Upcoming Hot Releases
February 2025
Fiction
My Friends: A Novel
by Fredrik Backman

Fiction. An unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale from the author of A Man Called Otto. Most people don't even notice them--three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it's just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There's Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there's the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream. Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art. (May)
Strangers in Time
by David Baldacci

Historical Fiction. After barely surviving the Blitz, fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters knows there's no telling when a falling bomb might end his life. Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of people to have been evacuated to the countryside via "Operation Pied Piper," Molly has been away from her parents for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she'd hoped for as she's confronted by a devastating reality: neither of her parents are there, only her old nanny, Mrs. Pride. Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his book shop, The Book Keep, where a book a day keeps the bombs away. Mourning the recent loss of his wife, Ignatius forms a kinship with both children, and in each other--over the course of the greatest armed conflict the world had ever seen--they rediscover the spirit of family each has lost. But Charlie's escapades in the city have not gone unnoticed, and someone's been following Molly since she returned to London. (April)
Blood Moon
by Sandra Brown

Romantic Suspense. Recently divorced and slightly heavy-handed with his liquor, Detective John Bowie does all that he can to cope with the actions taken (or not taken) during the investigation of Crissy Mellin, a teenage girl who disappeared more than three years prior. But now, Crisis Point, a long-running true crime television series, is soon to air an episode documenting the unsolved Mellin case. Bowie has been instructed by his unscrupulous boss to keep to himself his grievances and criticisms over the mishandling of the investigation. After working on the show for seven years researching, fact checking, and editing dozens of episodes, Crisis Point senior producer Beth Collins is convinced that Crissy Mellin's disappearance was not an isolated incident. A string of disappearances of teenage girls in nearby areas have only one thing in common: They took place on the night of a blood moon. In a last-ditch effort to find out the truth, Beth leaves New York City for Louisiana to enlist Detective Bowie in helping her figure out what happened to Crissy and find the true culprit before he acts on the next blood moon-in four days' time. At the risk of their jobs and lives, Bowie and Collins band together to identify and capture a canny perpetrator, while fighting an irresistible spark between them that threatens to upend everything. (March)
Tom Clancy Line of Demarcation
by M. P. Woodward

Thriller. It starts with the destruction of a US Coast Guard cutter and the loss of her entire crew. The USCG Claiborne was on an innocuous mission to open a sea lane between an oil field off the coast of South America and the refineries of southern Louisiana. The destruction of the ship, tragic as it is, won't stop that mission from continuing. Jack Ryan Jr. is in Guyana to work a deal to get his company, Hendley Associates, in on the ground floor of this new discovery, but Russia's Wagner Group and a pack of Venezuelan narco-terrorists have other ideas--and will risk war with the United States to see them through. (May)
Nobody's Fool
by Harlan Coben

Suspense. A year after the devastating events that took place in Fool Me Once, a secret from former Detective Sami Kierce's college days comes back to haunt him. Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There’s a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He doesn’t know what happened. His screams drown out his thoughts—and then he runs. Twenty-two years later, Kierce, now a private investigator, is a new father who’s working off his debts by doing low level surveillance jobs and teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City. One evening, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom. Anna. It’s unmistakably her. As soon as Kierce makes eye contact with her, she bolts. For Kierce there is no choice. He knows he must find this woman and solve the impossible mystery that has haunted his every waking moment since that terrible day. (March)
South of Nowhere
by Jeffery Deaver

Thriller. A small town in Northern California is at risk of being destroyed by a failing levee, and Colter Shaw has been hired to locate a family swept away by the raging water, with mere hours to survive. But is the levee at risk of failing from natural causes or is someone sabotaging it? With the help of his sister, Dorion, the duo must save the citizens before the old town washes out at the hands of a secret conspirer. (May)
The Last Days of Kira Mullan
by Nicci French

Suspense. Recovering from a psychotic breakdown, Nancy North moves into a new flat and becomes convinced a new neighbor's sudden death isn't a suicide, while Detective Maud O'Connor battles institutional apathy to uncover the truth, as both women face mounting pressure and blurred lines between reality and suspicion. (March)
The Summer Guests
by Tess Gerritsen

Thriller/Mystery. A follow-up to The Spy Coast plunges the Martini Club into the search for a missing teen with a startling connection to their own pasts. When former spy Maggie Bird retired to the seaside hamlet of Purity, Maine, she settled in for a quiet life with breathtaking views. But enemies from her past soon threatened to destroy everything. Maggie survived, thanks to her wits and the collective intelligence of the Martini Club, the circle of ex-CIA friends in her cocktail-sipping book club. Their handiwork, however, caught the attention of young police chief Jo Thibodeau. Now Jo and her neighborhood ex-spies have an uneasy alliance. After a teenager vanishes and Maggie’s neighbor becomes the prime suspect, Maggie joins the investigation, determined to prove her friend’s innocence. (March) 
Fever Beach: A Novel
by Carl Hiaasen

Fiction/Humor. "The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Falls, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said he'd take him there after finishing an errand." Thus begins Fever Beach, with an errand that leads-in pure Hiaasen-style-into the depths of Florida at its most Floridian: a sun-soaked bastion of right-wing extremism, white power, greed, and corruption. Figgo, it turns out, is the only hate-monger ever to be kicked out of the Proud Boys for being too dumb and incompetent. On January 6, 2021 he thought he was defacing a statue of Ulysses S. Grant, but he wound up spreading feces all over a statue of James Zacharia George, a Civil War Confederate war leader. Figgo's already messy life is about to get more complicated, thanks to two formidable adversaries. (May) 
Overkill
by J. A. Jance

Thriller. Chuck Brewster, the former business partner of Ali Reynolds's husband B. Simpson, once carried on an affair with Clarice, B.'s first wife. So when he's found murdered with Clarice standing nearby covered in blood, it seems an open and shut case. But Clarice swears she's innocent and begs for Ali's help. At the same time, someone is targeting Camille Lee while she's on the road for High Noon. Ali is swiftly running out of time to find the real killer and keep her employee safe in this high-octane thrill ride. (April)
Never Flinch: A Novel
by Stephen King

Thriller. A sequel to Holly. When the Buckeye City Police Department receives a disturbing letter from a person threatening to "kill thirteen innocents and one guilty" in "an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man," Detective Izzy Jaynes has no idea what to think. Are fourteen citizens about to be slaughtered in an unhinged act of retribution? As the investigation unfolds, Izzy realizes that the letter writer is deadly serious, and she turns to her friend Holly Gibney for help. Meanwhile, controversial and outspoken women's rights activist Kate McKay is embarking on a multi-state lecture tour, drawing packed venues of both fans and detractors. Someone who vehemently opposes Kate's message of female empowerment is targeting her and disrupting her events. (May) 
The River Is Waiting
by Wally Lamb

Fiction. Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that's before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother's enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. (May)
Elphie
by Gregory Maguire

Fantasy. This sequel to Wicked describes the coming-of-age story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, as she is molded by her promiscuous mother and her pious father, becomes jealous of her siblings, and encounters mistreatment of the animal populations of Oz. (March)
Beach Vibes
by Susan Mallery

Fiction. Beth's idyllic life running her Malibu beach shop unravels when she discovers her brother's infidelity and must make a moral decision threatening her newfound happiness and forcing her to choose between love and loyalty. (March)
Fight or Flight
by Fern Michaels

Thriller. Haunted by a tragedy in her past, reclusive author Katherine Winston must leave her isolated mountain retreat to help a young fan whose life is threatened, leading her on a journey of self-discovery and courage. (March).
25 Alive
by James Patterson

Mystery/Thriller. SFPD homicide detective Lindsay Boxer knows her way around a crime scene. But nothing can prepare her for the shock of recognition: the victim is Warren Jacobi, Lindsay's onetime partner who rose to chief of police. A top investigator until the end, Jacobi managed to leave Lindsay a clue. Following a trail of evidence along the west coast, the Women's Murder Club pledges to avenge Jacobi's death before the killer can take another one of their ow
2 Sisters Murder Investigations
by James Patterson

Mystery. Rhonda and Barbara "Baby" Bird are half-sisters--and full partners in their Los Angeles detective agency. They agree on nothing. Rhonda, a former attorney, takes a by-the-book approach to solving crimes, while teenage Baby relies on her street smarts. But when they take a controversial case of a loner whose popular wife has gone missing, they're accused of being PIs who can't tell a client from a killer. The Bird sisters share a late father, but not much else...except their willingness to fight. Fight the system. Fight for the underdog. Fight for the truth. If they can stop fighting each other long enough to work together. (April)
The Writer
by James Patterson

Thriller/Mystery. NYPD Detective Declan Shaw gets a call: How fast can you get to the Beresford building on Central Park West? In the tower apartment, Shaw finds a woman waiting for him. She’s covered in blood. A body is lying dead on the floor of the luxurious living room. Every book in the apartment’s floor-to-ceiling shelves is by the same author: bestselling true-crime writer Denise Morrow.  This is you?" Shaw asks the woman. "You're a writer?" Only one person knows the ending to this story. Is it the victim or the killer? (March)
Lethal Prey
by John Sandford

Thriller. Doris Grandfelt, an employee at an accounting firm, was brutally stabbed to death, but nobody knew exactly where the crime took place. Her body was found the next night, dumped among a dense thicket of trees. Despite her twin sister Lara Grandfelt’s persistent calls to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the killer was never found. Twenty years later, Lara has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Confronted with the possibility of her own death, she’s determined to find Doris’s killer once and for all. Finally taking matters into her own hands, she dumps the entire investigative file on every true-crime site in the world and offers a $5 million reward for information leading to the killer’s arrest. Dozens of true-crime bloggers show up looking for both new evidence and “clicks,” and Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers are called in to review anything that might be a new lead. (March)
Far from Home
by Danielle Steel

Historical Fiction. Fleeing Paris after her husband's execution for opposing Hitler, Arielle von Auspeck hides in Normandy, joins the Resistance and forges a bond with a grieving widower as they fight to reunite with their loved ones. (March)
A Mind of Her Own
by Danielle Steel

Historical Fiction. Alexandra Bouvier is born in Paris in 1900, at the dawn of a new century. From an early age, she is encouraged to think for herself by her enlightened family: her father, a French doctor; her mother, an American nurse; and her maternal grandfather a highly regarded newspaperman back in the Midwest. At age fourteen, Alex's comfortable life is upended as war erupts across Europe. Her parents follow their sense of duty to the front, performing triage at a field hospital and confronting the horrors of poison gas and trench warfare. The merciless fighting, coupled with the fast-spreading Spanish flu, wreaks havoc on the continent, as well as on Alex's loved ones. By the time she is eighteen, she has suffered unimaginable losses. With her grandfather's support, she attends the University of Chicago and decides to follow his footsteps into journalism. (April)
Into the Gray Zone
by Brad Taylor

Military Thriller. While on a routine security assessment in India, Taskforce operator Pike Logan foils an attempted attack on a meeting between the CIA and India’s intelligence service. Both government agencies believe it’s nothing more than a minor terrorist attack, but Pike suspects that something much more sinister is at play. After another terrorist operation at the Taj Mahal, he begins to believe that outside powers are attacking India in the gray zone between peace and war, leveraging terrorist groups for nothing more than economic gain. But the separatists conducting the operations have their own agenda. After a massive slaughter and kidnapping of hostages during an elaborate Indian pre-wedding party, two global powers are destabilized, and only Pike Logan and his team can de-escalate the tension by rescuing the captives. (April)
Summer Light on Nantucket
by Nancy Thayer

Fiction. Blythe Benedict is content. Her life didn't end when her marriage did. In fact, she's more than happy living in her comfortable house in Boston, working as a middle school teacher, and raising four wonderful children. With three of her kids in the throes of teenagerhood and one not too far behind them, Blythe has plenty of drama to keep her busy every single day. But no amount of that drama could change the family's beloved annual summer trip to Nantucket. Blythe has always treasured the months spent at her island home-away-from-home, and has fond memories of her children growing up there. But this summer's getaway proves to be much more than she bargained for. Blythe must contend with teenage angst, her ex-mother-in-law's declining health, and a troubling secret involving her ex-husband. (April)
The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits
by Jennifer Weiner

Fiction. Sisters Cassie and Zoe Grossberg were born just a year apart but could not have been more different. Zoe, blessed with charm and beauty, yearned for fame from the moment she could sing into a hairbrush. Cassie was a musical prodigy who never felt at home in her own skin and preferred the safety of the shadows. On the brink of adulthood in the early 2000s, destiny intervened, catapulting the sisters into the spotlight as the pop sensation the Griffin Sisters, hitting all the touchstones of early aughts fame—SNL, MTV, Rolling Stone magazine—along the way. But after a whirlwind year in the public eye, the band abruptly broke up. Two decades later, Zoe’s a housewife; Cassie’s off the grid. The sisters aren’t speaking, and the real reason for the Griffin Sisters’ breakup is still a mystery. Zoe’s teenage daughter, Cherry, who’s determined to be a star in spite of Zoe’s warnings, is on a quest to learn the truth about what happened to the band all those years ago. (April)
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