A Window Opens

Elisabeth Egan

Simon and Schuster

In A Window Opens, beloved books editor at Glamour magazine Elisabeth Egan brings us Alice Pearse, a compulsively honest, longing-to-have-it-all, sandwich generation heroine for our social-media-obsessed, lean in (or opt out) age. Like her fictional forebears Kate Reddy and Bridget Jones, Alice plays many roles (which she never refers to as "wearing many hats" and wishes you wouldn't, either). She is a mostly-happily married mother of three, an attentive daughter, an ambivalent dog-owner, a part-time editor, a loyal neighbor and a Zen commuter. She is not: a cook, a craftswoman, a decorator, an active PTA member, a natural caretaker or the breadwinner. But when her husband makes a radical career change, Alice is ready to lean in, and she knows exactly how lucky she is to land a job at Scroll, a hip young start-up which promises to be the future of reading, with its chain of chic literary lounges and dedication to beloved classics. The Holy Grail of working mothers, an intellectually satisfying job and a happy personal life, seems suddenly within reach. Despite the disapproval of her best friend, who owns the local bookstore, Alice is proud of her new "balancing act" (which is more like a three-ring circus) until her dad gets sick, her marriage flounders, her babysitter gets fed up, her kids start to grow up and her work takes an unexpected turn. Readers will cheer as Alice realizes the question is not whether it's possible to have it all, but what does she, Alice Pearse, really want?

The Taming of the Queen

Philippa Gregory

Touchstone Books

Kateryn Parr, a thirty-year-old widow in a secret affair with a new lover, has no choice when a man old enough to be her father who has buried four wives, King Henry VIII, commands her to marry him. Kateryn has no doubt about the danger she faces: the previous queen lasted sixteen months, the one before barely half a year. But Henry adores his new bride and Kateryn's trust in him grows as she unites the royal family, creates a radical study circle at the heart of the court, and rules the kingdom as Regent. But is this enough to keep her safe? A leader of religious reform and the first woman to publish in English, Kateryn stands out as an independent woman with a mind of her own. But she cannot save the Protestants, under threat for their faith, and Henry's dangerous gaze turns on her. The traditional churchmen and rivals for power accuse her of heresy: the punishment is death by fire and the king's name is on the warrant.

Woman of the Dead

Bernhard Aichner

Scribner Book Company

For the past eight years, Blum has had a good life, a life that masks the terrible secrets of her past. She is a successful undertaker, a doting mother, and the loving wife of a decorated police officer. Then in one devastating moment, a hit-and-run changes everything. As Blum's grief over the death of her husband, Mark, overwhelms her, only her two little girls can drag her back to the land of the living. Time passes quietly until while packing up Mark's office, Blum discovers a recorded conversation from a case he was investigating. She soon learns Mark's death was no accident: it was murder and Blum dives headfirst into the abyss to find out why and have her revenge.

X

Sue Grafton

Marian Wood Books/Putnam

X: The number ten. An unknown quantity. A mistake. A cross. A kiss. X: The shortest entry in Webster's Unabridged. Derived from Greek and Latin and commonly found in science, medicine, and religion. The most graphically dramatic letter. Notoriously tricky to pronounce: think "xylophone." X: The twenty-fourth letter in the English alphabet. Sue Grafton's X Perhaps her darkest and most chilling novel, it features a remorseless serial killer who leaves no trace of his crimes. Once again breaking the rules and establishing new paths, Grafton wastes little time identifying this sociopath. The test is whether Kinsey can prove her case against him before she becomes his next victim.

The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion

Tracy Daugherty

St. Martin's Press

Joan Didion lived a life in the public and private eye with her late husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, whom she met while the two were working in New York City when Didion was at Vogue and Dunne was writing for Time. They became wildly successful writing partners when they moved to Los Angeles and co-wrote screenplays and adaptations together. Didion is well-known for her literary journalistic style in both fiction and non-fiction. Some of her most-notable work includes Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Run River, and The Year of Magical Thinking, a National Book Award winner and shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, it dealt with the grief surrounding Didion after the loss of her husband and daughter. Tracy Daugherty takes readers on a journey back through time, following a young Didion in Sacramento, through to her adult life as a writer interviewing those who know and knew her personally, while maintaining a respectful distance from the reclusive literary great.

Rising Strong

Brene Brown

Spiegel and Grau

When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write the ending. Social scientist Brene Brown has ignited a global conversation on courage, vulnerability, shame, and worthiness. Her pioneering work uncovered a profound truth: Vulnerability the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome is the only path to more love, belonging, creativity, and joy. But living a brave life is not always easy: We are, inevitably, going to stumble and fall. It is the rise from falling that Brown takes as her subject in Rising Strong. As a grounded theory researcher, Brown has listened as a range of people from leaders in Fortune 500 companies and the military to artists, couples in long-term relationships, teachers, and parents shared their stories of being brave, falling, and getting back up. She asked herself, "What do these people with strong and loving relationships, leaders nurturing creativity, artists pushing innovation, and clergy walking with people through faith and mystery have in common?" The answer was clear: They recognize the power of emotion and they re not afraid to lean in to discomfort. Walking into our stories of hurt can feel dangerous. But the process of regaining our footing in the midst of struggle is where our courage is tested and our values are forged. Our stories of struggle can be big ones, like the loss of a job or the end of a relationship, or smaller ones, like a conflict with a friend or colleague. Regardless of magnitude or circumstance, the rising strong process is the same: We "reckon "with our emotions and get curious about what we re feeling; we "rumble "with our stories until we get to a place of truth; and we live this process, every day, until it becomes a practice and creates nothing short of a "revolution" in our lives. Rising strong after a fall is how we cultivate wholeheartedness. It's the process, Brown writes, that teaches us the most about who we are.

Lair of Dreams: A Diviners Novel

Libba Bray

Little Brown and Company

After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O'Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. Now that the world knows of her ability to "read" objects, and therefore, read the past, she has become a media darling, earning the title, "America's Sweetheart Seer." But not everyone is so accepting of the Diviners' abilities. Meanwhile, mysterious deaths have been turning up in the city, victims of an unknown sleeping sickness. Can the Diviners descend into the dreamworld and catch a killer?

Randoms

David Liss

Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers

A science fiction superfan finds himself on his very own space adventure when he's randomly selected to join an alien confederacy in this hilarious middle grade debut novel. Zeke Reynolds comes from a long line of proud science fiction geeks. He knows his games, comics, movies, and TV shows like Captain Kirk knows the starship "Enterprise." So it's a dream come true when he learns the science fiction he loves so much is based on reality and that he's been selected to spend a year on a massive space station. To evaluate humanity's worthiness, the Confederation of United Planets has hand picked three of Earth's most talented young people--and then there's Zeke. He's the random. Unfortunately, Zeke finds life in space more challenging than he'd hoped. When he saves his transport ship from a treacherous enemy attack, he's labeled a war criminal. Now despised by the Confederation, rejected by his fellow humans, and pursued by a ruthless enemy, Zeke befriends the alien randoms: rejected by their own species, but loyal to each other. But their presence in the Confederation may not be so random after all, and as the danger increases, Zack's knowledge of science fiction might be the only thing that can save himself, his friends, and Earth itself.