Here are five popular adult titles that are hitting the shelves during the month of April. To find more new titles, check out the booklist New April 2018 Books You'll Want to Read and our recent arrivals page.
A diabolically clever tale of obsession, revenge, and cold-blooded murder in All The Beautiful Lies: A Novel by Peter Swanson.
Harry Ackerson has always considered his stepmother Alice to be sexy and beautiful, in an "otherworldly" way. She has always been kind and attentive if a little aloof in the last few years. Days before his college graduation, Alice calls with shocking news. His father is dead, and the police think it’s suicide. Devastated, Harry returns to his father’s home in Maine. There, he and Alice will help each other pick up of the pieces of their lives and uncover what happened to his father. Shortly after he arrives, Harry meets a mysterious young woman named Grace McGowan. Though she claims to be new to the area, Harry begins to suspect that Grace may not be a complete stranger to his family. But she isn’t the only attractive woman taking an interest in Harry. The sensual Alice is also growing closer, coming on to him in an enticing, clearly sexual way. Mesmerized by these two women, Harry finds himself falling deeper under their spell. Yet the closer he gets to them, the more isolated he feels, disoriented by a growing fear that both women are hiding dangerous - even deadly - secrets . . . and that neither one is telling the truth. (from the publisher)
A novel about power and influence, ego, and loyalty, womanhood and ambition in The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer.
Greer Kadetsky is a shy college freshman when she meets the woman she hopes will change her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly persuasive and elegant at 63, has been a central pillar of the women's movement for decades, a figure who inspires others to influence the world. Upon hearing Faith speak for the first time, Greer - madly in love with her boyfriend, Cory, but still full of longing for an ambition that she can't quite place - feels her inner world light up. And then, astonishingly, Faith invites Greer to make something out of that sense of purpose, leading Greer down the most exciting path of her life as it winds toward and away from her meant-to-be love story with Cory and the future she'd always imagined. At its heart, The Female Persuasion is about the flame we all believe is flickering inside of us, waiting to be seen and fanned by the right person at the right time. It's a story about the people who guide and the people who follow (and how those roles evolve over time), and the desire within all of us to be pulled into the light. (from the publisher)
Ten years after her teenage daughter disappears, a woman crosses paths with a charming single father whose young child feels eerily familiar in Then She Was Gone: A Novel by Lisa Jewell.
Ellie Mack was the perfect daughter. She was 15, the youngest of three. She was beloved by her parents, friends, and teachers. She and her boyfriend made a teenaged golden couple. She was days away from an idyllic post-exams summer vacation, with her whole life ahead of her. And then she was gone. Now, her mother Laurel Mack is trying to put her life back together. It's been ten years since her daughter disappeared, seven years since her marriage ended, and only months since the last clue in Ellie's case was unearthed. So when she meets an unexpectedly charming man in a cafe, no one is more surprised than Laurel at how quickly their flirtation develops into something deeper. Before she knows it, she's meeting Floyd's daughters - and his youngest, Poppy, takes Laurel's breath away. Because looking at Poppy is like looking at Ellie. And now, the unanswered questions she's tried so hard to put to rest begin to haunt Laurel anew. Where did Ellie go? Did she really run away from home, as the police have long suspected, or was there a more sinister reason for her disappearance? Who is Floyd, really? And why does his daughter remind Laurel so viscerally of her own missing girl? (from the publisher)
Storytelling gifts of an old-fashioned raconteur and the vision of an American original in You Think It, I'll Say It: Stories by Curtis Sittenfeld.
Throughout the ten stories in You Think It, I'll Say It, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided. In "The World Has Many Butterflies," married acquaintances play a strangely intimate game with devastating consequences. In "Vox Clamantis in Deserto," a shy Ivy League student learns the truth about a classmate's seemingly enviable life. In "A Regular Couple," a high-powered lawyer honeymooning with her husband is caught off guard by the appearance of the girl who tormented her in high school. And in "The Prairie Wife," a suburban mother of two fantasizes about the downfall of an old friend whose wholesome lifestyle empire may or may not be built on a lie. With moving insight and uncanny precision, Curtis Sittenfeld pinpoints the questionable decisions, missed connections, and sometimes extraordinary coincidences that make up a life. (from the publisher)
For fans of Cormac McCarthy's mythical - and mystical - Old West, and the Gothic horror of Flannery O'Connor: Unbury Carol: A Novel by Josh Malerman
Carol Evers is a woman with a dark secret. You see, every so often Carol descends into a death-like coma that she calls "the Black Place". For two to four days, her heartbeat slows way down, her breathing all but stops and, in the eyes of all, she would appear dead as a doornail. Only two people know of her condition: her husband Dwight and her former lover James Moxie - the most legendary outlaw the Trail has ever seen. Just before Carol can share her secret with a friend, she falls into the Black Place once again, only this time, Dwight begins preparations for her funeral two days hence, hoping to inherit her fortune. When a telegram arrives for Moxie, notifying him of the upcoming burial of his lost love, he rides out of retirement and hits the Trail once again, desperate to save Carol from a premature burial. (from the publisher)
