August 2024 Adult Top 10 Picks

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  1. By Any Other Name
    by Jodi Picoult
    Random House Canada
    Aug 20, 2024
    FICTION / Women
    Hardback
    By Any Other Name
    by Jodi Picoult
    Random House Canada
    Aug 20, 2024
    FICTION / Women
    Hardback
    AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

    From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, an “inspiring” (Elle) novel about two women, centuries apart—one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays—who are both forced to hide behind another name.


    “You’ll fall in love with Emilia Bassano, the unforgettable heroine based on a real woman that Picoult brings vividly to life in her brilliantly researched new novel.”—Kristin Hannah, author of The Women


    As an undergraduate, Melina Green had a rare opportunity to have one of her first plays judged by famous theatre critic Jasper Tolle, only to be publicly humiliated by a harsh and biased critique. Ten years later, her confidence as a playwright hasn't recovered, even though she has just completed a work that she thinks is her best yet. It is based on the life of her ancestor Emilia Bassano, the first published female poet in England—and rumored to be the “Dark Lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets—but whom some scholars suspect may be the real author of a number of his plays. Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, and then her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits it to a festival under a male pseudonym.

    In 1581, the young orphan Emilia Bassano is being raised in the ways of the English aristocracy by the Baron Willoughby and his sister. Her lessons on languages, reading and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling. But like most women of her day, she has no control over her fate, and is ripped from her old life and forced to become a courtesan to Lord Hunsdon, a man knighted by Queen Elizabeth as the Lord Chamberlain in charge of all theatre in London. Though she has no other freedoms, she pseudonymously sets her own pen to paper, inspired by the work of the most brilliant playwrights of the time.

    Told in dual intertwining timelines, this sweeping tale of ambition, courage and desire centres two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face. As Emilia alters the course of her life, and the world, she blazes a trail. Centuries later, will Melina face the same terrible fate—to have her work celebrated, but only at the price of letting another take credit?
    View this title on BNC CataList
  2. Fire and Bones
    by Kathy Reichs
    Simon & Schuster
    Aug 06, 2024
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Paperback / softback
    Fire and Bones
    by Kathy Reichs
    Simon & Schuster
    Aug 06, 2024
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Paperback / softback
    #1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with a twisty, surprise-packed thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who finds herself at the center of an arson investigation, a deepening mystery, and a stunning culmination of violence and deception.

    It’s never easy working fire scenes, Tempe thinks. Called to Washington, DC to analyze the victims of a building set ablaze amid mysterious circumstances, she sees all of her misgivings justified. The building site is in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood with a colorful past and present, and the residence’s ownership becomes even more suspicious when Tempe delves into the building's past.

    The pieces start falling into place strangely and quickly, and, sensing a good story, Tempe teams with a new ally, telejournalist Ivy Doyle. Soon the duo learns that back in the thirties and forties the property belonged to a member a group of bootleggers and racketeers known as the Foggy Bottom Gang. Though interesting, this fact seems irrelevant—until the son of a Foggy Bottom gang member is shot dead at his farm in Fairfax County, Virginia. Coincidence? Targeted attacks? So many questions.

    As Tempe and Ivy dig deeper, an arrest is finally made. Then another Foggy Bottom Gang-linked property burns to the ground, claiming one more victim. Slowly, Tempe’s instincts begin raising flags. Have too many of her moves while in Washington been anticipated in advance?

    Long after that first fire is extinguished its flames of consequence spread outward, and eventually Tempe finds herself fighting for her life.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  3. This Is Why We Lied
    by Karin Slaughter
    William Morrow
    Aug 20, 2024
    Hardback
    This Is Why We Lied
    by Karin Slaughter
    William Morrow
    Aug 20, 2024
    Hardback

    WATCH WILL TRENT ON ABC!

    “Expect from a Karin Slaughter crime thriller . . . just the right amount of twists, turns, shocks, surprises and domestic thrill and shrill.”Parade

    The instant NYT bestseller featuring Will Trent and Sara Linton from Karin Slaughter, author of Pretty Girls and After that Night!


    One toxic family.

    Eight suspicious guests.

    Everyone is guilty.

    But who is a killer?


    For GBI investigator Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton, McAlpine Lodge seems like the ideal getaway to celebrate their honeymoon. Set on a gorgeous, off-the-grid mountaintop property, it’s the perfect place to unplug and reconnect. Until a bone-chilling scream cuts through the night.

    A murderer in their midst

    Mercy McAlpine, the manager of the Lodge, is dead. With a vicious storm raging and the one access road to the property washed out, the murderer must be someone on the mountain. But as Will and Sara investigate the McAlpine family and the other guests, they realize that everyone here is lying….Lying about their past. Lying to their family. Lying to themselves.

    Who killed Mercy McAlpine?

    It soon becomes clear that normal rules don’t apply at McAlpine Lodge, and Will and Sara are going to have to watch their step at every turn. Trapped on the resort, they must untangle a decades-old web of secrets to discover what happened to Mercy. And with the killer poised to strike again, the trip of a lifetime becomes a race against the clock…

    View this title on BNC CataList
  4. The Dark Wives (Vera #11)
    by Ann Cleeves
    Macmillan
    Aug 29, 2024
    FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Police Procedural
    Hardback
    The Dark Wives (Vera #11)
    by Ann Cleeves
    Macmillan
    Aug 29, 2024
    FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Police Procedural
    Hardback
    New York Times bestselling author of the Two Rivers and Shetland series, Ann Cleeves, returns with the eleventh Vera Stanhope novel following The Rising Tide.

    A local myth. A deadly threat.

    A man's body is found in the early morning light by a local dog walker on the common outside Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The victim is Josh, a staff member who was due to work the previous night but never showed up for his shift.

    DI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate. Her only clue is the disappearance of one of the home's residents, fourteen year-old Chloe Spence. Vera can't bring herself to believe that a teenager could be responsible for the murder, but even she can't dismiss the possibility.

    Vera, Joe, and new team member Rosie are soon embroiled in the case. But when a second body, connected to Josh, is found near the Three Dark Wives standing stones in the wilds of the Northumbrian countryside, superstition and folklore collide with fact.

    Vera knows she has to find Chloe to get to the truth, but it seems that the dark secrets in their community may be far more dangerous that she could ever have believed possible.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  5. Joy
    by Danielle Steel
    Delacorte Press
    Aug 13, 2024
    FICTION / Women
    Hardback
    Joy
    by Danielle Steel
    Delacorte Press
    Aug 13, 2024
    FICTION / Women
    Hardback
    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this deeply moving novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel, a determined young woman must survive a series of abandonments to find a love that is worthy of her.

    When she is only six years old, Allegra Dixon’s party-loving mother leaves without so much as a goodbye. Her father, an emotionally distant military officer, is also unable—or unwilling—to care for her. Sent to live like a ghost in her grandparents’ joyless home, Allegra finds her only solace through an escape into books.

    Attending boarding school, life finally takes a turn when she meets a dashing young West Point cadet named Shep Williams. Soon their friendship blossoms into something more, and they fall deeply in love.

    After college, Allegra has established herself as a book editor and Shep is rising through the ranks of the military. But then Shep suddenly receives a posting to Afghanistan, and they decide to marry before he goes. Between his deployments, they cling to their brief and fraught stolen moments together. Each time he leaves, Shep promises the separations will soon come to an end.

    But soon Allegra realizes that the horrors of war have begun to change her husband into a man she no longer recognizes. The trauma he has experienced proves to be too harrowing, and Allegra will find herself feeling utterly alone again just when she thought she’d finally found happiness.

    In her new novel, Danielle Steel tells the unforgettable story of a woman who refuses to give up until she finds the joy she deserves.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  6. Daydream
    by Hannah Grace
    Atria Books
    Aug 27, 2024
    FICTION / Romance / Contemporary
    Paperback / softback
    Daydream
    by Hannah Grace
    Atria Books
    Aug 27, 2024
    FICTION / Romance / Contemporary
    Paperback / softback
    #1 New York Times bestseller!

    The third in the New York Times bestselling Maple Hills series follows fan-favorite Henry and a bookish fellow student who come up with a plan to help them both overcome their respective challenges in a difficult year.


    When his procrastination lands him in a difficult class with his least favorite professor, Henry Turner knows he’s going to have to work extra hard to survive his junior year of college. And now with his new title of captain for the hockey team—which he didn’t even want—Henry absolutely cannot fail. Enter Halle Jacobs, a fellow junior who finds herself befriended by Henry when he accidentally crashes her book club.

    Halle may not have the romantic pursuits of her favorite fictional leads, but she’s an academic superstar, and as soon as she hears about Henry’s problems with his class reading material, she offers to help. Too bad being a private tutor isn’t exactly ideal given her own studies, job, book club, and the novel she’s trying to write. But new experiences are the key to beating her writer’s block, and Henry’s promising to be the one to give them to her.

    They just need to stick to their rule book.

    Oh, and not fall in love.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  7. Talking to Strangers (Library Edition)
    by Fiona Barton
    Penguin Canada
    Aug 27, 2024
    FICTION / Thrillers / Psychological
    Hardback
    Talking to Strangers (Library Edition)
    by Fiona Barton
    Penguin Canada
    Aug 27, 2024
    FICTION / Thrillers / Psychological
    Hardback
    The new explosive, up-all-night crime thriller from the author of the hit bestsellers The Widow and The Child

    THREE WOMEN.

    When the body of forty-four-year-old Karen Simmons is found abandoned in remote woodland, journalist Kiki Nunn hopes this will be the big break she so desperately needs.

    ONE KILLER.

    Because she has a head start on all the other reporters. Just a week before Karen was killed, Kiki interviewed her about the highs and lows of midlife romance. Karen told her all about kissing strangers under the stars, expensive meals, roses. About the scammers and the creeps . . .

    ONE CHANCE TO STOP HIM.

    While the police appear to be focusing on local suspects, Kiki sets out to write the definitive piece on one woman's fatal search for love.

    But she will soon learn that the search for truth can be just as deadly . . .
    View this title on BNC CataList
  8. The Knowing
    by Tanya Talaga Canada
    HarperCollins Publishers
    Aug 27, 2024
    Hardback
    The Knowing
    by Tanya Talaga Canada
    HarperCollins Publishers
    Aug 27, 2024
    Hardback

    From Tanya Talaga, the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of Seven Fallen Feathers, comes a riveting exploration of her family’s story and a retelling of the history of the country we now call Canada

    For generations, Indigenous People have known that their family members disappeared, many of them after being sent to residential schools, “Indian hospitals” and asylums through a coordinated system designed to destroy who the First Nations, Métis and Inuit people are. This is one of Canada’s greatest open secrets, an unhealed wound that until recently lay hidden by shame and abandonment.

    The Knowing is the unfolding of Canadian history unlike anything we have ever read before. Award-winning and bestselling Anishinaabe author Tanya Talaga retells the history of this country as only she can—through an Indigenous lens, beginning with the life of her great-great grandmother Annie Carpenter and her family as they experienced decades of government- and Church-sanctioned enfranchisement and genocide.

    Deeply personal and meticulously researched, The Knowing is a seminal unravelling of the centuries-long oppression of Indigenous People that continues to reverberate in these communities today.

    View this title on BNC CataList
  9. In Winter I Get Up at Night
    by Jane Urquhart Canada
    McClelland & Stewart
    Aug 27, 2024
    FICTION / Literary
    Hardback
    In Winter I Get Up at Night
    by Jane Urquhart Canada
    McClelland & Stewart
    Aug 27, 2024
    FICTION / Literary
    Hardback

    INSTANT NATIONAL BESTELLER • Longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize • A Heather's Pick • One of Indigo’s Most Anticipated Books • One of the CBC’s Canadian Fiction Books to Read in Fall 2024

    From one of the greatest writers of our time comes a profound and moving novel of an unforgettable life.


    In the early morning dark, Emer McConnell rises for a day of teaching music in the schools of rural Saskatchewan. While she travels the snowy roads in the gathering light, she begins another journey, one of recollection and introspection, and one that, through the course of Jane Urquhart’s brilliant new novel, will leave the reader forever changed.

    Moving as effortlessly through time as the drift of memory itself, In Winter I Get Up at Night brings Emer and her singular story to life. At the age of 11, she is terribly injured in an enormous prairie storm—the “great wind” that shifts her trajectory forever. As she recovers, separated from her family in a children’s ward, Emer gets to know her fellow patients, a memorable group including a child performer who stars in a travelling theatre company, the daughter of a Dukhobor community, and the son of a leftist Jewish farm collective. The children are tended to by three nursing sisters and two doctors, whom the ever-imaginative Emer comes to call Doctor Angel and Doctor Carpenter.

    Emer’s tale grows outwards from that ward, reaching through time and space in a dreamlike fashion, recounting the stories of her mother’s entanglement with a powerful yet mysterious teacher; her brother’s dawning spirituality, which eventually leads him to the priesthood; the remarkable lives of the nuns who care for her; and the passionate yet distant love affair of Emer and an enigmatic man she calls Harp—a brilliant scientist whose great discovery has forever altered millions of lives around the world.

    In luminous prose, and with exhilarating nuance and depth, Jane Urquhart charts an unforgettable life, while also exploring some of the grandest themes of the twentieth century—colonial expansion, scientific progress, and the sinister forces that seek to divide societies along racial and cultural lines. In Winter I Get Up at Night is a major work of imagination and self-exploration from one of the greatest writers of our time.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  10. The Lost Coast
    by Jonathan Kellerman
    Ballantine Books
    Aug 06, 2024
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Hardback
    The Lost Coast
    by Jonathan Kellerman
    Ballantine Books
    Aug 06, 2024
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Hardback
    The riveting new Clay Edison thriller from the bestselling, acclaimed father-son duo who write “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King)

    Cut loose from his former life at the coroner’s office, Clay Edison has set up shop as a private investigator. It’s steady, safe work. Until it isn’t.

    The trouble begins when a young man, tasked with managing his grandmother’s estate, hires Clay to examine some minor financial discrepancies. What starts off as a case of simple fraud rapidly explodes into a web of deception, an elaborate con game stretching back decades and involving countless victims.

    All the evidence points to a tiny town on California’s rugged, remote Lost Coast. Good luck getting there, though. And Clay’s reward for surviving the journey is a trigger-happy welcoming committee, ready to guard their secrets with lethal force.

    Navigating this landscape of savage waves and savage lies brings Clay into collision with a host of other players: a grieving mother, an enigmatic teenager, a reclusive military veteran, a foul-mouthed PI pursuing her own agenda. And the price of truth will turn out to be higher—and deadlier—than Clay could have imagined.

    From the minds of Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman comes a heart-stopping tale of deception and redemption—bursting with action, suspense, and unforgettable characters.
    View this title on BNC CataList

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