New(ish) Books You Might Have Missed
These books were new in February and March—but due to COVID-19, not many people had a chance to see them in our New Fiction section.
September 14, 2020
These books were new in February and March—but due to COVID-19, not many people had a chance to see them in our New Fiction section.
So let’s give them their chance to shine!
In this post: cozy mysteries, historical fiction, mystery thrillers, realistic fiction, romance, science fiction and fantasy.
Cozy Mystery
Above the Bay of Angels
Rhys Bowen
When a twist of fate lands her in Queen Victoria’s kitchen, a talented young chef is selected to accompany a royal retinue, only to be wrongly implicated in a murder.

A Crafter Quilts a Crime
Holly Quinn
Craft store owner Sammy Kane investigates after a popular quilter dies in the middle of a live mannequin window display contest, in the third novel of the series following A Crafter Hooks a Killer.
Historical Fiction

The Land Beneath Us
Sarah Sundin
When an Army Ranger and a librarian are bound together by a marriage of convenience, neither suspects it might lead to love. Will D-day–and a foreboding dream–tear them apart?

Remembrance
Rita Woods
Looks at present-day Ohio, 1791 Haiti, and 1857 New Orleans, in which house girl Margot is sold just before her 18th birthday and her promised freedom, and, desperate, she escapes and tries to find Remembrance, a rumored stop on the Underground Railroad.

A Perfect Explanation
Eleanor Anstruther
Enid Campbell-granddaughter of the 8th Duke of Argyll, of Inveraray Castle-grew up surrounded by servants, wanting for nothing except love. But when her brother died in the First World War, a new heir was needed, and it was up to Enid to provide it.

My Dearest Dietrich
Amanda Barratt
Maria von Wedemeyer knows the realities of war. Her beloved father and brother have both been killed on the battlefield. The last thing this spirited young woman needs is to fall for a man under constant surveillance by the Gestapo. How can she give another piece of her heart to a man so likely to share the same final fate?

The Illness Lesson
Clare Beams
Interpreting a mysterious flock of red birds as an omen to pursue his newest venture, a once-famous philosopher opens a revolutionary school to shape the intellectual development of women, before his students’ bizarre symptoms reveal otherworldly secrets.

Greenwood
Michael Christie
A metaphorical tale tracing multiple generations of a once-wealthy family finds its members navigating secrets and crimes linked to the trees that have made and broken their fortunes

The King at the Edge of the World
Arthur Phillips
A secret Muslim warrior from the height of England’s religious battles is sent to Scotland to uncover the true nature of James VI’s actual religious beliefs while an heirless Elizabeth I lies on her deathbed.
Once Night Falls
Roland Merullo
Joining the partisans in their fight against German occupiers on Lake Como, Luca struggles to protect his Jewish lover while their mothers consider what they will sacrifice to protect their people from the Nazis.

The Queen’s Fortune
Allison Pataki
A historical novel inspired by the life of Desiree Clary finds the future queen of Sweden and Norway entering a secret engagement with Napoleon Bonaparte before imperial uprisings and his relationship with rising-star Josephine places her life at risk.
Mystery Thriller

The Absolution
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
Detective Huldar and a child psychologist investigate an Icelandic serial killer who is posting the last moments of his numbered, teenage victims on social media in the third addition to the series following The Reckoning.

Firewatching
Russ Thomas
A taut and ambitious police procedural debut introducing Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler, a cold case reviewer who lands a high-profile murder investigation only to find the main suspect is a recent one-night stand.

Hidden Cove
Meg Tilly
When a close friend dies from a suspicious overdose, Solace Island gallery owner Zelia Thompson teams up with a reclusive crime fiction novelist to uncover the truth, placing her own life at risk along the way.

A Divided Loyalty: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery
Charles Todd
Investigating the murder of an unknown victim who was found within a great prehistoric circle near Stonehenge, Rutledge follows unreliable clues to an impossible conclusion that places him on the wrong side of Scotland Yard.

The Majesties
Tiffany Tsao
A sole survivor of a Chinese-Indonesian family struggles on the edge of a coma to regain consciousness while reexamining tragic elements in her family that may have driven a beloved sister to a shocking act of violence.

Out of the Attic
V.C. Andrews
Published to mark the 40th anniversary of Flowers in the Attic, a sequel to Beneath the Attic expands on the original best-selling series and is set two generations before Corrine Foxworth locked away her children.

Follow Me
Kathleen Barber
A follow-up to Are You Sleeping follows the experiences of a thriving social-media personality whose detailed postings about her new job capture the attentions of a predatory follower.
Relative Fortunes
Marlowe Benn
In 1920s New York, the price of a woman’s independence can be exorbitant-even fatal.

Dread of Winter
Susan Alice Bickford
The remote town of Oriska, New York, hasn’t been home for Sydney Lucerno for thirteen years. She’s escaped the creeping addictions and long-simmering anger that are as much a part of the landscape as the bitter cold. But when she gets the call that her mother is dying, every secret and fear she left behind is waiting to welcome her back.

Fake Like Me
Barbara Bourland
A satire of the absurdly glamorous New York high art scene, in which a young artist crumbles under unimaginable pressure while at an upstate artists’ retreat.
Killman Creek
Rachel Caine
After her serial killer ex-husband escapes from jail and comes looking for her, Gwen teams up with the brother of one of his victims and tries to rid herself of her ex once and for all.

Big Lies in a Small Town
Diane Chamberlain
Imprisoned for a crime she did not commit, an artist is offered a chance to complete her remaining time by restoring a post office mural in a sleepy Southern town where another artist confronted violent prejudice decades earlier.

No Bad Deed
Heather Chavez
For fans of Harlan Coben and Lisa Gardner, a thrilling debut about a mother desperate to find the connections between her husband who’s just gone missing and a stalker who knows way too much about her own dark family history.

The Girl Behind the Red Rope
Ted Dekker and Rachelle Dekker
Joining a secret religious community in the hills of Tennessee after a history-changing event, Grace finds everything she has worked to build threatened by her older brother’s questions and the arrival of the first outsiders in a decade.

The Good Killer
Harry Dolan
Rendered famous for stopping a mass shooting, a former soldier captures the attentions of two dangerous men from the past, including one who blames him for a brother’s death

Echoes of the Fall
Hank Early
When a dead body turns up on his front lawn, accompanied by a cryptic letter, Earl Marcus is led to an old, isolated campus where a horrible truth begins to emerge, plunging him into a world where nothing is sacred.

The Ninja Daughter
Tori Eldridge
Kill Bill meets the Joy Luck Club in The Ninja Daughter, an edge-of-your-seat debut novel about Lily Wong a modern-day female ninja, dedicated to rescuing women from abusive relationships while trying to hide the truth about her real life from her overprotective family.

The Missing Years
Lexie Elliott
When Ailsa Calder inherits her childhood home in the craggy peaks of the Scottish Highlands, she must contend with memories of her long-disappeared father, a half-sister she hardly knows, the fact that neighborhood animals avoid the garden–and the nighttime intruder.

How Quickly She Disappears
Raymond Fleischmann
A woman whose twin disappeared 30 years earlier is approached in her small Alaskan town by a dangerous man claiming to know what happened to her sister, but requesting from her three specific gifts in exchange for the information.

The Last Passenger
Charles Finch
A conclusion to the prequel trilogy finds Victorian detective Charles Lenox defying Scotland Yard and navigating the dual challenges of royal obstinance and class prejudice to investigate the murder of a first-class passenger at Paddington Station.

Net Force Dark Web
Jerome Preisler
When America is hit by a two-pronged attack involving explosions and cyber strikes, a fledgling group of elite cyber-experts leads a defense against ongoing hacks while racing to identify an elusive mastermind perpetrator.

A House Divided
Jonathan F. Putnam
The bond between Abraham Lincoln and his best friend Joshua Speed is tested by the arrival of the beautiful Mary Todd while they are working to solve a harrowing murder case in Springfield in the fourth novel of the series.

The Burial Society
Nina Sadowsky
A woman who operates a secret, darknet-based witness protection program for people in desperate situations who need to disappear discovers that she may have compromised a client and flees to Paris, where a dark part of her past suddenly resurfaces.

The Empty Bed: A Burial Society Novel
Nina Sadowsky
Catherine organizes a team of highly trained Society members on a dangerous chase through Hong Kong to find a missing London woman, a case that is complicated by a vengeful pharmaceutical company and a charismatic land developer.

The Only Child
Mi-ae Seo
Criminal psychologist Seonbyeong receives news that she will be allowed to interview Yi Byeongdo, a serial killer whose gruesome murders shook the world. At the same time, she realizes that her step-daughter is showing traits similar to those of Yi Byeongdo, and has a temper she can’t control.

A Madness of Sunshine
Nalini Singh
Returning to her impoverished New Zealand hometown to reconnect with familiar things after a personal tragedy, Anahera Rawiri bonds with detective Will Gallagher to uncover the community secrets behind a missing-persons case.

Blood Relations
Jonathan Moore
Investigating the suspicious suicide of a billionaire’s daughter, private investigator Lee Crowe uncovers disturbing clues in the victim’s family and home before discovering that she might actually be alive.

Trouble is What I Do
Walter Mosley
Detective Leonid McGill is forced to confront the ghost of his felonious past when a nonagenarian Mississippi bluesman is targeted by an infamous assassin.

The Museum of Desire
Jonathan Kellerman
When a crime of unprecedented malice occurs in a deserted Bel Air mansion, LAPD Lieutenant Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware navigate blind mazes in their efforts to identify links among the victims and how they were killed.

The Burn
Kathleen Kent
A Dallas detective struggles to adjust at work and home after a run-in with an apocalyptic cult while trying to track down crooked cops and the cult leader who had taken her hostage.
Thief River Falls
Brian Freeman
A best-selling writer living in seclusion after losing her family to a series of tragedies risks her life to protect a child who is being targeted by both killers and police who would cover up the murder he witnessed.

The Dark Corners of the Night
Meg Gardiner
Hunting a serial killer who has been murdering parents in front of their children, FBI behavioral analyst Caitlin Hendrix discovers that the killer holds a devastating secret from Caitlin’s own past.

The Lying Room
Nicci French
A standalone thriller by the best-selling author of the Frieda Klein series finds an unfaithful married woman navigating a deadly spiral of misdirection against a detective and a killer when she is set up for murder.

One Minute Out
Mark Greaney
Uncovering a human trafficking operation while in Croatia, Court Gentry follows its ringleader to Hollywood before encountering unexpected interference by his CIA handlers.

Perfect Little Children
Sophie Hannah
Spying on a former best friend she has not seen in years, Beth is alarmed when she discovers that the woman’s children do not appear to have aged.

The Kill Club
Wendy Heard
To save her young brother from their fanatical foster mother, Jazz makes a dangerous pact with a network of vigilantes who hunt down predators and leave a trail of bodies through Los Angeles.

Robert Ludlum’s The Treadstone Resurrection
Joshua Hood
When he receives a mysterious email from a former colleague and is then attacked by an unknown hit team at his job site, former Treadstone agent-turned-carpenter Adam Hayes is forced to come out of retirement to discover who wants him dead.

Behind Every Lie
Christina McDonald
Awakening in the hospital with no memory at the same time her mother is found murdered, Eva visits her childhood home for answers, only to find herself targeted by a killer who guards dangerous secrets.

The Good Detective
John McMahon
Struggling with his professional detachment after the death of his wife and son, once-promising detective P. T. Marsh is implicated in the death of an abusive man who is subsequently linked to a hate killing.
Realistic Fiction

Apartment
Teddy Wayne
A man who offers a rent-free bedroom in his illegal sublet of a rent-stabilized NYC apartment and the working-class Midwestern Columbia student who takes it develop a friendship that eventually clashes over politics, socioeconomic identity and privilege in 1996.

Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes
Kathleen West
Targeted by privileged families for her progressive educational approaches, a beloved teacher discovers unexpected common ground with a meddling parent whose inadvertent encounter with a drama student has had dangerous consequences for her family.

This is Happiness
Niall Williams
A young man’s first experiences of falling in and out of love are shaped by the arrival of electricity in his small western seaboard village, an enigmatic woman and a mysterious drought.

The Words I Never Wrote
Jane Thynne
Impulsively purchasing an antique typewriter that once belonged to a celebrated journalist, a photographer in present-day New York discovers an unpublished novel in the case, igniting a transatlantic journey to uncover the writer’s family secrets.

Real Life
Brandon Taylor
Keeping his head down at a lakeside Midwestern university where the culture is in sharp contrast to his Alabama upbringing, an introverted African-American biochem student endures unexpected encounters that bring his orientation and defenses into question.

Interior Chinatown
Charles Yu
A stereotyped character actor stumbles into the spotlight before uncovering surprising links between his family and the secret history of Chinatown.

Creatures
Crissy Van Meter
A bride explores the complexities of love, abandonment and forgiveness when her California wedding is upended by a trapped whale carcass, the groomâs disappearance at sea and the unexpected return of her long-absent mother.

Bird Summons
Leila Aboulela
In her adventurous new novel, New York Times Notable author Leila Aboulela delivers a lively portrait of three women who embark on a journey of self-discovery while grappling with the conflicting demands of family, duty, and faith.

The Girl with the Louding Voice
Abi Daré
Adunni, a 14-year-old Nigerian girl who longs for an education, must find a way for her voice to be heard loud and clear in a world where she and other girls like her are taught to believe, through words and deeds, that they are nothing.

Adequate Yearly Progress
Roxanna Elden
An idealistic second-year history teacher anonymously catalogs and blogs the personal challenges and dramas of the teachers and the classroom at a struggling high school in a large Texas city in this humorous and satirical novel.

House of Trelawney
Hannah Rothschild
Four women from an eccentric and dysfunctional family of English aristocrats navigate historical events, from wars to economic recessions, that have driven their once-grand Cornwall estate into ruin.

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau
Michael Zapata
Decades after a 1929 Dominican immigrant writer passes away believing her final manuscript was destroyed, a Chicago lawyer discovers the book and endeavors to learn the woman’s remarkable story against the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina.

Such a Fun Age
Kiley Reid
Seeking justice for a young black babysitter who was wrongly accused of kidnapping by a racist security guard, a successful blogger finds her efforts complicated by a video that reveals unexpected connections

The Cactus League
Emily Nemens
Beginning spring training in the unforgiving Arizona desert, a star outfielder navigates the secrets of the coaches, writers, wives, girlfriends, criminals and fans who watch his every move, in a story told in the style of a sportscaster’s narrative.

Meg & Jo
Virginia Kantra
A heartwarming modern novel inspired by the timeless classic Little Women. When their mother falls ill, the March sisters: reliable Meg, independent Jo, stylish Amy and shy Beth, return home to North Carolina for the holidays where they’ll rediscover what really matters.

Book of Science and Antiquities
Thomas Keneally
Obsessively researching prehistoric remains believed to represent a link between Africa and ancient Australia, an award-winning documentary filmmaker uncovers the complex world of a peaceful, 40,000-year-old tribal human.
A Fist Or a Heart
Kristín Eiríksdóttir
Winner of the Icelandic Literary Prize, A Fist or a Heart is a gripping, artfully interwoven novel of power, secrets, and isolation by one of the most bracing and original voices of the author’s generation.

On Division
Goldie Goldbloom
Anticipating the birth of her first great-grandchild, a 57-year-old Chasidic woman in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, feels exposed and ashamed by a late-in-life pregnancy that slowly separates her from her community.

Wildland
Rebecca Hodge
Struggling to choose between fighting and surrendering to cancer in the aftermath of her husband’s death, a woman risks her life to rescue two children stranded in the middle of a deadly wildfire.

The Peppermint Tea Chronicles
Alexander McCall Smith
Changes come to 44 Scotland Street as Bertie and his friends and family are drawn into drama that surprisingly brings them closer than ever before.

Apeirogon
Colum McCann
Two fathers, a Palestinian and an Israeli, navigate the physical and emotional checkpoints of their conflicted world before devastating losses compel them to work together to use their grief as a weapon for peace.

Here I am!
Pauline Holdstock
After his mother dies, a six-year-old boy devises a plan to stowaway on a boat bound for Pairs where he plans to find a police station and ask the officers to contact his father.
Romance

An Everyday Hero
Laura Trentham
From Laura Trentham, the award-winning author of The Military Wife, comes An Everyday Hero–an emotionally layered novel about loss, second chances, and what it means to be a true hero.

Postscript
Cecelia Ahern
A long-awaited sequel to the best-selling PS, I Love You finds Holly reluctantly agreeing to let her sister tell Gerry’s story on her podcast, before terminally ill listeners reach out for help writing their own missives.

The Regrets
Amy Bonnaffons
Reality and dream collide in Amy Bonnaffons’s “dazzling,” wildly inventive “miracle of a love story” about an affair between the living and the dead.


Chasing Cassandra
Lisa Kleypas
Determined to marry for love, Lady Cassandra Ravenel resists the advances of compelling railroad magnate Tom Severin, who takes advantage of a situation that nearly destroys Cassandra’s reputation.

You Were There Too
Colleen Oakley
When she and her husband move to a small town in Pennsylvania, Mia Graydon encounters the stranger she has been dreaming about for years–who, it turns out, has been dreaming of her, too–and together, determined to understand, they search for answers.

Love, Unscripted
Owen Nicholls
A romantic movie buff and film projectionist is devastated when his four-year relationship with the leading lady of his dreams ends, compelling him to rewrite history to come to terms with what went wrong.

The Kissing Game
Marie Harte
Tired of waiting for Axel Heller to notice her, diehard romantic Rena Jackson decides it’s time to forget about him and find her own Mr. Right until Axel makes her a bet that involves the hottest kiss she’s ever had.
SciFi & Fantasy

Star Wars. Alphabet Squadron
Alexander Freed
The five pilots and starfighters of the newly formed Alphabet Squadron are tasked by General Hera Syndulla with tracking down and destroying Shadow Wing, a lethal force of TIE fighters seeking vengeance against the New Republic.

The Bard’s Blade
Brian D. Anderson
The Bard’s Blade is the start of the new Sorcerer’s Song fantasy adventure series from Brian D. Anderson, bestselling author of The Godling Chronicles and Dragonvein.

The Secret Chapter: An Invisible Library Novel
Genevieve Cogman
Irene and Kai have to team up with an unlikely band of misfits to pull off an amazing art heist, or risk the wrath of a dangerous villain in his secret island lair.

The Last Day
Andrew Hunter Murray
An a near-future world where a solar catastrophe has stopped the planet’s rotation, a scientist on a frostbitten rig uncovers a secret that the government will go to any length to keep hidden.

Things in Jars
Jess Kidd
Woman detective Bridie Devine investigates the kidnapping of a nobleman’s illegitimate daughter, whose reputed supernatural powers have captured the attention of sinister collectors in the underworld’s curiosities trade.

The Bear
Andrew Krivak
Living close to the land in an Eden-like post-civilization world, a girl learns the secrets of hunting and star navigation before finding herself in an unknown landscape, where a bear imparts powerful natural-world lessons.

The Unspoken Name
A. K. Larkwood
Destined to become a sacrifice on behalf of her superstitious people, Csorwe accepts a powerful mage’s alternate offer to become his bodyguard and spy to help him reclaim his power in the land from where he was exiled.

Stormsong
C. L. Polk
After spinning an enthralling world in Witchmark, praised as “thoroughly charming and deftly paced” by the New York Times and as a “can’t-miss debut” by Booklist, C. L. Polk continues the story in Stormsong. Magical cabals, otherworldly avengers, and impossible love affairs conspire to create a book that refuses to be put down.

Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery
Edited by Christopher Golden and Rachel Autumn Deering
Eighteen tales of witchcraft from the mistresses of magic! Featuring brand-new stories written by popular female fantasy authors, including Kelley Armstrong, Rachel Caine and Sherrilyn Kenyon. These are tales of witches, wickedness, evil and cunning.

Upright Women Wanted
Sarah Gailey
A near-future exploration of queer identity, written in the style of a pulp western, finds a woman stowing away to escape her arranged marriage to a man who was once engaged to the late best friend she secretly loved.