This week’s new arrivals are all fiction books – albeit a wide array of genres. First we have Hell Bent, by Leigh Bardugo, a paranormal fantasy, the sequel to Ninth House. It seems to me as though you can’t really put it in one genre, it seems to border on fantasy, horror, and suspense/thriller. I could be wrong. No matter what, Bardugo’s books are always entertaining.
Next comes a real horror book, Grady Hendrix’s How to Sell a Haunted House. Be prepared to be scared. Who knows what still lives inside the childhood home of a sister and a brother with childhood grudges, who are preparing the house to be sold.
Small World: A Novel by Laura Zigman is a heartfelt novel about sisterhood and hope – and the relationship between two offbeat and newly divorced sisters who move in together as adults—and are finally forced to reckon with their childhood.
If you ever wondered what life would be like as a Doomsday Prepper, and why they go to such lengths to do what they do, you may want to consider The Survivalists: A Novel by Kashana Cauley. A black woman lawyer who is set on success is sucked into an underground world, one of selling guns and training for a doomsday that’s maybe just around the corner by her boyfriend and his roommates.
Glitterland by Alexis Hall is “A gorgeously complicated (and sexy) story about the many facets of the LGBT community from the author of Boyfriend Material”. Two men who each have trouble with happiness try and work things out.
Now for the mysteries. The Cabinet of Dr. Leng by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child continues their series with FBI Special Agent Pendergast and Constance Greene. They cross paths with New York’s deadliest serial killer: Pendergast’s own ancestor…and now his greatest foe. Constance finds a way back to her roots in 1800’s New York to try and prevent the events that led to the deaths of her sister and brother. Dr. Leng lies in wait.
Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson is just what it sounds like – a murder mystery in the same vein as Clue and Knives Out, with some Agatha Christie thrown in.
The last book, The House of Wolves is a thriller by two brilliant writers, James Patterson and Mike Lupica. It is a family drama about a woman who inherits a billion-dollar empire from her murdered father – and an extremely ruthless family. She wants revenge from those who killed her father – if she can survive the killers all around her.
As always, thank you for making our shelves your destination.
FICTION:
FANTASY: (PARANORMAL)
HELL BENT by Leigh Bardugo
Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. The Ivy League is going straight to hell in the sequel to the smash New York Times bestseller Ninth House from #1 bestselling author Leigh Bardugo.
Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory—even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.
Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.
Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.
HORROR:
HOW TO SELL A HAUNTED HOUSE by Grady Hendrix
New York Times bestselling author Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a hilarious and terrifying new novel that explores the way your past—and your family—can haunt you like nothing else….
Louise’s parents have passed away, and she’s returning to the small Southern town where she grew up to get their house ready to sell. It means she’ll have to spend time with her younger brother—and their old grudges make that a terrifying prospect. But childhood hurts pale in comparison to the dangers posed by what still lives inside the house.
LITERARY FICTION:
SMALL WORLD: A NOVEL by Laura Zigman
From bestselling author Laura Zigman comes a heartfelt novel about two offbeat and newly divorced sisters who move in together as adults—and are finally forced to reckon with their childhood
A year after her divorce, Joyce is settling into being single again. She likes her job archiving family photos and videos, and she’s developed a secret comforting hobby: trolling the neighborhood social networking site, Small World, for posts that help solve life’s easiest problems. When her older sister, Lydia, also divorced, calls to tell her she’s moving back east from Los Angeles after almost thirty years away, Joyce invites Lydia to move into her Cambridge apartment. Temporarily. Just until she finds a place of her own.
But their unlikely cohabitation—not helped by annoying new neighbors upstairs—turns out to be the post-divorce rebound relationship Joyce hadn’t planned on. Instead of forging the bond she always dreamed of having with Lydia, their relationship frays. And they rarely discuss the loss of their sister, Eleanor, who was significantly disabled and died when she was only ten years old. When new revelations from their family’s history come to light, will those secrets further split them apart, or course correct their connection for the future?
Written with wry humor and keen sensitivity, Small World is a powerful novel of sisterhood and hope—a reminder that sometimes you have to look back in order to move ahead.
AFRICAN AMERICAN & BLACK/WOMEN’S FICTION:
THE SURVIVALISTS: A NOVEL by Kashana Cauley
A great and engrossing read, Kashana humanizes a way of life that is often made fun of and makes the reader understand why someone would go to such great lengths to prepare for the future, so much so she almost sold me on those Life Preserver soy bars!” —Trevor Noah
A single Black lawyer puts her career and personal moral code at risk when she moves in with her coffee entrepreneur boyfriend and his doomsday-prepping roommates in a novel that’s packed with tension, curiosity, humor, and wit from a writer with serious comedy credentials.
In the wake of her parents’ death, Aretha, a habitually single Black lawyer, has had only one obsession in life—success—until she falls for Aaron, a coffee entrepreneur. Moving into his Brooklyn brownstone to live along with his Hurricane Sandy-traumatized, illegal-gun-stockpiling, optimized-soy-protein-eating, bunker-building roommates, Aretha finds that her dreams of making partner are slipping away, replaced by an underground world, one of selling guns and training for a doomsday that’s maybe just around the corner.
For readers of Victor LaValle’s The Changeling, Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, and Zakiya Harris’s The Other Black Girl, The Survivalists is a darkly humorous novel from a smart and relevant literary voice that’s packed with tension, curiosity and wit, and unafraid to ask the questions most relevant to this generation of Americans: Does it make sense to climb the corporate ladder? What exactly are the politics of gun ownership? And in a world where it’s nearly impossible for young people to earn enough money to afford stable housing, what does it take in order to survive?
LGBTQ+ ROMANCE:
GLITTERLAND by Alexis Hall
A gorgeously complicated (and sexy) story about the many facets of the LGBT community from the author of Boyfriend Material
Once the golden boy of the English literary scene, now a clinically depressed writer of pulp crime fiction, Ash Winters has given up on hope, happiness, and—most of all—himself. He lives his life between the cycles of his illness, haunted by the ghosts of other people’s expectations.
Then a chance encounter throws him into the path of Essex-born Darian Taylor. By his own admission, Darian isn’t the crispest lettuce in the fridge, but he makes Ash laugh, reminding him of what it’s like to step beyond the boundaries of anxiety. But Ash has been living in his own shadow for so long that he can’t see past the glitter to the light. Can a man who doesn’t trust himself ever trust in happiness? And how can a man who doesn’t believe in happiness ever fight for his own?
MYSTERY:
THE CABINET OF DR. LENG by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Preston & Child continue their #1 bestselling series featuring FBI Special Agent Pendergast and Constance Greene, as they cross paths with New York’s deadliest serial killer: Pendergast’s own ancestor…and now his greatest foe.
AN INCREDIBLE JOURNEY
Astoundingly, Constance has found a way back to the place of her origins, New York City in the late 1800s, leaping at the chance, although it means leaving the present forever.
A DESPERATE OPPORTUNITY
Constance sets off on a quest to prevent the events that lead to the deaths of her sister and brother. But along the road to redemption, Manhattan’s most infamous serial killer, Dr. Enoch Leng, lies in wait, ready to strike at the slightest provocation.
UNIMAGINABLE ODDS
Meanwhile, in contemporary New York, Pendergast feverishly searches for a way to reunite with Constance—but will he discover a way back to her before it’s too late?
EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE by Benjamin Stevenson
Knives Out and Clue meet Agatha Christie and The Thursday Murder Club in this “utterly original” (Jane Harper), “not to be missed” (Karin Slaughter), fiendishly clever blend of classic and modern murder mystery.
Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate.
I’m Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I’d killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
Have I killed someone? Yes. I have.
Who was it?
Let’s get started.
EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE
My brother
My stepsister
My wife
My father
My mother
My sister-in-law
My uncle
My stepfather
My aunt
Me
THRILLER/SUSPENSE:
THE HOUSE OF WOLVES by James Patterson and Mike Lupica
James Patterson and Mike Lupica are the thriller dream team! Jenny Wolf’s murdered father leaves her in charge of a billion-dollar empire—and a family more ruthless than Succession’s Roys and Yellowstone’s Duttons.
The Wolfs, the most powerful family in California, have a new head–thirty-six-year-old former high school teacher Jenny Wolf.
That means Jenny now runs the prestigious San Francisco Tribune.
She also controls the legendary pro football team, the Wolves.
And she has a murdered father to avenge—if she can survive the killers all around her.
An unforgettable family drama by two writers at the top of their craft.
Annie's Book Stop of Worcester 