Girl Land, by Caitlin Flanagan, is being released today.  About the book:

Caitlin Flanagan’s essays about marriage, sex, and families have sparked national debates. Now she turns her attention to girls: the biological and cultural milestones for girls today, and how they shape a girl’s sense of herself.

The transition from girl to woman is an experience that has changed radically over the generations: everything from how a girl learns about her period to how she expects to be treated by boys and men. Girls today observe these passages very differently, and yet the landmarks themselves have remained remarkably constant-proof, Flanagan believes, of their significance. In a world where protections of girls’ privacy and personal freedom seem to disappear every day, the ultimate challenge modern parents face is finding a way to defend both.

About the author:

Caitlin Flanagan is a four-time finalist for the National Magazine Award. Her essays have appeared in Best American Essays 2003, and Best American Magazine Writing 2002, 2003, and 2004. She has made numerous national media appearances. She has been the subject of profiles and critiques in the New York Observer, Ms., The New Republic and various other publications. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.

The newest release from Reagan Arthur Books is The Impossible Dead, by Ian Rankin.  About the book:

The Complaints: that’s the name given to the Internal Affairs department who seek out dirty and compromised cops, the ones who’ve made deals with the devil. And sometimes The Complaints must travel.

A major inquiry into a neighboring police force sees Malcolm Fox and his colleagues cast adrift, unsure of territory, protocol, or who they can trust. An entire station-house looks to have been compromised, but as Fox digs deeper he finds the trail leads him back in time to the suicide of a prominent politician and activist. There are secrets buried in the past, and reputations on the line.

In his newest pulse-pounding thriller, Ian Rankin holds up a mirror to an age of fear and paranoia, and shows us something of our own lives reflected there.

About the author:

“I grew up in a small coal-mining town in central Scotland. I was always interested in stories. Even though the town had no book stores (and my parents were not great readers), I made full use of the local library. It was mind-boggling to me that (at the age of 11 or 12) I could not gain access to a movie theatre to see such classics as ‘The Godfather’, ‘A Clockwork Orange’ or ‘Straw Dogs’, yet no one stopped me from borrowing these titles from my library. Books seemed to have about them a whiff of the illicit and the dangerous. That was all the encouragement I needed. I went to university in 1978, joined a punk band (on vocals), and continued to write a lot of song lyrics and poems. However, I found that my poems were actually ‘telling stories’, and so started to write short stories.

A few of these found publication and even won some awards. Then one story raged out of control and became my first novel. It was never published, but that didn’t matter: I was now a novelist. I stumbled on Detective Inspector John Rebus by accident while attempting to write an update of ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’: Rebus would be my Jekyll, his Hyde a character from his past. Along the way, I discovered that a cop is a good ‘tool’, a way of looking at contemporary society, its rights and wrongs. Rebus, I decided, would stick around. Meantime, I finished unviersity, moved to London for four years (where I worked first as a college secretary, later as a hi-fi/audio journalist), then rural France for six years. Both my sons were born in France. By the time the oldest had reached school age, we’d decided to move back to Scotland. I now live and work in Edinburgh, and the Rebus novels have gone from strength to strength in terms of sales and recognition.

My favorite we site is www.oxfordbar.com – the official web site of Rebus’s favourite Edinburgh tavern!

Favorite/inspirational books include: pretty much anything by James Ellroy, Ruth Rendell, Raymond Chandler. Plus classics of Scottish Literature such as Robert Louis Strevenson’s ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, James Hogg’s ‘Confessions of a Justified Sinner’, and Muriel Spark’s ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’. If I had to choose a few others to take to my desert island, I’d probably opt for Martin Amis’s ‘Money’, Anthony Burgess’s ‘Earthly Powers’, Anthony Powell’s ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’ and Ian McEwan’s ‘First Love, Last Rites’.

Today marks the release of Denise Mina’s newest book, The End of Wasp Season.  About the book:

When a notorious millionaire banker hangs himself, his death attracts no sympathy. But the legacy of a lifetime of selfishness is widespread, and the carnage most acute among those he ought to be protecting: his family.

Meanwhile, in a wealthy suburb of Glasgow, a young woman is found savagely murdered. The community is stunned by what appears to be a vicious, random attack. When Detective Inspector Alex Morrow, heavily pregnant with twins, is called in to investigate, she soon discovers that a tangled web of lies lurks behind the murder. It’s a web that will spiral through Alex’s own home, the local community, and ultimately right back to a swinging rope, hundreds of miles away.

The End of the Wasp Season is an accomplished, compelling and multi-layered novel about family’s power of damage-and redemption.

About the author:

Denise Mina is a “fearless” (GQ) writer “of stunning talent and accomplishment”(Publishers Weekly) and “the crown princess of crime” (Val McDermid). She is the author of Garnethill, which won the John Creasey Memorial Prize for best first crime novel, Exile, and Resolution. She lives in Glasgow.

The Book of Life, by Stuart Nadler is out today.  About the book:

Forced together on a trip from Manhattan to Rhode Island, a father and son attempt to renew their bond over lobster, cigarettes, and a buried secret. A pure-hearted artist finds his devotion cruelly tested, while his true love tries to repent for the biggest mistake of her life. Unwittingly thrust into an open marriage, a man struggles to reconnect with his newly devout son. And in the book’s daring first story, an arrogant businessman begins a forbidden affair during the High Holidays. Written in clear, crystalline prose, The Book of Life comprises seven stunning tales about faith, family, grief, love, temptation, and redemption that signal the arrival of a bold and exciting new writer.

About the author:

Stuart Nadler is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was awarded a Truman Capote Fellowship and a Teaching-Writing Fellowship. Recently, he was the Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin. His fiction has appeared in The Atlantic.

Spero Lucas has a new line of work. Since he returned home after serving in Iraq, he has been doing special investigations for a defense attorney. He’s good at it, and he has carved out a niche: recovering stolen property, no questions asked. His cut is forty percent.

A high-profile crime boss who has heard of Lucas’s specialty hires him to find out who has been stealing from his operation. It’s the biggest job Lucas has ever been offered, and he quickly gets a sense of what’s going on. But before he can close in on what’s been taken, he tangles with a world of men whose amorality and violence leave him reeling. Is any cut worth your family, your lover, your life?

Spero Lucas is George Pelecanos’s greatest creation, a young man making his place in the world one battle and one mission at a time. The first in a new series of thrillers featuring Spero Lucas, The Cut is the latest confirmation of why George Pelecanos is “perhaps America’s greatest living crime writer.” (Stephen King)

About the author:

George Pelecanos was born in Washington, D.C. in 1957. He worked as a line cook, dishwasher, bartender, and woman’s shoe salesman before publishing his first novel in 1992.

Pelecanos is the author of fourteen crime novels set in and around Washington, D.C.: A Firing Offense, Nick’s Trip, Shoedog, Down By the River Where the Dead Men Go, The Big Blowdown, King Suckerman, The Sweet Forever, Shame the Devil, Right as Rain, Hell to Pay, Soul Circus, Hard Revolution, Drama City, and The Night Gardener. He has been the recipient of the Raymond Chandler award in Italy, the Falcon award in Japan, and the Grand Prix Du Roman Noir in France. Hell to Pay and Soul Circus were awarded the 2003 and 2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. His short fiction has appeared in Esquire and the collections Unusual Suspects, Best American Mystery Stories of 1997, Measures of Poison, Best American Mystery Stories of 2002, Men From Boys, Murder at the Foul Line, and D.C. Noir, for which he also served as editor. He is an award-winning essayist who has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, Sight and Sound, Uncut, Mojo, and numerous other publications. Esquire magazine called Pelecanos “the poet laureate of the D.C. crime world.”

Pelecanos served as producer on the feature films Caught (Robert M. Young, 1996), Whatever (Susan Skoog, 1998) and BlackMale (George and Mike Baluzy, 1999), and was the U.S. distributor of John Woo’s cult classic, The Killer and Richard Bugajski’s Interrogation. Most recently, he was a producer, writer, and story editor for the acclaimed HBO dramatic series, The Wire, winner of the Peabody Award and the AFI Award. He was nominated for an Emmy for his writing on that show. His novel Right as Rain is currently in development with director Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential, Wonder Boys) and Warner Brothers. He is a writer on the upcoming World War II miniseries The Pacific, to be produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and HBO.

Pelecanos lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and three children. He is at work on his next novel.

Today’s the release date of The Taint of Midas by Anne Zouroudi.  About the book:

Gabrilis Kaloyeros is a bee-keeper on the beautiful Greek island of Arcadia. The ruined Temple of Apollo has been in his care for decades, and he has worked to protect it. But when crooked developers take over the island and the value of the land soars, he is persuaded through unscrupulous means to sign away his interest. Hours later he meets a violent, lonely death.

When detective Hermes Diaktoros finds his friend’s battered body by a dusty roadside, the police quickly name him the prime suspect. But with rapacious developers threatening Arcadia’s most ancient sites, many stand to gain from Gabrilis’s death. Hermes resolves to avenge his old friend and find the true culprit, but his methods are, as ever, unorthodox.

As in The Messenger of Athens, Anne Zouroudi tells a spellbinding mystery set in an enchanted place, where the myths of the ancient past intersect with the realities of contemporary life, with deadly results.

About the author:

Anne Zouroudi was born in England and has lived in the Greek islands. Her attachment to Greece remains strong; the country is the inspiration for much of her writing. She now lives in northern England.

We’re really excited about today’s new release, The End of Everything, by Megan Abbott.  About the book:

Thirteen-year old Lizzie Hood and her next door neighbor Evie Verver are inseparable. They are best friends who swap bathing suits and field-hockey sticks, and share everything that’s happened to them. Together they live in the shadow of Evie’s glamorous older sister Dusty, who provides a window on the exotic, intoxicating possibilities of their own teenage horizons. To Lizzie, the Verver household, presided over by Evie’s big-hearted father, is the world’s most perfect place.

And then, one afternoon, Evie disappears. The only clue: a maroon sedan Lizzie spotted driving past the two girls earlier in the day. As a rabid, giddy panic spreads through the Midwestern suburban community, everyone looks to Lizzie for answers. Was Evie unhappy, troubled, upset? Had she mentioned being followed? Would she have gotten into the car of a stranger?

Lizzie takes up her own furtive pursuit of the truth, prowling nights through backyards, peering through windows, pushing herself to the dark center of Evie’s world. Haunted by dreams of her lost friend and titillated by her own new power at the center of the disappearance, Lizzie uncovers secrets and lies that make her wonder if she knew her best friend at all.

About the author:

Megan Abbott is the Edgar-award winning author of four crime novels. She has taught literature, writing, and film at New York University, the New School and the State University of New York at Oswego. She received her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University in 2000. She lives in New York City.

Today sees the release of Dan Simmons’ newest book, Flashback.   About the book:

The United States is near total collapse. But 87% of the population doesn’t care: they’re addicted to flashback, a drug that allows its users to re-experience the best moments of their lives. After ex-detective Nick Bottom’s wife died in a car accident, he went under the flash to be with her; he’s lost his job, his teenage son, and his livelihood as a result.

Nick may be a lost soul but he’s still a good cop, so he is hired to investigate the murder of a top governmental advisor’s son. This flashback-addict becomes the one man who may be able to change the course of an entire nation turning away from the future to live in the past.

A provocative novel set in a future that seems scarily possible, FLASHBACK proves why Dan Simmons is one of our most exciting and versatile writers.

About the author:

Dan Simmons is the award-winning author of several novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Olympos and The Terror. He lives in Colorado.

It wouldn’t be summer without an Elin Hilderbrand book and her latest, Silver Girl, is being released today.  About the book:

Meredith Martin Delinn just lost everything: her friends, her homes, her social standing – because her husband Freddy cheated rich investors out of billions of dollars.

Desperate and facing homelessness, Meredith receives a call from her old best friend, Constance Flute. Connie’s had recent worries of her own, and the two depart for a summer on Nantucket in an attempt to heal. But the island can’t offer complete escape, and they’re plagued by new and old troubles alike. When Connie’s brother Toby – Meredith’s high school boyfriend – arrives, Meredith must reconcile the differences between the life she is leading and the life she could have had.

Set against the backdrop of a Nantucket summer, Elin Hilderbrand delivers a suspenseful story of the power of friendship, the pull of love, and the beauty of forgiveness.

About the author:

Elin Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. She grew up in Collegeville, PA, and traveled extensively before settling on Nantucket, which has been the setting for eight of her previous novels. Hilderbrand is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.

Meg Mitchell Moore’s debut novel, The Arrivals, is being released today.   About the book:

It’s early summer when Ginny and William’s peaceful life in Vermont comes to an abrupt halt.

First, their daughter Lillian arrives, with her two children in tow, to escape her crumbling marriage. Next, their son Stephen and his pregnant wife Jane show up for a weekend visit, which extends indefinitely when Jane ends up on bed rest. When their youngest daughter Rachel appears, fleeing her difficult life in New York, Ginny and William find themselves consumed again by the chaos of parenthood – only this time around, their children are facing adult problems.

By summer’s end, the family gains new ideas of loyalty and responsibility, exposing the challenges of surviving the modern family – and the old adage, once a parent, always a parent, has never rung so true.

About the author:

Meg Mitchell Moore worked for several years as a journalist. Her work has been published in Yankee, Continental, Women’s Health, Advertising Age and many other business and consumer magazines. She received a B.A. from Providence College and a master’s degree in English Literature from New York University. The Arrivals is her first novel. Her second novel will be published by Reagan Arthur Books in 2012. Meg lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts, with her husband, their three children and a beloved border collie.