ALGONQUIN
Boulevard (Apr., $23.95) by Jim Grimsley. Newell, young and gay, has left rural Alabama for New Orleans to seek fulfillment.
Verbena (May, $24.95) by Nanci Kincaid. When a loving wife and mother is betrayed, she pursues renewal. A Shannon Ravenel book.
ALLISON & BUSBY
(dist. by IPM)
The Kiss (June, $23.95) by Joan Lingard. Mirroring the torrid relationship between Rodin and Gwen John, a professor and a student ignite passions.
AMISTAD PRESS
Love the One You're With (June, $22.95) by James Earl Hardy continues the B-Boy series about gay black men in New York City; model Raheim heads to Hollywood, leaving boyfriend Mitchell to his own devices. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
ARCADE
The Music of a Life (Aug., $21.95) by Andreï Makine. This novel by the author of Dreams of My Russian Summers is set immediately before, then two decades after WWII.
ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS
Lost Nation (May, $25) by Jeffrey Lent. From the author of In the Fall comes a parable of nationhood grounded in the early 19th century. 75,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo.
Under Radar (June, $24) by Michael Tolkin. Imprisoned after killing a man while vacationing on Jamaica, Tom Levy becomes the liberator of those jailed with him.
BALLANTINE
Eureka (Mar., $25) by William Diehl confronts a shattering 1941 murder investigation in a small California town. Advertising. Author publicity.
Dying to Please (Apr., $25.95) by Linda Howard. After her elderly employer is murdered, a butler/bodyguard is the object of a stalker. Advertising.
Midnight Voices (June, $25.95) by John Saul. A legendary apartment building on Manhattan's Central Park West houses secrets. Advertising. Author publicity.
Distant Shores (July, $22.95) by Kristin Hannah. Grieving over the deaths of her parents, a devoted daughter hunts for happiness.
BALLANTINE/ONE WORLD
Discretion (Mar., $23.95) by Elizabeth Nunez explores an intricate lovers' triangle. Advertising. 5-city author tour.
BANTAM
To Kiss a Spy (Mar., $19.95) by Jane Feather. In the second entry of the Kiss trilogy, lady-in-waiting Penelope makes a perilous bargain with a dashing spymaster. 60,000 first printing. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
With These Hands (May, $16.95) by Louis L'Amour is an all-new collection of adventure stories. 160,000 first printing. Ad/promo.
Don't Look Back (June, $24.95) by Amanda Quick brings back the lovers from Slightly Shady to solve a murder and recover an ancient bracelet. 160,000 first printing. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
Hot Ice (Aug., $19.95) by Nora Roberts is about a search for a hidden fortune in jewels; previously in paperback. 250,000 first printing.
BERKLEY
Cape Light: Book 1 (Mar., $22.95) by Thomas Kinkade and Katherine Spencer. People care for one another in a small New England town.
BETHANY HOUSE
Coming Home (June, $15.99) by David Lewis. An impulsive visit to her childhood home leads a woman from tragedy to triumph.
BLOOMSBURY
Ordinary Monsters (June, $23.95) by Karen Novak. Searching for her son, a woman journeys to a California desert town and finds the gift of healing.
MARION BOYARS
Waiting Period (July, $22.95) by Hubert Selby Jr. Rejecting suicide, a man decides instead to dispose of those he considers not fit to live.
BROADWAY BOOKS
Bookends (June, $21) by Jane Green follows a group of 30-something friends through the foibles of friendship and life's milestones.
CARROLL & GRAF
The Sands of Pride (May, $27) by William R. Trotter mixes a cast of historical and fictional figures during America's Civil War. 40,000 first printing. $40,000 ad/promo.
COFFEE HOUSE PRESS
The Mermaid That Came Between Them (Apr., $24.95) by Carol Ann Sima is the tale of a father, his son and their encounter with a mermaid. Advertising. Author tour.
COUNTERPOINT
Sparrow Nights (May, $23) by David Gilmour is a novel of erotic and psychotic extremes.
CROWN
The Book of Eleanor (Mar., $24.95) by Pamela Kaufman is a fictional first-person memoir of Eleanor of Aquitaine penned during her exile in a ruined Welsh castle. Advertising.
The Shelters of Stone (Apr., $28.95) by Jean M. Auel introduces a new character, Zelandoni, in this fifth book in the Earth's Children series. 1.5 million first printing.
CROWN/SHAYE AREHEART
The Buffalo Soldier (Mar., $20) by Chris Bohjalian. After their twin daughters are killed, a Vermont highway patrolman and his wife become the foster parents of a tough, 10-year-old, urban African-American boy. 50,000 first printing.
Step-Ball-Change (May, $22.95) by Jeanne Ray. Fate throws a curveball into the orderly, long-married life of Caroline after she receives two tearful phone calls, one from her daughter, the other from her sister. 75,000 first printing.
CURBSTONE PRESS
My Mother's Island (Apr., $24.95) by Marnie Mueller probes the unspoken conflicts between a dying mother and her caregiver daughter.
DAFINA
Perfect Timing (May, $24) by Brenda Jackson. The friendship between two longtime "sisters" survives the turbulence of a class reunion cruise.
Never Again Once More (Aug., $24) by Mary B. Morrison is a sequel to Soulmates Dissipate.
JOHN DANIEL
A Hole in the Water (Mar., $22) by Mae Briskin. Searching for her daughter who fled a decade earlier, a 67-year-old widow returns to Florence and begins a romance with a married Italian bureaucrat.
IVAN R. DEE
Sunstroke: Selected Stories (Apr., $25) by Ivan Bunin, trans. by Graham Hettlinger, is by the first Russian to with the Nobel prize for literature.
DELL/DELACORTE
The Cottage (Mar., $26.95) by Danielle Steel. Screen legend Coop Winslow, ageless but broke, faces the heartbreaking prospect of selling his magnificent Bel Air estate. 900,000 first printing. Ad/promo. LG and DBC main selections.
Sunset in St. Tropez (July, $19.95) by Danielle Steel. After Robert suffers a heart attack, his wife of 34 years and two other married couples share a villa in St. Tropez. 950,000 first printing. Advertising. LG and DBC main selections.
Her Father's House (Aug., $25.95) by Belva Plain. Thirty years later, a daughter whose father kidnapped her from his ex-wife's unstable home must come to terms with her father's criminal action. 160,000 first printing. Advertising. Author publicity.
A Summer to Remember (Aug., $21.95) by Mary Balogh. The lady will become the viscount's betrothed and act as the perfect hostess until summer ends and they part. 30,000 first printing. Advertising. Author publicity.
DELL/DIAL
Franklin Flyer (Apr., $24.95) by Nicholas Christopher follows the life of a renowned inventor named after the train on which he was born, a man who meets such characters as Rita Hayworth and OSS founder "Wild Bill" Donovan. Advertising. Author publicity.
DOUBLEDAY
Last of the Amazons (May, $24.95) by Steven Pressfield is based on the celebrated female warrior culture.
A Love of My Own (July, $24.95) by E. Lynn Harris continues the bestselling author's favorite themes.
DOUBLEDAY/NAN A. TALESE
Atonement (Mar., $26) by Ian McEwan stretches from an English manor house in 1935 to a family reunion in 1999, all beginning when an imaginative 13-year-old girl tells a tale with profound consequences. Ad/promo. Author tour.
PAUL DRY
(dist. by IPG)
Cries in the New Wilderness (Apr.; $25.95, paper $15.95) by Mikhail N. Epstein, trans. by Eve Adler. This postmodernist Russian novel focuses on religious cults that exploded following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
DUTTON
The Real McCoy (May, $24.95) by Darin Strauss is loosely based on the real-life adventures of "Kid" McCoy, a turn-of-the-century championship boxer, jewel thief, scam artist and grifter. Ad/promo. 10-city author tour.
Thieves' Paradise (May, $19.95) by Eric Jerome Dickey. Fresh from a stretch in juvenile jail, Dante Brown is determined to stay straight--after pulling one last con with slick brother Scamz. Ad/promo. 15-city author tour.
One-Hit Wonder (June, $23.95) by Lisa Jewell. Ana daydreams about living the life of her half-sister Bee who had a number one hit single, and when Bee turns up dead, Ana gives her fantasy a try. Author tour.
Charleston (Aug., $25.95) by John Jakes. Written in three parts, the novel follows the shifting fortunes of one aristocratic family from the American Revolution through the defeat of the Confederacy. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
ECCO
Nectar: A Novel (Aug., $23.95) by Lily Prior. A morally deficient chambermaid with a bewitching aroma transforms the male population of a small Sicilian village. Advertising.
FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX
The Haunting of L. (Apr., $24) by Howard Norman. In 1927 Canada, young Peter Duvett becomes involved in an uneasy menage a trois and with "spirit pictures," photographs of the long-dead or forgotten and their mysterious reappearance.
Instances of the Number 3 (Apr., $23) by Salley Vickers. After Peter Hansome dies in a car accident, his mistress makes friends with his widow, and both learn that Peter had had an assignation with another lover.
Real Time: Stories and a Reminiscence (Apr., $22) by Amit Chaudhuri. In this collection featuring portraits drawn from India's new middle class, even gods appear.
Inez (May, $16) by Carlos Fuentes, trans. by Margaret Sayers Peden. In this short novel of duality, two stories from two eras are united by a magical seal that allows one both to read unknown languages and to hear impossible music. Author publicity.
Mr. Potter (May, $18) by Jamaica Kincaid introduces a struggling illiterate taxi chauffeur living on Antigua.
FEMINIST PRESS
The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture (July, $26.95), edited by Louise DeSalvo and Edvige Giunta, contains stories that are sweet, boisterous and subversively funny.
FORGE
Irish Stew! (Mar., $25.95) by Andrew M. Greeley is the latest Nuala Anne McGrail novel. Advertising.
Against All Enemies (May, $25.95) by Harold Coyle is a modern military thriller. 100,000 first printing. Advertising.
Ghost Warrior (May, $27.95) by Lucia St. Clair Robson. After the Mexican War, an Apache warrior battles the forced federal relocation of her people to New Mexico. Advertising.
Council (Aug., $25.95) by Greg Tobin stirs up passions surrounding the election of a new pope. Advertising.
FREE PRESS
Casanova in Bohemia (Mar., $25) by Andrei Codrescu. The NPR commentator puts his idiosyncratic spin on the life and erotic times of the illuminist Giacomo Casanova.
GRANTA
Cheese (Apr., $14.95) by Willem Elsschot presents a would-be magnate of the cheese industry.
GRAYWOLF PRESS
Heart-Side Up (May, $24.95) by Barbara Dimmick. To recover from a harrowing assault, a young woman homesteads in Vermont. Advertising. Author tour.
Hello AgainTalk about a long intermission. In 1947, the husband-and-wife writing team of Benedict and  Nancy Freedman collaborated on Mrs. Mike, a novel based on the life of Katherine Mary O'Fallon, a proper Bostonian who married a Canadian Mountie, Sgt. Mike Flannigan. The book became a national bestseller and has sold millions; it has never been out of print. Next month, Berkley publishes a sequel, set during WWII, titled The Search for Joyful: A Mrs. Mike Novel, also by the Freedmans, who celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in 2001. A trade edition of Mrs. Mike containing a new introduction is being issued as well. Despite the lengthy lag between numbers one and two, the Freedmans pledge to produce more titles in the series. How many installments? "Not installments," Benedict Freedman corrects. "Each is a book that stands alone, yet is linked to the others." Adds Nancy, "Yes, each is the story of the next generation, linked by the tradition of naming the first daughter, Kathy, after Mrs. Mike. The Kathy of The Search for Joyful is the [Native American] baby adopted by Mrs. Mike at the end of the book. The next book in the series is tentatively titled Kathy Little Bird." |
GREYCORE PRESS
(dist. by Seven Hills)
Done in by Innocent Things (May, $23) by William Eisner. A novella and stories investigate decisions influenced by betrayal, boredom and dementia. Author tour.
GROVE PRESS
Gould's Book of Fish (Apr., $27.50) by Richard Flanagan is a historical tale of 19th-century Australia recorded in the unusual taxonomy of fish. 35,000 first printing. $35,000 ad/promo.
Wish You Were Here (May, $25) by Stewart O'Nan. A widow convenes her family at their vacation home one last time before selling it. 30,000 first printing.
Farewell, Tsugumi (Aug., $23) by Banana Yoshimoto. Two cousins come of age at the Japanese seaside. 35,000 first printing. $35,000 ad/promo.
HARCOURT
Oxygen (Apr., $24) by Andrew Miller. This meditation on loss, regret and self-discovery was short-listed for the Booker Prize.
The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits (May, $24) by Emma Donoghue. In this story collection, the author of Slammerkin resurrects the ghosts of women who counted for nothing in their own day.
Nuremberg: The Reckoning (June, $25) by William F. Buckley Jr. is a fictional treatment of the historic event. 75,000 first printing. Author tour.
HARMONY
The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time (May, $24) by Douglas Adams is a never-before-published collection of works left behind when Adams died of a heart attack last summer.
HARPERCOLLINS
The Season of Lillian Dawes (Apr., $24.95) by Katherine Mosby. In 1950s New York City, a 17-year-old is expelled from school and sent to live with his older brother, and both fall for the same woman. Advertising. 5-city author tour.
Gallows Thief (May, $24.95) by Bernard Cornwell. A private investigator in 1820s London hopes to rescue an innocent man from death row.
A Simple Habana Melody (May, $24.95) by Oscar Hijuelos. A devout Catholic Cuban composer who was incarcerated in Buchenwald returns home to Habana in 1947, and his mind reels with images of life before the war.
The Wailing Wind (June, $25.95) by Tony Hillerman. A two-year-old murder case converges with a contemporary one, and Lt. Joe Leaphorn comes out of retirement to assist in the investigation.
Flight Lessons (Aug., $24.95) by Patricia Gaffney. Anna learns from her dying mother how her beloved aunt Rose betrayed them years ago.
Law of Gravity (Aug., $24.95) by Stephen Horn. An associate White House counsel earns enemies by testifying candidly before a Senate committee investigating a scandal.
HARPERCOLLINS/FOURTH ESTATE
Unless (May, $24.95) by Carol Shields. A mother's complacence is disturbed when her eldest daughter drops out of college to sit on a street corner with a sign reading "Goodness" hanging around her neck. Ad/promo.
HARPERCOLLINS/RAYO
The Republic of East L.A. (Apr., $23.95) by Luis J. Rodriguez. This story collection reflects everyday life within this largely blue-collar Latino neighborhood.
HARPER SAN FRANCISCO
Garden of Faith (May, $20.95) by Lynne Hinton. The sequel to Friendship Cake reunites the women of Hope Springs. 50,000 first printing. Advertising. Author tour.
The Treasure of Montsegur (June, $23.95) by Sophy Burnham. The author of A Book of Angels sets this historical novel in medieval France. 30,000 first printing. Advertising. Author tour.
HENRY HOLT
Henderson's Spear (Mar., $25) by Ronald Wright. Searching for her father, missing since the Korean War, a Canadian filmmaker is jailed on trumped-up charges in Tahiti. Advertising. Author tour.
Thirteen Albatrosses (or, Falling Off the Mountain) (Apr., $26) by Donald Harington. An atheist living "in sin" with his first cousin hopes to become Arkansas's governor, despite his other political albatrosses.
High Water (July, $25) by Lynn Hightower. A young mother, fearful for the well-being of a son who disappeared two years earlier, distrusts her own father, an ex-marine who bullies the entire family. Advertising. Author tour.
HOLT/METROPOLITAN
Spies (Apr., $23) by Michael Frayn. In wartime London, two boys play a patriotic game of spying on their neighbors. Advertising. Author tour.
The Beholder (Aug., $22) by Thomas Farber. A middle-aged author becomes erotically involved with his married niece, and there are no taboos. Author publicity.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
In the Forest (Mar., $24) by Edna O'Brien is a psychological thriller that takes place in the countryside of western Ireland, where murder is the climax. 35,000 first printing. Ad/promo. Author tour.
Wild Ginger (Apr., $23) by Anchee Min limns a tale of the Cultural Revolution in which the heroine finds Mao's prohibition on romantic love untenable. 40,000 first printing. Ad/promo. Author tour.
River Thieves (June, $24) by Michael Crummey is a historical novel set at the turn of the 19th century along Newfoundland's rugged northeastern shore, where the Beothuk, or Red Indians, face extinction. 25,000 first printing. Advertising. Author tour.
The Hermit's Story (July, $22) by Rick Bass is a collection of diverse stories, two of which were selected for Best American Short Stories. Advertising.
KENSINGTON
Halfway Home (Apr., $23) by Mary Sheldon. A Hollywood actress must own up to past mistakes, including an abandoned daughter.
Kentucky Heat (May, $24) by Fern Michaels. In this sequel to Kentucky Rich, Nealy struggles with her racing stables until her ex-husband's law partner appears.
Green Calder Grass (July, $24) by Janet Dailey. Ty and Jessy, now married for several years, meet up again with Ty's first wife, Tara.
Hunk House (July, $23) by Ben Tyler. Jeb answers an ad and ends up in a cable station's "reality" series with 11 other gay men.
KNOPF
All I Could Get (Mar., $24) by Scott Lasser visits New York City's financial world to probe when "enough" is enough in pursuit of the American dream. 50,000 first printing. Advertising. 5-city author tour.
The Cadence of Grass (May, $24) by Thomas McGuane. Even in death, patriarch Sunny Jim Whitelaw attempts to control his family by the terms of his will. 40,000 first printing. Advertising. 13-city author tour.
Her (May, $22) by Laura Zigman is a dark romantic comedy about jealousy. 75,000 first printing. Advertising. 9-city author tour.
Angel Rock (June, $23) by Darren Williams. Angel Rock is a hardscrabble town in the Australian outback where a frequently drunk and despairing detective comes from Sydney to investigate a four-year-old boy's disappearance. Advertising.
Ash Wednesday (July, $22.95) by Ethan Hawke. The actor's second novel features AWOL Jimmy, who commits to marry Christy, pregnant and determined to head home to face her past. 100,000 first printing. Advertising. 11-city author tour.
The Whore's Child and Other Stories (July, $24) by Richard Russo has characters ranging from a fifth-grader puzzling over baseball to an aging nun who invades a college writing workshop. 50,000 first printing. Advertising. Author publicity.
LITTLE, BROWN
Sea Glass (Apr., $25.95) by Anita Shreve. Newlyweds Honora and Sexton find themselves penniless in 1929, so he takes work at a New Hampshire mill where labor unrest is brewing. Ad/promo. 6-city author tour.
I, Rhoda Manning, Go Hunting with My Daddy and Other Stories (Aug., $25.95) by Ellen Gilchrist. Rhoda returns, at various ages from young to old, to recount her eccentric history.
MACADAM/CAGE
The God File (Mar., $23) by Frank Turner Hollon. Jailed unjustly for murder, a prisoner searches for God's presence.
Walking Through Shadows (Apr., $25) by Bev Marshall. After a farm girl is murdered in a Mississippi cornfield, family and friends look for meaning in her life and death.
MCCLELLAND & STEWART
A Summer Without Dawn (Mar., $29.95) by Agop Hacikyan. A family struggles to survive the 1915-1918 Turkish massacre of Armenians. Advertising.
MERCER UNIV. PRESS
Generations (Mar., $24.95) by George Strange is a story collection that explores graces and sins, all set in the South.
MIRA
Hurricane Bay (Apr., $22.95) by Heather Graham. The search for a missing woman forces Kelsey and Dane to overcome their mutual distrust.
Between Friends (June, $22.95) by Debbie Macomber. Letters and diaries make up this novel of female friendship stretching from the 1950s to the present.
Dead Run (June, $22.95) by Erica Spindler. Although Skye put the terror of her mother's disappearance behind her, the horror returns with a man obsessed with Skye since her birth.
The Soul Catcher (Aug., $24.95) by Alex Kava. FBI profiler Maggie O'Dell investigates the rape/murder of a girl left near the FDR memorial in Washington, D.C.
MORROW
Amazonia (Mar., $24.95) by James Rollins is a science-based thriller set in the Amazon basin, where a CIA operative who had lost one arm is found dead after a four-year disappearance--but his corpse is two-armed. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
The Pursuit (Apr., $25.95) by Johanna Lindsey is a sequel to Say You Love Me. Ad/promo.
You Know Better (Apr., $24.95) by Tina Ansa. Three generations of African-American women in Mulberry, Ga., manage to reconcile with the assistance of three female ghosts. Advertising. 10-city author tour.
The Golden One (May, $25.95) by Elizabeth Peters. It is 1917 and a very fresh corpse is discovered in a looted tomb. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
Running Scared (June, $24.95) by Elizabeth Lowell. Set in Las Vegas, this is the second book in the Rarities series. Advertising. Author publicity.
Breathing Room (July, $24.95) by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. America's diva of self-help and Hollywood's favorite villain meet in Tuscany. Advertising. 8-city author tour.
Partner in Crime (Aug., $24.95) by J.A. Jance. Sheriff Joanna Brady and homicide detective J.P. Beaumont reluctantly join forces to solve the murder of a key figure supposedly safeguarded under a state witness protection program.
| Auction Action The lone bidder on a handwritten manuscript at an auction of African-American memorabilia, scholar and author Henry Louis Gates Jr. got more than he bargained for--possibly the first novel ever written by a black woman and definitely the first novel written by a woman who had been a slave. Dating back to the 1850s, The Bondwoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts will be  published by Warner Books this April. "The novel itself we're leaving unedited, except for a punctuation mark or two," says publisher Jamie Raab. "We don't want to destroy its authenticity." In a lengthy introduction, Gates, chair of Harvard's African-American studies program, explains the book's provenance and how literary sleuths validated its genuineness. "It's written in the breathless style of the romantic literature of the period. It's of its time, but highly readable," Raab comments; "it's an adventure." The fact that the runaway slave disguises herself as a white boy for her own safety adds poignancy to the tale, she says. "The book informs a lot about the time and about the women of the time." |
MOYER BELL
The Evening of Adam (June, $22.95) by Alice Thomas Ellis contains 15 sharp-humored short stories.
NEW DIRECTIONS
Boxwood (May, $25.95) by Camilo Jose Cela is set in Cela's native Galicia, mixing folklore and autobiography.
NEW PRESS
The Trolley (July, $22.95) by Claude Simon. The Nobel Prize-winning author intermingles memories of youth and old age.
W.W. NORTON
The Anatomy School (Apr., $25.95) by Bernard MacLaverty is a coming-of-age novel set in 1960s Belfast, during Martin Brennan's last semester of high school.
Big If (June, $24.95) by Mark Costello. Set in New Hampshire while the vice-president is running for president, the comic novel limns the country's obsession with violence and assassination. Author publicity.
The Heaven of Mercury (Aug., $23.95) by Brad Watson. Southern gothic and classical myth merge in this work by the author of Last Days of the Dog-Men. 8-city author tour.
OHIO UNIV. PRESS
The Handywoman Stories (May; $28.95, paper $16.95) by Lenore McComas Coberly is a collection sharing Appalachian settings.
OVERLOOK PRESS
The Company (Apr., $28.95) by Robert Littell is the author's 13th plunge into high-stakes espionage. $100,000 ad/promo. Paperback rights to Penguin. 5-city author tour.
PANTHEON
Anything Goes (July, $24) by Madison Smartt Bell. Twenty-year-old guitarist Jesse escapes his squalid family by forming a band called Anything Goes.
PERSEA BOOKS
The Best of Animals (May, $23.95) by Lauren Grodstein. Ten stories depict teens and 20-somethings careening toward adulthood.
PICADOR
At the Jim Bridger: Stories (May, $23) by Ron Carlson presents nine stories of love and mystery. Author tour.
The Laying On of Hands: Stories (June, $15) by Alan Bennett offers three stories by the author of The Clothes They Stood Up In. Author tour.
POCKET BOOKS
Wicked Forest (June; $25, paper $7.99) by V.C. Andrews. At 19, Willow DeBeers discovers that she is not adopted but is the product of an affair that her psychiatrist father had with a patient in his mental hospital.
POCKET/PB PRESS
The Last Chance Cafe (Apr., $24) by Linda Lael Miller features characters descended from those introduced in her Women of Primrose Creek series. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
Perfect Match (May, $25) by Jodi Picoult. DA Nina Frost prosecutes child molesters, and is shattered by the discovery that her traumatized five-year-old son has been sexually abused. Advertising. 8-city author tour.
True to Form (June, $24) by Elizabeth Berg. Two years after her mother's death, 14-year-old Katie now lives in a new town with her inaccessible father and his new wife. 100,000 first printing.
The Mulberry Tree (July, $25) by Jude Deveraux. When business titan Jimmie Manville dies in a plane crash, his devastated widow learns that he has willed her only his rundown Virginia childhood home. 275,000 first printing.
Whispers and Lies (Aug., $25) by Joy Fielding. A middle-aged woman living complacently in her beachside home in Delray, Fla., is terrorized by a mysterious young woman who moves into an adjacent cottage. 125,000 first printing.
PUTNAM
Widow's Walk (Mar., $24.95) by Robert B. Parker concerns the investigation of a prominent Boston banker's murder. Advertising. Author publicity.
Midnight Runner (Apr., $25.95) by Jack Higgins. British and American agents join forces to battle a lethal antagonist. Advertising.
The Short Forever (Apr., $24.95) by Stuart Woods is the eighth Stone Barrington adventure in which he gets caught in the rivalry between two American spies. Advertising. Author tour.
Three Fates (Apr., $25.95) by Nora Roberts. The search for ancient Greek figurines unsettles a family of thieves. Ad/promo. LG and DBC main selections. Author tour.
Mortal Prey (May, $26.95) by John Sandford. Returnee Lucas Davenport battles an old nemesis. Ad/promo. Author tour.
Fire Ice: A Kurt Austin Adventure (June, $26.95) by Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos. The hero of Serpent and Blue Gold is at it again. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
The Arraignment (July, $25.95) by Steve Martini. The death of a fellow lawyer draws Paul Madriani into a whirlpool of international crime. Advertising.
Eleventh Hour (July, $24.95) by Catherine Coulter. FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich are baffled when a San Francisco priest is murdered. Ad/promo. Author tour.
Red Rabbit (Aug., $28.95) by Tom Clancy returns Jack Ryan to his early days as a CIA analyst when a Soviet defector reveals a shocking secret. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
PUTNAM/MARIAN WOOD
Fragrant Harbor (July, $25.95) by John Lanchester. The author of The Debt to Pleasure writes of a forbidden love in Hong Kong with repercussions that echo across 70 years. Advertising.
RANDOM HOUSE
A Collection of Beauties at the Height of Their Popularity (Mar., $23.95) by Whitney Otto. Named for a series of 18th-century Japanese woodblocks, this story juxtaposes contemporary life in 1980s San Francisco with old-world Edo, Japan. Advertising. Author tour.
The Seal Wife (May, $24.95) by Kathryn Harrison. Set on the Alaskan frontier in 1915, the novel charts a young scientist's passion for a silent, mysterious woman known as the Aleut. Advertising. Author publicity.
Strand of a Thousand Pearls (June, $24) by Dorit Rabinyan. This novel of magical realism presents the Azzizyan family: Solly and Iran, their sole son and their four daughters. Advertising. 5-city author tour.
Pasadena (July, $25) by David Ebershoff centers on a fishergirl born in 1903 on a coastal onion farm in southern California. Advertising. 10-city author tour.
Milk Glass Moon: A Big Stone Gap Novel (Aug., $24.95) by Adriana Trigiani. As this trilogy ends, Ave Maria, whose daughter is growing up, faces the test of letting go. Advertising.
RIVERHEAD
The Dream of Scipio (June, $27.95) by Iain Pears. Set in the fifth, 14th and 20th centuries, three narratives involving love stories circle around an ancient text. Ad/promo.
Secret Celebrity (July, $23.95) by Carol Wolper. The author of The Cigarette Girl offers another Hollywood tale. Author publicity.
ROBERTS RINEHEART
Deliver Us from Evil (May, $24.95) by Peter T. King. In 2006, the murder of an IRA informer complicates Long Island congressman Sean Cross's bid for reelection.
RUTLEDGE HILL PRESS
The Road to Eden's Ridge (July, $21.99) by Josie Vaden thrives on love, dreams and country music.
ST. MARTIN'S
The Chase (Mar., $24.95) by Brenda Joyce. A woman is enmeshed in a mystery that extends from WWII to the present. 75,000 first printing. Ad/promo. Author tour.
The Secret Ingredient (Mar., $24.95) by Jane Heller is a satire that probes whether men can change. 75,000 first printing. Ad/promo. DBC and LG selections. Author tour.
The Viking Funeral (Mar., $24.95) by Stephen J. Cannell. LAPD Sgt. Shane Scully is back in a thriller that pits him against a close childhood friend. 125,000 first printing. Ad/promo. Author tour.
ST. MARTIN'S/THOMAS DUNNE
Starting Over (Mar., $24.95) by Robin Pilcher. Since her divorce, Liz has lived hand-to-mouth with her father and son on the east coast of Fife, but now her ex is suddenly back. 100,000 first printing. Advertising. BOMC, DBC and LG selections. Author tour.
Area 7 (Mar., $24.95) by Matthew Reilly. Lt. Shane "Scarecrow" Schofield returns to escort the President to Area 7, where a rogue Air Force commander waits to grab power. 50,000 first printing. Advertising. Author tour.
Warning of War (Apr., $24.95) by James Brady begins in China at the onset of the U.S. involvement in WWII where a young captain is on a mission to free fellow marines from Japanese forces. 100,000 first printing. Advertising. Author publicity.
SCRIBNER
The Doctor's House (Mar., $24) by Ann Beattie. A sister is obsessed by her brother's romantic entanglement.
At Swim, Two Boys (Mar., $27) by Jamie O'Neill is set in Dublin the year before the Easter uprising and features two young men from strikingly different backgrounds.
Female Trouble (Apr., $24) by Antonya Nelson is a collection of 13 stories from an author selected as one of the New Yorker's 20 best writers for the 21st century.
Funnymen (Apr., $25) by Ted Heller. During the 1940s and '50s, a comedy duo reminiscent of Martin & Lewis makes its mark in Catskills nightclubs, Hollywood and on TV.
SEVEN STORIES PRESS
The Confession of Frida K. (Apr., $23.95) by Kate Braverman is an imagined life of Frida Kahlo that opens and closes inside the artist's mind while she is on her deathbed at age 46. Author publicity.
SHAMBHALA
Boomeritis: A Novel That Will Set You Free! (June, $24.95) by Ken Wilber parodies boomers and postmodern culture.
SIMON & SCHUSTER
Deadly Embrace (June, $26) by Jackie Collins. Celebrity magazine writer Madison Castelli is trying to resolve her mother's mysterious death that occurred many years earlier. 250,000 first printing.
Mount Vernon Love Story (June, $TBA) by Mary Higgins Clark. Starring George and Martha Washington, this was the author's first novel, originally entitled Aspire to the Heavens. 350,000 first printing.
Sin Killer (June, $TBA) by Larry McMurtry. The first of a projected four-volume work, it begins in 1830 with Lord and Lady Berrybender making their way up the Missouri River. 200,000 first printing. Advertising.
An Accidental Woman (July, $25) by Barbara Delinsky. Wheelchair-bound Poppy Blake learns that her good friend Heather has been arrested and charged with a 15-year-old murder. 350,000 first printing.
China Run (Aug., $25) by David Ball is a thriller set in China in which authorities demand the return of an American woman's newly adopted baby. 75,000 first printing. Ad/promo.
Leslie (Aug., $22) by Omar Tyree. Well-liked college student Leslie Beaudet appears to be involved in a string of murders in her native New Orleans. 100,000 first printing. Ad/promo. 12-city author tour.
SOHO PRESS
The Superpower of Love (Apr., $25) by Sophie Hannah. Dynamics change among friends when live-in relationships lead to marriages and to splits. Author tour.
SOURCEBOOKS LANDMARK
The Last Boy (Mar., $22) by Robert H. Lieberman. After disappearing for months, a five-year-old returns home with a remarkable gift. 35,000 first printing.
TALK MIRAMAX
Social Crimes (June, $22.95) by Jane Stanton Hitchcock. A high-society wife dumped for a younger woman turns vengeful. 50,000 first printing.
TEN SPEED PRESS
Sex, Death and Other Distractions (May, $21.95) by the Kensington Ladies' Erotica Society is the third collection of short fiction from a group that has gathered for over 25 years to share titillating fantasies.
TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIV. PRESS
Reynolds (Apr., $24.50) by Donley Watt. A failed-banker-turned-liquor-store-owner in east Texas has multiple problems, including a Bible-beating mother.
TOBY PRESS
Chains Around the Grass (Mar., $26.95) by Naomi Ragen draws upon autobiographical elements.
TOR
Hunted Past Reason (July, $24.95) by Richard Matheson is a thriller in which two old friends turn into enemies in the primeval wilderness. Advertising.
TRANSACTION
Ernesto's Ghost (Mar., $29.95) by Edward Gonzalez. Set in 1974 following Nixon's resignation, this novel of political intrigue exposes the murky consequences of the Cuban revolution.
UNIV. PRESS OF FLORIDA
Blood of My Blood (Mar., $24.95) by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, edited by Anne Blythe Meriwether, is a "lost" autobiographical first novel about the thorny relationship between an emerging artist and her mother.
VIKING
Miss Julia Throws a Wedding (May, $23.95) by Ann B. Ross. Under no circumstances will Coleman and Binkie tie the knot at the courthouse when Miss Julia prefers a proper ceremony. Advertising. 12-city author tour.
Girl from the South (June, $24.95) by Joanna Trollope. After a summer in London, Gillon returns to Charleston, S.C., followed by an English photographer named Henry. Advertising. 10-city author tour.
A Taste of Honey: A Carson Springs Novel (June, $24.95) by Eileen Goudge. Continuing the drama begun in Stranger in Paradise, Gerry Fitzgerald must face the daughter she gave up for adoption. Advertising.
Mary, Called Magdalene (June, $27.95) by Margaret George reimagines the life of this biblical figure. Ad/promo. 10-city author tour.
In This Mountain (July, $24.95) by Jan Karon. In the seventh Mitford installment, Father Tim and Cynthia gear up for a yearlong ministry across the state line when shocking events test Tim's faith and marriage. Advertising.
Must Love Dogs (July, $23.95) by Claire Cook. When a 40-year-old divorced preschool teacher places a personal ad, she is stunned when a perspective date turns out to be her father. Author publicity.
VILLARD
April Witch (Apr., $24.95) by Majgull Axelsson. Born severely disabled, institutionalized Desiree cannot walk or talk, but she can travel through time and space.
Married But Still Looking (May, $21.95) by Travis Hunter. Genesis Styles wants to marry luscious Terri, if only he can cease his womanizing. Author tour.
Cubicles (June, $21.95) by Camika Spencer. Three women who share the same workplace but next to nothing else are unexpectedly drawn together. Author tour.
WARNER
A Conversation with the Mann (June, $24.95) by John Ridley. An aspiring black comic rises, but only so far during the Rat Pack era in this novel of betrayal and redemption. Ad/promo. 5-city author tour.
High on a Hill (June, $21.95) by Dorothy Garlock. During the Prohibition era, a girl must choose between her bootlegging father and the lawman trailing him. Advertising.
Pharaoh: Volume II of Kleopatra (Aug., $24.95) by Karen Essex. Caesar is assassinated, and Egypt's queen allies herself with Antony. Advertising.
WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
Beautiful Bodies (June, $24) by Laura Shaine Cunningham. Six female friends gather in a loft right before a brutal snow storm is about to hit Manhattan.
WELCOME RAIN
Gold Rush (Mar., $25) by Miri Yu. A 14-year-old Japanese boy murders his father and attempts to take over his business.
The Poet's Wedding (Aug., $26.95) by Antonio Skarmeta is the Chilean diplomat's first installment of a trilogy, in which inhabitants of a small Adriatic island are celebrating the union of two prominent citizens.
