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July 2017 Adult Top 10 Picks

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  1. The Lying Game
    by Ruth Ware
    9781501151804
    Simon & Schuster
    Jul 25, 2017
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Paperback / softback
    The Lying Game
    by Ruth Ware
    9781501151804
    Simon & Schuster
    Jul 25, 2017
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Paperback / softback
    From the New York Times and #1 Globe and Mail bestselling author of The Woman in Cabin 10 and In a Dark, Dark Wood—a novel about the slipperiness of truth and the price of friendships.

    “I need you.” Three small words that change everything.

    Isa Wilde knows something terrible has happened when she receives this text from an old friend. Why else would Kate summon her and their two friends Thea and Fatima to the seaside town where they briefly attended school together seventeen years ago?

    The four friends first met at Salten House boarding school, where they quickly bonded over The Lying Game, a risky contest that involved tricking fellow boarders and faculty with their lies. But the game had consequences, and the girls were eventually expelled after Kate’s dad, their beloved art teacher, mysteriously disappeared. Forever bound by their lies but needing to forget their past, they went their separate ways—Kate remaining in Salten while the other three left to start new lives in and around London.

    Now reunited, Isa, Kate, Thea, and Fatima discover that their past lies had far-reaching effects and criminal implications that threaten them all. In order to protect their reputations, and their friendship, they must uncover the truth about what really happened all those years ago.

    Atmospheric, twisty, with just the right amount of chill, The Lying Game will have readers at the edge of their seats, not knowing who can be trusted in this tangled web of lies.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  2. Final Girls
    by Riley Sager
    9781101985366
    Dutton
    Jul 11, 2017
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Hardback
    Final Girls
    by Riley Sager
    9781101985366
    Dutton
    Jul 11, 2017
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Hardback
    THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

    WINNER OF THE 2018 INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS AWARD FOR BEST HARDCOVER NOVEL

    “The first great thriller of 2017 is here: Final Girls, by Riley Sager. If you liked Gone Girl, you’ll like this.”—Stephen King

    Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls: Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout's knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them and, with that, one another. Despite the media's attempts, they never meet.

    Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past.

    That is until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, wrists slit; and Sam, the second Final Girl, appears on Quincy's doorstep. Blowing through Quincy's life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa's death come to light, Quincy's life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam's truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  3. Hum If You Don't Know the Words
    by Bianca Marais Canada
    9780399575068
    G.P. Putnam's Sons
    Jul 11, 2017
    FICTION / Literary
    Hardback
    Hum If You Don't Know the Words
    by Bianca Marais Canada
    9780399575068
    G.P. Putnam's Sons
    Jul 11, 2017
    FICTION / Literary
    Hardback
    Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy.

    Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a ten-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred...until the Soweto Uprising, in which a protest by black students ignites racial conflict, alters the fault lines on which their society is built, and shatters their worlds when Robin’s parents are left dead and Beauty’s daughter goes missing.

    After Robin is sent to live with her loving but irresponsible aunt, Beauty is hired to care for Robin while continuing the search for her daughter. In Beauty, Robin finds the security and family that she craves, and the two forge an inextricable bond through their deep personal losses. But Robin knows that if Beauty finds her daughter, Robin could lose her new caretaker forever, so she makes a desperate decision with devastating consequences. Her quest to make amends and find redemption is a journey of self-discovery in which she learns the harsh truths of the society that once promised her protection.

    Told through Beauty and Robin's alternating perspectives, the interwoven narratives create a rich and complex tapestry of the emotions and tensions at the heart of Apartheid-era South Africa. Hum If You Don’t Know the Words is a beautifully rendered look at loss, racism, and the creation of family.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  4. The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen
    by Hendrik Groen
    9781455542178
    Grand Central Publishing
    Jul 11, 2017
    FICTION / Literary
    Hardback
    The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen
    by Hendrik Groen
    9781455542178
    Grand Central Publishing
    Jul 11, 2017
    FICTION / Literary
    Hardback
    A #1 international bestseller in the vein of Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove: a funny and tender-hearted tale about friendship, love, and an old man who is young at heart.

    Technically speaking, Hendrik Groen is....elderly. But at age 83 1/4, this feisty, indomitable curmudgeon has no plans to go out quietly. Bored of weak tea and potted geraniums, exasperated by the indignities of aging, Hendrik has decided to rebel - on his own terms. He begins writing an exposé: secretly recording the antics of day-to-day life in his retirement home, where he refuses to take himself, or his fellow "inmates," too seriously.

    With an eccentric group of friends, he founds the wickedly anarchic Old-But-Not-Dead Club, and he and his best friend, Evert, gleefully stir up trouble, enraging the home's humorless director and turning themselves into unlikely heroes. And when a sweet and sassy widow moves in next door, he polishes his shoes, grooms what's left of his hair, and determines to savor every ounce of joy in the time he has left, with hilarious and tender consequences.

    A bestselling phenomenon that has captured imaginations around the world, The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen is inspiring, charming, and laugh-out-loud funny with a deep and poignant core: a page-turning delight for readers of any age.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  5. Hunting Houses
    by Fanny Britt Canada
    9781487002381
    Arachnide Editions
    Jul 01, 2017
    FICTION / Literary
    Paperback / softback
    Hunting Houses
    by Fanny Britt Canada
    9781487002381
    Arachnide Editions
    Jul 01, 2017
    FICTION / Literary
    Paperback / softback

    Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies meets Rachel Cusk’s The Lucky Ones in this astounding debut novel about a woman on the verge of infidelity.

    Tessa is a thirty-seven-year-old real estate agent living in Montreal. She adores her husband and three young sons, but she’s deeply unhappy and questioning the set of choices that have led to her present life.

    After a surprising run-in with Francis, her ex-boyfriend and first love, Tessa arranges to see him. During the three days before their meeting, she goes about her daily life — there’s swimming lessons, science projects, and dirty dishes. As the day of her meeting with Francis draws closer she has to decide if she is willing to disrupt her stable, loving family life for an uncertain future with him.

    With startling clarity and emotional force, Fanny Britt gives us a complex portrait of a woman and a marriage from the inside out.

    View this title on BNC CataList
  6. The Breakdown
    by B. A. Paris
    9781250122469
    St. Martin's Press
    Jul 18, 2017
    FICTION / Thrillers / Psychological
    Hardback
    The Breakdown
    by B. A. Paris
    9781250122469
    St. Martin's Press
    Jul 18, 2017
    FICTION / Thrillers / Psychological
    Hardback

    Finalist for the 2018 International Thriller Writers Best Hardcover Thriller Award!
    Named One of the Most Anticipated Thriller Novels Of 2017 by Bustle!

    THE NEW CHILLING, PROPULSIVE NOVEL FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLING BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.

    If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?

    Cass is having a hard time since the night she saw the car in the woods. It was on the winding rural road, in the middle of a downpour, and a woman was sitting inside—the woman who was killed. She’s been trying to put the crime out of her mind; what could she have done, really? It’s a dangerous road to be on in the middle of a storm, and she probably would have been hurt herself if she’d stopped. Not only that, her husband would be furious if he knew she’d broken her promise not to take that shortcut home.

    But since then, she’s been forgetting every little thing. Where she left the car; if she took her pills; even the alarm code.

    The only thing she can’t forget is that woman, the woman she might have saved, and the terrible nagging guilt.

    And the silent calls she’s receiving, or the feeling that someone’s watching her…

    View this title on BNC CataList
  7. The Epiphany Machine
    by David Burr Gerrard
    9780399575433
    G.P. Putnam's Sons
    Jul 18, 2017
    FICTION / Literary
    Hardback
    The Epiphany Machine
    by David Burr Gerrard
    9780399575433
    G.P. Putnam's Sons
    Jul 18, 2017
    FICTION / Literary
    Hardback
    *Best New Science Fiction for Summer by The Washington Post
    *A Most-Anticipated book of 2017 by The Millions

    Everyone else knows the truth about you, now you can know it, too.

    That’s the slogan. The product: a junky contraption that tattoos personalized revelations on its users’ forearms. It’s an old con, playing on the fear that we are obvious to everybody except ourselves. This particular ad has been circulating New York since the 1960s and it works. But, oddly enough, so might the device...

    A small stream of city dwellers buy into this cult of the epiphany machine, including Venter Lowood’s parents. This stigma follows them when they move upstate, where Venter can’t avoid the whispers of teachers and neighbors any more than he can ignore the machine’s accurate predictions: his mother’s abandonment and his father’s disinterest. So when Venter’s grandmother finally asks him to confront the epiphany machine and inoculate himself against his family’s mistakes, he’s only too happy to oblige.

    Like his parents before him, Venter is quick to fall under the spell of the device’s sweat-stained, profane, and surprisingly charming operator, Adam Lyons. But unlike them, Venter gets close enough to Adam to learn a dark secret. There’s an undeniable pattern between specific epiphanies and violent crimes. And Adam won’t jeopardize the privacy of his customers by alerting the police.

    It may be a hoax, but that doesn’t mean what Adam is selling isn’t also spot-on. And in this sprawling, snarling tragicomedy about accountability in contemporary America, the greater danger is that Adam Lyon’s apparatus may just be right about us all. This is "can't-miss pop culture."(Vox)
    View this title on BNC CataList
  8. The Marriage Pact
    by Michelle Richmond
    9780385343299
    Bantam
    Jul 25, 2017
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Hardback
    The Marriage Pact
    by Michelle Richmond
    9780385343299
    Bantam
    Jul 25, 2017
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Hardback
    How far is too far when it comes to protecting your marriage? Find out in this relentlessly paced novel of psychological suspense for anyone who loved The Couple Next Door.

    “Ranks with The Stepford Wives and Gone Girl as a terrifying look at what it really means to say ‘I do.’”—Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of The Switch

    Newlyweds Alice and Jake are a picture-perfect couple. Alice, once a singer in a well-known rock band, is now a successful lawyer. Jake is a partner in an up-and-coming psychology practice. Their life together holds endless possibilities. After receiving an enticing wedding gift from one of Alice’s prominent clients, they decide to join an exclusive and mysterious group known only as The Pact.

    The goal of The Pact seems simple: to keep marriages happy and intact. And most of its rules make sense. Always answer the phone when your spouse calls. Exchange thoughtful gifts monthly. Plan a trip together once per quarter. . . .

    Never mention The Pact to anyone.

    Alice and Jake are initially seduced by the glamorous parties, the sense of community, their widening social circle of like-minded couples.

    And then one of them breaks the rules.

    The young lovers are about to discover that for adherents to The Pact, membership, like marriage, is for life. And The Pact will go to any lengths to enforce that rule.

    For Jake and Alice, the marriage of their dreams is about to become their worst nightmare.

    Praise for The Marriage Pact

    “This fast-paced nail-biter goes in unpredictable directions. . . . It also raises thoughtful questions about individual agency and marital commitment. With strong writing, intriguing characters, and a compelling conceit, this psychological thriller seems destined for the top of summer reading lists. Recommended as a fresh voice for readers of Gillian Flynn or Ruth Ware.”—Library Journal (starred review)

    “Creepy and engrossing . . . [The Marriage Pact takes] readers deep into the heart of a marriage and exposes some of the darker drives, such as possession and control, that can lurk within even the most harmonious of unions.”—Booklist

    “Gripping, thought-provoking, and irresistible.”—Dean Koontz

    “Riveting psychological suspense! This book will keep you up all night, while making you second-guess everything you know and everyone you’ve ever loved.”—Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Right Behind You
    View this title on BNC CataList
  9. Fierce Kingdom
    by Gin Phillips
    9780735273191
    Random House Canada
    Jul 04, 2017
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Paperback / softback
    Fierce Kingdom
    by Gin Phillips
    9780735273191
    Random House Canada
    Jul 04, 2017
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Paperback / softback
    An electrifying literary thriller introduces an unforgettable mother and son, whose simple trip to the zoo one afternoon is transformed into three hours of terror and survival after gunshots ring out. What would you do to protect the ones you love?

    After school on a late October day, Joan has taken her four-year-old son, Lincoln, to one of his favourite places on earth: the zoo. Just before closing time, as they need to go home, she hears some loud pops like firecrackers. Not thinking much of it, they head for the exit...until Joan realizes the eerie human emptiness means danger, then sees the figure of a lone gunman. Without another thought, she scoops up her son and runs back into the zoo. And for the next three hours--the entire scope of the novel--she does anything she can to keep Lincoln safe.
    Both pulse-pounding and emotionally satisfying, Fierce Kingdom is a thrill ride, but also an exploration of the very nature of motherhood itself, from its saving graces to its savage power. At heart it asks how you draw the line between survival and the duty to protect one another? Who would you die for?
    View this title on BNC CataList
  10. Reading with Patrick
    by Michelle Kuo
    9780812997316
    Random House
    Jul 11, 2017
    BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs
    Lexile measure HL730L
    Hardback
    Reading with Patrick
    by Michelle Kuo
    9780812997316
    Random House
    Jul 11, 2017
    BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs
    Lexile measure HL730L
    Hardback
    “In all of the literature addressing education, race, poverty, and criminal justice, there has been nothing quite like Reading with Patrick.”—The Atlantic

    A memoir of the life-changing friendship between an idealistic young teacher and her gifted student, jailed for murder in the Mississippi Delta

    FINALIST FOR THE DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE

    Recently graduated from Harvard University, Michelle Kuo arrived in the rural town of Helena, Arkansas, as a Teach for America volunteer, bursting with optimism and drive. But she soon encountered the jarring realities of life in one of the poorest counties in America, still disabled by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. In this stirring memoir, Kuo, the child of Taiwanese immigrants, shares the story of her complicated but rewarding mentorship of one student, Patrick Browning, and his remarkable literary and personal awakening.

    Convinced she can make a difference in the lives of her teenaged students, Michelle Kuo puts her heart into her work, using quiet reading time and guided writing to foster a sense of self in students left behind by a broken school system. Though Michelle loses some students to truancy and even gun violence, she is inspired by some such as Patrick. Fifteen and in the eighth grade, Patrick begins to thrive under Michelle’s exacting attention. However, after two years of teaching, Michelle feels pressure from her parents and the draw of opportunities outside the Delta and leaves Arkansas to attend law school.

    Then, on the eve of her law-school graduation, Michelle learns that Patrick has been jailed for murder. Feeling that she left the Delta prematurely and determined to fix her mistake, Michelle returns to Helena and resumes Patrick’s education—even as he sits in a jail cell awaiting trial. Every day for the next seven months they pore over classic novels, poems, and works of history. Little by little, Patrick grows into a confident, expressive writer and a dedicated reader galvanized by the works of Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Walt Whitman, W. S. Merwin, and others. In her time reading with Patrick, Michelle is herself transformed, contending with the legacy of racism and the questions of what constitutes a “good” life and what the privileged owe to those with bleaker prospects.

    “A powerful meditation on how one person can affect the life of another . . . One of the great strengths of Reading with Patrick is its portrayal of the risk inherent to teaching.”—The Seattle Times

    “[A] tender memoir.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
    View this title on BNC CataList

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