Índex per September 2022 a Booklist Reader

September is an important month for us at Booklist. Our team of editors and reviewers are extraordinarily busy, as are librarians, because there are abundant new book releases in early fall. Be sure to check out Reserve These Reads for Adult (p.11) and Youth (p.22) to find hotly anticipated books all out in September. Reserve these Reads appear in each issue, but there is much more here. Mysteries and thrillers are our focus this month, and there are certainly plenty of recommendations in those genres to keep you enthralled and reading for weeks to come. We also celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15–October 15) with Recent Latinx Fiction & Memoir (p.8), Citizens, Strangers, & Dreamers Come of Age (p.10), and, for audiobook fans, Narrators of Hispanic Heritage (p.15). September…

Classical Alexia Gordon’s Gethsemane Brown: In Death in D Minor, the first in this charming cozy series, Black classical musician Gethsemane Brown moves to Ireland and secures lodging in a cottage formerly owned by her favorite composer. There’s a hitch: the composer’s ghost is in residence and needs Gethsemane’s help to clear him of a decades-old murder. Barbara Paul’s Enrico Caruso: Only two of the titles in Paul’s three-book Opera Mystery series star the great tenor Caruso, but we’ll happily give him top-of-the-marquee credit. Caruso makes a fine sleuth, particularly in A Cadenza for Caruso, in which the tenor must save Puccini from a marital spat and possibly murder. Donna Leon’s Guido Brunetti: Music isn’t a big part of Guido’s life (he relaxes with food)—but three of the best novels…

Fiction Afterlife. By Julia Alvarez. 2020. Algonquin. Alvarez’s charming novel is filled with dynamic familial relationships as one of widowed professor Antonia’s three sisters goes missing just as Antonia finds a pregnant, undocumented teenager in her garage. Dominicana. By Angie Cruz. 2019. Flatiron. In this vivid tale of immigration, a young Dominican woman urged into a marriage of expedience to a much older man summons the courage to carve out a place for herself in 1960s New York. The Fallen. By Carlos Manuel Álvarez. Tr. by Frank Wynne. 2020. Graywolf. Álvarez unravels a story of an imploding Cuban family-in-crisis with dazzling precision, illuminating the inner lives of the housebound mother, hotel-manager father, daughter who works for him, and son in the military. The Five Wounds. By Kirstin Valdez Quade. 2021.…

The Marriage Portrait A Novel by Maggie O"Farrell (Knopf) "In 16th-century Italy, teen Lucrezia de Medici passes from her father's control to her husband's, with neither considering her a person with a right to her own life. O'Farrell's poetic writing pulls you into this tale based on the likely subject of Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess". For fans of Geraldine Brooks, Isabel Allende, and Hilary Mantel." Diana Armstong Multnomah County Library, Portland. OR NoveList read-alike Matrix by Lauren Groff September 2022 - The top ten books published this month that library staff across the country love. The American Roommate Experiment A Novel by Elena Armas (Atria Books) “The follow-up to The Spanish Love Deception has all the makings of a great rom-com: a good slow burn, forced proximity, a…

Inés del Castillo In Yaffa S. Santos’ A Taste of Sage, del Castillo’s enthusiastic descriptions of culinary delights will send listeners racing for their grocery list. The narrator is of Dominican and Puerto Rican heritage, and is often cast reading parts for strong Latinx young women due to her infectious energy. Check her out as an intrepid teen podcaster in I Killed Zoe Spanos, by Kit Frick, or as the titular Olga in Olga Dies Dreaming, by Xochitl Gonzalez, in which she seamlessly flips from English to Spanish. Gisela Chípe An Ecuadorian American actress born in Brazil, Chípe brings both Spanish and Portuguese to her narration. She has narrated works by Silvia Moreno-García (Velvet Was the Night, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau), Cristina Garcia (Lady Matador’s Hotel) and Isabel Allende…

Older Destination Unknown. By Bill Konigsberg. Scholastic. Gr. 9–12. Konigsberg’s latest explores AIDS’ ineluctable impact on two teen boys, who fall in love in 1980s New York City. The Door of No Return. By Kwame Alexander. Little, Brown. Gr. 7–12. Expect a long hold list for this forthcoming title from best-selling Alexander, the first in an epic historical fiction series focused on one African’s boy’s firsthand experience of the slave trade. Each Night Was Illuminated. By Jodi Lynn Anderson. HarperCollins/Quill Tree. Gr. 9–12. In best-selling Anderson’s latest, a girl grapples with what it means to have faith when she’s reunited with a boy who looks at the world with wonder. Enola Holmes and the Elegant Escapade. By Nancy Springer. Wednesday. Gr. 8–12. The Netflix series gave a boost to Springer’s…

Billy Summers. By Stephen King. 2021. Scribner. In this take on the one-last-job trope, King has multiple elements in play—a thriller, two coming-of-age stories, and a road novel—and he knits them together beautifully, never missing a stitch. City on Fire. By Don Winslow. 2021. Morrow. This immersive first volume in a trilogy, set in 1986 Providence, Rhode Island, combines a gang war with a passionate family drama centered on conflicted Irish Mob leader Danny Ryan. Dream Girl. By Laura Lippman. 2021. Morrow. Lippman’s stunningly intricate stand-alone, about a writer accused of stealing the plot of his breakthrough novel, is both a beguiling look at the mysteries of authorship and a powerful #MeToo story, but that’s only the tip of a devilishly jagged iceberg. Five Decembers. By James Kestrel. 2021. Hard…

Fiebre Tropical. By Juliana Delgado Lopera. 2020. Feminist. Feisty Francisca is a lonely teenager who rails against the fate that has brought her to the low-rent, ant-infested townhouses of Miami with an obsessed mother, annoying little sister, and demented grandmother; it’s a brutal comedown from her privileged life in Bogotá. The Idiot. By Elif Batuman. 2017. Penguin. Selin, a strikingly tall Turkish American and a high-strung freshman at Harvard, takes a mishmash of classes and struggles to tutor adults trying to earn their GED. She becomes friends with cosmopolitan Serb Svetlana and obsesses over Hungarian mathematics major Ivan. The Leavers. By Lisa Ko. 2017. Algonquin. When Deming is 11, his Chinese American mother vanishes. Ten years later, aimless Deming has flunked out of college, always wondering about his mother. Where…

Back to the Garden A Novel by Laurie R. King (Bantam) "King’s latest, featuring neuro-divergent police detective Raquel Laing, blends together evocative stories of the robber baron era of the American West, a counterculture commune in the 1970s, a present day mystery involving bones discovered beneath a massive statue, and the tale of a dying serial killer. An exciting departure from a consummate storyteller." —Patricia Uttaro, Rochester Public Library, Rochester, NY NoveList read-alike: Fierce Little Thing by Miranda Beverley-Whitmore Drunk on Love by Jasmine Guillory (Berkley) “Margot is stressed out from running her family’s winery. Luke is burned out by his hi-tech job in Silicon Valley. So both are happy to enjoy what they believe to be a perfect one-night stand. However, the next day is awkward when Margot finds…

At its best, journalism seeks out the truth, digging into the facts and uncovering secrets to tell stories that hold those in power to account. Is it any wonder that the plucky investigative journalist is an easy stand-in for an intrepid detective in a mystery? Much of the genre-classic plot points still work, and there’s certainly a measure of justice to be found in the court of public opinion, especially given contemporary critiques of the criminal justice apparatus in our country. The investigative journalist has made its way into mysteries published for middle-grade and YA readers in recent years, pitting aspiring investigators against murderers, greedy corporations, covert government entities, and perpetrators of sexual assault. And like the readers of these novels, these young journalists, by and large, are solidly working…

Fiction Dreamland. By Nicholas Sparks. Random. Two young musicians from very different backgrounds click while a woman and her six-year-old son run from an abusive marriage. Drunk on Love. By Jasmine Guillory. Berkley. A stressed winery owner has a blazing-hot one-night stand, only to find her paramour is her new employee, a tech-industry dropout trying to find himself in Napa. Fairy Tale. By Stephen King. Scribner. King's latest follows a teenage boy and his dog who discover a portal to another world and find themselves fighting a battle of good versus evil. Less Is Lost. By Andrew Sean Greer. Little, Brown. In a follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize–winning Less (2017), lovable sad-sack novelist Arthur Less is running away from his problems in a rusty camper van. Marple: Twelve New Mysteries.…

The Cage. By Bonnie Kistler. Read by Piper Goodeve and Chris Andrew Ciulla. 2022. 10.5hr. HarperAudio. Two women step into an elevator, but when the doors open, only one is alive. A twisted plot and dramatic dual narration keep the tension high. Fan Fiction: A Mem-Noir; Inspired by True Events. By Brent Spiner. Read by Brent Spiner and others. 2021. 7hr. Macmillan. Spiner, the android Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation, outwits a stalker in this hilarious thriller read by the author and full cast of Star Trek actors. Greenwich Park. By Katherine Faulkner. Read by Laura Kirman. 2022. 10.5hr. Simon & Schuster Audio. A pregnant British woman finds her life turned upside down when she meets a new friend at a prenatal class. Reader Kirman skillfully portrays the…

The Ambrose Deception. By Emily Ecton. 2018. Little, Brown. Gr. 5–8. Three seemingly unremarkable kids are chosen to compete for a $10,000 scholarship in this winning adventure. Each competitor receives a different set of clues that takes him or her around Chicago in pursuit of the prize. Book Scavenger. By Jennifer Chambliss Bertman. 2015. Holt. Gr. 4–6. When game designer Garrison Griswold is attacked, Emily finds a unique book near the crime scene and winds up playing Griswold’s newest game. Mystery lovers will adore the story’s literary references, puzzles, and treasure hunt. The Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit. By Octavia Spencer. 2013. Simon & Schuster. Gr. 4–6. Randi springs into investigative action with friends D.C. and Pudge after a 200-year-old time capsule, possibly containing treasure that would prevent their town’s…

Serial Killers & Murder Columbine. By Dave Cullen. 2009. Twelve. School shootings are, tragically, more relevant than ever to today’s youth, and this penetrating look at the Columbine killers’ beliefs and psychological states of mind is at the top of its class. Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three. By Mara Leveritt. 2002. Atria. Three teenage boys are tried and convicted for the murders of three eight-year-olds. Were the teens framed? Was the act tied to a satanic cult? This book digs into the case and continues the investigation in Dark Spell (2014). A must-read for fans of the Netflix series Making a Murderer. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer. By Michelle McNamara. 2018. Harper. Not only is…