New Books 10/17/16

History, religion, next-in-series, favorite authors and tv show stars can be found in this week’s books.

All the Little Liars by Charlaine Harris
When four kids vanish from the soccer field, including Aurora Teagarden’s brother Phillip, Aurora and her husband, true crime writer Robin Crusoe start their own investigation.

American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant by Ronald C. White
A profile of the Civil War general and eighteenth U.S. president challenges his historical unpopularity, drawing on years of research with primary documents to explore Grant’s character as one of generosity, curiosity, and introspection.

Blood Wedding by Pierre Lemaitre
A woman who slowly begins a descent into dementia and depression discovers herself connected to the deaths of several nearby people but doesn’t remember anything about it and tries to flee the evil that has begun to poison her life.

The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama
Two leading spiritual masters share their hard-won wisdom about living with joy even in the face of adversity, sharing personal stories and teachings about the science of profound happiness and the daily practices that anchor their emotional and spiritual lives.

Coffin Road by Peter May
In the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, a man washes up on a deserted beach with no knowledge of who he is or how he got there, while homicide detective George Gunn makes the ocean crossing to a remote lighthouse on a rock in the North Atlantic to investigate a brutal murder.

CrossTalk by Connie Willis
When a technological breakthrough enables romantic partners to achieve empathy via a simple outpatient procedure, Briddley Flannigan delightedly undergoes the treatment in the hopes of becoming closer to her fiancé, only to find herself hearing the thoughts of one of the tech nerds in her office.

Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett
The executive director of the Design Program at Stanford and the co-founder of Electronic Arts outline strategies for enabling a thriving life by incorporating “design thinking” habits that promote fulfillment and meaning by emulating the examples of the engineers of today’s most popular technologies.

Feedback by Mira Grant
Twenty years after the Rising–the start of an infection that caused people to have a single uncontrollable impulse to feed–a team of scrappy underdog reporters relentlessly pursue dangerous truths on the presidential campaign trail.

Friday on My Mind by Nicci French
When her ex-boyfriend’s body turns up in the Thames and she becomes the prime suspect in the murder, Frieda Klein goes on the run to save herself and find the man she believes is the real killer, a man who has never stopped haunting her.

Get What’s Yours for Medicare by Philip Moeller
The co-author of the best-selling social security entry in the Get What’s Yours series shares advice for saving money and maximizing health coverage through Medicare, explaining the essentials of signing up, understanding what it costs and selecting which plans are most appropriate.

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey
Dickey explores some of the United States’ most infamously haunted places, including old mansions and hotels, abandoned prisons, empty hospitals, and other locations, and reveals the repressed history they represent.

Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard
The best-selling author of Destiny of the Republic presents a narrative account of Churchill’s lesser-known heroics during the Boer War, describing his daring escape from rebel captors, trek through hundreds of miles with virtually no supplies and eventual return to South Africa to liberate the soldiers captured with him.

Junk Gypsy by Amie Sikes
The stars of two hit television shows share how they started Junk Gypsy, offering tips on shopping at flea markets, providing do-it-yourself projects, and highlighting projects done by the authors.

Making Sense of God by Timothy Keller
The best-selling author of The Prodigal God invites skeptics and those outside Christianity to experience the beauty and promise of a life spent following Jesus, arguing that faith and religion can provide greater fulfillment than a life based in logic and science.

Napoleon’s Last Island by Thomas Keneally
An historical novel set on the remote island of Saint Helena about the remarkable friendship between a young woman and one of history’s most intriguing figures, Napoleon Bonaparte, during the final years of his life in exile.

News of the World by Paulette Giles
In the aftermath of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, an elderly widower and itinerant news reader, is offered fifty dollars to bring an orphan girl, who was kidnapped and raised by Kiowa raiders, from Wichita Falls back to her family in San Antonio.

Seasoned Life: Food, Family, Faith, and the Joy of Eating Well by Ayesha Curry
A frequent guest on The Rachael Ray Show, host of a Cooking Channel series and wife of NBA star Stephen Curry shares 100 of her favorite recipes inspired by her own busy family life

Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple
Initiating small changes that she hopes will reverse negative patterns in her life, Eleanor Flood is derailed by her family members’ unethical practices before an encounter with a former colleague triggers dramas that reveal a buried secret.

The Trespasser by Tana French
While Detective Antoinette Conway and her partner Stephen Moran work a seemingly routine investigation of a lovers’ quarrel gone bad, they discover the case isn’t as by-the-numbers as they thought.

Twelve Days of Christmas by Debbie Macomber
Determined to get Cain Maddox to like her, Julia Padden decides to kill him with kindness and track her progress in a blog, but Julia must decide if she should tell Cain the truth about chronicling their relationship.

Two by Two by Nicholas Sparks
The seemingly charmed life of a Charlotte family man abruptly tumbles around him, leaving him an unemployed single father who embarks on a new reality that tests his skills and emotional resources beyond his imagining.

The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang
A wealthy but fractured Chinese family loses everything in the financial crisis before embarking on a haphazard but ultimately redemptive journey across America as part of an effort to reclaim ancestral lands in China.

Winter Storms by Elin Hilderbrand
A conclusion to the best-selling trilogy finds the Quinn family’s efforts to reunite and prepare for a long-anticipated wedding during the Christmas season overshadowed by a health scare, addiction problems and commitment issues.

Without Mercy by Jefferson Bass
While investigating one of the most brutal and bizarre cases of his career, forensic anthropologist Bill Brockton and his assistant are shocked when a serial killer determined to eliminate everything Bill cares about escapes.