Scarborough Public Library: Forthcoming Titles: June 2, 2026 Releases

The Amateur
by Chris Bohjalian

When a young woman, a golf prodigy, kills a caddy with a stray ball at the country club, the investigation of this freak accident reveals a dark and shocking tale of secret affairs and predatory men, and suddenly a teenager is on trial in this spellbinding novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Midwives and The Flight Attendant. 1978: It is the first Thursday in August and temperatures are flirting with ninety when Mira Winston, eighteen years old, drives a golf ball from her tee toward the practice net near the clubhouse and caddy shack. The golf ball, weighing 1.6 ounces, tears through the net, traveling 150 miles per hour, and slams, with sickening force, into the temple of a high school junior named Kenny Foster, rupturing an artery and unleashing a torrent of blood. Kenny brings his hand to the side of his head, then topples onto his side. He's dead before the ambulance even arrives. In the wake of this terrible accident--and everyone, at first, agrees it was an accident--Mira looks for comfort in all the wrong places: In her lover, Theo Catton, a married man three decades her senior. In her mother, a well-kept woman with secrets of her own. In the dead caddy's little sisters, girls bewildered by grief. But when the investigators look more closely at the torn net, when a detective recalls Mira's history of recklessness, and when Kenny's father spies Mira with her married lover, the affluent and mannered community turns on this once-promising young woman. A gripping story that takes the reader from the sun-soaked greens of a tony Westchester country club to the fluorescent-lit stand of a county courtroom, The Amateur asks: What happens when one small moment--a swing, a ball, a piece of string--changes the course of an entire life?

Etna
by Paul Yoon

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIME, and LITHUB A BEST BOOK OF THE SUMMER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE BOSTON GLOBE, LITHUB, and SCARY MOMMY Beloved author and winner of The Story Prize, Paul Yoon, is back with the unforgettable story of a working dog, Etna, who, after a devastating war, embarks on an odyssey in the hopes of returning home. Set in a fictional country in the present day, this is a story told through the eyes of an ex-military dog, Etna. After surviving years of a devastating war, Etna decides one night to leave the men he has fought alongside for years and return home--to the place where he was taken from when he was young, in the thin but persistent hope that if a home exists for him, it might be there. Thus begins an exhilarating odyssey told through the eyes of a dog as he traverses across ruined landscapes and fights to survive in a world that, even in peacetime, proves to be just as precarious. Along the way, he encounters other animals and humans who are attempting to figure out how to start again. What makes a life when there is no home to go back to? How do we begin to trust each other again after such profound loss? This is a novel about the power of an idea, about never giving up, and ultimately a novel about finding hope in the most dire of times.

God's Country
by William Kent Krueger

From the New York Times bestselling author of The River We Remember, a new mystery in the wildly popular Cork O'Connor series. Cork O'Connor, preparing for a family trip into the Boundary Waters, is troubled by ominous visions about his future. Ignoring the warnings, he uncovers signs of violence while searching for his missing friend, Cordell Bishop. Soon, he is forced to negotiate with dangerous criminals, the Kennedy brothers, who are seeking their late father's hidden stash. Facing escalating danger and difficult choices, Cork grapples with his darkest instincts as he helps others escape and eventually takes justice into his own hands. God's Country is an action-packed thrill ride that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Hard as a Headstone: A Maine Mystery
by Richard J. Cass

The dead don't lie. The living do.Former Army CID investigator Ardmore Theberge just wanted to complete his assignment: a routine land survey. But when he discovers a young woman murdered in a historic Maine graveyard--her skull crushed by blunt-force trauma--routine goes out the window. The victim, Janey Nightingale, was part of an activist group fighting to stop a bottled water company from relocating the cemetery. The authorities seem in no hurry to solve the case. But when Ardmore's friend Millicent Feathernight implores him to look into what appears to be a crime against a fellow Native American woman, he can't say no. In the unorganized town of Platen, everyone has secrets and everyone has an agenda. When the victim's identity proves to be as false as the town's promises of cooperation, Ardmore realizes he's stumbled into something far more dangerous than a simple murder. Especially when he becomes the prime suspect. Now Ardmore must use every skill from his mysterious military past to clear his name and expose a killer--before he becomes the graveyard's next permanent resident.

The Infinite State: Book One of the Decurion Saga
by Richard Swan

In this blistering science fiction epic, international bestselling author Richard Swan presents a thrilling tale of survival and an eviscerating examination of totalitarianism. THE INFINITE STATE begins at a flashpoint in the lives of a widowed party member, a disgraced investigator, and a hypersled pilot--entangled in a plot to escape the suffocating authority of a fascist state. WHO GIVES YOU LIFE? PATER AETERNUS. Katherine Fuller's husband is dead. As an esteemed member of Pater Aeternus--governing party of the fascist, galaxy-spanning Decurion Empire--he has left behind an estate of immeasurable wealth. And Katherine is going to inherit it. WHO GIVES YOU PURPOSE? PATER AETERNUS. Life under the Eternal Father is rigidly stratified, surveilled, and controlled--each new day to be endured, not lived. But with Katherine's newfound fortune, she is presented with a rare and dangerous opportunity: purchase a virgin world, and create a better, fairer society. WHO GIVES YOU JOY? PATER AETERNUS. But the Empire cannot allow its wayward daughter to succeed. And as Katherine works in secret, recruiting allies she's not even sure she can trust, she will discover exactly how far Pater Aeternus is willing to go to stop her. Because Katherine is going to create something nobody has seen for many years. A democracy.

Meet Me in the Garden
by Nina Lacour

From bestselling author Nina LaCour comes a sweeping family saga that wrestles with themes of self-discovery and love in all forms, inspired by the author's own Creole family-- Provided by publisher.

Plant Lady
by Kang Minyoung

In the heart of a quiet town, a young woman tends to her plant shop, but beneath the surface of her lush, green sanctuary lies something far darker.... Will you dare to disrespect her plants? Tucked away in the corner of a neighborhood in Dosan, South Korea, is the Plant Shop. Shop owner Yoohee has started anew, and her meticulously grown foliage thrives under her tender care. To both her customers and herself, Plant Shop is a refuge, where petunias and marigolds bloom and the air itself is like an elixir of peace. By day, Yoohee dispenses advice on gardening, but she also finds herself offering a special service off the clock. Women who are at their wits' end come to her about a man they hope might disappear from their lives. Pulling extra hours is taxing, but Yoohee has encountered--and dealt with--these kind of men in her own life, men who treated her (and her beloved plants) with utter disrespect. So as night falls, Yoohee trades her apron for a shovel and a hoe and disappears into her moonlit garden. There, she buries not just the remains of the day, but also the bloody remnants of a few unfortunate encounters. As men begin to disappear...will anyone ever suspect the Plant Lady? A highly acclaimed novel from South Korea, Plant Lady brings atmospheric tension and delicate humor to a story of obsession and misogyny that will keep you rooted right to its simmering last page.

Queen Mab
by Emily McBride

There is a changeling in this story--but who? Madeleine is young for motherhood, a promising grad student in Victorian and Modernist literature, twenty-three and not long married. Even her mother worries about the timing. But Madeleine's ambivalence is pushed aside by Tom's elation and her own joy at bringing new life to the world. Then comes Maud, perfect and fresh and worth every moment of difficult labor. But after just a few nights, something seems amiss, changed. The child never stops crying. Her hunger is insatiable. Her eyes glint with some kind of ancient mischief. Could Maud be a fairy child, swapped when Madeleine wasn't paying attention? Is the real Maud dancing in the half-light with the fairies and the foxes? Did the gray cat hide her behind the hedge? Meanwhile, the world around them continues in its humdrum ease. Tom works toward a promotion, urging Madeleine to connect with other moms and keep in touch with her colleagues. Her parents travel from abroad to meet the baby, but Madeleine is unnerved by her father's new obsession with genealogy and DNA tests. Interrupted by visions, panicked at her lack of maternal feelings, shut out from her old life, she frantically searches for answers. But the old stories end in sorrow and bloodshed. And fairies do more than kidnap babies. A riveting portrait of madness, motherhood, the myths that haunt us, and the families who keep us tethered, Emily McBride's Queen Mab asks us to reconsider what is real and how we might see a truer picture of ourselves through the darkness.

The Secrets We Hide: A North Falls Thriller
by Karin Slaughter

The next thrilling mystery in the new North Falls series from Karin Slaughter, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Good Daughter and the Will Trent Series.Welcome to North Falls. A small town with big secrets...1601 Iris Drive looks like any other house on the quiet, residential street. But rumors are rampant about the Vickery family, and what goes on behind closed doors.When gunshots ring out, Sheriff Emmy Clifton and her sister, ex-federal agent Jude Archer, discover a devastating crime scene. Allison Vickery has been murdered in her own kitchen, and her teenage daughter is bleeding upstairs, left for dead.Everyone thinks they know what happened. But secrets are buried everywhere in this small town.And it's up to Emmy Clifton to uncover the truth...

The Shadow Friends: A Thriller
by Tess Gerritsen

From New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen comes a harrowing and emotional thriller where ghosts of the Cold War return with a vengeance--and cannot be outrun.When a renowned disease expert and Russian defector dies mysteriously during a global affairs conference in Purity, Maine, the tight-knit band of former spies in the Martini Club once again sees their quiet coastal retirement interrupted by international intrigue. And when a waitress at the conference hotel is found murdered, Ingrid Slocum sees chilling links to a disastrous mission that nearly killed her three decades ago.Desperate to uncover the truth, Ingrid's drawn back into the game by a magnetic ex-CIA colleague--and former lover--who was with her on the long-ago doomed mission. He convinces her to join him, and together they head to Amsterdam to track down her would-be killer.Ingrid's frantic husband Lloyd and Maggie Bird are close behind, but a clandestine network of assassins is intent on stopping them. Forced to question every allegiance, the Martini Club must rely on the skills they tried to leave behind. Because in this game of revenge and deception, the past never dies--it just hides in the shadows.

Steelborn (Standard Edition)
by Taylor J. Larue

Introducing an epic, slow burn enemies-to-lovers romantasy novel about a heroine forged in steel and rage, and the cursed immortal who might turn out to be as much her salvation as she is his, perfect for fans of Danielle L. Jensen and Callie Hart. Never run. Never bow. Never die. Reya Connery became the Crimson Dagger, the most notorious thief in Rhiterra, by following a strict set of rules. One: There is no honor among thieves. Two: A good blade is key to any negotiation. Three: Only the dead keep secrets. And Reya has a secret that must be kept at all costs. But when a heist goes wrong on the eve of paying off her debt to a ruthless crime lord, Reya may need a new set of rules. And lots of coin. Fast. Enter Caelan Halcyon, an immortal warrior whose magic makes him a valuable target--if the curse inching closer to his heart doesn't kill him first. There's just one person who might be desperate enough to try and get their hands on the fabled cure in time to save his life, someone whose legend claims they can steal anything: the Crimson Dagger. A male of honor, Caelan loathes everything the beautiful, cocky thief represents, yet knows that Reya is his last hope for survival. Their search takes them to the edge of the known world, where Reya discovers that there is far more at stake than her and Caelan's own lives. Now, Reya must confront deadly foes, her growing attraction to the immortal who is as lethal as his jawline is perfect, and the rage she's spent a lifetime trying to bury. This time, her daggers aren't going to cut it, and the fate of all magic-born hangs in the balance. Enter a world ruled by tyrants and thieves, where magic is outlawed, revolution brews, desire is dangerous, and an impossible cure may prove deadlier than the curse. Tropes: Slow-burn romance Enemies-to-lovers Deadly curses Tortured immortal hero Secret identity Forced proximity Found family Only one saddle

That Night
by Gillian McAllister

NOW STREAMING ON NETFLIXMcAllister is the best at putting her characters in impossible situations and making her readers not only contemplate but feel what it would be like to find themselves in those situations. -- Emily HenryFrom the author of Reese's Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller Wrong Place Wrong Time comes an electrifying thriller about three siblings torn apart by the cover-up of a death while on a family vacation in Italy.On vacation in Europe, Frannie makes two urgent phone calls. One to her sister, and one to her brother. The siblings come running, and they find their sister covered in blood, kneeling over an unmoving body.There's been an accident: Frannie has hit a man with her car, and she needs their help. They bury the body, and they make a promise. They'll never tell anyone.But when the police come calling, the siblings' lies start to spiral. They begin to doubt their trust in each other. Because what really happened that night?And who will be the first to crack?With the incredible twists and turns and a unique look at family relationships that McAllister has become known for, That Night is the ultimate summer thriller that asks: what would you do to protect your family?

The True Meaning of Love
by Danielle Steel

An uplifting new novel from Danielle Steel, whose countless #1 New York Times bestselling novels have made her one of America's favorite storytellers.

A Trade of Blood
by Robert Jackson Bennett

Detective Ana Dolabra must prove a condemned man's innocence and confront a terrifying magical technology in this fantasy-mystery from the bestselling author of The Tainted Cup, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy awards. The heir to one of the Empire's most powerful families sits in jail, accused of murder. His hands are covered in the victim's blood, and he can neither deny his guilt nor explain his actions. But if the great detective Ana Dolabra cannot save him from the noose, the farming canton of Sapirdad will explode into war, threatening to plunge the whole Empire into starvation and chaos. As Ana investigates--her assistant Dinios Kol, as ever, acting as her eyes and ears--she fears her task is even more daunting than it seemed. For this murder is just the latest in a deeper, subtler web of death, woven by a mastermind with an ancient weapon at his disposal. With their customary skill, Ana and Din pursue their adversary through the canton's wild ranges, sprawling ranches, and reeking slaughterhouses. Yet even they are not prepared to learn the horrifying secret behind their opponent's powers.

Under the Falls
by Richard Russo

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls returns with a spellbinding page-turner about a crime in a small town that exposes long-held secrets and betrayals among a group of lifelong friends. When Tyler Sinclair left Stone Mountain at eighteen, he had no plans of returning. With only a duffel bag full of clothes, a few bucks stolen from his father's dresser, and a guitar, his most prized possession, Tyler disappeared without so much as a goodbye. Eighteen years later, Tyler, now the frontman of a famous band aptly named Stone Mountain, finds himself returning to his hometown for a one-night-only benefit concert to support his old friend, Doc, who lost feeling in his legs following a childhood accident. As Tyler ascends the mountain, memories of his childhood come rushing back--memories of his abusive father and despondent mother, of the friends he left behind--and he quickly learns that, for many people on Stone Mountain, the past does not feel like so long ago, and not everyone has been eagerly awaiting Tyler's return. At the concert, resentment simmers just beneath the surface, and Tyler finds himself confronted with faces new and old: there's Curt, Tyler's childhood best friend, now Stone Mountain's chief of police, and his star officer, Deb, an out-of-towner who may have bitten off more than she can chew by accepting a job in Stone Mountain. And then there's Freddi, Curt's wife and Tyler's former lover, a woman whose questionable dealings and fraught history with Tyler will become the catalyst for a tragedy that will upend each of their lives and threaten to validate Tyler's worst fear: that Stone Mountain is the kind of place you might escape from once, if you're lucky, but not twice. Under the Falls is at once a propulsive thriller, a gut-wrenching portrait of a tight-knit rural community undone by the sins of its past, and an unflinchingly honest depiction of how porous the line between right and wrong, good versus evil, can become. This is a stunning, deeply empathetic novel, one that takes Russo's penchant for character-driven drama to thrilling new heights.

The Unknown
by Riley Sager

The first edition of this stunning hardcover features designed endpapers, a foil-stamped case, hued edges, and a shimmery jacket In 1926, five women disappeared from a remote island in Vermont. Now, one hundred years later, it's happening again. Struggling actress Marin Keane is shocked when she lands a role in a major motion picture about the unsolved mystery of New Avalon, an island on sprawling Lake Faraday in Vermont. She's even more surprised when she learns that the role requires a weeklong research trip to that very spot. Because New Avalon isn't your ordinary island. A century ago, it was a commune for spiritual mediums--until they all vanished in 1926. The only trace of them was five dresses hanging from the branches of an old oak tree in the middle of the island, one for each missing woman. Some locals say they simply left. Others think they were murdered. But the prevailing opinion, thanks to a diary left behind by one of the vanished, a young woman named Daisy Rue, is that a s ance gone wrong conjured something supernatural that took them all one by one. Not long after arriving, Marin and her castmates, including legendary actress Violet Wright and white-hot director Ronan Peters, begin to realize all is not right with New Avalon. They hear strange noises in the night and notice mysterious symbols left behind by the island's previous occupants. And after a sudden health emergency leaves Marin, Ronan, and the other actors stranded on the island, the disappearances begin again. Is it the work of someone trying to derail the movie? Or is the island's alleged supernatural past catching up with the present? As fear and suspicion mount, Marin turns to Daisy's diary, hoping it holds the key to figuring out what really happened to the women of New Avalon--and how to keep the island's terrible history from repeating itself.

The Wild Beneath
by Kelly Anderson

Ethereal...a story that reminds us sometimes the impossible is possible.--JODI PICOULTA haunting, heart-stopping debut.--CHRISTINA BAKER KLINEPart love story, part ode to nature, with a mystical, musical, mysterious quality.--NIKKI ERLICKFor readers of Wild Dark Shore and The Time Traveler's Wife, a fierce, haunting story of one woman caught between her first love and a mysterious stranger who upends everything--and the two worlds that won't let her go.Annie MacLeod always knew she was different, growing up on a sailboat in the Pacific Northwest, navigating by stars and swimming with sea creatures alongside her parents and best friend Evan. But when a tsunami shatters her world, Annie is stranded on land and forced to confront how eccentric she is. In the wreckage, she rescues a wordless man named Walker, who emits a hum only she can hear.Their connection is instant, electric. Walker's touch gives Annie visions of the ocean's hidden world, a life she's never known but feels inexplicably drawn to. Yet even as she is pulled toward him, Evan--the steadfast love who has always been there--remains on dry land, offering the stability she may have to leave behind. Annie is torn between Evan's grounding presence and Walker's magnetic secrets. But then, Walker vanishes, along with the answers she needs about who she really is.Six years later, Annie has left the sea and buried the past--until Walker's otherworldly sound returns, pulling her back toward the ocean and the life she abandoned. The truth under the water is more ancient than she ever could have known, and Annie must confront a choice that will test her heart and determine her future.Absolutely dazzling.--SARAH PENNERIncandescent...I did not want to come up for air.--EMMA KNIGHTSpellbinding --NITA PROSE

The Women in White
by Sarah Pekkanen

The next thriller from #1 bestselling author Sarah Pekkanen combines a decades-old mystery with spine-tingling paranormal elements in this twisty novel of the seen and unseen. Extrasensory perception.The Gift.A Sixth Sense.Or something else.... In 1964, four remarkable young women at a prestigious university became the subjects of parapsychology experiments by a visionary scientist. On the cusp of a historic breakthrough, the women mysteriously vanished and the program was erased from history. Decades later, Riley Bell, newly divorced and desperate for a fresh start, accepts a caretaker job for an elderly widow named Betty. Riley steps into a home that is frozen in another era - no microwave, television, or cell phones, and Betty has never heard of the internet. Why has Betty lived in such profound isolation for so many years, and why does she need Riley now? As the story unfolds across two timelines - Betty's 1960s era of 5 o'clock martinis and high-stakes experiments, and Riley's quest to uncover the truth about the missing women - old secrets rise to the surface. And the only way to survive is to confront the mystery that has lingered for sixty years.

You'll Be Sorry
by Lisa Gardner

From a master storyteller comes a chilling, gripping standalone (Lisa Jewell): A newlywed couple each with their own secrets. An abandoned lodge with a horrific decades-old mystery. And a small mountain town where everyone believes they know their neighbors...except they don't. For Raquel and Theo Collins, it appeared to be love at first sight. Raquel, a renowned interior designer, and Theo, a brash financial wizard met and married in a matter of months, only to confront a terrible tragedy. Now, unbearably aware of the distance between them, they've come to a remote town in New Hampshire to begin anew. Perched on a ledge with stunning views, the Dixon's family lodge was once a crown jewel of the mountains. Until late one August night, when both parents and their four children vanished, leaving behind a trail of bloody footprints, and a mystery that has endured for thirty years. Now, its latest occupants, the Collinses, are arriving, and the former grand lodge is once more stirring to life. For Amanda Grady, following in her father's footsteps as the recently appointed Shereford police chief, it's good to see a fresh start for the derelict Dixon place. However, not everyone is happy about a new family in the old home and its hidden past may have returned with a vengeance. When a stray dog leads to the discovery of a skeleton on the property, Raquel and Theo face a daunting choice of what to believe, who to trust, and how to survive. Because in the tiny village of Shereford the time has come. The local residents, the new neighbors, and the fledgling police chief must work together to unravel the terrifying events that happened one night thirty years ago, or... You'll be sorry.

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