"Hypersonic Thunder"

New from Forge: Hypersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age by Walter J. Boyne.

About the book, from the publisher:

The jet age began in 1939 with the brief hop of a secret German airplane. Seventy years later, the entire world depends upon the jet engine in every sphere - political, military, economic, and social. In Hypersonic Thunder, Walter Boyne weaves an intricate story of how the jet engine changed aeronautics and astronautics, pushing the frontiers of flight forward and permitting humankind to enter the space age.

Drawing on his knowledge of the period, Boyne paints a gripping picture of jet aviation from the brilliant supersonic Concorde to the coming challenges of hypersonic flight. Using the fictional Shannons as a vehicle, the author ranges the world of aviation, combining the triumphs and tragedies of great aviation companies with the familiar conflicts of family life. All of the great names of aeronautics and astronautics appear here as they did on the historic scene, including such luminaries as Howard Hughes, Kelly Johnson, Burt Rutan, and Steve Fossett.

The book thunders with the clash of combat, ranging from the courageous fights of the Israeli Air Force down through the raid on Libya, Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, and, most important the ongoing war on terror. And space is not neglected, as Boyne covers everything from Skylab and the Space Shuttle, with its great achievements and terrible tragedies, to the International Space Station.

Visit Walter J. Boyne's website.

"Lake Overturn"

New from Harper: Lake Overturn by Vestal McIntyre.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Eula, Idaho, is a cluster of steeples, oak trees, and boxlike homes sandwiched between golden fields and a wide-open sky. It freezes in the winter and bakes in the summer, but the air is so dry that neither extreme gets under your skin. It has never seen a battle, or an earthquake, or a Democrat in City Hall.

Still, life in Eula is anything but simple.

Lina and Connie are single mothers, neighbors in Eula's trailer park. Lina, the daughter of migrant Mexican farm workers, is trying to cope with her angry teenage son Jesús, newly returned after living with wealthy white foster parents. Connie, long abandoned, struggles with her literal reading of Old Testament laws against remarriage, especially when a handsome missionary visits her congregation. The women's younger sons, Enrique and Gene, are misfits whose mutual love of science offers stability and respite from schoolyard cruelties.

Determined to win the statewide science fair, Enrique and Gene devise an experiment involving "lake overturn," a real scientific phenomenon in which deadly gases collect and eventually erupt from a lake's depths. In their quest to discover if Eula could suffer from such an event, the boys come into contact with an odd assortment of locals, including the frail-hearted school principal with grand ambitions, a rich but lonely lawyer who finds love outside his marriage just as his wife is succumbing to cancer, and a woman tortured by a past of abuse and addiction who decides to turn things around by offering herself as a surrogate mother.

With sweeping perspective and a Victorian wealth of character, Lake Overturn exposes small-town America in all its beauty and treachery, sunshine and secrets.

Visit Vestal McIntyre's website.

"Yes, My Darling Daughter"

New from Farrar, Straus and Giroux: Yes, My Darling Daughter by Margaret Leroy.

About the book, from the publisher:

What’s the matter with Sylvie?

Such a pretty girl. Four years old; well-loved by her young mother, Grace. But there’s something… off about the child. Her deathly fear of water; her night terrors; most of all, her fixation with a photo of an Irish fishing village called Coldharbour.

“Sylvie, tell me about your picture. Why’s it so special, sweetheart?” My heart is racing, but I try to make my voice quite calm.

“That’s my seaside, Grace.” Very matter-of-fact, as though this should be obvious. “I lived there, Grace. Before.”

I sit very still for a long slow moment. Cold moves over my skin.

“I don’t know about it,” I say.

“Don’t you, Grace?” She seems surprised.

Every once in a blue moon, a masterful writer dives into Gothic waters and emerges with a novel that—like Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, or, more recently, Patrick McGrath’s Asylum—simultaneously celebrates and transcends the genre. Welcome Margaret Leroy to the clan.

Haunted and haunting, Yes, My Darling Daughter is a wonderfully original, deliciously suspenseful mystery. Impossible though it may seem, Grace has to face the fact that her daughter may be remembering a past life. And not only that: the danger haunting Sylvie from her past life is still very much a threat to her in this one.

Visit Margaret Leroy's website.

"Finished Off"

New from Berkley Prime Crime: Finished Off by Rebecca Kent.

About the book, from the publisher:

A little girl ghost wants to be reunited with her family. Pained, Headmistress Meredith Llewellyn investigates the child's parents' deaths, but she soon grows wary of snooping. For a lady never goes anywhere uninvited.

Finished Off is the second Bellehaven House Mystery. It follows High Marks for Murder, which introduces "Headmistress—and sometime sleuth—Meredith Llewellyn of Bellehaven House, a finishing school for girls. It's the height of elegance, the seat of sophistication, the scene of...murder?"

Visit Rebecca Kent's website.

"The Trail of the Wild Rose"

New from Minotaur Books: The Trail of the Wild Rose by Anthony Eglin.

About the book, from the publisher:

The hunt for an ancient Chinese rose turns deadly in this latest English Garden Mystery featuring Dr. Lawrence Kingston.

A plant-hunting expedition haunted by tragedy leads to a perilous trail of greed, larceny, and deceit. Has Peter Mayhew, the man who plunged to his death on a mountain in China, come back to life? Which of the expedition members is hiding an explosive secret? Why are some being targeted for murder?

Once again, Dr. Lawrence Kingston—retired professor of botany and reluctant sleuth—finds himself at the center of a baffling case like none he has ever encountered. Following an ambiguous trail with only scant clues, he must find the hidden meaning dormant in a cache of valuable Chinese antiquities, shadow a ruthless assailant through London’s teeming Underground, and travel the length and breadth of Britain, from a hospital ward in Oxford and an anonymous rendezvous in a Hampshire garden, to a remote farm in Dorset and the mystical Cornish coast—even to the mountains of Wales—in his search for the truth. Even the most likely suspects are becoming victims themselves, and the stakes rise exponentially as each lead comes to a dead end...literally.

Racing to save the lives of the remaining plant hunters and not become a victim himself, Kingston discovers the extreme lengths to which desperate men will go for riches, recognition, and the thrill of the hunt. Clever and chilling, The Trail of the Wild Rose effortlessly combines Anthony Eglin’s horticultural knowledge and literary skills to create an innovative and riveting new mystery.

Visit Anthony Eglin's website.

"Castle"

New from Graywolf Press: Castle by J. Robert Lennon.

About the book, from the publisher:

A mesmerizing novel about memory, guilt, power, and violence
In the late winter of 2006, I returned to my home town and bought 612 acres of land on the far western edge of the county.” So begins, innocuously enough, J. Robert Lennon’s gripping, spooky, and brilliant new novel. Unforthcoming, formal, and more than a little defensive in his encounters with curious locals, Eric Loesch starts renovating a run-down house in the small, upstate New York town of his childhood. When he inspects the title to the property, however, he discovers a chunk of land in the middle of his woods that he does not own. What’s more, the name of the owner is blacked out.

Loesch sets out to explore the forbidding and almost impenetrable forest—lifeless, it seems, but for a bewitching white deer—that is the site of an eighteenth-century Indian massacre. But this peculiar adventure story has much to do with America’s current military misadventures—and Loesch’s secrets come to mirror the American psyche in a paranoid age. The answer to what—and who—might lie at the heart of Loesch’s property stands at the center of this daring and riveting novel from the author whose writing, according to Ann Patchett, “contains enough electricity to light up the country.”

Visit J. Robert Lennon's website.

"The Hunted"

New from Minotaur Books: The Hunted by Wayne Barcomb.

About the book, from the publisher:

A lightning-fast police procedural from an up-and-coming talent, The Hunted introduces a homicide detective who gets the shock of his life while tracking a most ingenious serial killer

From a writer whose previous works Robert B. Parker declared “compelling ... swiftly told” and James W. Hall called “top-notch” comes this first electrifying thriller featuring New York City homicide detective Frank Russo.

The Hunted begins with a little girl witnessing a horrible crime. Due to the child's testimony, the murderer is convicted. Eighteen years later the killer is released on parole, and his mission is to track down the now grown woman he feels betrayed him. A deranged dance of masked identities ensues, and it is up to newly single homicide detective Frank Russo to unravel the case.

Visit Wayne Barcomb's website.

"Blood Grove"

New from Tor Books: Blood Grove by Alex Bledsoe.

About the book, from the publisher:

When centuries-old vampire Baron Rudolfo Zginski was staked in Wales in 1915, the last thing he expected was to reawaken in Memphis, Tennessee, sixty years later. Reborn into a new world of simmering racial tensions, the cunning nosferatu realizes he must adapt quickly if he is to survive.

Finding willing victims is easy, as Zginski possesses all the powers of the undead, including the ability to sexually enslave anyone he chooses. Hoping to learn how his kind copes with this bizarre new era, Zginski tracks down a nest of teenage vampires. But these young vampires have little knowledge of their true nature, having learned most of what they know from movies like Blacula.

Forming an uneasy alliance with the young vampires, Zginski begins to teach them the truth about their powers. They must learn quickly, for there’s a new drug on the street—a drug created to specifically target and destroy vampires. As Zginski and his allies track the drug to its source, they may unwittingly be stepping into a fifty-year-old trap that can destroy them all...

Visit Alex Bledsoe's website and blog.

"If I Stay"

New from Dutton Books: If I Stay by Gayle Forman.

About the book, from the publisher:

In a single moment, everything changes. Seventeen year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall riding along the snow-wet Oregon road with her family. Then, in a blink, she finds herself watching as her own damaged body is taken from the wreck...

A sophisticated, layered, and heartachingly beautiful story about the power of family and friends, the choices we all make—and the ultimate choice Mia commands.

Visit Gayle Forman's website and blog.

"The Sisters Antipodes"

New from Houghton Mifflin: The Sisters Antipodes by Jane Alison.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Sisters Antipodes is a unique window on the intimate devastations of family betrayal, in equal measure unsettling and engrossing.

When Jane Alison was a child, her family met another that seemed like its mirror: a father in the Foreign Service, a beautiful mother, and two little girls, the younger two—one of them Jane—sharing a birthday.

With so much in common, the two families became almost instantly inseparable.Within months, affairs had ignited between the adults, and before long the pairs had exchanged partners—divorced, remarried, and moved on. As if in a cataclysm of nature, two families were ripped asunder, and two new ones were formed.Two pairs of girls were left in shock, a “silent, numb shock, like a crack inside stone, not enough to split it but inside, silently fissuring.” And Jane and her stepsister were thrown into a state of silent combat for the affections of their absent fathers—a contest that, as this gorgeous, piercing memoir recounts, would prove tragic.

Read an excerpt from The Sisters Antipodes.

Visit Jane Alison's website.