness and Live a Happier and More Meaningful Life, written with Allison Gilbert & Pierre Lehu (Rodale), publishes September 3. 

Authors on Air

Washington Post book critic Ron Charles recommends four new books on CBS Sunday Morning. 

NPR’s Up First talks with Whoopi Goldberg about her memoir Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me (Blackstone).

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