Vacationland

January 1, 2022

In Honey and Spice, following Babalola's buzzy debut story collection, Love in Color, young Black British woman Kiki Banjo--host of a popular student radio show and known for preaching bad-relationship avoidance--gets tangled in a fake liaison with the very guy she's been citing as big trouble. From Bays, co-creator of the Emmy Award-winning series How I Met Your Mother, 2015 New York-set The Mutual Friend features Alice Quick, mourning her mother, barely managing as a nanny, and trying to make herself sign up for the MCATs even as her tech millionaire brother experiences a religious awakening. In Blush author Brenner's latest, three sisters from a Gilt-edged family in the jewelry business are torn apart following a publicity stunt gone wrong, with one sister dying in a subsequent accident and her daughter struggling to regain traction within the family. In Coleman's Good Morning, Love, aspiring songwriter/musician Carlisa "Carli" Henton's efforts to keep her business and personal lives separate crumble when she meets rising hip-hop star Tau Anderson (50,000-copy first printing). From Egyptian-Irish BBC broadcaster El-Wardany, These Impossible Things features friends Malak, Kees, and Jenna, on the verge of adulthood as they struggle to be good Muslim women yet wanting to follow their dreams (50,000-copy first printing). In Fowler's It All Comes Down To This, three sisters--freelance journalist Beck, struggling with her marriage and a desire to write fiction; Claire, an accomplished pediatric cardiologist, recently divorced; and Sophie, leading a glamorous life she can't afford--face their mother's impending death and the fate of their beloved summer cottage on Mount Desert Island, ME. In Ho's Lucie Yi Is Not a Romantic, a follow-up to the LJ-starred Last Tang Standing, a hardworking career woman gives up on finding the right guy after her fianc� calls off their marriage and signs up for an elective co-parenting website so that she can have a baby--with unexpected consequences. In USA Today best-selling Moore's latest, Maine is not exactly Vacationland for Louisa when she visits her parents one summer with her three children, as she's dealing with an unfinished book, an absentee husband, and a father suffering from Alzheimer's, plus a young stranger in town trying to get her own life in order (100,000-copy first printing). In popular Patrick's The Messy Life of Book People, Liv Green forms a tentative friendship with the mega-best-selling author for whom she works as a housecleaner but is surprised when the author dies suddenly and in her will asks that Liv complete her final book (75,000 paperback and 10,000-copy paperback first printing). In Saint X author Schaitkin's Elsewhere, an interesting departure, Vera grows up in a small town where for generations women keep vanishing mysteriously (200,000-copy first printing). Vercher follows the Edgar-nominated, best-booked Three-Fifths with After the Lights Go Out, about a biracial MMA fighter aging out of his career and facing his father's end-stage Alzheimer's when he scores a last-minute comeback fight. Already a multi-award winner, Wolfe debuts with Last Summer on State Street, about Felicia "Fe Fe" Stevens and two close-as-hugging friends--a happy threesome that expands to an uneasy foursome even as the Chicago Housing Authority prepares to tear down the high-rise in the projects where Fe Fe's family lives (50,000-copy first printing).

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April 25, 2022
Moore (The Islanders) follows a family’s tribulations while summering in Maine in her delectable latest. NYU history professor Louisa McLean brings her three children to her parents’ summer home in Rockland without her husband, Steven, who stays behind and continues putting in long hours in chasing his dream of selling his podcast company. Louisa, resentful at having to deal with the kids herself, also hopes the time away will help her stop procrastinating on writing her book. Tensions mount as her mother reveals that paying to care for Louisa’s father, Martin, a judge who now has Alzheimer’s, might require them to sell the family house as soon as the following year. Then a young woman named Kristie Turner arrives by Greyhound after her mother’s death, determined for reasons that are only revealed later to gain an audience with Martin. She decides to stay a while, gets a job as a waitress, and worries about money after learning she’s pregnant. Kristie’s life is detailed in sharp contrast to Louisa’s leisurely days, as Louisa weighs a desire to help Kristie with her parents’ needs. Steven’s lack of understanding over how much the house means to Louisa, meanwhile, causes tensions to flare. Moore details the dicey situation with nuance and grace. Readers are in for a treat.

May 15, 2022
Two half sisters who have never met--a New York University professor and a waitress--spend the summer in the small town of Rockland, Maine. Louisa Fitzgerald McLean, a tenured NYU history professor, is almost done with her sabbatical and feels like a complete mess. She hasn't been working on her planned book, her three children are taking up all her energy, and her husband, Steven, is so consumed with getting his new podcast company up and running that he has no time for her or the family. A decision is made: She and the children will spend the summer in Maine with her mother, Annie, and father, Martin--retired chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine--at her family's vacation house while Steven stays in Brooklyn and works. Over the course of the summer, Mattie, 12, falls in love; Abigail, 10, writes letters to her father and loses herself in Bridge to Terabithia, board games, and the water; and Claire, 7, listens, watches, bosses people around, and has a tremendous time learning secrets and suffering the tragedies that only a youngest sibling can suffer. Everything looks--and is--wonderful, but Louisa and Steven's marriage is under strain, her book isn't coming along, her father's Alzheimer's is getting worse, her mother's endless reservoir of money is drying up, and she discovers that her father is not perfect. Kristie, a half sister Louisa never knew about, arrives in Maine, three years sober and looking for her own closure after her mother's recent death. Author Moore has expertly woven together first-person narratives from Louisa; Kristie; Martin; the family's housekeeper Pauline; and the children to create an engrossing story of one summer, many summers, multiple lives. A truly lovely tale of families, love, mistakes, forgiveness, and, yes, happiness.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2022
Lousia McLean and her kids are spending the whole summer at Ship's View, her parents' vacation house on the coast of Maine. Her husband, Steven, in staying in New York to try to get his podcast company off the ground, while Louisa needs help from Annie, her mother, if she's going to get any writing done on the book that is due at the end of the summer. Louisa's father, Martin, a retired Maine Supreme Court judge, is suffering from Alzheimer's, and Annie is facing the reality of putting him in a home. To do that, though, they'd have to sell Ship's View. Meanwhile, Kristie Turner takes a bus from Pennsylvania to Maine, on a mission. She gets a job waiting tables and meets a handsome gardener who works at Ship's View, and things seem to be looking up until she discovers that she's pregnant. Moore's latest (after Two Truths and a Lie, 2020) captures the breezy feel of a summer in Maine while addressing a variety of problems, from work/life balance to paternity, that will resonate with readers.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.