ALGONQUIN
The Curve of the World (May, $24.95) by Marcus Stevens. Lost in an African rainforest, an American executive depends upon a child to rescue him. 30,000 first printing. Advertising.
ALYSON
Last Night (Apr., $24.95) by Brendan Lemon. A young American prepares to face a Cuban firing squad. Advertising. Author publicity.
ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS
Bear Me Safely Over (Apr., $24) by Sheri Joseph. About to be linked by marriage, two families confront homophobia and religious fundamentalism. 30,000 first printing.
BALLANTINE
Househusband (May, $23.95) by Ad Hudler. A frustrated man seeks to reclaim his home and renew his love for his wife. Advertising. 5-city author tour.
What About the Love Part? (June, $22) by Stephanie Rosenfeld. Ten linked stories chart a woman's life through dating, marriage, divorce and friendship. Advertising. Author publicity.
BERKLEY SIGNATURE EDITION
Waterwoman (June, $21.95) by Lenore Hart. Growing up on the Chesapeake Bay between the World Wars, Annie knows that her sister, Rebecca, is beautiful while she is not.
BLOOMSBURY
Across Open Ground (May, $23.95) by Heather Parkinson. Nature's brutality, first love's yearnings and war's realities affect heartland America.
BLUE HEN BOOKS
In My Sister's Country (Apr., $23.95) by Lise Haines concerns a young woman's coming of age in a climate of betrayal and grief.
Perma Red (June, $24.95) by Debra Magpie Earling. In the 1940s, a reckless girl on the Flathead Indian Reservation pursues a dangerous path. Advertising.
BRIDGE WORKS
(dist. by NBN)
Abou and the Angel Cohen (Mar., $23.95) by Claude Campbell. With an angel's help, a Palestinian comes to understand the roots of religious conflict.
BROADMAN & HOLMAN
Mission Compromised (Aug., $24.99) by Oliver North is the first of three novels about a marine on the White House National Security Council staff, the same post North held.
CARROLL & GRAF
Places to Look for a Mother (Mar., $22) by Nicole Stansbury dissects the complicated bonds between mother and daughter. 30,000 first printing. $30,000 ad/promo.
Thinner, Blonder, Whiter (June, $25) by Elizabeth Maguire spins a tale of political corruption and interracial romance. 25,000 first printing. $25,000 ad/promo.
The Revenant (July, $25) by Michael Punke retells the true story of a frontiersman's survival and vengeance in the American West. 30,000 first printing. $30,000 ad/promo.
COUNTERPOINT
The Memory Room (Apr., $25) by Mary Rakow. In this novel-in-verse, a woman goes to hell and back, confirming the healing power of faith and love.
Stanley Park (June, $25) by Timothy Taylor blends love story, murder mystery and comic satire.
DELL/DELACORTE
The Lonely Places (May, $23.95) by J.M. Morris. An abused woman faces her demons when her brother mysteriously disappears. 30,000 first printing. Advertising.
DELL/DIAL
Crow Lake (Mar., $23.95) by Mary Lawson. For a family in rural Ontario, the sins of the father are visited on the sons. 35,000 first printing. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
The Midwife's Tale (July, $23.95) by Gretchen Moran Laskas. A barren midwife finally opens to love through her adopted daughter. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
DOUBLEDAY
The Master of Rain (Apr., $26) by Tom Bradby. Murder and intrigue stalk the streets of 1920s Shanghai. Ad/promo.
The True Sources of the Nile (Apr., $23.95) by Sarah Stone. An American human rights advocate in Burundi falls in love with a member of the Tutsi ruling class. Ad/promo.
The Solace of Leaving Early (June, $24.95) by Haven Kimmel. Tragedy hits a small town in this novel by the author of the memoir A Girl Named Zippy.
DUTTON
Hoping for Hope (Mar., $23.95) by Lucy Clare. About to turn 50, a woman who has just lost her job learns that she is pregnant and that her husband is having an affair.
The Trouble with Catherine (Mar., $23.95) by Andes Hruby. A wholesale fish dealer in New York City wonders if her all-consuming engagement to a lawyer is taking the right course. Author publicity.
The Impressionist (Apr., $24.95) by Hari Kunzru. A young Indian outcast reinvents himself in Edwardian London. Ad/promo. Author tour.
ECCO
Oyster (June, $23.95) by John Biguenet focuses on a deadly rivalry between two families living on the Gulf Coast of 1950s Louisiana.
FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX
The Heart of Redness (Aug., $24) by Zakes Mda. Controversy explodes when a South African village is the proposed site for a vast casino. Author tour.
FORGE
Daisies in the Junkyard (May, $23.95) by Michael Enright, a Chicago priest, tells of two boys living in the barrio who strive to stay off the streets. Ad/promo.
FOUR WALLS EIGHT WINDOWS
An Everyday Savior (June, $24.95) by Kathryn Larrabee. A man struggles to negotiate complicated relationships with the women in his life.
GROVE PRESS
My Life in Heavy Metal (Apr., $23) by Steve Almond. A dozen stories limn young men and women coming of age in an era lacking innocence. 25,000 first printing.
Twelve (July, $24) by Nick McDonell. A fictional designer drug takes over the streets of Manhattan. 45,000 first printing. $45,000 ad/promo.
HENRY HOLT
Desert Burial (Apr., $24) by Brian Littlefair. Nuclear waste in Africa and a global conspiracy propel this thriller.
The Winter Zoo (June, $25) by John Beckman. An American expatriate encounters sex, love and totalitarianism in Krakow, Poland.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
Everything Is Illuminated (Apr., $24) by Jonathan Safran Foer. A writer travels to Eastern Europe to locate the woman who supposedly saved the grandfather he never knew from the Nazis. 50,000 first printing. Author tour.
KENSINGTON
Free Bird (Mar., $23) by Greg Garrett. Clay Forester attempts to find a future by confronting the ghosts of his spoiled past.
This Place Called Absence (Mar., $23) by Lydia Kwa interweaves the stories of four women from 1900s China to contemporary Southeast Asia and Vancouver, B.C. Ad/promo.
KNOPF
The Dive from Clausen's Pier (Apr., $24) by Ann Packer. A young Wisconsin woman wonders how much she really owes to the people she loves. 75,000 first printing. Ad/promo. 8-city author tour.
The Emperor of Ocean Park (June, $26.95) by Stephen L. Carter. Humiliation and scandal ensue when a conservative judge from the upper reaches of African-American society must withdraw his name from a Supreme Court nomination. 500,000 first printing. Ad/promo. 15-city author tour.
LITTLE, BROWN
Rush Home Road (May, $23.95) by Lori Lansens. A five-year-old girl is abandoned on an 80-year-old woman's doorstep. Ad/promo.
The Lovely Bones (July, $21.95) by Alice Sebold. A murdered girl watches from heaven as her father pursues the killer and her family triumphs over grief. Author publicity.
MCBOOKS PRESS
Motoo Eetee: A Novel (Apr., $24.95) by I.C. Rogers. Four shipwrecked men struggle to survive on an uninhabited Pacific island. Advertising.
MCCLELLAND & STEWART
Every Wickedness (June, $19.95) by Cathy Vasas-Brown. A serial killer dubbed Spiderman by the media is at large in San Francisco.
MORROW
The Book of Shadows (Mar., $25.95) by James Reese. In 19th-century Brittany, a convent-raised orphan is later charged with witchcraft. Ad/promo. Author tour.
Sheltering Rain (May, $24.95) by Jojo Moyes. Three women in southern Ireland experience love differently. Ad/promo.
MOYER BELL
Black Label (June, $24.95) by Margaret Cole is a multigenerational novel, set in the Midwest, about distillery workers and their families.
W.W. NORTON
Confessing a Murder (May, $23.95) by Nicholas Drayson. A murder, a tropical island and thwarted love provide clues to Darwin's theory of evolution.
PANTHEON
Song of the Water Saints (Mar., $23) by Nelly Rosario traces the lives of three generations of Dominican women. Ad/promo. 6-city author tour.
Three Junes (May, $25) by Julia Glass courses over three summers experienced by a Scottish family.
PELICAN
Growing Up Nigger Rich (Mar., $22) by Gwendoline Y. Fortune juxtaposes memories of the "old South" with contemporary portrayals of privilege, powerlessness and racial identity. Advertising. Author tour.
PICADOR
Salt: A Novel (Mar., $25) by Isabel Zuber visits a woman living in the South at the turn of the 20th century. Author tour.
Narcissus Ascending: A Novel (June, $21) by Karen McKinnon dissects friendship by examining the manipulative rivalry of two strong women. Advertising. Author tour.
PUTNAM
Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain (May, $24.95) by Jeffrey Moore. A quixotic young English professor believes his destiny is mapped out on a page he once randomly ripped from a book. Author publicity.
Rain Fall (July, $24.95) by Barry Eisler features a Japanese-American assassin whose solitude is endangered by the death of a Tokyo government official. Advertising. Author publicity.
RANDOM HOUSE
Passing Strange (June, $23.95) by Sally MacLeod traces the fallout when a young woman undergoes cosmetic surgery.
Prague (June, $24.95) by Arthur Phillips. Four Americans and a Canadian seek their fortunes and love in 1990 Prague. 10-city author tour.
RIVERHEAD
Having It and Eating It (May, $23.95) by Sabine Durrant shines a comic light on the motherhood of an educated, middle-class suburban woman.
The Russian Debutante's Handbook (June, $24.95) by Gary Shteyngart is a bittersweet depiction of the immigrant experience. Ad/promo. Author publicity.
ST. MARTIN'S
The Nanny Diaries (Mar., $24.95) by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. Real-life nannies spread the fictional scoop on the lives of the rich and privileged. 40,000 first printing. Advertising. Author publicity.
SCRIBNER
The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me (Mar., $24) by Suzanne Kingsbury. Temptation, love and racism transform four young people in a small Southern town.
A Child's Book of True Crime (Mar., $23) by Chloe Hooper places its chilling and erotic tale in rural Tasmania.
SOURCEBOOKS LANDMARK
God-Shaped Hole (May, $21) by Tiffanie DeBartolo. Trixie Jordan relates her skewed love affair with Jacob Grace as they come to terms with their troubled pasts. 25,000 first printing.
SUNSTONE
So Shine Before Men (Mar., $29.95) by Michael Terry. The assassination of a key player and stock market manipulations throw a presidential election into chaos.
TOBY PRESS
The Lifeguard (Aug., $24.95) by Katherina Hacker. The closing of a municipal swimming pool in East Berlin calls up memories of the horrors committed there years earlier.
TOR
A Scattering of Jades (July, $23.95) by Alexander Irvine. A man hunts for answers after a fire burns his wife and the body of a girl he thought was his daughter. Advertising.
UNIV. OF GEORGIA PRESS
The Necessary Grace to Fall (Mar., $24.95) by Gina Ochsner. Stories reveal how the dead remain among us, providing solace.
UNIV. OF NEW MEXICO PRESS
Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility (Mar., $19.95) by Patricia Santana is a coming-of-age novel infused with the effects of war in Vietnam.
VIKING
Women About Town (May, $23.95) by Laura Jacobs. Two 30-plus New York women deal with issues of boyfriends, money, muscle tone and morale. Author publicity.
A Miracle for St. Cecilia's (Aug., $23.95) by Katherine Valentine. The Catholic church in a dying New England mill town may be forced to close. 5-city author tour.
WARNER
The Bondswoman's Narrative (Apr., $24.95) by Hannah Crafts, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr., may be the first novel written by a black woman while a slave. Ad/promo. 10-city tour.
Leaving Atlanta (Aug., $23.95) by Tayari Jones imagines three young black children during the Atlanta child murders of 1979. Ad/promo. 8-city author tour.
WARNER/WALKWORTHY PRESS
Someone to Catch My Drift (Mar., $23.95) by Jacqueline Powell. An aspiring singer, African-American Nikai Parker thinks a handsome firefighter might just be the man of her dreams. Ad/promo.
WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
South of Reason (Mar., $24) by Cindy Eppes. An adolescent heroine grows up in 1960s Texas. Author publicity.
WELCOME RAIN
War Boys (May, $25) by M.A. Schaffner depicts youngsters on a U.S. naval base in the Philippines during the conflict in Vietnam.
