by Amy Bloom
A professor turned private investigator accepts an assignment at a scenic East Coast college campus in Amy Bloom's immensely entertaining crime drama, Blunt Instrument. A fresh, contemporary spin on classic whodunit themes of sex, money, and power, Bloom's first mystery features a much-disliked victim, a colorful cadre of suspects, comically ineffectual police officers, and, at the center, a charming private eye with good looks and an unusual approach to her work.
Blunt Instrument opens in early August with
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by David Sedaris
With his usual candor and dry wit, David Sedaris (Calypso; The Best of Me) takes on partnership, dogs, and religion in the 28 essays that compose his 16th book, The Land and Its People.
In "And Your Little Dog, Too," he witnesses the ravages of fentanyl on Portland, Ore., while visiting the city. He passes a group smoking fentanyl around an empty baby carriage; one of their small unleashed dogs bites him, breaking the skin. Every person he tells, from a pharmacist to the fans in his autograph line later that
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by Julie Gerstenblatt
The Stargazer of Nantucket, the swashbuckling second novel by Julie Gerstenblatt (Daughters of Nantucket), imagines the adventures of husband-and-wife team Peter and Nell Starbuck, sailing a top-of-the-line clipper ship (the titular Stargazer) out of Nantucket, Mass., in 1851 to break the world speed record to San Francisco, then onward to China. Their headstrong 18-year-old daughter, Winnie, forbidden to sail with them, stows away on the ship; her actions will have far-reaching consequences for her family,
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by Casey Lyall, illus. by Kathryn Durst
Whale, That Was Unexpected is a seriously fun picture book collaboration between author Casey Lyall (Vampire Jam Sandwich) and illustrator Kathryn Durst (Polite Predators series) that features an eccentric, white-haired mariner who, with her loyal canine sidekick, faces down a whale of a situation with fourth-wall-breaking, unflappably dry wit.
Every day, for "MANY" years, crusty fisherwoman Maude and her scruffy dog, Claude (both clad in bright yellow waterproof garments), head out to sea. Maude is pretty
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