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| Hey, there! This week, we’ve got drama set in the seat of power in Washington from Stacey Abrams and Liv Constantine, a queer college age gap novel, and a roundup of memoirs that show that truth is so often stranger than fiction. Plus, the first pictures from the set of It Ends with Us adaptation has the internet divided. |
 | Bookmarks |
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| Critical Love |
| Politician and novelist Stacey Abrams is back with another thriller about Supreme Court clerk Avery that New York Magazine calls “a thoroughly compelling take on the machinations of Washington and those covetous of power.” |
 | | Rogue Justice | | When a fellow law clerk asks Avery to investigate blackmail claims against his boss, she’s drawn into a series of shocking murders of federal judges who are all part of America’s “secret court.” Inspired by real-life headlines, this fast-paced suspense novel is the perfect page-turner for political enthusiasts. | | Add to reading list |
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| Romance Spotlight |
| Publishers Weekly calls The Adult “engrossing,” concluding that this debut queer coming-of-age novel is “full of heart” and “perfectly captures the lonely messiness of youth.” |
 | | The Adult | | Eighteen-year-old Natalie thinks her fellow students at the University of Toronto all know what they’re doing, while she couldn’t be more lost as to who she really is. Adrift, she’s easily drawn into the web of Nora, a woman almost twice her age, supplanting her search for peers with a tumultuous romance that has her lying to her new friends. | | Add to reading list |
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 | Bookworld |
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🏆 See which fantasy and sci-fi books won big at this year’s Nebula Awards!
🎒 24 books have been selected by Read With Jenna Jr. to make reading fun for kids this summer! |
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 | 20 Words: Guess The Novel |
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| A child actor gains fame, fortune, and a starring role, but at home, her mother’s demands spiral in disturbing ways. | |
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| Answer in footer |
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 | The Introduction |
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| A New Definition of Thriller with Liv Constantine |
The Book
Widowed philanthropist Sloane is happy to have found love with Senator Whit Montgomery, returning to her former Washington, DC social circles. When she needs a hip replacement and her lupus flares up, they hire home health aide Athena. Sloane can’t help but be suspicious when she seems to get sicker, not better, and senses that Athena’s got her eyes on Whit.
The Authors
Sisters Liv and Valerie Constantine write under the name Liv Constantine, and are the authors of The Last Mrs. Parrish, a bestselling Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection. The duo joined author Catherine McKenzie to chat about their new novel and the wave of domestic psychological thrillers:
Liv Constantine: When we wrote The Last Mrs. Parish, we really just thought it was women's fiction. And it wasn't until we had our agent say, this is a psychological thriller, that we got the start. And then I think they've just gotten darker and darker ever since.
Catherine McKenzie: I think so many, what I call sort of modern thrillers were launched by Gone Girl… I would argue that women bringing in characterization from women’s fiction into the [thriller] stories made them more personal and rich because thrillers used to be that external, guns and CIA and bombs and men, ect.
Valerie Constantine: I think you're right. Maybe that’s been a genre all along because women's lives are pretty thrilling, and we could probably look back at books that were considered women's fiction, and really a lot of them are thrillers, it's just a newer definition of a thriller.
Listen to the full conversation with authors Catherine McKenzie and Liv Constantine here!
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 | The Highlight |
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| “For years after she died, I was scared of the dark, scared that her image would appear in the corner of my bedroom, smiling, telling me that she missed me—a ghost mother, without body or soul.” |
 | | Women We Buried, Women We Burned: A Memoir | | When she was eight years old, Rachel’s family converted from Judaism to evangelical Christianity after her mother’s death. Unable to cope with the cult-like new religion, she’s expelled at age 16. After leaving, she becomes a globetrotting reporter covering domestic violence and later returns to make peace with her unresolved family wounds in this searing memoir. | | Add to reading list |
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 | Hitting the Shelves |
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 | The Stack |
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| Don’t Miss These Must-Read Memoirs |
| Jeanette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle is beloved by readers for its portrayal of her eccentric parents, and reached a whole new audience with the release of the film version. These memoirs will also leave an indelible impression on readers eager for stories about succeeding despite the odds and overcoming some of life’s most significant emotional challenges: |
 | | How to Be Alone | | Comedian Moore essentially had to raise herself, and she documents her parents’ neglect and all the coping mechanisms she learned during an emotionally troubled childhood to find inner reserves of strength, self-compassion, and belief in herself while offering readers advice for how they can do the same. This will resonate with anyone who’s had to be their own parent. | | Add to reading list |
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 | | Somebody’s Daughter | | Ford’s powerful memoir about missing her father, who’s in prison, recovering from sexual assault as a teenager, and trying to forge an identity as a writer despite numerous circumstances working against her has been called “a book people will be talking about forever” by Glennon Doyle. With an empathetic eye and deep love for her family, Ford figures out how to fit in with her family and the larger literary world. | | Add to reading list |
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 | | This Will Only Hurt a Little | | The Freaks and Geeks and Dawson’s Creek actress takes readers through her time growing up in Arizona, facing an unplanned teenage pregnancy, and her earliest acting gigs to dating drama, her best friendship with Michelle Williams, sexism on the job, becoming a mother and getting her own talk show. With plenty of juicy Hollywood insider detail, this is a perfect poolside read. | | Add to reading list |
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 | Page to Screen |
|  | | Killers of the Flower Moon | | Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour epic western, based on David Grann’s bestselling true crime book, tells the story of a series of Oklahoma murders in the Osage Nation during the 1920s, committed after oil was discovered on tribal land. The Leonardo DiCaprio-led film hits theaters on October 6. | | View Trailer |
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| Guess the Novel Answer | | Jennette McCurdy’s bestselling memoir about her abusive stage mother has sold nearly two million copies. |
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